Examinations of Health Care Overlook Mergers

Abstract: When the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Corporation merged its two hospitals with the neighboring Highland Park Hospital just north of Chicago 13 years ago, the deal was presented as an opportunity to increase efficiency and improve the quality of patient care. But when the Federal Trade Commission finally decided to look at the deal, it encountered an entirely different objective: to gain market power. Mark Neaman, Evanston’s chief executive, had told his board that the deal would “increase our leverage, limited as it might be,” the investigation found, and “help our negotiating posture” with managed care organizations. The commission caught Ronald Spaeth, the Highland Park C.E.O., talking about the corporation’s three hospitals and explaining how “it would be real tough for any of the Fortune 40 companies in this area whose C.E.O.’s either use this place or that place to walk from Evanston, Highland Park, Glenbrook and 1,700 of their doctors." It was a great deal for the hospitals. The fees they charged to insurers soared. One insurer, UniCare, said it had to accept a jump of 7 to 30 percent for its health maintenance organizations and 80 percent for its preferred provider organizations. Aetna said it swallowed price increases of 45 to 47 percent over a three-year period. “There probably would have been a walkaway point with the two independently,” testified Robert Mendonsa, an Aetna general manager for sales and network contracting. “But with the two together, that was a different conversation.” And who was left holding the bag? Not the shareholders of UniCare or Aetna. It was the people who bought their policies, who either paid higher premiums directly or whose wages grew more slowly to compensate for the rising cost of their company health plans. The commission’s unusual investigation of the aftermath of the Evanston-Highland Park deal produced its first successful antitrust case against a hospital merger since 1990, after a string of defeats in court. Highland Park and Evanston were forced to negotiate separately with insurers, rather than as a bundle. Collusion was forbidden. What was learned from the investigation is more relevant than ever today. It should draw policy makers’ attention to an elephant in the room that appears to have been overlooked in the debate over how to rein in the galloping cost of health care: a lack of competition in what is now America’s biggest business — accounting for almost 18 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Our anguished search for ways to slow runaway health spending has so far mostly focused on how to eliminate waste : Might the fee-for-service system used by health care providers across the nation provide perverse incentives for doctors and hospitals to prescribe costly yet pointless treatments? Are doctors prescribing every possible test to insulate themselves from any conceivable lawsuit? The Obama administration is betting heavily on waste control to address the problem. It has offered incentives for accountable care organizations, which get a bundled payment to keep a patient in good health rather than charge for individual procedures. It has financed research into comparative effectiveness — hoping to steer patients to the best therapies. What is missing from the stampede of policy innovation is something to tackle one of the best-known causes of high costs in the book: excessive market concentration. Two decades ago, there were on average about four rival hospital systems of roughly equal size in each metropolitan area, according to research by Martin S. Gaynor of Carnegie Mellon University and Robert J. Town of the University of Pennsylvania. By 2006, the number of competitors was down to three. The share of metropolitan areas with highly concentrated hospital markets, by the standards of antitrust enforcers at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, rose to 77 percent from 63 percent over the period. And consolidation is continuing. Professor Gaynor counts more than 1,000 hospital system mergers since the mid-1990s, often involving dozens of hospitals. In 2002 doctors owned about three in four physician practices. By 2008 more than half were owned by hospitals. If there is one thing that economists know, it is that market concentration drives prices up — and quality and innovation down . Research by Leemore S. Dafny of Northwestern University, for instance, found that hospitals raise prices by about 40 percent after the merger of nearby rivals. Other studies have found that hospital mergers increase the number of uninsured in the vicinity. Still others even suggest that market concentration may hurt the quality of care. Indeed, for all the emphasis on curbing waste, recent evidence suggests that health care costs are not being driven by intensive use of high-tech procedures as much as by rising prices for even the most humdrum treatments, which are today among the most expensive in the world. “The primary drivers of health care costs are prices,” said Professor Dafny, who was appointed last year to the newly created post of deputy director for health care and antitrust at the F.T.C. “Utilization growth is slowing.” The rate of increase in health care spending has slowed. Since 2009 health care spending has been growing less than 4 percent per year, the slowest rate in more than half a century, according to number crunchers from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But it is still outpacing inflation by a significant margin, despite a sharp slowdown in the use of medical services. And according to the Health Care Cost Institute, an academic institute started two years ago, the rising health care spending of Americans under 65 in the last two years has been driven entirely by rising prices ; not by more use. The unit price of inpatient care jumped 5.9 percent last year, while the price for outpatient services increased 9.6 percent. Between 2009 and 2011 the fee for an outpatient visit to the emergency room rose 17 percent. The price of a routine office visit to a primary care doctor rose 8 percent. The price of radiology services rose 12 percent. Some parts of the government are worried about competition. Since the Evanston case, the Federal Trade Commission has won about half a dozen cases against hospital mergers. Corporate America could help more. Large companies, like Wal-Mart Stores, Lowe’s and PepsiCo, have cut deals with hospitals like the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic to provide specialized care, including cardiac care or spinal surgery, for all their workers across the nation. This will allow them to get around the market power of local hospitals. Others could follow their example. The Affordable Care Act could help reduce prices too. Forced to compete on price, plans in the new health insurance exchanges will pressure medical providers to limit costs, much as H.M.O.’s did briefly in the 1990s. The “Cadillac tax” on high-end health plans will also encourage some companies to drop high-priced policies. But some provisions of the health care overhaul are potentially troubling. Professor Gaynor, for instance, worries that accountable care organizations may prove anticompetitive. Merger activity has jumped in anticipation of the law’s coming fully into effect. “Hospitals want to maintain their revenue streams and enhance their bargaining leverage,” said Professor Gaynor. “This is a way to do so.” To “bend the curve” of health care costs downward, their leverage must stop growing.


Wall Street Ends the Week at Highest Level of Year

Abstract: Stocks rose on Friday as a better-than-expected jobs report helped the market extend robust gains of the day before, keeping the major indexes at their highest levels for at least a year. The rally, though small, extended the momentum generated by the Federal Reserve’s decision to add $600 billion to its economic stimulus measures, a move that sent both the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index up almost 2 percent on Thursday. On Friday, the markets had a tepid reaction to the latest snapshot of the nation’s jobs market. The Labor Department said the United States economy added 151,000 jobs in October and revised August to reflect a loss of 1,000 jobs instead of 57,000. The September figure was revised to 41,000 job losses instead of 95,000. “The pace of job growth is not strong enough to bring the unemployment rate down to prerecession levels anytime soon,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. At October’s rate of job growth, the economy would achieve the prerecession level, which was 5 percent in December 2007, in about 20 years, she said in a statement after the release. The Dow rose 9.24 points, or 0.08 percent, to 11,444.08, its highest level since the autumn of 2008. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 4.79 points, or 0.39 percent, to 1,225.85, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 1.64 points, or 0.06 percent, to 2,578.98. The Dow and the Nasdaq ended the week almost 3 percent higher, while the S.& P. closed up 3.5 percent for the week. Shares were led by the financial sector, with Wells Fargo rising 6.4 percent to $29.22, Bank of America up nearly 2 percent at $12.36, JPMorgan Chase up 2.86 percent at $40.94 and Citigroup up 3.7 percent at $4.49. Corporate earnings reports for the third quarter have also been generally upbeat, although Kraft Foods reported revenue on Thursday that fell below analysts’ forecasts, weighing down the consumer shares sector and the Dow. Its shares fell 71 cents, or 2 percent, on Friday to $31.08 each. Interest rates rose slightly. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note fell 12/32, to 100 25/32, and the yield rose to 2.53 percent, from 2.49 percent, late Thursday. Kevin H. Giddis, the executive managing director and president for fixed-income capital markets at Morgan Keegan & Company, said that Treasuries were lower after the jobs report but that the Fed program was still providing some support. The dollar was slightly higher on its weighted index, with the euro falling to just over $1.40. Analysts said recent economic statistics, including those in a housing report and Friday’s jobs report, were showing signs of stability. “The market has been moving with what would appear to be conviction to the upside for a large number of weeks,” said Stephen Wood, the senior portfolio strategist for Russell Investments. “You are getting a stabilization in the employment market. The forecast and perspectives that a lot of the investors are bringing with them into the fourth quarter are holding pretty stable.” James W. Paulsen, the chief investment strategist for Wells Capital Management, said there were starting to be fundamental supports to the recent rally. “This rally of the last couple of months is predicated on the elections and QE2,” said Mr. Paulsen, referring to the midterm elections, in which the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, and the second round of quantitative easing announced by the Federal Reserve. There was “increasing economic momentum against the backdrop of a market that is already up,” he said. The Fed decision lifted markets in Asia. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rallied to close 2.9 percent higher. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index rose 1.4 percent, while stocks in Shanghai were up nearly 1.4 percent as well. In Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, was down about 0.29 percent. The FTSE 100 index in London rose 12.56, or 0.21 percent, to 5,875.35. The CAC 40 in Paris was generally flat at 3,916.73 and the DAX in Frankfurt rose about 19.51 points, or around 0.3 percent, to 6,754.20.

