New Books on the City After War and After Buffalo

Abstract: Father Duffy’s monument is in the middle of Times Square, but it’s unfamiliar to most New Yorkers and few can identify its honoree. That’s just one of many reasons to read “New York and the First World War: Shaping an American City” (Ashgate). While most centennial commemorations of the Great War have overlooked its impact on the metropolis, the author of this book, Ross J. Wilson of the University of Chichester in England , credits the conflict with “reforming an immigrant city into an American city.” Early on in the war, German-Americans in New York rallied for the Fatherland, and Jewish immigrants rooted against Russia and Irish immigrants against England. War profiteering on Wall Street was coupled with food-price riots in Brooklyn. Appeals to pacifism and neutrality were subsumed by fears of subversion, which were fueled in 1916 by a suspicious munitions explosion on Black Tom Island and which animated the exclusionary patriotism of alliances like the National Security League. War and the United States’ alliance with Britain obliterated hyphenates, however, especially among German-Americans. The German Hospital and Dispensary, which had only recently built its Kaiser Wilhelm Pavilion, was renamed Lenox Hill Hospital. Evacuation Day, an Irish-perpetuated celebration of the belated departure of British troops, on Nov. 25, 1783, was officially celebrated by the city for the last time in 1916. Image Father Duffy’s statue in Times Square in 1969. Credit Michael Evans/The New York Times Victory would anoint New York a world capital, but the fruits were ephemeral and, for some, illusory. In 1919, W. E. B. Du Bois hailed returning blacks from the 369th Infantry Regiment as “soldiers of democracy” who should “return fighting” for that ideal at home. It would be a long time coming . Memorials conceived for Central Park and East 42nd Street were never realized (although Pershing Square, on Park Avenue south of Grand Central Terminal, was named for an American general). But scores of lesser markers were erected to idealized doughboys and other largely unsung heroes, including the one in Times Square to the Rev. Francis P. Duffy, the Canadian-born chaplain to the “Fighting 69th” regiment who was said to have braved active battlefields to retrieve fallen soldiers. His statue stands between West 45th and 47th Streets, behind the figure of George M. Cohan (not unsung), who wrote the World War I anthem “Over There.” The prolific author and playwright Laura Pedersen parcels her stream of consciousness into wily and witty essays in “Life in New York: How I Learned to Love Squeegee Men, Token Suckers, Trash Twisters and Subway Sharks” (Fulcrum). Ms. Pedersen arrived in the city from Buffalo in the early 1980s (her father was raised in Washington Heights) with a keen eye and ear for what differentiated Manhattan from her hometown. She observes that “while panhandlers can make change in any denomination you want,” cabbies can rarely break a $20 bill. That New York women, on average, live seven years longer than men, but “they will spend at least six and a half of those years searching for public bathrooms.” “In contrast to ‘Survivor,’ on our islands we don’t take a weekly vote regarding who gets to stay and who has to go,” Ms. Pedersen writes. “Contradictions are therefore not resolved but rather contained within the sprawling tapestry of daily life. If there’s not always a communal sense of Whitmanesque belonging, then there’s the certainty that we’re all in it together.”


Report Says Rutgers Athletics Lacked Proper Oversight

Abstract: The president of Rutgers, Richard L. McCormick, failed to adequately oversee the university athletic director on critical issues like the football coach Greg Schiano’s salary and the hiring of a sports marketing firm that once employed the athletic director’s son, according to an often harshly worded report released Wednesday by an independent review committee. There is “no question that the president’s failure to exercise fully his ultimate authority on these matters, to seek the counsel of the board in certain instances, and to test the basis of [athletic department] decisions exacerbated this situation,” read the report, which also sharply criticized the athletic director, Robert E. Mulcahy III. The committee’s conclusions came several months after The Star-Ledger of Newark published articles reporting that Schiano received an extra $250,000 a year from a sports marketing firm that had employed Mulcahy’s son, and that the State Legislature directed $2.25 million over four years to the athletic department. The revelations followed a decade-long quest by Rutgers to transform its athletic department — especially its football team — into a contender in college sports. The university is in the second phase of a $102 million project to expand its stadium, although officials have said those plans are almost certain to be scaled back in the wake of the economic crisis. Alfred C. Koeppe, a co-chairman of the nine-member review committee, said the rapid growth of the athletics department contributed to the troubles he investigated. “You had these stresses that came with the very quick maturation of the program itself, and you had a structure that had weaknesses in it,” Koeppe said. The committee found that while the employment of Mulcahy’s son did not technically constitute a conflict of interest, Mulcahy should have disclosed the fact to the university. It also concluded that Mulcahy was given few instructions when he was hired by the university in 1998. That, combined with lax oversight by the board of directors and McCormick, led to a culture of secrecy, the committee said. “I think the structure had its flaws right from the start because the internal controls were really not there,” Koeppe said. “And then you had some challenges that clearly the athletic director had in terms of operating in an insular manner.” In a statement Wednesday, McCormick said the report was “consistent with what I had hoped for when I appointed the committee last summer,” later adding, “I applaud their work and welcome their recommendations. Some of the recommendations that McCormick says he will carry out include expanding the size of the university’s Internal Audit Department, requiring written contracts for coaches that spell out all types of compensation, and requiring presidential approval of all head coaches. In a statement, Mulcahy said he would work with the president and the board to act on the recommendations. His contract with Rutgers expires in 2010.

Rutgers The State University of New Jersey


Signs Ebola Spreads in Sex Prompt a C.D.C. Warning

Abstract: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidelines on Ebola transmission on Sunday night, urging survivors to abstain from all forms of sex or use condoms every time “until more information becomes available,” rather than three months as previously recommended. The World Health Organization and Liberia have issued similar recommendations in recent weeks. They were acting on evidence suggesting that a Liberian man who recovered from Ebola might have transmitted the virus to his female partner many months later. Ebola genetic material was found in a semen sample the man provided 175 days after he developed symptoms, 74 days longer than ever before found in a survivor. Scientists in Liberia have compared the genetic sequence of the virus found in the woman, Ruth Tugbah, 44, to partial sequences obtained from the virus in her boyfriend’s semen and in blood samples taken months ago from his potential contacts with Ebola, and found that they matched at several key points. Thus far, the information is consistent with sexual transmission, scientists said, but not conclusive, and the study is continuing. Researchers at the C.D.C. were also trying to establish whether the sample the man provided contained infectious virus, rather than only harmless genetic material or RNA. Experts said they had expected sexual transmission of Ebola to be rare. It has not yet been proved, but “cannot be ruled out,” the C.D.C. guidance said. Marburg, a similar virus, is thought to have been transmitted sexually. The World Health Organization, the C.D.C. and the Sierra Leone health ministry are planning a study of survivors intended to help establish the range of time that various body fluids, such as semen, urine and breast milk, tend to contain Ebola after it has been cleared from the blood. That time frame has varied in the small number of survivors previously studied. “The problem is we haven’t looked at a large number of cases,” said Stuart Nichol, an Ebola researcher at the C.D.C. Philip Ireland, a Liberian doctor who contracted Ebola while working last summer at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, the capital, said that despite the practical difficulty involved in collecting semen samples, all survivors should be offered the chance to know whether their body fluids still contain traces of Ebola. “Tests have to be made available, and have to be made next-to-free,” he said. Dr. Bruce Aylward, the lead Ebola official at the W.H.O., said the agency was exploring the feasibility of just such a program. “It’s a smart thing to do,” he said.

Ebola
Sex
CDC
Liberia
Condom
WHO
Sexual abstinence
Sierra Leone


Supreme Court Declines to Revisit Citizens United

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In a brief unsigned decision , the Supreme Court on Monday declined to have another look at its blockbuster 2010 campaign finance decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission . In the 5-to-4 ruling on Monday, the court summarily reversed a decision of the Montana Supreme Court that had upheld a state law limiting independent political spending by corporations. That decision, the United States Supreme Court said, was flatly at odds with Citizens United, which said the First Amendment allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they like to support or oppose political candidates. “The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law,” the opinion said. “There can be no serious doubt that it does.” Montana’s arguments, the opinion continued, “either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case.” The four members of the court’s liberal wing dissented in an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer , who said that Citizens United itself had been a mistake. “Even if I were to accept Citizens United,” Justice Breyer continued, “this court’s legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana. Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the state had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations.” Justice Breyer added, “Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so.” Critics of the Supreme Court’s campaign finance rulings attacked Monday’s decision, saying Citizens United had led to unprecedented levels of outside money pouring into the presidential campaign and races for the House and Senate — the vast majority of it raised not from corporations but from wealthy individuals and spent by “ super PACs ” and other independent groups. Democrats in Congress have proposed measures to rein in campaign spending, strengthen disclosure requirements and even amend the Constitution to reverse Citizens United. In Montana, the State Supreme Court had ruled that the state’s distinctive history and characteristics warranted a departure from the principles announced in Citizens United. Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Montana Supreme Court, writing for the majority in its 5-to-2 ruling, stressed that the state’s experience of having its political system corrupted by corporate interests early in the 20th century justified the ruling. “At that time,” Chief Justice McGrath wrote, “the state of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority, and the real social and political power was wielded by powerful corporate managers to further their own business interests. The voters had more than enough of the corrupt practices and heavy-handed influence asserted by the special interests controlling Montana’s political institutions.” This year, by coincidence, in a hotly contested election for a United States Senate seat in Montana, Senator Jon Tester , a Democrat, has been the target of $2.6 million in spending by outside groups. On Monday, he said that the Supreme Court decision had “rolled back Montana 100 years, back to the time literally when millionaires and billionaires bought elections, and they did it under the guise of free speech, which is crazy.” In February, two of the dissenters in Citizens United — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , joined by Justice Breyer — issued a statement explaining that “lower courts are bound to follow this court’s decisions until they are withdrawn or modified.” They added, though, that the United States Supreme Court should use the Montana case to consider the aftermath of Citizens United. The case, they wrote, was “an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.” A spokesman for President Obama , Eric Schultz, said, “We are disappointed that the Supreme Court did not take the opportunity presented by the Montana case to revisit its decision in Citizens United.” Mr. Schultz said that since that decision in 2010, “we have seen unprecedented amounts of campaign spending, often by groups that won’t disclose their donors. Citizens United was wrong when it was decided, and as two Supreme Court Justices have observed since, independent expenditures by corporations are threatening the health of our democracy.”


