Severe Report Finds V.A. Hid Waiting Lists at Hospitals

Abstract: In the first confirmation that Department of Veterans Affairs administrators manipulated medical waiting lists at one and possibly more hospitals, the department’s inspector general reported on Wednesday that 1,700 patients at the veterans medical center in Phoenix were not placed on the official waiting list for doctors’ appointments and may never have received care. The scathing report by Richard J. Griffin, the acting inspector general, validates allegations raised by whistle-blowers and others that Veterans Affairs officials in Phoenix employed artifices to cloak long waiting times for veterans seeking medical care. Mr. Griffin said the average waiting time in Phoenix for initial primary care appointments, 115 days, was nearly five times as long as what the hospital’s administrators had reported. He suggested that the falsified data may have led to more favorable performance reviews for hospital personnel, and he indicated that some instances of potentially manipulated data had been turned over to the Justice Department. Mr. Griffin said that similar kinds of manipulation to hide long and possibly growing waiting times were “systemic throughout” the sprawling Veterans Affairs health care system, with its 150 medical centers serving eight million veterans each year. The inspector general’s office is reviewing practices at 42 Veterans Affairs medical facilities. Mr. Griffin’s report brought immediate political consequences. For the first time since the controversy erupted last month, several Senate Democrats, including Mark Udall of Colorado and John Walsh of Montana, demanded that the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, step down, joining Republican lawmakers who have been making that demand for weeks. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a former naval aviator who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and is now an influential voice on veterans issues, also called on Wednesday for Mr. Shinseki to resign. Along with several other leading Republican lawmakers who had been withholding judgment, Mr. McCain asked the F.B.I. to investigate the Phoenix hospital. Mr. Griffin previously said that he was working with the Justice Department to examine whether criminal violations had occurred there. Mr. Shinseki, in a statement, called the findings “reprehensible to me” and ordered the department to “immediately triage each of the 1,700 veterans” and give them timely care. The department suspended two senior officials at the Phoenix medical center shortly after the allegations of falsified waiting lists became public this month. Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said President Obama found the report “extremely troubling,” but he did not indicate whether Mr. Shinseki had lost the confidence of the White House. Mr. Griffin’s interim report — the final version is expected by August — did not address the most explosive allegations made about the Phoenix facility: that as many as 40 veterans who were never put on the official list for doctors’ appointments might have died while awaiting care. He said determinations could be made only after examining autopsy reports and other documents that were still being reviewed. He had previously said that after reviewing 17 of those cases, he had found no indication that any of those deaths were tied to delays. But the rest of his report was sweeping in its indictment of the Phoenix hospital, and contained sharp criticism of much of the rest of the veterans health care bureaucracy. “While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility,” Mr. Griffin said. Irregularities in how the 1,700 veterans were handled, he added, mean that “these veterans may never obtain a requested or required clinical appointment.” Share Your Experience With Veterans Affairs Health Care New York Times journalists would like to hear from veterans about their experiences with health care at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics Investigators from the inspector general’s office reviewed a sample of 226 patients and found that they waited an average of 115 days for their first primary care appointment at the Phoenix medical center, but their average waiting time was reported to the national Veterans Affairs office as being only 24 days. The interim report did not dwell on the motivations for falsely reporting waiting times, nor did it single out any employees or hospital administrators by name. But it stated that a “direct consequence” of the inappropriate waiting lists was that the medical center’s leadership “significantly understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointment” in its performance appraisal accomplishments for the 2013 fiscal year, which was a factor considered for bonuses and salary increases. Mr. Griffin also suggested that his team may have already found some indication of criminal wrongdoing. “When sufficient credible evidence is identified supporting a potential violation of criminal and/or civil law, we have contacted and are coordinating our efforts with the Department of Justice,” he wrote. He said in his report that his investigators had identified several types of improper scheduling practices in Phoenix. They found multiple waiting lists aside from the official electronic waiting list, and said that “these additional lists may be the basis for allegations of creating ‘secret’ wait lists” that have been cited by whistle-blowers. The allegations identified by investigators were not limited to waiting lists. Mr. Griffin said his office had received “numerous allegations daily of mismanagement, inappropriate hiring decisions, sexual harassment, and bullying behavior by mid- and senior-level managers at this facility.” Mr. Shinseki, a soft-spoken former four-star Army general and chief of staff, has had support on Capitol Hill from some lawmakers partly because of his long military career. But the release of the inspector general’s report increased the pressure on him to step down, especially after some Senate Democrats broke with others in the party late in the day to demand his removal. Mr. Walsh, the Montana senator, said that the report “confirms the worst of the allegations against the V.A.,” and that “it’s time to put the partisanship aside and focus on what’s right for our veterans.” Representative Jeff Miller, the Florida Republican who is the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said the report “confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt what was becoming more obvious by the day: wait time schemes and data manipulation are systemic throughout V.A. and are putting veterans at risk in Phoenix and across the country.” Mr. Miller had previously held off on calling for Mr. Shinseki’s resignation, but he did so on Wednesday, saying that the former general “appears completely oblivious to the severity of the health care challenges facing the department.” Mr. McCain said on CNN that he had intended to wait to comment on Mr. Shinseki’s future until further hearings were held on the issue. But after hearing about the report, he decided to speak out. “I think it’s reached that point,” he said. “This keeps piling up.”

Phoenix
Veteran Affairs
Veteran
Richard Griffin
Inspector General
US Military
Barack Obama
General Shinseki
Hospital
False Data


In Connecticut, Attack Ads Chip Away Christopher Murphy’s Lead in Senate Race

Abstract: NEW HAVEN — Representative Christopher S. Murphy has been at once the other guy — the largely unknown subject of attack ads by his Republican rival, Linda E. McMahon — and the Democratic nominee who was presumed to be the heavy favorite in the Senate race to replace Joseph I. Lieberman. But a funny thing has happened in Connecticut as the political world has focused on Missouri, Massachusetts, Virginia and the few other states considered likely to determine which party controls the Senate. Battered by Ms. McMahon’s advertisements before he even became the nominee, Mr. Murphy has found himself on the defensive in a race that could add an unexpected wild card into the battle for the Senate. Mr. Murphy, who defeated a 24-year incumbent, Representative Nancy Johnson, in 2006 to represent Connecticut’s Fifth Congressional District, says he is not surprised that polls now show a tight race in a state where Republicans have not elected a senator since Lowell P. Weicker Jr. in 1982. Several months ago, polls showed Mr. Murphy well ahead of Ms. McMahon in a hypothetical matchup. “We’ve always known this race was going to be close,” Mr. Murphy said before a luncheon with voters here, adding that Ms. McMahon has spent approximately five times as much on television ads as he has. “And Connecticut has a history of pretty competitive statewide races, so I’m confident I’m going to win, but I don’t think it’s going to be a blowout.” A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,472 likely voters that was released on Tuesday showed that Ms. McMahon was favored by 49 percent and Mr. Murphy by 46 percent, essentially tied, given that the poll’s margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points. She led 54 percent to 42 percent among men. Among women, Mr. Murphy got 50 percent to Ms. McMahon’s 46 percent. Most positive for Ms. McMahon is the increase in her favorability ratings. Though she was once viewed unfavorably by almost 50 percent of the voters, the newer poll showed her being seen favorably by 47 percent and unfavorably by 35 percent, reflecting, in large part, ads focusing on her family, humble beginnings and success overcoming early business struggles. The results reflect the degree to which she has dominated the airwaves and political conversation after spending more than $65 million, almost all of it her own money, beginning with her 2010 race. In addition to the ads reintroducing herself, she has hit Mr. Murphy repeatedly with ads saying that during the financial crisis, in his first term, he missed 80 percent of subcommittee meetings on financial issues. He responded in his own ad and in statements that he voted on 97 percent of committee business and that many of the meetings he missed were when Congress was not in session and he was back in the district. But the exchange left him responding to her charges, so the results of the Quinnipiac poll came as no surprise to political observers in the state and to Connecticut Democrats who have been quietly fretting that Ms. McMahon’s shrewd use of her millions was creating a juggernaut fully capable of winning the race. Republicans have to gain four seats to take control of the Senate, or three if Mitt Romney wins, which would make Paul Ryan, as vice president, the tiebreaker vote. Mr. Lieberman, who is retiring, is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. “What’s clearly happening is that McMahon is winning the game of define-your-opponent,” said Gary L. Rose, a professor of politics and government at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. “She’s controlling the tempo of this campaign, not him.” There are many reasons for Democrats to remain optimistic. Ms. McMahon spent $50 million to try to win the seat in 2010, only to lose to a former Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, by 12 points in a year that saw Republicans make large gains nationwide. This time, President Obama, who won the state by 22 points in 2008, is at the top of the ticket. And Mr. Murphy, 39, is an attractive rising star in the party, who has won handily since defeating Ms. Johnson in the most Republican-leaning district in the state. A lawyer who practiced real estate and banking law, he served eight years in the Connecticut General Assembly, four in the House and four in the Senate before going to Washington. If he wins, he would rank at or near the bottom of the Senate in terms of personal wealth. She would be at or near the top. Mr. Murphy, whose campaign has spent about $3 million so far, has focused on manufacturing, health issues and crafting an image as a progressive Democrat with bipartisan appeal who has been willing to work with Republicans in the House. He says he is proud to put his work in government up against Ms. McMahon’s history as the former chief executive of the World Wrestling Entertainment . “Linda McMahon has spent her career running over people to get ahead,” he said, adding that what she has billed as a middle-class tax cut would reduce her own tax bill by $7 million. “She’s made it very clear who her priority will be if she is elected to the Senate, and it will be her.” But many observers are skeptical that the 2010 race presents a road map for the race now. The doubts begin with Mr. Murphy’s ability to withstand an advertising assault the way Mr. Blumenthal could. “Dick Blumenthal had 30 years of building a brand that’s impeccable in the State of Connecticut,” said John W. Olson, president of the Connecticut A.F.L.-C.I.O. and a supporter of Mr. Murphy’s. “Murphy works hard, he’s a fighter, he’s articulate, but he’s pretty much an unknown throughout the state.” The Democrats’ control of the state is viewed as somewhat illusory — about 40 percent of registered voters are independents, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s approval ratings are lagging, and the Democratic Legislature presided over an unpopular tax increase last year. Mr. Obama seems unlikely to approach his victory margin from 2008. The Quinnipiac poll showed him leading Mr. Romney by seven percentage points in the state. And observers from both parties say that Ms. McMahon, who defeated a former representative, Christopher Shays, in the Republican primary, is skillfully creating a narrative straight out of the good-guy-bad-guy world of wrestling, in which she is the plucky, entrepreneurial outsider and he is the out-of-touch Washington insider. “Linda McMahon has run a nearly flawless campaign to date,” said Jerry Labriola, the Connecticut Republican Party chairman. “She’s succeeded in defining Murphy for what he is, a liberal career politician who’s accomplished nothing.” Democrats say that she has had the advantage of having the airwaves mostly to herself. A less one-sided news media campaign, a renewed attention to the seamy aspects of her wrestling past and the Democratic gravitational pull will produce a victory for Mr. Murphy, they say. But interviews in Danbury, in Mr. Murphy’s own district, indicated that Ms. McMahon remained the focus of voter attention, not him. Some of that attention was negative. Joan Harel, an artist who lives there, said she voted for Ms. McMahon in 2010, but would not support her this time. “I feel like she is trying to buy the election, which she can do,” she said. But Melissa Baumgardner, who lives in New Milford, is just the kind of voter that the McMahon campaign needs in a state that Mr. Obama will likely carry: someone who will vote for Mr. Obama and for Ms. McMahon. Ms. Baumgardner said the image of Ms. McMahon as a hard-working woman resonated with her. “This is a woman who’s been through having to file bankruptcy, who’s been poor,” Ms. Baumgardner said. “She knows what it’s like to be at rock bottom.” Jennifer E. Duffy, a political analyst with the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter, said that the race had been off the national political radar screen but that she expected that to change. She said she planned to re-evaluate her rating of the race as “likely Democrat” after the Republican convention. “This is a race that the Democrats didn’t think they would have to spend money on,” she said. “They know they do now.”

