Representative John P. Murtha, Ex-Marine and Iraq War Critic, Dies

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a gruff ex-Marine who used his immense power in military spending to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to his hard-luck district and who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, died on Monday. He was 77. He died at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, where he was being treated for complications of gallbladder surgery, his office said. Mr. Murtha’s death came two days after he became the longest-serving congressman in Pennsylvania history, his office said, surpassing the record of Joseph M. McDade, a Scranton Republican who served from 1963 to 1999. Elected in 1974 and the first Vietnam combat veteran to serve in Congress, Mr. Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize use of military force in Iraq. But he evolved into a leading foe of the war as it was conducted under the administration of President George W. Bush. “The war in Iraq is not going as advertised,” Mr. Murtha said in November 2005 as he demanded an immediate withdrawal of American troops. He called the Iraq campaign “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.” Mr. Murtha’s long involvement in Pentagon issues and his history of hawkishness made the criticism all the more influential. In a statement Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called Mr. Murtha “a true patriot” and said that while they did not always agree, “I always respected his candor, and knew that he cared deeply about the men and women of America’s military and intelligence community.” Before speaking out on the war, Mr. Murtha was not much known outside Washington or his district in southwestern Pennsylvania. But he was alternately respected and feared by his colleagues on Capitol Hill as he used his influence to funnel hundreds of millions of federal dollars into his hard-luck district, where prosperity had vanished with the decline of the coal and steel industries. Mr. Murtha used his position as the ranking Democrat on the Appropriation Committee’s military subcommittee to reward or punish colleagues in both parties, depending on whether they went along with the special items, or earmarks, that he tucked into bills for the benefit of his 12th Congressional District. More often than not, they did. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, once described Mr. Murtha as someone “who likes to get things done with virtually no spoken words.” Though Mr. Murtha, who was known as Jack, did not go out of his way to win friends among journalists, he understood the power of words. “Let me tell you the facts of life,” he often told balky legislators, as he recalled in an interview in 2006. “If you vote against this bill, you won’t have any input at all the next time.” Nor did he apologize for the political horse-trading in which he was so adept. “Deal making is what Congress is all about,” he said. As an ally of Representative Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Murtha helped navigate her rise to speaker of the House. Ms. Pelosi, in turn, backed him in his unsuccessful contest against Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland to become House Democratic leader. While Mr. Murtha steered huge sums to his district and was able to rake in plenty of money for his campaigns, he lived modestly in Johnstown, Pa., where he owned a carwash. Mr. Murtha, who served five years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives before going to Washington, was a protégé of Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts, who may not have coined the phrase that “all politics is local” but surely embraced it. So did John P. Murtha, who once boasted on a campaign billboard that “The ‘P’ stands for power.” (It actually stood for Patrick.) When he drew fire from the political right for his shift on Iraq, Mr. Murtha said his criticism of the war in no way lessened his support for the Americans fighting in it. “I don’t take a back seat to anybody for my service to my country,” Mr. Murtha said in a recent, profanity-spiced interview with his local newspaper, The Tribune-Democrat. But he said the killing of Iraqi civilians, even if accidental, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners had undermined American efforts. Mr. Murtha told The Tribune-Democrat that he had trusted people in the Bush administration too much when it came to Iraq. “I gave them the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “That was a bad mistake.” A slogan in his first campaign for Congress was “One Honest Man Is Enough.” Yet he barely survived the Abscam affair that ruined several other politicians in the early 1980s. Mr. Murtha was shown on videotape turning down money from an undercover agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation posing as a “sheikh” but he expressed a willingness to talk about money later. Despite that awkward moment, he was never charged, and he eventually testified against two other Abscam defendants. Early in 2009, he came under scrutiny again, when it came to light that federal agents had raided the offices of the PMA Group, a major Washington lobbying firm, in November 2008 as part of an investigation into potentially improper campaign contributions. Mr. Murtha was among the lawmakers lobbied by the firm (its founder, Paul Magliocchetti, had worked for the Defense subcommittee long dominated by him), and PMA’s executives and clients were major sources of contributions to Mr. Murtha’s campaigns. The firm’s specialty was helping clients obtain multimillion-dollar earmarks, Mr. Murtha’s stock in trade. The PMA Group closed its doors after the investigation, and a Congressional ethics office declined to recommend formal investigations into the actions of Mr. Murtha and the other legislators. But the affair did nothing to dispel the impression that Mr. Murtha ran a busy political trading post. The plainspoken Mr. Murtha’s statements sometimes got him in trouble. In October 2008, for example, he was criticized for saying that some of his own constituents were “redneck” and “racist” and might have trouble voting for Barack Obama for president. Trying to explain away his remarks, Mr. Murtha told reporters that change was difficult for some people, “particularly older people” — this in a state that had at the time the second-highest population of elderly people in the country, after Florida. But Mr. Murtha won handily anyhow, defeating a political unknown. On Election Night, he told his supporters, “You keep sending me back regardless of what I say.” John Patrick Murtha was born in New Martinsville, W.Va., on June 17, 1932, and grew up in Mount Pleasant, Pa., about 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. He left Washington & Jefferson College in 1952 to enlist in the Marine Corps and go to Korea. After graduating with a degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962, he rejoined the Marines, serving as an officer in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 and receiving a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in combat in the spring of 1967 and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. His survivors include his wife of 55 years, Joyce; a daughter, Donna; twin sons, John and Patrick, and three grandchildren. As for his constituents, their support largely never flagged. The only close call at the polls for Mr. Murtha was his first run for Congress, a special election in February 1974 to fill the seat of Representative John P. Saylor, a Republican, who had died. Mr. Murtha won by fewer than 200 votes, out of some 120,000 cast. Mr. Murtha left a legacy visible across southwestern Pennsylvania: roads, airports and hospitals there are named after him. Indeed, though he became a fixture in Washington, he remained, in his own eyes, one with the people back home. “I know better than those damn people in the White House what needs to be done in my district,” he said.

Murtha John P
House of Representatives
Deaths (Obituaries)
Iraq War (2003- )
Vietnam War
United States Politics and Government


Jets General Manager Begins Process of Moving Forward

Abstract: As his teammates cleaned out their lockers Monday, Mark Sanchez said his injured right shoulder felt so much better that he thought he could avoid surgery. General Manager Mike Tannenbaum said Friday he was not so sure about that. In an end-of-season conference call with reporters, Tannenbaum said the Jets were continuing to consult with specialists to see if Sanchez needed surgery on his throwing shoulder, which he hurt in a Dec. 19 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. “In my mind, if you’re going to have a procedure, you want to get started sooner than later,” Tannenbaum said. The Tennessee Titans, who parted ways with Jeff Fisher on Thursday, had not called to request permission to speak to the offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, but Tannenbaum said that the Jets wanted Schottenheimer to return. Coach Rex Ryan said he would like to keep his staff intact, and even though the Jets have been called by other teams to talk to some of Ryan’s assistants, Tannenbaum also hopes to retain as much of the staff as possible. Like Ryan, he was happy with the season. “The back-to-back A.F.C. championship games obviously solidifies our program,” Tannenbaum said. “We have a great foundation of sustainable success for the future.” The exact makeup of the 2011 Jets will not be determined until the N.F.L. and players union have a new collective bargaining agreement, but Tannenbaum said the Jets had already decided they would like to re-sign free-agent receivers Santonio Holmes and Braylon Edwards. David Harris, the robust middle linebacker who is a potential free agent, is a top priority for the Jets to re-sign. The Jets would also like to keep cornerback Antonio Cromartie and wide receiver Brad Smith. Tannenbaum expects running back LaDainian Tomlinson to return. TITANS CITE ‘TIME FOR A CHANGE’ The Tennessee Titans and Coach Jeff Fisher, who parted ways on Thursday, agreed that a change was due. “It is just time for a change,” the owner Bud Adams said Friday. Though Fisher declined to address details about the decision, he called the move the best option after two difficult seasons. “I’ve been coaching for 25 years, and it’s time — I need a break,” Fisher said. (AP) UNION SAYS INJURIES RISING The N.F.L. players union said the average number of injuries had risen in the 2010 season. The union released a report that showed that injuries increased to 3.7 per week from 3.2 and that the share of players injured increased to 63 percent compared with a 2002-09 average of 59 percent. (AP)

Football
New York Jets
Tannenbaum Mike
Sanchez Mark


When Patients Meet Online, Are There Side Effects?

