British Economy Contracted 0.3% in Fourth Quarter

Abstract: LONDON — Britain’s economy shrank 0.3 percent at the end of 2012, according to data released Friday, with a North Sea oil production slump, lower factory output and a hangover from the London Olympics pushing it perilously close to slipping into recession for a third time since 2008. The figures from the Office for National Statistics were sharply lower than the 0.1 percent decline forecast by analysts. The news is a blow for Britain’s Conservative-led government, which a day earlier defended its austerity program against criticism from the International Monetary Fund. The government needs solid growth to meet its budget targets, keep a triple-A debt rating and bolster its chances of winning a 2015 election. The pound fell to its lowest in 13-1/2 months against the euro and hit a five-month low against the dollar in response to the data. The euro was also buoyed by a stronger-than-expected survey of German business sentiment by the Ifo Institute. “There are no positive takeaways,” said Lee Hopley, chief economist for the EEF manufacturers’ association. “Even assuming some unwinding of activity from the Olympics boost in the previous quarter, this still leaves no real signs of underlying growth in the economy.” Britain’s economy is now 3.3 percent smaller than its peak in the first quarter of 2008, having recovered only about half the output lost during the financial crisis — a worse performance than most other major economies. The country slipped back into recession in the last three months of 2011 and only emerged from it in the third quarter of 2012, after a lift from the London Olympics. After a bout of snowy weather in January — which is likely to have depressed spending and output — the risk is that the economy will continue to shrink in the first three months of this year, technically pushing it into a rare triple-dip recession. Britain’s biggest department store group, John Lewis, said Friday that snow was responsible for its sales growth stalling in the latest week. In economic terms, the picture remains one of stagnation over the past year. But politically, the latest dip in national output is more incendiary. “Stagnation is going to be the theme for the next couple of quarters or so,” said Rob Wood at Berenberg Bank. The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, stuck fast to his austerity plan on Thursday, rejecting suggestions from the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist that he should consider slowing his deficit reduction plan. Prime Minister David Cameron this week staked his political future on offering a referendum on Britain’s place in the European Union. But it is Mr. Osborne’s gamble that austerity will deliver strong growth before a 2015 election that will be crucial for his Conservative Party’s chance of winning. After the figures were released, Mr. Osborne conceded that Britain was still in a “very difficult economic situation”. “We face problems at home with the debts built up over many years and problems abroad, with the euro zone - where we export many of our products - deep in recession,” he added. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, has said the coalition government of which his party is a part had cut investment spending too rapidly. The finance spokesman of the opposition Labour Party, Ed Balls, responded to the data by saying the government was complacent. “David Cameron and George Osborne have been asleep at the wheel. They’ve spent the last six months obsessing about a referendum in five years time, not focusing on the problems in our economy today,” he said. The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn A. King, has said he expects no more than a “gentle recovery” this year. This week the I.M.F. cut its 2013 forecast for British economic growth to 1.0 percent from 1.1 percent predicted in October. Economists and business groups, however, warn that even such lackluster growth could be derailed by a hit to business and consumer confidence from talk of a triple-dip recession. The biggest factor in the fourth-quarter decline in G.D.P. was a 10.2 percent drop in mining and quarrying output, the largest since records began in 1997, driven by disruption from extended maintenance affecting North Sea oil and gas fields. This knocked 0.18 percent off G.D.P., while slightly smaller amounts of damage were done by declines in factory output and in the “government and other services” category, where the Olympics had lifted sports and recreation services in the third quarter. Friday’s figures showed output in the service sector, which makes up more than three quarters of G.D.P., was flat in the fourth quarter. Industrial output was 1.8 percent lower.


Miles From Home, but Now With Comfort and Cleaner Air

Abstract: BORDENTOWN ROBERT McWILLIAMS adjusted his ample body into the cab of his tractor-trailer. He had been on the road from New England for the last 10 hours and was now ready to nap for his federally mandated 10 hours off the road. “Most everywhere, this is, literally, a nightmare,” said Mr. McWilliams, 43, who has been driving a big rig for nearly 20 years. The outdoor noise at the Petro Travel Center, a huge truck stop along Route 206 where Interstate 295 meets Exit 7 of the New Jersey Turnpike, was deafening, with 18-wheelers screeching around the lot, radios blaring and garbled-but-loud announcements coming from the travel center’s offices. “Here, though, I can be in dreamland in a minute,” he said. Mr. McWilliams’s peaceful hours are a result of the introduction of IdleAire, a system that allows truckers to turn off their engines instead of idling them for the hours they have to be off the road, saving large amounts of fuel, as well as pollution from the truck engines. The State Transportation Department and the Department of Environmental Protection and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission received $600,000 in federal grants to help IdleAire, a company based in Knoxville, Tenn., set up its system in 92 parking spaces at Petro in late June. The opening of the system there coincided with new state regulations for trucks that curtail the amount of time diesel vehicles can idle. “The governor is focused on energy conservation and improving air quality, so when a federal grant became available, we jumped at it,” said Kris Kolluri, the state transportation commissioner. The IdleAire system consists of an electricity grid that runs above the trucks along the parking lot. Above each space is a box for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning with a wide vacuumlike device that attaches to an insert in the cab window. Instead of idling to keep the refrigeration mechanisms or other motorized devices going during the truck’s down time, the system keeps it connected electrically without having to burn gasoline. The system also gives, at additional cost, connection to the Internet, satellite TV, pay-per-view movies, video games and a telephone line. “It isn’t quite like home, but now there is less pollution around me, quiet and cool inside, and sometimes even a good movie,” said Mr. McWilliams, who said he thought he might take in “Shrek III” before his nap. The Petro center is the third truck stop in the state to have IdleAire; the others are at Travel America centers in Paulsboro in Gloucester County, along I-295, and in Columbia in northwestern New Jersey along I-80. Jim Briggs, the site supervisor at Bordentown, said about three-quarters of his customers use only the basic services, which require buying the window insert for $10 and then paying $2 an hour. Internet service costs about $4 a visit, while unlimited long distance is $5 and unlimited movies cost about $10. Mr. Kolluri estimated that the services at the three truck stops would save two million gallons of gasoline, and its attendant pollution, a year. “We talk about the dependence on foreign oil, so though this may not be all that big, it is a step toward doing something about it,” he said. He called it a quality of life issue for those who live near the truck stops and for truckers. “If we are to mandate them off the road to rest, they should really rest, not be half-sleeping with pollution all around them,” he said. Mr. Kolluri, who is also the chairman of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, said he was working to have an IdleAire or similar system installed in at least one turnpike service area by the end of 2008. “We’re looking to be ahead of the curve in this,” he said, “and we think it will enhance our standing as a safe and reliable transportation corridor, attracting the best of the trucking industry.”


The Euro Zone Confirms Economy Is in Recession

Abstract: PARIS — The economy of the euro zone slipped into recession for the first time during the third quarter, the European Union ’s statistics agency confirmed Friday, as the financial crisis continued to depress manufacturing activity and consumer demand. Gross domestic product declined 0.2 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months in both the euro zone, which comprises the 15 countries that use the euro as their currency, and the European Union as a whole, according to an initial estimate published by the agency Eurostat. The weakness in the third quarter was particularly marked in Germany and Italy, both of which have technically entered a recession with G.D.P. contractions of 0.5 percent from the previous quarter after a similar decline in the second period. France managed to avoid a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, as its economy grew 0.1 percent. Spanish G.D.P. also fell, by 0.2 percent, posting the first quarterly decline since 1993. Dutch G.D.P. was flat, after also stagnating in the second quarter and British growth was down by 0.5 percent after a flat reading during the previous quarter. Compared with the same quarter a year earlier, G.D.P. grew 0.7 percent in the 15-member euro zone and 0.8 percent for the 27 countries of the European Union. Further details of the data were not provided in the estimate. But economists said a further contraction in euro zone G.D.P. in the current fourth quarter seems virtually assured and that the downturn was likely to endure well into next year. “Historically, recessions preceded by episodes of banking-related financial stress have tended to be more profound and long-lasting,” said Martin van Vliet, an economist at the Dutch bank ING. “Consequently, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the current, credit-crisis induced downturn is going to be more painful than the previous one in 2001 to 2002, after the dot-com bubble burst.” Still, he said in a research note that he was hopeful that the aggressive and unconventional policy measures that have been taken by policy makers, including deep interest rate reductions and capital injections into banks, would help to “pave the way for a gradual recovery in the second half of next year.” A separate statement on Friday showed that the economic malaise is touching automakers particularly hard. The Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said European car sales plunged almost 15 percent in October, the sixth monthly decline. Registrations declined to 1.13 million vehicles last month from 1.33 million a year earlier, while sales for the first 10 months fell 5.4 percent to 12.8 million vehicles. Analysts said the overall economic weakness in the euro zone was touching most sectors. “We suspect that weakness was broad based, with stagnation in consumption and outright contraction both in investment and exports,” Marco Valli, chief Italian economist at Unicredit Markets and Investment Banking in Milan, said in a research note. Looking ahead, he said, the overall picture looks discouraging, “as clearly suggested by plunging business surveys in October,” adding that ”manufacturing activity is in a free fall due to an inventory overhang and plunging orders.”

