German Official Resigns in Blow to Coalition

Abstract: BERLIN, Nov. 13 — Germany ’s second most powerful politician, Vice Chancellor Franz Müntefering, announced Tuesday that he would resign from office. His departure is likely to destabilize the already shaky power-sharing coalition between the country’s two biggest parties. The announcement that Mr. Müntefering would step down to care for his ailing wife, who he said last week had her fifth cancer operation, surprised the nation. While Mr. Müntefering insisted in a news conference that the move was based entirely on “personal and private” motivations, he is leaving at a time of growing dysfunction in both the coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel and his own party. Mr. Müntefering helped form that coalition of traditional rivals of the center-left and center-right parties in negotiations after the close election here two years ago. Since that time he has often seemed like the glue that held it together, a stalwart of his left-wing Social Democratic Party but at the same time a confidant and trusted adviser to the conservative Mrs. Merkel. That has been an increasingly difficult balance to strike as Mr. Müntefering’s party has shifted back toward its traditional base among voters on the left. That in turn has meant trying to roll back economic reforms made under the former chancellor — and fellow Social Democrat — Gerhard Schröder, reforms that Mr. Müntefering helped enact and had recently tried to defend. His departure will test Mrs. Merkel’s strength as a leader and consensus builder. While she remains very popular, with approval ratings hovering around 70 percent, her successes have only encouraged her coalition partners to differentiate themselves by challenging her policies that much more. After Mr. Müntefering’s announcement, the Social Democrats chose Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier as his successor as vice chancellor. Olaf Scholz, a leading member of Parliament from the party, will take over Mr. Müntefering’s other post as labor and social affairs minister. In contrast to Mr. Müntefering, Mr. Steinmeier has been sharply critical of Mrs. Merkel on foreign policy recently. He is considered a possible challenger for chancellor in future elections. “You have a new one coming who doesn’t get along as well with Angela Merkel,” said Jürgen Falter, a professor of political science at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. “That’s going to make the work in the cabinet more difficult.” Speaking on German television, Mrs. Merkel thanked Mr. Müntefering. “There are situations in life which are more important than politics,” said a somber Mrs. Merkel. “I wish Franz Müntefering and his wife all the best. It is a pity that we cannot continue to work together.” Mr. Müntefering, 67, was one of the most experienced leaders in the Social Democratic Party, but also one of the last of his generation in such a high political position. As labor minister, he tried to steer a reformist path. The price for the reforms he and Mr. Schröder fought for, however, was disillusionment among disgruntled trade unionists and other traditional Social Democrat voters, who joined with elements of the former Communist Party of East Germany to establish the new Left Party. With the Left Party seizing the populist ground and the Christian Democratic Union led by Mrs. Merkel increasingly centrist in its approach, the Social Democratic Party “has found itself caught between two hard rocks,” said John C. Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany who now works as a banker in Berlin. In a bid to fend off growing support for the Left Party — it now has over 10 percent of the vote, according to the latest opinion polls — and to stop the Sicial Democratic Party’s further decline, the leader, Kurt Beck, shifted course to the left. Although Germany is enjoying its lowest level of unemployment in 14 years, there have been calls to use the fruits of the country’s economic revival to restore some of the social safety net cut back by Mr. Schröder. Mr. Müntefering lost a very public battle with Mr. Beck over increasing social benefits for unemployed people over 50 years old. Some leading conservatives and opposition leaders said this month that the coalition had already run its course, after conservatives and Social Democrats failed to reach agreement on several issues, including disputes over the privatization of the federal railways and the introduction of a minimum wage. “In some ways the campaign for the next federal election has already started,” said Gero Neugebauer, a political science professor at the Free University in Berlin. “Don’t expect any more reforms. The conservatives and Social Democrats will now start staking out their positions and identifying the election issues.” With two years remaining before the scheduled parliamentary elections, Mr. Müntefering’s exit raised the prospect of deeper fissures within the government, or even early elections, if the deadlock between the parties worsened further. Opinion polls show that the public is disenchanted with the coalition, with 55 percent saying it should be abandoned.

Germany
Politics and Government
Leaders and Leadership


Consumer Complaints Database Approved by Panel

Abstract: After a contentious debate , the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Wednesday narrowly approved an outline for a new database of consumer complaints about potentially dangerous products. The database, which is scheduled to go online in March and be called SaferProducts.gov , will allow consumers to report events of harm, or potential harm, caused by products as varied as toys and cleaners. For instance, it will allow parents to see what, if any, safety complaints have been filed about various baby strollers. “Today’s vote represents a major victory for consumers and supporters of open government because it will provide the public access to critical product safety information,” Inez M. Tenenbaum, the commission’s chairwoman, said in a statement with her two Democratic colleagues, Robert S. Adler and Thomas H. Moore. The database was mandated by Congress in 2008, but many of the details were left for the commission to decide. On Wednesday, the latest plan was approved by a 3-2 vote, with the two Republican commissioners opposed. “Unfortunately, today the commission voted to approve a highly flawed final rule to establish a public database of consumer complaints,” commissioner Nancy A. Nord, wrote on her blog, in an entry titled “Here’s Your Turkey, Early.” Ms. Nord, who joined Anne Northrup in opposing the rule, added, “We had the chance to make the database a helpful tool for consumers, but instead it will potentially become just another sink hole for complaints, but with the apparent ‘seal of approval’ that comes from being on a federal government Web site.” Ms. Nord said that the plan allowed virtually anyone to file a complaint, rather than just those with firsthand knowledge, which could prompt abuses, and that the plan did not do enough to ensure that the information in the complaints would be accurate. The commission collects troves of data on safety-related complaints and problems about products, but that information is rarely made public because a provision in the commission’s authorizing law allows the information to be released only with a manufacturer’s approval. “Consumers deserve to know the safety record of the products they buy,” Ami Gadhia, policy counsel for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said. “This database will be a great tool for consumers, and it has the necessary safeguards against incorrect information. It strikes a good balance between consumers’ needs and companies’ concerns.” Richard Woldenberg, chairman of Learning Resources, an Illinois-based maker of educational materials, said he was frustrated that the Democratic commissioners did not heed the concerns of manufacturers like him. “Anybody who wants to can put garbage in this database that slanders me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it,” he said. “They are taking away a basic right of my company.” He is particularly bothered by the anonymity provisions of the database — complainants’ names are not disclosed without permission. If someone complained about a broken toy, Mr. Woldenberg said, he would have no picture of it, no sample and no way to get in touch with the consumer. “Before the government inserted themselves between me and my customer, I would talk to them,” he said. “We would work it out.”

Consumer Product Safety Commission
Consumer Protection
Tenenbaum Inez Moore
Nord Nancy A
Woldenberg Richard
Gadhia Ami


In Tiny Particles, a Big Link in Jerusalem

Abstract: TECHNOLOGY is its own nation whose citizens can work together amicably and profitably even when the geographic neighborhoods where they live are bloodily divided. Consider the career of Mukhles Sowwan, who founded the Nanotechnology Research Laboratory at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem. The lab is the first nanotech center in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to Dr. Sowwan, a Palestinian who has a doctorate in solid-state nanophysics. He also believes that it is the first such lab at an Arab institution in the Middle East. The lab pursues ground-breaking research under conditions that would bewilder most American and European technologists. But although Dr. Sowwan is its guiding spirit, it would not exist except for the generosity of European donors, the stubborn internationalism of a United Nations organization and the help of Dr. Sowwan’s mentor, who happens to be an Israeli physicist at Hebrew University in West Jerusalem. Nanotechnology seeks to control matter at the molecular level of scales of less than one micrometer (or one millionth of a meter). By controlling matter at this size, nanotechnologists hope to fabricate devices and materials with novel, seemingly magical properties. While the field is still nascent, large-scale commercialization might one day lead to computers with more powerful processing and memory, drugs that can be delivered directly to diseased tissues, or cheap and plentiful energy generation. The laboratory’s research focuses on three areas. First, the lab attaches nanoparticles to ring-shaped proteins to form unit cells, or building blocks, which can then be attached to similar building blocks to form more complicated devices like nanowires and nanodevices. Second, they study how the electrical conductivity of a molecule is affected by stretching. Finally, they consider the electrical and structural properties of bio-organic nanoparticles. Practical applications of Dr. Sowwan’s research are manifold. One example could be a new treatment for cancer in two to five years. “We could use nanomaterials to target specific locations in the cancer cell itself,” he says. How he came to create such a potentially innovative lab is both interesting and an exemplary lesson for those concerned about the future development of the West Bank and Gaza, where many Palestinians live. He was born in Jerusalem in 1974 and studied physics at universities in Jordan. But he chose to return to Jerusalem to complete his doctorate at Hebrew University. In 2002, he began a postdoctoral fellowship with Danny Porath, a professor of physical chemistry at Hebrew University. “When he applied, it was a most difficult time,” says Dr. Porath, who has a doctorate in physics. The general violence and unrest that have troubled the region since late 2000 had only recently begun, he explained. “There were even people in my group who were hesitant about his coming. I said, ‘I don’t want to attack people. I refuse to. And if he’s any good, he’s welcome.’ It worked. We became friends.” In 2003, rather than accepting an academic position or industrial job in the West, Dr. Sowwan joined the faculty of Al-Quds University. Mukhles Sowwan (whose first name means “loyal” in Arabic) says he wanted to work on nanotechnology in his homeland because the field was so new that the region’s lack of infrastructure was not insurmountable. “It’s not like microelectronics, where you need huge facilities” like fabrication plants, he says. “If you have a good idea, you can translate it from the lab to industry.” Nonetheless, creating the nanotechnology center took years, and many challenges had to be surmounted. These included restrictions by Israel on the movements of Dr. Sowwan’s Palestinian students and laboratory technicians from the West Bank into Jerusalem and from East Jerusalem into West Jerusalem; the inability of his university to reliably pay salaries; and the strong feeling, shared by some Arabs, that for a Palestinian technologist to collaborate with Israeli colleagues implied tacit approval of the Israeli presence. This disapproval was a problem, because in the beginning Dr. Sowwan was entirely dependent on Dr. Porath’s lab equipment at Hebrew University. Nadia el-Awady, an Egyptian science journalist and the deputy editor of Islamonline.net , a news and discussion forum about Islamic civilization, has written about Dr. Sowwan with mixed emotions: “A pragmatist in the true sense of the word, Mukhles conducts much of his research in Israeli universities, where the equipment and know-how currently exist,” she wrote. “He just had a different understanding of how he should implement his loyalty.” DR. SOWWAN says the first difficulty was fund-raising. “I got zero money from Al-Quds to start this,” he says. “The rich Arab countries didn’t contribute — I don’t know why. I had to tell myself, ‘Don’t say this is impossible.’ ” His breakthrough occurred two years ago, when the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization, or IPSO, supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, awarded modest grants of $300,000 for three years to scientists and technologists from both sides of the conflict who were working on joint projects. Dr. Sowwan and Dr. Porath won grants. This recognition helped Dr. Sowwan to raise about $1 million from the German Research Foundation and the French Academy of Sciences. He used it to buy lab equipment and to strike out on his own. The lab, with a staff of 10, has now been running for a year. “I am very proud of him,” Dr. Porath says. “He’s successful because he’s really good. He’s talented not only on the technical side, but also on the political side, which is more important in his environment than anywhere else.” Dan Bitan, the co-director of IPSO, says: “Science and technology cannot bring peace, but they can develop a dialogue that can survive the worst of times. They’re almost politics-proof.” Or, as Dr. Sowwan explained to me over the echoing and crackling telephone line to East Jerusalem: “Science and technology are universal languages like music and not connected to any religion or politics. We can do a lot right here with friends around the world.”