Abstract: COULD we cure diseases faster, or at least better control them, through crowd-sourcing? That is the premise behind social networking sites like CureTogether.com and PatientsLikeMe.com , which offer online communities for patients and collect members’ health data for research purposes. PatientsLikeMe provides forums where more than 65,000 members with epilepsy , multiple sclerosis and more than a dozen other disorders are encouraged to share details about their conditions and the success or pitfalls of specific drug treatments. “When patients share real-world data, collaboration on a global scale becomes possible,” the site says . “New treatments become possible.” Moreover, in a world where serious side effects often emerge only years after a new medication enters the market, such real-time information from real-world patients may also provide an early warning signal for drug safety problems. PatientsLikeMe has an innovative for-profit business model, too. It sells health data, gathered from member profiles but with certain identifying information removed, to drug makers and others for scientific and marketing research. Jamie Heywood, the company’s chairman, says both patients and drug makers delve into that data to meet their own needs. Members can seek out patients of the same age, sex, and disease progression, whose profiles are displayed on the site, to see which drugs or doses worked for them. Drug makers can pinpoint subgroups — say, severely depressed middle-aged men — who reported the greatest improvement on a particular medication. “What we have done is made a system that allows you to think about personalized medicine,” says Mr. Heywood. He co-founded the site in 2004 with his brother Ben and a friend after another brother, Stephen Heywood, developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , or A.L.S. , commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. (Stephen died in 2006.) But pharmaceutical crowd-sourcing also raises important questions about the trade-off between the benefits of information sharing and the risk of patient exploitation. Some people share their health information for the sake of the greater good. Yet they typically have no way of knowing whether their health profiles contribute directly to the development of more effective treatments — or are simply mined to create more effective drug marketing. “Do we need to protect people who have illnesses from being exploited?” says Cathy Dwyer, an associate professor at Pace University who has studied how advertisers market to consumers based on their online behavior. “It’s a very tricky line because people absolutely need emotional support when they are dealing with illness.” PatientsLikeMe is one of many sites that promote the idea of the “e-patient,” a health consumer empowered by online information gathering. Along with offering health resources, many of these sites are also engineered to foster an environment where patients effectively promote treatments to other patients, without a doctor as intermediary. The lines become blurry in these new arenas. There are unbranded “disease awareness” communities — for example, on Facebook or YouTube — where a drug maker may pay people to moderate patient forums or give testimonials but might not prominently display that fact to participants. Other sites collect consumer health data to help drug makers aim at specific kinds of consumers, using psychological cues. Unlike television viewers, who can immediately spot direct-to-consumer drug ads, consumers on some health sites may not fully understand that they could be subject to marketing or marketing research, even if they have read the site’s privacy policy. “We are talking about a digital pharma stealth economy that is emerging,” says Jeff Chester, the director of the Center for Digital Democracy , a nonprofit group that works to safeguard user privacy. “You don’t know who is being paid to moderate. You don’t know who’s listening in to your conversation. You don’t know what exactly they are focused on and what they are doing with the information.” The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 restricts the way health care providers use and disseminate patients’ information, but entities like consumer health Web sites are not subject to it. The Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, which strictly regulates direct-to-consumer drug commercials and print ads, is still developing a policy on drug marketing through social media. In many ways, PatientsLikeMe is open and clear about its data collection and how it makes its money . The site’s privacy policy explains that it shares members’ data, shorn of certain personal identifiers, with drug makers and others. Even as the policy encourages people to share their health information so others can learn from their experiences, it advises members that the more personal details they disclose, the more they risk being publicly identified. For corporate clients, the site also functions as a sophisticated data-mining tool that allows them to better pinpoint consumers and to develop new or improved drugs. PatientsLikeMe adopts a more bottom-line approach to companies than it does when advocating its greater-good policy to consumers. “Yesterday, you couldn’t engage with patients because of regulatory conflicts and lack of patient access,” one corporate pitch says on the site. “Today, all that has changed. It’s time to interact directly with your new customers: patients.” Among the services the site provides to its corporate clients is analysis of members’ conversations, broken down by age, sex, disease progression and treatments, to “learn not only what’s being said about your brand, but by whom.” Another service allows drug makers to conduct market research on 25 to 50 of the most active users on the site — typically those who post messages often and have emerged as opinion leaders — who consent to participate. Afterward, drug makers can refine their marketing efforts based on the effect of the program “on patient dialogues across the entire community,” the site says. Ms. Dwyer of Pace says she has been “really, really shocked at the blatant manipulative language” that some sites use to describe their corporate services to industry versus how they describe themselves to consumers. Ben Heywood, president of PatientsLikeMe, says the program for drug makers that focuses on the site’s most active users is not meant to promote specific messages. After participating in the program, he says, members do not disseminate industry ideas on the site. Some members, he says, simply want to share their opinions with drug makers, but they aren’t paid to do so. Jamie Heywood says that such data analyses provide insight for drug makers on how best to reach patients, but the site itself does not market drugs to its members. Moreover, the Heywood brothers say, the site openly describes its industry services. “Our objective is to teach the company,” he says, “not teach the patient about the company’s products.” Still, some of PatientsLikeMe’s competitors have taken a less aggressive approach to how they market patient data. CureTogether.com , for example, has occasionally earned money by e-mailing advertisements aimed at its members who have certain health conditions on behalf of drug makers seeking participants for clinical trials, says Daniel Reda, who co-founded the site with his wife, Alexandra Carmichael. But CureTogether does not post a person’s profile for other members on the site to see or give drug makers access to members’ health data in any form, he says. “The best way to protect people,” Mr. Reda says, “is to collect as little information as possible.”

PatientsLikeMe
Medicine and Health
Computers and the Internet
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Privacy
Advertising and Marketing


Kentucky Crashes Out of N.I.T., Completing Bitter Fall Since National Title

Abstract: Mike McFadden made two free throws with 8.7 seconds remaining and Robert Morris shocked the defending national champion Kentucky, 59-57, on Tuesday night in the opening round of the National Invitation Tournament. The Wildcats decided not to call timeout after the second free throw, but Kyle Wiltjer’s 3-pointer before the buzzer bounced off the rim, sending hundreds of Robert Morris students onto the court. Lucky Jones led the Colonials (24-10) with 15 points but was ejected for a flagrant foul on Archie Goodwin with 3 minutes 41 seconds to play. Kentucky, which trailed by 13 points in the second half, managed to tie the score twice but never held the lead. Goodwin finished with 18 points but could not stop Kentucky’s disappointing season from coming to a stunning end. The victory was validation for the Colonials, who won the Northeastern Conference regular-season title with ease but lost in the conference tournament. The loss relegated the college to the N.I.T., but it hardly felt like a letdown Tuesday. “I know they were disappointed not to get to N.C.A.A. tournament,” Robert Morris Coach Andy Toole said. “This is a memory they’ll get for rest of their lives.” Video The FiveThirtyEight blogger talks to The Times’s Megan Liberman about his statistical analysis of the men’s basketball tournament. The Wildcats let the Colonials race to an early 10-0 lead, only led briefly at the end of the first half and appeared disinterested to spoil the return of Coach John Calipari, a hometown boy made good. Calipari was born in Pittsburgh and grew up a couple of miles from the Robert Morris campus in Moon, Pa., where he played guard at Moon High. Fans scooped up the 3,500 tickets in a matter of hours on Monday, then lined up outside in the blustery March wind well before tip-off of perhaps the biggest game in the university’s history. Robert Morris averaged barely 1,000 fans during its 15 home games, yet scalpers were asking for $75 to get in the door Tuesday. “This is humbling,” Calipari said. “They think we’re supposed to win 30 a year, 35 a year, go to the Final Four, win a national title.” N.C.A.A. TOURNAMENT OPENS Jeremy Underwood came off the bench to score 19 points, leading North Carolina A&T past 21-loss Liberty, 73-72, in the opening round of the N.C.A.A. tournament in Dayton, Ohio. The Flames — only the second team ever to make the tournament with 20 losses — had a chance to win when John Caleb Sanders drove the length of the court and flipped up a left-handed layup in heavy congestion, but it just missed. North Carolina A&T (20-16), which had lost its previous nine games in the N.C.A.A. tournament, earned a date with top-seeded Louisville (29-5) on Thursday. In Tuesday’s second game, Matthew Dellavedova scored 22 points as St. Mary’s got a good start on its second straight tournament appearance by beating Middle Tennessee, 67-54. The Gaels (28-6) will make a trip to Auburn Hills, Mich., to play sixth-seeded Memphis on Thursday. ST. JOHN’S ADVANCES IN N.I.T. Sir’Dominic Pointer raced down the court and made a jumper from the corner at the buzzer to lead St. John’s (17-15) to a 63-61 come-from-behind win over St. Joseph’s in the first round of the N.I.T. ... Raheem Appleby scored 27 points and Alex Hamilton added 16 to help visiting Louisiana Tech rally from a 9-point second half deficit to beat Florida State, 71-66. ... Nick Faust had 15 points and host Maryland (23-12) used a strong second half to defeat Niagara, 86-70. ... Levi Randolph took over during a 22-0 second-half run in host Alabama’s 62-43 win over Northeastern.

College basketball
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness
National Invitation Tournament
University of Kentucky