Natural Gas Overtakes Coal in U.S. Electric Generation

Abstract: Natural gas overtook coal as the top source of United States electric power generation for the first time ever this spring, a milestone that has been in the making for years as the price of gas slides and new regulations make coal riskier for power generators. About 31 percent of electric power generation in April came from natural gas, and 30 percent from coal, according to a recently released report from the research company SNL Energy, which used data from the Energy Department. Nuclear power came in third at 20 percent. A drilling boom that started in 2008 has increased United States natural gas production by 30 percent and made the United States the world’s biggest combined producer of oil and natural gas. Federal data shows that in April, the amount of electricity generated with natural gas climbed 21 percent compared with April 2014, and the amount generated with coal fell 19 percent. In April 2010, 44 percent of electric power generation came from coal and 22 percent from gas, according to SNL Energy.

Natural gas
Coal
Electric power
SNL Financial
Energy Department


Judge Replaces State Overseer of Health Care for Prisoners

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — A federal judge who ruled in 2005 that California ’s broken prison medical care system amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in many cases dismissed on Wednesday the receiver who had been appointed to repair the system. A federal court took control of the prison health care system away from the state in 2005 after ruling in favor of a class-action lawsuit brought by the Prison Law Office, an advocacy group, on behalf of California inmates. Robert Sillen, a hospital administrator, was appointed the health care receiver for the prison system in April 2006, after a nationwide search. Mr. Sillen’s no-nonsense, confrontational style of leadership helped to push forward short-term changes and address immediate needs, according to the court order issued on Wednesday by the judge, Thelton E. Henderson of Federal District Court. But the court found the changes Mr. Sillen proposed in an outline of long-term reforms he submitted for review in May, to be too “conceptual” and lacking a clear plan for being carried out. In June, the Prison Law Office filed a complaint in federal court saying that Mr. Sillen’s proposed changes had “no concrete details of how any of the goals or objectives are to be accomplished, no real timelines and no metrics.” Judge Henderson appointed J. Clarke Kelso, a professor at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific in Sacramento, as the new receiver. Mr. Kelso has a history of taking over agencies plagued by disorganization or suffering from poor reputation. He served as interim state insurance commissioner after the departure of Chuck Quackenbush amid corruption accusations in 2000 and unified the state’s disparate information and technology departments while serving as chief information officer in 2002. Rachael Kagan, director of communications for the receivership, said Mr. Sillen would not comment on his removal. The role of receiver has reached a critical juncture, Judge Henderson wrote, and requires a more diplomatic style of leadership that will coordinate multiple state agencies to alter the medical care system and, ultimately, return it to state control. “While the current receiver has successfully used his unique skills and bold, creative leadership style to investigate, confront and break down many of the barriers that existed at the inception of the receivership,” the order said, “the second phase of the receivership demands a substantially different set of administrative skills and style of collaboration.” With the oversight of a newly created advisory board, Mr. Kelso will work to create a new plan over the next two months. “In the next 45 to 60 days, we will be taking what is an extremely voluminous set of plans created by Mr. Sillen and turning it into a strategic business plan that people can get their arms around and gives us a sense of what it would cost to implement,” Mr. Kelso said. “I need to get on my feet as quickly as possible,” he added. “We don’t want to lose momentum in some sort of grand transition.”

California
Prisons and Prisoners
Medicine and Health


China Raises Loan Reserves in Move to Control Inflation

Abstract: BEIJING (Reuters) — China’s central bank raised the reserve requirements for lenders on Friday for the fourth time in slightly more than two months, stepping up the fight against inflation that it has vowed will be a priority for the year. By forcing banks to lock up more cash with the central bank, Beijing hopes to drain excess money from the economy and tame rising prices, which it worries may stir social unrest. The move, well anticipated after China’s top leaders planted the task of taming inflation at the top of their agenda , underscored the central bank’s shift to “prudent” monetary policy in December, from its previous “moderately loose” stance. With inflation expected to stay elevated in coming months, barring a temporary dip in December from 28-month highs, analysts believe further tightening is very likely in the weeks ahead. “The rise is within market expectations, showing that the central bank is really concerned about inflation,” said Dong Xian’an, chief economist at Industrial Securities in Beijing. “We expect the central bank to raise interest rates once or twice more in the first quarter,” he said, along with two more increases in the reserve requirements. The 50-basis-point increase, effective Jan. 20, will raise the reserve requirement ratio for China’s biggest banks to a record high of 19.5 percent. Announced by the People’s Bank of China in a terse statement published on its Web site after the Chinese stock market had closed, it triggered selling in riskier assets like the euro and oil. The move will drain about 350 billion renminbi ($53 billion) from the Chinese economy, but given the speed at which new money is entering the system through trade and investment it is no wonder many believe more reserve requirement increases are due. China’s foreign exchange reserves surged a record $199 billion in the fourth quarter to $2.85 trillion, compelling the central bank to counter the inflationary effects of such money inflows via sterilization, or selling renminbi-denominated bills to domestic institutions to mop up excess liquidity. China’s inflation hit a 28-month high of 5.1 percent in November as food and property prices soared.

China
Inflation (Economics)
Banking and Financial Institutions
Economic Conditions and Trends


Jerry Brown Returns for Third Term as California Governor

Abstract: SACRAMENTO — Jerry Brown began his return engagement as governor of California on Monday, using his inaugural address to call for an end to partisan battling that he said was paralyzing the state and to promise, in what is presumably the last chapter of his public life, to lead California out of one of the toughest budget crises of its history. “Choices have to be made, and difficult decisions taken,” Mr. Brown declared to an audience that included two former governors and hundreds of state legislators. “At this stage of my life, I have not come here to embrace delay and denial.” At times jocular, at times earnest, Mr. Brown noted — indeed celebrated — his longevity in California politics, a depth of experience that in no small part accounted for his victory in November as voters in so much of the rest of the country were turning to outsiders. At 72, Mr. Brown is returning for a third term as governor, a position also held by his father, offering a West Coast echo of what took place in Albany on Sunday with the swearing-in of Andrew M. Cuomo as governor of New York. “For me, this day is also special because I get to follow in my father’s footsteps once again, and, 36 years after my first inauguration as governor, even follow in my own,” Mr. Brown said. In contrast to his first inaugural speech — where he called for a 7 percent cut in the size of his office staff — Mr. Brown did not offer many specifics for how he intended to deal with a state budget shortfall that is now projected at $28.5 billion over 18 months. But he has made clear that his solution, in a budget due Jan. 10, will call for deep cuts in state spending, and his aides have said it is also likely to include a request that voters extend tax surcharges scheduled to expire this year. More than that, Mr. Brown — who has had a history of being something of a political iconoclast and who has always been drawn to populist themes and language — offered a clear rebuke to political leaders from both parties who have been enmeshed in what have, at times, seemed interminable and irresolvable political battles. This year, the Legislature adopted a budget 100 days late, setting a record. “In the face of huge budget deficits year after year and the worst credit rating among the 50 states, our two political parties can’t come close to agreeing on the right path forward,” the new governor said, as the lawmakers in his audience sat in still silence. “They remain in their respective comfort zones, rehearsing and rehashing old political positions.” “Perhaps this is why the public holds the state government in low esteem,”‘ he said, adding, “Without the trust of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void.” Mr. Brown looks far different than he did 36 years ago — what hair he has left has turned gray, as his audience was reminded with a slide show that included pictures from his first round as governor — and he is moving at a slightly slower pace. And many of the people who were here for his first inaugural are gone, including his father, Edmund G. Brown Sr., who died in 1996. The crowd on Monday included two other former governors — Gray Davis, a Democrat, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, to whom Mr. Brown paid a particularly warm tribute. (Mr. Schwarzenegger declined to endorse the Republican nominee for governor, Meg Whitman, in what was widely seen here as a tacit endorsement of Mr. Brown.) But there were some striking similarities between Mr. Brown’s two inaugurations. Then, as now, California was coming out of a tough recession. One of the main themes of Mr. Brown’s first speech was how to deal with joblessness. The unemployment rate in January 1975 was 9.4 percent; it is now 12.4 percent. In 1975, he was succeeding a Republican governor who was a former actor — Ronald Reagan; this time, it was Mr. Schwarzenegger, also a former actor. He also presented himself at that time as fiscally conservative and prepared to make cuts in state spending, as he did to a certain extent on Monday. That said, Mr. Brown spoke for 16 minutes Monday — far longer than the seven minutes at his first inaugural. And as grave as things might seem fiscally, he appeared in good humor. At the swearing-in, when the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, asked him to attest that he was taking the position without mental reservation, Mr. Brown paused and the audience laughed. “Really, no mental reservation,” he said. Mr. Brown has kept a decidedly low profile since his election, making only two significant public appearances and only two appointments. He is now moving into a period where he is to begin spelling out some of those painful choices he has talked about. On this day, at least, Mr. Brown seemed intent on not making any enemies, promising to impose tough cuts without detailing exactly what may lay ahead, well aware that cuts in programs, or proposed tax increases, would threaten to squander whatever support he enjoys now. For example, for all the talk of budget tightening, he said the state needed to do something to take care of public schools that have been battered by years of cuts, a deep concern of Californians. “Our budget problem is dire, but after years of cutbacks, I am determined to enhance our public schools so our citizens of the future have the skills, the zest and the character to keep California up among the best,” he said. He made only elliptical reference to what could be one of his big challenges, should he choose to engage: pushing unions to agree to reductions in pensions and other benefits. “We will also have to look at our system of pensions and how to ensure that they are transparent and actuarially sound and fair — fair to the workers and fair to the taxpayers,” he said. Yet if there was one dominant theme, it was of a child of California returning to the job he once had with no ambition beyond another term in Sacramento. Or two more terms. At one point, he introduced his aunt, Connie Carlson. He told his audience that she was 99 and waited for the applause to subside. “By the way, those of you hankering after my job?” he said. “It may be a while. Relax.”

