An Alluring Summer Song, Echoed Through Eight World Cups

Abstract: The World Cup could never get better than this, but I had no way of knowing it in 1982, my first time. The wicked sense of humor of a higher power assembled the greatest talent in one place: Brazil, with three past championships; Italy, with two previous titles; and Argentina, the defending champion. Only one team would advance to the semifinals. Every World Cup has a so-called Group of Death — the most competitive cluster in round-robin play — but that tournament included a second round of group play . This was not a Group of Death; this was a Group of Mass Extinction. Recently appointed a sports columnist, I had suggested to my editors at The New York Times that I cover a chunk of the World Cup. They knew little about this strange sport and its emotional crowds, but they approved my proposal. Because the United States was not in it, they told me to go for the second round and stay through the end. I followed the first round on the Spanish International Network, watching tiny figures flitting across the screen as I twisted the antenna for more clarity. I gleaned a few basics from rudimentary wire service reports. Some days, I would wander over to the Hotalings news stand in Times Square and pick up European papers and clip snippets on soccer. In other words, I was unprepared. By the time I flew into sunny Barcelona, Spain, everybody in the world knew that FIFA was stuck with a mammoth miscalculation. It had placed two second-round groups in the magnificent city that nurtured Dali and Miró, the city transformed by Gaudí , but one group would play its matches at Camp Nou, with its capacity of 115,000, while the other group was in Sarrià, a funky little arena nicknamed La Bombonera (The Candy Box), which held only 44,000. Because Argentina and Italy had performed below expectations in the first round, they were matched with Brazil in the little stadium while that stolid collection of Belgium, Poland and the Soviet Union had qualified for Camp Nou. The schedules were set in stone, with no room for flexibility. The first World Cup match I saw in person was June 28 at Camp Nou, with Poland beating Belgium, as Polish fans waved Solidarnosc (Solidarity) banners, supporting the labor uprising going on at home. Even with this nationalistic fervor, Camp Nou was tepid. The next day, Sarrià quivered with life. The stadium is long gone now, but I remember it as crammed into an urban neighborhood, a version of Boston’s Fenway Park, at least before it was yuppified. On three mad days, it was home to the greatest group ever assembled. The first match was between Argentina, the defending champion, and Italy, which had been racked by a recent gambling scandal. Paolo Rossi, a fleet forward, had been suspended for almost two seasons but was conveniently reinstated in time to compete in Spain. The Italian players were smarting over criticism from their three lackluster draws in the first round. Rossi had failed to score, and there were calls for him to be benched. The news media seats at Sarrià were close to the field, the 10th row or so. After watching from up high at cavernous Camp Nou the night before, I was thrilled to be able to see the features of the players, like the long hair of the Argentines, as they stood for their nearly four-minute-long national anthem. It is often a mistake to judge teams on their national stereotypes, but the World Cup is an international event, with players representing their homelands, and carrying all the baggage of whatever is in the news. The nasty skirmish between Argentina and Britain over islands off the Argentina coast, alternately known as Las Malvinas or the Falklands, had begun on April 2 and ended with Argentina’s surrender June 14. Who really knew how the battles, the sinking of ships, the deaths of countrymen, affected the players? As the anthem played, I watched Diego Armando Maradona, Argentina’s tempestuous prodigy. He was famous for having cried when he was left off the 1978 Argentina team at age 17 because the coach, César Luis Menotti, had thought Maradona was not ready. Host Argentina then won the World Cup without him. Image Argentina’s Diego Maradona in the second round, where he was harried and hacked by the Italian defender Claudio Gentile. Credit Associated Press Now Maradona was standing in Sarrià, all 5 feet 5 inches of him, with thick curly locks. The hope of Argentina, a marked man in every sense. Shortly before this World Cup, Maradona signed a lucrative contract with Barcelona, the powerhouse that played at Camp Nou, and he was under intense pressure to justify his cost. Barça shareholders had already seen him play in his new home in the first round in a foreboding 1-0 loss to Belgium. Sarrià was enemy turf, the home of Barça’s Catalan rival, Espanyol. ‘Not for Ballerinas’ Maradona would be marked by the Italian defender Claudio Gentile, who, I was told, was nicknamed Qaddafi because of his looks, his birth in Libya and his nasty tactics on the field. When the match began, I could hear — hear! — the thud of Gentile’s boots on the shins of Maradona. The Romanian official waved a yellow card at Gentile in the first minute, but that did not deter him from hacking away at Maradona, whether or not the ball was nearby. The cynical tactic was closer to the bull ring than the soccer field, and Maradona began to retaliate and was shown a yellow card in the 35th minute. Maradona began making outrageous flops on the manicured lawn of Sarrià and the referee awarded a free kick after one egregious foul by Gentile. The aggrieved Maradona took the shot but sent it over the goal. His knees bent. He clutched the back of his neck with both hands. He despaired operatically. The Barcelona crowd was not sympathetic. He was having a bad start in his new town, and he knew it. Gentile’s close-order combat was part of the gritty Italian defense catenaccio, the chain or bolt. Italy had not won a World Cup since 1938 and was mocked by fans of other teams, who said that Italy’s methodical defenders did not know what to do with the ball once they stripped it from marauders, but here they responded with stunning counterattack, with skill and speed beyond my comprehension. I had played soccer badly at Jamaica High in New York in the mid-’50s and had been touched by the classic documentary, “Goal!,” about the 1966 World Cup in England. My most recent exposure to the sport had been to watch the aging Cosmos, former stars ending their days like beached whales on a foreign shore. I had never imagined the sport could be conducted at such a pace, bing-bing-bing, like a pinball on speed. When Italy and Argentina were attacking and counterattacking, I was not able to follow the touches, the names and numbers, as they moved over more than 100 yards up and down the field. Italy won, 2-1. The hacking of the little bull from Argentina had paid off. “Soccer is not for ballerinas,” Gentile said. After the match I wondered why I found myself charmed by the brash intrusion of the Italians. Perhaps it was a memory of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who read the Sunday comics on the radio during a newspaper strike when I was a youngster. Or perhaps I was recalling my neighbors across the street in Queens, who kept homemade wine in casks in the basement and spewed pungent Italian curses in their kitchen; plus, they often fed me a starter bowl of pasta before I headed home for my own supper. The beautiful girl in my homeroom in high school. The college bar, summer of ’58, when the jukebox played Domenico Modugno warbling “Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu,” and everybody in the warm beery night sang “Vo-la-re, oh-oh. ...” I’m a New Yorker. Therefore, I’m part Italian. The Heart of the Sport Of course, anybody who follows soccer also becomes part Brazilian. On a day off in Barcelona, I was taking a walk along Las Ramblas, the ancient leafy park with curved tile pathways that undulate like the river that used to trickle down toward the harbor. Hearing a rumble of drums and horns, the shuffle of feet, the throaty roar of Portuguese, I spied a moving mass of varied colors — 20 or 25 musicians, singers, dancers and fans, bobbing their way through the Gothic Quarter, in a slow samba beat. Carnival in July. Their hair styles ranged from blonde to Afro, and many of the women wore abbreviated outfits. Brazilian fans do not fight. They shake their tambourines and their bumbums, making strangers want to dance in their wake. I had my epiphany: Brazil, with the warmth of Pelé, the three championships, the samba beat, jogo bonito (the beautiful game), was the heart of the sport. My assumption as a novice was that Brazil would surely win the tournament. I took myself to Sarrià on July 2 to watch Brazil play Argentina, the best soccer rivalry of the Americas in their third World Cup meeting. My first glimpse of Brazil was of players going by soccer nicknames like Óscar, Júnior, and Zico and, on the bench, Roberto Dinamite. (Three decades later, I admit it, I still relish typing these names.) The gods came out to play in blue shorts and yellow jerseys. The ball came rocketing from the goal line to a willowy shaggy midfielder named Sócrates, who sent a quick little tiki-taki pass to a teammate, took a couple of slide steps, received the ball in return. Then Sócrates dispatched a laser pass to a teammate with curly locks named Falcão, who raced forward, dodging, evading, keeping the ball in front of him, before unleashing a long floating ball toward the goal, where it was met by the forehead of a human projectile named Zico, who sent a cannonball soaring a few inches above the crossbar. This was some entirely new sport, a blend of ballet and geometry, quick triangles appearing and disappearing, instant decisions by athletes on the move, so graceful and independent, performing intricate maneuvers with a round ball, on the fringes of their feet. Image Paolo Rossi scored six goals in the tournament as Italy won its third title. Credit Associated Press Who were these people? My new mentor, Enrico Jacomini from The Associated Press, filled me in. Sócrates had graduated from medical school; his philosopher’s name was not from soccer but rather had been given him by his classics-minded parents. I assumed that Falcão — Falcon in English — was also a nom de futebol in the Latin soccer fashion, but in fact his full name was Paulo Roberto Falcão. He played like a bird of prey and looked like a rock star. The Brazilians played with a different style from Italy or Argentina, flicking the ball back and forth, a form of love on the green grass. Clearly, these Brazilians were not bound by definitions of position. They were footballers. By the time Brazil concluded the 3-1 victory, Maradona was no longer on the field. In the 85th minute, he made a fool of himself by kicking Batista square in the groin, with the whole world watching, and was ejected. The jeers in Sarrià were a predictor that Barcelona was not Maradona’s city. On July 3, there was no game, so I bought a ticket for a concert by Maria del Mar Bonet, a folk singer from Majorca. The concert was outdoors in a quiet plaza late on a hot night, the air so still we could hear every ping of the chime, every chord of the mandolin, every syllable. The audience seemed to know the songs, hummed along at times. The next day, I stopped off at the big department store El Corte Inglés, and bought a Maria del Mar album called Alenar, the Catalan verb for “to breathe.” When the World Cup was over, I carried the vinyl disc home with me. I play it still on my turntable — songs of love and revolution, songs of a summer night in Barcelona. The next day, Poland tied the Soviet Union, 0-0, to reach the semifinals. Then on July 5, the whole world crammed into Sarrià for the decisive match between Italy and Brazil. Brazil had a better goal differential than Italy, which meant that Italy had to beat Brazil in to advance. Brazil began taking jaunts down the touchlines, because that was the only way Brazil knew to play. Italy slammed the bolt shut, with Antonio Cabrini, a left back, racing down the left sideline, lashing a left-footed cross that hooked violently until it met the forehead of Rossi, streaking down from the right. Bizarrely open, Rossi had plenty of space to blast the ball past Waldir Peres for the 1-0 lead. The match was five minutes old. With the match tied at 2-2 in the 74th minute, Rossi scored his third goal for a 3-2 lead. In the closing moments, 40-year-old Dino Zoff stopped a shot and groveled as he snagged the squirming ball, inches from the goal line, and soon the match was over. Several years later, Rossi published a book entitled “Ho Fatto Piangere Il Brasile” (“I Made Brazil Cry”). Title No. 3 for the Azzurri After that Group of Death, everything was going to be anticlimactic. In the first semifinal at Camp Nou, Poland had nothing left without Zbigniew Boniek, who drew a foolish yellow card against the Soviet Union (and was suspended for the next match), and Italy prevailed, 2-0, as the galloping Rossi scored both goals. Later that day, I repaired to the Hotel Ritz to watch the West Germany-France semifinal from Seville on television. In the 30-minute overtime, France scored twice within eight minutes, but the French players blithely surged forward toward disaster, like musketeers storming a castle. “Once tontos!” the bartender blurted, pronouncing it “ON-thay tontos,” in Castilian. I can still hear him. Eleven dummies. The bartender was right. West Germany took advantage of the Gallic nonchalance — or maybe it was weariness — and scored twice, and then won on penalty kicks, inevitably. Ninety thousand people packed into the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid for the final between two-time champions. The Italians were aggressive and confident and deep, replacing two injured players, counterattacking against West Germany for a 3-1 victory and its third championship. So unloved by their own fans at the start, the Italian players cavorted on the field, after being greeted by King Juan Carlos of Spain. I was at the center of the universe. I covered eight World Cups from 1982 through 2010 and — as any parent will say — there are no favorites. I have never thought of myself as an evangelist, never passed myself off as an expert. Millions around the world know more about the game than I ever will, as some remind me in caustic emails. Maybe because I discovered soccer relatively late in life, I see it with fresh eyes, a fresh heart. I love the difficulty of it, the kaleidoscopic surprises, with a growing appreciation for the history and the strategy. One fact of life I learned from my first World Cups: A fan can be a psychological bigamist, or worse. Love the one you’re with. I still consider Brazil the warm and pulsing heart of the sport. I have great respect for the young men and women who represent my country. I enjoy dozens of soccer nations when they are on a roll. I never hesitate to criticize Italy for its thuggish moments, its flamboyant simulazione, its failure to finish the attacks. But whenever the Azzurri take the field and the loudspeakers play the anthem, I am reminded of first love, summer of ’82.


