From the Archives: Where’s the Spirit of Selma Now?

Abstract: This story by Gay Talese ran in The New York Times Magazine on May 30, 1965 , almost three months after the attacks on demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. In advance of the 50th anniversary of the 1965 march, he returned to Selma to report on Selma today and what has changed and what has not over the past half century. SELMA, Ala. — A tourist, driving through Alabama, sees a road sign marked SELMA, and it jumps at him, lures him; and following it, he goes 40, 50 miles out of his way through the narrow, winding roads of the Black Belt, breezing under the lush green trees hung with gray moss, then up gentle hills past white farmhouses and quiet cows and old statues of Confederate soldiers, and not stopping until he sees a small concrete bridge, which he recognizes immediately. He has seen it often this year on television. It is the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It crosses the Alabama River and leads into Selma. The bridge was named after a Confederate general but, like many mementos of the Old South early this spring, it was accorded only a minimum of reverence — for Selma, then, became a city of strangers. And all they cared about, those civil-rights demonstrators who crossed the bridge on that sunny Sunday afternoon on March 7, was that it was a link to Montgomery; they had no idea that, within minutes, it would become a backdrop for perhaps the most dramatic and provocative scene in the South. When the more than 520 Negroes, marching two abreast and carrying satchels filled with extra clothing and shoes for the 50-mile journey to Montgomery, the state capital, did not retreat across the bridge as they were told, a charging wedge of Alabama state troopers moved toward them with billy clubs and gas grenades. What followed were the sounds of plastic helmets and wood crashing into flesh, strange sounds — clack, clup, clop — followed by the cries of Negroes falling to the highway, the cheers of white locals watching on the other side of the road, the hoof clicks of nervous horses mounted by a sheriff’s posse anxious to get into the act, the ticking of television cameras recording the whole scene, to be spun around the world and come bommeranging back to Selma. Soon thousands of sympathizers were bound for Selma — nuns, debutantes, psychiatrists, banjo players, Senators’ wives, stock clerks, sculptors, social workers, social climbers, dropouts — and for most of the month they lived in Selma’s Negro quarter, shared the Negro’s food and misery, sang his songs and scorned his oppressors; helped inspire a new guilt, a new social conscience, a new voting bill in America; helped instill in Alabama, among many illiterate and uninspired Negroes, a strange new hope that after the bridge had been crossed, after Montgomery finally had been reached, everything would somehow be all right, a kind of miracle would occur — it would be like Lourdes and the faithful might toss away their crutches. THIS was part of the spirit of Selma, part of the reason that this quiet Southern city of 30,000 became a hot spot on the map of the world, then a tourist attraction, although many tourists are not always sure why it attracts them; it has been described, after all, in various ways: a shrine of segregation, a bacchanalia for beatniks, a gentle Southern city noted for its antebellum mansions, a victimized little town that was converted by the demonstrators and the press into a national stage upon which to dramatize scenes between Alabama’s black angels and its white devils. And so, when tourists drive over the Edmund Pettus Bridge and dip down the gentle approachway into the heart of Selma’s business district, entering a very wide street lined by globe-lights and stores and shiny new cars, their faces are alive with anticipation. They drive slowly. They look ahead, look to the left, look to the right. They have the look of Boy Scouts looking for arrowheads. But slowly, very slowly, their expressions change from anticipation to bewilderment. Where is everything? They see nothing. They see only people, Negro and-white, walking casually up and down Broad street and in and out of shops. They see a policeman directing traffic. They see children on bicycles; young men in sports cars, farmers loading supplies; businessmen strolling into the corner drugstore for a cup of coffee. They see no marchers. They hear no one yelling “Freedom Now!” or singing “We Shall Overcome.” They feel cheated, many of these tourists, and they wonder if Selma was merely a show, a circus now moved to another town — not realizing that remnants remain, not realing that as they gaze upon Selma with innocent tourist eyes, they themselves are being watched by whites who suspect them of the worst, who despise them. Selma’s whites now regard all strangers — tourists, civil-rights workers, government agents, newsmen — as “outside agitators,” people who do not understand, do not know history, do not know that long, long before Martin Luther King came marching through Selma, there had been another man named King — and that he had helped shape the destiny of this city in a manner that is still unbroken despite the revolution of 1965. HIS name was William Rufus King. He became a United States Senator and later Vice President of the United States, but he is known here as the man who, shortly before this town was incorporated, in 1820, named it Selma —taking the name from Ossian’s “The Song of Selma” because, like the town in the legend, this one was set on high bluffs above a river. William Rufus King was the first wealthy white settler in Selma, and he set a style of life that was soon emulated by other early settlers, most of them prosperous: they built magnificent mansions, cleared 1,000-acre plantations, planted cotton, imported slaves. By 1840, Selma was the heart of Alabama’s booming cotton economy, and there were considerably more slaves than whites; but the whites, while continuing their genteel existence, dabbling in politics and culture and horse racing (one Selma thoroughbred, Letty Lee, won big races in London, Paris and Berlin), kept the Negroes in line with 27 ordinances regulating slave behavior. If slaves were discovered away from their homes without written permission from their owners, they might be punished by 39 lashes; if found smoking a cigar or pipe on the streets, or carrying a walk cane — another 39 lashes. In 1848, 300 German immigrants, many of them ironworkers and mechanics, came to Selma and inroduced iron casting and gunmaking; and as the city was served by both river and railroad, it became an ideal supply depot and industrial center for the Confederate states just before the war began. Thus it also became, in the spring of 1865, a major military objective of the North. That April 2, Selma was attacked by 9,000 Northern soldiers including a Negro regiment, who overwhelmed the 3,000 Confederate defenders and destroyed the city. They burned homes and public buildings, butchered horses, destroyed 35,000 bales of cotton, and then, discovering barrels of whisky that the Confederates did not have time to destroy, they continued to sack the city through a wild and drunken night. Perhaps no part of Alabama was more ravaged by the war and Reconstruction than Selma, and much of the bitterness has remained. It may account in part for the fact that shortly after the United States Supreme Court’s school desegregation decision in 1954, Selma became the first Alabama city to organize a Citizen’s Council; and this biterness, too, may have helped shape the racial views of such native sons as T. Eugene (Bull) Connor, the Police Commissioner: who led dogs and directed firehoses against Negro demonstraters in Birmlngham; and Leonard Wilson, a Unlversity of Alabama student who in 1956 led a campus movement aimed at preventing the Negro student, Autherine Lucy, from attending classes there; and James G. Clark, Jr., Selma’s sheriff and its symbol of segregation this spring, who when asked by newsmen if he had any hero that influenced his thinking, unhesitatingly replied, “Nathan Bedford Forrest.” Forrest was the Confederate general who tried to defend Selma from 9,000 “outside agitators” back in 1865, and Sheriff Clark saw himself, 100 years later, as trying to do the same thing. Both failed. And their failures were followed by quietude. But scars remain. These scars are not easily spotted by tourists who visit Selma today, but they are there, sometimes on the surface of the city, sometimes beneath. There is a quiet hate now between large numbers of Selma’s white and black citizens —a reaction not unlike that which existed after the Battle of Belma in 1865. Today many Selma whites who formerly referred to Negroes as “colored folks” are snapping out with “nigger”; and Negro hitchhikers, who once could easily get a ride into town from the outskirts, today are waiting long hours along the road and usually end up walking. It is said that nearly 200 Negroes have lost their jobs in Selma since the demonstration began here. And the simple truth, as of now, is that despite all the parades through Selma in March, all the slogans and television shows and sermons and songs — and all the talk — the common Negro in this town today is generally no better off (indeed, he is worse off in some cases, being unemployed mad more hated) than he was before the whole civil-rights push got started. The schools are still segregated. So are the Y.M.C.A., the pool, the jail. The restaurants and hotels are not segregated, but Negroes feel so unwelcome that they stay away; only an extremely game Negro now dares to test laws in this hostile atmosphere. (“You can’t legislate how people feel,” says Selma’s City Council president, Carl Morgan.) Most of the churches, though they deny it, are segregated — segregated in spirit, segregated in the sense that the white parishioners would rather not see black men in the pews on Sunday, to put it mildly; and this includes most of Selma’s Jews who attend the Temple Mishkan Israel, most of Selma’s Catholics who attend the Church of the Assumption, and most of the white Protestants who attend the other churches here. Image Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., lower left, and several thousand demonstrators gathered at the county courthouse on March 18, 1965, in Montgomery, Ala. The marchers waited in the rain for several hours while Dr. King met with officials in the courthouse. The author Gay Talese can be seen in the lower right in a suit. Credit Associated Press (“If I would shout ‘Integration,’ they would think I am crazy, they might drive me out of town,” explains Selma’s Rabbi Lothar Lubasch, who escaped Nazi Germany in 1938. Then he added, ‘It is easy for outsiders to come and march here ..., but when they leave, they leave us the pieces....) Negro requests for representation on the Selma police force have so far been denied on the grounds of insufficient funds and no immediate plans to add new patrolmen; and Negro chances for fair employment in skilled positions in Selma businesses have not, so far, been improved by the civil rights demonstrations last March. The relationship between the Negro job seeker and white employer today is at a low point, and much of this animosity springs from the fact that many Negroes now are buying