Deeper Presidential Challenge for Obama - News Analysis

Abstract: TUCSON — When President Obama took the stage here Wednesday to address a community — and a nation — traumatized by Saturday’s killings, it invited comparisons to President George W. Bush’s speech to the nation after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the memorial service President Bill Clinton led after the bombing of a federal office building killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in 1995. But Mr. Obama’s appearance presented a deeper challenge, reflecting the tenor of his times. Unlike those tragedies — which, at least initially, united a mournful country and quieted partisan divisions — this one has, in the days since the killings, had the opposite effect, inflaming the divide. It was a political reality Mr. Obama seemed to recognize the moment he took the stage. And it was one he seemed determine to address, with language that recalled a central part of Mr. Obama’s appeal as a presidential candidate in 2008. He called for an end to partisan recriminations, and a unity that has seemed increasingly elusive as each day has brought more harsh condemnations from the left and the right, starting here in Arizona but rippling across the nation. “What we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another,” he said. “That we cannot do. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility.” While some on the left sought to link the killing to the Tea Party movement or to heated speech from prominent Republicans like Sarah Palin, Mr. Obama pointedly noted that there was no way to know why the gunman opened fire, killing 6 people and injuring 14, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords. “For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack,” he said. “None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.” On a day when Ms. Palin posted a video accusing commentators of committing “blood libel” by suggesting her commentary had enabled the crime, Mr. Obama — speaking at times like a political leader, at times like a preacher — urged his audience and the nation to avoid recriminations, to “honor the fallen” by moving forward and by “making sure we align our values with our actions.” “At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds,” Mr. Obama said. When it comes to being emotive, Mr. Obama may never match Mr. Clinton or Mr. Bush. His voice sometimes wavered, but he is not the kind of leader whose eyes tear up at public events. Yet these are tougher times and he was, here and across the country, speaking to a tougher audience. Even as it began, some conservative commentators were posting comments criticizing the memorial service for being overly partisan and more like a pep rally, and there were some boos in the hall when Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, spoke. Those reactions would have been hard to imagine, say, in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing. “Last time there was uniform revulsion,” said Don Baer, who was the chief speechwriter in the White House for Mr. Clinton in 1995 and helped write Mr. Clinton’s speech. “This time, in the interest of condemning vitriol, all sides have become vitriolic. In some ways the country is more in need of a unifying voice that says, ‘Enough already.’ ” Mr. Baer said that made the demands on Mr. Obama different than those on Mr. Clinton, and made Mr. Obama’s return to the language of his campaign — the call for an end to partisan rancor — so logical. “The best message for President Obama,” Mr. Baer said, “is the one that brought him to national attention from the start: That there is not a red America or a blue America but a United States of America.” The speeches Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton gave were seen as turning points in their presidencies. Wednesday night’s event seemed less about Mr. Obama’s presidency and more about the state of this country. His calls during the campaign for an end to brutal partisanship appeared to carry little weight these past two years in Washington. There is no way to know if his similar call on Wednesday, under tragic circumstances, will have more traction.

Tucson Shooting (2011)
Obama Barack
Speeches and Statements
Tucson (Ariz)
United States Politics and Government


Jones Appears and Is Untouched

Abstract: ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 12 (AP) — Pacman Jones, the Tennessee Titans ’ suspended cornerback, ended up surrounded by the police Sunday night. The officers were actors trying to help Jones, who had been “attacked.” Not a finger was laid on Jones on-camera at the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling event, but several were awfully close. A wrestler rushed the stage after jawing with Jones, but four actors with police clothing tackled him just out of reach. Minutes later, the studio television screens flashed to Jones backstage, lying on the ground after supposedly being attacked. Jones, the Titans and T.N.A. reached an agreement Friday allowing him to perform — under extensive stipulation. He could not touch or be touched, grapple, shove, throw or have anything thrown at him. Jones has been suspended from the N.F.L. for the 2007 season. He has been arrested six times.

Football
Jones Pacman
Tennessee Titans
National Football League


Broncos Threesome Stepped Into the Ring

Abstract: Denver Broncos safeties John Lynch and Hamza Abdullah are accustomed to hitting guys hard. They have a newfound respect for boxers after taking up the sweet science in the off-season, with receiver-returner Quincy Morgan. Lynch decided to add six weeks of boxing to his winter workout regimen to refresh his mind and body as he prepared for his 15th season in the N.F.L. Abdullah and Morgan followed suit in the summer, and all three say it is something that will be a permanent part of his strength and conditioning program. “I don’t take breaks — I don’t feel like you can — but you need things to keep training fresh,” said Lynch, who did not want to do only his usual running drills in the off-season. “It gets old, it gets tired. And I thought it was something that could keep it fresh and prove beneficial — the hand placement, the quickness, things that we use blitzing — and it just really got me in good condition. “You’ve got to be in tremendous condition, particularly at this altitude.” Lynch said the boxing helped his footwork and his handwork, “and one thing it certainly made me do is respect those guys. Going three-minute rounds, I wasn’t even getting hit. We were just punching the bags and stuff. My gosh, those guys are impressive.” Abdullah said boxing improved his strength and stamina. “I have a newfound respect for boxers and the training that they go through,” he said. “I mean, you don’t realize how long three minutes is until your trainer has you punching for three rounds straight, or even jump-roping for three minutes straight.” While Lynch and Abdullah were introduced to boxing at different gymnasiums in the Denver area, Morgan has grown up around boxing in Texas. But this was the first off-season that he trained with his uncle, John Morgan, a former youth champion, at Houston’s Savannah Boxing Club, where the former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield and the lightweight champ Juan Díaz also work out. “I did it for conditioning and taking some of the pressures off my body, my knees,” Morgan said. “The guy I go to, I do 6 to 10 rounds of sparring with hand bags. You get off that, you get out in the ring, you go to 100-punch drills on the heavy bag. Those guys, they work, the boxers.” Morgan said he could tell the difference in training camp because he had better cardiovascular conditioning, and his energy and endurance were noticeably higher. As much as he hesitated to admit it, two-a-days were a relief for Morgan after his time in the ring. “You can try it, if you’re punching your arms, you get more out of that than running 100’s and ‘gases’ because you’re constantly swinging and you’re not only swinging but you’re staying low, you’re dodging, you’re moving around the ring and then you’re punching,” Morgan said. He said he was kicking himself for not taking it up sooner. “My uncle’s boxed his whole life, so I’ve been around it,” Morgan said. “He always used to take me to the gym when I was younger.” While Lynch plans to keep lacing up the gloves, he does not seem interested in mixed martial-arts fighting like some of his contemporaries, including the San Diego linebacker Shawne Merriman and the Kansas City defensive end Jared Allen. “I was back in San Diego, and Shawne Merriman heard I was doing some boxing and he’s doing some of the Ultimate Fighting stuff, so he invited me out to do that. I said, ‘Maybe not such a good move with Shawn Merriman out there at 270,’ ” said Lynch, who is 50 pounds lighter and 2 inches shorter than Merriman. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll catch you next year.’ But he just wanted to show me what he was doing. A lot of guys are doing things like that.” Like Lynch and Morgan, Abdullah is going with stick with boxing. “I bought a two-year membership,” he said. “I have to keep going.”

Boxing
Football
Denver Broncos
National Football League
Lynch John


Barcelona Gains Edge on Lionel Messi’s Goal

Abstract: Barcelona seized control of its Copa del Rey quarterfinal against Atlético Madrid when Lionel Messi followed up his saved penalty shot with a goal for a 1-0 first-leg victory at home. ■ Tottenham used an Andros Townsend penalty kick to gain a slender advantage over a visiting third-tier team, Sheffield United, in the League Cup, taking a 1-0 lead before the second leg of their semifinal next week. (AP) ■ Equatorial Guinea and Burkina Faso each wasted several chances in a 0-0 draw at the Africa Cup of Nations in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. The Republic of Congo recorded a surprise 1-0 win over Gabon in the day’s other game. (AP)