Shaun White Qualifies for Slopestyle in Sochi

Abstract: Shaun White opened his day with a nasty spill and ended it with a ticket to Sochi. White, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the snowboarding halfpipe, will get a chance to win one in slopestyle after taking the second of two qualifying events in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. The victory came only hours after a face-first crash that left White sitting on the course, stunned. Jamie Anderson won both women’s contests to secure her berth.

2014 Winter Olympics
Shaun White
Snowboarding


At Tour Championship, Stenson Funnels His Aggression Into Stellar Play

Abstract: ATLANTA — On Monday, Henrik Stenson beheaded his driver at the 18th hole and damaged a locker while venting over a 74, the sixth-worst final-round score at the BMW Championship. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he toured the East Lake Golf Club course for the first time ever, practicing the front side and merely strolling the back, then voiced concern about an aching left wrist. Frustration that results in destruction, unfamiliarity with the layout and soreness in a significant body part hardly add up to an ideal lead-in to the Tour Championship. But Stenson, an apparent quick learner who effectively blows off steam and suppresses mild pain, breezed through his first round Thursday with a six-under-par 64 at the event that concludes the tour season. Stenson stuffed five birdies into his opening seven holes, daring everyone else to catch up. One player did, for a while. Adam Scott started the back nine with six birdies in seven holes, then closed with two pars for a 65 in a happy return to Georgia after winning the Masters in Augusta five months ago. Stenson’s birdie at the par-3 18th broke the tie. Revisiting his Monday meltdown, Stenson said: “This was a good turnaround mentally. I stayed very levelheaded. Kept the head on — on both myself and my driver.” A hotheaded tendency, Stenson confessed, sometimes overtakes him. “It kind of builds up and eventually it goes over the limit,” he said. In his latest episode, he slammed the club that betrayed him into the turf. Then he forced a locker door to become unhinged and smashed a shelf. He apologized and offered to pay for repairs. “I just needed to realize the world is a good place again,” he said. “I was just tired, and I pushed myself over the edge. That’s not the best frame of mind to play good golf. I’m really delighted with the change I made.” Adjusting to a previously unseen course proved less daunting. At a European Tour stop in 2004, Stenson recalled, a sore neck limited him to walking an entire grounds with only two clubs. He won by four strokes. The ailing wrist, which Stenson said was unrelated to his tantrum, was worrisome, but he said ice, medicine and treatment eased the discomfort. On Wednesday morning, he said, gripping a toothbrush triggered pain. “I hope it’s just a one-off that will go away,” he said. A European player has never won the FedEx Cup tournament, which was instituted seven years ago and lavishes the champion with a $10 million bonus. Stenson, a Swede who is No. 2 in the Cup standings behind Tiger Woods, arrived as a primary contender. A tournament win would be complemented by the FedEx championship — and enough money to finance dressing room repairs many times over. At No. 3, Scott, a native of Australia and a resident of Switzerland, entered in the same enviable situation, but he missed three greens on wedge shots during a desultory front nine. A birdie putt at No. 10 restored his serenity and put him in the same groove he attained at the Masters. “I love playing great golf courses,” he said, dismissing the notion of a special Georgia alchemy, “and obviously this is one of them.” Stenson was paired with Woods, which some golfers find intimidating, given the sizable galleries that follow his every swing. But it was Woods, the lone multiple Cup champion, who caved, recording a 73 that was superior to only one of the other 29 contestants, Jason Dufner. “It’s a position where you need to be extra-focused,” Stenson said. “It’s a bit more shouting, a bit more people moving around and such. That just demands a little bit of higher concentration.” Unfamiliarity with the course was no hindrance, either, to another early challenger, Billy Horschel, who took an instant liking to East Lake with a 66. “It’s fun to finally be here,” said the high-energy Horschel, 26, who spends much of his winters on a snowboard. “I feel like a kid in a candy store.” Horschel was even with Steve Stricker, who has shrunk his tour schedule to spend more time with his family. As one of three players to qualify for every Tour Championship of the FedEx era, he feels right at home. Roberto Castro, alone at 67, is a Cup rookie but no stranger to East Lake, having filled out nearly 100 scorecards here. Eight golfers were bunched at 68, notably Sergio García, who heard boos on the first tee, but they were not directed at him. García’s playing partner was Boo Weekley, who attended college in Georgia and is often greeted by his nickname. García’s round began inauspiciously when his first shot veered left and plunked a spectator in the thigh. Leslie Douglas was peering at the tee, wondering if García had swung, when she got a painful answer. The ball left a bruise that did not require medical attention. García plucked another ball out of his bag, signed it and tossed her a souvenir. “I like watching him play,” Douglas, 22, said. “Next time, I’ll stay to the right.”