either from the few Negro merchants in Selma or in cities beyond Selma. This not only has infuriated the white merchant in Selma, but has (in cases where the merchant catered to Negro trade) hurt him financially. But it has embittered him even more than it has hurt him, and so he is not about to knuckle under and hire a Negro, say, as a sales clerk in a clothing store where the Negro will come face to face with white customers. THE voter-registration drive has been slow. In March it was said that only 325 of the 15,000 Negroes who comprise a bit more than half of Selma’s population had been registered; today, according to estimates by Negro leaders here, about 650 Negroes are registered to vote. Those Negroes who twice each month line up outside the Dallas County Courthouse are kept waiting, they say, five and six hours in the sun; and then, if they are a minute late in reporting to the registrar’s desk after their number has been called, or if they did not hear it (which is sometimes the case), they are told to come back in two weeks because they were too late. While Negro leaders are meeting regularly with Selma’s Mayor Smitherman, it is mostly, as one city councilman put it, “talk.” The Negroes will begin by complaining, say, about police hostility or about lack of jobs or lack of paved streets. Then the whites, after listening patiently for a while, will deny any police hostility and will suggest that Negro unemployment problems would vanish if only Negroes would cooperate. How? the Negroes ask. By stopping those damned petitions, say the whites, such petitions as the one urging the Hammermill Paper Company not to open a new plant in Selma; and by stopping the boycott of Selma businessmen. But, the Negroes say, boycotting is a major civil-rights weapon, an indispensable nonviolent tactic in waking up whites. And, the Negroes continue, what excuse is there for all the unpaved roads in Selma’s Negro quarter? Well, the whites say, the only way a neighborhood’s streets can get paved in Selma, as in many Southern towns, is by assessing those who live on the street. We have no money, say the Negroes. You’d get money, say the whites, if you’d stop that damned boycotting and marching and hollering; if, instead of intimidating industrialists who might come down to Selma, you would take an ad in the paper saying everything is fine in Selma; then you would have more industry here, more jobs, more money for paving your streets. You’re stalling us, say the Negroes, you’re dragging your feet. Thus it goes at these weekly meetings — just “talk,” as the councilman says. And this lack of progress so far has tended to discourage all but the most determined of Selma’s Negroes — and, in truth, many Selma Negroes, these grandchildren of Selma’s slaves who chose to remain here after their “freedom” was won by the North, are not determined Negroes. They are passive Negroes, by and large, and if they are going to make advances, they must be led, must be mobilized, must be marched by civil-rights leaders. And today most of the leaders and civil-rights freedom-fighters — both black and white — have abandoned Selma. They have either returned to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or Atlanta; or perhaps they have found a new cause in another town, be it a Demopolis, Ala., or a Syracuse, N.Y. — in any case, they are not in Selma, as any tourist who wanders into the Negro quarter of this town can see. On Sylvan Street, that famous street of so many crowds ago — that street in which Negro and white demonstrators, nuns and S.N.C.C. boys and Radcliffe girls and labor leaders joined hands and stood all day and night in a driving rainstorm and sang “We Shall Overcome” — that street today, deserted except for a few small Negro children playing in the gutter and some adults who slowly come and go, is a street where the Movement is now crawling. The rain has stopped in Selma, the storm is over. It is now May and it is a bright hot sun that beats down on Sylvan Street and makes piecrust of bumpy dirt roads, bakes the concrete pavement, scorches the grass. All along Sylvan Street are lined red brick houses, identically designed, and within them live the Negroes who, back in March, were hosts and hostesses to hundreds of whites who came to “make witness” in Selma, and now these homes on Sylvan Street are filled with thank-you notes, with large unpaid telephone bills — run up by out-of-state demonstrators who asked to use the phone — with glorious memories of days and nights the streets when the streets were never unsung with Negro songs that the whites learned, these whites who had come from all over the nation to Selma even though, prior to coming, many never before had sung a Negro song, slept in a Negro home, prayed in a Negro church, or felt so safe at night on a block filled with Negroes. It was a fantastic time, so wondrously unreal: Negro laborers shaking hands with Mrs. Paul Douglas; Negro scrubwoman kissing Dr. King; the Ivy League girl and S.N.C.C. boy sitting together on the steps of the Negro Baptist church discussing Truth; all the whites calling the elderly Selma Negroes “Mr.” “Mrs.” and caring about them in a way that Selma Negroes had never before been cared about by whites, and might never be again: yes, a wondrously unreal time, and it was climaxed by the big march to Montgomery, being protected by the Federal Government, sung to by Sammy Davis Jr., encouraged by James Baldwin and admired the world over — and hated by the whites in Selma. But now, in May, as the Mayor of Selma says, “things are pretty much back to normal.” He says it as many white leaders in Selma today say it: with a knowing nod, a half-smile, a Southerner’s sense of Northern hypocrisy. After all, they say, this is not the first time the “agitators” from outside have come barging into Selma to win a cause for the Negro; they did it in 1865 and then, the battle won, they went off and left the Selma Negroes and Selma whites with, as the rabbi put it, “the pieces.” However, it is not entirely true to say that all whites have abandoned Selma. There are still a dozen or so living or working in the Negro quarter, helping with the voter registration program, helping Negro adults and children in all ways possible, still “making witness” in this symbolic city. These include a tall, blond Californian 22-year-old Dennis Coleman, a former marine now working with the Selma Committee for Community Development; Donna Smith, a 20-year-old former coed from Tyler, Tex., also with S.C.C.D.; a white Methodist minister from Berkeley, the Rev. David Smith; and a 19-year-old blonde from Hamilton, Calif., who is married to and now living here with a 22-year-old Negro named Gerald Turley, one of Dr. King’s assistants with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “In Selma,” Mrs. Turley says, ‘“I’m classified as a white nigger,” and her husband adds that they do not walk through the white district together or alone; if they wish to leave the Negro quarter, they usually bring others with them for protection. Like most of the civil-rights workers now on Sylvan Street, the Turleys have very little money, and eat most of their meals at Brown Chapel, the Negro church that was headquarters for the movement this spring. They share living space with another Negro family on Sylvan Street. They met in August, 1964, in California; Carol Turley, now a volunteer worker with S.C.L.C., saw her future husband on a picket line demonstrating against the hiring practices of the Bank of America. A conversation followed, then a date and, six months later, marriage. In March, they were part of the procession to Montgomery and now they are living in Selma and they are both, though not vehement about it, disappointed that more white people did not stay in Selma. “The white people came down here and demonstrated, then went back North feeling very good that they had come,” Gerald Turley was saying the other day, standing on a sunny sidewalk near Brown Chapel. “The whites felt they did their share, and they did a lot. Some of them have sent money back to Selma, and clothes and they helped focus attention on the problem of Selma, and we appreciate that. But they shouldn’t feel that they solved anything, because they didn’t. The problem is still here.” A block away, in the basement of the First Baptist Church on the comer of Sylvan Street, a Negro named Ernest L. Doyle, who is in charge of receiving all gifts mailed to Selma to help Negro citizens, particularly those unemployed, was saying, “We’re very thankful for all we’ve received, but there were a lot of white people who came down here and made promises and then, when they went back home, they forgot us.” He said that the amount of money pledged in March, was far, far more impressive than the amount received as of May. What has been received, and what is now piled high along the walls and floor of the church’s basement, is hundreds and hundreds of used dresses and hats and coats; cartons of canned goods, sacks of rice, boxes of books and soap and hairpins and Fritos; and thousands of pairs of women’s shoes, high heels, low heels, no heels, some shoes unmatched — and also seven pairs of ice skates. “Oh, if Dr. King could only stay here we’d have no problems,” a Negro woman named Mary Lamar, who lives down the block from the church, was saying. “Dr. King is a second Moses. And he could come here and say, ‘We’re going to all march in the Alabama River,’ and we’d all do it. But when he isn’t here, we!l, some local leaders, they don’t always think like Dr. King ... and there are so many of these in CORE, the S.N.C.C. the Dallas County Voters League, the Dallas County Youth League, the Selma Emergency Relief Fund — you have all the leaders and, well, they kind of confuse things.... They’re not Dr. King.” “Mrs. Lumar is one of the Negro women who have kept in touch with the whites who shared her home in March, and in fact, she recently accepted an offer to fly to New York, all expenses paid, and appear before civic clubs to discuss the sins of Selma. One of the places Mrs. Lamar visited was Syracuse, which had sent 62 down to Selma in March, but when the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation was being picketed in Syracuse by CORE in May for “tokensim” only 20 of the 62 Selma “veterans” demonstrated in public, according to a spokesman for CORE, who cited it as yet another example of ”Northern hypocrisy.” Mrs. Lamar, though hardened to the realities, still has not lost hope, and she is happy — “for my children’s sake” — that there was an event like Selma. For, while her life is no better than before — ”I’m poorer than before,” she says, holding up a telephone bill totaling $103.18 — she feels that Selma, with all its faults and hypocrisy and unfulfilled promises, has made a lasting impression in the South and beyond. “Selma did something,” agrees another Negro woman, Mabel Evans, who lives a few doors away. ”It did something that’s hard to explain, but it’s inside where you can’t see it ... I mean, you remember when Jim Clark said there wasn’t gonna be no march to Montgomery except over his dead body? Well, we marched, didn’t we? And a lot of other things happened here that we thought we never gonna see happen... and maybe it will help change the thinking of the Negroes ... not now ... but years from now ...”

