‘Doctor Strange’ Writer Explains Casting of Tilda Swinton as Tibetan

Abstract: BEIJING — The trailer for “Doctor Strange” from Marvel Studios has ignited outrage against what some people call another example of Hollywood’s racially insensitive casting. It reveals that a Tibetan character from the comic book, the Ancient One, is played by Tilda Swinton, a white British actress. It turns out that the filmmakers scrubbed the Tibetan origins of the character from the comic book altogether, in large part over fears of offending the Chinese government and people — and of losing access to one of the world’s most lucrative film markets, according to one insider account. In an interview last week, C. Robert Cargill, a screenwriter, offered that as an explanation for why the Ancient One was no longer Tibetan. The Tibetan issue is one of the thorniest involving China and other nations. The Chinese Communist Party and its army occupied Tibet in 1951, and Chinese leaders are well aware that many non-Chinese believe that Tibet should have independence or greater autonomy. Marvel said in a statement that there was no problem with the casting of Ms. Swinton as the Ancient One since the character was written as a Celt in the film and is not Asian at all. Before Mr. Cargill’s explanation circulated online, some critics said studio executives and filmmakers must have assumed Asian actors had little drawing power and so cast Ms. Swinton. In an interview on the pop culture show “Double Toasted,” Mr. Cargill said the decision to rid the character of its Tibetan roots was made by others working on the project, including the director, Scott Derrickson. It came down to anxieties over losing the China market, he said, if the portrayal of the Ancient One ended up stirring political sensitivities in China. In response to an angry viewer’s question about the casting of Ms. Swinton, Mr. Cargill said: “The Ancient One was a racist stereotype who comes from a region of the world that is in a very weird political place. He originates from Tibet, so if you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he’s Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people.” He added that there was the risk of “the Chinese government going, ‘Hey, you know one of the biggest film-watching countries in the world? We’re not going to show your movie because you decided to get political.’ ” Earlier in the interview, Mr. Cargill had acknowledged that the origin story of Dr. Strange in old Marvel comics does involve Tibet, and that his mentor was Tibetan. “He goes to a place in Tibet, the Ancient One teaches him magic, he becomes a sorcerer, then later he becomes the Sorcerer Supreme,” Mr. Cargill said. The Chinese box office is the world’s second biggest, behind the United States, and Hollywood executives often alter films to avoid offending Chinese officials and to help their movies get shown in China. The Chinese government sets a strict limit on the number of foreign films shown in cinemas each year. Mr. Cargill’s take on how Chinese officials and moviegoers might react to a Tibetan character was overly simplistic, though. The government and many Chinese people do not deny the existence of the cultural idea of Tibet or Tibetans. They just assert that China should rule the territory . Mr. Cargill also said that because the original character of the Ancient One was a racist stereotype, the role would be hard to pull off with modern sensibilities. He added that if a Tibetan had been cast, it would result in the stereotypical narrative of a white hero, Dr. Stephen Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, being indoctrinated into Eastern mysticism. From the trailer , the film appears to retain some of the origin story’s Tibetan Buddhist flavor. There are shots of temples in what seems to be the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. At one point, Mr. Cumberbatch’s hand turns Tibetan prayer wheels. Ms. Swinton’s character, though Celtic, appears to be training Dr. Strange in Nepal. Mr. Cargill said some critics had suggested the filmmakers could have cast Michelle Yeoh as the Ancient One. Ms. Yeoh is an ethnic Chinese actress from Malaysia who is a martial arts icon and starred in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” “If you are telling me you think it’s a good idea to cast a Chinese actress as a Tibetan character, you are out of your damn fool mind,” Mr. Cargill said. Mr. Cargill also drew a parallel, saying that the only thornier situation he could envision was if Dr. Strange’s origin story had involved him going to Palestine in the 1930s and studying under a Palestinian mentor. The Ancient One was a character who had “fallen into a weird place,” he said. “There’s a really, really ugly piece of history that we wish there was an easy solution to, and there wasn’t one.” Mr. Cargill said Mr. Derrickson, the director, hoped that changing the gender would help offset bad choices that had to be made. Mr. Derrickson, he said, reasoned that “there’s no real way to win this, so let’s use this as an opportunity to cast an amazing actress in a male role.” “And sure enough, there’s not a lot of talk about, ‘Oh man, they took away the job from a guy and gave it to a woman.’ Everybody kind of decides to pat us on the back for that and then decides to scold us for her not being Tibetan.” Ms. Swinton, in an interview with Den of Geek, confirmed that the change to the character had been made early in the process. “The script that I was presented with did not feature an Asian man for me to play, so that was never a question when I was being asked to do it,” she said. A Marvel press officer defended the casting in a statement, saying that “Marvel has a very strong record of diversity in its casting of films and regularly departs from stereotypes and source material.” “The Ancient One is a title that is not exclusively held by any one character, but rather a moniker passed down through time, and in this particular film the embodiment is Celtic,” the company said. “We are very proud to have the enormously talented Tilda Swinton portray this unique and complex character alongside our richly diverse cast.” Mr. Cargill had a more sober take in the interview on “Double Toasted.” He likened the cultural issue involving the Ancient One to the Kobayashi Maru , a famous battle simulation game in the “Star Trek” universe that Starfleet Academy cadets must play during training. The game had been programmed so that all choices would lead to a loss. “I could tell you why every single decision that involves the Ancient One is a bad one, and just like the Kobayashi Maru, it all comes down on which way you’re willing to lose,” Mr. Cargill said. He neglected to mention that James T. Kirk, one of the main heroes of “Star Trek,” did beat the game with an unorthodox gambit .

Movies
Tibet
Marvel Studios
Tilda Swinton
Race and Ethnicity
Actor
Doctor Strange


Miami Beach Preservationists Push to Protect Home

Abstract: MIAMI BEACH — When South Beach was little more than a forlorn chunk of beachfront property, preservationists clung to the idea that the faded, often derelict pastel buildings lining the streets were too precious to knock down. Their campaign to preserve the area’s fanciful Art Deco buildings ushered in one of the country’s most successful urban revivals. Years later, South Beach is still a juggernaut. Preservationists are now pushing hard to bolster historic preservation laws, a move that has ruffled wealthy property owners (and potential buyers) and stepped up pressure on local commissioners who are reluctant to wade into the politically precarious battle. “We have reached a tipping point on Miami Beach where we are losing entirely too many pre-1942 single-family homes,” said William H. Cary, the assistant planning director for Miami Beach and the former preservation director for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. “It appears it could begin to have a dramatic impact in changing the character of Miami Beach’s residential areas.” While it had been brewing on and off for years, the campaign by preservationists to better protect these Miami Beach homes was abruptly set in motion last month by the planned demolition of one especially notable house: a gleaming white neo-Classical house, built in 1925 by Walter DeGarmo, a prominent Miami architect of the era, that sits on the aptly named Star Island and exudes old Florida grandeur. It does not hurt the preservationists’ cause that the house’s new owners carry splashy names in South Florida social circles. Dr. Leonard M. Hochstein , a well-known plastic surgeon, and his wife, Lisa, a Canadian model and one of the “Real Housewives of Miami,” took control of the waterfront house last year, sight unseen, in a foreclosure proceeding. They paid $7.6 million. After sending an engineer to inspect the house, the Hochsteins decided that it was too deteriorated and outmoded to renovate. Instead, they submitted design plans to the City of Miami Beach to raze the house, as many property owners do, and build a 20,000-square-foot home, with six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a game room and wine cellar, among other amenities. Applications of this sort are common in Miami Beach. “That’s when the fireworks started,” Dr. Hochstein said. When the Miami Design Preservation League , which led the movement to keep Art Deco hotels in South Beach from the rubble pile, heard about the demolition application last month, a member filed a request to designate the house at 42 Star Island Drive as historic. The designation would help protect the house, which is near the homes of Gloria Estefan and Sean Combs. The request was unusual. Historic designation of private homes is typically sought by a homeowner who prizes the design and wants to benefit from tax deductions meant to encourage preservation. But, in this case, preservation league members felt compelled to stop the expected demolition of a “crown jewel on that chain of islands,” said Michael D. Kinerk, chairman emeritus of the league. Dr. Hochstein, though, said he felt ambushed by the preservationists, particularly because the city does not have the power to stop the demolitions of nonhistoric homes. Dr. Hochstein said that he was distressed by the personal tenor of the fight and that the preservationists are capitalizing on the couple’s celebrity to make a larger point. Image A sign outside 42 Star Island Drive in Miami Beach announced a public hearing on the proposed demolition of the house. Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times “The house is not habitable, and renovating it, while keeping the shell, is also not possible,” Dr. Hochstein said. “It’s not a home that can be preserved.” He added, “If this home was a historic home, I wouldn’t have bought it. To go and try to do this after the fact, against my will, is really unsettling.” The house, he said, sits well below the flood plain and has severe structural problems. It does not comply with strict hurricane regulations. It has cloth wiring, no air-conditioning and no plumbing on the second floor. And because it was built to maximize sea breezes, the house is long and narrow, with one room tumbling into the next. Dr. Hochstein said he reached 22 of the 32 homeowners on the island, and none objected to the house’s demolition, considering its state of disrepair. Meanwhile, he continues to negotiate with the city’s Design Review Board, which oversees the construction of houses, about the new home and whether a portion of the old house can be saved. The city is expected to make a decision on 42 Star Island in February. “This is not Vizcaya ,” he said, referring to a historic Miami estate that is now a museum. “This is a residential home. It is a private home, a huge difference.” Preservationists said that the recent increase in the number of demolition applications for important pre-World War II homes has underscored the need to change the law. Demolition permits have been issued for 24 of these homes in the past year. By comparison, only 13 permits were given out from 2007 to 2011. More are pending. At the moment, the city’s Design Review Board cannot block a permit to demolish single-family home unless it has been declared historic; it can only approve the design of a new home. Tax incentives put in place in 2002 meant to encourage homeowners to ask for historic designation and preserve their houses are no longer working. That is because, in recent years, Miami Beach has drawn increasingly wealthy owners who are building increasingly large houses. The recession did not slow the pace of these renovations. “Now, you have so many people coming in with so much money, they are saying we don’t need to be bothered with that,” said Jeff Donnelly, the public historian for the Miami Design Preservation League. “Incentives are not working anymore. We are not saying that every single property should be designated historic, but there should be a public process to determine it.” With the pressure on, Miami Beach commissioners are expected to consider whether to strengthen historic preservation laws and allow residential historic districts. First, though, the community must weigh in. A similar effort begun a decade ago foundered under the hefty opposition of developers, real estate brokers and some residents. Still, Miami Beach residents are generally in favor of preservation, despite the few homes designated historic. They recognize that it was the preservation of the city’s Art Deco and Moderne architecture that stoked Miami Beach’s popularity and economic boom. In November, residents voted 61 percent in favor of a measure that would require a referendum to weaken preservation laws and the city’s preservation boards. “Our historic architecture defines our city,” Mr. Kinerk said. “We have very strong preservation laws in Miami Beach, and it has done nothing but benefit the city. Nobody can dispute this.” But the task, when it comes to individual homes and property rights, is far from simple. “There has to be substantial public support for it, and it’s going to be tough, yes, because development pressures and the level of wealth are so great,” said Mr. Cary, the assistant planning director. “Many residents feel they should have the right to demolish their homes; they own it.”

Miami Beach FL
Historic preservation
Real Estate
Housing
Architecture
South Beach Miami
Leonard M Hochstein


Brittney Griner and Elena Delle Donne Dazzle Home Crowds

Abstract: Were you wondering if there was a record Brittney Griner hadn’t set? Were you hoping she might use the occasion of her final home game to do yet another stupendous thing? No problem! On Tuesday night—with George W. Bush and Laura in the house in Waco—Griner scored 33 points, had 22 rebounds and, true story, three dunks. As Michelle Smith concluded at ESPN, that was Griner “making herself a little memory.” She “dunked three times in a game for the first time in her career, and her 18 career dunks now are three more than all the other players combined in women’s N.C.A.A. history.” Will Parchman at The Waco Tribune completes the thought: “If there’s a frontier in the landscape of women’s basketball, Brittney Griner is undoubtedly on its vanguard. As a result, it’s getting harder and harder for Griner to one-up herself.” She’ll have at least one more opportunity (yes, of course, probably more); with Baylor’s 85-47 victory against Florida State, the Lady Bears move on to the Round of 16 (next opponent: Louisville). Griner’s was not the only remarkable tournament story Tuesday night. Elena Delle Donne of Delaware scored 33 points of her own to lead the Blue Hens to the Round of 16 for the first time. It was also her final home game, and Joe Biden and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell in attendance. Delaware will play its next game (against Kentucky) in Bridgeport, Conn., the state in which it appeared she was going to be a major basketball star at the University of Connecticut before she decided she wanted to closer to her family and then switched to volleyball for a season. Image Delaware players Lauren Carra, Elena Delle Donne and Jaquetta May celebrated after defeating North Carolina on Tuesday in Newark, Del. Credit Patrick Semansky/Associated Press But there is no doubt basketball is her game. As Graham Hays writes at ESPN, “It is almost impossible to take your eyes off Delle Donne on the offensive end of the court. Like Lionel Messi or Wayne Gretzky in his prime, the anticipation of her getting the ball is more compelling than what most players do when they actually have it in their hands.” And the Bob Carpenter Center at the University of Delaware was the appropriate setting, says Martin Frank at The Wilmington News Journal. “This was a love affair that began in eighth grade when Delle Donne led Ursuline Academy to four state championships in her five seasons, each year her final game culminating at The Bob. This was her home. Well, she wasn’t going to go out with a loss. Not on this night. Not with Markell and Biden in attendance. And not with school history on the line.” Final score: Delaware 78, North Carolina 69. Also having a good night Tuesday: The United States soccer team and its much-criticized coach, Jurgenn Klinsmann. The team got a point after a draw against Mexico, and as Grant Wahl writes at Sports Illustrated, “While Klinsmann didn’t quite end up on the extreme “genius” end of the scale, he was closer than just about anyone would have expected 10 days ago.” No longer on any kind of active-duty genius scale are basketball coaches Ben Howland of U.C.L.A. and Tubby Smith of Minnesota. Their dismissals were justified, Pat Forde writes at Yahoo. On Howland: “Divide Howland’s 10-year U.C.L.A. tenure into two periods and you see a major dropoff: the first six seasons were Camelot; the last four were Losealot.” And Smith: “He gave Minnesota six years of good and zero years of great. And with a salary of nearly $2 million this year, the school was paying for great (or at least really, really good).” They aren’t the only ones looking for work. High-profile N.F.L. names like Brian Urlacher, James Harrison, Nnamdi Asomugha Richard Seymour and Osi Umenyiora are free agents looking for teams and money, but the latter may not be in the quantities they might expect, as Jason La Canfora writes at CBS Sports : “Unless you had the Dolphins, Colts or Titans chasing you this March, you weren’t getting overpaid.” Manti T’eo undoubtedly would like a major N.F.L. payday as well, but even a faster 40 won’t make it so, says Jason Cole at Yahoo: “The problem for Te’o is that while he’s relatively athletic, he’s not good enough to overcome superior players. He’s considered neither explosive enough nor quick enough to get through or around better blockers in the pros.” Derrick Rose is good enough to overcome superior players. But when? He doesn’t know. His Bulls teammates don’t know. Fans don’t know. Nobody knows. But Shaun Powell at Sports on Earth says the team should rule him out for the remainder of this season: “Really, what’s to be gained by allowing Rose to play this season, even if he wanted to? A few wins in the playoffs? Maybe even a round? Is that really worth the risk, however small it might be, of something going terribly wrong and then dealing with deep regret?” Meanwhile, the Bulls have a game to play Wednesday night against a Heat team pursuing its 28th consecutive victory. K.C. Johnson of The Chicago Tribune noted that the Bulls “dominated the rebounding battle when they won the first meeting between these teams in January, which led to a question about whether the Heat are vulnerable in that department.” To which Chicago guard Kirk Hinrich had this dunk of a response: “They’ve won 27 in a row. They’re not that vulnerable.”

Brittney Griner
Elena Delle Donne
Ben Howland
Derrick Rose
NCAA Women's Basketball
College basketball


Bruins Get Winter Classic

Abstract: N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman joined officials from the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens to say the teams would meet in the Winter Classic at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., on Jan. 1. The Bruins will be the first team to host the event twice. They also hosted it in 2010, at Fenway Park. ■ Forward Dainius Zubrus was placed on unconditional waivers by the Devils with the intention of ending his contract. Zubrus, 37, played for the Devils the last eight seasons and was scheduled to earn $3.1 million this season in the final year of a three-year, $9.3 million deal.

