After Guilty Plea, Jason Itzler, Self-Described King of All Pimps, Fires Lawyer

Abstract: Jason Itzler arrived in court on Tuesday to be formally sentenced to prison, a solemn reckoning for most criminal defendants. But for the self-proclaimed King of All Pimps, the day played out like one more act in a never-ending immorality play. Mr. Itzler shouted over a judge and his own lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, saying that since signing a plea deal three weeks ago, he had read a 2010 profile of Mr. Heller and realized that he had been wrongly treated. “I don’t trust Heller!” Mr. Itzler shouted. “Heller to me is the Devil!” Justice Thomas Farber repeatedly told Mr. Itzler, often with little lasting effect, to be quiet. “I don’t want to pay Heller $420,000!” Mr. Itzler shouted again. “Can you help me?” “Mr. Itzler,” the judge said calmly, “you don’t have a penny to your name at this point.” Since being revealed as a pimp in a 2005 magazine article and convicted the next year of attempting to promote prostitution, Mr. Itzler has repeatedly referred to himself in media interviews as a pimp and commented on the latest headline-grabbing prostitution cases. He was indicted last summer on charges that he provided a prostitute to a customer for three days at the Trump International Hotel at Columbus Circle. Mr. Itzler, prosecutors have said, visited the room twice and sold $4,700 worth of cocaine to the customer. Then, on April 3, prosecutors filed a letter with the court saying Mr. Itzler had been recorded on telephones at Rikers Island saying that he and Mr. Heller planned to stage-manage his trial to increase the box office potential of a film in the works about Mr. Itzler’s life. The plan included having women wear “Free the Pimp” T-shirts outside State Supreme Court in Manhattan, and Mr. Itzler arriving in professionally coifed hair and in makeup, and wearing a pink tuxedo, according to the letter. The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. , wrote in the letter that the arrangement could create an incentive for Mr. Heller to push his client to go to trial rather than accept a plea deal. But Mr. Itzler did plead guilty, during a six-hour session three weeks ago that Justice Farber said was the longest plea session he had ever presided over. After long discussions about Mr. Heller and potential conflicts of interest, Mr. Itzler pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution, criminal sale of a controlled substance and money laundering, and agreed to a minimum prison sentence of four years. “As far as I can tell, I’m being represented unbelievably well,” Mr. Itzler said then, according to a transcript. But then he said he had read the 2010 profile of Mr. Heller in The New York Times, which noted that some of Mr. Heller’s engagements had ended badly and that he had been suspended from practicing law after being charged in 1993 with deceit, puffery, abusive treatment of clients and fee gouging by the departmental disciplinary committee for the Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department. In court on Tuesday, wearing a black velvet blazer, torn bluejeans and Correction Department handcuffs, Mr. Itzler asked the judge whether he had read the article. “There are so many things you would be appalled by,” he said. “I’m not easily appalled,” the judge said. Justice Farber said Mr. Heller had negotiated “an extraordinarily generous offer” for Mr. Itzler. The judge, nonetheless, allowed Mr. Itzler to fire Mr. Heller and hire a new lawyer, Michael Marley, a former sports columnist for The New York Post and a publicist for the boxing promoter Don King. The judge warned Mr. Marley, who arrived in court wearing a fuchsia porkpie hat, that he would never be released from the case. “Judge, I wouldn’t ask Mariano Rivera to relieve me on this case,” Mr. Marley said. The judge gave Mr. Itzler until Monday to decide whether to withdraw his plea deal and said that if he did, the case would go to trial without further negotiations, putting him at risk of a longer sentence. If he makes that choice, the judge said to Mr. Itzler, “Heaven help you.”

New York City
Itzler Jason
Prostitution
Heller Mark Jay
Vance Cyrus R Jr
Farber Thomas A


In England, an Unfamiliar Sporting Life

Abstract: No, the sportswriter Chuck Culpepper is not in China covering his sixth Olympics. And he is not rooting around N.F.L. training camps stalking stories as the start of another season nears. He will have to be forgiven for not being with Blue Bear, a fuzzy mascot, last Sunday at Wembley Stadium in London for the F.A. Community Shield game between Manchester United and his adopted team, Portsmouth. After all, who would leave a holiday on a Greek island for the meaningless curtain-raiser to the English soccer season (won by United in a penalty-kick shootout)? But it gets serious this weekend, with the opening of the 2008-9 Premier League season. Culpepper, who moved to England for love in April 2006, hopes to follow a new love, Portsmouth, to Stamford Bridge in London for its game against Chelsea. Or perhaps he will make the trip north to see newly promoted Hull City against visiting Fulham and its handful of American players. Culpepper, an American sportswriter whose work has appeared in ESPN the Magazine, The Los Angeles Times and Newsday, was bitten by the soccer bug when he moved to England, joining a rabid fraternity of supporters and diving into an unfamiliar sporting life. One result is his just-published first book: “Bloody Confused! A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer” (Broadway Books, $13.95). “I can’t remember what it was like three years ago; it’s really hard to explain,” Culpepper said in a telephone interview from Mykonos last week. “I’ve discovered a world I did not know existed.” That world has introduced Culpepper to the joys of endless (domestic and continental) cup competitions, relegation and promotion, fans whose devotion is everything but fickle and his (now) beloved Portsmouth. “I’ve found it incredibly refreshing to plunge into an entirely new country as a fan, a place where the history and names that people have on the tips of their tongues are something I didn’t know,” Culpepper said. “I’m invigorated by it. By the incredibly inventive songs the fans sing. American sports fans just don’t sing enough.” Brad Guzan With his strong play in goal for the United States Olympic team in China, Brad Guzan certainly has not given Aston Villa any reason to second-guess its decision to buy him from Chivas USA of Major League Soccer. Guzan, 23, is one of Villa’s two American goalkeeping Brads after the club recently completed the acquisition of the veteran Brad Friedel from Blackburn Rovers. “To work with Brad Friedel will truly be an honor, to learn from his experience in the World Cup and the Premier League, where he has been so successful for so many years,” the 6-foot-3 Guzan said in a telephone interview late last week from Tianjin, China, where the United States played its first two first-round games. Guzan and the United States, with a victory and a draw, have a critical game against Nigeria in Beijing on Wednesday. The Americans could end up as group winners, or they could find themselves on the way home. That means Guzan could make it to England for Aston Villa’s Premier League opener against visiting Manchester City on Sunday. “They have been extremely supportive of me being part of the Olympics,” Guzan said of Villa. “I’m grateful for that.” The United States needs a draw or a victory against Nigeria early Wednesday, or a loss by the Netherlands to Japan, to advance to the second round of the Olympic tournament. A second-place finish in Group B probably would mean a quarterfinal match against Argentina, which is expected to win Group A. A first-place finish could bring a quarterfinal game against either Ivory Coast, Australia or Serbia. Major League Soccer The Red Bulls’ game against D.C. United on Sunday was not a must win, but it was pretty close. Two goals by Juan Pablo Ángel, his fifth and sixth of an injury-plagued season, put the Red Bulls (6-6-7, 25 points) in a four-way tie for fourth place in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer with 11 regular-season games to play. The 4-1 victory against D.C. United was the first time the Red Bulls scored more than two goals in a league game this season. It was the first time they won after trailing. Coach Juan Carlos Osorio had three of his four new players on the field — Jorge Rojas, Juan Pietravallo and Gabriel Cichero. All were shown yellow cards for their aggressive (and perhaps welcome) play. AROUND THE LEAGUE Cory Gibbs, a defender who did not play at Charlton last season in England because of injuries, has returned to M.L.S. and will join the Los Angeles Galaxy. Another American player in England, Eddie Lewis of Derby County, could soon follow Gibbs to M.L.S. ... M.L.S. announced recently that it would add two teams in 2011, for a total of 18. Seattle will join next year, to be followed by Philadelphia in 2010. The early line on the favorites: a second team in the New York area (operated by the Wilpon family, which owns the Mets); Vancouver, British Columbia; and Portland, Ore. Notes ¶Women’s Professional Soccer, a seven-team league scheduled to begin play in April 2009, said it would add teams in Atlanta and Philadelphia for the 2010 season. ¶The Thunder Bay (Ontario) Chill defeated the Laredo (Tex.) Heat to win the United Soccer Leagues’ Premier Development League championship in a penalty-kick shootout Saturday in Texas. The P.D.L., a league for amateurs, is the fourth tier of the U.S.L. in North America.