Golf
Henrik Stenson
Tiger Woods
Adam Scott


Out of Print, Maybe, but Not Out of Mind

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Books are dead. Long live the book. Even as the universe of printed matter continues to shrivel, the book — or at least some of its best-known features — is showing remarkable staying power online. The idea is apparently embedded so deeply in the collective unconsciousness that no one can bear to leave it behind. Amazon brags that on its latest e-reader, “ the pages are virtually indistinguishable from a physical book. ” It recently introduced the Page Flip feature, which mimics the act of skimming. Bookshelves in living rooms may be becoming a thing of the past, but order an e-book from iBooks and Apple promises it “downloads to your bookshelf” immediately. Some functions of physical books that seem to have no digital place are nevertheless being retained. An author’s autograph on a cherished title looked as if it would become a relic. But Apple just applied for a patent to embed autographs in electronic titles. Publishers still commission covers for e-books even though their function — to catch the roving eye in a crowded store — no longer exists. What makes all this activity particularly striking is what is not happening. Some features may be getting a second life online, but efforts to reimagine the core experience of the book have stumbled. Dozens of publishing start-ups tried harnessing social reading apps or multimedia, but few caught on. Social Books, which let users leave public comments on particular passages and comment on passages selected by others, became Rethink Books and then faltered. Push Pop Press, whose avowed aim was to reimagine the book by mixing text, images, audio, video and interactive graphics, was acquired by Facebook in 2011 and heard from no more. Copia, another highly publicized social reading platform, changed its business model to become a classroom learning tool. The latest to stumble is Small Demons, which explores the interrelationship among books. Users who were struck by the Ziegfeld Follies in “The Great Gatsby,” for instance, could follow a link to the dancers’ appearance in 67 other books. Small Demons said it would close this month without a new investor. “A lot of these solutions were born out of a programmer’s ability to do something rather than the reader’s enthusiasm for things they need,” said Peter Meyers, author of “Breaking the Page,” a forthcoming look at the digital transformation of books. “We pursued distractions and called them enhancements.” With the new era so slow to arrive, some experts in the future of the book seem to be getting a little weary of the topic. Bob Stein, a pioneering digital innovator, wrote recently that “people often ask me to expound on the ‘future of the book.’ ” Since Mr. Stein is founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book , one might think he would expect and even welcome this. He does not. “Frankly,” he wrote, “I can’t stand the question.” There is even a movement of sorts proclaiming that the most innovative delivery mechanisms for stories is happening not online, but in physical books. Its manifesto is printed on the cover of a new volume, “ Fully Booked: Ink on Paper: Design & Concepts for New Publications ,” mocking the notion of the Internet as the latest thing. “The Internet is not dead,” the cover proclaims. “Digital will not disappear. Print will not kill the web. It’s easy to forget that when physical books were invented, news websites ignored them, and then laughed at them as a niche pursuit for geeks.” Books have come full circle. For much of the 20th century, they were regarded as one of the triumphs of design: simple to use, cheap to produce, nearly indestructible, highly portable, energy-efficient. They were the best means of transmitting knowledge the human race had ever known. Then came the Internet. Books suddenly seemed in need of an overhaul. “The physical book had become a pretty limited thing, dead to design outside of its cover,” said Peter Brantley, who runs Books in Browsers, a technology conference in San Francisco. “Then all the constraints were gone.” Image Credit The New York Times The notion that books require too much time to read dates back, at least, to midcentury entrepreneurial operations like Reader’s Digest and CliffsNotes, which offered up predigested texts. So some start-ups chose a basic approach: Take a text and break it up. Safari Flow, a service from Safari Books, offers chapters of technical manuals for a $29 monthly subscription fee. Inkling does the same with more consumer-oriented titles like cookbooks. If you want only the chapter on pasta, you can buy it for $4.99 instead of having to buy the whole book. Citia is a New York start-up with a much more ambitious approach. Working in collaboration with an author, Citia editors take a nonfiction book and reorganize its ideas onto digital cards that can be read on different devices and sent through social networks. “The ability to commit 10 or 15 hours to a book is going to be an increasingly fraught decision,” said Mr. Meyers, who came across Citia in the course of his research and found it so intriguing that he became its vice president for editorial and content innovation. “So we need ways to liberate the ideas trapped inside them.” One of the first books given the Citia treatment was Kevin Kelly’s “What Technology Wants.” Material directly from the book is in quotation marks and the author is referred to in the third person, which lends a somewhat academic distance to the summaries. Sections of the book are summarized on one card, then the reader can drill down into subsections on cards hidden underneath. The author liked the result. “I was stunned by the amount of work Citia did,” Mr. Kelly said. “They wrote a digest of the entire book, idea by idea.” And yet, he wrote “What Technology Wants” to present his ideas. If they were going to be reorganized by someone else, what was the point of writing the original book? Maybe he should have written the book on cards in the first place. The very thoroughness of the Citia approach might be discouraging other authors from signing up. Since its debut in the spring of 2012, Citia has done cards for only four books. It recently branched out into other media with track notes for Snoop Lion, the rapper formerly known as Snoop Dogg, and is negotiating with advertising and talent agencies, financial service firms and consumer product companies. “All companies are becoming media companies,” Mr. Meyers said. “They all need to tell stories about their products.” What to label these stories is another question. The Internet by its nature breaks down borders and unfreezes text. Put a book online and set it free to grow and shrink with new arguments, be broken up and reassembled as readers demand, and it might be only nostalgia that calls it by its old name. Some formats, after all, simply outlive their need. CD-ROMs — compact discs that contained multimedia applications — were thought to herald the future of storytelling, but that business model did not survive the rise of the web. Video arcades disappeared when home computers became sophisticated gaming platforms. “We will continue to recognize books as books as they migrate to the Internet, but our understanding of storytelling will inevitably expand,” Mr. Brantley said. Among the presentations at Books in Browsers this fall: “A Book Isn’t a Book Isn’t a Book” and “The Death of the Reader.” Much of the design innovation at the moment, Mr. Brantley believes, is not coming from publishers, who must still wrestle with delivering both digital and physical books. Instead it is being developed by a tech community that “doesn’t think about stories as the end product. Instead, they think about storytelling platforms that will enable new forms of both authoring and reading.” He cited the enormous success of Wattpad, a Canadian start-up that advertises itself as the world’s largest storytelling community. There are 10 million stories on the site. That is enough to fill a million — for lack of a better term — books.


In Blue Island Office, Seeing Recession’s Toll

Abstract: If south suburban Blue Island long ago was a geological mix of boulders and other debris dropped by a glacier, the Illinois Department of Human Services office there now is a moraine of human travail deposited by the recession. A parking lot the size of a football field was jammed Tuesday, and caseworkers laughed about my three-minute search for a space. This was a slow day, they informed me; show up on the first of the month, when various benefits are due, and you would think the Rolling Stones were in town. Lines form outside shortly after sunrise. By 10 a.m., about 150 people of diverse economic strata were applying for, or seeking urgent counsel about, welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid and disability payments, among other matters. They were in financial, social, mental and physical distress, and this office — whose budget-stressed staff deals with 81,000 cases in a suburban area up to the Will County border — is a lifeline. “I’m way behind on my bills and need assistance,” said Michael Clark, 55, who lost his trucking job, had a heart attack and has exhausted unemployment compensation. He’s married, has a daughter and sought advice on alternatives. Diane White, 41, was taking care of a jobless husband on disability. “He needs a medical card,” she told me, referring to a Medicaid card, so that he can see a doctor. I was shown around the work space by Janet Hampton, the office administrator who, like many of her colleagues, exudes remarkable equanimity. They deal daily with those in extremis, often forced to say “no” due to strict eligibility rules, especially when it comes to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, a conduit for the welfare-to-work law passed in 1996. Statewide, unemployment is up, and food-stamp usage is stratospheric. More than 712,000 families, or 1.6 million individuals, are on food stamps, prompting Illinois to stagger its monthly allocation to ease the inventory burden on grocery stores. For those who chide a profligate federal government, be informed that welfare brings just $318 a month to a single mother with two kids, with food stamps providing another $257. The 1996 law dramatically toughened welfare eligibility standards and spawned an administrative culture prone to reject applicants. Nationally, the caseload fell to 1.7 million in 2009 from 4.8 million right before the Clinton-era measure passed. In Illinois, the welfare rolls fell to 26,377 in March 2009 from about 240,000. They have now risen to about 31,000. That’s still a smaller increase than one would figure, since there are so few jobs, but some states’ caseloads are stagnant, even improbably declining. Regardless, the burden placed on human services infrastructures amid state cuts is torturous. This Blue Island office has a staff of 123, down from 230 a few years ago, though the caseload for welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid is up 30,000 in the same period. That means caseworkers like Danny Smith, Dawn Stewart and Carolyn Nance are inundated, with some workers overseeing between 1,500 and 2,000 individual cases. Handling the demand appears a Sisyphean task and, stereotypes aside, some workers show up well before doors open at 8:30 a.m. and stay past 8 p.m. Sometimes it’s to help those still waiting when doors close for the day. Perhaps it’s finally getting to clogged voice mail and ample paperwork. The office’s phone system is so antiquated that during peak periods, like the start of a month, it routinely breaks down. “I can’t even call 911,” Mrs. Hampton said. And since so much is not computerized, there are more boxes than in an Allied Van Lines warehouse — filled with pending applications for benefits, and turning conference rooms into storage bins. Then there’s the daily interaction with people who are just like any of us could be — with grown men who, scared of losing their homes and not being able to feed their kids, break down in tears. “I tell people not to be ashamed,” Mr. Smith said. Ms. Nance added: “You’re a social worker, counselor, mother, father — one-stop shopping. But it is overwhelming.” I exited after a primer on welfare-to-work rules from welfare caseworkers pained by an obligation to reject so many. As I drove past the restaurant next door — called Beggars Pizza, would you believe — I wondered how so many can suffer so much so quietly. Rage seems so private and isolated. And, like anybody, I wondered where the folks in that waiting room will all wind up.

Welfare (US)
Illinois
Unemployment
Recession and Depression
White Diane


Prosecutors Say Doctor’s Greed Caused Jackson’s Death

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson ’s death was caused by a doctor who was more concerned with making money and protecting himself than caring for his patient, prosecutors said in closing arguments on Thursday in the trial of the man who served as the pop singer’s private physician in the final months of his life and is now charged with manslaughter. After 22 days of testimony over six weeks, the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray came to an end with closing statements from prosecutors and defense lawyers, who painted dramatically different pictures of the legendary pop star and the doctor caring for him. The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Friday. The defense lawyer, Ed Chernoff, said that Mr. Jackson was a man desperate to prepare for a series of 50 sold-out concerts in London and relied on a cocktail of drugs to keep him going. Mr. Chernoff argued that prosecutors were asking the jury to convict Dr. Murray for something that Mr. Jackson had done. The defense argues that Mr. Jackson self-administered the dose of the drug that killed him. “We’ve been dancing around this for six weeks, maybe two years,” Mr. Chernoff told the jury. “If it were anybody else besides Michael Jackson — anybody else — would this doctor be here today?” The Los Angeles County coroner ruled that “acute propofol intoxication” in combination with two other drugs in his system caused Mr. Jackson’s death. David Walgren, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, said that Murray had “grossly corrupted” the doctor-patient relationship with Mr. Jackson and knew that his actions had led to his death. “Conrad Murray sought payment for services rendered, the services rendered being the provision of propofol,” Mr. Walgren said. “It was an employer-employee relationship. Conrad Murray sought payment for services rendered, not for proper medical care, not for the sake of doing no harm.” During the trial, the jury heard testimony from medical experts, as well as Mr. Jackson’s former aides and several of Dr. Murray’s former patients. One expert for the defense testified that Mr. Jackson was most likely addicted to drugs that made it difficult to sleep and caused his own death by injecting himself with propofol when Dr. Murray was out of the room. A prosecution witness said that the defense’s argument that Mr. Jackson injected the drug himself was “crazy.” Two days after Mr. Jackson’s death on June 25, 2009, Dr. Murray told detectives that he had been using the surgical anesthetic propofol nearly daily for the last two months to help Mr. Jackson sleep. But he said that he had been trying to wean Mr. Jackson off the drug and had tried sedatives instead. After those drugs did not work and he had spent 10 hours trying to fall asleep, Mr. Jackson begged for propofol, Dr. Murray told investigators. Prosecutors said that this statement alone amounted to enough of an admission of gross negligence to convict Dr. Murray of manslaughter. But prosecutors also called several expert witnesses who testified that Dr. Murray lied to the police. Before the closing arguments began, Judge Michael Pastor of the Superior Court of California instructed jurors that they had to come to a unanimous agreement on one of two theories in order to convict Dr. Murray on the charge of involuntary manslaughter: either that Dr. Murray was acting legally but in a criminally negligent way or that he failed to perform his legal duty as Mr. Jackson’s doctor. Dr. Murray decided late in the trial that he would not testify on his own behalf. If convicted, he faces up to four years in prison and the loss of his medical license.