Races Range From Odd to More So

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Revelations that Rich Iott, a Republican Congressional candidate from Ohio, once whiled away time dressing up as a Nazi have not been fortunate for his candidacy. He has been abandoned by a prominent member of his party, castigated by critics and may well be doomed as a politician. Let the political scholars debate whether this is the most contentious, partisan midterm election in modern memory, as some insist. But there is widespread agreement that it is certainly among the strangest. Across the scores of House races across the country, there have been small set-tos, like whether Kristi Noem, the Republican candidate for South Dakota’s House seat, has too many traffic citations. Then there are races with larger reverberations, like the contentious Senate race in Nevada. The battle between Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, whose constituents appear sour or at least unenthused about him, and an opponent who suggested that Islamic law may take over a Michigan city, is ripping apart the political fabric of the state. Political polarization, primary upsets and the Tea Party movement have combined to make this a most unusual year. “The craziness has always been there in the ranks of American politics,” said Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at the University of California , Berkeley. “Until the 1960s, party bosses and elites filtered out the loonies in favor of the loyal foot soldiers, party hacks, relatives and the occasional talented person.” But, he said, “with the demise of hometown papers and the rise of the Internet, cable and talk radio, the new filters are way more porous.” While some Tea Party candidates have provided unintentional entertainment — odd remarks and hobbies, financial problems, reclusiveness — Democrats have by no means come up empty. For instance, if you are the Democratic candidate for a Senate seat and your state party declines to list your name on its Web site, this is inauspicious. “Um, well, when he got indicted our chairman decided to take him off our Web site,” said Keiana Page, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Democratic Party , referring to Alvin Greene, the unemployed candidate who now faces Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican running for re-election. Mr. Greene was indicted on one count of “disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity” and is accused of showing pornographic material to a female college student. “Before we can throw our support Greene’s way,” Ms. Page said, “we are asking him to get his legal issues resolved.” Mr. Greene, in a telephone interview, was undaunted. “I’ve been going out around the state letting people know that DeMint started the recession,” he said, though he could not recall any counties he has visited. (“What does it matter? What matters is DeMint started the recession.”) Let none forget Bob Etheridge, the Democratic congressman from North Carolina who smacked at a camera being wielded by a student inquiring about his campaign positions. In the meta-weird category is the race to fill President Obama’s former Senate seat — currently held by Roland W. Burris, who was appointed to the seat by Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois after the governor’s arrest. That race is being fought between Alexi Giannoulias, a 34-year-old Democrat, whose family bank is accused of making loans to convicted felons, and Mark Steven Kirk, a Republican, who has admitted to embellishing his military accomplishments. Follow? Let’s move on to political advertisements. The one featuring the Senate candidate assuring voters she is not a witch (Christine O’Donnell, from Delaware) was more momentous than the one with a candidate for Minnesota governor citing his ex-wife’s restraining order against him as a selling point. But this is only because an Independence Party candidate in Minnesota, Rob Hahn, flamed out in the primary. In Nevada, the Senate race has become almost a metaphor for the embattled state. Many prominent Republicans have declined to endorse the Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle, causing some to attack one another publicly and ignoring the party’s tradition of unity come campaign time. The ugly ad wars and the frequent unorthodox remarks of Ms. Angle, like her recent suggestion that Dearborn, Mich., and Frankford, Tex., are under threat of Sharia law, have brought an unwelcome focus to Nevada, which has spent years trying to become an important swing state. Some political experts argue that it is partisanship that explains this year’s nutty flavor. "In the mid-1990s, I foolishly thought political polarization could not be worse than it was," said William Galston, a policy adviser in the Clinton administration and elections expert for the Brookings Institution. “The center has disappeared.”

United States Politics and Government
Elections
Republican Party
Democratic Party


Apps Help Find Online Workers Quickly

Abstract: IT’S been true for a while that if you need to transcribe an audio recording, find contact information for a company, summarize an article, or perform any number of routine tasks, an anonymous online worker can do the job for a small payment. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, for example, recently listed 230,000 available microtasks. These services have a drawback, however: the work is not done in real time. Workers pick up the tasks that interest them and for which they are qualified, but as independent contractors they work on their own schedules. Computer science researchers have been trying to build systems that summon online workers on demand and produce immediate results. Much initial work has focused on completing tasks for people with disabilities, because that is where the need is great. For example, a blind person may need to identify the contents of a can from a kitchen cupboard right now, not later. A deaf college student may want to follow the give-and-take of a seminar discussion as it unfolds in the classroom, and not wait to read a transcript the next day. VizWiz, a free iPhone app developed by Jeffrey P. Bigham of the University of Rochester and colleagues in its Human Computer Interaction program, gives real-time help to blind users. VizWiz users take a photograph as best as they can — it may take several tries before the desired object is properly framed — and then record one question about it (“What is on the label of the can?”). Besides needing help identifying food labels, they may want to know the denomination of paper currency, say, or whether a baby’s head shows signs of a rash. In the app’s first version, the picture and the recorded question were sent to several contractors at Mechanical Turk, to be answered for a tiny fee paid by the Rochester researchers. (More than one person can answer the same question, to ensure accuracy.) The current version offers additional options, like free “friendsourcing” of the question to the user’s Facebook friends, Twitter followers or a particular e-mail correspondent. Professor Bigham says that so far, the service has answered about 60,000 questions from 6,000 users. Image Credit Justin Gabbard FOR a typical Mechanical Turk request, it may take a few minutes, hours or days before a worker picks up the request. VizWiz helps blind users achieve real-time help by going into action as soon they alert the service that they’re preparing to take a picture. While the photograph is being shot, VizWiz posts the assignment on Mechanical Turk. If workers come online to help, but the picture isn’t yet ready, the software keeps them busy identifying archived photos. That way, they are at the ready when the real photo appears. The crowd turns out to be a superior source of aid, compared with one’s social network, in the opinion of recently surveyed VizWiz users. As one respondent said, “When I need something identified like a can or TV dinner I am going to use it now, not whenever my friends get around to telling me what it is. :)” Another smartphone app developed at Rochester, called Scribe, helps the deaf and hearing-impaired. With the app, users send an audio stream to many workers who provide real-time transcription. No single unskilled worker could transcribe all of the words in a live stream — only highly trained transcribers with special equipment can do that. But the software makes it possible to achieve the same results by coordinating a group of six or seven amateurs. The software feeds the stream to each member of the crowd, but parts of it are, in effect, assigned to different people by slowing down short passages, making them easier to transcribe. Each worker transcribes the highlighted portion, and then the Scribe software stitches together the various pieces. Computer scientists at M.I.T. have developed a “retainer model” for Turkers who need to be recruited before requests come in. Instead of keeping workers in a holding pattern with make-work, their software pays workers to remain on standby until a real request arrives on their screen. As the researchers hone their technology and techniques, real-time help may expand to other uses. For example, an online crowd could help edit an e-mail draft, supply feedback about changes to a Web site, or do bilingual interpretation — all without delay. And researchers are now experimenting with a live video feed in VizWiz in place of individual photos. As in most every other part of life, so it is in gaining the help of the crowd: no form of gratification beats instant.

Mobile Apps
Crowdsourcing
Disability
Amazon Mechanical Turk
University of Rochester
Jeffrey P Bigham
Jobs
Blindness
Deafness


Fighters Shoot Protesters at a Palestinian Camp in Syria

Abstract: Gunmen from a pro-Syrian Palestinian organization shot and killed as many as 14 people during a protest at a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus on Monday, WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, reported on Tuesday. According to WAFA and other reports, the fighters from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which is backed by Syria , clashed with mourners in the Yarmouk refugee camp after funerals for Palestinian protesters who were killed on Sunday at the border between Syria and the Israeli-held Golan Heights. The shootings on Monday took place after mourners accused the organization of sacrificing Palestinian lives by encouraging protesters to demonstrate at the Golan Heights, Reuters reported. Reports also referred to divisions in the camp between those who support the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and those who sympathize with the Syrian opposition, which is seeking expanded democratic rights. The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank on Tuesday condemned what it called the “crime” committed in the Yarmouk refugee camp by what it called “armed groups” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. The leadership said in a statement published by the Palestinian news agency that the Popular Front’s fighters had fired live ammunition into crowds of young demonstrators at the camp. On Tuesday, Syrian police and plainclothes security officers ringed the headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in the Yarmouk camp and anger at the group ran high. Witnesses said that mourners had marched to the headquarters on Monday after burying seven people killed in the border protest on Sunday. Mohamed Rashdan, 25, a shopkeeper who lives nearby, said the crowd began to throw stones at the organization’s headquarters. Then, he said, “the building guards began to shoot at us.” “They were all Palestinians — no Syrian security men shot at us,” Mr. Rashdan said. “That made us so angry.” Mr. Rashdan said he believed the demonstration at the border was organized to serve the interests of President Assad, and that the protest had nothing to do with seeking justice for Palestinian refugees and displaced Syrian residents of the Golan Heights. He said that many camp residents blamed the Popular Front for organizing the border protest “to help Syria run away from its local crisis.” “They got us involved in Syria’s local crisis,” Mr. Rashdan said, “and that is why we were so angry at the killing of our brothers and sons.” The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which is led by Ahmed Jibril, has been bitterly at odds with the mainstream Palestinian organizations for decades and is defined as a terrorist organization by the United States. Both Israel and the United States have suggested that the Syrian government orchestrated the confrontation at the border on Sunday, or at least did nothing to prevent it, to divert attention from its bloody crackdown on the antigovernment uprising in Syria. A State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said in Washington, “It’s clear that such behavior will not distract international attention from the Syrian governments’ condemnable behavior on its own citizens.” The Syrian government said that 23 Syrian and Palestinian protesters were killed by Israeli fire as they tried to rush the border fence on Sunday. The Israeli military said that 10 of the protesters died after their firebombs set off landmines on the Syrian side of the border. The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank hinted that it, too, viewed the Popular Front as having used the protests at the Golan Heights for its own political goals. The leadership affirmed in its statement that the demand by the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants for a right of return to their former homes in what is now Israel “remained a sacred goal not to be exploited for any political purposes,” adding that the blood of those who were killed on Sunday at the border was not to be “exploited or traded for private interests.”

