Come Out and Live, Shabab Told Kenya Students. It Was a Lie.

Abstract: GARISSA, Kenya — Elosy Karimi curled up in a crawl space, immobilized by fear. Her classmates were flooding out of the dorms, in boxer shorts and thin nightgowns. Gunfire was ringing all around her. People were screaming. It was predawn and pitch black. “If you want to survive, come out!” the militants yelled. “If you want to die, stay inside!” In the terrifying confusion, Ms. Karimi, 23, decided to risk it inside, she said, and stayed hidden in the ceiling above her bunk bed for the next 28 and a half hours. “I knew those guys were lying,” she said at the hospital, having just arrived to be checked after the ordeal. New details emerged on Friday about how a handful of fighters from the Shabab militant group, with just a few light weapons, managed to kill nearly 150 students in Kenya’s worst terrorist attack since the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy in Nairobi. Image Students evacuated from Garissa University College waited in a holding area on Friday before being taken back to their home regions. Credit Carl De Souza/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Survivors said many students had fallen for the militants’ trick, voluntarily leaving their dorm rooms and obeying commands to lie down in neat rows, only to be shot in the back of the head. One of the militants appeared to be a trained sniper, some witnesses said, picking off several Kenyan soldiers and critically hampering the rescue effort, giving the gunmen hours more to keep killing. The militants seemed especially cruel and gleeful, ordering some students to call their parents on their cellphones and tell them that the attack was payback for Kenya’s military intervention in Somalia. Students who hid during the attack said they had heard their classmates whimpering as the militants taunted them. Then a single gunshot. Then silence. “They were shooting people as they came out; they were making others lie down,” said a doctor who was not authorized to speak publicly. “They had so many people lying in one place, it was easy killing.” Garissa, the hard, thorny frontier town that was the scene of the siege, is now a town on edge. Huge military trucks with four-foot-tall tires thunder down the highway. Ambulances deliver bodies to the airport. Garissa University College, where the students were killed, has been sealed off, and young, nervous soldiers, dripping with sweat, try to hold back crowds of onlookers by swatting them with acacia branches. Many students here said that universities in Nairobi had been warned about possible terrorist attacks; they were stunned that their campus, in an area where the Shabab has struck many times before, had only two guards. The Shabab has killed hundreds of Kenyans — on country buses, in churches, in a quarry last year where they marched off miners before dawn and also made them lie face down in rows. The worst Shabab attack before this was on Nairobi’s Westgate mall in 2013 , when a few young Shabab gunmen killed dozens of shoppers, including small children. “That’s what I was thinking when I heard the first burst of gunfire,” said Ibrahim Maalim, a guard at the school. “Westgate.” Image Students mourned the loss of friends, a day after Shabab militants killed nearly 150 of their classmates. Credit Carl De Souza/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The attack on Thursday exposed just how powerless this industrialized, westernized country is in the face of a ruthless terrorist organization. Many fear that Kenya cannot stop the Shabab, who are clearly trying to fan a religious war. On Friday morning, a dozen local young men, all Muslim, marched down Garissa’s main road to show solidarity with the victims, the vast majority of whom were Christian and hailed from other parts of Kenya. We will not succumb to this, the demonstrators said. We stand with you. We may be ethnic Somalis, but we are Kenyan, too. Ahmed Youssouf, 28, said he was inside the university mosque with other Muslims on Thursday when the shooting began. Immediately, Christian students began pouring inside seeking refuge, and their Muslim classmates hid them, he said. Many of the students later crawled out single file, dashing for the university’s gate, he said. “I could see the mess of what was happening — children jumping out of rooms, running helter-skelter, others falling down with bullets,” he said. Kenya’s military operation in Somalia began in 2011. It was intended to push the Shabab back from the border and protect Kenya’s security and economic interests. It does not seem to have achieved the intended effect. Kenya’s tourism industry has been wounded by the perception the country is not safe. And for the first time in decades, a militant group in Kenya is stirring up not just religious tensions but territorial ones as well. In the 1960s, Somalia’s government sent guerrilla fighters across its border with Kenya. It was called the Shifta War. This part of Kenya is predominantly ethnic Somali; Somalia said it was simply trying to reclaim what it considered long lost territory. Now the Shabab are resurrecting that old argument. The Shabab tried to justify the attack on Thursday by saying this part of Kenya was “a Muslim land under colony.” A Shabab spokesman called the university part of Kenya’s “plan to spread their Christianity and infidelity.” Image Relatives of victims gathered pm Friday at a center set up for survivors of the attack and families. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press Not a single person among dozens interviewed here on Friday uttered a word of support for the Shabab, considered one of Al Qaeda’s most murderous branches. But there was growing resentment toward the Kenyan government. Aden Osman, a thin man with protruding collar bones and a hungry, vacant face, stood outside Garissa’s main hospital. The collar of his shirt was spattered with blood. A yellowing bandage was taped atop his head. At first glance, he could have easily been mistaken for a gunshot survivor. But Mr. Osman said it was actually the government that had done this. He said, and witnesses seconded his account, that Kenyan soldiers thumped him with a club simply for showing up at the gates of the university to check on a friend whom he thought might have been killed. “I will never like the Shabab,” Mr. Osman said. “But no government should be beating its own people.” All that separates Kenya from Somalia is a thin dusty line. The 424-mile border is scarcely patrolled — the Kenyans do not have the resources for it. Image A Red Cross worker treated a Garissa student for shock on Friday as more details emerged about the deadly campus siege. Credit Carl De Souza/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Elders here say that the few guards who do run patrols are notoriously corrupt, letting smuggled sugar, illegal refugees, truckloads of guns and just about anything else pass through, for the right price. The Kenyan government is now asking Western allies to help it build a massive border wall. But Somalia specialists say that may not be a cure-all. This attack “was low-tech, low budget, low risk, and the target was low-hanging fruit,” said Kenneth Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina. “It says a lot more about how hard it is for an open society like Kenya, with tens of thousands of soft targets, to prevent a terrorist group from attacking them,” he added. At the Chiromo Funeral Parlor in Nairobi, a long line of Land Rovers pulled up on Friday afternoon. They were delivering bodies that were wrapped in white sheets, blood soaking through. Soldiers in surgical masks hauled them into a morgue, and relatives began to weep. “Some people may not be strong in these situations,” a Red Cross worker shouted over a bullhorn. “Hold the one next to you.”

Kenya
College
Terrorism
Al Shabab
School Shootings and Attacks
Somalia
Garissa
Garissa University College


Greek Basketball Team Is Punished

Abstract: Panathinaikos of Athens has been ordered to play four home games in the Euroleague behind closed doors and fined $131,000 for offenses during its quarterfinal series against Barcelona. Panathinaikos was punished for the use of illegal sirens, flares and firecrackers as well as for exceeding the official capacity of its arena. Barcelona won the series and advanced to the Euroleague semifinals.