Courts and the Judiciary
Murray Conrad
Jackson Michael
Pastor Michael
Music


Wilson and Wisconsin Run Down Nebraska, 48-17

Abstract: MADISON, Wis. — On his first day on the Wisconsin campus this summer after transferring from North Carolina State, Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson called his own team meeting. He delivered a short and simple message to his new teammates: he had come to work hard and compete. But just the simple act of introducing himself to his teammates and acknowledging that nothing would be handed to him spoke to his savvy and maturity. A few months later, Wilson led a much larger gathering at Camp Randall Stadium. With Wilson’s nearly flawless performance in No. 7 Wisconsin’s 48-17 blowout of No. 8 Nebraska, the nation got a chance to see his poise and polish. Fans around the country will be seeing plenty more of Wilson the rest of the season, both in the Heisman Trophy race and in the national championship race. On a night dedicated to Nebraska’s historic Big Ten debut, Wilson completed 14 of 20 passes for 255 yards and 2 touchdowns and ran for another in a dominant Badgers performance that certified them as a national title contender. Wilson chose Wisconsin over Auburn when he transferred because he saw it as a year of graduate school in a pro-style offense to prepare himself for the N.F.L. It is safe to say that Wilson has emerged as the university’s football valedictorian. “To me, if there’s a better player in college football right now, I’d like to see it,” Wisconsin Coach Bret Bielema said. With its smash-mouth football roots, Wisconsin (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten) has not had a quarterback as dynamic as Wilson. Its powerful offensive line lived up to its billing, clearing the way for Montee Ball’s 151 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns. But in a program in which a play-action pass doubles as razzle-dazzle, Wilson has emerged as an unprecedented maestro. He is the program’s most important player since Ron Dayne gashed his way to the Heisman Trophy in 1999. And he has the Badgers, who spent good chunks of decades epitomizing Big Ten ineptitude, embracing their role as national title contenders. “I’m not afraid because I think we can compete with anyone,” Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez said of the Badgers’ national title aspirations. “We’re going to be hard to stop on offense. I don’t think Bret is backing away from it and Wisconsin’s A.D. sure isn’t.” Wilson did it all Saturday night, deftly avoiding Nebraska pass rushers, completing 70 percent of his passes and scrambling with such verve that third-and-long often became first-and-10. Trailing by 14-7, Wilson led the Badgers to 34 unanswered points. That included a 46-yard lob to Nick Toon, son of the former Jet Al Toon; a 10-yard naked bootleg touchdown run; and a 36-yard rifle to Jared Abbrederis. While Dayne is considered the standard for Wisconsin royalty, Alvarez had no problem comparing Wilson to him after only five games. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been around the total package like him, he can do it all,” Alvarez said. “And then you turn around, and he’s even better off the field.” Wilson showed the ability to squeeze the ball in tight spaces and the wherewithal to know when to run and when to take a sack, offering a blueprint for the Nebraska sophomore quarterback Taylor Martinez. Martinez again showed his penchant for imploding in big games. His three interceptions led directly to 21 Badgers points. He finished 11 of 22 passing for 176 yards and rushed 20 times for only 61 yards. During a hot start to his freshman year, Martinez earned the nickname T-Magic because of his innovative running ability. But his game sputtered in a flurry of bad decisions and poor reads and an inability to exploit his impressive athleticism. For Nebraska (4-1, 0-1), the game offered its biggest matchup in terms of rankings since the 2002 Rose Bowl against Miami. It could have been the Cornhuskers’ first win over a top-10 opponent away from Lincoln since the 2000 Fiesta Bowl. But instead of a spot in the national title race, the Huskers showed just how far they have to go to be competitive in their new conference. Nebraska’s biggest problem came from its porous defense, which gave up 486 yards and 27 first downs. “I’m embarrassed how we played defensively,” Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini said. “I apologize to the fans of Nebraska because that was a joke. Plain and simple.” The Big Ten commissioner, Jim Delany, spent about an hour before the game taking pictures with Cornhuskers fans, who repeatedly said, “Thanks for the invite,” their tone implying they were happy to be out of the unstable Big 12. Delany seemed to relish the scene he had helped create. An estimated 30,000 Nebraska fans poured into Madison, making for a boisterous atmosphere. “It’s more than you could hope for, in a way,” Delany said. “We couldn’t have predicted the teams would open up undefeated. It makes a lot of sense. It’s been a good celebration. I think both fan bases pride themselves on a good time.” But Nebraska ended up licking its wounds and hoping to regroup for a possible rematch in the inaugural Big Ten title game in Indianapolis in December. “You could see it again,” Delany said. “They’re both favored in their division.” During Wisconsin’s courtship of Wilson, Bielema said he could not fill his tank at a gas station in Madison without someone bugging him about the quarterback. Badgers fans knew that Bielema had a complete team, other than a giant question mark under center. Wilson came to Wisconsin a finished product, having thrown for 76 touchdowns and rushed for 17 more during three star-studded seasons at N.C. State. But when conflicts with his playing baseball for the Wolfpack led to Coach Tom O’Brien’s encouraging him to transfer, Wilson rolled into Madison as the potential missing piece in a title run. Potential has become reality. Wilson has 13 passing touchdowns, with only one interception, and has completed more than 70 percent of his passes. His 14-for-20 performance Saturday actually decreased his completion percentage. Wilson played down any potential personal achievement and said that he has achieved his objective in choosing Wisconsin, developing as a quarterback and winning games. “The winning part of it brings some other great things to it,” he said. “I want to be the best. I want to be the best quarterback in the nation. That’s what I work for every single day. Winning the Heisman Trophy is something that’s a great opportunity, but at the same time, I’m just trying to win games.” Wisconsin has come a long way since Wilson called that team meeting this summer. His transfer has worked out better than anyone imagined, and he is poised to take the Badgers places they have only dreamed.

Football
College Athletics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Nebraska
Wilson Russell
Football (College)
University of Wisconsin


2 Charged in Tax Evasion Scheme Said to Involve HSBC

Abstract: Federal authorities arrested two property developers, a father and son, on Thursday and charged them with participating in a multimillion-dollar tax evasion scheme through a large international bank. The property developers — Mauricio Cohen Assor and his son, Leon Cohen-Levy — were taken into custody in New York, a day after they were jointly charged in a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., court papers show. The bank was identified as HSBC by a person who was briefed on the matter but spoke on condition of not being identified because the investigation is continuing. The arrests underscore how federal authorities are broadening their investigation into offshore tax fraud to include private banks other than the Swiss giant UBS , the focal point of the Justice Department’s crackdown on financial firms that sell tax evasion services. In addition to UBS, prosecutors have been scrutinizing HSBC, one of the world’s largest private banks, which is based in London but has large Swiss operations, and other Swiss institutions. The two developers have been embroiled in a long-running legal dispute over their involvement with the Flatotel, a luxury apartment-style hotel in Midtown Manhattan. They sold the hotel around 2000 for $33 million but routed the proceeds through accounts concealed by sham entities established in Panama, the British Virgin Islands, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Bahamas, court papers show. They did not pay taxes on the sale. From 1987 through at least 2001, the men opened various accounts in the names of the foreign entities and shell companies and used unidentified Swiss lawyers as signatories for some of the accounts. The bank knew that the two men were the true owners of the accounts and entities, court papers said, but it allowed them to pretend otherwise for tax purposes. “The bankers who handled the accounts knew and documented” that Mauricio Cohen Assor in particular was the real owner behind the entities and accounts, the complaint said. The complaint against the developers describes how federal agents used wiretaps — an unusual move in tax cases — in 2007 to record their phone conversations with an unidentified banker. Both men are Spanish natives; Leon Cohen-Levy, who lives part of the year on Fisher Island, Fla., became a United States citizen in 2003, and Mauricio Cohen Assor, of Miami Beach, won permanent residency status in 2005. Their lawyers could not be reached for comment. Court papers said that a large international bank knowingly allowed the men to engage in tax fraud through the bank while acquiring their citizenship and residency papers because the bank did not require them to fill out the necessary disclosure forms with the Internal Revenue Service. The men appear to have routed at least $65 million in cash and bonds through their offshore accounts, court papers show. They used their accounts “to fund a luxury lifestyle for themselves and for their family members,” including purchases of a $188,000 Bentley and $67,000 Dodge Viper, the complaint shows. HSBC declined to comment. Leon Cohen-Levy sought in recent years to build a 93-story apartment-hotel skyscraper called Empire World Towers in downtown Miami, a project that would have been one of the tallest residential high-rises in the world. But the deal stalled in 2008 when a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled against him and his father over separate fraud accusations brought by a French lender regarding the Flatotel. The judge rendered a $266 million default judgment against the men. Separately Thursday, the authorities charged five former American clients of UBS with evading taxes in offshore accounts at UBS’s private bank. Two other former clients waived indictment and pleaded guilty. The group of seven collectively evaded taxes on $100 million in assets, court papers show. UBS paid a $780 million fine last year and admitted criminal wrongdoing in connection with offshore tax evasion services sold to wealthy Americans through its private bank. The UBS clients indicted on Thursday in the Southern District of New York were Shmuel Sternfeld, of Tel Aviv; Sybil Nancy Upham, of New York; Ernest Vogliano, of New York; Richard Werdiger, a jewel merchant from Purchase, N.Y.; and Kenneth Heller, a disbarred maritime lawyer in New York. The two other former UBS clients who pleaded guilty are Federico Hernandez, a former money manager in New York; and Jules Robbins, a watch distributor from Jericho, N.Y. The actions bring to 16 the number of American former UBS clients charged in the Justice Department’s investigation. The UBS clients were variously accused of using sham offshore entities in Hong Kong, Panama and elsewhere, including one known as Real Cool Investments Ltd., to further disguise their ownership of the UBS accounts. Prosecutors also accused some of them of shifting assets out of UBS to smaller banks in Switzerland and Liechtenstein when UBS came under scrutiny in 2008, and of carrying cash by hand into the United States from Switzerland without declaring it.