Soccer
Athletics and Sports
Premier League
Aston Villa


No. 1 Crimson Tide Looks Like a Champ

Abstract: TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama apparently does not want any thoughtful dialogue on the national championship race. The Crimson Tide wants to end the discussion on half of the national championship matchup in January and make itself the plain choice for the title game against any of a half-dozen challengers who all look like underdogs. The Crimson Tide has played poorly on the road for a half and won. It has played with a rebuilt defense, with nine new starters, and won. It has played without its Heisman Trophy winner, Mark Ingram, and won. On Saturday night, with malfunctions in its game plan and a mere 47 rushing yards from Ingram, No. 1 Alabama still buried No. 7 Florida, 31-6 , in front of 101,821 at Bryant-Denny Stadium. One thing that may derail Alabama (5-0, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) is its schedule . No. 19 South Carolina (3-1, 1-1) did not play this week, giving Coach Steve Spurrier an extra week to prepare for the Crimson Tide, which ran its winning streak to 19 games. “We’re focused on the standard that we want to play to,” Alabama Coach Nick Saban said. “This is a great win; it was an important win for us. But we got to reload.” Alabama reloads better than any other program in the country. The national champion last season, it lost stars like defensive back Javier Arenas and linebacker Rolando McClain. But safety Mark Barron, who had 11 tackles against the Gators, and linebacker Courtney Upshaw (7 tackles, four for loss) have filled the void. Florida quarterback John Brantley, a first-year starter who has taken command of the Gators’ offense from the former star Tim Tebow, was sacked only once by the furious Alabama defense, but he was hurried nine times while trying to pass. Brantley completed 16 of 31 passes for 202 yards and threw two interceptions. On one third quarter throw, Brantley was knocked off his spot in the pocket, hurried to reset his feet and threw an interception to the Alabama freshman linebacker C. J. Mosley, who returned it 35 yards for a touchdown. Even more frustrating was what Alabama did to Florida in the red zone. After the Crimson Tide drove for a field goal on the first series of the game to get out to a 3-0 lead, the Gators struck back and drove to the Alabama 2. Florida tried to dust off a play made famous by Tebow: the jump pass. On fourth down, the freshman Trey Burton, an option quarterback like Tebow, faked a run into the line and jumped to throw a pass, but the ball fell into the hands of Alabama linebacker Nico Johnson in the end zone. “It was awful,” Florida Coach Urban Meyer said of his team’s execution in the red zone. “We just have to get better. It was real disappointing. That game is a different game, I think. I don’t know if we would have beat them because they were pretty good today, but we just self-destructed.” Alabama then reeled off 21 more points to lead by 24-0 late in the second quarter. What had been a much anticipated game between the last two national champions had turned one-sided. Florida trailed by 31-6 in the third quarter when it got to the Alabama 1, but Brantley fumbled, and Upshaw recovered. The Gators seemed finished before the play, but it added to the embarrassment. “We played great in the red zone, got a couple of turnovers down there, got a few stops, so that was really the difference in the game,” Saban said. “In each game that we have had with these guys, it’s all come down to that. When they beat us two years ago, they scored every time they had it down there.” The game marked the first time since Oct. 1, 2005, that Florida did not score a touchdown, the last instance also at Alabama. The Alabama defense, which has given up some explosive plays this season, is making fewer and fewer mistakes, especially in its secondary, where there are three new starters. The pressure on quarterbacks by defensive lineman Marcell Dareus, linebacker Dont’a Hightower and Upshaw is making it easier for the cover guys. “It shows at some points,” Barron said of the inexperience of the rebuilt defense, “but for the most part, for the guys that are new and are young, we try to let them know that being young is not really an excuse. You have to step up and be grown.” This Alabama defense has stepped up and grown up, and it is catching up to a veteran offense, which could sit on its lead here in the second half. “We came out hot in the first half, but we didn’t do anything in the second half at all, so there’s certainly room for a lot of improvement next week against South Carolina,” Alabama center William Vlachos said. “We’re happy with the win, but not satisfied with how we played the game.”

University of Alabama
University of Florida
Football
Southeastern Conference


Queens School Shut Since Storm Is Reopening

Abstract: The New York City Education Department said on Monday that Public School/Middle School 114 in Belle Harbor, Queens, would reopen on Tuesday, three days earlier than planned, after it was flooded during Hurricane Sandy . In kindergarten through eighth grade, the school has 779 students. The building sustained significant water damage and was producing strong odors, said Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the department. Flooring has been replaced, she said, but some areas like the auditorium will be cordoned off until repairs have been completed. After the storm, the students were relocated to three other schools, which frustrated many parents with more than one child at P.S./M.S. 114. Attendance at those schools has been spotty; 53.3 percent of the displaced students showed up on Monday, a day when the overall attendance rate for the public schools was 90.2 percent. Some parents are concerned about air quality in the school and are waiting to send their children back, said Irene Dougherty, a leader of the PTA. “We were assured we would have the results of the air quality test in hand and now we are not getting them,” she said. The reopening leaves 12 schools and about 5,400 students still in temporary locations. About 73,000 students were initially displaced by the storm.

Education Department (NYC)
Hurricane Sandy (2012)
Belle Harbor (NYC)
Education (K-12)


Mexico Faces Obstacle in Curbing Vigilantes Fighting Drug Gang

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — Mexican soldiers met fierce resistance on Tuesday as they began disarming vigilante groups that have been fighting drug gangs in the agricultural lowlands of the western state of Michoacán. In a fluid conflict that is emerging as the first major security test of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s 13-month presidency, the government sent police and army convoys across the western state to restore order in the region, known as the Tierra Caliente, or the hot country. But as tanks and trucks entered small towns where the vigilantes had taken control in the past few days, soldiers who tried to confiscate weapons found themselves surrounded by shouting townspeople rallying behind the self-defense forces. Spokesmen for the groups said Tuesday that they would not give up their weapons until the government arrested the top leaders of the Knights Templar, the drug ring that controls parts of the state and that has branched out into extortion and kidnapping. “The only thing we are doing is defending our family, defending our villages,” Estanislao Beltrán, a spokesman for the self-defense groups, told a radio interviewer on Tuesday. “We are working people, we are farmers. The government hasn’t been concerned for 11 years over maintaining the security of our people.” Self-defense groups said four civilians were killed in the village of Antúnez when soldiers were confronted by a large crowd. The government confirmed one death. José Luis Moreno Ceja, the planning director for the town of Parácuaro, where the self-defense groups took control on Saturday, said that the community supported the vigilantes. The army had yet to enter the town when he spoke. “We are all afraid, precisely because the government has failed to protect us for so many years,” he said in a telephone interview. He added that the people of Parácuaro would not allow the government to disarm the self-defense forces, whom he described as “people who did not have to do what they are doing, sacrificing their lives in order to free us from the Templars’ will.” The vigilantes’ heavy guns and trucks have raised suspicions that they may be allied or supported by a drug gang that is a rival to the Knights Templar, but the self-defense groups’ leaders have repeatedly denied that. The government’s policy was intended to curb all armed groups in the state, but the soldiers’ actions seemed directed at the self-defense forces alone, except in Apatzingán, the stronghold of the Knights Templar, where soldiers and the police surrounded City Hall. Since the self-defense groups gathered force in several states besieged by drug violence at the beginning of last year, the government’s policy has been confused. At first, officials said the groups were illegal, and Mr. Peña Nieto ordered soldiers into Michoacán last May. Then, as the groups appeared to be effective in challenging the Knights Templar, the government seemed to tolerate them. But in the past week, as the self-defense forces took control of towns across the region and declared that their next target was to evict the Knights Templar from Apatzingán, the government appeared to change course. Alejandro Hope, a security analyst with the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness in the capital, said: “The policy of the federal government vis-à-vis the self-defense groups — let me put it gently — has been a work in progress. I’m not sure what the thinking is. My guess is that they’re reactive.” He warned that the government now found itself in a Catch-22. If soldiers continue to disarm the self-defense groups, the government will be accused of being complicit with the Knights Templar, but if it stops it will be accused of protecting paramilitary groups. Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst in Mexico City, said the government had no choice but to intervene because “the Knights Templar would have massacred a great number of the self-defense forces” in a battle over Apatzingán. But disarming the vigilantes completely would leave communities at risk and seem to send the message that the government is supporting the Knights Templar. “The government has to act according to priorities, and the priority is the Knights Templar,” Mr. Guerrero said.

Military
Vigilante
Drug Abuse
Michoacan Mexico
Enrique Pena Nieto
Mexico


Obama Plan May Allow Millions of Immigrants to Stay and Work in U.S.

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama will ignore angry protests from Republicans and announce as soon as next week a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration enforcement system that will protect up to five million unauthorized immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide many of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have direct knowledge of the plan. Asserting his authority as president to enforce the nation’s laws with discretion, Mr. Obama intends to order changes that will significantly refocus the activities of the government’s 12,000 immigration agents. One key piece of the order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away. That part of Mr. Obama’s plan alone could affect as many as 3.3 million people who have been living in the United States illegally for at least five years, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute , an immigration research organization in Washington. But the White House is also considering a stricter policy that would limit the benefits to people who have lived in the country for at least 10 years, or about 2.5 million people. Extending protections to more undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, and to their parents, could affect an additional one million or more if they are included in the final plan that the president announces. White House officials are also still debating whether to include protections for farm workers who have entered the country illegally but have been employed for years in the agriculture industry, a move that could affect hundreds of thousands of people. Mr. Obama’s actions will also expand opportunities for legal immigrants who have high-tech skills, shift extra security resources to the nation’s southern border, revamp a controversial immigration enforcement program called Secure Communities , and provide clearer guidance to the agencies that enforce immigration laws about who should be a low priority for deportation, especially those with strong family ties and no serious criminal history. A new memorandum, which will direct the actions of enforcement and border agents and immigration judges, will make clear that deportations should still proceed for convicted criminals, foreigners who pose national security risks and recent border crossers, officials said. White House officials declined to comment publicly before a formal announcement by Mr. Obama, who will return from an eight-day trip to Asia on Sunday. Administration officials said details about the package of executive actions were still being finished and could change. An announcement could be pushed off until next month but will not be delayed to next year, officials said. Image Immigration advocates at the White House last week. Credit Jabin Botsford/The New York Times Announcing the actions quickly could hand critics like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas a specific target to attack, but it would also give immigration advocates something to defend. Waiting until later in December could allow the budget to be approved before setting off a fight over immigration. “Before the end of the year, we’re going to take whatever lawful actions that I can take that I believe will improve the functioning of our immigration system,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference a day after last week’s midterm elections. “What I’m not going to do is just wait.” The decision to move forward sets in motion a political confrontation between Mr. Obama and his Republican adversaries that is likely to affect budget negotiations and the debate over Loretta E. Lynch, the president’s nominee to be attorney general , during the lame-duck session of Congress that began this week. Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday afternoon that if Mr. Obama went forward on his own, House Republicans would “fight the president tooth and nail.” Mr. Boehner is considering suing Mr. Obama over immigration — as Republicans have said they might do on the president’s health care law — and on Thursday he refused to rule out a government shutdown, despite saying that was not his goal. “We are looking at all options, and they’re on the table,” Mr. Boehner said. In the Senate, a group of Republicans — led by Mr. Cruz, Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama — is already planning to thwart any executive action on immigration. The senators are hoping to rally their fellow Republicans to oppose efforts to pass a budget next month unless it prohibits the president from enacting what they call “executive amnesty” for people in the country illegally. “If the president wants to change the legal structure, he should go through Congress rather than acting on his own,” Mr. Lee said Thursday. “I think it’s very important for us to do what we can to prevent it.” But the president and his top aides have concluded that acting unilaterally is in the interest of the country and the only way to increase political pressure on Republicans to eventually support a legislative overhaul that could put millions of illegal immigrants on a path to legal status and perhaps citizenship. Mr. Obama has told lawmakers privately and publicly that he will reverse his executive orders if they pass a comprehensive bill that he agrees to sign. White House officials reject as overblown the dire warnings from some in Congress who predict that such a sweeping use of presidential power will undermine any possibility for cooperation in Washington with the newly empowered Republican majority. “I think it will create a backlash in the country that could actually set the cause back and inflame our politics in a way that I don’t think will be conducive to solving the problem,” said Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and supports an immigration overhaul. Although a Republican president could reverse Mr. Obama’s overhaul of the system after he leaves office in January 2017, the president’s action for now will remove the threat of deportation for millions of people in Latino and other immigrant communities. Officials said lawyers had been working for months to make sure the president’s proposal would be “legally unassailable” when he presented it. The major elements of the president’s plan are based on longstanding legal precedents that give the executive branch the right to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” in how it enforces the laws. Those precedents are also the basis of a 2012 decision to protect from deportation the so-called Dreamers, who came to the United States as young children. “I’m confident that what the president will do will be consistent with our laws,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday. The White House expects a chorus of outside legal experts to back the administration’s legal assessment once Mr. Obama makes the plan official. In several “listening sessions” at the White House over the last year, immigration activists came armed with legal briefs, and White House officials believe those arguments will form the basis of the public defense of his actions. Many pro-immigration groups and advocates — as well as the Hispanic voters who could be crucial for Democrats’ hopes of winning the White House in 2016 — are expecting bold action, having grown increasingly frustrated after watching a sweeping bipartisan immigration bill fall prey to a gridlocked Congress last year. “This is his last chance to make good on his promise to fix the system,” said Kevin Appleby, the director of migration policy at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “If he delays again, the immigration activists would — just politically speaking — jump the White House fence.”

