Leader of Afghanistan Finds Himself Hero No More

Abstract: KABUL , Afghanistan — A foretaste of what would be in store for President Hamid Karzai after the election of a new American administration came last February, when Joseph R. Biden Jr. , then a senator, sat down to a formal dinner at the palace during a visit here. Between platters of lamb and rice, Mr. Biden and two other American senators questioned Mr. Karzai about corruption in his government, which, by many estimates, is among the worst in the world. Mr. Karzai assured Mr. Biden and the other senators that there was no corruption at all and that, in any case, it was not his fault. The senators gaped in astonishment. After 45 minutes, Mr. Biden threw down his napkin and stood up. “This dinner is over,” Mr. Biden announced, according to one of the people in the room at the time. And the three senators walked out, long before the appointed time. Today, of course, Mr. Biden is the vice president. The world has changed for Mr. Karzai, and for Afghanistan, too. A White House favorite — a celebrity in flowing cape and dark gray karakul cap — in each of the seven years that he has led this country since the fall of the Taliban , Mr. Karzai now finds himself not so favored at all. Not by Washington , and not by his own. In the White House, President Obama said he regarded Mr. Karzai as unreliable and ineffective. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said he presided over a “narco-state.” The Americans making Afghan policy, worried that the war is being lost, are vowing to bypass Mr. Karzai and deal directly with the governors in the countryside. At home, Mr. Karzai faces a widening insurgency and a population that blames him for the manifest lack of economic progress and the corrupt officials that seem to stand at every doorway of his government. His face, which once adorned the walls of tea shops across the country, is today much less visible. Now, perhaps crucially, an election looms. Mr. Karzai says he will ask the voters to return him to the palace for another five-year term. The election is set for Aug. 20, after what promises to be a violent and eventful summer. In a poll commissioned by a group of private Afghans, 85 percent of those surveyed said they intended to vote for someone other than Mr. Karzai. Meanwhile, the Obama administration will have to decide what it wants from Mr. Karzai as it tries to make good on its promise to reverse the course of the war. Or whether it wants him at all. With the insurgency rising, corruption soaring and opium blooming across the land, it perhaps is not surprising that so many Afghans, and so many in Washington, see President Karzai’s removal as a precondition for reversing the country’s downward surge. “Under President Karzai, we have gone from a better situation to a good situation to a not-so-bad situation to a bad situation — and now are going to worse,” said Abdullah, a former foreign minister in Mr. Karzai’s government who may now challenge him for the presidency (and who, like many Afghans, has only one name). “That is the trend. “So let us say Karzai stays in power through the summer and that nothing serious happens and then he wins re-election,” Dr. Abdullah said. “Then there will be two scenarios, and only two scenarios — a rapid collapse or a slow unraveling.” People close to Mr. Karzai say the man is exhausted, wary of his enemies and worried for his physical safety. He feels embattled and underappreciated, they say, but is utterly determined, in spite of it all, to run again and win. In recent weeks, the growing American dissatisfaction with Mr. Karzai, coupled with a simmering frustration among Afghans over what they regard as the reckless killing of civilians by American forces, has prompted extraordinary reactions from Mr. Karzai. At a news conference on Tuesday at his marble-floored palace, Mr. Karzai appeared side-by-side with Ban Ki-moon , the United Nations secretary general. Mr. Karzai wore his signature hat and cape, but his visage was wan and slack. Asked by an Afghan reporter about his relations with American leaders, Mr. Karzai sprang to life, accusing unnamed people in the American government of trying to “pressure” him to stay silent over the deaths of Afghan civilians in attacks by Americans. “Our demands are clear — to stop the civilian casualties, the searching of Afghan homes and the arresting Afghans,” Mr. Karzai said of the Americans. “And of course, the Americans pressured us to be quiet and to make us retreat from our demands. But that is impossible. Afghanistan and its president are not going to retreat from their demands.” Mr. Karzai did not touch on larger frustrations, which Afghan and Western officials here say he harbors, about the overall American effort, namely, the relegation of Afghanistan to second-tier status after the invasion of Iraq . Many Afghans and Western officials here believe that it was the Iraq war, more than any other factor, that deprived Mr. Karzai of the resources he needed to help the Afghan state stand on its own, and to prevent the resurgence of the Taliban that Mr. Obama is now vowing to contain. Yet for all the doubts about Mr. Karzai — and for all the strains he labors under — he remains by far the strongest politician in the country. He commands the resources of the Afghan state, including the army and the police, and billions of dollars in American and other aid that flows into the treasury. In his seven years in office, Mr. Karzai has successfully presided over the transition of the Afghan state from the devastated, pre-modern institution it was under the Taliban to the deeply troubled but largely democratic one it is today. Perhaps most important for his future, Mr. Karzai has assembled a team of senior administrators whose competence and experience would be difficult for any challenger to match. Perhaps for that reason, of the many prominent Afghans who have hinted that they may run against him, including Dr. Abdullah and a former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, only a handful of Afghans have so far declared their intentions. Some Afghan leaders say they will announce their candidacies soon, but it seems just as likely that they are waiting to see if Mr. Karzai stumbles. As for the members of Mr. Obama’s team, they may yet discover that Mr. Karzai is the man they will be forced to deal with, whether they like him or not. At the palace news conference, Mr. Karzai acknowledged his own unpopularity, and then offered a vigorous defense of his record. He declined to be interviewed for this article. “Well, I have been in government for seven years. It’s natural that I would not be as popular now as I was seven years ago,” Mr. Karzai said. “The institutions of Afghanistan have worked very well,” he added. “The Afghan people participated in the election for president. They participated in elections for Parliament. The parliamentary system has been functioning a lot better than some established parliaments in the world. They have been making laws, approving laws. The government institutions are increasingly in progress — the economy, the national army, the growth of education. We went from almost two or three universities in 2002 to 17 universities, to the freedom of the press, hundreds of newspapers and radios and all that. I and the Afghan people are proud of our achievements.” And, he might also have said, six million Afghan children attending school, a quarter of whom are girls, whose education was prohibited by the Taliban. One of the people with the most generous words for Mr. Karzai is William Wood, the American ambassador. Under the ambassador’s former boss, President Bush, Mr. Karzai enjoyed a favored personal status, even if his state did not. That special relationship was symbolized by the videoconferences in which the two men participated regularly. “The guy works very hard,” Mr. Wood said of Mr. Karzai. “He faces a problem set every day that would daunt anyone. He’s got an insurgency based outside the country, and a level of poverty and criminality inside the country that feeds the insurgency. He’s got an army that had to be built from zero following the ouster of the Taliban. He’s got a police force that had to be reformed. Speaking in an interview at his office in Kabul, Mr. Wood added: “Yeah, I think he’s tired. And I think frankly that everyone — the international community, the United States , the United Nations, Western Europe, the international press — were unrealistically optimistic about the problem of Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban.” Mr. Wood will soon be replaced by Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry , a former commander of American forces here. In his last tour, which ended in 2007, General Eikenberry enjoyed good relations with Mr. Karzai. Given Mr. Karzai’s mood these days, that is probably a good thing. At a ceremony last month for the first graduates of Afghanistan’s National Military Academy, Mr. Karzai stood and addressed the assembled 84 cadets as well as a group of diplomats, including Mr. Wood. Mr. Karzai turned the occasion into a populist barnburner. “I told America and the world to give us aircraft — otherwise we will get them from the other place!” Mr. Karzai roared, prompting applause. “I told them to give us the planes soon, that we have no more patience, and that we cannot get along without military aircraft! “Give us the aircraft sooner or we will get them from the others!” Mr. Karzai roared again. “We told them to bring us tanks, too — otherwise we will get them from other place!” Mr. Karzai never said what the “other place” was.

Hamid Karzai
Afghanistan
US Politics
Afghanistan War
Election


Penguin Fossil Paints a Portrait of Ancient Feathers

Abstract: Penguins didn’t always wear tuxedos. At least a large penguin that lived 36 million years ago looked nothing like Fred Astaire stepping out in high society. Nor anything like the house tom all dressed up in black and white with no place to go. Scientists announced Thursday that the fossils of the first extinct penguin to be found with preserved evidence of feathers showed that it had yet to adopt the tuxedo look of living penguins. Its feathers were predominantly reddish brown and shades of gray. The findings also corroborated previous skeletal evidence that penguins had by then evolved the flippers and body shape for powerful swimming — birds in “aquatic flight,” as scientists characterize their marine behavior. The shapes and dense arrangement of the feathers appeared to stiffen the flippers and streamline and insulate the entire body, the researchers said. For reasons not yet understood, the scientists said, the familiar color pattern of living penguins, dark coat and contrasting white shirt front, is a much more recent innovation, long after they evolved the feathers and anatomy for a life as expert divers and swimmers in frigid water. “Before this fossil, we had no evidence about the feathers, colors and flipper shapes of ancient penguins,” Julia A. Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement. She was the lead author of the report describing the discovery online and in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. The fossil specimen was a giant bird about five feet tall that had an exceptionally elongated beak with a grooved tip. Its estimated body mass was twice that of today’s emperor penguin, so it was one of the largest penguins that ever lived. The extinct species has been named Inkayacu paracasensis, meaning the water emperor from the Reserva Nacional de Paracus, the place in Peru where the fossils were uncovered. Dr. Clarke and her colleagues had already established that the Peruvian site held a rich diversity of giant penguin species from the Eocene period, about 36 million to 41 million years ago. She said that further investigations were expected to yield new discoveries to “change our view of not only penguin evolution, but of other marine vertebrates.” The research on the feathered fossil penguin was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. Although the actual feathers had not survived, distinct impressions of them were left in the stony matrix. The preserved feathering of the left winglike flipper, as well as some of the body cover, was pronounced. To their surprise, the researchers were able to detect in the impressions the microscopic color-imparting structures known as melanosomes. From a close analysis of the shapes, dimensions and other characteristics of the fossil’s melanosomes, the scientists determined that they were nothing like the large ellipsoidal shape and arrangement of pigmentation packets of living penguins. Two members of the team, Matthew D. Shawkey and Liliana D’Alba of the University of Akron, compared the fossil specimen’s melanosomes with those of other birds. When there was a close match with well-studied birds, the researchers could then reconstruct the colors of the extinct penguin’s feathers. The Inkayacu feathers, they concluded in the report, were “gray or reddish-brown with high probability.” Scientists said it was not clear when or why penguins acquired their tuxedo appearance. “Shifts in penguin plumage coloration indicated by the fossil,” Dr. Clarke’s team wrote in the journal report, “may be linked to differences in ecology, thermoregulatory demands” or the introduction of new predators. Specifically, the scientists speculated that changing demands of underwater propulsion affected the melanosomes and that this led to their black and white feathers. While such discoveries may yield insights into the ecology and behavior of early penguins, Jakob Vinther, a member of the research team who was the first to note the presence of pigmentation cells in fossils, said, “Most of all, I think it is simply just cool to get a look at the color of a remarkable extinct organism.”

