With the Spotlight on a Rival, St. Jude Medical Shines

Abstract: No one can say yet whether Boston Scientific or Johnson & Johnson will win the fight to buy Guidant. But St. Jude Medical, Guidant's fast-growing rival in the booming business for heart-regulating implants, might be sorry to see the battle end. St. Jude had a memorable 2005, thanks in part to the spotlight's glare on Guidant. The takeover battle has helped lift St. Jude's shares -- up more than 50 percent since last April -- because many investors assume that whichever company loses Guidant may turn its attention to St. Jude. And that could invite competitive offers from other health care giants like Abbott Laboratories that have been expanding in the device business. The takeover fight, and attendant questions about how much Guidant is really worth, have also buoyed St. Jude by continually reminding the world of Guidant's run of product recalls and its failure to warn doctors promptly about problems with its devices. Guidant's stumbles, at a time when St. Jude had already positioned itself to gain market share with new products and an expanded sales force, helped St. Jude surge last year to more than 20 percent of the market for cardiac defibrillators and related devices, from about 12 percent. While still No. 3 behind Guidant and the market leader, Medtronic, St. Jude moved closer to Guidant, whose share in 2005 is estimated to have slipped to around 25 percent from more than 35 percent the previous year. "Lucky AND Good" was the headline on a client note last week by Thomas J. Gunderson, the device industry analyst at Piper Jaffray & Company in Minneapolis. In it, he raised his 12-month target for St. Jude's shares to $60, from $49. The past year's rise in St. Jude shares, which closed yesterday at $53.77, continued a long-running winning streak. The shares are up more than 600 percent since the beginning of 2000, making the stock one of the top performers in medical technology. On Tuesday, Daniel J. Starks, St. Jude's chairman, chief executive and president, told investors and analysts at a J. P. Morgan health care conference in San Francisco that a change in ownership of Guidant would not break St. Jude's momentum. "Nothing will happen that will be unfavorable to us," he said. But a settled and resurgent Guidant could make it hard for St. Jude to live up to Wall Street's current expectation that St. Jude will continue to gain share in the $10 billion market for cardiac rhythm devices. "There's little room for error," said Mark Landy, who follows device companies for the Susquehanna International Group, a brokerage firm in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. A clear example of how Guidant's troubles may not continue to be St. Jude's blessings can be seen at the Veterans Health Administration, operator of the nation's largest group of hospitals and a major buyer of cardiac rhythm devices. The annual renewal date in the agency's contract for those devices, worth about $75 million last year, is this coming Sunday. Last week, the agency told Guidant it would not renew its supply agreement, apparently leaving Medtronic as its sole contract supplier for now. Despite heavy lobbying by St. Jude, the agency has not yet indicated whether it plans to conduct a new round of bidding. And even if the agency does call for new bids, Guidant would be able to compete, too. Guidant is temporarily restrained by a warning letter the Food and Drug Administration issued Dec. 22, which prevents the company from introducing new products until regulators say it has dealt adequately with concerns listed by the agency's inspectors. Guidant has said that process could be completed within six months, although others, including Boston Scientific, are assuming that the restrictions will be in place for a year. Still, preliminary fourth-quarter sales figures released this week by Guidant suggest that the decline in its market share may have already leveled off. St. Jude has argued that Guidant's woes have played only a minor role in its own surge. But market events indicate otherwise. Last February, well before the Guidant defects became public knowledge last spring, St. Jude had forecast that it would increase its share in implantable cardioverter defibrillators, or I.C.D.'s -- the market segment most closely watched by Wall Street -- by two to four percentage points annually for the next five years. The defibrillators, which cost $20,000 to $30,000, regulate hearts that are beating too rapidly or chaotically -- in contrast to pacemakers, which primarily speed up hearts that are beating too slowly. Because defibrillators have been implanted in only a small portion of the population that could benefit from them, they have become the fast-growing segment of the cardiac rhythm management market. After Guidant's problems were publicized, St. Jude's defibrillator sales accelerated, jumping 68 percent in the third quarter alone, to $277 million. Guidant's defibrillator sales during that same quarter fell 26 percent, to $330.6 million. Many hospitals and doctors seeking an alternative to Guidant turned to St. Jude rather than increasing their reliance on Medtronic, which controls roughly half the overall market. "You don't want to put 100 percent of one company in," said Dr. Kenneth A. Ellenbogen, an author of textbooks on heart devices and a cardiac electrophysiologist at the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Dr. Ellenbogen said that St. Jude's share of the implants at the Virginia Commonwealth University hospital rose to about 14 percent last year, from 6 percent. But an additional 8 percent share will be harder to come by. "We're not likely to expand our St. Jude share much further unless new products drive it," said Dr. Ellenbogen, who has implanted all three makers' devices. "Guidant has good products and good technology." If St. Jude cannot continue to expand its market share, the company's momentum will then largely depend on how fast the market grows. St. Jude and some analysts say I.C.D. implants could grow at 20 percent or more annually for up to five years and at double-digit rates for many years after. But others have their doubts; the devices are so expensive that the cost of providing them to all patients currently classified as candidates would approach $40 billion. "It's hard to believe that type of growth in spending will not be met by some resistance from payers," said Larry Biegelsen, an analyst for Prudential Equity Group, in an investor note last month. Indeed, the largest insurer, Medicare, is already pushing doctors to use new diagnostic tests that might help identify patients least likely to benefit from an I.C.D. St. Jude executives are quick to stress there is more to their company than defibrillators and other cardiac rhythm management devices. The company, based in St. Paul, was founded as a maker of artificial heart valves nearly 30 years ago by Manuel Villafana. He chose the name because surgeons had saved the life of his infant son, Jude, for whom friends and family had been praying to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. St. Jude remains a major player in the heart valve market, and its Angio-Seal division is the leader in devices that close the small holes that doctors poke in patients when inserting catheters in their veins. St. Jude has also been acquiring smaller companies that it hopes can become big businesses in the future. Several of those deals have led to a portfolio of products that cardiologists are beginning to use to isolate malfunctioning electrical circuits in the body that cause atrial fibrillation, a form of irregular heartbeat, which is linked to clot formation and strokes that afflict 2.2 million Americans a year. And in May, it acquired Velocimed, a start-up developing a device that closes a common congenital hole between the sides of the heart -- a condition that doctors think may be the source of many unexplained strokes and severe migraine headaches. Most notably, St. Jude paid $1.3 billion in November to acquire Advanced Neuromodulation Systems. That company is second only to Medtronic in sales of pacemaker-like systems that are attached to the spinal cord to treat chronic pain and a range of other conditions. Wall Street and the device companies say that they believe that sales of spinal, brain and other nervous system stimulators, already nearly a $1 billion market, will more than double by 2010. For now, though, cardiac rhythm devices account for more than two-thirds of St. Jude's sales, which rose 28 percent, to $738 million, in the three months that ended Sept. 30. And those devices are the basis of most investor excitement about its prospects. Consistency also plays a role. Before last year, St. Jude had been quietly attracting fans on Wall Street who admired its unbroken string of meeting or beating quarterly earnings forecasts since 1998. Now, the still unfolding Guidant story poses a challenge to St. Jude's continued predictability. As Mr. Starks said at Tuesday's session with analysts, "This has really been surprise after surprise after surprise to me."

BOSTON SCIENTIFIC CORP
JOHNSON & JOHNSON INC
GUIDANT CORP


Elwin Wilson, Who Apologized for Racist Acts, Dies at 76

Abstract: Elwin Wilson, a former supporter of the Ku Klux Klan who made repeated apologies late in life for racist acts he committed decades earlier — including the bloody beating of a civil rights worker who later became a member of Congress — died on Thursday at a hospital in South Carolina. He was 76. He had suffered from heart and lung problems and recently had the flu, his wife, Judy, told The Associated Press in confirming his death. In the spring of 1961, the group known as the Freedom Riders arrived at the Greyhound bus station in Rock Hill, S.C., as part of their effort to end segregation in the South. When two Freedom Riders, John Lewis, who was black, and Albert Bigelow, who was white, entered a waiting area at the station that was designated for whites only, they were quickly assaulted by a group of young white men. One of them was Mr. Wilson. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Bigelow did not fight back, and they declined to press charges. Over the next five decades Mr. Lewis became a prominent civil rights activist, and in 1987 he became a Democratic congressman from Georgia; Mr. Bigelow, a pacifist who once tried to sail into a nuclear testing area near the Marshall Islands to protest the testing, died in 1993 ; and Mr. Wilson said he had an awakening after President Obama took office. Mr. Wilson said in an interview in 2009 that a friend had asked him, “ ‘If you died right now, do you know where you would go?’ I said, ‘To hell.’ ” Seeking forgiveness, Mr. Wilson called The Rock Hill Herald in 2009 to say that he was one of the men who had led the bus station beating and that he had committed other violent acts — against, among others, civil rights workers holding lunch counter sit-ins. Only then did Mr. Wilson learn that one of his victims had become a member of Congress. Mr. Wilson traveled to Washington and met with Mr. Lewis, who quickly expressed his forgiveness. “He started crying, his son started crying, and I started crying,” Mr. Lewis said in an interview on Monday. The two men made a handful of appearances together over the next two years, including one on the Oprah Winfrey show, and received awards from groups that promote social reconciliation and forgiveness. Mr. Wilson, who spoke slowly and with a thick drawl, once told CNN: “Well, my daddy always told me that a fool never changes his mind and a smart man changes his mind. And that’s what I’ve done and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m not trying to be a Martin Luther King or something like that.” He added: “I never would have thought I could apologize to this many people. I feel like I’m apologizing to the world right now.” In addition to his wife, Mr. Wilson’s survivors include a son, Christopher. Mr. Lewis said that he had not remembered the faces or known the names of the men who beat him that day in 1961, but that he believed Mr. Wilson was “very sincere” in his apology. He noted that the apology from Mr. Wilson was the first he had received for the violence committed against him in the civil rights era — and he said he had never questioned whether to accept it. “It’s in keeping with the philosophy of nonviolence,” he said on Monday. “That’s what the movement was always about, to have the capacity to forgive and move toward reconciliation.”


