Apps Promise Less-Costly Weight-Loss Resolutions

Abstract: For most people who resolve to shed pounds after the holidays, the decision means shelling out cash — on packaged foods, books, health club memberships, a scale, liposuction consultations. Problem is, the only thing many people end up losing is money. But on a cost-per-pound basis, the newest class of weight-loss innovation could beat them all. Free and nearly free cellphone applications for dieters and aspiring hard bodies are proliferating in the various app stores for iPhones, Android handsets, BlackBerrys and others. In some cases it feels like the Internet, circa 1999, in that companies are giving away products that seem fairly valuable. Just as that early Internet practice screeched to a halt once everyone (well, almost everyone) came to their senses, this will too. So if you are thinking of shedding a few pounds, it might make sense to load a couple of these programs onto your phone before you devour your next pig in a blanket. I tested a handful of the most popular applications, including Lose It! (free, for the iPhone ), Calorie Counter (free, on Android and BlackBerry) and Calorie Tracker by Livestrong ($3 on iPhone, BlackBerry and Android). Lose It!, from FitNow, is the top choice of calorie counters, with 3.5 million downloads in the 14 months since it became available. But more noteworthy is that 190,000 people have bothered to rate the app, usually with high marks, which suggests that the software has some staying power. Based on a week or so of playing with it, the ratings are well-earned, and probably would be just as high if it cost a few dollars or more. At its core, Lose It! is a calorie counter and weight tracker, with tools for logging and watching your food intake. Enter a few personal metrics into the program along with your weight-loss goal and deadline, and Lose It! sets a budget for your calorie intake. The chief strength of the program is how nicely it balances simplicity and comprehensiveness. It includes nutritional information on more than 21,000 food items, including many that aren’t listed in the Agriculture Department’s database. If a turkey sandwich is on your lunch menu, you can search for variations, including those offered by major fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. Lose It! will put you down for 725 calories (Arby’s), 230 calories (Lean Pockets) or 360 calories (home made, on whole wheat). Checking your progress is a pleasure, at least aesthetically; nicely designed graphics show where you are in relation to your caloric budget for the day or the week. You can also link your data to Loseit.com , where you can view detailed full-screen reports and use a new service to trade diet notes with friends (or even anonymous folks, if you don’t want to tell friends when you gain 10 pounds). Progress can be posted on Twitter or Facebook as well. Since peer support can be so critical to dieting, it is somewhat surprising that this category of applications didn’t include social networking features from the start. The programs I tested either recently added, or will soon include, similar functions. For the legion of people carrying Droids, myTouch 3G’s and other Android devices, among the better choices is Calorie Counter, from the software developer FatSecret ( fatsecret.com ). Entering foods on Calorie Counter is, at times, slightly easier than with Lose It! Novice calorie counter that I am, I initially assumed Lose It! would add milk-related calories to my breakfast cereal. I searched for skim milk and added it just in case. When I clicked onto Calorie Counter, it eliminated my caloric confusion — and did away with a wasted step — by offering a “Frequently Eaten With” button near the cereal. Non-iPhone versions of Calorie Counter also have a bar code scanner that helps save a step when you are logging in frequently eaten foods. Sometimes, that is. The scanner often failed to lock onto a code, leaving me to manually type in the nutritional information for things like Marshmallow Fluff. Calorie Tracker is a more comprehensive alternative to Lose It!, but that blessing can also be a curse. The program, part of Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong ( livestrong.com ) stable of brands, has millions of food items in its database, and the service’s two million members add information on new foods daily. If Starbucks introduces a new flavored latte, Calorie Tracker’s developers say, the calorie information will show up in the database within a few days. Still, all that information can be overwhelming, as when you are offered 1,700 different variations for a turkey sandwich. Once you’ve found what you want, though, you can log your food preference to save time in the future. These nutrition-minded app developers know the yin and yang of fitness involves exercise more taxing than, say, texting. They also know that popular fitness programs like iFitness ($2 on the iPhone,) and Cardio Trainer (free on Android, with paid add-ons) are starting to include nutritional advice. As a result, the calorie-counting apps have begun adding their own fitness components. Calorie Tracker now allows users to account for calories burned during exercise. And relying on Mr. Armstrong’s training team for pointers, the program will in coming months include more advanced workout tracking features. Lose It!, meanwhile, includes calorie-burning information for 102 exercises, while Calorie Counter has similar functions. Software developers are often guilty of fattening their applications with so many new features that they end up like digital couch potatoes; slow moving and impossible to work with. But so far, these apps are carrying the extra weight nicely. Quick Calls The Dragon Dictation app (free on iTunes) has been a big hit for its ability to turn spoken words into text. But some people objected to the program because it required users to upload their contact names to the service, for accuracy purposes. Responding to those objections, Dragon dropped that requirement last week. ... NPR fans with Android phones can now create playlists of their favorite programs. The free NPR News app also allows users to find stations by location, among other things. But unlike NPR’s iPhone app, the Android app does not yet allow live streaming of broadcasts. ... Sprint’s Palm Pre and Palm Pixi are improved devices this week, thanks to a software upgrade. The new Palm WebOS version 1.3.5 offers better integration with Google Maps and Sprint Navigation and, most important, better battery life in low-coverage areas.

Smartphones
Weight
Computers and the Internet
Medicine and Health
Software


T-Mobile Uses a Stick to Push Paperless Billing

Abstract: IN August, T-Mobile got serious about paperless billing. It started charging a $1.50 monthly fee on all accounts that continued to receive a paper bill. Large companies would love to use paperless billing rather than the mail: it reduces their costs and at the same time allows chest thumping about being green. But offering their customers positive sweeteners hasn’t been very effective. T-Mobile tried another tack: a stick instead of a carrot. What woe it brought upon itself, however, when it told customers it was time to switch or pay up. Before this, T-Mobile promoted “Green Accounts” and “Green Perks” and offered to plant a tree for every customer who signed up for paperless billing, producing only modest results. Customers — including millions who had signed up for electronic bill payment — continued to receive a paper bill. T-Mobile had already begun last year to levy a $1.99 fee for a detailed printed version of the monthly bill (existing customers could choose to be grandfathered in without having to pay). Verizon Wireless has charged a similar fee, beginning with new customers in 2002 and expanding to existing customers two years later. But T-Mobile’s new $1.50 fee was a separate, additional charge, applied to all paper bills, short and long, and it didn’t provide an escape clause for existing customers. The new fee immediately produced an explosive increase in the rate at which customers converted to paperless billing. Before the August bills were mailed out, T-Mobile had an average of a little more than 1,000 customers sign up for paperless billing each day. When the $1.50 fee was added to the bills that went out in August, the number jumped to 33,000 a day, according to a spokesman. This was even before the charge really bit: for August, T-Mobile also added a matching $1.50 credit to every bill for the initial month, to give customers more time to decide whether to opt for paperless. The company sends out 16.5 million invoices each month, but the accelerated rate of signups in August made it possible to imagine converting the entire customer base to paperless in only 15 months — and fully realize the potential annual savings of 10.8 million pounds of paper, equivalent to 13,500 trees (T-Mobile will talk only of trees to be saved, not dollars). Companies can talk up the environmental aspects of paperless billing until they’re green in the face, but to little avail. Verizon Communications, which says it could save “millions of dollars annually” if it could switch entirely to paperless billing, is promoting its “Get Your Green On” sweepstakes, offering a Toyota Prius Hybrid as the grand prize. Customers who switch to paperless billing are entered in the contest. Angeline Depauw, the company’s director of remittance processing, said about 6,100 customers weekly were signing up for paperless billing before the contest began in early August. Now the rate is 17,000 weekly. This is an exceedingly modest gain, considering that Verizon still sends out 20.5 million paper bills a month. T-Mobile had concluded that the “voluntary approach” was “not something that would get the majority of our customers to paperless,” said Glenn A. Zaccara, a T-Mobile spokesman. I spoke with Mr. Zaccara and David Beigie, the company’s vice president for corporate communications, on Sept. 1, when enough time had elapsed for the company to see that the paper bill fee was having the desired effect of “putting a spotlight on the costs of preparing paper bills.” In defense of the customers who are reluctant to switch, many balk at absorbing the hidden cost of lost time: it’s a lot easier to rip open an envelope and glance at a bill than to log on to a company Web site and navigate to it. One can also be skittish about missing e-mail and text messages about a new bill that is available online; these are easily pushed out of sight by the deluge of daily messages. When I asked if they had received negative reactions from customers, Mr. Beigie said, “We heard a full gamut of reactions, but we’ve had many who say, ‘It’s about time we have a company moving in this direction.’” The voices of those customers who praised T-Mobile’s policy seem to have been drowned out by others. Dennis McKinney and Mallory LaBoube stand out from the rest: they are the named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed on Sept. 5 against T-Mobile in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The suit alleges that adding a fee in 2008 for the detailed paper bill and in August for all paper bills constituted “material modifications to the contracts by T-Mobile.” Ten days after my conversation with the T-Mobile executives, and six days after the lawsuit was filed, I received an e-mail message from Mr. Beigie that announced an abrupt end to the paper bill fee. In a phone call, he said, “At the end of the day, we hope to continue our drive to paperless billing, but be thoughtful about all of the different opinions out there.” To completely eliminate paper bills, T-Mobile now needs to summon considerable patience. If signups return to their earlier level, before T-Mobile’s little experiment in behavioral economics began and ended, the conversion will take a little more than 41 years.

