Obama Says Vote Validates His Efforts on Taxes

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he would insist that tax increases on affluent Americans be part of any agreement to avoid a year-end fiscal crisis, setting up a possible confrontation with Congressional Republicans who say they will oppose a rise in tax rates for the rich. In his first remarks from the White House since his re-election, Mr. Obama made it clear that he believed his victory had validated his relentless campaign call for wealthier Americans to pay more and that he expected Republicans to heed that message. “I just want to point out this was a central question during the election,” he said in brief remarks in the East Room. “It was debated over and over again. And on Tuesday night, we found out that the majority of Americans agree with my approach.” Mr. Obama said he had invited Congressional leaders to the White House next week to begin talks as they return for a lame-duck session of Congress. He said he was willing to make some concessions as long as the final fiscal bargain was properly balanced between new tax revenue and spending cuts. “I’m not wedded to every detail of my plan,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m open to compromise.” At the same time, he encouraged Congress to quickly pass an extension of the existing lower rates for those making under $250,000 even while the broader negotiations take place. “While there may be disagreement in Congress over whether or not to raise taxes on folks making over $250,000 a year, nobody — not Republicans, not Democrats — want taxes to go up for folks making under $250,000 a year,” he said. “So let’s not wait.” The president’s comments came shortly after Speaker John A. Boehner , who had been striking a conciliatory tone since Republican election losses in the Senate and the House, told reporters that Republicans had won a mandate of their own by retaining control of the House and that he supported continuing rates enacted in the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels. “Raising tax rates will slow down our ability to create the jobs that everyone says they want,” said Mr. Boehner, who said he favored generating any new federal revenue to offset the deficit by closing tax loopholes and limiting deductions. “It’s clear that there are a lot of special interest loopholes in the tax code, both corporate and personal,” he said. “It’s also clear that there are all kinds of deductions, some of which make sense; others don’t. And by lowering rates and cleaning up the tax code, we know we’re going to get more economic growth.” The president and Mr. Boehner were careful with their language and left room for compromise despite their fundamental differences about shifting more of the tax burden to high-income Americans. Mr. Boehner would not be very specific on what his goal might be for raising new federal tax dollars. “I don’t want to box myself in,” he said. “I don’t want to box anybody else in. I think it’s important for us to come to an agreement with the president. But this is his opportunity to lead.” The speaker, who has struggled with his more conservative rank and file in the past, said he was confident that he could pass a deal if one was reached with the White House. “When the president and I have been able to come to an agreement, there has been no problem getting it passed here in the House,” he said. House Republican leadership aides found some positive signals in Mr. Obama’s combative tone. They noted that he never specified he wants tax rates to rise, only that he wants additional revenues generated by taxes on the rich. That would give both sides the latitude to devise a restructured tax code that eliminates or limits tax deductions and credits for the rich — or that follows Mitt Romney ’s proposal to cap deductions at a set limit for rich households, though many analysts say that approach alone cannot raise the revenue Democrats want. Any agreement to avert a fiscal crisis in January, when hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic tax increases and spending cuts kick in, now revolves around the definition of tax increases. Mr. Boehner is holding the line against any increase in tax rates, even for the richest Americans, who currently are in the 35 percent tax bracket. But he is leaving open the possibility of a tax overhaul that raises more revenue than the existing code. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland , the No. 2 Democrat, echoed the view at the White House that Americans want to see taxes on the wealthy go up. In a statement after Mr. Obama spoke, Mr. Hoyer said that “on Tuesday, the American people made it clear that they support a balanced approach to bring down deficits and set our nation back on a sound fiscal path — one that does not ask working families and those struggling to get by to bear the burden of deficit reduction, but instead asks the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.” While Mr. Obama was careful not to demand that tax rates rise, Jay Carney , the White House press secretary, said just an hour later that the president would veto any legislation extending the expiring tax cuts for families making $250,000 or more. For all the talk of compromise, neither side offered any suggestion of where it might back down. While both sides agree on the need to avoid triggering the automatic tax increases and spending cuts that occur if there is no deal — and there is deep concern that failure could harm the economy — the shape of a final compromise remains unclear. New reports this week by the Congressional Budget Office found that the automatic tax increases and spending cuts would cut the deficit by $503 billion through next September. But the reports said that the austerity could cause the economy to shrink by 0.5 percent next year, and would lead to the loss of millions of jobs. The Congressional leaders will be heading to the White House on Friday, administration officials said, just before Mr. Obama leaves for Cambodia , Myanmar and Thailand , where he will attend economic meetings with world leaders. He is certain to come under pressure there to reach a deal with Republicans since the American economy is doing better than most other global economies, and a slowdown in the United States is widely viewed as potentially catastrophic to the global economy. “It’s time to get back to work,” the president said at the White House. “And there is plenty of work to do.”

Federal Budget
Federal Taxes
John Boehner
Barack Obama
2012 Presidential Election
House of Representatives
Income tax


Study on I.Q. Prompts Debate on Family Dynamics

Abstract: The new evidence that eldest children develop higher I.Q.’s than their siblings has intensified the debate over two of the most stubborn questions in social science: What are the family dynamics that enhance intelligence? And can they — and should they — be changed? The new findings, from a landmark study published Friday, showed that eldest children had a slight but significant edge in I.Q. — an average of three points over the closest sibling. And it found that the difference was not because of biological factors but the psychological interplay of parents and children. Predictably, the study set off a swarm of Internet commentary from parents, social scientists and others, speculating about what in families could enrich one child’s intellectual environment more than others’. “Anyone with siblings wonders about this,” said Sue Monaco, 51, of Delaware, who has two sons and five siblings. She was one of about 150 readers who posted questions on Friday to a New York Times Web forum about the study. Researchers acknowledge that few of the family variables affecting intelligence are well understood, and some argue that peer influences are eventually more significant. But studies suggest that two elements are important during childhood: the perceived role a child has in the family; and the apparent benefit a child receives when he or she tutors someone else, like a younger sibling. Well before entering the high school hothouse of geeks and jocks, children who grow up with siblings get tagged with labels: The screw-up of the family. The airhead, the klutz, the whiner. And then there is the serious one, little Mr. or Ms. Responsible, who most often is the eldest, psychologists have found. “In our family we had the straight one, the oldest, followed by the one who snuck out,” said Elisabeth Ferris, 55, a former teacher who lives near Baltimore. “I was the one who snuck out, who had a lot more fun in high school, and who went to art school.” Studies suggest that other family members tend to consider the eldest the most conscientious of the siblings, more likely to achieve academically. At least for some firstborns, that role may be self-fulfilling. “I don’t know about our I.Q.’s but, yes, she was the more studious one,” Ms. Ferris said of her older sister. Psychologists say that filling the role of the responsible firstborn, while important to academic achievement, still does not account for eldest children’s higher average scores on intelligence tests. Robert Zajonc, a psychologist at Stanford University , has argued that in fact having a younger sibling or two diminishes the overall intellectual environment for eldest children — who otherwise would be benefiting from the rich vocabulary and undivided attention of parents. This helps explain why, under the age of 12, younger siblings actually outshine older ones on I.Q. tests. Something else is at work, Dr. Zajonc said, and he has found evidence that tutoring — a natural role for older siblings — benefits the teacher more than it does the student. “Explaining something to a younger sibling solidifies your knowledge and allows you to grow more extensively,” he said. “The younger one is asking questions, and challenging meanings and explanations, and that will contribute to the intellectual maturity of the older one.” (Only children receive the benefit of more parental attention but miss the opportunity to tutor a younger brother or sister.) Ms. Monaco, who has two sons in their 20s, said her oldest was expected to help his brother from an early age. “He was a teacher to his brother, and he has grown up to be a more intense thinker; he’s studying business management,” she said. “His brother is more easygoing, independent; he’s studying leisure and recreation and has an internship at a golf course.” The two are very close friends, she said. Parents who recognize the different niches that their children fill can enhance the family’s intellectual environment by exploiting each child’s expertise, researchers say. “Given the evidence we have on this, I would as a parent encourage late-born siblings to take on teaching roles, with other siblings or other children,” said Paul Trapnell, a psychologist at the University of Winnipeg. Dr. Trapnell compared this process to the so-called jigsaw approach used in classrooms, in which complex projects are divided up and each child becomes an expert in a particular task and instructs the others. Younger siblings often have something more to pass on than the tricks of their favorite hobby, or the philosophy behind their social charm. Evidence suggests that younger siblings are more likely than older ones to take risks based on their knowledge and instincts. It is important to keep in mind, too, that the new study found average difference in I.Q.; the scores varied widely from family to family. In many families, younger brothers and sisters eventually took the lead in I.Q., no matter if they were the screw-up or the whiner. Moreover, experts have long noted that while even slight differences in I.Q. score can be important for some, the test measures a narrow set of skills. Excessive attention to it can blind parents to the diverse and equally rich expertise that later-born children usually develop. The best way to react to the news, some psychologists said, is to relax. “When parents ask me what to do about this, I always say the same thing: nothing,” said Frank J. Sulloway, a psychologist at the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California , Berkeley, and the author of an editorial in the journal Science that accompanied one of the reports. Another report on the study was published in the journal Intelligence. “Younger siblings are more likely to take chances,” Dr. Sulloway added, and to challenge the status quo in creative ways. Jackie Orsi, 53, of Morrow, Ohio, grew up the youngest of four, five years behind her nearest sibling, and said she discovered in high school that she scored the highest on I.Q. tests. She remembers the sister closest to her bringing home books from elementary school to read to her. “The older three held me, cherished me, ragged on me, taught me, and gave me an acute view of life,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She added, “I spent my high school years absorbing their books. What a gift. I got my dad’s genius genes, and I got a boost from being last-born. Amen.”

