How the American Electorate Is Changing

Abstract: A decade ago, New Mexico ushered in a demographic trend that is likely to shape American politics for decades to come. In 2006, it became the first state in the nation whose voting-eligible population switched from being majority white to “majority minority.” California has since joined that group, according to estimates, and so, too, will Texas by 2019, according to three demographic experts. Nine more states are expected to reach the tipping point before 2052, when, those experts say, the national electorate will become majority minority, too. “The map is going to continue to change,” said Ruy Teixeira, a co-director of the States of Change project, a collaboration among the liberal Center for American Progress, the Brookings Institution and the conservative American Enterprise Institute, which published the predictions in a pair of reports this year and last year. The projections are based on migration, fertility and mortality trends and could be affected by changes to policy. Here’s a look at some of the findings in the reports, authored by Mr. Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, his center colleague Robert Griffin and William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution. Minority becomes majority Today, minorities make up about 38 percent of the general population, a share that is expected to surpass 50 percent in 2044, according to projections. The voting-eligible population is predicted to follow closely behind. The minority share of the electorate — those capable of voting — is predicted to rise to 50 percent in 2052 from 31 percent today. But the change will be uneven, according to the analysis. By 2060, minorities are projected to make up about 75 percent or more of the electorate in three states: California, New Mexico and Hawaii, which has never had a white majority. In Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, on the other hand, minorities will still not have broached 15 percent of the electorate, according to the projections. Over that time, the electorate will change drastically. In five states, the minority share of the voting-eligible population will grow by 25 percentage points or more. They are Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Nevada and New Jersey. Nationally, the white share of the electorate is predicted to fall to 46 percent in 2060 from 69 percent this year. The Hispanic share is predicted to rise to 27 percent from 13 percent; the black share is expected to rise one point to 13 percent from 12 percent; and the share that is Asian or “other” is expected to double to 14 percent from 7 percent. The next generation The electorate will also grow older as old generations fall off and new ones emerge. In 1982, baby boomers accounted for nearly half of the electorate. Today, like millennials, they make up just under one-third. By 2060, they will have all but disappeared. That year, about a tenth of the electorate will belong to Generation X, while the remainder will be roughly evenly split among millennials and the two generations that follow them, according to the projections. From now until 2060, millennials will maintain a hold, give or take a few percentage points, over a third of the electorate. The voting-eligible population will grow older over that time, too, with Americans aged 65 years or older accounting for an ever-larger share of the electorate. That group is projected to see its share of the electorate rise to 29 percent in 2060 from 21 percent today, with minorities accounting for much of the growth. The next-oldest group, those aged 50 to 64, will remain relatively steady — after a brief dip — with 23 percent of the electorate. The share of the voting-eligible population in the three youngest age groups will shrink, dropping to 17 percent from 21 percent for those aged 18 to 29; and to 15 percent from 17 percent both for those aged 30 to 39 and those aged 40 to 49. A more representative nation Since the mid-1970s, the voting-eligible population has become less diverse than the voting-age population, a group that includes noncitizens. But the trend is reversing. After decades of growth and stabilization, the electorate today is several percentage points whiter than the broader population of American adults. But, in the years to come, that gap is projected to narrow: By 2060, the electorate is projected to be 46 percent white, just one percentage point higher than the white share of the voting-age population. The opposite is true for Hispanics, a population that today makes up 13 percent of the electorate, but 16 percent of the voting-age population. By 2060, those shares will equalize at 27 percent.

Politics
Minorities
Millennials
Hispanic Americans


Amid Taliban Rule, a NATO Supply Line Is Choked

Abstract: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — This frontier city boasts a major air base and Pakistani Army and paramilitary garrisons. But the 200 Taliban guerrillas were in no rush as they methodically ransacked depots with NATO supplies here two weeks ago. The militants began by blocking off a long stretch of the main road, giving them plenty of time to burn everything inside, said one guard, Haroon Khan, who was standing next to a row of charred trucks. After assuring the overmatched guards they would not be killed — if they agreed never to work there again — the militants shouted “God is great” through bullhorns. They then grabbed jerrycans and made several trips to a nearby gas station for fuel, which they dumped on the cargo trucks and Humvees before setting them ablaze. The attack provided the latest evidence of how extensively militants now rule the critical region east of the Khyber Pass, the narrow cut through the mountains on the Pakistan- Afghanistan border that has been a strategic trade and military gateway since the time of Alexander the Great. The area encompasses what is officially known as the Khyber Agency, which is adjacent to Peshawar and is one of a handful of lawless tribal districts on the border. But security in Khyber has deteriorated further in recent months with the emergence of a brash young Taliban commander who calls news conferences to thumb his nose at NATO forces, as well as with public fury over deadly missile attacks by American remotely piloted aircraft. Khyber’s downward spiral is jeopardizing NATO’s most important supply line, sending American military officials scrambling to find alternative routes into Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia. Three-quarters of troop supplies enter from Pakistan, most of the goods ferried from Karachi to Peshawar and then 40 miles west through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. A half-dozen raids on depots with NATO supplies here have already destroyed 300 cargo trucks and Humvees this month. American officials insist that troop provisions have not suffered, but with predictions that the American deployment in Afghanistan could double next year, to 60,000 soldiers, the pressure to secure safer transportation is even more intense. For NATO the most serious problem is not even the depots in Peshawar but the safety of the road that winds west to the 3,500-foot Khyber Pass. The route used to be relatively secure: Afridi tribesman were paid by the government to safeguard it, and they were subject to severe penalties and collective tribal punishment for crimes against travelers. But now the road is a death trap, truckers and some security officials say, with routine attacks like one on Sunday that burned a fuel tanker and another last Friday that killed three drivers returning from Afghanistan. “The road is so unsafe that even the locals are reluctant to go back to their villages from Peshawar,” said Gul Naseem, who lives in Landi Kotal, near the border. The largest truckers’ association here has gone on strike to protest the lack of security, saying that the job action has sidelined 60 percent of the trucks that normally haul military goods. An American official denied that the drop-off had been that severe. “Not a single day passes when something doesn’t happen,” said Shakir Afridi, leader of the truckers’ group, the Khyber Transport Association. He said at least 25 trucks and six oil tankers were destroyed this month. “Attacks have become a daily affair,” he said. There are new efforts to deter Taliban raids, including convoy escorts by a Pakistani paramilitary group, the Frontier Corps. But now militants are attacking empty — and unguarded — trucks returning to Pakistan. The road from Peshawar to the border has become far more perilous than the route on the other side in Afghanistan, truckers say. “Our lives are in danger and nobody cares,” said Shah Mahmood Afridi, a driver who was in the returning convoy attacked on Friday. “They fired at the trucks and killed three men inside. There is no security provided when we are empty.” Escalating violence on the Khyber road has paralleled the rise of Hakimullah Mehsud, a young Taliban commander and lieutenant of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the main Pakistani Taliban faction. Earlier this year, Hakimullah Mehsud’s forces took control of Orakzai Agency and instituted the strict Islamic laws known as Shariah. At a news conference there one month ago, Hakimullah Mehsud declared his intention to intensify attacks on NATO supply convoys. Some security officials say they believe that he was behind the assassination in August of a rival militant leader, Hajji Namdar, in Khyber. At the same time, another powerful Khyber warlord, Mangal Bagh, who officials say has not been attacking the convoys, has seen the geographic range of his influence narrow somewhat, easing the path for Mr. Mehsud’s authority to expand inside some parts of Khyber. “I have no love for Mangal Bagh, but the fact remains that Mangal Bagh does not do these attacks,” said Tariq Hayat, the Khyber political agent, the top government official in the region. Increased missile attacks by remotely piloted American aircraft — like one that killed seven people in the South Waziristan Agency on Monday — have enraged residents in Khyber and other tribal areas near the border, increasing sympathy for attacks on convoys. Mr. Afridi, of the truckers’ association, condemns the strikes and blames them for increased assaults on his drivers. “We are a tribal people, and if the Americans hit innocent people in Waziristan, we also feel the pain,” he said. Raising the prospect of an even wider threat to the convoys, an influential Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, staged a rally last week in Peshawar, turning out thousands to condemn the missile strikes. The marchers demanded that Pakistan end the NATO convoys, and they vowed to cut the supply lines themselves. Taliban militants have also moved into Khyber after Pakistani military campaigns in nearby areas like Bajaur Agency. Their migration is reminiscent of a tactic that bedeviled the American military in Iraq for years — dubbed “whack a mole” by combat officers — in which guerrillas eluded large American combat operations and moved to take up positions in areas with understaffed troop contingents. All those factors have been amplified, in the view of some officials, by the torpor of the Pakistani government. Mahmood Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier who until 2006 was in charge of security in the western tribal regions, said the government had the manpower to drive militants out of Khyber but had mounted only a weak response. He recounted a recent conversation with a senior Pakistani government official. “You have the chance to wake up,” he said he told the official. “But if you don’t wake up now, there is a good chance you won’t wake up at all.”

