The Danger of Seeking Perfect Immigration Reform

Abstract: Luis Magaña has been an advocate of the rights of immigrant farm workers for his entire adult life. The son and grandson of migrants from the Mexican state of Michoacán who came to California as guest workers in 1917 and 1943, Mr. Magaña is a longtime friend. He has taken on every cause, from improving dismal working conditions in the sprawling farms of the San Joaquin Valley to extracting past-due compensation for aging migrants from the Mexican government. He has a better grasp than most people of the most ardent wish of millions of immigrants working “without papers” across the American economy. Last week I asked Mr. Magaña, who came to the United States as a child, about the renewed enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for a reform of the nation’s immigration laws. What did migrants think, I asked, about the sudden good luck that might give them a shot at American citizenship? His simple, straightforward response contrasts with the complex set of finely balanced, interlocking provisions in the proposal for immigration reform unveiled on Tuesday by a group of eight Republican and Democratic senators. What the migrants want most, he told me, “is to fix their papers,” gaining an opportunity to move freely and work legally in the United States. He cautioned against overreaching that could end up ruining the hopes for legislation. “For migrants it’s like being in the desert asking for a glass of water,” he said, “and suddenly here comes your savior and offers you all sorts of beverages.” Mr. Magaña remembers the last, botched attempt at immigration reform. In 2007, a plan championed by both the Republican president, George W. Bush, and the Democratic senator Ted Kennedy was sunk, in part, by Democrats who opposed creating a new visa for temporary guest-workers who would not have a shot at citizenship. The provision amounted to “a shameful repudiation of American tradition that will encourage exploitation,” said an editorial in The New York Times . If the deal couldn’t be improved, “it should be rejected as worse than a bad status quo.” A couple of weeks later, an unusual coalition of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans — not all of whom were concerned about the immigration rights of guest workers — passed an amendment ending the guest-worker program after five years. At a stroke, businesses’ interest in immigration reform evaporated. The effort was dead. Most illegal immigrants and guest workers would probably welcome the opportunity to become American citizens, eventually. It would open access to government programs like Medicaid. Most important, it would offer protection in case the good will toward immigrants in Congress these days were ever to sour . But to the paperless immigrants of the San Joaquin Valley — harvesting asparagus or lettuce; picking cherries or grapes — the insistence on a path to citizenship for a few hundred thousand guest workers six years ago ended up blocking the achievement of their most important goal. The demand for perfection became the enemy of the good. “Economic migrants don’t come to become American,” said Mr. Magaña, who became a United States citizen though his father and grandfather did not. “They don’t care about that, especially when they just arrived.” Could the same thing happen again? Perhaps. True, reform currently has the wind in its sails. Republicans are tired of losing Hispanic voters. The fear that immigrants will take jobs from native-born Americans has diminished as net illegal immigration has fallen to zero and arrests at the border have hit 40-year lows. And with stronger economic growth in Mexico even as the increase in its labor supply slows, says Douglas Massey, an expert on immigration at Princeton, “the boom in Mexican immigration is over no matter what the U.S. does.” Still, immigration reform remains vulnerable. Many Americans are ambivalent about granting citizenship to what they see as a vast, poor, brown, Spanish-speaking population with presumably divided loyalties. As the complex legislation hatched in the Senate is exposed to the klieg lights of public debate, lots of people are likely to flinch at the details. Labor unions have come a long way in the last six years. Still, many remain skeptical about tens of thousands of cheap new guest laborers competing for jobs. Some immigrant advocacy groups don’t much like a provision to cull family-related visas. Conservatives remain very uncomfortable with granting residence and citizenship to “lawbreakers” who might consume lots of public services and vote for Democrats once they are allowed to become citizens years down the road. Many insist that America must “secure the border” before anything else can happen — an implausible goal that could stop the process in its tracks. Yet as Americans consider the broad attempt at changing the nation’s immigration laws, it is important to weigh any discomfort at specific provisions against the alternative of no reform at all. In a world without reform, the border would not be any more secure, American workers would get no more protection from cheap immigrant labor and immigrants would certainly get no better shot at legal status and eventual citizenship. It is a world of nods and winks that legitimizes an illegal status quo. In 1997, onion growers from Vidalia, Ga., withdrew their applications for temporary farmworker visas because they would have had to pay workers at least the prevailing wage of 80 cents a bag. When agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service raided Vidalia’s onion fields the following year, not surprisingly they arrested a bunch of immigrants working illegally instead. Rather than give the I.N.S. a pat on the back, the Georgia senator Paul Coverdell, a Republican, wrote a letter complaining about its “indiscriminate and inappropriate use of extreme enforcement tactics” against “honest farmers who are simply trying to get their products from the field to the marketplace.” The I.N.S. promised no more surprise inspections. And 15 years later about half of the immigrant workers hired on American farms are still working there illegally . By immigrants’ reckoning, the effort that failed in 2007 was not a bad shot. In some respects, its temporary guest worker program with no citizenship rights made it even better. “The temporariness is a good thing, not a bad thing,” wrote Dani Rodrik , an expert in development economics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, in a blog post in 2007. “It allows others to take advantage of the same opportunity, and it enables home countries to benefit from the newly acquired skills and resources of the returnees. It also alleviates some of the social problems caused by long absences of parents from home.” Indeed, the program would have helped both the United States and the developing world. “Even a minor temporary guest worker program would generate greater benefits to the developing nations than all of the Doha trade agenda taken in its entirety,” Mr. Rodrik wrote, referring to long-stalled negotiations at the World Trade Organization intended to open up markets for goods from the poorest countries. Today, reforming immigration law could achieve worthy objectives. Just granting the protection of law to 11 million people currently living in fear of the authorities would be a notable victory for the cause of human rights. It would be a pity if it were to be shot down, again, for being imperfect.

Immigration
Foreign Workers
Migrant Labor
Agriculture
US Politics
Legislation
Reform
Illegal immigration


Alabama Returns to the Top

Abstract: PASADENA, Calif. — Texas and Alabama played a teeth-gnashing, bloody-knuckles game that fit the style of their forefathers, Alabama’s Bear Bryant and Texas’ Darrell Royal. On Texas’ fifth snap of the Bowl Championship Series title game Thursday night, Alabama defensive lineman Marcell Dareus leveled Texas quarterback Colt McCoy with a punishing hit on an option play. That hit ultimately defined Alabama’s 37-21 victory before 94,906 at the Rose Bowl, as McCoy never returned. Texas buried itself in a 24-6 halftime deficit behind the backup quarterback Garrett Gilbert, made a furious rally to close the score to 24-21, and had a chance to drive down the field and win with just over three minutes remaining. But two late turnovers by Gilbert led to easy Alabama touchdowns and made the final score more lopsided than the game. In an era in which spread offenses have come to dominate college football, Alabama’s claim to a 13th national title comes with a game won squarely between the tackles. Mark Ingram , this year’s Heisman Trophy winner, ran for 116 yards and 2 touchdowns, and his backfield mate Trent Richardson, a freshman, ran for 109 and 2 touchdowns. Somewhere far away, Bryant most likely smiled. Alabama won its first title since 1992, putting behind its years of N.C.A.A. problems, disastrous coaching hires and beatings from archrival Auburn. Alabama finished 14-0, just the third team in modern football to do so. “I’m just so happy to do this for the entire Alabama family,” Ingram said. “We’ve been waiting a long time now.” Coach Nick Saban further solidified himself as one of the elite coaches in football and became the first coach since 1936 to lead two different teams to a national title. He also joined Florida’s Urban Meyer as the second coach in the B.C.S. era to win two B.C.S. titles. “The message tonight was do what we do and be who we are,” Saban said. “I thought we did a good job with that.” Alabama’s victory was also the fourth consecutive national title for the Southeastern Conference. The last team outside the SEC to win a national title was Texas here at the conclusion of the 2005 season. A game that looked like a yawner became tense in the fourth quarter, as Gilbert looked dynamic in the second half. He hit wide receiver Jordan Shipley on two touchdown passes, and had a chance to drive the length of the field to win the game at the end. But he fumbled on a wicked hit by linebacker Eryk Anders, who came untouched on a blindside blitz. The ball trickled to the 3-yard line, where Courtney Upshaw recovered it with 3 minutes 2 seconds left. Ingram grunted into the end zone three plays later from a yard out to seal the victory. Javier Arenas picked off a Gilbert pass on the next possession, and Richardson ran it in for the night’s final score. “That was really the difference in the game,” Saban said. Alabama’s dynamic tandem of Ingram and Richardson ran between the tackles and outside the edges as Alabama rolled to a 24-6 halftime lead. All seemed lost for Texas. McCoy did not return to the game from a shoulder injury he later described as a dead arm, and it was up to the Longhorns’ defense to somehow hold the Crimson Tide at bay, hoping Gilbert could find some rhythm. With six minutes remaining and the score 24-21, Gilbert looked as if he were writing a script straight out of the television show “Friday Night Lights.” “The whole bunch could have got frustrated and quit, and didn’t,” Texas Coach Mack Brown said. “I think that’s what I’m most proud of.” For Saban, a coach with a perpetual grimace, an obsession with fundamentals and an affinity for toughness, the style of this Tide victory came straight from his script. Greg McElroy passed for just 58 yards on 11 attempts. Texas actually outgained Alabama, 276 yards to 263. But Alabama forced five turnovers, including perhaps the game’s biggest play. Dareus, the game’s defensive most valuable player, intercepted a shovel pass that the Texas tailback D. J. Monroe had bobbled. Dareus returned it 28 yards for a touchdown with three seconds remaining in the half, a move that Brown will inevitably be criticized for Friday by football-obsessed fans from Houston to El Paso. “I’ve never seen one intercepted before,” Brown said, defending his call. “And I’ve surely never seen one intercepted for a touchdown.” At the site of Brown’s greatest achievement as a coach, his title game victory that ended the University of Southern California’s dynasty here, Brown’s team sustained perhaps the biggest loss of his tenure. After McCoy went down, the Texas offense retreated into the fetal position with Gilbert under center. Texas entered the game with the No. 55 rush offense in the country, and was thought to be one-dimensional because of its inability to rush the ball. Once McCoy left the game, the Longhorns played the rest of the first half like a one-dimensional team that could only run the ball. The results were not good, as Texas managed just four first downs in the first half. When Alabama appeared to be imploding at the start of the game, Brown went conservative and it backfired. Alabama opened the game with a baffling decision: a faked punt on fourth-and-23. The result was a Texas interception. The Longhorns took over at the Alabama 37. McCoy got hurt five snaps later and Texas never truly exploited the gaffe. On fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, Brown decided to kick an 18-yard field goal instead of going for a touchdown. After Texas recovered an onside kick after that field goal, the Longhorns went conservative and settled for a 42-yard field goal. When those two golden opportunities yielded just 6 points, Texas appeared to be doomed. Alabama’s old-school-style dominance commenced soon after. Ingram, running with his typical persistence, rushed for Alabama’s first touchdown behind nose guard Terrence Cody, who moonlighted at fullback. Alabama’s next big strike came from Richardson, who was not touched as he ran 49 yards up the middle to make the score, 14-6. Once McCoy left, Alabama began controlling the line of scrimmage and the field position battle. Tide defenders teed off on Texas, as the Longhorns had four three-and-out possessions in the second quarter followed by Dareus’s intercepting the shovel pass and touchdown. By then, Texas’ offense and its chances of winning appeared buried, as Alabama outslugged, outmuscled and outplayed the undermanned Longhorns throughout the first half. It ultimately won the national title by dominating the trenches, controlling the ball and injuring the opposition’s star with a clean hit. Somewhere, as Alabama reclaimed its past glories at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains, Bryant surely approved of both the result and the tenor.