UBS AG
Switzerland
Tax Evasion
Federal District Courts


A Journey From Ebbets Field to the Steps of the Capitol

Abstract: Some young children I know like the exotic name of Barack Obama but cannot possibly understand why older people are so abuzz about the historic aspect of Tuesday’s inauguration . The children, white children, have grown up around African-American teachers, neighbors, friends and, for that matter, relatives of mixed ancestry. And, really, how does one explain the way things were 50 to 60 years ago? “People did what ?” On the eve of Martin Luther King’s Birthday, it is important for children to know why people were crying that November night in Grant Park in Chicago, why Jesse cried, why Oprah cried. My parents would be crying, too, if they were still alive. They were part of a pioneer discussion group in Queens in the late ’40s, intentionally half black, half white — earnest bootstrappers, civil servants, teachers, who discussed novels, the Bible, politics. They were doing their middle-class postwar best to bring about a day when a striking young couple could be depicted in the recent issue of The New Yorker, photograph circa 1996, posing in their Chicago home, full of entitlement, our best and brightest, clearly on their way to somewhere. Our favorite baseball team had something do to with the handsome young couple from Chicago. We rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers , who in 1947 called up Jackie Robinson , the first black major leaguer of that century. I would have a hard time explaining to children the vile language that came out of opposing dugouts and from the stands, but Robinson endured it, and so did the black players who followed him. The other day, I was talking to Don Newcombe, a great pitcher in Brooklyn, who willed himself to sobriety four decades ago and still works for the Dodgers, alas in L.A. A great man. We were talking about something else, but Newk brought up the old days.  The young children who are entranced by Obama’s name should know what Newcombe and Robinson saw outside the ballpark in St. Louis in 1949 or 1950. Thousands of Negroes, as they were called, were milling around the street, unable to pay their way into the game because the outfield pavilion, where blacks had been confined, was sold out. By some accounts, the stands had been legally integrated a few years earlier, but apparently, many of Robinson’s fans were not exactly welcome there. “Jackie looked out and saw a bunch of people in the street with radios on,” Newk said, recalling how Robinson summoned Burt Shotton, the manager, who said, “I never saw anything like this.” Newk said a Dodgers official informed the Cardinals that the Dodgers would not take the field until the fans were inside. “You made money for the Cardinals,” I said. “We just wanted them to watch us play, not stand out in the streets with radios,” Newk said somberly. Five years later, Newcombe came back after missing two pennant-winning seasons because he was drafted during the Korean War. Now he was in St. Louis, where the black Dodgers had always stayed at a black hotel, which had no air-conditioning. (In 1953, while Newk was in the service, Robinson stayed at the Chase Hotel, the oasis alongside Forest Park, with all the white players.) Now, in 1954, Newcombe said he told Robinson he was taking a cab to the Chase. “When we got there, the manager took us into the dining room and wanted to know what we wanted and Jackie said: ‘You know why we’re here. Don just got back from the military for two years, and he wants to stay at your hotel, like any other man in America.’ The manager said, ‘Gentlemen, the only thing I can think is that we don’t want you swimming in the swimming pool.’ ” In one version, Robinson said, “Mister, I don’t even know how to swim.” Appeased, the manager gave them rooms. Away from the pool. From that day forth, all the black Dodgers had air-conditioning in St. Louis. That was more than half a century ago. Two players said to be uncomfortable with Robinson in 1947 were Dixie Walker of the Dodgers and Harry Walker of the Cardinals, brothers from Alabama. Twenty years later, Manager Harry Walker started eight black or Latino players with the Pittsburgh Pirates, with only a white pitcher, whose turn it was. And Walker would become a hunting buddy of Bill White — first baseman, broadcaster, National League president — who has never suffered bigots or fools. Walker died in 1999, his decent life a testimony that people can evolve. I did not ask Newcombe what he thought of Obama. But a year ago, I asked Rachel Robinson, the widow of Jackie, and the prime force in the Jackie Robinson Foundation, how she felt about Obama’s candidacy. “George, that is a political question,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder and giving me her beautiful, resolute smile. “And I’m not going to answer it.” But I think she did. The Robinsons and Newcombe and Walker all went through turbulent times before a young couple in Chicago could pose for a portrait, clearly on their way to somewhere. On Tuesday, we can all marvel at this journey.

Brooklyn Dodgers
Blacks
Newcombe Don
Robinson Jackie
Obama Barack
Baseball
Inaugurations


Chris Christie Knew About Bridge Lane Closings as They Happened, Prosecutors Say

Abstract: NEWARK — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey knew that three of his top officials were involved in a plan to shut down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge as it was happening and that the closings were intended to punish a local mayor for declining to support him, federal prosecutors said on Monday. The assertion was an unexpected and startling beginning to the trial of two former Christie administration officials charged with closing the lanes in 2013 and then covering it up. And it was a surprising claim because of the side of the courtroom it came from, as lawyers made opening statements. Defense lawyers have long argued that Mr. Christie, a Republican, and his top advisers were well aware of the lane closings and that they directed the cover-up as they tried to protect the governor’s political aspirations — saying their clients were “thrown under the presidential bus,” as one lawyer argued on Monday. But this was the first time a prosecutor had pointed a finger at Mr. Christie. And it directly contradicts the governor’s statements in the three years since the lanes were mysteriously closed, paralyzing the borough of Fort Lee, N.J. Mr. Christie, a former top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, has consistently denied that he knew about the lane closings as they unfolded, and argued that the United States attorney’s office had “exonerated” him when it declined to indict him along with the defendants now standing trial. The prosecutor, speaking for the United States attorney’s office, said that two of the alleged co-conspirators in the case, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, had “bragged” to the governor about the lane closings at a memorial service for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, on the third day of the closings, and that they had been done to “mess” with Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, a Democrat, because he had declined entreaties to endorse the governor’s re-election. Mr. Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, who were close allies of Mr. Christie, are the two defendants in the trial. Mr. Wildstein and Mr. Baroni boasted to Mr. Christie that panicked phone calls from Mr. Sokolich, pleading that the lane closings were a “public safety emergency,” were deliberately being ignored, the prosecutor said. The prosecutor, Vikas Khanna, quickly moved to quell any curiosity the jury might have about why Mr. Christie was not charged in the plot. “The evidence may show that others could have, should have, perhaps known certain aspects of what was going on in Fort Lee,” he said. “Perhaps you will even wonder what happened to those people. But at the end of this case the only issue for you to decide is whether Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni are guilty of the crimes with which they are charged beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s it.” Image Gov. Chris Christie Credit Mel Evans/Associated Press Defense lawyers quickly seized on his comments in their own opening statements. Michael Critchley, a lawyer for Ms. Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, said: “We know who they’re talking about. They’re talking about Governor Christie. They’re talking about Kevin O’Dowd.” (Mr. O’Dowd was the governor’s chief of staff at the time of the closings.) A spokesman for Mr. Christie, Brian Murray, responding to the prosecutor’s assertion, referred reporters on Monday to statements the governor made in 2014, in which he said he had not known about the plan to close the lanes. Mr. Murray declined to address whether the governor knew about the closings while they were happening. The office of the United States attorney, Paul J. Fishman, declined to comment on why the governor was not charged, but Mr. Fishman has said in the past that merely knowing is not a federal crime. Mr. Christie was intimately woven into the story both sides told in the packed courtroom on Monday. Prosecutors and defense lawyers alike described an administration tightly controlled by the governor, one that worked hand-in-hand with his re-election campaign to trade favors for endorsements. The governor was trying to win a big and broad margin of victory, and to win over Democratic mayors like Mr. Sokolich, so he could make the case that he was the Republican best able to win the White House. Mr. Khanna said Mr. Baroni covered up the lane closings because “this was something that was important to Trenton.” He added, “Trenton: the governor’s office.” Mr. Baroni’s lawyer, Michael Baldassare, later told the jury it would be hearing a lot about Trenton. “Trenton, Trenton, Trenton; Trenton is the governor,” he said. “Let’s make no mistake. Open a dictionary: Trenton, the governor.” The details of the plot that Mr. Khanna laid out are largely familiar by now — that Ms. Kelly sent an email in August 2013 saying “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” after confirming that the mayor of that borough would not endorse Mr. Christie. A month later, two of three access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were shut down. Mr. Baroni, then the highest-ranking official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge, studiously ignored the mayor as he pleaded by text, email and a handwritten letter for the agency to reopen the lanes. Mr. Critchley, Ms. Kelly’s lawyer, said Mr. Christie and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York developed a strategy to cover up the lane closings as soon as they ended, and executed it through official statements over the next several weeks, lying that the closings had been a “traffic study.” Mr. Critchley characterized their strategy as one that sought not to “inflame the issue.” “The idea that they — the governors of New Jersey and New York — they’re going to let a single mother of four control the future is also crazy,” he added, referring to Ms. Kelly. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo flatly denied that he had any involvement. “The governor did not have any role — direct or indirect — in any press statements regarding the purported traffic study,” he said. The case will hinge on the government’s star witness, Mr. Wildstein, a former political blogger hired to a position created specially for him at the Port Authority, who has admitted, in a guilty plea as part of a deal to cooperate with the government, that he conceived the idea to close the lanes. Defense lawyers characterized him as crazy, a liar described even by witnesses for the prosecution as “a vicious guy,” “maniacal” and “a horrible person.” And it was Mr. Christie, they said, who installed Mr. Wildstein at the agency to be his enforcer. Mr. Baldassare, Mr. Baroni’s lawyer, said the governor referred to Mr. Wildstein as his “fixer,” or “Mr. Wolf,” after the Harvey Keitel character in the movie “Pulp Fiction,” the guy who cleans up the dead bodies. And everyone — Mr. Baroni included — feared crossing him. “At the Port Authority at the time, when David Wildstein spoke, Governor Christie’s voice came out and everybody knew it,” Mr. Baldassare said. “It wasn’t just Bill. David Wildstein, based on this evidence, looks like a ventriloquist’s doll sitting on Christopher J. Christie’s lap.” Mr. Christie, defense lawyers said, was United States attorney when he began talking to Mr. Wildstein, then the author of an anonymous and gossipy political blog in New Jersey; the governor hired him after seeing his ability to work in the shadows as a virtue. Mr. Wildstein was a political operative so wily, Mr. Baldassare said, that he once stole Senator Frank R. Lautenberg’s jacket before a debate so that Mr. Lautenberg would have to borrow someone else’s jacket and be uncomfortable during a debate with Mr. Wildstein’s candidate, Representative Millicent H. Fenwick. At the Port Authority, Mr. Baldassare said, he operated on “one constituent rule,” wanting to please only Mr. Christie. He and the governor played a “red light, green light” game, Mr. Critchley said, going down a list and firing people they did not like, greenlighting those who remained in their favor. Mr. Wildstein’s goal, Mr. Critchley said, was to run Mr. Christie’s presidential campaign in one of the important early states — Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. As the bridge scandal threatened to take down those presidential hopes, Mr. Critchley said, Mr. Christie pinned the blame on Ms. Kelly. “This case is not only about traffic, it’s about a presidential campaign for the United States of America,” he said. “What she knew could be fatal to an embryonic presidential campaign.” She was scapegoated, he argued, by a “coterie of cowards.” “Cowards who were addicted to power,” he said. “Cowards who despite all their titles, when it became time to speak the truth, they showed they were nothing more than opportunists, ambitious opportunists.”

