Senate Democrats to Push Expanded Stimulus Plan

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said Tuesday that Democrats were prepared to force a showdown with Republicans over a $204 billion economic stimulus package and would not bow to pressure to simply make modest changes to a less expensive plan that was approved by the House last week. “We should go for the whole package,” Mr. Reid said at a news conference. He waved off assertions by some Republicans that he was bluffing. “Wait until we have this vote, and they’ll find out,” he said. “I am not much of a bluffer.” Mr. Reid is hoping to strong-arm the Republicans into adopting the larger package favored by most Democrats and some moderate Republicans, or to compel them to vote against important provisions. That could prove politically costly in the fall elections. Mr. Reid’s plan is to deny Republicans a chance to vote on a package including some, but not all, of what the Democrats are trying to add to the plan that passed the House in January. His approach reflects increasing confidence among Democrats that recent news of worsening unemployment and growing fears of a recession have made it safe to push hard for their expanded package. But some Republicans said that the Democrats had miscalculated and risked being seen as playing politics with the economy. “He doesn’t have the votes,” Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the most senior Republican, said about Mr. Reid. “He knows it, and we shouldn’t be fooling around like this.” The House proposal, worked out in a deal with the White House, is a more streamlined combination of tax rebates or payments for individuals and families and tax incentives for businesses. But more than 20 million Americans living on Social Security and more than 250,000 disabled veterans would not qualify under that plan. The proposal favored by Senate Democrats would give payments to those living on Social Security and the disabled veterans, but it contains other provisions that many Republicans say are too costly and should not be part of the stimulus plan, including an extension of unemployment benefits and tax incentives for the coal industry. The Senate plan would cost about $204 billion over two years, roughly $40 billion more than the House version. In recent days, Mr. Reid added a $1 billion increase in home-energy subsidies for low-income families — a move to expand a program Democrats support but also to press Republicans in states with high heating costs, among them Senators John E. Sununu and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Mr. Sununu and Mr. Coleman are both up for re-election. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has indicated he would like to adopt the House plan with two changes — the inclusion of those on Social Security and veterans, and a stipulation that illegal immigrant workers could not receive payments. He said Tuesday that he would still seek that. Last week, Mr. Reid and other Democratic leaders had said they would hold a vote on just such a proposal, making it a fallback option. But on Monday he said he would allow votes only on the full Senate package and the original House plan with no changes. “They are going to vote on this package,” he said. “The American people are watching.” But only 3 of 10 Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee voted to expand the House package last week, suggesting Democrats would fall short of the 60 votes needed. Democrats control the Senate 51 to 49, and Mr. Reid was being careful to schedule a vote on a day when the two Democratic senators running for president could return to Washington. Though Democrats predicted they could persuade more Republicans, several Republican Senate aides said the Democrats were at least two votes short. Aides to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said he had expressed his support for the House stimulus package but had not decided how to vote. Some Democrats had suggested that a tax incentive in the Senate package, allowing businesses to deduct losses from up to five years ago, rather than just two years in current law, would help the timber industry and persuade Alaska’s two Republican senators. Mr. Stevens rejected that. “I have given them no reason to think that,” he said. Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said he would oppose both plans because they would add to the deficit and do little for the economy. “This is to win public favor in an election year,” he said. But some moderate Republicans support the larger stimulus plan and are clearly uncomfortable with the current fight. “The Senate finance package is far more preferable,” said Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, adding that it would help people in her state. “You are out there on a daily basis struggling to make ends meet, with skyrocketing energy prices, home heating oil, gasoline, every dollar counts, and that’s what this legislation is about.”

United States Economy
economic stimulus plan
Taxation
Washington (DC)
United States Politics and Government
Tax Credits


Cycling Teams Threaten Boycott Over Radio Feud

Abstract: PARIS (AP) -- The professional cycling teams' association is threatening to boycott the Tour of Beijing in October if the sport's governing body doesn't withdraw its proposed ban on radio communication during races by May 1. The association known as AIGCP said in a statement that it has been banned by the UCI from attending a meeting of cycling's stakeholders in Milan on Thursday at which the issue will be addressed. The AIGCP says its members have signed a document stating that they won't participate in the Tour of Beijing from Oct. 5-9 if the ban, due to be introduced "progressively" by the UCI, is enforced. "Cycling is a team sport and, as such, communication is key for the athletes and the coaches," the AIGCP said. "We continue to hope -- and push -- for an amicable resolution to this issue. However, if the use of radios in all professional cycling events is not permitted by May 1, all of the teams have signed an accord that simply states that we will not participate in the Tour of Beijing." The AIGCP is targeting the race in China because it is the only event in professional cycling that the UCI not only governs but also promotes. "This way we avoid actions that could be damaging for any race organizer that does not have any say or vote in the governance or regulation of the sport," AIGCP Chairman Jonathan Vaughters said. The teams organized a protest last month at the Mallorca Challenge to show their opposition to the ban. The UCI says radio communication on the road distorts the true nature of the sport, however most teams say the use of earpieces makes riders safer. Earlier this month, UCI President Pat McQuaid said the ban would be implemented as planned but agreed to a request from the AIGCP to assess it on a regular basis. However, he later risked antagonizing the teams by saying they would be better off discussing more important issues with the UCI like the fight against doping rather than the ban. Vaughters maintains that teams and riders should have a greater role within the sport's governing body, and the AIGCP said the UCI's decision to bar the association from Thursday's meeting won't help to ease tensions. "Our objective in this action is to ensure that the people that actively work in field of professional cycling also have a vote in its regulation," the AIGCP said. "Fair, logical, and agreed-upon regulations are our goal. We hope the UCI will become our partner in achieving this objective." The UCI first banned radio communications last season in lower-level races.

Bicycles and Bicycling
Radio
Boycotts
International Cycling Union


Where’s Gonzaga? Butler? Xavier? Blue-Blood Bias Creeps Into Showcases

Abstract: When Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State converged on Madison Square Garden’s hardcourt on Tuesday night, men’s college basketball fans were treated to the first-, second-, seventh- and 13th-ranked teams in the country. The event was a potential Final Four preview, five months early. It was also a vivid reminder that the sport remains an oligarchy. This was the sixth straight year these programs competed in the so-called Champions Classic, broadcast on ESPN, with the No. 2 Wildcats defeating the No. 13 Spartans, 69-48, followed by the No. 7 Jayhawks defeating the No. 1 Blue Devils, 77-75, in the final seconds. A month from now, four other top programs with similar pedigrees — well, three plus Kentucky, since the Wildcats will appear in both — will meet in Las Vegas for another annual event, called the CBS Sports Classic. For three years now, it will have featured the same four programs: North Carolina, Ohio State, U.C.L.A. and Kentucky. “These are the blue bloods of the sport,” said Dan Weinberg, CBS Sports’s executive vice president for programming, referring to the teams in his network’s event next month, although the statement was also true of Tuesday’s event. “They have won for a long, long time.” As a new college basketball season opens, having formally tipped off just a few days ago, these early showcases are both symptoms and self-reinforcing causes of the sport’s status quo, in which the most fortunate programs find themselves in a virtuous cycle involving wins, money, coaching and recruits — as well as exposure, which is where these annual early-season mini-tournaments come in. The sport is not quite the autocracy it was when U.C.L.A. won 10 national titles in 12 years in the 1960s and ’70s under Coach John Wooden. Nor is it as top-heavy as the current women’s game, so dominated by Coach Geno Auriemma’s Connecticut. But Division I men’s basketball, symbolically the N.C.A.A.’s most open sport — with a postseason tournament renowned for binding together 32 otherwise disparate conferences and for featuring unpredictable upsets and lovable underdogs — is far from a democracy. Image Tyler Ulis of Kentucky driving against Duke’s Derryck Thornton during last November’s Champions Classic. Credit Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images “The deck is stacked against these smaller teams, smaller programs, because it’s not in anyone’s interests to have it any other way,” said David Carter, who directs the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California. One sign that these few top programs are virtually guaranteed to remain perennial contenders: In August, ESPN signed its four teams to the Champions Classic through 2019, and CBS may be looking to do something similar; Weinberg said his company “really likes the deal.” “In every sport, there are certain schools or teams that carry glamour, that carry history, that carry passionate fan bases,” said Ilan Ben-Hanan, ESPN’s vice president for college sports programming. “Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan State have long histories, a lot of success,” he added, “and while you don’t know what the future’s going to hold, chances are they’re going to be good for years down the line.” Such confidence in future squads ought to be remarkable, since the best college basketball players depart after just one or two seasons. Kentucky’s roster three years from now, for example, is unknowable. But ESPN and CBS can have faith because, in college basketball, the rich have stayed rich. Consider that every Final Four going back to 1987, except 2013’s, has featured at least one of the seven teams in these two showcases. During that span, all except Ohio State have won the national championship. And these early-season events are not mere bystanders to this phenomenon. The opportunity for this kind of exposure — wearing a famous jersey while competing against players wearing other famous jerseys, in a famous arena on national television in prime time as the college season tips off — is something these programs can sell to prospects. “Kids love that stuff,” said Corey Evans, the managing editor of HoopSeen, which covers college basketball recruiting. “We’re adults, and we love that stuff. Can you imagine being 17?” More broadly, in recruiting, Evans added, there is a “high-major rung and a high-high-major rung.” Not infrequently, a top prospect will mull several offers from big-time programs near where he grew up, only to have North Carolina or Kentucky or Kansas swoop in with a scholarship offer at the last moment; such a player will nearly always say yes to the blue-chip (and frequently blue-hued) latecomer. The one-and-done phenomenon actually increases these programs’ advantages, according to Evans, since rather than plucking just a couple of top prospects per high school class, the extra turnover requires that they sign half a roster’s worth with each new season. “In the past, they’d need two or three guys,” Evans said. “Now it’s six or seven every year. Some of those guys who might have gone to North Carolina State or Tennessee or Virginia Tech or Georgetown, now they’re going to Duke.” There are other advantages these programs enjoy, such as fan bases and donors to finance better facilities and higher salaries for coaches. Recruiting successes also beget more recruiting successes, as college coaches can show the most talented prospects that they know how to get players selected high in the N.B.A. draft. This overarching dynamic did not preclude a midmajor (Butler) from playing its way into two consecutive title games recently, nor does it keep programs like Gonzaga or Wichita State from consistent excellence. No. 3 Villanova, the defending national champion, is a somewhat idiosyncratic exception to this rule, as in a parallel sense is its conference, the Big East. Still, Carter described the programs in these early-season showcases as “big-market teams,” not unlike baseball’s Yankees or the N.B.A.’s Los Angeles Lakers. He acknowledged the telling irony in applying the term “big market” to towns like Chapel Hill and Durham, N.C.; Lexington, Ky.; East Lansing, Mich.; and Lawrence, Kan. But, he explained, “cable television has been able to deliver national brands in other markets — not just to alumni in Los Angeles or New York being able to follow Michigan State, but building a national following among young people who would have no exposure to that team otherwise.” He added, “There are quite a few big brands from small markets.”

