Smart, Social and Erratic in Captivity

Abstract: Should some of the most social, intelligent and charismatic animals on the planet be kept in captivity by human beings? That is a question asked more frequently than ever by both scientists and animal welfare advocates, sometimes about close human cousins like chimpanzees and other great apes, but also about another animal that is remarkable for its intelligence and complex social organization — the killer whale, or orca. Killer whales , found in all the world’s oceans, were once as despised as wolves. But in the last half century these elegant black-and-white predators — a threat to seals and other prey as they cruise the oceans, but often friendly to humans in the wild — have joined the pantheon of adored wildlife, along with the familiar polar bears, elephants and lions. With life spans that approach those of humans, orcas have strong family bonds, elaborate vocal communication and cooperative hunting strategies. And their beauty and power, combined with a willingness to work with humans, have made them legendary performers at marine parks since they were first captured and exhibited in the 1960s. They are no longer taken from the wild as young to be raised and trained, but are bred in captivity in the United States for public display at marine parks. Some scientists and activists have argued for years against keeping them in artificial enclosures and training them for exhibition. They argue for more natural settings, like enclosed sea pens, as well as an end to captive breeding and to the orcas’ use in what opponents call entertainment and marine parks call education. Now the issue has been raised with new intensity in the documentary film “ Blackfish ” and the book “Death at SeaWorld,” by David Kirby, just released in paperback. The film and book both focus on the 2010 death of Dawn Brancheau , a trainer, at SeaWorld in Orlando, Fla. She was dragged underwater by a whale called Tilikum, who had been involved in two earlier deaths. The event led to two citations for safety violations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for an unsafe workplace, and an ongoing struggle over OSHA requirements that trainers be separated from killer whales. The most recent fine was in June, and SeaWorld is appealing both decisions. Both the book and film argue that Tilikum’s actions were deliberate and that his behavior was a result of the psychological damage of captivity, not just at SeaWorld but also at another facility where he was first kept. SeaWorld has said the death was an accident, not a deliberate killing. Beyond the death of Ms. Brancheau and the arguments over how SeaWorld manages its many facilities lies a fundamental disagreement about whether killer whales, and other cetaceans — the group of marine mammals that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises — should be held captive at all. It is reminiscent in many ways of the movement to put all captive chimpanzees into sanctuaries, which recently scored two major successes when the National Institutes of Health decided to retire most of its chimpanzees and the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing all chimps as endangered, raising new barriers to experimentation. Image Credit Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times But the situation for killer whales is different. There are many fewer in captivity — a total of 45 worldwide, according to the organization Whale and Dolphin Conservation — and thousands of people have come to love them partly because of the very exhibitions in marine parks like SeaWorld that disturb those who oppose keeping the whales in captivity. A great deal of scientific study of marine mammals has also been done in these marine parks. But even some scientists who have worked with captive dolphins set orcas apart because of their size, their range of movement in the wild, and the close-knit nature of their social groups. Diana Reiss of Hunter College, who has studied self-recognition in captive dolphins and who was not involved in the making of “Blackfish,” said that the question of whether animals like bottlenose dolphins should be kept in captivity is important and should be discussed. But, Dr. Reiss said, she does not see ambiguity about killer whales. “I never felt that we should have orcas in captivity,” she said. “I think morally, as well as scientifically, it’s wrong.” The animal in question, Orcinus orca, is actually the largest dolphin. Its name apparently came not because it was a vicious whale, but because it preyed on whales. The species as a whole has a varied diet, with some groups specializing in fish eating, and others concentrating on seals. They have been known to eat penguins and other seabirds, occasionally squid and turtles, even a swimming moose or deer. The males can reach 32 feet long and weigh up to 22,000 pounds . The females are smaller, up to 16,500 pounds, but live longer. While males average about 30 years and may reach 60, females normally live about 50 years but can reach 90. They live in family groups or pods, typically ranging from a couple of animals to 15, although they may temporarily join in groups of 200 or more. They exist around the world, and subgroups differ in diets, behaviors and physical traits. One subgroup in the Pacific Northwest, called the Southern Resident population, is listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Orcas can travel great distances. “They can go 100 miles in a day,” said Lori Marino , an Emory University researcher who worked with Dr. Reiss and an activist, who appears in “Blackfish” and opposes keeping dolphins and orcas in marine parks. Killer whales have complex brains, and the behaviors of different groups are so diverse that scientists talk about them as having different cultures. The opposition to keeping them in captivity is based partly on evidence that they are smart, social and wide ranging. Those facts are not really disputed, nor is the principle that humans owe the orcas now in captivity a good life. Opponents of captivity cite a number of physical and psychological problems, including repetitive behaviors, dental issues and attacks on trainers, like the one on Ms. Brancheau. Image Credit Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times Yet opponents of captivity recognize that the animals, for their own safety, cannot simply be released into the wild, and so are not calling for SeaWorld or other marine parks to close. Rather, they say, they would like to see the parks keep the orcas in larger, more natural settings, something like sea pens — inshore areas of ocean that can be closed in by nets. Naomi Rose , a whale biologist who is moving from the Humane Society of the United States to the Animal Welfare Institute , was a co-author of a Humane Society paper in 2011 opposing the keeping of orcas in captivity. She said creating sanctuaries for orcas is “highly feasible,” and could and should be done by companies like SeaWorld, which has 22 orcas, nearly half of the total in captivity. Merlin Entertainment, which owns amusement parks like Legoland and some Sea Life aquariums, mostly in Europe, has been exploring the possibility of a sanctuary for bottlenose dolphins with Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Cathy Williamson, the captivity program manager for the organization, said it had been “quite tricky” finding a location in Europe where a large natural area, a cove or bay, could be enclosed. Yet, she said, it is feasible to create “a very large netted area, so they’re still in captivity, but they wouldn’t be performing tricks for tourists.” The same kind of sanctuary could also work for orcas, she said. But both SeaWorld and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums say that such sanctuaries would be a solution for a problem that does not exist. The association has 222 members, 212 in the United States, including the SeaWorld parks in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego. The organization sets accreditation standards with requirements for the physical, social and psychological well-being of the animals. “That would be true for an orca, a tiger and a chimpanzee,” said Steven Feldman, a spokesman. But while the organization opposes the use of chimpanzees for entertainment, and joined in petitioning the Fish and Wildlife Service to declare captive chimpanzees endangered, it considers the jumps, dives and other behaviors that killer whales and other marine mammals exhibit at marine parks to be in the nature of education rather than pure entertainment. “They’re natural behaviors,” said Paul Boyle, senior vice president for conservation and education at the association. “They’re highly coordinated and people enjoy seeing them.” Christopher Dold, vice president of veterinary services at SeaWorld, argues that orcas at SeaWorld facilities already have “a phenomenal quality of life.” SeaWorld and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums say that SeaWorld offers a high level of veterinary care and psychological enrichment programs for the captive animals. They also say that research is being done there on cognition, behavior and the physiology of killer whales and other cetaceans that could not be done any other way. That knowledge, and the chance for the public to see the animals in action, Dr. Dold said, can educate the public and support the cause of conservation. “That’s why killer whales that connect with people in zoos every day are so important to us as a society,” he said. Dr. Rose, the opponent of keeping orcas in captivity, also points out that much of the science began in marine park studies. “The history is that our science is built on the backs of people who got their start in the public display industry,” she said, adding, “It’s an issue that our community doesn’t like to grapple with” — one that she hopes to remedy. At a meeting in New Zealand of the Society for Marine Mammology , Dr. Rose will be one of several co-authors presenting a paper about survival of captive orcas. She said it shows that captive orcas do not do as well as wild ones, and that changes in the care of the animals and an increase in the percentage of captive-born animals since 1995 have not improved survival rates. The scientific community, she said, has some “hard truths” it needs to confront.

Whales
Amusement park
Animal Cruelty
Merlin Entertainments Group
Movies
Books


Explaining E.T.F.s and How They Gained Their Allure

Abstract: Exchange-traded funds, or E.T.F.s, give investors access to a vast array of investment notions, from the obvious (stocks, bonds and commodities) to the less so (derivatives and opportunities to sell short just about anything). Because they do what mutual funds do not — trade like stocks, offer instant visibility and carry low fees — their growth has exploded in the last 10 years. With close to $3 trillion in assets worldwide, they control more assets than hedge funds. And since their strategies are linked to a set of rules, like an index or a model of some sort, E.T.F.s have been attracting large sums of money from lagging mutual funds that rely on a portfolio manager to outsmart the broader market. Exchange-traded funds account for as much as a third of all publicly traded stocks. Or think of it this way: An E.T.F. that tracks a basket of hard-to-trade emerging-market stocks or high-yield bonds will, on any day, attract more buy and sell orders than a bellwether like Microsoft or General Electric. Among bright ideas on Wall Street, this notion of promising investors instant liquidity in some of the most opaque corners of the global marketplace ranks with earlier innovations like securitization in consequence if not risk. That practice of packaging mortgages, then selling them to investors, became a main source of profits for a new generation of investment banks in the 1980s and 1990s. Similarly, E.T.F.s have become cash cows for the firms that originate them , like BlackRock and Vanguard, and those that trade them, like Jane Street in New York and Susquehanna International Group, a private firm near Philadelphia.