Economic Conditions and Trends
European Union


Marcia Mount Shoop, a Rape Survivor, Turns to Ministering Body and Soul

Abstract: RALEIGH, N.C. — On the Sunday after she was attacked, Marcia Mount Shoop went to church. The descendant of three generations of ministers, she knew of few more familiar and reassuring places. The Presbyterian Church of Danville, Ky., was the congregation in her hometown, where just about everybody recognized her as the daughter of two college professors, a star miler on the high school track team. Standing amid the faithful on that morning in 1984, just 15 years old, Ms. Shoop felt her thoughts returning to that night — the pressure of the boy’s body on top of her, her voice pleading with him to stop, the sight of her blood-drenched underwear after she ran home through the dark. Church brought no relief. It made everything worse. Church, at least in the wake of tragedy, was the empty predictability of confession recited in unison, hymns sung by rote, sermons about the glorious soul and the sinful body and magical forgiveness. A favorite verse from Romans in her copy of the Good News Bible now sounded like a lie: “We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him.” Only at home, alone with the secret of her rape, could Ms. Shoop find something to grasp for survival. “I felt Jesus so close,” she recalled in a recent interview. “It wasn’t the same Jesus I saw at church. It was this tiny, audible whisper that said, ‘I know what happened. I understand.’ And it kept me alive, that frayed little thread.” By now, more than a quarter of a century later, that thread has led Ms. Shoop, 43, to become a Presbyterian minister herself, one who has developed religious teachings aimed at repairing the rift between mind and body, soul and spirit. Born out of a survivor’s struggle, they form her variation on the broader field of “incarnational theology,” which focuses on the living, breathing, physical Jesus. Ms. Shoop’s ministry took her most recently to a monthlong stint at White Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh as theologian in residence. In that role, she gave sermons, taught yoga, sang meditative songs, led prayers with Celtic and Native American origins and motivated dozens of members to “walk with God” in the church’s gymnasium. Every part of the program was intended to put the body back in the Body of Christ, and specifically to challenge the polite and restrained norms of Presbyterian practice. “We always say, ‘We’re fine,’ ” she put it during an adult-education class in late June. “That’s where mainline Protestants have become most comfortable. We’re fine, and our role is to help other people be fine like us. How did we get ourselves into this fix of being only the helper, but never the one who needs being healed?” In Ms. Shoop’s case, the reasons were both personal and theological. Her own sense of shame, and her attacker’s threat to kill her, kept her from telling anyone about the rape. She used distance-running as both a welcome catharsis and as a way to punish her body. And she threw herself into good works as an approved form of escape. “Part of what my faith tradition gave me is trying to ignore what I went through by working for other people,” she said. “I was a service machine — Habitat for Humanity, the soup kitchen, outreach to the homeless. Being present for other people in their pain was a way to displace my pain.” All the psychic scaffolding collapsed in 1996, when Ms. Shoop and her husband, John Shoop, went to see the film “Dead Man Walking,” about a nun who ministers to death row inmates. One scene showed a man’s body lying crushingly atop a woman’s. Within hours, Ms. Shoop had a nightmare about being raped. It recurred night after night after night. At the urging of her husband and her sister, Ms. Shoop went to a rape-crisis center, beginning twice-weekly counseling. She also happened to be attending a multiracial Presbyterian church in Charlotte, where she was then living. One morning, two black women sang a spiritual titled “The Rough Side of the Mountain.” “I realized that I’m coming up the rough side,” Ms. Shoop recalled. “I had to sit down. I couldn’t stand. I just started crying. I felt this new sensation — that church was a place where I could tell the truth.” Soon after, Ms. Shoop entered the doctoral program in religion at Emory University in Atlanta . Her first class was about “the problem of evil,” and it was taught by Wendy Farley, a prominent figure in incarnational theology. From Professor Farley, Ms. Shoop began to learn about a Christianity that emphasized compassion for those who suffer rather than judgment on those who sin. Ms. Shoop’s doctoral dissertation was eventually published as a book, “ Let the Bones Dance ,” a reference to the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones being reincarnated. As a pulpit minister, Ms. Shoop conflated the stories of rape survivors with the account in Matthew 15 of the Canaanite woman who will not let Jesus ignore her plea to heal her daughter. “Forgiveness that is premature can be just another violation — it is a form of denial,” she declared in that sermon. “If it’s held out like a carrot for victims as that which makes them true Christians — if it’s the only litmus test we offer them for healing — then it is false forgiveness and it covers up the problem instead of transforming the situation.” Her agenda for transformation, though it is grounded in the experience of and recovery from sexual violence, has grown broader over time. Becoming the mother of two children allowed Ms. Shoop to see her body “as a place that was life-giving, not a place of death.” The lesson of recovering her physical self was one that she came to believe could be applied to mainline Protestant churches through petitionary prayer, more soulful music and a truly communal celebration of the Eucharist, among other forms of divinely inspired disruption. “What happened to me wasn’t ‘for the good,’ ” she said, referring again to her favorite passage in Romans. “But God took the garbage, the stench, and gently, tenderly, indignantly wove it into this moment of redemption. What a gift.”

Religion and Belief
Sex Crimes
Ministers (Protestant)
Shoop Marcia Mount


Head of I.R.S., Facing Censure, Relishes a Job Few Could Love

Abstract: WASHINGTON — By John A. Koskinen’s reckoning, at nearly 77 years of age he might finally have his best job ever: commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. “If it’s a job where the first thing people say is, ‘Why would you do that?’ then it’s got to be a good job,” he said in an interview. Little could Mr. Koskinen have imagined how “good” the job would get. On Wednesday morning, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee plans to draft a resolution of censure, accusing Mr. Koskinen of engaging “in a pattern of conduct inconsistent with the trust and confidence placed in him,” urging his “resignation or removal” and requiring forfeiture of his government pension “and any other federal benefits for which he is eligible.” And that, some Republicans say, will just be a prelude to his impeachment . Besides two presidents, no federal executive has been impeached since William W. Belknap, the secretary of war, in 1876. Meantime, though, thank you for your service. “Anybody who’s willing to take on the job of being head of the I.R.S., well, you know, I can only think of one other job with a lower approval rating, and that’s being a member of Congress,” said Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a Republican in the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative faction pushing for impeachment. “So kudos to him for being willing to do that.” Mr. Koskinen became the nation’s top tax collector in December 2013 to steady an agency rattled by political upheaval , the latest in a string of knotty assignments he has gotten from presidents of both parties. Since then, things have not gone so smoothly. Critics say Mr. Koskinen obstructed justice and misled Congress as House Republicans continued their inquiries into allegations that I.R.S. employees discriminated against conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status in 2010 and beyond — scrutiny that began before Mr. Koskinen’s arrival. He has denied the allegations and said his testimony about missing agency emails that turned out to be wrong was based on what he believed to be true at the time. Other investigators — including the Treasury’s inspector general, a Republican, and a bipartisan Senate Finance Committee — criticized Mr. Koskinen’s lapses but found no evidence politics played a role. Censure by the House, because it does not require Senate action, could well be the most severe punishment that Republican critics, goaded by influential Tea Party groups, can exact. If the House votes to impeach Mr. Koskinen, the Senate would not hold a trial and could not muster the necessary two-thirds vote to convict him if it did, Senate Republicans say. However it ends, the turmoil has been a harsh introduction to the broader public for Mr. Koskinen, beyond his narrow world of senior management, and one that belies the reputation he acquired over decades as a go-to first responder for management crises. The genial septuagenarian has long enjoyed a sort of behind-the-scenes prominence, well known to Washington insiders and business leaders. He is also well known to fans of soccer and Duke University — his dual passions — and the soccer stadium there, Koskinen Stadium, is named after him. Mr. Koskinen won the prestigious Elliot L. Richardson Prize this year “for excellence and integrity in government service,” timing that suggested the selection panel’s indifference to the well-publicized complaints of congressional Republicans. “People like that who are sort of turnaround specialists and willing to take on hard jobs, there aren’t that many of them. And people know who they are,” said Alice M. Rivlin, an economist who worked with Mr. Koskinen in the Clinton administration, then in overhauling the government of Washington, D.C., after Congress stripped city officials of their budget power after years of mismanagement. In Mr. Koskinen’s telling, he does not get hired; he is “dragooned” — he used the word more than once during an interview in a spacious, if drab, office with few personal touches besides family photos and mementos from previous jobs. “I never apply for jobs — I just keep getting them,” Mr. Koskinen said. “I say I’m going to go into the witness protection program, and they’ll never find me again.” He has a physics degree from Duke and a law degree from Yale, and held various government jobs from the mid-1960s to early 1970s: clerk to the chief judge of a federal appeals court; adviser to a national commission on urban riots; aide to Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York, a Republican, and then to Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff, Democrat of Connecticut. Next came 21 years in the private sector at the Palmieri Company, where he ultimately became the chief executive and revamped failed entities. Among them were the Penn Central, a Teamsters union pension fund and Mutual Benefit, at the time the largest life insurance company to have failed. Clinton administration recruiters enticed Mr. Koskinen to re-enter government in 1994, first as the deputy for management at the Office of Management and Budget and later as President Clinton’s so-called Y2K czar in 1998, leading the governmentwide effort to prevent a technological breakdown if computer coding malfunctioned in the transition to the year 2000. When the Y2K job ended without computer chaos, Ms. Rivlin recommended Mr. Koskinen to Washington’s newly elected mayor, Anthony A. Williams. Mr. Koskinen became city administrator and deputy mayor, helping local officials reclaim powers that Congress had transferred to a board of outsiders headed by Ms. Rivlin. “Who in their right mind would want to take on a job like that?” asked Joel L. Fleishman, a longtime friend of Mr. Koskinen’s and a law professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. He put that question to Mr. Koskinen then, and again 13 years later when his friend told him about the I.R.S. job offer. “John said, ‘Well, somebody’s got to do it,’” Mr. Fleishman recalled. In September 2008, Mr. Koskinen received an emergency call from the administration of President George W. Bush. As a snowballing financial crisis threatened the global economy, an assistant to the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., summoned Mr. Koskinen for a new job . The administration then announced the takeover of the nation’s two failing housing-finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — with Mr. Koskinen becoming Freddie Mac’s new chairman. “I don’t know how they even got my cellphone number,” Mr. Koskinen said. For a time, he was also Freddie Mac’s chief executive and chief financial officer. He spent three years rebuilding the entity until he reached 72, the mandatory retirement age. “Freddie needed some stronger management, so we selected him, and he accepted the job,” said James B. Lockhart III, Mr. Bush’s chief housing-finance administrator. “And we were thankful.” At the I.R.S., Mr. Koskinen continues to try to meet even hostile lawmakers in their offices — 115 to date — though several House Republicans chose to come to him, including Mr. Meadows and Representative Peter Roskam, Republican of Illinois and chairman of a subcommittee with jurisdiction over the I.R.S. “The lost opportunity was for someone with his experience to come in, do a clean slate and just start over,” Mr. Roskam said. “But my experience was, he chose to be very defensive of the institution at a time when the institution didn’t deserve defending.” Only after Mr. Koskinen accepted the I.R.S. offer did he learn that four years remained on a five-year term. “I leave Nov. 9 of 2017, but who counts?” he said — implicitly unconcerned about being ousted before then.

