In an Effort to Become Wiser, the Raiders Try to Become Older

Abstract: NAPA, Calif. — When practice ends, some of the most critical teaching starts for the Oakland Raiders. Veterans like Justin Tuck, James Jones and Charles Woodson pull aside young players to answer questions and offer tidbits on the intricacies of the game in a manner no coach can. “Sometimes we don’t always speak the right language as coaches,” Coach Dennis Allen said. “Those guys have a great ability to relate to each other. Sometimes we might speak in a certain language, and a veteran player can maybe bring it back down on a level that’s a little bit easier to comprehend or understand.” Instead of rebuilding through youth, Raiders General Manager Reggie McKenzie spent the off-season adding older players with Super Bowl pedigrees to help change a losing culture built over the past decade. It is a move out of Al Davis’s playbook. Davis, the former Raiders owner and general manager who died in 2011, often looked for veterans who had worn out their welcome on other teams to help build some of the Raiders’ most successful lineups. The Raiders hope the additions of Tuck, Jones, Maurice Jones-Drew, LaMarr Woodley, Antonio Smith, Carlos Rogers and Tarell Brown can have an effect similar to the one Jerry Rice, Rod Woodson and Bill Romanowski had in helping Oakland win the 2002 A.F.C. championship. The 2002 team, which lost to Tampa Bay in the Super Bowl, was the last successful one in Oakland. Since then, the Raiders have gone 11 straight seasons without a winning record or a playoff berth, including back-to-back four-win campaigns in the last two seasons under the leadership of McKenzie and Allen. The focus in their first two years was on tearing down the team, getting rid of unwieldy contracts and putting the salary-cap situation back in order. The Raiders used most of the money they had to spend this off-season on players in their 30s with a history of success and questions about how much they had left. “Every team wants to get younger — they push a lot of the older guys out, guys who can still play the game,” said Woodson, who experienced that in Green Bay after the 2012 season. He added, “So it’s going to be our job to show that, hey, man, our best days are not behind us just because other people say our best days are behind us.” The moves did not generate much excitement around the N.F.L., with critics saying the Raiders had put together a Pro Bowl team — from 2009. Most of the additions were not wanted by their former teams, which believed the players were on the downsides of their careers or not worth the hefty contracts they had earned with stellar play in their 20s. “They can criticize all they want,” said Smith, a defensive tackle. “But Tuck, me and Wood out-stat probably 80 to 90 percent of the younger players. So as long as we keep producing, age don’t mean anything. If I can still disrupt and help my team, I don’t care how old they say I am. Wisdom is a lot better than young legs.” That wisdom trickles down to younger players like linebacker Khalil Mack, a first-round pick who is soaking up all the knowledge he can get as a rookie. Mack said that Tuck had taught him the importance of using his hands as a pass rusher and that Woodley had shown him how to be more physical against big tight ends. “It’d be dumb for me to not ask questions,” Mack said, “especially knowing the skill level they play with, and they’re pretty much the best in the game when it comes to pass rushing. I have to ask those questions.”


Senator Grassley and Judge Garland Meet, and Rehash the Obvious

Abstract: WASHINGTON — It was a balance-of-power breakfast. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hosted Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court , in the Senate dining room on Tuesday morning. Yogurt parfait was not the point. But what was? Almost all Senate Republicans have made clear they will not consider any Supreme Court nomination as long as Mr. Obama is president. But while the outcome for Mr. Garland may be preordained, at least for this year, the resolution of the political fight over the court vacancy is far from certain. And the stakes, for the presidential election and for control of Congress, could not be higher. Mr. Grassley, who is up for re-election and has the power as Judiciary Committee chairman to convene confirmation hearings, has come under pressure in Washington and Iowa for refusing to do so. With that in mind, perhaps Mr. Grassley, for the benefit of voters back home, hoped to appear to be doing something — at least showing Judge Garland the courtesy of breakfast at the Capitol — when he was actually doing nothing. Or, in the inside-out ways of Washington, Mr. Grassley might have been trying to make doing something — holding a substantive conversation with the president’s nominee — look like doing nothing, to avoid drawing the ire of Republican leaders who have maneuvered forcefully against Judge Garland’s confirmation. Where Republican Senators Stand on the Supreme Court Nomination Fourteen Republicans and all Democrats are needed to break a filibuster and confirm the nominee. Only two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, have called for hearings and a vote on Judge Garland’s nomination. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has made it clear that further defections will not be tolerated. Mr. Grassley never seemed entirely comfortable with an all-out blocking effort. Still, he signed a written pledge not to act on the nomination. Either way, the stated purpose of Tuesday’s get-together was for Mr. Grassley to explain in person why Senate Republicans were not going to allow Mr. Obama to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia . Or, put another way, it was to deliver a lesson on the balance of powers: The Constitution gives the president the authority to nominate justices, but the power to advise and consent lies with the Senate. Translation for Judge Garland: Your nomination is not happening this year. And yet, their conversation lasted for nearly an hour — longer than many of the meetings Judge Garland has had with Democrats. Judge Garland had eggs and toast. Mr. Grassley opted for oatmeal. Despite the seemingly tough odds, White House officials were still hoping for a breakthrough. That did not seem very likely, based on Mr. Grassley’s description of the breakfast as “pleasant” in a Twitter post . He added that he had explained to Judge Garland why the Senate would not be moving forward with his nomination. Image Mr. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is up for re-election and has the power as Judiciary Committee chairman to convene confirmation hearings for Judge Garland. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times Judge Garland, who has developed a reputation of punctuality at the Capitol, arrived 20 minutes before the 8 a.m. breakfast. Mr. Grassley, who is known for waking early and jogging at 4 a.m., was apparently already in the dining room. Neither man spoke to reporters before or afterward. Judge Garland and his entourage left the dining room shortly before 9 a.m., apparently only to realize that Judge Garland’s next meeting, with Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, was also tentatively scheduled in the dining room. Continuing to make the rounds, Judge Garland met later in the day with Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania. The meeting lasted an hour, though it had been expected to take just 30 minutes. Despite finding Judge Garland a “very, very smart, very knowledgable, very pleasant individual,” Mr. Toomey said he had come out “more convinced” that the next president should choose the nominee. “Based on a number of decisions and my conversation with Judge Garland, I’m not convinced that he would be willing to play the role of a sufficiently aggressive check on an administration,” he told reporters after his meeting. Why Obama Nominated Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court Merrick B. Garland is a candidate who had support from Republicans in the past but would still move the court in a progressive direction. Ms. Murkowski said she had used her meeting with Judge Garland as an opportunity to talk about her home state. Mr. McConnell, at a news conference, was unmoving, and aides said he did not particularly care how many Senate Republicans granted Judge Garland a “courtesy” visit — a number that continues to grow. The judge is scheduled to meet later this week with Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rob Portman of Ohio and Jeff Flake of Arizona. And Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, an influential former Judiciary Committee chairman, said on Tuesday that he, too, would be willing to see Judge Garland. Mr. McConnell, at his news conference, focused on the bottom line. “The fundamental point here we’ve made over and over again is who ought to make the appointment, and 52 senators have said they believe the next president ought to make this appointment,” he said. Democrats claimed cracks were showing in Republicans’ resolve. They also undertook a new line of attack, urging Republicans to bring the questioning of Judge Garland out from behind closed doors. “It’s really a step toward sanity that Republicans are finally meeting with Judge Garland,” the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said at a news conference. “Not many, but there’s some meetings.” “But private breakfast meetings, people going out the back stairs, is not much transparency,” Mr. Reid said. “What Senator Grassley has to do is schedule a full and transparent hearing so the public can evaluate that this good man is qualified for the job of the nation’s highest court.” Democrats also gleefully distributed local news coverage from Iowa of a diner that had agreed to a request by liberal groups to offer up some new specials in honor of the meeting between Mr. Grassley and Judge Garland. The restaurant, the Ritual Cafe in Des Moines, was planning to serve Obstruction Oats — oatmeal topped with hemp nuts — and Garland Granola, The Associated Press reported, as well as a Justice Delayed Bowl: steamed eggs roasted with peppers and olives.

