Turkey Rounds Up Thousands of Military Personnel

Abstract: ISTANBUL — Turkey’s government, rallying behind its defiant leader, rounded up thousands of military personnel on Saturday who were said to have taken part in an attempted coup, moving swiftly to re-establish control after a night of chaos and intrigue that left hundreds dead. By midday, there were few signs that those who had taken part in the coup attempt were still able to challenge the government, and many officials declared the uprising a failure. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking to hundreds of flag-waving supporters outside his home in Istanbul on Saturday evening, declared that “the strong aren’t always right, but the right are always strong.” He called on the United States to arrest an exile living in Pennsylvania who Mr. Erdogan claimed was behind the coup attempt. Video Political leaders from several countries condemned the attempted coup in Turkey, and expressed support for the country's government on Saturday. Credit Credit John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images As the insurrection unfolded Friday night, beginning with the seizing of two bridges in Istanbul by military forces, Mr. Erdogan was not heard from for hours. He finally addressed the nation from an undisclosed location, speaking on his cellphone’s FaceTime app — a dramatic scene that seemed to suggest a man on the verge of losing power. But in the early hours of Saturday, he landed in Istanbul, and steadily found his voice again, lashing out at his opponents, and one in particular. Mr. Erdogan placed blame for the intrigue on the followers of Fethullah Gulen , a Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, who was the president’s ally until a bitter falling out three years ago. Mr. Gulen’s followers were known to have a strong presence in Turkey’s police and judiciary, but less so in the military. On Saturday morning, Mr. Erdogan said, referring to Mr. Gulen, “I have a message for Pennsylvania: You have engaged in enough treason against this nation. If you dare, come back to your country.” On Saturday evening, Mr. Erdogan, standing atop a bus outside his home, pressed this theme in a thundering message to his supporters, calling on the United States to arrest Mr. Gulen and send him back to Turkey. Even before Mr. Erdogan’s speech, the gist of which American officials have heard before, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that he would listen to any inquiries Turkey might have about the cleric. “We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr. Gulen,” he said. In a statement released on the website of his group, Alliance for Shared Values , and in an interview with The New York Times on Saturday, Mr. Gulen condemned the coup, denied any link to it and expressed support for the democratic process, saying that “through military intervention, democracy cannot be achieved.” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, calling the insurrection “ a stain in the history of democracy ,” put the death toll in the clashes at 265, including civilians, pro-government forces and troops involved in the coup attempt, and said 1,440 people had been wounded. He added that 2,839 military personnel had been detained. Later in the day, Defense Minister Fikri Isik said that the state authorities were in full control of all areas in Turkey but that vigilance was required. “We have prevented the coup,” Mr. Isik said, “but it is too soon to say that the danger is over.” Video A failed coup attempt on Friday night has gripped Turkey. By Saturday morning, thousands of soldiers had been detained, accused of trying to overthrow the government, and civilians were left in a state of unease. Credit Credit Gokhan Tan/Getty Images Noting the intensity of the violence that had erupted, Mr. Erdogan said that Turkish fighter jets had bombed tanks on the streets of Ankara, and that a military helicopter being used by the coup plotters had been shot down. There was also a battle early Saturday at Turkey’s intelligence headquarters in Ankara, which government forces later secured, and a Turkish official said the intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, had been taken to a secure location. In a news briefing on Saturday, Turkey’s top military officer, Gen. Umit Dundar, the acting head of the general staff, said that “the coup attempt was rejected by the chain of command immediately.” “The people have taken to the streets and voiced their support for democracy,” he said, adding that “the nation will never forget this betrayal.” General Dundar emphasized that only a small minority within the military, including members of the air force, a military-style police force and armored units, had revolted. Scenes From the Coup Attempt in Turkey 14 Photos View Slide Show › Image Emrah Gurel/Associated Press “The army is ours,” Mr. Erdogan said Saturday night. “I am the chief commander.” Supporters of the government demonstrated in Istanbul and other cities on Saturday night, chanting their disdain for the coup attempt as drivers honked their horns. “We will not fall, everything for our country,” some people shouted as they waved large Turkish flags in the air. Even as it appeared that the elected government had re-established control, many questions remained, including who was behind the plot and what long-term damage had been done to the political system of Turkey, a NATO ally and important partner to the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. Much of the violence overnight related to the coup attempt was in Ankara, where different branches of the security forces fought one another over control of government buildings, including the Parliament building, where several explosions were reported. Early Saturday, soldiers surrendered on a bridge that traverses the Bosporus , one of two bridges that the military shut down as the coup attempt began Friday evening. Footage showed abandoned military clothing and helmets along the bridge. The government also moved on a military school in Istanbul, arresting dozens. Video Prime Minister Binali Yildirim described the coup attempt as “a stain in the history of Turkish democracy,” as he raised the death toll in the clashes to at least 265. Credit Credit Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Disciplinary actions extended to the judicial system on Saturday as an oversight body, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors , announced that 2,745 judges had been dismissed, the Anadolu agency reported. Turkey has a long history of military involvement in politics — there have been three coups since 1960, and the military forced another government to step down — and as the country became deeply polarized in recent years between supporters of Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist government and those loyal to Turkey’s secular traditions, many wondered if the military would intervene. Some, quietly, had even hoped it would. But once the coup was attempted, people in the country, even those bitterly opposed to Mr. Erdogan, seemed to have no desire for a return to military rule. Turks across the political spectrum, including the main opposition parties that represent secular Turks, nationalists and Kurds, opposed the coup. So did many top generals, highlighting that the attempt apparently did not have deep support even in the military. Speaking from Luxembourg, Mr. Kerry reiterated the United States’ support for the Erdogan government. “We stand by the government of Turkey,” he said. Video President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to the media at the Istanbul airport on Saturday after the military attempted a coup. Credit Credit Huseyin Aldemir/Reuters Mr. Kerry said it was not surprising that the United States and Turkey’s other NATO allies had not been aware of the coup before it occurred. “If you’re planning a coup, you don’t exactly advertise it to your partners in NATO,” Mr. Kerry said. “It surprised everybody, including the people in Turkey. I must say it does not appear to be a very brilliantly planned or executed event.” Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany expressed concern about the developments in Turkey and called for a return to the rule of law, under the democratically elected government. Ms. Merkel said political change should take place only through democratic procedures. “Tanks on the streets and attacks from the air against their own people are against the law,” she said.

Turkey
Coups D'Etat
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Fethullah Gulen
Military
Istanbul


Counseling Was Ordered for Soldier in Iraq Shooting

Abstract: He was a career Army man who joined up because it was a steady job, but he had fallen into debt paying off a $1,500-a-month mortgage, his father said. Now, just weeks from finishing his third tour in Iraq, Sgt. John M. Russell was in trouble with his commanding officer, who ordered him to turn in his gun and receive psychological counseling. On Monday, after a confrontation with the staff at a clinic at Camp Liberty, a sprawling base on the outskirts of Baghdad, Sergeant Russell returned with a weapon, possibly wrestled away from his armed escort, and killed five people, Army officials said. It appeared to be the worst case of soldier-on-soldier violence among American forces in the six-year Iraq war. Sergeant Russell, 44, of the 54th Engineering Battalion, based in Bamberg, Germany, has been charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in the shooting, said Maj. Gen. David Perkins, a spokesman for the military in Iraq. The dead included an Army officer and a Navy officer on the clinic staff, and three enlisted soldiers who were at the clinic. On Tuesday, details of the shooting remained unclear, with the Army conducting both a criminal investigation and a review of how Sergeant Russell obtained a weapon. But the multiple strains on Sergeant Russell’s life began to emerge in lengthy remarks by his father to a Texas television station. In the interview, with the station, KXII, Wilburn Russell said his son had recently angered a commanding officer, who had “threatened” him. When the officer ordered Sergeant Russell to undergo counseling and relinquish his weapon — a major rebuke in the military — he became nervous that the Army was “setting him” up to be discharged, Mr. Russell said. Having recently built a house in Sherman, Tex., a town of about 37,000 people north of Dallas, Sergeant Russell was deeply anxious that he could lose not only his steady paycheck but also his military pension, his father said. “If a guy actually goes to the clinic and asks for help, they think of him as a wimp and he’s got something wrong with him and try to get rid of him,” Mr. Russell said. “Well, he didn’t go and ask voluntarily for help. They scheduled him in, and they set him up. They drove him out. They wanted to put as much pressure on him as they could to drum him out.” He added: “I think they broke him.” Sergeant Russell joined the Army National Guard in 1988 and the active duty Army in 1994, military records show. A spokesman for the Army in Washington declined to comment on Mr. Russell’s remarks, citing the continuing investigation. But earlier in the day, General Perkins said the Army had handled the case appropriately. “The tools were all being used,” General Perkins said. “They thought that he needed a higher level of care than the unit could provide, so they sent him to the clinic. I mean, you see, all the kind of things that we’re taught to do were in place.” The Navy identified its dead officer as Cmdr. Charles Keith Springle, 52, of Wilmington, N.C., a licensed clinical social worker. The Army on Tuesday night had not released the names of the other shooting victims pending notification of their families. The shooting has renewed debate over the stresses placed on troops that have deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year, the Army had about 140 confirmed suicides, a record since the service began tracking the statistic in 1980. Many experts say that repeat deployments to combat zones are a factor behind the higher rate, along with financial and marital problems. Army studies and surveys show that multiple deployments and long deployments also contribute to higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and marital problems. It is unclear whether Sergeant Russell came under fire in Iraq or witnessed the death of a fellow soldier. Eight soldiers from the 54th Battalion have been killed in Iraq, data compiled by The New York Times show. But Mr. Russell said that his son’s job entailed salvaging and rebuilding robots that set off roadside bombs, and that as a consequence he probably saw “a lot of carnage and a lot of things that he shouldn’t have seen, that nobody should’ve seen.” “It affects you,” Mr. Russell said. “Nobody should have to go three times. They should’ve realized that.” Still, experts point out that the number of cases of violence against soldiers by fellow soldiers is much lower in the current wars than in the Vietnam War. Most soldiers in Iraq who visit combat stress control teams go voluntarily. But some are ordered by their commanding officers to get help or be evaluated after their behavior prompts concern about their mental health, as happened in the case of Sergeant Russell. “A lot of times when the command would refer it was usually because of problems, the soldier was acting out,” said Ronald Parsons, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served on a combat stress team at Camp Liberty and is now a nurse case manager for Veterans Affairs in Boston. Camp Liberty is one of four bases that also offers soldiers a place to go when they need more intensive counseling and rest. These so-called large restoration centers offer service members three hot meals and a cot to sleep in for up to four days to recharge. While they are there, they receive more rigorous care, including individual or group mental health counseling. Soldiers who visit a clinic or restoration centers are asked to secure their weapons in a rack. Therapists typically have their unloaded weapons with them. Sergeant Russell was at Camp Liberty’s restoration center when the shooting occurred, although it is unclear whether he was in the restoration program or just seeking outpatient services. It is unusual for a commander to take a soldier’s weapon away in Iraq, and it is often prompted by concerns that the soldier said something about the possibility of suicide or harming somebody else. Mental health specialists can also make the determination to take away a soldier’s weapon. The weapon would be returned only after a behavior health provider re-evaluated the soldier. If a soldier’s mental health did not improve, the soldier could be put on medication, hospitalized or, ultimately, evacuated from Iraq. Dr. Daniel Lonnquist, a clinical psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs who deployed twice to Iraq as part of a stress control team, said that if the situation did not improve within two weeks or a month, the soldier was usually shipped out. “Most commanders would say, at some point, this soldier is not an asset to me,” Dr. Lonnquist said. Camp Liberty, a sprawling installation, has 14 behavioral health specialists, including two psychiatrists, who see about 500 patients a month. Lt. Col. Edward Brusher, the deputy director of behavioral health proponency for the surgeon general, said in March that there was one provider for 640 service members in Iraq. “There are currently enough behavioral health providers,” Colonel Brusher said.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Fed Begins Testing Strategy to Exit Securities Program