Families and Family Life
Intelligence
Psychology and Psychologists
Children and Youth
Education and Schools
Stanford University
University of California


California Is First State to Adopt Sex Reassignment Surgery Policy for Prisoners

Abstract: California has become the first state with a policy of providing sex reassignment surgery for some prison inmates, adopting a set of specific guidelines on what services it will provide to transgender prisoners, state officials and advocates for transgender people said. The policy, which took effect this week, grew out of a pair of successful lawsuits filed by inmates. In one, a federal court in April ordered the state to provide surgery to a prisoner, which transgender advocates hailed as a landmark victory, but the inmate was paroled while that ruling was on appeal, making the point moot. Then, after years of fighting such requests, the state settled the other case in August, agreeing to surgery for Shiloh Quine, a convicted murderer formerly known as Rodney J. Quine, who is serving a life sentence. California’s prisons already provided hormone therapy to transgender inmates, but experts said the Quine settlement was the first time any state had agreed to taxpayer-funded surgical reassignment for an inmate. The new guidelines grew out of that settlement. “California has set a model for the country,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, a San Francisco-based group that represented the inmates in both cases. “This is care that, for too long, people have been denied simply because of who they are. It’s especially important because transgender people are incarcerated at six times the rate of the general population.” Under the new policy, the state will cover mastectomies as well as operations to remove and reconstruct reproductive organs. But it will not cover services the state considers cosmetic, including breast implants or procedures or drugs for hair removal or hair growth. A review committee of doctors and psychologists will decide whether to allow surgery, based on a prisoner’s physical and mental condition. And a request will be granted only if an inmate has more than two years left to serve before parole is expected; “has continuously manifested a desire to live and be accepted” with a particular sexual identity, including a desire for surgery, for two years; and has lived as a member of that sex, with hormone therapy, for a year. “They’re pretty conservative criteria — the inmate doesn’t just request surgery and then get it,” said Joyce Hayhoe, legislative and communications director for the independent agency that oversees prison medical care. The agency, California Correctional Health Care Services, is run by a court-appointed receiver who reports to a federal judge, under a 2002 court finding that medical services in the state’s prisons were inadequate. The new policy was drafted by that agency and the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which still controls prison mental health care. It is not clear how many people will take advantage of the new policy. Most transgender people opt not to have surgery, while many others have breast surgery but not genital operations. Out of 125,000 inmates in the California system, 400 are being treated for gender dysphoria, the condition of not identifying as the sex indicated by bodily organs, Ms. Hayhoe said. She said that gender reassignment operations and related care for one inmate could cost $50,000 to $100,000, compared with $500 to $3,000 a year for hormone therapy alone. A string of lawsuits around the country has tried to push prison systems into recognizing gender dysphoria as a medical condition requiring particular accommodations, and in one case chronicled in The New York Times , the Justice Department weighed in, siding with the prisoner. Virginia and Georgia have both paroled inmates seeking surgery before their cases could be resolved in the courts. Whether to provide surgery is not the only issue in such cases, nor is it the most basic. Some states have provided hormone therapy to transgender inmates, but others have not. And some house transgender prisoners according to the sex they identify as or make special arrangements for them, while others do not, which advocates say puts them at grave risk of being victimized.

Prison
Transgender,Gender Dysphoria
California
Surgery


Vicksburg, Miss., Gets Unwelcome View of the Floodwaters

Abstract: VICKSBURG, Miss. — Late Sunday morning, as the Mississippi River was rushing faster and higher past this town than it has in 183 years of record-keeping, Dontaye Buck was sitting perfectly still. He was staring at a calm puddle of water in which his house sat. A man standing beside Mr. Buck’s mailbox was casting a fishing line into a neighbor’s yard. “It never came this far,” said Mr. Buck, a 21-year-old college student. “The farthest it ever came was the backyard of that house back there.” The city of Vicksburg sits safely on lofty bluffs, except where it does not. The Kings neighborhood, where Mr. Buck lives in the north part of town, is one of the places where it does not. Sunday in Kings was, for the most part, as it is in any other neighborhood, full of lawnmowers, barbecues and men standing around talking about nothing in particular. The difference was the muddy lake that was slowly consuming the neighborhood from the back. Variances in elevation that would have gone unnoticed a few weeks ago now separate those who are nervous but dry from those whose houses are submerged nearly to the eaves. The water was not rising, residents said, so much as it was spreading, quietly. And the river that had pushed the water here was churning ferociously. Around 10 a.m. on Sunday, according to officials from the Army Corps of Engineers , the river broke the record elevation set here during the flood of 1927, rising to 56.3 feet, 13 feet above flood stage and 1.2 feet below the predicted crest on Thursday. It was flowing by at a rate of nearly 17 million gallons a second, which is the highest rate it is likely to reach in its entire race down to the Gulf of Mexico. Those numbers may be nerve-racking for those along its banks , but the weekend also brought some relatively good news: the failure of a predicted rain storm to appear has resulted in a lower estimated crest downriver at Natchez . Furthermore, the Yazoo River, engorged with Mississippi backwater, had been projected to overtop its levees at some point this weekend, flooding 285,000 acres of delta farmland and threatening some anxious country towns. But the overtopping, designed into the system as a sort of relief valve, has not happened yet. If the Mississippi comes in a few inches lower than predicted as it passes Vicksburg, the overtopping may not happen at all. “It’s going to be really close,” said Robert Simrall, the chief of water control for the Vicksburg district of the corps. These yardsticks are more or less irrelevant for the residents of Kings. While the river has been indifferent to income, folding over multimillion-dollar homes and valuable farmland in the delta along with single-wide trailers in Kings, the consequences for rich and poor vary considerably. “Out of the whole community, I would say it’s probably three families with flood insurance ,” Mr. Buck said. The worries here are as much about the water as what it will bring in the weeks it sits here. Snakes, of course. Just about everyone in the neighborhood knows someone who has recently seen an alligator, or killed one, or lost a dog to one. More acute is the worry about who might come to their homes if they have to evacuate, and what those people might do or take. The traffic was slow along Washington Street here, as gawkers pulled off on the increasingly narrow shoulder, emerging in Sunday clothes to take pictures of an old brick church that itself was undergoing something of a full-immersion baptism. “This is ridiculous,” said Tawanna Bush, a 36-year-old waitress at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, looking at the top third of her uncle’s house. “Is it a sign?” “Yeah, it’s a sign,” said Jackson Floyd, 49, offering the practical fatalism of those who have known hard luck. “It’s a sign that it’s time to move and get another house.”

Mississippi River
Flood
Levees and Dams
Vicksburg Mississippi


Confirmation Hearing Becomes Debate on Veterans Affairs

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Lawmakers on Tuesday used the confirmation hearing of Robert A. McDonald to lead the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs to debate whether the agency needed more money to remedy its institutional problems. The members of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs praised Mr. McDonald, a former chief executive of Procter & Gamble, as an ideal pick to resolve the challenges facing a department that is under fire for numerous issues, including masking the lengthy delays faced by thousands of veterans trying to see doctors. The hearing came a week after Sloan D. Gibson, the acting secretary, told the committee that it would cost $17.6 billion over the next three years to hire thousands of medical professionals and take other measures necessary to resolve the immediate concerns facing the department. The department manages the nation’s largest health care and workers’ compensation and disability systems, with an annual budget of $154 billion. Nine million people depend on its services. Senate Democrats argued Tuesday that Congress should meet the agency’s needs, while some Republicans cautioned that more money would not solve the department’s problems. “It’s an emergency situation, I believe,” Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, said. “It’s the cost of war.” Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, said he worried that Congress would not provide Mr. McDonald with the tools he needed. “You cannot hire people without paying them,” he said. “You cannot build stuff without paying for it.” Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, said the department needed to focus its funding on providing care rather than on creating more bureaucracy. “It doesn’t result in better care,” Mr. Moran said. “It doesn’t result in better providers.” Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska, suggested veterans should be able to seek care from private doctors, an idea being considered in legislation that would pay for patients who live a great distance from a V.A. site or who are on a long waiting list to do so. “I can’t believe that just throwing more money at the V.A. is the answer,” he said, adding later, “I personally believe that the V.A. needs competition.” President Obama’s selection of Mr. McDonald, the former chief executive of a corporation with about 120,000 employees and more than $80 billion in annual sales, was seen as an acknowledgment that management has been one of the department’s primary issues, contributing to an overall dysfunction that also includes outdated record systems and a backlog of disability claims. Mr. McDonald, a former Army captain who graduated from West Point, told the panel he would act quickly to improve the department, focusing on the health care system. He vowed to be transparent, even promising to give lawmakers his cellphone number. “When you run a large corporation, you have a cellphone,” he said. “It’s on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Among other improvements, Mr. McDonald said the agency would eventually need to change the way it evaluated and rewarded employees, which has been blamed for encouraging hospital officials to hide long waiting lists as they struggled with a shortage of doctors to meet veterans’ growing treatment demands. Some Republicans asked Mr. McDonald if he would be open to reshuffling the agency’s leadership, earning assurances that he was comfortable, after a long career in the private sector, making sure that he had assembled a good team. Lawmakers from both parties voiced strong support for Mr. McDonald. “We’ve got an opportunity in this leader to be able to help turn this around,” Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, said in introducing the nominee, who is from his state. The committee will vote Wednesday on whether to confirm Mr. McDonald to replace Eric Shinseki, the retired four-star general who resigned in May amid the waiting-list scandal. Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont, an independent and the committee’s chairman, said he expected Mr. McDonald to be confirmed.

