Kyle Busch Wins Sharpie 500 at Bristol and Inches Closer to Spot in Chase

Abstract: BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Kyle Busch took a big step toward saving his season Saturday night by winning a gutsy side-by-side sprint to the finish against Mark Martin in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Fighting hard for a berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, Busch drove a steady and smooth race at one of the toughest tracks in Nascar to climb off the ropes and keep his title hopes alive. His fourth win of the season — tying him with Martin for the most in the Sprint Cup series — allowed him to jump two spots in the standings to 13th. With two races to go before the 12-driver Chase field is set, Busch trails the 12th-place driver, Matt Kenseth , by just 34 points. “No pressure on us yet!” one of his team members radioed after he won. “This 18 is not going down without a fight!” Busch was silent for a few seconds before celebrating with a smoky burnout on the front stretch and his traditional bow to the crowd. He then grabbed the checkered flag from a Nascar official and gave it to a fan through a hole in the fence. “I hope this just isn’t a fluke to get in the Chase; we need to run well at Atlanta and Richmond,” he said in victory lane, referring to the last two races before the playoffs. Martin, the pole-sitter, finished second in the 1,000th start of his career. He also improved his Chase chances and moved up two spots in the standings to 10th. But he could have moved Busch out of his way several times over the final 50 laps, including the dramatic four-lap sprint to the finish. Instead, he raced him clean and defended his decision not to use his bumper on Busch. “Anyone who thinks I was soft out there on the racetrack wasn’t watching,” Martin said. “I raced my guts out.” Martin led 240 of the 500 laps on the roughly half-mile track, and Busch could commiserate with his runner-up showing. “Mark Martin, what a class act,” Busch said. “He deserved to win this race. I’m sorry he got second. I know how he feels. But man, I drove as hard as I could. He had a chance, could have done it. He raced me clean.” The victory broke a 13-race winless streak in the Cup series for Busch, an eternity for him since joining Joe Gibbs Racing last season. But he has been struggling to regain the momentum he had most of last year, and his confidence at times has seemed shattered as he struggled to accept defeat. “We didn’t have the best car, but had a car capable enough to doing it if I can drive it hard enough,” he said. “I gave it everything I had. It’s crazy.” Marcos Ambrose was third, and Greg Biffle and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five. Hamlin came back after an early tire problem. Ryan Newman was sixth and was followed by Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kenseth. It was a mixed night for the Chase contenders. The points leader, Tony Stewart, had an early radio problem, an issue with his power and a generally miserable night as he finished 33rd. Kasey Kahne was 28th, and Carl Edwards was 16th. Juan Pablo Montoya moved as high as second at one point, but a tire problem caused him to lose six positions before he was finally saved by a caution. “Good! What has changed on this thing?” Montoya asked. “We’re going to wreck.” Fighting for his own Chase berth, he was urged to stay calm by his crew chief, Brian Pattie. “Dude, you’re going to be fine,” Pattie said. But when racing resumed, Montoya continued to slide backward, finally heading to the pits to change what he suspected was a flat tire. He finished 25th and fell two spots in the standings, to ninth. The four-time series champion Jeff Gordon struggled and finished 23rd, while Johnson put himself in position to cross Bristol off the list of six active tracks where he has not win. Instead, a loose wheel on a late tire change sent him back into the pits, and he dropped from contention.

Automobile Racing
National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing
Gibbs Joe Racing
Busch Kyle
Martin Mark
Kenseth Matt
Ambrose Marcos


A Battle-Scarred Edwards, Emerging a Fighter

Abstract: MILFORD, N.H. — He has beat his Diet Coke addiction — “too much caffeine.” He no longer shrinks from foreign policy talk and salts his speeches with lines like, “I saw a piece recently in the Guardian newspaper, a British newspaper.” And where he once meandered from topic to topic, the John Edwards of today tries to keep it concise. “Because I want to take your questions, I am not talking about what I think is a moral crisis, which is climate change ,” he told an audience at Dartmouth College in November. “I hope somebody will ask me about it. I think it’s a huge issue facing the world. I am not talking about poverty, which is my personal passion.” Then it’s on to Iraq and Iran. Mr. Edwards, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and then ran with Senator John Kerry as his vice-presidential choice, has not dispensed with his old self as he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination this year. Poverty was a central theme in the 2004 primary campaign, with his signature “two Americas” speech on economic inequality, and it is still a focus today. Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, also remains an emotional, wide-eyed campaigner speaking out against injustices, invoking his mill-worker father and the corporations he fought as a personal injury lawyer in courtrooms. But there have been certain refinements in the four years since Mr. Edwards first stumped through Iowa and New Hampshire, a reporter who has seen both campaigns has found. Much of the change is in style, as his competitors have noted. Mr. Edwards was sunny and optimistic in 2004, to the point of criticizing other candidates for their “sniping.” “If we are the party of anger in 2004, we will not win,” he said back then. He also said, “I don’t believe voters in New Hampshire care about what someone said seven years ago about whatever they were talking about. I don’t think they care about what somebody said yesterday about some small nuance of some issue.” But this time he is often the one doing the sniping, usually singling out his rival Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. He has criticized her record on Iraq and Iran, hammered her for accepting donations from corporate lobbyists and portrayed her as a Washington insider, no different from Republican politicians — lines of attack that are similar to those of liberal bloggers. This shift in style is, in some ways, more consistent with Mr. Edwards’s résumé as a ferocious and successful trial lawyer, but it raises the question of which is closer to his true self, the candidate of 2003 or of 2007? Mr. Edwards insists he has not fundamentally changed, but the experience of the last campaign, the return of his wife Elizabeth’s incurable cancer, and his intense preparation for this campaign have undoubtedly had an effect. “I do think that when you go through a national campaign, the intensity of a national campaign, and the experience we’ve had with Elizabeth’s health, it does make you tougher,” he said in an interview between campaign stops in New Hampshire. “It seasons you. There’s also more depth because I have done a lot of work both during the last campaign and since the last campaign. It’s a combination of all those things.” The most obvious difference in this campaign comes in what Mr. Edwards emphasizes and what he does not. While Mr. Edwards in 2004 played up his single Senate term as a way to overcome doubts about his experience and political heft, today he hardly mentions that part of his résumé — nor does he mention his run on a presidential ticket, a unique experience among his rivals — presumably in the interest of promoting himself as a Washington outsider. Instead, his courtroom days are front and center, mainly used to portray himself as a fighter. “I beat them, and I beat them, and I beat them again,” he thundered here at a town-hall-style meeting, describing his trial victories against big corporations with a line reprised from 2004. While lobbyists fell in his gun sights then, he has stepped up the attack to accuse them of “corrupting the government” — a shift he describes as “directness and honesty.” “Using a word like ‘corruption’ would have been a hard thing in 2004 because nobody uses words like that,” Mr. Edwards said. “You’re supposed to be more careful. It’s not politically correct.” This edgier side has brought accusations of hypocrisy from opponents and cost him an important supporter in this state, where he is trailing in the polls and came in fourth in 2004. State Senator Lou D’Allessandro, a kingmaker who was chairman of Mr. Edwards’s campaign here in 2004 and who was lobbied heavily by most of the Democratic contenders, decided earlier this month to support Mrs. Clinton. “He is a lot different,” Mr. D’Allessandro said in an interview. “He is in attack mode now rather than talking about the two Americas and using that warm, embracing style that he had.” The last time, of course, Mr. Edwards, with his positive message and tone, found it hard to be heard in a crowded field. It bears noting that he was never entirely warm and fuzzy then, either. Before he got to the talk about “building people up, not tearing them down,” he raged against “George W. Bush” — he almost always used the initial — “walking around that ranch with his huge belt buckle,” ignoring the plight of “real America.” Mr. Edwards said he believed he had bridged the failure of the last campaign with the spunk of the new one. “I’m seasoned enough to now believe that you need both,” he said, “that hope alone won’t do it, that there are fights that have to be taken.”

Edwards John
Presidential Election of 2008
Presidential Election of 2004


King Richard III’s Eyes, and the Munchies

Abstract: It was a week of revived hopes. Thermonuclear fusion is looking a bit more promising; a moon rover thought dead may yet work; and we may finally discover the color of King Richard III’s eyes. Keep your fingers crossed. Developments Medicine: New Doubts About Mammography One of the largest studies of mammograms ever conducted found that death rates from breast cancer were the same among women who got the test and those who did not. And one in five cancers found by the test, leading to therapies like chemotherapy or surgery, posed no real threat to the woman’s health. Ultimately, the study found no benefit to detecting breast cancers that were still too small to feel. The new finding “will make women uncomfortable, and they should be uncomfortable,” said a screening expert not involved in the study. Image The skeleton of Richard III. Credit University of Leicester, via Reuters Genetics: Human History, Drawn by Genome A team of geneticists took a first shot at using the genome to reconstruct human history. By sampling human genomes from around the world and applying statistical models, the scientists have tried to identify and date the major population-mixing events of the last 4,000 years. For instance, people of the southern Mediterranean and Middle East acquired segments of African origin in their genomes between A.D. 650 and 1900, the scientists said. This correlates with the advent of the Arab slave trade in the seventh century. Sequencing the King What color were King Richard III’s eyes? British scientists hope to find out when they grind up some of his bones, found under a Leicester, England, parking lot in 2012, to try to sequence his genome. They also hope to discover what kind of infectious bacteria the embattled monarch might have been hosting when he died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Energy : A Step Toward Sustainable Fusion It took five years and many billions of dollars, but scientists in California say they have finally managed to produce fusion reactions with lasers , an important step toward the dream of producing nearly limitless energy through thermonuclear fusion. Writing in the journal Nature , scientists described two successful attempts at using lasers to crush a hydrogen pellet into helium, releasing more energy than had been deposited into it. As an energy source, the process remains impractical — only about 1 percent of the initial laser energy reached the hydrogen. But “a lot of people are jazzed,” said one of the researchers. Neuroscience: The Munchies Demystified Ingesting marijuana may make food smell and taste better, at least in mice, reported European researchers writing in Nature Neuroscience . THC, the active ingredient in the plant, binds to receptors in the olfactory bulb of the brain, increasing the user’s ability to smell food, which may partly explain the “munchies.” Earlier research showed that THC stimulates the release of dopamine, making for a satisfying meal, Smithsonian.com reported . Coming Up Space: A Chinese Rover Reborn Less than 24 hours after it was pronounced dead, China’s moon rover, Jade Rabbit (Yutu, in Mandarin), perked up again. After malfunctioning for weeks, it entered hibernation early last week, a Chinese lunar program spokesman said. By Thursday it had revived, but was still malfunctioning. What went wrong, and can the rover be fully restored? Scientists will spend the next few weeks trying to figure that out, Reuters reported .

