Internet Customers and Advertising Sales Bolster Comcast’s Profits

Abstract: Increases in high-speed Internet customers and advertising sales at NBCUniversal’s trove of profitable cable networks helped increase third-quarter profits at the Comcast Corporation , the company said Wednesday. Comcast, the country’s largest cable operator, reported $14.3 billion in revenue in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, a 51 percent increase over the same period last year. Net income rose 4.7 percent to $908 million and operating income rose 35 percent to $2.6 billion, driven by 261,000 new high-speed Internet subscribers. The company reported earnings of 33 cents a share. The company said 165,000 customers cut their pay television service, a 40 percent improvement from the 275,000 customers Comcast lost in the third quarter of 2010. Comcast executives said the numbers were proof that viewers were not “cord cutting” and watching television entirely online. Nine months after Comcast took over majority ownership in NBC Universal from General Electric, renaming it NBCUniversal, the acquisition appears to have had mixed impact on earnings. Over all, the division had $5.2 billion in revenue in the third quarter, a 4.6 percent increase, with cable companies like USA, Syfy, CNBC and Bravo providing profit. Revenue at NBCUniversal’s cable division rose 12 percent, to $2.1 billion, while advertising revenue at those networks grew 9.5 percent to $803 million, compared with flat advertising revenue at the broadcast network. The results were not as buoying at NBC, which despite an aggressive fall slate of new shows still ranks as the fourth-most-watched broadcast network in total prime-time viewers. Its revenue rose 2.9 percent, to $1.5 billion. But operating cash flow at NBC, which spent heavily on new shows like the 1960s period drama “The Playboy Club,” dropped 75 percent to $17 million. A Comcast spokeswoman said the drop was because of a bigger investment in prime-time shows, news and local television stations. Comcast’s film unit, Universal Studios, also suffered in the third quarter. Weak box-office sales led to a 7.8 percent decrease in revenue and a 17 percent drop in operating cash flow. Time Warner , which also posted earnings on Wednesday, had better news to report on the film front. The final installment of “ Harry Potter ” helped the company report a sharp rise in quarterly earnings. In the third quarter of the year, Time Warner’s net income was $822 million, or 78 cents a share, a 57 percent increase over the same quarter last year, when it was $522 million, or 46 cents a share. Total revenue rose 11 percent to $7.07 billion, from $6.38 billion, which the company said represented its highest rate of growth in four years. The July release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the highest-grossing film of the year and one of the highest on record, received much of the credit for the gains. The film was the last of eight in the “Harry Potter” series, which Time Warner’s chief executive, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, said had enjoyed an “unprecedented franchise run.” Warner Brothers reported a 19 percent overall rise in revenue, to $3.3 billion, over the same quarter last year. The unit also includes television production. In a conference call with investors on Wednesday, Time Warner executives singled out the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” produced by Warner Brothers and televised by CBS, as a profit center. In September, the show started replaying in syndication on Time Warner’s comedy-oriented cable channel TBS and performed solidly. “We expect it’ll be a strong contributor to the profitability of the division for years to come,” said John K. Martin, the chief financial officer of Time Warner, referring to the Warner Brothers division. The television networks unit, normally the company’s biggest, reported a 7 percent increase in revenue, to $3.2 billion. But operating income dipped 4 percent in the quarter, in part because the company spent more on new shows, on sports rights and on marketing. The company’s smaller publishing unit, Time Inc., reported a 1 percent decline in revenue, to $889 million. The print ad market “appears to have stabilized,” Mr. Martin said. Underperformers in the quarter included the big cable channels TNT and TBS, and the film “Green Lantern.” Despite a dour economic backdrop, the company raised its full-year outlook for the second time this year. In August, it projected that adjusted earnings, $2.41 a share last year, would grow by “at least low teens;” on Wednesday it said those earnings would grow by the “high teens.” Analysts expect 15 percent growth, to $2.78 a share.

Comcast Corporation
Time Warner Inc
Company Reports
NBC Universal
Cable Television
Movies


Bengals’ Andy Dalton May Return This Season

Abstract: Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton will not need surgery on his broken thumb and could play again this season. Dalton broke the thumb on his passing hand during a 33-20 loss to the Steelers on Sunday that left the A.F.C. North up for grabs. He had an appointment with a specialist on Monday who recommended that the fracture could heal without surgery. It is unclear how many games Dalton will miss. His hand will remain in a cast for now. “He won’t play this week,” Coach Marvin Lewis said. “As we move forward, we’ll see how he is each week, and it’ll be up to Andy and the doctors.” A. J. McCarron will make his first N.F.L. start Sunday at San Francisco. Against Pittsburgh, he went 22 of 32 for 280 yards with two touchdowns, three sacks and two interceptions. UNCERTAINTY AROUND MANNING Brock Osweiler remains the Denver Broncos’ starting quarterback, but Peyton Manning may practice this week for the first time since mid-November. Then again, maybe he is not ready. Coach Gary Kubiak did not have many answers regarding his quarterback situation when he met with the news media a day after Denver lost to Oakland, 15-12. Kubiak said he had been too busy watching film of the game and meeting with the team to get together with Manning or the medical staff and determine this week’s quarterback plan. Image Jets wide receiver Devin Smith being helped off the field after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in the Jets' 30-8 victory against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. Credit Peter Morgan/Associated Press Manning has been sidelined for a month with a left foot injury. LUCK TRAINING HARDER Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck intensified his workout and said he hoped to return to practice on Wednesday. Luck has missed four straight games with a lacerated kidney and torn abdominal muscle. He was unable to say whether he could play in this weekend’s game against the Texans, who are tied with Indianapolis for first place in the A.F.C. South. The Colts backup Matt Hasselbeck, 4-2 as a starter this season, did not take questions after reinjuring his ribs Sunday. CONCUSSION FOR HOYER Houston quarterback Brian Hoyer is doubtful for Sunday’s game against Indianapolis after sustaining his second concussion in less than a month. Coach Bill O’Brien said Hoyer was following the league’s concussion protocol and was also dealing with a strained neck and a wrist problem after being sacked five times Sunday night in a 27-6 loss to New England. If Hoyer cannot play against the Colts, the Texans will look to T. J. Yates. JETS LOSE ROOKIE RECEIVER A challenging rookie season for Jets receiver Devin Smith reached its nadir Sunday when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in their 30-8 victory against Tennessee. Smith was carted off the field after being injured on punt coverage in the third quarter. “It’s unfortunate that this happened,” Coach Todd Bowles said in a teleconference, “because he was really coming around.” Smith, a second-round draft pick, caught nine passes this season for 115 yards and a touchdown, modest production for a player the Jets expected to emerge as a downfield complement to Eric Decker and Brandon Marshall. He missed most of training camp and the first two games after breaking ribs and sustaining a punctured lung, and later sat out another game with a sprained ankle. Smith also fumbled a kickoff that led to a Bills touchdown in a loss to Buffalo on Nov. 12 and had two critical drops in the Jets’ next game, a Nov. 22 loss in Houston. BEN SHPIGEL


Long Island Developer’s Statement on Shooting Is Short on Detail

Abstract: Gary Melius, a prominent real estate developer who was shot in the head outside his opulent Long Island estate last month, said that he had much to say about what happened — but not yet. “I have a lot to say, but I am not going to say much,” he said in a video statement released by his family on Monday. Mr. Melius, 69, was ambushed in the parking lot of his estate, Oheka Castle, on Feb. 24. No arrest has been made in the case. Video In a video released Monday, Gary Melius thanked his supporters. Credit Credit Courtesy Melius Family Mr. Melius has told the police that he did not know or recognize the gunman. The case drew widespread attention, in part because of the role Mr. Melius has played as a political patron in New York, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Democrats and Republicans. Oheka Castle, a 109,000-square-foot French-style chateau in Huntington, N.Y., is one of the nation’s largest privately owned homes. Mr. Melius lives there with his wife and also uses it as a hotel, catering facility and wedding venue. In the video released by the family, Mr. Melius does not describe the shooting or comment on the investigation. Seated at home, wearing a plastic eye guard and a bandage on his head, he thanked those who have supported him in recent days and said he looked forward to getting back to work. “I got a break,” he said. “I guess God looked out for me.”