Basketball
Panathinaikos Basketball Team
Greece


S.E.C. Regulators Turn to High-Speed Trading Firm

Abstract: RED BANK, N.J. — As billions of shares course through the stock market each day, investors rely on the government to keep up with Wall Street’s rapid-fire traders. But in an acknowledgment that the Securities and Exchange Commission has fallen behind the firms it regulates, the agency is turning to one of those high-frequency traders for help. Tradeworx, a 45-person firm based in New Jersey, will dispatch its experts to Washington this month to tutor regulators on a sophisticated computer program that will give the S.E.C. its first real-time window into the stock market — something firms like Tradeworx have had for years. The S.E.C. program, designed by Tradeworx, is set to go into operation at the end of this year. The program, called “Midas” by the S.E.C., is part of a broader effort at the agency to monitor the proliferation of new technologies and to crack down on practices that have given sophisticated traders an advantage over ordinary investors. The agency recently hosted public meetings on computerized trading to examine some of the recent failures in the market, like the malfunction at Knight Capital that wreaked havoc on stock prices in August. Last week, the Nasdaq exchange had to cancel errant trades after a technical problem caused shares of Kraft to soar. The S.E.C.’s rudimentary technology has hobbled its ability to untangle these events and police the automated trading firms. With the Tradeworx program, the agency will gain access to every bid to buy stocks and every offer to sell shares on each of the nation’s 13 public exchanges. The system, akin to an X-ray machine for the stock market, could enable regulators to detect whether trading firms are overwhelming the market’s plumbing when they rapidly submit and cancel orders. “The average person on the street thinks that the S.E.C. has these massive computers that all orders are going through,” said Gregg Berman, the agency official leading the effort. “That has not been the case, but we hope to now have that with this new system.” Some industry experts have said that the Tradeworx program is the quickest and, at a cost of $2.5 million this year, the cheapest way for the agency to catch up with the high-speed trading industry, which has gone from being a niche player a decade ago to being responsible for more than half of all trading in American stocks today. But the initiative raises a new set of questions about whether the industry is the best source for unbiased information about the markets. David Lauer, a former employee of other high-speed trading firms, wrote in recent testimony to a Senate subcommittee that the Tradeworx program was “reminiscent of the fox guarding the hen house.” “You don’t rely on the subject of your study to build the device you are going to be studying them with,” Mr. Lauer said in an interview after the hearing. The S.E.C. said it sought out other bids over the last year and even considered building its own database, an effort that would have taken several years and cost millions of dollars more than the Tradeworx project. Mr. Berman added that the agency looked to Tradeworx only for data feeds that were the same no matter who provided them. The chief executive of Tradeworx, Manoj Narang, argued that if he sold bogus data to the government, it would be obvious. More important, he said, the S.E.C. has few alternatives. “Where else are they going to be able to get these capabilities?” Mr. Narang said. “They are not available from anywhere other than high-speed trading firms. We’re the only ones who possess it.” Today, the S.E.C. relies on the official trading record, known as the consolidated tape, which includes the price of every trade executed on any of the nation’s stock exchanges. Most sophisticated trading firms bypass the official record by buying data directly from the exchanges. The firms compile a full record milliseconds before the consolidated tape is assembled and obtain a wider range of information, including orders that are submitted but never executed. Mr. Berman said that data from Tradeworx would be used throughout the S.E.C., from the enforcement division looking to catch wrongdoing to the division of trading and markets that keeps daily watch over the markets. The data could allow the S.E.C. to analyze claims that some firms take advantage of their faster data feeds to jump in front of slower traders, and complaints that sophisticated traders can jam the system with so many orders that it slows down trading for others. Mr. Berman, a former hedge fund co-manager and nuclear physicist, led the agency’s examination of the flash crash of 2010 , when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 5 percent in five minutes and then mostly recovered. He is now leading the broader effort to bring the S.E.C. into the modern world of trading. As the agency falls further behind, he is helping to build a new Office of Research and Analytics, which is looking to hire people with experience on Wall Street and in computer programming. The agency is also moving closer to creating a so-called consolidated audit trail, which will allow regulators to see the identity of the firm behind every trade. But any future efforts depend on the S.E.C. having access to the sort of basic data that Tradeworx will provide. The firm has been a growing player in the high-speed trading industry; Mr. Narang says it now accounts for about 1.5 percent of all daily trading in American stocks. But Tradeworx has developed an even more lucrative business selling data and technology to other trading firms. One recent project has involved building towers that can beam trading data to Chicago via microwave, a faster method of transmission than fiber optic cables. Mr. Narang assembled a five-person team to work full time on the S.E.C. program. The employees will travel to Washington to train regulators on how to use the program, but they have done most of their work from the company’s brick-walled offices above an Urban Outfitters in the suburban town of Red Bank. The effort is led by Glenn Nixon, 32, who came to Tradeworx from the Princeton physics program and previously worked on the company’s trading desk. Tradeworx will give the S.E.C. the same data stream that it sells to its other clients. But the analytical tools it is providing have not been sold before, and are the same ones its trading desk uses to analyze market patterns. The data will be stored in Amazon’s cloud network, and Tradeworx will not see how the government is using the system. The software will give regulators the ability to spot trading patterns in an individual stock, or to rewind and watch what happened in the trading of all stocks during previous crises, like the Knight Capital incident. Because of the large amounts of data involved, it takes the agency’s current computers weeks to process what the Tradeworx system can do in a day. Mr. Nixon said he hoped that once the company developed these tools for the S.E.C., his team would market them to other firms. But Mr. Narang said the primary motivation in developing the program was to help regulators respond to critics of high-speed trading. One of the primary complaints of traditional, slower investors, like mutual funds, is that high-speed trading firms flood the market with orders except in times of crisis, when the orders are most needed. “There are an awful lot of allegations out there that the S.E.C. is not currently in any position to evaluate,” Mr. Narang said. “The S.E.C. ought to be in a position to examine the data and find the truth.” Even with the new stream of information from Tradeworx, the S.E.C. will still not have the complete picture. It will not, for instance, have information on the trades executed in so-called dark pools, trading venues that do not have to follow the same reporting rules as the public exchanges. Regulators will also lack information on who is placing the trades, which will come when the consolidated audit trail is completed in a few years. Henry T. C. Hu, a professor of banking and finance law at the University of Texas and a former S.E.C. official, said the agency had been outgunned. He said that while the Tradeworx program was not perfect, the agency needed to do something to catch up. “You don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Mr. Hu said. “The world is too fast-moving for that.”

High-Frequency and Flash Trading
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Securities and Exchange Commission
Tradeworx


Trading Is Halted in Shares of Mortgage Lender

Abstract: Trading was halted yesterday in shares of the lender Thornburg Mortgage Asset after they plunged 47 percent, the most since their 1993 initial public offering. Earlier, five brokerage firms downgraded the stock and Moody’s Investors Service cut its debt rating amid turmoil in the home loan market. The company announced later that it would delay payment of its quarterly dividend, 68 cents a share. Brokerage firms cited concerns that Thornburg, which specializes in high-quality, prime jumbo mortgages, might need to sell assets or reduce its dividend because of a liquidity squeeze. Paul Miller, an analyst for Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Company who lowered the stock to underperform from market perform, said the downgrade reflected “the current liquidity crisis in the asset-backed commercial paper and repurchase markets.” Piper Jaffray, the Credit Suisse Group, Jefferies & Company and RBC Capital Markets also lowered their ratings to underperform. The nation’s biggest lenders face a worsening cash shortage because investors who buy their loans are not bidding, and bankers have cut off credit lines. The fallout has toppled at least 70 mortgage companies. Thornburg, based in Santa Fe, N.M., said in a statement to lending partners yesterday that new requests to lock in rates would not be accepted for four days. The company said it was being inundated with lock requests because few other lenders were honoring the requests. “We’re funding loans on a priority basis,” a spokeswoman, Suzanne Lopez, said. “The market is a bit crazy right now, but we’re funding loans as of today, just not at the rate we’ve done in a normal market environment.” Thornburg shares fell $6.67, to $7.61, before trading was halted on the New York Stock Exchange. Moody’s cut Thornburg’s credit ratings yesterday by two levels, to B2, its fifth-highest speculative-grade ranking, and left the ratings on review for another downgrade. High-yield bonds, also called junk bonds, are those rated below Baa3 by Moody’s and BBB- by Standard & Poor’s.

Mortgages
Stocks and Bonds
Banks and Banking
Thornburg Mortgage Incorporated


Uneasy Paths for Guus Hiddink and Fabio Capello, Coaches of Dutch and Russian National Teams

Abstract: LONDON — Guus Hiddink and Fabio Capello are grandfathers in a young man’s game. The Dutchman and the Italian are both 68. They have earned more than enough to settle down to an easy retirement in their pick of the many places where they have been hired and fired, lauded and vilified for their abilities to make players play. Yet still they want more. Forty years ago, they ran the midfield, the drivers of the teams they played on. Now they pour — or attempt to — their knowledge and experience into players who may never speak their language nor understand their credo. Capello is the head coach to Russia. A simple little task. He was promised anything and everything to build up a national team that has never won at the World Cup level to be at least a competitive force at the 2018 Cup, which Russia is spending tens of billions of dollars to host. The problem is that Russia isn’t winning, and the coach isn’t being paid. The ruble is falling, and either because the Russian soccer federation has run out of money or because there are those in higher places who want Capello out, he hasn’t been paid since June on his reported $11 million a year contract. His assistant coaches have departed. It is a lonely place that Capello occupies, yet he, a genuine lover of Russian art, gives every impression that he will tough it out, either until the results turn his way or until the Russian soccer federation pays off the contract. And Hiddink? He has been there and done that. Hiddink was the coach who guided South Korea to a fourth-place finish the 2002 World Cup, which the country co-hosted with Japan. After the tournament, South Korea’s high society lauded Hiddink with a black-tie reception, and he showed up in jeans and an open shirt, took the microphone and sang: “I did it my way.” He later coached Russia, a job paid for by the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich. He rewarded the country with another semifinal, at the 2008 European Championship, Russia’s best result since the breakup of the Soviet Union. There have been other, similar paths the two coaches have walked. Both know what it is to be hired and fired by Real Madrid. Both have been targets of government tax inquiries. Both have tempers that, like Vesuvius, can boil over. And both are walking right now on ice, living on thin results that ultimately will determine their fates. Last weekend, the results in Euro 2016 qualifiers divided them. Capello’s Russian team lost, 1-0, to Austria in Vienna. Capello said, in the lingua franca of global soccer, that he was satisfied the players performed the way he asked them to, but he was not satisfied with the result. He refused to answer questions about his pay or his tenure. In another qualifier, Hiddink’s tide turned. He is now back for a second stint as coach of his homeland. He took over the Netherlands in July after Louis van Gaal led the Oranje to a third-place finish at the World Cup. But like all the teams that advanced far in the heat and humidity and exhausting expectations in Brazil, the Dutch have suffered injuries and a flattening out of form. On the eve of Sunday’s game in Amsterdam between the Dutch and Latvia, Hiddink said something that has seldom ever been heard from him, or from Capello. It was, lose and I quit. The Netherlands didn’t lose. Galvanized by Arjen Robben, who in many eyes deserved to have been named the outstanding player of the 2014 World Cup rather than Lionel Messi, the Dutch tore Latvia apart. Robben scored two beauties. Robin van Persie scored with his head. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored twice, And all of a sudden the Dutch came to praise the coach, not to bury him. Hiddink could have said that in 1995, when he first coached his country, he lost four of the first five matches. Then the Dutch won all the way to the semifinals of the 1998 World Cup semifinals. This time around, the Dutch lost four of five games before the rout of Latvia. The critics have stopped, for now, calling for his resignation. The head coach was more concerned afterward about a knee injury to Daley Blind, the son of his assistant coach Danny Blind, that happened early in Sunday’s game. There, though Hiddink didn’t say it, is the real human situation that all coaches are in. It is not the fickle employers, the press nor the fans that matter most, but the understanding between the coach and his players. When Capello coached England, players often complained that he ruled over them like a prison guard. But seeing Capello at work — particularly in Madrid, where his tough love turned a group of failing individualists into a winning team — shows the complaints reflect poorly on the players, not the coach. Watching from the inside of the camp that South Korea built for Hiddink showed it was clear that soccer at the highest level carries a communication that is beyond linguistic or cultural differences. Hiddink didn’t speak Korean, and the players didn’t know how to train like Europeans. But together, over time, he nurtured the talent in them to carry an Asian team further than it had ever gone before in a World Cup. Hire them, fire them, but respect the global wanderers.


