Array of Strategies Are Tried to Turn Back Pirates at Sea

Abstract: HONG KONG — The increasing number of pirate attacks on the open seas has shipowners and governments desperately seeking countermeasures to stop the brazen seizures. On Monday, the European Union began a yearlong naval operation in the Gulf of Aden, where 14 ships are being held for ransom, including a Saudi supertanker and a Ukrainian ship with tanks and other military equipment aboard. Eight countries are participating in the new flotilla, code-named Operation Atalanta, which will be backed up with three airplanes. Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said the mission would have “robust rules of engagement,” while coordinating with other navies already operating in the region, including those of the United States, India and Russia. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution last week that allows navies to breach the 12-mile territorial limit to enter Somali waters in pursuit of pirates . In the Gulf of Aden, 102 ships have been attacked so far this year and 40 have been hijacked. With 21,000 ships passing through the region each year and only a handful of international navies to run interference, the lure of piracy for impoverished Somalis has been extraordinary. “Somali fishermen simply changed their business model, and they’ve got military hardware in the meantime,” said Dieter Berg, head of marine underwriting for the large reinsurance company Munich Re. “Piracy is now a real industry in Somalia. Whole clans are living off it.” Some pirate groups are now getting inside information in Europe about upcoming shipments of dangerous cargo and shipping routes, Mr. Berg said, the better to select their targets. Interviews with owners, insurers, security companies and antipiracy experts suggest that all manner of technical innovations are being tried to fend off attacks, from high-tech sonic cannons to electrified wires strung around the hulls of their boats. Some ships have put on extra crew members to stand watch around the clock. Sonic guns and night-vision goggles are in such demand in the region that their price has doubled. Foam sprayers and high-pressure fire hoses have been used to drench the speedboats used by hijackers as they approach ships. Huge floodlights have been installed on ships. Some ships are stocking sprays developed by the United States military to make decks so slippery that the pirates, if they do come aboard, would be unable to stand up. Some ships have built — and have actually used — panic rooms where crews can hide. Some well-known security companies are trying to expand into the maritime security business, offering teams of onboard guards, most of them former military combat veterans, to repel pirates. “I’ve had lots of e-mails from these security companies offering us their services — at vast expense,” said Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association. The effectiveness of security guards remains to be seen, and many experts on piracy and insurers do not endorse the use of armed guards. But without armed guards, some analysts say, there is no real deterrent. “How do pirates in a small boat stop a 30,000-ton ship? It’s firearms, that’s all it is,” Andy MacDonagh, a director of the private military contractor Raven Special Projects, said in an interview with the maritime trade publication Lloyd’s List. “But as soon as you fire back, they are going to turn round and go the other way, because they’re so vulnerable.” An unarmed three-man security team was overwhelmed by pirates who captured the chemical tanker Biscaglia in the Gulf of Aden on Nov. 28. The guards jumped overboard as the pirates clambered onto the ship. They were plucked from the water by a rescue helicopter. “Of course they went overboard,” Mr. Bowring said. “They didn’t want to sit on a beach in Somalia for three months.” The security team, employed by Anti Piracy Maritime Security Solutions, based in Poole, England, was without firearms, but it did have water sprayers and a sonic cannon. The cannon — a long-range acoustic device, or LRAD, which can cost as much as $125,000 — shoots sound waves from a dish transmitter. The noise, if properly aimed and focused, can be debilitating at 100 meters, or 330 feet. “The pirates were basically laughing at our guys,” said Anti Piracy’s owner, Nick Davis. “LRADs don’t work when they take an AK-47 round through them.” The pirates won that skirmish and are now negotiating a ransom for the Biscaglia’s release. Many antipiracy advocates are pushing for the United Nations to take action. Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, has called for a multinational stabilization force in Somalia to pave the way for United Nations peacekeepers who would eventually deny the pirates safe harbor. The pirates usually come in the night, in speedboats too small and too fast to be picked up by radar. When they draw alongside, pirates throw grappling hooks over the railings and scamper up the sides. “The whole thing can take five minutes,” said Noel Choong, director of the Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “Once they’re on board, it’s over.” Some hijackers throw crew members overboard, while others set them adrift in dinghies or keep them as hostages. “It’s an incredibly traumatic time for the crew and their families,” said Mr. Bowring of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association. “An owner sends them out there, and they’re powerless to defend themselves.”

Piracy at Sea
Gulf of Aden
International Relations


British Court Names Terror Case Escapee

Abstract: LONDON, June 14 — A British court lifted restrictions Thursday on identifying a terrorism suspect who was said to have absconded last year by clambering through a window at a mental hospital. He is still at large. The suspect, Zeeshan Siddiqui, 26, a former worker on the London subway system, is accused of having met other militants in Britain and Pakistan. Last month, the names of three men who also disappeared while under official restrictions were made public. The restrictions, which fall short of formal imprisonment, limit the movements of suspects who have not been convicted of crimes under Britain’s counterterrorism laws. Mr. Siddiqui’s name came to prominence in 2005 when extracts of a diary he had written were published in The New York Times.

Great Britain
Terrorism
Crime and Criminals


Treasury Auctions Set for the Week of Nov. 14

Abstract: The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes Monday’s regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. The New York cash market was closed on Friday in observance of Veterans Day, but at its close on Thursday the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.48 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.59 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.29 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: MONDAY Florida Board of Education, $140.4 million of general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Florida Department of Transportation, $137.3 million of turnpike revenue bonds. Competitive. TUESDAY Charles County, Md., $79.3 million of general obligation limited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Massachusetts, $200 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. University of Alabama Board of Trustees, $93.7 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. WEDNESDAY New Orleans, $70 million of general obligation unlimited tax taxable bonds. Competitive. THURSDAY Clark County, Nev., School District, $405.2 million of Series D general obligation limited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Clark County, Nev., School District, $57.7 million of Series E general obligation limited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. Everett, Wash., $70.4 million of water and sewer revenue refinancing bonds. Competitive. Forest Lake Independent School District No. 831, Minn., $64.6 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. New Hampshire, $62.1 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. New Hampshire, $51.4 million of general obligation unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK Alabama Federal Aid Highway Finance Authority, $369 million of special obligation revenue and special obligation revenue refinancing bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Anchorage, $83.9 million of general obligation and general obligation refinancing bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Apple Valley, Minn., $53.7 million of senior living bonds. Piper Jaffray. Ballston Quarter Community Development Authority of Arlington County, Va., $57 million of revenue bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Bexar County, Tex., $107.6 million of combination tax and revenue certificates of obligation. Morgan Stanley. California Statewide Communities Development Authority, $129.8 million of insured revenue bonds. Cain Brothers. Cincinnati, $192.9 million of water system revenue and revenue refinancing bonds. Morgan Stanley. Columbia, S.C., $62.7 million of waterworks and sewer system revenue bonds. PNC Capital Markets. Columbia, S.C., $162.8 million of waterworks and sewer system revenue refinancing bonds. Raymond James. Denver and Denver County, Colo., $250 million of airport system revenue bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Hartford County, Conn., Metropolitan District, $173.5 million of general obligation bonds. Morgan Stanley. Katy, Tex., Independent School District, $225 million of limited and unlimited tax refinancing bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. King County, Wash., Public Hospital District No. 1, $186.7 million of limited tax general obligation bonds. Morgan Stanley. Lammersville Joint Unified School District, Calif., $111.5 million of general obligation bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Los Angeles County, Calif., Metropolitan Transportation Authority, $515 million of debt securities. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Los Angeles Department of Airports, $661.9 million of Los Angeles International Airport subordinate revenue and senior revenue refinancing bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Marin Community College District, Calif., $60 million of general obligation bonds. Piper Jaffray. Maryland Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority, $63.8 million of Doctor’s Community Hospital revenue bonds. Ziegler. Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, $223 million of Emerson College taxable bonds. Barclays Capital. Mississippi, $223.6 million of general obligation bonds. Morgan Stanley. Missouri Housing Development Commission, $65 million of single-family mortgage revenue and special homeownership loan program bonds. George K. Baum & Company. Montgomery County, Tex., $141.4 million of unlimited tax road bonds and limited tax refinancing bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Morgantown, W.Va., $64 million of combined utility system revenue bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. New Jersey Educational Facilities Authority, $137 million of Higher Education Capital Improvement Fund revenue bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. New York, N.Y., TSASC, $1 billion of tobacco settlement bonds. Jefferies. New York State Mortgage Agency, $97.6 million of homeowner mortgage revenue bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Philadelphia, $283.1 million of general obligation refinancing bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Richmond, Va., $450 million of public utility refinancing bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, Calif., $220 million of Consolidated Capital Assessment District No. 2 assessment revenue bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, Ariz., $719.8 million of electric system revenue refinancing bonds. Morgan Stanley. Scotts Bluff County, Neb., Hospital Authority No. 1, $65.4 million of hospital revenue refinancing and improvement bonds. Ziegler. Shreveport, La., $110.2 million of water and sewer revenue bonds. Siebert Cisneros Shank & Company. Sonoma County, Calif., Junior College District, $100 million of general obligation bonds. Piper Jaffray. Sweetwater County, Wyo., $90 million of FMC Corporation Project solid waste disposal revenue refinancing bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Torrance Unified School District of Los Angeles County, Calif., $61.3 million of general obligation bonds. Raymond James. Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., $54 million of public utilities system improvement revenue bonds. Piper Jaffray. University of North Carolina Board of Governors, $93 million of University of North Carolina Hospitals at Chapel Hill revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. Vermont Educational and Health Buildings Finance Agency, $73 million of revenue bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. West Virginia Water Development Authority, $68.6 million of infrastructure revenue refinancing bonds. Piper Jaffray. Yonkers, N.Y., $77.5 million of general obligation refinancing and school refinancing bonds. M&T Securities.


