Yankees Want to Cut Payroll to $189 Million by 2014

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Strange rumblings about fiscal restraint and lower payrolls have been emanating from the Yankees for several months, and Hal Steinbrenner, the managing general partner of the team, confirmed Thursday that he wants the payroll to be cut by about $20 million, down to the critical threshold of $189 million, within two years. “I’m looking at it as a goal, but my goals are normally considered a requirement,” Steinbrenner said while speaking to reporters in the lobby of George M. Steinbrenner Field, named after his father. “Is it a requirement with baseball that we be at 189? No, it’s not a requirement. But that is going to be the luxury tax threshold, and that’s where I want to be.” The Yankees have long pushed player salaries and team payrolls ever higher, but with the new basic agreement that was made into baseball law on Nov. 22, teams have been given a huge financial incentive to stay within the $189 million limit by the beginning of the 2014 season. If the Yankees do not get under that figure by 2014, their luxury tax rate could climb to 50 percent. For a team like the Yankees, the difference can be as much as $50 million, making it almost financially reckless, in their evaluations, not to be under the threshold within two years. Steinbrenner said he badly wanted to avoid that, but he also vowed to remain competitive at the same time. “We always will field a championship-caliber team,” he said. “I’ve said that a thousand times.” The new collective bargaining agreement includes a provision for the luxury tax, but it also has a component called the market disqualification, which enables teams that pay into the revenue-sharing pot to receive huge rebates if they are under the threshold. For the first two years of the agreement, the threshold is $178 million. It rises to $189 million in 2014. The Yankees have no hope of getting under the figure this year or next, but they are aiming for 2014. Steinbrenner said the payroll was expected to be $210 million this year, and he conceded that was about $10 million higher than he had planned. But when General Manager Brian Cashman asked to sign the free-agent pitcher Hiroki Kuroda to a one-year, $10 million contract, he agreed to stretch the payroll. He also acknowledged that, unlike his father, he is more committed to staying competitive in the framework of a less elastic budget. “I’m a finance geek,” he said. “I guess I always have been. That’s my background. Budgets matter, and balance sheets matter. I just feel that if you do well on the player-development side and you have a good farm system, you don’t need a $220 million payroll. You don’t. You can field every bit as good a team with young talent.” The success of several prospects from the Yankees’ farm system over the last few years — including Jesus Montero, who was traded for the right-handed pitcher Michael Pineda, and pitchers Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos — makes Steinbrenner think the team can field a contender even with a smaller budget. The Yankees will also be relying on younger (and less expensive) pitchers like Phil Hughes and Ivan Nova to help keep the payroll down while they consider expenditures elsewhere. That would include contracts for players like outfielder Nick Swisher and catcher Russell Martin, both of whom can become free agents after the season. Steinbrenner indicated the Yankees were not likely to give those players extensions during the season. The Yankees have $75 million committed to four players in 2014: third baseman Alex Rodriguez, pitcher C. C. Sabathia, first baseman Mark Teixeira and shortstop Derek Jeter. The last time their payroll was less than $190 million was in 2007, when it was $189,639,045. As the Yankees head into the 2012 season after a disappointing first-round exit in the playoffs last fall, there is a greater sense of optimism based on Rodriguez’s health and the acquisitions of Pineda and Kuroda. “I’m excited,” Steinbrenner said. “I think we’ve got on paper definitely a better team than we did last year. I think our starting pitching is improved, and that was one of our goals in the off-season.”

New York Yankees
Steinbrenner Hal
Cashman Brian
Wages and Salaries
Baseball


Brubeck, Corea and Other Jazz Pianists at Festivals

Abstract: OVER the past decade and a half, the Litchfield Jazz Festival in Kent and the Caramoor Jazz Festival in Katonah, N.Y., have reliably presented a selection of top players. But this year, taken together — both festivals are running from Aug. 6 to 8 — they are offering more: a multigenerational history of jazz piano featuring the giants who made it. “It’s a kind of continuum,” said Dan Morgenstern, the historian and director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Four months from his 90th birthday, Dave Brubeck will bring his quartet to Litchfield on Aug. 6. Mr. Brubeck, who in December received the Kennedy Center Honors only months after a serious illness, said he was now in fine fettle, restricted from flying long distances but fully able to lead his group through tunes like “Take Five,” the hit in 5/4 time that helped bring odd meters into the jazz mainstream in the 1950s. Since those early days, Mr. Brubeck has branched out, producing ambitious works for orchestra and chorus that have been performed throughout the world. He gets special satisfaction, he said, from a symphonic piece inspired by Ansel Adams’s photographs of the Yosemite Valley, not far from where he grew up in California. Written with his son, Chris Brubeck, the piece had its premiere last year. But while Mr. Brubeck is working on several writing projects, including a torch song and a film score, it is the material from his landmark 1959 album “Time Out” to which he inevitably returns with his quartet — featuring the saxophonist Bobby Militello, the bassist Michael Moore and the drummer Randy Jones — and which he thinks will elicit the most response at Litchfield. “They all want to hear ‘Blue Rondo à la Turk,’ ‘Take Five,’ ” he said. “Some nights we play ‘Three to Get Ready.’ That’s what the audience loves.” Like Mr. Brubeck, Chick Corea , 69, was at the forefront of an experimental movement, collaborating with Miles Davis and later leading his own band, Return to Forever, as they turned toward electronics to fuse jazz and rock. Starting in the 1970s, Mr. Corea enjoyed great success with the band, ultimately seeing his innovations, like Mr. Brubeck’s 20 years earlier, become part of the jazz lexicon. But Mr. Corea, who early on played with musicians like the saxophonist Stan Getz and the flutist Herbie Mann, has often returned to acoustic music. That is what he will be making when he leads his aptly named Freedom Band — the saxophonist Kenny Garrett, the bassist Christian McBride and the drummer Roy Haynes — in his small-group debut at Caramoor on Aug. 8. Mr. Corea, who won raves for a solo turn at Caramoor last October, said that the band members would allow themselves maximum latitude. While drawing on jazz standards — he cited Thelonius Monk’s “Blue Hawk” and “Monk’s Dream” as group favorites — their improvisations might at any point refer only obliquely to a song’s chord changes, meter or overall form. “The band is comfortable floating in and out of structure,” he said, noting that the musicians had developed an unspoken agreement on their approach to standards, starting a decade ago when all four first worked together. “If you know what’s coming, it gets to be boring. So you try to create situations where there are unknowns. You’re kind of skating out there.” Mr. Corea is among the musicians cited as influences by Mulgrew Miller , 54, who will be the lone act on opening night at Caramoor. Mr. Corea, in turn, praised Mr. Miller for the fluency of his playing — honed as a sideman with the singer Betty Carter, the trumpeter Woody Shaw and the drummers Art Blakey and Tony Williams — and as an influential leader in own right. Mr. Miller, who led a sextet at Caramoor two years ago, will be playing with a trio this year. He said that the group, with Ivan Taylor on bass and Rodney Green on drums, will mix his originals — among them “When I Get There,” an angular blues, and “Carousel,” a lush waltz — with popular standards like Harold Arlen’s “A Sleepin’ Bee.” Compared with the Freedom Band, Mr. Miller’s trio might adhere more strongly to structure in the treatment of standards. Mr. Miller, who deepened his appreciation of classic form playing with the Duke Ellington band in his early 20s, said he would most likely state the theme and take improvised choruses before returning to the theme. “I believe in giving due respect to the melody, playing it as true as possible,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, a solo is a creative process that improves the melody. That’s why they call it improvising.” The festivals are representing the Cuban tradition with three pianists who boast a bucketful of awards among them. Arturo O’Farrill Jr. and Chuchito Valdés, scions of musical dynasties, will lead big bands at Litchfield and Caramoor, respectively; Elio Villafranca will lead a quintet at Caramoor. Mr. O’Farrill, whose father was from Cuba, just turned 50; Mr. Valdés and Mr. Villafranca, both natives of Cuba, are in their 40s. But the youngest pianist to lead a group at either festival will be Gerald Clayton , 26, who will bring a trio to Litchfield on Aug. 7. Mr. Clayton said he admired Mr. Miller’s sense of flow, and that could be reflected in the architecture of his sets, intimate efforts — the pianist and his band mates, the bassist Joe Sanders and the drummer Justin Brown, live in the same Harlem building — that often yield an uninterrupted stream of ideas with little pause between tunes. Mr. Clayton already claims an impressive résumé, having played Caramoor last summer and led groups in the best clubs. He enjoys acceptance in the small circle of top-rank pianists — he once played in a four-piano extravaganza with Mr. Miller, Kenny Barron and Benny Green — and the kind of approval from historians that sometimes heralds a major career. “Clayton is terrific of the young players coming up,” Mr. Morgenstern said. “He’s really gifted.”