Cellular Telephones
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Customer Relations
Computers and the Internet
Environment
T-Mobile


Radio Program About Faith Defies the Skeptics

Abstract: ST. PAUL — Not yet 30 and a veteran of two lives already, Krista Tippett retreated in the summer of 1988 to a rented room on an island off Spain. There, perhaps, her next direction would make itself known. She had grown up in Oklahoma as a fundamentalist Christian, a preacher’s granddaughter who sang solos in church, a homebody who had traveled beyond Texas only once. Then she won admission to Brown and recast herself as an unbeliever, taking up the study of German literature and history, and living in the same dorm as John F. Kennedy Jr. The trajectory carried her to Europe as a Fulbright scholar and soon into the diplomatic corps, working on arms-control issues along the cold war’s front line in Berlin. All of which made her wonder why, with a fulsome résumé and a social calendar to match, she felt “really unsettled in ways I couldn’t acknowledge or even explain.” So it was odder still, as she moved onto Majorca, to stir with an old, unbidden sensation. She told herself at first that she just wanted to meditate. Then she admitted that what she was doing was praying, returning not to the fierce theology of her Southern Baptist upbringing but surely to the way it taught her how to call on God. In that pivotal moment 22 years ago, Ms. Tippett, now 49, began the route toward reconciling her intellectual and spiritual selves. The process culminated in her founding and hosting a public-radio show, “Speaking of Faith.” By now, the weekly show, once met with skepticism in public-radio circles, qualifies as a phenomenon. Despite being broadcast in most markets in the God ghetto of 7 a.m. on Sunday, “Speaking of Faith” draws nearly 600,000 listeners on 240 stations across the country, a sixfold increase in both measures since 2003. The show also gets 1.3 million downloads a month. With both a Peabody Award and a best-selling book to her name, Ms. Tippett has become identified with a particular public-radio program the way, say, Ira Glass is with “This American Life” or Terry Gross with “Fresh Air.” The Tippett style represents a fusion of all her parts — the child of small-town church comfortable in the pews; the product of Yale Divinity School able to parse text in Greek and theology in German; and, perhaps most of all, the diplomat seeking to resolve social divisions. “My background as a diplomat is as important for this subject as my training as a journalist,” Ms. Tippett, who contributed reporting to The New York Times from Germany in the 1980s, said in an interview in her studio in St. Paul. “Religion is a touchy subject. You’re really getting at the core of people’s identities, an intimate place. This religious sphere in our public life is very charged, and I want to disarm that.” By design, Ms. Tippett avoids using religion as a proxy for politics — and she has been criticized at times on the blogosphere for a perceived timidity. She said she would not interview a proponent of intelligent design or a strident atheist , believing such guests would only polarize the discussion, though she has done shows about torture and the Sunni-Shiite divide within Islam. Most commonly over the years, she has shared her microphone with religious ethicists (modern interpreters of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr), textual scholars (Ellen F. Davis of Duke Divinity School), and scientists ruminating about the intersection of divinity and humanity (the physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne). “It is a carrier not only of danger but of some of the greatest gifts we have to give each other,” Ms. Tippett said of religion as a topic for journalism in a guest sermon at Yale’s Battell Chapel last year. “This is a part of life where we give ourselves over to essential, exacting, majestic questions that no other discipline quite presses in quite the same way: What does it mean to be human? What matters in a life? What matters in a death? How to love? How can we be of service to one another and the world?” Posing such questions on the air, Ms. Tippett is the antithesis of the fire-and-brimstone stereotype of religious broadcasting. Speaking in dulcet tones, allowing her guests to silently struggle for words, she offers a gentle yet unapologetic kind of God-talk. For all its current prominence, “Speaking of Faith” was far from certain of succeeding, or even existing. When Ms. Tippett first proposed a show about religion to Minnesota Public Radio in the late 1990s, “let’s just say there was a lot of skepticism,” recalled William E. Buzenberg, who was then vice president of news there. “It’ll never work as a show,” Mr. Buzenberg remembered some of his colleagues saying. “It’ll never work financially. Religion is too divisive. How can you do religion without being divisive?” Having overseen religion coverage as a news executive at National Public Radio , Mr. Buzenberg disagreed. So he gave Ms. Tippett $500 to produce a pilot, distributed it to about 30 stations throughout Minnesota, and received vigorous, positive response. One listener rounded up donations from 40 friends to keep the show going. Its name notwithstanding, Minnesota Public Radio produces and distributes shows nationally, as a kind of half-partner, half-competitor to NPR. Mr. Buzenberg’s next step was to persuade both MPR and NPR stations to carry “Speaking of Faith.” “There were a number of program directors who told me, ‘No way do we want religion on,’ ” Mr. Buzenberg recalled. When WNYC in New York picked up “Speaking of Faith,” though, other stations started to follow. “Speaking of Faith” now has a $1.3 million annual budget and is produced and distributed by American Public Media, which also has “A Prairie Home Companion” and “Marketplace” in its portfolio. “I get asked if I consider this show a ministry,” Ms. Tippett said. “I do like the word ‘vocation,’ a calling. If it is a ministry, it’s a ministry of listening rather than talking.”

Tippett Krista
Religion and Belief
Radio
Christians and Christianity
Minnesota Public Radio
National Public Radio
WNYC


In-Box — A Cheer for Players Showing Courage on a Social Issue

Abstract: To the Sports Editor: Re “Standing Up at an Early Age,” Sept. 15: It’s refreshing to see N.F.L. players addressing social issues, especially gay issues, and it takes a certain amount of courage to do so. I was a proud Rangers fan when Sean Avery stated his support of gay marriage. The Baltimore Ravens’ Brendon Ayanbadejo and the Minnesota Vikings’ Chris Kluwe are now on the list of players that this Giants fan will be rooting for. J. Kevin Hannon Orange, Conn. Forever Brooklyn To the Sports Editor: “The Brooklyn Game Had Its Own Beat” (Sept. 15) brought back wonderful memories of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s and ’60s: playing ball in the streets, schoolyards, Y’s and “the J,” going to the Garden and mixing it up with legendary characters. Brooklyn was a very special place to grow up in. It helped frame a generation of us to be who we are today: a bit zany, people-oriented, believers in equality and fair play. Norman Siegel New York Unfair to Harvard Athletes To the Sports Editor: “Cheating Scandal Dulls Pride in Athletics at Harvard,” (Sept. 19) reignited my exasperation with the dumb jock stereotype. Despite the fact that only a small number of those embroiled in the cheating scandal were athletes, this article suggests that all athletes should, at the very least, be suspected of cheating their way through four years. This is equivalent to saying that because 125 students at Harvard appear to have cheated on this exam, all Harvard students probably cheat their way through college. Even I, biased by affiliation, know that this is far from the truth and unfair to those students who work extremely hard to honestly achieve their diplomas. Athletes should likewise be shielded from such vast generalizations. Margot Benedict New York The writer is a former captain of the Yale varsity women’s sailing team. Ranking the Rankings To the Sports Editor: Re “Barkley Struggles; Stanford Upsets U.S.C.,” Sept. 16: Early on in the college football season, we find lower-ranked teams like Stanford beating high-ranked teams like Southern California. As the season goes on, the rankings shift based on teams’ performances, yet these games are still referred to as upsets even if the team that won is subsequently ranked higher. It is a travesty that any college football team gets a ranking before it has played one game. I would argue that until each team has played at least six games, no team should be ranked. Frank Coutinho Middleboro, Mass. No Reward for Risk Averse To the Sports Editor: Re “A Base-Stealing Sensation in an Era That Doesn’t Value Steals,” Sept. 16: In reading about Billy Hamilton’s remarkable 155 stolen bases, I was reminded of Lou Brock burning up the basepaths for the St. Louis Cardinals. Benjamin Hoffman called today’s baseball a “risk-averse environment,” as cautious major league managers choose not to run their teams into or out of big innings. But he neglected to point out — and calculating “Moneyball” managers may do well to recall — the debilitating effect skilled base stealers have on opposing pitchers. I saw Orlando Cepeda served up more than one fat fastball from pitchers distracted by Brock’s lead off first base. Kevin Sharp Memphis The Team’s Name: Browns To the Sports Editor: Re “Art Modell, Influential N.F.L. Owner but Not Always Beloved One, Dies at 87,” Sept. 7: The real disservice done to Cleveland by Art Modell was not the moving of the Browns but rather the firing of their founder, Paul Brown. The ramifications are still being felt throughout the team and the league. An N.F.L. franchise might have inevitably been founded in Cincinnati, but not with the network of connections it had in Brown. Modell’s problem was the same as that of any other insecure owner: the inability to comprehend what success is and what it takes to achieve it and maintain it. Joe Bialek Cleveland


Taliban Help Hundreds Tunnel Out of Prison’s Political Wing

Abstract: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Taliban staged an audacious prison break here early Monday, freeing at least 476 political prisoners through a long tunnel, according to the warden, Gen. Ghulam Dastagir Mayar. He said that security authorities had discovered in the morning that the prisoners from the political wing of the building were gone, and that the authorities had just found the tunnel. “We do not know if the tunnel was dug from outside or inside the prison,” he said. The Kandahar prison is the largest and most substantial prison in southern Afghanistan , and it houses Taliban who were captured in Zabul, Oruzgan and Kandahar, including some senior Taliban figures as well as many lower level Taliban, according to security officers working with the prison. It was the second time there has been a major prison break at the Sariposa prison in Kandahar. The Taliban orchestrated the freeing of 1,200 prisoners, of whom 350 were Taliban members, on June 13, 2008, staging an attack on the prison that killed 15 guards. The break comes at a critical moment in the Taliban’s fight in southern Afghanistan. Pushed out of their strongholds in the rural areas outside the city and under pressure from a large number of NATO troops who have fanned out into the villages, they have been able to maintain a presence, but nothing close to the dominant role they had even a year ago. Bringing back a large cadre of experienced fighters, many of whom will have been able to refine their skills in prison, will give the Taliban leadership the flexibility and human resources to send fighters into new districts where there are fewer NATO troops and bolster their numbers in those closer to Kandahar. A Taliban spokesman for the south and west of the country, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, said that a total of 541 prisoners had escaped and that among them were 106 Taliban commanders. “Now they are all in safe havens,” he said. In a deft propaganda ploy, the Taliban gave a gripping description of the prison break in a statement they sent out to the news media ahead of any comment from the security authorities who were just in the process of discovering the tunnel. Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in the statement: “We have planned and worked on this for five months, and the tunnel is 360 meters long,” he said. “This was very important for us; we were trying to not leave anyone behind, not even one sick or old political prisoner.” “Our mujahedeen worked in a very careful way” so as not to be discovered, Mr. Mujahid said. The tunnel wound under security check posts outside the prison and under a main highway. At 11 p.m. Sunday, three Taliban prisoners, who he said were the only ones who knew, “Went from cell to cell waking people and guiding each of them to the tunnel. More Taliban were on hand as the prisoners emerged from the dirt and dust of the tunnel to guide the dazed prisoners to waiting vehicles. Also on hand were Taliban fighters and suicide bombers in case the security forces woke up and there was a fight. “Luckily we did not have to use them,” Mr. Mujahid said. “The security forces did not know until sunrise.”

