Mets Call Up Feliciano, a Master of the Minors

Abstract: As reporters and television cameramen crowded around, Jesus Feliciano planted himself on a chair in front of his new locker in the Mets ’ clubhouse Tuesday after batting practice. Then he reconsidered and stood up. “Is that all right?” he said. Feliciano, who turned 31 on Sunday, could be forgiven for not knowing how to position himself in front of a swarm of reporters. He has spent the last 13 seasons toiling in the minor leagues, hoping for a major league call-up. It never came — until Monday. He did not play Tuesday in the Mets’ 2-1 victory over San Diego in 11 innings at Citi Field. The Mets’ addition of Feliciano, an outfielder, underscored the uncertain future of young prospects, like the 28 players the Mets selected Tuesday on the second day of the draft. The luckiest draftees make it to the major leagues in almost no time, like last year’s top overall pick, Stephen Strasburg, who made his debut with the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night. Others take a few years. For Feliciano, it took 1,271 minor league games. “I’ve been waiting so long,” he said. “I was ready to get that call.” Taken in the 36th round of the 1997 draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers, Feliciano began his professional career in Yakima, Wash., in 1998. The Dodgers released him five years later, and he landed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Nationals picked him up two years later, then the Mets two years after that. The last four seasons he has played for the Mets’ Class AAA affiliate, first New Orleans and more recently Buffalo. At that level, at least, there is no question that the 5-foot-10 Feliciano can hit. Though he has minimal power (18 minor league home runs), his batting average has exceeded .300 in all of his seasons in the Mets’ organization. This year has been his best yet: before his call-up, the left-handed-hitting Feliciano was batting .385 in 53 games for Buffalo , leading the International League in hitting by 57 points . He drew rave reviews from Manager Jerry Manuel , who watched Feliciano in batting practice and said he planned to use him as a pinch-hitter and spot starter. (Gary Matthews Jr., who was designated for assignment last week, had a similar role.) “Mechanically and fundamentally speaking, he seems to keep his bat in the strike zone a long time, and that indicates that you have a good chance to get a hit,” Manuel said of Feliciano. “He looks like a real good hitter.” Feliciano has deep baseball roots in Puerto Rico. His father, also named Jesus, played baseball for Puerto Rico at the 1988 and the 1992 Olympics. Feliciano played for Puerto Rico in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. That team was made up mostly of major leaguers, including three current Mets: Carlos Beltran, Alex Cora and Pedro Feliciano. Feliciano, whose parents and sister came from Puerto Rico to see his Mets debut, said his many friends in the major leagues encouraged him to keep playing in the minors and not give up. “They knew that someday I could make it,” he said. Hoping to make it, too, are the 28 players the Mets drafted Tuesday. After picking the University of North Carolina right-hander Matt Harvey with the seventh overall pick Monday, the Mets selected a catcher from the University of Tennessee, Norman Forsythe, in the third round. (They did not have a second-round pick.) Their fourth- and fifth-round picks were outfielders: Cory Vaughn of San Diego State, the son of the former All-Star outfielder Greg Vaughn; and Matthew den Dekker from Florida. The Mets showed a strong preference for college players. Of their 29 selections so far, only two were from high school: Akeel Morris, a 17-year-old pitcher from St. Thomas, V.I., who was picked in the 10th round, and Dabias Johnson, a second baseman from Adel, Ga., who was selected in the 21st round.


Daily Report: Planning to Cut the Cord on Cable? Let Us Help

Abstract: Cutting the cable cord might not be as easy as you think. As Brian X. Chen writes , people now have plenty of streaming services and devices to choose from if they want to cancel their cable-television subscription. But that’s precisely the problem: too many options. Image So Brian teamed up with The Wirecutter, a product recommendation website that The New York Times has collaborated with in the past , to come up with a comprehensive guide for cord-cutting in 2016. The Wirecutter tested various services and hardware to help you figure out what might work for you and what wouldn’t. The resulting guide is tailored to viewers’ personal habits. Are you a movie buff? Then the best streaming choices for you may be different from what you need if all you want to watch is live sports. Likewise, families with children may not make the same choices as those who want to watch premium shows from HBO. We hope you find the guide useful.

TV
Cable television
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming


Final Sentences Handed Down in New York Officer’s Killing

Abstract: The last two men convicted in a botched robbery that cost a New York City police officer his life in 2011 have been sentenced. The men, Nelson Morales and Kevin Santos , were convicted last month and received sentences on Thursday of 20 years to life in prison for the murder of Officer Peter J. Figoski. They also received prison sentences of 25 years for burglary. The sentences will run concurrently. Prosecutors described Mr. Morales as the mastermind of the robbery, which took place on Dec. 12, 2011. Lamont Pride, the man who shot Officer Figoski, was convicted of murder earlier this year and sentenced to 45 years to life. A fourth man, Ariel Tejada , pleaded guilty to lesser charges and testified against the others. A fifth man, Michael Velez, was acquitted ; he was accused of driving the getaway car. Officer Figoski’s mother thanked the Police Department, prosecutors and others for their support after her son’s death.

NYC
Peter J Figoski
Kevin Santos
Nelson Morales
Criminal Sentence
Murders
Attacks on Police


With Roberts, Yanks Hope Imperfect Piece Is Good Fit

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Maybe it was the cluster of Yankees championships in the late 1990s, or maybe the creation of their own cable network a few years later. Probably, it was the explosion of their payroll, demonstrated again with their $500 million off-season. At some point, the Yankees became the team that must have a perfect roster. Their willingness to spend, the thinking goes, should create at least the illusion of certainty at every position. “I think that’s become an expectation now,” said Yankees Manager Joe Girardi, a former catcher with the team. “You look at some of the early championships in the ’90s, and that wasn’t necessarily the case.” Girardi pointed to some positions on those teams that looked imperfect on their face: catcher, third base, outfield platoons. “It definitely can work, and it worked at a pretty high level,” he added. “You’ve just got to get your pieces to fit right and use them right.” The Yankees have pieces to fill in for Robinson Cano at second base and Alex Rodriguez at third. The one they are counting on most is Brian Roberts, who started at second base and hit cleanup on Tuesday night against his old team, the Baltimore Orioles. Cano did not run fast but otherwise was about as flawless a player as you could find. The Seattle Mariners invested $240 million in that belief, leaving the Yankees with a question at second base for the first time since Tony Womack yielded to Cano in early 2005. Image Roberts has missed 456 games in the last four seasons because of injuries. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times Citing Womack’s regrettable tenure (one season with the Yankees and a .276 on-base percentage) underscores just how much of a fixture Cano became. The Roberts of 2009 would be an excellent replacement; he led the league in doubles while stealing 30 bases. But Roberts has missed 456 games in the last four seasons, while Cano missed just 14 in the last seven. A strained abdominal muscle, a concussion, a strained groin muscle and a labral hip tear caused most of those absences for Roberts. He left last spring training healthy but almost immediately strained his hamstring. He missed about three months and finished with a .249 average in 77 games. Roberts is the one player for whom you might indulge the most overused phrase in sports. He said his approach was to take one day at a time. “It’s not a cliché, I promise you that,” Roberts said. “I didn’t expect any of the others to come up, either. I expected to play 155 games those years, too.” The Yankees cannot plan just one day ahead, of course, and Girardi said he wanted to play Roberts as often as he could. It seems far-fetched to think of Roberts as a regular, but he played his second game in a row on Tuesday and said he felt strong. Billy Eppler, the Yankees’ assistant general manager, said he called Roberts’s agent during the first week of free agency, long before Cano signed with Seattle. Whether Roberts would be a part-time or a full-time option, the Yankees wanted him. “Switch-hitter; controls the strike zone; power probably plays up a little bit more in our ballpark from the left side of the plate; highly, highly intelligent player; very, very well-liked player,” Eppler said. “He fit a number of different characteristics we try to find, much like Eric Chavez and Raul Ibanez.” Image Yankees Manager Joe Girardi, center, said there was "a lot of upside" to the team's new second baseman, Brian Roberts, right. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times For every Chavez and Ibanez, who made a positive impact in a late-career Yankee cameo, there has been a Travis Hafner or a Kevin Youkilis, who arrived with nothing left. The Yankees invested $2 million in Roberts and $3 million in another second baseman, Kelly Johnson, who will play mostly third. Eduardo Nunez is still around, and the Yankees smartly re-signed Brendan Ryan, a defensive wizard who can back up Derek Jeter at shortstop and help at second and third. More options should ease the burden on Roberts. “The durability is something you’re going to have to deal with,” Girardi conceded, but added later, “There’s a lot of upside there, too, because he’s played at a very high level, and I’d rather have it that way than the other way.” Roberts’s best days coincided with rough years for the Orioles. He made his debut in 2001, Cal Ripken’s last season. A decade of losing followed, with Yankees fans invading Camden Yards whenever their team came to town. It bothered Roberts, but he said he understood. “I’ve told people over and over again: If you don’t win games, I’m not expecting people to spend their hard-earned money to come out and watch,” Roberts said. “I understand it 100 percent. We weren’t winning, so I didn’t blame them.” When the Orioles finally won a wild card in 2012, Roberts was hurt and missed the postseason. By then, Adam Jones had taken over as the team’s most recognizable star — he has company now, with Chris Davis — but for years Roberts filled the role. Now, Roberts said, he is happy to be “the guy in the back that nobody cares about or knows about.” He said that team security guards knew his wife’s first name, but not her last. He is just not a big deal anymore, and that suits him. “I understand that I’m 36, and very few guys are that guy at 36,” Roberts said. “I don’t really need that; I don’t really have any interest for it and I don’t care. I just want to win some games and have fun playing baseball.”