Soccer
Lionel Messi
Barcelona Soccer Team
Atletico Madrid Soccer Team


Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher

Abstract: For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity. One of the names they invoke most often is Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent global warming. He has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and in state capitals, and starred at conferences of people who deny the risks of global warming. But newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon’s work has been tied to funding he received from corporate interests. He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work. The documents show that Dr. Soon, in correspondence with his corporate funders, described many of his scientific papers as “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money. He used the same term to describe testimony he prepared for Congress. Though Dr. Soon did not respond to questions about the documents, he has long stated that his corporate funding has not influenced his scientific findings. The documents were obtained by Greenpeace , the environmental group, under the Freedom of Information Act. Greenpeace and an allied group, the Climate Investigations Center , shared them with several news organizations last week. The documents shed light on the role of scientists like Dr. Soon in fostering public debate over whether human activity is causing global warming. The vast majority of experts have concluded that it is and that greenhouse emissions pose long-term risks to civilization. Historians and sociologists of science say that since the tobacco wars of the 1960s, corporations trying to block legislation that hurts their interests have employed a strategy of creating the appearance of scientific doubt, usually with the help of ostensibly independent researchers who accept industry funding. Fossil-fuel interests have followed this approach for years, but the mechanics of their activities remained largely hidden. “The whole doubt-mongering strategy relies on creating the impression of scientific debate,” said Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University and the co-author of “ Merchants of Doubt ,” a book about such campaigns. “Willie Soon is playing a role in a certain kind of political theater.” Funding That Climate Researcher Failed to Disclose These documents show that Wei-Hock Soon, a part-time researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., received funding from fossil-fuel interests that he subsequently failed to disclose in a string of scientific papers. Environmentalists have long questioned Dr. Soon’s work, and his acceptance of funding from the fossil-fuel industry was previously known. But the full extent of the links was not; the documents show that corporate contributions were tied to specific papers and were not disclosed, as required by modern standards of publishing. “What it shows is the continuation of a long-term campaign by specific fossil-fuel companies and interests to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change,” said Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center, a group funded by foundations seeking to limit the risks of climate change. Charles R. Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, acknowledged on Friday that Dr. Soon had violated the disclosure standards of some journals. “I think that’s inappropriate behavior,” Dr. Alcock said. “This frankly becomes a personnel matter, which we have to handle with Dr. Soon internally.” Dr. Soon is employed by the Smithsonian Institution, which jointly sponsors the astrophysics center with Harvard. “I am aware of the situation with Willie Soon, and I’m very concerned about it,” W. John Kress , interim under secretary for science at the Smithsonian in Washington, said on Friday. “We are checking into this ourselves.” Dr. Soon rarely grants interviews to reporters, and he did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls last week; nor did he respond to an interview request conveyed to him by his employer. In past public appearances, he has reacted angrily to questions about his funding sources, but then acknowledged some corporate ties and said that they had not altered his scientific findings. “I write proposals; I let them decide whether to fund me or not,” he said at an event in Madison, Wis., in 2013. “If they choose to fund me, I’m happy to receive it.” A moment later, he added, “I would never be motivated by money for anything.” The newly disclosed documents, plus additional documents compiled by Greenpeace over the last four years, show that at least $409,000 of Dr. Soon’s funding in the past decade came from Southern Company Services, a subsidiary of the Southern Company, based in Atlanta. Southern is one of the largest utility holding companies in the country, with huge investments in coal-burning power plants. The company has spent heavily over many years to lobby against greenhouse-gas regulations in Washington. More recently, it has spent significant money to research ways to limit emissions. “Southern Company funds a broad range of research on a number of topics that have potentially significant public-policy implications for our business,” said Jeannice M. Hall, a spokeswoman. The company declined to answer detailed questions about its funding of Dr. Soon’s research. Dr. Soon also received at least $230,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. (Mr. Koch’s fortune derives partly from oil refining.) However, other companies and industry groups that once supported Dr. Soon, including Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute, appear to have eliminated their grants to him in recent years. As the oil-industry contributions fell, Dr. Soon started receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars through DonorsTrust , an organization based in Alexandria, Va., that accepts money from donors who wish to remain anonymous, then funnels it to various conservative causes. Image Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, praising scientists like Dr. Soon. Credit CSPAN The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , in Cambridge, Mass., is a joint venture between Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution, housing some 300 scientists from both institutions. Because the Smithsonian is a government agency, Greenpeace was able to request that Dr. Soon’s correspondence and grant agreements be released under the Freedom of Information Act. Though often described on conservative news programs as a “Harvard astrophysicist,” Dr. Soon is not an astrophysicist and has never been employed by Harvard. He is a part-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution with a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering. He has received little federal research money over the past decade and is thus responsible for bringing in his own funds, including his salary. Though he has little formal training in climatology, Dr. Soon has for years published papers trying to show that variations in the sun’s energy can explain most recent global warming. His thesis is that human activity has played a relatively small role in causing climate change. Many experts in the field say that Dr. Soon uses out-of-date data, publishes spurious correlations between solar output and climate indicators, and does not take account of the evidence implicating emissions from human behavior in climate change. Gavin A. Schmidt , head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, a NASA division that studies climate change, said that the sun had probably accounted for no more than 10 percent of recent global warming and that greenhouse gases produced by human activity explained most of it. “The science that Willie Soon does is almost pointless,” Dr. Schmidt said. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, whose scientists focus largely on understanding distant stars and galaxies, routinely distances itself from Dr. Soon’s findings. The Smithsonian has also published a statement accepting the scientific consensus on climate change. Dr. Alcock said that, aside from the disclosure issue, he thought it was important to protect Dr. Soon’s academic freedom, even if most of his colleagues disagreed with his findings. Dr. Soon has found a warm welcome among politicians in Washington and state capitals who try to block climate action. United States Senator James M. Inhofe , an Oklahoma Republican who claims that climate change is a global scientific hoax, has repeatedly cited Dr. Soon’s work over the years. In a Senate debate last month, Mr. Inhofe pointed to a poster with photos of scientists questioning the climate-change consensus, including Dr. Soon. “These are scientists that cannot be challenged,” the senator said. A spokeswoman for the senator said Friday that he was traveling and could not be reached for comment. As of late last week, most of the journals in which Dr. Soon’s work had appeared were not aware of the newly disclosed documents. The Climate Investigations Center is planning to notify them over the coming week. Several journals advised of the situation by The New York Times said they would look into the matter. Robert J. Strangeway, the editor of a journal that published three of Dr. Soon’s papers, said that editors relied on authors to be candid about any conflicts of interest. “We assume that when people put stuff in a paper, or anywhere else, they’re basically being honest,” said Dr. Strangeway, editor of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. Dr. Oreskes , the Harvard science historian, said that academic institutions and scientific journals had been too lax in recent decades in ferreting out dubious research created to serve a corporate agenda. “I think universities desperately need to look more closely at this issue,” Dr. Oreskes said. She added that Dr. Soon’s papers omitting disclosure of his corporate funding should be retracted by the journals that published them.


Drug Companies Win Two Supreme Court Decisions

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday handed drug companies two significant victories, one limiting suits from people injured by generic drugs and the other striking down a law that banned some commercial uses of prescription data. In the first case, Pliva v. Mensing , No. 09-993, the court split 5 to 4 along ideological lines in ruling that the makers of generic drugs — which account for 75 percent of prescriptions dispensed nationwide — may not be sued under state law for failing to warn customers about the risks associated with their products. Two years ago, in Wyeth v. Levine , the court decided the same question in the context of brand-name drugs but came to the opposite conclusion. That decision was based in large part on the fact that such drug companies can sometimes change the labels on their products without permission from the Food and Drug Administration. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority on Thursday, acknowledged that in the eyes of injured consumers, the new distinction between generic and brand-name drugs “makes little sense.” But he said it followed from the way the two kinds of companies are treated under federal law. The manufacturers of generic drugs, he said, must use the same warning labels as the corresponding brand-name drugs, and they may not unilaterally alter those labels. That means, Justice Thomas wrote, that makers of generic drugs are caught in an impossible bind: they can comply with a state law requiring them to change their labels or the federal law prohibiting changes, but not both. Given that impossibility, federal law pre-empts state law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, he wrote. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority opinion invented “new principles of pre-emption law out of the air” and will lead to “absurd consequences.” “As the majority itself admits,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “a drug consumer’s right to compensation for inadequate warnings now turns on the happenstance of whether her pharmacist filled her prescription with a brand-name drug or a generic.” The decision considered three consolidated cases brought by women who took generic metoclopramide, which is sold under the brand name Reglan. They took the drug for stomach ailments and developed a serious neurological disorder. Appeals courts ruled against the drug makers, saying that the federal regulatory regime did not block claims under state law. The Supreme Court reversed those decisions on Thursday, rejecting what Justice Thomas called the “fair argument,” that the defendants should have at least tried to persuade the federal drug agency to let them use a safer label. But the process of asking the agency to change a label, he wrote, can be as complicated as a children’s board game. “If they had done so,” Justice Thomas wrote of a possible request for a label change, “and if the F.D.A. decided there was sufficient supporting information, and if the F.D.A. undertook negotiations with the brand-name manufacturer, and if adequate label changes were decided on and implemented, then the manufacturers would have started a Mouse Trap game that eventually led to a better label on generic metoclopramide.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted with the majority. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that she agreed that the makers of generic drugs could not unilaterally change their labels. But she said that did not allow them to remain idle after learning of safety issues. “Had the manufacturers invoked the available mechanism for initiating label changes,” she wrote, “they may well have been able to change their labels in sufficient time to warn” the women injured by their drugs. The majority opinion, Justice Sotomayor said, may reduce the demand for generic drugs and put doctors in an ethical bind. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the dissent. In a second decision on Thursday, Sorrell v. IMS Health , No. 10-779, a six-justice majority of the court struck down a Vermont law that banned some but not all uses of prescription information collected by pharmacies. The law sought to restrict a form of marketing called “detailing,” in which representatives of drug companies pitch information about new drugs to doctors known to be prescribing certain kinds of medicine. The companies obtain prescription records to help them identify the most suitable doctors from data mining companies, which buy the records from pharmacies. The records are meant to be stripped of information that identifies individual patients. The law banned the use of prescription data for detailing but allowed other uses of it, including by law enforcement, insurance companies and journalists. Drug companies remained free to market their drugs in a more indiscriminate fashion, without knowing the prescribing habits of individual doctors. The law was challenged by data mining and drug companies, who argued that the law’s point seemed to be to protect doctors from hearing about more expensive drugs while the state pushed cheaper generic drugs. The state, as its lawyer Bridget C. Asay put it at the argument in April, said the law sought to address “an intrusive and invasive marketing practice.” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the case presented fundamental First Amendment issues because it restricted the use of truthful information in private hands based on the identity of the speaker and the content of its speech. He supported his decision with citations to classic First Amendment decisions outside the realm of commercial speech, including ones on prior restrain and incitement. “If pharmaceutical marketing affects treatment decisions,” he wrote, “it does so because doctors find it persuasive. Absent circumstances far from those presented here, the fear that speech might persuade provides no lawful basis for quieting it.” Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Sotomayor joined the majority opinion. Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Kagan, dissented. Justice Breyer said the majority had looked at the case through the wrong First Amendment lens. It is a mistake, he said, “to apply a strict First Amendment standard virtually as a matter of course when a court reviews ordinary economic regulatory programs.” Under ordinary standards applicable to commercial speech, Justice Breyer continued, the Vermont law should have been upheld. “At best,” he wrote, “the court opens a Pandora’s box of First Amendment challenges to many ordinary regulatory practices that may only incidentally affect a commercial message.” The majority opinion is an echo, he continued, of Lochner v. New York , a 1905 decision that struck down a New York work-hours law and has become shorthand for improper interference with matters properly left to legislatures. “At worst,” Justice Breyer wrote of the majority opinion, “it reawakens Lochner’s pre-New Deal threat of substituting judicial for democratic decision-making where ordinary economic regulation is at issue.”