Jean-Luc Dehaene, Former Prime Minister of Belgium, Is Dead at 73

Abstract: Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former prime minister of Belgium whose deft political deal-making helped hold together his country’s historically divided factions and for a time made him a leading contender to become the European Union’s top official, died on Thursday in Brittany, France. He was 73. He died after a fall while on vacation, Belgian officials told news outlets. Mr. Dehaene, a member of the Flemish Christian Democratic Party, became prime minister in March 1992 after leaders of the country’s major political factions spent 103 tense days trying to form a working government. Mr. Dehaene, who had been communications minister, formed a center-left coalition that preserved a measure of peace among Dutch speakers in the north and French speakers in the south. In 1993, he helped push through major revisions to the Belgian Constitution that further stabilized the government. By the next year he was being viewed as a likely successor to the president of the European Union’s executive commission, Jacques Delors, whose term was coming to an end. Mr. Delors, a French Socialist, had raised the profile of the position, helping to establish a regional market and a regional currency. Mr. Dehaene’s candidacy, supported by France and Germany, came undone because of opposition from just one of the 12 members of the union at the time. On June 25, 1994, Prime Minister John Major of Britain, concerned that skeptics in his Conservative Party at home viewed him as too supportive of European integration, cast the only no vote against Mr. Dehaene. Each member state had veto power. Mr. Major said Mr. Dehaene, known for building compromises but also for bypassing opponents who did not go along, “represents a vision of big government, of interventionism” contrary to “the way Europe is moving.” The rejection only strengthened Mr. Dehaene at home, and in 1995 his party won control of the government for a new term. While his first term was marked by relative political peace and his rising international ambitions, his second became complicated by a series of domestic controversies. At the end of 1996, 300,000 people demonstrated in the streets of Brussels after learning that police incompetence and possibly corruption had allowed a pedophile and serial killer, Marc Dutroux, to escape arrest until after he had killed five young girls. Two years later, three former government ministers were convicted of taking bribes from an Italian helicopter company, Agusta, and the French aviation giant, Dassault, in Belgian military contracts. In 1999, just before national elections, Belgian-produced meat and dairy products were found to have been contaminated by dioxin chemicals introduced to animal feed. Leaders of the European Union, which is based in Brussels, were angry that they were not informed of the problem sooner or given an explanation of how it happened. Belgian’s ministers of health and agriculture resigned in early June, and on the 14th of the month so did Mr. Dehaene, after his party lost in national elections. Mr. Dehaene was born on Aug. 7, 1940, in Montpellier, France. His family, from the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium, had fled to escape the Nazi invasion. He studied law and economics before joining the government in a series of administrative roles beginning in the 1970s, rising along with his reputation for being detail-oriented and politically astute. In 1981 he became minister of communications under Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, who was outspoken in favor of European unification. Mr. Dehaene’s survivors include his wife, the former Celie Verbeke, whom he married in 1965; two daughters, Mieke and Hilde; and two sons, Tom and Koen. Mr. Dehaene stayed in politics after his resignation and continued to be involved in the European Union. In 2001 he was named a vice president of a convention to draft a constitution. Two years later, as the tendentious process continued, he emphasized that it was important not to dwell on specific terms that might alienate one member or another — like, for example, the word “federal.” The effort to create a constitution failed in 2005, but a treaty was adopted in 2007 that changed how the union operated. “The reality is that you have different visions for Europe,” he said at the time. “So never fight for words. Just because someone doesn’t want to name the baby, you don’t throw out the baby.”

Christian Democratic and Flemish (Belgium)


When It Comes to Marijuana, Willie’s Punishment Seems to Vaporize

Abstract: Joe Nick Patoski wrote this column for The Texas Tribune. What is it about Willie Nelson , weed and the law? It’s been a question worth asking since at least 1971, when Mr. Nelson brought together rednecks and hippies at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin with his unique style of country music and his open attitude about marijuana . His eldest daughter, Lana, and his former wife Connie said pot helped tamp down the rage; he had been a mean drunk when alcohol was his drug of choice. Mr. Nelson, 77, is perhaps America’s best-known marijuana smoker. He is co-chairman of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has been a High Times cover boy and famously smoked a joint on the roof of the White House when Jimmy Carter was president. His disciples include the actor Woody Harrelson and the country crooner Ray Price, his former employer — each known to have enjoyed a puff now and then. He is the inspiration for Toby Keith’s hit song “(I’ll Never Smoke) Weed With Willie (Again),” which testifies to the quality of Mr. Nelson’s stash. All that is part of Mr. Nelson’s folklore. It’s when he tangles with law enforcement that things get interesting, though not necessarily all that punitive. Take his most recent bust. On Nov. 26, Border Patrol agents at the eastbound Interstate 10 immigration checkpoint just west of the far West Texas town of Sierra Blanca arrested Mr. Nelson inside his touring bus, Honeysuckle Rose, after drug-sniffing dogs and the agents’ own olfactory acumen gave them reason to search. Six and one-quarter ounces of high-grade, domestically grown marijuana were discovered. Mr. Nelson was arraigned on a misdemeanor charge, posted a $2,500 bond and went on his way. Afterward, he announced he was forming a new political party, the Teapot Party. Last week, C. R. (Kit) Bramblett, the Hudspeth County attorney, announced that Mr. Nelson was going to have his day in court, telling The Big Bend Sentinel, “I’m gonna let him plead, pay a small fine and he’s gotta sing ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain’ with his guitar in the courtroom.” Mr. Bramblett added, “I ain’t gonna be mean to Willie Nelson.” This week, Becky Dean-Walker, the Hudspeth County judge, said Mr. Bramblett was joking; Mr. Nelson could dispense with the matter by mail. Misdemeanor possession cases from the Sierra Blanca checkpoint are typically settled with a plea, a $100 fine and $278 in court costs. We’ve heard this song before. In the wee hours of May 10, 1994, two highway patrolmen found Mr. Nelson sleeping in the back seat of his Mercedes, parked on the southbound frontage road of Interstate 35 south of Waco, near the town of Hewitt. He had been involved in a late-night poker game in nearby Hillsboro and got tired driving back to Austin, so he pulled over to take a nap. After he admitted to the highway patrolmen that the hand-rolled cigarette in the ashtray contained marijuana and belonged to him, as did a Baggie stashed under the driver’s seat, he was arrested. He lawyered up and canceled an appearance at the Grammys so he could be in court. Before his trial, one of the patrolmen who arrested him was fired on an unrelated charge of sexual harassment and left town. Mr. Nelson was found not guilty by a McLennan County judge. On Sept. 18, 2006, Mr. Nelson, his bus drivers, his road manager and his older sister Bobbi were arrested at a commercial vehicle inspection station on westbound Interstate 10 in St. Martin Parish, La., while traveling from Alabama to Austin to attend the funeral of Ann Richards, the former Texas governor. Authorities found one and a half pounds of marijuana and one-eighth of a pound of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Mr. Nelson said the dope belonged to him and was for his personal use. Seven months later, he canceled concert dates and had his bus drivers take him from California back to Louisiana for his court date. He was fined $1,024 and given six months’ probation. Mr. Nelson is not the voracious viper he once was. A collapsed lung persuaded him to switch from joints to a carbon-free vapor delivery system three years ago. But he does not lack for the substance when he wants it. Every grower worth his product wants the stamp of approval from Mr. Nelson, since “Willie weed” is considered the gold standard by which all marijuana is judged. By making a joke of possession and enforcement laws, Mr. Nelson has done more to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of marijuana prohibition than a hundred lobbyists or a thousand politicians could ever do. Is he bulletproof? Above the law? Too hot to handle or incarcerate? No. But he is Willie Nelson. If you’re a law enforcement person, it pays to know that before you start investigating that funny smell emanating from Honeysuckle Rose.

Nelson Willie
Marijuana
Music
Law and Legislation
Texas


JPMorgan Is Promoting Its Charity on NBC Show

Abstract: When a television network broadcasts an awards show created by a multinational bank’s marketers, what is it? An advertisement? A tribute to deserving charities? An entertainment spectacle? On Saturday, it might be all of the above. In a gambit to promote its charitable work — and maybe polish its image, which has suffered since the financial collapse in 2008 — JPMorgan Chase is financing and sponsoring the “American Giving Awards,” which will be televised by NBC on Saturday night . The two-hour show, with Bob Costas as host, will profile recipients of Chase donations, will be book-ended by Chase commercials and will regularly remind viewers that the whole event is “presented by Chase.” The producers and the network suggested Friday that the awards show was a feel-good holiday season special. Kimberly B. Davis, the president of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, said it was about celebrating “ordinary people doing extraordinary things in communities.” But to others, the show has another bottom line. It’s a “‘greed-washing’ campaign to score P.R. points,” countered Lisa Graves, whose publication “PR Watch” investigates company public relations campaigns. The $2 million in donations that will be featured on Saturday “are a drop in the bucket compared to its ultra-lush benefits for bankers who profited richly from the swaps that undermined our nation’s financial security,” she said. The “American Giving Awards” are part of a broader business world trend. Not content to have the news media cover its good works, many companies are creating their own media, often cloaked as entertainment. Big banks, in particular, “do a lot of socially driven programs, but they don’t consistently tell people about them,” said Steve Cone, a marketing executive for AARP who formerly worked at Citigroup and Fidelity. And given the financial downturn, “there’s more pressure now to say, ‘We’re not all evil, here’s the good things we do,’ ” said Allen P. Adamson, a managing director at the brand firm Landor Associates. For instance, one of Chase’s main competitors, Bank of America, has been running commercials this fall that profile small businesses that have benefited from its financial products. For companies, the promotion of citizenship efforts “is the topic de jour these days,” Mr. Adamson said. The five charities to be feted on Saturday have already benefited from Chase’s largess without a television extravaganza. Over all, the bank says it gives away $150 million a year; more narrowly, through a program called Chase Community Giving, it has been giving money and visibility to small charities across the country for the last two years. Intersport, a marketing agency for Chase, and Dick Clark Productions conceived of a holiday season awards show built around the community giving program, said Carter Franke, the head of JPMorgan Chase corporate marketing. Ms. Franke was interviewed Friday from Los Angeles, where the show was being completed. Five charities that received money from Chase in the past were selected to compete in public for a new $1 million grant, with voting happening via Facebook. The winner will be revealed on the telecast Saturday; the other four will receive smaller grants. The goal, Ms. Franke said, was not to burnish the Chase brand per se, but to raise awareness of the community giving program. “It is an opportunity for these charities to become better known and for them to show what they can do with these grants from Chase,” she said. The show concept was taken to NBC, which otherwise would be running repeats on Saturday, typically the slowest night of the week for network television. Asked if it was an advertisement, an NBC spokeswoman said: “No. It’s a show about charitable giving.” The network declined to comment on whether or how money was exchanged. But Chase did say that it bought eight 30-second commercials that will run during the show. Sometimes networks sell blocks of time to outside advertisers outright, but the companies involved indicated that was not the case for the “American Giving Awards.” Internally at NBC, the show has been compared to the annual “CNN Heroes” awards show on that cable news channel. Like other awards shows, it will rely on celebrities to rope viewers in; it will feature performances by Will.i.am and Rodney Atkins and appearances by Colin Farrell and Miley Cyrus, among others. A bank giving away money on prime-time TV might be a turn-off to some viewers, but to date only a few seem to have spoken up about it. One of those few wrote on Chase’s Facebook wall on Wednesday, “It’s humorous how easily you can convince people you are doing something good.” Asked whether Ms. Franke was concerned about that kind of adverse viewer reaction on a bigger scale, she said, “Hopefully, viewers are going to see that there are some wonderful charities out there doing strong things with the help and support of Chase.”