Khyber Pass
Pakistan
Afghanistan War (2001- )
Peshawar (Pakistan)
Afghanistan
Taliban
United States Armament and Defense


For Novak Djokovic, One Point Makes the Difference at the U.S. Open

Abstract: Tennis matches have defining moments where the noise of many points is reduced to the silence of just one. Top-seeded Novak Djokovic won the point that mattered the most against the No. 22 seed, Philipp Kohlschreiber, and the 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 score line spoke little to the battle that the fourth-round match really was. Kohlschreiber did an outstanding job of simply hanging around, weathering the storm of Djokovic’s amazing play in the opening set, and had a golden opportunity to level the score. The most important point of the match was set point for Kohlschreiber in the second set with Djokovic serving at 4-5, 30-40. Djokovic was lights out in the first set, and for the most part he dominated the second set, even though it was not reflected on the scoreboard. But that would mean nothing if Kohlschreiber evened the match. Djokovic missed his first serve out wide at 30-40 and Kohlschreiber ran hard at the second serve, making contact with his forehand return well inside the baseline. He was so far in he could have easily just keep going to the net. The point developed in the ad court and switched to the deuce court. Kohlschreiber hit a forehand approach down the line to Djokovic’s backhand, a masterly move. Djokovic smartly directed his backhand passing shot crosscourt, and Kohlschreiber committed the cardinal volleying mistake of taking his backhand volley inside-out to what looked like an open deuce court. It was an illusion as Djokovic was there in a flash. That volley must go behind Djokovic to wrong-foot him, and a defensive lob almost always follows at all levels of the game. Djokovic easily ran down the volley and, as players almost always do, flicked an easy cross-court passing shot winner right by the frozen Kohlschreiber. Djokovic knew the enormity of the shot and instantly raised both arms in the air. He pumped his arms seeking more applause, and finished with his right hand behind his ear, gesturing for even more noise from the raucous crowd. Two points later, Djokovic has restored order at 5-5. Four forehand errors from Kohlschreiber in the next game gave Djokovic a break. Djokovic leads the tournament with return games won at 51 percent (25 of 49) and is third with points won against second serves at 65 percent (90 of 139). He is also the tournament leader by winning 62 percent of baseline points (201 of 324). The hangover from not winning the second set stretched over to the third as Kohlschreiber lost his serve in the opening game with three more forehand errors. Over all, Kohlschreiber hit 11 forehand winners but committed 35 forehand errors. It was a place on the court that Djokovic focused on whenever he really needed a point. Djokovic had 15 forehand winners and only 20 forehand errors, including eight unforced, in a strong showing from a stroke that can go missing at times. The rest of the third set rumbled along uneventfully until Djokovic sealed the match serving at 5-4 by hitting a deep crosscourt backhand that Kohlschreiber chopped down into the court with a backhand slice. Djokovic’s campaign to win a second United States Open title will be enhanced by his avoiding playing extra sets in very hot conditions. Kohlschreiber will be left asking, what if he had taken that volley back behind Djokovic on set point?

Tennis
US Open Tennis
Philipp Kohlschreiber
Novak Djokovic


Banner Day Disappoints Before Mets Win Game 2

Abstract: Somber and quiet and shaking their heads, hordes of fans filed out of Citi Field and trudged toward the subway station. The second game of the day’s single-admission doubleheader was about to start, but they had better plans for the rest of their Sunday afternoon. The Mets had found a new way to lose, and their fans had seen enough. In the ninth, with the score tied, Daniel Murphy failed to catch a throw from David Wright that would have ended the inning. Instead, the decisive run scored. And in the bottom half of the inning, Murphy made the game’s last out, with the tying run on second base. The Mets had lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 2-1 , in a way that was so draining, not many people stayed for the second game, which the Mets won, 4-2 . A rainout on Friday had forced the Sunday doubleheader. Optimism was running high, with Sunday the Mets’ annual Banner Day. Fans paraded around the warning track with handmade signs. Years ago, they might have joked about the payroll or asked for a new shortstop, but since the Mets brought back the event in 2012, the signs have been tamer. One simply read, “Believe!” It seemed fitting that Rafael Montero, one of the Mets’ top pitching prospects and a player they hope to build around, was starting the first game. And in some way, the way he pitched encapsulated the current state of the Mets: He showed signs of talent and potential but also his inexperience and youth. He allowed a first-inning solo home run by Chris Owings but responded by striking out Paul Goldschmidt and Miguel Montero. He allowed only one more hit and compiled 10 strikeouts. But he labored against the lowly Diamondbacks, and after six innings and 113 pitches, his day was done. This was still, by far, the best of Montero’s first three major league starts. The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Yankees had beaten him, taking some of the shine off his arrival. Since then, though, Mets Manager Terry Collins had urged Montero to be more confident in his stuff, and he had sharpened his mechanics. Image The Mets' Rafael Montero showed signs of talent and potential but also his inexperience and youth in his third major league start. Credit Kathy Kmonicek/Associated Press “Yes, of course, this was my best,” Montero said through an interpreter, “and there is better to come — thank God.” Despite his effort, Montero received no decision because Bronson Arroyo had equally dominated the Mets. Their best chance came and went in the first inning. After their first three batters singled, scoring a run, Arroyo retired the next three batters in order: Curtis Granderson, Chris Young and Lucas Duda. Over the next three innings, Juan Lagares, Young and Juan Centeno each grounded into inning-ending double plays. Young grounded into another double play in the sixth, and Duda, with the score tied and the bases loaded in the eighth, also hit into a double play, the Mets’ fifth, which tied a franchise record for a nine-inning game. The Diamondbacks rallied against Jenrry Mejia in the ninth. Murphy dropped the throw from Wright and then flied out to left field, stranding two base runners. The Mets had reached base 16 times and produced only one run. Young and Duda in particular struggled, each stranding six runners. For the series, Duda stranded 15 runners, including a rough game Saturday, when he went 0 for 4, with seven runners left on base . “My job is to drive in runs,” Duda said. “When you don’t do your job, you don’t feel so good.” Collins benched both Duda and Young for the second game, but the Mets’ win was mostly a testament to Daisuke Matsuzaka, who held the Diamondbacks to two runs in six innings in a spot start. He even drove in a run with a single in the second inning. The rest of the Mets reached base 17 times and produced only three runs, which was a marginal improvement but still hard to watch. When the final out was recorded the remaining fans applauded wearily. Then they, too, started to trudge home. INSIDE PITCH Dillon Gee suffered a setback in his recovery from a strained right latissimus dorsi muscle in his back, the Mets said, meaning Miguel Montero and Jacob deGrom will see more time in the rotation. ... Eric Young Jr. said he had a right hamstring injury and would be further evaluated before a decision is made on whether to put him on the disabled list.

Baseball
Mets
Diamondbacks
David Wright
Rafael Montero
Daniel Murphy


‘Afghan Girl’ in 1985 National Geographic Photo Is Arrested in Pakistan

Abstract: An Afghan woman whose photograph as a young refugee with piercing green eyes was published on the cover of National Geographic in 1985 , becoming a symbol of the turmoil of war in Afghanistan, was arrested on Wednesday in Pakistan on charges of fraudulently obtaining national identity cards. The woman, Sharbat Gula, was arrested at her residence in the northwestern city of Peshawar after more than a year of investigation , said Shahid Ilyas, the assistant director of the Federal Investigation Authority. “We raided the house and picked her up,” he said. “It took us a while to collect all the evidence against her, and the officials involved in helping her and her two sons get Pakistani national identity cards.” He added, “We have the evidence now, and we are going to go for prosecution.” The arrest came as the Pakistani authorities were cracking down on Afghans with illegal national identity cards. The authorities said Ms. Gula had illegally obtained a Pakistani identity card in 1988 and a computerized identity card in 2014, while retaining her Afghan passport, which she used in 2014 to travel to Saudi Arabia for the hajj. Image Sharbat Gula in a Pakistani police photo after she was arrested on Wednesday. Credit Pakistan Federal Investigation Agency She faces up to 14 years in prison and a fine of $3,000 to $5,000 if she is convicted, according to the Dawn news agency. Her arrest goes to the heart of an ordeal confronting many Afghan refugees who fled across the border into Pakistan because of decades of war. The Pakistani crackdown on Afghans appears to have intensified since May, when the former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour was killed in a drone strike in Baluchistan Province. He had been traveling with forged Pakistani documents, officials said. Gerry Simpson, a senior researcher and advocate for the Refugee Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, wrote online that 1.5 million Afghans in Pakistan have received “proof of registration” cards, which protected them from deportation . About one million more who did not get the paperwork resorted to using false identity cards. Mr. Simpson wrote that Pakistan was now on a mission to repatriate all Afghans. The Pakistani authorities have revoked or blocked thousands of national identity cards illegally obtained by foreigners. Ms. Gula, who is believed to be in her 40s, was caught up in that dragnet when she was arrested. A court said on Wednesday that she could be kept in custody for two days while the authorities investigated. Ms. Gula was known as “the Afghan girl” when Steve McCurry’s photograph of her wearing a red scarf and staring directly at the camera became world famous in the ’80s. After the United States invaded Afghanistan, the photographer searched in 2002 for the schoolgirl he had photographed in a Pakistani refugee camp. He found her in the mountains of Afghanistan and put a name to the face. Mr. McCurry said in a statement on Wednesday that he had been informed of the arrest through a friend and was trying to find out more. “I am committed to doing anything and everything possible to provide legal and financial support for her and her family,” he said. “We object to this action by the authorities in the strongest possible terms,” he said. “She has suffered throughout her entire life, and we believe that her arrest is an egregious violation of her human rights.” According to the 2002 National Geographic article about Mr. McCurry’s journey to find Ms. Gula, her exact age in the refugee camp had been unknown at the time because there were no records, but she was believed to have been 12. When he went back to look for her, she had returned to the mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. He discovered that she belonged to the Pashtun ethnic group, and that she had returned to her village in Afghanistan during a lull in the fighting. She agreed to be photographed again because her husband told her it would be proper, he said. The magazine article described the adult Ms. Gula: “Time and hardship had erased her youth. Her skin looks like leather. The geometry of her jaw has softened. The eyes still glare; that has not softened.”