Penguins
Fossils
Paleontology
Color
Science and Technology


Woman Chasing Her Dog Is Killed by Garbage Truck

Abstract: It is a daily ritual for many New Yorkers who share an apartment with a dog: the walk around the block. Jacqueline Haeflinger and her Boston terrier, Violet, were steps from home on Wednesday when their morning routine took a freakish and deadly turn on a Manhattan street. Ms. Haeflinger, 58, was outside her building on 15th Street in Chelsea when Violet broke loose, and ran under a city sanitation truck that was stopped just west of Seventh Avenue. Ms. Haeflinger went under the truck after Violet, and while she was underneath the nearly 40,000-pound vehicle, it backed up, striking and killing her. The dog was unhurt. The accident left Ms. Haeflinger’s friends bereft. Several of them gathered on 15th Street, passing Violet back and forth as they wiped away tears. They described Ms. Haeflinger as an independent, witty woman, who loved to cook, and above all, loved Violet. “This wasn’t Jackie’s dog, it was her baby,” said Barbara Edelstein, 58, who walked Violet while Ms. Haeflinger was at work. “She died for her baby.” Linda Rodin, 66, a neighbor in the building, said that Ms. Haeflinger cooked often and would frequently knock on her door with dishes to share. She said Ms. Haeflinger, who had just returned from a vacation in Dubai, had planned to host a dinner on Friday for neighbors and friends. For 25 years, Ms. Haeflinger worked for New York University, the last 17 as the associate director of events. In a statement, the university said it was “deeply saddened” and called her “a cherished member” of the staff. Robert Gioria, 51, a hairstylist, had known Ms. Haeflinger for over 30 years and said she had been a surrogate mother, as well as a best friend. They met one night in the early 1980s at Xenon, a popular nightclub, Mr. Gioria recalled in a telephone interview. He had just graduated from high school on Long Island and had moved to Manhattan. Ms. Haeflinger, who was several years older, was living in a small apartment on Staten Island, where she had grown up. “We became best friends that night, and she moved in with me the next day,” Mr. Gioria said. They shared their apartment, on 34th Street and Avenue of the Americas, with a third roommate, a man a year younger than Mr. Gioria. Ms. Haeflinger was the mother hen, he said. “She collected the money for the bills, made sure all our bills were paid, made sure we got to work, made sure we always ate,” he said. She made the apartment feel like a home, he said. “We were kind of alone — these kids, these club kids that came together,” he added. “No one was taking care of us.” In recent years, Mr. Gioria said, Ms. Haeflinger took in her ailing mother, who died in December, according to an obituary in The Staten Island Advance . “We went to so many funerals in the ’80s, where all of our friends died of AIDS, and we thought we were kind of over all that stuff,” Mr. Gioria said. “I really thought that Jackie was going to be — I thought I would end up — she would take care of me,” he said, sobbing.

Car Crash
Chelsea
Dog
Jacqueline Haeflinger


Consumer Safety Agency Studies Adult Bedrail Deaths

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday released a review of bedrail deaths and injuries of adults as it considered how to address potential hazards associated with the products. Using data from death certificates and hospital emergency room visits, the report cited 155 deaths involving bedrails from January 2003 to this past September. About 126 of those who died were 60 or older. Sixty-one percent of the bedrail deaths occurred at home. About a quarter occurred at a nursing home or an assisted living facility, the report said. It also found that nearly half of those who died in bedrail accidents had medical problems — dementia , heart disease and Parkinson’s disease among them. Most of the 155 deaths occurred when a person became stuck in the bedrails, mainly with his or her head or neck getting caught. Almost 37,000 people were injured in bedrail accidents and treated at hospital emergency rooms from 2003 through 2011, the agency said. Data for 2012 was not yet available. Consumer safety advocates, who have long campaigned for federal regulators to study bedrail deaths and injuries, called the report an important first step. But they said that it failed to address several issues, including jurisdictional matters concerning which agency has responsibility for some types of bedrails: the Consumer Product Safety Commission or the Food and Drug Administration . The advocates said that the question of oversight remained one of the biggest problems with bedrails, because there are unanswered technical questions about which rails are medical devices and which are consumer products. The report did not review bedrail designs for potential problems. The consumer agency has pointed out that the makers of bedrails are usually not identified on death certificates or doctors’ notes. The safety agency said it would use the findings to study what steps it should take next, including how it can educate caregivers and the public about potential hazards. It said it had forwarded its findings to the Food and Drug Administration. The F.D.A. did not respond to requests for comment. In response to a lack of coordination between federal regulators, Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, called for the consumer and drug agencies, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, to form a task force to address the regulation of bedrails and bed systems, specifically rails that blur the line between being medical devices and consumer products. “We need a national task force dedicated to addressing any regulatory gaps and protecting these vulnerable patients from preventable bedrail injuries,” Mr. Markey said in a statement. Giselle Barry, a spokeswoman for Mr. Markey, said the congressman would send a formal letter to the agencies on Friday calling for the task force.

Bedrails
Elderly
Deaths (Fatalities)
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Food and Drug Administration
Accidents and Safety
Hospitals
Nursing Homes


Global Economy Said to Be Worst Since 1945

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The global economy will most likely contract this year for the first time since World War II, and the recovery will take longer than expected, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday. The I.M.F. projected a 1.3 percent decline in global economic activity for 2009, down sharply even from the modest 0.5 percent growth it had projected in January. In the United States, still the “epicenter” of the crisis, according to the fund, economic contraction would be even greater, at 2.8 percent this year, with zero growth for 2010. Separately, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, cautioned against expecting a quick recovery, underscoring the complications of the world’s increasingly interwoven economies and financial systems. “Never before in modern times has so much of the world been simultaneously hit by a confluence of economic and financial turmoil such as we are now living through,” he said in a speech before the Economic Club of Washington. The international fund said that it expected global growth to resume in 2010, but only at a 1.9 percent rate, notably sluggish compared with past recoveries. In normal times, growth would be closer to 4 percent. “The recovery may actually be slower than usual, leading to a slow decrease in unemployment,” said Olivier Blanchard, director of the I.M.F.’s research department, at a news conference at the fund’s headquarters in Washington. “Our forecasts imply that unemployment will crest only at the end of 2010.” Mr. Blanchard, in unveiling the World Economic Outlook, said that the United States unemployment rate was likely to peak around 10 percent. It is currently 8.5 percent, after months of relentless job losses. The International Labor Organization has estimated that world unemployment could rise to 7 percent this year, up from about 6 percent in 2008. “The current outlook is exceptionally uncertain,” said the executive summary of the I.M.F. report, “with risks still weighing to the downside.” The report was issued as finance ministers and central bankers from around the world were beginning to gather in Washington for the spring meetings of the I.M.F. and the World Bank. On the sidelines of those meetings, officials of the Group of 7 industrialized nations and the Group of 20, an expanded group that also includes the major emerging economies, will meet for continued discussions on the economic crisis. Even among the details of a largely cautionary report, I.M.F. officials saw some signs of hope, largely because of the forceful fiscal steps and other measures taken by the United States, some European governments, and also by China. Mr. Blanchard said that the fiscal responses of several major countries had made “a gigantic difference.” “If there had been no fiscal stimulus across the world, world growth in 2009 would be 1.5 to 2 percent less,” he said. “We would be in the middle of something very close to a depression.” While saying that “there is light at the end of this long tunnel,” he cautioned against seeing, in mixed economic data, reason for complacency. “The need for strong policies on both the macro and especially the financial fronts is as acute as ever,” he said. Mr. Geithner said that only 17 of the 182 economies followed by the I.M.F. are expected to grow at faster rates this year than last, and 30 of the 34 advanced economies are expected to shrink, amid a collapse in world trade that “will likely be the worst since the end of World War II.” Even as globalization speeds the flow of economic benefits in good times, he said, “now we are learning that in times of contraction, globalization transmits trouble with enormous speed and force, affecting economies around the world — the relatively strong as well as the more vulnerable.”

International Monetary Fund
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Economic Conditions and Trends


First Tour Win for Harris English at St. Jude Classic

Abstract: Harris English won the St. Jude Classic for his first PGA Tour title, using birdies on two of the final three holes to hold off Phil Mickelson and Scott Stallings by two strokes. English, a 23-year-old former Georgia star in his second year on tour, survived a final round in which he had six birdies and five bogeys to shoot a one-under 69. He made a 5-foot birdie putt on No. 16 to tie Stallings for the lead, but Stallings bogeyed No. 18 to give English the lead to himself. English then made a 17-foot birdie putt on No. 17 and two-putted on No. 18 to pick up the winner’s check of $1,026,000. ■ David Frost parred the final two holes after a late rain delay to hold on for a one-stroke victory over Fred Couples in the Regions Tradition in Birmingham, Ala. It was Frost’s first major title in 17 attempts on the Champions Tour.


