Giants’ Decline Stands at 12 Months, 16 Games and Counting

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It has been a bad year for the Giants, which is not the same as a bad season. To be more precise, it has been a difficult 12 months for the Giants. As poorly as they have played in 2013, it could be said that their troubles began 363 days ago, on Dec. 3, 2012, in Washington, where they were upset by the Redskins, 17-16. At the time, it seemed a minor setback for a 7-4 team that was also the reigning Super Bowl champion. But starting with that game, the Giants have played the equivalent of a full season and compiled a 6-10 record. As the Giants prepare to play at Washington again Sunday, almost every recurring problem over the past year was first revealed in that Redskins game, and the final five games of the 2012 season set the pattern for 2013. For example, consider these four possessions from the Giants’ last game in Washington: Three drives that stalled inside the Washington 22-yard line ended with a Giants field goal, not a touchdown. The fourth drive concluded at the Washington 25, and a field-goal attempt was missed. The Giants had no sacks. Wide receiver Hakeem Nicks was thrown to 10 times and caught half those passes for 43 yards and no touchdowns. The Giants had nine penalties. Does that sound familiar? Even the quotations after the game sound recycled. “You can’t win games when just about every successful possession comes to a halt and results in a field goal,” Giants Coach Tom Coughlin said. Quarterback Eli Manning said: “We did some good things, just not enough of them. We have to be more consistent.” The Giants have been preaching consistency for a year. It was even one of Coughlin’s mottos during summer training camp. “Our goal this year is to be more consistent,” Coughlin said over and over. But for 12 months, and 16 games, the Giants have been exceedingly consistent. For instance: ■ While the Giants who won 7 of their first 11 games in 2012 — and 6 of their first 8 — averaged 2.72 sacks per game, in their last 16 games dating to late 2012, they have averaged a paltry 1.31 sacks. Giants fans wonder what has happened to their team’s vaunted pass rush this season. It’s a good question. Before the final five games of last year, when the Giants routed the New Orleans Saints and the Philadelphia Eagles but were shut out by Atlanta, thrashed by Baltimore and narrowly edged by Washington, multiple Giants were terrorizing opposing quarterbacks. Before Dec. 3, 2012, there were six Giants with three or more sacks through 11 games. In this season’s 11 games, only Mathias Kiwanuka has more than three sacks (he has four). ■ The individual drop-off for the Giants’ biggest defensive-line star has been stark. In the first 11 games last season, Jason Pierre-Paul had 46 tackles, an average of 4.2 per game. Pierre-Paul also had 6.5 sacks. In the 16 games since — admittedly while playing with a sore back and then with a back mended by surgery — Pierre-Paul has just 47 tackles or an average of 2.94. In those 16 games, he has two sacks. ■ Other patterns began to emerge at the end of last year. The Giants had a third-down conversation rate of 40.6 percent last season, but in their final two losses of 2012 that rate dropped to 30 percent. This season it is 34.7 percent, and in four of the seven losses, the third-down conversion rate was 25 percent or lower. ■ Manning’s interception numbers are conspicuous — 11 in the first 11 games last year and 21 in the 16 games since. But many of his 2013 interceptions have not been his fault, more attributable to random deflections and inexperienced receivers running the wrong pass routes. Perhaps more disconcerting is Manning’s completion percentage, which is off considerably in the last 16 games. From the beginning of the 2008 season and through the first 11 games of the 2012 season, Manning completed 61.2 percent of his passes. In the last 16 games, he has completed 57.1 percent. That may not seem like a big deal, but across a typical season, that’s roughly 24 fewer completions, or about 1.5 per game. That may not mean much, unless it is 1.5 fewer completions in the final drive of a close game. And the Giants in the Manning era have played a lot of close games. ■ And then there is Nicks, who was playing hurt in 2012 but whose degeneration as an elite receiver seemed to accelerate in the final five games of last season, when he caught only 12 passes for 150 yards. Nicks, who in 2010 and 2011 averaged 77.5 receptions, 1,122 receiving yards and 9 touchdown catches per season, has caught 54 passes for 770 yards in the last 16 games. He has one touchdown. In the last 16 games, Manning has thrown 108 passes in Nicks’s direction. Nicks has caught half. That’s a stunningly poor ratio for someone considered a No. 1 receiver. In the same period, Victor Cruz has been targeted 102 times and caught 83 passes. What does it all mean? It would appear that the Giants’ difficulties in 2013 are rooted in last year. Yes, there has been an unusual spate of injuries to starting players and a periodic sense of bad karma: dropped passes at all the wrong times and fumbles that never bounce the Giants’ way. But it seems the decline started earlier, that the Super Bowl champions defending their title near the midpoint of the 2012 season suddenly became something else by the last stage of that season — older, less efficient, less skilled. That team is, in some form, still in uniform, albeit hobbling through the vestiges of a season that is very likely doomed to end when the regular season does. It all began in Washington almost a year ago. On Sunday, the Giants return to the scene either to continue the decline or to begin the resurrection.

Giants
Football
Redskins
Tom Coughlin
Eli Manning
Victor Cruz


Off the Record in a Chat App? Don’t Be Sure

Abstract: What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. That truth was laid bare on Thursday, when Snapchat, the popular mobile messaging service, agreed to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission that messages sent through the company’s app did not disappear as easily as promised. Snapchat has built its service on a pitch that has always seemed almost too good to be true: that people can send any photo or video to friends and have it vanish without a trace. That promise has appealed to millions of people, particularly younger Internet users seeking refuge from nosy parents, school administrators and potential employers. But the commission charged that there were several easy ways to save messages from the service, and in settling the accusations, the company agreed not to misrepresent the disappearing nature of its messages. The company’s early popularity and hype led to a multibillion-dollar buyout offer last year from Facebook, which Snapchat’s leaders spurned in the hope of something better. But the settlement announced on Thursday set a different tone, one that could extend to the many other start-ups that promise security, privacy and anonymity as an antidote to the public nature of Facebook and Twitter. “The Internet is forever, and people don’t realize that,” said Nico Sell, a security expert and one of the founders of a rival mobile app called Wickr that also lets people send self-destructing messages. “You think you can delete a tweet or a Facebook post, but it doesn’t go away. Most people don’t know how hard it is to make a message disappear.” The settlement is the latest revelation that much of what is shared over the web and through mobile devices is at risk for interception or eventual retrieval, even if the hardware and software companies that transmit them promise otherwise. Security vulnerabilities have been exposed at major banks, corporations and retailers around the globe and at many start-ups. Image A recent update to Snapchat included the ability to conduct a real-time video conversation. Credit Snapchat The settlement between the F.T.C. and Snapchat also raised another notion: that some technology companies may be misleading users about how their information is stored and shared, even if unintentionally. Under the terms of the settlement, Snapchat will be prohibited from misrepresenting how it maintains the privacy and confidentiality of user information. The company will also be required to start a wide-ranging privacy program, a sort of probation, and will be independently monitored for 20 years. Fines could ensue if the company violates the agreement. In its complaint against Snapchat, the commission said the app’s messages, often called snaps, could be saved in several ways, contrary to what the company has said. Users can save a message by using a third-party app, the agency said, or employ simple workarounds that allow users to take a screen shot of messages without alerting another user. The complaint also said Snapchat transmitted users’ location information and collected sensitive data like address book contacts, despite its saying that it did not collect such information. The commission said the lax policies did not secure a feature called “Find Friends” that allowed security researchers to compile a database of 4.6 million user names and phone numbers during a recent security breach. “One thing we want to make clear,” said Chris Olsen, the assistant director of the F.T.C’s division of privacy and identity protection. “If you make promises about privacy, you must honor those promises or otherwise risk F.T.C. enforcement.” Snapchat declined an interview request, but posted a statement on its blog. “While we were focused on building, some things didn’t get the attention they could have,” the company wrote. Snapchat added: “Even before today’s consent decree was announced, we had resolved most of those concerns over the past year by improving the wording of our privacy policy, app description and in-app just-in-time notifications. And we continue to invest heavily in security and countermeasures to prevent abuse.” Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner Research, said that it was a bit premature to predict how the F.T.C. settlement might affect the standing of the company and its ability to transform itself into a sustainable business. The company does not yet generate revenue. Snapchat has only recently begun to experiment with partnerships that may lay the framework to eventually make money. Snapchat Settlement With F.T.C. The mobile messaging service Snapchat settled with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that the service inaccurately claimed that, once sent, messages disappeared. But the settlement is “really bad for a technology company,” he said. “You don’t have the government coming after you when you’re doing regular business.” Still, some of Snapchat’s vulnerabilities have been public for some time, suggesting that users and venture capitalists may not be terribly concerned about Snapchat’s false promises. An article on BuzzFeed, the online news start-up, published in late 2012 explained how Snapchat videos could easily be copied and saved using a simple service. That revelation and others did not deter venture capitalists from writing checks worth $123 million to back the company, nor did it seem to prevent people from using the service. Mr. Olsen of the F.T.C. declined to say what led the commission to open an investigation into Snapchat, but he did say that several organizations, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an independent, nonprofit research center, had raised concerns about the messaging service. He said the case and resulting settlement were part of a larger, continuing investigative effort by the commission to hold start-ups and companies accountable to their marketing claims and privacy assurances to consumers. Snapchat’s rise is part of a sea change in social media, one that is defined by companies promising more private and anonymous interactions than existing popular services. Mobile applications like Whisper, Secret, Confide and a number of others also assure their users that the content they share and sometimes even their identities are secure. Danah Boyd, who researches technology adoption and use among teenagers, said that younger Internet users tended to be “far more concerned about people in their immediate world getting access to their content than the company itself” as long as it did not disrupt their personal lives. “There’s a huge disconnect between what we mean when we say anonymity in the colloquial sense and what it means in a technical sense,” said Ms. Boyd, who wrote “It’s Complicated,” a book about technology habits and use. And even Evan Spiegel, one of Snapchat’s founders, seemed to acknowledge as much in an interview . “Nothing ever goes away on the Internet,” he said.