Bridgegate George Washington Bridge Scandal


Alabama Police Officer Indicted in Confrontation With Unarmed Indian Man

Abstract: ATLANTA — An Alabama police officer has been indicted by a federal grand jury, accused of using unreasonable force against an unarmed Indian man during an episode in which the officer slammed the man to the ground while he was on an early-morning stroll through his family’s suburban neighborhood. The Feb. 6 confrontation, which led to the partial paralysis of the man, Sureshbhai Patel, 57, has exported America’s national debate over the use of force by police officers as observers and news media in India expressed outrage over Mr. Patel’s treatment. It has also been an embarrassment for Alabama. Eleven days after the encounter, Gov. Robert Bentley wrote the Indian consul general in Atlanta, expressing “deep regret” for the “unfortunate use of excessive force by the Madison Police Department.” On Friday, the Justice Department announced that the officer, Eric Parker, 26, had been indicted late Thursday. The two-page indictment alleges that Officer Parker, in slamming Mr. Patel to the ground, deprived him of his constitutional right “to be free from unreasonable seizures, which includes the right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by one acting under color of law.” Mr. Patel, a visitor from the Indian state of Gujarat who speaks limited English, is identified in the indictment by his initials, “S.P.” He was walking on a residential street shortly before 9 a.m. on Feb. 6 in the northern Alabama city of Madison when a resident called 911 and reported that “a skinny black guy” was “just kind of wandering around.” “I’d like somebody to talk to him,” the caller said, according to a recording of the 911 call. Mr. Patel had come to Madison, a suburb of Huntsville, to stay with his son’s family and help care for his grandson, a toddler who was having developmental difficulties, Hank Sherrod, a lawyer for the family, said. He added that Mr. Patel was walking around his son’s neighborhood that morning for exercise. A video taken from inside a squad car showed Officer Parker and his trainee, Andrew Slaughter, arriving on Hardiman Place Lane, a street lined with modest homes with wide lawns, and confronting Mr. Patel on the sidewalk. “Hey bud, let me talk to you real quick. Come here,” one officer says. It is apparent from the video that Mr. Patel was able to tell the officers he was from India, and tell them he was not carrying identification. But when an officer asks Mr. Patel where he is going, the communication falters. “I can’t understand you, sir,” one officer says, adding, “Do you live here, do you live in this neighborhood?” Image Officer Eric Parker threw Mr. Patel to the ground on Feb. 6. Credit Limestone County Sheriff What happens next is difficult to discern from the footage. But an officer warns Mr. Patel not to walk away or “jerk away” from him again; if he was to do so, the officer says, “I’m going to put you on this ground.” Video from a second squad car shows one officer slamming Mr. Patel onto the ground and straddling his body once he is facedown. “He don’t speak a lick of English,” the officer can be heard saying. A statement issued by the Madison City Police Department said that Mr. Patel “began putting his hands in his pockets,” when the officers arrived, and that he “attempted to pull away” when the officers tried to pat him down. A subsequent department statement said that the confrontation had been reviewed by its Office of Professional Standards, which concluded that the actions of Officer Parker “did not meet the high standards and expectations of the Madison City Police Department.” The statement included an apology to Mr. Patel’s family. Office Parker was arrested and charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, and has pleaded not guilty. Maj. Jim Cooke of the Madison police said Friday that the department had taken steps to terminate Officer Parker, and that he had appealed his termination and is on paid leave pending the appeal. No action has been taken against Officer Slaughter, the trainee, Major Cooke said. Mr. Sherrod said that Mr. Patel’s spine was damaged, causing paralysis in his arms and legs. After a cervical fusion operation and weeks of therapy, Mr. Sherrod said, Mr. Patel has regained some use of his limbs, and recently walked a short distance with the aid of a walker. Mr. Patel has filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against Officer Parker and the city of Madison, seeking unspecified damages.” “Mr. Patel and his family are very pleased by the prompt and decisive action of U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance and the federal grand jury,” Mr. Sherrod said Friday in a statement. “For the public to trust police officers, it needs to know officers will be held accountable, and the felony civil rights charges filed against Parker, unlike the misdemeanor assault charge being pursued in state court, more accurately reflect the seriousness of Parker’s conduct.” Robert Tuten, a lawyer representing Officer Parker, said Friday that he expected him to plead not guilty to the federal charge. The greater Huntsville area is an unusual pocket of the Deep South. While largely defined by traditional Southern culture — with its emphasis on church, football, and hunting and fishing — it is also home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and several related aerospace and defense contractors, which attract some of the world’s top engineers. Mr. Sherrod said that Mr. Patel’s son, Chirag Patel, was a United States citizen and an electrical engineer who worked in the defense industry. According to United States census figures, Asians make up 2.5 percent of the population of Madison County, where the confrontation occurred.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Growing Supply of Former Power Plants Offers Sites for Renovation