Research
Nanotechnology
Jerusalem (Israel)
West Bank


Edward G. Uhl, a Developer of the Bazooka, Dies at 92

Abstract: Edward G. Uhl, an aerospace executive who as a young soldier during World War II helped invent the bazooka, a devastatingly effective weapon against German tanks, died on May 9 in Easton, Md. He was 92. Mr. Uhl died in an assisted-living facility, his son, Kim, said. Mr. Uhl had previously lived in Oxford, Md. The bazooka, often called the stovepipe, was a shoulder-fired rocket launcher that could penetrate more than four inches of a tank’s armor plate. Eisenhower hailed it as one of the four “tools of victory” that won World War II. After the war, Mr. Uhl climbed rapidly through the aerospace industry, becoming president and chief executive of Fairchild Industries in 1961, succeeding its founder, Sherman M. Fairchild. He became chairman in 1976. Mr. Uhl transformed Fairchild from an airplane producer into an aerospace powerhouse that also made missiles and satellites. Under him, Fairchild developed the A-10 Thunderbolt II close combat aircraft, known as the Warthog, which destroyed many Iraqi tanks during the Persian Gulf war. He greatly expanded Fairchild’s capabilities and diversified its business, acquiring Hiller Aircraft, a helicopter manufacturer, and Republic Aviation, a military aircraft manufacturer based in Farmingdale, N.Y. He retired from Fairchild in 1985. Edward George Uhl was born in Elizabeth, N.J., on March 24, 1918. He graduated from Lehigh University on an R.O.T.C. scholarship, majoring in engineering physics. An enlistee, he served in the Army from 1941 to 1947, becoming a lieutenant colonel in its Ordnance Corps. There, along with Col. Leslie A. Skinner, he invented the bazooka, named after an improvised tubular musical instrument that the comedian Bob Burns had popularized. After a general tested a prototype bazooka in 1942 and hit his target, the Army rushed to order 5,000 bazooka launchers and 25,000 bazooka rockets. In developing the bazooka, Mr. Uhl wanted to figure out how a soldier could aim it and keep the burning powder from hurting the soldier’s face. “One day I was walking by this scrap pile, and there was a tube that was five feet long and 60 millimeters in diameter, which happened to be the same size as the grenade that we were turning into a rocket,” Mr. Uhl told Maryland Cracker Barrel Magazine in 2007. “I said, ‘That’s the answer! Put the tube on a soldier’s shoulder with the rocket inside and away it goes.’ ” After the war, he joined the Glenn L. Martin Company, leading its efforts to develop guided missiles. He was a close friend and hunting partner of Werner Von Braun, the rocket scientist, Kim Uhl said. From 1959 to 1961, Mr. Uhl was vice president for technical administration at Ryan Aeronautics. Mr. Uhl married Maurine Keleher in 1943. She died in 1966. Later that year he married Mary Stuart Brugh. Beside his wife and son Kim, of Washington, he is survived by another son, Scott, of Woodbine, Md.; a daughter, Cynthia Uhl, of Williamsburg, Va.; two stepsons, George and William Hatcher, both of Maryland; a sister, Elizabeth Kalmbach, of Malvern, Pa.; four grandchildren; and five stepgrandchildren.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Not Quite Ice in His Veins, but Hockey in His Blood

Abstract: Richard Poitras has never taken a drink from Lord Stanley’s Cup, but he has eaten from his plates. Last Thanksgiving, Poitras placed his most prized china on the dinner table, including eight plates from 1895 that once belonged to Lord Stanley of Preston, the governor general of Canada. “There aren’t too many people who can say that,” said Poitras, a 58-year-old hockey fan from Massapequa, N.Y. He is the only person who can say his wardrobe includes the jacket given to the former Boston Bruins great Johnny Bucyk at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 1981, a 1945 money clip that once belonged to the Ranger Edgar Laprade and cuff links once worn by Alan Eagleson, the former executive director of the National Hockey League Players Association. Also in his collection are 60 autographed jerseys, one of which was signed by 38 members of the Hall of Fame and 6 worn in games by Hall of Famers, including Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky, his favorite players. “Wayne Gretzky was the most remarkable player I have ever seen,” Poitras said. “But Bobby Orr was a combination of greatness and toughness when the N.H.L. was a much tougher league.” Poitras, who owns season tickets to the Rangers and the Islanders, has four rooms in his home filled with the kind of memorabilia that would make Lord Stanley raise his silver cup in appreciation. “I do have a rather unusual collection,” said Poitras, a logistics and planning manager at Citigroup, who has turned his Long Island home into a veritable hockey shrine over the years, amassing much of his collection through auctions. “People who visit me get a real kick out of all my stuff.” Poitras was born in Manhattan in 1949, the year the Zamboni was perfected, and graduated from high school in 1967, the year the N.H.L. expanded to 12 teams from the Original Six. “The stars were perfectly positioned for me to become a hockey fan,” Poitras said. So was the New York State Thruway, which the Poitras family — his parents and two siblings — often took to Montreal to visit relatives. “I bought a lot of hockey cards up there as a kid, and my dad took me to games at the Montreal Forum,” he said. “That’s where it all started.” Poitras was 3 when his family moved to Long Island. A few years later, he began spending winters playing hockey on frozen ponds and gaining a deeper appreciation for the game, which he said “is in my blood.” Poitras, whose swimming pool was built in the shape of an N.H.L. shield, owns two dozen autographed hockey sticks, one signed by Frank Mahovlich and Gordie Howe. After his retirement in 1974, Mahovlich, then with the Canadiens, put his signature on the stick along with the other 500-goal scorers. Poitras’s children — Justin, 27, and Alexandra, 25 — inherited his love of the game. Justin played on a club team at Dartmouth, and Alexandra, 25, played at the Division I level at Quinnipiac. She was a defenseman on the Long Island team that won the gold medal at the Empire State Games in February and is an assistant hockey coach at Farmingdale State College, a campus of the State University of New York. “My father’s passion for hockey certainly got my brother and I involved in the game,” Alexandra said. “To me, his memorabilia is not a collection, it’s a lifestyle.” “Hockey is the single most thing that has built our father-daughter relationship,” she added. Last year, the former Bruin and Islander Eddie Westfall visited Poitras and took the four-room tour, which also includes a diary kept by one of Conn Smythe’s teammates in 1907, artwork by the former Canadiens goaltender Jacques Plante, a silver tray from the makers of the Stanley Cup and the original N.H.L. statistician’s book, a binder of individual and team statistics from every game, including playoffs, from 1917 to 1942. “I’ve never seen an individual collection anything close to that,” Westfall said in a telephone interview. “I was just in awe. You could spend an entire day just going through the sweaters and the history pieces and other items. There’s so much to absorb, it’s really fascinating.” This month, Poitras won at auction a 1945 photograph of the Omaha Knights, a minor league hockey team that featured a 17-year-old rising star named Gordon Howe. “That’s how he signed it, Gordon Howe,” Poitras said excitedly. “I have never seen Howe sign like that anywhere else.” But that was only half the reason Poitras bid on the item. Standing next to Howe in the photo is a man named Connie Poitras, who also left his signature. “I don’t know if he’s related, but I’m going to find out,” Poitras said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he is, because like I said, hockey is in my blood.”


