N.L. Division Series Preview: Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals

Abstract: Jon Lester has been here before. He has not faced the St. Louis Cardinals in October as a member of the Chicago Cubs, which he will do in Game 1 of their division series on Friday. But Lester has pitched at Busch Stadium in the World Series, for Boston, and won. He understands what his new team now faces. “We’ve got to beat the best team in baseball and we’ve got to go from there, so we’ll see,” Lester said at PNC Park in Pittsburgh Wednesday night, after the Cubs beat the Pirates, 4-0, behind Jake Arrieta in the wild-card game. “But really, from February, everyone was excited, but they didn’t really know what would happen. And I’m seeing more and more people cheering us on, more and more people in the streets just excited to be Cubs fans again. That’s exciting.” That’s a whole lot of excitement in one comment – and that’s before those fans knew the Cubs would be facing their longtime rivals in the postseason for the first time. The Cubs earned a spot in the division series by winning 97 games in the regular season and knocking off a Pirates team that won 98. That victory ended a nine-game postseason losing streak dating to the 2003 National League Championship Series. That was the series in which a fan deflected a critical foul ball in Game 6 against the Marlins, and then the Cubs’ shortstop, Alex Gonzalez, botched a double-play grounder. In the sixth inning of the wild card game, Cubs shortstop Addison Russell made an error on a ball that also could have been a double play. But this time, the next hitter gave him another chance, and Russell executed. Maybe things really will turn out the Cubs’ way. Anthony Rizzo, their star first baseman, said the team had been inspired by reaction around town to the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup titles. He said he was proud to represent Ernie Banks and other Cubs from the past. “They left the jersey a lot better when they were done playing,” Rizzo said. “I know Ernie would be really proud of this team.” The Cubs have young players new to the postseason stage, like Arrieta, Rizzo, Russell, Kyle Schwarber and Kris Bryant. October baseball is much more familiar to the Cardinals, who seek their 10th trip to the N.L.C.S. in the 2000s and their 12th World Series title, which would rank second only to the Yankees. The Cardinals integrated prospects onto the roster this year, enjoyed a strong season from the free-agent-to-be Jason Heyward and drove relentlessly to 100 wins. They have weathered injuries to top players, including the ace Adam Wainwright, who tore his Achilles’ in April and returned as a reliever, and catcher Yadier Molina, who will try to play with a splint on his left thumb, which he injured when Rizzo slid into his tag on Sept. 20. But if fans want an underdog, they will find one anywhere but St. Louis. Of the eight teams remaining in the postseason, the Cardinals are the only one that has won a championship since 1993. Image Lester has pitched in big games at Busch Stadium before, like Game 5 of the 2013 World Series. Credit Ronald Martinez/Getty Images Horned Frogs on the field! The Cubs’ Jake Arrieta and the Cardinals’ Matt Carpenter were teammates, friends and intense rivals at Texas Christian University. “We’d compete at lifting, we’d run and compete at that, we’d play basketball, we’d play ping-pong, we’d play pool and we’d play racquetball,” Arrieta said this May. “We’d keep a tally of how many games we won in each event and have bragging rights until we did it the next time.” In the majors, those bragging rights clearly go to Arrieta. In 16 career at-bats against Arrieta, Carpenter has zero hits. Image The Cubs' Jake Arrieta, left, and the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter were friends and teammates at Texas Christian University. But even then, they were fierce competitors. Credit Jerry Laizure/Associated Press; Chris Carson/Associated Press Big Game John: The Cardinals picked John Lackey to start Game 1 on Friday, choosing a pitcher with a 1.93 earned run average at home in 2015 and 117 career innings in the postseason. Lackey has a strong track record (7-5, with a 3.08 earned run average), and he is the only active pitcher who has won Game 7 of the World Series, which he did for the Angels in 2002. The winning pitcher in Game 7 last fall, the Giants’ Jeremy Affeldt, retired after this season. Fantastic Flipping : In their recent lean years, the Cubs deliberately tried to sign veteran pitchers to short-term deals, hoping to flip them to contenders to help build an inventory of top prospects. The strategy worked brilliantly. Paul Maholm was traded to Atlanta in 2012 for Arodys Vizcaino, who was eventually sent back to the Braves for Tommy La Stella, the Cubs’ third baseman in the wild card game. Jason Hammel (who has since returned) went to Oakland in a 2014 deal for shortstop Addison Russell. The coup, though, was signing Scott Feldman before the 2013 season and shipping him to Baltimore that summer in a trade for Jake Arrieta. Image Addison Russell is a product of the Cubs' sign-and-trade strategy. Credit Jon Durr/Getty Images Rooting for the Story: Joe Buck, the lead broadcaster for Fox, is the son of Jack Buck, the late Hall of Fame voice of the Cardinals. But Buck, who has a popular restaurant in St. Louis, said calling a Cubs World Series would be the highlight of his career. “When people say, ‘What’s the one thing you want to do?’ that’s my answer: Cubs in the World Series,” Buck told The Chicago Tribune. “I don’t want to do an N.B.A. Finals or a Kentucky Derby or moderate a presidential debate, as if that would happen. I want to sit at Wrigley Field, look out and know that a World Series game is about to start. It would be the cherry on top.” An Unwanted Number: Cubs Manager Joe Maddon usually wears a hoodie, but officially, he does have a uniform number, and it’s purposefully unusual: 70. When Maddon was a young coach for the Angels, the team acquired Don Sutton, the future Hall of Fame pitcher. Sutton was given his usual No. 20, which Maddon had worn, so Maddon decided to take a number no one would ever want. He went 50 digits up and worn No. 70 ever since. Matheny Makes a Mark – When tasked with replacing a retiring Hall of Fame manager after their 2011 World Series title, the Cardinals chose wisely by picking Mike Matheny to succeed Tony La Russa. Matheny, the team’s former catcher, had never managed before but was well-acquainted with the organization and its emphasis on player development. He has since become the first manager in major league history to lead his team to the postseason in each of his first four years. Image Mike Matheny had never managed before being hired by the Cardinals. He has been in the postseason in each of his first four seasons. Credit Jared Wickerham/Getty Images Common Alumni : Hundreds of players have worn both distinctive jerseys: redbirds on the bat for the Cardinals, bull's-eye “C” for the Cubs. Several alums of both teams are in the Hall of Fame, including, among others, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Three Finger Brown, Rogers Hornsby and Lou Brock, who was dealt from the Cubs to the Cardinals in June 1964, and immediately helped St. Louis win a championship. The Cubs’ 1979 Cy Young winner, Bruce Sutter, would go on to close out the 1982 World Series title for the Cardinals, just as current Cubs reliever Jason Motte did for St. Louis in 2011. Alas, Motte is unlikely to do the same for the Cubs; he is out with a shoulder injury.

Baseball
Playoffs
Chicago Cubs
St. Louis Cardinals


An Obama Insider, Running the Race From Afar

Abstract: CHICAGO — For two years, Jim Messina worked 41 steps from the Oval Office, a distance he counted when he first arrived at the White House. His next assignment — in an office 700 miles from President Obama — will test whether proximity is the key to power. Mr. Messina, previously a White House deputy chief of staff, is running the president’s re-election campaign, which will formally open its doors in a Chicago high-rise this week and file the paperwork necessary for Mr. Obama to begin accepting campaign contributions. Mr. Messina traded a windowless view in the West Wing for a sprawling office overlooking the park where Mr. Obama delivered his historic victory speech. It is his job to make sure the president gives another one on Nov. 6, 2012. Running any presidential campaign is a grueling task. Even before Mr. Obama announces his intentions — he plans to do so as early as Monday in a message to supporters — Mr. Messina has been busy courting fund-raisers, the top tier of whom are each being asked to raise $350,000 this year. But in this case, the job comes with an extra challenge: overseeing the first re-election effort by an incumbent to be run from far outside Washington, separated from the candidate both by distance and focus. The move, Mr. Messina said, is not just symbolic. It will allow the campaign to tune out the know-it-all clatter of the capital and focus wholly on politics, without having to juggle the demands of governing. And it will put Mr. Messina and his team closer to the grassroots supporters whose enthusiasm was vital in 2008. “The president and I have discussed the challenges — and there are challenges,” he said. “But I want people in the Chicago headquarters who live and sleep and eat and breathe re-electing Barack Obama as president.” For the first half of the president’s term, Mr. Messina, 41, served as an all-purpose problem solver with a portfolio that ranged from investigating party crashers at a state dinner to pushing health care legislation through Congress. Now he will be overseeing what could become the first billion-dollar campaign. But Mr. Messina will be selling an incumbent who can no longer easily position himself as the face of change. And he will be operating in a far more hostile political climate, with polls suggesting that moderate and independent voters will take considerable persuading to vote Democratic again in large numbers. “I really believe that the president is the art and I am the science,” Mr. Messina said. “You have to start out with the assumption that this will not be 2008 again.” One morning last week, he stepped out of a taxi and into the lobby of One Prudential Plaza. He had given up his West Wing credential for a nondescript badge marked “tenant.” The headquarters space is bare. For now, there are no Obama signs or posters, only a paper bag filled with office supplies and a stack of maps from the American Automobile Association, which provide an early clue to the state-by-state battlegrounds. “It’s too early to look at that stuff,” Mr. Messina said, taking a seat in an empty cubicle. “If you look at the new census numbers, you would think that Georgia would be in play. You would definitely think that Arizona would be in play — as I think it is. Those are states where we didn’t play in last time.” One reason he is looking at new territory is the difficult path in some states that Mr. Obama carried in 2008, like Indiana , North Carolina and Virginia , all of which saw major Republican gains last year. The distance between Washington and Chicago raises questions about whether decisions will be made here or at the White House, where David Plouffe , the last campaign manager who is now a senior adviser, and William M. Daley , the chairman of Al Gore ’s presidential campaign who is now chief of staff, are more accessible to the president. “We will coordinate as appropriate, but they’re going to run the campaign,” Mr. Plouffe said. “They are going to innovate and make what we did in 2008 seem somewhat prehistoric.” Since leaving the White House two months ago, Mr. Messina has been on a listening tour, visiting donors and activists in nearly two dozen cities. The private sessions were intended to improve frayed relations, particularly with some liberal groups, while reconnecting with supporters. The slide show he presents depicts how the president’s approval has fallen in states like Florida , Michigan , Ohio and Pennsylvania . He shows a video of potential Republican challengers, including Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota , a popular figure in the Tea Party movement , and Jon Huntsman Jr., a former governor of Utah who is stepping down as ambassador to China . “If all you do is raise money, you fail,” Mr. Messina told several top donors. In an interview over a lunch of steak salad and multiple glasses of Pepsi , Mr. Messina said that he got an earful about the president’s messaging on health care, extension of Bush-era tax cuts and failure to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba . “We’re Democrats!” Mr. Messina responded when asked if he was surprised by the criticism. “Part of the beginning of this deal is just hearing people out.” Mr. Messina is the most influential person in the president’s inner circle whom many people have never heard of. He is rarely recognized when he slips into a club to get his fix of live music . He does not appear on television. Four years ago, he left the office of Senator Max Baucus of Montana to join the Obama campaign as a national chief of staff. After the election he became a deputy to Rahm Emanuel , the first White House chief of staff, and the president began relying on him for legislative strategy, political advice and football talk. “Some people go to meetings so they can hear the sound of their voice,” Mr. Emanuel said in an interview in Chicago, where he is now the mayor-elect. “Jim goes to a meeting to come up with solutions to problems.” To prepare for 2012, Mr. Messina has been reading books about previous re-elections. “I’ve tried figuring out every good and bad thing I could learn from the Reagan, Bush — both Bushes — and Clinton re-elections, and I’ve gone back to Johnson and Carter,” Mr. Messina said. “It’s kind of a ‘Beautiful Mind’ moment. I tabbed all the books, had a huge white board and wrote all this stuff out.” At the White House, Mr. Messina experienced a few high-profile stumbles, including accusations by Democratic candidates that he tried to muscle them out of races. Some colleagues complained about a short temper and of Mr. Messina exhibiting his authority and acting like a “mini-Rahm,” as two aides described it. He also shares with Mr. Emanuel a penchant for salty language. The mayor of Missoula , Mont., John Engen, invited Mr. Messina to speak at a seminar last fall at the University of Montana. Mr. Messina, a graduate of the university who is such a fan of the Grizzly athletic program that he wants his ashes to be scattered over the landmark “ M ” on campus, was quoted in the student newspaper using a word unfit for this publication. “There’s nothing like watching the face of a relatively conservative, mid-60s Montana woman and hear this fellow drop an F-bomb at the mayor’s fund-raiser,” Mr. Engen said in an interview. “But he’s so good natured, they go and give him a hug later.” Mr. Messina moved to Chicago in late March. (His iPod with 4,284 songs is far easier to move than his album collection.) He is surrounded by a skeleton crew, with his two deputies and fund-raising team coming this week, followed by a political staff. In a 50-minute interview, he mentions grassroots more than two dozen times. The Obama network, he said, has an even bigger challenge than during the first race. “He’s not going to be sitting in their living rooms the way he was in ’07 and early ’08,” Mr. Messina said of Mr. Obama. “He has to be president of the United States .”