Sharbat Gula
Afghanistan
Refugees,Internally Displaced People
Pakistan
Identity Theft
Steve McCurry
Photography
National Geographic


Sheen’s Lawyer Insists Actor Be Paid for Lost Shows

Abstract: The war of words initiated by Charlie Sheen against his employers at CBS and the Warner Brother television studio turned into a legal confrontation Monday, when a lawyer hired by Mr. Sheen demanded that the actor be paid for lost episodes of his show, “Two and a Half Men.” The episodes were dropped after CBS and Warner Brothers made a decision last week to stop production on the hit comedy, blaming recent actions by Mr. Sheen, including oral attacks on the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre. Those attacks continued Monday, though in somewhat muted fashion, in a series of interviews the actor gave to the morning shows of two networks, a gossip Web site and a Los Angeles radio station. The lawyer hired by Mr. Sheen, Marty Singer, is known to be an especially aggressive Hollywood litigator. He sent a letter to the network and studio, demanding that the actor receive $16 million for the eight episodes that remained this season. Several Hollywood entertainment lawyers, agents and executives questioned the chances of the demand — and any possible suit Mr. Sheen may file — based on how the contract was constructed. For one thing, CBS has no contract with Mr. Sheen; he works for Warner Brothers. But his lawyer could potentially charge that CBS had interfered with the contract by agreeing with Warner Brothers to shut the show down. One senior executive with knowledge of the contract said it specifies that several people would have to be included in any future episodes of the show, saying they were “of the essence” to the program. One of those people, the executive said, is Mr. Lorre. In several recent interviews, Mr. Sheen has denigrated Mr. Lorre, saying he hates him and indicating he would not be able to work with him. On Monday, however, Mr. Sheen tempered his comments about Mr. Lorre a bit, first in an ABC interview, saying “I feel terrible” about any misinterpretation of Mr. Sheen’s use of the name “Chaim Levine” when referring to Mr. Lorre. (His real name is Charles Levine.) Mr. Sheen denied that was meant in any way to be an anti-Semitic reference. Executives at both CBS and Warner Brother had interpreted it that way. In a later interview with the Web site TMZ, the actor said: “Whatever part I had in this, I sincerely apologize for. Whatever I can fix, I guarantee, I will.” A longtime Hollywood entertainment lawyer, who asked not to be identified because he had relationships with several of the parties, said Mr. Sheen might have made that apology based on legal advice. The lawyer said Mr. Sheen would be in a stronger legal position if he were willing to work with Mr. Lorre. In that case, Warner Brothers might have to pay something in a settlement, the lawyer said. The interviews Mr. Sheen has been giving started a bitter confrontation on Monday between NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America.” On Saturday, ABC landed what it believed was an exclusive interview with Mr. Sheen for its “20/20” program on Tuesday night, but NBC swooped in on Sunday with its own interview for “Today.” ABC responded by moving two long segments of the interview to “Good Morning America,” even pushing back its coverage of the morning after the Oscar ceremony, a property the network owns the rights to broadcast. Mr. Sheen told TMZ that the “Today” interview was “pure gold,” while the ABC interview “was slanted.” An ABC News spokesman, Jeffrey Schneider, denied that ABC had done anything to alter the interview’s tone in any way. Jim Bell, the executive producer of “Today” said: “This was an intense booking scrum. I feel like we got the better of it, though we were down in the fourth quarter.” James Goldston, newly installed as the executive producer of “Good Morning America,” played down a report that ABC executives were, as The Hollywood Reporter put it on Sunday, “apoplectic” about NBC’s interview. “While we would always prefer that they talk to us and not talk to other people, we have no means to stop them from talking to other people,” he said. He added, “One tries one’s utmost to make everything an exclusive, but you know, these things happen from time to time.” He emphasized that the ABC camera crew had more time with Mr. Sheen than NBC had. Mr. Goldston added of his new job, “This is going to be enormous fun.”

Television
Sheen Charlie
Actors and Actresses
CBS Corp


Virginia: Arrest Powers for Alcohol Agents Questioned

Abstract: An arrest that left a University of Virginia student bloodied and shouting allegations of racism has prompted some lawmakers to question whether state liquor control agents should have arrest power. Gov. Terry McAuliffe ordered the Virginia State Police to investigate the arrest early Wednesday of Martese Johnson, who needed 10 stitches to close a gash on his head after his altercation with Alcoholic Beverage Control agents outside a Charlottesville bar. Since his arrest, and an incident two years ago in which beverage control agents swarmed the car of another student, mistaking a container of sparkling water for beer in her car, some legislators are suggesting the agents cannot handle having the same arrest powers as police. “Given what happened yesterday and what happened a couple of years ago, it raises some serious questions in my mind whether they should have arrest powers,” State Senator Donald McEachin of Henrico County said Thursday.

Virginia
Alcohol abuse
Discrimination
Terry McAuliffe
University of Virginia


Justin Rose Leads at Bay Hill and Tiger Woods Is 4 Back

Abstract: Justin Rose put on a clinic with the putter and ran off four straight birdies late in his round for a seven-under 65, giving him a two-shot lead after the opening round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Fla. Tiger Woods made enough key par saves and manhandled the par 5s to scratch out a 69, a reasonable start as he tries to win Bay Hill for the eighth time and return to No. 1 in the world. John Huh shot a 67, and John Rollins and Brad Fritsch were at 68. ¶ Jane Park shot a bogey-free six-under 66 to take the lead after the opening round of the Kia Classic in Carlsbad, Calif. Park had a one-stroke lead over Caroline Hedwall and Karrie Webb. Stacy Lewis, playing her first round since taking over the No. 1 spot from Yani Tseng, was four shots off the lead.


At Brooklyn Police Station, Using Inmates’ Video (and Pizza) to Prevent Youth Crime

Abstract: Instead of the evening tour of officers gathering in the muster room of the 73rd Precinct station house in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on Tuesday, a group of 10 teenagers slumped on folding chairs, joking and fidgeting as lights were dimmed for a video. The teenagers were transported by the video to the gothic looking cellblocks of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, and into the presence of hardened inmates serving long sentences for murder. The inmates did not threaten or berate, but rather wept and bared their souls, speaking directly to the cameras, and by extension, directly to these minority teenagers identified by the precinct’s youth officers as at risk of being drawn into criminal activity. “There’s a group of guys in Sing Sing who are all convicted murderers,” said Chief Joanne Jaffe, of the New York Police Department ’s Community Affairs Bureau, by way of introducing the video. “They were racked by guilt. They said, ‘How can we do something to pay our debts to our innocent victims?’ ” One inmate in the video described inadvertently shooting and killing an innocent-bystander in a Queens movie theater as a teenager. Another spoke of feeling powerful when first picking up a gun as a teenager. A third spoke of impulsively shooting someone and finding out later “how it feels to have destroyed a family.” The teenagers inside the precinct house seemed transfixed by the video, but were not exactly forthcoming when asked afterward to relate it to growing up in Brownsville, which has one of the highest rates in New York City of young men winding up incarcerated, or on either end of a gun. They were finally coaxed into conversation with pizza and the persuasiveness of Chief Jaffe, who used a tough-but-tender approach. Paul Maxwell, 18, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said he had been arrested multiple times on “petty offenses.” He related a recent altercation in which another teenager tried to embarrass him. If it had escalated, “it’s war,” said Mr. Maxwell, who added that he refrained. “You should’ve hit him,” said Isaiah, 15, a high school sophomore. That might lead to an arrest, Chief Jaffe said. “No one’s going to snitch,” Marquis, 15, said. Isaiah said, “We don’t care if we go to jail, because we lived and they didn’t.” Some teenagers did not want their full names published for fear of reprisals in the neighborhood for speaking to the police and to the press. Chief Jaffe asked the teenagers how many had been arrested and had been around guns. Most said they had. They said guns provided protection in rough areas, such as the Howard Houses. “I could get shot going home right now,” one teenager said. A 16-year-old high school sophomore from Brownsville said, “It’s either we protect ourselves, or nobody going to protect us.” Image In talking with the group, Chief Joanne Jaffe learned that many had already been arrested and most had been around guns. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times Marquis described his attitude toward an attacker as: “I always put my family first because I don’t care about their family.” Chief Jaffe pointed out that the inmates in the video became roiled with guilt for destroying another family. The video, a minidocumentary called “Voices From Within,” was made by inmates at Sing Sing in Ossining, N.Y., and made available, through the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice in New York City, to the city’s Department of Probation and Police Department. Both departments have begun training personnel to use the film to stimulate discussions in youth groups. The goal is to avoid crime and, Chief Jaffe said, “to stop and think about consequences and how you can ruin your life in 10 seconds.” The video began as a partnership between Anthony J. Annucci, acting commissioner for the State Department of Correctional Services, and Michael Capra, the superintendent of Sing Sing, to make a “groundbreaking project to end gun violence,” said Superintendent Capra, who invited Dan Slepian, a producer at the NBC News program “Dateline,” and Rob Allen, his film editor associate, to help make the piece as a volunteer project. During filming, each inmate sat alone in a room speaking directly to the camera, giving emotional and confessional pleas to the viewers not to follow their path to gun violence. The video , which Mr. Slepian presented in December at a Tedx event, features inmates ruefully recalling their murders as explosive, unplanned outbursts prompted by momentary flashes of anger and chaos. Chief Jaffe had Deputy Inspector Miguel Iglesias, the 73rd Precinct’s commanding officer, and Sgt. Duane Palmer, of the department’s school safety division, gather the teenagers. She also showed them “Guns Change Lives,” a video made last year and based on her interviews with several New York City men whose criminal involvement led to their being shot and confined to wheelchairs. At one point, Chief Jaffe told one silent teenager, “I love that you’re not making eye contact with me,” which coaxed him into the conversation. When Isaiah became argumentative, Chief Jaffe asked him about his home life. He said he was being raised by his aunt, his mother having died from renal failure when he was 9. Chief Jaffe walked over and put her arm around him. Later, Isaiah said he got the point of both videos. “You need to think before you react,” he said.