Abstract: THE work starts next month and, once it is complete in about two years, a revitalized 7.8-acre site at the edge of downtown Austin, Tex., will offer new office spaces, shops and a high-rise apartment complex along Lady Bird Lake. Rising prominently from the center of the site will be the restored Seaholm Power Plant, a massive Art Deco-style structure built in the 1950s that once burned oil and gas to supply much of the city’s power. Retail and office tenants will occupy the former plant’s 117,000 square feet of interior space. Its cavernous four-story turbine room will be dotted with displays on the plant’s history and the new energy-efficient designs featured in its makeover. Reincarnating retired power stations is not new. The Pratt Street Power Plant, for example, part of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor redevelopment, is now filled with shops and restaurants. The Homan Square Power House in Chicago, which once supplied the Sears, Roebuck & Company headquarters, is now a public charter high school. Besides Seaholm, two other redevelopment projects are in the planning stages: the Glenwood Power Plant in Yonkers and the Potomac River Generating Station in Alexandria, Va. Image The site will be renovated as office and retail space. Credit Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman But the practice could become more common as more of the nation’s aging power stations shut down. The federal Energy Information Administration says installations representing 51 percent of all generating capacity were at least 30 years old at the end of 2012. Coal-fired plants could be the best candidates for retirement because 74 percent were built before 1980, according to the agency, meaning they are approaching the end of their typical life spans. Extending the operation of such plants could require costly improvements to comply with the latest environmental regulations. Likewise, low natural gas prices and tax incentives for renewable sources of energy, particularly wind, are making it difficult for coal to compete. For owners of older coal plants, the conclusion could be inescapable. “When they look at all the variables on the table and what it’s costing them to operate versus what they can sell their power for, many of them will say, ‘I don’t see a bright future here, and I’m going to call it quits,’ ” said Austin Whitman, a vice president at the energy consulting firm M. J. Bradley and Associates. Estimates vary on the number of plants that may close. The American Clean Skies Foundation, a nonprofit energy policy group, projects that 30 to 50 gigawatts of generating capacity could be retired over the next decade, representing 10 to 15 percent of the nation’s coal-fired capacity. At the end of 2011, about 1,400 coal-fired units were operating at 590 power plants across the country, according to the Energy Information Administration. “We’ve never seen a wholesale retirement on this scale before,” said Gregory C. Staple, the chief executive of the foundation. Many plants will be decommissioned and dismantled, but some will be suitable for restoration because of the particular features of the buildings, he said. Image REBORN The Shaw Technology and Learning Center in Chicago. Credit Nathan Weber for The New York Times The locations of old power plants make them attractive to developers and potential tenants, Mr. Staple said. Initially built away from population hubs, many are now close to city centers as urban boundaries have expanded and industrial areas have become gentrified. The plants were also typically built on riverfronts, for access to water to cool the generator units. The unusual size and shape of the buildings make them ideal for repurposing, said Rick Scadden, a principal engineer with Intera, an environmental engineering company that cleans up old power plant sites. “They were often constructed with large turbine-generator halls,” said Mr. Scadden, “so this presents opportunities for doing really unique things with the space on a grand scale.” Fred Quivik, an architectural historian at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich., said the age of a power plant building will usually determine its appeal for restoration. In the early days of electric power, electricity was still competing with other forms of power generation. Consequently, early plants were designed as civic monuments with the best architectural features of the day, “to show that they would be there for the long term to provide a reliable source of electricity,” Mr. Quivik said. The practice continued through the World War II era. Preserving older buildings has also become a standard component of urban renewal projects, he said. And while many of these old plants will close because they no longer meet environmental standards, they will come back to life in restoration as showcases of the latest green building designs and features. For example, Seaholm, which was taken out of service in 1996, will use the pipes and tanks that once held water to cool its generators to capture rainwater and irrigate the grounds. A large solar panel array on the roof will generate part of the building’s power. The trend, Mr. Whitman said, is a sign of things to come. “Repurposing these old power plants not only signals a shift in where people live and what they do,” he said, “but also how they think about the environment and how our energy mix is changing and evolving.”

Electric power
Manufacturing
Restoration and Renovation
Baltimore
Texas
Alexandria Virginia
Coal


New Option for the States on Inmates in the Census

Abstract: For decades, predominantly rural and Republican districts have had extra clout in state and local legislative bodies because their large inmate populations were counted as local residents in apportioning representation. Now, the Census Bureau has agreed to give states a tool that could dilute the political power of those districts. In May 2011, in time for Congressional and legislative reapportionment, the bureau will identify exactly where group quarters like prisons are and how many people occupy them. States would then have the option of counting them in the local population or not. “This removes a technical problem,” said Peter Wagner, executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative , an advocacy group that favors alternatives to prison sentences and urges that inmates be counted in their hometowns. “The census is going to say where the prisons are and how many people are in them, which will enable states the practical choice of counting them in the wrong place or not counting them at all.” Mr. Wagner and other groups had originally asked the bureau to determine the home addresses of inmates and to count them at those addresses, but the 2010 census process was too far along for that change to be considered. A number of states — including Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin — are weighing legislation requiring that prisoners be counted at their last known address — for purposes of reapportionment, a change that would likely favor larger and mostly Democratic cities. In New York, the change could prove pivotal because of the see-saw fight for control of the State Senate and the fact that the state faces the loss of at least one Congressional seat after the 2010 census. “Most people in prison in America are urban and African-American or Latino,” Representative William Lacy Clay, a Missouri Democrat who is chairman of the census subcommittee, wrote the bureau, but the 2010 census “will again be counting incarcerated people as residents of the rural, predominantly white communities that contain prisons.” Bureau officials have agreed to release the more specific data several months earlier than usual to let states and localities consider it in apportioning districts for 2011 and 2012 races. Other groups that have lobbied for the change include the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. and Demos, a research and advocacy organization. “About 100 rural governments currently remove the prison populations manually, but this difficult and error-prone process was impossible to do on a state level,” Mr. Wagner said. “For the first time, state and local governments will have access to prison population counts in time for redistricting. This new data will allow state and local governments to avoid prison-based gerrymandering.” Until recently, one of the three council districts in Anamosa, Iowa, had about the same population as the other two, even though all but 58 of its 1,400 population were prison inmates. In St. Lawrence County in upstate New York, each legislator on the county board represents about 7,500 residents, but in two districts more than 1,000 of those residents are prison inmates.

Prisons and Prisoners
Redistricting and Reapportionment
Census
Population
Politics and Government
Census Bureau


In Baseball, Biggest Mistake Would Be to Dwell

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers had two runners on base with no one out in the bottom of the eighth inning Friday, so they ordered Russell Martin to bunt. Squaring around, he let four straight pitches from Chan Ho Park zip past, fouled off another to send the count full and, with the sacrifice sign taken off, proceeded to swing away. Martin ripped a ground ball to third that resulted in the pivotal moment of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2-1 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. Trying for a double play, second baseman Chase Utley misfired on his relay throw to first, allowing the tying run to score and extending what had been a bizarre inning for Philadelphia. Asked whether it was dumb luck that Martin did everything wrong but still accomplished his goal, Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel said he did not think so. “You know what I call that? I call that baseball,” Manuel said, adding, “Sometimes, it comes our way; sometimes, it goes the other team’s way.” The Dodgers may view Utley’s error and, by extension, their series-evening victory Friday as further evidence of their charmed postseason, that a World Series is their destiny. A misplayed liner by the St. Louis Cardinals’ Matt Holliday with two outs in the ninth inning turns into a dramatic comeback victory for the Dodgers . An inability to bunt turns into a botched double play that ties the score. Things must be going the Dodgers’ way for a reason, and there must be some cosmic meaning behind their stretch of good luck. “You hope, and you don’t try to think about it too much,” said the Dodgers’ Jim Thome, who was 0 for 7 against Scott Eyre before lining an eighth-inning single against him. “You take momentum and you try to carry it out as long as you can. Maybe there is something special here.” But for a veteran baseball man like Manuel, it is one of those weird innings that defy statistical analysis or rational explanation. In an era in which more and more metrics are used and numbers are dissected, the initial response, after a game like Friday’s, is to search for larger significance. What does it mean when the defending World Series champions have a ball go off a glove, overplay a bunt, foul up a double play, force in the winning run on a bases-loaded walk? That they are doomed, their quest for a repeat squashed? Hardly. In the eighth inning, what befell the Phillies, who had the second-highest fielding percentage and made the second-fewest errors in the N.L. during the regular season, was a confluence of negative things that arrived without warning. Pedro Feliz was shaded toward the third-base line, so he was a step slow to Casey Blake’s leadoff single that caromed off his mitt. Ronnie Belliard did not try to bunt the ball as hard as he did, but he pushed it past Park for a single. Utley committed 12 errors this season, but by some measures, including the sabermetric Ultimate Zone Rating, he was one of the best defensive second basemen in baseball. When Utley made an errant throw on a similar play in Game 1, his rhythm was disrupted by the flow of the play and he lost his grip on the ball. He just flung the ball away in Game 2. “I don’t think he’s made a throw like that all year long that’s been that far off the mark,” said the Phillies’ third-base coach, Sam Perlozzo, who works with the infielders. “I thought he’s been pretty darn good, to be honest with you.” Especially in the postseason, baseball’s appeal is grounded in happenstance and unpredictability. Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer ever, but he committed a throwing error in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series that spurred the Yankees’ downfall. The Los Angeles Angels are as fundamentally sound a team as there is, but they committed three errors and allowed a pop-up to drop between infielders on Friday against the Yankees. Even in Game 1 at Dodger Stadium, George Sherrill, who had not given up a home run to a left-handed hitter all season, surrendered one to Raul Ibanez, and Park, who had not pitched in a month, entered in the seventh inning with the tying run on second and subdued the teeth of the Dodgers’ lineup. All of the momentum the Phillies supposedly carried over from a four-hour Game 1 into an early start did not matter much Friday. But they, unlike the Cardinals, have a greater margin for error heading back home. St. Louis never recovered from Holliday’s error, falling behind by two games to none in the best-of-five series and looking flat in succumbing in Game 3. The Phillies are a resilient bunch, coming from behind twice against Colorado in the division series, and, having earned the split they wanted in Los Angeles, they return to Philadelphia for Game 3 on Sunday with their ace, Cliff Lee, on the mound. “It’s not like we went up there and they just pummeled us,” Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. “It’s a game that got away from us, and we like the way we’re playing.”

