Zenefits, a Rocket That Fell to Earth, Tries to Launch Again

Abstract: Trying to turn around a failing technology company is almost always a futile task — just ask Marissa Mayer at Yahoo or whoever it is who now runs BlackBerry. But the challenge becomes even more daunting if your company is afflicted by something deeper than a mere implosion of its business. If the company you’re rebuilding has been racked by questions about its ethics and culture, and if on some fundamental level it became derelict in its integrity, well, good luck trying to get that turkey to fly. That’s the situation David Sacks faced in February when he was elevated to chief executive of Zenefits, a once-admired business software start-up and “ unicorn ” that spectacularly lost its way. Among other problems, Zenefits, which makes human resources software for small companies, said it had discovered that one of its founders and a former chief executive, Parker Conrad, created a program to allow sales representatives to skirt requirements on a state insurance licensing course. Zenefits’s operations are heavily regulated, so the software cheat could have been a company-ending event. Mr. Sacks has since pushed a series of reforms that have essentially remade Zenefits. In the last few weeks, billboards across Silicon Valley have posed a cryptic question: “What is Z2?” The answer, as the San Francisco company will reveal at an event next week, is a redesign of Zenefits’s software and the introduction of several new features that Mr. Sacks says will collectively signal a rebirth of its corporate image. “This will be the month where we close the chapter on all that stuff, we move past it and we launch the future of the company,” Mr. Sacks said. Yet Mr. Sacks’s efforts to resurrect Zenefits highlight the difficulty of conjuring up second chances in tech. By all accounts, the new chief executive has mounted an unconventionally aggressive plan to tackle Zenefits’s challenges. But even doing everything right may not be enough. In the months that Zenefits has been rebuilding itself, a spate of competitors have set their sights on its business. One of them, a well-financed start-up called Gusto, has put ethics and culture at the core of its appeal, and it has been scooping up disaffected Zenefits customers. Image David Sacks, the chief executive of Zenefits, has pushed a series of reforms that have essentially remade Zenefits. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times “To borrow a quote from a different context, ‘When someone goes low, we go high,’” Joshua Reeves, one of Gusto’s founders and its chief executive, told me. “It’s about trust. And when you endanger that trust, it’s hard to rebuild it.” Now the two companies are racing to lead a multibillion market. In a recent interview that spanned several hours, Mr. Sacks explained in exacting detail everything he has done to fix Zenefits, and argued that the company still has the inside track on what could be the next great software bonanza. It sounded convincing — but many of his points are echoed by Mr. Reeves of Gusto. Gusto’s and Zenefits’s business may sound boring: Both are trying to become the primary human resources dashboard for small businesses, companies that hire a few to a couple of hundred workers. For years, small companies have been neglected by traditional software providers for a simple reason: They don’t have a lot of money to spend on software. The internet has altered that calculus. Zenefits and Gusto, which charge subscriptions for some of their services, are relying on the vast scale and technical efficiencies enabled by the online cloud to make serving tiny companies feasible. Their success could alter the way millions of American businesses manage, pay and provide benefits to tens of millions of workers. Both are finding takers. Gusto, founded in 2011 as ZenPayroll (people in this business apparently love the Zen mind-set), has attracted 40,000 paying customers. In a funding round last year, investors valued the company at $1 billion. Zenefits started a couple of years later, but it grew faster and was once considered one of the fastest-growing business software companies of all time . In 2015, two years after its founding, investors valued Zenefits at $4 billion, and it had ambitions to hit $100 million in annually recurring sales. But the wheels were coming off the wagon. Zenefits under Mr. Conrad was consumed by an insatiable mania to grow at any cost . A year ago, BuzzFeed reported that Zenefits had allowed unlicensed brokers to sell health insurance to customers. The article kicked off an internal investigation that led to the discovery of the cheating software. Mr. Sacks, an experienced start-up entrepreneur who had joined Zenefits as chief operating officer in late 2014, said he learned about the cheat from the company’s outside counsel in January; he elevated the issue to the board of directors, which pushed Mr. Conrad to resign. (Mr. Conrad, who is now working on a new human resources start-up , did not respond to requests for comment.) Faced with investigations by regulators and outrage from investors and customers, another chief executive might have sought to minimize the fallout from Zenefits’s problems. But Mr. Sacks pushed an unusual counterstrategy for rehabilitation, one he sums up with a simple mantra: “Admit, fix, settle and repeat.” “The turnaround strategy of this company has been to reject ‘damage control,’” Mr. Sacks told me. “Doing the right thing has been the crisis management strategy.” (Other tech companies facing a crisis, like Samsung , may want to take note.) Image Joshua Reeves, chief executive of Gusto, a company that has been scooping up unhappy Zenefits customers. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times The process has been marked by radical candor about Zenefits’s problems, and a willingness to make bold moves to fix them. Mr. Sacks immediately removed several executives who had typified Zenefits’s hard-charging ethos, and he changed the company’s philosophy from “Ready, Fire, Aim” to “Operate With Integrity.” He negotiated new agreements with investors who had been agitating to sue, taking a haircut on Zenefits’s valuation — now the company is worth $2 billion . It’s tempting to dismiss Zenefits’s new ethos as mere survival; everyone who gets caught suddenly finds religion, you might say. But Zenefits’s most important constituency, its regulators, appear to believe in its sincerity. In April, Joshua Stein, the company’s chief compliance officer, made an impassioned plea to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, arguing that Zenefits had seen the errors of its ways and deserved a second chance. Mr. Sacks called the speech a turning point for the firm. Eight states have settled with Zenefits so far, and more settlements are on the way. There is an irony to Zenefits’s reformation: In altering the company’s culture, Mr. Sacks has pushed Zenefits to become much more like its biggest rival. Compared to Zenefits’s once-freewheeling, highflying sensibility, Gusto has always operated closer to earth. Where Zenefits pushed for nationwide expansion and invested millions of dollars in a sales staff to encourage rapid growth, Gusto sought to escape what Mr. Reeves calls the “Silicon Valley hype cycle growth curve.” He favored a slower, more deliberate growth plan, encouraging a corporate culture that he said prized long-term sustainability. Though the two companies are just blocks apart from each other in San Francisco, in their early years each one felt like a universe apart. At Zenefits, the sensibility was one of a boiler room — packed to the gills, every employee on the phone, all of them cheering every sales goal. By contrast, Gusto’s office has the air of a meditative retreat. There are plants, couches and people chatting in hushed tones. Shoes are not allowed in the office, to make it feel more like home than work. Mr. Reeves told me that Zenefits’s “implosion” had been a boon to Gusto. “I used to have to spend a lot of time making sure that the team and our investors were not distracted by the attention they were getting,” he said. “So when things came to light, it made it easier — because our internal conversations about their shortcuts were proved true.” Mr. Sacks dismissed the idea that Zenefits had imploded. Most customers have stuck with Zenefits despite its shortcomings, he said, and he predicted that the unveiling of the product next week would win back everyone else and then some. In other words, now that Zenefits’s culture is cleaned up, the company is once again ready to take on the world. He made it sound easy. But turnarounds usually aren’t.