Environmental Law Evolves

Abstract: Environmental law has expanded rapidly over the past four decades and now encompasses concerns ranging from air and water quality to the decontamination of hazardous waste sites and the protection of biodiversity. One of the most recent specialties to be studied in law schools is climate change, a complex field that many schools are now starting to explore. There are two principal difficulties, says Professor Michael B. Gerrard, Director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School: “First, an extraordinarily large number of different areas of law are involved. “Second, developments are occurring so quickly at the administrative, legislative and judicial branches that it is challenging to keep up with them all and to integrate them in a unified picture of what is happening.” The scope and complexity of the climate change debate makes it very challenging to design a curriculum around it, said Patrick Parenteau, Professor of Law at the Vermont Law School. “It is multi-disciplinary, demanding a solid grasp of science, economics, technology, land use, ethics, domestic law, international law and many other subjects. There is a huge volume of literature to digest,” Professor Parenteau said. “There are still huge uncertainties in the science regarding the speed with which changes are happening and the consequences of climate change at various spatial scales. “The law is still emerging so there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the shape that it will ultimately take.” Climate change will require massive transformations of every economic sector, led by energy and transportation. “That in turn requires an understanding of how laws in these sectors currently work and how they must be changed. On top of all this are the domestic political considerations and the trade and equity issues between developed and developing worlds,” Mr. Parenteau added. Students of climate change law are facing a steep learning curve as they familiarize themselves with climate science. To understand the laws and policy they must first achieve some carbon literacy — an understanding of the sources and effects of the main greenhouse gases. This takes both time and critical thinking, said Professor Michael P. Vandenbergh, director of an interdisciplinary climate change research network at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. “For example, stating that a company or country aims to achieve 20 percent emissions’ reductions by 2020 tells us very little about their actual commitment,” Professor Vandenbergh said in a written commentary. “We need to know whether the emissions are for just CO2 or CO2 equivalent (all six leading greenhouse gases); what the baseline year is (1990? 2000? 2005?), since emissions have been going up each year and a later baseline year implies less stringent cuts; and what the business-as-usual emissions would have been in the absence of cuts.” European universities have been leading the charge to teach this new specialty. “E.U. universities are ahead of U.S. institutions simply because the E.U. has been dealing with the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, while we have been on the sidelines looking on,” said Mr. Parenteau. Still, some U.S. law schools are now engaging with climate change: Pace Law School in New York started this year to offer a climate change track in its environmental law masters program, the first U.S. university to do so. The Pace program features six specially developed courses: Climate adaptive management; climate and insurance; climate and corporate practice; climate change practice; disaster law and emergency preparedness; and state and regional climate initiatives. It also offers students a chance to participate in one of the school’s signature programs — the Environmental Diplomacy Externship at the United Nations, in which students work two days a week at the United Nations with delegations and environmental agencies providing legal and policy support on climate change and sustainability issues. Mr. Parenteau said the Vermont Law School was also developing a special track for climate change in its masters program. “For us it’s a matter of trying to select a coherent sequence of courses emphasizing the essential skills and competencies needed to address the climate crisis,” he said. The new track should be offered as early as Fall next year. Law schools are slowly developing material for their new climate change courses, though there appears to be no standardized teaching methodology. This year, the Columbia University law school launched its Center for Climate Change Law, headed by Professor Gerrard, who is also the author of a leading book in the field, “Global Climate Change and U.S. Law.” The Columbia center hopes to advance an effective legal response to climate change, providing the framework to examine and shape environmental regulation and train future leaders. While Mr. Gerrard says the new center is not setting out to standardize the teaching of climate change law, it has been active in preparing study material that has been widely adopted, including a Web site which displays all U.S. litigation on climate change. “We are now working on a separate chart showing non-U.S. climate litigation,” he said. “I don’t know if homogenization will occur or should occur, but I suspect that we will see some convergence on the core elements of a climate-literate law student,” said Mr. Vandenbergh, of Vanderbilt. Core requirements would include a need for a basic understanding of climate science and an understanding of the principal greenhouse gases, their sources, and the emission reductions and atmospheric target levels needed to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change, he said. They would also include an understanding of the costs and benefits of climate mitigation and adaptation policies; an understanding of justice or equity issues; and an understanding of the global, national, regional, state, and local policy instruments that are available to policymakers. “That is a tall order, but many lawyers will need some facility with each of these issues to advise clients and make policy during the course of their careers,” Mr. Vandenbergh said. Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment is supporting the Vanderbilt Climate Change Research Network, where faculty and graduate students are exploring one of the most important and widely overlooked sources of greenhouse gases: individual and household behavior. While U.S. and European universities have been grappling with the teaching issues involved, Asian universities have been lagging behind. “Asia has not been engaging in the climate change debate,” said Jolene Lin, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. “This has therefore had an impact on the teaching of climate change law in its universities.” “The issue is that the teaching scope is usually too limited to constitute an entire climate change law course,” Ms. Lin said. “If taught in the U.K., for example, a course could typically cover the local legal and regulatory responses to climate change, the politics and policy issues, as well as E.U.-level policies and laws and those at the international level. “Such a course taught in Asia will be lacking on the domestic front,” she said. “If you teach in Asia, you're really focusing on international developments and why most Asian countries are not quite there.”

Education and Schools
Law Schools
Environment


HBO Orders a Second Season of ‘The Leftovers’

Abstract: HBO made official on Wednesday the expected news that “The Leftovers” would be renewed for a second season. The well-reviewed drama, about the impact of the mysterious disappearance of 140 million people in a spontaneous act suspected to be the Rapture, has divided viewers on social media. Some have been deeply moved by the highly emotional stories of how a New York suburban town was affected by the unexplained loss of so many loved ones, and others have reported that the series is difficult and often depressing to watch. The ratings for the show, while not near the levels of HBO’s big hits like “Game of Thrones,” have been more than satisfactory for HBO, especially given its initial plays on Sundays, a night that has become stocked this summer with prestige dramas, including “Masters of Sex” on Showtime, “The Strain” on FX, and “Manhattan” on WGN America. HBO reported that “The Leftovers” had averaged a total audience of about 7.4 million viewers, counting its numerous weekly plays as well as on-demand orders for the episodes. Its audience for its initial broadcasts on Sundays at 10 p.m. is about 1.6 million viewers. The numbers put the show above such HBO dramas as “The Newsroom” and about on par with “Boardwalk Empire.” HBO also reported that the ratings pattern, which showed some loss after the premiere and a more recent build for each episode, is promising for the show’s future. “The Leftovers” is based on a novel by Tom Perrotta, who created the series in partnership with Damon Lindelof, in his return to television after his work on the long-running ABC hit drama “Lost.”

TV
HBO
Tom Perrotta
Damon Lindelof
The Leftovers HBO


In London, Olympics Test Commuters’ Patience

Abstract: LONDON — Londoners, forced to navigate a vast city using one of the largest and oldest public transit systems in the world and a road network first laid out by the Romans, are not noted for suffering transportation woes in silence. But the everyday grumbling here sharpened Wednesday as the restrictions and increased demands of the Olympic Games began to bite. London has spent more than $9 billion on refurbishing its creaking transportation infrastructure — parts of its underground train network date from 1863 — in time for the Games. The road and rail system will face a million trips a day in addition to the usual 3.5 million when the Games begin Friday, transportation officials warned in a news conference on Tuesday. Since the beginning of this month, the voice of Mayor Boris Johnson of London has been heard over public address systems. “We’re welcoming more than a million people a day to our city, and there is going to be huge pressure on the transport network,” the mayor warns sternly. “Don’t get caught out!” The city’s taxi drivers, in their well-known black cabs, have been among the most vocal predictors of doom, and they staged a protest on Tower Bridge this week. In the privacy of their cabs, they often regale passengers with more personal disaster warnings. “I’d leave the city if I could,” said one, flagged down in east London on Wednesday afternoon. (He pulled off with an exasperated gesture, refusing to give his name.) Cabbies have been particularly worked up about road lanes that, starting at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, are reserved for Olympics traffic. Some have nicknamed them “Zil lanes,” a reference to sections of road that were set aside in the Soviet Union for the party elite and their Zil limousines. Residents also reserved some amused vitriol for the aboveground Javelin train service, which aims to move 25,000 people an hour at peak times from central London to Olympic Park in the east of the city. After reports of long delays this week, some residents jokingly said it had turned into a “shot put.” Those delays, along with disruptions for hundreds of thousands of commuters traveling on London’s intensively patched and refurbished Underground train network, have perpetuated concerns that the capital’s transportation infrastructure remains the clearest threat to a successful Games. Transportation officials have remained bullish, pointing to significant improvements that will last beyond the Olympics. But Mark Evers, the director of Games transport for London, warned in an interview with The Financial Times this week, “You can’t run a network as big and as complicated as ours without something going wrong,” By the time the entire Olympics road network across London has come on line this weekend, a total of 30 miles of lanes, which run alongside normal traffic lanes and will operate from 6 a.m. to midnight throughout the Olympics, will have been reserved for authorized “Games Family” vehicles, those used by athletes, Olympics officials and V.I.P.’s. According to some reported estimates, as many as 1,300 vehicles an hour will use them. The network, a requirement imposed by Games officials, was designed to ensure that athletes arrive at their competition sites on time. It is small compared with the 186 miles that were set aside for official use in Beijing four years ago and the 99 miles in Athens in 2004, yet it has been met with considerable opposition from drivers, who face a $201 fine if they inadvertently use the reserved lanes, and cyclists, who complain they are being diverted to unsafe routes and junctions. In an effort at appeasement, government ministers have been told to travel on public transportation where possible, according to reports in the British news media. It was also reported that high-level ministers, security officials and military commanders were expected to meet every morning in Whitehall to assess everything from the threat level to traffic delays. Transport for London, which runs the system, insisted that roads across the capital were no busier than during a normal rush hour on Wednesday despite the activation of the new lanes, and the Highways Agency described traffic as “flowing.” Drivers stuck in an eight-mile traffic jam beginning at the start of the Games Lane on the M4 motorway linking Heathrow, the gateway airport for the Games, with central London might have had cause to disagree. “Nobody said the Olympics were without pain,” said the Transport for London commissioner, Peter Hendy, “and we have asked people to do things differently if they can, and a lot of people have.”

Olympic Games (2012)
London (England)
Roads and Traffic
Delays (Transportation)
Olympic Games
Transit Systems


Herbert York, 87, Top Nuclear Physicist Who Was Arms Control Advocate, Dies

Abstract: Herbert York, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb and later became a leading advocate of arms control and nuclear test bans, died Tuesday in San Diego. He was 87. The cause was the effects of radiation from prostate treatment, his wife, Sybil, said. Mr. York by his own account played a rather minor role on the Manhattan Project. But in the 1950s he was an important scientist working on the development of nuclear weapons , first for the new Lawrence Livermore Laboratory at the University of California, which he directed from 1952 to 1958, and later as a top Pentagon scientist in the Eisenhower administration. His work on weapons systems convinced him of the need for arms control and a ban on nuclear testing, views he articulated as an adviser or arms-control negotiator to several presidents and in books like “Race to Oblivion: A Participant’s View of the Arms Race” (1970) and “Making Weapons, Talking Peace: A Physicist’s Journey From Hiroshima to Geneva” (1987). “Herb York’s life was an unsurpassed record of achievement in science, education and national security,” Harold R. Brown, defense secretary under President Jimmy Carter, told the Web site of the University of California, San Diego. “In the national government, in California, and in international meetings and negotiations, he was dedicated to peace while being realistic about security needs.” Herbert Frank York was born in Rochester and studied physics at the University of Rochester, earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in 1942. After graduating, he joined the staff of the radiation laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was recruited for the Manhattan Project, working at the Berkeley laboratory and in Oak Ridge, Tenn., on the electromagnetic separation of uranium 235. After World War II ended, Mr. York returned to Berkeley, where he earned a doctorate in physics in 1949 and, after working as a researcher, joined the physics department in 1951. At the age of 28 he was named director of the newly created Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, where he oversaw programs under the sponsorship of the Atomic Energy Commission that included work on developing the hydrogen bomb. After the Soviet Union began putting satellites into orbit, the Eisenhower administration scrambled to step up space and weapons research. In March 1958, Mr. York became the first chief scientist at the Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon, directing space and antimissile research. Later that year, he was named director of defense research and engineering, a position created to monitor and analyze the work of that agency. Mr. York gradually became concerned that the United States and the Soviet Union were developing more weapons yet becoming less secure and that the shortened response times to a pre-emptive nuclear strike would put nuclear decision making in the hands of low-level military officers or, ultimately, computers. He spent the rest of his life as an antinuclear advocate. In the 1960s he was an adviser to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. During the Carter administration he was a delegate at the strategic arms talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva and chief United States negotiator in unsuccessful talks with the Soviet Union to impose a comprehensive nuclear test ban. Mr. York spent the later years of his career teaching physics at the University of California, San Diego. He served as the university’s chancellor from its founding in 1961 until 1964, and again from 1970 to 1972. In addition to his wife, the former Sybil Dunford, he is survived by three children, Rachel York of San Diego, Dr. Cynthia York of Santa Rosa, Calif., and David Winters of Oakland, Calif.; and four grandchildren. Mr. York maintained a lifelong interest in arms control. In 1983 he founded the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, an organization, based at the university, that organized research and seminars on conflict resolution and promoted international efforts to avoid war. In 1990, with Sanford Lakoff, he published “A Shield in Space?: Technology, Politics and the Strategic Defense Initiative,” a highly regarded analysis of President Ronald Reagan’s proposed Star Wars missile defense system. In 1995 he published “Arms and the Physicist.”

Arms Control and Limitation and Disarmament


New York Says State Forcing Cuts to Homeless Program

Abstract: Saying that state budget cuts have forced New York City to stop accepting new people into a successful program intended to reduce homelessness, the city mailed a letter on Thursday to hundreds of real estate brokers involved in the program informing them that no new participants will be taken after next Monday. The letter from Seth Diamond, the city’s commissioner of homeless services, came after weeks of lobbying by the Bloomberg administration to restore state funding for the program, called Advantage, which provides housing subsidies for people who find stable jobs, allowing them to leave shelters. About 15,000 households now receive money under the program, which was created in 2007 and provides subsidies for up to two years, the city said. “Due to proposed budget cuts that will eliminate the Advantage rental subsidy program, effective after the close of business Monday, March 14, we will stop conducting lease signings,” Mr. Diamond said in the letter to the brokers, who connect homeless families with the program. Those already in the program will be able to stay in their homes. “Over 90 percent of those who completed the subsidy period remain in the community and out of shelter,” the letter said. “This funding reduction will cause a significant increase in the city’s shelter population and force the city to build 70 new shelters.” The city and state disagree on the numbers; city officials say the program costs $140 million annually, while the state says the cost is $103 million. The two also do not agree on what amount of financing the state is cutting. In an interview, Mr. Diamond said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposed budget would kill the program. “The state budget decisions drive whether we will have Advantage next year,” Mr. Diamond said. State officials pointed the finger right back. “In the midst of a serious budget process that affects the lives of all New Yorkers, it is counterproductive, disingenuous and dangerous to play games by announcing a so-called newly discovered crisis of the day,” the governor’s spokesman, Joshua Vlasto, said in a statement. “The reality is that, regardless of this year’s anticipated cuts, New York City has the funds to support the continuation of this program if it so chooses.”

Homeless Persons
Budgets and Budgeting
Housing and Real Estate
New York City
New York State


H.P. Reports Decline in First-Quarter Revenue and Profit

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Hewlett-Packard may have gained running room, but it remains unclear if it can leap successfully to technology’s new post-PC world. The world’s largest maker of personal computers, printers, and computer servers has struggled for growth in a world increasingly full of smartphones, tablets and cloud computing services. Anchored in the traditional hardware, H.P. is challenged by new devices, which it does not make, and cutthroat competition in its old low-margin businesses, which is pressing margins. On Thursday, H.P. reported lower first-quarter revenue, profit and profit margins. Sales were down in all five of H.P.’s major businesses, which also include software and services. Meg Whitman, the chief executive, declared in an interview after release of the results that “the patient showed improvement.” She said that H.P. is building a number of consumer and business products, including new kinds of laptops and low-energy servers for cloud computing, that will renew the company. Positive sustained growth, however, is still a year away, Ms. Whitman said. “2013 is ‘fix and rebuild,’ ” she said. “All of the pipe we laid in 2012, and will lay in 2013, will show up in 2014.” Of smartphones, perhaps the biggest missing piece of H.P.’s portfolio, she would say only: “We’re still working on it.” Bill Kreher, an analyst with Edward Jones, said: “H.P. is trying to cut fat while restructuring. Cutting costs and investing at the same time is tough. It’s a three- to five-year turnaround, probably, but the world isn’t stopping for them.” H.P. said net income fell 16 percent, to $1.23 billion, or 63 cents a share, from $1.47 billion, or 73 cents in the period a year earlier. Revenue fell 6 percent, to $28.36 billion. The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. Using the accounting methods preferred by analysts, H.P. reported net income of 82 cents a share, above the 71 cents a share predictions. Analysts also expected revenue of $27.8 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. Image Meg Whitman, H.P.’s chief executive, said the company showed improvement that will be seen in new products next year. Credit Stephen Lam/Reuters H.P.’s shares were up 5.85 percent in after-hours trading after the announcement. The stock had closed at $17.10, up 2.4 percent, in regular trading. For H.P. and others in high technology, many traditional categories no longer fit the realities of how people use their gear. Smartphones have not been considered part of the computer business, for example, but are commonly used not just to cruise around the Internet, but also to access personal and corporate data in the cloud. Servers were considered part of corporate computing, but ordinary people use them with every Google search and Facebook update. Tablets are used for gaming and watching videos streamed from the cloud, but also for dissecting corporate spreadsheets, often at the same time. On Thursday, the research group IDC acknowledged this new reality by releasing data on a “smart connected device” market, as opposed to a market of PCs and laptops. When smartphones and tablets were included along with PCs and laptops, IDC said, H.P. went from market leadership to fourth place, behind Samsung, Apple and Lenovo. Ms. Whitman acknowledged the changes, and said her company was responding. “The model is changing more rapidly than anyone thought,” she said. “We’re in a personal systems business. PCs and laptops are an important part, but so are tablets and smartphones.” Last year, Ms. Whitman announced H.P. would lay off 29,000 employees over three years. About 15,300 of them are already gone, she said. She ascribed the company’s better-than-expected performance to “operational efficiencies” that contributed to cash flow of $2.6 billion, a 115 percent improvement over a year earlier. Much of that cash, she said, is going into research and development for products, like data storage that works faster and cheaper by managing workloads across several machines, and printers that can scan and search the contents of documents. On Tuesday, Dell, H.P.’s main American rival, said its first-quarter revenue fell 11 percent, to $14.3 billion, while net income was off 31 percent, to $530 million, or 30 cents a share. Michael Dell, Dell’s founder, has proposed taking his company private, for about $24.4 billion, to focus on reorganizing Dell away from the eyes of Wall Street.

Hewlett-Packard
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Earnings Reports


Years of Political Service vs. Some Ill-Timed Remarks

Abstract: PATERSON, N.J. - SITTING at the back of a Lebanese restaurant in South Paterson in his crisp gray suit, cellphone incessantly beeping, Sami Merhi cites the Constitution, reflects on family, tells an immigrant's success story, muses ruefully about lessons learned. "My grandfather told me this is the only place on earth where you will never feel a stranger," said the most famous almost-freeholder in Passaic County history. "And I believe it." He says it in the present tense, though it's impossible to imagine the thought without a jagged edge. A week ago Mr. Merhi won a prize that loomed incredibly large to someone who immigrated from Lebanon 29 years ago: the endorsement by Democratic Party leaders as the party's nominee for Passaic County freeholder. Within days, he was being denounced as a terrorist sympathizer. ("Defender of suicide bombers gets Dem nod in Passaic," ran the headline over an item in the widely read PoliticsNJ Web site last week.) A week later, after his candidacy became part of the parry and thrust in the United States Senate race and after his party's statewide leaders, Senator Robert Menendez and Gov. Jon S. Corzine, said they could not support it, the endorsement was rescinded. You can read two stories into the life of Sami Merhi. The first is told over 29 years in which he has prospered as a widely respected businessman and community leader. He is president of a local hospital, an energetic Democratic fund-raiser, a member of the Passaic County Counterterrorism Task Force. In this one, Mr. Merhi, 57, seems about as radical as a piece of pita bread. The second is told in a portion of a single day reported in The New York Times four years ago, when he made remarks that were, at the very least, politically insensitive and tin-eared about terrorism -- a topic on which no Arab-American can ever afford to hit a wrong note. Not surprisingly, the one day has obliterated the 29 years. Even his strongest supporter, United States Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., says Mr. Merhi made insensitive remarks and then failed to minimize the damage by undergoing the American political ritual of abject apology. But if Mr. Merhi falls short as a politician, he has succeeded as an educator -- the public lynching he has undergone over the past week or so has been a vivid lesson in how little margin for error an Arab politician has. "This has gotten so far out of control I really can't believe it," said Harvey Sussman, who is Jewish and has been a friend and sometime business associate of Mr. Merhi. "This is a peaceful, learned man. I've known him for 20 years, and I've never heard a single prejudiced remark. I wish he were in the U.N., because he's the kind of person who could get respect from both sides." MR. MERHI's problems date to remarks he made in April 2002 before and during a fund-raiser he organized for Mr. Pascrell. In them, while he condemned violence "whether it's committed by a person, a group or a state," he spoke of the frustrations and feelings of despair that drive suicide bombers and of the need for both sides to listen to each other in the Middle East. Mr. Pascrell criticized the remarks the next day. And in the most problematic remark, after calling the 9/11 attackers "coldblooded murderers," he was asked if that applied to suicide bombers. "I can't see the comparison," he said. He said this week that because he lost a godson on 9/11 and his country was attacked, he was affected personally by one event, so that he couldn't compare it to the other. He said he wasn't minimizing the evil of suicide bombers and opposed all forms of terrorism. Friends tend to accept that explanation. Others accuse him of changing his story when it's convenient. (He was also accused of comparing Ariel Sharon to Adolf Hitler -- something others, not he, said at a rally the same day.) "Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them," Adlai E. Stevenson once said, and both thoughts apply to Mr. Merhi. Maybe he should have quickly eaten words capable of giving such offense. But friends, colleagues, fellow politicians, his local newspaper, people who know him, say his life shouldn't be reduced to those words, especially when they're small slivers of complex thoughts. (And, for what it's worth, the reporter who wrote the Times story in no way thought Mr. Merhi was defending suicide bombers). Mr. Merhi may be too radioactive at this point to have much hope, but he and other Arab leaders got to meet with Governor Corzine yesterday. Mr. Merhi says he still hopes, by one means or another, he'll end up a freeholder. Asked the realistic chances of that happening, he said, "I pray." Our Towns E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com

PASSAIC COUNTY (NJ)
MERHI SAMI
ARAB-AMERICANS
LEBANESE-AMERICANS
IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEES
ELECTION ISSUES
DISCRIMINATION
ELECTIONS
TERRORISM


American Senator to Meet Myanmar Leader

Abstract: WASHINGTON — An American senator is to meet with the leader of the junta in Myanmar this weekend, just days after the country’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi , was convicted and returned to house arrest in a case that has drawn international condemnation. The senator, Jim Webb , Democrat of Virginia, would be the highest-ranking American official to meet with the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, in at least a decade. Senior administration officials, speaking anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the trip, said Mr. Webb was traveling independently and “not carrying a message from the administration,” although he was briefed by the State Department before he left. Officials described the visit as welcome and called it an opportunity to open lines of communication between the United States and Myanmar. As a military planner, journalist and novelist before joining the Senate, Mr. Webb has traveled extensively in the region. In the Senate, he is the chairman of a subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee dealing with East Asian affairs. “It is important for the Burmese leadership to hear of the strong views of American political leaders about the path it should take toward democracy, good governance, and genuine national reconciliation,” said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “Senator Webb can convey American views effectively on such subjects. The recent conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi, which was a serious step backward, indicates the magnitude of the challenge the international community faces in persuading the Burmese leadership to embark on that path.” Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, 64, was convicted Tuesday of violating the terms of her house arrest by allowing an American intruder to spend two nights at her home in early May. Her prison sentence of three years of hard labor was commuted to 18 months of house arrest. She has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. The intruder, John Yettaw , 53, of Falcon, Mo., was sentenced to seven years of hard labor. The United States, which maintains sanctions against the junta, criticized the conviction of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and called Mr. Yettaw’s sentence “cruel.” Last week, former President Bill Clinton visited the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, and secured the release of two American journalists sentenced to 12 years at hard labor for entering the country illegally and “hostile acts.” The United States has also called on Iran to free three Americans seized after they crossed the border from Iraqi Kurdistan while hiking at the end of July. President Obama came to office promising a new openness to engagement with Iran and other countries at odds with the United States, and his administration signaled the possibility of a less confrontational approach to the Burmese military government. “Imposing sanctions has not influenced the junta,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in February. Mr. Webb landed in Laos on Thursday on the first leg of a two-week, five-nation tour. A statement on his Web site said that he was scheduled to meet over the weekend with “leaders at the highest levels of the national government in Burma, including Senior Gen. Than Shwe.” In the Laotian capital, Vientiane, he said, “It is vitally important that the United States re-engage with Southeast Asia at all levels,” according to his office’s press release . The same day, the European Union said it would add new sanctions against the country. Four members of Myanmar’s judiciary — the prosecutor and the three judges who convicted Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi — will be added to a list of Myanmar officials subject to asset freezes and bans on travel to the member countries, a spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the details of the new sanctions will not be officially released until Friday. In addition, state-owned media associated with the junta will be newly subject to an asset freeze, the spokeswoman said, as will 58 other enterprises, 48 of which were already affected by a lesser ban on European investment.

Aung San Suu Kyi Daw
Myanmar
Webb James H Jr
Shwe Than


A Pioneering Army Sergeant Fights to Keep Her Job

Abstract: COLUMBIA, S.C. — When Command Sgt. Maj. Teresa L. King was named the first female commandant of the Army’s elite drill sergeant school in 2009, proponents of gender equality in the military hailed the news as a watershed. But it did not take long for the grumbling to start. Students who flunked out of the school complained that she set unfair standards. Some of her own instructors said she rigidly enforced old-fashioned rules. Traditionalists across the service asked: how could a woman with no experience in combat manage the Army’s only school for training the trainers who prepare recruits for war? She says she tried to ignore the criticism, but her superiors did not. Last November, they suspended Sergeant Major King , forbidding contact with students or staff and opening an investigation into what they called the “toxic” environment at the school. As that review dragged on, she says she felt like a criminal: isolated, publicly humiliated and so despondent that friends worried that she might hurt herself. Last week she decided to fight back, filing a complaint with the Army asserting that her male supervisors had mistreated her because she is a woman, and asking for a Congressional investigation. Four days later, the Army reinstated her , saying that the accusations against her — including that she had abused her power — could not be substantiated. Now, just a week from the scheduled end of her tour as commandant of the school, located here at Fort Jackson, and three months from mandatory retirement, Sergeant Major King, 50, is making clear that she is not ready to go quietly. In an interview this week, she described what she says was a yearlong campaign by two superiors — a command sergeant major based in Virginia and his boss, a major general — to undermine her authority and encourage her drill instructors to turn against her. “The Army was my life,” she said. “These leaders, they almost destroyed me.” Sergeant Major King’s direct supervisor, Command Sgt. Maj. John R. Calpena, was traveling on Thursday and was not available for comment. Maj. Gen. Richard C. Longo, the former head of Initial Military Training for the Army, now deployed to Afghanistan, declined to be interviewed, citing Sergeant Major King’s legal action, known as an Article 138 complaint. To her supporters, Sergeant Major King’s case underscores how difficult it remains for even the toughest of women to ascend into high-profile jobs in the Army, where combat experience remains the essential currency. Because women cannot serve in combat, they are automatically handicapped in establishing their leadership bona fides, her supporters say. Her critics assert that Sergeant Major King, who spent the last decade mainly in training jobs on domestic bases, should at least have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan with a noncombat support unit. But she argues that if she had, she would not have gained much experience useful to training drill sergeants. “At the schoolhouse, you’re training in doctrine,” she said. “You don’t have to go to combat to teach a sergeant how to transform a civilian into a soldier.” “We certainly have a lot of work to do” to integrate women into high-ranking jobs, she continued. “Look at how I was treated. In public, in the open.” Small, wiry and intense, Sergeant Major King does not seem the type to shout discrimination easily. The daughter of a North Carolina sharecropper, with 31 years in uniform, she thrived like few other women in the Army, earning top scores in fitness tests and evaluations, and becoming an unabashed expert in the minutia of Army regulations. Divorced and without children, she called the Army her family, and bore her nickname, No Slack, proudly. As commandant, Sergeant Major King recruited high-performing drill sergeants from training bases like Fort Benning, Ga., and Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., to be teachers at Fort Jackson, then oversaw the rigorous 10-week course that produces new drill sergeants. In her first months, she was pushed by her commander then, Lt. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, to methodically enforce basic standards on everything from body fat to rifle handling, which he felt had declined. She ordered her staff to reject candidates who were even slightly overweight or unfit and to reprimand instructors for infractions like discourteous behavior and wearing their hair too long. The failure rate for drill-instructor recruits rose. “We were trying to maintain very high standards,” General Hertling said in an interview. “I think she did a very good job.” But as soon as General Hertling transferred to become head of Army forces in Europe in early 2011, things changed. “It was like a duck hunt,” said Sgt. Maj. Robert Maggard, Sergeant Major King’s deputy and staunchest supporter. Once treated as an equal to brigade commanders, Sergeant Major King was no longer invited to meetings regarding the school. In his first visit, General Longo told her, “I’ve been hearing bad things about you,” she said. In a subsequent visit, he had an aide tell her to avoid the cafeteria while the general dined there. In a visit last September, Sergeant Major Calpena delivered a blistering critique of Sergeant Major King’s tenure, she said, telling the staff she had been overly doctrinaire and by-the-book. She said she once even overheard Sergeant Major Calpena urging a disgruntled sergeant to file a complaint against her. “I was working 16-, 18-hour days, and Sergeant Major Calpena was running around, trying to get me relieved, sabotaging me,” she said. Sergeant Major Calpena, an Army Ranger with multiple combat deployments, announced her suspension last November in a stormy private meeting in her office. “He came in swinging,” she said, telling her she was deeply unpopular among her peers because of her unyielding style and lack of front-line experience. Cut off from her friends and students, she said, the holiday season was almost unbearable. “If I had just quit, I knew that I could possibly die. Because those were very dark days,” she said. “The drill sergeant school was all I had.” Sergeant Major Maggard’s wife, Barbara, would call just to hear her voice, then hang up when she answered, not speaking because of the no-contact order. On Christmas, she left presents on Sergeant Major King’s porch. In March, General Longo’s office sent a redacted version of its investigation, which contained complaints from eight sergeants, all of whom had faced disciplinary action, according to her lawyer, James E. Smith, a state legislator and member of the Army National Guard. Two later rescinded their complaints, he said. “If she had been a man, this would not have happened,” he said, noting that several recent male commandants have not had combat experience but did not face such complaints. Sergeant Major King gathered support statements from more than 45 soldiers, but no action was taken on her response until she filed the complaint. She is now asking to remain commandant for six additional months — the period she was under suspension. She also wants to stay in the Army beyond her mandatory retirement date in August. Her command has said she will be replaced on schedule, May 17. But she has implored South Carolina’s Congressional delegation to intervene. “If I leave next week, where do I go?” she asked. “I had a family in the Army.”

United States Defense and Military Forces


Bubble Question Frames Design for Olympic Aquatics Center

Abstract: It is not often that a 19th-century scientist plays a central role in 21st-century architecture, but the new Beijing National Aquatics Center is no ordinary building. With a steel framework of seemingly random polyhedrons covered in soft plastic pillows, the center, known as the Water Cube and home to the swimming and diving events at the Olympics beginning this week, “really looks like nothing else in the world,” said Tristram Carfrae, the structural engineer who designed it. “It’s a box made of bubbles.” That’s an appropriate image, for the inspiration for Mr. Carfrae’s design originated with a problem about aggregations of bubbles — in other words, foams — posed by the great British physicist William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. Lord Kelvin studied foams to try to understand the “ether,” the medium through which he and others thought light propagated. In his work he wondered what would be the most efficient foam — how space could be partitioned into cells of equal volume that would have the least surface area. True bubbles were not the answer, of course, because there would be gaps between the spheres. The answer Kelvin came up with used 14-sided polyhedrons. Kelvin conjectured that his solution was the best possible one, although he offered no mathematical proof. And for more than a century, physicists and mathematicians tried without success to devise a solution using polyhedrons of less surface area. Then in 1993, Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan, physicists at Trinity College Dublin, answered the problem using two polyhedrons, one of 14 sides and one of 12, that nest together in groups of eight. Their computations showed that it had about 0.3 percent less surface area than Lord Kelvin’s solution — the equivalent of beating him by a mile. It is this Weaire-Phelan structure that Mr. Carfrae used as the basis for the Water Cube. But it is not as if Mr. Carfrae had dabbled in foam physics and had been aware of the Kelvin problem. “I knew nothing of this area at all,” confessed Mr. Carfrae, a principal with the firm Arup. “But from an architectural perspective we were very keen to end up with a building that had some connection with water.” So in the course of researching waves, icebergs, mists and the like, he came across foams and, ultimately, Weaire and Phelan’s work. “It was not like anything I’d seen before in the world of structural engineering,” Mr. Carfrae said. There was no guarantee that it would make a good structure for a building, though, so it took much computer analysis to determine how it would work. And it took the labor-intensive Chinese construction industry to fabricate the structure from more than 22,000 steel beams. Just as Mr. Carfrae was not specifically looking for the Weaire-Phelan structure when he found it, Weaire and Phelan were not looking to solve the Kelvin problem when they did, said Dr. Weaire, now an emeritus professor at the university. “That would not have been a very fruitful thing to do to advance one’s career,” he said. So, as Dr. Weaire put it, they were “playing around on the fringes” of the problem, looking at alternative structures as part of what for Dr. Weaire was a career-long investigation into the science of foams. In their work they were aware of clathrates, naturally occurring cagelike clusters of atoms that trap other atoms within them. So, using what was then new software developed by Kenneth A. Brakke at Susquehanna University, they decided to evaluate clathrate structures in relation to the Kelvin problem, Dr. Weaire said. They were stunned to discover that one particular structure, when translated into polyhedrons and run through the software, had lower surface area than Kelvin’s solution. “It was a bit like a hole in one in golf,” Dr. Weaire said. “From a crystallographer’s point of view this structure wasn’t new,” he added. But using it to beat Kelvin’s solution was. Dr. Weaire is not a mathematician, and though he tediously created actual foams one bubble at a time to try to show that his structure was the definitive solution, he could not prove it. In fact, said Thomas C. Hales, a mathematician at the University of Pittsburgh, a proof of the Kelvin problem will probably not come for years. Dr. Hales should know. In 1998 he proved a similar problem, the so-called Kepler conjecture, on the close packing of spheres, or, put more informally, the best way to pack balls in a box. “The Kepler problem sounds very easy,” Dr. Hales said. “But that proof relied on computers, it was 300 pages long, and used 40,000 lines of custom computer code.” The Kelvin problem is far more complex. “The problem is to show that this is the very best of all possibilities,” he said, “and the possibilities are mind boggling.” Given the enormous computing resources that would be required to solve it, some scientists say a proof will not come for a century. In the meantime, the Weaire-Phelan solution is doing just fine in Mr. Carfrae’s building. It turns out that the structure is very flexible and thus efficient at absorbing seismic energy, which is good given China’s history of earthquakes. Mr. Carfrae’s major modification was to use a diagonal section through the Weaire-Phelan structure, as if cutting through a block of foam at a 60-degree angle, rather than adopting the structure straight-on. It is that decision that most impressed Dr. Weaire. “That’s what gives it its random appearance,” he said. “Only if you look carefully do you see that it’s a repeating pattern. “That was just the masterstroke,” he added. “I’d love to think that I suggested that to him, but he did that entirely on his own.”

Olympic Games (2008)
Buildings (Structures)
Beijing National Aquatics Center
Science and Technology
Physics
Foam
Beijing (China)


Worried Banks Sharply Reduce Business Loans

Abstract: Banks struggling to recover from multibillion-dollar losses on real estate are curtailing loans to American businesses, depriving even healthy companies of money for expansion and hiring. Two vital forms of credit used by companies — commercial and industrial loans from banks, and short-term “commercial paper” not backed by collateral — collectively dropped almost 3 percent over the last year, to $3.27 trillion from $3.36 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data. That is the largest annual decline since the credit tightening that began with the last recession, in 2001. The scarcity of credit has intensified the strains on the economy by withholding capital from many companies, just as joblessness grows and consumers pull back from spending in the face of high gas prices, plummeting home values and mounting debt. “The second half of the year is shot,” said Michael T. Darda, chief economist at the trading firm MKM Partners in Greenwich, Conn., who was until recently optimistic that the economy would continue expanding. “Access to capital and credit is essential to growth. If that access is restrained or blocked, the economic system takes a hit.” Companies that rely on credit are now delaying and canceling expansion plans as they struggle to secure finance. Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel Wire Products, figured it would be easy to get a $300,000 bank loan to finance a new robot for his factory in Baltimore. His company, which makes parts for makers of home appliances, is growing and profitable, he said. His expansion would add three new jobs to an economy hungry for work. But when Mr. Greenblatt called the local branch of Wachovia — the same bank that had been aggressively marketing loans to him for years — he was distressed by the response. “The exact words were, ‘We’re saying no to almost everybody,’ ” Mr. Greenblatt recalled. “This is why God made banks, for this kind of transaction. This is going to slow down the American economy.” Earlier this year, credit extended by banks to companies and consumers was still growing at double-digit rates compared with three months earlier, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Goldman Sachs. By mid-June, bank credit was declining at an annualized pace of more than 6 percent. That is a drop of nearly $150 billion, an amount much larger than the value of the tax rebates the government has sent to households this year in an effort to spur economic activity. Financial industry executives say tighter credit from major banks represents a swing back to a realistic assessment of risk, after years of handing out money with abandon. Those practices produced a mortgage crisis whose losses could reach $1 trillion, by many estimates. “Before, they wouldn’t verify income and they were loose on the valuations of collateral,” said John W. Kiefer, chief executive of First Capital, a private commercial lender. “Now they’re tightening down on the ability to repay. They go off the reservation, and now they come back to basics. It’s preservation for many of them at this point. It’s survival.” But if the newfound caution of American banks is prudent in the long run, the immediate impact is amplifying the troubles with the economy. The Federal Reserve has been lowering interest rates aggressively to make money flow more loosely and to spur economic activity. The financial system is not going along: As banks hold on to their dollars, mortgage rates are climbing. So are borrowing costs for corporations. Some suggest that the banks, spooked by enormous losses, have replaced a disastrously indiscriminate willingness to hand out money with an equally arbitrary aversion to lend — even on industries that continue to grow. “There’s been a lot of disruption in the credit market, and a lot of traditional lenders have really tightened up,” said Gregory Goldstein, president of Macquarie Equipment Finance, which leases computer gear and other technology to companies. “Before, some of the standards they lent on were weak, but we think they have overshot and gone too far on the other end.” Such was Mr. Greenblatt’s reaction, as he learned that an infusion of credit for his Baltimore factory would not come easily. His company has been enjoying double-digit sales growth. This month, it received the two largest orders in its history, he said. “It was jubilation,” he said. “I was doing the Funky Chicken.” The initial call to Wachovia left him dismayed. “I’m stunned,” Mr. Greenblatt said. “God is smiling on this factory. We’re at such an exciting inflection point, and this is what a bank is supposed to do. There’s sand in the gears.” No loan meant one fewer order for the factory in Chicago that makes the robot Mr. Greenblatt wants to buy, and fewer hours for workers there. It meant less business for the truck driver who would have hauled the robot to Baltimore, and no help-wanted ads for Marlin Steel Wire Products. Mr. Greenblatt eventually got oral approval for the loan, though after more than a week. He was still waiting for the money at the end of last week. Wachovia, which lost $8.9 billion in the second quarter, declined to discuss the loan. But the bank confirmed that it has been reducing its lending in troubled areas of the economy. “We’ve got industries that we consider to be stressed industries, and we’re looking at those a lot harder,” said Carlos Evans, a wholesale banking executive for Wachovia, listing as examples housing construction, building products and distributors for those goods. “Our loan growth slowing is more indicative of the economy than anything else.” Still, Wachovia’s commercial and industrial loans grew by 13 percent in June compared with the prior year, Mr. Evans said. “We’re saying yes daily,” he said. But recent signs suggest that tight lending is spilling from housing into other areas of the business world. Companies with solid credit and profitable businesses can generally still get loans, but rates are higher and wait times are longer. According to a survey of senior loan officers conducted by the Federal Reserve in April, 55 percent of American banks tightened lending requirements for commercial and industrial loans to large and midsize companies — up from about 30 percent in the previous survey, in January. About 70 percent of the respondents said they have made such loans more expensive. “Banks will be much more cautious and keep raising the bar, and that will lead to an outright decline in total commercial and industrial loans,” predicted Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at the PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “Banks clearly have to rebuild their capital base. They’re going to look a bit more nervously before they make those loans.” Until last summer, banks lent freely, banking experts say, because they sold most of the loans they issued, making them less concerned about whether the customer could handle the payments: If the loan went bad, that was someone else’s problem. But in the wake of the mortgage crisis, that system has all but shut down. Banks are now stuck with the loans they extend, making them more motivated to scrutinize their customers, particularly younger and smaller businesses. “It’s the small business guy who creates most of the jobs,” said Mr. Kiefer, the First Capital chief executive. “If they can’t borrow to employ people, then we’ve got a mess on our hands.” For the last six months, Saul Epstein has been trying in vain to get a $2 million line of credit for his company, Global Harness Systems. The company, based in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., has a factory in Mexico, where it makes parts for engines. The factory gets paid for its wares weeks after they have shipped, necessitating credit to finance the upfront costs of production — raw materials, labor and transportation. Mr. Epstein figured that getting a loan would be easy. Since he became chief executive last year, Global Harness has gone from break-even to profitable. Sales should reach $20 million this year, up from $17 million last year, he said. But in this new era of caution, banks are focused on the fact that Global Harness lost money in 2005. “They keep saying, the way the times are, we need a longer track record,” Mr. Epstein said. Mr. Epstein, forced to limit his production to what he can finance with his existing cash flow supplemented by his own money, has been tightening credit himself: He has been turning down orders from companies with any whiff of financial troubles, lest his company fail to get paid. “The same way the bank is hesitant to lend to me, you’re concerned about taking on a customer that might go into bankruptcy,” he said. George Rosero, president and chief executive of Atlanta Pediatric Therapy, has been trying for more than a month to increase his roughly $500,000 credit line to about $1 million. His company, profitable for the last two years, offers therapy to children with speech and physical impediments, he said. Mr. Rosero aims to expand by adding four sales people. He wants to buy new software to better manage communications with patients and hire a consultant to improve the work environment. All of that is on hold. “Three or four years ago, I could just make a phone call and get an increase,” Mr. Rosero said. “Now, they’re asking me for a lot more information.”

Banks and Banking
Credit
Economic Conditions and Trends
Finances
Small Business
Economics


On Sundays, Ramon A. Dominguez Races to Win, but Avoids Doughnuts

Abstract: Ramon A. Dominguez is in an elite class of horse whisperers: his gift for guiding thoroughbreds across the finish line brought him the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey in 2010 and again in 2011, when his mounts earned almost $20 million, tops in the nation. He won the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile aboard Hansen, the Pegasus-like stallion that was also his 2012 Kentucky Derby mount; but his horse for the June 9 Belmont Stakes was withdrawn. Tall for his trade at 5-foot-6, Mr. Dominguez, 35, who was born in Venezuela, lives in Floral Park, N.Y., with his wife, Sharon; their sons, Alex, 7, and Matthew, 5; and their dog, Lucy. He also owns a 14-acre horse farm near Elkton, Md. Sunday is a race day, but afterward, he indulges in a normal Sunday dinner. Monday and Tuesday are off days, with no weigh-ins. DOUGHNUT RUN I wake up around 6, make a cup of green tea, and if I’ve won a race the previous day, I call the Dunkin’ Donuts next to Belmont, put in an order and pick it up on my way to the barns. It’s a kind of tradition for winning jockeys to buy doughnuts for the grooms and people who work in the barns; usually your agent does it, but I prefer doing it myself. I get three dozen for each barn where I rode a winner. If I won three races, we’re talking nine dozen! ONE FOR THE JOCKEY? No way; I don’t eat doughnuts. EQUINE EXERCISE Sunday mornings are usually pretty quiet, but I might have a couple trainers who want me to exercise their horses, so I’ll do that, and by the time I get home, the kids are up and having breakfast with my wife. I have a piece of toast with them or maybe some granola, but just dry, no milk. I hang out with the kids and then head back to the track, to the jockeys’ room. We live really close; I almost feel like I live at the track. HANDICAP AND SWEAT The first thing I do is get on the scale and check my weight, then look at the scratches, and if I’m riding a horse I don’t know well, go on the computer and watch the replay of their latest race to get a sense of how they like to go. Then I put my plastic suit on over my sweats and go for a two-mile run. That’s usually far enough. I run the turf course, or if the weather is bad, stay inside on the treadmill. I get a program and handicap every single race while I sweat. Then I go check my weight again, take a shower and put on my silks. WARDROBE COORDINATOR My valet picks up all the silks and matching helmets I need, so they’re arranged in the order that I’m going to ride. Time goes by really fast between races. You come into the jockey room, watch the replay, change silks, and before you know it, it’s time to get back on. WATER BREAK I drink sparkling water between races. All the jockeys take this vitamin, Emergen-C . I’ll eat a piece of fruit if there’s time. FOOD, NOT DRINK On Sunday I actually get to eat more than any other day: steak, meatballs, whatever I want. We go nearby to Park Place , or if it’s up to the kids, we go to the Cheesecake Factory . I love their chicken salad tostada; I might even have a bite of cheesecake. I drink no alcohol ever. As a jockey, you’re fighting always with your weight. If we stay home, I’ll grill steak or chicken. AFTER DINNER We might take a bike ride or go to a movie; the last one we saw was “Hugo.” Or I just go in the living room and play Legos and watch cartoons with the kids. We try to get them in bed by 9. By 10 or 10:30, we’re out, too.

Horse Racing
Jockeys Drivers and Trainers
Queens (NYC)
Dominguez Ramon A


U.S. Awards 3 Wind Power Grants

Abstract: The long-promised potential of offshore wind development along American coastlines took a step toward fruition on Wednesday as the Department of Energy pledged up to $47 million each to three projects it previously supported. The grants are intended to help the projects, off the coasts of New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia, begin delivering electricity by 2017. “Offshore wind offers a large, untapped energy resource for the United States that can create thousands of manufacturing, construction and supply chain jobs across the country and drive billions of dollars in local economic investment,” Ernest J. Moniz, the energy secretary, said in a statement. The announcement represents the next phase of an Energy Department push to invigorate the industry by promoting innovation to help bring the cost of offshore wind power into line with that of conventional electricity production. It came on the same day that Siemens said it would move the headquarters of its power-generating operations to the United States, not only to capitalize on the booming oil and gas industries but also with an eye on the potential growth of the offshore wind industry. Far more advanced in Europe, the harnessing of offshore wind has yet to take root in the United States. It has been stymied by engineering, permitting and financing challenges, as well as political and community opposition in some corners. Near the end of 2012, the Energy Department announced that it would make $4 million grants to seven demonstration projects, which were working through their engineering, site evaluation and planning stages. Of those, Fishermen’s Energy, a venture to bring five turbines of five megawatts each to the waters near Atlantic City; Principle Power, which seeks to install five six-megawatt turbines off the coast of Coos Bay, Ore.; and Dominion Virginia Power, which hopes to put two six-megawatt turbines off the shores of Virginia Beach, won the larger grants. The department is also working with two other projects — one planned for Maine near Monhegan Island and the other for Lake Erie — to further develop their technologies. Getting an Energy Department grant to develop a new technology can be helpful but is certainly no guarantee of success. The department tries to pick the applications most likely to succeed, but sometimes it picks wrong. In November 2012, the department selected Babcock and Wilcox , a well-established nuclear technology company, to develop a small reactor that could be built in a factory and delivered by truck or barge. The department offered a dollar-for-dollar cost match that could have reached over $200 million. But this year the company backed off on the technology and began laying off workers. The other recipient of money for small reactor work was NuScale Power, of Corvallis, Ore., which received $226 million in December 2013 and is moving forward with developing a small reactor.

Wind power
Energy industry
Energy Department
Electric power


Cromartie’s Ribs Hurt, but His Pride Is Fine

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Four days after a loss in which he was penalized four times, fumbled away a kickoff and bruised his ribs and a lung — all in the span of 3 hours 18 minutes — Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie was back at practice, not rattled at all. Cromartie said he would wear “some stuff” to protect his battered torso in the Jets’ game Sunday night at Baltimore. He said he planned to adjust his playing style to cut back on the holding and interference penalties that plagued him in last Sunday’s 34-24 loss to Oakland. Otherwise, he was the same old Cromartie. He was asked after participating fully in practice Thursday if the trip home from Oakland was long, considering that he had been hurt, that he performed poorly and that the Jets lost. Cromartie said he slept well. So much for agonizing over the defeat. “Last week is last week,” Cromartie said. About an hour earlier, Coach Rex Ryan said of Cromartie: “Last week, obviously, he had a tough week, like we all did. Maybe it wasn’t his best. But the one thing I liked about it was that he never flinched. He stayed aggressive.” The Raiders tossed around the Jets’ defense, amassing 383 yards. The Jets tumbled to 31st in the N.F.L. in rushing defense after, allowing 234 yards to the Raiders. They are giving up 136.7 yards rushing per game, a lot more than the 82 they average on offense. Even as the Jets prepared to stop a Ravens team that features the elusive and multitalented Ray Rice, the former Rutgers star, Ryan was having trouble being next-to-last (above only the St. Louis Rams) in a critical defensive statistical category. “Most other coordinators have been there before and I have not,” Ryan said. “It definitely bothers me.” There has been a lot for the Jets’ defense to clean up this week as they prepare for the Ravens (2-1), a opponent that believes in using blunt force on both sides of the ball, much as the Jets do. “You can’t have a letdown after last week,” Jets safety Eric Smith said. Asked if he still tasted the bile from the loss to the Raiders, even on Thursday, Jets nose tackle Sione Pouha thought for a moment, then said: “A little bit. Personally, I do. I use it more for fuel to fill the engine, not to burn down the house. They did something right, we did something wrong, but that was last Sunday. This defense will stand the test of time.” Cromartie, held out of practice Wednesday, could not get back to the field quickly enough. He said he had no problem breathing. He said he was injured tackling Oakland wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey on a third-down play in the fourth quarter. “I changed the way I hit, because I didn’t want to get a fine,” Cromartie said. Both he and Ryan said Cromartie would alter the way he used his hands. Cromartie is 6 feet 2 inches, comparatively tall for a cornerback (Darrelle Revis is 5-11) and taller than most of the receivers he covers. His hands tend to be higher as he locks on to a receiver, Ryan said. “We need him to be more consistent,” the defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said of Cromartie, who had two interceptions a week earlier against Jacksonville. “We don’t need the great game, and then all the sudden it’s a clunker the next week. We need to get him to the point where we can be a little bit more middle of the road with him where he’s just solid.” Cromartie was called for a 23-yard pass-interference penalty on the Raiders’ first drive, which ended with a touchdown. He was flagged for two defensive-holding penalties on consecutive drives in the second quarter. He had a pass-interference penalty in the third quarter. He also fumbled the kickoff after Oakland took a 24-17 lead, a turnover that led to a Raiders touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter. Cromartie dropped the ball, then kicked it away while trying to pick it up, instead of falling on it. “He compounded the mistake, and I wish he wouldn’t have done that,” the special teams coach Mike Westhoff said. Cromartie said that the Jets would not face another kicker like Oakland’s Sebastian Janikowski again and that he was still willing to return kickoffs if Ryan wanted him to. Ryan had said he was not so sure. “He’s not going to return kickoffs — there’s no chance,” Ryan said. He then paused. “Unless we need him to,” Ryan said, arching his eyebrow and drawing laughs. Last week might as well be last century to Cromartie. He was asked about the prospect of covering the Ravens rookie receiver Torrey Smith, who had five catches for 152 yards and scored three touchdowns last Sunday in a 37-7 victory over St. Louis. “He had one big game,” Cromartie said, scoffing. “I don’t care who I play, to be honest with you. My job is to shut down that receiver.”