Supreme Court
Labeling and Labels
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Generic Brands and Products


Deal for Candy Crush Maker Favors Hope Over Experience

Abstract: The latest play by King Digital Entertainment, the maker of Candy Crush, will leave investors short of the sugarlike high its biggest hit often induces. The London-based maker of the sweet-matching mobile game is selling out to Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion , below the price of last year’s initial public offering. King’s model relies on producing a steady stream of new games in an effort to find another mega-hit like the confectionery-based puzzle. But mobile gamers are fickle. Recent introductions have failed to match the rapid growth of Candy Crush, even as the latter has faded. Revenue is expected to fall 13 percent this year, to $1.98 billion, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon estimates. The model can be hugely profitable. King delivered a return on invested capital of 405 percent in 2013, according to Cowen. Financial savings look minimal — King will continue to be run separately. The main benefit of blending the two companies appears to be to allow Activision access to new customers over and above those who play its mainly console-based games, like the shoot ’em up Call of Duty. There are shades of opportunism, too. King’s stock has fallen recently, and the slim 20 percent premium based on last week’s close is in line with analysts’ estimate of its fair value, according to Eikon. The deal allows Activision to deploy excess cash. More than half will be financed through offshore cash reserves, and the rest by gearing up. The history of the video gaming industry is littered with one-hit wonders. The Finnish developer Rovio Entertainment has struggled to replicate the success of Angry Birds. Its American peer Zynga is still living off its FarmVille franchise. Perhaps Activision will get lucky with King, which has produced other popular games, albeit none on Candy Crush’s scale. For now, though, taking it off the public market looks more like a Call of Duty-esque mercy killing.

Computer and Video Games
Mergers and Acquisitions
Activision Blizzard


A Plan to Improve Health Care and Limit Costs

Abstract: THE issue of health care costs usually comes up for discussion right after the economy as costs for businesses and consumers continue to climb. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association insures 102 million Americans — one in three people — and has networks that include 90 percent of the nation’s providers and 80 percent of its hospitals . The association’s board just adopted a four-point initiative aimed at containing health care costs and improving care. The goals range from eradicating hospital infections to pushing for health care coverage for everyone. From Chicago, Scott Serota, the association’s president and chief executive, recently discussed the new goals: Q. What was the impetus for adopting a new plan of action, and why now? A. Much of what is discussed in virtually all forums as health care reform is really health care financing reform. We really have not gotten sufficient national attention on the real underlying issue, which is that the entire health care delivery system needs to be modified. We, the Blues, feel we should try to drive toward a vision for the health care delivery system which we can move collectively forward with our partners. Q. One of your goals is to cut the prevalence of diabetes in half. Why did you select that? A. There are 57 million Americans today who are prediabetic. The cost of treating it is $116 billion annually. We treat it pretty well, but there are tangible things we can do in the areas of obesity , weight management , nutrition , fitness and health risk assessment to reduce the incidence of diabetes. We can cut that 57 million number in half and make a dramatic impact not only in the delivery system costs but in people’s lives. Q. Your second point is more affordable health care. How do you translate that sweeping goal into something concrete when costs are steadily mounting for both businesses and individuals? A. We’re not saying the cost of health care will go down. It won’t. Our goal is that health care costs rise no faster than any other goods and services. The essential fundamental to getting there is improving the underlying system because 30 percent of care rendered today, according to some studies, is unnecessary, redundant and, in some cases, even harmful. We need to get waste out of the system. That means $700 billion in a $2.4 trillion system. Q. When you say waste, what do you mean? A. I’m talking about a whole battery of things like duplicative testing such as two M.R.I. ’s instead of one or hospital-acquired infections. The cornerstone of how we get at this is creating a comparative effectiveness institute to study what treatments really work best for a given condition — and letting everyone know what works. There is legislation on this pending in Congress. Q. Medicare just announced it would stop paying hospitals to treat patients harmed by care, like being given an incompatible blood transfusion. One of your goals addressed that — to eradicate so-called “never events” — but is that the cart following the horse? A. Not paying for them is the end point. If they are no longer getting reimbursed for those costs, institutions will be very aggressive in eliminating those events. There are some Blue plans that are not paying for those events. Q. Why haven’t more Blue plans limited reimbursement for hospital-caused problems? A. More will. We’re trying to figure out mechanisms to help them improve their performance. Then we’ll tie reimbursement to performance. These events are a huge problem where we haven’t made a lot of progress over the last 10 years. We have to fix it, then adjust the financing. Q. An ambitious point you have adopted is to ensure that everyone has health care coverage. What specific steps can Blue Cross Blue Shield take to solve something that has remained so elusive? A. We believe that every American should have coverage, but 45 million don’t have it. The reasons are not the same, but if coverage is affordable, more people will be able to buy it. We also need to work with people who are eligible for government programs but are not enrolling. And we need to develop new products like high-deductible plans to attract people like the “young invincibles” — who think they will never get sick — and get them in the habit of buying coverage. Q. Do you support proposals like the one from the Republican presidential candidate John McCain that move away from the employer-based system? A. It is essential that we continue to support the employer-based system because 162 million Americans today get their coverage through their employer. We should not disrupt this important piece. Employers provide significant financing and they keep us on our toes. Q. How do you plan to get others in the health care industry to sign on and help achieve your newly adopted goals? A. Conversations, dialogue and meeting with trade association leaders. These are goals for all of us. We are insuring one-third of all Americans so we need to step out and provide leadership with real actionable steps. Q. Do you have any near-term — like one-year — benchmarks to measure whether the Blues are making progress in meeting each of the new goals? A. We will have annual benchmarks that we will put out. We believe that what gets measured is what gets done.

Health Insurance and Managed Care
Serota Scott
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
Hospitals


Haiti: Candidate Wants a New Vote

Abstract: Haiti


Mark Sanford Gets to Runoff in South Carolina Race

Abstract: The first chapter in a wild race to fill a Congressional seat in South Carolina was written Tuesday when former Gov. Mark Sanford staged something of a comeback in a Republican field crowded with 16 candidates, and Democrats overwhelmingly picked Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a businesswoman on leave from Clemson University. Mrs. Colbert Busch is a sister of the comedian Stephen Colbert, a burst of celebrity in a race with other marquee names. Chief among them for the Republicans was Mr. Sanford, 52, the former governor who turned the special election into a stage for his political comeback after his fictitious walk along the Appalachian Trail led to a divorce, ethics charges and censure. By the time the polls closed in the district, which stretches along the coastal Low Country and includes Charleston, it was clear Mr. Sanford had at least some political redemption. With 99 percent of the votes counted , he got 37 percent of them. But because he did not get more than 50 percent, he will have to stand in a runoff before he can hope to face the Democrat on May 7. In a close race for second among the Republicans that will prompt a recount, Curtis Bostic, a former member of the Charleston County Council, had 13 percent of the vote, while Larry Grooms, a state senator, had 12 percent. On Wednesday morning, Mr. Grooms conceded defeat. But because the results were so close, state law requires a recount. Election officials said the recount would likely to happen on Friday morning. Teddy Turner, a political newcomer and the son of the media mogulTed Turner, finished fourth, with 8 percent. Mrs. Colbert Busch, 58, easily beat Ben Frasier, who has run for office in almost every election cycle since 1972. She won 96 percent of the vote. Voting was light, and 15 percent of 453,632 registered voters registered in the newly drawn district went to the polls. The election was also the first major test of the state’s new voter identification law, which requires voters to produce driver’s licenses, passports or other forms of state-approved voter photo ID cards. Because of that, the United States Justice Department was monitoring the election to ensure compliance with the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Over the longer term, the primary for the First Congressional District will set the stage for what many thought impossible: a chance for a conservative district in a very red state to send a Democrat to Congress. Image Elizabeth Colbert Busch, winner of the Democratic primary, after voting in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Credit Bruce Smith/Associated Press In December, Senator Jim DeMintstepped down to take over the Heritage Foundation, and Gov.Nikki R. Haley appointed Representative Tim Scott to the post, making Mr. Scott the Senate’s only black member. That appointment opened up the Congressional seat, which Mr. Sanford held in the 1990s. Mr. Sanford, who left the governorship in 2011 and had spent the time since regrouping after a divorce and his painful last year in office, said in an interview that he viewed the timing as something of a miracle that came just as he was contemplating his next move. His strategy, in ads and interviews, had been to first ask for forgiveness for leaving his office unattended for six days as he pursued a woman in Argentina who is now his fiancée. He lied about it, saying he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Although he finished his term, he faced ethics fines, censure by his party and a divorce from his wife of 21 years, Jenny. His first ad spoke of finding grace and the god of second chances. His second ad quickly left that theme behind, and hammered home his conservative qualifications, which included being rated by the Cato Institute, a libertarian group, as the most fiscally conservative governor during his tenure. Tuesday’s vote offered some indication of how far forgiveness and fiscal conservatism will go in a part of South Carolina that is Republican, certainly, but populated by relative newcomers (by South Carolina standards) and is more moderate than other parts of the state. “Repentance works better in the South Carolina Upcountry, where it’s more evangelical,” said Jack Bass , who has written several books about civil rights, the state’s politics andStrom Thurmond, the long-serving senator. “This is a moderate district,” he said. “It’s the only South Carolina Congressional district that went for Romney in the primary.” Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, won the 2012 primary by 12 points, blocking what at the time seemed an inevitable and easy walk to the presidential nomination forMitt Romney. This season, 15 other Republicans in the race with Mr. Sanford have had to run hard in a short period of time to differentiate themselves. The candidates spent six weeks attacking one another and targeting Mr. Sanford, with candidates striking notes for their own fiscal conservatism, as well as their own strong families and conservative social and religious values. With so many candidates in the race, winning boiled down to name recognition, said Chip Felkel, a Republican political consultant based in Greenville, S.C., who is not affiliated with any campaign. By April, voters and Republican strategists will have to decide if Mr. Sanford will be the strongest candidate to send into battle against Mrs. Colbert Busch, who will be able to build up her campaign funds while the two Republicans fight each other. Democratic strategists believe that in the May general election Mrs. Colbert Busch could peel off female Republican voters faced with having to chose Mr. Sanford or cross party lines.