A Funding Roadblock Ahead for Clean Energy

Abstract: NEW YORK — A landmark climate bill that narrowly passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday would cap greenhouse gas emissions across the United States for the first time and also create a national target for renewable energy production. Environmentalists and advocates of clean energy hailed the news in a flurry of statements. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called it a “dramatic breakthrough for America’s future.” Denise Bode, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, described the renewable energy target as “a key first step in balancing our electric generation mix.” The legislation, however, remains far from becoming law. The House passed the bill only narrowly — and it has been weakened since being introduced months ago — and the fight in the Senate may be even tougher. In the meantime, there is also the pressing matter of financing renewable energy projects. Since the economic crisis began last autumn, the once red-hot activity by wind and solar developers has slowed sharply. The U.S. government’s stimulus package is supposed to help (although some portions of its aid for renewable energy have not yet been disbursed). But many advocates of renewable energy are thinking longer term. What happens when the stimulus funding runs out, as it is scheduled to do for the industry’s projects in the next year or two? “One of my big fears is that we will fall off a cliff,” the director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, Dan W. Reicher, said in an interview in New York last week. Lowell Ungar, the policy director for the Alliance to Save Energy, an efficiency advocacy group, echoed the sentiment. “The concern is that you spend billions of dollars building up this industry, training people and creating new jobs and new companies, and it all disappears,” he said. Perhaps because of its relative newness and small size, the renewable energy industry has been hobbled by a history of uncertain funding. In the United States, a tax credit to aid wind energy has threatened to expire about every year or two over the past decade, causing the industry to complain that long-term planning is impossible. Congress has repeatedly extended the credit on a short-term basis, but manufacturers of wind turbines have hesitated to establish plants in the United States for fear that the demand for their product might evaporate. (The three-year extension provided in the stimulus package has given a measure of stability, although it arrived — as per the definition of stimulus — just as private investors had pulled back.) Solar energy in Spain is another classic example of roller-coaster funding. There, the government provided a strong feed-in tariff — a high payment to producers of renewable energy — and solar companies rushed into the country. Last autumn, however, the government decided that the explosive growth was costing too much and capped the amount of solar power that could qualify for the incentive. “By having something that kind of shot out through the roof and fell back to earth, that shocked the system,” said Julie Blunden, the vice president for public policy and corporate communications at SunPower, a major solar manufacturer. “The boom and bust was very disruptive to building a base of business in Spain.” Greece and the Canadian province of Ontario have also had yo-yo policies on encouraging solar power, Ms. Blunden said, though she added that both governments were trying to address the problem. In the United States, the industry is planning for the period after the stimulus package, to avoid a falloff. “There is already discussion in the market about ‘what comes next’ when the stimulus spending has run its course,” the head of the renewable energy group at the law firm Alston & Bird, Tom Amis, said in an e-mail message. “Given the volatility of fossil fuel prices (natural gas, the key marginal price driver, has recently been at record lows), and the continued need for a long-term manufacturing increase to achieve the necessary economies of scale, there is a consensus in the industry that there needs to be a ‘second act.”’ Should the climate legislation passed in the House become law, it could lead to one type of solution. The cap-and-trade provisions would effectively raise the price of generating electricity using fossil fuels. This would help clean energy technologies — which are expensive relative to coal and natural gas — to become more competitive. Because a cap-and-trade system, depending on its final structure, would also be likely to auction off some allowances to pollute, it would create a revenue stream that could be plowed back into energy efficiency and the renewable energy industry. The auction provisions in the climate bill are weaker than many environmentalists had hoped, however. There would also be relatively few allowances auctioned off in the early years of the legislation, which would take effect in 2012 if passed — leaving a gap after the stimulus funds run out. Mr. Ungar of the Alliance to Save Energy suggests a mechanism that would let state governments borrow in advance against expected future revenues from the climate bill’s allowance provisions and use that money to maintain smooth funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Another solution, pushed by Mr. Reicher and others, would establish a government-backed clean energy bank, modeled on the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. Such a funding apparatus, which is under consideration in various forms in Congress, could be loosely affiliated with the Department of Energy and provide aid like loan guarantees and direct loans designed to help the small renewable energy industry to scale up. Such a bank could continue some of the renewable funding measures in the stimulus package. It would also extract clean energy policies from the bureaucracy of the Department of Energy, which has complicated the release of some stimulus funds. To be sure, the ultimate hope is that the renewable energy industry can stand on its own, without permanently relying on the government for financing. As the stimulus provisions expire, the industry hopes that the banks will be back on their feet and able to finance projects. From the companies’ perspective, standing on their own would have the benefit of avoiding the risks and uncertainties that accompany sometimes-fickle government policy. But as the industry works up to a meaningful scale from tiny and often experimental technologies, renewable energy developers will be happy to take the help.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Wind Power
Natural Resources Defense Council
Reicher Dan W


The Secrets of a High-Quality Vinyl Record

Abstract: TURNTABLES, those once-arcane machines for playing records, have staged a big comeback as a hipster essential, like cocktails with artisan bitters and skinny jeans with rolled cuffs over oxfords without socks. If you need a gift for someone who stays ahead of the trends, what could be better than some vinyl with a high cool factor? But buying a record now is different from when record shops were ubiquitous. Back then you went to a record store and bought a record. Period. Unless you were an audiophile — then you might seek out a boutique label that made special high-fidelity recordings. Despite the continued six-year growth in sales of LPs — that’s long-playing records, for the uninitiated — practically all vinyl records today are small-batch boutique pressings. There are limited editions, collector editions, audiophile editions and more. Here is some advice to help save you from giving a gift that will be met with hipster indifference. A WORD ON COLLECTIBLES Making any gift special means knowing your audience. Why does the recipient like records? Is it for the suitable-for-display cover artwork? That person might like a picture disc, colored vinyl or a gimmicky record jacket. Is the pleasure in playing records at gatherings with friends? That kind of listener might be happy with a standard pressing by a favorite artist. Or is it about serious listening? That person might like a high-fidelity pressing. In any case, you’ll need to know the recipient’s favorite artist or genre. Or you can always resort to buying an album that was a chart topper on a significant date (note to those born the week of June 29, 1991: you’re getting “Slave to the Grind” by Skid Row). Finally, there is collecting and there is speculating. If you are buying records as an investment you may be disappointed. “Collectibles in general, you can’t anticipate what will be valuable,” said Terry Stewart, chief executive of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, and owner of “hundreds of thousands of records,” he said. To be valuable, a record must be rare and in demand, which is hard to know in advance. The best bet is to give what someone enjoys, regardless of investment value. At worst, he is stuck with a record he loves. FOR THE OBJECT COLLECTOR Not everybody collects records for the sound quality, which is often described as richer, smoother and warmer than CDs or digital tracks. Of visitors to the Hall of Fame’s gift shop who buy vinyl, Mr. Stewart said: “Half the kids are buying them to listen to; half are buying them as artifacts.” Artifact collectors might appreciate an album frame for displaying that Captain Beyond 3-D cover on the wall. Finding picture discs, which have artwork embedded in the disc itself, is easy on Amazon’s new vinyl records department. Scroll down to the Vinyl Search box in the left column and type in “picture disc.” A recent check returned more than 4,300 results, from Cream’s “Disraeli Gears” ($25) to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” ($15). You may have more fun looking through record bins in a real store, though. Mr. Stewart recommended the iPhone app the Vinyl District, which will locate record shops near you. Or you can just search “vinyl record” online, with your city name. While you can play picture discs, don’t expect great fidelity. “They sound horrible,” said Michael Fremer, an audio critic and record collector. The possible exception is color vinyl records. “The swirly colored stuff is also not going to sound good, but the transparent color vinyl can,” he said. “They released Nirvana on 180-gram blue and it’s unbelievable.” FOR THE AUDIOPHILE Audiophile recordings can be new or used, but buying used can be chancy, especially online. “There are people on eBay who will say ‘first pressing’ or ‘collectible’ when it’s not,” said Mr. Fremer. It’s also hard to know the true condition of the record, which is critical to the value. First pressings, which come as close to the original master disc as possible, matter to audiophiles. “When a record is new, a lot of attention is put on it,” said Michael Hobson, owner of High-Fidelity, which sells records and stereo gear in Los Feliz, Calif. “In subsequent re-pressings, quality tends to slip.” You might find bargains by haunting yard sales, but it requires knowledge and time. A reputable dealer will cost more, but you can feel reasonably assured about your purchase. Mr. Fremer recommends Recordsbymail.com , the Web site Acoustic Sounds and themusic.com . New high-fidelity pressings are less risky, but there are still challenges. The quality is affected by the source recording, the quality of the vinyl compound used and how well it is pressed, among a slew of factors. But there are some signs that point to a better recording. One, said Chad Kassem, owner of Acoustic Sounds, is if a recording has been re-engineered for specialty high-end digital formats, like a gold CD or Super Audio CD recording. “It’s not a 100 percent way to tell, but if they went to all that work, they are going to put it on the best canvas,” he said. “If they went to that trouble, it was good before they got there.” Another tipoff is the playback speed. While 12-inch records commonly spin at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, some higher-fidelity 12-inch records spin at 45 r.p.m. “It’s always better at 45, just like faster tape speeds are better,” Mr. Fremer said. “You just have to get up to change the record more often.” Those pressings come at a premium, though. At Acoustic Sounds a 33 1/3 of Fleetwood Mac is $25, while the 45 r.p.m. two-disc set is $45. All other things being equal, heavier vinyl pressings are usually preferred by audiophiles. Records usually range from 120 to 200 grams in weight. But all things are seldom equal. “If someone does a good job mastering a record and puts it on 120 gram, it’s going to be better than a bad master on 200 gram,” Mr. Kassem said. The best way to get a quality recording is to do some quality research, said Craig Kallman, chairman and chief executive of Atlantic Records, who owns one of the world’s largest vinyl collections. “To really be safe, go online and read the blogs,” he said. “There are so many links in the chain, you can’t just go for the label that says ‘virgin vinyl.’ ” Also of interest to audiophiles are direct-to-disc recordings. Musicians skip taping to record a live studio performance directly on a lacquer master disc. Fewer processes mean better sound. “In each step there is additional noise,” Mr. Hobson said. “There is a decrease in fidelity.” However, since the whole side is cut in one take, the performers tend to play conservatively. “What you gain in fidelity,” said Mr. Hobson, “you lose in performance.” FOR THE FASTIDIOUS If you don’t know enough about a recipient’s listening habits, there is an alternative. Records and turntables need regular care. If you are buying used records, said Mr. Fremer, you will need a record washer for deep cleaning. “On the cheap you can get a Spin Clean ,” an $80 device that gives your records a bath. To clean off dust before playing he suggests a carbon fiber brush, which can commonly be found for $10 to $35. Loud pops can be reduced by removing static from records using a $100 Milty Zerostat gun. Replacing the rough paper sleeves that come with some albums is a good idea. Mr. Fremer prefers rice paper-style sleeves, which are sold in bulk for 3 to 4 cents each. The final tool in the basic arsenal is a stylus cleaner, which usually starts at about $15. Use the stylus brush frequently, counsels Mr. Fremer. “Clean the stylus after every side,” he said. “Care for your records properly; they will outlive you.”

