Tour de France Team Out After Test

Abstract: NARBONNE, France — The Tour de France , already diminished by the absence of some of the world’s best cyclists because of doping violations, was thrown into turmoil yet again Thursday when an Italian rider who had won two stages of this year’s race was kicked out of the competition for failing a drug test. The rider, Riccardo Ricco, is the third cyclist in this year’s race to test positive for the banned blood-boosting drug EPO . Upon the announcement of his failed test, his Saunier Duval-Scott team, which is based in Spain , voluntarily withdrew from the Tour. Ricco, an outspoken 24-year-old rider who was ninth in the overall Tour standings, is by far the most visible cyclist to be caught doping this year at cycling’s biggest event. He was also in the lead in the competitions for the best mountain climber and for the best rider age 25 or younger. In May he finished second in the Tour of Italy . The new doping case raises questions about whether antidoping authorities are making progress in their fight. This year is the 10th anniversary of the Festina scandal, which similarly shook the Tour de France when an official of a French cycling team was arrested after being caught with a car full of EPO and related doping products. The French antidoping agency reported that Ricco tested positive not just for EPO but also for a new, longer-lasting variant of the drug that had not been previously known to be widely used in sports. Tour de France officials said at a news conference Thursday that the positive tests indicated that their antidoping system was working. “We said we wanted to fight against doping, but it will take time,” said Patrice Clerc, the president of the Amaury Sport Organization, which manages the Tour. “The majority of the riders are clean and the cheaters are getting caught and kicked out of the race.” Even if doping tests are effective at weeding out cheats, the greater effect in recent years has been to drive sponsors away from cycling. Because there generally are no ticket sales for road cycling events, race organizers and teams depend on sponsors to finance the sport. “For the sponsor, this is terrible news,” said Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France. Saunier Duval is a European manufacturer of home and commercial heating systems, and Scott is a sports equipment company. Cycling has lost several sponsors in recent years, including Discovery Channel, which sponsored Lance Armstrong ’s team, and T-Mobile, the cellphone company. Two American companies — Garmin , which makes global positioning systems, and Columbia, a sportswear maker — signed up to sponsor teams just before the Tour. Those teams have instituted highly publicized internal antidoping systems. The director of the Saunier Duval-Scott team, Joxean Fernández, said the team was not pressured to withdraw from the Tour. “We will suspend the activities of the team until we understand what has happened,” Fernández said. “Ricco is not just any rider, he’s a top rider. So for the sake of our team and the Tour de France, we have made this decision. We can’t act as though nothing has happened.” But Prudhomme said he believed the team director was “not a person of good virtue,” and he had grown suspicious after Saunier Duval riders finished first, second and sixth in Monday’s 10th stage, the toughest of the race so far, ending with a climb to Hautacam. “They were really looking a little bit too impressive,” he said. The three riders who tested positive during the Tour have been arrested and face up to five years in prison for the possession or use of doping products. A French prosecutor said Thursday night that Ricco denied taking EPO. The 12th stage took place as planned without the Saunier Duval-Scott team. The relatively flat, 104.4-mile stage ended in a group sprint that was won by Mark Cavendish of Team Columbia, his third victory at this year’s Tour. Cadel Evans, an Australian rider for the Silence-Lotto team, remained in the overall lead by one second over Frank Schleck of CSC Saxo Bank. Asked at a postrace news conference why people should believe that any cyclists are clean, including himself, Evans said that there were cheats in all sports, as well as in other aspects of life. “The cheats are being caught and the sport is being cleaned up in a serious, fair and transparent way, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other professions in the world,” Evans said. “Our sport is trying to do the right thing, and we’re being crucified for it. What are they supposed to do, have a free-for-all like some sports that don’t have testing at all?” Evans has never fallen under suspicion for doping, but Ricco has. He was among more than a dozen riders who were reported by French newspapers to have produced suspect blood markers in tests taken before the start of the Tour two weeks ago. He had been tested at least four times during the Tour, including after the two stages that he won with explosive demonstrations of climbing prowess. On Sunday, after Ricco’s second stage victory, he angrily denied allegations that he had suspect blood levels or that there was any reason for him to be targeted by French antidoping officials. He said he had a medical certificate acknowledging that he had a naturally high hematocrit , a measure of the proportion of red cells in a person’s blood. A normal level for men is about 46 percent, and antidoping officials have long used the 50 percent mark as a level indicating that a rider’s blood is dangerously packed with red blood cells, if not artificially so. Ricco said he has a natural hematocrit of 51 percent. “I know I have nothing to worry about,” Ricco said Sunday. “My blood values are high, but for me, they are totally normal because I’ve had them since I was a child.” He said that his previous tests should dispel questions about whether he used performance-enhancing drugs. “I’m not angry about the rumors, but I’m disappointed,” he said. “I hope people now will stop mentioning them.” Before the Tour, rumors circulated that some cyclists were using an undetectable variant of EPO. According to Agence France-Presse, the French antidoping agency said a urine sample provided last week by Ricco after the fourth stage of the race in Cholet contained metabolites of synthetic EPO as well as evidence of a new substance known generically as Cera, or continuous erythropoiesis receptor activator. The new drug, marketed by Roche under the brand name Micera, is a longer-lasting treatment for anemia associated with kidney disease. Clinical tests by the company showed that patients who required injections of EPO three times a week to treat their anemia could use Micera once or twice a month with the same effect. Such a drug could provide a big benefit for an athlete in an endurance sport like cycling. The class of drugs causes the body to produce more red blood cells, which allows the blood to carry more oxygen. That allows athletes to train harder and recover more quickly.