College Athletics
Football
University of Alabama
University of Texas at Austin
Bowl Championship Series
McCoy Colt
Ingram Mark
Bryant Paul William
Saban Nick
Brown Mack


Analysts Question Fannie’s Threat on Mortgage Defaults

Abstract: Fannie Mae ’s decision to begin punishing people who walk away from their unpaid mortgages could prove difficult to sell to the public and might be impossible to execute, housing and lending experts said Thursday. The big mortgage financing company, which owns or guarantees millions of mortgages, announced on Wednesday that it would sue homeowners who have the capacity to pay but default anyway. It also said it would prevent these strategic defaulters from getting a new Fannie Mae-backed loan for seven years, which could potentially shut millions of buyers out of the market. But it was unclear, the experts said, why Fannie Mae was threatening delinquent owners and what it hoped to achieve. The new direction seems to run counter to the Obama administration’s efforts to reinvigorate the housing market. And there were basic questions about how Fannie would be able to distinguish between those homeowners who defaulted intentionally and the unfortunate ones who had no choice. “How are they going to do this, and for what result?” asked Grant Stern, president of the Morningside Mortgage Corporation on Bay Harbor Islands, Fla. “So they can find the people who have a little money left after their house crashed and take it away from them?” A Fannie Mae spokeswoman said that the goal of the new punitive policies was to force defaulting homeowners to work with their servicers to surrender their houses through either a lender-approved short sale or by formally giving up the deed. “We really want to encourage borrowers to pursue alternatives to foreclosure,” said the spokeswoman, Janis Smith. Fannie’s newly aggressive stance comes as the debate is heating up over how much, if at all, borrowers should be held liable for their foreclosures. Republicans recently added a measure to a Federal Housing Administration financing bill in the House of Representatives that would forbid strategic defaulters from getting an F.H.A.-insured loan. The California Legislature is debating a proposed law that goes in the other direction, shielding many more delinquent borrowers from debt collectors. Fannie and its sister company, Freddie Mac, control 30 million mortgages, providing liquidity to the housing market. They have been under government conservatorship since September 2008; the ultimate cost of the rescue to taxpayers might hit $400 billion. Chris Dickerson of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie, said, “We support Fannie Mae taking a policy position that discourages borrowers who can afford to pay their mortgage from walking away.” Fannie Mae will announce the details of its new program next month, when the servicers who collect mortgage payments on Fannie’s loans will get explicit instructions on how to make recommendations for lawsuits. But for some in the mortgage business, the new direction seemed little more than a cruel joke. “Fannie wants to lock people up in a jail of negative net worth for much of the rest of their lives,” said Lou Barnes, a Colorado mortgage banker. “They’re bringing back the debtor’s prison.” The plan poses some political problems as well as practical ones. Fannie Mae might be a ward of the government but its new policy is at distinct odds with the Obama administration, which has been trying to restart the fragile housing market by lowering interest rates, offering tax credits and insuring millions of new loans. A Treasury Department spokesman said Fannie Mae’s plan did not represent official Obama administration policy. A spokesman for Freddie Mac said it was closely following Fannie’s moves but had not yet adopted them. Strategic defaults have been a rising concern for years. Lenders first noticed people purposefully ditching their houses early in the financial crisis . In late 2007, Kenneth D. Lewis, then chief executive of Bank of America, said people were remaining current on their credit cards but defaulting on their home loans, a phenomenon that he said “astonished” him. The lenders are less surprised now, but perhaps more worried. Bank of America said recently that it was putting owners in danger of foreclosure into payment plans that were supposed to be affordable — but that a third of the borrowers were failing to pay anyway. “You could say the customer is choosing not to make those payments,” said Jack Schakett, credit loss mitigation executive for Bank of America Home Loans. Borrowers who stop paying the mortgage can get a year of free rent, and sometimes two. “There is a huge incentive for customers to walk away,” Mr. Schakett said in a recent media briefing. Fannie is not saying how many of its borrowers are strategically defaulting. The firm’s delinquency rate, traditionally about 0.5 percent of its portfolio, began sharply ascending in mid-2007. At the beginning of this year, it leveled off at 5.5 percent. About a quarter of homeowners with mortgages, or about 11 million households, owe more than their home is worth, and are potentially vulnerable to a strategic default. A flat or rising real estate market could encourage many of them to hold on; a declining market would suggest it was time to go. Fannie was established as a federal agency in 1938 but was chartered by Congress as a private company in 1968. For years it prospered by virtue of its special status as a government-sponsored entity charged with increasing the nation’s homeownership rate, enriching its shareholders and executives in the process. During the housing boom Fannie overreached and bought many loans of buyers who were ill-equipped to pay them. Its fate is uncertain; it is not even clear it will be around in seven years to enforce any edicts. Christopher F. Thornberg, a principal at Beacon Economics who correctly forecast that the housing boom would implode, said he understood what Fannie was trying to do, and even sympathized to a degree. It is rational economics, he said, to assume that someone who walked away from an unpaid mortgage once might do so again. It also made sense, he said, for Fannie to try to limit strategic defaults from becoming an even bigger problem. And the new program also addresses the moral hazard question, Mr. Thornberg said: If borrowers are not punished for their missteps, they might not learn their lesson and might do it again. And yet, he noted, the banks were bailed out, and their executives walked away rich. “Why should I pay my dues when they did not?” he said. “There is no clean answer on this.”

Federal National Mortgage Assn
Mortgages
Housing and Real Estate
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Foreclosures
Banks and Banking