Chiefs of Wendy’s and Costco to Step Down

Abstract: Wendy’s, the operator of more than 6,500 fast-food restaurants, said its chief executive, Roland Smith, was stepping down this month as the company remakes its menu to compete with McDonald’s. Emil J. Brolick will take over as president and chief executive on Sept. 12, Wendy’s said in a statement on Thursday . Mr. Brolick, 63, currently is chief operating officer of Yum Brands, which owns the Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut chains. Separately, Costco Wholesale Corporation, the warehouse club chain, appointed Craig Jelinek to succeed Jim Sinegal, who will step down as chief executive on Jan. 1 after more than 20 years. Mr. Smith, who sold the Arby’s sandwich brand this year and moved Wendy’s headquarters to Dublin, Ohio, from Atlanta has sought to draw customers from McDonald’s by remaking its breakfast menu. Mr. Smith has said he planned to use the proceeds from the Arby’s sale to invest in new products, ads and store remodels. Before joining Yum in 2000, Mr. Brolick had worked at Wendy’s for 12 years. Mr. Smith has been the chief of Wendy’s since September 2008 and will serve as a senior adviser through the end of the year. Trian Fund Management, run by the investor Nelson Peltz, was the largest Wendy’s shareholder as of July 1. Mr. Peltz, who united Wendy’s and Arby’s in a $2.56 billion all-stock deal, also is the restaurant’s biggest individual investor. Carrie Bloom, a spokeswoman for Trian, declined to comment on the management changes. Mr. Jelinek, the chief operating officer at Costco, has been with the company for almost 28 years. He started in 1984 as a manager of one of the company’s warehouses, and served in several management positions, including head of merchandising. Mr. Sinegal, 75, founded Costco Wholesale in 1983 with Jeffrey Brotman and took over as chief five years later, after a merger with a competitor, Price Club. “Costco has a very strong culture and a deep bench of management talent,” Mr. Sinegal said in a statement.

Appointments and Executive Changes
Wendy's International Inc


A Blogger Who’s a Court-Approved Journalist

Abstract: Many bloggers describe themselves as journalists. Last week Charles LeBlanc, a rooming house resident who lives on social assistance in Fredericton, New Brunswick, received a court decision establishing his journalistic credentials. The confirmation came last Friday when a judge dismissed charges against Mr. LeBlanc of obstructing a police officer. For the last two years, Mr. LeBlanc has been expressing his views on poverty and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder through a blog ( oldmaison.blogspot.com ). The idea, he said, came from benefactors who also provided him a small digital camera and a computer. He declined to name the people, however, partly because at least one of them is employed by his favorite target: the many companies in New Brunswick controlled by the Irving family, which owns, according to a report on media ownership released by Canada’s Senate earlier this year, all the English-language daily newspapers in New Brunswick. In June, Mr. LeBlanc went to Saint John, New Brunswick, to report on a protest against a meeting of chamber of commerce and board of trade members from Atlantic Canada and New England. Protestors stormed the meeting. Mr. LeBlanc was among those arrested. Officers from the Saint John police testified they are regular readers of Mr. LeBlanc’s blog as part of their effort to gather intelligence on protests. William J. McCarroll, the provincial court judge who heard Mr. LeBlanc’s case, wrote in his decision that “Mr. LeBlanc is a ‘blogger.’ I’m sure that many, if not the majority of Saint Johners, are not familiar with this word.” After reviewing videotape from a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation crew at the scene, sometimes in slow motion, the judge found that it contradicted testimony of the arresting officer, Sergeant John Parks. “Members of the so called mainstream media were taking photographs and filming in the same area without interference from the police,” the judge wrote in a 20-page decision. “I believe it’s fair to say that the defendant was doing nothing wrong at the time he was approached by Sergeant Parks and placed under arrest. He was simply plying his trade, gathering photographs and information for his blog alongside other reporters.” The judge also said that the police had no right to delete about 200 photos stored on Mr. LeBlanc’s camera. Mr. LeBlanc said he had considered improving his skills by studying journalism at a local university. That is, until its journalism department accepted a donation of 1 million Canadian dollars from the Irvings. “Do you think I could study in a classroom listening to an Irving employee?” he asked. IAN AUSTEN

Blogs and Blogging (Internet)
Decisions and Verdicts
News and News Media
New Brunswick (Canada)


Fiat’s New Chrysler Lineup Will Include S.U.V. and Subcompact

Abstract: DETROIT — Chrysler ’s future lineup of products, which will be disclosed next week in the company’s first major announcement since exiting bankruptcy protection more than four months ago, is expected to add two more foreign brand names to what is already a crowded United States market. Chrysler’s Italian partner, Fiat , plans to reintroduce Americans to its namesake brand, which abandoned the United States in 1984, and Alfa Romeo, which pulled out a decade later. Those plans were confirmed by Chrysler officials who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Chrysler, whose alliance with Fiat was a condition for it to receive billions in loans from the federal government, is expected to discontinue some of its worst-selling models in favor of the more stylish and advanced Fiat and Alfa Romeo products. Among the vehicles destined for North America, the company officials said, are the tiny Fiat 500, an Alfa Romeo sport utility vehicle and a sedan based on Alfa Romeo technology to replace the midsize Chrysler Sebring . Details about Fiat’s plans to bring Alfa Romeo back to the United States and to discontinue certain Chrysler models were first reported in The Wall Street Journal. The Chrysler strategy is at odds with much of the rest of the industry, which is reducing the number of brands it sells, not adding to them. General Motors, for example, is cutting its brand lineup to four: Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC and Buick. Chrysler also recently said it was splitting its largest brand, Dodge, into Dodge cars and Ram trucks, meaning that within a few years its dealerships could be selling six different brands, including Jeep. That would be three more than Chrysler offers today. “Chrysler doesn’t necessarily need more brands,” Aaron Bragman, an analyst with the research firm IHS Global Insight. “But it could potentially accommodate more brands that are fairly unique, and Alfa Romeo is a fairly unique brand and has a very specific message. There is really nothing like Alfa Romeo in the U.S. market aside from maybe Mazda.” In fact, Mr. Bragman said, Americans could take to Fiat and Alfa Romeo more than they have recently to Chrysler and Dodge, whose sales have fallen 52 percent and 37 percent this year. “Chrysler and Dodge are two damaged brands,” he said. By any measure, Chrysler needs help to make its products more appealing, particularly in smaller-car segments. Toyota and Honda, for example, each have two models that are individually outselling Chrysler’s entire lineup of passenger cars this year. Sergio Marchionne , the chief executive of Fiat and Chrysler, is scrambling to see Chrysler through the next 18 months until the partnership between the two companies begins to bear fruit. At next week’s announcement, Mr. Marchionne and other executives will also go over Chrysler’s engineering and manufacturing plans as well as the company’s financial goals. Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy proceedings June 10, with Fiat taking a 20 percent stake in the new company. Mr. Marchionne’s profitable turnaround of Fiat propelled his successful effort to buy Chrysler with Washington’s help, but he fell short in a bid to also swallow the European operations of G.M. last spring. While an Alfa Romeo S.U.V. may not be the kind of vehicle envisioned by some when Chrysler and Fiat won government loans, Fiat officials said Chrysler’s new offerings would have more fuel-efficient technology, whatever the size of the vehicle. The S.U.V. would be based on the platform of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and built at the same factory in Detroit where that vehicle is assembled, a plant known as Jefferson North. The Fiat 500 is expected to be assembled at Chrysler’s plant in Toluca, Mexico. Other models would likely be imported to the United States, at least initially. “Fiat is bringing environmentally smart technology to the U.S., which Chrysler lacks, not just small-car technology,” one of the Fiat officials said. “The future isn’t about S.U.V.’s; it will just be a niche. We have to think about the whole range.” Since the Fiat-Chrysler partnership was announced early this year, executives from Chrysler’s headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., have traveled to Fiat’s styling center in Turin, Italy, preparing to update the interiors and trims of many familiar Chrysler models. Plans to introduce the Fiat 500, as well as the compact Alfa Romeo MiTo and the midsize Milano have been in the works since the spring. In addition, the models to be announced over the next five years are expected to offer diesel technology, which consumes less fuel and has been popular in Europe. Fiat’s diesel technology has long been among the best in world, and the company already worked with G.M. to develop a successful diesel engine for Opel earlier this decade. While an Alfa Romeo S.U.V. or crossover could stir enthusiasm in car circles, reviving the Chrysler brand with a jolt of Italian style will be a much more difficult challenge for Mr. Marchionne, according to analysts. “I’m sure Americans love Italian suits. Whether they love Italian cars is yet to be seen,” said Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst with Credit Suisse in London. “The product won’t be a problem. It’s the brand perception,” he said. “It took Volkswagen a long time and they’re still not where they want to be, while the French struggled and eventually left.”

Sports Utility Vehicles and Light Trucks

Small Cars (Compact Subcompact and Microcars)