Tour de France
Barloworld
Riccardo Ricco
Cadel Evans
France


Starkville, Mississippi State’s Hometown, Embraces the Nickname Stark Vegas

Abstract: STARKVILLE, Miss. — Just a few months ago, Starkville was known — when it was known at all — as a sleepy Southern town, even by the standards of sleepy Southern towns. Its main attraction, Mississippi State University, was a land-grant school that, in the tradition of “Moo U’s” around the country, churned out self-effacing scientists, engineers and, yes, dairy farmers. The university took up a lot of real estate in a less-visited area and existed in the shadow of the state’s flagship university, the one with the larger history and quaint town (in this case, Ole Miss). And then there was its name, “Starkville,” which you probably would not want taken literally. But Saturday, No. 4 Mississippi State, not No. 18 Mississippi, will play for a shot at a playoff spot in the annual Egg Bowl between the two rivals, held this year 100 miles up the road at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford. The Bulldogs (10-1, 6-1 Southeastern Conference), led by the star quarterback Dak Prescott, have won 10 games for just the third time in their program’s history. Mississippi State’s profile has grown exponentially this fall, with several marquee wins, including over then-No. 2 Auburn and at Louisiana State. The team has been graced by two Sports Illustrated covers and a visit from ESPN’s “College GameDay.” Admission and housing applications are up “tremendously,” John Dickerson, the interim executive director of enrollment, said. Athletic donations are up 35 percent, according to Scott Stricklin, the athletic director. Image Mississippi State players celebrated with fans after the Oct. 11 victory at home over Auburn, which was then ranked No. 2. Credit Matt Bush/Cal Sport Media, via Associated Press “The branding that we’ve gotten from this year, as a university, has been phenomenal,” Stricklin said, using a term that around here has historically been associated with extremely hot iron. The town, too, has received a marketing makeover. Formerly a place you might skip over on the map, it is now known by a popular moniker that rolls off the tongue even if you do not know quite what it means: Stark Vegas. The term began regionally as a casual insult to describe a town perceived as a backwater. The joke was that Starkville, home of cowbell-clanging fans, was not exactly Las Vegas. As an administrator at Kentucky and Baylor, Stricklin remembered, he would hear people sigh and say something to the effect of, “Our team’s got to go to Stark Vegas this week.” But the town has slowly co-opted the term. Starkville, in the state’s northeast, about 65 miles south of Elvis’s birthplace of Tupelo, will never be Oxford , with its picturesque layout, Old South vibe and literary heritage — and it appears to have made peace with this. “I don’t think it’s something we could’ve done in the 1990s, because I think we would’ve been insecure about the insult,” said Parker Wiseman, Starkville’s second-term mayor, who grew up here and was the president of Mississippi State’s student association. These days, he said, “There’s no insecurity.” Josh Robinson, the Bulldogs running back who earned the nickname Bowling Ball for his ability to knock down defenders, summed up the careful equilibrium between earnestness and irony that is contained within Stark Vegas. “Stark Vegas, you know? You’ve got to turn it up,” Robinson said. Referring to the tradition of ringing cowbells at games and to an oft-quoted “Saturday Night Live” skit starring Christopher Walken , he continued: “You’ve got to come out here and have a cowbell. Because we’ve got a fever. And the only prescription is more cowbell.” Robinson, who is from Franklinton, La., said Starkville reminded him of his hometown. “Very laid-back,” he said. “Country. Can’t get into too much trouble unless you’re looking for it. That’s the kind of environment I’m used to.” This is the story Starkville has to tell: a small town with big promise but no danger of going big time or getting too high on itself. It is a welcoming community, whether you are a would-be entrepreneur, a retiree, or a small-town high school recruit for whom even SEC towns like Athens, Ga., or Tuscaloosa, Ala., might have a little too much going on. Image The football team's success this season has allowed Mississippi State and Starkville, the town where the university is located, to capitalize on the nickname Stark Vegas. Credit Adidas “Never been to a place where people seemed so genuinely happy to have you there,” said Paul Finebaum, the radio host who has covered SEC football for more than three decades. “At times, it’s overwhelming — but in a kind and pleasing way.” Karen Chan, a junior who is a member of the Student Association’s cabinet, echoed Finebaum’s sentiment, calling the city “welcoming” and “friendly.” The term Stark Vegas has been around for at least 25 or 30 years. Wide receiver Gabe Myles, a redshirt freshman who two seasons ago led the Starkville High Yellow Jackets to a state championship as a quarterback, said his father claimed to have coined it when, upon arriving at the college in 1987 from Clarksdale, Miss., he told people he was from “Clarks Vegas.” This, so the story goes, morphed to “Stark Vegas.” “But hey,” Myles said, “I wasn’t here when that happened.” Mississippi State’s bright athletic fortunes did not begin this year, either. Its football team won the SEC West in 1998. Its men’s basketball team made the Final Four in 1996. Its men’s tennis team has been consistently solid. College Football Scenarios: Six Teams, Four Spots We cut through the rankings turmoil to tell you which teams have the inside track. Mississippi State’s baseball team won the always-competitive SEC in 1985, with future major league stars like Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro. Dudy Noble Field, Polk-DeMent Stadium has become the largest N.C.A.A. baseball facility. “It’s difficult to believe Dudy Noble was once a cow pasture,” John Grisham, an alumnus and the author of best-selling legal thrillers, once wrote. Yet it has taken the fortunes of more recent years — among them, Starkville has grown, and now has a larger population than Oxford — to prompt the town to accept Stark Vegas. After the university signed a five-year deal with Adidas in 2009 (in April, it was extended through 2020), Adidas employees visited the town and started hearing the phrase. The company began using Stark Vegas in campaigns and on apparel over the past couple of years. Before this football season, the phrase’s greatest national prominence came with the Bulldogs’ run in the 2013 College World Series, when U.C.L.A. beat them in the final round. Image Buildings in Starkville's cotton district, such as the Bin 612 restaurant, have an old South feel. Credit Andrea Morales for The New York Times “We have a brand that traditionally could use some support and some help,” Stricklin said. He pointed out that there were several other M.S.U.s in college football and that the Bulldog is so generic a mascot that Mississippi State is not even the only team in its conference that uses it. There had been plans to roll out more Stark Vegas branding this season. That was before anyone knew how successful the team would be. “It’s one of those things where you just ride the storm,” Jeremy Darlow, a senior brand marketing manager at Adidas, said. Ahead of the “GameDay” matchup against Auburn on Oct. 11, Adidas unveiled cleats adorned with Stark Vegas, which is not yet trademarked, as well as a special edition of retro sneakers, with “Stark” on one heel and “Vegas” on the other, for Coach Dan Mullen to wear. N.C.A.A. Fan Map: How the Country Roots for College Football We’ve published maps showing where fan support for one team begins and another ends for baseball and basketball. Now we’re pleased to offer another one: the United States according to college football fans. Days before Thanksgiving and the showdown with Ole Miss, Starkville appeared drained of population. The downtown strip, three blocks on Main Street that include restaurants, boutiques and a yoga studio, had little to attract denizens of big cities, other than copious free parking. The town’s quiet progressivism, such as recognizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens as a class that may not be discriminated against, matched its university, Wiseman said. In 1963, Mississippi State’s men’s basketball team surreptitiously made its way to East Lansing, Mich., to play Loyola, which was integrated, in defiance of a court order. In 2004, the university made Sylvester Croom the first black head football coach in the SEC. Speaking in the husk of what next year will be christened the new city hall, Wiseman, a Democrat, characterized the town as a triumph of the technocratic New South, with $100 million in active construction, research and entrepreneurship centers that seek to exploit the university’s engineering talent, and a walkable neighborhood of townhouses and bars near campus that has been lauded by the Congress for the New Urbanism, an urban design organization. “When you have good teams, it allows you to elevate the profile of the university and also the community,” Wiseman said. Image Ahead of the “GameDay” matchup against Auburn on Oct. 11, Adidas unveiled cleats adorned with Stark Vegas. Credit Adidas It is this link between town and gown that might stand out the most in Starkville — and in Stark Vegas. Hang around any athletic director for five minutes, and he will invariably describe athletics as the university’s “front porch”— the inviting first impression that makes outsiders want to visit the rest of the house (and also to put money into it). The Bulldogs, though, essentially serve as the front porch not just for the university but also for the city itself. “Everything is clicking right now for this city,” said Myles, 19, the redshirt freshman, who has lived here all his life. He added: “They’re like, ‘Where’s Starkville?’ Now they know where Starkville, Mississippi, is.”

College football
Starkville
Mississippi University
Dak Prescott


Paid Sick Leave Laws Generate Concern, but Not Much Pain

Abstract: Back in 2007, as a new paid sick leave law — the first in the nation — was about to take effect in San Francisco, Bill Stone was worried. Mr. Stone owns the Atlas Cafe in the city’s Mission District, and the new law directed him to provide his 21 employees with one hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked, up to nine days a year. “Basically, it’s just going to make it more expensive to operate your business,” Mr. Stone told NPR at the time. “Small business is going to have to pass that cost onto their customers.” Six years later, Mr. Stone admits to having been a little alarmist about paid sick leave. “As a small restaurant business, it’s really hard to make money, and when they add another requirement, it makes you nervous,” Mr. Stone said in a recent interview. “But all and all, I actually think it’s a good thing.” This spring, paid sick leave came up for vigorous debate in cities around the country. Portland, Ore., passed a law in March, and New York followed suit last week when the City Council overrode a veto by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. In Philadelphia, sick-leave legislation died after Mayor Michael Nutter vetoed it. In each case, the same concerns about the bill — that it is unnecessary and intrusive, and especially expensive and burdensome for small businesses — have surfaced. At a contentious six-hour New York City Council meeting in March, representatives of at least a dozen trade associations testified against the bill. Jay Peltz, representing independent grocers, called it “a de facto annual $800 million tax increase.” Those arguments appeared to carry the day in the half-dozen states that have passed laws this year prohibiting cities and towns from enacting their own sick-leave laws. But in San Francisco, the District of Columbia and the state of Connecticut, places that have had such laws in force for more than a year (Seattle adopted one in September), it can be difficult to find small-business owners who say they have been hampered by the law’s obligations — though some object in principle. While the statutes vary by jurisdiction, most require a company to provide an hour of paid time off for every 30 to 40 or so hours worked by full- and part-time employees. The laws make allowances for small businesses, setting varying accrual rates or limits on the amount of paid time earned or exempting the smallest businesses altogether. (In New York, initially, businesses with fewer than 20 employees will have to provide unpaid leave, not paid leave.) Companies that offer an equivalent benefit, including vacation days that can be used as emergency time off, do not have to change their policies. Before the law took effect in San Francisco, nearly two-thirds of all businesses there already provided the equivalent of paid time off, according to a 2011 study for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research , which supports paid sick leave and other family-friendly laws. “I don’t remember when we didn’t have paid sick leave,” said Paul Cowden, who employs four people at Cowden Automotive , a San Francisco car repair shop he started in 1978. “To me, it’s a humane way to run a business. And I give my guys their time if they don’t use it. I figure I’m making deposits in my karma bank.” Among those companies that did have to put a new policy in place, about half reported that adopting and managing it was not difficult, according to the study. And many businesses fearful that paying for sick leave would drive up expenses have since reported that those concerns were unfounded. Richard Crain, who runs the Village Grill in San Francisco, said his nine employees were not sick that often. “You have to give them one week per year,” he said. “But usually it’s just a day or two here and there.” Mr. Stone agreed, and said that paid sick leave increased his payroll costs by less than 1 percent. “In retrospect,” he said, “it really hasn’t been a big expense at all.” That is not to say that no small businesses claim to have been affected by the law. Daniel Shackford, who operates Great Beginnings , a day care center in Plainville, Conn., said his payroll costs increased by $20,000 last year because of paid sick leave — just over 2 percent. Under the new statewide law, which took effect early in 2012, when someone takes a day’s leave, Mr. Shackford said, “I now have to pay the temporary worker who comes in, as well as the person who’s out sick. That either comes out of my pocket, or I have to charge my customers more.” But because the law exempts smaller competitors as well as nonprofit organizations like the Y.M.C.A., said Mr. Shackford, who is a member of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association , a trade group that fought the law, “it’s pretty hard to raise my prices to cover this expense.” “Businesses that are affected by the law don’t like it,” said Peter Gioia, a vice president and economist for the Connecticut trade group. Many companies already had their own version of a sick-time policy, he said. “But this imposed a one-size-fits-all, union-type, strictly regulated set of procedures on everybody.” Still, the number of businesses affected was limited in Connecticut, because the law was drawn narrowly. It applies only to companies with at least 50 workers, and manufacturers were excluded altogether. (New York City also exempted manufacturers.) Moreover, the Connecticut labor department has allowed business owners who have organized their ventures into individual legal entities to apply the 50-employee threshold to each entity. For example, a restaurateur with six medium-size establishments might employ 200 or more people in total, but if each restaurant is established as its own business — and this is common, according to Carmen Vacalebre, whose Carmen Anthony chain operates four restaurants in Connecticut — the owner does not have to comply. Mr. Vacalebre said he provided sick leave only to his salaried employees. “In the restaurant business, the hours are very flexible. If someone wants to trade hours, they do it every day,” he said. “My folks make a lot of money, but only when they work.” Officials of the Connecticut trade group concede that, as written, the law applies to only about 8 percent of its members, and that many of these companies already have paid sick leave policies, or something similar, in place. Bob Davis, president and chief executive of Schulz Electric , a New Haven company that repairs industrial equipment, said he offered a generous vacation policy — two weeks in the first year — to attract talented workers. “I belong to a number of different forums and industry groups,” Mr. Davis said, “and the way the law is written currently it doesn’t affect any of the members.” In Washington, which mandated paid sick leave in 2008, companies with fewer than 25 workers need to provide only as many as three days of sick leave a year. A report released in June by the District of Columbia’s auditor found that nearly 90 percent of responding businesses said the law would not encourage them to move out of the city. Nearly a third of the businesses, however, said they did not offer paid sick leave to their employees, in apparent violation of the law. Thomas Damato, an owner of the popular Restaurant Nora — in the ’90s, the Clintons dined there frequently — said he was not aware of the obligation until he heard about it from a reporter. “It’s never been an issue, because we just pay for it,” Mr. Damato said.