Snapchat
FTC
Privacy
Instant messaging
Mobile Apps
Electronic Privacy Information Center


Russia Moves to Deport Wife of an Activist

Abstract: MOSCOW — Russia’s Federal Migration Service moved to deport the American wife of a high-profile human rights lawyer living in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, labeling her “a threat to national security.” Ivan Y. Pavlov, 43, founded the Institute for Freedom of Information Development, which he said strived to make the Russian government more transparent, in 2004. He was one of a handful of activists who met with President Obama on the sidelines of the G-20 summit meeting in St. Petersburg last September. His wife, Jennifer Gaspar, 43, has lived in Russia for a decade, working for a variety of nongovernmental organizations, including groups focused on human rights issues and one that raised money for the storied Hermitage Museum. The expulsion order arrived in the mail on Tuesday, and Mr. Pavlov linked it to a long tradition of forcing government critics into exile. “They know if they expel her it means that I will go with her,” Mr. Pavlov said in a telephone interview. “I think it is their attempt to push me out of the country.” The move comes amid a darkening climate for human rights organizations here and the worst Russian-American relations in decades. No one from the Foreign Ministry or the Federal Migration Service could be reached for comment late Tuesday. The letter did not specify any reasons Ms. Gaspar, from Radnor, Pa., would be considered a threat. It said only that her residency permit, issued for a year in February, was null and that she had to leave Russia within two weeks of the date the letter was written, July 21. (It took more than two weeks for the post office to deliver it.) Ms. Gaspar called the accusation “absurd” and said that the Russian government was trying to break up a family: The couple married in 2005 and have a 5-year-old daughter. “This is an incredibly inappropriate move on the part of the government to deport the mother of a young Russian citizen,” Ms. Gaspar said. “We will be fine, but I think the tragedy is in demoralizing the people who are working so hard to do something positive in Russia.” Mr. Pavlov said he planned to file an appeal on Wednesday to both stay the deportation and force the government to say in court why his wife was considered a threat. He said his interaction with the government had turned markedly worse after he met with Mr. Obama, when he talked to him about improving transparency in the United States. Russian government agents called that meeting “political work” and tried to force his foundation to register as a “foreign agent,” he said. A case over that issue is taking place in a St. Petersburg court. Russia passed a law in late 2012 demanding that organizations receiving overseas funding register as foreign agents. Mr. Pavlov said he was optimistic that he would win the right to keep his wife and daughter in Russia. “I believe in Russia,” he said. “We never worked against Russia — not me, not Jennifer.”

Hermitage Museum Saint Petersburg Russia


A Closer Look at Simone Manuel, Olympic Medalist, History Maker

Abstract: When Simone Manuel touched the wall of the pool in the women’s 100-meter freestyle race Thursday at the Rio Olympics, she turned around, her eyes searching for the clock. The moment she registered her win is now a reaction for the history books. Manuel, a 20-year-old swimmer from Sugar Land, Tex. became the first African-American woman to win an individual event in Olympic swimming. She also set an Olympic record, along with Penny Oleksiak of Canada: They tied for the win, clocking in at 52.70 seconds. (Manuel also helped the American women’s team win silver in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay.) The swimming world has known about Manuel, a two-time N.C.A.A. swimming champion, for years , but her status as a newly minted gold medalist rocketed her to wider popularity overnight. Here’s a closer look at a swimmer who just made history. Her fans think she could be the future of swimming. Manuel’s supporters have high hopes that she could affect diversity in the sport, encouraging more minorities to join. She addressed the issue after her win on Thursday: “I definitely think it raises some awareness and will get them inspired,” Manuel told reporters . “I mean, the gold medal wasn’t just for me; it was for people that came before me and inspired me to stay in the sport. “For people who believe that they can’t do it, I hope I’m an inspiration to others to get out there and try swimming. You might be pretty good at it.” Green and Gold 15 Photos View Slide Show › Image Jeffrey Furticella/The New York Times Miriam Lynch of Diversity in Aquatics , a nonprofit organization focused on curbing high numbers of drowning deaths among African-Americans, said Manuel’s victory could help reverse what she called a cultural fear of swimming in that group. The phenomenon has been traced to slavery and to Jim Crow laws , which segregated swimming pools. The hope is to encourage more young people to become lifeguards, coaches and swimmers. “When you see that the lifeguard is from the community, you think, ‘I can be a lifeguard; I can be a coach,’ ” Ms. Lynch said. “Now, with Simone, it’s, ‘I can be an Olympian.’ ” Chuck Wielgus, the executive director of USA Swimming, said in an interview on Friday that Manuel’s achievements, compounded by the success of black gold medalists like Cullen Jones , who came before her, might spur a bump in minority memberships. Michael Phelps did something similar when he first started swimming: When Phelps made the Olympic team in 2000, membership in USA Swimming was about 37 percent male; today, male membership of the 400,000-member organization is around 44 percent. “I think we’ll see it now with Cullen and Simone,” Mr. Wielgus said. “The benefits of it will be seen 10 years from now.” African-American membership grew by 55 percent from 2004 to 2015, he said. But that still amounts to only about 1 percent of USA Swimming. Image Simone Manuel, left, celebrated her gold medal in the women’s 100-meter freestyle with her teammate Abbey Weitzeil on Thursday. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times She feels that pressure. Manuel comes from a family of athletes — her two older brothers and her father played college basketball — but after her victory, she spoke to reporters about the pressure of being a black athlete in a sport that has historically lacked diversity . “It is something I’ve definitely struggled with a lot,” Manuel said. “Coming into the race, I tried to take weight of the black community off my shoulders. It’s something I carry with me. I want to be an inspiration, but I would like there to be a day when it is not ‘Simone the black swimmer.’ ” NBC delayed broadcasting her medal ceremony on TV. The network drew sharp criticism on social media from fans who said it should have prioritized Manuel’s medal ceremony as it happened instead of broadcasting the women’s gymnastics event. The sports site Deadspin linked to a BBC video , which has since been taken down, so that people could watch Manuel’s historic moment. A few people caught the footage and posted it to Twitter. She’s good friends with Lia Neal, an Olympic medalist. Before Manuel won a gold medal, Lia Neal, who is of Chinese and African descent, made headlines in 2012 for winning a bronze medal in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay at the London Games. They follow in the wake of Maritza Correia, a Puerto Rico-born swimmer of Guyanese descent who was the first black woman to join the United States Olympic team, and was on the 400-meter freestyle relay group that won silver in Athens in 2004. Both freestyle sprinters, Manuel and Neal are friends and rivals, and they’re teammates at Stanford University. Greg Meehan, the university’s lead swimming coach, told ESPN last year that Manuel’s arrival to the team took some pressure off Neal, who is a year older. “She has a huge spotlight on her, and she’s managed it well,” Meehan said of Manuel. “And it’s given Lia some freedom to do what she needs to do.” In the fall, Stanford will add even more Olympic firepower when Katie Ledecky , the team’s most dominant female swimmer, comes aboard. She has the admiration of another gold medalist. The tennis powerhouse Serena Williams, who has four gold medals of her own, shared a photo on Instagram that praised Manuel and another famous Simone — that would be Simone Biles, who is widely regarded as the best gymnast in the world. Biles is a friend of Manuel’s and, of course, a fellow Texan.

Simone Manuel
Swimming
2012 Summer Olympics
Black People,African-Americans


British Utility Ahead in Bid for KeySpan

Abstract: National Grid, the British utility company, emerged yesterday as the front-runner to acquire the KeySpan Corporation, which provides electricity and natural gas to more than a million customers on Long Island, for about $7.3 billion, people involved in the process said yesterday. National Grid, which was formed after the electricity grid of England and Wales was privatized in 1990, appears to have the edge over its local rival, Consolidated Edison, these people said. A deal could be reached as early next week, they said, still cautioning that it was possible that Consolidated Edison could emerge with a new offer or the negotiations with National Grid could collapse. National Grid has offered about $42 a share in cash, these people said, a slight premium to KeySpan's share price, which closed at $41.09 after running up from $36.18 before news of the talks was reported. Consolidated Edison's offer includes stock. KeySpan is planning to report its fourth-quarter earnings this morning, though it is unclear whether the company will comment on the talks. If National Grid were to emerge as the victor, it would be the latest acquisition for the London-based company in a recent spree in the United States. It acquired Niagara Mohawk in upstate New York for $3 billion in 2000. Just this month, it agreed to buy the Rhode Island assets of New England Gas for $498 million. Such a conclusion to the auction would leave Consolidated Edison shut out of a lucrative market, analysts said, for which it arguably should have the ability to squeeze out more savings than National Grid. KeySpan is the fifth-largest distributor of natural gas in the United States and the largest in the Northeast, operating utilities in New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The company is the largest generator of electricity in New York State, with about 6,600 megawatts of capacity. It provides power to 1.1 million customers of the Long Island Power Authority and about a quarter of New York City's capacity needs.