2012 Presidential Election
Barack Obama
US Politics
Chicago


Liberia Lifts Its Curfew, but Border Stays Sealed

Abstract: BO WATERSIDE, Liberia — Fatu Momolu, a middle-age vendor of cold drinks, danced gleefully on Sunday back and forth across the border, an imaginary line that for the last seven months had turned all too real, severing Liberia from Sierra Leone and Ms. Momolu from much of her family. She threw her head and hands skyward as she raced from one end of the 100-yard bridge over the Mano River to the other and then back again, taking the president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf , at her word that the country would lift its midnight curfew and reopen its borders. The gates were sealed in late July to try to limit the spread of the Ebola virus, which had broken out in several West African nations and was rapidly claiming lives. But the outbreak has waned now, with only a trickle of new cases reported in recent weeks. “Liberians are happy!” Ms. Momolu exclaimed at the border crossing. “We are free! Ebola is finished here!” Braving Ebola The men and women of one Ebola clinic in rural Liberia reflect on life inside the gates. But the running and dancing turned out to be premature. It takes two governments to reopen a sealed border, and the Sierra Leonean authorities on the far side of the river said grimly on Sunday that they had received no instructions to do so. A Sierra Leonean soldier whipped the air with a wooden stick to punctuate the point. Liberians like Ms. Momolu would have to go back across the river. Sierra Leoneans would have to stay put, herded behind nail-spiked wooden planks. Even though the rusty gates on the Liberian side were wide open, no one would be passing through today. A planned reopening ceremony at the Mano River bridge, the principal crossing between the two countries, turned into a meeting for local Liberian police, immigration and government officials to complain to one another about the resources they lacked: thermometers to screen travelers, facilities to isolate those who may be ill, hand washing stations to ward off infection, patrol vehicles to catch people trying to sneak across the border. The superintendent of Grand Cape Mount County, Mohammed A. Paasewe, said he had come to the border to execute the president’s order, even as he hoped the Sierra Leoneans would not follow suit right away. He pressed immigration officials about whether they were prepared for the flow of travelers to resume on such short notice, and stressed that while his county had not seen a confirmed new case in nearly six weeks, “one case of Ebola is an epidemic.” “It takes one person that we do not check, it takes one person we let go without questioning, to reverse all of our gains,” he added. “We cannot afford to go back to where we are coming from.” Neither, for the moment, can people like Ms. Momolu go much of anywhere else.


Trades in Greek Debt Add to Country’s Financing Burden

Abstract: Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin. Echoing the kind of trades that nearly toppled the American International Group , the increasingly popular insurance against the risk of a Greek default is making it harder for Athens to raise the money it needs to pay its bills, according to traders and money managers. These contracts, known as credit-default swaps , effectively let banks and hedge funds wager on the financial equivalent of a four-alarm fire: a default by a company or, in the case of Greece, an entire country. If Greece reneges on its debts, traders who own these swaps stand to profit. “It’s like buying fire insurance on your neighbor’s house — you create an incentive to burn down the house,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit in Munich . As Greece’s financial condition has worsened, undermining the euro, the role of Goldman Sachs and other major banks in masking the true extent of the country’s problems has drawn criticism from European leaders. But even before that issue became apparent, a little-known company backed by Goldman, JP Morgan Chase and about a dozen other banks had created an index that enabled market players to bet on whether Greece and other European nations would go bust. Last September, the company, the Markit Group of London , introduced the iTraxx SovX Western Europe index, which is based on such swaps and let traders gamble on Greece shortly before the crisis. Such derivatives have assumed an outsize role in Europe ’s debt crisis, as traders focus on their daily gyrations. A result, some traders say, is a vicious circle. As banks and others rush into these swaps, the cost of insuring Greece’s debt rises. Alarmed by that bearish signal, bond investors then shun Greek bonds , making it harder for the country to borrow. That, in turn, adds to the anxiety — and the whole thing starts over again. On trading desks, there is fierce debate over what exactly is behind Greece’s recent troubles. Some traders say swaps have made the problem worse, while others say Greece’s deteriorating finances are to blame. “This is a country that is issuing paper into a weakening market,” said Ashish Shah, co-head of credit strategy at Barclays Capital, referring to Greece’s need for continual borrowing. But while some European leaders have blamed financial speculators in general for worsening the crisis, the French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, last week singled out credit-default swaps. Ms. Lagarde said a few players dominated this arena, which she said needed tighter regulation. Trading in Markit’s sovereign credit derivative index soared this year, helping to drive up the cost of insuring Greek debt, and, in turn, what Athens must pay to borrow money. The cost of insuring $10 million of Greek bonds, for instance, rose to more than $400,000 in February, up from $282,000 in early January. On several days in late January and early February, as demand for swaps protection soared, investors in Greek bonds fled the market, raising doubts about whether Greece could find buyers for coming bond offerings. “It’s the blind leading the blind,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R&R Consulting in New York. “The iTraxx SovX did not create the situation, but it has exacerbated it.” The Markit index is made up of the 15 most heavily traded credit-default swaps in Europe and covers other troubled economies like Portugal and Spain . And as worries about those countries’ debts moved markets around the world in February, trading in the index exploded. In February, demand for such index contracts hit $109.3 billion, up from $52.9 billion in January. Markit collects a flat fee by licensing brokers to trade the index. European banks including the Swiss giants Credit Suisse and UBS , France ’s Société Générale and BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank of Germany have been among the heaviest buyers of swaps insurance, according to traders and bankers who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. That is because those countries are the most exposed. French banks hold $75.4 billion worth of Greek debt, followed by Swiss institutions, at $64 billion, according to the Bank for International Settlements. German banks’ exposure stands at $43.2 billion. Trading in credit-default swaps linked only to Greek debt has also surged, but is still smaller than the country’s actual debt load of $300 billion. The overall amount of insurance on Greek debt hit $85 billion in February, up from $38 billion a year ago, according to the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, which tracks swaps trading. Markit says its index is a tool for traders, rather than a market driver. In a statement, Markit said its index was started to satisfy market demand, and had improved the ability of traders to hedge their risks. The index and similar products, it added, actually make it easier for buyers and sellers to gauge prices for instruments that are traded among players over the counter, rather than on exchanges. “These indices have helped bring transparency to the sovereign C.D.S. market,” Markit said. “Prior to their creation, there was no established benchmark index enabling investors to track the performance of segments of the sovereign C.D.S. market.” Some money managers say trading in Greek swaps alone, not the broader index, is the problem. “It’s like the tail wagging the dog,” said Markus Krygier, senior portfolio manager at Amundi Asset Management in London, which has $40 billion in global fixed-income assets. “There is a knock-on effect, as underlying positions begin to seem riskier, triggering risk models and forcing portfolio managers to sell Greek bonds.” If that sounds familiar, it should. Critics of these instruments contend swaps contributed to the fall of Lehman Brothers . But until recently, there was little demand for insurance on government debt. The possibility that a developed country could default on its obligations seemed remote. As a result, many foreign banks that held Greek bonds or entered into other financial transactions with the government did not hedge against the risk of a default. Now, they are scrambling for insurance. “Greece is not a small country,” said Mr. Raynes, at R&R in New York. “Credit-default swaps give the illusion of safety but actually increase systemic risk.”