Audio Recordings and Downloads
Acoustics
Music


Gains Not Measured in Yards for Rice

Abstract: PISCATAWAY, N.J., Oct. 15 — Rutgers running back Ray Rice whooped as he scored a touchdown at practice Monday. The opponents were dressed as he was, in red helmets and shorts; they were only simulating South Florida’s defense off cue cards. But it is never too early for Rice to get ready for a big game, and Thursday’s game at Rutgers Stadium against South Florida is as big a deal for the Scarlet Knights as it is for the 6-0 Bulls, who are ranked second nationally. “I always think there’s room to get better,” Rice said after practice. “I’m never satisfied with myself.” Rutgers (4-2, 1-1 Big East) lost consecutive games earlier this season, to Maryland and Cincinnati, dealing a setback to Rice’s Heisman Trophy prospects and dropping the Scarlet Knights out of the top 25. Rice is not accumulating rushing yardage at the same pace as he did last season, when Rutgers finished 11-2. “I’m not even sure how many yards I’ve got,” Rice said Monday. But this is not the same Ray Rice, either. Scarlet Knights Coach Greg Schiano said Monday that Rice was stronger and savvier than he was last year, and better at the unglamorous duties, like blocking. “On top of that,” Schiano said, “he’s running as hard as he ever has.” Rutgers has lost two more games at this point of the season than it had a year ago, which might make it seem as if Rice were falling short of the high expectations of a major-college player praised weekly by Rutgers at . But Rice has 818 yards rushing this season, only 81 fewer than he had after six games last year. He has 17 receptions for 175 yards; in his previous two seasons, he had a total of 12 catches. He is also a ferocious pass blocker. “He’s really turning into the complete back,” Rutgers quarterback Mike Teel said. “He goes in and sticks his face in on people. Lets people know he’s there.” Rutgers also has three receivers who have posted at least one 100-yard game: Tiquan Underwood, Tim Brown and Kenny Britt. But on Monday, South Florida Coach Jim Leavitt made it sound as if the Bulls would still be paying a lot of attention to Rice. “They all can do so much with the football,” Leavitt said of the receivers. “They’re all very, very talented. Then you got what might be the best running back in America. Ray can really run the ball. They’re very talented, very good.” And Rice can carry a workload. He is playing more this season, now that Brian Leonard, the fullback who often threw blocks for Rice last season, is playing for the St. Louis Rams. Rice said he was more durable than he was a year ago. “I can play three downs, and I’m maintaining myself during drives,” he said. That was apparent during the Scarlet Knights’ 38-14 victory Saturday over Syracuse. Rice had 70 of his 196 yards rushing in the fourth quarter. He has gained roughly the same amount of yards in the second half of Rutgers’s six games, as he has amassed in the first half. “That’s what they do the best,” Syracuse Coach Greg Robinson said Monday, adding that it seemed to help that Rice is only 5 feet 9 inches. “They’ve got good-sized linemen, and you don’t always see him,” Robinson said of Rice. “He can make a cut, and he can explode, and he runs with real power. Sometimes, his size is to his advantage. But he can dart and dash. You give him 36 tries, and eventually, something is going to go good for him.” South Florida is a fast team with an elusive sophomore quarterback, Matt Grothe, who leads the Bulls with 346 yards rushing. Schiano used his bullhorn often during Monday’s practice, urging his defense to keep the quarterback contained. But if Rice can run effectively, Rutgers can keep Grothe on the sideline. Last season, Rice gained 202 yards on 35 carries in a 22-20 victory against South Florida. The win was the fifth in a string of nine in row for the Scarlet Knights. “We’ll have to get Ray going,” Teel said. The ninth victory in 2006 was the most memorable, 28-25 over Louisville, which was ranked No. 3 at the time. The game was on a Thursday night at Rutgers Stadium, before a national television audience. The victory seemed to stamp the Knights as a bona-fide contender. Although the Bulls have beaten Auburn and West Virginia this season, Leavitt found himself answering questions Monday about his team’s sudden prominence. He is not discounting Rutgers, and especially not its prominent running back. When asked if he were paying attention to other Heisman contenders, Rice laughed and replied, “Absolutely not.” Then he said: “It’s kind of weird. I just want to do my best for the team.”

Rutgers The State University of New Jersey


Oklahoma Looks Safe in College Football Playoff Rankings

Abstract: Oklahoma is No. 3 in the College Football Playoff rankings, putting the Sooners safely in position to be in the final four with their season completed. The Sooners locked up the Big 12 title with a blowout victory at Oklahoma State on Saturday. Clemson (12-0) is still No. 1, and Alabama (11-1) remained No. 2. They each head into their conference championship games Saturday needing only a victory to lock up a playoff spot. “The committee debated long and hard about the No. 1 and No. 2 teams,” said Jeff Long, the selection committee chairman. The top seed gets to play closest to home, so for Clemson a semifinal game at the Orange Bowl in Miami is also on the line against North Carolina in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. The Tar Heels (11-1) are No. 10. Iowa is No. 4 (12-0) and Michigan State (11-1) is No. 5, setting up a playoff play-in game in Saturday’s Big Ten title game.

College football
University of Iowa
Clemson
University of Alabama
University of Oklahoma


Radio’s Challenge: Counting the Young

Abstract: As radio moves away from an outdated system of audience measurement, it is facing the same problem that confronts other media: figuring out how many young people are listening or watching is maddeningly difficult. A long-awaited electronic measurement tool, the “portable people meter,” has produced sudden swings in ratings in tests, raising red flags for radio executives. After a test in October in New York, the radio measurement company Arbitron delayed the broader introduction of people meters by nine months. Arbitron officials say that tallying the number of young listeners — in particular the 18- to 34-year-old demographic group prized by advertisers — has been a perpetual concern. The stakes are high for media companies and advertisers, and for the measurement companies themselves; last month, Arbitron warned its stockholders that earnings would be adversely affected by the people meter delay. Ceril Shagrin, an executive vice president for corporate research at Univision Communications, a major Spanish-language broadcaster, found that the ratings for Radio La Kalle 105.9 FM in New York fell sharply when the people meters were tested in October. She expressed concerns about the reliability of the Arbitron sample. “The Hispanic universe is younger, and our audience is therefore made up of more young people. When the sample doesn’t reflect them, then our radio ratings aren’t correct,” Ms. Shagrin said. Lower ratings can translate into less advertising revenue. The television ratings company Nielsen Media Research has experienced the same sampling challenges. “I think any survey research operation, no matter what they’re doing, would say that young households are more difficult to recruit,” said Paul Donato, chief research officer for Nielsen. Mr. Donato said young demographics were well represented by Nielsen’s samples, and Arbitron said its data was improving. November data from the people meter, released on Dec. 7, showed some gains among younger people and minority groups. Still, Arbitron has work to do; on an average day in New York last month, 575 participants aged 18 to 34 provided data, far short of the company’s goal of 919. Owen Charlebois, president for technology, research and development, said young people were less likely to participate automatically in a research study. “We have to work harder to explain why it’s important for them to take part,” he said. “In some ways, there are parallels with voting rates in the U.S.” Because it costs more for Arbitron to deploy electronic measurements, the sample size becomes smaller, but each member of the sample contributes more data, making the recruitment process that much more important. “You really have to get people who you know are going to participate,” said Brad Adgate, director for research at the media-buying agency Horizon Media. Researchers often try to persuade hard-to-reach age groups to participate by paying them more. While Arbitron does not release specific information on incentives, it said it offers 18- to 24-year-olds two to three times as much as the average respondent. The company will increase the age for incentives to 34 in 2008. Even once recruited, the younger people pose challenges for sampling studies. “On an average day, half of 18- to 34-year-olds don’t provide usable data,” Ms. Shagrin said. Young people may leave the people meter, which is roughly the size of a cellphone, at home because carrying it is inconvenient in certain situations, as when on a date or while playing sports. Like other research companies, Arbitron weights the sample to achieve equal representation for each demographic group. “Those few people who do decide to participate count more than those in other age groups,” potentially skewing the results further, Mr. Adgate said. Bob Patchen, chief research officer for Arbitron, said young people have less routine in their lives, making them more likely to forget or lose the meter. The company sometimes visits young respondents to encourage participation. It also plans to release “meter skins” that will allow participants to customize their meters, in much the way some young people change the colors and textures of their cellphones. The larger issues raised by people meters involve the fragmentation of media and the preference of advertisers to reach narrow swaths of consumers. On television, as in radio, programs that appeal to 18- to 34-year-old viewers can become cash machines because advertisers will pay a premium to reach young people. But as media companies use Arbitron and Nielsen to carve ever-thinner slices of demographic data, concerns about the reliability of that data increase. “Sometimes the ratings, particularly in cable, are really being generated by just a couple of people in the sample,” said Alan Wurtzel, president for research and media development at NBC. But over time, the data tends to become increasingly reliable, researchers say. Arbitron will spend the next nine months trying to make its customers just as confident.