Illegal Immigration
Barack Obama
Deportation
US Politics
Federal Budget
Immigration


Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC Windows Phone 8X Are Great, and Yet

Abstract: Thanksgiving, is it? I’ll tell you what I’m thankful for: competition. Because competition drives innovation. Innovation leads to improvement. Improvement begets happiness. In the tech world, some companies do their most innovative work when their backs are against the wall — especially Microsoft . Last month, it took the wraps off Windows Phone 8, the most polished edition yet of its beautiful, crystal-clear software for touch-screen phones. (My review of Windows Phone 8 is at http://j.mp/Qqfz2F .) Unfortunately, as a Microsoft product manager told me understatedly, “We have an awareness problem.” Translation: Nobody is buying Windows phones. And since nobody’s buying them, nobody’s writing apps for them. And since nobody’s writing apps — well, you can see where this is going. Still, Microsoft isn’t giving up. This month, Windows Phone 8 arrives aboard two fascinating new phones: the Nokia Lumia 920 ($100 with a new AT&T contract) and the HTC Windows Phone 8X ($200 from AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile). It’s funny about Nokia and HTC; they, too, are fallen giants. Nokia was the world’s largest cellphone maker for 14 years straight; not anymore. At the moment, it’s in seventh place among smartphone makers. It has shed tens of thousands of employees. HTC is struggling, too, having sold 36 percent fewer smartphones this year than last. How intriguing, then, that HTC and Nokia have each chosen Microsoft as its savior, and vice versa. Loser + loser = winner? Yes, actually. The two new phones have a lot in common — for one thing, they’re both awesome. For another, both have bigger, sharper screens than the iPhone ’s famous Retina screen. (The HTC and Nokia phones have 4.3- and 4.5-inch screens. That’s 1,280 by 720 pixels, packed in 341 and 332 to the inch.) Both have rounded backs and edges, which make them both exceptionally comfortable to hold. (The curve also makes it easy to pull them out of your pocket the right way.) Both come in a choice of bright colors. Both phones have the same blazing fast processor. Both can get onto their respective carriers’ 4G LTE data networks (meaning very fast Internet), in the cities where those are available. And get this — both of these phones can also charge without being plugged in. That’s right: magnetic charging is finally built right into phones. Come home at the end of the day, throw your keys in the bowl, set the phone down on the charging pad (a $50 option) — and a little chime tells you that it’s happily charging, even though no cable is in sight. It’s pretty great. It will become even greater if this charging method (an industry standard called Qi, pronounced chee) catches on. Someday there may be charging surfaces at coffee shops, airports and hotel rooms. (Only the Verizon version of the HTC phone has this feature turned on — not the AT&T or T-Mobile versions.) Both phones also have built-in NFC chips. These allow near-field communications, which means “this phone can do things when you tap it against another gadget.” The promise is that you’ll be able to tap on a cash-register terminal to pay for something; tap against an NFC-enabled bus shelter ad to download promotional goodies; tap two phones together to transfer a photo or address; and tap against a Bluetooth speaker to “pair” it with the phone. In practice, there’s more to it than that. Unfortunately, the tap only introduces the phones; Bluetooth or some other technology is needed to complete the connection. And Microsoft’s coming tap-to-pay initiative is incompatible with the one Google has spent millions of dollars setting up at cash registers across the land. But we can always hope. The HTC Windows Phone 8X is the smaller of the two new phones, but even so, it dwarfs the iPhone — it’s wider, taller, heavier and thicker. If you get the Verizon model, your Internet experience will be faster and better in more cities than on the Nokia phone, which is available only on AT&T. The back panel is faintly textured, so you’re less likely to drop this phone than you are the shiny-backed Nokia. But the buttons — power, volume, camera — are skinny and utterly flush with the phone’s body; you practically need an ice pick to push them in. There’s another hardware concern, too: no memory-card slot. The basic $200 model has 16 gigabytes of storage, and that’s all you’ll ever have. (AT&T also sells a $100 model with an even sillier eight gigabytes.) What’s an app phone with no room for apps, photos, music or videos? The 8X’s battery is sometimes gasping by the time you get home for dinner (it’s rated at eight hours of talk time). And, of course, it’s nonremovable. In category after category, Nokia’s Lumia 920 beats the HTC. In battery life (10 hours of talk time). In price ($100 versus $200). In storage (32 gigabytes versus 16). In Bluetooth version (3.1 versus 2.1). In screen sensitivity; in one mode, you can operate this touch screen even with gloves on. The 920 also wins as a GPS unit. The Maps app in all Windows phones comes from Nokia (which owns Navteq, one of the Big Two in map data). And it is really good. It shows traffic, aerial photography, public transportation, the works. And it has none of the problems that plague Apple’s Maps app. It even lets you download map data to your phone, so you can search and navigate when you’re offline or don’t want to rack up astronomical roaming fees. The one thing the Maps app doesn’t have is spoken navigation instructions. On its own phone, however, Nokia supplies an app called Nokia Drive, which adds spoken turn-by-turn directions — another win for the 920. Both phones have very good cameras. The HTC’s eight-megapixel camera offers better color when the light is good, but stumbles badly in low light. The Nokia’s 8.7-megapixel model, on the other hand, does really well in low light without the flash. You pay a price for all of the Nokia’s advantages, however: this phone is a monster. It’s huge — the same 4.9 inches tall as the HTC, but wider, thicker and much, much heavier. At 6.5 ounces, it weighs 46 percent more than the HTC, and 62 percent more than the iPhone. Drop this thing the wrong way, and you could break your toes. If you can stand the size, the Nokia is the better phone. They’re both terrific, though. (I didn’t experience the spontaneous restarts that have been reported by some early adopters of both phones; Microsoft says it’s investigating.) Both have state-of-the-art hardware, superb design and Microsoft’s spectacular phone software. Yes, that’s right. You thought Microsoft operating systems were derivative, uninspired, bloated, plagued by featuritis? Windows Phone will change your mind fast. And yet. And yet. Microsoft has seen this movie before. It enters the marketplace years after Apple has already taken the lead (see also: Zune), and despite doing excellent work, never manages to build an ecosystem fast enough to close the lead. As great as it is, the Windows Phone world will let you down in two huge ways. First, speech. These phones respond to basic commands — “Call,” “Text,” “Find” (on the Web), “Note” and “Open” (an app) — but crudely; they don’t even recognize punctuation. Worse, you can’t talk-to-type, as you can on Android and Apple phones. Dictation is a core feature on phones that have no keyboards. You can’t just leave that out. Second, apps. Microsoft says that its phone store now stocks 120,000 apps. That’s great progress — but soooo many important apps are among the missing. Microsoft and its partners are teetering on the edge. Excellence has been attained; now it’s up to market forces. If the wind blows one way, they’ll rack up a few percentage points of market share (now at 4 percent). If it blows the other way, though, Windows Phone will fade away. It will join the Zune, the Kin phone and other hardware efforts in the Great Gadget Graveyard of Too Little, Too Late.

Computers and the Internet
Windows (Operating System)
Smartphones
HTC Corp
Microsoft Corporation
New Models Design and Products
Nokia Oyj


Off-the-Field Scuffle for B.C.S. Contenders

Abstract: Bob Kustra, Boise State’s president, said that a claim by his counterpart at Ohio State that Big Ten and Southeastern Conference teams play a “murderer’s row” schedule “is the greatest exaggeration I think we’ve heard this year in college football.” Kustra angrily responded to Gordon Gee’s statement that Texas Christian and Boise State did not deserve to be in the Bowl Championship Series title game even if they went undefeated. Gee said of the power conference’s schedules, “We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor.” Kustra said of Ohio State’s last two schedules, “If they’re not playing the Little Sisters of the Poor, they’re playing the Little Brothers.” He also said most teams in the major conferences refused to schedule Boise State. Chris Del Conte, T.C.U.’s sports information director, said: “We only worry about our house and what we do at T.C.U. I’ll put our record up against anybody.”