Default Choices Are Hard to Resist, Online or Not

Abstract: IN the wide-open Web, choice and competition are said to be merely “one click away,” to use Google ’s favorite phrase. But in practice, the power of digital distribution channels, default product settings and traditional human behavior often matters most. In a Senate hearing last month about Google, Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executive of Yelp, pointed to that reality in his testimony . “If competition really were just ‘one click away,’ as Google suggests,” he said, “why have they invested so heavily to be the default choice on Web browsers and mobile phones?” “Clearly,” he added, “they are not taking any chances.” Indeed, Google made a big bet early in its history: In 2002, it reached a deal with AOL, guaranteeing a payment of $50 million to come from advertising revenue if AOL made Google its automatic first-choice search engine — the one shown to users by default. Today, Google pays an estimated $100 million a year to Mozilla, coming from shared ad revenue, to be the default search engine on Mozilla’s popular Firefox Web browser in the United States and other countries. Google has many such arrangements with Web sites. Most economists agree that Google’s default deals aren’t anticompetitive. Rivals like Bing, the general search engine from Microsoft, and partial competitors like Yelp, an online review and listing service for local businesses, have their own Web sites and other paths of distribution. Choice, in theory, is one click away. But most people, of course, never make that single click. Defaults win. The role of defaults in steering decisions is by no means confined to the online world. For behavioral economists, psychologists and marketers, defaults are part of a rich field of study that explores “decision architecture” — how a choice is presented or framed. The field has been popularized by the 2008 book “ Nudge ,” by Richard H. Thaler, an economist at the University of Chicago and a frequent contributor to the Sunday Business section, and Cass R. Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who is now on leave and is working for the Obama administration. Nudges are default choices. In decision-making, examples of the default preference abound: Workers are far more likely to save in retirement plans if enrollment is the automatic option. And the percentage of pregnant women tested for H.I.V. in some African nations where AIDS is widespread has surged since the test became a regular prenatal procedure and women had to opt out if they didn’t want it. A study published in 2003 showed that while large majorities of Americans approved of organ donations, only about a quarter consented to donate their own. By contrast, nearly all Austrians, French and Portuguese consent to donate theirs. The default explains the difference. In the United States, people must choose to become an organ donor. In much of Europe, people must choose not to donate. Defaults, according to economists and psychologists, frame how a person is presented with a choice. But they say there are other forces that make the default path hard to resist. One is natural human inertia, or laziness, that favors making the quick, easy choice instead of exerting the mental energy to make a different one. Another, they say, is that most people perceive a default as an authoritative recommendation. “All those work, and that is why defaults are so powerful,” says Eric J. Johnson, a professor at the Columbia Business School and co-director of the university’s Center for Decision Sciences . THE default values built into product designs can be particularly potent in the infinitely malleable medium of software, and on the Internet, where a software product or service can be constantly fine-tuned. “Computing allows you to slice and dice choices in so many ways,” says Ben Shneiderman, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland. “Those design choices also shape our social, cultural and economic choices in ways most people don’t appreciate or understand.” Default design choices play a central role in the debate over the privacy issues raised by marketers’ tracking of online consumer behavior. The Federal Trade Commission is considering what rules should limit how much online personal information marketers can collect, hold and pass along to other marketers — and whether those rules should be government regulations or self-regulatory guidelines. Privacy advocates want tighter curbs on gathering online behavioral data, and want marketers to have to ask consumers to collect and share their information, presumably in exchange for discount offers or extra services. Advertisers want a fairly free hand to track online behavior, and to cut back only if consumers choose to opt out. New research by a team at Carnegie Mellon University suggests the difficulty that ordinary users have in changing the default settings on Internet browsers or in configuring software tools for greater online privacy. The project, called “Why Johnny Can’t Opt Out,” has just been completed and the results have not yet been published. Forty-five people of various backgrounds and ages in the Pittsburgh area were recruited for the study. To qualify as research subjects, they had to be frequent Internet users and express an interest in learning about protecting their privacy online. Each was interviewed for 90 minutes, and each watched a video showing how online behavioral advertising works. Then, each person was given a laptop computer and told to set privacy settings as he or she preferred, using one of nine online tools. The tools included the privacy options on browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and online programs like Ghostery and Adblock Plus , as well as Consumer Choice from the Digital Advertising Alliance. The privacy tools typically proved too complicated and confusing to serve the needs of rank-and-file Internet users. “The settings they chose didn’t block as much as they thought they were blocking, often blocking nothing,” says Lorrie Faith Cranor, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon who led the research. Ms. Cranor says the research points to the need to simplify privacy software to few choices. “If you turn it on, it should be pretty privacy-protective,” she says. “The defaults are crucial.”

Google Inc
Computers and the Internet
Search Engines
Consumer Behavior


Muhammad Ali Turns Vulnerability Into Strength at ’96 Olympics

Abstract: This article originally appeared in The New York Times on July 21, 1996. ATLANTA— Muhammad Ali floats above the Summer Games, no longer an elusive butterfly but a great glowing icon as large as a spaceship. He casts his light on every athlete, every spectator, every volunteer, all the people who walk these humid streets with just a little more zip in their step, now that they have seen Ali. The whole world gasped in shock early yesterday when Ali suddenly materialized on that platform at the far end of Olympic Stadium, the perfect choice to light the caldron. Who would have thought of Ali? Who would have predicted he could stand in front of the world, his body slowed by Parkinson’s syndrome, and hold a flaming torch and transfer searing fire to a contraption that would raise the fire to the caldron? Putting the old rascal-prophet on the official pedestal raised the tempo of these 17 days. Let the Games begin, indeed. Yesterday we had glorious events scattered all over this city. Energized by the vision of Ali — hey, if Ali can hold that flame without toasting himself to a crisp, I can get up on three hours’ sleep — I went to the first gold medal event, in shooting, and saw an amazing reversal, a Polish woman beating a German woman on the last shot. My choice meant I missed the Hungarians beating the Russians in water polo, shades of 1956. A Belgian swimmer set a world record — and in a trial, no less. A hapless judo athlete from the other Georgia went to the wrong site and missed the official weigh-in and was disqualified. He should have blamed the horrendous transportation problems choking this Olympic city. The people from the Atlanta organizing committee can be flagellated for the clogged traffic and the rampant greed and tackiness of these Games, but Billy Payne and his colleagues must be praised for their innate understanding that Muhammad Ali, the former Cassius Clay, was the perfect symbol for the ceremony. Everybody knew the theme of these Games was “look how far we’ve come,” to justify this event being given to striving Atlanta. The ceremony’s creators paid careful, artistic attention to the safe black poets and singers and athletes and martyrs of the South. Reviving the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was as predictable as it was proper. His image makes International Olympic Committee members feel good about choosing Atlanta. Who is to say that an elderly Dr. King would not have been outside the stadium with a bullhorn, goading the smug fat cats of Atlanta about housing and jobs? Ali was the shocker, the wild card. When people speculated who would be the final holder of the flame, few mentioned Ali because they knew he was not healthy. Nobody wanted Ali to be remembered as the weakened legend who dropped the Olympic torch in front of billions of people around the world. Ali was 100 feet tall, even without his image on the message board. We could all see him with our naked eye, his mystical half smile lighting up the steamy night. Hang on to the torch, Ali. That’s what we said in my section. But Ali has always been full of surprises. He could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, could charm the world as a beautiful youth when he won the gold at the Summer Games of 1960, he could spout doggerel and he could beat bad Sonny Liston, could be cruel to opponents, could defy the draft board, could come back and regain his heavyweight championship. Somewhere along the line, even to most of white America, Ali stopped being a frightening symbol of a “foreign” religion and a menacing black man and a threat to the welfare of his homeland, and he became a fragile legend, damaged by the punches of his brutal sport, unable to rouse the wit and flash of his youth. Putting him on that platform was a stroke of genius that transformed a very nice ceremony into a celebration, a block party. I was sitting with a black male colleague and a white female colleague, and when we saw Ali shining on that platform, we exchanged high-fives at the audacious perfection of it. Ali was at the Games. Ali was on the hill. Raise the flame. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, all of us.


Prosecutors in Aurora Shooting Case Reject Plea Offer

Abstract: DENVER (AP) — Prosecutors in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting on Thursday rejected an offer from the suspect, James E. Holmes, to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, and they accused his defense lawyers of breaking court rules by making the offer public. In a scathing court document, prosecutors said the defense had refused to give them information needed to evaluate the offer, so it could not be considered genuine. They also said anyone reading articles about the offer would conclude “the defendant knows that he is guilty, the defense attorneys know that he is guilty, and that both of them know that he was not criminally insane.” The defense lawyers could not be reached for comment. Mr. Holmes is charged with murder and attempted murder in the July 20 shootings, in which 12 people were killed and 70 were wounded. His lawyers disclosed the plea offer in a court filing Wednesday. Prosecutors called the disclosure a ploy meant to draw the public and the judge into what should be private negotiations. Prosecutors did not say what information the defense had refused to give them, but the two sides have argued about access to details about Mr. Holmes’s mental health.

Aurora Shooting
Murders
Decisions and Verdicts
James Eagan Holmes


2012 Olympics — For Muslims, Ramadan Will Create Conflicts

Abstract: DOHA, Qatar (AP) — When the Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki makes her debut at the London Olympics, she will not be among those contending for a medal. Breaking her own national record in the 100 meters will be enough of a prize. But even this modest goal presents a challenge. Al-Malki, 17, whose oil-and-gas rich country is sending women to the Olympics for the first time, knows she will need all her energy and strength to run a fast race. To do that, however, might require her to break the fast during Ramadan . Muslims are required to abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk during the 30-day holy month, which begins on July 20 and overlaps with the Olympics. But al-Malki and the 3,500 other Muslim athletes expected to compete in London may look to ancient Islamic tenets that allow exemptions — for travelers, the sick and others — out of concern that not eating or drinking, even water, throughout the day could put them at a competitive disadvantage. “It will be difficult, but it is Ramadan,” al-Malki said. “You have to respect Ramadan. But I want to make a new national record. If there is a problem with that, I will not make Ramadan.” While the issue is receiving greater attention this Olympic year, balancing faith and sports is not new for athletes. Orthodox Jews observe the Sabbath from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, and some will not compete during those hours, and some Christians will not compete on a Sunday. The British triple jumper Jonathan Edwards long refused to compete on a Sunday and missed the 1991 world championships because of it. Two years later, he relaxed his rule and won the bronze medal. The Scotsman Eric Liddell, whose story is depicted in the Academy Award-winning film “Chariots of Fire,” famously pulled out of the 100 heat at the 1924 Olympics because it took place on a Sunday. Ramadan fell during last year’s track and field world championships in South Korea, as well as during the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore. With no central authority in Islam, Muslim athletes are very likely to turn to Islamic scholars in their respective countries for guidance on fast breaking or wait for a fatwa, or religious edict, to be issued. One interpretation of the Koran allows Muslims to break the fast if they are traveling, which athletes are if they are attending the Olympics. “Athletes will find Islamic preachers and scholars who will provide them with legitimate ways and means to participate in the Olympics and make up for breaking the fast by doing charity work, such as feeding poor families, or fasting later,” said Fawaz A. Gerges, the director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics. “On balance, Islamic scholars are flexible and dynamic when it comes to questions of sports and work, and Islam is not set in stone,” he said. “My instinct tells me that Islamic scholars will err on the side of flexibility and sanctioning participation in the Olympics.” But the issue remains open for debate, especially in places like Egypt and conservative Gulf nations like the United Arab Emirates. Sheik Fawzi Zefzaf, a scholar at Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the premier religious institution for Sunni Muslims, said Muslim athletes were obliged to fast. “The words in Islam are clear. The Olympics are not a necessary reason to break one’s fast,” Zefzaf said, adding that athletes would not be considered traveling once they reach London for the Olympics. Another Al-Azhar scholar, Abdel-Moeti Bayoumi, said Muslim athletes should fast, but they could opt out if fasting imposes “extreme difficulties” when they compete. “The days that require strenuous physical activity, the athlete should fast if possible,” Bayoumi said. “But if fasting causes extreme exhaustion or weakness, then they can opt not to fast. The decision is between the athlete and God in the end.” U.A.E.’s soccer team has been given approval to break its fast by the country’s Department of Islamic Affairs. Although competing is not an excuse for breaking the fast, the department said, traveling was as long as the athletes do not remain in one place for longer than four days. The science of fasting and athletic performance is also open to debate. Going without food and water would seem to be detrimental to athletes. But several studies comparing fasting athletes with nonfasting athletes have so far produced conflicting results, with some finding clear evidence that fasting left athletes more tired and had an adverse effect on their results while others found a modest effect at worst. Ron Maughan, a Loughborough University professor who has done several of the studies and is the chairman of the International Olympic Committee nutrition working group, said the effect depended on the event and when the competition was, as well as the weather conditions. Athletes affected most are those in endurance events, like the marathon or soccer, and those who compete late in the day or over several days. “Let’s imagine the first round of 100 meters and imagine you are running 100 meters at 10 in the morning. You haven’t eaten since half past six,” Maughan said. “Is your performance going to affected? Probably not.” London organizers cannot say how many athletes will be fasting partly because they have yet to hear from any Muslim countries on the issue. But they are prepared nonetheless, with more than 150 Muslim clerics on hand to assist athletes, as well as fast-breaking packs including dates and other traditional foods. Halal meals will be available, and the multifaith Centre in the Olympic Athletes village in Stratford will include special prayer facilities. Of the dozen Muslim athletes interviewed for this article, none said they would be fasting the entire time. Most either said they were still deciding or would postpone it because of their desire for a breakout performance. “How do you want a machine to work without a fuel?” the Iraqi javelin thrower Ammar Mekki said.

