For Nuggets and Mavericks, Squabbles and Series Will Continue

Abstract: DALLAS — Forty-eight hours later, Carmelo Anthony was back at the 3-point arc, with time running out, nearly repeating history. His 3-pointer was good. But this time, the Dallas Mavericks sustained the hit, and without any unneeded controversy. With their season possibly down to its final seconds Monday night, the Mavericks rode the hot hand of Dirk Nowitzki, absorbed the best that Anthony could throw at them and held on for a 119-117 victory to extend this second-round playoff series. The Denver Nuggets hold a 3-1 lead and have another chance to close out the series on Wednesday at the Pepsi Center. No N.B.A. team has won a series after trailing by 3-0. Two nights earlier, the Nuggets danced off the court with a dramatic and disputed victory, when Anthony hit a game-winning 3-pointer and the referees failed to call an attempted intentional foul by Antoine Wright. Anthony had another breathtaking performance, leading the Nuggets with a career playoff high 41 points. But Nowitzki was just as spectacular, scoring 44 for the Mavericks, including 19 in the fourth quarter and 8 of their last 11 points. After trailing for most of the game, the Mavericks finally took their first lead of the second half on Nowitzki’s late surge. He tied the score twice and finally pushed Dallas ahead, 114-112, with a turnaround jumper over Kenyon Martin . Josh Howard’s two free throws made it 116-112 with 31.4 seconds left. After Anthony and Nowitzki exchanged free throws, the Nuggets trailed by 4. Anthony received a pass in the same spot where he hit his game-winner Saturday, and made another to cut the deficit to 118-117 with 3.1 seconds left. Jason Terry hit 1 of 2 free throws with 1.1 seconds remaining to seal the win. A series characterized by controversy and confrontation had plenty more Monday — including two flagrant fouls, eight technical fouls and a minor scuffle between Anthony and Wright. This time, there was no disputing the foul. During a tussle for a rebound in the second quarter, Wright pinned Anthony’s arm and held it. Anthony then took a swipe at Wright with his free hand. The Mavericks’ J. J. Barea and the referee Joe DeRosa quickly separated them. Anthony was assessed a technical, drawing howls from the crowd and the Mavericks. Twice, the Nuggets took a 14-point lead in the second quarter, and twice the Mavericks rallied to get within single digits. They cut the deficit to 55-49 on Nowitzki’s driving dunk with 2 minutes 32 seconds left. Then things got messy. Howard and Terry were called for first-degree flagrant fouls — and Terry was hit with a technical — in the last two minutes of the half, helping the Nuggets push their advantage back to 10. Anthony closed the half with a put-back at the buzzer for a 63-53 lead. Two days after it ended, everyone was still dealing with fallout from Game 3. The Denver Post reported Monday that the Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban , had a brief, heated exchange with Martin’s mother, Lydia Moore, as Cuban was leaving the court after the game. Martin’s agent, Brian Dyke, told the newspaper that Cuban told Moore, “Your son is a punk.” Cuban offered a different account, saying that he heard fans calling the Nuggets “thugs,” and that he told Moore, “That includes your son.” On Monday, Cuban played down the dispute and said of Moore: “I’m happy to let her sit next to me. I’ve got no problem with Mrs. Martin.” At the morning shootaround, Martin told reporters, “It’s a little personal, and I’m going to take care of it .” Just before tipoff, Martin walked toward the Mavericks’ end of the court and caught Cuban’s attention. Martin appeared to greet Cuban and indicated that they should talk after the game. With a trip to the conference finals at stake, Nuggets Coach George Karl said he hoped Martin would focus on more pressing matters. “I would prefer he do it probably in the summertime,” Karl said of Martin’s meeting with Cuban. “I think that would be best served probably for both of them. Let the emotion go away and then go have dinner.”

Basketball
Dallas Mavericks
Denver Nuggets
Martin Kenyon
Cuban Mark


Words of Support for Alex Rodriguez as the Yankees Settle In

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — A just-opened box of crisp fielding gloves, No. 52 stenciled on the side, sat on C. C. Sabathia ’s clubhouse chair Friday. Joba Chamberlain helped himself to a sample while Sabathia was gone, squeezing the stiff leather, marveling at the size, and switching it over to his left hand. The Yankees need some of Sabathia’s magic to rub off on them. That was destined to be a theme of the season as soon as the Yankees gave Sabathia the richest contract ever for a pitcher. It is more urgent now, with the optimism of spring training curbed by the uproar over Alex Rodriguez’s acknowledgment of steroid use. Rodriguez will report next week, after the pitchers and catchers who checked in at Steinbrenner Field on Friday. They included Sabathia and A. J. Burnett, who signed in December for a combined, recession-defying $243.5 million and are becoming fast friends. “I’m definitely glad I’ve got a guy like A. J.,” Sabathia said. “Walking into this together, we can kind of lean on each other. Just walking off the field, you see all the people taking pictures, the cameras. We just laugh about that stuff. It’s good to have somebody to be able to bounce that off of.” Sabathia took Mike Mussina’s old corner locker, next to a concrete wall where Mussina’s fake bay window has been replaced by an oversized NY logo. Burnett’s locker is a few spaces down, next to Andy Pettitte ’s. Pettitte kept his place in the rotation after an oddly protracted contract negotiation in which he declined a $10 million offer and settled for a $5.5 million guarantee with a chance to make $6.5 million more in incentives. He said his shoulder felt sturdy, and his expectations were high. “When I met with Cash in December, I told him I felt like I should make more than $10 million,” Pettitte said, referring to General Manager Brian Cashman. “I really didn’t care how I get to it, and I would bet on me being healthy to do that. So that’s why I did the contract I did.” Pettitte spoke for nearly a half-hour and was happy to discuss his situation, playfully chiding a reporter who tried to start the session with a question about Rodriguez. That topic was unavoidable, though, because of the similarities between the two teammates. When Rodriguez reports, he will face waves of follow-up questions to the televised interview in which he acknowledged his use of steroids from 2001 to 2003. Pettitte arrived here last season and held a news conference in which he apologized for using human growth hormone. “For me, it was easy and it was the truth,” Pettitte said. “I had to get it off my chest to be able to sleep at night where I didn’t have to worry about it.” Pettitte said he has spoken with Rodriguez, telling him he was praying for him and hoping he would make the right decisions. Pettitte said Rodriguez was like family to him, and he said he would encourage Rodriguez as he dealt with the fallout. But although Pettitte is generally popular with fans, Rodriguez is a love-him-or-hate-him kind of player. Pettitte’s confession had little to no impact on the way he was greeted on the road, but Rodriguez could hear much more booing. “I’m sure he’s going to get a lot; he, obviously, always gets a lot,” Pettitte said. “He’s used to being beat up on the road, for sure. I’m sure that won’t have too, too much of an effect on him.” Burnett was not surprised to be asked about Rodriguez; his own family has been asking for his opinion, he said, and he simply refuses to talk about it. To the reporters in the Yankees’ dugout, though, Burnett offered a prediction about Rodriguez. “He’ll be free when he gets on the field,” Burnett said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he really takes off this year.” Rodriguez has played remarkably well in every other year of his Yankees career. He produced below his standards in 2004, as he adjusted to New York; in 2006, as he struggled with booing at home; and in 2008, as he dealt with an injury and a divorce. In his two other seasons with the Yankees, Rodriguez was the most valuable player of the American League. INSIDE PITCH The Yankees signed the veteran right-hander Brett Tomko to a minor league contract. Tomko, who turns 36 in April, is 95-99 over a 12-year career. He was 2-7 with a 6.30 earned run average for Kansas City and San Diego last season.

Rodriguez Alex
Steroids
Baseball
New York Yankees
Sabathia C C
Pettitte Andy
Tomko Brett
Burnett A.J.


Colts Avoid Winless Season With Defeat of Titans

Abstract: INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Of all the losses they have had to the Indianapolis Colts , this had to be one of the toughest for the Tennessee Titans . Dan Orlovsky threw for one touchdown and Donald Brown ran 80 yards for another late in the game and the Colts won their first game of the season, 27-13, on Sunday. The loss has the Titans (7-7) on the brink of playoff elimination. “That really makes this game worse, to play a team that’s oh-fer and we come out and lay an egg,” Titans fullback Ahmard Hall said. Had the Titans closed out the season with three wins, they probably would have reached the playoffs. Now they will need to win their last two games, against Jacksonville and Houston, and will probably need help from other teams to get in. The Colts (1-13) held the Titans’ star running back, Chris Johnson, to 55 yards as they avoided becoming the second 0-16 team in league history. They also avoided becoming the first team in franchise history to go 0-14. Colts players began celebrating after making a fourth-down stop with less than two minutes to go, and those fans still around cheered loudly as the Colts finally had their first win since Jan. 2 — also at home against Tennessee. “It means a lot, but we’re a proud ball club, so one game out of 13 or 14, we still have a ways to go,” Colts defensive end Robert Mathis said. Tennessee made the types of mistakes the Colts had been making all season. Matt Hasselbeck was intercepted twice before being pulled in favor of the rookie Jake Locker. The Titans also lost a fumble and fumbled a kickoff out of bounds at their 1. The Titans’ quarterback switch was a twist, considering the Colts’ quarterback carousel since Peyton Manning’s injury: Kerry Collins, then Curtis Painter, then Orlovsky, with several in-game benchings sprinkled in. This time, the other team was forced to figure things out. Tennessee needed a defensive stop after getting a 7-yard touchdown pass from Locker to Nate Washington with 3 minutes 43 seconds remaining. On Indianapolis’s first play after Locker’s scoring toss, it looked as if the Titans had Brown stopped in the backfield. But when Brown reversed field, Orlovsky threw a block that got Brown to the edge. He sprinted for the game-sealing score. Tennessee led, 6-3, at halftime, but Orlovsky hooked up with Reggie Wayne for an 18-yard touchdown early in the third quarter for a 10-6 lead. The Colts knew it would take more to get a win. Jacob Lacey, the Colts’ oft-criticized cornerback, returned an interception 32 yards for a touchdown and a 17-6 lead. On the ensuing kickoff, Marc Mariani tried to field the bouncing ball in the end zone, but instead booted it to just inside the Titans’ 1. Indianapolis forced another punt, then got a 39-yard run from Brown to set up Adam Vinatieri’s 40-yard field goal that made it 20-6 with 12:53 to play.