Brown Edmund G Jr
California
Politics and Government
Governors (US)
Budgets and Budgeting


Ultrarunner Micah True Disappears While on Run in New Mexico

Abstract: Micah True, a mythic figure among extreme-distance runners, went for a 12-mile run Tuesday morning and has yet to return, setting off a search in the Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico. “We had an initial report that he was seen on Highway 15, heading north, but we have no other clues whatsoever,” said Bob Rodgers, the search and rescue resource officer for the New Mexico State Police. “We thought we had found some of his tracks at one time but that turned out to be someone else.” Highway 15 leads to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, the ancient homes of the Mogollon people who lived in the area’s steep canyons 700 years ago. It was the type of terrain True favored. True, 60, was a central character in the best-selling nonfiction book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall. He was described as a man who overcame injuries after learning a new way to run from Mexico’s Tarahumara Indians, who are renowned for their running skill over long distances. True excelled at distances of 50 miles or more over steep and rocky trails, commonly running in sandals. An ultrarunner known as Caballo Blanco, or White Horse, True split his time between Boulder, Colo., and an adobe house near the old Mexican town of Urique. He was the race director of the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon, a 50-mile race along a dirt road and single track trail that ends in Urique’s central plaza. Early last week, True spent two nights at the Wilderness Lodge in Gila Hot Springs, N.M., said Jane Bruemmer, the co-owner of the inn and a friend of True. “He was with his dog, and he was going to leave soon to visit his girlfriend in Phoenix,” she said. True left on his Tuesday run at about 10 a.m., dressed in running shorts and a T-shirt, Bruemmer said. “We assume he was running to the cliff dwellings,” she said. She discounted some early theories for his disappearance. “There’s a slight chance he got lost, but that’s really hard to believe,” she said. “He has run in Gila a lot and knows the trails. There are mountain lions, but I’ve never heard of an attack on a human around here. “Something physical must have happened to him, though I don’t know what, maybe heart attack. Did he fall and break his leg? We just don’t know.” The search has involved a state police helicopter and the civilian air patrol in addition to canine teams and mounted patrols, Rodgers said. This time of year, the weather in the area is warm during the day, but the temperature often drops below freezing at night.

True Micah
Missing Persons
Running
New Mexico


Driver Is Charged in Children’s Deaths

Abstract: HOUSTON (AP) — The police have charged a driver suspected of being intoxicated when his vehicle plunged into a rain-filled ditch, killing five children inside. A spokesman for the Houston police, Kese Smith, said the man, Chanton Jenkins, 32, was charged with four counts of intoxication manslaughter on Sunday evening. The authorities were still looking for the body of one of the five victims. Investigators said Mr. Jenkins failed a field sobriety test after the crash, which occurred in a torrential rain storm on Saturday. They said Mr. Jenkins apparently lost control of his car while using a cellphone. It was unclear on Sunday whether he had a lawyer. The bodies of three boys — ages 4, 7 and 11 — were found inside the vehicle. A body believed to be that of a 1-year-old girl killed in the crash was found Sunday. And a search was continuing for the body of a 3-year-old girl, the police said. The driver and another adult escaped from the vehicle, as did a 10-year-old girl. The police said the adult passenger, who is Mr. Jenkins’s brother, told them Mr. Jenkins was the father of four of the children, including the 10-year-old girl who escaped. The car crashed into a tributary about two miles from where it feeds into Greens Bayou, a waterway that begins in northern Harris County. The car was found in nine and a half feet of water.

Children and Youth
Murders and Attempted Murders
Drunken and Reckless Driving
Houston (Tex)
Accidents and Safety


Cleanthony Early of the Knicks Is Robbed and Shot in the Knee After Leaving a Queens Strip Club

Abstract: A New York Knicks forward, Cleanthony Early, was shot in the knee early on Wednesday by masked men who swarmed an Uber car carrying him home from a strip club in Queens and stole several necklaces and gold caps for his teeth. After the shooting, which occurred around 4:30 a.m. in Maspeth, Mr. Early, 24, was forced to seek help at the front door of a stranger’s house. The authorities said it appeared he had been targeted in a coordinated robbery by about a half-dozen people who converged on his car in three vehicles, ordered him outside and then fled into the predawn darkness. The shooting came a week after the National Basketball Association threw the weight of its valuable brand behind an advertising campaign calling for an end to gun violence , aligning itself with a group founded by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has pushed for stricter limits on firearm sales. Star power has not shielded N.B.A. players from violence and theft: Mr. Early is the second member of the Knicks this month to be robbed of jewelry after a late night at a club. “We all are targets at the end of the day,” Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks star who was among those to appear in the anti-gun-violence ads that were broadcast on Christmas, said of N.B.A. players after practice on Wednesday. “I’m not a saint,” he added. “I go out and have a good time with friends and family. But I think we have to do a better job of being more safe and putting ourselves in safe environments.” The episode on Wednesday represented a harrowing turn for a young man whose mother moved him out of the Bronx as a child to avoid gun violence. He went on to become a college star and a second-round draft pick last year for a Knicks team seeking revival that regarded him as a possible steal. Mr. Early was heading home from CityScapes Gentlemen’s Club with a girlfriend when three cars boxed in the car he was in and forced it to the side of the road about a mile from the club, near the intersection of Maurice and Tyler Avenues, the authorities said. He had played just 29 seconds in the Knicks’ victory over the Detroit Pistons at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night, and was due at practice in about seven hours. The assailants then got out of their cars, some wearing ski masks and two carrying small semiautomatic guns, and ordered Mr. Early to get out of his, the police said. The men stole Mr. Early’s cash, gold caps for his teeth, an iPhone and two yellow metal chains with medallions before shooting him in the right knee, the police said. The men also took the Uber driver’s identification card. The woman was unharmed; none of her belongings were stolen. The Uber driver then pulled his gray Toyota Camry around the corner, where Armand Czapkowski, 39, who lives nearby, heard Mr. Early’s screams. He said he saw the Uber driver standing outside, and saw Mr. Early sitting in a metal chair on a neighbor’s porch across the street. “He is grabbing on the door handle and leaning on the door,” Mr. Czapkowski said. He said he called 911 because he was worried that Mr. Early was a burglar. The neighbor whose doorknob Mr. Early was jiggling called 911 as well, before he realized Mr. Early was hurt and let him inside, Mr. Czapkowski said. A basketball hoop stands two doors down from the house where Mr. Early asked for help, near a trash can that on Wednesday was filled with crime scene tape. “I am pretty upset that this happened here,” Mr. Czapkowski said. “If two cars can ambush a vehicle, then that’s scary.” The police were still seeking the suspects later on Wednesday. Daniel Perlicki, the operations director at an office furniture company around the corner from the strip club, said he had shared with detectives surveillance footage filmed just after 4 a.m. that showed two cars waiting at an intersection. When the cars turned onto Maurice Avenue, the footage showed, a third car joined them a short distance behind. Derek Fisher, the Knicks’ coach, said Mr. Early “relatively was doing well,” but he did not share details about the player’s condition. “He’s grown and matured a tremendous amount from last year’s draft to this point, and he’s improved as a player,” Mr. Fisher said. Less than two weeks ago, another young Knicks forward, Derrick Williams, was robbed of about $617,000 worth of valuables — including a Rolex, a diamond bracelet, a necklace and a Louis Vuitton bag — by two women he had brought to his Manhattan apartment around 5 a.m. After that episode, Mr. Fisher defended the team’s absence of a curfew. He declined on Wednesday to answer questions about whether the team might adopt new policies on player conduct or whether such episodes hurt the team’s image. He emphasized that Mr. Williams and Mr. Early were victims of crimes and had not violated team rules. Enjoying New York’s night life is something of a ritual for professional athletes, though the lure of the wee hours can be greatest for those, like Mr. Early, who do not play regularly. An athletic, 6-foot-8 forward, he has played in just 10 games this season, averaging 0.7 points and 0.2 rebounds in 3.4 minutes per game, a steep drop-off from last season. His selection last year by Phil Jackson, then the team’s new president, brought Mr. Early back to his home city after a star turn on an underdog team at Wichita State University. He has spoken about the nightmares he had as a child after coming upon the body of a cousin who had been killed in a Bronx shooting. That persuaded his mother to move the family out of the city.