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said Monday that it would begin testing its strategy to shrink its trillion-dollar portfolio of mortgage-backed securities and eventually unwind its biggest program to prop up financial markets. The central bank emphasized that the move was strictly an exercise in operational preparedness and did not signal a tightening of monetary policy or an effort to begin raising interest rates. Indeed, Fed officials announced in October that they were exploring the use of so-called reverse repo agreements as a tool for carrying out their “exit strategy” from emergency measures adopted during the financial crisis . But the move did demonstrate that the Federal Reserve’s preparations were becoming more concrete, and it highlighted the delicate task of bringing monetary policy back to normal without disrupting financial markets. The Federal Reserve slashed its benchmark overnight interest rate virtually to zero last December. But because that was not enough to revive credit markets, it also announced plans to drive down long-term interest rates by purchasing almost $1.5 trillion worth of government-guaranteed mortgage-related securities and Treasury bonds . Buying up mortgage-backed securities helps push up their price and drives down the effective interest rate, or yield. The purchases have already helped double the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, to more than $2 trillion, since September 2008. Reverse repurchase agreements, or repo agreements, are one way to tackle that job. Instead of actually selling the huge portfolio of mortgage securities, which some Fed officials fear would cause an abrupt spike in long-term interest rates, the central bank would essentially lend them out and promise to buy them back later. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which carries out the Fed’s trading activities, said it would begin small-scale testing now that it has discussed the plan with market participants. “Like the earlier rounds of testing, this work is a matter of prudent advance planning,” the New York Fed said in a statement. It “represents no change in policy stance, and no inference should be drawn about the timing of any change in the stance of monetary policy in the future.”

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008)


Lane Evans, Veterans Advocate in Congress, Dies at 63

Abstract: Lane Evans, a Vietnam War-era Marine who fought for veterans’ rights during his 24 years as a congressman from Illinois, died on Wednesday in East Moline, Ill. He was 63. His death was announced by Michael Malmstrom, a former member of his congressional staff who was also one of his legal guardians. Mr. Evans, who died in a nursing home, had Parkinson’s disease. As the senior Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Mr. Evans pushed legislation to help those exposed to Agent Orange and to give former service members rights to judicial review in pursuing benefits claims. He also fought for veterans grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder and other health problems, as well as those having trouble finding employment. “In the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Lane was one of the first members of Congress to take on issues like” post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “He helped put our issues on the map.” Mr. Evans learned he had Parkinson’s in 1995 but did not announce the diagnosis for three years, worried that the revelation would stigmatize him. He left office in January 2007. President Obama has credited Mr. Evans with aiding his own political rise. He once said that he would not have made it to the Senate without Mr. Evans’s early support. Mr. Evans is survived by three brothers.

Obituary
Veteran
US Politics
Parkinson's
Lane Evans


Signs of Life for Public Tech Companies

Abstract: Maybe technology initial public offerings can work after all. For months, the market for tech I.P.O.s has been slow to moribund, not helped by gyrating tech stocks and the underwhelming performance of a lot of recently public tech companies. But on Wednesday, two relatively young public tech companies reported earnings that were better than Wall Street had expected, which may breathe some life into stalled offerings. The companies were Square, the mobile payments company, and Box, the cloud storage company. Square reported a wider net loss but a 49 percent revenue increase for the fourth quarter, helped by growth in a number of software businesses. The results gave Square’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, a lift . Mr. Dorsey has been juggling his role as chief of both Square and Twitter, writes Mike Isaac. Box, meanwhile, posted a 36 percent increase in sales and narrowed its net loss in the fiscal fourth quarter from a year earlier. The company has been something of a punching bag for skeptical investors because of steep losses and accumulating costs, but Box’s chief executive, Aaron Levie, has long maintained it was right to go public and that being a public company would ultimately be an advantage . On Wednesday, Box’s shares soared more than 10 percent in after-hours trading after it announced earnings.

Mobile Commerce
Earnings Reports
Box
Square
Jack Dorsey
Aaron W Levie


Minnesota: Coleman Rules Out Rematch

Abstract: Former Senator Norm Coleman says he will not seek a rematch with Senator Al Franken in 2014. Mr. Coleman, a Republican, lost to Mr. Franken, a Democrat, by a few hundred votes in 2008, but a recount and a court challenge delayed Mr. Franken’s taking his seat. Mr. Coleman said he had not decided whether to run for governor.

Senate races
Norm Coleman
Al Franken
US Politics
Minnesota


Albany: Spread of Virus Deadly to Fish

Abstract: A deadly fish virus spreading through upstate New York has been detected in three new locations and for the first time has been found in rainbow trout, one of the state’s top game fish, state scientists said yesterday. The disease, viral hemorrhagic septicemia, was found in fish from the Little Salmon River in Oswego County and the Seneca-Cayuga Canal, as well as an isolated farm pond in Niagara County, the Department of Environmental Conservation said. The virus causes internal bleeding in fish, but poses no risk to humans.

Fish and Other Marine Life
Viruses
New York State
Albany (NY)


Lucy Danziger, Self Editor, Trades Town Car for Handlebars

Abstract: Condé Nast has cut back, closing four magazines and asking the surviving ones to slice their budgets by about a quarter. So Lucy Danziger, the editor in chief of Self, has taken a step unlike any other editor and — horreur! — given up the car service that has been a longtime perk of senior management. As the editor of a fitness magazine, Ms. Danziger chose to bike to work instead. On a recent morning, she had already run six miles by her 8 a.m. departure time and looked at ease outside her apartment building at 91st Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan, steadying her bike with one hand and holding a cup of coffee with the other. Her outfit was distinctly nonathletic: Tory Burch jacket, Tory Burch blouse, tight black pants, black boots and, yes, a bike helmet. “That’s what I’m doing in my brain — I’m leaving the uptown zone and going to the most exciting workplace in America,” she said. (Presumably she meant Midtown, not Condé Nast.) Then, midway through a sentence, Ms. Danziger was suddenly off. She hopped on the bike, and standing over the seat, began to pump her legs west to Fifth Avenue. She disappeared within seconds. She paused outside the Metropolitan Museum — she wasn’t out of breath but just allowing a hastily hailed taxi to catch up. She got going again, swerving through Central Park, then downtown into the Midtown traffic madness, glancing left and right as billboards blinked overhead. When she joined the company eight years ago, Ms. Danziger said, the car service that the Condé chairman, Si Newhouse, provided wasn’t a particular draw. “I was like, ‘I don’t need a car,’ then suddenly it’s pouring, and Mr. Newhouse is waiting, and you’re like, I need to get to work today,” she said. But that turned into more of a burden recently. “The logistics of it, I always had to anticipate what time am I leaving. Let’s say you call a car and say ‘I’m going to leave at 6,’ and at 6:15 a model gets a cold and misses the plane, we’ve got to rebook that,” she said. She swung onto 43rd Street, and seconds later, she was standing outside the Condé Nast entrance with one leg on her bike, helmet off, hair unmussed, coffee drink unspilled and asking the taxi riders who had trailed her what had taken so long. Even Ms. Danziger concedes she didn’t expect to ride during snowstorms, or when she had important meetings. “It’s not an absolute,” she said, adding that she would share a cab to save money. “It’s a very New York thing to do.”