Decline in Stop-and-Frisk Tactic Drives Drop in Police Actions in New York, Study Says

Abstract: The overall number of arrests, stops, moving violations and criminal summonses issued in New York City has fallen substantially over the past four years, according to a study released on Friday. The decrease in those law enforcement actions, to 1.82 million in 2014 from a peak of 2.63 million in 2011, was driven primarily by a steep decline in the use of the tactic known as stop-and-frisk , according to the study, which was conducted by the Misdemeanor Justice Project at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The routine use of the tactic, which was heralded as a key anti-crime strategy, is recorded at far lower levels today, after a federal court found in 2013 that it was used excessively and unconstitutionally. The drop indicates progress toward a goal articulated in March by Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, to decrease annual law enforcement actions by one million by the end of 2015 compared with recent years. He has called it a “peace dividend,” and says officers are encouraged to use greater discretion in exercising their authority and to improve relations between the police and the communities they serve. Encounters between the police and the public began to decline under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, and has continued under Mayor Bill de Blasio and Mr. Bratton. Mr. Kelly was a critic of reducing stop-and-frisk use, and predicted that it would lead to a rise in crime. Instead, the police said, overall crime has dropped, as has the number of complaints filed against police officers with the Civilian Complaint Review Board . “The concurrent decline in these three categories tends to contradict the claims by some that fewer stops will necessarily result in more crime,” the Police Department said in a statement. “In fact, these studies clearly indicate otherwise.” Stop-and-frisk policing was a late iteration of a lengthy trend of increased enforcement that began in response to rising crime and the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s. The technique disproportionately affected men, young people and racial and ethnic minorities, as has the shift away from such tactics over the four-year period ending in 2014, according to Jeremy Travis, the president of the college. “The changes by demographic group are just stunning,” he said. “The experience with police for young people growing up now is markedly different, especially for young men of color, than those in the past decade.” But the effect of declining enforcement rates may not be immediately felt in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods like Brownsville, Brooklyn, where memories of the stop-and-frisk days linger and residents view a police presence warily. Some are concerned that excessive enforcement has shifted to areas where they are harder to detect — moving violations, for example. About a million moving violations summonses are issued each year, and they made up more than 58 percent of enforcement actions in 2014, according to the study. Researchers said data on moving violations was available only for the four-year period ending in 2014 and could not be broken down based on demographics, leaving questions about how those violations are issued. The study was released amid concern over the use of force prompted by a number of high-profile police killings of unarmed civilians and by the Black Lives Matter movement. The study looks at patterns of how police interaction with the public has changed over the last 12 years, starting with the earliest data available in 2003 and continuing through 2014, and breaks down the data by age, race and gender. The researchers also examined crime data from 1980 through 2014, noting how both crime and enforcement have changed. They left inferences about possible relationships between the two phenomena to others, including the public and policy makers. The study found that overall enforcement peaked in 2011, then decreased in following years. In addition to stops, the decline also reflected fewer criminal summonses and misdemeanors. “I think what this report does is it chronicles the emergence of a new era in policing where you do precision policing and keep citizen contact low,” Richard M. Aborn , the president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, said. “There have been questions about whether you can do both, and I think this shows that you can.” African-Americans and Hispanics were subject to nearly 90 percent of the 4.4 million stop-and-frisk actions made from 2004 through 2012, despite constituting around half of the population. The city had already begun curtailing the practice when the 2013 federal ruling was made, and its use has dropped to 2.5 percent of total enforcement actions, from 26 percent in 2011, according to the study. The 2014 stop-and-frisk rate lagged behind rates for moving violations, criminal summonses, and misdemeanor and felony arrests. The police made 45,787 stops in 2014, compared with a high of 685,724 in 2011. By comparison, in 2014 police officers made 89,306 felony arrests. While the effectiveness of the stop-and-frisk tactic remains a hotly debated topic, the decline in stops and other enforcement actions is unequivocally positive, Mr. Travis said. “These actions are by definition negative, whether you’re being arrested, issued a summons or stopped and questioned,” he said. “So when we think about the consequences of those interactions to the mutual trust and respect of police and civilians, fewer negative interactions is a good thing.”

Search and seizure
Racial profiling
NYPD
William J Bratton
Police
Race and Ethnicity
NYC
Crime
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Civilian Complaint Review Board


Geelong Rebounds and Rises to the Occasion

Abstract: Geelong stamped itself as one of the great teams in the history of Australian rules football as it won its second championship in three years in an epic Australian Football League Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Geelong had won 63 of its previous 69 matches, a run to match anything in the 113-year history of the competition. Yet, following its Grand Final loss to Hawthorn last year, another loss Saturday would have stamped it as a team that failed on the big occasion, along with Essendon, which dominated the game around the start of this century but won only one title, twice failing in the playoffs. But it left no doubt about its quality with an 80-68 victory over St Kilda, the team that topped the regular season standings. “Footy” is played by squads of 22, of whom 18 are on the field at any time, on a 150-meter long oval. It is a demanding game at the best of times. On Saturday, with torrential rain making the field slippery, the ball greasy and effectively eliminating the game’s great glory, the high catch, it was incredibly tough. It may not have been a great spectacle, but it was a gripping contest between two teams who had proved themselves incontestably the best in the game. The final margin did the losers no justice. Twelve points was the highest margin at any time in a fluctuating game. Geelong scored its last six-point goal — which is scored when the ball is sent between the inner of two sets of posts — following the final hooter. St Kilda led at the end of the first three of four 25 minute quarters — first by two points, then six, then seven. There were long periods in the last two quarters with the score tied. Geelong struck the decisive blow when it broke a 67-67 tie with a goal five minutes from time by Paul Chapman, later awarded the Norm Smith medal for most valuable player. It followed brilliant build-up play by Gary Ablett, who earlier in the week was declared winner of the Brownlow Medal for the best player across the regular season. The championship trophy was awarded to Geelong’s captain, Tom Harley, by club legend Bob Davis, a member of its 1951 and 1952 championship teams and coach of its 1963 winners. Chapman deserved his prize, but it might equally have gone to defender Harry Taylor, who brilliantly marked St Kilda’s captain and star Nick Riewoldt, restricting him to a single goal. Remembering their own agony last year, every Geelong player and coach made a point of complimenting St Kilda. Chapman told Australian television: “After last year we didn’t want to go through that again. You’ve got to feel for the Saints.” It was a bitter loss for a club that is historically the game’s great loser. St Kilda has 26 last place finishes and only a single championship, in 1966. Its titles are outnumbered by the cricket legends — Keith Miller and Shane Warne — who have played for it. This year it made a serious run at Australian Football’s first ever perfect season, winning the first 19 of its 22 regular season matches, before losing to Essendon by two points. By then it was well past the previous club record of 16 victories in a season. It is as well that the final margin made the controversial decision to award Geelong a first half goal although the ball had struck the post — which meant it should only have been a “behind,” worth a single point — irrelevant. St Kilda missed several opportunities during the first-half, when it dominated and should have taken a decisive lead. Instead it never led by more than 10 points, and those failures came back to haunt it. Riewoldt, speaking from the presentation stage post-match, told his team: “Remember how much this hurts. Bottle it and use it to motivate yourself.” “Next year” has become an incantation for St Kilda fans over long periods of failure — often said ironically or with resignation, sometimes as early as the second or third game of a season, when it is clear “this year” will bring only more disappointment. This time, though, it will be said with real belief.

