81 Die in Clashes Between Islamists and Troops in Somalia

Abstract: MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Sporadic street fighting between Ethiopian troops and Islamist fighters trying to bring down Somalia’s shaky government killed 81 people in the past two days, the head of a local human rights group said Sunday. The deaths were caused when Ethiopians fired heavy artillery and tank shells in residential areas of Mogadishu, said the rights leader, Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of Elman Human Rights. “We condemn this latest fighting,” he said. Besides the 81 people who were killed, 119 were wounded, he said. His group said that all of those killed were civilians, but witnesses said that because the insurgents wear civilian clothing, it was impossible to say how many of the dead were noncombatants. The rights group tracks casualties through hospitals and morgues and puts out regular reports on the toll from Somalia’s fighting. Its figures could not be independently verified. Ethiopian officials could not be reached for comment on the group’s claim that shelling from their forces had caused the casualties. The clashes on Sunday broke out in rubble-strewn streets still littered with the bodies of people killed the previous day. A witness, Aden Shire, said the Ethiopians had seemed to be searching for the bodies of fellow soldiers killed Saturday. Another witness, Omar Abdulahi, said that among the dead he counted were two old men in their homes who had been shot by Ethiopian soldiers. A woman, Nasteho Moalim, said her 7-year-old daughter and three neighbors had been killed, and her husband wounded, by tank shells that hit their homes. On the government’s side, at least one Somali soldier and two Ethiopians were killed, said another witness, Asha Shegow Abikar. The prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, addressed the growing toll of civilian deaths during the latest outbreak of fighting. “The government is sorry about the fighting and loss of innocent civilian lives,” he said at a news conference on Sunday. “Our aim is to restore law and order through reconciliation and peaceful means, but that does not mean our troops and those of our ally Ethiopia will not defend themselves as they come under constant attack.” Ethiopian troops supporting the transitional government’s soldiers ousted Islamist fighters from power in Mogadishu, the capital, in December 2006. The Islamists receive support from Ethiopia’s archenemy, Eritrea. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on one another.

Somalia
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
Freedom and Human Rights
Ethiopia


Commodity Prices Tumble

Abstract: HOUSTON — The global financial panic and the economic slowdown have put at least a temporary end to the commodity bull market of the last seven years, sending prices tumbling for many of the raw ingredients of the world economy. Since the spring and early summer, when prices for many commodities peaked amid fears of permanent shortage, wheat and corn — two cereals at the base of the human food chain — have dropped more than 40 percent. Oil has dropped 44 percent. Metals like aluminum, copper and nickel have declined by a third or more. The swift turnaround is the brightest economic news on the horizon for consumers, putting money into their pockets at a time they need it badly. Gasoline prices in the United States are falling precipitously — by about 24 cents over the last five days, to a national average of $3.21 a gallon on Monday — and analysts said they could go below $3 a gallon nationally this fall, down from a high of $4.11 a gallon in July. Prices for most commodities remain elevated by past standards, and they rose a bit on Monday amid the broad market rally. But the trend seems to be downward as traders weigh the prospect that the global economic crisis will lead to sharp drops in demand. The big question is whether prices will drop all the way to long-term norms or whether Asia’s continuing economic boom has set a floor. The rapid commodity decline has eased fears of inflation, a reason central banks were able to lower interest rates around the world last week in an effort to salvage economic growth. It also represents a fundamental shift of view that is driving markets these days. A scant few months ago, Americans were seen as participants in a bidding war with the emerging Chinese, Indian, Russian and Brazilian middle classes for a basket full of products. But that was before an extreme slowdown in demand for things as diverse as gasoline and aluminum and the retreat of investment money from commodity futures into safer havens like government bonds. The commodity bust began before last week’s broad market declines, though the panic has exacerbated the pressure on commodities. Oil dropped by 10 percent on Friday alone, but then recovered some of that loss Monday to settle at $81.19 a barrel, far below its high in July of $145.29. “Commodities followed the euphoria cycle that we had along with housing,” said Robert J. Shiller, an economist at Yale who specializes in market bubbles. “We had the idea that the world is growing very fast, people are getting very rich and, by the way, we are running out of everything. That theory doesn’t seem so good when the economy is collapsing.” Some analysts, while welcoming the recent declines, say they believe that prices are likely to remain above long-term norms. Food, in particular, could be a continuing problem: today’s prices are still too high to allow many people in developing countries to afford adequate diets. Nor have the recent declines been passed along in American grocery stores, at least as of yet. The United Nations has projected that global food prices will remain elevated for years. The price increases of recent years served their economic function, calling forth additional supplies of many commodities — farmers planted every acre they could, mining companies opened new mines and oil companies went to the far corners of the earth to drill wells. In many cases, the prices also caused demand to decline even as supply started rising. Americans, the world’s largest fuel consumers, have been cutting back on gasoline all year, and the decline is approaching double digits. Motorists pumped 9.5 percent less gasoline for the week ended Oct. 3 compared with the same week a year earlier, according to MasterCard Advisors, which tracks spending. In a report on Friday, the International Energy Agency cut its forecast for global oil consumption yet again, projecting that 2008 would end with the slowest demand growth in 15 years. Big increases in world wheat production because of increased acreage in the United States, Canada, Russia and much of Europe have brought wheat prices to less than $6 a bushel today from nearly $13 in March. Soybean prices have dropped to $9 a bushel from $16 since July, in part because of a record crop in China and a slowdown in Chinese imports. Corn prices are also easing amid expanded supply. A theory among economists is that commodity prices are still at the beginning of a steep fall as the credit squeeze takes the world economy into a deep recession. “When you have a seven-year bull run, you are going to have more than a four-month correction, and we are just beginning our fourth month,” said Richard Feltes, senior vice president and director of commodity research at MF Global Research. “We have got more deflation coming in the housing sector, in capital assets, and it’s going to continue in commodities as well.” But many economists say a lasting price collapse is unlikely because the emerging middle class and growing populations in developing economies will continue to have strong appetites for fuels and metals. Some say that the other commodity bull markets in modern history — approximately spanning 1906 to 1923, 1933 to 1955 and 1968 to 1982 — lasted more than twice as long as the current run. They included some sharp corrections before they ran their course, suggesting that the current drop, however precipitous, could be temporary. Though the picture is slightly different for every commodity, prices generally hit a low point for the decade soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then rose as the global economy strengthened in the following years. From late 2001 until mid-2008, the price of oil rose 800 percent, copper rose 700 percent and wheat rose 400 percent. The decline of recent weeks has taken virtually every major commodity more than halfway back to its late 2001 price, adjusted for inflation. The recent drop has been so rapid that if the pace continued, it would take only a few more weeks to erase the gains of the bull market entirely. That suggests to some analysts that prices could hit a floor fairly soon. “The underlying fundamentals of strong demand for energy, food and industrial commodities will come back,” said Michael Lewis, global head of commodities research for Deutsche Bank. Many analysts think oil could fall to $70 a barrel in the next few months, if not sooner. But it is hard for them to believe it will go much lower: oil is not becoming easier to find, as fields in Mexico peter out and suppliers like Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela remain unreliable. The costs of finding oil in deep waters or mining oil sands in Canada remain high, in the $60 to $70 a barrel range — and since those are now vital sources of supply, they could help put a floor under the oil price. Additionally, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries could cut production to try to shore up prices, probably at an emergency meeting it will hold Nov. 18. Analysts note that the credit crisis and economic slowdown will inevitably stall new industrial projects, reducing demand for metals. But the falling prices will also discourage new mining and drilling. When economic growth resumes, that could produce metal shortages that would drive prices back up. The biggest single factor that will decide whether a prolonged bull market in commodities is over, or just in a lull, is the Chinese economy. The industrial development of that country in recent years was responsible for much of the world’s increased consumption of copper, aluminum and zinc, and almost a third of the increase in oil consumption. Chinese growth has slowed but is still running above 12 percent, and that country is expected to undertake some huge projects in coming months as it repairs damage from earthquakes and storms. Kevin Norrish, a senior commodities researcher at Barclays Capital, said that in a recent visit to China he found that domestic demand for copper was still strong but that exports were weakening. Chinese copper wire manufacturers, he said, “are very depressed indeed because their export orders have fallen a long way.” He said that as high as prices for commodities rose in recent years, the bull run in the late 1970s and early 1980s was even more buoyant. Of all the major commodities, only oil at its peak in July traded at a higher price than in the last bull market, adjusted for inflation. That previous bull run, stimulated by years of high economic growth and inflation, was followed by nearly two decades of weak prices that accompanied the transition in the United States from an industrial to a service economy. Then China and India appeared on the world stage as major economies at the turn of the new century, followed by the oil-driven economy in Russia and greater consumption in the Middle East the last four or five years. Mr. Norrish is one of many commodities analysts who think that the story of China, India and other developing countries’ spurring commodity demand is not over. “What we are seeing is a pause in what we see as a very, very long bull run,” Mr. Norrish said.