Veteran Affairs
Robert A. McDonald
Federal Budget
Senate
Congress
Democrats
Republicans
Sloan Gibson
Barack Obama


When Gas Prices Lead to Roads Less Traveled

Abstract: What price would gasoline have to reach before it caused you to make a big change? Some people have already crossed that barrier. According to a survey by the NPD Group, a research firm, rising fuel prices have caused a small percentage of drivers to buy a more efficient vehicle or to move closer to their work. People are also making more-reversible changes, like working from home, canceling vacations, carpooling and taking public transportation. This is the first time since the late 1970s and early ’80s that a significant number of people are behaving differently because of gas prices, said David Portalatin, director of industry analysis for NPD’s automotive division. He noted that 2007 was the first year since 1980 that total miles driven in the United States actually declined when compared with the year before. Take note: 4 percent of drivers in the survey said they had decided to “work less” because of higher fuel prices. Grab on to this excuse for taking it easy while it lasts. PHYLLIS KORKKI

Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Automobiles
Consumer Behavior


Phelps’s Shot at 8 Golds Ends on Relay Team’s Miscue

Abstract: MELBOURNE, Australia, Sunday, April 1 — As it turned out, the only thing that could stop Michael Phelps from winning eight gold medals at these world championships was someone else’s mistake. It came in the final heat of the men’s medley relay Sunday morning, just when it seemed likely that Phelps would establish a new gold standard for a major swim meet. Phelps had already qualified for the final in his last individual event by recording the fastest time in the heats of the 400 individual medley Sunday, the last day of the championships. He then took a rest as his American teammates — Ryan Lochte, Scott Usher, Ian Crocker and Neil Walker — tried to qualify the American team for the final of the medley relay. It should have been a lock, but instead it turned into a shock, as Crocker left the starting block one hundredth of a second too early when Usher reached the wall at the end of the second leg. The American team was disqualified after the race, even though their time would have been the fastest overall by more than two seconds. The United States assistant Eddie Reese said that American coaches examined the footage of the takeoffs and declined to protest, and now Phelps will have to wait until next year’s Olympics in Beijing for another chance to win eight gold medals in the same major meet. He can still set a championships record with seven gold medals if he wins the 400 individual medley, an event in which he holds the world record. Seven has been swimming’s iconic number since Mark Spitz won seven times at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Crocker, who had lost to Phelps in a tight 100 butterfly final on Saturday night, declined comment after the relay. Reese, who is also Crocker’s personal coach, said he had never seen him start too soon. Instead, Walker was left to search for explanations in public. “Ian had an exciting race last night; to get up for the morning relay is tough,” Walker said. And what about Phelps? “Michael was doing something nobody has ever done before,” Walker said. “I think everybody will be disappointed, Michael included. But he’ll see this is what happens sometimes.” Swimming’s rules allow a relay swimmer the leeway to start three hundredths of a second early. Crocker left four hundredths of a second early. “That’s just incomprehensible, that amount of time,” Walker said. It was the latest strange twist during the final weekend here. On Saturday, when Phelps matched Ian Thorpe ’s record of six gold medals in a world championships, Thorpe’s legacy was called into question when the French sports newspaper L’Équipe reported that a drug test he had last May was being challenged by swimming’s world governing body, FINA. Although the organizers of the championships have been unable to fill all the seats in Rod Laver Arena for any of the swimming sessions, there was not an empty seat in the sometimes testy news conference in which FINA confirmed that it had filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. FINA is seeking clarification of the results of a drug test performed on an Australian swimmer by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority. Neither FINA officials nor the antidoping officials would confirm whether the swimmer in question was Thorpe, who retired in November at 24, citing burnout. According to the report, the test in May 2006 showed that Thorpe had an unusually high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone and also showed abnormally high levels of luteinizing hormone, a substance produced naturally by the pituitary gland that aids in testosterone production. Richard Ings, the chairman of the Australian antidoping authority, confirmed that those were the substances in question, but he said his group’s inquiry into the test results, which he cautioned should not be considered a positive test, was still continuing despite FINA’s appeal. “There is no suggestion that an athlete has committed an antidoping violation,” Ings said. “Media reports that an athlete has failed a drug test are simply incorrect.” Ings also said that the athlete in question was to have been notified by the antidoping agency next week, but was informed Saturday because of the news media speculation. Swimming Australia’s chief executive, Glenn Tasker, said that the Australian team coach, Alan Thompson, informed Thorpe about the report in L’Équipe on Saturday. “I know Ian is vehemently opposed to any sort of performance-enhancing drug,” Tasker said. Tasker was not concerned only for Thorpe. He was also concerned for the story’s impact on the championships. “I think it would be a real pity if this was to overshadow what Michael Phelps is doing here,” Tasker said. “It would be a travesty of justice because we are seeing something that no one’s ever done before.” That is not quite true, at least not yet. Phelps has broken four world records here and won six gold medals in six events, matching what Thorpe did in 2001 in Fukuoka, Japan. Phelps played down the numbers, saying that until Saturday he was unaware that Thorpe’s six gold medals was a record. “Honestly, the biggest thing about this week is trying to get through it and trying to compete at this level and try to swim as many events as I’m doing and be able to do them good,” Phelps said. Even without Phelps, this would have been a remarkable meet for the Americans, who have won 17 gold medals, three short of their best total for a world championships, established in 1978. Saturday continued the trend. The Stanford University swim captain Benjamin Wildman-Tobriner sprang a surprise to win the 50 freestyle in 21.88 seconds. Margaret Hoelzer set an American record of 2 minutes 7.16 seconds in the 200 backstroke, and Kate Ziegler completed her long-distance double by winning the 800 freestyle. The 100 butterfly was considered Phelps’s toughest race here. Crocker set the world record in 2005 by overwhelming Phelps in the world championships in Montreal, and Crocker led the way in the preliminaries, which explains why he was in Lane 4 for the final and Phelps was in Lane 6. Crocker was still ahead at the turn, but the 21-year-old Phelps had enough energy to catch him late in the final lap and lunge past him at the wall. “Honestly, I thought I botched the finish,” Phelps said. “I honestly thought I got touched out because of the finish, and it ended up being the other way around.” Phelps’s time of 50.77 seconds was the third fastest ever and a personal best; Crocker finished in 50.82. When the race was over, Crocker swam over his lane line toward Phelps, shook his hand and congratulated him on his phenomenal meet. But Crocker looked particularly pensive on the medal stand. “It’s hard to get up and slay the dragon every time,” Crocker said. But Crocker still managed to keep Phelps from winning a gold medal here, and from the look on his face as he shuffled away from the relay gone bad Sunday, there was no joy in it. “Ian is very, very sensitive,” Reese said, “and this is real tough for him.”

