GlaxoSmithKline Accused of Corruption by China

Abstract: SHANGHAI — Chinese investigators said Thursday that executives from GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug giant, had admitted to using bribes, kickbacks and other fraudulent means to bolster drug sales in China. The Ministry of Public Security said people working for the drug maker had bribed doctors, hospitals and government officials and funneled illicit payoffs through travel agencies, pharmaceutical industry associations and project financing. The government did not name any executives or detailed figures. But it said the case involved “huge amounts of money.” The investigation appears to be part of a broad government crackdown on fraud and corruption involving foreign companies. The announcement came about a week after the authorities raided offices and detained people working for GlaxoSmithKline in three different cities, including Shanghai, according to the state-run news media. The government findings released Thursday were unexpected because executives at GlaxoSmithKline had said just last week that an internal investigation of its China operations found no evidence of bribery or corrupt activities. A spokesman for the company said last week that the company had initiated its own investigation after a whistle-blower at the company came forward this year with accusations of wrongdoing in the China operation. On Thursday, a spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline said that the company was willing to cooperate with the investigation and that the Chinese announcement represented the first details of the case the company had been informed about. The company also released a statement saying: “We take all allegations of bribery and corruption seriously. We continuously monitor our businesses to ensure they meet our strict compliance procedures. We have done this in China and found no evidence of bribery or corruption of doctors or government officials. However, if evidence of such activity is provided we will act swiftly on it.” Like many other large pharmaceutical companies, Glaxo has been investing significantly in China and other emerging markets, seeking to capitalize on a growing middle class that can increasingly afford to pay for prescription drugs. Although China still accounts for a small fraction of Glaxo’s business, sales in the country grew 17 percent in 2012, to $1.2 billion. Sales in emerging markets accounted for about a quarter of the company’s business in 2012. Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that a whistle-blower had shared some information with the newspaper and claimed that executives at the company had bribed doctors and hospitals. It is unclear whether the investigation by the Ministry of Public Security is linked to the whistle-blower. Image A GlaxoSimthKline office on Thursday in Beijing. The announcement came about a week after the authorities raided offices and detained people working for GlaxoSmithKline in three different cities. Credit Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press Regulators in China are reviewing the prices and production costs of major Chinese and global drug companies in what appears to be an effort to lower drug prices. Feng Zhanchun, who specializes in public health at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, said that the Chinese pharmaceutical market was struggling to adapt to market forces. “Economic crimes, including commercial bribery and kickbacks, are one of the negative results generated in the transitional period in China,” he said in a telephone interview. “In the midst of a transition from a planned economy to a market economy, laws and regulations are not fully in place, and medical institutions have no perfect operational mechanisms.” China is one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for pharmaceutical products, but the government has long held tight control over pricing of certain drugs. Still, in a country where kickbacks are common and the sales channels for many products are swayed by bribery, travel vouchers and payoffs, it is not unusual for major corporations to come under scrutiny from Chinese or Western regulators. In 2012, the American drug maker Eli Lilly agreed to pay $29 million to settle accusations of making improper payments to government officials and physicians in Brazil, China, Poland and Russia. In the Eli Lilly case, the United States government said employees from the company’s China subsidiary had “falsified expense reports in order to provide gifts and cash payments to government-employed physicians.” Among other things, the company’s sales representatives used reimbursements to provide doctors with meals, card games and “visits to bath houses.” In recent years, the United States Department of Justice has scrutinized the world’s biggest drug companies to determine whether they have made improper payments to doctors and hospitals around the world in an effort to increase sales of their drugs. In the case of GlaxoSmithKline, Chinese investigators seemed to have moved with lightning speed, detaining workers, raiding offices in various cities and then publicizing their findings Thursday. The authorities said that to “open the sales channel and increase prices” in China, GlaxoSmithKline, also called GSK, had bribed or paid off a wide range of people who could aid the company’s sales operations. Among other things, the China subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline “committed crimes” by writing special bills related to the value-added tax and issued fake invoices through travel agencies, officials said. The government said there was “ample evidence to show that some senior executives at GSK and certain travel agencies committed several commercial bribery and tax-related crimes.” The government also said the company’s senior executives had confessed to many of the crimes, including taking kickbacks from business meetings and accepting commission fees through travel agencies. GlaxoSmithKline’s problems in China deepened this month when the company fired the head of its research and development center in Shanghai for misrepresenting data in a paper he co-wrote.

Corruption
Pharmaceuticals
GlaxoSmithKline
China
Bribery and Kickbacks


Yellowstone Visitor Dies After Falling Into Hot Spring

Abstract: A 23-year-old man who walked off a boardwalk and slipped and fell into a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park has died, rangers said on Wednesday. The man, Colin Nathaniel Scott, of Portland, Ore., had walked about 225 yards away from established trails near Porkchop Geyser on Tuesday. His sister saw him slip and fall into Norris Geyser Basin, a thermal feature at the park in Wyoming, and reported the accident, Yellowstone officials said in a statement. Charissa Reid, a spokeswoman for Yellowstone, said in an email that “it was determined that there were no remains to recover,” and that the search for Mr. Scott’s body was suspended late Wednesday afternoon. The episode is the latest example of visitors who have interacted with the park features or animals to sometimes disastrous results. In May, T he Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported that a criminal complaint had been issued after three Canadian men strayed from trails and filmed themselves approaching the Grand Prismatic Spring. The men, who work for a company that films adventure videos, later apologized on Facebook and said they would donate $5,000 to the park. Ms. Reid, the spokeswoman, said in an interview Wednesday that she had noticed an uptick in people straying from trails and approaching animals this year, caused, in part, by the sheer number of park visitors. Last year, Yellowstone reported a record four million visitors and is likely to meet or exceed that number this year, she said. “The rules in the park aren’t just arbitrary,” Ms. Reid said. “They’re really here to protect people who are visiting the park and the things that they’re here to see.” On Wednesday, park officials said parts of the basin area could remain closed as rangers completed their investigation. Norris Geyser Basin is the oldest and hottest of the park’s thermal areas, and below-surface temperatures have reached up to 459 degrees. Visitors can walk more than two miles of trails and boardwalks that snake through the basin, bringing them close to geysers, steam vents and acidic water. Some boardwalks over Yellowstone hot springs do not have guardrails, and more visitors have died in them than in any other natural feature. Since 1890, there have been 22 fatalities involving thermal waters in Yellowstone, Ms. Reid said. The last recorded death was on Aug. 22, 2000, when Sara Hulphers, 20, of Oroville, Wash., died after she fell into a hot spring and received third-degree burns. On June 6, a father and son suffered burns in the Upper Geyser Basin after walking off the designated trail in the thermal area, officials said. “We extend our sympathy to the Scott family,” Dan Wenk, the park’s superintendent, said in a statement. “This tragic event must remind all of us to follow the regulations and stay on boardwalks when visiting Yellowstone’s geyser basins.”

Yellowstone National Park
Parks
Fatalities,casualties


Chips Ahoy! Campaign Brings Back a Familiar (Chocolate-Chipped) Face

Abstract: EXECUTIVES at Mondelez International, encouraged by the response to ads introduced last spring for their flagship cookie, Oreo, are turning their attention to the company’s, and country’s, No. 2 cookie in sales, Chips Ahoy! The brand with the vaguely nautical name is getting new advertising, with a new theme, from an agency that is new to Chips Ahoy! — the same agency, not coincidentally, that is creating the Oreo ads. Teaser video clips to promote the campaign for Chips Ahoy! are to begin appearing on Monday, and the full campaign is scheduled to start a week later. The work is being created by the Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., which has been developing creative ideas for Oreo since 2012. Chips Ahoy! has not had a creative agency of record for some time and, according to Kantar Media, no money has been spent to advertise Chips Ahoy! in about 18 months. Martin has done “great work with our Oreo team,” said Tara Apisa, senior brand manager for Chips Ahoy! at Mondelez in East Hanover, N.J., and has “some experience in character development” as a result of the campaigns it creates for another client, Geico. That experience is coming in handy for Chips Ahoy! because the new campaign is reintroducing a character, named Cookie Guy, that disappeared from the brand’s ads in 2010. Cookie Guy, redesigned to look more human, is returning to embody a “brand spirit” that is “lighthearted, playful, slightly mischievous,” Ms. Apisa said, and expressed in a more contemporary fashion than in the most recent previous ads, which carried themes like “Crammed with joy” and “There’s a lotta joy in Chips Ahoy!” The new theme is “It takes ahoy!” — as in, it takes Chips Ahoy! to bring fun to prosaic situations. For instance, in the teaser clips, filmed in hidden-camera style, a package of Chips Ahoy! on a supermarket conveyor belt seems to come to life, wriggling and giggling, much to the amazement (and fright) of shoppers. In three commercials, Cookie Guy breaks the rules by disturbing a “Do Not Disturb” sign, walking through a door labeled “No Food Allowed” and responding to a boom box that is playing a song with the lyric “Don’t stop that music” by turning it off. “ ‘Ahoy’ is a word we don’t use in everyday conversation,” said Trent Patterson, vice president and creative director at Martin. “We thought, ‘Let’s make it mean something,” and decided it could mean ‘moxie’ or ‘gumption,’ an attitude.” “In social media, there are a lot of things that can bring this idea of ‘It takes ahoy!’ to life,” he added, such as having Cookie Guy from time to time “take over the Chips Ahoy! Facebook or Twitter pages” and “challenge the conventions of what happens there.” Plans for coming elements of the campaign call for the character to “encourage people to send in their own” examples of what the theme means, Mr. Patterson said, “and maybe Cookie Guy will give them a thumbs up.” Martin, which is owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, has recently become a kind of go-to creative agency for Mondelez and the company from which Mondelez was spun off, the Kraft Foods Group; Martin also creates ads for Kraft brands like Cool Whip and Stove Top. In addition to Martin, Mondelez works with other agencies on Chips Ahoy!, including Hunter Public Relations; MediaVest, part of the Starcom MediaVest Group division of the Publicis Groupe; and VaynerMedia. The new Chips Ahoy! campaign will also help bring out new varieties of the brand under the name Chips Ahoy! Ice Cream Creations, in four flavors: Dulce de Leche, mint chocolate chip, mocha chunk and root beer float. In a commercial, Cookie Guy slurps a milkshake so fast that he gets brain freeze and transforms into a mint chocolate chip cookie; three other Cookie Guy characters rapidly down milkshakes and turn into the other Ice Cream Creations flavors. The Dulce de Leche and root beer float flavors are the first cookies under the brand umbrella that contain chips other than chocolate chips, Ms. Apisa said, which “could really stretch what Chips Ahoy! could be.” This year Chips Ahoy! will celebrate the 50th anniversary of “becoming its own brand,” Ms. Apisa said. In 1964, Chips Ahoy! was sold by the National Biscuit Company, which later became Nabisco; Chips Ahoy! still carries the Nabisco logo. Other comfort foods are commemorating 50th anniversaries this year, including Lucky Charms cereal, from General Mills, and Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts. “It was exciting times in the halls and kitchens” of the big food firms in 1964, Ms. Apisa said, laughing. When Chips Ahoy! was receiving significant ad support, spending totaled $11 million in 2009, $10 million in 2010 and $10.4 million in 2011, according to Kantar Media, which is part of WPP, but expenditures dwindled to $60,000 in 2012 and zero during the first nine months of 2013, the most recent period for which Kantar Media has data. For the new campaign, “it’s going to be more than zero, thank God,” Ms. Apisa said. Although she declined to be specific, she suggested that Chips Ahoy! would again be in the chips: “We are going to invest behind the brand. We’re bringing it back to what makes sense to spend on a brand of this stature.”

Cookie
advertising,marketing
Mondelez International
Martin Agency


SoftBank’s Deal With ARM Is a Financial Stretch

Abstract: SoftBank’s $32.2 billion offer for the British chip designer ARM Holdings is a big bet on the “internet of things.” It would make financial sense only if SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, more than quintupled ARM’s operating profit. Despite the rise of driverless cars and web-enabled industrial and domestic appliances, that seems a stretch, and ought to warn off potential counterbidders. The numbers work like this: SoftBank is paying a 43 percent premium to ARM’s closing price on July 15. That is a fair way to assess the deal given that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union has actually raised ARM’s share price slightly — investors view the company’s global outlook as relatively unaffected by a European Union exit. SoftBank will therefore pay a total of 23.6 billion pounds after deducting ARM’s net cash. To achieve a 10 percent return on its investment — ARM’s own estimate of its weighted average cost of capital — SoftBank would need to grow operating profit from £500 million last year to £2.9 billion, using ARM’s effective tax rate last year of 18 percent. Cost savings are usually used to justify a deal this size, but the Japanese conglomerate has no overlapping businesses. Much of SoftBank’s business is in the areas of telecommunications and the internet, so any extra value would need to be created from nebulous cross-selling opportunities. SoftBank’s purchase simply looks like a gamble that web-connected devices will be a far bigger deal than most are expecting. That explains why it has pledged to double ARM’s British work force over the next five years while also increasing staff abroad and keeping existing management in place — promises that British takeover regulators recently gained powers to enforce. SoftBank’s richly priced offer may also act as a deterrent to would-be bidders. ARM’s customers include Apple, Qualcomm and Intel. But Intel is a direct rival to ARM in some markets, which could act as a catalyst for antitrust opposition. And ARM’s ability to sell designs to competing customers might be compromised if it were owned by one of them. That makes it harder to see a higher bid coming. ARM is best left for the irrational, the exuberant or the desperate.

ARM Holdings
SoftBank
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Mergers and Acquisitions


After Jury Sees Gesture by Boston Marathon Bomber, Defense Tries to Blunt Its Meaning

Abstract: BOSTON — The defense team for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday tried to blunt the shock value of an incendiary photo that the prosecution showed the jury of him thrusting his middle finger at a security camera three months after the bombing. The prosecution on Tuesday had said that the defiant gesture showed Mr. Tsarnaev was “unconcerned, unrepentant and unchanged” after being charged with killing three people and wounding 264 others at the 2013 Boston Marathon . But on Wednesday, the defense showed the jury a fuller portion of the surveillance video, recorded in July 2013, from which the single frame of the obscene gesture had been taken. Miriam Conrad, a defense lawyer, said as she cross-examined a government witness that the surveillance camera had a shiny reflective cover, like a mirror. The video showed that shortly after he entered a holding cell, Mr. Tsarnaev looked at the camera and began primping his long, floppy hair. He stood on a bench and looked more closely into the camera, again as if into a mirror, and continued to fluff up his hair. Then in very quick movements, he flashed a backward, two-fingered sign that Ms. Conrad called a “V sign,” and then the middle finger. The judge did not allow Ms. Conrad to characterize the fleeting gestures. But she clearly hoped the larger context would cast some doubt on the prosecution’s contention the day before that Mr. Tsarnaev had “one more message to send.” The video was shown during the second day of the penalty phase of the trial, in which the jury, which has already found Mr. Tsarnaev guilty, is now weighing whether to sentence him to death or to life in prison. In making its case that Mr. Tsarnaev should be put to death, the government on Wednesday continued with a procession of witnesses who had either been wounded or had lost loved ones in the bombings. They included Adrianne Haslet-Davis, 34, a ballroom dancer who was with her husband, Adam, at the marathon and who lost her left leg below the knee. She said her husband kept apologizing to her, though he was severely wounded himself. He was not in court. “He has bravely admitted himself into a mental facility at the V.A. hospital,” she told the jury between sobs. And Jinyan Zhao, a surrogate aunt to Lingzi Lu, 23, who was killed, testified on behalf of Ms. Lu’s parents, who are in China, where they remain devastated by the loss of their only child. Although Ms. Lu had lived in Boston for only seven months when she was killed, her parents buried her here because she had become part of Boston history. Ms. Zhao said that the parents seemed to have an image in their minds of their daughter as a young bride, and they buried her in a pink bridal gown and tiara. As her father prepared two years ago to deliver his daughter’s eulogy, Ms. Zhao said, “He told me, ‘I have this feeling I’m going to give a toast in my daughter’s wedding.’” The prosecution is expected to wrap up its case this week, with the defense planning to begin its case on Monday.

Boston Marathon Bombings
Dzhokhar A Tsarnaev
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
Boston


Battle Royal Over Chief for a Czech State of Mind

Abstract: FRENSTAT, Czech Republic — A political coup has shaken the Czech Republic since Boleslav the Kind Hearted Forever was ousted as king of Wallachia, a sleepy kingdom where locals drink 110-proof plum brandy for breakfast and use a wheat-backed currency pegged to the dollar. The faux Kingdom of Wallachia is nestled in the northeast corner of the Czech Republic, 230 miles from Prague. It was founded in 1997 by the itinerant photographer Tomas Harabis, its current foreign minister, as an elaborate practical joke. The ruse quickly captured the imagination of Czechs, long drawn to black humor and parody, and Wallachia, which also happens to be a real place, became one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions. Its success has led to a real-life battle over who owns the kingdom, which generates hundreds of thousands of euros in revenue each year. The kingdom has the requisites of authentic statehood, including a currency called the jurovalsar; consulates in the Arctic Circle and Togo; a Royal Wallachian Navy, consisting of 40 wooden canoes; a bright yellow Communist-era limousine for use by visiting dignitaries; and a burgundy passport, covered with a picture of the pagan god Radegast, that Mr. Harabis says he has used to cross the border from Canada to Alaska. “The Kingdom of Wallachia is a parody of Czech identity because nothing is holy for Czechs,” Mr. Harabis, 37, the son of a former Communist schoolteacher, explained recently. “Our history and reality is marked by depression, invasion and occupation, while fiction and fantasy let you do and be whatever you want.” The political dispute stretches back to Mr. Harabis’s decision in 1997 to crown Bolek Polivka, a classically trained clown and famous Czech actor, as king of Wallachia. At the time, Mr. Polivka seemed an ideal choice: he had already crowned himself by a somewhat different title, Wallachian King, Boleslav I the Gracious Forever, on his popular television show. Mr. Polivka became the face of the kingdom, signing its passports and attracting thousands of visitors. A formal coronation in the Wallachian town of Vsetin in 2000 was televised nationally and attended by 5,000 guests. Soldiers in traditional pointy shepherd hats fired cannons as the king inspected his subjects from atop a horse. But in 2001, a fight for control of the kingdom erupted. Mr. Harabis charged that Mr. Polivka had begun to open Wallachian consulates without his permission and demanded 1 million Czech crowns — about $27,000 — to remain king. Mr. Harabis responded by issuing an edict saying Mr. Polivka was no longer king and eventually installing a local construction worker, Vladimir Zhanel, as the new monarch: Vladimir II. In 2002, Mr. Polivka went to court over who owned the kingdom’s trademark. The case became front-page news across the country. Finally, last fall, a Czech court ruled that Mr. Polivka had no right to profit from any association with the kingdom. “The whole thing was meant to be a joke, but Polivka began to believe that he really was a king,” Mr. Harabis said. Mr. Polivka retorted in an interview that it was Mr. Harabis who had allowed business interests to blunt his sense of humor, saying that he himself was motivated only “by fun.” And even if he was officially ousted as monarch, he said, 23 of 28 municipalities across the kingdom still regarded him as the rightful king. “There is an air force loyal to me, a royal guard; we even have a Trabant tank division,” he said. “We have not only conquered space but planted our sacred blue plum trees on the moon.” In fact, the Wallachian Royal Air Force consists of five Cessnas emblazoned with a Wallachian crest: an emaciated chicken falling through the sky. The real Wallachia was settled over many centuries by migrating Romanian shepherds called Vlachs. Its most famous native son is Freud, born here in the 19th century when the area was part of the Austrian Empire. Mr. Harabis spent a year doing research in a local museum to delineate his kingdom’s borders and traditions. There are popular Wallachian sayings (“Never take advice from fools, and never stroke a dog from its tail to its head”) and a Wallachian dialect. Wallachians also claim to have invented hockey, proudly noting the similarity in size between a hockey puck and the droppings of Wallachian sheep. The kingdom reflects a distinct Czech attraction to the absurd, developed as a national defense mechanism during centuries of foreign rule and decades of Communism. One national hero is Jara Cimrman, who Czechs boast was the first man to have reached the North Pole and the inventor of yogurt and the Internet. Mr. Cimrman was, in fact, invented by two journalists for a radio program broadcast in 1966. Wallachia makes money several ways, including offering tastings of its famed plum brandy, slivovitz, to corporate clients. Its biggest source of revenue is the Wallachian passport, which costs the equivalent of $7.69. There are roughly 90,000 citizens of the make-believe nation, once including George W. Bush, who was given a passport some years ago by a Czech living in Texas. Mr. Bush’s citizenship was revoked in 2003 after the United States invaded Iraq. The passport has created some confusion, however. When a man from Pakistan recently asked the kingdom for political asylum, Mr. Harabis said he had to gently explain that Wallachia was not a real country. The Wallachian passport now warns: “This passport is not yet an official document of the Czech Republic.” “A lot of people think we are a new country like Kosovo, and that we have seceded from the Czech Republic,” Mr. Harabis said. Olin Kutac, 50, the manically jovial, pot-bellied prime minister of the kingdom, whose day job is running a mountaintop restaurant, said being premier of the concocted country had brought certain privileges. His restaurant is plastered with photographs of him with dignitaries ranging from the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus (a citizen), to the soccer player Ronaldo. Mr. Kutac, who attends matches dressed in a traditional Wallachian leather vest, recalled that he recently met Helmut Kohl at a soccer game in Manchester, England. When he introduced himself as prime minister of the Kingdom of Wallachia, Mr. Kohl responded: “I am the former chancellor of Germany.” Most residents do not take themselves that seriously. “The Kingdom of Wallachia is a joke,” said Petr Jerabek, 25, the owner of a local pub, before downing his sixth shot of slivovitz on a recent day. “It is just a good way to make some money.”

Czech Republic
Politics and Government
Citizenship


Farooq Kathwari: Classic American Design and a Classic American Success Story

Abstract: We have 18 acres off Interstate 84 in Danbury, Conn. Years ago this was a farm. The company bought the farmland in the 1970s and moved the headquarters here from New York. 1. Evolved style Image Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times My office furniture is a classic American style; it is from various Ethan Allen collections, except for the antique cherry desk. Ethan Allen represents American design, but the United States reflects the world’s diversity. Our classics have evolved from ideas all over the world. We modify the influences and give them back. 2. Symbol of courage Image Farooq Kathwari, the chairman, president and C.E.O. of Ethan Allen Interiors. Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times Nat Ancell, one of the company’s founders, gave me his desk when he handed me the reins. He was the only other C.E.O. of Ethan Allen. Your home is very personal. It’s where you sleep and dine, and contains your family room and your children’s rooms. It took courage to hand over an iconic American brand to a young man born in Kashmir and named Farooq, so the desk is very meaningful to me. 3. Afternoon tea Image Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times Tea is more than just tea in many parts of the world. When you meet someone, having tea together makes you more relaxed and removes the formality of the occasion. I offer tea to visitors and drink several cups a day myself. In the afternoon, I have a cookie with it. I’m not supposed to, but I do. My tea set is a white Wedgwood china cup and pitcher that my daughter, Farah, picked out. She was a designer here for several years. Next to the cup is a ceramic tile that my son Omar gave me. Fresh fruit Several years ago I bought a fruit and dairy farm in Columbia County, N.Y., and became a part-time fruit farmer. I keep a serving bowl in the conference room, and in the fall I fill it with apples from the farm to hand out to guests and employees. 4. Rug reminder Image Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times My mouse pad looks like a rug and feels like silk. To me, it’s evocative of Kashmir’s history and art and harks back to my start here. As a student at New York University, I sold Kashmiri handicrafts to Bloomingdale’s and Ethan Allen. Later, when I worked on Wall Street, Nat Ancell called and said he was having trouble getting rugs from India and Romania and asked if I could help. 5. Signature gift Image Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times We have an upholstery factory in Guanajuato, Mexico. Every year when some of the executives visit, they bring me a book on Mexico signed by employees there. 6. Congressional honor Image Credit Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times I came to the U.S. in 1965 during one of several conflicts surrounding Kashmir and have worked for peace there ever since. In 2011, the New York congressman Gary Ackerman addressed Congress and recognized my efforts. It was quite an honor. Later he presented me with the flag that flew atop the United States Capitol that day. Contemplation time I like to think in the morning. I have tea and then take a walk with my cat, Pashmina. I do a little gardening, and then my driver picks me up for the hour commute. I eat breakfast in the car, and for the next 50 minutes or so, I make phone calls and take notes on what the company needs to do. 7. Words to live by I had a popular saying written on a poster: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” I sometimes use it during presentations. Mountain wisdom I grew up in the mountains and did a lot of hiking and horseback riding. In my office I have a photo of my son Irfan and me on horseback in Kashmir in 1989; it makes me think of those peaks. The mountains teach you the importance of pacing yourself. If you climb too fast and too high, you get water in your lungs, so you learn it’s O.K. to descend a bit during the ascent. Having to step down or step back on the way up doesn’t mean you’ve failed, either in mountain climbing or in business.

Ethan Allen Interiors
Workplace
M Farooq Kathwari
Furniture


In Philippines, Flash Flooding Kills Hundreds

Abstract: MANILA — Flash floods in the southern Philippines on Saturday sent water gushing into homes, killing more than 500 people and surprising families who fled to rooftops clutching children, officials said. “The rivers flooded and washed through villages,” said Col. Leopoldo Galon, a military spokesman. “Soldiers conducting search-and-rescue operations are finding bodies in all areas, in homes, rivers, offshore, in the street. Casualties are everywhere.” The flooding was set off by tropical storm Washi , which hit the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Friday with winds of up to 56 miles per hour and heavy rain. By early Saturday, the storm had caused flooding in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City, officials said. The heavy rain sent water pouring down mountains and into already swollen rivers that quickly engulfed areas in the northern part of Mindanao. Fast-rising waters poured into homes after 2 a.m., when most people were sleeping, said Benito Ramos, a civil defense official, during a news briefing in Manila. By Saturday night, the Philippine Red Cross had counted 521 bodies, including 239 in Cagayan de Oro and 195 in Iligan City, and said that 458 people were missing. The storm is the 19th to hit the country this year, but Mr. Ramos said typhoons and tropical storms usually strike farther north; this one took a path that officials had never seen before. As a result, many residents were caught off guard by the water’s speed and ferocity. Local officials confirmed his assessment. “This area is not on the usual path for violent typhoons and doesn’t get this type of severe flooding,” Colonel Galon said. “This storm took a different path, and it surprised people.” He noted that soldiers in the area were preparing for Christmas celebrations with their families when they were called in for emergency operations that quickly turned into the grim and grisly task of collecting bodies. “We’re not complaining,” he said. “It’s our job.” Residents in the area expressed similar sentiments, noting that Christmas trees had been erected in parks in Cagayan de Oro, a popular tourist town, and that residents had begun going to church nightly in preparation for the holidays. “This Christmas is going to be imprinted in everybody’s memories,” Stephanie Caragos, 34, said. “We are seeing trucks pass by filled with dead bodies, and people are buying in bulk to give away to those who need it. This will be in our minds for a long time.” Reached by telephone, Ms. Caragos, a lifelong resident of the city, said she had lost an uncle in the flooding and found that funeral parlors in the area were busy with many victims. “We knew there was a storm coming, but we had no idea it would be this bad,” she said. “When we woke up, whole parts of the city were flooded. There were areas where the water was so strong that even the rescuers could not get it in.” The storm was expected to leave the Philippines on Sunday, after striking the western island of Palawan, according to the national weather service. The country was hit by tropical storm Banyan in October, which killed eight people. In September, two typhoons, Nesat and Nalgae, struck in quick succession and killed more than 100 people.

Floods
Manila (Philippines)
Philippines
Hurricanes and Tropical Storms


Ex-Marine Held in Iranian Prison Suspends Hunger Strike

Abstract: A former Marine imprisoned in Iran who began a hunger strike last week has suspended it after receiving assurances from Iranian penal officials that his case will be revisited, his family in the United States reported on Tuesday. The prisoner, Amir Hekmati, 31, from Flint, Mich., has spent more than three years in Tehran’s Evin Prison. He is the longest-serving among the three Americans of Iranian descent known to be incarcerated by the Iranian authorities. “Apparently, Evin Prison officials have implored Amir to end his hunger strike,” read a statement by the family posted on the Facebook page of Free Amir Hekmati , a support group. “Evin Prison officials, in return, said they would take certain steps to have his case revisited by appropriate Iranian government authorities.” The statement said Mr. Hekmati had “agreed to suspend his hunger strike, reluctantly and temporarily,” but would resume it “if real action is not taken on his case with real results.” Mr. Hekmati’s imprisonment in Iran has become an emotional cause among Marines and politicians of both parties in the United States, and symbolizes the difficult relations between the two countries after more than three decades of estrangement and hostility. The Iranians have never explained in any detail why he was prosecuted and imprisoned. Image Amir Hekmati has been held in Tehran on spying charges. Credit FreeAmir.org, via Associated Press He was arrested in August 2011 while visiting relatives in Iran for the first time, convicted of espionage and sentenced to death, but that verdict was overturned. He was later convicted of helping a hostile power and sentenced to 10 years. An appeal of that conviction has languished. Mr. Hekmati has always asserted his innocence and has been given only limited access to legal counsel. American officials repeatedly raise his case in the talks on Iran’s disputed nuclear program, which have been extended twice and now face a deadline of July. Last week, Mr. Hekmati began a hunger strike and sent letters via his family to President Obama and to the Iranian ministers of justice and intelligence as part of an effort to increase the pressure over his appeal and call attention to the poor conditions at Evin, including unheated quarters, power blackouts, ticks and lice. Some of his Marine colleagues in the United States showed their support by fasting as well. Mr. Hekmati’s congressman, Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat who has helped lead efforts to publicize his imprisonment, said in a statement that the suspension of the hunger strike was a “positive development,” and he expressed hope that it would lead to Mr. Hekmati’s release. “Many of Amir’s Marine brethren, however, will continue the strike in an act of solidarity and support so that Amir does not have to,” Mr. Kildee added. The two other Americans known to be imprisoned in Iran are Jason Rezaian, 38, The Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent, held on unspecified charges since July; and Saeed Abedini, 34, a pastor sentenced in 2013 to eight years of imprisonment on charges that he created a private network of churches, disturbing national security.

Iran
Amir Mirzaei Hekmati
Hunger strike
Prison
US Marines


Chevron Warns of Lower Profit

Abstract: Chevron said yesterday that it expected its third-quarter net income to be significantly below the $5.4 billion it earned in the second quarter, because of a sharp drop in its refining margins. The company, an oil and gas producer, said in an interim report that one-time items also should hurt earnings. Refining margins are expected to be a drag on third-quarter earnings for integrated oil and gas producers as well as independent refiners as refining margins dropped by more than half from second-quarter levels in some United States regions. The amount of oil Chevron processed at American refineries fell about 8 percent, to 812,000 barrels a day, mostly because of planned and unplanned shutdowns. Shares of Chevron fell 2.1 percent, to $90.83, in after-hours trading.

Chevron Corp
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Company Reports


N.Y. Quakers May Cut 225-Year-Old Ties With Friends Seminary

Abstract: When tensions rise at a Quaker meeting, the room is immediately brought to silence — the Quaker form of worship. In recent New York gatherings, when the subject of Friends Seminary comes up, there has been a lot of quiet. The issue that has hushed the Quakers’ 19th-century meetinghouse near Union Square is whether the church and school, joined for 225 years, should formally part ways. There are legal advantages to a split. But some church members are also pushing for the separation because they say the school is no longer really Quaker. Among other complaints, they say the school’s $32,870 tuition, selective admissions and private-school culture fly in the face of the signature Quaker credos of simplicity, openness and equality. “There are a number of Quakers that are concerned, who believe that the school over time has become a rich kids’ school,” said Michael Schlegel, the leader of the trustees of the New York Quarterly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, the city’s chief Quaker body. Other secular schools in the city have relationships with religious institutions, but the Quaker meeting, or congregation, and Friends Seminary are especially close. They share buildings, some members of the school’s governing committee come from the meeting, and at least for now they are legally unified. Over the past three decades, a number of Quaker meetings around the country have separated from their schools, often for liability reasons. Brooklyn Friends School did so last year. Perhaps the most prestigious Quaker school in the country, the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, where Sasha and Malia Obama are students, has been on its own for more than 75 years, but a majority of the schools’ trustees are Quakers. Friends Seminary, established in 1786 for children of Quakers, uses several picturesque town houses, as well as the Quaker meeting hall on Rutherford Place between East 15th and 16th Streets. Today only a small fraction of the 700 students at the school, which runs from kindergarten through 12th grade, are Quaker. But the school incorporates some Quaker practice into the curriculum, including a weekly silent worship in the meetinghouse and required community service. The differences, however, are hard to miss. In the meetinghouse, worshipers sit on benches with horsehair cushions. In the office of the school headmaster is a velvety Jonathan Adler sofa . “The tuition is excessive,” said Eliezer Hyman, who served as chairman of (or “clerked,” in Quaker parlance) a committee that oversees the meeting’s properties. “A Quaker institution shouldn’t be charging that. “A Friends school,” Mr. Hyman continued, “should be, by the very nature of its name, teaching explicitly and implicitly certain values. “I know it’s not happening,” he said. Some members of the meeting, as well as Bo Lauder, the school’s headmaster, say it is too simplistic in the 21st century to say cachet and Quakerness are mutually exclusive. And many argue that the school still adheres to the Quaker way. “It’s baffling that people have opinions that don’t reflect the reality,” Mr. Lauder said. “We live the Quaker values every day in multiple ways.” Irene McHenry, the executive director of the Friends Council on Education , a national organization of schools, said Friends Seminary met the council’s criteria for being a Quaker school, which include worship; instruction or “testimonies” in Quaker values; and community service. Sidwell Friends meets the standard, too, she said. “Simplicity is about how we live,” Ms. McHenry said. ”It doesn’t say whether we can have indoor or outdoor plumbing in our houses.” And with numbers of Quakers steadily declining — Quaker meetings in New York City have only about 520 members, and according to the Association of Religion Data Archives there were 1,000 in 1980 — the school is arguably the Quakers’ most prominent advertisement to the lay community. That is one reason some Quakers oppose separation. “If Quakers don’t appreciate all that’s going on in Friends schools,” Ms. McHenry said, “they have this precious form of outreach and they’re undervaluing it.” As a practical matter, incorporating the school as a distinct entity has advantages for the meeting. Now, when the school needs money, the meeting must act as the borrower. Because it owns the honeycombed buildings the school uses, the meeting is liable if a student running to class should fall and sustain an injury. And Mr. Schlegel said managing a school “distracts us from our purpose, which is worship.” But Brian Dougherty, a meeting member and a lawyer working on the separation, said one sticky issue was that the meeting would have to become the school’s landlord. (At Brooklyn Friends, the school already owned its buildings, according to Larry Weiss, its head.) The Quarterly Meeting and officials of Friends Seminary have not yet hammered out an agreement on how the landlord-tenant relationship might work, or what price to set for rent. In part, that is because in Quaker practice, decisions must be arrived at by consensus — a majority vote does not suffice — and in rough patches, the meetings stop for silent prayer. After much discussion and silence, the two sides have still been unable to reach a consensus. “Is it the most efficient way of doing things from a worldly perspective?” Mr. Hyman said. “Of course people will get upset.” Because of a Quaker admonition against “tale-bearing,” or gossip, many members of the meeting refused to disclose the particulars of what had been said in the meetinghouse. But documents on the meeting’s Web site from January 2009 show that there were complaints about the school’s “un-Friendly” admissions process and its decision to name a building after a person — the Quaker gospel of equality frowns on singling individuals out. A report last year said that the meeting had overridden the school’s preference on how to repair a crumbling part of a building. Meeting members favored a costlier solution than the school did, arguing that it would last longer and therefore be more Quaker. But the school had to pay for the more expensive repair. “One side was demanding and screaming,” said Mr. Hyman, who was in attendance, “and the other side called for a moment of silence.” Another report of the Quaker meeting summarized the relationship: “Trustees recognize that its working relationship with Friends Seminary has been strained.” There was a community moment of reckoning after the clash over the repairs and referenda on such topics as “How can we help one another move cheerfully — even within disagreement or conflict — toward a Spirit-led understanding of and collaboration with one another?” and how to continue “speaking Truth with Love,” according to the meeting documents. Mr. Lauder, the school head, and Nancy Black, the clerk of the Quarterly Meeting, say that even if separation occurs, the school will remain a Quaker institution. Members of the meeting would sit on the school’s steering committee, and if the school drafted new bylaws, they would require that Quaker principles be upheld. Karen Quinn, who had two children at the school until she and her family moved to Miami two years ago, acknowledged that Friends Seminary had “turned into a very elite, high-end New York City private school.” Nevertheless, she said she was impressed by how Quaker values still inflected the school. “They were a little simpler than maybe this high New York life,” Ms. Quinn said. “I would be very disappointed if over time they drifted away from those values.”

Quakers
Friends Seminary
Manhattan
Private Schools
K-12 Education


Brazil: Work Halted at World Cup Stadium

Abstract: Electrical work has been halted at a World Cup stadium under construction in the city of Cuiaba until safety precautions are put in place, labor officials said Friday. The decision followed an accident on Thursday that killed a construction worker. The worker who died at the stadium, known as Arena Pantanal, was the eighth person killed during construction of the 12 stadiums that will host games during the monthlong soccer competition, which begins on June 12.

2014 World Cup
Stadiums Arenas
Fatalities,casualties
Brazil
Soccer
Accidents and Safety
Construction


First SpaceX Dragon Cargo Flight Ends With a Splash

Abstract: After a nearly flawless nine-day routine, the Dragon stuck the landing, too. The first commercial mission to ferry supplies into space ended successfully Thursday when a cargo capsule known as the Dragon fell to earth on target in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico, NASA officials said. Tethered to three large parachutes, the unmanned capsule, which had carried about 1,100 pounds of food, water, clothing and equipment to the International Space Station, hit the water at the relatively gentle speed of about 10 miles an hour at 8:42 a.m. local time. It came down about 560 miles west of Baja California, witnessed by technicians from the company that built and flew it, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. They were to load the capsule aboard a barge and haul it back to Long Beach, Calif. “This really couldn’t have gone better,” Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, said at a televised news conference from the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “I’m overwhelmed with joy. It’s been 10 years, and to have it go so well is incredibly satisfying.” The remote-controlled Dragon had separated from the space station about seven hours before splashdown, eventually firing rockets to slow it enough so that it would descend through the atmosphere. Before separation, the station’s astronauts loaded it with about 1,400 pounds of used equipment, experiment samples and other items. With the success of what amounted to a trial run for the spacecraft — there were only a few minor problems during the mission, which began when the Dragon was launched atop a SpaceX rocket from Florida on May 22 — the company is now poised to begin regular supply missions, with much bigger payloads, to the space station later this year. Since the space shuttle program ended last year, the station has been resupplied by Russian and European spacecraft. So far, SpaceX has been the most successful participant in the government’s long-term plan to shift the business of spaceflight to private enterprise, with NASA acting only as managers. The agency’s $1.6 billion contract with the company for 12 supply flights still awaits final approval, but Alan J. Lindenmoyer, NASA’s manager for commercial spaceflight, said at the news conference that he expected the approval to come quickly. “We became your customer today,” Mr. Lindenmoyer said. Mr. Musk said that the first regular cargo mission could come by late summer. SpaceX also hopes to win a NASA competition to ferry astronauts to the space station, using a larger rocket. And Mr. Musk talks often of an even grander goal: sending humans to Mars. The completion of the Dragon flight, Mr. Musk said, “really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful.”

Space
Private Spaceflight
Rocket Science and Propulsion
Space Exploration Technologies Corp
International Space Station


Ruling on Witnesses Is Blow to Bonds’s Defense

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge ruled on Friday that she would allow testimony from athletes linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative steroids case in Barry Bonds ’s perjury trial, denying an attempt by Bonds’s lawyers to bar those witnesses. United States District Court Judge Susan Illston ruled that prosecutors could call several former and current major league baseball players, including Jason Giambi, and one former N.F.L. player to discuss their connection to Balco and Greg Anderson, Bonds’s former trainer. The government is hoping to show how meticulous Anderson was when he supplied athletes like Giambi , Bobby Estalella and Benito Santiago with performance-enhancing drugs. Those athletes and several others are on the government’s witness list. “Anderson provided them with detailed instructions and explained to them these were steroids,” Matthew Parrella, a federal prosecutor, told Illston on Friday as Bonds — who looked markedly trimmer than he did in his final years as a player — watched from the defense table. Bonds faces 10 counts of lying to a grand jury in 2003 when he said he never knowingly used steroids, and one count of obstruction of justice. He has said that he assumed Anderson, a longtime friend who has not cooperated with the government in this case, was supplying him with harmless substances like flaxseed oil. Dennis Riordan, a lawyer for Bonds, argued to the judge that it would be “an absolutely inadmissible inference” if the jury concluded that Anderson had given steroids to Bonds as he had the other athletes. Peter Keane, a professor at Golden Gate University School of Law who has been following the case, said Illston’s decision to allow the testimony by the other athletes was a blow to the defense. “I think that hurts Bonds a lot, and I think it’s something the jury is going to find fairly important in determining that Bonds used steroids and other drugs,” Keane said. “It targets in on Bonds in a way that shows the jury that he was using drugs and he knew he was using them. It’s another brick in the wall of the prosecution’s case.” Prosecutors declined to comment on Friday’s ruling. Bonds’s lawyers said they were not worried that the athletes’ testimony would damage their case. They said they were pleased with other rulings by the judge on Friday that kept some previously barred evidence out of the case. “It’s not a trial about Athlete Jones; it’s a trial about Barry Bonds,” Allen Ruby, one of Bonds’s lawyers, said as he stood in front of the courthouse, making the argument that one athlete’s experience with Anderson would not necessarily translate to Bonds’s. In front of a packed courtroom, Illston ruled on several other key issues that will help shape the long-awaited trial, which has been postponed two years while the sides argued to admit or bar important evidence. The judge has already barred much of the evidence linking Anderson to Bonds because Anderson has refused to testify. He spent more than a year in jail because of that, and his lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he expected Anderson to stick to his position. Anderson is expected to be in court on March 1 to tell the judge that he will, yet again, decline to testify. Illston ruled on Friday that some previously excluded evidence will remain excluded, including several positive drug tests and doping calendars that only Anderson can authenticate were Bonds’s. She added, though, that some documents — including drug-testing log books and doping calendars detailing other athletes’ drug use — may be admissible if someone other than Anderson can testify to their authenticity. Some legal experts said the government still has a solid case even though it has been weakened by some of Illston’s past decisions. Friday’s ruling was widely seen as a victory for the prosecution. Two witnesses that prosecutors plan to call — Kimberly Bell, Bonds’s former girlfriend, and Steve Hoskins, his childhood friend and former business manager — both assert that Bonds told them he used steroids. Prosecutors said Bell would testify to seeing physical changes in Bonds that are indicative of steroid use, including acne on his back and shoulders, bloating, hair loss and shrunken testicles. Hoskins is expected to be another key witness for the prosecution. He is said to have taped a conversation with Anderson in the San Francisco Giants’ locker room during which Anderson said he injected Bonds with steroids. Earlier this month, Bonds’s lawyers asked the judge to bar that conversation from the trial. On Feb. 11, Illston will hear arguments on that motion.

Bonds Barry
Steroids
Decisions and Verdicts
Doping (Sports)


TV Producers of 2016 Oscars Are Selected

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The producers for the next Oscar ceremony will be Reginald Hudlin, a filmmaker schooled in urban comedy, and David Hill, a television producer with credits on “American Idol” and the 2011 World Series broadcast, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said on Tuesday. The appointments for the ceremony, which is set for broadcast on Feb. 28 on ABC, followed a wide search , as the Academy reviewed candidates to replace Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who had produced three successive Academy Awards shows. The audience for the last of those shows, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris earlier this year, dropped nearly 15 percent, to around 36.6 million viewers, from 43 million in 2014. Mr. Hudlin was a producer of “Django Unchained,” which was nominated for the best picture Oscar in 2012. He also produced the Academy’s Governors Awards ceremony last year, after working as an executive, writer, director and producer on a string of films and television shows that began with a comic short, “House Party,” and the several feature films to which it gave rise. Image Reginald Hudlin arrived at the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards in February. Credit Arnold Turner/Invision, via Arnold Turner, via Invision, via Associated Press For weeks, Mr. Hudlin had been mentioned by Academy insiders as being high on a list of possible producers. Those included Michael Shamberg, who was an executive producer of “Django Unchained,” and Joel Gallen, who was a producer of the last Film Independent Spirit Awards. Mr. Hill, a less expected choice, has worked with various Fox-affiliated companies in a long executive career that included a stint as chief executive of the Fox Sports Media group. Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the Academy’s president, cited in a statement Mr. Hill’s “vast experience as a live events producer” and Mr. Hudlin’s “energy, creativity and talent as a filmmaker.” Having accepted the producing post, Mr. Hill and Mr. Hudlin will now turn to the show’s biggest annual challenge: finding a host. Mr. Harris was widely criticized for his February performance. Other hosting problems have included a decision by Eddie Murphy to abandon the host spot for the 2012 ceremony when the show’s producer, Brett Ratner, resigned after his public use of an anti-gay slur, and a lackluster performance by the actor James Franco for the 2011 ceremony.


Brazil: Protest Over Higher Bus Fares Erupt in 3 Cities

Abstract: Protests flared in the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte on Friday night over increases in bus fares, reflecting resentment over efforts by the municipal authorities to cover budget shortfalls during Brazil’s most severe economic crisis in decades. Anti-riot police units clashed with protesters in downtown São Paulo. The unrest drew comparisons to the much larger demonstrations that shook cities across Brazil in 2013, which also crystallized over increases in bus fares. Some of the demonstrators in São Paulo destroyed buses, ransacked banking offices and threw rocks and bottles at the police, who used tear gas. Clashes also erupted between the police and protesters in downtown Rio de Janeiro.


Two Opposite Education Systems Ranked on Top

Abstract: Finland and South Korea given top global ranking Finland and South Korea, two countries that are almost as far apart in teaching styles as they are geographically, topped a new ranking published last week by Pearson and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment, which ranks nations based on a combination of international test scores, literacy and graduation rates, put Finland and South Korea alone in the top category. “It is hard to find two education systems more different,” the report said. South Korea emphasizes exams, rote learning, discipline and long hours for students, most of whom also attend private cram schools. Finland has short school days, little homework and a focus on “helping children understand and apply knowledge, not merely repeat it,” the report said. Also in the top 10 were Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and Canada. Ireland came in at No. 11, Australia at No. 13, Germany at No. 15, the United States at No. 17, Russia at No. 20 and France at No. 25. China and India, Asia’s developing giants, were not ranked. Brazil and Indonesia came in at the bottom of the listing of 40 states and nations. — JOYCE LAU Neuroscientists develop easier way to read papers MiniManuscript, a Web site meant to be a sort of Wikipedia of the academic world, moved out of its beta phase last week and was introduced officially at an event in London. The idea is for registered users to post free summaries of research papers, which will make it easier for both students and researchers to find what they want quickly. The site was developed by two British neuroscientists: Anna Remington, 30, an autism researcher at Oxford, and Jake Fairnie, 25, a doctoral candidate at University College London. “We were reading the same papers,” Dr. Remington said by telephone from London. “So we’d write summaries, share them and get through them twice as fast. Then we asked, ‘Why doesn’t everyone do this?”’ One kind of search uses PubMed, a U.S.-based database with 22 million publications, and simply says when and where a paper appeared. A more detailed search brings up only papers that have MiniManuscript summaries written. Currently, there are several hundred such entries, though the founders expect the number to increase quickly. As of last week, 55 percent of MiniManuscript’s readership was from the United States, followed by 25 percent from China. “English is the language of the scientific community,” Dr. Remington said. “But if you’re sorting through this material in a second language, it is a massive investment of time to make it through a 70-page paper, only to realize at the end that it’s not relevant to you.” The site is set up as a business, though the founders say they want to run it as a “not-just-for-profit” and aim to keep the information free. — JOYCE LAU

Education
Finland
South Korea
Pearson PLC


Concerns Arise Over Defining Storms by ‘Category’

Abstract: NEW ORLEANS — Why were people in Plaquemines Parish and other coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi so blasé about Hurricane Isaac ? The answer could have something to do with the yardstick most commonly used to measure storms. The measure that many in the meteorological field use is known as the Saffir-Simpson scale . That is the system that ranks storms in “categories” — Isaac, for example, was a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest level by this scale. Experts have long argued that the scale is flawed because it focuses on the power of wind and not the surge of water that a hurricane pushes before it. Climatologists like Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have said that any classification should include both wind speed and surge. Otherwise, he argues, coastal residents can be easily misled. Hurricane Ike in 2008 was a Category 2 storm, on the low end of the Saffir-Simpson scale when it made landfall in Galveston, Tex., but its surge caused grievous damage. Isaac, too, packed a surge surprise. At a briefing on Wednesday evening for officials of the Army Corps of Engineers , a staff hydrologist, Maxwell E. Agnew, noted that the surge from Isaac was not much smaller than that of Hurricane Katrina , a Category 3 storm when it slammed into Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005, whose surge had a catastrophic effect on the metro area’s flawed flood walls and levees . Katrina’s surge at the corner of Lake Borgne, east of the city, was 15.5 feet; the wall of water pushed by Isaac, measured at roughly the same place, came to about 14 feet. That surge overwhelmed the locally built levees of Plaquemines Parish. While considering the current version of the Saffir-Simpson scale in 2011, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that surge varies depending on coastal conditions, so there is no simple solution to incorporate surge into models of hurricane strength, and the proposed storm surge scales “do not consider these local factors that play a crucial role in determining actual surge impacts.” NOAA has instead championed its use of a case-by-case “probabilistic surge product” and explicit storm surge warnings that could be issued by the National Weather Service “to provide specific and qualitative information to support decision-making at the local level.” In New Orleans, the bigger difference between 2005 and today is the system of defenses the corps has built closer to New Orleans — especially the billion-dollar “ Great Wall of Lake Borgne .” The barrier, nearly two miles long and rising 26 feet above the water, has gates that can be closed to protect the city against a surge coming into that deadly corner, which in 2005 sent so much water into neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward. This week’s experience with the surges of Isaac suggests that the $14.5 billion system of defenses the Army Corps of Engineers built around the New Orleans metro area more than passed its first test.


James Leads Rout of Knicks in Last Meeting Until Free Agency

Abstract: CLEVELAND — It was goodbye, or see you later or, in their dreamiest of dreams, see you in July. The Knicks shared the court with LeBron James on Monday for the final time this season and were treated to a spectacular show at their expense. James dunked and danced and whatever else pleased him, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 124-93 rout at Quicken Loans Arena. The Knicks will be grateful not to see James again in the next two months, and considerably more grateful if they see him on their doorstep, wrapped in Knicks gear, in the first week of July. In the final meaningless weeks of a dreadful season, comfort comes in only two forms: salary-cap space and visions of James. It will be a long and agonizing wait and, of course, a potentially fruitless one. The Cavaliers are rumbling toward the playoffs with the N.B.A.’s best record and giving James every reason to think there’s no place like home. They traded for Shaquille O’Neal last June and added Antawn Jamison last month, surrounding James with an arsenal of options. If their run ends in a championship, it will be difficult to envision James skipping from a championship parade to Broadway. It is the gamble the Knicks have made by tearing down the payroll and the roster. A Cleveland reporter wondered aloud if the suffering was worth it. Coach Mike D’Antoni answered, deadpan: “I’ll tell you next year, O.K.?” The Knicks (20-39) have lost 10 of their last 11 games and have 23 games left to muddle through. Cleveland (47-14) has a few concerns, although they are manageable. O’Neal, who will eventually be needed to wrestle with Orlando’s Dwight Howard , had surgery on his right thumb on Monday and is out for two months. He could miss the first round of the playoffs. With O’Neal out, the Cavaliers are now thin at center. But Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who was traded in the Jamison deal, is expected to return after reaching a buyout agreement with Washington last week. He is eligible to re-sign with Cleveland on March 22. In the meantime, the Cavaliers would appear to have enough talent to get by. Jamison, playing his sixth game with Cleveland, had 17 points and 12 rebounds against the Knicks. J. J. Hickson, who replaced O’Neal at center, had 17 points and 9 rebounds. And James was James, collecting 22 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists in 31 minutes. He had three fast-break dunks in the first quarter, and 18 points in an effortless first half, as the Cavaliers took a 74-48 lead. James’s most spectacular play of the night came in the second quarter, when he took a pass from Delonte West, dipped the ball between his legs and slammed it back over his head for a two-handed reverse. A foul was called on the pass, negating the dunk, but not the excitement. Moments later, West drove baseline for a dunk on Tracy McGrady that pushed the lead to 20 points and electrified the crowd. West and James engaged in an elaborate celebration as timeout was called. D’Antoni, standing near the opposite free-throw line, stared down the court for 30 seconds without moving. “There’s a lot of things that upset me,” D’Antoni said when asked about the celebration. “That’s the least of my problems.” McGrady continued to move cautiously through his comeback, playing 25 minutes and finishing with 6 points and 5 assists. He said he wished he were healthy enough to save the Knicks from humiliation, but his surgically repaired knee isn’t ready for that burden. “That’s one hell of a team,” McGrady said. “They got the best player in the game, great role players. We’re just a team trying to find ourselves. They’re playing for something bigger than what we’re really playing for.” At the morning shootaround, McGrady said he would work to recruit James in the off-season and disclosed that he had sent him a text message last month. But McGrady is one of nine free agents who will probably have to be renounced to clear cap space. The Knicks who would presumably become James’s teammates did not make much of an impression: Danilo Gallinari scored 17 points, but only 7 in the first three quarters. The Knicks fell behind by as many as 49 points. Wilson Chandler missed the game because of a death in his family. David Lee, who could be re-signed under some possible situations, had just 10 points — his lowest total in three months — and 10 rebounds. The lone bright spot for the Knicks was the newly acquired Bill Walker, who scored a career-high 21 points off the bench. In the game’s final minutes, James grooved to “Surfin’ Bird” during a timeout and gave a noogie to Hickson. But two young Cavaliers fans stole the biggest cheers with a homemade sign, shown on the video scoreboard: “Hey N.Y., get your own King.” REBOUNDS Eddy Curry is nearly ready to return, and Coach Mike D’Antoni said he planned to play him. But Curry has been down this road before, and cannot hide his skepticism. Asked if he believed D’Antoni would use him, Curry said flatly: “If he said it. Coach doesn’t lie, so if he said it.”

Basketball
New York Knicks
Cleveland Cavaliers
James LeBron
O'Neal Shaquille
Howard Dwight


Clintons Again Pick Long Island for an August Vacation

Abstract: It is hard to have a laid-back vacation when you are Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the former first couple have chosen the comparatively low-key Long Island beach town of Amagansett for their August break. Last year, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton spent a couple of weeks in August in an $11 million house that sprawled over 3.5 acres of lush real estate in Sagaponack, with private access to the beach. But this summer, they plan to move farther east to a rental house in Amagansett, a person with knowledge of their vacation plans said. Amagansett, down Montauk Highway from the lighthouse and fishermen at the end of Long Island, does not have the same rows of designer boutiques as its western neighbors Bridgehampton, East Hampton and Southampton. But the area still shares an air of exclusivity and features multimillion-dollar homes and boldface names like Sarah Jessica Parker and Jerry Seinfeld. Image Last summer, Hillary Rodham Clinton spent a couple of weeks in Sagaponack, N.Y. Credit Jessica Hill/Associated Press The summer will be a busy one for Mrs. Clinton, who will be just off a tour to promote her coming memoir — “Hard Choices,” due out in June — and perhaps in the throes of planning a presidential campaign. Last summer, she spent much of her vacation working on the book in a sunny office with an ocean view, with breaks to walk her dogs, a poodle named Tally and a curly-haired mixed breed named Maisie. Chelsea Clinton did not make it to her parents’ luxe Hamptons rental last summer; she instead put the finishing touches on her dissertation thesis in Oxford, England. This fall, she is expecting her first child, with her husband, Marc Mezvinsky. Mr. Clinton, meanwhile, has a comparatively visible presence in the Hamptons each summer with miniature golf outings with his niece and nephew and meals out with friends. He celebrated his 67th birthday there last year with Paul McCartney and Jimmy Buffett. Last year, longtime donors and Hamptons neighbors including Alan Patricof hosted a high-dollar fund-raiser at the Topping House Rose in Bridgehampton to benefit the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Attendees included Ronald O. Perelman and The Daily News publisher Mortimer B. Zuckerman, who donated an estimated $50,000 and $25,000, respectively.

Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Amagansett
Travel,Tourism


The Online Search Party: A Way to Share the Load

Abstract: OPPORTUNITIES for social networking abound on the Internet, but not when it comes to one standard job: using a browser and search engine to comb the Web for information. That task is still typically done solo, because browser displays and search procedures have traditionally been designed for a single user. Now tools are being developed by Microsoft and other companies that let people at different computers search as a team, dividing responsibilities and pooling results and recommendations in a shared Web space on the browser display as they plan a family vacation, for instance, or research a medical problem. Meredith Ringel Morris, a computer scientist at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Wash., has created one of these collaborative tools, SearchTogether, now available in a test version as a free download at http://research.microsoft.com/searchtogether . The program is designed to work within the Internet Explorer 7 browser. “Web search is usually considered a solitary activity,” Dr. Morris said. “But many tasks can benefit from joint searching.” She notes that people have always collaborated informally in searches, watching over a friend’s shoulder and suggesting alternative search words, for instance, or dividing tasks and then e-mailing the most promising Web sites to one another, along with comments. “But these joint search behaviors aren’t directly supported by standard tools,” she said. SearchTogether, by contrast, actively supports a group search, said Michael Twidale, an associate professor at the graduate school of library and information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who studies people’s strategies for conducting research jointly. “SearchTogether addresses a real need,” he said. “People searching for information often want to interact with other people. But most of our information retrieval systems fail to recognize this.” People who want to try SearchTogether must first sign up for Microsoft’s free Windows Live ID program, which lets them chat online or send instant messages to one another. Then anyone with Live ID on a user’s list of contacts or “buddy list” can be invited to collaborate on a search. “You could invite your husband and mother to join you” for a trial run, Dr. Morris said — to work, for instance, on investigating topics like puppies for adoption, hybrid cars, or cooking tips for people with diabetes. People doing a joint search can divide the chores, sending half of the top results of a query to one team member and half to another, for example, to avoid duplicating work. When you sign on, a drop-down menu shows your current collaborations. Click on a topic and you’ll find automatic summaries of the team’s searches, as well as links to the pages, comments and recommendations. Team members can work synchronously, with everyone online at the same time, exchanging chat messages that are shown at the bottom of the browser page. They can also work on their own. “A group member can log in at any time,” Dr. Morris said. “Because of the automatic storing of group information in a shared repository, you can see what everyone has done while you were offline. The data base is always available.” The system also has a “peek and follow” feature that lets a group member watch another member search. This could be especially helpful for novice users who want to track the searches of more experienced users before diving in themselves. Once a privacy setting is adjusted within SearchTogether to give access to trusted people, Dr. Morris said, “others can see what you are seeing on your browser.” Dr. Twidale of the University of Illinois particularly admires SearchTogether’s educational features like “peek and follow.” “These can help participants think of new ways to reformulate their queries,” he said. “Seeing the vocabulary and syntax other people are using might help a person be a more successful searcher.” The system also lets users share their search results with others in the future; all the results are automatically saved. “If someone has a medical problem,” Dr. Morris said, “and wants to know what you learned on your search months ago, that person can be added to the group,” free to view the stored search history. THE Microsoft program is one of a number of collaborative tools in the works that will add a new dimension to searching, said Gary Marchionini, a professor of information science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “Right now I have my screen and I search,” he said. “My colleague does the same thing, and we have clumsy ways for sharing the results.” But that could change. “Why shouldn’t we collaborate on a search from the get-go?” he asked. “We can partition the job out, have a place to put joint results and then annotate them” in summary sections. “So we can say not only ‘this is what I found,’ but ‘these are the most salient things about it.’ That will make us more productive.”

Web Browsers
Search Engines
Microsoft Corp
Computers and the Internet
Software


Cisco Buys Starent Networks for $2.9 Billion

Abstract: Another week, another $3 billion acquisition by Cisco Systems . On Tuesday, Cisco announced that it would pay $35 a share, or $2.9 billion, for Starent Networks, which makes products that help wireless telecommunications companies ship large volumes of data to phones and computing devices. The deal represents about a 20 percent premium over Starent’s closing price on Monday of $29.03 a share. After the announcement, Starent’s shares rose $4.88, or almost 17 percent, to close at $33.91 on Tuesday. For Cisco, the acquisition extends its bet that consumers and workers will keeping pulling down ever larger amounts of data onto smartphones and laptops over wireless networks. Starent’s hardware and software products make it possible to create and manage high-speed data services, and the company counts carriers like Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, Vodafone Group and China Telecom as customers. “We have had a huge explosion in data traffic,” said Ned Hooper, Cisco’s chief strategy officer. “We expect the market for mobile data to double every year through 2013.” Cisco, which is based in San Jose, Calif., has also forecast that by 2013, video will account for about 60 percent of the data traveling across mobile networks. The company’s recent deals reflect that optimism about the growing importance of video traffic. Two weeks ago, Cisco began a tender offer to buy Tandberg , a Norwegian maker of videoconferencing systems, for $3 billion. And in March, Cisco agreed to pay $590 million for Pure Digital Technologies, a start-up that developed the popular Flip video cameras. John T. Chambers, the chairman and chief executive of Cisco, has said that the company plans to keep spending. At $35 billion, Cisco has more cash on hand for acquisitions than any other technology company. Cisco’s vast cash stockpile results, in part, from its lucrative networking equipment business. The company is by far the largest supplier of the routers and switches that help direct data and voice traffic between computing systems. While the profit margins on many popular data center products have plummeted over the years, Cisco reports 65 percent gross profit margins on its networking hardware. Mr. Chambers has used acquisitions as a means of complementing the company’s networking products, while also getting Cisco into new businesses. For example, the purchase of Pure Digital bolsters Cisco’s video and nascent consumer electronics efforts while also giving the company a way to promote devices that create bulky files that consume great deals of bandwidth. While the Starent purchase has a video element, it is primarily a sign that Cisco expects smartphones and wireless data plans to rise in popularity. In addition, the acquisition offers another door through which Cisco can approach telecommunications companies that have turned to Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei Technologies for networking equipment that feeds mobile devices. In a research report, Mark Sue, a networking analyst with RBC Capital Markets, valued the mobile carrier infrastructure market at $47.5 billion. Starent, based in Tewksbury, Mass., was founded in 2000 and has traded publicly since 2007. Last year, the company reported a 74 percent rise in revenue, to $254.1 million. Matthew Robison, a communications analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities, said Starent had made a name for itself by creating a single piece of networking hardware that could move data while also performing more complex management functions like handling user tracking and billing processes. “It’s almost like a router and a computer server in the same box,” he said. Such technology has become desirable among the large telecommunications suppliers, which have either made similar acquisitions or tried to build their own hybrid systems. “Cisco needed to do this to have a good road map out to the next generation of products,” Mr. Robison said. The all-cash deal is expected to close in the first half of 2010.

Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Cisco Systems Inc
Starent Networks Corporation
Wireless Communications


Joel Thirer Resigns as Athletic Director at Binghamton

Abstract: Joel Thirer resigned as Binghamton University ’s athletic director Wednesday, stepping down in the wake of mass dismissals from the basketball team and amid conflict between staff and faculty members and the athletic department. Lois B. DeFleur, the Binghamton president, outlined further changes in the athletic department, including an external audit, to be sure the university is following American East Conference and N.C.A.A. policies. She also said that Kevin Broadus, the basketball coach, must provide her with a “recruitment and supervision plan for Binghamton’s basketball program.” “I think it’s a first step in getting us back on track and to what we thought we were going to be when we became a Division I program,” said Dennis Lasser, an associate professor and a faculty athletic representative before his removal after Broadus was hired. Thirer’s resignation comes as the athletic department deals with numerous problems, including the dismissal of six players last week, most prominently the star point guard Emanuel Mayben after his arrest on charges of sale and possession of crack cocaine. The athletic department is also dealing with a federal sexual harassment complaint filed by a fund-raiser for the department against two of its employees. They include Jason Siegel, a senior associate athletic director, who was passed over for the interim job. That position was given to another senior associate athletic director, James Norris. For now, Binghamton appears to be retaining Broadus, whose contract was extended through 2014 after he guided the Bearcats to their first N.C.A.A. tournament berth last season. Broadus, who has about $1 million left on his contract, did not return a phone message Wednesday night. But the university’s swift action in dismissing six players, Thirer’s resignation and the bleak outlook for the team this season do not appear to bode well for the embattled coach. The team has only seven scholarship players who are eligible and no point guard, and the leading returning scorer averaged less than 5 points a game last season. Norris, the interim athletic director, said Wednesday night by telephone that he had some “sorting out to do” before he could comment. When asked specifically about Broadus’s future, he declined comment. “Don’t read into that one way or another,” Norris said. There is also the lingering issue of accusations against the athletic department made by Sally Dear, an adjunct lecturer, who said in an interview in February that she was pressured by the athletic department to change basketball players’ grades. The university dismissed her Tuesday, citing the “uncertain fiscal environment” and “strategic reprioritization of resources across the university.” Dear said this week that colleagues had told her they had changed grades for athletes. Nancy L. Zimpher, the chancellor of the State University of New York system, which includes Binghamton, said Dear’s February accusations had been investigated. “Earlier this year, concerns were raised that academic integrity may have been impacted at Binghamton as a result of activity in the athletic department,” Zimpher said. “A careful review was conducted at that time at Binghamton, and I have been assured by President DeFleur that this was not the case.” Dear said no one spoke with her during the investigation. “How can they conduct an investigation if one of the principal people involved has not been talked to?” she said. Thirer, who did not return a phone call Wednesday night, is being reassigned to the office of the provost to work on projects related to undergraduate transfers. He had been athletic director since 1989 and oversaw the transition of Binghamton’s athletics from Division III to Division I in 2001. He hired Broadus in March 2007. When Thirer learned from a reporter that Broadus had previously recruited from a Philadelphia high school that gained the reputation for being a diploma mill, he promised nothing similar would take place at Binghamton. “Binghamton has never engaged in that type of behavior,” he said. “If there’s a history of that, it certainly won’t be the case here. I can guarantee that. We just don’t want to win that badly.” Since Broadus came, there have been three arrests of players, including Mayben’s, and the recruiting of several transfer players who had academic or legal problems. Miladin Kovacevic, whom Broadus did not recruit, was accused of beating a student into a coma and fled to his native Serbia. Malik Alvin, whom Broadus brought in, was charged with stealing condoms. As problems mounted, Thirer insisted that the university was not sacrificing its integrity to win. He did not address the recent problems in a statement Wednesday. “My commitment to the ideals of Binghamton University and to the intercollegiate program remains steadfast,” he said.

State University of New York at Binghamton


Gays in Russia Find No Haven, Despite Support From the West

Abstract: MOSCOW — If this article were published in a newspaper based in Russia, it could be labeled 18+ — like an X-rated movie — and start with the following disclaimer: “This article contains information not suitable for readers younger than 18 years of age, according to Russian legislation.” Such warnings, put on any articles that discuss homosexuality or gay rights, are the result of a law nominally aimed at “protecting” children by banning “propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships” but widely understood as an effort to suppress homosexuality and Russia’s fledgling gay rights movement. The law, signed by President Vladimir V. Putin in June, has ignited international condemnation and blindsided the Kremlin with the sort of toxic political controversy that officials had desperately hoped to avoid ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The last Olympics on Russian soil, in 1980, was marred by the boycott over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The furor includes a boycott of Russian vodka in gay bars throughout the West and some calls for a boycott of the Sochi Games altogether. Beyond putting organizers on the defensive, it has cast worldwide attention on the cruel circumstances in which most gay people live in modern Russia. Despite the breathtaking wealth and vibrant culture in the metropolises of Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia remains a country where discrimination and even violence against gay people are widely tolerated. “What is going on now in Russia contradicts its place in the world,” said Anton Krasovsky, a television anchor who was immediately fired from his job at the government-controlled KontrTV network in January after he announced during a live broadcast that he is gay, saying he was fed up with lying about his life and offended by the legislation. Few gay people in Russia openly acknowledge their sexual orientation, and those who do are often harassed. When some gay people protested the propaganda law by kissing outside the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, police officers stood by and watched as the demonstrators were doused with water and beaten by antigay and religious supporters of the bill. An overwhelming 88 percent of Russians support the gay propaganda ban, according to a survey conducted in June by the All-Russian Public Opinion Center. A survey conducted in April by the Levada Center found that 35 percent of Russians believed that homosexuality was a disease and 43 percent believed that it was a bad habit, a result of poor parenting or a lack of discipline, or a symptom of abuse. Last month, Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, called same-sex marriage “a very dangerous sign of the apocalypse.” Image The police detained a man after an attack on a gay rights activist in St. Petersburg. Credit Anatoly Maltsev/European Pressphoto Agency Mixed signals from senior Russian officials over how the propaganda law might be enforced during the Games have undercut assertions by the International Olympic Committee that gay athletes and spectators have nothing to worry about, and have left organizing officials facing harsh criticism and demanding clarifications from the Kremlin. There have been comparisons to Nazi Germany as host of the 1936 Olympics inside and outside Russia, including one by Jay Leno during an interview with President Obama last week on “The Tonight Show.” “Something that shocked me about Russia,” Mr. Leno told the president. “Suddenly, homosexuality is against the law. I mean, this seems like Germany: Let’s round up the Jews. Let’s round up the gays. Let’s round up the blacks. I mean, it starts with that.” Mr. Obama, on Mr. Leno’s show and again at a White House news conference on Friday, noted that Russia was not alone in its treatment of gay people, but he denounced the legislation and said he expected Mr. Putin and the Russian government to prevent any discrimination in Sochi. “I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgendered persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them,” he told Mr. Leno. At the White House, Mr. Obama said he opposed a boycott of the Games, but added, “Nobody is more offended than me by some of the antigay and lesbian legislation that you’ve been seeing in Russia.” Russian officials say the criticism is unfair and inaccurate. In 1993, Russia repealed the Soviet-era law that made gay sex a crime. “This is not about imposing any kind of sanctions against homosexuality,” Mr. Putin said, defending the propaganda law at a news conference in June. “This is about protecting children.” He added: “The law does not in any way infringe on the rights of sexual minorities. They are full-fledged members of our society and are not being discriminated against in any way.” Gay rights advocates disagree, saying the law is vague and can be used to arrest anyone who appears to support gay rights. American rights groups, backed by athletes like Blake Skjellerup, a speed skater, and Greg Louganis, the gold medalist diver, are leading efforts to pressure Russia and the International Olympic Committee, including the vodka boycott and a petition signed by more than 300,000 people. Image Protesters held signs depicting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in London on Saturday. Credit Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press Some, like Stephen Fry, a British comedian who is gay, are urging a boycott of Sochi , while others want protests there to avoid punishing athletes. Critics say Russia’s repression of gay rights is part of a pattern that also includes a tightening of pressure on civil society groups, and steps to limit foreign influences — all seemingly out of sync with Russia’s push to host international events, like the recently completed 2013 World University Games in Kazan and the international track and field championships now under way in Moscow. Beyond Sochi, Russia will hold the World Cup in 2018 and is bidding for the World Expo in 2020. Asked if the gay rights issue might derail the bid, a spokeswoman for the deputy prime minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, noted that Russia was competing with Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, where homosexuality is illegal. Russian gay rights advocates said the outrage in the West was providing new energy and financial support to their still relatively young movement. It is also raising pressure, including fears of increased violence. “It’s not only a question of the period of the Olympic Games; here, there should be no law like this,” said Kirill Kalugin, 21, who was beaten by counterdemonstrators at a gay pride event in St. Petersburg last month and then detained by the police. “I feel very offended that I am being presented as an enemy of my own people.” Mr. Krasovsky, the fired television anchor, likened life for gay people in Russia to that in the rural America in 1989, seven years before the Defense of Marriage Act became law . He also noted that in 1987, Britain adopted a ban on providing information about homosexuality to children nearly identical to the Russian law. Aleksandr Smirnov, 39, a freelance journalist, said he was forced to quit his job in the press office of a deputy mayor in Moscow after he was featured with more than two dozen other gay Muscovites in a special issue of Afisha magazine in February. Being gay in Russia means “you are under permanent stress,” he said. As for gay propaganda, he said the notion was ridiculous. “Seven years ago, I wrote a letter to my mother, explaining my position, and I tried to explain to her that this has nothing to do with the existing stereotypes,” Mr. Smirnov said. “I told her that when I was about 13, I just felt, that, you know, I like boys, just the way the boys, not gays, at this same age, started to have feelings toward girls and women. I was not seduced. I was not lured into it, provoked into it. This happened quite naturally.” Rights advocates said that Russia was growing more dangerous for gay people. This year, there have been at least two killings motivated by antigay bias in the country, including the savage beating death in May of a young man in Volgograd who was also sodomized with beer bottles. Mr. Smirnov said that even in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, where there are large gay populations, as well as a thriving and visible gay night life that includes several gay bars and clubs, bias was inescapable. “If you ask gays in Moscow whether they were attacked, or insulted, practically everyone will admit that it happened to him,” he said. “We are just at the very, very beginning of the movement for the rights of gays. And this new law, you know, it seals our mouths and ties our hands and feet.”

Discrimination
Homosexuality
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
Russia
Hate crime
Legislation
2014 Winter Olympics


Riddle at Quarterback Helps Oklahoma Solve Alabama in Sugar Bowl

Abstract: NEW ORLEANS — Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops declined to announce a starting quarterback before the Sugar Bowl, and when the freshman Trevor Knight took the field on the Sooners’ first possession Thursday night, Alabama’s defenders could not have anticipated what was in store. Knight completed a Sugar Bowl-record 32 passes for 348 yards and 4 touchdowns, leading No. 11 Oklahoma to a 45-31 upset of No. 3 Alabama. Knight’s completion percentage entering the game was 52.2. He had completed 47 passes all season. On Thursday night, though, he delivered a breakout performance in which two of his touchdowns went for more than 40 yards. Oklahoma (11-2) needed him to play that well in the 80th Sugar Bowl, the first in which quarterbacks for both teams threw for more than 300 yards. “It’s huge for our program, to get a win like this after no one gave us a chance all year,” Knight said. “We’ve got to ride this into next year.” The victory was a sweet one for Stoops. During the off-season, he said the Southeastern Conference’s reputation as the best league in college football was based on “propaganda.” “I have the utmost respect for Alabama, and I think this shows that obviously we can play with anybody,” Stoops said. “So, enough of that. And I just watched them go through their entire conference and play pretty well. I’m not pointing any fingers. But I think sometimes the comparisons aren’t necessarily very true.” The Sooners, from the Big 12, vanquished an Alabama squad that had been ranked No. 1 for much of the past three seasons, winning the previous two Bowl Championship Series titles before its shot at a third straight was derailed by Auburn on the last play last month in the Iron Bowl. Alabama Coach Nick Saban did not believe the notion that his team, favored by 16 points, was too deflated from its loss to Auburn to play up to its standard. “I actually thought that the players responded in practice pretty well for this game,” Saban said. “We put over 500 yards of offense up. Somebody had to do something right. I don’t think that we played as well on defense as we’re capable of or should have.” A J McCarron passed for 387 yards and 2 touchdowns for the Crimson Tide (11-2), but he threw two interceptions that set up Oklahoma scores. He also had a fumble that was returned for a score in the final minute, sealing Alabama’s first two-game skid since its Sugar Bowl loss to Utah in January 2009. McCarron, a senior, lost his final two starts after having won 36 of his first 38. “Put it all on me,” McCarron said. “I had two turnovers.” He added: “It’s football. It happens. I wish it wouldn’t have happened, but I’ll definitely take the loss and definitely take the blame, because a lot of it is probably my fault.” The freshman Derrick Henry’s 43-yard touchdown run in the third quarter cut Alabama’s deficit to 31-24, and the Crimson Tide’s defense forced four punts while giving up only one first down in the quarter. But Alabama was unable to add another score before the Sooners starting moving the ball again early in the fourth. Knight lofted a perfect pass to Lacoltan Bester for a 34-yard gain to the Alabama 9. Shortly after, Knight rolled left to the sideline before rifling a touchdown strike to Sterling Shepard, making it a two-touchdown game again with 10 minutes 44 seconds left. Henry, a 6-foot-3, 238-pound true freshman, pulled Alabama within a score once more when he shed tacklers and turned his first career reception into a 61-yard touchdown with 6:22 to go. But Oklahoma was able to burn several minutes off the clock. Then, on the Sooners’ seventh sack of McCarron, Eric Striker stripped him of the ball, and Geneo Grissom returned it 8 yards for a score. Both teams entered the Sugar Bowl with defenses ranked in the top 15 in the Football Bowl Subdivision, but quarterback play dominated a first half highlighted by five passing plays of 43 yards or longer, three of which went for scores. Alabama took the opening kickoff and scored in four plays. McCarron hit Amari Cooper for 15 and 53 yards, and T. J. Yeldon ran it in from the 1 two plays later. It appeared to be getting worse for the Sooners when Alabama’s Landon Collins made a diving interception of Knight’s tipped pass, but Oklahoma got the ball back when Gabe Lynn picked off McCarron on the next play. One play later, Knight found Bester down the right sideline for 45 yards to tie the score, 7-7. On Alabama’s next drive, McCarron found DeAndrew White for a 63-yard gain to set up Cade Foster’s field goal. But the Sooners took their first lead when Knight connected with Jalen Saunders, who reached the ball across the goal line as he was being brought down. McCarron’s pinpoint deep pass down the middle to White for a 67-yard touchdown gave the Tide a 17-14 lead early in the second quarter. The Sooners answered with Michael Hunnicutt’s 47-yard field goal. Alabama appeared on the verge of a go-ahead score, but Yeldon fumbled at the Oklahoma 8. The Sooners then methodically reached midfield, where they converted a fourth-and-1. On the next play, Knight hit Saunders in stride down the right sideline for a 43-yard score. McCarron’s second interception, snagged by Zack Sanchez and returned to the Alabama 13, set up Shepard’s 13-yard score around the right end, giving the Sooners a stunning 31-17 lead. The Tide drove into field-goal range in the final minute of the half, but Foster missed a 32-yarder, leaving Oklahoma with a two-touchdown lead at halftime.

College football
Sugar Bowl
University of Oklahoma
University of Alabama
Bob Stoops
Trevor Knight