Cleanthony Early
Assault
Basketball
Queens
Maspeth Queens
Knicks


After 5 Months of Sales, Colorado Sees the Downside of a Legal High

Abstract: DENVER — Five months after Colorado became the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales, the battle over legalization is still raging. Law enforcement officers in Colorado and neighboring states, emergency room doctors and legalization opponents increasingly are highlighting a series of recent problems as cautionary lessons for other states flirting with loosening marijuana laws. There is the Denver man who, hours after buying a package of marijuana-infused Karma Kandy from one of Colorado’s new recreational marijuana shops, began raving about the end of the world and then pulled a handgun from the family safe and killed his wife, the authorities say. Some hospital officials say they are treating growing numbers of children and adults sickened by potent doses of edible marijuana. Sheriffs in neighboring states complain about stoned drivers streaming out of Colorado and through their towns. “I think, by any measure, the experience of Colorado has not been a good one unless you’re in the marijuana business,” said Kevin A. Sabet, executive director of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which opposes legalization. “We’ve seen lives damaged. We’ve seen deaths directly attributed to marijuana legalization. We’ve seen marijuana slipping through Colorado’s borders. We’ve seen marijuana getting into the hands of kids.” Despite such anecdotes, there is scant hard data. Because of the lag in reporting many health statistics, it may take years to know legal marijuana’s effect — if any — on teenage drug use, school expulsions or the number of fatal car crashes. Image Brian Vicente, a pro-legalization activist, speaking on Jan. 1 before the first legal sale of recreational marijuana in Denver. Credit Theo Stroomer/Getty Images It was only in January, for example, that the Colorado State Patrol began tracking the number of people pulled over for driving while stoned. Since then, marijuana-impaired drivers have made up about 12.5 percent of all citations for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Proponents of legalization argue that the critics are cherry-picking anecdotes to tarnish a young industry that has been flourishing under intense scrutiny. The vast majority of the state’s medical and recreational marijuana stores are living up to stringent state rules, they say. The stores have sold marijuana to hundreds of thousands of customers without incident. The industry has generated $12.6 million in taxes and fees so far, though the revenues have not matched some early projections. Marijuana supporters note that violent crimes in Denver — where the bulk of Colorado’s pot retailers are — are down so far this year. The number of robberies from January through April fell by 4.8 percent from the same time in 2013, and assaults were down by 3.7 percent. Over all, crime in Denver is down by about 10 percent, though it is impossible to say whether changes to marijuana laws played any role in that decline. “Every major institution said this would be horrible and lead to violence and blood in the streets,” said Brian Vicente, one of the authors of Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana in Colorado. “None of that’s happened. The sky did not fall.” Image The coffin of Kristine Kirk leaving a Denver church in April. Ms. Kirk’s husband, Richard, is accused of fatally shooting her after eating marijuana-infused candy he bought at a store. Credit Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post, via Getty Images The argument is being waged with fervor because both sides say Colorado’s successes and failures with regulating marijuana will shape perceptions of legalization for voters considering similar measures in other states and for leery federal law enforcement officials. After the 2012 legalization votes in Colorado and Washington State — where recreational sales are expected to begin this summer — Justice Department officials gave the states a cautious green light. But they warned that they might intervene if marijuana ended up fueling violence or drug trafficking, or flowing across state lines or into the hands of children. Marijuana opponents like Thomas J. Gorman of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which helps law enforcement, say Colorado is already falling short of those standards. “In any other state if they were making as much money and growing as much dope, they’d be taken out by the feds,” Mr. Gorman said. Few agree on how much legally purchased marijuana is being secreted out of Colorado. Michele Leonhart, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, told a Senate panel in April that officials in Kansas had tallied a 61 percent increase in seizures of marijuana that could be traced to Colorado. But according to the Kansas Highway Patrol, total marijuana seizures fell to 1,090 pounds from 2,790 pounds during the first four months of the year, a 61 percent decline. Some sheriffs and police chiefs along Colorado’s borders say they have noticed little change. But in Colby, Kan., which sits along an interstate highway running west to Colorado, Police Chief Ron Alexander said charges for sale, distribution or possession related to marijuana were rising fast. This year, he tallied 20 such cases through May 23. Two years ago, there were six during that same time period. Image Edible marijuana goods like these are linked to incidents causing the greatest alarm. Credit Matthew Staver for The New York Times Sheriff Adam Hayward of Deuel County, Neb., said he was locking up more people for marijuana-related offenses. “It’s kind of a free-for-all,” he said. “The state or the federal government needs to step up and do something.” Criminal marijuana cases in Colorado plunged by 65 percent in 2013, the first full year of legalization for personal recreational use, but the police in some areas have been writing dozens of tickets to crack down on public marijuana smokers. Police and fire officials across the state have been contending with a sharp rise in home explosions, as people use flammable butane to make hashish oil.. And despite a galaxy of legal, regulated marijuana stores across the state, prosecutors say a dangerous illicit market persists. In February, for example, in the Denver suburb of Aurora, a 17-year-old planning to rob an out-of-state marijuana buyer instead accidentally shot and killed his girlfriend, law enforcement officials said. “Why break into a house to steal a TV or a computer that you have to fence when you can steal mounds of cash or marijuana, which is like liquid?” said George Brauchler, the district attorney who oversees Aurora. “That’s the kind of stuff we’re starting to become more aware of.” Many of Colorado’s starkest problems with legal marijuana stem from pot-infused cookies, chocolates and other surprisingly potent edible treats that are especially popular with tourists and casual marijuana users. Image Restocking shelves of edible marijuana products in Denver. Some worry they are finding their way into children’s hands. Credit Matthew Staver for The New York Times On Colorado’s northern plains, for example, a fourth grader showed up on the playground one day in April and sold some of his grandmother’s marijuana to three classmates. The next day, one of those students returned the favor by bringing in a marijuana edible he had swiped from his own grandmother. “This was kind of an unintended consequence of Colorado’s new law,” said John Gates, the district’s director of school safety and security. “For crying out loud, secure your weed. If you can legally possess it, that’s fine. But it has no place in an elementary school.” So far this year, nine children have ended up at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora after consuming marijuana, six of whom got critically sick. In all of 2013, the hospital treated only eight such cases. In March, the state logged what appeared to be its first death directly tied to legal recreational marijuana when a 19-year-old African exchange student, Levy Thamba Pongi, plunged to his death in Denver. He and three other students had driven from their college in Wyoming to sample Colorado’s newly legal wares. Mr. Pongi ate marijuana-infused cookies, began acting wildly and leapt from a hotel balcony, officials said; the medical examiner’s office said marijuana intoxication had made a “significant” contribution to the accident. In April, the shooting death of Kristine Kirk raised even more concerns about regulating edible marijuana. Minutes before she was killed, Ms. Kirk called 911 to say her husband, Richard, was “talking like it was the end of the world” and had consumed marijuana and possibly prescription medication for back pain, according to a police affidavit. Police later confirmed that Mr. Kirk had bought the Karma Kandy and a pre-rolled joint from a licensed marijuana shop that evening. Those two deaths, combined with reports of groggy, nauseated children visiting emergency rooms, forced the state to tighten its labeling and packaging rules for edible marijuana. Regulators are also considering whether to set lower limits on the amount of THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana, that can be packed into one cookie or chocolate bonbon. Even supporters of legalization such as Mr. Vicente say Colorado needs to pass stricter rules about edible marijuana. He said the state was racing up a sharp learning curve. “Marijuana was illegal for 80 years,” Mr. Vicente said. “Now it’s legal, and everyone’s just trying to figure out how to approach these new issues.”

Drug Abuse
Marijuana,Pot,Weed
Legislation
Colorado
Car Crash
Crime
Children
Emergency medicine
Fatalities,casualties


Cuisines in Bloom

Abstract: Sooner or later the weather will turn warm and sunny, making it easier to enjoy the full New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. For now, consider a visit to the garden’s current exhibition, “Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure,” which explores Charles Darwin’s research with the world of plants outside his window. Outside the garden is a diverse selection of restaurants. COALS (718) 823-7002; 1888 Eastchester Road (Morris Park Avenue), Morris Park; $; $25 and Under: 8/3/05. Coals is unlike virtually any other pizza place in the borough in that the pies it slings are not coal oven, wood oven or oven baked at all — they are grilled. The margherita is a must. DUKAGJINI BUREKTORJA (718) 822-8955; 758 Lydig Avenue (Wallace Avenue), Pelham Parkway; $; Article: 5/18/05. This Albanian place may be the only restaurant in the city devoted entirely to bureks: savory pies that are the Balkans’ answer to pizza. They are convincingly good, stuffed with meat, spinach, or feta cheese, the crust hovering between puff pastry and pizza dough. EL ECONÓMICO (718) 601-5577; 5589 Broadway (231st Street), Kingsbridge; $; Article: 5/18/05. This Dominican restaurant doesn’t look like much, but the line of regulars at the counter testifies to the quality. The specialty is a changing roster of rich stews like oxtail, eggplant and sancocho, the classic brew of pork, pumpkin and root vegetables. Boiled yuca is served with house-made pickled red onions. ROBERTO (718) 733-9503; 603 Crescent Avenue (Hughes Avenue), Belmont; $$$; Article: 5/3/06. This longtime Italian favorite near Arthur Avenue has an epic menu of homemade pasta dishes like fusilli in cartoccio, with clams, mussels, shrimp and fresh tomato cooked in foil on the grill; and fresh grilled salmon topped with caramelized onions. WORLD OF TASTE (718) 584-5228; 2614 Jerome Avenue (193rd Street), Kingsbridge Heights; $; Article: 2/27/08. This restaurant’s full name is a mouthful — World of Taste Seafood Deli/Vietnamese Food — but the space is humble and spare, tucked almost underneath the tracks of the No. 4 train. The specialties include New Zealand green mussels with ginger scallion. Meaty summer rolls are loaded with noodles, sliced shrimp and a generous helping of fresh mint. There are also many variations of pho; a warming and prodigiously sized bowl of pho bo is as good as any in New York.