GREAT BRITAIN
LONG ISLAND (NY)
KEYSPAN CORP
CONSOLIDATED EDISON INC
KEYSPAN CORP
NATIONAL GRID PLC
MERGERS ACQUISITIONS AND DIVESTITURES
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER


Turkey Is Courted by U.S. to Help Fight ISIS

Abstract: ANKARA, Turkey — The Obama administration on Monday began the work of trying to determine exactly what roles the members of its fledgling coalition of countries to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will play, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel huddled with the leaders of the one country the administration has called “absolutely indispensable” to the fight: Turkey . But after hours of meetings here, there were no announcements of what the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan might do. In fact, Turkish officials meeting with Mr. Hagel eschewed the news conferences that usually accompany high-level visits from American officials. Rather, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, warned on the state-run Anatolia news agency that weapons sent by Western countries to fight ISIS could end up in the hands of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which Ankara considers a terrorist group. “We have expressed our concerns,” Mr. Cavusoglu said. “It may not be possible to control where these weapons will go.” Turkish officials raised concern about a host of issues surrounding the coalition, including the safety of 49 Turkish diplomats who have been taken hostage by ISIS, and whether the growing international effort to arm Kurdish fighters in Iraq against ISIS could embolden Kurdish militants in Turkey who have been seeking autonomy for the country’s largely Kurdish southeast. Turkish Kurds with the P.K.K. have fought with Kurdish pesh merga fighters in northern Iraq against ISIS. Turkey is also grappling with an influx of more than 800,000 Syrian refugees — the largest Syrian refugee population after Lebanon’s. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Mr. Erdogan on Monday, Mr. Hagel said that Turkish officials had expressed to him their concern about the P.K.K. But, he added, “They didn’t indicate to me in any way that they saw the P.K.K. as a more significant threat than ISIL,” using an alternative acronym for ISIS. The Obama administration wants Turkey to crack down on the flow of foreign fighters who have used the country as a transit point to Syria to join militant groups fighting there. The United States also wants to be able to use Turkish military bases to begin operations, including airstrikes, on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria if President Obama decides to attack inside Syria. “By geography, Turkey is going to be absolutely indispensable to the ongoing fight against ISIS,” a senior defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Because of just where they sit, the access we currently already have militarily and the cooperation we have militarily.” Mr. Erdogan, at the NATO summit meeting in Wales last week, met with Mr. Obama and said Turkey would become the only majority Muslim country so far to join what Mr. Hagel termed a “core coalition” of 10 countries fighting ISIS. Mr. Obama said after the meeting that he would welcome Turkey’s participation in his coalition. But Turkey has several times balked at allowing the American military to use its bases for operations in the region — most famously in Iraq in 2003. Mr. Erdogan himself has a complicated relationship with Mr. Obama. The two initially formed a close personal relationship during Mr. Obama’s first term, and Turkey was the first majority Muslim country that the American president visited after taking office. But the relationship soured over differences on Egypt and Syria, and deteriorated even more when Mr. Erdogan suggested that a conspiracy involving the United States was behind a corruption investigation by Turkish prosecutors that targeted him and his inner circle. Mr. Hagel said the tensions between the United States and Turkey should not get in the way of joining in the fight against ISIS. “Yes, we’ve had our ups and downs in the relationship, but what’s interesting is it has never broken,” Mr. Hagel said. “Now,” he added, “we have a situation in the world today that presents a clear and new set of very real threats.” Mr. Hagel said the United States expected that Turkey “will be involved in all of our efforts, as articulated by the president, to build a coalition to deal with ISIL.”

Turkey
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Barack Obama
Kurdish
Chuck Hagel
Recep Tayyip Erdogan


With Pick, Hillary Clinton Signals She’s Looking Past Inauguration Day

Abstract: In selecting Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, Hillary Clinton is sending the clearest signal yet that she is confident she will win the presidential election. If she were worried, she would have chosen Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who could have helped her win that critical Midwestern state — where she is now tied with Donald J. Trump. And Mr. Brown could have energized progressives nationally, who were far more enthusiastic about Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont than they have been about Mrs. Clinton. Other picks could have helped her more on Election Day. Former Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, for instance, would have turned out Democrats and independents in his swing state. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey would have galvanized fellow African-Americans in key cities like Philadelphia and Detroit. Tom Perez, labor secretary, and Julian Castro, housing secretary, might have boosted Hispanic voting in Florida and the West. Mr. Kaine, by contrast, doesn’t bring obvious political rewards. Mrs. Clinton is likely to win his home state of Virginia in any case. The members of his natural demographic — white men — aren’t going to forget their problems with Mrs. Clinton just because Mr. Kaine is on the ticket. And he isn’t a break-up-the-big-banks liberal who will bring home the left wing of the party. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine: Analysis Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Kaine are making their debut after she named him her running mate. Times reporters provided real-time analysis. His value is almost entirely about governing — about what he can do for Mrs. Clinton in the White House rather than at the ballot box. To that end, the pick is deeply revealing about how she sees the general election and how she would govern as president. She already has a strong team. Mrs. Clinton is showing her cards: In her view, she already has a straight flush heading into the fall with President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts ready to campaign for her. She doesn’t think she needs an ace in the hole in November, according to Clinton advisers. Mr. Kaine’s chief job in the general election is to win the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 4 — it happens to be in Virginia — against his Republican counterpart, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. Mr. Kaine and Mr. Pence are both solid debaters, but Mr. Kaine is more natural as an attack dog, a quality that Mrs. Clinton prizes. And as a member of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee, he is well suited to highlighting Mr. Trump’s knowledge deficits on world affairs. Mrs. Clinton herself is more popular than Mr. Trump with women, Hispanics, African-Americans and immigrants, which gives her some assurance that she can carry these voters without any particular help from her running mate, her advisers say. She is optimistic that because Mr. Trump is so divisive, she has no reason to fear him in traditionally Democratic states. She is investing far more money than the Trump campaign in voter turnout operations in battleground states, as well as spending far more on television commercials. Video Hillary Clinton announced Friday that Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia would be her vice-presidential choice. Credit Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times They align on policy and style. Mr. Kaine is a strong advocate of gun control, opposes the death penalty and favored the Iran nuclear deal. He has also backed some restrictions on abortion and is a strong supporter of Israel. While he holds many progressive views, the fact that he does not come across as a fire-breathing partisan has helped give him a reputation as a moderate. He comes across like the nuts-and-bolts governor and mayor he once was — perhaps even a little boring — but it’s a style and approach to governing that won’t upstage Mrs. Clinton. “Tim is a sensible and pragmatic guy whose presence on the ticket will be very reassuring to centrist Democrats,” said Steven Rattner, a Wall Street financier and longtime ally of the Clintons. That won’t be so reassuring for supporters of Mr. Sanders, however. Mr. Kaine has supported free trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Mr. Sanders, Mrs. Clinton’s top rival for the Democratic nomination, and other liberals regard as job and wage killers. Mr. Kaine hasn’t been an outspoken champion for the extensive overhauls of banking and Wall Street regulations that Mr. Sanders wants, nor has he been an advocate for sharply raising taxes on the wealthy. Democrats close to Mr. Sanders, who has already endorsed Mrs. Clinton, say they do not expect him to lead a revolt against Mr. Kaine, who the Vermont senator has called “a very decent guy.” Clinton advisers say they are hopeful that Mr. Kaine will win over more progressives with his stand on guns and his lines of attack against Mr. Trump. They also say that picking Mr. Brown, or even Ms. Warren, was problematic because Republican governors would have filled those seats, hurting Democratic chances of retaking the Senate. Virginia’s Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, will replace Mr. Kaine if he and Mrs. Clinton win. Latest Election Polls 2016 Get the latest national and state polls on the presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. He keeps his ego in check. Among Democrats who know him well, Mr. Kaine is considered a self-effacing workhorse who shuns the spotlight and prefers digging into domestic policy and national security rather than showboating on Sunday news programs. Mrs. Clinton sees herself in much the same way. Unlike some of his rivals for the ticket, he is widely viewed by colleagues as fully capable of being president — Mrs. Clinton’s top criterion for a running mate. Mrs. Clinton also wants a vice president who acts as a sounding board for her, as Mr. Biden did for Mr. Obama and Al Gore for her husband, and can handle any task, domestic or foreign. Given his decades of experience in government and politics, Mr. Kaine wouldn’t face much of a learning curve as No. 2 to Mrs. Clinton, who is itching to dive into work after Inauguration Day. He is a strong advocate of comprehensive immigration reform and a fluent Spanish speaker, which she thinks could make him a valuable emissary on the issue with voters and former Senate colleagues. Mr. Kaine has a down-to-earth style, and drew praise for his response to the mass shooting on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007. He also received high marks when he delivered strongly bipartisan message in response to President Bush’s State of the Union address in 2006. Mrs. Clinton, with her reputation for partisanship and unpopularity with Republicans, was eager for a governing partner who would help reach out to the other party. “Kaine’s was one of the best State of the Union responses that we ever tested with focus groups of swing voters,” said Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster. “For him it wasn’t about ideology, but being practical and having common sense.” He gets along with her husband. Mrs. Clinton also wants a vice president who would have a good relationship with Mr. Clinton, especially since the two-term president would likely have some sort of policy role and be an outside presence in the White House. Mrs. Clinton remembers her rivalry with Mr. Gore during the first two years of the Clinton administration and wants to avoid distractions like tension between Mr. Kaine and Mr. Clinton. So far the signs are good: Mr. Clinton strongly supported the choice of Mr. Kaine, Clinton advisers say, and the two share similar policy views and were governors of Southern states. But Mr. Kaine is also a relatively low-key person who understands the importance of ceding the spotlight to the Clintons, according to Democrats close to him. He is wholly capable, they say, of swallowing his ego and keeping his own political ambitions in check as he serves the interests of a president and a former president. “Secretary Clinton needed someone who wanted to do the job while knowing that they’d be the third wheel,” said Ben Tulchin, a Democratic pollster who worked for Mr. Sanders in his race against Mrs. Clinton. “She needed a safe personality, a good soldier, and that’s Tim Kaine.”