Radio
Arbitron Incorporated
Nielsen Media Research
Ratings and Rating Systems


In Spain, Real Madrid Beats Barcelona for the Second Time in Five Days

Abstract: Sergio Ramos scored on a header from Luka Modric’s corner kick in the 82nd minute, and Real Madrid beat visiting Barcelona, 2-1, in the Spanish league on Saturday for its second victory in five days over its rival. Karim Benzema put Real Madrid ahead in the sixth minute, but Lionel Messi tied the score in the 18th minute, reaching 50 goals for the third straight season and extending his record La Liga scoring streak to 16 games. With his 18th clásico goal, Messi tied the record set by Madrid’s Alfredo Di Stefano. Madrid rested the Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo for Tuesday’s Champions League match against at Manchester United, inserting him in the 58th minute. Defending champion Real Madrid moved within 13 points of first-place Barcelona and within 1 point of second-place Atlético Madrid. Madrid won, 3-1, at Barcelona last Tuesday to advance to the Copa del Rey final, 4-2 on aggregate. HAT TRICK FOR KAGAWA Manchester United’s race to a 20th English league title continued as Shinji Kagawa scored a hat trick in a 4-0 home win over Norwich City. Kagawa, who is from Japan, opened the scoring just before halftime and scored two more in the second half to become the first Asian player to record a hat trick in the Premier League. Wayne Rooney rounded out the victory with a late screamer to send United 15 points ahead of defending champion Manchester City, which plays at Aston Villa on Monday. In other games, Chelsea climbed into third place on Demba Ba’s goal to beat West Bromwich; Everton revived its flagging hopes of a top-four finish and qualification for the Champions League with a 3-1 defeat of Reading to move to within 6 points of fourth-place Tottenham and within 2 of fifth-place Arsenal; last-place Queens Park Rangers won by 2-1 at Southampton; League Cup winners Swansea City defeated visiting Newcastle United, 1-0; Sunderland rallied from a two-goal deficit to draw, 2-2, at home against Fulham; and West Ham United beat Stoke City, 1-0. (REUTERS) DRAXLER LEADS SCHALKE Julian Draxler led Schalke to its first away win in Germany’s Bundesliga since October by scoring twice and setting up another in a 4-1 victory at Wolfsburg on Saturday. Draxler, 19, broke the deadlock in the 33rd minute and scored his second in the 63rd, 12 minutes after Ivica Olic tied the score with a header. Draxler then crossed for Jefferson Farfán to secure the win on a counterattack in the 79th minute, and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar added another with four minutes remaining. In other games, Robert Lewandowski scored twice in Borussia Dortmund’s 3-1 win at home over Hannover; Hamburg played a 1-1 draw against last-place Grüther Furth; Werder Bremen lost, 1-0, at home to Augsburg; and Nuremberg drew, 1-1, with Freiburg. (AP) 2022 WORLD CUP The 2022 Qatar World Cup could be rescheduled from summer to winter if medical evidence shows the intense heat in the Middle East would harm players, the FIFA secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, said on Saturday. The UEFA president, Michel Platini, opposes playing the World Cup in the expected 100-degree heat of June or July, and on Saturday he called again for the finals to be switched to the winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Valcke stepped into the debate at a news media briefing after the International Football Association Board meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, when he said that staging the Cup during the winter was a possibility. His remarks were significant because it was the first time FIFA has indicated it could instigate a change based on medical evidence. “The international calendar has been agreed for 2015-18, meaning that we kept open all potential for the period 2019 to 2022,” he said. “We have time. “FIFA has never said never, we have just said we are waiting for Qatar to officially ask FIFA to look at the potential to move the World Cup from summer to winter, and that has not happened yet.” (REUTERS) GOMEZ SCORES TWICE The American striker Herculez Gomez scored two goals to lead visiting Santos Laguna to a 3-1 win over Chiapas in Mexico’s LigaMX on Friday. Gomez scored in the 14th and 21st minutes for Santos, which also got a goal from Oribe Peralta Morones in the 18th minute. (AP) DE ROSARIO SUSPENDED Dwayne De Rosario of D.C. United was suspended for two regular-season games by Major League Soccer for violent conduct in a preseason game. The league said Friday that De Rosario had also been fined an undisclosed amount for a head-butt foul on Philadelphia’s Danny Cruz in a preseason match on Feb. 23. De Rosario was issued a red card for the foul. De Rosario, the 2011 league M.V.P., was to miss United’s season opener against Houston on Saturday and will not play next Saturday against Real Salt Lake. (AP)

Michel Platini
Soccer
2022 FIFA World Cup
Qatar


Long Island Expressway Crash in Queens Kills 3 and Injures Others

Abstract: Three people were killed and at least 10 more were injured on Wednesday when several vehicles collided on the Long Island Expressway in Queens, which led to a shutdown of several lanes during part of the morning rush, the police said. Shortly after 4 a.m., the 25-year-old driver of a sedan, which was carrying five people, heading eastbound at “an apparent high rate of speed” lost control of the car, hitting a barrier and splitting the vehicle in half, according to a statement from the police. The front end of the car landed in a lane, where it was hit by another car, the police said. Then, a dump truck, unable to stop in time, slammed into the back of a car, causing a pileup of five cars that had been stopped by the first crash, the police said. The driver of the first car, identified by the authorities as Michael Fabre of Oakland Gardens, Queens, was pronounced dead at the scene, as were two of his passengers: Giovanny Sanchez, 24, of Brentwood, in Suffolk County; and Christina Formato, 24, of Franklin Square, in Nassau County. Both were riding in the back seat of the car. The other two passengers were taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where one was listed in critical condition and the other was in stable condition, the police said. The driver of the second car sustained minor injuries and declined medical attention. Eight other people, who had been involved in the second collision, were taken to hospitals, where they were in stable condition, the police said. The crashes prompted the authorities to close off the eastbound lanes, which had reopened by about 7 a.m., the authorities said. Earlier this month, six people died when a car traveling east on the expressway crossed the median and hit two cars that were heading west near Exit 68 in Manorville, N.Y., the Suffolk police said.


Cammi Granato and Angela James to Be Inducted Into Hockey Hall of Fame

Abstract: Women’s ice hockey has come a long way since 1990, when members of the Canadian national team wore hot-pink uniforms instead of red-and-white uniforms for the world championships in Ottawa. The Canadians won the gold medal, anyway. “We didn’t care if we were wearing polka dots; we just wanted to play,” Angela James, a center from Toronto who was a member of that team, said Tuesday after she and Cammi Granato, a 39-year-old forward who was the captain of the United States team that won the gold medal at the Nagano Olympics in 1998, were told they would be the first women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Dino Ciccarelli, who scored 608 goals in 19 N.H.L. seasons with five teams, and the Detroit Red Wings executive Jim Devellano and Daryl Seaman, the Calgary Flames’ founding owner, known as Doc, will also be inducted into the Hall in ceremonies in November. “You realize there are those barriers you have to fight through,” Granato said. The Hockey Hall of Fame altered its rules this year to include a category for female players. It was possible for a woman to make the Hall of Fame, but it was difficult, because women do not have the same professional opportunities as men. “This is identifying where the game has come from,” said Pat Quinn, a co-chairman of the Hall’s selection committee. The Hall limits the number of annual inductees to five. Two first-year candidates with strong N.H.L. portfolios — Joe Nieuwendyk and Eric Lindros — were not inducted. Also overlooked was Pat Burns, who coached the Devils to the 2003 Stanley Cup. James, 45, was not included on the 1998 Canadian Olympic team, but she had helped Canada win four world championships earlier in the decade. She led the Central Ontario Women’s League in scoring eight times and was its most valuable player six times. “I don’t look at this as retribution,” James said, referring to 1998. “I look at this as a great day for women’s hockey.” Granato, whose brother, Tony, played in the N.H.L., was a 15-year member of the United States national team. She played for Providence for three years and professionally in Quebec. She won a silver medal in 2002 at the Salt Lake Olympics. Granato said Tuesday she thought that playing in college would be the pinnacle of her career. Now she is going into the same Hall of Fame as the men’s greats. “It’s almost unfathomable as a woman,” she said.

Hockey Hall of Fame
National Hockey League
Ciccarelli Dino
Hockey Ice
Olympic Games
Cammi Granato
Angela James


Study Details Elephant Deaths

Abstract: Poachers killed an estimated 100,000 elephants across Africa from 2010 to 2012, a huge spike in the continent’s death rate of the world’s largest mammals because of an increased demand for ivory in China and other Asian nations, a study published Monday found. Warnings about elephant slaughters have been ringing for years, but Monday’s study is the first to scientifically quantify the number of deaths across the continent by measuring deaths in one park in Kenya and using other published data to extrapolate fatality tolls across the continent. The study found that the proportion of illegally killed elephants had climbed from 25 percent of all elephant deaths a decade ago to roughly 65 percent of all elephant deaths today, a percentage that, if continued, will lead to the extinction of the species. The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was carried out by experts from Save the Elephants, the Kenya Wildlife Service, an international group called MIKE responsible for monitoring the illegal killings of elephants, and two universities.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America


Officials Protest Antigang Raids Focused on Immigrants

Abstract: Nassau County officials today will call for a federal investigation into a series of antigang raids last week that resulted in the arrests of 186 immigrants on Long Island. They said that the vast majority of those arrested were not gang members and that local police were misled and endangered by the operation. Until yesterday, officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement who conducted the operation would not answer questions about the raids, which began last Monday and ended Sunday night, and have drawn protests from immigrant families and their advocates. But yesterday afternoon, Peter J. Smith, a special agent in charge of the operation, said the raids, conducted by federal agents from all over the country, were a result of a two-month investigation based on a list of possible gang members supplied by state, county and local officials. “The county gave us a list of more than 2,000 suspects from Nassau that we vetted jointly,” Mr. Smith said. “They should be happy we’re taking these people out, that we’re making their streets safer.” But Lawrence W. Mulvey, the Nassau County police commissioner, and Thomas R. Suozzi, the county executive, are disputing the figures supplied by the federal agency and criticizing the tactics and practices used in raids at Nassau County residences. They will hold a news conference at 10:30 a.m. today to detail their complaints, including that the vast majority of those taken into custody were not criminals or gang members, just illegal immigrant workers, and that the local police had been duped into participating. The police commissioner told The Associated Press on Friday that his officers would not cooperate again in such an operation. Mr. Smith, of the immigration agency, said that of the 186 arrested, 28 had been identified as gang members and 129 as “associates of gang members.” Asked how the agency defined “associates of gang members,” he replied, “If you’re hanging with gang members and you’re eating with gang members, there’s an affiliation there.” Of the 157 identified as gang members or associates, 92 were taken into custody in Nassau County, and 13 of them were identified as gang members, he said; in Suffolk County, where 65 of the arrests took place, 15 were identified as gang members. In all, 59 had previous criminal convictions that might make them deportable, Mr. Smith said, including weapons possession, resisting arrest, robbery and gang assault. All 186 face deportation proceedings. One of the arrests that drew protest was of the father of a 4-month-old whose mother was at work. Mr. Smith said that the father was not a gang member, but that another man living in his apartment in Westbury had been convicted of a robbery. He said when the father was taken into custody, he voluntarily left the baby in the care of others until his wife’s return.

