Hope and Fear Await a Basque Leader on His Release From Prison

Abstract: MADRID — A terrorist to some, an independence leader to others, Arnaldo Otegi has been in and out of Spanish courts and prisons for three decades for his links to ETA , the separatist group that has led a violent campaign for an independent Basque homeland. His last conviction — for trying to rebuild an outlawed party that was ETA’s political arm — made him something of a cause célèbre. Nobel Peace Prize winners like Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Desmond Tutu lobbied for his freedom. On Tuesday, Mr. Otegi, 57, will be released, after Spain’s Supreme Court reduced a 10-year sentence that was strongly criticized by international lawyers and human rights activists to six and half years. The prospect of his freedom — and what it might mean for the Basque cause — is already raising alarm in Spain at a time of deep paralysis in national politics and a serious separatist challenge from the larger region of Catalonia. For Madrid, Mr. Otegi presents another potential threat to the integrity of Spain. As a Basque leader of long standing, he may possess the clout and credibility to help secure the final dismantling of ETA, many in his region hope, in favor of a reinvigorated democratic fight for Basque secession. Even before his release, the Spanish government is taking legal steps to check public gatherings planned for Mr. Otegi, including a mass demonstration in a stadium in San Sebastián. Government officials have warned that Spain’s judiciary will forcefully apply a law that forbids any citizen to glorify terrorism . Still, in response to written questions, Mr. Otegi made it clear that his time in prison did nothing to dim his commitment to an independent Basque nation. He aims to become the next leader of the Basque region, he said in a written statement from prison, and will run in March for internal elections to select candidates for EH Bildu, a coalition party seeking Basque separation. “Sooner rather than later we will use the right to self-determination and thus transform ourselves into a new state of Europe,” he said. Born in the industrial Basque town of Elgoibar in a Socialist family, Mr. Otegi joined ETA in the 1970s, when Spain was transitioning to democracy after the Franco dictatorship. After the Spanish police established that he was involved in one of ETA’s commando units, Mr. Otegi escaped to France in 1977. He was eventually arrested and sent back to Spain to stand trial for the kidnapping in 1979 of the director of a Basque factory of Michelin, the tire company. Upon completing his prison sentence for the kidnapping, Mr. Otegi switched to politics and won a seat in the regional Basque Parliament in 1995. He eventually took over as one of the leaders and the main spokesman of Herri Batasuna, the separatist party most closely linked to ETA. The party was outlawed in 2003, and Mr. Otegi’s final sentence was for trying to restart it. Mr. Otegi was one of the main protagonists in an unsuccessful round of peace negotiations between the Spanish government and ETA that ended in 2007 , after ETA killed two people with a bomb at the Madrid airport. ETA declared a unilateral cease-fire, in 2011, but it has yet to unconditionally hand over its weapons, as demanded by the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in Madrid. In his written statement from prison, Mr. Otegi suggested that the government had not made a genuine attempt to dismantle ETA, but that it preferred instead to keep ETA alive as a convenient foil to check the political ambitions of Basque separatists. Still, the region’s current leader, Iñigo Urkullu from the Basque Nationalist Party, has been treading a far more cautious line, monitoring the standoff in Catalonia but opposing the idea of any unilateral declaration of independence, as the Catalans have been threatening to do. In any case, the hard-line Basque separatists faired poorly in the last national elections in December, and were eclipsed by Podemos, an upstart left-wing party that gained the most votes in the region. “I think the Basque separatists were caught wrong-footed and misjudged voters, because they kept talking just about politics when the middle and lower classes were worrying more about growing inequality and the kind of economic issues raised by Podemos,” said Francisco de Borja Lasheras, a Basque political analyst. As a result, he added, even if Mr. Otegi remains a divisive figure, “it is a sign of the normalization of the Basque situation that his release will not cause the kind of shock for most Spaniards that it would have done 10 years ago.” Basque separatist politicians say Mr. Otegi’s return will help their movement. They also contend that Catalonia’s push toward secession will eventually have wide repercussions. “Whenever the Catalan process accelerates, it creates hope in the Basque Country,” said Jon Iñarritu, a separatist politician and former member of the Spanish Parliament. Mr. Otegi’s political return “will play a key role, and he brings both charisma and motivation,” Mr. Iñarritu added. “I think there will be a general feeling of joy at his release.” That feeling will not be shared by all. “There are people whom I would want to leave forever in prison, but I have to accept what our justice system says once a sentence has been completed,” said Ángeles Pedraza, the president of the Association of Victims of Terrorism, which was founded in 1981, at a time of bombings and killings by ETA.

Spain
Basques
ETA
Terrorism
Human Rights
Basque Nationalist Party
Batasuna


Thrilling Rounds Whet Appetites for Rematch Between Mickelson and Woods

Abstract: AUGUSTA, Ga. Perhaps the most compelling question to emerge in the wake of Phil Mickelson ’s truly shining moment at the Masters and Tiger Woods ’s reality check there is this: have the stars finally aligned for a genuine rivalry to thrive at the top of the game? It was impossible to think otherwise as the most exciting Masters in years unfolded Sunday at Augusta National. Although Mickelson and Woods, the two best golfers of this era, were not paired head to head, there was little doubt about who the most-watched players were on golf’s biggest stage. Mickelson has elevated his game. Woods suddenly appears vulnerable. The competition between them finally has the dynamic it has lacked, and it needs to resume, the sooner the better. The 2010 Masters turned out to be a grand show , a sweeping 3-D spectacle with giant performances everywhere, starting with Mickelson’s in the role of leading man. The supporting actors were many and their level of play so high that some of pine trees are still trembling from the roars that shook down the echoes of bygone days. The bravura performances by Lee Westwood and Anthony Kim, by K. J. Choi, and by the 50-year-old Fred Couples and the 60-year-old Tom Watson, were entertaining and worthy of note. But the focus necessarily shifts to the two golfers who move the needle, and to have them both in the frame at the same time, playing at a high level, is something that can lift the game’s profile and help it shake off the perception of lethargy that set in during Woods’s five-month absence. When Woods and Mickelson will play in the same event again is unclear . Neither has committed to the Quail Hollow Championship that begins April 29 in Charlotte, N.C., an event that would be the perfect stage for a Masters rematch. Mickelson is likely to play in the Players Championship a week later at the TPC Sawgrass in Florida, another golf course where he and Woods have won. Golf needs to provide television viewers and fans a steady diet of Mickelson and Woods at tournaments. What started last year when Mickelson beat Woods in two late-season events came into sharp focus at the Masters. There is no longer any doubt that, two months before his 40th birthday, Mickelson has elevated all parts of his game to the extent that he can beat Woods even if he is underperforming in one area. And Woods, eight months shy of his 35th birthday, has not been able to make sufficient improvements to his own game to maintain the distance between himself and Mickelson and some others. Mickelson moved back into his customary No. 2 position in the World Golf Ranking after winning the Masters, but the gap between No. 2 and No. 1 has narrowed. By winning, he stepped into the elite company of the three-time Masters champions Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Gary Player and Nick Faldo, and one win behind Arnold Palmer and Woods. This means that golf has Mickelson as a modern version of Palmer. He embodies many of Palmer’s playing traits. And in a way that no one has since the aggressive, lantern-jawed Palmer came out of Latrobe, Pa., and into living rooms across America, Mickelson has become a gallery favorite who exudes the thrill of the hunt and the willingness to go for broke. And it has Woods as Jack Nicklaus, whose near-total mastery of all aspects of golf, from mental to physical, long game to short game, made him the standard against which all others are measured. Setting aside Woods’s off-the-course transgressions, his mastery on the course mirrors that of Nicklaus. Where will Woods go from here? He is repairing his image, and he is trying to get all aspects of his game ready for the United States Open in June at Pebble Beach, where he set the standard 10 years ago with a 15-stroke victory . And he wants to be ready for the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland, where he won the 2000 British Open by eight strokes . And for the P.G.A. Championship in August at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis. Woods will not be ready if he does not hone his game at some tour events between each of the majors. If Woods chooses to sit out until, say, the Memorial Tournament in early June to prepare for the United States Open two weeks later, he may not be ready for either event. For all the concern about Woods’s on-course behavior and language, which he said he was trying to improve, restoring his once airtight game is a growing concern, one that heightens the dramatic tension and the interest in just when his next meeting with Mickelson will take place.

Masters Golf Tournament
Mickelson Phil
Woods Tiger
Golf


Was Wal-Mart's Anti-Union Image Used as a Shield?