News and News Media
Magazines
Economic Conditions and Trends
Bicycles and Bicycling
Conde Nast Publications Inc


How to Make Electronic Medical Records a Reality

Abstract: IN the world of technology, inventors are hailed as heroes. Yet it is more subtle forms of innovation that typically determine the impact of a technology in the marketplace and on society. Clever engineering, smart business models and favorable economics are the key ingredients of widespread adoption and commercial success. History abounds with evidence. For years, much of what was known as “Yankee ingenuity” was, in fact, the American ability to pursue commercial applications of British inventions, from the Bessemer steel process to the jet engine. Even in computing, which we regard as made-in-America technology, the first stored-program computer, simple programming language and reusable code were pioneered in Britain. But, of course, computer technology and the industry really flowered in the United States. That happened in no small part because the federal government nurtured the market with heavy investment, mainly by the Defense Department, and by choosing standards, like the Cobol programming language. Today, Washington is about to embark on another ambitious government-guided effort to jump-start a market — in electronic health records. The program provides a textbook look at the economic and engineering challenges of technology adoption. In its economic recovery package, the Obama administration plans to spend $19 billion to accelerate the use of computerized medical records in doctors’ offices. Medical experts agree that electronic patient records, when used wisely, can help curb costs and improve care. The proof is seen in large medical groups, with hundreds or thousands of physicians. They sift, sort and analyze the data from digital records, for example, to better manage the health of patients with costly, chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease. These larger groups have the scale to invest in information technology, and they are often insurers as well as providers, so they benefit directly from the cost savings. Yet these large groups are the exceptions in American health care. Three-fourths of the nation’s doctors practice in small offices, with 10 doctors or fewer. For most of them, an investment in digital health records looks like a cost for which they are not reimbursed. It is scarcely surprising, then, that only about 17 percent of the nation’s physicians are using computerized patient records, according to a government-sponsored survey published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine. “This is really not a technology problem,” observed Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s a matter of incentives and market failure.” That market failure is a principal target of the Obama administration’s plan. A main feature of the legislation calls for incentive payments of more than $40,000 spread over a few years for a physician who buys and uses electronic health records. But the technology is just a tool, one that needs to be used properly to improve health care. So the legislation states that physicians will be paid only for the “meaningful use” of digital records. The government has not yet defined that term precisely. While the long-term goal is better health for patients, that can take years to measure. Consequently, many health experts predict that the meaningful use will be a requirement to collect and report measurements that can be closely correlated with improved health. Examples would be data for blood glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure levels for diabetes patients. The legislation, health experts say, seems thoughtfully put together, but the obstacles to success will be daunting. “What’s underappreciated is the implementation challenge,” said Dr. Blackford Middleton, chairman of the Center for Information Technology Leadership, a research arm of Partners Healthcare in Boston. A crucial bridge to success, according to experts, will be how local organizations help doctors in small offices adopt and use electronic records. The new legislation calls for creation of “regional health I.T. extension centers.” In a letter to the White House and Congress last month, Dr. Middleton and 50 other experts emphasized the importance of these centers and pointed to the Primary Care Information Project in New York City as a model. The New York project’s brief history, beginning two years ago with $27 million in financing, offers a glimpse of the challenges of wiring small physician practices. The New York team, headed by Dr. Farzad Mostashari, an assistant commissioner in the city’s health department, started by bringing in decision-support experts in medicine to study how doctors work, so the technology would be easier to use. Team members considered writing their own software for simple, Web-based electronic health records, but abandoned that idea once they understood that patient records would have to be tightly linked to billing — a physician’s financial lifeblood. The project’s 50-member staff provides centralized technical support and education for doctors and others. “There’s no way small practices can effectively implement electronic health records on their own,” Dr. Mostashari said. “This is not the iPhone .” The staff worked closely with its software supplier, eClinicalWorks, to tweak and tailor the system. They began rolling out the records a little more than a year ago. They are now used by more than 1,000 physicians, mainly in poorer neighborhoods, whose workplaces include two hospital outpatient clinics, 10 community health centers, 150 small group physician practices and one women’s jail, serving a total of one million patients. The rollout is progressing, and the government plan promises to accelerate adoption. “Our experience here is that it’s just hard,” Dr. Mostashari said. “It’s not impossible.”

Electronic Health Records
Law and Legislation
United States Politics and Government
United States Economy


Sending Data Back to the Kitchen

Abstract: To the Editor: Re “ Hey Chef: Next Time, Skip the Fennel ” (Aug. 31), about Dinner Lab, a company that creates pop-up restaurants and asks diners to rate their meals: Image Credit Cheryl Gerber for The New York Times I am appalled to learn of Dinner Lab, which seems determined to do to chefs what Amazon.com is now doing to authors, namely evaluate them solely in terms of how much they can sell to a homogenized demographic constructed through data collecting. If successful, it will result in worse working conditions and job security for chefs, and fewer choices for diners. This corporate-oriented ideal is the antithesis of the small, local, artisanal direction of much of the best in food and restaurants. I hope it will prove unsuccessful, but fear the worst. Fred Bohrer Washington, Sept. 1


NBC Ad Pairs ‘Mummy’ and Olympics

Abstract: In the General Electric corporate family, NBC and Universal Pictures are like two glamorous cousins from the coasts: they make movies and television shows, while the other G.E. divisions make things like humidifiers, steam turbines and fluorescent lights. NBC even makes fun of this in its show “30 Rock,” where a G.E. executive has the title “vice president of East Coast television and microwave oven programming.” These days, the cousins, both part of NBC Universal , are pulling together for marketing. A recent TV commercial tries to simultaneously plug a new movie from Universal (“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”) and NBC’s broadcast of the Beijing Olympics. The spot begins without mentioning the movie or the Games. “Across the world’s largest ocean, over the earth’s highest peaks, there is a place steeped in tradition,” says a narrator, over scenes of temples, statues and a sun. Then, incongruously, Brendan Fraser, the star of “The Mummy,” appears, and the commercial proceeds to weave images from Olympics sports and the movie, which is set in China. A scene of characters fencing in “The Mummy,” for example, morphs into clips of Olympic gymnasts. The executives involved call it synergy, but some viewers call it confusing. “That’s bizarre,” said Kevin Lane Keller, a marketing professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, after watching the spot. “They really are trying to weave this parallel story with China and the Olympics and this film, and it doesn’t really flow together very well.” Executives at Universal, of course, do not see it this way. Adam Fogelson, president of marketing and distribution for Universal Pictures, called the cross-promotion “a perfect fit.” “I think that the Olympics were able to lend an air of quality and credibility to the film project,” he said. “The imagery we were able to use in the spots adds sort of a cool, hip, fresh, young, relatable angle to the Olympic promos.” Universal even moved the premiere date of “The Mummy” to try to get a lift from the Olympics (among other reasons). The film was scheduled to open in mid-July, but it was changed to Aug. 1, a week before the Games. The two divisions have tried cross-promotions before. One commercial showed the title character from “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” playing video games with the title character of NBC’s “Chuck.” But executives say the latest example is more comprehensive, with spots running on NBC networks, in Universal theme parks and in New York City taxicabs since July 1. So how did Universal and NBC split the cost of the joint promotion? Mr. Fogelson did not betray the G.E. omertà. “It was worked out within the family,” he said. STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

Mummy The: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Movie)


Russia’s New Museum Offers Friendly Message to Jews

Abstract: MOSCOW — A stream of elegant visitors stopped in their tracks on Thursday as they toured Moscow’s new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, a sprawling, state-of-the-art complex underwritten by oligarchs close to President Vladimir V. Putin . They had never seen a shtetl like this one. Touch the screen in one exhibit in this vast building and a visitor can appear in a mirror dressed in the garb of a 19th-century blacksmith, or a trader or a “representative of the intelligentsia.” Tap a Torah in a virtual synagogue, and a cantor’s voice rings in the air. In a virtual Odessa, one can sit down in an interactive cafe to chat with long-dead writers. Mr. Putin has extended his personal support to the lavish project, donating a month’s salary for its construction, which cost around $50 million. In part because of its scale — organizers say it is the largest Jewish history museum in the world — the project is meant to convey a powerful message to Jews whose ancestors fled or emigrated: Russia wants you back. President Shimon Peres of Israel , who attended the opening, said it affected him deeply. “My mother sang to me in Russian, and at the entrance to this museum, memories of my childhood flooded through my mind, and my mother’s voice played in my heart,” said Mr. Peres, 89, who was born in what is now Belarus. “I came here to say thank you. Thank you for a thousand years of hospitality.” There are practical reasons for Mr. Putin to rehabilitate Russia’s image among diaspora Jews who, as descendants of refugees or refuseniks, may have been raised on dark stories about Russia. The country’s Jews were confined to densely populated settlements, or shtetls, for long stretches under the czars. Then 70 years of Communism all but extinguished Jewish life and religious instruction, leaving in its wake an ingrained anti-Semitism. One donor, the billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, said on Thursday that he hoped the museum would convey to outsiders the good health of Jewish society in Putin-era Russia, and perhaps ease recent tensions between Moscow and the United States. “The average American has developed this stereotype. They have a very wary approach to Russia, with the story of the evil empire and so forth,” said Mr. Vekselberg, who is Russia’s richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index . “Americans who come here to work or visit, often for business, and come to this museum will assess what is going on in Russia in a different way.” Mr. Vekselberg said the project had a personal aspect, since his father’s relatives, who lived in western Ukraine, were all shot in a single day during World War II . He said it was a “conscious decision” not to focus the museum on the Holocaust, as many such museums in the West do. The displays here mingle brighter historical material, about thriving village life and the high status of Jews in the Soviet intellectual firmament, with darker chapters. In the Odessa cafe, for example, the viewer can tap on a table to answer the question, “If your store were destroyed by a pogrom, what would you do? A) Give up and emigrate to the West, B) Stay in my hometown and try to rebuild the store, C) Join a Jewish self-defense league and prepare for the next pogrom or, D) I am still in shock.” The Internet television channel Dozhd described the museum, created by the New York-based designer Ralph Appelbaum , as a “Jewish Disneyland.” On Thursday, Russia’s chief rabbi — a close ally of Mr. Putin’s — said that Jews “have never felt as comfortable in Russia as today,” and that 100,000 Jews have returned from Israel as conditions in Russia have improved. He gave a guided tour of the museum to Mr. Peres, noting instances when Moscow acted in Jewish interests. “This is the story of World War II, and what the Soviet and Red Army did to save the Jewish people,” the rabbi, Berel Lazar, said. He then pointed out a Soviet T-34 tank, saying “with this tank, which was built by a Jewish person, Jews were saved from concentration camps.” Mr. Putin had been expected to attend the ceremony but canceled several days ago, instead inviting Mr. Peres to meet him for lunch afterward. Israeli reporters said they had been told Mr. Putin could not attend because of back problems, a widespread rumor that the Kremlin has denied. Whether Russia has become fully welcoming to Jews is a matter of opinion. The country’s Jewish population began to melt away because of emigration after the collapse of the Soviet Union. More than 500,000 citizens identified themselves as Jews in 1989, according to the census; by 2010 the census count had dropped to 150,000, or 0.11 percent of Russia’s population, though Jewish organizations say the actual number is far higher. After Thursday’s ceremony, when speakers praised the welcoming atmosphere, some commentators reacted skeptically. “It’s so comfortable that everyone has left,” wrote one Facebook user, recalling that last weekend, a column of Russian ethnic nationalists marched through the center of Moscow. Others were deeply impressed, though. David Rozenson, whose family left Russia in 1978, said his mother was astonished when he told her about it. “She said, ‘That’s crazy, it can’t be,’ ” said Mr. Rozenson, the director of the AVI CHAI Foundation , which underwrites research into Jewish life in Russia. “For her, it is unthinkable that a museum like this is opening in Moscow, that Russian politicians would be there, the Israeli president. It’s very easy to become cynical and say that this museum is just a political statement, but I think this museum and the interest in it are real.” Aleksandr A. Dobrovinsky, a lawyer, said his eyes welled up when he saw the exhibit of Odessa, where he had visited his grandparents as a child. He gave Mr. Putin, who has been linked to the project for more than five years, much of the credit. “What the president has done, I simply tip my hat to him,” Mr. Dobrovinsky said. “They say, though I don’t know if it’s true, that he grew up in a communal apartment in St. Petersburg, and when his parents were working and had no one to leave him with, they left him with some older people who lived in the apartment, and they were Jews. That’s what they say. I don’t know.”

