Before His Death, Boy Faced Weeks of Abuse, Officials Say

Abstract: Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered an investigation on Friday into the death of a 4-year-old boy who was beaten, tortured and starved for three weeks by his caregiver, as new details of the boy’s horrific ordeal emerged in court. “It was a tragedy in every sense,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference. “It was something that should never happen in this city. We’re going to do everything in our power to save every child. That is our mission.” Shortly after the mayor spoke, the woman charged in connection with the child’s death, Kryzie King, 27, was brought in handcuffs before a judge in criminal court in Manhattan and charged with assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. A prosecutor, Nicole Blumberg, told the judge that Ms. King was under investigation for murder and that the state would “likely bring additional charges.” Ms. Blumberg said the boy, Myls Dobson, had endured three weeks of torture after his father was arrested and left him in Ms. King’s care in mid-December. She said Ms. King admitted to the police that she beat the child with a belt buckle and an electric cord, seared his legs with an oven rack, gagged him with a rag and bound his wrists and ankles for two or three hours at a time. Ms. King also forced the boy to stand on an 11th-floor balcony in his underwear during frigid weather on Tuesday as a punishment. She also starved the child, feeding him nothing in the last days of his life. He lost more than 20 pounds, prosecutors said. Image Kryzie King Credit John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times Ms. King initially told detectives that Myls had fallen from a bathroom counter into an empty tub. “She described watching Myls die right in front of her eyes,” Ms. Blumberg said. “He was slumped over in the bathroom. His eyes were fluttering. He couldn’t focus, until his body was completely shut down.” Ms. King waited a half-hour before calling 911, and called some friends first, the prosecutor added. It was unclear how Myls ended up in the care of Ms. King, who had dated his father, Okee Wade, when Mr. Wade had relatives in New York and in South Carolina. Mr. de Blasio said he had directed the deputy mayor for health and human services, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, and the children’s services commissioner, Gladys Carrion, to lead the inquiry. He asked them to produce a report within a week, he said, “so we can learn what could have been done differently” For much of his life, Myls was monitored by city social workers in the Administration for Children’s Services. In August 2011, the city agency accused the child’s mother, Ashlee Dobson, of neglect and asked a family court judge to remove the boy from her custody, a court official with knowledge of the case said. Ms. Dobson told reporters at a news conference on Friday morning in Manhattan that the city’s Administration for Children’s Services had taken her son from her because they were living in a homeless shelter. Through her lawyer, she said she had weekly visitations with Myls but had not seen him since November. In August 2012, a New York court awarded Mr. Wade custody, but the judge required Mr. Wade to remain under the supervision of child services social workers for a year. That supervision ended in August. Michael Fagan, a deputy commission at the children’s services administration, said in a statement that the agency would do “a thorough review of the case.” But he said city social workers had no legal reason to check up on Mr. Wade after his year of supervision ended. “Unfortunately, once ACS’ involvement with a family has concluded, the agency no longer has oversight authority,” he said.

Child Abuse
Myls Dobson
Kryzie King
Murders


Facebook Advertising Efforts Face a Day of Judgment

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — In the race for digital advertising dollars, Google has been the clear winner, with its ability to customize advertisements based on what you search for. But Facebook , which customizes ads based on who you and your friends are, hopes to be a contender. An important test of how it is doing will come on Thursday, when it releases its first earnings numbers since going public . The stakes could not be higher. Facebook made its initial public offering in May with an eye-poppingly high valuation , but its share price has plummeted since then. Advertising, largely in the United States, accounts for the bulk of its revenue, and the company is under intense pressure to show that it is growing fast enough to justify its high value. In short, to please Wall Street, Facebook must first curry favor with Madison Avenue, and it is scrambling to do just that. “Advertisers need more proof that actual advertising on Facebook offers a return on investment,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with the market research firm eMarketer . “There is such disagreement over whether Facebook is the next big thing on the Internet or whether it’s going to fail miserably.” Facebook’s unique asset is the pile of personal data it collects from 900 million users. But using that data to serve up effective, profitable advertisements is a daunting task. Google has been in the advertising game longer and has roughly $40 billion in annual revenue from advertising — 10 times that of Facebook. Since the public offering, Wall Street has tempered its expectations for Facebook’s advertising revenue, and shares closed Friday at $28.76, down from their initial price of $38. In an indication of how critical it is for Facebook to get its advertising products right, the company called on Gokul Rajaram, an engineer who once ran Google’s lucrative AdSense engine, to take charge of its own advertising products division. Facebook hired Mr. Rajaram in 2010, when it acquired his start-up, Chai Labs , which had built artificial-intelligence-based algorithms to analyze online data. Part of the challenge is that advertisements, as Mr. Rajaram once put it, should not feel like advertisements. “You would much rather hear a message from your friend than hear a message from a brand,” he said at a conference sponsored by TechCrunch last year. Today, he leads a team of engineers who are rolling out a variety of advertising tricks, including tools that can do what Google does so profitably: reach consumers across the Web. Facebook declined repeated requests for an interview with Mr. Rajaram, and offered no details of its new advertising efforts. Among the most promising of those efforts, from a marketer’s point of view, is Facebook Exchange, which is intended to track the behavior of Facebook users when they are visiting other sites and serve up tailored advertisements when they return to Facebook. Orbitz , the travel company, is among the advertisers that are trying Facebook Exchange. If it sees a consumer looking for, say, a business hotel in New York, Orbitz can place an advertisement for New York hotels on that user’s Facebook page, with the hope that the user will return to the travel site and make the booking. Chris Stevens, senior director of retail for Orbitz, said it was too early to determine the impact on sales. “If it does work, it’s going to be great,” said Karsten Weide, an International Data Corporation analyst who has been skeptical of Facebook’s advertising prospects. “They have to prove advertising on Facebook works.” Another prominent experiment is Facebook’s effort to let marketers reach its users outside of its garden walls. In June, it began showing targeted banner advertisements to Facebook users on the gaming site Zynga . Facebook has declined to say whether or how it plans to expand this tool, which comes closest to rivaling Google’s power to advertise across the Web. “It’s sort of the first step in trying to expand outside of Facebook,” said David Eastman, worldwide digital director at the advertising agency JWT . “This is simply part of Facebook’s strategy to monetize themselves, and is likely the beginning of a series of products coming out in the next six months to a year designed to grow advertising revenue.” Reaching mobile users will have to be an essential part of Facebook’s advertising strategy. Nearly half of Facebook users log in on their tablets or phones, and the company has acknowledged that its most pressing challenge is to figure out how to profit from them. It recently started allowing marketers to buy advertisements only on mobile platforms, which is where many companies, like retailers, are chasing potential customers. “They’re going to have to crack the mobile piece,” Mr. Eastman said. While advertising accounts for more than 85 percent of its revenue, Facebook is also looking for other ways to make money. In June, it announced that it would make it easier for users to buy online goods and services, including monthly subscriptions to video and music streaming services like Spotify, on the Facebook platform. It discontinued its virtual currency , Facebook Credits, which was mainly used to play games, and said it would accept credit card payments in local currencies worldwide. Analysts applauded it as a step toward pleasing Wall Street. As a byproduct of its meteoric rise, Facebook is facing an inevitable hurdle: in the United States, where it makes most of its advertising revenue, it is not drawing new users. The latest numbers from comScore, a market research firm, showed that in May, 158.01 million unique visitors logged on to the network, down slightly from 158.69 million in April. Advertisers, and by extension shareholders, will look closely at whether Facebook can keep those users glued to the site for longer stretches of time. Facebook is still growing in several countries, like Brazil and India, but it makes little to no money in those places. Manuel A. Henriquez, chief executive of the venture capital firm Hercules and an investor in Facebook, called Thursday’s earnings report a test for the company’s chief executive and founder, Mark Zuckerberg , and his management team. “They have the data,” Mr. Henriquez said. “If they can show effectively their ability to monetize domestic subscribers at an increasing rate, they’ll have a lot of legitimacy.” That task falls squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Rajaram’s engineering team, which is charged with writing the algorithms that will show the right advertisements to the right people. Its members often refer to themselves as the Math Men, in contrast to the Mad Men who once ruled the industry, and it helps that Mr. Rajaram, who has degrees in computer science and business, is the son of a high school math teacher. But his challenge is much more than writing the right code. He must also apply Facebook data to marketing in a way that does not alienate users or invite scrutiny in court. Indeed, Facebook hit a legal roadblock in May, when it reached a tentative settlement in a class-action lawsuit over the use of sponsored stories, one of its most effective advertising tools . In the would-be settlement, the company promised to inform users explicitly that their “likes” could be used as endorsements for a brand or page, and that they could opt out. By one estimate, it could cost Facebook $103 million in revenue.