Football
New York Jets
Cromartie Antonio
Ryan Rex
Oakland Raiders
Baltimore Ravens


Ernests Gulbis Forgoes Partying Well for Playing Well

Abstract: Tuesday was Ernests Gulbis’s 23rd birthday, an occasion he commemorated with a commanding 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 upset of Mikhail Youzhny, the 16th seed at this year’s United States Open and a singles semifinalist a year ago. It was the first Grand Slam match victory in more than two years for Gulbis, a first-rate moneyed player from Latvia frequently undone by a second-rate everyday work ethic. Asked what he would do to celebrate his birthday Tuesday night, Gulbis hastily answered: “I will go to sleep as fast as I can. No celebration. I’ve had enough celebrations in my life.” One of the tennis world’s unabashed partiers, equally notorious for on-court tantrums that left rackets in cracked pieces as he was for visiting nightclubs until the crack of dawn, Gulbis has turned over a new leaf. In late July, Gulbis defeated Mardy Fish in the final of the Farmers Classic in Los Angeles . On Tuesday, he thoroughly outplayed the established Youzhny. Should he keep winning, Gulbis, ranked 53rd, would not face another seeded player until the fourth round, where Rafael Nadal , among other possibilities, would await him. “I’ve done all the possible wrong things that you can do in a tennis career,” Gulbis said. “But I’m very happy I made the mistakes that I did. That’s important to understand. They were my mistakes, not others’, and I learned from them. “The mistakes are simple. After playing a good tournament, you get a week off. You can spend that week the right way, going for a one-hour run each day or going to the gym. Or you can do nothing like I did. You eat and drink whatever you want and not sleep at night. After that one week, maybe at 17 you don’t feel it. At 22 years old, you start to feel it. And you don’t play so well.” A scion of a wealthy family, Gulbis has been cast in the image of international playboy turned tennis professional for several years, a representation he has not contested. After being defeated by Nadal in the semifinals of the Rome Masters last year, he told stories of jetting home to Riga , the Latvian capital, arriving at 1 a.m. and heading right to a club with friends. In fact, he has so many friends in Riga, he frequently avoids going there during tennis season. “My friends like to keep me out all night,” he said. In 2009, Gulbis spent a night in a Stockholm jail for what he called a misunderstanding. After paying a small fine, he was released in time to play in the Stockholm Open. Still, the affable, malleable Gulbis came out smiling. “It was a fun experience,” he said the next day. “I think everybody should spend one night in prison. You see a lot of things.” Gulbis may have been destined to live the fully explored life; his book-collecting parents named him after Ernest Hemingway . Gulbis’s father, Ainars, is an investment banker who has occasionally lent his private jet to his son to minimize tournament travel times. His mother, Milena, is an actress. One grandfather played basketball for the Soviet Union, another was a film director. “I do not play tennis for the money, but I do need to work,” Gulbis said. “I don’t want to live off others.” Gulbis said there was no single turning point when he decided to improve his off-the-court discipline and commitment to train, but it appears to have coincided with the hiring of the former Argentine tennis pro Guillermo Cañas as his coach this summer. Cañas, 33, was known for his fitness regimen and relentlessness during his playing days. The carefree Gulbis has now been paired with a grinder. Cañas also comes with a past, having been barred for 15 months after a doping test found traces of a diuretic, a banned substance. Cañas blamed a cold medication. Asked if he worried about his coach’s history, Gulbis said: “I also have a bad reputation, so we are suited for each other. I never care what somebody says about somebody. I don’t care.” Gulbis credited Cañas with getting him in shape for the Open with three devoted weeks of training in Miami. “He is hard-working and systematic,” Gulbis said of Cañas. “It is not complex. We practice well, and if you do that every day, you will improve. It helps you mentally as well. You feel more prepared.” While Gulbis has occasionally been a racket-smashing machine — he once broke more than 70 in a year of competition — on Tuesday, he was composed and poised throughout his match. Then again, not much went wrong. With 14 aces and 77 percent of first serve points won, Gulbis controlled the match’s rhythm and pace from beginning to end. The experienced Youzhny appeared exasperated, as if waiting for the erratic Gulbis to resurface. But even a leg cramp just before the final game could not derail Gulbis. “I was relaxed, not nervous at all,” he said. “I’m very comfortable here right now. I like New York. It breathes life. There is so much action.” But he has no immediate plans to wade into the action. Wearing a faded T-shirt and tattered Yankees cap, Gulbis hardly appeared headed anywhere glamorous Tuesday night. And where did this sophisticated Baltic tennis star get his frayed Yankees cap? “I don’t know,” Gulbis answered. “I bought it because it was cheap.”

US Open Golf
Tennis
Latvia
Ernests Gulbis


Catholics React With Shock, Sympathy and Muted Criticism

Abstract: BERLIN — From his native Bavaria to the farthest corners of the earth he touched during his papacy, the Roman Catholic world greeted the news of Pope Benedict XVI’s departure Monday with surprise, concern for his health and more than a little understanding that an 85-year-old man no longer had the strength to lead a global flock of one billion faithful. The news that the pontiff would step down earned an immediate outpouring of tributes matched only by speculation about his health, about his future and that of a church in transition. Perhaps nowhere outside of the Vatican was it bigger news than Germany, where even non-Catholics took inordinate pride in their countryman’s leading the Roman Catholic Church. The Web site of the newspaper Bild, which famously declared “We Are Pope” nearly eight years ago when Benedict was elected, ran an enormous headline that read “Our German Pope Benedict Steps Down,” followed by his entire statement in German on a slightly mottled brown background, as if it were old parchment. Image Pilgrims prayed in front of Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Monday. The news that Pope Benedict XVI would resign drew an immediate outpouring of tributes. Credit Giampiero Sposito/Reuters Chancellor Angela Merkel recalled the pride that Germans felt to see one of their own elected by his fellow cardinals but also expressed understanding that he could not continue. “In our age of ever longer lives, many people will also be able to understand how the Pope must deal with the burdens of aging,” Ms. Merkel said. Relatives, friends, church colleagues and lay Catholics around the world were shocked by the suddenness of the decision to hand over the reins of the Vatican to a successor while he was still alive. “It came as a bolt out of the blue,” said Tadeusz Goclowski, the archbishop emeritus of Gdansk in northern Poland, speaking on Polsat News television. At first blush the criticism was muted for a pope with a controversial term, marred by child-abuse scandals and growing discord over conservative stances on issues like divorce and women in the clergy. Hans Küng, a leading critic of the pope, called his decision to step down “understandable for many reasons,” according to the German news agency DPA, but added that so many conservative cardinals had been named during his tenure it would be difficult to find someone “who could lead the church out of its multifaceted crisis.” Image Pope Benedict XVI blessing members of the Order of the Knights of Malta at the Vatican on Saturday. Credit Samantha Zucchi Insidefoto/European Pressphoto Agency “No pope before him made more strides to improve the relationship with the Jews — on so many levels,” said Ronald S. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress who met with Benedict on three occasions at the Vatican, in a statement on Monday. Though they did not agree on everything, Mr. Lauder said, “He always had an outstretched hand and an open ear for Jewish leaders.” The Most Rev. Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, released a statement calling Benedict “a witness to the universal scope of the gospel and a messenger of hope at a time when Christian faith is being called into question.” The strongest criticism came from the victims of clerical sexual abuse, who faulted him for failing to take stronger steps or, in some eyes, any steps at all. Video The Times’s Rachel Donadio reports from Rome. | John T. McGreevy, a professor at Notre Dame, on challenges in the United States for the Roman Catholic Church. “This pope had a great opportunity to finally address the decades of abuse in the church but at the end of the day he did nothing but promise everything and in the end he ultimately delivered nothing,” John Kelly, of the Survivors of Child Abuse support group, told Agence France-Presse. The archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said in an interview with RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, that the pope would be mainly remembered for his writings on theology. He said the pope had a very clear understanding of some of the moral problems confronting the church and he had addressed them “head on.” “I have a great personal affection for the pope, I have known him for many, many years, and I’m not surprised that he would take a decision of this kind if he felt that the burden he was under was too much,” the archbishop said. Image The pope greeted people after celebrating a Mass at Yankee Stadium in 2008. 1 / 17 Speaking to a reporter from the German news agency DPA in Regensburg, his brother, Georg Ratzinger, said Benedict was having increasing difficulty walking, and that his doctor had advised against any more transatlantic journeys. “My brother wants more peace in old age,” said Mr. Ratzinger, also a priest and for decades the head of the famous Regensburg choir the Domspatzen, who admitted he had known for months that his brother planned to step down. A former student of the pope,the Rev. Vincent Twomey, now a top theologian based in the Catholic seminary in Maynooth, Ireland, said the pontiff did not look well last summer. “We all felt he looked gray and tired, and shriveled, to a certain extent. Then he came the following day and said Mass for us and then joined us for breakfast.” Antonio María Rouco Varela, the archbishop of Madrid and president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, said that he and fellow members of the Spanish clergy felt “like orphans because of this decision, which fills us with us with sorrow because we felt secure and enlightened thanks to his delightful teaching and fatherly proximity.” In Poland, the information about Pope Benedict’s resignation — in Polish, “abdication” — dominated the news entirely. Benedict, who was the closest adviser to the Polish-born Pope John Paul II, is seen as a friend to the country and, more than anything, an heir to the Polish pope. Appreciation for Benedict’s contributions was heard in the Philippines as well, where his years coincided with extreme election violence and a string of natural disasters. “We recall, in particular, with fond gratitude, the many prayers and comforting words Pope Benedict XVI has dedicated to Filipinos in times of calamity and challenge, and his words of encouragement and witness in the many Catholic events that have brought Catholics together,” said Edwin Lacierda, a spokesman for the president. “He’s a thoughtful person and he will have given this decision a lot of consideration,” said Rupert Hofbauer, a longtime neighbor of Benedict near the Bavarian city of Regensburg. “If he’s not healthy and doesn’t have the strength he needs anymore, then it was the right choice. He must know.”

Pope Benedict
Catholic Church
Appointments and Executive Changes
Germany
Vatican City
Pope