Ramadan
Muslims and Islam
Olympic Games (2012)
Fasting


UConn Reportedly Violated N.C.A.A. Contact Rules in Recruitment of Nate Miles

Abstract: University of Connecticut men’s basketball coaches broke N.C.A.A. contact rules in the recruiting of Nate Miles, a former player, according to a report by Yahoo Sports on Wednesday. The article drew on cellphone records to describe contact among Miles, UConn coaches and a former student manager. Yahoo cited multiple sources in establishing a relationship between Miles and Josh Nochimson, who became an agent after his years as a UConn student manager. By N.C.A.A. rules, Yahoo reported, Nochimson would be a representative of the college’s athletic interests. Therefore, providing Miles with lodging, transportation and meals, which the report alleged, might be a serious violation. Miles, a 6-foot-7 swingman from Toledo, Ohio, signed with UConn in 2007 and was expelled as a freshman in 2008 when he violated a restraining order obtained against him by a female student. Miles never played a game for UConn and played this season at the College of Southern Idaho, a junior college. In Glendale, Ariz., where his top-seeded Huskies will play Purdue on Thursday night in the N.C.A.A. West Region semifinals, Coach Jim Calhoun said he heard about the report late Tuesday night and had spoken with Athletic Director Jeff Hathaway. “The university is going to look into any matter as we would when we hear light of something,” Calhoun said, glancing at times at what appeared to be a legal pad. “We think it still falls under the guidelines of making sure that we’re being compliant. “Secondly, there are no current student-athletes involved in this story. Third, the university worked very closely with our compliance people, with an outside legal agency and obviously with the N.C.A.A. eligibility center. It was determined that the student-athlete was fully eligible for his freshman year.” Because Miles left UConn before any competition, “there’s no problem now with games or what happened during those particular games nor should there be,” Calhoun said, adding: “At least, I don’t think so as of yet.” N.C.A.A. rules limit contact to one phone call a month to recruits (or their families or associates) still in their junior year. But Yahoo reported a stream of communications from the UConn staff to Nochimson and phone calls and text messages to Miles. Tom Moore, a former UConn assistant, was reported to have made 27 calls to Miles’s guardian and a man Miles called his uncle as well as three calls to Miles in December 2006. The Yahoo article, by Adrian Wojnarowski and Dan Wetzel, includes cellphone records obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request. Calhoun said of Nochimson: “He was with our program for six years, got his master’s degree. Beyond that, while he was in our program, he was a good kid, worked hard, et cetera. That was my relationship with him during that particular point in time.” In a statement, UConn said, “The university takes very seriously its responsibilities of N.C.A.A. membership and will do all that is expected to follow up on any information related to possible N.C.A.A. rules violations.” Guard A. J. Price appeared confident that the report would not affect the team. “We just focus on the things that we know how to do, which is play basketball,” he said. “Everything else will eventually come out in the wash and take care of itself.”

University of Connecticut
Basketball
Draft and Recruitment (Sports)
College Athletics


Allmir Lekperic Charged in Fatal Staten Island Hit-and-Run

Abstract: A Staten Island man with a history of traffic violations was charged on Thursday in a hit-and-run accident that killed an elderly couple, who were struck outside their church the night before as they walked to a Thanksgiving Mass with cans of food for the poor, the authorities said. The man, Allmir Lekperic, 26, turned himself in to the police early Thursday. He was charged with driving with a suspended license and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, which killed the couple, Peter and Lillian Sabados, on Staten Island, the police said. Mr. Lekperic was being held pending arraignment. A family friend who picked up the phone at Mr. Lekperic’s home on Staten Island declined to comment on the arrest. A profile posted under Mr. Lekperic’s name on LinkedIn, an Internet networking site, lists his occupation as the owner of a home improvement company. Mr. Lekperic’s driver’s license had been suspended at least 29 times since 2006, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was in its early stages. The official said that Mr. Lekperic had also been stopped at least four times for not wearing his seatbelt, as well as for talking on his cellphone while driving, following another car too closely and driving without a license. The authorities said they expected to charge a relative of Mr. Lekperic’s with falsely reporting after the accident that Mr. Lekperic’s van had been stolen. Mr. Lekperic was driving about 7:15 on Wednesday night when his Ford Econoline van struck the Sabadoses as they crossed New Dorp Lane at Third Street to enter their church, Our Lady Queen of Peace, the police said. The van then sped off, the police said. The couple were longtime parishioners, said the Rev. Pancrose Kalist, the church’s pastor. On Wednesday night, the church held its annual Thanksgiving Mass, to which parishioners bring canned goods for a food pantry. Worshipers had barely started to arrive when word of the accident emptied the pews. The Rev. Mario V. Ramirez, an assistant priest at the church, rushed to fetch holy oil, and he said that when he reached the scene, he found Mr. Sabados unconscious and his wife still moving. Father Ramirez said he administered the last rites, reciting, “May the Lord save you and raise you up.” The couple were taken to Staten Island University Hospital, and Mr. Sabados, 78, was pronounced dead less than 45 minutes after the accident, the police said. Mrs. Sabados, 77, died early Thursday morning, the police said. Father Kalist started Mass on Wednesday night with 10 Hail Mary’s. “We come together so joyfully on Thanksgiving,” Father Kalist said. “It really broke our heart.” For almost 40 years, the Sabadoses had lived in a well-kept two-story house a few miles from the church, neighbors said. The two shared a love for fine wine. Mr. Sabados, a retired pharmacist who had worked in New Jersey, was often seen tending to the plants and flowers on their front lawn. Mrs. Sabados had worked at a local college. They had two children, and their son, Peter, also became a pharmacist, the neighbors said. “You couldn’t ask for better neighbors,” said Guernsey Jewett, 69. His wife, Caroline, added, “We’re just going to miss them so very much.”

Hit-and-Run Drivers
Staten Island (NYC)
Accidents and Safety
Automobiles
Lekperi Allmir


Basics Push Up Profit at Costco

Abstract: The warehouse-club operator Costco Wholesale Corporation said Wednesday that its quarterly profit rose 7 percent as consumers shopped for bargains in the tough economy. Demand was strong for necessities like food and sundries but shoppers shied away from big-ticket items like furniture and jewelry, the company said. Costco said net income rose to $397.8 million, or 90 cents a share, from $372.4 million, or 83 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time charges, net income was 97 cents a share for the quarter. Revenue in the quarter, which ended Aug. 31 and was the fourth quarter of Costco’s fiscal year, rose 13 percent, to $23.1 billion, from $20.48 billion A Stifel Nicolaus & Company analyst, David Schick, wrote that warehouse clubs remained “one of the better-positioned sectors in retail.” Stock in Costco, based in Issaquah, Wash., fell 74 cents, to $57.06 a share.