College basketball
Michigan State
University of Kansas
University of Kentucky
Duke
Sports Drafts and Recruits


Google Exit Appears to Benefit Top China Rival, Baidu

Abstract: SHANGHAI — China’s top Internet search company, Baidu, is emerging as a big winner after Google’s recent retreat from China, as it smashed analysts’ forecasts, suggesting increased business from advertisers. Baidu posted first-quarter net profit of 481 million renminbi, or $70.4 million, up from 181 million renminbi a year ago. Analysts expected profit of 366 million renminbi, according to Thomson Reuters data. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but over time Google’s traffic will decline gradually, and over time we expect one-third of the advertising dollar to shift to Baidu,” said Elinor Leung, an analyst for CLSA in Hong Kong, who said that could take two or three years. Baidu captured more than 64 percent of China’s Internet search market in the first quarter, up from 58.4 percent in the fourth quarter, while Google’s share fell to 31 percent from 35.6 percent, according to the research company Analysys International. After warning in January that it might pull out of China, Google shut its mainland Chinese-language portal and began rerouting searches to its Hong Kong site in late March, to avoid self-censorship demands from Beijing. Baidu’s increased market share in the first quarter might partly reflect the lead-up to Google’s exit. Baidu, whose name comes from a Song Dynasty poem about a man searching for his love, has grown from a tiny player operating out of a dingy Beijing hotel room to the top search company in China — the world’s largest Internet market, with 400 million users — on a sprawling campus. “We saw marginal benefit from this so-called semi-exit of Google,” Robin Li, Baidu’s charismatic chief executive, said during a conference call to discuss his company’s results. “We are certainly benefiting from this. But at the end of the day, the China search market is still in its very early stage,” Mr. Li said. “The performance of Baidu is largely driven by our own execution, not the competitive landscape change.” Many brokers had upgraded their ratings and earnings forecasts for Baidu for 2010 after Google’s shocking announcement in January. Baidu expects second-quarter revenue to jump 67 percent to 70 percent, easily outstripping investors’ estimates. It forecast revenue of between 1.83 billion and 1.87 billion renminbi. “Baidu’s first-quarter results beat our and consensus numbers nicely, but second-quarter revenue guidance is a blowout number,” Ming Zhao, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group, said in a research note. Baidu’s new advertising keyword system was fully implemented in December, providing a more sophisticated targeting and bidding for search keywords and tools to track user traffic. Investors are monitoring the long-term effect on Baidu’s operations from Google’s highly public spat with Beijing and the subsequent withdrawal of its search engine from China. Despite the shuttering of its Google.cn site, Google continues to sell advertisements in China via its Hong Kong site, Google.hk, which now has a version using simplified Chinese characters specifically targeted at mainland users.


Federal Prosecutors Say Donaghy Overstated Cooperation

Abstract: Tim Donaghy , the disgraced former N.B.A. referee, has overstated the extent of his cooperation with the government, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Friday. But the prosecutors did not specifically refute any of the recent charges Donaghy made about N.B.A. officiating. Donaghy has accused N.B.A. executives and referees of broad misconduct, including the manipulation of game results. Those allegations were detailed in a June 10 court filing by his lawyer, John Lauro, who presented them as evidence of Donaghy’s extensive cooperation with the government. In their response, federal prosecutors wrote that Lauro’s letter contained “certain statements that overstate the nature and value of his cooperation.” The value of Donaghy’s cooperation will play a key role in his sentencing, which is scheduled for July 14 in United States District Court in Brooklyn. According to the federal prosecutors, the allegations of referee misconduct contained in Lauro’s letter are not relevant to his plea for a lighter sentence because the government’s investigation “did not lead to evidence of prosecutable federal offenses.” N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern has adamantly defended the league’s referees and has dismissed Donaghy’s recent claims as “baseless.” To support his position, Stern has repeatedly pointed out that only Donaghy has been charged with a crime. Legal experts, however, have noted that it was possible that federal investigators found proof of misconduct that fell short of a criminal act. Despite their objections to some of Lauro’s characterizations, the prosecutors continue to support Donaghy’s plea for a lighter sentence. They credited Donaghy with providing “substantial assistance” and asked that the court “take his cooperation into account.” Donaghy has admitted to providing inside information to gamblers and helping them pick games to bet on. He pleaded guilty to two felonies last August and faces up to 25 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Under federal sentencing guidelines, the term will probably be about 33 months and could be reduced further at next month’s hearing. The prosecutors disputed several other assertions made by Donaghy in recent court filings. Donaghy claimed to have cooperated with the authorities before the government had proof of his wrongdoing. According to the prosecutors’ letter, “we already had evidence of his involvement” before he came forward. Donaghy has also stated that he tried to contact the N.B.A. to provide similar assistance. League officials, the prosecutors note, have disputed that claim. The prosecutors also mildly rebuked Lauro for his June 10 letter, which he presented on the premise that the government had not sufficiently described the extent of Donaghy’s cooperation. Lauro offered his letter as a supplement to the government’s sentencing letter. According to the prosecutors, “Donaghy has no authority to ‘supplement’ ” their letter. In a second, 26-page filing, the prosecutors disputed Lauro’s interpretation of the monetary “loss” to the N.B.A. caused by Donaghy’s misconduct. They also contested a motion by Lauro to consider Donaghy’s possible gambling addiction as a factor in sentencing.

National Basketball Assn
Donaghy Tim
Officiating (Sports)
Basketball


Distillery Caters to Locavores Who Love a Cocktail

Abstract: LOCAL lore suggests the cocktail was invented in Elmsford around the time of the Revolutionary War, when a barmaid would garnish drinks with the tail feathers of roosters from Loyalist chicken coops. And it’s a fact that Purchase has long been the United States base of the French spirits giant Pernod Ricard (Absolut, Beefeater, Kahlúa) and that New Rochelle is home to Sidney Frank spirits importer (Jagermeister). But despite Westchester County’s intoxicating background, there had been no alcoholic spirits distilled there since Prohibition. No legal spirits, at least. That changed last August when a fledgling distillery released its first wares from an industrial enclave along the Byram River in Port Chester. Made from pure honey, StilltheOne Distillery ’s Comb Vodka , Comb 9 Gin and, new last month, Comb Blossom Brandy are getting raves from cocktail experts both in and beyond the county’s borders, much to the satisfaction of its local owners, Ed and Laura Tiedge. The distillery’s name refers to the 26-year marriage of the Pelham Manor couple, who came into the distilling business through a mixture of necessity, passion for their product and a little bit of fate. “I was a bond trader for years,” said Mr. Tiedge, who wears the hats of distiller and salesman. “But when the job landscape became really rocky and my stock options became worthless, I had to start thinking about what else I could to do to pay the mortgage and finish getting my kids through college.” Given his analytical background and passion for food, becoming a math teacher or going to culinary school were among the possibilities. While doing research, he learned that New York’s distillery licensing fees had changed to allow small-batch distillers to get a license for about $1,500 — a small fraction of the $50,000 fee the state had previously levied. “I realized that a distillery’s start-up and fixed overhead costs could be manageable,” he said. But the decision to make the leap wasn’t an easy one. “We thought long and hard before we put savings into this — it’s risky and a little bit scary,” said Mrs. Tiedge, who works full time as the senior director of healthy living for the Rye YMCA while holding the titles of social media guru and C.T.O. (Chief Tasting Officer) at StilltheOne. “But it’s been a great adventure,” she said. “We’ve been fortunate.” One unexpected catalyst of their good fortune was the racing green Porsche 911 Turbo Mr. Tiedge had purchased during his heyday in finance and ended up selling for some of the seed money. Confiding the reason for the sale to the car’s Swiss buyer, Markus Matuschka, he discovered that Mr. Matuschka just happened to own a Cognac distillery. Mr. Tiedge was invited to spend two months in France and Switzerland to apprentice and soak up as much information as possible. But if apprenticing in Europe sounds glamorous, StilltheOne’s cavernous space — filled with glass beakers and hydrometers, a variety of hulking fermentation tanks and stills, and cartons of as-yet-unused bottles — speaks to the science and hard labor involved in the distilling business, especially with a unique, untried product. “Laura and I wanted to do something special,” Mr. Tiedge said. “The world doesn’t need another $40 potato vodka.” While learning about mead (honey wine), Mr. Tiedge hit upon the idea of distilling the honey into vodka. As he tested different varieties of honey and strains of yeast he discovered that, in addition to being a more expensive base ingredient than potatoes, honey is tricky to work with. “The first full-scale test to make 500 gallons of the base honey wine required 1,100 pounds — half a metric ton — of orange blossom honey,” Mr. Tiedge said. “It was a nerve-wracking $2,500 experiment. Lucky for us, it was a success.” It takes about a gallon of honey to make the same quantity of spirits, and, though not a flavored vodka, Comb Vodka subtly retains its base ingredient’s characteristics — a slight, very appealing viscosity and exceptional smoothness. “It’s great in a martini or for sipping straight up or on the rocks,” Joseph Price, the mixologist at Plates in Larchmont, was overheard telling a customer. The Tiedges chose orange blossom honey over clover or wildflower because the flower’s essence complements so many cocktail ingredients, especially citrus. “Comb expresses itself beautifully in mixed drinks — when we tasted it, we were very excited by the cocktail possibilities,” said Christopher Gambelli, wine director for Moderne Barn, whose gorgeously vibrant Honey Wallbanger tarts up the vodka with peak-of-the-season blood orange juice. Plates’s popular Tuscan Tangelini also takes advantage of Comb and seasonal citrus pairing, giving freshly squeezed tangelo juice the honeyed background notes of the vodka and a lightly herbaceous counterpoint with star anise-and-fennel-seed-infused simple syrup. Botanicals like juniper, licorice root, galangal and lavender are among those with which the Tiedges infuse the honey spirit to make the Comb 9 Gin, which, like the vodka, sells for about $35 for a fifth. The signature blend gives drinks like the classic Negroni a distinctive, floral nose. StilltheOne also creates proprietary gins. A former Marine, Mr. Tiedge is especially proud of the Jarhead Gin he developed exclusively for, and donated to, a recent Wounded Warrior Project auction fund-raiser, to benefit veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For Blue Hill at Stone Barns, he worked with the general manager, Philippe Gouze, to carefully make the soon-to-be-released From the Field Gin. “We taste a lot of spirits, but we were immediately impressed with Ed’s and started featuring them,” Mr. Gouze said. “They’re of such high quality, made with so much love — and right in our area. We wanted to work with him.” From the Field incorporates Stone Barns’s own honey and herbs. The latest Comb spirit was recently released from its six months in new oak. Mr. Tiedge learned his Cognac lessons well. Comb Blossom Brandy (about $26 a pint) has a touch of sweetness on the nose and is very smooth on the palate. Right now Mr. Tiedge said he was measuring success “one case at a time.” But he’s just put in a larger, as yet untried, fermentation tank, and he’s expanding the distillery space by 60 percent to create a separate area for bottling, as well as for aging his brandy. The Tiedges enjoy having their business close to home in Westchester, where their children, Sarah and Erik, and their friends sometimes pitch in for bottling or cleaning the tanks. “The local restaurants and liquor stores have been so supportive,” Mrs. Tiedge said. “We’re so grateful for all the people who want to see us succeed.” Many of those restaurants and stores are listed on StilltheOne’s Web site ( combvodka.com ). The distillery is licensed to distribute Comb products only in New York, so out-of-state imbibers might have to wait for a taste until there’s broader distribution. Given the growing number of fans, that probably won’t be for long — just last month Comb Vodka took a silver medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, a fitting footnote to the new chapter in Westchester cocktail history.