In Brooklyn, a Prairie Springs From Former Landfills

Abstract: South of the Belt Parkway near Exit 15 in Brooklyn, approaching Kennedy International Airport, an unassuming hill slopes upward, dotted with small, scraggly trees and bushes. A quarter-century ago, the hill was a more memorable sight. It was the Fountain Avenue Landfill. “It was an ugly old dump,” said Lee Shelley, a longtime resident of the Starrett City neighborhood who heads a citizens’ committee that, for nearly two decades, pestered the city, then cooperated with it, to clean up and transform the pile of garbage. Today, someone at the top of the hill stands 130 feet above the sea in a field of prairie grasses. It is some of the highest ground in the city, its panoramic views taking in the Empire State Building to the northwest, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and New York Harbor to the west, Jamaica Bay to the south. In a $200 million project, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection covered the Fountain Avenue Landfill and the neighboring Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill with a layer of plastic, then put down clean soil and planted 33,000 trees and shrubs at the two sites. The result is 400 acres of nature preserve, restoring native habitats that disappeared from New York City long ago. The site is not yet open to the public. Indeed, it is still listed by the state as a toxic waste site. But the air is clear and fresh. “You can probably compare it with a day in the Alps,” Mr. Shelley said during a tour given to local residents by the city this summer. “We had hoped we would have a park. It’s turned out to be better than a park.” The Fountain Avenue Landfill opened in 1961, filling up with residential trash, construction debris, asbestos incinerator ash and, notoriously, the bodies of mob victims. In its last year of operation, 1985, an average of 8,200 tons of trash arrived there each day — some 40 percent of the city’s refuse. The Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill was open from 1956 to 1980. In its later years, it was primarily a dump for debris from construction and demolition. Once closed, the landfills were deemed by the city to be ecologically “sanitary,” meaning they caused no significant harm or health problems, but still offended the senses. Fires often smoldered, emitting putrid odors. Runoff containing heavy metals, oil, pesticides and PCBs flowed into Jamaica Bay. Residents complained about health concerns, and finally, in 1995, hammered out an agreement with the city to rehabilitate the dumps. During that era, the thinking about what to do with closed landfills was evolving, too. The piles were “capped” with a layer of clay and plastic to keep water out, and covered with a few inches of soil. The usual practice was to plant grass and mow it as if it were a big lawn. In the 1980s, Leslie Sauer, a founder of Andropogon Associates , a landscape architect firm in Philadelphia, was one of the first to think landfills had more potential. “The idea of mowing landfills is lunacy,” she said. While working as a consultant for Fresh Kills, a former city garbage dump on Staten Island, she surveyed the fate of other closed landfills. “We could not find one landfill that was being maintained,” she said. Instead of a manicured lawn, the landfill grass inevitably turned into “a weedy junk pile,” she said. Three feet of soil on top of the landfill cap would hold more moisture, Ms. Sauer surmised, allowing a wider array of plants to grow. Even trees. The common wisdom was never to put trees on a landfill because the roots would push down and puncture the cap. But in her surveys, Ms. Sauer found that trees inevitably started growing on top of landfills anyway, and that roots typically spread out in a wide but fairly shallow pattern. The network of roots would also do a better job of holding the soil together against erosion than plain grass, and the result might be a sustainable ecology instead of a monotonous grassy hill that required continuous lawn care. John McLaughlin, who directs the ecological rehabilitation of the Brooklyn landfills for the Department of Environmental Protection and worked with Ms. Sauer at Fresh Kills, carved up the landscape into a series of “islands,” assigning a different mix of plants to reflect a different ecological niche in the region. Some resemble the Pine Barrens of New Jersey . Others drew inspiration from Sandy Hook, N.J., and Fire Island. The first seeds were laid down in 2004 on the Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill, followed a year later by the first plantings of shrubs and trees, at a density of 800 to 1,000 per acre, about double what typically grow in a natural setting. The final plantings went in last year. All told, the ecological portion of the landfill project cost about $20 million. More than 93 percent of the trees and shrubs have survived. “We call this the birth of a forest,” Mr. McLaughlin said. In a decade, the trees might be 20 to 25 feet tall. Once the plants take hold, nature will be allowed to take its course, evolving the land into microclimates . In some areas that turned out to be damper than had been foreseen, sassafras and black oak, which prefer dry soil, are not doing as well as expected, but other plants should prosper, Mr. McLaughlin said. Birds including ospreys, egrets and snowy owls are spotted and counted at the former landfills. “My friends were all like, ‘You’re going where to work with wildlife?’ ” said Lee Humberg, one of the United States Department of Agriculture biologists keeping watch over the site. “One wouldn’t expect to find a prairie setting in New York City.” A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said the Fountain Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue Landfills, currently listed as a “significant threat to the public health or environment,” could be reclassified by next spring as safe for public access, requiring only continued monitoring of their conditions. Then the final steps for opening them to the public would start. Mr. Shelley, the Starrett City resident, envisions an amphitheater for concerts, bicycle paths and fishing areas, perhaps within a handful of years. “What they’re doing here,” he said, “was an absolute miracle.”

Waste Materials and Disposal
Trees and Shrubs
Grass
Brooklyn (NYC)


Christie Wants State’s Top Court to Block Gay Marriage Ruling

Abstract: Gov. Chris Christie moved on Monday to block same-sex marriages that would otherwise be allowed in late October after a judge’s ruling last week that the New Jersey Constitution requires the state to allow them. In a letter, Mr. Christie’s appointed interim attorney general, John Jay Hoffman, told the State Supreme Court that the administration would seek a stay to prevent such marriages from happening. Mr. Hoffman also said that it intended to ask the court, the state’s highest, to hear the appeal immediately, which would allow it to bypass the normal route through the appellate courts. State Democratic leaders who have been fighting Mr. Christie to allow same-sex marriages said that they, too, would press to have the Supreme Court hear the case immediately. On Friday, Judge Mary C. Jacobson of State Superior Court in Mercer County ruled that the state had to allow same-sex marriages starting Oct. 21, saying the state Constitution required it in light of the ruling by the United States Supreme Court in June that overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, which had denied federal benefits to same-sex married couples. A 2006 New Jersey Supreme Court decision said that the State Constitution required the same rights and protections for same-sex couples as heterosexual couples. The Legislature responded by passing a law allowing civil unions, but gay and lesbian couples sued, saying they were still denied many benefits. The Legislature passed another law allowing same-sex marriage last year. But Mr. Christie, a Republican who is thought to be his party’s top prospect for the presidential nomination in 2016, vetoed the bill. Democratic leaders, along with gay rights groups, are pushing to override Mr. Christie’s veto before a January deadline. They have had some gains: two Republicans and two Democrats have publicly said that they would support the override. But on Monday, they acknowledged that they were still short by several votes.

Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
State supreme court
Chris Christie
New Jersey


A Warhol Surfaces and Is Headed for Court

Abstract: Last September, a man who has admittedly lived a hard-knock life walked into Christie’s auction house with an Andy Warhol painting of a dollar sign and asked to have it put up for sale. Though one can never judge by appearances, especially when it comes to art lovers, something about this particular art lover, Jason Beltrez, seemed a little bit off to the staff at Christie’s. They accepted the painting but immediately contacted the Art Loss Register, the world’s largest private databank of lost and stolen art, to make sure it was legitimate. “Bingo,” as Chris Marinello, director and general counsel of the register’s New York office put it Tuesday. The painting was one of two Warhol dollar-sign paintings, created in 1981, measuring about 16 by 20 inches, that disappeared from the walls of the Martin Lawrence Galleries in SoHo on Valentine’s Day in 1998. Now the gallery is suing Mr. Beltrez to get the painting back, claiming it has clear title under the law. But Mr. Beltrez, 44, has hired a lawyer and is fighting back, casting himself as an honest man, a Brooklyn homeowner, father of three children and former grocery store manager who got lucky. He says he bought the painting for $180 at a New Jersey flea market, and deserves either to get it back or to be rewarded. He invokes the law of the street — finders keepers, losers weepers. “It’s the big guy trying to get over the little guy,” Mr. Beltrez, who said he had managed a C-town supermarket in the Bronx until about a year and a half ago. He is unemployed now. Mr. Marinello, of the art register, said that he sympathized with Mr. Beltrez’s position, but that the law was against him. “I tried to negotiate with Mr. Beltrez,” Mr. Marinello said Tuesday. “When it was clear that he did not understand, I urged him to get a lawyer. I even spoke to his social worker in Brooklyn.” The gallery and Christie’s through their lawyers declined to comment. Mr. Beltrez, interviewed at his three-story house in Windsor Terrace, said he had found the painting, a gold and crimson image of a dollar sign, at a flea market outside the Holland Tunnel in New Jersey in the mid-1990s. He said he used to go there because he was a Giants fan and a collector of Lalique and Baccarat crystal. “It was very fiery,” he said. “I thought it would bring me luck.” He hung it in a place of honor between two green-curtained windows and across from a crimson couch in his living room. His luck has not been so good, though. After a death in the family about nine months ago, he said, he began abusing intravenous drugs and went into drug rehabilitation — hence the social worker. Then, he said, a friend recognized the painting as having been painted by “the Campbell’s soup guy,” and offered him $40,000 for it. Instead, Mr. Beltrez took the painting to Christie’s, thinking it was “the right thing” to do. Mr. Beltrez admitted that there were some odd coincidences in this case. He was raised on Broome Street a few blocks from the gallery at 457 West Broadway, where the painting was stolen in 1998. Some public records show he lived there at that time, though Mr. Beltrez said he moved in 1989. Mr. Marinello said that the police investigation of the theft was continuing but that no criminal charges had been filed. Mr. Beltrez said he expected to be vindicated. “This country is only fair for people lined in green,” he said. “I know I’m the good guy.”