International Trade and World Market
Grain
Metals and Minerals
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Wheat
Corn


Syria’s Assad Says Peace Talks Likely to Fail

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in a rare interview with a foreign newspaper, appeared to dismiss the possibility of serious progress arising from any peace talks, and to back away from earlier statements by Syrian officials that the government was willing to negotiate with its armed opponents. “We do not believe that many Western countries really want a solution in Syria,” Mr. Assad told Argentina’s Clarín newspaper in an interview published online on Saturday, blaming those countries for supporting “terrorists” fighting his government. “We support and applaud the efforts, but we must be realistic,” he said, referring to efforts by the United States and Russia to broker talks they hope will be held in June. “There cannot be a unilateral solution in Syria; two parties are needed at least.” Mr. Assad took a hard line throughout the interview, according to a transcript in English provided in advance to The New York Times. He declared that he would run for election as scheduled in 2014 and would accept election monitors only from friendly countries like Russia and China. He also accused Israel of directly aiding rebels by providing information on sites to attack, refused to acknowledge any mistakes in his handling of the two-year-old crisis, and disputed United Nations estimates that more than 80,000 people had died in the conflict. All those contentions are likely to fuel what is already widespread pessimism about the potential talks. It is unclear who will talk to whom, and about what. The opposition in exile remains unable to unify fragmented rebel groups behind its political leadership, even those that nominally fall under the umbrella of the opposition’s Free Syrian Army, let alone the growing cadres of extremist Islamist fighters who openly reject the opposition leadership. Mr. Assad’s supporters have long contended that his wide array of foreign foes, including the United States, Israel and Sunni-led Persian Gulf states, benefit less from a resolution than from a prolonged Syrian conflict that weakens Mr. Assad and his allies, Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group. That view is increasingly shared by some rebel leaders, increasingly frustrated with the West’s unwillingness to give them untrammeled support. Image President Bashar al-Assad Credit Syrian State Television, via Associated Press In meetings with his supporters, Mr. Assad has projected confidence, suggesting that the United States would accept his remaining in power if American officials believed that he was militarily strong and could curb jihadists. He told a group of Lebanese politicians visiting Damascus, the capital, this month that his forces were carrying out offensives to retake rebel-held territory in Homs Province and the suburbs of Damascus to increase his leverage at the talks. “The battlefield will decide who is strong when they enter negotiations,” he said, according to one of the visitors, Abdelrahim Mourad, a former Parliament member whose party is allied with Hezbollah. “America is pragmatic. If they found out they were defeated and the regime is the winner, the Americans will deal with the facts.” Whether that view is realistic or not, Mr. Assad’s opponents inside and outside Syria widely doubt that he is willing to make meaningful concessions — doubts he reinforced in the interview, refusing to recognize any element of the armed opposition as representing legitimate Syrian demands or even to talk to the rebels unless they disarm. “We are willing to talk to anyone who wants to talk, without exceptions,” he said. “But that does not include terrorists; no state talks to terrorists. When they put down their arms and join the dialogue, then we will have no objections. Believing that a political conference will stop terrorism on the ground is unreal.” Mr. Assad appeared to be backing off previous overtures by members of his government. On Feb. 25, Ali Haidar, the minister for national reconciliation, told Syria’s Parliament that the government was ready to meet with armed opposition groups. “We, the government, and me, personally, will meet, without exceptions, with Syrian opposition groups inside and outside” the country, he said. “The president of the country has said that we will try with everyone that is against us politically. And even those who use arms — we must try with them.” However, Mr. Haidar is not part of Mr. Assad’s inner circle, so the weight of the statement was never clear. In continuing reports of violence, opposition activists in Syria said Saturday that government forces had killed and then incinerated at least 17 people in a two-day operation in an upscale neighborhood of northwest Homs, long a hotbed of the insurgency. Some died when government forces shelled the fields surrounding the neighborhood, Al Waer, starting on Friday, and others were stabbed to death, said the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition news network with contacts in Syria. The bodies were later set on fire by soldiers and pro-government militias, the activists said. The activists’ accounts could not be independently confirmed, but videos posted on YouTube and Facebook groups controlled by rebels showed charred bodies and shattered limbs, wrapped in red cloths and carpets. Residents said they were able to identify 10 of the victims as members of two families, including four women and two 11-year-old children. Image Buildings damaged this month in Raqqa Province after what rebels said was shelling by Syrian government forces. Credit Hamid Khatib/Reuters Also on Saturday, at least three people were killed and five wounded when a car bomb exploded in the Rukn al-Din neighborhood of Damascus, The Associated Press reported, quoting Syrian state television. The observatory reported a higher number of casualties, saying eight were killed — four soldiers and four civilians. In other developments, the father of Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, was abducted Saturday by a gunman in southern Dara’a Province, close to the Jordanian border, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a network based in Britain with contacts inside Syria. The government later arrested relatives suspected to be involved with the abduction, the observatory said, adding that rebels in the area had denied any responsibility. Mr. Mekdad’s office confirmed the abduction, and residents in a neighboring village said that about 30 men, some carrying weapons, raided the family home and took the 80-year-old father, who was described by residents as “not an outspoken regime supporter and not a troublemaker.” A spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army described the abduction as “unconvincing and strange,” given that the father did not share his son’s views and was seen as having good relations with the rebels around him. The Mekdad clan numbers in the thousands in Dara’a, where the uprising began, and includes government supporters and opponents. In the Clarín interview, Mr. Assad elaborated on his government’s contention that the opposition was aligned with Syria’s longtime enemy, Israel, which has bombed Syrian territory three times this year in attacks believed to have targeted weapons being delivered to Hezbollah. “Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways,” he said. “Firstly it gives them logistical support” — a possible reference to medical aid Israel has given to Syrians wounded near the Syria-Israel border — “and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them.” Mr. Assad said international monitoring of the 2014 elections would violate Syria’s sovereignty. “We do not trust the West for this task,” he said, proposing observers from “friendly countries such as Russia or China.” “China?” the interviewer asked, presumably perplexed because China is not known for holding free elections. Mr. Assad was silent. The reporter then asked if Mr. Assad had any “self-criticisms.” He replied: “It’s illogical to carry out self-criticism before the events have been completed. If you go to watch a film you don’t criticize it until it ends.” He dismissed rebels’ accusations that his forces had used chemical weapons, noting that such weapons “would mean killing thousands or tens of thousands of people in a matter of minutes. Who could hide something like that?”

Arab Spring
Syria
Bashar al-Assad
Fatalities,casualties
International relations


Charges Against Raymond Davis Delayed

Abstract: A court on Tuesday further delayed charging Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A. operative who shot two people to death in Lahore. The next hearing will be held March 16, according to a prosecutor. On Jan. 27, in what Mr. Davis claims was self-defense, he shot and killed two motorcyclists at a busy intersection. The United States described the episode as an attempted robbery.

Murders and Attempted Murders
Central Intelligence Agency
Davis Raymond A
Pakistan


Criticized Tennis Star Won’t Play in India

Abstract: NEW DELHI — Sania Mirza, the most successful tennis star in India, has announced that she has no desire to play in her country any more after a string of controversies that have exposed her to months of negative publicity. “Every time I play in India, there is a problem,” Mirza, ranked 29th in the world and No. 1 in Asia, said Monday. “Considering all that, I thought it would be better not to play in Bangalore,” she added, explaining her decision to boycott India’s most prestigious tournament, the Bangalore Open, in March. “In fact, I feel it would be better if I don’t play in the country for some time.” Mirza’s immense popularity has brought with it intense and often hostile scrutiny from fringe religious groups and from India’s newly aggressive television and print media. In December, Mirza, a 21-year-old Muslim, was accused by Indian nationalists of desecrating the national flag after she was caught on camera resting her bare feet on a table next to the Indian colors. Earlier that month there was anger from Muslim groups when she filmed an advertisement at a 17th-century mosque in her home town, the southern city of Hyderabad. The cases made front-page news and led to two lawsuits. After the flag incident, Mirza was summoned to appear before a court in Bhopal, to answer a case, filed by a private citizen, under the Prevention of Insult to the National Honor Act. The police are pursuing a case of trespass in relation to the filming in the mosque. Her decision to stop playing in her home country has dismayed India’s tennis community, but has also raised deeper concerns about levels of intolerance across the nation. Ramachandra Guha, a historian, argued that it was a reflection of “the rising power of bigotry and intolerance in Indian society.” “Male chauvinists have taken exception to her dress; religious bigots have protested a picture that has both her and a mosque in the same frame; jingoists have exploded at the (purely accidental) closeness of her feet in another frame to the national flag,” he wrote in an article for The Telegraph, a newspaper in Calcutta. Mirza is one of India’s few female sports stars. Her talent and charm have won her advertising contracts and trouble in equal measure since she broke through to the top 40 in 2005, the first female Indian tennis player to achieve such a ranking. Indian teenagers love her dress sense and her tremendous confidence. Mirza said Monday that this had been an intensely stressful period for her. “It does take its toll because it’s not easy to deal with that kind of pressure,” she said.


Formula One Champ Widens Lead

Abstract: The defending Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel won the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa to strengthen his points lead with seven races remaining. Vettel started from the pole to win his seventh race of the season; he leads Mark Webber by 92 points over all.

Automobile Racing
Formula One
Vettel Sebastian


Valeant’s Struggles Could Lead It to Crumble

Abstract: Valeant Pharmaceuticals International is running the risk of an Enron or WorldCom endgame. The struggling drug maker has uncovered accounting impropriety, it said on Monday. It is replacing its chief executive, J. Michael Pearson, but Howard B. Schiller, the company’s former chief financial officer, has refused to quit as a director. The board, the numbers and the strategy are fractured. Add some $30 billion of debt, and Valeant could easily crumble. The investor William A. Ackman will join Valeant’s board. His hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, which owns about 9 percent of Valeant’s stock, now has two directors. Another activist hedge fund, ValueAct Capital, also has a nominee on the board. Mr. Schiller will still be there, too. The company pointed the finger at him for “improper conduct” in Monday’s release. Mr. Schiller said in a statement he had done nothing wrong. The mixture looks toxic. The company’s failure to file audited 2015 financial statements on time may put it in default and potentially force it to repay slugs of debt – something it might struggle to do. Raising new cash would be a challenge even without the other clouds hanging over the company now that its market capitalization has tumbled to a level under one-third of its debt load. The company’s latest update also criticized “the tone at the top of the organization” as a contributing factor, presumably referring to Mr. Pearson. And 2014 numbers are in question, too. It takes a leap of faith to believe that further problems will not emerge and that the figures can be corrected and cleared by its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, in short order. Even figuring out which Valeant executives should sign off may be difficult. Valeant’s indebtedness stems from the serial acquisition of sometimes mediocre assets at inflated prices, partly in a quest by senior executives to achieve aggressive targets – at any cost, it now seems. If anything, Valeant will have to sell assets to reduce debt. The famous collapses of Enron and WorldCom involved similar failures aggravated by heavy borrowing. To be clear, Valeant has not been charged with fraud. Even so, it’s in a fight for survival.

