U.S. Approves Improvements for Implants

Abstract: Federal regulators have made business life a bit easier for the heart device maker Guidant by approving revised quality controls for its pacemaker and defibrillator operations. The move by the Food and Drug Administration spurred the stock of Boston Scientific, which acquired the Guidant operations a year ago. The agency’s action, which Boston Scientific announced yesterday, lifted the cloud cast by an agency warning letter sent to Guidant in December 2005 and should make it easier for Boston Scientific to introduce improvements in Guidant’s heart-regulating implants. And it raised hopes on Wall Street that Guidant could sell more of the highly profitable devices, which cost as much as $30,000. Shares of Boston Scientific jumped 99 cents, or 6.6 percent, to close at $16, in heavy trading. Boston Scientific, based in Natick, Mass., is not yet out of the regulatory woods. The company is still working to deal with a separate agency warning letter it received in January 2006, before it acquired Guidant. That letter chastised Boston Scientific for failing to collect, analyze and report problems that patients and doctors had with several of its cardiovascular devices. It cited hundreds of shortcomings discovered at six factories the agency inspected in 2004 and 2005. Paul Donovan, a spokesman for Boston Scientific, said that the F.D.A.’s approval of Guidant’s revised quality-control systems would allow distribution of four “minor software upgrades” to current Guidant products. The January 2006 warning is still holding up regulatory approval of two devices important to the future of Boston Scientific: its new drug-coated stent for coronary arteries, the Taxus Liberté, and its first stent for the neck arteries that carry blood to the brain, called NexStent. Stents are small wire-mesh cylinders that help keep blood vessels propped open after blockages have been removed. At the time of the January 2006 warning letter, Boston Scientific had hoped for clearance to introduce the Taxus Liberté into the $3.2 billion domestic stent market as early as last September. Now the company says it expects to be ready for federal reinspection of its factories by this summer. Based on F.D.A. procedures in completing such reviews, it was unlikely that the regulatory restrictions would be lifted before the end of this year, at the earliest.

Guidant Corporation
Food and Drug Administration
Defibrillators
Implants


TV, the ‘Old Medium,’ Holds Its Own in an Ad Spending Recovery

Abstract: PARIS — The euro is tumbling, government finances are teetering and consumers are trembling. Across much of Europe, however, advertising spending is recovering, with television, spurned by many marketers during the recession , leading the way. After a steep, two-year plunge in ad sales, some of the leading commercial broadcasters in Europe, including ITV in Britain, TF1 in France and RTL, which has channels in Germany, France, the Benelux countries and elsewhere, have reported big gains for the first quarter. ITV said the rebound was accelerating in the current three-month period and predicted a 22 percent increase from a year earlier. The jump in TV ad spending is part of a broader, global rebound in marketing outlays that has surprised many forecasters. After a disastrous 2009, spending was generally expected to show little or no increase this year. “Spending always comes back after a recession, but what we didn’t predict was that it would happen so fast,” said Adam Smith, futures director at GroupM, the media buying division of the advertising company WPP. Mr. Smith recently raised his forecast for global ad spending; he now expects an increase of 4.6 percent this year, having previously predicted that it would remain flat. The recovery remains uneven; as expected, China and other developing countries are performing better than more mature economies like those of Western Europe and the United States. Gains in Internet ad spending are greatly outpacing any improvement in newspapers and magazines, which remains spotty, at best. But the biggest surprise may be the performance of television, which detractors often lump with print as an “old medium” in Europe, a region where economic uncertainties are mounting. Even before the recession, many commercial broadcasters were struggling as audiences defected to new digital channels and the Internet, and advertisers diverted spending to follow suit. Then, in 2008 and 2009, TV ad revenue plunged about 20 percent across Western Europe, according to Screen Digest, a research firm in London. After such pronounced weakness, which was particularly evident in the first quarter of last year, it was easy for ad sales to show some year-over-year bounce. Analysts are cautious about the rest of the year, when comparisons with last year will grow more challenging. But they add that the apparent strength of the recovery also reflects some more fundamental factors. “Many big advertisers remain loyal to television,” said Vincent Letang, an analyst a Screen Digest. “At the end of the day, it’s about audience. Despite all the hype about digital growth, spending goes where the eyeballs are.” While free, mainstream television networks operated by companies like ITV, TF1 and RTL — the European equivalents of ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox — have seen their audience figures slide, they still provide advertisers with the best hope of reaching a mass audience in a single swoop, at the lowest possible cost, analysts say. These benefits are particularly appealing to marketers selling widely consumed goods and services like food and telecommunications. After cutting back sharply during the recession and watching the awareness of their brands fade, they have been driving the recovery in spending, Mr. Smith of GroupM said. “Market research has shown that brand awareness may have slipped during the recession,” he said. “It’s a signal to the marketer to go back and do some more brand advertising.” As ITV’s forecast shows, this effect may be especially pronounced this quarter, when broadcasters’ results will be bolstered by the World Cup soccer tournament, a showcase for big campaigns from soft drink, fast food, sports shoe and mobile phone companies. In France and Spain, analysts said, commercial TV channels have also been helped by recent government moves to reduce the amount of advertising permitted on public channels. These measures reduced overall television ad spending last year but contributed to the improvement in commercial broadcasters’ fortunes this year, analysts said. In the United States, the networks have been reporting strong increases in ad sales and prices during the “upfront” sales period, when they reserve advertising time for the coming television season. TV is also doing well in developing countries, where the use of digital media is less advanced. Worldwide, ZenithOptimedia, a media buying division of the advertising company Publicis Groupe, expects television ad spending to rise 4.4 percent this year, after a 6.7 percent drop last year. “Television is the core of advertisers’ spending plans,” said Jonathan Barnard, director for publications at ZenithOptimedia. “Even when they’re cutting back in other places, they are sticking with television.” The rebound in television ad spending is having a “halo effect” on other media, Mr. Smith said, improving the outlook for radio, billboards, newspapers and magazines. While forecasters generally expect the print media to continue losing ground to the Internet, there have been isolated signs of improvement. Last month, for instance, Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp., said ad revenue at the company’s papers in Britain had risen 10 percent in the first quarter. One of those publications, The Sun, has recorded “all-time records” in ad revenue in some weeks, Mr. Murdoch added during a conference call with analysts. Meanwhile, spending on Internet advertising continues to show substantial gains. ZenithOptimedia expects it to rise 12.9 percent worldwide this year, after 8.8 percent growth last year. The other big engine of global growth is Asia. Excluding Japan, which is still sluggish, ZenithOptimedia says ad spending across the region should rise 10 percent this year. For media owners, the big question is whether the economic recovery is sustainable. In Europe, this concern is especially pronounced, with some economists worrying about a double-dip recession. The fiscal austerity plans that European governments are racing to adopt could affect economic growth, prompting advertisers to pull back again. The belt-tightening could also undermine ad spending in a more direct way: In Britain, for example, where the government is the biggest advertiser, Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged steep reductions in marketing outlays as part of his plan to bring the budget deficit under control. “In the absence of an external shock, we have passed the low point and are inching our way back upward,” Mr. Barnard of Zenith Optimedia said. “But competition among the surviving media owners will remain intense for a long, long time.” One sign of the prevailing caution is a reluctance to raise the price of advertising. Outside of Britain, where higher demand for TV advertising quickly translates into higher costs because of the peculiarities of a highly regulated sales system, TV channels in Europe have generally refrained from raising rates, analysts say. “The visibility is still low, but the trend is more positive,” Philippe Denery, TF1’s chief financial officer, said during a conference call with analysts.


Airstrikes Kill 43 Militants in Northwestern Pakistan, Military Says

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani military said Thursday that its ground troops had begun moving into Shawal, the last area in the North Waziristan tribal region to feel the force of the military’s offensive against militants. The announcement came hours after Pakistani fighter jets pounded targets in the Shawal and Gharlamai areas of North Waziristan. The military claimed that it had killed 43 militants in the airstrikes, including 15 in Shawal. The claim could not be independently verified because journalists are not allowed access to the region. Pakistan launched its military offensive in North Waziristan in June 2014 under the leadership of the army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, who vowed to eradicate the last sanctuary of the militants in the tribal regions. Shawal, a thickly forested valley, was the last area in North Waziristan where the military had not yet made any inroads. At least 3,000 militants are reported to have been killed in the military offensive so far, according to Pakistani military officials. North Waziristan region had long been a haven for local and foreign militants, including Arabs, militants from Central Asia and Uighur separatists from China. Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa, the spokesman for the Pakistani military, made the announcement of the latest push in the offensive in a message posted on Twitter late Thursday evening. A senior security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the military expected to clear the Shawal valley within a month and a half. After clearing the valley, “we will be bang on the border, which we will be holding till 2019,” the official said. He said that new units of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force, were being established and that they would take over the border responsibility for the region’s security once the army troops pulled back.

Pakistan
Frontier Corps
Raheel Sharif
Federally Administered Tribal Areas


Thomas Hickey’s Goal Lifts Islanders Over Canucks

Abstract: VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Thomas Hickey scored the tiebreaking goal in the third period to help the Islanders beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 , on Tuesday night. Travis Hamonic and Anders Lee also scored for the Islanders, and Thomas Greiss made 31 saves. Hickey also had an assist. Linden Vey and Daniel Sedin scored for Vancouver, which got 21 saves from Jacob Markstrom. The Canucks tied it at 2-all at 10 minutes 52 seconds of the third when Sedin banked in a shot off Greiss from the corner for his 24th of the season. Hickey then scored his fourth goal 2:03 later on a drive from the point that appeared to hit a defender in front. Vancouver pulled Markstrom with 2:30 to go, but the Canucks were unable to score despite sustained pressure. The Islanders sit third in the Metropolitan Division, while the Canucks remain 8 points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Islanders took a 2-1 lead with 5:30 left in the second on a goal that required video review. Hickey threw a shot toward the net that Lee tipped off Vancouver’s Ben Hutton and just over the line past Markstrom’s outstretched glove for his 10th goal of the season. The Canucks nearly got even moments later, but the Islanders’ Calvin de Haan swept the puck off Greiss’s goal line after a scramble in front. Vancouver had a 3-on-1 earlier in the period that did not result in a shot before the Islanders went the other way on a 2-on-1, with Brock Nelson hitting the post behind Markstrom. The Islanders opened the scoring at 4:20 of the first on their first shot when Hamonic threw a puck on net from the sideboards that deflected off Hamhuis’s stick and past Markstrom for his fifth goal. Vancouver got that one back on the power play at 10:42. Vey scored his third from the slot on a rebound. The veteran defenseman Dan Hamhuis suited up for Vancouver a day after the N.H.L. trade deadline came and went without a deal for him. Hamhuis, who has a no-trade clause in his contract and is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, agreed to be moved to either Chicago or Dallas, but Canucks General Manager Jim Benning was unable to get anything done before the 3 p.m. Eastern deadline. Forward Shane Prince, acquired from Ottawa before Monday’s deadline, made his debut for the Islanders.