Immigration and Refugees
Long Island (NY)
Gangs
Police


Somalia Fighting Kills at Least 15

Abstract: MOGADISHU, Somalia — At least 15 people were killed and more than 60 were wounded in Somalia’s capital on Tuesday, in multisided fighting between pro-government forces, African Union peacekeepers and Islamist insurgents, witnesses said. The fighting, the heaviest of its kind since Ethiopian troops withdrew from Somalia last month, started around 10 a.m., when armed insurgents attacked government bases. Both sides then opened up with mortars and machine guns, and several stray mortar rounds slammed into nearby homes. Witnesses described a scene of panic and pools of blood when a mortar shell struck a crowded area that civilians were using as a haven in the southern part of the city. “I saw six dead bodies and 15 wounded,” said Hussein Abdulkadir, a 25-year-old chemist. “I was really shocked.” A woman and her baby were killed and six other people were wounded after a mortar shell landed in another neighborhood to the city’s north, witnesses said. “The casualties could increase anytime, but the hospital is overcrowded now,” said Dahir Mohamoud, the deputy director of Madina Hospital in Mogadishu. The fighting comes a day after Somalia’s new president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed , arrived in the bullet-pocked capital along with some ministers in his new cabinet. Several of the mortar rounds landed at the presidential palace on Tuesday, where the president was staying, but no casualty figures were released. On Sunday, 11 African Union peacekeepers were killed in Mogadishu after suicide bombers attacked a Burundian peacekeeping base at a former university compound. The Shabab , an Islamist militant group considered by the American government to be a terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group also vowed on Monday to keep attacking the peacekeepers until they withdrew. Mr. Ahmed called Monday for the insurgents to end their war against the peacekeepers, who he said were necessary to bringing stability to Somalia, which has been mired in chaos for the past 18 years. No group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack. Several powerful Islamist militias have rejected the moderate Islamist government and say they will fight until Somalia is a strict Islamist state.

Somalia
African Union
Al-Shabab
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
Islam
Ahmed Sharif


Children 14 or Under Need Fewer HPV Vaccine Doses

Abstract: Children 11 to 14 years old need only two doses of the HPV vaccine, not the previously recommended three doses, to protect against cervical cancer and other cancers caused by the human papillomavirus , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. But teenagers and young adults who start the vaccinations later, at ages 15 through 26, should stick with the three-dose regimen, the disease centers said. The new advice is based on a review of studies showing that two doses in the younger group “produced an immune response similar or higher than the response in young adults (aged 16 to 26 years) who received three doses,” the C.D.C. said in a statement. The two doses should be given at least six months apart, the agency said. The statement also noted that the two-dose schedule will make the process simpler and easier for families to complete and could increase the number of young teenagers who receive the vaccine. Despite the vaccine’s proven effectiveness, immunization rates have remained low. HPV is a group of more than 150 related viruses, according to the disease centers. They are spread by intimate, skin-to-skin contact, and by vaginal, oral and anal intercourse. HPV is so common that nearly all sexually active people become infected at some point. In most people, the immune system destroys the virus. But in some, the infection lingers. Some viral strains cause genital warts, and others can cause cancers of the cervix, vagina, vulva, penis and back of the throat. Every year, about 17,600 women and 9,300 men in the United States are affected by cancers caused by HPV, and about 180,000 women and 160,000 men develop genital warts caused by the viruses. Vaccination is recommended for preteenagers and early teenagers, ideally before they become sexually active, because the vaccine works best if given before a person is exposed to HPV But the C.D.C. still recommends vaccination for young people who have already had sex, saying that it should provide “at least some protection.”

HPV
Vaccines Immunization
CDC
Cancer
Teens
Children


Bayonne Medical Center Has Highest U.S. Billing Rates

Abstract: BAYONNE, N.J. — The most expensive hospital in America is not set amid the swaying palm trees of Beverly Hills or the luxury townhouses of New York’s Upper East Side. It is in a faded blue-collar town 11 miles from Midtown Manhattan. Based on the bills it submits to Medicare , the Bayonne Medical Center charged the highest amounts in the country for nearly one-quarter of the most common hospital treatments, according to a New York Times analysis of 2011 data, the most recent available. No other hospital was at the top of the price list more often. Bayonne Medical typically charged $99,689 for treating each case of chronic lung disease, 5.5 times as much as other hospitals and 17.5 times as much as Medicare paid in reimbursement. The hospital also charged on average of $120,040 to treat transient ischemia, a type of small stroke that has no lasting effect. That was 5.6 times the national average and 23.6 times what Medicare paid. For those prices, the quality of care at Bayonne Medical is no better — or worse — than that at most other New Jersey hospitals. In a 2011 state hospital quality report, Bayonne Medical scored only in the top 50 percent. But profits at the hospital, which was bankrupt in 2007, have soared in recent years, in part because it has found a way to turn some of those high billings into payments. The increasingly contentious issue of hospital charges drew renewed attention last week when the federal government released Medicare data showing that facilities nationwide submitted widely divergent bills for the same treatments. And while the unassuming, six-story brick hospital here holds a notable place in those rankings, others stand out as well. The midsize Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pa., was the top biller in the country for urinary tract infections. One prestigious Manhattan hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center, charged twice as much as the equally high-end NewYork-Presbyterian to implant a cardiac pacemaker. But Medicare considers the two New York hospitals so similar it pays them both about $20,000 for the procedure. The hospital industry is quick to say that the charges are irrelevant because virtually no one — private insurers, Medicare or even the uninsured — pays anywhere near those amounts. Medicare sets standard rates for treatments and insurers negotiate with hospitals. But experts add that the charges reflect decades of maneuvering by hospitals to gain an edge over insurers and provide themselves with tax advantages. Until a recent ruling by the Internal Revenue Service , for instance, a hospital could use the higher prices when calculating the amount of charity care it was providing, said Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins. “There is a method to the madness, though it is still madness,” Mr. Anderson said. A close look at the finances of Bayonne Medical Center sheds light on how hospital pricing at the extremes may financially benefit an institution. The practices at Bayonne Medical also highlight a new financial strategy used by a small number of hospitals to increase their profits by “going out of network” — severing ties, and hence contractual agreements that limit reimbursement rates, with large private insurers. Neither officials nor owners of Bayonne Medical responded to multiple calls and e-mail requests for interviews. Because the company is privately held, it does not have to release financial data. Bayonne Medical, which was founded in 1888, was losing nearly $1.5 million a month before it filed for bankruptcy in 2007. By 2011, under new ownership and a new financial model, its patient revenue had nearly tripled and its operating income had reached $9.3 million, according to the American Hospital Directory, a publication that compiles data from Medicare and other sources about health care facilities. The hospital’s turnabout started in 2008 when it was acquired out of bankruptcy by a consortium of buyers in a deal valued at about $41 million. Bayonne’s purchasers included Vivek Garipalli, who worked at the private equity giant Blackstone Group before co-founding the International Sleep Network, a company based in New Jersey that treats patients with sleep apnea and other disorders. Joining Mr. Garipalli was Jeffrey Mandler, the head of a health care imaging firm. To make money from Bayonne Medical, the new buyers made some big changes in the hospital’s business strategy. First, they converted Bayonne Medical from a nonprofit to a for-profit hospital at a time when such hospitals were a rarity in New Jersey. Next, they moved to sever existing contracts with large private insurers, essentially making Bayonne Medical an out-of-network hospital for most insurance plans. Under New Jersey law, patients treated in a hospital emergency room outside their provider’s network have to pay out of pocket only what they would have paid if the hospital was in the network. But an out-of-network hospital can bill the patient’s insurer at essentially whatever rate it cares to set. While the insurers can negotiate with the hospital, they generally end up paying more than they would have under a contractual agreement. In recent years, Bayonne Medical put up digital billboards highlighting the short waits in its emergency rooms in an effort to attract more patients. Insurers complained that the hospital was seeking to take advantage of the higher rates it could charge. While the law was aimed at giving patients more hospitals to choose from, it “has had the unintended consequence of rewarding folks for these inflated charges,” said Wardell Sanders, president of the New Jersey Association of Health Plans. “When people say these charges are just the sticker price and it’s meaningless, it’s not meaningless.” Community leaders in Bayonne, fearing the hospital could close, said the buyers were always candid about the methods they intended to use to make the hospital a profitable enterprise. “That raised a lot of concern, but what other choice did we have?” said Jeanne Otersen, who was a member of the Coalition to Save Bayonne Medical Center and is policy director for the Health Professionals and Allied Employees, a union that represents nurses at the facility. Not surprisingly, the insurers fought back against the out-of-network model. In 2009, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey filed an injunction in New Jersey Superior Court saying Bayonne Medical’s owners had “flatly rejected” and refused to negotiate an in-network hospital contract with Horizon. When the existing agreement expired in early 2009, Horizon said Bayonne sharply increased its prices. Bayonne’s in-network charges to Horizon averaged $13,000 a day in 2008. A year later, when it was out of network, the charges soared to $29,000, the insurer said in a spring 2009 news release. Bayonne Medical denied allegations in Horizon’s lawsuit that it was artificially inflating prices, and filed its own lawsuit against Horizon, claiming the insurer had intimidated patients and tried to get them to leave the facility before completing their treatments. The two eventually settled in 2011, and Horizon became an in-network insurance provider. A spokesman for Horizon declined to comment on Bayonne Medical’s charges, citing terms of the settlement agreement. Still, many other large insurance companies, including Cigna, United Healthcare and Aetna, remain out of network at Bayonne and are paying the higher bills. “Their model is to charge exorbitant rates, particularly for emergency room services, and if the insurance companies don’t pay them, they threaten to go after the member for the balance of billing,” said Carl King, head of national networks for Aetna, whose in-network contract was also ended by Bayonne in 2008. Like Horizon, Aetna said its bills from Bayonne Medical soared, and it also filed a lawsuit in 2011. The suit was dismissed. Aetna’s internal data showed that Bayonne Medical’s emergency room charges jumped again in 2012 and are running 6 to 12 times as high as those of surrounding hospitals. Last fall, Mr. Garipalli bought the designer Tory Burch’s oceanside home in Southampton for $11 million, according to public records. After purchasing Bayonne Medical, the investor group went on a buying spree, acquiring Hoboken University Medical Center in 2011 and the bankrupt Christ Hospital in Jersey City last year. “This hospital is clearly pursuing an out-of-network strategy with a profit motive in mind and taking advantage of members who seek emergency services at their facility,” Mr. King said.