Restaurants
Bronx (NYC)
New York Botanical Garden


Stayin’ Alive

Abstract: Meryl Meisler couldn’t believe the sight that greeted her when she emerged from the subway in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for the first time, in 1981. “It looked like the photographs that I had seen of Beirut,” she recalled of the cityscape of bombed-out buildings. Ms. Meisler had come to Bushwick to teach art at a public middle school. “I literally thought to myself, perhaps the other art teacher had been killed,” she said. Like a number of once middle-class neighborhoods in New York City, Bushwick had spiraled into poverty over the course of the 1960s and ’70s, and poverty had spawned desperation. An epidemic of arson had reduced block after block of three-story frame houses to rubble. Sometimes the fires were set by vandals who intended to return for the plumbing systems; sometimes they were set by landlords who were tired of chasing after delinquent tenants to pay rent. Ms. Meisler was a teacher, but also a photographer. She had spent many nights in the ’70s taking pictures in discothèques like Studio 54. She didn’t start photographing Bushwick right away. Her camera had been stolen on her last day of work at her previous teaching job, on the Lower East Side. And anyway, she wasn’t sure that carrying a camera around Bushwick was such a good idea. But eventually, she could no longer resist. Among other things, the natural light created by the absence of tall buildings, or any buildings, was a photographer’s dream. Ms. Meisler soon became compulsive. She wasn’t interested in capturing the urban decay, so much as she was the signs of normal life happening despite it. “I didn’t photograph needles on the ground, or crack vials or junkies,” she said. “I photographed people finding joy in life.” Her new book, “A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick,” from Bizarre Publishing, juxtaposes her photos from the city’s discos with those from the neighborhood. Ms. Meisler remained at Intermediate School 291 in Bushwick until 1994, just long enough to see the neighborhood start groping toward some semblance of recovery and rebirth.

Photography
NYC
Bushwick Brooklyn
Meryl Meisler
Books


A Look Ahead at the Next Recession

Abstract: What did we learn from the Great Recession? With economic growth creeping ahead at a glacial pace and another cyclical downturn looming not far in the future, questions about how to stimulate growth and protect the most vulnerable loom large on the list of priorities. Last week in Washington, I sat down with Shaun Donovan, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, and Lawrence H. Summers, former Treasury secretary and onetime economic adviser to President Obama, to discuss the issue. Our conversation was hosted by the Hamilton Project , a research group within the Brookings Institution. Credit Credit Video by HamiltonProj Edited selections from the conversation are below. Eduardo Porter: Good afternoon. We are here to chat about how to mitigate the effect of the inevitable future recession. What can we learn from our response to the last one? At this moment, interest rates are near zero and the Federal Reserve is arguably out of ammunition. And we’re already seven years into the recovery. Maybe this prospect is not that far down the line. The question is not just about how to reignite growth after the next downturn. Another very important question is about how to protect the most vulnerable when the next recession hits. The experience of the last one suggests our social safety net needs some redesigning. Too many disenfranchised people were left without assistance. The programs that we have missed too many. Shaun Donovan: Let me start with a simple point, which is that it did work and worked better than I think many people recognized. The recovery act alone saved about four- to five-and-a-half-million people from falling into poverty as a result of the recession. And there were 12 additional measures that were passed beyond the recovery act that took us to a total response that was about $1.4 trillion. One of the most profound mistakes, I think, was Congress shifting toward austerity and producing a set of manufactured crises that hurt the economy. If you look at the combination of sequestration and the government shutdown, you are looking at likely over a million jobs lost as a result. At a time where the politics to do what we did in the aftermath of the Great Recession are arguably even harder, the automatic stabilization that can be provided in the safety net is even more important. Lawrence Summers: I think it is a mistake to be too satisfied with where we have been. If we look at the period from 1929 to 1940 and what happened to G.D.P. [gross domestic product] per adult American and we look at the period from 2008 to 2019 as best we can judge it, it is equivalent. The odds are better than 50-50 that we will have a recession within the next few years. What does the Fed normally do when that happens? The Fed normally cuts real interest rates by five percentage points. Is it conceivable that there is going to be room to do that, even maybe allowing for Q.E. [quantitative easing], even recognizing that maybe rates could become negative 50 basis points? I submit that it’s not. So, changes in the fiscal monetary mix are essential. They are the only tools available when the next recession comes, and I would submit that they are desirable right now. What are the crucial elements of changing the fiscal monetary mix? One is a substantial increase in public investment. It is insane that federal investment in infrastructure is now net negative at a moment when interest rates have never been lower. And precious little is happening at the state and local level, either. Second, strong support for social insurance. When Keynes came to the United States in 1942, he pointed out that an important virtue of Social Security was that it could absorb the excess savings that would potentially hold back U.S. economic growth after the Second World War. Those considerations were not relevant in the succeeding 60 years, but they potentially are relevant in our current period of secular stagnation. Note that an expansion of pay-as-you-go Social Security does not raise the annual budget deficit, but in every economic model contributes to raising aggregate demand by enabling households to look forward to more secure retirements. Third, there is a strong case for doing what we can to promote housing investment. We are managing the cycle in the worst way possible from the point of view of housing. We got all of the lower-middle-income and poor people into their own houses when the price was going up and was a bubble. Then when the price plummeted, they all sold to private equity firms who rented the houses out at a 10 percent yield and earned tremendous capital gains. This is exactly the wrong moment for support for housing to be at a minimum rather than a maximum. Fourth, related to my first point, this is the moment to be maintaining the infrastructure we have. The one thing we know — if you look at airports, if you look at highways, if you look at the water system of Flint, Michigan — it is much more costly to defer maintenance than it is to do maintenance promptly. It is every bit as much a burden on my children’s generation to defer maintenance as it is to issue paper debt, and I promise you that the costs compound far more rapidly with deferred maintenance than they do with the 13 basis points that represent the real interest costs of current long-term federal debt. The most important determinant of our long-term fiscal picture is how successful we are at accelerating the economy’s growth rate in the next three to five years, not the austerity measures that we implement. People concerned with our long-term fiscal health should be redoubling their focus on the currently inadequate growth rate. Mr. Porter: What about the politics? How do we overcome gridlock? Mr. Summers: We need to move from a politics of either/or to a politics of both. I stress some of the problems that I think are most important but I think the argument that there are changes in the corporate tax code that would stimulate investments has some validity. Complaints about excessive regulation that holds back small and medium-sized business have some validity. There are a whole set of issues around stimulating private investment that warrant attention as well. I believe passionately in more infrastructure investment, but the concerns that government doesn’t do it so well are not stupid concerns. There is a bridge right outside my office. It connects Harvard Square with Boston. The bridge is 232 feet long. It has been under repair, with traffic blocked, for four and one-half years. It took 11 months to build the bridge the first time. You’re not going to get a commitment to a public sector-led fiscal policy strategy without also having a strategy that is about private sector activity and private sector investment. Mr. Porter: Perhaps we can talk about social insurance. One criticism of our current system is that it is excessively tied to work, to provide an incentive to work and to reward work. So it malfunctioned when there was no work to be had. An idea that has been making the rounds, that has the support of even some people on the right, is a universal basic income, which is totally disassociated from work. Is there a case to be made for something like that? Mr. Summers: As a relevant response to current problems in the current context, I think not. The core problem with the universal income is that, how do you finance it? If you give $5,000 to everybody, that’s $1.5 trillion. Now the right-wing view of that is that you’re going to get that money by cutting all the existing needs-tested programs, which means that some of the poorest people around are only going to be getting $1,500 so that you and I can get our share of the universal income. I don’t think that’s a very good idea. The basic truth is that giving people benefits does influence their behavior. There are a large number of people in our society — little children, people who are 75 years old, people who are disabled — who aren’t going to work no matter what. Then there is what you can prudently afford to give to people where there are going to be large incentive effects. So there are a variety of incremental reforms that would broaden eligibility for various existing programs that I would support, but the universal basic income is one of those ideas that the longer you look at it, the less enthusiastic you become. Mr. Donovan: I think it’s important that we are able to re-look at these programs and understand both the short-term costs that there may be and how to design around those, and also the enormously powerful difference in long-run effects. Literally over decades you are seeing improvements of a third to a half in lifetime earnings from things like housing vouchers or others. If you think of the costs of someone not working, if you think of all the attendant health care, criminal justice and other impacts, the truth is that these investments may actually pay for themselves multiple times over.