Wie Tries to Make History

Abstract: Correction Appended HONOLULU, Jan. 10 - Michelle Wie has been practicing her drives in all sorts of conditions, sharpening her skills as best she knows how, preparing for a moment that has been building for several years. "I'm taking my driver's test," Wie said Tuesday at the Sony Open in Hawaii. "Hopefully I can pass." The 16-year-old Wie will attempt to secure her license next Tuesday, but she will first try to make the cut against PGA Tour golfers at Waialae Country Club, her seventh professional foray against men. Wie has yet to make a cut, but this will be her first effort since she turned professional in October. "I told her, 'Don't beat me too bad this week,' " said Sean O'Hair, who played a practice round with Wie and Justin Rose on Tuesday. Wie missed the cut at the Sony Open last January by seven shots, but she missed by only one stroke in 2004, when she birdied the 18th hole. Last year, Wie missed the cut at the Casio World Open in Japan by one shot and at the John Deere Classic by two. While the Sony Open is the PGA Tour's first full-field tournament of the year, Wie has become the face of the event. Her practice round with O'Hair and Rose played to a gallery of nearly 100, far more than any other group. Wie has also become familiar to PGA Tour players who have watched her grow up. "It's a home crowd for her," Vijay Singh, the defending champion, said of Wie, who was born in Honolulu. "I hope she plays well and I hope she makes the cut." Wie will tee off on No. 10 at 8:40 a.m. local time Thursday with Camilo Villegas and Chris Couch. On Friday, they will tee off on No. 1 at 1:10 p.m. SINGH'S BODY SHOP -- Vijay Singh said he physically wore down near the end of the 2005 season, when he missed back-to-back cuts in October and failed to win a tournament after July. The fatigue prompted him to ramp up an already intense regimen of exercise and practice during the short off-season. "I worked hard on my body," Singh said Tuesday before a practice session on the range. "I want to play well. I don't want to finish the season like I did last year." Singh, who lost in a playoff to Stuart Appleby on Sunday at the winners-only Mercedes Championships, played in 30 events in 2005, the most tournaments he had ever entered. (Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, by comparison, played in 21.) While Woods and Mickelson opted for a longer off-season in 2006, skipping the Mercedes Championships and the Sony Open, Singh decided to put his new program to work immediately. "I've been playing well and I'm feeling good," Singh said. "I didn't come over here to finish second. I'm going to try the hardest I can to win the golf tournament." MASTERS INVITES -- Augusta National Golf Club announced a list of 99 invitees, including 14 first-time participants, for the Masters during the week of April 3-9. Among the familiar names, like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, were players like Sean O'Hair and Bart Bryant. O'Hair earned 2005 PGA Tour rookie of the year honors on the strength of winning the John Deere Classic. Bryant won the Tour Championship and the Memorial Tournament last year. "I've got a lot of things I want to do with my game," O'Hair said of gearing up for the Masters. "Practice habits, how much you are playing, what you're eating, the whole nine yards to peak at the right time. I'd like to be competitive at that event. I think I can if I keep my head." Players can still earn their way into the Masters by winning the Players Championship, by placing among the top 10 on the PGA Tour money list in the week before the Masters or by placing among the top 50 on the official world golf rankings the week before the Masters. The Masters committee may invite additional international players not otherwise qualified. GOLF: NOTEBOOK Correction: January 17, 2006, Tuesday Because of an editing error, a sports article on Wednesday about the golfer Michelle Wie misstated the number of times she has competed against professional men since she turned pro in October. The Sony Open last week in Honolulu was her second tournament, not her seventh, and her first against PGA Tour players.

HONOLULU (HAWAII)
PGA TOUR INC
WIE MICHELLE
SONY OPEN (GOLF)
GOLF


In Expanding Russian Influence, Faith Combines With Firepower

Abstract: PARIS — The golden main dome of a new Russian Orthodox cathedral now under construction on the banks of the Seine shimmers in the sun, towering over a Paris neighborhood studded with government buildings and foreign embassies. Most sensitive of all, it is being built beside a 19th-century palace that has been used to conceal some of the French presidency’s most closely guarded secrets. The prime location, secured by the Russian state after years of lobbying by the Kremlin, is so close to so many snoop-worthy places that when Moscow first proposed a $100 million “spiritual and cultural center” there, France’s security services fretted that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, a former K.G.B. officer, might have more than just religious outreach in mind. Anxiety over whether the spiritual center might serve as a listening post, however, has obscured its principal and perhaps more intrusive role: an outsize display in the heart of Paris, the capital of the insistently secular French Republic, of Russia’s might as a religious power, not just a military one. While tanks and artillery have been Russia’s weapons of choice to project its power into neighboring Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Putin has also mobilized faith to expand the country’s reach and influence. A fervent foe of homosexuality and any attempt to put individual rights above those of family, community or nation, the Russian Orthodox Church helps project Russia as the natural ally of all those who pine for a more secure, illiberal world free from the tradition-crushing rush of globalization, multiculturalism and women’s and gay rights. Image The cathedral under construction in Paris. The prime location was secured by the Russian state after years of lobbying by the Kremlin. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Thanks to a close alliance between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin, religion has proved a particularly powerful tool in former Soviet lands like Moldova, where senior priests loyal to the Moscow church hierarchy have campaigned tirelessly to block their country’s integration with the West. Priests in Montenegro, meanwhile have spearheaded efforts to derail their country’s plans to join NATO. But faith has also helped Mr. Putin amplify Russia’s voice farther west, with the church leading a push into resolutely secular members of the European Union like France. The most visible sign of this is the new Kremlin-financed spiritual center here near the Eiffel Tower, now so closely associated with Mr. Putin that France’s former culture minister, Frederic Mitterrand, suggested that it be called “St. Vladimir’s.” But the Russian church’s push in Europe has taken an even more aggressive turn in Nice , on the French Riviera, where in February it tried to seize a private Orthodox cemetery, the latest episode in a long campaign to grab up church real estate controlled by rivals to Moscow’s religious hierarchy. “They are advancing pawns here and everywhere; they want to show that there is only one Russia, the Russia of Putin,” said Alexis Obolensky, vice president of the Association Culturelle Orthodoxe Russe de Nice , a group of French believers, many of them descendants of White Russians who fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. They want nothing to do with a Moscow-based church leadership headed by Kirill, patriarch of Moscow and All Russia , a close ally of the Russian president. A Broader Push The French Orthodox association is instead loyal to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, a rival church leadership in Istanbul that has provided a haven for many of Mr. Putin’s churchgoing foes. After a long legal battle with Moscow, Mr. Obolensky’s association in 2013 lost control of Nice’s Orthodox cathedral, St. Nicholas , to the Moscow Patriarchate, which installed its own priests and rallied the faithful behind projects to warm France’s frosty relations with Russia. When Russian church staff and their lay French supporters broke into the Nice Orthodox cemetery in February and declared it Russian property, allies of Mr. Obolensky hoisted a banner on the iron gate: “Hands off, Mr. Putin. We are not in Crimea or Ukraine. Let our dead rest in peace.” Moscow’s quest to gain control of churches and graves dating from czarist times and squeeze out believers who look to the Constantinople patriarch is part of a broader push by the Kremlin to assert itself as both the legitimate heir to and master of “Holy Russia,” and as a champion of traditional values against the decadent heresies, notably liberal democracy, promoted by the United States and what they frequently call “Gayropa.” “The church has become an instrument of the Russian state. It is used to extend and legitimize the interests of the Kremlin,” said Sergei Chapnin, who is the former editor of the official journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church and affiliated churches outside Russia. Unlike the Catholic Church, which has a single, undisputed leader, the pope in Rome, the Orthodox or Eastern branch of Christianity is divided into more than a dozen self-governing provinces, each with its own patriarch. The biggest of these, the Russian Orthodox Church, covers not only Russia, but also fragile new states like Moldova that formerly belonged to the Russian and later Soviet empires. “We have been independent for 25 years but our church is still dependent on Moscow,” complained Iurie Leanca, a former prime minister of Moldova, who in 2014 signed a trade and political pact with the European Union that the church and the Kremlin worked hard to derail. Image Marchel Mihaescu, the Orthodox Bishop of Balti, Moldova, was appointed to his post by the Moscow Patriarch. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times In the vanguard of the anti-European cause in Moldova has been Marchel Mihaescu, the deeply conservative Orthodox bishop of Balti, who was appointed to his post by the Moscow patriarch. He has warned worshipers that new biometric passports, required by the European Union in return for visa-free access to Europe, were “satanic” because they contained a 13-digit number. He also tried to torpedo legislation extending protection against discrimination in the workplace to gay people, warning that this would draw God’s wrath and sunder relations with “Mother Russia.” “The voice of the church and the voice of Russian politicians — not all, but the overwhelming majority of Russian politicians — are the same. For me, Russia is the guardian of Christian values,” the bishop said in an interview in a high-ceiling office decorated with a half-dozen portraits of past and current Russian patriarchs and a single picture of Moldova’s own senior priest, Metropolitan Vladimir of Chisinau. Europe, said the bishop, has “definitely given us lots of money, but wants too much in return. It demands that we pay with our souls, that we alienate ourselves from God. This is not acceptable.” In their determination to fend off the West, conservative Orthodox priests in Moldova have made common cause with politicians like Igor Dodon, leader of the pro-Moscow Socialist Party. When gay activists staged a parade this summer in the center of Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, Mr. Dodon rallied his own supporters for a rival event dedicated to traditional values while a group of Orthodox priests gathered nearby to chant prayers and curse homosexuals. The gay parade, which was joined by a number of Western diplomats, got called off after just a few blocks when it ran into a crowd of protesters waving religious banners and throwing eggs. Image Igor Dodon, center, the leader of the pro-Moscow Socialist Party in Moldova. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times Opposition to gay rights has also been taken up with gusto by Russia and the Orthodox Church in Western Europe. The Institute for Democracy and Cooperation , a research group in Paris headed by a former Soviet diplomat, threw its support behind opponents of a new French law in 2013 allowing same-sex marriage. It organized a conference on “defense of the family,” and promotes Russia and its Orthodox faith as protectors of Christian values across Europe. Natalia Narochnitskaya, the institute’s head, told an Orthodox Church website run by Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov, a Moscow monk close to Mr. Putin, that Europeans are fed up with what she called the “victory parade of sin” and increasingly look to Russia for guidance and solace. “We have started to get letters at the institute: ‘Thank you Russia and its leader,’” Ms. Narochnitskaya said. What role the new cathedral complex in Paris might play in this agenda will not be clear until it opens later this year, but those who have studied Mr. Putin’s methods predict it will serve as a megaphone for his take on the world. “This cathedral is an outpost of the other Europe — ultraconservative and anti-modern — in the heart of the country of libertinism and secularism,” said Michel Eltchaninoff, a French writer and author of “Dans la tête de Vladimir Poutine,” a book about the Russian president’s thinking. A huge complex of four separate buildings, the “spiritual center” will include not only a church but a school, conference halls and a cultural center run by the Russian Embassy. The complex is owned not by the church but by the Russian state, which beat out Saudi Arabia, Canada and other countries that had also sought to buy the coveted plot. Moscow has been looking for an imposing church in Paris ever since the city’s principal Orthodox site, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral , broke with the Russian church hierarchy after 1917 and transferred its allegiance to Constantinople. Though fervently opposed to religion, the Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev both pressed Charles de Gaulle to hand over control of the Nevsky Cathedral to Moscow. He refused, leaving Orthodox churchgoers loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate to set up their own far more modest place of worship in a Paris garage. Image The St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral in Nice. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times Under Mr. Putin the quest to recover church property has resumed with vigor — in tandem with a drive to reach out to far right political forces in Europe seduced by the idea of Russia as a bastion of conservative social and cultural values. A Corner of the World The merging of political, diplomatic and religious interests has been on vivid display in Nice, where the Orthodox cathedral, St. Nicholas, came under the control of the Moscow Partriarchate in 2013. To mark the completion of Moscow-funded renovation work in January, Russia’s ambassador in Paris, Aleksandr Orlov, joined the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, for a ceremony at the cathedral and hailed the refurbishment as “a message for the whole world: Russia is sacred and eternal!” Then, in a festival of French-Russian amity at odds with France’s official policy since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the ambassador, Orthodox priests, officials from Moscow and French dignitaries gathered in June for a gala dinner in a luxury Nice hotel to celebrate the cathedral’s return to the fold of the Moscow Patriarchate. Speaking at the dinner, Vladimir Yakunin, a longtime ally of Mr. Putin who is subject to United States, but not European, sanctions imposed after Russia seized Crimea, declared the cathedral a “corner of the Russian world,” a concept that Moscow used to justify its military intervention on behalf of Russian-speaking rebels in eastern Ukraine. Church property from the czarist era, Mr. Yakunin added, belongs to Russia “simply because this is our history.” The outreach seems to be working. Unlike the national government in Paris, local leaders in Nice, who mostly represent right-wing forces, support Mr. Putin, even applauding the annexation of Crimea. After the July 14 terrorist attack on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice by a man driving a truck into a crowd, which killed 84 people — among them were four Russians, including an officer at the St. Nicholas Cathedral — Eric Ciotti, the president of the Nice region, demanded that France seek closer relations with Moscow so as to defeat the so-called Islamic State. Andrei Eliseev, the Nice cathedral’s Moscow-educated and multilingual senior priest, denied accusations by his foes in the émigré community that he works for Russia’s security agency and blamed hostility against him and Moscow on the feuds of old aristocratic families. But he said he nonetheless has a duty to serve the state, explaining that the Russian church has effectively been a government department since Peter the Great took control of religion in the early 18th century. Image An orthodox service in Nice. The Russian church’s push in Europe has taken an especially aggressive turn in the city, where in February it tried to seize a private Orthodox cemetery, the latest episode in a long campaign to gain control of church real estate controlled by rivals to Moscow’s religious hierarchy. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times So limited is his room for maneuver, he said, “I need written permission from the state just to move an icon” in the cathedral, which belongs to the Russian government, not the church. With its control of the Nice cathedral secure and work on the new Paris cathedral moving toward completion, Moscow in February turned its sights on a small patch of Orthodox territory still beyond its control — a cemetery containing the graves of long-dead anti-Communist generals, a former czarist foreign minister, a relative of Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II, and scores of other Orthodox Christians, mostly Russians, who died on the French Riviera. Christian Frizet, a zealously pro-Moscow French engineer, recalled how he went to the cemetery on instructions from the Russian Embassy in Paris and quickly loosened the lock on the iron gate. “It took me only five minutes and I did not even need a screwdriver,” he said. Helped by Father Eliseev’s assistant at the cathedral, a former Russian military officer, Igor Sheleshko – who later died in the Nice terror attack — Mr. Frizet then put up a sign declaring the graveyard property of the Russian Federation and secured the gate with a padlocked chain. Mr. Obolensky and his supporters have since taken down the sign, removed Mr. Frizet’s padlock and replaced it with their own. In a rare truce, it was agreed that each side should have a key. “They will not stop until they control everything,” Mr. Obolensky said jokingly. “One day the Promenade des Anglais will be called the Promenade des Russes.”