Ice hockey
Islanders
Canucks
Thomas Hickey


In Exclusive Club of U.S. Ebola Survivors, Kinship Is Sealed in Blood

Abstract: On Aug. 19, Nancy Writebol, a 59-year-old missionary who had contracted Ebola in Liberia, was released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, free of the disease after a period in isolation. Her doctors asked whether she would be willing to donate her potentially lifesaving blood plasma to other Ebola patients. Grateful to be alive and eager to help someone else, she said yes. She got her chance two months later, when Craig Spencer, 33, a doctor in New York, was confirmed to have Ebola, contracted in Guinea where he had worked for Doctors Without Borders. Other patients in the United States had been treated for Ebola since Mrs. Writebol’s recovery, but she was not able to donate plasma to them because they were the wrong blood type. (She declined to give her blood type, saying she had been told it could violate Dr. Spencer’s confidentiality.) “The doctors called me and asked me if I was still willing,” she said. “I have to tell you, I’m just really happy to have been able to do that.” Dr. Spencer is recovering and will be released from isolation at Bellevue Hospital Center when testing shows he is no longer contagious, a hospital spokeswoman said on Wednesday. She confirmed that he has been playing his banjo and riding an exercise bike. Also on Wednesday, New York City’s health department said that a friend of Dr. Spencer’s was no longer a public health threat and was being released from quarantine. The friend becomes one of 357 people — mainly travelers from West Africa, but also people taking care of Dr. Spencer — being monitored by the city for Ebola symptoms, but not under quarantine. Another friend of Dr. Spencer’s was released from quarantine over the weekend, leaving only the doctor’s fiancée still under quarantine, in the apartment they shared. Once recovered, Dr. Spencer will join Mrs. Writebol in the exclusive club of Ebola survivors in the United States. They know what it is like to spend days in isolation units, able to speak to loved ones only through glass or by phone, treated by health workers who are unrecognizable in their layers of protective gear. They know that they may be the antidote incarnate, holding the cure for another Ebola patient in their own immune systems. Some researchers believe that blood products or transfusions from an Ebola survivor can provide antibodies against the virus that will help a newly infected person fight off what is very often a fatal disease. Another Ebola survivor, Dr. Kent Brantly, released from Emory on Aug. 21, said he had donated blood products to three patients: Dr. Rick Sacra, another missionary; Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman; and Nina Pham, a nurse in Dallas who contracted the virus while treating Thomas Eric Duncan. Mr. Duncan died on Oct. 8; the others have recovered. Mrs. Writebol was a college counselor at Charlotte Christian High School in Charlotte, N.C., before she and her husband, David, a businessman, became missionaries in 1998, going first to Ecuador. Most recently, they were with SIM USA in Monrovia, Liberia. Like Dr. Spencer, who posted a photo of himself in full protective gear on his Facebook page, Mrs. Writebol carefully followed disease protocols, and she is still not sure how she was infected. “There’s so much going on outside of the isolation units,” she said. “You can come in contact with people that have no idea they have Ebola.” She began a course of an experimental drug, ZMapp, while still in Liberia, and completed it at Emory. She received a blood transfusion in Liberia and platelets at Emory, but not from an Ebola survivor. “There was no match for me,” she said. She said that when she got the call to donate plasma, she was not told who the intended recipient was, but she guessed that it was Dr. Spencer. His status as the first New Yorker to come down with Ebola — as well as his energetic travels around the city by subway and Uber cab in the previous days — had made him the focus of intense attention. She donated at a doctor’s office in Charlotte. As she was connected to the machine that removed her plasma, she thought of her faith. “The thing it made me think about was the blood of Christ,” she said. “That there is life in blood.” She said that Dr. Spencer’s parents had expressed their gratitude by email, but that she had not communicated directly with him. Her strongest memory of isolation is how lonely it was. She could hear the voices of her doctors and nurses and see their eyes through their protective gear, but nothing else. She was surprised when she discovered what they looked like after her treatment. Her advice to Dr. Spencer is to take it easy: “Give yourself time to regain your strength, and give yourself time to process all that’s happened.”

Ebola
Nancy Writebol
Craig Spencer
Blood
Blood donation
Quarantines


Traveling With Troopers Has a Price in Privacy Lost

Abstract: In January 2000, an odd little dispute spilled into sight. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband had just bought a house in Westchester so she could run for the United States Senate. During the campaign, she was protected by Secret Service agents, just as all members of a president’s immediate family would be, whatever their pursuits. And of course, the Senate campaign often brought Mrs. Clinton to New York City. Within the five boroughs, the Police Department’s intelligence division has long escorted and driven local officials of high rank, as well as visiting dignitaries, often in conjunction with federal agents. That January, however, Mrs. Clinton’s handlers informed the Police Department that they did not want police cars as part of her security entourage. The stated reason was that she wanted to keep a lower profile. The commander of the police intelligence division said this was a dangerous approach, The New York Post reported, and she was mocked by the man who seemed all but certain to be her Republican opponent in the Senate race: Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani . Whether or not Mrs. Clinton feared that Mr. Giuliani could track her movements, he certainly had the means to do so. He had the tightest grip on the police bureaucracy of any mayor in modern times. In the city and state, the executive branch controls the cars and the helicopters. Yes, they are meant and used for serious business. But they are also the toys of people in power. The ability to provide executive transportation and protection is not just the power to dole out favors to friends and rivals; it is also the power to know what they are up to. It is knowledge, coin of the political realm. Joseph L. Bruno , the majority leader of the State Senate, was permitted by Eliot Spitzer , the governor, to use helicopters flown by the state police. Then Mr. Spitzer’s office released records showing that Mr. Bruno was taking state helicopters to political fund-raisers in Manhattan. The state attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, wrote a report calling this an abuse of power — not by Mr. Bruno, for commandeering police as chauffeurs while on personal business, but by Mr. Spitzer’s aides, for revealing what Mr. Bruno had done. This week, a box of eight-year-old credit card files thudded into public view, apparently intended as evidence or reminder of Mr. Giuliani’s complicated personal life. The records, obtained by the Politico Web site under the State Freedom of Information Law, included the travel expenses of detectives who protected Mr. Giuliani on visits to Long Island during the early stages of his relationship with Judith Nathan, who became his third wife. At the time, Mr. Giuliani’s second wife, Donna Hanover, was also traveling frequently, and detectives accompanied her as well. Oddly, these and other police travel expenses were charged to the budgets of little-known mayoral agencies that had nothing to do with security, but instead oversaw services to the disabled, indigent criminal defendants and loft tenants. As a cover-up, such bookkeeping tactics make little sense. Someone trying to mask the tracks of Mr. Giuliani’s affair could have found blind alleys in the police budget where tens of millions of dollars are routinely spent in total secrecy. The accounts of the Loft Board were hardly a better hiding place than those of the police intelligence division. Whatever the reasons behind the eccentric billing procedures, no one has argued that a mayor should forfeit adequate protection — and any shred of privacy — simply because he is spending the night as a guest in someone’s home, compared with, say, traveling to give testimony in Congress. All this is only the top layer of skin, a reminder of what have often been the trivial pursuits of government intelligence. Mr. Giuliani has portrayed himself throughout his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination as a proven warrior against terrorism, invoking Sept. 11. That day, his public safety agencies did not have rudimentary mechanisms for communicating with each other or with the people inside the World Trade Center. It would have been easier for the Police Department to trace the movements of the mayor’s estranged wife than for the pilots of its helicopters to get in touch with firefighters inside the doomed north tower.