Phelps Michael
Swimming
Thorpe Ian
FINA
Testosterone
Steroids


Inquiry on Graft in Iraq Focuses on U.S. Officers

Abstract: Federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq have significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program, according to interviews with senior government officials and court documents. Court records show that last month investigators subpoenaed the personal bank records of Col. Anthony B. Bell, who is now retired from the Army but who was in charge of reconstruction contracting in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 when the small operation grew into a frenzied attempt to remake the country’s broken infrastructure. In addition, investigators are examining the activities of Lt. Col. Ronald W. Hirtle of the Air Force, who was a senior contracting officer in Baghdad in 2004, according to two federal officials involved in the inquiry. It is not clear what specific evidence exists against the two men, and both said they had nothing to hide from investigators. Yet officials say that several criminal cases over the past few years point to widespread corruption in the operation the men helped to run. As part of the inquiry, the authorities are taking a fresh look at information given to them by Dale C. Stoffel, an American arms dealer and contractor who was killed in Iraq in late 2004. Before he was shot on a road north of Baghdad, Mr. Stoffel drew a portrait worthy of a pulp crime novel: tens of thousands of dollars stuffed into pizza boxes and delivered surreptitiously to the American contracting offices in Baghdad, and payoffs made in paper sacks that were scattered in “dead drops” around the Green Zone, the nerve center of the United States government’s presence in Iraq, two senior federal officials said. Mr. Stoffel, who gave investigators information about the office where Colonel Bell and Colonel Hirtle worked, was deemed credible enough that he was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for his information, according to government documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with officials and Mr. Stoffel’s lawyer, John H. Quinn Jr. There is no evidence that his death was related to his allegations of corruption. Prosecutors have won 35 convictions on cases related to reconstruction in Iraq, yet most of them involved private contractors or midlevel officials. The current inquiry is aiming at higher-level officials, according to investigators involved in the case, and is also trying to determine if there are connections between those officials and figures in the other cases. Although Colonel Bell and Colonel Hirtle were military officers, they worked in a civilian contracting office. “These long-running investigations continue to mature and expand, embracing a wider array of potential suspects,” a federal investigator said. The reconstruction effort, intended to improve services and convince Iraqis of American good will, largely managed to do neither. The wider investigation raises the question of whether American corruption was a primary factor in damaging an effort whose failures have been ascribed to poor planning and unforeseen violence. The investigations, which are being conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Justice Department, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command and other federal agencies, cover a period when millions of dollars in cash, often in stacks of shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills, were dispensed from a loosely guarded safe in the basement of one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces. Former American officials describe payments to local contractors from huge sums of cash dumped onto tables and stuffed into sacks as if it were Halloween candy. “You had no oversight, chaos and breathtaking sums of money,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who helped create the Wartime Contracting Commission, an oversight board. “And over all of that was the notion that failure was O.K. It doesn’t get any better for criminals than that set of circumstances.” In one case of graft from that period, Maj. John L. Cockerham of the Army pleaded guilty to accepting nearly $10 million in bribes as a contracting officer for the Iraq war and other military efforts from 2004 to 2007, when he was arrested. Major Cockerham’s wife has also pleaded guilty, as have several other contracting officers. In Major Cockerham’s private notebooks, Colonel Bell is identified as a possible recipient of an enormous bribe as recently as 2006, the two senior federal officials said. It is unclear whether the bribe was actually offered or paid. When asked if Major Cockerham had ever offered him a bribe, Colonel Bell said in a telephone interview, “I think we’ll end the discussion,” but stayed on the line. Colonel Bell’s response was equally terse when asked if he thought that Colonel Hirtle had carried out his duties properly: “No discussion on that at this time.” The current focus on Colonel Bell is revealed in federal court papers filed in Georgia, where he has a residence and is trying to quash a subpoena of his bank records by the Special Inspector General. The papers, dated Jan. 27, indicate that Colonel Bell’s records were sought in connection with an investigation of bribery, kickbacks and fraud. Colonel Bell said that he sought to quash the subpoena not because he had anything to hide, but because the document contained inaccuracies. “If they clean it up, I won’t have a problem,” he said, suggesting that he would cooperate. He declined to detail the inaccuracies, although his handwritten notations on the court papers indicated that the home address and the bank account number on the subpoena were incorrect. Asked whether he knew why the records had been subpoenaed, he said, “That is not for me to direct what they’re going to do.” Another case that has raised investigators’ suspicions about top contracting officials involves a company, variously known as American Logistics Services and Lee Dynamics International, that repeatedly won construction contracts for millions of dollars despite a dismal track record. One contracting official committed suicide in 2006 a day after admitting to investigators that she had taken $225,000 in bribes to rig bids in favor of the company. At least two other former contracting officials in Iraq have admitted to taking bribes in the case and are cooperating with investigators. It is unknown what information they may have provided on Colonel Hirtle, a high-ranking contracting official in Baghdad. But Colonel Hirtle signed the company’s first major contract in Iraq in May 2004, a roughly $10 million deal to build arms warehouses for the fledgling Iraqi security forces, according to a copy of the contract and federal officials. The warehouses went largely unbuilt. Investigators said the inquiry into the Lee case was continuing. “I can’t talk to any media right now, because I don’t know anything about this and I’ve got to do some research on it,” Colonel Hirtle said when reached by phone in California, before abruptly hanging up. The next day, Colonel Hirtle said he had been “taken aback” by questions about an investigation involving himself. “I try to keep things as transparent and aboveboard as I can,” he said, referring questions to an Air Force public affairs office. The Air Force referred questions to the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, where a spokesman, Christopher Grey, said the command “does not discuss or confirm the names of persons who may or may not be under investigation.” An extraordinary element of the current investigation is a voice from beyond the grave: that of Mr. Stoffel, who died with a British associate, Joseph J. Wemple, in a burst of automatic gunfire on a dangerous highway north of Baghdad in December 2004 as he returned from a business meeting at a nearby military base. A previously unknown Iraqi group claimed responsibility for the killings, which remain unsolved. The men may simply have been unlucky enough to be engulfed in the violence that was then just beginning to grip the country. On May 20, 2004, a little more than a week after Colonel Hirtle signed the Lee company’s warehouse contract, Mr. Stoffel was granted limited immunity by the Special Inspector General for what amounted to a whistle-blower’s complaint. Copies of the immunity document were obtained from two former business associates of Mr. Stoffel. The picture of corruption Mr. Stoffel painted, including the clandestine delivery of bribes, was “like a classic New York scenario,” said a former business associate. “Fifty thousand dollars delivered in pizza boxes to secure contracts,” said the former associate, a consultant in the arms business with whom Mr. Stoffel sometimes worked in the former Eastern bloc. “Of course, it just looked like a pizza delivery.” It was Mr. Stoffel’s experience with Eastern bloc weaponry that helped him win a contract to refurbish Iraq’s Soviet-era tanks as part of a program to rebuild Iraq’s armed forces. Mr. Stoffel’s company remains locked in a dispute over payments it says are owed by the Iraqi government. His problems with American officials were what led him to make the accusations of corruption. Mr. Stoffel, the associate said, “was trying to do this as quietly as possible, to blow the whistle.” “He knew enough about what was going on, and he was getting pretty frustrated.”

Iraq War (2003- )
United States Armament and Defense
Frauds and Swindling
Ethics
Bribery
Defense Contracts
Bell Anthony B.
Stoffel Dale C.
Hirtle Ronald W.


New York City Settles Wrongful Conviction Case in Brooklyn for $6.25 Million

Abstract: Jonathan Fleming, who was cleared last year of a murder conviction after a decades-old phone receipt supporting an alibi emerged, has reached a $6.25 million settlement with New York City for years of imprisonment. The agreement, reached on Tuesday with the office of the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, reflects that office’s strategy of trying to resolve wrongful-conviction cases before lawsuits are filed. Mr. Stringer, whose office announced the settlement, has reached similar resolutions with other wrongly convicted men recently. Mr. Fleming was set free last year after spending 24 years of a 25-years-to-life sentence in prison. He had been convicted of killing a rival drug dealer in 1989 in Brooklyn, but had maintained he was in Florida at the time of the murder. In 2013, a conviction-review unit at the office of the Brooklyn district attorney examined Mr. Fleming’s case. In the case file, investigators found a receipt showing that Mr. Fleming made a phone call at 9:27 p.m. in Orlando, five hours before the shooting at 2:15 the next morning, making it nearly impossible for him to have returned to Brooklyn to commit the crime. In April of last year, a judge with State Supreme Court in Brooklyn vacated Mr. Fleming’s conviction. “Mr. Fleming spent nearly half of his life behind bars for a crime that evidence available at the time proved he could not have committed,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement.

False arrest
NYC
Jonathan Fleming
Office of the Comptroller NYC
Lawsuits


Hello, Pyongyang: Are. You. Ready. To. Rock.

Abstract: A “Sound of Music” medley. A cover of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe.” A martial-sounding version of the arena rock anthem “The Final Countdown.” A concert in Pyongyang on Wednesday by Laibach, an industrial rock band from Slovenia, was billed as the first live performance by a Western pop act in North Korea. And it left the audience with an eclectic view of just what makes a rock show. Laibach, which was formed in 1980 in what was then Yugoslavia, is known for embracing fascist imagery in its costumes and videos, but with a wink that signals parody. “We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter,” members said in an early 1980s interview. 1 day left to Laibach live in North Korea! #DPRK #laibach pic.twitter.com/FH6o5ffkXx — Laibach Informbiro (@Laibach) August 18, 2015 The band played at the Ponghwa Art Theater to a capacity crowd of more than 1,000 people. Several dozen foreigners were in attendance, including some Laibach fans who had come to the North Korean capital specifically for the show. But to most, it was an entirely new experience. In video clips from the concert, the audience watches passively and applauds politely between songs. “There are all kinds of music,” the BBC quoted one attendee as saying afterward. “Now we know that there’s this kind of music, too.” Laibach’s concerts in Pyongyang — another is scheduled for Thursday — are part of North Korea’s celebrations to commemorate the end of World War II and Japanese colonial rule. The official news media gave the Wednesday show a nod of approval. Image The band played at the Ponghwa Art Theater in Pyongyang on Wednesday to a capacity crowd of more than 1,000 people. In video clips from the concert, the audience watches passively and applauds politely between songs. Credit Dita Alangkara/Associated Press “Performers showed well the artistic skill of the band through peculiar singing, rich voice and skilled rendition,” reported KCNA, North Korea’s state-run news service. Morten Traavik, a Norwegian director who organized the band’s performances, said that the false impressions surrounding Laibach made the group a good fit to play in the authoritarian state. “North Korea is portrayed in the West as the world’s most closed country, but in fact it is more open to the outside world than the prevailing media narrative suggests,” Mr. Traavik told the BBC . “Both the country and the band have been portrayed by some as fascist outcasts,” he said. “The truth is that both are misunderstood.” Mr. Traavik, who in 2012 uploaded a video of young North Korean accordion players performing A-ha’s “Take On Me” that became an Internet hit, described the Laibach tour as a first by a foreign band. (At least one other foreign ensemble has performed in North Korea, the New York Philharmonic, in 2008 .) The Laibach performance drew attention from North Korea watchers, in part because of the group’s use of political imagery. In their Wednesday show, band members wore the Mao-style “people’s suit” favored by North Korean officials including Kim Jong-un, the country’s supreme leader. Foreign pop music is not entirely unknown in North Korea. Karaoke parlors in Pyongyang, especially those at hotels with foreign visitors, feature long lists of Western songs. A steady influx of Western and South Korean movies and music videos have also infiltrated North Korea, with CDs and computer memory sticks containing the prohibited materials available on the black market. Still, a performance by a Western rock band at a major concert hall in Pyongyang may have been a cultural shock for even those North Korean elites privileged enough to live in the showcase capital. Since taking power, Mr. Kim, who studied in Switzerland as a teenager, has tried to project the image of a fun-loving young leader open-minded enough to embrace some outside influence. In 2012, he and his wife, who typically dresses in what look like Western designer suits, attended a domestic rock concert featuring young women in miniskirts, Mickey and Minnie Mouse characters and the theme song from the “Rocky” movies.