Boise State University
Ohio State University
Southeastern Conference
Big Ten Conference
Football
College Athletics


On Sundays, Robert A. Caro Writes, Always Dressed Up

Abstract: Robert A. Caro , 76, has spent half his life exploring the vicissitudes of power , in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1974 biography of Robert Moses , “The Power Broker,” and in his monumental biography of Lyndon B. Johnson , now up to its fourth volume, “ The Passage of Power ,” which was published this month. Mr. Caro lives on Central Park West with his wife, Ina, whose most recent book is “ Paris to the Past: Traveling Through French History by Train .” He typically spends Sunday working. MOMENTUM Most Sundays, with the exception of football Sundays, I work, because I don’t take days off as long as I’m working on something that’s supposed to be all in the same mood. That could be a chapter or four chapters. Then we take a long vacation. I don’t work all that hard. If I’ve finished a chapter or section and I’m taking a day off and it’s a Sunday, we start by going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. RARING TO GO If things are going well, if the writing’s coming along, I jump out of bed happy. And if the previous day has been bad, I get out of bed disgruntled. But I always remember Ernest Hemingway’s advice to writers: always quit for the day when you know what the next sentence is. If it’s coming near the end of a chapter and I’m really getting into it, I tend to get up earlier and earlier, just because I’m excited to get to work. So Ina will say to me, do you know what time it is? And I often don’t want to know what time it is because it’s too early. I don’t want to see the first digit on the alarm clock. TO THE OFFICE I have an office on 57th Street that I’ve had for 22 years now. I generally walk through the park. What I’m doing on that walk is composing the first paragraph or paragraphs. I find doing it in the park, particularly if you’re doing it early and there aren’t many people around, really conduces to my thinking it through. FIRST CUSTOMER The doormen on Sunday aren’t the regular doormen, but they know me. Sometimes I say, Am I your only customer? And they’ll say, So far. It’s empty. You have a feeling of emptiness. You go up to your floor, it’s very silent, there’s no people in the other offices. It’s a terrific feeling. Like, no one’s going to bother you, and that you’re really there to work. SUITING UP Whenever I go to work I wear a jacket and a tie, because I’m inherently quite lazy, and my books take so long to do, and my publishers don’t bug me, so it’s so easy to fool yourself into thinking you’re working harder than you really are. So I do everything possible to make myself remember this is a job I’m going to, and I have to produce every day. The tie and the jacket are part of that. KNOWING WHEN TO STOP I don’t have a set time that I quit. Sometimes you’re really rolling along. I’ve learned to say, stop. I have a minimum of a thousand words. I used to work very long hours. Then I started to realize that the stuff that I was writing in the late afternoons, I was generally throwing out. So I quit earlier than I used to. SUMMER BREAK We have a house on Long Island, so out there the difference is that I had trucked in a prefabricated shack, which is set in the woods behind my house, so I go there on Sundays. It’s a 12-by-15 prefabricated shack, and I go out there with a thermos and a bagel. QUITTING TIME I call Ina. If she’s home, she’ll enter the park at 69th Street and we meet halfway. If it’s nice enough we’ll wander around the park, and if not, we’ll walk home together. Usually we’ll go out to dinner with another couple. We tape “Mad Men” and “The Killing,” but we generally have to catch up with it later in the week. RELINQUISHING POWER I finish what I have to do in the office. I don’t want to have to think about Lyndon Johnson at home, because I wake up in the night thinking about it. But I make a conscious effort not to talk about Lyndon Johnson.

Caro Robert A
Books and Literature
Writing and Writers
Central Park (NYC)
Johnson Lyndon Baines


Roger Federer and Andy Murray Need Five Sets to Reach Wimbledon Semifinals

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — For fans in Centre Court at Wimbledon on Wednesday, it was ecstasy followed by agony. Around 4 p.m., the crowd was on its feet, roaring as Roger Federer won an electrifying tiebreaker to force a fifth set after trailing Marin Cilic by two sets to none in their quarterfinal match. About four hours later, the atmosphere was far more tense as Andy Murray tossed his racket and glumly walked to his chair to prepare for a fifth set after blowing his two-sets-to-none lead over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. But after more than seven hours of roller-coaster tennis, the Centre Court crowd could breathe easy with Federer and Murray, Wimbledon’s favorite sons, safely in the semifinals. Federer conjured a vintage performance, rallying to win, 6-7 (4), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9), 6-3. He set the record for Grand Slam singles victories with his 307th and tied Jimmy Connors for most Wimbledon wins (84). The second-seeded Murray prevailed, 7-6 (10), 6-1, 3-6, 4-6, 6-1, and will play No. 10 Tomas Berdych in Friday’s semifinals. Federer, the No. 3 seed, will face sixth-seeded Milos Raonic. “The crowd were unbelievable today,” Murray said. “They got two pretty good matches, as well, I think.” The last time Cilic and Federer played was in the 2014 United States Open semifinals. Cilic blew Federer off the court that September day, winning in straight sets and going on to claim his first major championship . For the first two sets on Centre Court, Cilic was once again bombarding Federer, hitting 12 aces among his 23 winners and losing only five points on his first serve. At 3-3 in the third set, it seemed all but over for Federer. He was down, 0-40, facing three break points. He saved them all, then broke Cilic in the next game when Cilic double-faulted. Image On Centre Court, Andy Murray defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 7-6 (10), 6-1, 3-6, 4-6, 6-1. Credit Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Suddenly, Federer was serving for the set, an opportunity he did not waste. He started the game with an ace and ended it with a backhand winner. Federer lived dangerously in the fourth set. Cilic had two break points at 1-2 and faced a second serve on each, but did not get either return in play. Those were the shots, Cilic said, he regretted the most. Federer saved match points when serving at 4-5 and at 5-6. “I remember just being in trouble the whole time,” Federer said. “At one point, you’re used to it. It’s not like, ‘Oh, my God, all of a sudden there’s a match point, all of a sudden there’s a break point to save.’ It just was continuous.” That best described the dramatic fourth-set tiebreaker. With Cilic serving at 3-4, Federer challenged a return that was called long. The video review found it to be in by a sliver, giving Federer a 5-3 lead and two serves on his racket. He gained two set points at 6-4 and blew the first with a tight forehand that went long. Cilic hit an ace to save the second. Cilic got a third match point at 7-6, and again faced a second serve from Federer. But he dumped the return into the net. Federer needed three more set points to put it away. By the fifth set, Federer’s serve was in a groove. He did not face a break point in the fifth, hit seven aces and won 84 percent of his first-serve points. Cilic saved one break point at 2-3, but Federer gained two more at 3-4 with forehand winners, converting the second to serve for the match. And with his 26th and 27th aces, he completed the comeback. “When you’re down two sets to love, three-all, love-40, it’s a moment when it’s not in your control anymore,” Federer said. “But I fought, I tried, I believed.” Murray and Tsonga played an exhilarating tiebreaker of their own in the first set, with two aces and 10 winners across 22 points, including a 20-shot rally that Tsonga won with a backhand volley winner. Murray seemed to seize control in a second-set rout, but Tsonga raised his level, collecting nine aces among 29 winners in the third and fourth sets. To force a fifth set, Tsonga saved three break points a 3-4, and broke Murray in the next game with back-to-back winners down the line. “He came up with some really good stuff when he needed it,” Murray said. Murray saved a break point in the first game of the fifth set, and after the crucial hold, he walked off the court for the changeover, waving a finger at his box and appearing to say, “No way I’m losing this match.” He rolled from there, losing only two points on his serve the rest of the match and breaking Tsonga twice. “The finish line was far tonight,” Tsonga said. “I came back strong on the third and fourth, but I didn’t play well in the fifth.” Murray has won his last six five-set matches and has a 23-7 record in his career in five-setters. “Physically, you’re strong, that helps for sure,” Murray said. “But mentally, you know, today was a tough match. It would have been easy to have gotten very down on myself in that fifth set after the way the fourth set ended. I was happy with that.” In the fourth round, Raonic had his own five-set adventure, coming back from two sets down to defeat David Goffin. But he considered his 6-4, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 quarterfinal victory over Sam Querrey his best match of the tournament. Raonic’s serve hit 140 miles per hour, and he won 87 percent of his first-serve points, facing only two break points in the match. In a nod to the influence of John McEnroe, who joined Raonic’s team as a coach a few weeks ago, Raonic also served and volleyed 42 times, winning 33 of those points. A 25-year-old Canadian, Raonic is seeking his first Grand Slam final. He said his “simple goal” for this tournament was to win it. Friday’s semifinal will be a rematch of a 2014 semifinal here, which Federer won, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Raonic also reached the semifinals of the Australian Open this year, losing to Murray in five sets. “I think I’m definitely a step further along,” Raonic said. “I think my attitude, my mental prowess on court has definitely improved. Hopefully that makes a difference.” Murray’s semifinal opponent, Tomas Berdych, has also been left unfulfilled at the Grand Slam level. He advanced to his sixth major semifinal, defeating Lucas Pouille, 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-2, but he has only played one Grand Slam final, at Wimbledon in 2010. That year Berdych beat Federer and Novak Djokovic before losing to Rafael Nadal in the final. “That was the first time which I show myself that I can play well for two weeks,” Berdych, 30, said. “I can beat the best guys not only at the beginning of the tournament, but also in the later stages. That’s just the few things that I’m going to try to focus on.” As much as anyone, Murray has thwarted Berdych’s hopes, beating him in the semifinals at the 2012 United States Open and the 2015 Australian Open. “In the end of the day, the most important thing is that you can stand and say, ‘O.K., I’ve tried everything that I possibly can,’” Berdych said of his Grand Slam quest.