JPMorgan Chase & Company
Public Relations and Publicity
National Broadcasting Co
Philanthropy
Banking and Financial Institutions
Television
American Giving Awards (TV Program)


Run on a Ticket With Donald Trump? No, Thanks, Many Republicans Say

Abstract: It’s a time-honored tradition for politicians to deny any interest in the vice presidency. But this year, with the possibility of Donald J. Trump as the Republican nominee, they really mean it. “Never,” said Chris Schrimpf, a spokesman for Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who is still running against Mr. Trump. “No chance.” “Hahahahahahahahaha,” wrote Sally Bradshaw, a senior adviser to Jeb Bush, when asked if he would consider it. “Scott Walker has a visceral negative reaction to Trump’s character,” said Ed Goeas, a longtime adviser to the Wisconsin governor. Or, as Senator Lindsey Graham put it, “That’s like buying a ticket on the Titanic.” A remarkable range of leading Republicans, including Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, have been emphatic publicly or with their advisers and allies that they do not want to be considered as Mr. Trump’s running mate. The recoiling amounts to a rare rebuke for a front-runner: Politicians usually signal that they are not interested politely through back channels, or submit to the selection process, if only to burnish their national profiles. Who Might (or Might Not) Be Donald Trump’s Running Mate if He’s the Nominee? Here are some names – according to Republican strategists, advisers and allies of potential picks, and some of the contenders themselves – and how they may be leaning. But Mr. Trump has a singular track record of picking fights with obvious potential running mates like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has indicated a lack of interest in the vice presidency generally and has yet to reconcile with Mr. Trump publicly. Ms. Haley and another potential pick, Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico, have sharply criticized Mr. Trump at recent party gatherings and do not want to be associated with his sometimes-angry tone, according to advisers and close associates who have spoken with these Republicans. Several Republican consultants said their clients were concerned that Mr. Trump’s unusually high unfavorable ratings with all voters and his unpopularity among women and Hispanics could doom him as a general election candidate and damage their own future political prospects if they were on his ticket. Still, elected officials do have a way of coming around to the vice presidency, and Mr. Trump said in an interview on Saturday that he was in the early stages of mending fences and building deeper relationships with leading Republicans. And in a sign of growing acceptance that Mr. Trump is their likely nominee, several Republicans made it clear that they would join him on the ticket because they think he can win, or because they regard the call to serve as their duty. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, as well as Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, said in interviews that they would consider joining the ticket if Mr. Trump offered. Two governors, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, have also told allies that they were open to being Mr. Trump’s running mate. “If a potential president says I need you, it would be very hard for a patriotic citizen to say no,” Mr. Gingrich said. “People can criticize a nominee, but ultimately there are very few examples of people turning down the vice presidency.” Mr. Trump, who could well become the presumptive Republican nominee on Tuesday by winning the Indiana primary, is just starting to mull vice-presidential prospects and has no favorite in mind, he said in the interview. Mr. Trump said he wanted someone with “a strong political background, who was well respected on the Hill, who can help me with legislation, and who could be a great president.” Image Mr. Trump with Gov. Chris Christie in Ohio in March. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times He declined to discuss potential picks in any detail, but he briefly praised three governors as possible contenders — Mr. Kasich, Mr. Christie and Rick Scott of Florida — and said he would also consider candidates who were women, black or Hispanic. (A spokeswoman for Mr. Scott said he was focused on being governor.) Asked if he was surprised about the array of Republicans who are uncomfortable being his running mate, Mr. Trump said: “I don’t care. Whether people support or endorse me or not, it makes zero influence on the voters. Historically, people don’t vote based on who is vice president. I want someone who can help me govern.” A cross section of leading Republicans agree that his most sensible choice would be an experienced female governor or senator, given that he would most likely face Hillary Clinton in November and need support from a majority of white women to offset her strong support among blacks and Hispanics. Yet Mrs. Clinton is currently ahead of Mr. Trump with white women by double-digit percentages, according to a recent CBS poll. The pool of Republican women in major offices is relatively small, and Mr. Trump has already alienated some of them. Governor Haley denounced him for not quickly disavowing support from the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke , and Governor Martinez has criticized his remarks about Hispanics. Both governors endorsed Senator Rubio for president; a Martinez spokesman said she “isn’t interested in serving as vice president,” while a Haley spokesman declined to comment. “There are some Republicans who would’ve said yes to running with Romney or McCain or Bush but would say no to Trump,” said Curt Anderson, a Republican strategist, referring to the party’s last three presidential nominees. “The issue is, no one knows what we’re dealing with here. Is it possible that Trump faces a historic landslide loss? Sure. Is it possible he beats the hell out of Clinton? Sure. No one knows — no one has predicted Trump right for a long time.” Image Ben Carson with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in March. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times Even Governor Fallin of Oklahoma, who has not ruled out running with Mr. Trump, has expressed uncertainty about what he would be like as a leader, according to close associates who have spoken to her. Ms. Fallin, in a brief statement, would not discuss Mr. Trump, but said the nation’s challenges were too great for “business as usual” political solutions. “Any discussion of other service I might be asked to offer to my country is flattering but premature,” she said. David Winston, a veteran Republican pollster, said Mr. Trump’s first challenge in finding a running mate was lowering his unfavorability ratings of 60 percent or more, because prominent politicians would not want to join his ticket if he cannot turn those figures around. Mr. Winston dismissed the notion — put forward by some Trump advisers — that the candidate could improve his ratings by picking a woman, a Hispanic, or other figure with demographic appeal. “He simply won’t be able to convince any top-tier candidate to run with him if he can’t get those unfavorable numbers down,” Mr. Winston said. Mr. Trump’s best hope may be Republican enmity for Mrs. Clinton, some Republicans strategists said. They predicted that Mr. Trump would ultimately have more options than his skeptics might assume because Republicans will ultimately unify in June and July with a deep and shared determination to beat her, and the traditional thrill of being considered for vice president could then kick in. “I think he may have more choices than many people would suspect, because a lot of people will be flattered to be asked,” said Russ Schriefer, a Republican adviser to the Romney campaign in 2012 and to Mr. Christie during his 2016 presidential bid. Mr. Schriefer emphasized that he had not talked to Mr. Christie about the vice presidency, but other Christie confidants said that he supported Mr. Trump strongly and would be willing to consider the No. 2 spot. A Christie spokesman, asked about the governor’s willingness, pointed to Mr. Christie’s response about the vice presidency at a recent news conference, where he said he would evaluate the offer “for any position in government.” On the Trail: The Week of April 24 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Damon Winter/The New York Times As a political novice, Mr. Trump will be widely judged on whom he chooses — and how and why he chooses the person — because voters and other Republican leaders will look to his pick to evaluate his priorities for the kind of advisers he would want as president. “This is a big deal because it’s the first major decision he’ll be making as the nominee, and it’s important that the American public see his decision-making process and how he goes through making such a big decision,” said Scott W. Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior strategist. Other than elected officials, Mr. Trump also said he was open to people with deep national security experience — which some Republicans think should be his top criterion. “What Donald Trump needs is the most experienced, most qualified foreign policy mind in Washington, and somebody that would immediately bring calm to the choppy political waters that always seem to be around him,” said Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida who now hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. He suggested Robert M. Gates, the former defense secretary, but was more circumspect when asked if he was willing to be Mr. Trump’s running mate himself. “I definitely have a lot of strong opinions about who it should be. (Not me!!),” wrote Mr. Scarborough, who served on the House Armed Services Committee and who has a good relationship with Mr. Trump. Other Republicans were more open about joining Mr. Trump on the ticket. Senator Sessions, who is advising Mr. Trump on foreign policy, said he would send his personal tax information to the Trump campaign if it wanted to vet him. Mr. Carson, who was a Republican presidential candidate and battled with Mr. Trump before dropping out and endorsing him, said he would prefer to remain an outside adviser to Mr. Trump, but added that he was willing to join the ticket if he would “bring something that other people wouldn’t bring.” For others, the singular experience of being vice president in a Trump administration is still hard to imagine. Buttonholed on Capitol Hill last week, two prominent Republican senators, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine, almost giggled when asked if they would be Mr. Trump’s running mate. “I’m not waiting by my phone,” Ms. Collins said. Mr. Scott, whose appeal as a black Republican could be an advantage for Mr. Trump, repeatedly sidestepped whether he would be willing to run with Mr. Trump. Finally, asked if he would not rule himself out, he replied, “I’m not ruling myself in.”

2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Vice President US
Republicans


Nowitzki Shakes Fever and Rallies Mavericks

Abstract: DALLAS — His face was drawn and his shot sagged. He sniffled and he wheezed. He had hardly slept in 24 hours. But Dirk Nowitzki would rest comfortably Tuesday night, fevers and chills and the Miami Heat notwithstanding. Only the Dallas Mavericks knew of the debilitated state of their franchise star when Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals tipped off. It quickly became evident when his jumpers grazed the rim and his drives came up short. The truth soon emerged: Nowitzki was battling a 101-degree fever, a condition that would either break the Mavericks or create a finals legend. The game veered hard toward the former, but ended with the latter. Nowitzki pushed through the fever and the Heat, then delivered the layup that saved the Mavericks and knotted the series at 2-2. “He’s one of the greatest ever,” Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle said after the 86-83 victory. “He wants the ball, and he wants the responsibility of winning and losing the game.” So no one hesitated to hand Nowitzki the ball with less than 30 seconds to go and Dallas clinging to a 1-point lead. He slipped past Udonis Haslem, charged to the baseline, and lofted a high layup over the leaping Dwyane Wade, giving Dallas an 84-81 lead with 14.4 seconds left. Jason Terry sealed the victory with two free throws, completing a comeback from a 9-point deficit. Miami’s last possession went awry, with Wade bobbling Mike Miller’s inbounds pass and Miller eventually missing a 3-pointer at the buzzer. The Mavericks ensured a trip back to Miami for a Game 6 and perhaps a Game 7. Nowitzki ensured comparisons, however awkward, with Michael Jordan, who once scripted his own feverish finals victory. “You know, this is the finals,” Nowitzki said between sniffles and coughs. “You’re going to leave it out there.” Nowitzki missed 13 of his 19 shots and had 3 turnovers, but still finished with a team-leading 21 points and 11 rebounds. It was far from his best postseason performance, but it will rank as one of his most memorable, and surely the most meaningful, given the stakes. Nowitzki’s illness had gone undisclosed until ABC reported it during the game, but the effects were evident. After making his first three shots, Nowitzki missed 10 of his next 11. He went 21 minutes 19 seconds without making a field goal, a span stretching from the middle of the second quarter to early in the fourth. “Had a couple of good looks today, but just really no lift,” he said. Terry (17 points), Shawn Marion (16) and DeShawn Stevenson (11) kept the Mavericks in the hunt until Nowitzki came through. He had 10 points in the fourth quarter. If Dallas wins the championship, it will be because of Nowitzki’s game-clinching layups in Games 2 and 4, and the Heat’s inability to hold big leads in both. Wade again led the Heat with 32 points, and Chris Bosh had another big game with 24 points. But LeBron James, who has drawn increasing scrutiny in this series, faded badly, finishing with 8 points — the lowest-scoring game of his playoff career. James also had 7 assists and 9 rebounds, but he missed 8 of 11 shots and had four turnovers. “He struggled — point blank, period,” Bosh said. He added, “I want to see him aggressive again. Not to say that he was passive tonight, but I think he can turn up his aggression a notch and just really see where he can attack the creases.” James essentially said the same, which seemed like an odd admission from one of the game’s most dynamic players. The Mavericks wiped out a 9-point deficit in the fourth quarter — echoing their 15-point comeback of Game 2 — and took an 82-78 lead on a pair of Nowitzki free throws with 2:16 to play. The teams struggled to score for the next two minutes, but Miami pulled within a point when Wade made 1 of 2 free throws. The Heat scored just 14 points in the fourth quarter and turned the ball over six times. Somehow, even as the Heat built a 2-1 lead, the series turned into a referendum on James. It began with his relatively quiet fourth quarters in the first three games, and gained momentum when a columnist asked James, after Game 3, if he was “shrinking” from the challenge. James effectively rebuffed the question with a treatise on defense and team play, but the topic became a two-day discussion anyway. Along the way, it morphed into a debate about whether James needed to win the Most Valuable Player trophy in the finals to validate the title. “That’s ridiculous,” James said at the morning shootaround. He noted that he had two regular-season MVP awards at home in Akron, “and I haven’t won anything. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s all about a team game, and this is the ultimate team prize right here, just trying to win the N.B.A. championship.” The rhetorical silliness also spread through the locker rooms, with Stevenson accusing the Heat stars of being “great actors” (for allegedly exaggerating fouls) and Terry declaring that James could not continue to guard him. The Heat brushed off the smack talk. When tipoff came, Stevenson and Terry channeled their energy into scoring, combining for 20 points in the first half to offset Nowitzki’s poor start. Dallas overcame an early 7-point hole, surged ahead by 6, then headed into halftime trailing by 47-45. In danger of falling behind by 3-1, the Mavericks assumed the look of a desperate team. Carlisle benched DeShawn Stevenson in favor of J. J. Barea, a move that made the Mavericks smaller and speedier to start the game. It also allowed Stevenson to spell Marion, who had been playing heavy minutes against James. Carlisle got a technical foul in the first quarter. He was hoping for a feistier showing from his team, admitting before tipoff that the Mavericks had not been sturdy enough in the paint, allowing Wade and James to build a lengthy highlight reel of flying dunks. They combined for 13 layups or dunks in Game 3. “We’ve allowed them to get to the rim unscathed too much,” Carlisle said. Miami kept coming Tuesday night, with 11 dunks or layups in the first half, four each from Bosh and Wade. By the end of the night, they were the ones questioning how Nowitzki sneaked by for the critical shot at the rim. “He made a heck of a move,” Coach Erik Spoelstra said.

Basketball
Playoff Games
Dallas Mavericks
Nowitzki Dirk
Miami Heat
Wade Dwyane


As World Cup Begins, Refereeing Again Becomes an Issue

Abstract: LONDON — This World Cup has begun in São Paulo, Brazil, exactly where the last one ended in Johannesburg four years ago — with bad refereeing the central issue. The blame game mirrors our modern society. In South Africa, the Dutch players brutally fouled the Spaniards, and were allowed to do so by a permissive English ref, Howard Webb. In São Paulo, a Brazilian named Fred fell theatrically at the slightest touch on his bicep, and the Japanese ref, Yuichi Nishimura, awarded the penalty kick that proved decisive in Brazil’s beating Croatia in the opening game of the 2014 tournament. So who are the fall guys? Players who foul and feign, or arbiters who cannot tell the difference? FIFA, itself a discredited body, chooses the referees. They are the sport’s policemen (and Webb happens to be a police officer when he is not actively on paid refereeing duty). With the eyes of the sports world upon them, these men must, like Caesar’s wife, be seen to be above suspicion. Any tiny error, any interpretation of the rules, will nowadays be dissected by a dozen instant replays from TV cameras. The way that Webb and Nishimura made the important calls, or turned a blind eye to incidents, is less a matter of culture, more a matter of competence. Brazil’s First Goal Across the country, Brazilian fans react to their team’s first goal of the 2014 World Cup, in what would be a 3-1 victory against Croatia. It took the English referee four years to admit that he may have been too lenient in the 2010 final. The Japanese will not get the luxury of time because expert opinion has already rained down upon him. We all have hindsight and opinions. Mine is that Nishimura’s worst decision was not the penalty that he gave, but the fact that Neymar, the poster boy of Brazil’s first home World Cup in 64 years, was still on the field to convert it. Some 40 minutes before that penalty, Neymar had elbowed Luka Modric in the face. It happened in a stadium where Brazil’s head of state, Dilma Rousseff, had urged the people and the players to remember “the national team represents nationality.” In this caldron, men must keep cool heads. Only Neymar truly knows if he intended to harm Modric. Again, those inevitable television replays showed that he did look to see where the Croat was before he led with his elbow. If the referee thought it was a deliberate foul, the card should have been red. If he deemed it to be accidental, there should have been no card at all. Nishimura took the middle option, the soft option. He cautioned Neymar, he did not send him off, and two minutes later Neymar scored his 32nd goal on his 50th appearance in the yellow jersey of his country. Add to that the contentious penalty (Neymar’s 33rd goal), and the disallowed Croatia score when an assistant referee decided that Ivica Olic had illegally jumped into goalkeeper Júlio César, and that meant the three most critical judgments of the opening night of the tournament went to the home side. Justice is going to be a constant theme around this World Cup. The running protests in the streets express the outrage of some Brazilians about the obscene cost of building a dozen huge arenas at enormous cost in a country that has such an unequal distribution of wealth. The ingrained love of soccer is, understandably, also huge in the Brazilian sense of identity. One game played and won, six more to go, and Brazil will be not just the host but the holder of the Cup. Again, Rousseff dared to say before the opening of an event that brings the world to her door: “Brazil overcame the main obstacles and is ready on and off the pitch for the Cup. The pessimists have been defeated by the hard work and determination of the Brazilian people who never give up.” All this was evident before a ball was kicked in São Paulo, and will grow as the tournament advances. The national team is itself a confluence of the sport that Brazil has played more beautifully than any other nation, embracing the win-at-all-cost attitude that its coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, unabashedly champions. Big Phil, Felipão, coaches it and calls it as he sees fit. His team that won the 2002 World Cup in Japan was nowhere near as coarse as he was happy for people to think it was: The three R’s, Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho were as creative, as hypnotic a trio as any team of any World Cup in the past decade and a half. Yes, he can be gruff and tough. He is from the south of Brazil, from immigrant Italian farming stock. But Scolari, make no mistake, knows the beauty of winning. Even in the tense opening game on Thursday, Oscar as the creative link and Neymar the instinctive finisher shone artistically at times. That should grow as the need for pragmatism fades and, hopefully, as the spotlight on referees dims. Croatia, a country whose population would fit into one third of São Paulo, was wronged this time — but let it be said that its goalie, Stipe Pletikosa, fell to the ground on all three goals as swiftly as Fred was to fall. Artful dodging is a global malpractice. Brazilians are a global resource employed by countless clubs. But every nationality attempts it — soccer either tolerates cheating or trusts referees to spot it and have the courage to punish it.

Soccer
FIFA World Cup
2014 World Cup
Rio de Janeiro
Neymar


Supreme Court Ruling on Crime Lab Testimony Lacks Majority Rationale

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In a badly fractured 5-to-4 decision in which no rationale commanded a majority, the Supreme Court on Monday seemed to retreat from a groundbreaking decision in 2009 that said crime lab reports may not be used in criminal trials unless the analysts responsible for creating them provide live testimony. That decision, Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts , was reaffirmed last year in a second decision, Bullcoming v. New Mexico , which ruled that only the analyst who did the work, rather than a colleague or supervisor, would do. Those decisions, both decided by 5-to-4 votes, were based on the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause, which gives a criminal defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” In a series of decisions starting with Crawford v. Washington in 2004, an odd-bedfellows coalition of justices from the court’s conservative and liberal wings have breathed new but fragile and halting life into the clause. The coalition had included the two justices most closely associated with a commitment to following the original meaning of the Constitution, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. In Monday’s decision, Justice Thomas switched sides, though provisionally and on a ground that no other justice endorsed. The question in the new case, Williams v. Illinois, No. 10-8505, was whether expert witnesses could offer testimony linking defendants to crimes based on lab reports that had not been admitted into evidence. The case arose from a sexual assault in Chicago. The defendant, Sandy Williams, was arrested on an unrelated charge and provided a DNA sample to the state police laboratory. A forensic scientist there analyzed it and testified about Mr. Williams’s DNA profile at his trial on the sexual assault charges. So far, so good, all concerned agreed. The controversy in the case concerned the material recovered from the assault. That material was analyzed by Cellmark Diagnostics Laboratory in Maryland. The lab’s report was not entered into evidence at trial, and no one from that lab testified, but an expert witness for the prosecution, Sandra Lambatos, was allowed to offer her opinion that the two profiles matched. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. , in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer, said allowing the expert testimony did not violate the confrontation clause, for two reasons. Ms. Lambatos’s discussion of the Cellmark report was not offered to prove that what was in it was true, Justice Alito wrote. In any event, he added, the report itself was not the sort of evidence to which the confrontation clause applies because it was made “for the purpose of finding a rapist who was on the loose.” In addition, the trial was conducted before a judge rather than a jury, a fact Justice Alito in places seemed to suggest was significant. The trial judge appeared impressed by Ms. Lambatos, calling her “the best DNA witness I have ever heard.” Justice Thomas voted with the majority but disavowed the rationales advanced by Justice Alito. That meant, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent, that “five justices specifically reject every aspect of” Justice Alito’s “reasoning and every paragraph of its explication.” “That creates five votes to approve the admission of the Cellmark report,” she said, “but not a single good explanation.” Justice Thomas proposed adopting “a reading of the confrontation clause that respects its historically limited application to a narrow class of statements bearing indicia of solemnity.” The Cellmark report, he said, was not within that class. In her dissent, Justice Kagan said this approach “would turn the confrontation clause into a constitutional geegaw — nice for show, but of little value.” All prosecutors would need to do to smuggle suggestive evidence into trials, she said, would be to use “the right kind of forms with the right kind of language.” In an opinion concurring in Justice Alito’s plurality opinion, Justice Breyer said he continued to believe that the Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming decisions were wrong and that requiring testimony from lab analysts could create enormous logistical problems. Justice Kagan began her dissent with a description of another case, one in which a Cellmark analyst took the stand, only to realize after cross-examination that she had made a “mortifying error” in wrongly concluding that DNA from a bloody sweatshirt matched that of the defendant. The confrontation clause, Justice Kagan wrote, is “a mechanism for catching such errors,” demonstrating “the genius of an 18th-century device as applied to 21st-century evidence.” Justices Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent. “Under our confrontation clause precedents,” Justice Kagan added, “this is an open-and-shut case.” But the decision issued on Monday, she said, had turned a clear rule into a murky one. She urged lower courts to continue to follow the recent rulings on crime lab evidence “until a majority of this court reverses or confines those decisions.” By the end of next week, the justices are expected to deliver several major decisions, including ones on Arizona’s tough immigration law and President Obama’s health care overhaul law. Justice Kagan alluded to the national sense of anticipation over those cases in her summary of the first of four decisions announced on Monday, this one concerning Indian tribes . “This is a case about sovereign immunity and prudential standing,” she said, addressing the crowded courtroom. “Maybe not the one you all have come for today.”

Supreme Court
Forensic Science
Sixth Amendment (US Constitution)
Alito Samuel A Jr
Kagan Elena
Crime and Criminals


Newspaper Circulation Continues to Decline Rapidly

Abstract: The long decline in newspaper circulation over the years continues to accelerate, with sales in the spring and summer falling almost 5 percent from the previous year, figures released on Monday show, deepening the financial strain on the industry. The drop occurred nearly across the board during the six months that ended Sept. 30; weekday circulation for the largest metropolitan dailies fell anywhere from 1.9 percent for The Washington Post, to 13.6 percent for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, compared with the period a year earlier. The figures, released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations based on reports filed by the individual papers, show that circulation at The Houston Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Star-Ledger of Newark, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Orange County Register and The Detroit News fell 10 percent or more. The exceptions among the nation’s biggest newspapers were USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, two national papers and the two largest in circulation, which were virtually unchanged, at 2.3 million for USA Today and 2 million for The Journal on weekdays. Neither paper publishes on Sundays. Among more than 100 papers with weekday circulation above 100,000, none had more than a fractional increase. Across the industry, the audit bureau said that among more than 500 newspapers that had reported, weekday circulation was down 4.6 percent, and Sunday circulation fell 4.8 percent. Newspaper circulation has fallen about 2 percent annually for years but began to drop faster in the 2007 reports, and faster still in the reports issued last spring, which showed declines of 3.6 percent on weekdays and 4.6 percent on Sundays. The trend of sharper declines on Sundays is troubling, given that the day accounts for the largest share of advertising and circulation revenue for most newspapers. In recent years, the industry has played down the circulation declines, stressing that newspaper Web sites were experiencing rising traffic and advertising revenues, at least partially offsetting weak print ad revenues, and producing a net increase in readership. At least some of the drop in circulation has been intentional, as papers try to curb marketing and distribution costs and focus on the most profitable sales. But Internet revenues have been flat this year and print ad revenue has declined sharply for two years, increasing the importance of revenue from sales of the printed paper. Analysts have warned in recent years that by offering steadily less in print, newspapers were inviting readers to stop buying. Most papers have sharply reduced their physical size — fewer and smaller pages, with fewer articles — and the newsroom staffs that produce them. “It just seems impossible to me that you’re cutting costs dramatically without having some impact on the editorial quality of your product,” said Peter Appert, a newspaper analyst at Goldman Sachs. “I can’t prove that this is driving circulation, but it’s certainly something that if I were a newspaper publisher would keep me up at night.” The Los Angeles Times has experienced, in absolute terms, both the largest decline in newsroom employees, and the largest decline in circulation. On Monday, the paper, owned by the Tribune Company, informed its newsroom staff that 75 of them would lose their jobs, the second major cut this year. The newsroom had almost 1,300 people at its peak, and with the latest reduction will fall to about half as many. The circulation report issued Monday showed The Los Angeles Times with weekday sales of 739,000, down 5.2 percent from a year earlier. That is the fourth-highest figure in the country, but far below its high of 1.1 million early this decade. The New York Times’s weekday circulation, the third-highest in the country, fell 3.6 percent, to just over 1 million. Its Sunday circulation, the highest, dropped 4.1 percent, to more than 1.4 million.

Newspapers
Audit Bureau of Circulations
Advertising and Marketing


Peyton Manning, Fan, Analyst and His Brother’s Defender

Abstract: Peyton Manning spends most of his time in the Indianapolis Colts’ weight room now, in a desperate race to rehabilitate from the neck injury that cost him the 2011 season and could imperil his career. That was where he watched the Giants’ run to the Super Bowl , an extremely well-informed fan with an extremely deep rooting interest. Manning watches football differently than most people do, of course. Even though his brother Eli is the Giants’ starting quarterback, Peyton watches the defense, as he would if he were studying game film, perhaps the most analytical quarterback in history gleaning secrets, then comparing notes with Eli. They had discussed, for instance, the defense the San Francisco 49ers ran on Eli’s fourth-quarter touchdown strike on a post pattern to Mario Manningham last Sunday. But Peyton is like many other fans in one way: he is reluctant to mess with karma. After lifting weights while watching the Giants defeat the Atlanta Falcons in their wild-card playoff game, he returned to the same spot a week later to view the Giants’ upset of the Green Bay Packers . That created a quandary for the N.F.C. championship game. “I was a little nervous,” Peyton Manning said in a telephone interview Monday night about attending the game in San Francisco. “They played so well against Atlanta, I said, ‘I’ve got to go to the weight facility during the Green Bay game.’ It was a Sunday afternoon. I was the only one in the building. So I was nervous about going to the game. “I didn’t want him to say, ‘You’ve got to go to the weight room.’ It would have been 9 p.m. in Indianapolis. So I came without telling him. I didn’t want to bother him. I was relieved when they won because I didn’t want him to blame me.” The Giants did win , beating the 49ers, 20-17, in overtime to advance to the Super Bowl. And Peyton Manning was there to watch it, getting his own tickets, arranging his own travel, one of the country’s most recognizable athletes essentially sneaking into the stadium. Peyton had long ago stopped watching Eli’s games. He made that decision after he found himself one day — with the Giants playing a 1 p.m. game and the Colts scheduled for that night — standing on his hotel bed screaming at a referee who had just made a bad call and a receiver who had just dropped a pass. “I’d feel like I’d already played a game and I hadn’t even gotten to our locker room yet,” Peyton said. “I have to leave the games now if the announcer says something I don’t agree with. I’m thinking, ‘Peyton, it is not healthy to be all worked up before a game.’ ” This season, though, no longer burdened with his own preparation, Peyton was able to watch again. It has been a career season for Eli , who steadied the Giants when the defense struggled early. Peyton, though, clearly does not like that description much. He has long been protective of Eli — after Tiki Barber took shots at Eli in 2007 and Eli fired back , Peyton pulled a visiting reporter aside in the Colts’ locker room to ask how Eli’s remarks were being received in New York. To say that Eli is having his finest season suggests to his brother a belief that Eli, now in his eighth year, has been less than stellar until now. So Peyton, so astute at noticing the slightest twitch by a defender, is reluctant to say that Eli may be doing anything different now. “I’m probably more of the type I don’t really think there has been much change,” Peyton said. “Everybody made a huge deal out of the interceptions last year. From what I saw last year and talking to him and watching game film of him last year — because we played the N.F.C. East — I thought he played well last year. “Interceptions have their own story; nobody wants to hear it. The truth of it is a lot of things played a role in it — timing with the receivers, tipped balls. At the end of the year, when they don’t make the playoffs, even though they won one more last year than this year, they say 25 interceptions, that’s why they didn’t make the playoffs. Now it’s easy to say he’s made changes, but I’m probably more of a type to say he did pretty doggone good last year.” Peyton will leave it to others to note that Eli seems to have improved his movement in the pocket this season, refining an ability to slide away from pressure while keeping his gaze downfield. Still, Peyton points to the workouts that Eli organized at Hoboken High School during the lockout last spring as critical to the way the Giants’ offense has clicked this season. Eli had told Peyton he was sorry to see tight end Kevin Boss and receiver Steve Smith sign elsewhere when free agency finally began after the lockout ended. But Eli had organized workouts with the receivers he knew would be around. Peyton, who ran similar workouts in Indianapolis until he required neck surgery, said they reminded him of summer workouts in college, when coaches are not allowed around players. The workouts afford the quarterback and his receivers freedom to work as much on one pattern as they want, with no coaches telling them they have to move on to something else. Eli, like Peyton, homes in on a few weaknesses in his game he wants to work on each off-season. Both have benefited from playing in the same offensive systems their entire N.F.L. careers, allowing them to focus on the tweaks that elevate a quarterback from good to dominant. “I can’t tell you the impact that makes,” Peyton said. “The fact that he and Kevin Gilbride have been together, it can’t help but get you better. You know the plays so much better. You know where your third read is going to be. The biggest challenge is just getting on the same page. And they have really formed something special in a short period of time. Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham — Eli told me he felt early on, they were feeling each other out. But he and Victor Cruz have gotten it so fast. You don’t usually see it that quick — it takes a few years. That has certainly helped.” Peyton continued: “There’s a reason Eli and Gilbride have been together for so long, because Gilbride has called good plays and Eli has played well. Me and Tom Moore earned the right to stay together. It’s a compliment to Eli and Gilbride. If you call good plays and it’s working, they shouldn’t want to fire you.” And that, in turn, might have produced the most critical change in the Giants’ offense this season — throwing downfield aggressively. According to statistics compiled by ProFootballFocus.com , Manning is second only to the New Orleans Saints’ Drew Brees in the number of yards in the air his completions have traveled. Brees’s passes traveled 3,112 yards in the air; Manning’s have gone 2,891 yards. “Eli has always thrown the deep ball; there is no distance he can’t throw,” Peyton said. “Cruz and Nicks can go. If they get one on one, the defense knows that. And because the defense worries about that, they give up the underneath throw.” This will be an odd two weeks for Peyton Manning. The Super Bowl is being played in Indianapolis largely because of him. The Colts would almost certainly never have been popular enough to merit building a gleaming downtown stadium fit for a Super Bowl if he had not been a Colt. And now, nobody knows how much longer he will be one. In the meantime, he is playing the delighted host, scrambling to procure enough game tickets and make restaurant reservations for his brother. He will be at the game, hoping his brother can win another Super Bowl — one more than Peyton has won. But the Colts are in the midst of upheaval, sending Manning’s longtime friends and associates packing, with a new coach likely to be named this week. Manning, 35, had no medical update on his neck, but he continues to rehabilitate, with critical decisions on his future still to be made. “It’s a strange time around here, with all the coaches getting let go,” Manning said. “I guess that’s somewhat normal for a lot of teams, but it hasn’t happened around here much. I’ve been in the facility every day rehabbing, and everybody in the building is walking around on eggshells because nobody knows who is going to get fired next. “It’s not the kind of environment you like to be in. It was fun to get out of town.” And to escape into his brother’s happiness for a few hours.