Lawrence H Summers
Shaun Donovan
Recession and Depression
US Economy
Brookings


Wanted: A Way to Profit by Simplifying Web Classifieds

Abstract: Web sites that list classified ads have proliferated, but so far they have mostly made life easier for buyers rather than sellers. First there is the technology hurdle: many people who want to post a classified ad may feel daunted by the mechanics. Then there is the question of where to post: is it worth it to place a listing on more than one site, or is it enough to simply cast one’s lot with Craigslist, Google Base, eBay or Windows Live Expo from Microsoft? A new breed of Web sites aims to simplify the process. The sites offer templates and step-by-step instructions for creating classified ads and then post the ads, sometimes free, on all the major listings services. Two sites that offer this service already are vFlyer and Postlets; a third, Mpire, which plans to charge a small fee for the service, will join the fray soon. The sites rely primarily on outside advertising for their revenue. While the proposition they are offering will probably resonate with sellers, e-commerce analysts say, it remains to be seen whether the money to be made in this market will be worth the effort. “It’s relatively easy for someone to cut, copy and paste, and slap a posting for a used couch out there,” said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which helps large retailers and manufacturers sell on multiple Web sites. “This won’t make a ton of revenue.” On the other hand, the sites could prosper by sparing users the task of evaluating local online marketplaces, which tend to be fragmented, said Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a San Francisco Bay-area consulting firm. “This will be a good proposition for sellers,” he said. “With the exception of posting an ad on Craigslist, it’s hard for sellers to reach volumes of people.” On vFlyer, which is based in San Francisco and is scheduled to move from a beta, or test version, to a full-fledged one today, sellers can quickly design an ad using templates available in roughly 30 classified ad categories. The templates include checklists of attributes specific to, say, dogs for sale or vacation rentals. (VFlyer does not offer personal ads.) The templates also include graphics that can be customized. VFlyer checks the spelling of the seller’s written descriptions, and when an ad is finished, the seller can choose which sites to run it on. To post on Craigslist, which accepts only ads submitted by users, vFlyer gives its customers some computer code that they can cut and paste into the Craigslist forms. The ad and the accompanying photos then appear as designed on vFlyer. Oliver Muoto, one of two vFlyer founders, said that the service was in some ways the flip side of a recent online trend in which businesses like Oodle, SimplyHired and others have begun aggregating the ads on various classified sites to make searching easier for buyers, job seekers and apartment hunters. “Although there’s a solution for buyers, for sellers the process hasn’t changed,” he said. VFlyer will carry its users’ ads on its computers but it will not offer buyers a way to search listings on its site, said Aaron Sperling, the company’s chief executive. Doing so would put the site in direct competition with the online marketplaces it seeks to serve, he said. To earn money, vFlyer displays paid advertisements on its own pages as visitors surf the site. Those ads are distributed by Google, which pays publishers like vFlyer a commission each time a user clicks on a marketer’s offer. Mr. Muoto said that vFlyer would one day offer paid versions of its service for high-volume sellers like used-car dealers. Like many new Internet companies, vFlyer plans to rely primarily on word-of-mouth for its marketing. Mr. Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence said that this approach made sense, given that the ads the company will distribute will carry its brand, which will get the vFlyer name into circulation. While vFlyer’s service is the newest of its kind, it is not the first. In fact, the business closely resembles that of Postlets, another San Francisco Bay area-based company that introduced its service in April 2005, a month before vFlyer was formed. Asher Matsuda, who founded Postlets along with Ray Chen, said that his company also made money by distributing Google ads, and that it was considering charging for an enhanced service that is now available free. That service, called Plus, allows users to create ads with multiple pages, large-format photos, maps and video tours. Postlets currently offers templates for auto and real estate ads, with employment listings soon to come, followed by personals and other categories. Mr. Matsuda said that about 6,000 people had used the service, creating roughly 30,000 listings. Most of the ads have been posted by real estate professionals and car dealers. “We initially thought this would be more attractive to individual sellers, so we were surprised to learn the opposite was true,” Mr. Matsuda said. “It might just be an awareness thing.” Early next year there will be a third company in this space: Mpire, which currently runs a Web site that helps people do comparison shopping. Matt Hulett, chief executive of Mpire, said that his service would differ from the others in that it would charge users a small fee and would aim at more active sellers, like small businesses. Mpire already offers eBay sellers a service that helps them create and distribute ads, and the new offering will be an extension of that. Mr. Hulett said the new initiative would indeed make little money if it focused on people who sell only two or three items a year, because such people required more customer service. But higher-volume sellers would be less needy and more willing to pay for something that saves them time, he said. “Most sellers,” Mr. Hulett said, “will realize there’s some value here.”

Classified Advertising
Computers and the Internet
Advertising and Marketing
Computer Software
Craigslist
Google Inc
Mpire.com


After Elk River Spill, Congress Will Vote on Bill Regulating Toxic Chemicals

Abstract: CHARLESTON, W.Va. — James Lewis still remembers the licorice smell of the water and how his skin itched when he showered. After 7,500 gallons of a coal processing chemical leaked into the Elk River in January 2014, Mr. Lewis was one of 300,000 people in the Charleston area who were ordered to stop using tap water for several days. But like many people, Mr. Lewis, a construction worker and former chemical plant employee, and his girlfriend, a nurse, spent hundreds of dollars so they could use bottled water for several more months, just to be safe. “We were worried to death about our children,” Mr. Lewis said. He would like to see the government implement regulations that would prevent disasters like the Elk River spill, he said, but nothing that would harm the chemical companies that are central to the economy here. “It’s a Catch-22,” he said. On Tuesday, the United States House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a bill, prompted in part by the 2014 spill, that would update the Toxic Substances Control Act, a 39-year-old law governing the use of toxic chemicals in industry. The Senate is expected to vote on a similar bill next month, and the measure, which has bipartisan support, could reach President Obama’s desk before the end of the summer. But public health advocates and environmental groups say the bills offer only a slight improvement to the current law, and fall far short of what is needed to prevent accidents like the Elk River spill. “Something is better than nothing, but this isn’t much,” said Maya Nye, the director of People Concerned About Chemical Safety, an organization based in West Virginia. “The Elk River incident shined a spotlight on the gaping holes” in the Toxic Substances Control Act. “And these bills don’t do much to address those holes.” While the Republican-controlled Congress is often hostile to new regulations, both the House and the Senate appear poised to pass the new measures, in part because they have the blessing of the American Chemistry Council, the powerful chemical lobby. Supporters of the bills say they are a politically pragmatic compromise that will offer some new safety protections on dangerous chemicals. Image A DuPont petrochemical plant in Belle, south of Charleston, W.Va., where the Kanawha and Elk Rivers meet. Some residents are wary of industry. Credit Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times But advocates like Ms. Nye complain that the chemical industry had too heavy a hand in shaping the bills, and that previously unregulated chemicals would be reviewed far too slowly. Before the Elk River spill, efforts to improve chemical safety had foundered for years. The main champion of those efforts was Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, a liberal Democrat who sought to improve what he saw as an outdated law that put people in harm’s way. Under the 1976 law, the Environmental Protection Agency is required to evaluate the safety of new chemicals introduced in the marketplace. But the agency was not required to evaluate the roughly 64,000 chemicals already being used in American commerce. Since then, about 22,000 new chemicals have been introduced and evaluated, and those that the agency designates as toxic and hazardous are subject to regulation. But the vast majority of chemicals — including the one that fouled the Elk River, 4-methylcylcohexane methanol, or MCHM — are unregulated, and little information about many of them is publicly available. Under current law, even asbestos, a known carcinogen, is exempt from regulation. About 10 years ago, Mr. Lautenberg began working on a bill to overhaul the chemical law. His measure would have required the E.P.A. to begin regulating extremely harmful substances, like asbestos, and to start testing the toxicity of hundreds of additional chemicals annually. It would also have allowed states to enact even stronger regulations. While environmentalists cheered the proposals, they went nowhere in Congress, blocked by the chemical lobby and lawmakers from states with large chemical industries. Mr. Lautenberg died in 2013, never realizing his dream of enacting a chemical safety law. The Elk River spill brought Mr. Lautenberg’s measure back to life. He had worked with Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a Democrat, and Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, a Republican — both from states where the chemical industry is a cornerstone of the economy — on ways to advance a compromise bill. Mr. Manchin and Mr. Vitter, joined by Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, made changes to the bill to make it more friendly to industry. Many of the changes were proposed by the American Chemistry Council. The senators named their bill for their former colleague, saying its passage would seal his legacy. The measure would require the E.P.A. to start reviewing the toxicity of 64,000 unregulated chemicals, but at a pace of about 10 chemicals per year, rather than the hundreds per year required by Mr. Lautenberg’s bill. And it would not allow states to enact tougher rules. Image Residents of Charleston, W.Va., lined up in January for water after a coal processing chemical leaked into the Elk River. Credit Ty Wright for The New York Times Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee, called the bill a disgrace. “I loved Frank Lautenberg so much, and it’s with deep respect and a very heavy heart that I make these statements about a bill that has been named after him,” she said soon after the measure was introduced. “The bill, while having a beautiful name, is the product of chemical companies.” But Mr. Manchin said the bill represented what Mr. Lautenberg would have wanted: a politically viable improvement over existing law. “Frank Lautenberg gave me his blessing to get people together to get something that can get through,” he said. “You look for the balance.” Responding to criticism over the rate at which chemicals would be reviewed, Michael Walls, a vice president at the American Chemistry Council, said: “Today there’s no requirement. So the number of chemicals ultimately reviewed by E.P.A. will be increased.” The chemical industry has spent heavily on lobbying lawmakers. Between January 2013 and March 2015, the nation’s 10 largest chemical companies and organizations spent $171.4 million lobbying Congress and the federal government, and during the 2014 election cycle and the first three months of 2015, they contributed more than $1.2 million to current members of the Senate, according to MapLight, a nonprofit group. The bill’s 41 sponsors and co-sponsors received, on average, 66 percent more money from those companies and organizations than senators who are not sponsors. The chemical industry contends that it is simply doing what is necessary to influence a measure that could have a huge impact on its bottom line. In West Virginia, some people remain skeptical of the legislative efforts. Chris Walters, a Republican state senator, recalled that he had just finished boiling peas for his 3-year-old daughter when he learned that the tap water had been contaminated. “I thought, I never heard of anything that can’t be boiled away — but later it turns out this stuff can’t be boiled away.” “I’m glad they have legislation to move this thing forward, and we want to have a competitive business environment,” he said. “But just 10 chemicals a year, given how many chemicals are out there, seems like a drop in the bucket.”