Palestinians
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
Murders and Attempted Murders
Syria
Israel


Fed Chairman Urges Broader Market Oversight

Abstract: JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke , outlined an ambitious proposal on Friday for overseeing the credit markets and preventing a rerun of the crisis that the country is currently struggling to shake off. Describing his approach as “macroprudential regulation,” Mr. Bernanke said the effort “would involve an attempt by regulators to develop a more fully integrated overview of the entire financial system.” Mr. Bernanke made only a brief reference to inflation and interest rates in a 25-minute speech that opened the Fed’s annual economic symposium in this mountain resort. He suggested, in effect, that inflation was moderating and that there was no need to raise the key interest rate that the Fed controls from its present low level. The rate, which influences the cost of mortgages, car loans and other credit, was cut to 2 percent in April from 5.25 percent eight months earlier to help offset the damage from the housing collapse and a tight credit market. Some Fed policy makers, however, have started to advocate raising the rate again, arguing that the Fed should act before the inflation rate accelerates. Mr. Bernanke, while acknowledging “an increase in inflationary pressure,” reasserted his view that in the near future, the upswing in inflation from the oil and food shocks was likely to moderate. “The recent decline in commodity prices as well as the increased stability of the dollar has been encouraging,” he said. “If not reversed, these developments, together with a pace of growth that is likely to fall short of potential for a time, should lead inflation to moderate later this year and next year.” Addressing more than 100 invitees from Wall Street, academia and government, as well as foreign central bankers, Mr. Bernanke described what some of his aides said were exploratory proposals for gradually improving credit market oversight so there would not be another crisis like the one set off a year ago by the surge in defaults on subprime mortgages. Under Mr. Bernanke’s plan, investment banks, because they are engaged in borrowing and lending using a variety of complicated credit instruments, would be subject to regulatory supervision, just as commercial banks are. The Fed is already, informally, beginning to supervise these “payment and settlement systems,” but Mr. Bernanke suggested that Congress “should consider granting the Federal Reserve explicit oversight authority.” He also argued, repeating a suggestion that he has made before, that Congress should consider giving some government entity — probably the Treasury — formal authority to intervene in the bailout of an investment house that otherwise might go under, damaging the financial system. The authority would substitute for the costly ad hoc arrangement that the Fed and the Treasury used to engineer the sale of the Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase. Such arrangements have existed for commercial banks for years, and now “Congress may wish to consider whether such a framework should be set up for a defined set of nonbank institutions,” Mr. Bernanke said. He also suggested a system of exchanges that would act as intermediaries in the buying and selling of credit instruments. And he said that regulators should examine not just individual loan portfolios or shaky banks and investment houses, but also broad lending practices, to ferret out types of loans — like subprime mortgages — that endangered the financial system because they were both very risky and increasingly widespread. “Systemwide stress tests,” Mr. Bernanke said, “might highlight common exposures and ‘crowded trades’ that might not be visible in tests confined to one firm.”

Bernanke Ben S
United States Economy
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry


$11 Million Severance Reported for Murdoch Aide Brooks

Abstract: LONDON — Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group, received about $11 million when she resigned last year in the midst of the scandal over phone hacking and other malpractice at two of the company’s tabloid newspapers, people familiar with the terms of her severance agreement say. A former employee of The News of the World, the paper at the heart of the scandal, said that the figure of about $11.3 million that was reported in The Financial Times on Tuesday was consistent with the figure being discussed within News International at the time that Ms. Brooks quit. The former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality clause in his own severance agreement with the company, said that rank-and-file journalists at The News of the World, which Mr. Murdoch shut down shortly before Ms. Brooks resigned, were “as angry as the general public” was likely to be at the size of Ms. Brooks’s severance benefits, which included reimbursement of her legal fees and the use of a car and chauffeur as well as salary and pension payouts. Much smaller sums were paid to the more than 150 other employees who lost their jobs in the paper’s closing. Reports in the British news media on Tuesday said that there were “clawback” provisions in Ms. Brooks’s severance package entitling News International to recover some of the money in certain circumstances — most notably, according to The Guardian, “if Brooks was to be found guilty of a criminal offense relating to her employment.” Ms. Brooks, 44, is among a group of former Murdoch employees who face trial next year on charges related to the scandals at the company. Altogether, more than 50 former newspaper executives, lawyers, editors, reporters and investigators have been arrested and questioned in an extensive police inquiry. At a court appearance in May , Ms. Brooks was charged, along with her husband, a well-known racehorse trainer, and four others, with perverting the course of justice by concealing documents, computers and other evidence from detectives. In June , she returned to court for a hearing on charges relating to the alleged phone hacking. And last month she appeared in court again , this time along with Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor and former aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, on charges of intercepting communications without lawful authority, including an incident in which News of the World employees broke into the voice mail account of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Before her fall, Ms. Brooks was a close confidante of Mr. Murdoch’s and one of the most powerful figures in the British news media. Over nearly 20 years with the company, she rose rapidly to become editor of The News of the World, a weekly, and later of The Sun, Britain’s most widely circulated daily paper, before being promoted to chief executive of News International in 2009. Reports of her severance payments appeared as Mr. Murdoch was preparing for the annual meeting of News Corporation, the New York-based parent conglomerate of his media empire, in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Analysts said before the meeting that Mr. Murdoch and his family were likely to prevail against efforts to diminish their control of the company, mounted by several large shareholder groups that are unhappy about the phone hacking scandal.

Wiretapping and Other Eavesdropping Devices and Methods


Rodriguez Drops Suits Against Baseball and Union

Abstract: After a year of warring with Major League Baseball, Alex Rodriguez effectively ended his battle on Friday, dropping his lawsuits against baseball and the players union over his doping suspension. Rodriguez, the Yankees’ third baseman, has accepted that he will be sidelined for the 2014 season and postseason — the longest suspension in the sport’s history for the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Without admitting to the use of banned substances, Rodriguez, 38, quietly submitted papers in federal court in New York seeking to dismiss two widely publicized lawsuits he had filed in recent months. In one of the cases, Rodriguez sued M.L.B. and the union, seeking to throw out an independent arbitrator’s decision that upheld most of his 211-game suspension. In the other suit, filed in October, Rodriguez named M.L.B. and its commissioner, Bud Selig, as defendants, claiming they engaged in a “witch hunt” as they investigated his use of banned substances. But Rodriguez’s energy for continuing to pursue his argument in the courts began to wane in recent weeks as legal experts looked dimly upon the suits’ prospects and as the public grew increasingly weary of the case. The arbitrator’s report in his case, which was made public as a result of the lawsuit Rodriguez filed in January, offered an authoritative account of Rodriguez’s doping regimen. In mid-January, Rodriguez signaled while speaking with reporters in Mexico City that he might be moving to cut his losses; he said the coming season would give him a chance to “rest physically, mentally and to prepare for the future and to start a new chapter of my life,” according to a translation of a video on ESPN New York. M.L.B. and the Major League Baseball Players Association applauded Rodriguez’s decision to drop the suits. “We believe that Mr. Rodriguez’s actions show his desire to return the focus to the play of our great game on the field and to all of the positive attributes and actions of his fellow major league players,” Major League Baseball said in a statement. “We share that desire.” The union, in a statement, said: “Alex Rodriguez has done the right thing by withdrawing his lawsuit. His decision to move forward is in everyone’s best interest.” Rodriguez, who will be 39 when he is eligible to return, plans to rejoin the Yankees for the 2015 season and has shown no intention of retiring. He will not try to join the Yankees in spring training, his lawyer Joseph Tacopina said. Rodriguez plans to stay out of the limelight as he serves his suspension, and he will seek to mend his relationship with the Yankees, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking. It was unclear if Rodriguez planned to proceed with a malpractice suit he filed against a team doctor last year related to the handling of a hip injury. In 2007, Rodriguez signed a 10-year, $275 million contract with the Yankees, and appeared poised to chase many of baseball’s home run records. He was the postseason’s most valuable player during the Yankees’ 2009 run to a World Series title. But over the past few years he has been hampered by injuries and accusations that he has used banned substances. In 2009, he admitted to using steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003, but he has denied using them since. Friday’s developments came more than a year after a report in Miami New Times, a weekly newspaper, tied Rodriguez to Biogenesis of America, a South Florida anti-aging clinic. The newspaper obtained records from Biogenesis, which was directed by Anthony P. Bosch, suggesting Rodriguez and a number of ballplayers had taken banned substances from the clinic. Initially, Bosch and Rodriguez denied the relationship, but Bosch later began cooperating with M.L.B. investigators. The information provided by Bosch, who is not licensed to practice medicine in Florida, led to 14 suspensions, including ones accepted by the All-Stars Ryan Braun and Nelson Cruz. Rodriguez, who received a far longer suspension than the others, was the only player to appeal his suspension. He bolstered his legal team, bringing on a host of advisers, including Tacopina, a criminal defense lawyer known for taking on high-profile cases. As the weeks passed, Rodriguez’s dispute with M.L.B. deepened. His lawyers claimed baseball officials had bullied witnesses in the case, and there were new reports about Rodriguez’s use of banned substances. In November, The New York Times reported that Rodriguez had failed a drug test for stimulants in 2006, a point his lawyers denied. In mid-November, after 12 days of proceedings in front of an arbitrator, Fredric Horowitz, Rodriguez stormed out of the hearing room at M.L.B. headquarters when his request to call Selig to testify was rejected. Less than two months later, Horowitz issued his opinion that Rodriguez had “committed the most egregious violations” of baseball’s antidoping rules “reported to date.” Legal experts have questioned why Rodriguez and M.L.B. continued sparring for several months. “There is no winning in these situations,” said Steven G. Eckhaus, an employment law expert with Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Eckhaus said Rodriguez finally did the “smart thing” by dropping his litigation. “It was an intractable situation,” Eckhaus said. “M.L.B. didn’t win — they got tarred dramatically here. Their dirty laundry was exposed. The use of drugs was exposed. “When one of its major stars was turned into a circus side show, M.L.B. lost just as badly.”

Alex Rodriguez
Baseball
Doping
MLB
Major League Baseball Players Assn
Lawsuits


Gaza Fighting Intensifies as Cease-Fire Falls Apart

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants sprang from the ground and confronted Israeli soldiers Friday morning, as they have repeatedly in recent days. This time, Israeli officials said, one exploded a suicide belt while another unleashed machine-gun fire. This time, two Israeli soldiers were killed and the militants apparently escaped with a third. The attack, at the start of what was supposed to be a 72-hour pause in the fighting, escalated the deadly 25-day battle between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist faction that dominates the Gaza Strip. Israel said the attack, from under a house near the southern border town of Rafah, took place at 9:20 a.m., soon after the 8 a.m. onset of the temporary truce secured by the Obama administration and the United Nations, whose leaders squarely blamed the breakdown on Hamas. Hamas’s account was confused. One leader was quoted claiming responsibility for the soldier’s capture, then backtracked. Others contended that the clash unfolded at 7 a.m., before the cease-fire, although Palestinian reports of fighting near Rafah came three hours later. And one said that in any case, the Hamas gunmen acted only to counter “Zionist incursions.” In Gaza, a Pattern of Conflict Similarities and differences in the last three major conflicts between Israel and Hamas. What was clear was that the episode dimmed prospects for curtailing a conflict that has killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, many of them women and children, and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis. Israel responded with an assault that killed 70 people and injured 350 around Rafah alone as troops sealed the area to hunt for the missing officer amid mounting pressure from Israeli politicians and the public to expand the military mission. The deadly attack and counterattack sharpened a sense that intensive diplomacy is proving ineffective and irrelevant to the asymmetrical combat on the ground. Secretary of State John Kerry had made clear in announcing the cease-fire that Israel would be allowed to continue operating against tunnels from Gaza into its territory , something one Hamas spokesman indicated Friday was contrary to “the Palestinian understanding with mediating parties.” The events renewed command-and-control questions about Hamas, a guerrilla group torn by rivalries and communication snags between its military and political rulers in Gaza and abroad. They also suggested neither side is ready for an exit ramp until its goals are met: for Israel, destruction of the tunnels and a halt to rocket fire from Gaza, and for Hamas, a score that can be leveraged to change the social and economic conditions of Gaza’s 1.7 million beleaguered people. “It’s going to be very hard to put a cease-fire back together again if Israelis and the international community can’t feel confident that Hamas can follow through,” President Obama said on Friday at the White House. He called the killing of civilians in Gaza “heartbreaking” and said, “It’s possible we may be able to arrive at a formula that spares lives and also ensures Israel’s security, but it’s difficult, and I don’t think we should pretend otherwise.” Both Mr. Kerry and Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, demanded an immediate and unconditional release of the Israeli officer. Mr. Ban described the attack as “a grave violation of the cease-fire” that called “into question the credibility of Hamas’s assurances to the United Nations.” Image Palestinians left their home in the southern border town of Rafah on Friday to head for a safer location after Israeli airstrikes. Credit Wissam Nassar for The New York Times Israeli fears about kidnapping have been palpable since Hamas fighters used a tunnel under the border to enter Israeli territory near a kibbutz outside Gaza on July 17. Later that night, Israel launched a ground invasion to accompany the air campaign that began on July 8. Several similar attempts to infiltrate Israel have been thwarted; after one, Israel found plastic hand-ties and tranquilizers. For Hamas, which in 2006 abducted Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit and five years later traded him for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a live hostage is perhaps its most powerful weapon. After an intense predawn battle in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya on July 20, Hamas announced that it had captured Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul and broadcast his identification number, prompting celebrations across Gaza and the West Bank. Israel later said Sergeant Shaul had been killed in action, but no remains had been recovered. Israeli military officials said they were uncertain of the condition of the officer captured on Friday. They identified him as Second Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23, of the elite Givati Brigade. Lieutenant Goldin has a twin brother who until Friday was also fighting at the front, according to Israeli news reports, and he had proposed to his girlfriend during the war, scheduling the wedding in two months. His father, Simcha Goldin, said the family was confident the Israeli military would “not stop under any circumstances until they have turned over every stone in Gaza and have brought Hadar home healthy and whole.” Israel’s military censor informed The New York Times that material related to the missing officer had to be submitted for review, the first such notification in more than six years. International journalists must agree in writing to the censorship system in order to work in Israel. The Times did not send the censor a draft of this article before publication, but summarized over the phone its biographical references to Lieutenant Goldin. Image An unexploded bomb drew Palestinian onlookers on Friday on a main road in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Credit Adel Hana/Associated Press The attack near Rafah brought to 63 the number of Israeli service members slain; two citizens and a Thai farmworker have also been felled by rocket and mortar fire. The military said more than 60 rockets had been launched by 8 p.m. Friday from Gaza, bringing the total during the conflict to 3,025. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said the Givati force had been working to decommission a tunnel under a home inside Gaza more than an hour into the cease-fire when at least two Palestinians emerged from another shaft. “One came out shooting after the other one blew himself up,” Colonel Lerner said. “We were in defensive positions. They clearly abused the situation to carry out the attack, under the cover of the humanitarian window.” Israel sent text messages to area residents to remain in their homes as forces rushed farther into Rafah, bombarding it from the ground and air to block the captors’ escape. Safa, a Gaza-based news agency that has run a live blog during the war, first reported artillery fire in Rafah at 9:55 a.m. The Health Ministry spokesman announced new fatalities there at 10:10 a.m. The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, issued a statement hours later, denying that the clash occurred after the cease-fire, but also suggesting it may not have truly accepted the terms. “We emphasize that any Zionist forces violating our liberated land would be subject to our holy fighters and a legitimate target,” the statement said. Image Smoke and flames emerge in Rafah following the collapse of a cease-fire on Friday. Credit Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters Separately, Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said, “According to the Palestinian understanding with mediating parties, it is important for the resistance to defend our people, and itself, in the case of any renewed Israeli incursions.” Mkhaimer Abusaada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, said that the military wing may have been purposely defying the political team’s accession to the agreement, or at least saying that if the Israelis were allowed to keep destroying tunnels, Hamas should be permitted to try to stop them. “It’s definitely a mess,” he said. “I think we’re going to see much worse days than those that are behind us.” The escalation was strong and sustained, with reports in Rafah of airstrikes and heavy artillery shelling past midnight, as Israel’s top ministers met for hours to consider next steps. Colonel Lerner said the operation “now has three components, not two: it’s rockets, tunnels and an abduction now.” Daniel Nisman, a former combat soldier who now runs a Tel Aviv geopolitical security company, said Israeli troops are taught that preventing an abduction is the highest priority, even if it means risking a captive soldier’s life by firing at a getaway vehicle. Protocol changed after Sergeant Shalit’s capture, Mr. Nisman said, “so a low-level commander on the ground can act” without awaiting orders, which had delayed action in that case. Image Palestinians returned to their homes in Bureij before the cease-fire collapsed. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times “It’s to prevent a strategic setback that would ultimately impact the entire county,” he explained. “It sounds terrible, but you have to consider it within the framework of the Shalit deal. That was five years of torment for this country, where every newscast would end with how many days Shalit had been in captivity. It’s like a wound that just never heals.” But some Israeli analysts noted that Sergeant Shalit, who was then a corporal, was taken from Israeli territory during a calm period, while Lieutenant Goldin should be considered a prisoner of war, a potential cost of any military campaign. Still, Michael Herzog, a retired general and Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy , said any cease-fire discussions would be off the agenda until more information emerges about the officer’s situation. “Right now, decision-making is more tactical by nature, until we have a better feel or clue of what exactly happened to him — is he really in their hands or not,” Mr. Herzog said. “This complicates everything,” he added. “I don’t think we are in for any more so-called humanitarian cease-fires unless we see on the ground that they are holding their fire.”