Ice hockey
Gary Bettman
Dainius Zubrus
Devils
Montreal Canadiens
Bruins


Leaderless and Underfunded, N.J. Transit Had Troubles Well Before Fatal Crash

Abstract: Even before one of its trains crashed in Hoboken Terminal on Thursday morning, killing one woman and injuring more than 100 others, New Jersey Transit was an agency in distress. The third-busiest commuter system in the country, New Jersey Transit has been operating without an executive director for nearly a year, its board of directors has not met for three months and it has not explained how it will close a $45 million gap in its budget this year. Last month, two of its buses collided in downtown Newark, leaving two people dead. The cause of the fatal train crash has not been determined. But whether it proves to have been a case of human error or of mechanical failure, it is sure to focus more attention on a transit agency that has been operating in secrecy. New Jersey Transit’s management “has been told to go into a bear cave and disappear until told to come back out,” said Martin E. Robins, a former deputy executive director of the agency. “We don’t know anything about what’s going on.” Mr. Robins, who has been a critic of the agency in recent years, said he could not recall its board suspending monthly public meetings before this year. It has done so since June, when New Jersey Transit’s interim management grappled with a state budget that left the agency about $45 million short of what it needed to operate this year. Since then, Gov. Chris Christie and legislative leaders have failed to reach an agreement on an increase in New Jersey’s gas tax that would have replenished the state’s Transportation Trust Fund. That fund, which nearly ran dry this summer, provided more than one-fifth of New Jersey Transit’s annual budget. In July, Mr. Christie ordered the suspension of all highway and transit projects paid for by the trust fund. Mr. Robins and other transit advocates warned that cutting off financing for so many improvements could lead to more mechanical and safety problems. “It does beg the question how quickly and how severely is the transit infrastructure in New Jersey failing, given the inadequate funding and resources that they’re being given,” said Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. “The public has a right to know what the budget numbers are, how is N.J. Transit staying afloat these days? How are they covering their day-to-day operating costs?” Mr. Robins pointed to the sharp reduction in the annual contribution to New Jersey Transit from the state’s general fund, less than $35 million last year — about one-tenth of what it was in 2009. “This is not an incompetent agency,” Mr. Robins said in an interview earlier in the week. “What you’re dealing with is an agency that’s being systematically starved.” And since November, it has been an agency without an established leader. Veronique Hakim, who was highly regarded as the executive director, resigned to join the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York. After a search for a successor, New Jersey Transit held a special meeting in April to appoint William Crosbie. But Mr. Crosbie turned down the job , leaving Dennis Martin the interim director for an indefinite period. “Right now, there’s a leadership vacuum at the agency,” Ms. Vanterpool said. While its management and funding have been in flux, New Jersey Transit had not been plagued by safety issues heading into this summer. But that changed dramatically on the morning of Aug. 19, when a bus carrying passengers in downtown Newark crossed the path of an empty bus. The collision sliced one bus in half and killed one of the drivers. A passenger died later from her injuries. On Monday morning, two New Jersey Transit buses collided in the Lincoln Tunnel, injuring dozens of passengers and causing long delays for other commuters trying to get into Manhattan. But according to federal records, the last New Jersey Transit rail accident that resulted in the death of a passenger happened 20 years ago. On a February morning in 1996, a Hoboken-bound train overshot a stopping point and ran into the path of another New Jersey Transit train. The engineers of both trains and one passenger were killed, and more than 160 others were injured. Rail-safety advocates argue that crashes like that one could be prevented by a technology known as positive train control, which automatically brakes a train that has run a stop signal or exceeded speed limits. Federal officials have called for passenger railroads to adopt positive train control by the end of 2018. In its 2015 annual report, New Jersey Transit said that it had equipped a locomotive and a cab car with the components needed for the system and that it would start installing hardware along tracks this year “when design plans are finalized.” The Federal Railroad Administration said that New Jersey Transit had not yet installed the technology. It was not clear on Thursday whether the system could have prevented the crash in Hoboken. At a news conference, Mr. Christie, a Republican, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, were reluctant to address that question. Mr. Christie said officials first had to determine the cause before deciding what steps should be taken in the future. “We cannot answer whether any other apparatus or system could have prevented it,” Mr. Christie said. Mr. Cuomo said that the technology could help in some circumstances, but that officials did not yet know why the train was traveling at a high speed. Hundreds of people die on the nation’s rails each year, but the vast majority of them are motorists or pedestrians who get in the paths of trains and are struck. Workplace accidents kill railroad workers far less often, but still fairly regularly. Passenger fatalities are much rarer, about seven for every 100 million miles traveled by passenger trains. But there have been some major, recent exceptions. Last year, six people died , including five passengers, when a Metro-North Railroad train hit an S.U.V. on the tracks — the worst accident in the railroad’s history. Three months later, an Amtrak train derailed while going too fast around a curve in Philadelphia, killing eight people .

Public Transit
Train wreck
New Jersey Transit
Chris Christie
Hoboken NJ


Lcross Mission Finds Water on Moon, NASA Scientists Say

Abstract: There is water on the Moon , scientists stated unequivocally on Friday. “Indeed yes, we found water,” Anthony Colaprete, the principal investigator for NASA ’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite , said in a news conference. “And we didn’t find just a little bit. We found a significant amount.” The confirmation of scientists’ suspicions is welcome news to explorers who might set up home on the lunar surface and to scientists who hope that the water, in the form of ice accumulated over billions of years, holds a record of the solar system’s history. The satellite, known as Lcross (pronounced L-cross), crashed into a crater near the Moon’s south pole a month ago . The 5,600-miles-per-hour impact carved out a hole 60 to 100 feet wide and kicked up at least 26 gallons of water. “We got more than just a whiff,” Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator of the mission, said in a telephone interview. “We practically tasted it with the impact.” For more than a decade, planetary scientists have seen tantalizing hints of water ice at the bottom of these cold craters where the sun never shines . The Lcross mission, intended to look for water, was made up of two pieces — an empty rocket stage to slam into the floor of Cabeus, a crater 60 miles wide and 2 miles deep, and a small spacecraft to measure what was kicked up. For space enthusiasts who stayed up, or woke up early, to watch the impact on Oct. 9, the event was anticlimactic, even disappointing, as they failed to see the anticipated debris plume. Even some high-powered telescopes on Earth like the Palomar Observatory in California did not see anything. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration later said that Lcross did indeed photograph a plume but that the live video stream was not properly attuned to pick out the details. The water findings came through an analysis of the slight shifts in color after the impact, showing telltale signs of water molecules that had absorbed specific wavelengths of light. “We got good fits,” Dr. Colaprete said. “It was a unique fit.” The scientists also saw colors of ultraviolet light associated with molecules of hydroxyl, consisting of one hydrogen and one oxygen, presumably water molecules that had been broken apart by the impact and then glowed like neon signs. In addition, there were squiggles in the data that indicated other molecules, possibly carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, methane or more complex carbon-based molecules. “All of those are possibilities,” Dr. Colaprete said, “but we really need to do the work to see which ones work best.” Remaining in perpetual darkness like other craters near the lunar poles, the bottom of Cabeus is a frigid minus 365 degrees Fahrenheit, cold enough that anything at the bottom of such craters never leaves. These craters are “really like the dusty attic of the solar system,” said Michael Wargo, the chief lunar scientist at NASA headquarters. The Moon was once thought to be dry. Then came hints of ice in the polar craters. In September, scientists reported an unexpected finding that most of the surface, not just the polar regions, might be covered with a thin veneer of water . The Lcross scientists said it was not clear how all the different readings of water related to one another, if at all. The deposits in the lunar craters may be as informative about the Moon as ice cores from Earth’s polar regions are about the planet’s past climates. Scientists want to know the source and history of whatever water they find. It could have come from the impacts of comets, for instance, or from within the Moon. “Now that we know that water is there, thanks to Lcross, we can begin in earnest to go to this next set of questions,” said Gregory T. Delory of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Delory said the findings of Lcross and other spacecraft were “painting a really surprising new picture of the Moon; rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could be in fact a very dynamic and interesting one.” Lunar ice, if bountiful, not only gives future settlers something to drink, but could also be broken apart into oxygen and hydrogen. Both are valuable as rocket fuel, and the oxygen would also give astronauts air to breathe. NASA’s current exploration plans call for a return of astronauts to the Moon by 2020, for the first visit since 1972. But a panel appointed in May recently concluded that trimmings of the agency’s budget made that goal impossible. One option presented to the Obama administration was to bypass Moon landings for now and focus on long-duration missions in deep space. Even though the signs of water were clear and definitive, the Moon is far from wet. The Cabeus soil could still turn out to be drier than that in deserts on Earth. But Dr. Colaprete also said that he expected that the 26 gallons were a lower limit and that it was too early to estimate the concentration of water in the soil.