Months After a Brash Challenge, Noah Syndergaard Is Again Displaying Confidence

Abstract: KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After last year’s World Series ended, Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard spent some time taking in New York in a way he could not during the season. He attended sporting events, tried restaurants and roamed neighborhoods. Mets fans often stopped him and complimented him on one thing: his first pitch in Game 3 of the World Series. Syndergaard, a rookie, had reared back and fired a 97-mile-per-hour fastball near the head of Alcides Escobar, the Kansas City Royals’ leadoff hitter. That had showed the baseball world a more assertive side of Syndergaard and sent a message: The Mets were not backing down from the Royals. In a series that the Mets lost in five games, the pitch served as a high point. “They really applauded that pitch,” Syndergaard said of the fans’ reaction. Syndergaard is scheduled to make his first start of the 2016 season on Tuesday against those same Royals, who are reportedly still stewing over that pitch, and both teams are curious about the next act. When Syndergaard took the mound in Game 3, the Mets were trailing in the Series, 2-0, and Escobar had been tormenting them. Syndergaard said ahead of the game that he had a surprise “up his sleeve” for the Royals, and when Manager Terry Collins saw him before the game, Syndergaard repeated the message. After the game, while the Royals were fuming, Syndergaard said in a news conference that the pitch had been on purpose. “If they have a problem with me throwing inside, then they can meet me 60 feet 6 inches away,” Syndergaard said. “I’ve got no problem with that.” This winter, Under Armour featured Syndergaard in a commercial in which, over video of him pitching to Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud, he talked about how he aspired to be intimidating on the mound and how pitching inside was one of his best attributes. “I’m Noah Syndergaard,” he said into the camera, “and I’m not backing down.” This has been a theme throughout Syndergaard’s young career. Of the Mets’ five young star pitchers, Syndergaard is the most physically imposing, listed at 6 feet 6 inches and 240 pounds. During his first stint in major league spring training, his teammates posted on his locker a photo of Ivan Drago, the character from “Rocky IV” who said, “I must break you.” Given Syndergaard’s size, strength and pitch repertory, many talent evaluators consider him the Mets starter with the most potential. Few pitchers can touch 100 m.p.h. with their fastball and then spin a nasty breaking ball the way he can. In spring training this year, Syndergaard seemed subtly more confident. And he was not just getting his work in; he went all out, recording a 2.61 E.R.A. and 20 strikeouts in 202/3 innings. In a brash move, Syndergaard talked outfielder Yoenis Cespedes into riding horses around the Mets’ complex one day, a stunt he coordinated with SNY, the Mets’ TV network. They took a lap and posed for cameras, providing some excitement on a monotonous day early in camp. Collins did not seem to take too kindly to the scene. Later that day, he said, “Fun time’s over.” But Syndergaard — the youngest of the Mets’ five young starters, at 23 — has still been mostly deferential and mild-mannered. If Syndergaard ever crosses the line between confident and cocky, David Wright, the team’s captain, comes down on him “pretty hard,” said Dan Warthen, the pitching coach. Last spring training, Wright scolded Syndergaard for eating in the clubhouse during a game, and pitcher Bobby Parnell, now in the Detroit Tigers’ organization, threw Syndergaard’s lunch into the trash. “He better watch out,” Warthen said this spring, referring to Wright, “because Noah just might get fed up enough and put him in a trash can one day.” But when Newsday, citing anonymous sources, reported last week that the Royals would seek retribution on Tuesday for Syndergaard’s pitch, Syndergaard backed off his strong statement from last year. He said that because he had not technically hit Escobar, he did not know why the Royals would retaliate. “I simply threw a pitch on the inside corner,” he said. “Elevated. A purpose pitch. I don’t really see how any retaliation could be made.”

Baseball
Noah Syndergaard
Alcides Escobar
World Series
Kansas City Royals
Mets


Wrestler Becomes Olympian, Then a Newlywed

Abstract: CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Less than 48 hours after making the United States Olympic wrestling team in front of 13,000 fans, Stephany Lee arrived at the wedding chapel in a Ford Explorer carrying Colorado plates and a small entourage. She changed into jeans and a striped shirt. Beaming, she made her way to an altar sitting in front of five rows of padded pews. With the power vested in the Rev. Jonathan Harnish, in front of her girlfriend’s two children, her Olympic teammate Clarissa Chun and a family friend, Lee married her longtime partner, Brigg McDonald. No one objected. They just smiled and took photographs. The serendipitous combination of time and place — the Olympic trials being held in Iowa, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2009 — was too perfect to let pass. “It was an opportune time,” Lee said. And so a wedding to sanctify a long-term relationship was hastily arranged, four years in the making and about four days in the planning. Paperwork requirements were scouted online last week. Documents were retrieved earlier Monday at the Linn County offices, housed in a dying mall west of town because the main courthouse was flooded by the Cedar River four years ago. And the chapel on busy First Avenue was reserved for 3 p.m. McDonald wore a dress and a light sweater. Her 12-year-old son, Ethan, was the ring bearer. The five-minute ceremony stalled for just a moment as the ring would not fit over Lee’s swollen finger. “That’s what you get for wrestling,” the reverend said. Soon enough, the union was sealed with a kiss. While some well-known Olympians have come out after their athletic careers ended, Lee heads to London as one of the few active athletes in history to publicly — and officially — acknowledge being gay. According to unofficial tallies by outsports.com and realjock.com at the end of the 2008 Beijing Games, there were fewer than a dozen known gay athletes among the roughly 11,000 competing there. If Olympians reflect the general population, there are probably hundreds of gay athletes. “I think people are afraid what other people are going to say,” Lee said. “But I don’t care what other people say.” Lee, 27, has not made a secret of her sexuality. She told her parents in high school (they were supportive and not surprised, she said), and she and McDonald have lived together in Colorado Springs for four years. They met at the Finish Line Lounge near the United States Olympic headquarters and training center. But with her competing in the relatively confined world of women’s wrestling, the subject was never raised by journalists. After her victory Saturday over the 2008 Olympian Ali Bernard in the 72-kg (158 ½-pound) weight class, speaking to a scrum of reporters at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Lee thanked several people for supporting her, including “my wife.” The comment passed without a follow-up. “I am who I am, and I’m not going to hide it,” Lee said Monday. “I’m not going to dress like a girl to fit an image. No, I’m me. I’m happy. That’s all that matters.” She pondered whether such frankness about her sexuality would make her a sports pioneer of sorts among gays — a more influential one, of course, should she win a medal. She is considered a contender, not a favorite. “I’m not trying to be a spokesperson for lesbians as an athlete,” Lee said. “I’m just being me. Whatever comes of it is fine.” McDonald, her two children — Ethan and Savannah, 10 — and her friend David Hurtado were in the stands when Lee, competing in her third Olympic trials, earned her spot in London. A black belt in judo, Lee celebrated by doing a twisting flip. She landed hard on her side, smacking the mat and startling the referee. Lee has a history of such irreverence, sometimes testing the patience of USA Wrestling officials. Her on-mat performances over the years have been inconsistent and occasionally peppered with petulance. In 2009, she forfeited her national title because she tested positive for marijuana . But she committed herself to making the Olympics this time around. One of her three teammates in London will be Chun, still disappointed at finishing fifth at the 2008 Olympics. Like Lee, Chun, 30, grew up in Honolulu. They went to different high schools, but Chun and Lee knew each other as girls competing in judo tournaments. Lee began wrestling to help improve her judo and like Chun eventually switched to wrestling full-time. She followed Chun to Missouri Valley College, then to the training center in Colorado Springs at the invitation of USA Wrestling. That led Lee to this moment — a memorable trip to Iowa to earn a spot in the Olympics and to marry McDonald. For now, a ring. Later, perhaps, a medal. “I wear a ring, and I have been wearing a ring,” Lee said before Monday’s ceremony. “I know I want to be with her the rest of my life. This is a validation of that.” The wedding party emerged back into the daylight, squinting at the bright sun. The reverend wanted photographs for himself, too, because it is not every day that an Olympian shows up to get married. But there was little dawdling. The wedding party climbed back into the Explorer, headed back to the mall for the official marriage certificate. And then it was headed back to Colorado. Lee and McDonald expected to spend their first night of marriage together somewhere around Omaha, probably.