2016 Presidential Election
Hillary Clinton
Timothy M Kaine
Vice President US
Democrats


Ex-Duke Lacrosse Coach Rebuilds Shattered Career

Abstract: SMITHFIELD, R.I. — There is more salt in the salt-and-cinnamon beard, but otherwise, Mike Pressler is about the same these days, eight years after he left Duke as the most infamous lacrosse coach in the nation. The fiery eyes, the gruff, rumbling voice, the solemn intensity of purpose all remain. He keeps his hat brim pulled low, a whistle always hanging from his neck, notes poking out of his back pocket. But most surprisingly, he is again leading a men’s lacrosse team with hopes of playing until Memorial Day. This time, it is tiny Bryant University, in northern Rhode Island, the only program that would return Pressler’s job-begging phone calls in the summer of 2006, after the rape investigation involving three members of the Duke lacrosse team embroiled Durham, N.C., and the nation. All charges against the players were eventually dropped, but Pressler, the only Duke employee to lose his job in the aftermath, had to salvage his promising career about as far from Tobacco Road and the Atlantic Coast Conference as conceivable. Bryant, a Division II team when he took over, is in only its sixth year at the Division I level, but last Sunday, the unseeded Bulldogs stunned second-seeded Syracuse, 10-9, in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament, becoming the first Bryant team to advance in the postseason since the move to Division I. Bryant (16-4), which defeated Siena in a play-in game, will face No. 7 seed Maryland (12-3) on Saturday at Hofstra, Pressler’s first appearance in the Round of 8 since he led Duke to the national title game in 2005. His phone has blown up with text messages from friends and former players. Memories have flooded back. Not all of them are bad. “Time,” he said, “is a great healer.” Pressler sat in a small coaches’ office off the locker room near the practice fields on Thursday, wearing a camouflage hat and brown sunglasses. He leaned forward and spoke softly but did not deflect questions about the months that upended his life and career. “I will never dismiss it,” Pressler, 54, said. “It’s never dismissed in our minds. Sometimes, we’ll go weeks or months and it’s never brought up. This week, it’s brought up a lot.” He rarely mentioned his Duke days without using the word “we,” referring to him and his wife, Susan, and their two daughters, Janet and Maggie, who were 14 and 8 in the spring of 2006, when 46 members of the lacrosse team hosted an off-campus house party and hired two exotic dancers. One of the women falsely accused three players of sexually assaulting her. During the investigation, the Duke season was canceled after eight games. Pressler was painted as an aloof, if not enabling, leader whose undisciplined team had already had recurrent run-ins with the law. He was fired after 16 seasons with the Blue Devils. His home, in Duke Forest, was within earshot of the public-address system at the football stadium. It soon became the epicenter of a national uproar. Television trucks parked in his front yard. Pressler could not go for a jog without hearing helicopters hovering overhead. His house was vandalized, he received threatening emails and his daughters were taunted in school. “The longer we stayed in that environment,” Pressler said, “the less healthy it was for myself and, especially, my family.” He added, “There was just too much going on in a negative way to subject my family to any more of that, especially since I was no longer the coach.” Pressler recounted many of those memories in a book, “It’s Not About The Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered,” published in 2008 as a promise fulfilled to his Duke players on his final day as coach. He has returned to the Duke campus only twice, for funerals in the university chapel. (Pressler reached a confidential settlement agreement with Duke in 2010 on a breach-of-contract suit brought over slanderous remarks by a former senior administrator to the news media.) “Smithfield is home,” Pressler said. “It’s been eight terrific years for the family.” As the rape investigation simmered into August 2006, Bryant Athletic Director Bill Smith called a friend from high school, Joe Alberici, the Army coach and a former Pressler assistant. Smith said he needed to use caution to bring Pressler on campus for an interview. After all, he was the most recognizable disgraced coach in the United States. Smith listened to recommendations from Alberici and others, followed news media reports and read what James E. Coleman Jr., a Duke law professor, and a faculty committee had written about the case and Pressler’s role. He said he concluded that hiring Pressler was a “no brainer.” Not everyone on campus was convinced. Smith said that about a week after he hired Pressler, he convened a meeting with a handful of faculty members and an administrator who had expressed concerns about Pressler. Smith said that he laid out his notes and that everyone left the meeting feeling “extremely positive.” During an interview with the university president, Ronald K. Machtley, Pressler said he was told there was no guarantee that Bryant would move up to Division I. “There was a maybe,” Pressler said. It hardly mattered. “I couldn’t be picky,” he said. By the fall of 2008, however, Bryant was officially a member of the Northeast Conference, and money has quickly poured in. The university will soon announce plans for the construction of a multisport indoor practice complex and a 10,000-square-foot weight room. Pressler’s personal history was something the players knew but rarely spoke of. But last Sunday, they found the right moment. Before the game at Syracuse, the senior captain J K Poirier gathered his teammates together in the locker room. “Guys,” he told them, “let’s do this for ourselves, for our school and everyone that came here. And let’s do this for Coach P.”

Mike Pressler
Lacrosse
College Sports
Bryant University
Duke
NCAA Lacrosse
College


Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

Abstract: WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law. But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist. In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year. “It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association , said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said. Penalizing the fuel suppliers demonstrates what happens when the federal government really, really wants something that technology is not ready to provide. In fact, while it may seem harsh that the Environmental Protection Agency is penalizing them for failing to do the impossible, the agency is being lenient by the standards of the law, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act . The law, aimed at reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, its reliance on oil imported from hostile places and the export of dollars to pay for it, includes provisions to increase the efficiency of vehicles as well as incorporate renewable energy sources into gasoline and diesel. It requires the use of three alternative fuels: car and truck fuel made from cellulose, diesel fuel made from biomass and fuel made from biological materials but with a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. Only the cellulosic fuel is commercially unavailable. As for meeting the quotas in the other categories, the refiners will not close their books until February and are not sure what will happen. The goal set by the law for vehicle fuel from cellulose was 250 million gallons for 2011 and 500 million gallons for 2012. (These are small numbers relative to the American fuel market; the E.P.A. estimates that gasoline sales in 2012 will amount to about 135 billion gallons, and highway diesel, about 51 billion gallons.) Even advocates of renewable fuel acknowledge that the refiners are at least partly correct in complaining about the penalties. “From a taxpayer/consumer standpoint, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense that we would require blenders to pay fines or fees or whatever for stuff that literally isn’t available,” said Dennis V. McGinn , a retired vice admiral who serves on the American Council on Renewable Energy . The standards for cellulosic fuel are part of an overall goal of having 36 billion gallons of biofuels incorporated annually by 2022. But substantial technical progress would be needed to meet that — and lately it has been hard to come by. Michael J. McAdams, executive director of the Advanced Biofuels Association , said the state of the technology for turning biological material like wood chips or nonfood plants straight into hydrocarbons — instead of relying on conversion by nature over millions of years, which is how crude oil originates — was advancing but was not yet ready for commercial introduction. Of the technologies that are being tried out, he added, “There are some that are closer to the beaker and some that are closer to the barrel.” The Texas renewable fuels company KiOR, for example, has broken ground on a plant in Columbus, Miss., that plans to start turning Southern yellow pine chips into gasoline and diesel components in the fourth quarter of 2012 at an annual rate of 11 million gallons, although Matthew Hargarten, a spokesman, said the quantity to be produced this year might be adjusted. Mr. McGinn of the council on renewable energy, defends the overall energy statute. Even if the standards for 2011 and 2012 are not met, he said, “I am absolutely convinced from a national security perspective and an economic perspective that the renewable fuel standard, writ large, is the right thing to do.” With oil insecurity and climate change related to greenhouse gas emissions as worrisome as ever, advocates say, there is strong reason to press forward. The oil industry does not agree. Mr. Drevna of the refiners association argued that in contrast to 2007, when Congress passed the law, “all of a sudden we’re starting to find tremendous resources of our own, oil and natural gas, here in the United States, because of fracking,” referring to a drilling process that involves injecting chemicals and water into underground rock to release gas and oil. What is more, the industry expects the 1,700-mile Keystone Pipeline, which would run from oil sands deposits in Canada to the Gulf Coast, to provide more fuel for refineries, he said. But Cathy Milbourn, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said that her agency still believed that the 8.65-million-gallon quota for cellulosic ethanol for 2012 was “reasonably attainable.” By setting a quota, she added, “we avoid a situation where real cellulosic biofuel production exceeds the mandated volume,” which would weaken demand. The underlying problem is that Congress legislated changes that laboratories and factories have not succeeded in producing. This is not for want of trying, and efforts continue. One possible early source is the energy company Poet , a large producer of ethanol from corn kernels. The company is doing early work now on a site in Emmetsburg, Iowa , that is supposed to produce up to 25 million gallons a year of fuel alcohol beginning in 2013 from corn cobs. And Mascoma, a company partly owned by General Motors, announced last month that it would get up to $80 million from the Energy Department to help build a plant in Kinross, Mich., that is supposed to make fuel alcohol from wood waste. Valero Energy, the oil company, and the State of Michigan are also providing funds. Yet other cellulosic fuel efforts have faltered. A year ago, after it was offered more than $150 million in government grants, Range Fuels closed a commercial factory in Soperton, Ga., where pine chips were to be turned into fuel alcohols, because it ran into technological problems. Airlines have had marginally more success with renewable fuels, but mostly because they have been willing to pay huge sums for sample quantities. Alaska Airlines said recently it had paid $17 a gallon . Lufthansa plans to fly a Boeing 747 from Frankfurt to Dulles International Airport near Washington using 40 tons of a biofuel mix.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Biofuels
Law and Legislation
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline


Owner of Orange County Register May File for Bankruptcy

Abstract: Freedom Communications, owner of The Orange County Register and 30 other daily newspapers, is expected to file for bankruptcy this week under a plan that will hand its publications to its lenders, people briefed on the matter said on Sunday. A filing by Freedom, which could be made as soon as Tuesday, would be the latest by a newspaper publisher, as the industry struggles to cope with declining advertising revenue and heavy debt loads. Several big publishers have already declared bankruptcy in the last 12 months, including the Tribune Company and the owner of Philadelphia’s two major papers. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, The Orange County Register had an average weekday circulation of 230,877 and Sunday circulation of about 300,000 for the six months ended on March 31. The company also owns several broadcast stations nationwide. Freedom’s bankruptcy will most likely wipe out the 45 percent equity stake held by two big private equity firms, the Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners. That outcome could mirror what is expected at Tribune, whose reorganization plan will likely erase the equity stake of the investor Samuel Zell , who took the company private in 2007. The majority of Freedom is still owned by the Hoiles family, whose patriarch, R. C. Hoiles, founded the company seven decades ago as an outlet for his libertarian philosophy. Freedom accepted the investments from Blackstone and Providence nearly six years ago to allow some Hoiles family members to sell their stakes in the company, ending strife within the clan. The price paid by Blackstone and Providence was actually lower than the amount two media companies, Gannett and MediaNews, had offered at the time. But since then, Freedom was hit by the same downturn in advertising revenue that has struck publishers across the industry. A representative for Freedom Communications, which is a privately held company based in Irvine, Calif., declined to comment on Sunday. In late June, it had announced a 5 percent across-the-board pay cut for employees. In late 2007, Freedom scuttled another proposed recapitalization plan, one that would have bought out the minority stake owned by Blackstone and Providence, in part because of the then-weaker credit markets. Freedom has retained the investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin as its restructuring adviser.

Newspapers
Bankruptcies
Freedom Communications
Orange County Register


Vincent Gruppuso, 67, Seller of Pudding Snacks, Dies

Abstract: Vincent Gruppuso, the founder of Kozy Shack Enterprises, a company in Hicksville, Long Island, that sells millions of four-ounce cups of pudding, particularly rice pudding, at supermarkets in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe, died Dec. 29 at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 67. The cause was complications of diabetes, said his son-in-law Michael Caridi. Mr. Gruppuso was a bread delivery man making his rounds in Brooklyn in the mid-1960s when he took a break at one of his stops, the Cozy (with a C) Shack delicatessen on Seneca Avenue and tasted its creamy rice pudding. Soon after, he began selling trays of the pudding at his other stops. In 1967, he bought the recipe and set up a small factory in Ridgewood, Queens. Kozy Shack now has more than 400 employees at three plants, in Hicksville, N.Y., Turlock, Calif., and in Lough Egish, Ireland. Last year, the company had revenue of approximately $140 million, selling more than 115 million four-ounce cups and 22-ounce containers of puddings and pastries. Born in Brooklyn on Oct. 25, 1940, Mr. Gruppuso was one of three children of Joseph and Mazie Ditta Gruppuso. His father worked in construction and his mother was a seamstress. Mr. Gruppuso’s marriage to the former Virginia Pantaleo ended in divorce. He is survived by three daughters, Joanne Caridi and Diana Boland, both of Staten Island, and Lisa Salvo of Marlboro, N.J.; a sister, Libby Gruppuso of Ithaca, N.Y.; a brother, Frank, of Commack, N.Y.; and five grandchildren. Mr. Gruppuso served as an aerial photographer in the Navy in the late 1950s, then returned to Brooklyn. He worked at several jobs before acquiring his truck route, for the Arnold Bread company, and taking his first taste of that delicatessen pudding. In 2006, the Dining section of The New York Times named Kozy Shack rice pudding on a list of “Grocery Gems,” and said, “Rice pudding, like baked beans, has slipped out of the culinary spotlight, but this version makes up in flavor what it lacks in glamour.”

Food
Desserts
Long Island (NY)
Deaths (Obituaries)
Gruppuso Vincent
Kozy Shack Enterprises


A Lament for the Blues in Their Backyard

Abstract: Buddy Guy said he was worried about the blues. He worried even as he oversaw the finishing touches on the new location of his club, Buddy Guy’s Legends , which is part musical venue, part museum. He is worried that his club cannot provide enough exposure for all the musical talent that comes through Chicago, and worried that young people are not exposed to the music he has loved all his life. He is worried, in short, that the city’s long, proud reign as the world’s unequivocal blues capital might be fading into memory. When Mr. Guy arrived here in 1957, it was the heyday of Chess Records, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and there seemed to be a blues venue — like the 1815 Club, Theresa’s, the Blue Flame Lounge — on every other corner. Some were no more than tiny rooms that could fit 35 people if no one took a deep breath. There were so many clubs, Mr. Guy said, “you couldn’t count them all.” One reason the clubs thrived, he said, was because “back then, everybody had a job.” People could afford to go out, and everybody wanted to hear the famous Chicago blues. “When the Beatles started, they came here,” Mr. Guy said. “When the Rolling Stones started, they were on 21st and Michigan, trying to find Chess Records.” Those days are long gone. The relocated Legends, which opened its doors on May 28 at 700 South Wabash Avenue, is one of the city’s few remaining venues dedicated to live blues. Mr. Guy hopes his club will provide emerging blues musicians with the kind of exposure he got playing at the 708 Club and the Blue Flame. “If there wasn’t a club when I came here, nobody was going to see me walking down 47th Street and say: ‘There goes Buddy Guy. One day he’s going to be a guitar player,’ ” said Mr. Guy, an energetic 74. “I had to go into those clubs and play.” Lincoln T. Beauchamp, known as Chicago Beau, is a musician, magazine publisher and author of a book about the city’s blues history. The blues community that once flourished on the South and West Sides, Mr. Beauchamp said, fell victim to changing social and economic conditions. “Pre-integration, the black community was a lot more vibrant,” he said. “Along 47th Street and Cottage Grove, you had a community that was able to sustain itself, and the blues and jazz clubs were part of it, not just socially but also politically.” “Now, as gentrification takes place and the neighborhoods crumble,” Mr. Beauchamp said, the social fabric changes and the clubs disappear. “You’ll probably never again see the same kind of deep, soulful pulse coming from the neighborhoods, because the neighborhoods aren’t there anymore.” For the most part, Mr. Beauchamp said, younger black musicians are not drawn to the blues. “They’re not completely detached from it,” he said, “because it’s part of who we are. But it’s just not what inspires them.” Bruce Iglauer, president and founder of Alligator Records , a major blues and roots record label, said he had watched the blues in Chicago become a tourist attraction — sanitized, prepackaged music for “middle-aged white people who discovered it during college,” he called it. Blues players and their fans are aging, Mr. Iglauer added, and they are not being replaced. “Chicago radio stations don’t play the blues, so young people aren’t hearing it anywhere,” he said. Although he gives the city credit for continuing to back the Chicago Blues Festival, the annual three-day series of free performances that begins Friday in Grant Park, Mr. Iglauer said the city could be doing “so much more” to support club owners. The day before opening night, Mr. Guy showed off his club to Mayor Richard M. Daley, who stopped by for a tour and to pay homage to Mr. Guy. “People come here and the first thing they want to do is hear the blues,” Mr. Daley said. “That’s the big selling point. They come from all over the world — heads of state, diplomats.” Growing up in Louisiana, Mr. Guy was a teenager when his family got a phonograph. He then saved up and sent away for the 78 r.p.m. records of the songs he heard on the radio. When he came to Chicago, Mr. Guy could play the guitar — “one or two licks” — but he had chosen the city for its promise of steady work and good pay. The music, he said, was secondary. At night, however, he went to blues clubs and watched his heroes strut the small stages, lamenting lost loves and hard times. One day, he said, “they were asking me to play with them.” Five decades later, he is still playing an international festival circuit that would exhaust most people half his age. But Chicago is home. “When I got here, it was September,” Mr. Guy said, “and the birds were flying south, back to Louisiana and Texas and Florida. And I told the birds, ‘You’re smarter than I am.’ ” Then he started working with the city’s top blues players. “And now they’ve all left me here,” he said. “Someone’s got to carry on.”