Indianapolis Colts
Tennessee Titans
National Football League
Football
Munchak Mike
Hasselbeck Matt


An Officer and a Linebacker for the N.F.L.

Abstract: It was not until he was a sophomore on the Army football team that Caleb Campbell learned his job after graduation might be something other than as a platoon leader, guiding 32 soldiers in Iraq or in Kuwait. “When I came to West Point, I wasn’t saying, ‘God, I hope they make a new policy so I don’t have to go to Iraq,’ ” Campbell said Tuesday. “I knew what I was getting into. I initially came to the academy knowing I wanted to be an officer in the United States Army. Playing football was just extra.” On Sunday, the Detroit Lions picked Campbell in the seventh round of the N.F.L. draft, making him the first Army player to be selected since a new policy was established in 2005 to allow individuals with exceptional skills to pursue their professional careers while remaining on active duty. The Army’s hope is that talented people, like elite athletes or musicians, can help promote the service and boost recruiting. But the Army has also found itself defending the policy, which drew little attention before Sunday. Before this year, five former West Point athletes were accepted into the program. In the next few days, Campbell will join two Army teammates who signed free-agent contracts at N.F.L. minicamps. They are beneficiaries of a policy that allows them to start their playing careers sooner than they would had they played for Air Force or for Navy. If he makes the Lions’ roster, Campbell will most likely spend his off days and the off-season recruiting for the Army in the Detroit area. But his real job, he said, will be playing football. And that is enough to satisfy the Army. On the N.F.L. stage, Campbell, who will probably play linebacker, could prove to be far more valuable to Army recruiting than other traditional recruiters, officials said. His situation is already drawing enough interest that the Army had a conference call on Tuesday for the news media to talk with Campbell and his teammate Mike Viti, who signed a free-agent contract with Buffalo. Campbell acknowledged that he initially had mixed emotions about his opportunity. He said he spoke to other cadets and his instructors while pondering his situation. “I had a talk with myself,” he said on the conference call. “Either way I could win. I decided if football presented an opportunity to play in the N.F.L., I would take it. Me, as a football player, would be very beneficial representing the United States Army.” Last August, the Department of Defense issued a memo with a policy for all branches of the military governing individuals with special talents. Under the policy, members of the military can request an early release from active duty after two years “for the purpose of pursuing a professional sports activity with potential recruiting or public affairs benefits for the department.” In 2005, Francis J. Harvey, the secretary of the Army at the time, approved the policy that went further. Any member of the Army with an exceptional skill who could provide recruiting and public affairs benefits to the Army could be assigned to the nearest recruiting unit for their two-year active-duty period. Those approved can participate in their professional activity — in Campbell’s case, pro football — as long as it does not interfere with military duties. Then they can apply for early release from active duty. “People have philosophical problems with this — they think everyone else is going to Iraq,” said one Army official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the policy. “You can’t judge someone’s worth by their proximity to the battlefield. There are a couple thousand soldiers on recruiting duty. Is he still helping the Army? Yes. Is he still serving? Yes.” Still, the experiences of Campbell and his Army teammates will probably be far different from those of former military sports stars, like Roger Staubach in the N.F.L. or David Robinson in the N.B.A. Staubach served four years as an officer in the Navy, including a tour in Vietnam, before joining the Cowboys as a 27-year-old quarterback. Robinson, the former Spurs center nicknamed the Admiral, spent two years on active duty with the Navy before joining the N.B.A. Since November, the Navy has suspended its program governing early release after two years of active duty. “The nation is at war,” said Laura Stegherr, a Navy spokeswoman. “The Navy doesn’t intend to change the policy.” Perhaps influenced by the fierce rivalries between the branches, some officials wonder if the Army has an advantage, particularly in sports recruiting, where the academies frequently pursue the same high school players who meet their academic requirements. The Air Force considers requests on a case-by-case basis but has no written policy like the Army’s. Several players applied to play basketball in France, but their requests were denied because there is no recruiting value to the Air Force in France, said Tom Wenz, an Air Force spokesman. He said the Air Force would probably not change its policy. “The requirements are there in order to meet our primary needs as a fighting force,” Wenz said. “The Army is also a lot bigger than us. The loss of one individual from their operational capability is probably a lot more easily absorbed.” Navy’s football coach, Ken Niumatalolo, said the academy considered a rule similar to the Army’s a few years ago but did not approve it. Among the concerns, he said, was the message it might send during a time of war and the possibility there would be a flood of applicants for alternative service. That seems unlikely in sports, Niumatalolo said, because the Navy produces perhaps one player every five years with a realistic chance to make it in the N.F.L. “This is the first time all three of us aren’t working under the same guidelines,” Niumatalolo said. “I don’t care what the policy is. I just would like it to be the same. It’s obviously an advantage for Army, and our hands are tied.” If the players ultimately fail to make their N.F.L. teams, they will be reassigned and return to their normal career progression in the Army. That could lead them to war. “I’ve heard stories about what’s gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Campbell said. “In another sense, the N.F.L. is just as much pressure. You’re out there to take somebody’s job. In terms of coaches can’t cut me? We’re talking about the N.F.L. here. This is a cutthroat business.”

Football
United States Army
United States Armament and Defense
Detroit Lions
Iraq


Adrienne Johnson, a 9/11 Survivor, Faces New Challenges

Abstract: When Adrienne Johnson reached the fifth-floor stairwell of the north tower of the World Trade Center during her 37-floor descent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, she saw a man with white hair and sparkling blue eyes. “He was smiling the whole time,” she recalled. “I say to this day that he must have been an angel. He said, ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to get out of here.’ ” Ms. Johnson did get out, and soon returned to her position as an administrative assistant at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission throughout its subsequent moves, first to Jersey City, then back to Lower Manhattan. “I never realized I was leaving the office for the last time,” she said. But more trying times were ahead. Her mother died in 2003. Not long after, her father began to show the signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Ms. Johnson, who had always lived in the family home in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, became his primary caregiver. In 2007, her sister moved into the four-story brownstone, and a dispute erupted between the two. Their squabbles grew heated, and Ms. Johnson had no choice but to find new housing. Unfortunately, the need to move came at the worst possible time: She had left her job with the trading commission and had gone on to spend, and lose, tens of thousands of dollars starting her own graphic and Web design business, which she had titled Good Samaritan Productions. With her savings depleted, she was forced to go into a shelter. “It was an unsettling experience,” she said. “I had nothing but a MetroCard and a few clothes.” After eight days at a temporary shelter, she was transferred to the TLC Shelter, which is operated by the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service , one of the seven beneficiary agencies of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She has lived there for the last year and eight months, sharing a room with nine other women. “From riches to rags,” she said of her plunge into poverty. “It was just a whirlwind, a blur.” Ms. Johnson, 45, received a diagnosis of depression, but she rejected medication because she had seen how dependent her schizophrenic mother had been on a drug regimen. Instead, “I work through my depression by staying productive, staying positive,” she said. One way she stays productive is by working, and after a year-and-a-half stint as a 311 call center representative, she turned to the East New York Clubhouse for help finding work. The clubhouse, which is also operated by the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service , set her up in a temporary maintenance position at a McDonald’s. “I never thought I’d be working there, but I’m one of those people who’s never afraid to try new things,” she said. She found a part-time job as a security guard, but it was short-lived. She has interviewed for another security job, and other interviews have been set up. The Neediest Cases Fund has provided money to go toward training, fire guard certification and license fees. She remains at odds with her family. She doesn’t think she can ever mend fences with her sister, and as for her father, “I don’t even know if he’s alive still,” she said sadly. “He’s 88.” On Thursday, Ms. Johnson moved into an apartment on Eastern Parkway, which she shares with two women, though she has her own kitchen and living area. The city’s Human Resources Administration will shoulder the cost of rent and utilities “until I can get back on my feet.” “I’m very excited,” she said, adding, “It will be a brand new chapter in my life.”

Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
World Trade Center (NYC)
September 11 (2001)


Tesla Moves Closer to Target With 70 Percent Delivery Increase

Abstract: Tesla Motors said on Sunday that its third-quarter deliveries rose 70 percent to 24,500 cars, following production improvements, cheaper lease deals and reports of discounts on some vehicles. Deliveries are a crucial metric of performance for the luxury electric-vehicle manufacturer, which had missed these targets in the previous two quarters. The improved deliveries for the third quarter bring Tesla closer to meeting its target for the second half of 2016 of 50,000 vehicles, which it reiterated on Sunday. It said in a statement that fourth-quarter deliveries would be “at or slightly above” the third quarter’s. But the third-quarter figures included 5,150 vehicles in transit at the end of the second quarter, as Tesla reported in July. Another 5,500 cars in transit would be counted in the fourth quarter, it said. Meeting the third-quarter target was a priority for the money-losing Silicon Valley carmaker, which is hoping to raise funds from the equity market later this year for multiple efforts, including building out its factory for the Model 3 mass-market sedan due in late 2017 and the planned acquisition of SolarCity. Tesla experienced production problems earlier this year and began to resolve them in June. It said in July that production would improve from 2,000 cars a week to 2,200 in the third quarter and 2,400 in the fourth. Production rose in the third quarter to 25,185 vehicles, which would be just shy of 2,000 vehicles a week. The company will release third-quarter financial results in early November.