Alcoholic Beverages
Vodka
Honey
Port Chester (NY)


Good Things Can Come to Those Who Wait for the N.B.A.

Abstract: It wasn’t long after the N.B.A. draft finished in 2013 that the mock drafts came out for the next year, guesses made by anyone with a website and a stray thought about where the talent would be headed. Predictably, the super prospects Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker were listed at the top. They were certain lottery picks, guaranteed to make millions as rookies in the league. Down the list, names like Wayne Selden Jr. popped up — players with loads of potential, but not sure things. While Selden showed glimpses of his talent during his freshman season at Kansas, his stock never rose much as the season progressed. So, about the time his teammate Wiggins was opting for the N.B.A. after one college season, Selden was making a tough decision: He would stay for at least one more year. “We didn’t accomplish what we wanted,” he said. “I wanted more.” He was referring to Kansas’s elimination in the first weekend of the N.C.A.A. tournament, as well as the way he played. Selden struggled with a nagging knee injury, only rarely showing his skills. He thought another year in college could help his draft stock. He wasn’t alone in deciding to stick around. The Harrison twins, Aaron and Andrew, made the same choice after leading Kentucky within one victory of a national title. So did their teammate Dakari Johnson, the Arizona small forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, the Arkansas power forward Bobby Portis and the Louisiana State power forward Jarell Martin. Each was a potential draft pick, and some might have gone late in the first round, receiving the guaranteed contract that is not afforded to second-round picks. But they opted instead for one more season in college. “You can’t really base your decision off what other people say,” said Andrew Harrison, who also wanted to play one more season alongside his brother. “You just have to focus on what you think you can do and what you think is best for you and your family.” The business of the decision certainly cannot be discounted. When Wiggins went No. 1 over all in this year’s draft, he received a rookie contract that could be worth about $24.8 million, with roughly $11.2 million the first two years guaranteed. U.C.L.A.’s Kyle Anderson received the last of the guaranteed deals as the final pick in the first round — a maximum of about $5.6 million, with $2.2 million guaranteed. The first player taken in the second round, the French prospect Damien Inglis, signed with the Bucks for just over $800,000 each of the next two years, with a third year unguaranteed. “I’ve had players, I’ve said, ‘Do you really know what you’re doing?’ ” Kentucky Coach John Calipari said. “ ‘You know you’re probably going to go in the second round. I know you’re being told you’ll go in the first round. I’m telling you, you’re going to go in the second round, maybe. What if you don’t get drafted? Are you O.K.?’ ” While no freshmen were taken after the first round in this year’s draft, seven of them have been picked in the second round since 2010. Only two are still in the N.B.A. Calipari has become synonymous with the one-and-done movement, or as he puts it, “succeed and proceed.” But he is among the many coaches who would prefer the rule be scrapped in the next round of collective bargaining between the N.B.A. and the players union when it expires in 2017. Calipari would prefer a two-year rule, or something similar to the rules in baseball, where prospects can turn pro out of high school but must remain in school for three years if they decide to go to college. Adam Silver, the new N.B.A. commissioner, said in April that he was also in favor of a two-year requirement, and that such a threshold would also contribute to a better professional product. Besides, Calipari said, many players, like his junior center Willie Cauley-Stein , already know they aren’t ready for the N.B.A. “Willie Cauley, after the championship the next morning, we meet, and I congratulate him and tell him: ‘Hey, man, you’re in the top 15. I’m happy for you. Good luck.’ The next day he comes in and says, ‘Coach, I’m staying,’ ” Calipari said. “I go, ‘What? Tell me why.’ ‘I’m not ready to have an impact in that league and I know that. I’m going to be able to get my degree and I haven’t won a championship and I want to win a championship.’ Good reasons, so he comes back.” Arizona Coach Sean Miller tries to supply all the information he can to prospects weighing the stay-or-go decision, but he ultimately leaves it in the hands of players and their families. Still, he quickly points to Derrick Williams — a fringe draft prospect after his freshman season — as evidence that sticking around for another year isn’t such a bad thing. “If someone would have told me that Derrick would have been the No. 2 pick in the N.B.A. draft as a sophomore, I mean, you would have bet the house that wouldn’t have been the case,” Miller said. “It’s so difficult to predict something that’s so hard to do. Russell Westbrook, those who followed his high school career, who would have ever thought he would have become the player he is so quickly?”

College basketball
Andrew Harrison
Wayne Selden Jr.


Product information on Roboquad, a robotic toy from WowWee

Abstract: What has four legs, walks like a crab and uses seven batteries? It’s Roboquad, a cat-size robotic toy from WowWee ( www.wowwee.com ) that manages to be both cute and creepy at the same time. The rotating legs give this $100 toy an insectlike motion that has the potential to send a pet under the couch. But the large darting infrared eyes give it a personable look. As with WowWee’s Robosapien, the infrared sensors play a crucial role: they help the robot avoid obstacles and detect motion, so the robot jumps back if you wave your hand in front of its face. You can use the remote control (which takes three of the seven batteries) to change the Roboquad’s walking direction or choose combinations of 72 possible motions. Or you can simply set the robot’s mood and let it react to events in the room. As with other robotic toys, the Roboquad’s novelty factor is high, but there is the risk that a child’s interest will drain about as fast as the batteries. Of course, you never know when you might need to tease your dog. WARREN BUCKLEITNER


The YouTube Brawler Kimbo Slice Tries an M.M.A. Comeback

Abstract: It seems like an eternity ago in the fast-maturing world of mixed martial arts , but there was a time when a man named Kimbo Slice was the most talked about fighter in the country. Slice made his reputation in the early 2000s, appearing in unsanctioned street fights that were taped and uploaded to the Internet in the days when seeing a video on your computer still seemed really neat. His bald head, bushy beard, gold teeth and fearlessness made him instantly recognizable, and he became a cult figure, even appearing on the cover of ESPN the Magazine in 2008. Slice’s street brawling notoriety — he was said to be 22-1 in the unregulated bouts — earned him a mixed martial arts career. “Kimbo is tailor-made for the age we’re living in,” a mixed martial arts website editor, Adam Swift, told The New York Times at the time. “We’re an Internet-driven culture, a reality-driven culture. He has a natural charisma and a marketable look.” After a few bouts in the Elite XC fight league, he got a spot in the top promotion, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. But while Slice packed a good punch, his wrestling and other skills were sorely lacking. He washed out of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show and was 1-1 in official U.F.C. fights before being cut in 2010. In the years since, Slice has turned to boxing and is 7-0 against unheralded competition. Now five years later, he is returning to mixed martial arts for the first time. On Friday in St. Louis, he will fight Ken Shamrock in the Bellator promotion on Spike TV. Shamrock’s own long career spans the history of mixed martial arts. It has included an appearance at the very first U.F.C. card, in 1993, and fights against well-known heavyweights like Royce Gracie, Bas Rutten and Tito Ortiz. Shamrock’s nickname is the World’s Most Dangerous Man, but like Slice he has been out of the M.M.A. ring since 2010. And at 51, he is a decade older than Slice. The two almost fought before, in a highly anticipated fight in 2008, when Slice was at the peak of his fame. The bout was to be telecast on CBS, a big showcase for the sport, largely because of Slice’s popularity. But Shamrock suffered a cut in warm-ups and controversially pulled out. A replacement, Seth Petruzelli, proceeded to knock out Slice in just 14 seconds . Today, the U.F.C. is aiming for mainstream sports credibility, and fighters like Jon Jones and Ronda Rousey are household names. Friday night’s fight between two aging, apparently washed-up fighters who still have name recognition is a throwback to the early days, when everything about mixed martial arts seemed fly-by-night, if not vaguely unethical. Athletes in many sports hang around well past their prime, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. But when the bell rings Friday night, there will no doubt be many old-school fighting fans hoping Slice and Shamrock bring back a little of the wild-and-woolly early days of M.M.A.