Russia
Museums
Jews and Judaism
Putin Vladimir V
Holocaust and the Nazi Era
Moscow (Russia)
Anti-Semitism
Peres Shimon
Israel
Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center


Push Over, Cornish Pasty: Balti Curry Seeks a Place in British Culinary Lore

Abstract: BIRMINGHAM, England — The year after opening a small restaurant here in 1977, Mohammed Arif spent two weeks in his native Pakistan , where he saw spicy, aromatic curries being cooked and served, sizzling, in the same dish. “It just came into my mind that I could take this idea back,” said Mr. Arif, whose thought gave life to a new dish — the Balti, a curry usually made of meat, chicken or prawns, combined with vegetables and a spicy sauce, and cooked over a high heat. Mr. Arif’s recently refurbished restaurant, Adil’s , is thought to be the place where the first Balti curry was served in 1978, and lies in a colorful immigrant area of Birmingham where bustling shops sell South Asian food, spices and clothing. More than 35 years later, at a time when tensions over immigration, assimilation and religious and ethnic differences seem to be growing ever sharper, this adaptation of Pakistani cooking to British tastes is a symbol of culinary cross-fertilization in one of Britain’s most multicultural cities. Most customers at Balti restaurants are non-Asian — a tasty retort to the much-mocked reports that areas of Birmingham, and of a number of other European cities, had become “ no-go zones ” for anyone but strict Muslims. Image Customers at Adil’s in the so-called Balti Triangle. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times The area around Adil’s is now known as Birmingham’s Balti Triangle. Restaurants in other cities have their own recipes, and precooked Balti meals occupy supermarket shelves. But does that make Birmingham’s Balti one of Britain’s traditional specialties? That question is being pondered by European Union officials. They are now debating whether Birmingham Balti should be recognized and registered alongside famous European foods like Italy’s Neapolitan pizza and its mozzarella cheese, and Spain’s jamón serrano . The British government wants European recognition . “Let’s hope the popular Birmingham Balti recipe follows in the footsteps of our other iconic foods like the Cornish pasty in achieving protected status,” said Liz Truss, Britain’s secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, referring to a traditional savory pie that has won a related European status . Curry is “a great part of the U.K.’s food heritage, along with fish and chips and pork pies,” Ms. Truss said. She is not the first British politician to make such claims. In 2001, Robin Cook, who was then foreign secretary, described chicken tikka masala as “a true British national dish.” With its spicy, but creamy, orange-colored sauce it was, Mr. Cook said, a perfect illustration “of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences.” Both politicians have a point since Britain, India’s former colonial overlord, has had a long love affair with food inspired by the subcontinent, but adapted to palates unaccustomed to hot spice. Even small British towns generally have an Indian restaurant and takeout, and Indian-influenced food features in everyday staples like sandwiches. Balti emerged at a time when curry was well established here. (Britain’s oldest Indian restaurant, Veeraswamy , opened in London in 1926.) By the 1980s, such food was found all over the country, but was often eaten by late-night diners, their taste buds dulled by an evening’s drinking. Many restaurants, according to Mr. Arif, “just put it on a plate and microwaved it.” Eating Balti in Birmingham was, and remains, a different experience. Usually it is consumed not with a knife and fork, but with large naan breads dipped into hot wok-style cooking pots made from thin-pressed steel. During the 1980s, Birmingham’s Balti restaurants were basic places, usually with glass tabletops, and, in line with Muslim beliefs, did not serve liquor (though most allowed customers to bring their own, and still do). Cooked in less than 10 minutes over a high heat and in vegetable oil, Birmingham Balti usually contains less cholesterol than curry recipes using ghee, a sort of clarified butter. Image The dish is made over a high heat in less than 10 minutes. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times This is hardly health food, however. It tastes simple but full of flavor, spicy but not fiery, oily but not too heavy. Mr. Arif ascribes its success to the fact that it is “fresh cooking, and people like the fact that it is served sizzling.” In the kitchen at Shabab restaurant , on Birmingham’s Ladypool Road, the owner, Zafar Hussain, demonstrates the cooking technique over a fierce flame. One of his helpers rolls out a large naan bread and then, with an unexpected flourish, pulls out a pillow that is the perfect size to shape the bread, and then places it carefully into a hot, circular tandoori oven. “We get visitors from all over the world,” Mr. Hussain said. “Balti has a distinctive taste because it is cooked in a unique way.” Each restaurant has its own sauce, but ingredients include turmeric, fenugreek, cumin, garam masala and coriander (jokingly known here as “Pakistani Viagra” because of its supposed aphrodisiac qualities). There is debate over the origin of the name Balti, one theory being that it was derived from a South Asian term for “bucket” because at large gatherings on the Indian subcontinent, food was sometimes served from buckets. Another is that it refers to a mountainous area of northern Pakistan, known as Baltistan. Mr. Arif said the name was invented because it was easier to pronounce than the Pakistani cooking pot known as a karahi. Image A wok-like Balti pot. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times Andy Munro, adviser to the Birmingham Balti Association , has led the campaign to gain the European quality mark known as T.S.G., which stands for traditional specialty guaranteed, and is one of three programs intended to protect European agricultural products and foodstuffs. If successful, restaurants will be able to use the designation as a proof of authenticity and a quality guarantee, providing they cook according to a set of rules. These would apply only to Birmingham Balti, Mr. Munro said. Balti meals prepared elsewhere, or those not identifying themselves with the city, would not be affected, providing they did not describe themselves as “Birmingham Balti.” The European Commission, the executive body of the 28-nation bloc, says its deliberations are continuing, and Mr. Arif, 62, who came to Britain in the late 1960s, said he welcomed the bid for European recognition. He said he had some personal regrets that he did not exploit Balti more commercially. “This was my brand,” he said, “but I never really bothered about it.” But some have doubts about the Balti phenomenon, including one of the country’s best known cooks and cookbook authors, Madhur Jaffrey, who pointed to uncertainty over the origin of the term Balti, and to questions about its authenticity. “That kind of dish does not come out of South Asia,” she said. “This is a dish created for the West by the West.” Image A bakery on Stratford Road, part the Balti triangle in Birmingham, England. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times The popularity of Balti may be “phasing out,” Ms. Jaffrey said. “I don’t see the name that much anymore.” Mr. Munro describes Ms. Jaffrey’s criticism as “culinary arrogance” and questions her concept of authenticity. In fact, they agree that there are big differences between Birmingham Balti and food served in Pakistan, which is normally cooked in clay (not steel) dishes and over a lower flame. Yet Mr. Munro argues that this is what makes Birmingham Balti a unique “fusion food,” one that is easy both on a Western palate and, thanks to the heat at which it is cooked, on the British digestive system. “I have had a couple of thousand Baltis,” he said, “and I have never had an upset stomach.”

Birmingham England
Great Britain
Food
EU
Immigration
Cooking
England
Pakistan


Goldman Spent Millions to Bail Out 2 Executives

Abstract: The financial giant Goldman Sachs spent tens of millions of dollars to bail out two senior executives last fall who were short on cash, according to the bank’s proxy statement filed on Friday. In an unusual move, Goldman bought back stakes in some internal investment funds from Jon Winkelried, the bank’s co-chief operating officer, and Gregory K. Palm, its general counsel. Both executives are among the largest shareholders in the bank, owning more than a million shares each, and directors were concerned that a large sale of Goldman shares by the two men would alarm investors during a period of market turmoil, according to a person briefed on the matter. To avoid the stock sales, Goldman paid Mr. Winkelried, who retired last month, $19.7 million to purchase about 30 percent of his investments in internal hedge funds and private equity investments. The bank paid $38.3 million to Mr. Palm for about a quarter of his investments. Soon after the bank aided the two executives, Warren E. Buffett invested $5 billion in Goldman, and the bank’s top four executives agreed not to sell more than 10 percent of their stock for three years. Mr. Palm was not one of the four barred from selling stock, but Mr. Winkelried was, and that agreement remains in place even though he has retired. The proxy also says that one bank executive, who is not identified, has pledged 500,000 shares of Goldman stock in exchange for loans from the bank. The executives are not the only Goldman employees who have faced a liquidity squeeze. Goldman also offered loans earlier this month to more than 1,000 employees who invested in its internal investment funds. About 10 percent of those employees have indicated interest in the loans, according to a person briefed on the matter. The employees will use the loans to meet their contractual obligations to put more money into the bank’s internal investment funds. Few banks were as high-flying as Goldman when Wall Street was riding high. In 2006, the bank paid more than 50 people more than $20 million each. But longtime partners at the firm, like Mr. Palm and Mr. Winkelried, have been particularly stung by the slide in its stock, and Goldman has been among the banks that have made margin calls on their own workers. Goldman was the last Wall Street firm to go public, and many partners there, current and former, have held onto their stock since the offering 10 years ago because they did not want to pay the large tax bills attached to the profits that would accrue from sales of their shares. Some partners and other employees there borrowed against their stock for living expenses or to make other investments in areas like hedge funds and private equity funds. In a much-noticed sign of the times, Mr. Winkelried, a former investment banker, put his estate in Nantucket on the market last fall for $55 million. He has since lowered the price. He also owns a home in Short Hills, N.J., and a horse farm in Colorado. Mr. Winkelried spent 27 years at the bank, working in areas like leveraged finance and rates and commodities before being named a senior executive. Mr. Palm still works at Goldman, where he has been head or co-head of the legal department since 1992, when he joined the bank from the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. In 2007, he endowed a professorship in economics at his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Last fall, he represented Goldman before a Senate panel that focused in part on bank compensation. Mr. Palm and Mr. Winkelried did not return calls requesting comment on Friday. Goldman’s chief, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and six other senior executives took no bonuses last year, the proxy confirmed, though they received some stock that was awarded to them in previous years. Goldman will hold its annual meeting on May 8.