Tennis
Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon
Marin Cilic
Roger Federer
Andy Murray
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga


Case for New Trial for Johnny Hincapie in Subway Murder Centers on Witnesses

Abstract: Mariluz Santana was standing on a subway platform in Manhattan in September 1990 when she witnessed six young men rob some tourists from Utah, an infamous crime in which Brian Watkins was fatally stabbed as he tried to protect his mother. Ms. Santana, a 45-year-old hospital worker who was 20 at the time, knew one of the attackers, but she never went to the police, not even the next day when she learned from news reports that another boy she knew, Johnny Hincapie, had been arrested. Her mother told her to stay quiet. “When I seen Johnny’s face I said, ‘Ma, he wasn’t even there, why would they arrest him?’ ” Ms. Santana testified recently. “So my mother said, ‘Mi hija, don’t get involved in that. Leave things as they are and let the cops take care of it.’ I said, ‘Ma, he wasn’t there.’ ”Ms. Santana came forward only a quarter-century later, in late March. She had read in the newspaper that Mr. Hincapie, 42, after serving two decades in prison, was seeking to have his murder conviction overturned. The testimony of Ms. Santana — and whether it would have made a difference in the original trial — was at the heart of closing arguments on Tuesday before Justice Eduardo Padro, who has been hearing evidence since February to determine if a new trial is warranted. Mr. Hincapie’s lawyer, Ronald L. Kuby, said Ms. Santana’s testimony exonerates his client and constitutes enough new evidence to overturn his conviction. “If you believe Mariluz Santana, the case is basically over,” he told Justice Padro in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. But Eugene R. Hurley III, a senior Manhattan prosecutor, said the crime scene had been chaotic and Ms. Santana had started to run as soon as the violence started. The fact she did not spot Mr. Hincapie on the platform does not mean he was not there, Mr. Hurley argued. In addition, Mr. Hurley said, some details of Ms. Santana’s account differ from what the victims recalled at trial. “It’s clear she doesn’t perceive the incident accurately,” he said. “She misperceived the event or, frankly, she just doesn’t remember that well.” Mr. Hincapie watched with a pained and confused expression as Mr. Hurley spoke. A few feet away, his parents sat close together in the front row, hands entwined, his mother rocking with worry, his father with his eyes closed tight, as if praying. The murder of Mr. Watkins on Sept. 1, 1990, galvanized public outrage over violent crime in New York, fueling calls for aggressive policing. The Watkins family was in town for the United States Open tennis tournament. The attackers were teenagers from Queens who said they needed money for a night of dancing at the Roseland Ballroom. Mr. Hincapie, who confessed the next day to taking part, was one of seven young men convicted of felony murder of Mr. Watkins in two separate trials. New York law holds everyone who takes part in a mugging responsible when a victim dies. He was given 25 years to life and is up for parole next year. But Mr. Hincapie now maintains that he gave a false confession because a detective beat him, an ordeal he recounted tearfully on the stand in February. He testified that he was walking down an escalator to the platform when the murder happened. He had been in the subway station looking for a friend who had his wallet, he said. Another witness, Luis Montero, who was also arrested in the case but later had charges dismissed, testified that Mr. Hincapie was upstairs at the turnstiles just before the mugging took place, flirting with two girls. He said Mr. Hincapie had started down an escalator when the screaming erupted below. Another man convicted in the attack, Anthony Anderson, also took the stand to say he did not recall Mr. Hincapie’s being on the platform when one of the teenagers stabbed Mr. Watkins in the chest. Mr. Hurley argued that Mr. Hincapie’s account — the prosecutor called it “newly minted” — made no sense, since the escalator was going up at the time. He also stressed that the three men convicted with Mr. Hincapie — Pascal Carpenter, Emiliano Fernandez and Ricardo Nova — told the police that he had participated in the robbery. The prosecutor also argued that Mr. Hincapie’s lawyers could have called Mr. Montero as witness at the first trial and did not. The testimony of Mr. Anderson and Ms. Santana, even if construed as new evidence, does not outweigh Mr. Hincapie’s confession and the statements of his three co-defendants, Mr. Hurley said. “Neither of these pieces of testimony would probably change the verdict,” he said. Justice Padro said he would render a decision on Aug. 18.

Johnny Hincapie
Murders and Homicides
Mariluz Santana
False arrest
Witness
Brian Watkins
Confessions


Dallas Looking at Ways to Reduce Its Trash

Abstract: If J. R. Ewing can quit smoking and promote solar energy , anything is possible in Dallas, environmental advocates say, even an ambitious plan to have the city recycling nearly all of its garbage by 2040. “If Dallas can have a zero-waste plan, any city can,” said Zac Trahan, the Dallas program manager at Texas Campaign for the Environment , a group challenging the city’s reputation for big oil, big cars and big sprawl. “It can really be a huge opportunity to move toward a more sustainable Texas.” Before the last of the plastic bags , crumpled papers and other urban tumbleweeds head to the recycling plant, the city will have to determine when to put into place the various steps of its plan, which the Dallas City Council formally adopted on Aug. 22. It will also have to address the lingering concerns of advocacy groups and business interests, like unintended environmental consequences and unfinanced mandates. Dallas is only the second Texas city to pass such a plan; the goal of Austin’s plan, approved in 2008, is to have the city recycling 90 percent of its solid waste by 2040. Dallas plans to redirect 84 percent of the trash that currently heads to landfills. The plan notes that “Zero Waste” refers to an effort to recycle or reuse material whenever possible. According to the plan, the remaining 16 percent of solid waste is material that cannot currently be recycled or reused. Houston has not passed a zero-waste plan, but city officials are also re-evaluating how to deal with its trash. Laura Spanjian, the director of Houston’s Office of Sustainability, said the city has already taken steps similar to those outlined in the Dallas plan, including expanding recycling services and introducing mandatory yard waste composting and pilot programs for business and multifamily unit recycling. It is also exploring other environmentally friendly ideas. Dallas produces 2.2 million tons of solid waste a year, including 1.7 million tons from places that often do not recycle, like apartment buildings and businesses, according to a memo from Forest Turner, an assistant city manager. With Dallas’s population expected to grow by 40 percent in the next decade, the city’s landfill options are narrowing. The plan originally included specific timelines for introduction of various steps, which include mandatory recycling service at apartments and businesses, composting programs and possibly bans on plastic bags and polystyrene, the material used in foam coffee cups, among other things. Councilwoman Linda Koop made a motion to remove timelines from the plan after controversy arose over some of its specifics and the amount of public comment that went into drafting them. Now that the timelines have been excluded, the next steps involve redrafting steps with more opportunities for people to weigh in. “We’re going to come back to the council with a two-year plan of action,” Mr. Turner said. “We’re going to make a robust effort to get public input.” That includes from the apartment industry, which Kathy Carlton, director of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas, said has “concerns with government mandates that would cost our industry money.” Ms. Carlton said apartment complexes must contract out for garbage collection and that recycling was sometimes more expensive. “Recycling in apartments is very difficult for us, because you have to educate residents or you end up paying for contaminated recycling containers,” she said. Environmental advocates like Mr. Trahan also have some concerns, including how long it might take to put the plan into place and whether the plan would allow for the incineration of trash, something not usually considered part of a zero-waste initiative. Mr. Trahan said his organization would push for shorter-term timelines, a plan that does not include incineration and more public comment. “It all depends on what happens next,” he said. “This could be really huge for Dallas and Texas.”

Waste Materials and Disposal
Recycling of Waste Materials
Population
Dallas (Tex)
Texas


Poland’s Prime Minister Says He Won’t Dismiss Officials Caught on Leaked Tapes

Abstract: WARSAW — Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland said Monday that he would not dismiss any of the ministers whose bluntly political and occasionally profane conversations were caught on tape in the back rooms of expensive Warsaw restaurants, unless they are caught engaging in illegal behavior. Instead, Mr. Tusk said, the government would focus on uncovering the “criminal gang” that had made the illegal recordings, the transcripts of which have appeared in recent issues of a weekly Warsaw newspaper. The newspaper, Wprost, said it did not know who made the tapes over the course of more than a year. In a separate news conference, Poland’s president, Bronislaw Komorowski, said he lacked the authority to replace Mr. Tusk’s government without parliamentary approval, though he was critical of the vulgar language on the tapes. Opposition leaders charged that the two leaders, both members of the governing party, were trying to slip the embarrassing scandal under the rug, and they vowed to push for a vote of “no confidence” in Parliament. “We are dealing with an unprecedented type of political crisis,” Mr. Tusk said.

Donald Tusk
Poland
Wiretapping Eavesdropping
Bronislaw Komorowski
Warsaw
Audio Recordings
Downloads and Streaming


Congressman in Drug Case Resigns Seat in Florida

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Representative Trey Radel, Republican of Florida, who pleaded guilty in November to a misdemeanor charge of buying 3.5 grams of cocaine and was sentenced to a year of probation, resigned from Congress effective Monday evening. Mr. Radel, 37, a freshman legislator, quietly returned to Congress in January after nearly a month at a private rehabilitation center in Naples, Fla., but he announced his resignation plans on Monday morning. Referring to his “personal struggles,” Mr. Radel wrote to Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, “While I have dealt with those issues on a personal level, it is my belief that professionally I cannot fully and effectively serve as a United States representative to the place I love and call home, Southwest Florida.” When he was arrested, in Washington, Mr. Radel said he struggled “with the disease of alcoholism.” His plan to resign was first reported by Politico . In his letter, Mr. Radel thanked his colleagues for their “tremendous support and encouragement.” “As an eternal optimist, I know there are great things in store for our country when we find ways to work together,” he wrote. “Whether it is as a father, a husband, or in any future endeavor, I hope to contribute what I can to better our country in the years to come.” Image Representative Trey Radel of Florida in November. Credit Steve Nesius/Reuters Mr. Radel, a former television anchorman and conservative talk show host, represents Florida’s 19th Congressional District, which includes Naples and Fort Myers. He won election in 2012 with 62 percent of the vote. The district is solidly Republican, and his resignation is unlikely to benefit Democrats. But while Mr. Radel was still in rehabilitation, a growing number of prominent Republicans — including the chairman of the Florida Republican Party and Florida’s governor, Rick Scott — called for his resignation . Governor Scott, working with the office of Florida’s secretary of state, will set the date for a special election. Former Representative Connie Mack IV, who in 2012 gave up the 19th District seat for an unsuccessful Senate run, has been trying to rally support for another bid. Lizbeth Benacquisto , the majority leader of the Florida State Senate, is also considered a likely candidate. Paige Kreegel, a former state representative who finished third to Mr. Radel during the state’s Republican primary in 2012, had already declared a primary challenge to Mr. Radel, and on Monday commended him for his decision to step down. “I know the last several months have been trying for Trey and his family,” Mr. Kreegel said in a statement. “But today, he did the right thing for the people he represents and provided all of us a chance to move forward without the distractions of the past. The people of Southwest Florida deserve principled, conservative leadership.”