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships


With Colombia’s Peace Deal in Doubt, a Battered Town Fears a Return to War

Abstract: BOJAYÁ, Colombia — Of all the acts of violence that have scarred Colombia during five decades of armed conflict, few have cut so deep for so many as the slaughter that occurred in this municipality 14 years ago. As a battle raged between leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary fighters aligned with the government, a rudimentary mortar round fired by the guerrillas landed on a church where hundreds of townspeople had sought shelter. The explosion killed at least 79 people, more than half of them children, and wounded about 100. That attack, on May 2, 2002, and the long, painful process of recovery that Bojayá has endured, was very much on the minds of voters who cast ballots here on Oct. 2 in a national referendum on a peace accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia , or FARC, the same rebel group that bombed the church. While the accord was defeated nationally, with opponents arguing that its terms were too generous to the guerrillas, the residents of Bojayá saw it differently: Support here was at 96 percent of voters, among the highest approval rates in the country. Such was the deep, almost desperate, desire here for an end to this war. “We’re tired of so much violence, living with so much uncertainty,” Rosa Mosquera, 51, said in an interview. During the attack in 2002, she was huddled with her six children in the church. The mortar strike sprayed her with shrapnel and wounded her children. They all managed to get out alive, but many of her relatives and friends did not. “In order to live in peace, you have to disarm your heart,” she said. “You store a lot of bitterness there, a lot of hate. And when there’s a lot of hate in your heart, you’re unable to forgive someone. But when you disarm your heart, you can go on, you can give a lot of love.” Image Little remains of the original Bellavista, in a remote part of the Chocó department. The church where the 2002 bombing occurred has been rebuilt and maintained in the memory of the victims. Credit Kirk Semple/The New York Times Though the defeat of the pact plunged the peace initiative into uncertainty and left residents of Bojayá despondent and scared, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to President Juan Manuel Santos for his work to end the conflict lifted emotions here. On Sunday, Mr. Santos visited the municipality, where he attended a Mass and vowed to continue working to achieve peace. He also said he would donate his Nobel Prize money — about $930,000 — to the victims of the armed conflict. “He has put so much effort into moving this process forward,” said Maxima Asprilla Palomecki, 49, a lifelong resident of Bojayá and a survivor of the 2002 attack. The community’s hope, she said, is that the Nobel Prize “gives the process more momentum.” Bojayá, with a mostly Afro-Colombian and indigenous population of about 12,000, covers a vast area of soggy, tropical forest in the Pacific Coast department of Chocó, the poorest region in Colombia. Residents live in rustic settlements along the muddy waters of the Atrato River and several of its tributaries, mostly surviving on fishing, subsistence farming and informal timber harvesting. There are no roads. To get from village to village, people travel by boat and estimate travel times by the size of the outboard engine. “Three hours with a 15,” they might say, “or two with a 40.” This isolation has been particularly attractive to Colombia’s illegal armed groups, which for years have sought to dominate Chocó’s arms- and drug-trafficking routes that connect the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and the Colombian interior with the coasts. Image Maxima Asprilla Palomecki, 49, a community leader in Bojayá, at her house in the settlement of Bellavista Nuevo in western Colombia. In order to embrace the peace accord, she said, the population has had to forgive not just the FARC, but the government, as well. Credit Kirk Semple/The New York Times The 2002 attack was part of this struggle. At the time, one of the preferred weapons of the FARC was a homemade mortar fashioned from a gas cylinder. It was as inaccurate as it was deadly. One round crashed through the roof of the church in Bellavista, the seat of the municipality. After the attack, more than 4,000 residents of Bojayá, including the entire population of Bellavista, fled, seeking refuge in the departmental capital of Quibdó and elsewhere. They did not begin to return for several months; many have yet to come back. The attack became not just a symbol of the barbarity of the guerrilla conflict but also of the failings of the Colombian authorities to protect its most vulnerable, rural populations. The government scrambled to make amends, saturating the area with security forces and building a new municipal capital from scratch about half a mile up the Atrato River from Bellavista. The population of the old town was relocated to the new one starting in 2007. While the old church has been rebuilt and maintained as a memorial to the victims, most of the old town’s other buildings — the schools, hospital and homes — have been abandoned to the forest. The new settlement, named Bellavista Nuevo — New Bellavista — includes government buildings and office space for social services, barracks for a national police unit and a military battalion, a small stadium, schools, and hundreds of concrete homes arrayed in neighborhoods elevated above the flood line. They are a major improvement from the rough-hewed timber constructions typically found in the flood-prone riverside villages of the region. But despite the infusion of money, the relocation and the passage of time, the tragic history of the town still weighs heavily on its population. Residents say they still wrestle with the trauma of the attack: the death of relatives, the splintering of families that have yet to reunite, the presence of guerrillas and criminal gangs still operating in the forest, the fear that another tragedy could happen at any time. Image A graveyard in Bellavista Nuevo where unidentified remains of victims of the 2002 bombing were buried. Credit Kirk Semple/The New York Times The security threats, residents say, have kept many from farming land where they once cultivated subsistence crops, or from traveling farther afield to fish. The population suffers high unemployment, malnourishment and poverty rates. The peace referendum, for many, offered the promise of a land without war and the possibility that the lingering trauma of the attack in 2002 might finally fade. While critics of the deal, particularly former President Álvaro Uribe, picked it apart with precision, residents of Bojayá brought little of that analytical rigor — or, for that matter, political partisanship — to the issue. Few knew the details of the accord or had bothered to read it, community leaders say. For most, the equation was simple: Voting “yes” equaled the end of the war. “To us, it doesn’t matter if the guerrillas go to prison or don’t go,” Ms. Asprilla said. “What interests us is that we live in peace.” “With the vote, they were saying, ‘No more,’” said the parish priest in Villanueva, the Rev. Alvaro Hernán Mosquera Asprilla. “The vote was an opportunity to close the door of pain and open the door of hope.” Image Rosa Mosquera, 51, was sheltering with her six children in the church when it was bombed in 2002. She and her children escaped with wounds, but they lost friends and relatives. Credit Kirk Semple/The New York Times The FARC helped its case with Bojayá residents in December when several of its commanders flew to the original Bellavista in a helicopter to apologize to the community in a ceremony outside the church. Two weeks ago, before the referendum, FARC commanders returned to present the community with a six-foot-tall wooden crucifix, made in Havana. While the residents welcomed the gestures, several explained in interviews last week that in their efforts to shed the emotional baggage of the war, they had to muster forgiveness not only for the FARC but for all the other actors in the conflict, especially the government. Many say the government neglected them for many years, leaving them vulnerable to the guerrillas and the paramilitaries. Townspeople say they warned federal officials in the days leading up to the attack that combat was imminent, yet their appeals for government forces to protect them went unheeded. “If you judge the FARC, you have to judge the government, too,” Ms. Asprilla said. “It was their responsibility. We told them, and they didn’t do anything!” For many residents, the peace deal also promised the end of the government’s abandonment of the region and the advent of development, employment and a healthy life. But now the peace process is in doubt, and the population fears the collapse of the cease-fire and a return to the kind of violence they lived amid for a generation. Community leaders have appealed to Mr. Uribe and other opponents of the deal to follow the example of Bojayá and accept the terms of the peace deal without further demands or delays. “We have shown the world forgiveness,” Ms. Asprilla said. “What we want is life.”

Colombia
FARC
BOJAYÁ
Colombia
Juan Manuel Santos
Abandonment
Bombs


Italian Senate Approves Civil Unions for Gay Couples, but Not Adoptions

Abstract: ROME — After months of political infighting and decades of battles by gay people for civil rights, Italy’s Senate on Thursday approved the country’s first law granting legal recognition to civil unions, but stopped short of giving same-sex couples the right to stepchild adoption. The paring of the adoption provision was crucial to passage in the Senate, where the bill faced enough resistance that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi tied its fate to a confidence vote on his government, which passed handily, 173 to 71. The bill also grants some civil rights to unmarried couples, who have historically been largely ignored under current legislation. The bill, which Mr. Renzi called “historic” on Twitter after sealing an agreement over the text on Wednesday, now goes to the lower house of Parliament, where it seems certain to pass in coming weeks. As approved, the bill grants same-sex couples rights similar to those of married couples, including mutual financial and moral support, the sharing of a last name and common home address, as well as some inheritance and pension rights. But the bill stopped short of granting same-sex couples the right to adopt a child, even if one of the partners is the biological parent. The so-called stepchild adoption provision was vehemently opposed by center-right parties and by the Catholic Church, whose values still permeate Italian society. Nevertheless, Maria Elena Boschi, minister of constitutional reforms and a protagonist in the political mediation, said in a statement that the law will “finally affirm that the life project of a same-sex couple is not worth less than that between a man and a woman.” Monica Cirinnà, the senator sponsoring the bill, emphasized that it “will make civil unions a reality in Italy.” But she acknowledged the bill’s shortcomings in the stripping out of the provision on stepchild adoption, which would have been the “natural consequence” of legislation, as happens “everywhere in Europe.” “Our effort doesn’t end here,” she told senators. “We made only a first — albeit very tough — step.” Many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender associations did not consider the law a full victory, as the bill includes language that will force same-sex parents to turn to the judiciary for adoption, delegating the issue to Italy’s already burdened magistrates. Advocates almost unanimously condemned the elimination of the stepchild adoption clause as a violation of equal rights for gay couples. “It’s a useless and empty law; they can scrap it,” Marilena Grassadonia, president of Italy’s Rainbow Families, an L.G.B.T. parents’ association, said in a phone interview. “As parents, we challenge anyone to accept a law that hurts our dignity and our children.” “These children already exist; the prime minister recently said that all children are equal in Italy,” she noted. “Today, that’s unfortunately not the case.” Ms. Grassadonia also recalled offensive remarks against homosexuals made by several politicians, even as the bill was being voted on. Among those was the statement by a center-right government minister whose party mostly voted in favor of the law. “It was a beautiful gift to Italy to have prevented same-sex couples from having a child, as nature prevents that,” Italy’s interior minister, Angelino Alfano, said in a televised comment on Thursday. “We prevented a revolution that is against nature and anthropology.” After the anti-establishment Five Star Movement retreated from its support of the bill last week, Mr. Renzi’s government, which has a slim majority in the Senate, was forced to seek consensus in the center-right, traditionally Catholic wing of Parliament. The necessity of that alliance, analysts agreed, triggered the change in the law that impedes same-sex couples from adopting a partner’s biological child, as hoped by the Italian bishops conference. The Catholic Church in Italy warmly saluted the elimination of the stepchild adoption clause. Still, amid their disappointment, some gay rights associations highlighted the historic moment that the bill marked for Italy. “It’s a starting point,” said Aurelio Mancuso, president of the Italian civil rights association Equality Italia, in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica. “The battle continues.”