Bayonne Medical Center
Bayonne NJ
Hospital
Health Insurance
Price
Medicare


Fox News Lineup Begins to Take Shape

Abstract: Much is yet to be determined about the future of Fox News, especially with the contracts of the star anchors Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly soon to run out. But a new prime-time lineup for the 24-hour news network, which is in rebuilding mode after the departure of its longtime chief, Roger Ailes, is starting to take shape. Tucker Carlson, a former co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” and a prominent conservative writer, is set to take over the Fox anchor chair at 7 p.m., filling the slot formerly held by Greta van Susteren, who left the network in September. As Fox faces competition from scrappier rivals like Breitbart News, Mr. Carlson, 47, is in some ways a throwback to a more genteel era of conservatism. Preppy and jovial, Mr. Carlson founded The Daily Caller, a provocative, if relatively moderate, right-leaning website, and he has often evinced a mischievous streak; in 2006, he agreed to be a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars,” although he was eliminated in the first round. Mr. Carlson, who also hosted a show on MSNBC from 2005 to 2008, will replace Brit Hume, who was temporarily filling in for Ms. van Susteren. The show, which does not yet have a title, begins Nov. 14. Image Tucker Carlson will anchor the 7 p.m. time slot on Fox News. Credit Rob Kim/Getty Images Journalists at Fox News are bracing for more change as the presidential campaign winds down. Mr. O’Reilly has signaled that he may be inclined to leave after his current contract ends next year, and Ms. Kelly, whose contract also ends next year, is embroiled in a high-stakes negotiation with Fox about her future. Ms. Kelly is considering offers from several rival networks, according to a person briefed on her plans, even as Rupert Murdoch, Fox News’s executive chairman, has pushed for her to commit to a lucrative new contract. She is unlikely to make a decision until the release of her memoir, “Settle for More,” which is to be published next month, and appears to include startling revelations about her experiences at Fox. In an excerpt posted Thursday on the gossip website Radar Online , Ms. Kelly writes that Mr. Ailes promised to advance her career “in exchange for sexual favors” shortly after she arrived at the network in 2005. Ms. Ailes made sexually charged comments and, during one meeting, tried “to grab me repeatedly and kiss me on the lips,” Ms. Kelly writes, adding that Mr. Ailes implied he might dismiss her if she did not comply. Ms. Kelly writes that she reported Mr. Ailes to a supervisor and that his behavior eventually stopped. Mr. Ailes, through a statement from his lawyer, Susan Estrich, denied Ms. Kelly’s “allegations of sexual harassment or misconduct of any kind.” Ms. Estrich included a link to a television appearance by Ms. Kelly in October 2015, in which she praised Mr. Ailes and said, “I really care about Roger, and he has been nothing but good to me.” Nine months after that appearance, Mr. Ailes was gone from Fox News. Whether Ms. Kelly will stay remains an open question.

Fox News Channel
News media,journalism
TV
Tucker Carlson
Megyn Kelly
Bill O'Reilly


Jimmie Johnson Unchallenged at Pocono Raceway

Abstract: Jimmie Johnson dominated Sunday at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., to earn his third Nascar Sprint Cup victory of the season. Johnson, the series points leader, pulled away on both of the last two restarts over the final 10 laps. He led 128 of 160 laps for his 63rd career Cup victory. Greg Biffle was second and Dale Earnhardt Jr., Johnson’s teammate, was third. “I really didn’t have anything for Jimmie,” Biffle said. “Jimmie was in a league of his own.” ■ Sebastian Vettel improved his chances at a fourth straight Formula One title by claiming his first victory at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. Vettel’s Red Bull car started from the pole position and led almost the entire way, finishing 14.4 seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso in a Ferrari.

Car Racing
Pocono Raceway
Formula One
Jimmie Johnson
Sebastian Vettel


Targeted Killing Comes to Define War on Terror

Abstract: WASHINGTON — When Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, was taken into American custody at an airport stopover in Jordan last month, he joined one of the most select groups of the Obama era: high-level terrorist suspects who have been located by the American counterterrorism juggernaut, and who have not been killed. Mr. Abu Ghaith’s case — he awaits a federal criminal trial in New York — is a rare illustration of what Obama administration officials have often said is their strong preference for capturing terrorists rather than killing them. “I have heard it suggested that the Obama administration somehow prefers killing Al Qaeda members rather than capturing them,” said John O. Brennan, in a speech last year when he was the president’s counterterrorism adviser; he is now the C.I.A. director. “Nothing could be further from the truth.” In fact, he said, “Our unqualified preference is to only undertake lethal force when we believe that capturing the individual is not feasible.” Despite Mr. Brennan’s protestations, an overwhelming reliance on killing terrorism suspects, which began in the administration of George W. Bush, has defined the Obama years. Since Mr. Obama took office, the C.I.A. and military have killed about 3,000 people in counterterrorist strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, mostly using drones. Only a handful have been caught and brought to this country; an unknown number have been imprisoned by other countries with intelligence and other support from the United States. This policy on targeted killing, according to experts on counterterrorism inside and outside the government, is shaped by several factors: the availability of a weapon that does not risk American casualties; the resistance of the authorities in Pakistan and Yemen to even brief incursions by American troops; and the decreasing urgency of interrogation at a time when the terrorist threat has diminished and the United States has deep intelligence on its enemies. Though no official will publicly acknowledge it, the bottom line is clear: killing is more convenient than capture for both the United States and the foreign countries where the strikes occur. The drone strikes have become unpopular abroad; in a Pew Research Center poll last year, just 17 percent of Pakistanis supported them against leaders of extremist groups. And domestic critics have attacked from two different directions: Some Republicans in Congress accuse Mr. Obama of adopting a de facto kill preference because he shut down the C.I.A.’s overseas prisons and does not want to send more detainees to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Human rights advocates argue that some drone strikes have amounted to extrajudicial killings, the execution without trial of people suspected of being militants whose identities American officials often do not know and who sometimes pose little threat to the United States. But with the American public, the strikes remain popular. Even as some senior former American security officials question whether the strikes are beginning to do more harm than good, 65 percent of Americans questioned in a Gallup poll last month approved of strikes to kill suspected foreign terrorists; only 28 percent were opposed. Image Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden taken into American custody last month, awaits trial in New York. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Brennan’s criterion for capture — when it is “feasible” — is a very subjective judgment, said Matthew C. Waxman, a former Defense Department official who is now at Columbia Law School. “Those simple statements about a preference to capture mask a much more complicated story,” Mr. Waxman said. “The U.S. military and intelligence community can do a great deal if they’re directed to do it. Sometimes where we say it’s infeasible, we mean it’s too risky.” But he believes the hazards of a capture strategy are real. “I think in most cases we could not capture people without significant risk to our own forces or to diplomatic relations,” he said. The uncertainties were evident nine months into Mr. Obama’s first term, when intelligence agencies tracked down Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a suspect in the attacks on two American embassies in East Africa in 1998. The original plan had been to fire long-range missiles to hit Mr. Nabhan and others as they drove in a convoy from Mogadishu, Somalia, to the seaside town of Baraawe. But that plan was scrubbed at the last minute, and instead a Navy SEALs team helicoptered from a ship and strafed Mr. Nabhan’s convoy, killing him and three others. The SEALs landed to collect DNA samples to confirm the identities of the dead. The episode raised uncomfortable questions for some at the Pentagon. If the United States took the risk to land troops in Somalia, they wondered, why did they not capture Mr. Nabhan instead of killing him? Or consider the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric who had joined the Qaeda branch in Yemen. In September 2011, when American intelligence located him, it might conceivably have been possible to organize a capture by Yemeni or American commandos. But a drone strike was politically far less complicated for both countries, said Gregory D. Johnsen, an expert on Yemen at Princeton. If American forces captured him, their presence on Yemeni soil might have spurred unrest, Mr. Johnsen said. If the forces of the Yemeni president at the time, Ali Abdullah Saleh, caught him, he said, “Does he turn him over to the Americans and risk a backlash? Does he hold him? It was easier for Saleh to let the Americans take a shot at Awlaki than to send his troops to catch him.” The trade-offs have not changed under Yemen’s new president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi , who lauded the precision of drone strikes in a 2012 speech in Washington. Two months later, an American strike killed Adnan al-Qadhi, a well-connected Qaeda supporter, even though he was in a town near the capital, Sana, where several high-level officials live. Neighbors told reporters that he could easily have been captured. In Pakistan, where the SEAL raid that killed Bin Laden sent Pakistani-American relations into a tailspin, drone strikes — though deeply unpopular — are tolerated by the security establishment. “There’s an intangible notion that a drone flying over is less of an intrusion than troops on the ground,” said Ashley S. Deeks, a University of Virginia law professor and a former State Department lawyer. Then there is the question of very real danger to Americans in capturing heavily armed terrorists. The SEALs sent to Abbottabad were instructed that if Bin Laden immediately surrendered, he should be detained, according to Matt Bissonnette, a member of the SEAL team who wrote a book on the raid. But if Americans died trying to catch a midlevel militant — when drones were available but went unused — there would be a huge public outcry, most officials believe. Image John O. Brennan, now C.I.A. director, said last year the preference was to use lethal force only when capture was not feasible. Credit Susan Walsh/Associated Press Only in the drone era has killing terrorism suspects become routine. In the 1980s and 1990s, counterterrorism officers captured several suspects overseas and brought them back to the United States for trial. Brad Garrett, a former F.B.I. agent, was on the teams that caught both Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, an organizer of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, and Mir Aimal Kansi, who shot five C.I.A. employees, two of them fatally, outside the agency’s headquarters in Virginia the same year. Teams of American and Pakistani officers caught the men by kicking down doors at their guesthouses, and “no shots were fired in either case,” he said. As an investigator, Mr. Garrett said, “I’ve spent my life talking to live people. That’s the downside of drones. There’s no one left to talk to.” But he said that catching a solo suspect in an urban setting, while risky, was far less hazardous than confronting a gang of heavily armed men in the hostile territory of Pakistan’s or Yemen’s tribal areas. “I don’t think you can really compare them,” he said. When Mr. Obama closed the C.I.A. prisons and banned coercive interrogations, Republicans complained that there was nowhere left to hold and question terrorists, a charge that resonated with some military and C.I.A. officers. The president countered by creating a High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, an elite group of analysts and interrogators that officials say has been sent about two dozen times to question detainees at home and abroad. That is a tiny number compared to the frequency of drone strikes, of course, but officials say the secretive group has been successful. An even smaller number of those questioned by the interrogation group have been brought back to the United States to face criminal charges, including Mr. Abu Ghaith, the Bin Laden son-in-law, and Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali commander of the militant group Shabab. By all accounts, Mr. Warsame’s handling is a powerful illustration of the value of capturing rather than killing a terrorism suspect. He first began providing information to American counterterrorism officials after being caught on a ship in April 2011. He has never stopped talking about both the Shabab and the Qaeda branch in Yemen, officials say, and he knows that his ultimate sentence will depend on his cooperation. There are signs that the Obama administration may itself have grown wary of the convenience of targeted killing — or may be running out of high-level targets. After a sharp rise in Mr. Obama’s first two years, the total number of drone strikes is now in sharp decline. In Pakistan, strikes peaked in 2010 at 117; the number fell to 64 in 2011, 46 in 2012, with 11 so far this year, according to The Long War Journal , which covers the covert wars. In Yemen, while strikes shot up to 42 in 2012, no strikes have been reported since a flurry of drone hits in January, according to several organizations that track strikes. In his State of the Union address in February, Mr. Obama pledged more transparency for the drone program, and he and his aides have hinted that changes are coming. It remains unclear what the administration has in mind, but the president has spoken of the treacherous allure of the drone. Decisions on targeted killing, he told CNN in September , are “something that you have to struggle with.” “If you don’t, then it’s very easy to slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules thinking that the ends always justify the means,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not who we are as a country.”