Zenefits
Gusto
David O Sacks
Startup
Small business
Health Insurance


Spain Struggles to Agree on a Path to Recovery

Abstract: MADRID — Caught between a populace resistant to more austerity measures and investors demanding budget cuts and more flexible labor markets, the Spanish government is finding it increasingly difficult to keep a grip on power. Last week, the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero narrowly won approval for an extra 15 billion euros, or $18.4 billion, in spending cuts — in an effort to bring the budget deficit down to 6 percent of the national economic output by 2011, from 11 percent last year. With labor unions and business leaders at loggerheads, Mr. Zapatero is also expected to present a plan for loosening labor rules this week. Three months ago, a package that reduced the pay of civil servants and made it easier to hire and fire workers would have been hailed as transformative, especially in an economy stuck in a recession for two years and nearing 20 percent unemployment. Instead, the proposals are being seen as a desperate bid by an unpopular government to remain in office. On Friday, Spain suffered another downgrade of its debt even as calls were increasing for early elections after the close budget vote. Together, the two events suggest to political leaders throughout Europe that voters and investors are fed up with the lack of resolve and leadership in dealing with the economic situation. “The government made a real mistake in being late in recognizing this crisis and continues to make a mistake in the ‘drip by drip’ measures to solve it,” said Jordi Sevilla, one of Mr. Zapatero’s former ministers. “You can only get credibility by presenting one strong and coherent package.” Coming up with something strong and coherent that would satisfy all the various constituencies is no easy task. And Mr. Zapatero is under pressure from all sides. In light of the international rescue package for Greece, investors want Spain to demonstrate that it can cut its bloated deficit fast enough to avoid emergency aid. Given the size of the Spanish economy, a rescue would be much more costly than the Greek bailout. Yet a debt default or severe restructuring would be even worse, crippling foreign banks whose lending underpinned Spain’s debt splurge. In domestic politics, meanwhile, the center-right Popular Party opposition is smelling blood. The parliamentary review last week of the spending cuts, which Mr. Zapatero won by a single vote, suggests that an even bigger struggle looms in budgetary talks later this year, perhaps even requiring him to call early elections. In fact, most Spaniards now say they would like to cast their vote again, according to an opinion poll conducted by Sigma Dos and published Sunday by the newspaper El Mundo. Mr. Zapatero, whose term in office is due to end in 2012, requires support from smaller parties to pass legislation because his Socialist party does not command a majority in Parliament. Adding to the government’s woes, labor unions, a mainstay of the Socialists, have started to rally against Mr. Zapatero’s plans for change. Civil servants are expected to strike next week over a 5 percent cut in their wages. Unions also warned last week that a general strike would be their response to any “hurtful” labor market changes. Even though early elections are rare in Spain, they are now “absolutely” needed, said José María Aznar, the center-right former prime minister who led Spain into the euro . “The problem is not if we have a government of the right or the left,” Mr. Aznar said. “It’s a question of competence, and at the moment we just don’t have a competent government. Living six more months with this government is taking an enormous risk for this country.” The 19.7 percent jobless rate in Spain is almost twice the euro zone average of 10.1 percent — even as Spanish companies face some of Europe’s highest costs for dismissing workers with open-ended contracts, according to the World Bank. Trying to avoid rigid labor rules, employers have shifted a quarter of the country’s work force to temporary contracts, helping explain the sharp swing in Spain’s employment level. The result has been to pass the pain mostly on to younger workers because older employees are generally well protected. “For 10 years, we were the machine for creating employment in Europe, and now we have turned into the machine for destroying employment,” said Ángel Torres Torres, secretary general for economic policy and international affairs in the Spanish Economics Ministry. Mr. Zapatero has pledged to cut the budget deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2013 — the limit under euro rules — from 11.2 percent in 2009. Spain’s central bank said on Monday the latest austerity measures “strengthened substantially” the likelihood of reaching that goal. But the government also lowered its 2011 growth forecast on Friday to 1.3 percent from 1.8 percent. Moreover, many private economists are skeptical of those projections, which suggest that Spain could fall far short of its deficit-cutting goals. Mr. Zapatero recently warned the rich to expect higher taxes, an indication that his austerity package was not yet complete. In the government’s defense, José Manuel Campa, the deputy finance minister, argued that officials were not dithering, but could only introduce changes as fast as Spain’s divisive political context allowed. “We’re a government that does not have a parliamentary majority, so we need to think about the right timing for every measure,” he said. In neighboring Portugal, the main rival parties recently agreed on an austerity package, but in Spain the Popular Party voted against spending cuts last week, without convincing most analysts that it had anything better to offer. With 25 billion euros in refinancing coming due in July and with Spain’s cost for issuing new debt now elevated by more than a full percentage point, Mr. Campa acknowledged that even the government’s best efforts may not appease impatient investors. “We have to get ahead of the curve for the markets,” he conceded. Part of what worries investors is the tremendous overhang of souring real estate loans — the residue of Spain’s collapsed property boom — that languish on the balance sheets of the country’s banks. José García Montalvo, an economist in Barcelona, estimates that of the 450 billion euros in loans to the property sector, 165 billion euros are problematic and this number is bound to rise if real estate prices keep falling. Mr. Campa cited an International Monetary Fund stress test that concluded Spanish banks would need to raise no more than 25 billion euros against bad loans. Spaniards once thought their country was largely insulated from the debt crises in Ireland and Greece. Their mood has changed from giddy, when their homes tripled in value and they were protected by an elaborate safety net of public aid and family support, to grim. Always a country of savers — in contrast to Portugal and Greece — Spaniards have begun to sock away even more. Household savings have almost doubled in two years to 19 percent, according to data from Spain’s central bank. Now, as they make their own sacrifices, some wonder whether Mr. Zapatero, who has been broadly criticized for not owning up to the seriousness of the crisis, can bring himself and other officials, particularly those in the regional governments, to do the same. “He spends money on everything, from cars for his ministers to recreation facilities for the trade unions,” said Adriano Molina, a retired lawyer in Madrid. “But we can no longer afford all that.”

Spain
Economic Conditions and Trends
Politics and Government
Credit and Debt


Hamza Ali al-Khateeb Becomes a Symbol of Syrian Brutality

Abstract: CAIRO — Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a round-faced 13-year-old boy, was arrested at a protest in Jiza, a southern Syrian village near Dara’a, on April 29. Nothing was known of him for a month before his mutilated corpse was returned to his family on the condition, according to activists, that they never speak of his brutal end. But the remains themselves testify all too clearly to ghastly torture. Video posted online shows his battered, purple face. His skin is scrawled with cuts, gashes, deep burns and bullet wounds that would probably have injured but not killed. His jaw and kneecaps are shattered, according to an unidentified narrator, and his penis chopped off. “These are the reforms of the treacherous Bashar,” the narrator says. “Where are human rights? Where are the international criminal tribunals?” In Syria and beyond, the youth’s battered body has cast into shocking relief the terrors wielded by the Syrian state against its people. Circulating in various versions, the video has injected new life into a six-week uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that has appeared to settle into a bloody stalemate of protests and violent government responses. In the days since news of the death spread, more than 58,000 people have visited and expressed support for a Facebook page memorializing the boy, Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, as a “child martyr.” Demonstrators in several Syrian cities protested the boy’s death last weekend, weaving chants and banners dedicated to him into the mix of antigovernment slogans that have become staples of the uprisings shaking the Arab world. In a revolutionary season that has seen countless “Fridays of Rage” in half a dozen countries, Syrian activists marched on a day that some dubbed “the Saturday of Hamza.” “People are very upset about the death of the young boy Hamza,” said one man active in protests in Homs, who asked not to be named for fear of the security forces. “He was just a child. It is a crime, a serious crime.” In the Damascus suburb of Douma, protesters marched through the night chanting “Leave! Leave!” to Mr. Assad while holding signs declaring, “We are all Hamza al-Khateeb,” according to a video posted on YouTube. Video from another suburb, Dereya, showed women and children demonstrating, with a chorus of young voices shouting, “The people want the overthrow of the regime.” They held aloft signs that read, “Did Hamza scare you that much?” “Hamza has become a symbol of the Syrian revolution,” said Radwan Ziadeh, an exiled Syrian human rights activist and a visiting scholar at George Washington University. His death, he said, “is a sign of the sadism of the Assad regime and its security forces.” The video pans slowly over the boy’s swollen and disfigured corpse as it lies on a plastic sheet. The narrator’s somber voice intones in formal Arabic that he is “the latest martyr of freedom” and recounts his wounds one by one. Mr. Ziadeh said he had been in touch with the boy’s family. He said they stopped speaking to journalists after their part in producing the video, an act of defiance that may have cost them dearly. Hamza’s father was detained after the release of the video, Mr. Ziadeh said. The full impact of the death is difficult to assess; foreign journalists have been barred from entering Syria since the unrest began in mid-March, and many Syrians live in deep fear of the security apparatus. But many of the recent uprisings across the region have drawn energy and moral power from the violent deaths of young people at the hands of the state. Revolution spread across Tunisia after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old fruit vendor humiliated by police officers who confiscated his cart. In Egypt, the death last summer of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man dragged out of an Internet cafe and killed by plainclothes police a block from his home, was a rallying cry for the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square. The Syrian uprising was incited by the arrest in early March of a group of children, aged 8 to 15, caught spraying antigovernment graffiti on the wall of their schoolhouse in the southern town of Dara’a, Mr. Ziadeh said.

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


F.D.I.C. Rebuts Charges Made in a Video About IndyMac

Abstract: WASHINGTON — All week long, officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation watched with growing dismay as a YouTube video ricocheted around the Internet. In 4 minutes 26 seconds, the clip asserted that the agency’s sale last year of the assets of the failed bank IndyMac to a group of private investors was a sweetheart deal. Finally, F.D.I.C. officials decided they had had enough. “It is unfortunate but necessary to respond to blatantly false claims in a Web video that is being circulated” about the creation of OneWest Bank out of the assets of IndyMac, the agency’s chief spokesman, Andrew Gray, said in a written statement late Friday. In the statement , he went on to say that the video “has no credibility” and was replete with “falsehoods.” Mr. Gray expressed particular alarm about the video’s claim that “the F.D.I.C. just announced it needs to start borrowing money from the Treasury.” Nonsense, Mr. Gray retorted: “We continue to be funded by the banking industry through assessments, not by taxpayers as claimed in the video.” The F.D.I.C. has not borrowed from the Treasury since 1992, but officials have said it might have to do so, as a last resort, because bank failures have caused losses to its insurance fund. The unusual statement by the F.D.I.C. was not only an effort at rumor control and a nod to the power of online media but also a defense of the agency at a time when Congress is contemplating a broad overhaul of financial regulations . It was also the latest episode in the tangled afterlife of IndyMac Bancorp, which the government seized after a run on the bank in July 2008, in one of the largest bank failures ever. IndyMac, based in Pasadena, Calif., specialized in so-called alt-A mortgages, which allowed borrowers with good credit to take out loans without having to fully document their income and assets. The loans were rated a rung above subprime mortgages. Last March, the F.D.I.C. sold IndyMac’s assets for $13.9 billion to a consortium of investors led by Steven T. Mnuchin. Other members of the OneWest consortium included firms run or founded by the financiers J. Christopher Flowers, Stephen Friedman, Robert L. Leeds and John A. Paulson. Those men are alumni of Goldman Sachs — a fact emphasized by the video, which insinuates that favoritism played a role in the F.D.I.C.’s choice of buyers. “Whoever said it’s good to have friends in high places wasn’t kidding around,” the video states. The F.D.I.C. says that OneWest was selected over rival bidders through a competitive process. The video was produced by Think Big Work Small of Fairfield, Calif., a provider of online video marketing services for mortgage loan officers and real estate agents. The president of the company, Bill Hillestad, said it made the video because “a housing recovery is impossible as long as there are these artificial forces dragging down home prices.” He said the F.D.I.C.’s statement did nothing to reassure him. “They’ve created a huge, sweetheart deal for OneWest — in which OneWest has every incentive to go out and sell homes way below market value,” he said. The video’s criticism centers on the F.D.I.C.’s agreement to share in future losses OneWest might experience as a result of defaults among the loans it bought. The F.D.I.C. began using so-called loss-sharing in 1991, as part of its response to the savings-and-loan crisis. Officials say the program makes it easier to sell troubled assets without having to offer enormous liquidity and risk discounts. Loss-sharing also prevents the F.D.I.C. from having to hire staff to manage the loans of failed banks, said Andrew C. Hove Jr., who was deputy chairman of the agency from 1990 to 2001. “When it all washes out, the cost to the F.D.I.C., and consequently to the banks that pay the premiums, is less than if the F.D.I.C. took the loans and worked the loans themselves,” he said. Even so, the video suggests that loss-sharing could put taxpayers on the hook for future losses — a claim the F.D.I.C. hotly disputes. “Here are the facts: OneWest has not been paid one penny by the F.D.I.C. in loss-share claims,” Mr. Gray said in his statement. “The loss-share agreement is limited to 7 percent of the total assets that OneWest services, and OneWest must first take more than $2.5 billion in losses before it can make a loss-share claim on owned assets.” Under the terms of the sale, OneWest must negotiate loan modifications with homeowners if the recovery on the loan is determined to be higher than the recovery from a short sale or foreclosure. And loss-share coverage “cannot be factored” into that determination, the F.D.I.C. said. But OneWest has, in fact, been accused in some cases of doing all it can to avoid modifications, which involve reducing the interest rate, extending the loan term or forgiving part of the principal amount owed. A judge in Riverhead, N.Y., went so far as to cancel a Long Island couple’s loan obligation in November, saying OneWest, which was the loan servicer, had failed to cooperate in efforts to avoid foreclosure and calling the bank’s actions “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive.” The video picks up this theme, stating, “The next time you ask yourself why is it so hard to get a loan modification, the answer is because there’s too much money to be made with short sales and foreclosures.” The F.D.I.C. has been sensitive to such criticism. Last September, the agency’s chairwoman, Sheila C. Bair, urged its loss-share partners to “consider” temporary forbearance plans for loans in which the primary cause for default was unemployment, or underemployment, on the part of the homeowner. OneWest announced in late December that it would suspend foreclosure and eviction proceedings over the holidays, and create a $10 million charity to support community development. The bank declined to comment for this article. An updated version of the video was available late Sunday after the original clip was removed from YouTube earlier. Whatever the accuracy of the video’s claims, its effect has been felt. “A friend who had seen it sent it to me and wanted my reaction to it,” said Mr. Hove, the former deputy chairman, who is now retired in Lincoln, Neb. “They really have a lot of inaccuracies in this video.”