Italy
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
Adoption
Gay and Lesbian LGBT
Legislature
Legislation
Matteo Renzi


New Coach for Spain

Abstract: Spain’s national women’s soccer team has a new coach for the first time in 27 years after Jorge Vilda was hired to replace Ignacio Quereda, who had been in charge since 1988. Quereda led the team to its first World Cup this year, but Spain managed only one point from three group games in Canada in June, and the players issued a statement calling for him to be replaced.

Soccer
Spain
Ignacio Quereda
Jorge Vilda
Coaches


In Week of Emotional Swings, Police Face a Dual Role: Villain and Victim

Abstract: Police barricades wrapped around the headquarters at One Police Plaza and other department buildings in New York. Many cities issued new marching orders: no solo patrols. No officers should be alone. In Burlington, Vt., during roll call, some officers blinked away tears. In Los Angeles, the chief did the same. In the break room at a Manhattan precinct house, officers — behind closed doors, comfortable among themselves — debated what they saw on the videos of the recent fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota . Some said race had played a role. Others, one officer said, “put on blinders.” A rookie officer in Manhattan, five days on the job, texted her mother on Friday. She was on her way to work at a protest. A protest against the police. And a Queens detective quietly seethed. “This is insanity,” said the detective, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to do so publicly. “It’s just freaking horrendous.” Reactions to Thursday’s deadly ambush in Dallas swept through roll-call rooms and squad cars in police departments across the country. Contempt for the shooter was universal. But behind it followed other, varying observations about what it means to be a police officer in 2016, with the attending fears and frustrations, and amid a seemingly growing gulf between the police and the policed. “We have broken into tribes,” Charlie Beck, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, told a class of cadets who graduated on Friday. “All of a sudden it becomes more important who your parents are, what the color of your skin is, than whether you are American.” Video The day after the killing of five officers at protest against police brutality in Dallas, the city mourned the lives lost. Credit Credit Eric Gay/Associated Press “This is not about black lives, or brown lives or blue lives,” he added. “This is about America.” Police culture all but forbids one officer from publicly criticizing or second-guessing the actions of others. For that reason, officers interviewed on Friday would not comment directly on the videos taken during and immediately after the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. But one fact was clear: When a new video showing what appears to be police misconduct surfaces, it affects officers everywhere. “One of the worries that cops have is that no cop can control what another cop does, but all cops will be judged by what the other cop does,” Chief Brandon del Pozo of the Burlington Police Department said. “We’ll sit there in the roll-call room, watching police videos all over the country, trying to make sense of what we’re seeing and trying to make sure we’re doing the best job we can.” There is much to watch. “Any time there is a traffic stop made, the cellphones come out,” said George Hofstetter, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. “The people taking them out have nothing to do with the incident, but they feel the need to videotape it. It’s like they think, ‘I am not going to stand across the street, I am going to become part of the problem.’” Chief del Pozo echoed that thought. “On top of all the legitimate issues in policing,” he said, “street cops worry that there are people looking to foment confrontation to generate the next headline in situations where people just sort of complied before.” Officers, privately, do not march in lock step after watching videos, the Queens detective said. “There are people that are like, ‘Oh, the cop’s right,’” he said. “I’m not one of those people. It is what it is.” But he said he had often perceived a rush to judgment after the release of a video and “the fanning of the emotions.” Officer Pedro Serrano, a 12-year veteran of the New York Police Department, said that as a Hispanic he could sympathize with the anger felt by members of minority groups after shootings like those in Louisiana and Minnesota. “Growing up, I hated the police,” he said. “They abused me for no reason. It’s just because I was in the neighborhood and a person of color.” Image Chief Charlie Beck of the Los Angeles Police Department addressing the city’s most recent class of graduating cadets. “All of a sudden,” he said, “it becomes more important who your parents are, what the color of your skin is, than whether you are American.” Credit Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images It was in the break room at his precinct house on Friday that officers debated what was on the videos. “I work with people who are afraid of people of color, they jump with conclusions,” Officer Serrano said in an interview. “When you take that mind-set into policing you can make very bad decisions.” At the same time, he said that he worried, particularly in light of the killing of the five officers in Dallas, that anger at the police could push some people to take things too far. “Everything that happened recently is not going to be good for us because they’re going to basically say all cops are bad,” he said. “I know that they, the people who go over the top with the protesting, I know they don’t see me for who I am. They see my uniform.” Another New York City detective, based in the Bronx, said he was not an apologist for officers committing wrongdoing. He said he had not seen the latest videos, but added that such footage was rarely, if ever, complete. “I’ve been there when cops have shot perps,” he said. “Everything happens so quickly and you have just a moment to life or death, to living or not getting up tomorrow, or your partner being dead. It’s so much easier when you can watch a video over and over. It’s one thing to be in the safety of your own living room or watching on your electronic device, to being there.” The emotional whiplash on Thursday — police officers branded as villains, and then seen as victims, in a span of seconds — recalled New York City in 2014, when a gunman claiming to be motivated by anger at the police ambushed two officers , Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, in their patrol car in Brooklyn. Yet, for some, the events leading up to the shootings in Dallas seemed without precedent. For Officer Joe Nocella, a 21-year veteran of the Nassau County Police Department, those killings signified the start of a new era in policing. Image Protesters faced officers in Times Square on Thursday after videos of police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota reignited a national debate on race and policing. Credit Christopher Lee for The New York Times “Sniper fire against a police officer,” he said. “I don’t think that too many cops across the country could have put a thought in their head that something like this could happen.” Veteran officers suggested otherwise. Some remembered wearing their uniforms in the 1960s with a fear of assassination by militant attackers. “I came on the job in the late ’70s, and that was still fresh on everyone’s mind,” Edward Davis, a former Boston police commissioner, said. “We then moved to a much better place. But now some of those feelings have crept back in the conversation.” The Bronx detective put it more bluntly. “It’s always been a bad time to be a cop in this city,” he said. “The cops before me, in the 1970s? They had homegrown terrorists ambushing cops. You had the Weather Underground building bombs to blow up police stations. You had antiwar protesters throwing Molotov cocktails at cops.” Though he has long worked in a detective’s suit and tie, he said he would not hesitate to leave his home in uniform. “I’m proud of my uniform,” he said. “I’d wear it anytime, anywhere.” The Queens detective said that feeling like a target was natural to men and women in uniform. “You should always have it in the back of your mind,” he said. “Nobody comes to work thinking, ‘I’m the guy who gets killed today.’ But everyone knows that’s the risk.” The events in Dallas heightened that sense. “That they could literally be hunted,” the Queens detective said. “That’s what happened. Like a hunter in a tree stand with a gun, lying in wait to shoot prey.” On Staten Island, a commanding officer said he would make a special announcement at his afternoon roll call: “Be safe. Be vigilant out there.” In Times Square, a uniformed officer watched traffic on Seventh Avenue. “People want to get angry and everything,” he said. “We’ve just got to keep doing what we do.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Airport in Florida Is Evacuated

Abstract: Jacksonville International Airport in Florida reopened late Tuesday after it was evacuated for several hours because the authorities received reports of suspicious packages there. Local authorities said that a bomb squad had found one suspicious device that had to be removed in order to be “rendered safe.” An airport spokesman initially reported that the police found one package in the terminal and another in a parking garage. All flights at the airport were grounded for several hours while a bomb squad from the Jacksonville sheriff’s office investigated. Airport officials initially reported the incident about 6:30 p.m. on the airport’s Twitter account and began moving hundreds of passengers from the airport and from canceled flights to nearby hotels. At a news conference late Tuesday, an airport spokesman said that staff members were being allowed back into the building to help passengers retrieve their luggage. Some delays were expected at the airport on Wednesday, he said. Local authorities would not give any specifics about the device or comment on whether any suspects were in custody. They would say only that the device removed from the scene had a “destructive nature.” A witness said that she saw one man taken into custody by the authorities at a security checkpoint and another man taken into custody near a parking garage. The witness, Harriet Harral, said she was standing in the security line when she saw airport security officials talking to a man near the scanner machine. “All of a sudden the security people started saying, ‘Get out, get out, leave,’ ” she said. The authorities put the man in handcuffs, she said. When she walked outside to a parking garage with a crowd of people, she saw that officers were holding another man on the ground.

Jacksonville FL
Airport
Evacuation
Airport security


Corn Futures Surge on Worries Over Food Prices

Abstract: Corn futures surged on Monday, hitting two-year peaks and leading other agricultural commodities higher on the second session of strong gains after the government slashed its crop outlook, initiating worries of higher prices for food and biofuels . Copper and gold prices rose as well, lifting the 19-commodity Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, which extended Friday’s two-year high even though crude oil fell. Corn rose 5 percent in Chicago futures trading after soaring 9 percent on Friday. Soybeans, sugar and coffee also had sharp gains in the two sessions on worries that agricultural supplies would tighten from smaller harvests forecast for this year. Ethanol futures in New York surged 9.9 percent to close at $2.185 a gallon. Corn is the main feedstock for ethanol production. The biggest two-day run-up for corn since 1988, it brought back memories of early 2008, when record high grains prices led to sharply higher food prices . “For sure, with higher feed grain prices there is potential for upward price pressure particularly on pork, poultry and beef,” said Luke Mathews, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The dollar rose slightly, but that did not derail gains in commodities. The dollar’s fall has encouraged the commodities rally during the last month, as investors speculated that the Federal Reserve would soon undertake new stimulus measures to support the economy.

Futures and Options Trading
Corn
Commodities


Rachel Rossin’s Virtual-Reality Installation in Bushwick

Abstract: The Miser, giving in to nostalgia, recently began playing a Nintendo 64 game in which he has 72 hours to defeat a masked menace before the moon falls on a fictional land. But the apocalypse is more like a reset button; “game over” is shorthand for “let’s try that again.” The artist Rachel Rossin played the same video game growing up. In some way, she said, it was in the back of her mind as she created “n=7/The Wake in Heat of Collapse,” an interactive installation that will be open to the public Friday at Signal , a gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you go, you’ll wear an Oculus Rift headset and immerse yourself in a Dante-esque virtual reality with imagery from video games and other pop culture. You’ll navigate the landscape until the world collapses without warning, and you fall into an entirely new level. And repeat. “It’s a collage — a barrage — of culture,” said Ms. Rossin, 27. She said to expect pop-up ads and images textured with Google’s logo. The mobile payment app Venmo even makes an appearance. “There are a lot of generation-specific in-jokes.” Not all of them, though. The virtual world’s crumbling staircase is covered in text from Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation.” Why? Ms. Rossin will leave that up to you. Only three people will be able to play at any given time, so arrive early if you want to guarantee a spot. (Friday at 7 p.m., 260 Johnson Avenue, at Bushwick Place; 347-746-8457, ssiiggnnaall.com.) You can keep the kinetic art going into Saturday with “Static Wire,” a dance show by Laura Gemmiti and Kate Morales at another Bushwick gallery, Sardine . The performance is based on the idea that emotions manifest through the body’s natural movements. A film will be projected over the dancers’ bodies as they make an effort to move only when they feel happy. The question is whether their bodies will move similarly when they feel the same emotion. Stick around for the after-party. (Saturday at 8 p.m., 286 Stanhope Street, at Irving Avenue; 914-805-1974, sardinebk.com.) If watching other people dance leaves you wanting to showcase your own moves, head to Bizarre , about a mile away at 12 Jefferson Street, at Broadway and Myrtle Avenue. On Saturday the bar will feature sets from the disc jockeys Lily Ray, James Friedman and Carlos Chiesa. Entry is free, and doors open at 10 p.m. Classical Music’s Rising Stars While many of us were contemplating the benefits of sweatpants during the holidays, musicians at Juilliard were working intensively. They move from the practice room to the stage this weekend to conclude the school’s ChamberFest, with free concerts that include Brahms’s lyrical Piano Quintet in F minor and Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D, “Ghost.” Tickets should be reserved online ; some concerts are already sold out. On Sunday, Juilliard415, a period-instrument ensemble, will play an all-Beethoven concert led by the violinist Monica Huggett, the artist in residence for the school’s historical-performance program. Tickets are $20 — a setback for the Miser, but not as much as an evening at the New York Philharmonic. (ChamberFest concerts are Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m.; Juilliard415 performs Sunday at 5 p.m.; 155 West 65th Street, Lincoln Center; 212-769-7406, events.juilliard.edu.)

Art
Juilliard415
Classical music
Rachel Rossin


Tired of War, Yemeni Bloggers Say, ‘Enough’

Abstract: As the death toll mounts in Yemen, and airstrikes make life in the capital, Sana, a nerve-racking ordeal, Yemeni bloggers continue to post firsthand dispatches on social networks, frequently tagged with the Arabic word kefaya, meaning “enough.” Big explosions. 3:58 am local time. We're growing sick of this with no end in sight. Enough! #KefayaWar — Ammar Aulaqi (@ammar82) March 31, 2015 Kefaya means "enough". Yemenis are speaking to all: Coalition #Decisive_Storm , Houthis, Saleh, Iran , Hadi everyone! #KefayaWar #Yemen — Ammar Aulaqi (@ammar82) March 31, 2015 Join us in using the hashtags #OurYemen #KefayaWar with personal photos/video testimonies/msgs highlighting the human side of life in #Yemen — Sara Ishaq (@SaraHJIshaq) March 31, 2015 This stream of Twitter S.O.S. messages came after strikes on an arms depot late Monday ignited missiles stored on a hill above Sana, sending shrapnel from secondary explosions flying into the air close to civilian neighborhoods. In addition to using Twitter to urge an end to the violence, Yemenis also scoured the network for information about what was happening on the other side of the Saudi border, finding images that appeared to show armor moving in their direction and a patriotic song celebrating the Saudi-led offensive.


Five-Star Zurich Hotel Draws Return Visitors: Police

Abstract: ZURICH — Just before 6 a.m. here Thursday, Swiss law enforcement officers briskly entered a side door of the Baur au Lac hotel. Moments later, a hotel custodian, in a starched uniform and polished shoes, stepped out the front door of the five-star property and dutifully vacuumed the entryway carpets, seemingly oblivious to the police raid underway behind him. It would have been a bizarre juxtaposition for this plush, historic hotel on the banks of Lake Zurich if it were not so familiar. Just six months ago, the Swiss police arrived at the Baur au Lac for the first roundup of top soccer officials, rocking the soccer world and providing an august setting for charges of corruption, bribery, money laundering and other ignoble offenses. Latest Justice Department Indictment of Soccer Officials The Justice Department unsealed a 236-page indictment on Thursday that described charges against some of the most powerful leaders of international soccer. With Thursday’s apprehension of two more high-ranking soccer officials, the Baur au Lac suddenly ranked, however innocently, alongside the Watergate (President Nixon’s downfall) and the Adlon Kempinski Berlin (Michael Jackson’s dangling baby) as the world’s most notorious yet refined hotels. The Baur au Lac, which claims to be the place where the Nobel Peace Prize was born, is also the preferred hotel for FIFA officials because of its elegance and proximity to the group’s headquarters. It has been a polite and accommodating host for police visits. As in May, the arrests were carried out quickly and with discretion so as not to disturb other guests at the hotel, where rooms go for $650 a night. A front-desk clerk received the officers when they arrived and a manager cleared the ornate lobby of visitors — he apologetically explained there was “an extreme situation.” Image The Watergate Complex in 1973, which became famous for its role in President Nixon’s downfall. Credit Associated Press The officers walked past a Christmas tree adorned with gold ornaments and potted plants festooned with ribbons on their way to the rooms of Alfredo Hawit of Honduras and Juan Ángel Napout of Paraguay, FIFA vice presidents and the leaders of their regional soccer confederations. After knocking on the door of each man’s room, the officers presented a piece of paper that briefly explained — in German, English and Spanish — what was happening to them. Among other things, the document reminded the men that they had the right to contact their country’s consulate. Each man was given the opportunity to pack his luggage and then was escorted to the ground floor for transportation to police custody. Unlike in May, when authorities took many of the arrested officials out a back door and into a waiting car as hotel staff members held up white bedsheets in an attempt to obscure the public’s view, this time the police returned to the side entrance. Video Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney general, announced new indictments of officials from FIFA, soccer’s world governing body. While restaurant staff arranged the breakfast buffet, including a tower of pastries and an assortment of smoked fish, the police led Mr. Hawit and Mr. Napout out the side door and over a small bridge to the hotel’s garage. Waiting among a panoply of high-end vehicles, the men were guided into cars and driven away. The ride was likely a bit more pleasant than the ones taken by their colleagues: In May, the police transported some of the indicted officials in pedestrian cars like an older-model Opel. This time, their procession featured a Volvo and a few Mercedes, all with tinted windows. Once the cars pulled away, a hotel manager told the staff members who had been assisting in the operation, “That’s it,” and the group went back inside. There, other members of FIFA’s executive committee, who had by then seen reports of the arrests on social media, were coming downstairs to prepare to leave for the scheduled meeting at 9 a.m. at FIFA headquarters. The atmosphere, according to one high-ranking official, was “not much surprise, sadly,” he said. In the restaurant, officials in blue FIFA blazers whispered to one another over bowls of the hotel’s acclaimed porridge, while Mr. Hawit’s wife, who was in the room when her husband was arrested, was comforted by friends near the lobby. Outside, as the sun rose and the workday began, commuters stopped to stare as security guards milled about in front of the hotel’s driveway. The Baur au Lac, a fixture of this city for more than 170 years, was no longer known simply for its history, array of wines and in-house brand of chocolate. By about 8:30 a.m., most of the FIFA officials had made their way to the organization’s headquarters, about 20 minutes away. In an underground conference room, the executive committee discussed the arrests at the start of its meeting but then attempted to move on, ultimately voting on a package of governance reforms that will be proposed to the FIFA Congress in February. Back at the Baur au Lac, the doorman had been replaced by a security guard, who told visitors that only guests and staff were allowed in. Just before 9, three hours after the police arrived, the man in the starched uniform emerged to vacuum the carpets again.