Israel
Gaza Strip
Hamas
Palestinians
Hadar Goldin
Kidnapping
Hostage
Military


Toyota and G.M. to Increase U.S. Output

Abstract: DETROIT — Two of the world’s largest automakers signaled confidence in the economic recovery on Thursday, with Toyota announcing it would resume construction of a long-delayed plant in Mississippi and General Motors increasing output at most of its American operations. Toyota said it would hire 2,000 workers to start building Corolla compact cars at its $1.3 billion plant in Blue Springs, Miss., by the fall of 2011. The plant was 90 percent complete when Toyota halted work on it 18 months ago amid slumping sales across the industry. G.M. said nine of its 11 assembly plants in this country would skip the regular two-week summer shutdown, which was to start later this month. The plants will remain open to build 56,000 additional vehicles, particularly new models that have been in short supply at many dealerships, the company said. Analysts said the two announcements reflected the growing optimism among carmakers that the worst was over for the auto industry. Over all, car sales in the United States fell 35 percent from 2007 to 2009, with 10.4 million vehicles sold last year compared with 16.1 million in 2007. But in the first five months this year, sales showed the start of a rebound, rising 17 percent. “We have a long way to go,” said John Wolkonowicz, a senior auto analyst with the research company IHS Global Insight. “But the level in the lake is rising, and most manufacturers are going to rise with it. You’re going to see a lot more overtime and a lot of this standard vacation time not being taken.” Toyota said its sales were improving both as a result of a strengthening economy and its efforts to overcome the damage done to its reputation by recalls of about nine million vehicles worldwide since November. “We’re confident that we’re seeing things improving,” James E. Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., said on a conference call. “We’re starting to see some bright spots in the economy,” Mr. Lentz added, but cautioned, “It’s not going to come roaring back.” The Ford Motor Company’s chief market analyst, George Pipas, said Ford had already increased output to meet demand and still had two weeks of down time scheduled at its United States plants, though not all plants would shut down at the same time or in consecutive weeks. Ford, whose sales are up 30 percent so far this year, previously said it was increasing production by 42 percent in the second quarter and 16 percent in the third quarter compared with levels a year earlier. “The economy’s recovering, but almost every day we get mixed signals,” Mr. Pipas said. “It seems like the economy takes a couple steps forward and then a couple steps backward.” The summer plant shutdown is a tradition among the Detroit automakers, which in past years used the down time to prepare assembly lines to make the next year’s models. Today the practice is more of a union-negotiated perk than a necessity; G.M. said its contract with the United Automobile Workers gave it the flexibility to cancel a companywide shutdown. G.M. said it might need to use some temporary workers as it operated the assembly plants for the two extra weeks. “Our manufacturing teams are taking creative approaches to increase production and reduce the wait times for our dealers and customers,” Mark I. Reuss, president of G.M. North America, said in a statement. Toyota’s decision to assemble the Corolla in Mississippi means it no longer has any near-term plans to build Prius hybrid cars in North America. Since mid-2008, Toyota had been saying it would make the Prius at the Mississippi plant when it opened, but demand for hybrids has fallen sharply as gas prices have ebbed. When it was announced in 2007, the plant was to build Highlander sport utility vehicles. Mr. Lentz said Toyota had enough production capacity in Japan to meet demand for the Prius. Two years ago, many dealers had few Prius models, and some sold the car for thousands of dollars above sticker price. For 2010, Prius sales in the United States were down 31 percent through May compared with the same period of 2008. “As soon as global supply falls short of global demand, I’m sure we’ll take a look at what we can do here in the U.S.,” he said. “Today what’s most important is that we bring North American production of the Corolla back.” Toyota stopped building the Corolla in the United States in April, when it closed a plant in Fremont, Calif. That plant, known as New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or Nummi, had been a joint venture with G.M. until it withdrew after filing for bankruptcy protection last year. Toyota now plans to reopen the California plant in partnership with another automaker, Tesla, to build electric cars , but it will be a much smaller operation. The plan to move production of the Corolla, one of Toyota’s top-selling vehicles, from the California plant, where workers were represented by the United Automobile Workers union, to the new Mississippi plant, where workers will not be represented by a union, drew harsh words on Thursday from the U.A.W.’s new president, Bob King. “It’s outrageous. It’s a terrible business decision and clearly to us an anti-union decision,” Mr. King said at his first news conference since being elected on Wednesday. “They’re running away from decently paid workers to much lower wages in Mississippi.” Mr. King, who this year joined picket lines against closing the California plant, said he would discuss the matter with the Obama administration. Mr. King is fighting to ensure that Toyota and Tesla rehire U.A.W. workers, and the labor secretary, Hilda L. Solis, told delegates at the U.A.W. convention here that the laid-off workers should be given first priority for the new jobs. More than 4,500 workers lost their jobs when the California plant, Toyota’s only unionized factory, closed.

Small Cars (Compact Subcompact and Microcars)


Stephen Colbert Will Keep CBS’s ‘Late Show’ in New York

Abstract: New York’s status as the center of late-night television was reinforced on Wednesday after CBS announced that its “Late Show," which under David Letterman has been based in New York since 1993, will remain in the city when Stephen Colbert steps in as host next year. CBS’s chief executive, Leslie Moonves, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo jointly announced the decision. They also said the show would stay in its landmark Broadway home, the Ed Sullivan Theater, guaranteeing the continuation of about 200 jobs related to the show. The decision had been widely expected since CBS announced in April that Mr. Colbert, the Comedy Central star, would be Mr. Letterman’s successor. But CBS was able to strike a favorable tax deal to ensure that the show would not move to Los Angeles, the other potential home for a late-night series. CBS will be eligible for at least $11 million in tax credits over the next five years, as well as $5 million more in state grants to cover renovations for the theater. More significantly, there had been little doubt that the show would stay because Mr. Colbert had privately expressed his strong desire to keep the show in New York, near his home in New Jersey. Like Jimmy Fallon, who moved NBC’s “Tonight” show back to the city in February, Mr. Colbert has long been considered a “New York act.” The move underscores the predominance of New York in the expanding business of late-night television. Besides Mr. Fallon and Mr. Colbert, the New York roster includes Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central (when the latter starts up his “Minority Report” next year to succeed Mr. Colbert); Seth Meyers and his “Late Night” show on NBC; John Oliver and his “Last Week Tonight” on HBO; and Andy Cohen and his “Watch What Happens Live” program on Bravo. The confirmation of Mr. Colbert’s continued presence in New York means that only Conan O’Brien on TBS and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC will have weeknight late-night shows based in Los Angeles, with Bill Maher also operating out of that city for his once-a-week HBO series, “Real Time.” Also, Craig Ferguson, the CBS host who follows Mr. Letterman, tapes his show in Los Angeles; the network is looking to replace him, and that show could be based in Los Angeles, too. CBS has not set a date yet for Mr. Letterman’s exit, or Mr. Colbert’s first night. But there will need to be a hiatus between the two — most likely for several months — as Mr. Colbert installs a new set to the theater and his staff moves in to old Letterman offices. The most likely plan is a farewell to Mr. Letterman at the end of May, with a September premiere for Mr. Colbert.

TV
Late Show With David Letterman
Stephen Colbert
NYC
CBS
Leslie Moonves
Andrew Cuomo


How General Managers Foresee a World Series in 2014

Abstract: Ten years ago this weekend, The New York Times published an article about the Boston front office under the headline “Red Sox Trying to Picture the Parade.” Team executives, we later learned, were not pleased. They thought the headline was presumptuous and made them sound as if they assumed they would win the World Series. Well, they went on to do just that , adding a title in 2007 and another in October . No team can hold a parade without picturing it, or at least plotting a route to get there. For the 2013 Red Sox, the formula was this: returning core of stars plus new manager plus seven high-character, complementary free agents equals a title. Nobody knew last February that, of all the ways to chase a championship, this would be the one to succeed. “We knew we would be tested, and there would be skepticism, rightfully so, along the way,” said General Manager Ben Cherington, whose 2012 team finished in last place in the American League East. “So we felt like if we had a core, kind of a critical mass of guys in the clubhouse who really wanted to be there for the right reasons, they would embrace everything that came along with being in Boston.” What will be the right recipe for 2014? With most teams opening spring training camps this week, let’s skip ahead to the victory celebration and imagine how baseball’s general managers and decision makers might sum up a run to the championship. ANGELS, Jerry Dipoto Remember when Albert Pujols went on “Sesame Street” last winter? Grover was amazed he was actually an athlete, saying, “Wow, you are good at baseball!” Turns out that was just the start of Albert’s campaign to prove his doubters wrong. ASTROS, Jeff Luhnow We’ve been making steady progress toward building baseball’s best farm system. But when Nolan Ryan accepted our invitation to work for the team, and then somehow made a heroic comeback and threw 25 no-hitters, that accelerated the process to competing. Incidentally, Nolan loves how much hitters strike out these days. ATHLETICS, Billy Beane We finally figured out how to destroy those Al Davis seats in center field: with a barrage of Yoenis Cespedes batting-practice home runs. Once that happened, we swung our karma, and the law of averages went our way. BLUE JAYS, Alex Anthopoulos The problem wasn’t that we hit too many home runs; it was that we didn’t get on base enough to make those home runs matter. Having Jose Reyes healthy set up our offense, and adding three new starting pitchers after the start of spring training really helped. BRAVES, Frank Wren When you have a lot of guys just entering their prime, sometimes they all take a step forward together. But getting Dan Uggla and B. J. Upton back to their old selves, and maintaining a solid pitching staff, put us over the top. BREWERS, Doug Melvin People forget that we were actually over .500 after Ryan Braun’s suspension last year. With Braun back, the offense we already had, a strong bullpen and Matt Garza making our rotation deeper, this isn’t really a surprise to us. CARDINALS, John Mozeliak We didn’t touch the pitching, Peter Bourjos caught everything in center, and Jhonny Peralta gave us a real hitter at short. Knowing that we would have the rookie of the year in Oscar Taveras, we thought it was pretty much a formality that we’d win 110 games before sweeping the World Series. CUBS, Jed Hoyer They tell me our flight home is delayed because pigs are occupying the airspace over O’Hare. So I guess these guys really did win the title. DIAMONDBACKS, Kevin Towers How fitting that Gerardo Parra throws out a guy at the plate to end the World Series. When you have him in right, and Paul Goldschmidt and Mark Trumbo hitting 80 homers in the middle of the order, you don’t need a No. 1 starter to win. DODGERS, Ned Colletti Last year we had the best rotation in baseball, and Dan Haren only made us deeper. With a full season of Yasiel Puig and Brian Wilson, and good health for Matt Kemp and Hanley Ramirez, nobody could stop us. GIANTS, Brian Sabean How many times do we have to say it? Every even-numbered year, we win the World Series. We’ll see you right back here in 2016. INDIANS, Chris Antonetti The funny thing about last year is, we made the playoffs even though some of our best hitters had down years. Guys like Michael Bourn, Asdrubal Cabrera and Nick Swisher were bound to bounce back, and we found a legitimate staff ace in Danny Salazar. MARINERS, Jack Zduriencik Sure, it’s a top-heavy payroll, but Brad Miller, Kyle Seager and Mike Zunino provided major production at minimal cost, and Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma and Taijuan Walker gave us three shutdown starters in October. MARLINS, Dan Jennings We built our ballpark on the site of the Orange Bowl, so it was pretty cool to see Jose Fernandez predict this upset and make the No. 1 sign as he left through the tunnel. And no, we’re not trading him. METS, Sandy Alderson Ike Davis, Curtis Granderson and Chris Young all rediscovered their 30-homer bats, and when Bartolo Colon went down in the playoffs, Matt Harvey came off the disabled list. When he struck out Stephen Drew to win the World Series, it was amazin’! NATIONALS, Mike Rizzo Doug Fister gave us a four-deep rotation, Bryce Harper was named the National League’s most valuable player, and Washington is so crazy for us that even congressmen walk around with their shirts untucked like Rafael Soriano after the last out. ORIOLES, Dan Duquette We didn’t do much last winter, but we knew what we had in Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman. The way we played after they came up from the minors to lead the rotation, it was like 1966 all over again. PADRES, Josh Byrnes Well, Kennedy/Johnson was the winning ticket back in 1960, and here we are again. Ian Kennedy and Josh Johnson reversed their regression to lead our rotation behind Andrew Cashner, and our young hitters all broke out together. PHILLIES, Ruben Amaro You see, things like experience, saves and runs batted in still have meaning in this game. And when you have two of the best starters in baseball, you have a big edge in a short series. PIRATES, Neal Huntington Yes, we were quiet last winter, but we didn’t need to waste money on so-so free agents when we knew we had impact players coming up from the minors. Gregory Polanco gave the lineup a midseason jolt, and Jameson Taillon was this year’s Michael Wacha. RAYS, Andrew Friedman After seven years of strong teams on low payrolls in the A.L. East, it’s gratifying to finally win the World Series. Now it’s time to trade David Price for some more young talent to keep the good times going. RANGERS, Jon Daniels Shin-Soo Choo and Prince Fielder gave our offense a huge boost, and our pitchers really surprised us by filling in so well for Derek Holland after his knee operation in January. But taking Russell Wilson in the Rule 5 draft gave us that championship edge we’d been missing. RED SOX, Ben Cherington The last time we won a title for the second year in a row was in 1916, and Babe Ruth pitched all 14 innings to win Game 2. But I think Jon Lester’s no-hitter tonight tops even that. REDS, Walt Jocketty You saw in Boston, with John Farrell, how a former pitching coach could make a great manager. Bryan Price proved it for us again this year. But his best move was giving the steal sign to Billy Hamilton as often as possible. ROCKIES, Bill Geivett It’s so rare to find two up-the-middle teammates as dynamic as Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki. And Brett Anderson, LaTroy Hawkins and Boone Logan really stabilized our staff and helped our young pitchers do some amazing things. ROYALS, Dayton Moore The pitching was tremendous, again. But look at our lineup. Last year, our leadoff hitters had a .309 on-base percentage, 13th in the league. Getting Norichika Aoki fixed that, and the young guys behind him finally took that jump we’d been waiting for. TIGERS, Dave Dombrowski The only real difference this postseason was that Miguel Cabrera was healthy, Prince Fielder was gone, and our new late-inning relievers, Bruce Rondon and Joe Nathan, didn’t give up backbreaking grand slams. TWINS, Terry Ryan Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano were 20 when this season started, and now they’ve brought Minneapolis its first title since before they were born. What a thrill to see Phil Hughes jump into the arms of first baseman Joe Mauer after the final out. WHITE SOX, Rick Hahn Nobody thought we’d be standing here after scoring the fewest runs in the league in 2013 while allowing the most unearned runs. But then again, nobody knew how good Jose Abreu would be. YANKEES, Brian Cashman How funny that we won our 28th championship while using only one player under 28 years old in the World Series. Of course, that player was Masahiro Tanaka. His three wins and a save will go down in Yankees lore.