Afghanistan
Taliban
Prisons and Prisoners
Prison Escapes


Despite Obama’s Talk, Little Bump for Chrysler Sales

Abstract: DETROIT — Car salesman was probably not among the jobs that President Obama expected to assume during his first few months in the White House. And a slow weekend at many Chrysler dealerships around the country after the company filed for bankruptcy protection suggests that few consumers were moved by the president’s plea on Thursday to help Detroit’s automakers by buying an American car. The president’s sales pitch was cheered in Michigan and among Chrysler’s 3,200 dealers. And the company said his speech did help sell 11,400 cars on Thursday — although much of that could have been the inventory clearance that is typical for the last day of a month. But to the extent there was much action in Chrysler showrooms Saturday and Sunday, it often seemed to be shoppers hoping the company’s plight might prompt dealers to offer give-away prices even lower than deep discounts the company has already been dangling. But sales managers do not have much remaining wiggle room. “They’re ambulance chasers trying to take advantage” said Doug Swaim, general manager of Star Chrysler-Jeep in Glendale, Calif. “We bite our tongues and say, can you be more realistic?” Mr. Swaim said. “A lot of people hear the word bankruptcy and think worst-case scenario. They think Circuit City. That’s, of course, not the case here.” Many consumers remain nervous about paying tens of thousands of dollars to a bankrupt company. “I was just curious about how desperate they really are,” Jerry Hubbard, a professional truck driver who stopped by Medved Chrysler-Jeep in the Denver suburb of Wheatridge, said on his way to shop for antiques on Saturday morning. Chrysler now plans to essentially sell its assets to the Italian carmaker Fiat , and it is closing all of its North American plants for the next one to two months, but hopes to emerge from bankruptcy later this summer. But it could be late next year before the first Fiats, retooled to meet American crash protection standards, reach Chrysler showrooms. And it is not expected to be until sometime in 2011 that the first Fiat-designed vehicles start rolling out of Chrysler’s North American plants. Until then, Chryslers dealers are essentially buying time. “Through the restructuring process we will be business as usual with our dealers and our customers,” Steven J. Landry, Chrysler’s vice president of North American sales, said Friday. Although Chrysler is not going out of business, about 1,000 of its dealers soon could, according to its restructuring plan. Chrysler has about 3,200 dealers — nearly twice as many as Toyota, even though its market share is considerably less — and the company wants to thin out that network to improve its profit potential in the future. General Motors also is cutting dealerships — about 2,600 of them by the end of next year, according to that company’s plan. That means buyers of either company’s vehicles soon could find themselves having to drive further for service or parts. In the meantime, dealers are trying to survive while selling far fewer vehicles than in the past. Chrysler’s sales fell 48 percent in April, and new-vehicle sales plunged across the industry in the final week of the month, as talk of G.M.’s troubles and Chrysler’s bankruptcy prospects intensified. Consequently, Vince Capatosta, the owner of All Star Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep in Bridgeton, Mo., was thrilled to make 17 sales Thursday, his best day so far this year. But traffic dwindled again on Friday and Saturday. Still, Mr. Capatosta said he believed customers will stick with him through Chrysler’s bankruptcy. “Their relationship is with me and my staff, not with Chrysler, and they have faith in me, and I deliver,” he said. “These guys are all 20- to 25-year veterans. So consumers come in and see these familiar faces, it gives a customer a sense of relief.” There have been signs in recent weeks that American car shoppers do take Mr. Obama’s messages to heart. In a speech on March 30, even though he was rejecting the restructuring plans submitted by G.M. and Chrysler at the time, the president said one G.M. brand, Buick, was “the most reliable car in the world.” Buick sales were 21 percent higher in April than March. “Our president is behind us 100 percent, and that’s good for sales, service, the economy and the nation as a whole,” said Wes Skidmore, the vehicle sales director at Mission Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge in San Antonio. On Saturday, his dealership ran a newspaper ad with an American flag and the headline “Buy American.” Such messages resonate with shoppers like Bryan Kohler, 29, who test-drove a Jeep in Glendale on Saturday. “I didn’t even think about looking at others, at foreign cars,” Mr. Kohler said. “I’m trying to be patriotic, I guess.” Mehdi Asghari, a Chrysler salesman at the Bay Bridge Auto Center in Oakland, Calif., who previously worked at G.M. and Ford dealerships, said he had highlighted the benefits of buying American-made vehicles for years. “I always say to customers, ‘Buy an American car and help the U.S. economy,’ ” Mr. Asghari said. “’Plus, American cars have more cup holders. They have cup holders everywhere.’ ” Still, the fact that foreign brands now account for more than half of auto sales in the United States indicates that a vehicle’s origin has become less of a priority than styling and price. Fred Weaver, 57, browsing Saturday at South Point Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep in Austin, Tex., seemed to be balancing patriotism and his pocketbook. “I prefer an American-made car,” he said, “if I can get a good deal on it.”

Chrysler LLC
Bankruptcies
Automobiles
Sales
United States Economy
Shopping and Retail
Fiat SpA
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


New Mexico: Another Try for Record-Seeking Jumper

Abstract: If the winds cooperate, Felix Baumgartner will try again to make the highest jump in history and become the first sky diver to break the sound barrier. To reach an altitude of 120,000 feet in the stratosphere, he is using a helium balloon with a 550-foot-high gossamer plastic envelope that is most vulnerable when it is being inflated; the procedure can be done safely only when the winds at ground level are below 3 miles an hour. On Tuesday, a gust forced the launching to be tentatively rescheduled to Thursday and ruined the balloon, which cost several hundred thousand dollars. “It was, unfortunately, an extremely expensive dress rehearsal,” Art Thompson, the technical director of the Red Bull Stratos project, said Wednesday. The team is aiming for another try with a backup balloon on the next calm morning.

Baumgartner Felix
Parachutes and Parachute Jumping
New Mexico


A Grounded Plane and Anti-Clinton Passion: How Mike Pence Swayed the Trumps

Abstract: When mechanical problems grounded Donald J. Trump’s private plane on Tuesday night in Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence seized the opportunity. The jet-setting Mr. Trump had his three oldest children fly to meet him after he was unexpectedly stranded in Indianapolis, so Mr. Pence and his wife hosted the family for breakfast on Wednesday morning at the Tudor-style Governor’s Mansion. The families were chatting politely over coffee when Mr. Pence, a mild-mannered Midwesterner, delivered an uncharacteristically impassioned monologue, according to people with direct knowledge of his remarks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the meeting. With the vice presidency potentially hanging in the balance, Mr. Pence described his personal distaste for Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former president, and spoke of feeling disgusted at what he called the corruption of the 1990s. The monologue appeared to be a success . Even Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, a trusted adviser who had admired Newt Gingrich, came away swayed, believing that Mr. Pence could gel with the Trump team. Mr. Pence was not invited to join the Republican ticket that morning. But in a telephone call on Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump gave Mr. Pence a reassuring signal the job was his: “You’re my guy,” Mr. Trump told him, according to a person briefed on the conversation. Nonetheless, the courtship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence had all the caprices of a young romance. At first, Mr. Pence was standoffish and skeptical — only to become the suitor as the days wore on, fervently pursuing Mr. Trump and the No. 2 slot. And Mr. Trump’s vice-presidential screening process was unusually public, leaving admirers of Mr. Pence worried that he could end up being spurned or even humiliated. Having beckoned Mr. Pence to New York on Thursday, Mr. Trump nevertheless engaged in a final round of hand-wringing conversations with aides about whether he was ready to become partners with such a new acquaintance. Yet it was the breakfast gathering — for which Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen, picked fresh flowers — that appeared to have sealed Mr. Trump’s decision, capping a whirlwind three weeks that ended with the coupling of a thrice-married former reality television star known for vulgarity with an old-school Midwestern Republican of deeply conservative Christian faith. Video Donald J. Trump, then the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, announcing Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana as his vice-presidential running mate. Credit Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times Mr. Pence has neither the élan nor the bravado of Mr. Trump’s other vice-presidential finalists, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Mr. Gingrich. But Mr. Trump, a natural showman, has described Mr. Pence to associates as someone who looks the part, straight out of “central casting” with his clean-cut, silver-haired appearance. And Mr. Pence has admiringly called Mr. Trump “the people’s choice.” “It is fair to describe the relationship as fairly new and quickly flourishing,” said Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster to both Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence. Still, close associates of the candidates say they are not a natural pair. David Kensinger, a Republican strategist in Kansas who has advised Mr. Pence in the past, said the Indiana governor was a privately charming man with a strict filter on the public stage. “He tends to be very formal in public, and he had a reputation when he was in Congress of being a bit stiff,” Mr. Kensinger said. “Pence is a man of 21st-century ideas and 19th-century manners.” Only a few weeks ago, the partnership between Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence might have come as a surprise to both men, who had no personal relationship. They have still met with each other only a handful of times. An early and uncomfortable introduction, in the fall of 2011, came as Mr. Pence was preparing to run for governor and visited Trump Tower to seek a financial contribution from Mr. Trump. At the time, Mr. Trump was fascinated by gossip surrounding the marriage of Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, whose wife had divorced him to be with another man, and then remarried Mr. Daniels several years later. Mr. Trump declared to Mr. Pence that he would never take back a wife who had been unfaithful, according to the account of a witness. A second person briefed on the meeting described it as an awkward encounter for the strait-laced Mr. Pence. Michael D. Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Trump who attended many of his talks with politicians that year, said he did not remember the meeting that way. “Not only do I not recall this topic being discussed,” Mr. Cohen said, “it does not even sound like something Mr. Trump would ever say.” Mr. Trump sent a check for $2,500 to Mr. Pence’s campaign for governor, but no personal friendship blossomed. Indeed, when emissaries from the Trump campaign first reached out early this month to gauge Mr. Pence’s interest in the vice presidency, the governor told his political allies that he would meet with Mr. Trump — but only as a courtesy. Close advisers to Mr. Trump, including Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman, and Ms. Conway, the pollster for both men, were keen on the governor. Mr. Pence was less entranced by the idea. Donald Trump and Mike Pence: Highlights Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence appeared for the first time in public together since Mr. Pence was named as Mr. Trump’s running mate. Here’s how we analyzed it. But when the two men played a round of golf over the Fourth of July weekend at a Trump club in Bedminster, N.J., they began to warm to each other. Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, and Karen Pence came along. And the governor, seemingly sensitive to Mr. Trump’s boastful athletic self-image, later told NBC News that Mr. Trump had “beat me like a drum.” After golf, the two couples had dinner, and Mr. Trump learned that Charlotte Pence, the governor’s 23-year-old daughter, had accompanied her parents on the trip to New Jersey. Mr. Trump insisted that the foursome have breakfast the next morning with Charlotte, whom he disarmingly peppered with questions about her life. “The thing I think both of these men have in common is their preferred leisure time is to spend their time with their families,” Ms. Conway said. Mrs. Pence and Mrs. Trump, she added, “connected as mothers.” Friends noticed a shift after the holiday weekend: Mr. Pence no longer described conversations with the Trump campaign as a pro forma affair. Instead, he advised his allies that a spot on the national ticket, if offered, would be a hard prize to turn down. There were other signs, too, that the two men might be able to forge a partnership. They met again in April, at the Indiana Governor’s Mansion in advance of the state’s primary contest. The goal for Mr. Trump was to keep Mr. Pence neutral, at minimum, before the vote. (In a cruel irony for Mr. Christie, it was the New Jersey governor, then an adviser to Mr. Trump who had yet to become a rival to Mr. Pence for the vice-presidential nomination, who brokered the meeting.) The conversation was perfunctory but pleasant, and Mr. Christie told associates afterward that Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence had hit it off. Mr. Pence ultimately endorsed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas shortly before the primary, but he did not lash out at Mr. Trump or question his qualifications for office — a significant point Pence allies would later make. Mr. Pence impressed in other ways. Mr. Trump and some of his family members were delighted that the governor’s vetting check was completed quickly, with no red flags. For Mr. Trump, whose life has played out on the pages of New York’s tabloids, Mr. Pence’s lack of personal baggage came as a relief. And the other contenders had problems. The scandal over the shutdown of the George Washington Bridge was potentially hobbling to Mr. Christie; Mr. Gingrich, a self-described “pirate,” had a marital history equally colorful to Mr. Trump’s; Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa was inexperienced and evoked unflattering comparisons to Sarah Palin; Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee had a rough audition with Mr. Trump; and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama would face scrutiny of his record on race. On Tuesday, after Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence campaigned together, and Mr. Trump’s plane breakdown left him stranded in Indiana, the unlikely partners had an impromptu dinner at the Capital Grille. And at some point during the evening, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Pence if he would say yes, were Mr. Trump to offer him the No. 2 slot. “In a heartbeat,” Mr. Pence replied.