Paid time off
Small business
Employee benefit
San Francisco
Connecticut


I.M.F. Chief Faces Trial in France, Far From Duties in U.S.

Abstract: PARIS — A French court ordered Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, on Friday to face a criminal trial on charges of negligence dating to her time as finance minister, threatening to overshadow her second term at the helm of the organization. France’s highest appeals court rejected an effort by Ms. Lagarde to have the case dismissed, setting the stage for a lengthy legal process that will most likely require her to spend more time in Paris, away from her duties in Washington. The I.M.F. did not comment on whether Ms. Lagarde, who is the first woman to lead the organization, would need to recuse herself from her position during the trial. But in a statement on Friday, it said its executive board had been briefed on the situation and continued “to express its confidence” in Ms. Lagarde’s ability to carry out her duties. “The board will continue to be briefed on this matter,” the statement said. Ms. Lagarde is accused of negligence while overseeing a politically charged 2007 arbitration case in which Bernard Tapie, a French tycoon close to Nicolas Sarkozy, who was president at the time, was awarded more than 400 million euros, or $440 million at current exchange rates, to settle a dispute with the state-owned bank Crédit Lyonnais. Mr. Tapie, a former leader of the Adidas sports empire and a minister in the Socialist government of President François Mitterrand in the early 1990s, switched political allegiances to support Mr. Sarkozy’s presidential campaign in 2007. French investigators have been looking into whether Mr. Tapie was offered any kind of a deal in return for his support, and whether Ms. Lagarde may have been acting on Mr. Sarkozy’s orders by sending the case to an arbitration panel. The large payout ignited a public outcry at the time, and Ms. Lagarde came under scrutiny for her role after she declined her advisers’ recommendations to appeal the decision. She was eventually investigated for “abuse of authority” after failing to appeal the payout, but that charge was dropped. She now faces a lesser charge of “negligence by a governmental official,” punishable by one year in prison and a fine of €15,000. The Court of Justice of the Republic, where Ms. Lagarde will stand trial, is rarely used. The cases before the 15-member body have mostly involved politicians, as former ministers are sometimes brought to trial when a new government takes over.

Christine Lagarde
Bernard Tapie
France
Crime
IMF


In Chile’s Capital, Damage Is Inside and Invisible

Abstract: SANTIAGO, Chile — From outside, there is no sign that the century-old building where Cecilia Painaqueo lived with her four children was damaged by one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. But inside her second-floor apartment, the bedroom walls collapsed and the wooden ceiling buckled. Ms. Painaqueo, eight and a half months pregnant, said there were a lot of so-called casas de mentira, or houses that lie, in her central city neighborhood. “You don’t see the damage by standing on the street,” she said. “You have to go inside.” In many ways, her words sum up the state of Chile ’s elegant, orderly capital 10 days after it was shaken by the 8.8-magnitude earthquake. While so much of the southern parts of this country lie in ruins, this city of high-rises and tree-lined boulevards appears mostly unscathed, a tribute, many say, to its strict building codes. But many people in this city of 6.8 million still do not know if their lives will ever be the same. The worse off tend to be those left out of this country’s economic growth. They have also so far been left out of the government’s disaster relief efforts, focused mainly in the south. Unsightly and unsafe camps, primarily occupied by Peruvian immigrants, have sprouted across the city’s historic center. In poor neighborhoods on the northern outskirts of the capital, thousands of people are still waiting for schools to reopen and basic services to be restored. The poor are not the only ones living in limbo. Thousands of middle class families, without insurance or savings, have been forced to move in with friends and relatives after the quake left their shoddily built condominiums uninhabitable. Ms. Painaqueo, a 36-year-old dishwasher, was forced to move her children — ages 17, 8, 7, and 15 months — and everything she could salvage from her apartment onto the sidewalk in front of her precarious building, still standing but not stable. Neighbors lent her an umbrella to provide shade from the searing afternoon sunshine, and a tent to keep warm when the temperatures plunged at night. High school students brought hot meals. And shopkeepers let her use their telephones and bathrooms. Ms. Painaqueo said the authorities had offered to provide enough money to cover a month’s rent in a new apartment. But she would still need to come up with the security deposit, which amounts to about one-third of her $300 monthly salary. That felt like a slap in the face, she said. “They are raising all this money to help people in the south,” Ms. Painaqueo said of the government, referring to a telethon last weekend that brought in some $59 million for earthquake victims. “But they have forgotten that there are victims in Santiago as well.” For decades, Chile’s economy has been marked by two things: dynamic growth and a gaping disparity between the rich and the poor. The first attribute goes a long way in explaining how so much of Santiago withstood a temblor that was hundreds of times stronger than the one that flattened Haiti’s capital in January. The second attribute explains why the earthquake hit some families so much harder than others. Less than five miles away from the old adobe neighborhood where Ms. Painaqueo spent her Sunday afternoon, the buildings in a section of the city known as “Sanhattan” are made from reinforced concrete and steel. Within a single square block there is a W Hotel, a Brooks Brothers, a shop that specializes in imported European shoes and a World of Wine store. A park in the center of the neighborhood was packed on Sunday with parents and children watching a puppet show and playing soccer. It was hard to find anyone in the neighborhood who had been severely affected by the earthquake. But several people seemed shaken by what they described as “the second tremor,” when throngs of vandals looted stores and warehouses in the worst affected areas of the disaster zone. The looting became so bad that the government deployed troops to regain control of the streets , the first time soldiers had been used for security purposes since this country’s former military dictatorship handed power to a civilian government in 1990. “What we have experienced is similar to what the United States experienced after Hurricane Katrina ,” said Elizabeth Perasio, a 30-year-old nurse and mother of two. “We like to think of ourselves as an advanced, stable society where people work together and help one another, not some backward, third world country. “Now we are questioning what kind of country we really are,” she said. That question weighed heavy on people’s minds across town at the Central Park condominium building, which stands 19 stories high and has sweeping northern views of the Mapocho River and the Andes. A sign hanging over the entrance read, “Ground Zero.” And camped out on the couches in the lobby were Jorge Ibarra and his wife, Elena Celis, who have spent every night there since the earthquake caused the tower to list to one side. Mr. Ibarra, a sports reporter for a local Internet news site, said he could not move in with relatives because he bought a lot of new furniture for his condominium and he was afraid it might be stolen if he left it behind. And he could not afford a new condominium because he had spent all his savings on the damaged one. “We thought when we made it to the middle class we were safe,” he said. “We were wrong.” Back in the city’s historic center, Margarita Ravanal spent most of the weekend in a partly collapsed adobe building with her Peruvian husband. Then on Sunday night, she reported for work as a nanny in one of Santiago’s wealthiest neighborhoods, Las Condes. Her employers are kind and generous, but have never asked whether she had been affected by the quake. Her eyes welling, Ms. Ravanal said they go on and on about how frightened they have felt since the earthquake. “They don’t know anything about fear,” she fumed. “Fear is when you lose everything.”