South Carolina
Primaries
Mark Sanford
Elizabeth Colbert Busch
House races
Congressional elections


College Teams Are Feeling the Squeeze From Fuel Costs

Abstract: It was agony added to misery. Shortly after Ohio State’s football team returned from a walloping by Southern California, Ben Jay, the Buckeyes’ senior associate athletic director for finance and operations, said he did a double take when he received a $346,000 bill for the group’s two charter flights to Los Angeles for players, staff and boosters. The fuel surcharge, which in previous years added at most a couple of thousand dollars to the bill, tacked on another $24,200. “It’s kind of one of those things that you knew was coming,” Jay said of the cost. “You just didn’t know how much.” Collegiate sports programs throughout the nation, from powerhouses to pushovers, were facing increasing costs even before the current economic crisis. Athletic department administrators said that was one of the most serious issues confronting their programs, which are straining to find innovative ways to stay within their budgets. In recent years, the cost of bus rides for shorter trips has also increased, as has the cost of feeding teams at home and on the road. Now, when teams take commercial flights, they are confronted with extra baggage fees at check-in, unbudgeted and considerable expenses for large teams with lots of equipment. Administrators at Ohio State, with a $115 million annual athletic budget, are feeling the pinch. “For each and every one of these trips, you have to make a decision on whether it’s cost efficient or not and whether it’s worthy,” Jay said. “It can’t be business as usual.” To compensate, some programs are starting to limit the number of student-athletes who travel, and some are contemplating shorter seasons. Several college administrators expressed concern that some nonrevenue sports might be eliminated. “It’s definitely gender neutral,” said Rob Edson, senior associate athletic director for finance at Syracuse, adding that travel costs had risen 7 to 10 percent from a year ago. “It’s something that’s affecting the entire enterprise of everything we do, and we are feeling it across the board.” Aiming to maintain a national presence while counting pennies is like walking a tightrope. “We don’t have a perfect solution for now,” said Tom Larson, a senior associate athletic director for finance at Oregon, whose travel expenses increased to $3.2 million from $2.9 million in the 2006-7 academic year. “But we need one in the future.” The problem is being researched by many conferences as well as by the N.C.A.A. The cost of travel to N.C.A.A. championship games climbed to $42.6 million in 2007-8 from $34.5 million in 2006-7, said Keith Martin, the managing director for finance and operations with the association, which reimburses the colleges. “We really started seeing a spike with our winter and spring championships,” Martin said. “It’s a combination of things, the fuel prices and the airlines pulling back on seating capacities. There was kind of a double combination where it’s a supply-and-demand scenario.” In response, the N.C.A.A. increased the minimum distance for plane travel to 400 miles from 350 for fall Division I championships. Division II recently approved a one-time allocation of $250,000 to be divided among institutions highly affected by rising travel costs. Martin added that the N.C.A.A. was also looking into allotting more time between the announcement of the brackets and the competitions so teams could find less expensive transportation, designing software that will estimate costs in determining how far teams travel and considering rescheduling contests from heavy-volume travel times like holidays to reduce expenses. But beyond the championships, athletic programs are being hit hard. At Wheaton College, a private institution near Chicago with Division III teams, Athletic Director Dr. Tony Ladd said his baseball team was contemplating taking a spring trip to Florida instead of a scheduled visit to Arizona because the cheapest flight to Phoenix would cost $600 a player. Wheaton, with about 2,400 undergraduates, has increased its overall travel budget to $334,901 from $260,761 in 2007-8. Each of its 22 sports teams usually takes one major trip a season. Ladd described several solutions. “Thankfully, the men and women who have been in this program value it so much and give back,” he said. “And you look for other ways to save. Does that mean men’s and women’s basketball travels together in a chartered bus? Another would be to cut back on the number of sports events, meaning a basketball team would play 24 games instead of 25. But that would be one of the last things and one of the more dramatic changes.” Few colleges face the hurdles confronting the Seawolves from Alaska Anchorage, a public university known for its hockey team. Every road game requires a flight. Alaska Fairbanks, 310 miles away, is the closest opponent. The average athlete at Anchorage logs 25,000 miles each season, said Dr. Steve Cobb, the Seawolves’ athletic director. “Nobody cares what it costs us to get there,” Cobb said. “We just have to be there for tip-off.” Cobb has had trouble finding nonconference opponents willing to travel to Alaska. The annual Great Alaska Shootout, a preseason basketball tournament that Anchorage hosts, is usually its top draw. But because of the increase of tournaments around the country and rising costs, Cobb has had trouble filling out the tournament brackets, featuring eight men’s teams and four women’s teams. The university’s travel budget rose to $1.7 million this year, up from $1.5 million a year ago. Cobb estimated that the hockey team could pay about $20,000 in additional airlines fees for checking equipment this season. In response, the athletic department petitioned the board of regents for a one-time allotment of $225,000. “We don’t have much flexibility,” Cobb said. “By the time school starts, things have been in blood for a long time. Our conference schedule is always made in advance. We don’t have much room to adjust to current market prices.” So colleges are looking to cut costs elsewhere. Cobb said he was negotiating with airlines to have them waive extra-baggage fees. Some teams are taking cheaper flights at more inconvenient times. “It’s sort of swallow hard and try to find more money in the budget elsewhere,” Wheaton’s Ladd said. “It’s an adjustment that has to be made. We’re just in the beginning framework of this. I think this is an issue that is going to explode in the next two to three years.”


Israel: Cameraman Held at U.S. Party

Abstract: The American-financed Alhurra network said Thursday that one of its cameramen was interrogated and strip-searched by Israeli security officers while covering a Fourth of July party at the American ambassador’s residence near Tel Aviv. The Arab satellite channel had coordinated with the prime minister’s office to cover the event on behalf of the international news media. Ambassador Daniel B. Shapiro, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials were in attendance. But when the cameraman, Samer Jallad, arrived, he said he was detained for questioning, ordered to remove his shoes and sit in the sun for more than half an hour, and then taken to a room where he was forced to remove his pants for a body inspection. He said he was held for more than 90 minutes before he was permitted to enter. The embassy and Mr. Netanyahu’s office had no immediate comment.

Search and seizure
Alhurra
Israel
Daniel B Shapiro


Idzik Says Jets Seek ‘Sustainable Success,’ Not Quick Fixes in Free Agency

Abstract: With the arrival of spring, the Jets are already playing defense. John Idzik, under fire in his second year as general manager for his relative inaction so far in free agency despite ample space under the salary cap, insisted Thursday that he was following a plan that would lead to lasting success. Coach Rex Ryan, under scrutiny after missing the playoffs for three consecutive seasons, voiced support for Idzik amid reports to the contrary. Idzik, who was joined by Ryan on a conference call with reporters, said: “We’re always aiming to win, but we’re in a very competitive league. What I’m trying to build here is sustainable success. We’re not going to put a finger in a dike to try to do something for a short-term gain if we feel like it’s going to hurt us in the long term.” According to Ryan, he is working “side by side” with Idzik. Ryan said: “I know the direction of this football team. We’re in great hands because we have John as our general manager.” The comment came shortly after Antonio Cromartie, a cornerback the Jets had released but hoped to re-sign to a lesser contract, agreed to a one-year deal with the Arizona Cardinals. Cromartie’s decision left the Jets with an urgent need for a cornerback to play opposite Dee Milliner, whose progress late in his rookie season helped the team finish 8-8. Idzik, who is rapidly gaining a reputation for being deliberate, watched the New England Patriots sign Darrelle Revis to a one-year contract worth $12 million hours after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers released him. In one of Idzik’s first major decisions, the Jets traded Revis to Tampa Bay for the Buccaneers’ first-round draft pick last year — No. 13 over all, which they turned into the promising defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson — and a fourth-round pick this year. Idzik declined to say why the Jets did not try to sign Revis, who made a gradual recovery in 2013 from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. But Idzik said, “I don’t know that I would characterize last year’s departure as acrimonious.” Immediately after the trade, Revis accused Idzik of misleading him. Idzik said of Cromartie’s release, “What we made clear to him was that we weren’t closing the door on anything and we were in touch with Cro.” The Jets also failed to land Cromartie’s cousin, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, a cornerback who added his name to an impressive list of free agents signed by the unusually active Giants. Idzik noted that the Jets retained seven players who could have left as free agents, including the reserve cornerbacks Ellis Lankster and Darrin Walls, while adding a needed wide receiver in Eric Decker and signing Breno Giacomini to replace Austin Howard at right tackle. The Jets are expected to make a push to sign quarterback Michael Vick when he visits them on Friday as a prelude to the team’s releasing Mark Sanchez, who is owed a $2 million roster bonus next Tuesday. Marty Mornhinweg, the Jets’ offensive coordinator, knows Vick well from their four years together with the Philadelphia Eagles. Vick, who will turn 34 in June, may be given the opportunity to compete against Geno Smith, who struggled in his rookie season with 21 interceptions and 8 fumbles, 4 of which were lost. Idzik insisted that he operated with a long-term vision. “Winning is not just a one-time thing to us,” he said. “Winning is something that is going to be pervasive here. It’s going to span time. That’s what our aim is.” WOODSON STAYS IN OAKLAND Safety Charles Woodson agreed to a one-year deal to extend his second stay with the Raiders to a second season. Woodson, 37, started 16 games and had 75 solo tackles, 1 interception, 2 sacks, 3 passes defensed, 3 forced fumbles and 2 fumble recoveries. (AP) PANTHERS SIGN COTCHERY Carolina signed the free-agent receiver Jerricho Cotchery to a two-year contract. Cotchery has spent 10 seasons in the N.F.L., the last three with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also played for the Jets (AP) CAMPBELL TO BACK UP DALTON The Cincinnati Bengals signed quarterback Jason Campbell to be Andy Dalton’s backup. Campbell has played for Washington, Oakland, Chicago and Cleveland. He started eight of the Browns’ last nine games last season. (AP) SEATTLE SIGNS LINEMAN The Seahawks signed the free-agent offensive lineman Stephen Schilling. In three seasons with the Chargers, Schilling appeared in 18 games with three starts. He played at both left and right guard during his time in San Diego. (AP)


A Strong Crop of Documentaries, but Barely Seen

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — With the books closed on 2010, it will go down as a banner year for film documentaries. Unless you expected someone to go see them. Even with backing from some of Hollywood’s most aggressive distributors, a strong and varied lineup of feature documentaries like the educational critique “Waiting for Superman” from Paramount Vantage, the baby-gazing “Babies” from Focus Features, and the conflict-charged “The Tillman Story” from the Weinstein Company barely registered with a mass audience that clearly preferred fiction to anything real. The best performer among conventional documentaries released in 2010 was Walt Disney’s “Oceans,” an English-language reconstruction of a French nature film by the directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud. Released in April, “Oceans” had domestic ticket sales of about $19 million. To put things in perspective, a similarly revamped French nature film, “March of the Penguins,” took in more than $77 million for Warner Independent Pictures after its release in 2005. Based on figures compiled by Box Office Mojo, feature documentaries had combined ticket sales of about $45 million last year. That roughly matches the box-office sales for “Saw 3D,” a modest horror hit for Lionsgate, and falls short of the opening weekend sales for “Megamind,” a middling performer from DreamWorks Animation. In a year when “The Expendables,” a fact-free action thriller, has so far outsold “The Social Network,” a nonfiction drama, the top-ranked film with roots in the real was “Jackass 3D.” That film, part of a series that chronicles dopey stunts — and appears to be in a class by itself, as the documentary world doesn’t much bother with it — was ranked No. 19 as the year ended, with ticket sales of about $117 million for Paramount. The year’s top box-office draw was “Toy Story 3,” from Disney, which had about $415 million in ticket sales, followed by a long list of fantasies, comedies and a couple of reality-bending dramas, “Inception” and “Shutter Island,” with Leonardo DiCaprio. (Total domestic sales for the year were about $10.56 billion, just short of last year’s $10.6 billion, though theater attendance dropped about 5.36 percent, according to estimates by Hollywood.com’s box-office analyst, Paul Dergarabedian.) Even critically admired documentaries like “Inside Job,” about Wall Street’s collapse, or “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” about the elusive street artist Banksy, fell short of marks that were set by films like “Super Size Me,” “Religulous,” and Michael Moore’s hit, “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Paul M. Roeder, a spokesman for Disney, said “Oceans,” which was released by the Disneynature division, was helped along by group sales, including the advance sale of 400,000 tickets before the film opened. “We saw tremendous support from school groups and the educational community,” Mr. Roeder said in an e-mail last week. By one theory, at least, documentaries are not so much failing at the box office as becoming the mainstay of a new distribution system that relies more on video-on-demand through cable systems and online delivery than on theaters. “Too many great documentaries are made each year, and only a select number receive a theatrical run,” said Ted Leonsis, the founder and chairman of SnagFilms, which has made a business of aggregating documentaries and distributing them both via Web sites and, under a recent arrangement, on fee-based channels through Comcast and Verizon’s FiOS service. Mr. Leonsis said his operation logged more than a half-million views with a 2010 SummerFest that went online with six documentaries from the film festival circuit. The best performer among them was “Shooting Robert King,” about the war photographer Robert King. It was seen online by 180,000 people during a two-week run, Mr. Leonsis said, far surpassing the theatrical audience for a typical documentary. In expanding their field of best picture nominees to 10 from five, officials of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which bestows the Oscars, have said they hope documentaries will begin to pepper the nominations for the top award, perhaps enticing the audience. This year, “Waiting for Superman,” “Inside Job,” and “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer,” have drawn attention as the awards season unfolded. Meanwhile, the genre has been hanging tough. Over Christmas, for instance, “Cool It,” a climate change documentary directed by Ondi Timoner, struggled to a total box-office take of $62,713 since its release by Roadside Attractions on Nov. 12. Its receipts for Christmas weekend, according to the reporting service: $11 .

Documentary Films and Programs
Sales
Oceans (Movie)


Rangers Re-Sign Girardi as Trade Deadline Looms

Abstract: The Rangers cleared one elephant from their room Friday, agreeing to terms with defenseman Dan Girardi on a six-year contract extension that keeps their solid defense corps intact. The signing of Girardi, 29, who would have been an unrestricted free agent after the season, ended talk that General Manager Glen Sather would trade him by Wednesday’s deadline. “Dan has been a Ranger for his entire career, signing with us as an undrafted free agent and working his way to become a top defenseman in the N.H.L.,” Sather said in a statement. “His dedication to this club, as a leader both on the ice and in the locker room, is invaluable to this team. We are happy to have been able to ensure that he will continue to wear the Blueshirt.” But the captain Ryan Callahan, another pending free agent, remains unsigned, and rumors persist that Callahan will be traded if an agreement cannot be reached by Wednesday. Talks between Sather and Girardi’s agent, Don Meehan, proceeded through the Olympic break. But Sather and Callahan’s agent, Steve Bartlett, did not talk during the break. Girardi’s contract, worth $33 million with an average annual cap hit of $5.5 million per year, includes a full no-move clause the first three years, and a modified no-trade clause for the last three years. Girardi, an eight-year veteran from Welland, Ontario, plays alongside Ryan McDonagh on the Rangers’ top defense pair and has ranked among the N.H.L.’s top six in blocked shots in each of the last four seasons. Since the start of the 2009-10 season he has blocked 847 shots, tops in the N.H.L. A solid, stay-at-home defender who takes few penalties, Girardi has 35 goals, 171 points and just 215 penalty minutes in 548 career games. This season he has 4 goals and 17 points. He leads the Rangers in hits (145) and blocked shots (121) and ranks second in average ice time (22:40). In Thursday’s 2-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks, the Rangers’ first game after the end of the Olympic break, Girardi went plus-2 and blocked a game-high 5 shots. He said he paid no attention to the constant trade rumors that went along with his pending free agent status. “Away from the rink you try to work things out, but once I come to the rink it doesn’t come into my head,” Girardi said. “In the game, that’s the last thing on my mind.”

