Princeton Women Pull Away in Rout and Move 4 Games From Goal of 30-0

Abstract: PRINCETON, N.J. — Inside the locker room of the season’s last undefeated team in women’s college basketball is a hastily written checklist. It names the other seven teams in the Ivy League, with two underscore marks next to each abbreviated name. This is how Princeton is taking inventory of its season. There is a giant “10-0” written with a big, bold, black marker, and circled twice. “This is our little challenge board throughout the season,” Princeton Coach Courtney Banghart said. “Every time we played a different team from a different conference, we’d say our record against that conference. ‘We’re 2-0 against the A.C.C. We’re 1-0 against the Big East. We’re 1-0 against the A-10.’ It’s silly, but it’s our thing.” Slowly but surely, it is becoming a thing for the rest of the country as well. After Friday night’s 67-49 pummeling of Yale, Princeton is 10-0 in the Ivy League. Most important — and most notable — the Tigers are 26-0 over all, and they rank alongside the Kentucky men’s program as the only Division I teams without a loss this season. “It still feels a little surreal to me,” the junior forward Annie Tarakchian said. “Each and every day, I’ve just been enjoying the girls next to me and having a good time.” Starting with Saturday’s senior night send-off against Brown, four games separate the Tigers from perfection. While the last three of those games are on the road, they will be played against teams — Cornell, Columbia and Penn — that Princeton has already beaten by an average margin of 32 points. Entering the N.C.A.A. tournament with an unbeaten record is certainly within the Tigers’ reach, and exactly what they are aiming for. Banghart — who set the program’s career record for victories on Friday night, winning her 164th game in just her eighth season — confessed that she was gunning for 30 wins (with no losses, of course) because it would give her Tigers the most wins ever by a team in Ivy League history — men’s or women’s. Currently, the record for wins in a season is held by the 1970-71 Penn men’s team, which started 28-0 before falling in the N.C.A.A. tournament. “You better believe that I want these guys to be in the record books,” she said. “It’s going to be very hard to beat 30-0,” because teams are supposed to play 29 games. The Tigers were allowed an extra game this season because they played a game in Cancun, Mexico. Princeton’s offense is rooted in three things opposing defenses have found increasingly difficult to guard against: speed, physicality and finesse. With guard Blake Dietrick, who scored 18 points to lead the Tigers against Yale, racing up and down the floor, Princeton is able to open lanes for its powerful forwards. Tarakchian, who averages almost 10 rebounds a game, causes matchup problems for other forwards because of her ability to shoot. The game against Yale on Friday was the latest case in point. Two weeks ago in New Haven, the Tigers had their closest decision of the season, winning by 6 against the Bulldogs. Ahead by 16 at the half on Friday, Princeton rode a 19-4 run at the start of the second half to turn the game into a rout. “We knew that game was an aberration,” Dietrick said of the previous contest against Yale. Princeton’s biggest problem could occur off the court: convincing the selection committee that it is worthy of a seed high enough to give the Tigers two home games to begin the tournament. Banghart’s team might make that the next item on the dry-erase board. “I’m enjoying every second of it,” Banghart said. “I know how hard it is to win. It’s hard to win any game you play. I’ve been enjoying every day of it.”

College basketball
NCAA Women's Basketball
Ivy League
NCAA
Princeton
Yale


America’s Gray Ghosts: The Disappearing Caribou

Abstract: BONNERS FERRY, Idaho — The only caribou left in the contiguous United States are here in northern Idaho where they number about a dozen and live deep in the forests of the jagged Selkirk Mountains , near the Canadian border. Because they are so rarely seen, the caribou — America’s version of reindeer — are known as gray ghosts. They may very soon become real ghosts: These animals are among the most endangered species in the lower 48 states. “Right now, predation is the biggest problem, primarily wolves and cougars,” said Norm Merz, a wildlife biologist with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho , which has contracted with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to create a plan to revive the population. Not that long ago, hundreds of the animals lived in the United States. Part of the problem is that the Selkirk herd is international. The caribou can be found in the snowy old-growth forests of Idaho and extreme northeast Washington, but spend about 90 percent of their time in southern Canada. The threat to the animals there is so serious that Canadian government sharpshooters began killing wolves from helicopters . In the Selkirk Mountains, they have killed just 19 so far. Widespread wolf culls further north in Alberta are credited with saving the Little Smoky caribou herd in the Peace River region. But the price was high: About 1,000 wolves were killed over a decade. Image Behind a mountain caribou in B.C., a clear-cut section of forest. Habitat destruction from logging, mining and resource extraction activities threaten the animals. Credit David Moskowitz The Selkirk herd is not the only one so greatly imperiled. At last count, there were some 1,354 mountain caribou in 15 subgroups in southern British Columbia. Ten years ago, there were thousands. Today, all are in steep decline and listed as endangered in Canada, primarily because of wolves. Wolf predation, though, is a symptom of a much bigger and far more difficult problem. The fundamental cause of the caribou decline is the unanticipated ecological consequences of development. The steep mountain forests where the caribou dwell are part of an inland temperate rain forest, a unique ecosystem characterized by frequent precipitation and the only one inland. The centuries-old cedar and hemlock trees, and the lodgepole and whitebark pines in the high country, are home to a lichen that the southern herds of so-called deep-snow caribou depend on. For decades, the forest has been fragmented by clear-cutting, road building, oil development and mining. Where the forest has grown back, it is dominated by willows and other small trees favored by moose, deer and elk. In 2009, wolf numbers began surging in southern British Columbia, northern Idaho and northeastern Washington, drawn to the abundant prey. The population of mountain caribou dived, including the Selkirk herd, which then numbered about 50. Wolves focus primarily on moose and deer, but in the last two years, wolves have killed two caribou in the Selkirks; cougars killed another one. Yet another was killed by a car on Highway 3 in Canada, where salt on the road lures wildlife. Image A large bull mountain caribou in late fall in British Columbia, Canada. Known as gray ghosts, the animals are among the most endangered species in the continental United States. Credit David Moskowitz Canadian government hunters have killed entire wolf packs in the caribou’s range to keep the species from extinction. Government experts and some environmentalists say the wolf populations can easily withstand such aggressive hunting; some research suggests the culling actually stimulates wolves to reproduce more. Drastic measures to protect the mountain caribou have also led to “maternity penning” — pregnant caribou are moved into a fenced enclosure that keeps predators out until the calves are old enough to fend for themselves and, hopefully, escape the wolves. There are many other caribou around the polar region, among them the famous herds of tundra caribou that thunder across the Arctic. But the caribou at risk in southern British Columbia and northern Idaho are the last known to climb the wintry peaks of the Rocky Mountains in search of dangling strands of lichen called Old Man’s Beard . Deep-snow caribou are burly, muscular ungulates , in shades of gray, white and dark brown, with unusually large antlers sweeping backward. They weigh as much as 600 pounds and have hooves the size of dinner plates, specially adapted keep them atop the many feet of snow at these elevations, where there are no predators. Protection for the caribou is controversial in the United States partly because snowmobilers want to ride on the public lands that were to have been set aside for the endangered species. In 2012, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to set aside more than 375,000 acres of critical habitat for the caribou. Opposition to the plan forced officials to reduce that to some 30,000 acres. The Pacific Legal Foundation , on behalf of the Idaho Snowmobile Association , has petitioned the federal government to have the 12 remaining animals delisted as endangered on the grounds that there are others in Canada and that these are not genetically distinct. But the Selkirk population is cut off from the hundreds of relatives farther north, primarily by roads, environmentalists say. Restrictions on snowmobile use and development in caribou habitat, they add, should be more rigorously enforced. “It seems to me the U.S. federal and state governments have written off caribou,” said Joe Scott, the director of international programs at Conservation Northwest , an environmental group in Washington State. “If you are serious about protecting and restoring caribou, why are you shrinking their habitat down to the size of a postage stamp?” As it stands, the Selkirk herd will not survive, and biologists say augmentation of the population is desperately needed. But with caribou in steep decline throughout their range, officials elsewhere don’t want to give up animals. And mountain caribou in the northern part of British Columbia simply don’t know how to travel to the high country to find lichen. When British Columbia caribou were exported to another endangered herd in the 1980s, 18 of the 19 animals died. Biologists who work with the Kalispel and Kootenai Native American tribes are concerned that the caribou will disappear before they can act, and urge more aggressive support from the public and agencies. “Wolves and grizzly bears suck up a lot of the money,” said Bart George, a biologist with the Kalispel tribe. “Where is the support for this charismatic species?”

Wolves
Reindeer
Endangered Species
Lichens
Fish and Wildlife Service
Idaho


Dalli Resignation Leaves E.U. With a Mystery

Abstract: BRUSSELS — The top health official for the European Union suddenly resigns. His plans to place marketing curbs on tobacco companies are put aside. The offices of antitobacco groups are burglarized. There is talk of cash payments of tens of millions of dollars by Big Tobacco. The swirl of rumors here around events inevitably called “Tobaccogate” has a noirish tone that is unfamiliar in Brussels, the European Union capital better known for turgid debates about fish quotas. And much still remains mysterious and tangled in unproven accusations. The one certainty: The fall from grace last week of John Dalli, the commissioner for health and consumer protection, was remarkably sudden. It came after investigators concluded that he had probably known about an attempt by a lobbyist to solicit a multimillion-dollar payoff in exchange for easing a ban on snus, a form of tobacco sold in small pouches and placed between the gum and lip. In his latest public comments on the matter, Mr. Dalli denied the allegations on Wednesday, saying at a packed news conference that the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso , had given him 30 minutes to resign. Mr. Dalli said that he had requested 24 hours, so he could seek legal advice, and that resigning might have been an error because it suggested guilt. But Mr. Dalli insisted that he had to do so, because Mr. Barroso has the authority to dismiss any member of the commission. “I had no choice,” Mr. Dalli said. “The door was open, and it was simply walk out or be thrown out.” Mr. Dalli said he would meet with a lawyer to assess whether to file suit, including at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, saying that his civil rights had been violated and that he wanted to clear his name. “I have never been offered any money by anyone to alter any issue that I am responsible for, including this case of snus, either directly or indirectly,” he said at the news conference. The European Commission, the executive arm of the union, said Mr. Barroso had no choice but to demand Mr. Dalli’s resignation. Commission officials have said that Swedish Match, a company that makes snus, complained to the commission in May that a Maltese entrepreneur had asked for money in return for using his contacts with Mr. Dalli. The aim, officials suspect, was to influence a legislative proposal on tobacco products — and in particular to seek an end to the ban on snus sales that covers all countries in the bloc except for Sweden . After the complaint by Swedish Match, the commission asked the European Anti-Fraud Office to investigate. Mr. Barroso received the fraud office’s report on Oct. 15 and presented Mr. Dalli with some of the findings at their meeting the next day. “It was politically untenable for Mr. Dalli to remain in this sensitive function,” Olivier Bailly, a spokesman for Mr. Barroso, said Monday. Mr. Bailly said Mr. Dalli “had several unofficial contacts with elements of the industry of tobacco through a private intermediary, the Maltese entrepreneur, without there being any discernible or legitimate reasons to involve this intermediary.” Angered by Mr. Dalli’s public remarks since his departure, Mr. Barroso published a letter he sent to Mr. Dalli on Wednesday to remind him of his “obligation, as a former commissioner, to behave with integrity.” Snus is popular in Sweden, where some people consider it a safer alternative to smoking. So important is the product in Sweden that it won the exemption from a European Union ban on oral tobacco as part of its joining the union in 1995. Swedish Match was asked for nearly $80 million by the Maltese middleman to use his influence with Mr. Dalli to end the snus ban, Rupini Bergstrom, a spokeswoman for the company, said Wednesday. The middleman told Swedish Match it should be prepared to hand over the first $13 million directly to Mr. Dalli, Ms. Bergstrom said. Mr. Dalli is from Malta , where politics is a rough-and-tumble affair and where he had risen near the top of the political ladder after serving as a cabinet minister for the center-right Nationalist Party in several governments. Mr. Dalli said his ouster had jeopardized the revised tobacco law that he had planned to begin circulating within the European Commission. Under Mr. Dalli’s proposals, cigarette manufacturers could be forced to put health warnings that cover most of the surface of their boxes, and there would be an option for some countries to require plain packaging. Commission officials had given little indication that they were about to ease the ban on snus in the European Union outside Sweden. Mr. Dalli warned Wednesday that representatives of the tobacco industry “have been lobbying all the commission, and they have been meeting all the commission and their staff over the past months.” He described an “onslaught in the commission by the tobacco lobby.” Adding to the intrigue are burglaries that took place late on Oct. 17, or early the next morning, just two days after the dismissal of Mr. Dalli, at the shared offices of the Smoke Free Partnership and the European Respiratory Partnership, and at the office of the European Public Health Alliance. All those organizations work in tobacco control. The partnerships reported the theft of four laptops, three of which belonged to people working on tobacco control. The alliance reported two stolen laptops belonging to the policy team and a senior staff member and the removal of confidential documents.

Smoking and Tobacco
Bribery and Kickbacks
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
European Union
European Commission
Dalli John
Barroso Jose Manuel Durao
Malta
Brussels (Belgium)
Sweden


School Bus Drivers in Boston Stop Work, Surprising the City

Abstract: BOSTON — School bus drivers infuriated parents and city officials on Tuesday morning with a surprise work stoppage that left thousands of the city’s 57,000 schoolchildren stranded at home or at bus stops. The stoppage appeared to have been set off in a roundabout way by the shutdown of the federal government. The bus drivers’ union had lodged several complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. But after union members discovered Monday that the board was not operating and could not hear their grievances, drivers said, they decided on the spur of the moment Tuesday to walk off the job — with no notice to city or school officials. “This morning we decided enough is enough,” said Macaire Dupuy, 47, a driver for 20 years. The walkout, which a seething Mayor Thomas M. Menino called an illegal strike, threw thousands of families into chaos, with many parents forced to skip work to take their children to and from school, and others scrambling with last-minute alternatives and day-care plans. Jose Ramos, 30, a Dorchester resident and a chef, was among those who skipped work. “I’m not going to be an irresponsible parent,” he said. Mayor Menino said the bus drivers’ union had “always been rebellious.” “Today’s actions are a result of a group of angry people who don’t like to follow the rules,” he told reporters. “They’ve agreed to a contract, a very good contract, and now they don’t want to live up to that contract.” The mayor ordered Boston police officers to check bus stops, pick up stranded students in their patrol cars and take them to school. All after-school athletic events were canceled. The work stoppage surprised not only city officials but also the United Steelworkers, which represents the drivers; the union disavowed the action and urged the drivers to go back to work. “This here is wrong,” Albert Polk, the assistant to the director for United Steelworkers District 4, said through a bullhorn after he pushed to the center of a group of about 100 drivers across the street from a bus depot. “You needed to address this through the grievance procedures,” he said. “You need to get back to work.” He was drowned out by the workers’ cries of “No! No!” Image A Boston police van delivered children to William Blackstone Elementary School on Tuesday, when a school bus driver strike left students scrambling to get to class. Credit Mark Garfinkel/Boston Herald, via Associated Press The bus company sought an injunction ordering the drivers back to work, but it was denied by Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. of Federal District Court. He said that because the steelworkers’ union had urged the drivers to go back to work, a court order would be inappropriate. It was not clear what would happen Wednesday. After the injunction was denied, the mayor said schools would open an hour earlier Wednesday to allow parents to drop their children off and still get to work, and he said the subway and bus system would offer students free rides. He added that 82 percent of students made it to school on Tuesday. “The union can’t stop us from educating students,” Mr. Menino said. “The only thing in jeopardy is their own livelihood.” Steve Kirschbaum, chairman of the grievance committee for United Steelworkers Local 8751, said the drivers would go back only after they had a chance to meet with city officials and with Veolia Transportation of Illinois, the city’s new transportation partner. Mr. Menino said the city would talk only after the drivers went back to work. The bus drivers were protesting measures taken by Veolia that they said violated their contract and impinged on their ability to do their jobs. Mr. Kirschbaum said Veolia had created a more complicated payroll procedure, for example, and made it more difficult for drivers to take bathroom breaks. And drivers now have to check in before work, as opposed to taking the vehicle’s keys home with them at night. Drivers also objected to a new GPS system that allows parents to track the buses through an app on their smartphones; they did not object to parents following the buses but, they said, to the company’s using the system to map new routes that drivers said led to overcrowding and delays. On their Web site, drivers called the GPS units “spy devices.” Such tracking devices are relatively new for school buses. They are not mandated now in New York City, for example, but will be in September 2014, under new contracts with private companies. The mayor said he had heard “rumblings” of dissatisfaction but had not known if or when drivers would walk off the job. That lack of warning seemed to distress some parents the most. Myisha Johniken, 25, said she waited with her autistic son for half an hour at the special bus stop in front of her home in the Dorchester section, unaware of the strike. She had to take him to school on a city bus, which distressed him. “He’s all discombobulated because of this,” the boy’s grandmother Kathleen Brown said. “Because of his autism, if you break his routine, he’s messed up the rest of the day.”

Strikes Labor
Boston
Bus
K-12 Education
Veolia Transportation


Putin Moves Confidants to the Kremlin

Abstract: MOSCOW — With the unveiling of his Kremlin cabinet on Tuesday, President Vladimir V. Putin made it clear that power would be concentrated in his hands for the next six years, and gave no quarter to opposition demands to bring new voices into the highest levels of government. Mr. Putin’s presidential administration — an organ whose influence reaches into every corner of the state — will be dominated by the confidants who have surrounded him for a decade, including fellow veterans of the intelligence and security services. A handful of especially unpopular ministers were removed from their government posts on Monday, suggesting that the authorities were heeding recent calls to punish officials for corruption and inefficiency. But Mr. Putin hates to fire people, even if they have become liabilities, and he announced Tuesday that most of the ousted ministers would receive new posts as presidential aides or advisers in the Kremlin. One who did not receive a Kremlin post was Igor I. Sechin, the former deputy prime minister, who has advocated greater state control over the energy sector. Mr. Sechin was appointed to lead the country’s largest oil company, Rosneft. Shares in Rosneft rose on the news, which puts an influential political figure in a position to lobby for the oil sector. It hopes to cut taxes and attract Western partners to explore fields in rugged frontier territory like the Arctic. Under a plan for the oil industry through 2020, Russia intends to hold output at about 10 million barrels a day, tied with Saudi Arabia for now but gradually sliding into second place. Former Finance Minister Aleksei L. Kudrin, a Putin ally who left the government last year, said the new configuration suggested that Mr. Putin had moved on from his “tandem” with Dmitri A. Medvedev and was returning to the highly centralized style of his first two presidential terms. “Putin in the past, in particular, took all the key questions on himself,” Mr. Kudrin told Kommersant-FM. “I think that now he is going to take all key questions on himself. Perhaps a little bit less; I think he’ll give the government some defined space in some decisions, but all the same he’ll be making the key decisions.” As if to underscore the hard-line trend, Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia, moved Tuesday to increase fines sharply for citizens participating in illegal protest actions to one million rubles, or $32,000, from 5,000 rubles, or $160 — more than three times the average salary in Russia. The bill narrowly passed on the first of three readings, with 236 deputies supporting and 207 in opposition. Under pressure, including from Mr. Medvedev, the bill’s proponents are planning to reduce the maximum fines for citizens to 300,000 rubles, or about $9,600. The penalty would apply to a range of street actions that have become common in Moscow in recent months, like the ebullient “test stroll” led by a dozen prominent writers two weeks ago. If it passes in second and third readings, it could be in force before a large march planned for June 12. The initiative has met with staunch resistance from the legislature’s minority parties, two of which threatened a walkout during the vote. On Tuesday, deputies in the faction A Just Russia wore the white ribbons that have become a symbol of the protest movement, and which Mr. Putin derided on national television as resembling limp condoms. Several dozen protesters picketed Parliament on Tuesday, some carrying signs that read, “A ban on demonstrations is the path to revolution.”


Obama Pays Tribute to His Grandmother After She Dies

Abstract: CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Madelyn Dunham , who watched from afar as her only grandson rapidly ascended the ranks of American politics to the brink of the presidency, did not live to see whether he was elected. Mrs. Dunham, 86, Senator Barack Obama ’s grandmother, died late Sunday in Hawaii after battling cancer, which Mr. Obama announced upon arriving here on Monday for a campaign stop on the eve of Election Day. “She has gone home,” said Mr. Obama, his voice tinged with emotion as he briefly spoke of her death at a campaign rally here. “She died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side, so there’s great joy instead of tears.” Mr. Obama learned of his grandmother’s death at 8 a.m. on Monday, aides said, but appeared at a morning rally in Florida without making an announcement. A written statement was issued around 4:30 p.m., in the name of Mr. Obama and his sister, before he spoke at an evening rally in Charlotte. The delay was intended to allow his sister, who was six hours behind in Hawaii, time to take care of a few details before the death became public. Mrs. Dunham was the final remaining immediate family member who helped raise Mr. Obama during his teenage years in Hawaii. He called her Toot, his shorthand for “tutu,” a Hawaiian term for grandparent. Mr. Obama left the campaign trail late last month to travel to Honolulu to bid his grandmother farewell. He spent part of two days with her, as she lay gravely ill in the small apartment where he lived from age 10 to 18. While Mrs. Dunham was too sick to travel to see her grandson on the campaign trail, Mr. Obama and other family members said that she closely followed his bid for the presidency through cable television. Yet she became a figure in his campaign, seen through images in television commercials intended to give him a biographical anchor. Mrs. Dunham, who grew up near Augusta, Kan., moved with her husband, Stanley Dunham, to Hawaii. In the early stages of his candidacy, Mr. Obama spoke wistfully about his grandparents, whose all-American biography was suddenly critical to establishing his own American story. He spoke of how his grandmother worked on B-29s at a Boeing plant in Wichita. For Mr. Obama, the loss came on the final full day of his presidential campaign against Senator John McCain. Campaigning in New Mexico, Mr. McCain offered his condolences and said: “He is in our thoughts and prayers. We mourn his loss, and we are with him and his family today.” The illness of Mr. Obama’s grandmother had been weighing on him in recent weeks, friends said, which is why he insisted on interrupting his schedule to visit her late last month. While she was gravely ill, aides said, he carried on a limited conversation with her. He kept the visit to one day, advisers said, partly out of her own insistence that people not create a fuss. “She was one of those quiet heroes that we have all across America,” Mr. Obama said. “They’re not famous. Their names are not in the newspapers, but each and every day they work hard. “They aren’t seeking the limelight. All they try to do is just do the right thing. In this crowd there are a lot of quiet heroes like that.”

Dunham Madelyn
Obama Barack
Presidential Election of 2008


N.F.L. Concussion Settlement Payments Can Begin After Supreme Court Defers

Abstract: The United States Supreme Court on Monday denied a request to review the N.F.L.’s settlement with retired players who had accused the league of hiding the dangers of head trauma, paving the way for some players with brain ailments to begin receiving payments of as much as $5 million. The decision ends a contentious five-year fight between the league and many former players, some of whom are suffering from Alzheimer’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other debilitating conditions. The settlement, worth perhaps as much as $1 billion, covers nearly every former player for the next 65 years; the league’s actuaries estimated that just under 30 percent of them could develop Alzheimer’s or other conditions covered in the settlement. The agreement is by far the largest concussion-related settlement, and a landmark in light of the league’s repeated denials, made over many years, of the links between repeated head trauma and brain disease. The N.C.A.A. agreed to a far smaller settlement, while the N.H.L. is still fighting its former players, who have filed a suit largely similar to the one brought by the retired N.F.L. players. “This decision means that, finally, retired N.F.L. players will receive much-needed care and support for the serious neurocognitive injuries they are facing,” Christopher Seeger, one of the lead lawyers for the retired players, said in a statement. “These courageous men and their families, who in the face of great adversity took on the N.F.L., have made history.” The Supreme Court was asked to review the settlement by a subset of retired players who believed, among other things, that the agreement unfairly excluded players who received a diagnosis of a severe brain disease linked to head hits, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, after Judge Anita B. Brody of United States District Court approved the settlement last year. They also argued that the settlement did not adequately account for scientific innovations that may allow for C.T.E. to be diagnosed in people while they are alive. Currently, the disease can be confirmed only in autopsies. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit already rejected those arguments, and the Supreme Court, without comment, followed suit by refusing to review the case. “We are pleased that the Supreme Court has decided not to review the unanimous and well-reasoned decisions of Judge Brody and the Third Circuit approving the settlement of this litigation,” the league said in a statement. “We look forward to working with class counsel and Judge Brody to implement the settlement and provide the important benefits that our retired players and their families have been waiting to receive.” Cullin O’Brien, the lawyer who represented the former N.F.L. player Cookie Gilchrist in the petition to the Supreme Court, had no comment. He and other lawyers representing players who petitioned the court could ask the court to reconsider its refusal, but legal experts said that would be a long shot. Still, the agreement did not come easily. For several years, the N.F.L. insisted that arbitrators, not the courts, should be used to settle disputes between players and the league. The players would likely have had to prove that the concussions they received in the N.F.L. led directly to their current conditions. After Judge Brody questioned whether the initial agreement, worth $765 million, would be enough to cover every player, the league agreed to pay an unlimited amount of damages. Some estimates suggest that the league could pay $1 billion to cover all claims. Critically, the players will not have to prove that they sustained any concussions while playing in the N.F.L., or whether those concussions led to their ailments. The N.F.L., faced with the potentially damaging possibility of players testifying on the stand about their brain injuries and ailments, agreed to settle the case in August 2013. Judge Brody still must rule on the status of more than 100 former players who opted out of the settlement. She also must rule on the $112 million payment that the N.F.L. has agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Starting next month, the league must make six monthly deposits of $20 million into a special account for players covered by the settlement. By April, the plaintiffs’ lawyers must set up the apparatus to allow players to start filing claims. Mr. Seeger said players with diseases that have already been diagnosed should receive checks within weeks after filing their paperwork. Mr. Seeger said he was negotiating with Medicare, which is allowed in class-action cases of this kind to recoup its medical expenses already spent. As he is negotiating on behalf of a large group of about 20,000 ex-players, Mr. Seeger said, he expects Medicare to offer a substantial discount. Those so-called medical liens would be deducted from any lump-sum settlements.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
NFL
Super Bowl
Super Bowl 2015
Concussion
Football
Lawsuits
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
Anita B Brody


Fernando Alonso Out, Sebastian Vettel In, for Ferrari Next Season

Abstract: ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The Ferrari racing team on Thursday announced the end of one era and the beginning of another as it said goodbye to a two-time world champion and welcomed a four-time world champion. Fernando Alonso, who has driven for the team since 2010, will be replaced next season by Sebastian Vettel, who has driven for the Red Bull team since 2009, the team said in separate statements. The two drivers are also the most successful drivers now racing in the series, with Alonso, 33, having 32 victories and two drivers’ titles, and Vettel, 27, having 39 victories and four drivers’ titles. Lewis Hamilton, who is competing for the 2014 drivers’ title against Nico Rosberg, his teammate at Mercedes, in the final race of the series in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, also has 32 victories, but he has won the title only once, in 2008. Vettel won the title in the previous four seasons, while Alonso barely missed the title three times at Ferrari, finishing second in 2010, 2012 and 2013. Alonso won both of his world titles while driving for the Renault team in 2005 and 2006. The announcement had been rumored for weeks, after Red Bull announced on Oct. 3, at the Japanese Grand Prix, that Vettel was leaving the team at the end of this season. “The success we have had with Red Bull racing over the last four years has been an incredible journey,” Vettel said in a press conference in Abu Dhabi, “but at some point you want a new challenge to take on and to do something different, and Ferrari is the dream team in the sport.” Alonso still had two seasons left on his contract at Ferrari, but he said the team had agreed to let him leave without dispute. “I had some doubts already last year about 2014,” said Alonso, also in the press conference, and referring to the new regulations requiring teams to build downsized, hybrid engines, which Ferrari has failed to do as well as Mercedes. “We agreed that if we were not competitive this year I could think of some other options, and so at the summer break I decided.” Alonso has not yet announced where he will drive next year, but he may return to the McLaren team, where he raced in 2007, and which will start a new era using engines from Honda, as the Japanese constructor returns to the series after a six-year absence.

Car Racing
Sebastian Vettel
Formula One
Ferrari
Fernando Alonso


Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona Shifts Focus From Immigration Debate

Abstract: PHOENIX — When Doug Ducey ran for governor of this border state, he accused President Obama of “dithering far too long” on immigration and vowed to “fight back” against illegal border crossers, pledging to use every resource at his command: “fencing, satellites, guardsmen, more police and prosecutors.” Now in his second year as the governor of Arizona — a state at the forefront of immigration and border issues, with a growing Latino population — Mr. Ducey, a Republican, has done none of that. He has avoided pressures from his party’s presidential candidates even after one of them, Donald J. Trump, twice visited the state to promote the “big” and “beautiful” wall he said he would build to keep illegal immigrants away if he was elected. “I want this state to be known for what it is, the land of opportunity,” Mr. Ducey said in an interview. “So our main focus is our economy and our education system.” But he may soon have to wade into the divisive immigration debate, which is again coloring Arizona’s legislative session and bringing angry crowds of protesters to the Capitol’s lawn and hearing rooms. One bill would punish communities that offer sanctuary to unauthorized immigrants facing deportation; those communities’ share of state revenues would be withheld. Another measure would require judges to sentence undocumented immigrants to the fullest possible term in prison for whatever crime they committed. A Senate committee approved both on Feb. 3 in party-line votes. A third bill, which would impose citizenship and legal residency requirements for municipal identification cards, cleared three Senate committees in three weeks with blanket support from Republican lawmakers, underscoring their priorities here in an election year. “It’s tough to propose new illegal immigration bills in Arizona, because we’ve pretty much done them all,” said State Senator John Kavanagh, a retired Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officer who found a second calling as a leading conservative in Arizona. Image State Senator Martín J. Quezada spoke at a rally protesting immigration legislation last month outside the Capitol in Phoenix. Credit Caitlin O'Hara for The New York Times Already, the state has one of the nation’s toughest stances on illegal immigration. It has battled in state and federal courts to deny driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who were granted deferred deportation by Mr. Obama. It is home to Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County , who made a name for himself as an unapologetic pursuer of unauthorized migrants. And it ushered in a harsh new wave of immigration enforcement when it gave the police broad powers to question anyone suspected of being in the country illegally — passing the “show me your papers” law in 2010. Mr. Kavanagh was among the crucial supporters of the measure, which Mr. Ducey’s predecessor, Jan Brewer, approved. The legislation divided a state already scarred by years of targeted enforcement against Latinos, who make up one-third of the population. The municipal identification bill, which Mr. Kavanagh also sponsored, “is primarily to protect the integrity of government ID cards,” he said, “but it does have an impact on illegal immigration, because it prevents illegal immigrants from getting one of those cards.” Mr. Ducey has not said a word about this or the other immigration bills. But people on both sides of the immigration debate are eagerly awaiting any action he might take on the measures. They could serve as a litmus test for his positions on the subject, which, as governor, he has deftly avoided articulating. If the bills hit Mr. Ducey’s desk, “will he sign them?” asked State Senator Martín J. Quezada , a Democratic leader in the Republican-controlled Legislature, whose district includes the Maryvale section of Phoenix, where three in four residents are Latino. “Remember, just because he can, it doesn’t mean that he should.” Mr. Ducey is “focused on the priorities he laid out in his State of the State address ” on Jan. 11, said his spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato. They include overhauling Arizona’s beleaguered foster care system and opening a corrections center to offer intensive drug treatment and other services to certain inmates in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous. He also proposed spending $31.5 million to send 200 state troopers after drug smugglers along the border, the only border-related program he has championed so far. The scope of the effort is a far cry from the $800 million that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, also a Republican, secured from his state’s Legislature last year to extend indefinitely the deployment of National Guard troops and air and ground surveillance along the Rio Grande Valley, which has faced questions over its cost and results. “Our goal, because of limited resources, was going after what was most hurtful, and that was why we went after the drug cartels,” Mr. Ducey said in the interview, drawing a distinction between his and Mr. Abbott’s approaches. And while Mr. Abbott explained his plan as necessary to counter the federal government’s “ apathetic response to border security ,” Mr. Ducey characterized his plan for state troopers to target drug smugglers as “adding state muscle” to the 4,000 federal Border Patrol agents in Arizona. Image United States Border Patrol agents at a border fence in Nogales, Ariz., in 2014. Credit John Moore/Getty Images “Where there’s an opportunity to work together to get results for the citizens of the state of Arizona, to increase public safety,” he said, “I think that’s my responsibility as governor to take advantage.” Mr. Ducey had the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, R. Gil Kerlikowske, an Obama appointee, by his side when he announced the border program from the State Capitol in November. That was a clear departure from Ms. Brewer, who is still well remembered for wagging a finger at Mr. Obama on an airport tarmac. In an interview, Ms. Brewer said her successor should use his bully pulpit to “tell the federal government to secure our border, then we can deal with all the other problems that are upon us as a country.” He has been handing out olive branches instead. When Mr. Ducey met Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson early last year, he said by way of introduction, “This is a new administration, and I’d like a fresh start.” In June, Mr. Ducey led a trade mission to Mexico City, the first Arizona governor to do so in a decade, then traveled to Sonora, Mexico, three months later to attend the inauguration of his counterpart across the border. Immigration advocates have been cautiously watching from the sidelines, unsure what to make of him just yet. “At least he isn’t using the hate speech we heard so often from Governor Brewer,” said Viridiana González, who leads a coalition of community groups opposing Mr. Kavanagh’s bill, after a protest of the legislation last month. State Representative Bruce Wheeler, a Democrat from Tucson who is assistant minority whip, said in an interview, “I don’t know if what we’re witnessing is a change in substance or a change of style, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.” Mr. Ducey made no mention of illegal immigrants as he outlined his border proposal, which he carefully framed around the heavy toll heroin addiction has exacted in Arizona. “This is not Arizona’s problem,” Mr. Ducey said. “This is America’s problem.”

Illegal Immigration
Doug Ducey
Arizona
Legislation


Official Says Suspects Are Arrested in Cricket Attack

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The governor of Punjab said Thursday that Pakistani police had made a number of arrests in the commando-style attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in the city of Lahore, but he offered no details, saying that a full report would be presented on Friday. The governor, Salmaan Taseer, also said investigators had found a large amount of weapons and that the attackers were fully trained. It was unclear from his remarks whether any of the gunmen were among those arrested. Also on Thursday, authorities distributed police sketches of four of the gunmen to reporters. The sketches, generated from witness reports and closed-circuit television images from the attacks, depicted relatively cleanshaven men who inspectors said appeared to be between 25 and 30 years old. The sketches were widely shown on Pakistani television. The police have been struggling to explain the security lapses that allowed the March 3 attack, in which a dozen gunmen ambushed vans carrying the cricket team and officials as they passed through a central square in the Punjabi city of Lahore before an international cricket match at the city’s central stadium. The attack has deeply embarrassed Pakistan. Mr. Taseer, the governor, has only been in his position since last week, when the nation’s highest court ruled that the province’s former chief executive, Shahbaz Sharif and his brother, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, could no longer hold political office. Mr. Taseer is an ally of the president, Asif Ali Zardari. Opposition leaders, including leaders of the political party headed by the Sharif brothers, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, have blamed the political shakeup as contributing to the security situation that allowed for the attack. "The security system in Pakistan under this regime has collapsed because this government is too busy doing other things, they are too busy in their quest for power," said Mushahid Hussain, an opposition leader, in a televised news conference on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. Two Australian umpires and an English referee caught up in the attack have criticized the security arrangements and said they were abandoned by Pakistani security forces once the shooting began. During the attack, the driver of the van they were traveling in to the stadium was killed, leaving the match officials to cower on the floor of their disabled van as the bus carrying the players sped off in front of them to the relative safety of the cricket stadium. Police had previously said that eight people — six policemen and two bystanders — had been killed, but appeared to revise the death toll over the past days. The Pakistani government has not yet released an official death toll. Lashkar-e-Taiba has never been known to strike inside Pakistan, but there was some speculation the attackers wanted to hijack the cricketers’ bus and hold the players hostage in exchange for the Lashkar leaders.

Lahore (Pakistan)
Cricket
Sri Lanka
Terrorism
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Pakistan


Marguerite Patten, 99, Dies; Tutored Food-Rationed Britons in Home Cooking

Abstract: Marguerite Patten, a home economist who told ration-pinched British families how to make a satisfying meal out of nothing during World War II, and later became one of the country’s first television chefs and the author of more than 170 cookbooks aimed at average Britons, died on June 4 in Richmond, Surrey. She was 99. Her death was announced by her family. Known as the queen of ration-book cuisine, Ms. Patten worked in the advice division of the Ministry of Food, which was created in 1939 to oversee food distribution during the war. She went to markets, hospitals and factory canteens, offering tips and giving demonstrations on how to make something out of virtually nothing, with wartime creations like “mock cream” and “mock duck.” She also dispensed advice and recipes on “The Kitchen Front,” a morning radio program on the BBC. In the austerity years after the war, with rationing still in force, Ms. Patten continued to help British housewives desperate to put a meal on the table, introducing them to the pleasures of Spam and other exotica. When rationing came to an end in 1954, she incorporated new ingredients like olive oil and avocados into sensible, low-cost dishes that required a minimum of effort and time, primarily through her cookbooks, which sold some 17 million copies all told. “Her name is still instantly recognizable to several generations of British people,” said Nicola Humble, a professor of English literature at the University of Roehampton in London and the author of “Culinary Pleasures,” a history of British cookbooks. “Her books were determinedly unstylish — practical and unshowy — with lots of recipes for family supper dishes and well-described basics that people actually wanted to cook. Hers were, above all, the cookbooks that lived in people’s kitchens, rather than the ones in the living room.” Hilda Elsie Marguerite Brown was born in Bath, Somerset, on Nov. 4, 1915, and grew up in High Barnet, Hertfordshire. After leaving school, she took a cooking course and found work as a junior home economist for an electrical company. Stage-struck, she joined an acting company and appeared under the name Marguerite Eve for a season before being hired by Frigidaire to do demonstrations aimed at convincing housewives that they needed a refrigerator. In 1942, she joined the Ministry of Food, initially working in Lincoln. That year, she married Charles Patten, known as Bob, who was serving nearby with the Royal Air Force. A fruit importer after the war, he died in 1997. Survivors include their daughter, Judith; a sister, Elizabeth; two step-grandchildren; and a great-grandson. The ministry later posted Ms. Patten to the East End of London and to its bureau at Harrods department store, which had a kitchen that allowed her to give cooking demonstrations. After the war, she demonstrated appliances for Harrods, which published her first cookbook, “Recipes by Harrods,” in 1947. Many more followed, including one of the first British cookbooks to use color, “Cookery in Colour: A Picture Encyclopedia for Every Occasion,” which was published in 1960 and eventually sold two million copies. Most of her books were aimed at ordinary cooks with minimal skills in the kitchen, as their titles suggest: “Marguerite Patten’s Family Cookbook,” “The How-To Cookbook,” “Classic Dishes Made Simple.” “I believe that my audience is those who must cook but don’t necessarily like doing it,” The Daily Telegraph quoted her as saying in its obituary. “They want positive, straightforward advice, a feeling that someone understands they would like to cook and serve delicious food but it is a task.” Ms. Patten made her first television appearance in 1947, demonstrating an eight-minute recipe for doughnuts on the BBC television program “Designed for Women,” where she remained the resident chef until the 1960s. In the 1980s and after, nostalgia for the war years and ration-book cuisine inspired such collections as “Victory Cookbook: Nostalgic Food and Facts from 1940-1954,” “Marguerite Patten’s Post-War Kitchen,” “We’ll Eat Again: A Collection of Recipes from the War Years” and, most improbable of all, “Spam: The Cookbook.” “The war taught us to manage with rations, not only not to waste but to be thrifty,” she told The Daily Telegraph in 2011. “I’d like us to go back to the common sense of war years, being clever about using up food.”

Obituary
Cooking
Rationing
World War II
Chef
Writer
Great Britain
Marguerite Patten


Fordham Is Investing in Basketball, but Winning May Require More

Abstract: Soon after Fordham’s trustees announced last month that the university would infuse a significant amount of money into its men’s basketball program, Athletic Director Frank McLaughlin received an e-mail message from a former classmate. The writer said he had stopped donating to the team because he was disappointed with its lack of progress . But upon hearing the news, he changed his mind. “There’s a check in the mail today,” he wrote. It is impossible to know whether money will translate into victories, but Fordham’s quest for success on the court is being cheered by several rivals in the Atlantic 10 Conference whose institutional profiles resemble Fordham’s. “You’re not going to just flip a switch, but it’s certainly trying to get positive momentum,” said Richmond’s athletic director, Jim Miller, whose men’s basketball team is a No. 7 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament. A Jesuit university of 8,000 undergraduates that counts men’s basketball as its flagship program, Fordham has had only one winning season since joining the Atlantic 10 in 1995. The Rams were 5-51 the last two seasons. Dereck Whittenburg was fired as the coach on Dec. 3, the day after Jio Fontan, a star guard, said he would transfer to Southern California. The interim coach, Jared Grasso, 29, won only one game and finished 0-16 in conference play and 2-26 over all. Fordham did not make the conference tournament. “The basketball community has thought we could do better,” McLaughlin said, adding: “The amount of funding is not exorbitant, but it will make us competitive. This is not win at all costs.” McLaughlin said he believed Fordham could compete with its Jesuit peers St. Louis, Xavier and St. Joseph’s for bids to the N.C.A.A. tournament. The extra money, he said, will raise the Rams’ expenditures from “the lower third to the top third” in the Atlantic 10. McLaughlin declined to give specific numbers but said the allocation would go mainly to assistants’ salaries and recruiting. Men’s basketball is already Fordham’s best-financed sport, but it has not had a Final Four run like that of St. Joseph’s, which was built on coaching and recruiting, or a successful coaching hire like Rick Majerus at St. Louis to rally supporters. Fordham’s challenges are unusual in part because of the university’s unwillingness to bend academic standards or build a new facility. The Rams have instead changed coaches and shifted conference affiliations over the years. Fordham’s renewed commitment comes in the context of a national search for a coach. “I believe it was an O.K. job a month ago,” McLaughlin said during a recent interview. “We’ve changed the perception now that it is a very good job.” St. Joseph’s Coach Phil Martelli said getting the right coach was a major factor in a program’s success. “It comes to a point in time where people think money solves all the issues, but it’s the infrastructure and the personnel on the sideline and on the court,” he said. “Everyone is rooting for them to hit a home run hire.” With three teams in the N.C.A.A. tournament, the Atlantic 10 has become more competitive, making Fordham’s shortcomings more glaring. McLaughlin has cited “a lack of institutional commitment,” including staying in Rose Hill Gym, a 3,400-seat arena that opened in 1925, when other programs were building arenas. Xavier’s Cintas Center , which opened in 2000, holds 10,250, and St. Louis University opened the 10,600-seat Chaifetz Arena in 2008. Fordham has no plans to change Rose Hill, and its answer has been to schedule games at Izod Center in New Jersey — one this season and a few in the future — and bus students to games. “These projects have to be thought of as using athletics as a vehicle to bring people to the school,” said Chris May, the athletic director at St. Louis. “Then you see the dividends.” Attracting prospects has been a problem for Fordham. Fontan, who played for powerhouse St. Anthony in Jersey City, was considered a steal when he committed, and his departure left a thin roster. Emanuel Richardson , an assistant at Arizona who has coached Amateur Athletic Union ball with the New York Gauchos and at Xavier, said part of the attrition at Fordham could be attributed to the New York recruiting scene. He considered it a trickle-down effect from St. John’s, which plays in the Big East and has also struggled in recent years. “When St. John’s is getting the best players, then Fordham can get the right ones for their level,” Richardson said. “But St. John’s inability to get them means Fordham has to go after different guys, too.” Coaching and conference changes have not helped. In 1987, Nick Macarchuk took over. In his first season, the Rams reached the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament final and played in the National Invitation Tournament. Fordham then left for the nonscholarship Patriot League and won the inaugural conference championship. In 1992, the Rams made the N.C.A.A. tournament for the first time since 1971. Three years later, McLaughlin moved Fordham from the Patriot League to the Atlantic 10. After Macarchuk resigned, McLaughlin hired Bob Hill, who had been a coach for three N.B.A. teams, to a 10-year contract, but Hill failed to adjust to the college game. After four seasons and a 36-78 record, the Rams bought out the last six years of his contract. “They are in the wrong conference,” said Tom Konchalski, an alumnus who publishes High School Basketball Illustrated, which evaluates recruits. “They should have stayed and become the MAAC’s flagship, but now they would be behind Siena and Fairfield. Kids choose levels, not schools.” Another prominent alumnus, the former N.B.A. and Seton Hall coach P. J. Carlesimo, who played at Fordham under Digger Phelps, said that if the Rams had made a commitment earlier, much of the decline would not have happened. “It’s a grind, but you can’t just do it with mirrors,” he said. “The alumni will be there for support. It’s going to take more than money. It’ll take time, too.”

Fordham University
Basketball
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men)
College Athletics


If It’s Wooden and Old and Once Kept Time, Call Him

Abstract: HARRINGTON, Me. — For nearly all of Robert Coffin’s life, the passing of time has been marked by the ticking of many, many clocks. Mr. Coffin, now 90, first repaired a clock while a pupil at the grammar school in this seaside village of 900 people. He has collected, sold, made and fixed clocks — only those that run on cogs and springs, “nothing electric” — ever since, and is now known as the man to call in eastern Maine if a clock needs fixing. “Clocks are second to my wife, and I mean that,” Mr. Coffin said before settling into his workshop, which is filled with clocks, miniature figurines and hundreds of tools and parts. “It’s almost my life, if you will.” Mr. Coffin is among a dwindling number of craftsmen who repair antique wooden clocks. The work requires patience and painstaking skill, including an ability to replicate wooden pieces that have not been manufactured for centuries. “The business is rare,” said Alexander H. Phillips, a clockmaker in Bar Harbor, Me., who is a friend of Mr. Coffin. “You just don’t have that element of craftsmanship anymore.” Mr. Coffin has always “loved to make stuff,” starting with a birdhouse when he was 5. His passion for all things mechanical led him to the University of Maine, then to the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, which he got to, he said, by hitching a ride on the back of a turnip truck. He earned a degree in engineering, then served in the Army during World War II. After the war he started working in Torrington, Conn., at the Torrington Company, a leading maker of antifriction bearings, where a co-worker who repaired clocks further stoked a desire to work with them. “I said, ‘I’m going in the clock business one way or another,’ ” Mr. Coffin said. For years, however, clocks remained just a hobby, though a compelling one. At one point, he estimates, he owned at least 2,000 clocks. Many were accumulated on trips and during the seven years he spent in Portugal, where he oversaw the opening of a factory for Ingersoll-Rand, which bought the Torrington Company in 1968. Mr. Coffin went to a flea market twice a week in the Portuguese village where he lived with his second wife, Eleanor, and three children. There he would buy clocks, often in various states of disrepair and almost always American-made because those were cheaper and Mr. Coffin knew how to fix them. He borrowed about $3,000 from the company credit union while in Portugal to buy 300 clocks all at once at the flea market. He repaired them, then immediately sold them to a collector in Philadelphia. Despite the sale, he accumulated so many clocks and other antiques in Portugal that it cost $10,000 to ship the family’s belongings back home, though the rate was only 17 cents a pound. “I bought clocks wherever I saw them,” he said. Mr. Coffin retired in 1974 and moved with Eleanor back here to his hometown. He bought an old shipyard and opened an antiques store there, all the while repairing clocks and making furniture and his other love, miniature figurines, which line the shelves of his home. He closed the antiques shop about 10 years ago and started fixing clocks exclusively. He now spends each day in his workshop, a small space off his garage that his wife says is far too cluttered. While dozens of clocks tick, he tells time on an electric one in his shop. “I don’t have to wind it,” he said. Age has slowed him — he has two artificial knees that themselves must be replaced, and his hands are not as steady as they once were — but he knows where every tool, die and tiny wooden wheel is. “He’s very good,” said George Bruno, 86, a fellow clock repairer from Torrington. “He has the tenacity of a pit bull dog. When he starts something, he finishes it. I refer to him as the second-best clock repairer in New England.” Mr. Phillips, the clockmaker in Bar Harbor, called Mr. Coffin a few years ago when a rare clock made in 1790 arrived at the Phillips store. The clock was in dozens of pieces, and Mr. Phillips, who had seen one like it only in a museum, was not sure how to proceed. Mr. Coffin not only did the job but also made a replica for himself, which hangs in his living room. Mr. Coffin has done an especially thriving business in the last week, ever since an article about him was published in The Bangor Daily News. He will still drive to a job — he charges $45 an hour, door to door — though he prefers that a customer bring the clock to his home. Either way, he does not plan to stop making or fixing clocks any time soon. “I love to make them, I love to own them, and they’ve been my livelihood,” he said. “After I stopped working for the company, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve done clocks.”

Watches and Clocks
Coffin Robert
Antiques
Maine


Media Companies Join to Extend the Brands of YouTube Stars

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Simon & Schuster is making a big bet on YouTube stars, an undertaking that could either open up a blockbuster new publishing market or reveal the limitations of Internet celebrity. In the latest mash-up of old and new media, a division of Simon & Schuster, the Atria Publishing Group, has teamed with Hollywood’s United Talent Agency to create a new imprint to publish books by Internet entertainers. Five deals have already been made with YouTube stars like Shane Dawson and Justine Ezarik. Keywords Press, as the new endeavor is called, aims to release six to 10 titles annually, both in print and digital formats, ranging from “serious to comedic, fiction to nonfiction, practical advice to personal memoir,” said Judith Curr, president and publisher of Atria. “Not to be too grand about it, but books are coming to YouTube for the first time,” she said. “It gives us access to a whole new talent pool.” The deal represents an acknowledgment by traditional media companies that YouTube celebrities are more than just niche entertainers with quirky appeal, and can be marketed to a broader audience. For the video stars, a publishing platform adds a touch of gravitas, not to mention the financing that comes with it. In addition to Mr. Dawson and Ms. Ezarik, who is better known as iJustine , Keywords Press has made deals with Connor Franta , Joey Graceffa and Shay Butler , the creator of “The ShayTards.” Together, the five entertainers have about 20 million YouTube subscribers and have posted videos generating two billion views. After successfully trawling the blogosphere for new authors, the big publishing houses — obsessed with finding writers with a built-in audience and encouraging reading among young consumers — are turning to Google’s YouTube and Twitter’s Vine. But this is still untested ground: Although video stars have shown that they can direct their fans to TV, print is an entirely different medium. Early efforts have largely been disappointing. A recent cookbook from the creators of “Epic Meal Time,” a YouTube extreme cooking show , is a prominent example. It was published in March by Gallery Books, another division of Simon & Schuster, to ho-hum early results. For United Talent, which operates a respected and aggressive digital division, Keywords Press is about finding new ways to make money by helping YouTube clients like Mr. Dawson and Ms. Ezarik expand their brands. For instance, Mr. Dawson, known for comedic oversharing that leans toward vulgarity, has successfully released music on iTunes, sold a comedy pilot to NBC and is working on a movie. Publishing a book seemed like a natural extension. “I’ve almost done books before, quite a few times, actually, but there were always so many hoops to jump through, and it always all centered on my single best idea,” Mr. Dawson said. “It always ended up not being very interesting because it didn’t allow for fan interaction to the degree that my fans expect and I want.” To that end, most Keywords books will be crowdsourced, meaning that Mr. Dawson and his fellow authors will directly involve their followers in storytelling decisions from the earliest stages. That is a big change from the traditional book publishing model, which is centered on formal written proposals. Keywords also aims to get books into the marketplace much faster than a traditional imprint could. “There wasn’t a publishing apparatus out there that could really take advantage of the unique nature of online stars and their relationship with fans,” said Brent Weinstein, head of United Talent’s digital division. “So we decided to go out and create one.” The upshot: Keywords represents a bending by old-line publishers to the work practices of the YouTube generation. “I’ve always wanted to write a book, but the proposal process is kind of crazy,” said Ms. Ezarik, who has parlayed YouTube stardom into an acting, endorsement and fashion career. “I would say, ‘Why can’t I just do it?’ That’s what we are used to doing online.” What will Ms. Ezarik’s book be about? The details are still fuzzy. “I have so many random, behind-the-scenes stories to tell, and I really want it to be inspirational,” she said. “But I also want to know what my fans want my book to be like.” With any luck, she added, “the book will be successful, and we can turn it into a movie or a TV series.” Atria, whose traditional authors include Brad Thor (“The Last Patriot”) and Rhonda Byrne (“The Secret”), and United Talent, whose movie star clients include Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, provided little information about the Keywords business model. It involves an advance payment, but authors are meant to share in profits to a larger degree than is typical. Keywords authors do not necessarily need to be United Talent clients. Keywords Press is only one example of increased digital innovation at United Talent and Simon & Schuster, which is owned by the CBS Corporation. United Talent, for instance, helped incubate AwesomenessTV, a fast-growing YouTube empire focused on preteenage girls. DreamWorks Animation bought Awesomeness last year in a deal valued up to $117 million and brokered by the agency. And on Wednesday, Simon & Schuster announced that it would make some 10,000 backlist titles available on the emerging e-book subscription services Oyster and Scribd, becoming the second of the five major publishing houses to test those waters, after HarperCollins. Some publishers worry that subscription services like these, which provide broad access to a digital library for a monthly fee, will puncture single-copy sales. “Consumers have clearly taken to subscription models for other media, and we expect that our participation in these services will encourage discovery of our books,” Carolyn Reidy, the Simon & Schuster chief executive, said in a statement.

Books
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
Publishing
Celebrity
YouTube
Simon & Schuster
United Talent Agency


Boo Rodriguez or Cheer Him? It’s Oh So Complicated

Abstract: Booing Alex Rodriguez has become so reflexive that it’s easy to forget what exactly we’re booing him for. Because he cheated? He’s not alone in that, certainly not in recent Yankees history and not even among his current teammates. Because he lied about cheating? Other athletes have ferociously denied allegations, and pursued their accusers, for far longer and with far more false indignation. Because, despite receiving the baseball equivalent of a death sentence (a 211-game suspension), he simply refuses to disappear? Or because in his return to action that few wanted — not Major League Baseball, certainly, or his team’s top officials — Rodriguez is actually lifting the faltering Yankees back into playoff contention? Make no mistake: The prospect of a defiant Rodriguez leading the Yankees into the playoffs or, heaven forbid, to another World Series must haunt Bud Selig’s most harrowing nightmares. Imagine this tableau. World Series, Game 7. Yankees versus the St. Louis Cardinals. Bottom of the eighth. Two outs, two on. A Rodriguez home run, deep into the night, puts the Yankees ahead. Then, in what will be his final career appearance, Mariano Rivera marches on one last time to “Enter Sandman.” And promptly blows the save. Yankees lose. Yet the saga of Rodriguez — prodigy, superstar, cheat, pariah — has been such a strange one that we shouldn’t be surprised if it ends in the strangest possible way. If you need any more evidence that black is white, up is down and cats and dogs are cohabitating, just look to the Boston star David Ortiz, who spoke out publicly against the punitive plunking of Rodriguez by a Red Sox pitcher. For Yankees fans, cheering for Rodriguez has always been a complicated matter, but it was possible as long as he contributed to one thing: Yankees victories. Now, in true Rodriguez fashion, he has gone and complicated even that. I’m not from Seattle, I don’t follow the Texas Rangers and I’ve never really been a Yankees fan, so I’ve had occasion to root for Rodriguez exactly once. It was back in 1995, a strike-shortened season, when the upstart Seattle Mariners beat the fabled Yankees in the first American League wild-card series. Rodriguez had hit only five home runs that season; at 19, he was the youngest player in the major leagues. The next year, 1996, he put up one of the greatest offensive seasons in baseball history and lost the American League Most Valuable Player award by 3 voting points. But in 1995, he was nothing but a promise. That Mariners team, with Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and this skinny teenager named Rodriguez, glowed bright with possibility — it was enough to make any baseball fan, regardless of affiliation, cheer. Griffey and Johnson were traded, and Rodriguez eventually left for Texas, and in the end, it was the Yankees and their own skinny rookie shortstop who won the World Series in 1996 and three more times in the next four years. Perhaps it was inevitable that the Yankees and Rodriguez would meet again — in 2004, when the Yankees acquired him. At the time, the Yankees’ dynastic run was nearly a decade old and there was still much talk of the Yankee Way: those values of teamwork, hard-nosed discipline and selfless sacrifice, as personified by fan favorites like Bernie Williams, the sainted Derek Jeter and even Paul O’Neill, who by then was retired. Yet the Yankee Way was already being stained by disclosures that linked two players — Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield — to a federal drug investigation. Other Yankees — Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Stanton — would later be cast under a similar shadow. Rodriguez’s presence on the team, in a sense, ran counter to that trend: he was simply the all-world talent playing for the all-world team. Later, the hope was that he would surpass Barry Bonds for the career home run record and, in doing so, cleanse baseball of that stain as well. He would set the record straight, literally. And he would do it as a Yankee for life. Only the Yankee-for-life part has panned out, and there are many people, from the Yankees’ front office to the Yankees’ bleachers, who wish it hadn’t. (Just ask the bodega owner in Brooklyn who years back named his store A-Rod Grocery and is now searching for a new name.) And Yankees fans, so well-versed in booing, are now faced with something much weirder: cheering a player they no longer like because he’s boosting the team they still love. It was another New York pariah, Anthony D. Weiner, who set the tone for this season, whether you’re talking about baseball or politics. “Quit isn’t the way we roll in New York City,” he calmly proclaimed when besieged on all sides by opponents and allies pleading with him to just go away. What’s so cunning and infuriating about his statement is that he’s using something New Yorkers are justifiably proud of (their resilience) to validate something they’re ashamed of (Anthony D. Weiner). Quit is an especially dirty word in sports, and apparently it’s not how Rodriguez rolls, either. At any other time, this quality would be celebrated, especially in a superstar who’s never exactly been known for resilience. But for the Yankees, over the past 18 seasons, what started as a commitment to winning has turned into an unspoken credo to win at all costs, whether those costs entailed flouting the rules or simply acquiring every flawed superstar in sight. Rodriguez personifies both. So it’s fitting his return should be the exclamation point to that era. The team’s recent history has featured a proud tradition of winning. This season, without Rodriguez, it looked as if Yankees fans would finally have to become used to losing. Instead, they’re confronted with something even more unfamiliar and much uglier: winning without pride.