Mike Pence
Donald Trump
2016 Presidential Election
Vice President US
US Politics
Chris Christie
Republicans


Coca-Cola Beats Profit Forecast

Abstract: Coca-Cola reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday as strong international demand offset falling volume at home Coca-Cola said net income for the third quarter, which ended on Sept. 26, rose to $1.89 billion, or 81 cents a share, from $1.65 billion, or 71 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the company earned 83 cents, topping the analysts’ average forecast of 77 cents, according to Reuters Estimates. Revenue rose 9 percent to $8.39 billion as sales by volume increased 5 percent. Volume fell 2 percent in North America, but rose 7 percent internationally. Coke, which is based in Atlanta, said it was on track for its productivity initiatives to deliver $400 million to $500 million in annual savings by the end of 2011. The results from Coke come a day after its biggest rival, PepsiCo, posted a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on weak beverage sales and cut its full-year outlook because of a recent surge in the value of the dollar.

Coca-Cola Co
Company Reports
Soft Drinks


A Maybe Planet, Orbiting Its Maybe Sun

Abstract: Astronomers from the University of Toronto have published a picture of what they say might be the first image of a planet orbiting another Sunlike star. The planet, according to their observations, is 7 to 12 times as massive as Jupiter and is about 30 billion miles from a star known as 1RXS J160929.1-210524, about 500 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The picture was taken last spring by the 270-inch diameter Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, using so-called adaptive optics to reduce atmospheric blurring and thus sharpen the images of both star and planet. This is at least the third so-called exoplanet candidate that astronomers have photographed. In 2004, a group from the European Southern Observatory in Chile photographed a red speck about five times the mass of Jupiter orbiting a kind of failed star known as a brown dwarf in the constellation Hydra. In 2005, another group photographed an object that they estimated to be twice as massive as Jupiter orbiting the star GQ Lupi, but other astronomers said the object could be as much as 36 Jupiters in mass, making it not a planet but a brown dwarf. The Toronto astronomers say it will take several years to determine whether their planet is moving through space with the star and thus is really a planet. In the meantime, theorists can puzzle about how it could come to live 60 times farther from its star than Jupiter is from the Sun.

Stars and Galaxies
Space
Planets
Astronomy and Astrophysics


Alcatel-Lucent Takes $5.1 Billion Write-Down

Abstract: Alcatel-Lucent , the troubled French-American telecommunications equipment maker, took a 3.91 billion euro, or $5.1 billion, write-down on Wednesday, its biggest ever, an admission by its new chief executive of the company’s shrunken value. The one-time charge pushed Alcatel-Lucent to a fourth-quarter loss of 3.89 billion euros, or about $5 billion, compared with a loss of 2.58 billion euros ($3.3 billion) a year earlier. The quarterly loss was the company’s eighth consecutive since the $13.4 billion fusion in November 2006. “This charge sends a twofold message,” said Richard Windsor, an analyst at Nomura Securities in London. “One is that the execution of the Alcatel-Lucent merger has been a disaster. The other is that Alcatel significantly overpaid for Lucent.” Alcatel-Lucent’s share price rose as much as 4 percent as some investors wagered the company, which has struggled to cut costs, might be poised for a turnaround. Alcatel-Lucent has lost about 9.4 billion euros ($12.1 billion) and has taken 7.9 billion euros ($10.1 billion) in charges since the merger. The company is reorganizing its 77,000 employees and trimming 750 million euros ($971 million) in operating expenses, including cutting 1,000 management jobs and 5,000 contractors. So far, the measures have slowed but not stopped the deterioration of Alcatel-Lucent’s business. In the fourth quarter, Alcatel-Lucent’s sales fell 5.3 percent, to 4.95 billion euros ($6.4 billion), from the period a year earlier. In the division that sells equipment to phone carriers, which makes up two-thirds of Alcatel-Lucent’s business, sales fell 11.8 percent, to 3.3 billion euros ($4.3 billion). Ben Verwaayen, who took over in September after investors ousted the merger’s architects, said the write-down was necessary to reflect an assessment of the company’s true value. The charge was required because Alcatel-Lucent’s market value had declined below the book value of assets on its balance sheet, Mr. Verwaayen said. Its stock has fallen about 85 percent since the merger. About two-thirds of the write-down stems from good will paid in the merger, Mr. Verwaayen said, with the rest reflecting lower values for outdated product lines. Despite the declines in profit and sales, Mr. Verwaayen said the new focus on technologies like Long Term Evolution, a super fast wireless broadband, would improve results.


Before the Silk Road, the Grain Road

Abstract: Nomadic shepherds in the high plains of Central Asia used grain imported from China and southwestern Asia more than 5,000 years ago, according to a new study — perhaps to sprinkle over bodies in funeral rituals. The discovery came from a recent investigation of burial sites in Kazakhstan. The scientists, led by Michael Frachetti , an archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis, included a botanist and local archaeologists. Because what is now Kazakhstan was at a crossroads in the nomads’ path, the findings , published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, provide clues about the later emergence of the trade route known as the Silk Road . Early on, the nomads moved only by foot, spending winters in warmer valleys and summers in the mountains. Their seasonal moves broadened their interactions and helped disperse the grains, Dr. Frachetti said. “These folks were not traveling extremely long distances, but it spread fairly rapidly,” he continued. “You can imagine a story where a person goes down in the valley, starts trading seeds and takes them back.” The scientists also found evidence that by about 1500 B.C., the nomads were cultivating their own barley, wheat, millet and peas. Dr. Frachetti’s graduate students found remnants of grains from the period in an ancient domestic oven, a storage vessel and a kiln. “We see the evolution,” he said, “from the introduction of seeds used for ritual purposes to something that has impact on the local economy.” SINDYA N. BHANOO

Cereal
Archaeology
Silk Road
Central Asia
Proceedings of the Royal Society B


Sentence Cut for Bin Laden Figure

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani official reduced by 10 years the 33-year sentence of a Pakistani medical doctor who had helped the C.I.A. track down Osama bin Laden, local news media reported Saturday. The doctor, Shakil Afridi, was arrested in 2011 after members of an American Navy SEAL unit killed Bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound. The raid caused the tumultuous relationship between United States and Pakistan to plummet to a new low as Pakistan called it a violation of the country’s territorial sovereignty. In 2012, Dr. Afridi was convicted of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison. On Saturday, the judicial official, Munir Azam, the commissioner of Frontier Crimes Regulation in Peshawar, reduced Dr. Afridi’s sentence to 23 years. Dr. Afridi earned the wrath of Pakistani officials after he helped pin down Bin Laden’s location under the cover of a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad. But the charges against him in a tribal court accused him of aiding a banned militant group. Dr. Afridi denies the charges. Last August, Pakistani officials set aside the earlier conviction and ordered a retrial. But the decision on Saturday took the lawyers and family of Dr. Afridi by surprise. Samiullah Afridi, a lawyer for Dr. Afridi, was quoted by local news media outlets as saying that his client wanted a retrial and not a review of the earlier case. “We are not satisfied with the decision,” the lawyer was quoted as saying. The arrest of Dr. Afridi was a point of contention between Pakistan and the United States, and Americans officials have repeatedly urged the Pakistanis to release him. While the Americans portray Dr. Afridi as a hero, Pakistani officials and much of the local media have portrayed him as a traitor.

Shakil Afridi
Osama bin Laden
Criminal Sentence
US Military
9/11,Sept 11
Pakistan
CIA


A Taste of Asia in the Heart of Europe

Abstract: LONDON — It’s the south bank of the Thames, not the Himalayas. But the view should be great, anyway. When the Shangri-La hotel opens next month on 18 floors of the tallest building in Western Europe, it will be an attempt to bring Asian-style accommodations to business travelers in a Western financial capital. A Shangri-La hotel lobby can verge on sensory overload, with chandeliers of softly chiming crystals, and carpets and tapestries that depict images reminiscent of the paradise described in the James Hilton’s 1933 novel “Lost Horizon,” from which the Asia-based hotel chain takes its name. Then there’s the signature Shangri-La scent: a fresh, flowery essence at once clean, exotic and comforting. Those flourishes will be evident when the new London Shangri-La opens on May 6. As the chain heads deeper into Europe, after openings in Istanbul and Paris in recent years, Shangri-La is landing in London, but not in the affluent areas of Kensington or Hyde Park already flush with five-star hotels. Instead, it will be in the Shard skyscraper near London Bridge, making it the first five-star skyscraper hotel to open south of the Thames River — and the city’s first skyscraper hotel. In fact, the hotel’s presence in the Shard, a tower designed by the architect Renzo Piano, could prove to be the London Shangri-La’s biggest selling point. The Shard, which opened last June, has offices below the hotel and apartments above it, and the building is topped by a public viewing deck that has become a major tourist attraction. Positioned on Floors 34 to 52 in of the 72-floor building, the London Shangri-La resembles many of the hotel’s Asian properties. Founded in 1971 in Hong Kong and known across Asia as the ultimate homegrown luxury hotel brand — more than 50 locations in mainland China alone — many of its high-rise hotels are valued for their location above the urban clamor. “In the Middle East and Asia we are used to having hotels at the top or middle of a building, but this is the first luxury elevated hotel in Western Europe,” Darren Gearing, the London hotel’s general manager, said during a recent interview in the newly opened coffee shop on the ground floor. “The guest goes in at the ground level and is ushered into one of two elevators, and all of a sudden, 28 seconds later, they’re 125 meters in the air and they’ve got the London skyline.” Shangri-La remains unknown to many Western business travelers. Its only properties in the Americas are in Vancouver and Toronto. The other 110 properties are scattered around Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, from Mongolia to Australia to Oman. The company plans to open 10 more hotels this year and about 20 more through 2017 throughout China and elsewhere in Asia, while expanding into countries like Ghana, Qatar and Sri Lanka. “When we look at Shangri-La, it reminds me of when Four Seasons Hotels was created in Canada about 30 years ago,” said Stefan Fraenkel, a professor of hospitality at the École hôtelière de Lausanne, in Switzerland. At first, nobody outside Canada knew about Four Seasons, Mr. Fraenkel said. “As a North American company, it was like ‘Go west, young man,’ as the company focused on Europe and North America,” he said. “Today, with Shangri-La, it’s ‘Go east, young man.’ And the two brands are very similar in that they’re very focused on the individual. Image The hotel’s presence in the Shard, a tower designed by the architect Renzo Piano, could prove to be the London Shangri-La’s biggest selling point. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times “Shangri-La has a bit of the same DNA, in that it’s trying to position itself into something in the industry we call ‘the experience.’ But it’s more of an Asian experience.” The London hotel’s crown will be the 52nd-floor Gong, the highest bar in London, conceived by the Hong Kong-based interior designer Andre Fu. On the same level will be a swimming pool, also the city’s highest, and 24-hour gym — although no spa, because of space limits. The hotel’s one restaurant, Ting, will serve three meals a day. The T lounge, with a view of London over St. Paul’s Cathedral and westward, will serve Asian dishes in a bar atmosphere. The hotel will be one of the only Shangri-La properties without a Chinese restaurant, again because of a lack of space, Mr. Gearing said. But Asian food of many kinds will be available via room service. “If someone has come in from Singapore and wants a bowl of wonton soup at midnight, they’ve got it,” Mr. Gearing said. Room sizes will range from just over 300 square feet to more than 2,000, or about 30 to 188 square meters; marble-clad bathrooms will have heated floors and mirrors with integrated television screens. Standard room rates will start at 450 pounds, or $745, a night, excluding breakfast. The Shangri-La suite, on the 39th floor and offering 180-degree views of the city, will go for £19,000 a night. All business offerings — including video conferencing and the three conference rooms — will be available 24 hours, as will at least one staff member who speaks Mandarin, in addition to numerous other languages spoken by the 300-person staff. Tapping the London market is essential for Shangri-La, given that 10 percent of its clientele worldwide is British. The company is expecting that corporate travelers will make up 40 percent of its clientele at the London property. “Since it’s London, we know the leisure market will be strong, because our guests can walk to the Tower of London, the Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe,” he said. The usual Shangri-La offerings will be on hand: a welcome cup of tea, butler service in the hotel’s 17 suites, free Wi-Fi in all rooms. And then there’s that ever-present fragrance — the Shangri-La Essence, which is piped into the ventilation system and is even bottled and sold on the company’s website and in its gift shops. The company describes it as a mixture of vanilla, sandal, musk, bergamot and tea spiced with ginger. It’s the fragrance that greets Shangri-La guests when they return from the humidity and heat of Bangkok or, with the new opening, the drizzle and crowds of London. Or the boulevards of Paris. On a recent sunny April day in the French capital, the Asian touches were all on display at the Shangri-La amid the quiet common areas of the Belle Époque former palace of the French imperial prince Roland Bonaparte, great-nephew of Napoleon. “For me, the thing about Shangri-La that sells it every time is the size of the rooms and the little Asian touches that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Didit Ary Kurniawan, a resident of Jakarta, Indonesia, and a longtime Shangri-La customer who was visiting the Paris property for the third time. “The smell is the same everywhere you go, and it’s relaxing and a little exotic,” Mr. Kurniawan said. “No other hotel chain that I stay in has that sense of comfort that comes so easily.”

London
Hotels
Travel,Tourism
Business travel
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts
Shangri-La Hotel London


Governor Can Improve Law and Justice, In One Stroke

Abstract: In 2006, during a debate in the race for state attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo criticized his opponent for having failed to give a DNA test to a man who was in prison for a murder that he turned out to have had nothing to do with. A few years before that, Mr. Cuomo spoke at a party for a book written by a man who had spent 12 years in prison for having handled $500 in a drug sting. When Mr. Cuomo became governor last year, he arrived with as strong a set of credentials in criminal justice as any New York governor since Thomas E. Dewey, who served from 1943 to 1954. He also arrived with knowledge that no governor before him could have had: the results of 20 years of DNA testing that had not only freed innocent people — New York is second or third in the nation in wrongful convictions , depending on how you do the counting — but had also provided an X-ray of the invisible, broken bones of criminal justice. DNA tests got innocent people out of jail and, just as important, showed how they got there in the first place, exposing the parade of mistaken eyewitnesses and the chorus of false confessions. But Mr. Cuomo made no promises about cashing in on the lessons of the DNA era for reforms during his first year, and didn’t. The state was in the red, the health care system was financially decrepit, and his biggest legislative initiative involved marshaling votes for the legalization of same-sex marriage. He did not lay a glove on a world that he knows well. In addition, it now appears that he will end his first year as chief executive as many other governors and presidents of the last three decades have, by keeping his distance, at least publicly, from the granting of pardons and clemency. On both fronts, insiders say, that is likely to change. The governor’s advisers are now conducting intensive reviews of requests for pardons or clemency from people serving severe sentences for drug offenses that are no longer punished so harshly, from immigrants who faced deportation over relatively minor crimes in their distant past, and from others who may have been justly convicted but who are serving prison terms that will hollow out their lives, at no benefit to society. For those able to get their cases before the governor’s staff, his power to pardon and grant clemency can be a magical and restorative bullet. Mr. Cuomo does not intend to let that authority lie dormant, his chief spokesman, Josh Vlasto, said on Thursday. “It is a power that the governor will use practically and methodically to help ensure everyone is treated fairly under the law,” Mr. Vlasto said. The power to pardon, which is a rare and absolute authority granted to the executive, has fallen into disuse since the early 1980s, the chief federal judge in New York, Dennis Jacobs , said in October in a speech at the New School. A turkey is granted presidential clemency at Thanksgiving. President Ronald Reagan used the power to pardon a stock car racer with an ancient conviction for moonshine-making. The first President George Bush erased the record of a man convicted of stealing six-packs of beer when he was a teenager. President Bill Clinton doled out a pardon to a wealthy man who had gone on the lam from tax evasion charges. In New York, the only pardon George E. Pataki granted during his 12 years in office was to the comedian Lenny Bruce, 37 years after his death, for his conviction on the use of obscenities in his nightclub act. The frittering away of such a mighty power, Judge Jacobs said, was a wasted opportunity to fix what the court system could not. “What a shame that it should lie neglected or be put to trivial uses when it is the easiest way to improve law and justice decisively and at one stroke,” he said. A pardon takes care of one person’s problem but gets nowhere near the taproots of error from which injustice grows. For much of the last decade, the Legislature and various governors have been unable to agree on how to apply the lessons of the DNA era, like finding new ways to show suspects to eyewitnesses, and taping all interrogations of people in custody. Every time there’s a wrongful conviction, the state loses a chance at a “rightful” conviction. The guilty go free. The case that Mr. Cuomo talked about at that debate in 2006 is a prime example. While an innocent man was in prison for a murder that he falsely confessed to, the real criminal was on the street, and killed another young woman.