Stocks and Bonds
United States Economy
Labor and Jobs


In Nascar, Paul Menard Is the Surprise of 2011

Abstract: MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Paul Menard may be the only Nascar driver with a Facebook page devoted to his facial hair. The Paul Menard’s Sideburns and the Paul Menard Empire aren’t particularly popular pages, but Menard was never one to challenge Dale Earnhardt Jr. and most of the others in the garage for fan support. Frankly, his Elvis- and Neil Diamond-inspired sideburns may be more famous than Menard is right now. That could be changing, though. Menard, who has never battled for a spot in the annual 12-car Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff in four full seasons, is in seventh place entering Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. He is ahead of perennial contenders like Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin and Menard’s teammates at Richard Childress Racing: Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton, who all made last year’s playoff field. Menard is the surprise of 2011. He has two top-10 finishes, including fifth place at Bristol on March 20, and has been in the top 10 in points for four of the season’s first five weeks. If he manages to keep up the pace, Menard may finally win some hard-earned respect from fans and competitors. Not that Menard is aching for it. He is long past worrying about what others think of him. “I don’t need to do anything to prove anything to anybody except to my team and my sponsors,” he said Friday before practice at Martinsville. Menard, 30, has perhaps the most loyal sponsor in Nascar. His No. 27 Chevrolet bears the name of Menards, the Midwest home-improvement chain owned by his father, John. Menard sees no reason to apologize for that. “There’s not a racecar driver here who hasn’t been supported by his family to get started,” Menard said. “It’s a win-win. If there’s going to be a Menards car in Nascar, it might as well be me driving it. As long as everything goes our way and we keep working hard and having good finishes and staying up in points, why not?” Nepotism is commonplace in Nascar. After all, Dale Earnhardt gave his son a shot in the Cup circuit 12 years ago. But fathers do not generally have their companies sponsor their sons’ racecars. That made Menard a target when he began racing full time in the Cup series with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2007. The ill-tempered Tony Stewart called Menard out after a racing incident that year. “You can have your father buy your ride,” Stewart said at the time, “but you can’t buy talent.” Menard said that the two worked out their differences long ago and that he now counted Stewart as a friend. He has other supporters in the Nascar garage who think he has earned his seat, particularly with this year’s performance. “When your name is Paul Menard and your sponsor is Menards, you’re going to take some heat,” Harvick said. “To back that up, it kind of silences the critics and the naysayers that say you are just out there having fun.” Childress faced questions as well when he signed Menard to his team this year. The three other drivers at R.C.R. have competed for championships. Menard did not fit that template. He has never won a race, and his best Cup points finish was 23rd last year with Richard Petty Motorsports. But Childress said he had wanted to add Menard for years. “He’s a talented kid,” Childress said. “He’s a talented driver. I know we can win with him. I don’t think we can, I know we can.” Childress retained Menard’s crew chief, Slugger Labbe, from last season, when Menard had six top-10 finishes after producing only two in his first three seasons combined. It made for a smooth transition to the new team. And at R.C.R., Menard is now in some of the top racecars. “Paul had a chance,” Labbe said, “and it hasn’t been always the rosiest and everyone’s always looked at that. But now that Paul’s running good, I think people are starting to say, ‘Well, O.K., he’s a rich kid, but he’s a racecar driver, too.’ ” If anyone understands the criticism Menard has faced, it is Childress. He has supported the budding careers of his grandsons Austin and Ty Dillon, who race in the lower levels of the sport. “It’s no different than people looking at Austin and Ty, saying, well, the only reason my two grandsons, the only reason they’re where they’re at is because of who their granddaddy is,” Childress said. “They have to go through the same thing Paul goes through. “It’s unfortunate people overlook their ability to drive a racecar because of the opportunities that all three of them have had. You can have all the opportunities in the world. But if you don’t take advantage of it, like Paul or my two grandsons, it doesn’t do you any good.” If Menard manages to stay in the top 10 and earns a spot in the Chase at the end of the season — he is considered a long shot — few will question whether he deserves his ride in Sprint Cup.

Menard Paul
Automobile Racing
National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing


In-Flight Entertainment Is at Crossroad

Abstract: LONG BEACH, Calif. ONE morning last week, I strolled into the spacious, shiny exhibition space of Paramount Pictures at the annual trade show sponsored by the Airline Passenger Experience Association, a network of airlines and businesses and professionals who supply various in-flight comfort and entertainment services, from seats to software. But a stern-looking woman from Paramount scowled at my name tag, saw that I was a reporter and chased me out. “This is private,” she hissed, as if I might be on the prowl for, say, inside information about Paramount’s deepest movie secrets. Actually, all I was doing, along with about 2,500 others who attended the convention, was wandering among the scores of exhibitions, admiring a 64-inch digital cabin video monitor here, a cushy lie-flat airline bed with flashy remote controls there, a display of passenger earphones providing concert-hall fidelity over there. If I had a take-away from the event, it was that in-flight entertainment is at a crossroad. At a time when about a third of passengers are flying with their own devices like tablets and smartphones, how do airlines respond? Do premium carriers continue to invest heavily in hardware — in expensive in-seat audio and video systems that provide packaged offerings like hundreds of on-demand movies, television programs and video games, but need regular upgrading as technology improves? Or do other carriers concentrate mostly on improving in-flight Wi-Fi for those passengers who prefer to use their own hardware? If so, do the airlines try to sell them licensed content like movies and video games, while somehow overcoming significant concerns by studios and other providers about piracy? And how do they address passenger discontent about slow, balky in-flight Wi-Fi service, not to mention complaints about the dearth of power outlets on airplanes? Hollywood studios and other content providers are happy to sell fairly recent movies to airlines to offer on the on-demand seat video systems. But while airlines can save lots of money, including fuel costs, by stripping out the cables and seat screens and installing far-simpler Wi-Fi servers, the studios are wary of streaming content onto personal devices on open networks. As the industry struggles to sort those things out, I nevertheless sensed a degree of relief at the show’s fancy awards ceremony. Here, at least, was something familiar and tangible — an awards show, the annual Passenger Choice Awards, based on global passenger surveys done with help from the Nielsen Company. The winners for “best overall passenger experience,” including cabin amenities and in-flight entertainment, were Emirates Airlines and Virgin America. Regional winners were South African Airways (Africa), Virgin America (Americas), SriLankan Airlines (Asia and Australasia), Virgin Atlantic (Europe) and Emirates (Middle East). Norwegian was cited for best in-flight connectivity. But aside from Virgin America and Southwest, which won a nod for best in-flight publication, airlines in the United States were conspicuously missing from the in-flight experience awards. Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines, for one, continues to bet big on high-end embedded in-flight entertainment. Singapore, a premium carrier, said it is spending $400 million on an advanced in-flight entertainment and communications system from Panasonic that will be installed on 40 new long-haul planes it has ordered. That’s an improvement on the carrier’s current system, which offers on-demand more than 140 movies and 200 television shows. On long-haul global flights, the case for embedded entertainment systems is far clearer than on shorter flights, however. That’s where airlines and suppliers are scratching their heads. For providers of in-flight entertainment of all kinds, the proliferation of smartphones and tablets is clearly confounding. Passengers carrying tablets, smartphones and laptops already have “a very wide range of content available right up to the point where they board the aircraft,” said Robert Smith, the director for market intelligence for IMDC, a consulting firm in Britain. Traditional and perhaps hidebound in-flight content providers like movie studios aside, “there are some extremely large organizations fighting very hard to be the consumer’s first choice” in providing content, including content that is brought onto the plane by the passenger, he said. That got me thinking on Sunday, as I was returning home on Southwest Airlines. On that trip, I was deeply engrossed in the in-flight entertainment — a tragic and heartbreaking tale of a spirited young princess who is dragged across a continent to a life of luxury, duty and ultimate horror, as she evolves into a doomed queen caught in the vice of violent history and goes to her savage death with dignity and valor. Not a dry eye in the house on that drama, I’d say. Incidentally, I brought that particular in-flight entertainment onto the plane with me, in the low-tech form of Antonia Fraser’s brilliant 2001 biography, “Marie Antoinette: The Journey.” The book was far, far better than any movie I might have watched on a screen.

Airlines and Airplanes
Computers and the Internet
Wireless Communications
Business Travel
Travel and Vacations
Smartphones
Tablet Computers


