Pacific Trade Deal Talks Resume, Under Fire From U.S. Presidential Hopefuls

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Trade ministers for the United States and 11 other Pacific nations gathered in Atlanta on Wednesday to try to reach agreement on the largest regional free-trade pact ever. But knotty differences persist, and antitrade blasts from American presidential candidates have not eased prospects for any deal. The talks in a downtown Atlanta hotel are picking up where ministers left off two months ago after deadlocking at a Maui resort, at odds over trade in pharmaceutical drugs , autos, sugar and dairy goods, among other matters. United States negotiators said last week that enough progress had been made in recent contacts to justify hosting another, perhaps final round. For President Obama, who cited the potential agreement during his address this week to the United Nations, success in a negotiating effort as old as his administration would be a legacy achievement. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would liberalize trade and open markets among a dozen nations on both sides of the Pacific, from Canada to Chile and Japan to Australia, that account for about two-fifths of the world’s economic output. Failure would be just as big a defeat for Mr. Obama, and upset his long-troubled foreign policy initiative to reorient American engagement toward fast-growing Asia and away from the violent morass of the Middle East and North Africa. Yet if the Atlanta talks yield no agreement by the weekend, the Americans are unlikely to declare failure. Time is not the president’s friend, however. Even if agreement is reached this week, Congress will not debate and vote on it until late winter — in the heat of the states’ presidential nominating contests — because by law Mr. Obama cannot sign the deal without giving lawmakers 90 days’ notice. He will need bipartisan support, given the resistance of many Democrats and union allies to such trade accords. But presidential candidates in both parties have already registered strong opposition. The Republican front-runner, Donald J. Trump, the billionaire who boasts of his own deal-making prowess, has called the emerging trans-Pacific agreement “a disaster.” While some Republican rivals also are critical, it is the rhetoric of Mr. Trump, given his celebrity appeal, that has Republican leaders more worried that a toxic trade debate could threaten vulnerable Republicans in 2016. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, supports a Pacific accord but nonetheless wants to protect his narrow Republican majority — and deny Mr. Obama an achievement. On the Democratic side, where unions, progressive groups and many members of Congress oppose an agreement, Hillary Rodham Clinton has not taken a stand, though she repeatedly promoted the Pacific accord as secretary of state. In June, Mrs. Clinton told an Iowa audience “there should be no deal” if congressional Democrats’ concerns for workers were not addressed, and many in the party, including administration officials, expect she ultimately would oppose a deal, like her rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The United States trade representative, Michael B. Froman , said before heading to Atlanta, “The president has made clear that he will only accept a T.P.P. agreement that delivers for middle-class families, supports American jobs and furthers our national security.” “The substance of the negotiations will drive the timeline for completion,” Mr. Froman added, “not the other way around.” Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has not ruled out a bid for president, showed at the United Nations that they were pressing hard to get an agreement. The president affirmed his support in private meetings with several world leaders, according to administration officials. In his address to the United Nations, Mr. Obama told foreign leaders the accord would be a model for the world, “an agreement that will open markets, while protecting the rights of workers and protecting the environment that enables development to be sustained.” Should a deal come together, central to the White House campaign to sell the agreement to Congress would be the argument that setting economic, labor and environmental standards in the Pacific region would counter China’s influence, officials said. Late Tuesday, Mr. Biden brought Mr. Froman to a Manhattan meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, who has made an agreement central to his own economic platform. The Obama administration has pressed for the Pacific accord for six years, picking up the idea from the George W. Bush administration. Many issues have been all but settled, but nothing is final until everything is decided. That progress, including tentative agreements on ending tariffs, setting labor and environmental standards, and opening certain markets, has sustained the negotiations despite setbacks. But several issues continue to block a deal. Dairy market rules divide the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; this has been especially troublesome for Canada’s team, since the nation will hold elections this month. Also divisive are provisions over auto exports, including requirements that autos have a certain percentage of parts made in countries that are parties to the agreement. Japan has sought a lower percentage of parts in the “rules of origin,” with some support from Americans, to allow the export of autos with Chinese parts, while Mexico and Canada demand stricter rules. Perhaps most contentious are negotiations related to protections for pharmaceutical companies’ drugs, especially cutting-edge biologics that are made from living organisms and considered promising against cancer, among other ailments. Several countries, especially Australia, have opposed the United States and its pharmaceutical industry for insisting that companies’ drug data be protected for 12 years to create financial incentives to innovate. Critics say this keeps lower-cost generic drugs and “biosimilars” off the market for too long. Here, too, the presidential contest has injected a wild card: Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders each have accused drug makers of price gouging. While there is talk of an eight-year compromise, for many opponents that is too long. Judit Rius Sanjuan, a manager of a campaign by Doctors Without Borders to hasten access to lower-priced drugs and vaccines, said she met with American negotiators last week in Washington, “and they gave me zero indication that they are going to be more flexible on this issue.” Andrew Spiegel, executive director of the Global Colon Cancer Association, said drug makers needed the incentives of strong protections for their intellectual property to encourage their research. He did not offer an answer to the question dividing negotiators: how many years the drug makers’ data monopoly should last. “I leave it to them to pick the magic number,” Mr. Spiegel said. Last week, 156 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, wrote the administration to complain that some parties to the talks, like Vietnam, Singapore and Japan, manipulate their currency values to underprice their products. While discussions are continuing, the administration is counting on reaching a currency deal with the Asian nations that would be a side agreement to any trade pact.

International trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership
2016 Presidential Election
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
Barack Obama
Atlanta
Hillary Clinton


Ricco Wins His Tour Stage, but Most Important Climb Is Ahead

Abstract: BAGNÈRES-DE-BIGORRE, France — The first two steep climbs in the Pyrenees essentially ended in a draw Sunday while Cadel Evans, a race favorite, had a fearsome fall that apparently did not seriously injure him but did crack his helmet and shred parts of his uniform. The ninth stage of the Tour de France produced no big changes in the overall standings, meaning that the first big fireworks in the 95th Tour are likely to come Monday — appropriately enough, Bastille Day. Riccardo Ricco, a 24-year-old Italian rider for the Saunier Duval-Scott team, won Sunday’s 139-mile stage, his second mountaintop victory of this Tour. Ricco’s winning move came as he attacked the peloton roughly three miles from the summit of the Col d’Aspin, the second of two climbs that were ranked in the first category in difficulty. Ricco then kept his lead of more than a minute during the swift, 16-mile descent to this mountain village, known for its thermal spas, beating Vladimir Efimkin of AG2R by 1 minute 4 seconds and most of the race favorites by 1:17. Kim Kirchen remained in the yellow jersey for the fourth day, which even he seems to think will be his last in the jersey. He holds a six-second lead over Evans and is 44 seconds ahead of Christian Vande Velde, the American rider for Garmin Chipotle, who moved up a place after Stefan Schumacher, of Gerolsteiner, fell 40 seconds behind the main group on the run to the finish line. “I suffered during the two climbs of the day,” Kirchen said. “I was glad to stay in yellow, but I will have to feel better to keep the jersey tomorrow.” Noting that a half-dozen other riders in the top 10 have designs on the overall victory, he added: “Now it’s on them to take control of the race and show how strong they are.” One of those who presumably will challenge for the jersey is Evans, who crashed roughly halfway through Sunday’s stage. Television cameras failed to capture the accident, so it was unclear exactly what happened. But in his fall Evans hit the back of his head on the roadway, cracking the back of his helmet and ripping a large hole in the back of his jersey between his shoulder blades. He also sustained scrapes on his left elbow and hip. Marc Sergeant, the manager of Evans’s Silence-Lotto team, said after the finish that Evans appeared to be O.K. He received rolling treatment from the car of the race’s medical director during the stage, and the doctor was shown on television also checking Evans’s collarbone, which he has broken before. But Sergeant said that the doctor assured the team nothing was broken. After the crash, “he wasn’t complaining,” Sergeant said of Evans. “He was like, ‘I’m O.K., don’t worry.’ He was still talking on the radio so I presume and I hope it’s not too bad.” Evans entered a team car immediately after the stage and left without speaking to reporters. Evans’s top rivals for the overall victory will probably put him to the test Monday. And with 23 riders within three minutes of the race lead, the stage’s final climb to Hautacam will probably decide who holds the Tour de France’s yellow jersey at least until the race enters the Alps next week, if not all the way to Paris. The Tour de France has ended three stages at Hautacam, a ski station at the summit of a fearsome nine-mile climb. The climb is ranked “beyond category” in difficulty, with an average gradient of 7.2 percent. Each time the man who held the yellow jersey after the stage kept it all the way to Paris. The Hautacam climb follows the equally challenging ride over Tourmalet Pass, an 11-mile-long climb that rises at an average pitch of 7.5 percent. The last seven miles, however, are the steepest, averaging 8.7 percent. David De La Fuente, a Spanish rider for Saunier Duval, retained the polka-dot jersey for best mountain climber on Sunday over Sebastian Lang, who earned significant points with a long breakaway that was caught on the last climb.

Tour de France (Bicycle Race)
Ricco Riccardo
Evans Cadel
Kirchen Kim


U.S. Bolsters Afghan Police to Secure Kandahar

Abstract: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The American paratroopers climbed down from armored vehicles and spread out along Highway 1, Afghanistan’s main road. An Army engineering team moved behind. This was a military patrol with an unusual touch. The paratroopers were not hunting the Taliban . The engineers were not looking for roadside bombs. They were taking measurements for a checkpoint to be built for the Afghan National Police. NATO ’s long-awaited summer campaign to secure Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city, has begun. In its early stages, it looks little like what was anticipated months ago. What had been described by military officers last winter as an offensive has instead opened with an effort to expand an Afghan police and government presence. The daily missions for many patrols are oriented not toward fighting but toward trying to extend influence in an area where a sprawling insurgency first took root. The campaign to date, moving by increments, focuses on civil order. Western troops, soon to triple in number in Kandahar Province in the last phase of President Obama’s military buildup, are designing new checkpoints and police precincts while encouraging Afghan police supervisors to become more active. At the same time, NATO is training recruits and officers already on duty, hoping to double the strength and improve the skills of the local force. Thus far that force is tiny. Of the more than 100,000 police officers that Afghanistan claims to have on its books, only roughly 800 to 1,000 officers are here, in a city of at least 500,000 people in the Taliban’s Pashtun heartland. Kandahar is where in the 1990s Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader, and his followers rose from rural obscurity to international notoriety. It has been all but ungoverned since they were chased from Kabul in late 2001. The Taliban remain the dominant power in agricultural areas around the city. They operate freely in urban neighborhoods, too. The American plan must also contend with the possibility that the Taliban could choose to fight more directly at any time. Moreover, military officers acknowledge that the Taliban have sizable support among the population, and that many residents harbor misgivings about the gathering campaign — worried that it will endanger civilian lives, property and livelihoods. For NATO and the United States, this creates a tactical puzzle. The city acts according to its own rules. But it is not, day by day, a combat zone. Normal life continues. Insurgent attacks are sporadic and most days are quiet. One challenge, military officers say, is to keep it that way as forces flow in. Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the British officer commanding Western troops in southern Afghanistan, describes two different tracks for the months ahead. First, in the city, the emphasis is on establishing the rudiments of a government. Later, in outlying areas, he said, a more military approach will be used. “The problem in Kandahar city,” he said, “is it’s a lot less about insurgency, and much more about criminality, warlordism, a culture of impunity, bad government or weak government, parallel structures and frankly, something that needs to be properly organized.” He added, “What’s needed in the city are better Afghan security forces, and more of them.” Recent patrols show what this ambition looks like in its early phases. The city now has 10 police districts, each with a police station that assigns officers to run checkpoints. Each district is assisted by an American military police squad and Canadian police advisers. Changes are under way. Kandahar is being carved into smaller districts. A ring of checkpoints is being built around the city. More Western forces are arriving. The American military police company and battalion staff members who have been assisting the police will be replaced by five fresh companies. A unit from the 82nd Airborne Division, Company D of the First Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was moved to Kandahar last month. It escorts Army engineers working on infrastructure projects. Infrastructure is one element of policing; competence, integrity and equipment are others. American officers and troops say the police, known for ineptitude and corruption, have improved since last year, when NATO devoted more troops to train them. American soldiers who work beside the police described improving units but continuing problems: drug use, absenteeism, corruption, sloth. The picture, in sum, is complex. One Army noncommissioned officer said that police officers he worked beside routinely helped themselves to food and other goods in Kandahar’s shops and bazaars, and sometimes dug up farmers’ crops and confiscated them. Another said that some units had been professional and willing to work. They are less likely, he said, to beat detainees and more willing to walk on patrols without American supervision. Two recent patrols showed how far the police had yet to go to achieve competence, much less self-reliance. On the first patrol, an American military police squad, led by Sgt. Gary Woodruff, was assigned to inventory a checkpoint that would soon become the headquarters for a new district. When the squad arrived, most of the Afghans were asleep. Few had their weapons nearby. The squad pulled aside the Afghans one by one, made a roster and scanned each man’s irises and fingerprints for a database. The soldiers recorded the serial numbers of the officers’ weapons and jotted down the officers’ cellphone numbers. It was clear that until the Americans performed the tally, no one knew how many police officers worked at the checkpoint, what their names were or what equipment they had. On another patrol, Capt. John Thomas, Company D’s commander, was discussing plans with a deputy checkpoint commander, Mahibullah, who casually mentioned that he had a bomb in the shipping container he used as an office and bedroom. The captain stopped almost midstride. He asked him why he had a bomb there. Mahibullah said the police had found the bomb hidden in the soil nearby. They had called for an Afghan police ordnance-disposal team, he said. The team never arrived. After waiting several hours, a more senior commander ordered the police to pull up the bomb by hand and carry it to the checkpoint. “That’s the wrong answer,” Captain Thomas said. “And this is something I can help you with.” Inside the office, a live antitank mine could be seen resting in the corner. Mahibullah’s two young sons stood at the door. The captain asked everyone to stay out of the room until a disposal team arrived. Later, he summed up how the city looked through the lens of the police, as the operation to secure Kandahar begins. “They are getting better,” he said. “They have a ways to go.”

United States Defense and Military Forces


Albuquerque Road-Rage Suspect Confesses to Shooting That Killed Girl

Abstract: A 32-year-old man confessed to the fatal shooting of a 4-year-old girl on an Albuquerque freeway after a road-rage episode. In a statement, the police said early Thursday that a tip from an anonymous caller had led to the arrest of the man, Tony Torrez, who later confessed to killing the girl, Lilly Garcia, during a confrontation on Tuesday. “The caller provided detectives the suspect’s name,” the police said. “With that information and multiple tips from the community, detectives were able to find the suspect.” The police had said the girl was shot when a driver pulled up and fired into a car in which she and her 7-year-old brother were passengers in the back seat. She later died at a hospital. Her father had picked the children up from school, the police chief, Gorden Eden, said at a news conference on Wednesday. In the hours after the shooting, Chief Eden was visibly frustrated as he spoke with reporters about what he said was preventable violence. Video Chief Gorden Eden of the Albuquerque Police Department asked for the public’s help in finding the person who shot and killed a 4-year-old girl in a road-rage episode. “We’re starting to see this throughout our nation,” he said. “And this is something that should not be happening in Albuquerque, New Mexico, let alone anywhere else in the United States.” Officer Simon Drobik, a spokesman for the Police Department, told the KOB4 television station that the girl’s father had described the shooting as a road-rage confrontation. Officer Drobik said the two cars were westbound on Interstate 40. Part of the highway was closed for several hours after the shooting. Chief Eden told reporters that the girl’s parents, who were not injured in the confrontation, were unable to give a full account of what had happened. On Thursday, the police said Mr. Torrez was charged with murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to commit a violent felony, shooting at a motor vehicle, child abuse, child abuse resulting in death and tampering in evidence. The police had offered multiple rewards for information leading to the arrest. The mayor’s office, City Council and F.B.I. also offered rewards. Mr. Torrez’s bail was set at $650,000 cash , the police said. A website started by the girl’s relatives to cover the cost of her funeral has raised more than $58,100. “I need to catch the individual who took my baby from me, her Dad and her brother,” the girl’s mother wrote. “I beg you, please please please share.”

Murders and Homicides
Albuquerque
Tony Torrez
Car Crash


Fed to Monitor Pay at Banks to Curb Risk

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve announced Thursday that it would crack down on pay packages that encouraged bankers to take excessive risks, but officials acknowledged that the plan might not reduce the biggest paychecks on Wall Street. While unlikely by itself to end the practice of lavish compensation, the Fed’s plan is one of the most far-reaching responses yet to last year’s financial crisis . It will subject executives, traders, deal makers and other employees of the biggest banks to regulatory scrutiny of their compensation and represent another increase in government intervention in the marketplace. The announcement was choreographed to coincide with the decision by the Obama administration this week to cut the pay of many high earners at the seven companies that received the most taxpayer help. Both decisions were announced amid growing public outrage over large pay packages at many of those companies. “Compensation practices at some banking organizations have led to misaligned incentives and excessive risk-taking, contributing to bank losses and financial instability,” said Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman. “The Federal Reserve is working to ensure that compensation packages appropriately tie rewards to longer-term performance and do not create undue risk for the firm or the financial system.” In one sense, the announcements by the Fed and the Treasury are a sharp departure from the hands-off approach to regulation that had dominated this city for decades. The abiding principle of both announcements was the same — companies that make a lot of money over a sustained period will be allowed to reward their executives handsomely, while those who put the economy, the financial system, shareholders and the taxpayer at risk may not. But the effectiveness of the new policies — and whether they will curtail irresponsible business decisions designed to inflate bonuses — will ultimately be dictated by how the new rules are enforced. Even in Washington, there was skepticism about whether the government would be able to keep ahead of practices that have allowed top executives and others to reap huge financial rewards while their banking companies turned in poor or unsustainable performances. The principles proposed by the Fed for the nation’s 28 largest banking companies are less strict than those from some European leaders and some members of Congress. They do not impose caps on pay or prohibit multimillion-dollar packages. One senior official predicted that they would do nothing to curtail the lucrative pay at firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, both regulated by the Fed since becoming bank holding companies last year during the financial crisis. Instead of pay limits, the Fed rules are intended to discourage pay packages that may encourage risky practices. The government wants to encourage pay packages that reward executives for long-term performance. Officials acknowledged that it could be months before they would be able to tell whether the Fed’s changes would have the intended effect. Bank examiners will have to be trained on the ties between compensation and risk management. Moreover, compensation consultants have been adept at finding ways to get around pay restrictions. The officials emphasized that the plan was not intended to make pay packages more socially equitable but was part of a broader effort by the Fed to shore up the stability of the banking system. That effort has included tighter supervision of lending and trading practices and higher requirements for capital held as a cushion against losses. Even as the Fed was unveiling its plan, Kenneth R. Feinberg , the Treasury official in charge of overseeing pay practices at the companies that received the biggest government bailouts, was providing details about his decision to curb the compensation of the 25 top employees of each of those firms. At those companies — which include Citigroup, Bank of America, the American International Group, General Motors and Chrysler — future bonus payments will be awarded only after senior executives set corporate performance goals in consultation with Treasury. The bonuses will have to be in the form of restricted stock that cannot be sold until the company repays the government. Executive perks of more than $25,000 for country clubs or corporate cars will need approval from Washington. But, bowing to concerns that too heavy a hand could lead to a mass exodus of executives, both the Treasury and Fed policies will permit top earners to reap millions of dollars. Mr. Feinberg said that all the companies had made unacceptable requests. In most cases, he restricted the cash salary to $500,000 and imposed new restraints on stock grants and bonuses tied to company performance over several years. “I found that the numbers that were submitted by the companies were almost without exception to have been not in the public interest,” Mr. Feinberg said. “They were both too high and the wrong mix of stock and cash.” Mr. Feinberg said he had made one significant exception to his policy of slashing compensation — for three senior executives at A.I.G. who had signed contracts long before his appointment for multimillion-dollar bonuses. And if Citigroup and Bank of America manage to heal, 22 of the top 34 earners could each wind up making more than $5 million over the next year. The Fed’s plan, which will take effect some time after a 30-day comment period, will create a two-tier system of supervising pay, using different approaches for the nation’s 28 biggest institutions and the thousands of smaller banks, which would be subjected to a review with their regular bank examinations. The money center bank holding companies, like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, would have to present their compensation plans to bank regulators, who would then evaluate whether pay incentives properly balance goals of short-term growth and long-term stability. Bank regulators could demand changes, and would monitor pay practices as part of their regular examinations. The plan would apply to senior executives and others, like loan officers and traders, whose individual or collective decisions could expose the firm to significant losses. But the review, including discussions between regulators and the companies, would remain confidential, making it difficult for outsiders to glean any changes prompted by regulators At Citigroup’s investment banking offices, traders shrugged off the pay rules imposed by Mr. Feinberg as affecting only a handful of the company’s 275,000 employees. Eugene A. Ludwig, a former Comptroller of the Currency who runs a consulting firm that specializes in regulatory issues, said banking regulators had been reluctant to look at pay practices, thinking it is the province of management. Now, it is rising to the top of their agenda. “That will change behavior,” he said.

Executive Compensation
Bonuses
Banks and Banking
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Executives and Management
Federal Reserve System
Feinberg Kenneth R


Liberty End Season With a Loss

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — Tayler Hill is warming up just in time for the Washington Mystics to make a playoff push. She continued her recent stellar play Sunday, scoring a career-high-tying 16 points to help the Mystics defeat the New York Liberty and secure the third playoff seed in the Eastern Conference. “I think that I’m adjusting and the game has sort of slowed down for me,” said Hill, the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft, who also scored 16 in Friday night’s win over Connecticut and has double-digit points in six of her last seven games. “I don’t feel rushed, I don’t feel frantic out there. It’s just starting to come to me.” Kia Vaughn scored 10 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for her second-straight double-double and her third of the season to help the Mystics split their four-game season series with New York. Ivory Latta added 12 points for Washington (17-17), which closed its season with three straight victories to finish a game ahead of fourth-place Indiana entering their first playoffs since 2010. “To get those wins, especially to get those two home wins, we definitely need that momentum to go into the playoffs,” Latta said. “At the same time, when you go into the playoffs, it’s 0-0.” The Mystics will face second-seeded Atlanta, which has an identical record but owns the head-to-head tiebreak, in a three-game conference semifinal series that begins Thursday. Washington lost three of five games with the Dream during the regular season, but lost four of five to top-seeded Chicago, which will now face Indiana in the other East semifinal. “We’ve just got to go down there, stay poised, stay focused and be ready,” Latta said of the opener in Atlanta. Kelsey Bone scored 11 points and Toni Young added 10 for New York (11-23) in the final game for retiring teammate and seven-time W.N.B.A. All-Star Katie Smith. “Obviously, I’m going to miss parts of it, but I’m ready to move on,” Smith said. “I was able to go out on my own terms, and I can’t complain.” The 39-year-old Smith had seven points and one 3-pointer in her final game. She finishes her career as the league’s second all-time leading scorer with 6,446 points and its leading 3-point shooter with and 904 made 3s. She also won two W.N.B.A. championships with Detroit and was named finals MVP in 2008. “Good gracious, come on now,” Latta, a former teammate in Detroit, said of Smith’s career numbers. “She’s done a lot for the game, and just to be out there with her and playing against her, it’s definitely a blessing.” Washington never trailed beyond the first quarter, but led by only two in the third before Latta and Hill each hit 3-pointers in an 8-0 stretch to push the Mystics lead to 41-31. Hill hit two more 3s during the quarter, the latter under duress from the left wing to make it 52-42 before New York’s Alex Montgomery responded with a leaner to close the quarter. In the fourth quarter, Vaughn hit two inside baskets and a pair of foul shots to help the Mystics close the game on a 14-4 run to split their four-game season series with New York. Smith left the game with 36 seconds left to a standing ovation from both the home crowd and a large contingent of New York fans, who chanted “Ka-tie, Ka-tie” in the game’s final moments. Smith spent her 2010 season in Washington when the Mystics last qualified for the postseason. “From my one year here and all my years in Detroit playing against them, they’re just good fans,” Smith said of the reception. “They love the game and they support not only the Mystics, but they support the league. It’s pretty amazing.”

Basketball
Washington Mystics
New York Liberty


Justin Williams and the Kings Are in Game 7 Heaven

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — For a team that has been to the summit, the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings have managed to conquer quite an assortment of new challenges this postseason. On Tuesday, they won Game 7, 2-1, over the San Jose Sharks to advance to the Western Conference finals. Last year, the Kings did not reach a Game 7 in any of their four series. Similarly, they did not experience a series deficit like the 2-0 hole they climbed out of in the first round against the St. Louis Blues. “All the games have been very close,” the captain Dustin Brown said. “It’s a completely different year, but at the same time our team is very similar and we can win a lot of different ways. We can grind it out and find different guys at different times.” For 14 of their 20 dressed players, including 12 homegrown products, it was the first Game 7 of their careers. Fortunately for the Kings, wing Justin Williams had experience to spare. Williams scored twice in a little less than three minutes during the second period. In four career Game 7’s, Williams has five goals and four assists, along with the distinction of being the first player in league history to score in each of his first four Game 7’s. “When I think Game 7’s, I think Justin Williams,” said Coach Darryl Sutter, who seldom offers such high praise for an individual. Williams, who also won a Cup in 2006 with the Carolina Hurricanes, arrived in Los Angeles in 2009 as a buy-low acquisition. Injuries and the resulting mixed form had clouded his future in Carolina, even though he consistently returned to the lineup earlier than expected. He has sustained two tears of both his medial collateral ligament and anterior cruciate ligament, two fractures of his left hand and a torn Achilles’ tendon, among other injuries. Williams, 31, missed more than 100 games in his first two seasons with the Kings, but he has not missed a game over the past two seasons. He has become a mainstay of market research for injury prevention, as he seems to be among the first to try every pad, brace, sleeve, protector, stocking, sock, glove and potion available. For Williams, being part of deep playoff runs more than validates the arduous recoveries and fastidious maintenance. “It feels more than worth it just to help, to see the faces of the guys when you score, and to see the happiness everyone has for everyone else in this room is key; that’s what makes it all worth it,” Williams said. He passed up credit for the victory, deferring to goalie Jonathan Quick and the solidarity throughout the Los Angeles lineup. “I wouldn’t say hero; I’d say the hero was the goaltender tonight,” Williams said. “If I didn’t score two goals tonight, someone else in this dressing room would have.” Quick turned in the latest in a series of awe-inspiring playoff performances Tuesday. His bid for his third shutout of the series was ended by a Dan Boyle slap shot, but he played a game that several Kings felt surpassed his previous dominant outings. Early on, Quick made an improbable recovery to rob Logan Couture during a scramble. It would be the first of many spectacular saves against the line of Couture, Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski, San Jose’s three leading goal-scorers during the regular season. Immediately before Williams’s second goal, he stopped Marleau and Couture in quick succession, sending the Kings the other way for what would stand as the game-winning goal. Brown said that feeding off Quick’s play in net was nothing new for the team. “He’s one of those guys that you want to play as hard as you can for because you know that regardless of the score of the game or how he feels, he’s going to be busting his butt for you,” Brown said. “It’s a contagious, snowball effect.” Quick turned aside Couture and Pavelski in the drawn-out, waning moments of the game, but his save on Pavelski with 5 minutes 4 seconds remaining probably preserved the series for Los Angeles. After saving a slap shot from the left point, Quick lunged to his right to glove Pavelski’s point-blank shot from the right side of his net while lying on his side. “That save was a game-breaker for them,” Brown said. “That’s why he’s our backbone back there.” For Quick, Williams and the rest of the Kings, repeating as champions has become the only acceptable expectation. “The desire to repeat comes from the hunger of winning once and having that drive and that anger that you don’t want anyone to raise that Cup but you,” Williams said.

Ice hockey
Los Angeles Kings
Playoffs
Darryl Sutter
Dustin Brown


Amid Tumult, Giants Uncover Glimpses of Hope

Abstract: There were not many overarching positive vibes coming from the Giants’ training complex Monday, the day after a second consecutive late-game collapse dropped the team’s record to 0-2. Wide receiver Victor Cruz, who has been sidelined by a calf injury since mid-August, did not practice, making him doubtful for Thursday’s game against the Washington Redskins at MetLife Stadium. Coach Tom Coughlin did say for the first time that Cruz had begun running on the grass practice field. Left tackle Ereck Flowers, who sprained an ankle in the season-opening game and reinjured it in Sunday’s 24-20 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, did not practice. Cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, who left Sunday’s game with a concussion, was not on the practice field, either, and neither was guard Geoff Schwartz, who was ill. Middle linebacker Jon Beason, who has been out with a knee strain, practiced in a limited capacity. In a conference call with reporters, Coughlin acknowledged that he would mention to his players how unpredictable the race for the N.F.C. East title might become, since the Philadelphia Eagles are also 0-2 and the Dallas Cowboys will be without Tony Romo for much of the season. Romo broke his collarbone on Sunday. “The situation in our division is very obvious,” Coughlin said. “It is an opportunity.” Coughlin also praised the new running back Shane Vereen and the new kick returner Dwayne Harris, who both had strong games. “There were obviously a lot of good things, but the fourth quarter diminishes all of those positive thoughts,” Coughlin said of the Giants, who led by 10 points in the fourth quarter. Coughlin also brought up the Giants’ last drive, which got a spark from a 30-yard pass interference penalty, then stalled at midfield with four successive incompletions. “The ball was at midfield, just under a minute to play and two timeouts,” Coughlin said. “I’m very disappointed in how it did finish. Sooner or later, we just have to settle down and play the way we’re capable of playing when the game is on the line. I don’t know how to say it any more simpler. “The information comes forth from the sideline; you have X amount of time to digest it all, but then you have to go pull the trigger.”

Football
Tom Coughlin
Victor Cruz
Giants


Golf Course Transforms Mining Town in Nova Scotia

Abstract: INVERNESS, Nova Scotia — John MacIsaac was once among nearly 900 workers who descended into the coal mines at the edge of this isolated seaside town, plunging 2,500 feet beneath the ocean floor to labor in a labyrinth of dark tunnels. “When I would come back up, occasionally there would be a tourist wanting a picture of this person so covered in black coal dust, only the whites of my eyes showed,” MacIsaac said. “Now when I go back to that very same spot, people are taking my picture next to a brand-new, picturesque golf course. Who dreams of such a thing?” The golf industry worldwide is asking the same thing. The course that opened Friday in this remote and economically depressed part of northwestern Nova Scotia is not a little pitch-and-putt for the 1,800 residents who remained after the coal mines shut down. Cabot Links — one of a handful of new courses opening in North America this year — is a resort-quality, high-end layout designed to be a true links golf course, a boutique category of oceanside golf architecture exceedingly rare outside the British Isles. But why put it here, several hundred miles and a time zone from any large metropolitan city and a lonesome three-and-a-half-hour drive in a rental car from Nova Scotia’s lone major airport? In golf, it seems, remote is the new luxury. “If familiarity breeds contempt, then nonfamiliarity breeds mystique,” said Mike Hughes, the chief executive of the National Golf Course Owners Association. “And the more isolated you become, the more you buy into it. People going that far for golf focus on the golf exclusively and leave their cellphones and e-mails behind. They’re also usually playing spectacular golf courses.” The foremost example of the seclusion-yields-success business model is Bandon Dunes, a similarly inaccessible Oregon seacoast complex opened in 1999 that now draws 130,000 golfers annually and employs almost 1,000. The developer of Bandon Dunes , Mike Keiser, a former greeting card mogul who grew up in upstate New York, is the financial clout behind Cabot Links as well. “We have seen year after year that oceanside and links is a magical golf formula, and being out of the way has not been a disadvantage,” Keiser said. “The trip invests you in the experience.” There are other popular examples, some not even on the water. The Sand Hills Golf Club in central Nebraska, a links-style course, has built a cultlike following in its 17 years of operation. For the Nova Scotia project, it has helped that the industry’s trade magazines have been breathless in their praise awaiting its opening. Links magazine, which is unashamedly persnickety when it comes to appraising the credentials of a true links course, called Cabot Links the only seaside links course between Bandon, Ore., and the famed Ballybunion Golf Club in Ireland. Back in Inverness, some are mildly skeptical that a world of golfers will flock to their course. “Our people understand the geography better than anyone,” MacIsaac, 70, said in the lilting, Scottish-influenced accent common here. “But I say to them: ‘You don’t understand how crazy golfers can be. You’ll see.’ ” The idea for a links course in oft-forgotten Inverness goes back decades. Town leaders looked at the pile of slag left behind when the last of the coal mines shuttered in the late 1960s and organized a committee to devise uses for the land that sits between the town and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Not surprisingly, in a province named New Scotland, the top suggestion was a golf course. Many golf developers, including Jack Nicklaus, were interested. But in each case over the years, the financing fell through or the parties lost interest. “We were devastated with each defeat,” said Duart MacAuley, the Inverness County warden. A nearby pulp mill that employed 270 also closed. A gypsum mine went out of business. The lobster and crab market was damaged by fluctuating prices. Turning abandoned coal mines into a scenic golf course remained a pipe dream. Then one night in 2004, a top provincial official, Rodney MacDonald — not everyone in Inverness has a name that begins with Mac but most do — was in Toronto sitting next to Ben Cowan-Dewar, a golf tourism operator. MacDonald regaled Cowan-Dewar with an account of unwanted golf land in Inverness. Cowan-Dewar, who built a golf hole at his family’s Ontario farm when he was 8, made the trek to Inverness on Cape Breton Island . He was smitten by the landscape. “I knew there wasn’t another oceanside golf parcel like it in eastern North America,” Cowan-Dewar said last Sunday. “Of course, I didn’t really know how to develop a golf course yet.” Cowan-Dewar, then just 25, nonetheless started pitching his vision to everyone, beginning with regional agencies that could lend him money. He had to piece together and buy 14 land parcels from various owners. And in March 2008, even though not one golf hole had been constructed, he moved from downtown Toronto to Inverness with his wife, Allie Barclay, who was 35 weeks pregnant and leaving behind a career in finance. “I arrived in tears,” Barclay said last week, recalling the move. “I felt like I was in the witness protection program.” Four years later, Barclay runs the Cabot Links pro shop and helps with administrative duties, and has a 4-year-old son, a 2-year-old daughter and a charming house that overlooks the golf course and ocean. “I didn’t know how welcoming everyone would be,” she said, sitting in the Red Shoe Pub not far from the course. As fiddle music filled the pub and every foot tapped to the beat of a Celtic reel, Barclay smiled as she nodded or waved at seemingly everyone. That included the two waitresses, the man collecting the cover charge and a half-dozen patrons who are among the 125 employees at Cabot Links. “You create 125 jobs in Chicago, and it means nothing,” Cowan-Dewar said. “You do it in a community this size, and it affects a lot of families very directly.” For about one in three Inverness households since the 1970s, regular employment has meant a long trip to western Canada to work in the oil industry . Men and women go for two- or three-week shifts. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever get out of Alberta,” said Jessica MacDonald, 24, who worked there the last four years. “But when the golf course started hiring, I couldn’t wait to come home.” The Cabot Links work force includes teenagers, college students, young professionals and local retirees. The course, which has no golf carts, fields a full caddie corps, offering the perk of access to the course in off hours. Town residents have grown used to seeing children walking down the streets with golf clubs, not just hockey sticks. Cabot Links, shaped and designed by the noted Canadian golf architect Rod Whitman, will not be cheap for them, with peak-hour greens fees of about 110 Canadian dollars, or $108. There is a $70 twilight rate for Cape Breton residents. Most top-100 golf courses in North America, a grouping Cabot Links will probably soon be compared to, usually charge far more. Many charge twice as much. Still, the cost to play at Cabot Links, or to stay in one of the 48 hotel rooms with floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooking the golf course (nightly rates begin at $225), has raised some eyebrows in Inverness. There are minor concerns about protecting the adjacent public beaches. Housing and property prices in town have skyrocketed. Lawrence MacIsaac, a retired military chaplain who recently returned to Inverness, his hometown, and became a real estate agent, said that one of the many old matching homes built for coal mine workers — called Red Rows because they were all painted red and tightly spaced — is listed for $250,000. Ten years ago, such homes sold for $40,000. “So, yes, there are some people wondering about how the town will change,” Lawrence MacIsaac, John’s cousin, said as he ate breakfast in the Coal Miner’s Cafe. “But the vast majority of us recall when there were six or eight boarded-up businesses in town and a sense of hopelessness. You can say it’s only a golf course, but it’s put a bounce in our step.” As evidence, he pointed to the national chain Robin’s Donuts, which is opening a franchise on Central Avenue — with Inverness’s first drive-through window. The course developers say they will expand Cabot Links if it draws about 20,000 golfers annually. That is a reasonable expectation because western Nova Scotia is the more temperate side of the island, with a golf season that can run from mid-April to mid-November. Additional oceanfront property has been acquired for another 18 holes. Then there will be two new upscale golf courses so far from, well, everything. “It’s not Newfoundland or the North Pole,” Keiser said. “It’s east of Maine, not north of it. Bandon Dunes is far more remote.” As for John MacIsaac, who climbed out of the mines as a young man to become a teacher, principal and assistant superintendent of schools in Inverness, he is brimming with the expectation of someone about to host a gigantic, long-awaited party. “It’s been our dream for decades to create something that’s green, open and full of the outdoors,” he said last week, standing beside the 18th hole and waving a hand at the golf landscape that reaches to the sea. “I hope so many people come that the place is always busy and I never get to play. “I’ll go down to the beach and take pictures of them.”


Texas Prison Officials Send Virginia Sought-After Drug for Execution This Week

Abstract: HOUSTON — Texas prison officials are helping their counterparts in Virginia prepare for a scheduled execution on Thursday by providing the state with pentobarbital, a lethal drug that corrections agencies nationwide have had difficulty obtaining. The disclosure, which surfaced in a court filing in an Oklahoma death penalty case, was confirmed Friday by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Virginia prison officials also confirmed the trade, saying they needed pentobarbital to replace a dose of another drug they intended to use, midazolam, that will soon expire. A spokesman for Texas prisons, Jason Clark, said the three vials of pentobarbital given to Virginia had been legally purchased from a compounding pharmacy, which he declined to name. Texas and Oklahoma are among a handful of states with laws — being challenged by death penalty opponents — that allow prison officials not to disclose where they get execution drugs. Virginia prison officials gave Texas pentobarbital to use as a backup in 2013, and when Virginia asked for help this year, Mr. Clark said, “we reciprocated.” “The agency has not provided compounded drugs to any other state,” he said. Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty organization in Washington, said the drug exchange raised concerns about government transparency. “It puts a whole new spin on the efforts by state departments of corrections for secrecy in the execution process,” Mr. Dunham said. Lawyers for Richard Glossip, a condemned Oklahoma inmate, mentioned the Texas-Virginia drug exchange when challenging Oklahoma’s plan to use midazolam during Mr. Glossip’s scheduled execution by lethal injection this week. The powerful sedative achieved notoriety after it was used in executions that took longer than expected last year in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma. In the court filing on Thursday, which is part of a multitiered effort to stop Mr. Glossip’s execution, his lawyers argued that pentobarbital is one of Oklahoma’s preferred execution drugs. The lawyers cite the Virginia-Texas exchange as proof that the drug is available, and included a photo of what they said were three bottles of pentobarbital with April 2016 expiration dates in Texas’ possession. The lawyers said they had obtained the photo from the Virginia Department of Corrections through a Freedom of Information Act request. Mr. Glossip’s lawyers also assert in their filing that Texas is “compounding or producing pentobarbital within its department for use in executions.” Mr. Clark denied the allegation, saying the state agency has no authority to manufacture its own drugs. “We do not have a pharmacy license,” he said. The Texas-provided pentobarbital is set to be used Thursday during the execution of Alfredo Rolando Prieto for the 1988 slaying of a young couple in Virginia. Mr. Prieto, 49, was already on death row in California for raping and killing a 15-year-old girl. A spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Corrections, Lisa Kinney, said that the agency intended to use midazolam as part of Mr. Prieto’s three-drug lethal injection, but that the state’s supply of midazolam is set to expire a day before his scheduled execution. The department did not respond to multiple requests for comment about why the state sought the drugs from Texas and whether it was having difficulty obtaining them elsewhere. Texas has said it buys its pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy because traditional drug manufacturers have balked at providing drugs for use in executions. Unlike traditional pharmacies, compounding pharmacies are not as strictly regulated by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Prieto’s lawyer, Rob Lee, said Friday that the Texas-supplied drugs did not appear to be the product of an F.D.A.-approved process. He said he had asked Virginia prison officials for more information. “Due to secrecy laws, we have been unable to determine how to assess the quality or effectiveness of the proposed sedative, and whether it was provided and obtained legally,” Mr. Lee said in an email to The Associated Press. Mr. Clark said the drugs had been vetted and tested, but he did not say by whom. Virginia, where lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to pass an execution-drug secrecy law this year, has identified its drug suppliers in the past. Texas has carried out 528 executions since 1982, far more than any other state. The last 24, going back to 2013, have used pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy as the lone drug for lethal injections. Mr. Glossip was convicted of ordering the 1997 killing of his boss in Oklahoma City. Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted to the killing and said Mr. Glossip had offered him $10,000 to do it, which Mr. Glossip denies.

Capital punishment
Pharmaceuticals
Richard Glossip
Virginia
Texas


Qualifier Arjun Atwal Posts First PGA Tour Win

Abstract: Many players came to the Wyndham Championship hoping for a push into the PGA Tour’s playoffs. Not Arjun Atwal. He was playing for his spot on tour. Atwal won by a stroke Sunday in Greensboro, N.C., becoming the first Monday qualifier to win on a tour event in 24 years. After leading or sharing the lead after each of the first three rounds, Atwal shot a three-under 67 in the final round. He finished at 20-under 260 and earned $918,000 — more than double the amount he had earned this year, the reason his future on tour had been in jeopardy. “I told my caddie: ‘We’ve got nothing to lose this week. Just go out there and try and win it,’ ” Atwal said. “Guys are going to be out there trying to secure their FedEx Cup spots or whatever. We’ve got nothing. I don’t have a card. I don’t have anything. Just go out there and free-wheel it, and that’s what I did this week.” Atwal is the first Indian-born player to win on tour and the first to win both the qualifier and the tournament that follows it since Fred Wadsworth at the 1986 Southern Open. Atwal is ineligible for the PGA playoffs and lost his tour card last month because he was too low on the money list when his minor medical exemption ran out. MIYAZATO BACK AT NO. 1 Ai Miyazato reclaimed the top spot in the world rankings by winning the LPGA Safeway Classic in Portland, Ore. She finished two shots ahead of Cristie Kerr, ranked No. 1 going into the event, and Na Yeon Choi. Kerr chased Miayzato throughout the round until hitting into the water at the 18th. FUNK WINS SENIOR MAJOR Fred Funk won the Tradition in Sun River, Ore., for the second time in three years, closing with a 69 for a one-stroke victory over Michael Allen and Chien Soon Lu in the fourth of the Champions Tour’s five majors.

Atwal Arjun
Golf
Funk Fred
Wyndham Championship
Jeld-Wen Tradition


Matt Kuchar Fights Off Illness for Share of BMW Lead

Abstract: LEMONT, Ill.. — With his strength and tournament lead both slipping away, Matt Kuchar turned things around on the inward nine Friday, birdieing four of the last eight holes to retain a share of the lead with a one-over-par 72 in the second round of the BMW Championship . Kuchar, who has an illness but is uncertain whether it was caused by a viral or bacterial infection, took antibiotics prescribed by a local physician. He struggled at the outset, making five bogeys and a birdie through 10 holes at Cog Hill Golf and Country Club, before his closing kick tied Charlie Wi (69) atop the leader board at six-under 136. “It’s probably the worst feeling I’ve had out here,” Kuchar said. “It was a struggle, but I learned young you never quit. Fortunately, I had a few putts go in and made a respectable round out of it.” One round that exceeded respectable by a wide margin was a 65 shot by the Australian Marc Leishman, who moved within a stroke of the lead at 137 after starting the day eight strokes behind. Tied for fourth at four under were the Britons Ian Poulter (72), Paul Casey (69) and Luke Donald (70), the South African Retief Goosen (71) and the American Dustin Johnson (70). In all, 22 players broke par on a course made hazardous by a breeze, difficult hole locations and bumpy greens. Tiger Woods moved up five spots into a tie for 40th with a round of 72, but in order to get into the top 30 — and the Tour Championship in two weeks — he needs to finish in the top three, according to the current playoff point projections. Leishman loves Cog Hill, and with good reason. His round was the best of the day by three strokes, and he tied for second here last year, his best PGA Tour finish. But his affection for Cog Hill — a public-access course that was redesigned at a cost of $6 million two years ago in a so-far unsuccessful effort to lure a major championship — has not been widely shared by many of his colleagues. Some have been quite vocal in their criticism. After his round of 73, Stewart Cink , a former tour policy board member, gave a harsh assessment of the course “I am going to echo what Zach Johnson told me,” Cink said, “that on a scale of 1 to 10, this course is a minus-3.” With all the difficulties facing the players, including the fatigue of having to play five of the past six weeks, it will help to have an attitude like Leishman’s. “There’s a few patchy spots, but it’s not as though you’re putting on a road or anything,” he said.

Kuchar Matt
Golf
Woods Tiger
Cink Stewart


Protesters in Poland Rally Against Proposal for Total Abortion Ban

Abstract: WARSAW — Despite pouring rain and a chill in the air, Anna Pietruszka-Drozdz, together with as many as 24,000 other Polish women and men, skipped work on Monday and instead came to Castle Square in Warsaw, dressed in black, to protest a sweeping new anti-abortion bill. “A complete and total abortion ban? This is beyond my wildest nightmares,” said Ms. Pietruszka-Drozdz, 37, a mother of two. “Women don’t have abortions because they are promiscuous and it’s convenient. They do it because they need to, and it’s often the most traumatic decision ever.” On Black Monday, as it was called, huge protests against the new legislation swept through 90 Polish cities . The Warsaw mayor’s office said 24,000 Poles took to the streets of the capital, waving black flags to draw international attention to the proposed restrictions. On the event’s Facebook page , organizers said the protest drew up to 116,000 participants nationwide. Poland ’s existing abortion law is already one of the most restrictive in Europe. Abortion is permitted in only three cases: a severe fetal anomaly, a threat to the mother’s health and life, or a pregnancy from rape or sexual abuse. Under the proposed legislation , written by an organization called Stop Abortion , all abortions would be criminalized. Women, doctors and anyone who assisted with the procedure could face up to five years in prison. “This is a barbarian proposal that will move Poland back to medieval times,” Barbara Nowacka, the leader of a liberal initiative, Save Women , said in a telephone interview. “The worst thing is that this barbarity finds approval in the eyes of those in power.” Black Monday was the high point of protests that began two weeks ago. On social media, tens of thousands of Poles have posted pictures of themselves wearing black and staging demonstrations. Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski dismissed the protesters, saying, “Let them have their fun.” “There is no such problem as a threat to women’s rights,” he said in an interview with a private radio station, RMF-FM . “If someone thinks that there are no greater concerns in Poland at the moment, let them be.” The protests have won the approval of numerous Polish employers, including restaurant owners, museum and gallery directors, the deans of several universities and mayors of a couple of large cities, all of whom allowed their female workers to take a day off. The protest idea was inspired by the story of Icelandic women who paralyzed their country in 1975 by not going to work , and skipping housework and child-rearing tasks, to protest unfair employment practices and wage discrepancies. The women who participated in those protests sent the women in Poland a video message of solidarity , encouraging them to stand up for themselves and telling them in Polish, “Jestesmy z wami” (“we are with you”). On Facebook, Kenyan women also sent a message of solidarity . The solidarity protests were also staged in other European cities, including Berlin , Brussels , London, Paris and Barcelona, Spain. Poland introduced a restrictive abortion law, known as the “abortion compromise” and championed by the Roman Catholic Church, in 1993 after the collapse of Communism. The church, which continues to be a powerful influence in this predominantly Catholic country, is often accused of exerting pressure on politicians . It actively supports the proposed legislation, though church leaders have said they oppose punishing women. According to official figures, around 1,000 legal abortions are performed in Poland every year. Estimates of the number of illegal terminations vary widely, from 10,000 to 120,000, from anti-abortion and abortion rights groups. “The abortion compromise was supposed to curb the number of illegal terminations and increase the number of births in Poland,” Ms. Nowacka said. “It has failed miserably on both accounts. We need a new law that actually corresponds with reality.” Critics of the legislation, which is supported by senior members of the right-wing government, argue that if the bill is passed, doctors will stop performing invasive procedures on pregnant women, even to correct a fetal defect, unless the woman’s life is directly threatened. That is the only exception under which doctors could undertake a procedure and avoid prosecution if it ended in a miscarriage. Dr. Romuald Debski, the head of gynecology and obstetrics at Bielanski Hospital in Warsaw, said every invasive procedure carries a minor risk of miscarriage. “This would be the end of prenatal diagnostics,” Dr. Debski said in an interview. “I couldn’t do basic prenatal tests, like the amniotic fluid test that allows me to determine whether I’m dealing with certain genetic disorders, such as Down syndrome . Should the procedure go wrong, I could end up in jail. I won’t risk that.” Tomasz Latos, a member of the governing Law and Justice party and head of the Health Committee in the Polish Sejm, or lower house of Parliament, said viewing the legislation as a threat to prenatal diagnostics was “either an act of ill will or incompetence.” “No one is saying that this bill will be even passed in the end,” he said. “Our senators are preparing a separate bill.” Katarzyna Plutowska, 44, and Malgorzata Zyra, 39, took a day off from their accounting jobs to join a demonstration held near the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw. “Due to the protest, our entire office is closed today,” Ms. Plutowska said. “You cannot change the world from your couch, you know.”


Germany Defeats Austria to Advance

Abstract: Michael Ballack scored on a second-half free kick Monday to give Germany a 1-0 win over Austria in Vienna and a place in the quarterfinals of the European Championship. In a game marked by the ejection of both coaches before halftime, Ballack, his team’s captain, sent in a 25-yard shot in the 49th minute to advance Germany and end the hopes of Austria, its smaller neighbor. Germany finished Group B as the runner-up to Croatia and will face the 2004 runner-up Portugal in the quarterfinals on Thursday. Having been angered by several decisions against his team, including a yellow card to striker Erwin Hoffer for a late but minor challenge on Ballack, Austria’s Josef Hickersberger was ejected in the 41st minute. Germany’s Joachim Löw then stood toe-to-toe with a UEFA official before being ejected. “The coaches should be free to do whatever they want in the coaching zone,” Löw said in an interview with German television. “I said to the fourth official that Hickersberger and me have to be allowed to do our coaching.” The coaches shook hands before walking away, with whistles and jeers echoing around the stadium from bemused fans. CROATIA 1, POLAND 0 Ivan Klasnic, the first kidney transplant recipient to play at the European Championship, scored for Croatia in Klagenfurt, Austria. He scored in the 53rd minute off a cross by Danijel Pranjic. “I’m happy that I’m here at all,” Klasnic said. “As I said once, this is like a bonus from God. It’s like a dream. I thank God that I’m alive and that I can play football.” Croatia clinched first place in Group B and will play Turkey in the quarterfinals on Friday in Vienna. Croatia won all three group games for the first time in three tournament appearances. Poland was eliminated.


Neuroscientist Studying the Structure of Dog Brains

Abstract: At his Princeton laboratory, Samuel Wang is searching for basic information on how the brains of humans and dogs work. Dr. Wang, 42, an associate professor at the university, also spends time popularizing breakthroughs in his specialty — neuroscience. His book, “Welcome to Your Brain,” was named 2009 Young Adult Science Book of the Year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Next semester, he will offer a first for Princeton: an undergraduate course called “Neuroscience and Everyday Life.” Here is an edited version of a four-hour conversation. Q. YOU’RE ALMOST EVANGELICAL ABOUT YOUR WORK. WHY DID YOU BECOME A NEUROSCIENTIST? A. I was at Caltech in 1985, and I took a class in classical mechanics and another in introductory cell biology. And I remember asking this physics instructor about second order corrections in Lagrangian dynamics. He said, “Oh yes, that’s been thought of,” while spewing out a bunch of equations on the blackboard. I then asked my biology instructor a question about neurotransmission. He kind of smirked at me and said, “Nobody knows the answer to that.” That felt great! It was great to ask a basic question and learn the answer wasn’t known. So neuroscience seemed like the way to go. Q. AND NOW IS MORE KNOWN? A. Much more. In the 1980s, we knew some things about how individual neurons, synapses and the brain — or at least regions of it — worked. Today, we have the means to see how they work as a system, together. What has changed is advances in molecular biology, genetics and also technology. In the 1980s, the best tool for looking at neurocircuitry was to take a piece of removed tissue and look at single neurons. We now can see multiple neurons, and we can actually see how the cells talk to one another. Functional magnetic resonance imaging , F.M.R.I., lets you see what’s happening on the whole brain level. In the last three years, we’ve gotten connectomics, where people are taking a bit of tissue and mapping every connection in it. And there’s optogenetics — I’m doing a lot of that — where you express some fluorescent protein in some tissue that allows us to see individual cells and watch the change. The other day, I went to a psychology lecture and I could see how I could turn what I’d just heard into an experiment. This colleague was working on decision-making and he’d theorized that it is guided, in part, by the release of dopamine . So I told him, “We can make dopamine go up very suddenly in the neurocircuitry — we can emulate that little release of chemicals in the dish.” So that means it’s possible to work out these theoretical ideas in the lab. People 30 years ago in neuroscience were smart, but they didn’t have the instrumentation to test their ideas. That’s only become possible in the last 10 years. And it’s a very different feeling. Q. IS YOUR LAB DEVELOPING ANY OF THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY? A. Yes. We are developing ways to look into brain tissue while it is thinking. The tools are optical, like the microscopes I build to observe and manipulate synapse function. In my lab, we can tickle different parts of a circuit tens of thousands of times a second. That’s close to emulating real brain function. Q. YOU ARE STUDYING THE STRUCTURE OF DOG BRAINS. HOW DID THAT PROJECT BEGIN? A. My wife and I took our pet pug for spinal surgery. At the vet’s office, there were all these M.R.I.’s sitting around, hundreds of them, and it struck me: “Hey, dogs aren’t covered by Hipaa! Their records aren’t confidential!” It was like discovering a goldmine of data. We’ve since gotten all these veterinarians on Long Island and in Maryland to donate M.R.I.’s, and we have this huge database. We’re looking for relationships between dog brain size and dog breed characteristics. Australian sheep dogs and poodles can do fairly complex tasks. My pug, he’s very sweet, but he’s not the brightest. There’s actually a lot of scientific literature on breed characteristics, intelligence and temperament. So we check all these M.R.I.’s against these studies, and we’re trying to find structural correlates. This is a huge opportunity to look at the relationship between brain structure and behavior. We’re asking, Do we find a larger cortex — the part of the brain that’s involved in problem solving and intelligence — in those breeds that are good in problem solving? Or, Could we find a larger amygdala, which is related to emotional responses, in dogs that are known to be high strung or nasty? Q. ARE THERE IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMANS IN THIS? A. That’s not clear yet. Dogs are much more variable than we are. Dogs can vary by a factor of 60 in body mass and a factor of 3 in brain size. This kind of variation is not something you commonly run across in humans. Compared with dogs, we’re all alike. There’s no striking difference between Einstein’s brain compared to that of non-Einsteins. Q. YOU SAY THAT FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING HAS CHANGED BRAIN RESEARCH. DO YOU FIND THAT SOME RESEARCHERS ARE OVERINTERPRETING IT? A. For some, it’s the new phrenology. There was a piece in one of the newspapers where someone was claiming that he could tell the difference between a liberal and conservative from F.M.R.I. It made me want to scream. The study was done on very small numbers of people and told us next to nothing about the mental process underlying how we form political opinions. Q. WHEN YOU TELL PEOPLE YOU MEET AT PARTIES ABOUT YOUR WORK, WHAT DO THEY SAY? A. They are very interested. There’s a lot of fascination with neuroscience because the brain determines who we are. The problem is that they’ve got all these myths. The most common one is we only use 10 percent of our brain. This began with Dale Carnegie, the father of the self-help movement, but it’s completely untrue. The proof is that if any one part of the brain is damaged, there’s usually a serious symptom. If you’d cut out 5 percent, it would be terrible. The second thing they want to know is if doing Sudoku will help them maintain mental fitness. I have to tell them, no, but doing physical exercise might. Then, they want to know if playing Mozart to babies makes them smarter. I tell them that babies are very good at learning from their environment, but Mozart appreciation comes later. Q. GOING BACK TO YOUR YOUTHFUL DECISION TO ABANDON PHYSICS AND TAKE UP NEUROSCIENCE: ANY REGRETS? A. Never. My parents, who were immigrants, didn’t understand it at the time. My father’s proud of me now. But my mother really wanted me to be an M.D. Even after I got a Ph.D., she still wanted that. She once sent me a brochure about a medical school in the Caribbean where I could become an M.D. in a year. My mother died a few years ago. I cannot remember ever being able to adequately explain to her what I do. That has a little to do with why I wrote, “Welcome to Your Brain.” I wanted to show how neuroscience speaks to everyday life.

Wang Samuel
Brain
Dogs
Science and Technology


Speed Dating for Rabbits

Abstract: The matchmaker in the fur-flecked T-shirt got down to business. What about a white rabbit with pink eyes named Tonya? “She’s been on a couple of dates and she did well,” the matchmaker told the young couple. “But it’s been always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” The pair exchanged a quick glance. “I’m O.K. with it,” said the woman, Ashley Chui. The matchmaker, Amy Odum, disappeared down a hallway, returned with Tonya and set her on the artificial turf to explore the room. Then she took the couple’s rabbit, Moo, a male colored like a Holstein cow, and put him down nearby. Moo hopped tentatively toward Tonya, and another Sunday session of speed dating for rabbits was underway at the city animal shelter in East Harlem. Rabbits might seem the last species on earth that would require human-supervised dating. But this was not mating dating. This was something much trickier. Moo was looking for a roommate. Rabbits are social animals — creatures of the warren, snugglers in bunny piles. They don’t like to live alone. But rabbits in close quarters will not automatically bond. If they can’t work out which is dominant, said Ms. Odum, “they can fight like tigers.” So the Animal Care Centers of N.Y.C. shelter on East 110th Street invites rabbits and their owners to meet candidates for adoption in sessions usually run by Ms. Odum, 58, a longtime volunteer. Ms. Chui, 23, a graduate student, and her boyfriend, Arthur Chow, 23, a medical research technician, adopted Moo from the shelter in December. (Like all the shelter’s rabbits, he is neutered.) They sensed he was lonely. Last Sunday, they brought him in, hoping he would find, Mr. Chow said, “someone he can rely on.” The dating room was no-frills: windowless cinder block, a rectangle of turf, two litter boxes filled with hay, stacked cardboard boxes of dog leashes and cat collars in the corner. The rabbits had nothing to focus on but each other. Image Amy Odum, left, holds Tonya. Arthur Chow and Ashley Chui work long hours and wanted a companion for Moo, whom they adopted in December. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times Tonya sat in a litter box chewing a stalk of hay. Moo stretched, twitching a little, and sniffed her face. Tonya was motionless. Moo jumped back. “They’re both a little tense,” Ms. Odum said. The goal, Ms. Odum had said, is not any sort of magical chemistry. “What I’m looking for is peaceful coexistence,” she said. “We want acceptance of the other bunny in their space without any drama.” After a while, Tonya hopped over to Moo and gave him a little kiss. He jumped over her like the cow over the moon. They broke into a playful chase, stopped, sniffed each other’s faces. Then Moo approached Tonya and lowered his head. “That can be a submissive move,” Ms. Odum said. “On the other hand, it can be a demand by a superior to be groomed by a subordinate.” Moo kept his head low, then pushed it into Tonya’s side. “She’s making him beg — it’s pretty pitiful,” Ms. Odum said. Moo turned his back and made a show of washing his face. “Sometimes I think they’re faking it a little with the grooming,” Ms. Odum said. Still, Ms. Odum said, “this is a doable match.” She went off to get the next rabbit. Mr. Chow pronounced the process “nerve-racking.” “It’s kind of like life,” he said. “The guy chases the girl and the girl is, like, coy, and then she’ll give attention, and the guy is thinking, ‘Great, she’s paying attention to me!’ And then she’ll be coy again.” Image Moo, left, and Edie did not appear to hit it off right away. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times In came a big, black bunny named Bronx. Within a few minutes, Bronx mounted Moo — a power move, not a sexual one. He scooted away. “This is all right,” Ms. Odum said. “They do need to sort it out.” Mounting is a sensitive topic. “Sometimes the owner will get upset, think that it’s a bad thing that their rabbit is being mounted,” Ms. Odum said. “But that’s projecting human values on it.” It is not a bad thing to be the submissive as long as it’s consensual. “His reaction matters just as much as her actions.” Moo’s owners seemed a bit shaken. There are plenty of rabbits to choose from at the shelter these days — over 60, more than Ms. Odum said she had seen in 10 years of volunteering, possibly a side effect of a ban on selling rabbits in pet shops, which took effect last year. New rabbit owners often change their minds after learning how much work the animals are, Ms. Odum explained. Rabbits are fussy and messy. Despite their apparent cuddliness, many dislike being held. “They’re definitely high-maintenance pets,” she said. So people who got pet store rabbits in the last days of legality had only shelters to turn to when buyer’s remorse kicked in. Ms. Chui asked Ms. Odum to bring in Edie, a lionhead with crazy white tufts sprouting from her forehead and big black eye patches. She was adorable. Edie and Moo did not hit it off. Nor did they fight. They sat five feet apart, facing each other, glancing away, then turning back again. “I know it’s boring,” Ms. Odum said, “but it’s not a bad sign.” The pair began a halting ballet of approach and avoidance. Moo hid in the corner. Edie sniffed the wall. Moo stood on his hind legs and periscoped . Edie hopped very slowly toward him, then stopped. “This is more peaceful,” Ms. Chui said. She and Mr. Chow have been seeing each other for a year and a half. They’ve lived together since September. They are not engaged. Rabbits can live 10 years, and Moo is 2. Getting a rabbit is a long-term commitment. Image Bronx, left, was deemed too aggressive to be Moo’s roommate. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times “We just moved out here” — to Midtown East, from California, Ms. Chui explained — “so it’s a way to ——” “Well, we’d like to get married, soon,” Mr. Chow cut in. The last prospect, a chocolate beauty named Pika, spent much of the session doing “ binkies ” — spring-and-twist moves that signify rabbit joy . Moo seemed mystified. There was another round with the same rabbits, minus brash Bronx. Tonya and Moo seemed more at ease. He lowered his head and nudged her flank again. “If you gave him a little kiss, he’ll be yours for life,” Ms. Odum said. Tonya demurred. On Edie’s second pass, she and Moo had a long mutual face sniff. Mr. Chow pointed and smiled. “That’s good,” he said. Mr. Chow and Ms. Chui conferred briefly and announced their decision: Edie. Ms. Odum went off to fetch her. Why Edie? “As sad as it is to say, we kind of liked the way Edie looked better,” Mr. Chow said. “I don’t know about that,” Ms. Chui said. “Well, then, why did we decide on her?” Mr. Chow asked. “You decided,” Ms. Chui said. A beat. “I’m kidding.” In the end, they agreed that Edie’s personality also seemed the best fit. At the cages, Ms. Odum was a little disappointed: Tonya had been at the shelter since August, Edie less than a month. “I knew the minute they said they wanted to try Edie it would be her,” she said. “Tonya always does well, but there’s always a lop or a lionhead, some kind of exotic breed, and all other things being equal, no one wants a red-eyed white.” She comforted Tonya. “Hi, sweetie,” she said. “I keep trying. I know you want a friend.” Then she went to Edie’s cage. “There you go,” she said. “Pretty girls get all the breaks.” Ms. Odum gathered the fluffy rabbit in her arms. “You had a very strange day, and it’s going to get even stranger, but it’s going to be good,” she cooed. “Remember that handsome boy? Remember that handsome boy? You get to go home with him.”

Rabbit
Animal Care Centers of NYC
East Harlem
Pet


After Another Defeat, Mets Have a Lot to Talk About

Abstract: Jeff Wilpon, the chief operating officer of the Mets , was in the team clubhouse Friday afternoon and stopped by the office of Manager Willie Randolph a few hours before the Mets lost, 6-3, to the Atlanta Braves. Perhaps it was just a routine visit for Wilpon. But there was plenty to discuss both before and after the Mets fell to 11-11 by losing for the fifth time in their last six games. Among the possible topics: ¶The benching of first baseman Carlos Delgado, who was batting .198 but fell to .195 when he struck out as a pinch hitter in the ninth amid booing from the remnants of the crowd of 52,495; ¶The poor hitting of the entire team, which managed only two hits off five Braves pitchers; ¶One more infield error and two poor outfield plays after an unusual session of pregame infield practice ordered by Randolph; ¶The infected left thumb of the catcher Brian Schneider, who entered the hospital for treatment Thursday night and was expected to stay there until at least Sunday. Mike Pelfrey (2-1), the Mets’ starter, gave up five runs in five and a third innings. He walked four batters and said he regretted his performance. “The especially frustrating part is I had a 3-1 lead going into the fourth and I didn’t take advantage of it,” Pelfrey said. “I let the team down.” The winning pitcher was Atlanta’s Jair Jurrjens (3-2), who gave up only two hits in six innings but allowed three runs on three consecutive walks with the bases loaded in the third. “We had him on the ropes that inning,” the Mets’ David Wright said. “We couldn’t deliver the knockout blow.” Wright was hitless for the fifth consecutive game; he is 0 for 17 in that span. Pelfrey lasted until the top of the sixth, when he gave up a two-run home run to Kelly Johnson that gave the Braves a 5-3 lead. Johnson had two hits and drove in four runs. Despite the recent record, Randolph said: “No, I don’t think it’s a slump at all. Sometimes you sputter as a group. We’re kind of going through that a little bit.” After Johnson’s home run to right field, Martín Prado reached on a throwing error by shortstop José Reyes; Prado was the last batter Pelfrey faced. Pelfrey escaped what could have been serious damage in the first when he gave up three walks, a hit and a sacrifice bunt. But the Braves got only one run, on a single by Mark Teixeira. The Mets’ damage against Jurrjens came in the third. With two outs, Luis Castillo walked to load the bases and bring up Wright. After fouling off two pitches, Wright took four balls for a walk to drive in a run and tie the score. When Jurrjens reacted with annoyance in his body language, the home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, walked toward him. That brought Bobby Cox, the Braves’ manager, out of the dugout. After a few words, McClelland ejected Cox, who has been thrown out of more games than anyone in baseball history. It was the 136th ejection for Cox, but his first this season. In second place in baseball history is John McGraw, with 131 ejections as a player and manager, most of them while managing the New York Giants. The Mets increased the lead to 3-1 when two more walks — to Carlos Beltrán and Ryan Church — drove in two more runs. But the inning ended when Ángel Pagán was called out on strikes. The Braves cut the lead to 3-2 in the top of the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Johnson. Pagán caught the ball in left field but threw wide of home plate. Atlanta tied it, 3-3, in the fifth on consecutive two-out doubles by Brian McCann and Jeff Francoeur, the second a fly to the left-field wall that might have been caught by Pagán but was not. The Braves’ pitchers retired 11 consecutive hitters until Raul Casanova and Endy Chávez walked with one out in the seventh. But the inning ended when Reyes flied out to right field and Castillo fouled out to third. After the game, Wright fretted aloud about how the Mets need to change their momentum against good pitchers for the next two days. Tim Hudson pitches Saturday and John Smoltz on Sunday. Wright also noted that the Mets have come off a difficult trip of three cities in seven days. “We haven’t had a day off in a while,” Wright said. At least they will get a few extra hours to rest. The board near the exit door to the clubhouse announced that the players need not report to work until 11:30 a.m. for Saturday’s 1:10 p.m. start. But the message canceling batting practice could also have summed up Friday’s performance at the plate. “No hitting,” it said.


British Family Rebukes Government Over Surgeon’s Death in Syria

Abstract: LONDON — The mutually hostile governments in London and Damascus were locked in a fresh dispute on Wednesday over the death of a British surgeon in a Syrian prison earlier this week whose family has accused the British authorities of failing to protect him. Britain, which supports the rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, said the death of Dr. Abbas Khan, 32, on Monday in Damascus, the Syrian capital, was “in effect” a murder. In remarks broadcast later and on Wednesday, a senior Syrian official said an autopsy had proved that he committed suicide by hanging himself with his pajama bottoms in his cell after being served breakfast. Dr. Khan’s family rejected that version of events as “nonsense.” In interviews broadcast on Tuesday and Wednesday, the physician’s family accused the Foreign Office of failing to support Dr. Khan or to help obtain his release. “They have treated his case like he’s been some wayward traveler in Dubai being caught drunk, and contravened some trivial law in Syria,” said Shahnawaz Khan, a brother of the surgeon. On Wednesday, the Foreign Office said Syrian authorities had confirmed through diplomatic channels that Dr. Khan had died. Responsibility for his death, a statement said, lay with the government in Damascus and “we will be pressing for answers about what happened.” “We have consistently sought consular access to Dr. Khan and information on his detention, directly and through the Russians, Czechs and others,” the statement said, but those “requests have consistently been ignored.” Britain closed its embassy in Damascus last year and has no diplomatic or consular officials in Syria, officials said. The death was reported four days before the physician had been expected to fly home. His family and its supporters said Syrian leaders, including Mr. Assad, had approved his release. Faisal Mekdad, the Syrian deputy foreign minister, said Dr. Khan “committed suicide, that is exactly what happened.” In a broadcast interview, he expressed shock that, after being “very well and in good condition” when breakfast was taken to his him at 7 a.m. on Monday, Dr. Khan was later found hanged in his cell. The story of his detention began within days of his arrival in November 2012 in the contested northern city of Aleppo to help care for civilians wounded in the civil war. But only this week did efforts to secure his release seem to be nearing success, according to family members and others in the case, who said his mother, Fatima Khan, had spent four months in Damascus pressing for him to be freed. Another brother, Afroze Khan, said that the Syrian security agency had promised Dr. Khan would be allowed to return home to Britain this week, but that when his mother went to visit him on Monday, she was told he had died. “My brother was going to be released at the end of the week,” Mr. Khan told the BBC . “My brother knew that. He was ready to come back home. He was happy and looking forward to being released.” George Galloway, a maverick British lawmaker who had been acting as an intermediary for the family and who had been planning to travel to Damascus to escort Dr. Khan home, said the official Syrian version of events “doesn’t hold any water.” Hugh Robertson, a minister in the British Foreign Office, told the BBC on Tuesday that the surgeon’s death as described by his family would be extremely suspicious and “in effect” a murder. But, referring to his brother’s death, Shahnawaz Khan told reporters: “It is interesting for the Foreign Office to take that line now. We have been telling them for 13 months that this is a very real possibility.” “The fact is that this individual was out there helping the humanitarian effort and has been held for 13 months against his will without a charge or a trial or access to a lawyer, and they have offered very little assistance, placated us throughout,” he added. When his mother saw him in prison on an earlier occasion, the family said, he weighed around 70 pounds, could hardly walk and said he had been tortured. News of Dr. Khan’s death came as rights activists expressed new alarm over what they said were repeated Syrian military helicopter strikes in Aleppo, first reported on Sunday, in which crews dropped barrels filled with explosives and shrapnel onto rebel-held neighborhoods. Doctors Without Borders, the medical relief organization, added its concern on Tuesday, asserting in a statement that “despite inflicting widespread injuries and damage in civilian-populated areas, the indiscriminate and sustained attacks continued today.” The statement said that more than 100 people had been killed and that “the influx of injured people has overwhelmed the remaining functioning hospitals in Aleppo, leaving them with little to no resources.” Syria’s official news agency, SANA, said nothing about such attacks in its account of fighting in Aleppo on Tuesday, asserting instead that at least seven civilians had been killed by rocket shells and mortar rounds fired by terrorists, the government’s generic term for armed insurgents. The civil war, now in its third winter, has been particularly perilous for health professionals. In September, the United Nations reported that hospitals, medical personnel and transportation vehicles had been targeted, calling it “one of the most alarming features of the Syrian conflict.” By some estimates, more than 100 doctors have been killed and up to 600 have been jailed. Dr. Khan went to Syria as its health system was collapsing. In London, he had worked at the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital, a leading medical institution. British news reports said he had traveled without a visa. The Syrian authorities have been profoundly suspicious of foreigners, including several hundred Britons, who have traveled clandestinely to Syria to fight with jihadist groups against Mr. Assad’s forces. Dr. Khan’s family has denied that he had rebel sympathies. In neighboring Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on Tuesday, a car bomb was detonated at a military post of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia that has aligned itself with Mr. Assad and has sent fighters into Syria to battle the rebels. A Lebanese law enforcement official said that the car had contained more than 100 pounds of explosives, and Lebanon’s National News Agency said there had been an unspecified number of casualties. Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria has heightened political and sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where the population is sharply divided between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government.

Syria
Great Britain
Arab Spring
Bashar al-Assad
International relations
Abbas Khan


Daniel Hendrix of Interface Inc., on Work-Life Balance

Abstract: This interview with Daniel T. Hendrix, president and C.E.O. of Interface Inc., a designer and maker of carpet tile, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant . Q. What were some early leadership roles for you? A. I would say that my first real leadership role was with sports in high school. I was the quarterback on the football team, I played basketball and I pitched on the baseball team. I would say that one of the better foundations to be a leader is to play organized sports. Q. And in your college years? A. When I went to college, I was a phys ed major. My father kept saying: “You’re not going to make any money. Why are you majoring in phys ed?” So I changed to accounting in my last quarter, and it took me about two years to get an accounting degree. I got my first real job when I went into public accounting with a major accounting firm. That’s when I met Ray Anderson, the founder of Interface . In fact, the company was my first client, and it was still a very small company. I joined it at the age of 27. Within a year and a half, I was the C.F.O., and Ray would dump as much responsibility on me as he could. I think I was running customer service, planning, human resources, I.T., financial accounting, treasury, and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. That’s when I learned a lot about business. I was in way over my head, but I thought I had to be the smartest guy in the room. I was dealing with a lot of bankers because we did a lot of public deals and were trying to finance acquisitions and so forth. I thought I could outwork anybody. I was working 24/7 and really had two jobs: C.F.O. during the day, then an investment banker at night, in effect, doing acquisitions and deals. Delegation wasn’t really part of the equation because I was afraid that if I gave it to somebody, they would fail and then I would fail. The company brought in a president above me who was really charismatic and dynamic. One day he was in the office on a Sunday and he said: “Every time I’m in here on Sunday, you’re in here working. I’m not impressed by somebody who can’t get their job done in five days. I’m really not. It’s about balance.” And I had two young kids. He said, “Go out and hire some people and have a life.” So I started hiring people, developing people, building a team, and I learned that you have to delegate, have to have accountability and have to make sure that people have the tools to do the job. Then you check in — you ask what’s going on. Image Daniel T. Hendrix is president and C.E.O. of Interface Inc., a designer and maker of carpet tile based in Atlanta. Credit Librado Romero/The New York Times Q. Obviously that Sunday conversation had a big impression on you. A. Big impression. His message really resonated: you’re going to burn out if you keep doing this. Q. What is your company doing in terms of innovation? A. You have to keep reinventing yourself in this world. Everybody is a fast follower and so you’ve got to find a way to create an innovation environment. It’s all around collaboration. It’s all around engaging the shop floor all the way up to the top. You have to fund, fuel, encourage collaboration and engagement to get innovation, and you’ve got to go inside and outside to do that. Q. So how do you do that? A. We developed something called the Innovation Farm. It’s a platform where everybody can participate within the organization, and you can also go outside with it. So you pose questions: How would you solve this problem? And everybody gets engaged in how you might solve it. Or you just ask an open question: What do we need from an innovation standpoint? Then people vote, and the best ideas surface over time as people vote and start tweeting and talking about that idea. It got our people engaged in this whole open-architecture structure. And we really tried to get out of the box. We didn’t want a closed architecture, because I think we had one to some extent. We wanted to create an open-architecture structure for anybody in the company, and even outside. So we’re going to post questions on the Web. “How would you solve this problem?” Then, if you get something that’s really interesting, you close off the conversation and discuss it further in a smaller forum. Q. Let’s shift to hiring. What are you looking for? A. The thing I want to know is whether they are a cultural fit. To do that, we’ve got to talk about their personal experiences, their family. I’m always trying to figure out how much balance they have. What are their real career aspirations? Are they smarter than me? That’s a big thing. I like to hire people who are smarter than me, and I like diversity. I like somebody who can think differently. And do they get the idea of servant leadership? I think the biggest misfits for us are people who won’t put the company and the vision ahead of their career. If they’re not of that mind-set, they won’t fit with us. One of the things I look for is hard to find, but when you find this person, they’re gold — it’s a person who can see in three dimensions. Q. Can you elaborate on what that means? A. When you ask them a question or give them a project, they come back and give you a lot more than what you asked them for. They give you a lot more questions to the question that you asked them, and they see something that’s a lot different in the third dimension. Then there are the people who are just sort of linear, and you ask them to solve a problem and they give you the obvious answer and say, “Here’s the answer to the problem.” But I look for that person who thinks on a different level. As I said, it’s hard to get at that in an interview — I haven’t figured out a way to do that reliably yet — but when you find that person, and I’ve found a few in my career, they are gold. They are the people whom you really want to keep and build your company around. They see implications, they see around corners, they see other possibilities. They’ll come up with a different way to think about the problem, a different solution to the problem.

Management
Work-Life Balance
Interface
Job Recruiting and Hiring
Daniel T Hendrix