Art
Christie's
Warhol Andy
Auctions
Art Loss Register


Chris Froome Wins the Tour de France for the Third Time

Abstract: PARIS — Chris Froome of Britain survived two crashes, severe storms, an uphill dash on foot and a daredevil descent to become the winner of the Tour de France for a third time on Sunday. With the victory, Froome, the leader of Team Sky, cemented his status as a cyclist without peer and Sky’s as cycling’s top team. Initially a seemingly quixotic project to transform Britain into a cycling power, Sky has now won three of the last four Tours. It did not win the best-team competition at the Tour, which is based on aggregated times, but it was able to consistently surround Froome with strong teammates, one of the keys to his victory, particularly in light of the exceptionally strong winds the riders faced in southern France. Following tradition, the final stage, which concluded with nine laps of the Champs-Élysées, was largely ceremonial. The riders swapped congratulations, and Froome and his teammates sipped some Champagne and beer while showing off special race clothing. The host broadcaster took full advantage of its helicopter camera to show off scenic wonders, particularly the 16th-century chateau and elaborate stables in Chantilly, where the 113-kilometer (70.2-mile) stage started. There was no in-race drinking, however, for the sprinters of the Tour and the teams that employed them. André Greipel, a German rider on the Belgian Lotto Soudal team, won what is probably cycling’s most prestigious sprint. “Thanks for your kindness in these difficult times,” Froome said in French from the Tour’s final podium. “You have the most beautiful race in the world. Vive le Tour. Vive La France.” This month’s truck attack in Nice did not noticeably thin the crowd that gathered to see Froome lead the race onto the Champs-Élysées. But security, traditionally high, had clearly been increased. Cafes along the cobbled street were ordered closed, as were some Metro stations. At the subway stops that did remain open, spectators were held back to allow police officers to inspect bags and parcels. France’s riot police teams are usually kept in vans and buses on side streets during the Tour’s finale. On Sunday, they were out mingling with the crowd, as were plainclothes officers dressed as cycling fans. The French, who still pine for another Tour winner, still had a rider to cheer this time. Romain Bardet, the unusually slim climber, gave them a last-minute stage win and finished second over all, if a substantial 4 minutes 5 seconds behind Froome. The final podium spot went to Nairo Quintana of Colombia, the leader of the Spanish Movistar team, who showed none of the form he had used on the second-to-last stage in 2015 to give Froome a scare. While Froome has now won one of sport’s most difficult challenges three times, including victories in 2013 and 2015, he is more respected than admired. Even in Britain, he has yet to achieve the popularity and celebrity of Bradley Wiggins, the former Sky rider who, in 2012, become the first Briton to win the Tour. Cycling has seen this before. Many fans turned against Eddy Merckx, the great star of the 1970s and now cycling’s living deity, when he seemed to win every race he entered. And while Lance Armstrong at his height was an A-list celebrity in the United States, Europeans often booed him. Froome lacks Armstrong’s aggressiveness and Merckx’s rapaciousness. Instead, he is unrelentingly polite but also uncharismatic, less an inspirational speaker than the chief executive of an insurance company addressing shareholders. His remarks, rarely spontaneous, suggest that Froome was a model student at his media-relations training sessions, suitable, perhaps, for the lead rider on a team that has taken a corporate approach to cycling. Froome’s riding is similarly clinical. Far from being a stylish rider, Froome frequently looks down, an unwise idea when traveling within inches of other riders at speeds of more than 30 miles per hour. That quirk led to speculation that Froome was checking the display on his power meter to churn out a specific number of watts. The theory is very likely unfounded, but like his public appearances, Froome’s approach to racing often seems as if it was laid out in a spreadsheet. His run up Mont Ventoux after a crash that destroyed his bicycle and a wild downhill attack that won him another stage were exceptions to his usual approach. Sky’s dominance, Froome’s superior form and the team’s largely calculated approach do not always make for exciting racing. The problem has grown as other teams adopt Sky’s methods. Charly Wegelius, a sports director with the American Cannondale-Drapac team, is among those calling for rule changes to liven up the Tour. Among other things, he would like to see all riders in breakaways who gain more than 10 minutes on the main pack during a stage receive time bonuses. He would also cut the size of teams by a third, to six, and include more stages that feature a series of small climbs near their conclusions. Perhaps inevitably given cycling’s sorry doping history, Froome’s success occasionally leads to unsubstantiated allegations that Froome is either doping in the traditional way or with the aid of a tiny electric motor hidden in his bike. “I think I’ve pretty much put that to rest,” Froome said Saturday, citing his release of physiological test data last year. It seems unlikely, however, that the conspiracy theorists will go away. Froome’s problems with British fans, however, seem to involve his nationality. Born in Kenya, raised there and in South Africa and now a permanent resident of Monaco, Froome is sometimes viewed as being a Briton of convenience. That may explain why he plays down the most interesting aspect of his life: his time in Africa. It is a story in which cycling proved to be his way out of a dire situation. When Froome was still young, his father went bankrupt and his parents divorced. At one point, creditors seized the family’s belongings. Froome’s mother asked David Kinjah, a Kenyan cyclist who had a brief pro career in Italy, to teach her son the sport. In the difficult and hardscrabble world of African cycling, Froome found his calling. Adding to the resentment in Britain, Froome rarely races there. “I’ve really wanted to,” Froome said Saturday before noting that the Tour of Britain coincides with Spain’s major tour and that Britain’s national championships, now a significant event, happen just before the Tour de France. He added, “It’s a tricky time to include with all that travel time and tapering to get ready for the Tour.” His explanation was not entirely convincing. Nearly every country holds its national championships just before the Tour, and nearly all of Froome’s challengers participate in them. But Froome did make a peace offering Saturday. He now plans to enter a one-day race in London next weekend before heading off to Rio de Janeiro to compete in the Olympic road time trial as part of the British team. While the doubts over how much of a Briton he is will linger, it seems unlikely that Froome, as a three-time Tour de France winner, will not be a draw.