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp Freddie Mac


Netanyahu Throws a Punch in Israel’s Newspaper War

Abstract: JERUSALEM — The gloves came off in Israel on Monday as a fierce newspaper war exploded into the country’s harsh election campaign. The two most widely circulated papers, Yediot Aharonot and Israel Hayom , have been in a dogfight since Israel Hayom, a free paper backed by the American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, began publishing in 2007. Derided as a cheerleading mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the free paper has cut deeply into the formerly dominant readership and advertising revenue of Yediot Aharonot, which is critical of Mr. Netanyahu. Now the prime minister himself has more than joined the fray. He posted a withering Facebook post on Monday accusing Yediot’s publisher of “an orchestrated and ridiculous campaign of slander” against him, his Likud Party and Mr. Adelson’s paper. Yediot’s leading columnist, Nahum Barnea, responded in a radio interview by calling Mr. Netanyahu a paranoiac who “needs hospitalization.” This came a day after a pair of lawyers filed a petition to ban Israel Hayom from publishing during the election campaign, calling it “a propaganda platform” that is “masquerading as a newspaper” and “the Israel 2015 version of George Orwell’s ‘1984.’ ” The election, scheduled for March 17, was called after Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition collapsed, in part over a bill to outlaw free newspapers that was obviously aimed at Israel Hayom. Image Noni Moses is the publisher of Yediot Aharonot. Credit Roni Schutzer “We have now the two major newspapers in Israel, each of them have their own agendas on this issue called Netanyahu,” said Rafi Mann, a veteran former journalist who now teaches at Ariel University and Hebrew University. “There is a battleground, which is a very bloody battleground, and of course Netanyahu is in the middle.” “I guess that anybody who is in power and being attacked by newspapers from time to time has a need to fight back,” Mr. Mann added, referring to the prime minister. “To do it by himself is really something that we haven’t seen.” Political analysts say the election is largely a referendum on Mr. Netanyahu’s rule as he seeks a fourth term. “It’s us or him” is the slogan of the Zionist Union, the joint slate of the Labor Party and the centrist Tzipi Livni, and other opposition groups have taken up the mantra “Anyone but Bibi,” Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname. Recent polls suggest that Likud is running ahead of the Zionist Union and that Mr. Netanyahu will be able to form another governing coalition. But a survey published Monday by The Times of Israel found that undecided voters — one-quarter of the public — are leaning toward the Zionist Union, and that fewer than one-third of likely voters thought well of the prime minister’s job performance. The poll’s margin of sampling error is 3.41 percent. Mr. Netanyahu has suffered blistering attacks not just in Yediot but from many Israeli news media outlets, over his performance at the solidarity march in Paris and his plans to address Congress about the Iranian nuclear program. Gossipy stories have appeared about his wife, Sara, quoting former employees at his official residence. “It is time to put things on the table: the main source standing behind the wave of slander against me and against my wife is Noni Moses, the publisher of Yediot Aharonot and Ynet Website,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote on Facebook on Monday. Mr. Moses, he asserted, “will stop at nothing to topple the Likud’s leadership headed by me, and to close Israel Hayom newspaper.” Image Israel Hayom is a free paper backed by the American billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Credit Ethan Miller/Getty Images Mr. Moses, who followed his father and grandfather as Yediot’s publisher, declined to be interviewed, and so did the paper’s editor, Ron Yaron. A statement from their office said, “One of the most important roles of free and independent media in democratic countries is to examine the acts of the government, including the person who heads it.” Yediot and Ynet “are careful to maintain uncompromising and professional journalism, objectivity and truthfulness,” the statement said. But Israeli media watchers say that Yediot has in fact been going after Mr. Netanyahu since the 1990s, when it ran a scathing multiple-page spread about his wife. And it has ratcheted up since the emergence of Israel Hayom. “You can see more and more items that are being framed as being against the prime minister — his name appears all the time, his wife’s name appears all the time, and it’s always in a negative context,” said Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, head of the media reform project at the Israel Democracy Institute. “The problem is that the competition between Israel Hayom and Yediot Aharonot became ugly, it became nasty. We know that journalists are being instructed to do their work in a biased way.” Yediot was once read by more than half the Israeli public, but according to industry surveys, it had fallen to 35 percent last year, behind Israel Hayom at 39 percent. Public confidence in the news media has meanwhile plummeted, according to surveys by the Democracy Institute. The 66-page legal petition filed with the election commission on Sunday says Israel Hayom should be barred until after the election under laws limiting campaign advertising. “This is a newspaper that is propaganda from the beginning until the end, even in the sports,” said Itzhak Aviram, one of the two lawyers who filed it. “The problem is that a big newspaper in Israel, the biggest now, is going for one of the candidates, and it’s against the law.” Dan Raviv, a former television journalist who represents Mr. Adelson in Israel, did not respond to emailed questions and declined to discuss the developments.

Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu
Yediot Aharonot
Israel Hayom
Likud Party Israel
Election
Newspaper
Freedom of the press