Baseball
Yankees
Robinson Cano
Alex Rodriguez
Brian Roberts


Judge Permits eBay’s ‘Buy It Now’ Feature

Abstract: NORFOLK, Va., July 27 (AP) — A federal judge denied on Friday a request from a small Virginia company to stop the online auction powerhouse eBay from using its “Buy It Now” feature, which allows shoppers to purchase items at a fixed price. Judge Jerome B. Friedman of Federal District Court denied a motion by the Virginia company, MercExchange, for a permanent injunction to stop eBay from using the feature. The Supreme Court ruled last year that, although eBay infringed upon MercExchange’s patent for the service, it was up to the lower court to decide whether eBay had to stop using it. In his ruling, Judge Friedman said the company was not irreparably harmed because it continued to make money from its patents, either by licensing them outright or by threatening litigation against those it believed infringed upon them. “MercExchange has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market share, reputation, good will, or name recognition, as MercExchange appears to possess none of these,” he wrote. A federal jury found in 2003 that eBay had infringed on MercExchange’s patent and awarded the company $35 million. The amount later was reduced to $25 million. Greg Stillman, a lawyer for MercExchange, which is based in Great Falls., Va., called the opinion a double-edged sword. “It was sort of good news, bad news for both sides,” Mr. Stillman said. He said he was sure that eBay was relieved not to be enjoined but that the judge “made it quite clear that they’re going to have to pay for that right.” Catherine England, a spokeswoman for eBay, said the company was “extremely pleased” in the decision to deny the injunction. In the closely watched case, the high court ruled that judges had flexibility in deciding whether to issue court orders barring continued use of a technology after juries found a patent violation. The decision threw out a ruling by a federal appeals court that said injunctions should be automatic unless exceptional circumstances applied. The case became a rallying point for critics who argue that the federal patent system is riddled with abuse from small businesses that sue established companies to enforce patents for ideas that have never been developed into products.

eBay Inc
Inventions and Patents
Courts
Computers and the Internet


Senate Deal Is Reached on Restoring Jobless Aid

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday reached an agreement to pay for an extension of an unemployment assistance program that expired in December, leaving more than a million Americans who have been out of work for a half-year or longer without support from the federal government. The deal, a long-anticipated breakthrough after months of fitful negotiations, solves a problem on only one side of the Capitol, however. Getting the $10 billion measure through the Republican-controlled House will be another battle altogether. Senators who described the deal said it would provide five months’ worth of unemployment assistance, including the two and a half months that have lapsed since the program expired. The cost would be paid for in part by extending certain fees levied by United States Customs and Border Protection as well as by temporarily changing the way private corporations fund their pensions. “This agreement is the first step toward reforming a broken program into a safety net that helps the unemployed quickly re-enter the work force and get back on their feet,” said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, who helped broker the deal. The support of Senate Republicans like Mr. Portman, Dean Heller of Nevada, Susan Collins of Maine, Mark S. Kirk of Illinois and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska will help provide the five votes that Democrats will need to overcome a filibuster by conservatives who have opposed extending the program, which was first passed in 2008, at the height of the recession. The conservatives argue that it is too expensive and does little to address the root cause of long-term unemployment. Many of the provisions in the agreement were intended to address the skepticism from the right. Ms. Collins said one provision would require an assessment of why a person unemployed more than six months has been unable to find work. “That may mean that individuals will be directed to a job-training program or to a different occupation than he or she has traditionally held,” Ms. Collins said. “I see this requirement as the key to getting the person back to work.” The agreement also calls for an end to unemployment payments to anyone whose adjusted gross income is more than $1 million — payments that, to the surprise of many in Congress, were actually occurring, though in relatively small amounts. The long-term unemployed would also have expanded access to services like workplace skills assessments and referrals to re-employment services. By gaining Republican support in the Senate, Democrats hope to increase the pressure on House Republican leaders, highlighting fractures in a party offering differing policy solutions to poverty and income inequality. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and a possible presidential candidate in 2016, has warned that the benefits are a narcotic for the unemployed, lulled by handouts away from seeking work. Groups like the political action committee Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation’s political arm, Heritage Action, also warned Republicans against supporting the extension.

Unemployment benefits
Senate
Congress
Rob Portman


Palin Aides Release Her Medical History

Abstract: RENO, Nev. — Gov. Sarah Palin , 44, is in excellent health and has had no major medical problems, according to a two-page, seven-paragraph letter by her doctor released late Monday night. The letter is the first information the Palin campaign has provided about her medical history. The release of medical records is common practice for presidential and vice-presidential candidates, but earlier this month, Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, declined to provide any health information or be interviewed about her medical history. She retreated from that position on Oct. 22 in an interview with Brian Williams of NBC News. “If that will allow some curiosity seekers, perhaps, to have one more thing that they can either check the box off, that they can find something to criticize, perhaps, or to rest them assured over, fine,” Ms. Palin said. A spokeswoman for Ms. Palin said the medical information would be released a week ago, but the campaign failed to do so. The McCain-Palin campaign e-mailed the statement to the news media while Ms. Palin and her traveling press corps were on a flight from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Reno, Nev., en route to her fifth campaign event of the day. The letter, dated Nov. 3, is from Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, who works at the Providence Health and Services Alaska clinic in Anchorage. Ms. Palin, Dr. Baldwin-Johnson wrote, has been a patient at the clinic since 1991. She said Ms. Palin’s visits “have been related to routine women’s health care and pregnancy.” Ms. Palin gave birth to her five children in 1989, 1990, 1994, 2000 and 2008. Regarding the birth of her fifth child, Trig, Dr. Baldwin-Johnson said Ms. Palin had “no risk factors other than her age.” Dr. Baldwin-Johnson also wrote that in 1992, Ms. Palin had a breast biopsy for a lesion that turned out to be benign. According to the letter, Ms. Palin is on no routine prescription medications and has no drug allergies. She is said to work out regularly and to be physically fit. “Governor Palin is in excellent health and has no known health problems that would interfere with her ability to carry out the duties and obligations of the vice president of the United States of America,” Dr. Baldwin-Johnson wrote.

Vice Presidents and Vice Presidency (US)


Earthquake Hits Myanmar

Abstract: CHIANG RAI, Thailand — A severe magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck a sparsely populated mountain area in the Golden Triangle region of northeastern Myanmar on Thursday, with tremors being felt over a wide radius. News agencies reported Friday that as many as 50 people had been killed, a bridge was destroyed near the epicenter, homes were damaged in southern China and buildings shook as far away as Bangkok; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. Buildings were damaged near the epicenter in Myanmar’s Shan State and villagers felt aftershocks for several hours, said an official with World Vision, a children’s aid agency, in Myanmar. Reports of any damage and injuries, though, were slow to emerge overnight from the remote mountains and valleys. The area affected is landlocked, and no tsunami warning was issued. One woman was killed in this Thai border city, about 70 miles south of the epicenter, when a wall fell on her as she was sleeping, Thai television reported. Some people here said they were shaken from their beds or ran into the streets. One woman attending a funeral said she clung to a pole to stay upright. “I felt I was swaying like a child in a cradle,” the woman, Nutpisut Thongkika, a 50-year-old teacher, said in a telephone interview from Chiang Rai. “The situation here was very chaotic when the earthquake hit.” Thai television said no serious damage was reported in Chiang Rai. Many tourists in nearby Chiangmai fled their hotels and remained for hours in the streets. The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake was just six miles deep, meaning that severe shaking could have caused major damage to buildings in a wide area. It also reported a smaller quake, of 4.8 magnitude, about a half-hour later. Buildings shook for more than a minute in China’s nearby Yunnan Province and many residents fled their homes in Nanning City, the capital of Guangzi Autonomous Region, the Xinhua news agency reported. It said officials were investigating the extent of the damage. Another earthquake on March 10 in Yunnan Province in southwest China took 26 lives and destroyed a number of schools, Xinhua reported. The tremors Thursday caused panic in Hanoi, 380 miles to the east of the epicenter, where residents said they heard the shattering of windows, the Vietnam News Agency reported. Tall buildings shook and chandeliers swayed in Bangkok, 480 miles to the south. Hours after the quake, people in villages near the epicenter remained in the streets afraid to return indoors, said Jenny McIntyre, communications manager in Yangon for World Vision, a children’s aid agency. “These are subsistence farmers, simple people who have got simple water systems which will potentially be threatened,” she said, adding that the damaged bridge had cut off an area near the epicenter. She said she also felt the tremors in Yangon, 350 miles to the southwest. “I suddenly felt really sick and strange and I realized that everything was rocking and the lightshades were all rocking,” she said. Wongdeun Kongcharoen, 34, a hotel manager in Chiang Rai, said the earthquake cracked the walls of houses and scattered glassware and other belongings in all directions. “People here are still nervous and staying outside,” she said about two hours after the tremors. “We feel like the situation that happened in Japan. It was so scary.” She said a Japanese friend told her the shaking was light compared to earthquakes in that country. “But this was the first time for us to experience a situation like this,” Ms. Wongdeun said. “So that’s why we were still outside and still scared.”


Political Tide Could Wash Away Republican Utah Senator

Abstract: SALT LAKE CITY — Senator Robert F. Bennett parked his white Acura, walked through the doors of Bryant Middle School and stood alone as he began the obstacle course that will determine his political fate. “Do you need my ID?” Mr. Bennett asked, reaching for his wallet as he approached the registration table at his neighborhood Republican caucus, the first step in his effort to secure his party’s nomination to a fourth term. No, a volunteer said with a smile. In Utah, of course, he is well known. And he recalls a time he was well liked. The dissatisfaction with Washington sweeping through politics is not only threatening the Democratic majority in Congress, it is also roiling Republican primaries. The Tea Party movement and advocacy groups on the right are demanding that candidates hew strictly to their ideological standards, and are moving aggressively to cast out those they deem to have strayed, even if only by participating in the compromises of legislating. There is no bigger quarry in the eyes of many conservative activists than Mr. Bennett, who has drawn seven challengers and will not know for six weeks whether he will even qualify for the ballot. His fate is being watched not only by grass-roots conservatives testing their ability to shape the party, but also by many elected Republicans in Washington who are wondering, If Bob Bennett is not conservative enough, who is? “If the anti-incumbent tide is as strong as some people think it is, I will be swept out, despite all my efforts,” Mr. Bennett said in an interview. “If the anti-incumbent tide is a lot of conversation, but has no center of gravity as a true political movement, then I’ll be just fine. There’s no way to know.” For all the anger directed at President Obama and his party from the right, especially after the passage of health care legislation, the first opportunities for Tea Party members and the groups seeking to channel their antigovernment energy into electoral politics are in Republican primaries. Mr. Bennett is especially exposed to the grass-roots anger. The quirky nominating system in Utah means that 3,500 delegates must give Mr. Bennett their blessing before he can face the primary electorate in June. The first test for him came on Tuesday evening, when Republicans gathered in precinct meetings like the one here at Bryant Middle School to select delegates for the state convention in May. Attendance more than doubled from two years ago, underscoring a high degree of interest in the Senate race and the direction of the party. In this unusual contest — akin to a miniature version of the Iowa presidential caucuses — there is little room for error. So Mr. Bennett found an aisle seat in Row F of the auditorium, slumped his 6-foot-6 frame into a red theater-style seat and waited for the proceedings to begin. He did not set off to meet voters, but they came to meet him. “This negative garbage isn’t going to work against you,” said David S. Ostler, a retired state representative and longtime friend. “It’ll backfire.” The senator is not convinced. His own polling shows him in third place, he said, trailing “Anybody-but-Bennett and Undecided.” He said he knew that a tough fight for re-election awaited him after he voted for the bank bailout in 2008 and a few days later walked into a town meeting and “it was through clinched teeth that they welcomed me.” The rise of the Tea Party movement, along with an investment in the race by the Club for Growth , the antitax Washington-based group that seeks to influence Republican primaries, has turned the race into what the soft-spoken senator calls “the nastiest one I have experienced.” Mike Lee, 38, is among those challenging Mr. Bennett. As Mr. Lee met with voters on a recent day in Cedar Hills, the largest applause came when he said Republicans must look inward to resolve the problems entrenched in Washington. “Congress has created a monster through its seniority system,” said Mr. Lee, a former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “It’s a bring-home-the-bacon problem. It’s part of the ‘I’ve got seniority so you need to re-elect me’ problem. The longer they’re in, the more they have an opportunity to say, ‘You can’t replace me.’ ” Conservative advocacy groups have consistently given Mr. Bennett high marks, including an “A” ranking from the National Rifle Association, a 98 percent rating by the United States Chamber of Commerce and an 84 percent rating from the American Conservative Union. But the criticism of Mr. Bennett reads like this: He pledged to serve only two terms, but he is now seeking his fourth. He sits on the Appropriations Committee, which distributes earmarks, and has done little to slow the growth in federal spending. And not only did he vote for the bank bailout, known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program (so did Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Utah’s senior Republican senator, but he is not up for re-election), he also signed onto a bipartisan health care bill seen as an alternative to the main Democratic plan. Mr. Hatch, who has endorsed his colleague’s bid for re-election, said much of the anger directed at Washington spending was justified. But he said the bank bailout, passed in the waning days of George W. Bush’s presidency, should be viewed separately from other government intervention programs that had come in the Obama administration. “Had that not passed, I think we’d be in a depression right now,” said Mr. Hatch, who added that the measure’s necessity did not make it any more popular. “When you have a long legislative career, any piece of legislation can be used against you.” In an effort to improve his standing among conservatives, Mr. Bennett has sought the help of a fellow Mormon, Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate who is among the most popular figures in Utah. “To quote Mitt Romney, which I’m doing shamelessly all over the state,” Mr. Bennett said, “the TARP vote was the correct and courageous vote.” Mr. Bennett, 76, said he weighed whether to seek a fourth term, but concluded that his physical health is strong and his mental faculties are sharp. (His father, also a four-term senator, lived until age 95.) And, he said, he is eager to become the senior Republican member of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee, which is key to Utah, and the top Republican on the banking committee. As the Republican convention on May 8 approaches, Mr. Bennett will try reaching each of the 3,500 delegates, who choose the nominee. If he wins 60 percent, he proceeds directly to the general election. That, he concedes, is unlikely. If he does not get 40 percent — through multiple rounds of elimination — he will not move forward to the June primary. (Two Democrats filed for the seat, too, but have not been much of a factor in Republican-dominated Utah.) The first phase of the four steps to his re-election ended Tuesday with little fanfare or drama. Interviews with several attendees indicated a strong desire for new blood in Washington. But there was no immediate winner, only a new slate of delegates, who will be courted over the next six weeks. “I didn’t see any Tea Partiers here,” he said, smiling as he headed to his car after the caucus. But there was a hint of trouble for Mr. Bennett in Precinct 2064, which held its caucus in the back of the same school auditorium. The senator’s sister, Frances Jeppson, was running as a delegate. When she announced that she intended to support her brother, voters did not select her. By secret ballot, they chose Anthon Anderson, a retired dentist, who moved to Utah from New Mexico last year and said he had an open mind in the Senate race.

Republican Party
Tea Party Movement
Bennett Robert F
Utah
Primaries and Caucuses
Elections
Conservatism (US Politics)
Senate
Club for Growth


Sharks Win With a Late Goal

Abstract: Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored with 2.9 seconds remaining to give the San Jose Sharks a 3-2 win over the host Winnipeg Jets. Joe Pavelski won an offensive zone face-off, and Logan Couture set up Vlasic for the winning goal past Jets goalie Michael Hutchinson.

Ice hockey
San Jose Sharks
Winnipeg Jets


Showing the Glimmer of Humanity Amid the Atrocities of War

Abstract: BEIJING THE death threat landed in Lu Chuan’s e-mail in-box the first week his film on the Nanjing massacre was released here in China . Mr. Lu tried to recall the exact words as he sat one morning in the apartment of a French producer of the film, “Nanjing! Nanjing!” “ ‘You’re a traitor,’ ” he said, reciting the e-mail message. “ ‘I want to kill you.’ ” The producer, Isabelle Glachant, shook her head. “It’s ‘I’ll dismember you,’ ” she said. “It’s not just ‘I’ll kill you.’ It’s ‘I’ll kill you by dismemberment.’ ” Other threats soon followed, as a glance at the tens of thousands of comments on Mr. Lu’s blog shows. One person wished his parents slow and painful deaths. Another said he would cut off Mr. Lu’s penis. “I never imagined this film would have aroused so much, you know, hatred against me,” Mr. Lu, 38, said with a slight laugh, looking boyish behind black-rimmed glasses. What has ignited so much fury among nationalistic Chinese is the fact that one of the film’s protagonists, a Japanese soldier witnessing the atrocities committed by his countrymen during the occupation of Nanjing, is shown in a sympathetic light. But some viewers who applaud the film say that that humane depiction has broken new ground by revealing a side of the Second Sino-Japanese War that they had never been exposed to before, at least not in the official accounts drilled into Chinese students. The film, called “City of Life and Death” in English, has created a sensation here since it opened on April 22. It depicts the events of 1937, when the Japanese Army seized Nanjing, the capital of China under the Kuomintang government, and killed up to 300,000 Chinese, according to official Chinese estimates. Most people here assume the movie would have been banned by the government five years ago because of its graphic scenes of rape and murder by Japanese soldiers, including mass executions, decapitated heads, cartloads of naked corpses and a child being thrown from a window to her death. Despite all the violence, or maybe because of it, Chinese audiences have flocked to the movie. According to the China Film Group, a state-run company that is one of the film’s main investors, it was seen by almost one million people in its first 19 days, earning $22 million, considered a good return for a Chinese film. Those numbers have catapulted Mr. Lu, whose first two features were small art films, into the top ranks of Chinese directors. He called the financial success “a miracle.” “You know, it’s a dark movie, it’s black and white, it’s not entertaining,” he said in fluent English. With its patriotic overtones, the film has been embraced by the Chinese Communist Party. It has been designated one of the 10 movies to help commemorate 60 years of Communist rule, which will be formally celebrated on Oct. 1. The movie will also be shown in schools as part of the curriculum on the war, though Mr. Lu said it would have to be tailored to the younger audience. It was never a given that the movie would be permitted to be shown here, much less to be celebrated by the party. Mr. Lu had to wait six months for the censors to approve his original script, and another six months for approval of the final cut. He said the deletions the censors insisted on were minor: a scene of Japanese soldiers beheading Chinese, one of a woman strapped to a chair to be raped, a conversation between a Japanese commander and a Chinese prisoner that revealed compassion on the part of the commander. The film was also nearly pulled from theaters in its first week, Mr. Lu said, because of Internet postings vehemently attacking it for its nuanced portrayal of a Japanese soldier. The film bureau came under enormous pressure to halt all screenings, Mr. Lu said. Only the support of Li Changchun, the Communist Party’s propaganda chief, staved that off, he added. MR. LU’S fascination with war came from eight years of service in the Chinese Army. That period began when, at 18, he enrolled in the People’s Liberation Army Institute of International Relations, in Nanjing. It was an unusual move for the elder of two sons from an intellectual family; Mr. Lu’s father is a prominent novelist. But it was one that his father insisted on, Mr. Lu said, because he did not want him to get caught up in the chaos of 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square student protests and massacre. The father, Lu Tianming, said in an interview that he knew early on that his son would want to attend film school. The boy had fallen in love with cinema at age 16 after seeing movies by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, the two most celebrated directors from the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. But the father said he pushed his son to attend a military academy instead and study English, because an artist “must understand real life, must understand human beings.” Naturally, the Nanjing massacre came up often as a topic of discussion at the academy. So did foreign movies, especially war movies. Since there were no native English speakers teaching at the university, Mr. Lu said, English majors constantly borrowed videotapes of foreign movies from the library. “The Longest Day” and “Lawrence of Arabia” were among his favorites. The military school had a much larger movie collection than even the Beijing Film Academy, which Mr. Lu attended after working for two years as a secretary to an army general. During his years at the two schools, Mr. Lu was able to indulge in the works of his favorite directors: Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Jim Jarmusch. Mr. Lu wrote his master’s thesis on Francis Ford Coppola. Mr. Lu’s first two movies, “The Missing Gun” (2002) and “Kekexili” (2004), were made on small budgets, though “Kekexili,” about Tibetans trying to prevent antelope poaching on the Tibetan plateau, received financing from Columbia Pictures. The Nanjing movie cost $13 million, 12 times more than “Kekexili.” The money was cobbled together from various investors, including a Hong Kong company and friends of Mr. Lu’s. China Film Group, the state-run company, gave it financing after reviewing five competing scripts on the Nanjing massacre. The film, which is now showing in Hong Kong, will be shown in Taiwan and South Korea, and a company recently bought distribution rights for Britain at the Cannes Film Festival , where the film was screened out of competition for potential buyers. Mr. Lu said he hoped it would be distributed in Japan . While the Nanjing massacre has long been a sore point in relations between China and Japan, Mr. Lu was not weighing the political implications when he chose it as a subject. “I wanted to make something powerful,” he said. “I wanted to make something violent. And I wanted to analyze the relationship between man and the battlefield.” MR. LU said his initial ideas on war were reflected in one of his favorite movies, “Apocalypse Now,” which he sees as a narrative of man’s transformation from normality to evil in wartime. But as he began doing research in 2005 for the Nanjing movie, a different idea took shape. Mr. Lu read translations of diaries, notes and letters of Japanese soldiers, all collected by a wealthy Chinese friend who had traveled around Japan buying up war memorabilia. Those revealed to Mr. Lu the banality of life during wartime: a soldier wakes up in the morning to see compatriots shooting prisoners, then rejoices in the afternoon when he drinks a bowl of red bean soup. “They’re just normal people from the beginning to the end,” he said. “They kill many, many people, but they’re still a normal person.” From that insight was born the character of Kadokawa, a Japanese soldier who tries in small ways to help some Chinese and eventually collapses under the weight of the brutality he has witnessed. War, Mr. Lu realized, crushes even the victors.

Nanking (China)
China
Lu Chuan
Nanjing (China)
Movies
City of Life and Death (Movie)
Japan
World War II (1939-45)


Pitching Prospect Slipped Onto Yankees’ Radar

Abstract: In the 1980s, when Damon Oppenheimer was a catcher at the University of Southern California, the Trojans’ players knew the story of Fred Lynn. A first-team all-American as a sophomore, Lynn did not repeat his success as a junior and slipped out of the first round of the 1973 draft. “Boston took him in the second round, and two years later he was in the big leagues as the rookie of the year,” Oppenheimer said. “That was a story we always heard about. We’ve just always tried to remember that and think about the whole career of a guy.” Oppenheimer is the Yankees ’ scouting director now, and Lynn’s tale was instructive in deciding whom to take with the Yankees’ first-round pick in last summer’s draft. Ian Kennedy, a U.S.C. right-hander, had slumped to a 5-7 record and a 3.90 earned run average as a junior. But various publications had named him a first-team all-American as a sophomore, and that was the pitcher Oppenheimer wanted. So when the Yankees’ turn came with the 21st overall pick in 2006, Oppenheimer chose Kennedy and let Brian Cashman, the general manager, work out a $2.25 million bonus with Kennedy’s agent, Scott Boras. It seems clear now that history guided Oppenheimer well. Like Lynn, Kennedy reached the majors in September of the year after he was drafted. Lynn went on to win the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards while leading the Red Sox to the 1975 World Series. The Yankees would settle for less from Kennedy, who has already exceeded expectations. Kennedy makes his second major league start tonight in Kansas City after beating Tampa Bay with seven strong innings last Saturday. Like Joba Chamberlain, who was taken with the Yankees’ next pick in 2006, Kennedy climbed three minor league levels to reach the Yankees this season. “Getting to the big leagues and staying in the big leagues are very different things,” Oppenheimer said. “He’s a kid. When you drafted him, you could see him sticking in the big leagues. But getting there so soon is beyond my wildest dreams, for sure.” As proof, the Yankees long ago gave Kennedy permission to schedule his wedding for Oct. 6. The minor league season is over by then, but the major league playoffs are just starting. The date falls on a day off during the division series, and the wedding is being held in St. Louis, the hometown of Kennedy’s fiancée, the U.S.C. basketball player Allison Jaskowiak. Kennedy does not seem to know what to root for. “There’s only been two or three September call-ups to actually participate in the playoffs, right? Like Francisco Rodríguez?” Kennedy said, hopefully, on Wednesday. “I try not to think about it. She might get upset.” By the wedding date, Kennedy could be a crucial contributor the way Rodríguez was for the Angels in 2002. The Yankees, who hold a three-game lead in the American League wild-card race, could fit him on the roster. Of course, nobody knows if Kennedy will fade like other rookies who pitched well in their debuts this season, like Chase Wright, Matt DeSalvo and Tyler Clippard. Phil Hughes and Chamberlain have come closer to sustained success, and Kennedy is a prospect in their category. Kennedy, 22, went 12-3 in the minors and earned his promotion when the Yankees dropped Mike Mussina from the rotation. Kennedy has been compared with Mussina; each commands the low fastball at his best. But Kennedy’s top off-speed pitch is the changeup, with his curveball still developing, and he is short for a right-handed pitcher. “For a guy who’s right around six feet, he still gets a good plane on his fastball; it’s all downhill,” Oppenheimer said. “It seems kind of strange, but he gets way out on his front side, so it seems like he’s closer to the plate. That creates some deception.” To Jeff Clement, who made his debut for the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday, Kennedy’s quick rise was predictable. Clement was Kennedy’s catcher at U.S.C. in 2005, when he went 12-2 and was named pitcher of the year in the Pacific-10 Conference. “Off the field, he’s easy to get along with,” Clement said. “But when he gets on the mound, he competes like no one else I’ve ever caught.” Clement mentioned Kennedy’s performance as a freshman on a team trip to Cuba. With one out, Kennedy loaded the bases with walks and a broken-bat single. But he struck out the next two Cuban players to strand the runners. “He punched out the next two guys like it was nothing,” Clement said. “So I knew he had the mentality to go out and get after it.” Oppenheimer said the Yankees scouted almost all of Kennedy’s games in his first two college seasons, although they were not always there to see him. Kennedy also stood out when he pitched for Team U.S.A. against hitters with wood bats. When Kennedy slipped as a junior, Oppenheimer noticed that he did not seem as comfortable with his catcher as he had with Clement. The Mariners had drafted Clement third over all the previous June, and Kennedy might have gone that high if he had been eligible. “If he would have had a year in ’06 like he had in ’05, he would have been a top-five pick, easily,” Clement said. Kennedy said he put too much pressure on himself to carry the team as a junior. He has no other explanation for the slump that indirectly landed him with the Yankees. “The only thing I can think of is I failed a couple of times, and I had never really failed before,” Kennedy said. “Even in my losses in college, I didn’t give up a lot of runs, we just lost. Just failing, I didn’t know how to deal with it. Now I’ve dealt with that and I’ve had success again, and I know how to bounce back from it.” The Yankees have surrounded Kennedy with a support system that includes his Class AAA pitching coach, Dave Eiland, and Chamberlain, who said he considered Kennedy a brother. Kennedy is inquisitive, asking detailed questions of coaches and teammates, and he said that before tonight’s start, he would ask the veterans how to approach a young team like the Royals. “He just has a great feel for the game,” Eiland said. “The way he watches, he’s always trying to learn and absorb as much as he can. You tell him something, he looks you right in the eye, and you can tell he’s listening.” With eyes wide open, Kennedy is learning on the job for a team that never expected to count on him so soon.

Baseball
Kennedy Ian
Athletics and Sports
New York Yankees


Rookie of the Year Is a Two-Horse Race in the American League

Abstract: The regular season wraps up this weekend, and the race for the American League Rookie of the Year Award has narrowed to Michael Fulmer, a starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, and Gary Sanchez, the slugging catcher for the Yankees. Solid arguments can be made for either player, but with just a little more time, the choice might have been far easier to make. A major distinction for Fulmer, who has faded somewhat after a strong start to the season, appeared to slip away on Wednesday night: A 45-minute rain delay may have cost him the American League title for earned run average. Fulmer came into the game with a 2.95 E.R.A., and he tried to keep pitching in the third inning after the delay. However, he was out of sync and got only one more out, allowing three earned runs over all in three and a third innings. Stuck at 159 innings for the season, he is three short of qualifying for the E.R.A. title, a rare feat for a rookie and one that might have been enough to get voters to ignore Sanchez’s stunning two-month run. There is still a chance that the Tigers could use Fulmer out of the bullpen this weekend to get the three innings he needs, but his poor outing on Wednesday pushed up his E.R.A. to 3.057, which is barely ahead of Aaron Sanchez (3.065), Masahiro Tanaka (3.065) and Justin Verlander (3.099). Even if Fulmer was given the opportunity, the title would hardly be a sure thing. Image Gary Sanchez has hit 20 home runs since joining the Yankees in August. Credit Michael Dwyer/Associated Press Sanchez has forced his way into the conversation despite becoming a regular in the Yankees’ lineup only on Aug. 3 and hitting his first home run on Aug. 10. Still, through 50 games, he hit .311 with a .689 slugging percentage. Along the way, he tied Wally Berger’s record for fewest career games to hit 20 home runs — 51, a mark that had stood since 1930. Sanchez has been on such a tear that his teammates openly joke about how high their expectations for him have reached. “Everybody on the team calls home run when he steps up there,” Tyler Austin, another young Yankees hitter, told reporters after Sanchez hit his 20th on Tuesday. On top of his outstanding statistics, Sanchez seemed to single-handedly reignite the Yankees’ season. In doing what he did, he also summoned up memories of the rookie season of Willie McCovey, who set the National League on fire when the San Francisco Giants called him up in 1959. McCovey arrived on July 30 and proceeded to hit .354 with a .656 slugging percentage and 13 home runs in 52 games, settling into the heart of the order on a team that already had Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda. He was such a sensation that Cepeda, who had won the Rookie of the Year Award the previous season, was forced to change positions to accommodate him. The small number of games McCovey played that season did not bother voters, who gave him all 24 votes in the rookie-of-the-year balloting. Upon the news of McCovey’s award, John Drebinger of The New York Times wrote an assessment of the young player that easily could have been about Sanchez. It read: “The 21-year-old McCovey hit the Giants with a fearful impact on July 30, sparked new life into them and, even though they skidded again at the end, the loss of the pennant scarcely could be attributed to Willie. Without him, they never would have come that close.” Unlike Sanchez, McCovey’s candidacy was aided by a lack of other qualified competitors, a situation aggravated by the fact that under the rules at the time, Vada Pinson of the Cincinnati Reds had played too much in 1958 to be considered for the Rookie of the Year Award in 1959. Fulmer provides a much better foil for Sanchez than any McCovey had to deal with. He had already started 16 games for the Tigers when Sanchez’s run began in August, and he has been Detroit’s second-best starter for nearly the entire season. One argument against him: Some of his secondary statistics, including Fielding Independent Pitching, suggest that he has not pitched quite as well as his E.R.A. indicates. There are no specific criteria for the voters to consider, other than player eligibility. In McCovey’s case, there were rumors that his strong season in the minors (he hit .372 with 29 home runs in 95 games for Class AAA Phoenix) played into his winning the award. So the voters would be free to consider the fact that Fulmer has been fading while Sanchez would most likely have been capable of far more than he was given the chance to provide. It would be hard to blame voters who choose Fulmer, but Sanchez’s season is the type that will be talked about for decades, making him an unusual but probably correct pick for the award. No matter which of them wins, they will both most likely have a more prosperous off-season than McCovey did in 1959. By the time the award was announced in mid-November, the big first baseman had been working at a car dealership for a month, but news reports indicated he had yet to sell a car. The Associated Press reported the next day that a local dentist had taken pity on him and declared, “San Francisco can’t have a rookie of the year going hitless in any league,” and bought a car.

Gary Sanchez
Michael Fulmer
Baseball
Awards
Detroit Tigers
Yankees


In Plea Deal, Detroit Mayor Would Quit but Avoid Jail

Abstract: DETROIT (AP) — Lawyers for Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick have proposed a deal in which he would resign, plead guilty to two felonies, make restitution and serve five years’ probation in exchange for avoiding jail time, a newspaper reported Sunday. The newspaper, The Detroit Free Press, quoted “a source familiar with all aspects of the negotiations” as saying Mr. Kilpatrick’s legal team also said he would give up his law license, not run for office for two years and complete 300 hours of community service. The Wayne County prosecutor, Kym L. Worthy, had not yet accepted the offer, the newspaper said. In a letter to Ms. Worthy, the mayor’s defense team proposed having a neutral party assess the offer. Mr. Kilpatrick, who is 38 and in his second four-year term as mayor, is charged with 10 felonies in two cases. He also faces removal proceedings set to begin Wednesday before Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm . The Detroit City Council is asking Ms. Granholm to use her constitutional power to remove Mr. Kilpatrick from office. It says the mayor misled council members into approving an $8.4 million settlement with fired police officers in a whistle-blowers’ lawsuit. Mr. Kilpatrick would also be forced from office if convicted of a felony in either of the two criminal cases. In the first case, he and an ex-top aide are accused of lying in the 2007 whistle-blowers’ trial about having an affair and their roles in the firing of a deputy police chief. The other charges stem from a July confrontation. A sheriff’s detective says Mr. Kilpatrick shoved him into another investigator as they were trying to serve a subpoena on a friend of the mayor.

Kilpatrick Kwame M
Suits and Litigation
Crime and Criminals
Granholm Jennifer M


Arab Alliance in Israeli Legislature Sees Unity as Vehicle for Progress

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Leaders of Israel ’s newly united, newly empowered Arab political faction have some demands: They want seats on the interior, finance, education, legal, employment and social-affairs committees of Parliament. They hope to gain influence over the curriculum in Arab-sector schools and increase the budgets for Arab towns. Perhaps most important, they seek to sustain their alliance despite deep ideological differences after emerging from Tuesday’s election as the third-largest block in Parliament. As the faction faces a fourth term of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is likely to be leading a more conservative government, they say, unity is essential to having any chance of fighting inequality inside Israel and protesting the nation’s occupation of the West Bank. “The fact of unity gives more weight to each individual member than if we were alone,” Haneen Zoabi, a lawmaker since 2009, said in an interview on Thursday. “It has a weight and a presence that is different from being from individual parties that were on the margins of the parliamentary map.” Threatened with extinction by a law that demanded a higher percentage of votes than in the past for entry into the legislature, four disparate Arab-dominated parties acceded to public pressure and joined forces in late January. On Tuesday, their combined list succeeded in increasing Arab turnout — and, in Arab communities, increasing its votes versus those for so-called Zionist parties. This yielded 13 of Parliament’s 120 seats, according to the final tally released Thursday, up from 11 in the last election. (One of the list’s members is Jewish; four other Arabs were elected from other parties.) In Netanyahu’s Next Knesset, a More Compatible Coalition Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party achieved a surprisingly strong victory in Tuesday’s election. Now, he is likely to build a right-wing coalition of 67 of the 120 members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. But the list’s lawmakers, like their predecessors, will sit in the opposition, where Arabs have historically been even more sidelined from policy making than their Jewish counterparts. There may be more of them, but they will most likely be laboring alongside a narrow, conservative coalition under a prime minister who in the final hours of the campaign tried to frighten his right-wing supporters with the prospect of Arabs’ flocking to polling places “in droves.” “In a right-wing government, the numbers don’t make any difference — 11 versus 13, I don’t have many expectations,” said Mohammad Darawshe, an Arab-Israeli political analyst who works at a coexistence group. “It’s a victory feeling that you won the battle but you lost the war.” Arabs make up a fifth of Israel’s population, and they have sent politicians to Parliament — called the Knesset — since it first convened in 1949. But their parties have never been part of a governing coalition. When an Arab lawmaker sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, its chairman moved much of its important business to a subcommittee he was barred from. If Israel’s 1.4 million Arab citizens — including Druse, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims — often encounter discrimination and marginalization, their Knesset representatives deal daily with ridicule and recrimination. Last year, a bill was introduced — with Mr. Netanyahu’s support — aimed at ousting Ms. Zoabi for saying that the Palestinians who kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers hitchhiking in the West Bank were not terrorists. The larger, united bloc will see some automatic benefits. Opposition party members get to serve as deputy speakers, who rotate time at the rostrum based on the size of the faction, so the list’s designee will be holding the gavel more often. Committee seats, too, are proportional. Ahmad Tibi, a Knesset member since 1999, said the Economic Committee, for example, “always had one Arab member; now there will be at least two.” Video In Ayman Odeh’s campaign for a seat in the Knesset, he hopes to unite Arab Israeli political factions and boost voter turnout. Credit Credit Uriel Sinai for The New York Times “The change won’t be dramatic, but it will be more representation,” Mr. Tibi said. “It’s going to be difficult — I want to be clear,” he added. “There’s a difference, unfortunately, working in the shade of a center or leftist government, or a right government. It’s more difficult, and the challenge is bigger.” The lawmakers and other Arab leaders took pride that turnout in their communities rose Tuesday to 63 percent from 56 percent in 2013, though it still paled compared with the 72 percent over all. Mr. Darawshe said about 86 percent of Arab voters chose the joint list, compared with 77 percent who supported its four component parts last time. Several analysts also said that the moderate tone of the alliance’s leader, Ayman Odeh , who advocated bridge-building with Jews during the campaign, presented a different path forward after years in which Mr. Tibi, Ms. Zoabi and others mostly made headlines with provocative comments about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. “They have to find ways to speak with the Jewish left to create an alternative government,” said Asad Ghanem, a political scientist at Haifa University. “It’s clear that the Jewish left can’t form a government without the Arabs. If the Jewish left will be ready to have a new, some kind of joint front with the Arabs, in the future,” he added, there could be “joint efforts in order to contribute to a change of who governs in Israel.” For decades, left-leaning Zionist parties have shown no more interest in including Arabs in coalitions they headed than the Arabs did in being part of an Israeli government whose policies they prefer to protest. Video A look at how inaccurate exit polls contributed to the surprised reaction Wednesday morning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had defeated his main rival decisively. Credit Credit Amir Cohen/Reuters During the last campaign, Mr. Netanyahu’s prime challenger, Isaac Herzog, did indicate he would cooperate with the Arab list in other ways and appoint an Arab minister or two if he were at the helm. For now, though, there are those committees, where the Arab members plan to press to improve daily life in their cities and villages. They spoke Thursday of the need to retroactively legalize thousands of homes built without permits and to expand areas slated for development in Arab areas; of adding industrial zones in hopes of reducing unemployment and poverty; and of ridding their streets of illegal guns. “We need more security. There’s mafias in our community and the police should crack down on them,” said Masoud Ghanayem, a member of the alliance from the Islamist movement. “The violence, it isn’t a cause, it’s a result, because of the poor economic situation, the poor social and educational situation.” Aida Touma-Sliman, a feminist from the alliance’s communist wing who will be serving in the Knesset for the first time, echoed many of Mr. Ghanayem’s concerns and said the diverse group would be able to stick together because “what we agree on is more than what we differ on.” “Yes, it is an Islamic movement, but it is moderate and pragmatic,” she said of her unlikely comrades. “They signed on to a work program that called for the full equality of women, and liberating women from oppression.” Amal Jamal, a professor at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the politics of Israel’s Palestinian minority, said the unification “did not create a massive revolutionary change” but “a gradual change.” Now, if it does not deliver and “manage to change the policy of the Israeli government vis-à-vis the Palestinian community,” he added, “I think the frustration and mistrust in the entire system will grow rapidly.” “People are saying: ‘We played our best card, a united list. We gave our support to this united list; we gave it the full credit,’ ” Professor Jamal explained. “If it doesn’t have an influence on the decision-making process, then why go vote?”


Browns Give Jets Fits, but Holmes Calmly Seals a Victory

Abstract: CLEVELAND — Santonio Holmes never doubted that the Jets were going to beat the Cleveland Browns . Even when the clock showed 24 seconds left in overtime, he said he did not lose faith. The Jets had squandered a 7-point cushion in the fourth quarter to give the underdog Browns renewed life. But Holmes, the veteran receiver, kept telling quarterback Mark Sanchez that the Cleveland defensive backs were giving him a cushion, and he knew he could exploit it. So with time running out, Sanchez threw the ball to Holmes on a slant, and he turned it into a 37-yard game winner, making the catch and cruising into the end zone to give the Jets a 26-20 victory with 16 seconds left. “A tremendous effort on his part,” Coach Rex Ryan said of Holmes. “It’s a short pass, but he makes a great run to win the game for us.” Asked what he was thinking after Holmes caught the ball, Ryan said, “Run, baby!” It was the second overtime victory for the Jets (7-2) in two weeks, but the circumstances could not have been more different. At Detroit, the Jets were the ones who came charging back in the fourth quarter for a tie at the end of regulation. They won in overtime on a 30-yard field goal by Nick Folk, who missed three field goals against the Browns, including one of 47 yards that sailed right with 4 minutes 56 seconds left in overtime. Folk’s overtime miss came at the end of a drive that Jerricho Cotchery, who had a 25-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter, kept alive with a 10-yard diving catch on third-and-9 after he had injured a groin muscle. Sanchez, who was a yard short of his second consecutive 300-yard passing game, saw Cotchery clutching his upper left leg area, but threw the ball across the middle to him, anyway. When framing the Jets’ eighth consecutive road victory dating to last season, Ryan thought Cotchery’s catch provided as indelible an image as Holmes’s. “That’s got to be the gutsiest play I’ve seen in a long time,” Ryan said. Sanchez also showed grit, playing the fourth quarter and overtime with a tender right calf after rolling his foot during a sack. The Browns brought him down twice, both sacks coming in the second half, and he scrambled out of the grasp of would-be tacklers several other times. He finished the game 27 of 44 passing with two touchdowns. He also ran for a touchdown, a 1-yard run that capped an 80-yard drive and gave the Jets a 17-13 lead late in the second quarter. Sanchez was intercepted once, on the Cleveland 3 on the Jets’ second-to-last possession of overtime, on a fingers-crossed pass deep to Braylon Edwards that Sanchez rationalized was as good as a punt. “The kid is tougher than nails,” Ryan said, adding, “He gave our guys chances, and when it was all said and done, we found a way again.” It was a difficult defeat to swallow for the Browns (3-6), who forced overtime despite losing cornerback Sheldon Brown in the first quarter and their top receiver and returner Joshua Cribbs along with the veteran outside linebacker Scott Fujita in the second. The rookie quarterback Colt McCoy , who had helped the Browns to victories over the New Orleans Saints and the New England Patriots in their previous two games, refused to be rattled by the Jets’ vaunted defense. After Folk hit a 25-yard field goal to put the Jets ahead, 20-13, with less than three minutes remaining in the fourth, McCoy ran the two-minute offense like a wily veteran. He marched the Browns 59 yards in 1:58, completing 5 of 9 passes in the 10-play drive. He connected with tight end Benjamin Watson for 17 yards on a third-and-10 from the Jets’ 38 and then found Evan Moore for another 18 yards to set up a 3-yard scoring pass to Mohamed Massaquoi with 48 seconds left in regulation. McCoy was 18 of 31 for 205 yards. He moved the Browns into Jets territory on their first series of overtime and connected with Chansi Stuckey, a former Jet, on a 14-yard pass play, only for Stuckey to fumble away the ball while fighting for extra yardage. Browns Coach Eric Mangini, who was facing the Jets for the first time since they fired him after the 2008 season, said: “We were right there on the fringe of a field goal. That’s another thing with some of those mistakes; you don’t get that chance back.” The afternoon began inauspiciously for the Jets, who started their first two offensive series in Cleveland territory and came away with only 3 points. On their first drive, Sanchez threw an incomplete pass to Edwards, who was being defended by safeties Abram Elam, a former Jet, and T. J. Ward, a rookie who had been encouraged by fans in the days leading to the game to hit Edwards early, often and with malice. Edwards earned the enmity of Cleveland’s football fans by dropping too many passes in his four-plus years as a Brown, then holding nothing back in denigrating the city after he was traded to the Jets last year. In the days before the game, Ryan had taken the spotlight off Edwards by playing up his sibling rivalry with his twin, Rob, the Browns’ defensive coordinator. It seemed to be a shrewd move by Ryan, who no doubt recognized that Edwards’s emotions would be running hot. On the Jets’ opening drive, Edwards caught a 6-yard pass from Sanchez at the Cleveland 11 and was stopped by a wall of Cleveland players, led by Brown. Defensive lineman Ahtyba Rubin took a swipe at Edwards, who retaliated in kind. Edwards finished with four catches for 59 yards and received praise from Sanchez, who said, “I know he got emotional out there, but he was able to snap his focus back and be poised.” The Jets were able to snap their focus back in time to win the game. That is what good teams do, Ryan said, adding, “I’ll take it.”

New York Jets
Cleveland Browns
Football
Sanchez Mark
Holmes Santonio
Folk Nick
McCoy Colt
Massaquoi Mohamed
Dawson Phil


Banks Become Reluctant to Foreclose

Abstract: PHOENIX — An array of federal and state investigations into the way banks foreclose on delinquent homeowners has contributed to a sharp slowdown in foreclosures across the country, especially in hard-hit cities like this one. Over the last several months, some banks have been reluctant to seize homes from distressed borrowers, economists and government officials say, as they face scrutiny from regulators and the prospect of sanctions when investigations wrap up in the coming weeks and months. The Obama administration, in its most recent housing report, said foreclosure activity fell 21 percent in November from October, the biggest monthly decline in five years. Here in Phoenix, foreclosures fell by more than a third in the same period, reflected in the severe drop in foreclosed homes being auctioned on the courthouse plaza. “There’s no product, just nothing to buy,” complained Sean Waak, an agent for investors, during a recent auction. The pace of foreclosures could be curtailed further by courts. In a closely watched case, the highest court in Massachusetts invalidated two foreclosures in that state on Friday. The court ruled that two banks, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo, failed to prove they owned the mortgages when they foreclosed on the homes. If the slowdown continued through this month and into the spring, it could be a boost for the economy. Reducing foreclosures in a meaningful way would act to stabilize the housing market, real estate experts say, letting the administration patch up one of the economy’s most persistently troubled sectors. Fewer foreclosures means that buyers pay more for the ones that do come to market, which strengthens overall home prices and builds consumer confidence in housing. “Anything that buys time, that reduces the supply of houses coming onto the market, is helpful,” said Karl Guntermann, a professor of real estate finance at Arizona State University. It is not that borrowers have stopped defaulting on their mortgages. They are missing payments as frequently as ever, data shows. But the lenders are not beginning formal foreclosure proceedings or, when they are, do not complete them with an auction sale. And in the most favorable outcome for distressed borrowers, some lenders are modifying loans so foreclosure becomes unnecessary. The drop in foreclosures began in late September when some lenders were revealed to have been using so-called robo-signers to process thousands of foreclosures without verifying the accuracy of the data. As the investigations into the problems proceeded, the uncertainty caused many lenders to become more cautious. Their foreclosure procedures, the banks have repeatedly said, are sound. But preliminary results of several of the investigations have indicated substantial problems. Coordinating many of the inquiries is the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, established by President Obama. “The administration is committed to taking appropriate action on these issues where wrongdoing has occurred,” said Melanie Roussell, an administration spokeswoman. The diminished supply of foreclosed homes has already had an effect on prices at the auctions on the courthouse plaza here, bidders said. Houses change hands on the plaza with a minimum of ceremony. Three sets of trustees hired by the banks sit a few feet apart, their backs to a statue of a naked family looking for all the world as if its members had just been cast out of their home. The trustees call off properties in a monotone to bidders clustered around them. Winners must immediately hand over a $10,000 deposit in the form of a cashier’s check. On a recent afternoon, one bidder, Pam Mullavey of Infoclosure, found herself in a bidding war with Chris Romuzga of Posted Properties for a 2001 house that had fetched $644,000 at the very peak of the boom. This time around, the bank set the floor at $271,000. Ms. Mullavey and Mr. Romuzga rapidly pushed up the price in varying increments of $100 and $500. Mr. Romuzga’s client had planned to pull out at $307,000 but asked him to keep bidding as Ms. Mullavey sailed on. Her winning bid was $310,100, well above what a similar house might have fetched just a few months ago. “Sometimes I wonder why people are bidding so much,” Ms. Mullavey said. For Mr. Romuzga, it was the fourth time that afternoon he had been outbid. Only once had he secured a property. The investors’ frustration could be a good thing for Phoenix homeowners, who have seen values fall 54.5 percent since 2006. In the last few months, home prices have started to drop again. A decline in foreclosures, economists say, could break the fall. Cameron Findlay, chief economist with the mortgage company LendingTree, said that the shifting behavior of lenders had helped change perceptions about the foreclosed. “Initially, society’s view was to run them out of the house,” he said. That resulted in vacant and dilapidated homes, which blighted neighborhoods and drove potential buyers away. “People should be hopeful the modification programs work — for their own benefit,” said Mr. Findlay. More than four million households are in serious default and vulnerable to losing their homes. Lenders maintain that cases of borrowers improperly foreclosed are extremely rare. But the Federal Reserve, which is investigating lenders’ policies in conjunction with other banking regulators, has found significant weaknesses in risk management, quality control, auditing and compliance. Another investigation is being conducted by the Federal Housing Administration, which is examining whether loan servicers are exhausting all legally required options before foreclosing on government-insured mortgages. An agency spokeswoman said that initial reviews indicated “significant differences” in efforts by servicers to keep borrowers in their homes. A third investigation is being conducted by the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees, part of the Justice Department. It is looking into documentation errors by lenders and their law firms in homeowners’ bankruptcy filings. At the state level, there is a joint effort by all 50 state attorneys general, with the specific goal of changing the face of foreclosure in America by making it more difficult for lenders to act against homeowners. The effort, led by Iowa’s attorney general, Tom Miller, is in flux as several prominent attorneys general left office and their replacements decide whether to make foreclosure reform a priority. There have been many attempts during the housing crash to stem the flow of foreclosures, only fitfully successful. Some experts think neither federal reforms nor any agreements brokered by the attorneys general will make much of a difference. “Whether it is really true that there are millions of foreclosures that could be avoided if servicers were just more willing to do more modifications that make sense — meaning overall losses would be less than would otherwise be the case — is far from clear, and in fact highly unlikely,” said Tom Lawler, an economist. Loan servicers are not set up to identify the true financial picture of each borrower having trouble, Mr. Lawler said, and cannot easily figure out who is likely to stop paying without a modification and who will keep sending a check every month. The courthouse plaza bidders in Phoenix do not believe their livelihood is threatened. By the end of January, several bidders predicted, lenders would gear up and foreclosures would once again be abundant. In the meantime, Tom Peltier watched unhappily as a house started at $68,000 and quickly spiraled up. He finally locked it in at $98,500. “That was about 20 grand more than I wanted to pay,” said Mr. Peltier, who planned to rent it to his sister as soon as he moved out the former owner.

Foreclosures
Banking and Financial Institutions
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
United States Economy
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry


Revelations Expected in Trial of Adis Medunjanin, a Terror Suspect

Abstract: The three high school classmates from a workaday section of Queens were trained in bomb-making in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where they received their orders directly from senior members of Al Qaeda , prosecutors said. They gathered explosives, chose targets and picked the days in September 2009 when they planned to take their own lives, in three separate bombings in the New York subway system. The three were arrested before the plot that prosecutors described could be realized. Two of the men, including the organizer, Najibullah Zazi , have pleaded guilty; the third, Adis Medunjanin, is to go on trial on Monday on a host of terrorism charges. The trial, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, is likely to be closely watched, not only for revelations regarding a plot that federal officials described as one of the most serious threats to the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, but for greater insight into how the fight against terrorism is being prosecuted; rarely has a credible homegrown plot gone to trial. In the years since 2001, there have been hundreds of terrorism cases. Many were built on the work of undercover informers who ensured that the plots, regardless of their plausibility, could never come to fruition. And many more were resolved through guilty pleas, when defendants described their crimes, but only in limited ways. The trial is expected to feature the testimony of Mr. Medunjanin’s former classmates, Mr. Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, who are cooperating with the government, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors will most likely ask Mr. Zazi and Mr. Ahmedzay to describe in an open courtroom the full narrative of their plot, including their recruitment to terror training camps abroad, the weapons training they received, and their instructions from senior members of Al Qaeda, judging from questions that prosecutors asked others in pretrial evidentiary hearings. “Compared to other cases, the Zazi plot had more indicators of serious terrorism than almost any case we’ve seen since 9/11, and before that since the first attack on the World Trade Center,” said Karen J. Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham University School of Law . “The Zazi case is qualitatively different in terms of the nature of the indictment and the details.” In this case, the details are filled with classified information — Mr. Medunjanin was under surveillance, according to court documents — and the prosecution has withheld much of its evidence from public view. The charging papers, which in most cases provide a basic narrative for the alleged crime, list the counts against the defendant but little additional information about the plot. Prosecutors said Mr. Medunjanin was arrested on the Whitestone Bridge in January 2010 after deliberately crashing his car into another vehicle, in a failed suicide attack. Moments earlier, he had called 911 and spoken what prosecutors called a common jihadist motto: “We love death more than you love your life,” court documents say. Many of the pretrial motions, in which the prosecution and the defense argued over what evidence could be admitted at trial, remain under seal. But an evidentiary hearing last year yielded clues about what testimony to expect. A federal judge ruled that the government could admit statements that Mr. Medunjanin made after his arrest, over objections from his lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb , who argued that Mr. Medunjanin had waived his Miranda rights only because the government had denied him access to a lawyer. In the statements, Mr. Medunjanin told members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force that he saw himself as a prisoner of war who had been caught on the battlefield. He asked if he could be exchanged for a United States soldier captured by the Taliban, law enforcement officials said in the hearing. Mr. Medunjanin, a naturalized American citizen who was born in Bosnia, also lectured the officials on religion and tried to convert them to Islam, the officials said. They said he admitted to receiving daily religious training in Pakistan and learning how to fire handguns, shoulder-fired weapons and hand grenades in a Qaeda training camp. Mr. Medunjanin was evasive when it came to talking about the attacks in New York, officials said. He told the officials that he had declined the request of senior members of Al Qaeda to carry out the attack because he did not want to commit suicide. Mr. Gottlieb said Mr. Medunjanin was not guilty. During the hearing, an official also mentioned a confidential informer who was with the three men in Pakistan and helped them gain entry to the training camp. It is not clear whether that confidential informant will testify. Bryant Neal Vinas, a New Yorker who converted to Islam and who has pleaded guilty to receiving training from Al Qaeda after traveling to Pakistan in 2008, is cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and could also testify in the case, according to prosecutors. Federal agents were conducting covert surveillance of the mastermind in the plot, Mr. Zazi, before the attacks were to be carried out. But federal officials did not know the full scope of the conspiracy when Mr. Zazi was arrested in September 2009; a Police Department informer had tipped off Mr. Zazi that he was under investigation. There were divisions between the F.B.I. and the Police Department in the early days of the investigation as a result; federal agents were concerned that the police had exposed the investigation. Investigators later pieced together the case after a series of raids and arrests. In August 2008, Mr. Medunjanin traveled with Mr. Zazi and Mr. Ahmedzay from Newark to Peshawar, Pakistan, with the goal of joining the Taliban and fighting against American soldiers in Afghanistan, according to court documents. Unable to reach the fight, the men were instead recruited by two senior Qaeda members. “We told these two individuals that we wanted to wage jihad in Afghanistan, but they said that we would be more useful to them and to the jihad if we returned to New York and conducted operations there,” Mr. Ahmedzay said later in court, when he pleaded guilty in April 2010. Mr. Medunjanin and Mr. Ahmedzay returned to New York from Pakistan. Mr. Zazi moved to Colorado. Prosecutors say that in August 2009, Mr. Zazi told the group’s Qaeda contact that the suicide plot was operational. Officials said he had spent the summer visiting beauty supply stores in the Denver area and buying gallons of hydrogen peroxide and acetone, which the group planned to use in making bombs. In September, Mr. Zazi drove from Denver to New York with a detonator and his supplies. Then a police informer, Ahmad Wais Afzali , a Queens imam, told Mr. Zazi that he was being watched by law enforcement, so Mr. Zazi abandoned the plan and returned to Colorado. (Mr. Afzali later pleaded guilty to lying to federal authorities about his role in the incident, and was deported.) Mr. Zazi’s visit to New York set off government raids on several homes in Queens and Colorado connected to Mr. Zazi, including the homes where Mr. Medunjanin and Mr. Ahmedzay were living with relatives. Mr. Zazi was arrested in Colorado in September, but months passed before the arrests of Mr. Medunjanin and Mr. Ahmedzay in January 2010. In February 2010, Mr. Zazi pleaded guilty to several terrorism charges, and admitted in court that he had been a part of a “martyrdom operation.” Mr. Ahmedzay pleaded guilty two months later. The men have not yet been sentenced. Mr. Medunjanin is charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction and commit murder abroad, providing material support to Al Qaeda, and receiving military training from Al Qaeda, among other counts. He faces life in prison if convicted.

Terrorism
Zazi Najibullah
Ahmedzay Zarein
New York City
Al Qaeda
Afzali Ahmad Wais
Vinas Bryant Neal
Medunjanin Adis


Taliban Strike Pakistani Outposts Near Afghan Border

Abstract: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Taliban group forced into a remote border area by Pakistani military operations struck back Friday with a large and highly coordinated attack against the government’s paramilitary forces, Pakistani officials said. A senior security official said about 150 militants initiated the simultaneous attacks on five security outposts near the Afghan border, killing 11 members of Pakistan ’s Frontier Corps and wounding 9. The militants fought hand-to-hand battles with the Pakistani forces at two of the outposts in Mohmand Agency and assaulted the three others with machine guns and rockets, officials said. The militants may have been trying to forestall new attacks by the military, which has swept them from other nearby tribal areas into a relatively small area of Mohmand Agency and threatened a new offensive. “Frankly, we didn’t expect an attack of this scale and magnitude,” said the senior security official, who added that the Pakistani forces had received a warning of an impending assault. As violence has flared in Mohmand in recent months, most of the attacks against government forces have been smaller scale ambushes of patrols or remote assaults using improvised bombs planted along roads. The senior security official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said that 24 militants were killed in the hours of clashes, although only 8 militants’ bodies were shown to the local news media. “Our assessment is based on militants’ intercepts and chatter,” the official said. The United States has directed most of its drone attacks in Pakistan against the Haqqani network of the Afghan Taliban, one of the most lethal groups attacking NATO and allied forces in Afghanistan, as well as that group’s local Pakistani allies. Pakistan, meanwhile, has been focusing its military operations against groups like the one in Mohmand, which has been attacking Pakistani forces and increasingly singling out civilians allied with the government. A government official said that Taliban fighters in the area had now been driven into a small mountainous area of Mohmand that adjoins the Bajaur tribal area in Pakistan and Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan. The area offers easy escape routes into Afghanistan, which has allowed the militants to sometimes shelter there, the reverse of the movements of Haqqani fighters who take refugee in Pakistan between attacks in Afghanistan. “All the bad guys are now there,” said Amjad Ali Khan, the administrator of the Mohmand region. “Kunar’s border region has gone to the dogs due to the absence of international forces there. These guys go there and come back to launch attacks on our forward positions.” Kunar has a long, mountainous and remote border with Pakistan that is difficult to patrol fully. Some posts are staffed by coalition forces, while others are the responsibility of the Afghan border police. Pakistani officials said that the authorities had planned an operation to flush militants from the remaining pockets of Mohmand, but delayed operations because of a lack of resources. On Dec. 6, two suicide bombers dressed as police officers struck the administrative headquarters of Mohmand Agency, killing 43 people and wounding more than 60.

Pakistan
Taliban
Defense and Military Forces


Republican States Push Revisions to Voting Laws

Abstract: MIAMI — Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting or tighten registration rules. Republican legislators say the new rules, which have advanced in 13 states in the past two months, offer a practical way to weed out fraudulent votes and preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas signed laws last week that would require each voter to show an official, valid photo ID to cast a ballot, joining Kansas and South Carolina. In Florida, which already had a photo law, Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill this month to tighten restrictions on third-party voter registration organizations — prompting the League of Women Voters to say it would cease registering voters in the state — and to shorten the number of early voting days. Twelve states now require photo identification to vote. The battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are among those moving ahead on voter ID bills, part of a trend that seems likely to intensify the kind of pitched partisan jousting over voting that has cropped up in recent presidential races. When voters in predominantly black neighborhoods in Florida saw their votes challenged in the contested Bush-Gore election of 2000, Democrats made charges of disenfranchisement. In 2008 Acorn, a group organizing minority and low-income communities, became a particular target, with Republicans asserting that Acorn was trying to steal the election with large voter-registration drives, some of which were found to be seriously flawed. Democrats, who point to scant evidence of voter-impersonation fraud, say the unified Republican push for photo identification cards carries echoes of the Jim Crow laws — with their poll taxes and literacy tests — that inhibited black voters in the South from Reconstruction through the 1960s. Election experts say minorities, poor people and students — who tend to skew Democratic — are among those least likely to have valid driver’s licenses, the most prevalent form of identification. Older people, another group less likely to have licenses, are swing voters. Republicans argue that the requirements are commonplace. “If you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed, if you have to show a picture ID to get on an airplane, you should show a picture ID when you vote,” Gov. Nikki Haley said this month when she signed the bill into law in South Carolina, using a common refrain among Republicans. Changes to voter law tend to flow and ebb with election cycles as both Democrats and Republicans scramble to gain the upper hand when they hold power. The 2010 midterm election was a boon to Republicans, who now control 59 chambers of state legislatures and 29 governorships. In some states, like Florida and Texas, Republicans hold overwhelming majorities. This has allowed the bills to move forward. Republicans have tried for years to get photo identification requirements and other changes through legislatures, said Daniel Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University and an expert in election law. Similar bills were introduced over the past decade, but were largely derailed in the aftermath of a political battle over the Bush administration’s firing of several United States attorneys whom Republicans had criticized for failing to aggressively investigate voter fraud. “That’s what really killed the momentum of more states’ enacting voter ID laws,” Mr. Tokaji said. “Now with the last elections, with the strong Republican majorities in a lot of states, we’re seeing a rejuvenation of the effort.” Republicans say that large jumps in the immigrant population have also prompted them to act to safeguard elections. “Over the last 20 years, we have seen Florida grow quite rapidly, and we have such a mix of populations,” said State Representative Dennis K. Baxley, the Florida Republican who wrote the law to tighten third-party registration here. “When we fail to protect every ballot, we disenfranchise people who participate legitimately.” Taken together, the state-by-state changes are likely to have an impact on close elections, Mr. Tokaji said. “Remarkably, most of these significant changes are going under the radar,” he added. “A lot of voters are going to be surprised and dismayed when they go to their polling place and find that the rules have changed.” Most of the measures would require people to show a form of official, valid identification to vote. While driver’s licenses are the most common form, voters can also request free photo IDs from the Department of Motor Vehicles or use a passport or military identification, among other things. But Democrats say thousands of people in each state do not have these. The extra step, they add, will discourage some voters who will have to pay to retrieve documents, like birth certificates, for proof to obtain a free card. If voters do not have the proper identification on Election Day, they can cast provisional ballots in most states but must return several days later to a local board of elections office with an ID. A few state bills and laws also shave the number of early voting days, a move that Democrats say would impact Democratic voters once again. In the 2008 presidential election, a majority of those who cast early votes did so for President Obama. In Florida, the number of days is reduced but the number of hours remains the same. Democrats point to state figures showing that there are few proven cases of voter impersonation and question why budget-conscious Republicans would want to spend taxpayer dollars on a problem that is isolated. “There is not one documented case that has been presented to us, and we had numerous hearings,” said State Senator Brad Hutto of South Carolina, a Democrat. “Republicans have to have some reason to do this because it doesn’t sound good to say, ‘We don’t want Latinos or African-Americans voting.’ ” But Republicans counter that detecting and proving voter impersonation is tricky under current law precisely because few states require photo identification. Plus, they add, there is no evidence that the requirement reduces minority participation. In Georgia, where photo IDs became a requirement in 2007, minorities voted in record numbers in 2008 and 2010. Turnout among Hispanic voters jumped 140 percent in the state in 2008 and 42 percent among blacks compared with 2004, a change attributed in part to President Obama’s candidacy. Two years later, in the midterm election, turnout also rose among Hispanics and African-Americans, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state. But with the presidential election campaign season already under way, Democrats say they are taking no chances. The Democratic Governors Association started a Voter Protection Project this month to educate voters and encourage them to speak out against the measures. It also began running online advertisements.

Voter Registration and Requirements
Elections
Republican Party
Democratic Party
Minorities
State Legislatures
Law and Legislation


Iranians Seized in Baghdad Freed by U.S. After a Day

Abstract: BAGHDAD, Aug. 29 — Members of an Iranian Energy Ministry delegation visiting Baghdad at the invitation of the Iraqi government were released Wednesday, a day after being arrested at their hotel by American troops and led away in handcuffs and blindfolds. Iraqi and Iranian officials said the Iranians were in Baghdad to help resolve Iraq ’s power crisis. American officials said they were detained when unauthorized weapons were found in their vehicles at a checkpoint. The Iranian Embassy confirmed that the group had been freed after being held overnight. “They are in Baghdad to discuss power situation in Iraq with Iraqi power officials,” said an Iranian Embassy spokesman. “They were arrested at 3 p.m. and released at 5:30 p.m., then arrested again at night yesterday. The Iraqi government intervened and later on they were released and now they are at the office of the Iraqi prime minister.” Yasin Majid, a media adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, told Reuters that the group was in Baghdad at the invitation of the Ministry of Electricity to help set up a power station in Najaf, a city that is holy to Shiite Muslims. The American military said the delegation was originally allowed to proceed from the checkpoint beside the Tigris River on Tuesday to the state-owned Sheraton Ishtar hotel nearby. But American troops later arrived at the hotel, and television cameras filmed them leading the group away. Saadi Othman, an adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, told BBC television on Wednesday that the detentions were “regrettable” and had “nothing to do” with President Bush’s remarks on Tuesday, when he lashed out at Iran for meddling in Iraq’s affairs and fomenting instability here, news agencies reported. Hotel officials said the Iranians, the first Iranian party to visit the hotel since the 2003 invasion, had arrived the day before. Mohaned Abed, the night manager, identified the members of the Iranian delegation from hotel records as Jamal Bayati, Abathar Mirzani, Mohsen Ashouri, Saed Raai, Hassan Tharif and Bahmatullah Muradi, who was accompanied by his wife, who was held but not handcuffed or blindfolded. He said seven Iraqis accompanying the party were also held. The United States military said the total number detained was 15. Mr. Abed said the American soldiers entered the hotel’s restaurant, Al Warkaa, while the Iranians were having dinner. The soldiers took them into the lobby and questioned them. “I told him that the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity had invited them, that they were guests of the ministry and that we had a letter from the ministry confirming this,” he said. Videotape by Associated Press Television News showed American soldiers leading blindfolded and handcuffed people out of the hotel. The tape showed other American soldiers leaving the hotel carrying what appeared to be luggage and smaller bags. The detentions are likely to increase tensions between Iran and the United States. In Tehran, Iran summoned a diplomat from Switzerland, which represents American interests in Iran, to protest the arrests, the national news agency reported Wednesday. “Iran expressed its fierce protest to this unacceptable act, which was also against international regulations, to the Swiss diplomat to convey to U.S. officials, and to demand an explanation,” said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini. The United States military said the Iranians were detained after American troops confiscated an AK-47 rifle and two 9-millimeter pistols from the group’s Iraqi guards, who “had identification but no weapons permits and also had Iranian money.” “While there, coalition forces confiscated a laptop computer, cellphones and a briefcase full of Iranian and U.S. money,” said an American military statement issued in Baghdad. It said members of the group, including two people carrying “diplomatic credentials,” were questioned and that everyone was later “released in consultation with the government of Iraq to Iraqi officials.” The American military said that the Iranians’ Iraqi escorts bearing Ministry of Electricity badges did not have either Ministry of Defense or Ministry of Interior weapons cards. The arrests follow numerous recent disputes between Iran and the United States, which has repeatedly accused Iran of arming and financing Shiite militiamen who attack American and Iraqi forces in Iraq. Iran has denied the accusations and has protested the arrest of five Iranians in January by American troops in northern Iraq. The United States has said the five had links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards; Iran has denied the accusation, saying they were diplomats. The five men are still in American custody.

Iraq
Iran
United States Armament and Defense
United States International Relations