Tour de France
Christopher Froome
Team Sky
Biking


Game Hunting in England’s Premier League

Abstract: NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, England — The Newcastle versus Liverpool match was about to start, and the police officer at the gate was providing advice for those sitting in the away section, amid several thousand tanked-up Liverpool fans. “They might be a little drunker than usual, considering the time of day,” the officer warned, speaking of the away fans (it was 5:45 p.m.). “Are you a Newcastle supporter?” I was not sure. “Make sure you’re not; you won’t have any trouble if you cheer for Liverpool,” he said. He looked concerned. “They’re the ones wearing red.” Premier League soccer is growing ever more popular worldwide. A survey by Britain’s national tourism agency in 2011 found that about 900,000 tourists — 61,000 of them American — attended games that season. The league broadcasts to 212 territories for a possible reach of 720 million homes, with more and more Americans watching the games. But nothing on television can provide adequate preparation for the startling, exhilarating, bewildering, exhausting experience that is a live English professional soccer match. (First lesson: Pick a side). With the most recent season just finished, here is a primer on what to expect should you find yourself at an actual game. It will be noisier than you are used to. Emotions will be higher than they are at home. The food will be awful. People will be drunk. The weather will be bad. Many of the supporters, even the ones cheering the loudest, will not appear to be having fun as we know it, and will be expressing their feelings in novel combinations of swear words. The discomfort, the din, the rudeness, the cleverness, the chanting, the verbal abuse, the unalloyed ecstasy, the abject despair, the love, the hatred — all these are part of the ritual, essential to even to the most meaningless, late-season, non-standings-affecting match. Today’s Premier League is in fact a modern-day iteration of an old experience. As charged as the atmosphere still is, it has changed a lot since the dark days of the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s, when English soccer was a byword for criminality, violence and hooliganism. That was the time of the Hillsborough disaster , the Bradford City disaster and the Heysel Stadium disaster , when spectators were sometimes beaten senseless or burned or crushed to death in stadiums; when games were halted and teams were banned from playing outside England; when mayhem ruled the standing-room-only terraces; when rival fans controlled by criminal gangs fought not only in the streets and the stands but on the field, midmatch; when even the tough fans of continental Europe feared the thugs of England. Pockets of violence still break out, as happened recently when fans from Millwall (team motto: “ No One Likes Us, We Don’t Care ,” sung to the tune of Rod Stewart’s “Sailing”) brawled with one another at Wembley during the F.A. Cup semifinal against Wigan. In Newcastle, the home fans ran riot after the team lost to Sunderland (one fan punched a police horse in the neck). But by and large, soccer has turned peaceful. The serious hooligans have been barred from games, their photographs circulated, their images captured on surveillance cameras, their passports confiscated when their teams play abroad, their whereabouts known. Children and women now feel comfortable at matches. People are less likely to beat you up. The outlawing of all-standing terraced seating in the Premier League in the early 1990s means that fans have to buy tickets in advance and sit in assigned seats, so they are not crammed together and are easier to track. Police and stewards monitor the crowds and remove people caught drinking, committing violence, throwing things at one another or engaging in racist or other abuse. “There’s been a huge decline in the kind of public disorder which dominated English football from the mid-’70s and late ’80s,” said Mark Perryman, a research fellow in sport and leisure culture at the University of Brighton and the author of “Ingerland: Travels with a Football Nation.” “Going to a football match today is an entirely different kind of occasion.” When he was a child in the 1970s, an Aston Villa fan said at a recent game against Chelsea, it was virtually impossible to go to an incident-free game. “In the terraces when your team scored, everyone would lean forward, and the people in the front would be crushed against the barriers,” he said. “Lads would just fall down on the ground and disappear. It’s a lot better than it was.” Still, if you come from America, where it is possible to sit next to a rival fan without fear of bodily harm, English soccer games can be disorienting, unnerving experiences. RULE NO. 1: Stadiums are strictly segregated according to team allegiance. The team whose fans you are sitting with is the greatest sports team in the history of sports. “I’ve been at a match when I was sat in the wrong end,” said Steve James, 47, a Manchester United fan, recalling an occasion when, desperate for tickets, he and his unable-to-keep-quiet mates found themselves in the Nottingham Forest supporters’ section during a crucial game. “The stewards will actually drag you out.” At Goodison Park in Liverpool, where Everton was hosting West Ham recently, the Everton fans behind the goal in the rowdy Gwladys Street section of the stadium delivered a nonstop succession of elaborate chants expressing their love for Everton — players, coach, former players, former coaches — and their contempt for everyone else, including teams and players that were not there, like Manchester United. One chant, to the tune of the French song “Alouette,” consisted of a long call-and-response recital of names — “Psycho Pat” and “Tricky Trev” were two of them — who, it turned out, played on the beloved Everton side of 1985, the club’s best year ever, when it won the league and the European Cup Winners’ Cup and (according to the fans) would have won much more had its inexorable push to victory not been thwarted by a series of unfortunate and unfair events. Twenty-eight years is nothing. English soccer fans have very long memories. RULE NO. 2: Fans are prejudiced on behalf of their players to the point where, if a player were to jump up and down on the bloodied corpse of an opponent during a match, the fans would accuse the opponent of faking it. At one point in the Newcastle match, the Newcastle fans taunted the Liverpool fans by bringing up the shameful recent episode in which the Liverpool striker Luis Suárez bit the Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic on the arm (Suárez was barred for 10 matches). Were the Liverpool fans ashamed by this reminder of Suárez’s immaturity and weirdness? They were not. To the tune of the part of “Sloop John B” that is about wanting to go home, the Liverpool fans praised Suárez’s machismo. “ He bites who he wants ,” they sang proudly. “He bites who he wants. Luis Suárez — he bites who he wants.” Meanwhile, the Everton fans still speak with admiration about Duncan Ferguson, a team legend who, playing in Scotland early in his career, spent three months in prison after being convicted of assaulting an opposing player during a match . It was not Ferguson’s fault, according to an Everton fan riding back to London on the train after the game. The other player, he said, was not tough enough and “went crying to the police.” RULE NO. 3: Sometimes, it feels as if you are in a police state. Do not be surprised if, en route to the stadium, you are greeted by a phalanx of police officers, some whom may be riding horses and wearing riot helmets. Do not be surprised if someone pats you down for illegal alcohol or “missiles” before letting you into the stadium. A Premier League Travel Primer 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Hazel Thompson for The New York Times Do not be surprised at being shunted, like a criminal, through an entrance gate so narrow it looks as if it were built for elves or people entering a peep show booth. During a recent Sunderland match against Southampton, security guards patrolled the stands, ejecting fans who were shouting run-of-the-mill abuse at their opponents. At the Everton game, the guards walked up the aisles, making the people standing up go back to their seats. In Newcastle, the Liverpool fans were put in a kind of cordon sanitaire, escorted to and from the parking lot by the police to prevent them from coming into physical contact with the Newcastle supporters. At the Chelsea-Aston Villa game, some Chelsea fans, unable to control their excitement after a score by Frank Lampard made him Chelsea’s career leader in goals, jumped over the barrier and rushed the field (this is known as a “pitch invasion.”) Within seconds, dozens of officers and stewards had sprinted over to the Chelsea section, surrounded the fans, and bundled the offenders out. Standing under a no-alcohol-past-this-point sign, a Newcastle security guard explained that he believed he and his colleagues were sometimes the only thing between the fans and a free-for-all. “You link arms and hope the fans don’t break through,” he said, describing the situation when away supporters try to leave their special segregated area and attack home supporters. Sometimes, he said, the fans sitting at the top of the stadium throw things at the people below. “You have to put your hands over your head and hope nothing hits you,” he said. The guard said the fans had been particularly nasty during Newcastle’s most recent outing with its Northeast neighbor Sunderland, the game that ended with semi-riots in downtown Newcastle. When he got home and took off his parka, he said, a cascade of coins that fans had thrown at him fell out of the hood and pockets. RULE NO. 4: The fans’ happiness is not straightforward. At a match in January, Arsenal was trouncing visiting West Ham, another London team, which meant that most of the people at Emirates Stadium, their home ground, should have been in a good mood. (The West Ham fans were crammed into such a tiny section that their mood barely counted). But there was an underlying restlessness, and every time Arsenal did anything wrong, like lose possession of the ball, a portion of the home-club fans began abusing the manager, Arsène Wenger, for not having won any trophies in several years. One man sitting near me was uttering a torrent of profane anti-Wenger imprecations in a low monotone, in the manner of a psychotic cattle auctioneer narrating a pornographic movie. What was his problem, I asked, given that the team was ahead by four goals? “He’s effing useless,” the man said (among other things). It works both ways. At the Aston Villa match, the fans’ disappointment at being poised to lose the match was allayed only by the sight of the Chelsea captain, John Terry, lying incapacitated and in obvious pain on the field with an ankle injury. First they accused Terry of faking it. Then they started to chant: “Stand up! Stand up! If you hate John Terry, stand up!” while standing up. Then they accused him of some more things. They cheered loudest when he was carried off on a stretcher. Fans are ecstatic to the point of insanity when their team scores. What makes them nearly as happy is the chance to taunt the opposing fans, the ones whose team has not scored. American baseball fans have rituals like the seventh-inning-stretch and the wave; English soccer fans have rituals like the giving-of-the-finger to the opposing supporters. “People go into this crazed tribal mode, and you can get this mood of hate,” said John Carlin, an English journalist who writes frequently about soccer. He described the way fans celebrate goals as “orgasmic rage.” “It’s a teeth-gritted, sullen business in which people suffer more than enjoy,” he said. RULE NO. 5: The food is cruddy and no one really cares about it, but the alcohol is essential. Alcohol is allowed to be consumed in stadiums’ snack areas, but not in the stands. To temper the annoyance this causes, hard-core fans tend to drink heavily beforehand — carrying plastic bags full of beer onto the train, spending hours in nearby pubs — and at halftime. They are not supposed to arrive at the stadium obviously drunk, but many have ways of getting around this. Meanwhile, very little eating goes on in the stands; nobody is walking around wearing a friendly hat and asking if you want to purchase yummy seat-side treats. No cotton candy; no Dippin’ Dots. Inside, the snack bar menus tend to be basic, offering things like French fries with curry sauce; chicken pie; and Bovril, a hot beef-flavored bouillon masquerading as soup. At St. James’ Park, the Newcastle stadium, the menu in the away-fans’ snack area consisted of one type of entree — meat pies in various flavors — and eight types of alcoholic beverage. “Three-course meal: 7.80 pounds!” advertised a sign. Course one: meat pie. Course two: flavored vodka drink. Course three: Twix bar. At the Aston Villa game in Birmingham, Steve James, 47, took time out from chanting obscene remarks at the visiting Chelsea players to observe that because the game started early in the afternoon, the fans had had less drinking time than they might have liked. Take himself. “I have only had 11 beers so far,” he said. “I met my mates at a bar at 8 in the morning and had a bacon and egg sandwich and four pints of cider,” cider being an alcoholic drink here. “On the train, I had a few more. Then I had six in a bar when I got here, and a couple at halftime.” Except for his addition problems, James did not seem drunk at all. “I don’t like to be uncontrollable or not know what I’m doing,” he said. “I have my limit.” What is that? “I have no idea,” he said. RULE NO. 6: England fans are just as bewildered by you as you are by them. Graeme Adams, an Everton fan, said he once attended a San Francisco Giants game and was bored to the point of inertia by the slowness of the pace, by the fact that everybody seemed to spend the whole time eating and by what he perceived as the narcoleptic listlessness of the crowd. “It was unbelievable — you get told when to clap and how to cheer,” he said. Many old-timers mourn the passing of the old soccer era, one they believe was more authentic, more passionate, more primal. This was before television moved in, before deep-pocketed foreign owners began throwing money at soccer teams, and before prices became so high that many working-class fans bankrupt themselves attending matches, if they go at all. Others say the whole thing is in danger of becoming too Americanized. Mark Perryman, of the University of Brighton, said he was not pleased by the way the recent F.A. Cup final began with an opera singer belting out the words to “God Save the Queen.” “If there’s one group of people that don’t need to be told the words to the national anthem, it’s soccer fans in England, but it was so loud, no one could hear themselves sing,” Perryman said. Meanwhile, he said, the screens at halftime showed what he took to be a Budweiser ad. “It was some kind of computer game being played by two individuals on the pitch,” Perryman said. “This is very foreign to English fan culture.” Some American traditions will never work here, it seems. Carlin recalled going to a game some years ago when, as an experiment, a group of cheerleaders was brought out to energize the crowd. It energized the crowd, but not in the way it was supposed to: the fans all chanted the word “prostitutes” until the cheerleaders left.

Soccer
Premier League
Liverpool Soccer Team
Newcastle United Soccer Team
Chelsea Soccer Team
Aston Villa Soccer Team
Arsenal Soccer Team
West Ham United Soccer Team
Everton Soccer Team