Russian Orthodox Church
France
Europe
Russia
Nice Attack
EU
Vladimir Putin


Libya: 3 Sought for Questioning in Benghazi Attack

Abstract: The F.B.I. on Wednesday released photos of three men whom investigators want to question in connection with the attacks on a United States diplomatic mission and C.I.A. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, last September. A statement by the bureau said the three “were on the grounds of the United States Special Mission when it was attacked.” Four people — including the United States ambassador to Libya — died in the attacks.

Benghazi
Diplomats Embassies and Consulates
FBI
CIA
US Foreign Policy
Libya
Benghazi Attack 2012


Proposition 8 Judge Accused of Favoritism

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge’s long-term relationship with another man was the subject of an unprecedented court hearing on Monday that sparked sharp exchanges about whether he was obligated to reveal whether he wanted to marry his partner before he struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage . Lawyers for supporters of the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8 , said the decision by Vaughn Walker, the former chief judge of Federal District Court in San Francisco, should be vacated. They maintain that he should have removed himself or disclosed his position on gay marriage in his own relationship because he and his partner stood to personally benefit from the verdict. “It now appears that Judge Walker, at the time the complaint was filed and throughout this litigation, occupied precisely those same shoes as the plaintiffs,” said Charles Cooper, a lawyer for supporters of Proposition 8, referring to opponents who sued to have it overturned. Judge Walker ruled last year that the ban was an unconstitutional violation of gay Californians’ civil rights, but the ban remains in place pending an appeal. The judge at Monday’s hearing, James Ware, sharply questioned Mr. Cooper, asking him why he assumed Judge Walker had any intention of getting married just because he was in a decade-long relationship. If the judge did not wish to marry, Judge Ware suggested, his situation would have differed from that of the two same-sex couples who were plaintiffs in the case. “I’m asking you to tell me what fact you would have the court rely on to suggest that Judge Walker wanted to change, not maintain, his relationship?” Judge Ware asked. The mere fact that Judge Walker had been in a serious relationship “does not put him in the shoes of what the plaintiffs were doing, unless you cite to me some facts that he was desirous of the relief they were seeking,” Judge Ware said. Theodore Boutrous Jr., part of the legal team representing the plaintiffs, called the effort to disqualify Judge Walker “frivolous, offensive and deeply unfortunate.” He derided Mr. Cooper’s assertion that it was Judge Walker’s relationship status, not his sexual orientation, that called his impartiality into question. “It’s not some news flash that Judge Walker was in a same-sex relationship,” Mr. Boutrous said. “They are targeting Judge Walker because he is gay.” Before the hearing, Judge Ware said he had presided over a same-sex marriage in 2008 when the ceremonies were legal in the state. Judge Ware said he planned to issue a written ruling within the next day. He called it the first case in which a judge’s same-sex relationship had led to calls for disqualification. “There was probably the same kind of struggle when race or gender were the issue,” Judge Ware said. Judge Walker revealed publicly that he had been in a 10-year relationship after he stepped down in February. Many legal scholars have said they do not expect Judge Ware to overturn Judge Walker’s decision. They point out that while having a judge’s impartiality questioned because he is gay is new territory, efforts to get women thrown off gender discrimination cases or Hispanic judges removed from immigration cases have failed. Judge Ware also heard arguments on whether he should prohibit Judge Walker from using videotaped recordings of the trial in public speeches. Mr. Cooper said Judge Walker’s post-retirement use of the recordings violated a United States Supreme Court ruling barring the trial from being broadcast beyond the federal courthouse in San Francisco. Lawyers for the news media and for the plaintiffs are asking Judge Ware to now make those recordings public. Judge Ware suggested that he was disinclined to prevent his former colleague from making personal use of the videos, saying they were given as a parting gift during a retirement ceremony.