Goldman Sachs Group
Executives and Management
Executive Compensation


A New Firm Sets Out to Secure Women’s Votes for a Vulnerable G.O.P.

Abstract: WASHINGTON — After months of deliberating over how to better appeal to Hispanic and other minority voters, some Republicans believe their party is overlooking another dire demographic challenge: women. One year after President Obama carried female voters by an 11 percentage point margin in his re-election, Republican officials are again grappling with another competitive race lost in large part because of women. In the Virginia governor’s race last week, Terry McAuliffe defeated Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the state attorney general, by only 2.5 percent, but won by nine percentage points among women. The Republicans’ challenge is even more acute with unmarried women: Mr. Obama won this often younger voting block by 36 percent. Mr. McAuliffe — who blitzed Mr. Cuccinelli with a multimillion-dollar barrage of negative ads on abortion, contraception and divorce — carried single women by a staggering 42 percentage points. “There were something like 53 million unmarried women eligible to vote in 2012, but on campaigns you don’t hear a specific strategy discussed of ‘How are we going to reach unmarried women?’ ” said Katie Packer Gage, who served as deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney in 2012. Given Democrats’ repeated and successful efforts to portray Republicans as hostile to women, Ms. Gage and two other consultants are starting a political strategy firm to help the party’s candidates better tailor their messages to women. Ms. Gage, Ashley O’Connor and Christine Matthews this week are opening what appears to be the first Republican firm aimed specially at wooing female voters. They are calling it Burning Glass Consulting — a reference to what they see as the need for a focus on appealing to women that is so laserlike that it can burn glass. “We want to get smarter about how we communicate the Republican message specifically to women,” said Ms. Gage. “Certainly there are challenges with other demographic groups, but women represent 53 percent of the electorate.” The three strategists will undertake public opinion research, TV ads and general consulting for Republican candidates about how to better reach that majority. The idea for the firm came about when Ms. Gage and Ms. O’Connor worked together on the Romney campaign. The pair would find themselves among just a few women at meetings of about a dozen staff members. “We started to see things we felt weren’t being accomplished,” Ms. Gage said, citing Mr. Romney’s message and tone. After the campaign they discussed their frustrations with Ms. Matthews, a pollster, and decided to create a new approach to both voter research and the campaign ads that are derived from such polling and focus groups. Ms. Matthews said that instead of commissioning a single poll or focus group among women, she was seeking “longer-term engagement” with a group of women, creating a relationship with them over a period of time to better assess what shapes their political views. Democrats dismiss such tactics, asserting that a consulting firm cannot change the core challenge, that Republicans have difficulties with female voters because of their party’s policies and language. Democrats refer to the Republicans’ approach as the “war on women.” “The lesson for candidates in 2014 is unmistakable: Dismiss and demean women at your peril,” Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said last week after the Virginia race. What is unmistakable is that Democrats think that in depicting Republicans as hostile to women, they have found a winning message. In Kentucky, home to perhaps the highest-profile Senate race next year, Democrats recruited Alison Lundergan Grimes, 34, the secretary of state, to run against Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and are already taking after him on gender-related issues. And, if Republicans nominate a man in Georgia, Democrats will surely do the same there, where they wooed Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, to run for an open Senate seat.

Republicans
Women and Girls
Polls
Voting
Ashley O'Connor
Christine Matthews
Katie Packer Gage
US


Stephen Curry Says He Can Get Better, and 29 Teams Shudder

Abstract: OAKLAND, Calif. — Stephen Curry has a well-established after-practice routine of taking 100 shots from 3-point range. He works his way around the arc, hoisting 10 shots from each spot. He once made 70 in a row. He often looks annoyed if the ball so much as glances off the rim before falling through. Bruce Fraser, an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors, passes Curry the ball and can sense, having spent so much time with him over the past two seasons, if Curry lacks his usual focus. An average total for him is somewhere in the mid-80s, Fraser said. Anything short of that is a disappointment. “I can tell pretty easily if he’s bored, because he’ll only miss shots if he’s bored,” Fraser said. “I mean, he’s human — he’s going to miss some shots — so maybe I should rephrase this, because he’s not actually superhuman. If he’s missing more shots than he normally does, then it’s because he’s bored.” Deep into his record-setting season with the Warriors, Curry, 28, seems determined to push the outer bounds of basketball and to press himself, as always, to become a better player. This raises an interesting question: Is there actually that much room for improvement? Some of his teammates are skeptical. “I mean, there isn’t a whole lot,” Andrew Bogut said. “What’s next? I guess shooting pull-ups from halfcourt on a more consistent basis.” So, yes, on the surface, it sounds like an absurd question. Absurd because Curry, who led the Warriors to a 121-85 win over the Knicks on Wednesday, has made 330 3-pointers this season, obliterating the N.B.A. record of 286 that he set last season. Absurd because he is averaging a career-best 30.5 points along with 6.4 assists a game. Absurd because he is shooting 51 percent from the field and 46 percent from 3-point range. Absurd because he is the league’s reigning most valuable player and a shoo-in to win the award again. Image Curry passing the ball against the Trail Blazers. “His physical skill as a passer has gotten better — the touch, the location,” the Warriors assistant coach Bruce Fraser said. Credit Ben Margot/Associated Press But the question is absurd mostly because Curry, a 6-foot-3-inch, 185-pound point guard, is the guiding force behind the Warriors, who could be the most dominant team of all time. What could he realistically do at this stage to refine his skills, other than make every shot and eliminate some turnovers? Curry, for one, still sees room to grow — an unnerving prospect for the rest of the league. Most summers, he said, he concentrates on maintaining and even building his endurance. His shot works from the ground up, which means that he needs his legs — especially late in games, when all those parabolic jumpers are not nearly as effortless as he makes them look. As an example of his expanded range, he has made 15 of 30 attempts (50 percent) from beyond 30 feet this season, a stupefying level of accuracy. Last season, he was 3 of 16 (18.8 percent). “I like the percentage of makes,” Curry said of his shooting as a whole. “I want to keep that increasing as well.” Curry can catch and shoot, because of course he can, but he also thrives off the dribble. One of the things that make him such a maddening assignment for defenders is that he does not have a go-to move. Some shooters prefer to go to their left. Others rely on a jab step or a pump fake. There is a rhythm to the way most players go about their business. Curry, though, can do it all, and he syncopates his style, making it nearly impossible for opponents to anticipate what he will do next. He has enough confidence to know that he can shoot after dribbling between his legs or around his back — or after making countless other moves. He sizes up his defender and breaks the code. “As soon as it touches my hand, I can go from that point to a quick release and shoot it,” Curry said. “I don’t really time stuff up — like, ‘All right, I’m about to hit him with a one-two and then shoot.’ It’s more just, as soon as you get into a move and see daylight, being able to transition from the dribble to the shot as quickly as possible.” Image Curry with Fraser, who said Curry’s psychological makeup helped make him impervious to pressure. Credit Gary Bassing/NBAE, via Getty Images He added, “I work on that stuff and try to keep it as quick as I can, and as efficient.” Curry also continues to improve, Fraser said, because he is constantly gaining familiarity with his teammates and their tendencies. For example, he has become a better passer, delivering the ball with greater precision. Against the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night, Curry made two dazzling passes in the first quarter — behind the back to Draymond Green in transition and then a lob from just inside midcourt to Bogut for an alley-oop dunk. “His physical skill as a passer has gotten better — the touch, the location,” Fraser said. “You want to catch the ball right in your shooting pocket. Being able to throw the ball to a specific area for that person to be able to catch it and go into his shot is actually a big deal. Steph’s passes were not always that accurate.” But the biggest area for potential growth is clear to Fraser — although it might come as a surprise to the rest of humankind. “His focus,” Fraser said. It has to do with the way in which Curry is wired, Fraser said. He has a lot of “little kid in him,” as Fraser put it, and there are obvious benefits. Curry’s psychological makeup helps make him impervious to pressure, Fraser said. Little seems to bother him. He plays freely and with joy. “We can’t take away that mustang spirit,” Fraser said. “We don’t want to bridle him.” The drawback, Fraser said, is that Curry can get bored — bored with making the same solid pass, bored with shooting the same dependable jumper and even bored with winning games by the same lopsided margins. These are first-world problems, of course. But there are occasions when Curry appears to ratchet up the degree of difficulty just to challenge himself. “The game comes so easily to him now that he needs a little more juice at times,” Fraser said, “and that might mean taking more risks.” These are risks that are not always necessary, and turnovers have been a (relatively minor) recurring problem. In January, he committed eight in a narrow win against the Philadelphia 76ers — not his finest moment. Coach Steve Kerr has continually emphasized the importance of making the solid play instead of the spectacular one. “Steph will sometimes ask me during a game, ‘How many turnovers do I have?’ ” Fraser said. “Because he knows that’s a thing Steve doesn’t like. He’ll never ask about his shooting numbers during a game, or any other kind of stats. But the only thing he knows is that Steve harps on turnovers, so it’s definitely on his mind.” Kerr recalled his playing days with the San Antonio Spurs, back when Manu Ginobili was in his first season with the team. Ginobili, Kerr said, had a habit of driving Coach Gregg Popovich crazy by throwing circus passes. Finally, after one game, Popovich turned to Ginobili and asked him why he felt it was so necessary. “Pop,” Ginobili replied, “this is what I do.” Popovich gradually came to accept Manu being Manu as a part of the package. “There’s a certain amount of that on this team because of the skill involved, especially with Steph,” Kerr said. “Steph’s going to throw some of the around-the-back stuff. He’s going to make some crazy plays. And obviously so much more of it is good than bad, so you live with it.” Besides, in the grand scheme of things, these are quibbles. We might as well critique the brush strokes of Rembrandt. Any momentary lapses in concentration, any lulls in focus after so many carefree wins — Curry’s coaches are there to nudge him along. So Kerr emphasizes turnovers, and Fraser mixes things up at practice to stoke the flames in Curry’s furnace. Fraser and Nick U’Ren, a special assistant to Kerr and the team’s manager of advanced scouting, make friendly wagers with Curry if they detect that he is laboring with his after-practice shooting routine. The amount they bet is weighted according to their respective salaries, which means that Curry puts up substantially more money — not that he is in danger of losing any of it. Fraser has kept a running tally for the season. “We owe him,” he said.