Costco Wholesale Corporation
Company Reports
Retail Stores and Trade


Europe’s Recession Deeper Than Expected

Abstract: PARIS — Europe sank even deeper into recession than the United States in the closing months of last year, according to figures published Friday, as finance ministers of leading industrialized nations gathered in one of the worst-affected countries, Italy, for discussions on the crisis. The economy of the 16 countries sharing the euro currency declined by 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the European Union ’s statistics office. That is even worse than the 1 percent decline in the United States economy during that period, compared with the previous quarter. “Today’s data wipes out any illusion that the euro zone is getting off lightly in this global downturn,” said Jörg Radeke, an economist at the Center for Economics and Business Research in London. Until recently, some economists had thought that Europe might suffer less from the recession, which started in the United States before spreading to most of the rest of the world. While home prices have plunged in some European economies, including Britain, Ireland and Spain, housing markets have held up better elsewhere in Europe. Consumers have also cut back less on their spending in Europe than in the United States. But instead, European industry has been walloped as businesses around the world, and particularly in the United States, cut back on new orders to bring down their inventories. That has hit euro-zone countries hard, particularly Germany, which relies on exports to fuel economic growth. In Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, the economy shrank by 2.1 percent in the final three months of 2008, compared with the third quarter, when it had already contracted by 0.5 percent, according to the federal statistics office. In an effort to arrest the plunge, the lower house of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, approved a 50-billion-euro stimulus plan , which includes new spending measures and tax cuts. Germany was not the only European economy to do worse than analysts had expected in the period. In France, output declined by 1.2 percent, while Italy contracted by 1.8 percent. The data “confirm that the recession in the region is deepening at an alarming rate,” said Jennifer McKeown, an economist at Capital Economics in London. For the euro-zone economy, it was by far the worst quarter since the euro was introduced in 1999, and economists said they would have to go significantly further back in time to find a comparable period. “For Europe, as for the rest of the industrialized world, this is surely the worst downturn since the Second World War,” Mr. Radeke said. Drawing precise historical comparisons for the entire euro zone is challenging because of currency fluctuations before the single currency was introduced and because of incomplete or incompatible data from euro-zone members like Slovenia, which was not an independent country until 1991. But Ms. McKeown said she had run the numbers for the major euro-zone economies back to 1970 and found only one other quarter that was even close to as bad as the latest one: the fourth quarter of 1974, when the economy was reeling from the oil shock and a plunge in stock prices. In that quarter, the main euro-zone economies fell by a combined 1.2 percent. The 1.5 percent decline in the euro-zone economy matches the rate of contraction during the period in Britain, which has been additionally battered by the crisis in the financial sector, on which much of its economy depends. The report from Germany on Friday showed a sharp rise in inventories — indicating that further bad news was in store for the first quarter, economists said. That will give finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, including the new United States Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, plenty to discuss this weekend during meetings in Rome. Among other things, the officials were expected to look at proposals for new financial market regulations and concerns about rising protectionist sentiment in some countries. As the officials arrived on Friday, tens of thousands of workers marched through the streets of the Italian capital, snarling traffic and demanding action to ameliorate the crisis. With three consecutive quarters of declining output, Italy has been in a slump longer than some of its neighbors, like France, where the economy actually eked out a small gain in the third quarter. “Compared to other countries, not enough has been done,” Mauro Bianchi, a representative of the CGIL union, told The Associated Press. “They are trying to cure a serious illness with aspirin.” While Italy is in particularly bad shape, the severity of the downturn across the euro zone was driven home by the report Friday. On an annualized basis, economists said, the 1.5 percent decline in output would amount to a drop of roughly 6 percent — a significantly bigger fall than the 3.8 percent annual rate of contraction in the United States during the fourth quarter. On a year-over-year basis, Europe also performed more poorly than the United States in the fourth quarter, with gross domestic product falling by 1.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007, compared with a comparable decline of 0.2 percent in the United States. Europe typically lags behind the United States in recovering from recessions, Ms. McKeown said, so any return to growth in the euro zone is probably at least a year away. “We had hoped that the euro zone might not do as badly as the U.S.,” she said. “As it turned out, the slump in the industrial sector has completely turned things around.”

European Union
Economic Conditions and Trends
Recession and Depression


10 Years Later, Chiapas Massacre Still Haunts Mexico

Abstract: ACTEAL, Mexico — It was 10 years ago that gunmen crept down the hillside into the center of this impoverished Indian village in Chiapas State. By the time they fled hours later, the attackers had littered the ground with bullet casings and killed 45 innocent people, including 21 women and 15 children. Since the Acteal massacre, on Dec. 22, 1997, dozens of people have been arrested and convicted. But the case remains as foggy as the community, which is so high in the hills that clouds sometimes linger at ground level and the lush vegetation can disappear into the haze. Then-President Ernesto Zedillo, reacting to international outrage over the killings, ordered an aggressive investigation. What prosecutors found was ugly: While local government officials and police officers had not wielded the weapons that day, they had allowed the slaughter to occur and tampered with the crime scene afterward. The killers had been members of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The victims were Roman Catholic advocates from a group called Las Abejas, or The Bees, who sympathized with the Zapatista rebels who were in open revolt in Chiapas. All involved were poor Tzotzil Indians, many of them related. A decade after the massacre, the Tzotzil live side by side but divided. In one group, the one that backs the PRI, many of the men have been sent to prison for the killings. The others, from the Abejas group, who live down the road, insist that even more killers are at large. Meanwhile, Mexico’s courts struggle to handle what has grown into one of the country’s longest and most complex cases. A dozen judges have been involved in the trials and, now, the appeals of their convictions. A year ago, the public interest law clinic at Mexico City’s Center for Investigation and Economic Studies began defending those convicted of taking part in the massacre. Lawyers say they have found that outrage over what happened to the innocents that day led to more abuses. They describe an effort to round up anyone, which sent many other innocent people to prison. “The Acteal case shows all the problems of Mexico’s criminal justice system,” said Javier Angulo, who teaches constitutional law at the center and supervises a team of students who are representing the Acteal defendants. “We solved the problem of the Acteal massacre by creating other problems and arresting people who did nothing at all.” The case is an ideal one, Mr. Angulo argues, to show law students that every defendant ought to be treated fairly, even if there is great public dismay over a particular crime. “This is the most complicated case in Mexico,” he said in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas State, as he prepared to appeal the convictions of some of the men. “It’s possible that in 10 more years we’ll still be talking about what really happened in Acteal.” The details of the case have been exaggerated and mythologized in so many ways, he said. The number of killers, which he puts at nine, has grown to hundreds in some people’s estimation. Witnesses who in their first interviews could not name any of the attackers later gave authorities detailed lists of the men who fired the guns. The early version of the attack, that the victims of Acteal were gunned down while praying in a church, had been exaggerated to give an awful act an even more sinister resonance, he said. Advocates for the people who died at Acteal express fury at those who dare to defend the accused. “They tell so many lies,” said Diego Pérez Jiménez, president of the Abejas group, who is pushing the government for compensation for the families of the deceased. “These guys in jail were killers, and there are more killers out there. That’s the truth.” One thing is clear, that the long judicial process has done little to ease the tension in the hills. Estela Luna Vásquez, 39, whose husband received a 36-year sentence for taking part in the Acteal massacre, insists that he was home with her on the afternoon of Dec. 22 when she heard all that gunfire down the road. She struggles, she said, to contain her hatred of those who accused her husband, including a cousin of hers who backs the Zapatistas. “They want us all in jail,” she said, speaking through a Tzotzil interpreter. As she spoke recently, her two teenage daughters were scurrying around the kitchen preparing corn tortillas over an open fire. “I’d never allow my daughters to marry one of them,” she said of the Tzotzil Indians who live down the road. “I’d tell them: ‘They put your father in jail. How could you love one of them?’” At the maximum security prison in Cintalapa, the director, Fernando Estrada Reyna, denied a visitor access to any Acteal prisoners without written permission from the governor. “This is a delicate case,” he said. “We can’t let you in. They’ll take my head off. They won’t just take my job. They’ll throw me in this jail as a prisoner if I let you in.” He could not stop a prisoner, however, from calling out. Agostín Gómez Pérez, sentenced to 36 years for taking part in the massacre in Acteal, insisted on a prison telephone that the judge who had heard his case had ignored his alibi and considered him guilty from the start. His case is one of those the defense lawyers are appealing. “What happened in Acteal is very sad,” he said, adding that he had learned many of the details from four fellow convicts who had confessed to taking part. “But I wasn’t involved in it. I didn’t kill a soul. I’ve been here for 10 years paying for the sins of others.” But the words of a survivor of the attack are just as haunting. “Nothing calms the pain, from 10 years ago to today,” Catarina Méndez, who was shot seven times in the massacre, told El Universal newspaper recently. “Bad leaders organized that which we lived back then. For the good of everyone, we need help pushing justice and truth.”

Chiapas (Mexico)
Institutional Revolutionary Party
Crime and Criminals
Decisions and Verdicts