Chemicals
HazMat
West Virginia
Water pollution
Legislation
Regulation and Deregulation
Water
EPA
Elk River West Virginia


Federal Cases of Stock Fraud Drop Sharply

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Federal officials are bringing far fewer prosecutions as a result of fraudulent stock schemes than they did eight years ago, according to new data, raising further questions about whether the Bush administration has been too lax in policing Wall Street. Legal and financial experts say that a loosening of enforcement measures, cutbacks in staffing at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a shift in resources toward terrorism at the F.B.I. have combined to make the federal government something of a paper tiger in investigating securities crimes. At a time when the financial news is being dominated by the $50 billion Ponzi scheme that Bernard L. Madoff is accused of running, federal officials are on pace this year to bring the fewest prosecutions for securities fraud since at least 1991, according to the data, compiled by a Syracuse University research group using Justice Department figures. There were 133 prosecutions for securities fraud in the first 11 months of this fiscal year. That is down from 437 cases in 2000 and from a high of 513 cases in 2002, when Wall Street scandals from Enron to WorldCom led to a crackdown on corporate crime, the data showed. At the S.E.C., agency investigations that led to Justice Department prosecutions for securities fraud dropped from 69 in 2000 to just 9 in 2007, a decline of 87 percent, the data showed. Federal officials took issue with some of the data compiled by the Syracuse group and said that they had maintained a strong commitment to rooting out fraud and abuse in the stock markets. While the S.E.C. could not provide numbers of its own on criminal cases arising from its investigations, Scott Friedstad, the deputy director of enforcement at the commission, said the numbers did not reflect “the reality that I see on the ground.” “We are as committed as ever to vigorous enforcement efforts,” he said. But a number of investor advocates and securities lawyers who are critical of the S.E.C.’s recent performance say they will be anxiously watching the incoming Obama administration to see what steps it may take to restore the agency’s battered credibility and re-establish it as a watchdog against corporate abuse. President-elect Barack Obama has named Mary Schapiro, head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, to lead the S.E.C, and he has promised an overhaul of the agency and other financial regulatory offices to provide tougher oversight. “I think the S.E.C. has completely fallen down on the job,” said Jacob H. Zamansky, a New York lawyer who specializes in representing investors who have lost money in fraud cases. “They’re more interested in protecting Wall Street than protecting investors. The new administration has to do a complete overhaul of the S.E.C.” The F.B.I., which frequently investigates stock fraud cases either on its own or in partnership with the S.E.C., has also had a sharp decline in the number of white-collar cases it has brought in the last several years — partly a reflection of a huge shift in staffing and resources to counterterrorism operations since the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said. David Burnham, co-director of the Syracuse research group, which is known as the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, said the decline in stock fraud prosecutions growing out of the F.B.I. “really is no surprise. It’s a reflection of a choice that was made right after 9-11 to move investigators into terrorism, and this is the cost of that. “Maybe it’s the correct call,” he added, “but with both the F.B.I. and the S.E.C., the federal government is really the only place that does white-collar crime on a systematic basis.” The economic collapse of the last few months has brought intense scrutiny of the S.E.C. amid accusations that it failed to foresee and prevent the collapse of one major financial institution after another as a result of risky overinvestment in mortgage-backed securities. “As an overheated market needed a strong referee to rein in dangerously risky behavior, the commission too often remained on the sidelines,” Arthur Levitt, who served as chairman of the S.E.C. during the Clinton administration, told the Senate Banking Committee in October. The Madoff scandal, now under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, has ratcheted up criticism even further. Christopher Cox, chairman of the S.E.C., ordered an internal investigation last week into what he said were the agency’s “multiple failures” to investigate credible allegations of wrongdoing by Mr. Madoff. The S.E.C.’s own data suggests that the agency has put increasing emphasis on using non-criminal means, like civil fines and what are known as deferred prosecution agreements, in dealing with allegations of wrongdoing. The number of S.E.C. cases handled through civil or administrative remedies has grown from 503 in 2000 to 636 this year. Critics of the S.E.C. also attribute the decline in criminal cases to shortages in staffing and resources in the agency’s investigative units, policy changes that have reduced the authority of investigators to pursue cases on their own, and a “revolving door” phenomenon that has led investigators to leave the agency for high-paying jobs in the industry that they once helped to monitor. “It’s been awful,” Sean Coffey, a former fraud prosecutor in New York who now represents investors in securities litigation, said of the S.E.C.’s recent enforcement record. The agency has “neutered the ability of the enforcement staff to be as proactive as they could be. It’s hard to square the motto of investor advocate with the way they’ve performed the last eight years.” Mr. Coffey said he believed the declining number of stock fraud prosecutions is partly a result of the backlash the Bush administration experienced after its aggressive pursuit of corporate crime following the Enron collapse in 2002, which led to the creation of a national task force on corporate wrongdoing. In the last few years, he said, “the administration has been sending the message that we’re going to loosen the binds on the market to compete in the global marketplace, and they’ve pulled the throttle back on prosecutions because it wasn’t politically necessary anymore.”

Suits and Litigation
Securities and Commodities Violations
Frauds and Swindling
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Bush George W
Securities and Exchange Commission


House to Vote on Bill to Ban Web Site Names That Resemble Those of U.S. Agencies

Abstract: Daniel M. O’Donnell, president of the San Francisco company that owns the Web site irs.com , is to ring the bell that begins trading on the American Stock Exchange this morning. Hours later, in Washington, the House is scheduled to vote on legislation that clarifies the law barring for-profit companies from using names that sound like official government agencies. Twice in the last three weeks, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, Mark W. Everson, has warned about confusion over the official Web site of his agency and commercial firms playing off that confusion. A Web industry trade group, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, issued a statement last week warning consumers that Web sites like irs.com, irs.org and irs.net “make money by offering services that, in many cases, taxpayers could get for free through the I.R.S.’s official Web site, irs.gov .” Intersearch.com , the firm that owns the irs.com Web site, says that it is fully complying with the law and that it sees no reason to inform shareholders of the pending legislation, said Jennifer Faye Drimmer, its legal counsel. She noted that the firm has had disclaimers on its home page for some time stating that it is not an official government Web site. Ms. Drimmer also said the firm does not believe that the law applies to Internet domain names. The 1994 law bars “any” use of the name of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service and their initials, logos and other symbols to solicit business. The law also states that a disclaimer is not a defense against either civil or criminal action. The House vote would clarify the law by specifying that the prohibition against “any” includes Web site names. Claudia Crowley, the chief regulatory officer for the American Stock Exchange, said yesterday that the exchange had assigned its best special investigator to look into Intersearch’s disclosure statements. As recently as last month an image of the Treasury building in Washington was at the top of the irs.com home page. Yesterday, after being asked about the Web site, the firm changed its disclaimers to make them more prominent, including putting the word “not” in capitals and underlined at the top left of its home page. Ms. Drimmer also said she was confident that the company had properly reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission its relationships with H&R Block and Intuit, two major tax software firms. “As part of our growth strategy we will continue to increase revenues generated” from advertising by H&R Block and Intuit, Intersearch.com said in its report to the S.E.C. filed March 30. Intersearch.com added that it is “transitioning our existing commercial relationships to terms more favorable to us.” Intuit said in interviews that it had ended its relationship with Intersearch.com last April and the total revenue it paid for advertising on the irs.com Web site was less than $10,000. H&R Block said it ended its relationship last Oct. 31. Intuit also said it sent a letter on March 5 demanding that Intersearch.com stop asserting that the two firms continue to have a relationship. Mr. O’Donnell, responding to the Intuit letter, said Intersearch would do its best not to use Intuit’s name and logo, but could not guarantee that because of the way its search engine works. Ms. Drimmer said this language was appropriate because it did business with Block and Intuit last year. Intersearch.com reported that revenue last year rose to $25.6 million from $17.5 million in 2005 and attributed most of the increase to its purchase of the irs.com Web site in September 2005. It paid $12.9 million for the domain name. The irs.com Web site directs customers to affiliated Web sites, including ones it directly owns, that have no disclaimers. One of these sites encourages people to pay $89 to have their tax returns filed.