Years After Aurora Theater Rampage, Colorado Braces for the Trial

Abstract: DENVER — To choose a jury in the trial of the man charged with killing 12 people in a packed Colorado movie theater, court officials mailed notices to 9,000 people in suburban Arapahoe County, casting such a wide net that residents ran about a one-in-50 chance of being tapped as potential jurors. An uncle, a father, husbands and friends of people who work in the prosecutor’s office received jury summonses. So did 12 people who are slated to be prosecution witnesses. The numbers speak to the huge scale of a murder trial set to begin next week, more than two and a half years after a gunman sprayed bullets into a crowd of people at a midnight screening of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.” The defendant, James E. Holmes , has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. After multiple delays, Colorado is bracing for the start of his trial, one of the most complicated and emotionally wrenching judicial proceedings the state has faced. “I don’t think there is anything like this in Colorado, or really much precedent for it in the country,” said Justin Marceau , an associate professor of law at the University of Denver and a former federal public defender. “These mass shootings usually end in suicide or police killing the person. And even when they don’t, it seems that the scale of the procedures is usually smaller.” The 9,000 jury summonses sent out in this trial are far more than for most criminal trials, and even dwarf the pool of more than 1,300 potential jurors who have filled out questionnaires in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defendant in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Mr. Holmes’s trial could sprawl over six to eight months, with jury selection alone lasting months. Scores of police officers, crime scene experts, witnesses, mental health experts and others are expected to present detailed testimony about the shooting in July 2012, the elaborate explosive booby traps that the police said Mr. Holmes left in his apartment and his mental state in the days and months before the shooting. Image The Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo., where a gunman sprayed bullets into a crowd, killing 12, in July 2012. Credit Joe Raedle/Getty Images It will be a deluge of details for jurors, ultimately focused on two questions: Was Mr. Holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student, legally sane or insane when he killed a dozen people and wounded more than 50 others? And if he is found criminally culpable, does he deserve to be executed? With jury selection set to begin Tuesday, people who survived the shooting or lost friends and family members have been weighing whether to face the gantlet of news cameras at the Arapahoe County courthouse and the grisly details that will emerge during the trial. Many will take the witness stand to recount how a movie theater became a charnel house of bullets, tear gas, screams and blood. Some plan to attend the opening and closing of the trial. Others, like Cody Hickman, 36, plan to stay away. Mr. Hickman, a father of four who is attending law school, was in an adjacent movie theater when the gunman slipped into the building through an emergency exit and opened fire. “It is still hard to think about, and I don’t want to go through the process of handling these thoughts in public,” he wrote in an email. “I have a visceral reaction when I see him,” he said of Mr. Holmes, “and would rather not give him any more of my happiness than he has already taken.” The district attorney, George Brauchler, is seeking the death penalty , and prosecutors have said that Mr. Holmes acted with calculation and deliberation as he amassed an arsenal and plotted his rampage. Mr. Holmes’s lawyers admit he was the gunman but argue he was in the grips of a psychotic episode the night of the shooting. In their first public statement since the killings, Mr. Holmes’s parents, Robert and Arlene, expressed sympathy for the victims and their families, but insisted that their son “is not a monster.” He is, they said, suffering from a severe mental illness and should be institutionalized. Image Marcus Weaver, who was sitting with his friend Rebecca Wingo when she was killed in the shooting, plans to attend at least part of the trial. Credit Matthew Staver for The New York Times “We love our son, we have always loved him and we do not want him to be executed,” his parents wrote in a Dec. 19 open letter. “We also decry the need for a trial. A lengthy trial requires everyone to relive those horrible moments in time, causing additional trauma.” His lawyers and parents say Mr. Holmes is willing to plead guilty and spend the rest of his life in prison to avoid a drawn-out trial. But Mr. Brauchler has shown no sign of reconsidering. After consulting with survivors and family members of the victims, he announced in April 2013 that he would seek the death penalty, saying that for Mr. Holmes, “justice is death.” The legal brambles of prosecuting a death penalty case have led to months of delays in the trial, as have two mental health evaluations of Mr. Holmes. Prosecutors objected after the first exam, saying the psychiatrist who performed it was biased, though the details of their contention — like so much in the case — have been discussed only in closed sessions and redacted from court documents. A second evaluation was completed in October. Its details and conclusions are still out of public view. For Marcus Weaver, whose right arm went numb for two years from a gunshot wound that night, going to the courthouse for at least part of the trial will be a small tribute to the people who cannot be there . He was sitting with his friend Rebecca Wingo when she was killed. He still wakes up regularly at 3 a.m. thinking about the chaos in the theater, and wonders what would have happened if he had been in a different seat. For more than two years, he said, survivors and family members of the dead have met with prosecutors and received updates on the trial. They were a regular part of Mr. Weaver’s life as he embarked on a new career speaking to church groups and prisoners about pain and forgiveness, and as he grappled with the depression and strain from that night. Mr. Weaver said that while he had forgiven Mr. Holmes and was philosophically opposed to the death penalty, he supported execution in this case. “When you walk into a theater with an AR-15 rifle you give up your right to life,” he said of Mr. Holmes. “The people you hurt are deciding your fate. The State of Colorado is deciding your fate. You don’t get to pick.”

Aurora Shooting
James Eagan Holmes
Murders and Homicides
Mental Health
Aurora Colorado
Jury


Destroying Levees in a State Usually Clamoring for Them

Abstract: In the 1960s, a group of businessmen bought 16,000 acres of swampy bottomland along the Ouachita River in northern Louisiana and built miles of levee around it. They bulldozed its oak and cypress trees and, when the land dried out, turned it into a soybean farm. Now two brothers who grew up nearby are undoing all that work. In what experts are calling the biggest levee-busting operation ever in North America, the brothers plan to return the muddy river to its ancient floodplain, coaxing back plants and animals that flourished there when President Thomas Jefferson first had the land surveyed in 1804. “I really did not know if I would ever see it,” said Kelby Ouchley, who retired last year as manager of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, which owns the land. He pursues the project as a volunteer consultant in coordination with his brother Keith, who heads Louisiana operations for the Nature Conservancy , which helped organize and finance the levee-busting effort. The idea goes against the grain in Louisiana, where people have battled river flooding since colonial days. European settlers were often required to build levees to establish homesteading claims; in recent decades, landowners built levees to create farmland by the hundreds of thousands of acres. Hurricane Katrina brought a clamor for more and stronger levees to protect people and buildings farther south. Yet at the same time, there is a growing awareness that Louisiana’s levees have exacted a huge environmental cost. Inland, cypress forests and wetlands crucial for migrating waterfowl have vanished; in southern Louisiana, coastal marshes deprived of regular infusions of sediment-rich river water have yielded by the mile to an encroaching Gulf of Mexico. Some scientists have suggested opening levees south of New Orleans so the Mississippi River can flow normally into the swamps. The parcel that the Ouchley brothers plan to restore, known as Mollicy Farms, was added in the 1990s to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service ’s Upper Ouachita (pronounced WASH-it-tah) holdings in a series of purchases assisted by the Nature Conservancy and totaling $6.6 million. The brothers and their organizations have since worked on several environmental projects there, including a 10,000-acre tree-planting operation, Kelby Ouchley said. The workers replanted cypress and tupelo in low areas, then oaks and green ash, and then sweetgum and pecans — “life-sustaining, system-supporting diversity,” as Kelby Ouchley called it in an essay. Eventually, he predicted, the restored landscape would be home to black bear cubs, largemouth bass, fireflies, crawfish and “gobbling wild turkeys and cottonmouths with attitudes.” Still, the brothers felt dissatisfied. A few years ago, Keith Ouchley said, “I was standing on the giant levees with my brother and I said, ‘Well, there is one thing missing here. The big challenge is restoring this floodplain.’ ” Environmental scientists say the very notion of undoing levee construction may be the most important aspect of the Ouachita project. “The idea that we can take levees down — that’s a good thing,” said Denise J. Reed, a coastal scientist at the University of New Orleans. Dr. Reed is also among those advocating levee-opening on the Mississippi south of New Orleans, a proposal that she says is under review by state officials. The more rivers like the Ouachita are again permitted to flood, she said, “the more they function like rivers and the more we get what we need out of them in terms of habitat.” The Nature Conservancy has already taken part in levee-busting projects on Klamath Lake in Oregon and the Emiquon Preserve on the Illinois River in Illinois to help restore wetlands. But the Ouachita project is far larger, people involved say, both in its size — roughly 25 square miles — and the effort required to remove each levee, roughly 30 feet high and 120 feet wide at the base. The plan, designed by hydrology experts whose work was financed in part by $250,000 from the Nature Conservancy, was originally to use bulldozers to chew away at the levees in five places and then wait for spring floods to level them gradually, said George Chandler, the project leader for Fish and Wildlife Service projects in North Louisiana. The effort was to have begun last fall, he said, but heavy rains forced a delay until May, when unusual rains delayed it again. On May 23, the swollen Ouachita seized the initiative, breaking the levee and flooding the Mollicy acreage. At first, Mr. Chandler said, people involved in the project feared that the flood would smother the newly planted trees with sediment from the river and dirt from the levee itself. But they emerged unscathed. The plan now, he said, is to start bulldozing in late July or early August. “We expect that next fall or winter whenever the river comes back up we will have normal flows of water that will return to these bottomlands out there,” Mr. Chandler said. “It will rise and fall with the rhythm of the river.” The work is expected to cost more than $4 million. Cristina Mestre, a spokesman for the conservancy, said her organization would monitor the site for four years. The conservancy hoped its work there would serve as a model for other restoration projects, Ms. Mestre said. Project planners worry that the project could have unintended effects. For example, Kelby Ouchley said, it is theoretically possible that opening the levees could alter water flow enough to force the river into a new course. On the other hand, Keith Ouchley says, planners hope the project will reduce flood threats downstream “by providing more storage capacity in the river’s flood plain, like it normally would have.” Mr. Chandler said recent events suggested that this hope was well founded. After the levee was breached in May, a flood threat to the downstream city of Monroe subsided. In any event, Kelby Ouchley said: “If we make mistakes, other people will learn from them. It’s recognized here as a win-win thing.”

