Packers Coach Mike McCarthy Gives Up Calling Plays

Abstract: Green Bay Packers Coach Mike McCarthy said he would no longer call plays for the team’s offense. McCarthy is handing off the duties to Tom Clements, who was promoted from offensive coordinator to associate head coach. McCarthy had called the offense’s plays since he was hired as the Packers’ coach in January 2006. ■ The former Giants cornerback Terrell Thomas, 30, is retiring after his career was shortened by three reconstructive operations on his right knee. Thomas last played in an N.F.L. game in 2013, for the Giants.

Football
Mike McCarthy
Tom Clements
Packers


Prairie Birds Flirt, and a Town Livens Up

Abstract: EAGLEVILLE, Mo. — The prairie chickens flew in from the west to the booming grounds here, swooping down into the tall grass to stomp their feet and dance. This is where the more flamboyant males of the species like to make a ruckus in an effort to attract females with their steady, low-pitched calls, or booms. On a recent cold morning, though, only one hen thought the display worth her time. She fluttered about and eventually flew away. Perhaps more important to this tiny crossroads, population 275, halfway between Des Moines and Kansas City, is that the male birds are attracting human beings to Eagleville, which, like so many old Midwestern towns, is a faded relic of the robust farming community it used to be. Each spring for the past several years since the rare prairie chickens made an unlikely resurgence here after having disappeared for decades, the local human population has essentially doubled for the four weeks or so of the birds’ elaborate courtship rituals. More than 300 people — ornithologists and amateurs — have confirmed a spot on a guided tour to see the prairie chickens this year, and the waiting list is long, a guide said. There are only 500 or so prairie chickens in all of Missouri. There were more than 15,000 just 70 years ago. Experts say they might vanish all together in the next 10 years. “Every one of these small communities looks for a niche, or, ‘How do we bring people back to at least let them know we exist?’” said Randy Arndt, the site manager of the Dunn Ranch in Eagleville, where the viewing of the mating ritual takes place. “It’s kind of ironic for this area, the niche ended up being a prairie chicken, something that had always been here, disappeared, and came back.” Tourism, which had been practically unheard of here, is now a hot topic. A bed and breakfast is about to open and the few remaining old businesses are feeling the pulse of new life for the first time in decades. “You can see things in pictures, it’s just not the same,” said Jennifer McComb, an antiques dealer from St. Louis, during a recent viewing. “I cried. It’s the whole prairie thing, and the fact that they’re on the edge of not being. There are birds that I would have died to have seen that are long gone. These, they might not make it. They’re tricky. They’re weird. They’re special.” The prairie chicken bears only a slight resemblance to the kind of domestic chicken that is most often bred for food. The males have pronounced dark brown and cream stripes on their feathers and visible eyebrows, and orange-colored air sacs that, when deflated, make their characteristic booming sound. Hens are slightly more delicate-looking and plain. Axel Lischewski, a German pharmaceutical manager who lives outside Frankfurt, wanted to see them before he left a temporary work assignment in Missouri. “I heard about the viewing opportunity and wanted to take the chance,” Mr. Lischewski said. “That’s a beautiful bird.” The chickens have chosen this spot because it is the largest expanse of unplowed prairie in the region. The chickens need vast grasslands, and their decline is linked to that of the traditional prairie, which continues to vanish as the worldwide demand for food puts pressure on this region for larger harvests. “This was a popular spot for them we know as late as 1936 but by 1950, they were gone,” said Mr. Arndt, the ranch’s site manager. “Now they’ve come back.” The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, owns the ranch and offers the tours at no charge. Birders meet at the ranch before dawn and hide in a small wooden blind with rectangular slats for viewing in the middle of the grassy land. The space can fit 10 people at a time. Now the annual booming is a boon to the community. The town square is ghostly, but its one cafe was bustling at lunchtime, and several people who had been on an early birding tour had breakfast at a truck stop restaurant, the Dinner Bell. Nadine Ball, an education professor from St. Louis, was eating with Ms. McComb, the antiques dealer. “This feels real,” Ms. Ball said. “I travel so much, I get tired of the homogenized culture. You come to any little town like this, and it’s not canned. Mostly I feel sad, though — sad about the chickens, that there are so few, and because it’s so hard here. Hopefully the eco-tourism will take off.” Lisa Cracraft is counting on that. The postmaster of nearby Denver, Mo., Ms. Cracraft is putting the finishing touches on her new bed and breakfast, a renovated mansion. “I think this is a huge opportunity to put us on the map,” she said. “The prairie chickens really gave me the idea to even think about taking a chance on opening a business like this. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have even thought about it.”


Few Voters Are Truly Up for Grabs, Research Suggests

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Curtis Napier, a 52-year-old father of two in Lima , Ohio , belongs to a much-discussed group of Americans that is far smaller than is often realized: He is a true swing voter. He voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and for Barack Obama in 2008. With three months remaining in the campaign between President Obama and Mitt Romney , Mr. Napier said, “I may not just vote for either one of them.” About one-third of Americans describe themselves as independent voters, creating a widespread impression that a large group of Americans will provide the decisive swing votes in this year’s election. But that impression is misleading, polling experts and political scientists say. Many self-described independents — close to half, according to surveys — reliably vote for one party or the other. And many true swing voters live in states, like California or Texas , where no analyst doubts the outcome in November. In spite of clichés about Nascar dads and Walmart moms, the actual share of voters nationally who are up for grabs is probably between just 3 percent and 5 percent in this election, polling experts say. The Obama and Romney campaigns are expected to spend on the order of $2 billion, in part to try to sway this tiny share of the electorate. “There’s a very small slice of people who are genuinely undecided, but it’s enough to win the presidency,” said Rich Beeson, the political director for Mr. Romney’s campaign. The share of swing voters may even have declined in recent years, as many voters have become more reliably partisan. A report by the Pew Research Center found that self-identified Democrats are more liberal than in the past and self-identified Republicans are more conservative. A decline in swing voters would help explain why Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney have stayed within just a few points of each other, across many polls, despite months of a gyrating economy and attacks on both candidates. It is still unknown whether the selection of Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin as Mr. Romney’s running mate will provide him with a bump in the polls. But so far, the Gallup tracking poll has not indicated any immediate bump, even though vice-presidential choices have historically provided one. In close races in particular, cable news pundits and political observers revel in swing-voter guesswork, but the ensuing portrait is often more composite sketch than photograph. “There is so much pop psychology surrounding swing voters, but there is very little evidence that there are key demographics in the population that are inherently swing voters,” said John Sides, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University . “That doesn’t mean that in a particular election you can’t drill down, down, down, down and identify a group of swing voters. But how big is that group really, and is that group a swing group in a chronic sense? Probably not.” Part of the difficulty in identifying swing voters derives from confusion about the term “swing voter” itself. These voters might describe themselves as “undecided,” for example, or as “persuadable.” Often, they call themselves “independents,” although many who identify that way are not. Myths about the behavior of these voters are pervasive and persistent: For example, that undecided voters break for the challenger as Election Day nears. (Data have shown this is often not the case.) Among those whose past behavior suggests they are up for grabs this year, a few demographics are well represented. Many of those swing voters will be younger, or will not have graduated from college. More swing voters will be women than men. In three tossup states — Colorado , Florida and Nevada — Hispanics could make up as much as one-fifth of the swing vote. And non-college graduates will make up roughly 57 percent of swing voters in battleground states this year, according to one Democratic pollster, whose estimates were confirmed within a few points by a Republican. Of likely swing voters, white non-college voters are “particularly low-information voters who don’t pay attention to the daily political back-and-forth, so their opinions are driven by their economic situation,” said Jefrey Pollock, the president of Global Strategy Group, a polling firm for Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama “ super PAC .” Many, he said, are “fond of the president personally, but skeptical about their economic prospects.” A senior Romney aide, who requested anonymity discussing strategy, says the campaign’s microtargeting has identified specific swing-voter-rich counties in swing states: In Virginia , for example, a large number of swing voters are concentrated in Fairfax County, just outside the District of Columbia ; in Ohio, by contrast, undecided or persuadable voters are scattered throughout the state. In some cases, demographic patterns emerge: In Arapahoe County, Colo., just outside Denver , the majority of swing voters will probably be women, the aide said. Among these swing voters, only some are genuinely torn about whom to support but are certain they will vote, and a significant number favor a political party and will vote for the candidate of that party or not at all. Mr. Napier, the swing voter from Ohio, said last month that he might fall into the latter category this year, but that he did not yet have enough information to decide. Between working full time for a fabrication company and attending school part time for a degree in manufacturing engineering, he said consideration of the presidential election was an afterthought. In 2008, Mr. Napier drew much of his information from the presidential debates , in which, he says, “McCain seemed to be distracted most of the time when he talked, and Obama seemed to be an educated man who has focus.” Swing voters often form their opinions about candidates based on emotional intangibles and a few events, like the debates. Candidates may have just one chance to make an impression on these voters, and not always on the campaigns’ terms. “With these voters, they’re only paying half attention, but all of these outside events have an effect,” said Neil Newhouse, the head of polling for Mr. Romney’s campaign. Vying for the attention of these voters, the campaigns will wage a violent tug of war, which will include television advertising, digital strategy and vast ground operations. “I really do believe that the average swing voter in these states — people are going to see all these ads and, at some point, they’re going to have a conversation with their friends and family and neighbors about how they’re going to vote, and we’re going to be there,” said Jim Messina, the Obama campaign manager. But for all of the money and resources that will be spent to persuade swing voters, experts agree that the attention could prove unrequited. “I’m fairly certain about one thing: if turnout is lower in 2012 than in 2008 (which is not so unlikely), then there will be fewer ‘swing voters’ turning out,” Markus Prior, an associate professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University , wrote in an e-mail. “In lower-turnout elections, you will find a higher share of committed partisans.” Indeed, the possibility that partisan voters will drive this year’s election outcome is likely enough that it raises the question of whether swing voters are worth the attention they will receive. “There’s a constant debate in politics between turnout and persuasion, but the reality is, in close elections both things are important,” said Geoff Garin, a consultant for Priorities USA Action. “A campaign ignores one in favor of the other at its great peril.”