Mixed martial arts
Kimbo Slice
Ken Shamrock
Ultimate Fighting Championship


From Back of G.O.P. Pack, Huckabee Is Stirring

Abstract: CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa , Nov. 8 — Mike Huckabee ’s field staff had expected a modest crowd for a campaign event at a tiny rural community college near here on Wednesday. But as people began to cram into the shoe-box-size room, campaign organizers scurried to roll back a dividing wall and set up extra chairs. To the Huckabee campaign, it was another small note in a recent trickle of encouraging moments. His fund-raising is up, the campaign just received its first major Christian conservative endorsement and most of all — to Mr. Huckabee’s obvious delight — opponents are beginning to take potshots at him. “I’ve always said as a hunter, ‘You never put the cross hairs on a dead carcass,’” Mr. Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, told reporters Wednesday. “You only aim for something that’s alive that you’d like to take home.” With less than two months until Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, there are signs that Mr. Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor for whom Bible verses flow easily off the tongue, is charming, quipping and sermonizing his way from a long shot ensconced in the second tier of the Republican presidential sweepstakes to a possible contender here. “The candidate du jour right now is Mike Huckabee,” said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party . “He certainly can win. It’s still a wide-open race here in Iowa.” Even if Mr. Huckabee wins here, what that would mean over the course of the campaign is another question. He would be vastly underfinanced — and underorganized — going into a crush of contests in big and expensive states. A victory here would also put intense scrutiny on his record as governor, which has been largely ignored in the focus on his Republican rivals, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Fred D. Thompson and Mitt Romney. Still, there is a new sense of possibility in the Huckabee campaign. It has been fueled in large part by evangelicals, including a politically active home-schooling population, dissatisfied with his better-financed competitors. Mr. Romney continues to lead state polls and has made significant inroads among Christian conservatives, but many are searching for an alternative. On Thursday, Mr. Huckabee scored his first endorsement from a prominent Christian conservative leader, the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association. Meanwhile, Mr. Thompson, who is vying for the same conservative mantle, singled out Mr. Huckabee this week, calling him a “pro-life liberal.” Mr. Huckabee fired back in an interview with Marc Ambinder, a political blogger. “The Writers Guild is on strike, and Fred is kind of struggling to get some lines,” he said. “Whoever put that line together is writing for comedy and not for a serious political drama.” But other Christian conservative leaders have been reluctant to get behind Mr. Huckabee’s campaign, in no small part because they worry that he cannot win the nomination, much less the general election. Beyond that, they wonder whether this former governor who has never served in Washington has the credentials to be a wartime president, and they fret that he does not have the resources to compete in 50 states against someone like Mr. Giuliani, a supporter of abortion rights whom many conservatives want to stop at all costs. Mr. Huckabee has depicted the leaders’ lack of support as a source of strength, adding, “some people have become more process-focused than they are principle-focused.” While Mr. Huckabee’s fund-raising still badly trails that of his better-known rivals, as well as that of Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, his campaign took in more than $1 million online in October, more than it raised in the entire third quarter. Most of the donations came in 10 days at the end of the month, on the heels of a strong debate performance, a rousing speech at the Values Voter Summit in Washington and, as Mr. Huckabee invariably inserts in interviews, an endorsement by Chuck Norris, the martial arts star. In that period, the campaign saw Web site traffic jump to levels second among Republicans only to that of Mr. Paul, who has a strong base of Internet supporters, forcing it to upgrade its server three times. Chip Saltsman, Mr. Huckabee’s campaign manager, maps out a series of events, though somewhat short on details, of his candidate scoring a victory or strong second in Iowa that could earn him bushels of media coverage, then drawing on resources he has held back to compete in New Hampshire and South Carolina, where he says the campaign has built viable field staffs. Mr. Saltsman predicts that other prominent contenders will fade, narrowing the field to perhaps two major candidates. After that, he said, the campaign could take advantage of money pouring in from the early momentum to compete in the crush of states holding primaries on Feb. 5. Mr. Laudner said prospects beyond Iowa remained Mr. Huckabee’s chief hurdle among politically savvy caucusgoers. “If there isn’t going to be enough money to compete beyond Iowa and New Hampshire,” he said, “that goes to the heart of the viability question. That’s his No. 1 limit here.” Mr. Huckabee has a homespun approach that draws heavily on the story of his climb from humble roots — a generation, he likes to say, from “dirt floors and outdoor bathrooms” to the governor’s office, where he served for more than a decade in a largely Democratic state. He promotes a populist message that seeks to tap into the economic anxiety he says many working-class families feel. Conservative stances on social issues are at the center of his campaign, but he often tempers them with a declaration of the need to end the divisiveness plaguing the country. He is one of few Republican candidates to speak out on environmental issues. He is an ardent proponent of the “fair tax,” which would scrap the national income tax for a national sales tax. He talks tough on securing the borders and refusing amnesty to illegal immigrants, but he championed a bill in Arkansas that would have made illegal immigrants eligible for in-state tuition and scholarships. In short, he is difficult to categorize politically, even as he has sought to play up his conservative credentials for the primaries. As he has begun to edge up in some polls, his rivals have seized on his record, accusing him of being soft on illegal immigration , which he denies. The fiscal group Club for Growth has attacked his fiscal conservative credentials for months and recently started a Web site, taxhikemike.org . For his part, Mr. Huckabee has thrown darts at his Republican rivals in a folksy manner, fueling speculation that he is really running for the vice presidency. But some Republican critics in his home state say there is more below his affable exterior. “He, historically, has acted very thin-skinned,” said Joe Yates, one of Mr. Huckabee’s top advisers in the governor’s office who does not support his candidacy. “When somebody criticized him, he reacted.”

Presidential Election of 2008
Huckabee Mike
Iowa
Republican Party


Marquez Gets Red Bulls Rolling With His First Goal

Abstract: Rafael Marquez scored his first goal for the Red Bulls in a 4-1 victory at Toronto F.C. on Saturday. Juan Pablo Angel connected on a penalty kick, the former Toronto midfielder Carl Robinson scored for the visitors, and Toronto also coughed up an own goal by Joseph Nane. It was Toronto’s first home loss this season. Toronto entered the game in third place in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer, behind the second-place Red Bulls, and was hoping to make up some ground in front of 22,108, a record crowd for BMO Field. “We’re not out of it yet, but obviously we created more of a gap with New York right now, 8 points away from us,” the Toronto captain Dwayne De Rosario said. “But it’s not something to be too worried about right now, but a little concerned, yes.” Marquez, the captain of Mexico’s national team, put the Red Bulls ahead in the 36th minute when he took a pass from Tony Tchani at the top of the 18-yard box and fired a shot past goalkeeper Stefan Frei. The Red Bulls’ second goal came in the 41st minute, when Nane toed the ball past Frei in an attempt to clear a free kick from Marquez. The Red Bulls’ third goal resulted from another Toronto blunder. A hand ball by Nana Attakora earned the defender a red card and resulted in Angel’s penalty kick in the 61st minute.  CHELSEA AND ARSENAL CRUISE Chelsea and Arsenal crushed their Premier League opponents, 6-0, in ruthless displays of their title credentials. Nicolas Anelka and Salomon Kalou scored two goals each for Chelsea at Wigan, a week after the defending champions trounced West Bromwich Albion, 6-0, in the season opener. Chelsea led by only 1-0 at halftime on Florent Malouda’s goal. But Anelka quickly scored twice after the break, and Yossi Benayoun completed the rout in stoppage time after Kalou added two goals. Host Arsenal, chasing its first league title since 2004, responded to a season-opening tie at Liverpool by routing the Premier League newcomer Blackpool, with Theo Walcott scoring three goals. “What was pleasing today with Theo was that he made the right decisions in the final third and was calm in front of goal,” Arsenal Manager Arsène Wenger said. “That shows he has improved.” JUVENTUS BOLSTERS ATTACK Italy midfielder Alberto Aquilani will play for Juventus on a season-long loan from Liverpool. Liverpool announced that a deal had been reached with Juventus. Aquilani, 26, will have a medical examination in Italy on Monday. He joined Liverpool from Roma last summer on a $31 million transfer as a replacement for Xabi Alonso, but he struggled to break into the first team because of problems with his fitness and form. Juventus also acquired the Serbian wing Milos Krasic in a $19 million transfer deal from CSKA Moscow, boosting its off-season spending beyond $60 million. Krasic signed a four-year contract. HAMBURG WINS OPENER Ruud van Nistelrooy scored twice to give Hamburger SV a winning start to its Bundesliga campaign with a 2-1 victory over Schalke. Bayern Munich, the defending German champion, needed a stoppage-time winner from Bastian Schweinsteiger to beat VfL Wolfsburg, 2-1, on Friday night. Bayern was missing the injured wing Arjen Robben. UKRAINE COACH QUITS Myron Markevych, the coach of Ukraine’s national team, resigned in protest over the decision by the country’s federation to punish his club team, Metalist Kharkiv, for match fixing. Last Tuesday, the federation ruled that a 2008 match between Metalist and Karpaty Lviv had been fixed and punished a number of officials and players, although Markevych was not implicated. “Ukraine’s Football Federation has completely discredited itself with the recent ruling on F.C. Metalist and I have no moral right to work for an organization that is purposefully destroying Kharkiv football,” Markevych said in a statement posted on the club’s Web site. Markevych, who has led the national team since February, said he would stay on as the coach of Metalist. Ukraine is co-hosting Euro 2012 with Poland. (REUTERS) BREMEN SIGNS BRAZILIAN Werder Bremen agreed to sign the 23-year-old midfielder Wesley from the Brazilian club Santos on a four-year deal, the club said. The acquisition comes only days after Werder Bremen, which is on course to qualify for the Champions League group stage after beating Sampdoria of Italy, 3-1, in the first leg of a playoff last Wednesday, sold the playmaker Mesut Özil to Real Madrid. (REUTERS) ARGENTINA COACH NAMES SQUAD Argentina’s interim coach, Sergio Batista, put his stamp on the post-Diego Maradona era by recalling the World Cup absentees Javier Zanetti, Esteban Cambiasso and Andrés d’Alessandro to the national squad. Batista, who is hoping to remove the interim tag from his title later this year, also named the Barcelona defender Gabriel Milito to a 23-man squad for a Sept. 7 friendly against the World Cup champion Spain in Buenos Aires. (REUTERS)

New York Red Bulls
Soccer
Juventus Football Club
Bayern Munich
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Marquez Rafael


Fannie and Freddie Continue to Struggle, Lawmakers Told

Abstract: In the year since the government stepped in to rescue the collapsing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , the agencies have taken $96 billion from the Treasury , and may still need more. That was the somber assessment delivered Thursday by the federal agency charged with overseeing the government-controlled Fannie and Freddie, which have lost a combined $165 billion since July 2007 as their bets on the housing market went bad. “The short-term outlook for the enterprises remains troubled,” said Edward J. DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which bought millions of home mortgages, were taken over by the government last September after their share prices plummeted and investors abandoned the companies, fearing they would collapse under the weight of their loan portfolios. The government put Fannie and Freddie into a conservatorship and offered billions in federal lifelines. Now, as housing prices struggle higher and an $8,000 tax credit has enticed many first-time home buyers into the market, Fannie and Freddie are limping along. The Federal Reserve is buying more than $1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities in an effort to loosen credit and restart the mortgage-financing markets. Yet even as the broader economy tries to turns a corner, Fannie and Freddie face huge obstacles, Mr. DeMarco said. Their books are still bleeding red as foreclosures rise and homeowners — even the highest-quality borrowers — fall behind on their mortgage payments. Several crucial positions remain vacant, and Mr. DeMarco said the agencies were worried about losing workers because of the uncertainties surrounding their fate. Right now, 3.1 percent of Freddie Mac loans are seriously delinquent, and Fannie’s seriously delinquency rate is an even higher 4.2 percent, Mr. DeMarco testified. And as unemployment nears 10 percent and homeowners struggle to persuade lenders to refinance their mortgages, delinquency rates are rising. Fannie and Freddie now manage nearly 100,000 foreclosed properties, and those numbers are almost certain to grow.

Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae)


Inquiry Sought After Former Commissioner Accuses Gov. Rick Scott of Meddling

Abstract: MIAMI — As Gov. Rick Scott faced mounting questions about the ouster of the top state law enforcement chief and allegations of improper political meddling, two influential fellow Republicans called for an inquiry on Thursday into the potentially damaging accusations. The two men, Jeff Atwater, the chief financial officer, and Adam Putnam, the agriculture commissioner — members of Florida’s independently elected three-person cabinet — said the allegations made by Gerald Bailey, the state’s longtime commissioner of the Department of Law Enforcement, were serious enough to warrant an investigation by a third party. “There should be some follow-up to those allegations and whether they were incidents of illegal activity versus sloppy, campaign-official-type interactions that occurred,” Mr. Putnam told reporters after an event. In a recent interview with The Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times capital bureau, Mr. Bailey, who is widely respected, said Governor Scott had lied when telling the Florida cabinet that Mr. Bailey had willingly resigned from his job as commissioner in December. The three cabinet members — who, along with the governor, oversee the law enforcement post — said they had not known until after the vote to hire a new commissioner that Mr. Bailey had been ousted. Mr. Bailey said he had been forced out of the job after he refused to acquiesce to repeated requests by Governor Scott and his staff to violate policy, take political sides and, in one case, target a county clerk for something she had not done and then falsify a news release. So far, Governor Scott has avoided most questions about the matter, but on Thursday his office released responses to some of the allegations. “Gerald Bailey did the right thing by stepping down,” he said on Wednesday. “What I’ve done, as I’ve done in this job and I did in the private sector, is keep finding new people, find new energy, new ideas. I’m going to continue to do that.” The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was created in 1967 to help remove the taint of politics and corruption from law enforcement. The agency’s commissioner reports to both the governor and the cabinet, which also includes Pam Bondi, the Florida attorney general. This has served to insulate the department from any one powerful politician and to bolster its independence. The agency has been called upon to investigate matters ranging from political corruption to high-profile criminal cases around the state. But Mr. Bailey, who was appointed commissioner under Jeb Bush, the former governor, went on to make other allegations, as well. He told reporters that Governor Scott’s former chief of staff had pressured him to falsely target the Orange County clerk of court after two prisoners escaped in 2013 using forged papers from her office. The escape embarrassed the Department of Corrections. Mr. Bailey said that he had refused, and that there was no evidence the clerk was involved. The governor’s press office, in its detailed response, called Mr. Bailey’s allegation unfounded. The office said the discussion with Mr. Bailey on the matter was not about targeting any individual. Mr. Bailey also said he and his agents had been asked to cross political lines. Governor Scott’s office, he said, wanted the agency to drive the governor’s campaign workers in state vehicles, a rule violation. And Mr. Bailey added that Mr. Scott’s campaign had asked for help in writing the governor’s law enforcement platform, another violation. In addition, Mr. Bailey said the governor had asked him to intercede in an out-of-state money laundering investigation on a donor whom the governor wanted to appoint to a state board. Governor Scott has said he made no such request. As for his own ouster, Mr. Bailey said that Governor Scott’s former general counsel had told him to resign immediately or risk being fired because the cabinet no longer supported him. Cabinet members, though, have said they had not lost confidence in him. Ms. Bondi said in a statement this week that she had “serious questions” about the circumstances surrounding Mr. Bailey’s departure and the quick appointment of his successor, Rick Swearingen. Mr. Atwater was the first of the three cabinet members to call for more transparency in making appointments. He has requested that a more public search begin anew for the state law enforcement commissioner. Both Mr. Atwater and Mr. Putnam are viewed as possible candidates for governor in 2018. While Governor Scott says he will support Mr. Swearingen, he is not opposed to reopening the search for commissioner.

Florida
Rick Scott
Gerald Bailey
Adam H Putnam
Jeff Atwater
Corruption


Without Its Coach, U.S. Men’s Volleyball Team Wins Opener

Abstract: BEIJING — The signs of grief were subtle. There were the initials of the victims scrawled on the back of the shoes, and a quick, impromptu moment of silence before the match. But the emotion was obvious on Sunday after the United States men’s volleyball team won its opening Olympic match without Coach Hugh McCutcheon, whose father-in-law was stabbed to death at a popular Beijing tourist site the day before. When McCutcheon became the head coach of the team in early 2005, he set the agenda for the next few years with one thing in mind. “He said, ‘Hey, this first match in the Olympic Games is what we’re gearing up for,’” the team captain and middle blocker Thomas Hoff said. “Obviously, we wish he could be here, even though we understand why he’s not.” The Americans, considered a medal contender, needed all five sets to beat Venezuela, making its Olympic volleyball debut. And when it ended, the fading shock and lingering emotion of the previous 24 hours were evident by the hushed tones of players, coaches and officials. It remains uncertain whether McCutcheon will return to the team. The assistant Ron Larsen was elevated to interim coach in McCutcheon’s absence. “I’d much rather be sitting on the bench, telling him what I think we should be doing and having him say, I don’t think so, rather than where I am right now,” Larsen said. The father-in-law, Todd Bachman, 62, died Saturday after being attacked at the Drum Tower. His wife, Barbara, sustained many stab wounds and underwent eight hours of surgery on Saturday. She was in stable but critical condition on Sunday. One of their three daughters, Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon, who played on the 2004 United States women’s Olympic volleyball team and married McCutcheon in December 2006, was with her parents during the attack. She was not injured. The attacker, identified by Xinhua News Agency as 47-year-old Tang Yongming of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, jumped to his death from a 130-foot balcony of the tower, originally constructed in the 13th century. The three Americans were not wearing anything that identified them as part of the United States Olympic delegation, according to the United States Olympic Committee, leading to the belief that it was a random act of violence. McCutcheon, a 38-year-old New Zealander, spoke to the team on Saturday night via conference call. It was a sort of pep talk, for the people on both ends. McCutcheon did not tell his players whether he planned to rejoin the team during the tournament, which extends to Aug. 24, the last day of the Olympics. “Hugh is attending to Wiz and to Mrs. Bachman,” the team manager, Rob Browning, said before the match, using Elisabeth Bachman McCutcheon’s nickname. “He doesn’t know if or when he’ll be able to return to the team.” There was no discussion about postponing Sunday’s match. “It was never offered, never considered,” Browning said. The teams took the court at the same time to polite applause. Many in the crowd probably did not know about the attack because it was not widely reported in the Chinese news media. Many of the spectators were from China and wore matching shirts. They were brought in by Olympics organizers to help fill the venues and add to the atmosphere with choreographed cheers. The Americans cruised through the first two sets, but struggled to shake the Venezuelans. The fans began pulling for the underdog. Venezuela won the third and fourth sets, but the Americans regrouped to claim victory, 25-18, 25-18, 22-25, 21-25, 15-10. The players slid through the mixed zone, the lane between the court and the locker room where interviews are conducted, without stopping to talk to the dozens of American journalists who had come to watch a match that otherwise would have attracted few. Questions at the coaches’ news conference were almost entirely for Larsen, not Venezuela Coach Ricardo Navajas. Larsen cited the strong ties between the Bachmans and USA Volleyball. “I think the best way we can honor them is to do the only thing we can do, and that is to go out and compete every day and work hard every day, and enjoy and love the game of volleyball,” Larsen said. “It is a game, you know. And we should be enjoying it and loving it, as they did.”