LaVell Edwards, Coach Who Led B.Y.U. to a Football Title, Dies at 86

Abstract: LaVell Edwards, who took over a perennially lackluster Brigham Young University football program in 1972, orchestrated a string of winning seasons with innovative passing attacks run by All-American quarterbacks and coached the Cougars to the 1984 national championship, died on Thursday at his home in Provo, Utah. He was 86. Edwards’s daughter, Ann Cannon, said the cause was complications of a broken hip he incurred in a fall on Christmas Eve. Edwards was Brigham Young’s defensive coordinator before he was named head coach, so he seemed unlikely to create an imaginative offensive scheme. But he did just that in his 29 head-coaching seasons at Brigham Young, bringing it to football prominence, although the university, founded and supported by the Mormon Church, placed education and adherence to a strict moral code above big-time athletics. “There were a lot of people who thought that the church and football shouldn’t mix,” Edwards told The New York Times in November 1984, when his Cougars were headed toward an unbeaten season and a No. 1 national ranking. Unable to compete for blue-chip high school players, Edwards relied on athletes who could be molded in a system that emphasized timing plays. He replaced B.Y.U.’s traditional running game with an offense featuring short and intermediate throws with as many as five potential receivers on the field at the same time. It was essentially ball control through the air, involving quick-release passes that could be used against any kind of defense. Previously used by some N.F.L. teams, the system would become known in the pros as the West Coast offense brilliantly orchestrated by the San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh. “LaVell Edwards brought the passing game to college football,” Gil Brandt, a former player personnel director of the Dallas Cowboys, told Football Digest in 2000, Edwards’s last season. “He made it possible for teams with lesser ability like B.Y.U. to compete for a championship on all levels.” Edwards began turning around Cougar football with two unlikely stars: first Gary Sheide, who had been a largely unknown junior college player, and then Gifford Nielsen, who had played in a run- and option-oriented wishbone attack in high school. Both put up gaudy statistics as quarterbacks. They were most notably followed by a string of strong quarterbacks: Marc Wilson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young and Robbie Bosco, who took the Cougars to a 13-0 season and the No. 1 ranking in the 1984 news agency polls, as well as Ty Detmer, the 1990 Heisman Trophy winner, who threw for 121 touchdowns in his B.Y.U. career, and Steve Sarkisian. Edwards compiled a record of 257 victories, 101 losses and 3 ties. In addition to the perfect season in 1984, he coached B.Y.U. to 18 Western Athletic Conference titles and the championship of the Mountain West Conference in 1999, its inaugural season, as well as 22 bowl games. A two-time national coach of the year, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. Edwards’s quarterbacks threw more than 11,000 passes for more than 100,000 yards and 635 touchdowns, and B.Y.U. finished either No. 1 or No. 2 nationally in passing in 13 of his first 17 seasons. “There’s no question it’s the system that makes the quarterback here,” McMahon told Sports Illustrated. A Utah native but a Roman Catholic, McMahon had wanted to play for Notre Dame but was not recruited by the Irish. After starring at B.Y.U., he went on to become a standout with the Chicago Bears. Young, who was McMahon’s successor as quarterback and who became a Pro Football Hall of Famer with the 49ers, had also arrived at the campus in Provo with a fairly modest quarterbacking résumé. A great-great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, who oversaw the Mormons’ migration to Utah, Steve Young, who was born in Salt Lake City, had been a run-first high school quarterback growing up in Greenwich, Conn. Edwards was surprised at becoming something of a celebrity during B.Y.U.’s championship season. “I find myself getting stopped in public places that I’ve been going to for most of my life,” he said. “Little kids come up to me and say, ‘Hi, Uncle LaVell,’ and I don’t even know them.” Before his final home game as coach, Cougar Stadium was renamed LaVell Edwards Stadium. Reuben LaVell Edwards was born on Oct. 11, 1930, in Orem, a few miles from the B.Y.U. campus, the eighth of 14 children in a Mormon farm family. As a youngster he watched the B.Y.U. team practice and thought of becoming a football coach someday. But he decided to attend Utah State in Logan instead of Brigham Young, feeling that if he lived at home while attending college he would be stuck milking the family’s cows. He was an all-Skyline Conference center and linebacker at Utah State and coached high school football in Salt Lake City before he was hired as a B.Y.U. assistant in 1962. In addition to his wife, the former Patti Louise Covey, and his daughter, he is survived by two sons Jim and John;his sisters Ruby Cameron, Norma Brady, Alene Felix, Shirley Maag and Colleen Healey; his brothers Lewis and Wayne, 14 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. Edwards, who was active in Mormon Church affairs, served an 18-month Mormon mission to New York City with his wife in 2002 and 2003. Religious obligations did take a toll on his teams. His 1976 squad had 20 players who were returning from missions. “If we don’t win our first few games,” the publication Cougar Illustrated quoted him, “we might start looking for some hell raisers.” No problem. The team lost its opener but finished the season at 9-3.

LaVell Edwards
Obituary
College football
Coaches
BYU


Why Colleges Haven't Stopped Binge Drinking

Abstract: Despite decades of research, hundreds of campus task forces and millions invested in bold experiments, college drinking in the United States remains as much of a problem as ever. More than 1,800 students die every year of alcohol-related causes. An additional 600,000 are injured while drunk, and nearly 100,000 become victims of alcohol-influenced sexual assaults. One in four say their academic performance has suffered from drinking, all according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The binge-drinking rate among college students has hovered above 40 percent for two decades, and signs are that partying is getting even harder. More students now drink to get drunk, choose hard liquor over beer and drink in advance of social events. For many the goal is to black out. Drinking is so central to students’ expectations of college that they will fight for what they see as a basic right. After Syracuse University, named the nation’s No.1 party school by The Princeton Review, tried to limit a large outdoor gathering, outraged students labeled the campus a police state. Why has the drumbeat of attention, effort and money failed to influence what experts consider a public-health crisis? It is not for lack of information. Dozens of studies show exactly why, when, where and how students drink. Plenty more identify effective intervention and prevention strategies. A whole industry has sprung up around educating students on the dangers of alcohol abuse. For the most part, undeterred by evidence that information alone is not enough, colleges continue to treat alcohol abuse as an individual problem, one that can be fixed primarily through education. “Institutions of higher education are still really committed to the idea that if we just provide the right information or the right message, that will do the trick, despite 30 or 40 years of research that shows that’s not true,” said Robert F. Saltz, a senior research scientist at the Prevention Research Center, part of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. “The message isn’t what changes behavior. Enforcement changes behavior.” Yet many colleges still look the other way. Few have gone after environmental factors like cheap and easy access to alcohol or lenient attitudes toward underage drinking. At some colleges, presidents are reluctant to take on boosters and alumni who fervently defend rituals where drinking can get out of control. Administrators responsible for prevention often are not equipped with the community-organizing skills to get local politicians, bar owners and the police to try new approaches, enforce laws and punish bad actors. A student’s death or an unwelcome party-school ranking might prompt action, but it is unlikely to be sustained or meaningful. A new prevention program or task force has only so much impact. Even at colleges that try to confront these issues comprehensively, turnover and limited budgets pose significant obstacles. When administrations change, so do priorities. In the 1990s college presidents routinely declared alcohol abuse the greatest threat to campus life, and the federal government demanded that they do something. The first large-scale examination of alcohol use among college students began in 1993. Run by Henry Wechsler, a social psychologist at the Harvard University School of Public Health, the College Alcohol Study surveyed 17,000 students at 140 colleges on why and how they drink. The following year, Mr. Wechsler pronounced 44 percent of all college students binge drinkers, using that term to mean consuming four or five drinks in a row. The results set off a storm of news coverage and helped shift public understanding of college drinking from a relatively harmless pastime to a public-health concern. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which financed the first survey, invested millions in further surveys and research. Mr. Wechsler and his team painted a complex portrait of campus culture, one in which the environment fueled excessive drinking. More than half of the bars surrounding campuses, they found, used discounts and other promotions to lure in students. Higher rates of binge drinking were associated with membership in a fraternity or sorority, a belief that most students drink and easy access to alcohol. At the same time, the studies made clear that much is beyond colleges’ control. Half of students had started binge drinking before they got to campus. Advocates and policy makers sensed an opportunity. The United States Department of Education established the Higher Education Center for Alcohol, Drug Use and Violence Prevention, which provided research, training and technical assistance. Mr. Wechsler’s findings sparked a 10-campus experiment to try to bring drinking under control. Focusing on colleges with higher-than-average rates of binge drinking, the project aimed to prove that by working with community partners to change the environment, colleges have the power to shift student behavior. The Johnson foundation put more than $17 million into the project, which was conducted with the American Medical Association over a 12-year period. But early results showed that in the first few years, half of the colleges involved did not try much of anything. The other half reported “significant although small” improvements in drinking behavior. Meanwhile, a survey of about 750 college presidents found that they were sticking to what they had always done, focusing on arguably effective “social norming” campaigns, which aim to curb students’ drinking with the message that their peers do not drink as much as it seems. Today a number of colleges that participated in the lengthy experiment still struggle with students’ alcohol problems. Several colleges developed new programs: training servers, notifying parents when underage students were caught drinking and coordinating enforcement with the local police. Setbacks, however, were common. Louisiana State University found local bar owners hostile to the idea of scaling back happy hours or drink specials. At the University of Colorado at Boulder, the campus-community coalition had little authority. To appeal to local businesses, a new mayor in Newark, Del., weakened regulations on selling alcohol near dormitories at the public flagship university. The following years saw the end of several major projects. Mr. Wechsler’s College Alcohol Study wrapped up in 2006, having surveyed 50,000 students and produced reams of research. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shifted its attention elsewhere. The Amethyst Initiative, a campaign by more than 100 college presidents to reconsider the legal drinking age, came and quickly went. And in 2012, funding cuts eliminated the federal center that had guided colleges on preventing alcohol and drug abuse. Jim Yong Kim, a physician with a public-health background who was president of Dartmouth College, attempted to drag the issue back into the spotlight, announcing an intensive, public-health and data-driven approach to dealing with campus drinking. He used his influence to drum up participation from 32 institutions in the National College Health Improvement Program’s Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking and secured money to keep it going for two years. But when he left Dartmouth to lead the World Bank, in 2012, the leadership and the money dried up. The project issued its first and final report this year. Image Fewer than half of colleges consistently enforce their alcohol policies at tailgates and in on-campus housing. Credit Greg Kahn Educators and researchers who lived through this period say a combination of exhaustion, frustration, inertia, lack of resources and campus and community politics derailed the national conversation about college drinking. Taking on the problem proved tougher than anyone had thought. “All those efforts caused some issue fatigue,” said John D. Clapp, director of the federal alcohol and drug center when it closed. The feeling, he said, was “Hey, we tried this, and it’s time to move on.” Today, fewer than half of colleges consistently enforce their alcohol policies at tailgates, in dormitories and at fraternity and sorority houses. Only a third do compliance checks to monitor illegal alcohol sales in nearby neighborhoods. Just 7 percent try to restrict the number of outlets selling alcohol, and 2 percent work to reduce cheap drink specials at local bars, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota. Philosophically, many educators are resistant to the idea of policing students. They would prefer to treat them as young adults who can make good choices with the right motivation. Traci L. Toomey, who directs the alcohol-epidemiology program at Minnesota’s School of Public Health, recalls visiting a campus that had long prided itself on letting students monitor the flow of alcohol at social events. “As if somehow magically they’d do a great job,” she said. In the Minnesota surveys, only about 60 percent of campus law-enforcement officials said they almost always proactively enforced alcohol policies. Half cited barriers such as understaffing and students’ easy access to alcohol at private parties and at bars that don’t check IDs. Only 35 percent of colleges’ law-enforcement units almost always issue criminal citations for serious alcohol-related incidents, preferring instead to refer cases to other offices, like judicial or student affairs. Students themselves say more-aggressive enforcement could change their behavior. One survey of those who had violated their colleges’ alcohol policies found that parental notification, going through the criminal-justice system or being required to enter an alcohol treatment program would be more of a deterrent than fines and warnings. Duke University was home to an all-day party known as Tailgate, which raged in a parking lot before and after every home football game. Wearing costumes, cranking up the music and funneling beer, students left behind a mess so huge it required front-loaders to clear. Administrators tried all sorts of things — cars versus no cars, kegs versus cans, shorter and longer hours, food and entertainment — in a futile effort to rein in bad behavior. In 2010, a 14-year old sibling of a student was found passed out in a portable toilet. Administrators shut it down. Fraternities and sororities remain a third rail for many college presidents. “Even though the Greek system was identified as the highest area of risk in terms of harm and rates of drinking, we didn’t have many schools touch that,” said Lisa C. Johnson, a former managing director of the Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking. “It’s fraught with politics. It’s fraught with, Are we going to lose funding from alumni who value the traditions? Also, it’s complex because Greek houses may be owned by the fraternities, not the university.” Some prevention advocates hope that scrutiny of sexual assault on campuses may result in more attention to alcohol abuse, because the connection has been well documented. It took a series of federal complaints and investigations, supporters say, for colleges to begin revising and better enforcing their sexual-assault policies. Others are betting that money will talk. Jonathan C. Gibralter, president of Frostburg State University, calculated that alcohol abuse cost $1 million in staff time and lost tuition over a recent four-year period. Putting a price tag on the problem, he said, helped keep people motivated to crack down on off-campus parties, work with local law enforcement and raise expectations among students. The different forces at play nationally may not be enough to focus attention on dangerous drinking in college, but culture change can happen. It’s just slow, said John Porter, director of the Center for Health and Well Being at the University of Vermont, which has grappled with alcohol abuse for more than two decades. Asked to lead a new campuswide approach to the problem, Mr. Porter remains hopeful. When he was a child, he said, he used to sit on his mother’s lap in the front seat of their Buick. She’d be smoking cigarettes. Nobody was wearing seat belts. “Today we’d be aghast,” he said.