Campaign Reveals Just a Little Bit of Coke’s Secret Formula

Abstract: LONDON THE Coca-Cola secret formula is becoming a little less secret. For more than a century, Coke has fiercely guarded its recipe, created in 1886 by John S. Pemberton, a druggist in Atlanta who was trying to concoct a health drink. In recent decades the company has spun an aura of mystery around the formula — partly for competitive reasons, but also as a marketing tool. In a campaign introduced last month in Britain, Coke divulged a few facts about the formula. It has “no added preservatives or artificial flavors.” Its mastermind, Dr. Pemberton, selected “the best spices from around the world.” And Coke says that the recipe has not changed in 122 years. That final detail has cut both ways for Coca-Cola, which faced near-insurrection in the 1980s when it tried to tinker with the formula but now confronts public perceptions that its flagship drink is unhealthy or unnatural. “When we talked to consumers about Coke, we realized they didn’t know that it has no added preservatives or artificial flavors,” said Cathryn Sleight, marketing director of Coca-Cola Great Britain. “We felt it was important to reassure Coke drinkers of this fact.” Coca-Cola Great Britain will print the line “no added preservatives or artificial flavors” on the tens of millions of cans and bottles of Coke it sells each year in Britain. It has also set up a Web site, letsgettogether.co.uk, where it answers questions about the formula — without giving away any secrets, of course. One consumer put the question to the Web site bluntly: “What are the ingredients?” The answer was: “You’ll find all the ingredients in Coke and all the other drinks we sell on their can or bottle.” For Coca-Cola, the site says, that means carbonated water, sugar, caffeine, phosphoric acid, caramel for color and “natural flavorings.” • The Web site is part of a campaign called “Pemberton.” It was created by Santo, an Argentine agency, and is being introduced around the world this year. The campaign, which has television and print components, opened in Austria and Switzerland in April, and in Britain in July. In the United States, it began July 4 and will run through the Olympics on NBC. “ ‘Pemberton’ is more fact-based, affirming for consumers that Coca-Cola never has had, and never will have, added preservatives or artificial flavors,” said Cristina Bondolowski, global brand director for Coca-Cola. Carbonated soft drinks have waned in popularity as people have turned to alternatives that they consider more natural, like waters and teas. Coca-Cola and its rivals have also been under pressure from health lobbies and government officials over concerns of obesity in children. The Pemberton campaign is not aimed at depicting regular Coke as a diet drink. The Web site says that a 250-milliliter serving — about 8.5 ounces — has 105 calories, or 5 percent of the recommended daily intake for an adult. Tim Ambler, a senior fellow on the marketing faculty of the London Business School, said he did not see what Coke gained from the message of the Pemberton campaign. “Focusing on no added preservatives or artificial flavors is an odd thing for Coca-Cola to do,” he said. As for the rationale that consumers did not realize that Coke had no added preservatives, “my response to that would be that maybe consumers didn’t know — but they didn’t care,” Mr. Ambler said. “People don’t go looking for a soft drink with no additives.” The campaign is a bit of a departure for Coke, which usually tries to link its brand to the image of young, vibrant people having fun. Many previous campaigns have celebrated the drink’s taste, saying that it is “less sweet” than Pepsi, but this is the first time the company has focused squarely on the ingredients. The change of tack may have something to do with a new drink, Pepsi Raw, that was introduced in the Britain in February. PepsiCo says that by replacing corn syrup with cane sugar in Pepsi Raw, it has reduced the calorie content of a 300 milliliter serving — about 10 ounces — to 90 calories from 120 calories. For the time being, the drink has been introduced only in the Britain, where it is the first new formulation Pepsi has added to its line in more than 10 years. Pepsi also boasts that Pepsi Raw is made from natural ingredients and contains no artificial preservatives, colors, flavorings or sweeteners. Coke and Pepsi seem to be “responding to a global trend,” said Jasmine Montgomery, managing director of FutureBrand, a brand consulting division of McCann-Erickson WorldGroup. “Obesity, and health issues in general are hot topics at the moment, and they are not going to go away.” Companies that make sugared soft drinks “are having to work out what their future looks like in this very health and diet-obsessed world, and it is a source of considerable anxiety,” she said. • While Pemberton highlights Coke’s ingredients, a second campaign introduced last month in Britain, “Intrinsics,” focuses on taste. A TV spot called “Share the Love” shows a man phoning a friend who is sitting on a crowded commuter train, then opening a Coke, pouring it and drinking it to make his friend on the train jealous. “Intrinsics’’ includes TV spots by Wieden & Kennedy of Portland, Ore., and outdoor and radio components by Mother, a British agency. Mother has also contributed a series of “blipverts,” or five-second TV spots, which depict the sounds and noises associated with drinking a Coke, together with images of the cap being taken off a bottle of Coke, for example, or ice being dropped in a glass. Because they are short, the blipverts themselves are unusual. Coke has used them before to advertise its Fanta brand, but blipverts still represent a relatively new approach. The titles of the latest ones are evocative: “Cap,” “Fizz,” “Ice” and “Pour.” “The aim of the blipverts is not to try to tell a big story,” said Andy Medd, a partner at Mother. “We’re simply creating anticipation of desire. It’s very simple.” Ms. Bondolowski, the Coke brand director, said that Intrinsics made a more emotional appeal than Pemberton. The goal is “reminding consumers of the pleasure of enjoying an ice cold Coke, evoking positive feelings and memories about the brand and the product,” she said. Ms. Montgomery of FutureBrand said that Coca-Cola took a risk by deviating from its “long history of very entertaining, aspirational advertising.” People rely on Coke to produce commercials that influence pop culture, she said. “I’m very skeptical about whether a campaign about no additives or preservatives is the way to go,” Ms. Montgomery said. “Coke’s big strength has always been the lifestyle and the attitude of the brand — not its health credentials.”


Focusing on Future, Premier in Japan Unveils Cabinet

Abstract: TOKYO — Japan ’s new prime minister named a cabinet on Tuesday aimed at refocusing his governing party on the nation’s huge political and economic problems and making a break with the financial scandals that dogged his predecessor. In his inaugural news conference, Prime Minister Naoto Kan vowed to regain political momentum for his Democratic Party, which lost public support after his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, squandered a historic election mandate with broken promises and indecisive leadership. Mr. Hatoyama was driven to resign last week by plunging approval ratings. Mr. Kan also promised to tackle problems like poverty and Japan’s growing national debt in creating what he called a “society with the minimum amount of unhappiness.” Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Kan, 63, Japan’s fifth new prime minister in four years, was officially sworn into office by Emperor Akihito during a ceremony at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. There were also early signs that Japan’s scandal-weary voters were warming to Mr. Kan, a straight-talking former civic activist. Polls have shown a bounce for his party, and T-shirts appeared in Tokyo stores with a twist on an English-language slogan, “Yes We Kan.” Mr. Kan, a veteran of Japan’s political opposition, kept largely the same lineup as the Hatoyama government, signaling that he would continue the party’s efforts to shake up Japan’s unresponsive political system. But he also added several younger members as he strives to win back voters ahead of parliamentary elections next month. “This cabinet is youthful and fresh, and filled with people who love to work,” said Yoshito Sengoku, the newly appointed chief cabinet secretary. One new face is Renho Murata, a 42-year-old half-Japanese, half-Taiwanese former television announcer who won attention last year when she grilled bureaucrats during an inquiry into wasteful spending. Ms. Murata, who usually goes by Renho, was named minister in charge of administrative reform, giving her a leading role in the Democrats’ pledge to rein in the nation’s powerful bureaucracy. Yoshihiko Noda, 53, a fiscal hawk, was named finance minister, in a sign that the new government will seek to restrain Japan’s ballooning government debt, already twice the size of the nation’s $5 trillion economy. Mr. Kan kept the previous cabinet’s foreign and defense ministers, who helped negotiate a deal last month to relocate a United States air base on Okinawa. On Tuesday, Mr. Kan reiterated his intention to honor that agreement, while trying to find other ways to reduce the American military burden on the southern island. Mr. Kan said he would seek to meet with President Obama during a Group of 8 summit meeting later this month in Canada. He appears keen to keep smoother ties with Washington than did his predecessor, at a time when the region also faces increased tensions from the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, apparently by a North Korean torpedo. Domestic news media attention was also focused on the omission from the new lineup of one face in particular, Ichiro Ozawa, the governing party’s shadowy power broker and its secretary general under Mr. Hatoyama. A gifted political tactician, Mr. Ozawa is credited with engineering last summer’s landslide election victory, which ended a half-century of virtual one-party rule here. But his backroom deal-making became the focus of a series of financing scandals that undermined Mr. Hatoyama, who was also investigated for misreported political contributions from his mother. Since his election by Parliament on Friday, Mr. Kan has reshuffled top party posts in an apparent effort to distance himself from Mr. Ozawa. He replaced Mr. Ozawa as secretary general, the party’s No. 2 post, with Yukio Edano, 46, a prominent bureaucracy fighter in the Hatoyama government who has been a critic of Mr. Ozawa’s influence. “From today, we will no longer accept contributions from corporations and groups,” Mr. Edano told reporters. “We must regain public trust in the Democratic Party.” Over the weekend, public opinion polls by major newspapers found a larger-than-expected bounce for the Democrats’ approval ratings, which jumped to the mid-30s from around 20 percent after Mr. Kan took over.


End-of-Life Care in New York Area Highest in U.S., Study Says

Abstract: At the end of life, people with chronic diseases like cancer get more aggressive medical care in the New York area than anyplace else in the country, continuing a trend going back decades, according to a report released on Monday by researchers at Dartmouth College. The study, which looked at federal data from 2007, the most recent year available, found that 46 percent of chronically ill patients in the Manhattan hospital region, which also covers most of Brooklyn and Staten Island, were being treated at hospitals when they died, as opposed to dying at home or in hospices or nursing homes. That rate was the highest in the country. The region covering Long Island and Queens was second, with 42 percent; the Bronx region was third, at 40 percent; and the New Brunswick, N.J., region was fourth, at 39 percent. Nationally, 28 percent of hospitals’ chronic patients were being treated at hospitals when they died. Dr. Elliott S. Fisher, a co-author of the new study, said that some of the disparity might be driven by financial incentives for keeping patients in New York-area hospitals while neglecting the true wishes of the patients. “Surveys show quite clearly that Americans don’t want to spend their last days in intensive-care units,” Dr. Fisher said. “What they want is to avoid suffering, to be with their families, to be mentally aware.” His colleague Dr. David C. Goodman, a professor of pediatrics and health policy at Dartmouth Medical School, said that Medicare generally paid better for hospital-based care, including procedures and specialists, than for palliative care or community-based medical services. Dr. Gary Kalkut, chief medical officer of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, said that the study did not consider the complex factors that determine how long a patient stays in the hospital. “If someone doesn’t have a home, it’s hard to send them home,” he said. He said that studies, including ones by Dartmouth doctors, had shown that black and Hispanic patients were more likely to prefer dying in the hospital than in hospice care. He denied that federal financing provided an incentive to offer more aggressive care, saying that Montefiore had one of the lowest rates of intensive care use for terminally ill cancer patients in the country. The study also found that the use of hospice care was increasing in New York and across the country. Hospice care focuses on the quality of the life still remaining to the patient, rather than on curing diseases. At the five academic medical centers in the New York City area, the average number of days patients spent in hospice care, either at home or in an institution, rose to 10.1 days in 2007 from 5.4 days in 2003. “End-of-life care in the U.S. is changing fairly rapidly,” Dr. Goodman said Monday. Patients, he said, “are spending less time in the hospital and receiving more hospice care over all.”

Medicine and Health
Medicare
Hospice Care
New York City
Death and Dying
Hospitals


Coca-Cola Bottler Predicts a Fall in Profit

Abstract: The beverage bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises said Wednesday it expects second-quarter profit to fall by nearly 10 percent, citing the weak North American economy. The company also said it would be hard to meet its full-year earnings forecast of $1.50 to $1.55 a share if current economic and market trends failed to improve. Coca-Cola Enterprises, the world’s largest bottler of Coca-Cola Company beverages, said the weakening North American economy was cutting into sales volume, especially in 20-ounce bottles, which are sold in convenience stores. Higher gasoline prices have cut into convenience store traffic, analysts said. Analysts, on average, expected earnings for the quarter to be up 5 percent, and forecast a profit of $1.51 a share for the year.

Coca-Cola Enterprises Incorporated
Company Reports
Soft Drinks
Coca-Cola Co


Tense Talks With U.S. Agencies Up Until Indian Diplomat Departed

Abstract: It was 5:47 p.m. on Wednesday when the United States approved India’s request that Devyani Khobragade be accredited to that country’s United Nations mission, conferring on her “the privileges and immunities” accorded diplomatic envoys. For Ms. Khobragade, immunity was the crucial part. Her recent arrest in New York on charges of visa fraud and making false statements in connection with her employment of a domestic worker led to an outcry in India and touched off tensions with the United States. At the time, she was India’s deputy consul general in New York. By Thursday night, the diplomatic crisis seemed over, but only after a tense final few hours, as Ms. Khobragade was driven to Kennedy International Airport, only to be told by her American lawyer not to leave until a federal judge approved her departure. The lawyer, Daniel N. Arshack, who provided the account of her departure, also offered a first look at his negotiations with prosecutors in the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. Prosecutors have said they outlined “reasonable parameters for a plea” but received no response. Mr. Arshack said he met with prosecutors on Jan. 4, a Saturday. Ms. Khobragade was not there but with her permission, two Indian diplomats attended the meeting. A State Department official said this weekend that while the legal and diplomatic processes were separate, the State Department encouraged India to work with the Justice Department. Mr. Arshack said that the defense had been willing to have an independent arbiter review the case and determine whether there had been an underpayment to the worker, Sangeeta Richard, and “to be bound by that finding.” But he said Mr. Bharara’s office insisted that as part of any deal, Ms. Khobragade, 39, would have to plead guilty to a crime and acknowledge her participation in a fraud. “That was their prerequisite,” Mr. Arshack recalled. “Their threshold issue was, ‘You must admit to committing a crime and to defrauding the U.S.’ ” He said a guilty plea “was a nonstarter” for his client. “She has steadfastly refused to plead guilty to any crime because she didn’t commit one,” he said. “That has been her position from the beginning.” Mr. Arshack said he and the Indian diplomats “were troubled by the intransigence of the U.S. attorney’s office.” Mr. Bharara’s office was asked on Sunday for a response to Mr. Arshack’s comments, including his statement that his client had not committed a crime. The deputy United States attorney, Richard B. Zabel, responded by citing the detailed allegations in an indictment released on Thursday, which included as exhibits “two contradictory contracts signed by Ms. Khobragade, one of which the indictment alleges was used to deceive the U.S. government and is there for the public to see,” Mr. Zabel said. Mr. Zabel said that the charges remained pending against Ms. Khobragade, that she was presumed innocent and that she was “free to exercise her constitutional right to put the government to its proof in a court of law.” “There, as always, we will have the burden of proving the charges in the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said, adding that the office would “welcome the opportunity.” The focus soon turned to a diplomatic solution, Mr. Arshack said. India had already asked the State Department to accredit Ms. Khobragade to its mission, which would give her immunity. The State Department says such requests are rarely rejected, and on Wednesday, the United States approved the request, according to a court filing by Mr. Arshack. The United States said it then asked India to waive immunity with respect to the charges against Ms. Khobragade, that India refused and the State Department then requested her immediate departure. On Thursday, Mr. Arshack said, he got a call from Ms. Khobragade, who was about to be driven to the airport for a 2:25 p.m. flight. He called the State Department, saying he would not allow her to leave without the court’s permission. He says neither he nor his client, who was free on bond, wanted it to appear that she was fleeing the country, when in fact she was leaving because she was obligated to. Mr. Arshack said he told Ms. Khobragade to stay inside her vehicle when it got to the airport. He said he then called two investigators, who had been working for him on the case, and had them drive to the mission and follow her on the way to the airport. If Indian officials tried to compel her to leave the vehicle, Mr. Arshack recalled telling his investigators, they should take her to the Manhattan federal courthouse, where he was heading. At 3:33 p.m., Mr. Bharara’s office released the indictment charging Ms. Khobragade with fraudulently obtaining a visa for Ms. Richard, saying she had “illegally underpaid and exploited” her and tried to “silence and intimidate” her and her family. But two prosecutors, Amanda Kramer and Kristy Greenberg, wrote the court that no arraignment was needed because Ms. Khobragade had “very recently” received diplomatic immunity. At 4:40 p.m., Mr. Arshack and the prosecutors appeared before Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, who found that Ms. Khobragade would not be “violating any conditions of her release” by immediately returning to India. “So, that problem is resolved,” the judge said. By then, Ms. Khobragade’s Air India flight had left without her; she caught a plane later that night.

Devyani Khobragade
Preet Bharara
US Foreign Policy
India
Domestic worker
Diplomats Embassies and Consulates
Diplomatic immunity
Sangeeta Richard


Costa Rica Coach Quits After Fight

Abstract: Paulo Wanchope resigned as the coach of Costa Rica’s national team a day after he was involved in a fistfight at a match in Panama City. Wanchope was an observer at Tuesday night’s game between the under-23 teams of Costa Rica and Panama. A scuffle broke out, and video of the incident shows Wanchope angrily opening a gate to the field, shoving a youth standing behind it and apparently receiving a shove from a man standing beside the gate. Wanchope then turns and punches the man, who kicks and hits him before the police intervene. Wanchope, who took over Costa Rica’s team last year after a career as one of Central America’s most famous forwards, had approached the field several times to shout at officials that the match was fixed, said Ramon Cardoze, vice president of the Panama Soccer Federation. ■ Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko joined Roma on a season-long loan. City said Dzeko, 29, would move to Roma permanently if “certain conditions are met” at the end of the season.

Soccer
Paulo Wanchope
Costa Rica
Coaches


German Court Rules Against Circumcising Boys

Abstract: BERLIN — A German court in Cologne ruled on Tuesday that circumcising young boys represents grievous bodily harm, a decision that could have significant repercussions for religious groups. The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany condemned the decision as “an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the self-determination of religious communities” and called on the German Parliament to pass legislation protecting circumcision as a religious practice. The case centered on a 4-year-old boy whose Muslim parents had him circumcised by a doctor, which led to medical complications. Although both Muslims and Jews circumcise infant boys as a religious practice and many other people do so for health reasons, the court found that the child’s “fundamental right to bodily integrity” was more important than the parents’ rights. According to the court, the religious freedom “would not be unduly impaired” because the child could later decide whether to have the circumcision. Millions of Muslims call Germany home, as do more than 100,000 Jews, as part of a community that has enjoyed a significant resurgence here. Since World War II , many Germans have been careful to consider Jewish sensitivities as a result of the horrible crimes committed against Jews during the Holocaust in the name of the German Reich. Jewish leaders reacted furiously to Tuesday’s decision. The central council’s president, Dieter Graumann, called it “outrageous and insensitive,” saying in a statement that circumcision had been practiced worldwide for thousands of years. “In every country in the world this religious right is respected,” Mr. Graumann said. Germany has no law against male circumcision, as there is against female genital cutting . Experts said that the decision would not be enforceable in other jurisdictions. But the legal uncertainty and threat of possible prosecution could lead doctors to decline to perform the procedure. The central council said the national Parliament, the Bundestag, should “create legal certainty and thereby protect religious freedom from attacks.” The decision by the court “places an intolerable burden on the free exercise of religion by Jews and also by Muslims who practice male circumcision as part of their religious faith,” Abraham H. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director in New York, said in a statement . While the ruling did not appear to have specific anti-Semitic intent, Mr. Foxman said, “its effect is to say, ‘Jews are not welcome.’ ” Holm Putzke, a criminal law expert at the University of Passau, told the German news agency DPA that the ruling was not binding for other courts, but could send a welcome signal. “After the knee-jerk outrage has faded away, hopefully a discussion will begin about how much religiously motivated violence against children a society is ready to tolerate,” he said.

Circumcision
Freedom of Religion
Jews and Judaism
Germany
Muslims and Islam


Many in Boston Feel Relief as Olympic Bid Ends, but Others See a Stagnant City

Abstract: BOSTON — Carol Oldham was enjoying lunch with a friend on a park bench in Boston Common on Tuesday, one day after the United States Olympic Committee pulled the plug on the city’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Games. The Olympic organizers had somewhat incongruously envisioned transforming the Common, the oldest urban park in the country, into the site for beach volleyball, with a temporary 16,000-seat stadium and tons of sand strewed across the sloping greenery. Ms. Oldham, 43, executive director of a nonprofit group, was still slightly aghast at the prospect. “How many of these beautiful old trees would they have had to chop down?” she asked, shaded by majestic oaks and maples. “And tons of sand?” Across Boston, residents were still processing the past half-year of tumultuous, all-consuming debate over whether Boston should have gone for the gold. The naysayers, whom Mayor Martin J. Walsh dismissed as “10 people on Twitter,” had won out: The bid collapsed Monday after Mayor Walsh refused to guarantee that taxpayers would cover cost overruns, and the U.S.O.C. said public support here was too anemic for Boston to prevail over other cities, including Paris and Rome. The decision left Bostonians reflecting on whether the city was too small-minded and stodgy to achieve anything big or too smart to be taken in by developers promising Olympic riches. Ms. Oldham, for one, said she was proud that Boston had spurned the Games, and not just because the idea of beach volleyball on the Common was tone-deaf. “I think it says really good things about Boston,” she said. “I’m really proud of us for saying no and not saying, ‘Whatever your terms are we’ll accept them.’ Taxpayers end up bearing a huge burden, and you end up with a lot of infrastructure that you don’t use again.” Hers seemed to be the prevailing view, if the poll numbers were any guide. When the ax fell, many more people still opposed hosting the Olympics than supported it. “I think Boston is perfect as it is,” said George Rodriguez, 48, an electrician, who was taking a break in the Common. “The Olympics would have left a big bill behind for the taxpayers.” He also thought that Los Angeles, which may try to win the bid in Boston’s place, would be a better choice. “Here, we shine in our own way,” he said. “We have our history, our marathon. In California, they like to showboat.” But for Thomas J. Whalen, a political historian at Boston University, the outcome was frustrating. The bid withdrawal short-circuited a discussion about a master plan for Boston’s future, he said, and has shown the city to be “a parochial backwater.” “Sometimes I just want to pull my hair out,” he added. “It’s probably easier to get to Pluto and back than have a master development plan for Boston.” He said the Olympics could have served as a catalyst to move Boston ahead. But he faulted the private group that organized the bid as “completely incompetent” for making blunder after blunder, including developing its plans in secret, misrepresenting them to the public, hiring former Gov. Deval Patrick at $7,500 a day (he later said he would work free), and failing to show how the Olympics could help restore the region’s crippled mass transit system, one of its most pressing problems. The chief opposition group, No Boston Olympics, was careful all along to avoid appearing parochial, and its statement after the bid fell apart reflected how it had straddled the line. “We are a city with an important past and a bright future,” the group said. “We got that way by thinking big, but also thinking smart.” Dueling columnists at The Boston Globe captured the varying moods over the outcome. Joan Vennochi praised the organizers of No Boston Olympics and called them heroes in the best Revolutionary tradition. “Naysayers, after all, helped make Boston the city it is,” she wrote. “They said no to King George III — who also underestimated the enemy — and yes to democracy.” But to her fellow columnist, Shirley Leung , the outcome was a severe disappointment. “There’s a way to spin this that should make people feel good, and it goes like this: We don’t do track meets here, we cure cancer,” she wrote. But that view reflected poorly on the city, she said. “To the world, Boston is still the same old, same old — a difficult place to get anything done, a place where we’re happy as we are.” Mr. Whalen, the professor, agreed that the city’s rejection of the Olympics had sent out a new, discouraging message: “ ‘The time of big dreams, big accomplishments, is over,’ ” he said. “ ‘Think small,’ that’s the mantra for Massachusetts. ‘Limit your dreams.’ ”


Trial of Alan Gross Ends in Cuba

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Cuban state television announced Saturday that the argument phase of the trial of an American government contractor, Alan Gross, charged with crimes against the state, had ended. A verdict is expected in the coming days. If convicted, Mr. Gross faces up to 20 years in prison. The ailing Mr. Gross, 61, was detained in December 2009 when, according to Cuban authorities, he was distributing satellite telephone equipment to Jewish groups on the island that would have allowed them access to the Internet, which is widely restricted by the Cuban government. Mr. Gross had been sent to Cuba as part of a semicovert U.S.A.I.D. program aimed at weakening the government. American officials contend that his activities did not amount to breaking the law. But Havana has long decried the programs as an infringement on its sovereignty, and many political analysts believe President Raúl Castro is using Mr. Gross’s detention to send that message to Washington. “Under Cuban law it seems pretty black and white that what Mr. Gross was doing was illegal,” said Phil Peters , an expert on Cuba at the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan policy group. Referring to the U.S.A.I.D. program, Mr. Peters added, “It put Mr. Gross in a world of trouble.” The detention has been a serious sore point in relations between the United States and Cuba. It came at a time when President Obama had pledged to open new channels of engagement with the Cuban people. Even after Mr. Gross’s arrest, however, President Obama continued with his policy of engagement, lifting limits on remittances for people with relatives on the island and loosening restrictions on travel for scholars, artists and business groups. Although Mr. Gross faces a stiff sentence, most political observers expect him to be released on humanitarian grounds. The contractor has lost some 90 pounds since he was detained, and his daughter had a double mastectomy after a cancer diagnosis late last year.

United States Agency for International Development


Tie at Top in Spain

Abstract: The defending champion Soren Kjeldsen and Paul Lawrie shared the lead at the Andalucia Open in Malaga, Spain, after each shot a five-under 65 in the opening round. Kjeldsen and Lawrie each had seven birdies and two bogeys around the Parador Golf Course on the Costa Del Sol. Seven players were a stroke behind.


At N.C.A.A. Tournament, One Motto Fits Many Teams

Abstract: ANAHEIM, Calif. — The members of the Oklahoma men’s basketball team have a motto, “Play for each other.” The Sooners took the saying to heart in their round-of-16 victory over Texas A&M on Thursday, producing their most concerted effort of the season. But the Oklahoma players will not have “Play for each other” emblazoned across their chests Saturday when they take the court against the Oregon Ducks in the West Regional final. The Sooners are sponsored by Nike, which like other shoe and apparel companies has one guiding principle during the annual N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments: One slogan fits all. N.C.A.A. Championship: Villanova vs. North Carolina Live Updates Almost every athlete from a Nike-sponsored team has donned a T-shirt during the last two weeks bearing the catchphrase “Always Reppin’,” the company’s chosen slogan this March. Oklahoma players wore the T-shirts for their game against the Aggies, who are sponsored by Adidas. Phil Knight, the Nike founder, attended Oregon and has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to his alma mater. The Ducks are “ Always Reppin ’ ” too, except when they are on the “Quack Attack” or championing “Mighty Oregon.” They have a change of shirt for every game of the week, and on Saturday they opted to wear black, long-sleeved shirts with “We” on one sleeve and “Are Family” on the other, while Oklahoma stayed with the “Always Reppin.’ ” Knight, who attended the Ducks’ victory on Thursday over Duke, another Nike team, said it was like watching two of his children square off, as if he were basketball marketing’s version of Richard Williams, the father of the tennis players Venus and Serena Williams. Image The Gonzaga Bulldogs are reppin’ this spring. Credit Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images The Oregon players said they wore whatever warm-up attire was hung in their locker stalls by the Ducks’ equipment manager. That is Donovan Rogers, who said he followed a script provided by a Nike employee acting as a kind of awards-season stylist for member schools in the running for Best Performance by a Team in a Leading Role. According to another Nike employee, Brian Strong, a company spokesman, a marketing team came up with “Always Reppin.’ ” It may have been inspired by a Birdman rap song, “4 My Town,” in which Drake sings the lyric “I’m just repping for my town.” In an email, Strong described the warm-up shirts as an “inspirational” product, one obviously meant to be shared. The shirts are available for purchase at Nike stores. Does it rub any players the wrong way to have an inorganic slogan on their organic cotton shirts? Do they care that they are essentially modeling the apparel company’s latest line of inspirational clothing, and all they get out of the deal are a few T-shirts? “There’s certain stuff you like more than others depending on whatever your taste is,” said Casey Benson, a sophomore guard at Oregon. He added: “It’s nice to have your own original saying. There’s something to be said about that.” Caid Kirven, a 6-foot-9 senior forward for Virginia, which is sponsored by Nike, said: “I’m always a fan of getting new stuff. But, yeah, it is one of those things because we get them and they’re awesome and we’re really excited and then we turn on the TV and everyone is wearing them and it’s like, Oh, man.” Image When the Oklahoma Sooners take the court against the Oregon Ducks in the West Regional final, they, too, will be reppin’. Credit Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press The Cavaliers defeated another Nike team, Iowa State, in the round of 16 on Friday, and they will face another corporate partner on Sunday, since Syracuse is reppin’ this spring, too. The Cyclones’ Deonte Burton had no problem sharing a motivational slogan with the competition. “Even with the ‘Always Reppin’ it’s customized to the colors of the school, so it brings a different type of pride for each school because different schools represent different things,” Burton said. “It’s bigger than the actual slogan.” On Thursday, the Texas A&M players wore warm-up shirts that reflected their guiding philosophy, “Heart Over Hype.” The senior guard Alex Caruso explained the motto. “It’s about working hard, doing the little things every day that make you a good team,” he said. But Caruso was not wearing the “Heart Over Hype” shirt as he spoke. The Aggies are an Adidas team, and so they had shirts with the company-approved — and widely copied — slogan “Made in March.” As far as inspirational messages go, “Made for April” might have been better for Texas A&M, which failed to advance. Before the game against the Aggies, Oklahoma’s Jordan Woodard met the news media wearing a long-sleeve white shirt with the words “Bring Your Game” emblazoned across the front. If he had his choice of shirts, he was asked, would he prefer that one for warm-ups or the ubiquitous “Always Reppin’ ”? “Ooooooh,” Woodard said, pausing to think. “I like them both. ‘Always Reppin’ has the Oklahoma logo underneath, so it’s always repping Oklahoma, and I like that.” Woodard’s teammate Buddy Hield is not particular about what he wears. He grew up in the Bahamas as one of seven children raised by his mother. In a post on The Players’ Tribune , he wrote recently about not having enough money for new clothes. He dressed in what he described as “pass-me-down” T-shirts from his siblings or traded clothing with his brothers. “It’s funny thinking about my fashion style as a kid,” Hield wrote. “It was whatever T-shirt another brother wasn’t wearing that day.” For Hield, a player-of-the-year contender, happiness is a new T-shirt. How’s that for a slogan? He said he collected the T-shirts he received during the season and distributed them to family members and friends back home. “It’s kind of tough, though, because sometimes when I’m looking for gear to wear, I don’t find any,” he said with a laugh, “because I’m always sending it back home.” The motto that Hield lives by is not found on any N.C.A.A. tournament T-shirt. But maybe it should be. “My mom always taught us to share,” he said. “She said, ‘What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours.’ ”

Uniform
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness
College basketball
Slogans and Mottoes
T-shirt
advertising,marketing
University of Oklahoma
University of Oregon
adidas
Nike


If You Use Outlook E-Mail, Meet Xobni

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Adam Smith was 12 when Microsoft introduced its desktop e-mail program, Outlook. Outlook is now the most popular e-mail tool in the world, used by hundreds of millions of people. And Mr. Smith, now 23, thinks that the program is so poorly suited for most people’s intensive e-mail habits that he has co-founded a company, Xobni, intended to fix it. “Using Outlook today is like taking a Volkswagen Beetle into space,” Mr. Smith said. “People are kind of exerting all these stresses upon it that it wasn’t originally designed to withstand.” Xobni, based in San Francisco, is introducing a new tool on Monday that plugs into Outlook. Mr. Smith’s general complaint — one that is shared by many users of Outlook — is that the more the program is used, the slower it gets and the harder it is to search for e-mail addresses and phone numbers. To solve these problems, Xobni (“inbox” spelled backwards and pronounced zob-nee) has produced free downloadable software that, once installed, indexes all the e-mail in Outlook and makes those messages quickly and easily searchable. The software, available at www.xobni.com , will also be sold to companies. Other programs, like Google Desktop, perform that same basic index-and-search function. But Xobni, which its creators call an “intelligent filter,” adds a few more features. When it scours the inbox, it extracts phone numbers it thinks are associated with the sender. So when a user searches for a person, Xobni presents the number in a side panel to Outlook. The software also interprets the social relationships between people who are sending messages to each other. For example Xobni recognizes that if an executive sends a copy to someone else on each message he or she sends, it might be to an assistant or another colleague. When someone using Xobni searches for that executive in Outlook, the second person is listed as well. Extracting these social networking features from e-mail is an enticing proposition in Silicon Valley these days, and as a result, the San Francisco-based company and its 14 employees have become a magnet for attention. The company raised $4 million from the investment funds of Vinod Khosla, a Sun Microsystems co-founder, and Niklas Zennstrom, one of the creators of Skype. In February, Bill Gates demonstrated the program at Microsoft’s San Jose developers’ conference and called it “the next generation in social networking.” Microsoft loves it when developers improve its programs, and Xobni is no exception. But executives at the start-up describe an “awkward dance” with Microsoft over the last few months. This year, Microsoft and Xobni held preliminary talks about Microsoft acquiring the startup. But negotiations broke down over price, the future independence of the company inside Microsoft and the willingness of Xobni employees to move to Seattle. The company was founded by two former graduate students, Mr. Smith in computer science and Matt Brezina, 27, in electrical engineering, who met on internships in Washington in 2006. Last year the co-founders went through a Silicon Valley start-up boot camp, called Y Combinator, where they received an initial investment and temporary offices. Xobni now has ambitions that extend well beyond Microsoft Outlook. Jeff Bonforte, a 35-year-old former Yahoo vice president, joined Xobni as chief executive in February. He plans to expand Xobni’s reach to various e-mail programs, like the popular Web-based services Yahoo Mail, Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Hotmail as well as social networks like Facebook and Linkedin. Mr. Bonforte imagines that one day when people type a name into the Xobni search box, the software will find e-mail, instant messages and other online communications from that person even if he or she sent those messages on several Web-based services. “We want to know about the relationships that exist in multiple inboxes,” he said. Xobni will face competition in its quest to improve online communications. All of the major Internet companies talk about making e-mail smarter and more socially aware. And Web e-mail services like Gmail and Hotmail are growing much more rapidly than the desktop-based Outlook, where Xobni is planting its flag, for now. At Yahoo in particular, Mr. Bonforte’s former colleagues have frequently spoken publicly about pursuing the next generation of “smart” e-mail. “We feel like there’s a rich opportunity to create a smarter inbox by leveraging the people you are connecting to and contacting to most often,” said Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president and Mr. Bonforte’s former boss. “That is a key initiative for Yahoo in 2008.”

Electronic Mail
Microsoft Corp
Xobni.com
Computers and the Internet
Smith Adam
San Francisco (Calif)
Khosla Vinod
Zennstrom Niklas
Gates Bill


Kevin Na Leads at Colonial

Abstract: Kevin Na took sole possession of the lead with a late birdie at the Colonial in Fort Worth, taking a one-stroke lead over Ian Poulter into the final round. ■ Byeong-Hun An shot a five-under-par 67 to share the lead with Francesco Molinari after the third round of the BMW PGA Championship in Virginia Water, England. Miguel Ángel Jiménez hit a European Tour-record 10th hole in one when he converted his tee shot from 148 yards at the par-3 No. 2. ■ The defending champion Colin Montgomerie shot a two-under 70 to take a three-shot lead in the Senior PGA Championship in French Lick, Ind.

Golf
Kevin Na
Ian Poulter
PGA Championship
Professional Golfers Assn European Tour


Resilient Golf Turf Faces Test at Olympics

Abstract: Consider what is behind, or rather beneath, golf’s return to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next month after a 112-year hiatus: the grass. Zeon Zoysia is a durable, warm-weather grass developed 5,000 miles from Rio in tiny Poteet, Tex., a town of 3,260 best known as the home of the country singer George Strait and a strawberry festival. Bred and developed over the past 20 years by Bladerunner Farms, a turf nursery 40 miles outside of San Antonio, Zeon Zoysia is making a global debut on Rio’s Olympic golf course. The grass could play a role in the sport’s potential growth, particularly in South America, an expanding market for course construction. “It’s one way to make the Olympics,” said David Doguet, the owner of Bladerunner Farms. “We didn’t make the Olympics as athletes, but we made it as grass farmers.” Gil Hanse , in consultation with the Hall of Famer Amy Alcott, designed the 7,290-yard, par-71 course in the Barra da Tijuca area, about three miles from the Olympic Village. Nearly 90 percent of the 88-acre course will feature Zeon Zoysia, including on the fairways, the roughs and the tee boxes. Zeon Zoysia requires less water, fertilizer, nitrogen and pesticide than most other types of golf turf, Doguet said. Perhaps most important, he said, it can endure Rio’s poor soil and water quality and meets the strict environmental regulations that prohibit the use of chemical fertilizers and weed killers on the course, which is on a nature preserve. Image Rio’s Olympic golf course is on a nature preserve. Credit Ricardo Moraes/Reuters Doguet added that the turf is dense and stiff and props up the ball for cleaner contact and that it plays well in summer or winter, dry or wet. “The playability of the surface is always good,” he said. Course designers also like the grass for its minimal requirements for water and care, which can reduce operating costs. Zeon Zoysia first appeared on American courses in 2001. Most recently, Tiger Woods used it on Bluejack National, his first course in the United States, outside Houston. Trinity Forest Golf Course, a new site in Dallas that will host the Byron Nelson PGA tournament in 2019, also features Zeon Zoysia. A lush Olympic golf course that is able to survive Rio’s harsh environment, looks good and plays great could provide much needed relief to the sport. Golf’s bumpy return to the Olympics has been marked by the withdrawals of top male players , who have cited tight tour schedules and concerns over security and the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness linked to birth defects. Olympic golf took another hit at the British Open this month when Rory McIlroy told reporters that he would not watch it on television , instead preferring track and field, swimming and diving. Adding to the shaky start is the decline in interest in golf since Tiger Woods’s boom years. According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of people who had played at least one round of golf dropped to 24.1 million in 2015 from a high of 30 million in 2000, the year Woods won three majors. Television ratings, club memberships, equipment sales and course construction are also down. “I won’t say they’re prima donnas, but we have very high-value players that choose to not attend for various reasons, which will obviously affect some, but not people here in Rio,” said Neil Cleverly, Rio’s Olympic golf course superintendent. “They don’t know Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth from Father Christmas. Organizers put this together under the auspices that these guys are playing, and then they don’t come. “Why, because of Zika or security? You could be shot in downtown Chicago or run over in Florida just as easily.” After Rio, the International Olympic Committee has included golf at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. Beyond that, the sport’s Olympic future is uncertain. A good show at Rio, where 120 men and women will play in separate tournaments before three billion television viewers worldwide, would bolster the case to keep golf in the Olympic program and help maintain interest in the sport. Zeon Zoysia is playing its part this summer, though it is far less celebrated. The course defied every harsh condition, natural and political, that Rio has presented. In 2012, two handfuls of grass sprigs were shipped down from Texas to an off-site turf farm in Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, where it was grown and tended by Marcelo Matte of Green Grass Brasil. The sprigs were then grown into one acre of sod and trucked 1,000 miles to a farm near the course. At the farm, Matte grew the sod to 60 acres, and it was planted on the golf course in 2014 by six local men whose only experience was working on soccer fields. The grass was laid down in large rolls of sod unfurled or as sod slabs fitted together like puzzle pieces. The entire process, including continuing weeding and sod installation, was done by hand. “You’ll see it on television,” Matte said. “No patches, very clean and green. Olympic golf will be a natural beauty.” Image Farmhands harvest Zeon Zoysia grass from the fields of Bladerunner Farms. A similar harvesting process was used in Brazil where the Bladerunner Farms grass was cultivated for use on the Olympic golf course. Credit Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times Along the way, there were setbacks and logistical delays, including late paychecks, limited resources, equipment issues, environmental protests, bureaucratic roadblocks, debates over land ownership and a monthslong legal battle in which the builders were accused of violating environmental regulations. The builders were prohibited from removing or adding any soil to the course and were forced to dig below sand deposits for usable soil. Chemicals were banned. Sand was recycled for traps. Doguet said that Cleverly “couldn’t manage the course the way you would at one of the majors, where they can do anything to make a course look good and play well.” Cleverly has helped build challenging courses in remote areas in Egypt, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, earning him a reputation as “the Indiana Jones of golf course construction” and the “grass whisperer.” He said the Rio course, with the alchemy required to build it, was unlike any other course he had built. “Having patience, thick skin and a military background helped,” he added. The course is ready for its close-up. This month, it won Golf Digest’s Green Star Award for outstanding environmental practices, an industry honor. Since the course was built, native vegetation has increased by 167 percent, according to an assessment report by the Rio government that was cited by the magazine. The number of animal species has more than doubled and now includes a mix of monkeys, owls, sandpipers, egrets, crocodile-like caimans and capybaras, the world’s largest rodent. When the Olympics are over, the site will become Brazil’s first public golf course. Doguet is pleased about that legacy and shrugs off the problems surrounding Olympic golf. He said the dropouts and critics were beside the point. “This is the first Olympic golf course ever built,” Doguet said. “This is history.”

Golf
2016 Summer Olympics
Rio de Janeiro
Grass


Howard Kurtz, Media Critic, Leaves Daily Beast and Newsweek

Abstract: Howard Kurtz, the longtime media critic, is departing as the Washington bureau chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, the head of those publications said Thursday. Tina Brown, the editor in chief, said in a Twitter post that Mr. Kurtz had “parted company” with the two online news sites. She did not give a reason, but the announcement came as Mr. Kurtz was embroiled in a controversy over a blog post he wrote about the basketball player Jason Collins. Mr. Collins co-wrote a Sports Illustrated article that was published on Monday in which he acknowledged that he was gay. In a post this week, Mr. Kurtz criticized Mr. Collins for not admitting in the article that he had once been engaged to be married. Mr. Collins, however, had written about his engagement to a woman. The error made it appear as if Mr. Kurtz had not read the material, and he became the target of gleeful bashing on Twitter. The Daily Beast retracted the post on Thursday. Image Howard Kurtz. Credit Evan Agostini/Associated Press Mr. Kurtz, one of the most prominent media critics in the country, particularly from his time at The Washington Post, also came under scrutiny for the time he was spending on other ventures. On Wednesday, the Huffington Post columnist Michael Calderone wrote about Mr. Kurtz’s writing for and promoting an unaffiliated Web site called Daily Download. “This is not a reaction to the Jason Collins story or the Daily Download situation,” said a staff member at The Daily Beast, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the organization wanted Ms. Brown’s statement to be its only public comment. “It’s been apparent for some time that Howie has a lot of other irons in the fire,” the staff member said. Mr. Kurtz did not respond to a request for comment. In a Twitter message posted about an hour after his exit was reported, he wrote: “I’ve enjoyed my time at the Daily Beast but as we began to move in different directions, both sides agreed it was best to part company.” He added in another message, “This was in the works for some time, but want to wish all my colleagues continued success with a terrific Web site.” At CNN, where Mr. Kurtz has led “Reliable Sources,” the channel’s Sunday media review show, a spokeswoman said the channel was reviewing matters.

The Daily Beast
Newsweek
Howard Kurtz
Tina Brown
Basketball
Jason Collins


How Uzo Aduba, Actor, Spends Her Sundays

Abstract: Uzo Aduba , who won an Emmy Award last year for her portrayal of Suzanne Warren (Crazy Eyes) on Netflix’s “ Orange Is the New Black ,” finally feels like a New Yorker. Born to Nigerian immigrants, she grew up in Massachusetts and moved to the city after college to pursue theater. She was instantly enamored of New York and its rhythms. “It felt bigger than life,” she said. But it was not until she mastered the subway system that Ms. Aduba, 34, felt like part of the fabric. The actor, who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, said that because she no longer consults the subway map she stands out less. But with the third season of “Orange” available for binge-watching on June 12, blending in may prove more difficult. WAKE UP TO SCANDAL My body now is on, like, a timer, so it usually wakes up anywhere between 6:45 and 7:30. Then I’ll just kind of roll over again until like 9, 9:30. I catch up on my “Scandal” — usually it’s one episode of “ Scandal ,” one episode of “ How to Get Away With Murder ” or my “Real Housewives.” I love “Real Housewives.” It’s modern-day Greek tragedy. Image Waiting for SoulCycle class to begin. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times IMPROVISATIONAL BREAKFAST If I eat in, I will make an egg-white omelet with vegetables — whatever veggies I happen to have in the fridge, I’ll throw in there — some turkey bacon, some berries, maybe a slice of toast, and some green tea and water. I’m trying to eat out more in Brooklyn, in my neighborhood. I have friends who are showing me new places. My last day job that I ever had was waiting tables at a restaurant called Jane in Manhattan. That has been my go-to brunch place. SOUL MATES I love SoulCycle . My cast mate Taylor and I go a lot together — or my sister Chi-Chi. That’s my very best friend in the entire world. We used to live together in Sunnyside. Then we both moved to Astoria; then to Brooklyn. Chi-Chi and I will probably figure out if we want to SoulCycle. We also have to decide if we’re going to do a single or double. Sometimes we’re more motivated to go for two. Image At Brooklyn Botanic Garden admiring the flowers. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times PSYCHED I’m one of five. I had never lived by myself my entire life. So I was very nervous in the beginning. Eventually I just stepped out and I was like, “This is going to be fine.” The first two seasons we shot the show, I lived down the street from the studio. I used to walk to work, which was incredible. We shoot also upstate, in Rockland County. When we first started, it was terrifying because it was an abandoned children’s psychiatric ward and it looked like they just literally one day picked up the children and walked out. It was eerie. There was a room that had a bunch of CPR mannequins with no heads. THREE-HOUR TOUR I’ll come home, have some lunch. I have what I call “three-hour friends.” We will sit on the phone for three-plus hours, talk about everything and nothing at the same time. After that, I’ll talk to my mom. Image Shopping for a hat in a boutique. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times KITCHEN PREP I love to cook. I’ll make some dinner. I’ll prepare a couple days’ worth of chicken, start marinating fish, prepare some turkey burgers or prep some vegetables for the week. I FreshDirect . It makes life pretty easy. Then there’s a small personal grocery that I’ll pop into. INSPIRATIONAL READING Dinnertime is finished, I have to get up early on Monday, and I’ll get in bed. I’m usually in bed by 10, 10:30 — 11, we’re pushing it. I’ll start reading. I just finished reading this book, “ Ruby ,” by Cynthia Bond, which was excellent. “ Redefining Realness ” is my next book. Janet Mock , she’s the activist and reporter — I saw her interview on OWN, the “Super Soul Sunday” interview . I was so struck by her — captivated, in fact. I work with Laverne Cox , who’s really done a phenomenal job with sharing the culture of the transgender community. I thought Janet did an amazing job, so generously — and lovingly would be the word — of inviting all of us into that conversation. WRITE ON I also write. I like to write a lot of stories about my mom and her journeys here to this country. I’ll write plays. My cast mate Yael Stone , she had a theater company in Brooklyn and had a reading series; last year I did a reading of a play. A myriad of personal stories, essentially. Yeah, I think when there’s time and when there’s a space to really carve out, shapefully, what I want to say, that’s my next adventure.

Uzo Aduba
Web television
TV
Actor
Brooklyn
Orange Is the New Black


Where Personal Memories Take Root

Abstract: When it comes to forming memories that involve recalling a personal experience, neuroscientists are of two minds. Some say that each memory is stored in a single neuron in a region of the brain called the hippocampus. But a new study is lending weight to the theory of neuroscientists who believe that every memory is spread out, or distributed, across many neurons in that part of the brain. By watching patients with electrodes in their brains play a memory game, researchers found that each such memory is committed to cells distributed across the hippocampus. Though the proportion of cells responsible for each memory is small (about 2 percent of the hippocampus), the absolute number is in the millions. So the loss of any one cell should not have a noticeable effect on memory or mental acuity, said Peter N. Steinmetz, a research neurologist at the Dignity Health Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix and senior author of the study. “The significance of losing one cell is substantially reduced because you’ve got this whole population that’s turning on” when you access a memory, he said. The findings also suggest that memory researchers “need to use techniques that allow us to look at the whole population of neurons” rather than focus on individual cells. The patients in the study, which is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, first memorized a list of words on a computer screen, then viewed a second list that included those words and others. When asked to identify words they had seen earlier, the patients displayed cell-firing activity consistent with the distributed model of memory.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America


Senate, at Least for a Day, Gets Back to Legislating

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As if compensating for months of inaction, the Senate kicked into gear around midnight Thursday and kept working early Friday as it shelved another piece of President Obama’s economic agenda and, in a bold experiment, tried using traditional legislative give-and-take to move a spending bill for half a dozen cabinet departments. The pace of what is known on Capitol Hill as regular order was glacial, but senators marveled at the fact that they were debating the merits of legislation and voting on amendments, rather than being frozen in ideological igloos. “We have worked long and hard this whole week trying to move forward on appropriations bills,” said the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. “It has been difficult, and one reason it has been difficult is this is kind of a new area we are working in — that is, legislating.” Mr. Reid called it “a noble experiment.” Instead of trying to block or limit Republican proposals, he allowed the Senate to work its will on dozens of amendments to a bill providing money for the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, State, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development — a bill for the fiscal year that began three weeks ago. Leaving the Capitol on Friday, Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, said: “We had an opportunity to have lots of amendments. That’s a good thing.” But he added, “We need to figure out how to get ourselves organized so we are not casting votes at 1:30 a.m.” The amendments dealt with a dizzying array of issues: detention of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, food stamps, federal payments to wealthy farmers and slumlords, the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, disaster relief for upstate New York and many more. The Senate convened at 10 a.m. on Thursday and held 17 roll-call votes before adjourning at 2:26 a.m. on Friday. The cooperation on money bills contrasted with continued gridlock over jobs legislation. For the second time in two weeks , Senate Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes needed to take up a bill championed by President Obama as a way to create jobs and revive the economy. Neither measure received a single Republican vote. Republicans described the whole exercise as a political charade, and said the federal government did not have the money to “bail out” cities and states. “The Democrats’ bill would raise taxes on the private sector to pay for new spending on the public sector,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota. Undeterred, Mr. Reid said he would try again. When the Senate returns on Oct. 31 from a weeklong recess, he said, he will offer a bill to spend $50 billion on highways, bridges, railroads, airports and other transportation projects. The bill — a component of Mr. Obama’s $447 billion jobs package — would also provide $10 billion in loans and loan guarantees for transportation projects, water and sewer systems and other infrastructure. Democrats said the bill would put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job. Of the 14 million people who are unemployed, more than one million are in the construction industry, the Labor Department says. To offset the cost, Senate Democrats would impose a surtax of 0.7 percent, starting in 2013, on income in excess of $1 million. The House next week will take up two bills that Republicans said would create jobs. One would clear the way for development of a large copper mine in an area of Arizona with high unemployment. The other would repeal a requirement for withholding of taxes from payments to government contractors. Senators did not finish work on the 2012 spending bill, but did agree to limit debate, so they can vote on passage of the measure when they return. It is unclear whether the Senate and the House can work out their differences before Nov. 18, when a stopgap spending bill expires. The Senate rejected an amendment by Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, that would prevent the Justice Department from prosecuting certain members of Al Qaeda in civilian federal courts. “These individuals, enemy combatants, are not common criminals who just robbed a liquor store,” Ms. Ayotte said. “When we detain a member of Al Qaeda who is planning an attack on our country, the priority has to be on gathering information to protect Americans. We should not be trying these individuals in our civilian system but in military commissions.” Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee , said federal officials should be free to use civilian courts or military commissions, whichever seemed more appropriate in a particular case. The Senate also rejected a proposal by Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, to cut off federal payments to “greedy slumlords” whose properties were in poor physical condition or had life-threatening deficiencies. Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said Mr. Coburn had raised a valid concern. But, she said, “This goes too far.” “This amendment puts the tenants at risk,” she said. “It will put the tenants out of a place to live.”

Law and Legislation
Federal Budget (US)
Labor and Jobs
Senate
Reid Harry
Obama Barack
Democratic Party
Republican Party


Exiting Iraq, Petraeus Says Gains Are Fragile

Abstract: BAGHDAD — In the final days of his campaign to bring Iraq under control, Gen. David H. Petraeus sat in his office at the American Embassy here looking drawn, exhausted, and more than a few years older than when he took command 18 months ago. More than once as he spoke of his tenure, the general stopped to cough. An intensely energetic man who prides himself on besting young recruits in tests of strength and endurance, General Petraeus, 55, said Monday that he had been forced to scale back his punishing daily workouts to three a week. “There is not much in the tank at the end of the day,” he said. Yet for all the signs of fatigue, General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted. And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope, and also a caveat: Iraq has indeed stepped back from self-destruction, General Petraeus said, but the gains are tenuous and unlikely to survive without an American effort that outlasts his tenure. By the time he leaves for the United States next month to assume overall command of American forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan, he will have spent a total of 48 months in Iraq since the war began. “I don’t know that it was a death spiral, but I mean it was a pretty dire situation,” General Petraeus said, referring to the situation upon his arrival here as the senior commander in Iraq in February 2007. “There have been very substantial gains at this point. Don’t take any of this to imply that we think we’re anywhere near finished.” “It’s not durable yet. It’s not self-sustaining,” he added. “You know — touch wood — there is still a lot of work to be done.” His run as commander coincided with the “surge” of American combat forces into Baghdad, in what amounted to a last, desperate gamble to bring the country under control. The arrival of the 30,000 extra soldiers, deployed to Baghdad’s neighborhoods around the clock, allowed the Americans to exploit a series of momentous events that had begun to unfold at roughly the same time: the splintering of Moktada al-Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army ; the growing competence of the Iraqi Army; and most important, the about-face by leaders of the country’s Sunni minority, who suddenly stopped opposing the Americans and joined with them against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other local extremist groups. The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now: violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures the general provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq — 13 — than in any month since the war began. The result, now visible in the streets, is a calm unlike any the country has seen since the American invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The signs — Iraqi families flooding into parks at sundown, merchants throwing open long-shuttered shops — are stunning to anyone who witnessed the country’s implosion in 2005 and 2006. General Petraeus declined to discuss the kind of American troop levels he thinks would be needed to ensure that the positive trends become permanent. Indeed, the way ahead in Iraq seems anything but clear, with many arrangements that are keeping the peace — like 100,000 Sunni gunmen, many of them former insurgents, on the government payroll at $25 million a month — extremely fragile. A collapse of the peace is not difficult to imagine. The question of America’s continued commitment is likely to be taken up immediately by the new president, whoever he is, when he moves into the White House in January. General Petraeus suggested he had some details in mind, but did not think them appropriate to discuss publicly. “I can,” he said, “but I won’t.” “The only statement I think somebody in a position like this can responsibly make is that it obviously depends on the conditions and how much risk one is willing to take,” General Petraeus said, referring to the next president. Instead, General Petraeus looked mostly back. Dressed in his combat green-and-tan fatigues and boots, and swigging on a plastic bottle full of instant tea, he gave an account that did not lack for drama. When he arrived 18 months ago, the American project in Iraq, then led by General George W. Casey Jr. and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, was in serious trouble, with sectarian violence spiraling across the country. The day when Iraqi forces could take over and allow the Americans to leave seemed more distant than ever. A sectarian and ethnic division of the country loomed. “The fact is that General Casey and Zal Khalilzad signed an assessment in December, early December of 2006, that said the strategy is failing,” General Petraeus said. Violence, indeed, had reached anarchic levels: By February 2007, Sunni and Shiite insurgents were carrying out close to 1,500 attacks against Iraqis and Americans each week, and each month were killing as many as 2,500 civilians, who were often the victims of hideous, sectarian-driven slayings. In Baghdad alone, 40 to 50 people were being kidnapped each day. The Iraqi security forces, charged with keeping order, were carrying out some of the most egregious acts of crime and sectarian killings. The crisis gave an opening to a handful of senior officers and military policy analysts in Washington to push for an American-heavy strategy of putting troops in Iraqi neighborhoods around the clock — which had not been done on a large scale — while isolating and attacking the main catalysts of the sectarian violence. General Petraeus, with other commanders, like then-Col. H. R. McMaster, had for years been pushing the Army to change its focus from killing the enemy to helping ordinary Iraqis cope with insurgents — the essence of modern counterinsurgency strategy. The “surge,” ordered by President Bush in early 2007, sparked a vociferous debate in the United States. While General Petraeus and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, were confident about their chances of success, they realized that with Iraq disintegrating and the American public turning against a longer commitment, the surge would probably be the military’s last chance to get things right. As fresh troops arrived, the generals began deploying them across Baghdad, mostly in small outposts called joint security stations. The stations were seen as the key to securing the capital; for the first time, Americans could credibly promise that they would protect Iraqi civilians from the insurgents. The extra troops also allowed American commanders to initiate a series of offensives last year against the strongholds of Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia and other Sunni extremist groups in and outside of Baghdad and then, in 2008, against the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia. “We started putting joint security stations right in the heart of Al Qaeda’s areas,” General Petraeus said. At first, the surge was accompanied by a rise in American deaths. The three deadliest months for American soldiers in five and a half years of war came from April through June last year, as the added soldiers took to the streets. In those three months, 331 Americans soldiers and marines died. “We said it was going to get harder before it got easier,” General Petraeus said. “And it did. We took very tough casualties.” For years, he said, the Americans and the Iraqi government had been locked in what he described as a “downward spiral”; as the violence raged, ordinary Iraqis were often too frightened to cooperate with either the Iraqi security officers or American troops. Good intelligence was thus hard to come by, which meant that military operations often missed their marks. The insurgents were free to intimidate, threaten and kill civilians, government officials or anyone who refused to do their bidding. It was the spectacular bombings, like the destruction of the Askariya shrine in Samarra in 2006, which prompted ordinary Iraqi Shiites to accept the protection of militias like the Mahdi Army. Those militias, in turn, began carrying out massacres of their own, against Sunni civilians in their own neighborhood. Dismantling Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, General Petraeus said, took away the rationale for the Mahdi Army. “As the Al Qaeda threat is gradually degraded, the reason for the militia is no longer there,” he said. That, in turn, helped civilians in both communities who wanted to join the government or cooperate with the security forces. And that allowed the Shiite-dominated government of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to purge the ranks of the state security services of sectarian killers, and finally take on Mr. Sadr’s militia. All good, General Petraeus suggested, as long as it lasts. “You’re either spiraling downward,” he said, “or you’re spiraling upward.”

Iraq
Petraeus David H
United States Armament and Defense
United States International Relations
Security and Warning Systems
International Relations
Iraqi Army
United States Army
Mahdi Army
Maliki Nuri Kamal al-


An 8th Grader, a Gun and a Bus Rider in the Way

Abstract: Kahton Anderson had all the status symbols a 14-year-old in his world could want: Air Jordans and Reeboks, sometimes a new pair every month. Name-brand sports clothes. A new PlayStation 4. And, lately, a silver .357 revolver. The gun flashed recently at rush hour on the B15 bus, crossing from Clinton Hill to Bedford-Stuyvesant, in Brooklyn, when Kahton fired toward another teenager, the police said, instead striking a 39-year-old man on his way home. The man died soon after. Though Kahton had not yet graduated from middle school, he was taller than the detective escorting him out of the local precinct house. With Kahton to be prosecuted on murder charges as an adult and the victim, Angel Rojas, buried by his family in the Dominican Republic, New York City has been left to wonder how what the police said was a petty turf war between “crews” of children barely into their teens could breed such random, deadly violence, particularly since the murder rate, especially killings by strangers, has dropped so much in recent years. Yet in the narrow world these teenagers inhabit, in the poorest patches of Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York and Brownsville, Brooklyn, violence is as thick as smog, alliances as fluid as water, quarrels as big as the Internet. The grievances behind their bullets make sense only to them. The police say clashes between teenage crews, mini-gangs that grow out of blocks or housing projects, now account for 30 percent of all shootings in the city. But most of the time, those caught in the crossfire are rivals and friends, other combatants in the ceaseless struggle for dominance. On March 20, the dead man was an innocent bystander. “I swear to God, I feel sorry for” Mr. Rojas’s family, Kahton’s father, who gave his name only as Mr. Anderson, said outside the Brooklyn courtroom where Kahton was indicted on second-degree murder charges on Wednesday. But he defended his son, saying he was simply protecting himself: “Kahton is a child, who thinks like a child. Kahton’s a tall child. He’s a boy; I’m a man.” Mr. Rojas, who was on his way home between his two jobs when he was shot, “did not deserve to die so tragically, and we will hold the defendant Kahton Anderson responsible for taking the life of this innocent and hard-working man,” said Kenneth P. Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, in a statement. Kahton is being held at a juvenile detention center in the Bronx. The police identified him as Kathon, but his lawyer and family said his name is Kahton (pronounced kah-TAHN). Kahton did not grow up in a housing project, but he was drawn there anyway. His crew at the Tompkins Houses, where some of his schoolmates lived, was called the Stack Money Goons: a name that spoke to the bravado of the teenagers who adopted it, vowing to make money, somehow, and to let nothing get in their way. Their name was scrawled on the walls, their fights and gun battles the soundtrack to summer nights. Image Among all Kahton's friends at Middle School 57, his former school, he seemed to be one of the least needy. Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times Among all his friends at Tompkins and at his former school, Middle School 57, Kahton, an eighth grader, seemed to be one of the least needy. He lived in a small, tidy apartment on Gates Avenue with his mother, a United States Postal Service letter carrier who regularly attended parent-teacher conferences. On his PlayStation, earned, a relative said, through schoolwork and chores, he played NBA 2K and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 with friends. A forward on the basketball team with a decent shot, a height more like that of a 17-year-old than a 14-year-old and a love for the Denver Nuggets and the Chicago Bulls, Kahton spent many lunchtime and after-school hours playing pickup games with friends. He was popular with girls and boys alike, a clown who invented nonsense sounds in class just to make his friends laugh. After school, he would stop at the bodega for a can of mango-flavored Arizona Iced Tea and packs of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to share. “Kahton, you wouldn’t think he’d have a gun,” said Katoya Williams, 14, who was passing by the Stack Money Goons’ sidewalk haunt on Thursday afternoon. “Of all the boys, I wouldn’t expect him to have one. He’s real decent.” Several students at M.S. 57 said Kahton had been president of the student council and took honors classes. Yet he was frequently in trouble. Sometimes it was for violating the school’s uniform code or disrespectful chatter in class, a school official said. Sometimes it was worse: He had a sealed arrest from 2011, and often, high-school-age members of a crew students knew as “R&B” or “RB’z” — the initials stand for “Rich Boys” — loitered outside the school, waiting to fight him. About three weeks after he got into a fight near school last year, he was transferred to Elijah Stroud Middle School in Crown Heights, at least in part because of the threatening presence of the teenagers who continued to wait for him, some friends said. But he seemed to do no better at Elijah Stroud, where he had been suspended from the early fall until very recently, said a sixth-grade English teacher at the school who asked not to be named because she was prohibited from speaking publicly about individual students. Such suspensions are common, she said. Under Education Department policy, only students with serious infractions, such as injuring or trying to injure other students or teachers, can be suspended for more than 10 days. It is unclear whether Kahton took classes at an alternative learning center during his suspension, as is standard under department policy. But all fall and winter, he had a more consuming preoccupation than school or even basketball: his crew’s escalating war with a rival group of teenage boys. A block from where Kahton and his friends passed time on the sidewalk of Tompkins Avenue — teasing girls, eyeing passers-by and running around — are the Marcy Houses, visible down Stockton Street. They look just like the Tompkins Houses. But proximity has bred enmity for years, since before Jay-Z, Marcy’s favorite son, rapped about the Tompkins boys who were “foul just like us.” Image Kahton's father, right, who did not give his first name, said, “Kahton is a child.” Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times The Stack Money Goons had recently homed in on one Marcy crew, the Twan Family. It was named in remembrance of Antoine White, a 17-year-old who died after being shot by an off-duty police officer Antoine was trying to rob, said Shanduke McPhatter, a former member of the Bloods gang who now runs an anti-gang outreach group. The Twan Family and S.M.G., as other teenagers called it, began crystallizing about a year and a half ago, said Deputy Inspector Michael LiPetri, the commanding officer of the 79th Precinct in Brooklyn. Like other crews, which can form by breaking off from more established groups or which can reflect new friendships, they mushroomed according to a logic of their own. “There’s a new one coming up today, one going down tomorrow,” Mr. McPhatter said. And unlike gangs like the Bloods that could operate as tightly as an organized-crime ring, with hierarchies, rules and a mission, he said, these groups are less defined. “There is no ‘for,’ there is no common purpose, there is no goal. It’s basically survival, it’s basically safety, it’s protection. Some may do it because they don’t have that leadership at home, and they just want to have people around that they feel comfortable with.” Crew members often get guns from older neighbors or buy weapons by selling stolen smartphones, said Tony Herbert, the president of the Brooklyn East chapter of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. It is an environment where petty slights, from a challenging glance to jealousies over a girl, have enormous consequences. A territorial battle between Marcy and Tompkins crews left one teenager dead and three more injured in July. Several members of S.M.G. and Twan Family have been shot in the past, and the crews exchanged gunfire at least once within the past month, Mr. LiPetri said. Facebook and other social-media sites amplify the grievances, with photos of crews sneaking into rival groups’ territory and videos of past fights circulating until they muscle everything else from a teenager’s online landscape. Past embarrassments and triumphs that can leave one side fuming and the other crowing linger on social media, stoking resentments. Kahton’s conflict with the Twan Family seemed rooted in little more than the territorialism and animosities of his crew, but boys from the other crew had been needling Kahton for months in person and on Facebook, said a relative who would not give his name because the family had decided not to speak to reporters. “They keep on picking at you, picking at you every day, telling you they want to kill you,” the relative said. The shooting weighs on Kahton, who has told his family that he did not mean it. He said he was “just protecting his life.” Yet Kahton’s family never realized how “magnified” the situation had become, the relative said. The conflict came to a head that Thursday evening, when girls riding the B15 told members of the Twan Family that Kahton was sitting in the back. After sending scouts to check, Kahton’s rivals boarded the bus, a police official said. In a security video of the scene, one of them pulled at his waistband, as if for a gun. One shared flash of recognition later, a bullet was on its way.

Murders
Gang
Brooklyn
Kahton Anderson
NYC


Slowdown Charge on Snow Work Is Hard to Prove, Official Says

Abstract: Daniel J. Halloran III , the city councilman at the center of investigations into whether a union slowdown left neighborhoods buried after the blizzard on Dec. 26, said Thursday that investigators were facing difficulties proving the allegations he first brought forward. “This investigation is having a very hard time getting traction,” Mr. Halloran said. Mr. Halloran made the remark outside the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where he had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury looking into the issue. He left without testifying, because not enough members of the grand jury were present, as a result of the snow. Mr. Halloran, a Republican of northeast Queens, set off a storm of controversy last month when he said sanitation workers were ordered to divert from their routes and not clear the streets as part of a work slowdown to embarrass Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The councilman has since revised his account, saying the workers were given a more subtle message that they should not work too hard and that they would not be closely supervised. On Thursday, he told reporters at the courthouse he remained confident that “a handful” of Sanitation Department supervisors, unhappy with recent reductions to their ranks, had orchestrated a slowdown. “The rank-and-file guys, I don’t think they wanted a slowdown,” he said. Mr. Halloran has said two supervisors in the Transportation Department and three workers in the Sanitation Department came to him after the blizzard with information about a slowdown. But the two transportation supervisors did not back up his account in interviews with investigators, said two people briefed on the inquiries, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigations are continuing. And Mr. Halloran, a lawyer, has refused to reveal the names of the sanitation workers, citing attorney-client privilege.

Snow and Snowstorms
Halloran Daniel J
Sanitation Department (NYC)
Transportation Department (US)