Interest Grows in Arabic Class at Friends Seminary

Abstract: Luke Smith-Stevens was 9 when he heard a roar and looked up to see one of the two planes that would hit the twin towers flying directly over his classroom’s skylight. In the subsequent months, he tried to make sense of the conversations he overheard and half-understood, the ubiquitous feelings of rage. “If you tell your average 9-year-old that all people from this part of the world are bad, chances are they’re not going to buy it,” said Mr. Smith-Stevens, now 18. But it wasn’t until he was in high school at Friends Seminary in the East Village that he felt he had the chance to go back and “re-examine that feeling that what I was being told wasn’t true.” In his junior year, Mr. Smith-Stevens jumped at the chance to study Arabic culture, not as an outsider looking in, but as an outsider inviting himself in, through the portal of language. The school had just started offering Arabic, and he was among 30 students who signed up. This fall, the school plans to offer Arabic III, and 42 students are scheduled to study the language. French and Spanish are still more popular at Friends, but Arabic has come to have a certain cachet. Hayes Peebles, a senior who is also a singer-songwriter and something of a local celebrity, has taken it for two years. His friend Konstantine Adamopoulos, a senior of Greek and Puerto Rican descent, also is in the class, and has been known to walk down the street rapping in Arabic . “The other teachers tell me that that some of my students joke around to each other in their classes using Arabic phrases, or write their names on their papers in Arabic,” said Anna Swank, the Arabic teacher. Take the unexpected choice, put it in the hands of the right confident teenagers, and watch how quickly it can become the obvious next step for students a few years younger. Ms. Swank said there was a complicated fascination with Arab culture, and some of its associations for New Yorkers, that undoubtedly attracted the teenage mind. “I don’t think it matters where you’re starting from,” she said. Where they’re ending up is another thing. Last summer, two of Ms. Swank’s students traveled to Jordan to study the language, and two did the same in Morocco. This summer, a female student is going to Tunisia, and a young man is studying at a Greek Orthodox monastery in Syria. Of the nine graduating seniors who studied Arabic, all plan to continue — most applied only to colleges that offer the language; several say Ms. Swank’s classes influenced their thoughts about their futures. For Mr. Adamopoulos, that might mean practicing medicine in an Arabic-speaking country. Mr. Smith-Stevens, who starts Middlebury College in the fall, intends to major in international relations, with a focus on the Middle East. Even Mr. Peebles, who hopes to keep performing, plans to continue his Arabic studies at Tufts University. “Inshallah,” he added — God willing. When Friends first decided to offer Arabic two years ago, as I wrote in a column at the time , the decision was surprisingly unusual. Only a few New York schools teach the language, most of them places with large Arab-American populations (SAR Academy in Riverdale, an Orthodox Jewish day school, is one exception). At the time, the decision by Friends inspired anxious queries from parents concerned that just offering the language was something of a political statement, and possibly an anti-Israeli one. Many of the students said they found their choice to study the language interpreted the same way. When a friend’s grandmother learned that Mr. Smith-Stevens, who is half Jewish, was studying Arabic, she asked him whether he was ashamed of his heritage. Ms. Swank said she had been scrupulous about avoiding politics, though she does not shy away from exposing the students to pop culture that might have a political message. “What does it say about the class if they’ve never heard of DAM ?” she said, referring to a Palestinian hip-hop band that is part of a new musical movement. On the last day of Arabic II last week, the class had that joyful end-of-the-year feel, and something else — the closeness of a group of student who have sailed through something previously untested. Ms. Swank had them up and dancing to a popular Arabic song playing on her computer, even waving their hands in the air. “Haraam!” one half of the group crooned. (Translation: For Shame!) “Tinsooni,” the other half sang. (Translation: Don’t forget me.)

Friends Seminary
Arabic Language
East Village (NYC)
Education and Schools


A Battered Feeling at Obama’s Former Church

Abstract: CHICAGO — For weeks, the members of Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of the city felt battered by the national spotlight that had accompanied the growing fame of their longtime member, Senator Barack Obama . First came the endless television coverage of incendiary statements by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. , their controversial former pastor. Then reports of a visiting Roman Catholic priest who had mocked Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. And finally on Sunday, a day after Mr. Obama announced that his family was leaving the church, satellite trucks idling again outside the 7:30 a.m. service. Inside the packed sanctuary of more than 2,000, the Rev. Otis Moss III, the new pastor, did not directly mention in sermons the political tumult surrounding the church. But in a flier that workers slipped into church programs, Mr. Moss commented at length about the situation, calling the decades-old Trinity a “new church being birthed in the crucible of a public moment.” “We, the community of Trinity, are concerned, hurt, shocked, dismayed, frustrated, fearful and heartbroken,” Mr. Moss wrote to his members. “Our hearts break at this moment and my limited vocabulary is inadequate to describe the range of emotions flooding our spirits at this time. We are caught, it seems, in a strange Greek tragic-comedy. In the words of Jean Paul-Sartre, with ‘no exit.’ We are a wounded people and the bruises from our encounter with history have scarred our very souls.” Outside the church, many members brushed silently past reporters. Those who spoke said they were angry, mostly at the news media — for failing, they said, to take the time to fully study the words of Mr. Wright and the works of Trinity; for trying to tear down Mr. Obama, a beloved member of the church for almost two decades; and, most of all, for turning their private worship into a public spectacle. They said that they remained supportive of Mr. Obama and that they were saddened, but not angered, by his choice to leave the church under the relentless pressure. The church issued a brief public statement on the Obama family’s departure. “Though we are saddened by the news, we understand that it is a personal decision,” the statement said. “We will continue to lift them in prayer and wish them the best as former members of our Trinity community.” Trinity has blossomed in recent decades to a congregation of more than 8,000, with four rooms to handle overflow from the sanctuary, numerous deacons and associate pastors, and an array of choirs. It is among the city’s most active black churches, known for its social programs and prominent members. It is a congregation of the United Church of Christ, a mostly white denomination known for experimentation within the bounds of traditional Protestant theology. Trinity’s long established reputation in Chicago as a place of good works for the ill, drug addicts and the needy, several church members said, was what had left many of them perplexed by the level of national controversy now. One man, whose job it was to usher congregants across busy 95th Street toward the church, pointed toward a cluster of news cameras and said: “Watch out for the vultures. God bless them and move on.” Even the salesman on a corner outside the church selling Obama T-shirts, caps and buttons refused to speak with reporters. For Mr. Moss, who is in his 30s, Sunday was also a changing of the guard. Although Mr. Wright’s formal departure as pastor into a role as “pastor emeritus” had been months in the making, Mr. Moss for the first time took the chief pastor’s seat at the center of the sanctuary on Sunday. (In recent months, Mr. Moss sat instead in a nearby pew and an African cloth was draped at the altar, churchgoers said, to honor Mr. Wright’s 36 years of building Trinity into what it is now.) In the flier handed out to members, a work he titled “The Declaration of Interdependence,” Mr. Moss mentioned no names but alluded to the public conflict that had emerged between Mr. Wright and Mr. Obama, who has denounced Mr. Wright’s controversial remarks. Mr. Wright preached Black Liberation Theology, an often fiery philosophy that argues that those who have suffered or been oppressed occupy a special place when it comes to faith. “How do we, as a church, make sure we remain whole?” Mr. Moss wrote. “How do we move forward? How do we speak to conflicting spirits flowing through our hearts about our beloved pastor and about a beloved public servant? I must admit, I prayed and prayed, asking God to clarify how we as a people must proceed.” In the end, he wrote, he believed that the church was being called on to “become whole, stay whole and remain whole as a people, through the simplest yet most complex spiritual gift ever given to humanity: love.” And Mr. Moss warned members of the church not to allow the public divisions to divide it. Members need not choose between “family members,” Mr. Moss wrote, adding that the works of W. E. B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington — two who “were estranged from each other during their time in history” — now sit together on his bookshelf. “There is a play,” Mr. Moss continued, “that has been written by two playwrights by the name of Jim and Jane Crow. Every decade, they attempt to pass this script to our community and ask us to play roles they have written for us. The name of the play is simply called ‘Divide and Conquer.’ We reject the spirit of negativity. We reject any lines drawn in the sand.” Despite all that has happened, church members said their own spiritual experiences had been unchanged by the tumult here. “We go on worshiping as ever,” said one member of seven years who refused to give his name, adding that his views of the church were unshaken. At an 11 a.m. service, Mr. Moss asked for people wishing to join the church to step forward. Sixteen people emerged from the crowd.

Trinity United Church of Christ
Obama Barack
Moss Otis III
Presidential Election of 2008
Religion and Churches
News and News Media
Wright Jeremiah A Jr
Chicago (Ill)


Malala Yousafzai, Shot by Taliban, Asks That College Not Bear Her Name

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in October has asked a provincial government to reverse its decision to name a college after her, an official said on Friday. But her request was not immediately granted. The young woman, Malala Yousafzai , 15, who attained fame as an advocate for girls’ education, made the request out of concern for the safety of the school’s female students, said the official, Kamran Rehman, the top civilian in the Swat Valley. Ms. Yousafzai, who was gravely wounded in the Oct. 9 attack and is recuperating in a British hospital, had become a highly visible symbol of resistance against the Taliban in an area where the militants held sway until a Pakistani Army offensive in 2009. Last month, the Swat Valley government changed the name of the Government Girls Degree College to the Government Malala Yousafzai Girls Degree College. But this month more than 100 students protested the decision, tearing down a poster of Ms. Yousafzai and throwing stones. “The female students were feeling apprehensive,” Mr. Rehman said. They feared “that the change in name might lead to an attack on their college and endanger their lives.” The college closed after the protest, with the authorities sending the students home early for their winter break. Mr. Rehman said Ms. Yousafzai called him from Britain on Monday “and requested that because of the concerns of female students, the name of the college should be reverted back to its original name.” He said the Swat government would consider her wishes. Mr. Rehman said no militants were known to have issued threats against the college, which has a student body of about 1,800. He said the police had been deployed on the road leading to the college and that security remained high across Swat, where the army maintains a presence. “The army is helping the civilian government to maintain law and order,” he said. “Enhanced security is a routine for us.” Pakistani officials have said that the attack on Ms. Yousafzai was ordered by Mullah Fazlullah, the Taliban commander in Swat, who managed to escape during the 2009 military operation. He is believed to be in Afghanistan.

Yousafzai Malala
Colleges and Universities
Women and Girls
Pakistan


Germany to Help in Disposal of Syrian Chemical Weapons

Abstract: BERLIN — German experts will help destroy chemical weapons removed from Syria under the auspices of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the government said Thursday. The German Defense Ministry runs a facility near the northern town of Munster where gases produced in the destruction of mustard gas from chemical weapons will be neutralized, the government said in a statement, likening the initial material to industrial waste. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, tacitly acknowledging that the plan to destroy the weapons on German soil may prompt criticism from the opposition Green party and Germany’s strong environmental movement, stressed that the decision was made in part to maintain international credibility in addressing Syria’s civil war, particularly as foreign powers prepare for talks in Geneva this month to try to end the conflict. “Nobody who takes international responsibility seriously can say no here,” he said. Germany “has secure technology and long experience in destroying the remaining materials in chemical weapons,” Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. The identification and removal of the weapons by United Nations inspectors followed a September agreement that averted a threatened military strike by the United States on Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of civilians in Syria in August. The German news agency DPA, citing unidentified sources, said the initial dismantling of the weapons from Syria — in which mustard gas is split into more harmless parts — would take place on an American vessel in the Mediterranean. Hundreds of tons of a chemical DPA identified as hydrolysate will then be shipped in containers to Germany and taken by rail or truck to the Munster facility, it said.