College Football Kickoff: A Primer on the Playoff System

Abstract: The college football season kicks off Thursday night with an extended weekend of games that includes prominent matchups like Michigan-Utah (Thursday), Notre Dame-Texas and Alabama-Wisconsin (Saturday) and Virginia Tech-Ohio State (Monday). Marc Tracy takes a quick look at what all the teams are playing for: a chance to be a part of the College Football Playoff at the end of the season. How does the playoff work? A 13-member selection committee, which includes athletic directors, former coaches and prominent fans (a former journalist, a former conference commissioner, the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) meets throughout the season, releasing preliminary rankings on Tuesdays starting in November. The committee’s final rankings will be released on Sunday, Dec. 6, after the regular season and all major conference championship games are completed. The top four teams in those rankings will contest the semifinals, with No. 1 playing No. 4 and No. 2 against No. 3. The winners of those games will play for the title. Where and when will this take place? This season’s semifinals will take place on the afternoon and evening of Dec. 31 in the Cotton Bowl, which is played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex., and in the Orange Bowl, which is played at SunLife Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. The No. 1 team will be placed where it has more of a home-field advantage. The final will take place Jan. 11, at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. Dec. 31? Will millions of people really watch college football on New Year’s Eve? Absolutely, although it is unlikely that this year’s ratings will match those for last year’s semifinals, which were the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day. Last season, each semifinal attracted at least 28 million viewers, more than several previous college football title games. (Last season’s actual title game, with 33.4 million viewers, was the most-watched cable broadcast in history.) Where do the playoff teams come from? Any team from the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision leagues and the remaining independents (Notre Dame, Brigham Young and Army) is eligible, but expect the four playoff teams to come from one of the so-called Big 5 conferences: the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Pacific-12, the Southeastern and the Atlantic Coast Conference. Or Notre Dame. The top-ranked champion from outside those five conferences is guaranteed a bid in either the Fiesta Bowl or the Peach Bowl (if it does not make the playoff). How does the selection committee pick the best four teams? The committee members gather in a hotel near Dallas for two days every week starting in November, debate, and then vote. As for what the committee members care about when ranking teams, while it is difficult to articulate a unified theory after just one season, last year’s rankings revealed the following: They care about won-lost records . It sounds trite, but last year, winning percentage was the single strongest predictor of final ranking. This is significant philosophically. Often during the B.C.S. era, teams with one or two losses appeared better than an undefeated team with a weaker schedule, yet the undefeated one would play in the title game. The playoff was created in reaction to the unpopular B.C.S., but for the benefit of most of the same conferences and powerful teams with the exact same incentives and, in many cases, by the exact same people. So it is not shocking that the new playoff also values winning percentage. In last year’s final rankings, no two-loss team outranked a one-loss team and no 11-1 team outranked a 12-1 team. They understand that not all schedules and wins are created equal . Florida State remained undefeated yet dropped as far as fourth last season, behind one-loss teams, because it was playing weaker opponents and struggling to beat them. It eventually landed at third — behind two one-loss teams, and theoretically sacrificing home-field advantage — one day after maybe its best win of the year, against Georgia Tech in the conference championship. They care about head-to-head matchups . Last year, Baylor and Texas Christian were both 11-1. T.C.U. played a stronger schedule, but its one loss came against Baylor, and so Baylor ended up one spot ahead. They care about conference championships . All four playoff teams won their conference championship games. What are three subplots we know about heading into this season? The Big 12 . The math inherent in having four playoff slots and five major conferences guarantees at least one league will miss out, but special attention should be paid to the Big 12 because last season it was the odd conference out — and this was for a good, structural reason. With only 10 teams, the conference stages no championship game, meaning one fewer competitive game for its best teams (indeed, one fewer game, period). If, as last year, 12-1 conference champions edge out an 11-1 Big 12 conference champion, then do not expect the Big 12 to maintain its status quo for a third season. Two from one? Nothing in the rules prohibits the committee from selecting two teams from the same conference. Likely candidates this season include a second Big 12 team, if the conference seems broadly talented; a second team from the loaded SEC West; or a potential 11-1 Michigan State — if its only loss comes against top-ranked Ohio State in Columbus. Bronco party-crashers. The question of whether a team from outside the Big 5 conferences would make the playoff seemed more like an abstract thought experiment last season, but some respected observers say that Boise State is for real this year. If the Broncos go 13-0 — including wins against Washington, at Brigham Young and at Virginia — out of the Mountain West, they absolutely will deserve to be in the final-four conversation.


As Rates Near Zero, the Fed Turns to Unproven Methods

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Having printed more than $1 trillion in new money since September, yet still failing to stop the economy from sinking, the Federal Reserve is expected to enter a new era of cheap money this week. On Tuesday, policy makers are expected to lower their target for the overnight federal funds rate to 0.5 percent, a record low. In itself, analysts said, the move will be anticlimactic. Because demand for interbank loans has been so low, the actual Fed rate has been close to zero for a month. The real change will be in how the Fed tries to fight the recession from here on. After Tuesday, the Fed will have to resort to mostly untested tools for promoting growth, because it cannot reduce its benchmark interest rate below zero. Its goal will be to drive down borrowing costs wherever credit markets remain paralyzed. But the approach is much more complicated than raising or lowering a single rate, and it could have unintended consequences. Analysts say the current recession, which officially began a year ago, is all but certain to break the postwar record for duration, 16 months. But it could also set a record for depth. The economy has already lost two million jobs this year. Analysts predict that unemployment, now 6.5 percent, could hit 9 percent by the end of next year. The Fed must now turn to an approach called “quantitative easing,” because it involves injecting money into the economy rather than aiming at an interest rate. The Fed has almost no experience with this approach. “This is a whole new world,” said Richard Berner, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. “You don’t have a whole lot of historical precedent for knowing how this is going to work and what the unintended consequences could be.” The risks include provoking inflation or yet another speculative bubble. Economists generally agree that the Fed’s long stretch of easy money from 2001 through 2004 contributed to the bubble in housing prices and the surge in reckless lending. For now, neither Fed officials nor most private economists see evidence of inflation or a bubble. If anything, forecasters are worried about the kind of deflation Japan experienced in the 1990s. Indeed, the Japanese central bank used quantitative easing for years when Japan was mired in chronic price deflation and had reduced its benchmark interest rate to zero. The results were not good, and it took Japan nearly a decade to break out of the mire. Although Fed officials have denied it, they actually began a form of quantitative easing months ago. Since the financial crisis erupted in August 2007, the Fed has created a raft of new lending programs that have lent hundreds of billions of dollars to banks, Wall Street firms and money market funds. Until three months ago, the Fed financed that lending with its existing reserves, mostly Treasury securities. Because it was simply exchanging its cash or Treasury securities for hard-to-sell securities, the programs did not increase the total amount of money in the financial system. But since September, when the Fed started to run low on Treasuries, it has been creating new money at a blistering pace. As a result, the Fed’s “balance sheet” has ballooned to just over $2 trillion last week from about $900 billion in September.

Federal Reserve System
Interest Rates
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Recession and Depression


With Price Out and Lundqvist Hot, All of Quebec Is Singing the Blues

Abstract: MONTREAL — Céline Dion may be Quebec’s most widely known singer internationally, but Ginette Reno, one of Dion’s inspirations , is its best loved back home. And for most of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs, Reno had been a good-luck charm for the Montreal Canadiens. But on Monday night, along with the goal that gave Montreal a brief 1-0 lead over the Rangers, another thunderously flamboyant performance of “O Canada” by the 68-year-old Reno was one of the few things that gave the Bell Centre crowd reason to cheer. No one in Quebec thinks the Canadiens’ two losses at home against the Rangers should be attributed to any waning of Reno’s powers over fate. But the team’s 0-2 hole in the Eastern Conference finals and, just as important, the loss of Canadiens goalie Carey Price to an injury have left Montrealers straining to find reasons for optimism. “A Cold Shower for ‘Le CH,’ ” proclaimed a front-page headline Tuesday in La Presse, a French-language broadsheet. The tabloid Journal de Montreal cast the Canadiens’ chances in the series as “Mission Impossible.” As the only team from Canada to qualify for the postseason this year, the Canadiens have, to a considerable extent, been carrying the nation’s hockey aspirations. But Montreal’s 3-1 loss on Monday, after Saturday’s 7-2 rout by the Rangers, is felt most acutely in the team’s hometown, where hockey interest is nearly insatiable. The Journal, for example, devoted 23 pages to hockey on Tuesday, including articles on the Western Conference finals between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Los Angeles Kings; the world hockey championship; the junior league Memorial Cup; counterfeit Canadiens merchandise; and Bell Centre’s ice-making crew. The soft-spoken Price, who is from British Columbia, has been a consistent favorite with Montrealers, unlike the team’s star defenseman P. K. Subban, whose outsize personality sometimes provokes criticism on talk radio, a vital and popular medium in Quebec in spite of the Internet. Whereas most Canadians’ public support of teams during the playoffs extends to buying one or two small team flags to clip onto a car’s windows, many Quebecers are far more ambitious. Cars are commonly emblazoned with messages of support for the team, usually spelled out in letters formed by electrical tape or paint, presumably washable. Several car decorators this year have turned their vehicles into rolling homages for Price, often nicknaming him “Jesus Price” for his ability to make saves. His series-ending injury, sustained in a Game 1 collision with the Rangers’ Chris Kreider, which drew objections from the Canadiens, is almost too much for the fandom to bear. On a conference call Tuesday, Montreal Coach Michel Therrien echoed his remarks after Monday’s game and said that the team needed some luck now. “We didn’t have any breaks yesterday,” Therrien said, adding: “Momentum changes really quickly in the playoffs. This is my experience. You get one win, and then after that, you know, the momentum can change really quick.” Nevertheless, the feeling in Montreal is that the combination of Price’s absence and the goaltending ability of the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist may bring the series to a close in New York. Reno, who had a heart attack in January, has diabetes and once weighed 325 pounds, consulted a cardiologist about performing at the games. She said that he had ordered her to sing. And she may be Montreal’s best hope for a turnaround. Reno, who once sang at the funeral for the Canadiens legend Maurice Richard, told The Journal last week that she might have positive powers over the team. “Sometimes, I give them pep talks telepathically,” she told the newspaper, adding that while regularly exercising in a swimming pool, she imagined being on the ice with the Canadiens. “Maybe I help; maybe they hear me.”

Ice hockey
Sports injury
Playoffs
Rangers
Montreal Canadiens
Carey Price
Henrik Lundqvist


Muslim Women Sentenced to Hard Labor in Myanmar

Abstract: A court in Myanmar has found two Muslim women guilty of setting off a recent outbreak of sectarian violence, one of them by bumping into a Buddhist novice monk. Myint Thein of the pro-government National Unity Party, who attended their trial, said Wednesday that the two women in the central township of Okkan were convicted of “insulting religion.” Both were sentenced to two years in prison with hard labor. A police officer in Okkan, who did not want to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the news media, confirmed the sentences. Although the vast majority of victims of the Buddhist-Muslim violence in the past year have been Muslims, most of those convicted of serious offenses in the unrest have been Muslims. Rights groups have argued that Myanmar’s courts are biased in favor of the Buddhist majority. The two women’s trial was related to an April 30 episode in Okkan that culminated with Buddhist mobs destroying shops and homes in several villages. Myint Thein said the court heard that one of the women bumped into the monk as he was collecting alms and the other grabbed the monk by his shoulders. It is considered inappropriate in Buddhism for women to have any physical contact with monks.

Myanmar,Burma
Women and Girls
Criminal Sentence
Separation of church and state
Islam
Buddhism


Gingrich’s Health Care Policy History at Odds With G.O.P.

Abstract: Shortly before the passage of President Obama ’s stimulus bill in 2009, Newt Gingrich ’s political committee put out a video of Mr. Gingrich denouncing it as a “big politician, big bureaucracy, pork-laden bill.” “It should be stopped,” he said. But at the same time, Mr. Gingrich was cheering a $19 billion part of the package that promoted the use of electronic health records, something that benefited clients of his consulting business. “I am delighted that President Obama has picked this as a key part of the stimulus package ,” he told health care executives in a January 2009 conference call. After the bill was passed a month later, Mr. Gingrich’s consultancy, the Center for Health Transformation , joined two of its clients, Allscripts and Microsoft , in an “Electronic Health Records Stimulus Tour” that traveled the country, encouraging doctors and hospitals to buy their products with the billions in new federal subsidies. “Get Engaged, Get Incentives,” one promotion read. As Mr. Gingrich runs for president, he is working to appeal to Republican primary voters suspicious of big-government activism, especially in the realm of health care. But interviews and a review of records show how active Mr. Gingrich has been in promoting a series of recent programs that have given the government a bigger hand in the delivery of health care, and at the same time benefited his clients. During the Bush administration, he was a leading Republican advocate for the costly expansion of Medicare , which many in his party now regret. And he and his center pushed some policies that are reflected in Mr. Obama’s health care record — a record Mr. Gingrich regularly criticizes on the campaign trail. All the while, his center functioned as a sort of high-priced club where companies joined him in working the corridors of power in Washington and in state capitals. Mr. Gingrich did not respond to questions for this article. But a spokeswoman for the center said in an e-mail that Mr. Gingrich was a health care “visionary” who, for instance, supported electronic health records “BEFORE it ever came up for discussion by the president or anyone else.” Mr. Gingrich’s chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney , has found himself on the defensive among conservatives for signing a universal health care law when he was governor of Massachusetts . But Mr. Gingrich has his own history with health care policy, part of which puts him at odds with many Republican voters. Mr. Gingrich’s ideas and the interests of his clients are often intertwined. When President George W. Bush and some Congressional Republicans were seeking to block renewal of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in 2007, Mr. Gingrich met with his former conservative House colleagues, arguing that inaction could unfairly harm children. At the time his center was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by major drug makers and insurers, groups that would have been harmed by a lapse in the program. When he urged Republicans to support the Bush administration’s expansion of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit, he worked to ensure that it would cover new diabetes treatments sold by Novo Nordisk , a Danish drug company and a founding member of Mr. Gingrich’s center. More broadly, he has indicated his agreement with the most controversial aspect of President Obama’s heath care plan, the requirement that every American buy health insurance . Although he now says he is opposed to the so-called individual mandate, in a May 2009 conference call — previously unreported — he told health care executives, “We believe there should be must-carry; that is, everybody should have health insurance, or if you’re an absolute libertarian, we would allow you to post a bond.” Mr. Gingrich also worked with former Senator Tom Daschle , an early health policy adviser to Mr. Obama, to write a forward to the center’s book on the expansion of electronic health records. “It’s fair to say he was supportive of the goals of health care reform,” Mr. Daschle wrote in a brief e-mail exchange. “And I felt that we were in agreement on some of the principles.” Mr. Gingrich has defended his support for the prescription drug benefit, and other health care spending, by saying that present costs will be more than offset by future savings. And a spokeswoman for his company, the Center for Health Transformation, Susan Meyers, reiterated Mr. Gingrich’s assertion that he does not lobby. But his dealings with Novo Nordisk show how his center’s policy advocacy could blend with the narrower objectives of its paying members. Separate from its $200,000-a-year charter membership in the center, Novo Nordisk, the world’s largest producer of insulin, hired Mr. Gingrich to help “position itself as a thought leader” in an initiative to raise awareness of diabetes. A research document prepared in 2003 by the Gingrich Group, a consulting firm related to the health care center, noted that in improving treatment, the company wished to also emphasize insulin-delivery devices that “offer better financial return for Novo.” Mr. Gingrich’s health center went on to help Novo Nordisk create a national diabetes campaign, and worked to shape government policies toward the disease. According to a presentation by a Gingrich aide to health care executives in 2004, the center was “working to insure” that Medicare covered insulin products manufactured by Novo Nordisk, and Mr. Gingrich planned to meet with members of Congress “to help them develop priorities” on fighting diabetes. In its annual report to shareholders, Novo Nordisk listed its work with Mr. Gingrich under the category of public-policy activities, noting: “Such activities are often referred to as lobbying.” But a Novo Nordisk spokesman, Ken Inchausti, said Mr. Gingrich actually did no lobbying for the firm. “He was providing us with guidance and strategic advice on how best we could inform policy makers,” Mr. Inchausti said, adding that Mr. Gingrich had valuable insights because of his work on diabetes while in Congress. The devices were ultimately covered. Dr. Mark McClellan, President Bush’s administrator of Medicare and Medicaid Services at the time, said that he did not remember Mr. Gingrich specifically bringing up diabetes issues, but that he had various interactions with Mr. Gingrich. “A lot of people including Newt had some views and some clients who cared about the issues that we were dealing with,” he said. “I do remember having a lot of discussions about what should and shouldn’t be covered.” Mr. Gingrich also worked with Dr. McClellan and other Bush administration health officials on electronic records. “Newt and I had many conversations,” said Dr. David J. Brailer, the Bush administration’s national health technology coordinator. “Because of Newt’s involvement, you dealt with a significant amount of creativity — they had a lot of creative ideas of how it could work and how it should work.” Over the years, Mr. Gingrich accumulated more and more clients with an interest in building a national electronic health records system: Allscripts, Siemens, Microsoft and GE Healthcare. Certainly, his belief in the importance of electronic health records fit with his futurist bent. Huge advances in technology, the argument goes, can enable doctors from different hospitals, different fields and even in different states to work off a single electronic file that would include every medical decision and diagnosis in a given patient’s history. Mr. Gingrich was among leaders of both parties who argued that the technology would save lives and billions of dollars while also providing a huge database of results to judge the efficacy of treatments. Mr. Gingrich found common cause with Hillary Rodham Clinton , then a senator from New York; Mr. Daschle, with whom he wrote the introduction to the center’s book, “Paper Kills 2.0”; and Senator Sheldon D. Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island . Shortly before Mr. Obama’s election in 2008, Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Gingrich wrote an opinion article in The Washington Times calling for a national, electronic health information system. They also called for the creation of a “comparative effectiveness institute” that could use the network to “collect and understand the best practices of the country’s best providers of care.” Such an institute, they wrote, “could not only educate other providers on how to improve, but also inform policy makers on how to design policy that promotes these best practices.” When President Obama proposed spending tens of billions on developing just such a system, Mr. Gingrich wrote in The New York Post in mid-January 2009, “The president-elect should be applauded for making this vital priority a key part of his economic stimulus plan.” Mr. Gingrich’s chief health aide, David Merritt, was invited to testify before a Senate panel on privacy issues related to the creation of the system. During that testimony, Mr. Merritt told the senators, among them Mr. Whitehouse, that while protecting privacy was important, “I think that as we move forward with comparative effectiveness and evidence-based medicine, we need as much data as possible.” When the bill passed, providing more than $19 billion in incentives and grants to help health care providers buy electronic systems, the center and its health technology clients were in a celebratory mood. In presentations to investors, the Allscripts chief executive, Glen Tullman, called it “the most expansive opportunity in our company’s history,” and “more money coming into a segment than we’ve ever seen.” In order for Allscripts and other health care systems makers to benefit from incentives and grants, they would need to make sure potential customers knew they were eligible for the cash. And so, joining with industry partners — including another center client, Microsoft — it embarked on an “E.H.R. Stimulus Tour,” visiting cities and providing Webcasts. In one of the Webcasts, Mr. Merritt joined with Mr. Tullman and the Allscripts marketing chief to walk through the stimulus bill incentives. When The Wall Street Journal editorial board, in January 2009, criticized the bill for creating a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research , the center was there to defend it. The Journal argued that eventually “the comparative effectiveness outfit will start to ration care to control costs.” In a statement for the center, Mr. Merritt had said that while those fears were understandable, “that argument is not currently justifiable in the specific language of the bill.” The following August, however, the coordinating council came in for added scrutiny as conservative health care opponents rallied against its creation in angry town-hall-style meetings and online, playing into fears of “death panels.” Around the same time, Mr. Gingrich reversed his call for a “comparative effectiveness institute.” “In our country, the road to dehumanizing, bureaucratic health care rationing,” Mr. Gingrich wrote in Human Events , a conservative publication, that August, “begins with something called comparative effectiveness research.”

Newt Gingrich
Republicans
2012 Presidential Election
Electronic health record
Health Insurance
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
Pharmaceuticals


Stephen Harbeck, SIPC’s Chief, Calm Under Fire

Abstract: Stephen P. Harbeck knows what it feels like to be under attack — in 1970, he served in Vietnam as a sniper with the fabled Seventh Cavalry, once led by Custer. Then, as a civilian in 1975 he began what promised to be an interesting but low-key legal career with the Securities Investors Protection Corporation , created by Congress in 1970 to provide some limited protection to customers of failed Wall Street brokerage firms. He stayed on, and rose through the ranks of the obscure nonprofit to be tapped in 2003 as president and chief executive. Now, Mr. Harbeck is once again under attack. After decades largely spent shutting down no-name firms with a few hundred customers, Mr. Harbeck spent the last year overseeing the largest bankruptcy on record, the failure of Lehman Brothers, and the largest Ponzi scheme in history, run by Bernard L. Madoff . It has been a year, he said, “sort of like a dog’s year — seven years in the space of one.” Regular exercise? “Gained 10 pounds,” he said ruefully. The powerboat he shares with a friend? Forget it. His inbox and voice mail? “I’m feeling more like a piñata every day.” His quiet life might have survived the Lehman bankruptcy, where the inevitable disputes have been polite and professional. But it did not stand a chance against the roars of indignation from some of Mr. Madoff’s victims, who say the policies of SIPC — pronounced SIP-ic — are compounding the financial catastrophe that began a year ago with Mr. Madoff’s confession and arrest. On Wednesday, Mr. Harbeck is scheduled to appear before the House Financial Services subcommittee to explain why thousands of Mr. Madoff’s investors are not eligible for cash advances from his organization. The subcommittee will also hear from some of those being left out — people who withdrew more than their original investment before the fraud collapsed and others who invested indirectly, through pension or feeder funds or other pooled investment vehicles. Mr. Harbeck said he understood their outrage, but added that he had a statute to uphold and a finite amount of money to help eligible customers. “Nobody likes to say no to people who are, without question, victims,” Mr. Harbeck said in an interview. “That’s been hard for me. That’s been hard for my staff. But this is a zero-sum game — a dollar we give to someone who is not eligible is a dollar we do not have for someone who is.” Led by a board of seven political appointees, SIPC is financed by the nation’s brokerage firms, which pay an annual assessment to cover its budget and pay customer claims. Besides a reserve fund of $1.2 billion, down from $1.7 billion pre-Madoff, it can borrow up to $1 billion from the government. By law, SIPC covers only customers of failed brokerage firms. Those with valid claims receive a cash advance of up to $500,000 and a pro rata share of whatever assets the Madoff bankruptcy trustee can gather. But thousands of people who invested with Mr. Madoff indirectly through pension plans or feeder funds do not meet the SIPC definition of a customer that has evolved from the statute and subsequent court decisions, Mr. Harbeck explained. In those cases, the eligible customer is the pension plan or feeder fund itself, not its beneficiaries. “Those pensioners are sympathetic people who do not qualify as customers,” said Mr. Harbeck. “There are court rulings that I just can’t ignore.” But at least some indirect investors will get something — a sliver of a cash advance and a share of whatever assets their feeder fund or pension plan receives from the bankruptcy estate. That is not true for several thousand direct investors who withdrew at least their entire original investment before the Madoff fraud collapsed. They clearly are customers — but are they customers with valid claims? In court filings, letters, e-mail messages and Web site postings, these victims insist the only valid measure of their loss is the amount shown on the final account statement they got before Mr. Madoff’s arrest last year — amounts that total $64.8 billion. Mr. Harbeck is equally insistent that the courts have never allowed the losses in Ponzi schemes to be calculated that way — and will not do so now, despite the unprecedented scale of the Madoff fraud. The courts will have to decide who is right. In the meantime, brickbats continue to knock against the embattled SIPC, which has offices in a historic 97-year-old building near the White House. “SIPC and its trustees do everything they can to pay victimized investors as little as possible,” says Lawrence R. Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law and a Madoff victim. Legislators must understand “the critical injustice being perpetrated on Madoff investors” by SIPC, said Ronnie Sue Ambrosiano, a spokeswoman for a group of investors called the Madoff Coalition for Investor Protection. SIPC and its Madoff trustee, Irving H. Picard, “are single-handedly destroying the investor confidence in the capital markets” that the agency was supposed to preserve, said Helen D. Chaitman, a lawyer and Madoff victim. As the insults pile up, Mr. Harbeck continues to lead a staff with remarkably little turnover by the revolving-door standards of Washington. Given their highly specialized work and less frenetic pace, it may be that fewer tempting offers come along. Whatever the reason, most staff members come to SIPC and stay, as Mr. Harbeck has. Mr. Harbeck, who turns 63 on Monday, is a 1968 graduate of Holy Cross, where he majored in economics. When he arrived in Washington in 1975, he was two years out of Cornell Law School, where he met his “extremely empathetic wife,” Judy, also a lawyer, who he says has helped him keep his critics’ attacks in perspective. From the beginning, he seems to have found drama in the prosaic work of shutting down failed brokerage firms. “When I was a little bitty snotty lawyer, I was pretty officious about it,” he said, recalling with a grin how he would swagger in and eject misbehaving executives from their offices. “Then I sat down at one guy’s desk and opened the drawer — and there was a .357 Magnum. After that, I got more gentle.” He also relishes suing insiders at a fraud-riddled firm and recovering as much money for customers as possible — or, as he described it, “grabbing the bad guys by the ankles and shaking them until the money falls out.” He added: “That’s the best part of the job.” And the worst part? Trying to explain the limits of the law to needy people he cannot help, he said. “What makes the Madoff case so dreadful is that it has occurred at the intersection of a complicated statute and an unsophisticated body of investors,” he said. Mr. Harbeck takes pride in his staff’s mastery of the baroque details of the SIPC statute. “It is very seldom that the courts tell us that we are wrong about the law,” he said. But critics say that SIPC’s insistent defense of its statute has left the law too rigid to adapt to the sometimes untidy circumstances of real world customers in an online marketplace. “The justification is that their cache of funds is finite and paying defrauded investors who may have some troublesome aspects to their claims will leave an empty bag for future claimants,” said Harvey Pitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which monitors SIPC’s operations. In his view, Mr. Harbeck is missing “an opportunity for SIPC to stand up for those who have been defrauded by a master swindler.” Several bankruptcy lawyers who have worked with and against Mr. Harbeck over the years say he seems to lack the lawyer’s natural inclination for negotiated settlements — splitting differences, finessing details, substituting a grudging compromise for an uncompromising grudge. Mr. Harbeck sees it differently. “We are trying to do the best we can for the greatest number of people, consistent with the law,” he said. “So we will negotiate over disputes of fact. But we will not negotiate over disputes of law.” And as he sees it, the law is there to protect the thousands of people who got back far less than they invested in Mr. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme — victims whose claims total more than $20 billion so far. Those direct investors understand what the fight is about, he said. “The people we said no to are people who had at least gotten all their money back” before the fraud collapsed, he said. “The people with valid claims had gotten nothing back at all.”

securities investors protection corporation


Hagel, in Remarks Directed at China, Speaks of Cyberattack Threat

Abstract: SINGAPORE — In remarks directed at China, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke Saturday of a “growing threat” of cyberattacks against the United States and called on America and its allies to “establish international norms of responsible behavior in cyberspace.” Speaking to an audience of defense analysts and defense ministers from Asia and Europe at the annual conference of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr. Hagel said the United States was “cleareyed about the challenges in cyber.” “The United States has expressed our concerns about the growing threat of cyberintrusions, some of which appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military,” he said in a speech largely devoted to the Obama administration’s defense posture in Asia. At the same time, Mr. Hagel emphasized the need for more talks between the American and Chinese militaries to build trust and reduce the risk of miscalculation at a time of mounting rivalry. His remarks were immediately challenged by a Chinese general in a question-and-answer session after his speech. A delegate to the conference, Maj. Gen. Yao Yunzhu , director of the Center for China-America Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Science in Beijing, said she was not convinced — and China was not convinced — that the United States wanted a “comprehensive” relationship with China. The new American policy in Asia and the Pacific amounts to containment of China, General Yao said. Speaking a week before a summit meeting in California between President Obama and China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, Mr. Hagel sought to reassure Washington’s nervous Asian allies, who are concerned about China’s expanding naval activities, that the United States would maintain its presence in the region. Over all, he said, the United States will keep its “decisive military edge,” an oblique but distinct reference to American military superiority. China announced an 11.2 percent increase in military spending last year, part of its rapid military modernization. He emphasized that new technologies would entail spending fewer resources in a smarter way, saying that the Navy had launched an experimental drone from an aircraft carrier last month for the first time. It was a feat that ushered in a new era of naval aviation, he said. Unstated, but understood by many in the audience, was the fact that China just last year put into service its first aircraft carrier, an old Ukrainian vessel refitted by the Chinese. Mr. Hagel also said the United States would deploy a solid-state laser aboard the Ponce, a naval vessel, next year. He said it would provide “an affordable answer” to counter threats like “missiles, swarming small boats and remotely piloted aircraft.” He said that the first of four littoral combat ships to rotate through Singapore had recently arrived, and that he would visit the ship, the Freedom, on Sunday. The littoral combat ship is a new class of speedy war vessels that can operate on the ocean and in shallow coastal waters. Each costs $700 million, the Pentagon says. In a feisty address that opened the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam laid bare the rising regional tensions by repeatedly lamenting the lack of trust between China and its neighbors, and between China and the United States, although he did not mention China by name. Regional organizations are supposed to take care of such tensions, he said, but what is “still missing is strategic trust in the implementation of these arrangements.” As evidence of the problems, several diplomats from nations allied with the United States said they were concerned about a new map of the South China Sea that was issued last week by Sinomaps Press, the Chinese mapping authority. Beijing has long claimed the islands and land “features” within a nine-dash line drawn decades ago on maps of the South China Sea, a vital trade route where China is growing more assertive. About 80 percent of the South China Sea is inside that line, which was first drawn up by China in 1947 before the Communist takeover. The boundary is not recognized by any other country but has been the basis of China’s territorial claims to islands like the Scarborough Shoal, which it effectively seized from the Philippines last year. The new map, according to Asian diplomats who have seen it, takes a further step and redesignates the nine-dash line as a national boundary. Its release was delayed from late last year so that it could be formally authorized by the Chinese senior leadership, according to a senior Asian diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. Wu Shicun, a Chinese official at the conference, denied that the new map showed national boundaries. Instead, he said, it shows new lines around the islands that China calls the Diaoyu , a group in the East China Sea that Japan, which calls them the Senkaku, nationalized in September, leading Beijing to claim them. At the time, China said the lines around the islands were drawn in accordance with Chinese law. A recent Pentagon report said they did not comport with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Mr. Wu, who heads the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said Saturday that the new map was needed because there had not been an official map of the South China Sea and the East China Sea drawn for about 20 years.

Chuck Hagel
Cyberwarfare
China
US Foreign Policy
South China Sea
US Navy
Pentagon
Senkaku Islands Diaoyu Islands
Singapore


Pakistan: An Official Promise to Protect the Ahmadi Sect

Abstract: Pakistan ’s minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, on Tuesday promised “full protection” for the Ahmadi religious sect after Islamist militants killed 93 of its members in attacks last Friday at two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore. Pakistani officials blamed the Pakistani Taliban for the attacks, but Ahmadis say that the government does not protect them and that it actively discriminates against them. Ahmadis are reviled as heretics by mainstream Muslims because of their belief that their sect’s founder is a savior foretold by the Koran.


Falcons’ Babineaux Is Cleared of Charges

Abstract: The Atlanta Falcons finally got some good news about a player accused of killing a pit bull. The Gwinnett County district attorney’s office yesterday dismissed felony animal cruelty charges against the Falcons’ defensive tackle Jonathan Babineaux, who was arrested and charged after his girlfriend’s 1 ½-year-old pit bull mix, Kilo, died in February. The police suspected that Babineaux killed the dog when he was left at home with it. Babineaux, 26, said he was following the advice of a trainer recommended by his veterinarian to try to train the dog not to be aggressive. In the process of turning repeatedly in a circle until it became disoriented, the dog accidentally smacked its head against a wall. At the time, an N.F.L. official said Babineaux was distraught over the charges. “The main thing is my name is cleared from the whole ordeal,” Babineaux told reporters from the team’s headquarters in Flowery Branch, Ga. “I’m just happy this whole thing is over.” When Babineaux was charged, the N.F.L. was dealing with a turbulent off-season, with shooting incidents involving Denver cornerback Darrent Williams and Tennessee cornerback Pacman Jones. Babineaux’s case was overshadowed by the dogfighting scandal that engulfed Falcons quarterback Michael Vick , whose Virginia property was found to be the base of an operation that included raising — and sometimes killing — dogs specifically for fighting. Vick will be sentenced to prison time next month in federal court. The charges against Babineaux ignited protests from animal-rights groups when the police said that his story was inconsistent with the dog’s injuries, but the case was far murkier than the one that eventually brought down Vick. The case against Babineaux, who is in his third season, fell apart, the district attorney’s office said in a statement, because under Georgia law, when the state relies wholly on circumstantial evidence in a criminal case, the evidence must exclude every reasonable possibility other than the guilt of the accused. Babineaux’s lawyer said that the dog had a history of attacks, and that Babineaux and his girlfriend had tried several tactics — including neutering and putting it on Prozac — to calm him. RAMS’ JACKSON PRACTICES Rams running back Steven Jackson returned to full duty in practice after recovering from a bulging disk that knocked him out of St. Louis’s last game after one quarter before its bye week. Jackson, who led the N.F.L. with 2,334 yards rushing and receiving last season, missed a month earlier this year with a partly torn groin muscle. (AP) TESTAVERDE IS LIKELY TO START The soon-to-be 44-year-old Vinny Testaverde has moved back into the lead in the pothole-filled race to be the Panthers’ starting quarterback. Testaverde returned to practice after missing the Panthers’ loss to Tennessee last weekend with a sore right Achilles’ tendon. (AP) TITANS’ HENRY APPEALS The Tennessee rookie running back Chris Henry appealed his four-game suspension for violating the N.F.L.’s substance-abuse policy, keeping him available for the Titans. Henry was notified last weekend that he tested positive for a substance added to the league’s banned list within the past year, and he had five days to appeal or accept the suspension. (AP) LIGHT PRACTICE FOR GARRARD Jaguars quarterback David Garrard practiced in a limited capacity and could return this weekend against Tennessee. Garrard ran without pain last week. This was his first practice since sustaining a high ankle sprain Oct. 22 against Indianapolis. (AP) TROUBLE FOR BENGALS’ HENRY Bengals receiver Chris Henry was accused of being involved in an altercation with a parking attendant on the eve of rejoining the Bengals from his eight-game suspension. Henry practiced with the Bengals yesterday and will be eligible to play Sunday in Baltimore. Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended him for the first half of the season for repeatedly violating the N.F.L.’s conduct policy. (AP) BUSH SITS OUT Saints running back Reggie Bush sat out practice with a wrap on his left knee, but he said he expected to play Sunday when New Orleans plays host to St. Louis. (AP) 49ERS GUARD OUT FOR SEASON Justin Smiley, the 49ers’ starting right guard, will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery after dislocating the joint in his team’s loss at Atlanta on Sunday. (AP)

Atlanta Falcons
Cruelty to Animals
Babineaux Jonathan
Football
Vick Michael
Dogfighting


Ravens’ Rice Isn’t Bigger, Just Better

Abstract: OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Wilbert Montgomery, the Baltimore Ravens ’ 56-year-old running backs coach, has been working with his star pupil, Ray Rice, for almost three years — or long enough for Montgomery and Rice to communicate without even speaking. During a Ravens game, if Rice is on the field or if he and Montgomery are too far apart on the sideline, they will use their own set of hand signals to make comments or corrections on the fly, Rice said. The two never stray far from each other, mostly by Rice’s design. “When you’ve got a coach who was successful at the game himself, mastered it, your eyes are wide open,” Rice said Thursday of Montgomery, who played in the N.F.L. for nine years, most notably for the Philadelphia Eagles. As successful as Rice was last season carrying the ball for the Ravens — with 1,337 yards rushing and another 702 on receptions — he says he has become better technically at playing his position this year. Montgomery is the reason. Montgomery, in his third year with the Ravens and in his 14th year as an N.F.L. assistant, said Rice grew more in the last six games than he did in his first two and a half seasons in Baltimore, when he largely relied on sheer talent to get away from defenders. Rice had one of his best days as a professional last Sunday in the Ravens’ 30-24 victory over the New Orleans Saints, accounting for a career-high 233 yards rushing and receiving and 2 touchdowns. Baltimore fortified its passing game in the off-season, but now it may lean on Rice. “As you go down the stretch, you’d like your guys to be playing their best ball,” Montgomery said. “He’s in a zone right now. When the ball is in his hands, he gives you opportunities to keep the chains moving. He’s a bell-cow little back, but he can handle the workload.” Ah, yes. Little. A college star at Rutgers, Rice is 5 feet 9 inches, a small, elusive runner and receiver like the 5-10 Marshall Faulk, whom Montgomery coached in St. Louis, and the 5-10 LaDainian Tomlinson, the Jets back whom Rice considers a role model. At 5-10 and 196 pounds, Montgomery, a sixth-round draft choice from Abilene Christian, was hardly a giant. During a career that ended before Rice was born, Montgomery was durable and multidimensional. He rushed for 1,512 yards in 1979 . He caught 60 passes in 1984. “When things aren’t going right, you want to hear about it from him,” Rice said. Montgomery understands the dynamics of scooting around much bigger players. He continues to work with Rice on often unnoticed skills like reading blockers and defenders, judging the flow of a play, and hitting holes with the shoulders square instead of edging through them. With 1,051 yards rushing and 556 yards receiving, Rice is on pace to roughly match his statistics of last season. But Rice says he is healthier, and the Ravens are better on offense. The Ravens have set him up for a time of the season when a team’s running game can become critical. “We wanted to expand his role this year, and we’ve been able to do that,” Cam Cameron, the Ravens’ offensive coordinator, said Thursday. “He’s had more touches this year, and you want to continue to do that as a guy grows. It was nice to see the yards-per-carry increase. He is, I would imagine, in the top handful in the league in touches. It’s nice to be able to do that and still have a guy relatively fresh heading down the stretch.” Asked if the Ravens had paced Rice, Cameron said: “No, you’re really just trying to win every game. But we’ve got other guys, and that’s the good news. We’ve got depth at running back and depth at other positions, which we’ve needed.” It seems to mean a lot to Rice that the Ravens are becoming known for more than just their ruthless defense. Usually, he said, when people talk about the Ravens, it is an adjective, as in Ravens defense. The Ravens have actually inched up to 19th in the N.F.L. in total offense. “When you run the ball, you can dominate a team all game,” said Le’Ron McClain, Baltimore’s 260-pound fullback. “You’ve got to be balanced, and whatever you’ve got going, you’ve got to take advantage of offensively.” McClain said that if he were the offensive coordinator, he would find a way to get the ball to Rice at least twice if he had three chances to get a big first down. McClain says Rice reads defenses better because he has spent a lot of time watching film — with Montgomery. Rice said he was motivated to improve this season because he felt he “snuck up on a few teams” last year. He did not want to be regarded as a surprise, a one-year wonder replaced by a passing game led by quarterback Joe Flacco, who is also in his third year. “I was questioning this year whether my role was going to change,” Rice said. If anything, he has become a better overall player. Montgomery has helped him see to it. On Jan. 11, 1981, Montgomery rushed for 194 yards in the N.F.C. championship game against Dallas — including a 42-yard touchdown run on the game’s second play — to lead the Eagles into the Super Bowl . Rice wants to end up there, too. “I’ve just been a sponge,” Rice said of Montgomery. “It’s sort of like a little kid when your father speaks to you.”

Rice Ray
Montgomery Wilbert
Baltimore Ravens
Coaches and Managers
Football


On Independence Day, a Salute to the Brave

Abstract: ACCORDING to the calendar, the Fourth of July is nigh. But consumers may be excused for believing that it is November and Veterans Day is approaching. The potential confusion stems from a change in the kinds of advertisements that Madison Avenue has been bringing out as Independence Day approaches. The typical celebratory pitches — usually humorous or even silly, with, for instance, founding fathers promoting automotive clearance sales — are being joined by ads that take a more serious tack to honor the veterans of the nation’s wars, particularly those who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many such ads also announce donations by marketers to organizations that help those veterans, encourage consumers to make donations, or both. For example, OgilvyOne Worldwide in New York, part of the Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide division of WPP, is introducing this week a pro bono campaign to raise money for Building for America’s Bravest , which builds smart homes — technologically advanced and handicapped-accessible — for members of the armed forces who have been gravely injured. The campaign includes commercials, directed at no charge by the commercial director Joe Pytka, featuring wounded veterans who are among hundreds on a waiting list for the houses, which cost about $400,000 to $500,000 each. “We felt there needed to be communications in the marketplace to build awareness” for the program, said Brian Fetherstonhaugh, chairman and chief executive of OgilvyOne. Starting the outreach around the Fourth of July recognizes that “it’s an emotional touch point” for the public, he added. There is also a goal to connect Independence Day with the desire for self-sufficiency among the veterans, Mr. Fetherstonhaugh said. That is voiced by a veteran in one commercial, who declares, “For me to gain independence again would be amazing.” Executives at Building for America’s Bravest, which is administered by the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation , say they have so far given houses to six veterans, and by the end of the year hope to have the number of houses delivered or broken ground on reach 23. “This is exactly the time to start” the campaign, said Frank Siller, chairman of the foundation. “We’re going to enjoy the Fourth of July, but there are some others we can’t forget.” Among them is Todd Nicely, a Marine corporal who was severely wounded in Afghanistan in 2010 and lost all his limbs. He and his wife, Crystal, received a house, in Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., in June 2012. “Every time I step into that home, I get a sense of freedom,” Mr. Nicely said. “I want other guys to have that same feeling.” Image A wounded veteran in an ad that promotes the work of Building for America's Bravest, one of several causes being highlighted. Having a smart home “took a huge weight off your shoulders” so “you can focus on other things, like therapy,” he added. “It took me 10 times longer to take a shower than it does now.” Mr. Nicely described advertising as “one of the greatest tools we have” to provide the public with information about Building for America’s Bravest. “It’s mind-boggling the amount of veterans coming home who need assistance like this,” he said. “America doesn’t owe me anything, but the fact I got something is heartwarming; it’s a huge thank-you that’s really appreciated.” In another example of Independence Day salutes to veterans, Oral-B, sold by Procter & Gamble, is sponsoring a campaign this week that includes a $100,000 donation to an organization, Hope for the Warriors , that helps members of the armed forces who have served after Sept. 11, 2001. The campaign, which promotes Oral-B products that are “Built in the USA,” was the brainchild of employees of the Oral-B manual-toothbrush plant in Iowa City, Iowa, many of them veterans, said Rishi Dhingra, North American oral care marketing director at Procter in Cincinnati. The campaign, which first appeared on Memorial Day, will return for Labor Day and Veterans Day, Mr. Dhingra said. There are also video clips featuring employees of the plant, which will appear on Web sites like the MSN and Yahoo video networks, foxsports.com, nascar.com and YouTube. Print ads will feature a Nascar driver, Ryan Newman, who is sponsored by Oral-B. These are other examples of marketers running campaigns in the spring and summer, rather than in the fall and around Veterans Day: ■ Major League Baseball and People magazine, published by the Time Inc. division of Time Warner, are asking the public to “honor a military hero” by selecting 30 veterans to represent each of the 30 M.L.B. teams at the 2013 All-Star Game on July 16 at Citi Field. The Web site for the promotion includes a link to the Web site of an organization called Welcome Back Veterans , which helps returning veterans and their families and is an initiative of Major League Baseball Charities and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. ■ From mid-May through early June, the Macy’s division of Macy’s Inc. raised $3.4 million for a veterans’ organization, Got Your 6 , through a cause marketing effort that was part of the retailer’s ongoing American Icons campaign . ■ The Dove Men + Care line of products, sold by Unilever, promoted donations to Operation Homefront , which assists veterans, members of the military and military families, with a campaign theme of “Mission: Care.” ■ Brawny paper towels is running a campaign that pledges a donation of up to $350,000 to support the Wounded Warriors Project . Brawny is sold by the Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products unit of Koch Industries, owned by the Koch brothers; according to Forbes magazine, they were, as of March, worth $34 billion.

Veteran
advertising,marketing
Afghanistan War
Iraq War


Public Schools? To Kansas Conservatives, They’re ‘Government Schools’

Abstract: LEAWOOD, Kansas — Erica Massman, a moderate Kansas Republican, refers to the building where her daughter attends fourth grade as a public school. Ms. Massman’s mother, whose politics tilt further to the right, calls it something else: a government school. “My mother, who is a Tea Party person, started saying ‘government schools’ all the time,” said Ms. Massman, recalling when she first heard the phrase around 2010. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow.’” Kansas has for years been the stage for a messy school funding fight that has shaken the Legislature and reached the State Supreme Court. Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, and his political allies threatened to defy the court on education spending and slashed income taxes in their effort to make the state a model of conservatism. Somewhere along the way, the term “government schools” entered the lexicon in place of references to the public school system. “Our local grade school is now the government school,” State Senator Forrest Knox wrote in an op-ed article last year, echoing conservative concerns that the government had inserted itself unnecessarily into education. The intent was obvious to her, Ms. Massman said. “They are trying to rebrand public education,” she said. The use of the term has set off alarms even among some Republicans, who fear that it signals still less support, financially and otherwise, for the public schools in a state that had long felt pride over the quality of its education system. The recent adoption of a school finance plan that was acceptable to Mr. Brownback, the Legislature and the Kansas Supreme Court has not entirely assuaged those concerns. Davis Merritt, a columnist for The Wichita Eagle, said in a column in May that state legislators’ “deaf and blind” ideology was threatening public schools. “Some have begun to call public schools ‘government schools,’ a calculated pejorative scorning both education and anything related to government,” he wrote. That elicited a response from Bob Weeks, the host of “ WichitaLiberty.TV ,” a show about Kansas politics and public affairs. “It is surprising to me that liberals and progressives object to the term ‘government schools,’” he said on the show. “They like government, don’t they? These people want more taxation and government spending, don’t they? Well, when we think about our public schools, we find they have all the characteristics of government programs.” Dave Trabert, the president of the Kansas Policy Institute , which advocates limited government, said in an interview: “It’s certainly something that some people use to kind of separate between what’s government and what’s not. Technically, it’s accurate.” It would not be the first time that conservatives have used semantics to sway public opinion, experts said. George Lakoff , a linguistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has been tracking the trend for decades. He pointed out that the right has been more successful than the left at framing issues related to abortion, health care, labor unions and the concept of government itself, among other issues, with carefully contrived catchphrases: “Tax relief.” “Pro-life.” “The Democrat Party.” “Death panels.” (“Obamacare” was originally an attempt by the right to saddle President Obama with the repercussions of the Affordable Care Act, until he embraced the term himself.) Besides coining phrases, Dr. Lakoff said, the right has co-opted certain words — a practice that was demonstrated, he said, in President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, which used “freedom,” “free” or “liberty” 49 times in 20 minutes. “The right has taken over the words ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty,’” Dr. Lakoff said. Deborah Tannen , a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, recalled the 1986 speech in which President Ronald Reagan framed perceptions of “government,” to great effect. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,’” he said . “People tend to trace the demonization of government to Reagan,” Dr. Tannen said. “That’s kind of iconic, how he was using it. He set the government up as the enemy.” Conservatives in Kansas have extended the semantical positioning of “government” to education, conveying the message that public schools are a form of government imposition, Dr. Lakoff said. The phrase “government schools,” a common reference overseas to national school systems, has been around for decades as a way to differentiate them from privately financed schools. It has also been a label for schools on Native American reservations, and long used to influence debate. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York used the phrase in 1978 to make the case for federal aid to private schools. “We have succeeded in providing equality only to those who enroll in government schools,” he said in a speech in New York. “We have failed the parents who prefer to send their children to the schools that are descended from the older, private school systems.” The Libertarian Party borrowed that for its party platform in 1980 . “Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals,” the platform said. But only recently — and mostly in reliably conservative Kansas — has the term been used regularly and clearly as a political wedge. Education advocates in Kansas said they had heard it in conversations with state legislators (though few use it in public statements), in discussions about public schools on Facebook and on some conservative news sites. The use of the term “government schools” is part of a broad education agenda that includes restraining costs. The far-right and libertarian wings of the Republican Party are pushing the state to loosen its laws to allow more charter schools. They oppose programs that offer free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches, believing that schools have become part of the “nanny state” — another politically charged term — and are usurping the role of parents. Last year, Mr. Knox lamented in his op-ed article , published in a southern Kansas newspaper, that the government had become too intrusive in education. “Our children have become government children,” he wrote. John Locke , a professor of linguistics at the City University of New York, said that in some contexts the use of the word government had a positive connotation: government bonds and government-backed programs, for example. “But among those archconservatives who, by nature or disposition, want less government, it can have a negative effect,” he said. He suggested, somewhat tongue in cheek, that swapping “government” for “public” could become a trend, with references to “government libraries,” “government parks” — even “government universities.” “It’s austere,” Dr. Locke said. “It has an oppressive ring to it. It sounds rigid, the opposite of open or friendly or charming or congenial. The people who use that term are hoping those words will come to mind.”

Kansas
K-12 Education
Sam Brownback
Conservatism in the United States
State legislature
Budget
English language


Arizona: Confession Thrown Out in Killings at Buddhist Temple

Abstract: The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Thursday that a teenager’s confession to nine killings at a Buddhist temple was involuntary because he was not properly read his rights by the officers who arrested him. Jonathan Doody was 17 at the time of the killings of six priests, a nun and two helpers during a robbery at a temple west of Phoenix in 1991. He was sentenced to serve 281 years after he was convicted of murder, armed robbery and other charges and has spent 18 years in prison. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is considering whether to ask the Supreme Court to review the case or seek to retry Mr. Doody.

Decisions and Verdicts
Crime and Criminals
Courts
Buddhism


Social Networking Gains Among Older Americans

Abstract: Though people ages 18 to 33 outpace other adults in almost every category of Internet use, their elders are rapidly closing the gap in social networking, according to a Pew report . Internet users from all age groups increased their use of social networking from December 2008 to May 2010, with use by people 18 to 33 rising to 83 percent, from 67 percent. But those in every generation 45 and older more than doubled their participation. Adults 74 and older who are online quadrupled their social networking presence, and that now stands at 16 percent. Teenagers, by contrast, cut back on traditional blogging by 50 percent from 2006 to 2009. It is believed that status updates from sites like Facebook and Twitter are replacing the need for standalone blogging platforms. However, every other age group from 34 to 73 had modest rises in blogging. “Social networking sites also have special appeal to older users because they let those who have medical conditions find and talk to others who have gone through the same thing,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center.

Social Networking (Internet)
Age Chronological
Computers and the Internet


Hungry as a Bear

Abstract: Q. WHICH ANIMALS ARE MOST AND LEAST EFFICIENT AT DIGESTING FOOD? A. Digestive efficiency varies, depending on the food and the animal, said Michael Schlegel, chief nutritionist at San Diego Zoo Global, which operates the San Diego Zoo. When carnivores eat meat, they are very efficient in extracting its nutrients, Dr. Schlegel said. And some animals that consume foods high in plant fiber — like cows, colobus monkeys and kangaroos — have digestive systems with “foregut” areas in which fermentation effectively breaks down cellulose into absorbable nutrients. In animals with “hindgut” fermentation — like horses, elephants, wombats, gorillas and to some extent humans — microorganisms in the lower digestive tract also help extract nutrients from plant fiber. But the process doesn’t work as well as in cattle, sheep and other animals that chew cuds, Dr. Schlegel said. Many of the nutrients are lost in feces. Some animals, like rabbits, consume their own feces, regaining the products made by the microorganisms. Among the least efficient digesters are giant pandas, Dr. Schlegel said. They lack specialized areas in their digestive tracts to help break down plant fiber. The pandas must subsist on a bamboo-only diet “by consuming large quantities of food, digesting what they can and eliminating a large percentage as feces,” Dr. Schlegel said. C. CLAIBORNE RAY question@nytimes.com

Animals
Nutrition
Digestive Tract
Michael Schlegel


Bruins’ Overtime Win Against Penguins Extends a Streak

Abstract: Patrice Bergeron scored twice, including a deflection past Marc-Andre Fleury 2:43 into overtime, to lift the visiting Boston Bruins to a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The last eight meetings between the teams have been decided by one goal. ■ Marcus Johansson and Eric Fehr each scored two goals, and the visiting Washington Capitals spoiled the debut of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ interim coach, Peter Horachek, with a 6-2 victory.

Ice hockey
Bruins
Pittsburgh Penguins
Patrice Bergeron
Marc-Andre Fleury


India Pledges to Create Jobs and Tackle Inflation

Abstract: NEW DELHI — India’s new government will pursue broad economic overhauls focused on job creation through public and private investment, with containing inflation a priority, President Pranab Mukherjee told Parliament on Monday. Mr. Mukherjee said the government formed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s victory last month would introduce a general sales tax, encourage foreign investment and speed up approvals for major business projects. The government will also tackle bottlenecks that have left India with one of the highest rates of food inflation among major economies. The anti-inflationary message should be welcomed by the governor of India’s central bank, Raghuram Rajan, who has made lowering India’s high interest rates contingent on containing consumer prices. The Indian economy is in its longest slump in a quarter-century, having grown by 4.7 percent in the fiscal year that ended in March, the second straight year of growth below 5 percent. The slowdown has dampened Indians’ aspirations to emulate the economic rise in China. The government will “urgently pursue” an overhaul of the state-run coal sector and the military industry to attract private investment, the president said, while accelerating the clearance of projects that promote labor-intensive industries. Ten million people are entering the Indian work force every year as the largest youth bulge in the world reaches working age. The demographic shift may help propel India into the league of developed countries, but it could also lead to economic and social disaster if it is not harnessed effectively. “The first two years would be to create an enabling environment for growth to take off,” said Shubhada Rao, chief economist at Yes Bank in Mumbai. “There is no trade-off between inflation and growth.” The changes include public and private investments in agriculture and a clampdown on hoarding. The government also promised to ensure that every family had a good home with uninterrupted electricity by 2022. It will seek to revamp the creaking railway system, focusing on high-speed trains, and increase road and airport construction. The speech contained promises to modernize government with technology and to develop broadband Internet connections for every village within five years. Many of the proposals have also been made by previous governments. “We have heard all the right noises, but we have to wait to see all these intentions’ translating into action,” said A. Prasanna, an economist with ICICI Securities in Mumbai.

India
Inflation
Pranab Mukherjee
Narendra Modi
Jobs


Against Pesky Flyers, the Rangers Hope Penalties Don’t Mean Trouble

Abstract: Coach Alain Vigneault knows the Rangers may troop to the penalty box in large numbers during Friday’s Game 4 against the Philadelphia Flyers, as they did in winning Game 3 . The Flyers are experts at irritating their opponents, and sometimes it seems as if the Rangers cannot help themselves. It all points to another busy night of penalties as the Rangers try to take a 3-1 series lead back to Madison Square Garden. The Rangers can find some reason to hope, then, in Game 3: They were 5 for 5 killing penalties. “It was a big part of going into that tough environment to win that game,” Vigneault said. “If we need the penalty killing, which we’re probably going to have to next game, it’s going to have to be good again.” The Flyers had the most penalty minutes in the N.H.L. during the regular season (14.4 per game) and were short-handed 316 times. But they also goaded their opponents into taking penalties: The Flyers’ 294 power plays also led the league. In Game 3 on Tuesday, those tactics included late shoves and surreptitious slashes to players’ hands, like the ones Claude Giroux inflicted on Marc Staal and Derick Brassard. “It’s something that we expect, in the sense that we know that’s how they play,” Vigneault said. “We’ve just got to play through it; we’ve got to play whistle to whistle. Referees have got a job to do. We’re trying to do our job.” At practice Thursday at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers worked on special teams and examined video of Philadelphia goalie Steve Mason, who is back from an injury , believed to be a concussion. He will take over for Ray Emery. The Rangers ranked No. 3 in penalty killing during the regular season, thwarting 198 of their opponents’ 232 power plays, an official success rate of 85.3 percent. (Throw in the Rangers’ 10 short-handed goals, and the rate climbs to 89.7 percent.) They killed the last 17 chances they faced in the regular season, a span of more than seven games. The Rangers’ top penalty-killing forward is Brian Boyle, who has been on the ice for 6 minutes 40 seconds of the 14:09 that the team has been short-handed in the Flyers series. Boyle has thrived in past postseasons — a point he has been sure to make with his coach. “He mentioned that to me quite a few times throughout the year,” Vigneault said, eliciting laughter from reporters. “I said, Why didn’t you try that a little bit before?” After the laughter subsided, Vigneault continued: “He’s very good on the penalty kill. He’s always the first unit that I throw out there. So we need him.” Boyle takes pride in the team’s penalty killing, which is 7 for 9 in the playoffs. He pushed back at the suggestion that the Rangers had less success in their Game 2 loss , in which they killed only 1 of 3 Philadelphia power plays. “We gave one up on a tough bounce, and the other was an empty-netter,” Boyle said. “I know you guys like your stats, but I wouldn’t call that a P.K. goal against.” The Rangers blocked 10 shots while killing penalties Tuesday, and Dominic Moore, who has been on the ice in short-handed situations for 5:32, the second-longest duration among forwards, talked about the courage that took. “It’s an expectation,” he said of blocking a shot, acknowledging that it could hurt. “But a worse feeling is when you try and block it and you miss, and it goes through and goes in. That’s when you get really upset. The pain of blocking a shot you don’t get upset about.” Rangers wing Daniel Carcillo, a former Flyer, was responsible for two short-handed situations Tuesday, but once the Rangers had successfully killed his second penalty, he scored the team’s fourth goal of the game, shortly after coming out of the penalty box. As he celebrated along the boards, infuriated Flyers fans made vulgar gestures at him. Earlier in the third period, he had been knocked flat by a blindside hit from Matt Read, and as he lay dazed on the ice, Flyers fans cheered wildly. After the game, Carcillo said, “Nothing surprises me about this city and the way people act.” He also mentioned that the Flyers did not try to re-sign him after the 2010-11 season. “It basically means they don’t want you to come back and score a big goal,” he said. After practice Thursday, Carcillo said he had been criticized by Flyers fans on social media but added, “I really don’t pay attention to that stuff.” He added, “If I’m doing my job properly, there won’t be too many people there who like me.”

Ice hockey
Rangers
Flyers
Alain Vigneault
Playoffs