Ice hockey
Rangers
Glen Sather
Dan Girardi


Google Spending Millions to Find the Next Google

Abstract: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google thinks it can be young and crazy again. And it is betting $200 million that it is right. In the hottest market for technology start-up companies in over a decade, the Silicon Valley behemoth is playing venture capitalist in a rush to discover the next Facebook or Zynga. Other pedigreed tech companies are doing the same, as venture capital dollars coming from corporations approach levels last seen in the dot-com bubble era of 2000. To some, it is a telltale sign of an overheated industry, symptomatic of a late and ill-advised rush to invest during good times. But Google says it has a weapon to guide it in picking investments — a Google-y secret sauce, which means using data-driven algorithms to analyze the would-be next big thing. Never mind that there often is very little data because the companies are so young, and that most venture capitalists say investing is more of an art than a science. At Google, even art is quantifiable. “Investing is being in a dark room and trying to find the way out,” said Bill Maris, the managing partner of Google Ventures, the corporate investment arm. “If you have a match, you should light it.” Corporate venture funds invested $583 million in start-ups in the first three months of the year, according to the National Venture Capital Association, up from $443 million in the same period last year and $245 million in 2009, before tech investing began its rapid turnaround. Today, 10 percent of venture capital dollars comes from corporations, nearing the previous bubble-era high of 15 percent in 2000. Facebook, Zynga and Amazon.com are investing in social media start-ups. AOL Ventures restarted last year after three previous efforts, and Intel Capital expects to invest more this year than the $327 million it invested last year. Google Ventures says it has invested as much money in the first half of this year as in all of last, and Larry Page , the company’s co-founder, who became chief executive this spring, has promised to keep the coffers wide open. Corporate venture arms have sprung into action before during boom times, like the early 1980s and the late 1990s, but they have had mixed records. “When the corporate guys get involved, it usually means that we’re at the top of the market,” said Andrew S. Rachleff, who teaches venture capital at Stanford and was a founder of Benchmark Capital, the venture firm. Mr. Rachleff also questioned Google’s reliance on its algorithms. “There’s no analysis to be done when you’re evaluating a company that’s creating a new market, because there’s no market to analyze,” he said. “You have to apply judgment.” Although even Mr. Maris compares venture investing to “buying lottery tickets,” Google says it has faith in its algorithms. At the same time, it is taking the unusual step of providing the chosen start-ups with access to its 28,770 employees for engineering, recruiting and business advice, and offering office space at the Googleplex and classes on building a business. Mr. Page, who declined a request for an interview, has already promised Google Ventures $200 million this year and says a virtually unlimited amount is available, Mr. Maris said, as Google reconnects with its start-up roots. “I’ve had conversations with Larry when he says, ‘Do as much as you can, as fast as you can in as big and disruptive a way as possible,’ ” he said. Google says its approach is paying off. One of its investments, Ngmoco, was acquired by a Japanese gaming company, DeNA, for up to $400 million, and another, HomeAway, for renting vacation homes, received a warm welcome from investors when it went public last month. A third, Silver Spring Networks, a smart-grid company, filed to go public last week. Google Ventures invests in various areas — the Web, biotechnology and clean technology. It puts large amounts of money into mature companies, but it is also investing small amounts in 100 new companies this year. To make its picks, the company has built computer algorithms using data from past venture investments and academic literature. For example, for individual companies, Google enters data about how long the founders worked on start-ups before raising money and whether the founders successfully started companies in the past. It runs similar information about potential investments through the algorithms to get a red, yellow or green light. Google says the algorithms have taught it valuable lessons, from obvious ones (entrepreneurs who have started successful companies are more likely to do it again) to less obvious ones (start-ups located far from the venture capitalist’s office are more likely to be successful, probably because the firm has to go out of its way to finance the start-up.) Start-ups backed by Google Ventures can work in a 20,000-square-foot space at the Googleplex, supplied with a Ping-Pong table and a snack-filled kitchen. In exchange, they make a $5-a-month donation to the barbecue fund. But the company offers a lot more than space, say the chosen entrepreneurs. Adimab, a biotech company, is using free space on Google’s enormous servers. EnglishCentral, an English-language education site, tested its coursework and accents for Japanese speakers with employees in Google’s Japan office. Google shared a contact list for airport chief information officers with Scvngr, a mobile gaming company, when it wanted to partner with airports. Craig Walker, a serial entrepreneur who recently started Firespotter Labs, backed by Google Ventures, said a Google recruiter had helped him hire engineers. “A lot of times V.C.’s will say, ‘We’re not just money, we’re value-add,’ and I’ve always been somewhat doubtful of those claims,” Mr. Walker said. “With Google Ventures, those claims are completely justified.” Still, some entrepreneurs who have worked with Google Ventures say Google’s drive to analyze everything exhaustively, even for small investments in untried companies, slows the investment process when compared with other firms. Google Ventures also turns to Google employees to find investment ideas. It offers $10,000 to anyone who suggests a start-up that results in an investment. And the company has invested in three of the ex-Google employees who have been leaving as the company grows . Like the entrepreneurs, Mr. Maris has learned a lesson from Google: meet founders, even if their start-up idea sounds crazy. Fifteen years ago, a friend of his, Anne Wojcicki, suggested he meet a couple of engineers who were working on a start-up in her sister’s garage, but he declined. The start-up was Google, which still makes him cringe. “It’s ironic I’m running the venture business now,” Mr. Maris said, “because I missed the biggest venture idea of all time.”


Pettitte’s Pitching and Hitting Lift Yankees in Game 3

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — After the fifth inning of Game 3 of the World Series on Saturday, the Phillie Phanatic cavorted on the field at Citizens Bank Park with a band of monsters and goblins. A man in a Yankees jersey strolled by, and suddenly, the mascot and his crew cowered in fear, rushing off the field. The holiday gag, of course, was that the mere sight of the Yankees was hideous enough to scare away a pack of ghouls. But for the Philadelphia Phillies , the joke hit too close to home. The real Yankees were all too frightening, seizing a two-games-to-one lead in the World Series behind Andy Pettitte ’s 8-5 victory, bruising Cole Hamels and battering the bullpen. It is the first time in the last two postseasons that the Phillies have trailed in games. Last year at this point, they were ahead, 2-1, and preparing to face the Tampa Bay Rays’ Andy Sonnanstine in Game 4. Now they are staring down the Yankees’ ace, C. C. Sabathia. “They’ve got C. C., but oh well,” said the Phillies’ Shane Victorino. “We got him in Game 1. Why can’t we do it again?” It was meant as a rhetorical question, but the answer is obvious: the Phillies’ ace, Cliff Lee, faced Sabathia in Game 1. Now Joe Blanton will face him in Game 4, just as the Yankees’ offense is warming up. The Yankees had homers from Alex Rodriguez , Nick Swisher and Hideki Matsui on Saturday, and pivotal doubles by Swisher and Johnny Damon. But the hit that pulled them even was a single by Pettitte in the fifth inning. And that was not his least likely accomplishment. There seemed no way Pettitte would last long after he made 52 pitches through two innings. But he managed to throw just 52 more in the next four innings, and the Phillies collected only two hits after the second. “It was tough,” Pettitte said. “I’m not going to lie to you, I couldn’t put the ball where I wanted to. I wasn’t getting it down and away consistently like I wanted to, and I wasn’t able to throw my curveball for strikes. It was an absolute grind tonight.” Fortunately, Pettitte said, the Phillies had three left-handers in their lineup who could not handle his cutter. Those hitters — Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez — went 0 for 9 off Pettitte and 0 for 12 in the game. Howard has nine strikeouts in the World Series, just three shy of Willie Wilson’s 1980 record. Utley and Howard ended the first inning with strikeouts, but Jayson Werth started the second with a homer to left. With one out, the bottom of the order offered no break. Pedro Feliz doubled and Carlos Ruiz walked, bringing up Hamels. He pushed a bunt between third base and the mound, Pettitte and catcher Jorge Posada converging on it too late. Then Pettitte walked Jimmy Rollins to force in Feliz, and Victorino brought home Ruiz with a sacrifice fly. “The big play in that inning was we didn’t execute getting the out with the bunt,” Manager Joe Girardi said, adding later, “That was the reason, to me, they got the three runs.” The Phillies put their 3-0 lead in the left hand of Hamels, the reigning World Series most valuable player who retired the side in order in the third. But with one out in the fourth, Hamels walked Mark Teixeira on a fastball, down and in. “It was a strike,” Hamels insisted after the game, but by then, of course, it did not matter. Rodriguez lifted a fly to right that carried toward the corner. It seemed to be hooking foul, but struck a hard surface and caromed back to the field. The ball would not have bounced that way if it had hit the chain-link at the top of the wall. “It was tough to see from where we were,” said Swisher, who was in the third-base dugout. “But then some guys were running up in the tunnel saying, ‘Hey, it hit the camera! It hit the camera!’ ” The umpires ruled the ball in play, and Rodriguez stopped at second. But they huddled, went to the replay room and determined that the ball had, indeed, struck the front of a camera overhanging right field. It was the first replay review in the World Series — it is used only on home runs — and the umpires got the call correct. Rodriguez, also the subject of the first regular-season review in 2008, was awarded a homer, his first hit in nine World Series at-bats. The Yankees cut the lead to 3-2. “Overall, our game plan is simple — swing at strikes,” Rodriguez said. “If I swing at strikes, I can do a lot better.” Hamels threw no curveballs the first time through the Yankees’ order, when he allowed no hits. But the lack of a third pitch has hurt Hamels, and he started trying a curveball in earnest in the fifth inning. Hamels said his curveballs were hitting their spots. But Nick Swisher rapped one down the left-field line for a leadoff double in the fifth, and with one out, Hamels threw a first-pitch curveball to Pettitte, a career .134 hitter. “It’s a 0-0 count in a bunting situation to a pitcher who hasn’t hit all year,” Hamels said. “I know, as a pitcher myself, I wouldn’t swing at a first-pitch curveball.” Pettitte said that with a runner in scoring position, he wanted to be aggressive and slap the ball somewhere. He said Hamels’s curveball was high, allowing him to dump a single to shallow center to score Swisher. It made Pettitte the first Yankees pitcher to drive in a run in the World Series since Jim Bouton in 1964, a distinction that Sabathia, an enthusiastic hitter, had hoped would be his. “I’ve got to do something,” Sabathia said. “That’s what Andy was just telling me: ‘I put some pressure on you.’ ” The score was 3-3, and Hamels was broken. Derek Jeter punched a single to center in front of a sliding Victorino. Then Damon lashed a fastball to the gap in right center, bringing in Pettitte and Jeter, the go-ahead run and insurance. Pettitte and Jeter have won four titles together, but they have never scored runs like this, one in front of the other. Pettitte, in fact, had scored only once before as a Yankee. “I could have caught him,” Jeter said. “It would have been embarrassing, I think, for him. But what can you say? He pitched, he hit, he did everything today.” Hamels walked Teixeira again, and that finished his night. He left to boos that gave way to some cheers, but Hamels is clearly frustrated. He answered wave after wave of questions after the game, calm and composed, yet defeated. Hamels had given up five runs on five hits in four and a third innings, and his postseason earned run average is 7.58 in four starts. Last year, in five starts, it was 1.80. He pitched aggressively until the end Saturday, firing first-pitch strikes to each of his last 13 batters. But it did not help. “Sometimes you can’t do anything right,” Hamels said. “You can do what you’re supposed to do, and unfortunately, the results go against it.” The bullpen was not much better. Swisher homered in the sixth off J. A. Happ. Posada knocked in Damon in the seventh, flicking a two-out, full-count single to left off Chad Durbin. With two outs in the eighth against Brett Myers, Hideki Matsui smoked a pinch-hit homer to left. The Phillies’ offense could not sustain that pace. After Hamels’ single in the second, they had just one more hit until the ninth, a homer by Werth in the sixth. That made Pettitte’s pitching line look ordinary — six innings, four runs — but those were just numbers. Pettitte found a way to do his job, keeping the game steady, allowing his offense to take over. It was his 17th postseason victory, but that history meant nothing as he earned it. “It’s hard to draw on past success or whatever when you’re standing out on that mound and the ball is not going where you want it to,” Pettitte said. “It’s a grind when you’re out there and you’re by yourself. There’s not a whole lot of anything that can help you, except trying to just keep battling.” That is what Pettitte did, as he has done so many times before. He pulled his cap down and kept working, and when he was done, the Yankees were leading in the game. Now they are leading in the World Series, with their best pitcher starting Sunday.