Bill Walker, an Independent, Wins Governor’s Race in Alaska

Abstract: ANCHORAGE — An independent candidate, Bill Walker, has won the Alaska governor’s race after an aggressive challenge to Gov. Sean Parnell, a Republican. Mr. Walker, a lawyer and former mayor of Valdez, was ahead on election night, but the race was too close to call until thousands of absentee and questioned ballots were counted this week. He is the first candidate unaffiliated with a party since statehood to win the office. Mr. Walker, who finished behind Mr. Parnell in the 2010 Republican primary for governor, bypassed this year’s primary by gathering signatures to support an outside run. But he did not change his party affiliation to undeclared until joining forces with a Democrat, Byron Mallott, in September. Mr. Mallott won his party’s nomination for governor, but a Walker-Mallott ticket was seen as more competitive.

Alaska
Bill Walker
Sean Parnell
2014 Midterm Elections
Gubernatorial races


Canada: Retail Sales Declined Unexpectedly in May

Abstract: Canadian retail sales unexpectedly fell 0.6 percent in May, the biggest drop since September. Sales decreased to 32.6 billion Canadian dollars ($28.6 billion) as consumers bought fewer autos and spent less on food and beverages, Statistics Canada said. The figures suggest that the Bank of Canada’s rate increases are tempering consumer borrowing and spending on expensive items like cars. The central bank kept the main interest rate unchanged at 4.25 percent on July 11 after seven consecutive moves.


Giants State Case and Silence Jets

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Giants were disgusted to arrive at MetLife Stadium on Saturday morning and see the four Super Bowl logos outside their locker room concealed by black curtains. When their kicker, Lawrence Tynes, pulled back the curtains, someone with the Jets came by to yank them over again. The Giants’ anger endured late into the afternoon, when Brandon Jacobs got into a postgame verbal altercation with Rex Ryan, the Jets’ coach. Jacobs said Ryan told him to shut up and that he responded by saying he would punch Ryan in the mouth. “I told him out of all these Giants football players on the team, you’re talking to the wrong one,” Jacobs said. It was the culmination of a feisty week with much more at stake than supremacy in New York. After the Giants thrashed the Jets, 29-14 , the teams went their separate ways. Screaming with joy, the Giants ran into their locker room as a team revived, controlling their playoff chances: if they beat Dallas next week at home, the Giants will win the N.F.C. East. “Given all the noise that was coming out of Florham Park, it’s a satisfying win,” the Giants co-owner John Mara said. “It kind of reinvigorates this franchise.” Deflated and demoralized, the Jets trudged into their locker room in silence, left to consider the overwhelming likelihood that they will not make the playoffs. “We’re pretty much dead,” linebacker Calvin Pace said. After spending much of the past week proclaiming their superiority, much of it initiated by Ryan, the Jets failed in practically every facet. They committed 10 penalties, threw more incompletions (29) than passes attempted by Eli Manning (27), and turned the ball over three times. They converted 4 of 21 third-down opportunities, allowed 5 sacks and missed 2 tackles on Manning’s 99-yard touchdown pass to Victor Cruz, the longest play in Giants history. Ryan assumed his position behind the lectern afterward as a humbled man, one who watched his team be outplayed and outcoached — and blown out — for a second consecutive week. He offered no excuses, only credit. “They were definitely the better team today, the better team this year,” said Ryan, and how it must have stung for him to say that. “So clearly I was wrong.” If Ryan was indeed wrong about his team, then he is hardly alone. The Jets began the season as Super Bowl contenders, vowing this would be the year they dethroned New England in the A.F.C. East. They will end it in Miami, needing to win — a task that seems eminently more daunting than it did when the Dolphins were winless back in October — to merely have a chance at reaching the postseason for the third straight year. After falling a game behind Cincinnati and dropping into a tie at 8-7 with Tennessee and Oakland , the Jets also need to have the Bengals, the Titans and either the Raiders or the Denver Broncos lose to make the playoffs. “We don’t deserve to control our destiny,” linebacker Bart Scott said. “We haven’t played good enough football to do that.” Not on Saturday, not all season. Cornerback Darrelle Revis agreed with the assessment that the Jets, at best, have been inconsistent. In that sense, the outcome was not shocking. But, as guard Matt Slauson said, “it was how we lost that was the biggest thing.” The Jets’ hopes Saturday died in fitting fashion, with Mark Sanchez flat on his back. With a little more than two minutes remaining, he was sacked by Chris Canty in the end zone for a safety that extended the Giants’ lead to 22-14. After the Giants recovered the onside kick, Ahmad Bradshaw punctuated the rout with a 19-yard scamper, his second touchdown of the game. On his first score, a 14-yarder in the third quarter, Bradshaw bowled over safety Brodney Pool, knocking him from the game with a head injury. “We didn’t show up,” said running back LaDainian Tomlinson, who added: “When the pressure was on, we always came through, we always came through. We just didn’t today.” To the Jets, the Giants represented another obstacle to overcome on what they believed was their birthright — a trip to the playoffs, to the Super Bowl. Many of them deemed the rivalry as manufactured. “This ain’t Ohio State-Michigan,” Pace said. Or the Jets’ games against New England, which pounded them twice this season. Then again, a much bigger impediment than the Patriots — or the Giants — stands in the Jets’ way: themselves. “Maybe one day, we’ll look ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘We’ve got to stop beating us,’ ” Pace said. Neither quarterback played particularly well — Manning completed only 9 of 27 passes for 225 yards, 164 by Cruz — but Sanchez was worse, losing one fumble and throwing two interceptions, while completing 30 of 59 passes for 258 yards. As Ryan readily admitted, the Jets are not built to throw that much. They do not have a big-play, downfield passing game the way the Giants do. The imbalanced play-calling (against 25 rushes) seemed to stump several players. “I’m the wrong guy to ask about that,” said Slauson, who added: “I want to run all the time. No line wants to sit back and throw it 100 times.” Against a Giants team that had allowed 144 points in its previous four games, the Jets scored on their opening possession — and not again until 7 minutes 17 seconds remained in the game, when a 1-yard run by Sanchez cut the deficit to 20-14. The Jets had life until they did not. “We had five different ways to win the game near the end and we figured a way out to lose it,” Scott said. Despite rushing for all of 6 yards, registering but 4 first downs and possessing the ball for less than 11 minutes, the Giants led at halftime, 10-7. They led because of Manning and Cruz. Facing third-and-10 from his own end zone, Manning found Cruz, double-covered at the 11. Cruz shrugged off a tackle from Kyle Wilson, juked past Antonio Cromartie, then skipped over a diving Eric Smith at midfield before sprinting down the right sideline. Rather than spike the ball, Cruz flung it against the back wall. The Jets stood in disbelief, as if weighted down by their shock. That emotion lasted into the night, as did the Giants’ defiance. On their way into the locker room, a few players tugged the curtains open, revealing their superiority, then and now.

New York Jets
New York Giants
Football
Sanchez Mark
Manning Eli
Cruz Victor
Bradshaw Ahmad


