New York Officer Charged in Akai Gurley’s Fatal Shooting Goes on Trial

Abstract: At about 11 o’clock on the night of Nov. 20, 2014, Melissa Lopez was in her kitchen in the Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York. Her partner was getting ready for his workday, which started at midnight, and her two girls were in their rooms. She heard a single gunshot from the stairwell, which was next to her apartment. A couple of minutes later there was a knock at her apartment door. “I paused for a second; me and my husband looked at each other,” she testified Monday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. When she looked through the peephole, she saw a woman she knew from the building, Melissa Butler. “I saw her standing there, crying, asking for help, her hands all bloody,” Ms. Lopez said, holding her palms up. The woman’s boyfriend, Akai Gurley, had just been shot by Peter Liang , a New York police officer on duty. Image Hertencia Peterson, center, Akai Gurley’s aunt, and Mesha Joseph, right, Mr. Gurley’s cousin, outside the courthouse. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times On Monday, the trial of Officer Liang began before Justice Danny K. Chun, and Ms. Lopez was called as the second witness. Officer Liang, 28, is charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Mr. Gurley, 28, who was walking unarmed with Ms. Butler in the stairwell of the housing project in Brooklyn. “Akai Gurley is dead today because he crossed paths with Peter Liang, who is sitting here,” Marc J. Fliedner, a prosecutor who is the chief of the civil rights bureau at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, said in his opening statement, which at one point found him on his knees, demonstrating how Ms. Butler had bent over Mr. Gurley’s body. Both sides agree that while Officer Liang was on patrol on Nov. 20, 2014, he fired his gun down an unlit stairwell, and the bullet killed Mr. Gurley. The prosecution argues that Officer Liang was reckless and violated his training by having his gun out, pulling the trigger with no reason, and neglecting to help Mr. Gurley once he realized the man had been shot. The officer was “worried only about himself,” Mr. Fliedner said, adding, “Instead of calling for help he just stood there, whined and moaned about how he would get fired.” The defense says that Officer Liang was working in a dangerous housing project, and that he was already upset when he accidentally fired his gun. When he realized he had hit someone, he was so shocked that he had to be taken to the hospital. It is, however, standard procedure for New York City officers to be taken to the hospital after they fire their guns. Ms. Lopez was one of the few civilians to witness the aftermath of the shooting and observe Officer Liang’s behavior. Ms. Lopez described how after seeing Ms. Butler, she called 911 and hurried to the stairwell. She saw Mr. Gurley lying on the fifth-floor landing, one flight up from her fourth-floor apartment. Following the instructions of an emergency medical operator, Ms. Lopez grabbed a bath towel from her apartment and handed it to Ms. Butler, then relayed instructions to her on how to perform CPR. She saw two police officers arrive on the landing; one was Asian, she said. (Officer Liang is Chinese-American.) Image Marc J. Fliedner delivered the prosecution’s opening statements in the trial of Officer Liang. Credit Pool photo by Jesse Ward Mr. Fliedner asked if Officer Liang was crying or having difficulty standing. Ms. Lopez said, “No.” Mr. Fliedner played a recording of the 911 call, where Ms. Butler can be heard screaming in the background, “He’s not breathing!” “Was the Asian officer there when she said that?” Mr. Fliedner asked. Yes, Ms. Lopez said. “What did he do?” Mr. Fliedner asked. “Nothing. He didn’t do nothing the whole time,” Ms. Lopez said. “I didn’t see neither one of them do anything.” (In opening statements, Mr. Fliedner said that New York police officers are trained in CPR and required to offer it when necessary.) Asked if Officer Liang spoke to or touched either Ms. Butler or Mr. Gurley, she again said, “No.” “He walked around them and came down the stairs,” she said. When other officers arrived, Ms. Lopez said, she saw someone who seemed to be Officer Liang’s superior, and overheard Officer Liang saying, “I shot him accidentally,” she testified. Image Hertencia Peterson, an aunt of Mr. Gurley, outside court on Monday. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times “The cops shot him. The cops shot him,” Ms. Lopez said near the end of the 911 recording played in court. “There’s like a million cops but no ambulance.” “You need to understand, there was nothing threatening,” Mr. Fliedner said in his opening statement. “His partner’s gun stayed in his holster the whole time.” The fact that Officer Liang fired was, according to his lawyer, an accident. Rae Downes Koshetz, a lawyer for Officer Liang, described his work that night as being in “the most crime-ridden public housing project in New York.” She said Officer Liang, who was working overtime after a nearby shooting, headed to the roof, “the most dangerous place in a dangerous place.” Officer Liang was “beside himself” once “the gun accidentally discharges,” Ms. Koshetz said. He and his partner, Officer Shaun Landau spoke for “at most a couple of minutes,” she added, and Officer Liang was “shaken, he’s terrified, he’s totally — and I mean totally — unaware” that he had hit someone. When Officer Liang realized what had happened, he tried to radio for help but could not, his lawyer said: “His ears are ringing, he’s hyperventilating. By the time the first police supervisor arrives, Peter is unable to communicate except to say, ‘I shot Akai Gurley by accident.’ ” An ambulance took Officer Liang to the hospital. Ms. Koshetz added that the crimes he was accused of, which include manslaughter, official misconduct and reckless endangerment, were “horrible crimes.” “This is not a referendum on policing in the United States,” she said. Outside the courthouse Monday, members of Mr. Gurley’s family briefly addressed the press. “Peter Liang, you don’t live in public housing, but other people do. Why would you have your gun out in a place where people live?” said Mesha Joseph, a cousin. “Why were you scared in a place where people live? Scared enough to have your weapon drawn?”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


This Time, Jurevicius Is Embracing the Game

Abstract: DETROIT, Jan. 31 - Joe Jurevicius was pumping gas at a station somewhere in eastern Washington two years ago when the call came. His wife's obstetrician was on the phone from Tampa, Fla. Jurevicius, a Seattle Seahawks wide receiver, has two of the surest hands in the N.F.L., but he said you never would have known it by the way they were shaking. Neither of his two Super Bowl experiences could compare to the anxiety he felt at that moment. "Yeah, my heart stopped," he said Tuesday, five days before he was scheduled to play in the third Super Bowl of his eight-year pro career. "Absolutely." Meagan Jurevicius, his wife, was nearing the end of the first trimester of her second pregnancy. The couple's first child, Michael William, had been born a month premature in January 2003, with a rare inherited disease. Doctors did not expect him to live more than 72 hours, but he died two months later, in March. He survived long enough to inspire Jurevicius to clutch performances in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' victories against Philadelphia in the National Football Conference championship game and against Oakland in Super Bowl XXXVII. After Meagan became pregnant again, a thought kept intruding on the couple's happiness. "I hope this doesn't happen again," Jurevicius remembered thinking. The fetus was tested for sialidosis, the disease that had doomed Michael William. Sialidosis affects the body's ability to break down fats and carbohydrates. According to the National Institutes of Health, when both parents carry the defective gene, each of their children has a 1 in 4 chance of developing the disease. After a doctor delivered the news that the results were negative, Jurevicius celebrated by sprinting around the gas station, slapping high-fives with perfect strangers. "A lot of tears were shed," he said. "A lot of things could happen, but we knew it was going to be a normal pregnancy." His joy was tenfold on Aug. 9, 2004, when Meagan gave birth to a healthy daughter, Caroline Elizabeth. She will not be at Ford Field for the Seahawks' game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. "I wish she could be here," Jurevicius said. "But it's kind of hard handling a 17-month-old baby at a football game." "I call her Little Monkey," he added, conveying some sense of her activity level. When she calls him Daddy "or gives you a kiss or something, if you're the sorest you can ever be from playing a football game, it sure as hell makes you feel better," Jurevicius said. Whereas he was consumed by grief at his last Super Bowl, in 2003 in San Diego, he is filled with gratitude here. (His first appearance in a Super Bowl, as a member of the Giants team that lost to the Baltimore Ravens in 2001, came before Michael William arrived and changed everything.) "The last one, I played with a heavy heart," Jurevicius said. "I'm able to enjoy this one." Laughing, he added, "I'm actually enjoying media day, and I'm usually a guy that tries to hide in the locker room." Jurevicius missed the Tuesday news-media session in San Diego because he was in a Tampa hospital, keeping a vigil for his infant son. He took a flight to California that night and met with reporters in a hotel ballroom the next day. For one day, at least, the 37th Super Bowl was a secondary story to one father's pain. Jurevicius talked about being "tormented with emotion." He spoke about not being able to cuddle his son because of all the tubes connected to his body and how "once he finally starts to comprehend what life's all about, I'm going to tell him how special he is." That Sunday, he went out and caught four passes against the Raiders in a 48-21 Tampa Bay victory. "It was a tough time," Jurevicius said. "But I was able to learn a lot of things from that time. I became a stronger person. I realized that such a little package can make such a better person out of me, and that's what it did. I'm able to just handle things better." Jurevicius signed with the Seahawks as a free agent last March after knee and back injuries affected his play for Tampa Bay in 2003 and 2004. He had 55 receptions for 694 yards and 10 touchdowns this season. "I feel blessed," Jurevicius said. "It's not to say that I don't have my weak points. I cry just like the next guy. I still have my share." One of Jurevicius' best friends on the Seahawks is his former Penn State teammate Bobby Engram. Jurevicius invited Engram, also a receiver, to his house to watch the telecast of Penn State's victory against Florida State in the Orange Bowl. "It was the first time I really got to see him interact with his wife and his daughter," Engram said. "If he picked her up 10 times, he picked her up 100. He kept kissing her, and they had all these code sayings and words. It was good, man. He's a good father and a good man." After the Super Bowl, Jurevicius will spend some time in Cleveland, where he grew up and where his parents still live. Every morning and every night while he is there, he said, he will go to the cemetery where Michael William is buried and, true to his word, tell him how special he is. "I've got a little X factor right now that is watching down on me," Jurevicius said. "I think of him every second. I use him as my motivation."