Murphy Christopher Scott
Political Advertising
McMahon Linda E
Connecticut
Polls and Public Opinion
Senate


Fast and Easy Photo Albums for Printing

Abstract: Fast and Easy Photo Books Q. I’m looking for a very simple method of creating a photo album online — one where I just upload any number of pictures and get back an album in the mail. I don’t have the time to arrange, label and size the pictures, and just want a simple way to have them on paper. Any suggestions? A. Many online photo-organizer sites ask for a certain degree of input (like picking a visual theme), but some services streamline the process. Shutterfly, for example, has a “Simple Path” option where you pick a paper size and provide the pictures, and the company instantly creates a book for you to buy. The photo-sharing site Flickr introduced a photo-book service last year that also makes getting a printed volume of your pictures easier. Once you have a free Flickr account, drag a group of images onto the uploader page and turn them into an album. When the new collection appears in your Flickr albums list, click the book-cover icon on that album’s thumbnail to go right into the mode for book creation and ordering. Some desktop photo-editing programs like Adobe Photoshop Elements and Apple’s iPhoto have quick book-creation options available. With any service, check the final estimated price, as most companies charge by the page after a set number. Finding an iGoogle Replacement Q. I loved my iGoogle page and was upset when Google ended the service last year. Are there any worthy substitutes? A. The iGoogle service, which was available from 2005 to 2013, allowed its users to customize their browser start pages with small programs that displayed news headlines, weather forecasts, games and more. In its wake, the igHome.com site is one that tries to emulate much of the old iGoogle look and feel. Yahoo and Microsoft are still forging ahead with their own variations, MyYahoo and My MSN . For a more thorough overview, the site iGoogleAlternatives.info tests and ranks contenders based on a number of criteria, including speed, ease of use and bookmark management. Of the services currently ranked, Start.Me gets top marks as an iGoogle alternative, but nine other personal portals are rated and reviewed as well. TIP OF THE WEEK In the Mozilla Firefox browser, the Tab Groups tool, also known as “Panorama,” allows you to sort specific tabs — say, financial news sites or entertainment bookmarks — into separate collections that can be quickly summoned, one group at a time. To sort your current set of open tabs, use the Tab Groups keyboard shortcut: Press the Control, Shift and E keys in Windows, or the Command, Shift and E keys on the OS X version of Firefox. When you land in Tab Groups view, you see all the open tabs as tiny thumbnail images in a window. To make a new group, drag a site’s thumbnail out of the main group and drop it elsewhere within the browser window. You can add other sites to this new little group window by dragging them over into the collection. When you are done, click any tab to leave Tab Groups view. You can pop back out to see all your collections by using the Tab Groups keyboard shortcut again. Click any group in the window to open that set of tabs. You can cycle through your groups by pressing the Control and ‘ keys. If the Firefox General preferences are set to “Show my windows and tabs from last time,” your groupings should be waiting for you each time you reopen the browser. Add-ons, available at https://addons.mozilla.org , like Tab Groups Helper, can also enhance the feature. Mozilla has more details on using Tab Groups at http://mzl.la/KrLdDR .

Software Google Apple Flickr Mozilla Photography


Two Years After Brain Injury, Mesi Earns Victory and Relief

Abstract: GUAYNABO, P.R., April 1 - Joe Mesi returned to the ring tonight for the first time in two years. Some in the seats surely held their breath for him. Any rust he displayed in the eight-round bout against Ronald Bellamy was the least of the concerns for the boxer, his camp and his fans. In 2004, as the World Boxing Council's No. 1 heavyweight contender, Mesi sustained bleeding of the brain in winning a close decision in Las Vegas. His license was stripped by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which suggested, essentially, that he never fight again. But on Saturday night, in Mario Morales Coliseum here, about 10 miles from San Juan, and before a lively but small crowd of 2,000, Mesi won a unanimous decision. "I had some nerves before the fight, given that I've been away for two years," he said. "It was kind of sloppy, but Bellamy was no pushover. He was tougher than I expected. I give myself a C." Bellamy stands 6-feet-7, weighs 249 pounds and sports a Mohawk. Mesi stands a shade over 6 feet and weighed in at 237 pounds. He has matinee-idol good looks to go along with his record of 30 victories without a loss, 25 of them knockouts. Bellamy, 41, a former professional basketball player in Europe and New Zealand, has a 14-5-4 record, with 9 knockouts. He was outclassed as all three judges scored the fight 80-72, giving Mesi every round. Underscoring his triumphant return was the fear for Mesi's health -- if not, in fact, for his life. There were three ring deaths last year, and another just a few weeks ago, from subdural hematomas, the technical term for the injury Mesi sustained. "I'm scared, that's all I can say," Teddy Atlas, the boxing trainer and television analyst, said Wednesday in Manhattan. "Something of his brain has been compromised." Jack Mesi, Joe's father and manager, said: "I love my son and I wouldn't do anything to put him in harm's way. And boxing is what Joe wants to do with his life." Joe Mesi's dream of becoming heavyweight champion of the world was deferred because of the injuries he sustained during his 10-round decision over Vassily Jirov, the former cruiserweight champion who had moved up to the heavyweight division, on March 13, 2004. Mesi then went through a court battle to get his license back. When his license was suspended in Nevada, the suspension was followed in all other states. But a Nevada judge ruled four months ago that when the boxing license expired on Dec. 31, 2004, , so did the medical suspension, and the Nevada commission no longer had jurisdiction over him. Mesi passed the medical examinations given to him by the Puerto Rican boxing commission and returned to the ring. Dr. Robert Cantu has put himself in Mesi's corner -- literally. "The blood vessels in Joe's brain that bled have healed," said Cantu, one of the many neurologists and neurosurgeons who have examined Mesi over the last two years and pronounced him fit to fight. "It's been clotted over and not there to break again. He's at no greater risk now of suffering brain damage than any other fighter." Cantu, the co-director of the Neurological Sports Injury Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and the chief of neurosurgery at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass., was in Mesi's corner Saturday night as a licensed cutman. "I didn't see anything wrong," he said after the fight. "I'm sure at some point in the near future he'll be tested, but I think it's a good idea that all fighters, regardless of how tough a fight they've had, should be tested." Cantu's explanation for his presence at ringside was simple. "I'm interested in Joe, that's why I'm here."