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp
IndyMac Bancorp
YouTube.com
Banks and Banking
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Evidence Grows of Problem of Clergy Burnout

Abstract: The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could. Public health experts who have led the studies caution that there is no simple explanation of why so many members of a profession once associated with rosy-cheeked longevity have become so unhealthy and unhappy. But while research continues, a growing number of health care experts and religious leaders have settled on one simple remedy that has long been a touchy subject with many clerics: taking more time off. “We had a pastor in our study group who hadn’t taken a vacation in 18 years,” said Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell, an assistant professor of health research at Duke University who directs one of the studies. “These people tend to be driven by a sense of a duty to God to answer every call for help from anybody, and they are virtually called upon all the time, 24/7.” As cellphones and social media expose the clergy to new dimensions of stress, and as health care costs soar, some of the country’s largest religious denominations have begun wellness campaigns that preach the virtues of getting away. It has been described by some health experts as a sort of slow-food movement for the clerical soul. In the United Methodist Church in recent months, some church administrators have been contacting ministers known to skip vacation to make sure they have scheduled their time, Ms. Proeschold-Bell said. The church, the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, led the way with a 2006 directive that strongly urged ministers to take all the vacation they were entitled to — a practice then almost unheard of in some busy congregations. “Time away can bring renewal,” the directive said, “and help prevent burnout.” The Episcopal, Baptist and Lutheran churches have all undertaken health initiatives that place special emphasis on the need for pastors to take vacations and observe “Sabbath days,” their weekday time off in place of Sundays. The Lilly Endowment, a philanthropic foundation based in Indiana, has awarded grants of up to $45,000 each to hundreds of Christian congregations in the past few years, under a project called the National Clergy Renewal Program , for the purpose of giving pastors extended sabbaticals. And while recent research has focused largely on mainline Protestant churches, some Jewish leaders have begun to encourage rabbis to take sabbaticals. “We now recommend three or four months every three or four years,” said Rabbi Joel Meyers, a past executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis. “There is a deep concern about stress. Rabbis today are expected to be the C.E.O. of the congregation and the spiritual guide, and never be out of town if somebody dies. And reply instantly to every e-mail.” Some nondenominational evangelical Christian ministers have embraced a similar approach, outlined in two best-selling books by the Rev. Peter Scazzero, pastor of the New Life Fellowship Church in Elmhurst, Queens. Mr. Scazzero, 54, is the unofficial leader of a growing counterculture among independent pastors who reject the constant-growth ethic that has contributed to the explosion of so-called mega-churches. In the books, “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” and “The Emotionally Healthy Church,” he advocates more vacation time for members of the clergy, Sabbath-keeping, and a “rhythm of stopping,” or daily praying, that he learned from the silent order of Trappist monks. Mr. Scazzero said that depression and alienation from his wife and four children prompted him a half-dozen years ago to try living more consciously and less compulsively. “It’s hard to lead a contemplative life on Queens Boulevard,” Mr. Scazzero said. “But the insight I gained from the Trappists is that being too ‘busy’ is an impediment to one’s relationship with God.” Clergy health studies say that many clerics have “boundary issues” — defined as being too easily overtaken by the urgency of other people’s needs. Dr. Gwen Wagstrom Halaas, a family physician who is married to a Lutheran minister and who wrote a 2004 book raising the alarm about clergy health (“The Right Road: Life Choices for Clergy”), described the problem as a misperception about serving God. “They think that taking care of themselves is selfish, and that serving God means never saying no,” she said. Larger social trends, like the aging and shrinking of congregations, the dwindling availability of volunteers in the era of two-income households, and the likelihood that a male pastor’s wife has a career of her own, also spur some ministers to push themselves past their limits, she said. The High Mountain Church of the Nazarene in North Haledon, N.J., started with 25 members 10 years ago and grew to 115 before its pastor, the Rev. Steven Creange, noticed strains in his marriage and decided to slow down. Mr. Creange said he and his wife feel lavishly rested — and much happier — since they began observing Sabbath days on Fridays and making occasional weekend getaways. “I just don’t go to every graduation and every communion anymore,” he said. “And people accept it.” In May, the Clergy Health Initiative , a seven-year study that Duke University began in 2007, published the first results of a continuing survey of 1,726 Methodist ministers in North Carolina. Compared with neighbors in their census tracts, the ministers reported significantly higher rates of arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. Obesity was 10 percent more prevalent in the clergy group. The results echoed recent internal surveys by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which found that 69 percent of its ministers reported being overweight, 64 percent having high blood pressure and 13 percent taking antidepressants. A 2005 survey of clergy by the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church also took special note of a quadrupling in the number of people leaving the profession during the first five years of ministry, compared with the 1970s. Roman Catholic and Muslim clerics said the symptoms sounded familiar. “We have all of these problems, but imams are reluctant to express it because it will seem like a sign of weakness,” said Imam Shamsi Ali, director of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens . “Also, mosques do not pay much and many of them work two jobs.” Catholic canon law requires priests — “unless there is a grave reason to the contrary” — to take a spiritual retreat each year, and four weeks of vacation. That vacation regulation has led Msgr. Gus Bennett of Brooklyn to take a camping trip on horseback in the Wyoming wilderness with friends every year for 30 years. Monsignor Bennett, 87, a canon lawyer, now semi-retired, who spent most of his working years setting up and managing the pension plan for priests and lay employees of the Diocese of Brooklyn, says he has always felt his religious side to be most alive during those nights in Wyoming, “sleeping on the ground, under the whole of creation.” He does not know how it affected his health. “I just know it made it easier to come back and jump into the books,” he said.

Clergy
Stress (Human)
Rabbis
Priests
Ministers (Protestant)
Careers and Professions


Donnie Andrews, Basis for Omar of ‘The Wire,’ Dies at 58

Abstract: Donnie Andrews, a reformed stickup man whose story inspired the character Omar Little on the acclaimed HBO drama “ The Wire ,” died late Thursday or early Friday in Manhattan. He was 58. He died of complications during emergency heart surgery, said Michael Millemann, one of his lawyers. He lived in Baltimore County, Md. Mr. Andrews was known for drug dealing and audacious robberies in West Baltimore in the 1970s and early ’80s. In September 1986, he agreed to kill a drug dealer for a rival to support his heroin habit. It was his first murder. “My gun jammed,” Mr. Andrews told The New York Times in 2007 . “So the guy was lying on the ground, and it gave him a chance to look me in the eye, and he said, ‘Why?’ ” Mr. Andrews killed the man but was haunted by his question. Months later, he turned himself in to Edward Burns, a Baltimore homicide detective. In 1987, he was sentenced to life in prison. But Mr. Andrews’s story was far from over. He kept in touch with Detective Burns, and through him met David Simon, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon went on to write the book “ The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood ,” an intimate account of a city devastated by drugs and violence. It was adapted for an Emmy-winning HBO mini-series that paved the way for “The Wire,” which sprawled from the grimy streets to the halls of government in Baltimore. Drawn from Mr. Andrews’s life, the character Omar Little was a thief who terrorized drug dealers. Mr. Andrews also wrote for the show and appeared as one of Omar’s allies. Omar died without remorse, but Mr. Andrews sought redemption. He helped the government bring down a drug gang, provided information for murder investigations and counseled drug addicts in prison. He also helped addicts on the outside. One, introduced to him by Mr. Simon, was a troubled woman named Fran Boyd who became a focus of “The Corner.” Mr. Andrews called Ms. Boyd daily, and she took the calls regardless of her circumstances. “She’s smart, and I knew she could get herself straight,” Mr. Andrews said in 2007. “So I kept pushing, and then I got hooked on her.” Mr. Andrews left prison in 2005 after Ms. Boyd, Mr. Simon, Mr. Burns and even Charles P. Scheeler, the federal prosecutor in his case, lobbied for his release. Mr. Andrews and Ms. Boyd married on Aug. 11, 2007 . Larry Donnell Andrews was born in Baltimore on April 29, 1954. He earned his high school equivalency diploma in prison. Besides Ms. Boyd, his survivors include a stepson, De’Rodd Hearns; the three children of Ms. Boyd’s sister, whom she and Mr. Andrews raised; and four stepgrandchildren. Ms. Boyd’s son DeAndre McCullough , who was also featured in “The Corner,” died of a drug overdose in August. In his life after prison, Mr. Andrews worked odd jobs and counseled gang members and others at risk of street violence. He helped found a nonprofit group to spread his message in Baltimore. He named it Why Murder? , after his only victim’s last word.