A Wide Gulf on Open Access to Federally Financed Research

Abstract: During the next few weeks, the Obama administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy will submit to Congress a progress report on its search for a balanced approach to the contentious and complex question of how government-financed scientific research should be disseminated in the digital age. Advocates of “open access,” who include many scientists, libraries and universities, say that reports of scientific discoveries paid for by government grants should be made available on the Web immediately and without charge to anyone who wants to see them. Opponents, which include many private and nonprofit publishers and many professional societies, argue that an unfettered policy would bankrupt journals and make a shambles of the peer-review and article selection system that has served the world scientific community for centuries. Both sides have bills pending before Congress, and both have bipartisan support, but sponsors of legislation favored by publishers said Monday that they would not push their bill in this session, and neither measure seemed likely to move forward in an election year. Despite the lack of movement, current evidence suggests that Congress has little enthusiasm for either extreme — full open access or an affirmation of the traditional system. Instead it appears to be moving toward a middle ground. The Obama administration’s report will take an even more measured approach and is not expected to make specific recommendations. “We are developing policy objectives,” said Michael Stebbins, the assistant director for biotechnology in the Office of Science and Technology Policy who is helping oversee the report’s preparation. “We would like to maximize the availability of the results of federally funded research to get the most out of public investments, but want to balance that need against any potential harm that policies might have on publishers.” The battle over scientific publishing was joined a decade ago when researchers realized that the Internet rendered obsolete the core of the traditional business model — that dissemination of key discoveries could be accomplished only by mailing out results in hard-copy journals. Publishers recouped their costs and made their profits through subscriptions and advertising. The Internet brought a clamor from many scientists and interest groups for open access — making papers instantly available on the Web. Michael B. Eisen, a molecular biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a founder of the open-access Public Library of Science , argues that with the advent of the digital age, “the notion that the good of science is served in any way by giving it to publishers evaporates.” Commercial publishers, and many nonprofits, however, emphasize that their role extends far beyond merely mailing out scientific reports. The journals convene peer-review panels, select the papers and edit them. If the government required open-access publication of these carefully prepared research papers, it would be “infringing upon and taking without compensation the added value the journal provides,” said Allan R. Adler, vice president for legal and governmental affairs for the Association of American Publishers. The federal government, in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, established a legislative starting point to deal with this impasse, requiring researchers financed by the National Institutes of Health — $25.7 billion in grants annually — to post their final peer-reviewed papers on its free-access Web archive PubMed Central no later than a year after publication. Scientists who wanted the new papers immediately could get them by subscription or by paying publishers a premium for electronic copies. The program appears to be a success. Well over a million researchers and interested nonscientists are using PubMed Central every day, and publishers are not going bankrupt, although Mr. Adler warned that it was too early to assess the damage the policy is causing their industry. And open-access advocates are not satisfied with the N.I.H. model because it falls short of true open access and, in Dr. Eisen’s words, is thus “not enough.” The debate between these two extremes has been remarkably vitriolic, in part, perhaps, because neither side has been completely honest. Mr. Adler would not discuss publishers’ profit margins, and open-access advocates frequently say that the journals are low-overhead cash cows that are gouging the public. Open-access scientists, on the other hand, are less than candid about how important it is to their careers to be published in prominent traditional journals. If scientists truly wished to kill the system, all they would have to do is withhold submissions. It was this nasty standoff in part that prompted the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in 2010 to assemble a task force of stakeholders to ask the White House to review the debate and present options. Publishers were also afraid that the Obama administration was going to impose an open-access policy without consulting them. “No one was satisfied with the way this was going — folks from all sides were coming to us,” said Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat and former Science Committee chairman now retired from Congress. “We were most of all a convener, and tried to do it outside the spotlight so people didn’t have to posture as much.” The results of their work appeared in the America Competes Reauthorization Act last year, calling on the administration to prepare the coming report on possible dissemination policies for all government agencies with an annual research budget of $100 million or more. There are about a dozen of these. In December, with the administration’s deadline approaching, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, a committee member, introduced the Research Works Act, which would prohibit federal agencies from disseminating research without the prior consent of the publisher. The bill tracked closely with similar 2008 legislation — never brought to a vote — that sought to roll back the N.I.H. experiment as an infringement of publisher-held copyrights. The Research Works Act appeared to do the same thing. Then early this month, both the Senate and House introduced a competing bill, the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012, another measure with antecedents in past Congresses, which essentially extends the N.I.H. program to all federal agencies with outside research budgets of $100 million or more, and limits the embargo on public access to six months. Neither bill is expected to move forward this year. Mr. Issa and Ms. Maloney said in a statement on Monday that they “will not be taking legislative action” on the Research Works Act, which has no other sponsors. They acknowledged that greater public access “appears to be the wave of the future,” but emphasized that the transition must be “collaborative” and “must respect copyright law.” The Issa-Maloney statement coincided Monday with the announcement by Elsevier, the Amsterdam-based publisher of about 2,000 scientific journals and a leading backer of the Research Works Act, that it was withdrawing its backing for the bill, “although we continue to oppose government mandates in this area.” More than 5,700 researchers had joined a boycott of Elsevier , in part for its support of the bill. The Public Access Act (two House sponsors) is in a different position. Some supporters may regard it as a way station on the legislative road to full open access at a later time, but its Congressional backers have a different idea. For them, the N.I.H. is a viable model and the Public Access Act, or something like it, could be the last word. “We’re not looking to put publishers out of business,” said Representative Mike Doyle, the Pennsylvania Democrat who introduced the bill. “My purpose is not to go to complete open-access. We see the bill as a reasonable middle ground. The N.I.H. is proving that it works.”

Office of Science and Technology Policy
National Institutes of Health
Assn of American Publishers
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Reed Elsevier N.V
Law and Legislation
Science and Technology
Issa Darrell E
Maloney Carolyn B
Research