Greece
Economy
Credit default swap
EU
Credit
Goldman Sachs


Gene Tests Identify Breast Cancer Patients Who Can Skip Chemotherapy, Study Says

Abstract: When is it safe for a woman with breast cancer to skip chemotherapy? A new study helps answer that question, based on a test of gene activity in tumors. It found that nearly half of women with early-stage breast cancer who would traditionally receive chemo can avoid it, with little risk of the cancer coming back or spreading in the next five years. The so-called genomic test measures the activity of genes that control the growth and spread of cancer, and can identify women with a low risk of recurrence and therefore little to gain from chemo. “More and more evidence is mounting that there is a substantial number of women with breast cancer who will not need chemotherapy to do well,” said Dr. Rachel A. Freedman, a breast cancer oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She was not involved in the study. The researchers estimated that their findings, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine , would apply to 35,000 to 40,000 women a year in the United States, and 60,000 to 70,000 in Europe. They are patients with early disease who because of tumor size, cancerous lymph nodes and other factors would normally be prescribed chemo. Genomic tests, which doctors have been using for about 10 years in some breast cancer patients, are part of a growing effort to spare women from chemo and its harsh side effects whenever it is safe to do so. But the decision to forgo a potentially lifesaving treatment is never taken lightly, and doctors have been eager for more data to make sure they are on the right path. The new study is one of the largest and most rigorous trials of genomic testing, and offers reassurance to doctors and patients that the technology can be trusted to help identify patients who do not need chemo. But an editorial accompanying the report said the study was not the final word, and additional research now underway would provide more clarity. Although women who skipped chemo had low recurrence rates, their rates were slightly higher than those of women who had chemo. A test called Oncotype DX is widely used in the United States. The new study used another, called MammaPrint, which is used less often. The tests cost several thousand dollars, and insurance coverage varies. Dr. Kathryn J. Ruddy, a breast cancer specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not part of the research, said in an email that the study was important because “it will help more patients avoid the toxicities of chemotherapy (potentially including permanent nerve damage, heart failure and leukemia).” The risks from certain types of chemo increase with the patient’s age. The risk of leukemia is about 0.5 percent to 1 percent, and the heart risk can reach 4 percent or 5 percent in older women, Dr. Freedman said. The results of the study will be of most use for cases that have fallen into a gray zone, when the disease is in an early stage but has some anatomical features that suggest it may be aggressive. But the genomic test says it is low risk. “We all see these patients in our practice all the time,” Dr. Freedman said. “What do you do with that person?” The study involved women with early cases of the most common type of breast cancer: hormone-sensitive tumors that test negative for a receptor called her2. In the United States, about three quarters of breast cancers are that type. Early stage in the study referred to Stage 1 or 2, meaning the tumors were generally no bigger than five centimeters and had spread to no more than three lymph nodes. The study was done in Europe, where “early stage” includes somewhat larger tumors than would be included in the United States. More than half of the breast cancers in the United States are diagnosed at early stages. The research involved 6,693 women with early-stage breast cancer at 112 hospitals in nine European countries. The study was paid for by grants from governments, drug companies and charitable groups. Agendia, the company that markets MammaPrint, did the testing at no cost. The women had the usual initial treatments — surgery, hormonal therapy and radiation. Then, researchers determined whether each woman had a high or low risk of recurrence based on genomic testing and on clinical features like tumor size and number of positive lymph nodes. Sometimes, the clinical and genomic risks did not match. MammaPrint looks at the activity of 70 genes. In a low-risk tumor, 50 genes are turned off and 20 are active, according to Laura J. van ’t Veer, a molecular biologist at the University of California, San Francisco who was an author of the study and a developer of the test. In high-risk cases, 50 genes are on and 20 off. The researchers were especially interested in the women — about a quarter of those in the study — who seemed to have a high clinical risk but a low genomic risk. Dr. Fatima Cardoso, an author of the study and a breast oncologist at Champalimaud Clinical Center in Lisbon, said that traditionally, women with early cancer but a high clinical risk were usually given chemotherapy. She said that doctors knew that not all would benefit from it, but gave it to all anyway to err on the side of caution, because they could not identify which women did not really need it. The main goal of the study was to find out whether women with a high clinical risk but a low genomic risk could safely forgo chemo. There were 1,550 women with high clinical risk and low genomic risk. They were assigned at random to be treated according to their genomic risk or their clinical risk. So some received chemotherapy, and others did not. Then the researchers watched to see if any had distant spread of the cancer to other organs, which is often fatal. After five years, among those who did not receive chemotherapy, 94.4 percent had no distant spread. Those who received chemo fared slightly better: 95.9 percent had no distant spread. “We have to continue to follow these patients and see what happens at 10 years,” Dr. Cardoso said. But given the small difference so far, the researchers said that it was safe for women with early disease and high clinical risk, but low genomic risk, to skip chemotherapy. The findings, they said, mean that 46 percent of women with early-stage disease who are thought to be at high clinical risk may be able to skip chemo. An editorial accompanying the article praised the research but sounded a note of caution. The authors, Dr. Clifford A. Hudis and Dr. Maura N. Dickler, from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said that the study was not large enough to be sure that the 1.5-percentage-point difference would hold up statistically. The editorial also noted that other studies of genomic tests had identified groups of women in whom the five-year recurrence risk was only 1 percent, and asked what level of risk was acceptable. Patients’ attitudes also differ. Dr. Freedman said some women wanted no part of chemo, even if it offered a significant benefit. But, she added, “others line up at the door for almost no benefit, just so they can have peace of mind.”

Breast cancer
Chemotherapy
The New England Journal of Medicine
Fatima Cardoso
Medical test
Genetics and Heredity
Women and Girls


Comptroller Sees Financial Power as Tool to Advance Civil Rights

Abstract: Scott M. Stringer , the New York City comptroller, grew animated as he addressed a late spring conference of executives from minority-owned businesses. Voicing exasperation with what he called the homogeneous hue of the financial sector, Mr. Stringer demanded that investment funds hire more women and nonwhite employees, starting with the city’s youths. “What you really want to do is take our kids, start them at the bottom — and now we’re here,” Mr. Stringer said, pausing to allow the musical allusion to sink in for those familiar with it. “That’s what the Drake song says,” Mr. Stringer continued. “Start them at the bottom, and now we’re here.” Mr. Stringer, 55, does not look like a politician who would invoke hip-hop lyrics in a discourse on economic opportunity. A former Manhattan borough president, Mr. Stringer jokingly refers to his own status as a bespectacled white guy, and laments that too many big companies are run by people “who look like me.” (He sometimes adds: “With better suits.”) Yet since winning election to his job in 2013, after defeating former Gov. Eliot Spitzer in a Democratic primary, Mr. Stringer has sought to build a broader reputation for himself. After relying heavily on his Manhattan base to defeat Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Stringer has wooed community leaders with determined intensity, visiting churches and business associations to advertise the inventive ways he has wielded his powers as comptroller. Mr. Stringer has pursued that campaign, as a self-described social justice advocate, within the confines of a staid role: serving as the city’s accountant and the steward of its nearly $160 billion pension fund. He has drawn the widest notice, so far, for a series of financial settlements , totaling almost $38 million, with people wrongfully convicted of crimes and the families of victims of abuse in the criminal justice system. This month, Mr. Stringer announced a $5.9 million agreement with the family of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who died after being placed in a police chokehold last year. But the comptroller has also attacked New York’s low rate of contracting with female- and minority-owned businesses, and has talked in forceful terms about using the city’s pension fund as a bludgeon to open up insular investment firms. If companies do not look “like the city we serve,” Mr. Stringer told the group Asian Women in Business last month, “we just might not do business with them anymore.” Mr. Stringer has laid out a fiscal argument for his activities. Explaining why he had begun demanding diversity statistics from city investment funds, Mr. Stringer told one audience, “Diverse groups make fiscal decisions that are sound.” The settlement with Mr. Garner’s family, he said, reflected his desire to balance “the fiscal exposure of the city with the hope you can bring some relief” to family members. “I believe we have broken ground in this area,” Mr. Stringer said in an interview. If Mr. Stringer has stated a fiduciary rationale for his agenda, the political logic is perhaps even clearer. His positioning reflects the shifting calculus for ambitious Democrats in a city fixated on issues of racial justice. Should Mr. Stringer run for mayor in 2017 or after, his fate may well rest with constituencies far outside his deepest well of support on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where he has steadily climbed the ladder of Democratic politics since his days as a state legislator. The role Mr. Stringer is seeking to claim for himself may afford him new entree in those communities. With the Garner family and others, Mr. Stringer has avoided showy declarations of victory, typically issuing news releases and allowing the recipients and their lawyers to stage news conferences separately. (With some constituencies, the settlements have been less popular; Mr. Stringer’s agreement with the Garner family, for example, drew a sharp rebuke from the Sergeants Benevolent Association.) But Mr. Stringer has assertively advertised his role in appearances around the city, arguing that the financial power of the comptroller’s office has become a tool for advancing civil rights. In his speeches, one frequent refrain is that “there’s only one color” capable of rectifying the city’s social inequities. “That color, my friends, is green,” he said at a Caribbean American Heritage Month celebration in June. Mr. Stringer disavowed any plans to challenge Mayor Bill de Blasio, a fellow Democrat, in 2017. But every comptroller for decades has run for mayor, sooner or later, and Mr. Stringer has been shoveling money into his campaign account. He reported collecting more than $1 million so far for the 2017 elections and had nearly $900,000 stockpiled. (Mr. de Blasio had a little more than $3,000 in the bank; a spokesman said he had not yet begun to raise re-election funds.) Mr. Stringer explored a campaign for mayor in 2012, before opting to run for comptroller instead. In 2009, he briefly considered challenging in a Democratic primary Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand , who was appointed to the Senate from the House of Representatives. Bonnie Wong , president of Asian Women in Business, said she saw Mr. Stringer making a concerted effort to reach beyond his roots as “an Upper West Side white liberal.” She said Mr. Stringer had surprised some community leaders with his aggressiveness in tackling corporate diversity since moving up from the borough president’s post. “That position wasn’t that powerful,” Ms. Wong said. “It was mostly a figurehead, so he didn’t do that much. But he’s amazing. He’s like the Energizer Bunny. He’s all over the place. I see a changed person.” The Rev. A. R. Bernard , a prominent Brooklyn pastor whose congregation Mr. Stringer recently addressed, said the comptroller talked there about his settlements for wrongful convictions. “In three minutes, he did pretty well,” the pastor said. Mr. Bernard said his bond with Mr. Stringer was a work in progress. “We’ve had a relationship for a while, and it’s off and on,” he said. “It’s not, I would say, a deep friendship.” If Mr. Stringer is working intently to deepen his network of relationships now, the political task ahead of him may demand it. His race for comptroller in 2013 revealed a stark geographic and racial pattern to his political coalition: Mr. Stringer narrowly triumphed over Mr. Spitzer thanks to his overwhelming support in upscale Manhattan, as well as from whites and college-educated voters outside Manhattan, according to exit polls. Mr. Spitzer, a better known candidate who spent millions from his personal fortune on television advertising, won over a majority of black and Hispanic New Yorkers, and voters making under $50,000 a year. Gregory Floyd, the president of Teamsters Local 237, said the agenda Mr. Stringer has pursued in office was forged in that primary. “I saw him come up with an agenda, come up with a mandate on what he needs to do as city comptroller,” Mr. Floyd said. “He has a vision. That’s what I saw come out of that.” At times, Mr. Stringer’s articulation of that vision can sound like an implicit critique of Mr. de Blasio. The mayor has made economic inequality his signature issue, and presented himself as a lifelong activist and political organizer. Mr. Stringer tells his audiences that activism is important, but at some point it must give way to the hard use of government power. Mr. Stringer also came out last week against Mr. de Blasio’s failed effort to limit the growth of the car-hailing service Uber. His job, Mr. Stringer said at an event in June, was to translate “the marches and the speeches and the organizing” into “critical ways to change the economic power structure in this country.” In an interview, the comptroller insisted he was not trying to draw a contrast in his rhetoric with any other politicians. “I do not compare or contrast what I’m doing with anybody,” he said. “I just don’t.”