Laibach
Pyongyang
Slovenia
Rock music
Morten Traavik


Gay Republicans at the Convention: Scarce, Except in D.C. Delegation

Abstract: CLEVELAND — Tucked into a remote corner of the Quicken Loans Arena, behind Puerto Rico and next to the spillover seats for Texas, were the 19 delegates for the District of Columbia. The delegation, packed with city-dwelling lawyers and lobbyists and representing a Democratic stronghold, is always an outlier at a Republican National Convention. But this year, the delegation bore a little-noticed distinction that set it far, and somewhat awkwardly, apart from the rest: It was the gayest group in the hall. More than one-third of Washington’s delegates — seven of the 19 — are gay or lesbian. More than most, they can attest that this has not been the best week to be gay and Republican. The party voted on Monday to adopt what supporters and detractors have described as the most socially conservative platform ever. It includes multiple disapproving passages on gay rights, gay parenthood and transgender issues. Delegates rejected efforts to add even the blandest platform language on gays, such as acknowledging that they are targets of the Islamic State or that the Republican Party condemns discrimination of gays. The Democratic Party platform has called for general civil rights for gay men and lesbians since 1980. When Newt Gingrich mentioned on Wednesday night that gays, lesbians and transgender people were executed by Islamic extremists, he was met with scattered heckling in the convention hall. The palpable unease over gays and gay rights loomed over a highly anticipated speech on Thursday night by Peter Thiel , the Silicon Valley software developer, who declared from the lectern: “I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all, I am proud to be an American.” After his announcement, there were no obvious signs of unease. Delegates around the arena rose and applauded, some chanting: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” Later Thursday night, Donald J. Trump dedicated himself to protecting gay and transgender rights. When the crowd broke into applause he said, “As a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering.” But displays like those were not the norm this week. “The party is becoming more and more narrow and more and more spiteful,” said Christian Berle, an environmental policy analyst and one of the seven gay delegates from the District of Columbia. He added that he was struggling more than ever with why he remained a Republican as many of his friends left the party. “I ask myself that question every day,” he said. Mr. Thiel’s appearance may offer Washington’s delegation a little solace. But the limited history of gay speakers at the Republican convention is probably not comforting. When Jim Kolbe, a gay congressman from Arizona, addressed the convention in 2000, he spoke about trade policy, making no mention of being gay or of gay rights. But that did not stop delegates from Texas, home of the nominee, Gov. George W. Bush, from removing their hats, bowing their heads and praying in a silent protest. Rick Perry, the state’s lieutenant governor at the time, explained their actions by saying , “Guess any time is a good time for prayer.” But to those from the nation’s capital, such rejection is rare, making the events of this week all the more stinging. Rachel Hoff became the first openly gay person to serve on the party’s platform committee. She introduced amendment after amendment that tried to soften some of the harder-line language on homosexuality and gave an emotional speech in which she urged her fellow delegates “to include me and people like me.” “My standing in the D.C. Republican Party isn’t threatened at all by this,” she said in an interview. “It’s actually enhanced.” And as she worked unsuccessfully to convince other Republicans in Cleveland that she was taking up a cause that was in the party’s long-term interest, she said, she detected some sympathy and concern. “I’d say the most common thing I heard was, ‘Thank you for being here and please don’t leave our party,’” she said. Like many gay Republicans from Washington, Ms. Hoff, a defense analyst, votes primarily on national security issues. Why their delegation is so heavily gay and lesbian is largely a function of their surroundings. They live in a city that has one of the highest per-capita gay populations. Many of them work in politics, which tends to draw large numbers of gay people in both parties. They were the only solely urban delegation at the convention, and big cities typically have large concentrations of gays. But one-third of the entire delegation is a remarkably high figure, given that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people make up less than 4 percent of the American population. “Really? There are seven?” asked Tim Costa, one of the gay Washington delegates, as he stood on the convention floor the other night in a blue hat with a “Trump” logo. Despite the less-than-welcoming posture many in his party have taken toward gays, Mr. Costa, a Medicaid lobbyist, said he never had second thoughts about being a Republican. “I started volunteering in Republican politics when I was 5 years old,” he said, adding that he was drawn to the party’s embrace of limited government. “I’m very comfortable and happy here.” José Cunningham, the chairman of the District of Columbia Republican Party, described himself as Republican primarily for national security reasons. But the party also aligns with other aspects of who he is, even if not with his sexuality. “I’m gay, Latino, American, pro-life, evangelical,” said Mr. Cunningham, a marketing executive for a law firm. “Why didn’t they put me onstage?”

Republican National Convention,RNC
Gay and Lesbian LGBT
Washington DC
2016 Presidential Election
Republicans


Greek Villagers Rescued Migrants. Now They Are the Ones Suffering.

Abstract: SKALA SIKAMINIAS, Greece — Stratis Valamios revved the motor on his small white boat and steered under a thumbnail moon out of the harbor of this fishing village, perched on the northern tip of Lesbos, Greece’s third-largest island. Skies were clear enough to see the purple mountains of Turkey a short distance across the Aegean Sea. It would be easy on this tranquil evening to catch calamari. These days, he needed a good haul to make ends meet. A year ago, he and other fishermen in the tiny village, Skala Sikaminias, were making a more unusual catch: thousands of sea-drenched asylum seekers who streamed across the Aegean to escape conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. Image Skala Sikaminias is nearly empty of tourists this year as visitors go elsewhere, wary of spending their vacation in a place now associated with human desperation. Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times As one of the landfalls in Greece that is closest to Turkey, Skala Sikaminias, with its 100 residents, fast became ground zero for the crisis, the first stop in Europe for people trying to reach Germany in a desperate bid to start new lives. “I’d be in the middle of the sea, and I would see 50 boats zigzagging toward me,” Mr. Valamios said, gazing across the narrow channel. “I would speed toward them, and they would throw their children into my boat to be saved.” Today the migrants have mostly stopped coming . The coastline, once littered with orange life vests and wrecked boats, has been cleaned to a near-spotless white. But the human drama has left an imprint here, and across all of Lesbos, in ways that have only begun to play out. The village is nearly empty of tourists this year as Germans, Swedes and other visitors who had long flocked to the crystalline waters of Lesbos go elsewhere, wary of spending their vacations in a place now associated with human desperation. Business at the island’s hotels and tavernas has slumped around 80 percent, especially along the 7.5-mile stretch between Skala Sikaminias and the vacation town of Molyvos, where many of the more than 800,000 migrants who survived the crossing last year washed ashore. Mr. Valamios used to supplement his income as a fisherman by working five months of the year at Myrivilis’ Mulberry taverna, facing the bucolic port where fishermen mend yellow nets beneath oleanders and village cats prowl for fish. This year, he was asked to work just one month amid a dearth of customers. Nearly 1,000 Greeks in the area have lost seasonal employment. Among the villagers, there is a sense of incomprehension. When the refugee crisis started in earnest, many were thrust into the role of good Samaritans. With endless generosity, they banded together to rescue thousands of Syrians, Afghans and other migrants in peril, months before humanitarian aid groups and European governments arrived to help. “The whole village is proud of what we did,” said Theano Laoumis, who helps run the To Kyma taverna. On the taverna’s beach, refugee dinghies had landed in an unceasing stream. “You didn’t know who to save first, there were so many people. But we did save them. It was only natural. That should bring good publicity, not bad.” The drop in business has hit Lesbos as Greece has struggled to emerge from a lengthy economic crisis. Some are bitter that the refugee tide has added to their woes. Image Stratis Valamios, a local fisherman, helped rescue many of the migrants as they neared the shore. “If it happens again, everyone will do the exact same thing: We will help,” he said. Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times “I don’t want them to come back,” said Nikos Katakouzinos, a fisherman. “They’ve done enough harm to the village and to the island.” Yet most residents in Skala Sikaminias do not blame the migrants. Many locals are themselves descendants of Greek refugees who fled Turkey amid war with Greece in the 1920s. Today they are bewildered by criticism of Syrians and others escaping conflict and risking a perilous crossing of the Aegean, which also turned into a graveyard for more than 1,000 men, women and children whose journeys ended in tragedy. Such images surface often from the collective memory of Skala Sikaminias, now that calm has returned and the Aegean is again a flat, clear expanse. Image A Spanish lifeguard team during a training exercise on the beach of Skala Sikaminias. Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times On a recent evening, Mr. Valamios steered toward a lighthouse that many of the migrants aimed for as they neared the Greek shore from Turkey. One of his first rescues here was in 2009, before the crisis reached its apex. Refugees were already starting to come from the Middle East, and a plastic boat crammed with 20 people was sinking. He managed to rescue 10; the rest, children among them, slipped beneath the waves. “Before then, I didn’t know what drowning was,” said Mr. Valamios, a trim, pensive man. “I realized that if you don’t know how to swim, you sink like a stone.” After Chancellor Angela Merkel said last year that Germany would welcome refugees, boats started swarming in by the thousands. The Greek government, in the midst of an economic and political crisis, was woefully unprepared. So the village fishermen sprang into action, racing toward waterlogged dinghies as screams echoed over the water. “Our people were in shock — there were so many babies,” Mr. Valamios recalled. “We took the babies first, then returned for the adults. Often you didn’t know if the children would wind up orphans.” He paused, then clenched his jaw. “We saw many people die.” The village soon set up a rescue system. If someone saw a migrant boat in trouble, he or she would alert the fishermen to head out. Residents gathered on shore to meet incoming boats and help survivors, who at one point numbered around 5,000 a day. Women, led by village grandmothers, took the newcomers to a small house, where they dressed them in donated clothes and administered milk to babies. Image Yorgos Sofianis, a shepherd, was among those stationed on the beach. “On some of the kids, you could see scars from the war back home,” he recalled. “Even the biggest hater would change his heart if he saw that.” Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times Yorgos Sofianis was among those stationed on the beach. He is a shepherd, his stable standing atop a hill where he could see the dinghies arriving. “At first, even my sheep were scared because of all the screams,” he said. “But, like us, they got used to it.” “It was a third-world situation,” he recalled. “The streets were paved with people. On some of the kids, you could see scars from the war back home. Even the biggest hater would change his heart if he saw that.” Amid the chaos, Mr. Sofianis found a measure of salvation. His teenage son and daughter died recently of a rare form of epilepsy, over two successive Christmas Eves. “One night, a kid landed on the beach who looked so much like my dead son,” he said. “I turned away in tears. How much can a person take? At least that boy lived.” He pursed his lips, and gazed sadly at the sea: “That’s what saved me, helping these children. Because I couldn’t help my own.” By last July, more Coast Guard boats patrolled the waters, and nongovernmental organizations swarmed the area to help. Then, international news crews descended on the village, jostling for footage of the human drama. “It turned into a spectacle,” Mr. Sofianis said. “Sometimes they would stop photographing and help the refugees, but many were just here for business.” At the Mulberry taverna, Lefteris Stylianou, the owner, surveyed his half-empty cafe and spoke bitterly of the aftermath. “They wanted to sell pain, when we gave our all to help,” he said, referring to the news media. “Please, tell people that it’s safe and beautiful here again. We need the tourism.” As summer ebbs, the village is still struggling to return to normal. The healing seems a long time coming. The villagers no longer experience the sea in the same way. When they look at the horizon, some say they think for a split second that another refugee boat is coming. “We have to be ready,” Mr. Valamios said. “If it happens again, everyone will do the exact same thing: We will help.”