Los Angeles Dodgers
Philadelphia Phillies
Baseball
Playoff Games
Utley Chase


Nonverbal Actions Add to Clemens’s Story

Abstract: From his parched, pursed lips to the jut of his shoulders, Roger Clemens was holding something back, three body-language analysts who watched him over the past two days said Monday. “There’s more to the story,” said Janine Driver, a body-language consultant who trains law enforcement officers in truth detection. “There are several probing points that lead me to believe that he’s not going to be completely truthful.” Since the release of the Mitchell report last month, Clemens and his lawyer have issued a series of increasingly angry denials, rebutting claims by his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, that Clemens took steroids. But it was Clemens’s two recent television appearances — a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday, and a news conference Monday — that provided material to truth-detection analysts like Driver, who make a living parsing the slightest grimaces, shrugs and words for signs of subterfuge. In the “60 Minutes” interview, for example, the analysts noticed that Clemens swallowed hard, looked down, and licked and pursed his lips when answering questions — all signs, they said, that he might not have been telling the truth. “That’s indicative of deception, that’s indicative of stress,” said Joe Navarro, a retired F.B.I. agent who trains intelligence officers and employees for banks and insurance companies. Navarro has also written a book about how to tell whether someone is bluffing in poker. Nevertheless, Navarro warned against concluding that Clemens was lying. Even the most skilled body-language experts are right in only about half of all cases, he said, and investigators often study body language to decide when to dig deeper. It is not evidence that someone has committed wrongdoing; Clemens might have been showing stress from defending against potentially career-killing allegations. “He clearly shows signs of distress, but we don’t know why he’s being distressed,” Navarro said. During the news conference Monday, Clemens wondered aloud how his nonverbal actions might be read or misread. After taking criticism for drinking too much water during the “60 Minutes” interview, Clemens asked reporters: “Can I drink water? Is that good or bad?” before sipping water at the news conference. His lawyer told him, “Lighten up.” That anger spilled over several other times during the news conference, in both words and gestures. At one point, Clemens stood, jutting his shoulder toward reporters in what the behavioral analyst Maxine Lucille Fiel said was a classic sign of aggression. “That shoulder went right out into the camera, and he was daring someone or he was threatening,” she said. “He was ready to rumble.” Clemens’s final gesture on Monday needed no expert translation. He stood up, declared, “I’ve said enough,” and walked out of the room.


For a Unique Christmas Gift, Try the Prison Shop

Abstract: FLORENCE, Ariz. — As long as the price is right, holiday shoppers typically rush for the checkout without a thought for who has made their gifts. That is not the case at a humble shop in central Arizona where the difficult lives of the craftsmen are among the main selling points. Everything here at the Prison Outlet, as the name suggests, is produced by inmates from two state prisons nearby. This is the place to buy a painting by a burglar, a purse by a sex offender or a T-shirt by someone serving hard time for assault. Some of the gifts lining the shelves are attention-getting in their own right — the hand-painted belt buckles and sleek jewelry boxes, for example — but add in the fact that felons wearing orange prison uniforms made them, and every last item in stock becomes a conversation piece. “I ask customers, ‘Why are you here?’ and they say they come looking for unique novelty items that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Rick Kahn, the vice president and sales manager of Arizona Correctional Industries , the moneymaking arm of the state’s penitentiary system. “This stuff is odd. The prices are right. When they get back home, they say, ‘You won’t believe where I bought this.’ ” The shop is just outside the barbed-wire-topped gates of one of Arizona’s biggest prisons, not far from the state’s death chamber. The store stocks metal pieces, woodwork like roadrunner lawn ornaments and birdhouses made out of license plates. Artwork, much of it religious imagery and nature scenes of cactuses and desert wildlife, comes from minimum-security inmates who are nearing their release date as well as hardened criminals who are likely never to see freedom again. Inside the prison workshop, inmates are busy sanding, drilling, staining and painting, always under the watch of corrections officers. The jobs are prized, offering better pay than the more run-of-the-mill work offered around the yard. License plates are particularly big sellers. Inmates produce Arizona’s official plates and, as a side business, manufacture novelties that are similar to the real thing (“Your Name Here”). License plates are also twisted into lunchboxes and purses. The other day, there was a sale in the shop’s T-shirt section, where the selections bear logos that the inmates use to poke fun at their condition. “Florence, Arizona, a gated community,” reads one. Another says: “Arizona State Penitentiary. Come on vacation, leave on probation.” “We know the prison is a serious place — there was someone executed there a few weeks back,” Mr. Kahn said. “But this is another side of it.” Prison shops, which a number of states operate, do more than provide nifty gifts; they also help keep crime down, said Carson McWilliams, the warden at the Arizona State Prison Complex here. He said the work teaches the inmates a skill and provides them with a bank account when they get out, incentives that keep many of them from returning to prison. The store makes his job easier as well, Mr. McWilliams said, by keeping prisoners focused on something other than mischief. Some of the artwork is so striking that shoppers come back repeatedly to collect a particular inmate’s paintings or sketches. And while many of the works are signed by the felons who produce them, do not expect clerks to provide any insight into an artist’s rap sheet. “That’s lovely,” a woman said to the cashier recently as she studied a painting of a desert landscape. “What did he do?”

Automobile Registration and License Plates


Jet Engine Maker Rolls-Royce to Cut 5% of Work Force as Demand Dips

Abstract: LONDON — Rolls-Royce, the British maker of jet engines, said on Tuesday that it would cut its work force by 2,600 in the wake of a profit warning last month. The company said the cuts, which represent nearly 5 percent of its 55,000 employees worldwide, will come over the next 18 months and mainly occur in its aerospace division. The company did not say where, geographically, the jobs would be cut. Rolls-Royce has about 16,000 employees in Britain. Rolls-Royce is a leading global supplier of jet engines for military and civilian aircraft, and it also makes engines for ships and factories. The job cuts appear to be a sign of slackening global demand for big pieces of equipment. “The measures today will not be the last,” John Rishton, the company’s chief executive since 2011, said in a statement. “They will contribute to Rolls-Royce being a stronger and more profitable company.” The company also said on Tuesday that its chief financial officer, Mark Morris, a 27-year Rolls-Royce veteran, was leaving the company. He will be succeeded by David Smith, a former chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, who joined Rolls-Royce this year and has been serving as chief financial officer of the aerospace unit. Rolls-Royce — which is separate from the automaker Rolls-Royce Motors, owned by BMW — gave no explanation for Mr. Morris’s departure. Mr. Rishton announced the job reductions after the company disappointed investors in mid-October when it forecast that its profit next year would decline as much as 3 percent after previously predicting that profit would grow in 2015. The company’s stock price had fallen almost 10 percent since that announcement, though it closed 1.5 percent higher in London on Tuesday. In October, Mr. Rishton said that economic conditions had deteriorated quickly and that revenue at Rolls-Royce, as at many other companies, would come under pressure. The company also said that sanctions on Russia were contributing to delays and canceled orders. At the time, the company said that profit for the current year, excluding acquisitions and sales of businesses, was likely to be flat, with revenue declining up to 4 percent. The October profit warning and one in February interrupted a long streak of profit growth at the company as it developed new engines for Boeing and Airbus. In the decade through 2013, revenue nearly tripled to 15.5 billion pounds, or $24.8 billion, while profit was up about sixfold to about £1.8 billion in 2013. In its announcement Tuesday, Rolls-Royce said that it was able to make cuts because the Trent 1000 and Trent XWB engines it produces for the Boeing 787 and the Airbus 350 were now in production rather than design, reducing the number of engineers needed.


Controllers Were Slow to Notify Defense Command of Errant Jet

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Air traffic control supervisors delayed nearly an hour in notifying Norad, the military air defense command, that a Northwest Airlines jetliner was not responding to radio calls, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday. The delay was a violation of detailed procedures put in place after the hijackings of four airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001. The delay appeared to make little difference to Norad, said the administrator, J. Randolph Babbitt, because while the Air Force did prepare fighter jets in the incident it never ordered them into the air. Decisions on how to handle planes that do not respond to air traffic control instructions are based on a variety of factors, Mr. Babbitt said. Among them are whether the plane is in a metropolitan area, whether it is flying erratically and whether it is sending signals that it has been hijacked. None of those was the case on Oct. 21, when Northwest Flight 188, from San Diego to Minneapolis, flew about 150 miles past the airport. The pilots said afterward that they had been distracted during the flight by trying to use a new piece of software on their laptop computers for submitting work schedule requests. They were out of radio contact for 77 minutes, officials said. Mr. Babbitt said his agency’s procedures called for pointing out the plane to Norad and other agencies after 10 minutes of no communication, but in this case 69 minutes had lapsed. More than once, he said, as the plane flew into areas covered by different air traffic controllers, the controllers had shift changes but failed to point out to the relief controller that the plane was not in radio communication. “The timeline got reset several times for no particularly good reason,” Mr. Babbitt said. Mr. Babbitt and Henry P. Krakowski, the chief operating officer for the aviation administration, both former airline pilots, said that by itself losing radio contact with an airliner was not a major event; it typically happens several times a day. Pilots miss or mishear a radio call telling them to change frequencies as they enter a new sector, and thus lose radio communication for a few minutes, they said. Usually, they re-establish contact by checking in with the previous controller on the old frequency, but sometimes they have flown so far that they are out of radio range of the previous controller, the two men said. In the Northwest case, controllers called the airline to ask its flight dispatchers, airline workers who stay in contact with flights, to send text messages to the cockpit of Flight 188. Because Northwest is in the midst of integrating its operations with its new owner, Delta Air Lines, though, the phone number programmed in to the controllers’ auto-dial system had the wrong number, among other complications. And the Northwest crew did not respond to the text messages either. Controllers also asked other Northwest planes flying in the Minneapolis area to radio Flight 188 using the last frequency that the errant flight had used, when it was in touch with controllers in Denver, but that did not work either. Aviation officials have not yet laid out a definitive timeline for the flight, showing what calls the Northwest crew would have received if the plane had stayed tuned to the Denver frequency but had flown out of range of radios there. The F.A.A. revoked the pilots’ licenses, but they are appealing the action. The incident did not result in any damage or injury. But in a period of worry over distracted driving, it has attracted widespread public attention. Some lawmakers have proposed legal bans on laptops in cockpits, but Mr. Babbitt said Friday that that some airlines required their use, having pilots consult navigation charts on the screen instead of on paper. “It’s not so much what the device is, as that it’s a distractive device,” he said, adding that the distraction could as easily be a magazine or an iPod. There is already a rule requiring pilots to pay attention, he said, “We don’t need a new rule — we need more adherence to the rule.”

Northwest Airlines Corp
Federal Aviation Administration
Airlines and Airplanes
Air Traffic Control