Appointments and Executive Changes
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International
William A Ackman
Mike Pearson
Howard B Schiller
Accounting
Accountants
Pershing Square Capital Management


For Rangers, Game 2s Continue to Be Kind

Abstract: The Rangers are still far from the N.H.L.’s elite, but they are nothing if not spirited and fit. Case in point: their excellent record in Game 2s of back-to-back sets is the best in the league since the start of last season. The Rangers beat the Predators, 2-1 in a shootout on Saturday night to increase their Game 2 record in back-to-back sets to 6-0 this season. Combined with their 9-2-2 mark in such games last season, the Rangers have 15 wins in 19 Game 2s since the start of the 2009-10 season. The Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks have won 19 of 25 Game 2s in that span, just behind the Rangers in percentage (76 percent to the Rangers’ 78.9). Pittsburgh and Vancouver were next, having won 11 of 17 second games. The Rangers’ strong record on the back end of consecutive contests speaks well for the emphasis Coach John Tortorella placed on conditioning in his two training camps with the team. “We’ve had tough training camps and it shows,” defenseman Michael Del Zotto said last week, referring to Camp Torture-ella, as Tortorella’s preseasons have been known since he coached Tampa Bay. Still, overall results show that playing Game 2 of a back-to-back set is not quite the extreme disadvantage many assume it to be. Last season, N.H.L. teams won 216 of 449 Game 2s, or 48.1 percent. Combined with their 54-for-121 record this season, that leaves an overall winning rate of 47.4 percent. In Saturday’s game, Erik Christensen scored the only goal in a shootout to give the Rangers the win. Ryan Callahan scored for the Rangers in regulation and Henrik Lundqvist stopped all three Predators shootout attempts in the tie breaker. DEVILS 2, FLYERS 1 The strong play of the backup goalie Johan Hedberg has made the absence of Martin Brodeur less painful for the Devils. Hedberg made his fourth straight start Saturday and the Devils beat the visiting Flyers in a shootout. With Brodeur sidelined by a bruised elbow, Hedberg made 40 saves through overtime, then stopped three of four Flyers in the shootout. “I think it’s a team thing for me,” Hedberg said. “We started something good a few games ago. It’s put the goaltender in a different position. We’re way more sound. That’s the way we’ve got to play.” With Hedberg holding off Philadelphia, the top offensive team in the league, the Devils earned their third win in four games. After a 5-13-2 start, the Devils are trying to get back into contention. Hedberg stopped 12 shots in the second period as the Devils clung to a 1-0 lead. The loss was the Flyers’ second straight in a shootout. “He played well,” Flyers goalie Brian Boucher said of Hedberg. “He kept his team in there. He played solid. “After that first period, we seemed to pick up our play and get more shots, but you’ve got to give Hedberg credit.” (AP) PENGUINS 4, FLAMES 1 Sidney Crosby scored three goals, including the 200th of his career, after Calgary goalie Miikka Kiprusoff stopped his penalty shot, and host Pittsburgh won its sixth in a row. The backup goalie Brent Johnson played well for the Penguins. Crosby already had two goals, one on a power play, before scoring short-handed into an empty net with 37 seconds remaining. If he had converted the penalty shot he missed 4 minutes 14 seconds into the game, Crosby would have scored four goals with every possible variation: even-strength, power play, short-handed, penalty shot and empty net. Mario Lemieux is the only N.H.L. player to score goals all five ways, on Dec. 31, 1988, against the Devils. (AP) CANADIENS 3, SABRES 1 Brian Gionta had two goals and an assist and Carey Price made 34 saves as Montreal beat visiting Buffalo. Gionta set up Andrei Kostitsyn’s goal during a two-man advantage in the first period, then added goals just over four minutes apart in the second to help the Canadiens rebound from a 3-0 loss in Atlanta on Friday. Kostitsyn had a goal and an assist, and Tomas Plekanec also had two points. (AP) SENATORS 3, MAPLE LEAFS 0 Mike Fisher scored twice and Brian Elliott made 29 saves for his second shutout of the season in Ottawa’s victory over visiting Toronto. The line of Fisher, Alex Kovalev and Milan Michalek accounted for all the scoring, with Kovalev scoring the other goal and adding two assists, and Michalek finishing with two assists. Jonas Gustavsson made 25 saves for Toronto, which has lost three of its last four. (AP) PANTHERS 4, LIGHTNING 3 Stephen Weiss scored in the fourth round of a shootout to help visiting Florida beat Tampa Bay. Radek Dvorak, Dmitry Kulikov and Shawn Matthias scored in regulation for the Panthers, who stopped a three-game losing streak. Florida went 0 for 4 on the power play; it has failed to score in 37 straight opportunities with the man advantage. (AP) AVALANCHE 7, WILD 4 Greg Mauldin scored two goals to fuel Colorado’s four-goal burst in the second period against visiting Minnesota. The game might have been costly for the Avalanche, however, as Chris Stewart, John Michael-Liles and Daniel Winnick all sustained injuries. (AP) IN OTHER GAMES Kari Lehtonen stifled St. Louis again, Jamie Benn had another big goal and visiting Dallas beat St. Louis, 2-1, to sweep a home-and-home series. ... Bobby Ryan had his second career hat trick to help visiting Anaheim erase a two-goal deficit and beat Phoenix, 6-4, stopping the Coyotes’ winning streak at seven games. (AP)

Hockey Ice
New Jersey Devils
Philadelphia Flyers
National Hockey League


Business Losing Clout in a G.O.P. Moving Right

Abstract: How did corporate America lose control of the Republican Party? From overhauling immigration laws to increasing spending on the nation’s aging infrastructure, big business leaders have seemed relatively powerless lately as the uncompromising Republicans they helped elect have steadfastly opposed some of their core legislative priorities. The rift is not only unusual in light of the tight historical alignment between the business community and the G.O.P., but it is also outright incomprehensible after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allowed companies to spend unlimited amounts from their corporate treasuries on the 2010 and 2012 elections. Scholars have proposed many reasons for the rise of the anti-government activists that are pulling the G.O.P. to the right, leaving it at odds with a business community used to compromising and seeking favors from government. But what may be most surprising is how reluctant big business has been to put its money on the line. To put it mildly, if companies could purchase the Congress of their choice, it’s unlikely they would buy the gridlocked Congress we have. The seemingly inexorable rise of political partisans — mainly on the right, but on the left, too — suggests that corporate money may be playing a much smaller role in the political process than expected. Concern about the potential consequences of Citizens United stem from a not unreasonable belief that businesses will do anything on this side of the law — and sometimes beyond it — to produce legislation that serves their corporate interests. So when the Supreme Court opened the sluice gate in 2010 allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts on campaign ads, pretty much every liberal voice in the country believed that a flood of corporate cash was about to deliver the political system to the Republican Party. It was, President Obama said , “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” Three years later, however, these fears have not quite materialized. Money is flowing to elections like never before. The 2012 elections cost some $6.3 billion, $1 billion more than the 2008 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that researches money and politics. Independent spending by outside groups on campaign advertisements and the like topped $1 billion last year. Corporate America, however, accounted for a comparative trickle. Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University, points out in a recent working paper that companies openly spent about $75 million from their treasuries on federal elections last year. Even if all the hidden money funneled into campaigns through private 501(c) organizations had come from businesses — unlikely given the contributions by noncorporate groups like Planned Parenthood and the N.R.A. — corporate spending would not reach $400 million, still a small share of the total. Perhaps this should not be surprising. For companies, spending on elections can be risky. Business executives might prefer lobbying, where they spend far more than on campaign contributions, not because the limits are more relaxed but because swaying legislators on both sides of the aisle is more effective at getting what they want. And such lobbying is less likely to kindle anger among consumers, shareholders and other constituents than spending to change the outcome of elections. “While Citizens alters the ability of corporations to contribute to campaigns, it does not alter their substantial risk in doing so,” the political scientists Wendy L. Hansen, Michael Rocca and Brittany Ortiz of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, argued in a recent study . Still, corporations’ reluctance to open their checkbooks suggests an intriguing alternative explanation for the rise of Republicans who are willing to defy their will: companies may have spent too little. Their money was swamped by that of big individual donors who are more ideologically extreme. In 2012, the top 0.1 percent of donors contributed more than 44 percent of all campaign contributions. In 1980 their share of contributions was less than 10 percent. Corporations have a pro-Republican bias, of course. But it is not quite as extreme as pop culture would have it, and is certainly less pronounced than organized labor’s pro-Democrat leanings. Effective lobbying requires both Republican and Democratic friends. Political action committees run by businesses are known for spreading money on both sides of the partisan divide. They give to incumbents. They choose winners. They show little partisan loyalty. In the 2006 elections, when the G.O.P. controlled Congress, corporate PACs gave 65 percent of their money to Republicans. In 2008 and 2010, after the Democrats had swept both the House and Senate, they split their contributions roughly fifty-fifty. By contrast, substantial research in political science suggests that individual donors favor more ideological candidates and are less strategic in their giving. Big, frequent donors are particularly extreme. An analysis of polarization of state legislatures by Michael Barber, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Princeton, finds that limits on corporate contributions lead to more partisan polarization, while limits on individual contributions moderate it. There are alternative explanations for the rise of the uncompromising right within the G.O.P. Mark Mizruchi, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, traces the rift back decades. He put it to me this way: “In the 1970s it would have been inconceivable that Republicans would tell business” to get lost. Last May, he published “The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite,” about business’ waning influence over the political process. He suggests the power of the business lobby started waning after it succeeded at beating back government regulation and organized labor in the late 1970s. Corporations then turned to narrow individual agendas and gradually lost force as a collective power that could impose discipline on the G.O.P. Other analyses have suggested a shift in the party base from the industrial Northeast to the conservative rural South, the ideological polarization of voters and the gerrymandering of House districts into safe partisan seats that favored uncompromising, ideologically pure candidates. That argument can be carried only so far, however. Jacob S. Hacker, a political scientist from Yale, said that the idea of a rift opening between businesses and the “party of business” was overstated. Corporations continue to spend more on Republicans, he points out. They are unlikely to jump ship, especially when a Democratic administration is working on new regulations over financial services, health care and energy that business views as potentially onerous. Despite concerns about the tactics of some Republican ideologues, the Chamber of Commerce and several other business organizations still support many of Republicans’ low-tax goals. And even if corporations didn’t turn on the spending spigot, their executives did. Mr. Bonica of Stanford estimates that executives and directors of Fortune 500 companies spent a whopping $217 million on state and federal elections, more than twice as much as the same individuals spent four years earlier. That’s about 70 percent of what was spent by more than 1,500 corporate PACs. But that doesn’t undermine the point that the reluctance of corporations to spend on politics is likely to limit their role as a stabilizing force. Corporate chiefs and other top executives do not put money into campaigns merely to favor their firms. Mr. Bonica finds their giving is more ideological and less strategic than that of their companies. They rarely switch candidates: only 43 of the 1,400 or so executives of Fortune 500 companies who contributed to presidential campaigns last year gave to both sides. That suggests a new take on the role of money in politics. If big-money people are drowning out the political voice of ordinary Americans rather than big business, American democracy still has a problem. But it is not the problem we thought we had.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission


Expect D’Antoni to Defy Expectations

Abstract: Mike D’Antoni was born in a tiny West Virginia town and became the greatest point guard in Italian League history. He barely played in the N.B.A., but is now one of its best coaches. He forced an entire league to reconsider what good basketball is. So when D’Antoni left the Phoenix Suns this weekend to join the Knicks — trading an All-Star lineup for a roster of misfits, leaving perhaps the league’s most stable franchise for perhaps its most dysfunctional — it was not the most unlikely event of his life. Much of D’Antoni’s biography defies conventional expectations. He is fluent in Italian and holds a dual citizenship. He has logged more court time in Milan and Treviso than in Milwaukee and Cleveland. He is a co-author of two books. And sometime soon, he may just crush every preconceived notion about who he is, what he does and what he can accomplish in the N.B.A. At least that will be D’Antoni’s hope, and his mission, when he is introduced this week as the Knicks’ 24th head coach. Like anyone who achieves quick fame and adulation, D’Antoni has become saddled by his own clichéd reputation. He is known as an innovator and an entertainer, an advocate of shooting the ball in seven seconds or less, an evangelist of high-octane basketball, a true believer that a fast-and-furious offense can trump a great defense. That sticky narrative is accurate, if incomplete. D’Antoni has not always favored small lineups, high-volume shooting and breakneck basketball. He did not coach that system during his one season with Denver (in 1999) and did not adopt it in Phoenix until he got the ideal point guard to run it, Steve Nash. But D’Antoni prefers the quick pace, and will surely try to find the players to run it at Madison Square Garden. If the Knicks are not fit to play run-and-gun — and the current lineup is not — D’Antoni will find another way. “He is confident in the things that he wants to accomplish,” said Maurizio Gherardini, D’Antoni’s former general manager with Benetton Treviso. “But he’s a passionate basketball student and he knows how to adjust to situations, still following his beliefs.” News that D’Antoni might join the Knicks drew snickers across the league. The Knicks’ starting big men, Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry, may not cross halfcourt in seven seconds or less. But D’Antoni’s tenure with Treviso is instructive. That team once featured the 7-footers Denis Marconato and Roberto Chiacig, who played in tandem about 50 percent of the time. It was admittedly not the lineup D’Antoni would have preferred, said Gherardini, now the assistant general manager for the Toronto Raptors. But D’Antoni “ended up doing the right thing — to grow them, to develop them and to play a different kind of basketball,” Gherardini said, “because you have to adjust. For as much as he believes in the things that he does, I think he has the quality to adjust.” D’Antoni’s philosophy was forged over more than two decades as a player and coach in Italy, from 1976 to 1997. The international game favors a higher tempo, more improvisation and ball movement. As a point guard, D’Antoni was regarded as something of an artist, the Magic Johnson of Europe. D’Antoni led Milan to five Italian League titles and two Cups of Europe, became the club’s scoring leader and was voted the top point guard in league history in 1990. This year, D’Antoni was named one of the “50 Greatest Contributors in Euroleague History.” As a coach, D’Antoni led Treviso to the Cup of Europe in 1995 and to the Italian League championship in 2002. “He was a very, very brainy point guard,” said Gherardini, who followed D’Antoni’s playing career from the start. “He’s truly a basketball legend overseas.” D’Antoni is unwavering in his belief that a run-and-gun team can win the N.B.A. championship. The more that notion has been challenged, the more insistent D’Antoni has become. But D’Antoni was also a driving force for the trade that brought Shaquille O’Neal, the hulking former All-Star, to the Suns in February. O’Neal’s arrival signaled a drastic shift, if not an end, to the Suns’ frenetic personality. The experiment ended badly, as the Suns lost to the San Antonio Spurs in five games in the opening round of the playoffs — the only first-round exit in D’Antoni’s four seasons. The defeat hastened D’Antoni’s breakup with the Suns and reinforced several criticisms of his coaching: that he is cavalier about defense, inattentive to detail and does not hold his players accountable. D’Antoni resisted the request of the Suns’ management to hire a defensive coach. It is believed that he may do so in New York. D’Antoni’s Suns practices were famously brief, often less than an hour. But he also had several veterans, led by Nash, and D’Antoni preferred that they expend their energy in games rather than on the practice court. D’Antoni is affable and easygoing (he is a favorite with the news media) and is regarded as a classic players’ coach. In a Sports Illustrated poll, D’Antoni tied with Phil Jackson of the Los Angeles Lakers as the coach players most wanted to play for. But his friendly demeanor is sometimes misinterpreted as the sign of an ineffectual leader. “Is he a players’ coach? Yeah. But that idea about a lack of discipline I think is nutty,” said Jack McCallum, a Sports Illustrated writer who wrote the definitive book on the D’Antoni era in Phoenix, “7 Seconds or Less.” McCallum spent the 2005-6 season as an unofficial assistant, attending coaches’ meetings, practices and games. “He holds people accountable. He hollers at people. He has a temper,” McCallum said, recalling postgame blowups at Raja Bell and Shawn Marion. D’Antoni takes a light touch at practice. But in games, he “transforms into an ubercompetitor and you can’t mess with him,” McCallum said. “So as far as players walking over him and all of that, that’s nonsense. There’s nobody tougher than Raja Bell, and that guy had his total respect.” The challenges in New York will be greater. D’Antoni inherits a team that won 23 games this season, that has not had a winning season in seven years and that has no established culture of accountability. A roster overhaul is inevitable, whether D’Antoni chooses to replicate the Suns’ system or adopt a more traditional approach. But it seems certain that Curry, Randolph and Quentin Richardson will have to get in shape, Nate Robinson will have to follow directions and Stephon Marbury will have to make a case to stay. “Guys do not walk over D’Antoni; he was the boss of that team,” McCallum said, referring to the Suns. “And he will be the boss of the New York Knicks, too.”