Middle East and Africa Migrant Crisis,European Migrant Crisis


Broncos’ Manning Is Sharp, Spoiling 49ers’ Housewarming

Abstract: Peyton Manning threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Julius Thomas and dominated in his two series, leading the Denver Broncos to a 34-0 preseason rout of the host San Francisco 49ers on Sunday and spoiling the N.F.L. debut of the $1.2 billion Levi’s Stadium. Manning, 38, entering his 17th season after throwing for an N.F.L.-record 55 touchdowns last year, completed 12 of 14 passes for 102 yards and a 120.8 rating. He was 8 for 8 on Denver’s second drive. Then the backup Brock Osweiler took over and threw for a score and led another touchdown drive in a matchup of the past two Super Bowl losers. Demaryius Thomas had three catches on Denver’s opening drive, including a 20-yard gain. That gives Thomas 10 receptions for 89 yards in Denver’s two victories against the N.F.C. West’s powerhouses, the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco. Colin Kaepernick went 5 for 9 for 39 yards in his two series in front of a sellout crowd at the 49ers’ new stadium in the heart of Silicon Valley. Major League Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes beat the Seattle Sounders on Aug. 1 in the stadium’s first sporting event. FALCONS LOSE LINEMAN Atlanta’s revamped offensive line had a major setback when left tackle Sam Baker was ruled out for the year after injuring his right knee in a preseason game. The Falcons announced Sunday that the injury-prone Baker sustained a torn patellar tendon in a 32-7 loss to the Houston Texans. Jake Matthews, a first-round pick, could move from right to left tackle to replace Baker. The Falcons ranked last in the league in rushing yards last season, and quarterback Matt Ryan was sacked a career-high 44 times, in addition to being pressured 203 times, most in the N.F.L. Baker played in four games last season before a left knee injury required surgery in November. The Falcons were counting on improvement with Baker’s return, the drafting of Matthews with the No. 6 overall pick, and the signing of the free-agent guard Jon Asamoah, another instant starter. JAGUARS RECEIVER RETURNS Cecil Shorts III, a Jacksonville receiver, has returned to practice and could play in Friday’s preseason game at Detroit. Shorts was back working with the first-team offense a little more than three weeks after straining his right hamstring in the team’s opening training camp practice. Shorts made it through the session without any problems, a positive sign for a receiver who has not been able to stay on the field in 2014. “It felt good just to be back out there with the guys,” said Shorts, a fourth-year pro. “I’m definitely rusty, so I’ve got to come out here, continue to work, not get frustrated and understand this is really my first practice since April or something like that.”


Legends of East 56th Street

Abstract: IN a city as big and complicated as New York, many buildings have their shares of urban legends, tales of ghosts walking, lurking in the service elevators or haunting the storage areas. Imagine what life must be like in the Dakota on West 72nd Street near Central Park, where fiction (“Rosemary’s Baby” was filmed there) merged with stranger-than-fiction tenants like Boris Karloff and Judy Garland. My building, a 40-story co-op on East 56th Street near Sutton Place, also has its share of memories and myths. One former tenant, the rogue trader Ivan Boesky, was led through the lobby in handcuffs at the time of his arrest in 1985. Betty Furness, the actress turned Westinghouse spokeswoman, was a tenant, as was Jessica Savitch, the television news anchor. In the 1970s, an episode of “Kojak” was filmed there. But what most people don’t know is that in the 1990s some residents used to go skinny-dipping at night in the rooftop pool. At least that’s what Judy Lewis, the building’s unofficial historian, tells me. That must explain why the pool, with its view of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, is closed after dark. Other stories associated with our building involve the Jackson Five, who once lived on an upper floor, and supposedly shared space for a time with their agent. Quite serious gossip also has it that the emergency doors to the 40th floor are chained shut because the swells who live on the penthouse floor don’t want outsiders sullying their hallway carpets. And what about the scandalous affair between the maintenance guy and the widow? Everyone knows someone who saw them together in a stairwell. Because my building bans dogs, except those grandfathered in when the apartment house went co-op more than 25 years ago, there are also many tales involving pets. It is said, for example, that people whose dogs die simply replace the late pet with one from the same breed. As a result, there are owners claiming their dogs are 25 years old. Look at it, they will say — same markings, same cute tilt of the head. There are also some truths associated with our building, one of which I witnessed with my own eyes: One day a woman using our rooftop gym came in with a small stuffed groundhog, which she propped on a window sill overlooking the United Nations. “Comfy?” she said to the toy. “I’ll be back soon.” She then proceeded to grunt and groan as her trainer put her through weight-lifting exercises. Finally the woman took the stuffed groundhog down from the window sill and deposited it on the bench next to her. “You’ll be more comfortable here,” she said.


Trying to Save the Oceans, One Small Grant at a Time

Abstract: In the vast areas of the planet covered by water, human activity threatens the survival of countless species. There was a time, for example, when manta rays were tossed back, dead or alive, when they were accidentally trapped in fishermen’s nets in places like Sri Lanka. Now their dried gills are prized in China for treating everything from cancer to measles — without any proof that they are effective — and one of the sea’s most majestic creatures is being fished nearly out of existence. In Pakistan and India, the blind Indus River dolphin, one of the most endangered species, swims a shrinking stretch of water, trapped by development and dams. And in Chile, fishermen who cannot afford to properly dispose of torn nets simply tip them into the sea, adding to the offshore trash that chokes seabirds and fish. Image Josh Stewart, a marine biologist with the Manta Trust, collecting a skin biopsy from a manta ray off the coast of Mexico. Credit Octavio Aburto Overfishing, habitat loss and pollution threaten species in so many places that research and conservation organizations cannot do all that is needed. So, with the aim of making a dent through small, targeted efforts, the New England Aquarium, which sits on Boston’s downtown waterfront, has for 15 years awarded microgrants to projects across the globe. The aquarium’s Marine Conservation Action Fund has paid out $700,000 since 1999, supporting 122 projects in 40 countries on six continents. Elizabeth Stephenson, the fund’s manager, calls these projects “stories of hope for the ocean.” The grants are modest. One researcher, Rohan Arthur, used his $6,700 payout from the fund to buy a “secondhand, beat-up compressor” to fill his scuba tanks. But the support allowed him to maintain his critical assessment of coral reefs in the Arabian Sea off the west coast of India. Dr. Arthur, a senior scientist at the Nature Conservation Foundation in Karnataka, India, said that in some ways, he preferred the scale of the New England Aquarium gifts. Image A tagged hammerhead shark in Costa Rica. Credit David Garcia/Misión Tiburón “There’s a lot to be said for large grants,” Dr. Arthur said, but “often they’re fairly limiting in what they allow you to do.” Small grants, he said, offer more freedom, but can still be transformative. “They’ve been change points in the amount we’ve been able to engage in the ecology of these reefs.” The fund has also created a network of like-minded people. Researchers working on protecting similar species in different places have learned from one another by connecting through the program, Ms. Stephenson said. She often helps researchers apply for larger grants elsewhere. When grantees come to the United States, she brings them to speak to audiences at the aquarium. Ms. Stephenson says her small grants nourish a huge amount of work from researchers committed to protecting the oceans. Some of the grantees have stared down bandits on her time. They’ve been attacked by biting sand flies. They’ve spent days seeking out old fishermen who hold the only memories of certain species and what precipitated their decline. Gill Braulik, a dolphin expert based in Tanzania, used a $5,000 grant from the aquarium in 2005 to conduct the first assessment of cetaceans in Iran, at a time when few others would sponsor work in the politically isolated nation. “I don’t think it would have happened with any other organization,” she said. Image Ruth Leeney interviewed fishermen in Mozambique about the sawfish using an aquarium grant. Credit Ruth Leeney/Protect Africa’s Sawfishes Tracking an Animal’s Demise Dr. Braulik used a second grant in 2011 to teach Pakistani scientists to take over her research on a blind dolphin species that lives only in the Indus River. Scientists knew that the dolphins’ numbers had declined since the 1870s, when their range stretched from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, 2,000 miles downstream. Now they are split into six populations by dams and limited to 20 percent of their former habitat, making it tough to keep track of them. These animals, which can see only light and dark, went blind over the generations because vision was not needed in the river’s muddy depths. They have long snouts, pinhole eyes and thin, spiky teeth. Organizers of the Asian Games rejected a request by conservationists to use a similar, now-extinct South Asian river dolphin as its mascot, because the dolphin was so unappealing. Dr. Braulik acknowledges that these dolphins look different from the camera-ready ones at SeaWorld. But “they are the coolest creatures,” she said. Dr. Braulik had twice led expeditions for Pakistani researchers down the Indus in wooden rowboats to count the dolphins. For a third trip, in 2011, a $6,000 aquarium grant allowed her to train the local researchers in complex survey methods and analysis. Now, two groups of local scientists have led the work. “They really don’t need me anymore,” she said. Filling ‘Funding-Shaped Holes’ Dr. Arthur said he turned to the Marine Conservation Action Fund to fill “funding-shaped holes” in his data. He had had a grant to track coral reefs off the west coast of India beginning in 1998, but he missed four years when he could not afford to dive. Image Latin American Sea Turtles tagged this Hawksbill turtle in Costa Rica to monitor the animal’s health and reproduction. Credit Latin American Sea Turtles Collecting more complete data sets — and the aquarium’s vote of confidence — may have helped Dr. Arthur win funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is now supporting his efforts to rebuild local knowledge about the reefs. He is documenting the knowledge local fishing communities have about the reefs. One of the oldest local fishermen showed him how he travels through the archipelago without a compass, navigating from the reflection of the lagoon on the clouds. “If you just look at navigational systems, that in itself is a treasure trove of information,” which is lost every time an old fisherman dies, Dr. Arthur said. Even old recipes give a sense of what foods and resources were readily available in the area, Dr. Arthur said, but these were being lost with the aging population. “When local communities are shown the value of these things, they take a lot of local pride,” he said, citing one fishing community that imposed a ban on grouper during spawning season after the researchers educated them about the fish’s spawning habits. “What lacks is the information.” Image A Mobula japanica, a species of devil ray, being auctioned off in Sri Lanka. An aquarium grant helped a researcher document the toll this trade was taking on the species. Credit Steve De Neef Species Protection Daniel Fernando, a marine biologist and associate director of the Manta Trust, a Britain-based charity, has been working to change fisheries management policies in places like Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines and Malaysia to protect manta rays and their smaller cousins, the mobula. He used an $8,000 grant from the New England Aquarium to conduct an additional year of fish market research — following the rays from sea to customer — to better understand how and why they were being caught and sold. Mr. Fernando, also a founder of Blue Resources, a marine research and conservation organization based in Sri Lanka, hopes to discourage the manta’s use in Chinese medicine, and to encourage American consumers to demand that the tuna they eat is fished by hand, rather than by nets that also trap rays. Hand-fishing is more expensive than deploying nets, Mr. Fernando concedes, but “you have to make a decision.” He added, “Do you want cheap tuna that’s driving a species out of existence?” Fishermen’s nets were also a point of concern for a conservation effort in Chile. In small fishing villages there, a $6,000 aquarium grant helped a nonprofit group install collection bins for torn nets that would probably have been thrown into the sea. The charity, run by the founders of Bureo Skateboards, a California-based company, recycles the nylon nets to produce skateboards shaped like minnows. The villages receive some money back for projects. The grant was out of the ordinary for the aquarium, because it focused on a novel engineering solution to marine debris rather than on a particular species or habitat. But “having the structure we do and our willingness to take chances gives us great flexibility,” Ms. Stephenson said. The project is now self-sustaining. Ben Kneppers, a Bureo founder, said he hoped the story of the skateboards might inspire the next generation of marine conservationists, by showing young people “that there are solutions to what seem to be overwhelming problems.”