Merrick B Garland
Charles E Grassley
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
US Politics
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Iowa
Republicans
2016 Presidential Election


Islamists Debate Their Next Move in Tense Cairo

Abstract: CAIRO — Gathering Thursday morning around a mosque used as a morgue for hundreds killed the day before, many Islamists waited confidently for a surge of sympathetic support from the broader public. But it failed to materialize. With their leaders jailed or silent, Islamists reeled in shock at the worst mass killing in Egypt’s modern history. By Thursday night, health officials had counted 638 dead and nearly 4,000 injured, but the final toll was expected to rise further. A tense quiet settled over Cairo as the city braced for new protests by supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, after the Friday Prayer. The new government authorized the police to use lethal force if they felt endangered. Many of those waiting outside the makeshift morgue talked of civil war. Some blamed members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority for supporting the military takeover. A few argued openly for a turn to violence. “The solution might be an assassination list,” said Ahmed, 27, who like others refused to use his full name for fear of reprisals from the new authorities. “Shoot anyone in uniform. It doesn’t matter if the good is taken with the bad, because that is what happened to us last night.” Image Men burned a poster of Mohamed Morsi in Nahda Square. Credit Manu Brabo/Associated Press Mohamed Rasmy, a 30-year-old engineer, interrupted. “That is not the solution,” he said, insisting that Islamist leaders would re-emerge with a plan “to come together in protest.” Despite the apparently wide support for the police action by the private news media and much of Cairo, he argued that the bloodshed was now turning the rest of the public against the military-appointed government. “It is already happening,” he said. The outcome of the internal Islamist debate may now be the most critical variable in deciding the next phase of the crisis. The military-backed government has made clear its determination to demonize and repress the Islamists with a ruthlessness exceeding even that of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the autocrat who first outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood six decades ago. How the Islamists respond will inevitably reshape both their movement and Egypt. Will they resume the accommodationist tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood under former President Hosni Mubarak, escalate their street protests despite continued casualties, or turn to armed insurgency as some members did in the 1990s? President Obama, interrupting a weeklong vacation to address the bloodshed, stopped short of suspending the $1.3 billion in annual American military aid to Egypt but canceled joint military exercises scheduled to take place in a few months. Instead of “reconciliation” after the military takeover, he said, “we’ve seen a more dangerous path taken through arbitrary arrests, a broad crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s associations and supporters, and now tragically the violence that’s taken the lives of hundreds of people and wounded thousands more.” Mr. Obama added that “our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians are being killed in the streets and rights are being rolled back.” Image The events in Cairo set off a violent backlash across Egypt. Credit The New York Times Soon after the president’s speech, the State Department issued an advisory warning United States citizens living in Egypt to leave “because of the continuing political and social unrest.” The military-appointed government in Cairo accused Mr. Obama of failing to grasp the nature of the “terrorist acts” it said Egypt is facing. A statement issued by the office of the interim president, Adli Mansour, said Mr. Obama’s remarks “would strengthen the violent armed groups and encourage them in their methods inimical to stability and the democratic transition.” In Europe, some officials called for a suspension of aid by the European Union, and at least one member state, Denmark, cut off support. The British and French summoned their Egyptian ambassadors to condemn the violence. In Ankara, Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ideological ally of Mr. Morsi’s, called for an early meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss what he called a “massacre.” Egyptian Islamists continued to lash out across the country. Scores of them blocked a main highway circling the capital. In Alexandria, hundreds battled with opponents and the police in the streets and health officials said at least nine died. Others hurled firebombs that ignited a provincial government headquarters near the pyramids in Giza. In the latest in a string of attacks on Coptic Christian churches and businesses, at least one more church was set on fire, in Fayoum. Image The burned-out Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque had been the site of a pro-Morsi encampment. Credit Ahmed Hayman/European Pressphoto Agency Outside the mosque in Cairo, some Islamists contended that the Coptic pope, Tawadros II, had appeared to endorse the crackdown, and they portrayed attacks on churches around the country as a counterattack. “When Pope Tawadros comes out after a massacre to thank the military and the police, then don’t accuse me of sectarianism,” said Mamdouh Hamdi, 35, an accountant. The Islamist movement, usually known here for its tight discipline, appeared to slip loose from its leaders, entering perilous new ground, said Ali Farghaly, 47, an executive at a multinational company who was waiting outside the mosque. “Forget the leaders now,” he said. “The streets are leading this, and when things get out of the control of the leaders no one can predict the situation.” But if the Islamists hoped that Wednesday’s violence would turn the rest of the country against the military-dominated government, there were few signs of it on Thursday. Mohamed ElBaradei, the interim vice president and a Nobel Prize-winner, was the only official to resign over the crackdown, and he was widely criticized for it in both the state and the private news media. The ultraconservative Nour Party, the liberal April 6 group and the far-left Revolutionary Socialists spoke out against the killings. But most other political factions denounced the Islamists as a terrorist threat and applauded the government action. With the main Islamist satellite networks shut down by the new government, Egyptian state and private television coverage focused on unsubstantiated allegations that the Islamist sit-ins had posed a terrorist threat, or that their participants shot first at the police. Unlike newspapers around the world, none of the major Egyptian dailies put a picture of the carnage on their front pages on Thursday. In Grim Aftermath, Calls for New Protests in Egypt 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Bryan Denton for The New York Times Veterans of Gamaa al-Islamiya, the ultraconservative Islamist group that waged a terrorist campaign in Egypt two decades ago and later renounced violence, said that since the military takeover they had been warning angry jihadis to shun their group’s former tactics. “Because of our experience and the position that we have against the use of violence, we persuaded them that Egypt can’t stand fighting, that an armed conflict is a loss to everybody,” said Ammar Omar Abdel Rahman, a leader of Gamaa al-Islamiya and the son of the blind sheik convicted of terrorism in the United States 20 year ago. But Wednesday’s crackdown had made that argument much harder to win, Mr. Abdel Rahman said. The security forces “are the aggressors,” he said. “Being a military doesn’t give you the right to kill and exterminate whoever you want.” By late morning, patches of blackened ground were still smoldering on the grounds where tens of thousands had camped for the six weeks since Mr. Morsi’s ouster. More than 240 bodies lay in rows in the mosque-turned-morgue, wrapped in white sheets as teams moved coffins in and out to remove the dead for burial. Many were charred beyond recognition by the fires that Egyptian security forces set to eradicate the tent city. Some had blocks of ice on their chest to slow decomposition in the intense midday heat and volunteers moved through the room spraying antiseptic. Behind a display of recovered identification cards used to aid identifications, a young boy slept amid the dead. Hundreds had gathered outside to try to find missing friends of relatives, or to stand in solidarity with the lost. A voice over a loudspeaker repeatedly urged the crowd to disperse, to march off with the departing coffins. A sign on the door pointedly declared that the assembly was not a sit-in or a demonstration but just a place to claim the dead, presumably to avoid attracting another police crackdown. After the 9 p.m. curfew, the police moved in, firing tear gas into the mosque, seizing control and removing the remaining bodies, television news coverage showed. It was not clear where they were taken, or why.

Egypt
Fatalities,casualties
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt
Mohamed Morsi
Arab Spring
Military
Cairo


Chipper Jones Honored by Braves, but Mets Win the Game

Abstract: ATLANTA — It only made sense that on the night Chipper Jones was honored by the Atlanta Braves for his exceptional career, it was the Mets who got a front-row seat for the ceremony. After all, Jones helped build his Hall of Fame resume by demolishing their pitching. He has a lifetime .311 batting average against the Mets, with 49 homers and 159 runs batted in in 242 games. The Braves saluted their retiring third baseman on a postcard-perfect evening at a sold-out Turner Field. Jones thanked his parents, Larry Sr. and Lynn, who were on hand, his longtime former manager Bobby Cox, and his teammates, whom he called his “younger brothers.” His speech was interrupted several times by loud ovations. There would be no command performance during the game, however, as Jones went 0-for-4 in a 3-1 loss. Lucas Duda’s three-run homer in the seventh inning off Tim Hudson, who to that point had dominated the Mets, provided the runs. Jon Niese handcuffed Atlanta for seven innings, allowing only Freddie Freeman’s solo homer in the fourth. Bobby Parnell pitched the ninth for his sixth save. Even as the Braves presented a visibly moved Jones with a pool table, his clubhouse locker and a Hawaiian vacation, speculation about his replacement reached the visiting dugout. With Jones’s $13 million coming off the books, and with a strong group of prospects in the minors, the Braves could be in a position to make a large offer to David Wright . Wright’s presence in a Mets uniform past this season is not guaranteed. The club holds a $16 million option on him for the 2013 season. They will almost certainly exercise it, unless Wright makes it known that he either will not re-sign with the team, or asks for such a prohibitive salary that the cash-poor club cannot keep him. While it is not known how much the team has to spend on payroll next year, General Manager Sandy Alderson has said the number could rise to $100 million from $95 million. The Mets already have about 40 percent of that amount tied up in just two contracts for oft-injured players, Johan Santana and Jason Bay. Re-signing the 30-year- old Wright to a huge contract could hamstring the team and continue the cycle of losing that breathes life into the notion that Wright might seek to leave the only team he has ever played for. The Braves are owned by the publicly traded Liberty Media, controlled from Colorado by the billionaire cable magnate John Malone. With a coterie of young and inexpensive stars. including Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, Craig Kimbrel, and Kris Medlen — and with Jones’s and pitcher Derek Lowe’s salaries gone — the Braves could be off-season players. But the team is eager to re-sign the center fielder and leadoff hitter Michael Bourn and have the versatile Martin Prado play at third base. Although a recent profit statement indicated that revenue is up, the team’s local TV contract lags well behind teams in the league, and Malone is no Ted Turner, eager to pay any price for a winner. The Braves are a small part of the Liberty Media empire. For his part, Jones has always been a supporter of Wright, praising his talent and blaming the large pre-2012 dimensions at Citi Field for Wright’s power struggles when Wright would not. Asked about Wright’s contract status at a news conference in New York on Sept. 8, Jones said, “When your employer impresses upon you they want you there and they don’t want you to go somewhere — they don’t even want you sniffing the other side of the fence — that’s big.” It was the second straight game with a celebratory vibe for the Mets after R. A. Dickey won his 20th game at Citi Field on Thursday. “It’s very cool we get to see” the tribute to Jones, Manager Terry Collins said. “It’s not just David,” Collins added. “ All the guys can see what a player like Chipper means to a team.” The question is just how much the night rubbed off on Wright, if at all. It is probably a good idea not to buy him the Hawaiian vacation just yet.