Attention Shoppers: Low Prices on Shots in Clinic

Abstract: Everyday low prices on strep-throat exams. That is the basic idea behind a retail approach to routine medical care now catching on among consumers and entrepreneurs. At Wal-Mart, CVS and other chain stores, walk-in health clinics are springing up as an antidote to the expense and inconvenience of full-service doctors' offices or the high-cost and impersonal last resort of emergency rooms. For a $30 flu shot, a $45 treatment for an ear infection or other routine services from a posted price list, patients can visit nurse practitioners in independently operated clinics set up within the stores — whose own pharmacies can fill prescriptions. "It was a lot easier to know you can just drive up the block to a clinic, rather than spend time in the pediatrician's waiting room," said Liz Lyons, who recently took her 9-year-old son to have a sore throat swabbed in a clinic at a CVS drugstore in Bethesda, Md. She made a $10 co-payment, with her husband's insurance picking up the rest of the $59 tab. About 100 of these clinics, which typically lease space from the host stores, are now operating around the nation. Hundreds more are in the works, bankrolled by a range of competing entrepreneurs who include Stephen M. Case, the former AOL chairman; Richard L. Scott, who once ran the nation's largest hospital chain; and Michael Howe, a former chief executive of the Arby's restaurants group. Despite their diverse backgrounds, those executives and others share a concept of "consumer-directed health care" — a marketing and political term that usually means higher out-of-pocket medical costs — as a mass-market opportunity. Even some family physicians say the clinics may have their place in the array of American medical offerings. And most insurers so far are welcoming retail clinics as a way to save money. The uninsured, meanwhile, typically find the clinics more affordable than most alternatives — including the for-profit storefront clinics that have long offered a full range of physician-provided medical services to a walk-in clientele. Uwe E. Reinhardt, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, said that the store chains, with their reputations on the line, would insist that the clinics maintain high standards and low error rates. "Primary care is a neglected field in the United States, lagging other economically advanced countries," he said. "The clinics can teach the rest of our health system how primary care could be done and brought to the public." Whether a fad or the beginning of a fundamental shift, the retail clinic trend comes in response to an erosion in employer-sponsored insurance benefits that is forcing people to pay more or all of their own health costs. It is also a reaction to the growing perception that conventional medical service for routine and preventive care has become too costly and inefficient. "Starbucks has 10,000 locations; health care is certainly more important," said Mr. Case, who made his name and fortune on the Internet but is now betting that his chain of RediClinics at Wal-Mart, Walgreens and other retailers can be the next big thing. Mr. Case says his epiphany came a few years ago when he took his young daughter to an emergency room on a Sunday for an ear infection. "We waited four hours and they just weren't able to see us," he recalled. "This is crazy: a society in which everything is convenient other than what people care most about, which is taking care of their health." Mr. Case's company, Revolution Health Group, has 11 RediClinics now running, including one at a Duane Reade pharmacy on West 50th Street in Manhattan. He plans to open 90 others in various retail chains by the end of this year, and 500 within three years. Other executives bringing their names and money to the field include Hal Rosenbluth, who sold a travel business to American Express and is now behind a clinic chain called Take Care Health Systems. It has clinics in 16 stores, and Mr. Rosenbluth has raised $77 million with an eye toward expanding to 1,400 in the next few years. Another in the game is Dr. Glen D. Nelson, a Minneapolis surgeon and investor whose company, MinuteClinic, has branches in 73 stores. "The clinic concept is a microcosm of what you could do to the whole system to improve it and make it more consumer friendly and economical," Dr. Nelson said. The licensed nurse practitioners who run most of the clinics typically have advanced training and referral arrangements with local doctors for cases beyond the clinics' scope. When Ms. Lyons recently took her son, Daniel, to the MinuteClinic at the CVS in Bethesda, the nurse practitioner on duty was Trish Hughes, who performed a quick swab test to check for a streptococcal bacterial infection. In less than three minutes, that preliminary test came up negative; the swab was retained for further testing. Ms. Lyons said she was pleased with the clinic experience. "I will be back," she said. For Beth Brauning, 54, a self-employed house cleaner who is uninsured, the prices at a clinic in a CVS near Columbus, Ohio, were a big attraction. The nurse practitioner took her blood pressure and wrote two allergy prescriptions she needed. The bill was $49 — "probably half what my doctor would have charged me," Ms. Brauning said. "It was such a good experience for me. You go to an emergency room, it's $300 to walk in the door." Having someone in the store writing prescriptions could be a boon for pharmacy chains. "Pharmacy is 70 percent of our business," said Jim Maritan, a CVS vice president for strategy and business development. "It is a great experience having a nurse practitioner clinic on site." But some doctors say the clinic-pharmacy relationship could create conflicts of interest. "We want to make sure that the patient is protected," said Dr. Joseph P. Annis, an anesthesiologist in Austin, Tex., who is the chairman of an American Medical Association council that studied the clinics for a report due out later this month. Dr. Anne B. Francis, a pediatrician in Rochester, said it was important for children to have a physician who gets to know the family and keeps a complete health record that can help point to underlying causes of some ailments. "All earaches are not ear infections," she said. Although some physicians are fearful of losing business to the clinics, others say that the clinics may fill a need. Larry S. Fields, a family doctor in Ashland, Ky., who is president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said that if the clinics "stick to this limited scope, they may have a small role in providing acute health care to people who are mildly ill, when their only other alternative at the time might be an emergency room." With no need for expensive medical equipment or office space, the clinics tend to be cheap to operate — particularly since the nurse practitioners are paid $30 to $45 an hour, compared with the $65 or much more an hour that a primary care doctor can command. A store clinic can be profitable with 25 patients over a 12-hour day, clinic executives said. A clinic company with somewhat grander ambitions is Solantic. Its clinics are staffed by doctors and provide a wider range of services that include X-rays at $90 apiece (or two for $150). For routine services, Solantic's prices may be slightly higher than at other clinics — $55 or more for a Solantic doctor visit compared with $45 to be seen by a nurse practitioner at a rival's clinic. But having doctors on staff "dramatically increases the number of services we can provide to a patient," said Richard L. Scott, the chairman of Solantic, which is based in Jacksonville, Fla. Mr. Scott built Columbia-HCA Healthcare into the nation's largest hospital chain. But in the late 1990's, the company faced an array of charges that it had defrauded the government, charged private insurers for unnecessary tests and improperly paid kickbacks to referring doctors. The board forced Mr. Scott out, and the company paid billions of dollars in fines and penalties; Mr. Scott was never charged with wrongdoing. "I always wanted to create a clinic business when I was in the hospital business," Mr. Scott said. Glenn Habern, Wal-Mart's senior vice president for business development, said that Solantic and three of its rivals would be among the clinic companies leasing space in about 60 of Wal-Mart's 1,300 "superstores" by the end of this year. "It's still a test for us," Mr. Habern said. "If customers like it we may open more. So far, we've not seen any reason not to do so." But a big Wal-Mart competitor, Target, has evidently seen drawbacks. At the end of this month Target plans to close the 11 MinuteClinics in stores in Maryland and Minnesota; the company would not explain why. "Target will begin remodeling to open new health clinics in these stores in fall 2006," the company said in an e-mail message. Dr. Nelson, at MinuteClinic, said in an interview before the breakup with Target was disclosed that "the pharmacy business is a small percentage of the Target footprint." "Target also is very disciplined," he added. "They like to have things totally designed and controlled to their own specifications. They struggled with whether they want somebody else talking to their clients."

Medicine and Health
Retail Stores and Trade
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Drugstores