House of Representatives (US)
Computers and the Internet
Law and Legislation
Internal Revenue Service


A Review of Trattoria Bolu, in Basking Ridge

Abstract: Every time I walk into Trattoria Bolu, the first thing I notice is the bar. It’s striking, though it doesn’t have a bartender, or even bottles of liquor. What it does have is antipasti, made fresh, right there where the beer taps would be. The enticing display, which includes rice croquettes and stuffed peppers, is just one of the touches that Jon Bocina, 32, and his father, Bruce, 63, thought of when they opened the restaurant in Basking Ridge in 2008. The Bocinas visited several spots in New York City and the Apulia region of Italy to do research, Jon Bocina said. One of their favorites in Italy “had a huge antipasto display,” he said, adding: “When you walked in you couldn’t help but see it. It was absolutely beautiful.” In addition to the antipasto bar, Mr. Bocina has made a point of using organic and locally sourced ingredients whenever possible. Image Antipasti at Trattoria Bolu. Credit Matt Rainey for The New York Times Mr. Bocina also prides himself on giving his diners extra options, whether it’s a whole-wheat crust on their pizza or the availability of a light meal, like a salad and appetizer combination. “A lot of Italian restaurants are kind of the same,” he said. “You walk in there and you feel like you’re overstuffed with food; you can’t go to a nice Italian restaurant and just order a salad; they’ll look at you funny and throw you out the door.” On one of my visits to Bolu, the touches that the Bocinas and their co-owner, Luca Carvello, 38, the executive chef at the Old Mill Inn’s Grain House Restaurant (owned by Bruce Bocina), had put in place were evident. We had an attentive waitress who knew the menu and gave us time to finish our wine before bringing us our cappuccinos, which were accompanied by small biscotti. Courses were timed to allow for relaxed conversation. Considering that we were there on a busy Saturday, the efficiency we saw was refreshing. But the next time we were in? Not so much. On a less busy but still buzzing Thursday, the main course took a long time to arrive; the foam on the cappuccinos was flat; and no biscotti were to be found. Oddly enough, the dishes we chose each night followed the same pattern. On the Saturday we had more hits than misses. I had a braised short rib lasagna, a dish originally conceived with braised goat, according to Mr. Bocina, that had a savory sauce to match the tender beef and the meatiness of the wild mushrooms. My wife had acorn squash and potato gnocchi that made her smile, as did the fresh lollipop kale sprouts that were in the mix. Dessert included melt-in-your-mouth zeppoli that were fried to order and served with warm Nutella. Image Lamb tagliatelle at Trattoria Bolu. Credit Matt Rainey for The New York Times On the Thursday, however, the misses took center stage. The mushrooms in my warm mushroom salad were tiny, and the arugula added little spice. An overwhelming smokiness from either the pancetta or the prosciutto in my wife’s bucatini all’Amatriciana made the dish taste more Asian than Italian. The sauce in my chili pepper pappardelle lacked the same zip that the sauce from the lasagna had possessed, and the tiger shrimp served alongside it were bland. Yet there were some high points: a spinach salad with beets and a nutty goat cheese, a well-balanced eggplant Parmesan, and flavorful but dense meatballs. Consistent between the two nights, however, were the antipasti. The rice croquettes had a wonderful cheesiness that complemented the sausage and broccoli rabe in the mix. Peppadew peppers stuffed with saffron goat cheese were a nice combination of sweet and tangy, and a dish with figs on top of a homemade ricotta with cracked pepper and eucalyptus honey was lightly sweet and creamy. Finally, mushrooms stuffed with homemade mozzarella and a tiny piece of prosciutto, then finished with balsamic vinegar and pine nuts, were so good that we wished we had asked for two orders instead of one. Despite the bad night, our lovely Saturday visit, along with the warm community feel of the place, will persuade me to return. So will the brick-oven pizza, which was my introduction to Bolu a few months ago; it had a bit of a stiff crust, but the toppings were well thought out, especially one with a satisfying Bolognese sauce. Of course, when I do go back, my priority will be the antipasto bar, especially the mushrooms and rice croquettes. “If we pulled those off the menu, people would ask what’s going on,” Mr. Bocina said of the croquettes. “We can’t run out of those.”

Restaurant
Basking Ridge NJ
Trattoria Bolu


Genealogy for the Living, the Dead, the Far Away

Abstract: GENEALOGY sites have long helped their customers reconnect with long-dead ancestors. Now, in keeping with the social networking trend, some of these sites are trying to connect living relatives, as well. Ancestry.com , a division of MyFamily.com in Provo, Utah, has spurred interaction between close and distant relatives by letting them more freely share information about their forebears and post old photos, and it is also considering a family subscription service. The recent changes are aimed at transforming the site from a niche service for genealogy buffs to one for mainstream users. And the changes have yielded results that would be the envy of nearly any other social networking site. Since the changes were put into effect early last month, users have been adding photos, often from long-dead relatives, at a rate of 3,000 a day, according to Tim Sullivan, MyFamily’s chief executive. “We’ve seen an explosion in the amount of content we’re acquiring from the community," Mr. Sullivan said. “And this stuff hasn’t been that highly promoted yet.” It is not simply the success of social networking sites like MySpace that is making genealogy sites reconsider their emphasis on dead relatives over live ones. These sites also face new competition from organizations and businesses offering free and innovative online genealogy options, including start-ups that rely on DNA profiles to match remote relatives. One of the most intriguing innovations involves such DNA matching. The nonprofit Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation last month introduced a free service ( www.smgf.org ) that lets users find distant relatives by tracing their genetic connections. Ancestry.com, which charges a fee, also faces new competition from services like Amiglia.com that offer free spaces and tools for families to post videos, share calendars and even build comparatively rudimentary family trees. “If you define social networks as people you want to hang out with,” said Charlene Li, a media analyst with the consulting firm Forrester Research, “you can’t get much better than families.” “But it’s always really tough when you’re asking for significant payments, especially when others are doing similar things for free,” she said. Ancestry.com has no intention of competing directly with free sites, according to Mr. Sullivan, especially because it is redesigning its own free family networking site, MyFamily.com, for introduction in coming months. The site already does well, at least for a niche service. The company, which is privately held, generated $140 million in subscription revenue last year, Mr. Sullivan said, up from $47 million in 2002. Sales are growing this year as well, he added, with “very, very solid” profit margins despite heavy and continuing spending on digitizing historical records from an array of public databases. Annual subscribers, who pay $155, are renewing at a rate of about 60 percent; monthly subscribers, who pay $30, are renewing at an 80 percent rate. And those figures are on the upswing in recent months, Mr. Sullivan said. The Ancestry users are taking advantage of one new service, in which subscribers can invite others to view their family trees free of charge. The site’s 725,000 subscribers have invited roughly 42,000 nonsubscribers to look at such material, which includes images of hand-written documents going back as far as the 1790 Census. That sharing has been accelerated by the refinement of yet another new feature, the OneWorldTree, which automatically connects a user’s family tree to others worldwide if it finds common relatives with another subscriber. Ancestry.com helps those who maintain the family trees connect with each other if they wish. “There’s a lot more social networking going on now,” Mr. Sullivan said. Despite the promising performance of the new services, it is unlikely that Ancestry.com can break into the mainstream, Ms. Li of Forrester Research said. “Online dating is the perfect analogy for this,” she said. Fewer than 10 percent of all Internet users in the United States use online dating sites, she said, “and it’s not as if these sites don’t work. It’s not because they’re not easy to use. It’s just that not that many people want to do it.” Changes in the genealogy industry — especially the introduction of the DNA services — could entice more casual users. Scott Woodward, executive director of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, said DNA searches allowed users to find many more family connections than they would otherwise do through documents alone. “The goal is to be able to take any two people in the world and show them exactly how they’re related, where their common ancestors are, where they lived and when,” he said. At the moment, the database is of limited value to the average user because it relies on users to volunteer a DNA sample, and so far just 65,000 people worldwide have done so. But beyond the genealogical information on those 65,000, the DNA database may yield useful information. Those who spend the roughly $100 it costs to obtain their own DNA signature can use that information to search for connections among other DNA donors. About 80 percent of those who take that additional step, Mr. Woodward said, find someone else with a common ancestor who lived in the last 500 years and a chart detailing that connection. Ancestry.com is accustomed to competing with public institutions that give away genealogy information for which it charges. EllisIsland.org gives away data about immigrant ship manifests to help raise awareness about Ellis Island, while FamilySearch.org , which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, gives away census data at least partly to help its members who would like to baptize ancestors into the church. Mr. Sullivan of Ancestry.com said the company would offer DNA searching in the near future, and would compete with the Sorenson database as it does with the other free sites — by surrounding its own version of the service with a broader range of features. “The real value is in the networking you can do with people that have similar profiles,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to take this network effect to an entirely new level.”

Genealogy
Computers and the Internet
Families and Family Life
MyFamily.com
Photography
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)


Hughes Continues Hot Stretch

Abstract: Kendrys Morales had three hits as the Minnesota Twins beat the Blue Jays, 7-2, on Wednesday, giving Phil Hughes his first win at Toronto in almost three years. Hughes pitched seven shutout innings, striking out a season-high nine, walking none and allowing seven hits. His last win at Rogers Centre was on July 17, 2011, when he was a Yankee. Hughes is 7-1 with a 2.27 earned run average in his last 10 starts. ROYALS 4, INDIANS 1 Host Kansas City tied a franchise record with four sacrifice flies, accounting for all its runs, and Yordano Ventura dominated Cleveland over his seven innings. The Royals, who have won four straight, are only the second team to score four runs all on sacrifice flies since the sacrifice fly became an official statistic in 1954. (The Montreal Expos also managed to do so in an 8-4, 14-inning loss to the Chicago Cubs on May 28, 1980, according to Stats L.L.C.) PHILLIES 3, PADRES 0 Reid Brignac hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift Philadelphia past San Diego, giving the host Phillies consecutive victories for the first time since a three-game streak May 17-20. RANGERS 6, MARLINS 0 Yu Darvish pitched his first complete game in the majors, Shin-Soo Choo broke a long hitless streak with a three-run double, and host Texas denied Miami’s bid for a record interleague winning streak. Darvish finished his 73rd career start with his 10th strikeout. The Marlins had to settle for tying the Yankees (2003-4) and Tampa Bay (2004) for the longest interleague winning streak, at 13 games. REDS 5, DODGERS 0 Johnny Cueto matched his career high with 12 strikeouts in six innings, and Joey Votto and Jay Bruce each drove in runs, leading Cincinnati past visiting Los Angeles. RAYS 6, CARDINALS 3 Desmond Jennings had a two-run single in a four-run fourth inning, and Tampa Bay ended a club-record 31-inning scoring drought in a victory over visiting St. Louis. ASTROS 5, DIAMONDBACKS 1 Chris Carter homered twice, and Dallas Keuchel pitched eight strong innings as Houston won at home against Arizona.

Baseball
Minnesota Twins
Blue Jays
Phil Hughes