Governors (US)
Politics and Government
New York State
Cuomo Andrew M
Amnesties Commutations and Pardons


Nomination of Probst Indicates Thaw in U.S.O.C.-I.O.C. Relations

Abstract: The chairman of the United States Olympic Committee has been nominated for membership to the International Olympic Committee, a potential boost for the United States, which is seeking to expand its Olympic footprint. Larry Probst, the chairman of the U.S.O.C., could become the fourth American with the I.O.C., but the first from the national organizing committee in more than a decade, signaling a thaw in the chilly relationship between the I.O.C. and the American committee. A formal vote will take place in September in Buenos Aires, and Probst is expected to win a seat on the I.O.C., along with eight other officials, hailing from Sweden to Kenya. “I am truly honored to be nominated for membership in the I.O.C., and extremely grateful for the potential opportunity to serve the Olympic movement,” Probst said in a statement Tuesday. Probst was the chief executive for Electronic Arts from 1991 to 2007 and is now its executive chairman. Image Larry Probst, left, with Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, in May, has been nominated to the I.O.C. Credit Pool photo by Mathieu Belanger Since Scott Blackmun took over as the chief executive of the U.S.O.C. in 2010, he and Probst have tried to improve relations with Olympics officials after a recent history of tensions. Their efforts have paid off in appointments; Probst serves on the I.O.C.’s international relations commission, and Blackmun has joined the group’s marketing commission. Last year, the I.O.C. and the U.S.O.C. reached an agreement that allowed the American committee to move forward with bids to host the Olympics. In February, the U.S.O.C. reached out to representatives from 35 American cities to gauge interest in bringing the Olympics to the United States for the first time since Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games in 2002. The United States has not bid on the Games since Chicago lost out in hosting the 2016 Olympics. Three other Americans are on the I.O.C., but Probst could become the first official from the American Olympic group since Sandra Baldwin resigned in 2002 after she admitted to lying about her academic credentials. The three are Angela Ruggiero, a gold medalist in ice hockey; Jim Easton, a president of the World Archery Federation; and Anita DeFrantz, a bronze medalist in rowing. The United States still does not hold a spot on the I.O.C.’s powerful executive committee, but that could change depending on the next I.O.C. president, who will be elected in September. The other eight proposed I.O.C. candidates are from Romania, Brazil, the Philippines, Russia, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Netherlands and Sweden.

International Olympic Committee
US Olympic Committee
Larry Probst
Olympics


The Times Co. Sees No Urgency in Selling The Globe

Abstract: BOSTON — The New York Times Company still intends to sell The Boston Globe , but The Globe’s finances have improved enough that the company does not need to sell it, top executives said Wednesday, in their first meetings with Globe employees since the company threatened to close the paper. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. , the company chairman, and Janet L. Robinson, the president and chief executive, said that if they selected a buyer, it would be based not only on price, but also on how the new owner would treat The Globe. The two sessions, each an hour long with hundreds of employees at The Globe’s headquarters, was closed to outside journalists but was described by several people present — including some who spoke on the record and some who took notes — who gave nearly identical accounts. In a bitter episode last spring, the company said The Globe was on track to lose $85 million this year, and used the shutdown threat to wring major wage, benefit and job security concessions from labor unions, while also taking other steps to close the budget gap. After the largest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild, rejected an initial contract proposal, the company imposed a 23 percent pay cut, which was rescinded after the guild accepted a package of give-backs. On Wednesday, the company executives thanked employees for their sacrifices and Mr. Sulzberger said that as a result, “our hand is not being forced. We are not in a situation where we must absolutely sell.” But the executives would not say how much the paper was still losing, or whether it was now in the black. That drew a sharp comment from Brian Mooney, a reporter who was one of the most vocal opponents of the proposals put before the guild. He said the company had repeatedly fallen back on vague statements rather than providing hard numbers that would let employees make informed judgments. After the session, Mr. Mooney said, “There’s been a lot of damage done, and I don’t think these kinds of meetings make a difference.” In a question-and-answer session with the executives, Marty Callaghan, president of the pressmen’s union, spoke for many people when he said, “you banged us around really good” and said he feared more of the same from new owners. The tone of the exchanges was mostly polite, but there were a few flashes of anger. Jeanne Shimkus, who works in classified advertising sales, said she did not trust Mr. Sulzberger or believe what he said. According to those present, he replied that in that case, there was no point in their having a conversation. P. Steven Ainsley, the publisher of The Globe, acknowledged that he wants to start charging fees to online readers, but he said there were six approaches under consideration, each with potential pitfalls, calling it “a conundrum within a riddle.” During this year’s labor dispute, Globe workers complained that Mr. Sulzberger and Ms. Robinson had refused to talk to them directly, which they had not done since June 2008. Before taking questions on Wednesday, Mr. Sulzberger acknowledged that “reasonable men and women may disagree” about whether they should have addressed the employees earlier.

Boston Globe
Newspapers
New York Times Co
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Labor and Jobs
Sulzberger Arthur Jr
Robinson Janet L


Skillful Shots, and One Pants Pocket, Help a Swede Charge Into Contention

Abstract: PITTSFORD, N.Y. — For Jonas Blixt, a 29-year-old Swede and a Florida State graduate, the third round of the P.G.A. Championship was a day of sound and unblemished golf. He did not have a bogey Saturday and played seamlessly as he charged into title contention entering the final round. But there was one blip for Blixt. On the 18th hole, he hit his tee shot into the back pocket of a retired doctor’s slacks. But Blixt apparently knows something about playing by the seat of your pants. For starters, he knew the applicable rule. “I didn’t have to play it from there,” he said. Blixt got a free drop near where the fan stood. With a 5-iron, he lofted a shot to the 18th hole’s treacherous plateau green. The ball landed a bit short, but one odd bounce will often beget another, so Blixt’s ball skipped forward and rolled within 3 feet of the hole. His birdie putt rolled directly in the hole — as opposed to toppling in the side pocket — and Blixt had a brilliant round of four-under-par 66. That put him at six under for the championship, three strokes behind the leader, Jim Furyk. “I have never seen anything like that,” Blixt said of a shot that was somehow wayward and accurate at the same time. “I’m very fortunate that the fan was standing where he was. It stopped the ball in a good place.” That comment elicited giggles from reporters. Blixt guffawed as well. “Well, where I had to drop I didn’t have to deal with too many trees and stuff like that,” he said. “So, thank you, hat’s off to someone who did that to me.” The fan, according to The Democrat and Chronicle newspaper of Rochester, was Muhammad Khokhar, who was watching the tournament with his son and two granddaughters. “The ball hit me in the back, and then the next thing I knew, it was in my pocket,” Khokhar, 70, told the newspaper. Once Blixt made his way down the left side of the 18th hole, Khokhar, who did not appear injured, informed him where his drive had come to rest. Soon, Khokhar was holding the ball over his head as Blixt laughed and the surrounding crowd cheered and chuckled. The circumstances — the ball ending up in a fan’s pocket and Blixt making a pivotal birdie on a taxing par 4 — left Oak Hill Country Club abuzz. Blixt’s playing partner, Lee Westwood, was astonished. “How does that happen?” Westwood said. “I mean, these trousers I’m wearing are a bit tight. I couldn’t get a card and a pencil in my back pocket, never mind a golf ball. So that gentleman is doing well to catch that on the fly in his back pocket.” Westwood, an Englishman mindful of American baseball and what state he was in, added, “I think the Yankees ought to sign him up.” The back-pocket birdie overshadowed a spectacular round of golf for Blixt, who had several top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour late in the 2012 season and broke through with his first tour victory at the Greenbrier Classic in July. Blixt, a former hockey player in Sweden whose favorite sports team is the Detroit Red Wings, made steady progress on the various minitours until this year, when he has slowly worked his way up the PGA Tour money list, where he ranks 35th. But he is new to the spotlight. When he had to step onto a small, raised platform to address reporters after his round Saturday, Blixt said: “This feels a little weird to be here. It feels like going back to college speech class. I hated that. Now it’s even worse.” He was engaging, though, saying that he drank some coffee before Saturday’s round to give him an energy boost. But he said he drank too much coffee, which left him unsettled for the first three holes, even though he still played them in one under par. “I calmed down after those three holes and things got better,” he said. That is an understatement. As most of the golfers were beaten back as Oak Hill took revenge after exceedingly low scores Friday, Blixt charged up the leader board. He birdied the demanding fifth hole and the tricky ninth, then ran off eight consecutive pars. That kind of consistency was rare Saturday as Oak Hill’s greens and fairways dried out and the wind swirled. Afterward, Blixt seemed surprised that a major championship was now in reach. He will be playing in the second-to-last pairing of the day. That may be a new experience, but Blixt was still making a few promises. “No coffee tomorrow,” Blixt said. “Absolutely not. Nothing weird tomorrow.”


Wen Jiabao Encourages Chinese to Criticize Government

Abstract: SHANGHAI — Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is known for his populist approach and near constant presence in Chinese headlines. He often races to the scene of natural disasters to comfort survivors. On state-run television, he can be seen eating with the poor in rural villages. Though often stage-managed by Chinese news media, his common touch has earned him the nickname “Grandpa Wen.” But this week, the 68-year-old prime minister made what many analysts consider a bolder statement: he appeared at the nation’s top petition bureau in Beijing, where people go to file grievances, and encouraged citizens to criticize the government and press their cases for justice. “We are the people’s government, and our power is vested upon us by the people,” the prime minister said during the visit, according to state-run news media. “We should use the power in our hands to serve the interest of the people, helping them to tackle difficulties in a responsible way.” The crucial factor was the setting. The national petition bureau is known as a lightning rod for anger about official corruption, illegal land seizures, labor disputes and complaints of all sort, the kind of problems that reveal China ’s continuing weakness on the rule of law. In a nation that fiercely snuffs out any sign of dissent or challenges to the ruling Communist Party, the government sometimes deems it appropriate to detain petitioners here or to forcibly send them back home. But on Wednesday, the state-run news media showed images of the prime minister meeting two days earlier with a small group of petitioners at the bureau, officially known as the State Bureau for Letters and Calls. The state-controlled media reports said he encouraged government workers to handle the petitioner cases properly. Mr. Wen also instructed officials to make it easier for citizens to criticize and monitor the government. The reports said it was the first time a prime minister had appeared at the bureau to meet petitioners since the founding of the Communist state in 1949. In recent months, Mr. Wen has appeared to press for political reform, though analysts are uncertain about whether he is pushing on his own or with the support of a broader segment of the nation’s leadership. The media gave prominent display to articles about the visit on Wednesday, and blogs and Internet forums in China were buzzing with chatter about the visit. More than 6,000 postings about the visit appeared on the popular Web site Netease.com, many of them praising the prime minister. But there was also some criticism. On Sina.com’s popular Chinese microblog, someone named Langzi wrote, “Shouldn’t Wen be more concerned about how laws and rules are enforced?” Another blogger added, “Chinese people are still dreaming that a lord will come and implement justice.” Lu Yuegang, a journalist who writes about the plight of petitioners, called Mr. Wen’s visit a positive move but said the petition system was flawed and that the government should abolish it and work on implementing the rule of law with judicial independence. “The petition system has almost zero effect,” he said in an interview. “Most petitions received by the state bureau are sent back to the local governments, the place where the cases originate. The system is not a problem-solving system but a receiving-and-forwarding system. And it just recycles the cases. This is the core problem.” And Phelim Kine, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said that Mr. Wen had become adept at showing his concern for the poor but that the nation’s legal system was still ineffective, the very reason so many petitioners travel to Beijing. “Premier Wen consistently talks the talk on the crucial issues facing China,” Mr. Kine said in a telephone interview. “But can the government really make the changes necessary to fix a broken system? “The court system doesn’t work, and these people can’t get legal redress.”

Human Rights and Human Rights Violations


Iraq Suicide Bomber Kills Dozens at Checkpoint Near Babylonian Ruins

Abstract: BAGHDAD — At least 33 people were killed and 115 wounded in the Iraqi city of Hilla on Sunday when a fuel truck driven by a suicide bomber exploded at a checkpoint not far from the ruins of ancient Babylon. The Islamic State took responsibility for the fiery blast in a message on the Amaaq website, which is affiliated with the extremist group, and in a Twitter post. “The battle has just started and the coming will be worst,” the Twitter post said. Ali al-Hamdani, who owns a restaurant less than 350 feet from the checkpoint, said, “I felt an earthquake when the car exploded.” He added, “I immediately lay on the ground and saw flames all over the checkpoint.” Mr. Hamdani, 54, said that he had then stood up “to check on my friends who sell tea near the checkpoint,” and that “one of them was beheaded and others were killed.” Um Zahra, 32, a teacher, had been on her way to work in a minibus when the attack occurred around 12:30 p.m. “People were trying to evacuate injured people and burned bodies,” she said. “It was a very hard scene.” ISIS’ Territory Shrank in Syria and Iraq This Year The Islamic State has lost 14 percent of the territory it held in January, according to a new analysis. According to the authorities, the driver tried to enter Hilla — the capital of Babylon Province, about 70 miles south of Baghdad — but was stopped at the checkpoint. He then drove forward and detonated his explosives, which shredded the truck and engulfed other vehicles at the checkpoint in flames. The dead included many of the security officers who operated the checkpoint, the authorities said. “We have had information about it, but the security forces at the checkpoint weren’t qualified enough to deal with it properly,” said Falah Abdul Kareem, the head of the security and defense committee in Babylon Province. In 2014, a similar attack killed more than 70 people and injured 150 at the checkpoint, known as the Artifacts Checkpoint. The checkpoint was renovated with concrete barriers after that attack and provided with sonar devices to better detect hidden explosives. Some of the security personnel were trained to spot possible insurgents. Gen. Ali al-Zughaibi, the provincial police commander, said that the staff members at the checkpoint had become suspicious of the driver, but that he had started driving again, aiming for a crowd and moving too fast for the officers to stop him. As it has suffered defeats at the hands of Iraq ’s armed forces, the Islamic State has struck in supposedly safe civilian areas. On Saturday, Brett McGurk, President Obama’s envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, said at a news conference in Baghdad that the Islamic State was losing the battle with forces aligned against it in both Iraq and Syria, and that the coalition’s focus would turn to stabilizing cities seized from the group.

Bombs
Iraq
Terrorism
Hilla Iraq
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Civilian casualties


Versus Extends Contract With N.H.L.

Abstract: Buoyed by higher ratings this season, Versus has agreed to carry N.H.L. games through the 2010-11 season. The cable network, which is paying $72.5 million for the league’s rights this season, will pay inflationary increases over the next three years. “We’ve really benefited from our relationship with the N.H.L.,” said Gavin Harvey, the president of Versus. “It was a game-changer for us. We certainly feel we’ve seen great growth, but there’s major growth ahead. We feel positive momentum.” Versus, called the Outdoor Life Network at the time, made its first deal with the N.H.L. in August 2005, shortly before the league restarted after the 2004-5 lockout. The network exercised its option to extend its contract last month, but made public its decision Tuesday. “You don’t renew at these levels unless you feel you have a property that’s reached the objectives you’ve set,” said Bill Daly, the N.H.L.’s deputy commissioner. “Versus exercising its option tells you a lot about how they value the league.” Through 29 games, Versus’s 0.3 rating is modest, but it is 50 percent higher than the 0.2 average at the same time last season. In that period, viewership swelled to an average of 261,760 a game from an average of 195,666 a game last season. During the 2006-7 season, Versus’s N.H.L. rating stayed flat at a 0.2, but because of the overall growth of subscribers, viewership rose 31 percent to 212,366. Harvey said the deal was turning a profit. “Without the N.H.L., we’d be in a more difficult pickle,” he said. Since the Comcast-owned Versus acquired the rights to the N.H.L. — after ESPN vowed to drastically reduce its rights payment to the league — the network has grown by about 10 million subscribers to 74 million, more than 22 million fewer than ESPN or ESPN2. It has also increased its subscriber fee to about 26 cents a month, from less than 20 cents. Versus also carries the Tour de France, college sports, boxing and mixed martial arts, but Harvey views the N.H.L. as its marquee property. “If you’re into hockey, you’ll stay for World Extreme Cagefighting,” he said, “and maybe even for hunting and fishing.” He added: “It’s all coming together because sports fans are finding something new. It’s not replacing anything. We never said we’d replace ESPN or Turner.”

Versus
National Hockey League
Hockey Ice
Television


Player-for-Player Trades Remain N.F.L. Rarity

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — Last October, cornerback Asante Samuel accused the management of the Philadelphia Eagles of “playing fantasy football.” Samuel’s remark was seemingly intended as an insult, but the Eagles do have something in common with fantasy football owners beyond simply collecting big-name talent: a propensity for making player trades, especially when compared with most of the other teams in the N.F.L. Since Howie Roseman became the general manager in January 2010, the Eagles have completed 25 trades, 15 of which included players and not just the exchange of draft picks. Roseman has made two such deals this off-season, acquiring the Pro Bowl linebacker DeMeco Ryans from Houston and sending the former starting offensive tackle Winston Justice to Indianapolis. “I think it is organizational, and that starts from our owner, and that’s about being aggressive,” Roseman said. “We understand there are going to be mistakes made. But we’re going to learn from the mistakes, and that’s not going to stop us from being aggressive and try to make things happen.” The Eagles’ 15 player trades tie the Seattle Seahawks for most in the N.F.L. since the beginning of the 2010 off-season. No other team has made more than 10 player trades, and most hover around five. The teams in last season’s conference title games — the Giants, the San Francisco 49ers, the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens — made between two and six player trades during that period. Although there will probably be picks exchanged during this week’s draft, player trades remain a rarity in the N.F.L., especially compared with other sports. Executives and agents say the primary factor is the challenge of plugging a player into a specific system and the time it takes for a player to become acclimated to a new system and a new playbook. “A third baseman is a third baseman, doesn’t matter if they play for the Phillies or the Yankees,” Roseman said. But in football, a linebacker in a 3-4 alignment may not play as effectively in a 4-3. A receiving tight end could be ill-suited for a team that requires its tight end to assume significant blocking responsibilities. A cornerback specializing in man-to-man coverage may become devalued in a zone defense. One reason the Eagles were so interested in Ryans was that they thought he fit better in their defense than in Houston’s. The Texans went to a 3-4 defense last season, and Ryans was less effective than he had been during his two Pro Bowl seasons in a 4-3. “It’s back to what I do naturally,” Ryans said. “I’m a natural middle linebacker, and this is what suits my ability.” The Texans also faced potential salary-cap problems, another reason teams makes trades. But it is more of a factor in other sports than in the N.F.L., which does not require guaranteed contracts. In sports with guaranteed deals, teams often exchange a player with an undesirable contract for another player with an undesirable contract, or attempt to find a team willing to pay a hefty salary. In the N.F.L., a player can be released with little haggling over the deal. “A team can cut a player if they need to because they don’t have the burden of going forward carrying guaranteed money,” said Fletcher Smith, an agent who represents Donovan McNabb, who has twice been traded for draft picks. “You can’t cut a player in the N.B.A. without incurring an additional cost.” With 53 players in an N.F.L. locker room and the value placed on player development, teams are less willing to sacrifice a player or take on another for short-term gain. That is why a deal is more likely to be made for a draft pick than for another player. “Teams, including us, are much more hesitant to take a player that they know and feel strongly about and go see him have success elsewhere,” Roseman said. Andrew Brandt, ESPN’s N.F.L. business analyst, has been an agent and a team executive, working with Roseman in Philadelphia and in Green Bay with John Schneider, now the Seahawks’ general manager. Brandt said some organizations were less likely to move players, and others were more “adaptable” to trades. When told that the Eagles and the Seahawks topped the list of trades, Brandt did not seem surprised. “Those guys are always going to be looking under every rock to find players to help them, and they’re going to have more roster turn than other teams just in the way they think about player acquisition and player movement,” Brandt said. The rarest type of trade is the player-for-player deal. Schneider and Roseman completed such a deal in 2010 with a swap of defensive ends when the Seahawks sent Darryl Tapp to the Eagles for Chris Clemons and a fourth-round pick. Schneider was in his first year as the general manager and had worked with Eagles Coach Andy Reid in Green Bay, so there was a relationship. In a different off-season, Tapp would have been an unrestricted free agent and Roseman said the Eagles would have made him a target. But in 2010, because of the rules associated with a year with no salary cap, Tapp was still under the Seahawks’ control and the Eagles needed to make a trade if they wanted him. The deal was first discussed at the N.F.L. scouting combine in mid-February but was not reached until March 16 — after nearly a month of negotiations. “They were extremely creative on their part,” Schneider said. Smith, Tapp’s agent, said a big part of his going to the Eagles was his receiving a contract extension. Agents play a vital role in trades, especially when teams grant the player permission to seek a deal. Brian Mackler has seen clients like Domonique Foxworth, Deion Branch and Josh Wilson traded in recent seasons. When a team grants a player permission to seek a trade, his agent then tries to find the best situation for his client. Brandt noted that most player trade requests were euphemisms for wanting a new contract. Mackler said: “You don’t just want to get traded. You want to get traded where you have the ability to capitalize.” The N.F.L. is voting on a possible bylaw change that would move the trading deadline to Week 8 from Week 6. There were only two trades last season during the week of the deadline (a third, made by the Eagles, was voided), compared with at least 10 in the weeks of the N.B.A., N.H.L. and Major League Baseball trading deadlines. Brandt and Schneider agreed that a change could help facilitate more trades, although the same risks to consider when trading a player in March apply when dealing a player in October. In fact, concerns about a player’s adapting to a new team would be more pronounced during the season, without the benefit of minicamps and training camp. Roseman cautioned against reading too much into the Eagles’ high trade total in recent seasons. The Eagles were undergoing a roster transition, he said, and trading was a way to retool instead of rebuild. Of Schneider’s 15 deals in Seattle, 13 came in 2010 when he and Coach Pete Carroll were overhauling the roster. Yet an element to player trading is the personality and philosophy of the general manager and organization. Roseman and Schneider said that trades would not always work. Neither would all draft picks. But an executive, they said, must be willing to make a mistake and understand when it was time to trade a player. “I think you have to understand if you keep swinging, you’re eventually going to make contact,” Roseman said. “And the ideal scenario is that both sides feel good about the trade, because that will give you incentive to do business with them again.”

Trades (Sports)
National Football League
Philadelphia Eagles
Seattle Seahawks
Football
Schneider John
Roseman Howie


POW! Take That, Hitler! Men of Steel and Their Times

Abstract: Superman greets you at the entrance to “Reflecting Culture: The Evolution of American Comic Book Superheroes,” the alluring show at the Montclair Art Museum . A life-size statue of the superhero stands guard over the displays. Unlike other recent comic book surveys, which tended to focus on a group of artists, a publication or a period, the current exhibition traces the way in which comics have reflected the trends, events and concerns of our society from their “golden age” in the 1930s and ’40s to the present. It presents an argument for the social relevance of comics as a popular art medium. To make the case, Gail Stavitsky, the museum’s chief curator, has assembled more than 200 original comic drawings, rare comic books and graphic novels, many of them drawn from private collections around the country. One of the single biggest lenders to the exhibition is Michael Uslan of Cedar Grove, the executive producer of movies like “Batman” and “Batman Begins.” He obviously has a thing for superheroes. The modern comic book has its origins in the early 1930s as reprinted comic strips from Sunday newspapers. The superhero character makes an entrance a couple of years later with the arrival of Superman, the all-powerful alien from the planet Krypton, in the pages of a comic book from Action Comics in June 1938. His dual identity was apparently inspired by the double lives of the crusaders Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel, among a range of other influences, including mythological figures. The exhibition shows how the identities and concerns of superheroes have evolved over time to reflect social and political events. The original Superman of the Depression era, for instance, was a hard-nosed and rather cynical figure, a champion of working folk against the depredations of corporate greed and political corruption. In one of the comics on display, he foils a plot by some wealthy financiers to exploit the stock market and plunge the nation into another Depression. By the 1940s, however, Superman is playing a prominent part in supporting the Allies against the Axis powers. Batman was also enlisted in the war effort, having begun life in the pages of a comic book from Detective Comics in May 1939 following the success of the Superman formula. Of course, Batman was a dark and troubled human figure, relying on his scientific knowledge, skills and considerable personal fortune to pursue his activities as a vigilante crime fighter. A number of fresh superheroes dedicated initially to international conflict resolution emerged in the 1940s and ’50s, as world wars and ideological conflicts proliferated. Among them were the Green Lantern, Captain Marvel and the first-ever female superhero, Wonder Woman. Captain America, a mega-patriot, appeared on the cover of his 1941 debut comic book in his nationalistic red, white and blue costume, with his shield of stars and stripes, slugging it out with Adolf Hitler. The later sections of the exhibition are broken down into historical periods, with comic book displays and drawings reflecting the mood and tenor of the era. After a time of conformity and censorship in the late 1950s, comic books sprang back to life and popularity in the 1960s with the introduction of more believable, morally ambivalent and vulnerable superheroes, like Spider-Man, who made his debut in the pages of Marvel Comics in 1962. He was an instant success. Spider-Man and the superheroes that followed in the 1960s, including the Black Panther, Luke Cage, Shang-Chi and the X-Men, paid less attention to international conflicts than to social and political issues at home: drug abuse, the struggle for civil rights, environmental pollution, Watergate, women’s liberation and the rise of religious cults. Comic book heroes also filtered into wider public consciousness, with Wonder Woman appearing on the cover of the first issue of Ms. magazine in 1972 under the headline, “Wonder Woman for President.” The 1980s and ’90s were a period of change for the comic book industry, as it struggled to adapt to competition from interactive video technology and the Internet. Many of the popular comics of this period look like increasingly desperate attempts to cash in on the fame and marketability of existing superheroes: Superman dies in 1992, only to be resurrected and marry Lois Lane in 1996. More recent comic books continue to reflect a variety of social concerns and current events in an effort to stay relevant. For example, a 2001 comic has Spider-Man, Captain America and Daredevil helping to clear wreckage at ground zero after 9/11. In following issues they head out to bring those responsible to justice. Despite the industry’s concerns about the relevance of comics, the world may need superheroes now more than ever.

Comic Books and Strips
Art
Museums
Montclair Art Museum


Elephants Get the Point of Pointing, Study Shows

Abstract: We point to things without giving much thought to what a sophisticated act it really is. By simply extending a finger, we can let other people know we want to draw their attention to an object, and indicate which object it is. As sophisticated as pointing may be, however, babies usually learn to do it by their first birthday. “If you don’t get that they’re drawing your attention to an object, they’ll get cross,” said Richard W. Byrne, a biologist at the University of St Andrews. When scientists test other species, they find that pointing is a rare gift in the animal kingdom. Even our closest relatives, like chimpanzees, don’t seem to get the point of pointing. But Dr. Byrne and his graduate student Anna Smet now say they have discovered wild animals that also appear to understand pointing: elephants. The study, involving just 11 elephants, is hardly the last word on the subject. But it raises a provocative possibility that elephants have a deep social intelligence that rivals humans’ in some ways. Researchers use a simple but powerful test to see if animals understand pointing. They put food in one of two identical containers and then silently point at the one with food in it. Then they wait to see which container the animal approaches. While primates and most other animals that have been studied fail the test, a few have done well. Most of them are domesticated mammals, with dogs proving to be especially good at understanding pointing. These results have prompted some researchers to speculate that during domestication, animals evolve to become keenly aware of humans. Others have made a different argument: they propose that the wild ancestors of species like dogs were already keenly aware of each other. In fact, that pre-existing capacity may have made those wild species easy to domesticate. In the mid-2000s, Dr. Byrne began to wonder if elephants could pass the pointing test, too. He got the idea while he and a graduate student were conducting an experiment on wild elephants in Kenya. They found that elephants could distinguish the smells of people from hidden pieces of clothing. Sometimes, Dr. Byrne noticed, the elephants would curl up their trunks, aiming them at the source of the smell. “Maybe they were pointing,” Dr. Byrne said. “But we don’t know that. They could be just sniffing the breeze.” Image Carl Zimmer Credit Earl Wilson/The New York Times The logical way to start exploring this possibility would be to give elephants the pointing test. But these giant mammals are a lot more challenging to work with than a poodle. In fact, it wasn’t until last year that one of Dr. Byrne’s students, Ms. Smet, was able to run the test. Ms. Smet traveled to Zimbabwe, where a company called Wild Horizons offers elephant-back safaris. Each morning, while the elephants were waiting to take tourists on a trip, Ms. Smet would set up two buckets behind a screen. An elephant handler would bring one of the animals a few yards away from her. The elephant watched Ms. Smet lower pieces of fruit behind the screen and put them into one of the buckets. But the elephant couldn’t see which bucket she put the fruit in. “I actually checked that from elephant height,” Ms. Smet said. Ms. Smet then brought the buckets out from behind the screen and stood between them. She pointed at the one with the fruit inside, and the handler walked the elephant toward the buckets. Ms. Smet noted which bucket it stuck its trunk in first. For two months, Ms. Smet tested 11 elephants. When she crunched the data afterward, she found that the elephants picked the right bucket 67.5 percent of the time. (One-year-old human babies do a little better at these tests, scoring 72.7 percent.) Ms. Smet found that the elephants could follow her pointing whether she stuck out her whole arm or just used her hand. And when she simply stood between the buckets, by contrast, the elephants stuck their trunks in the buckets at random. Ms. Smet and Dr. Byrne published their results Thursday in the journal Current Biology. The scientists were able to rule out the possibility that the elephants learned to associate pointing with food over the course of the experiments. “They were just as good on Trial 1,” said Dr. Byrne. Other researchers were intrigued but cautious about drawing conclusions from the study. Diana Reiss, an expert on elephant cognition at Hunter College, wondered if the elephants had already learned about pointing by observing their handlers pointing to each other. “In these elephant camps such opportunities can easily go unnoticed by their human caretakers,” said Dr. Reiss. Dr. Byrne and Ms. Smet plan to address this question and investigate whether wild elephants can point to each other. “It makes us want to revisit visual signals by elephants for elephants,” said Ms. Smet. Dr. Byrne is also curious to know whether any other highly social wild mammals can also pass the pointing test. Whales and dolphins would be at the top of his list, but he isn’t holding his breath for those experiments to be published. “They make elephants look easy to work with,” he said.

Elephant
Science and Technology
Current Biology Journal
Research