Coins in the New Realm

Abstract: HOLLYWOOD — Xavier Buck planned to spend $100,000 to bid for domain names, those parcels of virtual Internet real estate, at a live auction here last week. He blew past his limit in less than an hour. By the time the three-hour auction had ended, Mr. Buck, the chief executive of the Luxembourg-based company EuroDNS, had spent $150,000 for 15 appealingly generic names, including 7th.com, chaptereleven.com, microfinancing.com and computersystems.com. “These names will pay for themselves within two years,” Mr. Buck said, as he sat in the ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel with a business partner who wore an identical gray suit and shirt with the company logo. “The world is only now beginning to discover how important it is to have these assets.” For the first time, people outside the traditionally insular and sometimes underground world of domainers, as they call themselves, might agree with him. The practitioners’ fundamental assertion — that names of Web sites can be valuable, cash-generating assets just like stocks, bonds or property — appears to be gaining a broader acceptance that veteran domainers are not accustomed to and may not be totally comfortable with. Mr. Buck and other domainers profit when inexperienced Internet users type those names into their Web browsers, and once on the site click on related advertisements. In the longer term, they hope to resell their domain names for large profits to companies that want to build real businesses with those Web addresses. Domainers have generally had a negative reputation. Domain-name trading takes little of the actual effort needed to build a business on the Web, instead relying on clicks from people who simply guess at a site’s name or are too lazy to use a search engine. In its early years, the field was dominated by offshore players and secretive, if not illegal, tactics. But increasingly, there is serious money at stake. Last year, 106 domain names drew more than $100,000 each, and one, porn.com, went for nearly $9.5 million. In 2006, only 70 domain names sold for more than six figures each. Millions of generic domain names, pointing to sites with little more than automated Google or Yahoo text ads, brought in untold millions of dollars. As a result, over the last few months, private equity and venture capital firms have poured money into the largest companies in the field. Last year, Demand Media and Oversee.net, two companies based in Los Angeles that own hundreds of thousands of domain names each and offer hosting and advertising services to other domainers, raised nearly $400 million from investors. “We think this is definitely a legitimate industry and a legitimate business,” said Robert L. Morse Jr., a partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners, which invested in Oversee.net and is backed by the Bass oil family of Texas. “As with many early-stage markets, it is going through a transformation to professionalism.” Investors are so confident in the growth of online advertising — and the ability of domainers to capitalize on that trend — that they plan to soon start selling shares of domain-name companies to the public, even in today’s volatile market. Last September, NameMedia, a company based in Waltham, Mass., which has a huge portfolio of generic domain names, filed to go public on the Nasdaq stock market. “This industry could probably be an oasis, in the grand scheme of things, relative to the rest of the economy,” said David Liu, managing director at Jefferies & Company, one of the firms underwriting the offering. The domainers now have their own trade group in Washington — albeit with only one full-time employee. They also have specialized financiers who will lend money and accept domain names as collateral. “The industry was very secretive for a long time,” said Frank Schilling, an industry pioneer who hit it big with bare-bones Web destinations like drugproblem.com and diamondweddingrings.com. “When you make millions at home in your underwear, you are not telling a soul about it,” he said. Mr. Schilling traveled from his home on Grand Cayman Island to speak at last week’s DomainFest conference, sponsored by Oversee.net, on his private Gulfstream IV jet, with a leisurely stop in Las Vegas. But like other veterans, Mr. Schilling does not appear to be completely enthusiastic about the business’s new direction. “These shows let everyone know how good it is, and now the sniff is out,” he said. “The wildcatting days are over. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss them.” The industry’s transition to respect and professionalism may not be entirely complete. One strategy that has cast a stigma over the industry is called typo-squatting — registering domain names with variations and misspellings of major brand names, in the hopes that Web users will inadvertently stumble upon the sites. It has not gone away. In the last few months, Yahoo, Dell, BMW and Microsoft have all sued small domain registrars and domainers, asserting that they are profiting from thousands of names similar to their trademarks. The cases are pending. Another questionable tactic is known as domain tasting. Domainers register Web addresses in bulk and, during a five-day trial period, test how ads do on those sites. They then let go of the unprofitable ones and get a full refund. Google and an organization called Icann, the nonprofit group that oversees the domain name system, have recently announced plans to combat the practice. Domain hijacking is another strategy. Susan Kawaguchi, global domain name manager at eBay, said during a DomainFest session on domain strategies for corporations that her company spent a lot of time “trying to make sure someone doesn’t steal ebay.com.” Mr. Morse of Oak Hill Capital said the business was “in its teenage years.” He added: “It is mature in many ways, but there are pockets of it that are still juvenile.” A two-year-old specialty finance company called Domain Capital, based in Fort Lee, N.J., is betting that the practice’s tarnished reputation will not stop domain names from appreciating. The firm expects to lend around $20 million this year to domainers, accepting their choicest generic domain names as collateral. Robert Alfano, the company’s co-founder, says he spends much of his time talking to Wall Street banks about backing his business model. Persuading traditional investors to view domain names as an asset is not easy, he said. “But the industry is growing up and all the negative connotations have sifted out.” As the business matures, some of the smaller players worry they might get trampled. Don Bowman, a former auto liquidator from Columbus, Ohio, runs a domain-buying business with his sister, choosing names that might be culturally or politically relevant, like obamahillary.com and bloombergrice.com. Mr. Bowman said the larger companies were developing sophisticated software to buy desirable domain names as soon as they become available, leaving little operations like his in the dust. “Big changes are coming, and for the little guy it’s getting challenging,” he said. “The bigger companies can do things, and I can’t. We just have to work harder.”

Computers and the Internet
Trademarks and Trade Names
Advertising and Marketing
Auctions


Justices Rule Mental Incompetence Does Not Merit Automatic Stays of Death Row Suits

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously ruled that federal courts should not automatically suspend postconviction challenges from death row inmates who are mentally incompetent to help their lawyers. The decision left open the possibility that such suspensions may sometimes be warranted, but it said that they should not be indefinite. “Where there is no reasonable hope of competence,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court, “a stay is inappropriate.” The Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to put mentally incompetent defendants on trial because they cannot understand the proceedings against them or assist their lawyers. The court has also barred “carrying out a sentence of death upon a prisoner who is insane.” Tuesday’s decision in a pair of cases — Ryan v. Gonzales, No. 10-930, and Tibbals v. Carter, No. 11-218 — concerned challenges brought after trial and before execution. One involved Ernest Valencia Gonzales, who was convicted of stabbing an Arizona couple in front of their 7-year-old son, killing the father. The other concerned Sean Carter, an Ohio man convicted of raping his adoptive grandmother and stabbing her to death. By the time the federal courts considered the two men’s challenges to their state court convictions, there was substantial evidence that they were mentally incompetent. Relying on different federal statutes, the appeals courts in the two cases said that the challenges must await their return to mental competence. When the cases were argued in October , Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said he was concerned that the rulings were a ploy “that will permit stays in virtually every capital case” because “a lot of district judges and a lot of court of appeals judges don’t like the death penalty and will go to some length to prevent the imposition of that sentence.” In Tuesday’s decision, Justice Thomas wrote that postconviction challenges are typically based on the court record, meaning that the inmate would have nothing to add even if he were able to work with his lawyers. “Counsel can generally provide effective representation to a habeas petitioner regardless of the petitioner’s competence,” Justice Thomas wrote, adding that “attorneys are quite capable of reviewing the state-court record, identifying legal errors and marshaling relevant arguments, even without their clients’ assistance.” The appeals courts had relied on a curious order from the Supreme Court in 1967 in Rees v. Peyton , in which the court “held without action” a request for review from a mentally incompetent death row inmate. The court finally dismissed the inmate’s petition in 1995 after his death in prison. Justice Thomas said that procedure set no precedent and that a 1996 federal law in any event altered the legal landscape. Lawyers for the two inmates did not try very hard to persuade the justices that the appeals courts — the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, in Mr. Gonzales’s case and the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, in Mr. Carter’s — were correct in interpreting federal statutes to require automatic stays. “Gonzales barely defends the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation,” Justice Thomas wrote. He added that “we would address Carter’s arguments in defense of the Sixth Circuit’s decision, but there are none.” The inmates instead argued that federal trial judges should have discretion to enter stays, and the Supreme Court agreed. “We do not presume that district courts need unsolicited advice from us on how to manage their dockets,” Justice Thomas wrote. “For purposes of resolving these cases, it is unnecessary to determine the precise contours of the district court’s discretion to issue stays.”

Supreme Court
Federal Courts
Capital punishment
Decisions and Verdicts
Clarence Thomas
Samuel A Alito Jr
Mental Health


Looking for Love in All the Possible Places

Abstract: Last year, almost a quarter of online daters seeking serious relationships or marriage held paid subscriptions on more than one dating site -- more than double the comparable rate among Internet daters in general. Serious daters are also more likely to go from browsing to paying at a site, and to keep their subscriptions longer, according to Jupiter Research. The largest online dating sites are increasingly catering to this lucrative subset. For example, users of Yahoo Personals Premier "for singles seeking long-term compatibility" pay $39.95 a month -- $15 more than the standard rate. And for an extra $8.99 -- atop the one-month fee of $29.99 -- users of Match.com can subscribe to MindFindBind with Dr. Phil, which purports "to help you understand more about relationships." "This is a really attractive market, who will pay high prices to lots of different players at the same time," said Nate Elliott of Jupiter. "They want to find someone, and actually don't seem to be very price-sensitive." ALEX MINDLIN

MATCH.COM
DATING (SOCIAL)
COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET


Falling Oil Price Is a Positive Note Amid Turmoil

Abstract: For the last year, rising oil prices have taken a toll on the economy, driving up gasoline and food costs, punishing airlines and automakers, and ripping a large hole in people’s pockets. But lately, nearly lost amid the chaos in the markets, oil prices have been dropping sharply from July’s triple-digit peak. If that trend continues, as many analysts expect, it will put billions of dollars back into consumers’ wallets and provide badly needed support for a battered economy. Ben S. Bernanke , the chairman of the Federal Reserve , pointed to the drop in energy prices as “a positive note” in recent testimony to Congress, even as he warned of the many other stresses facing the economy. Oil has been volatile in recent weeks, bobbing from $91 to $120 a barrel amid wild swings in the markets. But with oil demand falling in most Western countries and growth weakening in some of Asia ’s booming economies, the trend is down. Crude oil futures closed at $93.97 a barrel, down $4.56, on Thursday and have lost 13 percent in the last week alone. While consumers welcome the decline, which will reduce the nation’s $1.3 billion daily oil import bill, oil producers are wary. Mexico said it might have to cut its budget next year as petroleum revenue dropped. Countries like Russia and Venezuela , which have been riding a wave of energy-fueled nationalism, could be forced to scale back their ambitions and energy projects that require enormous financing could be delayed. These difficulties could prompt the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to step in forcefully to stem the slide in prices, analysts said. Saudi Arabia , the oil cartel’s most powerful member, has signaled it wants to see oil fall below $100 to bolster the world economy, but it is unclear how low the Saudis and other producers will let prices fall. Whatever OPEC tries to do, a growing number of experts say that a combination of weaker global growth and slumping demand is likely to keep pushing oil prices down in coming months. “The fall in oil prices is equivalent to a new stimulus package for consumers,” said Lawrence J. Goldstein, an energy analyst at the Energy Policy Research Foundation. He calculated that each drop of $10 a barrel in the price of oil lowered the nation’s annual bill by about $70 billion. That is $230 for every American. Gasoline now sells at $3.60 a gallon on average nationwide, according to AAA, down from its record of $4.11 a gallon in July, although prices are higher in some states because of lingering problems from Hurricane Ike . Experts say that if oil prices stayed from $75 to $100 a barrel for a while, that would likely push gasoline under $3.50 a gallon. A result of record energy costs is that Americans have drastically cut back on their driving this year, reducing their gasoline usage at the fastest pace since 1983. As prices peaked, oil consumption fell by 6 percent in July to its lowest level in five years, while the number of miles driven dropped the most since 1979, according the latest statistics from the Federal Highway Administration. For industrialized countries, which account for about 60 percent of global oil demand, consumption could fall by 1.3 million barrels a day this year, the steepest decline since 1982, according to analysts at Bernstein Research. That would more than offset the growth in consumption from developing nations like China , the analysts said. “A study of the 1980s reaffirms our pessimism about oil demand in 2008 and 2009,” the Bernstein analysts said in a recent research note. “Recent data suggests we may finally be reaching the point of negative demand.” Many analysts agree. Merrill Lynch said on Thursday that oil prices could fall as low as $50 a barrel in a global recession. Lawrence Eagles, an oil analyst for JPMorgan Chase , said: “This is the weakest fundamental situation we’ve had since 2002.” Oil prices are still high by historical standards. Many businesses had not managed to raise their prices enough to compensate for this summer’s oil spike to more than $145 a barrel, and they say the high prices are still causing problems. “We get excited when prices break below $100 a barrel, but we are still in a high feedstock and hydrocarbon environment,” said Rich Wells, the vice president for energy at Dow Chemical . Automakers have appealed for government aid as consumers shun their gas guzzlers, a problem worsened lately by a credit squeeze for potential car buyers. The Ford Motor Company said this week that its United States sales had dropped 34 percent in September. Automakers like General Motors and Toyota , also reported sharp sales declines. Oil costs are a big reason the global airline industry has lost money in all but one year since 2000. Fuel costs amounted to 14 percent of airlines’ expenses in 2000 but are forecast to reach 40 percent next year, the International Air Transport Association says. “Our industry is like Sisyphus,” Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s chairman, told an industry conference in Istanbul this summer. “After a long uphill journey, a giant boulder of bad news is driving us back down.” A sustained drop in oil prices could lead to a new wave of mergers in the energy industry. Given the sharp increase in prices in recent years for everything from drill rigs to steel pipes, costs in the industry have risen sharply. The cost of adding production is now $70 to $90 a barrel, according to JPMorgan and other analysts. Any drop below that range may curb investment in new oil supplies. Already, some producers are feeling the pinch. Petro-Canada , for example, signaled recently that the cost of developing oil sands in Canada would not be economical below $100 a barrel. “Prices are still searching for true value and no one is quite sure what that is,” said Tom Bentz, an energy analyst at BNP Paribas in New York. “A lot will depend on how the global economic picture will shape up. We still have a world that is a scary place to live in.”


Court Tells Reporter to Testify in Case of Leaked C.I.A. Data

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In a major ruling on press freedoms, a divided federal appeals court on Friday ruled that James Risen, an author and a reporter for The New York Times, must testify in the criminal trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency official charged with providing him with classified information. In a 118-page set of opinions, two members of a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ruled that the First Amendment does not protect reporters who receive unauthorized leaks from being forced to testify against the people suspected of leaking to them. A district court judge who had ruled in Mr. Risen’s case had said that it did. “Clearly, Risen’s direct, firsthand account of the criminal conduct indicted by the grand jury cannot be obtained by alternative means, as Risen is without dispute the only witness who can offer this critical testimony,” wrote Chief Judge William Byrd Traxler Jr., who was joined by Judge Albert Diaz in Friday’s ruling. Mr. Risen has vowed to go to prison rather than testify about his sources and to carry any appeal as far as the Supreme Court. But some legal specialists said an appeal to the full appeals court was a likely first step. Mr. Risen referred a request to comment to his lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, who wrote in an e-mail: “We are disappointed by and disagree with the court’s decision. We are currently evaluating our next steps.” Judge Roger Gregory, the third member of the panel, filed a vigorous dissent, portraying his colleagues’ decision as “sad” and a serious threat to investigative journalism. “Under the majority’s articulation of the reporter’s privilege, or lack thereof, absent a showing of bad faith by the government, a reporter can always be compelled against her will to reveal her confidential sources in a criminal trial,” he wrote. “The majority exalts the interests of the government while unduly trampling those of the press, and in doing so, severely impinges on the press and the free flow of information in our society.” Friday’s ruling establishes a precedent that applies only to the Fourth Circuit, but that circuit includes Maryland and Virginia, where most national security agencies like the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency are. As a result, if it stands, it could have a significant impact on investigative journalism about national security matters. It has long been unclear whether the Constitution protects reporters from being forced to testify against their sources in criminal trials. The principal Supreme Court precedent in that area, which is more than 40 years old, concerns grand jury investigations, not trials, and many legal scholars consider its reasoning to be ambiguous. “We agree with the decision,” said Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman. “We are examining the next steps in the prosecution of this case.” The ruling was awkwardly timed for the Obama administration. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has portrayed himself as trying to rebalance the department’s approach to leak investigations in response to the furor over its aggressive investigative tactics, like subpoenaing Associated Press reporters’ phone records and portraying a Fox News reporter as a criminal conspirator in order to obtain a warrant for his e-mails. Image James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in June, refuses to testify against his sources. Credit William B. Plowman/Nbc Last week, Mr. Holder announced new guidelines for leak investigations that significantly tightened the circumstances in which reporters’ records could be obtained. He also reiterated the Obama administration’s proposal to revive legislation to create a federal media shield law that in some cases would allow judges to quash subpoenas for reporters’ testimony, as many states have. “It’s very disappointing that as we are making such good progress with the attorney general’s office and with Congress, in getting them to recognize the importance of a reporter’s privilege, the Fourth Circuit has taken such a big step backwards,” said Gregg Leslie, the legal defense director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press . Mr. Risen is a national security reporter for The Times, but the case revolves around material he published in his 2006 book, “State of War,” not in the newspaper. A chapter in the book recounted efforts by the C.I.A. in the Clinton administration to trick Iranian scientists by having a Russian defector give them blueprints for a nuclear triggering device that had been altered with an error. The chapter portrays the operation as reckless and botched in a way that could have helped the Iranians gain accurate information. In December 2010, a former C.I.A. officer, Jeffrey Sterling, was accused of being Mr. Risen’s source and indicted on Espionage Act charges. His is one of seven leak-related cases brought so far by the Obama administration, compared with three under all previous presidents combined. The appeals court’s ruling, which came more than a year after it heard oral arguments in the case, reversed a decision in 2011 by Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., who had sharply limited what prosecutors could ask Mr. Risen about his sources . She had written that he was protected by a limited “reporter’s privilege” under the First Amendment, but the Obama administration argued that such a reporter’s privilege did not exist, and appealed. A coalition of more than two dozen media organizations , including The Times and Fox News, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that a qualified reporter’s privilege — allowing judges to protect reporters from testifying under some circumstances — was crucial for the “dissemination of news and information to the public.” On Friday, Judges Traxler and Diaz agreed with the Obama administration. “There is no First Amendment testimonial privilege, absolute or qualified, that protects a reporter from being compelled to testify by the prosecution or the defense in criminal proceedings about criminal conduct that the reporter personally witnessed or participated in, absent a showing of bad faith, harassment, or other such non-legitimate motive, even though the reporter promised confidentiality to his source,” Judge Traxler wrote. The majority based its ruling on a 1972 Supreme Court decision, Branzburg v. Hayes , which rejected an effort by a reporter to avoid testifying before a grand jury. Mr. Risen’s lawyers had argued that the 5-4 ruling was ambiguous and left room open for Judge Brinkema to shield him from testifying in the criminal trial. In his dissent on Friday, Judge Gregory said that he would recognize a qualified reporter’s privilege in criminal cases. He also argued that prosecutors had enough other evidence to make their case without Mr. Risen’s testimony. “Whatever the limits of who may claim reporter’s privilege, it is clear that Risen — a full-time reporter for a national news publication, The New York Times — falls into the category of people who should be eligible to invoke the privilege,” he wrote. Judge Traxler was appointed by President Bill Clinton and Judge Diaz by President Obama. Judge Gregory was given a recess appointment by Mr. Clinton, and then renominated by President George W. Bush. Over the past three decades, nearly two dozen journalists have been jailed in the United States for refusing to testify or disclose sources or other types of reporting information, according to a list maintained by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In 2005, a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, was jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify about sources in the investigation into who leaked the identity of a C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame Wilson. She was released after her source, I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, released her from the confidentiality agreement, and she testified before a grand jury.