Politics and Government
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Giuliani Rudolph W
Bruno Joseph L
Spitzer Eliot L


Hunter Pence, With Quirks in Personality and Play, Spurs the Giants

Abstract: KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For most of last season, the San Francisco Giants knew they were going nowhere. They spent the entire second half below .500 and approached the final weekend with one goal: Do not let Hunter Pence leave town without a new contract. “If he leaves town, who knows what’s going to happen?” Larry Baer, the Giants’ chief executive, said in the visiting clubhouse after Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday night. “Then you get caught up in the swirl with all the teams, and you get into the process — you can talk to him, then everybody can talk to him, all 30 teams.” The Giants might have re-signed Pence as a free agent but saw no reason to risk it. Acquiring Pence in July 2012 had been a masterstroke for General Manager Brian Sabean, a crucial part of the team’s second championship run in three years. Both sides wanted the relationship to last. In one day of negotiating with Pence’s agent, before and after a victory over San Diego on the final Friday of the 2013 season, the Giants arrived at a deal on the phone in the office of Manager Bruce Bochy: five years, $90 million. “We hang up, and Bochy says, ‘Let’s have some wine,’ ” Baer said. “So Hunter, who doesn’t drink, really, is like, ‘I’ll have a sip.’ So it’s 1 o’clock, we’ve got a day game tomorrow, and we said, ‘Hunter, we’ll get you a car,’ and he says: ‘Oh, no. I’m good to go.’ And he goes outside the door, and he gets on his scooter. It’s like, ‘Hunter, we just handed you $90 million, and you take a scooter home?’ He says: ‘Oh, yeah! That’s the way I roll, man.’ He puts his helmet on, and vroom, off he goes with $90 million in his pocket.” Baer continued, smiling at the memory: “But that’s him. He’s a very cool character to have on the team.” Like most of the Giants, Pence, a right fielder, complements his quirks with talent. He showed that in Game 1 with a two-run homer to center in the first inning and a double in the fourth. The Giants rolled past the Royals, 7-1 , silencing a ballpark that had not hosted a World Series game in 29 years. Not that Pence noticed the noise, or its absence. “I say this, and I truly mean it: Sometimes in my mind, when I’m playing the game or our team is doing something good, it’s like an emptiness,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on around me. “And a lot of times my family will get mad at me because even if I’m watching TV and really watching the show, I won’t hear anything that’s being said around me. It’s just something that I have. It’s kind of a blessing and a curse at home. I get people really angry with me — but on the field, it works out good.” Pence hit .277 with 20 home runs and 74 runs batted in this season, making the All-Star team for the third time. He played in every game, as he has since the Giants stole him from the Philadelphia Phillies at the trading deadline in 2012. A year before, the playoff-bound Phillies had shipped some of their best prospects to Houston for Pence, who quickly won over the fans. He had a catchphrase — “Good game; let’s go eat!” — and became a spokesman for a local bakery . He was chairman of the Junior Phillies Club and a cover model , in old-time baseball garb, for Philadelphia magazine, which hailed him as “The Next Great Phillie.” But the Giants dangled a top catching prospect, Tommy Joseph, as the centerpiece to a deal, and the Phillies took the bait. Joseph has stalled in the minors, missing most of last season with a concussion and most of this season with a wrist injury. Pence, 31, has thrived. “He just loves the game so much,” Bochy said, adding later: “He’s my lowest-maintenance player I’ve ever had. I just put his name in the lineup and leave him alone.” As a player, the wild-eyed Pence is something of a curiosity, a skilled all-around athlete who somehow does nothing smoothly. He has a frenetic running style; a jittery batting stance; an awkward, choppy swing in the on-deck circle — and the ability to hit almost any pitch. He went 1 for 4 in the Giants’ 7-2 loss in Game 2 on Wednesday. “When you looked at him from the other side, you were like, ‘Just throw it up there,’ because you don’t ever know what he’s thinking,” said Jeremy Affeldt, a Giants reliever. “You couldn’t read him. He’s got an unorthodox swing, but you knew if he hit it, it was going to be hit hard somewhere. You just tried to throw it to your best spot and hope he didn’t hit it off your forehead.” With these Giants, of course, skill is only part of the appeal. They are a Bay Area phenomenon partly because of their distinct personalities. The Panda (Pablo Sandoval) and the Freak (Tim Lincecum) have been mainstays for all three World Series teams, although Lincecum plays a lesser role now. Catcher Buster Posey is the well-mannered, clean-cut superstar. The rotation has a Southern feel: Madison Bumgarner (from North Carolina), Jake Peavy (Alabama), Tim Hudson (Georgia) and the injured Matt Cain (Tennessee). Pence is the Reverend — or, as Baer called him, the Evangelist — a true believer who can rouse the team with a dugout speech, as he did in the 2012 playoffs, or pump up the crowd with a wrestler’s exhortation, as he has this season. “When he came to us in 2012, he showed what kind of leadership role he could play on the team,” shortstop Brandon Crawford said. “Buster may be more of a lead-by-example guy — quieter, he’ll talk when he needs to — but Hunter, he’s more vocal. He’s not afraid to take it up and give us a little rally speech. He’s fiery — and he plays like his hair’s on fire.” Pence, who has grown out his hair and his beard with the Giants, praised his teammates for their selfless approach. He credited the front office for embracing different types of people and called the atmosphere in San Francisco magical. The team and the player fit together from the start, with a bond worth preserving. “We have a group of guys that really care, that really love to play the game,” Pence said. “And it’s kind of our motto: to play together, play as a family and love and enjoy every bit of it.”

Baseball
Hunter Pence
San Francisco Giants
World Series


DeMint, Tea Party Hero, Leaving Senate

Abstract: WASHINGTON — With a disappointing election in his rear view mirror and a budget compromise he could never swallow on the horizon, Senator Jim DeMint , the conservative Republican from South Carolina who helped ignite the Tea Party movement , is leaving the Senate to become president of the Heritage Foundation , a conservative research group. Just two years into his second term, Mr. DeMint, 61, whom many in his own party partly blame for Republicans failing to win Senate control two elections in a row, announced on Thursday that he has opted for a platform and a payday that the United States Senate could never provide him. His resignation also comes as Tea Party followers in Congress face new pressure to pull back from their uncompromising views in the election’s aftermath. He will depart with the start of the new Congress in January. Come January, the occasional kingmaker, conservative hero and filibuster lover — he once forced the Senate to stay in town for a Saturday vote that he then chose to skip — will find himself with a space to continue his efforts to push the Republican Party to the right from the outside rather than the inside. His imminent departure to head a well-financed organization with significant heft in conservative circles will allow him to oppose even more loudly a big budget deal that includes higher tax revenues sought by President Obama . Mr. DeMint has been a loud Republican critic of a deal proffered by House Speaker John A. Boehner to address the impending fiscal crisis by generating at least $800 billion in new tax revenue. “I’m leaving the Senate now, but I’m not leaving the fight,” Mr. DeMint said in a statement. “I’ve decided to join the Heritage Foundation at a time when the conservative movement needs strong leadership in the battle of ideas.” In a parting shot — or perhaps warning flare — Mr. DeMint on Thursday suggested to Rush Limbaugh that Mr. Boehner might need to watch his back. When asked if Mr. Boehner was forcing him out, Mr. DeMint replied, “It might work a little bit the other way, Rush.” The job switch should have substantial financial benefits for Mr. DeMint, whose 2010 net worth, $65,000, was among the lowest in the Senate. Edwin J. Feulner , the current head of the foundation, in 2010 earned $1,098,612 in total compensation. A hero to many Republicans for his campaign fund-raising abilities, Mr. DeMint frustrated Senate colleagues by eagerly backing Republican candidates like Sharron Angle of Nevada , Ken Buck of Colorado and Christine O’Donnell of Delaware in 2010, and Richard Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri this year, contenders who proved too conservative to be elected statewide. Those losses set back Mr. DeMint’s effort to bring the fiery conservatism of the House to the Senate, though he did have a hand in electing Senators Mike Lee of Utah , Marco Rubio of Florida , Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas , who takes office next month. “The truth is that Jim DeMint’s philosophy on everything from Medicare to women’s reproductive rights, as embodied by his handpicked candidates for Congress, has been rejected by voters,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, who headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this year. Privately, so as not to inflame him, several Republicans also said Mr. DeMint’s departure would produce few tears among them. Mr. DeMint’s leadership PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, spent $5.48 million in the 2010 and 2012 elections, and out of 27 races that it stepped into, his preferred candidate won either the primary or general election 8 times. The costly Senate defeats, as well as Mr. DeMint’s proclivity for gumming up legislation on the floor, and his virtually nonexistent legislative productivity, stunted his chances for leadership in the Senate. Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, a Republican, will now be compelled to appoint a successor who would then run to maintain the seat in a special election in 2014, when Senator Lindsey Graham , the senior senator from the state and a fellow Republican, will also be up for re-election. Aides said that Ms. Haley was surprised by Mr. DeMint’s announcement. South Carolina is a small state, politically speaking, and almost every Republican member of the House delegation, many of them close to Mr. DeMint politically and personally, are possible fill-ins. Representative Tim Scott is a popular freshman from Charleston who is well known around the state from having served on Charleston County Council for 13 years and in the State House of Representatives for two years. The first black Republican to serve his state in Congress since the late 19th century , Mr. Scott could give Republicans a high-profile black member of the Senate, which has no black members from either party. Mr. Scott, who shares a political consultant with Ms. Haley, is believed to have other ambitions, including a possible run for governor. While a fellow Republican freshman, Mick Mulvaney , might also like the job, he does not have a close relationship to Ms. Haley in a job and state where such ties matter, and the delegation is expected to coalesce around Mr. Scott. What’s more, there are many Republicans in the state who would love to have a run at Mr. Scott’s seat. Ms. Haley, who said that she would not appoint herself , is most likely to frame her choice around her own re-election efforts. She is a ripe target for a conservative primary challenge. “Our state’s loss is the Heritage Foundation’s gain,” Ms. Haley said in a statement. “I wish Jim and Heritage all the best in continuing our shared commitment to America’s greatness.” The distraction of a new seat may well benefit Mr. Graham, who has taken some positions on immigration and climate change that have drawn fire in his very conservative state. On the Senate floor Thursday, Mr. Graham said that his state was losing “a great strong conservative voice,” and that “on a personal level I’ve lost a colleague and friend.” Their relationship, he said, at times was “playing the good cop, the bad cop, but we were always trying to work together.”

