Mark Mayfield, a Tea Party Founder, Became the Unlikely Focus of a Big Controversy

Abstract: JACKSON, Miss. — Mark Mayfield, one of the founders of the Mississippi Tea Party, had lost his political appetite. He stayed away from Facebook and stopped writing letters to the editor. He went to his law office, but often had little to do, since his major clients had all but cut him off. When the runoff for the Republican primary came around, pitting longtime Senator Thad Cochran against State Senator Chris McDaniel, the Tea Party challenger whom Mr. Mayfield deeply believed in, friends said Mr. Mayfield could not even bring himself to vote. Then on the morning of June 27, three days after the runoff that left Mr. Cochran the victor, Mr. Mayfield killed himself. The story of Mr. Mayfield has only deepened the enmity left by a divisive Republican primary. In May, Mr. Mayfield was arrested by police officers from the city of Madison and, along with three others, charged with a criminal conspiracy to sneak into a private nursing home and photograph Rose Cochran, the senator’s wife, who has dementia and has been living there for nearly 15 years. Pictures of Ms. Cochran surfaced online briefly, at the end of a video attacking Mr. Cochran. The senator’s supporters describe it as among the most appalling dirty tricks they can recall. Close friends and political colleagues of Mr. Mayfield, on the other hand, are infuriated by the treatment of him, which they call unjustifiably heavy-handed. Mr. Mayfield, who was accused of helping direct the others to Ms. Cochran’s nursing home room but not of taking any pictures, was met at his office by police officers and handcuffed, ordered to post a $250,000 bond and afterward featured in a Cochran campaign commercial, described as a felon. The Madison police have continued to investigate, and the district attorney is considering whether to present the case to a grand jury. The Mayfield family has threatened to sue the City of Madison and the Police Department. “They destroyed that man, and for what?” said Roy Nicholson, who along with Mr. Mayfield helped create the state Tea Party. “There is a burning anger in the people that knew Mark Mayfield. And we will not let it go.” What shocked practically everyone is that Mr. Mayfield, routinely described as one of the nicest men in Jackson political circles, ended up at the center of all this. Democrats and the most ardent supporters of Mr. Cochran described his cordiality and even temper. This reputation was so widespread that Mr. Mayfield customarily served as a liaison between the Tea Party and the politicians it targeted. “We’ve got a bunch of excitable people who identify with the Tea Party in Mississippi,” said Bill Billingsley, who was involved in the McDaniel campaign. “Mark was the reasonable one.” Mr. Mayfield, who was a 57-year-old father of two, bald and lean as a piece of chalk, was a relative latecomer to politics. He joined his father’s real estate law practice in 1981 and never left, taking over after his father died. He was so averse to confrontation that he set up an arrangement with a lawyer at another firm: Mr. Mayfield would handle the largely administrative parts of any foreclosure process, the other lawyer any bankruptcy or litigation. “He just didn’t have it in him,” said James Renfroe, the lawyer who worked with him. “He didn’t understand sometimes why not everybody would like him. I explained: ‘We’re in a litigation battle. People are not going to like you.’ ” But when Mr. Mayfield found a new passion — be it mountain biking or conservative politics — he pursued it with vigor. “We are doomed as a nation if President Obama continues his deficit spending at unprecedented levels,” he wrote in one of his frequent letters to Mississippi newspapers. “The middle-class citizens are in deep trouble unless we turn around now,” he said in another. In early 2009, he and several others sat in a cafeteria in Jackson and planned the state’s first major Tea Party rally, attended by Phil Bryant, the current governor, who at the time was lieutenant governor, as well as Mr. McDaniel. In recent years, Mr. Mayfield had grown uncomfortable with rhetorical excesses of some of his Tea Party allies and was unmoved by some of the hot-button issues of the day like Common Core education standards, friends said. But he appeared re-energized by Mr. McDaniel’s Senate campaign. “He was trying to do whatever he could,” recalled Kim Wade, a Jackson-based talk-radio host. “He was all in.” Image Mr. Mayfield was charged in connection with the videotaping of Senator Thad Cochran’s ailing wife in her room at a nursing home. Credit Aaron Phillips for The New York Times On Sunday, April 20, Clayton Kelly, a little-known 28-year-old blogger, walked through the halls of St. Catherine’s Village, a gated retirement community in the affluent suburb of Madison, and found Ms. Cochran’s room in the wing for Alzheimer’s patients. Mr. Kelly took a short video of her, lying on her bed in a nightgown, with his phone. On April 26, he included photographs of her in a video on his blog, Constitutional Clayton , drawing a contrast between Mr. Cochran’s life as a senator, recounting his travels with a longtime female aide, and the life of the senator’s ailing wife. The video was taken down quickly, but not before it had drawn the attention of the Cochran campaign. “It was a desperate and disgusting attempt to smear Senator Cochran’s good name,” said Austin Barbour, a senior Cochran campaign adviser. Most people did not learn about the video until later, and when they did they were aghast. “The last person who should have been brought into this campaign should have been Rose, because she was the most defenseless and had such dignity,” said Brad White, a former chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Three weeks later, on May 16, Mr. Kelly was arrested and charged with exploitation of a vulnerable person, a felony. The police were given access to Mr. Kelly’s Facebook exchanges, which showed him discussing the plan with John Mary of Hattiesburg, once the co-host of a conservative talk-radio show that Mr. McDaniel previously hosted and regularly appeared on. According to those exchanges, which were examined by The New York Times, as well as interviews with people briefed on the case, Mr. Mary and Mr. Kelly hoped to propel rumors about the state of Mr. Cochran’s marriage that had been circulated on social media by McDaniel supporters as a kind of subterranean campaign issue. Mr. Kelly and Mr. Mary planned to make a video, but were unsure how to get a current picture of Mr. Cochran’s wife in the nursing home. Mr. Mayfield did not take part in these exchanges. But he was contacted at one point, apparently by Mr. Mary, and asked to take Ms. Cochran’s picture, since his own mother was in St. Catherine’s. He declined. Instead, according to the message traffic, he agreed to set Mr. Kelly up with someone else — a person who has not been named or charged — who could help Mr. Kelly carry out his plan. On May 22, six days after Mr. Kelly’s arrest, three police officers arrived at Mr. Mayfield’s law office, searched his computers and led him away in handcuffs. He, Mr. Mary and Richard Sager, a physical education teacher involved in the planning of the online video,were charged with conspiracy, accused of helping Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly was charged again, this time under the felony voyeurism statute. Mr. Mayfield, whose arrest stunned people all across Jackson, had the most visible ties to the McDaniel campaign, which scrambled, at times inconsistently, to deny any involvement with the nursing home photos. The Cochran campaign highlighted the connection in ads showing Mr. Mayfield, and the nursing home episode dominated headlines with less than two weeks to go before the June 3 primary. Supporters of Mr. Mayfield have raised suspicions about the timing of the arrests, so close to the primary, and about whether Madison’s mayor, Mary Hawkins Butler, a stalwart and enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Cochran, played any role. “There is a feeling among dozens and dozens of people that Mark was used for political purposes,” said Merrida Coxwell, Mr. Mayfield’s lawyer at the time of his arrest. “People charged with murder can get bonds less than $250,000.” And even some lawyers unconnected with the case, while condemning the nursing home photos, express doubts as to whether these felony charges were justified. Mr. Cochran’s lawyer, Donald Clark, in an email message, said that Mr. Cochran and his lawyers “took the necessary time to investigate the facts and conduct legal research concerning the issues” before going to Mayor Butler on May 14 to ask that she have her police chief view the video. He added: “We did not delay our response to this incident due to any political issues or timing.” The mayor declined to comment, citing the investigation. A spokesman for the police did not return several calls. A spokesman for Mr. Mayfield’s family declined to comment as well. No one can say for sure why someone takes his life. Mr. Mayfield left a note, the contents of which have not been released. But friends say Mr. Mayfield did not seem himself after the arrest. Almost immediately, his major clients distanced themselves, though he was able to do some work because of his arrangement with Mr. Renfroe. Friends told him the charge would most likely fall apart or at most end up being reduced to a misdemeanor, but this did not console him. “What I believe from what I know about Mark,” Mr. Wade, the talk-radio host said, “he just personally felt that he had let everybody down.”

Tea Party movement
Mark Mayfield
Thad Cochran
Rose Cochran
Mississippi
Chris McDaniel
Republicans
Senate races
Suicide