Basketball
Stephen Curry
Steve Kerr
Golden State Warriors


Brittney Griner Seeking Annulment

Abstract: Brittney Griner filed papers seeking to annul her 28-day marriage to Glory Johnson. “In the week prior to the wedding, I attempted to postpone the wedding several times until I completed counseling, but I still went through with it,” Griner said in a statement to ESPN. “I now realize that was a mistake.” Griner and Johnson, both W.N.B.A. stars, married on May 9, three weeks after both were arrested in Arizona on domestic violence charges. Johnson announced Thursday that she was pregnant. ■ Arn Tellem, one of the most powerful agents in sports, agreed to become the vice chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment, the company that owns the Detroit Pistons. Tellem will be responsible for business strategy, public affairs, and planning and development. SCOTT CACCIOLA ■ St. John’s guard Rysheed Jordan has left school to pursue professional opportunities. The 6-foot-4 Jordan averaged 14.1 points in 31 games last season. (AP)

Basketball
Brittney Griner
Glory Johnson
Divorce
Domestic violence
WNBA


Bloomberg to Press Obama and Romney Campaigns on Immigration

Abstract: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wants the presidential candidates to talk more about immigration policy. So on Tuesday, he will be visiting the cities where their campaigns have headquarters, pressing them on the issue. In the morning, Mr. Bloomberg will go to Chicago, home to President Obama ’s campaign organization, to hold a public discussion on immigrants and their role in the economy with William M. Daley , a former chief of staff in the Obama White House. In the evening, Mr. Bloomberg will hold a similar discussion with Rupert Murdoch , the chief executive of News Corporation, in Boston, where Mitt Romney ’s campaign has its headquarters. Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Bloomberg lead a group of mayors and chief executives called the Partnership for a New American Economy, which supports immigration changes as an economic issue. Whether Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney will heed Mr. Bloomberg’s views on immigration is another story. Neither candidate will be anywhere near his headquarters on Tuesday. They will instead be campaigning in swing states: Mr. Obama in Iowa, and Mr. Romney in Ohio. “If we are going to create jobs in this country, we have to have immigrants,” Mr. Bloomberg said Sunday as he prepared to march in New York’s Dominican Day Parade. “We’re going to need immigrants to start new businesses. We’re going to need immigrants to do the things that Americans just aren’t willing to do. We’re going to have to have immigrants to give us new ideas and tell us what’s going on elsewhere.” Mr. Bloomberg offered modest praise for Mr. Romney’s choice of Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate, saying Mr. Ryan’s budget plan, which calls for drastically shrinking the size of government, would at least force the campaigns to talk specifically about their approach to reducing the federal deficit. Noting that he had met with Mr. Ryan this year to discuss the congressman’s budget proposal, Mr. Bloomberg said, “At least he had a plan,” while adding, “I don’t think I agreed with most of his plan.” “In all fairness, I think he was one of the few who had a concrete plan, other than Simpson-Bowles ,” the mayor said, referring to the debt-reduction plan of Mr. Obama’s bipartisan fiscal commission, led by Alan K. Simpson and Erskine B. Bowles. On the subject of immigration, Mr. Bloomberg advocates giving green cards to foreign-born graduates of master’s or doctoral programs in science, technology, engineering or math at American universities, and allowing foreign-born entrepreneurs who are backed by American venture capital to develop their inventions or build their companies here. He has described the country’s practice of sending such talent and ideas somewhere else as a form of “national suicide.” Mr. Bloomberg also supports making it easier for the agricultural and hospitality industries to hire temporary foreign workers for jobs that they cannot fill otherwise. The mayor’s chief policy adviser, John Feinblatt, said in an interview that the mayor’s choice of Mr. Daley and Mr. Murdoch to join him in discussing immigration was intended to show that people on opposite sides of the political spectrum can be aligned on the subject. “What we want to show is that there can be unanimity,” Mr. Feinblatt said. “This doesn’t have to be an issue fought at the extremes, like it usually is.” Mr. Bloomberg said Sunday that he would also continue demanding that the candidates say what they planned to do about gun violence. Since the recent mass shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. , and at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., Mr. Bloomberg has criticized Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney for failing to say what they would do to prevent such tragedies. On his weekly radio show on Friday, Mr. Bloomberg said that neither candidate had addressed the issues of greatest concern to New York City, like illegal guns. “You just have to be able to be safe walking down the street, and neither candidate has come up with a plan,” he said.

Bloomberg Michael R
Immigration and Emigration
Presidential Election of 2012
Chicago (Ill)
Boston (Mass)
Obama Barack
Romney Mitt
Foreign Workers


Another Forward for Rangers Is Feared to Have Mumps

Abstract: GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Lee Stempniak could be the third Rangers forward to contract mumps. He is being tested for the virus, which has been spreading through N.H.L. locker rooms, and he will be isolated from the team for five days. Forward Tanner Glass missed four games with the virus before returning Dec. 8. Forward Derick Brassard was sent home Sunday from the team’s trip to Western Canada, but he is expected back on the ice Friday, Coach Alain Vigneault said. The Rangers (15-10-4) have a home-and-home series with the Carolina Hurricanes this weekend and then host the Washington Capitals on Tuesday before the league’s three-day Christmas break. The mumps outbreak has affected at least 15 N.H.L. players , including the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby and members of the Anaheim Ducks, the Minnesota Wild and the Devils. Two on-ice officials have had confirmed cases, and several St. Louis Blues players were sidelined with suspected cases. Mumps causes swelling of the salivary glands; its symptoms also include fever, headache, fatigue and loss of appetite. The virus is spread through infected saliva and body fluids. Mumps has no specific treatment, and most patients recover within two weeks. “There’s a whole protocol here, and our medical staff and trainers are doing all the things they need to do,” Vigneault said Thursday after the team’s optional skate. “This is all mandatory from the N.H.L.” The league sent out guidelines for hygiene last month and urged teams to screen and vaccinate players for the virus, which usually occurs in childhood. ESPN reported Wednesday that the teams received more specific instructions this week. The Rangers also said two members of their American Hockey League affiliate in Hartford — Coach Ken Gernander and forward Joey Crabb — were being tested for mumps and would be isolated from the team. Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist said he had not changed his routines aside from being more careful when using water bottles. “I had the shot this year and last year before the Olympics,” Lundqvist said. “I’m not doing anything differently. The trainers here are doing their job. You can’t think too much about it. But it’s not good. It’s not fun.” PENGUINS 1, AVALANCHE 0 Blake Comeau scored his 11th goal of the season with 2 minutes 36 seconds left in overtime to lead host Pittsburgh over Colorado on Thursday night. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 29 shots, registering his sixth shutout of the season just hours after the Penguins thought he had the mumps. Fleury was tested after missing Wednesday’s practice with an illness, but the results came back negative. Sidney Crosby returned after missing three games with the virus. (AP) PANTHERS 2, FLYERS 1 Dave Bolland scored the winning goal in a shootout to lead visiting Florida over Philadelphia. Brandon Pirri also had a goal in the shootout for the Panthers, who played beyond regulation for the fourth straight game. Florida was coming off a 2-1 win against Washington on Tuesday that set a league record by going 20 rounds in the shootout. Thursday’s shootout lasted six rounds. Scottie Upshall scored in regulation for the Panthers, and Jakub Voracek had the Flyers’ goal. (AP) HURRICANES 4, MAPLE LEAFS 1 Justin Faulk had a goal and an assist, and Eastern Conference-worst Carolina broke a six-game losing streak and snapped the visiting Maple Leafs’ six-game winning streak. The Hurricanes played hours after trading defenseman Jay Harrison to the Winnipeg Jets for a 2015 sixth-round pick. (AP) CAPITALS 5, BLUE JACKETS 4 Eric Fehr scored 42 seconds into overtime to lead Washington at Columbus, extending the Capitals’ point streak to seven games and snapping the Blue Jackets’ winning streak at seven. Mike Green skated past the goal line on the right wing and slid a centering pass to Fehr, whose shot beat Sergei Bobrovsky. (AP)DUCKS 2, CANADIENS 1 Matt Beleskey scored the tiebreaking goal in the third period as Anaheim won at Montreal, which lost its top scorer, Max Pacioretty, to an injury. Pacioretty took a late hit into the boards by the Ducks’ Clayton Stoner. (AP)


Top Scorer at Hofstra Is Motivated by Laziness

Abstract: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Ask the Hofstra senior Antoine Agudio why he works so hard, and he says it is because he is lazy. Laziness drives him to take 500 extra shots a day. Laziness made him work to develop from a catch-and-shoot guy into a diversified player who entered the weekend tied for the N.C.A.A. lead in scoring (27.0 points) and on the verge of breaking Hofstra’s 43-year-old career points record. Agudio scored 30 more points on Saturday while making all six of his 3-point attempts as Hofstra defeated Charlotte, 70-68, to end a four-game losing streak. The Pride used a 10-0 run to take a 70-65 lead. “A 9-to-5 job, I don’t know — my father tells me I’m too lazy,” Agudio said. “I put more effort into basketball than anything else. A 9-to-5, I won’t be able to wake up. Basketball motivates me to wake up every morning.” Wearing sneakers with his deceased grandfather’s initials written on the sides, Agudio runs himself to exhaustion to improve his game, motivated by visions of playing professionally like several other recent Hofstra guards. After college, Agudio should have little trouble finding opportunities to play overseas, where Norman Richardson (class of 2001), Carlos Rivera (2007) and Loren Stokes (2007) are playing, if he cannot catch on in the N.B.A., where Speedy Claxton (2000) plays. At 6 feet 3 inches, he has a game like J. J. Redick’s, with perhaps stronger ball skills and speed. Thanks to long hours in the gym, he is now as comfortable driving as he is firing from deep. That is why Agudio was third among active N.C.A.A. players in career scoring and 3-pointers. He was also 69 3-pointers behind the Colonial Athletic Association career record, 371. But Agudio’s immediate goal is getting the Pride (2-5) winning again. Hofstra has made the National Invitation Tournament or the N.C.A.A. tournament in six of the last nine years and is looking to its fourth consecutive postseason appearance — something the program has never done. Wins have been hard to come by this season, although Hofstra’s last four losses were by a combined 12 points. After Agudio, the Pride leans heavily on two freshmen and two transfers. That lack of wins is certainly not for a lack of effort by Agudio. He is taking 36.8 percent of Hofstra’s shots. Given that he is shooting 45.7 percent from the field (48 on 3’s), compared with 40.9 percent for the rest of his teammates, he may not be shooting enough. He also led the country in minutes per game. “He’s unselfish to a fault,” Hofstra’s coach, Tom Pecora, said. “I talk to him about not passing up shots.” Agudio’s game continued to mature over the summer, but the biggest development has been off the court. That change started in April when Pecora stressed to Agudio the importance of becoming a team leader. The previously reticent Agudio immediately began making greater efforts to bond with his teammates, living with them over the summer and offering advice. That has translated onto the court, where he is directing his teammates’ passes and defensive assignments, while also pointing out mistakes and praising their good plays. “Last year, he was real quiet,” the junior Greg Johnson said. “It’s a great thing for our best player to make sure everybody’s in the right place and encouraging and giving us confidence.” The genetic source of his newfound chatty nature, as well as his drive to excel, is not hard to find. His father, Alex Agudio, 43, sits a dozen rows behind the bench, wearing his son’s Hofstra jersey and keeping track of every one of Antoine’s mistakes. After the game, he tells Antoine about all of his faults, then breaks down the tape for an even more pointed critique. Like Antoine, Alex wore No. 13 and starred at Walt Whitman High School in Huntington Station, N.Y. He then went on to play at Penn State, Niagara and briefly as a pro in Israel before his mother-in-law died and he returned to the United States. “I had to make a choice to either stay over there playing or come home and do my fatherly duties,” said Alex, who now works on a garbage truck in Huntington Station and part time as a security guard. “I came back home to groom my kids, especially Antoine. If I couldn’t chase my dream then, I’m chasing it now with him.” Before Antoine gets to the pros, he will probably become Hofstra’s leading career scorer. Steve Nisenson set the record in 1965 with 2,222 points in an era with only three years of eligibility and no 3-point line. At 1,856, Antoine needs to average 16.0 points in Hofstra’s guaranteed remaining 23 regular-season games. “I’ll be happy for him,” said Nisenson, 64. “My wife, children, grandchildren and friends might not be, though.” There is no doubt Alex will be beaming. Then if Antoine ends up in Europe after he leaves Hofstra, the only question will be who will be his roommate. Alex insisted he would live with Antoine overseas for a while to help him adjust. That was where Antoine drew the line, with a smile. “I’m going to be a grown man,” Antoine said on Dec. 1, his voice scratchy from yelling throughout an overtime loss to North Carolina-Wilmington, in which he scored 34 points. “I’m going to live by myself. He can stay one week maybe. One week.” Antoine has worked hard enough to earn at least that much.

Hofstra University
Basketball
Agudio Antoine
College Athletics


I.M.F. Lowers Estimates for Global Economic Growth for 2013

Abstract: WASHINGTON — With economic leaders gathering in Washington for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings this week, the I.M.F. has nudged down its estimates for world growth in 2013. In a periodic update to its economic projections, the fund said on Tuesday that it expected global growth of about 3.3 percent this year and 4 percent in 2014. That is a reduction of 0.2 percentage point since its January estimate for 2013; it did not change its estimate for next year’s growth. Still, the report underscored that financial conditions had improved markedly since last year, in no small part because of aggressive monetary easing undertaken by the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank. Recession continues to afflict Europe, and the world still struggles with high unemployment, but the greatest risks — in particular from the threat of a country’s leaving the euro zone and from fiscal policy uncertainty in the United States — have faded. “Global prospects have improved again but the road to recovery in the advanced economies will remain bumpy,” said the report, called the World Economic Outlook . “Policy makers cannot afford to relax their efforts.” Image Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, spoke at a news conference on Tuesday in Washington. Credit Stephen Jaffe/IMF, via Reuters The fund cut its projections of current-year growth for the euro zone economies of France, Italy and Spain, as well as for Britain, which has also carried out austerity policies and entered a period of economic contraction. I.M.F. officials have urged stronger European economies with lower borrowing costs, like Germany, to do more to foster growth across the entire region and to move more aggressively to finish a cross-border banking union to shore up investor confidence. The fund and many international economic officials, including Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, are expected to press Europe on its plans for growth again this week. “Policy should use all prudent measures to support sluggish demand,” the report said. “However, the risks related to high sovereign debt limit the fiscal policy room to maneuver. There is no silver bullet to address all the concerns about demand and debt.” The fund warned that “markets may have moved ahead of the real economy” and noted that improved financial conditions had not, in many cases, translated to better access to credit for consumers and businesses, with lending standards remaining tight. In the euro area, indeed, credit continues to contract and lending conditions continue to tighten, the I.M.F. said, reflecting in part “the poor macroeconomic outlook for the region as a whole.” The fund lowered its estimate of United States growth this year to 1.9 percent, down 0.2 percentage point from its January forecast. While Washington had avoided falling over the “fiscal cliff,” the I.M.F. said that the United States had proved too aggressive in carrying out budget cuts, given its still-sluggish rates of growth and high unemployment levels. It said it anticipated that the across-the-board $85 billion in budget cuts known as sequestration would push down growth levels this year and beyond. “The growth figure for the United States for 2013 may not seem very high, and indeed it is insufficient to make a large dent in the still-high unemployment rate,” Olivier Blanchard, the fund’s chief economist, said in the report. “But it will be achieved in the face of a very strong, indeed overly strong, fiscal consolidation of about 1.8 percent of G.D.P. Underlying private demand is actually strong, spurred in part by the anticipation of low policy rates under the Federal Reserve’s ‘forward guidance’ and by pent-up demand for housing and durables.” The fund raised its estimate of growth for Japan, which has recently undertaken an aggressive round of fiscal and monetary stimulus to aid its slow-growing economy. Still, the I.M.F. expects an economic growth rate of only about 1.5 percent for this year and next for Japan. Tokyo’s assertive monetary easing — which has pushed down the value of the yen, thus aiding the country’s exports — has reignited concerns about competitive devaluation, often referred to as currency wars. In the report, the fund acknowledged concerns over Japan’s policy, but called the recent bout of currency complaints “overblown.”