Arisco Farms in Cheshire Focuses on Tomatoes

Abstract: Arisco Farms maintains numerous greenhouses, in which it grows herbs, annuals, perennials and various other ornamental plants. But in a summer that has been hot and sun-drenched, you may come away with the impression that this 70-acre enterprise is all about tomatoes. Extensive rows of tomatoes will greet you at roadside. For an abundance of fresh-picked ripe ones, head inside the farm store attached to the barn. The tables there were recently covered with baskets of jumbo beefsteak tomatoes ($2 a pound), plum tomatoes ($3.50 a quart), cherry tomatoes and yellow pear-shaped ones ($3 a pint); the supply is likely to hold till the end of summer. No less diverse is Arisco’s assortment of peppers. Green bells, goat horn peppers, cherry hot peppers, jalapeños and long hot peppers should be available for several more weeks ($8 for 4 to 8 quarts, depending on the variety). The expansive hills beyond the farm buildings have also been sown with sweet corn, with the harvest expected to run well into next month (50 cents an ear). Farming on this land dates to at least the 1920s, and among Arisco’s many other crops are Italian white eggplants ($16 for 16 quarts), cucumbers (50 cents for a medium, 75 cents for a large), cabbage ($1.50 each), zucchini, summer squash and beans. The blueberries, peaches, and plums that were for sale recently were grown by other farms in Cheshire. Arisco also carries tea breads ($6) and frozen pies (apple, blueberry or peach, $12), which are made by New England Country Bakers. Jar products include Giff’s marinades and relishes ($5), Gourmet Gardens’ pickles and pears ($6.25 a quart) and maple syrup and honey made by LaMothe’s. CHRISTOPHER BROOKS Arisco Farms, 1583 Marion Road, Cheshire; (203) 271-0549 or ariscofarms.com . Open daily, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call ahead for information on the latest harvest. No credit cards accepted.


Padres Apologize to Gay Men’s Chorus for Error in National Anthem Recording

Abstract: The 100 men, in black dress shirts and pants, formed two rows in center field at Petco Park in San Diego before the Padres played the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night. The men, members of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus , had been invited by the Padres to sing the national anthem. In keeping with the team’s request, the chorus would not sing live but would perform to an amplified rendition it had recorded. The group waited for its cue, and after a prolonged pause, a recording began — of a young woman singing, said Bob Lehman, the executive director of the chorus. Before a near-capacity crowd announced at more than 40,000 , the men awkwardly waited for the song to finish. There was no announcement or attempt to stop the recording, Mr. Lehman said. The men were then ushered off the field as fans taunted them with phrases like “You sing like a girl” and “You never sounded better,” Mr. Lehman said. “They just kind of let us stand there,” he said, describing the moment as surreal and devastating. Mr. Lehman said he had bought $360 worth of tickets for family and friends, none of whom stayed for the game. He also said that he had thrown away a rally towel the team had given to chorus members, and that members and supporters were left feeling that the wrong recording had been played deliberately. In a statement on Sunday night, the team said that it had found no evidence of malicious intent and that what happened was an “unintentional mistake.” As a result, the team said it had ended its relationship with a contractor and disciplined an employee who was responsible for the game production on Saturday. The Padres accepted full responsibility and expressed deep regret, the statement said. Mr. Lehman said he had spoken with Mike Dee , the team’s chief executive, whom he described as sincerely apologetic. Mr. Lehman said he had been told that the regular technician was in a car crash the night before and that a substitute was in the control room. “Somebody didn’t know how to press the stop button?” he asked. “I couldn’t believe a professional organization like that didn’t know what to do.” On Twitter , the team said it had offered the chorus an opportunity to return.

Baseball
San Diego Gay Men's Chorus
National anthem
Padres
Music
Apologies
Gay and Lesbian LGBT


India’s Supreme Court Suspends Ban on Starvation Ritual

Abstract: NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court on Monday suspended a state-level court’s ban on a religious practice called santhara , a fast to the death most often undertaken by the sick and aged. The high court in the state of Rajasthan banned the practice on Aug. 10, ruling that fasting to the death was tantamount to suicide, which is illegal in India, and that assisting someone in the fast was also a crime. The decision angered activists representing the Jain religion, which has around six million adherents in India. Lawyers set in motion a number of petitions to the Supreme Court, and thousands of Jains protested last week, some carrying signs that read, “Suicide is crime, santhara is religion.” India’s top court agreed Monday to hear the case and placed a stay on the Rajasthan ruling. The stay will probably remain in place for at least four years until the decision comes up for a hearing, according to The Times of India, a daily newspaper. The case was initiated in 2006 by an activist who argued that the practice amounted to suicide and that relatives sometimes forced it on family members who could no longer properly give consent. Defenders of the practice, which is considered to bring honor to a family, argue that it is both distinct from suicide and essential to Jainism, which celebrates acts of radical renunciation.