US
College
Alcohol abuse
Alcohol
Education


The Kind of Car Insurer That Gives Consumers the Best Value

Abstract: Are people better off when they buy things from companies that don’t have public shareholders they need to please? The answer, at least in the nearly $200 billion auto insurance industry, appears to be yes. That’s the conclusion of a new and comprehensive study examining the claims-paying histories of more than 300 auto insurers in the last five years. The analysis was conducted by ValChoice , a data analytics company that aims to bring some transparency to the opaque insurance market. Unlike many lines of business, auto insurance has two types of companies serving buyers. One group consists of publicly traded companies that must satisfy both shareholders and policyholders. The other kind of operation — known as a mutual company — is owned by its policyholders and so does not have to serve two masters. Many businesses try to benefit a wide array of stakeholders — investors as well as customers and employees. But the potential for conflicts in these operations has become a hot issue recently as companies like Valeant Pharmaceuticals International have been attacked for pricing policies that hurt consumers while enriching executives. (One of Valeant’s former executives was charged with criminal fraud on Thursday by prosecutors in New York.) Conflicts that exist among insurance companies are less obvious to consumers, industry experts say, in part because of the complexity of the business. The ValChoice study sheds light on this problem. It found that the car insurers providing the best value to consumers were mutual insurance companies owned by their policyholders and paying them dividends. Over a five-year period from 2011 through 2015, these companies paid out an average 72.6 percent of their premiums in claims; publicly held insurers with shareholders to satisfy paid 62.8 percent of their premiums in claims. Dan Karr, a former technology executive who founded ValChoice, said it was hard to know exactly why such disparities exist. But a central factor, he hypothesized, is the difficulty of having to please both policyholders who want generous payments when they have an accident and shareholders who expect sizable profits. “There’s a conflict here between shareholders and policyholders,” Mr. Karr said. “We’re showing how companies have run their businesses, and that’s not always in the interest of the policyholder.” The ValChoice study divided the auto insurance market into three types of companies. The largest group — 48.3 percent — are publicly traded corporations like Allstate, Geico (which is part of Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate) and Progressive. Among mutual companies, there are two different business models. Some companies return earnings to their policyholders in the form of dividends, while others do not pay dividends but keep the earnings at the company. Mutual companies that do not consistently pay dividends to auto policyholders make up 42.3 percent of the market; Liberty Mutual is one of them. Those that do pay dividends are the smallest subset of the market, with approximately 8 percent, ValChoice said. Also sometimes known as reciprocal insurance exchanges, they include USAA, the Automobile Club of Southern California, Amica Mutual and NJM Insurance. (Government insurance entities and nonprofit organizations make up the rest of the market; they were excluded from the study.) Using data collected by state insurance regulators, ValChoice analyzed claims payment histories of 312 auto insurers accounting for 98.5 percent of the overall market. It compared the premiums these companies took in with the amounts they paid out on claims, a metric known as the paid loss ratio. Companies with higher paid loss ratios dispense more money to their customers on claims than companies with lower ratios do. For consumers, therefore, companies with higher ratios are a better choice when they get into an accident. The numbers tell the tale. Dividend-paying mutual insurers paid out in claims an average 72.6 percent of the premiums they earned. Mutual companies that do not pay dividends paid an average 64.5 percent, while publicly traded companies paid the least in claims: 62.8 percent of premiums. I asked Geico, Allstate, Progressive and Liberty Mutual about the findings. A Progressive spokesman declined to comment, and Geico did not respond. A spokeswoman for Allstate, Laura Strykowski, said the company provided “a fair and caring claims experience for customers, and we work diligently to ensure the timely and accurate processing of claims.” John Cusolito, a spokesman at Liberty Mutual, said the company’s customers received excellent service and the advantage of a lower initial price on the policy rather than receiving a dividend when the policy expires. Paid loss ratios are watched closely by stock and bond analysts, who look at the figures when measuring an insurer’s profitability and financial position. Assessing paid loss ratios from the consumer perspective is less typical. That’s why Mr. Karr conducted the exercise. When shopping for insurance, consumers often focus solely on price. Figuring out the differences in claims payment histories at companies is much harder to do because the data is not readily available and requires significant digging to unearth. Analyzing the data, Mr. Karr said, can give consumers a better idea of the value they are receiving for the insurance premiums they pay. “The paid loss ratio is such a direct measure of the actual value of an insurance policy,” said Mr. Karr. “If I’m paying money for insurance, it tells me how much is likely to come back to me if I have an accident.” In essence, Mr. Karr said, consumers who buy from companies whose claims payments are lower are paying for lesser coverage. That value loss can add up to billions of dollars. Charles M. Chamness, chief executive of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies , agreed. “Mutuals exist to serve policyholders and allow management to focus on service and longtime financial security,” he said. Mr. Karr got the idea to start ValChoice after he was hit by a car and had trouble getting his medical bills paid by insurers. “When I came away from it, I thought there was a lot people who needed to know about the operating characteristics of these companies,” Mr. Karr said. “People are mandated by law to buy insurance; they should be able to get quality information about what it is they are buying.”


When the Celebrity Is the Joke (and Is In on It)