James Risen
Confidential News Sources
Classified Information
William Byrd Traxler Jr
Roger L Gregory
Albert Diaz
The New York Times
State of War
CIA
Jeffrey Sterling


Massachusetts: 3-Year Sentence for Theft From Marathon Fund

Abstract: A Troy, N.Y., woman was sentenced on Tuesday to serve up to three years in prison after admitting to stealing from the One Fund Boston, which raised more than $60 million to aid victims of the bombing at the Boston Marathon last year. State prosecutors said Audrea Gause, 27, had falsely claimed that she sustained a brain injury in the blasts and collected $480,000 from the fund. On Tuesday, Ms. Gause pleaded guilty to one count of larceny over $250 in Suffolk Superior Court; Judge Carol Ball signed an order to return the money, which has been recovered, to the fund.

Boston Marathon
One Fund Boston
Massachusetts
Fraud
Boston Marathon Bombings


Jeff Robinov Slowly Alters the ‘Warner Way’ at the Studio

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Jeff Robinov, president of the Warner Brothers Pictures Group, arrived at the fashionable Tower Bar here on a recent weekend. Other members of Hollywood’s A-list were quickly ushered to tables in the dining room, but Mr. Robinov had to wait — and wait. He finally ordered off the bar menu. The Tower Bar may want to have a talk with its headwaiter. While little known outside of the clubby film industry, Mr. Robinov, 51, has become one of the most powerful people in moviedom over the last two years and is becoming even more so. He is the heir apparent for the company’s top movie job when Alan F. Horn, chief operating officer of Warner Brothers Entertainment and overlord of film production, retires next year. With its corporate gentility and stability in a highly unstable business, Warner has long been Hollywood’s gold standard. By sticking to “the Warner way” — star-driven pictures, effective marketing — and keeping executive churn to a minimum, the studio of Batman and Harry Potter has sold more than $1 billion in tickets at the domestic box office for an unparalleled nine years running. But Mr. Robinov, taking notice of changing industry economics and shifting consumer tastes, has been modifying that blueprint. His strategy involves making fewer but more ambitious movies, cutting back on sweetheart producer deals and at long last integrating its corporate sibling DC Comics more tightly into the movie division. Mr. Robinov, in close alliance with his president of worldwide marketing, Sue Kroll, is also moving Warner out of its stately comfort zone by pursuing more provocative advertising campaigns (“Rock Out With Your Glock Out” is the slogan for a forthcoming title) and raunchy comedies like “The Hangover.” Mr. Robinov pressed to make “The Hangover” over Mr. Horn’s objections. The $35 million movie, co-produced with Legendary Pictures, has sold about $467 million in tickets. “There are movies that don’t necessarily speak to my generation,” Mr. Horn, 66, said, “but Warner needs to speak to all audiences.” Mr. Robinov has more on his hands than just continuing to show Hollywood who’s boss. The studio’s slimmed-down corporate parent, Time Warner, is relying more than ever on its motion picture arm to mint profits that will impress investors. And he must accomplish that without the Harry Potter franchise, which ends next year. Operating income for the studio rose 61 percent to $436 million in the fourth quarter. Even so, Wall Street’s attention is currently focused elsewhere, namely on 20th Century Fox’s “Avatar,” which has become the top-grossing movie of all time (in dollars not adjusted for inflation). Premium-price 3-D tickets are one reason “Avatar” has attracted over $2 billion at the global box office, and Warner is hopping on the 3-D bandwagon in a big way. Last week it announced plans to release “Clash of the Titans” and the final two “Harry Potter” films in 3-D. Warner will have as many as nine 3-D releases next year, according to Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution. Driven by its need to replace Harry Potter, not to mention the continued appeal of superheroes, Warner recently announced a major reorganization of DC Comics. The goal is to quickly and more fully exploit its characters, something Time Warner’s corporate bureaucracy has hampered in the past. The Walt Disney Company’s $4 billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment just over a month ago has increased the pressure on Warner to succeed this time. Warner is expected to announce a DC slate in the coming months populated by characters like the Flash and Wonder Woman. Central to Mr. Robinov’s approach to DC is to avoid cookie-cutter representations and take risks when it comes to hiring directors and choosing a cast. Fully backing a filmmaker’s vision has become a hallmark of his style, ranging from the odd “Watchmen,” which was a modest success, to the candy-colored “Speed Racer,” which was a flaming disaster, to “The Dark Knight,” a home run. “He is trying not to cling to the things that have worked in the past,” said Christopher Nolan, who directed “The Dark Knight” and is working on another Batman sequel. Another part of Mr. Robinov’s vision for the studio involves Ms. Kroll, his hard-driving marketing chief, who has been charged with instilling electricity and nimbleness in campaigns. She was behind the arresting visuals for “Where the Wild Things Are,” which opened at No. 1 at the box office despite its art house aura. For the forthcoming comedy “Valentine’s Day,” which is showing such strong advance interest that producers are already racing to put together a similar movie built around New Year’s Eve , Ms. Kroll found an elegant way to showcase 18 stars on one billboard. “She’s a monster: creative, brilliant, tireless,” Mr. Robinov said. Ms. Kroll has definitely shaken up Warner’s sleepy marketing division. Soon after her promotion in 2008, she decided late on a Friday that the trailer for “10,000 B.C.” needed to be more visceral. She tracked staff members down at home, had an editing company stay open for the weekend and hired midnight couriers. Mr. Fellman mobilized the distribution team to push exhibitors to immediately accept a new trailer. Within two days, the two executives had accomplished what usually takes weeks. “I have a very cavalier attitude that anything is possible,” she said. “You’ve got to be relentless and you’ve got to be fearless.” While it tinkers with its formula, Warner Brothers Entertainment, the studio’s umbrella company, is also confronting the distracting issue of corporate succession for only the fifth time since 1967, when the Warner family ceded control. Speculating about who will replace Mr. Horn and Barry M. Meyer, the company’s departing chairman, has become one of Hollywood’s favorite parlor games. While Mr. Robinov is widely seen as Mr. Horn’s heir, it is less clear what the corporation might do with Mr. Meyer’s post — with speculation running the gamut from simply replacing him to splitting his job among a handful of executives. There are three princes vying for the roles: Mr. Robinov; Bruce Rosenblum, president of the television group; and Kevin Tsujihara, president of home entertainment. The uncertainty has set off political maneuvering inside the studio. Time Warner’s chairman, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, declined to comment about succession except to say, “We have a real preference for our own people.” He added: “We’ve shown that it is possible to be consistently successful in a business that is supposed to be enormously volatile.” Mr. Meyer, 66, said slow succession — the opposite of what Walt Disney Studios has recently set in motion — was the proper course for a business that has long lead times for its products and turns on subjective decisions. “If you inject jolting management changes into that process, it’s a recipe for destruction,” he said. “We are trying to evolve the system.” Getting to know Mr. Robinov has been difficult for people inside Warner and out. A former agent at International Creative Management, the buttoned-down but brooding executive rarely grants interviews and dislikes the type of personal showboating often associated with Hollywood moguls. In a knife-in-the-back industry, Mr. Robinov is known for wielding a blade in the front, something that has resulted in more than a few wounded egos. “As an agent, all I wanted was an answer,” Mr. Robinov said of his blunt style. “Sometimes it’s a hard message to hear and sometimes it’s a hard one to give.” Mr. Robinov’s superiors say he is learning how to maneuver more delicately. “He has become less of an acquired taste,” Mr. Meyer said. Told of that comment, an unsmiling Mr. Robinov said, “Haters, they’re all haters.” Was he joking? He was. “I’m a complicated cat,” he said with a shrug. His office is largely barren except for a plastic Bob’s Big Boy doll, which he declined to explain to a visitor. A colleague later said that Mr. Robinov likes to take people to lunch at a Big Boy diner in Burbank when he is either promoting or firing them. There have been quite a few personnel changes — the president of motion picture music was jettisoned in December — as Mr. Robinov has shaped his team. Another recent change involved the president of production, Kevin McCormick, who stepped down to become a producer. The restructuring will most likely continue, particularly with producer deals. Up until recently, producers who delivered big hits in years past were kept on the payroll regardless of their recent track record. But Mr. Robinov says that era is over, pointing to a 20 percent reduction in producer deals since 2008. He declined to say which producers might be facing less bountiful deals going forward. Meanwhile, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Horn are starting a victory lap. Mr. Horn is particularly proud of accomplishments that include better coordinating the production, distribution and marketing divisions and lining up outside partners like Legendary Pictures to reduce risk. “Every ship picks up barnacles over time, but as Barry and I ride into the sunset, I firmly believe we’re leaving it better than we found it, and we found it in pretty great shape,” Mr. Horn said.