Balancing Needles and Cigars

Abstract: SOMEHOW I always knew my executive pursuits would end with me lying face down on a massage table at Sage Hampton Spa in Wainscott, N.Y., naked except for a towel around my waist, perforated from head to toe by two dozen fine filiform Chinese acupuncture needles, splayed out like a road-killed porcupine beneath the winter moon. I just never imagined it would all turn on a point called “Stomach 36.” Mikal Gohring, 59, a veteran acupuncturist with wire-rimmed glasses and a ponytail protruding from an otherwise shaved head, leaned across the massage table, brandishing yet another needle over my left shin. “Breathe in, and then exhale,” he urged in a soothing whisper. I did as instructed, hoping for bliss. Mikal had told me that his prescribed respiratory routine would distract my mind from the impending puncture and align my yin better with my yang. But when he jabbed that 25th needle into my shin, my whole body seemed to go into spasm. “Ouch!” I cried out. “That really hurts!” “It’s Stomach 36,” Mikal replied. “It’s one of the famous points in acupuncture that influences the functions of your internal organs.” I shuddered, second-guessing my sanity and my reasons for seeking acupuncture treatment. My ostensible motivation was to quit smoking cigars. Along with the obvious health considerations, there were new financial urgencies. The price of my brand of small cigars had soared to $15 a pack. I was going through at least five packs a week. I simply could not afford it much longer. “Acupuncture won’t make you quit smoking,” Mikal reminded me. “The only way to stop is just to stop. But there’s an aspect of your being that will realize his time may be limited, and he will rebel. Acupuncture will help you deal with what comes up.” Moments later, Mikal turned on a DVD of Gregorian chants, dimmed the lights and left me alone to allow the treatment to take effect. The rebellious aspect of my being, heretofore known to me as my evil twin, Larry, immediately reared his needled head. My first executive pursuit, back in May 2005, reported on a renaissance in cigar smoking prompted by the then-booming economy. Feeling a fellowship with the likes of Sigmund Freud, Arnold Schwarzenegger and James E. Cayne, then the chairman of Bear Stearns, I had proposed four rules of cigar etiquette intended to counteract the antismoking police. Now we had come full circle, and Larry was totally depressed. Arnold had morphed from a Republican governor of California into a de facto Democrat. Jimmy Cayne had suffered an ignominious fall. There was no such thing as Bear Stearns anymore, no such thing as a Wall Street investment bank, for that matter. Having once gorged on the kind of tobacco-wrapped stimulus packages that Dr. Freud favored, we now had to settle for a series of half-baked Washington bailout plans. If Larry disdained the idea of quitting cigars, he believed that turning to acupuncture was downright kooky. I begged to differ. According to a 2002 survey by the National Institutes of Health, more than eight million people in the United States have tried acupuncture. It is legal in 40 states, and there are more than 11,000 licensed acupuncturists nationwide, plus another 3,000 medical doctors who practice the art. Classified as a part of traditional Chinese medicine dating back more than 3,000 years, acupuncture is based on the principle of achieving health by balancing yin and yang, or opposing forces. Two crucial concepts are the qi (pronounced “chee”), often described as the flow of “vital energy,” and the blood, variously described as both a liquid and a metaphorical flow. The goal is to regulate the qi and the blood by alleviating blockages, draining excesses and refilling shortages. This spiritually charged plumbing operation relies on inserting needles into a patient’s skin along 14 pathways known as “meridians” that wind across the body. The meridians purportedly correspond to specified internal organs like the lung, the heart, the pericardium, the spleen, the liver and the kidney. But as I discovered in the case of my shins and “Stomach 36,” the insertion points and the corresponding organs do not necessarily occupy the same physical locations. While many leading Western medical authorities remain skeptical about acupuncture, scores of patients have extolled its apparent effectiveness in treating low back pain, headaches, sciatica, dysentery, nausea and vomiting and certain forms of addiction. One of those satisfied souls referred me to Mikal Gohring, insisting that he could surely help me quit cigars. Born in New York City, Mikal is a former modern dance student whose career aspirations were terminated by injury. But he always had a passion for the healing arts. Trained in my own native Texas, he has been practicing acupuncture for 25 years. At Sage Hampton Spa, he charged $225 for an initial appointment and $125 per follow-up visit. Mikal worked on Larry and me for about six hours during four acupuncture sessions spread over three weeks. In keeping with traditional Chinese medicine diagnostic protocols, he began by examining my tongue. He found it to be swollen, pale and scallop-coated, indicating, he told me, a “deficiency in my spleen with dampness accumulating” and a deficiency in my pericardium. He took my pulse for a good five minutes, concluding that I had many blockages in the flows of qi and blood. “All addictions are tied to some deep lack in the inner self tracing back to childhood,” Mikal informed me. “By taking substances like tobacco, you’re trying to fill in that emptiness. We’re going to fill it in with healthy things.” Mikal plied me with herb capsules branded “Tobac Off” and “Jitters Away” and a bottle of drops labeled “Addiction Detox.” In addition to perforating my meridians and the “Stomach 36” points on my shins, he pinned the tragus of my left ear, a location that was supposed to be specific to treating tobacco addiction. By the time Mikal returned to the massage table room at the end of our fourth session, Larry wanted to jump out of my skin and bolt to the nearest cigar bar. I didn’t blame him. Every pore ached or tingled. My tragus felt as if it had been pounded with a jackhammer. Mikal clearly sensed my agony as he removed the acupuncture needles. “If using acupuncture to quit cigars doesn’t work for you in the present moment, don’t stress on it,” he said. “But do know that your relationship to the habit of smoking cigars will be forever changed.” I paid Mikal and went straight home to bed. I slept for the next 12 hours. When I finally mustered the energy to arise, Larry insisted on jamming a lighted cigar between my lips. I smoked it, then a second and a third. They tasted as good as they ever did. “So much for coming full circle,” Larry said, sneering. “You’re never going to stop smoking cigars.” I had to concede that my evil twin might be right. He knew me much too well. After all, we had come a long way together from Chateau Bow Wow, a k a the Doghouse, to divorce court; from getting a custom suit in Chinatown to donning a clown suit in the circus; from the cockpit of a World War II vintage fighter plane to the kitchen of a four-star French restaurant; from football fields, ballet barres and whitewater kayaking rivers to darkened pool halls and the front door of the Four Seasons Hotel on Inauguration Day. But even if I don’t quit cigars, my bosses say I have to quit my executive pursuits with this column, the 98th consecutive installment. So I leave you, dear readers, with two words that my late momma taught Larry and me never to forget to say — thank you.

Smoking and Tobacco
Acupuncture
Cigars
Medicine and Health


Late-Inning Outbursts Lift Rays and Angels

Abstract: Matt Joyce hit a go-ahead two-run double in a six-run ninth inning that lifted the Tampa Bay Rays to a 10-6 victory over the Orioles on Saturday, ending Baltimore’s streak of 109 wins when leading after seven innings. Joyce also homered and finished 3 for 5 with five runs batted in for the Rays, who posted a season-best third straight road victory, all of them come-from-behind wins. “We believe in each other, and then you’re able to do those things,” Rays Manager Joe Maddon said. “If you stop believing, if you don’t think it can’t happen, then it never will.” Trailing by 6-4, Kelly Johnson hit a one-out homer off the Orioles’ Jim Johnson (1-4), whose club-record streak of 35 saves ended Tuesday. Johnson then loaded the bases on two walks and a hit before Joyce hit a two-run double to the right-center gap for a 7-6 lead. Ben Zobrist followed with a two-run double off Darren O’Day, who later issued a bases-loaded walk to Luke Scott. ANGELS 12, WHITE SOX 9 Alberto Callaspo hit a three-run homer in Los Angeles’s five-run seventh inning, and the Angels beat the White Sox to end visiting Chicago’s four-game winning streak. Callaspo also had two sacrifice flies, giving him five R.B.I. Mark Trumbo added his 10th home run for Los Angeles, which finished with 17 hits. RANGERS 7, TIGERS 2 Elvis Andrus had a career-high five hits, Mitch Moreland homered and Texas roughed up Anibal Sanchez in its victory over visiting Detroit. Sanchez (4-4) gave up nine hits and a season-high six runs in two and two-thirds innings, his shortest start in almost two years. The Rangers (28-15) have the best record in the American League, one game better than the Yankees (27-16). RED SOX 12, TWINS 5 David Ortiz homered twice for Boston and drove in six runs to again torment Minnesota, which released him in 2002. He improved to 19 for 37 with 5 homers and 16 R.B.I. at Target Field. ATHLETICS 2, ROYALS 1 Oakland’s Brandon Moss hit a tiebreaking triple in the sixth inning to help Tommy Milone outduel Ervin Santana. The host A’s had only five hits and were held to two runs for the third consecutive game. INDIANS 5, MARINERS 4 Jason Kipnis scored the winning run in the ninth inning for host Cleveland when Brendan Ryan’s throw pulled Seattle catcher Jesus Montero off the plate. Kipnis sparked the winning rally with a leadoff single against Oliver Perez (1-1). He moved to third on Asdrubal Cabrera’s double, and Nick Swisher was walked intentionally. Mark Reynolds hit a sharp grounder that forced Ryan to make a diving stop, but he was unable to get the forceout at home. “I just tried to put the ball in play somewhere,” Reynolds said. “When I hit it, I said to myself, ‘Please get through.’ Then it was, ‘Please make a bad throw.’ And then, ‘Please get there.’ ” BRAVES 3, DODGERS 1 Evan Gattis and Andrelton Simmons hit consecutive homers off Kenley Jansen in the eighth inning for host Atlanta, and Kris Medlen, Cory Gearrin, and Craig Kimbrel combined on a two-hitter. ASTROS 4, PIRATES 2 Jason Castro led off the 11th inning with a double and scored the go-ahead run on a close play at the plate for Houston at Pittsburgh. DIAMONDBACKS 1, MARLINS 0 Brandon McCarthy pitched a three-hitter for his first win since being struck in the head by a line drive last September, helping Arizona win at Miami. Gerardo Parra led off the game with a homer. BREWERS 6, CARDINALS 4 Jeff Bianchi drove in two runs with a 10th-inning single up the middle as Milwaukee won in St. Louis. REDS 10, PHILLIES 0 Bronson Arroyo pitched five-hit ball for seven and two-thirds innings, and Joey Votto was 4 for 4 with a home run for Cincinnati at Philadelphia. PADRES 2, NATIONALS 1 San Diego’s Everth Cabrera singled in the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth against Jordan Zimmermann (7-2), who was trying to become the first player in the majors to eight wins this season. ROCKIES 10, GIANTS 2 Promoted from Class AAA before the game, Tyler Chatwood pitched into the sixth inning for host Colorado.

Baseball
Reds
Phillies
Cleveland Indians
Mariners
Tampa Bay Rays
Los Angeles Angels
Orioles


Kraft Profit Falls 24% on Cadbury Acquisition Costs

Abstract: NORTHFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Kraft Foods said Thursday that its profit fell 24 percent in the fourth quarter because of costs related to its acquisition of the British confectioner Cadbury. The company also warned of rising costs for ingredients and lowered its forecast for profit growth this year. Kraft reported its results after the market close and its shares fell 2 percent to $30.48 in after-hours trading. They closed the regular session at $31.11. The company, based in Northfield, Ill., said it earned $540 million, or 31 cents a share, in the quarter, down from $710 million, or 48 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding costs for integrating Cadbury and other special items, the company earned 46 cents a share, down from 47 cents last year, but matching analysts’ expectations. Kraft acquired Cadbury a year ago for $19.5 billion. The company’s revenue rose 30 percent to $13.77 billion, with higher sales around the globe, largely because of the addition of Cadbury. Analysts expected $13.48 billion, according to data from FactSet. Kraft lowered its full-year forecast because of weakness in consumer confidence and rising commodity costs. The company said it expected operating earnings to grow by 11 to 13 percent in 2011. In November it had projected a rise in the midteens.


Reverently and Defiantly, Czechs Honor Velvet Revolution’s Anniversary

Abstract: PRAGUE — Marta Kubisova sat in a small back room of the cafe at the Lucerna Cinema, pulled a skinny cigarette from a silver case and rattled a long strand of pearls as she remembered the Velvet Revolution. “The young today do not really know what happened then,” she said. “But that is natural, I suppose. For me, it was a resurrection. For them, it is something in the history books.” Twenty-five years ago, in the full force of the uprising against Communism, Ms. Kubisova, now 72, was thrust onto a balcony overlooking a teeming Wenceslas Square by her friend Vaclav Havel and asked to perform an a cappella rendition of her most famous song, “Prayer for Marta.” It was that 1968 pop hit , whose lyrics express gentle yearning for a nation’s self-determination, that led the Communist authorities to ban her in 1970, making that impromptu concert above Wenceslas Square her first public performance in nearly 20 years. “I did not know if they would remember me,” she said. “But I could feel, they responded immediately. There were tears. They remembered the prayer.” This is a season of remembering along the spine of Central Europe where, a quarter century ago, country after country slipped free from Communism. In Czechoslovakia — which split in 1993 into the Czech Republic and Slovakia — the revolution had an artsy flavor that continues to influence the fierce street politics that were on display Monday across Prague, where protesters staged a series of angry demonstrations against Milos Zeman, the Czech president. He has upset residents in the capital, where he has never been that popular, by praising Russian and Chinese leaders and by feeding a stubborn nostalgia among many Czechs about the Communist days. Martin Prikryl, a 40-year-old rock musician and commercial television director, turned out many of the 19,000 supporters he amassed on a Facebook page asking people to bring “red cards” to a busy intersection in central Prague. “We are saying that President Zeman should be given the red card and thrown out of the game,” Mr. Prikryl said before the demonstration began, borrowing a practice from soccer in which a red card indicates that a player has been ejected. Image Protesters displayed red cards like those that indicate ejection from a soccer game during a protest against President Milos Zeman on Monday in Prague. Credit Filip Singer/European Pressphoto Agency The protest was held on the same spot where the police attacked marchers on Nov. 17, 1989, beginning what came to be known as the Velvet Revolution. The city’s official memorial to the revolution is on the same block, nestled beneath a portico outside a building where Franz Kafka once lived and, on Monday, drawing a steady stream of candle-bearing pilgrims. On cue, thousands of people on all four branches of the intersection held up red cards and whistled. Katerina Slesingerova, 40, carried her 7-year-old daughter, Magdalena, on her shoulders, both of them waving red rectangles of stiff paper. Ms. Slesingerova’s own mother had brought her to one of the protests in 1989, and she wanted to do the same for her daughter. “I wanted her to see what people sometimes have to do to win their freedom, and to keep it,” she said. Czech presidents normally commemorate the Velvet Revolution’s anniversary by lighting candles at the official memorial, but Mr. Zeman chose to appear with the presidents of Poland, Germany, Hungary and Slovakia at the unveiling of a new memorial at Albertov, a university campus where some of the initial protests were held in 1989. If Mr. Zeman hoped to escape criticism in the quiet academic district far from the bustling center, he was disappointed. Hundreds of protesters turned up there, too, many with the red cards. They shouted down Mr. Zeman when he tried to speak, and security officers had to hold umbrellas over the president to protect him from debris tossed by the crowd. Mr. Zeman glowered through the rest of the ceremony, not even singing along with the Czech national anthem, though the crowd joined enthusiastically. When he went to unveil the new memorial, the crowd chanted, “Don’t let him touch it!” Alena Muller, a filmmaker and producer for Czech television, was among the students and former students who staged the first protests on the Albertov campus 25 years ago. Image Security officers shielded the president from objects thrown during his speech. Credit Petr David Josek/Associated Press She said she was not sure why the arts had played such a large role in Czech politics. Perhaps, she said, it was because the revolution’s leader, Mr. Havel, had been a playwright and drew his early support from other artists. Or perhaps it was just something about the Czech way of dealing with the world. “It was a very euphoric time in 1989,” Ms. Muller said. “We were young. I was a young filmmaker. People were throwing off their fear, and there was this amazing feeling of freedom. Of course, we realized it would not be forever.” The general atmosphere on Monday, though, was festive. Traffic was diverted from Narodni, the broad boulevard where the red-card protest was held, and food stalls lined the street. A huge chalkboard was set up where people could write notes of thanks to the heroes of the revolution. Performance artists in weird costumes patrolled the periphery, and pop groups sang from a “truth stage” and a “love stage,” at opposite ends of the boulevard, a reference to a well-known line from Mr. Havel, who became the country’s first president elected after 41 years of Communist rule: “Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred.” Mr. Prikryl seemed a little dazed by the size of the crowd and its composition: families, the elderly, students, members of the working class and well-dressed professionals. “Look at us,” he said. “We are out here shouting against the president, and there are no police coming to attack us,” a reference to the country’s pre-Velvet days. Two nights earlier, a few blocks away from the protest site, Ms. Kubisova sat in the smoky Lucerna cafe, part of the Lucerna Palace, an ornate entertainment arcade connecting two important Prague thoroughfares. The warren of restaurants, concert venues and grand staircases was built by Mr. Havel’s grandfather in 1921. It is only a few blocks from the balcony where Ms. Kubisova sang above Wenceslas Square, and where dozens of fans recently turned up to cheer her for the premiere of “Magicky hlas rebelky (Magical Voice of a Rebel),” a documentary about her life. The revolution, she said, was a long time ago, and she is recognized on the streets these days for a popular television series in which she volunteers to help dogs and other animals. Still, it sometimes surprises her how much people remember. “Prayer for Marta” still draws tears when she sings it, and is a regular feature at rallies across the country. “My song just keeps moving along with the history,” she said.

Czech Republic
Milos Zeman
Civil Unrest
Czechoslovakia
Vaclav Havel
Communism
Cold War


Chief Says G.E. Aims to Match the Growth Pace Set by India

Abstract: NEW DELHI, May 31 — Pressure to slim General Electric ’s corporate portfolio at home has not stopped Jeffrey R. Immelt’s aggressive plans for expanding in emerging markets. On Thursday, Mr. Immelt, G.E.’s chairman and chief executive, told executives here that India had “never offered us more potential than it does today.” G.E. plans to participate in the country’s “massive focus” on energy, he said, and will create a fund for infrastructure that could reach $1 billion. “This is the era of the developing world and of emerging markets,” Mr. Immelt said. As the United States economy cools, G.E. and other large multinational companies are shifting their focus to faster-growth parts of the world. Mr. Immelt’s latest trip to India comes as the country’s economy hit a new high. Figures released on Thursday showed that India’s gross domestic product grew by 9.4 percent in the year ended in March. Indian officials say they expect growth to continue above 9 percent this year. “If we can grow at the same pace as the Indian economy, we can be a great company,” Mr. Immelt said. Last year, G.E. executives said that they planned to make India a major market and that revenue from India would more than quadruple, to $8 billion by 2010. Assets in India will also reach $8 billion by 2010, the company said. Mr. Immelt said Thursday that those goals were in sight: revenue in India in 2007 should be $3 billion, out of $175 billion at G.E., and by 2008 should reach $4 billion. G.E. should “blow right through” the target of $8 billion in Indian assets by 2010, he said. This year, G.E. will earn more revenue outside of the United States than in it. The company said in April that first-quarter profit rose 2 percent, in part because of a focus on selling goods and consumer services in Asia and the Middle East. Revenue in developing markets was up 14 percent in the quarter. Some analysts, notably Jeffrey Sprague of Citigroup, have suggested that G.E. spin off units, including NBC Universal and GE Money, to streamline the company and improve its stock performance. Mr. Immelt did not address asset sales Thursday. Instead, he said the company would continue to focus on several “macro themes,” including emerging markets. A worldwide demand for infrastructure is “a stunning long-term trend,” Mr. Immelt said, and could require $4 trillion in overall global investment over the next eight years. Other macro themes include environmental technologies and opportunities created by changing demographics, like the rapidly growing need for health care. The visit by Mr. Immelt comes as United States and Indian officials are in the last stages of negotiating a deal to share civilian nuclear technology. The plan has been stalled several times, though an agreement could be struck this weekend when R. Nicholas Burns, an under secretary of state, comes to New Delhi for fresh talks. Nuclear plant manufacturers, including G.E. and Westinghouse, are expected to be the chief beneficiaries of any deal, and G.E. has been lobbying both governments to agree to the plan. “India wants to do this, and the United States wants to do it,” said Scott R. Bayman, president and chief executive of GE India, after Mr. Immelt’s speech. “It makes so much sense. We’ll get it resolved,” he said. Mr. Immelt said he intended “ultimately to be a participant in the nuclear industry here.” G.E.’s presence in India dates back more than a century, and the company’s former chief executive John F. Welch Jr. is largely credited with promoting India as an outsourcing center. GE Money is one of India’s largest credit card lenders through a partnership with the State Bank of India, and the company counts India’s largest companies among its customers. Over the last 12 months, G.E. signed deals to finance a power plant for a cement company and supply Air India with environmentally friendly engines. It also said it planned to invest $2 billion in Indian real estate and about $250 million in infrastructure and health care projects in India. Despite the activity, India’s effect on G.E.’s revenue stream is still minimal. India provided less than 2 percent of G.E.’s overall revenue last year, at $1.9 billion. Even so, that represented a jump of 90 percent over 2005. G.E. expects to add 4,000 more employees in India over the next two years, bringing its total work force in the country to 17,000.

General Electric Co
India
Foreign Investments
Energy and Power


New Jersey Is Known for Cheap Gas. The Glory Days Are About to End.

Abstract: JERSEY CITY — Pity New Jersey. Buffeted by the misdeeds of corrupt officials, maligned by reality television and blasted by hurricanes, many natives say they grow tired of routinely having to defend their state. Despite it all, one thing always perked up New Jersey residents: the cheap gasoline. With prices far lower than in neighboring states like New York and Pennsylvania — the second lowest prices in the country, in fact (only Alaska charges less) — New Jerseyans have long boasted about their bargain-basement fueling costs. The low prices, a consequence of the state’s low tax, also coaxed many thrifty New Yorkers and others over the state line. But those gas glory days are coming to an end. Gov. Chris Christie has signed into law a new tax that, starting on Nov. 1, will raise gas prices by 23 cents a gallon, effectively putting New Jersey on a par with the rest of the country. The added revenue will go toward repairing the state’s ailing infrastructure and refilling the Transportation Trust Fund, whose depletion had led the governor to order the emergency shutdown of hundreds of projects to improve roads, bridges and rails. “The only thing that — to me — enticed me about New Jersey was the gas,” said Wendy John, who works in client services here, as she filled up at a Shell station near the Holland Tunnel before driving home to Pennsylvania. Now, she said, she would fill up near her home. Image Omar Gamboa, a limousine driver from Queens, said he had counted on cheaper New Jersey gas to keep his costs low, but understood the need to fix the roads. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times The higher gas tax has been embraced by driver advocacy organizations like AAA, which has long argued that the damage done to vehicles by crumbling roadways costs more in repairs than the fuel increase; the average New Jersey driver spends about $600 per year, according to estimates by the state and federal transportation departments. Omar Gamboa, 47, a limousine driver from Long Island City, Queens, who was filling up after a trip to Newark Liberty International Airport, said he had counted on cheaper New Jersey gas to keep his costs low, but understood the need to repair the roads. “We have to change the shocks frequently because the roadside here is not in good shape,” Mr. Gamboa said. The higher gas prices will raise the amount that drivers spend on fuel by $184 to $276 per vehicle per year, according to data released by the State Legislature. “If we are not capturing revenue from the users of our roads, in state, out of state, tourists,” said Cathleen Lewis, the director of public affairs and government relations for AAA, “then our choices are: one, our roads crumble — and they are pretty close — or, two, we force the taxpayers of New Jersey to foot 100 percent of that bill.” New Jersey’s infrastructure received a grade of D-plus from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which, in a report issued this past summer, classified over 550 bridges in the state as “structurally deficient” and in need of major repair work. Mr. Christie, a Republican, has said that the gas tax will pay for an eight-year, $32 billion reauthorization of the Transportation Trust Fund, and that the money will be invested in infrastructure. Image “I think it’s terrible that Jersey has to go through this right now,” Anthony Rigby said as he stopped for gas near the Holland Tunnel. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times Some New Jersey boosters are unperturbed about losing the benefit of rock-bottom gas prices. Steve Edwards, president of the board of trustees of the New Jersey Hall of Fame Foundation, points to the state’s many merits. “Whether it’s Bruce Springsteen or Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein, we have the richest talent,” Mr. Edwards said. And, paraphrasing a speech Mr. Springsteen gave at his 2008 induction into the hall , Mr. Edwards added that “there is always another bad Jersey joke just around the corner, but we just come out swinging.” At the New Jersey Historical Society, James Amemasor, a historian, praised the state for its strategic advantages past and present, recalling its colonial-era military history, its days as a leather production hub, its setting as the headquarters for leading insurance companies and its vital role in global commerce through giant ports in Newark and Elizabeth. The main reason for New Jersey’s image problem, Mr. Amemasor said, is its proximity to New York. “I always say, ‘It’s very hard to be in the bed with an elephant,’” he said. “New York City is the elephant. It takes over almost everything.” Still, the steep jump in gas prices comes at an inauspicious time. New Jersey Transit is recovering from a crash last month in which a commuter train barreled into the station in Hoboken , killing a woman and injuring more than 100 other people. Not far away, a federal courtroom in Newark has been the setting for tawdry revelations about the conduct of top officials in the Christie administration involved in the closing of access lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J., to punish the borough’s mayor for refusing to endorse the governor’s re-election. A municipal court judge has permitted a criminal complaint against Mr. Christie, filed by a citizen accusing him of official misconduct in the closings, to proceed. Image Cheap gas has kept YoungNae Cho in business for over 40 years, he said. New Yorkers who come for the discount at the pumps have been essential to his success, he said. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times Even some drivers sympathized with the state. “I think it’s terrible that Jersey has to go through this right now,” Anthony Rigby, 26, said as he stopped for gas at a Valero station here, near the Holland Tunnel. Mr. Rigby, a construction worker from New York, was en route to Charlotte, N.C., with his dogs. He was worried not for his wallet, but for the local residents: “They are not accustomed to excessive gas prices,” he said as his beagle, Manning, panted by the window. New Jerseyans are “getting with the flow,” he said. They are “catching up.” Cheap gas has kept YoungNae Cho, the owner of the Valero station, in business for over 40 years, he said. The station sells about 9,000 gallons on a good day; New Yorkers who come for the discount at the pumps have been essential to his success, Mr. Cho, 82, said. “Now, when you have here the same price,” he said, “They’re not going to do that.” There are nine gas stations within about three blocks of Mr. Cho’s shop, with another under construction across the street. He said he feared that higher prices would make it difficult for him and his competitors. Yet even after the tax goes into effect, gas in New Jersey will still be cheaper than it is in neighboring New York and Pennsylvania, said Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline, Convenience Store and Automotive Association. “There may be some people that think that the price difference is not enough to cross the border, but we think that most people still will,” Mr. Risalvato said. “People tend to drive from one block to another for a penny.”

New Jersey
Oil and Gasoline
Price
Infrastructure,public works
Cars
American Automobile Assn
Chris Christie
Sales Tax
Excise Tax
Gas Tax


Holder Tightens Rules on Getting Reporters’ Data

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has been criticized for the Justice Department’s aggressive tactics in secretly obtaining phone logs and e-mails of reporters as part of leak investigations, announced new guidelines on Friday that would significantly narrow the circumstances under which journalists’ records could be obtained. A White House spokesman said that President Obama supported the Justice Department’s changes as well as its call, at the end of a report on the revisions, to more often find ways other than criminal investigations to deal with leaks of classified information. Under Mr. Obama, prosecutors have filed charges in seven leak-related cases to date, compared with three under all previous presidents combined. “There are circumstances in which leaks are better addressed through administrative means, such as withdrawal of security clearances or imposition of other sanctions,” said Matt Lehrich, the White House spokesman. “The president agrees with the Justice Department’s recommendation, and has directed his team to explore how the administration could more effectively use alternatives in appropriate cases.” In a six-page report , Mr. Holder outlined changes to the Justice Department’s investigative guidelines that would prevent the Federal Bureau of Investigation from portraying a reporter as a co-conspirator in a criminal leak as a way to get around a legal bar on secret search warrants for reporting materials. The revisions would also make it harder — though not impossible — for prosecutors to obtain a journalist’s records from telephone companies without advance notice. The notifications would give the news organizations a chance to contest the request in court. “The Department of Justice is firmly committed to ensuring our nation’s security, and protecting the American people, while at the same time safeguarding the freedom of the press,” Mr. Holder said. “These revised guidelines will help ensure the proper balance is struck when pursuing investigations into unauthorized disclosures.” Investigators’ targeting of the communications records of Associated Press and Fox News reporters in separate investigations came to light in May, setting off a furor among journalists and in Congress about the administration’s increasingly aggressive record on leak inquiries. Two months ago, Mr. Obama gave Mr. Holder a July 12 deadline to review the rules and make recommendations. Mr. Holder held a series of meetings with newsroom leaders and lawyers for media companies, along with lawmakers and First Amendment scholars, in May and June, and briefed Mr. Obama about the changes at the White House on Friday morning. Several of them directly addressed controversies from the earlier disclosures. For example, a 2010 affidavit that came to light in May sought a warrant for e-mails from the Google account of James Rosen of Fox News in which he corresponded with a State Department analyst who was suspected of leaking classified information. Congress has generally forbidden search warrants for journalists’ work materials, but the statute makes an exception if the reporter is suspected of committing a crime. An F.B.I. agent wrote that Mr. Rosen qualified for that exception because he had violated the Espionage Act by seeking government secrets to report. No American journalist has ever been prosecuted for gathering and publishing classified information, so the language raised the prospect that the Obama administration was taking its leak crackdown to a new level. The administration insisted that it never intended to charge Mr. Rosen and that it had portrayed him as a criminal merely to get around the prohibition on accessing his e-mails. The revision to the guidelines would bar such a tactic by saying that the “suspect exception” may only be invoked “when the member of the news media is the focus of the criminal investigation for conduct going beyond ordinary news-gathering activities.” Search warrants invoking the exception, the revision adds, will not be allowed “if the sole purpose is the investigation of a person other than a member of the news media.” Also, the new guidelines will require the attorney general to sign off on invoking the exception. Previously, a deputy assistant attorney general could do so. The Justice Department also disclosed in May that it had obtained calling records for more than 20 telephone lines of A.P. offices and journalists in connection with an investigation into a leak about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen last year. The subpoena was controversial because the department gave no advance notice, so The A.P. was unable to negotiate the scope of the subpoena or challenge it in court. The revisions to the guidelines will make it harder — though not impossible — for prosecutors to take such a step in the future. Prosecutors, for example, have interpreted the previous rules as carrying a presumption that investigators will withhold advance notice to reporters, unless an assistant attorney general decides it would not be harmful to do so. The revised guidelines reverse that presumption and raise the decision-making level to the attorney general. Moreover, the new guidelines will make clear that the possibility that negotiations and judicial review “may delay the investigation will not, on its own, be considered a compelling reason” to avoid advance notice. Finally, even if the attorney general finds that there is a compelling reason to delay notice, it can be for a maximum of 90 days. Under previous rules, the notice could be put off indefinitely. Another set of changes would update the guidelines so that the same protections of phone calls will also cover all “communications records” and “business records” that are stored and maintained by third parties. In 2011, it came to light that investigators had secretly obtained credit card, bank and airline travel records of a New York Times reporter, James Risen, in another leak investigation. The guidelines cover grand jury subpoenas used in criminal investigations. There is no change to how the F.B.I. may obtain reporters’ calling records via “national security letters,” which are exempt from the regular guidelines. A Justice spokesman said the device is “subject to an extensive oversight regime.” The guidelines will say that the department’s top press and civil liberties officials must review and make a recommendation about requests for reporters’ records, and they will direct the Justice Department to start issuing an annual tally disclosing how many times it has made an effort to obtain them, the report said. Mr. Holder reiterated the administration’s support to revive efforts to enact a federal media shield law that would place the decision about delaying notice of any subpoena for reporters’ phone records in the hands of a judge rather than the attorney general. A bill to do so had faltered in 2010. “While these reforms will make a meaningful difference, there are additional protections that only Congress can provide,” Mr. Holder said. “For that reason, we continue to support the passage of media shield legislation.”

Eric Holder
Justice Department
Classified Information
News media,journalism
FBI


Hundreds Die in Heat Wave in Southern Pakistan

Abstract: KARACHI, Pakistan — An intense heat wave has left at least 260 people dead over three days in southern Pakistan, mostly here in the port city of Karachi, officials said Monday, prompting the government to declare an emergency at hospitals and to ask the military to help respond to the crisis. Unusually high temperatures, reaching up to 111 degrees Fahrenheit, or 43.8 degrees Celsius here, have led to heatstroke, dehydration, stomach-related pains and low blood pressure among residents, hospital officials said. Most of the dead were men 50 and older. Hardest hit were those living in slums and other impoverished neighborhoods in this city of 20 million, Pakistan’s financial and economic hub. “We are still receiving dead bodies of the people who died of heat and gastro-related problems,” said Dr. Seemi Jamali, the head of the emergency department at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, a state-run hospital. The provincial government has canceled time off for doctors and other medical staff and increased stocks of medical supplies, health officials said. Hundreds of people were being treated for heat-related illnesses. Image The morgue in Karachi, Pakistan, has had to bury 45 unclaimed bodies to make room for more victims of an intense heat wave. Credit Shahzaib Akber/European Pressphoto Agency Anwar Kazmi, a spokesman for the city’s only morgue, which is run by Edhi Foundation, a nongovernment charity, said families were still bringing bodies there. “We have buried, unclaimed, 45 bodies to make space in the facility,” he said, adding that many of those victims were elderly or children. Frequent power failures in several parts of the city made the soaring temperatures even more unbearable, leading to angry protests here. A large number of people spent Sunday night at Karachi’s parks and beaches because of the electricity losses. Local news media reported that the failures also affected the city’s water supply. And the University of Karachi postponed its examinations because of the extreme weather. Pakistan has experienced a debilitating energy crisis in recent years as successive governments have struggled to cope with a surging demand for power and an aging, heavily strained grid system. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the weather-related deaths and asked the National Disaster Management Authority to assist in relief efforts. The Pakistan Rangers (Sindh), a paramilitary force that otherwise fights crime in Karachi, has set up 10 heatstroke relief centers across the city. On Monday, a light rain fell in some parts of Karachi, and meteorologists said that the extreme weather was expected to subside in the coming days.

Pakistan
Weather
Karachi
Heat illness
Fatalities,casualties


Data Recorders Found at Site of Plane Crash on Thai Island

Abstract: PHUKET, Thailand , Sept. 17 (AP) — The authorities on Monday found the two flight data recorders from a plane that had crashed Sunday on Thailand’s resort island of Phuket, while an airline official said wind shear may have doomed the flight. The death toll was put at 89 people, most of them foreigners. The plane, which belonged to the budget airline One-Two-Go Airlines, was carrying 123 passengers and 7 crew members to Phuket from Bangkok when it skidded off a runway while landing in driving wind and rain. It caught fire and engulfed some passengers in flames. Others kicked out windows to escape. Sansern Wongcha-um, the deputy transportation minister, said Monday that 89 people, including 53 foreigners, were killed in the crash, and that the 41 survivors were injured. The crash was Thailand’s worst air accident in a decade. Kajit Habnanonda, president of Orient-Thai Airlines, which owns One-Two-Go, said wind shear — the rapid change in wind speed that can disrupt takeoffs and landings — was a possible cause of the accident. Heavy rains could have contributed to the plane’s skidding off the runway, Mr. Kajit added. An unofficial list compiled by the Thai Foreign Ministry showed that those who died in the crash included six Britons, three Israelis, two Americans, two French and one victim each from Australia, Germany, Iran, Ireland and Sweden. More than 30 of the foreigners who died had not yet been identified. The plane’s pilot, who was Indonesian, and co-pilot, who was Thai, were killed in the crash. Parts of the twisted plane lay smoking at the side of the runway on Monday while officials wearing masks carried bodies wrapped in white sheets to an airport storage building. Transportation Minister Thira Haocharoen said the plane’s black boxes would be sent to the United States for analysis. Many of the passengers had been planning to spend vacations at Phuket, a popular beach resort that was among the areas hit hardest by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 8,000 people on the island. The accident was likely to raise new questions about the safety of low-fare airlines in Southeast Asia, which have experienced rapid growth in recent years and often scramble to find qualified pilots. None of Thailand’s budget airlines had previously suffered a major accident, but there have been several deadly crashes in Indonesia. Many low-fare airlines use planes already used for years by other airlines. According to Thai and American aviation registration data, the plane that crashed in Phuket was manufactured and put into use in 1983, and began flying in Thailand in March.

Thailand
Airlines and Airplanes
Accidents and Safety
Phuket (Thailand)


Panetta Sidesteps Issue of Israel’s Plans on Iran

Abstract: TUNIS — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Sunday that he did not think Israel had yet made a decision to strike Iran , but that his goal in meeting with the Israeli leadership this week was to strengthen ties with the United States “so that we can be fully prepared to deal with any contingency that may happen.” Mr. Panetta made his comments to reporters on his plane as he headed to Tunis, Tunisia’s capital, the first stop on a five-day trip to North Africa and the Middle East. He is to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Mr. Panetta sidestepped questions on whether he would urge Israel not to attack Iran, as Obama administration officials have privately counseled Israel over many months. He instead cast the Obama administration’s consultations with Israel over how to stop Iran’s nuclear program as close and unified. They are, at the very least, frequent: Mr. Panetta is the most recent in a parade of administration officials to visit Israel in the past three weeks, among them Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser; John O. Brennan, the counterterrorism chief; and assorted officials from the State Department, Pentagon and White House. The visits have effectively served to sandwich in Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who was in Jerusalem on Sunday, two and a half weeks after Mrs. Clinton, five days after Mr. Brennan and two days before Mr. Panetta. On Israel, Mr. Panetta said, “My view is that they have not made any decisions with regards to Iran, and they continue to support the international effort to bring pressure against Iran to pull back from their efforts to develop their nuclear capability.” He declared that Israel and the international community were united in the view that economic sanctions on Iran were effective, and he declined to comment on Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks on Sunday to Mr. Romney that the sanctions were not working. Mr. Panetta also declined to comment on a remark by Dan Senor, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, that if Israel acted against Iran on its own, Mr. Romney “would respect that decision.” “I’m just not going to get into that game of commenting on what candidates do,” Mr. Panetta said. “As secretary of defense, I have a responsibility to defend the security of our country, and in order to do that I have to have the support of both Democrats and Republicans.” He did acknowledge Israel’s right to act on its own. “We respect their sovereignty and their ability to make decisions with their own security,” he said, repeating a standard administration stance. But he did not tie the administration’s respect for Israel’s sovereignty directly to a possible Israeli attack on Iran. On Syria, Mr. Panetta told reporters that helicopter gunship attacks on civilians in the city of Aleppo by President Bashar al-Assad’s government were “another tragic example of the kind of indiscriminate violence that the Assad regime has committed against its own people” and that “it ultimately will be a nail in Assad’s coffin.” He offered no details, but said the United States was working with countries in the region to try to secure Syria’s large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The Obama administration says it is not providing direct military aid to the Syrian opposition. In Tunisia — where the Arab Spring revolts began when a fruit vendor set himself on fire in December 2010 to protest police harassment and the lack of economic opportunities — Mr. Panetta will meet with President Moncef Marzouki and Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, and start talks on American military support in the volatile region. “They have concerns about how to deal with Al Qaeda,” Mr. Panetta said. He will also visit Jordan and Egypt. Administration officials continue to prod Egypt’s military to hand over authority to a civilian government. The transition has been chaotic, and the Pentagon, which has close ties to Egypt’s generals, has been central in the so-far unsuccessful effort to persuade the military to give up its political powers. “We strongly support an orderly, peaceful, legitimate transition to a democratic system of government,” he said.

Israel
Iran
Panetta Leon E
Nuclear Weapons


Florida: Task Force Backs ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law

Abstract: A state task force concluded on Friday that Florida’s “stand your ground” law works and should not be overturned, but that the standards for neighborhood watch groups should be looked at by the Legislature. A 44-page report released by Gov. Rick Scott’s office said Florida residents had a right to feel safe and secure and had a fundamental right to defend themselves from attack. Most of the recommendations in the report had already been made public. The parents of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was shot and killed a year ago by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, had asked the task force to change the 2005 law to make it harder for someone who starts a fight to use a self-defense argument. Mr. Zimmerman claims he was acting in self-defense in the confrontation with Mr. Martin, which occurred as the teenager was walking back to a home in Sanford after going to a convenience store. Mr. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. The task force recommended that the role of neighborhood watch participants should be limited to observing, not pursuing, confronting or provoking potential suspects.

Self-defense
Legislation
State legislature
Trayvon Martin
George Zimmerman
Florida


Devoted to Weight Watchers, but Workers Rebel Against Low Wages

Abstract: Tammy Williams became a Weight Watchers leader in Texas five years ago after losing 97 pounds in the program. The supplies that she handles fill a bedroom in her home, and she holds four meetings a week advising more than a hundred customers about the diet regimen. The problem, Ms. Williams said, is that she works so many hours and is paid so little. “They know my love for the program, but I can’t say we’re treated right,” she said. “We are professionals, we have to dress nice, but we are paid less than kids who work at McDonald’s.” As the highly competitive weight-loss industry continues to suffer from the sluggish economy — Weight Watchers reported a 15.6 percent decline in earnings last year — hundreds of its rank-and-file workers are waging an open rebellion that management is scrambling to address. This frustration reflects a growing discontent among low-wage workers, as seen in the recent protests at dozens of Walmarts, at high-end retailers in Chicago and at fast-food restaurants in New York. Low-wage workers have become more assertive out of dismay that while corporate profits have rebounded to record levels since the recession, wages have floundered. Many also feel trapped as the gap between haves and have-nots has widened. Some employees at Weight Watchers expressed irritation at being paid the minimum wage while the company lavishes millions of dollars on celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Hudson to advertise its weight-loss program. Executives at Weight Watchers say they are paying attention to their employees’ concerns, and have hinted they will increase compensation. The company’s chief executive, David Kirchhoff, wrote to employees earlier this month, saying, “One of our top priorities is to improve your working life at Weight Watchers, and in particular, the way we reward you for the incredible work you do.” Image Patricia Sorlien, a Weight Watchers group leader outside Seattle, says despite their skills, most leaders get the minimum wage. Credit Stuart Isett for The New York Times Employees — many of them leaders like Ms. Williams who run meetings — have inundated an internal company Web site with complaints about poor wages and being pressured to work many hours unpaid. Some leaders say that the $18 base rate for running meetings has not increased in more than a decade, and many complain that they receive no mileage reimbursement for the first 40 miles driven each day. Some also assert that a major reason Weight Watchers keeps its pay so paltry is that the overwhelming majority of its employees are women. “We are not working for a charity or a nonprofit corp,” one Weight Watchers leader posted on the Web site. “This is a multimillion-dollar company with enough cash to advertise relentlessly on TV, and pay celebrities tons of money to lose weight.” The restlessness over low pay extends across the weight-loss industry to Weight Watchers’ rivals, including Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem. A pending lawsuit asserts that Jenny Craig’s employees in New York State typically work through their lunch hour, but are not paid for that time — a claim the company denies. That comes after Weight Watchers reached a $6.2 million settlement two years ago to end a class-action lawsuit in California in which employees complained about minimum wage violations, off-the-clock work and receiving paychecks that did not explain how wages were calculated. ”People feel they did everything right. They’re working hard, they have higher levels of education than ever before, and they find the job market is offering them a wage that they can’t live on,” said Janice R. Fine, a professor of employment relations at Rutgers University. For Weight Watchers, one of the world’s oldest and largest dieting companies, keeping its leaders happy is crucial to the company’s future, because it relies on them to recruit and retain members through the nearly 50,000 face-to-face meetings the company runs each week worldwide. The leaders, often highly educated professionals who were hired after losing dozens of pounds in the program, sometimes sound like religious disciples, so eager are they to help others lose weight. But their disillusionment over compensation is not unique to their industry. Sharon H. Mastracci, an expert on women’s employment at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of “Breaking Out of the Pink-Collar Ghetto,” said these complaints parallel those in other fields with mostly female workers, like child care and social work. “It’s a female-dominated job, it’s in the service industry, and it’s caring work,” Professor Mastracci said of Weight Watchers. “Caring work is undervalued, and they’re taking for granted that you care so much you’re going to be there no matter what.” Image Jennifer Hudson is a Weight Watchers celebrity endorser, along with Jessica Simpson. The appeals for higher pay come at a difficult time for Weight Watchers; its earnings slid last year to $257.4 million on slightly higher revenue of $1.83 billion. It forecasts lower earnings this year because of problems recruiting new members to its meetings. Members pay $42.95 a month on average to belong to the program. Mr. Kirchhoff, who made $2.96 million in 2011 according to Forbes magazine, wrote that revamping the compensation system was complicated and would “require careful consideration.” In a second note, last Wednesday, corporate leaders said they would begin online discussions with 80 employees about the “changes and enhancements” they are seeking. Stacie Sherer, the company’s communications director, said a large majority of employees earned “significantly more than minimum wage” for their meetings through sales commissions. She dismissed the notion that pay levels were low because most employees were female. Kelley Brickfield, a leader in Tampa, also defended the company, saying she liked being able to increase her pay through sales commissions. She praised it for having a better benefits package than many other companies. But Ms. Williams complained that she was paid just $7,600 last year for leading four meetings a week in Wichita Falls, Tex. She receives extra pay as a local coordinator and commissions for selling company products like recipe books, scales and smoothie mixes. While the company pays for two and a half hours of work to run a meeting, Ms. Williams, who is planning to quit, said it could take three hours or more to set up chairs, weigh in members, give talks, sell products and clean up. (For meetings that attract 50 or 60 members, several leaders said that they received around $60 instead of the $18 base rate, and that receptionists for meetings received a base rate of $12 before commissions.) Like many leaders, Ms. Williams said she worked many hours unpaid — ordering products, delivering them to meetings, counting and banking the money collected, and preparing her remarks for meetings. “We’re bankers, we’re storehouses — it’s unduly burdensome,“ said Patricia Sorlien, a Weight Watchers leader outside Seattle. “All of us are highly skilled or we wouldn’t be leaders, yet for the most part we are paid the minimum wage.” Teri Weatherby began leading meetings in Hartford, Conn., after retiring from her job as an insurance company’s senior vice president. “Other than the financial problems, it’s probably the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “That’s what they prey upon. It’s like an abusive relationship. You know you should leave, but you stay because you love it.”

Weight Watchers International
Wages and salaries
Jobs
Celebrity
advertising,marketing
Women and Girls


Hornets Fall on Road but Have Shot at Home

Abstract: SAN ANTONIO — This was a night to further perpetuate the revitalization of basketball in New Orleans. Behind Chris Paul’s rise to stardom and David West’s emergence as an N.B.A. all-star, the second-seeded Hornets have been the surprise of the league this season and a source of pride in their first full season back in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city less than three years ago. But for the basketball renaissance to continue in New Orleans, the Hornets will have to win one more game because of a 99-80 loss to the Spurs here on Thursday night in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals. The Spurs’ victory ties the series at three games apiece and forces a decisive Game 7, to be played Monday night in New Orleans. Neither team has won a road game in this series, and no game has been decided by fewer than 11 points. “I don’t think our guys were totally focused in on what we need to do,” Hornets Coach Byron Scott said. “Maybe in the back of their minds, they had a false sense of, hey we got Game 7 at home so just in case we do lose, we’re at least going home for the last one.“ Manu Ginóbili led third-seeded San Antonio with 25 points, which included a 6-of-9 effort on 3-pointers. Tim Duncan added 20 points and 15 rebounds for the Spurs, who made 12 of 18 3-point attempts. “We had a good offensive night and we had lots of people who played well,” Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich said. “Our best players played well and were supported by the bench, and if we are able to have that many people play well, you can win. It all worked out for us tonight.” Paul, who entered the game averaging 25 points and 11.3 assists in the series, continued his brilliance with 21 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds before departing with 7 minutes 38 seconds to play. “They’re the defending champs,” Paul said. “They weren’t going to lay down for us. Got to get ready. Thank God we get to go back to New Orleans.” Playing with a sore back that plagued him in Game 5, when he scored a career-playoff-high 38 points, West struggled with just 10 points on 4-of-14 shooting. He appeared to be fine physically until he crumpled to the floor with 10:11 left in the game after a back screen by Spurs forward Robert Horry, who was whistled for a foul on the play. After lying on the floor for two minutes, during which time the crowd briefly chanted, “Horry, Horry, Horry,” West walked gingerly to the locker room and did not return. “He took a pretty good shot in the back,” Scott said of West’s leaving the game. “It’s probably a good thing that Game 7 is Monday. It gives him a chance to get some rest and get that back together.” By the time West departed, the game was well out of reach because of another collapse by New Orleans in the third quarter, a trend that has been haunting the Hornets in their losses this series. Trailing by 7 points at the half, the Hornets pulled to 5 points behind early in the third before West unraveled. In 28 seconds, he picked up three fouls, including two on one possession. His third was an offensive foul against Duncan with 8:44 left. He then received a technical foul for yelling at the referee Ken Mauer. After the technical, Ginóbili made the free throw, putting San Antonio ahead by 63-55. But New Orleans rallied back to 7 behind on a jumper by Paul with 5:59 remaining in the third. The Spurs then all but put the game away, closing the period with a 16-8 run to take a 78-63 lead. “That third quarter was ugly, ugly for us,” Paul said. The Spurs’ lead ballooned to as many as 24 points in the fourth quarter. After falling behind by 13 points in the first quarter, New Orleans battled back in the second with a 7-2 run to close to 5 behind with 5:35 left before halftime. But San Antonio soon pushed its lead back to 10 on a 16-foot jumper by Kurt Thomas. At halftime, the Spurs led, 58-51. The Hornets led three times by 3 points in the game’s first six minutes, but San Antonio went on a 19-7 run over the final 5:06 of the first quarter to take a 36-24 lead after one period. In the game’s final seconds, Paul walked along the Hornets’ bench and gave high-fives to his teammates and coaches. His team’s shot at making its first-ever Western Conference finals appearance would have to wait.

New Orleans Hornets
San Antonio Spurs
Basketball
Playoff Games