Basketball
New York Knicks
D'Antoni Mike


‘Dr. Oz’ Goes to China

Abstract: How is this for expanding an audience? The program known in America as “The Dr. Oz Show” is about to welcome an additional 876 million potential viewers. There is one major difference, however. For this audience, on Zhejiang Satellite TV, the newest Dr. Oz will be speaking Chinese. Otherwise, the show will look pretty much the same. Sony Pictures Television is expected to announce a deal on Wednesday to export the format of “The Dr. Oz Show” to Chinese television. That means many elements of the show, seen mostly in the afternoon in America, will be transferred intact to the Chinese version, much as Sony has already done with “Oz” iterations in the Middle East and Russia. “Ninety percent of the content is completely copyable,” said Mehmet Oz, the star of the American show, which is starting its second season in syndication this month. In its first season, the medical advice/talk show scored the best ratings of any new syndicated show. It reaches an average of about 3.6 million viewers, a total that usually ranks second or third among syndicated shows. Sony co-owns the show — and all its international expansions — with Oprah Winfrey. She discovered Dr. Oz and made him a frequent guest of her own talk show before building this format around him. They began pushing to sell the format rights internationally even before the show began its run on American television. “I met the Russian Dr. Oz before we were on the air,” Dr. Oz said. He has also seen a tape of the Chinese Dr. Oz, Liang Dong, and said that, while more reserved in his delivery, “he’s jovial.” That might describe Mehmet Oz himself. The Chinese version, called “Health Is Most Important,” will probably demonstrate a little less “attitude and playfulness” than the American show, Dr. Oz said, simply because “in places like China and Russia, people have very different expectations of what a doctor will tell you.” Sales of formats for other kinds of television shows, like talent competitions and game shows, are a routine part of the international television business. But Sony has made a jump in finding a way to package “Oz” and its magazine-style format as an entry that can be recreated in other countries in other languages. “Health and wellness are universal topics,” said Kees Abrahams, president of international production for Sony Pictures Television. He heralded the deal in China as a breakthrough development for the company. “It’s the first magazine talk-show format to be sold this way internationally,” Mr. Abrahams said. “This is opening the China market. It’s a really big development for us.” The Russian show, which began appearing in April, is already a hit, Mr. Abrahams said, so much so that the broadcaster, Rossiya, has ordered 175 new episodes. Sony was well-positioned to make the deal in China, he said, because of a joint venture it already enjoyed with a Chinese film company. The pitch to Zhejiang Satellite TV began with a highlight reel from the American version, Mr. Abrahams said. Then Sony laid out the parts of the adaptation that could be exported, including scripts, research data and animations. But that wasn’t all. Sony agreed to produce the Chinese version as well, which meant casting the Chinese Dr. Oz and creating a pilot. “They just loved it,” Mr. Abrahams said. The first of 31 episodes will begin on the satellite channel next month. If they succeed, a full order of more than 100 is expected to follow. As Mehmet Oz points out, with that kind of reach it will not take much of a rating to draw a crowd on the channel — even though Zhejiang is the No. 2 satellite company in China. Still, a 1 rating could mean 80 million viewers. Sony gets a license fee for the format anywhere it sells, and in places where it produces the local version it receives production fees as well. Dr. Oz said Sony’s plan was to jump quickly into as many countries as possible, before local companies got the idea that they could make their own copy without paying the fee. But Sony will supply them with topics, illustrations, animations — even the scripts of the American version — to make it less costly to produce a show. “The main reason these shows work” in any locality, he said, “is if you give people that much of a recipe, they can fill the pie.” Any American who happens to stumble onto the Chinese version will surely see familiar sights, Dr. Oz said. “The look and feel of the show are identical,” he said, with the set built to the same specifications and the studio audience positioned the same way. Dr. Oz said many health and wellness issues cross over easily into any culture. “Weight loss, that’s a big problem in China today,” Dr. Oz said. “Beauty questions; aging; the whole pain category.” Subjects that touch on sex require tact, he said, adding that was careful not to display graphic images in his American show because children might be watching. China may provide the quickest increase in viewership for the Oz format, but the star and Sony have no intention of stopping there. A deal for a show in Latin America is also close to completion, they said.

SONY Corporation
Television
China
Dr. Oz Show The (TV Program)


Ebb in Uranium Enrichment in U.S. Raises Questions About Nuclear Policy

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Energy Department officials will shake hands and exchange congratulations with Russian representatives at a Port of Baltimore dockside ceremony on Tuesday as a freighter from St. Petersburg is to arrive with the final shipment of enriched uranium that was once intended for Soviet warheads. The uranium will be turned into fuel for American power reactors, completing a 20-year program, called Megatons to Megawatts, that has eliminated enough highly enriched uranium to fuel about 19,000 warheads. But amid the good cheer and talk of mutual cooperation, the United States’ policy on uranium enrichment — the same technology that is at the heart of the dispute with Iran — is a point of contention here, too, for much the same reason: the ambiguous overlap between the technology’s military and civilian use. In the Middle East, the issue is why Iran has been producing enriched uranium in excess of its civilian needs. When further enriched, it can be used as bomb fuel. The United States does not need enrichment to make any new nuclear weapons, because it already has thousands of them. But the United States could lose the ability to maintain its nuclear arsenal, many experts say, because its nuclear infrastructure is withering. The last American factory for enriching uranium that used American technology closed in May. It was a victim, after 60 years, of changing technologies and economics — some of it resulting from the Megatons to Megawatts program, which provided the enrichment needs for half of the civilian nuclear industry. That plant was operated by USEC, a private company in Bethesda, Md. Now, USEC, with extensive government support, is developing a new kind of centrifuge that would have a military role by making low-enriched fuel for a Tennessee Valley Authority civilian reactor that produces a component of nuclear weapons. USEC, which was formerly known as the U.S. Enrichment Corporation, was a government enterprise that was spun off to the private sector in 1998. It has been trying for years to find a toehold in the centrifuge business, but it has struggled against technologically advanced and well-financed foreign competitors. The new USEC centrifuges would primarily produce fuel for civilian reactors, which use low-enriched fuel that is unsuitable for bombs. To round up government support for it what it calls the American Centrifuge Project, USEC is making a national defense argument: the Tennessee reactor would be making a weapons material — tritium, a form of hydrogen that is the “H” in the H-bomb. USEC and its supporters say that under international agreements, such work can be done only with American uranium, enriched using an American technology. The stockpile of such uranium will be exhausted in 10 to 20 years, the Energy Department says. The dominant uranium enrichment plant in the United States , in Eunice, N.M., uses centrifuges built by a European consortium, Urenco . USEC, which handles the American end of the Megatons to Megawatts deal, is asking the Energy Department for a $2 billion loan guarantee to commercialize the technology, which it is testing in Piketon, Ohio. For now, the department has given USEC a series of short-range performance targets that the agency calls “necessary but not sufficient” to get the loan guarantee. USEC must pass the next set of such performance reviews this month. In a paper published Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , two prominent nuclear analysts, George David Banks and Michael Wallace, argue that with the growing concern over global warming, the use of nuclear power is certain to grow and the United States should have a native technology for making fuel and for disposing of it. That would allow the United States to supply fuel to developing nations for their nuclear reactors and take it back afterward, making sure that the countries use it to produce electricity and not bombs. “The lack of policy on the front and back end in the fuel cycle will really come back and bite us on the proliferation agenda,” Mr. Banks said in an interview. If the United States gets out of the business of enriching uranium, there is little hope that it will be able to influence other countries’ policies, Mr. Banks and Mr. Wallace argue. And the end of the Megatons to Megawatts program could create an opening for a new supplier, experts say, although Russia will continue to ship low-enriched uranium to the United States. There are private competitors too. G.E., which has substantially more nuclear experience and resources than USEC, is seeking to license an enrichment system that uses lasers instead of centrifuges . It is based on Australian technology and thus could not be used for fuel in a plant that makes tritium for weapons, according to G.E. Some experts question whether the ability to enrich uranium will enhance American influence over places like Iran: countries with emerging civilian nuclear programs that might also want to develop weapons. Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center , said that the prohibition on the use of low-enriched uranium fuel to make tritium was an American policy, not a treaty obligation. There is no reason that the United States has to be self-sufficient in enrichment technology, he said, because there is no reason to think that the European consortium, Urenco, that runs the plant in Eunice, N.M., will close it. The self-sufficiency argument, he said, was “desperation.” “I don’t get it. Do we not trust Urenco?” he said. “It’s like saying we can’t buy cars from Japan because they’re Japanese.”

Uranium
Nuclear energy
USEC United States Enrichment
Energy Department
Nuclear weapon