Scott M Stringer
NYC
Minorities
Women and Girls
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Comptroller race
Democrats
Race and Ethnicity
Civil Rights


Signs of Strain in the Stock and Bond Love Affair

Abstract: It has been easy for stock investors to love bonds as they have generated handsome returns while providing protection when the stock market falls. Until recently, bond and stock prices have generally moved in opposite directions when stocks falter. But something different happened in September, and it could render bonds a weaker tool for portfolio diversification. On Sept. 9, when the stock market fell 2.45 percent in a single day, the bond market did not follow its traditional script. Instead of rallying, the average core bond portfolio tracked by Morningstar dipped 0.34 percent that day. The one-day loss for many funds, including Vanguard Total Bond Market, iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond, Pimco Total Return and Metropolitan West Total Return, while less than a half a percentage point, still amounted to more than 10 percent of their current yield. In itself, a loss like that isn’t going to upend anyone’s retirement plan, but it doesn’t merely portend declining long-term returns for bonds: It could also reduce the buffering effect of bonds in a portfolio that contains stocks. Jeffrey Knight, co-head of Global Asset Allocation at Columbia Threadneedle, says that problem is likely to continue in the future. In his view, what happened on Sept. 9 is “exhibit A” for what he expects to play out when central banks start to tap the brakes on their aggressive policies to stimulate economic growth. “Both stock and bond values have been driven up by monetary policy, and as we approach an inflection point where that policy changes, they both have the same reason to sell off,” Mr. Knight said. We may indeed be closer to that inflection point. While the Federal Reserve chose to leave short-term interest rates unchanged at its September meeting, the latest odds put a very high probability on a December increase. In the meantime, the yield of the 10-year Treasury rate has quietly inched up from below 1.4 percent in early July to 1.7 percent. That is still well below the 2.25 percent at the beginning of the year, but it signals that a shift may be underway. James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, is mindful that previous rate increases in the bond market have quickly reversed themselves, but he says that this time may really be different. Without the Federal Reserve’s intervention, Mr. Paulsen says, the 10-year Treasury yield would be in the vicinity of 4 percent based on current levels of economic growth, core inflation and wage growth. “I am not suggesting we are headed there this year,” he said. “But if this recovery persists, and the Fed takes its peg off, I would not be at all surprised to see us around 4 percent before the next recession.” If that were to play out, rising yields would mean bond prices would fall. Total return is the sum of yield and changes in bond prices. Today’s razor-thin yields of around 2 percent for quality bond funds suggest that initial total returns will probably be negative, though over time patient investors will benefit from the reinvestment of higher yields. The challenge is to anticipate today how you might react to a less rosy performance for bonds — which have returned 4 percent annualized over the last 15 years — and make any necessary portfolio tweaks. “Diversification still works, but the way to think about it is that the cost of diversification has gone up,” says Richard Turnill, global chief investment strategist at BlackRock. Because bonds don’t have much room to rally at current price and yield levels, they may merely hold steady, or potentially lose a little when stocks falter. The implications are worth considering. It could mean slightly larger bear market losses for diversified stock and bond portfolios. In 2008, for example, when United States stocks fell 37 percent, high-quality core bonds rallied more than 5 percent. An investor with a standard, index-based portfolio containing 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds lost about 20 percent that year. But bonds rallied while stocks fell. If bonds hadn’t risen in value but instead had lost 2 percent, the portfolio would have lost 23 percent. While not cheery news, that’s not an end-of-days prospect. Core bond funds that invest in high-quality United States securities may not produce world-beating returns, but they are not likely to lose much, either. One important aspect of core bond funds — their relatively short 5.5-year average duration — should prevent big losses. Duration is a measure of a bond portfolio’s sensitivity to changing interest rates. A one percentage point rise in a portfolio’s yield typically causes the price to fall in line with its duration. That translates to a 5.5 percent price decline for a core bond fund with a 5.5-year duration if rates were to rise one percentage point. In the spirit of hypothetical stress testing, Vanguard crunched the numbers for what would be a highly unlikely event: an abrupt three percentage point increase in the yield of the Barclays U.S. Aggregate index from its current very low 1.95 percent. The index has a current duration of 5.5 years. That increase would produce a return of negative 13.1 percent in the first year. If rates stabilized after that move, the cumulative loss by the end of the second year would be 8.75 percent. Returns would be back above break even in Year 4 thanks to the reinvestment of the much higher yield. How bad would that be? It depends on your perspective. “In a horrible, truly worst-case scenario, a high-quality bond index fund is still less risky over the course of a year than stocks are in one day,” says the investment adviser Allan Roth, founder of Wealth Logic in Colorado Springs, alluding to the 20 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index on Oct. 19, 1987. A well-honed actively managed bond fund might mitigate a portfolio’s sensitivity to rising rates. For example, right now bond index funds that closely mirror the Barclays U.S. Aggregate index are loaded with Treasury and government agency bonds. Those are what you want when markets falter, but they have extremely low yields today and typically are very sensitive to rising rates. By comparison, the Baird Core Plus Bond has the freedom to decide on its bond mix. “Trying to hit a lot of singles, and not swing for home runs” as the fund’s co-manager, Mary Ellen Stanek, describes the strategy, has delivered index-beating performance since the fund’s 2000 inception. The fund also ranks in the top quartile of its peers over the last one-, three-, five- and 10-year periods. Currently, the fund’s Treasury stake is much lower than what is stuffed in its benchmark index, and it owns a lot more American corporate bonds. On average, high-quality corporate bonds currently have yields that are at least one percentage point higher than Treasury bonds. “We think we’re in the seventh inning for corporate bonds. The fundamentals look pretty good,” says Warren Pierson, also a co-manager. Another option, and a conservative one, is to move some of your money out of bonds and into cash. Even investment strategists — a tribe always at the ready with the best relative values in stocks and bonds — acknowledge the “optionality” value of cash these days, which is an obtuse way of saying it makes sense to have some money on the sidelines ready to get back in the game after sell-offs. “The opportunity cost in the short run is low,” says Mr. Turnill, the BlackRock strategist. Mr. Roth, the Wealth Logic founder, has made five-year certificates of deposit the centerpiece of his clients’ fixed-income portfolios. For example, the current 1.75 percent yield offered on deposits of at least $25,000 by Ally Bank is nearly on par with the 1.95 percent yield of the Barclays Aggregate bond index. Even in the event of paying the penalty for an early withdrawal, the effective yield would be more than 1 percent. “We have no principal risk, and our money is 100 percent government guaranteed,” says Mr. Roth. (If you’re looking to remove some rate risk from your 401(k) portfolio, check if there is a so-called stable value fund in your plan; the average current yield is 1.8 percent, according to Hueler Analytics.) Of course, cash is a market timing call, and market timing is not easy to do properly. What’s more, cash or liquid investments like money market funds or short-term CDs aren’t likely to keep pace with inflation in the long run. But if you become deeply worried about bonds and stocks, cash is not the worst place to wait out a shifting market.