US Politics
Terrorism
Targeted Killings
Drones
US Military
CIA
Barack Obama
John O Brennan
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith


Trenton: Corzine Faces More Surgery

Abstract: Gov. Jon S. Corzine is expected to undergo another operation on the leg he broke in his near-fatal car accident in April. The governor’s spokeswoman, Lilo Stainton, said no date had been set, but that the operation would probably be in mid-September at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where Mr. Corzine was treated after a crash on the Garden State Parkway on April 12. Mr. Corzine broke his left leg in two places during the crash, and doctors later inserted a rod into it. Ms. Stainton said she believed the new surgery would be to remove excess bone growth and would be done under anesthesia, which will require an acting governor to take Mr. Corzine’s place while he is incapacitated.


Apple Stock Sinks as Profits and Products Are Questioned

Abstract: Autumn is traditionally the time of year when people start snapping up Apple products. It’s also when investors, in anticipation of another blockbuster holiday season from the company, do the same with Apple shares. But this year, even though Apple’s iPhones and iPads don’t seem to have lost any of their allure for holiday shoppers, its stock seems headed straight for the discount rack. On Wednesday, Apple’s shares slid 3.8 percent. They outpaced a broader decline in the stock market set off by investors’ uncertainty about how the outcome of the presidential election will affect taxes and consumer demand for the types of products Apple sells. During the campaign, President Obama proposed increasing capital gains tax rates for people earning over $250,000 to 20 percent from the existing rate of 15 percent, and his re-election Tuesday night may have prompted some investors to unload shares in anticipation of a broader sell-off in stocks ahead of a tax increase, analysts said. Owners of Apple shares would have good reason to fear higher taxes on capital gains. Apple shares have appreciated mightily since 2005 when they were about $35 apiece; they began this year at $411 and peaked at more than $700 in late September. The drop on Wednesday only added to what has been a grim few weeks for Apple shares, which have fallen over 20 percent from that peak, to $558 on Wednesday. The decline has followed a sequence of seemingly unrelated events, including a broader-than-normal overhaul of its product line that is expected to hurt profit margins in the near term and a rare shake-up in Apple’s senior ranks. “It has just been wave after wave of bad news,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. The events also do little to diminish the questions reflecting longer-term concerns with which investors pepper analysts like Mr. Munster. How much bigger can Apple — with a $525 billion market value, the biggest of any corporation — get? Won’t Apple soon run out of people to sell iPhones, iPads and Macs to? Those concerns have been one of the biggest reasons Apple’s stock has long traded at a discount, strange as that may sound, to its peers in the tech business. Apple’s forward price-to-earnings ratio — the value of the company’s stock divided by its expected earnings per share for the coming year — is just under 10. That figure is 14 for Google, 32 for Facebook and 131 for Amazon. Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, said the company generally did not comment on its share price. Apple executives have said they still see huge opportunities for the company and it is still growing at a remarkable clip for a company its size. During its last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 29, Apple’s revenue jumped 45 percent to $156.51 billion and its profits rose 61 percent to $41.73 billion. While Apple’s most recent financial report was mostly in line with Wall Street forecasts, the company warned that its profit margin would most likely decline in the holiday quarter because of a sweeping refresh of the company’s iPad , iMac and MacBook laptop lines. Apple products often cost more to make during their first months on the market, but those costs come down as the process becomes more efficient and volumes increase. The company said its new iPad Mini would be among those products with low profit margins, raising concerns that Apple will make less money as it competes in lower-priced segments of the mobile market. Apple’s worrisome financial report came just days before Apple announced the departure of Scott Forstall, the head of its mobile software development, in a move that it said was aimed at increasing collaboration between departments at the company. Apple split the responsibilities of Mr. Forstall, who was a divisive figure at the company, among an array of other Apple executives. The surprise firing of Mr. Forstall was unusual for Apple, where turnover in its senior ranks is rare compared to other big technology companies. Then late last week, the research firm IDC reported that 75 percent of smartphones shipped in the third quarter were Android phones, the main rival to Apple in mobile software. A year earlier, Google, the maker of Android software, had market share of 57.5 percent. The iPhone ’s share rose at a much slower pace, jumping to 14.9 percent of shipments from 13.8 percent, IDC estimated. But Apple is still making huge profits from the mobile market, far more than Google is. Even with the recent decline in its shares, Apple’s stock is still up 38 percent for the year. David Rolfe, chief investment officer at Wedgewood Partners, which counts Apple as its biggest stock holding, said he remained confident that Apple was one of the best investments around. “The bears think Apple is in the eighth inning,” Mr. Rolfe said. “We think they’re still in the fourth or fifth inning.”

Stocks and Bonds
Apple Inc
Computers and the Internet


A Golfer’s Feat Started With a Bamboo 5-Iron

Abstract: One stick took away the dreams of Thongchai Jaidee. Another stick allowed him to go places he never imagined. The next stop of a journey that keeps getting better is the Presidents Cup, where Thongchai will be the first player from Thailand to compete in the matches. Thongchai, a 45-year-old former paratrooper, will be playing the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea this week with players like Jordan Spieth and Jason Day, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, none of whom had to cut such a rugged path to reach such an elite stage. “Guys come from all over,” said Bubba Watson, who struck up a friendship with Thongchai late last year. “But his story is pretty special.” Thongchai was good enough in soccer to represent his province of Lopburi as a teenager, and he often played barefooted because, he said, “I did not have money to pay for those nice football shoes.” But one day a wooden skewer became lodged in his foot, and that was the end of soccer. “Nobody knows where I would end up if I didn’t have that injury,” Thongchai said in an email. “But I believe that everything happened for a reason.” He grew up in a two-story wooden house that had no kitchen, no shower and no toilet that flushed. It was next to a Thai Army base that had a golf course, however, and Thongchai found the head of a 5-iron that he fastened to a bamboo stick. That was his introduction to golf. “I don’t know exactly how far I could hit with a bamboo stick as I would do it in an open field,” he said. “I was hitting balls, or anything I could find, into the river, trees or even the crop field. All I can remember is that I lost many balls.” The competition he faces at the 11th Presidents Cup is not intimidating. Even though he did not turn pro until he was 30, Thongchai has 16 worldwide victories, and he picked up his seventh European Tour win last week in Germany. He already is the first Thai to have played in all four majors — at the 2009 British Open, he finished four shots out of the playoff at Turnberry. “Representing Asia in the Presidents Cup is a huge step for both myself and the golf scene in Thailand,” Thongchai said. “I hope this achievement will inspire not only Thai golfers, but the country as a whole. I am proud to say that I’m a Thai, and Thailand is now a part of this honorable event.” The timing could not be better. The Presidents Cup, which starts Thursday in Incheon, South Korea, is being held in Asia for the first time since it began in 1994. The International team has never had more than two Asian countries represented at any Presidents Cup. For these matches, it has four. Anirban Lahiri became the first player from India to make the Presidents Cup team. Thongchai and Lahiri will be joined by Hideki Matsuyama of Japan and Sang-Moon Bae of South Korea, who was a captain’s pick. Also playing is Danny Lee, who was born in Seoul but grew up in New Zealand and plays under the Kiwi flag. “It’s a proud moment for me,” Lahiri said. “It’s also a proud moment for my teammate Thongchai Jaidee, who has been quite a stalwart for Asian golf. I think it’s going to do a lot of good for golf in the region. The fact that it’s in Korea and in Asia for the first time and they’re going to have four — or four and a half Asians, if I was to count Danny Lee — it’s going to be massive.” It would help to have some competition, which is what these matches between the United States and the International team (all other countries except Europe) have been lacking for the last decade. The Americans lead the series, 8-1-1, and the last four matches have been lopsided. This United States team, without Tiger Woods for the first time since he turned pro in 1996, is stacked with five of the top 10 players in the world. The International captain, Nick Price, lobbied for a reduction in matches — 30 matches this year instead of 34 — with hopes that the competition at least would be closer. In some respects, South Korea is the perfect homecoming for Thongchai. A pivotal point early in his career was in the Shinhan Donghae Open in 2001. He was leading the Order of Merit on the Asian Tour and shot 70 to make the cut, but realized that night that he had violated a rule by moving his golf ball back to its original position after the wind had moved it ever so slightly. Because he had not addressed the ball, Thongchai should have played it from its new position. He informed a rules official the next day and was disqualified. Thongchai went on to win the first of his three straight money titles on the Asian Tour, and he has been winning ever since. “I’ve played a fair bit of golf with him over the years, and he’s tough,” Henrik Stenson said. “Every time you tee it up against him, you know it’s going to be a tough match, so I’m expecting him to do pretty well.” Given where he has been — hitting balls with a bamboo stick, jumping out of planes in the Thai Army, being dropped in the jungle for survival training — Thongchai has already done more than he could have dreamed.