Sing Sing Correctional Facility
NYPD
Teens
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
Crime
Murders and Homicides
Joanne Jaffe
Brownsville Brooklyn
Prison


Jockey Calvin Borel Elected to Hall of Fame

Abstract: The three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel; the thoroughbreds Housebuster, Invasor and Lure; and the steeplechasers McDynamo and Tuscalee were elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Borel, 46, is the only jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times in a four-year span, accomplishing the feat with Street Sense (2007), Mine That Bird (2009) and Super Saver (2010). Housebuster was the top sprinter in 1990 and 1991. Invasor was the Horse of the Year in 2006, when he won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and he won the Dubai World Cup the next year. Lure won the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1992 and 1993.


The Extreme Boulevardier

Abstract: THERE must have been someplace, somewhere, at some time, that was a better, richer environment to walk in than New York today. Constantinople in the year A.D. 1200 comes to mind, or Venice a few centuries later. But in this country right now, it’s hard to imagine a place that surpasses New York, particularly Manhattan. Its buildings and streets, built at a greater intensity than anywhere else in the United States, offer a lode of sensory information. Most New Yorkers, of course, while they profess to enjoy walking, usually do it no more than they have to. They walk to and from the train station, for example, en route to the office or a movie. But others adopt what might be called long walking, regularly walking 20, 40 or 60 blocks to work, school or appointments. And in recent years, as the city has grown cleaner, safer and more prosperous, their numbers are growing. Dedicated long walkers often discover the pleasures of walking by accident. It was insomnia, for example, that prompted Randy Swearer to begin walking to his offices at Parsons the New School for Design near Union Square from his home in Brooklyn Heights. “I couldn’t sleep one night,” said Mr. Swearer, who was dean of the school until 2004, “and once the dawn broke I just thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of this apartment.’ So I walked to work, and I saw all of this amazing stuff: delivery trucks unloading weird junk, phenomenal light plays on the buildings, fabulous wall postings and graffiti, wonderfully eccentric people, etc. “It was like going to the theater. So I started walking to work, and after a few months liked it so much that I walked home too, about eight miles total.” New Yorkers have always walked, but they walked differently in different eras in the city’s four centuries. When the city was confined to the tip of Lower Manhattan in the 1600s and early 1700s, long walks were impossible, at least within the city proper. By the late 18th century, as the city expanded north past what is now Chambers and Canal Streets, the potential length of walks grew. But most daily walks remained short because most people still lived near where they worked. That was the situation even after the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 set off an economic explosion that made New York the country’s dominant hub for commerce and industry. The city rapidly expanded uptown, propelled by both economic growth and new horse-drawn contraptions called omnibuses, which would eventually morph into streetcars and elevated train lines. But for decades, only the relatively privileged rode them. “It was only over the next 75 years that the riding habit caught on,” said Kenneth Jackson, editor of the Encyclopedia of New York City and a professor of history at Columbia University. “And at first it was only with people with more money. If you lived on the Lower East Side, you weren’t going to take the streetcar. A nickel was a nickel.” STILL, as the number of those who could afford to ride grew, those who could ride but chose not to began to stand out. The 19th century was the age of the flaneur and the boulevardier, figures who made strolling down Fifth Avenue or Broadway, often vividly attired, a fashionable activity worthy of their counterparts in Paris or London. Walking city streets played the same role for some New Yorkers as rambling through the forests and streams did for Henry David Thoreau. In a famous 1851 lecture and subsequent essay, titled simply “Walking,” Thoreau declared: “I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements.” During those years, the journalist Walter Whitman, who as a poet would later go by the name Walt Whitman, could be found mining the streets on foot for stories for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and other newspapers. “Duding himself up,” Mike Wallace and Edwin G. Burrows wrote in “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898,” Whitman “strolled around town, sporting a polished cane, absorbing scenes and characters.” The account continues: “Whitman particularly explored the plebeian world of popular culture, visiting fire companies, gambling dens, whorehouses, and theaters, and he wrote up richly detailed sketches of newsboys, pawnbrokers, stage drivers, salesclerks and butchers.” After the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, a steady stream of traffic traveled over the great stone structure linking Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn. A notable member of the crowd, according to Seth Kamil, president of Big Onion Walking Tours, was Mayor William Gaynor, who walked every day from his home in Park Slope to City Hall. Another great walker around that period was a scholar and editor named John Huston Finley. Born in 1863, he taught politics at Princeton, served as president of City College of New York and was for two decades an editor of The New York Times. And every year for 30 years, Mr. Finley took a birthday walk around Manhattan. So prodigious a walker was he that a pathway in Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side was named in his honor in 1941, the year after his death. Among more recent long walkers was the poet Charles Reznikoff, who died in 1976. Mr. Reznikoff habitually walked 20 miles a day, starting from his home on the Upper West Side and typically passing through poorer ethnic neighborhoods in search of moments that would inspire him to write. The flaneur as such has largely disappeared, but some days it can seem as if all New Yorkers are boulevardiers, walking both to see and to be seen. According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than half a million — 5.6 percent — of the nine million workers in the New York metropolitan area walk to work daily. Though that percentage may not sound like much, it is the highest in the country, followed by Boston, where about 4 percent of the nearly three million workers in the metropolitan area walk to work. One reason for the resurgence of walking is that city streets are cleaner and safer than in decades past. A stroll around Union Square, TriBeCa or the Upper West Side no longer means skirting drug dealers and over-full trash cans. There are fewer muggers. Even the air smells sweeter. With Brooklyn and Queens having absorbed the bulk of city’s population growth over the last 15 years, there has also been an increase in pedestrian traffic over the Brooklyn Bridge and the 59th Street Bridge. Even the 12-day transit strike of 1980 may have contributed to the trend; it was around that time that many women adopted the habit of walking to work in sneakers, then slipping on their high-heeled shoes once they reached the office. But whatever the motivation, for some, the rewards are deeply alluring. “Each New Yorker can seem like a minor character who has honed his or her persona into a sharp, three-second cameo,” Phillip Lopate wrote in his book “Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan,” in a chapter titled “On the Aesthetics of Urban Walking.” “You have only an instant to catch the passer-by’s unique gesture or telltale accessory.” Mr. Lopate once described a “rhythm of walking and thinking”: “The legs get the mind going at a certain pace. There is a continued alternation between outside stimulation and the interior monologue that’s going on in your head. There is the whole Eros of walking. You pass something that you fall in love with and which you’ll never see again.”


Justices Will Hear Appeals on Immigrants’ Residence

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether the length of immigrants’ lawful residence in the United States should be considered in determining whether their children may be deported. The court also agreed to hear six other cases from among the hundreds of appeals that had piled up over the summer. The new cases mostly concern technical questions in low-profile areas of the law like tax shelters and workers’ compensation. The number of cases accepted by the justices from their “long conference” after their summer break was unusually small. Last year, they added 14 cases to the docket at this time. The immigration case is probably the most consequential of the new additions to the docket. Federal immigration law allows people who have been lawful permanent residents for at least five years and have lived continuously in the United States for at least seven years to ask the government for leniency if they are threatened with deportation. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, has ruled in a series of cases that immigrants who entered the United States as children may count their parents’ years here to satisfy the residency requirements. The court accepted two appeals from such rulings, consolidating them into a single case. One of the appeals, Holder v. Gutierrez, No. 10-1542, concerns Carlos M. Gutierrez, a Mexican citizen who became a legal permanent resident of the United States in 2003, when he was 19. Two years later, the government sought to deport him after catching him trying to drive across the border from Mexico with three undocumented minors in his car. The other appeal, Holder v. Sawyers, No. 10-1543, involved Damien A. Sawyers, a Jamaican citizen whom the government sought to deport after he was convicted of “maintaining a dwelling for keeping a controlled substance.” The conviction came 6 years and 10 months after Mr. Sawyers became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 1995 at the age of 15. Neither man could himself satisfy the criteria that would have allowed him to seek leniency. The Ninth Circuit ruled that the time their parents had spent in the United States could be imputed to them. In its briefs urging the justices to hear the case, the Obama administration said the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the law was wrong and at odds with those of other appeals courts. The Ninth Circuit’s approach, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. wrote in one of the briefs , “impedes the government’s high-priority efforts to remove criminal aliens.” Lawyers for the two men, in briefs urging the justices not to hear their cases, said the government had ignored a Congressional policy favoring keeping families intact. They also noted that the attorney general remained free to deny leniency however the math was computed. The Supreme Court also agreed to decide whether private lawyers hired by municipalities to conduct investigations are entitled to protections against lawsuits generally available to government lawyers. The case, Filarsky v. Delia, No. 10-1018, arose from an investigation of Nicholas B. Delia, a firefighter in Rialto, Calif., who had been suspected of improperly taking sick days. The city filmed Mr. Delia buying rolls of fiberglass insulation at a home improvement store while he was on medical leave, questioned him about the purchases and then required him to retrieve the insulation from his home. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit determined that various city officials and the private lawyer, Steve A. Filarsky, had violated Mr. Delia’s rights under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches. Judge Mark W. Bennett, writing for the panel, nonetheless dismissed Mr. Delia’s lawsuit against city officials, saying they were entitled to the qualified immunity available to government officials when the legal principle barring their conduct had yet not been clearly established. Mr. Filarsky, Judge Bennett wrote, was not entitled to that same immunity because he was a private lawyer. In a brief supporting Mr. Filarsky, the League of California Cities argued that denying qualified immunity to lawyers like him “is not just legally wrong but will harm cities and other government units by making utilization of private attorneys less effective and more expensive.”

Immigration and Emigration
Deportation
Supreme Court
Gutierrez Carlos M
Verrilli Donald B Jr


Coach Is Marquette’s Minutiae Man

Abstract: MILWAUKEE — Reaching into his back pocket after a game last week, the Marquette men’s basketball coach, Brent Williams, who is known as Buzz, pulled out a thick sheaf of papers, impeccably folded and held together by two large black binder clips. Though Williams carries four bags stuffed with books, scouting materials and personal items wherever he goes, these papers stay on him when he coaches. Many of the sheets of paper contain statistics; Williams’s obsession with numbers borders on fanatical. Some contain notes from recent conversations. One page contains a list of recruits, coaches and parents he is supposed to call. Another, the names of people he prays for. The packet is so thick that Williams has his tailor lengthen the back left pocket of his slacks by an inch so it all fits under the vent of his suit coat without drawing attention. Not that Williams is particularly proud of this. “What it is, is a damnation, to be so consumed like this,” he said. “I don’t want anybody to see that I’m carrying all kinds of randomness in my pocket. And because I don’t want it sliding around in my pocket, I’ve got to put these clips on it. And I don’t want anybody to ever see that. That’s why I say it’s a damnation.” Whatever you call it, Williams’s passion and attention to detail have kept the Golden Eagles competitive in the Big East Conference after Tom Crean’s departure for Indiana. With only one starter taller than 6 feet 6 inches, eighth-ranked Marquette enters a rugged final stretch of the regular season at 23-4, its best record at this point since 2002-03, when Dwyane Wade led the team to the Final Four. Before that, the last 23-4 team was in 1977-78 — the season after Al McGuire coached Marquette, then the Warriors, to an N.C.A.A. title before retiring . Maintaining such a lofty mark will not be easy. Up next for Marquette is No. 2 Connecticut on Wednesday night at the Bradley Center, then games against No. 6 Louisville on the road on Sunday, and at No. 1 Pittsburgh on March 4. The Golden Eagles finish the regular season at home against Syracuse on March 7. In Williams, 36, Marquette hired a coach who is almost as much a character as McGuire, if McGuire had been from a small town in Texas instead of New York City. Williams drinks sweet tea, usually keeps a tin of chewing tobacco and a spit cup within reach, and arranges items on the desks in his campus and Bradley Center offices with military precision. He frequently begins practice at odd times, like 7:08 a.m. sharp, instead of 7 or 7:15. And his resourcefulness can be, well, peculiar. Last Tuesday night, after a 79-67 home victory over Seton Hall, Williams’s players devoured almost all the postgame pizza before he could get to it, and left him nothing to eat from. So he loaded the last four cracker-crust slices into the handiest thing he could find: a souvenir dog dish left over by the Milwaukee Admirals, the American Hockey League team that also plays at the Bradley Center. “They know I have certain issues, some of which they make fun of, some of which they know is just me and they won’t make fun of it,” Williams said. “They just allow me to continue to live with those issues.” Williams’s players have come to accept his quirks, though some were not sure what to make of him when he joined Crean’s staff as an assistant before the 2007-8 season. Williams had just quit his first head coaching job, at the University of New Orleans, after one season, after stints as an assistant at five colleges in 12 years. (New Orleans is suing him for breach of contract.) Some players, like point guard Dominic James, thought Williams’s nickname derived from his close-cropped hair. Lewis Orr, the former coach at Navarro College in Corsicana, Tex., for whom Williams worked as a student assistant, began calling him Buzz for his relentless energy around the gym. “He kind of recruited us,” Orr said in a telephone interview from his home in Texas. Over the summer, Williams began Sunday night meetings with the players. He called them Life Lessons, and he broached nonbasketball topics as a way to build trust. When practice began, Williams’s devotion to numbers and statistics manifested itself almost daily, as he sought to quantify what he saw on video. Opponents’ scouting reports are based on percentages and probabilities broken down by his staff. Turning to a page in his Seton Hall scouting binder, Williams documented by percentage how often the Pirates ran their favorite play, which player usually took the shot, and whether he shot more often coming around a screen or off the dribble. “It’s been an adjustment for my players and for my staff even, because everything is number-derived,” he said. “We don’t ever say to our guys, hey now, he’s really good off catch-and-shoot. I want to know. So we have evidence to prove that.” Orr, whom Williams hired as a consultant, sometimes kids him about this. “He doesn’t sleep much,” Orr said, “so he’s got a lot of time to run these numbers through his head all night long.” And guard Wesley Matthews said he would sometimes question Williams’s figures. “He’ll throw out a number, and then he’ll just come up with a percentage, and I’m like, I don’t think that’s really the percentage,” he said. “But we believe him. We trust him.” Even critiques of Williams’s own team feature arcane statistics. Lacking height and an inside game, the Golden Eagles counter with tough defense and an up-tempo offense led by Matthews, Jerel McNeal (the team’s career scoring leader) and Lazar Hayward. All average at least 16 points a game. “Our starting five averages one rebound per 7.7 minutes played,” Williams said. “That’s the only thing that gives us a chance, if we can guard and if we can get defensive rebounds. We can’t just fire up a bad shot, because we’re not getting it back. And we can’t give teams extra possessions when they’re on offense because we can’t rebound the ball. “For us to be where we are today I think is a blessing. We’ve worked, but I think we’re built on the right things.”

Marquette University
Williams Brent
College Athletics
Basketball


Florida State Faked Injuries, North Carolina State Coach Says

Abstract: North Carolina State Coach Dave Doeren said No. 1 Florida State faked injuries to slow down the Wolfpack in the Seminoles’ 56-41 win on Saturday. “It’s a reoccurring thing,” Doeren said. “It’s not just Florida State where it’s happening. There’s nothing the officials can do about it. It’s not a rule in college football. But I think it’s unsportsmanlike, personally.” Florida State Coach Jimbo Fisher said: “I accuse him of not knowing what he’s talking about. We’re not faking injuries. No one faked injuries, and we wouldn’t do that. We’ll coach Florida State and he can coach North Carolina State.”

College football
Dave Doeren
Sports injury
Florida State University
North Carolina State
Jimbo Fisher


Shell to Sell Refinery and Gas Stations in Australia

Abstract: LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell said Friday that it would sell most of its Australian refining and marketing business to Vitol, a large commodity trading house, for about $2.6 billion. The sale, contingent on regulatory approval, includes the Geelong Refinery, south of Melbourne, and 870 gasoline stations that will continue to use the Shell brand. Most of the staff will remain “to operate the business under the new owner,” Shell said in a statement. The deal illustrates major changes in the international oil business as companies give up less profitable assets while traders like Vitol develop into increasingly large and complex operations. Vitol, a privately owned company based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, is one of the world’s largest traders of oil and natural gas with revenues of about $300 billion in 2012. Like many of the big international oil companies, Shell, based in The Hague, Netherlands, is picking up the pace of asset sales under Ben van Beurden, who took over as chief executive last month. Shell has been under pressure from investors after delivering disappointing results in recent quarters. Poor results in its refining business, particularly in Europe and Asia, have been one of the main culprits. Last month Mr. van Beurden said he was targeting global refining for restructuring, along with North American shale gas holdings, where Shell has taken large write-downs in recent years. He said the recent boom in the building of refineries in Asia had led to an oversupply of products like gasoline, resulting in low returns or losses at many facilities. “Australia remains important to Shell, but we are making tough portfolio choices to improve the company’s overall competitiveness, " Mr. van Beurden said in a statement. The Australia transaction also shows the growing reach of commodity trading houses like Vitol, which are finding opportunities to expand as oil companies sell some of their businesses and banks like Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase retreat from physical commodity trading under pressure from regulators. A Vitol spokeswoman, Andrea Schlaepfer, said the company thought it would be able to use its “ability and expertise to source crude” to improve the profitability of the Australian operations. She also said that the Australian market made less petroleum products than it consumed, giving Vitol an opportunity to fill the gap. In a statement, Ian Taylor, Vitol’s chief executive, said, “This is an exciting acquisition for us, a good company led by an experienced management team and underpinned by the value of the Shell brand.” Vitol is assembling a growing package of refining operations that it can supply through its trading business. The company owns refineries in Belgium, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. It bought a network of African refineries and gasoline stations from Shell in 2011, and it is negotiating for a 45 percent stake in a refinery in Germany. Vitol also produces oil in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Even with the exit from refining in Australia, Shell will remain a key player in the country, where some of the world’s largest natural gas export projects are being developed. Shell is making investments worth tens of billions of dollars in such projects, including the immense, Chevron-led Gorgon facility off the coast of the state of Western Australia. It is also developing the first floating liquefied natural gas facility, called Prelude, also off Western Australia. But with costs of Australian developments rising, the company is making some trims. Last month, Shell said it would sell its minority interests in an Australian liquefied natural gas project called Wheatstone to the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company for $1.1 billion.

Earnings Reports
Royal Dutch Shell
Oil and Gasoline
Australia
Ben van Beurden


Police Study Way to Jam Cellphones in an Attack

Abstract: New York police officials are studying the feasibility of disrupting cellphone communications between terrorists during any attack, after revelations that gunmen in Mumbai received electronic transmissions during their killing spree in November. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly raised the possibility in Washington at a Senate hearing on Thursday, but he noted there were technological hurdles to shutting down cellular service in a narrow location, like a hotel or movie theater. At the hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Mr. Kelly testified, “Law enforcement needs to find ways to disrupt cellphones and other communications” during an unfolding crisis like the one in Mumbai. But he stressed, under questioning by senators, that care must be taken in pursuing such plans, suggesting that widespread shutdowns could hamper emergency personnel or keep civilians from making emergency calls. Later, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said the department wanted to preserve the option of monitoring conversations between terrorists should that prove more advantageous than cutting them off. He said that any plan to shut electronics transmissions was “only in the discussion stage.” Mr. Browne said, “Our communications and technology people are looking for ways to disrupt cellphone and hand-held devices in a pinpointed way.” He added: “We are not at a point where we are testing any equipment. We are talking to the industry and to people in other government agencies and among ourselves. What is known about this? What is possible? And what is being tested along these lines?” Electronic jamming of cellphones or of global positioning systems is complicated but possible, and might already be in use by foreign military agencies, said Eric Lustig, a data systems manager at Eastern Communications, a Queens company that provides radio equipment to government agencies and other clients. Cellular service in a big region, like a borough, could be simply shut down, he said. More compact sites, like an official motorcade, could be jammed by devices in the cars. “You cannot draw straight lines around, or a circle around, an area where you would do it, but it is certainly possible to jam an area,” Mr. Lustig said. “If you are talking about a tall building, you would knock out cellphone communications for a far larger area. If you just wanted to knock out cellphones in a movie theater, it could be done.” Mr. Lustig said it would be much more difficult to jam a satellite phone than a cellular phone, since the antenna is pointed at the sky.

Terrorism
Wireless Communications
Cellular Telephones
Police
Police Department (NYC)
Kelly Raymond W
New York State
New York City


Connecticut Faces Lawsuit Over Ebola Quarantine Policies

Abstract: Law students working with Yale’s legal services organization planned to file a class-action lawsuit in Federal District Court on Monday against Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut and the state’s acting and former health commissioners on behalf of residents affected by Connecticut’s Ebola quarantine policies, including two who were Yale graduate students . The complaint seeks unspecified damages for some of the plaintiffs who were ordered to stay inside apartments and homes for up to three weeks in fall 2014, with police officers posted outside their residences. “We believe the quarantine of asymptomatic individuals did not do any good and did a whole lot of harm,” said Emma Roth, a second-year law student who helped draft the complaint. “People who’ve never shown signs of Ebola can’t pass the disease,” added Ms. Roth, a co-author of a report on Ebola-related quarantines in the United States that was released in December by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Yale Global Health Justice Partnership. The legal complaint, a draft of which was shared with The New York Times, challenges both the decision to use quarantines in an attempt to prevent Ebola’s spread and the procedures the state put in place under an Ebola emergency order issued on Oct. 7, 2014, by Mr. Malloy, a Democrat. State officials confirmed on Friday the order was still in effect. The complaint also asks the court to prevent state officials from detaining and quarantining any future travelers from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa, arguing that it is unnecessary and that there are less restrictive means to protect public health. On Friday, Christopher Stan, a spokesman for the Connecticut Public Health Department, said the state was no longer monitoring travelers coming to the state from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone, the three countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people . “Connecticut is following the most current C.D.C. guidelines,” Mr. Stan said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state has acknowledged quarantining nine individuals in October 2014. None of them developed Ebola. However, the complaint argues that the court should restrain the state’s officials from imposing future quarantines on individuals in contravention of their constitutional rights, in light of an outbreak of the Zika virus and other potential emerging epidemics. Image Bishop Harmon D. Yalartai, 63, and his wife, Esther Yalartai, 52, in the hall of Faith Revival Temple Church in West Haven. They left Saturday on a trip to Liberia, their native country, and because of the recent Ebola outbreak there, the couple fears how a quarantine policy will affect them upon their return. Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times “It’s very easy in the midst of a crisis to fail to protect individual liberties,” Kyle Edwards, a Yale law student who holds a doctorate in public health, said. “It’s important to set up those policies now so they’re in place for future outbreaks.” The two Yale graduate students who were quarantined, Ryan Boyko and Laura Skrip, had traveled to Liberia to work with that country’s health ministry and returned in October 2014. Both said they never came into contact with Ebola patients. In the legal complaint, Mr. Boyko said that being detained alone in an apartment, not being allowed to spend time with his young son and not being able to work caused him to become depressed and later contributed to his dropping out of the public health degree program. Another plaintiff, Assunta Nimley-Phillips, housed six Liberian family members who were quarantined in her West Haven home, including two school-aged children. Ms. Nimley-Phillips’s family has not previously been identified publicly. She said the family did not receive a written quarantine order, was not informed of its legal right to challenge the quarantines and was not provided with appropriate material support, including a thermometer. Ms. Nimley-Phillips said in an interview that police officers were stationed outside and checked her identification whenever she left home. “They flashed the light,” she said. “Sometimes it scared me.” However, Ms. Nimley-Phillips said she decided to restrict the movements of her family members herself, before being instructed to do so by the state, sending them to live in her basement when they arrived in October 2014. “I wanted to separate us from them just in case, you know, anybody was lying about their symptoms,” she said. “I told them, ‘Don’t come up.’ ” A phone call from a health official came early the next week, saying that the six Liberian immigrants were under quarantine and that Ms. Nimley-Phillips needed to report their temperatures three times a day. She said nobody told her how to protect herself, and she bought bleach because she knew that was what was used in Liberia. Ms. Nimley-Phillips said she supported the state’s decision to quarantine her relatives. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, because they wanted to make sure they didn’t have anything,” she said. Image Yale Law students, posing for a photograph on campus on Saturday, will file a lawsuit on Monday on Ebola quarantines that they say violate the United States Constitution and Connecticut state laws. From left are: Mekela Panditharatne, Kyle Fees, Elizabeth Deutsch, Kyle Edwards, Emma Roth, Paige Baum and Alexandra Brodsky. Credit Douglas Healey for The New York Times Mr. Stan, the state health department spokesman, said the local health director would have been responsible for delivering any quarantine order signed by the state health commissioner. “I recall that a few individuals were thinking this was the beginning of the takeover of the United States, and we were going to impose martial law,” he said. “This is kind of burned into my memory.” When asked whether the individuals quarantined had been exposed to Ebola, Mr. Stan said: “They weren’t a verified threat; there was a possibility they could have been exposed to it. That’s why they were quarantined. It was a new thing, too. We hadn’t really quarantined people like this. It was a scary virus from abroad.” Dr. Jewel Mullen, who was then Connecticut’s health commissioner and is named as a defendant in the complaint, defended the quarantines in an interview in November. “We were developing policies to address a scenario that we had never encountered before in our country,” she said. However, in emails from October 2014 sent to state officials and released as part of a Freedom of Information request filed by Yale’s Global Health Justice Partnership, public health specialists immediately questioned the quarantines as unscientific, unnecessary and politically driven. Responding to those concerns in an email on Oct. 26, 2014, Connecticut’s state epidemiologist and infectious diseases director, Dr. Matthew Cartter, wrote that the state’s public health emergency laws offered officials little latitude. “The quarantine definition is very 19th century, making 21st-century quarantine options difficult to implement,” Dr. Cartter wrote. One other state, New Jersey, is also facing a legal challenge to its Ebola quarantine policy. In October, a nurse with Doctors without Borders, Kaci Hickox, sued Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican now running for his party’s presidential nomination, and state health officials in Federal District Court, alleging that she was isolated without cause upon her return from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone in October 2014. In a brief filed in January, New Jersey’s acting attorney general argued that the court should dismiss the case because Ms. Hickox, when she returned, had elevated temperature readings and could reasonably have posed a danger, and state law immunizes public officials from prosecution for imposing quarantines. The complaint being filed on Monday in Connecticut also seeks to prevent that state from imposing quarantines on returning travelers in the future, particularly if Ebola re-emerges, as scientists have warned it is likely to do. “That kind of fear lingers,” said Harmon D. Yalartai, the pastor of the Faith Revival Temple Church in West Haven, which also has congregations in Liberia. He and his wife, Esther Yalartai, both named as plaintiffs in the complaint, left on Saturday for a trip to Liberia, and expect to return later this month.

College
Ebola
Quarantines
Connecticut
Dannel P Malloy
CDC
Yale


Venezuelan Pleads Guilty in Cover-Up of Suitcase of Cash

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — A Venezuelan lawyer pleaded guilty in Miami on Friday to his role in a plot to cover up the destination of a suitcase stuffed with $800,000 in cash that United States prosecutors say was intended as a campaign contribution from the Venezuelan government to Argentina ’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The lawyer, Moisés Maionica, 36, was one of five foreigners charged in December with conspiring to silence Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan-American businessman caught carrying the suitcase by customs officials in Buenos Aires. In a case bitterly disputed by the governments of Argentina and Venezuela , a four-month investigation led American prosecutors to charge four Venezuelans and one Uruguayan with conspiracy and with acting as unregistered foreign agents of the Venezuelan government in what they said was a cover-up scheme. Mr. Maionica admitted in federal district court on Friday to having met with Mr. Antonini and people suspected of being Venezuelan agents, and to having arranged calls between Mr. Antonini and a senior official in Venezuela’s intelligence agency, which the F.B.I. said it recorded. Since the case broke in December, both Mrs. Kirchner and Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, have lashed out at the United States for its investigation into the mysterious suitcase. Both leaders have accused American officials of using the proceedings to carry out foreign policy against Mr. Chávez’s government and to try to drive a wedge between Argentina and Venezuela, which have become closer allies in recent years. Mr. Chávez’s government has gone as far as to say the entire operation was a C.I.A. plot to discredit him. Rubén Oliva, Mr. Maionica’s lawyer, said in court that his client had been in the United States preparing to take a cruise when he received a call from a high-ranking Venezuelan official asking him to help Mr. Antonini, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Oliva said that Mr. Maionica did not know he needed to register as an agent for a foreign government but that ignorance of the law was not a defense. Mr. Maionica pleaded guilty to both charges and answered questions from Judge Joan A. Lenard in Spanish, The A.P. reported. Mr. Oliva declined to comment outside of court. Mr. Maionica is expected to be sentenced Aug. 4. Legal experts familiar with the case say Mr. Maionica could prove valuable in helping prosecutors understand the origin of what they have said was hush money and in identifying the intelligence or government officials in Venezuela who directed negotiations with Mr. Antonini. His testimony in the other cases could prove highly damaging to Venezuela’s government, which has claimed to be investigating the incident as well. The other suspects in custody are Carlos Kauffmann, 35, and Franklin Durán, 40, both of Venezuela, and Rodolfo Wanseele, 40, of Uruguay. All three have pleaded not guilty and face up to 15 years in prison and $250,000 in fines if convicted of both charges. A trial is set for March 17. Another man charged in the case, Antonio José Canchica Gómez, who is said to be an official with Venezuela’s intelligence service, Disip, remains at large. The case began Aug. 4 when a privately chartered plane landed in Buenos Aires. On board were eight passengers, including Mr. Antonini and four officials from Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company of Venezuela. The money was found in a suitcase being carried by Mr. Antonini after a customs official became suspicious. Mr. Antonini, who did not own the suitcase, was carrying it at the request of another passenger, according to a court document filed Friday by Thomas J. Mulvihill, an assistant United States Attorney and the lead prosecutor in the case. Mr. Antonini had been invited to accompany the other seven passengers on their trip to Buenos Aires only a few hours before the plane took off in Caracas, the document said. After being questioned at the airport in Buenos Aires, Mr. Antonini was allowed to leave after signing a paper saying he had committed a small infraction. The cash was seized by the Argentine government. Mr. Antonini left Argentina two days later and returned to the United States. Soon after, he approached federal investigators and began wearing recording equipment supplied by the F.B.I. Thus began four months of cooperation with investigators, who recorded a series of meetings and telephone calls in south Florida involving the five suspects. Prosecutors have said it was Mr. Durán who was recorded telling Mr. Antonini that the money was for the campaign of Mrs. Kirchner, who was elected in October. On Aug. 27, Mr. Durán identified the person who took the cash on the plane as the assistant to a high-level official of the Venezuelan oil company, according to documents filed in the case.

Venezuela
Argentina
Espionage
Luggage
Ethics
Federal District Courts


Big Changes and Big Loan for Lender

Abstract: Shut out of the short-term debt market by an expanding credit crisis, Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, turned yesterday to 40 of the biggest banks, borrowing $11.5 billion as it tried to shore up its cash. The move sent ripples through the stock market — the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell as much as 2.6 percent before recovering and ending the day slightly up — and it raised the chance that even the bluest of blue-chip mortgage companies could fail if investors and lenders lost confidence in them. Countrywide said it would make significant changes in its operations by largely limiting itself to only the safest mortgages that can be bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-chartered agencies. That means some home buyers will pay more and have fewer choices when they borrow more than $417,000, the limit on loans the agencies can buy. Others will be required to put down at least 10 percent of the purchase price, and those with blemished or incomplete credit histories may no longer qualify for loans. “For better or for worse, Countrywide is the public face of U.S. mortgage lending,” said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, which covers home lending. “It has been the largest, and it has grown with the market.” In the first six months, the company made $245 billion in home loans, 17.4 percent of the total nationwide. Shares of Countrywide fell 11 percent, or $2.34, to close at $18.95. They had fallen as low as $15. The stock is down about 55 percent for the year. The price of the company’s bonds also fell and the cost of insuring its debt jumped sharply. Traditionally, banks made mortgages by lending the money that they took in as deposits, and they held the loans until they were repaid. Countrywide and most rivals largely do not operate that way. They borrow money from banks and investors on Wall Street, and when they close a mortgage they quickly sell, repeating the cycle over and over. Until recently, the relationship has been extremely profitable for both sides. But as defaults on mortgages made in recent years have surged, the system has started to break down. On Wednesday, Countrywide sought to raise money by issuing short-term debt known as commercial paper, something it does regularly. But there was no demand on Wall Street, according to two people briefed on the situation. Less than two weeks ago, the company said it had access to $50 billion in commercial paper, which has a term of nine months or less. In the last few days, the market for short-term debt has seized up, particularly for loans that are tied to mortgages, because investors say they can no longer value them. John Kodweis, managing director in JPMorgan’s short-term fixed income group, called it “the most challenging day since 1998,” but said his firm was able to place almost $30 billion with investors. That is JPMorgan’s typical volume, but the debt was placed at higher prices, and it took longer to find buyers. On Wednesday, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, Kenneth Bruce, put a “Sell” rating on Countrywide stock, saying liquidity problems could force the company to seek bankruptcy protection in severe circumstances. Dozens of lenders have already met a similar fate. Yesterday, First Magnus Financial, a small lender, stopped making loans because it could not sell mortgages to investors. “This is a credit crunch and crisis created independently of individual companies,” said Eric Flamholtz, a management professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who previously served as a consultant to Countrywide executives. “All these companies are getting crushed, some for no reason.” Analysts say Countrywide is likely to have a better chance of surviving than many of its rivals. For one thing, it had a contingency plan that included the committed bank loans it used yesterday. The company also has a bank subsidiary, Countrywide Bank, which it plans to use to make the majority of its loans by the end of September. If it does make it, the company will look significantly different. In a statement, Countrywide, which is based in Calabasas, Calif., said that 90 percent of the home loans it will make will conform to standards set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Less than two months ago, the company had said about 50 percent of its loans were eligible to be bought by the agencies. A spokesman for Countrywide, Rick Simon, said the company was still making loans, including so-called jumbo mortgages that are larger than $417,000. He declined to comment further. The changes are expected to significantly alter how the company and the industry do business. Countrywide, which was hiring aggressively in recent months as rivals were shutting down, will probably scale back its operations. At the end of June, the company had 33,800 employees in its loan production business, up from 32,500 12 months before. As Countrywide retrenches, traditional banks like Bank of America, Citibank and JPMorgan that can make and hold jumbo loans are expected to gain market share. Another winner will be regional banks and credit unions, which lost significant market share during the real estate boom. “Thousands and thousands of homes are coming back to us,” said Alfred A. DelliBovi, the president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, which finances community banks. In fact, Countrywide itself is turning to the Federal Home Loan Bank system, which was created in the 1930s by the federal government to stimulate lending during the Depression. Countrywide Bank is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta. At the end of June, Countrywide had the capacity to borrow $40.7 billion from the Home Loan Bank, of which $11.9 billion was still available. In a securities filing, Countrywide said its new debt would restrict its ability to engage in merger or acquisition talks and require the company to maintain a net worth of at least $7.7 billion. About $4.3 billion of the loans have a term of five years and the rest have a one-year term. Moody’s Investor Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, the bond ratings firms, cut their ratings on Countrywide yesterday and said further cuts were possible. The company’s ratings are still considered investment grade. Moody’s and Fitch also cut the ratings of Residential Capital, the home lending arm of GMAC, to junk status. Moody’s also downgraded 691 mortgage securities totaling $19.4 billion that are backed by second loans used when borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit do not have enough for a down payment. The deals represent 76 percent of all such securities issued last year, including many that had Moody’s top Aaa rating.

Countrywide Financial Corporation
Mortgages


Open Judicial-Misconduct Sessions May Become Law

Abstract: As it has done periodically for years, the New York State Legislature will consider a proposal this year to open secret judicial-discipline hearings to the public. Some supporters of the measure predict that it will get more attention this time than it has in decades. Judicial-discipline hearings are public in 35 states. But the proceedings of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct have been secret under state law for more than 30 years. Many judges insist that keeping them closed is essential. But the commission, which is fighting claims by a Manhattan lawyers’ group that it has been unfair to judges, will make opening its hearings a top legislative priority, said its administrator, Robert H. Tembeckjian. With a new focus in Albany on government ethics reform, Mr. Tembeckjian said, “The time is also right to open the process of disciplining judges.” The Manhattan lawyers’ group, the New York County Lawyers’ Association, persuaded the New York State Bar Association last week to call for changes in state law that it said would make commission proceedings fairer to judges. But the Manhattan group did not mention making the hearings public in its sweeping proposal to restructure the commission, give judges earlier notice of charges and limit the scope of investigations. Most of those charges are based on complaints from litigants, lawyers and other judges. John L. Sampson, the leader of the Democratic State Senate minority, said that he would reintroduce legislation to open the hearings. Mr. Sampson, who proposed a similar bill last year, said that it was even more necessary now because of the recent criticism of the judicial conduct commission. He said open hearings would foster confidence in the procedures for policing judges, adding, “Who will watch the watchers?” The 11-member commission, which includes lawyers, judges and members of the public, has held hearings in secret since a change in New York law in 1978. Previously, judges defended themselves against misconduct charges in public. In interviews, several judges defended the current law. Leland G. DeGrasse, an appellate judge in Manhattan, said judges were frequently cleared of allegations. “I don’t think the judges who are exonerated in that fashion should have to work with a cloud hanging over their head,” Justice DeGrasse said. H. John Kramer, the president of the largest association of judges in the state, the State Magistrates Association , said it would be “inappropriate and unnecessary” to open misconduct hearings. The magistrates association represents the 2,200 town and village justices across the state, who have often been subjects of misconduct investigations . Justice Kramer, a part-time judge in Sullivan County, said that some of the commission’s disciplinary rulings eventually became public. “If it’s significant enough, the public’s going to know,” Justice Kramer said. “If it’s insignificant, they don’t need to know.” But Dennis R. Hawkins, the executive director of the Committee for Modern Courts , said that from the public’s perspective, opening the hearings would increase trust in the legal system. The Committee for Modern Courts is an advocacy group founded in 1955 that says that one of its goals is to increase public trust in New York courts. When a judge’s misconduct hearing is held in secret, Mr. Hawkins said, “there is this continuing mystery of what exactly happened, and that undermines confidence in the system.” When the commission decides to admonish, censure or remove a judge, it issues a public decision. Under the proposal approved by the state bar association, the commission would have the added power to suspend judges instead of removing them. Nationally, it has been widely accepted in many states, including California, Connecticut, New Jersey and Georgia, that proceedings against judges should be open, said Cynthia Gray, the director of the Center for Judicial Ethics at the American Judicature Society, which studies court issues and favors open disciplinary hearings. “It is a fundamental principle of the United States justice system that proceedings be open,” Ms. Gray said, “and I think judges are proud of that when they are presiding over proceedings involving other people.” Last year, the commission removed one judge, a Family Court judge in Saratoga County. It publicly disciplined 15 judges, including 11 part-time town and village justices, many of whom are not lawyers. Under the law that took effect in 1978, judges are permitted to agree to have hearings against them opened to the public. According to the commission, of 750 hearings held over those 33 years, only 10 judges have opened their hearings.

Judges
Law and Legislation
Commission on Judicial Conduct (NYS)
Tembeckjian Robert H
New York State


Chinese Activist Joins Conservative Research Group

Abstract: BEIJING — Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist whose headline-grabbing odyssey included an improbable escape from house arrest in China, a mad dash for refuge inside the United States Embassy in Beijing and several rocky months as a visiting scholar at New York University, has found a new job with a conservative research institute in New Jersey. At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Chen announced Wednesday that he had accepted a three-year fellowship with the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton , N.J., which has taken conservative stands against abortion and same-sex marriage. Although Witherspoon will provide Mr. Chen financial support, he will maintain affiliations with the Catholic University of America and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice , a liberal advocacy group named for Representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who died in 2008. “We will make a concerted effort and move forward to courageously defend the freedom of the Chinese people, human freedom, human dignity and other universal values,” Mr. Chen said, according to a copy of his remarks. Image Chen Guangcheng, right, accused N.Y.U. of forcing him to leave at the behest of the Chinese government. Credit Yuri Gripas/Reuters The announcement ends several months of speculation over where Mr. Chen would land after a high-profile falling out last spring with N.Y.U., during which he accused the university of forcing him to leave at the behest of the Chinese government. Mr. Chen claimed N.Y.U. administrators were worried that his continued presence would jeopardize plans to open a campus in Shanghai, although he did not offer any evidence to back up his assertions. N.Y.U. officials denied the allegations and said Mr. Chen’s visiting scholar position was always meant to last one year. The controversy had a polarizing impact on his supporters and led a key donor to withdraw the financial support that would have allowed Mr. Chen to take a three-year fellowship at Fordham University. Last summer, as news emerged that Mr. Chen might accept a position at Witherspoon, some of his friends expressed concern that an association with a stridently conservative organization might diminish his effectiveness as an advocate for human rights in China. Mr. Chen, who is not Christian and has not taken a public stand on abortion, brushed aside such concerns, saying that the institute shared his passion for democracy and free speech. In an interview, Luis Tellez, Witherspoon’s president, said Mr. Chen would have the freedom to do his work unimpeded. “We don’t expect him to represent our issues, only to do the important work he does,” he said. “He’s a person who tells the truth as he sees it, so we don’t think there will be any serious conflict.” Video The Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has become a celebrity and a headache for the Chinese authorities. Credit Credit Wally Santana/Associated Press John Garvey, president of Catholic University, said he expected Mr. Chen to lecture at the Washington campus while working on his autobiography. He said Mr. Chen’s opposition to China’s coercive family-planning policies and his advocacy on behalf of the disabled dovetailed with the values espoused by the university. “We didn’t ask him for a complete inventory of his views, but these are the most prominent ones we want to draw attention to,” Mr. Garvey said in an interview. “I’m sure there are things we won’t agree on as well.” He said Mr. Chen and his family would relocate to Washington from New York. A self-taught legal advocate, Mr. Chen, 41, spent more than four years in prison as retribution for challenging a government campaign that led to thousands of forced sterilizations and abortions in China’s eastern Shandong Province. In April 2012, he made a dramatic escape from house arrest, and eventually found his way into the United States Embassy in Beijing, prompting a diplomatic standoff that was resolved through negotiations between senior Chinese leaders and Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state. Jerome A. Cohen, a law professor at N.Y.U. who helped shepherd the Chen family through their dizzying first year in the United States, said he was pleased that Mr. Chen would be affiliated with three institutions, but said he was still uncomfortable with his decision to accept a post at Witherspoon. “It puts him in a more partisan category than I would have felt comfortable with, but my hope is he will continue to be a vibrant voice for human rights in China,” Mr. Cohen said. “I wish him well.”

Chen Guangcheng
China
New Jersey
Witherspoon Institute
NYU


Future of Big Mergers Under Trump? Like Much Else, It’s Unclear

Abstract: Deal makers took notice last month when Donald J. Trump declared that he would seek to block AT&T’s $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner on the grounds that it would radically concentrate power in too few companies. But after an initial period of turmoil, deal advisers say that it is unclear whether a Trump administration — led by an avowedly pro-business real estate mogul — would really make life difficult for mega-mergers. At the moment, AT&T’s planned takeover of Time Warner, the biggest merger of the year and one that is poised to reshape the world of media and telecommunications, appears to be the most likely candidate for hazing. The president-elect was among the first politicians to criticize the deal, vowing to block it if he became president. Mr. Trump said it was “an example of the power structure I’m fighting.” He also opposed a similar union between Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2013, which he called “poison.” Tougher antitrust enforcement on the telecommunications and cable industry would be popular among consumers, who consistently rate it among the worst for customer satisfaction. The particular focus on giant media corporations, which he railed against during his campaign, could be a personal priority and one his base of voters would support. But antitrust specialists and Republican strategists say a Trump administration may not fulfill his campaign promises. The key to the chances of AT&T’s bid for Time Warner will be the appointments Mr. Trump makes to the Justice Department, which is expected to review the merger, and the Federal Communications Commission, which may also examine it. Those are rarefied worlds that require specific legal and economic expertise. “He’s going to fill them, but I don’t think Republicans are going to fill these spots with people who are instinctively negative on M.&A. transactions,” David N. Shine, a partner at the law firm Paul Hastings, said of the vacancies. The deal makers who helped develop the AT&T offer for Time Warner are likely to bet that even if Mr. Trump impels the Justice Department to file a lawsuit to block the deal, any court that hears the case will apply traditional antitrust standards to clear the transaction. The two companies have argued that theirs is a “vertical” merger with little overlap, unlike a traditional “horizontal” merger that removes a competitor from the industry. All the same, AT&T sought to find common ground with Mr. Trump. John J. Stephens, chief financial officer of AT&T, said at an industry conference on Wednesday that the company agreed with Mr. Trump on matters of building infrastructure and creating jobs. “We’ve been the leading investor in this country for more than five years running, and our Time Warner transaction is all about innovation and economic development, consumer choice and investment in infrastructure with regard to providing a great 5G mobile broadband experience,” Mr. Stephens said. “So we look forward with optimism to working with the leadership and providing benefits to consumers and to our shareholders.” Time Warner declined to comment. Aside from AT&T, the outlook for mergers is less clear. In the short term, potential market gyrations could delay merger talks, although major stock market indexes rose modestly on Wednesday. Time Warner shares, however, fell 1.5 percent on Wednesday, to $86.60. But longer term, conditions could fall into place for more sustained deal activity. While Mr. Trump took aim at two big media mergers, he is generally considered to be more favorable toward business. And he will be pressured by Republican leaders and his transition team, led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, to appoint officials who believe in free markets and might be more receptive to mergers than a Democratic administration. Some industries may benefit. The stocks of drug companies like Pfizer rose as the potential for tough regulations and prohibitions on mergers appeared to subside. But shares in hospital operators, like HCA Holdings and Community Health Systems, fell on investor concerns that efforts to unwind the Affordable Care Act could jeopardize their new government subsidies. Shares of Sprint and T-Mobile USA rose as the possibility of another attempt to merge the two appeared more plausible under a Trump administration. Some deal makers even speculated that if Mr. Trump fulfills a campaign promise to clamp down on global trade, it will force American companies to find growth at home — and that could include buying competitors. “Once the markets get their land legs back, I think people are going to realize there are real M.&A. opportunities next year,” Mr. Shine of Paul Hastings said.

Mergers and Acquisitions
2016 Presidential Election
AT&T
Time Warner
Donald Trump