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships


In Jordan, Ever Younger Syrian Brides

Abstract: MAFRAQ, Jordan — The bride-to-be was so young and shy, she spent her engagement party cloaked in a hooded robe that swallowed her slim figure but could not quite hide the ruffled pink dress her fiancé’s family had rented for her. As the Syrian women celebrating her coming wedding to an 18-year-old cousin chattered around her in the Zaatari refugee camp, she squirreled herself in a corner, perking up only when a photo or message from a friend popped up on her cellphone. The girl, Rahaf Yousef, is 13. Speaking wistfully of her days at school, she declared herself throughout the day to be “indifferent” to the marriage she says will keep her from finishing her education. But no one seemed to be listening. For many Syrians stuck in Jordan’s squalid and sometimes dangerous refugee camps, marrying girls off at younger and younger ages is increasingly being seen as a necessity — a way of easing the financial burden on families with little or no income and allaying fears of rape and sexual harassment in makeshift living spaces where it is harder to enforce the rule of law. As a result, Unicef says, the number of marriages involving girls younger than 18 has ballooned since the war in Syria started. “The parents feel a man can protect” their daughters, said Ola Tebawi, an official at Jordan Health Aid Society, a nonprofit that provides primary health care for refugees with United Nations support. “These families feel marriage would be the best option for a girl growing up as a refugee.” But the trend — even among displaced Syrians who live outside the camps — is increasingly worrying international aid groups and women’s advocates who say that the Syrians are simply trading immediate dangers for longer-term ones. They tick off a laundry list of threats for women worldwide that accompany marrying before they are 18. High on the list, they say, are increased risks of being the victims of domestic violence and an abrupt end to the young women’s education. The aid workers also worry about pregnancies among girls whose age makes them more vulnerable to certain life-threatening complications like eclampsia, which is characterized by seizures. During the first six months of this year, 32 percent of all registered marriages of Syrian refugees in Jordan involved a girl under the age of 18, according to the Jordanian government. That percentage was up from 25 percent during all of 2013 and, according to Unicef, more than twice as high as the 13 percent of marriages in Syria just before the war that included girls younger than 18. Image Hana Mohammed, 16, began having seizures during pregnancy. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times A majority of the Syrian girls marry into Jordanian families, Unicef reported, ensuring themselves a place in Jordan outside the refugee camps, and a new home country for the long term. Although the marriage of girls as young as 13 is not unheard-of in parts of the Middle East, including rural Syria, that practice has not been common in areas of Syria or Jordan with higher levels of education. Jordanian law allows marriages for girls and boys 15 to 18 years old, but it requires that a chief justice of a Shariah, or Islamic, court determine that all sides agree to the match. In an attempt to ensure the same level of scrutiny for Syrian marriages, the Jordanian government — which has struggled to accommodate more than 600,000 of the more than three million Syrians who have fled their country — has opened a Shariah court in the Zaatari camp. But the minister of social development, Reem Abu Hassan, said that it was difficult for judges to say no to early marriages given the circumstances — and difficult to ensure even that all the marriages were registered. “We have to be practical and see the challenges the Syrians are facing,” she said. Human rights advocates say many of the women arrived in Jordan terrified of rape because, as the United Nations has reported, sexual violence had become a “persistent feature of the Syrian war.” And they struggled to adjust to living circumstances in Jordan that were different from peacetime Syria, where men often did the shopping and other chores outside the home to avoid having their women exposed to the public. Even in urban areas outside the crowded camps, many women who are widowed or without their husbands, who stayed in Syria to fight, report being sexually harassed or living in fear that men will prey on them. Outour al Khasara, 45, a refugee who lives on a farm near the Zaatari camp, said she saw firsthand that counting on marriage as protection against such threats might be illusory. She married off her 15-year-old daughter, Jazia al Barhoum, last year to a distant cousin to protect her from “the uncertainty that continues to plague our future.” Twenty days into the marriage, Jazia said, her husband began to beat her. Jazia quickly left him, but returned at the request of her husband’s family members. “He promised my family he would treat me well,” she said, “but he didn’t change.” Eventually her father decided the marriage should end and went to bring her home. Sitting on plastic buckets covered with threadbare pillows one recent day, Jazia’s parents expressed regret about their decision to have their daughter marry so young. Her father, Abu Muhsen al Barhoum, said unemployment, idleness and fear were pushing Syrian refugees to marry too quickly and that he had lost count of the people he knew who had recently married and separated. The Historic Scale of Syria’s Refugee Crisis Dramatic images from the Syrian refugee crisis, which exploded to encompass six million people by October 2013. Jazia declares herself much happier to be home working in the fields. “You should live your life and then get married,” she said. “I guess this is the lesson my family learned.” Another teenager, Yasmeen Ritaj, 16, described a similar experience, of initially being wooed, but then being beaten by her new husband. “I imagined it would be paradise,” she said, “but the first time he beat me, I knew there was no future and that this was hell.” A month after the wedding, she became pregnant and then returned to her family after just eight months of marriage, before her daughter was born. Aid agencies and organizations are alarmed enough by the increase in early marriages that they have been conducting awareness campaigns. “You’ll be surprised at the lack of knowledge among the community about the devastating health consequences of early marriage,” said Fasel Shammout, a psychologist who has done training for the refugees. “By the time they reach us, they are in a dire state — legally, mentally, physically.” Even among those who end up in loving marriages, the risks can be severe. Hana Mohammad, 16, was married in Syria during the war to a young man who professed his love, but whom she would have married later had the fighting not given her few good choices. Her parents, who remained in Syria, thought she would be safer living with his family, which was planning to leave the country, than staying in Dara’a, where so many missiles fell on the wedding day the families held no party. By the time the husband’s family left Syria, she was eight months pregnant. Soon after they arrived at the Zaatari camp, she collapsed. “She turned blue, she became stiff as stone, she was having seizures and there was blood coming out of her mouth,” said her husband, Mohammad Ghazawi, 26, who said he had known he wanted to marry her since catching glimpses of her in their hometown. It is unclear whether the arduous 12-day journey through the desert caused her collapse and the coma that followed, but teenage mothers are considered at risk for the condition she eventually learned she had: eclampsia. In the end, doctors were able to deliver her baby, a girl, safely, but Hana continues to have seizures. Although she is still a believer in early marriages, her anxious husband and her mother-in-law have begun warning other girls to wait until they are past 18. “I almost lost my wife,” said Mr. Ghazawi. “She paid the price for being pregnant too early in her life.”

Syria
Women and Girls
Refugees,Internally Displaced People
Jordan
Marriage
Family


The Pitch From Down Under

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., Jan. 11 - The children from the poorer sections of Jackson, Miss., sat enraptured. So did the students at high school sports banquets, the ballplayers at Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings and the people at church functions throughout central Mississippi. In his lilting drawl, Bill Perry recounted a tale about a former high school pitcher of his, Chad Bradford. At the end, someone inevitably would ask if the story was true. "With Chad, I tell them everything is possible," said Perry, who is also a minister who officiated at Bradford's wedding. Perry would tell how Bradford, an uncoordinated string bean of a 15-year-old, pitched a fastball as straight as string, as if, in the local vernacular, it were fixin' to be hit into the next town. He threw a good curveball once, but only once, and was much better as a class clown than an athlete at Byram High School. But then came the winter when Bradford went out on the edge. Not his personality, but his pitching motion. Standing no chance at making the high school team, Bradford followed Perry's advice and changed his arm angle. He started to throw from the same plane as his knee. It felt natural. The ball darted and dipped, and his control improved. Bradford figured he was on to something. As it turned out, he was. Despite no major colleges taking him, only one major league team scouting him and , 956 players being drafted ahead of him, it was Bradford, and not any of his more talented former high school teammates, who achieved the dream of playing in the major leagues. A key member of the Oakland Athletics teams that made the playoffs from 2001 to 2003, Bradford, 31, signed with the Mets several weeks ago to be reunited with his friend, the pitching coach Rick Peterson, who worked with him in Oakland. Bradford played the past seven seasons in the American League, which should work to his favor in 2006 because many hitters in the National League are unfamiliar with him. But his biggest advantage, Mets Manager Willie Randolph said, is that Bradford brings "the funk." His slider can start at a right-handed hitter's knees and run across the plate. Or it can zip upward. His sinker, meanwhile, appears to rise before it plunges. Although his pitches rarely clock 85 miles an hour on the radar gun, Bradford can be as powerful as the Mets new closer Billy Wagner, primarily against right-handed hitters. Only Bradford , produces groundouts instead of strikeouts. For every fly ball he allowed in 2002, he induced 3.28 ground balls, the best mark in the majors among relievers with 65 or more appearances. In 2003, he improved to 3.63. "You always hear that when hitters are in a groove, they say that they're seeing the ball well," Peterson said. "But Chad makes it so they can't." There have been several other successful sidearmers, most notably Dan Quisenberry and Kent Tekulve, but Bradford makes their submarine deliveries look like cruise ships. Picture the hands on a clock. In high school and college, Bradford threw from 8 o'clock, from the batter's point of view. Then without realizing it, he dropped his arm lower and lower until he suddenly found himself in the dirt, Bradford said. Now he throws from 6 o'clock and his knuckles occasionally graze the mound as his arm swoops toward the plate. He knows, without a doubt, that he would be in Byram now, not chatting outside the Mets' complex, if he did not possess his bewildering delivery. "I have seen the most godawful swings from guys hitting against Chad," said Perry, who scouted for nine years for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Chicago Cubs. " 'Riverdance' doesn't come close to what their feet do in the batter's box." After making his debut with the White Sox in 1998, Bradford was acquired by Billy Beane, Oakland's general manager, in a December 2000 deal that paid immediate dividends. Bradford held right-handed hitters to a .220 batting average in 2002 and 2003, and he emerged as one of baseball's more efficient middle relievers. He clicked immediately with Peterson, who, Bradford said, could evaluate his mechanical flaws and, at times, restore his confidence. No matter how many scoreless innings he pitched, one or two poor outings infused an attitude that maybe he wasn't that good. "It's sort of like that movie, 'Shallow Hal,' where the guy falls in love because of what he sees inside her, not what she looks like," Peterson said. "Chad just saw himself differently from how we saw him." Bradford said: "I don't throw 95 miles an hour, and when you don't do that, it's easy to start doubting yourself. You get lost a little bit. You remember that at one point, you weren't considered good enough for your high school team, and it comes back in little ways." Bradford was not as successful in 2004. His earned run average soared to 4.42, and eventually his peculiar motion took a toll on his body. Bending so severely at the waist placed excessive stress on his back, and Bradford missed the first five months of the 2005 season after having surgery to repair a herniated disk. He never pitched for Oakland again. While he was in rehabilitation, the Athletics traded him to Boston, but the Red Sox did not tender him a contract after the season. Working again with Peterson, who joined the Mets for the 2004 season, will give Bradford another chance, presumably as a specialist against right-handed hitters. He said his back felt great. His presence has excited Peterson , as well as one of the team's newest players, Steve Schmoll, a sidearming reliever. Shortly after the Mets acquired Schmoll from the Los Angeles Dodgers, Peterson placed a welcome call. One of the first questions Schmoll asked was, "Hey, you guys signed Bradford, right?" The answer was yes. "Wow, he's the guy I've always wanted to talk to," Schmoll told Peterson. "I can't wait to get some tips from him." Sixteen years later, that skinny 15-year-old student is a mentor.