India
Fasting
Rajasthan
Supreme Court of India


Do Some Research to Improve the Music to Your Ears

Abstract: Dollar for dollar, headphones are the best way to listen to music. They pack more sonic wallop than even the most face-meltingly amazing loudspeaker system, and they do it for a lot less money. Think about it: a truly magnificent home-speaker system can cost well into the tens of thousands of dollars. A screaming set of headphones? A few hundred bucks, tops — and those in the Really Quite Good category can cost less than $100. And yet most people go along and listen to music on whatever headphones or earbuds came with their audio player. For not a lot of money (or, if you’d prefer, kind of a lot of money) you can make a real and lasting improvement to the music you hear when you’re on your own. What follows is not an exhaustive test of headphones, because what sounds good to one person may be just plain terrible to another. Instead, use the information below to find your own sonic bliss. THE GOOD BRANDS There are dozens of headphone makers. If you’re beginning a search, consider models from these manufacturers: AKG, Audio-Technica, Beyerdynamic, Etymotic, Grado, Klipsch and Sennheiser. Are there other makers of good headphones? Sure, but even though furious debates rage on in audiophile circles, these are the names that keep coming up. As to which brand is best, it depends on your needs. REGARDING BEATS BY DR. DRE It seems necessary to mention here why Beats by Dr. Dre, a popular and groundbreaking headphone brand , is not included in the above group. Some people love Beats, which are known for their (overly?) strong bass. Some people think they are overpriced and not that good. There’s too much disagreement out there to include them in the “universally liked/respected” camp. They sure do look nice, though, so by all means check out the shiny red or white Beats models and come to your own conclusion. KNOW YOUR HEADPHONE TYPES “Earbuds” are those earphones that likely came with your phone or music player. Replacement pairs can be bought for as little as $5 and often top out at around $30. Earbuds sit somewhat in your ear, but not all the way in. They are usually a single piece of plastic. maybe with some softer rubber permanently attached. These are the coach class of headphones; they’ll get you there, but nobody raves about them. “In-ear earphones” are a step up. These models consist of a hard part, which contains the mechanics and electronics, and a very soft, pliable earpiece that goes well into your ear, plugging up the canal and forming a seal. In-ear earphones can be amazing — and also costly. For example, some models, like Klipsch’s Lou Reed X10i Signature Edition headphones, cost $400. But other well-regarded models, like Klipsch’s comparatively downmarket headphones, the S3s, cost $50. Just remember two things about in-ear earphones. They do form a nearly soundproof seal, so you won’t hear much, like, say, a fire truck rapidly approaching a crosswalk, and that seal is entirely dependent on little rubber or polyurethane earpieces, which have an annoying tendency to pop off and roll down a storm drain when you pull the earphones out of your pocket. “On-the-ear” headphones start to get you into more serious territory. These models don’t fully enclose the ear, but sit on top of the outer ear; if you think of foam-covered, Walkman-era headphones, you’ve got a correct, if outdated, image in mind. On-the-ear headphones strike a middle ground between superportable in-ear models and bulkier over-the-ear headphones. Since they neither plug up your ear canal nor encapsulate your entire ear, they do let external sounds creep in, but in a home setting or even in many portable situations, you may not want to be fully closed off from the world around you. Prices run from $50 to $200. On-ear headphones can either have an open or closed back. Open-backed headphones allow air to circulate, which is more comfortable. They also can help give the impression that sound is coming from around you, as opposed to emanating from your corpus callosum, which is a characteristic of closed-back and in-ear headphones. Closed-back models are better at sealing off the outside world, but your ears may get hot from the lack of air circulation. “Over-the-ear” headphones are the Nimitz-class of the category. These are large domes that fully sit around and over your ear. They are bulky, often expensive (you can spend $40, or nearly $2,000), hard to travel with, primarily meant for listening at home and — when they are good — completely amazing. Over-the-ear models can also be closed- or open-backed. Since they are generally designed for home use, they sometimes come with a larger plug (0.25 inches, or 6.35 mm) instead of the miniplug (3.5 mm) connections common to digital music players. UNDERSTAND NOISE CANCELING A subcategory of headphones provides noise-canceling (N.C.) features. Noise-canceling headphones can be active or passive, but wearing them won’t turn the world into a silent movie: some noise will get through. What will be eliminated is lower-frequency ambient noise, like the constant thrum in an airplane’s cabin. This means you can listen to your selected audio at a lower volume, saving your ears. Passive noise cancellation isn’t very sophisticated — sealing off your ear canal or covering your whole ear are the most common methods — but it is fairly effective. What’s fancier is active N.C., in which the headphones detect ambient noise and emit a sound wave that cancels out the humming/buzzing you would otherwise hear. Noise-canceling headphones are good for certain situations, but they aren’t necessary for everyday use and most people can do without them. They can also run from about $70 to a few hundred dollars. Bose is a big name in the active-N.C. world, but also consider the brands mentioned above, many of which offer active N.C. headphones in earbud, on-the-ear and over-the-ear models. FIND YOUR PAIR (THE RIGHT WAY) Determining which kind of headphones to get is something only you can figure out. Some people, for example, prefer the portability that a pair of earbuds provide — just roll them up and stick them in your pocket. Other people can’t stand the idea of little rubber plugs sticking in their ears. You won’t know your own preference until you try headphones out in person. Go to a store and try out a few different models. Bring your iPhone , iPod , Zune, whatever, and connect it to a pair and play a song you know really well. It may be more revealing if you’re listening to some obsessively engineered track that creates an unparalleled soundscape (I’m talking to you, Steely Dan fans), but even if your favorite song is “Jump” by Kriss Kross, it’s better to judge equipment with a song you know than something provided by the store. Using your reference song, you can then determine which style and model of headphone sounds best. Pay no attention to the specs. It doesn’t matter what it says on the side of the box; if it sounds good to you, then it sounds good.


News From the Advertising Industry

Abstract: Accounts ■ Guaranteed Rate, Chicago, a residential mortgage company, named Olson, Minneapolis, its first agency of record. Billings were not disclosed. ■ Subway Restaurants, Milford, Conn., chose 360i, New York, part of Dentsu, as its social media agency of record. Billings were not disclosed. The assignment previously was handled by the Zócalo Group, Chicago, part of the Ketchum division of the Omnicom Group. ■ Air Canada named JWT Canada, Toronto, part of the JWT unit of WPP, its creative advertising agency of record. Spending was estimated at $2.6 million. The assignment was handled for the last 27 years by Marketel, Montreal. The media planning and buying part of the account will be handled by a JWT Canada sibling, Mindshare Canada, part of the Mindshare unit of GroupM, also owned by WPP. ■ Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Philadelphia, selected Glu, New York, as advertising agency of record. The organization previously worked with the Advertising Council and Publicis Modem, part of the Publicis Groupe, for a national public service campaign in 2011 that carried the theme “Start something.” Glu plans to work with consumer brands to create paid cause-marketing ads for the organization in traditional and digital media. People ■ Andy Brown, chairman at Kantar Media, London, part of the Kantar division of WPP, is adding the post of chief executive, assuming those duties from Jean-Michel Portier, who retired this year. ■ Kerry Keenan joined Deutsch New York as partner and chief creative officer, succeeding Greg DiNoto, who is leaving, the agency said. Ms. Keenan most recently ran, with Nathy Aviram, a company, Half Irish, that specializes in branded content; before that, she was global executive creative director at Y&R, as well as executive producer and principal at Y&R Entertainment, both units of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP. Deutsch New York is part of the Deutsch division of the Interpublic Group of Companies. ■ Jason Prohaska joined Your Majesty New York, part of Your Majesty, as chief executive, a new post. He had been general manager and managing director at Big Spaceship, Brooklyn. ■ Richard Kosinski joined Unruly, New York, as United States president, succeeding Art Zeidman, who left to join Pixability as executive vice president for sales and chief revenue officer. Mr. Kosinski most recently was senior vice president for sales at Quantcast. ■ Rodd Chant joined Bannistar as executive creative director, overseeing the creative output and creative staff members at the offices in Singapore and Tokyo, as well as working with agency executives on plans to open a satellite office in New York. Mr. Chant, who most recently ran his own creative consultancy, will be primarily based in Singapore but will also spend time in New York. ■ Sean Rosenberg joined Code Worldwide, New York, part of the Diversified Agency Services division of the Omnicom Group, as global head of mobile, a new post. He most recently was senior vice president for business development at Indaba Music. ■ Michael Kantrow and Tom Ajello, founding partners of Poke New York, part of Poke, London, completed a management buyout of Poke New York, which they renamed Makeable. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal came as Poke, a digital agency, was acquired by the Publicis Groupe, Paris, becoming a part of the Publicis Groupe’s operations in Britain. Mother Holdings, which had been a minority investor in Poke New York, is also a minority investor in Makeable. ■ Mary Baglivo joined her alma mater, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., in a new post, as vice president for global marketing and chief marketing officer. She most recently was chairwoman and chief executive for Latin America and multicultural at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, part of the Publicis Groupe. ■ Marlene Sanchez Dooner, senior vice president for investor relations at the Comcast Corporation, was named to a new post at the NBCUniversal unit of Comcast, executive vice president for Hispanic enterprises and content, reporting to Joe Uva, chairman for Hispanic enterprises and content, which include Telemundo and Mun2. Miscellany ■ Federal Trade Commission, Washington, plans to offer a workshop on Dec. 4 devoted to the subject of native advertising , also known as sponsored content and content marketing. The workshop, the commission’s first on the subject, will explore whether native ads blur the line between editorial content and advertising to the point where consumers are confused or misled. In a statement, the commission said its examination of native ads was in keeping with its scrutiny over several decades of how clear the distinction between content and advertising is to consumers. It cited challenges to deceptive practices like Web sites that pretend to be news sites and infomercials that are styled like television programs. ■ Straightline, New York, a brand consultancy, opened an office in London. As Michael Watras, chief executive, divides his time between clients at both offices, Andrea Cotter, managing director of the agency, becomes president. ■ Van Winkle & Associates, Atlanta, was renamed Van Winkle & Pearce after Bobby Pearce, who joined the agency last year, became a co-owner with Alex Van Winkle. ■ “Inspired,” a commercial for the Canon Eos Rebel T4i camera, won the 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial at the 65th annual Creative Arts Emmys. The spot was created by Grey New York — part of the Grey division of the Grey Group, owned by WPP — and directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ. ■ CKSK, Dublin, expanded to the United States by opening an office in New York, to be called CKSK USA. The agency also has an office in Amsterdam. CKSK USA will work for clients that include Heineken USA and Pernod Ricard. ■ Neverstop, New York and Seattle, was acquired by the CHR Group, New York, a marketing services agency holding group. Financial terms were not disclosed. Nasir Rasheed, president and chief cultural engineer at Neverstop, becomes a shareholder in CHR and will join the board; Neverstop will operate as an autonomous brand within CHR. ■ The Station, New York, a post-production and content production company, started a division called The Writer’s Room, offering advertisers and agencies a roster of writers with backgrounds in movies, television and sketch comedy. ■ Talent Partners, New York, which provides production and talent support services for agencies and marketers, opened Talent Partners Canada, Toronto, through a merger with Canadian Connection. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Appointments and Executive Changes
advertising,marketing