As Prices Soar, U.S. Food Aid Buys Less

Abstract: Soaring food prices, driven in part by demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash the amount of food aid the government buys to its lowest level in a decade, possibly resulting in more hungry people around the world this year. The United States, the world’s dominant donor, has purchased less than half the amount of food aid this year that it did in 2000, according to new data from the Department of Agriculture. “The people who are starving and have to rely on food aid, they will suffer,” Jean Ziegler, who reports to the United Nations on hunger and food issues, said in an interview this week. Corn prices have fallen in recent months, but are still far higher than they were a year ago. Demand for ethanol has also indirectly driven the rising price of soybeans, as land that had been planted with soybeans shifted to corn. And wheat prices have skyrocketed, in large part because drought hurt production in Australia, a major producer, economists say. The higher food prices have not only reduced the amount of American food aid for the hungry, but are also making it harder for the poorest people to buy food for themselves, economists and advocates for the hungry say. “We fear the steady rise of food prices will hit those on the front lines of hunger the hardest,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program. The United States is the biggest contributor to the agency. She warned that food aid spending would have to rise just to keep feeding the same number of people. But the appropriations bill for the coming year now moving through Congress does not promise any significant increases in the food aid budget. The impact of rising food prices on food aid is part of a broader debate about the long-term impact on the world’s poorest people of using food crops to make ethanol and other biofuels, a strategy that rich countries like the United States hope will eventually reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Some advocates for the poor say rising food prices could benefit poor farmers in developing countries, providing them with markets and decent prices for their crops. But others warn that the growing use of food crops to make fuel, especially if stoked by large subsidies in rich countries, could substantially increase food prices. That could push hundreds of millions more poor people into hunger, especially landless laborers and subsistence farmers, according to a recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine. The authors were Benjamin Senauer and C. Ford Runge, food policy analysts and professors at the University of Minnesota. Production of food crops to make biofuels will also tend to favor growers with plenty of capital and large land holdings, they say, rather than small-scale, impoverished farmers lacking modern grain storage facilities in poor countries. “The policies put in place are going to be crucial to whether the small producer and the people who live where hunger is concentrated can benefit,” Mr. Senauer said. But for now food aid is suffering, as are poor people in poor countries, economists say. And their situation may get even tougher next year, relief agencies warn. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is projecting that low-income countries reliant on food imports, including most of sub-Saharan Africa, will see the amount they pay to import cereals rise 14 percent. The world’s ability to absorb fresh price shocks has shrunk along with food stocks. “We’re very worried,” said Henri Josserand, who heads the organization’s global information and early warning system. “World food stocks are much smaller than they used to be.” The food aid declines may also continue. Catholic Relief Services, a major distributor of American food aid, has projected substantial increases in what the federal government pays for food aid next year, based on an analysis of the futures market for the wheat, corn and soybean products that are mainstays of aid. “It’s bad news and it’s not just going to affect U.S. food aid, but food aid from every source,” said Frank Orzechowski, a retired commodity trader who now advises Catholic Relief Services. This year’s decline in food aid follows a period when the sharply escalating costs of shipping American-grown food aid to Africa and Asia already reduced the tonnage supplied. The United States Government Accountability Officementnd this year that the number of people being fed by American food aid had declined to 70 million in 2006 from 105 million in 2002, mainly because of rising transportation and logistical costs. Now food prices are also playing a role. New data from the Department of Agriculture show that the cost of food for the federal government’s main food aid program, Food for Peace, rose 35 percent over the past two years. The amount of food bought for American food aid programs has fallen to 2.4 million metric tons this year from 4 million metric tons in 2005 and 5.3 million metric tons in 2000. Thomas Melito, who supervised the Government Accountability Office’s food aid investigation this year, called the escalating costs of food aid “frightening.” “In a situation where there are 850 million hungry people in the world and the program was only providing enough for 70 million people in 2006, the new totals will be even lower,” he said. Congress is considering changes to the food aid program as part of the omnibus farm bill that some economists and advocates for the hungry say would improve the efficiency of the program and allow it to feed more people. They point to a Bush administration proposal that would allow the government to use up to $300 million of the food aid budget to buy food in African countries close to hunger emergencies rather than shipping it from the United States on mainly American-flagged vessels as current law requires. In his speech to the United Nations this week, President Bush said the proposal would speed delivery and help provide a market for poor farmers in developing countries. The House version of the farm bill includes no such provision. The Senate Agriculture Committee has not produced a farm bill. “To my mind, that’s the way out of this pincer,” said Emmy Simmons, an agricultural economist and retired senior manager at the United States Agency for International Development. “But the shipping guys are hanging tough,” she added. “They’re defending that little chunk of revenue. They aren’t super concerned whether you feed less people.” Groups representing shipping companies and agribusiness interests have opposed using the budget of the main food aid program to buy food in developing countries instead of relying on American food shipped overseas. Gloria Tosi, who represents most of the American ship owners involved in the food aid system, said buying commodities abroad would erode domestic political support for the program and lead to lower food aid budgets from Congress. She said it was “politically naïve” to think the food commodity groups and ship owners that have for decades supported food aid in Congress would favor buying commodities abroad. “None of us will be working toward that,” she said.

Foreign Aid
Food
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
International Trade and World Market
Agriculture
Ethanol


Hong Kong Newspaper Charged With Downplaying Dissident’s Death

Abstract: HONG KONG — A prominent Hong Kong newspaper has been accused of playing down coverage of the death of a Chinese dissident, stoking new concerns that Communist Party rulers in Beijing are seeking to limit news media freedom in the former British colony. In a tumultuous year for Hong Kong that will see a new pro-Beijing leader take power July 1, the 15th anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese rule, the controversy involving The South China Morning Post has focused attention on perceived attempts by Beijing to rein in moves toward democracy. On June 7, the English-language Post printed a full story on the suspicious death of the Chinese dissident Li Wangyang in a hospital on the mainland. But in an abrupt about-turn, it later cut the story back to a news brief in the back pages. Mr. Li had just been released from more than 22 years in jail for his role in the pro-democracy protests in Beijing on June 4, 1989, when he was found dead in a hospital in Hunan Province, with a noose made from bandages tied around his neck. The authorities said his death was suicide, but his family suspects foul play. Prominent coverage by other Hong Kong news media helped generate a public outcry and protests, including one Thursday outside the paper’s office in the city, and a rare request by Hong Kong’s leader for an investigation by Beijing into the death. In a tense e-mail exchange circulated among the local news media, Alex Price, a lower-level editor at the paper, asked his Chinese editor in chief, Wang Xiangwei, why the story had been cut down in a way that “looks an awful lot like self-censorship.” Mr. Wang, a member of the advisory body for the rubber-stamp Chinese Parliament, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, replied, “I don’t have to explain to you anything. I made the decision and I stand by it. If you don’t like it, you know what to do.” The reply set off a newsroom backlash at the Post, where reporters say they have long been concerned that Beijing was attempting to exert its influence. A petition was signed by several senior staff members, demanding full transparency and media freedom. The paper, run by the tycoon Robert Kuok, is one of the leading English-lan guage dailies in Asia. It has had tussles before over its editorial policy toward mainland China, including the firing of a Beijing bureau chief in 2002 after what he called attempts by editors, including Mr. Wang, to make its China coverage less critical of Beijing. Mr. Price wrote in his e-mail exchange with Mr. Wang, “Journalistic ethics are at stake. The credibility of the South China Morning Post is at stake. Your staff — and readers — deserve an answer.” In a statement to staff members, Mr. Wang denied he had tried to downplay the story but said that the matter “should have been resolved in a much more constructive way” and that the paper’s reporting of Mr. Li’s death in subsequent days had been extensive. The chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s, Mak Yin-ting, expressed concern about the incident.

Beijing (China)
South China Morning Post Limited
News and News Media
Censorship
Communism (Theory and Philosophy)