Jim DeMint
Heritage Foundation
Senate
South Carolina
Tea Party movement
US


How to Make Smart Gifts to Charities in Tough Financial Times

Abstract: IN December, Joe and Nancy Briggs sat down in their home on Lake Canandaigua in western New York to take a hard look at their donations to charity. Their investments, like those of almost everyone else, were shrinking just as the pile of requests from charities was expanding. “When things go down, no matter how much you have, you think you are poorer and therefore your tendency is to withdraw completely,” said Mr. Briggs, a retired legal-publishing executive. “The problem is that this is the time when you can do the most good, when you really need to give.” So the Briggses changed their giving priorities, at least until the economy recovers. What they devised was a strategy to fit the needs of the times. “We cut back a little on some agencies, like art galleries,” Mr. Briggs said. “I sent a note with each check saying we were cutting them back so we could give more for things like food banks , where they really need the money right now.” Over all, the worst economy since the 1930s has halved many stock portfolios. Bailouts have put bonds at risk of inflation. And even the best jobs no longer seem secure. On top of this, many prosperous Americans find themselves helping grown children and other relatives who are out of work through no fault of their own. A third of the jobless do not qualify for unemployment benefits. Many charities face not just tough times, but disaster. At some organizations, volunteer trustees, especially those on the finance committee, have grown accustomed to monthly projections of income and expenses that are soaked in ever more red ink. Nationwide, charities are reporting that donations are flat to down sharply, especially for organizations that rely on gifts of appreciated stock. This year, Americans are likely to harvest $426 billion in capital gains, less than half of the nearly $875 billion harvested in 2007, according to Citizens for Tax Justice , which calculated its own figures after the Congressional Budget Office decided in January not to issue its annual estimate. Universities and community foundations have seen their endowments ravaged, meaning they have less to give. The United Way, whose network of local organizations raises money mostly for social services, youth and health, has seen drops in donations across the country. WITH tax revenues falling, governments are tightening up on contracts with nonprofits and delaying or canceling new grants even though pleas for help are rising among social service agencies. In this environment, your past generosity makes you appealing to many organizations, regardless of what your investment statement says this month. As requests pour in, the combination of shrinking net worth and job uncertainty can be immobilizing. What’s a donor to do? For starters, think like Joe and Nancy Briggs. Instead of reacting, they acted, focusing on how to do the most good given the economy. Peter Frumkin, a sociologist at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas , says donors operate from either of two “master theories of giving.” “One theory is direct service to individuals; the other is change through advocacy and public education,” said Professor Frumkin, the author of “Strategic Giving.” “In tough times,” he said, “people tend to gravitate toward direct service because they want something concrete from their giving.” Direct service, he added, “is like buying bonds, and advocacy like growth stocks , and so in tough times donors rebalance their giving portfolios into safer investments.” Assuming you still have the capacity to give, three techniques you can consider are conversion, deferral and triage. Conversion is a strategy for those who have a multiyear pledge to an endowment of a charity that needs operating cash now. Endowments are intended to build long-term stability, but without money now an organization or other agency could be forced to curtail operations sharply or to close. In a conversion, you propose that this year’s endowment gift go all or in part to operating funds the charity can spend immediately. Because pledges can be enforceable promises, make sure that you get a written agreement that you are either reducing your commitment to the endowment or are extending the payment period. If the market has done more than just batter your portfolio, or job, you may need to delay your gift. David A. Handler, a trusts and estates lawyer with Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago, said that “a lot of nonprofits are used to hearing at this point” from donors who need some forbearance. The way to raise the issue, Mr. Handler said, is by noting that “my commitment to you remains intact, but I don’t have liquidity right now; when we have it my gifts will resume.” Some fund-raising executives may press for a more specific timetable. How long it will take for the stock market to recover is speculation, but Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc., told clients that he thought the market had begun to recover. He cautioned, however, that “our expectation is for a very muted bull market because the U.S. will not produce much in the way of capital gains realizations,” in part because investors have so many losses they can use for tax purposes to offset future gains. Julie A. Lucas, an assistant dean who raises money for Fordham Law School in New York, said that “people are really thinking more carefully about what they will support, and while they may have supported a broad range of causes before, many are now giving less to each or giving to fewer organizations.” Proposing to extend a three- or five-year pledge to seven years, Miss Lucas said, “can bring this sigh of relief, and they say, ‘That would be fantastic,’ because 9 out of 10 expect the economy to come back and they just need some extra time.” The third technique is triage: separating out charities that will not survive without your support, and trying to assess whether they are worth saving. Letting some nonprofits go out of business troubles many donors, yet it clears out duplication and inefficiency, as well as organizations whose time has passed. AS executive director of the Community Resource Exchange , which provides management and technical advice to nonprofits in New York City, Fran Barrett acknowledges that she has seen “quite a few” nonprofits that are “badly managed, not current, or offer mediocre services.” But these, she said, are far fewer than those that “are really providing excellent service, at very low costs.” Focusing on larger agencies, she said, “is like saying you only eat Italian food at Olive Garden. On that approach the local chef with his own place and passion for Northern Italian cooking would not survive.” She added, “Donors need to think carefully about scale because the larger-is-better model isn’t always the best.” Professor Frumkin, the sociologist, said few donors would openly risk letting a smaller nonprofit fail by withdrawing support. Instead, he said, they tend to change larger gifts into what he calls “nuisance grants.” “Individuals donors have a harder time turning off the spigot,” he said, “so they will send a small check, $100 instead of $1,000, rather than say no.” In a way, that sort of cutback is what the Briggses did. They cut back on organizations they thought would survive without their help or fail even with it, and focused on organizations they were concerned would be overwhelmed with need, like food banks. “This is the time people need the money, now when things are so bad,” Mr. Briggs said, “and whether you are feeling poorer yourself doesn’t matter so much as when money was really needed you were there to help.”

Philanthropy
Economic Conditions and Trends
Nonprofit Organizations
wealthpersonal


China Gains New Friends in Its Quest for Energy

Abstract: ATYRAU, Kazakhstan — On the northern reaches of the Caspian Sea, not far from this old Soviet town known for its oil and sturgeon, lies a vast new oil find, the biggest outside the Middle East. China was rebuffed when it asked for a stake 10 years ago. But when the pumps finally started this month , the China National Petroleum Corporation had won a share in the project, known as Kashagan, and President Xi Jinping was in the region recently to celebrate, another indication that China’s influence has eclipsed even Russia’s across the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. China’s urgent quest for energy is the main driver of its strategic interest in a region whose proximity allows huge reserves of oil and gas to be moved overland through Chinese-built pipelines rather than by ship through American-dominated sea lanes from the Middle East. In the long term, analysts say, China’s economic ties with Central Asia could liberate it from any concern that the United States could use its superior naval power to enforce a sea blockade, should relations ever deteriorate to the point of confrontation. Here in Kazakhstan, the most prosperous of the former Soviet republics, Mr. Xi formalized the $5 billion deal for Kashagan, which for the first time places China in a consortium alongside the big international players: Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and the Italian company ENI. In Turkmenistan, Mr. Xi opened a new onshore gas field, the second biggest in the world, one that the Western energy companies had been vying for, but that will now send gas through a Chinese-built, 3,500-mile pipeline that stretches all the way to Shanghai. In less-affluent Uzbekistan, China has become the country’s second-largest trade partner. And in energy-poor Kyrgyzstan, Mr. Xi was the center of attention at the China-bankrolled Shanghai Cooperation Organization annual meeting, pushing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to the side in the group photo. China’s increasing role in the region not only has surpassed Russia’s, analysts said, but has been buttressed by the United States’ waning influence as it winds down the war in Afghanistan. Washington, once eager to bolster the presence of big Western oil companies as a way to trim the power of Russia, has receded on that front, too. “China has a very good instrument here — a lot of money and very good conditions on credit,” said Dosym A. Satpayev, director of the Kazakhstan Risk Assessment Group, as he dined in an upscale restaurant in Almaty. “Russia doesn’t have that. The influence of Russia has decreased in the last 15 years.” Kazakhstan is a founding member of the customs union that Mr. Putin engineered in 2010 to try to knit the former Soviet states together in an economic community. But Mr. Putin’s pressure has failed to stem China’s rise, Mr. Satpayev said. In Kazakhstan, China is now considered the largest foreign oil producer, said Erica S. Downs, an energy analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Until the opening of the Central Asia-China pipeline in 2009, Russia was the biggest customer of natural gas from Turkmenistan. Now China draws energy from two fields in Turkmenistan, having outfoxed Exxon Mobil and Chevron to gain access to a lucrative site called Galkynysh, said Steve LeVine, author of “The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea.” “Now China has a second gas field in Turkmenistan, and the Turkmen leader is doubling down on Xi,” Mr. LeVine said. While energy was uppermost on Mr. Xi’s agenda, it was not China’s exclusive interest, said Altay Abibullayev, spokesman of the Central Communications Service for the president of Kazakhstan. “China’s growth is amazing, and we are trying to diversify the investments so that it can be profitable for both sides,” he said. Kazakhstan is rapidly expanding its Internet services, and Huawei, China’s huge telecommunications equipment maker, signed a two-year agreement to provide a fourth-generation nationwide network, the Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan, Le Yucheng, said. In strikingly warm language, Mr. Xi spoke at the Nazarbayev University in Astana about a Chinese-financed new Silk Road that would run from China through Central Asia to Europe. It is a theme that the United States used to invoke, too, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talking in 2011 about a north-south Silk Road that would connect the Central Asian nations to Afghanistan by rail and road. But little is heard of that now. In Mr. Xi’s vision, China’s east-west Silk Road is seen as a more natural fit than Mrs. Clinton’s notion because the Chinese route retraces the ancient trade routes. “This is practical cooperation,” Mr. Xi said as President Nursultan Nazarbayev sat next to him on the podium at Nazarbayev University. It is not all plain sailing for China in Central Asia. There are fears, bordering on xenophobia, some Kazakhs say, of a hugely populated and rich China, and the angst is particularly keen in Kazakhstan, a place of only 16 million people in a land larger than Western Europe. China was forced to accept the Kazakhstan government’s limits on Chinese workers. That holds back even more Chinese investment in Kazakhstan, said a Chinese manager in Atyrau. Whether Kashagan turns out to be a real prize for China remains a question. China has coveted the oil at Kashagan since it was discovered in 2000. Efforts by the China National Offshore Oil Company and Sinopec to join the Western-led consortium in 2003 were rejected because the founding companies believed the field would be so productive they wanted it all for themselves, said Edward C. Chow, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former executive with the Chevron Corporation. The Chinese revived their interest last year when Texas-based ConocoPhillips decided to sell its share back to Kazakhstan. At first, it appeared India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation would buy ConocoPhillips’s share. But at a meeting between Mr. Xi and Mr. Nazarbayev in China in the spring, the Kazakh leader said he preferred China to India, and he handed Beijing a prime role in the project, Indian and Chinese officials said. Although the early oil at Kashagan has begun to flow, the Western oil companies remain frustrated at the enormous technical difficulties caused by the depth of the oil in the seabed, and the high sulfur content of the oil, Mr. Chow said. The companies are also disheartened by the more than $40 billion expense so far for relatively low initial output of 375,000 barrels a day, he said. Yet, China is well positioned for a bigger role, including directing the oil to China rather than to the West when more production becomes available, he said. In Mr. Xi, Mr. Nazarbayev has another suitor he can turn to if the talks with the Western oil companies get tough. Indeed, Mr. Nazarbayev, 73, a former Communist Party chief from the Soviet era, appears to have cultivated a special relationship with Mr. Xi, 60, China’s new Communist Party secretary-general. They spent 14 hours together during Mr. Xi’s visit, including some informal sessions: breakfast as they flew between cities in Kazakhstan, and a nighttime get-together at Mr. Xi’s hotel in Astana, Mr. Le said. “They drank vodka together, and talked a lot,” he said.