Central Africa’s Wildlife Rangers Face Deadly Risks

Abstract: ZAKOUMA NATIONAL PARK, Chad — Just before dawn, the rangers were hunched over in prayer, facing east. They pressed their foreheads into the dry earth and softly whispered Koranic verses, their lips barely moving. A cool wind bit at their faces. All of a sudden, Djimet Seid, the cook, said he heard “one war whoop — or maybe it was a scream.” And then: “K-k-k-k-k-k-k,” the angry bark of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, opening up on fully automatic. In an instant, an entire Chadian squad of rangers was cut down with alarming precision by elephant poachers who were skilled at killing more than just animals. Crouching in the bush, the poachers fired from a triangle of different spots, concealed and deadly accurate. “If you go look at the infantry books, it’s exactly how you do a first light attack, exactly,” said Rian Labuschagne, a former paratrooper and now the manager of Zakouma National Park in southern Chad. “Our guys didn’t have a chance.” Out here, among the spent bullet shells and the freshly dug graves, the cost of protecting wildlife is painfully clear. As ivory poaching becomes more militarized, with rebel groups and even government armies slaughtering thousands of elephants across Africa to cash in on record-high ivory prices, a horrible mismatch is shaping up. Wildlife rangers — who tend to be older, maybe a bit slower and incredibly knowledgeable about their environment and the ways of animals, but less so about infantry tactics — are wading into the bush to confront hardened soldiers. The outcome, too often, is not only firefights and battles, but also coldblooded murder, with dozens of African wildlife rangers killed in recent years, many in revenge-driven ambushes. Ivory poachers, it seems, are becoming increasingly wily and ruthless. This summer, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a militia of infamous elephant poachers sneaked up to the headquarters of a wildlife reserve and killed 5 people and 14 okapi, a rare animal with a giraffelike neck and zebralike legs. One guard who narrowly escaped said the attackers sliced open the chest of a downed colleague and ate his heart. In Zimbabwe, poachers are spreading deadly poisons on elephant carcasses to kill vultures. By taking out the birds that serve as a natural early warning system that a kill has been made, the poachers make it even more dangerous for rangers because they have no idea when the poachers are around. In Mozambique, the authorities said that poachers have recently begun using land mines. Kenya, which is considered tame compared with some of these other places, has lost six rangers this year, more than in recent memory. One of them was Florence Hadia Abae, pregnant and the mother of a small boy. In March, she was following the footprints of suspected poachers near Tsavo National Park, a fabled tourist destination, when a poacher popped out of the bush and shot her in the face. One of her colleagues was killed in the same ambush, shot in the leg, then finished off with a short, brutish stroke of an ax. “They had no idea what they were walking into,” said Rob Dodson, a British conservationist working near Tsavo. In the Zakouma attack, which happened about 50 miles outside the park boundaries in September, five rangers were killed on the spot; one remains missing and is presumed dead. Mr. Seid, the cook, was seriously wounded. The attack appeared to be revenge for a raid on a poachers’ camp, and much of the evidence points to the Sudanese military. For years, wildlife groups have blamed the janjaweed — Sudanese horseback raiders who traditionally work in tandem with the government military — for wiping out many of Central Africa’s elephant herds. But specific evidence recovered from the poachers suspected of killing Zakouma’s rangers strengthens the Sudanese government link, the Chadian authorities and human rights groups say. A few weeks before the attack, Zakouma rangers raided a poachers’ camp nearby and discovered one uniform for Abu Tira, Sudan’s notorious paramilitary service, which has been blamed for burning down villages and committing other atrocities. The rangers also found several elephant tusks and a stamped leave slip from the Sudanese Army granting four soldiers permission to go to the Chadian border. In Chad, Hidden Dangers in Guarding Wildlife 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Most incriminating, though, were the digital photos recovered from a phone showing stacks of elephant carcasses that looked similar to photos from a horrific massacre of hundreds of elephants in Cameroon this year, suggesting that the Sudanese poachers who killed the Zakouma rangers may have been involved in one of the biggest single elephant slaughters in decades. “This is not some random group of thugs,” said Jonathan Hutson, a spokesman for the Satellite Sentinel Project , a nonprofit group that helped analyze some of the evidence. “They’re poaching for profit to fund mass atrocities in Sudan.” Officials at the United States Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, have also been helping analyze some of the forensics. At first, Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman, reflexively dismissed the evidence. “Pictures can be fabricated,” he said. But then he added, “If there is concrete evidence, and someone is proven to be corrupt, he can be taken to court.” There is something noble but quixotic about the 50 or so Zakouma rangers, many in their 40s, some even in their late 50s, turbans wrapped around their wrinkled, sandblasted faces, tasked with protecting a spectacularly beautiful but extremely isolated stretch of savanna in the middle of one of the poorest, least developed regions on earth. Even the architecture of Zakouma’s headquarters, with its crenulated, fortresslike walls, belies a sense of siege. “Death can come any time,” said Adoum Abdoulaye, a ranger at Zakouma. “I’m always thinking about it.” And people here are used to it. In 1998, Mahamat Abubakar, a veteran ranger, was shot and killed by poachers lying in wait. His son, Zachariah, took over, but two years later, Zachariah was gunned down in an ambush as well. His younger brother, Hissein, was then offered the job, but instead of picking up a Kalashnikov and trotting into the field, Hissein asked to be a welder. “My mother couldn’t take any more,” he said. Zakouma’s rangers are trying to make a last stand. The park’s once-great herd of elephants has been nearly exterminated. Ninety percent of it has been poached off in the past 10 years, one of the most drastic declines of an elephant population anywhere in Africa. In 2002, there were 4,350 elephants; now maybe 450. Chad has endured several rebellions in recent years, sucking away resources from wildlife and creating instability along the Sudanese border, which allowed hordes of poachers to pour across. There has been only one confirmed birth of an elephant calf in the past two years. “With all the shooting and stress,” Mr. Labuschagne said, “they don’t breed.” Mr. Labuschagne, a tall, lean South African who has been the manager of Zakouma for nearly two years, wants to build a unit of highly trained — and younger — rangers to confront poachers. He has worked in many places in Africa but says there is something uniquely untouched about Chad. In November, he flew a small plane to Zakouma from the capital, N’Djamena. In the middle of the country, a set of granite mountains rose up from the plains, jagged, gnarled fingers of rock reaching up, trees clinging to their base, mist shrouding their tips. It was a landscape prehistoric and breathtaking, inscrutable and mysterious. “There are no people here,” Mr. Labuschagne said, stabbing his finger down. “In two hours, we’re going to pass one road.” “The rest are just tracks,” he said. A few chutes of smoke rose in the distance, the only sign of man.

Poaching
Murders
Ivory
Elephant
National Parks and National Monuments
Assault
Africa
Chad


A Window Falls and Cabs Collide in Times Square

Abstract: On a more exciting day than usual in Times Square, two taxicabs collided on Sunday morning, sending one of them spinning into a crowd, while in the afternoon a large pane of glass fell several stories from a building and crashed onto the sidewalk. Six pedestrians suffered minor injuries in the car accident. There were no injuries from the falling glass, according to the police. Shortly before 9:30 a.m., Hafiz Ishaq was driving his cab south on Broadway, taking two passengers to Pennsylvania Station. As he crossed 44th Street, he said later, a cab driving east struck his vehicle. Mr. Ishaq said his car spun clockwise several times onto the pedestrian median separating Broadway and Seventh Avenue and struck a lamppost. “It was nightmarish beyond belief,” he said. No arrests were made or citations issued. Six people were taken to Bellevue Hospital Center to be treated for minor injuries, the police said. Mr. Ishaq said that some of the injured were children. “I peeked over and saw a little angel face lying on the ground,” he said. Mr. Ishaq headed to Bellevue shortly after the accident to see how the victims were doing. “The scream echoes in my ears,” he said. “I just wanted to pay my respects to the family.” As he sat in the waiting area of the pediatric emergency room, a smiling woman introduced herself as the mother of a boy injured in the accident. “So far, everything looks O.K.,” she told him, and asked him to come meet her son. “The first thing my son asked was if you were O.K. He wanted to know if the taxi driver was O.K.” Just after 2 p.m., at 1 Times Square, where the ball drops every New Year’s Eve, a 3-foot-by-5-foot windowpane fell several stories to the sidewalk, city officials said. The accident occurred less than a week after a 1,500-pound glass panel fell more than 50 stories from the Bank of America building at 42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas and shattered on the metal roof of a pedestrian passageway. Two people suffered minor injuries. On Sunday, the police closed the area in Times Square where the windowpane landed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic as they cleared away the shards of glass. A spokeswoman from the Department of Buildings said that a preliminary investigation found that the pane had become dislodged and had fallen from between the seventh and eighth floors. The Buildings Department issued a citation to the owner of the building, Jamestown One Times Square, that documents the accident but carries no penalty, she said. Onlookers using still and video cameras stood on the street corners near the building. “They’re making a big deal out of not much,” said Fasil Yilma, a retail manager from Manhattan. Some people seemed disappointed by the lack of drama. “I thought maybe somebody was stuck or somebody was going to jump,” said Bernadette Wilson, a nurse from Harlem. “All this commotion for what?”

Times Square and 42nd Street (NYC)
Accidents and Safety
Taxicabs and Taxicab Drivers
Windows


In Arizona, Rare Sightings Of Ocelots and Jaguars

Abstract: PHOENIX — The Serengeti is associated with safaris. The Maasai Mara, too. But southern Arizona? A series of recent sightings of rare wild cats in the southern part of the state has prompted considerable excitement among wildlife experts and camera-toting naturalists alike. Twice this year, the Arizona Game and Fish Department has announced sightings in the southeast of endangered ocelots, small spotted cats with jaguarlike markings. A third ocelot sighting reported on Friday by a homeowner who snapped some blurry photos of an odd-looking cat was probably a serval, an African cat popular in the pet trade, state officials said Saturday. The animal had long ears, long legs and appeared to have only solid spots instead of the solid spots and haloed spots on an ocelot. On Nov. 19, it was a rare jaguar that was seen in the same part of the state — the first confirmed appearance of that elusive and endangered cat in Arizona since 2009. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and one of the largest found in the wild in the Western Hemisphere. Donnie Fenn, a professional guide based in Benson, Ariz., who specializes in mountain lion hunts — which are fairly common in Arizona — was taking his 10-year-old daughter out on her first lion hunt that morning when his pack of eight hounds took off in a frenzy. Before he knew it, he said, the dogs had a creature cornered in a tree, which he saw from afar with a telephoto lens was not the mountain lion he was looking for but instead an endangered jaguar. “I was scared,” Mr. Fenn said in a telephone interview on Friday. “I didn’t know if that thing was going to turn on me. I could feel its power. It was twice the size of a big mountain lion. It was definitely the experience of a lifetime.” Mr. Feen said that his dogs were scratched pretty badly by the cornered jaguar, who probably had roamed north from Mexico. In June, a helicopter pilot working along the border for the federal Department of Homeland Security reported seeing a jaguar in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson, officials said. Because the pilot had previously seen mountain lions, which are sometimes confused by the non-experts with jaguars, and was able to hover about 100 feet above the spotted cat and clearly describe it, wildlife experts took the report seriously. But biologists who went to the scene about a week after the spotting could not find tracks, hair or droppings from the animal, making it an unconfirmed sighting. Mr. Fenn, 32, made sure to confirm his run-in with the jaguar, which took place in an undisclosed mountain range in Cochise County. He crept up close after the jaguar was chased up a mesquite tree and took photos and a video of the animal. He also notified state wildlife officials, who were later able to find 15 hair samples left behind by the animal and a tree trunk that showed signs of being climbed by a large clawed animal. Experts believe Mr. Fenn saw an adult male jaguar that weighed about 200 pounds. “What’s so appealing to the general public is that jaguars are so exotic,” said Mark Hart, a spokesman for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. “They are jungle cats from Central and South America, and the fact that they might be in our state really gets people’s attention. It’s a romantic notion.” Mr. Fenn, whose Chasin’ Tail Guide Service offers five-day mountain lion hunts for $3,500, said his Web site has been barraged with hits since the jaguar sighting. And his daughter Alyson, initially disappointed that she did not get her first mountain lion kill that day, now realizes that seeing a jaguar was memorable, too. “It was quite an experience, even if she didn’t get to kill anything,” Mr. Fenn said.