Endangered Species
Oceans and Seas
Fish
New England Aquarium
Grants
Aquarium
Commercial fishing


Malfunction Causes Food Stamp Debit Cards to Fail

Abstract: Food stamp recipients in 10 states were unable to use their debit cards for about six hours on Friday after a malfunction at JPMorgan Chase . Mike Fusco, a Chase spokesman, said the technical problem was resolved around 1 p.m. on Friday. The states affected were Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky, Connecticut, West Virginia and Delaware.

Debit Cards
Food Stamps
JPMorgan Chase & Company


I.R.S. Delays New Rules on Taxation for Activists

Abstract: The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that it has delayed and is revamping new rules intended to curb political activity by tax-exempt groups and that were proposed after the agency was accused last year of targeting Tea Party groups. The I.R.S. said it made the decision after receiving 150,000 comments — both positive and negative — about the proposal, the biggest public response to any proposed rule in its history. The decision postpones public hearings originally expected for this summer. The proposal is intended to clarify how the I.R.S. defines political activity and how much nonprofit groups are allowed to spend on it. Nonprofit groups ranging from Americans for Prosperity, a free-market grass-roots organization co-founded by the billionaires Charles and David Koch, to the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental organization that chiefly supports Democrats, are expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the battle for control of Congress in November. The delay announced Thursday means the new rules will not be in place before Election Day. “Given the diversity of views expressed and the volume of substantive input, we have concluded that it would be more efficient and useful to hold a public hearing after we publish the revised proposed regulation,” said Bruce Friedland, an I.R.S. spokesman. I.R.S. officials have declined to specify when they expect to issue a final rule. In April, the commissioner, John Koskinen, said at a news conference that it was unlikely that the agency would complete the process by the end of 2014 . The original proposal took aim not just at the multimillion-dollar television advertising campaigns mounted by nonprofit groups in recent election years, but also nonpartisan activity like voter registration drives. Republicans, who have been the chief beneficiaries of nonprofit groups’ spending, have attacked the proposal as an Obama administration effort to squelch the Tea Party and other conservative allies. But the scope of the draft rules also alarmed some liberals and watchdog groups favoring a broader crackdown on nonprofit groups’ political spending. They sought revisions that would focus on what they considered abuses of tax exemptions by openly partisan organizations seeking to hide the source of their funding. Some liberals also argued that the I.R.S. should broaden the proposal to include more types of tax-exempt groups, like trade associations, that spend heavily on elections but are not required to disclose their donors. “We’re pleased that the I.R.S. is committed to clarifying the rules for candidate-related political activity by social welfare organizations,” said Miles Rapoport, the president of Common Cause, which backs tighter restrictions on political spending. Republicans have opposed the agency’s new rules from the beginning, and some of the party’s senior lawmakers praised the agency for backing down. “Today’s decision is a long overdue step in the right direction,” Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, said in a statement. He said the proposed rules, as they now stood, “threatened free speech and the rights of all American citizens to participate in the democratic process.” Government watchdog groups have filed a series of complaints that nonprofit groups affiliated with the two major parties have exploited current rules to carry out thinly veiled political advertising campaigns. Some lawmakers, chiefly Democrats, have echoed those complaints, and said on Thursday they worried that Republican opposition and the outcry from some conservative and liberal groups would derail the entire effort. “This delay is deeply disappointing and a real setback for democracy and faith in government,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions

Internal Revenue Service Political Profiling


Thailand’s Political Tensions Are Rekindling Ethnic and Regional Divisions

Abstract: LAMPHUN, Thailand — Each time Muean Chimoon leaves his wooden house in northern Thailand, he pays homage to a portrait of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a father figure and long a symbol of national unity. “We have a king who loves everyone,” said Mr. Muean, a retired bus driver who exudes the renowned cheerful insouciance of rural Thailand. But when the conversation turns to politics, Mr. Muean’s smile disappears. He lashes out at the “arrogance” of protesters in Bangkok who want to overthrow the government, which has overwhelming support in the north and northeast. “Bangkok has always wanted to choose their own prime minister,” Mr. Muean said. “They don’t care what northern people think — they just care about themselves.” Thailand is the land of the Thais, of course — but also of the Lanna, Lao, Mon, Malay, Khmer and Chinese, among other ethnic groups subsumed into the country over the centuries. Eight years into Thailand’s political crisis over the influence of the prime minister’s family, some of those ethnic identities are resurfacing. The country’s political divisions roughly follow the outlines of ancient kingdoms and principalities, rekindling bygone impulses for greater autonomy from Bangkok. “I’ve never seen the country this divided,” said Ponganand Srisai, a member of the local council in Baan Nong Tun, a rice-farming northeastern village. Banners strung across roads in the north calling for secession have been among the most extreme expressions of the north’s bitterness toward Bangkok. The northern Lanna kingdom, including Lamphun, was annexed by Bangkok in 1899, and for decades its people have spoken a dialect distinct from the Thai officially recognized and promoted by the central government. At the time of annexation, the region had its own written language, which used a different alphabet from Thai. Less radical have been proposals for devolution of the centralized powers of the government. A group of local government associations and scholars, the People’s Network for a Self-Governing Administration, submitted a bill to Parliament last year calling for greater self-administration of provinces. “We propose that power be restructured,” the group said in a statement last month. Among the proposals, which have not yet been taken up by Parliament: Provincial governors would be directly elected and more taxes would be collected and spent locally. The group says Bangkok “lacks knowledge or neglects the differences of local identities.” Tanet Charoenmuang, a prominent commentator and proponent of greater autonomy for northern Thailand, says northerners perceive government institutions as favoring the capital at the expense of the provinces. “Injustice has helped fertilize localization,” Mr. Tanet said. “Thailand has been an overcentralized state, and a sense of localism is quietly re-emerging.” Much of the appeal of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her family for the north is that they have been trying to refocus government resources and attention toward rural areas in recent years, cementing the loyalty of villagers. That push started under the leadership of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra , a prime minister who was ousted in a coup supported by the Bangkok elites, the antecedent to the current standoff. Government supporters say secessionist talk is a measure of their feelings of frustration, but very few are taking it seriously at this point. Yet the notion of secession appears to have been taken very seriously by the army, which vowed to investigate and bring legal action against anyone advocating leaving Thailand. Building modern Thailand has been a painstaking and sometimes bloody process that took centuries but accelerated over the past century. Local languages and dialects were banned from schools. Authoritarian leaders changed the country’s name from Siam to Thailand and created what today are icons as a sort of nationalist glue for the country. Pad thai, the stir-fried noodles so common in Thai restaurants, was introduced by the authorities as a national dish. The government also promoted the use of a greeting, “sawasdee,” that is used nationwide. Decisions about everything from the appointment of Buddhist clergy to the architecture of Thai temples were transferred from the provinces to Bangkok. But perhaps most important for the cementing of a Thai identity has been the long reign of King Bhumibol , who was crowned in 1950. The king is now ailing, and his absence from civic life — he has not publicly commented on political tensions for several years — has added to a sense that the country has lost its rudder. Three governments supported by northern and northeastern voters have been removed from power since 2006, one — Mr. Thaksin’s — by a military coup and two in highly politicized court judgments. For the last five months, protesters in Bangkok have demanded the overthrow of the government and a reduction in the influence of the Shinawatra clan, which is from the northern city of Chiang Mai. The prospect that a fourth democratically elected government could be removed by the courts in coming weeks has been met by seething anger in villages across the north and northeast. Protest leaders call government supporters “buffaloes,” an insult connoting upcountry ignorance. Mr. Ponganand, the local council member from the northeast, describes southerners, who on some days make up the bulk of protesters in Bangkok, as “extremists.” Boontham Kaewkard, a wood carver here, said he was ready to confront the antigovernment forces if they removed the prime minister. But he laughed at talk of secession. “It’s a crazy idea,” he said. “Thailand must remain Thailand.” Yet from a political standpoint, the Thai electoral map already shows two Thailands: The north has consistently voted for the governing party in recent elections, while the south has either voted against the party or obstructed elections, as protesters did in February. Both sides warn of civil war if tensions escalate. Government supporters say a sense of solidarity has emerged between northern Thailand and the vast northeastern Isaan plateau, where the maternal tongue, a form of Lao, is similar to the Lanna language of the north. Chalida Chusirithanakit, a pharmacist in the northeast, says the current round of protests has kindled “a real sense of pride in being Isaan people,” especially among the government supporters, called the red shirts. “They feel they have struggled and have been oppressed for a long time,” said Ms. Chalida, who moved to Isaan from northern Thailand nearly 40 years ago. Support for Ms. Yingluck and her party is so strong in Maha Sarakham Province that “even a dog in a red shirt could run in an election and win,” she said. The red shirts have staged a number of demonstrations in recent weeks in what they say is a message to the Bangkok establishment showing the strength of their numbers — and their readiness to fight back if the government is toppled. At a meeting in Chiang Mai last month, a leader of the red shirts, Nisit Sinthupai, spoke about a Buddhist monk who is considered the patron saint of northern Thailand, Kru Ba Srivichai. The monk, who died eight decades ago, is lionized for his piety and devotion to his followers. But Mr. Nisit emphasized a facet of the monk’s life not covered in Thai textbooks: his long and defiant struggle to use the northern Lanna language and his refusal to bow to the authorities in Bangkok who sought to curtail his autonomy — and arrested him four times. This defiance was his “mightiness,” Mr. Nisit said, adding that the north and the northeast had new strength together. “These two regions are the key power bases of democracy,” he said. “We are the majority.”