Geelong
Soccer
Australia
Australian Football League


Knicks’ Streak Ends, and Playoffs Slip Further Away

Abstract: The Knicks paid dearly for a poor second-half performance Sunday night. Goodbye winning streak. With time running out for the Knicks to make a playoff push, they fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers, 106-100, at Madison Square Garden. Despite leading by 17 points in the second quarter, and by 15 points at halftime, the Knicks lost their momentum. The defeat ended an eight-game winning streak for the Knicks (29-41) as they prepared for a crucial five-game trip starting Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Lakers. The defeat was more deflating because the Atlanta Hawks had lost earlier in the day, giving the Knicks a chance to creep closer in the race for a playoff spot. Instead, the Knicks remained three games behind the Hawks for eighth place in the Eastern Conference, with 12 games remaining. The Knicks seemed to lose intensity in the second half. Maybe they should have learned from Friday night in Philadelphia, where they nearly squandered a 17-point lead late in the game before holding on to beat the 76ers by a point. This time, they could not escape. Coach Mike Woodson said he had sensed immediately that the Knicks were flat when the third quarter began, calling a timeout less than a minute into the quarter. But the Cavaliers kept building momentum, and the Knicks never got it back. “I thought we came out to start the third quarter so slow,” Woodson said. “They scored the first 5 points and then we decided we wanted to play. We just didn’t look right.” Jarrett Jack was the Knicks’ nemesis Sunday night, finishing with 31 points and 10 assists on 13-of-19 shooting. Knicks point guard Raymond Felton could not contain Jack on the pick-and-roll, and the Cavaliers knew it. So they went to Jack repeatedly on the pick-and-roll, and Jack kept delivering. His final basket was the most important. With the Cavaliers clinging to a 102-100 lead, Jack drove to his right on Felton, pulled up and made a jumper to put the Cavaliers ahead, 104-100, with 24.7 seconds to play. The Knicks went to Carmelo Anthony (32 points on 8-of-20 shooting), but Anthony went cold down the stretch. He was called for a charge on the next possession with 15.3 seconds to play, and the Knicks realized they were in trouble. Image The Knicks led early but faded in the second half. Credit Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images They will have to play crisper basketball if they are to resume winning out west. Once Anthony’s touch failed him, the Knicks could not find enough offense to keep the Cavaliers from coming back. Dion Waiters (22 points) also had a strong game for Cleveland. “They were more hungry in the second half,” said Knicks guard J. R. Smith, who finished with 18 points. “We let them set the tempo instead of us setting it. The situation we’re in, we can’t afford that. Huge opportunity lost, one we can’t afford. But we can’t get it back.” Smith made two free throws with 2 minutes 2 seconds left that reduced Cleveland’s lead to 4. But Jack answered with a jumper to put the Cavaliers back up by 6. Smith hit a floater in the lane that cut Cleveland’s lead back to 4. Then, after a Cavaliers miss, Anthony drew a foul with 42.2 seconds to go. He made both free throws to pull the Knicks to 102-100. But that set up the final sequence, when Jack took control. The Knicks faced a Cleveland team that was missing point guard Kyrie Irving (strained biceps). The Cavaliers refused to concede they were done after falling behind. “Coach gave us a pretty good talking to at halftime,” Jack said of Mike Brown. “He challenged us. He lit a fire underneath us. The guys responded.” Before the game, Woodson talked about how important it was for the Knicks to remain focused, regardless of whether Atlanta won or lost. “It’s good if they lose, but again, it’s about what we do at this point,” Woodson said. “Our focus is not on Atlanta or Charlotte. It’s on the Knicks and how we’re playing and competing. Every game is important. We just don’t have any room for error. We’re trying to get in.” The Knicks erred Sunday night, losing a game they expected to win. Their margin for error got even smaller, with a five-game trip ahead. REBOUNDS Raymond Felton said he was playing with a hyperextended right thumb, but would continue to play. “It’s a little swollen, but whatever,” he said. “It’s no time to sit out.” ... Mike Woodson said before the game that Phil Jackson, the Knicks’ president, was in Los Angeles, and would be there when the team arrived for its game Tuesday.

Basketball
Cavaliers
Knicks
Jarrett Jack
Raymond Felton
Carmelo Anthony


New Mexico: Fines Over Los Alamos Papers

Abstract: The Energy Department proposed $3.3 million in fines against managers of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory because of a security breakdown in which classified documents were found in a trailer-park drug raid in northern New Mexico . The bulk of the civil penalties, $3 million, was levied against the University of California, the longtime former manager of the laboratory. The penalties were the largest such fines the department has ever imposed. The enforcement action stems from an incident in October 2006, when the police found more than 1,000 pages of classified documents and several computer storage devices in a trailer occupied by a former worker at the laboratory. The papers were found during a police drug raid that focused on another person living in the trailer.

Atomic Weapons
New Mexico
Classification of Information


Postseason Tickets Could Prove Costly for Yankee Fans

Abstract: With the best record in baseball, the Yankees look destined to qualify for the playoffs and perhaps reach the World Series for the first time since 2003. That has some Yankee fans quaking in their seats. After raising ticket prices for nonpremium seats by 86 percent this season, the Yankees will soon announce prices for their playoff tickets. If history is any guide, fans could end up paying 50 percent more than what they paid for regular-season tickets if the Yankees make it deep into October. Yankee fans, hungry for the postseason after missing out last year, may be begrudgingly preparing to pay what it takes. “I don’t think they will raise prices too much because of the backlash they got on the regular- season tickets ,” said Michael Bahn, a season-ticket holder since 2003. “The problem is, for the playoffs, they have you over a barrel and you really want to go.” The Yankees, though, can raise prices only so high. Each summer, Major League Baseball sets a suggested ceiling for ticket prices for the first two rounds of the playoffs. The teams, which are now sending the league their proposed prices, can ask to set prices even higher. And while Major League Baseball itself sets prices for most tickets in the World Series, teams retain complete control over the price of their premium seats and suites throughout the postseason. So what the Yankees might ultimately charge in October for their famously priced premium seats that now go for $2,500 and $1,250 a game remains to be seen. In fact, the new Yankee Stadium, with its multitude of pricing tiers and premium seating compared with the old Stadium, could provide extra logistical challenges in October. To keep things simple, clubs normally lump sections that might be priced differently during the season — like an infield box seat and an outfield box seat — into broad categories in October. And the postseason prices of more expensive tickets tend to rise at a slower rate than the prices of cheaper seats. For example, a field-level seat in Philadelphia that cost $44 during the regular season last year rose to $70 during the division series, a 59 percent increase. An outfield seat that cost $24 during the season jumped 66 percent, to $40, in the first round. In Boston, field-box seats that went for $125 during the regular season cost just $5 more for the first round of the playoffs. Seats on the Green Monster remained at $160. Outfield grandstand seats, though, were $55, $25 more than in the regular season. Bob DuPuy, baseball’s president and chief operating officer, said that given the weak economy, playoff tickets may not be dramatically more expensive this year. “The information we’ve gotten back to date has suggested that they’ll be closer to the regular-season prices this year,” said DuPuy, who added that World Series ticket prices would probably be unchanged from last year, when the field-level seats in Philadelphia cost $225 each. DuPuy said the price of World Series tickets are based partly on the price of regular-season tickets in each stadium and partly on other equivalent events, like the Super Bowl and Broadway plays. “I’m not sneezing at the fact that $225 is a lot of money compared to a lot of other tickets,” he said. DuPuy declined to speculate on what the Yankees’ tickets will cost. In 2008, the Yankees were going to increase prices by roughly the same amount as other teams had they made it to the postseason. A $95 field-box seat during the first round would have cost 19 percent more than the $80 price during the regular season. If the Yankees had made the A.L.C.S., tickets would have cost $125, 56 percent more than during the regular season. If the Yankees had made the World Series, field box seats would have cost $250 each, more than triple their regular-season price.

Baseball
New York Yankees
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Yankee Stadium (NYC)
Playoff Games
Major League Baseball
DuPuy Bob


Europe Feels Snubbed by Obama

Abstract: PARIS — President Obama ’s decision to skip a United States - European Union summit meeting scheduled for Madrid in May has predictably upset European officials, who suggested Tuesday that the summit meeting itself would now be postponed, possibly to the autumn. In addition to the palpable sense of insult among European officials, there is a growing concern that Europe is being taken for granted and losing importance in American eyes compared with the rise of a newly truculent China . European Union officials found out about the decision through the news media late on Monday, senior European officials said Tuesday morning. The decision was first reported on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal . The Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero , who is scheduled to arrive in Washington this week on a visit, was described as angry and embarrassed, and European officials said there was a set of high-level diplomatic exchanges overnight. The White House explained the decision as a matter of scheduling, insisting that the May visit to Europe was never on the president’s agenda, so it could not be said to have been canceled. European officials said that two senior American officials — the under secretary of state for political affairs, William J. Burns, and the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Philip H. Gordon — had attended a preparatory meeting for the summit meeting two weeks ago in Madrid, and that there was no hint then that Mr. Obama would decide not to attend. But a senior American official said that Mr. Gordon and Mr. Burns emphasized to Spanish officials, when the meeting was raised, that they “were not in a position to commit to one.” In fact, the official said, the Obama administration has been “pursuing and getting a better relationship with Spain and the new E.U.,” with Mr. Zapatero visiting Washington twice. Speaking for Mr. Obama, Mr. Gordon told journalists in Washington on Monday that the trip to Spain “was never on his agenda.” The president had “traveled more to Europe in his first year probably than any president has ever done in the past, and he looks forward to continuing his engagement bilaterally with European allies and directly with the European Union.” Mike Hammer, the spokesman for the National Security Council , said that while there were no plans for the trip to Madrid, “the president is committed to a strong U.S.-E.U. partnership, and with Europe in general,” on topics like Afghanistan , counterterrorism, the global economy and climate change . Indications that Mr. Obama might forego the conference emerged in Davos, Switzerland , from foreign ministers who attended the global economic forum there. One senior European official suggested that after the loss of a Senate seat to the Republicans in Massachusetts , Mr. Obama would be doing less traveling to supposedly glamorous spots like Europe that would only feed Republican criticism. American officials said that Mr. Obama felt that the previous major American-European summit meeting, last June in Prague , was a waste of time, and European Union officials said that the president even skipped a leaders’ lunch at the smaller European Union-United States meeting in Washington last November, sending Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. instead, something they said that President George W. Bush would never have done. Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform, a London -based research center, said that the Obama decision “is a useful wake-up call for the E.U.” He said the European Union must realize “that no one will court them or have summits with them because Europe is a nice idea. “They need to deliver.” Mr. Obama sees Europe as an important ally, but “Obama clearly has no emotional identification with Europe,” Mr. Grant said. “He has a cool, analytical view of allies and partners, but when the Europeans can’t provide much to help America solve global security problems, he doesn’t want to spend too much time on it.” The president of the European Commission , José Manuel Barroso , tried to play down the issue, saying he understood that, after “repeated trips to Europe and several meetings with European leaders,” Mr. Obama “now needs to cut down a bit on his foreign traveling.” He added that the group would “work with the United States to find a mutually agreeable date for the summit.” Europe and NATO have provided troops for Afghanistan, but not many more since Mr. Obama took office, particularly measured against the new American buildup. Europe is divided on Russia and the Middle East , and has been very helpful on Iran , but mostly bilaterally. “It’s unusual, and Europeans will be offended,” said Nicole Bacharan, a professor of political science at the Institut d’Études Politiques. “But for Obama, there is no urgency about the relationship with Europe. Europe works fine and he needs to refocus on urgent matters.” Relations with China have taken on new importance with the economic crisis, a confrontation over climate change and arms sales to Taiwan . Mr. Obama is also trying to push China to support harsher sanctions on Iran in the United Nations Security Council , which Beijing has been reluctant to do. With the absence of Mr. Obama, the summit meeting is likely to be canceled. Mr. Obama is scheduled to come to Portugal in November for a NATO summit meeting, so it is possible that the European Union meeting will be rescheduled to coincide with that. It might also be rescheduled if there is a new nuclear arms-control treaty for Mr. Obama to sign with Russia. The State Department spokesman, P. J. Crowley, said in Washington on Monday that the transition to a new leadership of the European Union after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty might have been a factor. “Because of the changes involving the establishment of a E.U. council president and a European Commission president on top of the rotating E.U. presidency, I think it’s taking some time to work through exactly how various high-level meetings will happen. But we look forward to ongoing dialogue.”