Debt
Stocks,Bonds
Government bond
Interest rate
Banking and Finance
Asset allocation
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Federal Reserve


G.M. Rescinds White-Collar Pay Cuts

Abstract: DETROIT (AP) — General Motors , in an effort to keep employees happy as it tries to climb back to profitability, has rescinded white-collar pay cuts it made last spring, when it was working to conserve cash and avoid filing for bankruptcy protection. The struggling automaker was losing staff members because its pay scales were no longer competitive with other automakers and manufacturing companies, a spokesman, Tom Wilkinson, said Friday. He said he did not know how many workers had left or exactly how many were affected by the cuts. G.M. is trying to lure buyers back to its brands and fix its image after filing for Chapter 11 earlier this year. This weekend it will introduce a new advertising campaign that offers to buy back cars and trucks within 60 days of their sale if customers are not satisfied with them. The earlier pay cuts, ranging from 3 percent for many lower-level workers to 10 percent for executives, saved the company about $50 million, but in the end it did have to spend 40 days under bankruptcy court protection, emerging on July 10. The cuts affected workers in the United States and Canada as well as some overseas countries. “We’re into a period where employee morale is really important as we’re starting to launch products and rebuild the business,” Mr. Wilkinson said. The company has about 25,000 salaried workers in the United States, mainly in the Detroit area. Salaries for some employees at the bottom of the pay grades were not cut. The pay restoration, which began Sept. 1, will be financed primarily with government dollars, at least for now. But Mr. Wilkinson said keeping good employees and selling more vehicles would help G.M. turn around and increase the value of the company when the time came for the stock sale. He said the Treasury Department reviewed the pay restoration. Rescinding the pay cuts does not affect the company’s 25 top-paid executives, Mr. Wilkinson said. Because G.M. is receiving government aid, their compensation is controlled by the Obama administration’s “pay czar.”

General Motors
Automobiles
Wages and Salaries
Layoffs and Job Reductions


Hurricane Helps to Lift Auto Sales to 4-Year High

Abstract: DETROIT — Automakers said on Monday that new-vehicle sales in the United States rose 15 percent in November, as the replacement of cars and trucks damaged in Hurricane Sandy contributed to the industry’s best monthly sales rate in four years. The strong performance of most car companies indicated that total sales for this year would exceed most forecasts and suggested that the industry’s revival would continue into 2013. Preliminary figures showed that 1.14 million vehicles were sold in November, in contrast to 994,000 in the same month a year ago, according to the research firm Autodata. That pace translates into a seasonally adjusted annual sales rate of about 15.5 million vehicles — the highest rate recorded since January 2008. “November was a very good month, but December has the potential to be even better,” said Jesse Toprak, chief analyst for the auto information Web site TrueCar.com . Analysts said from 20,000 to 30,000 sales during the month were tied to consumers replacing vehicles that were flooded or destroyed in the hurricane that decimated portions of the East Coast in late October. Estimates of damaged vehicles have run as high as 200,000, but Mr. Toprak said only about one-fourth of those cars would be replaced with new ones. “The replacement value will in most cases only be enough to replace a used car with another used car,” he said. The main reasons for the healthy sales in November were the same ones that had driven the overall industry this year — the need to replace aging cars on the road and the steady supply of fresh, new models with superior fuel economy. General Motors, the nation’s largest automaker, had one of the weaker performances among the major car companies. G.M. said its November sales increased just 3.4 percent, mostly because of a drop in truck sales. G.M. plans to replace its current pickup trucks next year with new versions, but is losing ground to competitors in the segment in the interim. The company also did not benefit much from hurricane-related sales because its market share is lower than Japanese rivals in some of the affected areas. Ford Motor Company reported that its sales during the month were up 6.4 percent, primarily because of the popularity of its small Focus sedan and C-Max hybrid models. Ford, in fact, trailed G.M. by fewer than 10,000 sales during November, with General Motors selling 186,000 vehicles in contrast to Ford’s 177,000. Chrysler, the smallest of Detroit’s three carmakers, continued its stellar results this year with a 14.4 percent increase in the month. Over all, Chrysler sold 122,000 vehicles, including 3,600 cars made by its Italian parent company, Fiat. The two largest Japanese automakers, Toyota and Honda, posted sizable increases that were partly attributed to the replacement of storm-battered vehicles. Toyota said its November sales jumped 17.2 percent, to 161,000 vehicles, and Honda reported a 38.9 percent increase, to 116,000. Honda’s large market share in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut was cited by analysts as a key factor in its overall results. “Honda is the most popular brand in the tristate area,” said Jessica Caldwell, an analyst with the car research site Edmunds.com . “So when life returned to normal, those car buyers quickly made up for lost time.” Nissan, the third major Japanese car company, said its sales increased 12.9 percent during the month, to 96,000 vehicles. The German automakers Volkswagen and BMW did well in November, partly on the strength of revamped versions of top sellers such as the VW Passat and the BMW 3-series. Industry executives said positive economic conditions should propel sales even higher next year. In particular, an increase in housing starts has encouraged some businesses to begin buying new pickup trucks and utility vehicles. The executives, however, said there was some concern about the outcome of discussions in Washington to avert the package of tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to go into effect at the end of the year. “Until we can see some resolution, we are going to be conservative and not issue a sales forecast for 2013,” said Kurt McNeil, G.M.’s head of United States sales operations.

Automobiles
Shopping and Retail
Hurricane Sandy (2012)


Avalanche Edge Canadiens

Abstract: Jarome Iginla scored twice, including the go-ahead goal with 2 minutes 3 seconds remaining, and the host Colorado Avalanche beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2. Iginla has 606 career N.H.L. goals. Erik Johnson added a short-handed goal for the Avalanche. Andrei Markov and Lars Eller scored for the Canadiens. ■ Commissioner Gary Bettman upheld Calgary Flames defenseman Dennis Wideman’s 20-game suspension for crosschecking the linesman Don Henderson during a game against Nashville on Jan. 27.

Ice hockey
Colorado Avalanche
Montreal Canadiens


Philanthropist Admits Stealing More Than $1 Million From Charity

Abstract: For most of his long and very public life as a philanthropist, William E. Rapfogel has been surrounded by powerful friends and politicians, chief among them Sheldon Silver, the New York State Assembly speaker. But as he sat in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, about to plead guilty to several criminal charges, Mr. Rapfogel was all alone. Grim-faced in a dark suit and black skullcap, Mr. Rapfogel quietly read passages from a well-thumbed copy of the Torah while his lawyers, Alan Vinegrad and Paul L. Shechtman, went over terms of a plea agreement. Image Mr. Rapfogel with his other lawyer Alan Vinegrad, left. Credit Brian Harkin for The New York Times A few minutes later, Mr. Rapfogel, 59, stood before Justice Larry Stephen and admitted stealing more than $1 million from the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, the influential social service organization he had led for more than two decades. Mr. Rapfogel said he had overseen a scheme for 20 years, colluding with the owner of an insurance company and two other executives at the charity to overcharge the council for insurance policies and skim off cash. The state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, said they had looted more than $9 million from the nonprofit. The plea marked a stunning downfall for a man once considered one of the New York City’s most respected philanthropists, whose work and close ties to Mr. Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, gave him influence and prominence in political circles. In the end, no one stood with Mr. Rapfogel as he pleaded guilty to grand larceny, money laundering, tax fraud and filing false documents to the city campaign finance board. His wife, Judy, the longtime chief of staff to Mr. Silver, was not there; neither was Mr. Silver, who over the years has allocated millions of public dollars to Met Council. Plea Agreement for William E. Rapfogel An agreement that Mr. Rapfogel entered into with the attorney general’s office in which he agreed to plead guilty. He also promised to pay $3 million in restitution. Mr. Rapfogel will be sentenced to 31/3 to 10 years in prison and must pay $3 million in restitution to the charity; to date, he has repaid $1.8 million. If he fails to pay the full restitution by his sentencing date, July 16, he will be sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, Gary T. Fishman, an assistant attorney general, said in court. Mr. Rapfogel, the former chief executive of the council, did not apologize publicly, and gave only a short explanation of what he had done, saying he had “knowingly helped steal more than $1 million from the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty as part of a scheme in which insurance premiums were overstated.” According to a plea agreement filed in court and an earlier criminal complaint, Mr. Rapfogel gave about $350,000 of the stolen funds to one of his three sons to buy a home. The agreement states the attorney general will not seek to recover that money from the son, who has not been identified, though Mr. Rapfogel has promised to pay it back. Neither Mr. Silver nor Ms. Rapfogel has been linked to the financial irregularities at the Met Council, and they have denied any knowledge of Mr. Rapfogel’s activities. The assembly speaker issued a terse statement about Mr. Rapfogel’s plea, saying simply: “I am deeply saddened by this entire episode.” Ms. Rapfogel declined to comment through a spokesman, Stu Loeser. Court Information for William E. Rapfogel Mr. Rapfogel pleaded guilty to charges contained in a Superior Court Information document drawn up by the attorney general’s office. An hour earlier, another defendant charged in the scheme, David Cohen, who was Mr. Rapfogel’s predecessor at the council, pleaded guilty to grand larceny and conspiracy before Justice Michael J. Obus. Mr. Cohen, 70, promised to pay back $650,000 that he said he had stolen from the charity starting in 1992, and he has already returned $500,000, prosecutors said. He will serve one year in prison under an agreement reached between his lawyer, Alan M. Abramson, and the attorney general’s office. Mr. Cohen, in his statement to the court, said he set up the scheme in 1992, conspiring with Herb Friedman, who was the chief financial officer, and Joseph Ross, the owner of Met Council’s insurance broker, Century Coverage Corporation. Mr. Ross, 58, admitted to his role in the fraud in December, pleading guilty to grand larceny, money laundering and tax fraud. Mr. Friedman was also arrested and will face conspiracy charges. At heart it was a simple scheme, Mr. Cohen said. The insurance company submitted inflated invoices to the council, which in turn paid the bills. Mr. Ross would then send the difference between the true cost of the insurance and the inflated amount to Mr. Cohen in cash. Mr. Cohen said in court that in the early years, the stolen money totaled about $20,000 to $30,000 a year. Court Information for David Cohen Mr. Cohen plead guilty to the charges contained in the Superior Court Information document. Six months after the scheme started, Mr. Rapfogel took over as the charity’s chief executive, and soon began getting a share of the money, Mr. Cohen said. In 1995, Mr. Rapfogel took over running the scheme; by 2013, Mr. Rapfogel was receiving $30,000 a month, Mr. Cohen said. Mr. Cohen, who is to be sentenced on July 9, said he and Mr. Rapfogel also funneled some of the illicit money to candidates running for office, asking Mr. Ross to make contributions not only in his name but also in the names of his employees and partners in the company. “These campaign contributions were made to politicians Willie and I thought would help Met Council — mainly, candidates for city elected offices,” Mr. Cohen told the judge. A criminal complaint filed against Mr. Ross said he had channeled at least $120,000 of the stolen funds to candidates for city office over the last 20 years. Met Council receives much of its funding through state and city grants and contracts, as well as from funds earmarked by individual lawmakers. Mr. Rapfogel’s scheme began to unravel last year after officials at Met Council received an anonymous letter detailing improprieties with insurance payments, and a law firm hired to investigate found evidence that the payments had been padded. Mr. Rapfogel, who received a $400,000 salary, was fired in August. That investigation prompted the attorney general and the state comptroller to start a criminal inquiry. Facing lengthy prison sentences, Mr. Ross, Mr. Friedman and Mr. Cohen all agreed to cooperate with investigators, according to defense lawyers.