Arizona
Ocelots
Jaguars
Endangered and Extinct Species


Pleasures of Free Crosstown Bus Travel in Manhattan

Abstract: Luxury in this town is not a car and driver; it’s the crosstown bus, a smooth, air-conditioned ride on high, a slow boat to somewhere latitudinal. For those who have other options, boarding that lazy, humming vehicle is a sign that they’re rolling in something most New Yorkers have in scant supply: time. Leave it to the billionaire mayor to find a way to gild this particular lily. In one of his first major campaign proposals for his re-election, Michael R. Bloomberg proposed this week that the fare be eliminated from a few of the slower crosstown buses, including the M50 and the M34. Mayor Bloomberg’s version of bread and roses is a freebie with efficiency — the plan has all the pleasures of a congestion fee without that troublesome fee. The buses would go faster without all those people digging around for their MetroCards just as the light is about to turn red, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , the mayor’s number crunchers promise, would not lose much money, since so few people pay for the crosstown transfer. At midday Tuesday, the M50, which travels west on 49th Street, was filled with people treating themselves to a small summer indulgence, the public transit equivalent of an ice cream cone. Although most of the passengers were able-bodied, few stayed aboard the bus for more than a few blocks. Having already paid for the subway uptown or down, why not exploit the free pass east or west? If it weren’t free, admitted Shaheen Suhrawardy, who had taken the E train up from Wall Street and was enjoying the ride from 8th to 11th Avenues, “I would just walk the few blocks.” Mark Corlette, a 25-year-old maintenance worker from Queens, said he almost always walks from one job at the United Nations to another on Fifth Avenue, but on Tuesday he decided to spring for the fare across town. “It’s just the sun,” he said, as if the season’s torrential rains had left him unprepared for this unexpected summertime menace. Would he take the bus more often if he didn’t have to shell out $2.25 to do so? Yes, Mr. Corlette said, even though he “loves walking all over the city,” and, he noted, it’s probably faster by foot. Maybe whoever models transit use for Mayor Bloomberg should have a chat with some of those marketing researchers who study what the word “free” does to the decision-making of otherwise reasonable people. Based on the research that Dan Ariely , a Duke University psychology professor, documents in his book, “Predictably Irrational,” New Yorkers are likely to go out of their way for the privilege of being taken for a free ride across town. It might not be efficient for them; it almost certainly would not be efficient for the bus lines’ speed. “I already have people getting out their MetroCard to go one or two blocks,” said one bus driver. “Can you imagine if now it’s free?” He shook his head. MetroCard or not, longer lines and more crowded buses would make for slower going, in his opinion. Mayor Bloomberg could try a different argument with the transportation agency if he wants to justify giving voters a freebie: call it the Trader Joe’s approach. Who, after tasting a free sample of the M50 on a hot summer day, would not be reminded of the pleasures of taking the bus all over the city? While people outside on 49th Street appeared to be multitasking like crazy — walking and talking and texting — inside was all leisure. A woman in a colorful print top had the space and time to work on a newspaper crossword puzzle. Across the aisle, on the back of a giveaway postcard from Home Depot, an artist was working on a charming portrait sketch of that same woman, using color markers. From inside the bus, the sidewalks that rolled by in the opposite direction looked glamorously cinematic, filled with an endless parade of summer dresses and chic people in sunglasses. The noises were the distant, almost imperceptible sounds of familiar urban cues, like background audio for a children’s show. But the real sell for the bus always comes the minute you step off of it, especially in summer. Suddenly someone’s turned the volume on high: A siren wails as if its next stop could only be the inside of your skull. The heat off the pavement hits with the force of a truck (several of which, incidentally, are spewing exhaust nearby). Those three blocks south to the desired destination — suddenly they seem impossibly far to walk. Is that a downtown M1 heading this way? Please, let it not be too crowded with freeloaders.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Bloomberg Michael R
Buses
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Transit Systems
Roads and Traffic
Manhattan (NYC)


De Blasio’s Plan to Lift Poor Schools Comes With High Costs and Big Political Risks

Abstract: There was $75 million a year for second-grade reading specialists. Advanced Placement classes got $51 million. Every eighth grader can take algebra thanks to $19 million. And $15 million was proposed to provide more than 16,000 students with dedicated counselors from sixth through 12th grade. On Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio made his biggest commitment yet to his education philosophy. He announced a half-dozen programs that focus on New York City’s poorest students, in a speech that framed the proposals as a way to address income inequality, a touchstone issue of his administration. The cost of Mr. de Blasio’s programs is high, and the political risks are great. Republicans in the State Legislature are already skeptical of the mayor’s approach to education, and the results of his new programs will not be known for years. In June, the Legislature extended the mayor’s control of schools by only one year, meaning that he has to go back to Albany next year to request an extension. (The Legislature had given former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg control for seven years, then a renewal for six.) In his speech, Mr. de Blasio argued that this investment in the city’s struggling schools was a moral imperative. “There is a tale of two cities in our schools, and we simply don’t accept it,” he said, reprising the theme of his campaign. “Each and every child, in each and every classroom, deserves a future that isn’t limited by their ZIP code.” But many questions remain about how these programs will work and what the impact will be on the school system. The city is already redirecting $85 million a year in existing education funding to its previously announced effort to add social services and improve results at the city’s 94 lowest-performing schools, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. City Hall said that the funding for the $186 million commitment laid out on Wednesday, which also includes computer science instruction in every school, will come from new revenues that they are anticipating based on financial projections. But if the economy slowed down, the city would have to choose between backing off these programs or making cuts elsewhere. Mr. de Blasio could risk turning off voters if parents saw class sizes grow or extracurricular activities shrink further. Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters , an organization that advocates smaller classes, was disappointed with the mayor’s speech. Image Mr. de Blasio with Carmen Fariña, the city’s schools chancellor, after his speech. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times “Where is the research that shows that these initiatives would narrow the achievement gap, as class size reduction has been proven to do?” she said. “De Blasio made many promises during his campaign to parents and other voters to lower class size that he now appears to have forgotten completely.” David C. Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, called Mr. de Blasio’s speech “a feel-good parade of accomplishments and helpful initiatives” that was meant to bolster his chances for renewal of mayoral control of schools and re-election. He said it was striking that, in a speech titled “Equity and Excellence,” there was no mention of the high degree of racial segregation in New York City schools and ways to combat it. Mr. de Blasio did try to inoculate himself against critics who adhere to Mr. Bloomberg’s education approach. In contrast with the Bloomberg administration, the current mayor opposes closing schools that perform poorly, except as a last resort. While Mr. Bloomberg was on a constant, and largely unsuccessful, mission to fire teachers he considered subpar, Mr. de Blasio has had a more amicable relationship with the city teachers’ union. But he said on Wednesday that his administration had “helped 660 educators find their way out of the New York City school system,” from April 2014 to April 2015. Asked to elaborate, the Department of Education said that the number included teachers who had been fired or denied tenure, and who resigned while facing disciplinary action. “This shows we are willing and able to make the change that’s necessary,” Mr. de Blasio said. “Where it’s needed, we will replace school leadership or staff to transform a school if they cannot improve with our tailored and targeted support.” Mr. de Blasio, who has clashed with charter school supporters, also announced a $5-million-a-year program under which district and charter schools can share practices. One prominent pro-charter group, Families for Excellent Schools , was not satisfied, arguing that Mr. de Blasio’s aversion to more charter schools was cutting off an avenue of opportunity for poor families. “At the current rate, all New York City students won’t be able to read at grade level until 2051,” the group’s chief executive, Jeremiah Kittredge, said in a statement. “The incremental change proposed today won’t fix New York City’s education inequality.” Mr. de Blasio set a number of long-term goals during the speech, including increasing the four-year high school graduation rate to 80 percent from 68 percent by 2026 (by which point he will have been out of office for at least four years). Some of the goals he set on Wednesday may be even more ambitious. “Excellence and achievement cannot, should not and will not discriminate in New York City,” he said, adding that “we have to make sure success is as common in East New York as it is on the Upper East Side.”