News From the Advertising Industry

Abstract: Accounts ■ Ashley Furniture HomeStore, Arcadia, Wis., the retail home furnishings chain, named two agencies that are part of the McCann Worldgroup division of the Interpublic Group of Companies to handle tasks that had been handled by Zimmerman Advertising, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., part of the Omnicom Group. Spending was estimated at more than $125 million. McCann Erickson New York, part of the McCann Erickson Worldwide division of McCann Worldgroup, was named lead strategic, creative and social agency. And Compass Point Media, Minneapolis, part of the Campbell Mithun division of McCann Worldgroup, was named to handle media planning duties. Media buying duties remain at Icon International, Stamford, Conn., part of Omnicom. ■ Cigna, Bloomfield, Conn., hired two agencies to handle tasks that had been handled by Hill Holliday, Boston, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Spending was estimated at $47 million. McCann Erickson New York, part of the McCann Erickson Worldwide division of another Interpublic unit, McCann Worldgroup, will handle the creative duties. OMD, New York, part of the Omnicom Media Group division of the Omnicom Group, will handle the media duties. ■ Sotheby’s, New York, named TBWA Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group, its global lead brand agency after working for the last two months with the TBWA London office on a project basis. No agency handled those duties previously. Adweek.com estimated spending at $15 million to $20 million. ■ Twitter, San Francisco, selected Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, part of the Omnicom Group, to create a campaign centered on the 2014 World Cup and to promote Twitter features like “hashflags,” in which a hashtag followed by a three-letter country code for a nation playing in the World Cup causes a tiny flag of that country to appear after the text. Billings were not disclosed. The agency may also create other campaigns for Twitter. ■ The North American consumer business of Georgia-Pacific, Atlanta, owned by Koch Industries, added four agencies to its roster; they are being assigned brands that were handled by DDB Worldwide, New York, part of the Omnicom Group, and the Atlanta office of Eric Mower & Associates. Billings were not disclosed. The brands and their new agencies are Angel Soft and Vanity Fair, Deutsch L.A., part of the Deutsch division of the Interpublic Group of Companies; Brawny, Cutwater, San Francisco; Quilted Northern and Dixie, Droga5, New York; and Sparkle, the Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., also part of Interpublic. DDB and Mower remain on the Georgia-Pacific agency roster, a spokeswoman said, “but don’t have any current assignments from the brands.” ■ Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, Parsippany-Troy Hills, N.J., chose agencies to handle its creative and media accounts after handling those duties internally. Spending was estimated at $7 million. The creative assignment was awarded to SS&K, New York, and the media assignment was awarded to Allscope Media, New York. ■ Shinola, Detroit, named Mediahub, Boston, part of the Mullen unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, its media agency of record. Billings were not disclosed. The account was previously handled by SwellShark, New York. People ■ Mark Cibort joined Trailer Park, Hollywood, Calif., as president of Trailer Park Digital, a post created after divisions specializing in tasks like mobile digital publishing were combined. Mr. Cibort most recently was vice president and group managing director at R/GA, New York, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Miscellany ■ CBS Television, part of the CBS Corporation, has become the first big English-language broadcast network to say that it was nearing an end to its sale of commercial time before the start of the 2014-15 television season in what is known as the upfront market. In a statement on Friday, CBS said that its executives were “very confident that CBS has once again achieved the highest pricing and most total dollars.” A CBS spokesman declined to discuss details like the rates the network was charging; trade publications reported that CBS had obtained rate increases but that they were generally lower than those the network obtained during the 2013-14 upfront market. The statement from CBS applied to its sale of commercials during prime-time programs and excluded its new slate of Thursday-night football games, which is being sold separately. (Some networks include sales of commercial time during prime-time football games when reporting upfront results, and some do not.) The CBS statement leaves ABC, CW, Fox and NBC still negotiating with advertisers and agencies in the 2014-15 upfront market; NBC is about 50 percent done. ■ Fox Television Stations and Fox Stations Sales, which like Fox Broadcasting are units of 21st Century Fox, signed long-term agreements with Rentrak, under which Rentrak will provide its local-market television ratings services to all 28 Fox-owned television stations in 18 markets around the country. Financial terms were not disclosed. This is the first time that an entire group of owned-and-operated local stations — that is, stations owned by a major broadcast network — will receive Rentrak ratings; CBS signed up earlier for Rentrak ratings for four of its local-station markets. Rentrak is seeking to sign large clients to compete against Nielsen. ■ Blick & Staff Communications, St. Louis, agreed to be acquired by O’Malley Hansen Communications, St. Louis. Financial terms were not disclosed. Harriet Blickenstaff will serve as a consultant to O’Malley Hansen, and Rini Ader, president of Blick & Staff, based in New York, becomes senior vice president of O’Malley Hansen and remains there. Other Blick & Staff employees will join O’Malley Hansen in St. Louis and Chicago. ■ Golin Harris, Chicago, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, was renamed Golin. ■ The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, opened an office in London. ■ Online video advertising spending in the United States will grow substantially this year, according to a report from eMarketer, but will remain dwarfed by television advertising spending. Online video ad revenue is projected to be $6 billion, up 41.9 percent from 2013, eMarketer reports, while television ad revenue will total $68.5 billion, up 3.3 percent. For 2015, eMarketer forecasts that online video ad spending will grow 30.4 percent from 2014, to $7.77 billion, and television ad spending will grow 3 percent from 2014, to $70.6 billion. ■ Internet advertising revenue in the United States during the first quarter was $11.6 billion, up 21 percent from $9.6 billion in the same period a year ago, according to the quarterly I.A.B. Internet Advertising Revenue Report, setting a record for a first quarter. The report was released by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S. ■ Magna Global, part of the IPG Mediabrands unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, slightly revised its December forecasts for 2014 advertising spending. The estimate for worldwide ad spending this year compared with last year was reduced, to a gain of 6.4 percent compared with the previous forecast of 6.5 percent. The estimate for United States ad spending this year compared with last year was revised upward, to a gain of 6 percent compared with the previous forecast of 5.5 percent. ■ ZenithOptimedia, part of the Publicis Groupe, slightly revised its April forecasts for 2014 advertising spending. The estimate for worldwide ad spending this year compared with last year was reduced, to a gain of 5.4 percent compared with the previous forecast of 5.5 percent. The estimate for United States ad spending this year compared with last year was reduced, to a gain of 4.8 percent compared with the previous forecast of 4.9 percent. ■ Retail sales of licensed merchandise in the United States and Canada last year totaled $115.8 billion, up 3.3 percent from 2012, and generated royalty revenue of $5.7 billion, up 3.3 percent from 2012, according to the annual Licensing Industry Survey from the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association, New York. ■ A campaign for Procter & Gamble’s Old Spice brand that was composed of three commercials was named Best in Show for Advertising Excellence in a campaign at the 2014 A.I.C.P. Show, administered by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, New York. The winners were Steve Rogers, the director; two production companies, Biscuit Filmworks and Revolver; and the advertising agency, Wieden & Kennedy. A commercial for Volvo trucks was honored as Best in Show for Advertising Excellence in a Single Commercial; the winners were the director, Andreas Nilsson of Folke Film, and the ad agency, Forsman & Bodenfors. ■ Ming Utility and Entertainment Group, New York, was opened by two executives of the McCann Worldgroup division of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Linus Karlsson and Brian DiLorenzo. Mr. Karlsson, who will be chairman and chief creative officer of Ming, continues as creative chairman of the Commonwealth division of the McCann Worldgroup, and Mr. DiLorenzo, who will be chief executive of Ming, will continue as chief production officer at McCann Worldgroup. Tara DeVeaux has also joined Ming, as president; she had been executive vice president and senior account director at BBDO, New York, part of the Omnicom Group. ■ Radius Global Market Research, New York, expanded its operations in the Middle East with an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. ■ Publicis Groupe, Paris, sold back a 60 percent stake in Royalties, Paris, to the founders of the agency. Financial terms were not disclosed. ■ Eleven major public relations agencies, in a joint statement, said they would refrain from editing Wikipedia entries of clients without following Wikipedia procedures. The statement came after months of tension between the Wikimedia Foundation and the public relations industry over efforts by some agencies — mostly smaller independent firms — to edit entries. Among the agencies signing the statement were Burson-Marsteller, Edelman, FleishmanHillard, Ketchum and Porter Novelli.