Chris Snee and Tom Coughlin Recall Father-Son Talk About Snee’s Retirement

Abstract: In July, Giants Coach Tom Coughlin was vacationing on the lush coast of Georgia with Chris Snee, who for the past 10 years had been Coughlin’s starting right guard and his son-in-law. For a decade, they had one of the most curious, intriguing and rare relationships in American sports. Coughlin, an old-school disciplinarian, cut a classic paternal figure in athletics. Snee, raised in a working-class central Pennsylvania household and married to Coughlin’s daughter Kate, was a quiet, pensive cog in the vast mechanism of the N.F.L., grappling at a violent, dangerous job to make a name for himself and please his coach. But more than 150 N.F.L. games had taken their toll on Snee’s 315-pound body, a football creation painstakingly sculptured with marathon weight-lifting sessions, timely medicinal restorations and intense, year-round training. Various body parts were now failing him, making a walk downstairs unpredictable and hazardous. Just sitting upright in a chair was sometimes an uncomfortable challenge. Coughlin had just endured one of his most disappointing seasons as a coach, and he was counting on Snee to help lead the Giants’ resurrection this season. The intricate and much observed Snee-Coughlin connection was reaching a crossroads. It would soon become substantially more complex and poignant. A player was confronting his football mortality, and the coach, programmed for years to push his players, faced the need to temper those duties with his responsibilities as Snee’s father-in-law and the grandfather to Snee’s three children. It began on vacation last summer. By then, Snee was a four-time Pro Bowl selection, an indomitable veteran and a respected anchor of Coughlin’s two Super Bowl-winning teams. But in 2013, Snee missed almost the entire season with injuries. Slamming into an opponent in the season-opening game, he heard a piece of bone crack and then break loose in his right elbow. He remained in the game. Two games later, Snee’s right hip kept noisily popping into and out of its socket as he assumed his stance at the line of scrimmage. In excruciating pain, Snee finished the game, but the Giants soon announced that he was done for the year. Undeterred, Snee plotted a comeback in 2014. He had an off-season hip operation, the second of his career, and a third procedure on his right elbow. Medical procedures prolonging Snee’s football career had long ago become a routine part of his life. They included epidurals for bulging disks in his back, cortisone shots delivered with footlong needles, injections of lubricant into cranky joints, the draining of fluid to relieve inflammation and arthroscopic surgery to slice out damaged cartilage. In the phone in his pocket, Snee carried a picture of a dinner plate filled with the bone fragments excised from his right elbow. It was one of the reasons Snee could no longer straighten the elbow. Still, on vacation in Georgia, Snee was days away from the start of Giants training camp and the resumption of his career. Playing golf with Coughlin’s extended family, Snee swung a club and recoiled from a stabbing pain that filled his right arm. “I had to drop the driver,” Snee said in one of a series of lengthy interviews in the last two months. “No one said anything, but we sort of looked at each other — everyone knew what was going on. My body was giving out on me; it couldn’t take it anymore.” Returning home a few days later, Snee waited for a Saturday when he knew that the Giants’ corporate headquarters in New Jersey would be quiet so he could privately visit his father-in-law in his office. Image Tom Coughlin the coach had always pushed his players. Coughlin the father-in-law had to assume a different role. Credit Grant Halverson/Getty Images “I knew what he was coming to say,” Coughlin said last week, recalling the scene five months ago. “It was going to be very hard on both of us.” The Decision For 10 years, sports fans and reporters had been fascinated by the uncommon Snee-Coughlin relationship, but in most cases, the two men had made it seem a seamless, undramatic union. Behind the scenes over the years, though, the coach had acted like a father-in-law when he observed Snee limping in practice or wincing as he grabbed his arm. Coughlin would approach to ask, “Are you O.K.?” “I always answered that I was fine,” Snee, 32, said. “I felt like the last thing a coach wants to hear is your troubles. He has enough on his plate without worrying that the right guard isn’t 100 percent.” Coughlin’s wife, Judy, would sometimes hear from her husband that Snee might be injured, and she would also corner her son-in-law to ask how he was doing. “Chris’s answer was always, ‘I’m great,’ ” Judy Coughlin said. “You weren’t getting anything out of him.” Snee’s wife would notice the infirmities as well. “The first couple of years in the league, the day after a game he would be absolutely fine,” Kate Snee said Wednesday. “Five years after that, he wouldn’t feel good for a couple of days afterward. Ten years in, he’d be miserable for a full week. We talked about it all the time, and I raised all the pros and cons of what he was doing. “I wanted him to feel well, not just play well.” Snee’s response was to adhere to the offensive lineman’s credo: Injuries were masked, and asking out of the lineup was verboten. “I think Kate knew how meaningful and important it was for me to be in uniform and accountable to my teammates,” Snee said. “So to me, I still think I was giving the right answers.” But the operations on his hip and elbow in 2013 had not brought the recovery that Snee had been expecting. Snee was accustomed to lifting excessively heavy weights four or five hours a day, slogging through sweat-soaked sessions at the Giants’ workout complex in the morning and then spending the afternoon with an Olympic-level powerlifting guru in another New Jersey gym. Years ago, Men’s Journal magazine suggested that Snee might be the strongest man in the N.F.L. But last summer, the barbells Snee thrust over his head weighed only a fraction of what they once had. During his most recent elbow surgery, doctors sliced open his right arm from the biceps to the wrist to relocate a nerve. But his right arm remained weak and partly numb. Moreover, even light off-season running workouts were making his hips — both had been operated on — ache and throb. “I had to be honest with myself,” Snee said. “But that didn’t make it any easier as I was walking into Coach Coughlin’s office.” Image Before retiring, Snee (76) had a third operation on his right elbow, which he can no longer straighten after having bone fragments removed. Credit Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press The two had met in the office many times. But this was different. With the Giants’ offensive line in shambles, Coughlin desperately needed Snee to help bolster a young team coming off a dismal 7-9 season. Snee was an inspirational presence who led by example, always among the first players to arrive each day and one of the last to leave. Coughlin cherished Snee’s work ethic and called him “the most reliable person to ever put on a Giants uniform.” Snee once started 108 games in a row. But this time, Coughlin looked at Snee and saw the father of three of his grandchildren, not a durable Pro Bowl guard. “I sat him down, and I told him I loved him,” Coughlin said. “I said to him: ‘You are a very, very important part of my family. I want you to think of your future.’ “We both knew what the decision was. But it was a very emotional time in my office. He said he had been thinking about being able to play in the backyard with his sons. He didn’t want football to rob him of that.” Finally, Snee rose to his feet and left the office. In a hallway, Snee was reunited with his 8-year-old son, Cooper, who had come along for the trip. Seeing his father in tears, Cooper wondered what had happened during the conversation with his grandfather. “I told Cooper I wasn’t going to play football anymore — never again,” Snee said. “And Cooper looked at me and said: ‘That’s O.K. Now you can play with me more.’ ” Happy in Retirement In the last several months, Snee has played more often with Cooper and his brothers, Dylan, 11, and Walker, 4. He is coaching their teams in various sports, and he has volunteered his time as a coach at a high school near his northern New Jersey home. Snee has lost more than 55 pounds since July. “To keep my weight over 300 pounds, I basically had to eat something bad for me all the time,” Snee said. “I’d eat a double portion of dinner and then a huge bowl of ice cream. I’ve stopped that and the powerlifting workouts, too.” Without the extra weight, Snee’s hips, back and chronically sore knee no longer bother him, although his left hip is arthritic, and he knows it will one day have to be replaced. His right elbow still does not function as it should. “But I’m running two miles several days a week, which would have been impossible six months ago,” Snee said at lunch in a New Jersey restaurant. “I feel more healthy; I have more energy. I was tired before, physically and mentally. The treatments day after day, all the M.R.I.s and the rehab sessions — just never being completely healthy — it wears on you.” When the weather in New Jersey was more favorable this fall, he played golf most days — between shuttling his sons to school. He wrote articles on football for a website and did some commentary on postgame shows. He is far from living in the past. Inside his New Jersey home, there are no trophies or mementos of his Giants career in the family’s main living space. Image Snee celebrated his first Super Bowl victory with his wife, Kate, and son Dylan, a 17-14 victory over New England in 2008. Credit Andy Lyons/Getty Images Snee does not struggle to fill his time, and much of the old offensive-lineman mentality remains. “When it snows, I still shovel my own driveway, even though it’s about 50 yards long,” said Snee, who was raised by a mother who still works full time at a hospital and a father who labors 15 hours a day in the summer as a cement-mix truck driver. Snee is also trying to persuade his wife to let him mow the large lawn surrounding the family homestead instead of having landscapers do it. “It’s been wonderful to have Chris around for all the things he missed before,” Kate Snee said. “He came to our 4-year-old’s school Christmas concert the other day. He had never been to one.” Kate and Chris met as students at Boston College. One night, her father, who was then the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, was in town to scout another Boston College player. He called Kate and suggested that they have dinner. “Kate asked me if she could bring a friend,” Coughlin recalled. “I said sure. That afternoon I was watching tape of this other B.C. player, and I couldn’t help but notice this guard who was knocking people over and clearing out huge holes to run through. “His name was Snee. I go to dinner that night, and Kate’s guest is the same guy, Chris Snee. And he didn’t say two words throughout the whole dinner.” Shortly after Snee’s retirement , Giants fans who approached him often told him how sorry they were that he had been forced to retire. “No one should feel sorry for me,” Snee said. “I got 10 great years in my dream job. This is what I wanted to do. A lot of players never get to have any career. My boys celebrated on the field with me for two Super Bowls. “I wouldn’t change anything I did. I knew when I signed up for the game that I would be sore and feel it later on in my life. But I’ve taken so much out of the game, and not just financial rewards. It has been an invaluable experience to me.” Snee’s last contract, signed in 2008, was worth more than $40 million. But it is not entirely true that Snee has no regrets. “It bugs me that I didn’t finish healthy and playing well,” Snee said. “I didn’t see the breakdowns coming. Five years ago, I thought I was going to play 10 more years.” At Peace One of Snee’s closest friends on the Giants was quarterback Eli Manning, who is far more perceptive than his purposely bland public persona lets on. Manning, who has started 165 consecutive regular-season games, said every player fooled himself into thinking his career would carry on uninterrupted. “We always tell each other, ‘Play each game like it’s your last because it might be,’ ” Manning said last week. “But I don’t know if we ever believe that. You think you’ll always be able to keep going. We all make a plan to play a certain number of years.” Image "I wouldn’t change anything I did," Snee said. "I knew when I signed up for the game that I would be sore and feel it later on in my life. But I’ve taken so much out of the game." Credit Kirsten Luce for The New York Times But he added, “The N.F.L. has other plans.” Shaun O’Hara, who retired from the N.F.L. in 2010, lives near Snee and has remained in contact with his former linemate. “Chris is that guy who never lets anyone down,” O’Hara said. “So it killed him to leave a team that needed him. But when your body is breaking down, you start to realize the damage that is being done, and you know some of it is irreparable. “You get to the point where you say, ‘Is it worth it?’ ” Unlike many other pro football players, Snee sustained only one concussion. He sat out two weeks. Snee is well aware of the drumbeat of former players coming forward in middle age with health concerns, including dementia and cognitive disabilities. Asked if he was worried about his future well-being, Snee answered: “I certainly haven’t been thinking about it, and my feeling is that I’ll be fine. I’m going to apply the same mind-set I had for 10 years: one day at a time. I feel good, and I’m doing the right things for myself — that’s what I’m focused on.” Although Snee graduated from Boston College with an accounting degree, he does not expect his college major to influence his next vocational choice. He is instead looking into coaching football at a high school on a full-time basis next season. “If he’s a coach, those kids will learn how to be a good teammate,” Manning said. “Chris never said much. He was just there for you whenever you needed him.” Tom Coughlin has not counseled Snee about coaching. “Frankly, I think he could do whatever he wants — Wall Street, whatever — and succeed,” Coughlin said. “He’s that smart.” The coach and the player, the father-in-law and the son-in-law, do not spend the time together that they once did. “It bothers me that I don’t see him every day because seeing him always gave me confidence,” Coughlin said. “But he made the right decision. And it makes me appreciate those 10 years.” Snee’s acclimation to being a former player has been smooth, with one major exception: game days. “If I go to a game, before kickoff I get goose bumps and feel that edgy nervousness just like I did when I was playing,” he said. “My body fully expects that I’m going to run onto that field, and that’s hard.” But the nights after games are easier. “I never slept after a game,” Snee said. “If we won, I’d stay up all night rehashing things, and if we lost, then Sunday night would be my time to grieve.” He added, “Now I sleep.” It may be an allegory for a life after pro football. “My time right now is peaceful,” Snee said. “I’ve had stress for the last how many years? I’m not pushing myself now. I want one fall where I just look back and enjoy what I’ve done. “At some point, I’ll just take it from there.”

Football
Chris Snee
Tom Coughlin
Sports injury
Giants


Violin Repair Shop in New York Runs Afoul of Buildings Dept.

Abstract: Just after Labor Day , Joseph Tanen got a call from a client of the small, discreet business that he runs, by appointment only, on Broadway near 123rd Street in Manhattan. No, Mr. Tanen told the client, he could not help her. The law was after him. “We just opened a letter from the city’s padlock enforcement unit,” he said. “We might not be around long enough.” The city’s padlock unit is an arm of the Department of Buildings that is best known for shutting down bordellos, gambling parlors and after-hours clubs. And then there is the business run by Mr. Tanen and his wife, Nancy Phillips, in a tiny space at 3111 Broadway: Tanen Violins . Mr. Tanen repairs violins and cellos. His customers are not the internationally renowned, but the legions of school children taking their first lessons, conservatory students from the Manhattan School of Music around the corner, or professional musicians laboring in tuneful anonymity. “Under the zoning resolution, a musical instrument repair shop is prohibited in this residential district,” said Tony Sclafani, a spokesman for the Department of Buildings. The same zoning law bans umbrella and typewriter repair shops, wedding chapels and gymnasiums. These days, the good folk of New York do not suffer the plagues of the umbrella repair trade. But tucked into the nooks and crannies of the city are thousands of microbusinesses, bookbinders and jewelry makers, pet groomers and Pilates trainers. If they are prudent enough not to bother the neighbors, most of them escape official notice, even if they are in violation of zoning laws. There was nothing remotely sneaky about what Mr. Tanen was up to. When he and his wife moved their business into the building two years ago, the lease spelled out precisely how they intended to use the space. The workshop occupies three small rooms on the ground floor next to the superintendent’s apartment. Mr. Tanen and Ms. Phillips live several blocks away. In June, however, someone complained to the Department of Buildings about the workshop. “From what we’ve heard, it apparently had nothing to do with us,” Mr. Tanen said. “A residential tenant upstairs is doing whatever can be done to bother the landlord, and made this complaint.” Even in an age when cranes are toppling, concrete strength tests are suspected of being faked and entire building facades collapse, the Tanen repair shop has managed to draw attention from the city. Mr. Sclafani said his agency would not have known about the violin shop if someone had not complained. He said the department was obliged to conduct an inspection and to enforce the zoning rules. Mr. Tanen was told to stop his “illegal” use or face padlocking. “It’s like having a Stasi system,” said Ms. Phillips, alluding to the vast informant network East Germany used to monitor its citizenry. “The only enforcement they can have is neighbors spying on neighbors.” In one meticulously kept room, Mr. Tanen works at a bench, occasionally using a saw. Mostly he employs small tools scaled to the delicacy of his tasks. A major hazard for old violins and cellos is the overheated New York apartment, where the kilnlike dryness draws the spring out of the wood, which cracks. “You can always tell when the heat goes on,” Ms. Phillips said. “The phone starts ringing off the hook.” Mr. Tanen refits the wood — sometimes it is only two and a half millimeters thick — and refinishes the hairlines. One professional cellist, giving a lecture, used his bow to make a point, and managed to knock off the side of his instrument. “Not a lot of repair shops are willing to work on less valuable instruments,” Mr. Tanen said. “It’s simple economics,” Ms. Phillips added. “If they’re working on a hundred-thousand-dollar instrument, the commission is a lot greater.” “Some repair people take the view, ‘I wasn’t trained to work on your kid’s instrument,’ ” Mr. Tanen said. MR. TANEN, 49, learned violin repair in Boston. After working at several repair shops in Manhattan, most now shut, he set up his own in 1994. When they moved to 3111 Broadway in 2007, the couple sank all their savings into outfitting the space, said Ms. Phillips, 48, who runs the business. “The fact that we’re managing to keep our heads above water after the last year and a half is something of a miracle,” she said. “Now we are spending money on a lawyer.” Mr. Tanen can handle violins from the 17th century. The 21st-century Buildings Department is another story. “We can’t take a job that’s going to take a month,” Mr. Tanen said. “We can’t take apart an instrument and have the pieces padlocked in the place.”

Buildings Department
Zoning
Musical Instruments
Violins


Stronger Aer Lingus Sees End to Government Holding

Abstract: DUBLIN — Christoph Mueller, the chief executive of Aer Lingus, accompanied the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, and other officials on Friday on a flight aboard a restored 1936 De Havilland Dragon to observe the 75th anniversary of the airline’s first scheduled service. The six-seat, twin-engine propeller plane was restored for the occasion by a volunteer team of Aer Lingus pilots and engineers — a “labor of love,” as Mr. Mueller put it, as well as a source of comfort at a moment of wrenching austerity and economic uncertainty across Ireland. “I believe it has served a little bit as a campfire,” Mr. Mueller said during an interview in his office overlooking Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport. “I mean, 1936 were difficult times, too.” Yet for Mr. Mueller, a German who took the helm of Aer Lingus, the struggling Irish flag carrier, less than two years ago, the anniversary represents more than just a sentimental milestone. “Out of 800 airlines in the world today, only about 13 are 75 years or older,” he said. “This proves that the airline business has always been very, very tough. Only a few make it.” It also represents a turning point. After three-quarters of a century of state ownership — Aer Lingus was privatized in 2006, but the government still owns a 25 percent stake — he said it was time for Dublin to let go. “Maybe we are a bit of a late developer,” Mr. Mueller said, choosing his words carefully. “But after 75 years, I believe we are ready to finally leave the parents behind.” Many industry executives and analysts have long argued that full Irish divestment from Aer Lingus is inevitable and that the company’s share price would also benefit if the stock were more widely held. But there is less agreement about what an end to the state’s role may portend for the future ownership of Aer Lingus. The airline is seeking to reinvent its business model in the face of bare-knuckled competition from its low-cost rival, Ryanair , and pushing ahead with an aggressive turnaround program that seeks to trim its work force by 20 percent and cut at least 100 million euros, or $141 million, in costs by the end of the year. For one thing, the government is not the only big shareholder in Aer Lingus. Ryanair, whose headquarters are just across a parking lot from Mr. Mueller’s office at the airport, holds a nearly 30 percent stake in Aer Lingus, the legacy of two hostile takeover attempts — in 2006 and 2008 — that were flatly rejected by the Irish government and European regulators as anticompetitive. Aer Lingus and Ryanair together control 70 percent of the Irish air travel market. “If the Irish state were to try and place its shares into the market, there is the risk that Ryanair would try and snap them up unless there were some arrangement worked out with Ryanair beforehand,” said Stephen Furlong, an analyst at Davy Stockbrokers in Dublin. The alternative, he and other analysts said, would be to sell to another investor, most likely one of Europe’s three major airlines: Air France-KLM, Lufthansa or the recently merged British Airways-Iberia, now known as the International Airline Group. And therein lies the rub. “Any industrial buyer of Aer Lingus would probably be reluctant to have Ryanair as a large minority shareholder,” said Gerard Moore, an analyst at Merrion Capital in Dublin. Representatives for all three groups said it was their policy not to comment on speculation about possible acquisitions. Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said he had received the message from regulators and Aer Lingus employees, who own 14 percent of the airline, that a third offer for the carrier would be unwelcome. “We are still too emotive a subject here in Ireland,” Mr. O’Leary said. After the 85-billion-euro bailout that Ireland received from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund last year, however, Mr. O’Leary said the government was under pressure to put its financial house in order. Though valued at a mere 110 million euros at the current share price — a drop in the ocean for a country with 17 billion euros a year in debt service requirements — the Aer Lingus stake was still an “obvious asset to sell,” Mr. O’Leary argued. He predicted a divestment was likely within the next two years. Aer Lingus returned to an operating profit in 2010, of 58 million euros, its first since 2007. But rising oil prices and Ireland’s deepening recession are taking a toll this year: for the first quarter, Aer Lingus reported an operating loss of 56 million euros. An independent review of Ireland’s 5 billion euro state asset portfolio, commissioned by the Irish Finance Ministry last year, recommended in April that the government dispose of its Aer Lingus stake “as soon as is opportune.” That report dismissed a central argument made by past Irish governments that claimed state ownership in Aer Lingus, in addition to preventing a monopoly controlled by Ryanair, was vital to ensuring sufficient air connections between the island country and the rest of the world, particularly Heathrow Airport, near London. The report’s authors noted that while Aer Lingus offered the most daily flights from Ireland to Heathrow — 23 a day — other carriers, namely BMI, a unit of Lufthansa, also offered frequent Heathrow flights. Meanwhile, CityJet, an Air France subsidiary based in Dublin, connects the Irish capital with Charles de Gaulle Airport, near Paris, another global gateway. Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s transport and tourism minister, said the government was still reviewing the report’s findings. “We are not in any hurry to sell our stake,” Mr. Varadkar said. But he said the government would be supportive of a sale “if Aer Lingus were to decide its future is to be found in an alliance with a larger airline group.” For his part, Mr. Mueller said he was concerned that a takeover by a larger group would “infect” much of the work that Aer Lingus has done to whittle down its operating costs in recent years, making it one of the leanest of the full-service airlines in Europe. “We’ve all learned the lessons that M.& A. never results in a lower cost base,” he said. When two airlines merge, he said, operating costs, particularly for labor and fleet management, “always meet on the higher level.” That said, Aer Lingus’s retrenchment over the last two years — it has sharply reduced seat capacity on a number of European routes and eliminated some unprofitable services to North America — has left it more dependent than ever on commercial partnerships with other airlines, particularly United Airlines and JetBlue Airways. “We will never be able to connect Ireland with the 70 million Irish people abroad with our own aircraft,” Mr. Mueller said. Aer Lingus does not belong to one of the major global airline alliances, having quit Oneworld in 2007 as part of a strategy, since abandoned by Mr. Mueller, to try to compete with Ryanair as a no-frills, point-to-point airline. Mr. Mueller said he was uncertain that an alliance would be a viable alternative to a merger. “A lot of carriers have very swiftly decided to join an alliance, almost with the notion of joining a country club,” he said. “But alliance benefits are mainly limited to frequent business travelers, because only they make full utilization of seamless travel, frequent-flier programs, lounges and so on. We only have 15 percent of those” kind of passengers, he said, as opposed to airlines like Lufthansa with 45 to 50 percent. “So by definition, our cost-benefit ratio in joining an alliance is much lower.” When Mr. Mueller took over as chief executive, Aer Lingus was burning through about 33 million euros in cash a month. Banks were refusing to provide fresh loans to finance its operations. His aggressive restructuring plan, announced in late 2009, has since stemmed the bleeding to the point that the airline is now sitting on net cash pile of about 350 million euros. Some say that money ought to be used to pay a dividend to shareholders — or perhaps buy out Ryanair. Mr. O’Leary, the Ryanair chief, is open to the idea. “We’d consider any offer for our stake on its merits,” he said, noting that Ryanair had recently written down the value of its Aer Lingus stake to about 114 million euros. The company spent about 400 million euros acquiring the shares. Mr. Mueller smiled at the suggestion. “Of course we have that in our toolbox,” he said — with regard not only to Ryanair’s stake, but also to the government’s. “We discuss the different scenarios amicably with all our shareholders.”

Aer Lingus Airlines
Airlines and Airplanes
Ireland
Kenny Enda
Ryanair Holdings PLC


With $200 Million Gift, Mt. Sinai Medical School to Be Renamed for Carl Icahn

Abstract: In the ultimate friendly merger, the corporate raider Carl C. Icahn is giving $200 million to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan, which will be renamed in his honor. Mr. Icahn actually attended medical school at New York University for two years, pressed by his mother, Bella. But he dropped out because he “hated it,” he said Wednesday. “My mother would be proud of me today,” Mr. Icahn, 76, said. “My name is involved with a medical school.” Henceforth, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, on the Upper East Side, will be known as the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Mr. Icahn said his gift was influenced by what he called the socialist legacy of his father, Michael, a “dogmatic atheist” who nonetheless worked as a cantor after he did not achieve his ambition of being a singer at the Metropolitan Opera. Of the medical school, Mr. Icahn said, “It does help the people that aren’t that fortunate,” adding that he had chosen his other philanthropic ventures — like several charter schools — for the same reason. “I do feel there is too much disparity in the city between the wealthy and the not wealthy.” The Icahn gift comprises about $50 million already given and an additional $150 million still to come, said Dr. Kenneth L. Davis, president and chief executive of the Mount Sinai Medical Center, which includes the school. Dr. Davis said the gift had been nurtured over nine years of dinners and discussions with Mr. Icahn, a medical school trustee, and would be heavily devoted to building research capability. The naming of New York City medical schools appears to have undergone some inflation. Mr. Icahn’s gift is double the $100 million that Sanford I. Weill, the Wall Street deal maker, pledged, with his wife, Joan, before Cornell University’s medical college was named for them in 1998. In 2008, Kenneth G. Langone, a founder of Home Depot, gave $100 million , matching an earlier donation of his, to what became NYU Langone Medical Center. Mr. Icahn said he did not feel competitive with Mr. Langone and Mr. Weill. “If they wanted to give a dollar more,” he said, “I’d let them have the honor.”

Icahn Carl C
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Gifts
Medical Schools


Thomas J. Meskill Dies at 79; Ex-Congressman, Connecticut Governor and Federal Judge

Abstract: Thomas J. Meskill, who in his one term as governor of Connecticut in the early 1970s steered the state away from the edge of bankruptcy, instituted a state lottery and oversaw the creation of a department of environmental protection, died yesterday near his home in Delray Beach, Fla. He was 79 and also had a home in East Berlin, Conn. The cause was a blood disorder, said his wife of 53 years, the former Mary Grady. Governor Meskill, a former United States representative and later a federal appeals court judge, faced a $244 million budget deficit when he took office in 1971 as Connecticut’s first Republican governor in 16 years. It was a difficult first year. To close the deficit, the state’s first income tax was enacted. But after strong public protests, the income tax was repealed. Instead, a 6.5 percent sales tax was passed. As another revenue-raising tool, a state lottery was established. Those measures, along with other austerity programs, earned Governor Meskill the nickname Tough Tommy. By 1973, the deficit was erased and there was a $65 million surplus. “We have come a long and sometimes bumpy way to reach this promising crossroads,” Governor Meskill told The New York Times on February 1973. A conservative for the most part, Governor Meskill adamantly opposed abortion. In 1972, when the state’s 1860 law banning abortions was struck down, he likened the decision to the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which held that a slave did not exist as a person and therefore had no legal standing. “Sometimes I find it hard to believe we have learned so little about human rights and values in the 100 years since Dred Scott,” the governor said. He wrangled regularly with Democrats, the majority party in the legislature, vetoing 229 bills during his four years in office. But some significant legislation was enacted on his watch, including no-fault auto insurance, the legalization of off-track betting and the creation of the Department of Environmental Protection. Governor Meskill was less successful in a less serious matter: the selection of a state song. He had been irritated because bands at public functions played “Boola Boola,” the Yale fight song, when he arrived. He favored “The Hills of My Connecticut,” with lyrics including: “From hills to the sea, our faith everlasting, our trust is in thee.” Only after he was out of office did the state choose a slightly altered version of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Thomas Joseph Meskill Jr. was born in New Britain, Conn., on Jan. 30, 1928. He graduated from Trinity College in 1950, then served three years in the Air Force. He received a law degree from the University of Connecticut in 1956. In addition to his wife, Mr. Meskill is survived by two daughters, Eileen Gallup of New Britain and Maureen Heneghan of Haddon Heights, N.J.; three sons, John, of Kensington, Conn.; Peter, of East Hartford, Conn.; and Thomas, of Branford, Conn.; two sisters, Ruth Prior of Naples, Fla., and Sister Laura Marie of Portland, Conn.; five grandchildren, and two step-grandchildren. Mr. Meskill’s political quest was rocky. In 1958, after practicing law in New Britain, he ran for the State Senate and lost in a landslide. In 1960, he fell 115 votes short in his first run for mayor of New Britain. Two years later he was elected mayor, by 5,500 votes, only to lose the post by 25 votes in 1964. That fall, he ran for Congress and lost. He ran for Congress again in 1966 and won. As a congressman, Mr. Meskill supported increased financing for the Vietnam war, open-housing legislation and the withholding of federal health and education funds for Southern communities that violated certain civil rights laws. He opposed legislation to increase rent support for poor people, but also opposed a bill to cut anti-poverty funds. In 1970, after two terms in Congress, Mr. Meskill was elected governor. Four years later, he chose not to seek re-election. Soon afterward, President Gerald R. Ford named him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; he was chief judge in 1992 and 1993. Judge Meskill wrote the opinion in a unanimous decision in 1978 holding that suspects cannot be arrested in their homes by federal agents without a warrant, except under extreme circumstances. “Surprisingly,” he wrote, “neither the Supreme Court nor the Second Circuit has squarely decided this issue.” In 1983, Judge Meskill reluctantly concurred in a decision that upheld a lower-court finding that certain hard-core pornography could not be seized in Manhattan because it did not offend community standards. “Had this case originated in the District of Connecticut, in a community whose standards are familiar to me,” he wrote, “I would not hesitate to reverse.”

Governors (US)
Connecticut
Deaths (Obituaries)
Judges


Lane Bryant Introduces New Advertising and Marketing Campaign

Abstract: LANE BRYANT, the women’s plus-size fashion retailer, is introducing a $10 million advertising and marketing campaign to make its clothing and lingerie more relevant to current and prospective customers. The campaign by MODCo , a New York-based agency that has worked with Vera Wang, Century 21, Theory, Carolina Herrera and other fashion companies, features new print advertising; a revamped Web site and social media outreach; and in-store and direct marketing initiatives, including new logos for the Lane Bryant clothing and Cacique lingerie brands. The target customers are women ages 30 to 45 who wear sizes 14 to 28. “The campaign is meant to showcase the great fashion we have that fits the dynamic lifestyle of our customer and makes her feel sexy, confident and happy,” said Liz Crystal, chief marketing officer at Lane Bryant. “We want to celebrate who she is. We want to be aspirational in fashion, but the key is to be relatable.” Founded in New York in 1904 by a Lithuanian dressmaker, Lane Bryant was sold in May with its parent company, Charming Shoppes , to Ascena Retail Group for $890 million. Ms. Crystal said the new marketing strategy was in the works before the sale. The company, which operates about 800 stores, had sales of $992 million and profits of $111 million in the fiscal year that ended in January; 12 percent of its sales were generated online in that time period. A major factor behind Lane Bryant’s new initiatives is the recent weakness in sales of all women’s fashions, and particularly in sales of plus-size women’s fashions. The current recession “has hit the women’s market harder than previous recessions,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for the NPD Group. “The road to recovery is yet to occur for the women’s market in total. It just started breaking even over the last year.” Mr. Cohen added that while plus-size women were “an ever-growing part of the population, they’re also the most underserved part of the market.” He said that for the year ending May 31, sales of plus-size apparel made up 16 percent of all female apparel sales, while in 2006, plus-size sales were almost one-fifth of total sales. “Traditionally, when the economy goes bad, plus-size consumers are the first ones to show a lack of growth and are the last to recover, which is another reason retailers are hesitant to grow plus sizes,” Mr. Cohen said. To attract new customers and increase sales to its current customer base, Lane Bryant is introducing for the fall 2012 season what it calls “trend-driven fashions,” including a houndstooth cape, animal-printed denim clothing and bluejeans in a proprietary fabric that contains Lycra and is designed to neither bag nor sag. This clothing appears in print advertising, a new medium for the retailer, which has not done extensive magazine advertising since 2007. Ms. Crystal said Lane Bryant was turning to the print medium now because its target customer is “engaged with print. She uses print to learn about fashion. We felt print was important.” The print ads feature popular plus-size models like Candice Huffine, Robyn Lawley and Marquita Pring, each shown in a real-life setting, like an urban exterior or home interior. All ads contain the new Lane Bryant logo and the campaign’s tagline, “Fashion for every day, style just for you.” An ad for a Cacique bra, worn by Ms. Pring, also contains the new Cacique logo. The ads will run in the September and October issues of magazines like Essence, Glamour, InStyle, Latina and Marie Claire. The company also plans to run billboard advertising in Times Square in November. “Previous photo shoots were more studio- and product-focused,” said Sara Rotman, chief executive of MODCo. “We are much more women-focused and are trying to create a personality for the brand, to celebrate the customer.” Lane Bryant has updated its Web site and Facebook pages, adding the new logo and images like those in its new print advertising. Beginning this month, the retailer is also rolling out new direct-mail efforts and in-store collateral, like shopping bags, gift cards and clothing tags. Ms. Crystal said the budget for the new campaign was $10 million, including advertising, collateral and market research expenditures. According to Kantar Media , this is the most Lane Bryant has spent on advertising since 2007, when its expenditures totaled $11.7 million; expenditures since then have ranged from $634,000 in 2009 to $6.9 million in 2010. Mr. Cohen praised the new campaign over all. “Lane Bryant is telling consumers, we have heard you — we’re going to provide you with a new experience, with a more rounded product in tune with what you want,” he said. “Any communication you have with an audience you’ve ignored for a period of time may take some time to resonate,” he added. “The good news is this group will spread the word. They’re very communicative.” Burt P. Flickinger III, a fashion consultant in New York, predicted the campaign would do “exceptionally well.” “Lane Bryant is competing against itself,” he said. “Plus-size women are the fastest growing fashion category, and Lane Bryant has had no real marketing news in the past decade. They are going to address major, unmet consumer demand.” Inge Lehmann, a principal in Whitaker International, a fashion consulting firm, called the new ads “very tasteful and beautifully done.” She added, however, that Lane Bryant needed to more clearly distinguish among different customer segments — like those seeking glamorous, traditional or contemporary styles — than it does now in order to improve sales significantly.

Advertising and Marketing
Lane Bryant Inc
Fashion and Apparel
Shopping and Retail


Big East May Break Record in N.C.A.A. Draw

Abstract: The Big East men's tournament beginning today may be a display of might and excess unlike anything ever seen in college basketball. There are terrific teams, very good teams, dangerous teams -- everything but bad teams. Notre Dame, seeded last in the 12-team field, won 15 games this season, has won 5 of its last 7 and took Connecticut into overtime before losing. "I think all 12 teams in this tournament are capable of playing in the N.C.A.A. tournament and doing well in the N.C.A.A. tournament," Coach Jim Calhoun of top-seeded UConn said. "That is incredibly rare." Most believed that when the Big East became a 16-team league this season with the addition of Louisville, Marquette, DePaul, South Florida and Cincinnati, it would become the toughest and deepest conference in the nation. The Big East has managed to surpass most expectations. Connecticut is No. 1 in the nation and Villanova is No. 2. Behind them are several good teams, as many as eight still in the hunt for an N.C.A.A. tournament bid. With so much depth, the Big East is expected to receive a record number of bids to the N.C.A.A. tournament, a story line throughout the conference championship. The Big East is among a handful of conferences that have received seven bids to the N.C.A.A. tournament, having done so in 1991. But no league has ever received more. That record is expected to fall when the tournament field is announced Sunday night. "I think we're going to be deserving of nine bids," Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey said. "I firmly believe that. And maybe something magical can happen in New York City and we will pull off a 10th bid. I'm dreaming big dreams for our league. "There has been a buzz about this league since the preseason. Usually when you have that kind of buzz and hype, it doesn't live up to it. We exceeded it. So I think we should be rewarded with the right amount of bids." Brey is not alone with his optimism. Commissioner Mike Tranghese refused to predict how many bids the conference would get, but expressed confidence that the N.C.A.A. tournament selection committee was prepared to accept a record number of Big East teams. "I think they will take the 34 best at-large teams in the country," Tranghese said. "Our coaches are nervous about that. I am absolutely convinced that no one will get left out because of quotas. The committee looks at who you played, who you beat, good road wins, how you played at the end of the year. That's been the formula for the longest time, and it's not going to change." Connecticut, Villanova, West Virginia, Marquette, Georgetown and Pittsburgh seem assured of N.C.A.A. tournament bids. Seventh-seeded Seton Hall can all but wrap up an invitation with a victory today over 10th-seeded Rutgers. Cincinnati and Syracuse, which also meet in the opening round, are considered bubble teams. Whichever team wins today would make a solid case for the N.C.A.A. selection committee. Rutgers, Louisville and Notre Dame would most likely need to win the conference tournament for the automatic N.C.A.A. bid. Otherwise, they are destined for the National Invitation Tournament. For Villanova and Connecticut, the goal is to win the Big East tournament or at least do well enough to lock up a No. 1 seeding in the N.C.A.A. tournament. The last time the Big East had two top-seeded teams in the N.C.A.A. tournament was 1985, when Georgetown and St. John's had two of the top slots. It was Villanova, however, that came out of the Big East that year to win the national championship. "This tournament can take something out of you, but it can also instill something in you," Calhoun said. "If you win it, you are a team that knows how to win. And you do not want to go into the N.C.A.A. tournament off a loss. Eleven of the 12 teams here are going to come out of this with a loss. I'd much rather go in with a win." UConn and Villanova could meet for the third time this season in the conference tournament final. They split their regular-season series, with each team winning on its home court. REBOUNDS Randy Foye of Villanova was named the Big East player of the year and Jay Wright, also from Villanova, was named its coach of the year. Foye was second in scoring (21 points a game) in the conference behind Quincy Douby of Rutgers. Dominic James of Marquette was named rookie of the year.

BIG EAST CONFERENCE
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
BASKETBALL


Nepal: Push to Open Peaks to Climbers

Abstract: The government is considering contracts with climbing companies that would grant exclusive access to many of its highest mountains, a spokesman for Nepal’s tourism ministry said on Tuesday, as part of an effort to bring more climbers to the Himalayas, the world’s highest mountain range. Nepal has some 3,310 mountains, but only 310 are open to commercial climbing. Since the government determined that it cannot manage all of its peaks, it will soon propose offering 30-year leases on the remaining 3,000 mountains to climbing companies, which would then organize climbs and charge fees. Nepal collects about $2.7 million annually in mountaineering fees, most of which comes from the nearly 35,000 people who visit Mount Everest. Nepal has long been trying to increase and diversify its tourism business, with its extraordinary mountains — 60 peaks higher than 26,000 feet — at the center of those efforts. Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries, and the country’s youths are increasingly leaving for jobs elsewhere.


S.E.C. Plans to Accuse Hedge Fund of Violations

Abstract: Correction Appended The Securities and Exchange Commission has notified Perry Capital, a large hedge fund company, that it intends to take action against the firm, accusing it of violating disclosure rules when it used an unusual trading technique last year to try to influence a takeover battle, the company said. Perry, which was founded by a former Goldman Sachs partner, Richard C. Perry, received what is known as a Wells notice, which describes the S.E.C.'s complaint. Before a case is brought, Perry has the right to argue its case to the agency. The case stems from a complex hedging technique that Perry used to buy a voting stake in a company without holding the same economic interest in the company. Perry used the technique to try to influence the outcome of a takeover battle for King Pharmaceuticals, a generic drug maker, waged by a larger rival, Mylan Laboratories. The firm appeared to have set up a sophisticated swap trade with Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs so that it controlled about 10 percent of Mylan's votes, with limited or no exposure to fluctuations in Mylan's share price. The maneuver made Perry the largest, if indirect, shareholder of Mylan, and could have helped ensure that Mylan would receive enough shareholder votes to approve the deal for King at a time when the next-biggest shareholder of Mylan, Carl C. Icahn, was trying to block the merger. If the deal had been completed, Perry stood to make more than $28 million, based on figures in an S.E.C. filing. After the trading technique was reported, Mr. Icahn filed suit against Perry, contending that the firm had manipulated the stock. Perry's technique and Mr. Icahn's suit ended up being in vain because King later called off the deal. In a statement yesterday, Perry said: "As we have previously advised our investors, the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission has been conducting an informal inquiry in connection with Perry Capital's trading in the securities of Mylan Labs." The firm added: "We believe that we have acted properly at all times and with the advice of counsel." Correction: January 12, 2006, Thursday An article in Business Day yesterday about plans by the Securities and Exchange Commission to take action against Perry Capital, a hedge fund, described King Pharmaceuticals incorrectly. It is a branded pharmaceutical company, not a generic drug maker.

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
SECURITIES AND COMMODITIES VIOLATIONS


You Can’t Quit; You’re Fired

Abstract: So much of sports success is all about timing and although we long knew that the Titans owner Bud Adams was challenged in that regard (his hair being from the Pleistocene Era and all), that it took until yesterday to figure out Jeff Fisher wasn’t returning as coach was a debacle even by Adams’s standards. Not only has the market for replacements been picked over like the bargain rack at Macy’s, but the Titans’ preparations for things like the draft have also ground to a halt and Fisher has been forced to cool his heels for another year if he wants to be an N.F.L. head coach again. Oh, and there is that thing about Fisher being an awfully good coach. Nonetheless, the divorce has been finalized while everyone puzzles about the timing, including Clark Judge of CBSSports.com . David Climer writes in The Tennessean that he believes Fisher walked because Adams would not extend his contract, which was to expire after next season, knowing that Adams never met a penny he could not squeeze flat. The players, who were overwhelmingly pro-Fisher in this standoff, expressed dismay over his departure . Adams’s comments certainly implied this was a financial decision, as was initially siding with Fisher in announcing quarterback Vince Young would be cut. But Paul Kuharsky writes on ESPN.com that this is unlikely to reverse that decision on Young. The N.F.L. would now like you to return to the regularly scheduled Super Bowl hype. And it sincerely apologizes if you were forced to look at another picture of Adams’s hair . For actual live sporting events that don’t have two weeks of hot air preceding them, feel free to tune into the Australian Open (admittedly this is easier for insomniacs) and join the British in a combination of hope and agony as Andy Murray reaches the final of a Grand Slam. As Kevin Mitchell writes in The Guardian , he drags Britain to the edge of its seat again, trying to break the country’s 75-year drought of men’s major singles titles. He’ll face a familiar face across the net on Sunday, as Courtney Walsh writes in The Australian , because he and Novak Djokovic have been rivals since childhood. As for the idea that Roger Federer’s absence from this party marks the end of an era, Greg Couch of Fanhouse.com isn’t yet willing to go that far, but he admits the era is showing a few major cracks. Everyone was noticing the cracks in the Miami Heat Thursday night, which seemed particularly illuminated in a loss to the Knicks. It told us a few things about the Knicks too, writes Paul Forrester on SI.com , and Mike Vaccaro of The Post enjoyed a few throwback moments to the glory days at Madison Square Garden. To Mitch Lawrence of The Daily News , it proved LeBron James is mortal, but to Dave Hyde of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel , it only proved he’s too selfish. It’s hard to tell what O.J. Mayo’s positive test for a performance-enhancing drug proves, other than it’s always something with Mayo and with the Grizzlies, who fittingly had Mayo’s bobblehead night scheduled for Saturday, writes Geoff Calkins in The Commercial Appeal . On a far more sobering note, many took time to remember the 10 victims of the Oklahoma State plane crash on Thursday, which was the tragedy’s 10th anniversary. There is no good timing in any of that. Follow Leading Off on Twitter: twitter.com/zinsernyt

Australian Open (Tennis)
Football
Tennessee Titans
National Football League
Fisher Jeff
Adams Bud
Djokovic Novak
Mayo O J
Murray Andy (1987- )


Fitch Downgrades Japan's Sovereign Rating

Abstract: TOKYO — The ratings agency Fitch on Tuesday lowered its assessment of Japan’s sovereign credit to A+, an investment grade just above the likes of Spain and Italy, and criticized Tokyo for not doing more to pare down its burgeoning debt. The downgrade, Fitch’s first for Japan since 2001, underscores the sheer scale of the country’s debt burden, as well as political and demographic challenges that have hampered efforts to tackle it. Japan’s public debt will hit almost 240 percent of its gross domestic product by the end of the year, Fitch warned. The new rating also heightens the pressure on Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to rein in spending and raise taxes at a delicate time, when the Japanese economy is still recovering from natural and nuclear disasters last year. Mr. Noda has warned that Japan could eventually face a debt crisis akin to that afflicting Europe and is staking his job on a plan to double the consumption tax rate to 10 percent by late 2015. That increase, he has argued, is necessary to pay for soaring welfare costs and pension payments. But lawmakers even within his own party have attacked the plan, saying it would put a damper on growth just as Japan’s recovery gets on track. Even if Japan does double its sales tax, the revenue will most likely not be enough to balance in the medium term. The downgrade reflects “growing risks for Japan’s sovereign credit profile as a result of high and rising public debt ratios,” Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at Fitch, said in a statement. Government efforts to curb its debt “looks leisurely relative even to other fiscally-challenged high-income countries, and implementation is subject to political risk,” he said. According to the statement, Fitch lowered Japan’s long-term local currency rating to A+ from AA-. It also cut the country’s foreign currency rating to A+ from AA. Fitch said the outlook was negative for both. The A+ rating puts Japan four notches below the ratings of other major economies like the United States, Britain, France and Germany, which all retain the top AAA rating from Fitch. Japan’s grade is now just one notch above Spain’s and two above Italy’s, countries that have struggled in the European debt crisis . Two other global ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service, lowered Japan’s credit rating last year. But investors, unsettled more by debt woes in Europe, continue to see Japan as a haven. Japan’s falling credit score has not hurt bond prices, and interest rates have stayed low, helping to keep down the government’s financing costs. Fitch acknowledged as much, saying the Japanese government retained “exceptional financing flexibility and can fund itself at low nominal yields.” The ability of the Japanese government to borrow is further bolstered by its access to a deep pool of Japanese private-sector savings, invested with a strong home bias, it said. Moreover, the bulk of Japanese debt is owed to domestic lenders, with about half held within the broader public sector. But the channeling of private-sector savings into low-yielding government bonds has hurt economic growth, Fitch said. “Weak nominal G.D.P. growth threatens to undermine fiscal solvency in the longer term,” it warned. Fitch said that a lack of new policies to stabilize public finances could lead to a further downgrade. But it also said that progress in fiscal policy beyond expectations, or markedly stronger economic growth, could lead to better ratings. In a report published Tuesday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development joined in the finger-wagging over Japanese debt, urging Tokyo to stick to its plans for a tax increase. “A detailed and credible fiscal consolidation plan, including both revenue increases and spending cuts, is essential to maintain confidence in Japan’s fiscal situation,” the O.E.C.D. said. “A top priority is to implement the government’s proposal to hike the consumption tax rate.”

Credit Ratings and Credit Rating Agencies


Texas: 4 Suspended in Youth Agency Scandal

Abstract: Superintendents of four detention centers of the troubled Texas Youth Commission have been suspended with pay pending investigations. The suspensions, on charges of failing to report a sexual assault, inappropriate use of state resources, mistreatment and interfering with reporting or investigating incidents, involve centers in Edinburg, Harlingen, Crockett and Roanoke. The latest actions bring to 93 the number of agency employees disciplined since accusations of a cover-up of sexual abuse of juveniles by staff members and other inmates. Earlier, 8 employees were arrested and 81 were dismissed or are in process of termination.

Texas Youth Commission
Sex Crimes
Texas
Children and Youth