Trey Radel
Republicans
Florida
US Politics
Cocaine and Crack
House of Representatives
Congress
Drug Abuse
US


Bangladesh Arrests Opposition Figures

Abstract: DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladeshi authorities have arrested three senior leaders of the main opposition party as tensions increase ahead of elections early next year, an official said Saturday. The police arrested the three — Moudud Ahmed, M. K. Anwar and Rafiqul Islam Mia — late Friday, hours after an alliance led by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party announced its latest nationwide strike. The three-day strike, set to begin on Sunday, was organized to press Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit and appoint a caretaker to oversee the elections in January. The police on Saturday also arrested Abdul Awal Mintoo, a prominent businessman with ties to the main opposition party, and an aide of the opposition leader Khaleda Zia. Information Minister Hasanul Huq Inu said the opposition figures were accused of instigating attacks on people and property. But the arrests also highlight the resolve of Ms. Hasina’s government to crack down on the opposition and forge ahead with the elections by January.


Long Island Man Gets $3.4 Million for 17 Years in Jail

Abstract: Martin H. Tankleff, a Long Island man who served 17 years in prison for murdering his parents before a state appeals court vacated his conviction, will receive more than $3 million under a settlement of his wrongful imprisonment lawsuit. The settlement, announced on Tuesday, was another measure of vindication for Mr. Tankleff, whose life turned upside down in September 1988, when he woke up on the morning he was supposed to begin his senior year in high school and discovered his father bleeding heavily in his home office. Mr. Tankleff, then 17, called 911, and by the time the authorities arrived, he discovered that his mother was also dead, bludgeoned and slashed. Mr. Tankleff initially denied involvement in the murders and pointed to one of his father’s business associates. But during a long interrogation, a Suffolk County detective, K. James McCready, told Mr. Tankleff that his father woke from a coma and accused his son of the murder. The detective later produced a partly written confession that he said was taken during the interrogation. Mr. Tankleff rescinded the confession but was convicted in 1990 of murdering his parents, Arlene and Seymour, following a highly publicized and televised trial. He was released from prison in December 2007 after the appellate division of the State Supreme Court vacated the conviction, saying that he probably would not have been convicted if newly uncovered evidence had been presented to the jury in 1990. The charges were officially dropped the following year. The lawsuit, filed in 2010, represents the state’s share of damages for his wrongful imprisonment. The state agreed to pay $3.4 million. There is still a separate civil rights lawsuit pending in federal court against Suffolk County and Detective McCready. “I’d like to thank my family and friends who have stood by me for the past 25 years,” Mr. Tankleff, 42, said in a written statement. “I am looking forward to my federal trial, where I hope to expose the misconduct that caused my wrongful conviction so that it does not happen to anyone else.” The federal lawsuit claims that Detective McCready fed Mr. Tankleff the facts of the case and asked leading questions while taking his confession. Mr. Tankleff’s case became a crusade for many who believed in his innocence and came to epitomize the problems with false confessions. Barry C. Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, is on Mr. Tankleff’s legal team. Mr. Scheck said in a statement that the team had new forensic evidence showing that Mr. Tankleff’s parents were killed by other assailants.

False arrest
Martin Tankleff
Murders
Long Island
Belle Terre


In the Saddle, Police Seek a Bit More Trust

Abstract: MOUNT VERNON ONE hot afternoon last month, a few dozen children sat — or hopped, danced, squirmed and swung Hula-Hoops — in a park here. But when the two newest members of the city’s police force strode through the park gate, a hush fell over the group. “We need to have no loud noises,” said Patrice Cuddy, who runs a play group in Hartley Park. “The horses are very big, and we are very, very small.” In fact, Ricky and Hulk, the horses in Mount Vernon’s new mounted patrol unit, have been trained not to spook at the sound of sirens, air brakes, fireworks and gunfire. Commonly used for crowd control, the horses are unfazed by large, noisy groups, and they did not twitch a muscle when the children shrieked and raced into a line to pet them. The mounted unit has been patrolling a swath of downtown since early June, part of an effort to put police officers back on the beat, said David E. Chong, the police commissioner. The unit, which consists of three officers and the two horses with a third being considered for adoption, watches over an area in Center City that includes the leafy Hartley Park and a stretch of Gramatan and Third Avenues. Commissioner Chong said he had pushed to begin a mounted unit to improve community relations as well as to curb crime. “We have incidents of street disorder, disorderly conduct, large crowds gathering, youth-related robberies — sneakers, cellphones, basketballs — nonsensical, street-level stuff,” he said. “We have a lot of young people requiring services and attention. That’s where mounted police, bikes, high-visibility patrols come in.” Mayor Clinton I. Young Jr., who joined the commissioner in the park, said the mounted unit was not a panacea and was one of many crime-fighting tactics. “We are very serious about taking new approaches to address our problems,” he said. “Mount Vernon is not different from other communities in having problems, particularly gangs.” The mounted unit cost $70,000 to $80,000 to create and will cost $1,000 a month for each horse’s care, the police said. The start-up costs were covered by state grants and the Mount Vernon Police Foundation, which raised money from local businesses, including $9,000 from the Foodtown supermarket. That is why, officially, Ricky’s name is now F. T. Several mounted police units exist nearby — in New York City, White Plains, Westchester County, Rockland County and Nassau County. The Rockland Sheriff’s Department runs a training program that prepares and certifies about a dozen officers a year to ride police horses. Sgt. Kim Saucier, who runs the eight-week program, says mounted patrols help reduce crime. “Put horses in a crime area and see how your statistics change,” Sergeant Saucier said. “You have a police presence — not an officer that is driving by. People get to know him, they get to trust him.” In the park, Sederick Dawkins, 12, stroked Hulk’s nose. He said he thought the horses were a good addition to the police force. “It’s easier to travel,” he said. “If there’s traffic, they can just go straight through.” But Alisha Anderson, 9, said that while the horses were cool, she did not think they would help prevent crime. “There’s guns, shooting people, people robbing stores,” she said. “Some people are not scared of horses.” The mounted unit had not made a single arrest at the end of July, but the officers said the horses had broken down a barrier, drawing curious adults as well as excited children. “When I came here, the cops were not so community friendly,” said Commissioner Chong, who took over in 2006. “The No. 1 complaint was that the officers are inaccessible; they felt the officers were strangers.” As the horses stood flicking their tails in the shade, a heavyset man in a black T-shirt wearing a Walkman stopped to chat. Officer Stephen Dempsey, 28, answered his questions about Hulk. “There’s a big change in what they think of us when they see the horses,” said Officer Peter Sikoryak, 32, sitting astride Ricky. “People who would not talk to us, throw things at us, yell at us, now stop and talk to us.” The horses also help the officers detect troublemakers. “If they’re up to no good, they’re going to take off,” said Officer Denis Kelly, 39, on foot patrol that day. “If they’re not doing anything wrong, they’re going to come pet the horse.”


Judge Says Bloomberg Cannot Testify at Trial of Gun Dealer

Abstract: Saying that he did not want “a media show,” a federal judge ruled on Thursday that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cannot testify at the pending civil trial of a Georgia gun dealer accused of creating a public nuisance in New York by selling weapons that were later used to commit crimes in the city. City officials said on Wednesday that Mr. Bloomberg was almost certain to take the stand next month in Federal District Court in Brooklyn and testify against the dealer, Jay Wallace, at a landmark civil trial that the mayor himself instigated by suing Mr. Wallace and 26 other gun dealers in 2006. But in an unexpected ruling from the bench, Judge Jack B. Weinstein said he did not want Mr. Bloomberg to testify out of fear that his appearance would prove too distracting. “I’m not going to permit the case to turn into a media show on either side,” Judge Weinstein said in court to a city lawyer, Kenneth Taber. “I see no reason to have the mayor here. From the city’s point of view, he doesn’t add anything to your case.” Judge Weinstein’s ruling came at a hearing in advance of the trial, which is to begin with jury selection on Tuesday. Mr. Taber had been telling the judge that the mayor was planning to testify about attending the funerals of police officers and comforting grieving widows when Judge Weinstein disqualified the mayor as a witness and said that if the city wished to elicit testimony about police funerals, it would have to seek another source. “If we were trying a Guantánamo incarceration, I certainly wouldn’t allow anybody to call the president,” Judge Weinstein said. “I don’t see any reason for the mayor to be here.” The city responded swiftly to the judge’s ruling with a prepared statement saying that Mr. Bloomberg’s absence from the witness stand would not affect the outcome of the trial. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision,” Michael A. Cardozo, the city’s chief lawyer, said in the statement, “but are confident that the city’s other witnesses will be able to explain successfully to the court why the city should prevail.” John Renzulli, Mr. Wallace’s chief lawyer, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment on the ruling. Judge Weinstein, 86, rules his courtroom with a commanding energy that often manifests itself in unpredictable decisions and a distaste for delay. He has been on the court since the Johnson administration, is somewhat famed in Brooklyn for eschewing judicial robes and, over the years, has come to specialize in mass tort cases on subjects ranging from asbestos to tobacco to Agent Orange. In more recent years, he has been perhaps best known as the judge who overturned — with no immediate warning — the racketeering convictions of Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the so-called Mafia Cops detectives, who were found guilty of killing for the mob in the spring of 2006 at a monthlong federal trial. In that case, too, his intolerance for nonsense was on full display as several times he found it necessary to hurry along lawyers who were rambling — and, in a few instances, cut them off entirely and simply order them to shut their mouths and sit down.

Firearms
Decisions and Verdicts
Bloomberg Michael R
Georgia
New York State


Myanmar's Educators Reach Out to the World

Abstract: YANGON, MYANMAR — Yangon Technological University has come a long way since it was the site of anti-government student protests in 1988 that eventually spread across Myanmar. The campus has been refurbished and a sense of normality is beginning to return. Undergraduate students, barred for about a decade, are back, although they all must leave by 5 p.m.; they cannot live on campus. One important question is how the university is going to forge links with the outside world. Like many other universities in Myanmar, Yangon Technological lacks adequate teaching materials, research facilities and updated technology, all of which a foreign partner could bring. Nyi Hla Nge, a retired rector at the university, said he had written a letter to the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seeking to “establish cooperation.” As Myanmar’s government embarks on improving its higher education system, the possibility of assistance from foreign universities and scholars, whether in training faculty or rebuilding libraries has become a central focus. And foreign universities are pouring into the country to try to find ways to help. “Many, many major international universities would like to have a piece of the pie,” said Jacques Fremont, director of the international higher-education program at the Open Society Foundations , a nonprofit organization founded by the investor-philanthropist George Soros. It is providing grants for scholars to teach at the University of Yangon and the University of Mandalay and to help Myanmar build an electronic library database. “It is sexy now to say you have a partnership with a Burmese university,” Mr. Fremont said. “But the issue is: Will the Burmese say yes to everyone and then lose control of the reform agenda? Or will they be in a position to plan and say, ‘Here is what we need?’ The pressure is huge right now.” Foreign institutions say the Education Ministry is showing new openness. “Our ability to engage with them has quadrupled over the last few months,” said Andrew Leahy, a public diplomacy officer with the U.S. Embassy in Yangon who is working on exchange programs. In January, the U.S. Embassy placed the first Fulbright scholar in nearly three decades at Yangon University. In February, the European Union organized a higher-education conference with ministers, university administrators and foreign academics. The conference was “significant” because such “open and frank discussions” had not happened before, said an E.U. representative, who requested anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the news media. EducationUSA , the U.S. State Department’s outreach program for foreign students, held its first college fair in Myanmar in February. More than a thousand students and parents attended, as did representatives of almost a dozen U.S. universities and community colleges. Also in February, a delegation of 10 American universities, organized by the International Institute of Education , a nonprofit group based in New York, visited Myanmar to explore partnerships. In April, the institute released a report citing some of the problems in Myanmar’s education system. They included inferior physical infrastructure and technology, a lack of international ties and a political and economic system that is unable to fulfill immediate needs. “I think they feel a little overwhelmed,” said Carola Weil, who is dean of the School of Professional and Extended Studies at American University in Washington and was part of the delegation. And so do the foreign universities looking to build partnerships. While some commitments were made by the delegation, including financing faculty exchanges and helping Myanmar universities renovate libraries, many participants said there was so much need that they did not know where to start. “The situation is much more challenging than we expected,” said Denis F. Simon, vice provost for international strategic initiatives at Arizona State University. “We definitely want to do something here, but how big and how large will depend on the availability of funding.” Finding financing is a main obstacle even though Myanmar’s education spending has almost tripled from $340 million in 2011 to $1 billion in the current budget. So far, seeking money from outside donors has not yielded much. Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, is planning to open a center for teacher training and graduate education at the University of Yangon, but concrete plans have been put on hold until resources can be secured. “There is a commitment and a willingness to do this, but these things cost money,” said Pamela Cranston, vice provost for international programs at Johns Hopkins. “People are still reluctant to get into Myanmar yet in a big way.” The U.S. Agency for International Development began taking applications last November to finance higher-education projects in Myanmar. More than 200 organizations and individuals participated in an information session on agency grants in Washington in December. The European Union will also provide financing for faculty and student exchanges. Yet foreign engagement still requires government approval. “The government said how hungry they are to have scholars from the U.S. come and visit,” said Christopher McCord, who is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Northern Illinois University and also in the delegation. “We said, ‘You have to find a way if you want us to be able to send scholars where universities don’t have to go all the way to the top to get permission.”’ Improvements have come, even though in fits and starts, and in varied ways. The campus of Yangon University was spruced up a few days before a visit by President Barack Obama last November. More important, scholars from the United States are now allowed to lecture at Yangon University for the first time in decades.

Education
College
Myanmar,Burma
Foreign Aid


Mayor de Blasio’s Birthday Party Serves as Re-election Rally

Abstract: Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed a closed-door crowd of roughly 600 in a Brooklyn bowling alley on Thursday night for a birthday party that doubled as a fund-raiser and an early rally for his 2017 re-election campaign. To a room packed with supporters — lobbyists and actors, taxi drivers and public-relations experts — Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, pitched his run for a second term as essentially defensive, urging those in the crowd to help stand with him against the “powerful forces” arrayed against the “progressive change” brought by his administration. “These changes will not last if we are not strong and we are not vigilant,” he said, his voice stretching into a campaign cadence. “The billionaire class does not give in easily to a progressive agenda.” As he had done in his 2013 campaign, Mr. de Blasio incorporated his family from the start. His wife, Chirlane McCray, introduced the celebrity draw for the $100-minimum-donation event, the comedian Louis C.K. During his 14-minute speech, the mayor brought out his son, Dante, now in college, whose presence in campaign advertisements helped secure victory, and tousled his hair. The event was the first hosted by Mr. de Blasio, who turned 55 on May 8, since a raft of investigations into aspects of his fund-raising by state agencies, the Manhattan district attorney and the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York came to light starting last month. Neither Mr. de Blasio nor Louis C.K., who introduced the mayor, directly addressed the inquiries, though they appeared to shadow the event, which was closed to the news media. (Tickets were on sale to anyone, and a video was later made public.) The specter of those inquiries as well as the reality of negative headlines appeared to animate both Mr. de Blasio and Ms. McCray. “Despite the negativity, the feeding frenzy among the elite, there’s something I want you to know about Bill,” she said in her five-minute speech. “Bill never backs down from a fight.” Mr. de Blasio said he expected to face challengers during his re-election campaign. “And those other candidates will be well-connected,” he said. “They’ll be well funded. They’ll have deep ties to Wall Street and Albany and Washington.” Though the event, held at Brooklyn Bowl in the Williamsburg neighborhood, was never sold out, a spokesman for the mayor’s campaign, Dan Levitan, said more people had bought tickets than could be accommodated in the portion of the cavernous space reserved for it. (The bowling area remained blocked off from those at the fund-raiser.) Some came for Louis C.K., whose expletive-filled ode to New York as an “equalizing city” and Mr. de Blasio as the “nerd” and “goofball mayor” digressed into other curiosities of city life: train troubles and the ineffectiveness of 311; what parts of duck anatomy can be bought for consumption in Chinatown; and how Polish sandwich makers in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, make sandwiches (only one way). Others, like more than a dozen City Hall staff members, attended out of professional obligation. Beer and wine were free. A line for the food stretched and moved slowly. Bowling pins clattered in the alleys to the right of the stage before the speeches began. Conversation continued at a dull murmur throughout. Mr. de Blasio articulated a kind of campaign theme before closing his speech. “We’ve come too far to turn back,” he said of his administration’s accomplishments. “Now it is our mission to make it stick.”

Bill de Blasio
Campaign finance
NYC
Mayor
Birthday
Brooklyn Bowl
Democrats
Brooklyn


Unbeaten Princeton Women Take Seat Next to Kentucky

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — Princeton received a rare locker-room visit from the university president on Tuesday night after it achieved the first perfect regular season in Ivy League women’s basketball, downing its archrival, Penn, 55-42, at the Palestra for its 30th victory. Christopher L. Eisgruber, the Princeton president, who was among hundreds of fans who accompanied the team, wanted to make certain his student-athletes understood the magnitude of what they had accomplished, telling them this season would be remembered forever. Princeton finds itself in the heady company of the men’s team at Kentucky (31-0) as the only Division I teams to sweep through the regular season unbeaten. The Tigers previously clinched their fifth Ivy League title in six seasons and a bid to the N.C.A.A. tournament. The Ivy League does not have a postseason tournament. As much as Eisgruber’s visit meant, it was hard for the players to absorb everything that had happened since they opened their schedule with a 59-43 victory at Pittsburgh on Nov. 14 and defeated 16 nonconference opponents before storming through the Ivy League portion of their schedule. They entered the regular-season finale with an average margin of victory of 26.2 points against Ivy League opponents. “Thirty and 0 hasn’t hit me yet,” said the junior forward Alex Wheatley. “Thirty and 0 doesn’t compute.” It seemed so far-fetched that Blake Dietrick, the team’s point guard and its only senior starter, asked Annie Tarakchian, a junior, if she would be willing to bleach her hair if the team went undefeated. It was early in the schedule and Tarakchian, knowing the long odds, shrugged her shoulders and agreed. “Annie will have her hair bleached for the tournament,” Dietrick said. Courtney Banghart, in her eighth season as coach, set the league title as one of the team’s primary goals and readily acknowledged that a team dominated by underclassmen far exceeded her expectations. “It is hard to look at this team and say they should be doing more,” she said. The players, though, expect even more from themselves. For starters, they are intent on joining Harvard, the only Ivy League women’s team to win a game in the N.C.A.A. tournament. “It’s No. 1 on my list,” Dietrick said. “Second is probably finishing my thesis.” After achieving the highest national ranking in league history, the Tigers will learn how the selection committee views their accomplishments when their seeding is announced on Monday. Banghart expressed hope that they might be given a game at Jadwin Gymnasium, their home court, as a reward for their magical ride. Image Princeton’s Blake Dietrick, left, and Mariah Smith with the Ivy League trophy. Credit Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated Press “It’s not our decision,” she said. “We’d love to play at home. It would be special for the Ivy League, Jadwin and our players.” Whatever the site, and whoever the opponent, Princeton will need a repeat of its performance here if it is to gain the win it longs for above all others. The Tigers displayed their balance — one of their greatest attributes — and played with tenacity, particularly on the defensive end. Wheatley paced them with 17 points, and her 12 rebounds helped them to a 42-34 margin on the boards. Dietrick scored 11 points, and Tarakchian, who may not agree so readily to a dare next time, added 10 points. Sydney Stipanovich, a sophomore center, and Michelle Nwokedi, a freshman forward, each scored 13 points for Penn (20-8, 11-3). Nwokedi also grabbed 14 rebounds. Princeton held the Quakers to 29.6 percent shooting from the field (16 of 54). Penn connected on only 1 of 15 3-point attempts. “Their pressure was terrific,” said Kathleen Roche, a senior guard for the Quakers. Princeton had routed Penn at home on Jan. 13. But Penn, which denied the Tigers’ bid for the Ivy title in the regular-season finale last year, again proved to be a difficult opponent. The Tigers led by only 31-29 early in the second half before they stitched together a decisive 11-2 run that began and ended with baskets inside by Wheatley, a 6-foot-2 junior forward. Dietrick, a point guard and the only senior starter, contributed 5 points during the spree and drilled a 3-pointer from the left corner that provided a 40-31 margin leading to Wheatley’s bank shot inside. Penn had won nine consecutive games for the second-longest winning streak in the history of its women’s program. With the victory, Banghart was looking forward to the N.C.A.A. tournament. “It’s going to take a really good team to beat us,” she said.