advertising,marketing
Ratings
TV
Online advertising
2014 World Cup


Yankees’ Debate Over Starter Isn’t New

Abstract: On the eve of a pressure-packed Game 4, the manager of the Yankees again answered questions about his beleaguered starter . He trusted him enough to give him the ball for a critical postseason start. No matter how poorly he had pitched, the manager was not changing his mind: Kenny Rogers was going to start. This was in the 1996 World Series, when Rogers worked two disappointing innings in a game the Yankees stormed back to win. Catching him that night in Atlanta was Joe Girardi , who in this American League Championship Series confronted a similar decision to his predecessor, Joe Torre. His own erratic pitcher, A. J. Burnett, will pitch Game 4 against Texas on Tuesday night, and Girardi said he was hoping for — and thought he would get — better results. “I think as players, we tend to always believe in each other because we have been through ups and downs,” Girardi said when asked about the Yankees’ frame of mind heading into Rogers’s start 14 years ago. “We have seen where you can’t buy a hit for 10 days and then you go 13 for 20. We’ve all been through that.” Just as it was back with Rogers, the perception exists that the Yankees are doomed with Burnett pitching, that they should start C. C. Sabathia on short rest. “I hear it everywhere, but I’m really not paying attention to it,” said Burnett, when asked whether he thought he would be passed over for Sabathia in Game 4. Heading into that Game 4 outing, Rogers had a 10.80 earned run average and had not pitched past the fourth inning in either of his two postseason starts. Rogers also knew that, no matter what, the Yankees would be trailing in the series when he climbed the mound. That is also true this time for Burnett and the Yankees, who trail, 2-1, after Monday’s 8-0 loss. “It’s just the mind-set of believing in every pitch and throwing every pitch with conviction,” the pitching coach Dave Eiland said. “When A. J. does that, he’s successful. When he tries to pitch away from contact, things don’t really go the way he wants them to.” Not much has gone the way Burnett has wanted it to, at least not over the last four months. In 22 starts since June 4, Burnett was 4-13 with a 6.48 E.R.A . He is past the point of offering explanations or excuses, and what will be a 16-day break between appearances does not qualify. Over the last two weeks, he has prepared for Tuesday by throwing often, but facing hitters only once, in a simulated game last Wednesday, when he hit two batters. “I’ve told people: my seasons have been similar,” said Burnett, referring to 2009, when he went 13-9 and won Game 2 of the World Series. “The only difference is that I have three or four good games toward the end last year where everybody is more confident. But I feel great. I feel like I’m where I need to be.” Maybe so, but he was not where he needed to be at 4:15 Monday afternoon, at the interview room at Yankee Stadium. He walked in 45 minutes late because he lost track of time. He was out buying Halloween costumes for his sons. GUESSING GAME Rangers Manager Ron Washington played a hunch Monday. Instead of using the right-handed-hitting Jorge Cantu at first base against the left-hander Andy Pettitte, Washington started the left-handed-hitting rookie Mitch Moreland, who is 4 for 8 with three runs batted in this series. “Doesn’t matter to him if it’s left or right,” Washington said. “The name of the game is to put runs up on the board, and he’s the guy that’s producing runs.” He produced a two-run single in the Rangers’ six-run ninth inning Monday.

Baseball
New York Yankees
Playoff Games
Girardi Joe


Scores of SAT Taken at Packer Collegiate Institute Are Invalidated

Abstract: Nearly 200 students who took the SAT at a Brooklyn private school this month had their scores invalidated by the company that administers the test, apparently because some students were seated too closely together, school officials said Wednesday. The decision enraged administrators, students and parents at the school, Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights, who said they were being punished for a technicality. Students who needed the results for their college applications will have to take a new test, at no cost. “We are disciplining the people responsible for the administration of the test and making sure these adjustments are made,” said Bruce Dennis, the head of Packer. “But all of that could have been done without invalidating the test. To do this to 200 kids is unconscionable.” The Educational Testing Service , which administers the SAT on behalf of the College Board , confirmed that 199 scores from the exam were canceled after an audit of the testing site, but declined to say why. Mr. Dennis said the school’s E.T.S. liaison was told by the company that some of the students had been too close together; they were supposed to be at least four feet apart. The liaison said there were other administrative issues, Mr. Dennis said. Though the school said no misbehavior had been found, testing services have been on increased alert since a large cheating ring was uncovered on Long Island last year , involving test-takers’ impersonating other students. Tom Ewing, a spokesman for E.T.S., said that the company routinely conducted unannounced audits and that their frequency had not increased significantly. Mr. Ewing acknowledged that it was unusual for every score from a site to be thrown out. “Typically we will get cancellations for a room,” he said. “But issues that affect an entire test are more rare.” Students from nearly 50 schools took the SAT at Packer on May 5; 63 students came from Packer, the most of any school. The earliest they can retake the test is Saturday; another test is scheduled for June, though many students were planning to take SAT subject tests then. One student, Maddie Fraser, a junior, was in tears after finding out her score had been canceled. Since the SAT, she has taken two Advanced Placement tests , visited a college and has begun preparing for two SAT subject tests and her finals. “She was looking for some breathing room this weekend,” her mother, Mary Butler, said. Now Maddie has three days’ notice to prepare for the test again, which she fears will affect her score. “I would never expect to have a four-hour exam I had been preparing for all year not count,” she said. “It’s very disrespectful of the work I’ve done.” Packer will provide breakfast and transportation on Saturday to Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island, one of two places in New York City the makeup test is being given. Sandra Clifton, a learning consultant who proctored the exam at Packer, said the auditor mentioned nothing about the desks during her visit. Ms. Clifton asked why the auditor did not allow the school to fix the problem before administering the test. “That’s a travesty to those students,” she said. Packer’s juniors have been complaining on Facebook, and seniors have been consoling them. Many juniors had been invited to a senior party on Friday night — there was talk of rescheduling. Ms. Butler told her daughter she would be a part of SAT history, a character in high school lore. “She did not appreciate that,” she said.

SAT (College Admission Test)
Packer Collegiate Institute
Education (Secondary)
Tests and Examinations
College Board
Educational Testing Service
New York City
Education (K-12)


Bill’s Place in Harlem Bringing Bebop Back Home

Abstract: Around 8 p.m. on a recent Saturday, a few dozen people were gathered in a narrow, dimly lit Harlem brownstone. Couples smoked in the backyard beneath Christmas lights; a group of Chilean expats sought a corkscrew; a man and his young son searched for seats. From the basement downstairs, Bill Saxton, a bebop saxophonist, could hear the anticipatory chatter. All these people had come to his place. A few minutes later, standing with his band in the tiny parlor, he honked his sax loudly. The track lights dimmed. “Welcome to Bill’s Place ,” he told the crowd. Every Friday and Saturday night, 148 West 133rd Street becomes a B.Y.O.B. jazz club that is perhaps the only underground spot left in a neighborhood that once teemed with them. Mr. Saxton boasts that visitors come from all over the world, drawn by word of mouth (and, increasingly, reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor). Upon entering, guests are greeted by Joseph Landon, the club manager and a family friend of Mr. Saxton. (Mr. Landon calls him “Unc.”) He accepts the $20 cover charge and opens any alcohol that patrons have brought. Mr. Saxton, 68, is an accomplished saxophonist. He grew up in Harlem when a curious kid could walk from 145th Street down to 125th and hear music every step of the way. During the neighborhood riot of 1964, Mr. Saxton “ended up with” his first saxophone — missing the neck and mouthpiece — and he mastered it during an 18-month stint at Auburn State Prison. “Something bad happened to me that turned into something good” is how he puts it. “When I came out of there, any song I heard, I could play.” In 1969, Mr. Saxton matriculated at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he helped found a social arts club, the Black Avant Garde, and began gigging with other jazz musicians. Over the next four decades, he traversed the globe, playing with the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Clark Terry and Tito Puente. In 2004, Mr. Saxton and his wife, Theda Palmer Saxton, a writer, bought the building on West 133rd Street, intent on opening a jazz club. The place was in disastrous shape, but a “supernatural” vibe pulled the Saxtons in. During the Prohibition era, the block was the site of a number of speakeasies, cabarets and jazz clubs. It was New York’s original Swing Street, where figures like Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Gladys Bentley and Willie “The Lion” Smith retreated after hours. No. 148 was Tillie’s Chicken Shack and, later, Monette’s Supper Club, where, legend has it, the record producer John Hammond first heard a 17-year-old Billie Holiday. The music you hear today at that address retains some of the urgency of the past. On that recent Saturday night, in the minute room that held the stage was, 10 people sat a mere two feet from the performers. The rest of the audience crowded into the adjoining room to watch via a pass-through window, cozied up to sweating bottles and one another. The drums, keys, bass and saxophone were engaged in a loud, athletic call and response, each snare rasp greeted by the low thwack of an upright bass, every tinkling piano chord answered by the bleat of a tenor sax. Mr. Saxton, in a porkpie hat, tapped his left foot as he played, his fingers flying. The big gold ring on his right pinkie caught the light. Between songs, he relayed the history of the brownstone, up to his arrival. “I was in the right place at the right time,” he said. “Kind of like Billie Holiday.”