Levees and Dams
Louisiana
Nature Conservancy
Fish and Wildlife Service
Ouchley Kelby
Ouchley Keith


In Miami, It’s Extreme Makeover: Pro Football Edition

Abstract: DAVIE, Fla. — It looms as the surest sign of the state of the Miami Dolphins . Casting long shadows over South Florida’s highways are the billboards advertising “A New Beginning,” featuring those rare stars of sports marketing campaigns: the front office. Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor, the faces of the team since the once-and-forever Dolphin Dan Marino retired, have been replaced by a rookie general manager, Jeff Ireland, and a rookie coach, Tony Sparano. Bill Parcells is the Mick Jagger of the group, but even an N.F.L. icon like Parcells cannot dim the message that is left unsaid this season: honk if you can think of a recognizable player. “Thirty-one other teams, I bet they don’t even know what the general manager looks like,” linebacker Channing Crowder said. Thirty-one other teams did not finish 2007 with just one win, though, which led to a housecleaning of such epic proportion — 45 new players were on the roster when training camp opened this summer — that the franchise that gave football the No-Name Defense now simply has no name players. “When you reach the points that we reached here last year, you have to do that if you have the chance to do it,” Sparano said after a training camp practice. “That’s the time decisions should be made, not two years from now, or a year from now, when we’re sitting here having to go backwards. We felt like as far as a big transition, we knew we would need to bring new players in and new energy into the building.” Quarterback Chad Pennington , a castoff from the hated Jets, who will face his former team Sunday for the first time since he was dumped for Brett Favre, may be the most familiar Dolphin this side of Ricky Williams, the gifted but flaky running back. For style points, Pennington will not make anyone forget Marino, he of the lightning-quick release and powerful arm. But Pennington is a marked improvement over the uninspiring threesome of John Beck, the rookie Chad Henne and the journeyman Josh McCown, who was traded last week to Carolina. Henne is the quarterback the Parcells regime hopes will develop into the starter, but several players were quoted in The Miami Herald gushing about Pennington only days after his arrival. “You hear the offensive guys saying, ‘This is the best quarterback I’ve ever played with.’ Well, that’s true,” defensive end Vonnie Holliday, who played with Favre in Green Bay, was quoted as saying. “It’s huge.” Pennington was frequently scorned in New York for a lack of arm strength, and being replaced by Favre, with his cannon arm, has not helped. About a week ago, Pennington acknowledged that he had grown tired of complaints about his arm. He never defended himself publicly, but privately, he conducted a self-evaluation during the off-season. He noticed that the great passers were not strictly “arm throwers,” Pennington said, but instead used their whole bodies to generate velocity and consistency. So Pennington has changed his mechanics, to use his hips and abdomen more. It is still early, he said in an interview after practice last week, “but I like what I’m seeing.” Pennington’s rebirth in Miami is the handiwork of Parcells, who drafted Pennington when he was with the Jets and whose reputation for overhauling distressed franchises is well earned from stints in New York (Giants and Jets), New England and Dallas. In came the Parcells posse: assistants (Dan Henning) and players (Jason Ferguson, Pennington) who have been with Parcells at other stops. Ireland and Sparano enjoyed anonymous supporting roles in Dallas before being recruited by Parcells to save the Dolphins, one of football’s iconic teams. Sparano concedes that he was unprepared, off the field at least, for his star turn as the savior. He said the first time he saw the billboard with his visage on it, he nearly drove off the road. “They look like ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ ” Ferguson joked. “ ‘Look, it’s Frodo!’ ” The Dolphins are not likely to produce that kind of blockbuster this season, though. Ferguson, who was with Parcells with the Jets and Dallas, said the Dolphins represented Parcells’s biggest rebuilding project yet because they were so devoid of “brand-name” talent. It is clear just from a glance at the jerseys fans wore to training camp — lots of Marino, Taylor and Thomas, even a few Bob Griese jerseys — that for now, the best days of the team are cast in sepia tones. Parcells represents the latest shot by the Dolphins’ owner, H. Wayne Huizenga, to grab glory with a big-ticket name. Marino quit after less than a month in a front-office job. Coach Nick Saban bolted back to college. And Coach Cam Cameron’s one season was doomed from the start, when he was booed at a draft-day party after the team passed on quarterback Brady Quinn. The same fans who had grumbled over decades of early playoff exits faced real failure: the Dolphins, who had been to the playoffs 14 times since 1981, have not been back since the 2001 season. When Huizenga tearily embraced Cameron after the Dolphins’ win last season — in overtime, no less — it summed up how far expectations had fallen. So, Huizenga turned to Parcells, snatching him from under the noses of the Atlanta Falcons, who wanted him for their own reclamation project. Parcells insists he is done with coaching, although Ferguson said Parcells always milled around practice, talking to players, though seeming more relaxed than when he was on the sideline. Sparano says Parcells calls himself “the guidance counselor,” who will occasionally appear as a guest coach, as he did recently on a kick-return drill he has run for years. Otherwise, Parcells is intimately involved in personnel decisions and being, well, Parcells. “Really, what he’s very good at is getting in a player’s ear, giving them advice, things he sees from far away,” Sparano said. It may just be enough. Jay Feely, the kicker who was recently released, said Parcells’s biggest contribution might be the air of legitimacy his presence bestowed on Ireland and Sparano and the urgency of heightened competition for every roster spot. South Florida likes its celebrity glitz, and Don Shula remains the gold standard of coaching here. But Parcells’s presence — with his gray-blond hair under a straw hat while he watches practice with his old friend Ron Wolf, the former architect of the Packers — has brought a glimmer of hope that maybe the Dolphins will not turn into a relic, like the glass-enclosed Marino locker that adorns the lobby of the team’s headquarters. “Honestly, it went downhill,” said Crowder, who might win over Parcells because of his Rottweiler’s name — L. T. “We want to get back to the Dolphins of the Shula days, when people were afraid coming down here. I don’t know if it’s the lore of Parcells, but you know you’re not going to question anything he says. It works. The faster we buy in, the faster we can get back to those championship Dolphin days.” Or at least two victories.

Miami Dolphins
Parcells Bill
Pennington Chad
Football


Google Scrambling to Revise Digital Books Settlement

Abstract: For months, Google and its partners in a class-action settlement that would allow the company to create a vast digital library appeared unmoved by a rising tide of opposition. Google and its settlement partners — the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers — argued that the agreement would not harm competition, and said they were confident that it would be approved in its current form by a federal court. But the Justice Department, in a filing on Friday, made clear that the parties were busily negotiating modifications that would address some of the concerns raised. Those negotiations are likely to accelerate now that the Justice Department has said that it too believes the settlement raises serious legal issues and has urged the court not to approve it without changes. Legal experts say the new round of discussions, and the government’s intervention, are almost certain to delay an agreement that Google and the other parties were eager to see ratified quickly. “The news out of this is that there are frantic negotiations going on in back rooms right now,” said James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, which raised antitrust and other objections to the settlement. “The parties are scared enough to be talking seriously about changes, with each other and the government. The government is being the stern parent making them do it.” Google, the guild and the publishers’ association said they were encouraged by the department’s view that the settlement offered many benefits, adding that they looked forward to addressing the department’s concerns. “Clearly, the Justice Department is saying ‘find something that would make this near universal library happen,’ ” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. But Mr. Aiken said it was premature to discuss how the parties would proceed. The Justice Department’s filing on Friday, echoing other critics, said that the settlement could give Google a virtually exclusive license to millions of out-of-print “orphan books,” whose rights holders were unknown or cannot be found, making it impossible for anyone else to build a comparable digital library; the interests of some class members, including authors of orphan works and foreign authors, might not have been adequately represented; and the efforts to notify class members about the settlement might have been inadequate. But unlike some of the more strident opponents, who have argued that the settlement is so flawed that it must be rejected, the Justice Department said it hoped the accord could be fixed so that its benefits — most notable the unprecedented access to millions of out-of-print books it would offer — could be achieved. And it said the parties appeared willing to make changes to address such concerns. Laying out a path forward, the department said some of its antitrust concerns could be mitigated by “some mechanism by which Google’s competitors’ could gain comparable access to orphan works.” And it said that concerns about the fair representation of some authors could be addressed if some rights for Google to profit from out-of-print books were granted only if their authors agreed, rather than by default. Legal experts suggest that proposal could prove to be a sticking point, as it would not allow Google to offer a comprehensive library. But even the Justice Department suggested there could be other solutions. Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University, said a judge was unlikely to approve the current settlement, “hence, it is also very likely that the parties will revise the settlement in an effort to secure its approval.” Judge Denny Chin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has given the parties until Oct. 2 to respond to the objections and has scheduled a hearing on the case for Oct. 7. But some experts say the case is likely to be delayed well beyond that, as changes to the settlement are likely to require members of the class to be notified, a process that could take months. And even after that, a resolution may not be immediate. “Whatever action the district court takes, there could also be appeals,” Mr. Gavil said. “So I think we are probably still a ways off from a truly final resolution.”