Black People,African-Americans
Selma
Civil Rights


Orange and Bouygues Telecom Call Off Takeover Talks

Abstract: Another telecommunications deal in Europe has fallen apart. On Friday, Orange, the former French telecom monopoly, and Bouygues Telecom, a local rival, called off takeover talks after failing to agree on a proposed deal worth 10 billion euros, or $11.4 billion. The move is the latest in a growing list of mergers in the European telecommunications industry that have faltered after the region’s antitrust authorities raised questions about whether further industry consolidation would be in the best interest of customers. Such concerns have already upended a number of proposed deals, including a prospective merger last year between two of Denmark’s largest telecom operators. Potential combinations, including a much-rumored deal between Vodafone, the telecom based in London, and Liberty Global, the cable company controlled by John C. Malone, have also failed to emerge. Antitrust concerns were raised at the time of Orange’s proposed takeover of Bouygues Telecom in January , but both sides said on Friday that the failure to reach terms on the deal, and not potential competition issues, had scuttled the takeover. In particular, Bouygues, a French conglomerate that owns Bouygues Telecom, said in a statement that it had failed to reach agreement on its stake in the new entity and on the valuation of the company’s telecom unit. The company said it also had concerns about whether the deal would be approved by the country’s authorities. Analysts expected Orange to sell off part of the enlarged entity to national rivals to win regulatory approval. It also remained unclear how much of a stake the French government, which owns a minority stake in Orange, would have retained if the takeover had been approved. “In a market where the possibility of consolidation is now ruled out for the long term, Bouygues Telecom will continue its stand-alone strategy,” the company said in its statement. In response, Orange said it would now focus on investing in its own telecom network across France. The proposed deal would have created one of France’s largest telecom operators as the industry faces a cutthroat price war that has pitted Orange against upstart rivals like Iliad and Numericable-SFR. Orange has more than 260 million subscribers worldwide, including roughly 28 million in France, while Bouygues Telecom has 14 million customers, all in France. This is not the first time that Bouygues Telecom has been at the heart of takeover talks. Two years ago, the company failed to acquire SFR, another French carrier, in a lengthy takeover battle with Altice, the Amsterdam-listed cable company that controls the French cable operator Numericable. After months of negotiations, Vivendi, the owner of SFR, finally agreed to sell SFR to Altice for about € 17 billion. After Bouygues Telecom’s failure to acquire SFR, analysts said that it did not have the financial muscle to compete against better-financed rivals, including Orange. In 2015, Bouygues Telecom also rejected a € 10 billion takeover from Altice, whose owner — the French billionaire Patrick Drahi — has also expanded into the United States by acquiring the American cable operators Suddenlink Communications and Cablevision. That 2015 deal would have combined two of France’s largest mobile providers — Numericable-SFR and Bouygues Telecom — to overtake Orange as France’s largest cellphone company.

Bouygues Telecom
Orange
Telecommunication
Mergers and Acquisitions
Europe


Vietnam Government Critic Arrested

Abstract: The police in Vietnam have arrested one of the country’s best known bloggers for posting criticism of the government, intensifying a crackdown against Internet-fuelled dissent in the one-party, authoritarian state. The arrest of the blogger, Pham Viet Dao, 61, indicates the level of concern in the Communist Party over the threat posed by Internet activism. Up until a few years ago, the party had a monopoly on information in the country. Now, scores of blogs and Facebook accounts report gleefully on its failings and internal feuding. So far this year, 38 bloggers or activists have been arrested, about the same as in the whole of 2012. Mr. Dao was arrested Thursday and charged with “abusing democratic freedoms,” the Ministry of Public Security said on its Web site.

Pham Viet Dao
Vietnam
Blog
Communist Party of Vietnam
Criminal Sentence


EMI Chief Leaves After Private Equity Takeover

Abstract: Eric Nicoli stepped down as chief executive of the EMI Group yesterday ahead of private investors’ purchase of the music corporation, which had tried unsuccessfully throughout his eight-year tenure to merge with rivals. Mr. Nicoli’s exit came as Terra Firma Capital Partners, the European private equity firm that paid £2.4 billion ($4.8 billion) for EMI, named executives from its own ranks to management positions and board seats. EMI’s chief financial officer, Martin Stewart, will also depart in advance of the company’s removal from the London Stock Exchange, expected in mid-September. Terra Firma, a five-year-old firm led by the financier Guy Hands, also said EMI would report to a new supervisory board that would be overseen by Mr. Hands and another Terra Firma executive, Julie Williamson. Under Mr. Nicoli, 57, EMI tried several times to merge with rival music companies, most prominently Warner Music Group. Each time, the efforts stumbled on regulatory concerns, management disputes or other hurdles. In recent years, EMI also struggled financially, posting a string of profit warnings and lagging behind in the United States, the world’s biggest music market. After a management shake-up earlier this year, Mr. Nicoli rattled the industry by pushing ahead with a plan to sell digital downloads of music unfettered by copy restriction software — a departure from the big labels’ conventional wisdom on fighting piracy. Mr. Nicoli said in a letter to employees yesterday that he would remain an adviser to EMI to assist in the transition to new ownership. Mr. Nicoli is expected to depart with compensation valued at about $6 million, according to a person briefed on EMI’s affairs. Mr. Hands said in a release that his early focus would be to “maximize the value of the significant assets in EMI’s publishing business and to realize the digital opportunity in recorded music.” One possibility is that EMI could orchestrate a securitization of its music publishing business, which generates relatively steady sales from a vast catalog of song copyrights. Before selling to Terra Firma, EMI hired Deutsche Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland to explore that option. Mr. Hands’s own background includes similar so-called structured finance deals. EMI could also pursue a sale to Warner Music of its recorded music unit, which includes labels like Virgin and Blue Note.

EMI Group Plc
Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd
Appointments and Executive Changes
Executives and Management
Music


House Allows Debt to Rise $1.9 Trillion

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Thursday to allow the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt, an increase of about $6,000 for every United States resident. The accumulated debt already amounts to roughly $40,000 per person. The debt increase, approved 217 to 212, is only enough to keep the government afloat for about another year as it borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends. The budget is more than $3.7 trillion this year, and the deficit is approaching $1.6 trillion under the budget submitted by President Obama this week. Democratic leaders devised the increase, to $14.3 trillion in the cap on federal borrowing, to ensure that the rank and file will not have to vote on another increase before the November midterm elections, when they will face voters who are angry over government spending and debt. Passage of the bill sends it to Mr. Obama, who will sign it to avoid a first-ever default on United States obligations. Thirty-seven Democrats, mostly from Republican-leaning districts, voted against the measure. So did all Republicans, even though they routinely supported increases in the borrowing cap when their party controlled Congress or when George W. Bush was president. To help win passage of the debt increase, Democratic leaders put forward budget rules intended to curb the increasing deficit. The new rules, approved Thursday on a 233-to-187 vote, would require future spending increases or tax cuts to be paid for with either cuts to other programs or equivalent tax increases. If the rules are broken, the White House budget office could force automatic cuts to programs like Medicare , farm subsidies and unemployment insurance. Current rules lack such enforcement provisions and have commonly been waived over the past few years, at a cost of about $1 trillion. Most other benefit programs — including Medicaid , Social Security and food stamps — would be exempt from such cuts, which has led Republicans to charge that the new rules are just as weak as the old.

Federal Budget (US)
United States Economy
United States Politics and Government
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Hospital Network in Albany Area Settles Antitrust Suit With Nurses

Abstract: A hospital network in the Albany area has agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle a class-action antitrust lawsuit in which nurses asserted that hospitals in the area had illegally conspired to hold down their wages. The settlement with the network, Northeast Health, based in Troy, N.Y., was the first to be reached in a series of related antitrust lawsuits that nurses have filed in Chicago, Detroit, Memphis and San Antonio. The settlement, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was filed on Monday with the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. Under the agreement, Northeast Health will be prohibited from sharing current and future wage information about nurses with other health care organizations in the Albany area. In addition, lawyers for the nurses can have access to employees from Northeast Health to help them pursue their lawsuits against Albany Medical Center and other health providers in the area. Albany Medical Center has called the accusations made by the nurses unfounded. Northeast Health called the lawsuit “completely false” and admitted no wrongdoing. It issued a statement saying, “We never conspired with any other hospital to suppress nurse wages.” Northeast Health said that it reached the settlement to stop spending “its scarce resources on this litigation.” The nursing arm of the Service Employees International Union helped gather information for the lawsuit. Cathy Glasson, a nurse in the union’s Nurse Alliance, called the settlement a breakthrough for nurses. “For too long,” she said, “hospitals cut corners when it came to valuing the hard work of nurses.” Officials from the group asserted that artificially depressed wages were one reason for the nursing shortage. The Northeast Health system includes Albany Memorial Hospital, Samaritan Hospital in Troy and Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital in Schenectady. The settlement of the class-action lawsuit covers direct-care nurses who worked in certain Albany-area hospitals from June 20, 2002, to June 20, 2006.

Albany (NY)
Nursing and Nurses
Suits and Litigation
Service Employees International Union
Northeast Health
Antitrust Actions and Laws


Progress for Northwest

Abstract: Northwest Airlines can begin seeking creditor approval of a plan to exit bankruptcy that values the company at an estimated $7 billion, a judge ruled yesterday. Judge Allan L. Gropper of Federal Bankruptcy Court said that once Northwest revised its disclosure statement to include agreements reached yesterday, the statement could be released to creditors along with a restructuring plan. Northwest wants to cancel all existing shares in the company and issue 272 million new ones.

Northwest Airlines
Bankruptcies
Decisions and Verdicts


Merger Mania in Hospitality Raises Competition Concerns

Abstract: The travel industry’s 800-pound gorillas have been bulking up, and consumers are getting nervous. A series of mergers in recent months — from Expedia ’s acquisitions of rival online booking companies to Marriott International ’s recent takeover of Starwood Hotels and Resorts — have only quickened the pace of consolidation in the industry. “I believe it’ll reduce competition,” Steve Ledewitz, an independent meeting planner, said of the Starwood-Marriott merger. He said he used to be able to drive bargains for clients by making Marriott and Starwood hotels vie for his business. “Once my client picks the city they want to go to, Starwood and Marriott would compete against each other, and many of their brands do match up against each other, so there was a lot of head-to-head,” he said. Others are taking a wait-and-see approach. “It’s definitely got some positives and negatives to it,” Alex Borodkin, an SPG, or Starwood Preferred Guest, member who spends most of his time on the road as an accounting consultant, said of the acquisition. “It’ll open up more options for me to earn points, but I am worried about the value of my points going down.” Part of the reason for the mergers is the rise of home rental sites, industry observers say. They call the Marriott-Starwood deal a prudent, perhaps necessary move in the wake of consolidation among online travel agencies, which hotels rely on for nearly 20 percent of their bookings, according to the research firm Phocuswright. “The calculation here is really pretty simple,” said Douglas Quinby, vice president for research at Phocuswright. “When you control more supply and you have a distributor that brings you demand but needs your supply, you have a little bit more negotiating leverage.” Marriott’s announcement came less than two weeks after the online travel agency Expedia said it would buy HomeAway , the home-rental platform and Airbnb rival, for $3.9 billion. And that deal followed two other acquisitions by Expedia this year, of its rivals Orbitz and Travelocity. “I think Marriott recognized that bigger is better in dealing with some of the emerging threats to the industry, things like greater consolidation among the online travel agencies,” said David Loeb, a senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Company. “This is one way to fight back.” The hotel companies bitterly, though unsuccessfully, opposed Expedia’s $1.3 billion purchase of Orbitz , which gives the combined company control of roughly 75 percent of the domestic market for third-party online booking, according to Phocuswright. Expedia, which also owns sites including Hotwire and Hotels.com, now primarily competes against the Priceline Group, which owns Booking.com and has made several acquisitions of its own over the past couple of years, including OpenTable, the restaurant reservations platform, and Kayak. Buying HomeAway, the biggest company in the home-rental industry, helps Expedia catch up, said Chekitan Dev, a marketing and branding professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. Image The W New York - Times Square in Manhattan. Credit Cj Gunther/European Pressphoto Agency “It sort of levels the playing field with them a little bit,” he said, predicting that home rental eventually would be integrated in a way that makes it as easy for travelers to book as a hotel. “I think, over time, it’s going to be just another option on Expedia.” Dara Khosrowshahi, Expedia’s president and chief executive, said that consolidation had helped consumers. For instance, Mr. Khosrowshahi, who is also on the board of The New York Times Company, said his company had lowered or eliminated airfare booking fees on many itineraries. “Consolidation on the Internet has to be a force for price reductions,” he said. Corporate travel professionals expressed concern, though, that the Marriott-Starwood deal could kick off a domino effect of additional acquisitions. “The perception might be there’s another consolidation similar to what we’ve seen on the airline side,” said Greeley Koch, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. “We’ve seen this happen in the past.” Phocuswright’s Mr. Quinby agreed that additional mergers or acquisitions are more likely than not. “I’m quite sure we’ve not seen the end of consolidation on the supply side,” he said. “I think you’re going to see other hotel chains look at consolidation as a way to compete with the combined Marriott-Starwood behemoth.” Some of the objections from travelers stem from the way consolidation in the airline industry, which has left four carriers responsible for roughly 80 percent of United States air traffic, led to the erosion of mileage values and statuses. Marriott is keenly aware that the new guests it is bringing into the fold are skeptical of its intentions. In a video provided by a spokesman, Marriott’s chief executive, Arne Sorenson, sought to reassure guests, especially SPG members, that they would not be lost in the shuffle. “The SPG program was one of the most attractive aspects of our acquisition of Starwood,” Mr. Sorenson said in the two-minute message, saying the company wanted to preserve the best aspects of both SPG and Marriott Rewards. “Devaluing points or member benefits is not the way to preserve and strengthen these programs.” Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University, said hotel mergers are unlikely to create the loyalty program depreciation that elicited gripes from frequent fliers because of the way hotel loyalty programs are financed. In frequent-flier programs, airlines foot the bill for traveler benefits, giving them a financial incentive to pare down perks after consolidation. Hotels are financed and managed differently, in that Marriott and Starwood do not actually own the majority of hotels that bear their brand names. Franchisees like real estate investment trusts own the buildings and pay into a pool of funds that finances the guest loyalty program. “It’s much different in the hotel industry” than when two airlines merge, said Dan Wasiolek, senior equity analyst for Morningstar. Loyalty program members might even be happily surprised, Mr. Hanson suggested. “There’s a better than 50 percent chance that the programs will be merged with the most favorable of both available to travelers,” he said.

Travel,Tourism
Hotels
Mergers and Acquisitions
Starwood Hotels
Marriott International
Expedia
Customer Loyalty Programs
Travel agency


Sweeping New Restrictions Take Aim at Protesters Camped Out in Kiev

Abstract: The Ukrainian Parliament on Thursday pushed through sweeping legislation outlawing the installation of unauthorized tents in public spaces and imposing other new restrictions on protests that seemed aimed at authorizing the government to clear hundreds of demonstrators occupying Independence Square in Kiev, the capital. The law, hustled through Parliament in a surprise move by supporters of President Viktor F. Yanukovich, drew immediate criticism from opposition leaders in Ukraine and from Western nations, including the United States. They accused lawmakers of circumventing normal legislative procedures in a bid to suppress dissent by restricting freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Demonstrators have occupied Independence Square in central Kiev since early December. Mass protests in Ukraine began in late November over Mr. Yanukovich’s decision to back away from signing political and free-trade agreements with the European Union that had been in development for years. After a violent crackdown by the police on peaceful protesters, opposition groups seized control of the square, establishing a tent encampment and occupying several public buildings, including City Hall. Image A fight broke out Thursday during a budget debate in Ukraine’s Parliament. A law was also passed that sought to curb antigovernment protests. Credit Sergei Chuzavkov/Associated Press Thursday’s measure was approved by Parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada, by a show of hands. “Some of these measures will restrict the right to peacefully protest and exercise the freedom of speech, constrain independent media, and inhibit the operation” of nongovernmental organizations, the State Department said in a statement on Thursday, adding: “The process and substance of the Rada’s actions today cast serious doubt on Ukraine’s commitment to democratic norms.” The measure would bar the installation of tents, stages or amplifiers in public places, with violations punishable by fines of up to about $640, and 15 days in jail. People or organizations who lead such demonstrations, or provide equipment for them, would also face fines and jail time. A large stage has been in place in Independence Square for weeks, and it is the focal point of demonstrations against Mr. Yanukovich and his government. Opposition lawmakers angrily denounced the legislation. “The current situation in Parliament shows that the parliamentary majority has turned into a criminal group of people who falsify votes,” said Volodymyr K. Kurennoy of the Udar Party, which is led by the former world champion boxer, Vitali Klitschko. “The people of Ukraine have been deprived of civil rights and liberties,” Mr. Klitschko said.


College Players Granted Right to Form Union

Abstract: CHICAGO — A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled Wednesday that a group of Northwestern football players were employees of the university and have the right to form a union and bargain collectively. For decades, the major college sports have functioned on the bedrock principle of the student-athlete, with players receiving scholarships to pay for their education in exchange for their hours of practicing and competing for their university. But Peter Ohr, the regional N.L.R.B. director, tore down that familiar construct in a 24-page decision. He ruled that Northwestern’s scholarship football players should be eligible to form a union based on a number of factors, including the time they devote to football (as many as 50 hours some weeks), the control exerted by coaches and their scholarships, which Mr. Ohr deemed a contract for compensation. “It cannot be said that the employer’s scholarship players are ‘primarily students,’ ” the decision said. The ruling comes at a time when the N.C.A.A. and its largest conferences are generating billions of dollars, primarily from football and men’s basketball. The television contract for the new college football playoff system is worth $7.3 billion over 10 years, and the current deal to broadcast the men’s basketball tournament is worth $10.8 billion over 14 years. The decision could give momentum to those who believe the N.C.A.A. should modify its rules on how athletes are compensated. The ruling applies only to scholarship football players at Northwestern, but the precedent could extend to other Division I scholarship football players at similar private universities. (Collective bargaining at public universities is governed by state law, not the N.L.R.B.) “It’s another brick being taken out of the castle the N.C.A.A. has constructed,” said the ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, a former college basketball player. “It’s not going to stand forever, and we’re getting closer and closer to it tumbling.” A Northwestern spokesman, Alan K. Cubbage, said in a statement that the university would appeal the decision to the five-member N.L.R.B. in Washington, a process that could take months. The N.C.A.A. was not a party to the labor proceeding, but it said in a statement that it was “disappointed” with the ruling. “We strongly disagree with the notion that student-athletes are employees,” Donald Remy, the N.C.A.A.’s chief legal officer, wrote. The newly formed College Athletes Players Association is focusing its efforts on Division I football and basketball players, and it is unclear if scholarship athletes in nonrevenue sports will benefit from the ruling. The players group submitted the petition to the N.L.R.B. on behalf of the Northwestern players in January, and an often testy hearing followed last month. Lawyers for the players association and Northwestern argued the question of whether the players were students, employees or a hybrid . Kain Colter, a former Northwestern quarterback and the face of the movement , testified that he was steered away from difficult science classes and denied his dream of pursuing a career as a doctor. Northwestern defended what is considered a sterling academic record: 97 percent of its football players graduate, the highest rate among universities in the top division of collegiate athletics. The ruling centered not on the treatment of players, but on the university’s relationship to them. “Just because they’re a good employer doesn’t mean they’re not an employer,” said Tim Waters, the political director for the United Steelworkers, a union that has worked on rights for college athletes for more than a decade. He added: “The players won on every question.” Mr. Ohr cited several examples to support his conclusion that Northwestern football players were on campus to play football and were different from other students. He noted that Northwestern football reported $235 million in revenue from 2003 to 2012, and that players are recruited for their athletic ability, not their academics. Team guidelines include drug testing and a provision that players cannot refuse a friend request from a coach on Facebook. If players do not follow the rules, their scholarships can be revoked. In 2004, the N.L.R.B. ruled that graduate assistants at Brown were primarily students and denied them a petition to unionize. Mr. Ohr said that precedent did not apply to football players because, among other reasons, their role as athletes was separate from their academic role. The decision also compared the time spent on football activities with the time spent on academic responsibilities. “The players spend 50 to 60 hours per week on their football duties during a one-month training camp prior to the start of the academic year and an additional 40 to 50 hours per week on those duties during the three- or four-month football season,” the ruling said. “Not only is this more hours than many undisputed full-time employees work at their jobs, it is also many more hours than the players spend on their studies.” The decision includes a directive for a secret ballot election, which Mr. Waters said would proceed soon despite Northwestern’s appeal. Mr. Colter has said that the vast majority of the team signed the original petition, and that the main concerns of the players group were better health care and limited practice hours. A likely outcome is that Northwestern players hold a vote and the results are impounded while the national board reviews the case. If the decision is upheld, Northwestern will have the option to refuse to bargain with the union, which would send the case to a federal appeals court. A number of lawyers have already taken aim at how the N.C.A.A. operates. A federal lawsuit filed last week is being led by Jeffrey Kessler, an antitrust lawyer who specializes in sports cases. The suit says that the N.C.A.A. and the five so-called power conferences have made billions of dollars off college football and basketball players by restraining their compensation. The N.C.A.A. is to go to trial this summer in a case brought by the former college basketball player Ed O’Bannon; college athletes are arguing that they should be compensated for the use of their likenesses in video games and broadcasts. It has also been targeted with lawsuits relating to its handling of head injuries. The N.C.A.A. said Wednesday that its members had worked over the past three years to “re-evaluate the current rules.” “While improvements need to be made, we do not need to completely throw away a system that has helped literally millions of students over the past decade alone attend college,” Remy, the N.C.A.A.’s lawyer, said. “We want student-athletes — 99 percent of whom will never make it to the professional leagues — focused on what matters most: finding success in the classroom, on the field and in life.”

NCAA
NLRB
Northwestern University
College football
College Sports
Labor Unions
United Steelworkers
College


Turkey, Its Allies Struggling, Tempers Ambitions to Lead Region

Abstract: ANKARA, Turkey — As Egypt’s Islamist demonstrators faced an imminent confrontation with security forces in Cairo last summer, the advice they received from Turkish officials was adamant: Stand your ground. For Turkey, the counsel was as much about supporting its Islamist allies as it was about trying to prop up its waning regional influence. With the Islamists ousted from power by the military in Cairo, the demonstrators represented a last stand for Turkey’s effort at building a new Sunni Muslim axis of power — with Turkey as an anchor. But the protesters were routed, and hundreds were killed in a campaign that not only neutered Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood but also Turkey’s ambitions. Now Turkey is rethinking its effort to reshape the region, and is instead reaching out to the Middle East’s two Shiite Muslim powers, Iraq and Iran. “There is no doubt that romanticism over the Middle East is gone,” said Suat Kiniklioglu, a former official in the governing Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials A.K.P., who now runs a research center in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. The idealism of leading a new Sunni alliance has given way to a more pragmatic approach centered on securing access to oil and gas for its economy, improving conditions for Turkish businesses and finding a way out of the intractable conflict in Syria. Many analysts describe the shift as a return to the mantra of “ zero problems ” with neighbors, a slogan that had previously guided Turkey’s foreign policy under the governing party. One of the most striking indications of the shift came when Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu recently visited Baghdad and said “there is no limit to cooperation” between the countries. Mr. Davutoglu dressed in black, a symbol of mourning that is central to the Shiite faith, prayed at a famous Shiite shrine, met the spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the militant Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr, and talked about embracing his Shiite “brothers” in the holy city of Karbala. He had already hosted his Iranian counterpart in Turkey, and officials say Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will visit Baghdad and Tehran. Turkey, in supporting the rebel fighters in Syria, is on the opposite side of that war from Iraq and Iran, who have been strong supporters of the government of Bashar al-Assad. But as the international community pursues a political solution to the conflict, Turkey has fallen in line with the diplomatic path, in part because it is frightened by the rise of Islamist radicals leading the rebels along its border. It would have preferred Western-led military action in Syria. When it comes to Iran, Mr. Assad’s strongest ally, Turkey is trying to position itself to be able to persuade Tehran to at least give up support for Mr. Assad, in particular, as part of any peace plan. That, at least, would allow Istanbul to save face after having been adamant that Mr. Assad leave office. “They are not saying yes, they are not saying no,” said a Turkish official who has been involved in the talks with the Iranians. “They know they cannot support Assad forever.” For the last couple of years Turkey and Iraq have had a strained relationship, centered on a bitter personal feud between Mr. Erdogan and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Turkey had supported the Sunni opposition within Iraq, and when Mr. Maliki targeted the former Sunni vice president Tariq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges in late 2011, Turkey gave Mr. Hashemi refuge. In Iraq, Turkish businesses suffered boycotts and Turkish workers found themselves detained for work permit violations, while Mr. Maliki shut down an important route through Iraq for Turkish trucks. Turkey and Iran have managed to maintain a relationship, if often a strained one, mainly because of energy interests. As a rising economic power but with few of its own sources of energy, Turkey relies on Iran and Russia for natural gas and oil imports. Even so, some Turkish officials see Iran as their greatest rival, and in backing the rebels in Syria, Turkey hoped to remove Syria from Iran’s sphere of influence. Before the revolts and revolutions of the Arab Spring, Turkey used its economic clout and cultural influence, including from the soap operas that are wildly popular around the region, to expand its reach around the Middle East, even imagining a regional alliance along the lines of the European Union. The civil war in Syria, though, has laid bare the limits of Turkey’s so-called soft power, as it has been the Iranians’ hard power — their commando units and spy services — that have had the greatest impact on the conflict. Turkey’s intelligence agency, historically focused on counterintelligence within the country, has found itself with few capabilities within Syria or Iran, and has come under sharp criticism by the West for allowing weapons to reach extremist jihadi groups fighting in Syria. For Mr. Erdogan, the missteps and failures of Turkey’s Middle East policy have cost him stature in the region, just as the harsh police crackdown on antigovernment protesters in Turkey last summer tarnished his image, and that of his party, in Europe and the United States. After a popular uprising ousted the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Erdogan was hailed as a hero in Cairo and his party gave technical and financial support to the Brotherhood, seen as ideological brethren to the Justice and Development Party. Now Mr. Erdogan would probably be forbidden by Egypt’s new military rulers from setting foot in the country. A planned trip to the Gaza Strip by Mr. Erdogan, a visit once seen as a triumphant symbol of his support for Palestinian rights — what had been the source of his popularity on the Arab street — is off indefinitely. “Erdogan is no longer a hero in the Middle East,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the chairman of Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party. “He believed he could do everything by himself, and design everything himself.” As an opposition figure, Mr. Kilicdaroglu is expected to criticize the prime minister, but similar sentiments are voiced privately by government officials close to the governing party. Analysts say that with hindsight, it is clear that Turkey’s vision as a leader of a new Middle East is at best hopeful, given the burdens of history and the legacy of Turkish rule over the Arab world during the times of the Ottoman Empire. For that reason, they added, the shift back to its policy of no enemies is not completely unexpected. “Arabs don’t want to be bossed around by the Turks,” said a Western official in Ankara.

Turkey
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Justice and Development Party Turkey
Egypt
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt
Bashar al-Assad
Iraq
Iran
Arab Spring


Graft Inquiry Intensifies Turkish Political Rivalry

Abstract: ISTANBUL — At dawn on Tuesday the police raided the offices of several businessmen with close ties to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as part of a wide-ranging corruption investigation, immediately raising the stakes of an unfolding political contest of wills here between two men who have long held sway over the country’s Muslim masses: an ailing and aging Turkish preacher who lives on a sprawling compound in the Poconos, and Mr. Erdogan. The corruption dragnet, in which the sons of three cabinet ministers were also detained on allegations of bribery, is a threat to Mr. Erdogan, involving as it does the same issue inciting the wave of antigovernment demonstrations that swept the country last summer: the construction business and public financing of real estate. The investigation also threatens to shake Turkey’s political establishment ahead of a series of elections that will determine the future of the country’s Islamist governing party, in power now for more than a decade. But it also figures in the personal battle going on between Mr. Erdogan and the charismatic preacher, Fethullah Gulen. The preacher left Turkey in 1999 for exile in America after he was accused of trying to establish an Islamic state. He presides over a global following in the millions, some of whom have come to fill the ranks of Turkey’s police and judiciary, including a prosecutor said to be leading the latest corruption investigation. He and Mr. Erdogan were once uneasy partners in a political alliance that aimed to rid Turkish politics of the influence of the military, which carried out three coups in the 20th century and protected the secular elite while oppressing the pious classes. After a series of trials, numerous generals and officers are in prison, and civilian authority over the military seems assured. But now Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Gulen are openly feuding, raising questions about the cohesion of the Islamist-rooted governing party here. The raids and detentions on Tuesday riveted the public, partly because the Istanbul prosecutor said to be leading the investigation, Zekeriya Oz, is believed to be sympathetic to Mr. Gulen, as are many others throughout the government. That has raised suspicions in the Erdogan camp of an antigovernment conspiracy. Kadri Gursel, a Turkish columnist, recently wrote that the rift is “actually a divorce proceeding that is getting uglier by the day.” Image Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Credit Burhan Ozbilici/Associated Press Like many divorces, this one has come with its share of tawdry allegations, and the discord has also been fed by a series of leaked documents that revealed a government effort to monitor religious groups — including the Gulen movement — as far back as 2004, around the time Mr. Erdogan became prime minister. The tension between the two camps erupted several weeks ago over what would seem to be the trivial matter of a government plan to shut down private test preparation centers that provide tutoring to students for college entrance examinations. But it highlighted suspicions within some wings of the governing Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials A.K.P., about the growing social power of the Gulen movement, which runs schools in more than 100 countries and owns many of the tutoring centers the government is trying to shut down. The current corruption investigation increases the pressure on Mr. Erdogan. He was already facing opposition from the urban liberals and secular-minded Turks who found their voice in the summer’s antigovernment demonstrations, and he is now facing cracks within his conservative religious base, which represents half of the electorate in Turkey. One of the targets of the corruption inquiry is Ali Agaoglu, a construction tycoon behind several controversial development projects in Istanbul. The ministers’ sons, according to the newspaper Hurriyet, are being investigated on suspicion of taking bribes in bids for public projects. Others caught up in the investigation are said to be municipal workers accused of taking bribes in return for ignoring zoning regulations. The offices of the state-run Halkbank were also raided, and an Iranian businessman, Reza Zarrab, who is married to a Turkish pop star, was detained. In a statement posted online, Mr. Agaoglu’s company said that its “headquarters was searched with a court order,” and that “there were no elements of a crime or criminal components found at the premises.” Late on Tuesday, Mr. Agaoglu sat inside an Istanbul police station, smoking, drinking tea and waiting to be questioned by the authorities. Hasan Rahvali, the chief executive of Mr. Agaoglu’s construction firm, said in a telephone interview that “claims about corruption allegations are merely rumors.” He continued: “Criteria to participate in public bids are very clear, and there’s full transparency in procedures. We are ready to cooperate if there is any information required by the legal authorities.” Image Fethullah Gulen Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times While many commentators here saw the influence of the Gulen movement behind the investigation, one senior member of a Gulen-affiliated organization denied any link between the group and the investigation. The movement’s power within Turkey stems from the positions it controls within the state, experts say, and not necessarily its ability to swing an election. Analysts and A.K.P. officials believe the group’s electoral support is only in the low single digits. That is why many analysts say Mr. Erdogan could yet keep his hold on power — he is widely believed to be planning a run for the presidency next year — without the support of the Gulen movement. But the worry inside Mr. Erdogan’s inner circle, according to officials and analysts, is that some powerful Gulen-affiliated businessmen will try to split the A.K.P. and finance a rival party. Already, two A.K.P. lawmakers have quit the party over the dispute, including a former soccer star turned politician, Hakan Sukur, who resigned Monday and criticized the party for shutting down the Gulen-affiliated test preparation schools. That worry has deepened as many Gulen supporters have found common cause with the largely secular and youthful protesters of last summer. Many of the concerns voiced by the protesters in the streets about the growing authoritarianism of Mr. Erdogan are shared by followers of Mr. Gulen. To a great extent, these are the same people who supported Mr. Erdogan in his pursuit of democratic overhauls, his promise of a new constitution to replace the one imposed by the military after a coup in 1980 and his quest for European Union membership. “We still think that their efforts to curb the militarized system, and prosecute coup perpetrators were correct, and so we supported them,” said Mustafa Yesil, the director of the Journalists and Writers Foundation, a Gulen-affiliated organization in Istanbul. “Mr. Erdogan’s attitude and approach at those times were more embracing and liberal.” But he never followed through, Mr. Yesil and others say. “The new constitution that we all aspire to never came, the European Union membership process has been stalled and regarding the Syrian policy, instead of a peaceful approach, it was all about burning bridges, which caused a lot of problems for Turkey. “The approach became harsher,” Mr. Yesil added, “and therefore was unacceptable.”

Turkey
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Fethullah Gulen
Corruption


Tullia Zevi, Who Led Italian Jewish Community, Is Dead at 91

Abstract: ROME — Tullia Zevi, who fled Fascism as a teenager and led Italy’s Jewish community during a period of improving relations with the Vatican , died on Saturday in Rome. She was 91. Her death, in a hospital near her home in Rome’s Jewish Ghetto after a short illness, was confirmed by her granddaughter, Nathania Zevi. As president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities from 1983 to 1998, Ms. Zevi was among those who greeted Pope John Paul II when he visited the Rome synagogue in 1986, the first by a modern pope to a synagogue and a watershed in Catholic-Jewish relations. She also helped negotiate a groundbreaking agreement between Jewish leaders and Italy as part of a reform in which Roman Catholicism lost its status as an official state religion and the symbols and property of other faiths were granted equal status under the law. Elegant, poised and multilingual, Ms. Zevi played a major role as the dialogue between the Vatican and the world Jewish community blossomed, and she helped negotiate thorny issues, like moving a Carmelite convent away from the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp after Jews objected. The Vatican issued a rare condolence note, praising her contribution “to sincere and fruitful dialogue between Jews and Christians.” Tullia Calabi was born on Feb. 2, 1919, one of four children in an upper-middle-class family in Milan. She was on summer vacation in Switzerland with her family in 1938 when Mussolini passed the racial laws that restricted Jews’ ability to own property or engage in a range of professions. Her father moved the family to France and then to New York, where they became involved in anti-Fascist circles. Ms. Zevi continued her studies in philosophy and music; an accomplished harpist, she performed with orchestras, including one backing a young Frank Sinatra. It was in New York that she met the architect Bruno Zevi, who was a member of a clandestine anti-Fascist group and later an important proponent of Modernism in Italy. They married in 1940. As a journalist, Ms. Zevi was one of the few women to cover the Nuremberg trials. For the next 40 years or so, she reported from Italy, Russia and the Arab world for various publications. Ms. Zevi had strong ties to Italian center-left politics. In 1962, she helped arrange a meeting at her Rome apartment between the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. — whom she had befriended in New York in the 1930s, when he had asked her to dance and she declined — and leaders of the Italian Socialist Party. An adviser to President John F. Kennedy at the time, Mr. Schlesinger had been dispatched to investigate center-left political blocs in Europe. The Socialists were then splitting from the Communist Party, and the meeting was intended “to show them that there were people on the left who didn’t eat babies,” Ms. Zevi said in “Ti Racconto la Mia Storia” (“I’ll Tell You My Story”), a 2007 book of conversations with her granddaughter. An outspoken critic of intolerance, Ms. Zevi believed that the Jews of Europe should stand in solidarity with the Muslims of Europe against currents of racism and xenophobia. Such views did not always make her popular with Italy’s politically conservative Jews. Nor did her handshake with Yasir Arafat when he spoke at Rome’s City Hall in 1996. That meeting was aimed at “making possible a new dialogue between Jews and Muslims,” she said in “I’ll Tell You My Story,” adding that her support for the State of Israel was always “total, but critical.” Besides her granddaughter, Ms. Zevi is survived by her son, Luca, and a daughter, Adachiara Zevi, both of Rome; a brother, Eugenio, of Philadelphia; and a grandson, Tobia, of Rome. Bruno Zevi, from whom she had been separated, died in 2000. In the book of interviews, Ms. Zevi said that she did not believe in an afterlife and that she had lived her life with one guiding idea: “hic et nunc,” Latin for “here and now.” “What we have to do is here,” she said. “The rest is just hypothetical.”

Zevi Tullia
Jews and Judaism
Deaths (Obituaries)
Roman Catholic Church
John Paul II
Holocaust and the Nazi Era


Abstract: So, Sundance, Would You Rather Play Jack or Ennis? ROBERT REDFORD was in town yesterday to announce a new collaboration between the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Sundance Institute, which he founded in 1981 to promote independent films. Maybe it was BAM's swank surroundings or a recording of ASTRUD GILBERTO whispering about "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars," but even the usual elbows-out paparazzi seemed restrained, with the mousetrap sounds of their shutters muffled by the saxophone overhead. There was no frenzied scrum when Mr. Redford entered BAMCafe and shook hands with STEVE BUSCEMI, BOB VILA and assorted notables. And no photographer or television cameraman, as far as could be heard, shouted out the local equivalent of "Aye, Queenie, show us some leg!" For his part, Mr. Redford seemed casual, even rumpled. His reddish hair was uncombed and he squinted amiably through wire-rim eyeglasses. He wore a black tuxedo jacket, black scarf, blue jeans and no jewelry except a Navajo turquoise ring. MARTY MARKOWITZ, the Brooklyn borough president, gushed to the audience, "All these years I've said I looked like Robert Redford, but now that I've met him." He paused. "I can't lie to myself anymore." Mr. Markowitz welcomed Mr. Redford to Brooklyn, home to fellow actors Mr. Buscemi; PAUL GIAMATTI, of "Sideways;" and HEATH LEDGER and MICHELLE WILLIAMS, of the cowboy love story "Brokeback Mountain." The rumpled Mr. Redford took to the lectern, smiled at Mr. Markowitz, and said, "Well, believe it or not, I woke up this morning feeling like I looked a little like Marty." Mr. Redford, 68, confessed to being captivated by Brooklyn since he was a boy, not only because of the Brooklyn Dodgers and their ballpark, Ebbets Field, but also because of writers like IRWIN SHAW and THOMAS WOLFE. "So obviously I had a fascination with Brooklyn that led me to where we are today," Mr. Redford said. It also turned out, he said, that many of the most creative filmmakers and other artists at the Sundance Institute came from Brooklyn. The Sundance-BAM collaboration will be called Creative Latitude, partly because Brooklyn and Park City, Utah, where the Sundance Film Festival is held, share roughly the same 40 degree latitude. Starting in May, winners and other films from the festival will be shown at BAM. Other programs will focus on theater and music. And then it was over. Boldface asked Mr. Redford about his favorite films of 2005. "Oh, I'm going to be diplomatic and I'm not going to answer that," he said. "I'm in a position where that could be very risky." Well, what did you think of "Brokeback Mountain"? "I liked it very much," said Mr. Redford, who made a name for himself in 1969 playing THE SUNDANCE KID, after whom his institute is named, in the movie "BUTCH CASSIDY and the Sundance Kid," which also starred PAUL NEWMAN. At a panel discussion last month, ANG LEE, director of "Brokeback Mountain," said that Mr. Newman "would be good for the JACK character," which is played by JAKE GYLLENHAAL. Mr. Newman was a "classic romantic type, if it was shot in the 60's," Mr. Lee said. In that case, would Mr. Redford have been interested in playing ENNIS, the character played by Mr. Ledger? Mr. Redford's face tightened, and his publicist looked stricken. "Oh, that's a separate conversation," Mr. Redford said. His publicist said tersely, "We're done." Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Tori Spelling Has a Script At the Getty Center, part of the sprawling Getty Museum complex in Los Angeles, JEREMY PIVEN, LING BAI, TORI SPELLING and DEAN McDERMOTT attended a Volkswagen car "celebration" on Wednesday. What are you doing these days, our correspondent asked Ms. Spelling. Best known for "Beverly Hills, 90210," Ms. Spelling replied that her new VH1 show, "noTORIous," was having its premiere in April. "It's not a reality show," she said, "it's a scripted sitcom, loosely based on my life, kind of like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' "

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC
REDFORD ROBERT
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL (PARK CITY UTAH)


Girl, 4, Falls Down Manhattan Elevator Shaft

Abstract: A 4-year-old girl fell more than 20 feet down an elevator shaft on the Upper East Side on Wednesday afternoon, fire officials said. The girl, who was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, was getting onto an elevator at 435 East 85th Street about 2:30 p.m. when she fell into a gap between the elevator and the landing and plummeted 20 to 25 feet to the basement, fire officials said. The girl was with her mother, who quickly came to her rescue with the help of emergency workers, a fire official said. The girl, whose name was not released, was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. A fire official said rescue workers were surprised that the girl did not suffer more serious injuries. A listing for the building showed that it was the location for a film production company, and several residents of the neighborhood said they sometimes saw movies being filmed there.

Elevators and Escalators
Rescues
Accidents and Safety
Falls
Upper East Side (NYC)


How Clinton and Sanders Pursue Change, Academically Speaking

Abstract: How, actually, does the world change? As Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, and Senator Bernie Sanders compete for the Democratic presidential nomination, they have fleshed out not only rival policy platforms, but also rival theories of change: How to diagnose what needs changing, where to stand relative to the system you would change, and how to measure change. I asked some scholars for their help in distilling and distinguishing these theories of change. Diagnosis If you think the United States’ ailments have multiple, intersecting, sometimes unrelated causes, Mrs. Clinton may be more your speed. If you believe those ailments can be traced to the root cause of money, Mr. Sanders may be a better fit. Ann Fabian, a historian at Rutgers, suggested that Mrs. Clinton is a fox and Mr. Sanders a hedgehog, a reference to the philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s formulation about those “who pursue many ends” (foxes) and those who “relate everything to a single central vision” (hedgehogs). “Which is why Sanders is the better campaigner right now,” Professor Fabian added. For Peter Alexander Meyers, a professor of American studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, Mr. Sanders’s focus on money is compelling because “the money in question is not one thing, or even a thing.” “In America, in modernity, money is an entire and pervasive symbolic realm that infuses almost everything else.” Prof. Tiya Miles, a historian at the University of Michigan, admires both candidates but is more drawn to Mrs. Clinton’s notion of multiple, intersecting “barriers,” not all reducible to economics. “There is no single, stand-alone root for the problems that Americans face today,” she said. “For example, American slavery was an exploitative economic system developed by the elite, but it depended on widespread ideologies of race and gender for its persistence and brutal effectiveness.” Where to Stand If you value a candidate’s ability to work an existing system and are willing to overlook the compromises involved in belonging to it, Mrs. Clinton may suit you. If you most admire purity of purpose and are willing to overlook a lack of experience in dealing with the systems a candidate pledges to reform, Mr. Sanders could resonate more. The Berlin-based ethnographer Alexa Clay, who studied change agents in her book, “The Misfit Economy,” talks about mainlands, islands and peninsulas. The mainland is where old power rules. On islands you can “incubate alternative agendas,” but it is hard to “infect and influence the system.” A peninsula, though, “has enough isolation to stand in integrity for something new, while maintaining influencing ties to the mainland.” Ms. Clay framed the Sanders-Clinton race as a choice between the builder of an alternative power base on a peninsula and a mainland cultural maverick who knows how to “game the system.” Measuring Change If you value tangible legislative accomplishments most, Mrs. Clinton is perhaps your pick. If you would be willing to trade fewer such accomplishments for a shot at changing the terms of political debate for years to come, Mr. Sanders may be more appealing. “Most of what Sanders preaches would be irrelevant during his hypothetical presidency because he couldn’t get any of it approved by Congress,” said Robert J. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University. But Lily Geismer, a historian at Claremont McKenna College and the author of “Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party,” argued that not getting things done has sometimes been the prologue to getting a lot done. She cited the Republican Barry Goldwater’s ideologically purist, failed 1964 presidential run. Mr. Goldwater has been called “the most consequential loser in American politics” — because, in Professor Geismer’s telling, he forged a new coalition (the young, suburbanites, libertarians, religious conservatives, business elites, Southern whites) and distilled a message about freedom. His party won five of the next six presidential contests. “Campaigns, even more than presidencies, can have a long-term impact,” Professor Geismer said.

Hillary Clinton
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
2016 Presidential Election


Rangers Earn Breathing Room With Late Goal

Abstract: ST. PAUL — As the nights of the regular season dwindle to a precious few, the Rangers ’ coaches and players profess almost no interest in whether they can stave off the surging Pittsburgh Penguins and finish first in the Eastern Conference. Regardless of the perceived importance, the Rangers increased their advantage Tuesday night, beating a Minnesota Wild team mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, 3-2 . Ryan McDonagh, a St. Paul native playing his first game as a professional at Xcel Energy Center, set up two goals, including the winner, delighting some 80 friends and family members on hand to watch. Meanwhile in Pittsburgh, the Penguins stumbled badly against the all-but-eliminated Islanders, 5-3 . “We don’t care about the Penguins,” said Brian Boyle, who scored his second goal in three games, took a game-high six shots and excelled at face-offs and body checks. Henrik Lundqvist, who stopped 24 shots in his sixth straight start as he tries to regain the groove he had in the first two-thirds of the season, said, “It doesn’t matter about the Penguins — we’ve talked enough about them.” Whether the Rangers care or not, the combination of results left them 3 points ahead of Pittsburgh atop the East . The Penguins hold the fourth seed, and each team has six games remaining. Had the Rangers lost and the Penguins won on Tuesday, Pittsburgh would have been in first and the Rangers would have been trailing with the fourth seed. The score was tied at 2-2 with less than seven minutes to play when McDonagh set up the winning goal. He held the puck in at his defense position on the Minnesota blue line and burst down the left-wing boards past two Wild players. He centered the puck to Ruslan Fedotenko, who buried his shot with 6 minutes 23 seconds remaining. “It felt comfortable in this rink,” said McDonagh, a 22-year-old who played a handful of games in the building in high school and with Wisconsin, and who as a young boy watched the expansion Wild after their formation in 2000. “My dream of playing pro hockey started in this building when the Wild came here,” he said. “I’m really happy I had so many family and friends and my parents here to support me.” The Rangers took leads of 1-0 and 2-1, but each time, they allowed Minnesota to equalize on power-play goals. Marian Gaborik put the Rangers ahead at 7:58 of the second period with his third goal in two games and 38th of the season. It was his second game back in Minnesota since leaving the Wild to sign with the Rangers in the summer of 2009, and his first goal as a visitor to Xcel Center. “I heard boos, which doesn’t surprise me,” said Gaborik, who scored the Wild’s first goal in 2000 and 219 over all in eight seasons with Minnesota. “But I’m glad I got that goal.” The Rangers’ next game is Wednesday night at Winnipeg against the Jets, who are all but eliminated from playoff contention. Pittsburgh plays on Thursday against the Islanders in a rematch on Long Island.

New York Rangers
Minnesota Wild
Pittsburgh Penguins
Fedotenko Ruslan
Hockey Ice


Can the Frog Jump Before the Water Boils?

Abstract: BEIJING — A week is a long time in politics. Even in China , where leadership is measured in decades. So as Beijing gloried recently under brilliant blue skies, the kind of weather known here by the saying “qiu gao qi shuang” (the autumn sky is high, the air is crisp), there was a strong sense that much was still up for grabs as the country approached the important 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing that will choose new leaders, including a party general secretary and the members of the inner circle of power, the Standing Committee of the party’s Politburo. A president and prime minister will follow from that, early next year. The dates have not been publicly announced, but two sources, who asked for anonymity — the date of a major political conclave is regarded as a secret, like so much else here — said leaders have settled on Oct. 13-18. That could change, and there is much speculation the meeting may be delayed. Either way, at least four weeks of fierce politicking lie ahead. Cue last week’s blaring message for reform from Wang Yang, the party secretary of the southern province of Guangdong, a contender for a seat on the Standing Committee. Mr. Wang likened China to the frog in a pot of slow-boiling water. While the temperature is still comfortable, no one is willing to make changes, he said in a speech in Foshan that was widely disseminated online and in newspapers. By the time the water is too hot, it’s too late, he said. The system is riddled with economic and political inefficiencies, and discontent is rising, Mr. Wang warned. “The contradictions are growing, and if they are not resolved, they may affect social stability, even evolving into mass incidents,” said Mr. Wang, employing party-speak for demonstrations, riots and uprisings. In other words, the stakes, like the autumn sky in Beijing, are high. It has been a turbulent year, with China muddling its way through with a still fast-growing economy that is, however, beset with shrinking growth rates, a Leninist political system and rising expectations at home and abroad. The brutal fall earlier this year of the politician Bo Xilai , a contender for a top job; harsh political jostling over corruption as candidates finger each other in an attempt to get ahead; the unexplained two-week disappearance of Xi Jinping , the man expected to become party leader and president; and territorial disputes with neighbors are all jangling nerves. At whom was Mr. Wang’s call for reform aimed? In Beijing, some believe it was aimed at Mr. Xi, who has privately commissioned reports on economic and political reform, analysts said — off the record, again. Mr. Wang’s call was significant, intended to nail his reformist colors to the mast, said Joseph Cheng, a professor of political science at the City University of Hong Kong. It was important, he said, because in a sign of how many things remain undecided, Mr. Wang’s place on the Standing Committee is still not assured. “My guess is that four members are assured places,” Mr. Cheng said by telephone, singling out Mr. Xi; Li Keqiang (expected to become prime minister); Wang Qishan, a deputy prime minister; and Li Yuanchao, the head of the party’s powerful Organization Department. “Wang Yang is not. So he has been working very hard to get promoted,” Mr. Cheng said. At 57, Mr. Wang has a curious factor working against him, said another analyst: his age. Not because he’s too old, but because he may be slightly too young. If Mr. Wang were appointed this year he would be just 67 at the end of Mr. Xi’s — possible — tenure, in 2022, said the Chinese analyst, who asked for anonymity. But as part of efforts to systematize the retirement of senior leaders, unofficial rules decree: “qi shang, ba xia,” meaning, “seven rises, eight retires.” At 67 in 2022, Mr. Wang would be eligible for a third term, an undesirable prospect given the wish to limit officials’ time at the top. “His age will work against him,” predicted the analyst. “They will wait another five years to appoint him,” at the next congress in 2017. Does this all matter for reform? Yes, but not as much as one might expect, said Mr. Cheng, who did not comment on the age issue. Mr. Wang’s speech was essentially a classic piece of politics, aimed at winning backers, he said. But it was low in specifics. “He did not propose any particular reforms, such as a timetable for elections, or elections at the county level,” said Mr. Cheng. “It’s always nice to present yourself as a reformer, without getting into trouble,” he said. “It’s quite a sophisticated way to promote yourself. It’s image building without being specific. You can’t go seriously wrong with that!” In other words, Chinese politics is full of pragmatists, like anywhere else, and the next decade will show if the frog gets boiled alive or if it hops out of the pot.

China
Communist Party of China
Bo Xilai
Xi Jinping


Given Fewer Coupons, Shoppers Snub Macy’s

Abstract: It was the boldest stroke in American retailing in decades. The Macy’s chain completed its takeover of 410 department stores around the country a year ago and renamed them all Macy’s, vowing to lure shoppers with innovations like price scanners in the aisles and exclusive fashions from the likes of Oscar de la Renta. So far, the grand plan is not working. A big reason? Macy’s forgot a basic law of human nature: Shoppers love a deal. For years, the department stores that Macy’s acquired, like Marshall Field’s and Filene’s, had relied on 15- and 20-percent-off coupons to alert people, like a Pavlovian bell, that it was time to shop. As part of its reinvention, Macy’s tried to wean shoppers off them. But the tactic backfired. With fewer coupons to clip, thousands of people from Washington to Los Angeles turned their backs on Macy’s. Now the company’s chief executive, Terry J. Lundgren, one of the brightest stars in American retailing, is pleading mea culpa — and backtracking. Macy’s pledges to issue plenty of coupons for the holiday shopping season. It’s a lesson that other companies have also learned the hard way. Since the first coupon was issued for the Coca-Cola Company in 1894, companies have occasionally tried to take them away — and suffered. Cuts by the Ruby Tuesday chain in 2004 hurt sales. Procter & Gamble’s effort in 1996 led to boycotts. Even in this era of Internet shopping, it seems, Americans are wedded to a low-tech form of marketing: the dotted-line clip-out coupon. For years, Karen Gundling, 41, a communications consultant in Parma, Ohio, relied on 20-percent-off coupons from Kaufmann’s in Cleveland to buy shoes. Then Macy’s took over. “Now that Macy’s doesn’t do coupons, I don’t buy shoes there,” Ms. Gundling said. Curbing coupons was not the only change that upset shoppers. In 2005, Macy’s, then known as Federated Department Stores, acquired May Department Stores, which owned 11 storied chains around the country, like Foley’s in Houston and Robinsons-May in Los Angeles. Last year, Macy’s changed all the store names, a move that upset loyal shoppers. Mr. Lundgren said the new chain, with 800 stores and $27 billion in sales, would be big enough to secure exclusive product lines from big names — as it did, with Elie Tahari and Martha Stewart — then blanket the country with advertisements to let shoppers know about it. To complete the makeover, Macy’s reduced its reliance on midprice clothing brands like Levi’s and Dockers. Mr. Lundgren tried to create a new kind of national department store that would no longer compete head-to-head with lower-priced competitors like J. C. Penney and Kohl’s. But the changes amounted to “too much, too fast,” Mr. Lundgren acknowledged in an interview. It turns out that men, in particular, are creatures of shopping habit. They want to go to the local department store and find the Dockers where they have always been. Mr. Lundgren said that abruptly curtailing discounts like coupons was Macy’s biggest misstep, contributing to four consecutive months of falling store sales this spring. Macy’s stock has dropped more than 40 percent since it bought the May stores. Mr. Lundgren said his plan “will take longer than we had planned or expected,” adding that “the strategy is crystal clear, and I know we are on the right track.” Despite their dowdy image, coupons remain a huge business. In 2006, companies issued 279 billion of them, or roughly 1,000 per person, up 13 percent in four years, according to NCH Marketing Services in Deerfield, Ill. They remain, above all, a psychological tool, granting shoppers the seemingly illicit — and gratifying — right to snag a bargain. (Never mind that stores typically set prices high and budget for the “discounts.”) “If you have ever watched a person at a cash register with a handful of coupons, you can see they are so proud,” said Jan S. Slater, a professor of advertising at the University of Illinois. “They love taking their coupons out, counting them, showing them off, watching as the tab on the cash register falls.” But retailers dislike coupons, which train shoppers to wait for deep discounts, making it harder to sell full-price merchandise. Moreover, Mr. Lundgren said, “in our research, customers told us, ‘It’s complicated and confusing and I don’t know what the exact price is.’” So Macy’s, which still sends coupons by mail to loyal charge card users, said it issued about 30 percent fewer coupons for the general public at the former May stores in spring 2007 than in the previous spring. An analysis by a professor at Stetson University College of Law in Florida, Mark D. Bauer, suggests the pullback may have been more extensive; he counted a 63 percent drop in Washington, at the former Hecht’s chain, and 59 percent in Cleveland, at the former Kaufmann’s. Macy’s had reason to think it could pull off the cuts. Before the merger, it had trimmed coupons at its own stores by about 25 percent. But that reduction was gradual, taking five years. After the sudden cuts at former May stores, customers did not congratulate the chain for simplifying their shopping; they groused about seemingly higher prices. Nancy Lauffenberger, 39, a medical administrator outside Chicago, said she counted on the 20-percent-off coupons from Marshall Field’s, which allowed her, a working mother, to splurge on luxuries like a $625 leather coat. “For me, it was a very expensive coat,” she said, “but with the coupon, it was a great price.” These days, Ms. Lauffenberger shops more at stores like Kohl’s. Macy’s tried to head off the problem. In Chicago, sales clerks explained to customers that they would save more using their new Macy’s charge cards, which can be programmed for discounts. “The shoppers didn’t believe it,” said Frank J. Guzzetta, who runs the former Marshall Field’s stores. “They wanted their coupons back.” So Macy’s is dropping plans for deeper coupon cuts this fall, though executives will still hand out fewer than chains like Marshall Field’s did before the merger. And Macy’s is undoing some other changes — ordering more Levi’s and Dockers, for instance. Lisa Ellis, 41, a bank employee in Euclid, Ohio, said she largely gave up on Macy’s after it bought Kaufmann’s. “But if Macy’s used more coupons,” she said, “I’d go back.”

Macy's Incorporated
Retail Stores and Trade
Coupons
Discount Selling