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
PITTSBURGH STEELERS
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
JUREVICIUS JOE
SUPER BOWL
FOOTBALL


‘Traffic Calming’ Theory Can Provoke a Storm

Abstract: Great Neck IF too many cars in too little space can lead to cranky drivers, what do you get if you put all those cars in even less space? Many motorists would suggest a mild form of road rage. But not Jean Celender, mayor of Great Neck Plaza, who has spearheaded a lane-reduction project on Great Neck Road, a major thoroughfare that feeds into the Great Neck train station and the shops and restaurants in downtown Great Neck. Mayor Celender said that the reduction to two lanes from four was all about a theory called traffic calming, which urban planners say helps neighborhood business districts stay vital by making them more walkable. “It may sound counterintuitive,” Ms. Celender said, “but our goal is to get traffic moving more slowly and to create more pedestrian-friendly streets.” Although the village held extensive hearings about the plans, not everyone was convinced of the benefit. In an era in which other roads, like the Long Island Expressway, were expanded, shrinking a major road irked some drivers. “I don’t see how losing a lane of traffic is going to improve anything,” said Robert Pacent, 54, who lives in Manhasset and drives to work at a company in Great Neck that sells engineering components. “It’s just going to make people angry if their commute takes longer.” For Jessica Mayer, a 47-year-old corporate trainer who has lived in Great Neck all her life, meeting friends for dinner is a priority. “I certainly wouldn’t be calm if I were stuck in traffic and had to fight my way to the restaurant,” she said. Still, Ms. Celender, along with the village trustees and officials from the Town of North Hempstead, which approved the plan, said that they were certain that they were leading the village in the right direction. The project will provide motorists with a repaved — albeit narrower — roadway, with larger medians, fewer left turn lanes, new crosswalks with wider sidewalks and improved pedestrian signals. The $1.2 million project, 90 percent of which is paid for by federal funds, has been in the planning stage for five years. Construction is under way and is scheduled to be finished by the end of the summer. Ann Falk, 92, who lives on Great Neck Road, said that she attended a public hearing about the project to say that motorists speed so much she cannot get across the street safely with her walker. “I called this road a speedway,” she said. “Drivers whiz by at 45 or 50, and it’s a 30-mile-an-hour zone.” To accommodate older pedestrians like Mrs. Falk, a new traffic light will be installed to help walkers cross over to the Gardens shopping center. The light will have one phase for pedestrians only, with traffic stopped in both directions. The posted speed limit will remain 30 m.p.h. “We want to change Great Neck Road back into a village boulevard instead of the arterial highway it has become,” Ms. Celender said. Great Neck Road, which was built in the 1920s, is a mile-long county road that runs from Middle Neck Road to Northern Boulevard. Only the section between Middle Neck Road and Bayview Avenue, slightly over half a mile long, is being rebuilt. To accommodate the changes, 11 parking spots are being eliminated — which has caused a different kind of anxiety. “In a village like ours, where many families have two cars and live in apartment buildings that only have parking for one, finding street parking is already a nightmare,” said Suzanne Branch, a teacher who lives on Brompton Road, which intersects Great Neck Road. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage. I think it’s great to slow down traffic, and maybe that will calm down drivers, but it’s going to make everyone looking for a parking spot way more anxious.”


Ted Cruz Is Too Well Known to Come In Third for the Senate Nomination

Abstract: Ross Ramsey, the executive editor at The Texas Tribune, writes a column for The Tribune. Expectations can be dangerous things. Enter a political race as a long-shot candidate, and just finishing it may win you accolades and future opportunities. Enter as some kind of superstar, and nothing but a great performance will do. Consider the three Republicans slipstreaming David Dewhurst in the race for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate . Ted Cruz, the former state solicitor general, came into this tagged as a star of the future, with Washington columnists and Republican and conservative tenders and touters cooing over his prospects. The high expectations for Mr. Cruz are tempered by the reality of running against a sitting lieutenant governor who hasn’t done anything obvious to offend the voters who supported him in the last four statewide elections. Mr. Cruz doesn’t have to win the race to keep hype alive, but he can’t finish third. Losing to the favorite isn’t surprising. Losing to an also-ran could be a career ender. Tom Leppert, the former mayor of Dallas, and Craig James, the former football player and sports announcer, entered the race without the ballyhoo. If anyone but Mr. Dewhurst wins, it will be an upset. But if either Mr. Leppert or Mr. James finishes second, it will raise some eyebrows and possibly position the runner-up for another race in 2014 or later. Mr. Leppert has more money than anyone except Mr. Dewhurst, and Mr. James is the closest thing to a celebrity in the race because of his regular television appearances. Second place isn’t such a bad thing. If there’s a runoff, it will be because Mr. Dewhurst ran weaker than expected. Vulnerability isn’t a marketable trait in politics. State Representatives Larry Gonzales, Republican of Round Rock; Van Taylor, Republican of Plano; and John Frullo and Charles Perry, Republicans of Lubbock, all finished second in the first round of the 2010 primaries and then won the runoffs and took office. That’s how United States Representatives Francisco Canseco, Republican of San Antonio, and Blake Farenthold, Republican of Corpus Christi, got into Congress that year, too. Finishing third is no big deal if no more than that was expected of you. Debra Medina was a political nobody before the 2010 Republican primary for governor, but she shook up that race against the party’s two most established officeholders — Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison — and made a name for herself on the way. Now she’s nosing around the 2014 race for comptroller, and experts who ignored her last time are paying attention when her name comes up. Look at the top of this year’s Republican ballot. There’s Mitt Romney, who got drubbed in the 2008 race for the Republican presidential nomination. It positioned him for this year’s race. (This is a well-established path: you can find Republicans here and there, for instance, who believe this season’s appearance foretells a Perry campaign for president in 2016.) Falling short of expectations can be a killer. Kent Hance started in the Legislature and then won a seat in Congress in 1978. (He beat George W. Bush, who never lost another election.) Mr. Hance lost a race for United States Senate as a Democrat in 1984 and a race for governor in 1986, as a Republican, later winning a spot on the Railroad Commission. He was still bankable. But he started the 1990 governor’s race in front and, at the end, could muster only 15 percent against Clayton Williams Jr. in the Republican primary. That ended his ballot days. He’s now the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. If 2012 isn’t the magic year for people on the ballot, the holes on the 2014 ticket beckon. Performing at or above expectations this time could set up the next race, convincing supporters and financiers that a candidate is a solid prospect. Mr. Cruz, maybe the most hyped newcomer on the Texas ballot this year, is easy to pick on. If he wins, he’s a senator. Finishing a strong second could position him for attorney general or another race in 2014. A third-place finish or worse could swap the public career for a private one, this time as a well-paid corporate lawyer with some campaign stories to tell.

Cruz Ted
Senate
Republican Party
Texas
Elections
United States Politics and Government
Leppert Tom
Dewhurst David


Alex Ovechkin’s Hat Trick Lifts Surging Capitals

Abstract: Alex Ovechkin recorded his 12th career hat trick and added an assist, and the surging Washington Capitals survived a late rally by the host Florida Panthers for a 4-3 victory Saturday. Ovechkin scored twice from close range on the power play and weaved through defenders for his other goal. He has 23 goals this season. “The guys did a great job to find me,” Ovechkin said. “I just had to put it in the net.” The Capitals, 8-2-1 in their last 11 games, completed a four-game season sweep of the Panthers. MAPLE LEAFS 2, DEVILS 1 Tyler Bozak and the rookie Leo Komarov scored as Toronto strengthened its playoff position and extended the Devils’ losing streak to six games. The host Devils fell 3 points behind the eighth-place Islanders in the Eastern Conference. ISLANDERS 4, LIGHTNING 2 Matt Martin scored a go-ahead goal with less than seven minutes left, lifting the Islanders to a home win over Tampa Bay. Evgeni Nabokov made 19 saves for the Islanders, who won for the sixth time in eight games. CANADIENS 2, BRUINS 1 Michael Ryder’s power-play goal 57 seconds into the second period lifted Montreal past visiting Boston. JETS 4, FLYERS 1 Evander Kane, Grant Clitsome, Kyle Wellwood and Bryan Little scored second-period goals in less than seven minutes, leading host Winnipeg past Philadelphia to end a five-game losing streak. BLACKHAWKS 1, PREDATORS 0 Ray Emery made 20 saves for his 13th career shutout, leading Chicago to a win at Nashville. Bryan Bickell scored in the first period. KINGS 4, OILERS 1 Jeff Carter had a goal and an assist, and host Los Angeles defeated Edmonton for its fifth win in seven games. COYOTES 4, AVALANCHE 0 In his return from an injury, Mike Smith stopped 24 shots for his fifth shutout of the season, helping host Phoenix beat Colorado.

Ice hockey
Winnipeg Jets
Flyers
Chicago Blackhawks
Nashville Predators
Edmonton Oilers
Los Angeles Kings
Washington Capitals
Florida Panthers