Norwegians Turn Ambivalent on Statoil, Their Economic Bedrock

Abstract: OSLO — This has not been a particularly good year for Statoil , the huge state-controlled oil company that has had a commanding presence in Norway’s economy and society for more than four decades. In the spring, Statoil cut 1,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its work force. In September, it postponed a much-criticized project in the Canadian tar sands for at least three years. On Oct. 29, reflecting collapsing oil prices and a steep tumble of its stock, it reported its first quarterly loss since 2001. And in November, it announced disappointing results from the year’s program of drilling for new oil and gas in the Norwegian Arctic. But it is not just the vicissitudes of oil markets and exploratory wells that are causing difficulties for Statoil. In an era of climate change , the company — and by extension Norway’s entire oil and gas industry, which accounts for nearly a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide — is coming under increasing pressure from within its own borders. The activism goes beyond conventional environmental concerns to issues of the company’s pervasive presence in Norwegian life. At the University of Bergen and other schools, for instance, professors and students have protested Statoil’s financing of academic research, worth about $12 million annually. And musicians and artists have campaigned against the company’s widespread sponsorship of cultural events and organizations, which has included cash awards to performers whom Statoil calls “Heroes of Tomorrow.” “Basically, you’re a billboard for an oil company,” Martin Hagfors, a musician, said in an interview in his studio in Oslo’s lively Gronland district. “And if you have any sense that we need to change direction, you can’t be a billboard for an oil company.” The tensions are playing out in Parliament, too. In June, majority and opposition parties pressured Statoil to agree to provide electricity to several North Sea oil fields from land, using clean hydroelectricity delivered by cable rather than greenhouse-gas-emitting gas generators offshore. “There’s a growing concern that Norway is basing its welfare to such a large extent on something that is increasing global warming,” said Rasmus Hansson, who last year became the first member of the Green Party to be elected to Parliament. “It’s a moral issue.” Statoil, which was concerned about costs and delays, fought back, and a compromise was eventually reached that will cut emissions by up to 23 million tons of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the fields. The episode was seen as a milestone for Parliament, which normally rubber-stamps most Statoil projects. Image Students at the University of Bergen protest Statoil and urge divestment from fossil fuels. Credit 350.org “It was a very important thing to do at the time we did it,” said Terje Aasland, a member of Parliament with the Labor Party, the largest opposition party. “Climate change is coming closer and closer every day,” he added. “I think people are more concerned about the future.” Some Norwegians are even starting to discuss the idea of an eventual transition from oil and gas, an idea that would have been a nonstarter just a few years ago. But there are conflicting impulses. This month, the government announced a huge increase, to $250 million, in the money it was giving to the United Nations to help poorer countries fight the effects of climate change. But just a few days before that, a Finance Ministry panel recommended that Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund , which invests the proceeds from the petroleum riches, not divest itself of its holdings in oil and coal companies, despite pressure from the opposition party. How Norway wrestles with these and other issues may provide a preview of what is to come in other oil-rich countries, including the United States. Criticism of Statoil does not come easily, for the company has long been a source of affluence as well as national pride. Since it was founded in 1972 to exploit the extensive hydrocarbon deposits in the Norwegian continental shelf, Statoil, which is two-thirds owned by the government, has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into federal coffers, including the wealth fund. Oil and gas exports have helped make Norway, which has a population of five million, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, with a median household income of more than $62,000. Even some of its fiercest critics acknowledge that Statoil has a special status among Norwegians. “We’re very proud of Statoil,” said Truls Gulowsen, head of the Norwegian chapter of Greenpeace, which is fighting the company’s plans in the Arctic, Canada and elsewhere. “It’s also ours. Therefore we should have a say in which projects and which strategic direction our company that we all love is going to take.” Among the world’s oil giants, Statoil’s environmental reputation is better than most. The company supports a carbon tax. It has been a leader in developing ways to store carbon dioxide underground to keep it out of the atmosphere. And its per-barrel emissions from producing oil in the North Sea are among the lowest anywhere. “People tend to think we’re very good at what we do,” said Hege Marie Norheim, Statoil’s senior vice president for sustainability. But as production has fallen in old North Sea fields, Statoil has looked elsewhere for oil and gas, including Canada — where production of tar sands oil has a much higher carbon footprint — and environmentally sensitive areas in the Arctic. Image The Norwegian rock band El Cuero plays in Oslo at a festival sponsored by Statoil, which has a program to support the arts in Norway. The oil company’s backing has made some artists uneasy. Credit Ingar Haug Steinholt/Scanpix That has environmentalists and others fuming. “Statoil, the cleanest oil company, our Norwegian pride, why are you getting yourself involved in really dirty business?” said Mr. Gulowsen of Greenpeace. Most of Statoil’s oil and gas, including the 30 percent that comes from outside Norway, is burned in other countries. So while Norway itself is greener than many other countries — almost all of its electricity, for example, comes from hydropower — it is indirectly responsible for a disproportionate share of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. If and when governments around the world put stricter limits on emissions, Statoil could be forced to leave some of its oil and gas in the ground. Market factors — a long period of depressed oil prices, for instance — could have the same result. Either way, the impact on Statoil, and on Norway’s economy, could be severe. So it makes sense, critics say, for Statoil and other Norwegian companies to begin planning for an era of less or even no oil. Mr. Aasland, the Labor politician, argues that Statoil could use its offshore expertise to develop more wind power or other alternative energy sources. “We can use the knowledge and people in the oil industry,” Mr. Aasland said. “There’s a big opportunity over time to diverge from oil and gas to a more green economy.” Statoil, not surprisingly, does not think it should be the one to leave any oil and gas behind. “We think that’s not part of our contribution,” Ms. Norheim said. “On the contrary, the oil that should be produced from now to the end should, to a very large extent, come from Norway, because it’s good oil. It’s safe and secure and delivered from us with low carbon emissions.” As for transforming the company into one with more of a focus on renewable energy, Ms. Norheim said that was unrealistic. “We are good at what we do, but we’re not good at everything,” she said. So for now, despite the depressed oil market and talk of more emissions limits, Statoil is still very much an oil and gas company. In November, in the middle of the more sobering news, Statoil announced that a new field, the Johan Sverdrup — one of the biggest North Sea discoveries in recent years and the crucial field in the electrification dispute with Parliament — could produce as much as $200 billion in revenue over the next 50 years. “Make no mistake, the oil and gas sector is still pushing on,” Mr. Hansson, of the Green Party, said. “The practical policy is to make Norway even more dependent on oil and gas.” And no one is quite certain what Norway’s future would look like if that were to change. “It’s really hard for people to see a society without the oil industry,” said Ingrid Skjoldvaer, deputy chairwoman of the environmental group Nature and Youth. “How is that going to work? What are we going to live off then?”

Oil and Gasoline
Greenhouse gas
Statoil ASA
Norway
Climate Change
Global Warming


Presidential Debate: Here’s What You Missed

Abstract: We analyzed in real time the second presidential debate between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton. Plus, here are our fact checks and email exchanges with William Weld , the Libertarian vice-presidential nominee. Moments From the Second Presidential Debate 12 Photos View Slide Show › Image Stephen Crowley/The New York Times The second presidential debate between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton began with explosive attacks and ended with a measure of graciousness, as the two candidates complimented each other at the request of an audience member. Mrs. Clinton said she admired the Trump children, while Mr. Trump called his opponent “a fighter.” But the candidates savaged each other on the way to the finish, with Mr. Trump struggling mightily for much of the evening to address questions about his finances, policy ideas and treatment of women. In several tense exchanges, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he had avoided paying federal income taxes for years, called his taped description of sexual assault “locker room-talk” and accused Mrs. Clinton of victimizing women and carrying “hate in her heart.” He also said that as president he would appoint a special prosecutor to pursue Mrs. Clinton. In a comparatively subdued performance, Mrs. Clinton hewed close to the basic arguments of her campaign: That she is an experienced public servant and Mr. Trump is unfit to be president. Mr. Trump, she said, “owes our country an apology.” Here are the rest of the highlights: • An audience member asked the candidates to name one positive quality in their opponent. Mrs. Clinton jumped in first. “I respect his children,” she said. “His children are incredibly able and devoted and I think that says a lot about Donald. I don’t agree with nearly anything else he says or does, but I do respect that.” Mr. Trump, expressing gratitude for the compliment, offered his own. “I will say this about Hillary: She doesn’t quit,” he said. “She doesn’t give up. I respect that.” The debate ended, and the pair shook hands. Video Despite a contentious tone during the debate, the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, and her Republican counterpart, Donald J. Trump, closed the evening on a friendly note. Credit Credit The New York Times • Pressed on the 2005 recording which he seemed to boast of sexually assaulting women, Mr. Trump said he was “not proud of” the behavior, saying that he had apologized to his family and the American people. But he disputed that the recording amounted to bragging about sexual assault, calling his comments “locker room talk.” “I have great respect for women,” he said. “ Nobody has more respect for women than I do ,” he said, adding, “I was embarrassed by it.” • Mrs. Clinton, responding to Mr. Trump’s remarks about the recording, said that while she disagreed with past Republican nominees, “I never questioned their fitness to serve.” “Donald Trump is different,” she said. She suggested that, despite Mr. Trump’s insistence that the recording did not reflect his character, “It’s clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is.” • Mr. Trump turned the discussion of his lewd remarks on Mr. Clinton, arguing that his “words” did not compare to Mr. Clinton’s history with women. “If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse,” Mr. Trump said. Mrs. Clinton did not address the attacks on her husband. “He gets to run his campaign any way he chooses,” she said. She paraphrased Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention to describe her approach: “When they go low, you go high.” Video The Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, dismissed his lewd comments from 2005 as "locker room talk," directing attention toward national security and Bill Clinton's sexual behavior. Credit Credit The New York Times • Addressing Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump said that if he wins, “I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” citing her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Mrs. Clinton pointedly said she could not spend all of her time fact-checking Mr. Trump, advising viewers to go to her website to see his falsehoods. She said it was a good thing that Mr. Trump was not in charge of the laws in the country. “Because you’d be in jail,” Mr. Trump shot back. Cheers could be heard from the crowd. • Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Trump was plainly trying to divert attention from his own campaign — “ the way it’s exploding and the way Republicans are leaving you. ” Mr. Trump asked a moderator, Mr. Cooper, why he had not spent more time discussing Mrs. Clinton’s private email server. (The other moderator, Martha Raddatz, had in fact brought it up moments earlier.) Mr. Trump was unmoved. “Nice, one on three,” he said, suggesting the moderators were teaming up on him. • Asked about how to stop Islamophobia, Mr. Trump said, “You’re right about Islamophobia and that’s a shame.” But he pivoted immediately to a discussion of what he called “radical Islamic terrorists,” citing the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., and the attacks on the World Trade Center, among other atrocities. Mrs. Clinton suggested Mr. Trump’s statements throughout the campaign had been destructive. “We are not at war with Islam,” she said. “It plays into the hands of the terrorists to act as though we are.” • Pushed repeatedly to answer whether his proposed ban on Muslim immigration still stood, Mr. Trump deflected, saying his plans amounted to “extreme vetting” and accusing a moderator, Ms. Raddatz, of favoring Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton said it was “important for us, as a policy” not to ban people based on religion. “How do you do that?” she asked. “We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty.” • After Mr. Trump said again that he opposed the war in Iraq, despite past public statements that contradict him , Mrs. Clinton reiterated that “we have it on tape” that Mr. Trump had not been against the war before it began. “It’s not been debunked,” he insisted, turning the issue back on Mrs. Clinton. “You voted for it and you shouldn’t have.” • A black audience member asked if the candidates could serve as president for “all Americans.” Mr. Trump said that he could, before moving quickly to a standard of his stump speech: wondering aloud what some voters “have to lose.” “It can’t get any worse,” he said. After Mr. Trump again criticized Mrs. Clinton’s Senate tenure, she noted that she won re-election by a wide margin. She added, “If you don’t vote for me, I still want to be your president.” • Mrs. Clinton was asked about a remark, leaked from a private speech, in which she seemed to stress the importance of keeping both a public and a private position on given issues as a political figure. She said she was following the example of Abraham Lincoln as he sought to convince lawmakers to ally with him. “Now she’s blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln, ” Mr. Trump said. “Honest Abe never lied.” • Mrs. Clinton cited the specter of Russian hackers seeking to influence the election with strategic leaks, which she suggested were intended to help Mr. Trump. “Believe me, they’re not doing it to get me elected,” she said. (She has spoken often of Mr. Trump’s kind words for Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president.) Mr. Trump claimed ignorance. “Maybe there is no hacking,” he said, adding, “I know nothing about Russia.” • Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump tussled over taxes, touching on Mr. Trump’s efforts to avoid paying them given past losses. He was giving “zero for our vets, zero for our military,” she said. “That is wrong.” Asked directly if Mr. Trump had used a near-billion-dollar loss in the mid-1990s to avoid paying taxes, he replied, “Of course I do. Of course I do.” He accused Mrs. Clinton of not doing enough as a senator to reform the tax code. • Asked by an audience member about coarseness in the presidential race, Mrs. Clinton said it was “very important for us to make clear to our children that our country really is great because we’re good .” She reminded the crowd of her campaign slogan, “Stronger Together.” Mr. Trump, who before the debate appeared with women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, said he broadly agreed with Mrs. Clinton. “I began this campaign because I was so tired of seeing such foolish things happen to our country ,” he said. • In response to a question on the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Trump called the program “a disaster.” “You know it, we all know it,” he said. Mrs. Clinton was asked about recent remarks from her husband, in which he appeared to criticize Mr. Obama’s signature legislative achievement. “He clarified what he meant,” Mrs. Clinton said. “If we were to start all over again, we might come up with a different system,” she said. “But we have an employer-based system.” • Asked about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, Mrs. Clinton called the situation “catastrophic,” pivoting to criticize Russia and accusing the country’s leadership again of favoring Mr. Trump for president. Asked the same question, Mr. Trump said Mrs. Clinton “talks tough against Russia, but our nuclear program has fallen way behind.” When Ms. Raddatz, a moderator, brought up the remarks of Mr. Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, on Syria, Mr. Trump said, “He and I haven’t spoken and I disagree.” • Mr. Trump attacked Mrs. Clinton for saying that half of Trump supporters could be placed in a “basket of deplorables.” “Believe me, she has tremendous hate in her heart,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Cooper asked Mr. Trump if he had the discipline to lead, citing a recent “Twitter missive” in which he advised followers, without evidence, to “check out” a sex tape featuring a former pageant winner whose weight he had insulted in the 1990s. Mr. Trump denied that he had mentioned a sex tape. He also defended his favored social media practice: “Tweeting happens to be a modern-day form of communication,” he said. “I’m not un-proud of it.” • Asked about the Supreme Court, Mrs. Clinton said she wanted “a Supreme Court that will stick with Roe v. Wade and a women’s right to choose.” Mr. Trump said he hoped to find judges “very much in the mold of Justice Scalia,” citing a list he has compiled of possible selections. • Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump took the stage without shaking hands . Fact Checks of the Second Presidential Debate Reporters for The New York Times fact-checked the statements made by Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump during Sunday’s presidential debate.