Jazz
Music
Harlem
Bill's Place in Harlem


On Way to 60, Creamer Birdies 9 of Last 11 Holes

Abstract: Paula Creamer said she knew she was playing well, but she just did not know she was close to golf’s magic number of 59. Creamer birdied 9 of the last 11 holes, including the final three, for a course-record 60 over the par-71 Highland Meadows layout Thursday in the opening round of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic in Sylvania, Ohio. “I didn’t know it was a par 71,” Creamer said with a laugh. “I thought it was a par 72. If I would have known that, who knows?” Creamer would have had to hole out a 137-yard 7-iron from the fairway to shoot 59, although she did not realize it at the time. She made a 20-foot birdie putt on her last hole. Only a handful of players have reached 59 in a competitive round on the PGA or L.P.G.A. Tours. But the 21-year-old Creamer seemed oblivious that she was so close to making history. It was Creamer’s lowest L.P.G.A. round by four strokes, and it matched the L.P.G.A. record for nine holes with a 27 on the home half. Annika Sorenstam set the L.P.G.A. mark with a 59 in the second round of the 2001 Standard Register Ping on a par-72 course. Creamer became the fourth Tour player to shoot 60 — the others are Meg Mallon (2003 Welch’s/Fry Championship on the par-70 Dell Urich Golf Course in Tucson), Jung Yeon Lee (2004 Welch’s/Fry) and Anna Acker-Macosko (2004 Longs Drugs Challenge on the par-71 Ridge Golf Course in Auburn, Calif.). Eun-Hee Ji and Gloria Park each shot a 65 and were largely overlooked in the wake of Creamer’s round. Eva Dahllof and Young Kim had 66s. Play was suspended for the day because of lightning and heavy rain. The remaining 21 players will finish their rounds beginning at 7:15 a.m. Friday before second-round play begins. PERRY CONTINUES RUN Kenny Perry continued his best run in more than two decades on the PGA Tour, firing a six-under 65 in the first round of the John Deere Classic that put him one stroke off the lead in Silvis, Ill. Perry, who won two events last month, was behind Ken Duke and Charlie Wi in a tie for third. Play was delayed briefly in the morning due to lightning in the area and again for 1 hour 55 minutes in the afternoon. MICKELSON AND ELS STRUGGLE Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els failed to break par in the first round of the Scottish Open, and Alexander Noren of Sweden and Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand shared the lead with seven-under 64s. Ángel Cabrera, the 2007 United States Open champion, was third with a 65. Mickelson had a 71, and Els was at 72. 64 LEADS ANDERSON EVENT Frank Fairman and Nathan Smith, the defending championship team from Punxsutawney Country Club in Pennsylvania, shot a six-under-par 64 to lead the championship division in the first round of the John G. Anderson memorial event on the East Course of Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y. They were followed by of 65s by Blair and Kelly Miller, a father-son team from Pine Needles N.C., and by Ken Weixel and Mike Kelley of the New Albany, Ohio, Country Club. In the senior division, Jerry Greenbaum and Mark Rubin of the Adios Golf Club in Florida, led with a 66.

Creamer Paula
Sorenstam Annika
Golf
Ladies Professional Golf Assn


Fractured State of Pakistani Taliban Calls Peace Deal Into Question

Abstract: LONDON — When the Pakistani Taliban said they were willing to make peace, many Pakistanis were skeptical that the militants had truly abandoned their dream of transforming the country into an Islamic caliphate. But since talks with government negotiators officially started last month, the question is not just whether the Taliban wish to deliver a deal, but whether they even can. An eruption of violent rivalries and internal disputes in the past month has strained the militants’ cohesion, cast doubt on their ability to make peace, and raised the prospect of a militant surge into Afghanistan. Most immediately, an outbreak of infighting between rival Taliban commanders in the hills of Waziristan left at least 40 militants dead and exposed a violent rift in the movement’s operational heartland, according to Taliban members and locals. That fight stemmed from a leadership crisis that started with an American drone strike in November that killed the group’s commander and inflamed internal arguments — including a debate over whether to prioritize the fight against Pakistan’s army, or to send more fighters into Afghanistan as American troops are leaving. And a series of bomb attacks during a supposed six-week cease-fire has raised the possibility that the very idea of making peace has divided the Taliban, with militant cells splintering off rather than speaking with the government. “We will know where the Taliban stand when they put their demands on the table, but I’m not hopeful,” said Asad Munir, a retired army brigadier and former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency’s Peshawar office. “There are so many complications. Ultimately, I don’t think these talks can succeed.” Despite their ferocity, the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have never been a very united fighting force. Since its formal emergence in 2007, the group has been an umbrella organization for Islamist militants — estimates run from 15 to 30 organizations — scattered across the tribal belt along the Afghan border. The unruly coalition was held together by the steely grip of leaders from the Mehsud tribe and anchored in the jihadi havens of North and South Waziristan where a wide variety of Pakistani and international militant groups hold sway. But the American drone campaign loosened the Mehsud dominance, with missile strikes that killed Baitullah Mehsud , the Pakistani Taliban founder, in 2009; his deputy, Wali ur-Rehman, in May of last year; and the second leader, Hakimullah Mehsud , in November. Now the Taliban is led by a lame-duck figure, Maulana Fazlullah, who has struggled to keep his commanders in line. Mr. Fazlullah came to power in November with solid hard-liner credentials — his supporters had flogged criminals and attempted to kill Malala Yousafzai, the teenage activist — but a less impressive military record. He was driven from his native Swat Valley, 200 miles northwest of Waziristan, by a Pakistani military operation in 2009. Now, according to Pakistani and Afghan officials, he is sheltering in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar. “Fazlullah is not a strong leader because he was defeated, he left Pakistan and he remains across the border,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran journalist who helped the government make initial peace overtures to the Taliban. The Taliban chose Mr. Fazlullah, many believe, to quell feuding between rival factions of the Mehsud tribe. But the violence hardly abated after Mr. Fazlullah’s nomination, and it began looking like an all-out turf war in Waziristan this month. Taliban fighters ambushed each other’s camps, bombed convoys, and took prisoners over six days of tit-for-tat bloodletting in the same remote, forested valleys where C.I.A. drones have attacked militant compounds. By the time tribal elders brokered a hasty truce earlier this month, 40 to 60 people had been killed according to most estimates. Ostensibly the fighting stemmed from a simmering rivalry between two hotheaded commanders — Khan Sayed Sajna, a onetime contender for the Taliban leadership, and Shehryar Mehsud — who are battling for dominance of the Mehsud wing of the Taliban. Mr. Sajna, considered the stronger of the two, sent a message to his rival that “there cannot be two swords in a single sheath,” according to a senior Taliban commander. But the fight was about more than clashing egos. According to militant and Western officials, the Sajna group is partly funded by the Haqqani network, a notorious militant group that uses its base in the Pakistani tribal areas to mount audacious attacks on civilian and military targets in Afghanistan. The network’s leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, wants to draw more Mehsud fighters into his fight against the Afghan government; as a result, he is pushing the Taliban to make peace in Pakistan. As ever in tribal politics, money is a deciding factor: The Haqqani network draws on the proceeds of a vast criminal and fund-raising empire that spans Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf states. The Haqqanis also enjoy a close relationship with the ISI intelligence agency, which has cultivated ties for decades, although the extent of the Pakistani influence remains an open question among experts. Mehsud tribal elders also favor negotiations. Weary of years of war, including Pakistani military bombardment and the displacement of tens of thousands of villagers, community leaders are pressing the Taliban to talk to the government, said government officials and Waziristan residents. The Taliban’s fractious nature also leaves it vulnerable to other, mutually hostile influences. Foreign jihadists from Al Qaeda and Uzbekistan, who live among its members in North and South Waziristan offer money and a fanatical ideology. And recently, Afghan intelligence has gotten in on the act, hoping to steer the Taliban away from Afghanistan. In Kabul, former and serving government officials described a policy of sanctuary and limited financial assistance to Taliban factions that wish to resume fighting inside Pakistan. “It is about convincing these guys about who they should be bothering,” said one former official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “If they want to cause problems in Pakistan, that is something that is not going to be discouraged.” The Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, has penetrated the Taliban most successfully at the eastern end of the border with Pakistan, where Mr. Fazlullah and his supporters are hiding. Afghan officials said Mr. Fazlullah has received sanctuary and some money; one of his spokesmen is frequently found outside nearby Jalalabad. Another Pakistan Taliban operative lives under the spy agency’s protection in Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province, where he produces militant propaganda videos. The embryonic Afghan attempt to cultivate proxies within the Pakistani Taliban is a response to a widespread perception that the ISI intelligence agency is trying to push the war from Waziristan into southern Afghanistan as American troops withdraw. “They want to move all the vipers and snakes on to the Afghan side and let them fight it out here,” said the former Afghan official. Equally, though, Afghan officials recognize that Taliban factions are highly unreliable allies. And a Western analyst cautioned that it would be a mistake to see the Taliban purely as puppets of the various spy agencies in the region. “They’ll take money from whoever is handing it out, as long as it suits them,” the analyst said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But they’ve very much got their own mind.” As ever, though, militant alliances are constantly shifting and reliable information is hard to obtain. Ascertaining the exact motivation of competing factions can be akin to Soviet-era Kremlinology. Mr. Fazlullah’s weakness is just one factor in decision making. Unlike the rigidly hierarchical Afghan Taliban, Pakistan’s insurgency has a decentralized, almost acephalous quality in which most power rests with the ruling shura, or leadership council. And the tribal strife comes against a background of unprecedented Taliban expansion in the rest of Pakistan. In the past year, the movement has expanded its reach in Karachi, strengthened ties to like-minded militant groups, and increased fund-raising through extortion and kidnapping. That complexity is what makes striking a peace deal such a challenge for the Pakistani government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His government has staked much hope on the peace talks, betting that the Taliban can be persuaded to lay down their arms. Officials said they saw the Taliban’s announcement of the cease-fire’s end on Wednesday as a negotiating ploy, not the collapse of the whole process. The Taliban, too, insist that talks will continue. To win the Taliban’s confidence, the government has agreed to free at least 12 low-level Taliban prisoners and is considering demands for several hundred more. But the crunch will come when the Taliban make a formal list of demands. The omens are not promising. Already, one hard-line commander with links to Al Qaeda, Omar Khalid Khorasani, has announced that he will not settle for anything less than the imposition of Shariah law across Pakistan. Such statements greatly worry Pakistanis who say that the Sharif government has already conceded too much to Taliban militants who may be using the talks to build legitimacy among ordinary Pakistanis — all the while priming their weapons for the next round of fighting.