China
Central Asia
Oil and Gasoline
Pipelines
China National Petroleum
Russia
Kazakhstan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Kyrgyzstan


State Steps Up Efforts to Collect a Sales Tax Owed by More in a Digital Age

Abstract: Line 59 is among the more disregarded blank boxes on New York State ’s income tax form. It is buried on the next-to-last page of form IT-201, inconspicuously near a line for charitable donations to a wildlife fund and one for a surcharge on part-time residents of Yonkers. First introduced in 2003, Line 59 — which requires residents to list the amount of unpaid sales tax that they owe on purchases from out-of-state retailers — has received more attention each year. But it remains largely neglected: Only 5 percent of the approximately 9.6 million residents who filed state income tax returns for 2006 listed anything owed on Line 59, according to the Department of Taxation and Finance. Now, lawmakers in Albany are stepping up efforts to collect state sales tax on the front end from out-of-state online retailers. The Legislature approved a measure last week that requires online retailers to collect state sales tax and remit it to New York State. The state estimates it will collect about $50 million from such online retailers. New Yorkers, meanwhile, are still bound to pay sales tax on the purchases of items that they use in the state — regardless of where the purchases are made, said Thomas Bergin, a spokesman for the Taxation Department. But the lack of attention paid to Line 59 comes as little surprise. “It’s kind of dense and nuanced stuff,” Mr. Bergin said of the law regarding Line 59, which is technically reserved for listing the “sales or use tax” one owes. “If you went out of state and bought something and didn’t pay sales tax but it is in your possession in New York, you owe the use tax,” he said. Though the “use tax” has been part of state tax law since the 1960s, Line 59 (actually Line 56 on older tax forms) evolved from the growth of digital-age commerce, as more and more items are being bought and sold across state lines via the Internet. The average amount that filers have listed on Line 59: $95.36. For those with lax record-keeping skills or no receipts from online purchases, the Taxation Department provides a use-tax calculator to help better estimate the amount of sales owed. In those cases, the estimated tax is based on a filer’s adjusted gross income and has a sliding scale that ranges from $5 for those with incomes up to $15,000 a year to $56 for those making between $100,000 and $150,000. The new law requiring online retailers to collect sales tax up front is more for businesses doing more than $10,000 a year in sales, like Amazon, rather than, say, an independent seller on eBay, Mr. Bergin said. One difficulty in knowing just how much sales tax is going uncollected from out-of-state retailers is that many of them simply do not report their sales in individual states. Of the top 10 online retailers doing business in New York, only two are not registered to collect state sales tax: the No. 1 retailer, Amazon, and the No. 10 retailer, Newegg, an electronics dealer, Mr. Bergin said. The Taxation Department said the state could enforce the new tax laws on major Internet retailers by proving that they had a physical “presence” in New York and, thus, were subject to tax laws and an audit if that presence were proven. Amazon, for example, is not required to pay the state taxes because it does not claim to have a brick-and-mortar establishment in the state, according to a 1992 United States Supreme Court ruling. But the state may challenge companies like Amazon that operate through an affiliate, Mr. Bergin said. “We are still reviewing the final language from Albany regarding the proposed change to sales tax collection requirements,” said Craig Berman, a spokesman for Amazon. “At this point, it would be premature for us to comment.” As for Line 59, Mr. Bergin said the Taxation Department had not conducted an audit based only on that item. But that does not mean Line 59 has not been considered along with returns that have other potential problems. While many online buyers do not identify how much they owe the state, the longer Line 59 appears on tax forms, the more people take notice, he said. “If you’re doing your tax form yourself, it would be hard to avoid entering zero at least,” Mr. Bergin said. “And if you’re using a paid preparer to do your taxes, they would be entering something for you. I wouldn’t ignore it.” Still, Line 59 remains a mystery to many. “I wasn’t aware of it at all,” said Chris Hernandez, 23, a musician who lives on the Lower East Side and plans to join the Navy. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.” He added: “In the past three days, I’ve bought stuff over the Internet — out of state.”

New York State
Taxation
Computers and the Internet
Sales
Law and Legislation


Viselike Defense Adds Teeth to Golden State Warriors’ Buzz-Saw Offense

Abstract: The Nets feasted on open jumpers and transition layups, turning one of the N.B.A.’s most unsung defensive units into a flimsy strip of cellophane. It was a remarkable first half of basketball at Barclays Center on Thursday night. But the Golden State Warriors have been fond of making adjustments this season. They love the concept. They have clearly adjusted to life together in the spotlight. And they have even proved capable of making adjustments on defense, an overshadowed aspect of their dominance — most of the time. Without Draymond Green, their top defender and self-appointed megaphone, the Warriors regrouped against the Nets, plowing their way to a 117-101 victory. It was not artistic — the Nets led by 16 at halftime — but the result felt familiar: another win for the Warriors, who leaned on defense in the second half and improved to 26-4. “Just the overall attention span was bad,” Coach Steve Kerr said. “The millennials struggled in the first half. But they locked in in the second half. They put their phones down and started to defend.” When the N.B.A. season was young, the Warriors looked awful on defense. Through their first six games, opponents were averaging 110 points a game while shooting 44.6 percent. Golden State’s effort at that end of the floor was cause for concern if not alarm. “Yeah,” Kerr said before Thursday’s game, “it was ugly there for a while.” But only for a while. It may come as a surprise to those who are justifiably obsessed with the Warriors’ scoring pyrotechnics, but they spend only half of each game on offense. The rest of the time they dabble in the more prosaic business of playing defense — and they do it well, even if Thursday’s struggle underscored the importance of Green, who missed the game to return to the Bay Area after the birth of his son. Entering the game, Golden State ranked third in the league in field-goal percentage defense (42.9 percent) and second in overall defensive rating, a statistic that the website Basketball-Reference.com uses to account for pace of play. Image Knicks forward Kristaps Porzingis (6) losing the ball between the Warriors’ Kevin Durant (35) and Green. Credit Ezra Shaw/Getty Images When the Warriors set an N.B.A. record for most victories last season, they ranked sixth in overall defense. “You have to go through that early part of the year where you’re figuring things out, and players have to get comfortable with one another — the schemes and the terminology,” Kerr said. “Our defense was not very good. It’s dramatically improved, but this is what we expected.” That the Warriors have a lunch-pail approach is a credit to their professionalism. Given their Cirque du Soleil theatrics on offense, it would be understandable if they simply showed up with the goal of outscoring opponents while putting in minimum effort on defense. Instead, they are treating the rest of the league like a bunch of piñatas on both ends of the floor. It is all the more surprising given the personnel moves the Warriors made in the off-season to clear salary-cap space to acquire Kevin Durant. They traded Andrew Bogut, their starting center, to the Dallas Mavericks and relinquished their rights to Festus Ezeli, a defense-minded backup at that position. Bogut and Ezeli, who ended up signing with the Portland Trail Blazers, were two of Golden State’s most effective interior defenders. How would the team compensate for their absences? Here’s one way. The Warriors are leading the league in blocked shots. They had 7 against the Nets, who shot just 38.9 percent from the field in the second half. Golden State also forced 26 turnovers, 18 of them after halftime. Green, a forward who has been waging a public campaign to win the N.B.A.’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, said the Warriors had a tendency last season to rely on Bogut as a safety valve. If a perimeter defender lost his man, it was understood that Bogut would be in position to clean up the mess around the basket. “You funnel someone to him, and you know he’s there to erase any mistake that someone makes,” Green told reporters this week. “And when you lose that, you kind of have to get used to not having that there. And when you’ve had that there the last four years, it takes a little while to adjust.” There was that word again: adjust. It took the Warriors about two weeks. Individual defenders are taking more responsibility — one point of emphasis has been keeping opposing guards out of the lane in the first place — and Green has operated as a roving defender, shadowing his own team’s guards in case they need help containing the ball along the perimeter. “He’s very protective and very alert,” Ron Adams, an assistant coach and one of the league’s most respected defensive gurus, said of Green. “He’s coaching and helping, and that’s what you need. You need players on the court who know the system.” Adams said the Warriors had also benefited from Durant’s consistent work on defense. Fair or not, that had never been his reputation with the Oklahoma City Thunder. “Kevin has always shown that he can be a really good defender, and perhaps has played up and down in that regard because of the offensive load he’s had on him over the years,” Adams said. “But his entry into the team has been pretty seamless.” The same goes for Zaza Pachulia and JaVale McGee, two centers who were low-cost signings over the summer — and two players who understand their complementary roles. The Warriors arrived in Brooklyn fresh off one of the most fearsome defensive efforts any team had assembled this season. In a 104-74 victory against Utah on Tuesday, the Warriors limited the Jazz to 35.5 percent shooting. Utah’s starters combined for just 25 points. But in some ways, it was a collective effort that merely felt like more of the same. Before facing the Nets, the Warriors had held each of their past three opponents to 90 points or fewer, outscoring them by an average of 29.3 points. For all the questions that the Warriors fielded before the season about whether they could find the right chemistry on offense with Durant added to the mix, their success is rooted in something altogether different: a commitment to preventing other teams from scoring much at all.

Basketball
Golden State Warriors
Brooklyn Nets
Draymond Green


Cities on Border With Mexico Burdened by Calls for Medical Help

Abstract: CALEXICO, Calif. — The calls come in thick and fast from the border, just blocks from the fire station here . A woman suffered heatstroke in line at the port of entry. A person detained by customs officers complained of chest pain. An illegal immigrant broke his leg trying to hop the 20-foot wall that divides Calexico from its Mexican twin city, Mexicali. In each case, the Calexico Fire Department responded. All along the Southwest border, from San Diego to Brownsville, Tex., local fire departments respond to medical calls as they would to any emergencies within their city limits. But such calls for medical assistance at the border have become a growing burden on the finances and resources of fire departments in cities like this one, in the California desert 100 miles east of San Diego. Last year, with trips to the port of entry and the Border Patrol station and others to assist injured fence-jumpers, Calexico firefighters responded to 725 calls associated with the border — a fifth of all calls the department received. Chief Pete Mercado said the department’s lone ambulance would sometimes make 10 trips to the port of entry in a given day. For many of those, he said, the department is not able to collect payment, while the ambulance is rendered unavailable for other emergencies. “It’s a very difficult thing for us to continue to do without some type of funding,” Chief Mercado said. “We’ve absorbed the cost for all these years. I can’t express how difficult it is.” Representative Bob Filner , a Democrat who represents California’s entire border with Mexico, introduced a bill last year that would have required the federal government to reimburse cities for the cost of providing emergency response services at the border. But with Congress struggling to reduce the $1 trillion federal deficit, the bill seems unlikely to pass. “At a time when every city budget is affected, the federal government should not be relying on local revenue to deal with these issues,” Mr. Filner said. “Unfortunately, there is very little understanding of the border situation in Congress.” Calexico is hardly the only city fire department strained by constant runs to the border. In San Diego, the Fire Department responded to more than 2,000 medical emergencies at border crossings last year. In San Luis, Ariz., at least 70 percent of the calls that the Fire Department receives come from the port of entry, officials said. A huge portion of the patients at the ports of entry or in Border Patrol custody have no health insurance, according to the fire departments, leaving the departments to cover the cost of care. In El Paso through the first six months of this year, the Fire Department collected reimbursement on 18 percent of the cost of calls to the ports of entry, compared with a collection rate of more than 50 percent for all calls. In Douglas, Ariz. , the fire chief, Mario Novoa, estimated that about 15 percent of the department’s calls came from the port of entry. Firefighters also offer medical assistance to people the Border Patrol finds in the desert, more than 25 miles outside the city limits. Chief Novoa called the collection rate on trips associated with the border “dismal” and “a burden on the taxpayers.” Not all calls from the border involve medical emergencies. In the area around Calexico, many citizens who moved to Mexico after the economic crisis of 2008 in search of a lower cost of living return to the United States for medical care, firefighters said, often calling 911 to get to the hospital. Others, tired of waiting in line at the port of entry, where the sun is a hammer, use the ambulance like a taxi to get across the border more quickly. “We do have individuals who abuse the system,” said Luis Cebreros, a spokesman for the San Luis Fire Department. Chief Mercado said without assistance from the federal government to help offset the cost of the border runs, he worries that Calexico city officials might outsource the fire department. Already, the federal government does cover some of the costs that local fire departments incur in responding to calls from the border. Some departments received federal grants — in San Luis, the grants account for most of the fire department’s operating budget, while in Calexico and Douglas, grants make up less than 10 percent of the budgets, according to fire officials. In addition, the federal government is responsible for the cost of medical care when a person has been taken into custody by customs officers or Border Patrol agents. In practice, however, fire chiefs in several border cities said they were seldom able to collect any reimbursement from the United States Customs and Border Protection service in such cases. “Sometimes the calls do originate from the Border Patrol, when the patient is in custody, and the bill does get sent to the federal government,” Chief Novoa said. “The fact of the matter is, though, we don’t recoup anything. You’d think it would be a no-brainer.” Officials from Customs and Border Protection declined to provide statistics about reimbursement for medical treatment of people in custody. In Calexico, each call — be it a heart attack or someone looking for a ride — usually ties up the city’s lone ambulance for at least an hour, as firefighters drive to the nearest hospital, in neighboring El Centro, and back. Sylvia Bernal said she worries that the delay might have been fatal for her mother. Eight years ago, Ms. Bernal, now 62, called 911 when her mother began complaining of back pain. The Calexico Fire Department sent a fire truck and paramedics, but they waited 20 minutes for the ambulance, which was on another call, to arrive. By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, her mother’s lung had collapsed. She died hours later. “I don’t know what would have happened if the ambulance would have gotten there in time,” Ms. Bernal said. “To have to live with this ‘what if’ for a long time, I don’t wish that on anyone.”

Fires and Firefighters
Immigration and Emigration
Budgets and Budgeting
Southwestern States (US)
Mexico
Ambulances
Border Patrol (US)
Customs and Border Protection (US)
Illegal Immigrants


Leicester Opens Title Defense With a Loss to Lowly Hull

Abstract: Leicester opened its title defense with a shocking 2-1 loss to newly promoted Hull on the first day of the Premier League season on Saturday. Having sprung one of soccer’s biggest surprises by defying 5,000-to-1 preseason odds to win the league last season, Leicester was on the receiving end of an upset after Robert Snodgrass smashed home a winner for host Hull in the 57th minute. Despite facing a club already mired in off-the-field difficulties, Leicester became the first defending champion to lose its opening game since the English Premier League began in 1992-93. “We made a lot of effort, but not as a team,” Leicester Manager Claudio Ranieri said. Hull, which secured promotion only through the League Championship playoffs, has been without a permanent manager since Steve Bruce left in July, and the club has been hit hard by injuries and fan protests. Despite that backdrop to its return to England’s top flight, however, Hull took the lead in the first half on an acrobatic shot by Adama Diomandé. Leicester equalized with a penalty converted by Riyad Mahrez almost immediately after the restart, but Snodgrass restored Hull’s lead for good. Image Adama Diomandé’s scored an acrobatic goal to help Hull beat the defending Premier League champions. Credit Craig Brough/Reuters It was a frustrating afternoon for Leicester striker Jamie Vardy, whose 24 Premier League goals propelled the club to the title last season. Vardy missed a string of first-half chances. He began by completely mis-hitting an inviting cutback from Ahmed Musa in the 20th minute. Mahrez pounced on the loose ball but could only send a rising shot into the side netting. Leicester nearly had a breakthrough when Christian Fuchs teamed with Musa for a close-range shot that was parried by Hull goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic. Vardy could not finish the rebound, and Mahrez followed up with a curling drive that flew wide. The chances kept coming, but Leicester kept missing. Two minutes before the break, Musa intercepted a sloppy pass and slid the ball to Vardy — who sent his shot skyward. EVERTON TIES TOTTENHAM Everton played visiting Tottenham to a 1-1 draw in Ronald Koeman’s first Premier League game as Everton’s manager. Everton went ahead in the fifth minute when Ross Barkley’s free kick bounced in. Tottenham drew level in the 59th on Erik Lamela’s header but was denied victory by two superb saves late in the game. OWN GOAL SINKS SUNDERLAND Pep Guardiola got a 2-1 win in his first Premier League game as the manager of Manchester City after a late own-goal by Sunderland’s Paddy McNair. Sergio Agüero gave Manchester City a lead in the fourth minute on a penalty. Jermain Defoe tied the game for Sunderland in the 71st before a deflected cross went off McNair’s head in the 87th. A LONG-AWAITED APPEARANCE Middlesbrough earned a point in its first Premier League game since 2009 with a 1-1 draw against visiting Stoke. Álvaro Negredo scored in the ninth minute for Middlesbrough, and Stoke tied the game on a curling free kick by Xherdan Shaqiri. AROUND SOCCER Burnley, which returned to the Premier League by winning the League Championship last season, lost to visiting Swansea, 1-0, after Leroy Fer tapped in a rebound in the 82nd minute. • Nathan Redmond scored the equalizer in his debut for host Southampton in a 1-1 draw with 10-man Watford.

Soccer
Premier League
Leicester City Soccer Team
Jamie Vardy


Miracle-Gro Wants More People to Try Their Hand at Gardening

Abstract: A STAPLE of hardware stores and garden centers for more than six decades, Miracle-Gro — with its descriptive, almost cartoonish name — is so recognizable to consumers that other brands, including AT&T and Hyundai, have featured it in their advertisements. To promote its Mini Countryman, which is much larger than its Cooper model, for example, in 2013 Mini USA produced billboards and print ads in which a giant box of Miracle-Gro blue plant food appeared to have spilled onto a green Cooper and caused a growth spurt. But when it comes to its own advertising, Miracle-Gro is about to turn over a new leaf, with a campaign that avoids promises of gardens with oversize tomatoes to focus instead on what drives and inspires the gardeners themselves. The campaign, “Grow Something Greater,” shows gardeners espousing bounties of a more emotional sort. One commercial features Mileece Petre , a sonic artist known professionally as Mileece, who attaches electrodes to plants to turn their electromagnetic current into music. She gives a tour of her lush, plant-filled backyard in Los Angeles, which she has transformed from barren concrete. “It’s gone from a nothing, a dead zone, to a really thriving habitat,” Mileece says. “It’s teeming with life — loads of butterflies, I wake up to hummingbirds.” The spot closes with the screen text “Grow Possibility,” but other spots end the statement differently. One, for instance, “Grow Family,” features three generations of women, the Martin family, among whom offshoots of plants going back two generations are thriving in relatives’ gardens across the country. “In this family, we don’t hand down jewelry, we hand down plants,” says Patsy Martin, who appears with her daughter and granddaughters. For another ad, which features Stephen Ritz , a teacher in the South Bronx who helps children in poor communities learn to grow vegetables in their classrooms, the commercial will say something like “Grow Chances.” The ad is still in production and the wording has not yet been determined. A spot in Spanish features Catalino Tapia , a first-generation Mexican-American with a thriving landscaping business who started a scholarship foundation for low-income students. It closes with “Cultiva Oportunidades” (“Grow Opportunity”). Henry Lu directs the commercials, along with longer online-only videos featuring the subjects, with production by Moxie Pictures . The Bravo Group, part of the Young & Rubicam Group unit of WPP, assisted for the commercial featuring Mr. Tapia. While those featured in the videos are filmed briefly using Miracle-Gro, the products are never mentioned by name. Even the voice-over in commercials makes no pitch about the brand’s plant food and potting soil. “The brand for 60 years has done a fantastic job of talking about the benefits our products have on plants,” said John Sass, the vice president for marketing at Miracle-Gro, which is owned by the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. “Now we’re talking less about the gardens and more about the gardeners.” Image While the people featured in the ad videos are filmed briefly using Miracle-Gro, the products are never mentioned by name. Megan Skelly, a group creative director at 360i in New York, part of Dentsu, which is the agency of record for Miracle-Gro, said the object of the new campaign was to inspire more people to start gardening. She added that performance claims about the products appeal to consumers only after they have dirt under their fingernails. “You can’t get people into the category through functional benefits because they’re not even growing yet,” Ms. Skelly said. “We had to shift the conversation from what we’re doing for plants to what we’re doing for people.” When consumers go to a Home Depot or Walmart, however, they will see the brand trumpeting its effectiveness on displays and packaging. “Down the purchase funnel we can talk more about efficacy claims,” Ms. Skelly said. Miracle-Gro, which declined to give projected spending for the campaign, spent $27.1 million on advertising in 2012 and $26.4 million in the first nine months of 2013 according to Kantar Media. Central to the campaign is a website, GrowSomethingGreater.com, which will collect visitors’ stories about their personal connection to gardening. Also being promoted for use on social networks is the hashtag #GrowSomethingGreater. The campaign’s website is scheduled to go live on Monday, with commercials being introduced on March 10. The brand, which used to pitch to consumers ages 35 to 54, is now focusing on those 25 to 54, with the campaign aiming to connect activities that younger consumers might already enjoy, like mixing cocktails, with gardening. For example, a younger consumer might concoct a mojito, with a sprig of mint from a backyard or window box. “We can really connect with your passion points,” Mr. Sass said. “If you’re a mixologist, if you like cooking and entertaining, if you like home décor — it all ladders up to a new way to talk about the brand.” The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, whose other brands include Scotts, Ortho, Scotts LawnPro and Scotts Turf Builder, reported revenues of $2.82 billion for its 2013 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, a slight decrease from $2.83 billion the previous year. For the last three calendar months of 2013, revenues were $196.4 million, a decrease of 5 percent from the same period in 2012. In a cause marketing effort that aims to increase the visibility of its brands in urban areas, the company announced in 2011 that it would award grants of up to $1,500 each to help establish and develop 1,000 community gardens and green spaces by 2018. The company has issued 406 grants so far, and will announce 100 more on March 22. As for the Miracle-Gro brand itself, Mr. Sass said that while historically it had featured gardens in suburban backyards in its marketing, it is highlighting cities more in its newest effort. “Urban areas are a big growth area,” he said. “Anybody can plant something on a windowsill.”

Scotts Miracle-Gro
Gardens and Gardening
advertising,marketing


Pakistani Taliban Carried Out Attack on Lahore Mosques, Police Say

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The coordinated attack on two mosques that killed more than 80 members of a minority Muslim sect in Lahore was carried out by six men affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, the police said Saturday. The militants traveled from the town of Miram Shah in North Waziristan, a center for the Pakistani Taliban, and arrived in Lahore on May 21, a week before the attack on Friday, according to the spokesman for the police in Punjab Province, Akram Naeem Bharoka. The men, ages 17 to 28, scouted the two mosques belonging to the Ahmadi sect with the help of local assistants, he said. The Taliban , who are Sunni Muslim, have increasingly focused on attacking minority Muslim groups. The first details of the police investigation came as the Ahmadi, a Muslim sect that has suffered severe discrimination in Pakistan for decades, buried 48 of the victims at a mass ceremony in Rabwah, a town in central Punjab. A spokesman for the Ahmadis, Salim Uddin, said the burials would continue Sunday. The assault on the two mosques also wounded more than 100 people and was one of the bloodiest attacks in Pakistan in recent years. Some of the survivors of the attack, who had been held hostage for more than three hours while the gunmen rampaged through one mosque near the central rail station, criticized the slow response of the police to calls for help. Some of the worshipers trapped in both mosques called the police on their cellphones almost immediately when they heard the sound of gunfire, they said. The Ahmadis were declared a non-Muslim minority in 1974 when Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto agreed to the law under pressure from the Sunni majority. The police spokesman said two of the six attackers had fled and had not been found. Two others died, and two were arrested, he said. During their weeklong preparations, the men stayed in Raiwind, the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary group often described by terrorism experts as the antechamber of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The men had also taken shelter at the Ibrahim Mosque, a center of the Tablighi Jamaat in central Lahore, said Mr. Bharoka, the police spokesman. One of the arrested men trained in North Waziristan, and originally came from a village in southern Punjab known to have a concentration of sectarian militant groups. In an unrelated development, a retired army major who was arrested, apparently in connection with the case of the failed car bombing in Times Square, was released by the authorities. The retired officer, Maj. Adnan Ejaz, who served in the Pakistani Army’s Signal Corps, said in a telephone interview on Saturday that he had been released by the authorities on Thursday. “If you want the full story, call the army public relations office,” he said. He was arrested May 14, two weeks after the bombing attempt in Times Square. As many as 10 other people have been detained in Pakistan by the Pakistani authorities in connection with the case. The spokesman for the Pakistani Army, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that the major had been forced to retire from the army because of his links to banned extremist groups and had been arrested in that connection. General Abbas denied that the major had been arrested because of ties to Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American arrested by American authorities as the main suspect in the Times Square case.


Syrian Rebels Say Cease-Fire Deals Prove Deceptive

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — To the starving residents and rebel fighters in the bitterly contested suburbs of Damascus, the offer from the Syrian government can be tempting enough to overcome their deep mistrust: a cease-fire accompanied by the delivery of food supplies, if they agree to give up their heavy weapons and let state-run news media show the government’s flag flying over their town. However, residents and rebel officials in some of the communities described in interviews a disturbing pattern in which the government has used the cease-fires as cover for an operation intended to attain a victory it could not achieve any other way. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said this week that they would work for localized cease-fires — or rather, an internationally backed version of them — ahead of peace talks on Syria scheduled to open next week in Switzerland. Mr. Kerry on Thursday also offered an unusual assurance that the United States had not pulled back from its goal of establishing a transitional government that did not include President Bashar al-Assad. For Russia, the strategy builds on its effort to portray Mr. Assad as a responsible leader whom the West can deal with, begun last year with the deal to dispose of Syria’s chemical weapons. The Assad government, for its part, capitalizing on recent insurgent infighting to make advances on the outskirts of the northern city of Aleppo, is eager to portray itself as offering mercy from a position of strength. But up to now, rebels and civilians say, the picture is far different. The government rains aerial attacks on areas that refuse cease-fire offers. People in places that accept can find themselves facing new demands: to turn over wanted men, give up their light weapons and accept a military governor. Food is delivered piecemeal to retain the government’s leverage. Rather than a mutually agreed cease-fire, one rebel leader said, it seemed “more like surrender.” For cease-fires to become the start of a peace process, said Michael Wahid Hanna, a Middle East analyst at the Century Foundation, they must offer rebel-held areas meaningful local autonomy and be enforced by Russia with the same muscle it applied to the chemical deal. Up to now, they have been negotiated between local leaders and government-approved mediators with no known international involvement. In those deals, civilians have been attacked and killed while trying to flee blockaded areas after promises of safe passage. The government and rebels blame each other. The government has repeatedly given permission for aid convoys to enter, then blocked them, as people continue to suffer and even die from a lack of food and medical care. On Monday, a relief convoy to the Yarmouk camp, home to Syria’s largest cluster of Palestinians, was forced by gunfire to turn back. The United Nations agency for Palestinian relief said that the government insisted the convoy enter through the southern gate — requiring a dangerous drive through contested territory — not the more secure, government-controlled northern one. International aid workers, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect aid projects, say that the government has shown little commitment to the politically neutral delivery of aid. Many contend that the government uses the truces more as a tool of surrender — starving people and luring them into one-sided deals — than as building blocks of compromise. The government allowed a month’s supply of food to reach two besieged areas on Thursday, according to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, apparently without conditions, days after the statements from Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov. Image A truck with food aid on Monday, part of a convoy bound for Yarmouk that later had to turn back. Credit Khaled Al-Hariri/Reuters The conditional truces elsewhere have helped the government by sowing division and mistrust inside opposition areas. In Yarmouk, the traditional Palestinian divide between the Hamas and Fatah parties has been replaced, one resident said, by a gulf between those for and against a truce. “It’s a very nasty way, but it was unfortunately effective,” said Qusai Zakarya, a rebel council member in the town of Moadhamiya, who said opponents of a truce ended up appearing to deny food to residents, although it was the government that imposed the blockade. “The message of Bashar al-Assad is, ‘I can give you food and a secure life without shelling and bombardment,’ ” he said. “Few people still believe he can be brought down. I can’t blame them because they have seen things no one can handle.” It was painful, he said, to see Mr. Assad win by starvation what he could not with arms. “It can destroy your soul before it destroys your body, make you feel helpless. This is their idea of negotiations.” In Moadhamiya, the truce efforts began with an unlikely dialogue between Mother Agnes Mariam , the nun who rose to prominence with declarations that videos of the August chemical weapons attack were staged and who now works on mediation efforts, and Qusai Zakarya, a former English student who nearly died in the chemical weapons attack. But it has dissolved into mutual allegations of lies and betrayal. Three weeks after accepting a government cease-fire deal, Moadhamiya has received just one food shipment, residents said, enough for perhaps a meal apiece. Several thousand civilians were evacuated from the town under an earlier, equally rocky truce, but the departures stopped after shelling hit a group as it left, and others disappeared into the jails of the security forces. Mother Agnes says that 20 are still being held; Qusai Zakarya puts the number in the hundreds and says a government contact told him that eight had been killed. He says the government at first agreed to let locals keep light arms and govern themselves, but reneged. Qusai Zakarya, who uses a nom de guerre to protect his family, said that after his criticism of the deal, one mediator relayed a message from a government official: “Shut up or we will shut you up for good.” In a recent interview in Beirut, Mother Agnes, who says she speaks with senior intelligence officials but does not represent the government, said that the plan was to let residents remain “opposition, but peaceful opposition.” She said she could not control abuses that mar the deals, blaming people on both sides with an interest in continuing the conflict. “If 20 are still detained, should I not have evacuated anyone?” she said, adding that the more pragmatic in the government hope the deals will be replicated in many places. A truce in Barzeh, on the northern edge of Damascus, looked promising on Monday. Government footage showed bulldozers clearing rubble and the local governor speaking to residents; footage from the rebels showed their fighters were still present, neither shooting nor being rounded up. The deal was more voluntary there, a local opposition activist said; rebels were tired and wanted their destroyed town cleaned up. But the deal is now in danger, the activist said, after the state news media falsely reported the rebels had surrendered, the governor denounced them as terrorists and eight fugitives from Barzeh were arrested. The cease-fire will not hold, he said, “without a real, real, real change of mentality.” On Tuesday, the local opposition committee in the suburb of Beit Sahem proposed to the government a cease-fire with local autonomy, according to a resident of a neighboring town familiar with the talks. People there were shot as they tried to leave under an abortive deal in December, but they are hungry, and ready to try again.

Arab Spring
John Kerry
Sergey V Lavrov
Bashar al-Assad
Syria
International relations


5 Americans Arrested in Death of Iraq Contractor

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Five American contractors have been detained in Baghdad in connection with the killing of another American contractor, a senior Interior Ministry official said Sunday. An American Embassy official confirmed the arrests. The American official emphasized that the contractors had not been formally charged with a crime. Under Iraqi law, charges are not made until a court appearance. For a person to be detained there must be sufficient evidence for a judge to issue an arrest warrant. If the case proceeds to an Iraqi court, the five men will be the first Americans to be tried under Iraqi law. Before a new security agreement between Iraq and the United States took effect on Jan. 1, American contractors were immune from prosecution under Iraqi law. That immunity was stripped in the security deal. The men were arrested as part of the investigation into the killing of James Owen Kitterman, 60, an American reconstruction contractor who was found stabbed to death in Baghdad on May 22. Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy minister for intelligence of the Interior Ministry, said, “The five detainees are from the same company as the American contractor who was slain.” Mr. Kitterman, who had worked in Iraq for several companies before striking out on his own, was president of Janus Construction, which he started last year, said Dennis Wright, president of Peregrine, a contracting company based in Kuwait that Mr. Kitterman helped set up. Mr. Kitterman had worked as a contractor in Iraq almost continually since 2003, Mr. Wright said. Mr. Kitterman had been stabbed repeatedly, according to a security official who works in the Green Zone in Baghdad and was familiar with the case but not authorized to speak publicly about it. The suspects were arrested by an Iraqi force with American backing, according to an embassy official, who insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the case. A statement issued by the State Department said that “local representatives from the F.B.I. were present during the search” that led to the arrests. An F.B.I. official said the agency would defer to Iraqi authorities in the case, but would provide low-key assistance if requested. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said that the case could be a test of Iraq’s nascent judicial system and of new arrangements between Iraq and the United States governing contractors’ legal status. The men, whose names were not made public, are being held in an Iraqi detention center in the heavily fortified Green Zone. An embassy spokesman said consular officials had visited the men on Sunday and found that they were being accorded the rights due under Iraqi law. Also, a mortar shell landed in the Green Zone on Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. The shell landed near a checkpoint, and two people were injured, according to a Western security official in the Green Zone.

Iraq
Murders and Attempted Murders
Defense Contracts
United States International Relations


F.C.C. Weighs Plan to Warn of High Cellphone Bill

Abstract: The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday that it was seeking public comment on a plan that would require wireless phone companies to notify customers when they are running up unusually high charges for data usage, roaming or other uses beyond what is covered by regular monthly fees. The initiative, outlined on Tuesday by Joel Gurin, chief of the F.C.C.’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, is intended to help consumers avoid what the commission calls “bill shock.” The commission has received hundreds of complaints from consumers about receiving bills with unexpected charges, sometimes amounting to hundreds of dollars, Mr. Gurin said in a statement , adding that the charges are often caused by misunderstandings of contract terms. Wireless carriers in Europe are required by law to send text messages to consumers when they are running up roaming charges or getting close to a set limit for data usage, Mr. Gurin said. “We’re issuing a Public Notice to see if there’s any reason that American carriers can’t use similar automatic alerts to inform consumers when they are at risk of running up a high bill,” he said. “This is an avoidable problem. Avoiding bill shock is good for consumers and ultimately good business for wireless carriers as well.” Details on the “Bill Shock” initiative and instructions on how to file a public comment can be found at www.fcc.gov .

Cellular Telephones
Wireless Communications
Federal Communications Commission
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


‘Sandbagging’ First Concussion Test Probably Won’t Help Later

Abstract: In 2011, quarterback Peyton Manning suggested he purposely flubbed a preseason neurocognitive baseline test to make the results of any postconcussion test look better, which might have improved his chances of returning to play sooner. The attempted deception, aimed at getting around safeguards meant to protect athletes, has reached the youth sports level, medical professionals say. “We hear kids talking about it — about sandbagging the test,” said Richard Ginsburg, the director of psychological services at Massachusetts General Hospital’s youth sports concussion clinic . “Some seem to think they can fool the test, or they know of someone who has tried.” Several other doctors and staff members at youth concussion clinics nationwide said they had also met with patients who discussed intentionally underperforming on the baseline test, the most common of which is called an imPACT test . Manning, shortly after his admission, insisted he was joking. But reports of other N.F.L. players trying to subvert the test are rampant. Baseline testing is intended to establish a “normal” score of mental acuity by measuring things like learning, problem solving and memory skills. When a player has had a concussion, the test is repeated and that score is compared with the baseline score, which may reveal a cognitive deficit that suggests that a player’s brain has not recovered enough for a return to action. But if a player willfully scores lower on the original test, in theory at least, the player has a chance of meeting those lowered results even after a concussion. Few medical professionals who deal with the testing and concussion patients think sandbagging the test is possible. Or at the least, they say, the success ratio is very low. “Trying to flub the test is a tactic that will not work,” said Alex Taylor , a neuropsychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital who works with youth concussion patients. “It’s out there that you can do it, but the test has validity factors built in that would tip someone off to what you were doing. “Plus, it’s only one measure we use to see if you have recovered.” Dr. William Meehan of Boston Children’s cited a study last year in which 75 collegiate athletes were instructed to try to fail a baseline test. “They were told how to do it, and there was some reward offered for succeeding,” Meehan said. “Only 11 percent were able to do it, and that’s after the researcher told them how to do it. The chances of getting away with sandbagging is very small.” Taylor added: “To administer any kind of cognitive testing, you have to be trained in how to measure the tests. So we know how to spot things. Peyton Manning is a smart guy, but I could catch him.”

Concussion
Boston Children's Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Sports injury
Medical test
Youth
Children
Sports


Obama Chides Biden Over Remark About a World Crisis Testing His Presidency

Abstract: RICHMOND, Va. — Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. seldom see each other as they campaign for the Democratic ticket. And they talk only occasionally. But on Wednesday, Mr. Obama delivered a long-distance message to his running mate. “I think Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes,” Mr. Obama said, gently chiding the vice-presidential nominee as he sought to sweep aside a dustup Mr. Biden touched off when he predicted that a world crisis would test Mr. Obama during his first six months in office. “A period of transition in a new administration is always one where we have to be vigilant, we have to be careful,” Mr. Obama said. “We have to be mindful that as we pass the baton in this democracy that others don’t take advantage of it — that’s true whether it’s myself or Senator McCain.” In his remarks, Mr. Biden told supporters at a Seattle fund-raiser on Sunday that if Mr. Obama was elected, the world’s leaders would test his mettle as a young president, just as they did John F. Kennedy. The comment from Mr. Biden fanned a new line of criticism from Republicans that Mr. Obama is not ready for the presidency. Mr. Obama convened a meeting of his foreign policy advisers here on Wednesday, which he said was not intended to address that remark, but rather to expand the campaign conversation beyond the economic crisis. Mr. Biden participated in a private portion of the meeting by telephone from Colorado, but did not appear on stage with Mr. Obama. “I think that his core point was that the next administration is going to be tested, regardless of who it is,” Mr. Obama said, placing his interpretation on Mr. Biden’s comments. “The next administration is going to be inheriting a host of really big problems.” He added, “The question is, Will the next president meet that test by moving America in a new direction by sending a clear signal to the rest of the world that we are no longer about bluster and unilateralism and ideology?” Mr. McCain kept up his criticism of the Democratic ticket for Mr. Biden’s remarks. At a rally on Wednesday in Green, Ohio, Mr. McCain told the crowd, “Senator Biden guaranteed that if Senator Obama is elected, we will have an international crisis to test America’s new president!” “We don’t want a president who invites testing from the world at a time when the economy is in crisis,” Mr. McCain added. “Americans are already fighting in two wars, my friends. Senator Biden referred to how Jack Kennedy was tested in the Cuban missile crisis. I had a little personal experience on that. I was a pilot on board the U.S.S. Enterprise, I was ready to go into combat at any minute, I know how close we came to a nuclear war, and I will not be a president that needs to be tested!”

Obama Barack
Biden Joseph R Jr
Presidential Election of 2008