Abstract: In December 2004, shortly before Thomas M. Coughlin left his job as the second-ranking executive at Wal-Mart Stores, he instructed a subordinate to order him a $1,700 laptop computer, which he later charged to Wal-Mart. "This," he wrote to the aide, in an e-mail message later disclosed by the company, "is to be used on the union project." The union project, according to Mr. Coughlin, was a secret scheme, approved by senior Wal-Mart executives, to pay union members for information about which stores they planned to organize. A year later, when Mr. Coughlin was accused of misusing more than $500,000 in company funds through fraudulent reimbursements, the union project became the heart of his defense, and it immediately transformed the case into a symbol of anti-unionism on the part of Wal-Mart. Reporters seized on it, labor groups issued a flurry of angry press releases about it and the National Labor Relations Board began an investigation into it. But Mr. Coughlin's agreement to plead guilty to federal wire fraud and tax evasion charges, which two people close to the negotiations disclosed on Friday, and the lack of evidence that he used the missing money to spy on unions raise doubts as to whether such a project even existed. A nearly yearlong investigation, in which prosecutors reviewed records of Mr. Coughlin's travel, phone calls and e-mail messages, produced no evidence that he or any other executive at Wal-Mart ever paid a union member for information, according to one person briefed on the inquiry who spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mr. Coughlin is not scheduled to officially enter the plea until later this month. Lacking evidence of the scheme, the Coughlin case follows a far more familiar track -- a highflying executive, paid millions of dollars a year, who stole from his company. Wal-Mart, in a separate legal complaint with a former Coughlin subordinate, called the union project a "complete fabrication." But what made Mr. Coughlin's defense so powerful -- and, in a way, so convenient -- was that it seemed so plausible to longtime observers of the company. Such a scheme "certainly would not be out of character," said Harley Shaiken, a professor on labor issues at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied Wal-Mart for years. "Given Wal-Mart's antipathy for unions and its aggressiveness in fighting them, what Coughlin fabricated appeared to be real." Wal-Mart has long been known for its bare-knuckled approach to fighting unions. When employees at an outlet in Canada voted last year to unionize, the retailer shut the store down, arguing it was unprofitable. In 2000, shortly after 11 Wal-Mart meat cutters in Texas voted to form a union, the company eliminated meat-cutter jobs companywide and announced it would use prepackaged meat instead. The National Labor Relations Board has filed dozens of complaints accusing Wal-Mart of using hardball tactics to fight unions, such as improperly firing union supporters and threatening to deny bonuses to management if workers unionized. In one case, Mr. Coughlin -- at the time, he was chief of Wal-Mart Stores in the United States -- was accused by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union of personally trying to improperly influence a union vote at a Wal-Mart auto center in Arizona by showing up at the store and speaking with employees about their working conditions. Indeed, when word of the union project first emerged a year ago, the food and commercial workers union, which is trying to unionize Wal-Mart's 1.3 million workers in the United States, believed it enough to file an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. The complaint touched off an agency investigation that is continuing. It was Mr. Coughlin who worked hardest to keep the union project -- or at least the idea of it -- alive, according to corporate records from Wal-Mart. Over a period of several years, when he headed the United States operations of Wal-Mart and was vice chairman of the company and a board member, he mentioned it frequently to his underlings, almost always to explain why he needed large sums of company money. In 2002, for example, Mr. Coughlin told one of his aides to prepare two fake invoices, each for $5,000, that "the union people in Vegas needed," according to a lawsuit Wal-Mart filed to strip Mr. Coughlin of his retirement benefits. The aide sent the money, which was used to purchase a $10,810 custom-built hunting vehicle for Mr. Coughlin, according to Wal-Mart. In 1997, Mr. Coughlin told the same aide to obtain a corporate calling card number so he could make long-distance calls to "the union people," Wal-Mart said. For five years, the company alleges, Mr. Coughlin used the card number to make lengthy telephone calls to and from cities where his children were attending college. Neither Mr. Coughlin nor a representative for Wal-Mart returned phone messages yesterday. Mr. Coughlin's employees appeared to have doubts about the union project. According to the company, one of Mr. Coughlin's top deputies disclosed in interviews with company investigators that he "always suspected there was no union project. " After reviewing expense account statements and e-mail messages, he concluded instead that it was a "cover for his fraud." But if Wal-Mart employees had doubts about the project, and the validity of Mr. Coughlin's expenses, they kept them private. Mr. Coughlin, a 6-foot-4 former football player and hunting buddy of Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, was among the most powerful executives at the company. By 2003, as vice chairman, he oversaw Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and walmart.com. For much of that time, he was responsible for Wal-Mart's loss prevention department, which investigated alleged theft and fraud by employees. Indeed, Mr. Coughlin's supposed use of misappropriated gift cards and false invoices to pay for personal purchases like CD's, beer and hunting gear was not disclosed by the people he worked with but by a low-level store employee. The worker called Wal-Mart's headquarters to inquire about Mr. Coughlin's use of a gift card -- originally designated for store employees to improve morale -- to buy a pair of contact lenses. People briefed on the matter said Mr. Coughlin might still advance the union project defense before a judge later this month in Fort Smith, Ark., not far from the company's headquarters in Bentonville. It is unclear why he would pursue such a defense, because his lawyers apparently presented no firm evidence to support it and prosecutors found no evidence to back it up, according to people involved in the case. If the plea deal holds, Mr. Coughlin may serve more than two years in jail and pay restitution of at least $350,000, according to people briefed on the matter. "This is probably his last choice," said Mr. Shaiken, the professor of labor studies. "It represents few options and a pretty grim reality for him." "He wanted to bargain with" the union project, Mr. Shaiken said, "but it did not prove possible."


International Criminal Court Issues Warrant for Sudan’s President Over Darfur War Crimes

Abstract: PARIS — Judges at the International Criminal Court ordered the arrest Wednesday of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan for atrocities committed in Darfur , but Sudanese officials swiftly retaliated, ordering Western aid groups that provide for millions of people to shut down their operations and leave. After months of deliberation, the judges charged Mr. Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing an “essential role” in the murder, rape , torture, pillage and displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur. But the judges did not charge him with genocide, as the prosecutor had requested. In issuing the order, the three judges put aside diplomatic requests for more time for peace talks and fears that the warrant would incite a violent backlash in Sudan, where 2.5 million Darfur residents have been chased from their homes and 300,000 have died in a conflict pitting non-Arab rebel groups against the Arab-dominated government and its allied militias. Within minutes of the court’s announcement, thousands of people gathered in central Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, denouncing the decision and waving national flags and posters of Mr. Bashir’s face. The Sudanese government has long vowed to resist the court, and it summoned several humanitarian organizations to a meeting almost immediately after the warrant was announced, according to aid officials. As many as 10 groups received letters ordering them to leave or curb their work, according to people briefed on the meeting. The British charity Oxfam said that the government had revoked its license to operate, a decision the group said could affect more than 600,000 people. The Dutch section of Doctors Without Borders , which provides health care in one of the world’s biggest camps for displaced people, in South Darfur, was ordered to leave the country. “It happened right after the announcement,” said one aid official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of negotiations to persuade the government to back down. “The connection was clear.” The warrant is the first in which the court, which opened in 2002 in The Hague , has sought the arrest of a sitting head of state. Other war-crimes courts have issued warrants for sitting presidents, including Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor of Liberia . “We strongly condemn this criminal move,” said Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, the Sudanese ambassador to the United Nations , adding that the government would no longer work with aid groups it deemed hostile. “It amounts to an attempt at regime change. We are not going to be bound by it.” But many human rights groups and Darfur exiles saluted the judges’ decision. Niemat Ahmadi, of the Save Darfur Coalition, called the warrant a lifeline for those living in camps. “It will change the mood of frustration and helplessness for our people,” Ms. Ahmadi said. Richard Dicker, a director of Human Rights Watch , said the warrant was likely to isolate Mr. Bashir internationally. “This means he will be a fugitive, a man on a wanted poster,” he said. In their statement, the judges called for the cooperation of all countries — not just the 108 that are members of the court — to bring Mr. Bashir to justice. Legally, Sudan is obliged to arrest Mr. Bashir, but that seems unlikely. The court has no police force or military, and the United Nations peacekeepers in Sudan have no mandate to detain war-crimes suspects. Beyond that, Mr. Abdalhaleem said, there is little chance that the president will be arrested in a friendly country, because many African and Arab states have rejected the prosecution of Mr. Bashir as counterproductive to peace efforts. The question of genocide has also been divisive, but the judges said 2 to 1 that the prosecutor had not provided sufficient evidence of the president’s specific intent to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” the most crucial issue in determining genocide. The prosecutor had argued that the government tried to exterminate three ethnic groups — the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups — and that after driving them off their lands and killing many people, armed militias continued their genocidal campaign by raping and impregnating the women in the refugee camps. The arrest warrant is likely to further complicate the debate over how to solve the crisis in Darfur. It came despite concerns from United Nations diplomats, the African Union , the Arab League and some humanitarian organizations that such a move could provoke renewed violence and threaten the peace deal that ended an even more deadly civil war in southern Sudan. One sign of fallout came almost immediately. The Justice and Equality Movement, a major rebel group in Darfur that signed a preliminary accord with Khartoum last month, announced that it would now reject negotiating with Mr. Bashir’s government. “There will be some violence here and there,” said Alain Le Roy, the United Nations under secretary general for peacekeeping operations. Mr. Le Roy said there might now be further delays in deploying United Nations peacekeeping troops to Darfur, where only about 64 percent of the force is in place. Still, he said Sudan had reassured United Nations officials that it would protect peacekeeping missions. Some figures in the government have threatened bloodshed in response to an indictment. Salah Gosh, the head of Sudanese intelligence, was recently quoted in Sudanese news reports as calling for the “amputation of the hands and the slitting of the throats of any person who dares bad-mouth al-Bashir or support” the court’s case against him. At the United Nations, Michèle Montas, the spokeswoman for the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon , said the Sudanese government had revoked the operating licenses for 6 to 10 humanitarian organizations, as well as seizing the assets of some of them. The Sudanese government has long accused aid organizations of collaborating with the court by providing data and testimony used to build cases against Sudanese officials, something aid groups strongly deny. While United Nations agencies were not expelled, their work is often carried out by charities like the ones facing suspension, United Nations officials said. The court issued warrants for two other Sudanese citizens in 2007 — a government minister and a former militia leader — but neither has been arrested. The United Nations Security Council can postpone the prosecution against Mr. Bashir, but it has remained largely divided. Sudan’s supporters, including the African Union and Arab League, have called for the Council to suspend any indictment. But France , Britain or the United States would probably use a veto to block such a move.

War Crimes Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity


From Prosecuting Corruption in New York, to Wallowing in It

Abstract: In the early 1970s, from a perch on the 57th floor of the World Trade Center, a handpicked team of young prosecutors chased after crooked public officials in a city teeming with them. Fresh out of law school, Robert M. Simels jumped at the chance to investigate that corruption. A bulldog in an office of strivers, he threw himself at big assignments, undaunted — even excited — by the prominence of the men he pursued: a judge, an organized crime chief and a well-known city priest. “He was straight as an arrow,” said Paul W. Pickelle, a prosecutor who worked in the office. But years later, as a defense lawyer, Mr. Simels claimed a special if little-noticed place in the annals of ironic falls, among the police officers convicted of killing and moralizing politicians caught philandering. The lawyer who once seemed incorruptible was convicted of a crime that strikes at the very heart of the justice system: arranging to bribe or harm witnesses preparing to testify against one of his clients. Last week , a federal judge, John Gleeson, sentenced Mr. Simels, 62, to 14 years in prison. It fell to a young, hungry prosecutor, just as Mr. Simels was 35 years ago, to say what many of his friends privately acknowledged: “This defendant, of course, should have known better,” said Morris J. Fodeman, chief of the public corruption unit in the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn. With his sharp suits and roster of famous clients, Mr. Simels joined the ranks of the city’s elite defense lawyers long ago, even as his abrasive nature set him apart. A son of the Bronx who came late to fatherhood, he had no time for bar associations and lawyers’ clubs, but plenty for his children, whom he doted on. He prepared for trials as if an empire were at stake, and even wrote one chapter, called “Cross Until They Drop,” for a book on various issues involving cross-examination. He rarely left legwork to investigators, saying he craved “eye contact” with sources. “He had arrogance, and he pushed the envelope,” said Ronald Rubinstein, a lawyer who worked with Mr. Simels on several cases. “He was a warrior, and that’s why I like him. He served a lot of clients well.” In a telephone interview in the wake of his sentencing, Mr. Simels spoke quietly about his accomplishments and declined to name any regrets. Citing a pending appeal, he also refused to discuss the case that led to his ruin. He had always been very good at something. In high school, in Mount Vernon, N.Y., it had been sports. Mr. Simels, an A student, played outfield on a team that included future major-leaguers, including Ken Singleton . He was the president of his college fraternity and flirted with a career in medicine. After a stint in Missouri training in the Army Reserves, Mr. Simels returned to New York to start law school. The career made perfect sense. He was barely a teenager when he read his first law book, given to him by his mother’s cousin, a civil lawyer. “He had such exuberance about the law and jurisprudence,” Mr. Simels said. In 1974, he went to work for one of the city’s legal stars, Maurice H. Nadjari , the state’s special prosecutor, newly appointed to investigate the rampant corruption in the criminal justice system at the time. Mr. Nadjari was a controversial figure, seen as a loner and a zealous prosecutor, with little talent for self-preservation. “He was the best boss anyone could ask for,” Mr. Simels said. “I think he was misperceived by many.” The two shared many traits. Richard A. Nachman, who headed the Manhattan bureau where Mr. Simels worked, said of his employee: “He was quite an aggressive young fellow — sometimes, I felt, overaggressive. If he saw a case that involved someone of some importance, he would leap at that and go to work. I don’t say that in a derogatory way.” Mr. Pickelle, his fellow prosecutor, said he never saw a hint of unethical behavior from Mr. Simels. “Nadjari would have killed him,” he said. Mr. Simels left the prosecutor’s office in 1979 to start his own defense practice — “It was just time to go,” he said — and within a year, he took on the case of Henry Hill, the mobster turned government informant. Mr. Simels was picked, in part, because he had no clients tied to organized crime, and representing Mr. Hill , whose life was the basis of the film “ Goodfellas ,” meant he never would. Instead, he became well known for representing clients charged in drug cases, and for recurring questions about his ethics. In 1993, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit took up the question of whether Mr. Simels, by visiting a witness in jail who might have testified against his client — without notifying the witness’s lawyer — deserved censure. He did not, the judges concluded, finding that Mr. Simels was “engaging in critical pretrial investigation.” But in another case, a former client named Thomas Mickens, a convicted cocaine dealer, said that Mr. Simels had kept a government plea offer from him in order to keep getting paid. A judge found that Mr. Simels had not passed along the offer. Some of his peers said they wondered whether the steady diet of clients who were drug dealers had taken a toll on Mr. Simels. And in a letter of support to Judge Gleeson, Joel Cohen, who was a fellow prosecutor with Mr. Simels in the 1970s, noted Mr. Simels’s isolation — he had never taken a law partner. Mr. Cohen should have been a better friend, he wrote, if only to provide a second opinion “when his faithfulness to the call of duty cried out particularly loudly from society’s reprobates.” He was referring to clients like Shaheed Khan, a Guyanese drug trafficker whom Mr. Simels started representing with his trademark zeal in 2006. In court testimony, it emerged that Mr. Khan, the head of a paramilitary group in Guyana called the Phantom Squad, had killed several of his rivals with the help of a man named Selwyn Vaughn. Mr. Simels met with Mr. Vaughn, believing he was still a loyal member of Mr. Khan’s organization. But he had become a government cooperator, and he was wearing a wire. On recordings, Mr. Simels told Mr. Vaughn to put “as much pressure” as possible on a witness, as long as he did not kill the witness’s mother. “If they think that he had something to do with the harm of a witness,” Mr. Simels said, referring to Mr. Khan, “it takes us twice as long to get in to see him, so, you know, be mindful of that.” He told Mr. Vaughn to promise another witness $10,000, and gave Mr. Vaughn a script for the witness’s testimony. In September 2008, Mr. Simels and a young associate, Arienne Irving, were arrested on charges including witness tampering and bribery. Judge Gleeson later threw out the case against Ms. Irving. Mr. Simels hired a top defense lawyer, Gerald L. Shargel, to defend him. But the evidence that he left behind, a long trail of e-mail and instant messages seized from his computer, amounted to a strange lapse for a former prosecutor. And for a tactician who could teach a clinic on how to cross-examine a witness, Mr. Simels stumbled badly when he took the stand, giving cagey answers. A prosecutor, Steven L. D’Allesandro, asked him: “If a person offers a witness money, $5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000 for their testimony, that is a crime, yes or no.” Mr. Simels answered, “I would assume it would be.” Judge Gleeson warned Mr. Simels from the bench: “Your career is at stake,” he said. “Your liberty is at stake.” A jury deliberated for two weeks before convicting him. Some of Mr. Simels’s supporters said that he was misunderstood, that the words he used in the recordings reflected the street vernacular routinely employed by defense lawyers. Judge Gleeson left little doubt what he thought. “Mr. Simels crossed a bright line,” he said. “He just lost his bearings in such a fundamental way.”

Suits and Litigation
Simels Robert M
Bribery
Witnesses
Ethics


Nonunion Construction Grows in New York City

Abstract: A luxury apartment building is rising at 23rd Street and 10th Avenue, and, across town, one is being created inside an old Salvation Army building overlooking Gramercy Park. Other residential buildings and hotels are going up on 11th Avenue, West 18th Street and East 23rd Street. All are signs that New York City’s real estate industry is clawing out of the recession. But they are noteworthy for another reason: they are being constructed without any union labor. For most of the last century, the city’s construction unions were a symbol of labor strength in a pro-labor town, and their involvement in large projects was almost never in doubt. But just as public employees’ unions across the country are in the fights of their lives, the city’s major building unions are facing their own moment of reckoning. While they are still a major presence, their share of the city’s $20 billion to $30 billion in annual construction work has dropped significantly in recent years. There are no official statistics; according to unionized construction companies, two out of five construction jobs in the city are now nonunion, though unions put the number at one in four. All agree that for many years, at least 85 percent of building jobs were union ones. And the companies and unions are about to enter what may be their most tense contract negotiations in years, with the employers demanding large concessions and already angering labor leaders by taking their campaign directly to the workers with a Web site and in small group meetings around the city; subway ads may also be forthcoming. “There’s enough pressure on everybody,” said Bobby Bonanza, business manager for the Mason Tenders District Council , which represents about 13,000 workers affected by the contracts. “We don’t need another Wisconsin in this town.” The employers have backed off an initial demand for wage cuts, but they are still aiming for a 25 percent cut in labor costs, by reducing benefits and changing some work rules. They say these changes would allow them to better compete with nonunionized companies, which are winning jobs from developers because their costs are 20 to 30 percent cheaper. “A combination of market erosion and the recession has permanently changed the financial structure of real estate in New York City,” said Louis J. Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association . “This is not about a race to the bottom. It’s about our common enemy: nonunion contractors.” All told, the negotiations involve 30 different unions and as many as 60,000 steamfitters, ironworkers, crane operators, laborers and carpenters. Union leaders say they have made numerous concessions since the recession started, including wage freezes on non-Manhattan projects, that have reduced overall labor costs by as much as 20 percent. But, they say, employers are now trying to increase profits by cutting benefits and exaggerating the loss of market share at a time when the national political climate has turned against unions. Not so long ago, starting a large construction job, particularly in Manhattan, with nonunion labor was considered a provocation likely to ignite a pitched battle with carpenters, ironworkers and laborers intent on closing down the job. But during the building boom of the late 1990s and most of the last decade, there was enough work to go around that union workers were not terribly bothered if some jobs went nonunion. But as the cost of land and construction materials skyrocketed, some developers began to become more cost-conscious and began looking for savings in labor costs, particularly by choosing cheaper nonunionized contractors. And lenders began to scrutinize costs more closely. The unions and unionized employers argue that union laborers are more skilled and safer than nonunion laborers, and that it is far easier to mobilize large numbers of workers when they are organized. But over the last few years, nonunion construction companies like Flintlock became skilled in putting up midsize 10- to 30-story buildings, the kind of building where, along with interior finishing and renovation, the unions have been losing most of their market share. Unionized contractors still have a lock on megaprojects like big office towers, including those under construction at the World Trade Center. But union leaders, construction executives and developers are closely watching a project in Long Island City, Queens, where H. Henry Elghanayan , a residential developer whose company traditionally uses union contractors, is expected to select a nonunion outfit to build a large complex with 700 apartments. “If traditional construction managers that stuck with the unions start losing nine-figure jobs,” said one executive of a union contractor, who refused to be named so as not to further anger the unions, “that’s a game changer.” Mr. Elghanayan said in an interview that he had yet to select a contractor. But, he added, “Everyone’s pressing to get total development costs down.” David Von Spreckelsen, vice president of Toll Brothers , said his company built the first of two towers at its Northside Piers project in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with union contractors. But as construction costs escalated in 2008, Toll Brothers turned to a nonunion contractor for the second tower, prompting unions to protest with five giant inflatable rats. The company now has three apartment buildings under construction in Manhattan with nonunion labor. And this week, the developer of the Atlantic Yards megaproject in Brooklyn said it was seriously considering using a prefabricated method to build its residential high-rise. While most of the workers would be unionized, there would be fewer of them and they would earn less money because much of the labor would be done in a factory, where wage scales are lower than on the site. The construction unions have long been the backbone of the city’s blue-collar middle class. A journeyman carpenter, for example, is now paid $46 an hour, with health, pension and other benefits bringing the total cost to $85. The total compensation for mason tenders, a less skilled position, is $58. “We make a good salary, probably more than most office workers,” said Marc Spring, a union plumber for 25 years whose father was a union plumber for 40 years. “But we work harder than they do, out in the elements.” Mr. Spring acknowledged that “times were tough,” one reason that his local had already made concessions. Still, Mr. Spring said, he resents the constant talk of givebacks. “I don’t see how the developers aren’t making money,” he said. Besides some benefit reductions, the employers want changes in some decades-old work rules, beginning with overtime. Workers now earn double pay for overtime; the construction companies want to reduce it to time and a half. On most jobs, the workday starts when workers arrive at ground level, but on large jobs with many men sharing a hoist, it can take another half-hour to reach the actual work site on a high floor, and another half-hour to descend at the end of the day. Employers are proposing that workers be paid only from the time they reach their station to the time they leave it, and some unions have already agreed to this change. They also want to end a requirement by the operating engineers, who operate cranes, bulldozers and other heavy equipment, that three workers be in place to work even when only one is needed. Although they are a tiny fraction of the work force, they are the highest-paid, often earning well over $200,000 a year, including overtime. James Conway, an official of Local 14 of the Operating Engineers, declined to comment. The employers, however, are wary of pressing too hard, because a strike by just one union could be enough to shut down many of the city’s major construction projects. And despite the animosity among the unions and their employers, Ruth Milkman , a sociology professor at the CUNY Graduate Center who studies unions, said they have an important common ground. “Once you allow nonunion, lower-cost bidders to undercut the unions, it threatens everybody,” Professor Milkman said. “So there is a mutual interest at work here.”

Labor and Jobs
New York City
Organized Labor
Building (Construction)
Blue Collar Workers
Wages and Salaries


D’Brickashaw Ferguson Makes Retirement Official

Abstract: Jets left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson made his retirement from football official in an open letter to fans. Ferguson, 32, wrote in a letter posted on Facebook and Twitter that “it just isn’t easy saying goodbye” but that he was going out on his own terms. Also, multiple news outlets reported that the Denver Broncos had agreed to trade left tackle Ryan Clady to the Jets along with a seventh-round pick for a fifth-round selection in the coming draft.


Excerpts: Galbraith’s Letter to U.N. Secretary General

Abstract: The following are excerpts of the Sept. 28 letter from Peter W. Galbraith, deputy special representative of the U.N. secretary general at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, to Ban Ki-Moon , the U.N. secretary general in New York: As you know, Kai Eide and I have had prolonged disagreement as to whether UNAMA should take action to prevent or mitigate fraud in the Afghanistan elections. Given our mandate to support “free, fair, and transparent” elections, I felt UNAMA could not overlook the fraud without compromising our neutrality and becoming complicit in a cover-up. For a long time after the elections, Kai denied that significant fraud had taken place, even going to the extreme of ordering UN staff not to discuss the matter. And, at critical stages in the process, he blocked me and other UNAMA professional staff from taking effective action that might have limited the fraud or enabled the Afghan electoral institutions to address it more effectively.” In July, I came to the realization that the greatest risk to the Afghan elections was from “ghost” polling stations, that is polling centers sited in areas so insecure that the centers would never open. In coordination with the Ambassadors from the US, UK, EU and NATO, I pressed the Afghan Ministers of Defense and Interior either to secure these polling centers or to close them. The Afghan Ministers, whose continued tenure in office was to depend on the fraud, complained about my intervention and Kai ordered me to drop the matter. As it turned out, most of the electoral fraud occurred in these ghost polling centers. With Kai’s blessing, UNAMA established and manned an election center that ran around the clock through the balloting and counting period. At considerable personal risk, UNAMA field staff collected data on turnout and fraud. Our data showed a miniscule turnout in key Southern Provinces, but these provinces were to report a large number of votes for Karzai. Once it became clear to Kai that the output from our election center would be deeply disturbing to President Karzai, he ordered the staff not to share the data with anyone, including the Afghan institutions charged with preserving the integrity of the electoral process. On September 2, I learned that the Independent Election Commission (IEC) was about to abandon its published safeguards so as to include in the final tally a large number of Karzai votes that it knew to be fraudulent (including those from polling centers that never opened). As OIC, I spoke with the chief electoral officer to urge that the IEC stick with its established procedures. President Karzai had the Foreign Minister protest my supposed interference in the electoral process and, as you know, the Afghanistan Permanent Representative threatened to have me expelled from the country. Kai sided with Karzai in this matter, seemingly indifferent to fact that these fraudulent ballots were the ones that put Karzai over 50%. Shortly after the elections, Kai told President Karzai that “I am biased” in your favor and that “those who are out to get you are also out to get me.” When I asked Kai about this, he explained that being biased did not mean he was supporting Karzai and I accept that explanation. But, I am not sure President Karzai sees it that way. Kai also told me the “those” referred to Ambassador Holbrooke. I think this was an inappropriate conversation for the SRSG to have with the head of state and, in the context, likely interpreted as meaning that UNAMA did not share the concerns Holbrooke was then raising about electoral fraud.

Galbraith Peter W
Ban Ki-moon
United Nations
Karzai Hamid
Eide Kai


Etchings at 9/11 Memorial Are Called Both Anguished Tributes and Vandalism

Abstract: The panels at the National September 11 Memorial containing the victims’ names must constantly be inspected for graffiti scratched into the bronze surfaces, a memorial spokesman said on Tuesday. “While there have been instances when scratches have been discovered on the bronze panels of the memorial, our staff works very hard to address them immediately,” the spokesman, Michael Frazier, said in a statement. “The panels are cared for by hand and with a deep sense of responsibility and sensitivity by our dedicated staff.” An article in The New York Post on Tuesday said that about “40 anguished messages” had been scratched into the panels, seemingly by victims’ friends and family members wanting to leave tributes. Given that the messages were typically expressions of “love, grief and remembrance,” The Post said, “law-enforcement officials have declined to pursue investigations based on possible footage of the vandals in action.” “There have been no reports of disrespectful scratchiti,” the article said. A visit to the memorial on Tuesday afternoon painted a different picture. No “heartbreaking messages” could be found in a slow circumnavigation of the two memorial pools, around which the names are arrayed. But, at the parapet of the south pool, there was a single four-letter word scratched next to the name of Firefighter Sean S. Hanley of Ladder Company 20, who was killed in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The first two letters were unclear, allowing for several readings, a few of the most likely being offensive. “Vile,” was Mr. Frazier’s word for the discovery. About an hour later, the word had been smudged over in a successful effort to obscure it. Image The memorial bears the names of the dead in bronze. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times But not before Norma and Paul Berger had a chance to see the graffiti for themselves. They had come to the memorial to pay their respects at a nearby name: that of Gregory Sikorsky of Squad 41, whom they fondly remembered as the young man who mowed their lawn in Rockland County and worked as a volunteer firefighter while he dreamed of joining the New York Fire Department. Ms. Berger’s reaction — reaching across the panel to tenderly touch Mr. Sikorsky’s name — underscored how significant each name is. “Anyone who would desecrate this should be in jail,” her husband said. Spokesmen for the Police Department and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns and controls the World Trade Center site, did not respond to questions about enforcement policies at the memorial. And Mr. Frazier did not answer a question about the general composition of messages and how many seemed to be personal tributes. Jim Riches, a retired Fire Department chief, said his group, 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters and W.T.C. Victims, did not know whether the graffiti were loving or obscene as a rule. It did not matter, he suggested. “Our group is upset about this type of vandalism by anyone — even family members — destroying this memorial,” said Mr. Riches, whose son, Firefighter Jimmy Riches , died in the attack. “The question we have is where is all the security at the No. 1 terrorist target in world?” Kevin Kelsick and Mauricio Giammattei of Miami were upset by the graffiti at Firefighter Hanley’s name. They were also taken aback by the general air of informality that seems to have settled around the memorial, which has been open to the public without restriction since May 15. Visitors could be seen sitting on the name plates and placing children on them, or using the plates as a subway map stand or as a tripod. “We’re wondering how many generations will it take before this becomes a photo opportunity,” Mr. Kelsick said. Mr. Giammattei said, “We’re seeing it right now.”

National September 11 Memorial and Museum


N.H.L. Playoffs — Rangers’ John Moore Is an Afterthought No More

Abstract: GREENBURGH, N.Y. — With each game, defenseman John Moore seems like a hidden treasure for the Rangers. In a little more than a month, he has gained the confidence of Coach John Tortorella, whose confidence is not won easily. In Game 2 of the Rangers’ playoff series against the Washington Capitals, Moore was given the responsibility of helping to shut down the Capitals’ second line, and he succeeded. In Monday’s vital 4-3 victory in Game 3 , he was anointed a power-play quarterback, and the power play awoke. Not bad for a second-year N.H.L. player considered an afterthought in the April 3 trade that also brought Derick Brassard and Derek Dorsett from the Columbus Blue Jackets for Marian Gaborik. “I’m not trying to look back too much, but I think I’ve come a long way, and I think confidence is a big thing, especially for such a young player,” Moore, 22, said after practice Tuesday. “Every day, I’m getting more and more comfortable. I’ve been fortunate with the opportunities I’ve gotten.” Moore did not score on Monday, but he played the point on the first power-play unit and contributed three of the Rangers’ 11 power-play shots on goal. Of the 10 minutes 8 seconds the Rangers spent on the power play, Moore played 5:37. He said he had never been given that responsibility at the N.H.L. level. “To get a chance like that is huge for me,” Moore said At even strength, he helped create Arron Asham’s goal that gave the Rangers a 3-2 lead early in the third period. He stepped up about 15 feet from the blue line, beat the Capitals’ Joel Ward to a 50-50 puck along the sideboards and kept play in the Washington end, leading to Asham’s goal. It was an instinctive play that carried some risk. “If I miss, it’s trouble the other way — but again, it’s playing with your instincts and just playing the game you’ve been playing your whole life,” said Moore, who grew up in Winnetka, Ill. “I’m certainly not trying to take chances or gambling out there. I just made a read where I felt I could get there, and fortunately enough, I was able to keep it in.” Moore is starting to look like a second coming of Ryan McDonagh, a throw-in in the 2009 Scott Gomez trade who has turned out to be a Rangers gem. Columbus made Moore a first-round pick in 2009 after he excelled for two seasons at the junior level with the Chicago Steel of the United States Hockey League. He moved on to a year with the Kitchener Rangers in the Ontario Hockey League, where he learned to run the power play, but struggled with poor plus-minus marks in one season with Columbus’s American Hockey League farm club in Springfield, Mass., and last season with the Blue Jackets. This season with Springfield and Columbus, he improved but was still used sparingly. Then he was traded to the Rangers. “In Columbus, there was a situation where I was working as hard as I could, but for one reason or another, I wasn’t getting the opportunities,” he said. “Here, I just came in with an open mind and I felt like I’ve gotten better every day. They’ve given me opportunities, and I’ve really tried to run with them.” Brassard, who had a goal and two assists Monday, referred to Moore as “a super player.” “When he got here, I was hoping they’d give him his chance,” Brassard said, “because I know he’s a really good kid and he works really hard. I was seeing all this talent in Columbus, but he was not playing a lot.” Tortorella said Tuesday he was especially impressed with Moore’s “quick thoughts, quick reads” on defense. For Moore, it is all new and exciting. “I never played playoff hockey in the N.H.L.,” he said, adding that the scene at Madison Square Garden on Monday with the fans “going bananas and waving those T-shirts” gave him goose bumps. “Every day, I’m more and more comfortable,” Moore said. “As a young guy, I have to make sure I’m taking a deep breath and relaxing and taking it all in.” SLAP SHOTS Rick Nash did not participate in Tuesday’s optional practice, taking what the Rangers called a maintenance day. Nash limped to the dressing room Monday after trying to hit Capitals defenseman Mike Green into the end boards with a couple of seconds left in the second period. Nash missed Green and crashed into the boards, leading with his right knee. But Nash played a regular shift in the third period. ... Darroll Powe also did not practice. He left Monday’s game in the first period with an undisclosed injury, believed to be his second concussion of the season. Powe’s place could be taken in Game 4 by Ryane Clowe, also recovering from an apparent concussion. On Tuesday, Clowe participated in his first full-contact practice since he was injured April 25.

Ice hockey
Playoffs
Rangers
John C Moore Jr
Washington Capitals


Is It Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard or 7th Avenue?

Abstract: Q. Frederick Douglass Academy is on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard at 149th Street. Yet the city’s Department of Education lists the address as 2581 Seventh Avenue. Why the old name? A. Not every agency is on the same wavelength regarding the avenue north of Central Park that is named for the former Harlem congressman. To the Education Department, 2581 Seventh Avenue is the official mailing address, said a spokeswoman. The Postal Service agreed: 2581 Seventh Avenue is its standardized address for the school. But to the Department of City Planning, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard is the correct name. Mail will be delivered whichever name a letter writer uses because the post office keeps a record of widely used “alias” names for streets, said Darlene Reid-DeMeo, a spokeswoman for the United States Postal Service. “Unless the street is renamed officially by the city, the address will remain as the original address in our database,” she said. She theorized that Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard was an honorary name only. But it isn’t; it’s official, according to the Planning Department, which keeps the ultimate authority, the city’s official street maps. The Powell honor dates from 1974. The same official change is true for two other avenues north of Central Park: Frederick Douglass Boulevard, formerly Eighth Avenue; and Malcolm X Boulevard, formerly Lenox Avenue. A department spokeswoman said the City Council had enacted the changes, making them not just honorary but legal. The original names, however, may be in the same landmark space in the minds of longtime New Yorkers as Sixth Avenue and the Triborough Bridge. And the commercial center of Harlem, officially Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, is still 125th Street to many Harlemites. “The names were approved as map changes,” said Jacob Morris, director of the Harlem Historical Society. So why the discrepancy? “Official inertia,” he suggested. Street of Stamps Q. When I collected stamps as a child, I used to love exploring the dealers’ shops along Nassau Street in the financial district. Is that stamp district still there? A. They’re all gone, dispersed by high rents, tax increases and lack of room for expansion. The last one, Subway Stamp Shop , left in 1994 for Altoona, Pa., where it has 15 employees. But in the 1930s, perhaps the collectors’ heyday, the stamp district was a booming bazaar. (Both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King George V of England were avid collectors.) The stock market had hit bottom, but rare stamps had kept their value, and some ex-millionaires were finding that their stamp albums were their only negotiable assets. Dealers offered easy credit, there were trading opportunities at every price range, and the district even had a short-lived stamp exchange modeled after its Wall Street counterpart. Herman Herst Jr., who had been a dealer in the former Stamp Center Building at No. 116, described the scene in his “Nassau Street” (1988): “The busiest day of the week was Saturday. On that day, the buyers descended on Nassau Street like locusts, and when they left, the stock books themselves resembled a cornfield devoured by locusts.” In Altoona, Virginia Goldberg, the president and owner of Subway Stamp Shop, recalled the years when her family business operated in the subway arcade at 87 Nassau Street. Dealers often specialized in the stamps of particular countries. If a customer came in and wanted a stamp from a country a dealer was weak in, the dealer could walk a few feet to another dealer. “He’d give you the stamp,” she said; accounts could be settled later. The dealers were like a community, Ms. Goldberg added. “Though we were competing with each other, we were still friendly.” MICHAEL POLLAK

Names Geographical
Stamps (Postal)
New York City


Picture This: Marketers Let Emojis Do the Talking

Abstract: The condom brand Durex has used World AIDS Day as a marketing hook for years, but for the most recent edition it tried something different: a condom emoji. Durex said there was no icon that communicated a desire for safe sex, so it started a campaign to provide one on smartphone keyboards. The consortium that sets standards for characters and emojis has yet to approve it, but the mere fact that Durex started the campaign prompted 210 million mentions on Twitter and, by Durex’s estimates, drew 2.6 billion media impressions worldwide. Such is the power of emojis. And more companies are taking notice. “There’s a lot of brand demand for emojis,” said Ross Hoffman, senior director of global brand strategy at Twitter, which recently started offering custom emojis for companies to use in advertising. That is because some 92 percent of the online population now uses emojis, according to a study by Emogi, a start-up that uses them to let people indicate how they feel about particular ads. Swyft Media, which creates alternate phone keyboards featuring multiple emojis, says people send six billion of them a day. Brands like emojis for several other reasons. For one, they reach ad-averse millennials, sailing past ad-blocking software. They are visual, which makes them a natural fit for popular messaging apps such as Snapchat and Instagram and also appeals to international audiences. And because they are meant to be shared, the brand images are distributed widely, free. “All of a sudden, the brand is in this very personal conversation between friends and family,” said Evan Wray, the chief executive of Swyft Media. Now, emojis are everywhere in marketing. When the Beatles catalog was made available on nine music streaming services in December, Spotify provided an emoji of the band’s “Abbey Road” cover to people who used the hashtag #BeatlesSpotify on Twitter. That helped set Spotify apart; according to Twitter, its hashtag was mentioned in four times as many Twitter posts as the straightforward #Beatles hashtag. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Starbucks, Disney and more than a dozen other companies have each paid Twitter more than $1 million for designs combined with various kinds of ads. During the Super Bowl, people who used the hashtag #PepsiHalftime got a reply that included a soda can emoji with musical notes floating out from it. For the Feb. 21 introduction of its new smartphone, Samsung rolled out on Twitter a custom emoji featuring its virtual-reality headset, along with several kinds of ads. For many companies, one emoji is not enough. Ahead of its annual Kitten Bowl animal adoption show before the Super Bowl, the Hallmark Channel offered an alternate phone keyboard developed by the mobile marketing company Snaps that featured “cat-lete” emojis such as “Puma Esiason.” Emojis are also spreading further afield in marketing. 20th Century Fox used them on a Los Angeles billboard to promote the movie “Deadpool.” IHOP Restaurants redesigned its logo in the style of emojis. Image A Taco Bell campaign involved blending a taco emoji with a second emoji. Some companies have tried a little too hard to be hip. Last year, Chevrolet sent out a news release written entirely in emojis, perplexing many people . When Goldman Sachs used emojis to tweet news of its 2015 report about millennials on Twitter, the ploy backfired . One person commented on Twitter: “@GoldmanSachs now explain credit default swaps in emoji pls.” In Bristol, England, emoji-festooned McDonald’s billboards were defaced with a vomit emoji. The bungles haven’t slowed down brands’ embrace of emojis. That is mostly because they convey emotion, the precious currency of marketers. Some companies are even starting to quantify those emotions to provide a more nuanced view of ad effectiveness than clicks or impressions. Emogi’s “emotion engine” analyzes data on how people use emojis to reveal their sentiments about ads. Marketers can use that data to tweak campaigns or target promising audience segments, said Travis Montaque, the chief executive of Emogi. Not all companies can count on their branded emojis catching on. How many people really want to send (or worse, receive) the diaper brand Luvs’ “Momojis” for diapers and baby poop? That is why some brands have attached themselves to more universal symbols. Taco Bell last year mounted a campaign for a generic taco emoji. A few months after the emoji became official last July, the company created a “taco emoji engine” that allows people to tweet the taco, along with another emoji. An automated program sends back one of 700 mash-ups of the two. Fans have used the engine 756,000 times since November. “That’s how Taco Bell could own it,” said Winston Binch, chief digital officer at Deutsch, the lead agency on the campaign. “It’s not just a one-off ad, it’s an ongoing connection with a brand.” Other companies have devised more direct ways to profit from standard emojis. Domino’s Pizza lets people order a pie by tweeting a pizza slice emoji. It’s not that easy, since customers first must set up an online ordering account, and the company follows up with a Twitter direct message to confirm the order. Still, for its “business-moving” idea, the novel transaction system won the ad industry’s top award for breakthrough marketing at last summer’s Cannes Lions advertising conference. Of course, this could all be a fad. But many marketers think emojis are here to stay. Mark DiMassimo, the chief executive and chief creative officer of the agency DiMassimo Goldstein, said that emojis were likely to spread from messaging to social media and beyond. He cited Facebook’s addition on Feb. 24 of five new emojis to its thumbs-up “like” symbol. Chevrolet promptly ran an ad for the 2016 Malibu suggesting that people tap the new “love” emoji on Facebook. “The best uses of emojis haven’t been done yet,” Mr. DiMassimo said.

advertising,marketing
Online advertising
Social Media
Instant messaging


T. Boone Pickens Suspends Plans for Wind Farm

Abstract: In a sign of the difficulties facing the development of wind energy , the legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is suspending plans to build the world’s largest wind farm. Over the near term, Mr. Pickens instead plans to build three or four smaller wind farms, at a cost of some $2 billion. He said that he was unsure whether he would ever revive the giant wind project in the Texas Panhandle that has been on the drawing board for years. “I think at this point anything’s possible,” he said in an interview. Mr. Pickens cited several factors that caused him to alter his plans, including lack of transmission lines and a fall-off in the price of natural gas , with which wind competes as a power source. The project was also hurt by the financial turmoil that has stymied activity across the once-popular renewable energy industry. “Everything kind of slowed us down,” Mr. Pickens said. Mr. Pickens’s struggles are symptomatic of a broader reversal of fortune for wind developers. This year, Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm, expects a drop of nearly 25 percent in the amount of new wind power installed compared with last year. Two crucial provisions to aid renewable energy in the stimulus package passed in February have yet to be introduced, Keith Martin, a tax and project finance specialist with the law firm Chadbourne & Parke, said. “People expect that once supply of capital picks up and stimulus rolls out, that things will improve in the second half of the year,” Mr. Martin said. “But they’re waiting.” Mr. Pickens’s situation is of particular interest because he has spent much of the last year advocating an energy plan that includes increasing to 20 percent the amount of the nation’s electricity that is supplied by wind power. In his vision, that would free up natural gas now used to generate power so that it could be used in cars, reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. (Currently, wind accounts for just 1 percent of the nation’s electricity.) For the huge wind farm he had planned in Texas, Mr. Pickens had already ordered 687 large wind turbines from General Electric, to be delivered starting in 2011. But transmission lines being built by the state were unlikely to reach the location he has leased until 2013, so he needed to put the turbines elsewhere. Mr. Pickens had once planned to build his own transmission lines, but difficulty in finding financing amid the credit crisis forced him to shelve that plan. Possible locations for the 687 turbines include Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Alberta, Canada, Mr. Pickens said. Collectively, at a capacity of 1,000 megawatts — about the size of a nuclear plant — his project would still amount to a substantial investment in wind power. He had planned his Panhandle wind farm at 4,000 megawatts. “We’re going to be active in the business,” Mr. Pickens said. “It’s not that we’ve gotten out of the business or anything like that.”

Wind Power
Energy and Power
Pickens T Boone Jr


After Slow Rise, Wimbledon Men’s Doubles Champions Are Advised to Party Hard

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — Andy Murray had a tough couple of days at his local tennis club. On Friday he lost in a semifinal in men’s singles to Roger Federer on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, and on Saturday he watched from the seats of the same court as his older brother, Jamie, lost in the doubles final. With his brother playing in his first men’s doubles final, Andy Murray would never have offered the opposition any advice before the match. But afterward, despite his disappointment, he was more than willing to offer some tips to the winning pair. Murray, the 2013 singles champion, told his friend Jean-Julien Rojer, who along with Horia Tecau had just beaten Jamie Murray and John Peers by 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-4, that it was difficult for him to watch the match because his brother was losing. But then Murray told Rojer exactly how he and Tecau should savor their title: For starters, they should do more than he did. Rojer responded that he and Tecau did not drink or party very much. “He said, ‘Well, make sure you drink and party then,’ ” Rojer said. Tecau and Rojer, who are good friends, vowed that they would indeed celebrate. Tecau, particularly, had good reason. A 30-year-old Romanian, he had lost three consecutive Wimbledon doubles finals from 2010 to 2012 and was starting to hear that he would never break through. “Everybody told me before, ‘I feel sorry for you; you lost three finals,’ ” Tecau said. But Tecau was not worried, he said — at least not until he woke up Saturday morning. His nerves were so bad, Rojer said, that it was virtually impossible for Tecau to eat the eggs Tecau had prepared for them for breakfast. The banter between the two players is an example of the friendship Tecau believes got him over the final obstacle. “I’m much closer to Jules than I was with my previous partners,” Tecau said. “We were friends way before we started playing together. When you have a friend on the court with you, you know those tough moments. We usually have super tiebreaks in finals because you have someone that’s always there by your side.” What It’s Like to Face a 150 M.P.H. Tennis Serve Watch this video and see how it feels to stand across the court from the fastest serves in tennis. That was not to dismiss Tecau’s relationship with Robert Lindstedt, his partner in all three of his losses in Wimbledon finals, including a 2011 defeat to Mike and Bob Bryan. Tecau said that in the moments after he and Rojer won on Saturday, he received a congratulatory text from Lindstedt. “I can’t reproduce the words,” Tecau said, indicating that they were profane. “But he was very happy. He told me, ‘This is how you should play the finals.’ ” When the match was over, though, Rojer, 33, displayed far more emotion, for he, too, had never won a Grand Slam doubles title. In fact, Rojer had never made it to a final in a Grand Slam doubles event. This year, he and Tecau lost in the semifinals at both the Australian Open and the French Open. Rojer is from Curaçao, a Caribbean island known less for producing tennis stars than for producing Major League Baseball players , like Andruw Jones, Didi Gregorius and Andrelton Simmons. He is friendly with both Murray brothers and was a guest at Andy Murray’s wedding to Kim Sears in April. Rojer lives in Miami and spends time with Andy Murray there. But there was no doubt which team Murray would be supporting. After Murray lost his semifinal match to Federer, he said he was probably too nervous to watch his older brother play. He had watched Jamie Murray win the mixed doubles title with Jelena Jankovic in 2007, and he said it was agonizing. But on Saturday he slid into a seat wearing a green pullover sweatshirt as the crowd buzzed. Jamie Murray did not see his brother as much as hear him. “I didn’t know he was coming till I heard him shouting,” Jamie Murray said. Murray and Peers, who were seeded 13th, beat last year’s champions, Jack Sock and Vasek Pospisil, in the third round. Tecau and Rojer were seeded fourth and were on the same side of the draw as the Bryan brothers, who lost in the fourth round. As for the celebration plans, Rojer said his and Tecau’s families would have to wait until Sunday to get their full attention because he and Tecau were going out on the town. Tecau promised a rollicking time. “You might read it in the news tomorrow,” he said.

Tennis
Jamie Murray
Jean-Julien Rojer
Horia Tecau
Andy Murray
Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon


No Progress in Tibet Talks

Abstract: LHASA, Tibet, July 4 (AP) — Talks between China and envoys of the Dalai Lama have made "no substantial progress," and the exiled Tibetan leader threatens China's unity and security, Tibet's official leader charged Tuesday. Champa Phuntsok, the Beijing-appointed chairman of the Tibetan government, blamed the Dalai Lama for the lack of success in four rounds of talks. He repeated Chinese accusations that the Dalai Lama wanted formal independence for Tibet. "There has been no substantial progress," he said in a rare news conference with Western reporters. Thrupten Samphal, a spokesman for the Tibetans' exiled government in Dharmsala, India, said that in the past, "the Chinese would not listen to Tibetan representatives." But now, he said, they want to talk about the proposals of the Dalai Lama's representatives. Beijing has been criticized by the West for its often harsh 56-year rule over Tibet.

Tibet
Dalai Lama
China
Beijing (China)
Buddhism


E.P.A. Unveils Map of Major Greenhouse Gas Producers

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency for the first time is making available detailed information on sources of greenhouse gas emissions, from the Mount Sinai Hospital heating plant in Manhattan to the nation’s largest coal -burning power plant in Georgia. The agency unveiled a searchable computerized map on Wednesday that allows users to identify the nation’s major stationary sources of carbon dioxide and other climate-changing gases, including power plants, refineries, chemical factories and paper mills. The agency said the data , which was drawn from 6,157 sources and is current through 2010, covered nearly 80 percent of the country’s greenhouse gases from large industrial sources. Major emitters are required under a 2008 law signed by President George W. Bush to provide detailed annual reports of their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming . Gina McCarthy, head of the E.P.A.’s office of air and radiation, said she hoped that making the information widely available would eventually lead to pressure for emissions cuts. “This tool is designed to be user-friendly, so that businesses, industry and nonprofits can get a better understanding of where greenhouse gases are being generated and to build enthusiasm for greenhouse gas reductions,” she said in a conference call unveiling the new registry. The administration is preparing regulations to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, but Ms. McCarthy would not say when they would be released. Efforts by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress to pass legislation reducing greenhouse gas emissions failed in the Senate in 2010, and industries represented by the data released on Wednesday have spent heavily to oppose such laws. The new registry does not cover direct emissions from agriculture, forestry or transportation, which are not required to report them in detail. The data shows that power plants are responsible for 72.3 percent of reported emissions and that the three largest single sources — two generating stations in Georgia and one in Alabama — are owned by the Southern Company, based in Atlanta. The E.P.A. does not directly provide the corporate ownership of all of the sources, although some is available on spreadsheets accompanying the map. The Natural Resources Defense Council, however, has compiled emissions by utility , using the E.P.A. figures. The report also shows that Texas has by far the highest total emissions from power plants and refineries, with 294 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent spewed into the atmosphere. The next highest total comes from Pennsylvania, with 129 million metric tons. Although sleekly presented, the E.P.A.’s registry has its limitations. It is neatly organized by state and emissions source, but that does not reflect the nature of the electric system, which is responsible for the bulk of the emissions in the inventory but is not divided by state lines. The ranking makes the District of Columbia look like a fairly small emitter and Pennsylvania like a large one. But some of the coal burned in Pennsylvania flows through the regional power grid to feed Washington and other areas. And the emissions inventory does not capture information about the efficiency of the source. New York University, for example, may rank as a big emitter in New York, but a year ago it opened a co-generation facility that makes electricity and uses the waste heat to heat and cool buildings, thus doing far more work per pound of carbon dioxide emitted than most other sources. Still, David Doniger, the policy director for climate and clean air at the Natural Resources Defense Council , described the new database as a “very powerful small-d democratic tool.” “It means that every high school student or local reporter can see who the biggest carbon polluters are in his or her own backyard,” he said. “Carbon pollution and climate change are very abstract when you’re dealing with national or international data. This brings it home.”

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Carbon Dioxide
Environmental Protection Agency
Maps
Global Warming
Factories and Manufacturing


Cruise Ship Featuring Pittsburgh Athletes Rescues 16 Migrants

Abstract: A Carnival Cruise Line ship that was hosting a tour centered on Pittsburgh sports has rescued 16 migrants in the Gulf of Mexico. The Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said the Carnival Sensation found the 15 men and one woman about 50 miles north of Cuba and took them aboard. Coast Guard Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios said they would be turned over to Mexican immigration officials at the ship’s next stop, Cozumel. He did not know their condition but said no medical help was requested. The rescue received wide notice when the former Steelers linebacker James Harrison posted rescue photos online. Other former Pittsburgh athletes said to be on the cruise include Steelers running back Rocky Bleier, Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillen and Penguins center Bryan Trottier.

Carnival Cruise Lines
Rescue
Immigration
Cruises
Steelers


Oregon City Bids for Worlds

Abstract: Eugene, Ore., is bidding to bring the world championships to the United States for the first time. The other candidates for the 2019 event are Barcelona, Spain, and Doha, Qatar. The host city will be selected in November.

Track and field
Eugene Oregon
Barcelona
Doha


Dissidents Win Screen Actors Guild Vote

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — A victory by a dissident group of actors in the closely watched election by the Screen Actors Guild injected new turmoil into the labor union’s internal divisions this week, but had no immediate impact on the long-stalled contract negotiations with the major Hollywood studios. The dissidents, who have the backing of several big-name stars including Tom Hanks , won 6 of the 11 open seats on the guild’s Hollywood division, SAG announced Thursday. With allies in New York and other regions of the country, the group may achieve a majority on the national board, which will meet on Oct. 18. During the election the group, called Unite for Strength, promoted a merger between the 120,000-member guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists , a union with 70,000 members. The two unions broke off joint negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in March. When Aftra ratified a three-year deal with the studios in July, SAG dismissed it as inadequate and dug in its heels for a prolonged standoff. While the newly elected members may try to steer the union toward new contract talks with the studios, the 13-member committee that leads the negotiations will continue to be controlled by the hard-line incumbent group Membership First. That group also counts Alan Rosenberg, the president of SAG, as a member. “Nobody really has a majority now,” Mr. Rosenberg told the Associated Press. “I’m going to be behaving as if no one is treating any issue as a fait accompli.” Mr. Rosenberg noted that a mail-in poll by the guild, conducted in the last month, found that 87 percent of members supported the group’s effort to continue negotiating with the studios. Ned Vaughn, a spokesman for Unite for Strength and a veteran television actor, said the election did not represent an immediate strategy shift by the guild. But he said it was significant because the group would bring a “new way of thinking” to the national board. “Bringing some new eyes to the situation will allow for some creative approaches that may get things moving again,” Mr. Vaughn said. The studios’ alliance declined to comment on the election. The Unite for Strength board members include the actresses Amy Brenneman and Kate Walsh of the ABC drama “Private Practice” and the actor Ken Howard. The actress Morgan Fairchild, who ran as an independent, was endorsed by the upstart group. The new members will have to quickly come up to speed with the contract negotiations, which hinge on issues of commercial product placements, payments for DVD sales, and compensation for new media work.


U.N. Urges Inquiry of Migrants’ Disappearance in Mexico

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — The United Nations top human rights official pressed Mexico on Friday to investigate the disappearance of 40 Central American migrants last month and determine whether the military and the police were complicit. The statement, by Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, reflects heightened pressure on Mexico, which human rights groups accuse of falling short on promises to protect migrants from thieves, rapists, murderers and corrupt officers as they head to the United States. The migrants, believed to be mostly Salvadoran and Guatemalan, were part of a group of 250 people on a freight train in southern Oaxaca State. Ms. Pillay said they were initially detained on Dec. 16 by the police, immigration officers and military personnel. Some were taken into custody. But about 150 managed to continue traveling on the train, run by the federal government-owned Ferrocarril del Istmo de Tehuantepec. The train operator demanded money from the migrants and, after scoffing at the sum they mustered, the train was boarded a short while later by armed gunmen who robbed and beat some of the migrants and abducted 40 of them, Ms. Pillay said. The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest who operates a migrant shelter in the area, received a death threat after he publicly denounced the crime and disclosed that witnesses had told him the kidnappers had ties to the Zetas, one of the largest and most violent criminal gangs in the country. “The migrants were abducted in highly questionable circumstances,” Ms. Pillay said, adding that Mexico needed “to ascertain whether or not any state officials, including those working for the state-owned train operator, were complicit with the criminal organization that carried out the abductions and extortion.” Mexico’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva told The Associated Press that the government had condemned the killings and was conducting a rigorous investigation. Mexico had initially denied reports that gunmen had boarded the train, but the government of El Salvador and human rights workers said they were in contact with witnesses willing to testify. The plight of migrants has caused a round of diplomatic meetings between Mexico and Central American neighbors in recent months to head off tension. Last fall, 72 migrants, mostly from Central America , were abducted and killed in northeastern Mexico by a group the police said was connected to the Zetas.

Human Rights and Human Rights Violations


Tomlinson Takes Rushing Lead in Chargers’ Win

Abstract: LaDainian Tomlinson took over the N.F.L. rushing lead, recorded his fourth consecutive 100-yard game and called it a night. Tomlinson had a 17-yard scoring run among his 107 yards as he led the American Football Conference West champion San Diego Chargers to a 23-3 victory against the visiting Denver Broncos on Monday night. He sat out the bulk of the second half. The Chargers (10-5) won for the fifth consecutive game and for the ninth time in 11 games. They can secure the A.F.C.’s No. 3 playoff seed by winning at Oakland on Sunday. Tomlinson scampered into the lead with 1,418 yards in his pursuit of his second consecutive league rushing title. His top challenger, Pittsburgh’s Willie Parker (1,316), broke his right leg Thursday, ending his season. His closest pursuer is the Minnesota rookie Adrian Peterson, who has 1,305 yards after being held to only 27 yards on nine carries in a loss to Washington. Peterson set the N.F.L. single-game record of 296 yards against San Diego on Nov. 4. The Chargers held the Broncos (6-9) without a touchdown in the season series. They beat the Broncos, 41-3, on Oct. 7 to end a three-game losing streak. LIONS ’ JONES OUT FOR SEASON A torn knee ligament will keep Lions running back Kevin Jones out of the team’s final regular-season game this weekend and could sideline him until the start of training camp. Tests revealed a torn anterior cruciate ligament in Jones’s right knee. He was injured late in the first half of Sunday’s 25-20 victory against Kansas City after being tackled on a short reception. Coach Rod Marinelli said Monday that the team’s medical staff would wait until the swelling in Jones’s knee eased to determine the best remedy. RUSSELL TO GET FIRST START Despite committing four turnovers and going 7 for 23 while playing most of the final three quarters of a 49-11 loss to Jacksonville, the Oakland rookie quarterback JaMarcus Russell will get his first career start Sunday against San Diego. RAVENS LOSE MCGAHEE Willis McGahee will miss the Baltimore Ravens’ season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers with two fractured ribs, an injury that further thins a depleted roster. McGahee was hurt in Sunday’s 27-6 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Baltimore also played without linebacker Ray Lewis, cornerbacks Chris McAlister and Samari Rolle, tight ends Todd Heap and Daniel Wilcox, and quarterback Kyle Boller. PARKER LOST FOR SEASON Willie Parker, the league’s leading rusher when he broke his right leg Thursday night in St. Louis, was officially lost for the season when the Pittsburgh Steelers placed him on injured reserve Monday. AROUND THE LEAGUE The Bears placed defensive end Mark Anderson on injured reserve with a knee injury. Anderson was hurt in a loss to Minnesota on Dec. 17 and was not active against Green Bay on Sunday. ... Titans cornerback Eric King had season-ending surgery on his broken left forearm Monday, an injury that will need up to six weeks for recovery. King, a key special teams player for the Titans, was hurt making a tackle in the first half of a victory against the Jets on Sunday. ... The Cardinals placed defensive tackle Ross Kolodziej on injured reserve and promoted linebacker David Holloway from the practice squad.

Football
Detroit Lions
National Football League
Jones Kevin


Guardians of Retired Judge Accused of Lax Accounting and Improprieties

Abstract: Those close to retired Judge John L. Phillips Jr., including his court-appointed property guardian, blame his previous guardians for much of the financial mess that may force the sale of the Slave Theater to pay the judge’s debts. The guardian, James Cahill Jr., says in court filings that those who used to be responsible for Mr. Phillips’s financial affairs not only mismanaged them but never paid taxes or filed timely accountings. Both are violations of the statute that governs Brooklyn’s guardianship program. At least one of the former guardians, Emani P. Taylor, was not bonded, another violation, according to Ezra Glazer, a lawyer for Symphony Moss of Ohio, Mr. Phillips’s niece and current personal guardian. The former guardians accused in court papers are Harvey L. Greenberg, Frank J. Livoti, Ray Jones and Ms. Taylor, all lawyers. According to reports filed in court by Mr. Cahill, Ms. Taylor wrote herself hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of checks from Mr. Phillips’s accounts. He alleged in the filings that she also paid about $100,000 to relatives and friends. Ms. Taylor was named interim guardian after Mr. Livoti and Mr. Jones were taken off the case. In an interview, she said that she was initially brought into the fold as Mr. Phillips’s lawyer, through a mutual acquaintance, after friends of the retired judge said that Mr. Livoti and Mr. Jones were not properly caring for his estate. Ms. Taylor said friends of Mr. Phillips told her that he was at times without heat or hot water. Mr. Livoti and Mr. Jones declined to comment for this article. Mr. Greenberg, the first court-appointed guardian, said that he served only a few months before stepping down after he realized how complicated the guardianship case was, especially because of the many characters who he said claimed to be Mr. Phillips’s “friends” but instead were ripping him off. “It became messy because he was incompetent before the world recognized that he was incompetent,” Mr. Greenberg said. “It’s a very sad case. I have been guardian for 30 years in this business, and I saw what was going on and I didn’t want to be a part of it.” Mr. Greenberg said he accepted no fees. He said that he had followed the case and that he “can’t understand why the guardian charged up a couple hundred thousand dollars.” Ms. Taylor, who was Mr. Phillips’s guardian for three years beginning in September 2003, said she inherited a hopelessly disorganized guardianship account with few, if any, records or documents showing which properties of Mr. Phillips’s had been sold, which he still owned or how much money he had. She said she could not even collect Mr. Phillips’s pension checks because she had no idea where they were being mailed. Ms. Taylor acknowledged that she paid herself roughly $300,000 from the judge’s estate but said she had been paying for clothing and food for him out of her own pocket. “I still don’t believe I did anything wrong,” Ms. Taylor said. “I received a guardianship account that was bankrupt. I wrote an order to the best of my ability, and that order was in consideration of the numerous people that needed to be paid in the future. At the point I was finally able to have the funds to pay persons, I rightfully believe that I was one of those persons.” Ms. Taylor said she hired relatives and trusted friends, saying that otherwise payment would have been required upfront. Reports filed in court by Mr. Cahill show checks totaling nearly $50,000 that were paid to Ms. Taylor’s mother, a registered nurse who for a time housed and cared for Mr. Phillips; roughly $40,500 that was paid to her son and daughter; and more than a dozen checks totaling about $15,000 that were written to another person believed to be a relative. Ms. Taylor defended her hiring of family members, saying that she paid her daughter and son-in-law, a licensed contractor, about $35,000 for contracting work on some of Mr. Phillips’s property, roughly half of what she says she owed them. Ms. Taylor said she paid her son a few thousand dollars over the years for work including cutting Mr. Phillips’s hair, providing security for her when she checked the judge’s property and acting as a property manager at some of the more “troubled” spots he owned. Mr. Glazer, the lawyer for Mr. Phillips’s niece, said Ms. Taylor’s methods were improper. “There was never a court order allowing her to pay herself,” he said. “Anybody that has ever been appointed guardian knows full well that they have to submit an affirmation of legal services, and it is up to the court to determine if that affirmation is correct.” Hearings will soon be under way to determine if Ms. Taylor broke any laws by paying herself. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office declined to press charges against Ms. Taylor and referred the matter to a lawyer’s disciplinary committee. The judge overseeing the guardianship case, Justice Michael L. Pesce of Brooklyn Supreme Court, recently recused himself. Dee Woodburne, a former paralegal who has been trying to get some of Mr. Phillips’s assets returned to him, filed a complaint last year with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct regarding Justice Pesce’s handling of the case. He did not respond to a request for comment last week. A judicial committee spokesman said that he could not confirm or discuss any matter in which the committee had not reached a conclusion.

Phillips John L Jr
Brooklyn (NYC)
Finances


Italy’s Veterans Teach Belgians a Seminar at Euro 2016

Abstract: LONDON — Did Italy fool everyone, even themselves, about how prepared they were for the European Championships? Italy Coach Antonio Conte had spoken for months about his team’s first opponent, Belgium, and how it had a “golden generation” of talent that might go all the way and win the tournament. At the same time, others wrote off Conte’s group of players as Italy’s worst in 50 years. Teams should know by now to be wary of Italians who come to the party wearing pessimism like a cloak of deception. They flatter opponents and lure them in, and then strike them down on the field. Italy’s 2-0 win over Belgium in Lyon, France, on Monday was the first unexpected result of this year’s Euros. France, Germany and Spain all won their opening games, but the fourth of the pretournament favorites, Belgium, could not. It was more what Italy did than what Belgium failed to do. Emanuele Giaccherini, who was maybe Italy’s fourth choice to play the midfield role, epitomized the team’s effort on Monday with his determination to convert a chance that no one expected him to get. Giaccherini stands just a little over 5-foot-5. He is 31, which is par for Italy’s lineup. And he spent his past 12 months playing on loan with Bologna. He is there because Italy no longer has a playmaker like Andrea Pirlo, who instead is counting down his career with New York City F.C. in Major League Soccer. Nor does Italy have anyone as creative as Alessandro Del Piero or Roberto Baggio were for teams of the past. But Giaccherini’s heart is big and his lungs are sound. In the 32nd minute, he burst forward, perhaps in hope rather than expectation. Leonardo Bonucci, whose main job is to defend, spotted Giaccherini’s run through the Belgian defense and struck a pass from the halfway line. It caught Giaccherini in stride, and he controlled the ball with his left foot, waited maybe half a second for Belgium’s goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, to rush toward him and then calmly struck with his right foot for a goal. After that, it was down to Belgium to prove that it was the sum of its lauded parts. Where was Eden Hazard, the most gifted of this new generation for Belgium? Where was Kevin De Bruyne, the player described as a “mastermind” by Belgium’s injured captain, Vincent Kompany? Where, indeed, was the Belgian gold? The answer is that they were outfought, outrun and outplayed by the Italians. “I’ve been repeating from the beginning that this is a group first and foremost of men — and then of footballers,” Coach Conte said at the postgame press conference. “You need an alchemy of people who get on well together, and the biggest satisfaction for me tonight is to see how happy they all were, including those on the bench.” Marc Wilmots, his coaching counterpart for Belgium, had no answers for the reporters. He said his main striker, Romelu Lukaku, “didn’t have a great night” and that his main playmaker, De Bruyne, “maybe was tired after a long season.” Tired? De Bruyne, 24, is a decade younger than some of the Italians who managed to channel his running into areas where he could not pose a threat. Unless he is sold, Hazard, 25, will come under Conte’s demanding rule next season when he takes over at Chelsea. On Monday, Hazard’s play looked pretty on occasions, but it also lacked effort compared to some of the veteran Italians. “The coach told us we had to prove ourselves on the pitch,” Giaccherini said. “And today, we did. We have to know how to suffer, how to help each other and be united and compact.” One imagines that message is one that Wilmots could pin up on the wall of the locker room for the Belgians to read and digest. Once Belgium did gain some momentum after halftime, Italy regrouped with its customary defense. It had elements of none-shall-pass brusqueness. Four Italians — Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini, Thiago Motta and the striker Eder — were more than happy to receive yellow cards for basically denying the Belgians the right to run at their defense with the ball. And then, in the dying moments of added time at the end, Graziano Pellè volleyed in the second goal, just to nail down the message that Italy could score with less opportunity than Belgium had throughout the night. This second strike, similar to what Germany did to Ukraine the previous day, was a message of ruthless finality. An indication that experienced winners do not often let opponents off the hook. “We have big intentions, and our objective remains the same, to get into the last 16,” concluded Conte. “We’ve got to be happy today, and a bit happy tomorrow. And then we have to prepare for Sweden because the memory of two years ago remains a wound in our minds.” Two years ago, Italy beat England in its first game at the World Cup in Brazil but lost the next game to Costa Rica. Conte reminded his men of that, while Wilmots insisted his golden generation is far from done. “If you make mistakes at this level,” Wilmots told reporters, “you pay dearly. But nothing is lost. We’ve got two games more to reach the knockout stage.”

Soccer
Euro 2016 UEFA European Championship
Italy
Belgium
Antonio Conte
Marc Wilmots
Eden Hazard
Kevin De Bruyne
Emanuele Giaccherini
Graziano Pellè