Louisiana: Former Governor Seeks End to Sentence

Abstract: Edwin Edwards, a former governor of Louisiana who spent eight years in federal prison for his role in a riverboat casino corruption scandal, is requesting an early and immediate end to his supervised release. Prosecutors support the request. They say Mr. Edwards, 85, has served more than 18 months of his three-year supervision and poses no public safety threat. The former governor will be in a reality TV series with his third wife beginning next month. Mr. Edwards said in a motion filed in federal court on Jan. 10 that he has long since served his time, paid his fines and done all required of him. He was convicted of a felony in 2000 in a scheme to rig riverboat casino licenses.


Longhorns Will Retire Vince Young’s Jersey Before Opener

Abstract: Donald Brown ran for 146 yards and scored four first-half touchdowns Thursday night as Connecticut defeated Hofstra, 35-3, in the teams’ season opener in East Hartford, Conn. The Huskies improved to 7-0 against second-tier Football Championship Subdivision teams since UConn started playing in college football’s top division in 2002. Brown, a junior, split time with Andre Dixon a year ago. But Dixon rolled an ankle in practice this week, leaving Brown to carry the load. Brown had two touchdowns in each of the first two quarters, and 130 yards rushing at halftime. He finished with 23 carries in less than three quarters. Hofstra announced just before kickoff that the senior quarterback Bryan Savage would miss the game with an injured back. The junior Cory Christopher took his place, throwing for 130 yards and 2 interceptions. He also carried the ball 21 times for just 25 yards, and was sacked 7 times. UConn was undefeated at home last year and has an eight-game winning streak there. GEORGIA TECH ROLLS Paul Johnson’s option offense was a hit for Georgia Tech in a season-opening 41-14 victory against Jacksonville State in Atlanta. Johnson, the former Navy coach, had his triple-option offense ready after much concern based on a rash of turnovers in the spring game and summer scrimmages. Georgia Tech ran for 349 yards and had 484 total yards. Jonathan Dwyer and quarterback Josh Nesbitt each ran for two touchdowns. Dwyer had 10 carries for 113 yards. NO. 23 WAKE FOREST WINS Riley Skinner tossed three touchdown passes, including two to Chip Brinkman, as No. 23 Wake Forest lived up to its first preseason ranking in university history with a victory at Baylor. OHIO STATE SAFETY HURT Ohio State’s starting strong safety, Kurt Coleman, will probably miss the season opener against Youngstown State because of an ankle injury sustained in practice this week. Coleman, a junior from Dayton, was the Buckeyes’ third-leading tackler a year ago.


In Seattle, Holmgren Walks Out a Winner

Abstract: SEATTLE — Mike Holmgren said goodbye to Seattle with a walk in the snow Sunday. After his final home game as the Seahawks ’ coach, Holmgren took a victory lap around Qwest Field after handing the Jets a 13-3 defeat, taking one last chance to say goodbye to the fans who have cheered — and occasionally booed — him during the last 10 seasons. When the game ended, Holmgren first found Jets quarterback Brett Favre at midfield and shared a hug and a few words with his former Green Bay pupil. Holmgren, who announced before the season that this would be his last year in Seattle, then walked to the southwest corner of the stadium and began a slow stroll around the field to acknowledge the Seahawks fans who were chanting his name. Thousands of fans who had already sat for three hours in unusually cold weather stayed a few more minutes to salute Holmgren. Many held signs thanking him. Countless others snapped photos of Holmgren, who at times appeared to be fighting back his emotions. Seattleites, not used to the snow that fell throughout the game, for some reason felt compelled to hurl snow late in the game. No one in throwing range, not even Holmgren, was safe. “That was the first time in my life that I enjoyed having snowballs thrown at me,” said Holmgren, the only coach to take the Seahawks to the Super Bowl . Holmgren had more to enjoy than the snow flying at him from the stands. In a season marked by injuries and inconsistent play, the Seahawks gave him a successful sendoff in the form of a victory over a playoff-contending team. “The players did an outstanding job today, they really did,” Holmgren said. “What it goes to show you is that if you think properly and you try hard enough and you play together, you have a chance in every game you play.” Sunday was an emotional one for both starting quarterbacks, Favre and Seneca Wallace. Favre, who began his career under Holmgren with Green Bay, probably played against his mentor for the last time. Holmgren has not ruled out returning to coaching at some point. He plans to take a year off; he calls it a sabbatical, choosing the word carefully. “I think the world of Mike,” Favre said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. Did I want to win the football game? Absolutely. And I know he felt the same way; he wanted to win it as well. But I’ll say this again, I would not be here today without him, and I truly mean that.” Wallace, who was starting in place of the injured Matt Hasselbeck, said he would remember Holmgren fondly because the coach took a chance on him, an undersize player whom many teams did not view as an N.F.L. quarterback. “Mike gave me that opportunity since Day 1 when I first got here,” said Wallace, who completed 18 of 25 passes for 175 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions. “He said, ‘Hey, you’re a quarterback, and that’s exactly what you’re going to do.’ He gave me the opportunity to do that and to prove to people that I can play this game. That’s why I got choked up a little bit, because I know he stuck with me since Day 1.”

Holmgren Mike
Seattle Seahawks
Coaches and Managers
Football
New York Jets


Despite Youth, Athlete Careers Get Cut Short

Abstract: Is 23 the new 40? While Great Britain feasts on an Olympic gold rush, Andy Carroll and Rebecca Adlington must fear that they have peaked in life. It is a soulless conclusion to contemplate at age 23. Yet Carroll, the costliest soccer player in England last year, is unwanted now by a changed Liverpool administration and faces a move against his wishes and beneath his ambition. Liverpool might accept half the £35 million — about $55 million — fee it paid for him just to get him off the payroll. Adlington, the undisputed queen of British swimming after winning both the 400- and 800-meter freestyle events in Beijing four years ago, cried when she lost both in London. “I feel so old,” she said after being outpaced by the 15-year-old American Katie Ledecky in the longer distance on Friday. “My body can’t do what it did when I was 16 or 17,” Adlington added. “I gave it my absolute all, and I’m sorry I didn’t get the gold everyone was expecting of me.” This is so cruel, and so self-inflicted. Adlington won bronze medals at both events last week, making her third-best in the world. But still she is considering her future, considering what next to do with the rest of her time. She is a proud and an extraordinarily grounded young woman. Adlington never got above herself when she was on top of her world and earned a moderate income from her sponsors — Speedo, British Gas and Cadbury — but she now is confronted by the fact that her sport gets ever younger: Rivals start in infancy, peak in their teens, and might burn out early in their 20s. Carroll is not as accomplished in his sport as Adlington in hers. Britain was eliminated by South Korea on Saturday in soccer, but Carroll was not selected for Team G.B. anyway. He had played, briefly, for England in the European Championship in June. He was not chosen to travel with a drastically weakened Liverpool side for a preliminary match in the Europa League last Thursday, ostensibly because he had a slight muscle strain, more likely because his move out of Liverpool could be compromised if he became injured or cup-tied in a competition. At 23, he should not be anything like past his prime. In soccer, the peak comes when players accumulate years of experience and settle down to apply wisdom to their performance. Carroll’s weekly pay — said to be £80,000 — dwarfs anything that Adlington, a double Olympic champion, might ever receive. But still Big Andy is foundering. Size is relative. Adlington, 5-foot-10, or 1.79 meters, and about 154 pounds, or 70 kilograms, had to swim in the wake of Ledecky, who weighs only 65 kilograms. Carroll is also big in his game. He stands about 1.91 meters. He is built in the mode of the old-fashioned English center forward, a player considered great in the air, not bad on the ground, a focal point for his team’s attacking intentions. His style was synonymous with his first club, Newcastle United, because its history was built on a bold, brave, physical target man. Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool’s goal king of 30 years ago and its team manager when Carroll was purchased, was almost the opposite style of striker. Dalglish was mobile, smart, and could strike out of the shadows. The team did not play high ball, and did not play to Carroll’s strengths. Rather, it played closer to the darting, nonstop, in-and-out running of Luis Suárez, a Uruguayan forward who had been bought in the same transfer window in 2011. Dalglish put his job on the line for Carroll and paid the price. Statistics do not always tell the whole story of players, but in a striker they often do. At Newcastle, in a then-lesser team, Carroll scored 33 goals in 91 games. Not all were in the top division, the Premier League, and some of those goals were scored during his teenage years. For Liverpool, his scoring rate dipped to 11 goals in 56 appearances. His transfer fee was the highest ever paid for an Englishman, but he seemed to spend much of his time on the bench: The costliest substitute in history. When he scored the header that took Liverpool to the F.A. Cup final last season, many believed that would save Dalglish, and save Carroll. But the team lost to Chelsea, and by then John Henry, who heads the American group that owns Liverpool, had concluded that winning a cup would not spare the manager. “We were 17th in the form table over the second half of the season,” Henry said in Boston recently. “And Liverpool should not be in that position.” He did not blame Kenny Dalglish but said that the players’ response to the manager and to the coach were lacking. Blamed or not, Dalglish was replaced by Brendan Rodgers. Recruited from Swansea City, Rodgers’s style is for the ball to be played on the ground, similar to what Barcelona does. Carroll is not nimble enough, not instinctive enough, not mobile enough for that style. The new manager says that if an offer meets Liverpool’s asking price, Carroll can go. There are potential borrowers rather than buyers. Rodgers stated that he would not countenance a cheeky attempt by Newcastle to take Carroll “home” on loan without repaying the fortune it received 18 months ago. West Ham United, the London club hoping to move one day into the stadium built for the Olympics, offered to pay £2 million to the striker on loan for the coming season — and then a further £17 million if West Ham managed to stay in the Premier League. Carroll is reported to be looking for a better deal. But he needs a career change and is in no position to dictate, as he wants to do, that his next club must be a contender in European competition. He is not proven in England, let alone abroad. He has riches that Adlington will never get. She has the medals, the glory, the respect. Both are fish out of water.

Olympic Games (2012)
Soccer
Swimming
Great Britain
Dalglish Kenny
Adlington Rebecca