FIFA
Baur au Lac
Hotels
Bribery and Kickbacks
Soccer
Corruption
Alfredo Hawit
Juan Angel Napout
Switzerland


Woman Tells of Affair With Madoff in New Book

Abstract: Hadassah, the Jewish volunteer organization, knew it had invested $40 million with Bernard L. Madoff by the late 1990s. It also knew it had taken more than $130 million from its Madoff accounts and still had millions on the books when the vast Ponzi scheme was revealed in December. What the charity says it did not know, however, was that Sheryl Weinstein, its chief financial officer when it made those investments, was having an affair with Mr. Madoff. Ms. Weinstein, who has been married for 37 years, discloses that relationship in “Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me,” a memoir scheduled for publication by St. Martin’s Press at the end of August, a spokesman for the publisher confirmed. Hadassah’s national president, Nancy Falchuk, told Hadassah’s national board in a letter on Thursday that the group was “shocked to hear the news reports of Mrs. Weinstein’s personal admission regarding this relationship. Indeed, we knew nothing of her relationship with Mr. Madoff until today.” Ruth Madoff, who has been married to Mr. Madoff for almost 50 years, knew nothing about the “alleged affair,” said Peter Chavkin, her lawyer. While that, unfortunately, will not ease the pain of the people destroyed by the Madoff fraud, he continued, the allegation “stands as a powerful reminder, to those who say Ruth must have known of her husband’s criminal scheme, that there are some things that some spouses — however close they are — do not share with each other.” Ira Lee Sorkin, a lawyer for Mr. Madoff, declined to comment. According to John Murphy, the publisher’s spokesman, Ms. Weinstein’s relationship with Mr. Madoff “spanned 20 years.” That would take it back to 1988, when Hadassah received a gift of about $7 million from a French donor, whom the organization has declined to name. That money was already invested with Mr. Madoff, and the donor wanted it to remain in his hands, the organization reported in December. Thereafter, Hadassah invested an additional $33 million with Mr. Madoff, who was a well-known figure on Wall Street and a contributor to several other prominent charities — some of which were also victims of his fraud. Indeed, the Madoff scandal raised questions in the nonprofit community about how well charities managed their investments and monitored their conflicts of interest, with some watchdog organizations saying that some groups left those decisions to small, clubby boards or influential insiders. Hadassah has declined to identify the members of its investment advisory committee, other than to say they are “prominent and experienced financial and investment individuals” who serve without pay and are not members of its large governing board, whose membership rotates frequently. But the organization did confirm that one member of that committee was Ms. Weinstein, who was on Hadassah’s staff for more than a dozen years. Despite Mr. Madoff’s remarkably consistent returns — an average of 11 percent a year from 2003 to 2008, according to Hadassah — the organization did not make any additional investments with him after 1997, the year Ms. Weinstein left the organization. But Ms. Weinstein and her husband did. According to her previous statements, they invested virtually everything they owned with Mr. Madoff, and lost it all. At his sentencing hearing in June, Ms. Weinstein spoke about the emotional and financial devastation of her family. “A deep, heavy depression would surround me and not lift,” she said. For months, she felt “unable to escape the reality of my personal devastation.” She and her husband were forced to sell their home “because four years ago we refinanced our mortgage and gave the excess cash to Bernie Madoff,” she continued. She also said she “felt it was important for somebody who was personally acquainted with Madoff to speak. My family and I are not anonymous people to him. He knows my husband’s name is Rob and my son’s name is Eric.” Mr. Murphy, the publisher’s spokesman, declined to make Ms. Weinstein available for questions about how, or whether, her relationship with Mr. Madoff had affected her obligations to her employer. Ms. Weinstein has not said publicly whether she actively participated in investment decisions involving Mr. Madoff. But William Josephson, a lawyer who was formerly the chief charity regulator for the New York attorney general’s office, said she should not have done so. “In her position, she had a fiduciary duty to her employer that would require her to either disclose the relationship or recuse herself from making any decision related to investment with his firm,” Mr. Josephson said. In the view of Jack Siegel, a lawyer and nonprofit governance expert, Ms. Weinstein’s personal relationship with Mr. Madoff and her personal investments with him both posed potential conflicts of interest. “The former is obvious,” Mr. Siegel said. “But she also had a personal interest in increasing the assets he had under his management because by strengthening his business, she also strengthened her family’s investments with him.” Ms. Weinstein’s headlines are not Hadassah’s biggest worry these days. Because it withdrew far more cash from its Madoff accounts than it contributed, it may be vulnerable to a lawsuit by the Madoff bankruptcy trustee, who is trying to recover money for those victims who put in more than they took out. The trustee, Irving H. Picard, has said publicly that he is unlikely to go after small or thinly financed charities that already have used their Madoff profits for grants and operations. But Mr. Picard has not yet addressed the issues posed by large, wealthy charities that reaped profits from their Madoff investments. He declined to comment on Thursday about Hadassah’s specific situation. But Hadassah clearly was chagrined at Ms. Weinstein’s disclosures. The news “comes at a time when we are moving away from the events of the past year and looking ahead with renewed energy and enthusiasm for the coming year,” Ms. Falchuk said in her note to her board members. News about the group’s ambitious charitable projects “are the only headlines that matter,” she added.

Madoff Bernard L
Frauds and Swindling
Ponzi Schemes
Weinstein Sheryl
Conflicts of Interest
Adultery
Books and Literature
Hadassah
Wall Street (NYC)


Raskin Would Be First Female Deputy at Treasury

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama nominated Sarah Bloom Raskin on Wednesday to be deputy Treasury secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Raskin would be the highest-ranking woman to serve in that department. Ms. Raskin is a Federal Reserve governor and a former state banking regulator. At the Treasury, Ms. Raskin would take the position held by Neal S. Wolin since the beginning of the administration. In a statement about Ms. Raskin , Jacob J. Lew, the Treasury secretary, said, “Sarah has a deep understanding of banking and financial regulatory issues as well as a firm grasp of how to run large, complex organizations.” He added, “Sarah has demonstrated a strong commitment to protecting consumers, and she shares my conviction to do everything possible to increase job creation, accelerate economic growth and strengthen the middle class.” A person with knowledge of the process, but without permission to speak on the record about personnel policy, said Mr. Lew had put forward Ms. Raskin’s name for the job and was particularly interested in her administrative abilities. The deputy secretary takes a large role in running the sprawling department, with tasks as diverse as the minting of currency and the collecting of taxes. Image Sarah Bloom Raskin Credit Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Mr. Lew also appreciated her knowledge of financial markets and regulation given the enormous continuing task of putting into effect the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform law, this person said. Ms. Raskin is lawyer who was trained at Harvard and who worked as a Maryland state regulatory official before joining the Fed in 2010 . She had earlier worked on Capitol Hill and at the Promontory Financial Group, a consultancy. Ms. Raskin’s move to the Treasury would leave yet another vacancy at the central bank. The Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, is widely expected to leave at the end of his term in January, and Elizabeth A. Duke, a Fed governor, plans to step down in late August. The search for a new Federal Reserve leader has raised questions about the relative dearth of women in top economic policy-making positions. Janet Yellen, the Fed vice chairwoman, is considered a contender for the top job. Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and economic adviser to Mr. Obama, is also considered a leading candidate to succeed Mr. Bernanke. Some Democratic members of Congress and economists have urged Mr. Obama to appoint Ms. Yellen , while several current and former White House aides are said to be pressing for Mr. Summers .

Appointments and Executive Changes
Sarah Bloom Raskin
Treasury Department
Barack Obama
Federal Reserve


After Shootings, City Police Add Patrols

Abstract: The New York Police Department announced on Monday that it was putting more officers in certain neighborhoods “to suppress further violence” after 26 people were shot and 7 were killed during a 72-hour period from Friday to Sunday. More uniformed officers will be assigned to housing developments and extra plainclothes officers will be sent to patrol during “shooting-prone hours,” the police said in a statement. Mobile watchtowers with surveillance cameras will be also be used. “In addition, warrants division personnel will focus on the nine commands that experienced multiple shootings this weekend in order to arrest individuals wanted on outstanding warrants,” the statement said. “Investigators are also monitoring gang-affiliated street crews for any evidence of planned retaliation.” Paul J. Browne, the chief police spokesman, said that some officers would be assigned through overtime shifts; they will be looking for suspicious behavior, writing summonses and patrolling certain sectors rather than responding to routine 911 calls. Most of the weekend violence occurred in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Three of the injured were under the age of 16, the police said.


Secret Recordings Reveal Details of Terror Plot Accusations

Abstract: They were four ex-convicts — one a crack addict, another whose most recent arrest involved snatching purses — and they gathered their terror tools as they went. They bought cellphones, the authorities said; they bought a camera in a Wal-Mart to take photographs of the synagogues in New York City that they wanted to blow up. When their attempt to buy guns in Newburgh, N.Y., fell through — their gun dealer told them she had sold out — they drove downstate, buying a $700 pistol from a Bloods gang leader in Brooklyn. After months of planning, the authorities allege, the men had their first real scare this month, driving to Stamford, Conn., to pick up a surface-to-air missile that was waiting for them in a warehouse. One of the men in the car believed they were being followed by law enforcement, so they returned to Newburgh, drove around until they were satisfied they were in the clear, then went back to Stamford for their missile and bombs. They brought them back to Newburgh, locked them in a storage container, and celebrated, shouting, “Allah akbar!” These details as told by the authorities describe a homegrown terror plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down a military aircraft in Newburgh. The outlines of the plan were fleshed out on Thursday, in court hearings, documents and interviews, as were bits and pieces of the checkered life stories of the four men charged in the plot. Remarkably, vast passages of the conspiracy the federal authorities described — the talk of killing Jews, the testing of the men’s would-be weaponry — played out on a veritable soundstage of hidden cameras and secret microphones, and involved material provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A house in Newburgh, a storage facility in Stamford, the planting of the would-be bombs in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale — everything was recorded, according to the complaint. “It’s hard to envision a more chilling plot,” Eric Snyder, an assistant United States attorney, said on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. “These are extremely violent men. These are men who eagerly embraced an opportunity” to “bring deaths to Jews.” On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly appeared at the Riverdale Jewish Center, which the F.B.I. identified as one of the targets of the plot. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly praised the work of the agencies behind the arrests and sought to tamp down any fears of a larger terrorist organization at work. “Sadly, this is just a reminder that peace is fragile and democracy is fragile and we have to be vigilant all the time,” said Mr. Bloomberg, who along with Mr. Kelly stressed that the four men had no connection to any international terror groups. “The good news is that the N.Y.P.D. and F.B.I. prevented what could have been a terrible event in our city.” The case is the latest in a series in New York and around the country since Sept. 11, 2001, and sounded familiar in some ways. The investigation, for instance, began with the work of a confidential informant, who portrayed himself as an agent of a Pakistani terror organization, and who became a critical member of the men’s plot. The full nature and extent of the informant’s role in facilitating the plot is unknown. In other cases, defense lawyers have sought to portray these informants as engaging in entrapment, suggesting they had, in effect, provoked and fueled the actions of their clients. But where past terror prosecutions have been based mostly on conversations about a planned or imagined attack, this one went further, the authorities alleged: the men went through critical acts in what they believed to be a deadly assault. As for the defendants — James Cromitie, 44; David Williams, 28; Onta Williams, 32, and no apparent relation to David; and Laguerre Payen, 27 — most of the details that emerged on Thursday stemmed from their criminal pasts. David Williams, who lately had grown a beard and taken to reading the Koran on slow nights at a steakhouse job, was described as particularly violent by prosecutors on Thursday. When the plan to buy guns from a woman in Newburgh fell through, it was David Williams who quickly improvised, arranging to buy a gun from a man he described as a “supreme Blood gang leader” in Brooklyn, Mr. Snyder said. After buying the gun in the company of the informant, David Williams said he would have shot the gang leader if he were alone with him, and kept his $700. Mr. Payen, described as a nervous, quiet sort who took medication for schizophrenia or a bi-polar disorder, was unemployed and living in squalor in Newburgh. His last arrest, in 2002, was for assault, after he drove around the Rockland County village of Monsey, firing a BB gun out of the window — striking two teens — and snatching two purses. A friend who visited Mr. Payen’s apartment on Thursday said it contained bottles of urine, and raw chicken on the stovetop. Onta Williams had been addicted to cocaine since he was a teenager, according to his lawyer, Sol Lesser, at his sentencing in 2003. Mr. Cromitie has spent 12 years in prison, most recently for selling drugs to undercover officers behind a school. Law enforcement officials initially said the four men were Muslims, but their religious backgrounds remained uncertain Thursday. Mr. Payen reported himself to be Catholic during his 15-month prison sentence that ended in 2005, according to a state corrections official. Mr. Cromitie and Onta Williams both identified themselves as Baptists in prison records, although Mr. Cromitie changed his listed religion to Muslim upon his last two incarcerations; David Williams reported no religious affiliation. The men never served in the same prison together. Three of them regularly lunched together at Danny’s Restaurant in Newburgh, chatting over plates of rice and beans, said Danny DeLeon, the owner. Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, the imam at the mosque where the authorities say the confidential informant first encountered the men, said none of the men were active in the mosque. An assistant imam, Hamin Rashada, said Mr. Cromitie and Mr. Payen occasionally attended services. Mr. Cromitie was there last June, and he met a stranger. He had no way of knowing that the stranger’s path to the mosque began in 2002, when he was arrested on federal charges of identity theft. He was sentenced to five years’ probation, and became a confidential informant for the F.B.I. He began showing up at the mosque in Newburgh around 2007, Mr. Muhammad said. The stranger’s behavior aroused the imam’s suspicions. He invited other worshipers to meals, and spoke of violence and jihad, so the imam said he steered clear of him. “There was just something fishy about him,” Mr. Muhammad said. Members “believed he was a government agent.” Mr. Muhammad said members of his congregation told him the man he believed was the informant offered at least one of them a substantial amount of money to join his “team.” The informant met Mr. Cromitie, and it quickly appeared that Mr. Cromitie was of a like mind with the apparent radical before him, according to the complaint. Mr. Cromitie said his parents had lived in Afghanistan before he was born and that he was angry at the killing of Muslims there. The next month, on July 3, the two men met and discussed the terror organization Jaish-e-Mohammed, based in Pakistan, with which the informant claimed to be involved. Mr. Cromitie told him he wanted to join and “do jihad,” according to the complaint. All of this came as a shock to Mr. Cromitie’s mother after his arrest on Wednesday. Adele Cromitie, 65, said her son was raised a Christian, and that neither she nor his father, who left the family when Mr. Cromitie was a young child, had lived in Afghanistan. She said Mr. Cromitie visited her, at her apartment in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx, for the first time in nearly 15 years about three years ago, after getting out of prison, and announced he had converted to Islam. “When he told me that, I said, ‘Get out of here,’ ” Ms. Cromitie recalled. About six months ago, Mr. DeLeon, the restaurant owner, noticed that a new man was showing up for lunch. He was about 50 and appeared to be South Asian, and he usually paid for the group. Mr. DeLeon thought he was the boss. Beginning in October, the informant began meeting Mr. Cromitie at a home in Newburgh that was wired with hidden cameras and microphones, the criminal complaint said. David Williams, Onta Williams and Mr. Payen attended these meetings, and the group discussed Mr. Cromitie’s desire to strike a synagogue in the Bronx and military aircraft at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, according to the complaint. In December, the plan began to take shape in the Newburgh house. On Dec. 5, Mr. Cromitie asked the informant whether he could acquire “rockets” and “devices” for attacks, and the informant said he could provide C-4 plastic explosives to fashion improvised bombs. On Dec. 17, Mr. Cromitie said he wanted to case the air base later that week, and that he would remove his traditional Muslim attire — a white jalabiya and cap — so as not to draw suspicion. David Williams suggested they refer to the synagogues as “joints.” On April 10, Mr. Cromitie, David Williams and the informant drove to a Wal-Mart in Newburgh and bought a camera, and then went to the Bronx, where Mr. Cromitie took pictures of synagogues. He said blowing up the Riverdale Jewish Center would be “a piece of cake.” Several days later, the three men met again and discussed picking up a Stinger heat-seeking missile in Connecticut and synchronizing the aircraft strike and the bombings. On the night of April 28, after figuring out where they could get a gun, the men reinforced their commitment to the plan to one another, according to the authorities. They each said they were willing to perform jihad, and Onta Williams spoke, saying the military is “killing Muslim brothers and sisters in Muslim countries, so if we kill them here with I.E.D.’s and Stingers, it is equal,” according to the complaint. On May 6, the five men drove to Stamford to pick up the explosives and the Stinger, according to the complaint. The location was carefully chosen in advance, but not by any of the men in the vehicle. The Stamford police were approached by the F.B.I. several months ago, officials said, and asked for help in finding a warehouse where a meeting with the suspected terror cell could take place. A warehouse on the Waterside section of town was chosen and wired for video and audio for the meeting. The men, after the brief scare about being followed, eventually made it to Stamford. There, they inspected the explosive devices. Each weighed 37 pounds and was inside a canvas bag. None of them, nor the Stinger missile at the warehouse, was operational, having been disabled by the F.B.I. The four men tested one of the detonators for the bombs, which was to be set off with a cellphone, the compliant said. They drove the weapons to Newburgh, locked them in a storage container and celebrated. The five men met at the storage unit to inspect the weapons on May 8. Twelve days later, they drove to the Bronx with the bombs.

Terrorism
Bronx (NYC)
Synagogues
Bombs and Explosives
Cromitie James
Williams David
Williams Onta
Payen Laguerre


Emelianenko, Considered Top Fighter, Joins Strikeforce

Abstract: Fedor Emelianenko, a champion mixed martial arts fighter from Russia, signed a three-fight deal Monday with Strikeforce, once again depriving the Ultimate Fighting Championship of the chance to lay claim to the man who is widely considered the best mixed martial arts fighter in the world. The U.F.C. has nearly all of the world’s best professional mixed martial arts fighters, but Emelianenko , a heavyweight, remains elusive. Terms of his deal were not disclosed. Strikeforce , a California-based mixed martial arts promotion company, announced that it had entered into a partnership with M-1 Global , a mixed martial arts promotion group based in Russia, of which the 32-year-old Emelianenko is a part-owner. The move came after a week of negotiations. During that time, Emelianenko and his management were involved in talks with boxing and mixed martial arts promotions, including the U.F.C. The U.F.C. wanted to sign Emelianenko and promote a fight between him and its heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar , a former World Wrestling Entertainment star. But the two parties could not agree on a deal. Vadim Finkelstein, the president of M-1 and Emelianenko’s manager, had asked the U.F.C. for the right to co-promote bouts. The U.F.C. would not agree to that. The U.F.C. tried and failed to sign Emelianenko once before , two years ago. It would not disclose how much money it offered him, but in an e-mail message Monday, the U.F.C.’s president, Dana White, expressed frustration in dealing with Emelianenko and his management. “He turns down a huge deal and the opportunity to face the best in the world to fight nobodies,” White said. Strikeforce has some highly acclaimed heavyweights, but the U.F.C. has a deeper talent pool. “As far as heavyweights in the world go, Fedor’s the man,” said Scott Coker, the chief executive of Strikeforce. At 6 feet and 235 pounds, Emelianenko (30-1) is relatively undersized for a heavyweight, but has not lost a fight in nine years. Recently, however, some fans and mixed martial arts analysts have criticized the caliber of his opponents. Such criticism is likely to persist. Yet in signing with Strikeforce, Emelianenko, who has spent much of his career in Japan, will gain access to a fan base that is relatively unfamiliar with him. In March, Strikeforce signed a multiyear television deal with Showtime. Before the deal, Coker said, Strikeforce was largely a regional-based live event promotion. But the addition of Emelianenko gives it a chance to become the No. 2 mixed martial arts brand in the world, behind the U.F.C. Emelianenko had been scheduled to fight Josh Barnett on Saturday in Anaheim, Calif., in a fight promoted by Affliction Entertainment. But on July 22, the California State Athletic Commission announced that it would not issue a license to fight for Barnett because he had tested positive for steroids. Affliction canceled the bout, then folded as a fight promoter , leaving Emelianenko and other fighters as free agents.

Emelianenko Fedor
Mixed Martial Arts
Ultimate Fighting Championship