Miller Did Not Finish? He Never Got Started

Abstract: Sestriere, Italy - HERE on the mountain, after the last chance for Olympic redemption dissipated quickly, there was only a view of Bode Miller's backside as he skied away, without looking back. There went the erstwhile cover boy. Here came the American who got into the Games by paying a cover charge. "Bode's a superstar, he's got a lot of commitments," Miller's teammate Chip Knight said. "I've got time." Unlike Miller, Knight also had a placing in the final Alpine event of the Olympics, finishing 18th in the slalom after being asked by his coaches to pay $8,000 up front for his training expenses this season -- which he did, rather than quit on a 12-year career, largely undistinguished by the standards we typically apply. But how should we ultimately rate the travails and triumphs of our quadrennial heroes, these disposable Olympian, by the medals they win, by the money they earn or by the determined completion of their missions? Miller won two silver medals in Salt Lake City in 2002 and made a subsequent fortune, estimates running as high as $5 million a year, as the corporate choice to be America's breakout athlete in 2006. Alas, the only thing he broke out of yesterday was the prison of expectation, if only because he ran out of chances. All he concluded was his nightmarish 0-for-5 visit to the Italian Alps, in which he skied so far off his 2004-5 World Cup championship form that he immortalized himself as one of the great American flops in the history of the Games. The notation next to his name after the first of the two slalom runs read DNF, for Did Not Finish, but the reality was that he never got started, stumbling out of the start house yesterday the way he lurched into these Olympics two weeks ago, preparing for the downhill with a night out in a bar. Was he wrong? He apparently thought not. "I just did it my way; I'm not a martyr," Miller told an Associated Press reporter last night. "I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here." Later he said, "I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level." In the process he failed to finish three of his five races after being touted as a medal contender in all of them. In a sport in which it is customarily imprudent to find fault when defeat is measured by a fraction of a second, Miller's behavioral approach put him well within the radar for reproach. The ode to Bode will be about how he wasn't in shape, didn't look prepared and came off as a rebel without a cause or a case. "I believed he could be focused and perhaps perform at a higher level here at these Games than he has recently on his international circuit," Jim Scherr, the chief executive for the United States Olympic Committee, said yesterday at a summary news conference. What he was saying was that he hoped Miller would wake up to the responsibility of the investments made in him by the U.S.O.C. and several partner corporations. Whatever Scherr believed, he was admitting he was wrong, and when a top executive essentially deposits you in the bin for celebrated busts, you know there is a high level of organizational disgust. Miller, after all, was the American to watch, especially when Michelle Kwan excused herself from the figure skating competition on the first weekend of the Games. The reports of Miller's drinking before the downhill became the front cover for the book on the United States team. His sickly slalom was the back, and it was Scherr's job yesterday to promote the more palatable developments that occurred on the pages in between. "Over all, I believe it was mismanaged expectations and some unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances," he said. "This team has taken a little bit of a hit in terms about their comportment here in Italy because of a couple of incidents by our high-profile athletes coming into the Games." As a counterpoint, Scherr rightly championed Joey Cheek, the speedskater with the philanthropic bent, but as he was, reports of the latest embarrassment were circulating -- the exile by the American team of an aerials skier, Jeret Peterson, for his participation in a fight that the police broke up after a night of partying. Will the gold medal won by Cheek in the 500 meters and the rest of the speedskating successes be overshadowed by the Chad Hedrick-Shani Davis feud? How many rewinds will there be of Lindsey Jacobellis's showboating, which turned sure snowboarding gold to silver? Beyond the fiascos and the justifiable Bode bashing, the American team in many areas distinguished itself. Apolo Anton Ohno was the latest to do so when he finally overtook his South Korean nemesis, Ahn Hyun Soo, striking gold in the 500 meters last night at the short track. The Americans won't match the 34 medals they won in Salt Lake City, but as Scherr pointed out, no American team had ever won more than 13 medals at a Winter Games that were not on American soil. We can live with not being first in sports we hardly understand or much relate to. We can deal with neighboring Canada -- the 2010 host -- suddenly breathing down on our neck in the medal standings. It is never easy to define Olympic success, but we can certainly recognize spectacular failure when we see it, even if Bode sounded blind to his own folly. "He's had a rough time," Chip Knight said after Miller skied off to a likely legacy of another athlete who took the money and ran. Meanwhile, Knight was ecstatic with his third Olympics, his ability to twice make it down the hill, to go out on his own terms. Based on Miller's farewell commentary, he went out on his terms, too. Pity him if he doesn't wake up one day to regret them. Sports of The Times E-mail: hjaraton@nytimes.com

MILLER BODE
ALPINE SKIING
SPORTS OF THE TIMES (TIMES COLUMN)
OLYMPIC GAMES (2006)
SKIING
WINTER GAMES (OLYMPICS)
OLYMPIC GAMES


Derrick Rose’s Value to Knicks Shows When He’s Sidelined

Abstract: When the Knicks acquired point guard Derrick Rose from the Chicago Bulls last summer, they were at risk of taking on damaged goods. After several injury-plagued years, Rose, the N.B.A.’s most valuable player in 2011, was no longer the star he once was. Even Phil Jackson, the Knicks’ president, admitted that the Rose deal had an element of uncertainty to it. The Knicks hoped to “see if he does have enough left in the tank,” Jackson told ESPN.com last month. So far this season, the Knicks do not yet have a definitive answer on Rose, but they do have some relevant insights. What they have learned is that regardless of whether he is 90 percent of what he once was, or maybe a little less, he is still enough of a force on the court to make a big difference. Without him available to play, the Knicks take a significant step backward. For evidence, look no further than the past two weeks, when the Knicks were 1-3 in games Rose did not play because of back spasms, and lost another game, in Phoenix, when he was on the court for just 10 minutes. With the Knicks back home for a three-game homestand, Rose practiced on Monday and said he was optimistic that he would play Tuesday when the Indiana Pacers visit Madison Square Garden. “I just want to put all these injuries behind me, and get on with the season,” Rose said. Rose’s absence has coincided with the end of the Knicks’ early-season renaissance. After a slow start, they won 10 of their next 14 games, moving into the middle of the Eastern Conference standings, and Rose found his groove. While Carmelo Anthony can work in isolation, and Kristaps Porzingis has emerged as an efficient co-star, Rose provides the speed and penetration that the other two do not and that the backup point guard Brandon Jennings cannot match. Rose’s statistics are not as impressive as in the past. He is averaging 16.4 points per game this season and 4.4 assists — both off his career averages. But his worth is evident when he is not on the floor. The Knicks average 111.2 points per 100 possessions when he is playing and 103.1 when he is on the bench. Yes, their defense suffers when he is playing, but over all they are a better team when he is on the court than when he is not. Jennings has not been a capable fill-in in Rose’s stead. Jennings’s point-efficiency rating is below average, and although he actually averages more assists per game — 5.3 — than Rose (4.4), the Knicks have not been a better team when Jennings is in the game, with opponents outscoring them by about 5 points per 100 possessions and playing about even when he is sitting out. While Knicks Coach Jeff Hornacek said he was hopeful that the offense would not change much when Rose was unavailable to play, that’s not a realistic expectation. Part of the problem is that Jennings seems most effective when he is leading the team’s second unit, which, Hornacek noted, likes to run. “The first group sets it up more in the halfcourt offense, which is more conducive to Derrick and his abilities to get to the basket and create plays,” Hornacek said. “But again, you hope that when guys get hurt, you can somehow still win games.” So far, though, the Knicks have struggled to win without Rose. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Porzingis has made just a third of his shots (22 of 66) in the four games Rose has missed this season, while hitting 47.2 percent of his attempts otherwise. Although Jennings has assisted on more of Porzingis’s field goals this season than Rose has, it is Rose’s play with Porzingis that has left Porzingis with better shots and a higher shooting percentage. But Rose’s biggest skill — and one the Knicks have not been able to replicate without him — is his ability to get to the rim. Rose is 14th in the N.B.A. this season in drives per game — defined by NBA.com as any play that starts more than 20 feet away from the basket and ends no farther than 10 feet away — and has finished with 2.9 field goals per game off those drives, the fifth-highest number in the league. That is Rose when he is at his best. He is shooting a dismal 23.5 percent from beyond the arc, but only 13 players average more shots from within 10 feet than Rose does — and he is hitting 53 percent of his attempts from there. If nothing else, these last few weeks have shown the Knicks what they are missing. Rose may not be the Knicks’ best player, but he is the one who generally makes them go.


USA Freedom Kids Are in Dispute With Trump

Abstract: A patriotic song-and-dance routine by a trio of young girls at a Donald J. Trump rally in Pensacola, Fla., in January drew huge numbers of views online. But now, the manager of the group, known as USA Freedom Kids , says the campaign broke a verbal agreement over the chance to perform a second time. He is considering a lawsuit. The manager, Jeff Popick, 54, a real estate developer in Marco Island, Fla., said on Tuesday that more than six months of back-and-forth with the Trump campaign had hit an impasse. “It really is rather mind-boggling that he has outright forsaken the USA Freedom Kids,” he said in a phone interview. His plan to sue was first reported by The Washington Post . A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Mr. Popick wrote the lyrics for “Freedom’s Call,” the song the three girls — including his 9-year-old, Alexis — performed at the rally. The lyrics, sung to the tune of the World War I song “Over There,” included lines such as: President Donald Trump knows how to make America great: Deal from strength or get crushed every time. The video was viewed millions of times and was shared widely on social media. It drew ridicule from some online commentators. Mother Jones magazine called it “an apparent bid to land on the military’s torture playlist.” Others said it evoked North Korea-style patriotism . In an email to a Trump aide on June 5, Mr. Popick said the girls took the criticism and lack of acknowledgment from the Trump campaign to heart, and that one of the girls was bullied because of the video. Mr. Trump “is no stranger to untruthful journalism and venomous attacks from the liberal media; however, our little girls were not,” Mr. Popick wrote in the email, which was provided to The New York Times. Mr. Popick started the group two and a half years ago. He said his daughter and the other girls were natural performers who could not get enough of being on stage. They’ve had gigs at local sporting events and performed outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland last week during the Republican National Convention. Mr. Popick said he had even reached out to Hillary Clinton about a performance before she declared her intent to run for president. “We were saying to her, she’s an accomplished woman and I’m sure the girls would love to perform with her,” he said. He did not hear back. After Mr. Trump announced his candidacy last summer, Mr. Popick contacted various members of the campaign staff. He said he asked for $2,500 for the Jan. 13 appearance in Pensacola, but a staff member instead offered a table to sell the group’s merchandise outside the event. But when they arrived, there was no table, Mr. Popick said, calling it a breach of contract. Even so, the campaign asked the group to perform again, he said. About two weeks later, a campaign staff member called him and asked if the group could perform at an event in Des Moines the next day. Mr. Popick said he agreed it would be “huge exposure,” so he quickly bought nonstop flight tickets to Chicago for himself; his wife, Debbie; his daughter and two other girls. But when they landed, planning to make the roughly five-hour drive to Des Moines, Mr. Popick was told that there would be no performance at the event. The group went instead as guests of the campaign, the girls wearing their costumes. Mr. Popick said he was not reimbursed for their travel costs. In the months afterward, he said he contacted the campaign by text, phone and email, but could not get an answer about another performance, Mr. Popick said. He hired a lawyer and planned to file the lawsuit in the coming weeks, he said. Mr. Popick said on Tuesday that it was “maybe a bad decision on my part” to get the group involved in politics. He said he planned to cut “Freedom’s Call” from the group’s coming debut album. “This group is not Donald Trump’s kids,” he said. “It’s America’s kids, and that’s where we’re going to get back to.” Mr. Popick, a former New Yorker, said he had admired Mr. Trump’s business acumen for decades, but he did not say whether he would support him in November.

USA Freedom Kids
Donald Trump
2016 Presidential Election
Jeff Popick


Questionable Expenses by Lawmakers in Other Countries

Abstract: The financial irregularities of the Canadian Senate, revealed on Tuesday in an audit of the expense reports of 116 current and former senators, are prosaic in comparison to the lowlights of other such scandals worldwide. Expecting taxpayers to cover the cost of taxi rides in Ottawa is hardly as imaginative as, say, wanting reimbursement for cleaning the slime from a private moat. Here are some of the questionable expenses lawmakers in other countries have claimed. Britain: In May 2009, the country was jolted by revelations that some members of Parliament had flagrantly misused a program allowing them to expense the costs of keeping second homes so that they could commute between London and their home districts. They sought reimbursement for moat maintenance, tennis court repairs, shipments of horse manure, a new chandelier and toilet seats, and an electrical massage chair, among other household “necessities.” Italy: In Italy, corruption scandals are not limited to Parliament. Last year, more than 60 current or former politicians in the wealthy Lombardy region were accused of misappropriating about 3 million euros (about $3.3 million) in public funds by claiming reimbursements for expensive wine, caviar, cigarettes, Red Bull, lottery cards and digital cameras. Japan: Trade Minister Yoichi Miyazawa was in the spotlight last October after revelations that an aide had tried to expense a visit to a club featuring sadomasochistic performances. Amid the scrutiny Mr. Miyazawa acknowledged that he owned stock in the company hired to clean up the Fukushima nuclear plant — work he would oversee — but said it would not affect his decision making. New Zealand: Despite its ranking as the second-least-corrupt nation by Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization that monitors global corruption, New Zealand has had its share of scandal. In 2010, several Labour Party members of Parliament were revealed in public documents to have claimed expensive wine, new clothes, massages and sporting gear as legitimate expenses. One of them, Shane Jones, admitted that he used his government credit card to pay for the rental of pornographic movies at hotels 19 times while on political business. He later paid back the money, acknowledging that he should not have charged the movies to taxpayers. “I absolutely lost the plot,” he told The Dominion Post of Wellington.

Expense account
Senate
Congress
Canada
Legislature
Great Britain
Italy
Japan
New Zealand


Conor McGregor Delivers Knockout in U.F.C.’s New York Debut

Abstract: Image Conor McGregor held up his title belts after defeating Eddie Alvarez in the lightweight title bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times Conor McGregor , the brash Irishman who is the world’s biggest mixed martial arts star, became the first man to hold two Ultimate Fighting Championship belts at the same time when he unseated lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. “I’ve ridiculed everyone on the roster,” McGregor noted, not entirely inaccurately, after the fight. “I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize … to absolutely nobody.” He leaped on top of the cage and held both belts on his shoulders with a broad smile. The fight — the first in New York City after the state legalized the sport this spring — was never close. McGregor put Alvarez on the canvas three times in Round 1, then finished the job in the second with a combination. Image Eddie Alvarez, right, watched as Conor McGregor gave an interview after defeating Alvarez for the lightweight title. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times McGregor’s popularity is unsurpassed in the sport. The fans at the Garden roared every time he appeared in a promo on the big screen. But those cheers were dwarfed by the sound that emerged when the man himself appeared in the flesh. McGregor has a gift of gab that reminds some of the young Muhammad Ali. In the days before the fight, as is his wont, he berated his opponent, slinging invective as easily as he slings punches. Showmanship is part of the ethos of the U.F.C., and no one is better at it than McGregor. He showed up late to Thursday’s press conference, wearing a mink coat, boasted, “I predict I rearrange his face,” and battled Alvarez over his belt, eventually picking up a chair and threatening to throw it. Overlooked in the McGregor hype was Alvarez, who after all was the champion. Alvarez seemed to try to match McGregor’s insults but never quite had the Irishman’s panache, and certainly could not match his popularity in the Garden. The Irish and Irish Americans were well represented in the crowd. Image Conor McGregor, front, taunting Eddie Alvarez during their lightweight title bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times ‘The Irish, we built this town,” McGregor had shouted before the fight. “Now we’re coming back to claim what’s ours.” How right he was. McGregor remains the featherweight champion, as well. U.F.C.’s big night at Madison Square Garden drew several celebrities to the Octagon, including Madonna, Hugh Jackman and Gordon Ramsay. The night was not only about McGregor. There were two other championship fights on the undercard. Tyron Woodley retained his welterweight title after a draw with Stephen Thompson. And Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who has dominated the lighter women’s strawweight class, defended her belt against a fellow Pole, Karolina Kowalkiewicz. The former champion and Long Island native Chris Weidman was knocked out by a knee to the head from the former Cuban Olympic wrestler Yoel Romero, who will now get a title shot. The pioneering women’s fighter Miesha Tate lost to a former protégée, Raquel Pennington by decision, and announced her retirement after the fight. And there were wins for Frankie Edgar and Khabib Nurmagomedov, who taunted McGregor as a “chicken” to the displeasure of the Garden crowd. After McGregor’s demolition of Alvarez later on the card, he may want to rethink that insult. Here’s how we described all the fights as they happened: Round 2: McGregor Wins After Fight Stopped Image Conor McGregor landing the knockout blow on Eddie Alvarez. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times They trade tame kicks. McGregor stings Alvarez with a punch. An Alvarez takedown bid is futile. McGregor puts his hands behind his back to taunt Alvarez and invite a blow. Alvarez doesn’t bite, so he does it again. A cross puts Alvarez into the cage and McGregor ties him up. A right-left-right from McGregor puts him on the canvas again, and this time there’s no getting up. A couple of blows to the prone Alvarez and the fight is stopped. McGregor destroyed the champion and now is the featherweight and lightweight champion! Round 1: Early Knockdowns by McGregor They spar carefully, touching hands but little more. McGregor nails Alvarez and he goes down! But he pops back up before McGregor can finish him. A stiff left and Alvarez goes to one knee, but once again bounces back up. And now he’s down a third time! McGregor pounces on him by the cage and lands some big blows. But again Alvarez is on his feet. Alvarez goes for a takedown but eats a knee instead. Alvarez lands a kick or two. He’s regaining his equilibrium as the round ends. NYT scores it 10-8 McGregor. Introducing McGregor and Alvarez Image Conor McGregor fans walked the concourse wearing Irish flags. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times Because he is technically the challenger, Conor McGregor is the first to arrive in the Octagon, to the sound of the Chieftains and Sinead O’Connor. The reaction from the crowd is deafening. McGregor is wrapped in an Irish flag. He circles the Octagon in a loose-armed strut. Champion Eddie Alvarez, arriving to “Victory” by Diddy, 50 Cent and Busta Rhymes, is showered with boos. Though only a short hop from his hometown, Philadelphia, he is a foreign invader to most of this crowd. He kneels in prayer before entering the Octagon, then sprints around it. When McGregor is introduced he blows kisses to the crowd. The men stare each other down and touch gloves. It’s time for the main event! We’ll give you an update after each round. Tyron Woodley Retains His Title Amid Confusion Image Tyron Woodley, left, and Stephen Thompson both reacted following their welterweight title bout. The ruling was initially announced as a split decision win for Woodley, then corrected to a draw. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times Tyron Woodley was an unexpected welterweight champion, having surprised Robbie Lawler with a knockout after just two minutes in July. That was reflected in his odds: He was an underdog in his first title defense tonight. His opponent was Stephen (Wonderboy) Thompson, an expert in karate and kickboxing who had won seven fights in a row, many of them impressively against strong competition. The key element of the fight was expected to be the takedown. Woodley is known as a wrestler, but Thompson has a reputation for being very tough to take down. Score the first point for Woodley: he successfully took Thompson to the mat two minutes into the fight and kept him there the rest of the round. In the last seconds he put in some serious hammer blows on the prone Thompson. Though Woodley did not take Thompson down in Round 2, he did back him up against the cage for an extended period and bloodied his nose. With no further takedowns in Round 3, the fight threatened to swing Thompson’s way, as he landed more blows, although Woodley also dished out his share. But Woodley knocked down Thompson twice in Round 4, the second time punishing him while Thompson remarkably staggered to his feet. Woodley got the weakened Thompson to the mat, where he fought for a submission. But Thompson showed guts in reversing the hold and assuming dominance before the round ended. For the first time in the fight, the crowd got into it and cheered for “Wonderboy.” There was all to fight for in Round 5. The two men remained standing, going after each other with surgical punches. With no fighter holding a clear edge, the decision went to the judges. The ruling was initially announced as a split decision win for Woodley, then corrected to a draw. Either way, Woodley retains his title. Next up: round by round coverage of the big one, McGregor-Alvarez. Joanna Jedrzejczyk Defends Her Title Image Joanna Jedrzejczyk, right, wrapped up Karolina Kowalkiewicz during their women’s strawweight bout. In the first of three title fights on the card, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who has dominated the lighter women’s strawweight class, attempted to defend her belt against a fellow Pole, Karolina Kowalkiewicz. While we heard a host of well-known upbeat pop and rap songs as walk-out music tonight, Jedrzejczyk opted for the slightly less well known “Przejmij Ster W Swoje Dlonie.” She helpfully translated it for non-Polish speakers recently as “Take Control of Your Steering Wheel.” Jedrzejczyk has been one of the most dominant champs of any weight or gender, but Kowalkiewicz seemed unafraid of her potent punching and kicking ability in Round 1. The two sparred vigorously, but few crucial blows landed. The underdog Kowalkiewicz fought gamely in the second round as well, backing her opponent into the cage, but never seemed to hurt the tough Jedrzejczyk. Round 3 brought more of the same, though the champion’s leg kicks seemed to be landing with more of a snap. As a championship fight, this bout was scheduled for five rounds, rather than three. And the crowd finally had something to cheer about in Round 4, when Kowalkiewicz stung Jedrzejczyk with a punch and put her on the back foot for a few moments. Jedrzejczyk reasserted herself in the round’s last moments, using her long legs to land some more kicks. Quarter was neither asked nor given in the fifth round, as the combatants traded blows. Jedrzejczyk won a unanimous decision, but Kowalkiewicz gave a remarkable account of herself as a 4-1 underdog. Yoel Romero Defeats Long Island’s Chris Weidman Image Yoel Romero, top, taking down Chris Weidman for the win. Credit Adam Hunger/USA Today Sports, via Reuters Chris Weidman held the middleweight title for more than two years before being surprisingly knocked out by Luke Rockhold last December. In his first fight back, the Long island native faced a tough matchup with Yoel Romero, the dynamic former Cuban Olympic wrestler. Romero, known as the “Soldier of God,” was decidedly unpopular with the Madison Square Garden crowd compared to the local Weidman, known as the “All American.” An elite wrestler in high school and at Hofstra, Weidman went for takedowns in the first round, but they were eluded by the speedy Romero, who had executed a cartwheel and backflip upon arrival in the ring. Weidman only finally brought down his man with 30 seconds left, and even then did not gain complete control. Image Chris Weidman, left, appeared to hit Yoel Romero in the eye during their middleweight bout. Credit Julio Cortez/Associated Press In the second round, Romero claimed he had been poked in the eye, leading to a chorus of dubious jeers from the crowd. Shortly afterward, he used his own Olympian wrestling skills to gain back control over Weidman and eventually brought him to the mat. With the fight in the balance in round 3, Romero sealed the deal by catching a ducking Weidman with a knee to the face and then immediately flipping over the cage in celebration. Romero is now expected to be given a shot at Michael Bisping for the middleweight title. Miesha Tate Retires After Losing to Raquel Pennington Image Miesha Tate, right, reacted after losing to Raquel Pennington in their women’s bantamweight bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times Tate was the women’s bantamweight champ for only four months, losing by rear naked choke to Amanda Nunes in July after having taken the title from Holly Holm. The loss cost her a lucrative high-profile fight with Ronda Rousey. Instead she got a date with Pennington tonight. A chance to get back to the top ended up as a career-ending loss; Tate announced her retirement after the fight. Tate, who entered the ring to Katy Perry’s “Roar,” was always one of the women’s game’s best wrestlers. She used those skills for a takedown in the latter part of the first round. But the second and third rounds were largely a static war of attrition fought against the cage. Neither fighter seemed to be able to establish her will over the contest, but Pennington, who was once coached by Tate on the reality show “The Ultimate Fighter,” did enough to win by unanimous decision. A Legend Gets the Garden Crowd Cheering Image Frankie Edgar, left, punching Jeremy Stephens during their featherweight bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times No one is tougher than Frankie Edgar, the former champion who is legendary for absorbing beatings, and dishing them out as well. He has spent six hours in total in the Octagon, a record. In 26 fights, dating to 2005, he has never lost except by decision. His opponent tonight was Jeremy Stephens, a knockout artist who has fought many of the top names in the featherweight division. In the first round, Edgar got Stephens against the cage, but couldn’t land any decisive blows. In the second, Stephens landed a flying kick that would have finished most mortal men, but not Edgar, who jumped up seemingly none the worse for wear and responded with a big takedown in the final minute that got the crowd chanting “Frankie, Frankie.” A couple more takedowns in the third sealed the unanimous victory for Edgar. And the Show Begins Image Khabib Nurmagomedov, top, punched Michael Johnson during their lightweight bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times The early fights on a U.F.C. card can be sleepy affairs, but for this first appearance at Madison Square Garden, quite a few talents and big names were brought out. Perhaps the most notable is Khabib Nurmagomedov, the next big thing of mixed martial arts, who brought a 23-0 lifetime record into his bout with Michael Johnson. The Russian Nurmagomedov took a few early shots from the puncher Johnson, but once he performed his specialty, the takedown, he brutally schooled Johnson with “ground and pound” for the rest of the round. The second round was more of the same, as was the third, and Nurmagomedov eventually got a battered and exhausted Johnson to submit to the “kimura,” a wrist lock. Nurmagomedov staked a claim to a title shot against the Conor McGregor-Eddie Alvarez winner and will be a formidable opponent for either. Image Tim Boetsch celebrated after defeating Rafael Natal by knockout in their middleweight bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times In other bouts, Tim Boetsch, 35, who had lost four of his last six fights, rejuvenated his career with a first-round knockout of Rafael Natal. Image Vicente Luque celebrated his win by knockout over Belal Muhammad in their welterweight bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times The up-and-coming Vicente Luque knocked down Belal Muhammad just over a minute into the first round, then quickly finished him off on the mat. And in a battle of veterans, Jim Miller decisioned Thiago Alves. Image Thiago Alves, left, protected himself against Jim Miller during their catchweight bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times The Octagon Makes Its Debut in New York Image Fans watched the middleweight bout between Chris Weidman and Yoel Romero. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times The scantily clad “ring girls,” the stentorian announcer Bruce Buffer, and most importantly, the iconic eight-sided cage-surrounded ring, the Octagon, were in place, as they are several times a month all over the country, and the world. But tonight for the first time they were in New York City, where mixed martial arts is newly legalized, adding an extra frisson of excitement. Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden, and stars like Patrick Ewing and Wayne Gretzky regularly electrified the home fans. But the Garden has never seen anything quite like the spectacle of the U.F.C. Image Ring girls cheered before Conor McGregor fought Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times In the opening bout, Liz Carmouche took down the Hoboken bartender Katlyn Chookagian in a split decision. Image Liz Carmouche, right, fought Katlyn Chookagian during their women’s bantamweight bout. Credit Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times

Ultimate Fighting Championship
Mixed martial arts
Conor McGregor
Eddie Alvarez
New York


Unexceptional Events Set Off Fatal Blaze

Abstract: A series of minor, seemingly unrelated events — a stove left on to warm an apartment, a boy waving a toy wrapper over the flames, and a self-closing door that got stuck on a rug — helped create the blinding maze of black smoke and oven-hot heat that claimed the life of a veteran fire lieutenant in Brooklyn on Thursday night, officials said Friday. The city medical examiner’s office said that Lt. John H. Martinson, 40, died of smoke inhalation and burns; officials said he had burns on his face, head and hands and injuries to his throat, trachea and lungs. It was the Fire Department’s first line-of-duty death since August. Fire marshals said the blaze was accidental — a child playing near an open flame. They were still investigating how Lieutenant Martinson became detached from his five-man hose team and trapped, alone and out of air, in the Ebbets Field Apartments, a 25-story apartment building at 1700 Bedford Avenue, said Francis X. Gribbon, the department’s chief spokesman. It was how Lieutenant Martinson lived, not how he died, that relatives and colleagues recalled Friday. They described a loving husband and father with a 22-month-old son, a skilled handyman who had built his house on Staten Island from the ground up, a prodigious and talented cook. They called him an easygoing and endlessly helpful man who had earned his nickname, Johnny Nice Guy. His wife, Jessica, a special education teacher, is pregnant with their second child. The lieutenant led the first engine company into Thursday’s fire. Later, when trouble came, he was heard on a radio transmission trying to identify himself. Then, after a pause, a voice believed to be his was heard saying, “I’m out of air,” the officials said. It was his last transmission. Fire officials said Lieutenant Martinson might have been alone because he was unsure if his colleagues were all out of the apartment. As men in his rank are trained to be the first in, they are also trained to be the last out, so he may not have wanted to leave. Earlier on Thursday, fire marshals said, the twin 6-year-old boys in Apartment 14M received toy trucks as gifts at their day care or after-school program. They unwrapped them at home as their mother, who was preparing a bath for them, turned the stovetop burners on for more heat. She did this even though the apartment was heated, the marshals said. At this point, one boy went to the kitchen and waved the packaging over the burner and it caught fire. The boy, who has been interviewed by investigators, then ran to a bedroom and — in a panic — threw the lighted packaging behind the bed, which also caught fire. His mother, whose name was not released, tried to douse it, and when that failed, ran with her children to a neighbor’s apartment for help. But the self-closing door to their apartment stayed open, officials said, because it was jammed on the carpet inside the apartment’s foyer. In the roughly four minutes it took firefighters to respond to alarms, the smoke and heat extended along the entire 14th floor. In fact, officials said, the woman tried to return to close the door — as residents are supposed to do in such situations — but was pushed back by the smoke. After the emergency call came in at 7:15 p.m., members of Engine Company 249 and Ladder Company 113 were the first to arrive. The men rode an elevator up to the 12th floor, walked to the 13th, hooked a hose up to the standpipe there and went to the fire floor, the 14th. The firefighters were familiar with the building’s construction and layout. “They know that building,” one official said. Generally, procedures call for men to check on the floor below a fire floor to see what they might expect on the floors above. However, the team had trouble trying to find the burning apartment because the conditions overcame them, the official said. A nearly impenetrable wall of black smoke and heat prevented them from finding the entrance to 14M, which was the second door from the end of a cross-shaped hallway that stretched 120 feet at its longest point. Lieutenant Martinson and his men got down on their hands and knees, pressed their hands against the wall to feel their way through the long hallway, and searched for an open door. Meanwhile, the winds that howled outside the building blew in through the shattered windows of the apartment, whipping the flames into the building and creating, at times, a “blowtorch effect,” officials said. As the men searched for the apartment, the air in their Scott breathing packs began to run low. Then they ran out. Men from Engine Company 234 arrived as relief and found the lieutenant lying face-down near the fire hose, three or four feet inside Apartment 14M, with his mask off. In the end, Deputy Chief Richard J. Alles, an official of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said the open door was at the heart of the tragedy. “Always, always, always, as part of every lecture and part of every piece of literature for fire prevention, what we instruct is that if you have a fire, you close the door behind you when you leave,” he said. “It changes everything.” The investigation is continuing, officials said. While all battalion vehicles at fires have recording devices, information from only one recorder has been transcribed so far. Officials have conducted 70 interviews, but there were more than 100 firefighters who responded. A trove of photographs, schematics, building plans and other evidence must be examined. Four other firefighters and four civilians suffered minor injuries, officials said. Firefighters said that while it might seem surprising that a two-alarm fire in a one-bedroom apartment could so quickly claim the life of a veteran lieutenant, it is impossible to gauge how black and all-encompassing the smoke can be until they get close enough to feel the fire’s heat. “It is very hard to tell what is burning, how intense the fire is, until you are at the location of the fire,” said former Assistant Chief Stanley P. Dawe, who retired in 2004 as the chief of the Fire Prevention Bureau. Once firefighters reach that point, Chief Dawe said, “it’s always possible for something unexpected to occur. It could just be any number of things: a change in wind direction, a door is left open in a hallway. Something like that will change the complexion of the fire in unpredictable ways and in a matter of seconds.”

Fires and Firefighters
Martinson John H
Brooklyn (NYC)


Gov. Paterson Tunes In and Speaks Out on Talk Radio

Abstract: “Another night, another Met loss,” the caller sighed. “And it’s starting to be frustrating, as it was last year.” It was late on a Saturday night on the Tony Paige show on the sports station WFAN-AM , and the guest was a longtime listener and regular caller: Gov. David A. Paterson . The governor lamented that Oliver Perez’s fastball was “off four or five miles an hour” and that he was worried the left-hander could not make it as a location pitcher. For about 20 minutes he went on, talking about the team’s relief pitching and their sometimes agonizing base-running mistakes. “You’re three runs down, you don’t advance any bases unless you’re absolutely sure you are going to get there,” Mr. Paterson said with exasperation. New Yorkers do not see as much of their governor as they used to these days, as he enters the twilight of his term. But they can almost always hear him, as Mr. Paterson cannot resist the medium where he feels most comfortable: the radio. The governor can be heard up and down the dial, on sports stations, news shows, black-themed programs and religious ones, showing the qualities that he struggles to demonstrate in other settings: confidence, persuasiveness and fluidity. “I go places and people always stop and tell me, ‘I heard you on so-and-so’s show, and I really enjoyed it,’ ” Mr. Paterson said in a recent interview. “People actually tell me I should do it more.” Mr. Paterson’s connection with radio is long and deep. He started listening as a boy. And because he is legally blind, radio was the best way for him to experience sports games and keep up with the news. As governor, he has sometimes been mocked for his blindness , most notably on “ Saturday Night Live ,” which has portrayed him walking into cameras and holding charts upside down. But the governor said that on the radio, he was at ease because he was not anxious about how he looked. “I don’t have to worry about looking at the camera, whether my tie is in place, whether my hands are flying in one direction,” he said. “I think it’s the reason my conversation is a lot more fluid. In TV interviews, I have difficulty relaxing, because I’m trying not to look to one side of the room.” The radio, he added, “It’s sort of a perfect medium for me.” Sometimes his appearances are scheduled; sometimes they are more impromptu. He has been known to dial up a station and ask to be put on the air to dispute something unflattering a guest has said about him. He calls a few stations so often that he has memorized the numbers. These days, he spends much of his time on the radio talking about the state’s dismal financial outlook and defending some of the more unpopular budget choices by his administration. Joe Bartlett, a weekend morning host on WOR-AM , recalled that early one recent Saturday morning, the phone in his studio rang with someone on the line claiming to be the governor. At first, Mr. Bartlett thought it was a joke. But it was not. Mr. Paterson had been listening to the show from home and decided to call in after hearing Bill de Blasio , the city’s public advocate, criticize him for failing to save St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan from closing. Mr. Bartlett put the governor on the air to let him say his piece. But before Mr. Paterson expressed his outrage, he paused to reminisce — for nearly five minutes — about Ralph Snodsmith , the host of WOR’s Sunday morning program “The Garden Hotline,” who had just died. “It’s kind of like losing a friend,” the governor said. Mr. Paterson typically begins his day listening to the radio, turning it on as soon as he wakes up. If he is at his home in Harlem , he will flip the dial back and forth between WOR, WNYC and WABC, where he can hear Don Imus , one of his favorites. Riding to and from events in the car, he often has his driver tune to the news stations WCBS or WINS . Before he goes to bed, he will turn on sports radio or the BBC . A few radio hosts said they had been surprised to find out that the governor was a frequent listener to their shows. “He would actually call me sometimes and tell me what I spoke about,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is host of a radio show and has had the governor on as a guest. “He listens to talk radio — a lot.” Mr. Paige said the governor once confessed to calling his show and using aliases like “David from Harlem” or “David from Manhattan ,” so callers could not easily recognize him. In May alone, the governor did about 20 radio appearances, and, in an interview, acknowledged that he had thought about a radio career. In addition to the WFAN sports show, Mr. Paterson appeared in May on “Religion on the Line” on WABC with Rabbi Joseph Potasnik and Deacon Kevin McCormack; WNYC public radio ; and talk radio outlets in Schenectady and Syracuse . The hosts who chat frequently with Mr. Paterson say he is relaxed and composed on the air. “I’ve never heard him more at ease than when he’s just shooting the bull with me and Boom,” said Craig Carton, co-host of a talk show on WFAN with the former quarterback Boomer Esiason . Mr. Paterson’s regular radio calls have set off speculation that he could be priming himself for a career as a host once he leaves office next year. He had a stint as a substitute host when he was a state senator, and he said he had later given serious thought to a permanent job. “I would probably consider doing that,” he said. His own show would, of course, have the added benefit of helping him resist impulses to pick up the phone and complain when he hears something on the radio he does not like. Mr. Paterson said he often had to remind himself that it was probably unwise to call stations these days as “David from Harlem.” “I’m listening to a sports station the other day,” Mr. Paterson said, recalling how he felt compelled to quibble with a caller’s analysis of how the Los Angeles Dodgers could have fared better in a recent game against the Mets . “I grabbed the phone and then said: ‘Nah, I can’t do it. They’ll know it’s me.’ ”


A Division in Rugby, and in England

Abstract: LONDON — To the untutored eye, there may be no immediate, evident distinction: Muscular players take to the field pursuing an oval ball and one another, colliding with enormous impact that lesser beings — indeed, some of the participants — might find bone-shattering. But, an outsider might be surprised to hear, there are much finer shadings to English rugby beyond its image of mass pugilism, relating not only to the rules of its two main forms, Rugby Union and Rugby League, but also to a schism between the north and south of the country so deep that The New Statesman magazine devoted a special issue to it. “No part of the country is the subject of greater condescension and misunderstanding than the north of England,” it declared the other day. That division has split rugby since 1895, when a rebellious group of northern clubs broke away to develop a version of the game with 13 players on each team rather than 15, and other major differences, shocking the southern sporting establishment by actually paying their players to play, compensating blue-collar workers for the wages they forfeited by taking to the field. Only a century later, in 1995, did Rugby Union — dominant in the south and nationally — go professional, feeding not so much on the ticket money funding Rugby League as on the lucrative television rights and sponsorships that have transformed global sports. It is not simply the rules and the money that make the difference, as a wealth of recent debate inspired by major tournaments has shown. The top Rugby League clubs still hail mainly from hardscrabble northern towns, from Leeds to Wigan and Warrington, although London, too, has a team. With its faster, more open play, the writer Anthony Clavane said in The New Statesman, the League game “still has an egalitarian, antiestablishment, strictly northern way of viewing the world.” Indeed, he said, the two rugbys stand for class distinctions that once set “southern gentleman-amateur toffs” against working-class players and their fans. Tied to its northern origins, the sports journalist Michael Calvin wrote in The Independent , Rugby League “remains a prisoner of geography.” But it is not a perfect metaphor for the nation. Rugby League, like Rugby Union, has reached around the world, notably to Australia and New Zealand, whose teams fought a breathless World Cup final on Nov. 30 (Australia won, 34-2), and on to the United States and many other lands where Rugby Union dominates. Like the works of the northern artist L.S. Lowry, Rugby League was set in places where smokestacks poked into leaden skies, spreading a sooty veneer over bowed figures. But, in postindustrial Britain, mills and mines have closed. “Rugby League Land has been completely transformed,” Mr. Clavane wrote. “The heavy industry that was its staple has gone.” In response, Rugby League has sought a broader following. The semifinals of the World Cup were played at Wembley stadium in London, the traditional shrine to English soccer, and the finals at Old Trafford — Manchester United’s home ground — drew a record crowd of almost 75,000. The World Cup “spread the game away from League’s traditional heartland” with 40 percent of tickets purchased outside the north, the sports journalist James Riach wrote . “This may well be remembered as the competition that put international Rugby League on the map.” But if Rugby League is seeking to shrug off its legacy, the north itself seems less nimble. Just about every recent economic yardstick points to a north-south gulf deepened by the years of austerity following the 2008 crisis. Statistics suggesting that a revival is underway across England cloak sharp regional disparities in house prices, joblessness and other indicators. “There has been a prosperity gap for at least a century, ever since the industries that were at the forefront of the first industrial revolution went into decline,” the economics writer Larry Elliott said in The Guardian . And these days, “the disparity between a thriving London and the rest has never been greater.”


Winning Isn’t Everything. Check the Periphery.

Abstract: COLLABORATION can be a powerful driver of innovation when it is done thoughtfully. But thoughtfulness can be hard to achieve in a traditional corporate or academic setting, where getting the best of others — whether by winning a sale or an argument — tends to be rewarded. Tradition being what it is, even organizations that pine for new ideas struggle with how to change their cultures to support them. The Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University provides a longstanding example of why they should keep trying. “Competition is not valued here,” asserts Red Burns, who has run the program since 1983 (and whom I have known since the early 1990s). “Competitive people have energy, they’re interesting and so forth. But they’re so focused on the competition they fail to see what they’re doing. They just want ‘better, bigger, stronger, longer,’ and they miss the periphery. And that is where you find things you don’t even know are there.” If history holds true, more than 2,000 people will arrive on Professor Burns’s doorstep this week to sample the fruits of this philosophy. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the program will be host for its annual spring show of student work, which is open to the public. A department within the Tisch School of the Arts, I.T.P. (and its predecessor, the Alternate Media Center) has been known for more than 35 years as a hothouse for innovations that use technology to connect people to one another and to the rest of the world in new and unpredictable ways. A recent project called Botanicalls, for example, allows thirsty plants to place phone calls to ask for human help. A collaboration among Robert Faludi, Kate Hartman, Kati London and Rebecca Bray, Botanicalls is “classic I.T.P.,” said Clay Shirky, a member of the program’s full-time faculty. “It’s playful, but also illustrative of a set of solutions that could be applied to a larger class of problems” — like a car that needs an oil change or a goldfish that needs feeding. Another project in this week’s show was designed by Pollie Barden after she consulted with wheelchair users who said they had concerns about securing and organizing their personal items. Ms. Barden created a series of networked, color-coded bags called iN-BaGs equipped with built-in sensors. Linked to a hand-held controller, the bags can signal their owners — or their owners’ helpers — which bag contains an item, where to put new items, and whether they have been left open. More than 1,600 students have graduated from I.T.P. since 1979. Graduates of the program populate some of the world’s largest and most influential media, design and technology firms, as well as start-ups of many stripes. Organizations that are eager to be infused with its students’ energy often pay for not just one student, but for an entire group of I.T.P. of interns, to join them for a summer of creative disruption. This year, some of the student designs that have resulted from the program’s assistive technology courses look so promising that N.Y.U.’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitative Medicine wants to evaluate them for possible commercial development. After more than a quarter-century, the influence of I.T.P.’s work is obvious to those who follow the interactive media world. For those who have struggled to innovate in their own worlds, the intriguing question is how the program has managed to keep its creative mojo so strong, and for so long. According to Professor Burns, the twin forces that fuel innovation at I.T.P. are collaboration and diversity. “We have students from 40 different countries outside the U.S. this year,” she said. “We try to keep our gender split half men and half women. Our faculty and our students are from all over the place, discipline-wise. People here aren’t trying to beat each other at something, or win something. When you walk around and feel the energy, it’s extraordinary.” How did she manage it? For starters, “I played under the radar for a long time,” she said. “I know that when you’re trying to do something new and you have no history or justification for doing it, people are too quick to jump and to pull on you. And I just wanted to be left alone.” She got her wish in part by way of an “enormously supportive” dean, David J. Oppenheim. Also, she said, she stayed out of sight by raising small amounts of money for the program from various sources outside the university. Benefactors have included the Markle Foundation, which paid for the program’s work in the 1970s, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which has supported its recent forays into designing assistive technology for people with disabilities. There has also been a long list of corporate sponsors, most recently Microsoft and Yahoo . Daniel Rozin, I.T.P.’s. former director of research now a visiting arts professor, has observed firsthand the benefits of this strategy. “When you get small amounts of money, how you spend it is virtually unrestricted — you can do whatever you want to do,” he said. This enables a form of academic exploration that leans more toward the artistic than the scientific. The traditional mode, “where you have your hypothesis and you go out and prove it, is not the way it goes at I.T.P.,” Professor Rozin said. It is much more free-form, and much more fruitful to explore: “As Red says, ‘If we knew already what we were looking for, we wouldn’t be looking for it.’ ” The commitment to open exploration is also reflected in the fact that students need no computer skills to be accepted to the program. “If you let technology rule the day, you won’t get anywhere,” Professor Burns said. “The only thing that’s important about technology is what you want to do with it.” Not coincidentally, these are the same general characteristics and attitudes that Professor Burns looks for in her surprisingly large adjunct faculty of 70. “The adjuncts are drawn from a pool of professionals in a wide variety of fields who contribute enormously to the richness of the program,” she said. “Since we’re in New York, there are lots of professionals who like to be in touch with young talent and who have things to contribute. We teach 55 classes a semester, and the adjuncts teach many of them.” With the seven full-time faculty members who serve primarily as advisers to the students, adjuncts make the program flexible enough to adapt at a speed that would be impossible with a dedicated faculty of specialists, Professor Burns said. The flexibility gives full-timers a chance to explore new areas as well. Four years ago, for example, Marianne Petit, one of the program’s full-time faculty members, teamed with Anita Perr, an occupational therapist from N.Y.U.’s school of education to start the popular new assistive technology group at I.T.P. Similarly, Jean-Marc Gauthier of I.T.P., who teaches 3-D interactivity and gaming, has been working with Patrick J. Kelly, chairman of neurosurgery at N.Y.U. Medical Center, to develop a 3-D navigation system for operating on the human brain. The students are expected to take matters into their own hands as well. “Unlike most academic environments, the students’ course of study is not managed by the teachers,” Professor Gauthier said. “They create their own ‘digital couscous,’ using building blocks from several areas of digital media and from interactions with a diversity of teachers and professionals.” FROM Professor Burns’s perspective, this kind of multidimensional creative chaos defines the program and its value. The experience has proved indelible for many I.T.P. graduates. “Red taught us to be true to ourselves and to what we think is good for people — or interesting to do, or fun or valid — and less concerned with ‘what is it,’ ” said Kenny Miller, a 1990 graduate who is now the executive vice president and creative director for global digital media at MTV Networks. “I’ve learned to love different points of view, and to cultivate them. Someday I hope to replicate that environment here.” Daniel B. O’Sullivan, the program’s associate chairman and director of research, said: “Once graduates are out in the world, they’re really in a spot where they can start to do the same thing we did here and create an environment where interesting things can happen.” The collaborative spirit, he said, “is valuable, and it is profitable.”

Telephones and Telecommunications
Science and Technology
New York University
Tisch School of the Arts


As Jeter’s Backup, Pena Knows He Has to Find Work Elsewhere

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Literally and figuratively, Mick Kelleher was once in Ramiro Pena’s position. As a shortstop in the St. Louis Cardinals organization in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Kelleher played four years in the minors behind the incumbent, Dal Maxvill. The day after Maxvill was traded to Oakland, Kelleher was promoted, and he started the rest of the 1972 season. “Something has to happen,” said Kelleher, now the Yankees ’ first-base coach. “Somebody has to make a decision for you to get an opportunity.” Pena will not have Kelleher’s luck, at least not exactly. The Yankees are not trading Derek Jeter , so for the moment Pena has realized that there are worse things than being blocked by an eventual Hall of Famer. “I get to learn every day from one of the best,” Pena said. Pena’s role is more nuanced than serving as Jeter’s caddy. He emerged as an important contributor last April, when Alex Rodriguez was out with a hip injury. And as the Yankees’ do-everything utility player, Pena, 24, will have additional responsibilities this season. He will back up Rodriguez and spell Robinson Cano at second base, and he also could be asked to play center field in an emergency. “He’s there early, he does what’s asked of him and does even more on top of that,” Jeter said. “That’s the only way you’re going to be successful playing multiple positions.” Pena’s best — and favorite — position, though, is shortstop, where he can show off his strong arm and quick hands. Many shortstop prospects have come through the Yankees’ system over the years only to find their futures were elsewhere. It is why being a backup shortstop for them is so much different from holding the same job behind someone who, say, has not helped his team win five World Series. “All because of two words: Derek Jeter,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. The Yankees are used to having prospects obstructed by a franchise icon. After all, Don Mattingly’s presence altered the trajectories of first-base talent like Hal Morris and J. T. Snow. Because of Jeter, the Yankees converted Alfonso Soriano into a second baseman, turned D’Angelo Jimenez into a utility infielder and traded Cristian Guzman (for Chuck Knoblauch). Since May 29, 1995, when Jeter made his debut, 25 others have played shortstop for the Yankees. Some, like Alex Arias (one game) and Chris Basak (one inning), hardly made an impression. Erick Almonte (29 starts in 2003) remains lodged in the team’s memory banks for an unsettling reason: he filled in after Jeter dislocated his left shoulder in an opening day collision in Toronto. From 1996 to 2003, the situation was more stable, with either Luis Sojo or Enrique Wilson — who began their careers with other teams — as Jeter’s primary backup. “We’ve had trouble getting utility players to come here,” Cashman said. “We’ve got Robinson Cano and Derek Jeter who play every day, so they wonder, ‘When am I going to play? These guys never take a day off.’ ” Veterans tend to embrace a utility role — or at least adjust to it — better than young players simply because, over time, they have learned to get used to it. With no delusions of wresting a starting job from a player like Jeter or Rodriguez, they learn to be ready when needed. Young players are used to starting every day in the minors, and the change can be jarring. But Pena is different because, at this time last year, he did not even expect to make the team. With no experience above Class AA, Pena beat out Angel Berroa for the reserve infielder’s spot. Pena’s mother, Armandina, cried when he called home with the news. He is the organization’s best defensive infielder, as rated by Baseball America, an honor that Pena indirectly started pursuing as an 11-year-old growing up in Monterrey, Mexico. That was when he decided he loved fielding ground balls. He would go out to dirt fields in his town that were laced with rocks and other debris and have friends hit balls toward him. “It was tough not to make errors,” Pena said. “But it helped me. I had to get good reads, be quick with my glove, have quick reactions. That taught me a lot.” His strong defense impressed the Yankees, but his offense surprised them. A career .258 hitter in the minor leagues before last season, Pena hit .287 in 115 at-bats for the Yankees. Improvement came after sessions with the hitting coach Kevin Long, who shortened Pena’s swing and helped him resist the urge to drift forward on pitches. The more Pena plays, the more he can showcase his abilities. And the more he showcases his abilities, the more in demand he may be from other teams. Pena spent four years rising through the minors, and someday, whether it is with the Yankees or another team, he would like an opportunity to start every day. With Jeter entrenched and expected to re-sign after the season , that dream is on hold. “I knew that it was going to be tough, and it still is tough,” Pena said. “That’s not going to change. My thought is just to play and have fun. Nothing can go wrong if that’s what I do.”

Pena Ramiro
New York Yankees
Baseball
Jeter Derek
Rodriguez Alex
Kelleher Mick


Two Chechens in a Charity, Save the Generation, Are Killed

Abstract: MOSCOW — The leader of a charity that helped children who had been physically and emotionally scarred by the conflict in Chechnya was abducted and killed along with her husband, officials said Tuesday, underscoring the worsening human rights situation there. The charity, Save the Generation, worked for several years with Unicef and Western aid organizations to provide prosthetic limbs, surgical operations and counseling for victims of the strife in Chechnya, a region of southern Russia where an Islamic insurgency has raged for years. The leader of the group, Zarema Sadulayeva, and her husband, Alik Djabrailov, were seized Monday afternoon from their office in Grozny, the Chechen capital, by men, some dressed in black uniforms and some in civilian clothes, Russian officials said. Their bodies, with gunshot wounds, were discovered early Tuesday in the trunk of their car in Grozny, officials said. Both were said to be in their 30s. Killings, violence and threats against members of the opposition and human rights and charitable groups have become increasingly common in Chechnya as its strongman president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, who was appointed by the Kremlin, has tightened control. Last month, one of the best-known human rights activists in Chechnya, Natalya Estemirova, who had long investigated killings and kidnappings there for Memorial , a prominent rights group, was abducted and shot to death . Ms. Estemirova had regularly scrutinized the conduct of both the security services and Islamic militants. Her killing drew worldwide attention to the rule of Mr. Kadyrov, who has been praised by the Kremlin for bringing more stability to Chechnya after years of a brutal insurgency, but has also been accused of carrying out atrocities against his rivals. Ms. Estemirova’s colleagues blamed Mr. Kadyrov for the killing — if not for ordering it then for fostering a climate of intimidation that allowed it. He denied any connection. On Tuesday, federal officials in Moscow announced that they would send a team to Chechnya to lead an inquiry into the deaths of Ms. Sadulayeva and her husband, Mr. Djabrailov, who also worked for Save the Generation. The Russian government typically promises to punish those responsible for these kinds of crimes, whether in Chechnya or elsewhere in Russia, but often little is accomplished. In Grozny, Mr. Kadyrov denounced the killings, the Interfax news agency reported. “This is a killing of people who devoted themselves to helping people with limited capabilities,” he said. “I see this as a challenge to society, an attempt to intimidate the people of Chechnya.” Human rights advocates said on Tuesday that they were bewildered by the killings, noting that the two had not engaged in work that might displease influential people in Chechnya on either side of the fighting. They said they suspected that the Chechen security services were involved. After news of the kidnapping appeared Monday night, they said, the authorities said the couple had left their offices voluntarily, indicating that security officials seemed to be aware of what had happened. “Their charitable organization was founded to help children and invalids who had lost limbs in the war, who needed psychological assistance, medicine, help from the West,” said Usam Baisayev, an official at Memorial in the North Caucasus region. “It was not one of those organizations that did investigative work or did monitoring or did anything that might upset the authorities. It is absolutely mystifying why this happened.” Activists did note that an official of Save the Generation, Murad Muradov, was arrested and killed by the security services in 2005, after being accused of being an insurgent. But prosecutors later cleared him. Ms. Sadulayeva had recently married Mr. Djabrailov, who human rights advocates said had served time in prison for links to militants. It was unclear whether that played any role in the killings. Unicef said in a statement that it financed Save the Generation from 2004 to 2008 in an effort that helped more than 100 children receive surgery and prosthetic devices, often for injuries from mines. The charity also counseled many children. Unicef said it was not offering financing this year because of budget cuts. The European Commission assisted the charity (also known in English as Let’s Save the Generation) and at one point publicized a program run by the group that gave cameras to Chechen refugee children so they could document their lives. While Mr. Kadyrov, the Chechen president, vowed Tuesday to capture the couple’s killers, he has lashed out recently at criticism of his human rights record. Over the weekend, he made some pointed remarks about Ms. Estemirova in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He said he had had nothing to do with her killing, even as he questioned her character. Ms. Estemirova “never had any honor or sense of shame,” he said.

Chechnya (Russia)
Murders and Attempted Murders
Kidnapping


Capital Gains vs. Ordinary Income - Economic View

Abstract: WHAT is carried interest? And why does it get the tax treatment it does? These arcane questions are usually reserved for the green-eyeshade crowd. And for good reason: they can be so bewildering that they seem to be taken from an I.Q. test written just for accountants. But because they concern a few very high-income individuals, including the presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for whom I am an adviser, they have been getting broader attention lately. So let’s examine the issue. Throughout almost the entire history of the United States income tax, the tax rate on capital gains has been lower than that on ordinary income. Today, the top rate is 15 percent for capital gains and 35 percent for ordinary income. There are good reasons for this — including, for example, the fact that capital gains are not indexed for inflation. But put that aside. If we are going to tax capital gains at a lower rate, one question necessarily arises: What is a capital gain, and how can we distinguish it from ordinary income? The answer seems simple. If you have a job, the money you are paid for your work is ordinary income. If you buy an asset at one time and sell it later for a higher price, the profit you made from holding it is a capital gain. But is it really that easy? Consider five examples, and see if you can identify what is ordinary income and what is a capital gain:  Abe buys a vacation home for his family for $800,000. Some years later, when his children have grown and left home, he sells it for $1 million. He makes $200,000.  Bob is a real estate investor. After scouring the market for the best investment opportunities, he buys a house for $800,000 that he believes is undervalued. A few years later, he sells it at $1 million, for a profit of $200,000.  Carl is a real estate investor and a carpenter. He buys a dilapidated house for $800,000. After spending his weekends fixing it up, he sells it a couple of years later for $1 million. Once again, the profit is $200,000.  Dan is a real estate investor and a carpenter, but he is short of capital. He approaches his friend, Ms. Moneybags, and they become partners. Together, they buy a dilapidated house for $800,000 and sell it later for $1 million. She puts up the money, and he spends his weekends fixing up the house. They divide the $200,000 profit equally.  Earl is a carpenter. Ms. Moneybags buys a dilapidated house for $800,000 and hires Earl to fix it up. After paying Earl $100,000 for his services, Ms. Moneybags sells the home for $1 million, for a profit of $100,000. How much capital gains and ordinary income do we attribute to Abe, Bob, Carl, Dan and Earl? (To keep things simple, assume that Ms. Moneybags is untaxed. Think of her as running a pension fund or university endowment.) Let’s take the easy cases first. It seems clear that Abe has a capital gain. His profit of $200,000 comes from simply holding an asset over time. And it seems equally clear that Earl’s $100,000 is ordinary income. He is being paid for providing his services. But between these cases, the situation gets murky. Bob and Carl are being rewarded in part for the time they spend, but the tax law treats both as having earned entirely capital gains. The tax code does not count the time that Bob spent looking for investments as employment and his gain as taxable labor compensation, even though some of it arguably is. Nor does it try to tax Carl’s sweat equity as labor compensation. This brings us to Dan and his partnership with Ms. Moneybags. The tax law treats this partnership as exactly equivalent to Carl’s situation. In this case, however, the $200,000 capital gain is divided into halves: some of it goes to Ms. Moneybags, who provided the cash, and some goes to Dan, who provided the sweat equity. Once again, nothing is treated as ordinary income. In some ways, this treatment makes sense. After all, Dan is doing half of what Carl did, so why should he have to pay a higher tax rate than Carl did on that half of his income? On the other hand, it seems that Dan is getting off easy. Dan does not seem very different from Earl, because both are getting $100,000 for fixing up the house. If these examples leave your head spinning, you are not alone. Economists and tax lawyers who study these issues are unsure about the best way to handle these situations in practice. Here is where carried interest enters the picture. Carried interest from a private equity partnership is like the income that Dan earns from his real estate partnership. In this case, however, Dan is not a carpenter but a specialist in business turnarounds. The partnership does not buy dilapidated houses to fix up and sell; it buys troubled businesses to fix up and sell. And just as Dan the carpenter can treat his share of the partnership income as a capital gain, Dan the business specialist can do the same. Critics of current law think it is unfair that these private equity partners are taxed at capital gains rates, whereas other high-income individuals like doctors and lawyers pay the much higher tax rates for ordinary income. It is a reasonable point, and some reform may well be appropriate. But as the tax situations of Abe through Earl illustrate, it is not obvious what the best approach would be. Not all problems have easy answers.

Income Tax
Capital Gains Tax
Income
United States Economy


Lukas Verzbicas, 19-Year-Old U.S. Triathlete, Sets Sights on ’16 Olympics

Abstract: With the London Olympics still a month away, Lukas Verzbicas is already establishing himself as someone to watch in Rio de Janeiro. Verzbicas, the 2011 junior world triathlon champion, has won back-to-back races, including a victory in his International Triathlon Union World Cup debut. That is a big deal in a sport in which the podium has been dominated by athletes from Europe, Australia and New Zealand. “Getting experience is what this year is about primarily,” Verzbicas said. “See what I have to work on and what I have to switch.” Though his success is not entirely surprising after a stellar junior career, the speed with which he has done it is. His races are double the distance he was doing as a junior — elite competitors race the Olympic distance: a 1,500-meter swim, 40-kilometer bike ride and 10,000-meter run — and the competition is even stronger. In winning the Dallas ITU Pan American Cup on June 2, Verzbicas, 19, beat Manuel Huerta, a member of the United States Olympic team. His victory at the World Cup in Banyoles, Spain, was even more impressive, with Laurent Vidal and Dmitry Polyanskiy, currently Nos. 1 and 3 on the International Triathlon Union points list, finishing behind him. Verzbicas, who was born in Lithuania and went to high school in Illinois, beat Vidal by 17 seconds and was 36 seconds ahead of Polyanskiy. “I knew I could do it,” Verzbicas said. “I knew I was at that level. It just took a little time to get there.” Touted as the next great American distance runner after becoming just the fifth high schooler — and first in a decade — to break the 4-minute mile, Verzbicas gave up his triathlon career after finishing fourth at the 2010 junior worlds. But when his triathlon training partner Kevin McDowell was diagnosed in March 2011 as having Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Verzbicas returned to his original sport with the goal of winning the junior world title for his friend. He accomplished that in September and headed off to the University of Oregon, a running powerhouse. Within two months, he had switched back to the triathlon, realizing that was where his heart was. “It’s crazy to think about,” he said of the last year. “I don’t know how to explain it really. It took me a while to really mature and find my place.” Once he did, he encountered another challenge. Verzbicas had to withdraw from the Pan American Championships in January with what turned out to be a stress reaction in his shin. It would be almost three months before he was fully healthy. The injury probably cost him a shot at this summer’s Olympics, too. Verzbicas was unable to compete at a May race in San Diego, where two spots on the London squad were available. “It’s disappointing, but at the same time I’m still young,” he said. “It’s always been 2016 that’s been my main goal, and now I’ll go back to that.” By then, he — and other Americans — might be a regular sight on the podium. The results are beginning to show from several USA Triathlon programs designed to identify and develop young talent. Gwen Jorgensen, a swimmer and all-American runner at Wisconsin who got into the triathlon through the college recruitment program, qualified for London less than 18 months after completing her first race. Jorgensen won the women’s race in Banyoles, giving the United States its first title sweep since 1993. Verzbicas and the now-healthy McDowell are part of the first class at the Elite Triathlon Academy in Colorado Springs. McDowell finished fifth at the Pan American Cup, his first I.T.U. event since learning he had cancer. Joe Maloy, a member of Project 2016, was third in Dallas to complete a 1-2-3 American finish.

Verzbicas Lukas
Olympic Games (2016)
Olympic Games (2012)
Triathlon


New Haven: Changes Recommended for Police Department

Abstract: Six months after the head of the New Haven Police Department’s narcotics unit was arrested on federal theft charges, a national group that evaluates police operations issued a report yesterday calling for tighter supervision and stricter policies for the narcotics unit. The organization, the Police Executive Research Forum, has conducted similar assessments for more than 100 other departments. Lt. William White, the head of the narcotics unit, was charged in March with stealing nearly $30,000 of what he thought was drug money.


Tanaka Has Small Tear in Elbow and Will Rehabilitate It, for Now

Abstract: CLEVELAND — The Yankees put their ace, Masahiro Tanaka, on a plane to Seattle on Thursday to have his ailing right elbow examined, and then there was nothing else they could do but hope. Hope that his condition was nothing insidious, just some inflammation. Hope that he could rejoin their rotation this year, not next, or even in 2016. Hope that their postseason prospects, propped up almost entirely by Tanaka’s outstanding debut season, would remain viable. In the evening the Yankees learned the extent of Tanaka’s injury, and then, too, there was nothing else they could do but hope. A small tear was discovered in the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, and General Manager Brian Cashman said it would sideline Tanaka for at least six weeks. But if Tanaka’s elbow fails to respond to the prescribed rehabilitation program, it may eventually require reconstructive Tommy John surgery, which would cause him to miss most, if not all, of next season. “If this was an obvious situation that he needed surgery at the outset, then that’s what we would be doing,” Cashman said on a teleconference during the Yankees’ game against the Cleveland Indians. “But that’s not what we’re getting.” Tanaka was examined in Seattle because the team doctor, Chris Ahmad, was there attending a medical conference, and the timing of the injury offered a welcomed benefit: With so many top orthopedists in Seattle, Ahmad and the Yankees would be able to pursue second (or third) opinions, if necessary. In all, three orthopedists evaluated Tanaka and the magnetic resonance imaging test he underwent Wednesday in New York — Ahmad; David Altchek, the Mets’ medical director; and Neal ElAttrache, the Dodgers’ team physician, who examined Tanaka in Los Angeles over the winter, before he became a Yankee. The doctors compared Tanaka’s most recent M.R.I. with the one taken in January and determined that he had sustained a new injury. Because the tear was small, Cashman said, none recommended surgery. All the doctors, he said, agreed that a program of platelet-rich plasma treatment, followed by strengthening exercises and then a throwing regimen, could return Tanaka to the Yankees’ rotation by the end of August. Cashman added that the plan could change at any time based on Tanaka’s progress. Though he declined to mention names, Cashman said the Yankees have had previous success with pitchers who had partial tears and were able to avoid surgery. He said he asked the doctors how often this protocol succeeds, and he was told that it depends on the pitcher. Some pitchers with partial tears who were placed on a strengthening program, including Matt Harvey and Bobby Parnell of the Mets, eventually do wind up needing reconstructive surgery. “It’s one of those situations that people, depending on the circumstances and the size of the tear,” Cashman said, “the ligaments can repair themselves and they’ve had success with it.” Speaking at Citi Field, Harvey explained why he decided to have Tommy John surgery. “For me, it was a mental thing,” he said. “It was something I kind of could feel would linger in the back of my mind going forward. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to wake up thinking, ‘Is today going to be the day?’ ” Image The Indians’ Jason Kipnis sliding safely into home to score in the seventh inning on Asdrubal Cabrera’s triple as the Yankees’ Francisco Cervelli awaited the throw. Credit Tony Dejak/Associated Press The Yankees, like many other teams, were captivated by Tanaka’s repertory and his success in Japan, where he went 24-0 last season in leading the Rakuten Golden Eagles to a championship. Neither Tanaka’s workload nor his reliance on the splitter, a pitch that taxes the elbow, dissuaded them from investing $175 million in him over seven years to headline their rotation. His performance — 12-4 with a 2.51 earned run average — is the prevailing reason the Yankees, despite all their injuries and flaws, remained competitive in the American League East. Tanaka muddled through the worst outing of his 18-start major league career Tuesday night, allowing five runs over six and two-thirds innings, but Manager Joe Girardi reiterated Thursday that he sensed nothing physically wrong with him. “We saw him throw hard, we saw his split was good,” said Girardi, who noted that Nick Swisher clobbered a flat slider for a two-run homer. “At no point did he indicate that he was having a problem.” Despite persistent prodding, Girardi, though he had been given preliminary readings that the tear was small, betrayed no knowledge of Tanaka’s status in speaking with reporters Thursday afternoon. His body language and the modulation of his voice indicated neither relief nor despair, just a man seeking clarity about his best pitcher. Now that those initial findings have been confirmed, Girardi must set about steering a team that has lost four members of its opening-day rotation to serious injuries and doing his part to keep it in contention. “We’ll figure it out,” Girardi said after Thursday’s game. “I mean, that’s what we’ve had to do all year.” Tanaka’s injury piled onto an already miserable day for the Yankees, who sent Carlos Beltran back to New York for testing the morning after a freak mishap during batting practice Wednesday — a ball caromed off the metal frame of a screen and struck him in the face — left him with a broken nose and a concussion. Beltran seemed confident after Wednesday’s game that he had not sustained a concussion, but an evaluation by a doctor — and subsequent reading of his CT scan — revealed otherwise. Beltran was placed on the seven-day concussion disabled list, replaced on the roster by the infielder Yangervis Solarte. Girardi said he was optimistic that Beltran would be available to rejoin the team after the All-Star break. As for Tanaka, he will not return then. As for when — August? September? Next season? — the Yankees do not know. All they can do is hope. INSIDE PITCH David Phelps allowed only two runs in six innings, but the Indians battered the Yankees’ bullpen in the seventh and eighth to power Cleveland to a 9-3 victory. ... Before his final regular-season game in Cleveland, the Indians honored Derek Jeter in a ceremony that included former his Yankees teammates Nick Swisher and Jason Giambi. Jeter received a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar and a portrait of his first career home run, hit here on April 2, 1996, off Dennis Martinez, made in Legos.

Baseball
Yankees
Masahiro Tanaka
Orioles
Cleveland Indians


Indonesia: Leader Expresses Support for Abused Maid

Abstract: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono joined thousands of Indonesian migrant workers abroad and at home on Tuesday in expressing outrage at the alleged torture of an Indonesian maid by her Hong Kong employer. In his first publicized comments on the case, Mr. Yudhoyono insisted that “the law will be upheld” during a phone call with the maid, Erwiana Sulistyaningsih. Ms. Erwiana, 23, returned to Indonesia this month and is being treated at a hospital in the central Java town of Sragen for physical abuse. Mr. Yudhoyono’s comments came a day after the police in Hong Kong arrested a 44-year-old woman in connection with the alleged abuse of Ms. Erwiana. On Sunday, thousands of foreign domestic workers rallied in support of her in the city.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Indonesia
Torture
Domestic worker
Erwiana Sulistyaningsih


Braves Top Phillies in Baseball’s Season Opener

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Philadelphia Phillies tried to celebrate their World Series title on Sunday night, but the Atlanta Braves spoiled the evening. Derek Lowe pitched eight superb innings, three Braves homered against Brett Myers and Atlanta defeated the defending champions, 4-1, in the major league opener. Brian McCann hit a two-run homer, Jeff Francoeur had a solo shot and Jordan Schafer went deep in his first career at-bat for the Braves. Lowe (1-0) allowed two hits and no walks; he struck out four and had 13 groundouts. Mike Gonzalez gave up a run in the ninth, but pitched out of deeper trouble. Gonzalez allowed a one-out run-scoring single to Jayson Werth after pinch-hitter Eric Bruntlett started the inning with a double. After walking Chase Utley to bring up the tying run, Gonzalez struck out Ryan Howard looking and Raúl Ibáñez swinging to end it. Lowe had far better success against Philadelphia on Sunday than he did in the 2008 National League Championship Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Phillies beat Lowe in Game 1 , and he had a no-decision in the Dodgers’ loss in Game 4 . “Having just played them, it was easy to watch video to see what you did last time,” Lowe said. “They’re an extremely good hitting team. I was able to get ahead in the count. I just wanted to be consistent.” Philadelphia’s star-studded offense sputtered against Lowe. Jimmy Rollins, Utley and Howard combined to go 1 for 11 with two strikeouts. “Derek Lowe’s a tough guy to hit,” Howard said. “He was on his game. He’s a groundball pitcher. I don’t know if he has a magnet in there to keep it down or whatever. Give him credit.” Atlanta gave Lowe a four-year, $60 million contract in the off-season, and he gave the Braves the type of masterful effort they used to get from pitchers like Greg Maddux. “He was awesome,” Braves Manager Bobby Cox said of Lowe. “He really knows how to pitch.” Myers (0-1) filled in for Cole Hamels, whose first start was pushed back because of minor elbow problems. Hamels, the N.L.C.S. and World Series most valuable player, was expected to pitch at Colorado on Friday. Before the game, the Phillies celebrated their second World Series title during an hourlong ceremony. Manager Charlie Manuel raised the 2008 championship flag on the concourse behind the batter’s eye. Their uniforms had a special look only for this game: the red letters and numbers were trimmed in gold. The crowd of 44,532 had barely settled into their seats when the Braves took the lead. Myers retired the first two batters before Chipper Jones lined a single to left field. McCann followed with a shot that reached the second deck in right field. Francoeur led off the second with a liner to the seats in left. One batter later, Schafer drove one out to center. Schafer, a rookie center fielder, became the fifth Atlanta player to homer in his debut — the first since Francoeur in 2005. “It was a great feeling,” Schafer said. “As soon as I hit it, I thought, ‘Oh wow.’ ” Myers settled in after that. He allowed four runs and eight hits, striking out six in six innings. “I made three mistakes and they didn’t miss them,” Myers said. “Sometimes they pop those up. Not in this case.”

Philadelphia Phillies
Baseball
Atlanta Braves
Lowe Derek


After He Was Beaten, Rikers Inmate Was Sent to ‘the Box’

Abstract: Jahmal Lightfoot’s suffering did not end with a brutal beating at the hands of Rikers Island correction officers who wanted to teach him a lesson. He was falsely accused of going at the officers with a weapon he had stashed in his waistband, and disregarding their orders to drop it, according to Bronx prosecutors. As punishment, he was sent to “the box” — a section of the jail where inmates were confined to their cells for 23 hours a day — for nearly four months. “So you were placed for 110 days in lockdown for something you didn’t do?” Lawrence Piergrossi, a prosecutor, asked Mr. Lightfoot on Wednesday in State Supreme Court in the Bronx. “Yes,” Mr. Lightfoot, 31, replied. He was testifying for a third day in the criminal trial of nine current and former correction officers who have been charged in what prosecutors have described as an orchestrated beating of Mr. Lightfoot and attempted cover-up in July 2012. A tenth officer, who has medical problems, will be tried separately. The most serious charge against the officers is attempted gang assault in the first degree, which carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. Other charges include attempted assault, tampering with physical evidence, falsifying business records and official misconduct. Prosecutors argue that Mr. Lightfoot was unarmed and did nothing to provoke being beaten in a small cell by five members of an elite correction squad. Instead, prosecutors said the beating was ordered by Eliseo Perez Jr., an assistant chief for security, and Gerald Vaughn, a correction captain, after Mr. Perez reportedly decided that Mr. Lightfoot “thinks he’s tough.” Defense lawyers countered that Mr. Lightfoot was restrained by officers who were simply doing their job. As cross-examination of Mr. Lightfoot began on Wednesday, Raymond Aab, a lawyer for Mr. Perez, picked through Mr. Lightfoot’s earlier testimony in a bid to undermine his credibility. Mr. Aab suggested that Mr. Lightfoot hoped to benefit financially from a pending lawsuit against New York City. “This is what this case is about, to make a lot of money,” Mr. Aab said. Mr. Lightfoot testified that he was incarcerated in 2010 for robbery after stealing a woman’s pocketbook. He acknowledged in court that he had been involved with the Bloods gang from 1999 to 2005, and had been arrested for possession of marijuana and crack cocaine, criminal trespass and other minor offenses. At Rikers, he continued to get into trouble, racking up five infractions in 22 months, including being caught with a weapon that he fashioned out of a battery. Mr. Lightfoot said there were people in the jail that he knew from his days on the street. “Just in case I ran into them, I could protect myself,” he said. Nonetheless, Mr. Lightfoot insisted that he did not have a weapon the night he was beaten, and prosecutors pointed out that he had been strip searched and had passed through two metal detectors. At an internal disciplinary hearing shortly after the beating, Mr. Lightfoot said he had been shown a picture of a crude, U-shaped piece of metal that was said to be his weapon. He was told he was being charged with assault on staff, and refusal of a direct order. He was found guilty and sentenced to time in the box. Mr. Lightfoot, who sustained fractures to both of his eye sockets in the beating, testified earlier that he suffered for months afterward. His eyes hurt and his vision was blurry when he tried to read, and he got headaches and spit up blood, he said. He was released from state prison on parole in 2014 and is unemployed. Mr. Perez retired in 2013, and Mr. Vaughn in 2014. The seven others on trial — Officers Harmon Frierson, Dwayne Maynard, Tobias Parker, Jose Parra, Jeffrey Richard, Alfred Rivera and David Rodriguez — were suspended in June 2013, but recently returned to work on modified duty with no contact with inmates.

Prison
Rikers
Prison Guards,Corrections Officers
Assault
Jahmal Lightfoot
Ethics Misconduct Malfeasance


Organization Behind Grammys to Create Lobbying Group

Abstract: For years, the music industry’s lobbying efforts have been hampered by factionalism, as different sides of the business competed to influence lawmakers. Now, with copyright and royalties issues taking center stage in the music world, the organization behind the Grammy Awards wants to unite the industry’s voice in Washington. The organization, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, is creating a political action committee, the Grammy Fund for Music Creators, that will raise money from its thousands of members — among them performers, songwriters and producers — and funnel it to congressional candidates deemed sympathetic to their causes. The Grammys’ fund will face no shortage of competition for dollars in Washington, as music organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America and the performing-rights group Ascap have associated political action committees, or PACs, and have been lobbying on behalf of their members for decades. Among its likely opponents are technology companies like Pandora and the powerful National Association of Broadcasters, which for decades has opposed the music world’s efforts to expand radio royalties. Image Babyface Credit Paras Griffin/BET, via Getty Images The Grammy Fund, which the recording academy plans to establish through a filing on Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission, will have a first-year fund-raising goal of $100,000, according to Daryl P. Friedman, the academy’s top official in Washington. That amount is roughly comparable to those of the PACs for music organizations like the Recording Industry Association, but far less than that of the broadcasters’ group, which last year raised almost $1.2 million , according to the Federal Election Commission. “We won’t be the largest PAC in Washington,” Mr. Friedman said in an interview, “but we will be the loudest.” The primary focus of the Grammy Fund will be advocating for fair compensation for creators of music, Mr. Friedman said — a broad mandate that includes improved royalties from streaming music as well as payments for performers on broadcast radio. In the United States, radio stations pay songwriters but not the performers of songs, an arrangement that has long rankled the music industry. The fund will solicit contributions from its members, with campaigning by star “ambassadors” including Babyface, Nile Rodgers, Anita Baker, Sheila E. and the producers Rodney Jerkins and Jimmy Jam, many of whom have deep associations with the academy; Mr. Rodgers, for example, is on the organization’s board of trustees. Image Anita Baker Credit Kevin Winter/Getty Images The establishment of the Grammy Fund is the latest step in the recording academy’s increasing efforts at lobbying and rallying its members. In 2014, the group started a campaign called Grammys in My District, in which about 100 of its members visited congressmen in their district offices. By its second year, that effort grew to include 1,650 members. In the past, the various music-industry lobbying groups have competed against one another, a situation that sometimes undermined efforts to influence policy, said Hilary Rosen, a former chief executive of the recording industry association who is now a Democratic operative and no longer involved with music. “There were warring factions everywhere,” Ms. Rosen said. “There were constant fights within the business community between the music publishers and the record companies.” Those disagreements remain, but music executives said there was a growing push for unification to oppose the lobbying by broadcasters and technology companies. Among the more pressing issues before the industry are an effort to change the decades-old regulatory agreements that govern Ascap and BMI. The Justice Department has been reviewing those agreements for nearly two years. Image Sheila E. Credit Urman Lionel/Associated Press “The interests of the music community are dwarfed a thousand times over by big technology giants,” said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the recording industry association. “We welcome any opportunity for our community to speak with a stronger voice.” Harvey Mason Jr., a producer and songwriter who has worked with artists that include Whitney Houston and Jennifer Hudson, said that he had frequently invited lawmakers and others to his studio in Los Angeles to show the many rank-and-file jobs — invisible behind the stars — that are at risk in the industry. “We are regular people trying to make a living, playing in bars, in other parts of the country besides New York and L.A.,” said Mr. Mason, who is the co-chairman of the academy’s national advocacy committee. “We represent everybody, not just superstar artists,” Mr. Mason added. “So we are careful in how we disseminate our message, and when we go to D.C. or have events, it is with a variety of people from the bottom to the top.”