Baseball
Atlanta Braves
Jones Chipper
New York Mets
Wright David


Chris Johnson Returns to Tennessee, Now as a Jet

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Jets running back Chris Johnson is not sure how he will be received when he returns to LP Field on Sunday to face the Tennessee Titans, a team he meant so much to before an abrupt departure last April that he has described as “nasty.” He fears the worst. “I know a lot of fans don’t understand the business side of the game,” Johnson said Friday. “It was not my decision to leave.” Tennessee cut Johnson after he became the sixth back in N.F.L. history to gain 1,000 yards in each of his first six seasons, including an N.F.L-record 2,509 yards from scrimmage, 2,006 of them on the ground, in 2009. The move was driven, at least in part, by salary-cap considerations. Johnson was celebrated in Tennessee as CJ2K after he was the league’s offensive player of the year in 2009. Johnson’s production began to diminish after he sat out training camp in 2011. He returned after negotiating a four-year contract worth $53.5 million, with $30 million guaranteed. He dropped to a career low of 1,047 yards, from 1,364 in 2010. He rebounded to run for 1,243 yards in 2012 before declining to 1,077 yards last season, when he averaged a career-low 3.9 yards per carry. “He was trying to hit a home run every single carry, and that did not mesh with the offense,” said Frank Wycheck, a former Tennessee tight end who is now an analyst on the team’s radio broadcasts. Tennessee drafted Johnson in the first round in 2008, taking him 24th over all out of East Carolina, largely because of his game-breaking potential. He ran a 4.24-second 40-yard dash at the scouting combine, blinding speed that helped him score 50 touchdowns in his first six seasons. Wycheck believes that, to some degree, Johnson’s breakaway speed started to work against him. He thinks it led him to hit holes too quickly in his desire to uncork a spectacular run instead of keeping to the designed play. “You have to be patient, set up the blocks, let the guys up front take over, get to the next level and then hit the jets,” Wycheck said. Video With the fantasy football playoffs in full swing this week, owners of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo will be relying on him to carry them to a championship. Credit Credit Matt Marton/Reuters Ken Whisenhunt, the Titans’ first-year coach, said several factors contributed to Johnson’s departure, but he declined to be specific. “I know how much he was liked here, how much he was respected, but it is certainly not uncommon in the N.F.L. now that players end up changing teams,” Whisenhunt said. “I don’t know Chris personally, but everything that I have heard about him has been positive, and I know that the Titans are grateful for his contributions.” Johnson, 29, signed a two-year contract worth $8 million to join the Jets, who, at 2-11, have the same dismal record as Tennessee. The Jets have kept to their plan of using him as a part-time back. With 125 carries for 558 yards and one touchdown and only three games left, Johnson’s streak of 1,000-yard seasons is surely over. He has taken a back seat to Chris Ivory, who leads the team in rushing attempts (162), rushing yards (714) and rushing touchdowns (five). The Jets hoped Johnson’s speed would provide a jolt to a passing game that sputtered, whether operated by Geno Smith, their unpolished second-year quarterback, or Michael Vick, their aging veteran. Johnson has only 22 receptions for 151 yards and one score. Nor has he been the playmaker the Jets hoped for in the red zone. They rank last in the league when it comes to converting opportunities inside their opponents’ 20-yard line, generating only 14 touchdowns in 37 tries (37.8 percent). “It’s not easy,” Johnson said of his reduced workload. “With losing on top of that, it’s tough.” Johnson ranks third in the history of the Houston/Tennessee franchise with 7,965 yards, trailing only Eddie George (10,009) and Earl Campbell (8,574). Among all N.F.L. backs, only Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings rushed for more yards (8,774) during the previous six years. Johnson defended his contribution in limited time with the Jets by noting that his average per carry improved to 4.5 yards. “The only thing I could do was to make sure I took advantage of my opportunities,” he said. Even Johnson’s harshest critics must commend his willingness to take the ball for Tennessee. He finished with 1,742 rushing attempts in six seasons. He made every start in 2013 despite tearing his meniscus in the third game. “I was the face of the organization,” Johnson said. “I wanted to be out there. I did all that, and really it didn’t mean anything.” Perhaps that commitment will be worthy of some applause in Tennessee.


Obama, Visiting Detroit, Lauds Auto Industry Recovery

Abstract: DETROIT — President Obama , starting the final year of his presidency by reminding the public of the high points of the first seven, traveled here Wednesday to claim credit for the resurgence of the American automobile industry, defending his record against what he called a Republican “fiction” that “America is in decline.” During a victory lap that took him from lunch at a brewery in a gentrifying downtown neighborhood to the North American International Auto Show and a training center jointly run by the United Auto Workers and General Motors, Mr. Obama boasted of record American car sales in 2015 and the more than 640,000 auto industry jobs created since the administration’s rescue package went into effect in 2009. “There’s still plenty of work to do, but you can feel the difference, you can feel something special happening in Detroit,” he said at the training center. “What’s true of Detroit is true of the country.” The trip came exactly one year before Mr. Obama is to leave office, and as the race to succeed him intensifies. Mr. Obama is increasingly competing with the presidential candidates for public attention, even as he looks to burnish his legacy. “Right now, I want people to remember how far we’ve come,” Mr. Obama said. “The reason I want to remind people is not because I’m on the ticket, it’s because I want America to have confidence in where we can go.” His message encapsulated an oft-repeated narrative of his tenure: that the country has risen from the grim early days when the economy was on the brink of a depression to the current period of job growth and recovery. Mr. Obama is likely to return to this theme often this year in an attempt to help write the history of his presidency, and to rebuke the Republicans who opposed his moves. “When you hear people — I won’t say who — but when you hear people claiming that America is in decline, they don’t know what they’re talking about, they’re peddling fiction during a political season,” Mr. Obama said. “They’ll just come up with stuff. They’re racing to see who can talk down America the most.” While the president did not mention any candidate by name or utter the word “Republicans,” he said the critics were “the same folks who would have let this industry go under” and had denounced the auto bailout as “the road to socialism.” At the same time, the trip carried a darker subtext for Mr. Obama, who is facing criticism over his administration’s handling of the crisis over tainted water in nearby Flint , the birthplace of G.M. and the U.A.W. “If I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kids’ health could be at risk,” Mr. Obama said at the start of his speech. He said that in a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, he told Karen Weaver, Flint’s mayor, that “we are going to have her back, and all of the people of Flint’s back, as they work their way through this terrible tragedy.” In an interview with CBS News to be aired on Sunday, Mr. Obama called the crisis “inexplicable and inexcusable,” adding that “sometimes, we downplay the role that an effective government has to play in protecting public health.” Mr. Obama did not visit Flint on Wednesday, although he declared an emergency there on Saturday, making about $5 million available to state and local authorities. His administration directed a federal health official to help coordinate the response. But Mr. Obama has resisted calls to declare a disaster in Flint — which would yield tens of millions of additional federal dollars — given that the crisis is not the result of a natural disaster. The situation stands in stark contrast with the one in Detroit, where Mr. Obama sat down to lunch with Mayor Mike Duggan to highlight the partnership his administration has forged with the city government after its bankruptcy filing in 2013. Tens of millions of dollars in federal anti-blight and transportation funds have been made available. At the Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales brewery, in a formerly rundown area that is now home to stylish shops and restaurants, Mr. Obama dined with Tom Kartsotis, the founder of Shinola , a retailer whose “built in Detroit” watches, bicycles and leather goods have helped create jobs in the city and become a symbol for its renaissance. They were joined by an autoworker and a doctor who works with youths in a violence prevention program affiliated with Mr. Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative. Touring the auto show on Wednesday, Mr. Obama all but starred in an ad for the automobile industry, stopping to look at a car with driverless technology and the latest models of hybrid and electric vehicles . But even as he reveled in the successes of an industry that was on the brink of collapse when he took office, the president was looking toward the day when he will leave office. “I already drive in a great American car, which we affectionately know as the Beast,” Mr. Obama said, referring to the armored Cadillac limousine he uses. “Next year, I’ve got to give it up. I’m saying goodbye to the Beast, so I figure that I’ve got to do a little browsing now.” Mr. Obama, who is preparing to submit the final budget of his presidency, also used the visit to reiterate calls for enhanced jobless benefits, an issue he raised in his State of the Union address . “We should make sure that if folks lose their job, that the system works for them,” he said, arguing that laid-off workers should receive retraining assistance in addition to unemployment insurance. Mr. Obama is also calling for wage insurance, which would allow workers who lose their jobs to receive subsidies if they take new jobs that pay less.

Detroit
Flint Michigan
Cars
Barack Obama
GM
Jobs
Republicans
Water
Lead


As Boss’s Concussions Add Up, Giants’ Concerns Linger

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Giants have immediate concerns about how they will compensate for the loss of the versatile tight end Kevin Boss as he recovers from his third concussion since 2008. But the issue could resonate longer than this week. Boss will be sidelined against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday after sustaining a concussion in the Giants’ 31-18 win over the Carolina Panthers last Sunday. The Giants will use two tight ends to replace Boss, who will not practice this week. The larger question is what this latest concussion means for Boss’s future. On Wednesday, Boss played down the nature of his past concussions , saying he was not concerned about their cumulative long-term effect. “To be honest, none of them have been real serious concussions where I’ve been blacked out and can’t remember things,” Boss said. “I’ve seen guys come stumbling off the field who can’t remember their own name. Nothing has been that bad.” The Giants will turn to Travis Beckum, who is about 15 pounds lighter than Boss, and the sturdy Bear Pascoe . While Beckum is used mainly as a pass-catcher, Pascoe, who was signed Tuesday from the practice squad, is an asset for his blocking ability, which will be important to help a ground game that stalled against Carolina because of poor blocking. “Yeah, there’s a very good chance I’ll be a part of the run game,” Pascoe said. Boss sustained the concussion on a hit in the first quarter against Carolina after an overthrown pass by quarterback Eli Manning. Boss, who got onto a cart under his own power and was driven off the field, was hit helmet-to-helmet in the back of his head by Panthers safety Sherrod Martin. Boss tried to talk Ronnie Barnes, the team’s vice president for medical services, into letting him return, but Barnes did not consent. Boss said he did not lose consciousness on the hit. “It’s one of those where usually I get hit and pop up and it takes me a few moments to gather myself,” Boss said. “But this one, it kind of dazed me a little bit more and I was a little slower getting up. I wasn’t able to get up quick enough before the trainers got out there.” Asked if he had headaches this week, Boss said, “Nothing too serious.” The N.F.L. has tried to promote a culture of safety with regard to hits to the head, emphasizing the protection of defenseless receivers. Giants Coach Tom Coughlin and Boss questioned the legality of Martin’s hit. “If people are following the rules, the kid doesn’t get touched,” Coughlin said Monday. “That was as blatant and obvious as anything you see. No call. No nothing.” Boss said: “I was pretty defenseless. But not even playing that position, I know they’re trying to make a play on the ball. I’m not going to hold a grudge against the guy.” The issue of Boss’s return is complicated by his history with concussions and hard hits to the head. Coughlin said Monday that Boss’s past concussions were “a major, major concern” when assessing his condition. Boss did not play against the Minnesota Vikings in the season finale in 2008 because of a concussion. Last year, he sustained a concussion against the Denver Broncos on Thanksgiving. He was cleared by Wednesday of the next week and caught one pass for 10 yards and rushed once for 16 yards against the Dallas Cowboys. Before the Broncos game, Boss received helmet-to-helmet hits from Antrel Rolle, now with the Giants, against the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 25 and Eric Weddle of the Chargers on Nov. 8. Both hits drew fines from the N.F.L. On Wednesday, Boss framed his coming absence against the Colts as a precaution, saying the team trainers were simply trying to protect him from sustaining hard hits to the head in consecutive weeks. He said he expected to be ready when the Giants host the Tennessee Titans on Sept. 26. Boss said his playing style would not change. “It’s just instinctive; I’m going to go for the ball,” Boss said. “After I do get hit, after Sunday’s game, it’s something that I’m thinking about for a couple of days. But once I’m healthy next week, I’ll be back out there playing. It won’t even cross my mind again.” EXTRA POINTS Aaron Ross (foot) practiced fully for the first time. ... Osi Umenyiora (knee) sat out because of “wear and tear.” ... Hakeem Nicks (ankle) and Chase Blackburn (knee) are day to day. ... The backup offensive tackle William Beatty will have surgery Thursday for a fracture in his right foot.

Football
New York Giants
Boss Kevin
Pascoe Bear
Coughlin Tom


Mourning Percy E. Sutton, Father of Modern Harlem, at Funeral

Abstract: They filed one after another into Riverside Church, mayors and governors and renowned preachers and musicians, all come to pay their respects to that most unusual product of our nation’s history, a man who became father to modern Harlem and godfather to generations of black politicians. Percy Ellis Sutton, who died last month at age 89, never rose higher than Manhattan borough president, an office he held for 11 years. But in a more racially enlightened age, speaker after speaker noted in eulogies on Wednesday, this stylish and gifted politician well might have been commemorated as a former mayor or governor. “I’m a proud son of this city, and Percy Sutton was a father to so many,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told an audience that filled every seat in every pew on the grand floor and balconies. Mr. Holder pointed, jabbed really, at Mr. Sutton’s cherry-oak coffin, which lay garlanded in purple flowers. “Without him, there would be no me.” For three hours on this cold winter day, Riverside Church, with its soaring gothic reaches, became the Westminster Abbey of black political royalty: Gov. David A. Paterson, Representative Charles B. Rangel, former Mayor David N. Dinkins, the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and a host of City Council and Assembly representatives. More than a few white notables mixed among them, from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to Senator Charles E. Schumer and former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. They exchanged confidences and laughs and bowed to a master of their game. Basil A. Paterson, the black former deputy mayor and secretary of state for New York, who was a political partner of Mr. Sutton’s for many decades and one of Harlem’s famous Gang of Four (together with Mr. Dinkins and Mr. Rangel), came stepping up to the pulpit with a bounce that belied his eight decades. “When I came down the aisle, it was like old home week,” Mr. Paterson said, smiling at his old cronies and at Mr. Sutton’s vast family, who filled two dozen rows of pews. “I am known as the governor’s father. But before that, I was known as Percy Sutton’s friend.” Mr. Sutton and his friends embody a history quickly passing into shadow. He was a Tuskegee Airman and intelligence officer during World War II, a man pushed north by the Jim Crow diaspora, a civil rights activist jailed in the cruelest prisons of the South, and a lawyer to Malcolm X when that was nothing to boast of, even in black circles. He fought to open City University to blacks. In time, he became a grandee in the most sophisticated and influential black political club in New York City. And he turned himself into a businessman, some days walking from bank to bank to bank in search of loans. He became a millionaire, owner of what were at one time the city’s two most influential black radio stations, the WBLS hit-maker on FM (107.5) and the intensely, incessantly political WLIB (1190 AM). “He represented Malcolm, an act of defiance and dignity, he marched for civil rights, he embraced Mandela,” Mr. Jackson said. “To buy WLIB, he had to go to 62 banks. He never stopped.” To his family, not least his 12 brothers and sisters (a preternaturally accomplished group that produced judges, civil rights leaders, Ph.D.’s and legislators in several states), he was known as Uncle Jimmy, who came back many summers to relax on the family farm outside San Antonio. But to his friends up north, he was known simply as The Chairman. With his pencil-thin mustache and slow-burning growl of a voice, he seemed to glory in the daily act of politics, whether shaking hands on 125th Street or telling stories to fifth graders at Public School 166 on the Upper West Side in the late ’60s. “Most elected officials when I was growing up, they were kind of suspicious,” Governor Paterson recalled in a telephone interview after the funeral. “His attitude was, if you go out and run for office, and want people to know you well, then be happy when they did!” Malcolm X’s daughter, Attalah Shabazz, spoke of his service to her father. After Malcolm X was assassinated, and no cemetery would bury him, Mr. Sutton found a graveyard. “Percy kept his oath to keep us from harm,” she said. “And always with that wonderful grace.” Then she imitated his flirtatious growl, punctuated by a typical greeting: “ ‘How are you doing today, laaaady Shabazz?’ ” Mr. Sutton’s funeral was a reminder of when Harlem defined the black political solar system. Arguably, black politicians in Queens and Brooklyn now predominate in the City Council and State Legislature. Not then. Jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Count Basie were not Harlem’s only royalty. And yet theirs was a world circumscribed. These black political aristocrats possessed law degrees and recited poetry and traveled the world, but they returned to a neighborhood without basic services. Basil Paterson recalled driving to a distant white neighborhood just to find a drugstore to fill a prescription. Another old colleague recalls hurrying to accompany Percy Sutton as he walked late one evening to his car — only a careful listener understood that to walk those streets alone could be mortally dangerous. In the end of the end came goodbye. Roscoe Brown, a commander in the Tuskegee Airmen and a college president and a touch unsteady, saluted his old friend and presented Leatrice, his widow, with a folded flag. A granddaughter danced and laid a white rose atop his coffin; Pierre Sutton, his son, whispered: “My father, we will miss you. Lie down in peace.” And a flutist played and the family lined up, and soon enough the funeral procession moved down the hill from Riverside Church to 125th Street, the grand boulevard of Harlem.

Sutton Percy
New York City
Politics and Government
Blacks
Harlem (NYC)


Marion Jones’s Relay Teammates Are Set Back in Effort to Restore Medals

Abstract: Marion Jones ’s American relay teammates at the 2000 Olympics have sustained a setback in their attempt to hold on to their medals, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejecting their motion Friday to overturn the International Olympic Committee ’s decision to strip the medals after Jones admitted to doping . The ruling was a preliminary one in the runners’ case, responding to their motion that the I.O.C. could not disqualify them beyond a three-year period after the Games. The medals were revoked by the I.O.C. in 2008 after Jones pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about performance-enhancing drug use. The court will schedule a full hearing on the case next year. Jones surrendered her medals after her plea, but her relay teammates appealed, arguing that they should not be punished for her doping offense. At issue are a gold medal in the 4x400-meter relay and a bronze in the 4x100-meter relay. Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander Clark and Andrea Anderson were on the gold-medal relay team with Jones. Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson were her teammates on the 4x100 relay. All of them except Perry are involved in the appeal. The motion denied by the court Friday involved an I.O.C. rule cited by the runners that no Olympic decision could be overturned more than three years after the Games. “The C.A.S. panel has considered that the three-year rule did not prevent the I.O.C. from withdrawing medals which were awarded at a victory ceremony because the distribution of medals, which occurs immediately after the race, is not in itself a ‘decision,’ ” the court said in its ruling. The rest of the appeal will be based on the case’s merits, the ruling said, and not the matter of timing. According to the court’s secretary general, Mattieu Reeb, the full hearing will most likely be held after February’s Olympics in Vancouver. Should the appeal fail, Jamaica would be awarded the gold in the 4x400 meter relay, Russia would be elevated to silver and Nigeria would get the bronze. In the 4x100 relay, fourth-place France would be given the Americans’ bronze medals. Last week, the I.O.C. redistributed Jones’s individual medals , but refused to give her gold medal in the 100 meters to Greece’s Katerina Thanou, who was barred from the 2004 Olympics for a doping-related offense. Thanou has sent a letter to the I.O.C. protesting that decision .

International Olympic Committee
Jones Marion
Court of Arbitration for Sport
Track and Field
Doping (Sports)


Will Amazon Become the Wal-Mart of the Web?

Abstract: Phoenix THE hum of 102 rooftop air conditioners and a chorus of beeping electric carts provide the acoustic backdrop in Amazon.com ’s 605,000-square-foot distribution facility on this city’s west side. But the center’s employees can almost always hear Terry Jones. On a recent summer afternoon, Mr. Jones, an “inbound support associate” making $12 an hour, steered a hand-pushed cart through the packed aisles and shouted his location to everyone in earshot: “Cart coming through. Yup! Watch yourself, please!” Mr. Jones explained that he was just making his time at Amazon “joyful and fun” while complying with the company’s rigorous safety rules. But his cries might double as a warning to the retail world: Amazon, the Web’s largest retailer, wants you to step aside. Fifteen years after Jeffrey P. Bezos founded the company as an online bookstore, Amazon is set to cross a significant threshold. Sometime later this year, if current trends continue, worldwide sales of media products — the books, movies and music that Amazon started with — will be surpassed for the first time by sales of other merchandise on the site. (That transition already occurred this year in its North American business.) In other words, in an increasingly digital age, Amazon is quickly becoming the world’s general store. Alongside the books and CDs and DVDs are diapers, Legos and power drills, not to mention replacement car clutches and more arcane items like the Jackalope Buck taxidermy mount ($69.97). “Amazon has gone from ‘that bookstore’ in people’s mind to a general online retailer, and that is a great place to be,” said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, an eBay-backed company that helps stores like Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney sell online. Mr. Wingo envisions e-commerce growing to 15 percent of overall retail in the next decade from around 7 percent. “If Amazon grows their market share throughout that period, and honestly I don’t see anything stopping it, that is pretty scary,” he said. Indeed, Amazon has been gobbling e-commerce market share since 2006, taking away customers from eBay in particular. But its advances are shaking up the entire retail world. Giants like Wal-Mart are warily replicating elements of its strategy, while small independent retailers in sporting goods and jewelry now worry their fate will be similar to that of small bookstores and independent video rental shops (remember those?). Amazon’s expansion strategy has allowed it, almost alone among retailers, to thrive during the recession, even while its own media business has stagnated. Over the last year, shoppers have bought fewer books, CDs and DVDs, in many cases opting for cheaper digital downloads. In the quarter ending in June, for example, Amazon’s worldwide media sales grew only 1 percent, to $2.4 billion, highlighted by a slowdown in video games. But during the same quarter, sales of other products, which the company lumps together on its balance sheet in a grouping dubbed “electronics and general merchandise,” grew by 35 percent, to $2.07 billion. Its relentless ambition to sell more of everything is constantly on display these days. In July alone, Amazon introduced separate hubs on its site for outdoor sporting goods and cellphones and wireless plans . Then it capped the month by buying an emerging competitor, the online shoe and apparel retailer Zappos.com, in a stock exchange now worth more than $930 million. Aside from using its stock and $3.1 billion in cash and marketable securities to make acquisitions, Amazon has fueled its growth as a general retailer by nudging loyal customers to buy a greater variety of products by offering free shipping and speedy delivery with clubs like the $79-a-year Amazon Prime. It has also lured an increasing number of small sellers to list their own products on Amazon.com, and takes around a 15 percent cut of each sale. Such third-party transactions now account for 30 percent of all the sales on the site. And Amazon continues to expand its network of more than 25 distribution centers around the world, where it constantly hones the art of getting products to customers as quickly as possible. Next week, Amazon will take yet another step in this strategy, expanding its private label business with a line of Amazon-branded audio-video cables and blank media discs. Amazon already offers hundreds of private label kitchen products and outdoor furniture, and uses these direct relationships with manufacturers to further undercut prices from the competition. Amazon executives are nonchalant about the shift to general retailing, regarding the moment as preordained destiny ever since the company announced its ambition to offer the biggest selection of goods on earth, before going public in 1997. But they have reason to feel vindicated: after the dot-com bust, some analysts thought the company could go broke trying to stock such a wide array of merchandise. “It means we are becoming increasingly important in the lives of our customers, which has been our mission from the beginning,” said Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s senior vice president of North American retail. “We had the chance to earn the trust of the customer beyond media, and we took it.” INSIDE Amazon’s vast shipping centers, the company’s growing capability as a general retailer is nearly invisible. What is clear is that the normal rules of retail don’t apply here. Instead of storing similar items next to each other — televisions with other electronics, shampoo with other personal care items — randomness abounds. In the warehouse where Terry Jones loudly roams the aisles, which the company somewhat randomly dubs Phoenix 3, “Star Wars” action figures are stocked next to sleeping bags; bagel chips sit next to the “Beatles: Rock Band” video game. In one high-risk valuables area, monitored by overhead video cameras, a single Impulse Jack Rabbit sex toy is wedged between a Rosetta Stone Spanish CD and an iPod Nano . In nearby Goodyear, Ariz., at an even larger distribution center known as Phoenix 5, Amazon stores and ships more unwieldy items. Samsung 54-inch plasma HDTVs are stacked three high on the floor, next to crates of Pampers. Across the aisle, a kayak ($879) sits alone on the floor, wrapped tightly in cardboard and plastic. Amazon says it stores dissimilar products next to each other on purpose, to minimize the possibility that employees select the wrong item. That seems unlikely: every product, shelving unit, forklift, roller cart and employee badge in these shipping centers has a bar code. Each physical move is orchestrated by software that calculates the most efficient path from shelf to the shipping area, telling employees on their wireless bar code readers which aisle and pallet to go to next. “Imagine how many customers we serve and if they were all here now,” said Bert Wegner, Amazon’s director of North American fulfillment, gesturing over the open space in Phoenix 5. “We are doing the heavy lifting for all of them in a hyper-efficient manner.” Amazon also benefits greatly from its advanced inventory management methods and ability to negotiate beneficial payment terms with vendors. The company sells such a large volume of merchandise, and can predict customer demand so accurately, that it generally sells products within 65 days, before it has to pay suppliers for them. That arrangement, which analysts call “negative working capital,” is unusual outside of grocery stores and allows Amazon to avoid the huge capital charges associated with buying and storing such a broad line of inventory. It also boosts the company’s cash flow, which it has used to pay down its debt to $109 million at the end of June from a hefty $2 billion in 2000, and to add more product lines to its Web site. Amazon’s profit and margins have always been slender; it earned only $645 million in 2008, up 36 percent from the year before, compared to Wal-Mart’s $13.4 billion, up 5 percent. But Wall Street is more enamored by the promise of the online retailer, valuing Amazon at around 60 times earnings and Wal-Mart at 15 times earnings. “They don’t have to incur huge inventory carrying costs and can add product categories almost ad infinitum,” said Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “Amazon has an almost magical business model in terms of inventory management.” AMAZON’S incursion into general retail has rivals scurrying to regroup and stop its advance. In August, Target, which allowed Amazon to run its Web site for the last decade, announced it would end the affiliation when its contract was up in 2011, following other one-time Amazon partners like Borders and Toys “R” Us. This month, Wal-Mart said it would allow other retailers to sell their products on Walmart.com , mimicking Amazon’s third-party marketplace and trying to match its vast selection. Analysts believe Sears, which owns Kmart, is preparing to allow outside sellers on its sites as well. But the Amazon effect may be most deeply felt by small independent stores, which cannot hope to compete with Amazon’s selection and prices and recall in fear how the company hastened the fate of both independent booksellers and prominent electronics chains like Circuit City. Like many small business owners, Ken Lombardi, the C.E.O. of his family’s 60-year-old Lombardi Sports in San Francisco, views Amazon as a source of some of his business troubles. Though his store has been hit hard by the recession and the expansion of a sporting goods chain, R.E.I., in the Bay Area, Mr. Lombardi says that it is Amazon that has helped depress profit margins and snagged sales for basics like silicone swim caps, undershirts and running shoes — which, he adds, Amazon can offer without California’s 8.25 percent sales tax. “People used to come in to buy a pair of running shoes and we would sell them a shirt or a workout outfit. We’re losing that,” Mr. Lombardi, who was recently forced to lay off a quarter of his 75-member staff. In response to the gathering storm, Mr. Lombardi has overhauled his store, shrinking space for lagging items like Crocs clogs — which are offered cheaply on Amazon. He has added space for newer, hotter-selling items like Sanuk sandals, which are for sale on Amazon at about the same price. He also recently commissioned a new Web site to replace the static old one, which had not changed much over the years “All we can do is tell a story physically and let people touch and smell and feel the product, which they can’t do online,” Mr. Lombardi said, lamenting his store’s future. “I think we are doing everything we can.” There may be other ways to beat Amazon at its own game. One strategy discussed by rivals and analysts is to focus on the high-end luxury brands in specific categories, like Ralph Lauren clothes, Chanel fragrances or Wilson Audio speakers. Those companies resist selling on Amazon, fearing the downward effect it has on prices. In shoes, Nike is perhaps the best example. The shoe giant has steadfastly declined to allow Amazon and most other Web retailers to sell its sneakers, and only late last year allowed some shoes to be sold on Zappos.com, which unlike Amazon does not present itself as a discounter. Now that Amazon has bought the shoe site, a person familiar with internal discussions at Nike, who was not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, said the company was rethinking its arrangement with Zappos. This may be some comfort to Ken Lombardi, who says Nike shoes are among his store’s top-selling products. There are similar holdout brands in almost every product category, but Amazon says that number is steadily shrinking. As the number of shoppers using Amazon.com even for basic product research grows, “every year we are able to sign up more and more brands,” said Jon Witham, Amazon’s vice president of toys, sports and home improvement. Whether Amazon can dominate its newest product categories is another question. In markets like consumer electronics, where Amazon increasingly prevails, products like HDTVs from different companies are usually made by the same Asian factories, with little technical difference between brands. Shoppers then look for the best price and most convenient delivery, which Amazon can offer. But the dynamics are different in categories like outdoor sporting goods. Different companies offer drastically different products, and the right brand of bicycle or snowboard matters to enthusiasts. Shoppers might also prefer to seek the guidance of an experienced sales clerk. “When Amazon was first launching outdoors sporting goods, we panicked,” said John Bresee, cofounder of Backcountry.com , a growing Utah Web retailer owned by Liberty Media. “We kept waiting to see this giant sucking sound as our sales went away. But it hasn’t happened.” WITH a flash of humility, a trait that Amazon executives try to cultivate in public, Jeff Wilke, the vice president, concedes that “there are going to be niches that no matter how hard we try, we will never be great at.” Touring those massive distribution centers in Arizona, it does not appear that Amazon is thinking small. At Phoenix 5, the company is putting the finishing touches on 300,000 extra square feet, which will make the facility one of its largest in the country. Mr. Wegner of Amazon promises — or is it a threat? — that the new space will be ready for the holiday shopping season.

Shopping and Retail
Amazon.com Inc
E-Commerce
Computers and the Internet
Electronics
Sales


Doubts Circle Viacom, Vanguard of Yesteryear

Abstract: It was a bleak day in early August at the Times Square headquarters of Viacom, the company that is the home of MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Paramount’s film studios. Weak earnings led shares in the media conglomerate to plunge as much as 22 percent in trading before closing down 14 percent for the day, wiping out billions of dollars in market value. Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom’s chief, called his 92-year-old boss, Sumner M. Redstone, to discuss the news. Mr. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom who controls about 80 percent of the company, told Mr. Dauman not to worry and that the company would be fine, according to executives briefed on the conversation. The Mr. Redstone of 20 years ago — short-tempered and acerbic, known for monitoring quarter-point fluctuations in Viacom’s stock and screaming until spit flew from his mouth — likely would not have been so reassuring. And several current and former Viacom executives, as well as industry analysts, question whether everything is fine at Viacom. So far this year, Viacom shares have plummeted about 37 percent, vastly underperforming the S&P 500, which is down about 4 percent. Plaguing the company are persistent declines in television ratings, weak ad sales and a lackluster film slate. Viacom also faces questions from Wall Street about more than $14 billion in stock buybacks, which analysts said could have been used to invest in or acquire fresh products or services. That shift in perception is dramatic. This was the company that helped launch the careers of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, brought to life iconic characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer, and had several generations demanding the music videos of MTV. Now, Viacom has lost its perch amid the explosion of competition from traditional and digital outlets, like Netflix, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, Vine and Facebook. “There was a time when we defined what was cool for kids with MTV,” one senior Viacom executive said. “That isn’t the case anymore.” Image Miley Cyrus meets Phillippe Dauman, chief of Viacom, and his wife, Deborah. Credit Mario Anzuoni/Reuters Another concern is that the massive wave of consolidation sweeping across cable and satellite companies will greatly reduce the rates Viacom can charge for its programming and even creates the potential that cable or satellite companies like Dish could drop Viacom from their bundle of channels, since its programming is now available on a range of streaming services like Amazon and Hulu. Last year, more than 60 small cable operators, which account for about 2 million pay television subscribers in the United States, dropped Viacom’s channels. Goldman Sachs downgraded its valuation of Viacom this week. The firm said that there was pressure on the stock for several reasons, including the fact that ratings at its television networks declined 14 percent year over year, the sixth consecutive quarter of ratings declines. (For comparison, Goldman Sachs said that Viacom’s quarterly ratings have declined 20 percent on average since the fourth quarter of 2014, compared with a 7 percent decline for its peer group.) And Todd Juenger, an analyst with Bernstein Research, went so far as to compare Viacom to Eastman Kodak, the photography company made obsolete by the digital world. “We realize this is a severe comparison,” he said in a July research note, “but we think it is an apt illustration of the downside scenario for the ultimate fate of Viacom.” Thomas E. Dooley, chief operating officer of Viacom, called the criticism outdated, saying the company’s programming remained in high demand. Just this week, Viacom announced that it had struck distribution agreements with the streaming service Hulu and AT&T, which recently acquired the satellite provider DirecTV. Mr. Dooley said that ratings at some Viacom channels like Nickelodeon have shown signs of improvement and that the company has installed new leadership at other channels like MTV. He pointed to a 23 percent increase in Viacom’s stock price since its ebb at the end of August. “There is certainly a major perception change in the fate and the future of Viacom since those early August days,” he said. Image Jon Stewart at the 2015 Emmys. Credit Paul Buck/European Pressphoto Agency He added that Viacom is not alone in the challenges it is faces on Wall Street. Broader fears about the future of the traditional television business have led to a sell-off of shares of media stocks in recent months. Further complicating the picture for Viacom are questions about Mr. Redstone’s health and involvement at the company, as well as uncertainty over what will happen after he is no longer chairman. In May, Mr. Redstone issued a statement saying that the decision over succession at the company would be made by the board, not an individual, and that such a decision had not yet been made. (Mr. Redstone also is the chairman and controlling shareholder at CBS, which faces similar questions about succession.) Some Viacom executives said that Mr. Redstone continued to monitor the company’s stock price, swam every day and remained his usual feisty self. They said he communicated by taking a breath, swallowing twice, then speaking five or six words. Yet others close to the company have raised questions about that depiction. Mr. Redstone has not been spotted publicly since a 92nd birthday party in Los Angeles in May. He did not attend the company’s annual stockholders meeting in March. A regular participant on company conference calls, Mr. Redstone has not spoken on one since November 2014. The board, which includes several executives known to be close to Mr. Redstone, has effectively endorsed Viacom’s leadership by signing off on paydays that rank at the top of executive compensation packages. Mr. Redstone’s total compensation for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2014, was $13.2 million, while Mr. Dauman’s was $44.3 million, up 19 percent from the previous year. During that same period, Viacom’s net earnings were essentially flat and the stock price declined about 9 percent. In August, Viacom disclosed in a regulatory filing that Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, was stepping down from the board because “his obligations elsewhere had increased.” In private conversations, however, Mr. Kraft is said to have expressed dissatisfaction with the company’s direction, according to two people who spoke to him but requested anonymity because the conversations were not meant to be public. Meanwhile, Mr. Redstone’s daughter, Shari Redstone, who is nonexecutive vice chairwoman of the board, is worried about the direction of Viacom, according to two people who spoke with her but requested anonymity because the conversations were private. Image SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the iconic characters Viacom brought to life on its children’s channel, Nickelodeon. Credit Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies, via Associated Press Mr. Dauman, a reserved lawyer and Mr. Redstone’s longtime confidant, was named chief executive of Viacom in 2006. On his watch, a number of executives and creative talent have left the company. Among the prominent departures was Van Toffler, a well-liked 28-year veteran who left his job as president of MTV Networks Music and Logo Group in April despite entreaties from Mr. Dauman that he stay. Coinciding with his departure was a major reorganization at Viacom that led to significant job cuts. On the screen, Comedy Central has said goodbye to three of its biggest stars: Jon Stewart, who ended his run as host of “The Daily Show,” and Stephen Colbert, who left to host “The Late Show” on CBS. John Oliver left to host a program on HBO. Mr. Dooley said that executives who have left were in charge when their networks experienced ratings declines. He added that the company frequently acts as a launching pad for stars. One example, he said, is Amy Schumer, who has a show on Comedy Central but recently made a movie and has a standup special on HBO. Viacom executives said spending on content totals more than $4 billion a year, of which original programming is “a substantial part.” The company also is investing in new audience measurements that count the digital viewership of its brands. MTV’s Video Music Awards, for instance, drew an audience of 9.8 million this year, roughly half a million less than last year, according to Nielsen. But Viacom calculated more than 76 million views across TV and digital. At the same time, Viacom — which also owns networks like BET, Spike and VH1 — highlights the growth of its international business, efforts to make money on new forms of distribution, such as selling programing to mobile, and development of a stronger film slate. Viacom has struggled in Hollywood. To save money, the company’s movie studio, Paramount Pictures, has dramatically slowed production — it released no films in the quarter ended in June. Among the six biggest studios, Paramount ranked last in North American market share for the last three years running, according to Rentrak, which compiles box office data. The studio, run by Brad Grey, is now trying to increase production to 15 films annually (up from about a dozen) and start a television production business. But analysts are not particularly optimistic. On a conference call with clients in August, the media analyst Michael Nathanson noted that Paramount has operating margins of “less than 3 percent.” He added, “I don’t understand how that’s possible, and I don’t understand why Viacom continues to own that company and the management of Paramount has a job.”

Viacom
Movies
TV
Ratings
Comedy Central
Nickelodeon
Paramount Pictures
Philippe P Dauman
Sumner M Redstone


A Meticulous Workhorse, Jets’ Richardson Never Loses His Smile

Abstract: Someone once told Tony Richardson that each N.F.L. collision equated to running full speed into a garage door. Now in his 15th year in the league, on the cusp of playing in his 200th regular-season game, Richardson conservatively estimates that he has absorbed 5,000 collisions. And unlike garage doors, opposing linebackers hit back. “I don’t know if one day I’ll be 50 and have a tough time getting around,” Richardson, a Jets fullback, said. “But you do think about those things.” Growing up in Germany, Richardson dreamed of becoming an accountant, hitting calculators instead of cornerbacks. Undrafted out of college and released by the Dallas Cowboys after a year on the practice squad, he still hoped to play five seasons. Then one day he woke up and realized he had become the old guy, a veteran who would soon be the same age as his head coach, whose teammates inquired about the days of leather helmets. Richardson turns 37 this week, but his teammate Dustin Keller said he could still pass for 14. In fact, his smile, the one his former teammate Matt Birk listed as Richardson’s chief attribute, reveals the improbability of his career. Despite learning soccer before football, despite playing a position populated by men with thick necks who go weeks without bathing, after Sunday’s game against Buffalo, Richardson will have played in more games than all but six N.F.L. running backs. Always with that smile. “How many years has Tony been playing?” Jets Coach Eric Mangini said. “Pro football, college football, high school football, pee-wee football — it’s like a million games when you add it all up.” Richardson was 8 when his father, Ben, transferred from Germany to Kentucky to be an Army drill sergeant. Richardson and his siblings served as little soldiers. He used to hate the weekends spent raking leaves and painting bedrooms. Once, his father made him wash the car seven times until not a speck of dirt remained. Ben Richardson had one motto: do it right the first time. Discipline became a way of life. At his houses in Kansas and Minnesota, the closets are color-coordinated, the shirts pointed the same direction, the furniture and the fabrics all selected by Richardson and arranged just so. Birk said Richardson dressed like a senator on the road. Tony Gonzalez, a Kansas City teammate, said Richardson had an extreme personality, culled from his upbringing and evidenced on the field when he once broke a teammate’s nose — in warm-ups. “He’s the type of person who alphabetizes his CD collection,” Gonzalez said. “He gets facials and manicures. He’s that meticulous. He’s really like a general.” Early in his career, the general needed guidance. He found it in the office of Lamonte Winston, the Chiefs’ player development director. Winston felt Richardson spent too much time partying and not enough thinking about his future. So Winston asked: “When you’re no longer Tony Richardson, No. 49, who are you going to be? When are you going to grow up?” Richardson said, “From that day on, I started getting serious.” Gonzalez described the change in Richardson as instant, a U-turn without slowing down. Richardson finished his undergraduate degree at Auburn, earned an M.B.A. in finance and studied through the N.F.L.’s entrepreneurship program at Harvard, Stanford and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “I think he’s got like 78 degrees,” Keller said. Richardson also majored in football recovery. Running back Emmitt Smith served as his first mentor. He taught Richardson the benefit of building a team of massage therapists and nutritionists, even acupuncturists, responsible for his body. At times, doctors would tell Richardson he would miss weeks. By Thursday, he would be back at practice. He reserves his most difficult workouts for early in the week — conditioning on Monday for the soreness, heavy lifting on Tuesday, his only “day off.” Last week, Keller and Richardson finished their workout by squatting 405 pounds. “He is as razor sharp as a Marine sword and as polished as one too,” Winston said. From that discipline and routine, Richardson constructed an unlikely career in which he made three Pro Bowls and paved the way for five running backs to record seven 1,000-yard seasons. The latest addition to that club, Thomas Jones, called Richardson “the best fullback in the league, hands down.” Dick Vermeil, his coach in Kansas City, said Richardson carved holes from anticipation, from knowing not only where defenders were going, but also the precise moment they would arrive. He crunched linebackers instead of numbers, yet still found what he had sought in accounting: a definitive answer for each assignment. Adrian Peterson, a running back Richardson blocked for on the Vikings last season, says sometimes he catches a Jets game on TV, turns to teammates and says, “You miss that, huh?” Richardson always gave Peterson the same advice: it’s all about longevity. Still, Richardson never felt secure in the N.F.L. He was the first running back since Bo Jackson to start at Auburn as a freshman, but he was not drafted. Ben Richardson wishes his son would retire. He worries about the toll of injuries. On the day Richardson helped Marcus Allen break the N.F.L. record for rushing touchdowns, he broke his wrist so badly that when trainers removed the tape, it hung limp. He also had surgery for a torn rotator cuff. But after almost 15 years at a position that ranks among the most brutal on the football field, Richardson has remained relatively healthy. “That says something about his longevity, his toughness,” said Carl Peterson, the Chiefs’ president. “Without question, he’s one of the hardest-working, most conscientious players I’ve ever been around.” The Jets recently nominated Richardson for the league’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award. Teammates speak of his community involvement in reverential tones. They point to his more than 1,000 appearances, to the child with leukemia he befriended who was buried in his jersey, to the man who stopped Richardson in the grocery store and tearfully told him that his daughter slept with the dictionary she had received from one of Richardson’s projects. “I just wanted to adopt him,” Vermeil said. “In my coaching career, he’s one of the most special human beings I ever met.” In an interview conducted over spaghetti with seafood at a Manhattan restaurant, Richardson said he wanted to play at least one more season with the Jets. Options for after football include coaching, broadcasting, front-office work or a position with the players union, for which he serves on the executive committee. Carl Peterson said that as long as he worked in football, he would have a job for Richardson. Winston suggested he go into politics. Gonzalez, who noted that Richardson presided over his commitment ceremony with his girlfriend, said Richardson could run his own church. Ben Richardson voted for Christian radio. Birk said Richardson should run for president. “Anything Tony ever set his mind to, he was successful at,” said Ben Richardson, a retired sergeant major. Regardless of the choice, Richardson’s legacy will be built on 15 years of stories. Everyone has a favorite. For Carl Peterson, it involves the funeral for Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas. After Richardson spoke to a crowd of thousands, he reached behind his back and pulled out an Alabama hat and placed it on his head. As an Auburn man, Richardson said, he would not don the hat of a bitter rival for anyone but Thomas. “That’s Tony Richardson,” Winston said. “That’s why he’ll be my favorite guy until the day I die. I’d do anything in the world for him. He helped me become a better man. I didn’t realize it until he grew up and became T-Rich.” At his house in Kansas City, Richardson keeps a set of trading cards from his rookie season. Each year, he removes the players from the 1994 draft class who retire. Now, from a stack of hundreds, fewer than 10 remain. “The last of the Mohicans,” Richardson said. “You think first-rounders are going to last forever. You think you’re a free agent, you might not be here long.” Yet here he is, a baby-faced bachelor about to play his 200th regular-season game. Always with that smile.

New York Jets
Football
Richardson Tony (1971- )


German Leader Injured in Skiing Accident

Abstract: BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel has canceled most of her meetings for the next three weeks after doctors ordered her to rest in bed following a fall while cross-country skiing in Switzerland over the Christmas holiday, her spokesman said Monday. Ms. Merkel had traveled to the Engadin Valley, where she regularly spends winter vacation with her family. She originally believed she had only been badly bruised after falling, but a doctor told her on Friday that she had probably suffered a pelvic fracture, Ms. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters. “She fell while cross-country skiing,” Mr. Seibert said. “We do not believe she was going very fast.” Mr. Seibert said that all of the chancellor’s scheduled travel plans had been canceled, along with several meetings in Berlin. She will continue to work from home, although she plans to lead in person the first meeting of her Cabinet when it convenes on Wednesday. “She is of course at work, and every day,” Mr. Seibert added. The chancellor had planned to travel to Warsaw on Wednesday for talks with Polish leaders, and to meet Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s new prime minister, in Berlin on Thursday. Ms. Merkel, 59, was sworn into her third term in office on Dec. 17.

Angela Merkel
Cross-country skiing
Falling
Germany
Switzerland


Where Malcolm X Died, a Drama About Race

Abstract: FIVE years ago, Ty Jones was working on his play, “Emancipation,” about the Nat Turner slave rebellion, when he passed through Southampton County, Va., the site of the 1831 uprising that left hundreds dead in its aftermath. It was an unsettling experience, he said last week; bloody history seemed to echo through the land and the trees. Now, Mr. Jones is in the midst of his final rehearsals for the play’s latest staging, and he is having that feeling again. Mr. Jones has performed in theaters around the city and the country, but his latest site is different: It is the Audubon Ballroom, where, 43 years ago, Malcolm X was assassinated in front of hundreds of people. “Emancipation” is the first play to be put on there since, and as Mr. Jones stalks the temporary stage that has been erected in the middle of the room, he is just yards from the spot where Malcolm X died. “Here there’s something far more visceral — alive,” he said between rehearsals on Wednesday. “There’s something, and I’m O.K. with not being able to explain what it is.”  The building, and its resonances, were almost lost in the years following Malcolm X’s death. An ornate structure on Broadway and 165th Street that opened in 1912, it held a grand theater where Mae West, Desi Arnaz, Henny Youngman and the Three Stooges performed. The ballroom, on the second floor, was the site of various civic meetings and was where Malcolm X was scheduled to speak. After he was shot, said Zead Ramadan, who grew up in the neighborhood, a pall seemed to fall over the building. “It just stood idle, boarded up, for maybe two decades, two and a half decades, and it was just an eyesore,” Mr. Ramadan said. “No one would walk along that block at all.” In the 1980s, Columbia University bought the building and sought to demolish it to build a research facility. After years of protests against the plan, the university and its opponents reached a compromise in which the theater’s facade and part of the ballroom were preserved. The ballroom space, which was taken over by the city, is now home to the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center, of which Mr. Ramadan is the chairman. Mr. Ramadan knew Mr. Jones from around the neighborhood and had once seen a reading from “Emancipation.” Then, one day last year, Mr. Jones was sitting in the X Caffé, Mr. Ramadan’s coffee shop downstairs from the ballroom, when he mentioned that he had lost his site for the play and was seeking a new one. Mr. Ramadan said he knew just the place. The play is scheduled to open on Thursday, produced by the Classical Theater of Harlem.  Mr. Jones said the ballroom, technologically speaking, has its limitations: It is a large open room, with no stage, and it lacks the electrical power for extravagant lighting. Moreover, Mr. Ramadan said, there are factors that limit the events the center will allow there: In accordance with Malcolm X’s Muslim faith, no liquor is served and events sponsored by alcohol or tobacco companies are not accepted. But for “Emancipation,” the space seems a perfect match. In his speeches, Malcolm X sometimes invoked Nat Turner, an educated slave and preacher whose rebellion killed more than 50 white men, women and children before he was captured and put to death. The play does not try to sort out Turner’s complicated legacy, Mr. Jones said, but to present the man in all his aspects. Working in the Shabazz Center, he said, has made him think about Malcolm X’s legacy as well. Both men, in varying degrees, employed confrontation in pursuit of racial equality. Both died violent deaths. “Violence, truthfully, begets violence,” Mr. Jones said, sitting in a chair on the stage. “But no one, absolutely no one, should be surprised that when people have nothing to lose, they strike back.” The audience will sit in the areas surrounding the stage, where they will come face to face with the play’s actors and, Mr. Jones hopes, leave with something to talk about. “Hopefully,” he said, laughing, “people don’t walk away with how beautiful the music was.”

Malcolm X
Harlem (NYC)
Theater
Audubon Ballroom


A Splash of Cash Through Revolving Doors

Abstract: LONDON — Not only is England’s currency outside the euro, but its Premier League spending is outside the norms of contemporary fiscal restraints. By the Friday night closing time for summer soccer transfers, England’s clubs had spent £110 million — nearly $175 million — in a single day. The clubs’ summer dash to spend cash totaled almost half a billion pounds, the bulk of it to overseas teams in fees to exchange players. Wages are extra — millions upon millions extra. If we were to take just one game to illustrate this frenzied trading of human flesh, it would be the encounter Saturday between Manchester City and Queens Park Rangers. City, the champion of England owned by the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, had signed four new players in the final 24 hours of the transfer window. It had no time to suit up Javi García, the new midfielder from Benfica, or Scott Sinclair, the winger from Swansea, or Maicon, the renowned Brazilian right back from Inter Milan. They waved, and then watched with the crowd as City beat the Rangers, 3-1, thanks to goals from Yaya Touré, Edin Dzeko and the irrepressible Carlos Tévez. The contest was closer than it looked. Q.P.R., a bunch of strangers who might almost have been introducing themselves to one another during the game, had gone in for a complete makeover during the summer. Twelve new men had arrived from different leagues, and about the same number were shown the door as the club’s Malaysian and Indian owners backed the head coach, Mark Hughes, to completely recast a squad that escaped relegation on the final day of last season. That day in May was climactic for both clubs. Q.P.R., under Hughes, who had previously been fired by Manchester City, led until injury time turned the game around. City won, 3-2, and won its first English championship in 44 years. Q.P.R. survived in the division only because others failed to win on the day. So Hughes and his club chairman, the Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, embarked on a complete clearing out and rebuilding job. One aspect that has not changed is City’s overwhelming superiority to the Rangers. City’s dominance of the field Saturday was just as obvious as it was back in May, even if it did take an age to convert that advantage into goals. Finally, they came from the midfield colossus Touré, the infrequently used Bosnian, Dzeko, and the once estranged Tévez. This time last year, Tévez had said he did not want to continue with City. He was homesick for Argentina and for his family. Manchester signed his replacement, Sergio Agüero, and tried but failed to find a buyer for Tévez. His transfer fee and his salary, not to mention his rebellious streak, proved unaffordable to others. Eventually, Tévez came back from the golf course to be forgiven by City’s coach, Roberto Mancini. And it was Tévez, whose effort when he is on the field is exceptional, who teased out the goals toward the end of last season and the beginning of this. It was a combination of Tévez and Dzeko that effectively won the game Saturday after the Rangers drew level at one goal apiece. First the little Argentine dodged the tackles and used his left foot like a golfing iron to chip the ball onto the head of Dzeko, who scored from point-blank range. Then it was Dzeko firing in a low shot that deflected off the shin of Tévez for the third goal. In all the comings and goings, it is remarkable that they know one another’s games so well. Tévez was absent through half of last season, and Dzeko, despite City’s paying £27 million to Wolfsburg for him, has to beg for a game. Dzeko started on Saturday for the first time since last March, principally because Agüero is injured and Mario Balotelli is about to undergo laser surgery to correct short-sightedness. And Dzeko’s name was talked about in a possible transfer to Juventus, and then right up to the cutoff hour on Friday as a possible make-weight if City mounted a bid for the Arsenal winger Theo Walcott. Neither deal happened. Dzeko is still a City player, although only on an occasional basis. The side he played against this weekend included seven summer transfer players — including Park Ji-sung, José Bosingwa and a deadline deal player, Esteban Granero, from Real Madrid. Other new Rangers, among them Julio César, the Brazilian goalie from Inter Milan, were still in transit, signed too late to be on speaking terms, never mind to have trained, with the squad. But, right in the middle of the Q.P.R. defense and making his debut for a third new Premier league side in 2012, was perhaps the most cost effective player on the field at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium. Ryan Nelsen cost nothing when he moved last February from Blackburn Rovers to Tottenham Hotspur, and he was again a free agent when he joined up with Q.P.R. in June. Nelsen is a journeyman — honest, dependable, never giving less than 100 percent. His soccer journey is unique. From his New Zealand home in Christchurch he went to play at Greensboro College in North Carolina before transferring for the final two years of his college career to Stanford University. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science and a grounding in Major League Soccer with D.C. United in Washington before joining Blackburn seven years ago. His team manager then, and now, is Mark Hughes. For all the millions Hughes has spent for Manchester City and Q.P.R., he never forgets that his team needs a rock to depend upon. Nelsen, who has led his country to an Olympic Games in Beijing and a World Cup in South Africa, is nearing his 35th birthday, but is still up for the contest. On Saturday, he put in tackle after tackle on multimillion-pound strikers. Nelsen also got upfield to miss two golden scoring opportunities. Goals, however, cost the earth. Trying to prevent them is the true worth of a well-traveled, free-transfer Kiwi.

English Premier League
Manchester City (Soccer Team)


Verizon Settles With F.C.C. Over Hidden Tracking via ‘Supercookies’

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission said Monday that it had reached a settlement with Verizon Wireless for its use of hidden tracking technology known as “supercookies,” which were used for targeted advertising without customers’ permission. As part of the settlement, Verizon Wireless was fined $1.35 million and is required to notify consumers of its data collection program, as well as get permission from users before sharing consumer data with third-party partners. The penalty was small, but the enforcement action drew wide attention from the telecom industry as a glimpse of the F.C.C.’s expanding ambitions into privacy regulation. The agency is expected to soon consider first-time privacy rules for Internet service providers that could include mandates that wireless and fixed broadband providers get permission from users before tracking their behavior online. As early as this week, the F.C.C. chairman, Tom Wheeler, may circulate a proposal on privacy for the five-member agency to vote on at the end of the month. “The Verizon supercookies issue has been one of the big poster children for why you need to worry about ISPs tracking their customers and why you need rules for ISPs,” said Harold Feld, a legal analyst at the nonprofit media advocacy group Public Knowledge, referring to Internet service providers. In its 15-month investigation of Verizon Wireless, the F.C.C. said it found that even among customers who had tried to delete regular cookies from their mobile browsers, the supercookies, or hidden code unique to each customer , were undeletable and used as a workaround to continue data collection. From 2012 to late 2014, Verizon Wireless used supercookies that could follow a mobile subscriber’s browsing history, the F.C.C. said, and Verizon Wireless and third-party companies used that data to target ads to users. “Consumers care about privacy and should have a say in how their personal information is used, especially when it comes to who knows what they’re doing online,” Travis LeBlanc, F.C.C. enforcement bureau chief, said. After the F.C.C. began its investigation, Verizon Wireless said, it began to disclose to customers its use of supercookies and provided the ability to opt out of data collection. “Over the past year, we have made several changes to our advertising programs that have provided consumers with even more options,” Richard Young, a Verizon spokesman, said. “Today’s settlement with the F.C.C. recognizes that.” The requirement of opt-in consent for data sharing with third-party companies gives mobile users a little more control over the consumer tracking of online ad networks and data analytics firms. It also shows a greater interest by the F.C.C. to oversee consumer privacy. Jonathan Mayer, a privacy scholar at Stanford Law School, revealed on his blog last year that Turn, an advertising software company, was using Verizon’s supercookies to regenerate its own tracking tags after consumers had chosen to delete cookies. In November, Mr. Mayer was hired by the F.C.C.

Data Mining,Big Data
Wireless
Verizon Communications
FCC
advertising,marketing
Party