Many Violent Hits Remain Legal Even After N.F.L. Scrutiny

Abstract: One player was tackled square in the face with the helmet of an onrushing opponent. Another, fighting for one last yard, took a polyurethane bash to the head. Still another player spent 10 minutes mostly motionless among dozens of praying players before medics carried him away on a stretcher after a helmet-to-helmet hit. No flags were thrown. And after watching multiple replays of each collision in Sunday’s Giants- Eagles game at N.F.L. offices on Monday, Ray Anderson, the league’s tackling disciplinarian, calmly confirmed that each play was legal. For now, perhaps. “We will continue to review hits to the head, including helmet-to-helmet hits, that are currently legal to determine whether more changes should be made,” he said. “We are constantly looking for ways to increase player safety. Nothing is off the table.” Indeed, despite the league’s controversial threats last month to suspend players for helmet-to-helmet tackles, and four years into revelations of the short- and long-term consequences of football brain trauma, almost every head-on-head collision remains not just condoned but also part of the sport. N.F.L. rules forbid such hits essentially against only quarterbacks or defenseless players, like a receiver making a catch; all others are fair game. But the N.F.L.’s recent movement toward eliminating particularly dangerous tackles suggests that some of the collisions like those seen Sunday night could be forbidden as early as next season. Given how youth and high school football tend to follow the N.F.L.’s lead, the changes could affect more than just professionals. “People in the league feel it coming and see it coming,” said Rich McKay, president of the Atlanta Falcons and co-chairman of the league’s competition committee, which handles rules changes. He added, “I think the league appreciates the idea that it needs to be a leader in this area.” Promising to consider change is far easier than enacting it, but the N.F.L. has recently established momentum toward limiting shots to the head, which for years have been enforced with the vigilance of jaywalking laws. In 2009, teams returning kickoffs could no longer form a wedge of more than two blockers, and protection for defenseless receivers was expanded from helmet-to-helmet hits to those delivered to the head or neck area by the defender’s helmet, forearm or shoulder. This season, receivers who have just made a catch — rather than only attempting to make one — are protected. That change outlawed hits like the shockingly violent one delivered by the Pittsburgh Steelers ’ Ryan Clark against the Baltimore Ravens ’ Willis McGahee in the A.F.C. championship game two years ago, when Clark’s full-speed, helmet-to-helmet launch — which left McGahee unconscious and Clark all but — was perfectly legal because it came a split-second after McGahee caught the ball and stepped forward. Clark acknowledged, “I probably could have stopped and waited and tried to tackle him, but it’s sad to say I think I closed my eyes and I was praying that I’d wake up when I hit the ground.” Rule changes must be bargained with the players union, so Commissioner Roger Goodell termed his recent suspension edict a clarification of punishment rather than a rules update. Responding to Anderson’s comments on Tuesday, Dr. Thom Mayer, the union’s medical director, questioned not only the feasibility of further changes but also the sincerity of a league that until recently played down the long-term effects of concussions — and is also trying to expand the season to 18 games from 16. “Blaming the players is not appropriate,” Mayer said. “We’ve created this violent sport that’s nearly a $9 billion business. We’re trying to make sure that players know the rules but also participate in the deliberations to see what’s doable and not doable, while still maintaining the integrity of the game.” Mayer added: “Anything that can be done to improve the safety of our players really should be done, short of stopping playing the game. That’s the $64,000 question.” As Anderson watched replays of several legal hits from the Eagles-Giants game, he indicated that none were specifically subject to review next spring. (“Those are football plays,” he cautioned.) But, taken together, they communicated room for reform. ¶As the Giants’ Will Blackmon awkwardly tried to pick up a bouncing punt, Moise Fokou ran into him full stride, face mask to face mask. ¶Corralled by some Eagles but fighting for extra yards, Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw crouched slightly before Keenan Clayton crashed into his head helmet-first. ¶On the kickoff return that left him face-down for 10 minutes and evoked fears of paralysis , the Eagles’ Ellis Hobbs braced for impact by tilting the crown of his head toward the oncoming defenders. Such a maneuver, while somewhat instinctual, is the most common cause of football spine fractures. (Hobbs sustained a less serious disk injury from which he will not return this season.) ¶While jumping to catch a pass, the Giants’ Mario Manningham was slammed in the head by the flailing arms of defender Quintin Mikell. Mikell was penalized for pass interference, not contact to the head. These plays also probably would not have drawn flags at football’s younger levels, where the rules appear slightly stronger but are subject to wide interpretation. USA Football , whose rulebook is used by Pop Warner and other leagues for players age 6 to 14, prohibits a defender from “initiating contact with the helmet,” although in practice almost all seemingly accidental or nonflagrant instances go unflagged. High school rules are similarly phrased and enforced. This month, following the N.F.L.’s lead, USA Football strengthened its rules against defenseless receivers — but runners like the Giants’ Bradshaw or the Eagles’ Hobbs remain relatively unprotected. Said the USA Football spokesman Steve Alic, “Ultimately, we want coaches to teach to play the game lower.” Some plays Sunday night remained encouraging. When the Eagles’ Asante Samuel led with his helmet into the chin of the defenseless Giants receiver Derek Hagan, officials threw a flag they might not have thrown two months ago. Later, with a chance to deliver a devastating — and unless too high, legal — hit on Eagles receiver Jason Avant, the Giants’ Corey Webster held up at the last second and merely touched Avant down instead. Watching with Anderson at N.F.L. headquarters, Merton Hanks, the former All-Pro defensive back and one of Anderson’s lieutenants, said that play symbolized the intent of current, and perhaps future, rules changes. “He’s in between deciding to deliver a blow, and given the time of the game, score 17-16, he doesn’t want to risk a penalty,” Hanks said. “You always want the defender to be mindful that you’re in the area — that he’s going to pay a physical price for going for the football. But it was the smart play.”

Football
Helmet
Concussion
NFL Super Bowl Super Bowl 2015
Sports injury


Jonell Nash, Who Cut Fat, Not Flavor, Out of Soul Food, Dies at 72

Abstract: Jonell Nash, who taught a generation of cooks that traditional African-American recipes could be flavorful but not necessarily fatty, and who introduced soul food to new followers at home and abroad, died on Feb. 27 in the Bronx. She was 72. The cause was cancer, her friend and former colleague Harriette Cole said. As the food editor of Essence magazine from 1984 until she retired in 2008 and the author of several cookbooks, Ms. Nash was among the pioneers in a cause popularized more recently by Michelle Obama: reducing rates of childhood obesity, which are higher among black and Hispanic youngsters than among whites. In her introduction to “Low-Fat Soul,” published in 1996, Ms. Nash said that “in those painful days of our history,” when satisfying meals were one of the few joys available, “our forebears gave little thought to the fat or sugar stirred in.” “Besides,” she wrote, “they burned off much of what they ate during long, grueling days toiling in the fields. Fat in the diet was actually important to survival.” In today’s more sedentary, health-conscious times, though, Ms. Nash recommended reduced-sodium recipes infused with legumes, sweet potatoes and cruciferous vegetables like cabbage and greens. Her credo: “Boot the fat, boost the flavor,” by substituting smoke-cured chicken, turkey, fish and even cheese for bacon, and by using butter sparingly. Forget the lard and ham hocks was how Publishers Weekly summarized Ms. Nash’s other cookbook, “Essence Brings You Great Cooking.” Its review said Ms. Nash had two goals: “The first is to celebrate African-American food traditions in all their diversity; the second, to create a cookbook that will make nutritious home cooking appealing to the everyday cook. She succeeds on both counts.” Ms. Nash is survived by two sisters, Gertrude Cherry and Marva Stanton, and a brother, Willie Nash. Her longtime partner, Paul Butler , a film and television actor, died in 2010. She was born in Delhi, La., on Dec. 20, 1942, the daughter of Willie Henry Nash Sr., who worked in a plastics plant, and the former Mollie Osborne, who worked in a dry cleaning store. The family moved to Detroit, where Ms. Nash graduated from Wayne State University and taught high school home economics. Ms. Nash was hired by Coed magazine, published by Scholastic, and then moved to New York, where she worked in the test kitchen at Woman’s Day magazine. She joined Essence, which describes itself as a lifestyle magazine for black women, in 1984, and published “Essence Brings You Great Cooking” in 1994. She wove her commitment to quality cooking and baking, which she learned from her parents, into her personal and professional lives. Through Les Dames d’Escoffier New York , an organization of women in the food and hospitality professions, she financed a scholarship in honor of Edna Lewis , a renowned chef who died in 2006, for students to study Southern cooking. The scholarship is being renamed for Ms. Nash. Even when Ms. Nash would eat at her desk, another former colleague, Sharon R. Boone, recalled, she would first put down a china place setting and silverware on a small tablecloth. Taste matters, she said in her cookbook. “Even more than specific dishes or ingredients, soul food represents a certain spirit, an attitude, a flamboyance, a kind of loving that one brings to the kitchen and stirs into the pots,” she wrote. “In essence, it’s a flava.”

Obituary
Cooking
Essence Magazine
Soul food
Nutrition
Jonell Nash


PGA Will Move Barclays From Westchester Club

Abstract: The PGA Tour has notified Westchester Country Club that it intends to pull the plug on the remaining five years of a six-year agreement to play host to the Barclays, the opening event of its four-tournament playoffs for the FedEx Cup, the club’s president said Sunday. Philip M. Halpern, the president of Westchester Country Club, said in a telephone interview that the tour gave him no reason for its decision to move the Barclays, scheduled for Aug. 21-24. He indicated the tournament would be moved to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. “I was very surprised and disappointed,” Halpern said. “They were sending me letters asking me to consider access and logistical issues while they already had begun a dialogue with Ridgewood Country Club to host the 2008 event. Why did they do that? I don’t know. You will have to ask them that.” The PGA Tour spokesman Ty Votaw declined to comment on Halpern’s statements. If the $7 million event is moved from Westchester, it would end a relationship between the Harrison, N.Y., club and the PGA Tour that dates to 1967, when Jack Nicklaus won the inaugural event by one stroke over Dan Sikes with a 72-hole total of 12-under-par 272. A copy of correspondence between the PGA Tour and Westchester Country Club given to The New York Times included a Dec. 6 letter that references “a number of concerns and requests” that the tour shared in a Nov. 28 meeting with Halpern and others at Westchester. Listed among the 12 items outlined in the Dec. 6 letter were requests that no club outings or tournaments be played during the week preceding the event, that rounds be limited to 100 a day Tuesday through Friday of that week and that the course be closed on the Saturday and Sunday preceding tournament week. The tour also requested unlimited access to holes 16, 17 and 18 for six weeks before the event in order to build expanded hospitality areas and bleachers and to reconfigure the corporate village so tents could face the ninth fairway. The reconfiguration request included the removal of three trees. The final section requested that Westchester form committees to assist with ticket sales to members and that the members’ upstairs locker rooms be closed during tournament week. “We told them we would do our best to address the issues they raised, that we couldn’t promise anything until we discussed it with our members,” Halpern said. “From the beginning, we have had tremendous support from our membership, which voted more than 80 percent in favor of hosting this wonderful event.” One club member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the Barclays said pressure to move the event was coming from CBS, which was disappointed by mediocre television ratings for the 2007 event, won by Steve Stricker. Tiger Woods did not play in the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs, and had played at Westchester only three times in the past 10 years, skipping the event even when it was sponsored by Buick, one of his sponsors. Woods has never cited the 6,839-yard course as a reason for his absence, but the shorter layout does not play to his strengths. Although Halpern said he held a glimmer of hope that the 2008 event could still be played at Westchester, he pulled no punches in describing his reaction to how this situation has played out. “This is a disappointing outcome and disappointing behavior in a sport in which honor and character are everything,” he said. “We’re saddened that after 40-plus years, the PGA Tour has made this choice and that they’re treating us this way. That’s just not right.”

Golf
Westchester County (NY)
Barclays Plc
PGA Tour Inc
Athletics and Sports