Science and Technology
Genetics and Heredity
DNA
King of England Richard III


In a Military Town, Calls Grow to Lift the Voices of Sexual Assault Victims

Abstract: OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Among the scores of memories that Tiffany Lucas collected during her years as a Marine gunnery sergeant, she wears most of them with pride. When a superior ordered male Marines not to curse in front of female Marines — as if the women were too delicate to take it — she spit an expletive his way. When other women selected the skinniest male Marines to carry on their shoulders during training, as if from the battlefield, she instead picked the heavy ones. But the memory that has haunted her was her failure to push back against a commander who told her not to report a young female recruit who said she was raped by a male Marine, who, Ms. Lucas said, went on to assault two more women. “I was too weak to stand up to my commanding officer,” said Ms. Lucas, who served in the Marines for 11 years, including in Falluja, Iraq, in 2006 and 2007. “I really wish I had done something. If I could go back in time, I would stand up for her.” In Oceanside, a scrappy beach town 10 miles south of Camp Pendleton, the Marine base that sprawls for 125,000 acres along the Southern California coastline, almost everyone who has served has a story to tell about sexual misconduct in the military. Some were harassed or assaulted themselves, while others worked among men and women who were victims of abuse. But in more than a dozen long interviews, veterans and active-duty military personnel here sounded a consistent theme: they believe commanders in charge of deciding which cases to prosecute conceal far too much out of fear that the cases will taint their careers. “It’s a huge problem, mainly because of the fact it goes unreported,” said Jimmy Coats, who served in the Navy for eight years and was raped, he said, by a man he had been dating. “My supervisor told me not to tell my commanding officer,” Mr. Coats added. “I worked in a clinic, and in quite a few instances there were people who didn’t want to talk about it. When a report was made, they tried to keep it as quiet as possible.” San Diego County has the highest concentration of active-duty military personnel in the country, where veterans from every service branch can be found on Oceanside’s pier and in its plywood-floor bars, surplus stores and tattoo parlors. It remains a military-proud town, where people say there is disappointment that the Pentagon has not been better at tackling the problem of sexual assault. A recent Pentagon survey found that an estimated 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010. “A lot of people around here worry about this,” said Dennis Martinez, who served in the Marines in Vietnam. “They worry that when these things happen, it doesn’t always get handled the right way. This is something that has been happening for many years.” Image Tiffany Lucas, who served in the Marines for 11 years, says she regrets her failure to push back against a commander who told her not to report that a female recruit said she had been raped by a Marine. Credit Thomas Patterson for The New York Times Congress, led in part by women on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is trying to grapple with the issue in a series of legislative proposals that are intended to crack down on offenders and keep commanders from reversing guilty verdicts in sexual assault convictions, which happens very rarely. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand , Democrat of New York, proposed a measure that would give military prosecutors, rather than commanders, the power to decide which sexual assault cases to try, with the goal of increasing the number of people who report crimes without fear of retaliation. The idea of removing these powers from commanders has been met with stiff resistance both throughout the Pentagon and among some fellow lawmakers. The measure was rejected by the committee, but Ms. Gillibrand has said she will try to revive it later this year on the Senate floor. Ms. Lucas, 34, who was the only woman in her unit, oversaw a large group of trainees, including a 22-year-old woman who liked to go out drinking, Ms. Lucas said. After an overnight trip outside Reno, Nev., the trainee told Ms. Lucas she had been raped by a male Marine with a stellar training record. Ms. Lucas, appalled, went to her commanding officer to get an investigation started. “I was told not to file a complaint,” Ms. Lucas said, adding that she suspected it was because her commanding officer did not want such an event recorded on his own performance evaluation. “He felt the girl was promiscuous,” Ms. Lucas said of her commanding officer. “She drank.” Her commanding officer told her, she said, that the male Marine was great in every other aspect. “I said, ‘That’s not the point.’ I really wish I had done more. She was depressed, and he went on to assault two women in Japan. Nothing good came of it.” While there are disagreements among veterans and active-duty military personnel about whether commanders should have power over prosecutions, there is broad agreement that the system does not always function in a way that best serves victims or the accused. “We heard about it all the time,” said Jeff Edgington, 23, who just finished five years in the Marines. “You heard about older guys getting with the new girls. There are such huge biases that these cases don’t get investigated as well as they could.” Victims have long said that they fear retaliation if they report sex crimes to commanders, and that their careers could suffer. President Obama himself joined the debate in May when he proclaimed at the White House that those who commit sexual assault in the military should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged — period.” The president said he had ordered Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel “to step up our game exponentially” to prevent sex crimes. “The system is not built to effectively resolve allegations or help actual victims,” said Eric S. Montalvo, a lawyer who has represented defendants in such cases and a former judge advocate general. “I have been in the middle of proceedings where victims did not get justice because the system did not work properly.” The focus will remain on the issue in places like Oceanside, particularly at a time when the Pentagon is moving more women into combat positions previously closed to them . “This has always been part of the culture,” said Howard Buford, 88, who served in the Air Force for 20 years. “The women always kept their mouths shut because people didn’t pay attention to them. But I think there is enough pressure now that the generals and colonels will start acting like they know what’s going on.”

US Military
Veteran
Rape
US Marines
Oceanside CA


Syrian Rights Groups Raise Toll From Unrest

Abstract: CAIRO — Human rights groups on Tuesday raised their estimates of the death toll from unrest in Syria , as protest organizers there continued their call for more demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad . The tally has risen steadily in recent days as rights groups have struggled to document the number of dead from a government crackdown on dissent that began more than two weeks ago. Wissam Tarif, the executive director of Insan, a Syrian rights group, said that at least 173 people had died in the unrest, including 15 in Douma, a working-class suburb northwest of Damascus, and 143 in and around Dara’a, the southern area where the protests began. The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, working with the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, said it had documented 123 deaths , including 22 in Douma. It said it did not have a number of dead in Dara’a. Both groups said their figures were based on testimony from doctors, families of the dead and witnesses. It was impossible to verify their numbers. Pro-democracy advocates have called for a week of renewed protests in honor of those who have died, labeling it “a week of martyrs.” The advocates are part of a Facebook group called The Syrian Revolution 2011, which has more than 100,000 members. Documenting the dead in Syria is complicated by the omnipresence of security forces and the government’s refusal to release the bodies of many of those killed at demonstrations, said Mr. Tarif and Radwan Ziadeh, the director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies. The authorities in Douma have released 15 bodies, Mr. Ziadeh said, but families of seven more men have been told by witnesses that they were killed at protests. Gunshot wounds accounted for most of the dead, both organizations said. Mr. Tarif said his organization documented four cases of people injured at protests in Douma who were arrested by security forces inside the civilian Hamdan Hospital. They were taken to Tashreen Military Hospital, where families said they were denied treatment and later died, Mr. Tarif said.

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


Goldman a Lobbyist Non Grata

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Last week, White House officials quietly approached leading financial firms seeking formal letters of support for a Congressional overhaul of financial regulations . One Wall Street powerhouse was left off the list: Goldman Sachs . Given the government’s lawsuit against Goldman, “the message,” said a financial industry executive involved in the discussions about the White House solicitation, “was that Goldman’s opinion doesn’t matter and that it would be negative if Goldman was supportive of what we were doing.” Goldman Sachs employs perhaps the country’s most well-connected stable of Washington lobbyists, and it spent $2.8 million last year to bend the ear of federal officials and lawmakers. But the pounding the investment firm has taken in recent days has left it sidelined — at least in public — as Congress moves toward a decision that could reshape the very industry it rules. With Goldman the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission fraud lawsuit filed two weeks ago and nearly 11 hours of questioning in a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, the company has been portrayed by many as a symbol of Wall Street excess and abuse. “All of the Wall Street banks today are politically toxic,” said Jaret Seiberg, a financial policy analyst for Concept Capital, a financial policy research group. “Goldman is in that bucket. The hearing makes it harder to get their message out in Washington, but that was true before the hearing and that is true today. To be a Wall Street bank today means there are already two strikes against you.” Still, the company is trying to find a way to influence the debate, even if it cannot play as visible a role. Goldman Sachs declined to comment on Wednesday on the impact that its legal and public relations troubles have had on its Washington lobbying operations. But one person briefed on its plans, but who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the firm’s continuing legal and political troubles, said it was still trying to push its agenda. In seeking to make its case to lawmakers and their aides, the bank has been largely relying on trade groups, like the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the American Banking Association, or the Financial Services Forum, to plead its case about concerns in the financial legislation, industry officials said. In contrast to JPMorgan Chase and other rivals, Goldman has not tried grass-roots outreach efforts, like setting up hot lines to have employees call their Congressional leaders. But on occasion, Goldman and its lobbyists have approached Senate Democrats directly on areas of particular concern, like the so-called Volcker Rule, which would bar institutions like Goldman from buying and selling for their own profit, rather than as a service to its clients, according to a Democratic aide. Another provision that the firm would like to see changed is a ban on banks’ trading in the derivatives market. More often, the firm — whose lobbyists and outside lawyers include Washington luminaries like Richard A. Gephardt, the former House majority leader, and Ken Duberstein, the former Reagan administration official — has relied largely on intermediaries because politicians are worried about being associated with it, government and industry officials said. “They know they’re not going to have that much of an impact,” said one lobbyist who works with Goldman but did not want to be named for fear of jeopardizing his relationship with the firm. In addition to the political concerns, there were also pragmatic ones: many of the Goldman’s highest-ranking executives, including Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive, had been preoccupied for the last week in preparing for the Senate hearing. At the hearing, senators pressed Goldman executives on the allegations by the S.E.C. that the firm had misled investors by selling them a complex mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail. Senate investigators also made public internal documents that shed light on the large profits the company made, and the satisfaction some of its executives derived, as the housing market began collapsing. And the events of recent weeks are clearly hurting the access of a company once renowned in Washington for sending its executives to senior posts at the Treasury Department. For instance, Senator Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat who wrote the provision that would ban banks like Goldman Sachs from trading in derivatives, had discussed having a fund-raiser at the firm’s New York offices this month, but she scuttled the possible event after the S.E.C. filed its lawsuit. Ms. Lincoln said she would no longer take political contributions from the firm, which has been one of the most prolific contributors to campaigns. Goldman executives and its political action committee have given more than $24 million to federal candidates in the last decade, including nearly $1 million to Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Goldman Sachs Group
United States Politics and Government
Banks and Banking
Lobbying and Lobbyists
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Securities and Commodities Violations
Securities and Exchange Commission


New York Candidates Awash in Real Estate Cash

Abstract: The real estate industry, racing to beat strict new limits on campaign contributions, has been flooding New York City candidates with donations for the 2009 campaign at a rate three and four times that in previous election cycles. The industry, which looks to City Hall for everything from zoning changes to tax breaks, is traditionally a dependable source of cash for city election candidates. But with new regulations set to take effect starting on Saturday, donations have soared. The New York Times examined contributions from executives and others affiliated with 25 of the city’s most prominent property management, brokerage and real estate development firms. The companies together had given more than $1 million by Jan. 15, the most recent reporting deadline for the 2009 election. Those same firms had given $239,000 by the same point in January 2004 and $348,000 by January 2000. The giving reflects a broader trend: Over all, candidates have raised about $28.8 million to date for the 2009 race, up from $12.2 million in 2001 and $8 million in 2005, according to the city’s Campaign Finance Board. The surge is driven in large part by a major overhaul in the city’s campaign finance law, which, starting this month, will cap contributions for people who do business with the city at less than a tenth of what is allowed now. That means many developers, brokers, landlords and contractors will be limited to giving $400 to a mayoral candidate, compared with $4,950 now. “They’ve got to get the money to the potential elected officials, so they’ve got to pump this money out as fast as they can,” said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor of public policy at Baruch College. The changes, aimed at reducing the influence of big money in elections, are set to be phased in over the next 10 months as the city creates databases to monitor donors. The real estate industry will be most affected in the final phase, set to begin in December, which applies to anyone involved in land use decisions. But firms signing or renewing city leases or seeking economic development agreements could be affected in the first and second phases, which take effect this Saturday and in August. Some industry officials say that candidates have used the looming restrictions as a way to aggressively solicit money now. The changes, which the City Council passed in June, have caused broad confusion and worry among firms that do business with the city, and some lobbyists have discussed filing a legal challenge to block it. “Even while the bill was still being discussed, the candidates would say, ‘Well, we don’t know what’s going to happen after January, so you have to give us the money now,’ ” said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, a trade group and lobbying arm for the industry. The major real estate firms examined by The Times are spreading money generously and in similar amounts to those considered the leading contenders for mayor: Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Representative Anthony D. Weiner and City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., with Ms. Quinn collecting the most of the three. But no one has attracted more real estate money than Councilwoman Melinda Katz, who has used her perch as chairwoman of the powerful Land Use Committee, which must approve all major projects and zoning changes, to assemble a Who’s Who of industry supporters. A candidate for city comptroller, Ms. Katz, a Queens Democrat, received $196,266 from the 25 firms examined by The Times. “No matter who gives to you, there’s going to be a perception,” she said. “But I think the perception I have is: These are folks that care deeply about the future of New York. They have an interest in making sure the economy of this city is strong and remains viable. And if they have faith that I may be the one able to provide that, then that’s not a bad perception.” The real estate industry is coming off a period of not only extraordinary growth in the city, but also exceptional cooperation from City Hall. Daniel L. Doctoroff, who stepped down as deputy mayor for economic development on Jan. 11, recently boasted at a meeting of Brooklyn leaders that the Bloomberg administration was 78-0 in pushing zoning changes through the City Council. “At least until recently the industry had been in a remarkable period in its history,” said Kenneth K. Fisher, a land-use lawyer with the firm of Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen and a former City Council member. “And I think a lot of industry players wanted to encourage that so that it continues, so they are supporting people who they feel will be supportive of continued development.” That cooperation could be even more critical as the credit market continues to slump, which could force many developers to seek more generous tax and subsidy packages from the city. Among the biggest contributors are companies engaged in pivotal development battles. The most money was given by Rudin Management, run by one of the royal families of New York real estate. The company, which appears headed for a major landmarks fight over the redevelopment of St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan and the surrounding area in Greenwich Village, had given $199,600 to a dozen candidates by Jan. 15, an increase of 45 percent over the firm’s contributions in the entire 2001 and 2005 elections combined. In a move that is common in the industry, Rudin contributed $29,700 equally to the three leading mayoral contenders. While corporate donations are prohibited under the city’s campaign finance laws, the contributions were given through six family members and executives associated with the firm. William C. Rudin, president of the firm, did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article. Though all three candidates disagree with the industry on some issues, including rent regulations, all have shown a willingness to work with it on critical matters, Mr. Spinola said. More important, he added, “none of them have been at war with us.” Related Companies, a co-developer (with Vornado Realty Trust) behind the plan to rebuild Pennsylvania Station, and which is vying to redevelop the West Side railyards, was next on the list. Related’s chairman, Stephen M. Ross, and other employees had contributed $143,200 to nine city candidates. That was more than four times what he and his employees had contributed by the same period in the 2001 elections. Jeffrey R. Gural, chairman of the brokerage firm of Newmark Knight Frank, and other executives and employees associated with his firm had given at least $101,700 to a dozen candidates, compared with $24,000 at this point in the 2001 cycle. Mr. Gural and Mr. Ross did not return calls seeking comment. Representatives of Ms. Quinn’s and Mr. Thompson’s campaigns described real estate as just a small part of their efforts to get support from a broad base of industries and individuals. Mr. Weiner also said the industry was just a part of his support, and described himself as pro-development. “I believe we need to keep growing this city,” he said, “and we need to keep growing in a way that protects our neighborhoods and our environment.” The sharp increases in giving come as an unusually large number of candidates are raising money earlier and more aggressively to fill a swath of city offices up for grabs in 2009 because of term limits. More than 100 candidates have already registered to raise funds, compared with 61 at this point in the 2001 cycle, an early start that some City Hall insiders also attribute to the coming campaign finance changes. Mr. Spinola said he suspected that once the initial rush of giving was over, the fund-raising totals for this cycle would largely resemble those in the 2001 election. That is considered most comparable because the offices of mayor, comptroller and public advocate will be open, along with at least four of the five borough presidencies and two-thirds of the Council seats. But several of the companies examined by The Times had already exceeded their 2001 total, including six of the top 10 contributors: Rudin, Related, Newmark, the Durst Organization, Two Trees Management and Taconic Investment Partners.


Better New York Team? Numbers Say Mets

Abstract: The 2015 baseball season began amid speculation that the Mets would actually outperform the Yankees, which is not something that happens that often. Those predictions turned out to be accurate, but it took awhile to pan out. At the conclusion of the July 31 trading deadline, for instance, the Yankees were a solid 58-44 and six games up in the American League East. The Mets? They were barely above .500 at 53-50 and were fortunate to be just two games back of an underachieving Washington club in the National League East. Things changed in August. With Yoenis Cespedes added to their lineup, the Mets took off. By Sept. 1, they were 73-59 and had roared right past the Nationals. The Yankees, meanwhile, flattened out. Their 73-58 record was barely better than it had been a month before and they were now a second-place club, trailing Toronto. The contrasting trends continued through the remainder of the season. The fading Yankees finished at 87-75, a wild-card club that lasted all of nine innings in the postseason. The surging Mets finished at 90-72, division winners who made it all the way to the World Series. Now, 20 games into the 2016 season, nothing has changed. The Yankees, who have an intimidating late-game bullpen, inconsistent starting pitching and a creaky middle of the batting order, are floundering with an 8-12 mark. The Mets, with a capable-looking lineup and a standout rotation that is coming together after a bumpy start, are an impressive 13-7. That is a five-game gap that could mean something, or nothing at all, since it is still so early in the season. But it does sort of hint at the notion that the Mets are now in one of those rare periods where they might be the better New York team for a while. The last time it happened was in the mid- to late 1980s, when the Yankees were usually pretty decent but not as good as the Mets, who twice won 100 games in the regular season and, in 1986, prevailed in the World Series. This season’s gap is easily grasped from a handful of team statistics. The Mets, with a surprising 30 home runs, ranked fourth in that category in the majors going into Thursday’s games. The Yankees, with 21 homers, ranked 15th. The Mets were 13th in team batting average (.251) and runs scored (88). In those two categories, the Yankees were a woeful 23rd (.237) and 27th (72). On the pitching side, the Mets ranked fourth in team E.R.A., at 2.91. The Yankees, with a 4.42 E.R.A., ranked 23rd. Both teams have intriguing weekends ahead of them. The Yankees will be in Fenway Park for their first meeting this season with a Boston team trying to rebound from consecutive last-place finishes in the A.L. East. The Red Sox are 12-10, with better hitting than pitching. However, the Yankees are scheduled to face Boston’s expensive new ace, David Price, who is 3-0 this season (with a shaky 5.76 E.R.A.) and, on Sunday night, will be making the 31st start of his career against the Yankees. Set to oppose him is Nathan Eovaldi, who carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning when he faced Texas on Monday. As is often the case when the Yankees play the Red Sox, the Sunday game will get prime-time treatment from ESPN. But in a reflection of the shifting terrain in New York, that game may be overshadowed by Sunday afternoon’s marquee matchup at Citi Field, with San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner scheduled to go up against the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard. Bumgarner, who has three World Series rings and was voted the most valuable player of the 2014 Series, is 2-2 this season with a 3.64 E.R.A. He has not pitched that well, but he did hit the 12th home run of his career this month, and his second off Clayton Kershaw. As for Syndergaard, he is 2-0 this season with a 1.69 E.R.A. and has been making the radar gun go berserk. Then again, Syndergaard doesn’t throw any harder than the Yankees’ Aroldis Chapman, who, when he returns from his suspension, will combine with Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller to create a potential nightmare for opposing teams in the late innings of close games. Perhaps that threesome will even come to rival the popular appeal of the Mets’ starting pitchers — Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom and Matt Harvey and Steven Matz. But not yet. For now, at least, the Mets continue to be No. 1.


2 European Coaches Fired

Abstract: Poland Coach Waldemar Fornalik was fired after his team’s 2-0 loss to England in a World Cup qualifying match. Croatia Coach Igor Stimac was also fired, after a 2-0 loss to Scotland.

2014 World Cup
Soccer
Igor Stimac
Poland
Croatia
Waldemar Fornalik


Assemblyman Lopez Declines to Testify on Harassment

Abstract: ALBANY — Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez has declined to testify in an investigation being conducted by the state ethics commission into claims that he sexually harassed four former aides and the Legislature’s response to those allegations. On his lawyer’s advice, Mr. Lopez also does not plan to testify in a parallel inquiry being conducted by a special prosecutor. Mr. Lopez’s lawyer, Gerald B. Lefcourt, said he had advised the assemblyman, who is also a former Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman, not to testify in either inquiry because of the criminal investigation. “Nobody to our knowledge reported a crime, but nevertheless witnesses are being interviewed by assistant district attorneys as well as JCOPE people, together,” Mr. Lefcourt said, referring to the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics. “Until we know what it is the district attorney is looking at specifically, my advice is to supply all the information we can short of having Mr. Lopez testify, until we know where this is going, if it’s going anywhere.” In the last three or four weeks, Mr. Lopez received a commission subpoena for his testimony, but he has not been asked to testify by the special prosecutor’s office. He has provided documents to investigators, his lawyer said. John Milgrim, a spokesman for the ethics commission, declined to comment. A spokesman for the special prosecutor, District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan Jr. of Staten Island, could not be immediately reached. Mr. Lopez, who has been battling illness, was not in the Capitol for the legislative session on Thursday, and his office referred questions to Mr. Lefcourt. Image Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez’s lawyer advised him against testifying in investigations of his actions and the state’s response. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times The sexual harassment scandal began last summer, after the State Assembly released a letter censuring Mr. Lopez, indicating that he had verbally harassed, groped and kissed two of his staff members. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, said at the time that the Assembly had “zero tolerance” for such behavior. The New York Times later reported that Mr. Silver had previously authorized a confidential payment of $103,080 to settle earlier allegations against Mr. Lopez by two other women. Mr. Lopez, who at the time was the county Democratic chairman as well as an assemblyman, had been one of the city’s most feared power brokers. Within several weeks, however, he had given up his party leadership post. He was re-elected in November against only nominal opposition, but he has been stripped of his committee chairmanship, had his legislative salary cut and lost many of the benefits that would ordinarily come to a lawmaker with his seniority. Mr. Lopez, 71, has said he did nothing wrong. “I won my district after a huge barrage of attacks and allegations,” he said this month. “I got over 90 percent, over 30,000 people voted, and I have a strong mandate to come here and represent the district.” The investigations are examining not only Mr. Lopez’s actions toward female employees, but also the actions of the Assembly leadership in approving a confidential settlement of allegations brought by some of those workers. A judge authorized Mr. Donovan’s office last year to expand its criminal investigation by examining whether crimes were committed when public and private money was used to settle the complaints brought by two female staff members. Mr. Donovan was named a special prosecutor after the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, recused himself, citing his political ties to Mr. Lopez. The ethics commission has also been examining the role of the Assembly leadership in responding to the harassment allegations, but its inquiry is saddled by political intrigue . The commission is largely controlled by appointees of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, but legislative appointees effectively have veto power that can block investigative avenues. Mr. Silver has acknowledged mistakes in his response to the initial harassment allegations, saying the first allegations of harassment should have been referred to an Assembly ethics committee. In the future, he has said, the Assembly “should not agree to a confidential settlement.”

Sexual harassment
State legislature
Special prosecutor
Vito J Lopez
Brooklyn
New York
Politics


Lacking a House, a Senator Is Renewing His Ties in Kansas

Abstract: DODGE CITY, Kan. — It is hard to find anyone who has seen Senator Pat Roberts here at the redbrick house on a golf course that his voter registration lists as his home. Across town at the Inn Pancake House on Wyatt Earp Boulevard, breakfast regulars say the Republican senator is a virtual stranger. “He calls it home,” said Jerald Miller, a retiree. “But I’ve been here since ’77, and I’ve only seen him twice.” The 77-year-old senator went to Congress in 1981 and became a fixture: a member of the elite Alfalfa Club and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which made him a regular on the Sunday talk shows. His wife became a real estate broker in Alexandria, Va., the suburb where the couple live, boasting of her “extensive knowledge” of the area. But such emblems of Washington status have turned hazardous in a Republican establishment threatened by the Tea Party and unnerved by the defeat of incumbents like Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, who was viewed as a creature of the capital. Mr. Roberts is now desperate to re-establish ties to Kansas and to adjust his politics to fit the rise of the right in the state. But his efforts underscore the awkward reality of Republicans who, after coming of age in an era of comity and esteem for long-term service, are trying to remake themselves to be warriors for a Tea Party age. In an interview, the three-term senator acknowledged that he did not have a home of his own in Kansas. The house on a country club golf course that he lists as his voting address belongs to two longtime supporters and donors — C. Duane and Phyllis Ross — and he says he stays with them when he is in the area. He established his voting address there the day before his challenger in the August primary, Milton Wolf, announced his candidacy last fall, arguing that Mr. Roberts was out of touch with his High Plains roots. “I have full access to the recliner,” the senator joked. Turning serious, he added, “Nobody knows the state better than I do.” That assertion is disputed by Tea Party activists energized by Mr. Wolf’s candidacy. “In four and one-half going on five years of existence have we been contacted by Senator Roberts or any of his staff? Not once,” said Chuck Henderson, a Tea Party activist in Manhattan, Kan., who mocked the notion of the senator’s “official” residence here. Mr. Roberts’s race highlights the divisions within the Republican Party that are playing out in primaries across the country at a time when anti-Washington animus is running high and moderate voices have been displaced by lawmakers with conservative positions on abortion, taxes and education. Mr. Roberts has suddenly begun aligning himself with the most conservative elements of the Senate, after a career in the mainstream conservative tradition of fellow Kansans like Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum. Image Mr. Roberts is registered to vote at this house in Dodge City, Kan. Credit Craig Hacker for The New York Times He opposed a major spending project at his beloved alma mater, Kansas State University, that he had sought for a decade, because it was tied to a larger appropriations measure. And he called for the resignation of the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, the daughter-in-law of his former boss, Representative Keith Sebelius, over the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act. “It isn’t personal,” Mr. Roberts said of demanding that Ms. Sebelius quit. “Was it tough? Sure, it was tough.” When Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, took to the Senate floor last fall for 21 hours to protest the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Roberts joined him in the early morning. He also opposed a United Nations treaty banning discrimination against people with disabilities after being personally lobbied to support it by his predecessor, Ms. Kassebaum, and by Mr. Dole, who uses a wheelchair. (Mr. Roberts said he did not trust the United Nations.) “I have to say I’m disappointed in Pat,” said Ms. Kassebaum, referring to both the treaty vote and his larger reluctance to stand up to his party’s right wing. “You’re not sent there just to go whichever way the polls tell us.” Mr. Dole, who supports Mr. Roberts, acknowledged that his old friend’s vote had irritated him “a little bit.” “My view is we need to be a party of inclusion, and that includes moderates as well as conservatives,” Mr. Dole said. Mr. Roberts’s aides candidly acknowledge that the moves are an effort to ensure that he will not suffer the same fate as Mr. Lugar, who was criticized for staying in hotels when he returned home and listed on his voter registration an Indianapolis address at which he did not reside. Mr. Roberts moved his address from a rental property he owned in Dodge City but had long since leased to tenants, and got a new driver’s license giving the golf course home as his address. He began paying the Rosses $300 a month to allow him to stay overnight with them occasionally. “We’re not going to get Lugared,” said David Kensinger, an adviser to Mr. Roberts. Mr. Ross said in a telephone interview that he could not remember how many times the senator had stayed at the family’s home since October. “I would say several,” he said. Asked when the last time was, he said he could not remember, and the senator’s staff also declined to provide dates, but said he had stayed there “a few” times. Job security has rarely been an issue for Mr. Roberts, who has tended to his state’s agricultural needs and delivered projects. He won with 60 percent of the vote in 2008, before the rise of the Tea Party, with its anti-establishment ethos, suspicion of long-term Washington tenure and emphasis on ideological purity. “I think career politicians are changed by Washington,” said Mr. Wolf, Mr. Roberts’s opponent, who is a radiologist and a second cousin of President Obama on the president’s maternal side. Image Mr. Roberts, a Kansas Republican, owns a home in Alexandria, Va. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times Kansas has not had a Democratic United States senator since 1939, but the Republican Party here no longer embraces the consensus-minded centrist-style politics of its most famous son, Dwight D. Eisenhower. The national Tea Party-versus-establishment battle has become particularly vivid in Kansas, where conservatives, including Gov. Sam Brownback, have ousted their party’s old guard from power in the State Capitol after decades in which a coalition of center-right Republicans and Democrats had effective control. “Pat’s very cognizant of what’s happened to the party,” said Mr. Brownback, who served alongside Mr. Roberts in the Senate until being elected governor in 2010. Given the changing political climate, Mr. Brownback says that Mr. Roberts is doing precisely what he needs to do to win another term. “Being active, being aggressive, being conservative,” the governor said. “He’s got to get through a Republican primary, and people are pretty fired up about what’s going on at the federal level.” Nowhere is mistrust of Washington more evident than in the Capitol. There are two statues of Eisenhower in the building, but conversations with the new vanguard of conservatives here seem to reflect the Capitol’s gripping mural of a zealous-looking John Brown more than the even-tempered Eisenhower. “I believe that to really turn the country around there will have to be some political martyrs out there,” said State Representative Marty Read, a rancher and auctioneer who is one of the few state legislators backing Mr. Wolf. Still, Mr. Wolf’s obstacles are formidable. He has only $179,000 in the bank, compared with Mr. Roberts’s $2.2 million, but his aides are hoping to win over deep-pocketed outside groups such as the Club for Growth by demonstrating viability before the primary. On policy, though, Mr. Wolf is already having an impact. The latest reminder came this week, when Mr. Roberts opposed the five-year, nearly $1 trillion farm bill, which was prized by leaders of the Kansas farm lobby but opposed by Tea Party activists. Mr. Roberts, who had written an earlier version of the measure, said the final legislation included too many subsidies. In the interview, Mr. Roberts conceded that “everything’s changed” about politics since he began working as a staff member. He arrived in Washington in 1967, and was first elected in 1980, in an era when finding a new house and school for the children in the capital area was as much a part of coming to Congress as learning how to cast a vote, and when he was rarely questioned back home. Now, connectedness to the home state is more important than ever in an election climate with Congress’s approval ratings at record lows and conservative activists seeking purity, not pork-barrel spending. The new political reality helps explain his extraordinary efforts to establish voting residency and be seen back in the state — in the last year, he has visited 72 of the state’s 105 counties, several of them more than once. Sitting in his Senate office, across from a painting of a covered wagon and from photographs and totems from Kansas, Mr. Roberts said his loyalty to the state where his ancestors settled in the 1800s was beyond question. “I’ve been to every county in Kansas more than anybody else,” he said, pausing for a moment before noting that only Mr. Dole “might quarrel with that.” “Senators have a tendency to get involved in their committees and important works,” Mr. Roberts said, recalling Mr. Lugar. “You get involved in that, and you’re not out there touring 105 counties like I am. We get out.”

Pat Roberts
Republicans
US Politics
Kansas
Tea Party movement
Senate races


Top-Seeded North Carolina Fills Last Spot in Final Four

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — The Earth has managed to orbit the sun for the last seven years in spite of one of college basketball’s great injustices. Somehow the Final Four had been contested each spring since without the presence of North Carolina, challenging an enduring belief among its supporters that if God were not a Tar Heel, then why is the sky Carolina blue? For the nation’s most eminent programs, such a shard of time is like an eon. North Carolina identifies itself by championships won, and after continuing its romp through the N.C.A.A. tournament Sunday, it will pursue another one next weekend in Houston. The Tar Heels pounded Notre Dame, 88-74 , in the East Regional final, restoring order to a tournament pummeled by upsets. A formless regular season gave way to a tournament that, after some early mayhem, unfurled as the bracket designers intended, with all four top seeds advancing to the regional finals. But then chaos descended again. As Oregon, Kansas and Virginia all succumbed this weekend, North Carolina survived, reaching the Final Four for the first time since 2009, when it thrashed Michigan State to win a fifth title. In a nod to all that bedlam, with 34 seconds remaining, Marcus Paige, the Tar Heels’ calm-as-low-tide guard, gathered his teammates for a huddle. “I was saying, ‘Fellas, I know this feels good, but play 30 more seconds and we in the Four,’ ” Paige said on the court afterward. “There’s been some crazy things that have happened. I wanted to make sure we were in.” Oh, they were in. For reasons beyond their seeding or pedigree, these Tar Heels will be considered the favorite as they try to capture Championship No. 6, to beat upstart Syracuse on Saturday and Villanova or Oklahoma thereafter. Complemented by Paige, the frontcourt, best in Division I, is powered by a collection of enormous young men whose size belies their agility and athleticism. One after another, they tormented Notre Dame on Sunday: the 6-foot-8 pogo stick Justin Jackson (11 points, 5 rebounds), sinking 3-pointers from the wing and driving along the baseline; the 6-foot-10 forward Brice Johnson (25 points, 12 rebounds), selected as the regional’s most outstanding player, balancing a dominant low post game with a pillowy jumper; the 6-foot-10 center Kennedy Meeks, scoreless in the first half but unstoppable in the second. Trailing, 51-40, after Meeks’s fourth straight basket, the Irish trudged to the bench for a media timeout with 15 minutes 47 seconds left in the game. Limping after a spill on the baseline, Demetrius Jackson went back out and made a layup, swished a 3-pointer and tossed an alley-oop to Zach Auguste, who, fouled, made his free throw. Before the Tar Heels could score again, they had allowed 12 straight points. But before the Irish could score again, they, too, allowed 12 straight points. This is how North Carolina operates. It weathers poor stretches and then crushes souls and dreams. The Tar Heels outrebounded Notre Dame by 32-15 and scored 12 more points — 42 to 30 — in the lane. Asked why he did not have his players foul when North Carolina possessed the ball for nearly a minute late, Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey all but shrugged. “Because it was over,” Brey said. “It was over. Our guys were exhausted, too.” They were exhausted by Sunday’s events, but also the last 10 days collectively. By all good sense, the Fighting Irish should have been back in South Bend a week ago, monitoring the school’s burgeoning quarterback controversy, eliminated in the first round after trailing Michigan by 12 at halftime; or in the second round, after trailing Stephen F. Austin by 6 with 95 seconds remaining; or in the regional semifinal Friday, after trailing Wisconsin by 3 with 25 seconds left. In the final minute of each of those last two victories, Notre Dame outscored opponents by 14-3. The mission for the Irish on Sunday was to remain that close, that long. They made nine of their first 12 shots, and 14 of 24 over all, and still trailed, 43-38, after a first half that asserted their resilience. Not even three weeks ago, the Irish lost to North Carolina by 31 in the semifinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. “Those are ones that you burn, you don’t go back to,” Brey said of the game tape. “But you certainly have to learn from it.” The Irish responded by elevating another skilled ballhandler, Matt Farrell, to the starting lineup. They refined their ability to compartmentalize. What they could not do is consistently crack a North Carolina defense that has morphed into a strength. All season, as North Carolina kept scoring 90 but floundering on defense, Coach Roy Williams reminded his players of a Tar Heel truism: Both of his N.C.A.A. champions, in 2005 and 2009, just suffocated opponents. Implied was a challenge that players took weeks to convert into results. The Tar Heels cited a film session after their Feb. 27 loss at Virginia as pivotal. Rarely does Williams demand his players watch every single second from a game again, but he wanted them to see Virginia’s precision, execution, spirit. Play like that, he told them. But by the later stages Sunday, the coaches were not yelling much anymore. They were standing behind Williams, shaking hands and dispensing hugs, and after the final buzzer, the party spilled onto the court. Johnson, clutching a pair of scissors, asked his teammates if he could cut the net first. Meeks grabbed a selfie stick and snapped a photo. Williams climbed the ladder to clip the net as regional champion for the eighth time in 28 seasons as a head coach, only now he sliced his pinkie finger. “He should be used to cutting nets,” Paige quipped. “That’s something he’s done several times in his career.” It has been a while, though — seven long years, as Williams and the Tar Heels can attest. Notre Dame has been waiting far longer, since 1978, but one hiatus had to end, and it belonged to the bigger, better blue bloods. It belonged to North Carolina.

College basketball
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness
UNC
University of Notre Dame


Once Wimbledon’s Foundation, Croquet Now Lives in Its Margins

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — World-class croquet lacks the surrealism of the Queen of Hearts’ game in Disney’s animated film “Alice in Wonderland,” as playing cards are replaced by rigid hoops often barely wide enough for a ball to pass through. Competitive croquet also does not include the tactical spitefulness of stepping on one ball while sending an opponent’s ball flying into backyard shrubbery, as in the 1988 dark comedy “Heathers .” What top-flight croquet does have, albeit less captivating, are talented players often reeling off perfect shot after perfect shot without much interruption. Though now synonymous with tennis, Wimbledon’s grass courts were born from croquet. One of the first sports that allowed men and women to play on equal terms, croquet surged in popularity in Victorian England, and in 1868 the All England Croquet Club was founded. “Croquet began to take off, and it became quite popular among the more landed gentry,” said Chris Williams, the archivist for the Croquet Association, the sport’s governing body in England. “But it was never really a spectator sport. It was more a sport for playing. Tennis effectively pushed croquet out.” If the game of mallets and hoops (often called wickets in the United States) was on its way out, the courts were here to stay. Croquet’s flat, closely shorn lawns proved perfect for the trendy new game of lawn tennis, and two tennis courts could fit into one croquet court (the current dimensions of tennis courts come in large part from the regulations for croquet play). Nine years after it was founded, the All England Croquet Club held its first tennis championships, and the name was amended to the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. Croquet was removed from the name within five years before being restored in 1899 to the name that endures today: the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, or the All England Club. Image Ben Rothman, the top American croquet player, during practice before the British Open Championships in Surbiton, England. Credit Ben Rothenberg/The New York Times In the early 1920s, the club moved one mile from its home near the Wimbledon train station to its current location, but croquet did not follow. Croquet was part of the club only in name until 1953, when the sport was reintroduced to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The lone croquet lawn was removed in 2007 to make way for the new No. 2 Court. A year later, three croquet courts were added to an adjacent property owned by the club. But tennis is still king here, particularly during Wimbledon, when the croquet lawns are converted to practice tennis courts. “We have a lot of tennis players practicing and doing a bit of physical aggression to our wonderful croquet lawns,” said Michael Hann, the honorary secretary of the club’s croquet section. “It was founded as a croquet club, but tennis is far more exciting. People dashing around and sweating, all this sort of stuff. We are a club which is 99.9 percent lawn tennis and 0.1 percent croquet. But we still enjoy it.” Hann said most croquet players at the All England Club were former tennis enthusiasts like himself who were no longer able to actively play and found croquet to be physically less demanding. He said only about 25 of the roughly 350 Wimbledon members participated in croquet. “I’m sorry to tell you the section is not increasing by that much,” Hann, 77, said. “We’re not all old fuddy-duddies; we have some younger people that play, but they have lives to lead and tennis to play.” Croquet is similarly dwarfed across England. According to a 2014 survey by Sport England, the number of people who played tennis at least once a month was 779,200, while the number playing croquet was 11,900. The All England Club does not field croquet teams in larger interclub competitions, instead limiting itself to eight exhibitions a year — four away from the club while its lawns are being used for tennis, and four at home after the tennis world packs up and moves on. “It’s a pleasure to bring these people to the club and show them around,” Hann said. “We play in the morning, then we have lunch in the main clubhouse, and then we play in the afternoon, we have tea, and we all go home.” Image A croquet display at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum. Credit Ben Rothenberg/The New York Times But croquet is not just a way to occupy time between lunch and tea. About six miles southwest of Wimbledon, the Surbiton Croquet Club is the site of this year’s British Open Championships, one of the world’s top croquet tournaments. The 50 participants (48 men and two women) traveled from four continents to compete for honor, if not fame or fortune. Ben Rothman, 31, of Oakland, Calif., is the top-ranked player in the United States. He wore a stars-and-stripes ensemble on the Fourth of July, the first day of play, testing the all-white dress code that croquet maintains (albeit less rigidly than Wimbledon does). Rothman said a croquet publication once listed him as the world’s leader in prize money won; he had earned $4,500. But he has found rare full-time work in the sport as a croquet pro at the Mission Hills Country Club near Palm Springs, Calif., during the six cooler months of the year, the peak season for the desert resort. An easy explanation of what he does for a living proves elusive. “Most people wonder if that’s a thing, if you can actually be a professional croquet player,” said Rothman, who first picked up the sport at his uncle’s home in Bar Harbor, Me. “The introduction to it is usually I have to see if people have ever played backyard croquet, and sometimes people are familiar because they play on the Fourth of July or Memorial Day with their family, and dust off their old croquet set in the garage. And if they’re not familiar with that, then I have to ask if they’ve ever seen ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and go over that description, explaining that we don’t use flamingos or hedgehogs.” Rothman said he thought there could be a TV audience for croquet if it were packaged properly. “You could edit it creatively, with good commentary, to actually make something very watchable,” he said. “Like the World Series of Poker, where 20 hours of poker has them throw away the 19 ½ hours of folded hands.” While the appeal of the game in its Victorian origins and in its backyard varieties has long involved its playful social aspects, the elite levels of the game can verge toward tedious. Excellent, steady croquet is often devoid of the more difficult, breathtaking shots necessitated by less proficient play. Doug Grimsley, 65, a retired furniture salesman from Vienna, Va., who is also participating in the British Open, was once reminded of this in backhanded fashion by Robert Fulford, a Briton whom Grimsley called the Babe Ruth of croquet. “Robert Fulford told me I was a much more exciting player than he was,” Grimsley said. “And it wasn’t a compliment.”


G.E. Spent Years Cleaning Up the Hudson. Was It Enough?

Abstract: FORT EDWARD, N.Y. — Ask Matthew Traver, the mayor of this village north of Albany, his opinion of General Electric and its two closed factories that spilled PCBs into the Hudson River for decades, and his words could not be clearer. “G.E.,” he said, “has done a lot of damage to this community.” But ask Mr. Traver if he and other residents believe that the industrial giant should continue dredging the Hudson to remove more of the chemical poison — as G.E. did for years before finishing last year — and his answer is equally firm, if surprising. “I’d say the general consensus in this community is, ‘You’ve dredged, you’re done,’” he said. “It’s over.” That sense of resignation, shared by some others on the Upper Hudson, is the direct opposite of a position taken recently by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which is pushing the federal government to closely consider the issue of whether G.E.’s cleanup efforts have been enough. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has said that the company fulfilled its promises under a 2005 order, resulting in the removal of nearly three million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. But Basil Seggos, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, in a recent letter to the E.P.A.’s top official in New York, challenged the federal remedy, saying “unacceptably high levels of PCB-contaminated sediment remain in large portions of the Upper Hudson.” “The work is not done,” Mr. Seggos said in the letter to Judith Enck, the agency’s regional administrator who oversees New York. The state believes that at least 136 acres of underwater sediment in the Upper Hudson — stretching north from Albany — harbor “unacceptably high” levels of PCBs, or the synthetic chemical polychlorinated biphenyl, which was used to make transformers, capacitors and other electrical products. The state bolstered its claim by pointing to an analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing that the recovery of fish in the Lower Hudson was not as robust as hoped. The Environmental Protection Agency, responding to the state’s concerns, noted that it disagreed with the findings on fish recovery and questioned NOAA’s methods , which the agency said took place at a single sampling station near Albany shortly after the completion of dredging. “It is not possible for the fish to recover immediately,” the agency said. The cleanup of the Upper Hudson paid for by G.E. was prescribed to remove over 2.5 million cubic yards of sediment and encompass a roughly 40-mile stretch of the river, from the Troy Dam to Fort Edward. Its progress is assessed every five years. But Mr. Seggos, in an interview, said federal officials had allowed G.E. to declare mission accomplished too soon. “Both the amount of sediment and the fish are suggesting that the initial goals of the remedy have not been, and may not be met, for decades,” he said. Image The General Electric plant in Hudson Falls during the early 1970s. In June, the company began demolishing the plant, an Eisenhower-era relic. Credit The New York Times The state’s move has been cheered by environmentalists, who have long lobbied for more expansive solutions to a pollutant whose toxicity was first suspected in the 1930s. “It’s been clear that this was a partial cleanup,” said Ned Sullivan, the president of Scenic Hudson , a nonprofit group based in Poughkeepsie. “New York State stood up and said, ‘We do not believe that what has been conducted to date is sufficient.’” Mr. Sullivan also noted that dozens of communities on the river had shown support for additional measures. The questions around the dredging also come at an awkward moment in G.E.’s history on the Upper Hudson, which dates to the end of World War II. In January, the company closed its plant in Fort Edward, having moved 200 jobs to Florida, at about the same time that it said it would move its headquarters from Connecticut to Boston , despite an active effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to woo G.E. to New York. In May, the company also began demolishing its nearby Hudson Falls plant, an Eisenhower-era relic that sat on the edge of the Hudson, its soil so polluted with PCBs that engineers dug tunnels 200 feet into bedrock to capture minute amounts of poison seeping into the river. For its part, the company hailed what a spokeswoman called its “world-class engineering work” and the $1.6 billion it spent on dredging efforts. “The PCB levels in the Upper Hudson have already shown significant declines,” said the spokeswoman, Deirdre Latour, adding that the E.P.A. had already agreed that the company had met its obligations under the agreement, and that “ no additional dredging was necessary.” And while the E.P.A. is still conducting a review of the project, due next spring, “We’re confident that assessment will show the dredging project achieved the agency’s goals of protecting public health and the environment,” Ms. Latour said. The long-running campaign to restore the Hudson, one of America’s signature waterways, has yielded cleaner waters. Still, the result of the five-year review could be used to compel G.E. to do more dredging. But regardless of the outcome of that review, due in April, the company has left behind a deep vein of anger and pain as a result of its plants’ closings and their history of pollution . “They contaminated it, cleaned some of it up,” Mayor Traver, of Fort Edward, said. “And left us high and dry.” The state Department of Environmental Conservation cites maps showing scores of spots along the Upper Hudson where elevated levels of PCBs still sit in the silt below the water. Mr. Seggos, the agency’s commissioner, believes additional cleanup could take as little as two years, though it would be expensive. Cassie Wilusz and her mother, Gail Taras, who live in Schuylerville, a river town with a smattering of upscale businesses, said that if the state believed more dredging was needed, it should be done. “At the end of the day, I want my daughter to be 40 and be able to go in the water,” said Ms. Wilusz, 35, whose daughter is 6. Image The Hudson River, near the Troy Dam. Under a 2002 plan by the federal government, G.E. would pay to clean sediment from a roughly 40-mile stretch of the river, from the dam to Fort Edward. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times Ms. Taras, 60, nodded, but for now, she will tell her grandchildren to “shower when they get out of that river.” And sure enough, people still swim in the river — jumping from bridges, and boats — even if signs still warn not to eat the fish. It was the water, of course, that brought many businesses here in the first place — including still-active paper and plastics plants — and the names of villages along the river here are inextricably linked to it: Waterford, Stillwater, Hudson Falls. As a result, in many places, water contamination was simply a fact of life, particularly after evidence of PCBs — which are probable carcinogens , according to the E.P.A. — in the Hudson River began to emerge in the 1970s. Residents knew not to the eat fish from the river, public beaches closed and tales of strange ailments began to circulate. “You’d dry off and you could feel it,” said Debbie Comorski, 51, a riverfront resident in Stillwater. “Your skin would just tighten up.” Ms. Comorski is among those who believe that General Electric needs to get back in the water. “Do it now,” she said. “Clean it.” But others say it would do more harm than good. “It’s just going to muck it up,” said Bob Hallum, 72, a business owner in Stillwater who worried about the impact on fishing and boating. Mr. Hallum said that residents there had been warned about PCBs in their soil deposited on riverfront properties by flooding. “So what are they going to do?” he said. “Dig up the lawns?” In Fort Edward, where some of the more than one million pounds of PCBs that poisoned the Hudson were used, there is ambivalence about G.E.’s efforts. “It’s a farce,” said Pat Fitzsimmons, a barber, who had watched the dredging — done with claw-like heavy equipment and barges — and was skeptical about its success. “How much did they migrate south along the river?” Mr. Fitzsimmons’s friend Joe Viele concurred. “It’s not an exact science,” he said. Then, he offered to take a reporter to see the site of the old Hudson Falls plant. The site is now rubble: its buildings torn down to their foundations, a single empty flagpole still standing. Mr. Viele, whose mother worked at G.E. for decades before dying of cancer, joked that he “never caught a three-eyed fish.” He grew quiet. “It’s just a shame,” he said. “People just didn’t realize what was happening at the time.”

General Electric
Hudson River
EPA
PCB
Environmental Conservation Department
Water pollution
New York
Conservation of Resources
HazMat


Uncertainty Over Whether N.F.L. Settlement’s Money Will Last

Abstract: As intriguing football matchups go, Sunday’s Super Bowl has nothing on one looming down the turnpike in federal court in Philadelphia — with Judge Anita B. Brody the ultimate referee. Brody, considering the N.F.L.'s recent settlement with 4,500 retirees over work-related brain injuries, has asked both sides to demonstrate that their $765 million bargain will fulfill its promise to compensate every currently retired player who has or will develop a neurological condition such as dementia or Parkinson’s disease. Lawyers for the plaintiffs and the N.F.L. said independent actuaries and medical experts had endorsed the terms of the settlement. But the lawyers refuse to share any of their data with the public to help substantiate how they arrived at the $765 million figure, and there is growing displeasure among plaintiffs who have not been allowed to see the data, either. Numbers can speak for themselves, though, and they bring a clear warning: The $765 million could run out faster than either side apparently believes. When one forecasts how many of the roughly 13,500 currently retired players may develop these conditions over the next 65 years, compensating them as the settlement directs could very well require close to $1 billion, and perhaps more. No one can divine how many players will develop these conditions. But the best data available comes straight from the N.F.L., and it becomes instructive after some basic guidelines. The settlement essentially promises that when a player receives a diagnosis of an eligible condition (primarily dementia), he will get a lump-sum payment that varies with his age and career length. For example, a 12-year player with Alzheimer’s disease at 62 receives $950,000, while a one-year player with Parkinson’s at 57 receives $260,000. No player has to prove that football caused his condition, a futile task in individual cases; those who get ill get paid. More housecleaning: Expenses and additional wrinkles leave the total payment pool capped at $712.5 million. Families of players who died with a condition after 2006 can receive retroactive payments immediately. And contrary to urban myth, N.F.L. players generally live as long as other American men. Those typical American men set a baseline for future settlement payments. The best research on nationwide dementia prevalence — rates that some experts consider conservatively low — estimates that, for example, 1.3 percent of American men aged 60 to 64 have the condition. For those aged 70 to 74, the rate is 6.8 percent, and so on. Those rates would predict that 220 living N.F.L. retirees have dementia now, and about 1,500 will in the future. Total payments, adjusting for career length: $262 million. Given the national rates for Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (often known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), which call for higher payments than dementia, the expected total over 65 years rises to $350 million — just among regular American men. So what happens if and when players develop conditions more often than the general population, which the settlement is designed to address? The exact numbers are unknown. But the best available data on dementia among former players suggests payments could soar. ¶ A 2009 University of Michigan survey commissioned by the league found that 1.9 percent of N.F.L. retirees aged 30 to 49 reported a dementia-type diagnosis, 19 times the national average. The rate was 6.1 percent for retirees 50 and above, five times higher than normal. ¶ A 2013 government study found that N.F.L. players were four times more likely than other American men to die with Lou Gehrig’s disease or Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. N.F.L. players showed no higher risk for Parkinson’s. ¶ The league’s 88 Plan, which reimburses medical costs for retirees with dementia, Parkinson’s or Lou Gehrig’s disease, currently has 165 living enrollees, according to the league. That represents the minimum estimate of the true total living with these conditions: Older retirees who played fewer than four seasons are generally not eligible, and many ill players do not enroll for various reasons. Not all considerations in the forecasting model can be detailed here. But if one makes all retired players eligible, follows their expected aging patterns across the next 65 years and then applies disease rates that mirror current and historical 88 Plan data, total settlement payments project between $400 million and $600 million. This would be the floor. Players have much more incentive to seek and report early-onset diagnoses when the reward is not paperwork-heavy expense reimbursements, but instant six- or even seven-figure checks. This near certainty could easily add at least $200 million in payments, increasing the total to $600 million to $800 million — which, not coincidentally, begins to approach what the more crude Michigan and government studies foresee. Lawyers for both the players and the league declined an offer to scrutinize these projections. No model is perfect, including this one. The method was reviewed by Dr. Murali Doraiswamy, the director of the neurocognitive disorders program at Duke University Medical Center, and Richard Davis, chairman of the statistics department at Columbia University. “Aside from taking into account uncertainties associated with the disease rates,” Davis said, “this modeling approach gives a reasonable estimate of the expected payments.” The $600 million to $800 million figure is just for players currently alive. The roughly 50 players who died with chronic traumatic encephalopathy — a degenerative disease caused by repeated brain trauma — call for payments totaling about $40 million. The hundred or more families of players who died since 2006 with only dementia could come forward for another $30 million, depending on the players’ age at diagnosis. The lesson here is that heeding what we have already seen with N.F.L. players leads to payments totaling about $700 million to $900 million. If the rate of early-onset disease rises among the heavier, faster players from the 1990s and 2000s — no one knows yet if it will — the numbers could rise well past $1 billion. The final total might come in low at $600 million. But it could be close to twice that. We do not know, and cannot. But making the fund $712.5 million and not a penny more, as proposed, runs a reasonable risk of leaving a thousand future players uncovered. These estimates might even be conservative. Better medical care is expected to leave all Americans living into the advanced ages when dementia more often develops. The estimates ignore all retired players under 30, as well as the roughly 1,000 replacement players from the 1987 strike season who did not play long but remain eligible for relatively low payments. And the model credits a player with a season of service only if he appeared in a game; the settlement rules are less strict and could lead to some higher payments. Of course, some assumptions could be off in the other direction. Some — perhaps many — players will become ineligible for payments either by formally opting out of the settlement or by not registering during the strict 180-day window. The reserve in the settlement fund will appreciate through investments that should outpace inflation. And although no cure for dementia is on the immediate horizon, 65 years is a long time for science to come up with a treatment that makes most payments unnecessary. But with the promise of payments to an unknown number of players, any hard cap must derive from what is already known about the aging and disease patterns of these men and then allow for reasonable worst-case scenarios. Some deviations could be wonderful news. Others could be disastrous. If the N.F.L. demands the certainty of a cap, it can set a higher one. If the plaintiffs demand the certainty of guaranteed player awards, they can set lower ones. Or both sides could concede to the unknown. Let the program run for five years so that information far better than either side has now could be collected and considered.

Football
Lawsuits
NFL
Super Bowl
Super Bowl 2015
Dementia
Anita B Brody
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
Concussion


Texas Ranchers and Farmers Struggle in Drought

Abstract: BEEVILLE, Tex. — Austin Brown II kicked the sandy dirt near a feedlot with his spurred boot and surveyed the land his family has ranched for three generations. Most years the first green shoots of spring and pink bursts of paintbrush flowers would be rising from the soil by now. Nothing meets his eye but brown grass, dried up oaks and dust billowing in the wind. “You can see how the sand is just drifting,” said Mr. Brown, 65, digging his toe into the dust piled up at his feet. “This normally would be grass.” The worst drought in nearly 100 years is racking three-quarters of Texas . Much of the state has not had a significant rainfall since August. Winter wheat crops have failed. Ponds have dried up. Ranchers are spending heavily on hay and feed pellets to get their cattle through the winter. Some wonder if they will have to slaughter their herds come summer. Farmers say the soil is too dry for seeds to germinate and are considering not planting. “The last time we had a drought this bad was in January 1918,” said John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist. “The droughts in the 1950s in individual years were not as bad as this.” Mr. Nielsen-Gammon, a professor at Texas A&M, said the weather had been unusually dry for the last year and a half, but since August, much of the central part of the state — a broad swath from just south of Dallas, through Austin and San Antonio and down to Corpus Christi — had gotten little or no rain. Even last year’s hurricanes , Dolly and Ike, did not help, he said. Though about a half-inch of rain fell in Austin and Dallas this week, it was not enough to offset the 20-inch deficit in rainfall over the last 18 months, he said. A weather pattern over the Pacific known as La Niña has pushed the jet stream north, keeping the normal fall and winter rains away, meteorologists say. In the last three months, only about a quarter of the usual rain and snow has fallen across the state. “We are dry from the Rio Grande Valley through the High Plains — there is no subsoil moisture,” said Travis Miller, head of soil and crop sciences at the Texas AgriLife Extension Program. “I really don’t think anybody’s going to plant until we get significant moisture.” The time for planting corn and sorghum is passing fast. In central Texas, farmers plant corn from mid-February to late March, hoping to harvest it before the intense summer heat in August. Sorghum is planted a bit later, in late April. The last option is cotton, which can be planted as late as May. Archie Abrameit, the manager of the Stiles Farm Foundation, a state-owned farm of 2,900 acres near Thrall, said the parched soil thwarted the winter wheat from coming up. Farmers have no hope that the spring crops will do better, since not even wild plants are sprouting. “We make the joke we can’t even grow weeds this winter,” Mr. Abrameit said. As a result, farmers have found themselves playing a guessing game. Does one plant corn now and hope for rain, or wait for rain, hoping it comes in time to plant sorghum? Or wait still later and plant cotton, which can be grown until later in the summer? Some admit privately that they will plant knowing the crop will fail in hopes of collecting insurance. Others say they may not plant at all. “The clock is ticking as far as coming up to planting time,” said Terrell Hamann, who farms 1,800 acres near Taylor, just northeast of Austin. “I change my mind about three times a day about what to do.” Complicating the calculus for farmers and ranchers, prices for grain and beef have dropped, as people across the country have cut their spending in the economic crisis. At the Brown Ranch in Beeville, about 85 miles southeast of San Antonio, the family is bracing for what could be a terrible year. So far, Mr. Brown and his son, Austin Brown III, have kept their 2,000 head of Angus, Hereford and Akaushi cattle watered by pumping well water into troughs, at great cost in electric bills. They have also dipped into the ranch’s savings to buy hundreds of bales of hay and hundreds of pounds cottonseed “cake,” dense protein-rich pellets, to feed the animals. As the younger Mr. Brown spread the cottonseed cake on the ground on a recent afternoon, a hungry mob of Hereford cows chased after his truck, jostling and bumping one another. The ground was devoid of green life as far as the eye could see. The cows and their calves had devoured a towering roll of hay left for them but could find nothing to forage. “When the grass is real green and lush and they have a lot to eat, they won’t hardly come to you,” the younger Mr. Brown said. A point comes when the cost of feeding the cattle in a drought becomes so high it makes no sense to continue, the elder Mr. Brown said. Then all or part of the main herd of reproductive cows and bulls must be slaughtered. It is a prospect every rancher fears, for that core herd is what produces a yearly bounty of calves to be raised and fattened for the market. “We are going to try to keep these cattle going into June,” the elder Mr. Brown said, “and if we don’t get any rain by June, then it’s all over and we will have to send them to market.”


German Suspect Linked to Hamas Figure’s Assassination Posts Bail

Abstract: BERLIN — A man suspected of being an Israeli spy involved in the killing of a Hamas leader in Dubai last January was released on bail by a German judge on Friday. “He can return to Israel if he wants to,” said Rainer Wolf, the spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Cologne. The suspect, known as Uri Brodsky, was charged with acquiring a passport under false pretenses. The prosecutor’s office said that Mr. Brodsky applied for and received a German passport in Cologne in 2009. Mr. Brodsky identified himself as Michael Bodenheimer and said his father was a victim of the Nazis. German law provides citizenship to descendants of families persecuted by the Nazis. With the passport, Mr. Brodsky is believed to have traveled to Dubai and joined Israeli intelligence agents who assassinated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh , a senior Hamas official, in his hotel room. The plot was quickly uncovered, and closed-circuit television images of the suspects disguised as tourists were widely published. The sloppy work embarrassed Israel , whose Mossad spy agency had been considered the world’s best, and angered several European countries who said that the suspects carried forged European passports. Mr. Brodsky was arrested at the Warsaw airport in June by Polish authorities acting on a German warrant. Germany requested his extradition on charges of spying and passport fraud, but a Polish court ruled that he could not be extradited for espionage because spying against Germany is not a punishable crime in Poland. Poland handed Mr. Brodsky over to the German police on Thursday on the forgery charge, meaning that Germany could charge him only with that crime. That charge was issued in Cologne on Friday. The maximum fine would be covered by the bail, the prosecutor’s office said.


Manhattan: Sept. 11 Ceremony to Relocate

Abstract: The Sept. 11 anniversary remembrance will not be held at its original location at ground zero this year because construction on the site has made it unsafe for a large public gathering, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday. The ceremony will be held at a plaza near the southeast corner of the site. Some family members of victims have protested, but the mayor said that the decision was final and that “it would be a big shame” if anyone skipped the event out of anger.

World Trade Center (NYC)
Bloomberg Michael R


Czechs Pull Out of U.S. Missile Defense Project

Abstract: BERLIN — The Czech Republic announced Wednesday that it was withdrawing from plans to participate in the United States missile defense program out of frustration at its diminished role in the system, which was conceived as a deterrent against a potential threat from Iran . The administration of President George W. Bush had initially proposed stationing 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and a radar facility in the Czech Republic. But in September 2009, the Obama administration scrapped those plans and proposed a revamped program with an unspecified role for the Czechs. Two months later, it offered the Czech Republic the possibility of hosting a separate early warning system. The shift prompted accusations from Republican critics who accused President Obama of betraying allies under pressure from Russia, while officials in Eastern Europe, who viewed missile defense as a symbol of American support for the region, expressed discomfort at the change in policy. The Czech defense minister, Alexandr Vondra, who met Wednesday in Prague with Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III, said that the conditions offered by Washington were not good enough. “We will seek other possibilities of how the Czech Republic may participate in the allied system in future,” he said. “They gave us an offer and we assessed that.” Mr. Vondra, a former Czech ambassador to the United States, was previously an outspoken proponent of Czech participation in missile defense, even as his center-right party faced deep resistance from a skeptical public. But at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels last week, Mr. Vondra dismissed the revamped Czech role as “a consolation prize.” “Our ideas about the future cooperation are more colorful than just a room or two with some screens there,” he said. The decision by the Czechs to step away from missile defense came a month after Mr. Obama traveled to Poland for a 24-hour visit during which he emphasized America’s close ties with its allies in the former Eastern Bloc. Yet Polish and Czech officials have watched with increasing concern as the Obama administration has reached out to Russia as part of a broader effort to restart talks to reduce nuclear weapons and to seek closer cooperation over Iran and Afghanistan. On Wednesday, the Pentagon issued a statement saying that the shared early warning center had been “overtaken by events,” because missile defense was adopted as a NATO mission at a Lisbon summit last November. Even so, the tone of Mr. Vondra’s remarks last week and on Wednesday show the level of disappointment with the Obama administration among what have been staunchly pro-American countries in this part of Europe. Separately, Russia, China and other members of a regional security organization signed a declaration on Wednesday that criticized plans by the United States to deploy a missile shield, saying it “could harm strategic stability and international security.”

United States Defense and Military Forces