Warner Brothers
Appointments and Executive Changes
Movies
Robinov Jeff


Rangel Easily Defeats Five Primary Rivals

Abstract: Representative Charles B. Rangel , the battle-scarred Democratic incumbent facing numerous ethics charges, captured his party’s nomination on Tuesday after a nasty six-way primary battle in which his opponents sharply questioned his fitness to serve. The victory makes it virtually certain that Mr. Rangel, a legendary figure in city and state politics, will win the November general election in his overwhelmingly Democratic Congressional district in Upper Manhattan. With 59 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Rangel had 53 percent, trailed by his chief rival, Adam Clayton Powell IV , with 25 percent. Around 11:30 p.m., with 32 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Rangel addressed about 75 supporters at the Uptown Grand, a supper club in Harlem, and declared victory. “I don’t know how this will be misconstrued by the press,” Mr. Rangel said. “But no matter what they say, I go back to Washington a stronger man than I have ever been.” He also reaffirmed his commitment to the president’s agenda. “In the time we are at in our history, President Obama needs people like me more than ever,” Mr. Rangel said. “I’ll go back to tell the president, ‘You don’t need those Republicans, and there are a lot of Democrats who got elected, but they vote Republican.’ ” Mr. Rangel was presented with a victory cake, a gift from Aretha Franklin. The last time Mr. Rangel faced a serious primary challenge was in 1994, when he defeated Mr. Powell, who was then a councilman, 61 percent to 33 percent. He has otherwise cruised to re-election. In the general election, Mr. Rangel will face a Republican, Michel J. Faulkner, a minister who founded the New Horizon Church of New York in Harlem, and Craig Schley, 46, a former intern for Mr. Rangel, who is running on the Independence Party line. Despite his victory, Mr. Rangel’s troubles are hardly over, as a House panel in Washington prepares to convene a public trial of Mr. Rangel, 80, later this month on 13 counts of ethics violations. While Mr. Rangel has predicted that he will be vindicated, some of his allies have expressed concern that a public trial could become ugly and further damage his reputation and legacy. In addition, Democratic colleagues in Washington are frustrated with his refusal to reach a settlement with the House ethics committee, instead forging ahead toward a public trial. Democrats are increasingly concerned about the prospect of having a senior member of the party on trial in the heart of a general election season that is already shaping up to be difficult for their party as it struggles to retain its House majority. The last time the House held a public trial of a member was in 2002, after Representative James A. Traficant, Democrat of Ohio, had been convicted criminally on corruption charges. Mr. Traficant was expelled from Congress and served a prison term. The charges Mr. Rangel faces include his failure to report rental income from a villa in the Dominican Republic, his acceptance of four rent-regulated apartments in Harlem and his use of his office to preserve a loophole for an oil company executive who pledged a large donation for a new public policy center in New York to be named for him. While Mr. Rangel repeatedly asked voters to withhold judgment until the investigations were complete, the charges took their toll on him politically. This year, Mr. Rangel stepped down as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee after losing support from his Democratic colleagues. And underscoring his vulnerability, five Democrats seeking to unseat him emerged back home in his district, arguing that new leadership was needed, regardless of Mr. Rangel’s guilt or innocence. The best-known challenger, Mr. Powell, whose father Mr. Rangel defeated 40 years ago to start his Congressional career, was especially confrontational, accusing Mr. Rangel at one point of “years and years of corruption.” Mr. Rangel did not take the challenges lightly, reactivating his old campaign organization in Harlem, after decades of cruising to re-election. Mr. Rangel also dismissed his rivals as unqualified to replace him. In a measure of how competitive the contest had become, Mr. Rangel spent the final days of the race campaigning energetically, as his organization deluged households with recorded phone messages from former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg praising him. Mr. Rangel has admitted that he failed to pay taxes on the rental income from his Dominican Republic villa and that he failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets on financial disclosure forms. He described the lapses as the inadvertent product of sloppy bookkeeping. But he has insisted that he did nothing wrong by accepting the rent-regulated apartments from a Manhattan developer, at rents that were thousands of dollars below market rates. Ethics experts say that arrangement might violate the Congressional prohibition on members’ accepting gifts valued at more than $50 per month. Mr. Rangel has also denied that he did anything improper when he used his position as Ways and Means chairman to preserve the loophole for the oil executive who pledged a $1 million donation to help build the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York.

Rangel Charles B
United States Politics and Government
Primaries and Caucuses
Elections
Harlem (NYC)
Powell Adam Clayton IV
House of Representatives


Soccer’s Split Scarves Have Some Fans Up to Their Necks in Scorn

Abstract: Some call them friendship scarves while others refer to them as half-and-halfs. Vendors have recently taken to marketing them as match-day scarves, while in Spanish they are labeled, more lyrically, bufandas con los dos escudos , or scarves with two shields. Of course, these are the names that are printable. Split scarves, or scarves that have the names and crests of both teams competing in a given soccer match , may be souvenir catnip for tourists, casual spectators and, occasionally, those who did not check their weather app and showed up underdressed on a frosty night. But for an increasingly vocal segment of hard-core fans around the world, these scarves are — how to say it? — horrendous. “I’d rather get a cold than wear one of those, honestly,” Josep Trepat, 73, who has been a Barcelona member for more than four decades, said recently. He added: “I support one club, not two.” That basic sentiment — which has been expressed in far more obscene terms by scads of web-savvy fans, including one whose entire Twitter account is devoted to pictures of half-scarf-wearing spectators and profanity — is not unique. But there is also no denying that split scarves, despite the bile that is often directed toward them, have become a significant part of soccer’s keepsake culture. At big matches, like the Champions League semifinal first legs that will be played Tuesday in Turin, Italy , and Wednesday in Barcelona, Spain , merchants outside the stadiums will prominently feature Juventus- Real Madrid or Barcelona-Bayern Munich scarves amid their other, more team-specific — and presumably less-offensive — offerings. The vendors’ motive, naturally, is simple: to make money. And so it stands to reason that they would not offer these split scarves if there were not a market for them. Image Scarves commemorating a Champions League match between Juventus and Monaco last month in Turin, Italy. Credit Marco Luzzani/Getty Images “The biggest group of buyers is the out-of-towners, that’s for sure,” John, a longtime peddler of souvenirs outside Chelsea matches, said earlier this season. John, like many vendors interviewed, asked that his full name not be published because match-day scarves (among other items) are often produced without official licensing approval from the clubs. “At European matches, you’ll have some fans shouting about selling them, or shouting at people who buy them,” John continued. “But the nastiest it gets is at the league matches or a derby match. Then it can get ugly.” This issue, it seems, is the root of the split-scarf divide. Sure, even the most passionate split-scarf critic can find a moment of understanding for, say, the French fan of Guingamp who travels to Belarus and wants to take home a scarf commemorating the dull, dreary 0-0 midweek tie between his club and Dinamo Minsk . At the very least, a scarf is a far easier memento to keep track of than a beer-soaked ticket stub shoved carelessly into a coat pocket. But what about the fans who buy an A.C. Milan-Inter scarf before the Derby della Madonnina? Or a Manchester United-Liverpool scarf before an F.A. Cup clash? That is where, for many enthusiasts, the whole notion goes wrong. “No one would dare wear one of those scarves in the Bayern fan block,” Georg Salzeder, 59, said before noting in strong terms that his personal collection of scarves included only the one-team variety. “Imagine us playing against 1860 and I’ve got to put on a Bayern-1860 scarf!” he added, referring to Bayern Munich’s intracity rival. “No, no. I don’t think so.” Split scarves are not a new concept. Similar scarves from matches that took place decades ago can be found on eBay or elsewhere, and many — designed in the “friendship” mold — even feature a floating handshake (picture a pair of Hamburger Helper hands embracing) to hammer home the scarf’s amiable nature. Image Supporters at the 2011 Copa del Rey final between Barcelona and Real Madrid. A split scarf commemorated the contest between the rivals. Credit Lluis Gene/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More recently, though, as ticket prices have generally risen and clubs have increasingly sought to make the “match-day experience” more of a special event regardless of whether it actually is one, the split scarf has become more prevalent, popping up at matches that might otherwise seem mundane. Sometimes, this can feel excessive (split scarves for a sixth-tier club’s match against a third-tier club , for example) while other times it just feels silly ( split scarves for a match between rivals whose fans have fought each other so often the police now limit the number of visiting fans who can attend ). Timothée Pavillard, 24, said that as a fan of Paris St.-Germain he “struggled” to imagine himself ever wearing anything with the logo of his team’s rival Olympique Marseille on it. The only possibility, he said, would be “one of those anti-O.M.” scarves — yes, there are anti-scarves for those who like to turn their contempt into an accessory — but even then, Pavillard conceded, it would be unlikely. Some fans have theorized that the rise of the split scarf is connected with the general decrease in fan violence and hooliganism across Europe’s top leagues. Casual brawling is less common now than in decades past, the thinking goes, so perhaps it is more acceptable for one’s club and one’s opponent to be separated only by a nape. To many, though, soccer’s contribution to mash-up culture remains a farce. One fan at a Sunderland-West Bromwich Albion match this season was the subject of Internet ridicule after being spotted on television wearing a split-shirt — inexplicably, the shirt was divided between Sunderland and Arsenal, a club not involved in the game in any way — and one can only imagine the vitriol that might crop up if Barcelona and Real Madrid both advance to the Champions League final, an event where split scarves, and shrill emotions, are particularly prevalent. In that situation, however, it is likely that even the most rabid fans might be tempted to surreptitiously slide up to a kiosk, fork over some euros (and a bit of their soul) and then slip a split scarf into a pocket or a bag. Doing so, though, comes with a risk. What if the match is more forgettable than memorable? “I bought one for the 2007 UEFA Cup final,” said Marc Invernon, 21, who cheers for the Spanish team Espanyol. “Then we lost to Sevilla in the penalty shootout and I don’t even know where it is now.”