Metropolitan New York Council on Jewish Poverty


Ken Venturi, Golf Champion and Broadcaster, Dies at 82

Abstract: Ken Venturi, who won the 1964 United States Open while nearing collapse from heat exhaustion and who was later the longtime chief golf analyst for CBS Sports, died on Friday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 82. Venturi’s son, Matt, told The Associated Press that his father had been hospitalized the last two months for a spinal infection, pneumonia and an intestinal infection. Venturi had a five-way heart bypass surgery and valve repair in December 2006. Venturi, who had recently been elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, won 14 tournaments between 1957 and 1966 in a career cut short by circulatory problems in his hands. He first gained notice in 1956 as an amateur when he led the Masters by four shots entering the final round, only to shoot an 80, losing to Jack Burke Jr. by a stroke. He was the runner-up at the Masters again in 1960, a shot behind Arnold Palmer, who birdied the final two holes. But Venturi’s signature moment came at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., on a Saturday in June 1964. Temperatures were approaching 100 degrees, and the humidity seemed unconquerable as the players struggled to play 36 holes, the last time the Open staged its final two rounds on a single day. Venturi had not won since the 1960 Milwaukee Open, had considering quitting and had been required to participate in two qualifying events before being allowed into the Open. He almost collapsed from the heat on the 17th green of his morning round but carded a remarkable 66. Going into the final 18 holes, Venturi was two shots behind the leader, Tommy Jacobs. After a 45-minute break, Venturi virtually staggered through the final round, trailed by Dr. John Everett, who was monitoring the players and who had warned him against continuing out of fear he would die from heat prostration. Everett gave Venturi ice cubes, iced tea and salt pills as he played on, instinct triumphing over the pressure and the exhaustion. Venturi overtook Jacobs and sank a 10-foot putt on the final hole to close out a 70, besting Jacobs by four shots. “I dropped my putter and I raised my arms up to the sky,” Venturi told The A.P. in 1997. “I said, ‘My God, I’ve won the Open.’ The applause was deafening. It was like thunder coming out there.” Venturi was so weak that he could not reach into the hole to get his ball, so Raymond Floyd, his playing partner, did it for him. Image Venturi, the chief golf analyst for CBS Sports, in 2002. He overcame a stammering problem as a child. Credit Roberto Borea/Associated Press “I felt this hand on me, and it was Raymond Floyd handing me the ball,” Venturi remembered. “I looked at him, and he had tears streaming down his face.” As Floyd later told The A.P.: “He was running on fumes. If you had asked him his name, he could not have told you. It is one of the most heroic things I have ever seen.” Venturi was helped off the green by the United States Golf Association official Joe Dye and was so woozy that he could not read his scorecard. Dye assured him that it was correct and that he could sign it. Venturi was named PGA player of the year for 1964 and was selected for the 1965 Ryder Cup team. By then, he had developed carpal tunnel syndrome and had surgery, hoping to relieve cold and numbness in his hands. But he never regained his form and soon retired. He overcame a stammering problem as a child and was hired by CBS to provide commentary on the PGA Tour; he remained with the network for 35 years, retiring in 2002. “With that exhausting, emotional victory, Venturi established a bond with viewers,” Peter McCleery wrote in Golf Digest in 2002, recalling Venturi’s triumph in the Open. “His strength as an analyst has been the passion and conviction he brought to the booth. He said things with such authority and in such absolute terms that you believed him, or wanted to.” Venturi was born and reared in San Francisco, where his father, Fred, a skilled workman on the docks, ran the golf shop at the Harding Park municipal golf course. He began playing as a youngster and honed his game by playing repeated fade and draw shots in solitary drills. Venturi became the San Francisco interscholastic golf champion, and he played at San Jose State University, where he received a degree in physical education. Byron Nelson, whom Venturi idolized as a youngster, later tutored him. He is survived by his third wife, Kathleen, and two sons, Matthew and Tim, according to The Associated Press. Venturi engaged in many charitable endeavors while working as a broadcaster, most notably the Guiding Eyes Classic, an event in New York that included blind golfers and raised more than $6 million to provide dogs for the blind. He told Golf Digest in 2004 how a guide dog from the program saved his owner, a man named Omar Rivera, in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, leading him down 71 floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. As Venturi recalled it: “At a Guiding Eyes gala at Rockefeller Plaza, Omar came forward and told his story. Toward the end, he said, ‘This dog came from Ken Venturi.’ I cry easily enough as it is, but I cried buckets that day.”

Ken Venturi
Golf
US Open Golf
Obituary
CBS Sports


Cristiano Ronaldo Pulls Real Madrid Back From the Brink

Abstract: MADRID — Cristiano Ronaldo led Real Madrid to a remarkable comeback victory in the Champions League, scoring all three goals in a 3-0 win over Wolfsburg on Tuesday that overturned last week’s unexpected 2-0 first-leg defeat in Germany. The big victory put Madrid into the Champions League semifinals for the sixth consecutive year and kept alive its chances of turning around what has been, by its standards, a lackluster season across all competitions. After Madrid dominated the first 15 minutes of play, Ronaldo erased Wolfsburg’s first-leg advantage in less than two minutes, tapping in a goal from close range off a deflected cross from Dani Carvajal and then, in the 17th minute, scoring on a perfect header from a corner kick. Ronaldo’s second goal came just as fans had stopped chanting his name in celebration of his first. Shortly afterward, Wolfsburg sustained what looked like another devastating blow as its most versatile player, the 22-year-old Julian Draxler, limped off with an injury. Draxler had led Wolfsburg past Gent in the previous round, and he had also been one of the main artisans of last week’s win over Madrid, in which he repeatedly bamboozled Danilo, a prominent Madrid addition last summer who was replaced by Carvajal in Tuesday’s lineup. Curiously, though, Wolfsburg followed Draxler’s exit with its best spell of the game. A powerful long-range shot from Luiz Gustavo was tipped by Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas. A few minutes later, Bruno Henrique received the ball in front of the goal, Wolfsburg’s best opportunity. He hesitated before shooting, giving Madrid’s defenders enough time to regroup and block his effort. While Madrid started the second half again on the attack, it took a set piece and another goal from Ronaldo, in the 77th minute, to finally swing the matchup in Madrid’s favor. The shot was not one of Ronaldo’s vintage free kicks, but it split open Wolfsburg’s poorly positioned defensive wall and bounced past the outstretched Diego Benaglio. Late in the match, Benaglio produced two outstanding saves to keep Wolfsburg in the matchup, palming away curling shots from Karim Benzema and then Jesé Rodríguez. That made for a tense ending: Because of the away-goals tiebreaker, one score would have been enough for Wolfsburg to advance. Ultimately, though, Wolfsburg lacked the creativity and firepower up front to punch through a Madrid defense that showed far more discipline than it had last week. Madrid’s season is far from salvaged. In January, Madrid gambled on ousting the experienced coach Rafael Benítez and appointing Zinedine Zidane, an iconic former player but an untested coach. And Madrid is third in the Spanish league, 4 points behind Barcelona and 1 behind Atlético Madrid. But this month, Zidane has passed two of the most serious tests for any Real Madrid coach, winning a Clásico at Barcelona, the team’s archrival, and then managing Tuesday’s Champions League comeback. Madrid had last overturned a 2-0 deficit in a European tie 31 years ago, against Inter Milan. After Madrid had ousted Wolfsburg, Zidane described the game as “my best night as coach.” Inevitably, he had special words of praise for Ronaldo. “Cristiano is showing what he is, the best player in the world,” Zidane said. Ronaldo “needs others to score,” Zidane added, but “it’s clear that not everybody can score three goals.” Ronaldo, whose hat trick gave him 16 goals in Champions League play this season, told reporters, “I said it would be a magic night, and that is what happened.” Madrid, of course, should probably not have needed that magic against Wolfsburg, which had never made the quarterfinals before. Last summer, Wolfsburg sold the rights to its star player, Kevin De Bruyne, to Manchester City, and without him, the team has struggled this season in the Bundesliga. After its stunning first-leg win over Madrid, Wolfsburg managed only a draw at home against Mainz last week, leaving the club in eighth and unlikely to qualify for any European competition next season. All of Madrid’s advantages, though — in its talent and in its finances — did not temper the joy around its packed Santiago Bernabéu stadium at the end of Tuesday’s game. Fifteen minutes later, Madrid’s captain, Sergio Ramos, led a handful of players back onto the field to celebrate once more with the remaining fans. Outside the gates, other fans welcomed what they felt was a coming-of-age for their recently appointed coach, using Zidane’s nickname as they chanted, “Zizou coach!”