Events in New Jersey for March 30-April 5

Abstract: A guide to cultural and recreational events in New Jersey. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to njtowns@nytimes.com. Comedy BOONTON Maxfield’s On Main Liberty Comedy, stand-up comedians from late-night television and Comedy Central. April 1 at 8:30 p.m. $10. Maxfield’s On Main, 713 Main Street. (973) 588-4450; maxfieldsonmain.com. RAHWAY Union County Performing Arts Center Mixtape Comedy Tour: Royale Watkins, Mark Viera, Rudy Rush and JJ Williamson. April 5 at 8 p.m. $25 to $45. Union County Performing Arts Center, 1601 Irving Street. (732) 499-8226; ucpac.org. Film ATLANTIC CITY Resorts Hotel and Casino Garden State Film Festival: “Chasing Fairy Tail,” poking fun at fairy tales and happily ever after. April 5 at 2:45 p.m. $12; $60 festival pass. “Red Gold,” Indian crime drama. April 5 at 8 p.m. $12; $60 festival pass. Resorts Hotel and Casino, 1133 Boardwalk. (877) 908-7050; gsff.org. RED BANK Count Basie Theater “RE:IMAGE,” short film festival. April 6 at 11 a.m. $8 to $12. Count Basie Theater, 99 Monmouth Street. countbasietheatre.org; (732) 842-9000. For Children MADISON Museum of Early Trades and Crafts Stuffed Animal Sleepover. Bring your favorite stuffed animal or doll for a snack and a sleepover. Ages 2 to 6. March 31 and April 1. $3. Museum of Early Trades and Crafts, 9 Main Street. metc.org; (973) 377-2982. MORRISTOWN Haggerty Education Center, Frelinghuysen Arboretum Garden Sprouts, preschool nature program. Mondays at 11 a.m. through March 31. $5 and $7. Haggerty Education Center, Frelinghuysen Arboretum, 353 East Hanover Avenue. (973) 326-7600; arboretumfriends.org/events. MORRISTOWN Mayo Performing Arts Center “Are You My Mother?”; musical based on the book. April 2 at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. $12. The Laurie Berkner Band. April 5 at 1:30 p.m. $29 to $100. Dinosaur Zoo Live, puppets. April 8 and 9. $12 to $15. Mayo Performing Arts Center, 100 South Street. (973) 539-8008; mayoarts.org. Music and Dance ASBURY PARK The Saint “Jersey Shore Cigar Box Music Fest,” performers, vendors and a traveling cigar box museum. March 30 at 5 p.m. $10 and $13. The Saint, 601 Main Street. thesaintnj.com; (732) 775-9144. BERKELEY HEIGHTS Judith G. Wharton Music Center “Chess the Musical,” Berkeley Light Opera Company. March 30 through April 6. $25. Judith G. Wharton Music Center, 60 Locust Avenue. (908) 790-0700; (908) 790-0700; alliancerep.org. EAST RUTHERFORD Izod Center Miley Cyrus, pop. April 3 at 7 p.m. $49.50 to $89.50. Izod Center, 50 Route 120. (201) 935-3900; izodcenter.com. MORRIS TOWNSHIP Bickford Theater “Spring Fling,” 85-voice Morris Choral Society’s annual spring concert; including works by George Gershwin, Dave Brubeck and Andrew Lloyd Webber. April 6 at 3 p.m. $20 to $25. Bickford Theater, 6 Normandy Heights Road. (973) 971-3706; morrismuseum.org. MORRISTOWN Mayo Performing Arts Center New Jersey Jazz Society presents Bria Skonberg, with Tia Fuller. March 30 at 3 p.m. $20. New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Verdi’s “Requiem,” Jacques Lacombe, conductor. April 6 at 3 p.m. $20 to $90. For tickets: njsymphony.org; (973) 624-3713. Mayo Performing Arts Center, 100 South Street. (973) 539-8008; mayoarts.org. MORRISTOWN Morristown United Methodist Church Water Music, featuring F. Allen Artz III, organist, and the Chancel Chorus, under the direction of June Van Thoen. April 5 at 7:30 p.m. $12 to $20. Benefit concert featuring Don Henry, singer-songwriter. April 6 at 7 p.m. $15; children under 8 free. Morristown United Methodist Church, 50 Park Place. (973) 538-2132; morristownumc.com. MORRISTOWN The Minstrel, Morristown Unitarian Fellowship Jack Williams, folk. April 4 at 8 p.m. $8; 12 and under free. The Minstrel, Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, 21 Normandy Heights Road. (973) 335-9489; folkproject.org. NEW BRUNSWICK State Theater Brit Floyd, tribute to Pink Floyd. April 1 at 8 p.m. $30 to $60. New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents Verdi’s “Requiem,” Jacques Lacombe, conductor. April 5 at 8 p.m. $20 to $85. For tickets: (973) 624-3713; njsymphony.org. One Night of Queen: Gary Mullen and the Works. April 6 at 7 p.m. $30 to $60. State Theater, 15 Livingston Avenue. (732) 246-7469; statetheatrenj.org. NEWARK Prudential Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Verdi’s “Requiem,” Jacques Lacombe, conductor. April 3 at 1:30 p.m. $20 to $85. For tickets: (973) 624-3713; njsymphony.org. Prudential Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street. (888) 466-5722; njpac.org. NEWARK Victoria Theater, New Jersey Performing Arts Center An Acoustic Evening With Jon Anderson, pop-rock. March 30 at 7 p.m. $59.50. Victoria Theater, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street. njpac.org; (888) 466-5722. PRINCETON Richardson Auditorium Princeton Symphony Orchestra Classical Series: Nights and Dreams, featuring the premiere of Julian Grant’s “Dances in the Dark,” and the guest artists Dominic Armstrong, tenor, and Eric Ruske, French horn. March 30 at 4 p.m. $25 to $75. princeton.edu/richaud/; (258) 258-2800. Princeton University Concerts presents the Nash Ensemble of London, featuring the world premiere of “Trains of Thought” by Viet Cuong, a Princeton graduate student, as well as music by Smetana, Schumann, Dvorak and Shostakovich. April 3, 8 to 10 p.m. $5 to $45. Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on the Princeton campus. princetonuniversityconcerts.org; (609) 258-9220. RED BANK Count Basie Theater Monmouth Symphony Orchestra: winner of the 2013 Goldwasser Young Artist Concerto Competition. March 30 at 3 p.m. $5 to $35. Count Basie Theater, 99 Monmouth Street. countbasietheatre.org; (732) 842-9000. RIDGEWOOD West Side Presbyterian Church Nicholas Canellakis, cellist, Arnaud Sussmann, violinist, and Alessio Bax, pianist. March 30, 4 to 6 p.m. $20 to $40. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. West Side Presbyterian Church, 6 South Monroe Street. westside.org; (201) 652-1966. SOUTH ORANGE South Orange Performing Arts Center Jazz Knights of West Point, big band favorites, popular music and original compositions and arrangements for jazz ensemble. April 2 at 7:30 p.m. Free. Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, “The Legacy Project.” April 10 at 7:30 p.m. $20 to $30. South Orange Performing Arts Center, 1 Sopac Way. (973) 313-2787; sopacnow.org. UNION Wilkins Theater, Kean University 4 Girls 4: Andrea McArdle, Maureen McGovern, Donna McKechnie and Faith Prince, performing hits from their Broadway shows. April 6 at 3 p.m. $20 and $30. Wilkins Theater, Kean University, 1000 Morris Avenue. (908) 737-7469; keanstage.com. WEST LONG BRANCH Pollak Theater, Monmouth University Ethel, string quartet, featuring Kaki King, guitarist. April 4 at 7:30 p.m. $25 and $37. Pollak Theater, Monmouth University, 400 Cedar Avenue. (732) 263-6889; monmouth.edu/events/arts.aspx. Image WESTWOOD “Ensete Superbum” (2014), dye sublimation print on metal, is in “Jonathan Singer: Photographs on Metal,” an exhibition at the Westwood Art Gallery, 10 Westwood Avenue, on display through May 4. For further information: (201) 666-1800; westwoodartgallery.com . Credit Jonathan Singer Spoken Word CAMDEN Rutgers — Camden Center for the Arts “Camden Comic Con,” guest creators and artists, panel discussions, vendors, live music, family activities. April 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. Rutgers — Camden Center for the Arts, Third Street. (856) 225-6202; camdencomiccon.tumblr.com. HOBOKEN Hoboken Historical Museum “Something Old, Something New (Jersey),” showcase presented by CavanKerry Press and the Hoboken Historical Museum to celebrate New Jersey’s 350th anniversary, with readings by prominent poets. April 6, 3 to 5 p.m. Free. Hoboken Historical Museum, 1301 Hudson Street. hobokenmuseum.org; (201) 656-2240. MADISON Museum of Early Trades and Crafts “A Loyalist Farmstead in a World Turned Upside Down,” lecture by Donald Sherblom. March 30 at 2 p.m. $3 to $7. Museum of Early Trades and Crafts, 9 Main Street. (973) 377-2982; metc.org. PATERSON Hamilton Club Building Readings by the finalists, 2013 Paterson Poetry Prize Awards. April 5, at 1 p.m. Poetry-writing workshop, 10 a.m. April 5. Free; $15 for workshop. Hamilton Club Building, 32 Church Street (at Ellison Street). (973) 684-6555. RIDGEWOOD Unitarian Society of Ridgewood “Self and Society: An Emersonian Reflection,” a discussion with John Matteson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.” April 3 at 7 p.m. $10 to $20. Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, 113 Cottage Place. (201) 444-6225; uuridgewood.org. Theater HAMPTON Hunterdon Hills Playhouse “Busybody,” comedy-mystery by Jack Popplewell. Through May 22. $50.50 and $63.50; includes entree and desserts. Hunterdon Hills Playhouse, 88 Route 173 West. hhplayhouse.com; (800) 447-7313. HOBOKEN Performance Space at The Hudson School “As Bees in Honey Drown,” comedy by Douglas Carter Beane, the Hudson Theater Ensemble. April 4 through 13. $15 and $20. Performance Space at the Hudson School, 601 Park Avenue. hudsontheatreensemble.com; (201) 377-7014. LONG BRANCH New Jersey Repertory Company, Lumia Theater “Date of a Lifetime,” musical comedy. Through April 6. $25 to $42. New Jersey Repertory Company, Lumia Theater, 179 Broadway. (732) 229-3166; njrep.org. NEW BRUNSWICK Crossroads Theater “Lift,” drama by Walter Mosley. April 10 through 24. $10 to $65. Crossroads Theater, 7 Livingston Avenue. (732) 545-8100; crossroadstheatrecompany.org. NEW BRUNSWICK George Street Playhouse “I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti,” adapted by Jacques Lamarre from the memoir by Giulia Melucci. Through April 6. $20 to $102. George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue. (732) 246-7717; gsponline.org. ORADELL Bergen County Players, Little Firehouse Theater “To Kill a Mockingbird,” based on the Harper Lee novel. Through April 12. $16 and $20. Bergen County Players, Little Firehouse Theater, 298 Kinderkamack Road. bcplayers.org; (201) 261-4200. PRINCETON McCarter Theater Center The Figaro Plays: “The Barber of Seville,” by Pierre Beaumarchais, adapted and directed by Stephen Wadsworth. April 1 through May 4. $20 to $65. McCarter Theater Center, 91 University Place. (609) 258-2787; mccarter.org. RAHWAY Union County Performing Arts Center “The Scene,” a dark comedy by Theresa Rebeck. April 4 through 13. $25. Union County Performing Arts Center, 1601 Irving Street. (732) 499-8226; ucpac.org. WEST ORANGE Luna Stage “Marisol,” urban fantasy by José Rivera. April 10 through May 11. $25 to $35. Luna Stage, 555 Valley Road. (973) 395-5551; lunastage.org. Museums and Galleries BOUND BROOK Hamilton Street Gallery “The New Scroll,” examining the traditional format of the scroll in light of 21st-century technologies. Through April 10. Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 5 to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 1 to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. Hamilton Street Gallery, 6 Hamilton Street. (732) 748-2092; hamiltonstreetgallery.com. CAMDEN Fine Arts Complex, Rutgers — Camden campus “Compulsive Narratives: Stories That Must Be Told, the Graphic Novel as Confession and Inspiration.” Through April 26. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Rutgers-Camden campus, Fine Arts Complex, on Third Street between Cooper Street and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. (856) 225-6245; rcca.camden.rutgers.edu. CLIFTON Clifton Arts Center “In the Style of ...” group show. Through April 12. $3. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m. Clifton Arts Center, 900 Clifton Avenue. (973) 472-5499. CLINTON Hunterdon Art Museum “Glass! From the Wheaton Arts Museum of American Glass.” Through May 11. $5 suggested donation. Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street. hunterdonartmuseum.org; (908) 735-8415. ENGLEWOOD Bergen Performing Arts Center “Salute to Women in the Arts @40,” group show. April 1 through 29. Bergen Performing Arts Center, 30 North Van Brunt Street. (201) 503-8324; bergenpac.org. ENGLEWOOD Mark Gallery “America’s Women,” paintings and works on paper by America Martin. April 5 through May 22. Reception: April 5, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mark Gallery, 11 Grand Avenue. mark-gallery.com; (201) 568-6275. EWING The College of New Jersey “Art Amongst War: Visual Culture in Afghanistan, 1979-2014,” interdisciplinary exhibition and series of five public programs examining the effects of 35 years of war in Afghanistan on its visual culture. Through April 17. Tuesdays through Thursdays, noon to 7 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 3 p.m. The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road. (609) 771-2633; tcnj.edu/artgallery. FREEHOLD Monmouth County Historical Association Museum and Library “Properly Dressed: Art and Reality in 18th- and Early-19th-Century Dress in Monmouth.” Through Aug. 2. $5 regular admission, $2.50 seniors and students. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monmouth County Historical Association Museum and Library, 70 Court Street. (732) 462-1466; monmouthhistory.org. HALEDON American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark “Outsourced!” Mixed-technique-on-paper images by Robin Holder. Through April 26. $3 to $5 suggested donation; members and children under 12, free. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m., or by appointment. American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark, 83 Norwood Street. (973) 595-7953; labormuseum.org. HOBOKEN Monroe Art Center “Luminescent,” experimental works of ebony, monolith graphite pencil and ink drawings on Mylar by Starr Tucker-Ortega. Through March 30. Thursdays through Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. and by appointment.Monroe Art Center, 720 Monroe Street. (201) 795-5000; monroecenter.com. MADISON Drew University “Palestinian Textiles,” from the collection of Robert J. and Vivian A. Bull at the Korn Gallery. Through April 24. Reception: April 4, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Drew University, 36 Madison Avenue. (973) 408–3758; drew.edu/korngallery. Image SHREWSBURY “Shoe Lace” (2013) by Marilyn Baldi is in “Eyesights 2014,” a juried photography exhibition, at the Guild of Creative Art, 620 Broad Street, on display through April 2. For further information: (732) 741-1441; guildofcreativeart.org . Credit Marilyn Baldi MADISON Museum of Early Trades and Crafts “The American Revolution in New Jersey: Where the Battlefront Meets the Homefront.” Through Feb. 13, 2015. $3 to $13; free for members. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Museum of Early Trades and Crafts, 9 Main Street. (973) 377-2982; metc.org. MAHWAH Mahwah Museum “Neighborhoods of Mahwah.” Through June 29. $3 to $5; members and children under 5, free. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Mahwah Museum, 201 Franklin Turnpike. (201) 512-0099; mahwahmuseum.org. MONTCLAIR George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University “Jersey Women Artists Now: Contemporary Visions,” works by 18 female artists who live or work in New Jersey. Through April 19. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 12:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University, 1 University Promenade. (973) 655-3382; montclair.edu/arts. MONTCLAIR Montclair Art Museum “Robert Smithson’s New Jersey,” sculptures, works on paper, photographs and other conceptual art. Through June 22. “100 Works for 100 Years,” centennial exhibition. Through July 31. “Spencer Finch: Yellow,” site-specific installation for the museum’s facade. Through July 31. $12 adults, $10 seniors and students; members and children under 12, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Montclair Art Museum, 3 South Mountain Avenue. (973) 746-5555; montclairartmuseum.org. MORRIS TOWNSHIP Morris Museum “Beards: The Long and Short of It,” exploring men’s facial hair trends in America. Through March 30. $7 to $10. “Egg-Zibit: The Art, Science and Culture of Eggs.” Through April 20. $7 to $10. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Morris Museum, 6 Normandy Heights Road. (973) 971-3700; morrismuseum.org. MORRIS TOWNSHIP Therese A. Maloney Art Gallery, College of Saint Elizabeth “A Moveable Feast: Art, Food and Migration.” Thirty-two contemporary artists explore the effects of travel and migration on food, cooking and dining. Through May 4. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, 2 to 6 p.m. Therese A. Maloney Art Gallery, College of Saint Elizabeth, 2 Convent Road. maloneyartgallery.org; (973) 290-4315. MORRISTOWN Gallery at 14 Maple “Capturing Nature,” Natalia Margulis and Joseph Losavio. April 3 through Aug. 27. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Fridays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and by appointment. Gallery at 14 Maple, 14 Maple Avenue. morrisarts.org; (973) 285-5115. MORRISTOWN Haggerty Education Center, Frelinghuysen Arboretum “From the Artists Eye,” a collection of watercolors and oils in floral, landscape and nature scenes. April 4 through 30. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Haggerty Education Center, Frelinghuysen Arboretum, 353 East Hanover Avenue. (973) 326-7600; arboretumfriends.org/events. MORRISTOWN Macculloch Hall Historical Museum “Thomas Nast Brings Down Boss Tweed,” political cartoons. Through Aug. 3. $6 to $8; children 6 to 12, $4; children under 5, free. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, 45 Macculloch Avenue. maccullochhall.org; (973) 538-2404. NEW BRUNSWICK Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum “Maples in the Mist: Chinese Poems for Children, Illustrated by Jean and Mou-sien Tseng.” Through June 22. Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. “Striking Resemblance: The Changing Art of Portraiture.” Through July 13. General hours: Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton Street. (848) 932-7237; zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu. NEW BRUNSWICK Museum of the American Hungarian Foundation “Eva Zeisel: Life, Design and Beauty,” modern industrial design. Through June 29. Donation: $5. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Museum of the American Hungarian Foundation, 300 Somerset Street. (732) 846-5777; hstrial-pfazekaz.homestead.com. NEWARK The Newark Museum “American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell.” Through May 26. “Papyraceous: Recent Acquisitions, Contemporary Works on Paper,” printmaking, collaging, drawing and painting. Through June 29. “City of Silver and Gold From Tiffany to Cartier,” including the original Vince Lombardi Trophy, as well as more than 100 objects documenting the rise of the city’s gold and silver industry. Trophy on view through March 30; the balance of the exhibition through 2015. $7 and $12; members, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. The Newark Museum, 49 Washington Street. (973) 596-6550; newarkmuseum.org. PENNINGTON Silva Gallery of Art “5: Five Artists, Five Visions,” group show. Through April 25. Reception: April 11, 6 to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Silva Gallery of Art, Pennington School, 112 West Delaware Avenue. pennington.org/silva-gallery-of-art; (609) 737- 4133. PRINCETON Princeton University Art Museum “500 Years of Italian Master Drawings From the Princeton University Art Museum.” Through May 11. “Installation of Outdoor Sculpture by Alexander Calder.” Through June 15. “Edvard Munch: Symbolism in Print,” 26 compositions in various printmaking techniques. Through June 8. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton campus. artmuseum.princeton.edu; (609) 258-3788. PRINCETON Princeton University Library “From a Thankful Nation: The Robert L. Ross Collection of Latin American Orders and Medals.” Through Aug. 3. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Princeton University Library, 1 Washington Road. princeton.edu/rbsc/; (609) 258-3184. PRINCETON The Jewish Center of Princeton “Exploring Abstraction,” recent paintings by Gilda K. Aronovic. Through March 30. The Jewish Center of Princeton, 453 Nassau Street. (609) 921-0100; thejewishcenter.org. PRINCETON JUNCTION West Windsor Arts Center “What the Fiber!” fiber arts. Through May 2. West Windsor Arts Center, 952 Alexander Road. (609) 716-1931; westwindsorartscenter.org. RIVERDALE Riverdale Public Library David John Rush, watercolors and oils. April 1 through 28. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Riverdale Public Library, 93 Newark-Pompton Turnpike. (973) 835-5044. SHREWSBURY Guild of Creative Art “Eyesights 2014,” juried photography show. Through April 2. Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Guild of Creative Art, 620 Broad Street. guildofcreativeart.org; (732) 741-1441. STONE HARBOR William Ris Gallery “Flora, Fauna and Far East,” paintings by Jane Hartley. Through April 30. Sundays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. William Ris Gallery, 9400 Second Avenue. williamris.com; (609) 368-6361. SUMMIT Visual Arts Center of New Jersey “Women Choose Women Again,” group show. Through April 13. Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, 68 Elm Street. artcenternj.org; (908) 273-9121. TEANECK Puffin Cultural Forum Photographs of the women’s liberation movement by Bev Grant. Through March 31. Tuesdays through Thursdays, noon to 4 p.m. Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way. (201) 836-3499; puffinculturalforum.org. TRENTON New Jersey State Museum “Artists of Roosevelt.” Through May 25. Suggested admission, $5. Tuesdays through Sundays, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. New Jersey State Museum, 205 West State Street. (609) 292-6464; statemuseum.nj.gov. WEST ORANGE Luna Stage “Goddess on Earth: Women of Essex County,” multimedia installations by Lisa Levart, a photographer. Through May 11. Free. Luna Stage, 555 Valley Road. (973) 395-5551. lunastage.org. WESTWOOD Westwood Art Gallery “Jonathan Singer: Photographs on Metal,” floral images printed by dye sublimation into aluminum. Through May 4. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Westwood Art Gallery, 10 Westwood Avenue. westwoodartgallery.com; (201) 666-1800.