For Westerners in Asia, the Job Market Grows Tougher

Abstract: HONG KONG — Julia Przetakiewicz has an enviable résumé: She has a master’s degree from a prestigious British university, has more than a decade of work experience, has lived in five countries and speaks four languages. Unfortunately, her Mandarin is limited — and because of that, she has struggled to find a new job in Hong Kong, a city that once welcomed her with open arms. Cities like Hong Kong and Singapore — trading and financial hubs within one of the fastest-growing regions of the world — have long attracted Europeans and Americans in search of adventure and jobs. Their modern infrastructures, good education and health systems, and a general openness to English-speaking workers have long made them special favorites with expatriates. The global financial crisis only intensified that magnetism as Westerners, disenchanted with the turmoil in their home countries and lured by rapid economic growth, moved east in ever greater numbers. Ten, or even five, years ago, experienced expatriates who were prepared to take the plunge stood a pretty good chance of finding a white-collar job in Hong Kong, Singapore or even Shanghai. But many are now finding it much tougher to find work, thanks to cost pressures, a larger pool of qualified local hires and a shift in the role that Asia plays within the global economy. “When I came to Hong Kong in 2009, it still seemed pretty easy,” said Ms. Przetakiewicz, who at the time found a role as a manager for a business leaders forum that promotes corporate social responsibility. “Now, even an understanding of the local context and issues does not seem to be enough. Practically everyone wants Mandarin.” Early this year, she decided to look for a new job. But after several job interviews, Ms. Przetakiewicz, who holds Polish and Canadian citizenship, recently decided to leave Hong Kong and take her skills elsewhere. Ms. Przetakiewicz is not alone in finding that despite low unemployment and solid hiring across many sectors, the job market in Asia is gradually becoming less welcoming for Westerners. Even before the global financial crisis, newcomers to Asia could not expect to walk into a job in the region unless they had particularly sought-after skills. About 60 percent of job specs processed by the recruitment firm Hudson in Singapore, for example, now require Mandarin, said Andrew Tomich, the company’s executive general manager in Singapore. Five years ago, he said, the percentage was half that. “Even in the last 12 months, there’s been a steady increase in Singapore for Mandarin-speaking candidates,” he said. “We can feel it with every breath we take.” In Hong Kong, which is a stepping stone to mainland China, the percentage of jobs requiring Mandarin or Cantonese has climbed to more than 80 percent, according to Aruna Alimchandani, director of the commerce and industrial unit at Hudson in Hong Kong. That is up from about 70 percent just a few years ago. In mainland China in the 12 months through October 2012, expatriates ended up in just 5 percent of the jobs filled by Hays, a recruitment agency that specializes in white-collar jobs. One year earlier, the number was 11 percent, said Christine Wright, who heads Hays’s operations in Asia. It is not that companies do not want to add employees. A recent survey by Hudson showed that the vast majority of companies in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore planned to increase their numbers of employees or keep staffing levels steady this quarter. Many, in fact, have to work hard to attract and retain workers. But, job market experts say, employers are more eager than ever to ensure that the employees they do hire match their expectations. On the cost front, that means avoiding the extra expenses that can come with hiring foreigners — relocation costs, for example, or school fees for children. Many have also become more eager to fill positions with people who are unlikely to leave again soon. “Companies want people who commit to the region long-term — who don’t just come on a two-year contract,” said Ms. Wright of Hays. Moreover, she said, the pool of locals who have the necessary training and experience for jobs that were once dominated by expatriates has grown, so there is less need for employers to look outside. “Lots of young Asians who went abroad to work or study are now coming back. They are eager, multilingual and have overseas experience and education — they fit many employers’ bills perfectly,” she said. At the same time, the transformation of Asia’s developing economies means companies need different employees than they once did. (The change is less perceptible in highly developed Japan, whose mature and slow-growing economy has already undergone many of the shifts that are now happening elsewhere in Asia.) Over the past two decades, much of developing Asia has evolved from a blue-collar manufacturing base into a destination for consumer goods like cars and industrial equipment. That shift has created a greater need to interact directly with local customers, suppliers and business partners. Over that same time period, Asia’s trade has become more intra-regional, often involving China, rather than the West. Those shifts have inflated demand for employees with local language skills and cultural backgrounds, headhunters and business executives explain. A decade ago, Ms. Wright said, it was possible, and fairly common, for international companies to deploy foreigners to Asia-based jobs, giving them translators to help out with the communications on the ground. That arrangement, she said, is now less feasible. Finally, Asia’s growing importance within the global economy has changed the way multinationals organize themselves across the region. Whereas many firms had run the region as a single management unit — often from Hong Kong and Singapore — companies are increasingly starting to break up their Asia-Pacific management units into smaller, more manageable blocks, the Economist Corporate Network wrote in a recent report . For many companies, China “has reached a critical mass where it needs an independent management team that is separate from managing the rest of Asia,” the report said. This structural evolution has affected hiring, by increasing the number of positions focused on smaller parts of Asia, or single countries, making an understanding of local cultures and languages more important. The exact hiring requirements, of course, vary by sector and job. Similarly, not all positions and employers require language skills or years of Asia background. Still, Mr. Tomich of the Hudson office in Singapore, said the shift in recruitment requirements could be felt “right through the role types.” Nowadays, he said, an engineer based in Singapore might, for example, have to be able to deal directly with suppliers in China — something that would not have been the case 10 years ago. “Pretty much all the jobs I see advertised say ‘Mandarin required,’ sometimes Cantonese, too,” said one Frenchman who moved to Hong Kong last October after being laid off from his position as a trader at a French bank in Paris. His wife, who works in the luxury retail sector, has had similar experiences: Many job applications, several interviews, but — because she lacks the Mandarin that is needed to interact with Chinese shoppers — no job offer so far. “We came here because we thought the market would be easier here than in Europe,” said the Frenchman, who declined to be identified because, like many foreigners, he is in Hong Kong on a tourist visa that does not officially allow him to look for a job in the city. “There are jobs around; it’s just that they all want Chinese,” he said. Still, said Ms. Alimchandani of Hudson in Hong Kong, “it’s not all doom and gloom. There are jobs to be had — it’s just that you might have to be flexible with the industry and position, and on the income front.” Lamia Mahjoub, a 28-year-old former personnel officer from Paris, found herself in precisely that position. A lengthy job search finally paid off for her in April, when she began working as a business development manager at an art leasing company in Hong Kong. “It's been a difficult job hunt,” Ms. Mahjoub said, “but in the end I got lucky.”


Taiwan Fears Fraud Suspects in Malaysia May Be Deported to China

Abstract: HONG KONG — Officials in Taiwan raised concerns on Friday that dozens of fraud suspects from Taiwan were at risk of being sent from Malaysia to China, much as Kenya deported a similar group of suspects this week. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said Friday evening that 20 of the suspects had been put on a flight to Taiwan but that the fate of an additional 32 suspects remained unclear. China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and frequently seeks to limit its recognition overseas. The deportations have raised fears in Taiwan that China is using its international clout to put pressure on the self-ruled island. Taiwan’s government is scrambling to deal with the deportations in the midst of a political transition. Next month, President Ma Ying-jeou, who pursued closer ties with China during his eight years in office, will step down. His successor, Tsai Ing-wen , advocates more caution and public deliberation in cross-strait ties. Image Foreign Minister David Lin of Taiwan said it was unclear whether Beijing was trying to force the suspects in Malaysia to go to China, but he said the group should be returned to Taiwan. Credit Ashley Pon/Getty Images A group of officials from Taiwan will travel to China next week to discuss the deportations, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said Friday. China’s Ministry of Public Security says the Internet telephone fraud in China has grown drastically, aided by the easy availability of people’s telephone numbers and other private data. And criminals from Taiwan — able to speak Mandarin Chinese, but living beyond China’s harsh criminal justice system — have often been the perpetrators, according to Chinese news reports. “Telecommunications fraud syndicates led by Taiwanese crime suspects have set up operations in Southeast Asia, Africa and Oceania,” said Xinhua, China’s main state news agency. In recent years, complaints to the Chinese police about such fraud have grown from 20 percent to 30 percent annually, and over half of the losses in such cases went to gangs led by people from Taiwan, said Xinhua, citing official Chinese estimates. Last year, one such gang swindled a payment manager in a local government office in southwest China and made off with 117 million renminbi, or about $18 million, the report said. In recent months, the Chinese police have also worked with the Malaysian authorities to track and break up a series of telephone fraud gangs operating from Malaysia that targeted mainland Chinese residents, according to Chinese newspaper reports. Like the suspected fraud calls from Kenya, these were said to have been perpetrated by people from Taiwan who recruited mainland Chinese for support staff, operating out of rented townhouses where they worked banks of phones to call China. But it was not clear whether the Taiwanese suspects facing deportation to mainland China were arrested over those cases or similar ones. In January, police officers from China traveled to Malaysia and helped investigators break up eight fraud operations based in Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang and other places, a local Chinese government news site said at the time. That operation caught 44 suspects, half from mainland China and half from Taiwan, the report said. Since 2011, the police in China and Taiwan have detained about 7,700 people suspected of participating in telephone fraud operations from Southeast Asia and other parts of the world, Xinhua said on Thursday. More than 4,600 of the suspects were from Taiwan, it said. But Xinhua suggested that Beijing had decided to bring the Taiwanese suspects in such cases to China for investigation and likely prosecution because the Chinese authorities believed that the courts in Taiwan were not securing enough convictions. “Because the penalties for telecommunications fraud are quite light in Taiwanese law, and there are major disparities with the standards of evidence that apply in the mainland, many crime suspects cannot be convicted or receive light sentences for serious crimes,” Xinhua said. Taiwan’s conviction rate in these cases was less than 10 percent, it said. Officials from Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice say prosecutions for cross-border telecommunications fraud can be difficult because of problems obtaining sufficient evidence. Those convicted of telecommunications fraud face up to seven years in prison in Taiwan.

Malaysia
China
Taiwan
Fraud
International relations
Deportation


At U.C.L.A., a Highly Rated Show Fails to Pack Them In

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Aesthetics are supposed to matter when it comes to U.C.L.A. basketball. So when the team not only is undefeated and ranked No. 2 in the country, but also has begun to resemble the Golden State Warriors on training wheels — averaging nearly 100 points per game, leading the nation in assists and showcasing a pair of precocious freshman stars — what’s not to like? Apparently something. While this season’s Bruins are a team that John Wooden would love, the embrace from fans has been less than robust so far. On Wednesday night, U.C.L.A. (13-0) again played to a well-below-capacity house, cruising to an 82-68 victory over Western Michigan at Pauley Pavilion. Only once in eight home games have the Bruins played to a sold-out crowd, against Michigan this month. They are averaging 8,645 fans — nearly 5,000 below their famed arena’s capacity of approximately 13,570. And the problem has even spread beyond Westwood: When the Bruins beat Texas A&M last month to win the Wooden Legacy tournament in Anaheim, Calif., only 4,221 turned out for the championship game. This sort of indifference is rarely a problem for basketball blue bloods like Kentucky, Duke and Kansas. But U.C.L.A. basketball — notwithstanding its history, its away victory over then-No. 1-ranked Kentucky and its gleaming, renovated Pauley Pavilion — is not the only game in town. Image The Bruins are ranked No. 2 and are serious contenders for the Final Four for the first time in years, but they are failing to fill their arena with fans. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times In fact, it has been nearly a decade since the Bruins were serious Final Four contenders, and other factors — little enthusiasm for Coach Steve Alford, generally high ticket prices and the hassles of inconvenient, made-for-TV tipoff times — have conspired to dampen excitement. “It’s an L.A. thing in a general sense,” said U.C.L.A.’s athletic director, Dan Guerrero, who was encouraged that Wednesday’s game drew 10,695, the second-largest crowd this season, on a rainy night during the holiday break. One of Guerrero’s frustrations is that many empty seats close to center court — and visible on TV — have been sold, but those who bought them chose not to come. “In L.A., it’s known to most that you need to be relevant,” Guerrero said. “If you’re relevant, people will show up.” The Bruins will have another chance to assert their relevance before their next home game when they play at No. 20 Oregon, the preseason conference favorite, on Wednesday in their Pacific-12 opener. The win over Western Michigan was not one of the Bruins’ better performances, but their inability to put away the Broncos — who were competitive early in the season against top-ranked Villanova — might be put down to uncharacteristically poor 3-point shooting (6 for 22), which Alford said might have been caused by lengthy practices Monday and Tuesday. Image The star freshman Lonzo Ball (2) passing the ball against Seth Dugan (50) during U.C.L.A.’s victory over Western Michigan. Credit Tim Bradbury/Getty Images Still, the Bruins’ exquisite passing and movement were on display throughout. In one brief flurry, Isaac Hamilton delivered a slick bounce pass to the star freshman Lonzo Ball, who smartly cut behind the defense for a lay-in. That basket was followed moments later by a transition 3-pointer from Bryce Alford, the senior guard and coach’s son. The catalyst for the offense is Ball, a lanky 6-foot-6 point guard who plays with an uncommon calm and savvy (and whose two younger brothers most likely will follow him to Westwood). His sidekick this season is his classmate T. J. Leaf, a 6-foot-10 forward whose clean-cut look belies the sharp edge to his game. Leaf said U.C.L.A.’s 10-day preseason trip to Australia in late August had sped the integration of the three freshmen — the reserve center Ike Anigbogu may be the best pro prospect — into a group that was eager to erase last season’s 15-17 record. “We didn’t have a lot of things in common off the court, or that’s what we thought,” Leaf said. “But once we got to Australia, we really bonded off the court. Once we got back, it really advanced everything we were doing and made us play a lot better and more selfish and we’ve taken off.” Said Steve Alford: “It’s a fun team to coach. Even in a game where it wasn’t all going well and with flow — we never really got big runs — you could tell the guys were really trying to do the things we wanted them to do.” Image Bryce Alford (20), a senior guard for the Bruins, and his teammates showed exquisite passing and movement. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times There were others in the building on Wednesday who might have nodded approvingly. Larry Farmer, a former U.C.L.A. player and coach, was an assistant on the Western Michigan bench. Sidney Wicks, the ex-Bruin and former college player of the year, and Jim Harrick, the coach of U.C.L.A.’s 1995 national title team, were in the stands. Steve Lavin, an assistant for Harrick who succeeded him as coach for seven seasons, was broadcasting the game. “What they’re doing is a blueprint,” said Lavin, who said he believed that fans would return in full force soon. If so, there may be more crowds like the one that came on a recent Saturday evening to see the Bruins thump Michigan, 102-84 . It included Vince Vaughn and Jessica Alba and reminded one fan, Sean Craig, of the atmosphere when he was a senior at U.C.L.A. in 1995, the last year the Bruins won the national championship. “Something had to happen to get the fans back,” Craig said. “The real fans know what’s happening here. This is a high-octane offense. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a team like this.”

College basketball
University of California
Los Angeles


New York City Council Members, at Hearing, Defend Raising Own Pay

Abstract: A City Council hearing on raising members’ pay began 24 minutes late on Wednesday because members did not arrive on time. Many left in the middle. One gave an impassioned speech about the all-consuming task of representing New Yorkers, while bemoaning the proposed raises as inadequate. Two days before they are expected to vote to increase their salaries by nearly a third, council members held the first, and only, public hearing on the package of bills that would raise their pay while enacting significant reforms, including banning most outside income; ending the extra payments known as lulus for serving on committees; and increasing financial disclosure requirements. Government watchdog groups have long pushed for such changes, and Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., who led the Quadrennial Advisory Commission on pay for city officials last year , has embraced them. The bills that would raise council members’ pay would also, for the first time since 2006, do the same for several other city officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat whose pay would rise to $258,750 from $225,000. He has said he would forego the raise during his current term. During the testimony on Wednesday, which touched on the potential pitfalls of elected officials’ doing outside legal work and the criminal convictions of state lawmakers, the proposed reforms were mostly overshadowed by the size of the raise the Council has proposed for itself: to $148,500 from a current base pay of $112,500, $10,185 more than the advisory panel recommended. Mr. Schwarz, a former city corporation counsel who helped revise the City Charter in the 1980s, testified for two hours in an avuncular tone, pointing to gaps in the reasoning of some council members, but stopping short of openly criticizing their pay proposal. “Overall we applaud your accepting our central concept that raises for elected officials should among other things reflect the economic conditions of their constituents,” he said, adding, “When we prepared this testimony, the Council had not yet made its case for its proposed additional raise.” Melissa Mark-Viverito, a Democrat who is the Council speaker, said the extra money was meant to offset whatever outside income members would lose under the proposed reforms, though only a few members earn a significant amount of such income. (The proposal still allows income that does not require substantial outside work such as rental income, book royalties or investments.) Councilman Brad Lander, a Brooklyn Democrat, said Council staff members had arrived at the $10,185 figure by considering what management workers earned and settled on an hourly rate of about $34 — “similar to the median rate for a food-service manager” — for about 300 hours a year. The proposal, to be retroactive to Jan. 1, would let council members keep earning outside income from any source through the end of their current terms, while collecting the added $10,185. (The bill would also change when future quadrennial commissions convene so that it happens closer to the end of a Council term.) For some on the Council, the raises are not large enough. “We work more than 60 hours a week,” said Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, a Manhattan Democrat, describing recent nights balancing child care with public events, and taking time when dining out to talk to constituents. He called the proposed raise a “big compromise,” and said $175,000 would have been more appropriate. Some council members suggested they worked more than their counterparts in other areas of government, an argument that Mr. Schwarz dismissed. “It is not the case that other offices don’t work very hard; they do,” Mr. Schwarz said at one point. He also said elected officials, including the mayor, had never been paid commensurate with their power and influence. “There’s always an implicit ceiling,” he said, adding that nearly half of New Yorkers are paid at or near the poverty line. The Council has come under criticism for scheduling the vote for Friday , when it will also consider contentious legislation restricting the horse-carriage industry, the subject of growing opposition from a variety of groups as well as back-room vote-wrangling by the de Blasio administration. Dick Dadey of Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, called for the vote on the pay proposal to be delayed so that questions about it could be answered and the public could have more input. “This is being rushed way too fast,” he said after testifying. Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause, expressed mixed feelings about the salary legislation. “The process has been far from ideal,” she said. “But I think that at the end of the day, the total package is an important one, and one that we need to see move forward.”

Wages and salaries
New York City Council
NYC
Bill de Blasio
Quadrennial Advisory Commission
Melissa Mark-Viverito
Politics


Ambush by the Taliban Kills 14 in Afghan Forces

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — A Taliban ambush in a relatively calm area of northern Afghanistan killed 14 members of the Afghan security forces, the latest example of a deadly campaign of violence that has taken a serious toll on soldiers and police officers across the country in recent months. The soldiers and policemen came under attack as they were rotating out after a two-month stint in a remote and mountainous area of Sar-i-Pul Province, an area that has seen an unusual increase in violence over the summer fighting months. The Taliban struck the convoy Sunday, igniting a long gunfight that wounded an additional 17 soldiers and policemen and resulted in the kidnapping of another six soldiers, according to Abdul Jabar Haqbeen, the governor of Sar-i-Pul. The Taliban have waged heavy offensives this year, deeply cutting into Afghan security forces who for the first time have full responsibility for the country’s security. Many areas that had once been considered safe have been roiled, especially in the north. And in traditional areas of insurgent strength, mostly in the south and east, the Taliban have made many gains. Driving the insecurity in many areas is the lack of international forces, who have completely handed over security to their Afghan counterparts. For the first time in years, there are widespread reports of insurgents massing in large groups to attack, banking on the international coalition’s limited ability to conduct airstrikes. In response, American forces have stepped up airstrikes, conducting more in August than they had over the past two years in total, according to the United States Central Command. Airstrikes have long been a source of tension and misunderstandings between American and Afghan officials. Even as security officials say the strikes are critical to the country’s security, a heavy civilian toll from coalition airstrikes over the years has enraged the public. For example, officials in the southeastern province of Paktia claimed that such strikes had killed seven civilians, including a child, who were collecting firewood on a mountaintop near the provincial capital, Gardez. The International Security Assistance Force rejected that account, however, saying in a statement that the airstrike “resulted in the death of eight armed enemy combatants.” President Ashraf Ghani’s office released a separate statement saying, “The president is looking at every civilian casualty incident with much importance, and has asked for a full investigation of this unfortunate incident.” Taliban violence has been especially heavy around the country in recent days. In the highly secure city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the financial capital of northern Afghanistan, attackers dressed as policemen detonated suicide vests at the provincial police headquarters on Sunday, killing at least two officers and wounding nine others. And a mix of bombs, rockets and ambushes in the provinces of Wardak, Nangarhar, Kunduz, Kunar and Laghman, as well as in the capital city, Kabul, resulted in the deaths of at least 18 others in the last two days. Two separate attacks in Kabul occurred Wednesday morning. Around 6:45 a.m., a car packed with explosives rammed a passing convoy of Western contractors, killing one person and injuring at least three others, according to Hashmat Stanikzai, a spokesman for the Kabul police. In another incident, an attacker lobbed a grenade into a city market, wounding four people, Mr. Stanikzai said. In Nangarhar Province, a suicide attacker targeting Afghan soldiers killed two civilians and injured another in the Ghanikel district Monday. Later in the day, traffic along the main highway running through the province, one of the most traveled stretches in the country, was temporarily halted as Afghan security forces engaged in a gun battle with insurgents near the Bati Kot district. And in the northern province of Kunduz, where an alarming uptick in violence unfolded this summer, a magnetic bomb was slapped onto the side of a customs official’s vehicle traveling through the provincial capital, leaving at least three people, including the official, in critical condition, said the police spokesman there.

Taliban
Afghan National Police
Afghanistan
Mazar i Sharif
Kunduz
Kabul
Terrorism


Pentagon Has Plan to Cripple ISIS in Libya With Air Barrage

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has presented the White House with the most detailed set of military options yet for attacking the growing Islamic State threat in Libya , including a range of potential airstrikes against training camps, command centers, munitions depots and other militant targets. Airstrikes against as many as 30 to 40 targets in four areas of the country would aim to deal a crippling blow to the Islamic State’s most dangerous affiliate outside of Iraq and Syria, and open the way for Western-backed Libyan militias to battle Islamic State fighters on the ground. Allied bombers would carry out additional airstrikes to support the militias on the ground. The military option was described by five American officials who have been briefed on the plans and spoke about them on the condition of anonymity because of their confidential nature. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter outlined this option to President Obama’s top national security advisers at a so-called principals meeting on Feb. 22. But the plan is not being actively considered, at least for now, while the Obama administration presses ahead with a diplomatic initiative to form a unity government from rival factions inside Libya, administration officials said. Even so, the United States military is poised to carry out limited airstrikes if ordered against terrorists in Libya who threatened Americans or American interests, just as it did against an Islamic State training camp in western Libya last month. “We will continue to use the full range of tools to eliminate ISIL threats wherever they are,” Mr. Obama said on Feb. 25, after convening the National Security Council to discuss combating the Islamic State, also called ISIL or ISIS . But the broader scale of the airstrikes option prepared by the Pentagon’s Africa Command and the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command illuminated differences in perspectives and short-term goals within the administration. The scope of the military plan surprised some senior administration officials, and it drew warnings from some State Department officials that such airstrikes, if not coordinated properly, could jeopardize the United Nations-led effort to forge a unity government from Libya’s fractious political actors. The detailed military planning does expand the choices available to Mr. Obama in the coming months as he and his advisers, along with allies like Britain, France and Italy, try to manage a tricky balancing act: nurture a fragile political process to form a unity government in Libya but not wait so long that the Islamic State grows too big for defeat by a limited — and politically acceptable — military action. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, summed up the current thinking about this juggling of priorities and the possibility of taking more aggressive military action in the future, at a news conference last week. “Where there is opportunity to conduct operations against ISIL, to disrupt them at this point and not undermine the political process, that is where we are,” General Dunford said. “At some point in the future, if I believe we are at risk with that strategy, I will certainly come back to the secretary and make some different recommendations.” Having actual options in hand, even if they are not imminent, forces the government to weigh more rigorously the consequences of such actions, officials said. And revealing details of the planning, which had not been previously shared with Congress, draws the scrutiny of lawmakers such as Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who questioned the approach at a hearing on Tuesday. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the head of the Africa Command, declined to answer Mr. McCain’s questions about the options in open testimony, but he warned that Libya had become a failed state that the Islamic State was rapidly exploiting. The spread of the Islamic State in Libya “continues to be a challenge because of the lack of governance, as well as the breakup of the military and the multiple militias on the ground,” General Rodriguez said. The newly refined Pentagon planning comes amid increasing reports that British, American, French and possibly even Italian Special Operations forces have been on the ground in Libya for months. They have been conducting reconnaissance, gathering intelligence, vetting and possibly advising Libyan militias deemed good partners to fight the Islamic State in strongholds such as Surt along a 150-mile section of territory the terrorist group controls. As recently as last fall, senior American commanders and intelligence officials said they lacked sufficient information about the Islamic State in Libya even to identify targets to bomb. But this effort on the ground among special operators does not appear to be well coordinated, and seems to reflect the individual concerns of the various clandestine forces should they be called upon suddenly to speed up any unilateral military strikes against the Islamic State. Pressure is growing on the United States and its Western allies to intervene militarily. Britain announced last week that it was sending 20 military trainers to Tunisia to help counter illegal cross-border movements from neighboring Libya. Tunisia has already built a 125-mile earthen wall that stretches about half the length of its border with Libya in an attempt to prevent militants from infiltrating. Italy last month agreed for the first time to allow American armed drones to take off from an air base in Sicily to defend coalition forces fighting Islamic State extremists in Libya. Last Friday, Italy’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the release of two Italians kidnapped in Libya in July. That good news came a day after ministry officials grimly announced that two other Italian hostages in the country had likely been killed in clashes between ISIS fighters and local militia fighters near Sabratha. Last month, American warplanes bombed an ISIS training camp in Sabratha, 50 miles west of Tripoli, killing a militant commander linked to attacks on Western tourists. Those strikes targeted Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian militant, whom the Pentagon said helped arrange the arrival of Islamic State recruits from across Africa into Libya. The strikes demonstrated the United States’ growing concern over Libya as a new base for the Islamic State and its willingness to use air power against militant commanders and infrastructure. So far, though, it has been a power limited by political constraints on the ground. “We’d like nothing better than to have a government in place in Libya with whom we could work and from whom we could gain consent for engaging militarily in Libya,” James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told Congress last month. Mr. Clapper said that in addition to Surt, ISIS is operating in Benghazi, Tripoli and other areas of the country. Indeed, the reason so many military officials were willing to discuss classified war planning, including the option of aggressive airstrikes, was to show that the administration was taking the ISIS threat in Libya seriously. At the same time, though, the administration hopes to show that it is exercising restraint for the time being to help the political process succeed. The Pentagon produced the options at the White House’s request, but did not offer any formal recommendations, officials said. Libya’s political leaders are divided between two loose political alliances in the capital, Tripoli, and the eastern city of Tobruk. The United Nations effort to form a unity government, led by the German diplomat Martin Kobler, has been stymied by the factional differences. Last month, Mr. Kobler warned the West to move carefully if a unity government is formed, and not press it immediately to support foreign military intervention. He said that “very intense” anti-foreigner feelings run deep among Libyan politicians and that pressuring a new government to support outside military action against ISIS could undermine it. Two prominent Libya specialists offered the same warnings to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. “A great risk is that outside intervention against the Islamic State, before a cohesive government is formed, could exacerbate political conflicts, bolster the power of local militias, and throw the country into greater turmoil,” said Frederic Wehrey, a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who recently returned from two weeks in the country . Claudia Gazzini, a senior Libya analyst with the International Crisis Group in Rome, told lawmakers: “Rushing an international military intervention in Libya to counter ISIS would be shortsighted and would probably backfire. Any such intervention should be discreet, measured and linked to a political strategy aimed at bringing Libyan factions together into a single government.”

Libya
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Military
Pentagon
Ashton Carter
Barack Obama


Monday’s Matchup: Giants (3-2) at Eagles (2-3)

Abstract: 8:30 p.m. Eastern, ESPN Line: Eagles by 5 ½ Defensive statistics can be misleading. The Giants have held opponents to 80.6 rushing yards per game, a mark that ranked second in the N.F.L. entering Sunday, but the team’s weakness against the pass heavily skews that number. If an opponent can find success through the air, there is little reason to grind it out on the ground. A matchup with Philadelphia should let the Giants know where they really stand against the run. Sam Bradford has thrown for plenty of yards, but his propensity for turnovers, combined with the Eagles’ success in the running game last week, should lead to an emphasis on the ground game. Philadelphia’s offensive line is not elite, but the rushers DeMarco Murray, Darren Sproles and Ryan Mathews (who is listed as questionable) have enough talent that they could give the Giants a great deal of trouble. With the health status of Odell Beckham Jr. unknown and Victor Cruz still out, the Giants are very likely going to have a hard time keeping up. Pick: Eagles


Stray Cat Roundup at J.F.K. Worries Rescue Groups

Abstract: To the alarm of cat rescue groups, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has started rounding up feral cats that live in a colony deep in the secured cargo areas of Kennedy International Airport. The several dozen cats have been tended for years by sympathetic airport employees. The cats sleep in makeshift cubicles made of plastic packing containers nestled in cargo carts that once carried transcontinental luggage but have been long retired from Kennedy’s runways. They gather under and around a rusted old fuel tanker truck. “It’s just a happy cat camp,” said Ashot Karamian, president of the Urban Cat League, which specializes in rescuing stray cats in New York and whose members had visited the site in the past. But now the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the airport, has blocked cat rescue groups from approaching the cats. “The cats are being rounded up in the coming days, and will be held in a safe place until they’re turned over to the proper authorities,” Pasquale DiFulco, an authority spokesman, said yesterday. He said the cats were creating “an unsafe and unsanitary” environment. “You’ve got a situation where the cats are being fed, which then attracts rodents and, far more seriously, birds,” he said. Gulls attracted to the food could end up colliding with sensitive aircraft parts, he said. He estimated that 50 to 75 cats had converged in a parking lot near Building 67, part of the Delta Air Lines cargo area. “It’s a sizable population, and it’s creating a hazard for the aircraft,” Mr. DiFulco said. “We wouldn’t for a second jeopardize the safety of the 46 million-plus passengers who use J.F.K. every year.” To solve the problem, the authority reached out to the United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services; the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which investigates animal cruelty; and Animal Care and Control, which has a contract with the city to handle stray animals. The authority then decided to hire a contractor to trap the cats, Mr. DiFulco said. He added that none of the cats had been killed. Animal rescue groups believe otherwise. “The airport wants the cats out of there, and we think they’re killing them,” said Berta Horvath, 50, a cat rescue volunteer in Queens who said she had spayed or neutered 18 cats from the spot and returned the ones her group could not house, only to find them missing later. “Now the police there are telling us if we keep showing up, they’re going to arrest us.” Volunteers spotted traps set for cats at the site, and used rocks to make them inoperable, she said. Yesterday morning, there were piles of food on foam plates held down with stones next to an old British Airways cargo crane. Jet engines roared nearby and the AirTrain glided silently by. A woman in an airline uniform appeared and began opening cans of food and dumping the contents onto paper plates. She refused to be photographed or to discuss the cats for fear of causing problems with her employer. Scruffy cats dashed out of old cargo equipment, rusted snowplows and underbrush to eat the food. Each year scores of dogs and cats are lost and found on Kennedy’s 5,000 acres. Some pets that are being transported may get loose. Also, people who live locally can easily drive onto airport property and get rid of their pets, and travelers facing exorbitant kennel costs may opt to simply abandon their pets before catching their planes. Some animals wander in from nearby. Mr. Karamian, 49, estimated that there were hundreds of feral cats across the airport. He said volunteers from his group had trapped and then spayed or neutered perhaps 30 cats from the colony in the past few months, but lately had been told they must stay off airport property. “These cats reproduce and kill rodents,” he said. “But someone keeps trapping and killing them. We want to stop the slaughter.” It is more humane and sensible to trap, neuter and release the cats than to simply exterminate them, cat rescuers say. The Mayor’s Alliance for N.Y.C.’s Animals, an umbrella organization for the animal rescue groups, has tried to draw attention to the cats at the airport, but its president and chairwoman, Jane Hoffman, did not respond to several requests for comment.


Yankees Reliever Robertson Out Indefinitely With Elbow Stiffness

Abstract: Dave Robertson, the Yankees ’ bullpen strikeout specialist, said he was not worried about the tightness in his right elbow. But the Yankees have shut him down indefinitely, and he has an appointment Thursday with Dr. James Andrews, probably in Pensacola, Fla. “The stiffness has not went away in the last 10 days or two weeks,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s a concern of mine, because he’s been a huge part of our bullpen, and his ability to get a strikeout is important. He’s been as good as anyone in baseball, really, at doing that.” Robertson has 61 strikeouts in 41 innings, an average of 13.39 per nine innings. Among pitchers with 40 innings this season, only Jonathan Broxton of the Los Angeles Dodgers entered Tuesday with a better strikeout ratio, 13.64. “I feel confident it’s not going to be anything,” Robertson said. “I feel like I’m going to come back. It’s just a little rest.” Robertson has not pitched on consecutive days since Aug. 11 and 12. He said he had felt discomfort for about two weeks, mostly after he pitched. He had a magnetic resonance imaging test Monday but said he did not know what it showed. “No idea, really,” he said. “I’ll just go to Dr. Andrews and get his opinion. That’s really all I can do.” Robertson, 24, has worked his way into a more prominent role as the season has gone on, appearing more often when the Yankees have a lead. Girardi said he was still hopeful that Robertson could return. “I don’t want to write him off,” Girardi said. “He’s down until he sees Dr. Andrews and we figure out what we need to do. Whether he’s here or not, guys are still going to feel pressure. One thing it does is it gives you less weapons. We don’t necessarily have as much flexibility as we did.” THE CHAMBERLAIN FACTOR The team with the best record in the American League decides which division series schedule it wants. One series includes a day off between Games 1 and 2, the other does not. “There are two different division series,” Joe Girardi said. “In one, you need three starters, and in one you need four. I’ll just leave it at that.” Girardi was answering a question about the role that his fourth starter, Joba Chamberlain, would play in the postseason. If Chamberlain continues to struggle, the Yankees could choose the division series with the extra day off, meaning they would use Chamberlain in relief. The Yankees started Tuesday with a six-and-a-half-game lead over the Los Angeles Angels for the A.L.’s best record. If they choose the series with the extra day off, they would play Game 1 at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 7. The other series starts the next day. A NUMBER THAT FITS When Josh Towers pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays for five seasons, he wore No. 7, which made him stand out. Pitchers almost never wear single-digit numbers, but Towers was not trying to be a rebel. He had worn No. 35 for Baltimore and said No. 7 was simply the number on the jersey that fit. When people called attention to it, Towers decided to keep wearing it. Now that he is a Yankee, Towers is wearing No. 12. All of the single digits are retired except 2, which Derek Jeter wears, and 6, which was Joe Torre’s number. The number Towers picked was the lowest available; no other Yankees pitcher wears a number below 30. But Towers said he was not superstitious, and his reason for picking a low number again was fairly mundane. “My options were 12 and 28,” he said. “And 12 fit.” FREE CANCER SCREENINGS The Yankees will open their gates an hour earlier Wednesday, at 3 p.m., when they will offer free prostate cancer screenings for any adult man attending the game. The screenings will take place all through the game at the first aid station behind Section 128 on the third-base side of the field level. The effort is a partnership between the Yankees and Bat for the Cure, a charity sponsored by the longtime local radio host Ed Randall.


Eagles’ Frustrations at Home and With Quarterbacks Have Persisted

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — The City of Brotherly Love is hardly imbued with that spirit when it comes to the Eagles these days. Andy Reid, long a target for fans upset that the franchise has not produced a championship since 1960, left and instantly transformed the Kansas City Chiefs into the N.F.L.’s only undefeated team. The club Reid left behind is off to a wobbly 3-4 start under Chip Kelly, whose rapid-fire spread offense has not put opponents on their heels the way it did when his Oregon Ducks posted video-game-like statistics. Most infuriating to notoriously tough fans is that Philadelphia has endured a franchise-record nine consecutive home losses, last winning at Lincoln Financial Field Sept. 30, 2012, when it edged the Giants, 19-17. Players are as exasperated as the fans, who vented their frustration during a 17-3 loss to Dallas last Sunday that nudged the Cowboys into the lead in the N.F.C. East at 4-3. “Going back to last year, we obviously had a bad end to the season,” said tight end Brent Celek, who is in his seventh year with Philadelphia. “This year, we haven’t started off right at home. We have to get it started.” The Eagles dropped their final six home games last season, finishing 4-12 as Reid’s long and bittersweet tenure ended with both parties saying a change would be beneficial. This season brought home losses to the San Diego Chargers (33-30) and the Chiefs (26-16), before the defeat against Dallas, which has won all three of its N.F.C. East games. Cary Williams, a cornerback who left the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens to sign with Philadelphia, said: “If you are trying to make the playoffs, if you are trying to be a successful team, you have to win your home games. We have not lacked effort. We have not lacked enthusiasm. We have just not finished well at home and put them away.” Image If Michael Vick, left, cannot play Sunday against the Giants, the rookie Matt Barkley will probably be the Eagles’ quarterback. Credit Matt Rourke/Associated Press The circumstances are exerting enormous pressure on Michael Vick to rejoin the lineup on Sunday against the Giants even though it is unclear if he is fully recovered from a strained left hamstring he sustained late in the second quarter of a 36-21 victory against the Giants at MetLife Stadium on Oct. 6. “Absolutely, I want to be out there with my teammates,” Vick said Thursday after practicing for a third consecutive day without apparent limitations. He said he expected his status to be determined Friday, when he planned a complete test of the hamstring for the first time since the injury by sprinting and trying moves requiring sharp cuts. “I’m going to see how it feels,” Vick said. “I’m excited about it.” Vick, 33, denied that he and Kelly were trying to make it harder for the Giants to develop a defensive game plan by not clarifying his status. “I’m not up here playing games, blowing smoke,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out the best situation.” Even if Vick is not 100 percent, he represents the Eagles’ most attractive option. Nick Foles, who initially played so well that he spurred talk of a quarterback controversy, heard boos with a scattershot performance last Sunday. He completed 11 of 29 passes for 80 yards and did not hit a pass beyond 16 yards before he was concussed. Doctors have not cleared him to practice this week. The rookie Matt Barkley directed the Eagles for three possessions — all ended in interceptions. Although Barkley was thrown into a tough situation, with the Eagles trailing by two touchdowns, Pat Shurmur, the offensive coordinator, was unwilling to forgive the three mistakes because of inexperience. “We don’t expect bad play from anybody, no matter how old they are,” Shurmur said. “We expect them to go out and perform well.” Whenever Vick returns, the issue becomes how long he can stay healthy, considering his age, a history of injuries that has not allowed him to play a full season since 2006 and his freewheeling style. He is the only N.F.L. player to have thrown for more than 20,000 yards and rushed for more than 5,000 yards. Vick has been reluctant to change his approach; not everyone may agree with that. When wide receiver Jason Avant was asked what he needed to see from Vick, his answer appeared to be telling. “Get down instead of taking the hit,” Avant said. “That’s the Michael I want to see.”

Philadelphia Eagles
Michael Vick
Football
Giants
Matt Barkley


Woman to Lead N.B.A. Players’ Union

Abstract: The National Basketball Players Association has elected Michele Roberts, a Washington trial lawyer, as executive director, making her the first woman to lead a North American pro sports union. Roberts received 32 of 36 votes in a process that was completed early Tuesday. The vote capped an arduous process to replace Billy Hunter, who was ousted in February 2013, and her appointment comes at a critical time for the players, who could face another round of collective bargaining in 2017 if either the union or the league opts out of the current labor agreement. ■ Robert Pera, the Memphis Grizzlies’ controlling owner, has named Chris Wallace as the team’s general manager. Wallace had been serving as interim general manager since a front office shake-up May 19. The Grizzlies also announced that Ed Stefanski, a former general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, is joining the team as executive vice president for player personnel. ■ A Phoenix Suns player has been arrested on suspicion of extreme drunken driving in Arizona, the authorities said. The incident involving forward-guard P. J. Tucker, 29, took place in Scottsdale on May 10, according to a police report, but came to light only this week. Tucker registered a blood-alcohol content of .201 percent during a field sobriety breath test, the police report said. Tucker signed a three-year, $16.5 million contract with the Suns last week. (REUTERS)

Michele Roberts
Basketball
National Basketball Players Assn
Phoenix Suns
Memphis Grizzlies


Fear of Israeli Leaks Fuels Distrust Over U.S. Talks With Iran

Abstract: WASHINGTON — With the Obama administration racing to negotiate the outlines of a nuclear deal with Iran by the end of March, aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel have charged in recent days that they are being deliberately left in the dark about the details of the talks. The Americans have said that is untrue, but even one of Washington’s closest negotiating partners reports being warned about being too open with the Israelis, “because whatever we say may be used in a selective way.” The tensions between the United States and Israel over negotiating with Tehran have a long and twisted history, and they plunged to a new low when Mr. Netanyahu engineered an invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress, in less than two weeks, to warn against a “bad deal.” Now, with Mr. Netanyahu maneuvering to survive a March 17 election, and Mr. Obama pressing for a breakthrough agreement that could end three decades of enmity with Iran and reduce the chances of a military confrontation, it seems that Washington and Jerusalem are engaging in the diplomatic equivalent of posting notes to each other on the refrigerator door. The latest dispute has been building since the Israeli news media began running stories about Mr. Netanyahu’s being frozen out of the briefings about the talks, sourced to unnamed Israeli officials. Some of the reports have been accompanied by partial details about how many centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium, would be left spinning in Iran’s facilities under an American proposal — oftentimes omitting key facts about how quickly the centrifuges could produce bomb-grade fuel. For its part, the Obama administration has been issuing strong denials that it is holding anything back. Alistair C. Baskey, a spokesman for the National Security Council, called the most recent report of a breakdown in communication, broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2, “patently false” and said that Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, “maintains regular contact with her Israeli counterpart,” Yossi Cohen. Mr. Cohen is coming to Washington in the next few days, and one of Ms. Rice’s top aides on the Middle East, Philip Gordon, has been in Israel this week, partly to talk about Iran. But European officials say that the Israeli reports, while overblown, are not entirely based on fiction. One recalled a recent call from Wendy Sherman, the No. 3 State Department official and lead American negotiator with Iran, saying she had cautioned against telling the Israelis too much because the details could be twisted to undermine a deal. Ms. Sherman did not respond to an email inquiry, but a State Department official speaking on her behalf said that she had encouraged the Europeans to talk with Israel — as long as they were cognizant “that the negotiation should take place in the negotiating room.” Marie Harf, the deputy State Department spokeswoman, said that Ms. Sherman would also be seeing Mr. Cohen this week. Another European official said that Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been engaging in the negotiations with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, every two weeks or so, was “fuming about Israeli leaks” in a recent conversation. A State Department official said that Mr. Kerry fumed about leaks in general, and argued that it was in no one’s interest to negotiate in public. To the Israelis, there is a difference between being briefed regularly and being told exactly what Mr. Obama’s bottom line is in a negotiation that has hundreds of moving parts. “We get briefings, but they are empty,” one Israeli official contended the other day. Perhaps so, but when Israeli officials start discussing the details of the current negotiations — from how long an agreement would stay in place before Iran would be free to produce as much enriched uranium as it wants to the proposed engineering changes to a heavy-water reactor that could produce bomb-grade plutonium — the officials seem quite up-to-date. According to one American official, the concern is that Israeli officials, mindful that they are talking to audiences at home, in the United States and particularly in Congress, know how to pick out one or two details that seem particularly incriminating. “They tell part of the story, like how many centrifuges we might consider letting the Iranians hold,” one American official said, refusing to speak on the record because the White House and the State Department insist on secrecy, for fear that leaks of any kind could kill a deal here or in Tehran. “What they don’t tell you is that we only let them have that many centrifuges if they ship most of their fuel out of the country.” The Israelis say Mr. Obama has regularly frozen them out, starting with the secret round of negotiations with the government of President Hassan Rouhani that brought about a temporary freeze in Iranian activity and led to the present talks. “It makes us question in Israel, are they open with us or are they trying to hide from us?” Gen. Yaakov Amidror, Mr. Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, said Tuesday, arguing that trust between the allies had been badly damaged. In public, Israeli officials complain about what Yuval Steinitz, the minister of intelligence and strategic affairs, called the United States’ general approach to the negotiations, which is to give up on the idea of dismantling all of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability. In fact, even the George W. Bush administration had given up on that idea, conceding that there was no way to reach a deal without Iran retaining at least a face-saving amount of enrichment capability. But a few years ago, American officials defined that face-saving amount as a few hundred centrifuges. The offer made to Iran last fall was about 4,500 centrifuges — provided that most of the country’s fuel was shipped out to Russia, so Iran could not race to make a bomb. There is now talk of raising that figure to 6,500 centrifuges, but only if Iran reconfigures them in a way that would greatly lower their efficiency. The Energy Department’s national laboratories, which make the fuel for American nuclear weapons, have been churning out ideas that would assure, in their view, that Iran would not be able to make a bomb’s worth of fuel in less than a year — the standard Mr. Kerry set for a viable agreement. The problem is that experts do not agree on what combination of factors would assure the one year of “breakout time.” British, French and German experts have somewhat different views. The Iranians published a white paper last year with radically different estimates. And the Israelis, who have their own undeclared nuclear arsenal, also have their own calculations. “This could be a problem if we finally strike a deal,” said a participant in the negotiations who refused to speak on the record on the insistence of the White House and the State Department. “Everyone is going to have the same set of facts about what the Iranians will be allowed to do. And everyone will have a different estimate about how long it would take for them to build a weapon.”

Israel
Iran
Nuclear weapon
US Foreign Policy
US Politics
US
Benjamin Netanyahu
Barack Obama


New Furloughs for State Workers in California

Abstract: SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday brought back furloughs for thousands of state workers until California passes a budget. Mr. Schwarzenegger issued an executive order requiring state workers to take three unpaid days off per month starting in August. State workers were furloughed 46 days when Mr. Schwarzenegger issued a similar order in February 2009, which translated to a pay cut of about 14 percent. It is unclear how long the latest furloughs could last as the governor and lawmakers enter the fifth week of the new fiscal year without a balanced budget. “Without a budget in place that addresses our $19 billion budget deficit, every day of delay brings California closer to a fiscal meltdown,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a statement. State Controller John Chiang has warned he will start issuing i.o.u.’s in August or September if the budget stalemate drags on. The new order exempts employees who work for departments that collect revenue and about 37,000 workers in six unions that recently reached tentative agreements with the administration. The state has about 237,000 workers. The furlough puts pressure on other unions that have not agreed to the governor’s demands for pension reforms.

Furloughs
Schwarzenegger Arnold
California
Budgets and Budgeting
Labor and Jobs


Honeywell to Buy Elster for $5.1 Billion

Abstract: LONDON — The industrial conglomerate Honeywell International said on Tuesday that it had agreed to acquire Elster, which manufactures water and gas meters and control devices, from Melrose Industries for 3.3 billion pounds, or about $5.1 billion, in cash. The deal came three years after Elster was acquired by Melrose of Britain for about $2.3 billion. The deal sets the stage for new acquisitions by Honeywell, said David M. Cote, the Honeywell chairman and chief executive. “Elster has outstanding technologies, brands, energy efficiency know-how and global presence, all of which we are very well positioned to build on,” he said in a news release . The transaction is subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, and it is expected to close in the first quarter. Melrose, which buys manufacturing companies and tries to turn them around for later sale in a strategy similar to that of private-equity firms, said that it intended to return more than £2 billion from the sale of Elster to shareholders and that it would use the remaining proceeds for general corporate purposes, including paying down debt. “The disposal of Elster represents an excellent outcome for Melrose shareholders and another milestone in our track record,” Christopher Miller, the Melrose chairman, said in a news release . “Through investing heavily and improving operational performance, we have created substantial value for shareholders, more than doubling their money in three years,” he said. Shares of Melrose rose 10.1 percent to 280.20 pence on the news in early trading in London on Tuesday. Elster, based in Mainz-Kastel, Germany, manufactures thermal gas equipment for the commercial, industrial and residential heating and gas industry. It also manufactures gas, water and electricity meters, including smart meters. It employs about 6,800 people in Britain, Germany, Slovakia and the United States and posted revenue of £1.05 billion in 2014.

Honeywell
Melrose
Elster Group SE
Mergers and Acquisitions
David M Cote
Germany
Great Britain
US


No Deposition of Bernanke in A.I.G. Lawsuit, Court Says

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, does not have to testify in the multibillion-dollar lawsuit by the former chief of the American International Group against the United States over the insurer’s 2008 bailout, a federal appeals court said on Wednesday. The ruling, from the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, overturned a lower court decision from July that said Mr. Bernanke should submit to a deposition by lawyers for the former chief executive, Maurice R. Greenberg. Deposing Mr. Bernanke while he is in office could disrupt government activities, the panel said. Starr International, which is run by Mr. Greenberg and was once A.I.G.’s largest shareholder with a 12 percent stake, also did not meet the legal threshold to depose senior government officials and have access to the Fed’s deliberative process or Mr. Bernanke’s mental processes, the panel said. “Starr’s efforts to inquire into these issues have all the appearance, and vices, of a fishing expedition rather than an effort to establish legally material facts,” it said. Mr. Bernanke is expected to step down from his role in January. The panel said Starr could seek Mr. Bernanke’s testimony after he left that position, but would have to better make its case in order to obtain that testimony. A lawyer for Starr, David Boies, said his team would seek to depose Mr. Bernanke after he left office. “We are confident that we can make the showing of the importance of this testimony that the court requires,” he said. Once the world’s largest insurers by market value, A.I.G. was bailed out on Sept. 16, 2008, as losses skyrocketed from risky bets on mortgage debt through credit-default swaps. The government initially took a 79.9 percent stake in the insurer, which is based in New York. Starr sued in 2011, and maintains that the bailout shortchanged shareholders out of tens of billions of dollars. The company called the government’s action an illegal taking that violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

TARP,2008 Bailout,Emergency Economic Stabilization Act