Blues Music
Chicago (Ill)
Guy Buddy
Music


South Korean Worker Freed by North

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Thursday released a South Korean worker it had held for several months on charges of denouncing its political system, signaling what analysts called a desire by the North to ease relations with the South after months of tensions over its nuclear weapons program. The South Korean worker, Yoo Seong-jin, 44, was handed over to South Korean officials in Kaesong, a North Korean border town where the two Koreas run a joint industrial park. The man crossed the border and was reunited with his family later Thursday. “I am glad that I have safely returned home,” Mr. Yoo said, thanking the government for helping secure his release. He did not answer questions from a crowd of reporters who waited near the border for his arrival. Mr. Yoo, a technician for the Hyundai Group, was detained on March 30 by the North Korean authorities, who accused him of denouncing the North Korean government and trying to persuade a North Korean woman working at Kaesong to defect to the South. During his detention, he was not allowed to talk to South Korean officials. Mr. Yoo’s release removes an obstacle in inter-Korean relations. It came a week after the North freed two American journalists it had held since mid-March on charges of illegal entry and committing hostile acts against the government. North Korea released the two journalists after former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang, the capital, and met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. Hyun Jung-eun, the head of the Hyundai Group, South Korea’s biggest corporate investor in the North, visited Pyongyang to negotiate Mr. Yoo’s release, and Mr. Yoo was freed during her visit. It remained unclear whether Ms. Hyun had met Mr. Kim during the negotiations. The North is still holding four South Korean fishermen whose boat was seized two weeks ago after it had strayed into North Korean waters. Analysts have said that North Korea is using the visits by Mr. Clinton and Ms. Hyun to re-establish contacts with Washington and Seoul in hopes of undermining the impact of United Nations sanctions imposed after its nuclear test on May 25. By inviting the Hyundai chief to Pyongyang, North Korea signaled its willingness to revive private business exchanges with South Korea, a crucial source of hard currency for the government, said Chun Hyun-joon, an analyst at the government-financed Korea Research Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “It still is too early to say that this will lead to a resumption of official dialogue between the two sides,” Mr. Chun said. Even before the nuclear test, inter-Korean relations had been at their lowest point in years. President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul vowed not to ship any aid to the North unless it made tangible progress in dismantling its nuclear weapons program. The North responded by curtailing border traffic and suspending Hyundai’s business taking South Korean tourists to Kaesong. North Korea has alternated between conciliatory steps and moves that raise tension. Mr. Lee is preparing to address the nation on Saturday, the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule. The day has traditionally served as an occasion for South Korean leaders to make overtures to the North.

North Korea
South Korea
Prisons and Prisoners


Key Democratic and G.O.P. Senators Are in Accord on Extending Patriot Act

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - Four recalcitrant Senate Republicans said Thursday that they had reached agreement with the White House on the broad antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, and two leading Democrats said they would now support the bill. The moves possibly clear the way for passage of the legislation, which has been bottled up in a dispute over civil liberties. The Republicans, led by Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, joined with Democrats last year in a filibuster that blocked the revised bill. Their deal involved three changes that, they said, would place greater restraints on the government's latitude in obtaining personal information like library records and business transactions. "This is an accommodation that I think we can be proud of," said another of the four senators, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, adding that the changes to the bill "makes it relevant, makes it realistic, makes it workable and protects both our rights and our national security interests." The deal focused on three particular areas. The new measure would give recipients of subpoenas the right to challenge an accompanying judicial order not to discuss the case publicly, though they would have to wait one year. In the meantime, they would have to comply with the subpoena. That would prevent the F.B.I. from demanding the names of lawyers consulted by people who receive secret government requests for information and prevent most libraries from being subject to those requests. Critics said the changes were cosmetic. "A few insignificant changes just doesn't cut it," Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said in a statement. "I cannot support this deal, and I will do everything I can to stop it." The administration would still have the power to obtain information about terror suspects who use libraries to gain access to the Internet by seeking that information not directly from libraries, but from their Internet service providers. "This agreement clarifies crucial national security tools without weakening them and provides additional civil liberties protections," said a spokesman for the Justice Department, Brian Roehrkasse. With the White House and Senate Republicans in accord, the bill is likely to be approved by the House. The question now is whether enough Democrats will support the compromise to give Republicans, who have 55 seats in the Senate, the 60 votes necessary to put it up for a vote. Two Democrats supported the earlier measure and another two, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Dianne E. Feinstein of California, said they would support the latest version. "It is a substantial improvement," Ms. Feinstein said. "There are three basic changes. They are specific. They do improve the bill. I think it's important to get this done." As the fight over the Patriot Act has played out over the last several months, the original law, passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has been extended to March 10. The bill, which greatly expanded the government's surveillance and investigative powers, has since its passage provoked intense debate about the balance between protecting national security and civil liberties. The original bill included 16 provisions that were scheduled to expire at the end of 2005. The Senate and House passed differing measures to make those provisions permanent. But when the competing bills were reconciled into a new version, Mr. Sununu, Mr. Hagel and the two other Republicans, Larry E. Craig of Idaho and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, balked, forcing the temporary extension and prodding Mr. Sununu into negotiations with the White House. Passage would make several major components of the act permanent. The compromise does not, however, address one of their chief complaints, that the revised bill would allow the government to obtain private records of Americans with just loose connections to a terrorism investigation. Mr. Sununu and the others had originally insisted that the government prove a direct connection. In its current version, the bill simply says the records have to be relevant to a terrorism investigation, a standard that Ms. Feingold said was "not adequate protection against a fishing expedition." Mr. Durbin, the lone Democrat to appear with Mr. Sununu and the others at a news conference on the compromise, disagreed, saying, "As Senator Sununu has said, we've made progress here, significant progress, progress that moves us in the right direction, protecting basic civil liberties at a time when we are dealing with a war on terrorism."

UNITED STATES POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
CIVIL RIGHTS
TERRORISM


Penn State Trustee Steve Garban Resigns

Abstract: The former chairman of the Penn State board of trustees resigned Thursday, becoming the first board member to do so in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal. The trustee, Steve Garban, was harshly criticized over his handling of a crisis that engulfed Penn State after Sandusky’s arrest last November, and he faced persistent calls from alumni and fellow board members to step down. An internal investigation by the former F.B.I. director Louis Freeh found that Garban was briefed twice about developments in the Sandusky case but did not share what he knew with the entire board, depriving trustees of a chance to prepare for the worst crisis in Penn State’s 157-year history. Freeh’s 267-page report portrayed a disengaged board that handed too much responsibility to the university president and failed to investigate deeply enough once it became aware of a grand jury investigation. After the report’s release, trustees accepted responsibility for a failure of oversight and said they were “deeply ashamed.” The board’s chairwoman, Karen Peetz, who announced Garban’s resignation in a letter on the board’s Web site, said at the time that no trustee would step down. A 1959 Penn State graduate, Garban worked at the university for 33 years, the last 12 as treasurer and senior vice president for finance and operations. Alumni first elected him to the board of trustees in 1998. In April 2011, the report said, the university president Graham Spanier told Garban about a grand jury investigation of Sandusky. Garban did not alert fellow board members. Then, on Oct. 28, Garban learned from Penn State’s chief lawyer that Athletic Director Tim Curley and the vice president Gary Schultz were about to be charged with failing to report suspected child abuse. But he informed only two other trustees.

Garban Steve
Pennsylvania State University
Sandusky Jerry
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
Football (College)
Sex Crimes
Child Abuse and Neglect
College Athletics
Colleges and Universities