Andrews Donnie
The Wire (TV Program)
Deaths (Obituaries)


MSNBC Suspends Alec Baldwin and His Talk Show

Abstract: MSNBC suspended Alec Baldwin on Friday after a furor stirred by a gay slur that he made in a confrontation with reporters this week. His month-old MSNBC interview show, “Up Late,” was not telecast Friday night, and the network said it would not be shown next week. In a statement Friday night, Mr. Baldwin issued a formal apology as word of the suspension leaked. He wrote: “I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone with my choice of words, but clearly I have — and for that I am deeply sorry. Words are important. I understand that, and will choose mine with great care going forward. What I said and did this week, as I was trying to protect my family, was offensive and unacceptable. Behavior like this undermines hard-fought rights that I vigorously support.” Image Alec Baldwin on Friday. He is the host of the MSNBC interview show “Up Late.” Credit Carlo Allegri/Reuters The situation stemmed from a confrontation on Thursday with a photographer trying to get pictures of Mr. Baldwin leaving his Manhattan apartment with his wife and baby. Video from the website TMZ caught the actor using at least one vulgarity. Initially he denied using a gay slur. But by Friday, after widespread criticism, he conceded in a Twitter message that he had used an offensive word. “I apologize and will retire it from my vocabulary,” he said. This was not the first time Mr. Baldwin was accused of making homophobic comments. Last summer, he apologized after calling a male reporter a “toxic little queen” and threatening to beat him up. In light of this week’s episode, numerous representatives of the gay community have spoken out against Mr. Baldwin, including the organization GLAAD, which noted that the actor had a history of speaking out against discrimination. GLAAD said: “Mr. Baldwin can’t lend his support for equality on paper, while degrading gay people in practice,” and added: “It’s clearly time he listens to the calls from so many L.G.B.T. people and allies to end this pattern of antigay slurs.” Mr. Baldwin, an Emmy-winning actor from the comedy “30 Rock,” has a history of encounters that have landed him in tabloid headlines. This week, he testified against a woman accused of stalking him. The woman was convicted and sentenced to seven months in jail.

Alec Baldwin
Indecency Obscenity and Profanity
Homosexuality
MSNBC
Apologies
Discrimination
TMZ.com
TV


An Initiative to Spread the Fiscal Pain

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Russell Long, of the famous Louisiana political dynasty, loved to tell how his Uncle Earl, the governor, advised a city slicker politician, hit by redistricting, how to successfully court rural voters. He should rumple up the fancy white suit, loosen the tie, toss dirt on those shiny shoes, and reach into his pocket, bring out that big wad of bills and “spread the joy.” That is the mirror opposite of what the U.S. fiscal deficit commission, Congress and the White House should do if they want to seriously address long-term budget deficits. They have to spread the pain. The odds, in a politically polarized environment, are long; yet the co-chairmen of the commission, Erskine Bowles , a former Clinton White House chief of staff, and Alan Simpson , a former Republican Senator from Wyoming, started a constructive dialogue with a proposal that would slash spending, rein in Social Security and Medicare , boost the national gasoline tax and end many tax write-offs while lowering rates. The Bowles-Simpson initiative, floated last week, predictably received a bipartisan assault. The U.S. political left charged it would balance the budget on the backs of the poor, and the political right claimed it was a sneaky vehicle to increase taxes to unacceptable levels. There are important details still missing from the plan, which seeks to reduce the deficit to 2.2 percent of gross domestic product by 2015, from 9 percent today, and cut the overall debt to 60 percent of G.D.P. by 2024; under current projections, it would rise to 87 percent by 2020. The 18-member deficit commission’s report is due Dec. 1. Anything resembling the chairmen’s proposal almost certainly won’t win support from the necessary 14 votes to send it to Congress. It may be reshaped a little as a menu of policy options. There are valid criticisms. Mr. Bowles, the Democratic chairman, compromised too much in what is likely to prove a futile attempt to win Republican support. The almost $4 trillion deficit reduction over the next decade would involve $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in higher revenue. Economically and politically, a one-to-one ratio would be more in keeping with spreading the pain. Critics say that such a policy ultimately would lead to taxes’ rising to more than 21 percent of gross domestic product, the ceiling recommended by Bowles-Simpson. That would violate Hauser’s Law, a formulation put forward by a San Francisco investment economist 17 years ago positing that regardless of the tax rates, revenue in post-World War II America traditionally remains around 19.5 percent of G.D.P. Changing demographics have altered such considerations; today, tax revenue is only about 15 percent of G.D.P. Recently, at a private Brookings Institution conference, mainstream economists, ranging from moderately liberal to moderately conservative, were asked to estimate, under a reasonable long-term budget plan, what percentage revenue would ultimately take up: The responses ranged from 23 percent to 25 percent. To its credit, the Bowles-Simpson recommendation treats Social Security changes separately from deficit reduction, and tries to make the system slightly more progressive. By shaving benefits a little, however, hardships would ensue. Today the average beneficiary of Social Security gets around $1,100 a month, and for most seniors, that is the majority of their income. The chairmen do propose raising the retirement age to 69, and increasing from the current $106,800 the base on which Social Security taxes are levied. Those changes would not take effect until 2050; again, in keeping with spreading the pain, it would have been better to expedite those changes and minimize benefit reductions. The proposal to increase the gasoline tax by 15 cents to pay for transportation projects probably is too timid. A much bigger hike, with most of the revenue devoted to an infrastructure bank and some to deficit reduction, would make for better energy, economic and investment policy. There are constructive elements to the controversial measure. Generally, it seeks balance in health care that tries to reasonably take care of physicians’ needs while further clamping down on costs. Interestingly, these two knowledgeable and honest political figures don’t even consider the notion of repealing the health care bill enacted this year. Instead, they seek to improve the cost containments, even raising the possibility of a public option. It puts heretofore sacred cows, such as farm price supports, on the budget-cutting agenda. Mr. Simpson and Mr. Bowles insist that defense spending has to be part of any shared sacrifice; it will be interesting to see how a thoughtful member of the commission like David Cote, chief executive officer of New Jersey-based Honeywell International, a major defense contractor, reacts to this proposal. It’s also instructive that they suggest reducing all discretionary programs by $49 billion in the next fiscal year. This compares to the unrealistic House Republican pledge to slash $100 billion out of these programs. The conventional wisdom is that the Bowles-Simpson plan is a fiscal fantasy, a realpolitik charade. Still, it is instructive to recall the most analogous initiative in recent years: the 1985-1986 proposal to eliminate many tax preferences and lower the rates. When it was launched, it was pronounced dead on arrival. During its year and a half, that was a familiar refrain. “The obituary then was written multiple times,” said former Senator Bill Bradley, a New Jersey Democrat who was an architect of the initiative. It became the landmark Tax Reform Act of 1986. That was possible because of powerful bipartisan support, starting with President Ronald Reagan and his political strategists, Treasury Secretary James Baker and his deputy, Richard Darman, and important members of Congress, principally the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Dan Rostenkowski; Mr. Bradley; and a Republican senator, Bob Packwood. It is unlikely that a comparable figure will emerge today, especially on the Republican side. Last week, 13 Republican senators proposed amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget. The news media should demand that each lawmaker submit a plan specifically spelling out when and how they would achieve this. Anything less makes the proposal a fraud. Bloomberg News

Federal Budget (US)
Budgets and Budgeting
Social Security (US)
Bowles Erskine B
Simpson Alan K


France: Basque Party to Disband

Abstract: The Basque nationalist political party, Batasuna, already illegal in Spain, announced Thursday that it would dissolve itself in France as well. The party was banned in Spain for its connections to the armed Basque separatist group ETA, for which it acted as its political wing. Two members of the party, Maite Goyenetxe and Jean Claude Aguerre, speaking in Bayonne, the center of the Basque region in France, announced the dissolution of Batasuna, but said they would continue to press for an independent Basque nation. In 2011, ETA announced that it had abandoned violence after a four-decade campaign for an independent homeland that claimed more than 800 lives.


LVMH, the Luxury Goods Giant, Posts a 64% Gain in Annual Profit

Abstract: Paris — LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury goods group, said on Tuesday that its profit jumped by 64 percent last year, bolstered by stronger demand in the United States and Europe, despite an overall softening of global demand for high-end goods. LVMH, whose brands include Givenchy and Bulgari in addition to Louis Vuitton, as well as Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot Champagne, posted a 2014 net profit of 5.65 billion euros or $6.4 billion, up from €3.4 billion a year earlier. Revenue growth was more modest, up 6 percent, to €30.6 billion, largely because of an unfavorable currency exchange-rate environment, the company said. Consumer spending on luxury goods continued to rise in 2014, but at a far slower pace than in previous years. That has crimped the sales of Europe’s big luxury houses, not only at LVMH but also at Richemont of Switzerland and Kering, the French company formerly known as PPR, whose brands include Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Yves Saint Laurent. Worldwide sales of personal luxury goods are estimated to have reached more than €220 billion, or $249 billion, in 2014, up 5 percent from 2013, according to a recent study by Altagamma, the Italian luxury industry association, and the consulting firm Bain & Company. But that compares with growth of 7 percent in 2013, and it is only about half the double-digit pace reported from 2009 to 2012. Major luxury markets like China have suffered from a cooling economy and a government crackdown on conspicuous consumption, while the crisis in Ukraine and a falling ruble have kept free-spending Russian tourists at home. Sharply lower oil prices have also raised concerns that elites in the Middle East may soon have less cash to spend on fancy clothes and jewelry or fine wines and spirits. LVMH said operating profit at its fashion and leather goods business rose 2 percent to €3.2 billion while sales rose to €10.8 billion, from €9.9 billion a year earlier. “Despite a climate of economic, currency and geopolitical uncertainties, LVMH is well equipped to continue its growth momentum across all business groups in 2015,” Bernard Arnault, the LVMH chairman, said in a statement. Louis Vuitton is by far LVMH’s most valuable and recognizable brand, accounting for no less than one-third of total group sales and almost half of its profit. But as at rival megabrands like Gucci and Prada, Louis Vuitton has found that its cachet has begun to fade in recent years. The company’s commercial success prompted a wave of new store openings worldwide, eroding the brand’s perceived exclusivity. As a consequence, LVMH has sought to reposition the Louis Vuitton brand by limiting the sale of lower-priced accessories like wallets and canvas handbags and focusing instead on higher-priced leather handbags as well as limited-edition items. It has also reduced the number of products bearing the house’s 120-year-old brown-and-gold “LV” monogram, which has fallen out of favor with luxury consumers seeking subtler, more exclusive markers of status and wealth. At the fore of this makeover is Nicolas Ghesquière, who joined Louis Vuitton in 2013 as artistic director for women’s wear after 15 years at Balenciaga. Among Mr. Ghesquière’s 2014 hits was a new handbag that harkened to Vuitton’s heritage as a luggage maker. The Petite Malle — a boxy, $5,200 clutch shaped like a miniature travel trunk — proved an instant favorite with the red-carpet set and was spotted on the arms of stars like Jennifer Connelly, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Michelle Williams. Vuitton also sought to inject the brand with some fresh buzz through the introduction in October of a limited edition of accessories incorporating its classic monogram, but created by a series of guest that included the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Louboutin and even Frank Gehry, the architect who designed the new Fondation Louis Vuitton museum in Paris. “It is a way to market the brand as something very near to contemporary art,” Claudia d’Arpizio, a specialist in the luxury industry at Bain & Company in Milan, said in a recent interview, referring to the Vuitton capsule collection. “They are trying to increase the perception and the value of their products, not only from a functional or intrinsic material standpoint, but from an artistic standpoint.” Performance was strongest in the United States and Japan, where sales increased 8 percent over the previous year — a trend that accelerated in the fourth quarter of the year thanks to a weakening of the euro. In the rest of Asia, which is dominated by China, revenues fell by 1 percent, while European sales increased by 3 percent, the company said. LVMH’s net profit was bolstered by a €2.8 billion capital gain in December from the distribution of its 23 percent stake in Hermès, a rival French luxury house, to the group’s shareholders. The disposal of that holding was part of a court-ordered settlement of a four-year dispute with Hermès, after LVMH secretly built up a large minority holding in the family-controlled company, which makes goods including handcrafted Birkin and Kelly purses and colorful silk scarves. The civil settlement followed an €8 million fine in 2013 for violation of French market rules. Under the terms of the deal with Hermès, which was announced in September, Mr. Arnault, France’s richest man, was allowed to maintain with a residual stake in Hermès of 8.5 percent for his personal account, an investment currently valued at €2.6 billion. The proceeds from the Hermès share sale helped to bolster LVMH’s already substantial cash stockpile. Analysts expect the company to eventually deploy those funds toward further acquisitions or reinvest them into some of its smaller fashion brands like Berluti, Kenzo, Donna Karan and Loewe.

Luxury Goods
Earnings Reports
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton


Joe Freeman Britt, Called America’s ‘Deadliest D.A.,’ Dies at 80

Abstract: Joe Freeman Britt, a brash North Carolina prosecutor who was called the nation’s “deadliest D.A.” for his success at winning death sentences, died on April 6 in Lumberton, N.C. He was 80. His family confirmed his death but did not specify the cause. As the district attorney for Robeson and Scotland Counties from 1974 to 1988, Mr. Britt oversaw cases that led to more than 40 death sentences. Only two of the defendants were executed — appeals court rulings led to many altered sentences, and some suspects were later exonerated — but his courtroom record ranked him at one point among the country’s most prolific advocates for capital punishment. “What is the most precious right that any of us have?” Mr. Britt asked in 1985. “The right to live. We all have that right, unless we forfeit it by our conduct.” Mr. Britt, who opposed the death penalty as a college student, was an extraordinarily effective prosecutor. Guinness World Records, in naming him the “deadliest prosecutor” in 1978, noted that he had obtained nearly two dozen death sentences in 28 months. At 6 feet 6 inches, Mr. Britt was a thundering, theatrical presence in the courtrooms of eastern North Carolina. Before juries, and to the consternation of defense lawyers, he was prone to riffs of flamboyant oratory that he augmented with props like the bloodied clothing of a victim. In at least one case, he raised a Bible and recited Scripture that he said supported the death penalty. “You’ve got to use every argument in your arsenal because you never know what’s going to convince a jury,” Mr. Britt told United Press International during his final term as district attorney. Joe Freeman Britt Sr. was born on July 22, 1935. He enlisted in the Army, retiring from the Reserve as a colonel. He completed undergraduate studies at Wake Forest University and earned a graduate degree at the University of Tennessee. He received his North Carolina law license in August 1963, soon after he received his law degree from Stetson University in Florida. He was appointed district attorney in 1974 and subsequently elected four times, after which he became a Superior Court judge. Mr. Britt’s candidacy for the court seat was not without controversy. His opponent, a Native American, died in what the authorities concluded was a domestic dispute. The death essentially guaranteed a victory for Mr. Britt, and it prompted a period of unease and suspicion. Investigators, however, never accused Mr. Britt or his supporters of wrongdoing. He is survived by his wife, Marylyn; two children, Joe Jr. and Natalie; and four grandchildren. Mr. Britt retired in 2006 after a stint in private practice, and he remained a stern critic of the people he prosecuted. Months after forensic evidence led to the exoneration and release of two death row prisoners in 2014, Mr. Britt was unbowed. “There is no doubt in my mind that they’re not innocent, that they’re not entitled to a pardon and that they’re not entitled to compensation by the taxpayers,” he said in an interview in March 2015, adding, “You don’t devote your whole life to the courtroom unless you believe that truth should prevail.”

Obituary
Capital punishment
North Carolina
Joe Freeman Britt


Small New Steps Toward Fulfilling the Promise of PC-TV Links

Abstract: LIVE in a Digital Home! Connect All Your Devices! Control Your Media Through a Single Appliance! In recent years, computer and consumer electronics companies have exclaimed the imminent nirvana that would be a networked union of TV-Internet-stereo-DVD-cable box-speakers-video projector-personal computer. And only one remote control! Here’s the reality: laboriously hook your computer to your TV; watch low-definition photos of the family vacation. (The lack of an exclamation point is deliberate.) At no risk of hyperbole, the promise of the digital home has fallen desperately short. Hewlett-Packard , for example, says it has independent research indicating that more than half of consumers are interested in using a television to watch the digital content stored on their personal computers — and the Internet. But the consumers connecting their devices still aren’t connecting all of them, and those who do are more likely to be the same folks who have advanced engineering degrees and still like to read user manuals at dinner. And so more modest proposals are upon us. One set of solutions revolves around boxes made by the likes of Apple and Netgear that allow you to store digital media and watch it on your televisions. There are also personal computers, called Media Center PCs, designed to be a conduit between the Internet and the television. Enter a new set of players: the television makers themselves, like Sony and H.P., who also happen to make PCs. The latest connected-home innovations are televisions designed to pick up a signal from the Internet or personal computers to display videos and pictures. Instead of set-top boxes, they might be called in-set boxes, or, in the case of Sony’s newest device, a set-back box. Just rolling into stores now from Sony is its Bravia Internet Video Link, a $299 slender black box that attaches to the back of the company’s 2007 line of high-definition televisions. The device has an Ethernet cable port for Internet access. Once plugged in, the set then lets you watch a selection of hundreds of clips from a handful of Sony’s Internet partners: Yahoo, AOL and Crackle, Sony’s YouTube challenger. It also provides access to Sony movies and music videos. Sony says hundreds of videos are available, but among the limited selection shown on the in-store sets are short how-to cooking videos, joke-a-day segments, commentary from firefighters, random clips from overseas television and animated shows; in short, the same random assortment of snippets you would find browsing through many online video sites. But don’t expect to get free-range access to the Internet’s wealth of user-generated content. YouTube? You won’t get it. That limits the service to a tiny fraction of Internet programming. “This is your grandfather’s Internet,” said Richard Doherty, who analyzes consumer electronics industry trends at Envisioneering, a consulting firm. Or, he said, compared with cable or satellite programming: “It’s like the television from the ’50s and ‘60s when you only had a handful of channels.” Sony says the severe limitations are by design, for a couple of reasons. Primarily, it asserts, it is tough to ensure picture quality and user experience if it allows its customers to download content willy-nilly. Plus, the television maker has not figured out how to create an Internet browser that is easily navigable with the television remote. Sony says that to get ideal picture quality, a consumer should have an Internet connection that is at least 3 megabits per second, a relatively high speed in most homes, and that could be viewed as yet another drawback to the Bravia Link. Making the experience as much as possible like television, rather than computing, is a central goal, said Edgar Tu, senior vice president for engineering and TV operations at Sony. He said the company’s research indicates consumers do not want to read on the screen or browse text-heavy sites. “That’s the bottom line,” he said. “Television is about one thing: video.” Sony still has a lot to learn about what it wants from a connected TV, Mr. Tu said. That is why, he said, the Bravia Link is also a research tool for Sony; the gadget will communicate through the Internet to Sony, telling the company what model of television people are attaching the device to. Also, Sony said, its Internet partners will be able to tell it what kinds of shows people are watching, much as they do when people browse the Web. Another plan for Internet-connected television with access to certain videos is coming from Sharp, according to Bob Scaglione, the company’s senior vice president for marketing in the United States. He said that set could be on the market next year. “All of the L.C.D. and plasma makers are going to release these types of features,” said Jonathan Weitz, an industry analyst with IBB Consulting. He said that TV manufacturers are doing so partly to cater to consumer tastes, but partly out of fear that they need to add value to televisions to keep their prices up, along with their profit margins. Hewlett-Packard’s desire to differentiate itself is the reason it is moving to a new generation of connected televisions, called MediaSmart TVs. The latest versions, which came out in late August, are 42-inch ($2,099) and 47-inch ($2,499) L.C.D. sets that let users connect through cables, or wirelessly, to a personal computer. Through that connection, the television can display video or photos stored on the computer, or it can use it as a conduit to download pay-per-view movies from Cinema Now. Eventually, H.P. says, it plans to offer music and video from other content partners. Some buyers may find it tricky to configure the MediaSmart depending on their computer. H.P. says consumers who have the Vista operating system and the latest Windows Media software should have little configuring to do, while people with less advanced systems may have to install extra software. Perhaps as an admission that challenges remain, H.P. said it was negotiating with its retail partners to offer a free $200 in-home installation (not including mounting the TV on the wall). That deal would offset about half of the price difference between the MediaSmart TV and like-size H.P. televisions. The installation deal also “removes any doubt that this will add any more pain than you’ll get with a regular television,” said Alex Thatcher, senior product manager for the MediaSmart TV. If the case for why consumers should buy a connected TV now is not compelling, it is much clearer why such TVs offer a potentially lucrative business model for the TV makers. The new sets allow manufacturers to play a bigger role in the distribution of content. That, in turn, would give them another profit stream after the sale. For instance, the television makers could demand a share of advertising or subscription revenue from content partners who are given access to the viewers of their TVs. That concept, while still in its infancy, is potentially powerful as broadband speeds increase, allowing easier streaming of more data-dense images like HDTV movies or TV programs. But first, Mr. Tu said, come the baby steps of building a connected home in a way that begins to meet some of the as-yet unmet promise. “Like every other company, we are trying to figure out how we are going to attack the connected home.”

Television
Computers and the Internet
Hewlett-Packard Co
Sony Corp


Geoffrey Gray and William Hammond to Be Called in Bruno Trial

Abstract: ALBANY — Federal prosecutors will call two journalists as witnesses in the coming corruption trial of Joseph L. Bruno , the former State Senate president and majority leader, according to court papers filed this week. The two journalists, Geoffrey Gray and William Hammond, are among more than 100 witnesses expected to be called by prosecutors or lawyers for Mr. Bruno. The list includes prominent lobbyists, legislative aides and elected officials, including four Republican state senators. Mr. Bruno, a Republican who retired from the Senate last year after more than a decade as one of the most powerful political figures in New York, was indicted in January on charges that he collected more than $3 million in consulting fees from businesses seeking contracts and grants with the state or with labor unions. Mr. Bruno, who has denied the charges, has accused federal prosecutors of conducting a fishing expedition and has said that the fees were legitimately earned. In the trial memorandum filed this week, Andrew T. Baxter, the acting United States attorney for the Northern District of New York, said that in calling Mr. Gray and Mr. Hammond to testify, prosecutors would seek only to confirm the accuracy of quotations that appeared in articles each wrote about Mr. Bruno. The list of witnesses was first reported by Capital News 9 , an Albany television station. In a March 2008 article by Mr. Gray in New York magazine , Mr. Bruno is quoted describing his work for Wright Investors’ Service , a Connecticut firm that for years paid him to solicit New York labor unions to hire Wright as an investment adviser for their benefits fund. “I provided the entree,” Mr. Gray quoted Mr. Bruno as saying. “In that business, the biggest problem is access. I provided the access.” Prosecutors will also seek to verify passages from a July 2003 article that Mr. Hammond wrote for The New York Sun. In the article, Mr. Bruno’s former spokeswoman, Marcia White, declined to comment on Mr. Bruno’s outside business activities, telling Mr. Hammond that it “wouldn’t be fair to his clients to disclose information with regard to his consulting.” In the same article, a Wright executive, Eugene Helm, told Mr. Hammond that Mr. Bruno had worked for the firm since at least 1994, helping recruit customers. “If he is aware of an opportunity and thinks there is appropriate fit, he will get in touch with us,” Mr. Helm was quoted as saying. According to Mr. Baxter’s memorandum, neither Mr. Hammond nor Mr. Gray have objected to offering testimony to confirm passages in their articles. Mr. Hammond, who now works for The Daily News, said he had received a subpoena from prosecutors in the case. “The U.S. attorney has subpoenaed me to testify in connection with verifying quotes in stories I wrote for The New York Sun,” Mr. Hammond said. “The defense has also listed me as a potential witness. If they follow through and the law requires me to testify about matters that are not privileged, I will of course testify.” A spokeswoman for New York magazine, Lauren Starke, said in an e-mail message that Mr. Gray had not yet been subpoenaed. She would not say whether Mr. Gray intended to offer testimony voluntarily. “Geoff Gray hasn’t been subpoenaed in the Bruno case,” said Ms. Starke. “When and if he is, we’ll decide how to proceed.”

Suits and Litigation
Bruno Joseph L
State Legislatures
Witnesses
News and News Media
Frauds and Swindling
New York State
Politics and Government
Wright Investors' Service


U.S. Monitor Rejects Westchester’s Plan for Fair Housing

Abstract: Six months after Westchester County signed a landmark housing desegregation agreement , a federal monitor has rejected the county’s plan to create hundreds of homes for people with moderate incomes in predominantly white communities as vague and lacking in accountability and enforcement. In ordering the county to revise its plan, the court-appointed monitor, James E. Johnson, said officials had failed to specify timetables or processes to build or create 750 homes and to aggressively market them to nonwhites in Westchester and New York City. Mr. Johnson, a Manhattan lawyer with Debevoise & Plimpton , said that county officials must “make significant revisions to meet the stipulation’s requirements” and that he would meet with them and federal housing officials next week to discuss the deficiencies and potential cures that he and fair-housing advocates have identified. Under a stipulation agreed to in August to settle a federal lawsuit, the county, one of the richest in the country, is required to spend $51.6 million over seven years to develop the affordable housing. Affordable housing is defined by a complex formula, but generally means that a working family should not have to spend more than a third of its gross income on housing. In a filing in federal court in Manhattan , Mr. Johnson said the plan submitted by Westchester last month had neither “any concrete short-, medium- or long-term strategies” to develop the housing nor “a clear strategy for how the county will employ carrots and sticks to encourage compliance by municipal governments.” He also said the county had failed to designate who or even which government agency would be responsible for putting the plan into effect, had only vaguely described its marketing efforts for the housing and did not provide a general description of which sites in Westchester were being considered for affordable housing. A spokesman for Robert P. Astorino, the county executive, said Thursday that his administration, which took office in January, had inherited responsibility for the settlement plan from the previous administration. Mr. Astorino defeated the former county executive, Andrew J. Spano, in November. “Since coming into office we’ve worked very closely with the monitor to comply with all the court’s legal obligations,” said the spokesman, Ned McCormack. In a letter to Mr. Astorino citing the problems with the county’s plan, Mr. Johnson did thank him for his “continued cooperation.” The agreement, which is being watched closely by local housing officials across the country, settled a lawsuit filed by an antidiscrimination advocacy and litigation group under the False Claims Act . The suit said that when Westchester applied for federal grants for affordable housing and other projects, it lied by claiming to have complied with mandates to encourage fair housing. The group that filed the suit, the Anti-Discrimination Center , which is based in New York City, sent a report to Mr. Johnson describing the county’s implementation plan as a “prescription for failure” and said Westchester was “brazenly refusing to comply with critical elements of its settlement order obligations.” Vagueness was only part of the problem, said Craig Gurian, the center’s executive director. “Westchester’s submission was not a plan that could become acceptable with a few tweaks,” Mr. Gurian said. “The county must be required to submit a wholesale revision, one that is focused on confronting the exclusionary zoning that is an overwhelming impediment to fair housing choice throughout white Westchester.” Some of Westchester’s towns and villages have blocked the creation of affordable housing by imposing minimum lot sizes, discouraging high-density development and appropriating vacant property for other purposes. In his report, Mr. Johnson pointed out that Westchester’s plan “emphasizes the county’s lack of authority with respect to zoning and land use controls.” But he pointedly reminded county officials that “the stipulation explicitly states that the county ‘shall use all available means as appropriate,’ including ‘pursing legal action,’ to address a municipality’s failure to act.” The agreement with Mr. Spano was ratified by the county’s Board of Legislators in September. The county admitted no wrongdoing and argued that while it had previously invested in affordable housing, the difference now was where the housing would be built. “We are settling the lawsuit because we have no choice,” Mr. Spano said last summer. Mr. Gurian stressed that the agreement created an opportunity — not a guarantee — that the homes would go to black and Hispanic residents. He also said that the housing was not intended for “the poorest of the poor” and that while many more than 750 homes were needed, the settlement was “designed to be practical.”

Westchester County (NY)
Affordable Housing
Race
Area Planning and Renewal


Q. and A. With Stuart Elliott

Abstract: Stuart Elliott, the advertising columnist, answers questions from readers each week. Questions can be sent to stuarte@nytimes.com . Q. I had a couple of questions about the blackout during Super Bowl XLVII. Why didn’t CBS run commercials during the lull while the game was suspended? And when the game resumed, why did CBS rerun some commercials but not others? A. When a network sells commercial time during the Super Bowl, it negotiates with the sponsors and their agencies to slot the spots at certain moments during the action of the game. The scheduling proceeds quarter by quarter and is specific enough that each commercial break, or pod, is numbered, with each number subdivided by letters to represent each spot in the pod (e.g., 1A, 11B, 22C and so on). But the blackout brought a suspension of play, meaning no action. No action, no commercials. To fill some of the downtime during the lull, CBS ran promotional spots for its own programming in between reports on the blackout and when play would resume. The blackout began at about 8:37 p.m., roughly seven minutes into the third quarter. A minute or so later, CBS went to a commercial pod with four spots, for the Walt Disney movie “Iron Man 3,” Century 21 , BlackBerry and E*Trade . After those commercials ran, there was brief coverage of the stadium power failure, followed by two commercials at around 8:42. The first, for Subway , was about its “Febru-any” sandwich promotion and the other, for Bud Light beer, was about a lucky chair. (They were followed by a promotional spot for the National Football League.) Image After that, no other scheduled national commercials appeared for a while. The game resumed at around 9:10 and at 9:15 or so, the first post-blackout spots appeared: reruns of the Subway and Bud Light commercials, along with the N.F.L. promotion. The reason they ran again, it seems, is that the confusion at the start of the blackout may have detracted from viewers paying attention to them. From that point on, CBS picked up where it had left off, running the remaining spots as previously scheduled, starting with a pod that contained commercials for Axe Apollo and MiO Fit. Later, Jennifer Sabatelle, a spokeswoman for CBS Sports, issued a statement to reporters that included this phrase: “All commercial commitments during the broadcast are being honored.” Q. This is in reference to your article about the new Keds campaign with Taylor Swift, in which you referred to the Tom Swifty jokes of the 1960s. My favorite back then was this one: “Let us go,” he said crisply. I still find myself using it when the occasion arises. A. Thanks, dear reader, for sharing. I was thinking that it might be fun to ask other readers to contribute Tom Swifty jokes that would be about advertising and marketing. For instance, how about this: “I’m looking for my partner Tettemer,” Tom said, red-faced. (A riff on the Philadelphia agency Red Tettemer & Partners.) Or what about this: “I’m looking for a digital agency in Brooklyn,” Tom said with a huge sigh. (Huge is, yes, a digital agency in Brooklyn.) Certainly, dear readers, you can do better. Send your jokes to stuarte@nytimes.com .


Timeline of the New York City Housing Authority’s Response

Abstract: Saturday, Oct. 27 As Hurricane Sandy approaches, the New York City Housing Authority contacts tenant associations in its 26 developments in Zone A, with more than 45,000 residents, to review the evacuation plan. It begins shutting down elevators, boilers and electrical systems. • Sunday, Oct. 28 Nycha calls residents , knocks on doors and leaves fliers. The police use loudspeakers in certain complexes. Special effort is made with 3,296 mobility-disabled residents and 140 residents requiring life-sustaining equipment. Buses take Nycha residents to shelters — but only about 325 residents take them as of Monday. Citywide, only 6,820 residents show up at shelters — including Nycha residents and all others; most have remained in their apartments. • Monday, Oct. 29 The hurricane makes landfall at about 8 p.m. Nycha officials estimate about half of the Zone A tenants and about 70 percent of the special needs population have evacuated. Approximately 100 Nycha staff members are assigned to “varying hurricane relief efforts,” including checking on remaining special needs tenants. The agency cannot produce any log or count of actual visits. • Tuesday, Oct. 30 Officials tally the impact: 402 buildings with 35,476 apartments housing nearly 80,000 residents had lost power — meaning the flood had extended far into Zone B, which had not been evacuated. Elevators are out of service. At 386 of those buildings — representing 76,817 residents — there is no heat or hot water because 26 boiler rooms with 85 separate boilers are underwater; boilers need to be replaced. • Wednesday, Oct. 31 The Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, says “the devastation is so widespread and overwhelming that it’s in the best interest of all of our residents for a more significant National Guard presence to supplement the great work being done by our brave — but overwhelmed — first responders.” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says it is not necessary: “The N.Y.P.D. is the only people we want on the street with guns.” • Thursday, Nov. 1 The city begins to distribute food and water at Nycha developments, with supplies delivered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The mayor’s office organizes a half-dozen nonprofit groups and a small number of National Guard troops to canvass door to door. Some teams are unable to get into many buildings, as the National Guard was not present with each group, and building owners were not notified in advance. • Friday, Nov. 2 Nycha contacts Ware Inc. in Louisville, Ky., for help locating rental boilers. It will take Ware about a week to find and transport the boilers — from its own inventory and from industry competitors. • Saturday, Nov. 3 The city asks the Army Corps of Engineers for assistance to restore power at Nycha housing. The corps, without updated lists of generator requirements for each buildings, sends teams to each Nycha building to figure out what kind of generator is needed. Mayor Bloomberg visits Hamel Houses, a Nycha complex, in the Rockaways in Queens. • Sunday, Nov. 4 Overnight temperatures drop into the 30s. Most Nycha basements have been pumped dry, but no generators have been installed. Members of ad hoc volunteer groups like People’s Relief arrive at Coney Island Houses in Brooklyn, a site they chose after comparing Consolidated Edison’s power failure map to a map of income distribution. • Monday, Nov. 5 One hundred fourteen buildings housing 21,000 people are still without electricity ; 174 buildings housing 35,000 people still need heat and hot water. Mr. Bloomberg says: “There’s no question that the continuing lack of electrical service is jeopardizing the health and safety of people living in affected areas.” He predicts that power and heat issues at most Nycha buildings will be resolved within two to four days. Mobile medical vans with primary care providers are at assistance centers in the Rockaways and Coney Island, as well as two additional high-need locations in the Rockaways. • Tuesday, Nov. 6, Election Day One hundred sixty-two buildings with 14,376 units and 33,583 residents still without heat and hot water, while 85 buildings with 6,615 units and an estimated 15,133 residents are without electricity. Hundreds of teachers visit public housing complexes in Brooklyn to evaluate residents’ needs. Generators are delivered in large numbers from various suppliers. Mr. Bloomberg acknowledges a delay in hooking them up: “The problem at this point is when we have a generator, you’ve got to get qualified people to install it.” Free food trucks, sponsored by Mayor’s Fund, visit Nycha complexes. • Wednesday, Nov. 7 City Councilman Domenic M. Recchia Jr. of Brooklyn, based on dire needs identified in some cases by teachers, helps arrange medical crews for immediate response, with the National Guard and dozens of ambulances. • Thursday, Nov. 8 The first generators are installed at Nycha, at Ocean Bay Apartments Bayside. Electricians hired under emergency city contracts start 16-hour shifts at the Red Hook public housing complex to rebuild a switching system . A contractor is hired to clean Nycha buildings. • Friday, Nov. 9 The first temporary boilers for Nycha are installed at Gravesend Houses in Coney Island. Mr. Bloomberg predicts , “By tonight or tomorrow, every one of their buildings will have electricity and by early next week they will all have heat.” • Saturday, Nov. 10 The city for the first time starts a formal medical assessment effort to reach out to the high-rise buildings, with teams going door to door. • Sunday, Nov. 11 Thirty-three buildings remain without power ; 96 with more than 18,000 residents are without heat and hot water. • Monday, Nov. 12 About 2,200 apartments, housing 5,000 residents, are without power; 7,000 apartments are still without heat and hot water. The city sets up prepared/hot food distribution sites at about a dozen locations , including at Nycha’s Beach 41st Street Community Center in the Rockaways. • Tuesday, Nov. 13 Ninety-four buildings throughout 13 developments affecting about 18,019 residents remain without heat . Nycha, working with the Visiting Nurse Service, makes a door-to-door effort in Red Hook East and Red Hook West buildings, finding 220 residents who request food, water or blankets; 144 who need medical assistance; and 44 who need prescriptions refilled. Six are transferred to a hospital. • Wednesday, Nov. 14 Nycha announces it has restored power to all of its buildings, although it is intermittent in some places as power is still coming from generators. Eleven developments in the Rockaways, the Coney Island area and Red Hook are still without heat and hot water, representing 15,743 residents in 81 buildings. Nycha residents from Red Hook hold a community meeting to protest a continued lack of heat and hot water. • Thursday, Nov. 15 Mobile medical teams have canvassed more than 41,000 apartments and reached more than 26,400 people in Nycha properties, rental buildings and single-family homes. City officials say that only about 400 people have medical needs requiring immediate attention, and that only 44 have been transported to a hospital. Seventy-six buildings affecting 14,636 residents remain without heat . Service has been restored to 651 of the 699 elevators affected by the storm. • Friday, Nov. 16 Eighteen buildings throughout seven developments affecting 4,747 residents remain without heat. The FEMA Community Relations Limited English Proficiency team begins to canvass around Coney Island Houses; FEMA begins its first door-to-door effort in the neighborhood. “The residents are elderly and many speak only Russian,” an agency statement says. “Some are stranded on high floors of buildings without functioning elevators. Most have not registered with FEMA for federal assistance.” • Saturday, Nov. 17 Fifteen buildings throughout four developments affecting 3,676 residents remain without heat. • Sunday, Nov. 18 Heat and hot water is restored to 100 percent of Nycha buildings.

Hurricane Sandy (2012)
Public and Subsidized Housing
Housing Authority (NYC)
Power Outages and Blackouts
Disasters and Emergencies
New York City


Rule No.1 for Dictators: Don't Blink

Abstract: PARIS — If they want to survive, dictators don’t blink. If they seem vulnerable, they are lost. In unforgiving times, when international courts seek to bring miscreant leaders to justice, simply walking away is not an option. In 1989, Nicolae Ceaucescu of Romania took a startled step backward in the face of a hostile crowd. The iron grip that had kept him in absolute power for 24 years dissolved. Within days, he and his once-powerful wife, Elena, were dead, summarily executed by soldiers whose loyalty had simply evaporated. This month, in Tunisia , President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali suffered a less terminal but comparable fate. Confronting protests and demonstrations, and with at least 78 people killed on the streets, he first offered to leave office in 2014 — a symbolic step backwards — then fled, his 23-year rule brought to an astonishingly rapid end. He had not wanted to go, the Arabic news channel Al Arabiya reported, but the head of his security detail told him the presidential palace in Tunis was about to be stormed by the hostile masses. If a contrast were needed, consider Ivory Coast , where President Laurent Gbagbo, backed by his military, has utterly refused to leave office despite an election awarded to his opponents. He did not blink. In the welter of coverage and the tumult on the streets following Mr. Ben Ali’s departure, many analysts have ruminated on where the next domino might tumble among the autocratic, embedded elites of the Middle East; where the deadly cocktail of discontent, deprivation and access to the digital-era weapons of protest and communication might once again coalesce again in this forlorn region. “The Arab soul,” said Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, “is broken by poverty and unemployment.” But, as Mr. Ben Ali’s flight into exile in Saudi Arabia showed, revolutions are not only the consequence of the protesters’ resolve, or of their access to the stirring imagery of Al Jazeera television, or calls to arms on Twitter or Facebook. They are a question, too, of a regime’s readiness and ability to push back, to meet opponents with resistance, maneuver and firepower. Just along the coast from Tunisia, the Libyan strongman, Muammar el-Qaddafi, said he was “very pained” by the ouster of his neighbor. Many regimes in the region held their silence but pursued cautious steps to ease economic strains for their restive people. Perhaps the most telling and — on the face of it, baffling — reaction came from Tehran, where 228 of the 290 members of the Iranian Parliament offered strong support to “the revolutionary movement of the brave Tunisian people.” That might have given some observers pause. In the decades since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has hardly seemed an exemplar of regime change. After the disputed 2009 presidential elections, when protesters took to the streets in much larger numbers than those in Tunis, insisting that the vote had been stolen, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered what seemed a textbook model of determination not to blink. Security forces flooded the streets; comprehensive measures to stifle, punish and undercut dissent, from censorship to show trials, reinforced physical repression. It was taken as an indication of Tehran’s self-confidence in recent weeks that, while turmoil in Tunisia inspired several regional governments to lower food and other prices, Iran proceeded with a broad array of measures to cut subsidies on fuel and essential goods. While there have been fissures within the elite of the Islamic Revolution, there never seemed to be any question — at least not one acknowledged in public — of wavering in the face of revolt. Of course, there are many differences, perhaps most significantly in the loyalty and firepower of the Iranian security forces compared to Tunisia’s much smaller army. And there were many other lessons from Tunisia’s rapid change, perhaps most notably relating to the role — or lack of it — played by such key outsiders as France, the former colonial ruler, or the United States. Both had seen Mr. Ben Ali’s regime as a bulwark against Islamic militancy, and that evoked old memories. In the long years of the Cold War, the West routinely buttressed unsavory regimes from Africa to Asia in its ideological contest with the Soviet Union. Now, Islamic terrorism has supplanted Communism as the global adversary. In Tunisia, diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy organization revealed that, much as American diplomats were aware of the self-enrichment of the country’s first family, and the resentment it inspired among the populace, they also cherished Mr. Ben Ali’s resolve to suppress Islamic dissent in the name of confronting terrorism. Now, though, in the clamor for new elections in Tunisia, Islamic leaders, once banned, are talking of returning from exile. The country’s political direction is up for grabs — perhaps giving pause to Western geopolitical players as they look to the autocratic giants the Arab world, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to react kindly to their regional ambitions. As the conflict in Iraq showed, the abrupt unraveling of dictatorships unleashes forces that cannot be predicted. In the end, iron rule comes down to power and guile, to the ability to install a protective coterie of loyalists and outwit nascent opposition. In the struggle against democracy, fear works best in tandem with co-option. As Rami G. Khouri, a prominent writer and commentator in Beirut put it, “Tunisia exposed exactly how thin was the police-based rule of the Ben Ali regime, which crumbled rapidly when it met sustained domestic resistance. “Some other Arab leaders, whether monarchs or lifelong presidents or something in between, would not flee the country so quickly, but instead would put up a fight to stay in power, partly because they have stronger organic links to major constituencies in society that Ben Ali did not.” Contemplating the fragile crust of the southern Mediterranean, Ian O. Lesser of the German Marshall Fund wrote: “A new revolt in Algeria, should it come, holds the potential for another protracted and bloody conflict between extremists and a military-backed state.” In Libya, too, “the prospects for relatively nonviolent change are not good.” For the powerful, this is not the time to blink at all.

Tunisia
Ivory Coast
Ceausescu Nicolae
Romania
Ben Ali Zine El-Abidine


Treasury Auctions for the Week of Sept. 8

Abstract: The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes Monday’s regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.03 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.05 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.02 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: MONDAY Florida Department of Environmental Protection, $230 million of debt securities. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, $95.7 million of variable rate sales tax revenue bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Chicago, $372.7 million of water revenue bonds. PNC Capital Markets. Colorado Springs, $110 million of utilities system improvement revenue bonds. Barclays Capital. Douglas County, Neb., $80.9 million of hospital revenue bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Fresno, Calif., Unified School District, $60 million of general obligation bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Greenville, S.C., Health System, $83.5 million of hospital revenue bonds. Barclays Capital. Municipal Improvement Corporation of Los Angeles, $51.1 million of lease revenue bonds. Loop Capital Markets. Maryland Community Development Administration, $121.5 million of residential revenue bonds. Bank of America. Mason County, W.Va., $100 million of pollution control revenue bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, $73.4 million of Boston University revenue bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Michigan, $56 million of debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. Minneapolis, $274 million of debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. Novato, Calif., Unified School District, $54 million of general obligation refinancing bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Palm Beach County, Fla., Health Facilities Authority, $90 million of debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. Pennsylvania, $286.4 million of taxable turnpike special obligation bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Suffolk County, N.Y., Economic Development Corp., $82.5 million of revenue bonds. Goldman Sachs.

Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions


Throng in Madrid Rallies for Traditional Family

Abstract: MADRID (Reuters) — Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards demonstrated in favor of the traditional family here on Sunday, in a show of force by Roman Catholics in what is now one of the most liberal countries in Europe. Organizers said more than 1.5 million people packed Colón Square and surrounding streets for the event, which was addressed by Pope Benedict XVI in a live video link from St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. Other crowd estimates were lower. While the organizers said they had no political motives, the large demonstration came just over two months before general elections in which the Socialist government, which has legalized same-sex marriage and made divorce easier, is seeking another term in office. Under the shadow of Colón Square’s huge Spanish flag and just a short walk from the gay bars of the Chueca district, families and churchgoers bused in from all over the country heard speakers call for the defense of the traditional family. “Founded in the indissoluble union between man and woman, it is the place in which human life is sheltered and protected from its beginning until its natural end,” Pope Benedict said. Speakers attacked the government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has a lead of two percentage points in polls over the strongly Roman Catholic and conservative Popular Party. The elections are on March 9. Long one of Europe’s most conservative countries, Spain has undergone a remarkable liberal transformation in the three decades since the death of Franco. Studies show Spanish social attitudes are now among the most liberal in Europe. Church attendance has fallen steeply, and families are shrinking because of one of the world’s lowest birthrates. It was young, liberal voters who gave Mr. Zapatero a surprise victory in the last general elections in 2004, and many of the government’s social policies have been calculated to appeal to the same demographic. But Socialist party leaders are now worried that young people, whose wages and job opportunities have not kept pace with Spain’s economic boom, might abstain from voting. At the same time, liberal social policies enrage conservatives and help mobilize Popular Party supporters, political analysts say. “These atheist, irreligious governments want to make us believe that our life has no meaning and that isn’t true,” said Kiko Arguello, a Roman Catholic activist and an organizer of the event.

Spain
Demonstrations and Riots
Benedict XVI


National Park Plans to Cull Its Herd of Elk

Abstract: DENVER — The elk population that roams and sometimes rampages through the delicate landscape of Rocky Mountain National Park is out of control and will be reduced through a program that will use sharpshooters to cull the herd, park officials said last week. The plan, which is expected to receive final approval by the National Park Service next month, would involve killing up to 200 of the animals each year beginning in 2009. The herd, believed to be descended from a tiny transplant community brought down from Wyoming during World War I, has become a major tourist attraction — and a severe problem for park managers. The animals, which can weigh up to 700 pounds for a full-grown bull, feed on fragile aspen and willow stands. In some places the stands have been devastated by the herd’s growing numbers. Rocky Mountain National Park, which straddles the Continental Divide and holds the headwaters of the Colorado River, is one of the most heavily used national parks, about 90 minutes northwest of Denver. And the majestic, slow-moving elk, numbering upwards of 3,000 in some past years, have become one of the park’s signature photo opportunities, even as their environmental impact has grown. Park officials say a sustainable population is about 1,600 to 2,100 animals. But arriving at a population-control solution has been a messy process. Public hearings last year about proposed alternatives, including reintroducing wolves and reintroducing hunting by humans, were fractious and divisive. A park biologist who led a management study of the elk, Therese Johnson, said in an interview that even with the plan in place, it was still uncertain how many animals might have to be killed in any year. Ms. Johnson said that for several reasons, the park’s elk population had recently fallen a bit. About 700 were killed by hunters outside the park last year, one of the highest numbers in years. And more of the animals appear to be spending time in forest areas outside park boundaries. She said that if the trend continued, there might be years when no animals needed to be killed. She also emphasized that the culling program would be scientifically based. The shooting would be done in winter, she said, when there are few visitors, with a goal of mimicking as much as possible how natural predators like wolves would reduce a herd, by taking out the old, the weak and the ill. “We’re going to be as efficient as possible,” Ms. Johnson said. “This will not be anything like hunting.” The plan also includes an extensive program of fencing to protect the aspen and willow stands, which have been stunted or halted in their reproduction entirely by the foraging elk and could need 15 years or more to recover, Ms. Johnson said.

Rocky Mountain National Park
Animals
National Parks Monuments and Seashores
elk