Olympic Games (2008)
Volleyball
United States
Venezuela
Hugh McCutcheon


Senate Votes to Add Sexual Orientation to Hate Crime Protections

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Senate has agreed to expand the definition of hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation and gender identity as part of a Pentagon policy measure that is becoming a magnet for tough social issues. Senators added the anti-bias provisions to the bill Thursday night after voting 63 to 28 to shut off debate on the proposal by Senator Patrick J. Leahy , Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The measure would also allow the federal government to intervene in cases where the local authorities lacked the resources for such criminal investigations. “We need a strong federal law to serve as a backstop to prevent hate-motivated violence in America,” Mr. Leahy said. Republicans countered that the hate crimes expansion should not be part of a Pentagon measure and argued that it would usurp the rights of states to pursue such crimes since most have their own versions of the law. “Federal courts were not created to adjudicate local crimes, no matter how heinous they may be,” said Senator Jon Kyl , Republican of Arizona. Mr. Kyl noted that the killers of Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming college student for whom the measure was named, are serving life sentences for murder. But backers of the provisions said that action was overdue on expanding the definition of those affected by legislation that originally was crafted to protect victims of crimes committed on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. In response to conservative criticism that the legislation could lead to charges against those who speak out against gay rights, Mr. Leahy added a provision banning prosecution for exercising the rights of free speech. Congress has been considering such hate crime legislation for years, but the measure has stalled for various reasons. Some House members have recently indicated reluctance to consider the current version, but Congressional leaders believe they can find a way to enact it. The Senate is scheduled to consider more hate crime provisions on Monday. Among them is a Republican plan to impose the death penalty for certain acts. Once they dispose of the hate crime proposals, the Senate is set to consider as part of the Pentagon bill a Republican plan to allow those permitted to carry concealed weapons in one state to take the firearm into other states without violating any laws. It is the latest gun-rights issue to surface in Congress. “A state’s border should not be a limit on this fundamental right,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, who is the author of the proposal.

Hate Crimes
United States Politics and Government
Homosexuality
Senate
Law and Legislation
Leahy Patrick J
Kyl Jon


ING Will Cut 7,000 Jobs and Its Chief Will Leave

Abstract: The ING Group, the Dutch financial services company, said Monday that it would cut 7,000 jobs this year and that its chief executive would step down as it seeks government guarantees for toxic mortgage debt. ING, which received 10 billion euros, or about $13 billion, from the Dutch government in October to bolster its capital, said it expected to post a net loss for the full year of 2008 of about a billion euros. Jan Hommen, a former chief financial officer of Philips Electronics and currently chairman of the ING board, will succeed Michel Tilmant as chief executive, the bank said in a statement. In Paris, BNP Paribas, one of the largest French banks, said it expected a fourth-quarter net loss of about 1.4 billion euros but would still manage a net profit for all of 2008 of about 3 billion euros, helped by its retail banking, asset management and services units. The bank, which reports its earnings on Feb. 19, also said it would convene an extraordinary shareholder meeting to consider a proposal that the bank issue 5.1 billion euros of nonvoting preferred shares to France as part of a second round of financing by the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Another French bank, Société Générale, said last week that it expected to post a net profit of about 2 billion euros for 2008. The bank said Monday that it would merge its asset management business with that of a rival, Crédit Agricole, to cut costs. ING said it would reduce operating expenses by 1 billion euros this year, bringing savings of about 1.1 billion euros a year starting in 2010. About 35 percent of the reduction will come from cutting 7,000 full-time positions, about 5.4 percent of the work force. The bank will also impose cuts for its head office, in marketing and for its Formula One racing sponsorship. ING called the October-to-December period “the worst quarter for equity and credit markets in over half a century.”

ING Group
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Company Reports
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Auriemma Back at Olympic Helm for Women’s Basketball

Abstract: Geno Auriemma will return for a second term as coach of the United States women’s Olympic basketball team. Auriemma, 59, will be the first repeat coach for the United States women’s team, which will try to win a sixth straight gold medal at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. ■ Erika de Souza had 12 points and 14 rebounds and the Atlanta Dream beat the Liberty, 70-57, in Newark. The Dream (17-13) moved closer to clinching second place in the Eastern Conference. Atlanta leads Washington by three games with four games remaining. The Liberty (11-20) moved closer to being eliminated from the playoffs.

2016 Summer Olympics
Geno Auriemma
Basketball
College basketball
University of Connecticut


40 Years After War, Israel Weighs Remaining Risks

Abstract: JERUSALEM — It was 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 6, 1973, the day of Yom Kippur, the holiest in the Jewish calendar, and Israel’s military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Eli Zeira, had called in the country’s top military journalists for an urgent briefing. “He told us that war would break out at sundown, about 6 p.m.,” said Nachman Shai, who was then the military affairs correspondent for Israel’s public television channel and is now a Labor member of Parliament. “Forty minutes later he was handed a note and said, ‘Gentlemen, the war broke out,’ and he left the room.” Moments before that note arrived, according to someone else who was at that meeting, General Zeira had been carefully peeling almonds in a bowl of ice water. The coordinated attack by Egypt and Syria, which were bent on regaining strategic territories and pride lost to Israel in the 1967 war, surprised and traumatized Israel. For months, its leaders misread the signals and wrongly assumed that Israel’s enemies were not ready to attack. Even in those final hours, when the signs were unmistakable that a conflict was imminent, Israel was misled by false intelligence about when it would start. As the country’s military hurriedly called up its reserves and struggled for days to contain, then repel, the joint assault, a sense of doom spread through the country. Many feared a catastrophe. Forty years later, Israel is again marking Yom Kippur, which falls on Saturday, the anniversary of the 1973 war according to the Hebrew calendar. This year the holy day comes in the shadow of new regional tensions and a decision by the United States to opt, at least for now, for a diplomatic agreement rather than a military strike against Syria in response to a deadly chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on Aug. 21. Israeli newspapers and television and radio programs have been filled with recollections of the 1973 war, even as the country’s leaders have insisted that the probability of any new Israeli entanglement remains low and that the population should carry on as normal. For some people here, though, the echoes of the past have stirred latent questions about the reliability of intelligence assessments and the risks of another surprise attack. “Any Israeli with a 40-year perspective will have doubts,” said Mr. Shai, who was the military’s chief spokesman during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when Israelis huddled in sealed rooms and donned gas masks, shocked once again as Iraqi Scud missiles slammed into the heart of Tel Aviv. Coming after the euphoria of Israel’s victory in the 1967 war, when six days of fighting against the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian Armies left Israel in control of the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the conflicts of 1973, 1991 and later years have scarred the national psyche. But several former security officials and analysts said that while the risks now may be similar to those of past years in some respects, there are also major differences. In 1991, for example, the United States responded to the Iraqi attack by hastily redeploying some Patriot antimissile batteries to Israel from Europe, but the batteries failed to intercept a single Iraqi Scud, tracking them instead — and following them to the ground with a thud. Since then, Israel and the United States have invested billions of dollars in Israel’s air defenses, with the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome systems now honed to intercept short-, medium- and longer-range rockets and missiles. Israelis, conditioned by subsequent conflicts with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and by numerous domestic drills, have become accustomed to the wail of sirens and the idea of rocket attacks. But the country is less prepared for a major chemical attack, even though chemical weapons were used across its northern frontier, in Syria, less than a month ago, which led to a run on gas masks at distribution centers here. In what some people see as a new sign of government complacency at best and downright failure at worst, officials say there are enough protective kits for only 60 percent of the population, and supplies are dwindling fast. Israeli security assessments rate the probability of any attack on Israel as low, and the chances of a chemical attack as next to zero. In 1973, the failure of intelligence assessments about Egypt and Syria was twofold. They misjudged the countries’ intentions and miscalculated their military capabilities. “Our coverage — human intelligence, signals intelligence and other sorts — was second to none,” said Efraim Halevy, a former chief of Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency. “We thought we could initially contain any attack or repulse it within a couple of days. We wrongly assessed the capabilities of the Egyptians and the Syrians. In my opinion, that was the crucial failure.” Israel is in a different situation today, Mr. Halevy said. The Syrian armed forces are depleted and focused on fighting their domestic battles, he said. The Egyptian Army is busy dealing with its internal turmoil, including a campaign against Islamic militants in Sinai. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, is heavily involved in aiding President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, while the Iranians, Mr. Halevy said, are not likely to want to give Israel a reason to strike them, “not as the aggressor but as a victim of an Iranian attack.” Israel is also much less likely to suffer such a colossal failure in assessment, Mr. Halevy said. “We have plurality in the intelligence community, and people have learned to speak up,” he said. “The danger of a mistaken concept is still there, because we are human. But it is much more remote than before.” Many analysts have attributed the failure of 1973 to arrogance. “There was a disregarding of intelligence,” said Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist at Hebrew University and a director general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the mid-1970s. “War is a maximization of uncertainties,” he said, adding that things never happen the same way twice, and that wars never end the way they are expected to. Like most countries, Israel has been surprised by many events in recent years. The two Palestinian uprisings broke out unexpectedly, as did the Arab Spring and the two revolutions in Egypt. “In 1973, logic said that Egypt and Syria would not attack, and for good reasons,” said Ephraim Kam, a strategic intelligence expert at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University who served for more than 20 years in military intelligence. “But there are always things we do not know.” Intelligence is always partial, Mr. Kam said, its gaps filled by logic and assessment. The problem, he said, is that “you cannot guarantee that the logic will fit with reality.” In his recently published diaries from 1973, Uzi Eilam, a retired general, recalled the sounding of sirens at 2 p.m. on Yom Kippur and his rushing to the war headquarters. “Eli Zeira passed me, pale-faced,” he wrote, referring to the military intelligence chief, “and he said: ‘So it is starting after all. They are putting up planes.’ A fleeting glance told me that this was no longer the Eli Zeira who was so self-assured.”

Israel
Yom Kippur
Egypt
Syria
War and Revolution
Military
Arab Spring
Biological and Chemical Warfare


Massachusetts and Rhode Island Compete Over Wind Farm

Abstract: As New Englanders await a decision in Massachusetts on a bitterly contested proposal to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm, the State of Rhode Island is forging ahead with its own project in the hope of outpacing — and upstaging — its neighbor. Crucial to its strategy is dispelling worries that economics will trump the environment, or the broader public good. Instead of having a private developer dominate the research on potential sites, as Massachusetts has, Rhode Island embarked on a three-year scientific study , to be completed in August, of all waters within 30 miles of its coast. It has spent more than $8 million on research into bird migration patterns, wildlife habitats, fish distribution, fishermen’s needs and areas that might be of cultural importance to Indian tribes. Its goal has been to head off the hurdles that have been in the way of the Massachusetts project, which has pitted coastal Indian tribes, business interest and homeowners against the developer, Cape Wind , and proponents of alternative energy. Frustrated by the failure of the two sides to broker an agreement, the Obama administration’s interior secretary, Ken Salazar, has promised to determine the fate of the project on his own this month. (On Friday a federal historic panel sent Mr. Salazar its recommendation that the government reject the Cape Wind Project.) “We took the opposite approach of what Cape Wind did,” said Grover Fugate, the chief administrator of the Rhode Island project and the director of the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council. Still, independent of the scientific study, Rhode Island has proposed two potential offshore sites — a $200 million eight-turbine project off Block Island, and a far bigger $1.5 billion farm in the eastern Rhode Island Sound — and has selected a preferred developer, Deepwater Wind . In February, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri went so far as to suggest that the Block Island site was “on target to become the nation’s first offshore wind farm.” Massachusetts counters that it is much further ahead. “We’ve been through all the state permits and we’re awaiting the final permits,” Ian Bowles, the state’s secretary of energy and environment, said in a recent interview. Rhode Island has not secured permits, but it has trumpeted what Cape Wind so far lacks: a “power purchase” agreement with a utility company to buy what a farm generates. Yet on Wednesday, the state’s utility commission rejected that pact , which involved the proposed farm off Block Island, as too costly. So for now, Cape Wind is poised to be first, said Matt Kaplan, a wind analyst at Emerging Energy Research , a firm that tracks emerging energy markets. “If Cape Wind makes it through the permitting process, that is a major feat that no other offshore wind project has achieved in the U.S.,” he said. “However, power purchase agreements have been hard to secure.” Officials consider a viable project as a source of energy and jobs, but the wind wars are also driven by state pride. “There is a rivalry to be the first state to have an offshore wind project in the nation,” Mr. Kaplan said. “And there is some embarrassment on the part of Massachusetts, having taken so long with Cape Wind.” Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Virginia are also eager to secure permits and to lease blocks from the federal government in waters beyond the three-mile limit of state control. Some environmentalists are concerned that the offshore competition in the Northeast could trump the protection of fish and bird populations, said Jonathan Stone, the executive director of Save the Bay, an advocacy group for Narragansett Bay. While environmental groups have generally praised Rhode Island’s planning as thorough, some question why state officials homed in on two sites before the three-year study was completed. Mr. Fugate has emphasized that the sites are tentative and could be vetoed if the research indicates that they have big drawbacks. Adjustments have been made as the research has progressed, he said. “It is a matter of concern, but that’s the answer they gave,” said Trisha Jedele, a lawyer for the Conservation Law Foundation , an advocacy group. “And you continue to assess the data and stay vigilant and make sure that ultimately that’s what happens in the end.” The economic stakes are considerable. Deepwater, the developer favored by Rhode Island, says that the wind farm proposed in the sound could generate 1.3 million megawatt hours of energy a year, light up 125,000 homes and create more than 600 jobs. The competition is so heated that Rhode Island officials have asked researchers to keep some of their results secret. “I can’t talk to some of my former graduate students because they work for the State of Massachusetts,” said John King , a geologist at the University of Rhode Island who is working on the study. Yet in some ways, the scientists are embracing the competition, said Scott McWilliams , a University of Rhode Island ecologist who has been using radar to plot flight patterns of various birds in an effort to figure out how wind farms might affect migrations and habitats. “There’s definitely a rivalry in getting something in the ground first.”

Wind Power
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Cape Wind Associates


Coach Charged With Battery

Abstract: A basketball coach was charged with battery after witnesses said he punched one of his teenage players in the face and threw her to the ground after a loss in a youth tournament. The coach, Fred Freeman, 47, of Hartford, Wis., faces the misdemeanor charge after the incident Monday near Indianapolis.

Basketball
Coaches and Managers
Interscholastic Athletics
Freeman Fred
Assaults
Hartford (Wis)
Education (K-12)
Child Abuse and Neglect
Children and Childhood


2 Former New York Police Officers Misused Database, U.S. Says

Abstract: In November 2013, Joseph P. Dwyer, a private investigator who had been retained by a defense lawyer in a Bronx murder case, interviewed two eyewitnesses to the killing. But the witnesses’ identities, federal authorities say, had appeared only in confidential New York Police Department reports and had not been provided to anyone other than the prosecution team to protect the witnesses’ safety. Now federal prosecutors have charged that Mr. Dwyer, 46, who is often employed by defense lawyers to work on their cases, repeatedly paid off a city police sergeant to have him tap into a confidential law enforcement database to obtain personal information about potential witnesses. The police sergeant, Ronald G. Buell, 48, who retired this year after more than 25 years with the department, used the database at least 15 times over two years to gain criminal history information and other details pertaining to witnesses and others associated with at least 11 federal prosecutions in New York, according to a federal complaint filed on Wednesday. In each of the cases, Mr. Dwyer, himself a former police officer, had been retained by court-appointed lawyers and was paid with public money, the authorities said. The complaint, filed by the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, does not allege wrongdoing by any lawyers involved in the cases or describe how the information obtained by the two men was used on behalf of defendants. But prosecutors suggested that in the scheme, which they said lasted until last November, the defendants used subterfuge to mask their efforts. In a 2012 case, for example, Mr. Buell gained access to the database, which is called the National Crime Information Center and is run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and obtained personal details about a defendant in another case, the complaint said. The authorities said Mr. Buell noted in the database’s “user comments” section that his query “related to an investigation of home invasion robberies,” a police investigation that did not exist, according to police investigators. “Private investigators assisting criminal defendants can, and should, do many things to serve their clients,” Mr. Bharara said in a statement, “but bribing law enforcement officials for confidential data is not one of them.” Mr. Buell and Mr. Dwyer were ordered released on bond late on Wednesday by a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan. Each man was charged with one count of participating in a conspiracy to commit bribery and to use a federal database without authorization, and other counts, prosecutors said. Mr. Dwyer’s lawyer, Steve Zissou, said before his client appeared in court on Wednesday, “Every crime requires criminal intent, and there simply wasn’t any criminal intent here.” After the proceeding, Mr. Buell’s lawyer, Ronald L. Garnett, said he had just entered the case and had no immediate comment. Mr. Dwyer was one of more than a dozen people who formerly worked in law enforcement who jointly filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a case before the United States Supreme Court, where justices ruled 5 to 4 last year to make it easier for inmates in certain circumstances to challenge convictions. The brief cited Mr. Dwyer’s work on behalf of William Lopez of Brooklyn, who had served 23 years in prison for a murder and who last year had his conviction thrown out .

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Alonso Wins German Grand Prix

Abstract: HOCKENHEIM, GERMANY — The German Grand Prix on Sunday marked the halfway point of the 20-race Formula One season. While it is far too soon to say who the drivers’ champion might be when the season ends in November, Fernando Alonso, who has so far proven to be the best driver, continued his victorious ways, winning the race in a remarkable way and adding to his series lead. By winning the German Grand Prix, Alonso became the first driver to score three victories this year. He led the race from start to finish in one of his strongest drives of the season. It was the 30th victory of his career and his second victory at the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim, where he also won in 2010, and it was more evidence that Alonso, a Spaniard driving a Ferrari that has not been the best car this season, is at the peak of his talent a week before his 31st birthday. Taking advantage of the pole position, which he earned in treacherous, rainy conditions on Saturday when faster competitors like the McLaren Mercedes and Red Bull cars performed poorly, Alonso controlled the race perfectly, always leading by just enough. “Starting on pole was the key part because it was difficult to overtake,” Alonso said. Most important for Alonso, the most consistent driver this season, he improved his lead in the drivers’ series. Alonso leads the series with 154 points. In second is Mark Webber in the Red Bull car, with 120 points, while Webber’s teammate, Sebastian Vettel is third, with 110. Vettel appeared to have finished the race in second position after a dramatic chase in the final laps against Jenson Button in a McLaren Mercedes, who finished third after Vettel passed him with three laps left. But two hours after the race it was announced that Vettel had made an illegal move in passing Button as Vettel drove off the edge of the track at the hairpin to get past the McLaren driver, gaining an unfair advantage. Vettel was given a 20-second penalty, dropping him to fifth place. Kimi Raikkonen of the Lotus team moved to third place, and Button claimed second. The McLarens and Red Bulls looked like the fastest cars of the weekend, but Alonso had scored a faster lap during a difficult, wet qualifying session on Saturday. Vettel started from second on the grid. Button started only sixth. “Definitely it was not an easy race because we were not the quickest on the dry,” Alonso said. “But we were quite competitive and there were some good calls on strategy by the team.” Although he controlled the race from the beginning, Alonso’s Ferrari this year has frequently run into problems in the final laps of races because the tires wear out more quickly than those of his competitors. On Sunday, it looked as if the same problem might occur. The stakes changed with 25 laps left in the 67-lap race when Button passed Vettel after the German’s pit stop to move into second. Button had not won a race since the season opener in Australia in March, and he was now perched directly behind Alonso and apparently in a position to pass. Lap after lap, Button pressured the Ferrari driver. Then, however, with just four laps left in the race, Button had dropped to 1.9 seconds back as his tires wore out, and now it was he being hunted by Vettel, less than a second behind. With less than three laps left, Vettel passed Button at the hairpin. But he was five seconds behind the leader, and only a breakdown of the Ferrari or a mistake by Alonso would change the order. Alonso held on, as he has in taking advantage of every opportunity this year, winning in Malaysia in April thanks to the rain, and winning in Valencia, Spain, in June thanks to a breakdown of Vettel’s car. Throughout, Alonso has avoided making mistakes or losing hope. “It is true we were O.K. in Valencia, but Red Bull was quickest and we took advantage of a mechanical problem Vettel had,” Alonso said. He then pointed out that before the beginning of the season, during testing in Jerez, Spain, the car had been an enormous two seconds slower than the leading cars. “I think we have had a good recovery, of when you think where we started in the Jerez test,” he said. “But it means nothing because there are still another 10 races.” The Hungarian Grand Prix is Sunday, and Alonso said it would be tight. “It’s a short circuit and as we saw this year, in two or three tenths there are eight or nine cars,” Alonso said. “So we need to make a perfect preparation and a perfect qualifying, because you can be out of the top 10 if you miss a couple of tenths.”


Closing Arguments Ahead in Rowland’s Corruption Trial

Abstract: NEW HAVEN — As former Gov. John G. Rowland of Connecticut politely observes the proceedings from his front-row seat, the gloves have been coming off all week here at his federal trial on corruption charges, with both sides trying to tie up loose ends before the closing arguments on Thursday. This is the second time a case captioned “U.S.A. v. John G. Rowland” has been tried in the federal courthouse here. The last time, a decade ago, Mr. Rowland, a Republican who had resigned the governorship in disgrace, pleaded guilty to a felony and served 10 months in prison. This time, he has made it clear that he will not go quietly. Six of the seven counts he is being charged with concern services he provided Lisa Wilson-Foley, a Republican candidate for Congress in 2012, and her husband, Brian J. Foley , who owns the Apple Rehab nursing home chain. One count involves a proposal Mr. Rowland is accused of offering another Republican candidate for Congress in 2010, Mark Greenberg, which was never carried out, that would have routed Mr. Rowland’s fees for advising the campaign through Mr. Greenberg’s animal shelter. He spurned pretrial offers that he plead guilty to misdemeanors and chose instead to go to trial. Represented by a phalanx of Washington lawyers headed by Reid H. Weingarten, he could face up to 57 years in prison if he is found guilty. His lawyers have succeeded in keeping some damaging information out of the record that might have influenced the jury, including testimony by an employee of Ms. Wilson-Foley’s 2012 campaign that the first campaign manager told colleagues they would all go to jail if they continued to work there. The defense has also pushed to impeach Mr. Foley , whose testimony of an illegal conspiracy has been the linchpin of the case. He testified early in the trial as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that accompanied guilty pleas he and his wife signed in March. Their pleas acknowledged entering into a conspiracy with Mr. Rowland to keep his involvement in her campaign out of regulatory reports to avoid possible voter disapproval. At Mr. Rowland’s trial, Mr. Foley testified that the $5,000 a month he was paying Mr. Rowland, ostensibly for consulting work through Apple Rehab’s law firm, was actually for assistance Mr. Rowland was giving Ms. Wilson-Foley with her 2012 congressional bid. In its effort to impeach Mr. Foley, the defense team leaned heavily on its one witness, Brian Bedard, Mr. Foley’s chief operating officer at Apple Rehab. The voluble Mr. Bedard testified that Mr. Rowland tackled real assignments at Apple, produced at least two written reports, attended meetings and otherwise weighed in on policy issues vital to the nursing home operator. Mr. Bedard, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, was easily flustered on the stand and contradicted himself often. The prosecutors chiseled away at his credibility and motives. Pushed by Mr. Weingarten, the presiding judge, Janet Bond Arterton of United States District Court, allowed the defense to recall Mr. Bedard to give him a chance to clarify remarks concerning his interactions with Mr. Foley, but only after advising the dueling legal teams, outside the earshot of the jury, that the witness’s multiple accounts of that had created quite “a mess.” “Every time he says what he claims Mr. Foley said, he changes,” she told the lawyers, somewhat astonished. Asked anew about what Mr. Foley had told Mr. Bedard after the Foleys signed guilty pleas with the United States attorney’s office in March, Mr. Bedard said that Mr. Foley had maintained to him that “there was no deal” or “quid pro quo” with Mr. Rowland. Liam Brennan, one of the prosecutors, then elicited testimony from Mr. Bedard that he nonetheless understood Mr. Foley to mean that the deal with Mr. Rowland was a “sham,” even if the unspoken arrangement was never detailed on paper. When Mr. Bedard’s dizzying turn in the witness stand finally came to an end, Judge Arterton turned to him and said he was free to step down. “Walk, don’t run,” she advised.

John G Rowland
Connecticut
Campaign finance
Lisa Wilson-Foley
New Haven CT
Janet Bond Arterton
Brian Foley
House races
Congressional elections


State of Union Address Language Changed Over Time

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama is likely to declare on Tuesday evening that the state of the union is strong. That word, strong, has become a ritual element of the annual address to Congress, intoned by Mr. Obama and his predecessors over the last 30 years even when things were not going that well. “The state of our union has never been stronger,” President George W. Bush said in January 2002 , immediately after reminding Congress that the nation was at war and the economy was in recession. “Despite our hardships, our union is strong,” Mr. Obama said in January 2010 , after mentioning that the nation was engaged in two wars and that the economy had fallen into an even deeper recession. Strong, stronger, strongest — one of those words has been used to describe the union in each of the last 17 State of the Union addresses. But it was not always so. Presidents once used other words to describe the state of our union. President Jimmy Carter liked to call it “sound.” President Harry S. Truman liked to call it “good.” President Lyndon B. Johnson, in a lyrical moment, described the state of the union in 1965 as “free and restless, growing and full of hope.” And when things were not going well, they said so. “I must say to you that the state of the union is not good,” President Gerald R. Ford said in 1975 , citing high unemployment, slow growth and soaring deficits. He added, “I’ve got bad news, and I don’t expect much, if any, applause.” In 1961, President John F. Kennedy said , “The present state of our economy is disturbing,” declaring that he spoke in “an hour of national peril and national opportunity.” No president has ever delivered a more dour assessment than Andrew Johnson in 1867 , as the nation wrestled with the Reconstruction of the Southern states: “Candor compels me to declare that at this time there is no union as our fathers understood the term, and as they meant it to be understood by us.” Image “The state of our union is strong,” President Bill Clinton said in his address to Congress in 1999. And in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Credit Win Mcnamee/Reuters What changed? The simple answer is President Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s first official State of the Union address, in 1982, was among the bleaker assessments a president has delivered, although it was framed with his trademark optimism. The state of the union, he declared, would be getting better. The following year, he said that it had . “As we gather here tonight,” Reagan told Congress, “the state of our union is strong.” Anthony R. Dolan, Reagan’s chief speechwriter, said that he could not recall who suggested the word “strong,” but that it was a better choice than “good” or “sound” because “it had just a little bit of a moral quality.” Mr. Dolan said he also liked the word because it was “qualitative rather than quantitative” — the union could be strong even if the economy was not. Reagan used the same word, though never in exactly the same way, in several subsequent years. But it was President Bill Clinton who made the phrase a modern standard, declaring that “the state of our union is strong” in each annual address from 1996 to 1999. By January 2000 , when the economy was booming, he jettisoned all understatement and grandly pronounced, “My fellow Americans, the state of our union is stronger than it has ever been.” David Kusnet, Mr. Clinton’s chief speechwriter during his early years in the White House, said that he did not recall the decision to use the phrase, but that it was easy to imagine why the choice was made, and repeated, and repeated. “Strong is a tempting word,” Mr. Kusnet said. “It’s simple, declarative. It’s alliterative. And it had the added benefit of being accurate.” He said he saw the phrase as a modern version of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s formulation that the nation was stronger than its problems. “Since F.D.R., the essence of presidential rhetoric is summoning our national strength to address our national challenges,” said Mr. Kusnet, a principal at the Podesta Group. Mr. Bush also used “strong” and its variants in each of his seven State of the Union addresses. Matthew N. Latimer, a speechwriter in Mr. Bush’s second term, said that in his recollection no one ever proposed a different adjective. “If presidents before you said that the state of the union is strong, you say that it’s strong,” said Mr. Latimer, who now runs Javelin, a ghostwriting firm. “Otherwise someone is going to say, ‘Why didn’t he say that the country is still strong?’ ” Of course, there are risks in such perpetual optimism. Consider the case of President Herbert Hoover, who said in 1928 , the last year before the stock market crash ushered in the Great Depression, “No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the union, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time.” Perhaps it would be safer to emulate President Benjamin Harrison, who in 1889 wrote to Congress — as presidents did throughout the 19th century — that there was no need for the president to describe the state of the union because “every step taken is under the observation of an intelligent and watchful people.”

State of the Union,SOTU,State of the Union 2015


Ethics Inquiry Finds Kentucky Republican Violated House Rules

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Representative Edward Whitfield, Republican of Kentucky, has been issued a “public reproval ” by the House Ethics Committee for allowing his wife, who served as a registered lobbyist, to meet with his House staff as she worked on behalf of the Humane Society of the United States. The Ethics Committee’s action comes after a 13-month investigation examining allegations that Mr. Whitfield’s wife, Constance Harriman , jointly worked on a legislative proposal for the Humane Society with his staff that Mr. Whitfield then sponsored. The investigation also found that his staff tried to change language in certain animal-welfare bills. The reproval by the Ethics Committee — this is the first in the current session of Congress — is the lowest level of formal sanction that the committee can take. More serious punishments, like a reprimand or a censure, require an act by the full House. Mr. Whitfield, who is not running for re-election, was not punished more severely, a report by the Ethics Committee said, because the violation was a result of negligence in not clearly telling his staff that such contact was prohibited. The violation, the report said, was “not caused by any corrupt or willful intent to violate House rules.” The allegations were first investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics , which issued a report in 2014. In the previous session of Congress, three House members were the subject of public reprovals: Don Young , Republican of Alaska, Judy Chu , Democrat of California, and Phil Gingrey , Republican of Georgia.

US Politics
Ethics Misconduct Malfeasance