Packing Technology Into the Timeless Barrel

Abstract: SALEM, Mo. — Standing on a wooded hillside in the Ozarks, about 100 miles southwest of St. Louis, Brad Boswell watches a chain-saw-wielding logger make several deft cuts at the base of a 100-foot white oak. The logger points to a clearing down the slope and, with one final, quick slash, sends the tree falling, exactly where he pointed. Mr. Boswell scrambles over to look at the swirls and loops that make up the tree’s cross section. If they’re consistent, and the wood doesn’t show scars from fire damage or disease, it will most likely end up in some of the hundreds of thousands of barrels that his 1,500-person company, Independent Stave , turns out every year. His great-grandfather, T. W. Boswell, founded Independent Stave in 1912, and Brad Boswell now runs it with his brother and sister. Based in Lebanon, Mo., it is the world’s largest barrel manufacturer, at a time when demand for wine, whiskey and beer — all of which rely on barrels for aging — is skyrocketing. The United States is now the largest market for wine barrels. Domestic whiskey production is up 41 percent in the last decade — and, thanks to a quirk in federal law, almost every drop has to be aged in a new oak barrel. The demand has come on so suddenly and vertiginously that barrel prices are up 70 percent since 2012, and some cooperages have 12-month waiting lists. As a private company, Independent Stave does not release revenue or production numbers, but industry experts estimate that its output has doubled in recent years. “It all happened really fast,” Mr. Boswell, 45, said. “There’s a craft boom everywhere.” The barrel industry — which includes about 15 companies, most of them, aside from Independent Stave, quite small — stands as an exception in a mainly dismal American manufacturing industry: Despite an overall robust July employment report, the country lost 33,000 manufacturing jobs in the previous six months. Bucking that trend, several new cooperages are in the works, and existing companies have all expanded production. “It’s definitely a good problem to have,” said Heidi Korb, the owner of Black Swan Cooperage, in Park Rapids, Minn. Not long ago, though, the world didn’t think much of American oak barrels. The bourbon industry cratered in the 1980s and ’90s, while American winemakers preferred to import expensive French oak barrels, the better to craft the Bordeaux-style reds coming out of California. A big part of the problem was the barrels themselves, which were often full of imperfections because of frequent forest fires and arboreal diseases. “Back in the day, you’d see fire scars, knots, timber streak, all sorts of things,” Mr. Boswell said. Image Barrels outside Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Ky. Because of a quirk in federal law, nearly all whiskey is aged in new barrels. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times Low-tech American cooperages didn’t do much to improve the situation. An American barrel in 1990 looked, and performed, about as well as a barrel from 1790. But alongside the bourbon boom of the last decade has come a technological revolution in American barrel making, led by the Boswells and Independent Stave. Computers, cameras and a better understanding of the science behind barrel aging have taken much of the guesswork out of the process, and allowed an explosion in customization and innovation. “When I started, you couldn’t run your hand over the barrels or else you’d get splinters,” said David Pickerell, a whiskey industry consultant and former master distiller at Maker’s Mark who has worked with two generations of Boswells at Independent Stave. “Now, they’re like furniture.” A century ago, when T. W. Boswell founded Independent Stave, the wood barrel was the equivalent of today’s aluminum shipping container, a workhorse used to haul products as diverse as whiskey and wood nails. He was following in a long and little-changed tradition: Evidence of barrel making dates back to the Celts in third-century B.C. Spain. Coopers were valued craftsmen in colonial America and into the postindependence expansion westward. Between uses, merchants would burn their barrels’ insides to sterilize the surface and remove errant smells or flavors. Somewhere along the way, customers noticed that wines and spirits that spent a few months in a barrel lost some of their edge and took on a pleasant color and flavor. Barrel aging was born. At first, Independent Stave just made staves — the slats that make up a barrel, hence the name — because many distilleries fashioned their own barrels. It was a good business to be in, thanks to the 1935 Federal Alcohol Administration Act, passed two years after the end of Prohibition, which requires virtually all American whiskey to be aged in new barrels. Once a barrel is used, no matter how short the aging period, it must be replaced. Whiskey and wine consumption picked up through the postwar years, and the company expanded with it. In 1951, it opened its own cooperage, aimed at the expanding whiskey industry. In the 1980s, as American drinkers turned from whiskey to unaged, supposedly “cleaner” spirits like vodka, it began selling to wineries as well. But outside the foundering whiskey industry, sales were anemic. American barrels tended to be viewed as solid but unrefined. “Up until the 1990s, we made just three kinds,” Brad Boswell said. No wonder American wineries preferred the sophistication of French oak. In France, coopers dried their wood for up to three years, while Americans tended to stop at a year. French coopers applied small flames to the inside of their barrels to lightly toast them, turbocharging certain flavors. Americans practically set their barrels on fire, giving everything, whether whiskey or wine, a charred, intensely vanilla flavor. John Boswell — T. W. Boswell’s grandson and, like most men in his family, an engineer — decided to do something about it. He put quality-control systems in place, from random sampling to laser measures, to weed out low-quality logs. He started drying his logs longer. Image Drained barrels at Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Ky., a customer of Independent Stave. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times By the time his son Brad joined the company in the 1990s, in-house chemists and engineers were overhauling every aspect of the company’s barrels and production lines. Working with forestry experts, they developed more sustainable harvesting practices, which also made the business more efficient and brought in higher-quality logs. Independent Stave also dived deep into the science of wood aging. It started a series of organic-chemistry symposiums that brought together industry and academic researchers, and it began offering no-strings-attached gifts — barrels, staves, anything — to universities with strong wine- and spirit-making programs. Such efforts helped the entire industry, and also fed a stream of data and insights back to Independent Stave — for example, helping the company fine-tune its barrel-toasting program for grape varietals. The result is a company that makes an age-old product but operates like a tech start-up. “There aren’t a lot of companies out there that can do what they do in terms of capability and flexibility,” said Harlen Wheatley, the master distiller at Buffalo Trace, a whiskey maker in Frankfort, Ky., that buys most of its barrels from Independent Stave and often collaborates with it on research projects. Recently, the two companies completed the decade-long Single Oak Project, in which they made 192 barrels, each using the wood from a single log, to find what constituted the “perfect” bourbon. (Among other things, they found that wood from the bottom of a tree made for the best aging.) Much of Independent Stave’s innovation occurs at its main cooperage in Lebanon. Computers track each stave as it moves through assembly, while sensors analyze staves for density and moisture content. Instead of guessing how much to toast a barrel, operators use lasers and infrared cameras to monitor the temperature of the wood and the precise chemical signature that the heat coaxes to the surface — all subject to the customer’s desired flavor profile. “They’ve developed technologies so that if we say we want coconut flavors, they can apply this or that process” — like applying precise amounts of heat to different parts of the wood to tease out certain flavors — “and we’ll have it,” said Charles de Pottere, the director of production and planning at Jackson Family Wines, which makes Kendall-Jackson wines and is a longtime customer of Independent Stave. Independent Stave isn’t the industry’s only innovator. Black Swan makes barrels with a honeycomb design etched on the inside, which increases surface area and reduces a whiskey’s aging time. Brown-Forman, which owns the Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve distilleries, uses cameras at its in-house stave mills — where logs are cut into staves before going to a cooperage for assembly — to measure each log and decide the most efficient way to cut it, said Larry Combs, the general manager for Jack Daniel’s. “Twenty-five years ago, it was more art than science,” he said. “Now we have a healthy dose of science in with the art.” The barrel’s reinvention comes at a time when American oak is gaining newfound respect in wine circles. Along with Jackson Family Wines, prominent wineries like Silver Oak and Ridge use American oak for at least some of their products. And while there is no hard data on exports, American barrels are increasingly popular overseas, particularly in Australia and in Spain, where they are used to age Rioja and sherry. Image Kyle Guyer prepared to flip a barrel during toasting at the Missouri Cooperage operation of Independent Stave in Lebanon, Mo. Lasers and infrared cameras have refined the toasting process to give the customer a desired flavor profile. Credit August Kryger for The New York Times “The quality of American oak barrels today is the best we’ve ever seen,” said David R. Duncan, the president of Silver Oak Cellars, which operates its own cooperage in California and uses American oak almost exclusively to age its reds. But the biggest benefit for American barrel makers has been the explosive, global demand for American whiskey, and the proliferation of craft distilleries, almost all of them in need of barrels. “I was at the American Distilling Institute annual conference in 2010, and there were maybe only 200 distilleries running or in the works,” said Ms. Korb, who founded Black Swan in 2009. “Now there are probably 3,000.” The whiskey boom was, at least initially, too much of a good thing for cooperages. The timing was certainly unfortunate: The biggest driver in the American hardwood industry is home building, and when the housing market collapsed in 2008, so did demand for wood. Hundreds of logging companies shut down, along with 40 percent of the country’s independent stave mills, just as bourbon was getting hot. By 2013, a real shortage combined with wild rumors to create what Mr. Boswell calls “the Great Barrel Panic.” One story claimed — falsely — that Independent Stave had cornered the market in stave logs to keep would-be competitors out. Orders from smaller and newer companies went half filled or were put on back order. Insiders began to wonder if the whiskey boom might go bust. Independent Stave responded by acquiring one stave mill in Ohio and opening another in Kentucky (for a total of five, along with its two cooperages). Other companies added employees and equipment: Brown-Forman, which already owned a cooperage in Kentucky, built another in Alabama to meet internal demand, and Black Swan opened its own stave mill. Loggers returned to the industry. Eventually the panic subsided, but things still aren’t back to normal. At $575, the average price for a barrel-quality log in Missouri is more than twice what it was four years ago. American barrels cost about $450, on average — against $700 or more for French barrels. And there are long waiting lists. “We have a lead time of 12 to 15 months, and I’m hoping we can get it down to 10 months,” said Ms. Korb, from Black Swan. “We have some very patient customers.” That’s in part because to age quality whiskey and wine, there’s really no alternative to a barrel. And no matter how much technology companies like Independent Stave apply to barrel-making, it remains a time- and labor-intensive craft. Skilled coopers still build the barrels, by hand. Each tree, each stave, each barrel is a natural product, with its own nuances. “You can’t just computerize it,” Mr. Boswell said. “You can use some automation, but in the end, every barrel is going to be a little different.”

Whisky
Wine
Wood
Manufacturing
Brad Boswell
Independent Stave
Alcohol


Challenges Facing New Chief of Anglo American

Abstract: LONDON — Strikes at mines in South Africa, cost overruns at some projects and a share price that has been lagging rivals are just a few issues Mark Cutifani will have to deal with when he takes over as chief executive at Anglo American, the world’s largest platinum producer. Anglo American on Tuesday said Mr. Cutifani, the chief executive of the South African gold producer AngloGold Ashanti, would succeed Cynthia Carroll as chief executive in April. Ms. Carroll announced her resignation from the company in November after more than five years in the job. The appointment of Mr. Cutifani won the approval of some analysts. They said he had the operational experience to improve earnings by reducing costs and increasing production, and the political connections in South Africa to be able to navigate contentious topics like the reduction of mining jobs. The questions are whether Anglo American’s powerful board of directors will allow him to push through his strategy and whether he will have enough time to do so before its distressed share price makes it a takeover target, said Paul Gait of Bernstein Research. Mr. Cutifani has the “operating capability and he speaks very comfortably around technical issues at mining,” Mr. Gait said. But “is he going to have the license to do what he wants to do?” The list of Anglo American’s challenges has grown in recent years. Minas-Rio, a large iron ore project in Brazil and one of Ms. Carroll’s initiatives, is struggling with rising costs and delays because of licensing problems. In South Africa, the company has been affected by strikes over pay and working conditions. The activities, which had halted production, escalated in August when 34 miners died after the police opened fire at Lonmin’s Marikana mine. Anglo American also embarked on a review of its platinum business, which accounts for about 40 percent of global production but faces increasing costs, including wages. Shrinking the business might be welcomed by investors and analysts but would undoubtedly stir some political objection. As the largest supplier of platinum, Anglo American is an important employer in South Africa, which has the world’s largest reserves of platinum. The company is to present the results of its review in coming weeks. Faced with a share price lagging behind that of rivals, some shareholders have demanded Anglo American separate its South African business. Anglo would not be the first company to consider such a move. In November, GoldFields said it would spin off its South African operation, partly because recent strikes had made it more costly. But analysts at Credit Suisse say the appointment of Mr. Cutifani makes a breakup less likely. “With his strong operational and South African background, his appointment likely means a commitment to South Africa remains,” a group of Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a note to investors. In a statement, Mr. Cutifani said Tuesday that he was “delighted to have the opportunity to lead Anglo American at this important stage in its journey, to unlock the company’s very considerable value potential.” Mr. Cutifani became chief executive at AngloGold in 2007; before that he was chief operating officer of the Canadian nickel company CVRD Inco. He is also president of South Africa’s Chamber of Mines, an industry group. At AngloGold, Mr. Cutifani is credited with improving the company’s performance despite a raft of problems in the South African gold sector in general and AngloGold in particular. For years workers have demanded higher-than-inflation pay raises, and the mines must go deeper and deeper to find gold. He successfully fought to keep cost increases within a manageable range. Last year he used the bully pulpit of the Chamber of Mines to help coordinate the sector’s response to South Africa’s labor challenges. Mr. Cutifani accelerated the company’s development of mines outside South Africa to reduce its exposure to the country. Among investors he is also known for ridding AngloGold of a disastrous book of hedge contracts that it had inherited from a merger. Liquidating the hedge book strained the company’s finances for a period, but later allowed the company to reap higher gains from gold. AngloGold and Anglo American share a common history. AngloGold was spun off from Anglo American in 2005. Anglo American was once South Africa’s largest conglomerate and the source of the fortunes of the country’s Oppenheimer family. AngloGold said Tuesday that it had started a formal search to replace Mr. Cutifani. Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan, the firm’s finance chief, and Tony O’Neill, vice president for business and technical development, were named as joint interim chief executives. William MacNamara contributed reporting.

Mark Cutifani
Mining
Anglo American
AngloGold Ashanti
Appointments and Executive Changes
South Africa


Vermont’s Single-Payer Health Care Bill Moves Ahead

Abstract: MONTPELIER, Vt. — Many people move to Vermont in search of a slower pace; Dr. Deb Richter came in 1999 to work obsessively toward a far-fetched goal. She wanted Vermont to become the first state to adopt a single-payer health care system, run and paid for by the government, with every resident eligible for a uniform benefit package. So Dr. Richter, a buoyant primary care doctor from Buffalo who had given up on New York’s embracing such a system, started lining up speaking engagements and meeting with lawmakers, whom she found more accessible than their New York counterparts. “I wrote a letter to the editor, and the speaker of the House called me up to talk about it,” Dr. Richter, 56, recalled recently. “It was astounding. In New York, I couldn’t even get an appointment with my legislator.” Twelve years later, Dr. Richter will watch Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, sign a bill on Thursday that sets Vermont on a path toward a single-payer system — the nation’s first such experiment — thanks in no small part to her persistence. Though scores of people pushed for the bill, she was the most actively involved doctor — “the backbone,” Mr. Shumlin has said, of a grass-roots effort that helped sway the Democratic Legislature to pass it this spring even as other states were suing to block the less ambitious federal health care law. “We wouldn’t be where we are without Deb,” Mr. Shumlin said in an interview. “She’s made this her passion. And like anyone that’s making significant social change, she has qualities of persuasiveness and leadership and good judgment that are hard to find.” As in all states, the cost of health care has increased sharply in Vermont in recent years. It has doubled here over the last decade to roughly $5 billion a year, taking a particular toll on small businesses and the middle class. All 620,000 of the state’s residents would be eligible for coverage under the new system, which proponents say would be cheaper over all than the current patchwork of insurers. A five-member board appointed by the governor is to determine payment rates for doctors, what benefits to cover and other details. But much remains to be worked out — so much that even under the most optimistic projections the plan might not take effect until 2017. Most significantly, Mr. Shumlin still has to figure out how much it will cost and how to pay for it, possibly through a new payroll tax. Whether he will still be in charge by 2017 is among the complicating factors. “If we had the exact same Legislature and the same governor we could get it done,” Dr. Richter said. “It’s a big if, because the opposition has a ton more money to convince people that the governor is evil and this is socialized medicine and all kinds of other scary stuff.” The opposition will probably include insurance companies, drug makers and some employers who say there are too many unknowns. Many doctors, too, are wary of the change and what it might mean for their income. Dr. Richter said she believed a “slim majority” of the state’s 1,700 licensed physicians were supportive. “One of the bigger worries I have is we’ve had all this hoopla and nothing’s going to happen,” she said at a coffee shop here recently on a rare quiet afternoon. “But it might also be helpful to us, because it’s going to be hard for any opposition to be steadily pushing for seven years.” The federal health care law has complicated Vermont’s plans, requiring the state to first create a health insurance exchange to help residents shop for coverage by 2014. The state would then need a federal waiver to trade its exchange for a government-run system. Dr. Richter said she embraced the idea of a single-payer system as a young doctor in Buffalo, where many of her patients put off crucial treatments because they were uninsured. As a medical student, she saw a patient with a life-threatening heart infection caused by an infected tooth that had gone untreated because he lacked dental insurance. “He was in the hospital for six weeks, and I was like, ‘This makes no sense,’ ” she said. She went to a meeting of Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that advocates for a national single-payer system, and started researching the concept. Before long she became a vocal advocate, even becoming president of the physicians’ group, and moved to Vermont. John McClaughry, a former Republican state senator who is against the new law, said Dr. Richter meant well but did not understand the “long-term damage” it would wreak. In particular, he said the law would drive away businesses that did not want to help pay for it. “She’ll tell you that putting in single-payer will attract businesses from all over the place,” said Mr. McClaughry, vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute, a conservative research group. “I don’t think she has any appreciation of business decisions at all.” Since moving with her husband and two sons to a rambling old house within view of the State House, Dr. Richter has given about 400 talks on the single-payer concept, tutored lawmakers in the State House cafeteria and testified before the Legislature more times than she can remember. Once, she presented a printout of all the insurance companies her small practice in Cambridge had billed over five years. “It was like 190 pages long,” she said. “Here we were, this tiny rural clinic having to bill all these different addresses. And all of them have different rules and reimbursements; I mean, it’s ridiculous.” Some supporters of single-payer health care say Vermont’s law does not go far enough, mostly because it would allow at least a handful of private insurers to stay in the market indefinitely. Self-insured businesses like IBM, the state’s largest employer, could continue providing health coverage to workers under the law, though they would have to help finance the new system, possibly through a payroll tax. Physicians for a National Health Program is among the critics, saying the law “falls well short of the single-payer reform needed.” Allowing private insurers to remain in the state will prevent meaningful savings, the group says. Dr. Richter acknowledges that the law will not allow for “strict single-payer,” but said it still promised “health care for everybody, for less cost.” “This is not the top of the mountain, but it’s the first time anyone has headed up the mountain,” she said. “No other place in the country has gotten this far.”

Health Insurance and Managed Care
Law and Legislation
Shumlin Peter
Vermont


Small Blast in Kosovo Chafes Bond With Germany

Abstract: BERLIN — What started as a small explosion in Kosovo has grown into an uproar that has pitted the fledgling country against Germany , one of the biggest advocates of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. The blast took place on Nov. 14, when a small explosive device was thrown at the International Civilian Office, led by the European Union’s special representative to Kosovo. No one was hurt, and damage was minor. The uproar began after Kosovar authorities arrested three Germans and accused them of involvement. The Germans said that they were investigating the crime scene when they came under suspicion by Kosovar authorities, according to a German security official who did not have permission to discuss the case and was granted anonymity. The official confirmed reports identifying the men as German operatives. On Saturday, a judge in Kosovo remanded the three to investigative custody for 30 days. “These guys are suspects and are being treated as such, nothing more, nothing less,” said Veton Elshani, a spokesman for the Kosovo police. In Berlin on Monday, a government spokesman, Thomas Steg, described the accusation that Germany was involved in an attack abroad as “absurd” but declined to comment on whether the men were intelligence agents or members of the German armed forces. Germany was one of the first countries to recognize Kosovo after it declared independence and it is a major aid donor. “Germany supports E.U. policy in Kosovo, and as such it would make no sense to attack the E.U. building in Pristina,” said Max Stadler, deputy chairman of the parliamentary commission supervising the German secret services.