Thailand
Thaksin Shinawatra
Yingluck Shinawatra
Race and Ethnicity


Alexis Tsipras, Greek Political Star, Puts Europe on Edge

Abstract: ATHENS — At 37, and looking not a bit his years, Alexis Tsipras is clearly enjoying his moment. He vaulted to prominence less than two weeks ago, when his previously obscure left-wing party placed second in national elections with the promise of repudiating the loan agreement Greece ’s previous leaders signed in February. Since then, he has engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken with Europe’s leaders. While they have scrambled to put together contingency plans in case Greece exits the euro zone, Mr. Tsipras has calmly stated his case and let the rest of Europe sweat about the possibly disastrous ramifications if it does. “It’s true,” he said Friday, with a smile and a glint in his eye, during an interview in his small office in the Greek Parliament. “I like to play poker.” While Mr. Tsipras clearly has much of Europe on the run, he hardly seems to be breaking a sweat. “Our goal isn’t to blackmail or to terrorize, our goal is to shake them,” Mr. Tsipras said coolly of the foreign lenders whose austerity-for-loans deal he wants upended. “We want to convince them,” he said. “They need to change the policies in Greece and change the policies in Europe, otherwise Europe will be at very large risk.” In Mr. Tsipras’s view — which neatly dovetails with the rising anti-austerity tide across Europe — Greece’s problem is a European problem that needs a European solution. He insisted that he wants Greece to stay in the euro, just not under the terms of its current bailout. “The euro zone is a chain with 17 links,” he said, referring to its members. “Greece is one of these links. If one of these links breaks, the link is destroyed, but the chain falls apart, too.” Poker references aside, Mr. Tsipras insisted that it was really the financial markets driving much of the crisis, not him or Greece. “They don’t have any moral scruples, and if they push Greece out, they’ll just move on to the next country,” he said. The next countries in the firing line, he added, happen to be Italy and Spain — both too big to fail. While other political parties in Greece are now also calling to renegotiate the loan deal, it is Mr. Tsipras, an untested leftist who could well become Greece’s next prime minister in elections on June 17, who has positioned himself in a showdown with Greece’s lenders. In the interview, he said he would not veer from pledges to repudiate terms of Greece’s bailout that forced wrenching hardship on average Greeks, a stance that may lead Greece’s lenders to withhold further aid and set off a default. But as far as he is concerned, negotiations over Greece’s debt deal “have already begun,” he said, largely because European leaders are already showing signs of being more lenient on austerity. “The red lines from before no longer apply,” he said. But while Mr. Tsipras has sometimes been portrayed in the European news media as a wild-eyed radical — he even seems at times to delight in that caricature — he is a cool strategist playing a game of brinkmanship with the rest of Europe, and particularly Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. In the past, German and other European leaders have made last-minute maneuvers to keep Greece in the euro, precisely because of fears that an exit would carry too high a cost, from bank collapses across Europe to destabilization of the global financial system. Mr. Tsipras seems to be betting that they will blink again, but whether they will is far from clear. Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London, said, “The Europeans may blink, but this time they might not blink enough.” He said that European leaders might propose a “mini-Marshall Plan” to stoke growth in Greece, but that what was needed were political changes to promote closer bonds among euro zone countries. “People are fed up,” Mr. Tilford added. “They would prefer that Greece stay within the euro zone, but they won’t take the political steps to make Greek membership sustainable.” Indeed, on Friday, Ms. Merkel may have upped the ante even further, suggesting to the Greek president, Karolos Papoulias, that Greece ponder holding a referendum, in parallel with general elections in June, so Greek voters are clear what is at stake, the Greek government spokesman said. (Though a Merkel spokesman denied the remark, Mr. Tsipras released a statement later Friday accusing Ms. Merkel of treating Greece like a “protectorate.”) In some ways, Mr. Tsipras’s arguments are not so different from those of some of the leaders gathered at the Group of 8 summit at Camp David on Friday. As growth has slowed, an anti-austerity backlash has swept Europe, forcing Ms. Merkel to soften her stance . Leaders, especially President François Hollande of France, were expected to press Ms. Merkel at the meeting to give Europe more breathing room for growth. Mr. Tsipras agreed. “The message we’re giving to the G-8 is that we have to press Mrs. Merkel to follow the example of America, where the debt crisis wasn’t tackled with austerity measures but with an expansionist approach,” he said. He added that Europe needed a more federal system, like the United States. He likened Greece to debt-ridden California, only that the United States would never allow California to exit, and has the federal structures to keep the union together. Mr. Tsipras’s strategy of calling Europe’s bluff has been a winner at home as well. Some polls place his Syriza party first and others second in the campaigning for a second round of elections, which were called after he and other political leaders failed to form a government after May 6 elections. An engineer by training, Mr. Tsipras said he had also studied economics and learned in the trenches with his “comrades” on the economic committee of Synaspismos, a proto-Communist strain within Syriza in which he came of age. Lean, affable, yet somewhat inscrutable, Mr. Tsipras says he does not like wearing ties because they remind him of his days in the navy, where he did his mandatory military service. In recent speeches, he has said that the “terrorists” in suits and ties who are deciding Greece’s fate are worse than the anarchists in hoods. Some compare him to Andreas Papandreou, the founder of the Socialist Party and a gifted populist. Mr. Tsipras may be riding the tide of anti-austerity, but it remains to be seen if he has what it takes to steer the ship. Pressed to present an alternative to the current loan agreement — or his plans for restoring Greece to growth while keeping it in the euro zone — he offered few, if any, specifics. His party seeks a three-year suspension of loan payments until the Greek economy can recover, a reversal of the terms of the loan agreement that call for slashing wages, scaling back public employees and undoing collective bargaining agreements. It has also called for nationalizing banks in order to control their lending policies as part of a recapitalization now under way as part of the debt deal. Critics say that under the guise of change, Syriza may offer little more than the status quo — or more state control in a country with a dysfunctional state. Indeed, business owners are particularly worried that Syriza’s plans for more state control would stifle growth further, transforming Greece into a kind of Bulgaria. Mr. Tsipras said: “The healthy businesses here have nothing to fear from a government that’s going to try to stop this poison. Healthy businesses understand that austerity curbs consumption.” Although he conceded that the Greek state had “significant dysfunctionalities and a need for deep structural changes,” he did not offer specifics beyond faulting the Socialists and center-right New Democracy for building up a jobs-for-votes system that helped Greece’s public debt balloon. Instead, he kept repeating the mantra that he hoped would help him consolidate power in just over a month, in the form of a stark warning to Greece’s European partners: Pushing Greece out would be “cutting the branch that we’re all sitting on.”

Tsipras Alexis
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Greece
Coalition of the Radical Left (Greece)
European Monetary Union
European Union