Advertising and Marketing
Facebook Inc
Zuckerberg Mark E
Online Advertising


W.H.O. Says Iraq Civilian Death Toll Higher Than Cited

Abstract: The World Health Organization on Wednesday waded into the controversial subject of Iraqi civilian deaths, publishing a study that estimated that the number of deaths from the start of the war through June 2006 was at least twice as high as the oft-cited Iraq Body Count. The study is the latest in a long series of attempts to come up with realistic numbers of civilian deaths. The numbers are politically fraught, and researchers’ work has been further complicated by problems in collecting data while working in a war zone. The estimates have varied widely. The Iraq Body Count, a nongovernmental group based in Britain that bases its numbers on news media accounts, put the number of civilians dead at 47,668 during the same period of time as the World Health Organization study, the W.H.O. report said. President Bush in the past used a number that was similar to one put forward at the time by the Iraq Body Count. But another study, by Johns Hopkins, which has come under criticism for its methodology, cited an estimate of about 600,000 dead between the war’s start, in March 2003, and July 2006. The World Health Organization said its study, based on interviews with families, indicated with a 95 percent degree of statistical certainty that between 104,000 and 223,000 civilians had died. It based its estimate of 151,000 deaths on that range. Those figures made violence the leading cause of adult male deaths in Iraq and one of the leading causes of death for the population as a whole, the health organization research team reported online in the New England Journal of Medicine. More than half the violent deaths occurred in Baghdad. While the new study appears to have the broadest scope to date, increasing its reliability, well known limitations of such efforts in war areas make it unlikely to resolve debate about the extent of the killing in Iraq. Iraqi officials gave conflicting assessments of the newest study, with one senior Health Ministry official praising it and another saying the numbers were exaggerated. The White House said that it had not seen the study and would not comment on its estimated death toll, but that the recent increase in American forces had reduced civilian and military casualties. “We mourn the deaths of all people in Iraq,” said Jeanie Mamo, a White House spokeswoman. In any case, the study ended four months after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra helped set off a wave of killings throughout Baghdad and other mixed Sunni-Shiite areas. So because of its timing, the study missed the period of what is believed to be the worst sectarian killings, during the latter half of 2006 and the first eight months of 2007. The figures on violent deaths were part of a large study of chronic illnesses, mental health status, environmental risk factors and other factors affecting family health in Iraq. The figures were based on interviews with 9,345 heads of households across the country that had been selected according to statistical methods that are standard in peaceful areas. The interviewers, who were employees of the Iraqi Ministry of Health, had been trained how to ask the survey questions and to assign the stated causes of deaths. The surveyors largely conducted their work in August and September 2006. In Baghdad, Shiite militiamen, often acting in coordination with or with the acquiescence of fellow Shiites in the Iraq security forces, purged many neighborhoods of Sunnis. Many were grabbed, handcuffed, shot in the head and dumped with other victims. Sunni insurgents continued their campaign of terrorizing Shiite areas with car bombs and other attacks. In fact, one co-author, Louay Hakki Rasheed, was killed on his way to work on Aug. 2, 2007. The extraordinarily dangerous security situation prevented surveyors from visiting about 11 percent of the areas that the researchers had intended to visit. Most of the places that were off-limits to the researchers were in Anbar Province, the Sunni-dominated region of western Iraq. While there have been significant security improvements in Anbar in the past year — after Sunni tribal leaders joined with United States troops to drive out extremist militants — in 2006 the province was a lawless haven dominated by insurgents. Most of the other areas into which the researchers could not go for safety reasons were in Baghdad, which at the time was being ripped into balkanized concentrations of Shiites and Sunnis. Some neighborhoods looked like urban ghost towns, as the residents who did not have the money or the ability to flee the country stayed holed up in their homes rather than risk being abducted or killed by the death squads and gangs of criminals and insurgents who roamed much of the capital freely. Iraqi authorities often have asserted that estimates of deaths provided by outside groups and researchers are too high. But there is a significant political element to the numbers, and as the surge in violent deaths in 2006 from death squad activities and other killings became a major embarrassment, the Iraqi government moved to sharply curb access to the data. At the same time, Iraqi officials have asserted that they made improvements in their ability to track fatalities using morgue counts and other means. One shortcoming has always been that the corpses of many victims, if they are identifiable, are taken by family members straight to the cemetery, bypassing the morgue and hospital. Yet Iraqi authorities say that relatives still have an incentive to obtain a death certificate because it is required for inheritance, for government compensation, and for other purposes. In a telephone news conference organized by the health organization, a voice identified as that of the Iraqi health minister, Salih Mahdi Mutlab al-Hasnawi, said, “It is a very sound survey, and the sample is a good sample,” and “I believe in those numbers.” But a senior official in the Iraq Health Ministry’s inspector general’s office cast doubt on the findings, saying 151,000 was far too high. The official, who said he was not allowed to speak about the matter and refused to allow his name to be used, said the numbers cited by the study were much larger than figures tracked by the ministry. But he refused to provide any alternative tallies for the death toll, saying he was not authorized to do so. Mohamed M. Ali, a health agency statistician and co-author of the report, said that “in the absence of comprehensive death registration and hospital reporting, household surveys are the best we can do.” Even then, the figures collected are likely to be underestimates because “some homes could not be visited because of high levels of insecurity and more people move residence in times of conflict,” Mr. Hasnawi, the health minister, said in a statement issued by the W.H.O. To come up with estimates for the 11 percent of target areas they could not reach, the researchers used a formula that was based primarily on the Iraq Body Count to determine how much higher the number of deaths could have been there than in other areas of the country. The Iraq Body Count project bases its numbers on news media reports. That count registered 47,668 civilian deaths because of violence in the study period, a figure that the health organization considered low because many such deaths are not reported in the news media. The Johns Hopkins study, which was published in The Lancet in October 2006, estimated that 601,027 Iraqi civilians had died from violence. That study, which was conducted with researchers from Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, involved one-fifth the number of households and one-twentieth the number of areas surveyed by the new W.H.O. study.

Iraq
World Health Organization
Death and Dying


Iceland Plans to Join European Bloc Despite Economic Turmoil

Abstract: BRUSSELS — Despite a sovereign debt crisis that threatens to tear the European Union apart, Iceland is speeding ahead on its bid to join the bloc and even delivered a pep talk Friday to those struggling to hold it together. Less than two years after starting membership talks in the wake of its own banking crisis, Iceland has now finished 10 of the 35 “chapters” of E.U. laws that new members must work their way through – a pace that Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said was the fastest for any country since new rules were adopted in 2006. Iceland’s foreign minister, Ossur Skarphedinsson, said the country was “pressing full steam ahead” despite the “depressed” mood in Brussels, where officials have been trying for more than two years to contain the sovereign debt crisis that threatens to undermine not only the 17-nation euro area but the entire 27-nation E.U. itself. Mr. Skarphedinsson expressed optimism the crisis would be solved, as well he should: Each new E.U. member must agree to give up its currency and adopt the euro eventually. “It is a vote of confidence, and you are listening to someone who is coming from a country that has gone through the worst crisis,” Mr. Skarphedinsson said at a news conference following the latest round of membership talks. He advised the Europeans to face their current difficulties “just like we in Iceland encounter snow storms: Zip up, pull the hood and brave the storm. In the end we know that the day returns to calm and sunshine.” Iceland was one of the countries hardest hit in 2008 by the global financial crisis because of its overinflated banking system. The three largest banks collapsed along with the island’s currency and the economy plunged into recession. Some economists have argued, however, that the collapse of its banks, while painful, forced the country to deal with its problems faster and aided a swifter recovery. After two years of deep recession, Iceland grew strongly last year. In April the International Monetary Fund forecast continued growth of around 2.5 percent this year and next. The country also has been repaying the loans it got from the I.M.F. and its Nordic neighbors ahead of schedule. “Iceland was the first country down, it was the first country up,” Mr. Skarphedinsson said. “We are an example of what can be done.” He and Mr. Fule also expressed optimism that Iceland and the European Union would be able to find agreement on the most difficult issue still open between them: managing and sharing the fisheries that supply Iceland’s biggest export industry. “In Iceland, of course, everything is about fish,” Mr. Skarphedinsson said. No target date has been set for Iceland to join. Croatia is likely to be next, joining in July 2013 if all the E.U. countries ratify the accession treaty signed last year. So far, nine of the 27 have done so, along with Croatia. On Tuesday E.U. ministers will again discuss opening negotiations with Montenegro, although that application has been stalled because of questions about corruption and organized crime.

Iceland
European Union
Euro (Currency)
Economic Conditions and Trends
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )


California: Arson Ruled in Downtown Los Angeles Fire

Abstract: A fire that reduced an unfinished apartment building in downtown Los Angeles to a block-long mountain of blackened wood was an act of arson that caused an estimated $20 million to $30 million in damage, the Fire Department said Thursday. The Dec. 8 fire burned the seven-story, 1.3-million-square-foot Da Vinci complex.


After Belarus Vote, Riot Police Attack Protesters

Abstract: MINSK, Belarus — Antigovernment protesters were beaten back by swarms of riot police officers on Sunday when they tried to storm the Belarus government headquarters here in an outburst of anger and frustration over the apparent and, many said, wholly unsurprising re-election of the country’s authoritarian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko. Thousands of people converged on Independence Square here in the capital, heeding opposition leaders who called Sunday’s election a farce and accused Mr. Lukashenko of keeping the post-Soviet country locked in dictatorship. Official election results released by the government early Monday morning showed Mr. Lukashenko with 79.7 percent of the votes cast, Reuters reported. The protesters chanted slogans like “Long Live Belarus” and disparaged Mr. Lukashenko, who in 16 years as president has muzzled the news media, eliminated political opponents and emboldened the secret police. At one point, protesters charged the entrance of the imposing government headquarters, breaking through glass doors and trying to push through barricades that had been erected inside. But armored riot troops quickly overwhelmed the protesters, at times funneling them toward packs of plainclothes officers who beat them. Earlier in the evening, one of the leading opposition candidates, Vladimir Neklyaev, appeared to have been beaten unconscious in a separate attack. He was taken to a hospital, but one of his aides said seven men wrapped him in a blanket and carried him away, as his wife screamed from a locked room, The Associated Press reported. The protests echoed similar demonstrations in 2006 after an earlier re-election of Mr. Lukashenko. Those protests were easily quashed. By late Sunday evening, police officers wielding shields and clubs occupied large swaths of downtown Minsk, and protesters had begun to disperse. It was unclear how many arrests had been made, though there were reports that several opposition leaders had been detained. Earlier in the day, Mr. Lukashenko suggested that the authorities would take steps to ensure that the opposition would not be able to gather to protest the results. Speaking to reporters after casting his vote at a large athletic complex, he called members of the opposition “bandits and saboteurs.” “For half a year, people have been saying these elections will be unfair,” he said. “Today my fate and theirs is being decided by the people of Belarus, and only the people of Belarus.” Yet even before the polls closed Sunday, opponents of Mr. Lukashenko’s began complaining of a police crackdown. Opposition activists said that several of their colleagues had been arrested by midafternoon, though it was unclear what the charges were. Julia Rymashevsky, a spokeswoman for Mr. Neklyaev, said at least two aides had been arrested, including one who seemed to just disappear. “He called a taxi and left his apartment, but he never made it to the taxi,” Ms. Rymashevsky said. Later, Mr. Neklyaev was headed to the central square to join the protest with about 100 or so followers when they were attacked without warning by men who wore black masks and clothing with no insignias. The men tossed stun grenades and began attacking people. A reporter and a photographer for The New York Times were among those who were beaten, but they were not seriously injured. The police slammed people to the ground and held them there for several minutes, pushing their heads into the snow, before suddenly leaving. Mr. Neklyaev appeared to have been knocked unconscious in the assault. After he was reportedly removed from the hospital, his whereabouts were unknown. It did not appear that other opposition candidates were initially targets of the riot police on Sunday night. The large protest in central Minsk lasted for several hours before the police moved in. “It was horrible,” said Tatyana Molosh, a student. “I was barely able to get out. From one side the police were moving in, and then they came in from the other side. “But, you know what the most frightening thing is?” Ms. Molosh said. “I am 25 years old and I have to build a future and a family in this country and I see no future. This is the saddest thing.” Such complaints are nothing new in Belarus, particularly among the young, many of whom see little opportunity for success or growth in a country with an economy largely dependent on handouts from other countries. The rising tensions on election night belied a concerted attempt by Mr. Lukashenko to make these elections appear more democratic in an effort to get money from the West as relations with his longtime patron, the Kremlin, have declined. Many Western countries, particularly in the European Union, have appeared heartened by these developments, and have sought to engage Mr. Lukashenko. Poland and Germany recently offered Belarus $3.5 billion in aid if this election was deemed free and fair. In Minsk, however, few held out hope that it could be. “We have the ability to campaign and give people information,” said Alesya Yakubouskaya, a student and opposition supporter. “But this is just so the government can show that it is liberal and that these elections will be fair.” “On the contrary,” she said, “to think that the vote count will be fair is a little naïve.”

Belarus
Elections
Demonstrations Protests and Riots


Giving Human Intuition a Place in Airport Security

Abstract: BACK when Times Square was less carefree, a retired New York City police officer I know used to play a private game called Spot the Perp. Walking along Eighth Avenue or on the Deuce, as the then-crime-ridden block of 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues was known, the former officer would try to pick out from the crowd the person most likely to commit at least a Class B misdemeanor by midnight. An experienced officer can spot trouble at 200 feet. It’s manifest in the assessing gait, the reconnoitering eyes and lots of other small tell-tale signs. I was reminded of Spot the Perp during a recent interview with Kip Hawley, the head of the Transportation Security Administration , as he talked about the agency’s new emphasis on a layer of screening called behavioral detection. The agency, of course, isn’t looking for someone likely to commit a street crime. It’s looking for terrorists. The T.S.A. has about 600 so-called behavioral detection officers, some of them promoted from the ranks of screeners, who have been trained in law enforcement techniques of sizing up behavior, Mr. Hawley told me. He said the agency expected to double that number in the next fiscal year and probably double it again the following year. The idea is to enhance security before the checkpoint magnetometer, where the focus is on things like potential weapons more than on people. A well-trained eye and ear — emphasis on the well-trained — can pick up signals a metal detector cannot. “We started off thinking, What is it we do better than anybody else? What’s the advantage we have? And it’s that we see two million people every day. We know what normal is,” Mr. Hawley said. A good behavioral detection officer has developed the skills to separate normal airport anxieties from fundamental signs of “hostile intent,” he said. “We know what a hassled business traveler looks like,” Mr. Hawley explained. “We know what somebody who’s just having a fight with their girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever looks like. We know what the normal experience is. So you build on top of that.” He added: “It doesn’t matter what race, ethnicity, age or whatever a person is. It’s got to do with the human condition, that humans express certain emotions unknown to them that you can detect.” Now, I have been critical of the T.S.A. on occasion over the years. But it has occurred to me this summer, when airline and airport delays are the worst ever, that the only part of the system that has been running efficiently has been T.S.A. security. I hear every day from readers with serious complaints, including horror stories, about air travel. But I seldom hear a big complaint about the T.S.A. anymore, especially now that we’ve all become accustomed to the rules on how much liquid we can carry on and in what size containers. Behavioral detection is a technique, not a science. It’s an extra tool for “risk management,” Mr. Hawley said. Officers size up people at checkpoints and elsewhere, sometimes by engaging them in casual conversation. It doesn’t constitute a third-degree grilling like the vaunted Israeli airport security. Someone who sets off the first alarm qualifies for “a closer look,” Mr. Hawley said. The T.S.A. is also testing technology to screen more efficiently for explosives and other potential weapons and to improve the checkpoint experience over all. As part of its new tack of evaluating behavior patterns, the agency plans to take over more responsibility for checking passenger identification and boarding passes at more airports, where most of those jobs are now done by outside contract workers. The T.S.A. recently took over those functions at Kennedy International Airport and plans to have 2,000 of its own officers checking documents at airports around the country in the 2008 fiscal year. That is nearly triple the existing force. The place where your documents are checked is likely to be the only one you or I are aware we’re being sized up. “It’s another occasion where we get to interact with passengers,” Mr. Hawley said. “We’re working on the 50-second interview. As you evaluate these people’s documents, maybe you say a couple of things to them and see how they respond. That gives us a chance to see, does this person raise any flags?”

Airports
Security and Warning Systems
Transportation Security Administration


South Carolina: Ex-lawmaker Robert Ford Faces Charges

Abstract: Former State Senator Robert Ford has been indicted on eight charges that include misconduct in office, forgery and ethics violations, state prosecutors said Friday. Mr. Ford, a Charleston Democrat, also faces six Ethics Act violations: two counts each of personal use of campaign funds, depositing campaign contributions into personal accounts and false reporting. Mr. Ford resigned about a year and a half ago during hearings on similar allegations. In May, a Senate panel fined him $30,000 for violating 15 counts of state ethics law and ordered him to send $14,758 to the Children’s Trust.

South Carolina
Robert Ford
Ethics Misconduct Malfeasance
Campaign finance
State Legislature elections


Earnings Increase 34% at Abbott Laboratories

Abstract: Abbott Laboratories said on Wednesday that first-quarter earnings increased 34 percent on higher sales of its prescription drugs and medical devices and favorable foreign exchange factors. The company reported strong sales gains for its top medicines, diagnostics and other products, even excluding the benefits of the weak dollar, and projected earnings growth in the top tier of the industry. Net profit rose to $938 million, or 60 cents a share, from $698 million, or 45 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding special items, it earned 63 cents a share. On that basis, analysts’ average forecast was 62 cents, according to Reuters Estimates. Shares of Abbott fell 56 cents, to $51.35 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Abbott Laboratories Inc
Company Reports
Laboratories and Scientific Equipment
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Stocks and Bonds


Ration Cards in Hand, Thousands Welcome Aid

Abstract: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Thousands of women happily lugged heavy sacks of rice through the streets here Sunday as the first day of post-earthquake food distribution using a new system got under way. Compared with past giveaways, there was more order, especially at locations with a heavy American military presence, but there were also delays, a few shoving matches and confusion as aid groups and needy Haitians struggled to adapt. Marcus Prior, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, said that there were no major incidents reported Sunday, but that food was handed out at only 9 of the 16 locations planned for the new program, in which each family was given a coupon for a 55-pound bag of rice. “There are five sites which needed a little more preparation, mainly in the preparing and distribution of ration cards,” he said. “We hope to get these up and running in next day or two.” He added that two other sites, in Cité Soleil, a sprawling slum on the city’s edge, are “no-go for security reasons.” “The area has been extremely volatile recently with a significant increase in gang violence,” he said. Six of the nine sites visited Sunday showed varying levels of organization. United Nations officials had said that to maintain control and limit fighting, only women would be allowed to collect food, but at the main park in Pétionville and at the sports stadium downtown, men with coupons also filled the line, and left carrying away the same bags of rice as the women. At some locations, there were no 55-pound bags of rice, but only 110-pound bags, which required that two families figure out a way to share; and when the trucks were empty in Pétionville, at least a dozen people with coupons had not received their share. There was also a greater degree of calm. At the park near the presidential palace, where recent efforts to give away food led to the use of tear gas, 112 American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division kept watch over a crowd that was eager and loud but not violent. Many women said they were thrilled to be given priority over men. “I’m so happy,” said Uclide Calixe, as she walked proudly from the line with a bag of rice on her head. “Since the earthquake, I haven’t had anything to eat.” Except for a few unruly outbursts, food also moved peacefully into the hands of the hungry in the central community of Nazon. United Nations peacekeepers and troops from the 82nd Airborne stood guard at different entry points. And community leaders, like Pierre Mackenson, stood with them to help resolve complaints and make sure there was no cheating. As he watched over the hundreds of people, most of them women, moving anxiously in line, Mr. Mackenson, 18, said it was the first time most of them had received any assistance since the earthquake struck nearly three weeks ago. “Since the earthquake, many people do not sleep well because we are hungry,” he said. “I don’t think it will be the same tonight.”

Haiti
Earthquakes
United Nations
Humanitarian Aid
Food


Bitcoin Rules Completed by New York Regulator

Abstract: With just weeks to go before he steps down, Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York’s top financial regulator, on Wednesday released rules for running a Bitcoin business in the state. In a speech at the BITS Emerging Payments Forum in Washington, Mr. Lawsky announced the final set of rules that govern virtual-currency businesses, concluding a nearly two-year effort to regulate the growing Bitcoin industry. Mr. Lawsky said that the final form of the so-called BitLicense would put in place crucial guidelines for protecting consumers and preventing money laundering. “We are excited about the potential digital currency holds for helping drive long-overdue changes in our ossified payments system,” he said. “We simply want to make sure that we put in place guardrails that protect consumers and root out illicit activity, without stifling beneficial innovation.” The new rules are among the last initiatives Mr. Lawsky will put in place before he leaves government this month to start his own legal and consulting firm. In his four-year tenure, he has fashioned a name for himself as a tough overseer of the banking and insurance industries, cracking down on the likes of Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered. Such has been his reputation that The Village Voice once depicted him on its cover with a cowboy hat and sheriff’s badge, calling him “Johnny Lawsky.” His push to create rules governing virtual currencies may be among the most sweeping to date. New York is the first state to do so, seeking to create a replacement for money transmission guidelines that, Mr. Lawsky said, date to the Civil War. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies have grown in popularity both in the global technology community and on Wall Street. The Nasdaq OMX Group and the New York Stock Exchange have announced initiatives tied to Bitcoin. And last month, Goldman Sachs invested in Circle , a start-up that aims to use the technology underlying Bitcoin to improve consumer payments. Among the requirements outlined in the new regulations are the presence of a compliance officer and the maintenance of capital reserves determined by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Throughout the process, some Bitcoin advocates have questioned whether Mr. Lawsky was overstepping his boundaries and proposing regulations that could throttle the nascent technology. Critics on the Internet site Reddit satirized the regulator by depicting him atop the Iron Throne from the HBO series “Game of Thrones” with the caption “Hail King Lawsky.” In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Lawsky said that the main goal had been to provide useful guidelines for virtual currency businesses rather than stifle the emerging technology altogether. The BitLicense, he said, applies only to financial operations and not to software developers, individual users or retailers who accept Bitcoin payments. “Financial regulators and policy makers need to recognize that when it comes to digital currencies and other new payments technology, the genie is already out of the bottle,” he said. Mr. Lawsky added that regulators and proponents of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies needed to work together to make sure that new technologies continue to flourish while protecting consumers. Still, some within the virtual currency industry took a dim view of the new rules. Coin Center , a nonprofit advocacy group, took issue with anti-money-laundering provisions of the final guidelines, which it contended were too vague. “It’s a mixed bag, is the best that can be said about the BitLicense,” Jerry Brito, Coin Center’s executive director, said in a statement. “Other states are already looking to the BitLicense as a model for their own frameworks. We are working with them to ensure they do not repeat the mistakes made here.”

Bitcoin
New York
Benjamin M Lawsky
Consumer protection
Regulation and Deregulation
Banking and Finance
Department of Financial Services NYS


Risks Seen in Wider Use of Statins Like Crestor

Abstract: With the government’s blessing, a drug giant is about to expand the market for its blockbuster cholesterol medication Crestor to a new category of customers: as a preventive measure for millions of people who do not have cholesterol problems. Some medical experts question whether this is a healthy move. They point to mounting concern that cholesterol medications — known as statins and already the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States — may not be as safe a preventive medicine as previously believed for people who are at low risk of heart attacks or strokes. Statins have been credited with saving thousands of lives every year with relatively few side effects, and some medical experts endorse the drug’s broader use. But for healthy people who would take statins largely as prevention — which would be the case for the new category of Crestor patients — other experts suggest the benefits may not outweigh any side effects. Among the risks raising new concerns, recently published evidence indicates that statins could raise a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 9 percent. “It’s a good thing to be skeptical about whether there may be long-term harm from healthy people taking a drug like this,” said Dr. Mark A. Hlatky , a professor of health research and cardiovascular medicine at the Stanford University medical school. There is also debate over the blood test being used to identify the new statin candidates. Instead of looking for bad cholesterol, the test measures the degree of inflammation in the body, but there is no consensus in the medical community that inflammation is a direct cause of cardiovascular problems. The Food and Drug Administration approved the new criteria last month for Crestor, which is made by AstraZeneca and is the nation’s second best-selling statin, behind Lipitor by Pfizer . AstraZeneca plans soon to begin a new marketing and advertising campaign for Crestor, based on the new F.D.A.-approved criteria. Under those criteria, an estimated 6.5 million people in this country who have no cholesterol problems and no sign of heart problems will be deemed candidates for statins. That is in addition to the 80 million who already meet the current cholesterol-based guidelines — about half of whom now take statins. The new Crestor label says it may be prescribed for apparently healthy people if they are older — men 50 and over and women 60 and over — and have one risk factor like smoking or high blood pressure , in addition to elevated inflammation in the body. Some patients have long complained of muscle aches from taking statins. And doctors periodically check patients on the drugs to make sure liver enzymes are not abnormally high. Doctors, though, have generally seen those risks as being more than offset by the drugs’ benefits for people with high levels of “bad” cholesterol and a significant risk of cardiovascular disease. But then came the unexpected evidence linking statins to a diabetes risk, reported last month in the British medical journal The Lancet. That report was based on an analysis of most of the major clinical studies of statins — including unpublished data and the results of the Crestor study that the F.D.A. reviewed. “We’ve had this drug for a while, and we’re just now finding out that there’s this diabetes problem with it?” said Dr. Hlatky. The F.D.A. acknowledged the diabetes risk, and told AstraZeneca to add it to Crestor’s label. But the agency nonetheless approved the new use on the basis of the clinical study, which showed a small but measurable reduction of strokes, heart attacks and other “cardiovascular events” among people taking the statin, compared with patients taking a placebo. “It’s an important milestone for the company and for the patient,” said Jim Helm, AstraZeneca’s vice president for cardiovascular products. “We are already discussing this with physicians.” Dr. Eric C. Colman, a deputy director of the F.D.A. center for drug evaluation, said the decision provided an option, not a mandate, for doctors and patients. “It’s good to hear that physicians are debating the potential benefits and risks of drugs,” Dr. Colman wrote via e-mail on Tuesday. An F.D.A. advisory committee had voted 12-4 in favor of expanding the usage in December, with some dissenters questioning the value of the test measuring elevated levels of inflammation. The new Crestor guidelines continue a steady expansion of the number of people considered candidates for statins over the last decade. The recommendations and guidelines have been expanded by various advisory panels — many of whose members have also done paid consulting work for the drug industry. Another of those panels is now preparing statin guidelines due next year, which are expected to further expand the number of candidates for the drugs. The clinical trial on which the F.D.A. approved the new Crestor use was a global study of nearly 18,000 people. It looked only at patients who had low cholesterol and an elevated level of inflammation in the body as measured by a test called high-sensitivity C-reactive protein , or CRP. It was the inventor of the CRP test, Dr. Paul M. Ridker , a Harvard medical professor and cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston , who persuaded AstraZeneca to pay for the statin study, which he then led. Dr. Ridker said his proposals for such a study had been turned down by the National Institutes of Health and at least two other companies. One was Pfizer, whose statin Lipitor will lose patent protection next year and will be sold in inexpensive generic forms. The other was Bayer , whose statin Baycol was removed from the market in 2001 after it was linked to 52 deaths from a rare muscle disorder. Compared with those companies, AstraZeneca had more of a business interest in sponsoring Dr. Ridker’s study. Crestor, which had sales of $4.5 billion last year, will not be subject to generic competition until 2016 — and so the company has more years to benefit from expanded use of the product at name-brand prices. The drug, taken as a daily pill, sells for at least $3.50 a day, compared with only pennies a day for some generic statins. Dr. Ridker, meanwhile, receives undisclosed amounts of royalties from the CRP test. For a decade, he has argued that his test is sometimes a better diagnostic tool than cholesterol scores. And he says the Crestor study proved his case. “We found a 55 percent reduction in heart attacks, 48 percent reduction in stroke , 45 percent reduction in angioplasty bypass surgery,” Dr. Ridker said recently. “I felt I had one shot at a controversial hypothesis,” he said, “and it worked really well.” So well, in fact, that the study was halted after following patients an average of 1.9 years instead of the planned five years. With such improvement, a data monitoring board concluded it would have been unethical to continue the trial. “I don’t understand the antipathy out there,” said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic , who has consulted for AstraZeneca among many other companies but says he donates the money to charity. “If somebody comes into my office and meets the criteria, am I going to deny them a drug that reduces their chance of a heart attack or stroke by 40 or 50 percent?” But critics said the claim of cutting heart disease risk in half — repeated in news reports nationwide — may have misled some doctors and consumers because the patients were so healthy that they had little risk to begin with. The rate of heart attacks, for example, was 0.37 percent, or 68 patients out of 8,901 who took a sugar pill. Among the Crestor patients it was 0.17 percent, or 31 patients. That 55 percent relative difference between the two groups translates to only 0.2 percentage points in absolute terms — or 2 people out of 1,000. Stated another way, 500 people would need to be treated with Crestor for a year to avoid one usually survivable heart attack. Stroke numbers were similar. “That’s statistically significant but not clinically significant,” said Dr. Steven W. Seiden, a cardiologist in Rockville Centre , N.Y., who is one of many practicing cardiologists closely following the issue. At $3.50 a pill, the cost of prescribing Crestor to 500 people for a year would be $638,000 to prevent one heart attack. Is it worth it? AstraZeneca and the F.D.A. have concluded it is. Others disagree. “The benefit is vanishingly small,” Dr. Seiden said. “It just turns a lot of healthy people into patients and commits them to a lifetime of medication.”

Crestor
AstraZeneca
Statins
Cholesterol
Medicine and Health
Pharmaceuticals
FDA
Diabetes


Fowler Fades in Phoenix

Abstract: Rickie Fowler hit two balls into the water on the par-4 17th hole to give Hideki Matsuyama an unexpected victory at the Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Ariz. After blowing a two-shot lead on No. 17 in regulation when he blasted a driver through the green and into the water, Fowler pulled a 5-wood into the lake on the fourth hole of a playoff to set up the deciding bogey. Matsuyama birdied the hole in regulation and two-putted for par from 6 feet in the playoff. Fowler forced the playoff with a 10-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th after Matsuyama made an 18-footer. They each shot 4-under 67 to finish at 14-under 270. ■ Danny Willett withstood the pressure and made a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the title at the Dubai Desert Classic by one shot in the United Arab Emirates. ■ Esteban Toledo had a par on the third playoff hole to win the Allianz Championship, a Champions Tour event, over Billy Andrade on a cold, windy day at Broken Sound Club in Boca Raton, Fla.

Golf
Hideki Matsuyama
Rickie Fowler
Phoenix Open


50 Miles and 40 Years From Yasgur’s Farm, Town of Woodstock Tries to Move On

Abstract: WOODSTOCK, N.Y. Of Michael Esposito, who heals and sells old bikes out of an old cow barn called the Old Spokes Home, you can, for starters, say the following. He was once the guitarist for the briefly famous ’60s rock group the Blues Magoos , dimly remembered for their one hit, “ (We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet ,” for their breakthrough album, “ Psychedelic Lollipop ,” and for performing in black suits with Day-Glo piping and battery-powered psychedelic lights that gave them periodic shocks when inspiration met perspiration. He came to Woodstock in 1967 at the age of 27 and was so taken with things he soon bought his burial plot in the Woodstock Artists Cemetery for $125. He hasn’t driven a car since 1977, wakes up at night worrying about being six months behind on his house payments and is the son of a professor of military history at West Point with two brothers who graduated from there. Along with running the bike shop, he’s an aspiring painter and plays bass with young musicians in town and with the eclectic musician and songwriter Marc Black . And as we yet again amble into the moldy nostalgia zone of Woodstock lore and concerts by skeletal remnants of ancient bands, he’s one of those pondering a question that hangs in the air like wisps of funny-smelling smoke: Is it now becoming possible to decouple the future of Woodstock the Town from Woodstock the Concert , which wasn’t even held there? He figures maybe it is. “There was the concert and everything that came after, and then we went through a long 20-year period of what? Mediocrity? Malaise? I don’t know,” he said. “We just kind of slept for a while, but now it’s coming back to life. There’s really a resurgence here.” Woodstock is a little like the Middle East, one of those places where everyone has his own view of reality. (And for those unable to actually set foot here, there’s the WoodstockUniverse.com social network.) But the anniversary of the concert , which ended up about 50 miles away at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, is prompting renewed appreciation for the way the town’s history and spirit produced the concert. After all, long before the concert, hatched and originally planned to be held here, there were Woodstock’s two original attempts to get back to the garden . First was the Byrdcliffe art colony , founded in 1903 as a utopian, anti-industrial community of artists and artisans. Then, beginning in 1905 and peaking in the 1920s, came the Maverick community and festival in which hundreds of free spirits gathered each summer for music, art, theater and drunken orgies in the woods. Before Woodstock, from 1967 to 1969 there were small-scale, noncommercial musical festivals in the woods called Sound Outs that helped the promoter Michael Lang come up with the idea of the Woodstock Festival . (The main observances of the anniversary are in Bethel, but Woodstock’s version of Woodstock at 40 is a concert on Saturday billed as a celebration of the Sound Outs. Performers will even include Mr. Esposito and the reunited Blues Magoos.) The concert, of course, made Woodstock famous. And complaining about it at this point would be like complaining about gravity. But a recurring theme in town is that the concert that came to define Woodstock was only the latest and most gargantuan iteration of the town’s creative core — that Woodstock is much more than Woodstock. “This town has been a spiritual center, a mystical zone that people have been coming to for 100 years,” said David McDonald, who produced “ Woodstock Revisited ” a film on the town and the concert’s antecedents. “That’s re-emerging. It’s going to stop being ‘Come to Woodstock and get high,’ and become ‘Come to Woodstock and get creative.’ ” One sign of that is Alchemy of Woodstock , billed as a combination coffeehouse, bookstore, music venue, art gallery and gathering space, and remarkably, one of the only places to hear live music in a town full of famous musicians. And, some say, one positive byproduct of the recession has been to drive down housing costs, keeping the town affordable to artsy types and pulling the plug on much of the boutique Hamptons North dynamic. But others say, creative or not, Woodstock remains doggedly stuck in time. There’s virtually no construction in the main part of town that wasn’t there in 1969, the Woodstock T-shirt/nostalgia industry is an economic staple and the economy is now dominated by the second-home owners. “For young people the only career paths are law enforcement or lawn care,” said Peter Cantine, an owner of the Bear Cafe , a popular restaurant. Still, you don’t get the feeling anyone’s too bummed by it. Even the young people hanging out downtown with skateboards and iPods and rap pouring out of car windows seem to think whatever Woodstock is, it’s just fine. “It’s all New Age hippies now,” said Nicole Krieger, 20, who sells hemp jewelry in town. “It’s still really cool.”

Woodstock Music Festivals
Woodstock (NY)
New York State
Music


The Times to Change Policy for Comments on Web Site

Abstract: The New York Times introduced a new system of comments for its Web site on Wednesday that will offer some readers a chance to earn a fast-track status that will exempt their submissions from moderation. Jill Abramson, the executive editor, said the changes were “designed to improve the community experience across nytimes.com .” The changes will be evident on blogs and on articles that are opened to reader comment. A new design will keep all comments on the same page as the blog or article, rather than on multiple or separate pages. Readers will also have the ability to respond not just to the original article or post but also directly to other readers’ comments, a system known as threading. In addition, comments can be shared to Twitter and Facebook, and users will be able to select an image or icon that accompanies their contributions across the site. Among the changes is the ability to become a “trusted commenter,” a status available by invitation only. The Times said the status would be offered to those who have established a record of regularly contributing valuable comments. Their postings would not require a moderator’s approval before publication, as is otherwise routine. Comments would continue to be subject to removal if they did not meet the site’s guidelines, which prohibit personal attacks, profanity, some commercial promotions or impersonations.

New York Times
Computers and the Internet
Social Networking (Internet)
News and News Media


Review: ‘Unforgettable’ by Scott Simon: Saying Goodbye 140 Characters at a Time

Abstract: There’s a lot of hand-wringing these days about the importance of having The Talk — not the one parents have with their mortified tweens, but the one we shy from having with aging parents or those terminally ill. The one about death and dying. Scott Simon, host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” proves to be an able guide to the art of saying goodbye in his deeply affecting new memoir, “Unforgettable: A Son, a Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime.” ( Excerpt: Read Chapter 1 .) Mr. Simon’s conversation — with his mother and with the public — began as a series of tweets in the summer of 2013. At the outset of his mother’s stay in a Chicago intensive care unit, Mr. Simon tapped to his 1.2 million Twitter followers: “Mother called: ‘I can’t talk. I’m surrounded by handsome men.’ Emergency surgery. If you can hold a thought for her now.” Over the next few days, as it became clear that his 84-year-old mother was dying of lung cancer, Mr. Simon’s tweets provided his followers with a bedside seat to a mutual farewell. Their conversations were emotional and entertaining, often instructive. A thrice-married former showgirl, Patricia Lyons Simon Newman Gelbin (“a railroad train of a name,” she called it) knew how to keep an audience enthralled even as life slipped away. Mr. Simon and his mother laughed through the final days, once so hard his mother blew out a nasal tube. Believe me, those two were meant for the stage, not a hospital ward. “Like two old comics, we didn’t need to reach the punch lines to laugh,” he writes. But soon enough — by the third hospital-room rendition of “Que Sera, Sera” — it’s obvious they are focusing on what is, knowing all too well what will be. There are moments when Mr. Simon uncharacteristically fumbles. He tweets: “Mother: ‘Do you think we’ll get out of this?’” With no response from Mr. Simon, she answers her own question: “I guess I will get out of this. One way or another.” Mr. Simon may not have realized that he was joining a national conversation about death and dying. But many of his listeners and followers praised him for sharing his mother’s death via social media; the memoirist Meghan O’Rourke later suggested he had created “a kind of public space” for mourning. Image Unforgettable: A Son, a Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime. By Scott Simon. Flatiron. 256 pages. $24.99. Credit Alessandra Montalto/The New York Times Not everyone approved of using a public space for such intimate depictions of illness and death. Many suggested the posts had violated his mother’s privacy. “My mother was not a shrinking violet,” Mr. Simon writes. “She knew she was giving us great material. I don’t believe anything I wrote, then or now, violates her privacy.” In the past two years, other end-of-life advocates have joined Mr. Simon in using social media to make their cases. Brittany Maynard , who received a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, spent her last months creating a series of heartbreaking but instructive YouTube videos to jump-start the end-of-life choice movement. Lisa Bonchek Adams , who died from breast cancer earlier this year, blogged and tweeted thousands of times about her illness. Partly as a result of efforts like hers, five states now permit terminally ill patients to choose how and when to end their lives. “Social media is giving people a socially acceptable place to talk about death, and somebody with a voice who is respected and heard is giving people permission to talk about something that’s socially taboo,” wrote Carla Sofka, an editor of “Dying, Death, and Grief in an Online Universe,” who credits these developments with opening up a much-needed conversation. But “Unforgettable” also holds larger lessons about how to approach this challenging chapter in life, which – damn it! — feels new no matter how many times we are faced with loss. (I’m finding Mr. Simon’s cocktail of humor, honesty and compassion a powerful tonic in helping with my 83-year-old mother, who like Mrs. Gelbin has lung cancer.) First among them is simply to talk, to acknowledge the imminence of death and the sadness of loss. The call for honesty, while not new, is liberating, especially in Mr. Simon’s empathetic voice. The dying should have the chance to accept their own passing, and those of us at the bedside deserve our farewells, too. Mr. Simon movingly describes sliding into bed next to his mother, slipping an arm around her shoulder and putting his hand over hers. She cried out, “Help. Me!” a plea for assistance getting to “what was beyond.” After Mrs. Gelbin died came her son’s final tweets. “My mother died and I mourned,” writes Mr. Simon. “That’s as much a part of life as love and taxes. Why be quiet about it?” If not being quiet about death is becoming the new normal, then Mr. Simon’s “Unforgettable” is one of its cornerstones.

Books
Scott Simon
Social Media
Death
Unforgettable: A Son
a Mother
and the Lessons of a Lifetime


Stephen Strasburg Shutdown Earns Nationals Mixed Reactions

Abstract: WASHINGTON — No baseball city has suffered like Washington, its losing teams so renowned they spawned a hit Broadway musical (“Damn Yankees”) and a vaudeville joke: “First in war, first in peace and last in the American League.” Twice, baseball franchises deserted the city. In 2004, Major League Baseball decided to try again, moving the Montreal Expos to Washington and renaming them the Nationals. The new team honored local tradition by immediately settling at the bottom of the standings, this time in the National League. With baby steps, however, the Nationals intelligently developed a powerhouse that now has the best record in baseball. But in a decision that will win the team some fans among doctors and parents of young pitchers across the country, the Nationals declared Saturday that the pursuit of a title was not worth risking damage to a young arm. Stephen Strasburg, Washington’s fireballing phenom of a pitcher and one of the latest examples of advances in sports medicine, was told to go sit at the end of the bench until next year. Strasburg, 24, had elbow reconstruction surgery in September 2010, and to protect his long-term baseball health, the Nationals imposed a limit on the number of innings he would pitch this season, his first full season since the operation. He reached that limit, or came close enough, on Friday. Though pain-free and apparently healthy, Strasburg will not pitch again this year, not even in the postseason, if the Nationals advance that far as expected. In an American sports culture in which the ethos is always to go for it, especially with victory almost within grasp, the Nationals, pursuing their city’s first baseball championship in 88 years, are voluntarily sitting down one of their best players in an endorsement of prudence and caution. The science of the decision is without verifiable precedent, which has left the logic of it to be argued here this weekend in the streets, in the stands and in the Nationals’ clubhouse. No one knows for sure if the Nationals, in a pinch or during the final game of the World Series, would stick to their guns — or if they should. In Washington, where a good moral debate is always at home, the situation has people talking. “Someone’s health and career is more important than a game,” said Krystal Dehaba, who put on a Strasburg T-shirt before driving to Sunday’s game from her Fredericksburg, Va., home with her husband and three children. “I’m glad the Nationals are doing what’s right and putting someone’s safety first.” Sitting two grandstand sections from Ms. Dehaba, also in a Strasburg jersey, was Robert Jackson of Chantilly, Va. “The whole thing upsets me,” Mr. Jackson said. “This is Washington baseball. The karma worries me. People say it’s the right thing to do. What else do they say — no good deed goes unpunished?” Even those who stood behind the decision conceded that it would make them uneasy if the team needed a big victory in the postseason and Strasburg remained unavailable. “That will be the big deal, because who knows if we’ll ever get this chance again in his career?” said Benjamin Olson, standing beyond the center-field bleachers Sunday. “I agree with what they’re doing, but yeah, that could be tough on all of us.” In the locker room, where no one player or coach was alive when the Washington Senators won the city’s only baseball championship in 1924, the Strasburg decision — although forecast for months — nonetheless yielded prickly comment. The manager, Davey Johnson, who guided the Mets to the World Series title in 1986, was miffed that local talk show radio hosts and other sports commentators had questioned the team’s judgment. “Even with all the so-called experts commenting on how to use him, how to get him through October, how to do this, how to do that, I have a little bit of experience on how to handle a pitching staff,” Johnson, who at 69 is in his 16th year as a major league manager after a 13-year playing career, told reporters. “None of those scenarios fit. If they did, I would have pursued them.” Standing in the middle of the clubhouse not long afterward was Strasburg, and he was hardly conciliatory. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to accept it, to be honest,” he said to reporters. “It’s something that I’m not happy about at all. That’s not why I play the game. I play the game to be a good teammate and win. You don’t grow up dreaming of playing in the big leagues to get shut down when the games start to matter. It’s going to be a tough one to swallow.” Strasburg compiled a 15-6 record this season and a 3.16 earned run average. He struck out 197 batters in 159 1/3 innings, just short of the limit of 160 innings the Nationals set months ago. But Strasburg had been faltering more often in recent weeks. In his last 10 starts, he had an E.R.A. of 4.14, compared with a 2.60 E.R.A. in his first 15 starts. Lately, he had been the least effective starting pitcher on a talented Nationals staff. Even while Strasburg was approaching the established innings limit, he was nevertheless expected to start again this week against the Mets. But his performance in his final start at home Friday was disconcerting. He had one of his worst outings of the year, lasting just three innings and allowing five runs and six hits. “Davey saw what I saw yesterday,” Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo told reporters Saturday. “We are in total agreement.” As if the situation needed any more drama, the public debate over what to do with Strasburg evidently became a weighty factor in the outcome. Johnson said the young pitcher had become consumed by the controversy and had acknowledged he was having trouble sleeping as he contemplated the impending shutdown. “I know what he is going through for the last couple of weeks,” Johnson said. “The media hype on this thing has been unbelievable. It would be tough for anybody to get mentally committed in a ballgame.” Outside Nationals Park on Sunday, Wendy Butler of Poolesville, Md., said she felt bad for Strasburg and understood how disheartened he must feel. “But this will be good for him in the long run,” she said. “And I have faith in our other pitchers and players. He’s not the whole team.” Ms. Butler then turned to walk away with her son. On their backs were nearly identical No. 37 Strasburg jerseys. They blended into a similarly dressed crowd, so many wearing 37, a Strasburg fan nation that apparently will have to wait another year to cheer its favorite son.

Strasburg Stephen
Baseball
Washington Nationals
Johnson Davey


Temple Defeats Bowling Green, Stopping 2-Point Try on Final Play

Abstract: Temple’s Marquise Liverpool broke up a pass intended for Calvin Wiley on a 2-point conversion attempt with no time on the clock and the Owls held on for a 28-27 victory over Bowling Green on Saturday in Philadelphia. Leading, 28-21, with 22 seconds left, Temple (5-2, 2-1 Mid-American Conference) looked to be in control, with the Falcons facing fourth-and-14 on the Owls’ 36. But Bowling Green quarterback Matt Schilz hit a well-covered Kamar Jorden for a 32-yard pass to the Temple 4. Three plays later, Schilz found a wide-open Wiley for a touchdown as time expired. Falcons Coach Dave Clawson went for the win by going for 2, but Schilz’s pass was broken up at the goal line. Schilz was 30 for 51 for 287 yards and a touchdown for the Falcons (1-6, 0-3), who have lost four straight. The game turned on Quinten White’s fumble recovery in the end zone late in the third quarter, which put Temple ahead, 21-14. With the scored tied at 14-14, Falcons punter Bryan Wright mishandled a low snap and the ball bounded toward the end zone. Wright tried to pick it up at the 5 but was tackled and the ball went into the end zone, where White recovered it. PITTSBURGH 45, SYRACUSE 14 Tino Sunseri threw a career-high four touchdown passes, Dion Lewis ran for another score, and visiting Pittsburgh beat Syracuse. It was the conference opener for the Panthers (3-3, 1-0 Big East), who have won eight of the last nine against Syracuse (4-2, 1-1), and who snapped the Orange’s three-game winning streak. From the start, it promised to be a long day for the Orange. Sunseri hit Devin Street on a screen pass on Pitt’s first play from scrimmage, and Street outraced cornerback Da’Mon Merkerson for a 79-yard touchdown. NAVY 28, S.M.U. 21 Alexander Teich ran for a career-high 95 yards and 2 touchdowns, including the tie-breaking score with 1 minute 38 seconds left, and host Navy rallied to beat Southern Methodist. Navy (4-2) scored 21 straight points in the second half to take a 21-14 lead. Kyle Padron went 28 for 42 for 254 yards and 3 touchdowns for S.M.U. (4-3), which led, 14-0, early in the second quarter. Yale 7, Fordham 6 Brook Hart hit Jordan Forney with a 29-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the fourth quarter and Yale held off visiting Fordham. The Bulldogs (4-1) drove 74 yards in six plays after the Rams (2-5) took a 6-0 lead in the third quarter on Patrick Murray’s second field goal of the day. LEHIGH 21, HARVARD 19 Chris Lum threw for two of Lehigh’s three touchdowns — all of which came in the third quarter — as the Mountain Hawks (4-2) rallied to beat host Harvard (3-2). PENN 27, COLUMBIA 13 Brandon Colavita carried 16 times for 103 yards and a touchdown as host Pennsylvania defeated Columbia. The victory was the 200th in Ivy League play for the Quakers (4-1, 2-0), who gained 281 rushing yards to 44 for the Lions (3-2, 1-1). Penn threw just five passes. BROWN 17, PRINCETON 13 Joe Springer threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Jonah Fay for the go-ahead score with 7:39 left as Brown won at Princeton. The Bears (3-2, 1-0 Ivy League) scored all their points in the second half after the Tigers (1-4, 0-1) took a 13-0 lead. COLGATE 44, CORNELL 3 Nate Eachus ran for a team-record 291 yards and scored 3 touchdowns to help Colgate (4-2) easily handle host Cornell (1-4). Eachus, who finished with 25 carries, broke the previous record of 280 yards set by Jamaal Branch in 2003 against Holy Cross. DARTMOUTH 27, HOLY CROSS 19 Foley Schmidt kicked two fourth-quarter field goals and Pat Scorah returned an interception for the clinching touchdown as Dartmouth defeated visiting Holy Cross (3-4). Schmidt’s 35- and 32-yard field goals gave the Big Green (3-2) its first lead of the game, 20-19, and Scorah’s 43-yard interception return with 48 seconds left sealed the win. IN OTHER GAMES Myles Russ ran for 138 yards and a touchdown as Robert Morris controlled the ball and the game in a 38-0 win over visiting Albany. The Colonials (6-1, 5-0 Northeast Conference) had 255 yards rushing, compared with 39 by the Great Danes (3-3, 1-2). ... Villanova quarterback Chris Whitney threw for three touchdowns and ran for two more as the Wildcats (4-2, 2-1 Colonial Athletic Association) won, 48-18, over Maine (2-5, 1-3).

Temple University
Bowling Green University
Football
College Athletics


Comeback in Volvo Ocean Race

Abstract: Camper overhauled its heavyweight rival Telefónica to complete a well-timed comeback and put itself in position to snatch the overall Volvo Ocean Race lead. The Camper team, skippered by Chris Nicholson of Australia, went into the unpredictable doldrums zone in fourth but was able to overtake Puma, Groupama and Telefónica, the current race leaders, in the first section of Leg 2 from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Camper was ahead by 21 nautical miles (about 24 miles).

Sailboats and Sailing
Volvo Ocean Race
New Zealand


Cleveland’s Police and Courts Prepare for Unruly Visitors

Abstract: CLEVELAND — With thousands of protesters expected to descend on Cleveland for next week’s Republican National Convention, city officials have devised intricate plans to handle mass arrests should chaos break out on the streets, identifying jail facilities to house more than 975 arrested protesters and keeping courts open for 20 hours daily to process cases. Twelve judges will be working 10-hour shifts in the Cleveland Municipal Court to handle what could be a flood of cases. And to guard against violence, the authorities have been collecting intelligence on extremist groups to identify any possible threats. The killing of five officers in Dallas last week added urgency to the planning, as officials tightened their security plans for handling what was already expected to be a volatile atmosphere surrounding the nomination of Donald J. Trump. The convention and the national stage it promises is attracting myriad groups, with agendas that range from white supremacy to in-your-face body art. The groups include the American Freedom Party and Blood & Honour, whose members are white nationalists, along with skinheads and the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based congregation known for picketing funerals with signs arguing that accepting gay rights has doomed America to be punished. An effort called “Everything She Says Means Everything” is working to have 100 naked women gather outside the convention site, while a bus full of about 21 nuns will also be in town serving lemonade to crowds and asking delegates about their fears for this election cycle. Despite concerns about widespread unrest, city leaders said they are ready for the convention after more than two years of planning. “We know that there will be people who will be wanting to spit on police officers, call them all kinds of nasty names,” Mayor Frank G. Jackson said in an interview. “We know that people come here just to agitate. They just don’t come here to be peaceful and have a point of view and say, ‘Thank you very much for letting me have my point of view’ and go home.” Mr. Jackson said those coming to the city should know that officials are intent on keeping people out of danger while also protecting the city’s property from being damaged. Image Cleveland’s police chief, Calvin D. Williams, and Mayor Frank G. Jackson say that some difficult situations are expected, but that they are ready. Credit Tony Dejak/Associated Press “What people should know is that Cleveland is prepared, that we will put on a safe and successful convention,” he said, explaining that officers will exercise restraint, at least initially. “We are not going to be out with helmets and shields and all this other kind of stuff. We are going to be in regular uniforms. And if in fact there is a need to deal with something that is more aggressive, they will escalate according to the need. But it will be appropriate.” The F.B.I has been looking into domestic and foreign terrorism threats but has found no direct threat from any group targeting the convention. But the agency will continue to gather information on groups and people who may be seeking to stir up trouble. Agents have cast a wide net, looking into environmental activists, anarchists, white supremacists, black separatists, extremist gun rights groups whose members may have illegal weapons and sovereign citizens groups that believe they do not need to abide by federal laws. F.B.I. agents and Cleveland police officers have also been knocking on local protesters’ doors and asking questions about their plans for the convention, a tactic that has alarmed some who think that the authorities are already being too aggressive. One resident, Dionne Hudson, said two officers came to her home last month asking about her 20-year-old daughter, who had been arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct last year during a protest over a police killing. Ms. Hudson said that the charges were ultimately dropped and that her daughter, who works as a store cashier, was not home when the police came to question her. “I couldn’t believe it. Why would you do something like that?” said Ms. Hudson, 47, a call center supervisor. “I started thinking, are my phones bugged? Did you write down the plates to my car? Those were the kinds of thoughts that were going through my mind.” Cleveland is bringing in roughly 2,500 law enforcement officers from as far away as California, Texas and Florida to bolster its own convention-dedicated force of about 500 officers. It is deploying a video unit to document crowd management and police activity. Convention Protests in Philadelphia Are Expected to Be Bigger Than Those in Cleveland The city is expecting 35,000 to 50,000 protesters a day during the Democratic National Convention. In an interview, Cleveland’s police chief, Calvin D. Williams, said his officers planned to be restrained but expected to face difficult situations. “Yelling at a police officer is not a crime, so we are not going to arrest people for that,” Chief Williams said. “If a person perpetrates violence, be it against a person or property, then we have procedures in place to arrest that person, and we also have procedures in place to hopefully prevent that.” But some are worried that the city’s Police Department, which is being monitored by the Department of Justice, could be eager to use some of the equipment it bought using a $50 million grant it received for convention security. The Ohio chapter of the National Lawyers Guild , which is training legal observers to ensure that people’s rights are not violated, said the city has purchased 2,000 sets of riot gear, 2,000 steel batons, 24 sets of bulletproof vests and helmets and 10,000 sets of plastic handcuffs. “These items indicate that there is a readiness and a preparedness to engage in arrests that may end up being more forceful than necessary and arrests that may be unlawful in the first place,” said Jacqueline Greene, a lawyer and one of the coordinators of the guild’s Ohio chapter. Municipal Judge Ronald B. Adrine said city officials had a “good dry run” last month when more than a million people came downtown for a parade celebrating the Cleveland Cavaliers’ National Basketball Association championship. But he is still nervous. “That was 1.3 million happy people,” he said. “We won’t know what kind of event we have until we are right smack dab in the middle of it.”

2016 Presidential Election
Republican National Convention,RNC
Civil Unrest
Donald Trump
Cleveland


For Japan, a Smoother Path to World Cup

Abstract: In October 1993, the coach of the Japan national team, Hans Ooft, scrawled “45 minutes to the USA” on the locker room blackboard at halftime in the final game in the Asian zone of qualification for the 1994 World Cup. His team, needing to beat Iraq to book a debut appearance at the tournament, was leading 1-0 in Doha, Qatar. The clock had run down to 45 seconds when Iraq’s Jaffar Omran Salman scored to tie the game and break the hearts of an entire nation. The Agony of Doha will never be forgotten, and Japan likes to get it done early these days. It was the first team to qualify for the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, and will do so for the third straight time if it defeats Jordan in Amman on Tuesday — but a draw could be enough depending on what happens elsewhere. As a fifth consecutive World Cup comes into view however, it is no longer about how soon the Samurai Blue secures its place but how long it stays there. In the past two decades, Japan has gone from strength to strength. The J.League is 20 years old and widely regarded as the best in Asia. The national team’s first World Cup appearance in 1998 may have resulted in three defeats, but it was another step. Four years later, Japan was a co-host and in the second round — a feat repeated in 2010 when only a penalty shootout prevented it from reaching the quarterfinals. Shortly after, the Japan Football Association appointed Alberto Zaccheroni, one of Italy’s top coaches, to take control of the team; since then, Japan has won the Asian Cup and has continued to send young players to the top leagues of Europe. In October, a largely European-based team defeated France in Paris, and in March, Shinji Kagawa of Manchester United became the first Asian to score a hat-trick in the English Premier League. Philippe Troussier took Japan to the last 16 of the 2002 tournament and believes that reaching the knockout stages of the World Cup is now the least of the team’s ambitions. “To qualify is now a formality; this is where Japan expects to be,” the Frenchman said. “Japan is not the naïve team that some people in Europe continue to believe. “Many of Japan’s players are playing regularly in the best European leagues. This helps to make the team mature and experienced to add to its unity, discipline, intelligence, speed, and skill,” Troussier continued. “I consider Japan to be now one of the top 15 teams in the world.” Japanese players are a common sight in the German Bundesliga and the English Premier League, and more will most likely be on their way in the near future — Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger recently declared that Japan was a major new market for top talent. “Japan has developed a long-term vision, strategy and invested heavily in the grass-roots,” said Afshin Ghotbi, head coach Shimizu S-Pulse in the J.League and a former coach of Iran, a onetime Asian rival that is now struggling to keep pace with Japan. “This commitment to education, infrastructure, and development has been the key to the success of Japanese soccer and the production of young talent. Japan will arrive in Brazil organized, united and ambitious.” Image Eyong Enoh of Cameroon, left, and Keisuke Honda of Japan, right, during a World Cup match in South Africa in 2010. Credit Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press Competition for places in the starting 11 is fierce. Kagawa may have won two German titles with Borussia Dortmund before his lucrative transfer to Manchester United and may now be the biggest star in Asian soccer, but he does not usually get to play where he wants for the national team. His favored central position behind the striker is usually given to Keisuke Honda. Honda, a star of the 2010 World Cup who plays for CSKA Moscow, is constantly linked to some of the biggest clubs in Europe but will miss the Jordan game because of an injury. So will Inter Milan wing-back Yuto Nagatomo. Still, with the team’s strength in depth, it should not have a problem in Amman. Japan thrashed Jordan 6-0 earlier in the final round of qualification, where Japan had four victories and one draw, against Australia. With 13 goals scored and just two conceded, the team has been dominant in Group B, from which the top two of five qualify automatically for Brazil. Australia is eight points behind in second, though it has played one game fewer. The road to Brazil has been a stroll, testament in part to the long-term strategy of the Japan Football Association and the work of its Italian coach. “Zaccheroni’s achievement is to ride the wave of confidence that came from the 2010 World Cup and to step by step slowly tune the team by adding talented young players,” said Troussier. “He is a fine tactician, and his experience at the highest level is a source of security for the players and they trust and respect him. Zaccheroni is a conductor, making sure that the musicians are in the right place at the right time.” Australia was expected to compete with Japan for the top spot, but finishing second is just as good: The Socceroos started poorly with two points from the first three games but picked up a vital win against Iraq in October to move into second place. With three of the four remaining games to be played at home and with Oman, Jordan and Iraq all dropping points to one other as well as to Japan, Australia can still be confident of a third consecutive appearance at the World Cup. In Group A, South Korea is looking for an eighth consecutive appearance. After a good start, the 2002 semifinalist has stumbled and is level with Iran and Qatar at seven points. Uzbekistan is top, with eight. The Taeguk Warriors have played a game fewer than the others and play three of their remaining four games at home. There is still tension in Seoul, however, and that was not helped by a 4-0 loss to Croatia in a February friendly. With a team containing players from the English Premier League and the Bundesliga, the host has the talent to defeat Qatar in Seoul on Tuesday. Failure to do so would raise the serious prospect of a first World Cup without a South Korean presence since 1982. But the players will not give up. Even if not all remember, everyone knows about the Miracle of Doha, when a last-minute goal from an Iraqi striker sent South Korea to the 1994 World Cup just when all seemed lost.

Soccer
2014 World Cup
Japan
South Korea
Australia


Demand Is Strong for Lehman’s Offering

Abstract: Shares of Lehman Brothers Holdings rose sharply on Tuesday, providing strength to a rising stock market, after the company raised $4 billion in new capital to shore up its liquidity position. That was $1 billion more than Lehman, a leading investment bank, said it planned to raise on Monday night. It said the offering, in convertible preferred stock, was oversubscribed. On Wall Street Tuesday, shares of Lehman Brothers rose $6.70, or 17.8 percent, to close at $44.34, as investors seemed to minimize any dilution effect from the new shares, which may reduce their ownership stake in the company. Lehman’s efforts are aimed at reassuring investors that the company has enough cash to handle any market demands, unlike Bear Stearns. In March, Bear Stearns faced liquidity problems that led to its near bankruptcy and forced its sale to JPMorgan Chase at about $10 a share. A Punk, Ziegel analyst, Richard Bove, wrote in a research note: “It seems evident that Lehman is being pushed hard by the markets to prove its balance sheet is safe. By raising additional capital and liquefying the balance sheet, the company hopes to put these fears to rest.” But Jeff Harte, an analyst with Sandler, O’Neill, said Lehman’s raising of capital might be a red flag. “Management’s willingness to raise a large amount of capital after the recent dramatic share price declines implies a more pressing capital need,” he wrote. Fitch Ratings reaffirmed an investment-grade issuer-default rating for Lehman of AA in the wake of the capital offering, but placed a negative outlook on the company. The outlook represents Fitch’s view that Lehman could face earnings pressure because of continued weakness in the capital and mortgage markets.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc
Stocks and Bonds
Banks and Banking
Wall Street (NYC)


Pensions in Greece Feel the Pinch of Debt Negotiations

Abstract: ATHENS — Vasiliki Meliou did not want to retire at 53, but she had little choice, she said, after the state-owned bank she worked for was sold three years ago. To stay at the bank carried the risk of being laid off, and with Greece ’s unemployment rate above 25 percent, she doubted she would ever find another job. So she took advantage of an early retirement provision, joining tens of thousands of other public servants who took economic refuge in Greece’s underfunded pension system. “It’s not what I wanted,” she said, “but I could see I was being junked.” Greece’s big creditors — other eurozone countries, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — have done little to solve the problem. Instead, they have imposed deep cutbacks on pensions, as much as 48 percent in some cases, and further weakened the pension funds by, among other measures, pressing them to accept huge losses as part of the country’s debt write-down. Now, even as their austerity policies have driven more Greeks out of the work force and into the pension system, the creditors are seeking deeper cuts still. Ms. Meliou, who started working at the bank at 18, has already seen her pension payments cut by 35 percent. She says she sometimes cannot sleep for fear of what might happen next. As it confronts creditors over its huge debts and how best to recover from a still-crippling downturn, Greece’s left-wing government faces few problems that are more substantively and politically daunting than how to meet pension promises to retirees. Image Shopping for vegetables at an outdoor market. Few retirees in Greece are living comfortably, and many are helping to support unemployed children. Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times In the latest round of negotiations, Greece’s creditors are demanding that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras make further cuts in pensions as a condition of continuing to help Greece pay its enormous debts. Mr. Tsipras and his radical-left Syriza party, elected on a promise that they would reject continuing austerity demands by the creditors, are flatly refusing, saying that additional cuts would lead to a humanitarian crisis and cast another blow to a flailing economy, reducing consumer spending power at a time when it is desperately needed. In an interview published on Tuesday by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Mr. Tsipras suggested that a deal on Greece’s debt was within reach if the creditors scaled back their demands for cuts to pensions and other social services. “There just needs to be a positive attitude on alternative proposals to cuts to pensions or the imposition of recessionary measures,” he said. The problem is that much more difficult because Greece, like most European nations, has an aging population, meaning it has relatively fewer young workers to help pay the bills for the growing numbers of retirees. The imbalance is made even worse by the chronic unemployment among young people since the financial crisis started in 2008. Greece’s social security system was troubled even before the crisis, already divided into more than 130 funds and offering a crazy quilt of early-retirement options that were a monument to past political patronage. In 2012, the pension funds, which were obliged under Greek law to own government bonds, were hit by a huge debt write-down as those bonds plummeted in value. As a result they lost about 10 billion euros, or $11.1 billion — roughly 60 percent of their reserves. Image Retirees in central Athens. About 45 percent live near the poverty line, government figures show. Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times Greece’s creditors, seeking to make the Greek labor market more competitive, insisted that the government reduce the amount companies and workers must contribute toward pensions. And they insisted that Greece reduce its minimum wage so that those who do contribute have smaller outlays. At the same time, the pension system was becoming an even bigger component of the social safety net, absorbing thousands. People like Ms. Meliou retired early, either because of the sale of state-owned companies, because they feared their salaries would be cut and thus their pensions would be smaller, or simply because their businesses failed. Few are living comfortably, and many support unemployed children. Recent government figures indicate that nearly 45 percent of Greek retirees live at or below the poverty line. About 60 percent get pensions of €700 a month or less. Still, pensions eat up a big portion of the government’s budget, equivalent to about 16 percent of the country’s shrunken gross domestic product, up from 13 percent in 2009, making it proportionally the most expensive pension system in Europe. Panagiota Stathopoulou, 55, who retired recently after working 30 years in an unemployment office, said that her pension was supposed to have paid out €900 a month, but that it had been cut to €700. Still, she said, when she looks around her, she feels guilty about having even that much. At the grocery store recently, she was approached by an old man who asked if she would buy him some food. Like many other retirees, she scrimps so that she can also help one of her children financially. Her daughter’s husband has a job, but he often is not paid. Greece’s creditors pushed the country to overhaul its pension system early on, pressing it to merge the funds and to limit early-retirement benefits that could seem overly generous to outsiders, such as exemptions that let hairdressers retire at 50 . Image Part of an Athens park that is known as "Little Parliament," because politics is usually the main topic of discussion. Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times But this enormous bureaucratic undertaking has created its own problems, particularly at a time when the number of government employees was shrinking. Reliable data on the state of the Greek pension system does not seem to exist. Platon Tinios, an economist and pension expert at Piraeus University, points out that despite a wave of early retirements, the latest official data suggests that there are 2.65 million retirees today, fewer than the 2.7 million in 2013. “That just defies explanation,” he said. “They don’t know what they are doing.” One explanation may be that there is a backlog of more than 400,000 pension applications, some of which have been in the pipeline for three years, government officials have said. However bad the problems are now, Mr. Tinios said, the situation is likely to get worse. The limits on early retirement in 2010 did not include people who were already vested, he said, meaning that the flow into the system will remain high for years to come. Women who took early retirement, most of whom had lower-paying jobs, will find themselves with small or shrinking incomes for the rest of their lives, he added. “The system is a ticking time bomb,” he said. After months of negotiations between the Tsipras government and Greece’s creditors, in which pensions appeared to be a central sticking point, the two sides unveiled dueling proposals last week on a range of issues that could hardly have been further apart. The creditors want to establish substantial early-retirement penalties for those who still choose the option, and to cut existing pensions even more — even the smallest ones. The proposal also demands further unifying the funds and establishing a closer link between contribution and benefits, most likely setting the stage for yet more cuts. Other moves could also hit retirees hard. The creditors are calling, for instance, for a sharp rise in taxes on basic consumer goods such as medicine to 11 percent from 6.5 percent, a step that would be felt especially hard by people on fixed incomes. The tax on electricity would go to 23 percent from 13 percent. In a televised speech Friday night, Mr. Tsipras, the prime minister, called the proposals from the creditors — which would maintain austerity policies that have so far brought little good news to most Greeks — “irrational.” In his own 47-page proposal, Mr. Tsipras offered to slowly eliminate the remaining early-retirement programs. Some analysts say that the situation Greece’s pension system faces today was predictable. Jens Bastian, an economist and former member of a team of European Union specialists that helped supervise the country’s bailout, said it was sad to see how little creative thinking was going on. “Where are the ideas?” he said. “Why weren’t the pension funds replenished? The banks were compensated after the haircut, but the pensions were not.” Mr. Bastian pointed out that there might be more trouble ahead as retirees turn to the courts. “It’s already happened in a couple of cases,” he said. Inside a government office in Athens recently, dozens of people waited, some hoping only for an update on when their pensions might come through. Lazaros Papadopoulos, 70, said that he had closed his store and filed the required paperwork three years ago, and that he had been trying to live on a “pre-pension” benefit of €420 a month. “In this day and age, you would expect that everything was online,” he said. “But no, it’s all paper in there.” Rania Zygogianni, 51, who is divorced, was also there, holding a thick green file. She was hoping to qualify for a reduced early pension of roughly €500 a month as an older mother with young children, a category that has been eliminated for new workers. Ms. Zygogianni, who trained as an economist, used to work in the Agriculture Ministry, and she said that she would prefer to work. But she has been looking for a job without success, and she has had to accept money from her mother and her sister. “It is terrible out there for older women,” she said. “At least this would be something.”

Greece
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Government bond
Alexis Tsipras
Euro Crisis
Retirement