Protesters in Bahrain Demand More Changes by King

Abstract: MANAMA, Bahrain — In by far the largest protest yet here, tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the city’s streets on Friday and closed a stretch of highway as they demanded that their king dissolve the government and agree to a transition to a true constitutional monarchy. The protest — which appeared to be twice as large as one on Tuesday that drew about 100,000 people — cut through Manama, the capital, with staggering numbers for a population of just 500,000. They marched in two huge, roaring crowds from the south and from the west, converging at Pearl Square. “This is another great day for our movement,” said Abbas al-Mawali, 30, a security guard who joined the march. “We won’t stop until our demands are met. We will have a march like this every day if we have to.” But after 11 days of protests, King Hamad ibn Isa al-Khalifa has slowly moved to meet protesters’ demands, taking incremental steps. Late Friday, he fired three cabinet ministers, but not the prime minister — one of the opposition’s top demands. He also has not addressed the issue of democratic change. His emphasis appears to have been on defusing the protests and repairing the damage to Bahrain ’s international reputation after the army fired on protesters last week, as well as on limiting concessions to ones that do not affect the government’s power. “The government released prisoners and said it will investigate what happened; it will make some small changes in the government,” said a rights worker who is not being identified to protect him from potential reprisals by the government. “The whole region is changing. Now is our chance. I am saying, If we don’t do this now, we never will.” The protesters, meanwhile, have not articulated a strategy for bringing about change, beyond new protests and camping out in the square. The unrest has been led by members of the nation’s Shiite majority, who have long been politically marginalized and who have accused the Sunni king and his government of discrimination. In a shift on Friday, it was the Shiite religious leaders who called for protests, rather than the political opposition. Although some of the chants on Friday had a religious cast — with some people shouting “victory comes from God” — the protesters’ demands remained the same, emphasizing a nonsectarian call for democracy and the downfall of the government. Since the start of the crisis, the government’s response has evolved. First the king unleashed his armed forces, who killed seven protesters and wounded dozens. Then, under international pressure, he withdrew the police and military from the capital, called for a national dialogue, released 300 political prisoners and pointed to the protests as evidence of his government’s tolerance. His government is also working with a public relations agency based in Britain, the Bell Pottinger Group , which says on its Web site that “we understand how to create, build and protect reputations in the modern age.” On Friday, Bell Pottinger staff members distributed a statement from the government’s spokeswoman, Maysoon Sabkar, saying in part, “The Crown Prince has called on all parts of society to engage in the national dialogue to progress reform.” On Thursday, Ms. Sabkar read a statement referring to the killings by government forces as “regrettable incidents” and announced that the king’s son, the crown prince, had called for Friday to be a national day of mourning, and that the king “extended condolences to the families” of the dead. Ms. Sabkar also said there were no shots fired from a helicopter or from a building last Friday. But she said she was not authorized to say who ordered the army to fire at all or where the shots came from that killed one man and wounded dozens of others. Witnesses said they had seen shots fired from a helicopter and a nearby building. The statement also said that large crowds at the hospital prevented emergency workers from doing their jobs. But witnesses said they had seen soldiers fire weapons at ambulances as they tried to pick up the wounded, and doctors in the ambulances said the security forces had prevented them from picking up wounded people. The government’s message inflamed some people in the square. “These were not ‘incidents,’ ” Said Shamlouh, 37, an accountant, said, referring to last week’s protests, including one in which security forces shot at protesters sleeping in Pearl Square. “This was a massacre. It was people sleeping, families, children. And they opened fire on them. That’s not an incident.”

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


U.S. Agency’s Slow Pace Endangers Foreign Aid

Abstract: The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal agency set up almost four years ago to reinvent foreign aid, has taken far longer to help poor, well-governed countries than its supporters expected or its critics say is reasonable. The agency, a rare Bush administration proposal to be enacted with bipartisan support, has spent only $155 million of the $4.8 billion it has approved for ambitious projects in 15 countries in Africa, Central America and other regions. And the agency’s slow pace is making it politically vulnerable at budget crunch time. Both the House and the Senate have slashed the Bush administration’s 2008 budget request for the agency, but the Senate has gone a step further, pushing for a change that African leaders say threatens the essence of the agency’s novel approach. Eyeing the unspent billions, the Senate has proposed that Congress provide no more than half the money up front for future five-year projects, which typically come with a price tag of $250 million to $700 million. Such projects are now fully financed at the start to make sure countries have the wherewithal to finish what they start. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid, said that Congress could be counted on to come up with the rest of the money if the countries fulfilled their end of the bargain. But, he asked, where else should Congress look for savings in its foreign aid budget? “Do we cut maternal health?” he asked. “AIDS? Malaria? Do we cut refugees? The only thing that’s got a blank check is the war in Iraq.” Agency officials and the African leaders they assist said in recent interviews that the change would be a big step backward. American foreign aid often takes the form of modest, short-term projects that are planned in Washington and carried out by American contractors and charities. But under the agency’s approach, poor countries with sound economic policies and strong track records of helping their people are chosen to conceive and carry out big undertakings themselves. The Millennium Challenge Corporation’s budget now makes up less than 10 percent of the United States foreign aid budget. By changing how its projects are financed, “then M.C.C. becomes like the World Bank and all the other countries using overseas development aid in stop and go fashion,” said John A. Kufuor, the president of Ghana, who heads the African Union. “The aid is spread so thin that at the end of the day the necessary difference is not made.” The Millennium Challenge Corporation’s chief problem has been its sluggish record in getting projects beyond the planning stage to the point where contractors can actually build the roads, irrigation canals, power plants and clean water systems that poor countries say they need. Sheila Herrling, who follows the agency at the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research group in Washington, says there are understandable reasons projects take time and suggests that the agency’s current five-year timeline for each one may be too short. Poor countries, even relatively well-run ones, are not used to planning such complex developments and have needed more time than expected to get them off the ground, she said. Also, the infrastructure projects poor countries need are prone to corruption, and putting stringent accountability systems in place has consumed more time than expected. Development analysts have praised the agency for giving poor countries an incentive to make significant reforms to qualify for its big contracts, including improving education for girls and making it easier for individuals to operate on-the-books businesses. But the agency itself must also shoulder some of the blame for the slow progress, Ms. Herrling said. Its decision-making has been too focused on putting together the projects, rather than on carrying them out. “It shouldn’t have taken so long,” she said. “The agency needs to figure it out this year. They are part of the problem.” John J. Danilovich, the businessman and former ambassador who has led the agency for two years, recently reorganized it to concentrate on results with what he called “laser focus.” “We need to do better and we will do better,” he said in an interview. Mr. Danilovich, a Bush appointee, has convinced Representative Nita Lowey, the New York Democrat who heads the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, that he is serious. Mrs. Lowey said in an interview that the agency was still unproven. And she was disappointed on a visit to Ghana this year to find that its $547 million compact to develop a modern agricultural economy still was not very far along. But on the need for progress, she said, “I do believe that Danilovich gets it.” The future of the Millennium Challenge Corporation is one of the many issues caught in the budgetary stalemate between the administration and Congress. The administration asked for $3 billion for the agency. In their foreign aid appropriations bills, the House provided $1.8 billion, the Senate $1.2 billion. Mrs. Lowey said she strongly opposed the Senate’s proposal to provide no more than half the financing up front, an idea originally suggested by Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana. The House and Senate are expected to settle the issue by next week. If the agency gets the lesser Senate amount, under the current rules requiring the money up front, Burkina Faso, a West African country that has spent more than two years qualifying for and drafting its $560 million to $620 million plan, will get nothing, agency officials said. Tanzania and Namibia are ahead of it in line. Burkina Faso’s prime minister, Tertius Zongo, said his country would be deeply disappointed if the money was not available. “We have done our part,” he said. “This is a partnership.” Burkina Faso has gone to great lengths to meet the agency’s good governance standards. The agency gave it a $13 million grant to improve girls’ education, which the country used to build, among other things, schools with day care centers so school-age girls do not have to stay home to look after their younger siblings. Identified by the International Finance Corporation as one of the most difficult places in the world to do business, Burkina Faso has also halved the number of days it takes to start a business, and reduced by a third the cost of registering property. In small, poor countries like Burkina Faso, every burp and hiccup of an aid agency like the Millennium Challenge Corporation is news — and often front page news. David Weld, the agency’s country director for Burkina Faso, said he did not know how he could face people there if Congress did not come through with enough money to help them. “What type of message does that send to Burkina Faso, a country that has spent a huge amount of political capital and money on this process?” he asked. “What does that tell the Togos, the Nigers that want to become eligible? It tells them: Do everything like Burkina Faso, make all these reforms, spend millions of your own money, and then maybe at the end we might be able to sign a compact with you — or maybe not.”

Africa
Millennium Challenge Corp
Economic Conditions and Trends
Foreign Aid
Budgets and Budgeting
Third World and Developing Countries


Obama Warns Senators on Lapse in Surveillance

Abstract: WASHINGTON — With time running out, President Obama on Tuesday urged the Senate to pass legislation to renew surveillance programs that are scheduled to expire next weekend or risk endangering the American people. “The problem we have now is that those authorities run out at midnight on Sunday,” Mr. Obama told reporters as he hosted NATO’s secretary general at the White House. “So I strongly urge the Senate to work through this recess and make sure that they identify a way to get this done.” The president’s plea, though, fell on absent ears. With Congress on recess this week, the chances of the Senate’s passing the legislation before the Sunday night deadline are problematic at best even with senators called back for a rare Sunday session. And so the White House faces the prospect that its legal authority to carry out some of these programs will vanish at least for a few days until the political gridlock in the Senate is resolved. At question are sections of the USA Patriot Act , which was initially passed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Among the provisions scheduled to lapse this weekend is authority for the bulk collection of telephone data that has been so controversial since it was exposed by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. A federal appeals court has ruled the program illegal but did not shut it down pending further appeal. With Mr. Obama’s support, the House has passed bipartisan legislation that would take the government out of the business of bulk collection while leaving the data in the hands of private telecommunications firms and available for searches in cases when a court approves. The Senate failed to overcome a filibuster against that bill, with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, preferring to renew the law as it now stands. Mr. Obama addressed the issue after meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general. The two discussed what Mr. Obama called “the increasingly aggressive posture that Russia has taken” in Ukraine as well as NATO efforts to help in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In his remarks, Mr. Obama warned that the bulk collection program was not the only authority that would expire this weekend if the Senate did not act by Sunday. “You have a whole range of authorities that are also embodied in the Patriot Act that are noncontroversial, that everybody agrees are necessary to keep us safe and secure,” Mr. Obama said. “Those also are at risk of lapsing. So this needs to get done. “And I would urge folks to just work through whatever issues can still exist,” he added. “Make sure we don’t have on midnight Sunday night this task still undone, because it’s necessary to keep the American people safe and secure.”