In Arizona, Tea Party License Plate Draws Opposition From Its Honorees

Abstract: SURPRISE, Ariz. — When conservative Republicans pushed a bill through the Arizona Legislature creating a “Don’t Tread on Me” license plate design that would be used to raise money for Tea Party groups in the state, opposition was expected from Democrats, liberals and other assorted antagonists. The surprise was that the biggest opposition has come from Tea Party members themselves, who say their renegade, grass-roots movement was built on suspicion of government, and they are not too keen to start playing financial footsie with the enemy. “No, I won’t buy one,” said Jim Wise, a Tea Party activist from this community northwest of Phoenix, who wrote to lawmakers in a failed effort to nix the plates. “I realize the people behind this had the best of intentions, but it goes against what we stand for, which is limited government.” There has been a movement in state capitals across the country to commemorate the Tea Party on the backs of cars, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The group has tallied at least 10 other states considering such plates this year, three of which — Virginia, Texas and Mississippi — have joined Arizona in endorsing them. But opposition has been most heated in Arizona, and mostly from Tea Party backers. Even before Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill creating the plates last week, Arizona had dozens of specialty license plates, including those honoring organ donors, discouraging abortion, lamenting child abuse, promoting the spaying and neutering of pets, and urging people to follow the golden rule. “In Arizona, we let people express themselves on their plates as long as it’s legal,” said John Kavanagh, a Republican representative who supported the Tea Party plates. “And to discriminate against one group over the other would not be right.” The plates are fund-raising tools for organizations, which must come up with $32,000 for the state to produce them. In exchange, for every $25 fee taken in to issue a plate, $8 goes to the state and the other $17 to the groups. Initially, Arizona planned to pay $32,000 for the Tea Party plate, which will feature a likeness of the historic bright yellow Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag popular in the Tea Party. But protests from frugally minded Tea Party members prompted the subsidy to be dropped, and supporters of the plates will now have to raise the money. Still, the bureaucracy created to handle the plates rubs many activists the wrong way. A 13-member committee appointed by the governor, the Senate president and the House speaker will dole out the money from the plates to Tea Party groups. Groups must submit applications to be considered and agree to open their books for government audits to show how they spent the money. That sounds like an expansion of government to some Tea Party members. Many of them studiously avoid government money in running their groups and oppose the idea of increasing government, even by 13 people. “This is classic government,” said Trent Humphries, a co-founder of the Tucson Tea Party, who said he would not serve on the committee if asked. “I don’t know a Tea Party person who supports this.” Mr. Humphries is pushing for the law to be amended in the next legislative session so that the money raised from the plates goes directly to ease the state’s budget woes and not to finance individual Tea Party groups, a change he believes fellow activists would back. Mr. Wise, a retiree who belongs to two Tea Party groups, has been criticizing the plates wherever he can. “I’ve brought it up at Tea Party meetings, and there’s been a lot of groans,” he said. “There are a lot of e-mails going around. We’re establishing a government organization to take taxpayers’ money and pass it back to grass-roots organizations. Is that what we want?” Not all Tea Party activists are opposed. Don Shooter, a farmer who led the Tea Party in Yuma before being elected to the State Senate last fall, sponsored the legislation. And Russ Clark, a radio talk show host in Yuma, said he planned to put a Tea Party plate on his GMC truck and to kick in $10,000 to help offset the cost of the plate’s production, so long as he is paid back with plate revenues. His biggest concern is the reaction on the road. “There are some who hate the Tea Party so much that I will expose myself to some anger,” he said. “But I need to stand up for the Tea Party.” Groups are eligible for the revenue from sale of the Tea Party plates, the law says, if they promote the Constitution, state sovereignty, border security and limited government, which Arizona Democrats say sounds like the money might go to further political ends. “I think we’re really treading into some dangerous territory by doing something like this, and I think it’s setting a very bad precedent,” said State Representative Chad Campbell, a Democrat who opposed the plates. The Arizona plates have attracted the attention of Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, who introduced legislation in Washington this week to take away 15 percent of a state’s federal highway money if license plate revenue goes to groups advocating for political candidates. “Using official government resources to help bankroll an explicit political agenda — whether on the right or left — is flat-out wrong,” said Mr. Ackerman, who is calling his bill the “License Plate Political Slush Fund Prevention Act.” To win support for the Tea Party plates, Arizona Republicans merged their legislation with bills for plates on hunger, littering and cancer in children. “Who could vote against that?” Mr. Wise asked.

Automobile Registration and License Plates


Nuclear Pact With Russia Faces Senate Obstacles

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The top two Senate Republicans declared Sunday that they would vote against President Obama ’s nuclear treaty with Russia as the bipartisan spirit of last week’s tax-cut deal devolved into a sharp battle over national security in the waning days of the session. With some prominent Republicans angry over passage of legislation ending the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, the mood in the Senate turned increasingly divisive and Mr. Obama and Democratic lawmakers scrambled to hold together a coalition to approve the treaty. Senator Harry M. Reid, the Democratic majority leader, moved to hold a vote on Tuesday to close off debate, saying, “You either want to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists or you don’t.” But the fate of the treaty, known as New Start, was complicated by a deadlock over government spending and the political subtext about whether the pact’s approval would rejuvenate a weakened president after his party’s midterm election defeat. For the second day, Mr. Obama’s supporters defeated a Republican amendment that would have blocked approval of the treaty by the end of the year. But the 60-to-32 vote left them short of the two-thirds majority they will need for final approval, and the White House lost a Republican it had hoped would join them on the decisive vote expected later this week. The debate on the Senate floor came hours after Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican leaders in the upper chamber, said they would vote against the treaty. While their opposition was not a surprise, the question was how aggressively Mr. McConnell in particular would lobby the handful of wavering Republicans who will decide the matter. “I’ve decided that I cannot support the treaty,” Senator McConnell said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “I think the verification provisions are inadequate and I do worry about the missile-defense implications of it.” While the treaty was signed eight months ago, he said, “rushing it right before Christmas, it strikes me as trying to jam us.” One Republican who had previously signaled willingness to support the treaty, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, suggested Sunday that he would not. Mr. Graham cited the sour mood engendered by Democrats forcing votes on other topics in recent days, including the bill on gays in the military that passed Saturday. “If you really want to have a chance of passing Start, you better start over and do it in the next Congress because this lame duck has been poisoned,” Mr. Graham said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “I’m not going to vote for Start,” he added, “until I hear from the Russians that they understand we can develop four stages of missile defense, and if we do, they won’t withdraw from the treaty.” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats said they were still confident they had enough votes, but the rapidly evolving situation left many feeling nervous at the end of a lame-duck session that has brought Mr. Obama several big victories. The president reached a tax cut compromise with Republicans by defying his liberal base, then won repeal of “ don’t ask, don’t tell ” on Saturday when a number of moderate Republicans joined Democrats to end the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. The treaty would be another significant victory. The down-to-the-wire suspense is unusual in the annals of arms control votes in the Senate. Most such treaties that reached the floor won by overwhelming margins if not unanimously. The rare arms control treaties to fail were generally never brought to a vote, with one exception being the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, which Mr. Kyl helped defeat in 1999. Never has a major nuclear arms control treaty been approved during a lame-duck session or without the support of the Senate minority leader. What makes the fierce showdown over this treaty so surprising is that compared with most of its predecessors, it is a relatively modest agreement that mainly resumes on-site inspections that lapsed last year and pares down each side’s deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 and deployed launchers to 700. Republican critics have zeroed in on what they consider important flaws, including its verification program, the failure to address smaller, tactical nuclear bombs and some nonbinding language in the preamble that they argue would inhibit future American missile defense plans. Mr. Kyl, on “Fox News Sunday,” said he would vote against the treaty unless it was amended. “This treaty needs to be fixed,” he said. The White House dismissed the statement by Mr. McConnell, who stood by Mr. Obama’s side just two days ago for the signing of the tax-cut agreement. “We respect Senator McConnell’s view, but weren’t surprised by it, and we certainly were not counting on his vote,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman. Mr. Kyl, however, was a different story. The White House had spent months negotiating with him in the hope of securing his support, including agreeing to a 10-year, $85 billion program to modernize the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. Even after Mr. Kyl said last month that there was not enough time to deal with the treaty before the end of the year, the White House kept trying to win him over, an effort that appeared increasingly futile in recent days. Mr. Kyl led the Senate opposition to the treaty, with his statement on Sunday the final blow to the White House campaign. Seeking to circumvent Mr. Kyl, the president worked the phones over the weekend, calling senators. Mr. Obama was firmly rejecting amendments because any changes to the treaty text would force both countries to return to the negotiating table. The amendment rejected by the Senate on Sunday, proposed by Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, would have inserted language into the preamble about the importance of tactical weapons. “Let’s tell the negotiators, go back to the table and at least agree that the interrelationship between strategic and tactical weapons is a really, really important issue and we’re not just going to go on like we have over the last 40 years,” Mr. Risch said. No Russian-American treaty has ever addressed tactical weapons, but the two sides have said they hoped to negotiate an agreement on them after New Start is ratified. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Mr. Risch’s amendment would not curb tactical weapons. “Not only would it not do that,” he said, “it would set back the effort to try to get those reductions because the Russians will not engage in that discussion if you can’t ratify the treaty.” For the treaty, Mr. Kerry added, passing the amendment would mean “it’s dead.” Treaty supporters scrambled to lock down Republican support. To get the required two-thirds majority, the treaty needs nine Republican votes. Four Republicans have said they support it, two others voted for it in committee and seem likely to vote for final approval, and about seven or eight others have said they lean toward it or hope to vote for it if concerns were addressed. As the battle over government spending continued, Mr. Reid on Sunday also moved to cut off debate on a stopgap measure that would finance the federal government through March 4 and impose a wage freeze for most federal workers. Republicans last week blocked a spending bill that would have covered operations until the end of the fiscal year on March 30.

Arms Control and Limitation and Disarmament


Japan Plans to Unlink Nuclear Agency From Government

Abstract: TOKYO — Responding to criticism that lax oversight played a role in the Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan ’s government may make its nuclear regulatory agency more independent as early as next year. The country’s minister of trade and industry, Banri Kaieda, speaking in Vienna on Monday, said that the government wanted to separate the regulatory agency from his ministry, which is in charge of promoting Japan’s nuclear industry. Cozy ties between government and industry are now widely blamed for allowing the Fukushima Daiichi plant to operate despite inadequate protections against large tsunamis and insufficient backup power systems. Those vulnerabilities proved disastrous after the devastating earthquake on March 11. Mr. Kaieda made the vague pledge of reform during a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog. At the meeting, the head of the agency Yukiya Amano , said that nuclear regulators must be “genuinely independent,” echoing a criticism that his agency has repeatedly made of Japan’s nuclear oversight in the past. There has also been widespread criticism in Japan that the regulators’ lack of independence contributed to clumsy response during the first days of the nuclear crisis. The government largely left the response up to the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, during a period the company now acknowledges that nuclear fuel was melting down in three of the plant’s reactors. Officials in the prime minister’s office have since complained that they were getting inadequate information from not only Tokyo Electric, but also from Mr. Kaieda’s ministry and regulators. Mr. Kaieda said spinning off the regulatory body, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, was one of several proposals being considered to strengthen oversight. The I.A.E.A. has criticized the Japanese agency’s lack of independence several times, most recently in a report completed last week by an investigative team that visited the stricken Fukushima plant in May. In 2007, after an earthquake in another part of Japan that also damaged a different nuclear plant, the international agency called for creating a firewall between regulators and the ministry, which guided the establishment of Japan’s nuclear industry.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Japan)


Australia Arrests Chinese Crew of Ship in Reef Accident

Abstract: SYDNEY — Australian police on Wednesday arrested two senior crew members in charge of the Chinese coal vessel that ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef last week, causing serious damage to one of the world’s most famous coral outcroppings. The Chinese captain and chief officer on watch during the April 3 accident were charged with damaging a protected marine environment after an investigation found that the freighter, Shen Neng 1, had strayed from its intended course. Officials have said it could take up to 20 years for parts of the reef to recover from the collision, which has prompted widespread calls for more stringent controls on commercial vessels in Australian waters. The scar the ship made on the reef is 1.9 miles long and up to 820 feet wide. The 47-year-old shipmaster, whose identity was not immediately made public, was charged with being liable for a vessel causing damage in a marine park, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of a fine of 55,000 Australian dollars, or $51,200. The ship’s 44-year-old chief officer was charged with the more serious breach of being in charge of the vessel at the time the accident occurred. If convicted, he faces a maximum of three years in prison and a fine of up to 220,000 Australian dollars, or $205,000. The two men were expected in court on Thursday in Gladstone, a town near the center of Australia ’s eastern coast. The Australian Federal Police executed a search warrant on the ship on Wednesday, the culmination of a joint criminal investigation involving state and federal authorities, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The authorities said in a brief statement on Wednesday that the Shen Neng 1 crashed into the southern end of the reef on the evening of April 3 after it “failed to turn at a waypoint required by the intended course of the ship.” State and federal politicians have accused the ship of taking a shortcut through the reef to shave time off the two week journey from eastern Australia to China. The Shen Neng 1 was hauled off the reef late Monday after a delicate three-day operation to remove the 1,075 tons of engine fuel in the ship’s tanks and lift it off the shoal. David Wachenfeld, the chief scientist with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio on Tuesday that it could take two decades for marine life to return to the section of the reef most badly damaged in the collision. The Chinese freighter was carrying 72,000 tons of coal when it ran aground 44 miles east of Great Keppel Island, which is off eastern Australia about 370 miles north of Brisbane. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and iron ore and a major supplier to Asia, but environmental groups and many Australian politicians say the incident highlights the need for tighter controls on commercial vessels passing through Australian waters.

Australia
Reefs
Ships and Shipping
Accidents and Safety


In California, Carports That Can Generate Electricity

Abstract: SAN JOSE, Calif. — And California begat cars, and the cars begat asphalt parking lots. And the lots spawned electricity, transforming the hills and the deserts. Ersatz roofs made of solar panels have sprouted above dozens of school parking lots in the state, altering vistas and promoting a philosophy of green thinking among the young. Yet the primary driver of the solar roofs is economic. By forming partnerships with banks and other backers, school districts get guarantees of reliably cheap electricity for their buildings for as long as 20 years. The institutions, which finance the systems and sell the electricity back to the schools, also receive tax incentives from the federal and state governments. So far, solar carports have been installed at some 75 elementary, high school and community college campuses in California, the majority of them in the San Francisco area. Some are designed as a broad fan of panels canting slightly upward and supported by a single pole; more often they are an ode to rectilinearity, parallel to the asphalt and supported by a line of poles between the rows of parking spaces. Walter Hood, a designer based in Oakland, said he sees the seeds of a new suburban aesthetic in the proliferation of the photovoltaic panels. “It’s an interesting piece of infrastructure,” he said, adding, “So maybe in the future we’re thinking of parking lots as something that is always covered.” Schools were not the first to move in this direction. Leading the way in this re-creation of the suburban landscape was Google, which added solar canopies to the parking lots at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., three years ago. Some come with outlets for solar-charging electric cars . “At the Googleplex, the P.V. is almost acting like a grove of trees,” Mr. Hood said. But schools are now at the leading edge of the trend. “This will soon be the norm,” said Michelle O’Shea, a science teacher at Leland High School in southwestern San Jose, where the parking lot went solar a year ago. “It will be hard to imagine that we didn’t do this.” For students, the new structures can offer an education in how clean electricity is generated. “Schoolchildren are growing up with it, so it becomes ingrained in their perception of how a society functions,” said Brad Parker, a consultant on a solar carport project for the San Luis Coastal Unified School District in central California. And interest in the systems is growing. “I’ve gotten calls from Hawaii, from Canada, from all over California,” said John Cimino, the director of maintenance, operations and transportation for the Milpitas Unified School District, northeast of San Jose. The solar panels fulfill 75 percent of his district’s annual electricity needs during the school year, he said, and 100 percent of its summer needs. The company that brokered the district’s deal was Chevron Energy Solutions, a subsidiary of Chevron and perhaps the most active of a dozen such intermediaries working around California. The same company helped create a 2.1-megawatt parking lot system on the Fresno campus of California State University. Brian Swanson, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric, the utility that serves most communities in the Bay Area, said that the overall capacity of school-based photovoltaic systems there grew nearly fivefold from 2008 to 2009, to 15.5 megawatts from 327 kilowatts. This year, the cumulative total was 20 megawatts, enough to power 3,500 homes. Yet in the Southern California city of Lancaster, a single parking-lot solar system being constructed by the Antelope Valley Unified School District could reach 9.6 megawatts, according to Mat Havens, the district’s director of facilities. The estimated savings over the 20-year life of a generating contract can run from $12 million for a district like Milpitas (although savings last year were a much more modest $51,000) to $40 million for Antelope Valley. Yet solar parking lots are not solely a California or Southwest phenomenon. In New Jersey, two elementary schools and a middle school in Newark plan to install them in addition to rooftop photovoltaic installations on the school buildings. Boonton High School in Morris County, N.J., is building solar coverings for its parking lots to supplement photovoltaic systems being installed on the roofs of its ice rinks. While the solar parking lots have generally been welcomed by local residents, people in one town in San Luis Obispo County were less receptive. A community advisory board in the small coastal town of Los Osos voted 8 to 1 to oppose the panels on parking lots at a local middle and elementary school, with one panel member warning of “visual blight.” Indeed, the current generation of solar carports does have a utilitarian feel and the bare-bones aesthetic of a Quonset hut. But Mr. Hood, the Oakland designer, suggested that designers could work with manufacturers to change that, treating the photovoltaic materials as a potentially beguiling “surface treatment” rather than a mere assemblage of panels. “They are becoming more ubiquitous in our landscape,” he said. “It’s not just parking lots.” From schools to offices to malls, photovoltaic arrays could one day become as familiar as fire hydrants, Mr. Hood said. “Once they become ubiquitous, they disappear,” he added.

Solar Energy
Parking Garages and Lots
Roofs
Chevron Corp


Picking Pockets? Nah, Surfing Shoulders

Abstract: The stop at Grand Central barely amounted to a pause. On the evening of Nov. 29, at the end of a long, wearing day, a man on his way home to Connecticut decided to get a beer for the trip. Almost without breaking stride, he dashed up to a wall of cash machines, took out $40, bought his beer and caught his train. Later, at home, he checked e-mail, then glanced at his bank account online. Suddenly, that can of beer was looking like one the most expensive brews in history. Sure enough, there was an entry for the $40 he had taken out at 9 p.m. That, however, was not the end of his bank business for the night. A few seconds after he had gotten the $40 and had turned to rush for the train, someone had made five more cash withdrawals from his account at the same A.T.M.: $200, $100, $200, $100 and $100. In all, $700 was taken out within a minute or so. The Connecticut man had been a victim of a shoulder-surfer, a line of sharp-eyed criminals who run from Ivy League heroin addicts to compulsive gamblers. They exploit a yawning loophole in the A.T.M. system, and spots like Grand Central Terminal where distracted people move at high speed. As the commuter was leaving, a man in brown cowboy boots stepped up to the same machine. A question was still posted on the screen: Do you want another transaction? Had the Connecticut man tapped “No,” his account would have logged out. But his bank card and cash were already safely in hand. He was trying to catch a train. So he just left. The question would have remained visible for 17 seconds, but well before that time was up, the man in the brown cowboy boots answered. Yes, he wanted another transaction. Several, as it turned out. The machine asked for the PIN, which he punched in. The money rolled out. How did the man in cowboy boots get the code of the man from Connecticut? “Not a problem,” Detective Michael Alfalla of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority police said. On Friday morning, he stood at the entryway to the same wall of A.T.M.’s. All eight were busy with people who had just gotten off trains. “Look over at the corner, we can see that man entering his PIN number from here,” he said. Sure enough, from a distance of about 15 or 20 feet, the man’s hand was easy to see as he typed on the keypad. “It’s open season,” Detective Alfalla said. “This is an unmanned space.” Such thefts are so routine that banks rarely report them to the police after a customer complains. In the case of the Connecticut man, his bank returned the money as soon as he faxed an affidavit swearing that he had not made the withdrawals. Unlike many victims who have been reimbursed, Detective Alfalla said, the man then searched out the police station in Grand Central near Track 100 and filed a complaint. Otherwise, Detective Alfalla said, he would not have heard about it. “We have brought it to the attention of the bank investigators, but it stops there,” he said. “The cost to implement what they need to fix it far exceeds their losses. The investigators tell me that they’ve been told not to get involved with losses under $20,000.” That rules out thefts from A.T.M.’s because withdrawals, legitimate or not, are generally limited to $1,000 or less. A few months back, a grainy video showed a man who appeared to be speaking on a cellphone as he lurked near the same row of A.T.M.’s, which are operated by Chase. The man wore shorts. After several viewings, Detective Alfalla noticed a tattoo around his calf. He circulated a picture to the officers who patrol the station. THEY arrested Robert Mulligan, 32, who admitted that he had been stealing PINs since last spring at the same A.T.M.’s while pretending to be on a cellphone, according to a criminal complaint. “He had gone to an Ivy school, and was very smart, but had a heroin habit of $300 a day,” Detective Alfalla said. “We circulated his picture, and an N.Y.P.D. detective believes they have him on 23 other cases. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars.” As for the man in the cowboy boots, his picture was also circulated. Two weeks after the Connecticut man discovered his beer had cost $740, Juan Pinto, 47, wearing cowboy boots, was arrested near the A.T.M.’s and charged with identity theft. “He spent a lot of time in Atlantic City,” Detective Alfalla said. “He had cards from every casino in his wallet.”

Banks and Banking
Identity Fraud
Grand Central Terminal (NYC)
New York State


Foster Finally Running to Daylight

Abstract: CHARLOTTE, N.C., Jan. 5 - The box score for the most significant game ever won by the Carolina Panthers lists without fanfare a 1-yard touchdown run by DeShaun Foster. It was the last score in a 14-3 victory at Philadelphia on Jan. 18, 2004, in the National Football Conference championship game, sending the Panthers to their only Super Bowl appearance. Yet it was much more. If there is a play that defines all that is possible with Foster, a fourth-year running back who is likely to have a large role in Sunday's first-round playoff game against the Giants at the Meadowlands, it is that single, highlight-reel, 1-yard run. "I would think that's one of the first plays that come to mind when you think of the 2003 playoffs, and really when you think of all the plays that have been done here," said Panthers General Manager Marty Hurney in a telephone interview Wednesday. Hurney, who arrived here in 1998, has seen most of the best and the worst in this franchise's 11 seasons in the N.F.L. "I think that's got to be very high on the list," he said of Foster's 1-yard run. "I think you just looked at it and said, 'Wow.' " The Panthers had been waiting patiently for Foster, 6 feet and 222 pounds, to be the kind of back who could drop jaws and win games. But after being drafted out of U.C.L.A. in the second round in 2002, Foster spent his first season on injured reserve with a knee injury. By the time he was healthy, the Panthers had opted to sign the veteran free agent Stephen Davis as the feature back in 2003. So Foster was the backup to Davis that season. But with the Panthers at the Eagles' 1-yard line in the third quarter and needing a cushion with a 7-3 lead in that conference championship game, Foster got the ball. He fought off one would-be tackler after another, refusing to be taken down for a loss and instead forcing his way into the end zone. The run was longer than a yard, and he gained 1 more yard than anyone could have expected, given the wave of defenders trying to stop him. "Everybody that saw me play before I got here knew I could play ball," Foster said after practice Wednesday, "so it was just, I finally got an opportunity to run. It just happened to be like that. So there was a little bit more hype behind me." The Panthers' record book notes that Foster broke four tackles by Eagles defenders on the play, but the run has grown in Panthers lore. "I think he broke like five or six tackles and got into the end zone," Davis said Thursday. "It shows the determination and the will that he has when he has the ball in his hands." Foster was expected to be more dominating in 2004, particularly when Davis went down with a knee injury. Instead, Foster joined Davis on the injured reserve list with a broken clavicle, one of 14 Panthers who made the list last season when the team dropped to 7-9 and missed the playoffs. So Foster, with 684 rushing yards to show for his first three seasons in the N.F.L., began the 2005 season as the backup to Davis one more time. But when Davis struggled with knee problems, Foster emerged from the shadows again. He rushed for 131 yards in a 24-6 victory against Atlanta on Dec. 4 and became the starter a week later against Tampa Bay. On the final day of the regular season, Foster gained 165 yards at Atlanta as the Panthers secured a playoff berth with a 44-11 victory. As the playoffs begin, Davis is on the injured list again. That leaves the weight of the Panthers' running game on Foster's shoulders for the first time. If the Panthers establish the run against the Giants, that could open up the passing game for the Pro Bowl-bound combination of quarterback Jake Delhomme and wide receiver Steve Smith. "The way that you get people not to roll with Steve is you run the football effectively," Delhomme said. Foster will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. So his performance in the playoffs could help determine not only the Panthers' fate but his own asking price in the off-season. The Giants already know what to expect from Foster. As Michael Strahan said Thursday: "The 1- yard T.D. run he had against the Eagles a few years ago in the playoffs was one of the best runs that I have ever seen."

NEW YORK GIANTS
CAROLINA PANTHERS
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
FOSTER DESHAUN
PLAYOFF GAMES
FOOTBALL


Moussaoui Jury Hears of Impact and Grief

Abstract: ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 6 — Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was the first of several people who described on Thursday the horrors and lasting grief caused by the Sept. 11 attacks, as part of the government's effort to execute Zacarias Moussaoui. Mr. Giuliani entered the courtroom, striding less than three feet from Mr. Moussaoui, and sat in the witness box alongside a four-foot-high scale model of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the 2001 attacks. For more than two hours, Mr. Giuliani described that day, alternating between his minute-by-minute personal thoughts and his assessment of the damage and disruption caused by the terrorist attacks.. Mr. Giuliani did not glance at Mr. Moussaoui, sitting about 12 feet away. But Mr. Moussaoui paid close attention to his testimony. And when prosecutors began their questioning of Mr. Giuliani with film clips of the trade center's collapse, Mr. Moussaoui, who usually strives to seem disinterested in court, smiled broadly. During a morning break in the trial, with the judge and jury out of the courtroom, Mr. Moussaoui shouted, "Burn in the U.S.A." In the first phase of the sentencing trial, the jury found that Mr. Moussaoui, a 37-year-old member of Al Qaeda, was responsible for at least some of the nearly 3,000 deaths on Sept. 11. In the second phase required under the Federal Death Penalty Act, the jurors are supposed to consider testimony about the impact of the crime in order to decide whether Mr. Moussaoui should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison. Describing Sept. 11, as he has before, Mr. Giuliani told of seeing two people jump to their deaths while holding hands. "That image comes back to me every day," he said. Although Mr. Giuliani was clearly the star witness as the Justice Department began making its case, those who followed him on the witness stand brought far greater emotional ammunition to the argument for Mr. Moussaoui's execution. In quick succession, prosecutors presented five survivors, each of whom delivered personal tales of pathos and pain. Robert A. Spencer, the chief prosecutor, warned in his opening statement that "it will be painful and emotional to hear, but it will be necessary." The testimony of the five brought tears to the eyes of many in the courtroom and at least one juror. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, who has been punctilious about remaining neutral, shook her head in sadness when Mike Low of Arkansas related how he was first told that his daughter Sara, an American Airlines flight attendant, was not on one of the planes that crashed into the trade center. Later he found out that airline officials had erred by mistakenly looking for his daughter's name on the passenger manifest and not that of the crew. Mr. Low said "in a way my life stopped" on Sept. 11. He also said that his wife had retreated completely from life, no longer talking to friends, and that his other daughter slept only a few hours at night, always with the television on. The jury also heard the testimony of James Smith, a 21-year-veteran of the New York City police who described losing his wife, Moira, a fellow police officer who was helping evacuate the south tower of the trade center when it collapsed. They had met in a cop bar, Mr. Smith said, when she took his Yankees cap off and threw it away. "She was a Mets fan," he explained in the only light moment of his testimony. Jurors also watched the beefy police officer struggle to maintain his composure as he described how his 6-year-old daughter, Tricia, pined for her mother. When the prosecutor David Raskin asked Mr. Smith if he was from Brooklyn like his wife, Judge Brinkema interjected lightheartedly to break the mood, "Can't you tell from the accent?" In fact, all five witnesses had accents and demonstrated the wide impact of the attacks. Two were from Brooklyn, Mr. Low was from the South and the others were a man from India and a Vietnamese refugee. Anthony Sanseviro, a former Brooklyn firefighter, testified about losing Daniel Suhr, his best friend, role model and mentor. He described how "Danny" relinquished the driver's seat that day to protect a younger colleague and to help in the rescue. He died after being struck by a falling body. By this time, Mr. Moussaoui had ceased offering any demonstrative reaction. Tu Ho Nguyen told the jury that she and her husband, who was killed at the Pentagon, married on July 4, because as Vietnamese immigrants they were so grateful to the United States for a new opportunity. The most dramatic testimony came from Chandrasekar Salashidr, who told how his sister, an Indian-trained dentist, had initially resisted an arranged marriage with an Indian software engineer living in Los Angeles. After his sister's husband died aboard one of the hijacked planes on Sept. 11, Mr. Salashidr said he came from India to comfort her but then had to leave briefly to extend his visa. While he was gone, he continued, she hanged herself at her Los Angeles home, leaving him a letter, saying: "Dear Brother, I'm extremely sorry for what I've done" but explaining that she could no longer go on living without the man she had come to love deeply. Defense lawyers, for the most part, asked only a few respectful questions of the witnesses in cross-examination. In this phase of the sentencing trial, the jury is required to weigh aggravating factors like those offered in Thursday's testimony, against mitigating factors like Mr. Moussaoui's mental instability, which the defense will present when its turn comes, probably next week. If the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, the jury will then decide whether to order Mr. Moussaoui's execution. If it does so unanimously, Judge Brinkema is obliged to impose that sentence. In his opening statement to the jury, Gerald T. Zerkin, a court-appointed defense lawyer, acknowledged the awful nature of the crime to which Mr. Moussaoui has pleaded guilty. But he asked the jurors to at least "open yourselves to the possibility of a sentence other than death." Mr. Zerkin portrayed his client as a pathetic figure, a Qaeda hanger-on sliding in and out of mental illness and easily influenced by radical Islamic propagandists. Mr. Zerkin said his client was so unbalanced that he once said President Bush would order his release and that he believed that his own lawyers were conspiring to kill him.

Moussaoui Zacarias
Giuliani Rudolph W
Terrorism