Manning Peyton
Football
Manning Eli
New York Giants
Super Bowl


Taking the Slide Move From Clay to Hardcourts

Abstract: In the fourth set of his United States Open quarterfinal, Novak Djokovic sprinted forward. His opponent, Janko Tipsarevic, had placed a drop shot low, short, wide and across the court. As he neared the ball, Djokovic seemed impossibly far away. Not that it mattered. If Djokovic sometimes seems like a superhero, his super power is his slide. He launched one there against Tipsarevic, feet skidding, right foot first, worn shoes squeaking across the concrete court. In one motion, still sliding, Djokovic flicked the ball the other way for a winner that even Tipsarevic applauded. For Djokovic and other players engaged in this emerging trend, especially on hardcourts, the slide is not electric, like the song. But sometimes it does seem that way. “It’s not something that I really was planning to learn how to do,” Djokovic said earlier in the tournament. “I don’t think there’s any coach that is going to tell you logically that it’s right to slide on cement. It’s just not good for your body.” On Saturday, Djokovic meets Roger Federer in the semifinals, where his flurry of intense movement will contrast with Federer’s artistic grace. After Tipsarevic retired against Djokovic, down 2 sets to 1 on Thursday, Djokovic said he needed to be more aggressive, to control points and move closer to the baseline. In other words, more slides can be expected. As Djokovic compiled this potentially historic season, with 62 victories in 64 matches, with two Grand Slam championships and nine tournament titles, movement provided the cornerstone of his success. This, the Tennis Channel analyst Justin Gimelstob said, included balance, core strength and flexibility, all of which allow Djokovic to effectively shrink the court. By arriving to balls earlier and sending shots back sooner, Djokovic makes opponents feel rushed, squeezed and out of rhythm. One of his best shots, according to Gimelstob, is “off his left leg on the backhand, on the slide, pivoting, which shows his balance, his strength, being able to turn defense into offense on that backhand side.” Or, as the ESPN analyst Darren Cahill put it: “When you play Djokovic, you feel like you’ve had the wind taken out of your sails. You can’t feel your legs anymore because you’ve run so much. You’re struggling to breathe. “It’s his brand of hardcourt tennis. Suffocating.” If movement is the cornerstone of Djokovic’s rise to No. 1, the slide is one key element of his movement, allowing him to cover more ground. His coach, Marian Vajda, said the slide began with balance, particularly between Djokovic’s hips and chest. He also prefers shoes already worn in, the tread faded, allowing him to seemingly trump physics. There is, too, Vajda said, a mental aspect to skidding across concrete. Such acrobatics must be performed without fear. Djokovic, for instance, often slides to reverse direction, which is faster than stopping and turning the other way, but much worse on his ligaments, knees and joints. Yet Vajda did not teach Djokovic to slide. No one did, in fact, and Vajda said he must often reprimand Djokovic for sliding during practice, moves that make his coach cringe with fear. “Ah, no, no, no, I didn’t teach him,” Vajda said, scoffing. “I got him like this already. All the Serbs, they slide. I’ve never seen it in all my life. Maybe on clay, but not on hardcourts.” Players have slid on the clay for generations, leaving streaks, like random paintbrush strokes, across the court. Hardcourts proved a different story. Coaches taught more standard movement: quick, short, lateral steps, stop, plant, push off in the opposite direction. So what changed? The athleticism of the players, for one. In her third-round match, Serena Williams slid into a split, hit a shot and did not even grimace. Gaël Monfils, the Frenchman, seems to slide more than he runs. So, too, do Jelena Jankovic, also Serbian, and Kim Clijsters from Belgium, who more than anyone popularized the defensive slide. Some players are convinced that sliding helps them arrive at the ball a split-second earlier than otherwise. Others point to technological advancements, in racket size and string material, that allow them to hit off balance, on the move, even without feet planted. Several players also wear shoes designed for clay courts on concrete. Vajda believes more slide specialists are coming. When he watches juniors play at tournaments, he sees them imitate their favorite players. They want to slide like Djokovic, want to slide like Clijsters. The trend figures to continue. “We’d always scratch our heads when Clijsters did it,” the ESPN analyst Patrick McEnroe said. “Like, how does she do that on a hardcourt? Now, half the players are doing it, especially on the men’s side. But this is a trend the women started. Now the men are catching up.” As general manager of player development for the United States Tennis Association, McEnroe also said he would not advise against this tactic. As with anything else, he said, “if you’re prepared for it, and you’re flexible enough, and you can do it, why not?” But McEnroe did not slide during his playing days, much as he might have liked. His reasoning: He would have pulled too many muscles.

Tennis
United States Open (Tennis)
Djokovic Novak
Concrete
Clijsters Kim
Shoes and Boots


To Help Fill Demand, Australia Eases Labor Restrictions on Foreigners

Abstract: CANBERRA — In a major policy shift, Australia lifted restrictions on the use of foreign workers in its resources sector to help address chronic labor shortages, with the Roy Hill iron ore project of the mining magnate Gina Rinehart winning approval Friday to import 1,715 workers. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the government had approved Ms. Rinehart’s plan to bring in the workers to help develop the 9.5 billion Australian dollar, or $9.2 billion, iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of northwestern Australia, an area whose ore exports are relied on by steel mills across East Asia. Australia’s major mining companies have struggled with soaring costs caused in part by rapid increases in wages they must pay to lure workers to the remote areas where their projects are located. Latest government figures show more than 260 billion Australian dollars’ worth of mining and energy projects are under way in Australia, with 450 billion Australian dollars of resources projects either under way or planned. The government estimates the resources industry will need an extra 89,000 workers by 2016 to meet demand, with Australia needing a peak of 49,000 short-term construction jobs in the resources sector in 2014. Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said the plans to bring in workers via the so-called Enterprise Migration Agreements would be available to projects worth more than 2 billion Australian dollars and with a peak work force of more than 1,500 people. Australia has been holding immigration roadshows for workers in the United States, India and Europe. Australia’s Mines and Metals Association says 10 to 14 projects will be able to take advantage of the new program. Ms. Rinehart, the richest woman in Australia, has long called for easier access to foreign temporary workers to help fill shortages. Her Roy Hill project plans to start shipping ore in 2014, with production expected to peak at 55 million tons a year, which would rank it as one of the country’s top producers. In March, Marubeni Corp. of Japan, the South Korean steel maker Posco and the shipbuilder STX said they would buy 30 percent of the Roy Hill project for 3.5 billion Australian dollars. “There is no doubt that the Roy Hill Project is one of national significance,” Mr. Bowen, the immigration minister, told the National Press Club as he announced the first Enterprise Migration Agreement with Ms. Rinehart’s privately held company, Hancock Prospecting. The Australian union movement condemned the government decision and said the new rules would allow foreign workers to take jobs at the expense of Australian workers who are losing their jobs in manufacturing industries.

Labor and Jobs
Australia
Mines and Mining
Migrant and Foreign Workers
Law and Legislation


Software as Weaponry in a Computer-Connected World

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — The internet was created nearly 40 years ago by men — and a few women — who envisioned an “intergalactic network” where humans could pull data and computing resources from any mainframe in the world and in the process free up their minds from mundane and menial tasks. “The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled,” wrote Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, who was known as “Lick” and is the man widely remembered as the internet’s Johnny Appleseed. Mr. Licklider joined the Pentagon in 1962, and his ideas later formed the basis for the military’s primordial internet work. Even a big-vision idealist like Mr. Licklider could never have imagined that more than 50 years later, we would be telling the internet our deepest secrets and our whereabouts, and plugging in our smartphones, refrigerators, cars, oil pipelines, power grid and uranium centrifuges. And even the early internet pioneers at the Pentagon could not have foreseen that half a century later, the billions of mistakes made along the way to creating the internet of today and all the things attached to it would be strung together to form the stage for modern warfare. It is rare to find a computer today that is not linked to another, that is not baked with circuitry, applications and operating systems and that has not — at one point or another — been probed by a hacker, digital criminal or nation looking for weaknesses to exploit for profit, espionage or destruction. There is plenty of raw material to work with. On average, there are 15 to 50 defects per 1,000 lines of code in delivered software, according to Steve McConnell, the author of “Code Complete.” Today, most of the applications we rely on — Google Chrome, Microsoft, Firefox and Android — contain millions of lines of code. And the complexity of technology is increasing, and with it the potential for defects. The motivation to find exploitable defects in widely used code has never been higher. Governments big and small are stockpiling vulnerabilities and exploits in hardware, software, applications, algorithms and even security defenses like firewalls and antivirus software. They are using these holes to monitor their perceived enemies, and many governments are storing them for a rainy day, when they might just have to drop a payload that disrupts or degrades an adversary’s transportation, energy or financial system. They are willing to pay anyone who can find and exploit these weaknesses top dollar to hand them over, and never speak a word to the companies whose programmers inadvertently wrote them into software in the first place. The world caught one of its first glimpses of the market for vulnerabilities this year when James B. Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, suggested that his agency paid hackers more than $1.3 million for an iPhone exploit that allowed the F.B.I. to bypass Apple’s security. That is on par with what other companies that buy and sell bugs to governments, like Zerodium , have offered to pay. Zerodium said it paid hackers $1 million for information on weaknesses in Apple’s iOS 9 operating system last fall, but the company resells those weaknesses to governments at a markup. Those who follow the bug-and-exploit trade market closely caught an even bigger glimpse of its sponsors last summer when an Italian outfit called Hacking Team — which packages weaknesses into surveillance tools for governments across the globe — was itself hacked . The leaks revealed a long customer list, including police departments, law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the United States, Europe and countries like Bahrain, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Morocco. But the market for exploitable bugs is much bigger than Hacking Team’s client list, and nations have been paying huge sums to hackers willing to turn over those weaknesses to governments, and withhold them from software companies, for more than 20 years. In most cases those holes have been used for espionage, but increasingly they are being used for destruction. Stuxnet, the American-Israeli computer worm that was used to destroy centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility in 2009 and 2010, used four vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and one in a printer service to attack and spin Iran’s uranium centrifuges out of control, or stop spinning them entirely. Once Stuxnet and its motivations were uncovered — first by a security researcher in Belarus and then around the world — a Pandora’s box was opened. Today, more than 100 governments have publicly acknowledged their own offensive cyberwar programs. Countries that were not in the market before Stuxnet was discovered are in it now. Iranian officials now claim to have the third-largest digital army in the world behind the United States and China. Those claims are impossible to verify, in large part because most countries keep such programs secret. But Iranian hackers have made plenty of demonstrations. Government officials in the United States hold Iranian hackers responsible for what they describe as a retaliatory attack against Saudi Aramco in 2012 that replaced the data on 30,000 Aramco computers with an image of a burning American flag. The next year, Iranian hackers were blamed for a series of attacks on the United States banking system. And while security experts who have analyzed those attacks claim that the Iranians’ abilities are still nowhere near those of the United States and its closest allies, they are steadily improving. Nations took a while to catch on to the wartime potential of the internet, but countries are now doubling down on their digital attack capabilities. The verdict is still out on whether attacks like Stuxnet violate international law. Digital espionage, like the Chinese hacking of the Office of Personnel Management discovered last year, does not. And even when such attacks violate domestic laws, the penalties are not much of a deterrent to attackers punching keystrokes from the other side of the world.

Hacker (computer security)
Cyberwarfare
Spying and Intelligence Agencies
Computer security
Hacking Team
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


Apple Is Said to Be Close to Unveiling Streaming Music Service

Abstract: For tens of millions of iTunes users, listening to music may soon get a lot easier. Apple has entered the final stages of negotiations with the major record labels and music publishers for a service that will allow people to upload and store their music on the Web and listen to it on smartphones, tablets or computers — so-called cloud-based music. Amazon and Google introduced similar services weeks earlier. Apple’s service, though, is expected to be easier to use, and to find a ready market in the 200 million people who have iTunes accounts. The company has signed contracts with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and the Warner Music Group to license those labels’ recordings for its new service. It is still negotiating with Universal Music Group, the largest of the four labels, but that deal could be finished as early as next week, according to several people briefed on the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deals were private. Analysts said Apple might announce the new service as early as next month, when it hosts its annual developer conference in San Francisco. Apple declined to comment, as did the record labels. Like Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Google’s Music Beta , Apple’s new service will provide access to remote servers that can store digital music files and stream them to users’ computers, smartphones and other devices. But since Amazon and Google did not get licenses from record companies, their music programs are essentially storage systems, which require users to upload the music they already own before they can play it, a process that can take hours. Having label licenses would allow Apple to design a more elaborate and efficient system. For instance, Apple’s service is expected to be able to scan people’s iTunes libraries and match their songs to a single master collection on the company’s servers, eliminating long upload times. Apple might also introduce features like sharing songs with friends, and the ability to listen to a song on different devices without having to connect them first to a computer. “For most of us who have multiple devices, it is annoying to have to tether them to our computer every time we buy a new song,” said Dave Goldberg, who in 1994 founded Launch Media, an online music start-up that was later bought by Yahoo. Although Apple has nearly finished its talks with the labels, it still must obtain licenses from music publishers, who control the copyrights for a song’s underlying composition, as opposed to recordings, and who also represent songwriters. Most of the major publishers are owned by the labels but are operated separately, and their permission is essential to offer the more advanced features. In 2003 Apple opened its iTunes store, which transformed the music business, selling more than 10 billion songs. Now the music industry is eagerly awaiting Apple’s entry into cloud-based music. The company has been expected to release a cloud service since at least 2009, when it reportedly spent $80 million to buy Lala , a start-up that allowed users to play music they already owned from the Web. Shortly after the deal closed, however, Apple shut down Lala. Apple also built a large data center in North Carolina, which company officials said would handle music and other services. The exact timing of the announcement of the service may depend on when Apple closes the publishing deals and whether the technology is ready to go. “Apple doesn’t announce anything until it is ready,” said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, adding that Apple could also wait until next fall. “We know that the data center is online, but we don’t know whether the software components and the service pieces will be ready by next month.” Analysts also said Apple was likely to pass on the cost of the new contracts with the music labels and publishers to consumers by charging for the streaming service. While some consumers may balk at having to pay extra to listen to music they already own, many will pay for convenience, they predicted. And the cloud music service could be somehow integrated with a new version of MobileMe, Apple’s online subscription service that offers storage and other features. Apple is widely believed to be working on a revamped version of MobileMe, which has long been considered a flop. “I don’t think it is something they will have to give away for free, at least initially,” said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. Mr. Munster said the service could be bundled with MobileMe.

Music
Cloud Computing
Recordings and Downloads (Audio)
Apple Incorporated


Bibliophiles Disagree Over Price of Air Above

Abstract: So rich was the price negotiated for some 86,000 square feet of air over the Grolier Club and Christ Church at Park Avenue and East 60th Street -- $430 a square foot -- that the magazine Business 2.0 listed the sale as one of "the 101 dumbest moments in business" last year. But several members of the Grolier, an elite society of bibliophiles, now say the price for their portion, at least -- about $6.9 million -- was too low. The club stands between the church, at 520 Park Avenue, and two tenement buildings owned by the sibling developers Arthur W. and William L. Zeckendorf. The developers plan to knock down the tenements and, using the air rights, put up a 35-story apartment building whose top floors will have views of Central Park. Some Grolier members say their club deserves a higher price for its ether than the church is receiving because its 16,000 feet remain pivotal to the deal. So now they want the club to pull out. It is a dispute that has split the normally docile precincts of the club, even bringing tears amid heated accusations of conflicts of interest at one uncharacteristically raucous meeting. Without the club's air rights, the Zeckendorfs and their partners would almost certainly have to scale back their plans for a luxury high-rise building next door. Carolyn L. Smith, the club's president, confirmed the controversy but said she was not sure how widespread the opposition is. "Fewer than dozens, I think," she said. "We have almost 800 members, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't someone unhappy about it." Ms. Smith said that the sale had been discussed for more than a year before Grolier's council, the oversight body equivalent to a board, approved it, and that 14 of the 21 council members had voted in favor. Six voted against, however, and some have continued to press their case, seeking legal counsel in hopes of finding a way to break the contract signed by the club. Ms. Smith, the one abstaining vote, said she had recused herself to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest because she is a member of Christ Church, which stands to receive $30 million for its air rights if the deal stands. Getting the opponents of the sale to voice their concerns for the record has proved challenging. "I have very strong feelings about this thing, and while I'd love to tell you things, I'm in a position where I really can't," explained one club member who is opposed to the sale, echoing three others who offered similar reasons for speaking on the condition of anonymity. "I've been involved with this club for years. I know the people there, and I don't want to damage those friendships, which are very dear to me." The space above the Grolier is crucial to the project because the Zeckendorfs can transfer only the air rights contiguous to the site where they plan to build. They cannot transfer the church's air space to their site without also having the club's. Arthur Zeckendorf said he and his brother and partners, who consider the deal done, were paying a premium price. "Also, there's really only one buyer for those air rights, us, because we own the buildings directly west of the club," he said. "It's not like they can go sell them to Donald Trump or somebody else for more." Opponents on the council and other club members charge that the decision to sell was tainted by conflicts of interest, like the one Ms. Smith cited in recusing herself, and a failure to follow state legal restrictions governing the sale of major assets by nonprofit organizations. They pointed to the vote of David Alan Richards, a real estate lawyer who is a member of the council and who served as an adviser to the club on the deal. Ms. Smith said the council had voted to allow him to continue to participate in the club's governance while serving as its business representative. Some opponents are also concerned about the impact of the planned high-rise on their neighborhood and on the structural soundness of the 1917 town house cum clubhouse. Their objections were aired at a meeting on Dec. 12, after Ms. Smith sent a letter to the membership about the council's plan to approve a sale. Two of the club's former presidents, William B. Warren and Robert D. Graff, rose to denounce the plan, according to members who attended. And Leonard L. Milberg, chairman of Milberg Factors, vigorously opposed the sale and criticized Ms. Smith for having any part in it because of her membership in the church, according to four members who attended. The outburst by Mr. Milberg, who declined to comment, reduced Ms. Smith to tears and shocked the 40 to 50 Grolier members at the meeting. "Several people expressed sort of regrets, and one member was violently opposed," recalled Stephen C. Massey, a book and manuscript appraiser and consultant who has appeared on Antiques Roadshow, though he did not name any members in particular. Mr. Massey, who served on the council from 1993 until last spring, said he thought the deal to sell the air rights was "magnificent," though he would have preferred slightly different terms. "My rapture is heavily modified by the fact that I'd rather we had some real estate space in the new building and less money," he said. Martin Hutner, another longtime member, said that Charles Tanenbaum, a well-known collector of 18th century books, maps and other documents, had proposed that the opponents raise an equivalent amount through donations. "Because he didn't like the idea of selling the air rights, Mr. Tanenbaum courageously offered $250,000," Mr. Hutner said. "But no one else in the room came forward." Ms. Smith said the bulk of the $6.9 million the club will receive from the deal will go into its endowment, more than doubling it. New York State law requires that certain types of nonprofit corporations, like the Grolier, seek court approval for major asset sales, that they notify the attorney general's office of their plans and that they obtain approval of the sale from a majority of their members. Ms. Smith said that law applied only to the sale of what it calls "all or substantially all" of an organization's assets. "Our clubhouse itself is probably worth a minimum of $15 million, our endowment is about $5 million and our collection of books is worth at least $10 million," Ms. Smith said. "This is not a substantial asset for us." A guide from the New York State attorney general's office on the sale of significant assets by nonprofit groups notes that there is no set standard for determining what constitutes a substantial asset. "Court approval is required where the asset to be sold represents a large portion of the corporation's assets," the guide states. At the agreed-upon price, the Grolier's air represents roughly 20 percent of its assets. In the profit-making world, anything with a value of 5 percent or more of total assets is considered substantial. M. Myers Mermel, a real estate broker who is working pro bono on the deal for Christ Church, said the church planned to sign its contract this week. It and the club will then seek court approval, he said. The opposition from some Grolier members is unsettling to the church, which hopes to use the $30 million from its part of the deal on various missions to help the poor, Mr. Mermel said. "Their case has no merit, but I've been surprised at the lengths to which they've gone to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and put at risk the opportunity for this money to help so many needy people through the church," he said.

NEW YORK CITY
CENTRAL PARK (NYC)
CHRIST CHURCH
GROLIER CLUB
ZECKENDORF WILLIAM L
ZECKENDORF ARTHUR W
AIR RIGHTS
HOUSING
REAL ESTATE