Google Inc
Google Book Search
Suits and Litigation
Computers and the Internet
Books and Literature


Top Two Unchanged in College Football Playoff Rankings, but Underdogs Can Still Have a Say

Abstract: After the College Football Playoff selection committee released its penultimate rankings Tuesday night, it became clear that there are, at most, a dozen teams that could conceivably qualify for the inaugural four-team playoff. Two are clear front-runners. Four are almost interchangeable, though, by necessity, two are in and two are out. And six are a motley crew of hangers-on, almost-rans and potential spoilers. In the latest rankings, Alabama retained its No. 1 spot after holding off Auburn, 55-44, in the highest-scoring game in Iron Bowl history. Oregon stood pat at No. 2 after dispatching Oregon State, 47-19. But Florida State, the final undefeated Football Bowl Subdivision team, ceded not only the top spot in The Associated Press poll (to Alabama) this week, but also its hold on the third spot in the playoff rankings, falling to No. 4 after edging Florida, 24-19. Texas Christian, which routed Texas, 48-10, moved from No. 5 to No. 3, replacing Mississippi State in the top four. The Bulldogs dropped to No. 10 after losing to Ole Miss (now No. 12), 31-17. “Florida State continues to be that undefeated team,” Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long, the playoff committee’s chairman, said. On the bubble, at Nos. 5 and 6, are the other one-loss, major-conference teams, Ohio State and Baylor. Rounding out the top 10 are No. 7 Arizona, No. 8 Michigan State and No. 9 Kansas State. But a comprehensive look at the playoff picture also reveals that No. 11 Georgia Tech, No. 13 Wisconsin and No. 16 Missouri should not be counted out entirely. The final rankings will be released Sunday afternoon after the four major conference championship games. The top seed will play the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 seed will play No. 3 at the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1. The top seed will be placed where it has more of a home-field advantage. The championship game will be held Jan. 12 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex. On Friday night, Arizona plays Oregon in the Pacific-12 Conference championship in Santa Clara, Calif. On Saturday, Missouri plays Alabama in the Southeastern Conference title game in Atlanta; Georgia Tech plays Florida State in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game in Charlotte, N.C.; and Wisconsin faces Ohio State in the Big Ten title game in Indianapolis. Image T.C.U’s Chucky Hunter, left, and James McFarland in the Texas game. The Horned Frogs are now No. 3 in the playoff rankings. Credit Ashley Landis/Associated Press If Alabama, Oregon and Florida State win their next games, they are virtually assured of making the playoff. Of the underdogs in the conference championship games, Arizona, with its high ranking and regular-season victory at Oregon, probably has the best chance to make the playoff with a victory. Missouri, a 14.5-point underdog, emerged out of the weaker SEC East with two bad losses and could struggle to make it into the top four, even by beating the mighty Crimson Tide. (Alabama, considered one of the top teams in college football this season, might drop only a couple of spots with a loss.) Even Missouri Coach Gary Pinkel was not in the mood this week to make any predictions. “Honestly, those things take care of themselves,” he said during an SEC teleconference. “We’re just doing what we do.” If Georgia Tech ended Florida State’s 28-game winning streak, which dates to November 2012, it might be seen as a statement less about the Yellow Jackets and more about the Seminoles, who have struggled to dominate weak teams and whose best win this season was their road victory over No. 21 Louisville on Oct. 30. Similarly, if Wisconsin beats Ohio State, the focus might be less on the Badgers — the Heisman candidate Melvin Gordon and their stout defense notwithstanding — and more on how the Buckeyes played without the injured quarterback J. T. Barrett. College Football Scenarios: Six Teams, Four Spots We cut through the rankings turmoil to tell you which teams have the inside track. The Big 12’s lack of a championship game introduces unpredictability. Holding the fourth spot and facing 2-9 Iowa State on Saturday, Texas Christian would, at first glance, appear to be in the driver’s seat. Yet if Baylor defeats Kansas State on Saturday, its strength of schedule would more closely match T.C.U.’s, and the tiebreaker for the committee might be the teams’ head-to-head matchup this season, which Baylor won . (Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty, removed from last weekend’s close victory against Texas Tech because of a concussion, said Monday that he planned to play.) As though it senses trouble, Baylor has hired a public-relations firm to make its case for inclusion to the national media. The Big 12’s lack of a championship game could hurt its teams’ chances, as they receive one less chance for a quality victory and, more simply, play one less game (a one-loss Big Ten champion has a better winning percentage than a one-loss Big 12 champion). The least-discussed teams with the best chances are Kansas State and Michigan State. The Spartans have been absent from most playoff conversations since their loss to Ohio State on Nov. 8 helped ensure they would not play for the Big Ten title. But at 10-2, and with their only losses to Ohio State and Oregon, they have a terrific résumé and could slide into the semifinals if enough teams in front of them lose. After Marshall lost last weekend, No. 22 Boise State is the sole ranked Group of Five team. A victory Saturday over Fresno State , which is 6-6, will hand the Broncos the Mountain West title as well as the lucrative, high-profile berth in one of the six playoff-affiliated bowls that is guaranteed to the highest-ranked Group of Five champion.

College football
University of Alabama
Oregon State University
Florida State University
Texas Christian University


British Regulators Reject BBC Plan to Add Local Web Video News

Abstract: British regulators rejected a plan on Friday to add locally focused video news to BBC Web sites in Britain, dealing a setback to the digital ambitions of the BBC, which has expanded aggressively on the Internet. The BBC Trust, which oversees the public broadcaster, and Ofcom, the British media regulator, said the proposal would have hurt rivals in the private sector, including the Web sites of newspapers. Under the plan, the BBC wanted to spend £68 million, or $100 million, and hire 400 people to provide news, sports and weather for dozens of local BBC Web sites. Commercial rivals said the £3 billion in public financing that the BBC receives each year gave it an unfair advantage. The BBC Trust, which was created last year, previously approved other contested BBC Internet initiatives, including the addition of advertising to the BBC News Web site outside Britain. The decision on Friday was “the first major example of the trust showing its muscles,” Roy Greenslade, a British media commentator, said in a blog entry on the Web site of the newspaper The Guardian. “In that sense, it is a landmark moment in broadcasting history.” The move drew interest across Europe because regulators in several countries, including Germany, are scrutinizing public broadcasters’ digital plans. The European Commission , in a proposal published this month, suggests that governments impose stricter conditions on financing for public broadcasters. “In as far as commercial broadcasters, and indeed publishers and other media owners, were looking for greater certainty that this kind of scrutiny can work, this is a very positive step,” Ross Biggam, the director general of ACT, a lobbying group for commercial broadcasters that is based in Brussels, said of the British decision. Ofcom said that if the BBC’s local video plans had gone ahead, newspapers and other commercial providers of local news would have lost readers and advertisers. They would have also been discouraged from starting new services on the Web, the regulator said. Underlining the challenges facing British newspapers, Enders Analysis, a research firm, said Friday that their advertising revenue would fall 21 percent next year. Newspapers have been hit particularly hard because of the migration of classified advertising to the Internet. The BBC’s local video plans “would have been a disproportionate step into a market where the private sector was already active,” said Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers Council. “Now local publishers can innovate in this area without the fear of getting squashed by a giant elephant.” The BBC Trust urged the BBC to focus on improving the quality of existing news services aimed at local audiences in Britain, including television and radio broadcasts. The BBC said it would pursue that challenge “with vigor.” In a statement, it added, “We will consider a range of options for how we can best achieve this and will return to the trust in due course.” The quality of other BBC programming had prompted a separate inquiry by the BBC Trust, which was also resolved Friday. It focused on a radio program in October in which Jonathan Ross, the BBC’s highest paid performer, and a fellow comedian, Russell Brand, left lewd messages on an aging actor’s telephone answering machine. Mr. Brand used coarse language to describe a purported sexual encounter with a granddaughter of the actor, Andrew Sachs. The BBC Trust on Friday described the material as “so grossly offensive that there was no justification for its broadcast.” But it said Mr. Ross, who was suspended by the BBC for three months, would face no further disciplinary action. Mr. Brand had already resigned after an outcry in Britain fed by tabloids.

Computers and the Internet
BBC Worldwide Ltd
Recordings and Downloads (Video)
Newspapers
European Commission
Online Advertising


N.B.A. Owners Give Players 4 Days to Accept Final Offer

Abstract: A perilous four-month standoff between N.B.A. players and owners has been reduced to a four-day window, with an ultimatum that might destroy the 2011-12 season. Negotiations on a new labor deal failed again Saturday night, this time with specific consequences: The players have until Wednesday afternoon to accept the league’s final offer, or be dealt a significantly worse alternative. They are almost certain to reject both proposals, throwing the league into turmoil. “Right now, we’ve been given the ultimatum,” the president of the players union, Derek Fisher, said in a news conference early Sunday morning. “And our answer is: that’s not acceptable to us.” The next move made by the players might be the one they have dutifully avoided since the lockout began — dissolving their union. A powerful group of agents and players are clamoring for such an action, which would shift the battle to the courts and perhaps buy them the leverage they need. But it could take months to execute, leaving little hope for salvaging the season. The league’s fate should be clearer by the close of business Wednesday. That was the deadline given to the union by Commissioner David Stern to accept the owners’ offer: effectively, a 50-50 split of revenues and a package of harsh restrictions on team spending and free agency. If the union balks, Stern said, the owners will withdraw it and instead offer the players a 47 percent share, combined with a so-called “flex-cap” system that, in practice, imposes a hard cap on payrolls. “We hope that this juxtaposition will cause the union to assess its position and accept the deal,” Stern said. Union leaders seem unlikely to reconsider. “But hope springs eternal,” Stern said, “and we would love to see the union accept the proposal that is now on the table.” This latest negotiating session, the 21st of the lockout, lasted for eight and a half hours, ending around 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Under the guidance of George Cohen, a federal mediator, the parties actually narrowed the gap on some crucial items before the talks collapsed. The players — who had vowed not to accept less than 52.5 percent of league revenues — proposed a 51 percent share, with 1 percent devoted to aid retired players. That moved them within 1 percent of the league’s longstanding proposal. On Saturday, the owners proposed a “band” that would pay the players 49 to 51 percent, depending on revenue growth. But the union said it amounted to a 50 percent offer, because the threshold for growth was so high that the share would never get to 51. Jeff Kessler, the union’s outside counsel and chief negotiator, called the 49 to 51 band “a fraud.” Yet it was ultimately the mechanics of a new system, not the revenue split, that killed the talks. The league’s standing proposal would eliminate spending options for teams that pay the luxury tax, by banning them from sign-and-trade deals and the use of the midlevel exception. At Cohen’s suggestion, the league proposed a “mini-midlevel” that would start at $2.5 million — half the value of the full midlevel — and would be limited to two-year deals. The N.B.A.’s proposal also called for an additional penalty — a so-called “repeater tax” — on teams that exceed the tax threshold three times in a five-year span. The union is open to the concept, but not at the steep rates proposed by the league. The net effect of the N.B.A.’s proposal, the union said, would be to eliminate the highest-spending teams from acquiring top talent — thus devastating the free-agent market. Union officials have been willing to compromise on the revenue split pending some degree of compromise from owners in other areas. “The big story here is they want it all,” Kessler said, growing more agitated with every sentence. He said the repeater-tax provision, as proposed, would amount to a hard salary cap, something the union has opposed for decades. “Those deals are not acceptable for players today, it’s not acceptable for future generations of players,” Kessler said. “They want a win-win-win-win. We wanted to compromise. They’re not giving the players a lot of choice.” The union wants tax-paying teams to retain sign-and-trade options and to have use of a full midlevel exception, at $5 million. As a compromise, union officials proposed that the midlevel be available to taxpayers only every other year. Saturday’s meeting involved full negotiating committees on both sides, plus a few added participants. Joining the owners’ delegation were two of the leading hardliners — Charlotte’s Michael Jordan and Portland’s Paul Allen — plus Miami’s Micky Arison, who is one of the most eager to cut a deal. Chauncey Billups, the Knicks point guard, joined the players’ side. Billy Hunter, the union’s executive director, left without speaking to reporters. A union spokesman said that Hunter was tired and feeling under the weather. No additional talks are scheduled, nor expected, now that the N.B.A. has issued its ultimatum. The players are in an untenable position, with choices that range from bad to worse. Dissolving the union may be the inevitable course — whether it comes by force, from a disenchanted faction of players, or by union leaders themselves. Neither Fisher nor Kessler would entertain that possibility early Sunday morning, but the union has always held out decertification as a measure of last resort. Going that route would allow the players to sue the league under federal antitrust law, but resolution could take years. The real value of decertification is to create chaos and uncertainty for the league and to motivate the owners to negotiate. In the meantime, Fisher said he saw no value in putting the league’s proposal up to a vote of the players. “Our job is to take a deal to our players that we’re comfortable presenting, and that we feel will get passed,” he said, adding, “At this point, we don’t have a deal to propose.”

Basketball
Lockouts
National Basketball Assn
National Basketball Players Assn
Cohen George
Organized Labor


Cardinal Tobin, New Newark Archbishop, Cites ‘Chasm Between Life and Faith’

Abstract: NEWARK — In a ceremony that combined pageantry with a promise of a different style and approach, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin was installed on Friday as the archbishop of Newark. In his homily, Cardinal Tobin said he was thankful for his new job, though he described it as “a daunting proposition.” But he focused his remarks on what he called “the chasm between life and faith.” He had cited that chasm, he told a congregation that included bishops, priests and elected officials, when a woman at a recent dinner party asked him what he considered to be the greatest challenge facing the church. He said it was not the answer she was expecting. “I imagine that she was ready for any of the so-called ‘hot-button’ issues that dominate the discourse, both inside and outside the church,” he said, calling such topics “noisy and divisive” without specifying any in particular. Before coming to Newark, Cardinal Tobin had been the archbishop of Indianapolis since 2012 . He is considered a friend and ally of Pope Francis in a potentially important spot in the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the United States not far from New York City, where Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan has been the face of American Catholicism in the nation’s media capital. And as many here noted, he is the first cardinal in the long history of the Newark archdiocese. “Cardinal Tobin doesn’t like the term ‘prince of the church,’ but he is a close collaborator” with the pope, the Rev. Joseph A. Manzini, director of archdiocese liturgies for Newark, said before the service. “It remains to be seen how often we’ll see him. Cardinals get called to Rome.” The installation ceremony began with a 30-minute procession of bishops and priests that gave way to the hymn “O Come All Ye Faithful” in a packed sanctuary. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey attended, as did the lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, Senator Robert Menendez and James McGreevey, a former governor who resigned in 2004. Image A procession enters the cathedral in Newark for the Mass of Installation for Cardinal Tobin. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times The installation ceremony filled the soaring Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart , which sits atop the highest hill in Newark and was designed to resemble the ancient houses of worship in Chartres and Reims in France. The Newark cathedral was begun at the end of the 19th century; its first public service was the installation of one of Cardinal Tobin’s predecessors, Bishop Thomas J. Walsh, in 1928. But for all the pageantry, Cardinal Tobin is inheriting a troubled archdiocese. The archbishop he succeeded, John J. Myers, was denounced for the archdiocese’s handling of pedophile priests and for allocating more than $500,000 for an addition to his weekend house in Hunterdon County, N.J. The Star-Ledger of Newark hailed Archbishop Myers’s retirement last summer with an editorial that declared , “Blessed are we to be rid of this man.” Cardinal Tobin, 64, took a vow of poverty when he was ordained nearly 40 years ago, and his unassuming ways proved popular in Indiana. Like Pope Francis, who at first drove himself around the Vatican in a Renault with 190,000 miles on the odometer, Cardinal Tobin drove his own sport-utility vehicle as he crisscrossed Indiana. By contrast, Archbishop Myers often used younger priests as drivers and traveled with a police escort. (Cardinal Tobin did get driven recently from Newark to a religious retreat on the Jersey Shore, a spokesman for the Newark archdiocese said.) In Indiana, Cardinal Tobin exuded modesty and humility. To the bench-press crowd at the gym, he was simply Joe; to schoolchildren, he was Padre José. Archbishop Myers preferred to be addressed by the formal title Your Grace. And when the Newark appointment was announced , then-Archbishop Tobin sounded stunned. “Sometimes I think that Pope Francis sees a lot more in me than I see in myself,” he said. Cardinal Tobin made national headlines in 2015 when he faced off against Gov. Mike Pence, now the Vice President-elect. Citing security concerns, Mr. Pence had ordered a stop to efforts to resettle Syrian refugees. Calling that immoral and illegal, Cardinal Tobin said that the Indianapolis archdiocese would continue to welcome Syrians. A federal court has since overturned Mr. Pence’s order. And the mood among parishioners is different than when Archbishop Myers took over. Archbishop Myers, an ally of Pope John Paul II , was installed 30 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, “a time,” he said then, “of great national sorrow.” He used the homily at his installation to explain orthodox views on marriage and abortion. He said that sexuality was to adhere to “its God-given purpose.” Image Cardinal Tobin speaks at the Mass of Installation where he became Newark’s archbishop. He said he was thankful for the job, though he described it as a “daunting proposition.” Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times Archbishop Myers turned 75 last July. That is the age at which bishops are expected to submit their resignations to the Vatican. His was quickly accepted. But Francis had already taken action to reorient the Newark archdiocese. In 2013, the pope named a Michigan bishop, Bernard A. Hebda, to be coadjutor archbishop in Newark. With that title, Bishop Hebda would automatically have become the archbishop when Archbishop Myers reached retirement age. But in 2013, the pope reassigned Bishop Hebda to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and Francis did not name a new coadjutor archbishop for Newark. Cardinal Tobin’s appointment was announced in November; Francis had named him to be a cardinal the month before. The oldest of 13 children, Cardinal Tobin grew up in Detroit, where his mother had been a public-school teacher and his father was a cost analyst for General Motors. In his 20s he joined a religious order called the Redemptorists, which ran the church he had attended as a boy. He rose to lead the order for 12 years, from 1997 to 2009. In 2010 he became an official in a Vatican office that was investigating nuns in this country for taking on a “secular mentality” and moving too far away from Catholic doctrine. Cardinal Tobin questioned the Vatican’s intervention; he told The National Catholic Reporter that his view of the nuns was “extremely positive.” That made him something of a hero to the nuns, but Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, transferred him to Indianapolis in 2012, three years before his five-year term at the Vatican was over. Francis later closed the investigations. His new assignment puts him in charge of an archdiocese that serves a broad spectrum of Roman Catholics, living both in wealthy suburban communities and economically disadvantaged urban neighborhoods. It is also diverse with large pockets of African-American and Latino adherents. Geographically, it is the smallest Catholic archdiocese in the United States, covering just over 500 square miles in four counties, a fraction of the territory that Cardinal Tobin was responsible for in Indiana. But the 1.5 million Catholics in the Newark archdiocese far outnumber the 233,000 in the Indianapolis archdiocese. More than 100 of Cardinal Tobin’s relatives were on hand, along with friends from his days in Detroit. One friend, Mary Ladensack, recalled visiting him when he was in Rome several years ago. “He’s the same gregarious guy I knew growing up,” she said. Her husband, John, added, “Without the robe and stuff, you wouldn’t know he was a religious person.”

Joseph Tobin
Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart
Cardinal Catholic
Catholic Church
John Joseph Myers
Newark NJ


As the Market Lurches, New Options to Avoid Getting Seasick

Abstract: WHEN it came to stock market volatility, 2011 was pretty close to the mother of all roller-coaster rides. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index had several daily swings of 2 percent or more in August alone. The Dow Jones industrial average seesawed more than 400 points for four straight days that month. With the sturm und drang of European and American debt woes continuing, we may see more bipolar market oscillations. The investment climate — even among wealthy investors — has cooled toward stocks that have full exposure to the market’s ups and downs. A recent survey by the Spectrem Group found that “while somewhat more moderate in risk tolerance than in 2009, investors remain more interested in protecting principal than growing their assets.” So it comes as no surprise that Wall Street has hatched a new generation of products that cater to those who hate market volatility. Not only can you reduce your exposure to the most spasmodic stocks, you can also bet against wild price swings, although neither strategy is a flawless safeguard against market risk. This new generation of “low-volatility,” exchange-traded funds focuses on established companies with consistent earnings flow and dividends. You can now find a low-volatility fund for nearly every corner of the global stock market. The PowerShares S.& P. 500 low-volatility fund invests in 100 companies from the index that “exhibited the lowest sensitivity to market movement, or beta, over the past 12 months.” Skittish about emerging-market stocks? The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Minimum Volatility Index Fund could be worth a look. Tilting more toward small companies in the United States? The Russell 2000 Low Volatility fund focuses on small- and micro-cap stocks with strong growth prospects. What if you want to bet squarely against the downward volatility of the S.& P. 500 index? Then you might consider the iPath S.& P. 500 Short-Term VIX fund, a complex exchange-traded fund based on futures contracts that track the implied volatility of the index. For an even broader approach, Lance Gunkel — a fee-only certified financial planner with Sherpa Investment Management in West Des Moines, Iowa — uses the SEI Managed Volatility Fund, which covers a low-volatility index representing 3,000 stocks that may also invest in futures and options. The fund’s load-adjusted return was nearly 10 percent compared with a nearly flat performance for the S.& P. 500 Index last year. The companies in the low-volatility funds he chooses for his clients tend to be “cash-flow rich with low price/earnings ratios, dividend paying with a value tilt,” Mr. Gunkel said. While there is an appeal to tamping down portfolio extremes, the low-volatility strategy is no substitute for a comprehensive reduction of market risk. While many low-volatility funds track stocks that have had fewer price swings on average over the last year, that may not be the most prudent way to avoid future volatility. If low-volatility funds were concentrated in “safer” stocks like dividend-rich utilities and major energy producers in 2011, unless they shifted gears to match market sentiment for this year’s favored sectors, they might fall victim to “sector rotation,” as professional money managers shift into other industries and sell the favored stocks of the previous year. Last year’s darlings may be this year’s goats. Also keep in mind that most of these funds have been started within the last few years. Few, if any, have been battle-tested in a 2008-style collapse, which is when you would need them to offer real protection. (And they are not to be confused with balanced funds that have a mix of bonds or cash, or more exotic “inverse” funds that move in the opposite direction of stocks.) Lee Munson, the author of “Rigged Money” and a financial planner and registered adviser with Portfolio, in Albuquerque, said he was “offended by the gentle marketing lie” of low-volatility funds because they did not address the larger need to reduce market risk in times of market crisis. Every low-volatility fund is still exposed to the market. And still looming is “event risk,” like the threat of a European country defaulting on its debt. A lot of investors, Mr. Munson maintained, mistakenly “confuse low volatility with low risk,” adding: “You can’t call a Lexus a Mercedes. People think that when the market goes down, I won’t get hurt in these funds. They’re all stocks.” Mr. Munson suggested a more enlightened view that looks at “risk budgeting,” or gauging how much risk you can take, and design a portfolio that tracks your tolerance — or intolerance — for stock market exposure. It is also possible to reallocate easily to include more bonds to offset equity holdings. Real diversification includes investments that do not move in lock step when the market turns south. A qualified investment adviser or certified financial planner can also help you hedge risk in other ways, like buying options on specific stocks or indexes you may own. The goal, as always, is to developthe portfolio that best provides for your needs in the least stressful way.

Stocks and Bonds
High Net Worth Individuals
Financial Planners
Personal Finances
Mutual Funds


Celtics Win and Continue to Climb

Abstract: Paul Pierce had 18 points and 11 rebounds, and Avery Bradley scored 22 points to lead the visiting Boston Celtics to a 109-101 win over the Philadelphia 76ers. Kevin Garnett scored 18 points to help the Celtics continue their push up the standings. They are seventh in the Eastern Conference, but are within a game and a half of three teams above them.


U.S. Hopes Afghan Councils Will Weaken Taliban

Abstract: NADALI, Afghanistan — More than 600 men, most of them farmers with weathered faces and rough hands, sat on the ground under an awning, waiting all day to deposit their ballots in plastic boxes. They had braved Taliban threats and road mines to come here to select a district council, part of a plan to strengthen local government in the most unstable parts of Afghanistan . “The important thing is we are trying to build trust between the people and the government,” said Qari Mukhtar Ahmad, a senior cleric attending the election last month. “This district was under fighting for a long time, but now there is peace and we have to listen to the people and bring them together.” Peace is a relative term in Nadali, a district in the southern province of Helmand with one of highest levels of roadside bombs per square mile. Government officials still have to fly by helicopter from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, rather than risk the 20-minute drive. The district encompasses Marja, a Taliban stronghold where United States Marines have been battling insurgents since February. Marja remains largely ungovernable, but the operation broke the hold of the Taliban in the rest of the district, making it stable enough to try to set up some local representation. The election here, an exercise in nation-building from the ground up, is part of a pilot program to set up 100 district councils to provide representative government in places where government has largely been absent. But the councils, backed by the British and American governments, also represent a critical element of counterinsurgency strategy: if they succeed, the hope is they will convince people that there is a viable alternative to Taliban rule. Since the beginning of the year, 35 such councils have begun work in nine provinces, and the American and British governments have pledged financing to establish 100 by July 2011, officials said. The ultimate goal is to have directly elected councils nationwide. “It is a vital, basic element of administration,” said Christopher Demers, an adviser for the Agency for International Development in Kandahar. “Building a people’s body like this is important; it is giving people an opportunity to speak with the government.” Military officials in the United States-led coalition have often expressed frustration at the inability of the Afghan government to move quickly into secured areas and start governing. Yet Afghan officials say that it is a lengthy task to build an administration from scratch and gain the trust of a population that has suffered at the hands of predatory officials and repeated military operations by foreign forces in recent years. In many districts, like Nadali, there is little government presence, often only a district chief and a police chief, both appointed by the central government in Kabul. They have few resources or personnel. Most district chiefs have no official car and an official budget of only $12 a year, the United Nations said last year. One of the successes of the Afghan government over the past eight years has been the National Solidarity Program, which set up small development councils across the country to undertake small reconstruction projects in every village. Yet it takes six months just to elect and train community councilors and two years to complete a village project, said Wais Ahmad Barmak, deputy minister in the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, who has 30 years experience in community development. In the most insecure areas, like Helmand, the ministry has had to suspend its work, he said. In Nadali it has taken a year of visiting villages and persuading people to cooperate with the government to get them to the point of electing the district council, said the district chief, Habibullah Shamlani, a former police academy instructor. After several gatherings around the district, 600 representatives were selected to come and vote for 45 councilors, all of whom must live in the district, a change from the absentee landlords or tribal chiefs who have traditionally made the decisions. “This district council should make all the decisions which affect the life of the district,” said Jelani Popal, who leads the local government directorate, an arm of the national government that is running the program. “We will use them for security reasons, like reintegration; they will be very active in deciding about development, but also governance; they can communicate or channel the grievances of the people to the governor and district governor.” Those who took part in the selection said they were taking the risk because they needed representatives to intercede with the government and the foreign forces on a variety of problems, from securing the release of detainees and compensation for war damage to resolving tribal and land disputes and winning development assistance for their areas. “We hope the government will do something for us if we have this district council and we can share our problems with the higher authorities,” said Feda Muhammad Khan, an elected councilor. “We are fed up with the fighting, and there is a drought, and we are hoping peace will knock on our door.” One of the main tasks of the council will be to persuade local insurgents to give up the fight and return to a peaceful life in the community, or if not to move away and stop destabilizing the area, Mr. Shamlani, the district chief, said. Already 40 people who were with the Taliban have been persuaded to quit fighting, he said. “We are working step by step,” he said. “We cannot put too much pressure on the people to reject the Taliban. Gradually now, people have found some courage to point out who are Taliban. If things are sustained the same as now I am hoping by next year we will know who is behind it all.” The key has been to deliver on promises of assistance and treat the people well, he said. “It takes time; you have to go and talk a lot and spend money,” he said. But there is already evidence that the Taliban are fighting the councils much as they have resisted other government initiatives. Some of the participants said they risked assassination if the Taliban in their area discovered that they were cooperating with the government. At least five councilors have been killed and one has been wounded since the four councils were formed in Helmand Province, officials said, presumably by the Taliban. And the representatives choosing the council here included Taliban members, several participants said. They, too, wanted representation to help win the release of their people who have been detained. Maj. Abdul Salam, who runs the police criminal department in Nadali, said the fact that 600 representatives showed up was itself a vote of confidence in the process. “These people are here because they have some hope that the government is gaining strength and they are hoping they can defend themselves,” he said. “But you are right, they are in some danger.”

Politics and Government
Afghanistan
Helmand Province (Afghanistan)
Afghanistan War (2001- )


Turkish Liberals Turn Their Backs on Erdogan

Abstract: ISTANBUL — For Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the antigovernment protests that have shaken Turkey have come with a jarring paradox: some of the protesters voted for him, most prospered from his economic policies, and some of the liberal intellectuals and columnists now calling him a dictator helped him win three successive elections with their writings. For Turkey’s liberals and urban elite, including some among the young, middle-class protesters who camped out in Gezi Park in Taksim Square here, the intense police crackdown — the use of tear gas and water cannons, and the detention of protesters, lawyers, journalists and medics — represented the final and most painful break with Mr. Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party. “The Gezi Park-Taksim thing has been the breaking point for the left,” said Cengiz Candar, a popular columnist who once supported Mr. Erdogan for his efforts to reduce the power of the military and to pursue membership in the European Union. “It’s not us that changed,” he added. “We remain as democrats; we want to extend individual liberties.” As Mr. Erdogan rose to power, many liberals, unlike members of Turkey’s old secular elite, who worried about a hidden Islamist agenda, overlooked Mr. Erdogan’s religious roots. They saw his faith in the context of personal freedom, not as a threat to Turkey’s secular tradition. They embraced him for his pursuit of European Union membership, now stalled, and for securing civilian authority over the military, whose influence had been pre-eminent in Turkey. Turks were joined by many Europeans and Americans, including President Obama, who embraced the democratic reforms that Mr. Erdogan implemented. Now, many of those onetime supporters say Mr. Erdogan and his party have taken a decisive turn toward authoritarianism, leaving them to face a period of self-reflection. “I was one of the European liberals who supported A.K.P. policies,” said Joost Lagendijk, a former member of the European Parliament and columnist who lives in Turkey, referring to the Turkish initials of Mr. Erdogan’s party. “There was a lot of sympathy for the reforms they were implementing.” Mr. Lagendijk said that he was never an ideological bedfellow of the A.K.P., but that he was attracted by Mr. Erdogan’s early pragmatism and by his support for constitutional changes to secure individual liberties and advances in rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority. “I’m a Green, I’m a liberal,” he said. “I’m not conservative or religious, but it didn’t matter.” These days, Mr. Lagendijk has had to fend off critics from his own liberal flank, who have been sending him Twitter messages and e-mails that all conveyed the same message: We told you so. Over the past few years, Mr. Erdogan had begun alienating his liberal supporters by intimidating the news media and pursuing large urban development projects without public feedback. Then in recent weeks a group of protesters trying to save a city park from demolition were met with a fierce police response, setting off the larger antigovernment street movement that challenged Mr. Erdogan, whose response to the crisis confirmed for many of his former supporters that he had taken a path they could no longer support. Beyond his democratic promises, many experts say Mr. Erdogan’s charisma won over many liberals years ago. Jenny B. White, an anthropologist at Boston University, spent time in Turkey in the 1990s researching the rise of Islamist movements, and followed Mr. Erdogan around while he was mayor of Istanbul. “He would ignore a table of bearded mayors after an event and talk to me like I was the only person in the world,” she said. “There is that aspect of it that really captured people.” She added, “The liberals voted for him because when he was elected in 2002 he did all these things liberals only dreamed of.” Not all on the left have broken with Mr. Erdogan. Nursuna Memecan, a member of Parliament from the A.K.P. who is close to Mr. Erdogan and identifies herself as a liberal, said she helped arrange meetings between some of the protest leaders and Mr. Erdogan in hope of brokering a compromise, and winning back some of his former supporters. That did not happen, though, as a tentative deal to save the park was disavowed by most protesters, and Mr. Erdogan ordered a decisive police raid on Saturday to clear the park. Referring to Mr. Erdogan’s rise to power, Ms. Memecan said: “The real liberals supported him. They had no prejudices against him or his religion or what class he came from. His piousness did not bother them.” Another paradox of Turkey’s uprising is that many of those now critical of his position — a cross section of urban, secular, mostly middle-class Turks — have benefited from the growing economy that Mr. Erdogan’s liberalizing policies created. Merve Alici, 26, works in advertising and participated in the protests. She comes from a secular, upper-middle-class family, but voted for Mr. Erdogan’s party in the last election despite warnings from her family that the prime minister was becoming too powerful. She said her choice was “mainly pragmatic.” “First, there was no opposition, and I liked how the A.K.P. challenged the army’s power,” she said. “Then there is the economy. Everyone wants stability and economic prosperity, and this was a campaign promise.” She said she took part in the Taksim Square demonstrations every day, and because of that she could never vote for Mr. Erdogan again, especially after he called the protesters terrorists and unleashed riot police officers on the crowds. “He is a political mastermind and is manipulating the truth on purpose to keep his voters,” Ms. Alici said. “He antagonizes the protesters on purpose with his harsh words. I don’t know what he is thinking.” Another former Erdogan supporter who joined in the protests was Esen Guler, 39, a guitarist whose band played in the square. “I voted for Erdogan in the past two elections because I thought he would lead us to democracy,” he said. “But power has gone to his head. He is no longer moderate, but a brutal dictator attacking his own flesh and blood.” Workers have been planting flowers in Taksim Square and scrubbing away the spray-painted epithets against Mr. Erdogan. When the square was filled with thousands of protesters, many of them young and expressing themselves politically for the first time, a common refrain among analysts was that Turkish politics would never be the same. Now that the square has been emptied by the strong hand of the police, the significance of what happened feels less certain. “The wounds are still fresh,” Mr. Candar said. “The lessons to be interpreted are still at an early stage. It’s hard to say how it will be different, but for sure it will be different.”


English Skills a Concern as Global Aviation Grows

Abstract: A FOREIGN tourist approached me in Times Square. “Please, where is ahhty-ahm?” he asked. At least, that’s what I heard, even when he slowly repeated the question. I was flummoxed until he took a bank card out of his wallet and made the motion of inserting it into an imaginary slot. “Oh, A.T.M.!” I said, and pointed the way to the nearest one. As he thanked me, the man seemed to speak English well enough. But his question had been incomprehensible to me because of his pronunciation — a short rather than long A, an accent on the first rather than last syllable of “A.T.M.” The exchange was inconsequential. But consider similar misunderstandings involving greater complexity in exchanges that are crucial indeed, like those, say, between airline pilots and air traffic controllers who do not share the same native language. Confusion often occurs. Sometimes it’s just amusing, like a 2006 recording of exchanges between an Air China pilot and an air traffic controller at Kennedy Airport in New York. The controller becomes increasingly exasperated by the pilot’s hapless English, to the point where you can almost hear the steam coming out of his ears. That recording, on YouTube as Air China 981 , is a favorite among air traffic controllers and pilots who have their own stories of language misunderstanding in global aviation. “It’s the most beautiful example of the problem,” said Paul Musselman, the chief executive of Carnegie Speech, a language education company that offers training on how to communicate more clearly in English to people who are not native speakers but need to use English on the job. The Air China example is beautiful because it is simply funny and no one got hurt through miscommunication. On the other hand, the list of aviation catastrophes around the world that were caused primarily by language misunderstandings between air and ground is long and tragic. In 1977, for example, two Boeing 747s collided on a runway at Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The disaster, in which 583 people died, occurred in a dense fog. But complicating the situation were misunderstandings of orders and acknowledgments between the aircraft on the runway and the air traffic controllers. International aviation authorities later drafted more strict requirements for the use of standard, clear common English phrases in aviation operations. As global aviation grows, concerns are rising about English-language proficiency among foreign pilots and air traffic controllers. In October, for example, the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United Nations that promotes international air travel safety and development, issued new recommendations to improve English-language training, “in response to fatal accidents in which the lack of proficiency in English was identified as a contributing factor.” English was mandated as the language of international flying in the years after World War II , as commercial aviation expanded worldwide. While common sense dictates that aviation needs a lingua franca, a language as rich in vocabulary and nuance as English presents some challenges in aviation operations, where communication is supposed to be terse and unambiguous. Still, aviation is now inextricably locked into English, and the need for better English communication skills is clear as more countries become major players in commercial aviation. Mr. Musselman’s company, for example, offers English-language classes in a program called Climb Level 4 to bring international pilots up to the so-called Level 4 standard set for English by the International Civil Aviation Organization. That is defined as a level where vocabulary and grammar are good, but also where “pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation” are adequate to communicate clearly and quickly in English. Carnegie Speech has a partnership with Pan Am International Flight Academy to offer its proficiency courses for international pilots at the company’s flight training centers in the United States and abroad. “We’re in the business of teaching someone how to speak English so they can be understood,” Mr. Musselman said. The program’s software is customized for each person, “so we can assess your English in terms of your speech, word stress, fluency, grammar and pronunciation,” he said. And English, as we all know, can be very tricky, not just in sound and meaning but in idiomatic forms we native English speakers take for granted. I remember a pre-theater dinner with my wife some years ago, at a restaurant in Times Square where the waiter, newly arrived from Milan, was clearly proud of his excellent English. When I asked for the check, however, I carelessly told him, “We need to make a curtain at 8 o’clock.” He looked crestfallen, with an expression that said, “Why does this man tell me he needs to sew draperies at 8 o’clock?” Mr. Musselman had a linguistic example more apropos to aviation. “I was in the Army, a Green Beret for 11 years,” he said. At parachute jump school, soldiers were required to say “Not clear” to respond negatively to any question, rather than simply “No.” “The reason is because ‘No’ sounds dangerously close to ‘Go,’ ” he said. And for a parachutist waiting by the aircraft door for the order to jump, he explained, the crucial command is “Go!” Clear?

Language and Languages
Airlines and Airplanes
Business Travel
English Language
Aviation Accidents and Safety
Air Traffic Control
Pilots