Patriot Act
Government Surveillance
Barack Obama
NSA
Senate
Congress


Neighbors Mourn Harlem Squatter, Known Widely but Not Well

Abstract: Outside the cluttered lot, the flicker of candles said something mournful had happened. Neighbors and others who regularly walked past realized that Baruba had died. For as long as anyone can remember, Baruba, whose full name was Baruba I. Dahomey and who was 68, lived on the lot on Park Avenue near 126th Street in Harlem — a makeshift home that included a worn house trailer, an electricity hookup, milk crates, scraps of wood and metal and a trove of mementos. To developers who for years had tried to dislodge him, he was simply known as the Squatter. To others he was the Man With the Dogs. On Nov. 6, the police found his body at the lot, behind a chain-link fence shaded by shower curtains. Everyone around the lot knew him, yet no one really knew him. No one knew where he came from or the reasons he ended up there. Early this week, his body lay unclaimed at the city morgue . The police said he died of natural causes. As told by the dozens of messages on a sign against the fence and by those in the neighborhood, he touched many people with his simple, stubborn way of life. In a breakneck world, many remembered that he was guaranteed to ask “How are you today?" — and would wait for an answer. “He was just special,” said Rose Wagner, who lives a few blocks away and often spoke with Mr. Dahomey as she made her way to the Metro-North train station at 125th Street and Park. The lot and others alongside have changed ownership over the years and recently sold for over $1 million. But for more than three decades, one constant had been Mr. Dahomey. This was part of his routine: In the morning, he swept and then washed down the sidewalk. He tended to his flower beds in milk crates along a fence. He had a hole cut out of the fence for his mail, and his address was carved into a sign. His radio regularly blared news programs. He had strong views about history, politics and social justice, and discussed them with those who were willing to listen. “Justice first, law second,” he was known to say. He stood about 5 feet 9 inches and would usually wear baggy jeans, a plaid shirt and a small hat. At night, he walked his beloved dogs. He kept several in an adjacent lot, except for the one that had been with him the longest, whom he called Mr. Wonderful. “They knew each other so well,” Ms. Wagner said. The two were rarely seen apart. Online public records reveal the barest of facts about Mr. Dahomey. He was born on March 14, 1946, but where could not be determined. He was a registered member of the Green Party . A longtime friend, Willie Moore, who had called the police after he could not reach Mr. Dahomey for several days, believed that he had done some social service work in Brooklyn a while ago. Some believed that Mr. Dahomey had roots in South Carolina. He may have had a sister. He never mentioned a spouse or any offspring, even when others told him about theirs. “He was neighborly,” Mr. Moore said. “If he could help someone get something to eat, he would. He would give people $5 for a sandwich.” Mr. Dahomey seems to have believed that the lot was somehow his. He had once lived in an apartment in a brownstone on the site. He and Mr. Moore were neighbors. After the building was razed in the 1990s, Mr. Dahomey moved his belongings to the lot, Mr. Moore said. At some point, he joined them. Court records show that in 1999, Mr. Dahomey sued a demolition company, along with the city’s fire commissioner, housing commissioner and mayor, among other officials. The available records do not make clear the basis for the suit. In the weeks before Mr. Dahomey’s body was found, Mr. Wonderful, the last of his dogs, died, neighbors and friends said. And Mr. Dahomey had received an eviction notice from the lot’s owners, 191 Equities. In the past, he had turned down money and help to move. He would have never left his dogs, people said. Now that he was alone, he was said to be considering moving. At the start of November, Mr. Moore said, Mr. Dahomey called seeking a ride so that he could get some heating gas. He had received a check, and the weather was turning cold. Mr. Moore was never able to connect with him. Some of the messages at the memorial, many signed with love and regret, read: “We all miss you”; “Born Alone — Die Alone”; “Hope you and Mr. Wonderful and your dogs are together in heaven.” Late one afternoon, Carol Patterson stood at the memorial after workers who filled two trash bins with junk had left for the day. Mr. Dahomey, whose name she had not known, had been part of her commute for years. As she sat in her parked car, when she was not busy listening to the radio, he would call “Good morning,” and they would chat. “I wondered how did he stay outside all the time,” Ms. Patterson said. “But he seemed quite comfortable with just him and his dogs.” She added: “I just feel actually grateful. We think that people need to live a certain way. He taught a big lesson.”


Buy Me Some Peanuts and Wiener Nougat

Abstract: What’s that game they’re playing in the park in Finland? It looks an awful lot like baseball. There are nine players in the field. A ball is being hit with a bat, and the batter is running around the bases. Fielders are trying to catch the ball and retire the runner. Three strikes and you’re out. But wait a minute. The pitcher is standing right next to the batter, and throwing the ball straight up in the air. The bases aren’t in the usual places either. And a blast out of the park isn’t a home run — it’s a foul ball. That’s because you’re watching the Finnish game of pesapallo. The similarities to baseball are striking — but so are the differences. For one thing, it’s a lot easier to hit a vertical pitch, and batters can have a high degree of control over where and how hard they hit the ball. So the duel between the pitcher and the batter, so crucial in baseball, is de-emphasized in pesapallo. Instead, bat control and fielding are critical, and both are governed by complex strategy. Managers signal plays using hand-held fans that are color-coded. Other things about pesapallo may seem zany to a fan of the American game. Instead of circling a diamond counterclockwise, pesapallo players run the bases in a zigzag path, starting left to get to first base, then cutting across the infield to second on the right, then left again to third. A player who hits a triple gets credit for scoring a run right away, and can remain on third base to try to score another. Pesapallo was invented in 1920, around the time Babe Ruth was revolutionizing American baseball with his home run hitting, and it has since grown in stature to the point where it is often called Finland’s national game. There are men’s and women’s leagues, and there was even a match-fixing scandal in the 1990s. People play pesapallo in other countries, too, including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and (of all places) Australia, and since 1992, a World Cup has been held every few years. But nobody seems able to beat the Finns at their own game: Of the 21 gold medals awarded so far in various men’s and women’s events, Finland has won them all.


What Off-Season? Draft’s Growth Means N.F.L. Has No Downtime

Abstract: Imagine a sporting event that includes no bats, balls or fields, yet compels thousands of fans to wait hours for seats and attracts a larger television audience than many games do. Throw in months of buildup, a red carpet entrance and big corporate sponsors, and you have the N.F.L. draft. Once a sleepy roll call for football insiders that took place in smoke-filled hotel ballrooms, the draft has turned into the highlight of the league’s increasingly cluttered off-season. It is a marketing machine that feeds the seemingly insatiable desire for information about the nation’s most popular sport and the college players who learn their professional fates on live television. Two networks and more than 1,000 members of the news media will cover this year’s event at Radio City Music Hall, which begins Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern and amounts to a beauty contest rolled into a high-stakes lottery. Starting with the first pick, which belongs to the Houston Texans, the 3,500 fans in attendance will give a voice to the millions watching at home by cheering or booing the draftees, including 30 top-ranked players who will parade onstage. Though the Super Bowl was three months ago and next season’s kickoff is months away, the draft has managed to overshadow the postseasons of the N.B.A. and the N.H.L. This year, it is receiving an extra boost from a new film, “ Draft Day ,” which stars Kevin Costner as the general manager of the Cleveland Browns. “The draft is a unique business product in that it plays out in a perfect speed for people to watch, and there is a limitless combination of teams and players,” said Robert Boland, who was an agent for N.F.L. players before he began teaching sports management at New York University. “It’s a day of incredible theater.” That theater has grown exponentially since the first draft, which was held in 1936 at the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia. Now, the seven rounds over three days are complemented by fan-related events, including sponsor-driven raffles, contests, clinics, autograph sessions with retired stars and meet-and-greets with prospects. The draft is usually in late April, but it is two weeks later this year because of a scheduling conflict at Radio City. That has kept the N.F.L. in the news deeper into the off-season, one reason the league may continue to hold the event in May. Commissioner Roger Goodell also said the league could add a fourth day to the draft and perhaps hold part of it in another city. Other cities have expressed interest in hosting. “From our standpoint, it’s another two weeks that people are talking about the draft,” Goodell said. But he added, “What would be good from a fan standpoint obviously has to work from a football standpoint in order to make the event bigger and more popular.” The draft’s later date has led to grumbling from team officials, who said they would have less time to work with their drafted players before training camp. It also raised questions about whether a fourth draft day would be too much of a good thing. Image Last year's draft at Radio City Music Hall. More than 1,000 members of the news media and two networks will cover this year’s event. Credit Craig Ruttle/Associated Press “You can’t swing a cat without hitting someone’s mock draft that’s been updated for the 38th time,” said Michael MacCambridge, the author of “America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation.” Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the N.B.A.'s Dallas Mavericks, raised similar concerns in March when he said the N.F.L. would decline in popularity in the coming decade because it was saturating the market. “I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you,” he said after the league sold the rights to its Thursday night games to CBS. “That’s rule No. 1 of business.” MacCambridge, though, said that each time naysayers had warned that the N.F.L. had expanded too far, it had continued to grow. The draft’s selection process is relatively straightforward. In the first round, Goodell reads the name of each pick, gives him a hug and poses for a photograph with the prospect, who is holding a personalized No. 1 jersey. In later rounds, former stars and others serve as M.C.s. As a business proposition, the draft is more complex. Players, who can earn millions of dollars based on when they are picked, help teams and the league sell tickets, merchandise and sponsorships. The draft also allows fans to hit the reset button and prepare for the season. “From a calendar perspective, it seems like the pinnacle moment, the end for the draftee,” said Eric Weinberger, the executive producer at NFL Network, which will broadcast the event, along with ESPN, and will have cameras at more than 20 team draft parties. “But the fan base has grown to look at it as the beginning.” According to those familiar with the league’s finances, the draft is a moneymaker. But accounting for the revenue is difficult because the rights fees paid by ESPN and national sponsors like Verizon and Pepsi are included in their long-term agreements, which themselves have grown. Costs have increased, too. This year, the league will pay for 30 top players to attend, up from 17 in 2010, when the draft was first held in prime time. Each player can receive two first-class plane tickets, or four in coach; two hotel rooms (one suite and one standard room); transportation to and from the airport; and a table for six in the green room at Radio City Music Hall. There, the prospects will receive gifts from sponsors like Bose, which makes headphones and other audio products. “As the draft has gone to prime time and the green room is shown on television, the sponsors know their products will be used in an authentic way,” said Renie Anderson, who is in charge of sponsorships for the N.F.L. Video Melissa Hoppert, the Times’ N.F.L. editor, on what to look for as teams make their picks this week. Credit Credit Rainier Ehrhardt/Associated Press The league will also entertain 32 retired star players (one representing each team), who will announce the second-round picks, as well as well-known retirees living in the New York metropolitan area. In some ways, the draft is the climax of months of speculation about where college players will land, a process that begins the previous season, when standouts emerge, the deficiencies of N.F.L. teams are exposed and the draft order is set. The Senior Bowl, the scouting combine, private team workouts and the sports news media, which conduct mock drafts and devote shows to the draft, fuel the interest. It is a far cry from 1979, when Pete Rozelle, the commissioner at the time, devised a plan with Chet Simmons, the president of ESPN, to televise the draft live. Simmons was eager to fill his fledgling all-sports cable network with programming, and Rozelle wanted to popularize an event that had been almost exclusively for insiders. Team owners rejected the idea because they were afraid it would give the players’ agents airtime, said Jim Steeg, who ran the draft in those days. “They didn’t have the vision to see what it could be,” Steeg said. “Every time you think it can’t get bigger, it gets bigger.” Rozelle got his way, and television coverage turned the draft into a spectacle. In the first few years, ESPN did not pay to broadcast the draft. But when the owners learned how much money the network made selling advertisements, ESPN was asked to cover the cost of the draft. ESPN was later charged a rights fee as part of its long-term deal, money the network said was well spent. “The draft is still great reality TV,” said Seth Markman, who leads the draft coverage for ESPN, which drew 6.2 million viewers for the first night of the draft last year. “I get more ticket requests for the draft than the Super Bowl.” As the draft has grown, the league has moved to larger sites, from the Waldorf-Astoria in 1979 to several other hotels in Midtown Manhattan to the theater at Madison Square Garden, the Javits Convention Center and Radio City Music Hall. Eric Finkelstein, the event director for the draft, said space at Radio City was becoming tight, which was why the league reconfigured the seating, the green room and other spaces again this year. Whether that means the league will add a fourth day or move part of the draft out of New York, where it has been held since 1965, is unclear. What is clear, though, is that the draft will remain the league’s most popular off-the-field event. “It used to be a wasteland until training camp,” said Brian Rolapp, who is in charge of media and sponsorships. “Now the draft is the sequoia of the off-season.”

Sports Drafts and Recruits
Football
NFL
Super Bowl
Super Bowl 2015
Roger Goodell
Pete Rozelle
Chet Simmons


Senator Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon, Reaches for Obama’s Coattails

Abstract: WEST LINN, Ore. — John Lee, the vice chairman of the Republican Party here in Clackamas County, winced more than once Thursday night while watching Senator Gordon H. Smith debate his Democratic challenger, Jeff Merkley. While Mr. Lee is no fan of Mr. Merkley, it was Mr. Smith, a Republican from rural eastern Oregon , who sometimes made his stomach turn. First there were Mr. Smith’s kind words for Senator Barack Obama, then for another Democrat, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. What about Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee? One quick compliment, yes, but Mr. Smith clearly was not reaching for coattails. “It upsets me,” Mr. Lee said after watching the debate with a small group of local Republican leaders in a coffee shop here. At a time when many Republicans are distancing themselves from their party, Mr. Smith is a study in the extreme. He is not just saying nice things about Democrats; he has run television commercials suggesting that he, Mr. Obama and Senators John Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, are of like minds on a variety of issues, including alternative energy and hate crimes. “Everybody’s an independent in an election year, but he’s not merely emphasizing his independence,” Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst who tracks Congressional races, said of Mr. Smith. “He’s trying to link himself with Obama in front of voters.” Mr. Smith, seeking his third term, has emphasized his sharp criticism of the Iraq war in recent years, his support for environmental issues, like increasing mileage standards for cars, and his efforts to pass measures extending hate crimes protection to gay men and lesbians. He frequently notes that he is rated one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate by nonpartisan Congressional publications. But even as Mr. Smith compliments Democrats and criticizes the Bush administration, momentum and math seem to be working against him. He is the only Republican senator representing a West Coast state outside of Alaska, and although he cruised to re-election in 2002, some local polls show him in a dead heat with Mr. Merkley, the low-profile speaker of the Oregon House. Mr. Merkley is benefiting from a growing shift in the state to the Democratic Party, as well as voters’ deep distaste for President Bush and the Iraq war and their passion for Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee. “The momentum with Merkley is because he’s got a ‘D’ by his name,” said Tim Hibbitts, a longtime pollster in Oregon. “He’s not winning because of his personality. He’s winning because in this particular state in this particular year, the Republican brand has gone to hell.” At the end of last year, Oregon had about 756,000 registered Democrats and 686,000 Republicans. There are now about 894,000 Democrats and 677,000 Republicans, with much of the increase in Democrats driven by voters wanting to support Mr. Obama in the presidential primary in May. In 2002, Mr. Smith won every county in Oregon except one, Multnomah, which includes liberal Portland and its close suburbs. This year, with Democratic registration growing in Multnomah, political experts say Mr. Smith must win by even bigger margins in suburban and rural counties than he did six years ago. Clackamas is one of those counties, but it is also one of several where voter registration has shifted in favor of the Democrats in the last year. Last December, the county had about 3,000 more Republicans than Democrats; it now has about 11,000 more Democrats than Republicans. The number of unaffiliated voters has largely remained flat. “I was going door to door the other day and someone asked, ‘Why don’t you put “Republican” on these fliers?’ ” said Bill Kennemer, a longtime Clackamas County commissioner who is running for the State House as a Republican. “I said, ‘Because I don’t want to lose.’ ” Mr. Smith has portrayed Mr. Merkley in television commercials as concerned only about the interests of Portland, an appeal to resentments among rural Oregonians that liberals and environmentalists in the city have shackled the state with excessive government, including restrictions on timber harvesting and land-use planning. “What Pendleton wheat farmers need is Portland longshoremen,” Mr. Smith said in the debate Thursday. “I bridge that gap. Jeff Merkley deepens it.” Mr. Merkley said in an interview that “the great irony here is that Smith calls himself bipartisan” but that “he wants to drive a wedge between rural and urban Oregon.” Mr. Merkley, a former director of Habitat for Humanity in Portland, receives low marks from agricultural and business groups, and high ones from unions and environmentalists. He has promised to visit every county in the state every year as senator. He frequently mentions that his father worked in a lumber mill in the small Oregon town where he grew up. In campaign advertisements, he wears thick flannel shirts. With Mr. Merkley as House speaker, the Legislature passed some of the nation’s strongest incentives for creating alternative energy, and it established Oregon’s first “rainy day” savings reserve. The state has not suffered from the budget deficits affecting its coastal neighbors, Washington and California. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has spent heavily on the race, and a consultant to Mr. Smith’s campaign said the Republicans had been outspent on television advertising by about $13 million to $7 million. The Democrats accuse Mr. Smith of supporting the Iraq war in most of his votes and of moderating his positions on environmental issues, like whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, only when an election nears. The bitterness of the campaign was a subject of the debate on Thursday and in another on Monday. In Thursday’s debate, one voter e-mailed a question asking each candidate to say three nice things about his opponent’s record. Mr. Merkley praised the senator’s work on mental health issues and other areas, while Mr. Smith said nice things only about Mr. Merkley’s family. “His voting record,” Mr. Smith said, “that’s a little harder to do.” Although Mr. Smith has praised Democrats, few prominent ones have endorsed him. Mr. Obama has endorsed Mr. Merkley, as has Oregon’s other senator, Ron Wyden, a Democrat. Mr. Smith’s overtures to Democrats risk alienating conservative voters. Mr. Lee, the Republican leader in Clackamas County, said that Mr. Smith had “ticked off a lot of Republicans” and that he would vote for him only because he was the “lesser of two evils.” Mr. Hibbitts, the pollster, said surveys showed “softness” in the Republican support for Mr. Smith. Adding another wrinkle, a third-party candidate, David Brownlow of the conservative Constitution Party, has registered in the high single digits in some recent polls. Political experts say that if the race is close and Mr. Brownlow has an impact, he is likely to hurt Mr. Smith the most. “They’re talking about health care and education and cutting taxes like this is just any other year,” Mr. Brownlow said. “Isn’t anybody reading the paper? There’s a financial meltdown out there. It’s a whole new game.”

Smith Gordon H
Presidential Election of 2008
Republican Party
Oregon
Merkley Jeffrey A (1956- )


Senate Panel Votes to End U.S. Giants in Mortgages

Abstract: A Senate panel approved legislation on Thursday to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and reshape the mortgage finance system, but sparse support among Democrats means the measure is unlikely to become law. The Democratic-controlled Senate Banking Committee approved the bill in a 13-to-9 vote, with only half of the panel’s 12 Democrats voting in favor. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, is unlikely to bring the measure to a vote on the Senate floor, according to Senate aides who said it needed wider support among Democrats. The vote is a setback for the Obama administration, which helped on the legislation and worked to build support for it. “This bill represents our effort to draft the final chapter of financial reform by addressing the most significant unresolved issue from the financial crisis — the housing finance system,” Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, said before the vote. The bill would replace the government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a new industry-financed agency that would offer a government guarantee on mortgage bonds, but one that would kick in only after private interests shouldered big losses. Many liberal Democratic senators and housing advocates raised concern that the bill would drive up the cost of mortgages without giving enough attention to ensuring that all creditworthy borrowers had access to loans. Democrats and Republicans also voiced worries it would give big banks too much control of the lending business. Even if the full Senate were to approve it, it is not expected to pass the Republican-led House of Representatives. For years, Democrats and Republicans have said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be abolished, but lawmakers face tough choices deciding how to attract enough private capital to ensure that Americans retain broad access to home loans.

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp Freddie Mac

Federal National Mortgage Assn Fannie Mae


Regulators Ignored Warnings About Afghan Bank

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s Central Bank did not act on repeated, longstanding warnings from Afghan lawmakers and American advisers about irregularities at the politically connected Kabul Bank , according to Afghan lawmakers and an American government official. Two years ago, lawmakers warned the Central Bank, which oversees Afghan banks, that the collapsing real estate market in Dubai would put some Kabul Bank investments at risk, said Aziz Ahmad Nadem, the chairman of the Parliament’s National Economic Committee. This spring, American government officials tracking Kabul Bank urged the Central Bank’s leadership to take corrective action, a government official said. And a 2009 audit conducted for Kabul Bank by A. F. Ferguson & Company, an affiliate of PricewaterhouseCoopers, documented several irregularities. These repeated warnings make it clear that Kabul Bank’s problems were well known and specifically raised with Central Bank officers before the crisis burst into public view with a run on the bank this month. The Central Bank’s failure to act in the face of these warnings raises the question of whether Kabul Bank’s political ties to President Hamid Karzai and his administration shielded it from scrutiny and deepened the crisis. Kabul Bank’s shareholders include the brothers of the president and vice president of Afghanistan, and President Karzai appoints the head of the Central Bank. Financial experts said that the bank’s problems should have set off alarm bells sooner but that they were overlooked either because of incompetence, corruption or political pressure. “Why did this happen? You can read between the lines,” said Hayatullah Dayani, a former chairman of the Pashtany Bank, a state-owned bank. The Central Bank did not respond to repeated requests for interviews. The 2009 audit, as well as interviews with banking experts and Afghan businessmen, revealed new details of improprieties. Most of the bankers and businessmen interviewed did not want to be identified because they have business relationships with the Central Bank. Kabul Bank offered loans to its own shareholders on preferential terms, permitting them to borrow far more than Afghanistan’s own banking laws allow. It made risky loans, including some for the real estate investments in Dubai. And it skirted rules that prohibit banks from owning businesses directly, giving loans to shareholders who used them to start businesses, including an airline, a fuel depot and a television station. Now the Central Bank, which is trying to shore up Kabul Bank, is making a deal with shareholders. According to one shareholder who was present at a Sept. 15 meeting with the bank’s new conservator, the terms include asking shareholders to begin paying interest on their loans and setting a repayment timetable, paying for the cost of their bank shares and selling some investments. Afghanistan’s banking system was created essentially from scratch after the fall of the Taliban, and only 5 percent of Afghans keep their money in banks. With American and international help, the Central Bank drafted rules that met international standards, but the bank had neither the staff, technology nor resources to carry out the kind of oversight needed in the Wild West environment of post-2001 Afghanistan. Since problems were discovered at Kabul Bank, the Central Bank has taken a more active role but has said almost nothing to the public about how it plans to proceed or whether it is investigating its officers for bank fraud. Typically, an independent conservator is appointed to oversee a troubled bank. In this case, the Central Bank appointed its own chief financial officer to run Kabul Bank, a step questioned by some businessmen and bankers, who worry that the Central Bank may be biased in its dealings. Kabul Bank’s problems were not a secret. There were concerns with Kabul Bank’s related-party lending, losses from property investments in Dubai, use of lottery accounts and general noncompliance with Afghan banking regulations, said an American government official, who added that American officials had urged the head of the Central Bank, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, to act in the spring. Shareholders were allowed loans far in excess of the limits mandated by the banking law, which states that no more than 15 percent of the bank’s capital should be lent to a single borrower, according to an experienced Afghan banker. Shareholders took out loans of about $300 million, some far in excess of the limits. While it is not public how much each shareholder borrowed, President Karzai’s brother Mahmoud, who owns 7.4 percent of the bank, said that the vice president’s brother, Haseen Fahim, had loans of $65 million, not including interest. The bank’s capitalization is roughly $100 million, according to the bank’s financial statement and a banker knowledgeable about its finances. Mr. Fahim declined to talk about his loans. Under its two former executives, Sherkhan Farnood and Khalilullah Frozi, the bank became the largest and most modern bank in the country, and with a contract to pay salaries to hundreds of thousands of government employees it became crucial to the country’s security. Efforts to reach the two men last week were unsuccessful. But the bank’s shareholders made one risky investment after another and provided little oversight. The bank ran a lottery, paying out about $8 million a year in prizes, and the airline it owned through shareholders, Pamir Airways, was plagued by bad management, Mahmoud Karzai said. It is “extremely difficult to make it profitable,” he said. Mr. Nadem, the lawmaker, said that two years ago he had asked Mr. Fitrat, the Central Bank executive, to appear before his committee to answer questions about the impact of the collapsing real estate market in Dubai and about the bank’s finances. Mr. Fitrat insisted that the Central Bank was on top of the situation. “We warned him and said that we knew one day that Kabul Bank might have a problem,” Mr. Nadem said. “We told him that Kabul Bank was collecting money from lots of people and they were investing outside the country. Well, he told us, ‘We are regularly monitoring Kabul Bank and they are doing business and everything is normal and according to international standards.’ ” At the time, Mr. Farnood, then the bank’s chairman, was buying and selling expensive properties in Dubai on the island resort of Palm Jumeira and other places. “He was flipping properties like hamburgers,” said Mahmoud Karzai, who said he was only briefly involved in the real estate business but who rented one of Mr. Farnood’s villas. In August, as Kabul Bank’s troubles worsened, Mr. Fitrat asked the United States Treasury Department for advice on how one deals with a troubled bank, the American government official said. The department assembled a “quick response team” that arrived on Aug. 31, the day before news broke of the bank’s troubles. A few weeks earlier, Mr. Fitrat had unsuccessfully asked the Afghan Parliament to create a $200 million safety net trust fund for private banks, said Mr. Nadem, who turned him down. As the crisis mounted, the Central Bank removed Mr. Farnood and Mr. Frozi and said depositors would be paid, eventually calming the panic. Mahmoud Karzai argued that while improprieties clearly occurred, Kabul Bank had enough assets to absorb the losses. For the moment, Kabul Bank seems to be out of trouble. With $1.3 billion in assets, it was able to sustain withdrawals of $400 million to $600 million in a week’s time. But much will depend on whether the Central Bank can make Kabul Bank’s shareholders repay their $300 million in loans. “All the questions go to the address of the Central Bank of Afghanistan,” Mr. Dayani said. The Central Bank, however, is declining all requests for comment and ordering Kabul Bank shareholders not to talk, either. “Somebody has not done his homework, and now the public of Afghanistan has to pay for it,” Mr. Dayani said.

Afghanistan
Kabul Bank
Banks and Banking
Politics and Government


Filly Winner at Breeders’ Cupis Sold for $2.3. Million

Abstract: Awesome Feather, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies race Friday, was sold at auction two days later for $2.3 million at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale in Lexington, Ky. Awesome Feather outlasted R Heat Lightning in the $2 million race and was 6 for 6 as a 2-year-old.

Awesome Feather
Auctions
Horses
Horse Racing
Breeders' Cup (Horse Race)


A Voice of Skepticism on the Impact of Steroids

Abstract: One of the most influential baseball minds of the last 40 years is angry. And he is coming out of retirement to vent. Fans may not know Eric Walker’s name, but they know his handiwork. Walker was a National Public Radio correspondent in the early 1980s when he began filling the San Francisco airwaves with his theories regarding baseball — specifically, that on-base percentage was undervalued, fielding was misunderstood and power ruled all. One increasingly intrigued listener was Sandy Alderson, then a young Athletics executive, who soon hired Walker as a team consultant and with him devised the Oakland philosophy now called Moneyball. Walker has been out of baseball for 10 years and lives in a small farm town in eastern Washington. But the recent hullabaloo over steroids and other illicit substances has prompted him to conduct new research with a rather surprising conclusion: the popular perception that slugging across baseball has increased during the “steroid era” is almost certainly wrong. “If power were up, we’d see it in the statistics,” Walker said. “But the boost just isn’t there.” Walker contends that popular measures often used to demonstrate the baseballwide effects of so-called performance-enhancing drugs — like the rise in home runs per game and overall runs per game — are the wrong place to look. Since any added strength hitters get from steroids would not help them make solid contact with the ball, but only hit it farther when they do, Walker instead examined a more appropriate statistic: total bases per hit, also known as Power Factor. Although not all doubles and triples indicate power, P.F. does a far better job of isolating the effects that brawn would breed. It also helps see past historical rule changes like the height of the pitcher’s mound and the size of the strike zone; such tweaks drastically alter the number of hits, walks and runs games feature, but they have much less effect on the distance that struck balls travel. Walker examined overall P.F. figures for all seasons since 1900, and discovered that they have steadily increased from about 1.3 to 1.6 throughout those 100-plus years — not since only the early 1990s, when steroids are believed to have begun their gradual rise in use and slugging effect. Walker found two substantial and essentially permanent jumps. First was the 1920s, because of the introduction of a livelier ball and the sport’s Babe Ruth-inspired embrace of slugging. The second was in 1993 and 1994, when P.F. suddenly leapt 7 percent to about 1.6, where it has since settled. Walker contends that such a jump is far more indicative of a change made to the ball — which Major League Baseball has long denied — than a steroid power boost, which would have produced an effect far more gradual as the decade progressed. Subtract that 1993-94 spasm from subsequent records, Walker said, and you will find that power since 1980 has remained essentially flat. “There is no long-term uptrend in pure power,” Walker said of the last quarter-century. “Nothing to indicate that a gradual change in culture and steroid use affected how far balls were hit — when they were hit in the first place.” He added: “I have no doubt that to a swimmer in the Olympics, steroids have an effect — even if the augmentation is minuscule, the augmentation is significant because those competitions are settled by an eye blink. In baseball, if it were there, we’d see it in those numbers. But it isn’t there. If it’s there, it’s not a discernible one.” Unprecedented late-career numbers from some individual players who have been accused of using steroids — like Barry Bonds’s 73 home runs in 2001 and Roger Clemens’s charge to 354 victories — still raise the question of what benefits baseball players may receive from illicit substances. But Walker is not a lone voice out in the Washington wilderness; many credible statistical analysts are similarly skeptical about how much steroids and other drugs may have distorted modern ballplayers’ records. Regarding Bonds, for example, they note that, yes, his peak home run rates came at 36 through 39 years old, when most players are in decline. Then again, another slugger three decades before enjoyed almost the same late-30s surge: a fellow named Hank Aaron. “People who look at baseball stats know that the current era is different than it has been in the past, but it’s not as abnormal as people might think,” said J. C. Bradbury, an economist at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. “Offense has been up, but for lots of reasons.” Walker is convinced those reasons have been wildly misunderstood, and has built a Web site ( steroids-and-baseball.com ) spelling out his theories in hopes that his message carries even half as far as Moneyball did. “I’m tired of people saying, ‘This is what happened because I see more home runs,’ ” Walker said. “If you disagree with me, deconstruct the argument; tell me where it’s wrong. If you can, more power to you.” As it were.


Brandon Jacobs Hopes His Power Comes Into Play

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The value of Brandon Jacobs to the Giants was reinforced during the championship game last Sunday. Not in San Francisco, where the Giants outlasted the 49ers to reach the Super Bowl , but in Foxborough, Mass. There, trailing by 3 points in the closing seconds, the Baltimore Ravens had the ball on the New England 14 and needed 1 yard for a first down. Twice they passed. Twice they threw incompletions. Tom Coughlin , the Giants’ coach, noticed. “You have to keep the ball,” Coughlin said Friday. “You have to have the ball in order to have a fresh set of downs — you got another opportunity.” As the Giants seek their second title over New England in five seasons, it is possible that their best defense against Tom Brady may involve not Jason Pierre-Paul and Justin Tuck but someone else who shares their hulking size. At 6-4, 264 pounds, Jacobs is more bulldozer than running back, and the Giants hope his brutish rushing style will serve twin functions Feb. 5 in Indianapolis: extending clock-controlling drives with short-yardage bursts and punctuating them with touchdowns. “When we get down there, we definitely have to get points and not field goals,” Jacobs said. “Because you’ll get beat if you only get field goals.” Perhaps the Giants should tape Jacobs’s words inside their locker room at Lucas Oil Stadium, for their truth is unassailable. Every team that has played New England since Nov. 6, when the Giants marched into Gillette Stadium and won, has subscribed to that theory, and no one — not the Jets, not Denver and not Baltimore, which went 1 for 4 in the red zone — has succeeded. The Giants would love to grab an early lead and hold it, rolling behind Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, who missed the last meeting because of a fractured foot. “You’re always more confident when you have all your guns,” Jacobs said. In a sense, the Giants’ rushing offense is not unlike the Patriots ’ defense. Both units are maligned, sitting near the bottom of the N.F.L. during the regular season. But the rankings — 32nd for the Giants, 31st for New England — are somewhat misleading. Just as the Patriots have improved since the run-stopping linebacker Brandon Spikes returned for the season finale after missing two months — they bottled up the Ravens’ Ray Rice (67 yards on 21 carries) last Sunday — the Giants’ running attack has surged since Bradshaw came back in Week 13. Over those eight games, the Giants have averaged a yard better per carry (4.2 to 3.2), pounding Atlanta in particular — for 172 rushing yards in the wild-card round. Guard Chris Snee praised the offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride for sticking with the run when “we really haven’t given him much reason to do that.” “We’re getting more consistent cutting down on the negative runs and taking the 2- to 3-yard runs,” guard Kevin Boothe said. “Before, we were putting ourselves in the whole second-and-11 or second-and-12 where we become more one-dimensional.” In turn, that placed a burden on Eli Manning. The Giants, with a dynamic quarterback and a diverse and versatile receiving corps, are more explosive than their three Super Bowl-winning predecessors, but they know they need a substantial effort from their running game to beat New England. “Oh, no question,” Jacobs said. “I definitely think we are going to have to play a bigger role. As long as we stick with the run, be patient, hang with it, something is going to pop at one point or another.” Jacobs, operating in fits and spurts, has served as a microcosm of the Giants’ running game. At times he has thrived. At others he has fizzled, his season divided into uneven segments. He went from struggling as a backup to dealing with a knee injury to foundering as a featured back to rebounding during the final month, when he averaged a robust 5.1 yards per carry. “We need Ahmad to stretch the defense and get the front moving,” tight end Jake Ballard said. “And we need Brandon to power in there and run over some guys.” Throughout his challenging season — injuries and frustration, losing streaks and shifting roles — Jacobs has remained a critical asset in short yardage. According to ProFootballFocus.com , Jacobs has converted 70.8 percent (17 of 24) of his opportunities in that situation — 2 yards to go or fewer — and 61.5 percent (8 of 13) in the red zone. “Especially down there, where yards become tough and space becomes limited, he definitely becomes valuable,” Boothe said. “He wears on defenses. I can’t think of anyone in the world who would like to tackle a 260-pound-plus runner over and over again.” Just ask the Patriots. Their memories of Jacobs are probably not of his 72-yard output on Nov. 6, but rather a 2-yard rush on Feb. 3, 2008. On fourth-and-1 from the Giants’ 37, Jacobs went over Snee and gained the first down. Seven plays later, they scored the game-winning touchdown. In the Super Bowl.

Jacobs Brandon
New York Giants
New England Patriots
Super Bowl
Coughlin Tom
Football


Mexico: Leader of Cartel Is Captured

Abstract: The leader of one of Mexico’s largest cartels, Héctor Beltrán-Leyva of the Beltrán-Leyva gang, has been captured, the authorities said Wednesday night, giving President Enrique Peña Nieto another high-profile victory against organized crime. Officials were awaiting DNA test results but said they felt confident the man in custody was Mr. Beltrán-Leyva. He was apprehended at a seafood restaurant in San Miguel de Allende, a tourist haven, by agents from the federal attorney general’s office and the army, both of which have come under criticism in recent days over a questionable investigation of an episode in June. In that case, 22 gang suspects appear to have been executed by soldiers. Mr. Beltrán-Leyva, who the authorities said was living a quiet life in Querétaro, known as a business hub, faces drug trafficking charges in American courts; the United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Mexico
Drug cartel
Enrique Pena Nieto
DNA
Hector Beltran-Leyva


Letters to the Editor

Abstract: Ivy League Makes Tradition the Servant of Commerce To the Sports Editor: Re “ Ivy League, Last Division I Holdout, Will Add Tournament ,” March 11: The Ivy League is making a tremendous mistake by choosing to follow the crowd with a postseason basketball tournament. For the entire modern era of the N.C.A.A. tournament, the league has sent the winner of its regular season. After 14 games against the field, the best team is apparent. It’s only logical to send that team to the national tournament. But now the conference leadership thinks it’s better to open the door to a team that gets “hot” at the end, as Columbia’s athletic director described it. Why is random chance better than rewarding the full-season winner? Every team started 0-0 and had an opportunity. Win the games in January and February. Why throw out tradition, logic and basic fairness for a fleeting appearance on ESPN3? This is the same league that hypocritically prides itself on a tradition of not permitting its football champion to participate in any postseason competition. We know all too well how tradition and fairness are secondary concerns to making money in today’s college sports landscape. Sadly, the Ivy League presidents have decided they are no better. JEFF SHAFER, New York An Impossible Diagnosis Image A doctor found that Ryan Hoffman, a homeless former college football player, had C.T.E. when he died. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times To the Sports Editor: Re “ Homeless Former Player Killed by Car Had C.T.E. ,” March 9: The article indicates that Dr. Ann McKee, who examined Ryan Hoffman’s brain, believes that the only explanation for his odd behavior was brain trauma. However, the article notes that Hoffman was also dependent on drugs and alcohol. Substance abuse can cause every one of the symptoms he suffered, and it would appear to be impossible that Dr. McKee could determine exactly what resulted in his mental health problems. It is also worth noting that because substance abuse can cause behavioral changes that mimic many major mental disorders, including bipolar disorder, depressive and anxiety disorders, and even schizophrenia, it is virtually impossible to make an accurate psychiatric diagnosis in a person actively using substances. Finally, extended use of many drugs and alcohol can cause substantial changes in the brain. I wish your reporter had asked Dr. McKee what role this might have had in the changes she found in Hoffman. STEVEN A. KING, Philadelphia Fix the Soccer Gender Gap To the Sports Editor: Re “ A Tennis Trailblazer Leads the Charge for Women’s Soccer ,” March 7: Soccer teaches perseverance, commitment, devotion and patience. It is an absolute necessity for women’s soccer to have equal recognition, equal pay, equal FIFA council representation and equal airtime on television. Young women should have a reason to keep playing. I quit when I went to college in order to focus on my studies because I knew that soccer was not a realistic career. Young men, however, do not feel the same way; most will continue through college and attempt to get signed. The inequality is not a secret. Both sides know there is a massive gender gap in every facet of the sport. Now is the time to do something about it. ASHLEY PERLING, Nashville The Future of Snowboarding To the Sports Editor: Re “ A High-Flying Endeavor Comes Crashing to Earth ,” March 7: Global warming, anyone? The West suffered through a warm and dry winter last year, and now it is the East’s turn. Snowboarding, so dependent on consistent cold, must wonder whether it will even exist in a generation or two. So, too, twin-tipped skis, rocker and camber ski shapes, and other technological advances have allowed skiers to mimic much of what a boarder can do. The unique capacity of a snowboard is disappearing as quickly as the snow. For an industry in need of constant exposure to capture minds and hearts, skiing and snowboarding are primarily Olympic year mainstays, a mere two weeks every four years. With day passes costing a small fortune, the sport faces tough times in a stagnant and often harsh economy. The combination of these factors can result only in bankruptcies and empty undersides of boards, lacking sponsors’ logos. ROBERT S. NUSSBAUM, Fort Lee, N.J.

College basketball
Ivy League
Ryan Hoffman
Soccer
Snowboarding


A Husband’s Efforts Came Too Late

Abstract: PHOENIX, Oct. 5 — Carol Gotbaum was already dead by the time her husband, Noah, made frantic telephone calls to the airport where she had been arrested to try to warn the authorities that she was “suicidal” and “alcohol abusive,” the Phoenix Police Department said on Friday. According to preliminary information from the Aviation Communication Center at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Mr. Gotbaum’s first call was received at 4:39 p.m., a little more than an hour after his wife had been pronounced dead, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a spokesman for the Phoenix police. The authorities released a statement Friday night saying that they reviewed all phone calls received by the airport after 12 noon on Sept. 28 and confirmed the time of Mr. Gotbaum’s first call. This confirms as well that Mrs. Gotbaum was dead before that first call. Transcripts of Mr. Gotbaum’s three calls from New York, released on Thursday as part of a police report on Ms. Gotbaum’s death, provide a chilling account of a husband’s efforts to reach his wife. He had last heard from her hours earlier, and she was upset and angry about missing a connecting flight to Tucson, the transcripts indicate. They show that Mr. Gotbaum grew frustrated because airport operators were unable to give him information about his wife’s status. During his final conversation with an airport operator, Mr. Gotbaum said: “I have no idea where she is. I haven’t talked to her. All I know is what you’ve told me and what I imagine has happened.” What Mr. Gotbaum did not know was that his wife was dead, found on the floor of a police holding room in the airport with a shackle stretched across her neck, according to the police. A short time earlier, police and eyewitness accounts show, officers took her into custody after she became hysterical when told she was too late for the flight to Tucson. Neither Mr. Gotbaum nor a lawyer for the family could be reached on Friday evening for comment on the calls. Sergeant Hill has maintained that officers “had no knowledge of any of Ms. Gotbaum’s personal issues” when they took her into custody. Had the police received word that she was suicidal, an officer would have been assigned to monitor her constantly, in accordance with department policy, Sergeant Hill said. Instead, the police, after struggling through an arrest and search, left her alone in a holding room, screaming, for six to eight minutes, the sergeant said. When she stopped screaming, an officer checked on Ms. Gotbaum, found her unconscious and tried to resuscitate her, to no avail, Sergeant Hill said. She was pronounced dead at 3:29 p.m. In his first call to the airport, Mr. Gotbaum told an operator that a friend of his, David Watson, who lived in the area, was on his way to the airport. “I’m actually quite unhappy that I have not heard back, because the police don’t really understand what they’re dealing with right now and no one has called me, but he does,” Mr. Gotbaum told an operator. During a later call, an operator put Mr. Gotbaum on hold and got on the phone with Lt. Rick Gehlbach. When the operator asked Lieutenant Gehlbach if he wanted to speak with Mr. Gotbaum, he responded: “I want somebody who’s professional to be talking to him. Not just blow it to him over the phone, because I don’t know how he’ll react.” At one point between Mr. Gotbaum’s second and third calls, the transcripts indicate, the operator took a break to answer a question from a colleague about Chinese food they were ordering for dinner. When Mr. Gotbaum called back — after two US Airways representatives at a call center in Winston-Salem, N.C., had contacted Phoenix on his behalf — the operator again put him on hold. Then the operator spoke with another sergeant, who said, “I need to get a phone number because we need to make, uh, we can’t tell him what’s going on right now.”


Town Is Secured in Central Africa

Abstract: BANGUI, Central African Republic — African peacekeepers trying to stabilize the Central African Republic said Saturday that they had regained control of a town where hundreds of heavily armed rebels had massed not far from the capital. Brig. Gen. Martin Tumenta Chomou said that the regional peacekeeping force had secured Sibut, 110 miles from the volatile capital, Bangui. The arrival of the rebels in Sibut midweek had raised alarm about their intentions amid fears they could use the town as a base to stage another coup in Bangui. Most of the rebels are Muslims from the distant north who overthrew the government last March and later were accused of scores of atrocities against the Christian majority in the capital. Revenge killings have continued as a new interim government is being installed.


World Science Festival Finds Success in Physics, and More, as Spectacle

Abstract: Brian Greene grasps a beam of light. He freezes in an electrified rock-star pose, and as a live orchestra begins to hum, the beam of light slips through his fingertips and flashes across the stage. It’s opening night at the eighth annual World Science Festival in New York City, and Dr. Greene is explaining — no, telling the story behind — Einstein’s theory of relativity to a sold-out audience. To Dr. Greene, a Columbia string theorist who is a founder of the festival, these concepts are certainly the stuff of numbers and equations. But onstage, in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College in Manhattan, Einstein’s speed-of-light calculations are cloaked in music and drama, told by live actors and carefully choreographed to digital animations projected onto a screen. Since the World Science Festival began in 2008, Dr. Greene and his team of artists and educators have discovered (in part through considerable ticket sales) that people who might never attend a half-hour lecture will soak up 90 minutes of science, provided it is presented as top-notch theater. “We needed to have a science festival in New York — a big, vibrant metropolis that celebrates fashion and food and theater and music, but doesn’t celebrate science,” Dr. Greene said in an interview, describing the impetus for all of this. “That was the project we were going to pull off.” And indeed, the festival has by now carved out a place in the city’s cultural scene. On the schedule of this year’s version, which started on Wednesday and runs through Sunday, were dozens of activities that carry science far beyond the lecture hall: Drinks and trivia under the blue whale model at the American Museum of Natural History. Music and stargazing alongside astronomers in Brooklyn Bridge Park. In Washington Square Park, a science street fair and a walk-through art installation that celebrates NASA satellites. Along the city’s waterways, a public catch-and-release fish count with ecologists. In recent years, the festival has also featured a capstone performance that can be taken on the road afterward. One early success was “ Icarus at the Edge of Time ,” a multimedia experience and film based on a children’s book by Dr. Greene that follows a boy as he flies toward a black hole. Since the show had its premiere in 2010, it has been performed in Seattle, London, Moscow, Dublin and Austin, Tex. This year, the festival unveiled “ Light Falls ,” a more cerebral spectacle that delves into Einstein’s theories, with a theatrical twist. The morning after the “Light Falls” premiere, Dr. Greene and his wife and festival co-founder, Tracy Day, spoke about the evolution of their project in an interview at their home on Riverside Drive. Onstage, Dr. Greene is all style — his arms cut through the air, punctuating each concept with a calculated jab or thrust, his jacket sitting smoothly against his shoulders. But at home, he slouches in his chair and drinks tea out of a white mug, his shirt sleeves rolled up. Ms. Day sits across from him, sipping from a glass of water. Image Tracy Day, Dr. Greene's wife and festival co-founder, at the festival. Credit Greg Kessler/World Science Festiva “We were looking for something to work on together,” Dr. Greene said when asked how he and Ms. Day had become the public faces of the World Science Festival. “You know, besides children and marriage.” Ms. Day recalled that some of their finest moments in the early days of planning the festival occurred while “sitting at back-to-back desks, with our baby on a futon.” When Dr. Greene and Ms. Day first thought up of the World Science Festival in 2006, both were already well established in their fields — Dr. Greene is a world-renowned physicist and Ms. Day is a former ABC News producer — but they had no experience in planning an event on this scale. “Neither of us had really raised money before, so we just went out and asked,” Ms. Day said. “We didn’t want to go through standard channels. With all that red tape, we didn’t have time.” But even after the couple secured funds and widespread support, some friends and mentors advised them to tone down their aspirations — perhaps to start small with a pilot program, or situate the festival in a city of a more manageable size. Image "Light Falls," the World Science Festival's capstone performance, delves into Albert Einstein’s theories with a theatrical twist. Credit Greg Kessler/World Science Festival “We heard that and we thought, let’s just go for it,” Ms. Day said. “We’re in New York City, we love New York City, we’re not siloed in our interests. We love the cultural scene and the academic scene. This is a playground. Let’s figure out where science is and where we can pull it out creatively.” Since then, finding ways to bring science to the public — specifically by capitalizing on New York City’s artistic space — has been Dr. Greene and Ms. Day’s main goal. One of their early realizations, Ms. Day said, was the importance of “putting these programs in theaters as opposed to lecture halls or traditional academic settings, because that way there’s a different, emotional connection.” And it worked. That first year, 120,000 people came. “It was gratifying and sort of emotional, in our sleep-deprived state,” Ms. Day said. “I arrived at the street fair, looked at the crowd, looked at our kids and burst into tears.” Dr. Greene, Ms. Day and the board of the World Science Festival — which includes the actor Alan Alda, a champion of science communication — believe that the festival can awaken a love for science within the public. “Fact is, huge swarms of people could be interested in science if you present it to them in a way that intrigues them,” Mr. Alda said in an interview, “if you tell them a story instead of an hour of bare facts that make their eyes glaze over.” Mr. Alda says the festival could serve a greater purpose. As matters like private space travel, G.M.O.s and vaccination increasingly become the stuff of national debate, he said, scientific understanding has never been more crucial. “We swim in an ocean of science,” Mr. Alda said. “People need to begin to think more like scientists and look for evidence and question evidence and not take the first bogus study that comes along.” Image Dr. Greene, Ms. Day and the board of the World Science Festival — which includes the actor Alan Alda, above — believe that the festival can awaken a love for science within the public. Credit Greg Kessler/World Science Festiva The World Science Festival took shape independently, but many of the city’s scientific and cultural institutions play a role in its events. This year, the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are hosting programs conceived and directed by the World Science Festival. “We sell out a five- or six-hundred-seat auditorium every year when we do a program with them,” Marco Leona, the head of the scientific research department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said. “We’ve managed to get art historians and scientists to talk together and tell stories that are really engaging, even more engaging than the stories we usually tell.” In this collaboration, “there’s an element of discovery for us as well,” Dr. Leona continued. “We know our audience. People come here for the art, the masterpieces, but with the World Science Festival we’ve also had different audiences, people coming to hear scientists talk about art.” But for Dr. Greene, Ms. Day, Mr. Alda and all of the people involved in the year-round work of running a weeklong science festival, engagement is not enough. Ultimately, their goal is to change how science is viewed and discussed. “In time, I think the festival will not only interest people in science — I think it will begin to create scientists,” Mr. Alda said. Festival organizers are an active presence on social media . Increasingly, World Science Festival lectures and classes are available online, and portions of the festival are being repackaged and shipped around the country and around the world. Even in New York, recent festivals have begun to marry master classes with street fairs and artistic displays. Lofty goals, however, begin with the small moments. After the “Light Falls” performance, Mr. Alda said he had been seated next to a girl of about 10 who was wide-eyed at the blur of lights and equations, actors and scientists. “I’m watching that in front of my eyes, watching somebody become engaged at a very early age,” Mr. Alda said. “Her face was beaming, she had such a good time there. “Delight is a great way to learn.”

World Science Festival
Alan Alda
Brian Greene


Ex-Official Says Medical Examiner Forced Her Out Over DNA Technique

Abstract: A former official of the New York City medical examiner’s office sued the city on Thursday, claiming that she had been forced from her job, in part, for raising questions about the office’s use of a novel form of DNA testing whose reliability had come under question. The lawsuit is likely to add to a growing debate over the medical examiner’s aggressive use of new techniques to analyze trace samples of DNA, a practice that other public crime laboratories have shied away from because of concerns over reliability. The former employee, Marina Stajic, 66, served for nearly three decades as director of the office’s Forensic Toxicology Laboratory , which conducts post-mortem examinations to determine the absence or presence of drugs, and what role they may have had in causing someone’s death. But Dr. Stajic claimed in the lawsuit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, that she fell out of favor with her superiors because she had sought more transparency about the office’s research into the novel technique. The medical examiner’s office said on Thursday that it was “committed to fairness and providing the highest standards of service for the people of New York City.” It added that courts in all five boroughs had “recognized that our DNA techniques are reliable and generally accepted by the scientific community.” The Law Department said “all the claims will be reviewed.” The medical examiner’s office , which performs about 5,500 autopsies each year, has long been hailed for being at the forefront in forensic techniques, notably for its role in identifying human remains in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and for its efforts to go back and identify some of the anonymous dead in the city’s potter’s field. The office has also developed novel techniques and procedures for analyzing trace quantities of DNA left on touched objects, such as a handgun passed among several people. While the office has said it can reliably discern DNA profiles from such samples, often referred to as low copy number DNA, other scientists have said they are doubtful that the results should ever be introduced in the courtroom. Such critics say that while DNA profiles analyzed from a drop of blood or a semen stain are the gold standard of forensic evidence, the low copy number method involves too much subjectivity and even guessing, and could lead to wrongful convictions. Image Dr. Barbara Sampson, the chief medical examiner. In the lawsuit, Dr. Stajic accuses Dr. Sampson and her deputies of engaging “in a pattern of firing, demoting and forcing the resignation” of senior managers in their 50s and older. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times The city medical examiner’s office is the only public DNA laboratory in the country that uses the method in criminal cases, the lawsuit says. The debate over the technique has played out in courtrooms in New York and also on a state forensic science commission, which regulates crime laboratories and has a broad mandate of quality control. Dr. Stajic served as a member of the commission from 2004 until last December, the lawsuit says. It was in her role on the commission in 2014, the lawsuit says, that she became one of only a few members who voted to require the medical examiner’s office to make public an internal study regarding the validity of the testing technique, a vote that did not pass. Her position aligned her with the few criminal defense lawyers who were also on the commission, but it put her at odds with her bosses at the medical examiner’s office, the lawsuit says. It says that Dr. Barbara Sampson, the chief medical examiner, was unhappy with her vote. In April 2015, the lawsuit says, Dr. Stajic was told that she would be dismissed unless she resigned. She submitted her retirement papers that month, the suit says. Her lawyers, Kevin Mintzer and Daniel L. Alterman, said in a statement that their client “was forced out of her job because of principled positions she took” on the commission. In a brief phone interview this week, Dr. Stajic said: “I think it’s a dangerous precedent when people are expressing their honest opinion and they are compelled to resign or retire because of that.” The lawsuit also charges that age was a factor in the decision to dismiss her. In the lawsuit, Dr. Stajic accuses Dr. Sampson and her deputies of engaging “in a pattern of firing, demoting and forcing the resignation” of senior managers in their 50s and older. Dr. Stajic, who has a Ph.D. in forensic toxicology, has long been prominent in her field, the lawsuit says. A past president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, it notes, she was also the author or co-author of more than 50 scientific articles.

Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York


G-20 Business Meeting in the Shadow of a Crisis

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — The harsh aftermath of the global financial crisis of two years ago still weighed on corporate chiefs and political leaders as they gathered on Thursday in closed-door discussions on the sidelines of the two-day meeting of the Group of 20 economic powers. Vikram S. Pandit , the Citigroup chief executive, hinted at some frustration with the public backlash against Wall Street. “I kind of feel like I’m living in parallel universes,” he said. “I’m here in Korea and I feel this warmth and the need and the sense of trying to have a dialogue with each other, but then when I get back to my real universe, it’s cold in that universe.” He was one of the about 120 executives who took part in the Seoul G-20 Business Summit, a daylong conference here. Stephen A. Schwarzman, the private equity magnate, for instance, shared his misgivings about financial regulatory overhauls with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel . But in a lunch address, Mrs. Merkel expressed little sympathy with bankers’ complaints about excessive regulation. “We need a regulatory framework that encourages being risk aware, not risk averse,” she said. “There needs to be a mind shift away from making money to earning money, in the proper sense.” She, however, agreed with the executives’ larger point about fostering, rather than retreating from, global economic interconnectedness. “Revitalizing trade, revitalizing foreign direct investment, revitalizing corporate financial stability — this is the basic condition to return to a sustainable growth path,” she said. The South Korean government and two major business groups, the Federation of Korean Industries and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, began organizing the business meeting months ago. The business executives were divided into 12 groups, most of which included a head of government who spoke at the outset and then listened in on the discussion. “The most important players in reviving and energizing the economy are the enterprises,” the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, said. Many of the discussions also led to some unusual juxtapositions. The Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, spoke out about greedy mortgage bankers as Thomas J. Donohue, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce and one of President Obama’s most vocal critics, listened politely. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the president of Spain, addressed the session on encouraging the use of renewable energy sources. South Africa’s president, Jacob G. Zuma, accompanied the discussion on foreign direct investment. And the Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, spoke to the session devoted to revitalizing world trade. Chief executives also pushed the message of ensuring open border for trade. “Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the lifeblood of the global economy is in fact the free flow of trade and investment,” said Victor K. Fung, chairman of the Li & Fung Group, a giant manager of global supply chains based in Hong Kong. “One of the greatest threats to the global economy at this stage is the rise of protectionism ,” Mr. Fung said. Several attendees saw the common ground that the chief executives and political leaders were pitching. The seriousness with which the political leaders took the discussions took some by surprise. Professor Jeffrey E. Garten, who teaches international trade and finance at the Yale School of Management, moderated a discussion on foreign direct investment with the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev. He said afterward: “He was extremely attentive. He took copious notes on what was said. For a head of state of a country that size, whose purview goes beyond economics, obviously, he was very sharp and up on the issues.” At times, the business leaders expressed skepticism about excessive regulations, particularly in the financial sector. Josef Ackermann , the chief executive of Deutsche Bank and the chairman of the Institute of International Finance, a global industry association, suggested that derivatives, the financial instruments that gained notoriety during the 2008 crisis, had too often been unfairly maligned. “We should not kill these products before we understand the impact on the real economy,” he said. “Many of these products are very useful. They are creating wealth and prosperity in the world.” But at other times, the politicians offered a dose of reality to the corporate chieftains. Mr. Zuma, for instance, reacted to a proposal for a nonbinding, model treaty on international direct investment by saying that however beneficial it would be, the executives were underestimating the vastly disparate circumstances that countries seeking foreign capital found themselves in. In a 196-page report of findings and recommendations, and in a seven-page joint statement, the executives called for investments in infrastructure and energy, improvements in energy efficiency, and paying heed to issues of inequality, like the high rates of unemployment among youth worldwide and the inadequate access to health care in poor countries. The executives did not offer real breakthroughs, though, on the trade imbalances that have overshadowed the G-20 leaders’ gathering.

Banking and Financial Institutions
Group of Twenty
Merkel Angela
South Korea
Citigroup Inc
Pandit Vikram S
Deutsche Bank AG
Ackermann Josef