Soccer
UEFA Champions League
Real Madrid
Cristiano Ronaldo


Foreign Automakers See Potential in Russian Market

Abstract: NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia — Sleek and glistening, the General Motors sedans creep off the assembly line here. They are as new as cars can get. And so is the assembly line, where the first test cars emerged this month. Even as G.M. is scaling back elsewhere in Europe, the company is ramping up production in Russia, a country that is becoming a bright spot for G.M. and much of the rest of the automotive industry. Trickle-down oil wealth and the spread of easily accessible auto financing are lifting sales, which rose by 40 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period a year ago. G.M., Ford , Volkswagen , Nissan and Renault are all opening new plants, or intend to do so soon. The new G.M. line in this picturesque town, an old center of the Russian car industry on the Volga River, will manufacture 30,000 Aveo sedans a year. Cars, held up on jacks, move along the assembly line and end up in a brilliantly illuminated inspection room, where every inch is carefully examined; the factory is trying to get defects down to G.M. standards. If all goes well, production will start in January. The site is one of half a dozen facilities that G.M. runs in Russia, where the Detroit carmaker intends to invest $1 billion over the next five years. The money is a good bet today, analysts of the Russian market say, for the same reason that politics here recently got a jolt with street protests: the Russian middle class is rising, and becoming a force in both commerce and public life. “I would put Russia in the same breath as China,” Timothy E. Lee, the head of G.M.’s international division, said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a plant in St. Petersburg last summer, which will make midprice sedans. Russians are snatching up foreign-branded cars. The Hyundai Solaris was the best-selling vehicle in Russia last year. And Hyundai, Nissan and Renault all did well in the first 11 months of this year, with sales increases ranging from 11 to 23 percent. Over all, Russian sales are now approaching three million cars annually, according to the Association of European Businesses, a group that tracks sales here as part of its efforts to promote trade between Russia and the European Union. Russia is projected to surpass Germany and become the largest car market in Europe in 2014. It is already nipping at Germany’s lead. In August, Russians bought more cars than Germans did, before sales tapered off in the fall. International car companies say the best way to benefit from the growth is through investing heavily in Russian manufacturing, elbowing aside local brands. Russia’s automobile industry survived the financial crisis not through subsidies, though these were handed out, but through a willingness to embrace foreign manufacturers — even if that hurt homegrown brands like the Lada and the Volga, the model once made in the plant here. Russians have shown little nostalgia for their own cars. “I’m glad they’re gone,” said Nikolai Chernyshov, a 34-year-old lawyer, as his family spilled out of a Ford Focus at a shopping center. He has not shed a tear, he said, for the Lada he once drove. “No matter what effort we put into making them better, they never got any better,” he said. The Volga, an overpowered slab of steel, was once the vehicle of choice for K.G.B. agents. It even had an ominous nickname, the Black Raven. But the cars often broke down, diminishing their cachet. Last year, the last Volga rolled out of the Gorky Automobile Factory, clearing enough floor space for three foreign manufacturers — G.M., Volkswagen and Mercedes — which collectively now employ about 5,000 people. “We are only helped by being brutally honest with ourselves,” said Bo Andersson, a former G.M. executive hired in 2009 to manage the transition. “It’s a shame we lost the Volga,” Aleksandr Kazanin, a worker here, said. “But we’re still here. We kept our jobs.” Avtovaz, the maker of Russia’s other main brand, the Lada, is also charting a future based on a strategy of forming joint ventures with foreign car companies — in its case, Nissan of Japan and Renault of France. Just this month, the French-Japanese alliance formalized an agreement to buy a controlling stake in Avtovaz from the Russian government, bringing all of the country’s car industry under foreign management or ownership for the first time in the post-Soviet period. Last spring, Avtovaz, located in Togliatti down the Volga River from here, halted the 38-year production run of its Lada Classic, the boxy and much-maligned people’s car of the former Eastern Bloc that was originally based on a Fiat design. The new version of the Lada will be based on the chassis of a Renault Logan, a car already selling briskly. Nissan has said it would use some factory floor space — available because of the end of the old Lada production — to reintroduce its Datsun brand, last seen in the 1980s but being revived as a bargain car for fast-growing developing markets where people are entering the middle class. G.M. is also investing in the Avtovaz factory, one of the world’s largest car plants by acreage. G.M. will spend $200 million to expand a joint venture making a Chevrolet sport utility vehicle called the Niva, which has been a hit here. Russia is now the world’s ninth-largest economy, but the seventh-largest car market, showing the Russians’ tendency, after decades of deprivation in the Soviet period, to splurge on cars over other purchases. There are now 250 cars for every 1,000 people in Russia, which places the country about midway between emerging markets in Asia and developed markets in Europe. By comparison, India has 11 cars for every 1,000 people; China, 49; Germany, 515; and the United States, 643. “It makes sense to invest where you have a good growth,” Vladimir Bespalov, an automotive analyst with VTB Bank, said in a telephone interview. “This is the trend, and the growth is in the emerging markets.” The four big auto groups — Ford, Renault, G.M. and Volkswagen — have signed agreements with the ministry of economy to each increase local production to 350,000 cars a year, build engine factories, and invest in research and development. These foreign carmakers are choosing to manufacture in Russia instead of importing vehicles in part because of the country’s onerous rules on imported cars. Despite Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization this year, which lowered tariffs, the government has continued to nudge companies to invest in local production by imposing a $700 fee on imported cars, ostensibly for recycling the vehicle when it breaks down. Russian plants avoid the fee. They promise instead to accept irreparably broken-down cars at the factory for recycling, presumably after being towed back. Critics call it a fanciful idea, an example of Russian red tape thinly disguising protectionist policies. This is fine by Mr. Andersson, the G.M. executive now working here. “I like Russia because it’s difficult,” he said. “If it were easy, I would have a lot of competition.”

Russia
International Trade and World Market
Automobiles
Factories and Manufacturing
General Motors
Renault SA
Ford Motor Co
Volkswagen AG
Nissan Motor Co


Are There Drops to Reverse Eye Dilation?

Abstract: Q. Why do doctors dilate your eyes for an exam, and are there any drops to reverse the dilation? A. Doctors use a class of drugs called mydriatics to widen the pupil, enabling them to see the retina and optic nerve. Depending on the drug, mydriatics work by paralyzing the muscle that makes the pupil smaller or by stimulating the muscle that dilates the iris. There is an antidilation drug, dapiprazole, that blocks stimulation of the muscle that widens the iris. In a 1994 clinical study , published in the journal Optometry and Vision Science, the drug was tested in one eye in 30 subjects who had been given drops containing the dilation drug tropicamide. Average recovery time was significantly less in the treated eyes, and comfortable reading ability returned after about 43 minutes with dapiprazole, compared with 66 minutes without it. All subjects had red eyes that persisted for a 180-minute observation period. Dr. Stanley Chang, chairman of ophthalmology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, said that dapiprazole was popular with his patients and that it usually brought the pupils down in about an hour. But he added that the drug was now off the market in this country; he said he was not sure why. “There are no other compounds available to reverse dilation at this point,” he said. “However, the effect of most dilating drops wears off in about two hours, and the patient is able to resume reading.” C. CLAIBORNE RAY

Eyes and Eyesight
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Medicine and Health
Science and Technology


India’s National Election Spreads $3 Billion Around

Abstract: NEW DELHI — India ’s monthlong nationwide election is often called the world’s largest exercise in democracy. It could also be regarded as a big economic stimulus engine. Candidates and parties spent $3 billion on everything, including transportation, advertising, celebrity endorsements and cash bribes over the course of the campaign, according to economists and political analysts. In comparison, the last United States presidential campaign cost an estimated $2.4 billion. The campaign, which will wrap up Saturday with a final tally of the votes, is trickling through the economy and plumping earnings at television stations, advertising agencies, florists, airlines, car companies and gas stations. It is adding to the business for sweets manufacturers, priests and astrologers. The programs are so extensive that the amount of money spent in India will give a 0.5 percent boost to the country’s gross domestic product for two quarters of this year, says Kotak Securities, a brokerage firm. “Every candidate spent money on pujas and rituals,” said K. N. Somayaji, an astrologer and Brahman priest in Bangalore. He says more than 200 candidates called him for his services, which include invoking Kali, the goddess of victory. The most elaborate ritual he performed during this election involved 350 priests from Kerala and cost more than $300,000, he said. The staid industries actually sop up most of the campaign spending. Air travel and advertising make up the biggest expenses, said Amitabh Sinha, the national convenor (a sort of campaign manager) for the Bhartiya Janta Party. Air time for television ads in particular has risen nearly 1,500 percent since the last election, according to Tam Media Research, as a result of the proliferation of televisions into the rural hinterlands. “Television is one of the best ways to communicate with the masses in an easy way,” Mr. Sinha said. Candidates are also relying on newer technology to get in touch with the 700 million eligible voters. Many of the 400 million cellphone owners in India could hardly go a day without receiving several text messages like “I Jagat Singh Chauhan promise you to fulfill all commitment of better society and development!” Text message volume is up 20 to 25 percent at Tata Teleservices, said Rohit Gupta, an associate vice president for the company. Revenue has increased several million rupees a month, he said. Political candidates buy messages in bulk, paying lower rates than individual consumers do, either through the phone company or a third-party broker. “The move to digital media is increasing day by day,” Mr. Gupta said, because “you are connecting directly with the customer.” Printing companies have been suffering this year. The country’s election commission has banned the hanging of posters and election materials in public places without permission, so candidates are ordering less. One shop owner, Gulshan Khurana, sat surrounded by a glut of merchandise, including shopping bags printed with photographs of the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Kumari Mayawati, as well as other items with the Congress Party’s first family members, Rahul Gandhi and his mother, Sonia. Mr. Khurana says his sales are just a tiny fraction of previous years’. Candidates are spending money for newspaper and television ads rather than buying Mr. Khurana’s wares, he said. And the official cap on spending per candidate has meant less business. Poor people are “no longer getting the benefit” of the election, he said. Instead, it is being co-opted by big companies, he said. In contrast, under-the-table donations and payments to voters, traditionally called “black money,” are a fact of life, say party representatives and government officials. Police often put up checkpoints on the roads during elections and search cars, looking for bundles of cash that have no identifying papers (like bank documents or store receipts). They seize that cash, assuming it is going to be used to buy votes. “We’ve recovered 165 million rupees in several incidents,” during this election period, said Seemant Kumar Singh, the superintendent of police for the district of Bellary, in the southern state of Karnataka. In Bangalore, the police have recovered 20 million rupees ($403,000) in two cases during this election, said Shankar Bidari, the city’s commissioner of police. “We suspected that money was to be distributed among voters and supporters to buy their favor,” he said. Cash is distributed legally as well, to hundreds of thousands of part-time workers who make the election possible. Ravi, a slight 19-year-old who did not give his last name, is paid 200 rupees a day to ride around on the back of a Congress Party candidate’s open-sided, small flatbed truck with blaring speakers and a thumping generator. He operates the plasma television, while Prashant, a 17-year-old with a thin moustache, runs the sound system for a similar wage. They are two of hundreds of thousands of Indians who pick up extra work when the elections roll around. While the hiring is informal, the rates are standard: People who put up banners are paid 150 rupees ($3) a day and those who follow candidates shouting slogans make 100 to 150 rupees, Prashant said. “There’s good food during elections,” Prashant said.

India
Elections
Economic Conditions and Trends
Political Advertising


BMW and Toyota Announce Alliance

Abstract: TOKYO — BMW said Thursday that it would supply Toyota Motor Corporation with diesel engines and jointly develop car batteries as part of a comprehensive technology alliance. The deal, announced ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show, which begins Saturday, highlights the importance of environmentally sustainable technology in the auto industry, as well as the ballooning costs of developing multiple powertrains when customer preferences remain varied. Toyota, Japan’s No. 1 automaker, whose strength lies in gasoline-electric hybrid technology, has struggled in Europe, where diesel power has led the way in fuel-efficient cars. Meanwhile, BMW, the world’s biggest maker of luxury cars, has experience with diesel but had fallen behind bigger rivals in hybrid systems and lithium -ion batteries, which are still difficult and expensive to produce. BMW will supply Toyota with 1.6-liter and 2.0-liter engines for its models in Europe beginning in 2014, the automakers said in a statement. The two companies will also jointly develop next-generation lithium ion batteries, used in products including laptop computers and electric cars . “Toyota and BMW are perfect partners,” said Klaus Draeger, a member of the board of management at BMW. “By carrying out basic research together, we want to speed up development of battery-powered technology. Whoever has the best batteries in terms of cost and function will win more customers.” The chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe, Didier Leroy, said that an alliance would let both sides bolster efficiency, improve economies of scale, reduce development costs and bring cars to market more quickly. Executives from both sides said equity ties had not been discussed. Toyota, though a leader in hybrid technology, has been less than enthusiastic about all-electric cars, pointing out problems with range and driving power. Toyota does not have an all-electric vehicle in its normal lineup.

Automobiles
Toyota Motor Corporation
Bayerische Motorenwerke AG
Diesel Power
Electric and Hybrid Vehicles
Batteries


Red Bulls Rewind: It’s a Wrap

Abstract: Among his many haiku-like observations, the skillful genius and soccer philosopher Johan Cruyff once said, “They can’t beat you, but you can lose to them.” That, in essence, is the story of the Red Bulls’ playoff run. That is not to denigrate the achievement of the Houston Dynamo, a team wonderfully coached by Dominic Kinnear that won back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007 and lost in the final in each of the past two years to the Los Angeles Galaxy. But by making fatal mistakes on defense in each of their playoff games this season, the last in overtime at Red Bull Arena on Wednesday night, the Red Bulls torpedoed themselves. That the Red Bulls were the best team over a nine-month season in Major League Soccer is indisputable, the standings say, and they have a nice silver platter — the Supporters Shield, given to the top team in the regular season — to show for it. But that piece of silverware now appears as forlorn as the plate holding the remnants of Thanksgiving Day dinner. All that is left is to pick over the bones, stash the leftovers and take a snooze. In the context of the zero-sum game that are the playoffs in North American sports, this season was not a success, because — for the fourth year running, ever since the club moved into a gleaming stadium by the Passaic River in Harrison, N.J. — the Red Bulls lost a crucial playoff game in their own building. Lost was a grand opportunity for M.L.S. to have its championship game, M.L.S. Cup, played in the New York metropolitan area. Hardly on par with the coming Super Bowl, which is set to be played a few miles up the New Jersey Turnpike in February, but surely a chance to put the league, and particularly the club, on an unaccustomed pedestal after 18 years of dysfunction, failure and ridicule. A cynical observer would gloss over where the Red Bulls were only one year ago: eliminated in the first-round of the playoffs; without a coach or sporting director/general manager; about to decline options on 15 players; and saddled with a designated player, Rafael Márquez, who had worn out his welcome. There were also questions about the acquisition of the designated player Tim Cahill, questions that were forgotten and buried by the play this year of the tenacious and loquacious Australian international, who led the team in goals. One can argue that the Red Bulls are now Cahill’s team. This year, with a rookie coach in the New York native and former MetroStars/Red Bulls player Mike Petke, and a savvy and connected sporting director in the Scot Andy Roxburgh, the Red Bulls cobbled together an entertaining and deep roster. In Petke, the club has a passionate leader dedicated to the club in a way that no European coach, mediocre or well-known, could possibly be. Kinnear may have won the coaching duel over Petke in the playoffs, but Petke is not the first, and surely will not be the last, to be beaten by a Kinnear team. Petke was able to communicate his passion and commitment to his players, but as much as he might have liked, he could not suit up and step on the field of play. After Wednesday’s debacle in Harrison, the Internet overflowed with comments from disgruntled fans who again lamented the decision by M.L.S. to disregard the away-goals rule used in cup competitions in most of the rest of the world, particularly in Europe. The Red Bulls’ two goals last week at Houston would have negated the need for overtime after the 1-1 tie in New Jersey. But this is not Europe, and M.L.S. is not the Champions League. And everyone knew the rules. Will M.L.S. one day adopt the away-goals rule? Perhaps. Will it ever move its calendar to a European schedule and not play on FIFA’s international dates? Maybe. Promotion and relegation? Not bloody likely. Will M.L.S. continue to tweak its playoff system? Count on it. “At the end of the day, I think it’s smart they have one Supporters’ Shield champion and one M.L.S. Cup champion,” Petke, ever the diplomat, said after Wednesday’s game. “One’s over a whole season, one’s over five weeks, but it is what it is.” Thierry Henry, the team’s captain, has won nearly every important trophy in the soccer world, and he will be around for at least one more season. But the lissome Frenchman, a guy who has immersed himself in the game in M.L.S., has scored only one goal in more than 600 playoff minutes. If teams pay big money for big players, then they have to be able to expect big things from them in the biggest games. Time here is running out on Henry, who has grown weary of questions comparing some of the peculiar rules of M.L.S. to a game that is more mature in Europe. “You know the rules here,” Henry said, speaking in barely a whisper after Wednesday’s loss. “It’s not Europe, so what’s the point of talking about it? You have to win the M.L.S. Cup to be champion, so we didn’t manage to do that. Like I said, I told you so many times, Houston has been in that position so many times and know how it is, and they showed us tonight.” It is still easy to forget exactly how far M.L.S. has come in less than 20 years. Remember the shootout? How about the game clock counting down, not up? Little things, but the little things do matter. By the end of the decade, there will be five new teams, with New York getting a second club in 2015 and Orlando, Fla., perhaps joining as the 21st club the same year. The league’s future looks bright, but that is little solace for long-suffering Red Bulls fans. And what of the Red Bulls’ future? The deep pockets of the Austria-based energy drink company ensure that there will be a suitably big name to step in when Henry steps aside. Yet for all the success of the Red Bulls’ academy teams, few young players have matriculated to the senior team and made an impact, never mind earned significant minutes. The Red Bulls have not had players on the United States senior national team since Juan Agudelo and Jozy Altidore, while the academies of other clubs have produced players like Diego Fagundez, DeAndre Yedlin and others. What the Red Bulls learned painfully in this year’s playoffs is that soccer is not a game of possession, but a game of managing constant turnovers — and in that light, they failed miserably against Houston. Giveaways in the back by David Carney (in Game 1) and by Ibrahim Sekagya (in Game 2) were killers. A 23-9 edge in shots meant little. Squandered chances came back to gore the Red Bulls, as they usually do in soccer. “Individual mistakes, they happen,” Petke said. “That happens a lot. We didn’t finish. We were a bit off on crossing, on passing. We were a bit urgent. “It was a long journey this year,” he added. And the journey continues.

New York Red Bulls Soccer Team
MLS
Playoffs
Mike Petke


Journal Clarifies Report on a Stem Cell Finding

Abstract: The scientific journal Nature has issued a clarification of a recent report that human embryonic stem cells can be derived without harm to the embryo, but has affirmed the report’s validity. The finding, by Dr. Robert Lanza and colleagues at Advanced Cell Technology’s laboratory in Worcester, Mass., caused a stir when Nature published it online in August, because under current methods, the generating of such cells entails destroying the embryo. The paper would seem, then, to undercut the argument of opponents of embryonic stem cell research that the work requires the loss of a potential human life. Dr. Lanza’s approach is made possible by preimplantation genetic diagnosis, a test sometimes used in fertility clinics whereby one cell is removed to test for abnormalities when the embryo has reached the eight-cell stage. This does no apparent harm to the embryo, which, if the testing finds it normal, is then implanted with its seven remaining cells. The process has resulted in the birth of apparently healthy children. Dr. Lanza found that one such cell, or blastomere, could generate embryonic stem cells. His article is being published again by Nature — online yesterday and in the printed journal today — along with itemized changes in the text and an addendum by him and his colleagues. The changes address issues that were misunderstood or misstated earlier, as in a press release issued by Nature. These included the fact that although Dr. Lanza said others could use his method to avoid destroying embryos, he himself had destroyed those used in his experiments by using many cells from each. Had he taken just one cell from each of a number of eight-cell embryos, many more embryos would have been needed. Ritu Dhand, Nature’s chief biology editor, said the sole purpose of the clarification was to make the article easier to understand. “There was nothing either scientifically or technically wrong with the paper,” Dr. Dhand said. The journal has had the article reviewed by experts a second time, she said, “just to be sure that everything was as it should be.” It is too soon for other laboratories to have repeated Dr. Lanza’s work, the acid test of scientific findings. Richard M. Doerflinger, a spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the ability to derive stem cells from a single blastomere was still unproved.

Stem Cells
Biology and Biochemistry
Cloning
Advanced Cell Technology Inc