Connecticut Defeats Michigan State to Advance to the Final Four

Abstract: Kevin Ollie, the Connecticut coach, organized a field trip during his team’s jaunt through Texas in early January. Taking a break from basketball, the Huskies visited AT&T Stadium, the site of this year’s Final Four. The stands were empty, but Ollie envisioned them full. He glanced at the enormous scoreboard and imagined seeing his players’ faces, hearing their names announced. If they worked hard and listened to him and the coaching staff, he told them, they would return a few months later. His players, barred from postseason play last season because of their predecessors’ poor academic performance, remembered Ollie’s words. The Huskies remembered them through every loss, through every practice and every sprint, and they remembered them again Sunday, when UConn completed its third consecutive upset, a 60-54 victory over Michigan State in the East Regional final. It was as if half the Nutmeg State had decamped for Madison Square Garden to witness UConn’s revival, so loud was the crowd that chanted and urged on its team, cheering every rebound by DeAndre Daniels, every steal by Ryan Boatright, every jumper by Shabazz Napier, who led all scorers with 25 points and was voted the most outstanding player of the regional. When Ollie finished cutting down the net and swung his piece toward the fans, he waved his hand and cupped his ear, pleading for them to cheer even louder. They did. Image Michigan State’s loss means Adreian Payne, center, as well as Keith Appling and Dan Chapman are the first four-year seniors to never reach a Final Four in Tom Izzo’s 20 seasons as the Spartans’ coach. Credit Ben Solomon for The New York Times Many of them, presumably, will flood North Texas this week for UConn’s return to AT&T Stadium, just as Ollie promised. En route to its third Final Four in six years, UConn toppled the region’s second (Villanova), third (Iowa State) and fourth (Michigan State) seeds, becoming the first No. 7 seed in 30 years to make the national semifinals. It will next play Florida, the No. 1 overall seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, which has won 30 straight games. The Gators’ last loss? To UConn, back in December. “We’re a 7 seed?” center Phillip Nolan said, smiling. “Oh, I thought we were a 1 seed.” It was easy to be confused this weekend at the Garden, where UConn’s surge evoked that of the underdog 2011 team, which, after trampling five teams in five days to win the Big East title, won the national championship three weeks later. Like that bunch, these Huskies were led by a transcendent guard, Napier, who dominated opponents just as his mentor Kemba Walker did. After Michigan State — which last led with 12 minutes 38 seconds left — narrowed the gap to 53-51, Napier was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 30.6 seconds left. He made all three free throws, all nine for the game. “When you have the best player on the court at the end of the game, you’re going to win a lot of games,” said Jim Calhoun, the former UConn coach, “and we had the best player on the court just about every game this year.” The Spartans played “weary,” as if “walking in quicksand,” said Coach Tom Izzo, who added that “a couple times I came out of the huddle and I was shaking my head, like I haven’t seen this before.” They entered the tournament at full strength, regaining their equilibrium after a 5-7 stretch that left the student body restless, but Sunday they committed 16 turnovers and were unable to establish a consistent presence in the lane, where the Spartans scored 6 points. This is the first senior class in Izzo’s 19 seasons not to have reached a Final Four. “It was on my mind a lot,” said Adreian Payne, one of those seniors. “Every huddle.” That class will also leave Michigan State 0-3 against UConn, which beat the Spartans in 2010 and in their opener last season, Ollie’s first game as coach. It is not easy replacing a legend. There are expectations, and there is pressure, especially when that job is at the successor’s alma mater. Compounding the challenge, Ollie inherited a team that had been banished during realignment, to the American Athletic Conference, and that knew from the outset that it would not play in the postseason. In the final seconds Sunday, Ollie patrolled the sideline pounding his chest, over and over, as if he were either atoning for his sins or reminding his players how they had arrived at that point. On the whiteboard in the Huskies’ locker room, Ollie had scrawled six keys to the game, including: Workmanlike attitude. Communicate. Rebound. The last, in all capital letters, read: fist. Video Connecticut’s Ryan Boatright talks about a trip to At&T Stadium, site of the Final Four, earlier this season. Michigan State’s Travis Trice talks about the seniors’ failing to make a Final Four. “In down times, what you do is you bond together as brothers,” Ollie said. “And you hold that fist up.” Napier and Daniels and Boatright did not think about transferring. They pledged their loyalty to UConn, to one another and the coaching staff and those who elevated the program before them. That loyalty was rewarded Sunday, when former stars like Ben Gordon, Richard Hamilton and Emeka Okafor were in the stands. They returned to offer support but also because they sensed what could be. This was UConn playing in New York, at the Garden, site of so many fond memories. In the locker room afterward, Khalid El-Amin strolled in with Boatright, and the two point guards shared a poignant moment. El-Amin pulled him close and said, “Keep going.” Hamilton said: “We’re Connecticut. We’ve won championships. We know how to win. We know how to win big games.” Not long after the latest big win, Ollie finished a television interview and met Calhoun at midcourt. He kissed Calhoun on the cheek and the men embraced, sharing a private conversation. A task awaited. Ollie turned to his assistant Ricky Moore, a guard on the 1999 championship team. “Let’s go cut down some nets,” Ollie told him.

College basketball
University of Connecticut
Michigan State
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness