Runaway Teenager Slowly Reveals Tale of Horrors While Away

Abstract: Almost two years ago, a young man stopped on a sidewalk at the South Street Seaport and attached a sign to a pole with duct tape. “Missing,” it read, above a picture of his smiling sister, Joannie, who was 17. “Possibly dyed hair (red).” Posters like that are created by the police almost daily, but this one, in April 2015, was homemade, and I called the number and met Joannie’s worried mother and brother. I listened to stories about the other three times she ran away for short periods, and I read a medical report describing her anger and impulse control issues and the medicine she took to manage them, which she left behind. None of us knew then that at the same time, someone else was posting much different pictures of Joannie, ones that didn’t show her face. Their goal was not recognition, but the attraction of strangers. “Sexy mix white and spanish,” read one of several advertisements on the website Backpage.com. “Open-minded ready for fun. Generous men only.” Joannie returned home in May 2015 after having been gone a month, and at first said little about her time away. But prosecutors in the Bronx received a tip that started an investigation, and eventually Joannie opened up about that dark time. Joannie, now 18, agreed last week to share her story in the hopes, she said, of helping other girls in her situation. “Stay focused on school,” she said. “Looking back, I say, ‘Why did I do it?’” Joannie and her mother, Laura Van Antwerp, 48, have a close relationship that at times has flared into fights, with Joannie as the aggressor, both women said. (Joannie’s last name, different from her mother’s, is being withheld from this article because she was the victim of a crime.) The dust-up that led to her running away in 2015 was typical. “Curfew, being home, doing your chores,” Joannie said. “Regular teen stuff.” But she was not taking her medicine. “I had no control over myself,” she said. In the past, that state had also led to impulsive sexual encounters, she and her mother said. She slipped out of the family’s apartment near the Seaport on April 5, 2015, and went to her new friend in the Bronx, Raymond Johnson. They had met through Kik, a messaging app, and he told her that he was 23 and that he would help her if she ever needed anything. She arrived at his apartment in Fordham Heights and met him and his girlfriend and their two young children. They fed Joannie, and Mr. Johnson, who was actually 27, soon laid down the rules. “He said, ‘If you want to stay here, you have to prostitute,’” Joannie said. “I was like, ‘All right, I’ll do it.’ I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t have any options.” This reasoning can be common in cases like this, said Lauren Di Chiara, an assistant district attorney in the Bronx who would prosecute Mr. Johnson. “They feel complicit in what ultimately occurs to them,” she said. “They don’t see themselves as victims. It’s unlike when someone says, ‘I was robbed at knife point yesterday.’ They ran away.” Mr. Johnson bought Joannie lingerie and had her pose for pictures that he posted on Backpage, with a number to call for more information, Joannie said. The first ad went online on her second or third day in the apartment, and the calls began immediately. “The first guy, he was dark-skinned,” Joannie said. “The second one was Indian. He said, ‘Why are you doing this?’” It was a question she heard repeatedly in the days and weeks that followed as men, answering an ad for a woman 20 or 22 years old, were met by a teenager who looked even younger. “They said: ‘Oh, you look like a baby. You don’t look like you’re happy doing it. Why are you doing this?’ They would say it to Raymond, ‘She looks mad,’ and he came back and said, ‘You have to look happy.’ I had to greet them in a nice way. ‘Do you want a quickie, a half-hour or an hour?’” She never left the apartment alone. Her rare outings were with Mr. Johnson or one of the two other women who Joannie said worked for him. “Most of the calls came at 4 or 5 in the morning, so I had to be half-awake so I didn’t miss anything,” she said. She said that Mr. Johnson broke her phone and that he threatened her with a knife and a gun. There were bruises visible in some of the pictures in the ads, Ms. Di Chiara said. Joannie said she didn’t recall how many men there were. One day, after about four weeks, she awoke to find Mr. Johnson in a drunken slumber. She sneaked out. A few days later, she found herself in a Brooklyn police station house after a fight with a friend. Officers called her mother. “She was very quiet,” Ms. Van Antwerp said. “She had pain in her eyes. A mother knows.” Months later, in November 2015, the Bronx district attorney’s office received a tip and contacted the family, and detectives met repeatedly with Joannie until she told them what had happened to her. Mr. Johnson was arrested in February 2016. In October, with a trial imminent, he pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison. There are 34 pending cases of sex trafficking in the Bronx. “We are trying to make people aware that we don’t just have the traditional type of prostitute who puts him or herself out there, but criminal enterprises that turn people into sex slaves,” said Darcel D. Clark, the district attorney. Joannie said she was back in high school, where she is a junior, and tells her mother where she is at all times. Joannie thought about what she would tell other girls in apartments like that one in the Bronx. She discarded words of hope and chose advice that sounded hardened for a girl whose school calendar is taped to the refrigerator. “If you know he’s not around and nobody’s around, sneak your way out,” she said. “Get him drunk. Do something.”

Prostitution
Runaways
Online advertising
Human trafficking
Bronx


Patience Wears Thin as Desperation Grows

Abstract: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As tension rose here in the battered Haitian capital, relief workers scrambled on Friday to deliver desperately needed food, water and medical care, recover survivors still trapped in the rubble and collect thousands of decaying bodies from the streets. An immense relief operation was under way, with cargo planes and military helicopters buzzing over the crowded Toussaint Louverture International Airport. But three days after the earthquake struck, with many cries for help going silent, not nearly enough search and rescue teams or emergency supplies could make it here. The United Nations said it had fed 8,000 people, while two million to three million people remained in dire need. Patience was wearing thin, and reports of looting increased, as another day went by with no power and limited fresh water. “For the moment, this is anarchy,” said Adolphe Reynald, a top aide to the mayor of Port-au-Prince, as he supervised a makeshift first aid center that was registering long lines of wounded people but had no medicine to treat them. “There’s nothing we can do. We’re out here to show that we care, that we’re suffering along with them.” The United Nations said that 9,000 people had been buried in mass graves — and collecting bodies had become one of the few ways to earn money. “They pay me $100 a day,” Valencia Joseph, 32, said Friday at 2 a.m., as he was called to tug a body free of wires. “We must have picked up 2,000 bodies.” He added, “And there’s more.” In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would visit Haiti on Saturday to show support for the victims of the 7.0-magnitude quake. The Obama administration, cautioning that it would take time for all the aid to reach those in need, granted Haitians living in the United States protection from deportation for 18 months and permission to work. Mr. Obama said he had spoken with the Haitian president, René Préval , and pledged the United States’ full commitment in helping rebuild from a quake that, according to United Nations estimates, destroyed at least 30 percent of the capital and half the buildings in some neighborhoods. “As I told the president, we realize that he needs more help and his country needs more help — much more,” Mr. Obama said. “And in this difficult hour, we will continue to provide it.” The United States, in fact, took firmer control of the emergency operation on Friday. After three days of chaos and congestion at the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s government ceded control of it to American technicians, to speed the flow of relief supplies and personnel. The Federal Aviation Administration, which began managing air traffic into Haitian airspace, issued a stern warning to allow aid to flow in a more orderly way: no planes from the United States, military or civilian, would be allowed to land without express permission from the agency. Exceptions to the new rule would be granted only to humanitarian aid planes, based on arrival times and on the availability of space at the airport, a notice from the agency said. The F.A.A. warned pilots that fuel still was not available at the airport, and that any aircraft bound here would need to have enough fuel to circle in the air for at least an hour. Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , said that 9,000 to 10,000 American troops were expected in Haiti, on shore and off, by Monday, and that the Pentagon was poised to send more. Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Admiral Mullen said that about 5,000 would be ground troops, who would help with security and logistical support, among other duties; the rest would be on ships. He said that an American aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, arrived off Haiti early Friday with 19 helicopters aboard, and that it would serve as a staging area for relief flights, purified water and other supplies. Port-au-Prince, volatile in normal times, remained relatively calm, but the United Nations reported that one of its food warehouses in the capital had been looted. It called the theft limited and said it had recovered most of its provisions. Looting of houses and shops increased Friday, and anger boiled over in unpredictable ways: residents near the city’s overfilled main cemetery stoned a group of ambulance workers seeking to drop off more bodies. Some people were bracing for the worst. Harold Marzouka, a Haitian-American businessman who was hustling his family onto a private jet to Miami , said he could feel the tension rising and feared that hunger and desperation might prompt an explosion of violence. “If aid doesn’t start pouring in at a significant level, there will be serious consequences on the streets,” he said. “People are in the shocked and frightened phase. But the next phase will be survival.” In New York, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon , said he recognized that the slow pace of the relief effort could make people in Port-au-Prince restive. “I suspect there will be some frustrations felt by the general population,” he said. “We are very much concerned about that kind of possibility and are taking all possible precautionary measures.” Overnight, rescuers pulled eight survivors from the rubble of the Hotel Montana , which served the country’s elite and well-heeled foreign guests, and on Friday morning, they pulled out Dan Woolley, an American with a Colorado -based Christian charity, who had been trapped in an elevator. Another American was found alive in the damaged hotel but the effort to extract him extended long into the night. Ephraim Lindor, a Haitian colleague of Mr. Woolley who had dropped him off at the hotel just before it collapsed, said it was a miracle that he survived. “I walked him into the hotel, and two or three seconds later the earthquake hit,” he said. “I got out but he didn’t.” For rescuers and those buried, every hour that passed was an enemy. “The time window is ever shrinking,” said Florian Westphal, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva . At the State Department, Rajiv Shah, the coordinator for the relief effort who is traveling here with Mrs. Clinton, said the United States had not given up on finding survivors. “There is still an important open window of time today, tonight,” he said, adding that survivors could even be found on Saturday. Two aftershocks of about 4.5 magnitude rumbled through the island around 4 a.m. and 8:40 a.m. Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey . They spread fresh fear through the capital, where thousands were spending the night outside or in temporary shelters, still without electricity or reliable phone service. Jean-Bertrand Aristide , who was ousted from Haiti’s presidency five years ago, wept Friday as he told The Associated Press in Johannesburg that he and his family wanted to return and “help rebuild the country.” There were signs of resilience in the midst of the rubble and grief as many Haitians, long accustomed to privation and unreliable government services, went on with their lives. Sidewalk markets popped up, offering food to the hungry, while hotels that survived the earthquake were still booking rooms and taxi drivers were threading through the debris-covered streets. At the Dominican border, the small town of Jimaní became a rescue center, a way station for Americans being airlifted from Port-au-Prince and a destination for convoys carrying the quake’s wounded to a hospital there. “They just keep coming,” said Pastor Leocadio Alcantara, who estimated the hospital staff had seen 5,000 people in three days. Normally, he said, to have 100 patients in that time would be considered a busy period. As a caravan of missionaries carrying water and other supplies headed across the border into Haiti, a man hosing the street shouted, “God help you.”


Bangladeshis Build Careers in New York Traffic

Abstract: Above a Korean fried chicken restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, Showkat Khan worked the room of mostly Bangladeshi men, speaking Bengali with a few English phrases mixed in, his enthusiastic message of opportunity broadcast through a crackling amp. At one point, he held aloft a copy of New York City’s Civil Service newspaper, The Chief. “You are here to make money in this country, and to get a better life,” Mr. Khan said. There was more than one way toward that American dream, he acknowledged, outlining a few options. But one path seemed to stand above the others, if only because Mr. Khan had already paved the way: He is a traffic enforcement agent. Mr. Khan is part of an influx of Bangladeshi immigrants who earn a living by writing parking summonses for the city, a curious and growing presence navigating the choking traffic and bumper-to-bumper sea of parked cars. Bangladeshi immigrants, who represent less than 1 percent of the city’s population, now make up between 10 percent and 15 percent of the 3,000 traffic agents, Robert Cassar, the president of the union representing the agents, said. The Friday after Thanksgiving, which many New Yorkers mistakenly believe offers a holiday reprieve from usual parking restrictions, is in fact one of the busiest days of the year for traffic agents. Mohammed Chowdhury, who is from Bangladesh and supervises traffic operations for much of Queens, said his officers might write three times as many tickets on that day. “The next morning, everyone is feeling lazy; and who is going to get up and move the car?” he said. “If there is street cleaning on Friday where you live, almost 80 percent of the cars won’t be moved. They’ll all get ticketed.” In the last decade, union officials said, at least 400 Bangladeshi immigrants have become traffic agents in New York, opening a new career path to those who traditionally find their way in this country from behind the wheel of a taxicab. City records put the number at slightly less than 200, but Police Department officials said they suspected the number to be higher because many employees do not list their birthplace. Salaries start at $29,000 a year, but the insurance benefits and pension are generous. A college education and citizenship are not needed; one must be legally eligible to work in the United States and possess a high school diploma. Residency requirements are also slight. Before becoming an agent, Sheikh Zaman was an airport security guard in New York, a job that did not have the stature of his occupation back home in Bangladesh, where he oversaw murder, rape and robbery investigations for the national police force. He assumed that his chances of securing a job with the New York Police Department were next to nil, but he could not help wondering why he saw so many of his countrymen wearing police uniforms, writing summonses. “I saw a lot of Bengali people walking around the city, writing tickets,” he recalled recently. He asked how they got hired. “I was surprised,” he said. “They told me this was a very easy job to get.” Mr. Zaman took a Civil Service test in 2008 and began his new career the next year. “I love my job, I respect the job,” Mr. Zaman, 40, said. “Nobody likes getting tickets, but I enjoy the job. It gives me security. I’m happy.” The proliferation of Bangladeshi traffic agents has a lot to do with word of mouth, much of it from Mr. Khan, a 53-year-old traffic agent and union official whose informal advice and encouragement to Bangladeshi immigrants turned into sit-down seminars, in which he helps applicants prepare for the Civil Service exam. “I had thought having a uniform meant you were born in America; that was a misunderstanding,” recalled Mr. Khan, an energetic man who made a living as an itinerant magician in his native Bangladesh. “When I joined, I opened the door.” Image Showkat Khan, center, a traffic enforcement agent and union official, helps applicants prepare for the Civil Service exam. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times At a recent seminar, one person in attendance, Md. Shamim Al Mamun, 33, said he had been in New York for only 16 days. Asked what he intended to pursue, Mr. Mamun said, “I’m interested in traffic enforcement.” The work can be challenging. The agents sweat through the summer, shiver through the winter and bristle year-round at the insults shouted as they slip parking tickets under windshield wipers. The insults can be particularly unsettling to new immigrants only in the country for a few months. “A lot of people say, ‘Go back to your country,’ ” said Jamil Sarwar, a parking enforcement officer for several years. “But I ignored them because I know I’m doing no wrong. I work for the city.” Of the hundreds of Bangladeshi immigrants who became traffic agents over the years, about 100, including Mr. Sarwar, went on to be police officers, Mr. Khan said. The influx initially caused some friction. “Not only was there a language barrier, which is abating, but our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters were very standoffish at the beginning,” Mr. Cassar said. But over time, he added, they have become less insular and more willing to assimilate and adopt what he called “the traffic mentality.” The tension also extended to Mr. Khan’s seminars. He said the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau had investigated him a number of years ago and questioned him about the sudden surge of his countrymen into the department. Police officials would neither confirm nor deny that an inquiry had taken place. Mr. Khan said the bureau also wanted to know if he was making income from his job seminars; he said that, in fact, he lost money for each one he held. “ ‘Come to my funeral’ — that is all I would ask of people,” he said. There are more than 74,000 Bangladeshi immigrants in New York City, according to census figures. At one point, immigrants from Bangladesh were receiving more licenses to drive yellow cabs than any other immigrant group. (It was a somewhat strange affinity; many had never driven in their home country.) In New York, law enforcement and cab driving have a complicated relationship. Taxi drivers are frequently robbed, and the police often come to their aid. But many taxi drivers resent receiving tickets over infractions that can easily wipe out a day’s pay and threaten their license. These days, the draw toward the traffic enforcement jobs can be felt in the office of Shah Nawaz, an insurance broker, who specializes in accident policies for livery and yellow-cab drivers. His office, in the Bangladesh Plaza, an office building in Jackson Heights, is as important a port of call for cabbies as the restaurants along Lexington Avenue. Mr. Nawaz recalled that a cabdriver client had recently scaled back to part-time driving because of a new job as a parking enforcement officer. Not long afterward, a 24-year-old livery driver, who had sat down across from his desk to discuss insurance premiums, acknowledged that he was considering a change in jobs. “I drive a cab, but I think traffic enforcement is a better job,” the livery driver, Abdul Hafiz, said. Mr. Nawaz’s bookkeeper, Mahmuda Haseen, is married to a traffic enforcement agent. “It is a very prestigious job,” she chimed in, noting that her husband had sent photographs of himself in his blue police uniform to relatives back home. Parking enforcement jobs, Mr. Nawaz said, had become “a source of pride for a new generation of Bangladeshis.” He gestured to a framed photograph of his 14-year-old son, Sadman, and added: “He says, ‘I will be a police officer.’ I say, ‘It’s an honorable job working for the N.Y.P.D., why not?’ ”

Traffic and Parking Violations
Bangladeshi-Americans
Jobs
Immigration
NYC


Disney Takes Web Surfers to the Lab to See Which Ads Work

Abstract: AUSTIN, Tex. — A technician in a black lab coat gazed at the short, middle-aged man seated inside the Walt Disney Company ’s secretive new research facility here last week, his face shrouded with eye-tracking goggles. Read ESPN.com on that BlackBerry, she told him soothingly, like a nurse about to draw blood. “And have fun,” she added, leaving the room. In reality, the man’s appetite for sports news was not of interest. (The site was a fake version anyway.) Rather, the technician and her fellow researchers were eager to know how the man responded to ads of varying size. How small could the banners become and still draw his attention? A squadron of Disney executives scrutinized the data as it flowed in real time onto television monitors in an adjacent room. “He’s not even looking at the banner now,” said Duane Varan, the lab’s executive director. The man clicked to another page. “There we go, that one’s drawing his attention.” Like other television companies, Disney Media Networks — which includes ABC, ESPN, ABC Family and Disney XD — has long conducted intense consumer research about its programming. But now, as the Web and DVRs uproot the way people consume television, and thus rip apart the industry’s business model, the unit is adding advertiser research as a fresh focus of intense inquiry. Disney will unveil some of the lab’s early findings, including some surprises about new forms of online ads, on Tuesday in a presentation to about 200 advertisers in New York. It is relatively easy for Internet companies and their advertisers to measure precisely how often Web site visitors click on advertisements, and which kinds of ads draw the most clicks. But what about those who do not click, the many millions of others whose eyes merely flit across the screen? Disney and other companies say they believe that not nearly enough is known about them — what kinds of ads in which configurations are likeliest to draw them, and hold them? A good deal is at stake. Although the recession has slowed its growth, nearly $25 billion will be spent on Web advertising this year, eMarketer, an Internet research company, estimates — a mother lode that will grow to more than $37 billion by 2013. The goal, quite simply, is to increase ad revenue by offering skittish clients serious research about what works and what does not in new media, said Peter Seymour, the unit’s executive vice president for strategy and research. There is also a focus on new forms of advertising in programming shown on actual televisions. Are ads that play before video clips, known as prerolls, more effective when paired with banner ads? Do animated ads keep viewers’ attention on mobile devices better than live-action ones? How well do so-called watermark ads — an image that sits on part of a Web page like etched glass — affect buyer intent? “The goal is ultimately to have laws that apply,” Mr. Seymour said. The Austin facility — a squat, gray building alongside Interstate 35, north of downtown — is not identified as part of the Disney empire (a sign outside simply reads “Media Panel”) so the brand cannot influence how participants respond to questions. The tools are advanced: in addition to tracking eye movement, Dr. Varan and his 14-member team use heart-rate monitors, skin temperature readings and facial expressions (probes are attached to facial muscles) to reach conclusions. Among the researchers findings is that, when it comes to online video, “flyout” ads that appear next to the media player deliver the same punch as see-through “transparency” ads that appear over the content, but are less intrusive. And keeping the news ticker running during commercial breaks on ESPN does not take away from the commercials — people only spend about 12.6 percent of ad time looking at it — and instead helps retain viewer attention. “Negative results are also important to share,” Dr. Varan said. “Advertisers need to trust that we will tell them, ‘Hey, this thing that you want to spend money on isn’t actually that valuable.’ ” (In this category, consumers learn to ignore watermark promos.) “Completely invaluable” is how Tracey Scheppach, video innovations director for Starcom MediaVest Group, describes Disney’s work. “Everybody is trying to figure out the ad models of the future, but nobody is doing it on this scale,” she said. Starcom’s clients include Allstate, Kellogg and Bank of America. Other companies are also pursuing this type of research. The rise of new media platforms paired with the ubiquity of DVRs has made it a business imperative for television companies, especially since advertisers now pay rates based on how many people watch the commercials. (For decades, largely because the technology could not measure audiences so finely, advertisers paid rates based on how many people watched programs.) In 2001, CBS opened a research facility in Las Vegas called Television City, with a primary aim of testing pilot programming. But the company has recently moved deeply into advertising and new media testing. Through a partnership with NeuroFocus, a company based in Berkeley, Calif., that is partly owned by Nielsen, CBS monitors the brain activity of people while they watch television and ads. In 2008, about 70,000 people participated in one of CBS’s tests. “You’re seeing science moving into the marketing sector in a major way,” said David Poltrack, CBS’s chief research officer. Disney hopes to also use its research to design Web sites and advertise its own wares. “We see this as a very powerful research and development tool for the entire Disney company,” said Artie Bulgrin, ESPN’s senior vice president of research and analytics. The smattering of research labs that already exist, most of them based at universities, cannot conduct research as quickly, Mr. Bulgrin said. “As ideas arise, we want to research them and have the results in the hands of our sales force as fast as possible,” he said. Dr. Varan is based primarily in Perth, Australia, where he is director of the Interactive Television Research Institute at Murdoch University (which is not connected to Rupert Murdoch, the Australian head of the News Corporation). Disney picked Austin — a 26-hour flight for Mr. Varan, who spends one week a month there — largely because residents represented a wide demographic range. Austin also offers a pool of participants from a wide political spectrum. Currently, none of the research involves children. The facility, which operates seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., has eight research rooms decorated as living rooms or home offices, with hardwood floors, soft lighting and comfortable furniture. There is also a theater that allows a dozen people to participate in a simultaneous experiment. Disney’s investment is estimated to be in the low seven figures. The rooms are built around a central command post, where researchers scrutinize participants via video monitor — one room has 20 cameras — and through one-way mirrors. Dr. Varan cautioned that more research was needed before the media industry caught up with the evolving way people consume its product. He equates Web advertising to the early days of television advertising, noting that networks just relied on the radio model they knew. “Everybody is still shooting in the dark,” he said. “We’re trying to turn on the lights.”

Advertising and Marketing
Disney Walt Co
Online Advertising
Research
Computers and the Internet
Laboratories and Scientific Equipment


Inquiry Into Queens School Calls for Firing of Principal

Abstract: Officials took steps toward firing a Queens elementary school principal after a report on Tuesday found that she regularly arrived late to work and called a custodian to help her enter the building through a side door. The principal, Marcella Sills, was often late or absent from work, the report found , but still received her full salary. The report, by Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for the school district, recommended that she be fired and banned from working for the New York City Education Department. Several workers at the school, P.S. 106 in Far Rockaway, told investigators that Ms. Sills frequently arrived at the building between 9 a.m. and noon. The investigation began after The New York Post reported in January that Ms. Sills often did not show up for work. Ms. Sills, who had been principal since 2005, is no longer assigned to the school, the Education Department said on Tuesday. “The findings of this report are disturbing — and we plan on executing” Mr. Condon’s recommendations, Devon Puglia, a spokesman for the department, said in a statement. “As we do that,” he added, “we are going to continue to support this school as much as possible going forward.” The findings were also given to the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, for “whatever action he deems appropriate,” the report said. Ms. Sills could not be reached for comment on Tuesday evening. She told investigators that she regularly arrived at the school on time and had only arrived late over the last year when she was helping her mother with an illness. The school’s custodian, Samuel Ordonez, told investigators that Ms. Sills usually arrived late and called him on his personal cellphone to open a school gate so that she could park her BMW in a driveway. Mr. Ordonez said he helped Ms. Sills with her bags and they entered the school together through a door near the lunchroom. Phone records found that Ms. Sills called Mr. Ordonez on his cellphone almost daily, often between 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., the report said. Mr. Condon also recommended that disciplinary action be taken against the school’s assistant principal, Tonya West, who did not keep proper attendance records and supplied false timecards when investigators asked for documentation. Ms. West resigned effective Feb. 3.

K-12 Education
Principals School
NYC Department of Education
Queens
Marcella Sills


Video Offered to Back Claim of Cairo Attack

Abstract: CAIRO — A little-known Islamic extremist group released a video over the weekend providing evidence that it orchestrated a deadly car bombing here last month, while seeking to enlist others in a violent revolt against the military-backed government that ousted President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group, Ansar Beit el-Maqdis, or Supporters of Jerusalem, has also claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Egyptian security forces in Sinai, as well as a car bombing last week in Ismailia, on the Suez Canal. But the video about the bombing last month in Cairo, near the home of the interior minister , appeared to be the most convincing corroboration of any of the group’s claims. The video, lasting about 30 minutes, includes surveillance footage taken beforehand at the street corner near the minister’s house where the bombing later occurred; footage of the explosion as it takes place; and statements recorded in advance by the suicide bomber who carried out the attack. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Gen. Abdel Fattah Othman, said in a television interview that it had concluded independently that the explosion was set off by the bomber in the video, a former military officer who was dismissed for his Islamist sympathies. The video also indicates that Ansar Beit el-Maqdis hopes to attract young Islamists as recruits for a hard-line insurgency, in part by criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood’s commitment to democracy and nonviolence. Narrators are heard attacking “fake, democratic Islam” almost as often as they do Egypt’s “infidel” military leaders and those who collaborate with them. The bomber, Waleed Badr, is heard disparaging “this farce called the democratic Islam,” and saying that Ansar Beit el-Maqdis warns the Brotherhood “to keep away from methods created by the West, which wanted to impose them on us to spoil our religion, but to no avail.” Instead of emphasizing moderation and democracy, a narrator says the Brotherhood should have rallied Muslims around “the sovereignty of Shariah,” opposition to Israel and rejecting Egypt’s “Americanized military power.” “What would you have lost?” the narrator asks of the Brotherhood. “Would they have prevented you from reaching power? There, they have ousted you. Would America have been upset with you? There, it has been upset. Would they have detained you? There, they are detaining you. Would they have shed your blood? There, they are shedding your blood and burning your headquarters and assaulting mosques.” Regardless of the Brotherhood’s attempts to reassure the generals, the narrator says, the military “is your enemy, and it is forcibly removing you.” Mr. Badr, the bomber, calls the Brotherhood naïve for opting mainly for nonviolent protests against the takeover of power by the top military leader, General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. Egyptian security forces sent to disperse the protests have killed more than a thousand Islamists in mass shootings. “Sisi thought you would avenge your religion, so he increased the numbers and fortification of the police and military units in anticipation,” Mr. Badr says. “But he had only found chants and shouts and bare chests. So you were an easy prey for him — to be murdered, captured, tortured and harassed.” “Why do you shy away from armed confrontation?” Mr. Badr asks. “From a logical point of view, iron must be fought with iron and fire by fire.” Ansar Beit el-Maqdis first appeared after the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The group claimed responsibility for several attacks against Israeli interests, including an attack on Israeli border guards and the bombing of a pipeline in the Egyptian Sinai that delivers natural gas to Israel. The group was relatively quiet during Mr. Morsi’s year in office. But since he was ousted on July 3, Ansar Beit el-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Egyptian soldiers and security forces, mainly in the relatively lawless Sinai, where it is believed to be based. Its car bombings, however, have raised greater alarm, because they show the group reaching beyond its home turf, evoking memories of an Islamist insurgency that flared up here in the 1990s, with attacks across the country. The car bombing in Ismailia last week injured six soldiers near an intelligence building. The September explosion believed to have been set off by Mr. Badr appeared intended to kill the interior minister as his motorcade passed. The minister escaped injury, but at least one person was killed and more than 20 civilian bystanders were injured, according to state news reports.

Ansar Beit el-Maqdis
Egypt
Terrorism
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt
Islam
Bombs


BP Earnings Slip 3.7% on Lower Production

Abstract: LONDON — The British oil company BP said Tuesday that its earnings fell 3.7 percent in the third quarter as production declined. The company also said it planned to sell more assets. Excluding one-time items, the company earned $5.3 billion in the three months that ended in September, compared with $5.5 billion a year earlier. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast earnings of $5.03 billion on average. Net income rose to $4.9 billion in the third quarter from $1.8 billion a year earlier on lower costs to cover the company’s response to a disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. “The numbers have exceeded expectations as the company undergoes a huge corporate transformation,” said Richard Hunter, head of equities at the brokerage firm Hargreaves Lansdown. “Management comments are reassuring.” BP said it planned to sell an additional $15 billion of assets by the end of 2013 in addition to the $30 billion it had already announced. Robert Dudley, BP’s chief executive, has spent the last year repairing the company’s reputation and safety record after an accident on an offshore rig caused the Gulf of Mexico spill. He is also seeking new exploration projects. BP plans to increase investments in exploration and focus on areas like operations in deep water and the management of giant oil fields. Some analysts have questioned whether that would be enough to restore BP’s share price to the level before the accident. The company’s shares closed Tuesday in London at 457 pence ($7.32). They closed at 655.40 pence on April 20, 2010, the day of the explosion. “This company has been steadied, turned around and now, this month, with high-margin assets returning onstream, we have reached a clear turning point,” Mr. Dudley said in a statement. “Our operations are regaining momentum and we are facing the future with great confidence.” Mr. Dudley said he expected investments in new exploration projects and the end of payments to the Gulf of Mexico Trust Fund to increase cash flow about 50 percent by 2014. BP plans to use the cash partly for higher dividends and share buybacks. Mr. Dudley said production probably reached a low point this quarter and was expected to rise. Production levels improved, particularly from Angola, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Dudley said. In a first sign that BP would be allowed to continue drilling in the gulf, the Obama administration last Friday approved BP’s plan for four exploration wells off the Louisiana coast. It is still unclear how much BP will end up paying for costs related to the 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which killed 11 people and leaked millions of barrels of oil into the ocean. BP so far has put aside $41 billion to cover those costs. Payments to the gulf trust fund are expected to end next year, BP said. Also on Tuesday, BP named Brian Gilvary, 49, to become chief financial officer at the beginning of next year. He will succeed Byron Grote, 63, who has been in the job since 2002. Mr. Grote is to remain on BP’s board as executive vice president of corporate business activities. Mr. Gilvary is currently deputy group finance chief.

BP Plc
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (2010)
Company Reports


Daily Report: Venture Capital’s Endangered Middle Class

Abstract: There’s a lot of anxiety about the future of the middle class in America. There should be in Silicon Valley, too, but in a different sense: It’s getting harder to see much of a future for midrange venture capital firms and midsize tech companies. As Katie Benner writes , a venture firm called Technology Crossover Ventures just raised a $2.5 billion fund. That is more than 25 percent of the $8.8 billion raised across the industry in the second quarter of this year. It’s not that TCV alone will dominate the industry, but rather that there is now an intense concentration of power in a few firms. And it is happening just as there is an intense concentration of power in — and acquisition of new companies by — a few tech companies. In the first half of the year, the article notes, just five venture firms raised $7.4 billion, or about one-third of the $22.9 billion raised over all by V.C.s. According to the National Venture Capital Association, at the end of 2015 there 798 venture firms in the United States. “People are starting to wonder if it’s turning into a world of haves and have-nots,” Katie said when I asked her about this. “There are rich tech guys doing angel and seed investing at the low end, then there are these huge funds. It looks like the end of the middle.” That’s not the only place. Like never before in Silicon Valley, big companies like Facebook, Google and Apple are buying start-ups very early in their life. They want the talent, and unlike the giants that preceded them, they believe that they have figured out how to turn near prototypes, like virtual reality goggles , into big commercial products. Moreover, the computing infrastructure that powers tech companies is changing to cloud computing. The cloud business is concentrated in just a few companies, primarily Google, Amazon and Microsoft. People at these companies are working on their own gear and buying components in bulk from giant suppliers. That is going to affect the midsize companies, each making a few hundred million dollars a year and collectively employing tens of thousands of people. They will have less of a place. They will have less demand, if much of the back end of computing is in a few big cloud giants. And they will have fewer likely backers, if a small number of venture capital firms are trying to invest very large amounts of money. Which raises another question from the current venture funding: Where are the haves among the venture capitalists going to invest all that money? There’s still plenty to invent, of course, and some of it is still going to cost a lot, particularly in the more esoteric worlds of genomics, biotechnology and advanced computing. There are big-capital projects, like rocketry and the Hyperloop , a proposed super-high-speed train. Some of that is the kind of infrastructure investment you would normally associate with a bank or a sovereign wealth fund. But clearly, the world is changing. Another rich area to pursue, somewhere between traditional venture and infrastructure, is adapting tech throughout other industries — taking big data into agriculture , for example, or bringing artificial intelligence to oil refining . Changing the world can still take a lot of money.

Venture capital
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Cloud computing
National Venture Capital Assn
Apple
Google


Another Dingell Is Expected to Run for Congress in Michigan

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Debbie Dingell, the wife of Representative John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat and longest-serving member of Congress who announced his retirement on Monday , is expected to announce a bid for her husband’s seat. Ms. Dingell, 60, who is active in the Michigan Democratic Party and has closely advised her husband over the years, will declare her intention to run on Friday, a person briefed on her plans said. Her prominence in local politics, combined with her high name recognition in the liberal-leaning area near Detroit that her husband has represented for 58 years, would make her a natural front-runner. If elected, Ms. Dingell would hardly be a new presence in the halls of Congress. In addition to being married to one of the most powerful members of the House, she was a lobbyist and a senior executive for General Motors and co-chairwoman of its philanthropic efforts. That is how the couple met, sharing a flight between Detroit and Washington more than 30 years ago. Their partnership has raised concerns about legislative ethics and conflicts of interest, even after she relinquished her role as a registered lobbyist for the automaker. She stopped working for General Motors in 2010 but remained a consultant at an automotive policy group. She would become the third Dingell to hold the seat. Mr. Dingell, 87, was elected in 1955 to replace his father, John Sr., who had died. Mr. Dingell thanked his wife in his remarks Monday at the Southern Wayne County Regional Chamber of Commerce, saying, “She has been tireless, devoted and worked just as hard — if not harder — for this district throughout the years.” Rebekah Warren, a Michigan state senator whose district includes Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for the seat. Unlike many of his departing colleagues who have cited personal reasons, age or family obligations, Mr. Dingell explicitly cited the rancorous political climate as his reason for leaving. “I find serving in the House to be obnoxious,” he told The Detroit News .

John D Dingell Jr
Michigan
House races
Congressional elections
Deborah Dingell


Keep Your Email Online or Off

Abstract: Q. I thought Yahoo and Gmail messages were stored on those companies’ servers rather than on my computer. How and why do email messages get stored on the computer? A. Many web-based mail services — including Yahoo, Gmail, iCloud and Outlook.com — give you the option of downloading your messages to the computer through a stand-alone email program, instead of only keeping them online. Some people prefer this because it keeps copies of the messages locally on the computer for archiving. Doing this makes the downloaded mailbox contents accessible without an internet connection, too. Image The Windows 10 Mail app offers a way to download mail from popular web services. Credit The New York Times For mail services with storage limits, downloading the messages to the computer also helps free up space online. Some people prefer using desktop programs to more easily manage mail accounts from multiple services or to avoid the advertisements that are the price paid for using a “free” service. Downloading messages from a web-based service takes a bit of setup, although the Windows and Mac operating systems have simplified it by allowing you to select a popular mail service from a list and enter your user name and password to add it to the computer’s mail program. You usually have to enable message downloads to a stand-alone program in the account settings of your web-based email service. Keeping your mail online has its advantages, especially if you check the account from multiple computers and devices. Storing your mail online also means it is backed up. Depending on the mail service you use, you may get better spam filtering through the web version. Google has also added several useful tools to its web-based Gmail service, like instant translation from other languages or messages bundled into topics (like Shopping or Travel) with its Inbox by Gmail service.


New Federal Program Offers Students Aid for Nontraditional Education

Abstract: Hoping to offer more alternatives, particularly to low-income students considering substandard for-profit colleges , the Education Department is unveiling a pilot program on Wednesday to allow students to use federal loans and grants for nontraditional education like boot camp software coding programs and MOOCs, or massive open online courses. At the moment, only programs offered by accredited schools are eligible to receive federal student aid and loans. This initiative would sidestep that regulation by permitting aid to flow to students who enroll in experimental programs approved by the Education Department. The pilot would rely on its own quality assurance measures rather than depend on accreditation panels, which have come under fire in recent years from both Congress and education experts for failing to adequately monitor poorly performing institutions. “The existing accrediting agencies aren’t being hard enough on the schools,” said Debbie Cochrane, research director at the Institute for College Access and Success. “They’re the ones that are supposed to sign off on the quality of the institutions. Clearly too many subpar ones are slipping through the cracks.” Coding boot camps have exploded in popularity in the last year or so. In addition to testing new types of educational programs that emerge from outside the traditional arena of colleges and universities, government officials said they are also exploring new methods to evaluate quality. For the pilot program, officials said that independent evaluators could conceivably come from industry associations or groups of employers who know the kind of skills they need and are in the best position to judge outcomes. Officials at the Education Department said they expect to announce further steps later this month to tighten the accreditation process. State prosecutors and education officials have cracked down in recent years on for-profit colleges after a flood of complaints that they were exploiting low-income strivers and veterans by enrolling them in overpriced courses that failed to deliver meaningful returns. The responsibility for policing higher education institutions is jointly shared by a variety of accrediting boards, states and the federal government. But critics charge that not enough has been done to end abusive practices. More gatekeepers have often meant less accountability, said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State College and Universities. “Everybody’s in charge,” he said, “means no one is in charge.” Ms. Cochrane cited Brown Mackie College, a for-profit college in Tucson, as an example of how abuses could go on before being detected. That college used supplies intended for veterinary technicians to teach nursing students and sent them to train at a hospice without faculty supervision. Representatives from the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools inspected the school last week , according to a report in The Arizona Daily Star. The college said it has improved its practices. “We’ve made significant administrative and academic changes at the school to ensure that our students are provided with a quality education that prepares them for professional practice in their chosen field,” said Chris Hardman, senior vice president for communications at Education Management Corporation, which owns Brown Mackie. He added that the college had promised to refund the money paid by the nursing students who were scheduled to graduate last June. Education Department officials say they have been working to ensure that for-profit colleges don’t sidestep regulations, but they have also called on Congress, states and accrediting boards to do more as well. “We need Congress to take action to ensure that institutions are held accountable and that accreditors are not solely responsible for ensuring the quality of programs,” said Ted Mitchell, the under secretary of education. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has been talking on the campaign trail about busting the accreditation “cartel,” introduced a bill last month with Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, to create a voluntary system of accreditation. “This alternative accreditation system we’ve proposed is built on higher quality standards and outcomes than the current accreditation system and would mark an important first step to shake up a higher education system that leaves too many people with tons of student loan debt and without degrees that lead to good paying jobs,” Mr. Rubio said. But education advocates were wary of any system that relied on a voluntary component, saying it could lead to further abuses. “If you are going to allow federal aid without accreditation, as the senators propose,” said David Halperin, a Washington lawyer who has frequently criticized for-profit colleges, “then you have to replace it with something that provides for real accountability.”


A Side Competition in Beijing: Island vs. Mainland

Abstract: KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — From six table tennis tables at the Olympic training center here comes the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of ball against paddle against tabletop. Outside, the tropical heat of southern Taiwan seems to wither even the palm trees, while inside, the players break into a sweat at the mere thought of this: trading serves with the team from mainland China in the Olympic Games next month. “No matter how good China is, we hope to get a medal from the Olympics,” a player named Chang Yen-shu said after watching his teammates practice one morning. “They’re hosting the competition and they know everything well. They’re the best players in the world. Until now, no one has been able to beat them.” Call it Ping-Pong diplomacy across the Taiwan Strait: mainland China lobs balls instead of missiles at the islanders, and the Taiwanese get to fight back. Mr. Chang, 29, and the other four members of Taiwan’s table tennis delegation aim to upset mainland China at its national obsession. On the Olympic competition schedule, Mr. Chang’s team is not in the same part of the draw as China, so the Taiwanese have high hopes of facing their nemesis in the finals. China has won 33 Olympic medals in table tennis, 16 of them gold; Taiwan has won only a silver and a bronze — both earned by Chen Jing, a woman who immigrated from the mainland. A medal match between China and Taiwan would be one of the great underdog-versus-top-dog narratives of the Games, not only because of the dominance of China in the sport, but also because of the unique relationship between the mainland and the island. The Chinese Communist Party regards Taiwan, a thriving democracy of 23 million, as a rebel province that must be brought back into the fold, by force if necessary. Taiwanese athletes insist that the Olympics are about sports, not politics. Besides, relations between mainland China and Taiwan have been on the upswing after Ma Ying-Jeou, the conciliatory Taiwanese president, was inaugurated in May. Yet the mainland and Taiwan have a long history of political rivalry over the Olympics, including a clash over the path of this year’s torch relay, so Taiwan’s participation in the first Games on Chinese soil has the potential for volatility. Taiwan’s contingent includes 76 athletes competing in 14 sports, with medal favorites in tae kwon do, archery and weight lifting. Olympic pride has been growing in Taiwan ever since two tae kwon do athletes, a man and a woman, each brought back a gold medal from the 2004 Games in Athens — the first gold for Taiwan. (The island’s athletes have won six silvers and seven bronzes.) But some Taiwanese officials fear that Beijing could mar next month’s Games by trying to fuse sports and politics by identifying the Taiwanese delegation in ways that suggest that the island belongs to the mainland. “We’re a bit concerned,” said Tsai Ing-wen, the chairwoman of the Democratic Progressive Party, which ruled this island for eight years until this May and has tried to distance Taiwan from the mainland. “What we fear is being treated like Hong Kong or Macao, which are part of China.” At the heart of the anxiety is a political disagreement over the Chinese words for the name of the Olympic delegation from Taiwan, known in English as Chinese Taipei. The Chinese word for the first part of the name is officially Zhonghua. That comes from Zhonghua Minguo, or Republic of China, the name that the historically dominant political group here, the Kuomintang, prefers for Taiwan. Mainland China signed an agreement with Taiwan in 1989 recognizing Zhonghua Taipei — Chinese Taipei — as the name for Taiwan’s delegation. Years earlier, Taiwan had promised the International Olympic Committee that it would make a gesture to the mainland by changing its delegation’s original name and not using the official Taiwanese flag or the national anthem in the Olympics. But sports officials on the mainland often call the Taiwanese delegation Zhongguo Taipei. Zhongguo, which means Middle Kingdom, is the Chinese name for China. Referring to the Taiwanese delegation as Zhongguo Taipei implies that the athletes and the island they represent are part of China. Sports announcers in China often use the name Zhongguo Taipei when talking about Taiwanese athletes, and signs at sports events on the mainland display that name. “I’ve been to competitions in China where a few referees say, ‘You’re Zhongguo Taipei,’ ” said Mr. Chang, the table tennis player. “We say, ‘No, we’re Zhonghua Taipei. They say, ‘Why?’ Sometimes the mainland athletes also joke about that.” Tsai Chen-wei, president of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, said he would complain to the International Olympic Committee if mainland officials insisted on calling the Taiwanese delegation by the wrong name. “If they want to change our name, it’s annoying,” said Mr. Tsai, a former rugby player with a gruff voice. “I might end up putting myself in danger. I’m the president, so I have to defend this name.” Telephone and written inquiries on the subject of Taiwan made to the Beijing organizing committee for the Summer Games went unanswered. Mr. Tsai said people might also see political significance in the repositioning of the Taiwanese delegation in the opening ceremony. In past Games, when delegations marched into the Olympic stadium in alphabetical order by their English names, the Taiwanese athletes entered with the T countries. In Beijing, delegations will march in according to their Chinese names. That eliminates any suggestion of the name of Taiwan, Mr. Tsai said, and puts the delegation of Chinese Taipei next to that of the Central African Republic. “We prefer T,” he said. As early as last year, political tensions between China and Taiwan made their mark on the coming Games. The Taiwanese government led by Chen Shui-bian, then the president, who tried to move Taiwan closer to formal independence, decided in April 2007 not to allow the torch to pass through the island because the flame would then go on to Hong Kong, signifying that Taiwan was part of China. That canceled an agreement Mr. Tsai had signed in Beijing in December 2006 allowing the torch to come through Taiwan. Mr. Tsai said in the interview that he was disappointed with the government’s decision. “Finally, after more than 40 years, we would have had the torch relay pass through Taiwan,” he said. “The torch hasn’t come here since the Summer Games were held in Tokyo in 1964.” The modern Olympics have long been a battlefield in the struggle between Taiwan and mainland China over political legitimacy. In the 1950s, the Chinese Communists lobbied the International Olympic Committee to banish Taiwan from the Games. But in the cold-war era, Taiwan had strong backing from the United States, so in 1958 China withdrew from the committee in protest. That self-imposed exile did not end until 1979, after the United States recognized the Communist government. Mainland China and Taiwan did not take part in a Summer Olympics together until the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. “Beijing’s principal interest in the Olympic Games and Olympic movement was to seek legitimacy in the world arena, especially given the West’s recognition of the Nationalist government in Taiwan,” Xu Guoqi, a professor of East Asian history at Kalamazoo College, wrote in “Olympic Dreams,” a new book on the history of China and the Olympics. In recent years, Taiwanese athletes going to the mainland for various competitions — more than 100 each year — have generally been welcomed rather than derided, Mr. Tsai said. Sung Yu-chi, 27, a first-time Olympian in tae kwon do, said, “Sports and politics are separated.” He sat drenched in sweat after a morning workout. “In China, because we’re the same ethnicity, it’s easier to compete there,” he said. “They always show their hospitality to us.” But Taiwan has long existed in the shadow of China, and one of Mr. Sung’s tae kwon do teammates said she hoped to use the Olympics to announce the island’s presence to the world. “We want to win gold medals so people in the world know about Taiwan,” said the teammate, Yang Shu-chun, 22. “Taiwan is very close to China, but it’s just a small island. I worry people don’t know where Taiwan is. But if I win a gold medal, people will ask, ‘Where’s Taiwan?’ and try to get to know us.”

Olympic Games (2008)
Taiwan
China
Politics and Government
Tennis Table


Special Council Election Fight in Brooklyn Is Intense

Abstract: Collectible rabbi trading cards have been used as campaign props, and hundreds of voters attended a debate. An 18-year-old candidate’s jump into politics ended when he was thrown off the ballot after legal challenges from seasoned rivals. There have been allegations of smears and strong-arm tactics to neutralize opposing supporters. No one expected the race to replace Simcha Felder on the City Council to be sedate. Still, it was hard to predict the level of intensity and theatrics that have surrounded the special election, scheduled for Tuesday, in a Brooklyn district that includes the Orthodox Jewish precincts of Borough Park and Midwood, where Pakistani-Americans are also asserting their political clout, as well as Bensonhurst, the Italian stronghold that has had an influx of Chinese, Russian and Arab immigrants. The Jewish Press, in its endorsement of one candidate , Joe Lazar, noted “the unusual seriousness with which this race is being taken.” The drama has not been a total surprise, considering that legacies were at stake. Mr. Lazar , the son of Holocaust survivors who has worked for the City Department of Buildings and the State Office of Mental Health, has enjoyed the energetic backing of Assemblyman Dov Hikind, the longtime power broker of Borough Park. David G. Greenfield , another contender, was at one time said to be favored by Mr. Felder, who on Jan. 31 left the seat he held since 2002 to become the city’s deputy comptroller, though Mr. Felder has not endorsed anyone. The race has become, at once, a contest for influence and bragging rights among the legendarily powerful Orthodox blocs of voters, and a platform for the area’s other ethnic groups jockeying to prove their power. The voters are deciding among two Democrats — Mr. Greenfield , 31, a father of two and the executive director of the Sephardic Community Federation; and Mr. Lazar, 61, whose Web site said he was recently appointed to a Police Department committee dealing with emotionally disturbed people — and a Republican, Kenneth Rice , 27, a recent law school graduate who works as a lawyer for the Police Department. Until recently, there were also two other young candidates. One, Abraham Tischler, a sophomore at Touro College, ran on a platform that included keeping firehouses open and easing his neighbors’ parking-ticket woes. “I think my age is a great advantage,” he said. “I’m energetic and I don’t owe any favors.” He got no favors from his older rivals: Mr. Greenfield and Mr. Lazar challenged Mr. Tischler’s petitions in court or with the Board of Elections, though each man sheepishly tried to pin the blame for eliminating the ambitious young college student on the other. Another candidate, Jonathan J. Judge , perhaps represented more of a threat. Mr. Judge, a Republican, was courting voters on the edges of the Orthodox Jewish community, including the Italian-Americans of Bensonhurst. Mr. Greenfield challenged his petitions and Mr. Judge, a 24-year-old graduate student who talks about politics the way his peers talk about sports, was removed from the ballot. Mr. Lazar declined several interview requests. His campaign slogan is straightforward: “In these tough economic times, we need a City Councilman who actually understands the budget.” His name and picture also appear on trading cards featuring 20 different rabbis that are being collected by children in yeshivas. And he has a wealth of high-profile supporters, including Comptroller John C. Liu, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Mr. Tischler, the former candidate, and, behind the scenes at least, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. “Joe Lazar has been a friend of Speaker Silver for many years,” a spokesman said. “Beyond that, we do not have further comment." Mr. Greenfield, on the other hand, has been criticized for an abrasive manner that has antagonized influential players, including Mr. Silver and Mr. Hikind. In response, he said, “When you speak up for individuals, you’ll invariably upset the status quo.” He was also faulted for living outside the district, but said he was driven out by rising rents, and moved back two months ago to be near his widowed mother. One recent evening found him knocking on doors along East Third Street in Midwood. The voters he encountered, including many from the Sephardic community around Ocean Parkway, already seemed to know who Mr. Greenfield was. They voiced concerns both parochial and familiar throughout the city: safety, tuition and the widely held belief here that the Police Department unfairly singles out the district’s residents for parking tickets. One man asked him for a job (Mr. Greenfield seemed to offer one). Another asked if it was too late to register to vote (it was). A woman mentioned that she was the mother-in-law of the real estate developer Joseph J. Sitt, who she said took care of most of her problems. She wished the candidate luck. Many expect an unusually large turnout for an off-season special election. Ezra Friedlander, a lobbyist and publicist who has been watching the race, said that many Hasidic groups would be supporting Mr. Lazar, noting that “it’s in their interest to generate as many of their followers to vote as proof of their relevance to future candidates.” Mr. Greenfield, using Mr. Lazar’s high-profile supporters as leverage, is hoping to tap into voter resentment, according to Mr. Friedlander. “He’s trying to turn himself into a David versus Goliath candidate, saying, ‘If anything is wrong with the community, it’s because of the organizational structure.’ ” He has a powerful adversary working against him. Mr. Greenfield worked as Assemblyman Hikind’s chief of staff for a few months in 2001, but they clashed. Mr. Greenfield said he was in the midst of quitting when Mr. Hikind fired him. “We had differences of opinion,” Mr. Greenfield said. Mr. Hikind said, “I really don’t think of him much.” That spat hovers over the current race. Mr. Friedlander said of Mr. Hikind, “By endorsing Joe to the point of being mostly identified with his campaign, Dov has to win big in order to retain his title as the undisputed king of Borough Park politics.” Mr. Hikind denies that the race is ultimately about his influence. “This is an important race for me, it’s an important race for everyone,” he said. "People are taking it very, very seriously.”

City Council (New York City)
Elections
Felder Simcha
Brooklyn (NYC)
Local Government


Messi Has Many Accomplices in Bid for World Cup

Abstract: Argentina was ravaged in December and January, first by power outages and then by looting, after police officers left the streets unguarded as they protested for higher pay in a country beset by soaring inflation and hard economic times for much of the population. But on the soccer field, Argentina boasts enough striking riches to power the team to win the World Cup starting this week in neighboring Brazil. There isn’t only Lionel Messi, although he is the best of them and the most beguiling player on the planet. At the 2010 World Cup, he sometimes looked to be alone for Argentina. This time, though, the team has a number of options, including Sergio Agüero, Gonzalo Higuaín, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Rodrigo Palacio and, from the wing, Ángel di María. The Brazilian star Neymar would no doubt crave any such accomplices in his team’s forward line. Of course, Argentina needs to find the balance in midfield and defense behind that rich goal potential. None of those Argentine stars earn their fortune at home, where the soccer clubs struggle financially along with the rest of the nation. Messi left for Barcelona at age 13. Agüero matured at Atlético Madrid and is now the darling of Manchester City; Lavezzi is Paris Saint-Germain property; Higuaín is at Napoli, the club where the Argentine great Diego Maradona finished his career; Palacio plays for Inter Milan, and Di María for Real Madrid. The gravitation from Argentina to Europe’s rich paymasters is a no-brainer. In 1986, when La Albiceleste won the World Cup in Mexico, only three of the starting 11 in the final were employed abroad. Today, only one man on the entire roster, the reserve goalie Agustín Orión, has no experience outside his homeland. In part, that explains why Messi is not, yet, the idol back home that Maradona was. Argentina must win this trophy for him to compare, and even then there are those who find him too distant, too nice, to represent the turbulent soul of Argentina in the way that Maradona did, and still does. It’s possible to imagine Messi dancing through an entire defense to score, as Maradona did in successive games, against England and Belgium, en route to the 1986 final in Mexico. But who would ever expect Messi to fist the ball into the goal, as Maradona did against England in Mexico? That was the roguish side of Maradona, who famously claimed that the goal was scored by the hand of God. That was the Maradona who once replied in an interview request with an eye-bulging rant, shouting in reference to the contested Falkland Islands, called Malvinas in Spanish, “Give us back the Malvinas, you blank-blank Britisher!” At the time, Maradona was a symbol for his country. Carlos Menem, Argentina’s president, even flew to Italy to meet with his star and bestow upon him the title Ambassador for the Sporting World. A year or so later, when Maradona’s drug dependency deepened, Menem and his sports secretary, Victor Lupo, said in an interview in Buenos Aires that they wanted to save “this boy” from himself. They hoped to pass a law to prevent teenage soccer players from transferring abroad and losing touch with their families. The law was never passed. The Argentine soccer authorities bristled at the suggestion of political interference. They would fight for the right of their boys to go abroad and thus make their often impoverished families rich. Argentina’s clubs, like many across South America and Africa, had by then grown dependent on the money such trading of potential star players, even schoolboys, brought them. The Argentine Soccer Association president, Julio Grondona, said he would fight anyone, from Menem down, who tried to block that exchange. Grondona, now 82, has led the Argentine association since 1979 and is the longtime chairman of FIFA’s finance committee. He knows the mix of sports, sports politics and national politics better than most. He is now seeking Argentina’s second World Cup under his tenure, and its third since 1978, when the country, ruled at the time by a military junta, both staged and won the tournament. That Argentina team had only one player who lived abroad: Mario Kempes, who had followed his fortune to Valencia in the Spanish league. The national team’s coach, César Luis Menotti, had the belief — old-fashioned even in that era — that he needed home-based players to imbue the squad with the high-tempo nationalistic pride he thought could win the World Cup. Kempes was the one exception, but his grace, his speed and his eye for goals were truly exceptional. Kempes scored six goals during the tournament, including two in the final, which La Albiceleste won, 3-1, against the Netherlands. It felt that night as if the whole of the Argentine nation was inside the Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires and as if more than a soccer trophy was at stake. So Kempes, the big man with the flowing dark hair and a matador’s side step, was the outsider who started the trend followed by Maradona and now by Messi, Agüero and the other Argentines. The message is clear: You can go abroad. You might earn more in a year than the home-based players can expect over an entire career. And if you bring the goals “home” (and Brazil is only just over the border) all will be forgiven. Argentina is a country in which a Maradona or an Agüero can rise from the barrios, where there is often little in childhood to stop a child from practicing soccer skills from dawn until dusk. They might not be tall (Agüero measures 1.72 meters, or 5 feet, 8 inches, only 2.5 centimeters taller than Messi or Maradona) but instinctively they know how to dodge and weave and strike the ball. It’s a habit that has taken South Americans all over the world. And one that has brought them to perform better in World Cups in the Americas than Africans, Asians, Europeans or North or Central Americans. Of the seven World Cups held in the Americas, Brazil has won three times, Argentina twice, and Uruguay twice. Absence simply makes the heart grow fonder to come back a winner.

2014 World Cup
Soccer
Argentina
Lionel Messi
Diego Maradona


American Rises to Rare Height in Squash Rankings, All While Hitting the Books

Abstract: Amanda Sobhy will leave Harvard in the spring with a degree in social anthropology and no immediate plans to use it. In September, Sobhy became the first American-born squash player to reach the top 10 on either the men’s or women’s world tour. It has been a fast rise. Sobhy, 21, is the only American to win the world junior championship, a feat she accomplished on her 17th birthday, only five years after picking up the game. In a sport dominated by players from England and Egypt, Sobhy is part of a changing dynamic, the leader of a group of rising American talents. Emboldened by success stories like Sobhy’s and record membership numbers, U.S. Squash, the sport’s governing body, created an elite training and sponsorship program last year, hoping that it would groom the next generation of world-class players. Should she choose to take part in the program, Sobhy, who has won 12 tour titles , could be positioned to increase America’s influence in the sport. But the plan also raised questions about the preferred development track for top players, and whether that would continue to be a college system that has been squash’s backbone in the United States. Image Sobhy, left, with her sister, Sabrina, a rising junior player. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times Squash runs in Sobhy’s family: Her Egyptian father, Khaled, is a former top-ranked junior, and her mother, Jodie, won a United States national championship. Sobhy’s younger sister, Sabrina, is a rising junior player. “I was the guinea pig,” Amanda Sobhy said of her decision to put off a pro career for college. “Even if I dropped in level or didn’t progress much, I knew that I would still be 22 when I graduated.” Instead, in three seasons at Harvard, Sobhy has not lost a match, winning three straight national championships while simultaneously rising through the professional ranks. (In order to maintain her college eligibility, Sobhy must return any pro tour winnings that exceed the expenses she accrued while playing in the tournaments.) Earlier this month, she skipped her Friday classes to play in the Carol Weymuller Open, a professional event in Brooklyn. Sobhy did not win, and even though she had to withdraw from this month’s U.S. Open because of a heel injury, when she goes pro full time, some predict she could become the first American to reach No. 1 since Natalie Grainger, born in England, held the top spot for a month in 2003. “Looking at her from a junior career and how she has fared versus the other players, she’s capable of being the best in the world,” said Tommy Berden, the acting chief executive of the Women’s Squash Association, which runs the professional tour. Image Amanda Sobhy, a Harvard student, is the first American-born squash player in the world’s top 10. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times In the small world of professional squash, Sobhy’s triple duty as a student, collegiate athlete and professional player is unusual. Internationally, top-ranked junior players often pass up college to join the pro tour. That was the route taken by another American, Olivia Blatchford. “I did consider college a little bit, but I wanted to play and give it my best,” Blatchford said after beating Sabrina Sobhy at the Weymuller tournament. “By the time I was about 16, I decided that I would always have my brain but I might not always have my body.” Now 21, Blatchford is ranked in the world’s top 50. Still, playing college squash as a route to an elite university degree seems to be a better option than the insecure financial life of a professional player. In 2013, Nicol David of Malaysia, the world No. 1 since 2006, won just over $73,000. Blatchford made $2,470 for her career highlight, a tournament title in Mexico. “If I wanted to play for the money,” Sobhy said, “I would have stuck with tennis when I was younger.” Blatchford felt so much financial pressure that she quit the sport for four months when she was 19 to coach full time. She returned last September after U.S. Squash began an elite athlete program that subsidizes professionals based on their age and ranking. Blatchford receives a base salary of $12,000 per year, health insurance and reimbursement for expenses. Image Sobhy's parents, Jodie and Khaled, watching a match. Khaled is a former top-ranked junior, and Jodie won the United States national championship. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times She and Todd Harrity , who is ranked in the men’s top 100, are the beginning of what the U.S. Squash chief executive Kevin Klipstein envisions as 16 professionals living together at a centralized training center. It is part of a multimillion-dollar annual investment that Klipstein said U.S. Squash will make over the next 20 to 30 years as it tries to capitalize on a recent jump in participation, which the organization said doubled — to more than a million players — from 2007 to 2012. Sobhy said she has not decided whether she would join U.S. Squash’s program after graduation or raise money privately, and her coach did not expect a talent drain. “College squash is improving because of the influx of talented international players,” Mike Way, the Harvard men’s and women’s coach, said. “So I think when we’re talking about American students, we’ll see them go to a top university, graduate, and then scratch the itch on the pro tour while taking advantage of the elite athlete program.” Sabrina Sobhy seems headed down that road; she learned of her acceptance at Harvard a day after losing in Brooklyn. David, the top-ranked player, said Amanda Sobhy’s future was bright. “Amanda knows how to prioritize when to study and when to focus on squash,” she said. “I think that’s a great trait that will help her on the tour. We’ll have to watch out when she’s only focusing on playing professionally.”


Oil Spill Trial Opens, but Effort for a Deal Continues

Abstract: NEW ORLEANS — BP finally faced off in court Monday against an army of federal and state prosecutors, lawyers and even its contract partners over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill three years ago, contending that it alone should not shoulder blame for the rig explosion that killed 11 workers and soiled beaches and marshes from Louisiana to Florida. BP’s share of responsibility is not only the crux of the trial that opened Monday, but it also is at the heart of a last-minute settlement proposal offered by the Justice Department and the five affected gulf states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — that are demanding that BP pay $16 billion in spill-related fines and penalties. But as the long-awaited trial began here, federal prosecutors and plaintiffs’ lawyers made emotional appeals for the trial judge to find BP guilty of gross negligence, pointing to mounds of e-mails, documents and reports that had already been made public in the case. BP believes it should be held to a more lenient standard. “Reckless actions were tolerated by BP, sometimes encouraged by BP,” said Michael Underhill, the Justice Department’s lead prosecutor. “These damages were caused by actions that cannot be seen as anything but inexcusable behavior.” Mr. Underhill discussed a phone call between Donald Vidrine, a BP supervisor on the rig who faces criminal charges, with Mark Hafle, an onshore engineer, in which Mr. Vidrine described problems with a critical test less than an hour before the explosion. Neither man took action to prevent the eventual blowout. “They had a conversation that could have saved 11 lives, saved the gulf, saved the people of the gulf from catastrophe,” Mr. Underhill said. If federal and state officials are successful in proving gross negligence against BP in its handling of the spill, the fines against the company will be four times as high as under a lower standard of liability, negligence. BP’s lawyer, Robert C. Brock, defended the company’s design of the well and denied that the company had been grossly negligent. He characterized the drilling of a well as a team effort in which the company and its contractors — Halliburton and Transocean, who also are defendants — all needed to take responsibility. “Everyone on the rig is empowered to say stop the job,” Mr. Brock said. “There were no dictators in this group.” The settlement proposal would cap the amount of fines that BP might pay for violations of the Clean Water Act to $6 billion, significantly less that it might face if the trial proceeds. The proposal would allow BP to pay an additional $9 billion to resolve environmental penalties related to the spill, an alternative that would lessen the impact on the company’s tax liabilities. The environmental penalties, under separate laws, are tax deductible, while fines like those imposed under the Clean Water Act are not. The remaining $1 billion would be put in a fund for unanticipated environmental damages from the spill. One lawyer, who was briefed on the settlement talks, said on Monday that discussions were still under way. Another lawyer, also briefed on the efforts, said that a number of people who were scheduled to appear as trial witnesses have been told that their testimony might not be needed. The frequently intense opening arguments in court on Monday, however, outlined an extravagance of errors. Several referred to one Halliburton technician who missed important signs that the well was on the verge of blowing out when he took a 10-minute cigarette break during a safety test. In one of the e-mail exchanges between two BP workers discussing problems with the well, one of the two wrote that he had to leave for a dance class and would get back to him. Transocean employees came up with a theory they called “the bladder effect” to explain a failed 11th-hour test showing pressure building in a drill pipe that otherwise should have stopped all operations and averted the blowout. But it was BP that was the central focus of the day’s proceedings. Lawyers for the Justice Department, two gulf states and private plaintiffs mounted scathing attacks on the company for ignoring multiple signs of problems on the rig in routine maintenance of safety tests and equipment. In several hours of arguments, they noted numerous errors by BP in managing a high-pressure well. The company had decided to employ single-walled drill pipe, which provided inferior barriers to leaks, and it decided that it was not necessary to circulate drilling mud, a method intended to strengthen cement, before installing a seal on the well. They reminded the court that BP had decided against conducting a cement bond test, which is an acoustics test that could have identified the gas that leached into the piping during the well-cementing process. And finally, using information that has previously been described in numerous government and private reports since the accident, they said BP had ignored the results of a failed pressure test shortly before the well blew out. Mr. Brock, representing BP, said the well design followed industry standards. “There were a number of mistakes and misjudgments that were made by BP, Transocean and Halliburton,” he said. He argued that Transocean was responsible for maintenance and operations of the rig it owned, and Halliburton was responsible for designing and testing the cement to seal the well. Lawyers for both Transocean and Halliburton said that their companies were following BP’s lead, and that it was BP that was overwhelmingly responsible for the accident. This is the first trial phase of a two-part case. The second phase is intended to determine how much oil was actually spilled. The federal government estimates that more than four million barrels of oil spilled from the Macondo well, covering birds with tarry crude and extending a slick across nearly 30,000 square miles of the gulf. BP says the government’s estimate is at least 20 percent too high. Last November, BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines and other penalties and pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges related to the accident. It has also paid out $9 billion in a partial settlement with businesses, individuals and local governments. The company has set aside $42 billion for payouts, largely by selling $38 billion of global oil and gas assets. Four of its employees face criminal charges of manslaughter and obstruction of justice or are accused of making false statements related to how much oil was escaping the well. The government and Transocean have already come to a $1 billion civil settlement, and the rig company will pay an additional $400 million criminal penalty. Halliburton has not settled yet and says that it has no liability under contracts signed with BP, but it may yet be held liable for punitive damages or civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.


Obama’s Delicate Task at Bush Library Dedication

Abstract: DALLAS — President Obama has left little mystery about how he views his predecessor. “The failed policies of George W. Bush” wiped away a budget surplus and “squandered the legacy” of bipartisan foreign policy. Mr. Bush put two wars “on a credit card,” led the country away “from our values” and “crashed the economy.” But Mr. Obama will surely say none of that when he helps dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on Thursday. Addressing a crowd of Bush supporters and administration veterans, the 44th president will no doubt extol the virtues of the 43rd and praise his years of service to the country. It has become an awkward ritual of the modern presidency that the current occupant of the Oval Office is called upon to deliver a generous historical judgment of the previous one. With the opening of each new presidential library, the members of the world’s most exclusive fraternity put aside partisan differences to honor the shared experience of running the nation in difficult times. The task in such moments is especially acute when, as with Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush, the current and previous presidents come from opposing parties and such different sensibilities. The incumbent must hit grace notes without appearing inconsistent with past criticism or, worse, hypocritical. Sometimes a president goes through the motions, dutifully reading what aides put before him. Other times, library dedications have become bonding moments when presidents genuinely grow closer. “When a president dedicates the library of someone he opposed politically, it’s interesting and a bit of a challenge,” said Michael Waldman, who was the chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton when he helped President George Bush open his library in 1997 . “The best thing to do is focus on something that you can really embrace and mean it.” Kenneth Khachigian, a chief speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, said there was a formula: “If you’re a speechwriter, you can write a really nice speech about how Americans can fight and disagree and debate, but at the end of the day we’re all Americans and we have the same goals, and I’ve learned that anybody who sits in this office really at the end of the day has the best interest of everyone at heart.” Image The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas. Credit Allison V. Smith for The New York Times That is a fair summation of what Reagan said in dedicating President Jimmy Carter’s library in October 1986. In that case, the dedication came in the midst of a midterm election campaign, so the moment of conciliation was followed just weeks later by fairly tough language on the campaign trail in which Reagan criticized Mr. Carter’s policies. With no election at hand, Mr. Obama has more latitude, not having to worry about alienating his base, which still loathes Mr. Bush. A gracious speech could also fit into his outreach to Congressional Republicans. The timing of the legislative calendar does give him some fodder for common ground with Mr. Bush. As he fights to liberalize the immigration system, Mr. Obama could use the speech to point out that he and Mr. Bush agree on the issue, implicitly pressuring other Republicans to join them. That is not to say that Mr. Obama is putting away his partisan hat altogether. He flew to Dallas on Wednesday, a day early, to appear at a Democratic fund-raiser. At the ceremony on Thursday at the new Bush center, on the campus of Southern Methodist University, he will be joined by the elder Mr. Bush, Mr. Carter and Mr. Clinton. At the event on Wednesday, Mr. Obama told donors: “I’m really looking forward to attending the Bush library opening tomorrow. One of the things I will insist upon is whatever our political differences, President Bush loves this country and loves its people and shares that same concern, and was concerned about all people in America, not just those who voted Republican.” But Mr. Bush’s circle is anticipating the encounter with a certain suspicion. While the former president retreated to Texas after leaving office and has refrained from criticizing his successor, Mr. Obama made Mr. Bush a foil on the campaign trail, attributing the country’s problems to the situation he inherited. “A huge part of his messaging platform for his presidency has been the contrast, laying it off on his predecessor,” said Dan Bartlett, who was the White House counselor under Mr. Bush. “He’s going to have to thread the needle.” A Presidential Center for the 21st Century 10 Photos View Slide Show › Image Allison V. Smith for The New York Times Mr. Bush’s advisers bristled at Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address in 2009 , when the new president criticized “our collective failure to make hard choices” and assured the world “that we are ready to lead once more.” They also thought that Mr. Obama was grudging when he unveiled Mr. Bush’s portrait at the White House in 2012. Although Mr. Obama praised his predecessor’s “extraordinary strength and resolve” after the Sept. 11 attacks, he noted “just how breathtaking the financial crisis” he had left behind turned out to be. Marc Thiessen, a chief speechwriter in the Bush White House, said the test on Thursday would be whether Mr. Obama could be “substantively generous,” not just “personally generous.” In other words, would Mr. Obama acknowledge that despite their differences over Iraq, health care and other issues, Mr. Bush accomplished worthy things in office, like his fight against AIDS in Africa? “He’s never going to say this,” Mr. Thiessen said, “but if he’s being totally honest, he would say that except for interrogations, he adopted almost the entire Bush counterterrorism policy, some of it voluntarily, some of it involuntarily, but most of it voluntarily.” Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush have more in common than either might admit. They both value discipline and an orderly operation. They are both politicians intent on transformational presidencies. They both proved polarizing even though they arrived in Washington promising bipartisanship. But they have never connected in a meaningful way, leaving many in both camps to watch closely how they interact on Thursday. Past library openings have proved to be bonding moments: Mr. Clinton praised the elder Mr. Bush at his library opening in 1997, and both Bushes returned the favor at his dedication seven years later. Mr. Clinton was touched and has since become a virtual adopted member of the Bush family. “It was 2004 at the dedication of the Clinton library where the friendship was really renewed,” said James L. Rutherford III, known as Skip, a longtime friend of Mr. Clinton’s and the dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. “That’s where they really bonded again and have remained good friends ever since. “That’s one of the beauties of the presidential library system,” he added. “That makes that possible.”


How to Watch the G.O.P. Debate

Abstract: Here’s our analysis of the Republican debate , and our fact checks . _______ The field is shrinking, but the stakes are getting higher. The five remaining Republican presidential candidates will gather in Houston on Thursday night for their final debate before Super Tuesday on March 1. With Donald J. Trump having won three of the first four states, the pressure will be on Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz to blunt his momentum. For Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Ben Carson, the battle will be to keep their campaigns afloat. Here’s how to follow the action: On Television The debate begins at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time and will be broadcast on CNN, CNN International and CNN en Español. It will also be translated live on Telemundo, a Spanish-language channel. Online CNN will stream the debate live on its website and mobile platforms with no login needed. Telemundo.com and Telemundo News’s YouTube channel will also stream the event. Be sure to follow along with The Times for up-to-the-minute fact-checking, analysis and our live chat. On Social Media Facebook and Twitter will be full of real-time reaction, and the hashtag #GOPDebate is a handy way to find the conversation. On the Radio Salem Media Group will broadcast the event on its stations.

2016 Presidential Election
Political Debates
CNN
Republicans


The Roots of BRCA1 Mutations for Ashkenazi Jews

Abstract: Q. Why would a mutation in the BRCA1 gene that is associated with breast cancer be found in Ashkenazi Jewish women at a much higher rate than in other Jews? A. The specific mutation of the gene apparently arose in Central and Eastern European Jews around the time that just about 350 of the ancestors of modern Ashkenazi Jews were alive, recent genetic studies suggest. That event, combined with the longstanding tradition of marrying within the group, could have facilitated a wide perpetuation of the harmful gene among the few founders’ many descendants. A 2011 study of modern carriers’ DNA, published in The European Journal of Human Genetics, concluded that the mutation, which can be traced to one prehistoric founder, was apparently present in other European populations for hundreds of years but entered the Ashkenazi gene pool in Poland 400 to 500 years ago. At the late medieval period, according to a 2014 study published in Nature Communications, there was what the researchers call a bottleneck in the Ashkenazi population of around 350 people, followed by a rapid expansion. The study looked at the entire genomes of 128 modern individuals and compared long shared segments of DNA, which are common in Ashkenazi people, to reach their conclusions. BRCA1 mutations are not the only problem with a much higher incidence among Ashkenazi Jews, the National Cancer Institute says. Harmful mutations in the BRCA2 gene are also more prevalent in that population in the United States, as well as in other groups around the world, like Norwegian, Dutch and Icelandic people. Specific mutations of both genes are associated with breast cancer and ovarian cancer. question@nytimes.com

Breast cancer
Genetics and Heredity
Judaism
Women and Girls
DNA


Ohio: New Rules for Unemployment Payments

Abstract: Lawmakers are poised to end Ohio ’s distinction as the only state that reduces unemployment payments to people over 62 by the full amount of their Social Security benefits. States began to abolish or reduce the deduction of the benefits after the mid-1980s, when Congress amended a law that had required it. Forty states no longer deduct any percentage of Social Security benefits, and nine states deduct 50 percent, according to the Department of Labor. The governor has said he will sign the measure. The cost of the change is estimated at about $25 million annually and will be covered by the state’s unemployment fund.

Law and Legislation
Ohio
Unemployment
Social Security (US)
Labor
Senate
House of Representatives