2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Hillary Clinton
Republicans
Democrats


Children Watching Snack Ads Eat More

Abstract: Psychologists recognize that certain behaviors can be automatic. For example, unrecognized external stimuli can unconsciously stir us to anger, spur us to loyalty or incite us to rudeness without our knowing it. A new study finds that seeing food ads on television can induce people to eat more snacks while watching. In one experiment, conducted by researchers from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, 118 children, ages 7 to 11, were each given bowls of Goldfish crackers and then left to watch a 14-minute cartoon. During the commercial breaks, some of the children saw ads for games and entertainment; others watched four spots for unhealthy snacks like waffle sticks with syrup, fruit roll-ups and potato chips. The children who saw the food spots ate 45 percent more Goldfish than those who watched the game commercials. According to the authors, the experiment suggests “a direct causal link between food advertising and greater snack consumption.” That runs counter to the industry line, which has long held that food ads merely promote competition among similar brands, rather than inspiring extra food consumption or inducing unhealthier food preferences. ALEX MINDLIN

Food
Advertising and Marketing
Snack Foods


Greens in Germany Choose Path of Protest, Not Compromise

Abstract: BERLIN — The Greens in Germany could not have hoped for better news than the final element of the government’s energy policy. To the public fury, but also hidden delight, of the Greens, Chancellor Angela Merkel ’s coalition confirmed that it would prolong the life span of the country’s 17 nuclear power plants by up to 14 years. This is far beyond the 2022 deadline that was mandated eight years ago by the then-governing Social Democrats and Greens. Mrs. Merkel has always insisted that nuclear plants should remain open until sufficient amounts of renewable energy become available. The Greens, searching for an issue ever since the 2005 elections when they were pushed into opposition, have latched on to nuclear power. And they are riding high on it. Four opinion polls published last week gave the Greens between 18 percent and 24 percent of the vote if elections were held now, compared with the 10.7 percent they won last year. Federal elections are due in 2013. One poll even puts the Greens neck and neck with the opposition Social Democrats at a time when a leading Green lawmaker, Renate Künast, is considering running against Klaus Wowereit, the incumbent Social Democrat mayor of Berlin, in the regional contest next year. “The big question is whether this surge in support for the Greens can be sustained and what they want to do with it,” said Franz Beitzinger, a political economist with the Council on Public Policy at the University of Bayreuth. Across most of Europe, Green parties and other small movements are making inroads at the expense of the conservative and social democratic parties that have long dominated the political landscape. Instead of tidy single-party control, or a two-party coalition, politics has become increasingly fragmented, allowing not only the Greens but also new right-leaning parties to force new alignments. “What you see, especially in Germany, is the declining influence of the established parties,” said Richard Stöss, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin. The popularity of Green parties in Finland and France, Ireland and Hungary, Luxembourg and Belgium is certainly linked to climate change and global warming. But Panu Laturi, general secretary of the Finnish Green party, which is in government, said the Greens had learned to be pragmatic in order to have influence and survive. “Governing is about making compromises,” Mr. Laturi said. When the Finnish center-right government recently announced it would build two new nuclear plants, the Greens opposed it but did not resign. “It was a free parliamentary vote. We voted against the new plants but decided to remain in government. It is more effective than being in opposition,” Mr. Laturi said. The Greens in Germany made many compromises when they joined the federal government for the first time, in 1998, under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat. During their seven years in the coalition, the “realos,” the realist wing of the Greens, prevailed while the “fundis,” or fundamentalists, who were committed to pacifism, state interference and higher taxes to finance ecological and social policies, were marginalized. The Greens supported the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999 to stop the Serb policy of ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. In 2002, they agreed to send German troops to Afghanistan. They moved so much to the center that they supported Hartz IV, Mr. Schröder’s radical reforms of the social welfare system designed to encourage the unemployed to re-enter the labor market by reducing certain welfare benefits. Out of office since 2005, the party has shifted leftward. It wants the German troops pulled out of Afghanistan. It has proposed more state spending and higher taxes. And when Mrs. Merkel’s coalition decided this week to raise the monthly Hartz IV unemployment benefits by €5, higher than the increase pensioners will receive, the Greens protested. Not only did they distance themselves from their own previous policies, they demanded a hefty increase for the unemployed, even though a majority of Germans oppose such a move: taxpayers will have to foot the bill. It is the realists who are now marginalized, said analysts. Because of this move to the left, the Greens are profiting. It is a paradox because of the party’s economic base. Reinhard Bütikofer, a leading German Green member of the European Parliament, said his party “represents a certain lifestyle.” Green members are better educated; around 60 percent of members are university graduates, compared with 15 percent for the two biggest parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. They are also better paid. Mostly urbanized, many belong to the professions and are politically and socially engaged. “They sit on school boards. They are active in their churches or sports clubs. They support nongovernmental organizations,” Mr. Bütikofer added. And in contrast with the aging profile of the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats, the majority of Greens are under 45. Two-thirds of Green members are male, but 55 percent of the voters are female, according to internal studies carried out by the Greens. No wonder then that when Mrs. Merkel was first elected chancellor in 2005, she sought to win over female Green voters by modernizing her conservative Christian Democratic Union party. She supported more state-financed preschool child care places to allow mothers to pursue their careers and fathers to take months of paid paternity leave. Mrs. Merkel also embraced environmental policies, moving her party to the center. The Greens were shaken by Mrs. Merkel’s modernizing zeal during her first period in office and her popularity. But since her re-election a year ago, when she formed a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats, Mrs. Merkel’s popularity has plummeted, and her government has been plagued by infighting. Instead of proposing fresh ideas, the Greens have reacted by becoming a protest party in Parliament. This has clearly won them support. But if they want to become credible and electable, Mr. Stöss said, they will need concrete policies. That, he added, means bringing back the realists.

Germany
Politics and Government
Environment
Merkel Angela
Europe


Google’s Rivals Say F.T.C. Antitrust Ruling Missed the Point

Abstract: WASHINGTON — One of the more surprising conclusions drawn by the Federal Trade Commission when it dropped its nearly two-year antitrust investigation into Google last week was that Google, far from harming consumers, had actually helped them. But some critics of the inquiry now contend that the commission found no harm in Google’s actions because it was looking at the wrong thing. Instead of considering harm to people who come to Google to search for information, Google’s competitors and their supporters say that the government should have been looking at whether Google’s actions harmed its real customers — the companies that pay billions of dollars each year to advertise on Google’s site. In its reports, the F.T.C. did not detail how it defined harm or what quantitative measures it had used to determine that Google users were better off. But interviews with people on all sides of the investigation — government officials, Google supporters, advocates for Microsoft and other competitors, and antitrust experts and economists — show that many of the yardsticks the commission used to measure its outcomes were remarkably similar to Google’s own. Not surprisingly, they cast Google in a favorable light. Image Jon Leibowitz, right, the Federal Trade Commission chairman, speaking last week after the decision was announced. Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images At issue were changes that Google made in recent years to its popular search page. Google makes frequent adjustments to the formulas that determine what results are generated when a user enters a search. Currently, it makes more than 500 changes a year, or more than one each day. Users rarely notice the changes in the formulas, or algorithms, that generate search results, but businesses do. If a change in the formulas causes a business to rank lower in the order of results generated by a search, it is likely to miss potential customers. What customers are now seeing reflects changes in the format of Google results. For certain categories of searches — travel information, shopping comparisons and financial data, for example — Google has begun presenting links to its own related services. People close to the investigation said that Google had presented the F.T.C. with the results of tests with focus groups hired by an outside firm to review different versions of a Google search results page. After Google acquired ITA, a travel search business, in 2011, it began testing a new way to display flight results. The company asked test users to compare side-by-side examples of a results page with just the familiar 10 blue links to specialty travel sites with a page that had at the top a box containing direct links to airlines and fares. People who reviewed the Google data said tests with hundreds of people showed that fewer than one in five users preferred the page with links only. Users said they liked the box of flight results, so Google reasoned that making the change was better for the consumer. Image Amit Singhal of Google said search changes are researched. Credit Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press “There is a deep science to search evaluation,” Amit Singhal, a senior vice president who oversees Google’s search operation, said in an interview on Friday. “A lot of work goes into every change we make.” But the changes were not better for companies or alternative travel sites that were pushed off the first page of results by Google’s flight box and associated links. By pushing links to competing sites lower, Google might be making things easier for people who come to it for free search. But it also is having a negative effect on competitors, shutting off traffic for those sites. Drawing fewer customers as a result of Google’s free links, those competitors are forced to advertise more to draw traffic. And advertisers who aren’t competitors have fewer places to go to reach consumers, meaning Google can use its market power to raise advertising prices. “There might be no consumer harm if Google eliminates Yelp,” said one Microsoft advocate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the likelihood of further interactions with the F.T.C. “But advertisers certainly are harmed.” Google’s suggestion that the correct way to measure the benefit of a design change was through user appreciation seemed to strike a chord with the commission. In its statement explaining why it took no action against Google on search bias, the F.T.C. said that “the documents, testimony and qualitative evidence the commission examined are largely consistent with the conclusion that Google likely benefited consumers by prominently displaying its vertical content on its search results page.” F.T.C. officials said they considered data from a wide range of sources — those with interests aligned with Google as well as against it. The officials also bought quantitative data about Internet usage and conducted interviews with experts who were independent of all sides. Video The Federal Trade Commission found that Google did not violate antitrust and anticompetition laws, clearing the way for the company to further dominate the Web search field. None of the data was taken strictly at face value, Howard Shelanski, director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Economics, said in an interview. “We kick the tires hard on all of the data we receive.” While some of Google’s competitors might have suffered when Google made changes to the way it generated and displayed search results, the F.T.C. said, “the totality of the evidence” showed that “any negative impact on actual or potential competitors was incidental.” The five commissioners at the F.T.C. voted unanimously not to pursue a case accusing Google of using unfair competition to enhance its search business. One of those commissioners, however, warned that there was little to prevent Google from misrepresenting the value of the changes it made to its search methods. That commissioner, J. Thomas Rosch, a Republican who criticized the F.T.C.’s decision not to seek a court order preventing Google from certain actions, said, “Nothing in this ‘settlement’ prevents Google from telling ‘half truths’ — for example, that its gathering of information about the characteristics of a consumer is done solely for the consumer’s benefit, instead of also to maintain a monopoly or near monopoly position.” Google’s interest in maintaining its market dominance — it accounts for about 70 percent of all searches in the United States — goes beyond its dedication to improving the experience for users, of course. Jon Leibowitz, the F.T.C. chairman, said that while “some evidence suggested that Google was trying to eliminate competition,” that was not necessarily illegal. “Some may believe the commission should have done more in this case, because they are locked in hand-to-hand combat with Google around the world and have the mistaken belief that criticizing us will influence the outcome in other jurisdictions,” he said. The commissioners also appeared to view Google’s changes to its results pages as a design issue as much as an antitrust one. “Product design is an important dimension of competition,” the commission wrote, “and condemning legitimate product improvements risks harming consumers.”

Google
FTC
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Competition law


After Friction, Renewed Zen for de Blasio

Abstract: He was the mayor of populist messages, pledging to crack down on toplessness in Times Square , a recent pet cause of the New York City tabloids, whose campaigns he typically ignores. He was the mayor of good deeds, promoting his efforts to end an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the Bronx. And, notably, Bill de Blasio was the mayor of magnanimity, demurring when invited to complain about the news media, and calmly fielding a query about his gym habits, which he had sternly dismissed as “not a serious question” just days ago. Mr. de Blasio, in a news conference at City Hall on Tuesday, showcased a side of his personality that New Yorkers have seen little of lately: crankiness replaced by comity, defiance replaced by evenhandedness. When his press secretary, Karen Hinton, signaled that it was time to go, Mr. de Blasio, a former campaign manager who has a habit of overruling aides, collected his papers and walked off. The appearance was a sign, preliminary to be sure, that Mr. de Blasio may be starting to heed the concerns of allies and advisers who are worried that a pileup of political headaches and public-relations bungles have dimmed views of his administration. A Quinnipiac poll this month showed that more New Yorkers disapprove of the mayor’s performance than at any other time in his tenure, in the wake of a feud with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and scraps over homelessness and taxicabs. The mayor has also faced questions about patronage — a $150,000-a-year position went to the companion of a top aide — and his populist image, after his wife told court officials that she was too busy to perform jury duty. After a family trip on Monday to Rhode Island, Mr. de Blasio was back at City Hall on Tuesday. And there were subtle, but perceptible, shifts in his words. The mayor was frustrated last week by a question about why he had exercised at a gym during a police standoff with a gunman on Staten Island. On Tuesday, he responded, taking pains to underscore his devotion to the job. “There is no such thing in this job as being off duty,” Mr. de Blasio said. (He also suggested that exercise helped him “be as effective as I can be.”) Criticized by some on quality-of-life concerns, Mr. de Blasio on Tuesday issued a stern warning when asked about the trend of topless women in Times Square who wear body paint, a novelty that caught the ire of The New York Post in April and The Daily News. “It’s wrong, it’s wrong,” the mayor said, pledging to address the issue “in a very aggressive manner.” The mayor’s shift in tone came after several days of unflattering headlines, including an article in The New York Times on Sunday about his difficulties controlling perception of City Hall. In an interview with The Times for that article on Saturday, Mr. de Blasio expressed deep frustration with how the news media has covered his administration. He began by saying: “Let’s be straightforward here: You’re going to write a piece about how it’s been a bad summer, and you’re not going to talk about our achievements. So I’m really interested in why you’re going to do that.” The mayor also said that political challenges were a “constant part of the reality of being mayor of New York,” and he asserted that the news media had reported on his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, with “a kid-glove sensibility.” Privately, some allies of the mayor said this week that they were surprised by the tenor of some of Mr. de Blasio’s comments. On Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio took a different tack. When a reporter broached the subject of news media coverage, Mr. de Blasio’s reply was calm and unwavering. “I don’t really have anything to say on that right now,” the mayor said. “Let’s stay on the substance of the day.” He moved on to the next question. On Wednesday morning, Mr. de Blasio is set to appear on WNYC for an interview. The mayor rarely takes listener call-in questions, but he plans to do so on Wednesday. On a WNYC show Tuesday, a man identifying himself as “Louis in the Village” called in to defend the mayor, and the station’s producers and listeners said he was almost certainly the comedian Louis C.K. “I really like this mayor,” Louis in the Village said on air. “And I think he deserves a better chance than he’s getting.”


Panel Blocks Gas Pipeline in New Jersey Pinelands

Abstract: The New Jersey agency charged with protecting the Pinelands, a vast and fragile expanse of sand pines, gnarled oaks and river deltas, narrowly defeated a proposal on Friday to run a 22-mile natural gas pipeline through it. The decision dealt a defeat to Gov. Chris Christie, whose administration vigorously lobbied for the pipeline, saying it was an important economic development tool for southern New Jersey. The Pinelands sit atop a shallow, trillions-of-gallons-large aquifer that serves millions of residents. There are 17 species of plants that are found there but nowhere else, said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, an environmental group. Four former governors, two Republican and two Democrat, wrote a letter opposing the project. The New Jersey Pinelands Commission rejected the proposal by South Jersey Gas, which had teamed up with the state Board of Public Utilities to connect a pipeline to the B.L. England power plant in Cape May County, The Associated Press reported on Friday. The plant is switching to natural gas from coal, The A.P. said. “I hurt my back doing cartwheels,” in response to the vote, said Mr. Tittel on Saturday. “This is the biggest environmental win we’ve had” during the Christie administration, he said. Before the vote, the state attorney general’s office, which reports to the governor, required a commission member and prominent environmental law professor, Edward Lloyd, to sit out the vote, citing a conflict of interest. Stacey Roth, the commission’s attorney, said the applicant can ask the commission to consider a new proposal in the future. Dan Lockwood, a spokesman for the gas company, told The A.P. on Friday that it was studying its options. “We’re disappointed, particularly for our customers in Cape May County,” Mr. Lockwood said. The gas company said that, in addition to providing a cleaner fuel source to the power plant, the new pipeline would provide a second transmission vehicle for natural gas to thousands of customers in Atlantic and Cape May Counties. It was not immediately clear whether the power plant would seek an alternate means of getting natural gas. South Jersey Gas proposed paying $8 million to a Pinelands fund to help clear the project’s final hurdle. Most of the money would have gone to acquire and preserve 2,000 to 3,000 acres of land near the pipeline route. The deal would have exempted the pipeline from a ban on new transmission lines in the 1.1 million-acre Pinelands reserve, The A.P. reported. “Voting yes for this project would sound the death knell for Pinelands protection,” Commissioner Leslie M. Ficcaglia told The A.P.

New Jersey
Pipelines
Natural gas
Land use
Chris Christie
South Jersey Industries