K-12 Education
Bill de Blasio
Income Inequality
Equal Educational Opportunities
NYC Department of Education
Families for Excellent Schools
David C Bloomfield
NYC


After Decades on CBS, U.S. Open Will Switch Channels Full Time

Abstract: When the United States Tennis Championships became the U.S. Open in 1968, CBS Sports televised the tournament from the Forest Hills section of Queens, with Bud Collins and Jack Kramer calling matches that featured Arthur Ashe’s milestone victory in the men’s final . That was the start of a long tradition at CBS. No other broadcaster has shown the Open, the same distinction that holds for CBS and the Masters golf tournament, partners since 1956. But while the CBS-Masters relationship looks as if it will go on as long as golf exists, the CBS-United States Open connection will end after the men’s final is played Monday afternoon. Next year, the network will compete against the tennis tournament with football, a virtual guarantee of substantially higher ratings. On the two Saturdays of the Open, the network will probably add a Southeastern Conference game, and on the final Sunday, it will do its best to carry a second N.F.L. game to create a doubleheader. ESPN will take over coverage of the Open, merging what CBS carried with what the network has been carrying since 2009. For all that, ESPN is paying $825 million over 11 years, perhaps half of it tied to snapping up the men’s and women’s semifinals and finals. “ESPN will do a terrific job producing it,” said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, “and maybe someday in the future, it will come back to CBS.” The fate of the Tennis Channel’s coverage at the Open will depend on whether it can renew its licensing deal with ESPN. CBS’s departure from the Open was probably inevitable. Many sports events have migrated to cable, where networks like ESPN are enriched by subscriber and advertiser revenue. But CBS also faced a troubling trend that has devalued the tournament as a TV property: an absence of strong American men’s players that has led to tumbling viewership. CBS was long buoyed by American ratings magnets like Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, and then by Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi (one of whom, or both, were in the final 10 times between 1990 and 2002). Audiences have shrunk for Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, regardless of their brilliance. The reality of fewer people watching the marquee finals has been acknowledged in the reduced fees that CBS had been paying in the last couple of contracts. Faced with a demand from the United States Tennis Association to substantially boost its rights payments, CBS instead chose to walk away. “It would have been nice to have gotten a deal done, but we’ve been very disciplined about sports rights and this didn’t make sense for us financially,” said McManus, who negotiated a 14-year contract with Turner Sports in 2011 that allowed them to share the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament for 14 years. It preserved some of the event for CBS every March, and eliminated the prospect of large future losses. The impact that the decline in top American tennis players has had on the viewership for the men’s and women’s finals is stark. The 2002 Agassi-Sampras match drew 9.4 million viewers. Three years later, when Federer beat Agassi, the number was a still-strong 7.1 million. In 2006, when Andy Roddick lost to Federer, 6 million viewers watched the last men’s final to feature an American. The next year, the last time the men’s final was played in its traditional Sunday afternoon time slot, Federer’s defeat of Djokovic attracted a still respectable 5.4 million. But with the men’s final on Monday afternoons ever since (because of rain delays from 2008 to ’12 and advance scheduling last year), no match has drawn more than 3.4 million viewers, despite the elite players involved. But Monday afternoon is a difficult time to grab viewers who are more likely to be at work than at home. The match will return to Sunday afternoon next year. On the women’s side, viewership has risen and fallen almost entirely based on Serena Williams’s success. When Serena faced her sister Venus in 2001 and ’02 on Saturday night in prime time, an average of 10.3 million and 7.9 million viewers watched. In 2001, the sisters attracted more viewers than a Notre Dame-Nebraska football game. But without Serena, the numbers have faltered. Her last three finals, all on Sunday afternoons, averaged about 5.4 million viewers, but that was more than twice the figure of 2010, when in her absence only 2.6 million saw Kim Clijsters beat Vera Zvonareva. “At some point,” McManus said, “there will be the next Sampras or Agassi and there will be an uptick in the ratings. We need to see new Americans come along in the next years.” Until then, CBS will have an archive of memories, like the many that have been shown during its broadcasts so far this tournament. Bob Mansbach, in his 25th year as the coordinating producer of CBS’s U.S. Open coverage, recalled the 39-year-old Jimmy Connors’s run to the semifinals in 1991 that was capped by his 4-hour-41-minute victory over against Aaron Krickstein. The match, on Labor Day, was a classic : Connors was brilliant, spewing abuse at the umpire and talking directly to viewers during breaks as if he had staged a commentary coup d’état. But he was also in trouble, down by 5-2 in the fifth set. He won, 7-6, an indelible moment for CBS, a time when it could not contemplate a future without the Open. “Next year, on the first weekend, I’ll go far away,” Mansbach said, “and on the second weekend, I’ll do football.”


Israel’s Dilemma in Response to Rockets

Abstract: JERUSALEM — In a concerted effort to suppress rocket fire from Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinian militants, eight of them from Islamic Jihad , in 24 hours on Monday and Tuesday. Islamic Jihad vowed vengeance, threatening suicide bombings inside Israel , presumably organized from the West Bank. “We emphasize that the response will have the same impact as the catastrophe that hit us today,” said Abu Hamza, spokesman for the group’s military wing. “All methods are open, not only rockets but also martyrdom operations in the territory of 1948.” Despite the lethality and accuracy of the Israeli airstrikes, Israel finds itself with no effective military answer to the problem of rockets from Gaza. Israelis living near Gaza in towns like Sderot bear the brunt of the rocket attacks, but the government is reluctant to order a large-scale military invasion of Gaza, especially with American-sponsored peace talks about to begin again with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Such raids in the past have caused significant numbers of civilian casualties and provided only temporary respites from the rockets, Israeli officials and experts say. The current strategy of intensified daily raids and airstrikes on militant leaders and rocket-launching cells has taken an important toll on militants, officials argue, while keeping Israeli military and Palestinian civilian casualties low. But the rockets continue to make daily life in Sderot miserable, with frequent sirens, crowded shelters, frightened children, considerable danger, trauma and stress. Because of collapsed real-estate prices, the people of Sderot are mostly trapped in the town, unable to move and no longer trusting the assurances of their leaders. On the diplomatic level, the dilemma is nearly as acute. So long as rockets are fired toward Israelis from Gaza, Israelis will be very reluctant, even unwilling, to make a political deal for a Palestinian state that cannot provide them security. And if the Israelis reinvade Gaza in a serious way, killing many Palestinians, it will create a quandary for Mr. Abbas and moderate Arab countries, making it very difficult for them to sanction a political deal with Israel. “For a long time, there’s been an understanding that the situation is intolerable, and it’s impossible for the government to go on doing nothing and be seen to be doing nothing,” said Mark Heller, director of research at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, referring to the rockets. “But security professionals understand well that they don’t have a rich menu of options here. The choices range from bad to very bad.” Political pressure is building for a major operation, and the army is unhappy with the militants’ progress on improving the range and payload of these rockets, Mr. Heller said. But after Israeli troops enter Gaza, “the question is what you do the next day, and there’s no clear answer yet,” he said. “No one wants to stay, and no one deludes themselves that if they go in and then out, it will be more than a brief interlude, and it can strengthen Hamas, which can say that its resistance forced Israel out,” he said. Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli national security adviser, agreed that the options were inadequate. “This has been the dilemma from the beginning,” he said. “When you go in, you provide further incentive for them to hit back. And if you don’t go in to reduce the level of the threat, it grows. But sooner or later, if the rockets continue, they will force the government to launch a major operation, which the government clearly doesn’t want to do, since no one thinks it will provide a good or long-term achievement, and the costs will be very high on both sides.” For Mr. Freilich, now at the Belfer Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “there is no effective answer except a long string of limited operations, trying to develop an antirocket system, which is years away, and occasional big operations, of limited value.” The Israeli attacks over the past two days were aimed at Islamic Jihad, which has been firing most of the rockets lately, while Hamas has been firing shorter-range mortars. In one of three separate airstrikes beginning Monday night, Israel killed a senior commander, Majed al-Harazin, around 40, and his aide, Jihad Daher, who were traveling in a car full of explosives. Palestinians said that they had emerged from hiding a few days ago to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, but had not been allowed to leave, and that Israel might have been able to track them. Israel said Mr. Harazin directed Islamic Jihad’s rocket attacks. A third man was critically wounded, and six passers-by were hurt. Later Monday night, Israel hit another car carrying a rocket designer, Karim Dahdouh, on his way to launch rockets, and he and another militant died. There were reports that two others also died. On Tuesday morning, Israel struck a group of Islamic Jihad militants leaving a mosque in northern Gaza, killing four of them, including another commander, Hussam Abu Habel. At his funeral on Tuesday, gunmen fired in the air, accidentally severing a high-voltage power line that fell on the mourners, injuring at least four people. Thousands of Gazans attended the various Islamic Jihad funerals. There were also reports that Israeli commandos killed another Islamic Jihad leader near Jenin, in the West Bank, but the reports were denied by the Israeli Army and by Palestinians in the West Bank, who said that the local commander, Tareq Abu Ghali, 25, had not been killed. But Khaled al-Batch, an Islamic Jihad spokesman in Gaza, insisted that the commander had been killed, despite the denials in Jenin. Also on Tuesday, after rockets and mortars were fired toward the Israeli town of Kerem Shalom, Israel attacked Hamas gunmen near the border in southern Gaza, killing two of them, Hamas said. The Israeli deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai, told Army Radio on Tuesday, “I’m very pleased with our achievements last night.” According to the Israeli police, 664 rockets landed in Israel this year through the end of November, killing two Israeli civilians and wounding 122, according to a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld. There were 836 rockets that landed in 2006, he said, and 312 in 2005. Since the rocket firing began from Gaza in 2001, the police said, 13 Israelis have been killed and 307 have been wounded by shrapnel, with many more suffering from shock and trauma. About half the rockets fired toward Israel land inside Gaza, Mr. Rosenfeld said. The Israeli Army, which counts launches, says there have been more than 2,000 rockets and mortar shells launched toward Israel so far in 2007, averaging about 250 a month since July, after Hamas took over Gaza. Details of Bush Mideast Visit WASHINGTON — The White House announced Tuesday the details of President Bush’s trip the Middle East next month, an effort to bolster peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. Mr. Bush’s trip will last nine days and will be his first visit as president to Israel and first ever to the Palestinian territories. Mr. Bush will also visit Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Israel
Islamic Jihad
Palestinians
Terrorism