Pakistan
Terrorism
Pakistani Taliban
Taliban
Maulana Fazlullah
Shehryar Mehsud
Sajna


Aches Aside, Couples Eases Into the Lead At Riviera

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Fred Couples is 51 and can no longer practice. His back is so creaky that he cannot hit iron shots during his truncated pre-round warm-ups for fear he will tweak a disk and bring on spasms. As for post-round work, he just laughs and says he cannot recall the last time he did any. But when Couples steps inside the ropes at the Riviera Country Club, none of that means much. While younger stars stumbled Friday in the chilly breezes that foretold a coming storm, Couples ambled down the fairways, seized the moment and turned back time. He shot a casual second-round five-under-par 66, hung his name atop the Northern Trust Open leader board and went into the weekend with a two-stroke lead over John Senden and J. B. Holmes, who both shot 69. Spencer Levin, at six under with three holes to play, was among those who had not finished when play was suspended for darkness. Couples is making his 30th appearance at this event. “I feel like I can play this course blindfolded,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I’m going to shoot a good round, but I’ve played here 29 years, pro-ams, practice rounds, haven’t missed many cuts, so I’ve got 150 rounds on this thing. It’s an advantage for me.” Though his thick head of hair has gone gray, Couples’s syrupy swing has barely changed since the tournament was called the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open back when Couples made his debut in 1982. Through the years, that swing, his ability to shoot a low score and his appeal as a crowd favorite have endured. And his consistency has been such that it is never shocking to see Couples turn up among the leaders. Two years ago he had a chance to catch the eventual winner, Phil Mickelson, at the final hole, but bungled an attempted cut shot with a sand wedge into a tree, made bogey and finished tied for third. He finished fourth in 2006, seventh in 2003, tied for ninth in 2002 and fifth in 2000. Even so, had he not holed a putt of nearly 100 feet for eagle at the first hole in the near dark, Couples acknowledged that his round could have gone either way. “I don’t know what I’d shoot if I putted it 8 feet by and missed it,” he said. His 65 went nicely with a 68 from the first round and left him at eight under, a number only Holmes reached after he birdied the par-5 17th, his third straight birdie. Holmes finished with a double-bogey, though, running a 50-footer from above the hole off the 18th green, some 60 feet past. It was hardly a surprising mistake, given that the greens were running at warp speed before the 3 p.m. rains slowed them down. Before that they were “almost Augusta-like,” said Justin Rose of England, who had to lag his own 7-foot birdie attempt at the 18th to tap in for par. He shot a 69 and was in a tie for 11th. Rose, four strokes back, is just one of the many threats shadowing Couples. Ryan Moore (68) and Kevin Na (66) were three strokes back at five under, and England’s Paul Casey (67) was at four under. Couples has stood on the elevated tee at Riviera’s first hole and surveyed just about every possible weekend situation. This is his favorite golf course, and though the tournament was called the Nissan Los Angeles Open in 1992, when he captured the second of his two victories here, Couples was not selling himself short. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked that I’m eight under, especially in this kind of weather,” he said. “But you know, I feel like I can go out there and play tomorrow. The greens are extremely fast. I did make a lot of 4- and 5-footers coming back today, which won’t be as easy on Saturday or Sunday.” Couples shrugged his wide shoulders, stretched his back, moved his neck from side to side and half-smiled. He was ready to put his feet up, watch the rest of the round on television, get something to eat and hit the sack. He will have plenty of work to do this weekend. “I’ll have to pay attention to what the heck I’m doing,” he said. “But I’ve got as much a shot as anyone else.” GRAY OFF THE AIR The Golf Channel removed Jim Gray from its coverage for his handling of Dustin Johnson’s penalty for nearly missing his tee time in the opening round. Johnson’s caddie, Bobby Brown, said Gray approached Johnson on his way to the 14th tee Thursday to ask him why he had been late. (AP)

Fred Couples
Riviera Country Club
Golf
John Senden
J B Holmes


Schumer Offers Help for Indirect Investors With Madoff

Abstract: Some less-affluent victims of Bernard L. Madoff ’s Ponzi scheme could receive extra help from a change in the tax code, under a proposal submitted Monday by Senator Charles E. Schumer , Democrat of New York. The plan would make indirect investors — those who invested through so-called feeder funds — eligible for tax breaks for theft and fraud losses that are already available to direct Madoff investors; allow for faster, larger contributions to tax-free retirement accounts to make up for the losses incurred; and allow for penalty-free early withdrawals from retirement accounts for those in dire need because of their fraud losses. Senator Schumer said the proposals were aimed at establishing a fairer tax treatment for those indirect investors, who tend to have a lower net worth than victims who invested directly with Mr. Madoff. “That so many of the smaller investors, who may not have even known they were investing with Madoff, are not receiving the same assistance as direct investors is simply unfair,” Mr. Schumer said. The Internal Revenue Service issued rules in April allowing direct investors to treat their Madoff losses as net operating losses, as if the individual investors were small businesses. That allowed them to “carry back” their losses for five years, instead of for three, and to carry any remaining losses forward for up to 20 years. Those carry-back losses put cash in investors’ hands by providing refunds for taxes paid in past years, the senator explained. But that ruling did not help indirect investors because the entities through which they invested — feeder funds, investment partnerships and the like — were too large to qualify for small-business status. The provision would ensure that indirect investors would be eligible, at a minimum, to carry back 100 percent of their losses for four years and 50 percent for a fifth year. The proposal would also raise the limit on tax-free contributions to retirement accounts so an investor can replenish losses quicker, and waive penalties for withdrawals from retirement accounts to increase cash flow. Further, it would allow a surviving spouse to use more of the tax losses generated by a Madoff account even if the deceased spouse had been the original owner. And it would open a window during which victims can file amended estate and gift tax returns to recover taxes paid on gifts that were made from the fictional profits in their Madoff accounts.

Madoff Bernard L
Ponzi Schemes
Frauds and Swindling
Schumer Charles E


Prison Officer Wounded in Northern Ireland Attack Dies

Abstract: DUBLIN — A prison officer who was seriously wounded when a bomb planted by a Republican splinter group partially exploded under his van in Belfast this month has died, the Northern Ireland Prison Service said on Tuesday. Adrian Ismay, a 52-year-old father of three who was a 28-year employee of the prison service, underwent surgery for wounds to his legs after the bomb detonated as he was traveling to work at a young offenders’ center on March 4. The attack was claimed by a group known as the New Irish Republican Army. After the attack, Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Martin, a senior police officer in Northern Ireland, said that the authorities expected further violence to coincide with the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, which Irish nationalists regard as the catalyst for the end of British rule over most of the island. In a statement to the BBC after the attack, the New Irish Republican Army said Mr. Ismay had been targeted because he was involved in training personnel at Maghaberry Prison, a high-security facility 20 miles from Belfast that has been the site of escalating tensions between guards and dissident Republican inmates. The group said it had used a plastic explosive and a commercial detonator in the attack, a combination often deployed with devastating consequences by the Irish Republican Army during its 30-year campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. Dissident Republicans believe Ireland can only be united by force, a view condemned by most people in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The assistant chief constable said the terror threat, which had been severe for several years, should now be categorized as “at the upper end of severe.” “I believe there are people within dissident Republican groupings who want to mark this centenary by killing police officers, prison officers and soldiers,” he said. Christopher Robinson, 45, appeared at Belfast Magistrates’ Court last week and was charged with the attack on Mr. Ismay and with possession of an improvised explosive device with intent to endanger life. He was remanded in custody until his next scheduled court appearance via video link on April 1.


Putin Evasive on Banning Adoptions by Americans

Abstract: MOSCOW — He seemed to wince a bit as he sauntered on stage — a twinge no doubt from a lingering back injury — but as he took his seat before scores of cameras in a hall packed with more than 1,000 journalists on Thursday, President Vladimir V. Putin was clearly in his element: under the bright lights, jaunty and confident, arriving to theme music befitting an action hero. But this virtuoso performance was nearly upstaged by an issue that emerged only in the last few days: a proposed ban on adoptions of Russian children by American citizens, as part of a measure retaliating against the United States for a new law that will punish Russian citizens accused of violating human rights. Mr. Putin was pressed repeatedly for his view — eight times in all — and each time he skirted the question. When it first came up, he gave an exaggerated shrug, palms turned upward, as if to say, “Bring it on.” By the last one, he was snapping back, short of patience, visibly annoyed. Over and over, Mr. Putin said he needed time to read the text of the legislation before making a decision. But the text of the ban is just two simple sentences, and it was clear that Mr. Putin was buying time to contemplate what would be the most potent, anti-American action yet in his new term. This year, there have already been several setbacks in bilateral relations, including his ousting of the United States Agency for International Development . “The talk here is not about the ban on adoption to all foreigners. The talk is about Americans who want to adopt children,” he said, adding, “I am simply not ready to answer you now.” In other respects, this was the cocksure Mr. Putin of 10 years ago. As his mostly adoring audience settled in, Mr. Putin, who has seemed subdued at times since beginning a third term as president in May, appeared eager to joust. And he did — for four and a half hours — on virtually any subject: crop subsidies for sugar beet farmers and housing for miners, political relations with Georgia, economic ties with China, fishing restrictions in the Volga River delta. After months of aggressive steps to squash political dissent and curtail what he views as undue political influence by outsiders, he seemed to relish every chance to take jabs at the United States, especially over its policies in the Middle East and on human rights. He fielded dozens of questions, on topics like a continuing national debate over adopting daylight saving time, taxes, pensions and Russia ’s position on the war in Syria. After each reply, journalists clamored for a chance to ask a question, waving signs and flags, scarves, even a red balloon to get noticed. At one point, discussing the French actor Gérard Depardieu’s decision to renounce his French citizenship, Mr. Putin warmly invited him to live in Russia. “If Gérard really wants to have a residency permit for Russia or a Russian passport,” Mr. Putin said, “we can consider this issue resolved.” Throughout the day, Mr. Putin basked in the fawning adulation of journalists visiting the capital from virtually every provincial corner of Russia. Near the end of the news conference, he paused to write a personal note extending birthday wishes to a reporter’s daughter. But in a series of unusually sharp challenges, he was repeatedly forced back to the issue of the proposed adoption ban and pressed to say if he would support it. Mr. Putin repeatedly criticized the new American law — the Magnitsky Act — as a provocation, and said Russia had no choice but to retaliate. “This is very bad and it poisons our relations,” he said. Mr. Putin said the United States was failing to live up to an agreement ratified earlier this year, by not allowing Russian officials to get involved in abuse cases involving adopted Russian children, even as observers. And he lashed out at one reporter who challenged him. “This is unacceptable,” he said. “Do you find it normal? Do you like it? Are you a sadomasochist?” At other times, Mr. Putin acknowledged that most adoptive parents from America are “kind and decent people.” At several points, he said legal experts would have to review the proposed ban to see if it could be enacted given the agreement with the United States on adoptions. He also repeatedly rejected assertions that the ban would most hurt Russian orphans because he said it would apply only to the United States. According to the Russian government, there were 956 Russian children adopted by families from the United States in 2011 — the most of any country. Italy was next with 798 followed by Spain with 685. Mr. Putin did not cite those statistics, but he began his news conference rattling off an array of others to illustrate Russia’s recent successes. Economic output is growing stronger than in the United States or Europe, he said. Unemployment is lower. Average salaries are up. Reserve funds are flush. The birthrate is climbing. One reporter asked him about the jailed former billionaire, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, whose imprisonment has been condemned as politically motivated. A court on Thursday reduced Mr. Khodorkovsky’s sentence so he may be released two years early, in 2014. Mr. Putin said the issue should not be politicized. Then, archly, he noted that at some point Mr. Khodorkovsky would be free. “May God give him health,” he said.


After Layoffs, Yonkers Trims Curriculum

Abstract: YONKERS — Students here will return this fall to bigger classes, limited Advanced Placement options and a dearth of electives in drama, music, cooking and industrial arts because there are fewer teachers to go around. The Yonkers school district is scaling back its curriculum and programs in the wake of 187 layoffs — 90 of them teachers — and an additional 250 retirements, which have reduced the staff by more than 10 percent. “It’s challenging,” said Edwin Quezada, a high school principal who has revised his class schedule at least 100 times since the budget-cutting began in March. “It makes you feel really bad to say, ‘We’re not offering that anymore.’ ” While budget problems are nothing new for Yonkers, this is the first time since 2004 that the district has laid off a significant number of teachers. The 25,000-student district, the fourth-largest in the state, does not have independent taxing authority and must rely almost entirely on state and city financing even during tough economic times. This year, state and city aid to the Yonkers schools dropped by $3.5 million. At the same time, the district faces an additional $10.6 million in expenses this school year from utilities, supplies and growing enrollment — as many as 800 more students are expected this fall. It also faces a $12 million increase in retirement and health care costs and a $16.5 million increase in employee raises. All of which has put Bernard P. Pierorazio, the superintendent, in a tough spot. “It’s been so painful for me because I’ve been through the process,” said Mr. Pierorazio, who was laid off as a young social studies teacher in Yonkers in 1976 and hired back a year later. “I know how devastated I was when the principal came to me.” Yonkers is not alone in making hard choices this year, as school districts across the region and the nation struggle to rein in spending and balance budgets. This month, the federal government approved $26 billion in aid to school districts and states to prevent layoffs of teachers and public employees. But the measure comes after many districts have already cut their staff and programs. (Not New York City, though, which averted layoffs of thousands of teachers after withholding across-the-board pay increases for teachers and principals for the next two years.) In New Jersey, where a majority of school budgets were rejected by voters in the spring, Woodbridge laid off 100 teachers, or nearly 10 percent of its teaching staff. As a result, elementary schools will lose their reading coaches, and art classes for gifted and talented students will disappear, said John Crowe, the superintendent. In the New York suburbs, 9 out of 10 districts in Westchester and Putnam Counties have eliminated jobs through layoffs and attrition since late spring. That is a sharp turnaround for a region where school officials have been hiring for much of the past two decades to keep pace with growing enrollments. “If you’re going to have to cut costs, it’s where you’re going to get the dollars,” said Lisa Davis, executive director of the Westchester-Putnam School Boards Association. Still, teachers — if not other employees — were largely spared in some districts. In New Rochelle, which had its first layoffs in years, 7 of the 42 people let go were teachers. The rest were 30 teaching assistants, an administrator, two school nurses and two clerks. Yonkers has lived with cuts, and the threat of cuts, for decades, even as the student population has grown with an influx of immigrants. While Yonkers has performed better on state tests than Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, it has lagged behind New York City and the rest of the state. This year, 39.2 percent of Yonkers students in grades three through eight passed state English tests, compared with 42.4 percent in New York City and 53.2 percent statewide. In math, 41.5 percent of Yonkers students passed, compared with 54 percent in New York City and 61 percent statewide. About 58 percent of Yonkers students graduate from high school in four years, compared with 71 percent statewide, according to state statistics. Mr. Pierorazio said he had sought to avoid layoffs by calling on all 4,000 employees to agree to a one-year wage freeze, but union leaders did not agree. In July, the Yonkers City Council passed a $484.1 million school budget for 2010-11, down $2.9 million from the year before. (Mr. Pierorazio added that if Yonkers received additional federal aid, he might be able to rehire some teachers who were laid off.) “I think he’s doing the best with what he has,” said Annmarie Smith, president of the Yonkers Council of PTAs. “Yonkers is shortchanged.” Ms. Smith said art and music programs had never fully recovered after the 2004 layoffs. She added that her two daughters, teachers in the Bronx and in Philadelphia, had not sought work in their hometown because they could not be assured that they would have jobs from one year to the next. With a smaller staff, Yonkers has increased class sizes up to 34 students, from an average of 24 in elementary schools and 26 in high schools. There will be 100 fewer aides to help out in crowded classrooms, and far less art and music instruction. Instrumental music will disappear at elementary and middle schools. At Mr. Quezada’s school, Lincoln High, which is known for its business program, there will be 10 fewer accounting, finance and marketing classes after nine teachers, including two specializing in business, were let go. The school will also drop at least three Advanced Placement courses, in statistics, politics and Spanish literature. “Here you are trying to send students to all these good colleges,” Mr. Quezada said. “But if you don’t present them with a solid transcript, it’s not going to happen.” Students and parents echo Mr. Quezada’s concerns. Louis Marquez, 17, recently protested the layoffs at City Hall. “It’s our school, it’s our future,” he said. “Now that they’re gone, kids are not going to know what to do. They’re going through the college process without their help.” Teachers have already gotten a taste of larger class sizes. To save money, the district hired seven fewer summer school teachers, and increased the size of some classes up to 36 students. In algebra on a recent morning, Gina Garcia drew algorithms on a chalkboard, trying to interest 34 students, some of whom looked bored or sleepy. Ms. Garcia, a teacher at Yonkers High School since 2001, said she was preparing for larger classes this fall because two of her school’s math teachers were laid off. “When we have so many kids in one classroom,” she said, “the level of apathy is going to rise, because they’re not going to think they’re important. They’re going to feel like they’re just a number.”

Layoffs and Job Reductions
Education and Schools
Yonkers (NY)