College basketball
Princeton
University of Pennsylvania
Courtney Banghart


Offer Incentives, but Carefully

Abstract: Frank A. D’Amelio may be worth the $6 million of compensation he received last year as chief financial officer for Pfizer. But it’s questionable for the drug company to also pay him a $1.2 million bonus — half in cash and half in stock — for his role in acquiring its rival Wyeth. Rewarding executives for going shopping is daft. Executives typically need little incentive to enlarge their fiefs because managerial compensation and prestige are usually correlated with a company’s size. At their worst, such bonuses encourage empire-building and widen the gap between the interests of management and those of shareholders. The classic example of such an executive windfall, another that was unrelated to profit for shareholders, was perhaps Vodafone’s £10 million payment to Chris Gent for acquiring Mannesmann in 2000 for $160 billion. The wireless operator’s current market capitalization is only $118 billion. Pfizer’s purchase of Wyeth may turn out better, but Pfizer’s mixed acquisition record does not guarantee a home run. On the other hand, executives need incentives to sell. After all, a sale often means they lose their jobs. These bonus schemes also need to be designed carefully. Simple cash awards might encourage managers to seek a deal at any price. Forcing managers to take a hefty slice of their compensation in equity encourages them to seek a fat premium and discourages them from selling too cheaply. Even here there is the potential for monkey business. Managers may be tempted to parlay their position on one side of the table into a continuing, and more lucrative, role at the acquiring company, potentially to the detriment of shareholders. Incentives can only encourage, not control, behavior. Luckily, some people get it. Take Black & Decker’s chief executive, Nolan D. Archibald. On Tuesday he sold the toolmaker to Stanley Works for a 22 percent premium and ceded his position to Stanley’s boss. He also waived his right to an immediate vesting of his restricted stock and options, a payment of three times his annual salary and a tax gross worth more than $20 million in total. He does well regardless. Mr. Archibald owns 4 percent of Black & Decker. On that basis, the premium he persuaded Stanley to pay was worth some $25 million to him personally, and stockholders shared in the gain. That’s the difference between proper incentives and greed. Chocolate and Cheese Kraft, the Oreo-to-Cheez Whiz conglomerate, beat profit estimates for the third quarter but lowered its sales forecast for the year. That highlights the charms of Cadbury, the faster-growing British confectioner Kraft is circling. But Kraft would still struggle to justify making a hostile bid higher than its current offer. After Tuesday’s results, the food company, led by Irene B. Rosenfeld, reaffirmed its interest in Cadbury, but stressed that it would maintain a disciplined approach. Kraft said it would continue to deliver — with or without Cadbury. But acquiring Cadbury would help it on the growth front. In late October, Cadbury raised its forecast for revenue and operating margins and now expects sales to grow by about 5 percent. That contrasts with Kraft, which lowered its forecast for organic net revenue growth to 2 percent, from 3 percent. It still expects to squeeze out higher earnings, but in part because of a lower-than-expected tax rate. The quarter’s results don’t seem to be an anomaly. Since it went public in mid-2001, Kraft’s organic growth has averaged 2.5 percent while Cadbury has managed 5.2 percent, according to Credit Suisse. True, a Cadbury deal might look simpler today than it did when Kraft took its affections public on Labor Day . Rumored bids from the likes of Nestlé, Hershey or PepsiCo have failed to materialize. But for Kraft, the clock is ticking. Under British rules, it has until Nov. 9 to make an official offer or walk. At 766 pence, Cadbury’s shares remain above Kraft’s bid of 745 pence, reflecting hopes Kraft will sweeten the deal. If Ms. Rosenfeld sharpens her cost-cutting scalpels, Kraft might be able to find more than the promised $625 million of synergies. But even aiming to cut costs equal to 9 percent of Cadbury’s sales justifies only a slight bump. With its higher growth rate and established presence in emerging markets, Cadbury makes a mouth-watering morsel for humdrum Kraft. Still, paying too much has the potential for indigestion — and angry shareholders. ROBERT CYRAN and ALIZA ROSENBAUM

Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Bonuses
Executive Compensation
Executives and Management


Video and Phone Subscriptions Bolster Cablevision’s Profit

Abstract: Cablevision Systems reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit yesterday, helped by asset sales and additional subscribers to digital video and telephone service. But the company, which agreed in May to be taken private by the Dolan family, trimmed its 2007 outlook for cable TV subscribers and revenue, citing “the expectation that the company will remain in a competitive environment.” Cablevision, which is based in New York, is facing increased competition as Verizon Communications expands its FiOS service, which offers video and high-speed Internet access alongside traditional telephone services. “The results suggest that Verizon is having an impact, but not a catastrophic impact,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. Shares of Cablevision rose 28 cents, to $34. The Dolans have offered $36.26 a share for the company, which owns Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks basketball team and the Rangers hockey team. The Dolans already own 20 percent of its common stock. Cablevision confirmed that the deal was still in the works. It requires approval by a majority of holders of Cablevision’s outstanding Class A shares not held by the Dolans, management or board members. A shareholder vote is expected in the fall. “There was growing anxiety that Cablevision’s long silence meant the Dolans or lenders had gotten cold feet,” Mr. Moffett said. “The fact that the privatization initiative is still intact would have been met with a big sigh of relief.” Cablevision said its second-quarter net profit rose to $317.4 million, or $1.08 a share, from $14.6 million, or 5 cents, a year earlier, bolstered by the sale of some regional sports networks. The company, whose operations also include Radio City Music Hall and the Beacon Theater in New York and the Clearview Cinemas movie theater chain, said profit from continuing operations in the second quarter was 43 cents a share. According to Reuters estimates, profit excluding a gain on the sale of affiliate interests was 8 cents a share, beating analysts’ average estimate of break-even. Revenue rose 12 percent, to $1.57 billion, just shy of analysts’ view of $1.58 billion. The cable operator cut its 2007 outlook, saying it now expected flat subscriber growth for basic video in 2007, down from its previous forecast of a 1 to 2 percent rise.

Cablevision Systems Corp
Company Reports
Cable Television


Taking Baby Steps Toward Software That Reasons Like Humans

Abstract: Richard Socher appeared nervous as he waited for his artificial intelligence program to answer a simple question: “Is the tennis player wearing a cap?” The word “processing” lingered on his laptop’s display for what felt like an eternity. Then the program offered the answer a human might have given instantly: “Yes.” Mr. Socher, who clenched his fist to celebrate his small victory, is the founder of one of a torrent of Silicon Valley start-ups intent on pushing variations of a new generation of pattern recognition software, which, when combined with increasingly vast sets of data, is revitalizing the field of artificial intelligence. His company MetaMind , which is in crowded offices just off the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, Calif., was founded in 2014 with $8 million in financial backing from Marc Benioff, chief executive of the business software company Salesforce , and the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. MetaMind is now focusing on one of the most daunting challenges facing A.I. software. Computers are already on their way to identifying objects in digital images or converting sounds uttered by human voices into natural language. But the field of artificial intelligence has largely stumbled in giving computers the ability to reason in ways that mimic human thought. Now a variety of machine intelligence software approaches known as “deep learning” or “deep neural nets” are taking baby steps toward solving problems like a human. On Sunday, MetaMind published a paper describing advances its researchers have made in creating software capable of answering questions about the contents of both textual documents and digital images. The new research is intriguing because it indicates that steady progress is being made toward “conversational” agents that can interact with humans. The MetaMind results also underscore how far researchers have to go to match human capabilities. Other groups have previously made progress on discrete problems, but generalized systems that approach human levels of understanding and reasoning have not been developed. Five years ago, IBM’s Watson system demonstrated that it was possible to outperform humans on “Jeopardy!” Last year, Microsoft developed a “chatbot” program known as Xiaoice (pronounced Shao-ice) that is designed to engage humans in extended conversation on a diverse set of general topics. To add to Xiaoice’s ability to offer realistic replies, the company developed a huge library of human question-and-answer interactions mined from social media sites in China. This made it possible for the program to respond convincingly to typed questions or statements from users. In 2014, computer scientists at Google, Stanford and other research groups made significant advances in what is described as “scene understanding,” the ability to understand and describe a scene or picture in natural language, by combining the output of different types of deep neural net programs. These programs were trained on images that humans had previously described. The approach made it possible for the software to examine a new image and describe it with a natural-language sentence. While even machine vision is not yet a solved problem, steady, if incremental, progress continues to be made by start-ups like Mr. Socher’s; giant technology companies such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google; and dozens of research groups. In their recent paper, the MetaMind researchers argue that the company’s approach, known as a dynamic memory network, holds out the possibility of simultaneously processing inputs including sound, sight and text. The design of MetaMind software is evidence that neural network software technologies are becoming more sophisticated, in this case by adding the ability both to remember a sequence of statements and to focus on portions of an image. For example, a question like “What is the pattern on the cat’s fur on its tail?” might yield the answer “stripes” and show that the program had focused only on the cat’s tail to arrive at its answer. “Another step toward really understanding images is, are you actually able to answer questions that have a right or wrong answer?” Mr. Socher said. MetaMind is using the technology for commercial applications like automated customer support, he said. For example, insurance companies have asked if the MetaMind technology could respond to an email with an attached photo — perhaps of damage to a car or other property — he said. There is still significant debate within the research community about the best technical approach and even what is the best way to measure progress. “We are excited to see them joining the fray in question answering, but we think the data sets they chose are not ideal,” said Oren Etzioni, a computer scientist who is chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence , in Seattle. In contrast, his laboratory is focusing on creating software that can answer questions taken from standardized elementary school science tests.

Artificial intelligence
MetaMind
Richard Socher
Startup
Silicon Valley