Abstract: A YOUNG man with an unusual perspective on the ups and downs of life is singing the praises of being prepared financially. The verb in that sentence may help you guess his identity. He is Sanjaya Malakar, who may be the most talked-about contestant to appear on the popular reality series “ American Idol .” Mr. Malakar, who turned 19 on Wednesday, is featured in a commercial for Nationwide Financial that is part of the next installment of a campaign carrying the theme “Life comes at you fast.” There is also a special Web site ( sanjaya-ize.com ) where visitors can customize photographs of themselves with different looks sported by Mr. Malakar on television; the results can be shared with friends and family. The rise of Mr. Malakar last year from unknown Seattle-area teenager to national sensation as a finalist on the sixth season of “American Idol” was meteoric. The debate over his talent, or lack thereof, and his oddball hairstyles, like the “ponyhawk” — ponytails crossed with a faux mohawk — attracted so much attention that he has become part of American popular culture. He has been parodied on TV shows like “Saturday Night Live” and in movies like “Meet the Spartans.” It is that fame, or notoriety, that Nationwide hopes to tap into by signing Mr. Malakar for the campaign. He is the most recent in a string of offbeat personalities signed by Nationwide to illustrate how rapidly the vagaries of life can change your financial needs. The others include the former rapper MC Hammer and Kevin Federline, the former husband of Britney Spears. In each instance, the celebrity is in on the joke, poking fun at himself and his experience with the potentials and pitfalls of stardom. For example, the commercial with Mr. Federline, which appeared during the 2007 Super Bowl , began with him performing in an elaborate rap video. But it turned out to be a daydream he was having during his shift as the fry chef at a fast-food restaurant. The commercial with Mr. Malakar is among six, all humorous, that are being aimed at Americans of South Asian heritage; Mr. Malakar is the son of a Bengali Indian father and an Italian-American mother.  This is the third year that Nationwide has focused on the South Asian market with tailored advertising. The company also sponsors specific ads for black consumers as well as Spanish-speaking consumers and those who are gay or lesbian. The campaign is by a New York agency named the A Partnership that creates ads for marketers seeking to reach Asian-American consumers. The ads adapt the “Life comes at you fast” theme developed by the Nationwide agency for the general market, TM Advertising in Dallas, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Consumers from South Asian countries like India and Pakistan are “a quickly emerging market for a lot of reasons,” said Steven Schreibman, vice president for advertising and brand management at the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company in Columbus, Ohio. Americans of South Asian heritage tend to be highly educated, Mr. Schreibman said, and focused on the financial well-being of their families. That is reflected in the plots of the commercials in the campaign, which began last month. In one spot, the proud parents of a son who has been accepted to an Ivy League college have to sell just about everything they own to keep him there. On graduation day, he informs his mother and father, “I’m going to London for my Ph.D.” In response, they cry — and clearly, not tears of joy. In another commercial, an office worker discovers he has won the lottery. He goes into his boss’s office to quit but loses his grip on his winning ticket, which floats through the air and lands in the boss’s shredder. Oops! The commercial with Mr. Malakar, filmed in India, starts with him standing outside a temple, singing for a long time — as evidenced by changes in the weather and the variety of his wacky hairstyles and outfits — to win an audience with a spiritual master. Only after he agrees to stop singing does he gain entry to the inner sanctum. “Oh, great Guruji, please help me,” Mr. Malakar says. “I’ve tasted fame and fortune. Girls adore me. But I still feel that there’s something missing. Tell me, what is the most important thing in life?” The master, resplendent in a white robe, intones, “A good retirement plan,” as the doors close on him. An announcer says, “Life comes at you fast,” and the doors open. “And a haircut,” the master adds, as the doors close again. Mr. Malakar, who accompanied Mr. Schreibman to New York recently for interviews about the campaign, said he liked the concept for the commercial as soon as he heard about it. “Especially if you’re going to continue being an entertainer, be in the media, you have to have some humor about yourself,” said Mr. Malakar, who said that in addition to working on an album he was pursuing deals for a book, a reality TV show and a video game. “The thing that took the longest” during the filming of the commercial, Mr. Malakar recalled, was the creation of the many hairstyles he sports, some based on his “American Idol” looks and others brand new. Some of the hairdos required egg whites for body, he added, laughing, and some required “two cans of hair spray.” The concept for the spot was developed with Mr. Malakar in mind, said Jeannie Yuen, president and chief executive at the A Partnership. The commercials “are playing on typical South Asia lifestyle situations,” she added, particularly the one about college, because “a lot of South Asians come here for education.”  The goal of the campaign is to build awareness for the Nationwide brand among South Asians, Ms. Yuen said, which is “very middle American” and “not a brand they’re exposed to in their home countries.” The commercials are appearing on television outlets that are watched by the target audience, which include Zee TV. Now that Nationwide has added another celebrity to the “Life comes at you fast” campaign, who may be next? Well, depending on what happens Nov. 4, imagine this script: A woman with librarian looks walks into camera view with her husband; offspring including an infant, a pregnant teenage daughter and a soldier son; and a prospective son-in-law carrying a hockey stick. “I’ve gone from obscurity to celebrity and back to obscurity,” she says ruefully. “Life comes at you fast.”

Advertising and Marketing
Reality Television
Television
Malakar Sanjaya
Hammer MC


Racist Police Emails Put Florida Cases in Doubt

Abstract: KEY WEST, Fla. — The Miami-Dade state attorney’s office is combing through more than 150 criminal cases of black suspects arrested by Miami Beach police officers who wrote or received racist emails, the latest in a series of high-profile episodes around the nation that have raised troubling questions about the relations between the police and the communities they serve. Two ranking officers at the Miami Beach Police Department sent about 230 emails that contained racist and sexist jokes and pornography from 2010-12, Chief Dan Oates announced Thursday. A former police captain, who had been demoted to lieutenant, was fired, and a major retired before the investigation was made public. Fourteen other officers received the emails, the police department said. The episode, which follows the release of racist or homophobic emails in Ferguson, Mo.; San Francisco; and Fort Lauderdale, adds another level of discord to the often-strained relations between the police and minority groups. Officers in Edison, N.J. ; Seattle; Baton Rouge, La.; and Casselberry, Fla., have also been fired or disciplined over racist text and email messages, a wave that some experts believe indicates a culture in which officers are comfortable expressing racist views. The episodes also raise questions about whether an officer’s flippant attitude about race manifests itself on the streets. “This behavior serves to belittle the people that we serve,” Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the Miami-Dade County state attorney, said at a news conference Thursday. “They belittle women, and they belittle minorities.” A review of about a million emails showed that from 2010-12, the supervisors had forwarded racist memes and jokes mocking blacks, women, President Obama and Mexicans. One photo of a baby in a bassinet, purporting to put to rest questions about Mr. Obama’s place of birth, showed a baby in a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket. One meme showed a “Black Monopoly” board game on which each square had a police officer directing the player to “go to jail.” The state attorney’s office found that the officers involved were listed as witnesses in 540 cases, including 97 that are pending. The majority of the defendants were white or Hispanic. In the 162 cases in which the defendant was listed as black, the state attorney’s office is conducting a review to determine whether the case relied solely on the testimony of an officer whose conduct is being called into question. The emails raise the possibility that prosecutors will have to reopen closed cases in which the officers played an important role, said the state attorney’s spokesman, Ed Griffith. “If there are indications of some kind of bias, if there is a pattern, then clearly we have to remedy that,” Mr. Griffith said. Eugene G. Gibbons, a lawyer who represents the fired lieutenant, Alex Carulo, said his client’s dismissal was unfair, because the initial internal affairs investigation had been presented to a previous police chief two years ago. That chief, Raymond Martinez, had issued a written reprimand to the major, Angel Vasquez, and the emails stopped. Mr. Carulo was demoted last year when Mr. Oates took over, and this week he was fired. Mr. Gibbons questioned the decision to release the emails just before Urban Beach Week, an annual hip-hop festival in Miami Beach over Memorial Day weekend, which has been marred by clashes between the police and partygoers. In 2011, eight Miami Beach police officers fired at a reckless driver , killing him and wounding several bystanders. “It’s a powder keg for these people, and they self-created it,” Mr. Gibbons said. Robert Jenkins, president of the Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police , agreed. “The people who are coming on Memorial Day are not police-friendly,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Sometimes we feel there’s an attitude of ‘them and us,’ and this is going to add to the tensions.” Mr. Gibbons stressed that dozens of people, including assistant chiefs and majors, had received or forwarded the offensive emails, which he said indicated widespread but harmless activity. “That was the culture back then,” Mr. Vasquez, the retired major, told the local CBS channel last year. “It was just guys emailing each other. There was a good ol’ boy mentality back then.” Delores Jones-Brown, director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that any criminal cases the officers touched were in jeopardy, because defense lawyers could impeach the credibility of any officer involved. “You would want prosecutors to take the lead,” she said. “You’d have to look at the statute to see if the officers violated any harassment and hate crime statutes. If they did, they can be charged.” The Broward County, Fla., state attorney’s office was forced to drop 11 felony cases, 23 misdemeanors and one juvenile case after four Fort Lauderdale police officers were caught sending racists texts, including some that used racial epithets to refer to suspects they chased. An officer also made a video trailer featuring actual police dogs and Ku Klux Klan imagery. All of the defendants in the dropped cases were black, said Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for the Broward County state attorney. In all of those instances, at least one of the four officers involved was the principal officer in the arrest, he said. “This is a serious matter,” Mr. Ishoy said in an email. “Beyond the cases we’ve dropped, we continue to review other cases in which these former policemen were the principal officers involved in the arrest. We will drop charges against the defendants where it is appropriate.” Howard Finkelstein, the Broward public defender, said the state attorney and police investigations did not go far enough. “Look at the numbers. How is it possible that in a city that is 31 percent black, 96 percent of the people stopped walking or biking are black? How is that even possible, statistically?” His office is reviewing 45 of the officers’ cases. “I can assure you that if people think the beating of black young men is funny, then they are willing to beat young black men, period, end of story,” Mr. Finkelstein said. “It is not possible for an officer to use hate-filled language and humor, but only on his private time.” Marsha Ellison, president of the Fort Lauderdale branch of the N.A.A.C.P., said the city had reprimanded only low-ranking officers and had not, for example, disciplined the K-9 officers who allowed their dogs to be used in the video. “The city wants us to believe that a 22-year-old kid on the force for three years was the mastermind of all of this,” she said. The three Fort Lauderdale officers who were fired are appealing their dismissals; one resigned. One of the fired men, Christopher Sousa, 25, said he had sent an apology to the N.A.A.C.P. “I made a mistake, a huge one, and I am so sorry for it,” Mr. Sousa said. “I understand that some people will never forgive me.” On Friday, the San Francisco district attorney’s office, which is reviewing some 3,000 cases in which one of 14 officers who sent or received offensive texts was listed as the primary officer, said it had so far dismissed eight criminal cases.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings