Burger King Introducing a Lower-Fat French Fry

Abstract: While French fries are a staple of the fast-food burger business, they have long been vilified by nutrition experts as little more than vehicles for adding fat, salt and calories to diets. Now Burger King has come up with a fry that it says delivers about 40 percent less fat and 30 percent fewer calories than the fries sold by its archenemy McDonald’s. Burger King says that 70 grams of its new fries, named Satisfries, has 150 calories, while the same amount of McDonald’s fries has 226 calories. “You live in Manhattan and might be having a kale smoothie on your way to work this morning,” said Eric Hirschhorn, chief marketing officer for Burger King, the nation’s No. 3 hamburger chain after McDonald’s and Wendy’s. “But a lot of people don’t even know what kale is, and if they do, they don’t want to eat it. You have to give people what they want.” Burger King, which has struggled as a series of owners traded it like a baseball card, was late to try to improve the nutritional quality of its food. But under its newest owner, the private equity group 3G Capital, the chain has invested time and money in retooling its menu over the last two years, adding choices like cranberry apple salads and mango smoothies and taking one of two slices of cheese off its burgers in the biggest changes to its menu since opening in 1954. Image Burger King was late to try to improve the nutritional quality of its food, but has invested time and money in retooling its menu over the last two years. Credit Burger King “Behavior doesn’t change as quick as attitudes,” Mr. Hirschhorn said. “It’s easy to put things on a menu and check off the box, but the reality is that nobody buys them.” Roughly a decade ago, McDonald’s began using a soy-corn blend of fats instead of beef tallow to cook its fries in an effort to reduce saturated fats. . More than 100 million customers eat in a Burger King store each month, and 56 million of them order fries. While the chain had made minor adjustments, offering healthier sweet potato fries and curly fries, nothing matched the scale of reinventing the fries. French fries served in fast-food settings are coated with a thin batter that seals in flavor and moisture and enhances exterior crunch. Burger King spent the last two years working with McCain Foods , its French fry supplier, to develop a batter that was less porous and would therefore absorb less fat in the frying process. The new fries will be crinkled, so that Burger King staff can distinguish them from their full-fat cousins, which will continue to be sold. The chain’s meals for children will offer them at no extra charge, but Burger King is recommending that its franchisees add 20 cents to 30 cents to the price for adults. “On its own, this may seem like a small step,” Mr. Hirschhorn said. “But we think it can add up to something big.”

Burger King
French fries
Nutrition
Calories
Fast food


Florida: Memorial Tribute Closes Mall

Abstract: No charges will be filed against a grieving man who sprinkled some of his dead fiancée’s ashes near an eyewear store, causing a Sarasota mall to be evacuated and shut down for two hours, the police said. Lt. Pat Ledwith said that the man on Tuesday sprinkled some of the ashes in places that were special to the couple, apparently including a LensCrafters in the Westfield Southgate Mall. To store workers and passers-by, it was unclear what the white powdery substance was. Police and hazmat crews responded. The police say the mall and the Sarasota Fire Department could seek to recover costs from the man, who was not named.


Iran Shows What It Says Is Murder Confession

Abstract: TEHRAN — Iranian state television has broadcast what it portrayed as a murder confession by a woman who had been sentenced to death by stoning on adultery charges, in an unusual effort to deflect criticism of a case that has drawn international protests and an offer of asylum from the president of Brazil. The woman’s videotaped statement, broadcast Wednesday night , was part of an extraordinary prime-time program — including interviews with a prosecutor and the woman’s friends and family — that suggested that the international uproar had put Iranian officials on the defensive, and left them struggling to defend their case for both domestic and international audiences. The British government on Thursday condemned the video, saying Iran appeared to be inventing new murder charges against the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, to justify her execution. Amnesty International and other human rights groups compared the videotaped statement to forced confessions made by Iranian political dissidents, who in some cases recanted afterward and said they had confessed under torture. Lawyers for Ms. Ashtiani said that she had agreed to the interview only after being tortured in prison, and that her family members had been put under great pressure. She was convicted of adultery in 2006, but the murder accusation was disclosed only last week — after her case drew international condemnation — in an apparent effort to suggest that she was guilty of a more serious crime. The Iranian authorities also lifted the stoning sentence, and there were signs she would be executed by hanging instead. Ms. Ashtiani, 43, did not confess to murder in the video. Instead, sitting in a chair and clutching a piece of paper in her left hand, she told an interviewer with a microphone how a man had “tricked me with his words” and then killed her husband by electrocuting him. She spoke in Azeri, with a Persian-language voice-over, and her face was deliberately blurred in an oddly incongruous effort to protect her identity. A subtitle introduced her as “S. A.,” with the words “The case of murder tainted with immorality.” After Ms. Ashtiani’s statement, a white-turbaned cleric identified as the lead prosecutor in East Azerbaijan, the area in northwest Iran where the trial took place, appeared and said Ms. Ashtiani had injected her husband “with an anesthetic shot, which made him unconscious.” “Then the killer himself attached two electrical wires to his neck and killed him,” the cleric continued. “They had prepared the scene of the murder by sending their children to another location.” Javid Kian, a lawyer for Ms. Ashtiani, confirmed the authenticity of the video in a telephone conversation and said she had suffered “insults and degradation and physical torture in order to force her to read the notes they gave her for the television interview.” Mr. Kian said he had been summoned to appear on Saturday for interrogation by the Iranian authorities. Another lawyer for Ms. Ashtiani, Mohammad Mostafaei, fled Iran this month after his office was ransacked and members of his family were arrested, and he is now seeking asylum in Norway. Mr. Mostafaei has taken on dozens of controversial cases, and has urged Iran’s judiciary to ban stoning, juvenile executions and the imprisonment of political dissidents. In her videotaped statement, Ms. Ashtiani criticized Mr. Mostafaei for publicizing her case. “Why did he put my case on television?” she said. “Why did he shame me and ruin my reputation?” Since the disputed presidential election last year, the Iranian authorities have cracked down on lawyers who take on human rights cases. Earlier this month a hard-line cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, said lawyers must not take on cases that are not deemed proper by the Islamic republic. Ms. Ashtiani’s case has drawn criticism from human rights groups worldwide, and an online petition for her release has drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures and the support of celebrities including Peter Gabriel and Gwyneth Paltrow. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton mentioned Ms. Ashtiani this week in a call for Iran to release political prisoners. Later in the program broadcast on Wednesday, a narrator asked: “So what is the real reason for all this outcry over Ms. S. A.? Is it that British, Israeli and American officials and media organizations, including Ms. Clinton, are so concerned about her well-being that they cry out about human rights in Iran? Of course, the debate about human rights has always been used as an instrument of pressure against Iran by Western officials and media.” The narrator also suggested that the campaign might be an indirect effort to obtain the release of three American hikers who were arrested on the Iranian border last summer and have since been in prison facing espionage charges. Perhaps more significant, for Iranian officials, was the offer last month by the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to grant asylum to Ms. Ashtiani. Brazil is an important ally for Iran, and took part, with Turkey, in a recent effort to solve the impasse over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Iranian officials rejected the Brazilian offer of asylum and suggested that Mr. da Silva was unaware of the facts of Ms. Ashtiani’s case. Some analysts suggested that Ms. Ashtiani’s videotape underscored the tensions within Iran’s government between the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his rival, Sadeq Larijani, the judiciary chief who ultimately controls Ms. Ashtiani’s case. Mr. da Silva had suggested that his offer to grant asylum to Ms. Ashtiani would be a test of his friendship with the Iranian president. In that context, the videotaped statement could be an effort by Mr. Larijani to embarrass Mr. Ahmadinejad by suggesting to the Brazilians that “Ahmadinejad is either unwilling or incapable of delivering,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The videotape could also be an effort to blacken the reputation of Mr. Mostafaei, a well-known lawyer who has spoken out extensively against the Iranian government since his flight from Iran. “The government wants to pre-empt anything Mostafaei will say about other cases he has been involved in,” said Mojtaba Vahedi Bodala, a reformist political figure and former newspaper editor who is now living in the United States.

Iran
Adultery
Ashtiani Sakineh Mohammadi
Freedom and Human Rights
Murders and Attempted Murders
Confessions
Politics and Government


Jim Greer of Fla. G.O.P. Pleads Guilty to Theft

Abstract: MIAMI — Averting a prolonged and heated political drama, Jim Greer, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, walked into an Orlando courtroom on Monday and pleaded guilty to grand theft and money laundering charges. Mr. Greer, 50, who was known for bombast and loyalty to former Gov. Charlie Crist, entered a plea with the single word “guilty.” He did so without a plea agreement, the prosecutor in the case said. Mr. Greer is expected to face some prison time, although it is unclear how much. Sentencing will take place on March 27. “Sometimes, clearing your name is not as important as taking care of your family,” Damon Chase, Mr. Greer’s lawyer, said in a statement. “The facts were on our side, and the truth would have come out in the trial. Greer’s name would have been cleared.” Attempts at reaching a plea bargain stalled in recent months, and on Monday, faced with the possibility of decades in prison, Mr. Greer decided to cut his losses. The state dropped a fraud charge against him. Image Jim Greer pleaded guilty to grand theft and money laundering charges on Monday. Credit Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press The former chairman was indicted in 2010 on charges that he helped create a shell fund-raising company and steered $125,000 in party money into his personal bank accounts. Delmar Johnson, the man who helped Mr. Greer create the company, had agreed to testify against him in exchange for immunity. Mr. Greer’s indictment and his tenure as chairman proved deeply embarrassing to the Republican Party, which accused him of spending too freely on luxuries. But the case also highlighted the spendthrift habits of other Florida Republican leaders. Mr. Greer blamed his tumble from power on an attempt by Republican leaders to exile him because of his support of Mr. Crist during the governor’s 2010 Senate race against Marco Rubio. Mr. Greer, a political outsider who was appointed chairman by Mr. Crist, caused a furor in the party by taking sides. In the end, even Mr. Crist disassociated himself from Mr. Greer, saying he knew nothing about the fund-raising company or about Mr. Greer’s personal claim on portions of the donations. The trial was expected to feature several top Republican leaders and Mr. Crist, who is now a Democrat, as witnesses. The State Republican Party took delight in Monday’s plea, issuing a statement: “The truth is now known that Jim Greer broke the law,” stole from the party and donors, “and then said and did everything he could to cover up and distract attention from his crimes.”

Jim Greer
Decisions and Verdicts
Republicans
Florida
Money laundering
Robbery


Dartmouth Cites Student Misconduct in Its Ban on Hard Liquor

Abstract: With colleges under growing pressure to reduce alcohol-soaked student misbehavior, Dartmouth College said Thursday that it would ban hard liquor on campus, going beyond the changes that all but a few of its peers have been willing to make. Dartmouth has had a string of embarrassments involving binge drinking, and it has hardly been alone. The sexual assaults, fraternity hazing and hospitalizations that have rocked campuses around the nation have often involved extreme intoxication, like the case of the former Vanderbilt football players convicted this week of raping an unconscious woman, or that of a Stanford swimmer accused of rape this week. But if Dartmouth is drawing a line in the sand, it will have little company on its side. Many campuses, most of them with religious affiliations, have long been completely dry, but only a handful of colleges and universities that once allowed hard liquor have tried to ban it. Despite Dartmouth’s prominence as a member of the Ivy League, experts say not to expect many institutions, if any, to follow its lead. “I think you’re going to continue to see smaller efforts to step up enforcement, but not a lot of big statements like this,” said Kevin Kruger, the president of Naspa , a national association of student affairs professionals in Washington. He expressed some skepticism about the new policy, saying that while hard alcohol played a particularly destructive role, the root of the issue was that for a majority of college students, “they’re under 21 and it’s illegal to drink, period.” Philip J. Hanlon, the president of Dartmouth, has warned of the damage done to the college and its reputation by serial misconduct, and on Thursday, he announced a far-ranging overhaul of campus life. It is possible, he said, that individual fraternities, or even the Greek system as a whole, will be banished. But it was a new rule that was not proposed as hypothetical — the prohibition on hard alcohol in the spring — that drew the most attention and most sharply divided opinions on campus. Jake G. Rascoff, a senior, said there was no denying that abuse of hard alcohol posed a serious problem, but that banning it would be ineffectual. “It will increase the incidence of surreptitious binge drinking and increase the risk of binge drinking off campus, which will lead to drunk driving,” said Mr. Rascoff, who is an executive editor of The Dartmouth Review. If the college is to ban hard liquor, he said, it should ease limits on the amount of beer and wine at fraternity parties and relax penalties for violating alcohol rules. But Chester Brown, a senior who is president of the Beta Alpha Omega fraternity, said that while “the ban will create a pretty significant shift in the way that we operate,” and many will object, on balance he favored it. “It’s important to recognize that the alternative here is abolition of the Greek system,” he said. In recent years, a small number of colleges, including Bowdoin, Bates and Colby, have adopted hard-alcohol bans similar to Dartmouth’s. (At the University of Mississippi’s main campus, the situation is reversed because of local laws: Beer is forbidden, but not stronger drinks.) A somewhat larger number, including Stanford, Colgate and Swarthmore, have banned hard liquor in certain places and at certain kinds of events. Brown University last week announced a review of its alcohol policy, prompted by reports of sexual assaults at two fraternity parties. The university banned one fraternity from campus for four years and placed the other on probation. But the rules about alcohol are just one factor in a college’s atmosphere and reputation. Pennsylvania State University has a fairly strict alcohol policy, including a prohibition in residence halls, yet it is routinely rated as one of the most raucous party schools in the country. Some universities have strong policies but lax enforcement, and at many of them, fraternities own their houses and the land beneath them, putting them out of reach of college policy. Image Philip J. Hanlon, the president of Dartmouth College, announced on Thursday that “hard alcohol will not be served at events open to the public, whether the event is sponsored by the college or by student organizations.” Credit Cheryl Senter for The New York Times At Dartmouth, some fraternity houses are on college property and some are not, but officials say all of the operating agreements allow the college to set down rules on alcohol. Geography may offer Dartmouth another advantage. The college’s isolation in west-central New Hampshire means there are few nearby options for off-campus imbibing, and its hometown, Hanover, has a reputation for serious enforcement. Enforcement is a challenge anywhere, said Mr. Kruger of Naspa, but “on an urban campus, it’s impossible.” The measures Dr. Hanlon announced Thursday in a speech on campus had been expected and were based largely on the work of a panel he created nine months ago to review campus life. As of March 30, when the spring term begins, Dartmouth will prohibit any liquor on campus that is 15 percent alcohol — barely more than most wine — or more. Dr. Hanlon said the college would increase penalties for providing alcohol to minors, but the details of that, and the penalties for violating the hard-liquor ban, remain to be worked out. College officials cited the prevalence of “pregaming,” getting drunk before a party, and conceded that cracking down on such private drinking would be harder than policing parties. Dartmouth will draft codes of conduct, not only for individual students but also for fraternities and other groups. Dr. Hanlon said that he was not inclined to get rid of Greek organizations, but that they “must and will be held to much higher standards and a far greater level of accountability.” “Organizations that choose not to fulfill these higher standards will not be a part of our community,” he said. “And if the Greek system as a whole does not engage in meaningful, lasting reform, we will revisit its continuation on our campus.” Greek houses dominate Dartmouth’s social scene. More than half of its students join fraternities and sororities, and other sites for gatherings are limited. Dr. Hanlon said the college would build new spaces for social events, providing an alternative. He praised the Greek system for the steps it has recently taken — like ending the pledge period in which members are admitted on a probationary basis, which critics say amounts to an invitation to hazing, and requiring each fraternity or sorority house to have active faculty advisers of both sexes. Dr. Hanlon said those changes were now college policy. Starting in the fall, incoming Dartmouth students will be placed in one of six clusters of dormitories and will stay in their assigned clusters through their college years. Each “residential community” will organize social events and will have some resident faculty members and graduate students. The system, much like those used at Yale, Harvard and elsewhere, is an attempt to foster communal ties. “I loved the residential life proposals,” said Catherine Donahoe, the social chairwoman of Dartmouth’s Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority. But, like other students, she had conflicting views on hard alcohol, saying that it posed a problem but that she feared a ban would drive it underground. “If I were to design the policy, it’d be pushing alcohol into the open so that it’s as visible as possible,” she said.

College
Alcohol abuse
Dartmouth
Fraternities,Sororites
Alcohol
Philip J Hanlon
Hazing
Rape


Samsung Case Puts Apple Closer to Google Fight

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Steven P. Jobs minced no words when talking about Android , Google ’s mobile operating system, which he saw as too similar to the iPhone ’s. He told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that Android was “a stolen product” and said, “I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.” But so far Apple has not gone to war with Google, at least not directly. Instead, Apple has sued the cellphone makers that use Android in their products — like Samsung, which was hit with a claim of more than $1 billion in damages on Friday when a jury found that it had infringed on some of Apple’s patents. Now, though, the war is drawing closer to Google’s doorstep. Google is increasingly making its own hardware, thanks in part to its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, or playing an integral part in designing it, as it did with the Nexus 7 tablet. And the jury in the Samsung trial found that features built into Android, and not just features added by Samsung, violated Apple patents — potentially forcing Google to adjust its software. “Apple’s desire is to be able to put Google on that hot seat, but they need a path to actually be able to do that, and so far all they’ve seen is a way to go after actual hardware makers,” said Charles S. Golvin, a mobile industry analyst at Forrester. Google could end up more squarely in Apple’s sights if it doesn’t take precautions, Mr. Golvin said. “What it means for the Android folks is a very careful review, back to the drawing board, including a close examination of Apple’s stable of patents to weed out anything that looks risky in terms of violating the Apple portfolio,” he said. Apple and Microsoft have both sued phone makers in large part because it is far easier to calculate the damages those companies could owe from the sale of patent-infringing phones. Unlike Apple, which makes both iPhone software and hardware, Google makes Android software but leaves the manufacturing of phones and the customization of specific Android features to other companies, like Samsung, HTC and Motorola. (Though Google now owns Motorola, it has said it will work no more closely with Motorola than with the other hardware companies when it comes to making Android phones.) And Google gives the Android software to manufacturers at no charge. Instead, it makes money on Android indirectly, by selling mobile ads, along with apps and media in its Google Play store. It would be difficult for Apple to prove that Google is benefiting financially from patent infringement, or that Google, and not the hardware manufacturers, is directly responsible for potential damages caused to Apple, said Robert P. Merges, faculty director of the Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. That could change as Google makes or designs more products itself. If Apple really went after Google, Mr. Merges said, it could end up hurting its own products. The iPhone includes a Google search bar in its Safari browser, and Google offers some popular apps, like one for Gmail, in Apple’s App Store. A direct attack could compel Google to remove such features from the iPhone and make it a less attractive product to consumers, he said. That kind of relationship has not stopped Apple in the past, though. Samsung, for instance, is a major supplier to Apple of iPhone parts like chips and screens. Google has also foreshadowed that it has grounds to countersue Apple, much as companies like Samsung have done. Google has patents on several important iPhone features like maps and search, for instance. “Even though you are at war with these guys on one front, you want to try to maintain strategic peace in other areas if you can,” Mr. Merges said. Still, peace between Google and Apple is looking shakier by the day. Lawyers from Google have been working closely with those from hardware manufacturers, including Samsung, to defend against Apple, according to two people with knowledge of Google’s legal tactics. Several features that Apple said Samsung’s devices had infringed are built into Android , like a way to distinguish between one-finger scrolling and two-finger gestures. Another, the rubber band effect, when the screen bounces to indicate reaching the top or bottom, was part of Android until recently. According to a person briefed on Google’s Android design plans, Google removed the effect for design reasons, not in response to patent litigation. “Most of these patent claims don’t relate to the core Android operating system,” Google said in a statement on Monday. “The mobile industry is moving fast and all players, including newcomers, are building upon ideas that have been around for decades.” Google declined to comment on whether it would make changes to Android. But when it comes to features like tapping to zoom, it may have to “design around” Apple’s patents and safeguard itself and its hardware partners, said Robert Barr, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and former patent counsel for Cisco Systems. Google set itself up as a target earlier this year when it acquired Motorola Mobility, an Android phone maker with which Apple has been locked in a multiyear legal battle over smartphone patents. A federal judge in June dismissed a lawsuit between Apple and Motorola. Earlier this month, Motorola filed a new suit against Apple with the International Trade Commission. Still, owning Motorola also armed Google with its own arsenal of mobile-related patents, so a fight between Apple and Motorola could result in a settlement in which the two companies agreed to license each other’s patents, Mr. Barr said. The Samsung conflict is likely to linger. Samsung has said it will ask the judge in the case to overturn the jury’s verdict and, if that fails, will file an appeal with a higher court. Apple on Monday asked a federal judge to block the sale of eight Samsung smartphones. But the chance that Samsung will have to take those phones off store shelves soon is slim, because of the likelihood that such an action could be delayed, pending appeals by Samsung.

Google Inc
Apple Inc
Samsung Group
Android (Operating System)
iPhone
Smartphones
Suits and Litigation
Inventions and Patents


Rome’s Start to Architectural Hubris

Abstract: Granted that Rome was not built in a day, the unresolved question among scholars has been just how long did it take. How early, before Julius Caesar came, saw and conquered, did Romans begin adopting a monumental architecture reflecting the grandeur of their ambitions? Most historians agree that early Rome had nothing to compare to the sublime temples of Greece and was not a particularly splendid city, like Alexandria in Egypt. Any definitive insight into the formative stages of Roman architectural hubris lies irretrievable beneath layers of the city’s repeated renovations through the time of caesars, popes and the Renaissance. The most imposing ruin of the early Roman imperial period is the Colosseum , erected in the first century A.D. Now, at excavations 11 miles east of Rome’s city center, archaeologists think they are catching a glimpse of Roman tastes in monumental architecture much earlier than previously thought, about 300 years before the Colosseum. They have uncovered ruins of a vast complex of stone walls and terraces connected by a grand stairway and surrounded by many rooms, a showcase of wealth and power spread over an area more than half the size of a football field. They say this was most likely the remains of a public building in the heyday of the city-state Gabii , or possibly an exceptionally lavish private residence. The discovery was made last summer by a team of archaeologists and students led by Nicola Terrenato , a professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan and a native of Rome. At the end of this summer’s dig season, Dr. Terrenato said last week in a telephone interview from Rome, about two-thirds of the complex had been exposed and studied to “tell us more about how the Romans were building at that formative stage” — between 350 B.C. and 250 B.C. Dr. Terrenato noted that the findings appeared to contradict the image of early Roman culture, perpetuated by notables like Cato the Elder and Cicero, “as being very modest and inconspicuous.” It was said that this did not change until soldiers returned from the conquest of Greece in the second century B.C., their heads having been turned by Greek refinements and luxuries. Image “Now we see the Romans were already thinking big,” he said. The Gabii dig site is a gift to archaeologists. Not only was the city close to Rome, with many ties, but most of its ruins were buried and never built over after the city’s decline in the second and third centuries A.D. The building complex is on undeveloped land in modern-day Lazio. At the time, Rome had surpassed Gabii in size, but some historians think the neighboring city could have exerted an influence on the Romans. Previous excavations by the Michigan group, beginning in 2007, had uncovered a significant part of the city, including private houses, wealthy burials, city walls and a temple. Of possibly more importance, Dr. Terrenato suggested, the recent research shows that people were practicing some degree of urban planning at Gabii. Scholars of ancient history and other archaeologists were either unfamiliar with the Gabii findings or cautious in their comments. Richard J. A. Talbert , a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and scholar of ancient geography in the Mediterranean world, visited the Gabii excavations last year. Dr. Talbert noted that in later Roman tradition, Gabii was seen as “a source of ideas and culture.” But he added, “We really don’t have enough evidence yet to say how influential Gabii was on Rome in these early periods.” Christopher Ratté , the director of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at Michigan, said the excavation was part of a concentrated examination of the social environment in central Italy before the rise of Rome as a world power. “It has been quite a surprise,” he said, “to find that it was still possible to break new ground like this in a region that has been so well researched.” The Gabii Project, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and in collaboration with the Italian Archaeological Service, had explored and mapped the more than 170 acres of the ancient city, which was built on the slopes of an extinct volcano where the crater had become a lake. Then the archaeologists encountered the elaborate building complex. Dr. Terrenato said he was immediately struck by the size of the stone blocks in the retaining wall on the slope inside the complex. Each one weighed thousands of pounds. “This was like Lego construction,” he said. “They were stacked one on top of each other without any glue binding them together. This is the only technique they had access to, and it must have been the desire for this kind of grand construction that drove them to the invention of mortar about 125 years later.” The researchers also admired some of the architectural details: rows of stone pillars, courtyards and terraces covered in mosaic tiles in geometric patterns, a 21-step staircase cut into bedrock. They said this showed that the people were beginning to experiment with modifying their natural environments — cutting back the natural slope and creating a retaining wall. “All this only whetted our appetites,” Dr. Terrenato said as he looked ahead to next summer’s continued excavations and a hoped-for extension of the project beyond 2014.

Archaeology
Architecture
Rome
Roman Civilization


Sexual Harassment Suit Against Roger Ailes Stays in New Jersey

Abstract: Lawyers for the former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes have agreed to keep the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by the former anchor Gretchen Carlson in New Jersey, according to a court filing on Monday. Mr. Ailes’s lawyers had previously tried to move the case out of federal court in New Jersey and into Manhattan. Nancy Erika Smith, a lawyer for Ms. Carlson, accused Mr. Ailes’s lawyers of “judge shopping.” With the jurisdiction settled, it will be up to the New Jersey federal court to decide whether the case will go to trial or to arbitration. Mr. Ailes’s lawyers have said that the dispute has to be settled in arbitration because of a clause in Ms. Carlson’s contract; Ms. Carlson’s lawyers have argued that her arbitration clause did not explicitly mention Mr. Ailes. She named Mr. Ailes in the lawsuit, and not Fox News. In the month since Ms. Carlson filed her lawsuit, many other women have accused Mr. Ailes of harassment, including the Fox anchor Andrea Tantaros, according to a report in New York magazine published on Monday. Mr. Ailes, who has denied the accusations, resigned as the Fox News chairman on July 21.

Roger E Ailes
Gretchen Carlson
Fox News Channel
Sexual harassment
Lawsuits
New Jersey


All-Ages Appeal of BMX Racing Allows Families to Participate Together

Abstract: SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — Kaden Kent stood on his pedals, his bicycle’s front wheel pressed against a low steel gate. He squinted with intensity. Close on his right was a hulking teenager. On his left was a man in his 50s. A voice boomed out: “O.K., riders, let’s set them up. On the gate. Riders ready. Watch the light.” A green light flashed on, and the gate fell flat with a clang. The riders pedaled madly down a steep start to the first brown dirt jump, 50 feet away. As the older man passed Kaden without looking back, he yelled, “Pedal harder!” Kaden is 4. The older man, Matt Spencer, was his grandfather. And this was their regular Tuesday night practice here at the RAD Canyon BMX track. BMX, or bicycle motocross, is the only action sport in which family members can practice together and compete in sanctioned events in their own age groups on the same course. Riders race in motos, or heats, of up to eight competitors classified by age and skill level. During events, spectator areas bubble with movement and noise as parents cheer during a child’s moto, then head out to ride in their own. Extended families sometimes occupy entire sections of bleachers, with everyone racing. At the Utah State Championships in early September, Tana Christensen cheered on her husband, her 10-year-old son and her 5-year-old daughter. Then she wheeled to the start to compete against her sister, Tara Miller, whose own 6-year-old son was also racing. “My daughter loves it; I think she’s going to stick with it,” Christensen said, as she eyed her sister’s first-place trophy with a wry grin while holding her own second-place award. Across the country, BMX is truly a family affair — even for toddlers. At many races, the first moto is called the Big Wheels, and it is for 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds who pedal down the last straightaway on mini-BMX bikes — not the colorful plastic tricycles. Some have training wheels on their bikes, and some are pushed over the jumps by parents or siblings. It is a swiftly growing category. At the most recent Thursday night races at RAD Canyon, Big Wheels was the largest age group, with 20 competitors. After these riders hone their abilities on the last straightaway, they can begin racing out of the start in the 5-and-under category. “There’s no age limit of who can race,” said Ron Melton, the track owner. “As long as they can make it around the track, they can race out of the gate.” Although BMX was growing even before the Olympics, it received a boost with its debut at the Beijing Games. Clayton John, president of the sport’s main governing body, the American Bicycle Association, seems astounded by the growth. “We’ve had 6,000 new members join in the last six weeks,” he said. One reason for the growth of BMX appears to be its combination of the ordinary and adventure. Riders who are friendly in the stands can become serious competitors at the start of a race in their full-face helmets, bright long-sleeved shirts and padded pants. Everyone’s race matters, because everyone is nationally ranked. Todd Ettinger, 35, said of his son: “T. J. was 10th in the nation last year in the national 5-and-under age group. He’s six now. We race as a family. This is what we do. We go to the nationals for our vacation.” Ettinger’s daughter Courtney was in a tough 9-year-old group at the Utah State Championships. Among the riders were McKenize Hansen, who was ranked second nationally, and Jasmine Bullock, who turned 9 the day of the race and had to compete in a new age group. Bullock led Hansen through the rhythm section, a typical BMX track feature with a line of continuous small jumps, and around the final turn. But she lost by half a wheel length. The girls are from Utah, which is considered to have some of the nation’s best young riders. At the state championships, many people were talking about Thomas Bullock, who had baked and frosted 168 cupcakes to celebrate Jasmine’s birthday. “She almost won! She just about had it!” Bullock said. His 15-year-old son, Thomas, is also considered a future star. Recreational BMX riders can race in novice, intermediate or expert classes on two kinds of bikes — the regular BMX bike with 20-inch wheels or the more stable cruiser, which has 24-inch wheels. The frames of both bikes are smaller than mountain or road bikes, and racers ride them standing up. It is nearly impossible to ride a BMX track, with its high jumps and berm-edged turns, without standing with legs flexed so the knees act as shock absorbers. To stay balanced when going up a jump, riders must put their weight to the back of the bike and pull up on the handlebars, then ease forward and push down on the handlebars when going down the jump. But to win, they must also pedal hard and continuously, while trying to maneuver ahead of other riders. Strategy is as important as speed. A moto requires intense, full-out effort for 40 seconds to a minute, often leaving riders breathless at the finish. The sport’s two governing bodies, the A.B.A. and the National Bicycle League, oversee more than 300 registered tracks in United States and Canada. One appeal of BMX is that it is the least expensive discipline in bike racing. A good starter bicycle can cost less than $500. Practice sessions are also inexpensive. At RAD Canyon, considered the top track in the United States, the Tuesday night practice is $3. It costs $10 to enter the Thursday night races. And no matter the track, just about anyone can participate. “Nobody sits on the bench,” said Garrett Rosh, who owns Valley BMX in Sayre, Pa. “My whole family raced. We’d load up the car on weekends and go all around the country, racing. It really brings your family closer, because everyone can be involved.”

Bicycle Motocross
Families and Family Life
Children and Youth


Indonesia Antigraft Agency Seeks Donors

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia — In front of the headquarters of the Corruption Eradication Commission in central Jakarta sits a table with a glass bowl and a sign appealing for donations to help construct a new building for the government antigraft agency. Street vendors, socialites, human rights advocates, government officials and even Indonesians living overseas have given to the campaign since it began in late June. On a recent Friday, a member of Parliament made a public display of a donation of $50, waving crisp bills in the air and calling the movement a necessary show of support for one of Asia’s most aggressive graft-busting bodies, known locally as the K.P.K. The $35,000 raised so far falls well short of construction needs, but organizers hope the campaign will pressure a parliamentary commission to release $24 million the agency says it needs to accommodate a greatly expanded staff. The Finance Ministry has endorsed the budget, but the commission in the House of Representatives required to approve the funds has blocked the disbursement. The commission says it is simply trying to control public spending and has recommended that the agency rent more space elsewhere. “It’s not necessary to build a new building,” said Eva Sundari, a commission member. Anticorruption activists, however, see the legislators’ rebuff as political payback, the latest punch in a continuing battle between the agency and lawmakers, many of whom have been caught up in its dragnet. Since it began operations in 2003, the K.P.K. has investigated and prosecuted dozens of governors, judges and members of Parliament. More than 30 legislators have been convicted of accepting bribes in return for voting to elect Miranda Goeltom as deputy governor of Indonesia’s central bank, in 2004. Ms. Goeltom is on trial on suspicion of vote-buying. “They don’t want the K.P.K. to become bigger and stronger,” said Danang Widoyoko, chairman of Indonesian Corruption Watch, which is organizing the fund-raising. “They’re afraid the K.P.K. will go after their colleagues and friends.” In a country where graft seems to pervade government institutions and where corrupt police officials, judges and prosecutors lord over the legal system, activists say the Corruption Eradication Commission has become a critical avenue of defense for ordinary Indonesians seeking justice. “People don’t trust prosecutors, the police,” said Ratna Dasahasta, who manages an anticorruption forum at Transparency International Indonesia. “They put their trust in this institution.” The commission has the power to investigate suspects using wiretaps, which it can install without warrants. It can also prosecute cases, though a separate corruption court issues sentences. One of its biggest claims to fame: a 100 percent conviction rate. It can also point to Indonesia’s latest ranking on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. Although the 2011 survey ranks it a low 100 among 183 countries, below India and China, it has improved consistently since 2007, when it was at 147. Commission officials say their current headquarters, a 31-year-old former bank building, was designed to hold 350 employees. The K.P.K. now has more than 700 and has announced plans to recruit an additional 500 to energize the fight against corruption in a country of 240 million. “The K.P.K. is a state institution, where all the needs of the budget come from state funds,” said a K.P.K. spokesman, Johan Budi. “However, it’s the right of people to play an active role in helping eradicate corruption by giving to the K.P.K. building.” Illian Deta Sari, a researcher with Indonesia Corruption Watch, said the fund-raisers had set a limit of about $1,000 for individual donations because “we don’t want anyone to dominate this social movement.” The fund-raising campaign comes amid a number of recent efforts by the K.P.K. and anti-corruption activists to raise the agency’s profile. Although the institution is rated as among the country’s most trusted in opinion polls, it has also been criticized for not taking on bigger cases, for demanding lenient sentences or for moving too slowly on investigations that implicate high-profile politicians. With a limited staff to investigate the hundreds of cases brought to the agency each year, the agency has to be selective. But some experts say its choices create the perception that it may be singling out certain individuals and ignoring others. “The K.P.K. can’t be seen as regarding some corruption as corruption that matters and some that doesn’t,” said Bertrand de Speville, a British anti-corruption consultant and former commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Hong Kong. Corruption’s omnipresence in Indonesia can, at times, seem overwhelming. Almost daily, details about new or continuing investigations by the K.P.K. splash across television screens and the pages of newspapers. On Tuesday, the agency named two active-duty police generals as suspects in a graft case that is said to have cost the state $21 million. The move comes on the heels of another scandal, accusations of the misuse of funds by the Religious Affairs Ministry in the procurement of $6 million worth of Korans. To promote the fight against corruption, Transparency International Indonesia helped set up a Web site that seeks to track cases and publicize the names of people convicted of crimes. Although it has been running for just two months, it already receives about 10,000 visitors a day, said Ms. Dasahasta, who said the site provided a way of holding the guilty up for shame. To really go after graft, said Bertrand de Speville, a British anticorruption consultant, the K.P.K. needs to expand its staff and operations. And that, he said, requires “hard-earned taxpayer money.”

Indonesia
Jakarta (Indonesia)
Corruption (Institutional)
Politics and Government


Egypt Erupts in Jubilation as Mubarak Steps Down

Abstract: CAIRO — An 18-day-old revolt led by the young people of Egypt ousted President Hosni Mubarak on Friday, shattering three decades of political stasis here and overturning the established order of the Arab world. Shouts of “God is great” erupted from Tahrir Square at twilight as Mr. Mubarak’s vice president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman , announced that Mr. Mubarak had passed all authority to a council of military leaders. Tens of thousands who had bowed down for evening prayers leapt to their feet, bouncing and dancing in joy. “Lift your head high, you’re an Egyptian,” they cried. Revising the tense of the revolution’s rallying cry, they chanted, “The people, at last, have brought down the regime.” “We can breathe fresh air, we can feel our freedom,” said Gamal Heshamt, a former independent member of Parliament . “After 30 years of absence from the world, Egypt is back.” Mr. Mubarak, an 82-year-old former air force commander, left without comment for his home by the Red Sea in Sharm el Sheik. His departure overturns, after six decades, the Arab world’s original secular dictatorship. He was toppled by a radically new force in regional politics — a largely secular, nonviolent, youth-led democracy movement that brought Egypt’s liberal and Islamist opposition groups together for the first time under its banner. One by one the protesters withstood each weapon in the arsenal of the Egyptian autocracy — first the heavily armed riot police, then a ruling party militia and finally the state’s powerful propaganda machine. Mr. Mubarak’s fall removed a bulwark of American foreign policy in the region. The United States, its Arab allies and Israel are now pondering whether the Egyptian military, which has vowed to hold free elections, will give way to a new era of democratic dynamism or to a perilous lurch into instability or Islamist rule. The upheaval comes less than a month after a sudden youth revolt in nearby Tunisia toppled another enduring Arab strongman, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali . And on Friday night some of the revelers celebrating in the streets of Cairo marched under a Tunisian flag and pointed to the surviving autocracies in Syria , Saudi Arabia , Jordan and Yemen . “We are setting a role model for the dictatorships around us,” said Khalid Shaheen, 39. “Democracy is coming.” President Obama , in a televised address, praised the Egyptian revolution. “Egyptians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day,” he said. “It was the moral force of nonviolence — not terrorism and mindless killing — that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.” The Muslim Brotherhood , the outlawed Islamist movement that until 18 days ago was considered Egypt’s only viable opposition, said it was merely a supporting player in the revolt. “We participated with everyone else and did not lead this or raise Islamic slogans so that it can be the revolution of everyone,” said Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, a spokesman for the Brotherhood. “This is a revolution for all Egyptians; there is no room for a single group’s slogans, not the Brotherhood’s or anybody else.” The Brotherhood, which was slow to follow the lead of its own youth wing into the streets, has said it will not field a candidate for president or seek a parliamentary majority in the expected elections. The Mubarak era ended without any of the stability and predictability that were the hallmarks of his tenure. Western and Egyptian officials had expected Mr. Mubarak to leave office on Thursday and irrevocably delegate his authority to Vice President Suleiman, finishing the last six months of his term with at least his presidential title intact. But whether because of pride or stubbornness, Mr. Mubarak instead spoke once again as the unbowed father of the nation, barely alluding to a vague “delegation” of authority. The resulting disappointment enraged the Egyptian public, sent a million people into the streets of Cairo on Friday morning and put in motion an unceremonious retreat at the behest of the military he had commanded for so long. “Taking into consideration the difficult circumstances the country is going through, President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the post of president of the republic and has tasked the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the state’s affairs,” Mr. Suleiman, grave and ashen, said in a brief televised statement. It is now not clear what role Mr. Suleiman, whose credibility plummeted over the past week as he stood by Mr. Mubarak and even questioned Egypt’s readiness for democracy, will have in the new government. The transfer of power leaves the Egyptian military in charge of this nation of 85 million, facing insistent calls for fundamental democratic change and open elections. Hours before Mr. Suleiman announced Mr. Mubarak’s exit, the military had signaled its takeover with a communiqué that appeared to declare its solidarity with the protesters. Read on state television by an army spokesman, the communiqué declared that the military — not Mr. Mubarak, Mr. Suleiman or any other civilian authority — would ensure the amendment of the Constitution to “conduct free and fair presidential elections.” “The armed forces are committed to sponsor the legitimate demands of the people,” the statement declared, and the military promised to ensure the fulfillment of its promises “within defined time frames” until authority could be passed to a “free democratic community that the people aspire to.” It pledged to remove the reviled “emergency law,” which allows the government to detain anyone without charges or trial, “as soon as the current circumstances are over” and further promised immunity from prosecution for the protesters, whom it called “the honest people who refused the corruption and demanded reforms.” Egyptians ignored the communiqué, as they have most official pronouncements of the Mubarak government, until the president’s resignation was announced. Then they hugged, kissed and cheered the soldiers, lifting children on tanks to get their pictures taken. “The people and the army are one hand,” they chanted. Standing guard near the presidential palace, soldiers passed photographs of “martyrs” killed during the revolution through barbed wire to attach them to their tanks. At Tahrir Square, some slipped out of position to join the roaring crowds flooding the streets. Whether the military will subordinate itself to a civilian democracy or install a new military dictator will be impossible to know for months. Military leaders will inevitably face pressure to deliver the genuine transition that protesters did not trust Mr. Mubarak to give them. Yet it may also seek to protect the enormous political and economic privileges it accumulated during Mr. Mubarak’s reign. And the army has itself been infused for years with the notion that Egypt’s survival depends on fighting threats, real and imagined, from foreign enemies, Islamists, Iran and the frustrations of its own people. Throughout the revolt, the army stood passively on the sidelines — its soldiers literally standing behind the iron fence of the Egyptian Museum — as the police or armed Mubarak loyalists fought the protesters centered in Tahrir Square. But Western diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were violating confidences, said that top army officials had told them that their troops would never use force against civilians, depriving Mr. Mubarak of a decisive tool to suppress the dissent. It has been “increasingly clear,” a Western diplomat said Friday, that “the army will not go down with Mubarak.” Now the military, which owns vast commercial interests here but has not fought in decades, must defuse demonstrations, quell widespread labor unrest and rebuild a shattered economy and security forces. Its top official, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi , 75, served for decades as a top official of Mr. Mubarak’s government. And its top uniformed official, Gen. Sami Hafez Enan , has not spoken publicly. Egypt’s opposition has said for weeks that it welcomed a military role in securing the country, ideally under a two- to five-member presidential council with only one military member. And the initial reaction to the military takeover was ecstatic. “Welcome back,” said Wael Ghonim , the Google executive who administered the Facebook group that helped start the revolt. Mr. Ghonim, who was detained for 12 days in blindfolded isolation by the Mubarak government as it tried to stamp out the revolt, helped protesters turn the tide in a propaganda war against the state media earlier this week, when he described his captivity in an emotional interview on a satellite television station. “Egypt is going to be a democratic state,” he declared Friday, in another interview. “You will be impressed.” Dr. Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, 32, a transplant surgeon who was among the small group of organizers who guided the revolution, said the leaders had decided to let the protests unwind on their own. “We are not going to ask the people to stay in the square or leave — it is their choice,” he said. “Even if they leave, any government will know that we can get them to the streets again in a minute.” “Our country never had a victory in our lifetime, and this is the sort of victory we were looking for, a victory over a vicious regime that we needed to bring down,” Dr. Harb said. Amr Ezz, 27, another of revolt’s young leaders, said that calling the revolution a military coup understated its achievement. “It is the people who took down the president and the regime and can take down anyone else,” he said. “Now the role of the regular people has ended and the role of the politicians begins. Now we can begin negotiations with the military in order to plan the coming phase.” The opposition groups participating in the protest movement had previously settled on a committee led by Mohamed ElBaradei , the former diplomat and Nobel laureate, to negotiate with the army if Mr. Mubarak resigned. Mr. ElBaradei could not be reached for comment on Friday, but in a television interview he indicated that he expected the talks with the military to begin within days. “I’d like to see that started tomorrow so we can have a sharing of power, the civilian and the military, and tell them what our demands are, what they need to do,” he said. By evening, Egyptian politicians were beginning to position themselves to run for office. Amr Moussa , one of the country’s most popular public figures, resigned his position as secretary general of the Arab League , and an aide, Hesham Youssef, confirmed that Mr. Moussa was considering seeking office. In Switzerland , the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had frozen possible assets of “the former Egyptian president” and his associates. In the military’s final communiqué of the day, its spokesman thanked Mr. Mubarak for his service and saluted the “martyrs” of the revolution. In Tahrir Square, protesters said they were not quite ready to disband the little republic they had built up during their two-week occupation, setting up makeshift clinics, soundstages, a detention center and security teams to protect the barricades. Many have boasted that their encampment was a rare example of community spirit here, and after Mr. Mubarak’s resignation the organizers called on the thousands who protested here to return once again on Saturday morning to help clean it up.

Hosni Mubarak
Egypt
Omar Suleiman
Mohamed Hussein Tantawi
Sami Hafez Enan
Military
Politics


In Newark, Children Reclaim a Playground’s Meaning

Abstract: NEWARK — To cover the littered lake of cracked asphalt, the students suggested gardens. For the darkest corners of the schoolyard, they asked for new playgrounds, safe and bathed in light. To help relieve the dark memories of the site at the Mount Vernon School where four young people were shot, three of them fatally, in August, the schoolyard here will be remade. At a community meeting at the school on Tuesday night, students who participated in redesigning the schoolyard, in collaboration with landscape architects and the Trust for Public Land, unveiled the plans. The plans include a running track, a synthetic-turf playing field, basketball courts and a learning garden. The students also hope it will be possible for the schoolyard to be open to the public on nights and weekends. The renovated playground will cost approximately $1 million. More than $400,000 has been raised through private donors, according to Susan Clark, a spokeswoman for the Trust for Public Land. Her group arranged weekly meetings between the 16 students, who learned about landscape architecture (where rainwater goes), and the architects, who learned what a Newark schoolyard should be (safe). Just as important as the physical makeover, designers and school administrators said they hoped the overhaul would wipe away a dark emblem of this city and the nightmare of one of its most high-profile killings. No monuments will memorialize the dead. It will still be a playground, but for the most part, it will cease to be what it had become. “It’s a new beginning,” said James Harvey, whose son Dashon, 20, was shot and killed in the schoolyard on Aug. 4. “Lives will be built at that site again. We’ll look there for new hope,” he said in a telephone interview. Mr. Harvey and parents of the other victims were consulted on the plans, he said. A memorial for his son and the other victims is being built in a park across the street from the school. Part of the old playground, for the time being, will remain: a low wall where Mr. Harvey’s son; Iofemi Hightower, 20; and Terrance Aeriel, 18, were forced to kneel, and then shot and killed at close range. A young woman, Natasha Aeriel, 19 at the time, survived the attack. The wall supports the parking lot, explained Brian Clemson, a landscape architect with Hatch Mott MacDonald who worked with the students to design the playground. Eventually, he said, an extension of the school building will cover the wall and part of the parking lot it supports. For a long time, Cordel Elcock, 13, one of the design team members, said he did not want to sit on the bleachers by that wall. In the weeks following the murders, the bleachers were where mourners placed flowers and pictures, creating the backdrop for television news reports about the tragedy. “It was sad,” Cordel said. He and the other children channeled their fears into the design process, telling their adult collaborators that they needed a playground that was both peaceful and relaxing. For four months, the group met once or twice a week. “We were teaching them about landscape architecture,” Mr. Clemson said. “They were incredibly bright. They understood their roles as young citizens.” They told Mr. Clemson, for example, that the playground for younger children needed to be separated from the playground for older children, to keep everyone safe. They helped design a jungle gym, to replace ones that had burned down years ago. Senith Thiruchelvam, 11, wanted a football field. But, he learned, “it would have taken up the whole playground.” They settled for a smaller playing field, and basketball courts that could double as a tennis court. Louidgi Colin, 14, said trash cans were important. And Epiphany Pinto, 12, was excited to build the learning garden, where the students could grow strawberries and apples. Newark is quieter than it was last summer, and by Tuesday night, the city had gone 37 days without a homicide, the longest stretch since 1963, when there were no homicides for 40 days. Billboards — “Stop the Killings in Newark Now” — that had been plastered around the city by the local teachers union have been taken down. The men and boys accused of the murders are awaiting trial, and Mr. Harvey said that the killings were a turning point for the city. “As a community, as a people, we needed to say enough is enough,” he said. More than two dozen people attended Tuesday’s community board meeting, where the students showed a power point presentation of their design process. There were a few questions from the audience, about upkeep of the garden, and when it would be completed. One man asked about security; in August, security cameras trained on the schoolyard had not been working. Colleen Graves, a program manager for the Trust for Public Land, said there would be more security cameras, and that construction should be completed in September. There was applause for the children, who by all accounts, had fully grasped the importance of their work. A local councilman, Ronald C. Rice, praised them. “When things are broken,” he said, “When things are not nurtured, tragedy can happen.”

Parks and Other Recreation Areas
Murders and Attempted Murders
Newark (NJ)
Children and Youth


For Evolving Brains, a ‘Paleo’ Diet of Carbs

Abstract: You are what you eat, and so were your ancient ancestors. But figuring out what they actually dined on has been no easy task. There are no Pleistocene cookbooks to consult. Instead, scientists must sift through an assortment of clues, from the chemical traces in fossilized bones to the scratch marks on prehistoric digging sticks. Scientists have long recognized that the diets of our ancestors went through a profound shift with the addition of meat. But in the September issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology, researchers argue that another item added to the menu was just as important: carbohydrates, bane of today’s paleo diet enthusiasts. In fact, the scientists propose, by incorporating cooked starches into their diet, our ancestors were able to fuel the evolution of our oversize brains. Roughly seven million years ago, our ancestors split off from the apes. As far as scientists can tell, those so-called hominins ate a diet that included a lot of raw, fiber-rich plants. After several million years, hominins started eating meat. The oldest clues to this shift are 3.3-million-year-old stone tools and 3.4-million-year-old mammal bones scarred with cut marks. The evidence suggests that hominins began by scavenging meat and marrow from dead animals. At some point, hominins began to cook meat, but exactly when they invented fire is a question that inspires a lot of debate. Humans were definitely making fires by 300,000 years ago, but some researchers claim to have found campfires dating back as far as 1.8 million years. Cooked meat provided increased protein, fat and energy, helping hominins grow and thrive. But Mark G. Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London, and his colleagues argue that there was another important food sizzling on the ancient hearth: tubers and other starchy plants. Our bodies convert starch into glucose, the body’s fuel. The process begins as soon as we start chewing: Saliva contains an enzyme called amylase, which begins to break down starchy foods. Amylase doesn’t work all that well on raw starches, however; it is much more effective on cooked foods. Cooking makes the average potato about 20 times as digestible, Dr. Thomas said: “It’s really profound.” Cooking would have made wild tubers much more nutritious to humans, he noted, “which is not to be sniffed at, especially if you’re a very hungry Pleistocene hunter-gatherer.” Another clue to the importance of carbohydrates, Dr. Thomas said, can be found in our DNA. Chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, have two copies of the amylase gene in their DNA. But humans have many extra copies — some people have as many as 18 . More copies of the amylase gene means we make more of the enzyme and are able to derive more nutrients from starches, Dr. Thomas said. When scientists first discovered the extra genes, they hypothesized that our improved production of amylase evolved at the dawn of agriculture several thousand years ago. As wheat and other starchy crops became staples, the argument went, natural selection favored people with more amylase. But recent studies of the DNA of preagricultural hunters from Europe reveal that people had extra copies of amylase genes long before they started farming. Dr. Thomas and his colleagues propose that the invention of fire, not farming, gave rise to the need for more amylase. Once early humans started cooking starchy foods, they needed more amylase to unlock the precious supply of glucose. Mutations that gave people extra amylase helped them survive, and those mutations spread because of natural selection. That glucose, Dr. Thomas and his colleagues argue, provided the fuel for bigger brains. The fossil record shows a drastic acceleration in the size of hominin brains starting roughly 800,000 years ago. Today our outsize brains use up as much as a quarter of the calories we burn. Other experts said that Dr. Thomas and his colleagues have marshaled a lot of compelling evidence for the importance of carbohydrates in human evolution. But they were not ready to embrace the detailed scenario the scientists lay out in the new paper. “They may be right, but it’s not a slam-dunk,” said Greg Wray , an evolutionary biologist at Duke University. “The timing is not well resolved enough.” There is still considerable uncertainty about when fire was invented and when amylase gene copies evolved, Dr. Wray noted. Even Dr. Thomas isn’t ready to dispense dieting tips based on this theory of evolution. “I think evolutionary biology can have a lot to say about food and health,” said Dr. Thomas. “But nutrition is so incredibly complex, and we’ve only scratched the surface.”

Evolution
Nutrition
Quarterly Review of Biology
Paleontology
Carbohydrates


Data-Crunching Is Coming to Help Your Boss Manage Your Time

Abstract: You might be at work, but that hardly means you are working. Mitesh Bohra thought that projects at his software company, InfoBeans, were taking too long. “Something was supposed to be done in a thousand hours and it would end up taking 1,500,” he said. “We were racking our brains to figure out where the time went.” Increasingly, bosses have an answer. A new generation of workplace technology is allowing white-collar jobs to be tracked, tweaked and managed in ways that were difficult even a few years ago. Employers of all types — old-line manufacturers, nonprofits, universities, digital start-ups and retailers — are using an increasingly wide range of tools to monitor workers’ efforts, help them focus, cheer them on and just make sure they show up on time. The programs foster connections and sometimes increase productivity among employees who are geographically dispersed and often working from home. But as work force management becomes a factor in offices everywhere, questions are piling up. How much can bosses increase intensity? How does data, which bestows new powers of vision and understanding, redefine who is valuable? And with half of salaried workers saying they work 50 or more hours a week, when does working very hard become working way too much? “The massive forces of globalization and technological progress are removing the need for a lot of the previous kind of white-collar workers,” said Andrew McAfee, associate director of the Center for Digital Business at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. “There’s a lot of competition, global labor pools of pretty good quality, automation to make you more productive and make your job more 24/7. These are not calming forces.” One way employees are pushed to work harder is by tethering them to the office outside of normal business hours. Nearly a third of workers in a Gallup poll last year said they were expected to “check email and stay in touch” when they were not working. New technology tools are also threatening one of the enduring rituals of corporate life — the annual performance review. General Electric, long a standard-setter in management practices, began a pilot project last year in which a smartphone application was used to give workers instant feedback from bosses and colleagues. After a meeting or presentation, a manager can tap on the app and write short notes of encouragement, advice or criticism under categories like “insight,” “consider” and “continue.” Faster feedback is healthy, according to Susan P. Peters, senior vice president of human resources, who often tells colleagues that almost nothing in business conforms to yearly cycles anymore. The pilot program and the smartphone app were tested last year. The results were sufficiently encouraging that by the end of this year, G.E. intends to extend it to 80,000 of its white-collar workers, and to nearly all 175,000 of them by the end of 2016. The technology is part of G.E.’s broader “performance development” program. It is intended to be more personalized, supportive and timely than past practices. The emphasis, G.E. says, is on coaching rather than labeling or ranking. “People in sales are continually measured and always know where they stand. Now this is happening in the rest of the white-collar work force,” said Paul Hamerman, a workplace technology analyst with Forrester Research. “Done properly, it will increase engagement. Done in the wrong way, employees will feel pressured or micromanaged.” Myrna Arias, a Southern California saleswoman for Intermex, a money-transfer company based in Miami, was required to download an app on her cellphone that tracked her whereabouts 24 hours a day, she claims in a lawsuit now pending in federal court. Ms. Arias’s suit quotes her manager as saying, perhaps jokingly, that he knew how fast she was driving at all times. “Ms. Arias believed it was akin to wearing a felon’s ankle bracelet,” said her lawyer, Gail A. Glick. She deleted the app and was fired. Her suit, which accuses Intermex of invasion of privacy and wrongful termination, seeks $500,000 in lost wages. Neither Intermex nor its lawyers responded to requests for comment. Companies making work force technology that relies more on engagement than enforcement say it increases transparency and fairness. “In the office of the future,” said Kris Duggan, chief executive of BetterWorks , a Silicon Valley start-up founded in 2013, “you will always know what you are doing and how fast you are doing it. I couldn’t imagine living in a world where I’m supposed to guess what’s important, a world filled with meetings, messages, conference rooms, and at the end of the day I don’t know if I delivered anything meaningful.” BetterWorks is focused less on measuring how employees spend their time at the office than in making them more connected to it. One way to do that: Make it feel more like Facebook. One of its clients, Capco, a financial services consultant, is seeking to make the millennials happy. “They are looking for gigs, not careers,” said Patrick Gormley, the chief operating officer. “The things that would keep them tied to a job in years gone past — a mortgage, a car loan — have evaporated. That really challenges us to create an outstanding employee experience, so we can retain the best.” Capco’s 3,000 employees, who are spread out geographically, post their most ambitious goals for the year electronically for all colleagues to see and they, as well as executives, can issue “nudges” and “cheers” to each other. “Transparency is a tough culture change, particularly for management,” Mr. Gormley said. “We’re not used to admitting that we’re not perfect.” He noted that 12 people had nudged him electronically, versus 52 cheers. Other work force developers are enhancing the traditional process of evaluating employees, which used to be annual and backward-looking. Now it is more spontaneous. Amazon, the e-commerce giant, uses an internal tool called Anytime Feedback, which allows employees to submit praise or criticism to management. The company says most of the remarks are positive, though some Amazon employees complain that the process can be hidden and harsh. Workday , which is based in the Bay Area, has developed a tool called Collaborative Anytime Feedback. Colleagues use it to salute each other — everyone in the company can see who is saying what. Image Myrna Arias, a saleswoman for Intermex, a money-transfer company, has claimed in a lawsuit that she was required to download an app on her cellphone that tracked her whereabouts 24 hours a day. Credit Monica Almeida/The New York Times “People wouldn’t put something negative in a public forum, because it would reflect poorly on them,” said Amy Wilson, Workday vice president of human capital management products. The software also enables employees to comment privately, however, to a colleague’s manager. Workday says these remarks range from positive to at least constructive. Workday also sells an employee time-tracking program , which it advertises as being able to increase worker productivity, along with reducing labor costs — presumably in human relations departments — and minimizing compliance risks. Brown University is one of Workday’s customers , offering an endorsement on the company’s site. A university spokesman declined to comment on how the program was used at the Rhode Island campus. Some say time tracking simply replaces a manual time sheet and encourages honesty. “We tell people not to focus on the Big Brother aspect. This is all about efficiency,” said Joel Slatis, founder of Timesheets.com, which makes clock-in software used by 1,400 small companies. “If you fill out a paper timecard and write down 8 a.m. when you come in at 8:02, no one is going to bat an eye. But if you do that when you leave too, that means you’re getting 5 minutes more a day.” Jamie Clausen, who clocks in and out of her job in customer service at a State Farm insurance office in Silicon Valley from her home using Timesheets, says she accepts it as a modern reality. “It shouldn’t be an option to just show up at 9:15,” she said. Ms. Clausen, 29, previously worked in a call center, where she was closely monitored. She added that she had been watching “Mad Men,” and its portrayal of freewheeling 1960s office life “seemed crazy.” “It was a totally different world, back then.” At InfoBeans, an Indian company whose United States headquarters is in the Bay Area, managers feared that workers’ inefficiency would lead to financial losses and client defections. So it began to use a software system called Buddy, which is made by Sapience, an Indian firm that is expanding into the American market. Khiv Singh, a Sapience vice president, noted that data surrounded workers: “We have pedometers to measure how far we walk, apps to monitor our blood pressure, stress level, the calories we’re taking in, the calories we’re burning. But the office is where we spend the majority of time, and we don’t measure our work.” When InfoBeans began using Buddy, Mr. Bohra was surprised by what he found. “Engineers would write on their time sheets that they were doing development for eight hours, but we started to see a very different set of activities that people are performing,” Mr. Bohra said. “Meetings. Personal time. Uncategorized time. Performing research on something that maybe already should be a part of our knowledge repository.” Mr. Bohra declined to let any of his employees be interviewed. But he said the work was more focused now, which meant smaller teams taking on bigger workloads. Eliminating distractions, including some meetings, lets people go home earlier, he added.

Productivity
Workplace
Work-Life Balance
Working Hours
Data Mining,Big Data
HR
Management
BetterWorks
Workday
Timesheets.com


Yankees Obtain Rodríguez in Trade for Farnsworth

Abstract: The last time the Bronx hosted a World Series, Iván Rodríguez was the catcher for the clinching out. In the Yankees ’ grandest dreams — which seem more realistic after two major trades in the last week — they will close Yankee Stadium the same way this fall. In a move that was conceived and completed in less than six hours, the Yankees acquired Rodríguez from the Detroit Tigers for reliever Kyle Farnsworth on Wednesday. Five years after leading the Florida Marlins to a title, and two years after lifting Detroit to a pennant, Rodríguez becomes the regular catcher for the Yankees. “I came to the office today just thinking about the Oriole game, not necessarily making a blockbuster deal,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “I’ve been dealing with LaTroy Hawkins being designated for assignment; I’ve got some activity there, and at some point I hoped to conclude something on him. But nothing like this.” The Hawkins move could wait. That was obvious at 10 a.m., when Cashman received a call from Dave Dombrowski, the president of the Tigers. Cashman says he has always appreciated Dombrowski’s direct style, and Dombrowski hit him with a thunderbolt: he wanted Farnsworth for Rodríguez. Rodríguez, a 14-time All-Star, is hitting .295 with 5 homers and 32 runs batted in. Farnsworth is 1-2 with a 3.65 earned run average and was leading the Yankees with 45 games pitched. Months ago, Cashman had heard rumors that Rodríguez might be available. But he thought so little of it that he never bothered to check with Dombrowski, even after learning that Jorge Posada would not catch again this season. Cashman had resigned himself to a tandem of José Molina and Chad Moeller behind the plate. That may have been acceptable, considering the strength of Molina’s defense, but privately Cashman worried that Molina could wear down the way he did in April when Posada left the lineup because of shoulder pain. Cashman also knew that Farnsworth’s value most likely would never be higher, and the Yankees had depth to replace him. Brian Bruney has been pitching for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and could be activated from the disabled list. Also, the top prospect Mark Melancon was just promoted to Scranton. “Over time, people are emerging and doing the job,” Cashman said. “I’ve got to give Joe a lot of credit. He’s handed the ball to a lot of guys, given guys an opportunity, and those guys have taken advantage.” Joe Girardi, the manager, has culled solid performances from José Veras, Edwar Ramírez and Dave Robertson, among others. Just as important, Cashman acquired a veteran late-inning reliever, Dámaso Marte, in the Xavier Nady deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday. Before Wednesday’s game, Girardi told Cashman that he liked Detroit’s proposal. That was important to Cashman, who said he would not have made the move unless Girardi supported it. He called back Dombrowski, then checked with ownership and scouts. Rodríguez waived his no-trade clause and told Cashman he would report in time for Thursday night’s game against the Angels. With the deal agreed upon, Cashman called Girardi during the game and told him not to use Farnsworth. Like Rodríguez, Farnsworth will be a free agent after the season. He joined the Yankees in 2006, and this may have been his best month in pinstripes. Before Monday, he had not allowed a run in 11 appearances. The Yankees decided it made sense to sell high on Farnsworth, who drew interest from Dombrowski last summer. Farnsworth pitched well for the Tigers in 2005, but he took this trade hard in an emotional meeting with Girardi and Cashman after the game. “I had a good time here, and it was tough,” said Farnsworth, whose young son played on the field with Girardi’s family after the trade. “I went out there and gave everything I had every time I pitched. That’s the only thing I could ask myself to do.” One American League talent evaluator, who was granted anonymity so he could speak freely about another team’s player, said Rodríguez was a clear upgrade over Molina, who is not used to catching every day and is slow on the bases. The evaluator said Rodríguez, 36, is not the player he was with the Texas Rangers — for whom he won 10 Gold Gloves and a Most Valuable Player award — but that he was still solid. “He plays with a lot of enthusiasm,” the talent evaluator said. “He’s kept himself in good shape. He really is a good athlete. He can hit anywhere from the sixth hole on down for you. He hits behind the runner. He can run the bases, too. He’s still a good base runner. He’s got a good attitude. Hey, he’s still a good baseball player.” Rodríguez’s name surfaced in José Canseco’s 2005 book, “Juiced,” in which Canseco said he injected Rodríguez with performance-enhancing drugs when they were teammates in Texas. Rodríguez denied the accusation, and although Canseco met with investigators for George J. Mitchell, Rodríguez was not named in Mitchell’s report on steroids in baseball. Rodríguez, who has a .382 average in his last 30 games, told MLB.com that he was excited about the trade and hoped he could stay with the Yankees beyond this season. But Cashman said he had not thought that far ahead. “This is about this year,” said Cashman, who signed Posada to a four-year contract last off-season. “There’s been no thought about anything other than this year. I’m not going to disrupt my eighth inning to get a free look at ’09. This is all about ’08.” The Yankees’ Bobby Abreu said the trade could help the team significantly, and Alex Rodriguez, who played with Rodríguez in Texas in 2002, agreed. “I’m excited,” Alex Rodriguez said. “I think defensively he helps, and he’s still capable offensively. It’s a good move.” Cashman will continue to explore possible deals until Thursday’s 4 p.m. nonwaiver deadline, when the Yankees may resolve their stalemate with Seattle over starter Jarrod Washburn. On Wednesday night, Cashman made the Hawkins move, sending him to Houston for Matt Cusick, a Class A second baseman.

Farnsworth Kyle
New York Yankees
Detroit Tigers
Florida Marlins
Baseball
Trades (Sports)


‘Systemic’ Lapses Found in Escape of 2 Killers From Dannemora Prison

Abstract: The two murderers who escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility last year intentionally picked a Friday night when they knew an officer named Ronald Blair was on duty. They had watched him for months, recording his movements on a calendar and knew he never made the late-night rounds he was supposed to. They were right: Officer Blair did not discover them missing until hours after they had made it through the tunnels under the prison and climbed out a manhole to freedom. Officer Blair’s failure was just one of scores of serious security lapses detailed in a report released on Monday by state investigators to coincide with the first anniversary of the escape at the maximum security state prison in northern New York. The breakout touched off a three-week manhunt that drew nationwide attention to the dense woods around Dannemora, home to the prison. The 150-page report from the state inspector general, Catherine Leahy Scott, documented a host of “systemic deficiencies” that gave the two men, Richard W. Matt and David Sweat, time and space to plan and execute an intricate and sophisticated prison break. At the start of overnight shifts, guards would falsify records to make it appear as if they were conducting rounds when they were in fact not; instead, officers acknowledged to investigators that they would read books or play crossword puzzles, the report said. “We’d get lazy,” said Officer Blair, according to the report. As a result, Mr. Sweat was able to spend 85 nights outside his cell exploring the tunnels beneath the prison in search of an escape route. That added up to about 400 compulsory bed checks, the report said, that should have been carried out by guards, who never once noticed his absence. Investigators’ Report on How a Prison Escape Happened A year after two murderers escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., the state inspector general's office released a report documenting a series of security failings that enabled the prison break. Three months before the escape, a random search of Mr. Matt’s cell failed to detect an 18 ½-inch-by-14 ½-inch hole in the rear wall. Tools were left unsecured in the tunnels, allowing Mr. Sweat to obtain an eight-pound sledgehammer that he pounded away with underneath the prison for over a month. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” Mr. Sweat later told investigators. The two murderers took six months to plan their escape, beginning in January 2015. “Just one properly performed night round during this monthslong period would have foiled the escape,” the report said. Night after night , Mr. Sweat, whom the report described as the mastermind, left a dummy in his bed and slipped out a hole cut in the back of his cell. He climbed down five stories using piping along the walls and spent hours exploring tunnels beneath the prison looking for a way out. The two inmates eventually crawled out through a steam pipe. Over 1,000 law enforcement officials chased down leads from the Canadian to the Mexican borders. In the end, they never made it far. Mr. Matt was shot and killed about 40 miles from the prison; Mr. Sweat was caught just days later after he was shot and wounded by a New York state trooper. While the broad contours of the events leading to the escape have been known for months, the report for the first time constructs a coherent narrative, in detail, from when the men hatched their plan to the moment Mr. Sweat and Mr. Matt emerged from a manhole, carrying a guitar case filled with assorted clothes, 20 packs of peanuts, 40 granola bars and a dozen sticks of pepperoni. Investigators from the inspector general’s office interviewed 170 people for the report, including corrections officers, their supervisors and inmates. They also conducted extensive interrogations of Mr. Sweat, who was put into solitary confinement at Five Points Correctional Facility after his capture. How Two Prisoners Escaped From A Maximum Security Prison See images and maps of the N.Y. prison escape. In response to the findings, the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said it had instituted a number of reforms at Clinton, including installing new security cameras, disciplining employees involved and appointing a new superintendent. Crucial to the escape plot was the assistance of Gene Palmer, an officer, and Joyce E. Mitchell, a civilian employee who was a supervisor at the prison tailor shop where both Mr. Sweat and Mr. Matt had worked. Ms. Mitchell, described in the report as a lonely middle-aged women with a shaky marriage, acknowledged to investigators that she allowed herself to be seduced by Mr. Sweat and her belief that “a younger guy would actually like an older woman.” Mr. Sweat told investigators that he became aware that Ms. Mitchell harbored “some kind of star lust thing in her mind where she was like in love with me,” and sought to manipulate her. For months, Ms. Mitchell had been smuggling them food, including packages of cookies, 10-ounce bags of Café Bustelo coffee and 70 containers of black and cayenne pepper that the inmates planned to use to throw off tracking dogs. In time they persuaded her to bring in tools for their escape. She bought six hacksaw blades for about $6 from Walmart and was able to smuggle them into the prisons because her bag was not searched, the report said. She gave them to Mr. Matt, “who carried them to his cell taped to his side under his shirt,” being careful to avoid metal detectors. In the weeks that followed, she hid two chisels, a steel punch, two concrete drill bits and two additional hacksaw blades in frozen ground beef that she gave to Mr. Palmer for delivery to the inmates. Both Mr. Palmer and Ms. Mitchell later pleaded guilty to aiding the inmates. Ms. Mitchell was sentenced to up to seven years in prison; Mr. Palmer received six months in jail. The inspector general’s office has referred the findings of their investigation to the Clinton County district attorney’s office for potential additional criminal charges. After obtaining the tools from Mr. Palmer and Ms. Mitchell, the two inmates took about three weeks to cut holes in the rear walls of their cells, working from 6:30 to 8 p.m. while other inmates were at recreation or in the mess hall, the report said. Image After a giant manhunt, Mr. Matt, right, was killed and Mr. Sweat was wounded and recaptured. Credit New York State Police Mr. Sweat said that the first night he climbed out of his cell he was surprised at the almost complete lack of security in the tunnels below the prison. Inspections were supposed to be done quarterly, but there had not been one since September 2014. During the months he toiled in the tunnels, Mr. Sweat lost 30 pounds. He said he loved his nights out. “You kind of felt free,” he told investigators, adding that he would leave his prison ID behind in the cell “so I didn’t feel like an inmate anymore.” “I was having a hell of a time,” he said. He carried his escape tools in a tote bag he had sewed in the tailor shop out of the green fabric used for prison uniforms. Mr. Sweat said he had a particular dislike for Officer Blair, the regular night shift officer, and hoped that because of the escape he would face disciplinary charges. It worked: Officer Blair and a second guard on duty that night, Thomas Renadette, were among nine officers suspended after the escape. Both officers retired from the department in March, according to state comptroller records. The night before the escape, Mr. Sweat made a trial run, according to the report, finding his way through the tunnels to a manhole cover outside the prison. He lifted it up, “just enough to confirm his location on a village street,” the report said. “I actually had my head out into freedom,” he told investigators. He then “hastened back to his cell and advised Matt that the escape route was complete,” the report said. It was about 4 a.m. on June 5. To celebrate, the two men smoked a Marlboro in their cells. A little before midnight the next night, they left for good. Mr. Matt put a handwritten note on a table in his cell: “You left me no choice but to grow old and die in here. I had to do something.” And a second note on a picture of Tony Soprano: “Time to go kid.” It was not until 5:17 a.m. on June 6 that Officer Blair finally did a round of bed checks and noticed the killers were gone. “I grabbed the sheet and I almost threw up, then saw the dummy,” he told investigators. He set off in a “dead run” to tell his supervisor, the report said, but on the way, he was so worked up, he fell down the stairs.

Clinton Correctional Facility
Prison Guards,Corrections Officers
Prison escape
Richard Matt
David Sweat
Dannemora
New York


Thursday’s Matchup: Redskins (3-5) at Vikings (1-7)

Abstract: 8:30 p.m., NFL Network Line: Redskins by 3.5 This prime-time matchup is clear evidence that the N.F.L. schedule makers do not possess a crystal ball. Otherwise, this game would be replaced by ... any other game. Or even a rerun of “Bambi.” These are two of the lower-echelon teams, except that Washington is still in the hunt in a low-bar N.F.C. East. Minnesota may be in the hunt for the first pick in the 2014 draft. Vikings Coach Leslie Frazier’s job is at risk, although General Manager Rick Spielman has given him a head-scratching vote of confidence through 2014. Players have been grumbling about others on the coaching staff; the top coordinators — Bill Musgrave on offense, Alan Williams on defense — may not survive the season. In any case, they will probably not be asked back for 2014. By every measure, the Redskins have the edge. After a spate of injuries, the Vikings do not seem to have one player in their secondary who could start on another N.F.L. team, and Redskins wide receiver Pierre Garcon is coming off a seven-catch, 172-yard game against San Diego. Pick: Redskins TONY GERVINO