Baseball
World Series
New York Yankees
Philadelphia Phillies
Hamels Cole
Pettitte Andy
Swisher Nick
Rodriguez Alex
Matsui Hideki


Rays' Price Makes Impressive Debut in Tradition-Filled Setting

Abstract: He arrived early Saturday to the big leagues at its biggest stage, making a beeline toward Yankee Stadium and capturing the moment and images on his cellphone. That was not enough, so David Price also arrived early Sunday to sneak another peek, this time at Monument Park. It followed simple order that Price, the Tampa Bay Rays ’ No. 1 overall selection in last year’s amateur draft, would make his major league debut early and for the long haul in Sunday’s 8-4 loss to the Yankees . With Rays starter Edwin Jackson allowing six runs and recording only six outs, a wobbly-kneed, strong-armed, emotion-filled Price jogged onto the mound to take over in the third inning. “I felt like I was about to fall off the mound there,” Price said. He didn’t. Instead, Price retired the side in order, and did the same the next inning, firing a fastball that often crackled into the mid-90s. In the fifth inning, Derek Jeter welcomed Price into the Stadium’s record books. Jeter tied Lou Gehrig for most hits at Yankee Stadium with his 1,269th, a home run to lead off the fifth inning. Price, a 6-foot-6 left-hander taken after his junior season at Vanderbilt, allowed another run in the seventh inning when Wilson Betemit singled in Alex Rodriguez. In five and a third innings, Price struck out four and allowed three hits, walking none. More important to Rays Manager Joe Maddon, he backed up a battered Jackson and kept his team within striking distance. “I think it just reaffirmed what we thought of him,” Maddon said. “All we really wanted to do was stretch him out a little bit and make sure that he didn’t go out there and regress. He did a great job, showed us some good composure and was able to save our bullpen.” As far as debuts go, there was no win or loss to commemorate it. But memorable it was, amid a burden of lofty expectations. After his first inning, Price said, “I wasn’t nervous anymore, and I was all right.” Price, 23, made a rapid ascension through the Rays’ minor leagues, starting his professional career in Class A Vero Beach. He was recalled over the weekend from Class AAA Durham, which had been eliminated from playoff contention. In 19 minor league starts in the regular season, he had a 12-1 record and a 2.30 earned run average. In the long run, Price will not be coming in from the bullpen too often. His role down the stretch this month, however, will be molded as the season concludes. “Obviously, he will be a starter in the future,” Maddon said. “I thought today’s showing was a positive sign, and we’ll see how he progresses. It’s good to have someone like that in your back pocket.” Good in that a hard-throwing left-hander is at his disposal with the Rays’ eyes cast toward their first playoff appearance in franchise history. And also reassuring. “Like a handkerchief,” Maddon said.

Price David
Baseball
Tampa Bay Rays
New York Yankees
Yankee Stadium (NYC)
debuts


With Iowa Swabian Hall, a Farmer’s Quest for Perfect Pig

Abstract: IONIA, Iowa — There once was a young boy who built motorcycles with his father, raised pigs for Iowa county fairs and eventually fell in love with computers when his fingers first tapped on a Teletype portal in middle school. He would write programs to help with eighth-grade algebra and use ASCII code to create images resembling Playboy centerfolds. When he grew up, he would parlay his ingenuity into a career of building Internet portals for cities and computer networks for big companies. He would spin another business from a whim and a joke — building aquariums out of old Macintosh computers. And when he reached his mid-40s, rather than settle into his career, he embarked on a new unconventional endeavor, one he hopes will revolutionize an industry. Carl Edgar Blake II has tried to breed the perfect pig. Fatty and smooth. Meaty and flavorful. He crossed a Chinese swine, the Meishan, with the Russian wild boar — emulating a 19th-century German formula created when King Wilhelm I imported the fatty Meishan to breed with leaner native wild pigs in what is now the state of Baden-Württemberg. They called that one the Swabian Hall. With dark and juicy meat, it assumed a place among Europe’s finest swine. Mr. Blake, 49, has bet that his 21st-century American version — the Iowa Swabian Hall — can be equally delectable. The early reviews have been promising. Two years after his operation began, his pig won a heritage pork culinary contest in 2010, Cochon 555 in San Francisco . Image Some of Carl Edgar Blake II’s pigs, an Iowa Swabian Hall, left, and a Meishan sow, at a finishing farm. Credit Stephen Mally for The New York Times “It was great meat,” said Staffan Terje, the chef and owner of Perbacco in San Francisco, who prepared Mr. Blake’s pig for the competition. “It was rich in flavor and well-marbled,” said Michael Anthony, the executive chef at Gramercy Tavern in New York, who cooked dishes for his restaurant with an Iowa Swabian Hall. At a glance, Mr. Blake would hardly be considered part of the upscale culinary culture. His 6-foot-2-inch balloonlike frame, and his beard, ponytail and signature overalls with the left strap unslung (he owns a dark pair for funerals), scream more André the Giant than Jean-Georges. He shoots guns and soaks in “hillbilly hot tubs” (dig a hole, lay a tarp, fill with water and dive in). Then again, Mr. Blake has long taken pride in his unconventionality. “I can build a motorcycle, I can fly a model airplane, I can throw somebody out of a bar, I can wrestle a pig and I can program a computer,” he said. “I’m a strange duck, that’s for sure.” His leap into the heritage pork business started when he read an article online about a popular breed, the Mangalitsa, that a businessman was raising in Washington State. Unable to buy any of the businessman’s stock, Mr. Blake began researching heritage pigs and said he discovered that the Swabian Hall regularly outperformed other fine swine in taste contests. Image A Russian wild boar. Credit Stephen Mally for The New York Times After asking around, he eventually found Meishan hogs that Iowa State University was using for research and bought several of them. He bought a Russian wild boar named Hercules from a hunting reserve. In November 2009, the first Iowa Swabian Hall pigs were born. They are floppy-eared with black fur, broad jowls, a thick rump, creased foreheads, and long bodies and snouts. When butchered, they have a broad slab of ivory fat to go with deep red meat, the antithesis of the “other white meat” craze when the pork industry moved toward leaner hogs. But Swabians have not been universally admired. Herb Eckhouse, the owner of La Quercia , a cured meat manufacturer near Des Moines, made prosciutto from one of Mr. Blake’s pigs and said he would not work with them anymore because they were too fatty. He said he was having difficulty selling the meat. “We found that we preferred other breeds to that breed for their flavor,” he said. Criticism is among the smallest bumps in Mr. Blake’s porcine journey. He has had to wrestle aggressive pigs and once even shot one. State inspectors have visited, demanding to see his wild boars out of concern that he possessed them illegally. The police have responded to accusations of maltreated pigs. The gaunt backs of his Meishan pigs were normal, the result of their belly fat stretching the skin, he said he told the police, who were initially skeptical. “You ain’t taking them over my dead body,” Mr. Blake said he told the authorities, who, after further investigation, let him be. Image Mr. Blake, proud of his unconventionality, has a “man cave” at his farm, right. Credit Stephen Mally for The New York Times There was even a suspected case of poisoning, Mr. Blake said. One morning in the middle of 2009, two men — one tall, one short — showed up in a black truck at a farmstead where Mr. Blake kept his pigs, he said. The family living there thought the men were friends of Mr. Blake’s, and they entered the barn with a black satchel. About a week and a half later,he said, his sows were birthing dead piglets. At one point, Mr. Blake said, his herd had grown to more than 1,200. But the numbers have since decreased sharply through sales, samples he gave away and some hitches in the raising process. There was one instance, he said, when a man he had hired to raise the pigs botched a castration, leaving one testicle attached. Mr. Blake also struggled to finance his operation, which he calls Rustik Rooster Farms . He went to banks, the government, angel investment groups and individuals but could not get anyone to invest. Things became so dire that one day last summer he had decided to quit, only to receive a call the next morning from a producer of the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods,” saying the network wanted to feature him in an episode. The episode was broadcast on Monday, and Mr. Blake said he has been inundated with calls from people across the country wanting pigs and bacon. Over the past year, Mr. Blake has stepped back from his operation to regroup. He has hired Amish farmers in eastern Iowa to raise his pigs so he can focus on the marketing and sales. Several times a week, with a Rockstar Energy Drink in hand, he slides into a red, rusted 1994 Toyota pickup truck to make the five-hour round-trip journey from his headquarters here to the farmers’ rolling pastures. By March, he said, he hopes to have about 50 of his Swabians market-ready — he sells them for $3.75 to $4.50 per pound. Within the next seven months, he said, he hopes to have enough pigs to begin selling them weekly. In the meantime, he is supporting himself by selling bacon, beef sticks, novelties like bacon floss and bandages, and roasting pigs for special events. But Mr. Blake is never quite satisfied. He speaks giddily of the hydroponic chambers (not “hippie hydroponics,” he says) he uses to make barley to feed his pigs, and of a “super pig” he is breeding — one with the tasty qualities of the Swabian that can be raised at the speed of commercial pigs. For now, he is not saying much more than that. “I think we’re on the verge of something,” he said.

Pork
Pig
Agriculture
Iowa
Carl Edgar Blake II


For Tigers, Cabrera Is Complete Package, Handled With Care

Abstract: DETROIT — The call came to Dave Dombrowski’s home around Thanksgiving in 2007, and he knew that was unusual. Dombrowski, the president and general manager of the Detroit Tigers , does not usually hear from his boss at home. But Mike Ilitch, the pizza mogul who owns the Tigers and the N.H.L.’s Red Wings, had read that the Florida Marlins were shopping their superstar first baseman, Miguel Cabrera. Dombrowski confirmed the rumor. “Well, can we get him?” Ilitch said. “Don’t you think he’d look good in a Tigers uniform?” Of course, Dombrowski said, but he would not fit into the budget. “Well, let’s see what we can do,” Ilitch replied, and Dombrowski understood. Two weeks later Cabrera was a Tiger, and before his first game for the team, he signed an eight-year contract worth $152.3 million. Since then Cabrera has been the best hitter in the American League. He is more than halfway to 3,000 hits and 500 homers, and he is only 28. “I think he’s going to be right up there in the top five of all time,” said the Tigers’ hitting coach, Lloyd McClendon, who may be right. Only five players in major league history have had 1,500 hits and 250 homers, while hitting .310 or better, through their age-28 season. They are Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols and Cabrera. That is heady company, but Cabrera said he did not think much about his place in history. “It’s too early,” he said Friday night after the first victory of a three-game sweep over the Cleveland Indians. “You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow or next month or next year. I’ve got to live for a lot of years. I live day by day, one day at a time, and try to do my job.” That phrase — one day at a time — may have been a throwaway athlete cliché. But it is also a mantra that has long helped recovering alcoholics. And while Cabrera has never publicly called himself an alcoholic, two incidents in the last three years have threatened to undermine a prolific career. On the final Saturday morning of the 2009 season, with the Tigers’ playoff hopes fading fast, Dombrowski took another surprise phone call about Cabrera. Dombrowski was summoned to pick up Cabrera at the Birmingham, Mich., police station. Cabrera’s wife had called 911 after the couple fought, and the police said Cabrera’s blood-alcohol content was 0.26 percent. Three months later, Cabrera denied that he had an alcohol problem but said he had made a mistake and was speaking by phone with a counselor. Dombrowski said he believed Cabrera did not have another drink until this February , when he was arrested in Fort Pierce, Fla., and jailed on suspicion of drunken driving. The police report said Cabrera drank from a bottle of Scotch in front of an officer and repeatedly refused to cooperate. (A hearing has been delayed until Sept. 15.) When Cabrera reported to camp, five days after the rest of the position players, he apologized and said, “It was just one bad decision on my part.” He has not discussed the subject since, limiting his interviews to baseball topics. Raul Gonzalez , a former major leaguer who serves as Cabrera’s sober companion in a program established by Major League Baseball and the players union, does not speak with the news media. Dombrowski would not detail Cabrera’s program but said there were strong checks and balances, and for Cabrera to play, he must comply. Cabrera has played every game this season. “When you’re not with somebody 24 hours a day, and I guess even if you were, you’d still have some concerns,” Dombrowski said. “So, sure, there is always a concern. Do I think he’s committed? Yes. Do I think he’s doing everything he possibly can? Yes. Is there still some concern something could happen? Sure. That’s why they call things addictions. They’re hard.” The former pitcher Dickie Noles , a recovering alcoholic who is the Philadelphia Phillies’ employee assistance professional, said it would be foolish to assume a player was sober because he performed well on the field. “People can function,” Noles said. “I mean, look at Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mantle functioned for a long period of time — or did he? I think if we really looked at alcohol the way we should, Mickey would have gotten help a long time before he did.” More recent stars, like Dennis Eckersley and Josh Hamilton, have shared their stories of addiction as part of their recovery. However Cabrera has defined his problem — in public or in private — his teammates believe it is under control. “We all know what kind of a guy he is,” catcher Alex Avila said. “We were just concerned with making sure he was all right. Once everybody felt that he was, it wasn’t even an issue. It’s like normal.” Avila was 12 when he first met Cabrera, in the summer of 1999. Avila’s father, Al, now the Tigers’ assistant general manager, was the Marlins’ scouting director when Cabrera signed from Venezuela for $1.8 million at age 16. Cabrera was a shortstop then, but Avila said he was already physically imposing. He would fill out to 6 feet 4 inches and 240 pounds, and learned his swing from an uncle, David Torres , who had played in the minors. Cabrera’s mother was a softball star and his father also played baseball, giving Cabrera exceptional instincts. “He’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever been around,” Avila said. “A lot of times when you’re playing the field, it’s easy just to get lost in the game and not really know what’s going on. But he knows, and the way his mind works, he’s a baseball player, not only hitting, but also defense, base running, even pitch-calling. He might see things a hitter is doing that I can’t see. “There’s times I have looked at him, and I can tell, by the way he’s looking at me, ‘Well, I should probably call this pitch.’ He’s just very knowledgeable.” McClendon said Cabrera could recite pitch sequences from months before. Younger hitters talk with him about the mental side of hitting, but Cabrera is so gifted there is little they can emulate from his swing. Outfielders Brennan Boesch and Austin Jackson both called Cabrera a natural, with extraordinary opposite-field power. Because of that, pitchers use extreme caution, feeding Cabrera a diet of slop. He has more walks than strikeouts this season, for the first time in his career, and only Jose Bautista has a better on-base percentage in the American League. “When he stays in the strike zone, he’s as good as anybody,” Manager Jim Leyland said. “When he doesn’t swing at balls, he can be a wrecking crew.” Cabrera has been especially dangerous lately, hitting .380 during a 17-game hitting streak that ended Sunday. He seems perfectly at peace in the Tigers’ clubhouse, where his locker is the closest to the dugout tunnel, in the corner of the room, where he sees everything. On Saturday, he stood within a group of reporters huddled around Brandon Inge, a veteran just back from the minors. Cabrera waited for a few questions, then interjected an urgent one of his own: “Do you wash your hair with shampoo? Pert Plus? O.K., that’s good to know.” He walked away, smiling and cackling, another fun day at the ballpark with a game starting soon. As always, Cabrera would show up to play. Whatever else he has dealt with since February, he has always done that. “I always thank God for giving me an opportunity to go out there every day,” Cabrera said. “When you play every day, you’re able to do something. When you don’t play, you’re able to do nothing. I would say I’m lucky.”

Baseball
Cabrera Miguel
Detroit Tigers
Dombrowski Dave
Florida Marlins
Ilitch Mike


Bhutan Faces an Important Test of Press Freedom

Abstract: NEW DELHI — In what rights advocates regard as an important test case for press freedom in Bhutan, a prominent journalist is facing a defamation suit for sharing a Facebook post documenting a property dispute involving a local businessman. The journalist, Namgay Zam, has been accused of libel by the businessman, Sonam Phuntsho, in what Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay has called a landmark case that could shape proposed restrictions on social media usage in Bhutan. The post includes allegations that Mr. Phuntsho had garnered favors from the country’s judiciary, where his son-in-law is chief justice. Ms. Zam, a former television presenter with the state-run Bhutan Broadcasting Service, and the woman who wrote the post, Shacha Wangmo, face a maximum fine of about $38,000 — around 15 times the country’s annual per capita income — or up to three years in prison if convicted. Ms. Zam and Ms. Wangmo presented evidence at a district court in Thimphu, the capital, on Monday. Known for its adherence to “gross national happiness,” a development indicator that values levels of well-being over economic indicators such as gross domestic product, Bhutan was considered a success story in South Asia when it held peaceful democratic elections in 2008, after a century as an absolute monarchy. But some say the case exposes fault lines in the country’s record of protecting its constitutional freedoms of speech and of the press. Because many public officials and institutions have ties to the popular royal family, journalists cite a high level of self-censorship that deters Bhutanese from criticizing the elite. A 2014 report from the Journalist Association of Bhutan found that a majority of the 119 respondents felt “unsafe” covering certain types of events. Many of the respondents also said it was difficult to gain access to information in the country, citing few resources and little institutional support. Ms. Zam said that because of her actions she had been called “antinational” by some sections of Bhutanese society. “What’s not coming out in national media comes out in social media, and oftentimes, it is the truth,” she said in an interview. “Media freedom is diminishing. We had our high point in 2008, during the first democratic elections, but it’s just been a downward spiral since then.” Sarah Repucci, senior director of global publications at Freedom House , a nonprofit group that releases an annual report on press freedom, said the case could affect Bhutan’s rating on the list, which she said was “consistently mediocre.” “We have not in recent years documented cases specifically against journalists,” she said, but she noted that certain topics in Bhutan, including the expulsion of thousands of residents of Nepalese descent from the country, are still considered taboo. Mr. Phuntsho’s son-in-law, Dasho Tshering Wangchuk, the chief justice of Bhutan, said in an interview that he believed free speech existed in the country, but that social media “guidelines” were needed, in part to protect the “sovereignty and security” of a small country like Bhutan, which is sandwiched between the regional superpowers, China and India. “This particular social activist is a very popular young lady and a lot of impressionable young people follow her,” he said of Ms. Zam. “For them, whatever she writes is the gospel truth. That becomes dangerous.” “Like in the judiciary, also, you must have your code of ethics,” he said, referring to the state of journalism in the country. “The court will not force them to divulge some source. But then we must all remember that your fundamental rights are not absolute. It’s subject to reasonable restrictions.”

Freedom of the press
Social Media
Bhutan
Defamation
Facebook
Namgay Zam