Soccer
Fashion
UEFA Champions League
Barcelona Soccer Team
Real Madrid
Bayern Munich Soccer Team
Arsenal Soccer Team


Marvin Miller — Grudges Probably Played Role in Hall of Fame Snub

Abstract: Marvin Miller knew he belonged in the Baseball Hall of Fame , but he died on Tuesday excluded from it. He had turned a weak players union into a ferocious and wealthy labor force that transformed the sport’s economics, yet the Hall is stocked with lesser-regarded executives who did not rattle baseball’s hidebound establishment the way Miller did. While leading the players to great gains, Miller became a revolutionary and almost certainly the most powerful man in baseball — not Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, whose tenure closely paralleled Miller’s. They were opposites: Miller the urbane economist bent on breaking an industry’s antilabor policy, Kuhn the starchy lawyer guarding the status quo and arguing that baseball would be doomed if the reserve system were toppled for free agency. Five times from 2003 to 2010, voters failed to elect Miller to the Hall of Fame. He was rejected by veterans committees as small as 12 and as large as 84. In 2007, he suffered a double indignity: he was spurned twice. With disdain and wit, Miller recognized that as long as his natural enemies — current and former baseball executives — were judging him, the odds of his election were slim. In late 2007, after being told that he had received 3 of 12 votes, Miller laughed. “You really could have done this in advance,” he told The Associated Press. “I think it was rigged,” not to keep him out but to elect others with pro-management pedigrees. That year, those others were Kuhn, the nemesis he frequently outmaneuvered; Walter O’Malley, the Brooklyn Dodgers owner who relocated his team to Los Angeles ; and Barney Dreyfuss, a long-ago Pittsburgh Pirates owner. “Bowie Kuhn was a negative factor for baseball,” Miller, who was 90 at the time of his third rejection, told The New York Times in 2007 . “Without any question, if he hadn’t existed, we would have had to invent him.” After being voted down that third time, Miller had every right to feel unwanted. Although each ballot roused partisans like Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver and union successors like Donald Fehr to argue for his election, Miller could not be hopeful. His dyspeptic view echoed somewhat that of Groucho Marx ’s — he would not want to belong to a club that, after jilting him a few times, would make him as a member. He did not have to worry. Miller lost again in 2009, when 7 of the 12 members of the executives and pioneers committee voted for him. Jacob Ruppert, a long-dead Yankees owner with Hall-worthy credentials, also got seven votes. No one was elected by that panel, but John Fetzer, a deceased former Detroit Tigers owner and mentor of Commissioner Bud Selig ’s, received one more vote than Miller. Miller’s supporters wanted him to be elected to the Hall while he could enjoy it, unlike the Chicago Cubs star Ron Santo, who was posthumously inducted last July. To promote Miller’s case in advance of the 2010 vote, Bob Locker, a former Chicago White Sox pitcher, created a Web site, ThanksMarvin.com , that was packed with tributes to Miller. At the time, Locker said, “He ought to have a statue in front of the Baseball Hall of Fame — and every other sports hall of fame.” The balloting in that election represented Miller’s closest brush with victory: he fell short by one vote. The rejection came from the newfangled Expansion Era committee, with former players making up half the 16-man group that judged his achievements. They elected, instead, Pat Gillick, whose influence as an executive for the Blue Jays , the Orioles , the Mariners and the Phillies was great, but whose effect on the sport was nowhere as transcendent as Miller’s. Miller had prepared himself for the fifth rejection. At 93, his hearing was failing, but he was sharp and argumentative. He saw it coming. In an interview shortly after Gillick’s election, Miller said that the Hall was snubbing the players association more than him and that there was a “concerted attempt” by the Hall to “ downgrade any impact the union has had. ” He added, “Part of the plan was to keep me out of it.” He sounded pragmatic, not paranoid, in tossing out the theory. “You can leave individuals out, but you can’t leave out an organization,” he said. “You can’t leave out the impact the union has had. You can’t be anything but fraudulent if you pretend that you are the archivist and recorder of the history of an institution like Major League Baseball and leave the union out of it.” He added, “I have more fame than I would have had in the Hall of Fame.” Miller’s next chance at election is next year. If he gets in, someone else will have to give the acceptance speech on his behalf. Whatever he would have said — and how he would have said it — almost certainly would have been an intriguing departure from speeches made by grateful players, managers, executives and umpires.

Marvin Miller
Hall of fame
Labor Unions
Major League Baseball Players Assn
MLB
Baseball
Baseball Hall of Fame


Lou Gehrig and The New Yorker Profile

Abstract: In The New Yorker 80 years ago, Lou Gehrig was portrayed as an unsophisticate and a mama’s boy once rumored to have gone to the movies with a “red-cheeked German girl who wore a bunch of flowers in her hat.” Asked in the profile, written by Niven Busch and titled “The Little Heinie,” if he would ever marry, Gehrig said, “My mother makes a home comfortable enough for me.” His mother, Christina, Busch wrote, “is continually cooking for him, making apple cake, and cookies with raisins and pieces of bright red suet in them, making roasts, and frying the fish and eels he catches in the Sound.” Lou caught so many eels that his mother pickled them, Busch reported. Some Yankees seemed to believe that pickled eels helped their hitting. “Why should Lou eat eels?” one teammate apparently said to Gehrig’s father, Heinrich, during a meal at the Gehrigs’ residence in New Rochelle. “He always hits good, doesn’t he, Mr. Gehrig?” It is unimaginable that such a chaste, even fluffy, article would be written about Derek Jeter , who now shares Gehrig’s Yankees record of 2,721 career hits. Jeter is also close to his parents, but has lived on his own for quite a while, and his active social life ( parodied in a Visa ad with George Steinbrenner) is no secret. But unlike the naïve Gehrig, Jeter is a shrewd manager of his public image, perhaps one reason he has never been profiled by The New Yorker. Roger Angell, who has written about baseball for decades at the magazine, and greatly admires Jeter’s hitting, said: “I’ve never heard him say an interesting word. He’s not a guy who likes to talk. But he’s very well liked.” In the 1929 Gehrig article, Busch sets up Gehrig as something of a cipher unsuited “to have a public” because he is not “stimulated or discouraged by the reactions of the crowds that watch his ponderous antics at first base for the Yankees, or cheer the hits he knocks out with startling regularity and almost legendary power.” Aside from baseball, Busch wrote, Gehrig’s main amusement is fishing and his primary associates are “his mother and Babe Ruth.” Gehrig’s mother “has exercised a good deal of care on his upbringing.” Christina could not keep Lou from reacting in anger when mean old Ty Cobb repeatedly called him “a Wiener schnitzel” and “thick-headed Dutch bum,” Busch wrote. Gehrig got so unnerved that he charged Cobb, who eluded him, and “hit his head on a stanchion of the low roof and fell down stunned.” Busch reappeared in the Gehrig saga in 1941 when, as a story editor for the producer Samuel Goldwyn, he suggested making a film about Gehrig. Goldwyn said a baseball movie would be “box-office poison,” according to A. Scott Berg’s biography of Goldwyn. Ray Robinson, a Gehrig biographer , said that Busch told him he had a projectionist show Goldwyn newsreels of Gehrig’s “luckiest man” speech of July 4, 1939. Goldwyn cried at hearing Gehrig’s simple, heartbreaking oration, which guided him to produce “The Pride of the Yankees” as a love story between Lou (Gary Cooper) and Eleanor (Teresa Wright) that would appeal to a female audience. The film was released in 1942 — the year that Busch married Wright. They divorced 10 years later. Their son, who is also named Niven but goes by Terry, does not recall his father talking about meeting Gehrig in 1929. “He didn’t tell many New Yorker tales,” said Terry Busch, whose father wrote the novel “Duel in the Sun” and co-wrote the screenplay for “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” “He never talked about ‘Pride of the Yankees,’ probably because he didn’t get credit for it. He had a fairly bad falling out with Goldwyn, not the least because of my conception, which caused my mother to default on several projects. He blamed my father.”

Gehrig Lou
Jeter Derek
New York Yankees
New Yorker
Baseball