For a Rising Tennis Star, a Connection, Then Dealing With Loss

Abstract: Until she was 13, Sloane Stephens knew far less about her father, John, than many football fans who remembered his blazing start as a running back with the New England Patriots and his later stints with the Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons and Kansas City Chiefs. Three years ago, the 16-year-old Stephens, a rising tennis star, embarked on a phone relationship with her father that evolved into a full-blown friendship, their bond forged by their similar charismatic personalities and prodigious athletic feats. Stephens could only recall having met with her father in person twice, maybe three times, and now, two weeks after their last phone conversation, she has to decide whether to pay him one final visit. On Tuesday, John Stephens, 43, died in a car accident in his native Louisiana. His funeral is there next Tuesday, two days after the start of the United States Open juniors competition, which leaves Stephens with an excruciating decision. Does she drop out of the tournament or forgo saying her final goodbyes to her father and keep her eye on the first-place prize? Stephens, a mobile, attacking backcourt specialist, is considered a strong contender in singles after reaching the semifinals at the French Open juniors and the quarterfinals at the Wimbledon juniors. To complicate matters, on Friday, while scouring the Internet for stories on the father she now will never fully know, Stephens discovered that her father had another side. “I told her she’s free to do whatever she wants to do,” Stephens’s mother, Sybil Smith, who was divorced from Sloane’s father, said Friday afternoon. “I think right now she feels that the safest place for her is on the tennis court.” Stephens heard about her father’s death Wednesday morning in a phone call from a half sister who lives in Louisiana. John Stephens was killed in a one-car accident on a road in a rural area near Shreveport when his truck hit some trees at high speed. “Right after she found out, she cried for about an hour and a half,” Smith said. After that, she announced that she wanted to go hit tennis balls, and for a couple of hours, that was what she did. On Thursday night, Stephens sat in the players’ box of her good friend Christina McHale during McHale’s straight-sets loss to Maria Sharapova. In the players’ lounge Friday afternoon, Stephens was smiling and bounding from friend to friend. Vania King, a casual friend of Stephens, said she had talked to her in the past couple of days about the usual girl stuff. “Gossip and clothes,” King, 20, said Friday after her third-round loss to Daniela Hantuchova. King had no idea Stephens’s father had died until a reporter informed her. “Ohhhhhhh!” she said, reflexively raising her hands to her face. “I’ve seen her since then and she didn’t say anything.” Smith, an all-American swimmer at Boston University in the late 1980s, said John Stephens took it upon himself to get to know his daughter after it was discovered that he had a degenerative bone disease. “He was very sick,” she said, “and that was pretty much how he came back into her life, so she could know her dad before he died.” Stephens was drafted 17th over all by the Patriots in 1988 , the only player from Northwestern State to be selected in the first round. He gained 1,168 yards as a rookie to finish second among running backs in the American Football Conference. Known for his speed and ferocity, he earned Offensive Rookie of the Year honors and was selected as a starter for the A.F.C. in the Pro Bowl. He did not surpass the 1,000-yard mark again in his career, playing for the Patriots until 1992 and eventually retiring with 3,440 career rushing yards. As a rookie, Stephens was honored by the N.F.L. for his tireless work with the Roxbury Comprehensive Community Health Center. It was that kind-hearted, generous person that Smith wanted her daughter to know. So when he made the effort to reconnect, she did not tell her daughter about his arrest in Missouri in 1994 on rape charges, for which he pleaded guilty and was placed on probation. “I wanted her to have pride in him,” Smith said of Stephens, who had been working at a trucking company, adding, “I’m telling you, John was a very good man with addiction issues that were never addressed early on.” Smith said her daughter was devastated when she found a story on the Internet about the 1994 arrest and another arrest, outside Shreveport in April, on charges of sexual assault. The charge was pending at the time of his death. “She said, ‘Mom, why didn’t you tell me this?’ ” Smith said. “It’s very sad,” she added, her eyes welling with tears, “because Sloane and her dad became so close. They had a great friendship. She knew a part of her dad that was all good and she was able to be proud of him.” Stephens asked her mother if her father’s accident could have been a premeditated attempt to end his life. Reached by phone on Friday, Cindy Chadwick, a spokeswoman for the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office, said that investigators have ruled that out as a possibility. There were signs he overcorrected when his truck drifted off the road, Chadwick explained, adding that a similar accident had occurred along the same winding stretch earlier this year. “She’s searching for answers,” Smith said. “I feel her pain. I look at her and I look in her eyes and I melt because I know how much he meant to her in these last few years.” In the players’ lounge Friday, Stephens said the past couple of days “have definitely been hard.” Struggling to decide what to do, Stephens on Friday suggested a compromise to her mother. How about if she plays in the Open and visits her father’s family later? “One of the things I told her,” Smith said, “is this is the only time you’ll get to say goodbye to your dad and to see the memory of your dad and the legacy of your dad and the people who really loved him. This is the time to feel that love.”

Tennis
Stephens Sloane
Stephens John
Accidents and Safety


Outrage Over Teenager’s Death Erupts on Social Media

Abstract: The weekend shooting of Michael Brown, 18, who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., a St. Louis suburb, is drawing outrage on social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook. The shooting is now being investigated by the F.B.I. There are short video clips and Vines being posted by protesters at a rally on Monday, carrying signs like the one below that says, “I can be killed by the police but shouldn’t.” "Justice Now" https://t.co/axQRbwb4bs — Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 11, 2014 There are also photos of the rally. Police standing by #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/6XrLfsM7Lo — Ryan Schuessler (@RyanSchuessler1) August 11, 2014 Another photograph being shared is reportedly of the Mr. Brown’s father, Louis Head. Users are also sharing images of Monday’s front page of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The St. Louis County police posted a response to the protests on Facebook. The St. Louis American, a weekly newspaper, posted a photo of the protesters on Sunday night. A popular hashtag is #iftheygunnedmedown . Mostly being used by young African-Americans, each Twitter post with the hashtag shows two pictures. The first is something positive, such as a high school graduation, the poster flanked by relatives, diploma in hand; the other photo is more candid and shows a face enveloped by smoke or a swig from a bottle of whiskey. The point is the contrast, and the juxtaposition. Some of the images are graphic, but here are two that show the sentiment of the discussion.


Making Amends for a Splashing

Abstract: Dear Diary: Here’s what I witnessed one morning a few weeks ago. It made my day; hope you enjoy it, too. Setting: Bus stop; 57th and First. Cast: Small group waiting by the curb. Action: Car with a plumber’s sign pulls a quick U-turn and splashes through gutter water to pull over by the bus stop. We all jump back, but one woman doesn’t move fast enough and her leather pants are dripping. She walks over to the car and signals him to open the passenger window. The rest of us watch, waiting for the explosion. Instead, after an animated conversation, a hand holding a towel appears through the window and she starts drying herself off. A little more conversation and then she nods, opens the door and gets in, apparently receiving a chauffeured ride to work as an apology. I love this city.


Ex-Militant Concedes Loss in Election for Rio Mayor

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — A Brazilian congressman who helped kidnap an American ambassador during Brazil’s military dictatorship came up short Sunday in his bid to be elected mayor of Rio. The congressman, Fernando Gabeira, conceded defeat late Sunday to Eduardo Paes, a congressman who is allied with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president. With 99 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Paes had 51 percent of the vote to Mr. Gabeira’s 49 percent. Mr. Gabeira, 67, was one of four men who kidnapped the ambassador, C. Burke Elbrick, in September 1969, holding him for four days before letting him go in return for the release of 15 leftist political prisoners. Mr. Paes, 38, formerly served as an administrator of Jacarepaguá and of Barra da Tijuca, two neighborhoods of Rio. He was backed by Sérgio Cabral, the governor of Rio State. Mr. Gabeira had the support of many of the wealthy elite in Rio, which has struggled with persistently high crime and the steady loss of its industries to São Paulo. But Mr. Gabeira was unpopular with conservatives for his positions in favor of legalizing marijuana, abortion and gay marriage. Mr. Paes tried to stress during the campaign that he would be a better administrator than Mr. Gabeira, and that he was the better choice to act as a bridge between the state and city governments. Mr. Gabeira would have been the latest former leftist militant to gain a position of power in government in Brazil. Franklin Martins, Mr. da Silva’s press secretary, participated in the kidnapping with Mr. Gabeira, and he was part of the same Communist group, MR-8, which robbed banks and carried out assaults on the police and the military in its struggle against Brazil’s military regime. Dilma Rousseff, Mr. da Silva’s chief of staff, also served in the resistance and was captured by the government’s police force, and then was convicted, jailed and tortured in the early 1970s.

Gabeira Fernando
Politics and Government
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)


Decision on Transgender Player

Abstract: More than two months after a transgender woman sued the Long Drivers of America claiming discrimination, the group said in a statement that it planned to follow a recent rule change by the L.P.G.A. and allow transgender women to compete. But the Long Drivers of America also said it had no plans to conduct any women’s long-drive events in the future but would allow women to compete in open or senior men’s events. It did not rule out future women’s events. The Long Drivers of America and the L.P.G.A. were sued in October by Lana Lawless, a transgender woman, who claimed that their requirement that competitors be female at birth violated California civil rights law. She won the women’s world long-drive title in 2008 but was later ruled ineligible because the Long Drivers of America changed its rules to match the L.P.G.A.’s policy. Her lawyer, Christopher B. Dolan, said the group’s statement appeared to be aimed at preventing his client from competing.

Golf
Transsexuals
Ladies Professional Golf Assn


A Classroom Where the Teacher Really Wants That Apple

Abstract: THE gelding we nicknamed Big Brown , in honor of the Kentucky Derby winner, loped off to the far corner of the arena as if he were looking for a place to hide. I exchanged frustrated frowns with my teammate, Shanda Steenburn, a tall, curly-haired nurse and hospital pharmacy manager. We were participating in an introductory exercise at the Horse Institute in Ancramdale, N.Y. Our assignment was to catch Big Brown, slip a halter over his head and hook him to a lead line. Our seemingly simple task was proving to be more daunting than either of us had expected. Shanda knew a lot about handling medications for humans but next to nothing about handling horses. My previous experience with horses was limited and not especially pleasant. I’d taken fewer than a dozen riding lessons during my youth in Texas. The last time I’d been on a horse as an adult, I’d suffered a back injury that took three months to heal. To make matters worse, Big Brown shared the arena with three other very large and very wary steeds: a white one, a second brown one and one with a mottled brown and white coat, a breed called a paint. Three pairs of nurses who worked with Shanda at Columbia Memorial Hospital in nearby Hudson, N.Y., were simultaneously trying to catch and halter those horses. But instead of cooperating, the paint, the white and the second brown kept darting away and huddling with Big Brown. Suddenly, Big Brown separated from the herd and walked toward me. I patted his neck and stroked his face, cooing sweet nothings in his ear for at least a minute. Shanda handed me a halter. As if on cue, Big Brown bolted away again. “Darn,” I muttered. “We were so close.” I looked across the arena and saw Marie-Claude Stockl, the executive director and co-owner of the Horse Institute, flash a knowing smile. “Horses are like people,” she said. “They introduce themselves at their own pace.” That was just the first of many insights to come from my executive pursuit of “equine-assisted learning.” Unlike a dude ranch, the Horse Institute does not give riding lessons. Its mission is to give people who normally manage other people a chance to improve their communication skills, teamwork and creativity by observing and performing exercises with horses. During my one-day training session with the hospital nurses, Marie-Claude, a former Bristol Myers executive, made striking comparisons between horses and humans that left me wondering which species was more intelligent. “The biggest problem in the corporate world is that we don’t live in the present,” she said. “When we come to the workplace, we bring in grudges and things from the past and worries about the future. Horses live in the present. They don’t hold grudges. They’re happy to try something new, unlike many of us who remain stuck in the past. Living in the present works for horses. I think it works for humans, too.” In addition to Marie-Claude and the equine “faculty,” the staff of so-called facilitators at the institute includes her husband, Larry Stockl, a former American Express executive; Caroline Carrington-Phipps, an experienced horsewoman doing graduate work in holistic health care at Columbia University; and Jerry Michaels, a psychotherapist who formerly specialized in the study of human phobias. “The purpose of working with horses is to take you out of your normal environment and put you in an environment that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable,” Jerry told us. “Horses are big. They can be intimidating, but they can also be intimidated. Because the environment is unusual, you’re forced to be in the present.” The Horse Institute, founded in 2005 on a 28-acre horse farm owned by the Stockls, is a specialized offshoot of the nonprofit Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. The association provides education and certification for professionals in the field of equine-assisted therapy. But unlike therapists who use horses to treat people with mental disorders, physical disabilities or substance abuse problems, the institute focuses exclusively on training corporate and individual clients to cope with workplace issues. Fees for a one-day session, which can consist of 6 to 45 people, start at $7,500. The catch-and-halter exercise in which I was paired with Shanda was part of programs customized for Columbia Memorial Hospital staff members at the request of their president and chief executive, Jane Ehrlich, an accomplished dressage rider. The themes of the day were how to train new employees and how to retain and motivate those who passed muster during their three-month probationary period. Rounding up the four horses representing our “new hires” wasn’t easy. At least 10 minutes passed before Shanda and I realized that we could (and indeed should) call on the expertise of the institute’s staff and seek help from the other pairs of nurses. The paint appeared especially unwilling to be caught, so we decided to focus our collective efforts on the others. We managed to halter Big Brown, the white and the second brown, but after another five minutes or so, we gave up on the paint. Marie-Claude gave us deservedly mixed reviews. “You were fairly quick to ask for help, and you developed a strategy, which was to separate the other horses from the paint,” she noted. “But one of you thought the exercise was a competition. As a result, the implementation of your strategy was a little rocky and lacking in teamwork.” We moved on to “appendages,” an exercise that called for three-person teams to link arms and try to saddle a horse. The rub was that the so-called “brain” in the middle of the threesome could give instructions but not use his or her hands, while the outside links could use their hands but could not talk. Other exercises included a relay race involving horses and eggs on spoons, a game of charades in which we had to figure out how to use horses to express various emotions and training a horse to complete an obstacle course without the guidance of a lead line. I may live and write by touch and feel, but I’m not a touchy-feely kind of guy. I’d secretly suspected from the beginning that the value of all this horse play would be minimal. But to my surprise, the group debriefing with Marie-Claude and the Horse Institute staff at the end of the day yielded testimonials that ranged from the predictably mundane to the sacred. A nurse coordinator with more than two decades of hospital experience said she would literally start to look outside her box-shaped office for more creative problem-solving techniques. One of her longtime colleagues said she’d realized that “trying to make everybody happy is an impossible task.” Another nursing coordinator said he was now more aware of the ambiguous messages he had been sending to co-workers with his body language. “The problem is, I’m 40 years old and I don’t know how I’m going to change after all these years,” he said. “The reality is that all of us are changing all the time,” Jerry, the psychotherapist, replied. “I think all of us have this sense of, ‘Who are we going to be when we really grow up?’ Perception is literally the truth, and it has nothing to do with the facts. If you want to change the way you’re perceived, pick one or two traits to exhibit, not 9 or 10, and be consistent in exhibiting those one or two traits. “Be like a horse,” my former partner, Shanda, interjected. “Live in the moment.” Marie-Claude flashed another knowing smile. I kicked at the floor of the arena, silently counting the ways in which I ought to emulate Big Brown.


Floodwaters Threaten 100 Homes as a Levee Falters in Eastern Missouri

Abstract: WINFIELD, Mo. — The Pin Oak levee, the last remaining barrier between about 100 homes here and the lakelike Mississippi River, finally gave way before dawn Friday. But the fight to save those homes continued into the evening as the authorities coordinated an effort to wall them off with a new sand-filled barricade. National Guard soldiers and volunteer firefighters fought for more than a week to save the levee, sandbagging weak spots and reinforcing areas where the saturated earth had simply slid down, but the river proved too strong. In the end, it was the southeast corner that gave way: the river pushed against muskrat holes in the levee until it burst through, lifting a pile of sandbags that soldiers had laid Monday and sweeping away a section that soon grew to a 65-foot-wide gash in the levee. The disappointment among those who had fought to save the levee was thick. “I feel like hell,” said Brian Gardner of the Missouri National Guard. “My little levee that could, couldn’t.” It was the last earthen levee in Lincoln County that had not been overtopped or breached. The authorities sounded tornado sirens and went door to door in east Winfield, about 50 miles northwest of St. Louis, alerting the 25 or so residents who remained that water would reach their homes within hours. Many people here have lived through several floods, and had emptied their homes in preparation for a levee break even as they prayed that the Pin Oak would hold. Some winced or cried when they learned that the levee had been breached, but soon stoicism, even joviality, took hold, as they packed their cars with the few items they had kept — a half-gallon of milk, a few shirts, a pillow, the coffee maker. “We’ll get a little ground water; it’ll kill all these moles,” said Carol Broseman as she prepared to leave with her husband, two dogs, a cat and a shrieking cockatiel. “I already had my meltdown,” she said. Just Thursday, in what was perhaps a fit of optimism or daring, some here cut the grass around their homes and in an empty lot left when people moved away after the flood of 1993. “I never thought it would come back in my lifetime,” said Verna Brooks, 70, who was already staying with her daughter when the levee breached. While her home was threatened, Ms. Brooks said she worried more about her granddaughter, who lives on even lower ground and has a 4-month-old infant. “At a time like this, you don’t know what to think,” she said. National Guard members, meanwhile, raced to erect a new barrier around the homes in east Winfield, dumping sand into a four-foot-high, wire-mesh lined barricade that would stretch about 2,700 feet around them. Because they calculated that the water could rise four feet, they planned to lay at least a foot of sandbags on top of the barricade. Even if the new barrier held back the water, which had crept up to the town by about 4 p.m. Friday, there were concerns that the sewerage system could back up and that homes would flood from the inside. Some residents seemed surprised by the decision to build the new barrier. Officials said they had not tried to build it sooner because they had been focused on saving the levee, which also protected some 3,000 acres of farmland and a sports park. Mary Hardin, who evacuated her home two weeks ago, said she appreciated everything the soldiers and volunteers were doing, “but I think they’re kind of wasting their time.” Her husband, Terry, disagreed. “You’re never wasting your time until it’s over,” he said.

Dams and Dikes
Floods
Mississippi River
WINFIELD Mo.


With New Leader, Changes Could Come to Cup Events

Abstract: The international appeal and dramatic potential of the Davis Cup were on full display during the quarterfinals this month. A fired-up Andy Murray played singles and doubles to help Britain reach the semifinals for the first time since 1981. Lleyton Hewitt pulled off a stirring victory in bringing Australia back from two matches down for a victory over Kazakhstan. But Novak Djokovic, a week after winning Wimbledon, did not play for Serbia, and Rafael Nadal did not show up for Spain’s lower-level matchup against Russia. Roger Federer, who helped lead Switzerland to Davis Cup victory a year ago, demonstrated little interest in defending the title. These sizzles and fizzles have produced passionate defenders and resisters of the team competition’s cumbersome structure for years. Now, with the International Tennis Federation, which operates the event, set to elect a new president in September, there is a gathering momentum for change. After 16 years as the I.T.F.’s president, Francesco Ricci Bitti has decided not to run for re-election, and each of the four candidates nominated for the position — Rene Stammbach of Switzerland, Dave Haggerty of the United States, Juan Margets of Spain and Anil Khanna of India — is proposing various degrees of change to the federation’s flagship events: the Davis Cup for men and the Fed Cup for women. Some of the Davis Cup’s staunchest features — annual competition, home-and-away ties and a traditional best-of-five-set format — appear to be open to modification. The larger goal is to fulfill what appears to be the election’s most pressing issue: increasing the organization’s earnings. “We need more income,” Stammbach said. The four Grand Slam events and the ATP and WTA tours have seen their earnings climb steeply in recent years, but the I.T.F. has been perceived as lagging behind. The federation is also responsible for development and administration of the game, junior and lower-level professional events, the antidoping program and the Olympic tennis tournament. The candidates have unveiled plans to bring in another $20 million to $30 million in the next few years, an increase of about 50 percent on current earnings. Stammbach, who is chairman of the I.T.F.’s finance committee, called for the biggest changes. He is willing to have the Davis Cup and Fed Cup every two years, by playing the first two rounds in one year and the semifinals and finals the next, which would avoid going a year without competition but would also reduce the player commitment. Stammbach would also like to have the Davis Cup and Fed Cup finals together in one neutral location. That would bring in a projected $10 million, offsetting the $5 million reduction from having only two rounds a year instead of four, and would also attract another $5 million or more in unused sponsorship. “Players will be happy,” Stammbach said. “I talked to the top players, because they complain they have to play too many times.” The financial estimates for a combined neutral final have been influenced by the WTA’s recent five-year, $75 million deal with Singapore to move the season-ending event there. A similar deal with a city could be struck to hold the Davis Cup and Fed Cup finals, though there is potential for attendance problems and diminished fan enthusiasm if there is no home team to generate interest. Haggerty, a former United States Tennis Association president, is taking a different approach. He said there were “at least 10” alternatives to a neutral-site final that could help the Davis Cup and Fed Cup create $20 million in the next four years. “I’d rather get everybody collaborating and agreeing to get behind something rather than saying, well, I’ve decided this,” he said. “More buy-in will make a more successful event.” He added: “And I think my relationships with the U.S. Open , having been the chairman there — with broadcast, with the tours, with sponsors, I think we could make some significant increases.” Margets, the executive vice president of the I.T.F., represents the most continuity with the current administration, but he is in favor of some new elements, like a neutral combined final for Davis Cup and Fed Cup. “I think our events are very successful on site, with the emotions, colors, patriotic elements, but we need a more global event,” he said. Among the candidates, Khanna, president of the Asian Tennis Federation, has been the most strident about the need to increase earnings with new events. He has emphasized using that money in developing countries. At the I.T.F. annual general meeting a year ago, Khanna suggested that the federation create “its own Grand Slam-like tournament, a two-week event which can be called the I.T.F. World Championship.” “Even if the I.T.F. can make even $50 million, we will be happy,” Khanna told The Gulf News in Dubai. “That money will not belong to one nation, it will belong to 201 nations. It will be money well spent in Asia, in Africa, in Central America.” Stammbach and Margets are also proposing new tournaments to create a revenue stream. With his Davis Cup and Fed Cup plan opening up two weeks on the calendar, Stammbach is interested in resurrecting a version of the Grand Slam Cup, a high-paying, season-ending event in the 1990s. Margets’s plan calls for a modest new event, the Continental Cup, which would be played between various I.T.F. regions. The question of how the additional income should be spent is also a significant factor in the election. There seems to be general agreement to increase the amount given to national federations to pay for Davis Cup and Fed Cup matches and I.T.F. pro events, and to put more into a development program that is largely funded by the Grand Slam tournaments. Other suggestions included increasing the budget for promotional activities, helping players transition from junior to professional tennis, and giving more money for playing Davis Cup and Fed Cup. One element of Margets’s platform is a proposal to establish a committee looking at the position of women in the sport. “We need more women in decision-making positions in federations and our member nations,” he said, “but broader than that — do we have enough female coaches in high-profile positions? Do we have enough females in agencies?” I.T.F.’s membership is made up of national associations: 147 voting and 63 nonvoting federations, which will decide on the new president at the annual general meeting in Santiago, Chile, after the United States Open in September. The candidates are traveling from country to country to get support. Stammbach estimated that he had been to 40 countries, and Haggerty said he was aiming to talk to all 200 member nations. Margets described the process as invigorating but tiring. Any significant changes to the Davis Cup or other events would also have to be voted on the members, meaning the elected candidate will still have to get a plan approved. Given the I.T.F.’s ties to tradition, change is a long road.

Tennis
International Tennis Federation
Francesco Ricci Bitti
Davis Cup


Seeing a Homosexual Agenda, Christian Group Protests an Anti-Bullying Program

Abstract: On Mix It Up at Lunch Day, schoolchildren around the country are encouraged to hang out with someone they normally might not speak to. The program, started 11 years ago by the Southern Poverty Law Center and now in more than 2,500 schools, was intended as a way to break up cliques and prevent bullying. But this year, the American Family Association, a conservative evangelical group, has called the project “a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools” and is urging parents to keep their children home from school on Oct. 30, the day most of the schools plan to participate this year. The charges, raised in an e-mail to supporters earlier this month, have caused a handful of schools to cancel this year’s event and has caught organizers off guard. “I was surprised that they completely lied about what Mix It Up Day is,” said Maureen Costello , the director of the center’s Teaching Tolerance project, which organizes the program. “It was a cynical, fear-mongering tactic.” The swirl around Mix It Up at Lunch Day reflects a deeper battle between the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group founded 41 years ago in Montgomery , Ala. , and the American Family Association, a Bible-based cultural watchdog organization in Tupelo, Miss. The association says its mission is to fight what it calls the “increasing ungodliness” in America. The law center recently added the group to its national list of active hate groups, which also includes neo-Nazis, black separatists and Holocaust deniers. Association leaders, in return, have gone on the offensive, calling the law center a hate group for oppressing Christian students and claiming its aim is to shut down groups that oppose homosexuality. “The reality is we are not a hate group. We are a truth group,” said Bryan Fischer , director of issue analysis for the association. “We tell the truth about homosexual behavior.” Although the suggested activities for Mix It Up at Lunch Day do not expressly address gay and lesbian students, the law center itself promotes equal treatment for gays and lesbians and that philosophy then informs the school program, he said. “Anti-bullying legislation is exactly the same,” Mr. Fischer said. “It’s just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda. No one is in favor of anyone getting bullied for any reason, but these anti-bullying policies become a mechanism for punishing Christian students who believe that homosexual behavior is not something that should be normalized.” The program is not about sexual orientation but rather about breaking up social cliques, which are especially evident in a school cafeteria, Ms. Costello said. In some schools, cliques are socioeconomic. In others they are ethnic or religious or based on sexual orientation. By giving students a way to mix with other students, self-imposed social barriers can be broken down and bullying can be curbed, she said. “Many of the targets of bullying are kids who are either gay or are perceived as gay,” she said. But the idea that the program is intended as homosexual indoctrination is simply wrong, Ms. Costello added. “We’ve become used to the idea of lunatic fringe attacks,” she said, “but this one was complete misrepresentation.” Parents who are on the American Family Association e-mail list were encouraged to keep their children home on that day and to call school administrators to tell them why. By Friday, about 200 schools had canceled, Ms. Costello said. But exactly why was unclear. Of 20 schools that had canceled and were contacted by The New York Times , only one chose to comment. The Chattahoochee County Education Center in Cusseta, Ga., canceled because teachers were too busy trying to meet basic state teaching requirements, said Tabatha Walton, the principal. “The decision had nothing to do with taking a position on gay rights,” she said. “We support diversity.” Although parents did complain to Kevin Brady, the head of the Avon Grove Charter School in rural Pennsylvania , the school is still planning to hold Mix it Up at Lunch Day for its 1,600 students. Students will each be assigned a number and then paired up by school officials. The school has a large population of special-needs students who can feel isolated and thus benefit greatly from the program, Mr. Brady said. The school started it a few years ago, inspired, in part, by the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and examples of bully-related violence that surfaced in schools around the country. He said the e-mail sent by the association described a program that had “absolutely no resemblance to what we do.” Once parents understood how the program worked, they decided not keep their children home that day, he said. “I think they feel they have been taken for a bit of a ride,” he said.

American Family Assn
Southern Poverty Law Center
K-12 Education
Bullying
Homosexuality


Paralympic Athletes Add Equality to Their Goals

Abstract: AURORA, Ill. — When he rolls to the starting line for the 1,500-meter wheelchair race at the Paralympics , the Olympics for disabled athletes that begin Saturday in Beijing, Tony Iniguez will wear his Team USA uniform with pride. He will compete for the United States’s Olympic program. He is also suing it for discrimination. Iniguez is one of many Paralympians who criticize the United States Olympic Committee for providing less direct financial assistance and other benefits at lower levels to Paralympic athletes than to Olympians in comparable sports. The committee awards smaller quarterly training stipends and medal bonuses to Paralympic athletes. Benefits like free health insurance , which help athletes devote more hours to training, are available to a smaller percentage of Paralympians. The United States is no stranger to disputes over discrimination against various groups and the provision of benefits for citizens, as the battle over universal health insurance indicates. But in this case the Paralympians are emphasizing their needs as athletes as much as their needs as citizens. They claim that races have been lost and medals squandered by their having to compete against athletes from nations like Canada and Britain that support their disabled athletes and Olympians virtually equally. Iniguez, a 37-year-old high school art teacher here, says that because he has had to work full time to provide his family’s health insurance and has received almost no assistance from the U.S.O.C., he will race in Beijing relatively unprepared for the serious competition. “I’m going to do my best over there, believe me — but I can’t help but wonder what I could do if I’d been able to fully train the last four years,” he said. Iniguez added that equal support to disabled athletes was as logical as the reforms that have opened equal sports opportunity to women: “Male and female, are you going to discriminate on the basis of sex? It’s unfathomable now. We don’t give different support to women.” The sprinter Kortney Clemons, one of many injured Iraq war veterans who have become elite disabled athletes, agreed with Iniguez’s frustration. “I thought that when I was protecting this country, we had the best,” said Clemons, a former combat medic in Iraq who lost his right leg in an explosion. “We do things right, we do things the best way. And just to know that other countries can man up and support their Paralympic athletes, and we’re not, it’s disappointing.” Other disabled athletes said they viewed the situation differently. Marlon Shirley, a champion amputee sprinter, said that benefits for Paralympic athletes had improved but could not reach Olympic equality. “On paper, it looks absolutely atrocious — I’m aware of that — but the Olympics is big business,” Shirley said. He added that when an American sprinter wins a gold medal at the Olympics, “compared to when Marlon Shirley wins the gold medal in the Paralympics, commercially, it’s a hell of a lot greater.” In hearing the lawsuit brought by Iniguez and two retired wheelchair racers, the United States District Court and the United States Court of Appeals have ruled that the U.S.O.C. has the legal discretion to finance able-bodied and disabled athletes differently. (The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court.) But even the District Court judge who ruled against Iniguez in 2006 wrote: “Do I decry a culture that relegates Paralympians to second-class status in the quantity and quality of benefits and support they receive from the U.S.O.C.? Emphatically yes.” A Bump in Financing The U.S.O.C. contends that equitable support to Paralympic athletes is unrealistic because the agency receives almost no government assistance, and Paralympic success does not generate enough increased revenue. Darryl Seibel, the U.S.O.C.’s chief communications officer, also emphasized that the agency’s support for Paralympic athletes has grown markedly: to $11.4 million this year from $3 million in 2004, in contrast with a relatively modest bump in Olympic funding. “I see $3 million going up to $11 million and say that’s not too bad — that’s a good direction,” Seibel said. “We care more about the Paralympics than we ever have before.” He added, “We’re much closer to the beginning of our support and involvement in the Paralympic movement than we are to being a finished product.” Olympic-caliber athletes in the United States are generally financed by two agencies — the U.S.O.C. and the national governing body of their sport. Paralympians are supported almost exclusively by the U.S.O.C. While line-by-line comparisons are difficult because programs have different designs, almost every form of support that a Paralympic contender receives is considerably less than that given to a similarly situated Olympian. For example, in 2007, members of the United States Paralympic track and field team were given either $1,000 or $2,000 in stipends to help defray the cost of training; similar Olympic hopefuls received $10,000 to $15,000. Slots for athletes to receive room and board for full-time training at centers in Colorado Springs and Chula Vista, Calif., were also more open to Olympic athletes than Paralympic athletes; wheelchair athletes had no live-in program at all. Over all, the rules covering which athletes qualify for U.S.O.C.-paid health insurance are considerably more strict for Paralympians than Olympians. According to the U.S.O.C., in 2007 there were 174 insurance policies given to Paralympic athletes vying to make the 200-member Beijing team; Olympic hopefuls had 1,150 policies, enough for the entire 600-member team in Beijing and almost another full team. Most athletes interviewed said that securing health insurance without a full-time job was the primary avenue to effective training. Gaps in Bonuses The most striking difference between the funding of Paralympic and Olympic athletes, some contend, is in the cash bonuses given for top performances. Olympic gold medalists in Beijing received $25,000 from the U.S.O.C. and often additional money from their national governing body; Paralympic gold medalists will get $5,000 from the U.S.O.C. For 2007 competitions, the U.S.O.C. distributed $1.85 million in performance bonuses, none of it to Paralympic athletes, the U.S.O.C.’s Seibel confirmed. Two women United States Paralympians who because of their family roots could compete for European countries said that they had strongly considered competing for that other nation because training would be more affordable. (They asked not to be identified for fear of backlash from the U.S.O.C. and their teammates.) One prominent American coach did switch affiliations — Peter Eriksson, now a consultant for Canada’s Paralympic track and field program, said he resigned as coach of the United States Paralympic track and field team two years ago because, “I couldn’t do my job,” he said. “In the United States, the athletes are as determined, but they can’t access the services they need to compete at the elite level,” Eriksson said. “A lot of their athletes never developed out of the gate. They had humungous potential, and it just evaporated.” Iniguez said he wondered if he was one of those athletes. Unable to walk without crutches since polio ravaged his legs at age 2, Iniguez was a rising star in wheelchair racing during the 1990s. He missed the 2000 Paralympics because he could not afford to leave his job at Aurora East High, his alma mater. In the years that followed, Iniguez squeezed in whatever training he could on mornings when it was warm enough, and occasionally after school. But he slipped from internationally elite status to a virtual hobbyist. By the time the U.S.O.C. started offering health insurance and $250 to $500 quarterly training stipends to some of its top Paralympic contenders several years ago, Iniguez was no longer enough of a medal hopeful to qualify. Iniguez said he attended the United States Paralympic track and field trials this year “just to see what I was still capable of.” He won the 1,500-meter sprint — one of wheelchair racing’s marquee events — to earn a place on the United States team. Iniguez and two other top American wheelchair racers, Scot Hollonbeck and Jacob Heilveil, filed their discrimination suit against the U.S.O.C. five years ago. The committee successfully argued in United States District Court and the United States Court of Appeals that the Olympic and Paralympic programs are distinct — and that anyone capable of making the Olympic team receives premium support, regardless of disability. The wheelchair racers contended that federal law forbade a university from fielding an all-male track team by claiming, “A woman can be on it if she runs fast enough.” They said that similar logic should require that disabled athletes under the U.S.O.C. umbrella receive equal support to able-bodied athletes. Going Unprepared With his suit awaiting consideration by the Supreme Court, Iniguez now finds himself in the awkward position of racing on behalf of a team he is also suing. “I am not doing it for personal gain,” said Iniguez, who is not seeking financial damages. “I’m doing it to make the sport better for other future athletes.” Iniguez is one of many United States Paralympians who said they would attend the Beijing Games relatively unprepared, compared with their competition. Tyler Byers, a 26-year-old wheelchair racer who works full time as an engineering analyst in Washington and squeezes in training in his free time, said, “There’s no reason someone like me should be representing us in the Paralympic Games.” The United States’s performance at the Paralympics has decreased markedly over the last 20 years. It won about 12 percent of medals in the Summer Games of 1988 and 1992, but in 2004 won just 5.6 percent of medals, well behind China (9 percent) and in a pack that included Australia (6.4), Britain (6.1), Germany (5.0), Canada (4.7) and Spain (4.5) — nations with far smaller populations. Liz Nicholl, Britain’s director of elite sport, said that the manner in which the United States supported its disabled athletes was a top cause of the decrease. “I would say that this a nation that is choosing to underperform,” she said. The British wheelchair racing champion David Weir said competitions were marred by the United States’s approach. “It’s the sort of thing you’d expect from a third-world country in Africa — I think it’s quite disgusting, actually,” Weir said. “They’ve got talented athletes coming from there that could bring back medals from Beijing and London, and it looks like they don’t really care.” Every nation has a different mix of Paralympic services and financing plans. For example, Britain and Canada provide living and training support from the equivalent of $18,000 to about $50,000 annually based solely on the athlete’s standing internationally, not on whether he or she is an Olympian or a Paralympian. Athletes competing for nations like Canada do not have medical-insurance costs because of nationalized health care. Britain offers a special health-insurance program to Olympians and Paralympians. “The principle is you’re a member of the same organization with the same goals and performance targets, so of course there will be an equivalent level of services provided,” said Rob Needham, the senior manager of high performance for the Canadian Paralympic Committee. “The Paralympians are on the same team as the Olympians. They are siblings, not step-siblings.” ‘Slower to React’ Sir Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympic Committee, called the United States “slower to react” to Paralympic support than nations well beyond Canada and Britain, citing Brazil, Iran and France. “I find it strange in the 21st century,” he said. “We would expect of the U.S. to be one of the leading nations when it comes to this sort of principle.” Marlon Shirley, the amputee sprinter, said he understood the principles at play but that he also felt like saying, “Shut up and race.” Shirley won his first Paralympic gold in 2000 when he had virtually no financing from the U.S.O.C., and emphasized that “programs are much better now than they’ve ever been.” He said that market forces played a greater role in the United States — where the Paralympics have almost no television coverage — than in other countries, whose sports fans have shown interest in disabled athletics. Many Paralympians interviewed said a chicken-and-egg dynamic now exists: the U.S.O.C. is waiting for Paralympic sports to generate more revenue, but that revenue will not grow without greater support for disabled athletes. Only then, the athletes said, can they truly compete internationally. “We are very much focusing on growing the Paralympic movement in the United States,” said Charlie Huebner, chief of Paralympics for the U.S.O.C. “That is no doubt complicated. The reality is that we also don’t have unlimited resources.” If resources remain fixed, at least one Olympian has come to support giving up some of her financing to create more equality with Paralympians. Simi Adeagbo, a triple-jumper who did not make the Olympic team, said that after spending most of this year training with the amputee sprinter April Holmes and several other Paralympians at the Olympic center in Chula Vista, her view of disabled athletes had changed. “Before this experience, maybe just as a general American, I didn’t have access to know the Paralympians,” Adeagbo said. “You don’t know them. You don’t know their stories. You don’t know how they train and try to win medals on behalf of their country. You don’t even know, really, that they exist. “So to ask an Olympian would you want to lose benefits because of something you’ve never heard of or doesn’t exist sounds crazy. But if you gave them an opportunity to see what I’ve seen and experience what I’ve experienced, I think they’d change their mind.”

Paralympic Games
United States Olympic Committee
Iniguez Tony
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Bonuses
Finances


Potential Bidders Appear to Want More Than a Slice of the Mets

Abstract: The Mets and their advisers are still weeks from narrowing the list of potential buyers of the 25 percent of the team they originally hoped to sell. But already, a variety of proposals are surfacing that suggest that investors want more than the Mets are offering. The Mets’ owners insist that they want to maintain control of the franchise and that they have plenty of potential suitors. But in what appears to be a sign of growing flexibility, Steve Greenberg, who is advising the Mets on the sale, said the owners were not wedded to selling a specific share of the team as long as they hold the majority. “Let’s just say that a noncontrolling stake could be north of 25 percent,” he said, adding that the team is sorting among serious individuals and groups, and others who are less qualified. But several investors who have stepped forward publicly and others who have formed groups privately have said they want either a majority share of the team or an option to obtain control of the club over time. While the process is just beginning and teams are rarely sold quickly, several bidders have applied to Major League Baseball to be approved to examine the Mets’ books. Bidders must prove that they have the financial wherewithal to buy the one-quarter share being sold — a stake that could cost at least $100 million — and the background that will make the other 29 owners comfortable with them. Once they are approved to look at the Mets’ financial records, bidders can adjust their expectations on what to offer for a piece of the club, or walk away. At the same time, they must consider the lawsuit filed against Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz by the trustee for the victims of the Bernard L. Madoff Ponzi scheme . The trustee is demanding as much as $1 billion. Sensing that the Mets are under pressure to raise money to pay for a settlement, potential investors see an opportunity to take over a team that has rarely changed hands. As a consequence, all sorts of hypothetical sales packages are being floated by executives in the sports investment industry, who declined to speak on the record because did not want to jeopardize their relationship with the Mets. They include: ¶The Mets sell 51 percent over several years, which would be similar to the phased-in, five-year sale of the San Diego Padres by John Moores to a group led by Jeff Moorad. ¶The Mets sell only 25 percent of the team but throw in 15 percent of SNY, the team’s profitable cable network. ¶The Mets sell 25 percent of the team but insist on getting a put option from the buyer that allows them to sell another 26 percent to the new investors at an agreed-upon price anytime over the next three years. The option gives the buyer the possibility of future control, but the decision to trigger the option would rest with Wilpon and Katz. By showing the trustee, Irving H. Picard, that they could raise additional cash by exercising their put option, Wilpon and Katz may be able to persuade the trustee to give them time to try raising money from other assets, like their real estate holdings. Wilpon has some experience with put options because he and Nelson Doubleday each had one in their agreement to become 50-50 owners of the Mets in 1986. In late 2001, Doubleday exercised his option to have Wilpon buy him out at a price established by an independent appraisal of the team’s value. But Doubleday argued that the appraisal was too low and that he had been the victim of a “sham process” by Major League Baseball to reduce team values. Wilpon sued Doubleday to force him to accept the appraisal and Doubleday did, receiving about $135 million from Wilpon in August 2002. Two years later, Wilpon and Katz used their investment accounts with Madoff to persuade lenders to refinance certain loans that let them buy out Doubleday, according to Picard’s lawsuit. Potential buyers could also ask for a call option , which would give them the right to buy a larger stake. But it is unlikely that Wilpon would give the buyer of a minority stake the leverage to buy control of the team. Wilpon and Katz’s reluctant sale of part of the Mets is being conducted as privately as possible, as opposed to the auction done publicly in bankruptcy court last year that ended in the sale of the Texas Rangers, or the sale of the Washington Nationals in 2006 that Major League Baseball conducted. Fred Wilpon and his son Jeff, the chief operating officer of the Mets, have only said that there is a lot of interest. Two potential bidders, Donald Trump and the investment bankers behind the BuyTheMets.com Web site, have voiced a preference to buy all of the team. And Mike Repole, a co-founder of Glacéau, the maker of Vitaminwater, and the owner of the Kentucky Derby favorite Uncle Mo, has said he would invest in a minority interest only if he had a say in running the team. “This is one case where there is an even greater interest in keeping this confidential,” said Marc Ganis, a sports-industry consultant, “because people don’t even know what the ultimate deal will be, much less the people involved, and there’s a major legal proceeding going on."

New York Mets
Wilpon Fred
Katz Saul B
Greenberg Steve
Baseball


Gambia President Leading

Abstract: BANJUL, Gambia , Sept. 23 (Reuters) — Gambia’s president, Yahya Jammeh, was on course for a third term, with 67 percent of the vote after a count of three-quarters of constituencies, election officials said Saturday. A human rights lawyer, Oussainou Darboe, was running a distant second after Friday’s poll, with some 27 percent of the vote, while the third candidate, the sociologist Halifa Sallah, had about 6 percent. Mr. Jammeh, 41, a former wrestler and coup leader, had been widely expected to win the election in Gambia, continental Africa’s smallest country, after dominating campaigning and after a rift among his challengers split the opposition vote.


As Striker Nears Record, Red Bulls Near Playoff Berth

Abstract: HARRISON, N.J. — Bradley Wright-Phillips scored his Major League Soccer-leading 25th goal of the season, and the Red Bulls beat Toronto F.C., 3-1, on Saturday night. Wright-Phillips, a striker, is two goals from tying the M.L.S. single-season record, with two games to play. The Red Bulls (12-9-11) remained in fourth in the Eastern Conference with 47 points. Toronto (11-14-7), with 40, is 6 points behind fifth-place Columbus, which is in line for the conference’s final playoff spot. All three of the Red Bulls’ goals came in the first half. Wright-Phillips scored his in the 26th minute, slotting home a cross from Kosuke Kimura. In the 35th minute, Ruben Bover Izquierdo tracked down a rebound and slid in his first M.L.S. goal. Dax McCarty redirected a deflected shot for a goal in the 44th minute. Toronto’s Jonathan Osorio tapped in a cross in the 55th minute to close the gap.

Soccer
Bradley Wright-Phillips
New York Red Bulls Soccer Team
Toronto Soccer Team


Title IX Doesn’t Apply to High Schools, Pacific Legal Foundation Says

Abstract: A conservative legal foundation sent a letter to the federal Office for Civil Rights on Tuesday arguing that the test used to gauge schools’ compliance with the Title IX gender-equity law should not be applied to high schools. In doing so, the Pacific Legal Foundation is challenging a series of complaints filed in November by the National Women’s Law Center that claimed 12 school districts around the country, including the New York City schools, were not offering equal opportunities to boys and girls who play sports. The College Sports Council, a group that advocates reform of Title IX, said it also sent letters to the school districts informing them of the letter. At issue is a 1979 policy interpretation that established the so-called “three-part test,” which set out three options for athletic programs to show they were offering equitable participation opportunities to men and women. Institutions can demonstrate that they are offering athletic opportunities that are proportionate to overall enrollment, that they have a history of expanding opportunities for women, or that they are meeting the athletic interests and abilities of their student body. The letter sent by the legal foundation notes that the title of the 1979 policy includes the word “intercollegiate,” not “interscholastic,” athletics. It also argues that the test violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution because the Department of Education has not offered evidence to justify applying the test to high schools. “Our primary argument is, look, there’s nothing in this statute or in this regulation that applies the three-part test to high schools,” said Joshua Thompson, a staff lawyer at the foundation. But Russlynn Ali, the assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education, disagreed. “The law is really clear, and has been since 1979, and it has been applied uniformly to K-12 and colleges and universities across Democratic and Republican administrations,” she said Tuesday in a telephone interview. The Pacific Legal Foundation raised the same issue in 2008, when the Office for Civil Rights rejected its request to clarify that the test did not apply to high school athletics. A letter from the office to the foundation quoted language in the original policy interpretation that refers to high schools, and noted that several courts have applied the test to high schools. The letter also rejected arguments that the test violated the equal protection clause. “The argument that it doesn’t apply is old and tired and has been rejected by the courts and by the department,” said Neena Chaudhry, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center.

Pacific Legal Foundation
National Women's Law Center
Letters
Civil Rights and Liberties


Palm Cuts Its Forecast, and Its Shares Fall

Abstract: Palm , the maker of hand-held devices, reduced its revenue goals on weak demand for its smartphones, renewing concerns about its ability to compete against rivals like Apple. The news sent Palm’s shares down 16 percent. The warning came only weeks after Verizon Wireless began to sell Palm’s Pre and Pixi phones, suggesting that the addition of Verizon, the largest mobile service carrier in the United States, as a sales partner was not helping Palm as much as had been hoped. Analysts said the news meant Palm might now be less likely to find a buyer. The company, run by former Apple executives, has often been seen as a potential acquisition target. At least two brokerage firms downgraded Palm this week, but analysts said the new forecasts were even weaker than their already low expectations. Palm forecast revenue of $300 million to $320 million, including deferred revenue, for its fiscal third quarter, which ends this month. That was well below the average analyst estimate of $424.7 million, according to Thomson Reuters. It also said full-year revenue would be “well below” its previous target of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion. Wall Street was expecting $1.6 billion. The company blamed slower-than-expected consumer adoption of its products, leading to weaker-than-expected orders from operators and the deferral of orders to future periods. Palm’s chief executive, Jon Rubinstein, said the company was working closely with carrier partners to increase awareness of its products and increase sales. Some analysts said Verizon Wireless did not advertise the Palm phones well, instead featuring the Droid phone from Motorola. Palm is betting on its new webOS software to help its phones compete more effectively against rivals like the Apple iPhone and the BlackBerry from Research In Motion. Lawrence Harris, an analyst at CL King, said that while weak advertising at both Verizon and Sprint had hurt sales, he saw a deeper problem with the phones themselves. “The devices have small keyboards and small screens while the world is moving toward larger displays,” Mr. Harris said. AT&T, the No. 2 mobile provider in the country, said in January that it would sell two Palm phones in the first half of this year. Mr. Harris said Thursday’s news might affect that plan. “These carriers watch each other very closely and try to get the hottest, slickest devices. If they see the sales are slow at Verizon, it could affect AT&T’s initial order levels,” he said. An AT&T spokesman said its Palm announcement stood but declined to comment further. Palm shares fell $1.56, to $6.53. The shares have halved in value since mid-January.

Palm Inc
Stocks and Bonds
Wireless Communications
Smartphones


Arsenal Romps to Reach League Cup Quarterfinals

Abstract: Theo Walcott scored two goals to help Arsenal rout Newcastle, 4-0, and reach the quarterfinals of the League Cup. Arsenal is trying to end a six-year trophy drought. “People may say that this is a Mickey Mouse cup, but we want to win trophies,” Walcott said.


Taiwan President Urges More Prison Oversight in Wake of Hostage Standoff

Abstract: HONG KONG — After a prison hostage standoff in Taiwan that ended early Thursday with the suicides of six inmates, President Ma Ying-jeou condemned the hostage taking and called for a strengthening of prison oversight. “Compatriots have been shocked by the Kaohsiung Prison incident, which has revealed gaps in prison management,” Mr. Ma said in a written statement. He ordered a full review of the standoff at the penitentiary in southern Taiwan, with corrective measures to be put in place within a week. The six inmates shot themselves early Thursday, while two prison staff members were released unharmed after being held for 14 hours, said Chen Ming-tang, a vice minister in the Justice Ministry. Cheng Li-te, a convicted murderer with ties to the Bamboo Union crime ring, led the hostage taking, according to the Justice Ministry, which said that the five other prisoners were all serving lengthy terms for crimes ranging from robbery to drug trafficking. The six inmates, who worked together in a prison shop, smuggled scissors into an infirmary on Wednesday, then stabbed two officers and took them hostage, the Justice Ministry said. They then used the officers’ keys to move through the prison, breaking into an armory and taking guns and ammunition. The prison warden, Chen Shih-chih, and head guard, Wang Shih-tsang, then changed places with the two officers who had been taken hostage, Mr. Chen said. Taiwan news outlets broadcast a series of grievances from the men about their trials and the conditions inside the prison. The six men also complained that former President Chen Shui-bian, who was convicted of embezzlement and taking bribes in 2009, had been released on medical parole in January, which they saw as unfairly lenient. Hundreds of armed police officers surrounded the prison throughout the night. The two sides exchanged gunfire at two points as the hostage takers apparently sought to escape and then tried to ward off surrounding officers, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency. Judicial officials said they negotiated with the prisoners through the evening on Wednesday and also asked family members to confer with them. Chang An-lo, who has long had ties with the Bamboo Union and who served a decade in prison in the United States on drug charges, also came to the prison and offered to speak with the men. But early Thursday, the men turned their guns on themselves. Four shot themselves at about 5:10 a.m., while the two others took their lives at 5:30 a.m., said Mr. Chen, the Justice Ministry official.

Taiwan
Prison
Ma Ying jeou
Suicide
Attacks on Police
Chen Shui bian
Hong Kong
Kaohsiung


Oakland Mayor Removes Police Chief Days After Appointing Him

Abstract: OAKLAND, Calif. — Mayor Libby Schaaf removed Oakland’s interim police chief Wednesday, less than a week after appointing him amid a widening sex scandal involving several officers. Ms. Schaaf said new information had led her to lose confidence in the interim chief, Ben Fairow. She appointed Mr. Fairow, a former assistant chief for the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department, on Thursday, after Chief Sean Whent resigned amid allegations that officers had had sex with an underage girl. The mayor called Mr. Fairow’s appointment a mistake but said state law prohibited her from elaborating on her reasons. “I made the decision to appoint Ben Fairow; I also own the decision to remove him,” she said in a statement. “I firmly believe that when you make a mistake, you need to own it and act quickly to correct it.” Two officers have resigned in the scandal, and two others are on paid leave. Other law enforcement agencies in the area are also investigating possible sexual misconduct by their officers.


Cypriot Soccer Club Shows How to Do a Lot With a Little

Abstract: LONDON — There are players in Europe who earn more each year than the entire €10 million budget of the Cypriot club Apoel. Yet the Nicosia team has reached the last 16 of the Champions League despite its limitation of $13.5 million, while the English giants Chelsea , Manchester United and Manchester City and huge-spending clubs in Eastern Europe are struggling to make that knockout stage. Small wonder that Nicosia erupted in street celebrations through midnight Wednesday. Its team of lesser-known Brazilians, Portuguese and others froze out Vladimir Putin’s favorite club, Zenit St. Petersburg, in Russia. All Zenit needed was a goal, but Apoel wouldn’t give it one. The Cypriot club is undefeated in five Champions League games, and another 0-0 put it into the round of the elite. “This night for me is a miracle,” said Apoel’s much-traveled, oft-ejected 31-year-old midfielder, Gustavo Manduca. “The game was tough — the cold was something we weren’t used to — but as time went on we grew more confident.” Manduca had dreamed, back in his native Brazil, of playing in the later stages of the Champions League. “I never imagined it would happen when I arrived in Cyprus,” he said. “I hoped, but it’s hard to believe it has happened.” With the final round of group matches scheduled for early December, Apoel is assured of its place alongside Arsenal , Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Benfica, A.C. Milan, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. But, except for Arsenal, the big spenders of the English Premier League are struggling. A few months ago, when Arsenal couldn’t keep the star players Cesc Fàbregas, Samir Nasri and Gaël Clichy from leaving, the fans and the media began questioning Arsène Wenger’s ability to continue coaching the team. A horrendous 8-2 defeat at Manchester United compounded the criticism. Even last week, the French sports newspaper L’Équipe interpreted Wenger as suggesting in an interview that he could step down at the end of this season after 15 years in charge at Arsenal. Wenger contends that he merely answered a question about whether he might resign if his team is no better at the end of the season. He says his response was that Arsenal is the club of his life, and if he was no longer able to manage it successfully, it could be a duty to let someone else try. On Wednesday, after Arsenal beat the German champion Borussia Dortmund, 2-1, in London to qualify for the last 16 for the 12th consecutive season, Wenger was sanguine. He spoke, as most of the 60,000 people inside the stadium were doing, predominantly of the remarkable year that Robin van Persie is having. Van Persie has inherited the captaincy from Fàbregas, and inherited the mantle of goal scorer in chief from a previous captain, Thierry Henry. By rising to head one goal, and swooping to poach a second, van Persie took his tally of goals in 2011 to 38 from 41 matches. He is playing as the leader of attack, but that is not his natural position. He likes, as many Dutch players do, to be what is known as a shadow striker, lurking behind a main central attacker, creating and exploiting space. But after years when his body seemed to rebel against the physical load of the English league, van Persie now is so much the main man that Alex Song, who created the first goal for him Wednesday, admits that there is an extraordinary dependency on the Dutchman doing it for them. “Van Persie is in a period where he doesn’t have to look for goals,” said Wenger after the victory. “They just come to him. It looks easy, but it isn’t. “He’s there because he understands the game so well.” Wenger’s opponent, Jürgen Klopp, agreed. “I’m not sure if van Persie is the best striker in Europe at the moment,” the German said. “But he is among the best. I have hardly ever seen a player who plays so deep, but is so dangerous in the box.” Klopp’s own team, disrupted by a broken jaw to Sven Bender and a bruised knee to Mario Götze, both in the first half, scored in the last minute through Shinji Kagawa. That goal by the Japanese player proved typical of the spirit of endurance by German teams. And in another Anglo-German match, Chelsea fell prey to two late goals in Leverkusen. Chelsea’s run at the moment is causing despair to those who hoped that the team’s owner, Roman Abramovich, had finally found in the young Portuguese Andre Villas-Boas a coach he could trust in the long, rather than short, term. But defeats are trying Abramovich’s patience. Four of them in the Premier League, and now a 2-1 loss after Chelsea was in position to win in Leverkusen, do not calm the atmosphere around one of the world’s wealthiest clubs. Villas-Boas had, again, chosen to leave Fernando Torres sitting idle on the bench. This for a player whom Chelsea had paid £50 million, or more than $77 million, to acquire last January. His preference for Didier Drogba appeared vindicated when, at 48 minutes, Drogba used formidable muscle and considerable skill to turn two German defenders and score. By then, Chelsea goalie Petr Cech had twice thwarted the former Chelsea player, Michael Ballack. Ballack, playing his 100th European match, also struck the crossbar. But it was a substitute, Eren Derdiyok, who first broke Chelsea’s defense with a goal in 17 minutes from the end, and then a defender, Manuel Friedrich, headed in the winner for Leverkusen just seconds from the end. Defensive frailty is becoming a worrisome Chelsea habit. Its last chance to qualify comes two weeks from now, against a Valencia side that on Wednesday ran rampant with seven goals against the hapless Belgian side, Genk.

Arsenal (Soccer Team)
Chelsea (Soccer Team)
UEFA Champions League (Soccer)


A Limited Role for Cuomo as Obama Travels Upstate

Abstract: BUFFALO — When President Obama arrived here on Thursday morning, emerging from Air Force One to a crowd of avid fans and a Lake Erie gale, the first person to shake his hand was Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, smiling wide. The president smiled too, hugging Mr. Cuomo before moving on to chat with the governor’s three daughters. That two of Mr. Cuomo’s daughters are starting college at a time that Mr. Obama is promoting higher education was another happy coincidence in the complex, often complementary relationship between the two leaders. Mr. Cuomo is playing a limited role in the president’s two-day tour in upstate New York, but political veterans say the two men actually have a warm working rapport, one with layers of personal connections, political calculation and, of course, professional debts of gratitude. In particular, according to Christopher Lehane, a longtime Democratic political operative and friend of the governor, the president has played “an incredibly important role in paving the way” for Mr. Cuomo in 2009, signaling to David A. Paterson, the governor at the time, that he should not run for re-election. Mr. Cuomo, for his part, has praised the president at crucial moments, including last fall in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, comments that were mirrored by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, shortly before the presidential election. Their personal styles seem somewhat at odds — the president is more the professor, Mr. Cuomo is more the jock — but they had nothing but nice things to say about each other on Thursday. The president called Mr. Cuomo “one of the finest governors in the country,” while Mr. Cuomo said, “We always love to have the president here.” Mr. Lehane also pointed out another strength in the relationship: the governor’s ability to navigate Washington, something Mr. Lehane said Mr. Cuomo learned while serving as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton. It is a skill Mr. Obama has rewarded. “If the question is, ‘Does New York get what it needs from the administration?’ the answer is unquestionably yes,” said Mr. Lehane, who was Mr. Cuomo’s counselor at the department. Of course, the name Clinton could bring up a somewhat delicate political issue: Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is considered a leading contender for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, which Mr. Cuomo is believed to be interested in (though he denies it). The president has lavished praise on Mrs. Clinton’s performance as secretary and would be a powerful ally in any national campaign. Not that the Cuomos and Clintons do not have deep connections themselves; in 1994, for example, Mr. Clinton campaigned heartily for Mr. Cuomo’s father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, in his unsuccessful bid for a fourth term. Such interconnectedness between New York governors and Oval Office occupants is not completely surprising, considering the state’s position as a Democratic stronghold and New York City’s deep-pocketed donors. While Mr. Cuomo has taken pains to stay in-state, Representative Peter T. King, a Long Island Republican and frequent critic of the president, said he was impressed by Mr. Cuomo’s trip to Washington after Hurricane Sandy, particularly his willingness to talk to Republicans, including the House speaker, John A. Boehner. “We had to basically convince him to come,” said Mr. King, who added that “in a way that’s tribute to him: he’s not trying to grandstand.” Once there, Mr. Cuomo seemed comfortable on Mr. Obama’s turf. “From the time he walked in the speaker’s office, he handled himself very well,” Mr. King said. At the University of Buffalo, which is part of the State University of New York system, spectators began lining up hours before the president’s remarks, held at the Alumni Arena. Even the choice of that site seemed to intertwine Mr. Obama’s message with Mr. Cuomo’s: the governor has made the economic health of upstate New York a priority, including signing a law which would allow SUNY schools to offer tax-free benefits to businesses that start on, or are adjacent to, its campuses. Mr. Cuomo did not speak at the president’s event, but sat in the front row, nodding and applauding. After the president finished, he quietly stood behind the stage, greeting well-wishers while Mr. Obama was surrounded by students wielding smartphones. Shortly after that the two men parted, with Mr. Obama continuing by bus to Rochester and other upstate locales, and Mr. Cuomo heading to the State Fair in Syracuse with his daughters. There, the governor said he appreciated the president’s remarks about the cost of college. And he should know; the reason he gave for his relatively short time with Mr. Obama was that he needed to get his twins ready for their freshman years at Harvard and Brown, neither of which are cheap. “I almost couldn’t afford the sausage,” he said.

Mario Cuomo
Barack Obama
US Politics
Andrew Cuomo
New York