California Tries to Solve Water Woes

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — In a sign that a deal addressing California ’s longstanding water supply problems may be near, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger convened a special session of the Legislature on Monday to revisit a package of water bills. A three-year drought, federal environmental regulations restricting water flows and the fixation of Mr. Schwarzenegger — who has said he is determined to leave a mark on one of the state’s most intractable problems before leaving office next year — have heightened the urgency for an agreement. Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, had threatened to veto some 700 bills if lawmakers did not reach a water deal by Sunday, the end of the regular legislative session. But he backed off that threat on Monday, citing progress as lawmakers and members of his staff hunkered down to work on the issue. The special session is expected to last until the end of the week, and both Republicans and Democrats expressed optimism on Monday that a deal was in the offing. “While we still need to hammer out remaining issues,” Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat and Senate president pro tem, said in a statement, “we are on the verge of the most comprehensive advance on water in California in decades. We’ve made significant breakthroughs on many of the sticking points that have plagued past attempts to stabilize the state’s water supply.” The negotiations are focused on repairing the state’s fragile water ecosystem, unleashing new water supplies and increasing water conservation throughout the state. More specifically, negotiators hope to seal a deal that would make equal the goals of restoring the Sacramento -San Joaquin River Delta — a collection of channels, natural habitats and islands at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers that is a major source of the state’s drinking water — and increasing the supply of water to residents, businesses and farms. State officials say the restoration of the delta, as envisioned in the negotiations, would be the largest environmental restoration project in the United States , surpassing the effort under way in the Florida Everglades. But the battle over how to distribute California’s water is generations old — it was Mark Twain who was believed to have said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over” — and when it comes to water legislation, close to done never means done. In the delta alone, myriad efforts have sought to change how water flows and to whom, including a package of five policy and bond bills that never made it to a vote in the Democratic-controlled Legislature this year. Yet many factors have made the need to fix California’s water system problems all the more pressing. The drought has led to water restrictions and increased prices for water around the state. And along with the drought, a federal order last year forcing water authorities to curtail the use of large pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to help preserve dying smelt has reduced water flows to agriculture and resulted in dust-bowl-like conditions for many of the state’s farms. In 2008, over 100,000 acres of the 4.7 million acres in the Central Valley were left unplanted, and experts expect that number to grow this year. In addition, environmental problems in the Sacramento River have resulted in a collapse of the Chinook salmon population, closing salmon season off the coast of California and much of Oregon for two years in a row. Among the bills in the making is one that would issue roughly $9 billion in bonds , including $3 billion to build at least one dam. Some of the money would also be used to help restore the delta ecosystem and fortify levies to withstand natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. The bonds would require voter approval. What remains to be worked out, negotiators say, is whether any money would be set aside to build a peripheral canal that would transport water from the Sacramento River around the delta to federal and state aqueducts for use in urban and agricultural areas in the southern part of the state. The canal, long a contentious issue among California water managers and politicians, is favored by Mr. Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein , a Democrat. Another disputed piece of the negotiations involves the monitoring of groundwater levels. Without monitoring groundwater usage, it is impossible to tell whether aquifers are being stressed, which can lead to weakened levees and damage to the surrounding environment. As the drought has persisted, tapping into groundwater supplies has increased, especially among farmers — and in some areas, state officials say, dangerously so. While roughly 70 percent of the state’s water districts voluntarily measure groundwater levels, reporting the levels is not mandatory, and Democrats had sought to make it so. Republican lawmakers staunchly opposed state government “trespassing” on private property to do so. A compromise would make a water district’s failure to voluntarily report levels result in the loss of billions of dollars from state bonds.

Water
California
Conservation of Resources
Drought
Legislation
Environment
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Darrell Steinberg
Dianne Feinstein


The Kentucky Derby Dartboard: Week 3

Abstract: Top contenders for the 142nd running of the Kentucky Derby are listed in order of preference, with comments provided by Joe Drape and Melissa Hoppert of The New York Times. Churchill Downs has adopted a points system to determine the Derby field, with points being earned by the top four finishers in designated prep races. The odds are from the Churchill Downs futures pool, and the records are starts-win-place-show. 1. Nyquist Trainer: Doug O’Neill Jockey: Mario Gutierrez Record: 7-7-0-0 Points: 130 Odds: 3-1 J.D.: The 2-year-old champion is the one to beat. He is also undefeated. Is he bred for a mile and a quarter? No, but few are. M.H.: Saturday’s Arkansas Derby just reinforced this fact: There’s Nyquist, the Florida Derby winner, and then there’s everyone else. Next up: Kentucky Derby on May 7. 2. Lani Trainer: Mikio Matsunaga Jockey: Yutaka Take Record: 6-3-1-0 Points: 100 Odds: 25-1 J.D.: This Kentucky-bred, Japan-based colt stood out in the U.A.E. Derby. None of the American horses look anywhere close to Nyquist. Why not take a flier with this grandson of Sunday Silence? M.H.: This Tapit colt has three wins in his last four races and is already at Churchill Downs training. But I think Exaggerator is more talented. Next up: Kentucky Derby. 3. Exaggerator Trainer: Keith Desormeaux Jockey: Kent Desormeaux Record: 9-4-2-1 Points: 126 Odds: 27-1 J.D.: He rose seemingly from the dead, running away with the Santa Anita Derby on April 9 after a disappointing third-place finish in his previous race. This colt has some back class. M.H.: This Curlin colt turned in a dominating performance at Santa Anita and has more races under his belt than any other horse on our list. That experience could help come Derby day. Next up: Kentucky Derby. 4. Mohaymen Trainer: Kiaran McLaughlin Jockey: Junior Alvarado Record: 6-5-0-0 Points: 80 Odds: 8-1 J.D.: This colt went from Wonder Horse to What the Heck Happened with an awful performance in the Florida Derby early this month. Do you draw a line through it? Nope. M.H.: He had a tough trip on a wet track in the Florida Derby, going wide throughout. Can he regain his form in the Derby and show that that was just an off day, or will he continue to regress? I’m leaning toward the former. Next up: Kentucky Derby. 5. Mor Spirit Trainer: Bob Baffert Jockey: Gary Stevens Record: 7-3-4-0 Points: 84 Odds: 11-1 J.D.: This Pennsylvania-bred colt is as steady as they come, but he looked ordinary clunking up for second in the Santa Anita Derby. M.H.: This speedy colt has been high on Baffert’s list since Day 1, and with a clunker of a performance in Arkansas by his stablemate Cupid, we can see why. My money is on Mor Spirit to finish second on the first Saturday in May. Next up: Kentucky Derby. 6. Destin Trainer: Todd Pletcher Jockey: Javier Castellano Record: 5-3-1-0 Points: 51 Odds: 16-1 J.D.: He won the Sam F. Davis Stakes and the Tampa Bay Derby, but against whom exactly? M.H.: He set a track record for a mile and a sixteenth while outdueling his stablemate Outwork in the Tampa Bay Derby last month. Did he do too much too soon? Next up: Kentucky Derby. 7. Gun Runner Trainer: Steve Asmussen Jockey: Florent Geroux Record: 5-4-0-0 Points: 151 Odds: 13-1 J.D.: Meet your West Virginia Derby winner. M.H.: He swept the two big Derby prep races at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, but he hardly seems fast enough to win the Derby. His stablemate Creator rallied to win the Arkansas Derby and is getting hot at the right time. Next up: Kentucky Derby. 8. Outwork Trainer: Todd Pletcher Jockey: John Velazquez Record: 4-3-1-0 Points: 120 Odds: 30-1 J.D.: He won the Wood Memorial last weekend — albeit by a head in the slowest winning time in the history of the race. He is lightly raced, though, and getting better. M.H.: He could eventually be formidable but not in time to don roses at the Derby. Next up: Kentucky Derby. 9. Mo Tom Trainer: Tom Amoss Jockey: Corey Lanerie Record: 7-3-0-3 Points: 32 Odds: 17-1 J.D.: This talented colt has been buried by terrible rides in his last two races, so look for a rider switch now that Mike Smith and a couple of others appear available. He is a live long shot. M.H.: The Saints owners Tom and Gayle Benson have two Derby contenders in Mo Tom and Tom’s Ready. Both are already at Churchill Downs, which is a bonus. Next up: Kentucky Derby. 10. Brody’s Cause Trainer: Dale Romans Jockey: Luis Saez Record: 6-3-0-1 Points: 114 Odds: n/a J.D.: This grinder needs a perfect trip and a grueling pace ahead of him. That’s asking a lot. M.H.: This Blue Grass Stakes winner rebounded from a seventh-place finish in the Tampa Bay Derby. But he will still have to improve on his performance at Keeneland to have a shot at Churchill Downs. Next up: Kentucky Derby.


Same Script by Bernanke, but Like a Farewell Scene

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Chairman Ben S. Bernanke of the Federal Reserve said on Thursday that it was “way too early to make any judgment” about a potential decision to start cutting back on the central bank’s asset purchases in September. Mr. Bernanke, appearing before the Senate one day after he testified before the House, largely repeated the themes and often the words of Wednesday’s testimony. He said that the Fed had not slackened in its commitment to stimulate the economy — it will cut back only if the economy is making progress. He chastised Congress, saying it was impeding economic growth. And he demurred from talking about his own future, choosing instead to listen quietly as senator after senator treated the hearing like a goodbye party. This may have been Mr. Bernanke’s final appearance before Congress as Fed chairman. It is widely expected that he will step down in January. His last decision is when the Fed should begin to reduce its stimulus efforts. The Fed is buying $85 billion a month in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Mr. Bernanke said on Thursday that the Fed had concluded that such purchases, aimed at reducing long-term interest rates, do less to bolster the economy than the Fed’s traditional focus on reducing short-term rates. He also suggested that in announcing a timeline for tapering last month, the Fed had succeeded in tempering risk-taking in financial markets. But he once again resisted the idea that the Fed was lowering its sights. “Isn’t it still way too soon to consider any kind of policy tightening?” Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey asked Mr. Bernanke, citing the persistently high level of unemployment and the absence of inflationary pressures. Mr. Bernanke responded that the Fed was changing its approach, not its goals. In testimony, he underscored that the central bank had other tools at its disposal, besides asset purchases. “I think that we will be able to maintain that high level of accommodation ultimately through rate policy and, you know — and by holding a very large balance sheet,” he said. Some economists, including Adam S. Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, argue that the Fed is making the wrong choice. Mr. Posen describes the Fed’s statements about its plans to hold down interest rates as “cheap talk,” and says it should continue with bond-buying instead. A further complication for the Fed is that Mr. Bernanke’s likely departure is beginning to erode his credibility as a spokesman about the Fed’s future plans. Mr. Bernanke has said that the Fed expects to reduce its bond-buying later this year, and to end purchases by the middle of next year, as long as economic growth remains “broadly” in line with the Fed’s expectations. “We have given some fairly specific qualitative guidance about what we’re looking for,” he said Thursday. Specifically, the Fed wants the unemployment rate to decline from the current rate of 7.6 percent to a rate “in the general vicinity of 7 percent with inflation moving back toward this 2 percent objective.” The Fed, however, has not included that guidance in its policy statements. And an account of the most recent meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee noted that “about half” of the 19 officials who participated said before the meeting that they expected to end asset purchases by the end of this year. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, asked Mr. Bernanke about the apparent disagreement over the question of how much longer the Fed should continue its current bond-buying campaign. “There seems to be some disparity between the other members and you, and if you’re not there come next year, there’s a worry there,” Mr. Schumer said. “Do they think unemployment will be 7 percent this year, or do they have different assessments about the relative cost and benefit of” quantitative easing? Mr. Bernanke responded that officials had various reasons for their views. Some regard asset purchases as ineffective, while others may be more optimistic about the economy. But he added that the committee had “a very careful discussion” that led to his public statement about the probable timetable for tapering. “The general scenario which I described in my press conference is broadly supported by people on the committee and including both voters and nonvoters,” he said.

Ben S Bernanke
Quantitative easing
US Economy
Federal Reserve
Senate
Congress


Series Raises the Curtain on the Muppets

Abstract: WHEN Alan Hofmanis, 37, was a child, “The Muppet Show” bridged the generation gap between him and his father. “My father was such a tough guy,” recalled Mr. Hofmanis, a curator at Cinema Arts Center in Huntington, “except at 7:30 on Tuesday nights. I remember it was weird to have my father laughing at the same thing I was laughing at.” The variety show, which ran from 1976 to 1981, proved that its creator, the puppeteer Jim Henson, was an entertainer for those of all ages, not simply the children he had delighted with his characters on “Sesame Street.” Celebrating the cross-generational appeal of the Muppets and Mr. Henson’s innovation, the Cinema Arts Center will be host to a traveling series of films, workshops and discussions called “Muppets, Music and Magic: Jim Henson’s Legacy” from Aug. 10 to 12. Special guests include the actors and puppeteers Kevin Clash, Fran Brill and David Goelz, who operate Elmo, Zoe and Gonzo, respectively. Screenings will range from films like “The Great Muppet Caper” and “Muppets From Space” to lesser-known works including “Dog City,” a 1989 film noir-style episode of “The Jim Henson Hour” that was set in a 1940s metropolis populated by canines. From the archives kept by the Jim Henson Legacy, an organization founded in 1993 by the artist’s friends and family to perpetuate his work, come television commercials and rarely seen experimental pieces made by Mr. Henson, who died in 1990 at 53 of a bacterial infection. A collection of the commercials and short pieces will be introduced by Craig Shemin, a member of the group’s board and a former writer for the Jim Henson Company, which sold the Muppets franchise to the Walt Disney Company in 2004. “I think people will be very surprised to see that this came from Jim Henson’s mind,” he said, adding that the artist loved to experiment with storytelling techniques. The Legacy organization struck two new prints of “Time Piece” in 35-millimeter film for the program, Mr. Shemin said. The eight-minute experimental short film from 1965, which was nominated for an Academy Award, combines live action and animation and showcases Mr. Henson’s talent for making music out of everyday sounds. Mr. Hofmanis said he expected a packed house throughout the weekend event, which was co-produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Jim Henson Legacy. Since its debut in Columbus, Ohio, in March, the series has also traveled to Cambridge, Mass., and San Francisco; later this year it will go to Ithaca and Rochester. “It’s not a kids’ festival; it’s a family festival,” Mr. Hofmanis said. “The reaction I’m getting is from 30-year-olds, and they’re bringing their kids, who know the Muppets through Elmo. That’s what this is for me — it’s about the next generation. Elmo has never been next to Gonzo before.” There is a timelessness to Mr. Henson’s creations, noted Ms. Brill, who was the first female puppeteer at the company and now operates Elmo’s popular sidekick, Zoe. “These puppets seem to reach out to everybody,” she said. “The puppets are green and yellow and blue. You can’t classify or stereotype them.” In an age when children’s television programs are filled with flashy, computer-generated imagery, the popularity of Mr. Henson’s puppets endures because, Mr. Shemin said, there’s “a humanity” to them. When he was writing for the Muppets, he kept one philosophy in mind: “Each of the characters had one human foible or frailty,” he said. “Together, they could create magical stuff.”

Henson Jim Co
Puppets
Art
Cinema Arts Center


From Revolution to Rangers, Meet the Women Who’ve Pushed the Military’s Boundaries

Abstract: Two female soldiers are set on Friday to graduate from the Army’s Ranger School , the grueling nine-week training and leadership course that just two out of every five candidates pass. That does not mean they will necessarily get to fight. The Army, like the other branches of the military, has yet to officially decide if women will be allowed to take up actual combat roles. But the two women, First Lt. Kristen Griest and Lt. Shaye Haver , already have experience in jobs that could take them near the front lines. They are the latest in a long line of female fighters who pushed the military’s barriers on what is considered women’s work. In fact, the tradition extends back to 1781. Here are a few notable stories, including some from the archives of The New York Times: The First, but Not the Last, Female Soldier to Disguise Herself as a Man Image Deborah Sampson Credit Hulton Archive, via Getty Images While other women served as nurses and cooks in military camps during the Revolutionary War, Deborah Sampson wanted to see battle. She disguised herself as a man and enlisted in 1781. Before battles, she helped carry out scouting expeditions against British troops. She endured several attacks, one of which left her with a sword wound on her forehead and a gunshot to the thigh , according to the National Women’s History Museum. Ms. Sampson served for more than two years before she lost consciousness from a sickness and ended up in a hospital. She recovered, but not before her sex was discovered. Ms. Sampson later married, and when she died, her husband received pay as a military spouse. In the United States-Mexico war (1846-1848) and the Civil War (1861-1865), women disguised themselves as men to join the ranks, according to the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation. About 400 women are said to have disguised themselves as men during the Civil War. Others, like Annie Etheridge, served as battlefield medics — openly as women — and rallied the troops . The First Female Medal of Honor Recipient — Who Refused to Wear Skirts Image Dr. Mary Walker Credit National Institutes of Health At a time when women nursed Union and Confederate troops in field hospitals, Dr. Mary Walker, a surgeon, was the first woman to receive the Medal of Honor. Though she was a surgeon, much of the news media’s focus was on how she dressed. In a brief sent from Richmond in 1865, The Times noted the stir she caused when, upon her release from Confederate forces, she wore pants. “Ladies congregated upon the corners, and men and boys stopped along the sidewalk to comment upon the novel appearance of a lady in uniform,” according to the brief. An article in The Times in 1878 demanded the “refeminization” of Dr. Walker in order to restore equal rights between men and women. When she died at age 87 in 1919, Dr. Walker’s obituary referenced her record as a suffragist and noted that she was the first female prisoner of war in history to be traded for a man of equal rank. But the first sentence of the obituary still focused on her attire: She was famously allowed to wear men’s clothes by an act of Congress. The First Female Carrier-Based Fighter Pilot Image Lt. Kara S. Hultgreen Credit United States Navy Upon Lt. Kara S. Hultgreen’s entry into an elite force of fliers in the United States Navy, she was often asked to reconcile her beauty — she stood 5 foot 10, with long brown hair — with the Navy. In an interview, Lieutenant Hultgreen, who hoped ultimately to become an astronaut, acknowledged the macho tendencies of her service. “I did this to become a fighter pilot,” she told Woman Pilot magazine. “It makes me feel no less feminine and it should not make men feel less masculine.” Lieutenant Hultgreen, 29, died in 1994, just months after she had finally been certified for aircraft carrier landings. On Oct. 25, 1994, as Lieutenant Hultgreen came in for a landing, the left engine sputtered, the jet rolled, and she was ejected into the ocean off San Diego, according to an appreciation in The Times Magazine in 1995. “She died on impact and the jet sank, wasting, in a fraction of a second, one extraordinary pilot’s life,” Catherine S. Manegold wrote. The First Female Fighters in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Image Sgt. Theresa Lynn Flannery during an attack in April 2004 near Najaf, Iraq, as other soldiers used a wall for cover. Credit Gervasio Sanchez/Associated Press Women are technically barred from combat, but wars in Iraq and Afghanistan saw branches of the military bending the rules. Paperwork loopholes were also used: Women were “attached” rather than “assigned” to combat units, which is still forbidden, according to a 2009 report in The Times . The article, by Lizette Alvarez, detailed other practices the military used to get women combat action: The Marine Corps began opening up intelligence jobs to women, and soldiers in the Army patrolled streets with machine guns. They could lead units into battle, but they could not fight. “It’s not a fair comparison to say the deployment is more or less stressful based on gender,” Lisbeth Prifogle, a supply officer who was attached to Marine Aircraft Group 16 in Al Asad, Iraq, told The Times a decade ago . “But there are a whole bunch of little things you have to deal with that men don’t even think about, because it’s their world.” Will Women Ever Be Assigned to Combat Positions? In acknowledgment of the increasing number of women on and near war’s front lines, the Pentagon in 2013 overturned an earlier ban on women in combat roles. It is giving military services until January 2016 to open combat positions to women, or apply for an exemption to the secretary of defense, who will decide whether to allow a branch to continue to bar women from a position. Until then, the women about to graduate from Ranger School will be the only Ranger School graduates barred from even applying to the Ranger regiment. Update : In December 2015, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced that the Pentagon would allow women in all military roles , with no exceptions, opening up about 220,000 military jobs.

US Military
Women and Girls
US Navy
US Army
US Marines


Cavendish Wins Giro Stage

Abstract: The British star Mark Cavendish won his second Giro d’Italia stage in three days, while Alberto Contador retained his overall lead of 59 seconds. Cavendish won the 12th leg with another sprint victory. He rode the mostly flat 114-mile route from Castelfidardo to Ravenna in 4 hours 17 minutes 25 seconds.

Giro d'Italia (Bicycle Race)
Cavendish Mark
Contador Alberto
Bicycles and Bicycling


Kentucky: Clerk Who Defied Order Seeks Reversal of Rulings on Marriage

Abstract: Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, has asked a federal appeals court to scrap a series of rulings issued by the district judge who sent her to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In a filing late Monday with the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Ms. Davis’s lawyers called the order by Judge David L. Bunning that Ms. Davis license same-sex marriages a “rush to judgment” that trampled her religious liberty. She stopped issuing all marriage licenses after the United States Supreme Court ruled in June in favor of same-sex marriage. The American Civil Liberties Union sued her, and Judge Bunning ordered her to issue the licenses. When she continued to refuse, he held her in contempt and she spent five nights in jail. Jonathan Christman, Ms. Davis’s lawyer, asked the appeals court to reverse four of the lower court rulings. By jailing her and ordering her deputies to issue the licenses, the district judge “commandeered” the clerk’s office, the lawyer wrote.

Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
Kim Davis,Kentucky Clerk
Rowan County
David L Bunning
Freedom of religion


Moscow Gay Bar Attacked by Two Dozen Masked Men

Abstract: MOSCOW — The police in Moscow on Friday were seeking two dozen masked men who stormed one of the city’s most popular gay bars early Thursday and beat patrons — most of them women — with fists and bottles. More than 10 people were injured, and three women and a man were hospitalized after the attack, which coincided with a “Coming Out Day” party, club employees said. The violence comes during an unnerving year for gay men and lesbians in Russia . Three cities, including St. Petersburg, have passed laws criminalizing “homosexual propaganda,” and a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church , the country’s predominant faith, has endorsed an initiative to introduce the laws nationwide. So far, no such law has been passed in the capital. However, a measure banning gay pride parades in Moscow for a century, until May 2112, was upheld by the city’s highest court in August. More than 50 people were in the club, 7freedays, one of a handful of gay-friendly bars in the city, when the attackers entered, wearing surgical masks and hoods. Some revelers initially took them for performers planning to join an open-mic session, but then they began to overturn tables and assault patrons, witnesses said. “I thought at any moment they would take off the masks, but it turned out it had nothing to do with the program,” said Pavel Samburov, an activist for the Raduzhnaya gay-rights group, who was at the bar on Thursday. Instead, the men yelled, “You asked for a fight? Now you’ll get it,” and attacked. They ran out less than five minutes later, before police officers arrived. “It was a pogrom,” Mr. Samburov added. Nikolai Alekseyev, the founder of the Moscow Gay Pride movement, said that the attack on the club, which is in the center of the capital, showed that antigay groups were becoming increasingly aggressive. “They believe that they won’t be caught and won’t be punished for this,” he said. Alyona Khromova, a patron at 7freedays on Thursday, told Radio Free Europe’s Russian service that one of the men pulled a gun on the bartender, and that one sprayed a caustic substance into the face of another man, who was taken to the hospital. One woman remained hospitalized Friday evening after a shard of glass cut her eye when the assailants broke her glasses.

Russia
Homosexuality
Hate Crimes
Moscow (Russia)
Bars


Bank Employee Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Work as Secret Russian Agent

Abstract: Just weeks before he was to go on trial in federal court, a Russian bank employee in New York pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of conspiring to act as an unregistered Russian agent in the United States. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan had accused the employee, Evgeny Buryakov, 41, and two other Russians stationed in New York of being part of a ring that collected intelligence on behalf of the S.V.R., the Russian foreign intelligence agency. The two other Russians, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy, have left the United States. All three men were originally charged with conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. Mr. Buryakov pleaded guilty to the first count, of conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He will be sentenced on May 25. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Mr. Buryakov, “under cover of being a legitimate banker, gathers intelligence on the streets of New York City, trading coded messages with Russian spies who send the clandestinely collected information back to Moscow.” “This sounds like a plotline for a Cold War-era movie,” Mr. Bharara continued, but in reality, he said, Mr. Buryakov pleaded guilty to a federal crime “for his role in just such a scheme.” “More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, Russian spies still seek to operate in our midst under the cover of secrecy,” he added. On Friday, the judge, Richard M. Berman, asked Mr. Buryakov whether anyone had threatened or forced him to plead guilty, or had made any promises to cause him to do so. Mr. Buryakov repeatedly said no. “Are you pleading guilty to this crime because you are in fact guilty of it?” Judge Berman asked. “Yes, I am,” Mr. Buryakov said. A federal complaint unsealed in January 2015 says Mr. Buryakov, who lived in the Bronx, worked as a “NOC,” a covert S.V.R. agent acting under nonofficial cover in New York. He worked for the Russian bank Vnesheconombank, which is on a Treasury Department sanctions list. Mr. Sporyshev worked as a trade representative of the Russian Federation, and Mr. Podobnyy as an attaché to the Russian Federation’s permanent mission to the United Nations, the complaint says. They were Mr. Buryakov’s “covert intermediaries” with S.V.R.’s headquarters (known as Moscow Center) “on intelligence related matters,” according to the complaint. From March 2012 through mid-September 2014, the complaint notes, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted physical or electronic surveillance of Mr. Buryakov engaging in more than four dozen brief meetings with Mr. Sporyshev, and sometimes passing him a bag, magazine or slip of paper. The complaint notes that all three men worked for Directorate ER, an S.V.R. division that focuses on economic issues, and that Mr. Buryakov, his two co-defendants and other covert S.V.R. agents were told to gather intelligence on “potential United States sanctions against the Russian Federation and the United States’ efforts to develop alternative energy resources.” Mr. Sporyshev and Mr. Podobnyy analyzed and reported back to Moscow Center on Mr. Buryakov’s “intelligence-gathering efforts,” the complaint says. The F.B.I. inquiry came a few months after the 2010 arrests of 10 Russian intelligence officers living in the United States under deep cover who later pleaded guilty, were sentenced to time served and were sent back to Moscow in exchange for four Russian prisoners. The case inspired the television show “ The Americans .” Mr. Buryakov was not charged with espionage. In court, he said that he had known Mr. Sporyshev was a New York-based official of the Russian Federation, and had agreed to “take certain actions in the United States” at his direction without providing the required prior notification to the attorney general of the United States that he was acting as an agent of the Russian Federation. Mr. Buryakov’s lawyer, Scott Hershman, declined to comment after the hearing. The plea document states the parties agreed that an appropriate sentence would be 30 months. (Mr. Buryakov has already served a little over 13 months in jail.) By their own words, members of the ring in which Mr. Buryakov was involved sometimes felt their work was mundane, the complaint suggests. In a secret recording made by the bureau, Mr. Podobnyy appears to tell Mr. Sporyshev that his work was “not even close” to a James Bond movie. When the charges were first announced last year, they drew sharp criticism from the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, in Moscow, who accused the United States of “once again resorting to their favorite tactics of building up spy hysteria.” A State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said at the time that there were continuing issues on which the United States and Russia were working together, and others on which they disagreed.

Russia
Evgeny Buryakov
NYC
Spying and Intelligence Agencies
Foreign Intelligence Service Russia


Ryder Cup: Tiger Wood’s Evolution as a Teammate

Abstract: MEDINAH, Ill. Tiger Woods is the Neil Young of golf, a game-changing talent who has performed better as a solo artist than as a member of a group. The Ryder Cup is his Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: in four-ball and foursome matches, Woods has a combined record of 9-13-1. Woods, who is making his seventh Ryder Cup appearance this week at Medinah Country Club, has been on one victorious team in the biennial event, in 1999. Early in his career, he spoke of the competition as if it were something to be endured rather than embraced, finding fault with its lack of prize money, its bureaucracy and its subordinate status to the four majors. With age, Woods’s regard for the Ryder Cup has deepened, and its rich tradition has roused to life his historian’s soul. Jack Nicklaus’s 18 major championships is the bar Woods is trying to clear, but he has come to appreciate that Nicklaus’s 17-8-3 record in the Ryder Cup is not too shabby an intermediate target. “For us to represent the United States of America and our teammates, it’s something else,” Woods said, adding: “It’s so much heat on you, which is very different. It’s different than playing by yourself.” Asked why Woods has not fared better in the Ryder Cup, David Feherty, a member of the 1991 European Ryder Cup team and a Golf Channel broadcaster, said, “You probably have to go back to his school reports in his early childhood, maybe kindergarten; does not play well with others, or something like that.” The road to becoming a team player was bound to be a long and winding one for Woods, 36, an outlier in a country club sport. In the beginning, the color of his skin set him apart. Then his youth became an inadvertent wedge; in his first few Ryder Cups, he was at once the world No. 1 and the youngest player in the United States team room, a dynamic bound to create discomfort whether he tried to lead or follow (a situation Rory McIlroy will have to navigate this week in the European team room). Feherty’s theory is that, until recently, Woods’s intensity burned too hot to allow for any kind of close, collaborative relationship. “He was so focused on getting his own ball into the hole,” he said, “and not just winning but winning in a crushing sort of a get-them-down-and-step-on-their-necks, that kind of way, that absolute killer instinct, that having someone on board with you, I think it’s taken him a while to get used to that.” Others have suggested Woods’s genius makes it difficult for any mortal to form a harmonious partnership, unless the mortal is a wizard on the greens like Steve Stricker, who is 2-1-0 with Woods in the Ryder Cup. Graeme McDowell, a member of the European team, likened Woods to Manchester United and the other soccer powers that everybody in the Premier League loves to beat. “Any lesser team that comes to play these guys, they have a tendency to raise their game, because it’s a huge game for an underdog to play Tiger Woods,” he said. “And they get up for it.” McDowell added, “I think a guy who plays Tiger Woods, he doesn’t expect to win, so he lets it all go and he plays out of his skin and gets the upset.” Woods has a career record of 4-1-1 in Ryder Cup singles matches, but there is no question he has to work harder for every point. “He’s kind of a marked man every time he tees it up in one of these events,” said Stricker, who added that it was important that Woods start off well because “that’s big momentum when Tiger is gaining points, and guys feed off of that.” Woods, who is ranked No. 2 in the world behind McIlroy, recognizes that his time to lead is now. He started by claiming his share of responsibility for the American team’s 1-5 record in Ryder Cups in which he has competed. “I certainly am a part of that, and that’s part of being a team,” Woods said. “I needed to go get my points for my team and I didn’t do that. Hopefully I can do that this week, and hopefully the other guys can do the same and we can get this thing rolling.” What better place for Woods to catch and ride a wave of momentum than Medinah, site of 2 of his 14 major titles, the 1999 and 2006 P.G.A. Championships? “I’ve always loved coming here,” Woods said, adding: “I don’t know what it is. But I seem to be very, very comfortable here.” Woods toured the course Wednesday with Stricker, Matt Kuchar and Dustin Johnson. On the 10th green, Woods was bent over a short putt when Johnson approached him and silently turned down the back of his collar. On the next fairway, Johnson was a few strides ahead of the group when he fell back to join Woods and Stricker, who were walking together. Love appears to be all around, and not just the United States captain, Davis Love III. According to Phil Mickelson, he and Woods are unbeaten when paired this week in table tennis matches. “Mojo,” Mickelson said with a grin. “You’ve got to have momentum. You’ve got to feel it.” Woods sounded like someone who has the camaraderie in him when he said, “We have a great mix of guys this year, and it’s going to be just a lot of fun.”


Red Bulls and Juninho Part Ways

Abstract: As the Red Bulls trained at their stadium in Harrison, N.J., on Wednesday, preparing to travel for Thursday’s match at the Colorado Rapids, the club admitted failure when it said it had parted ways with its highest-profile acquisition of the off-season. We will probably never know if it was age, lack of playing time, lack of interest or a dissatisfaction in the skill level of his teammates and in Major League Soccer. But whatever the reason, the Red Bulls and their Brazilian midfielder Juninho Pernambucano, 38, said they had mutually agreed to cancel his contract. “We are very disappointed that Juninho has decided to return to Brazil because he is a great professional and a very talented footballer,” Andy Roxburgh, the club’s sporting director, said in a statement. “We wish him all of the best and thank him for his valuable contributions during the first half of the 2013 M.L.S. campaign.” The Red Bulls believed they had received a deal last off-season when they signed Juninho, a free-kick specialist, to a nondesignated player contract for $200,000 from Vasco da Gama, the club with which he first forged his reputation as a playmaker and goal scorer from set pieces. He continued his career in France with Olympique Lyon. Image Juninho Pernambucano and the Red Bulls agreed to cancel his contract with the M.L.S. club. Credit New York Red Bulls But Juninho’s veteran skill was not a good fit in Major League Soccer, a rough-and-tumble league. In last Sunday’s 2-0 home win against Houston, Juninho dressed for the match but did not get off the bench. In the previous week’s game, a 3-0 loss at Philadelphia, Juninho served a one-game suspension for an accumulation of yellow-card points. Over all this season, he appeared in 13 games , starting 10, and led the team with four assists. But he failed to convert on any dead-ball opportunities, even though the Red Bulls said they had acquired him in part for those situations. In addition, Juninho’s presence in the midfield seemed to crowd out Tim Cahill and Dax McCarty. With Juninho taking a back seat in the last month or so, Cahill has emerged as the driving force in the midfield for the Red Bulls. Last week, there were reports out of France saying that Juninho planned to retire after the season. There had also been reports on Twitter and other Web sites saying that he would soon leave the team, but Red Bulls Coach Mike Petke brushed those aside. “Look, Juninho’s 38 years old, so I’m sure he’s thinking about his future,” Petke told The New York Post . “I know nothing. He has not stated to us, or has not said anything that I know of, about anything about his future. So I honestly have no comment on that, other than he is ready to roll this weekend and anxious to get out there.” Whether the club now feels compelled to acquire a third designated player during this summer’s league transfer period remains to be seen.

Soccer
New York Red Bulls Soccer Team
Juninho
Brazil
MLS


For Fannie Stock, Even Betting Pennies Is a Risk

Abstract: It is flotsam of the housing wreck, a stock no longer worthy of the Big Board. But penny by penny, the mortgage giant Fannie Mae is being salvaged in the stock market. Nearly two years after it was effectively nationalized, Fannie Mae has become the nation’s hottest penny stock — and, perhaps, its most dangerous. Even though the shares are almost worthless, they are changing hands at a furious pace. Since June, about 31 million of them have been traded on a typical day, more than triple the average for Goldman Sachs shares. All those Fannie Mae shares do not add up to much money. The stock closed at 40 cents Wednesday, about the cost of a first-class postage stamp. In mid-2007, before the housing market deflated, it fetched nearly $85. “The volumes are astonishing,” said Bose T. George, a financial analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods. “It’s like a casino.” The knockdown price partly explains why Fannie Mae typically ranks among the liveliest financial shares in the market: it doesn’t cost much to take a flier on Fannie. But the Lilliputian price also explains why Fannie Mae might have buy-and-hold types feeling queasy. A penny or two change in the price translates into a big move in percentage terms. Last week, for instance, Fannie Mae’s shares rose 47 percent one day, only to sink 14 percent the next. Behind all of this commotion are day traders, those creatures of the dot-com era. Mutual funds and other institutions have mostly abandoned Fannie Mae, as well as shares of its cousin Freddie Mac. The big money has ceded the marketplace to individuals who are bold enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to gamble on these stocks for a few hours. Just don’t hold Fannie Mae too long, Mr. George advised. He predicted the stock would eventually fall to zero. It is difficult to know what other analysts think, since Mr. George is just about the only one who still covers Fannie Mae’s stock. His recommendation is an understated “underperform” — Wall Street code for sell. “It’s not really a stock anymore — everyone knows this is going to zero,” he said. Well, not everyone, at least not right away. But the running interest in Fannie Mae’s stock might seem surprising, considering that this company was the Titanic of the mortgage market. During the bubble years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought up so many toxic mortgages that the government was forced to take them over. Their stock prices promptly plunged. The federal government today owns almost 80 percent of Fannie and Freddie, and few people, in Washington or on Wall Street, seem to know what to do with them. Despite the trading frenzy, Fannie and Freddie have become pariahs. Most big investors won’t touch them. As of March 31, Fannie’s shareholders included two big money management companies, the Vanguard Group and BlackRock. But together they owned a mere 1.2 percent of the company, a pittance given the size of those investment companies. Big institutions typically sell if a stock price sinks below $5. Fannie Mae has not traded that high in two years. Last month, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were ignominiously tossed off the New York Stock Exchange because their share prices had languished below $1 for more than 30 days straight. And so the once-mighty Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been banished to OTC Bulletin Board, home to lowly penny stocks and thinly traded “microcap” companies. As the Securities and Exchange Commission says in its guide for investors: “Investors in penny stocks should be prepared for the possibility that they may lose their whole investment.” The question of what to do with these troubled giants vexes policy makers and bankers alike. Together, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee roughly half of the nation’s $11 trillion home mortgage market. The new overhaul of financial regulation did nothing to address the companies, even though they played a central role in inflating the housing bubble. The Obama administration plans to hold a conference on the future of housing on Aug. 17 to seek advice about reforming the rules governing mortgage finance. The goal is to deliver a proposal to Congress by January. What that proposal will say is anyone’s guess. Fannie and Freddie’s harshest critics want the companies shut down. But even banking executives concede that, for now, the federal government will probably have to play some role in mortgage finance, given the industry’s dependence on Fannie and Freddie. “The fundamental problem with Fannie and Freddie is that no one really knows what to do with them,” said Bert Ely, a financial and monetary policy consultant based in Alexandria, Va., and a longtime critic of the companies. Until Washington comes up with answers, the day traders will no doubt try to ride the swings in Fannie Mae and pocket some more pennies while they still can.

Federal National Mortgage Association
Stocks and Bonds
United States Economy
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


François Hollande Cancels Plan to Strip French Citizenship in Terrorism Cases

Abstract: PARIS — President François Hollande of France announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing a proposal to strip French citizenship from dual nationals convicted of terrorism, ending a monthslong debate that convulsed his governing Socialist Party, dominated political discussion after the November terrorist attacks, and led to the resignation of the justice minister. The idea , originally endorsed by right-wing parties and adopted by Mr. Hollande three days after the deadly attacks on Nov. 13 , drew furious opposition on the left in France, even though all sides agreed it was largely symbolic and would have little practical effect in combating terrorism. But the proposal highlighted a growing split within the Socialist Party, between those who favored a tough law-and-order approach in the wake of the attacks that killed 130 people, and those worried that the government would be impinging on civil liberties . Critics on the left complained that the plan would create two classes of citizens, saying it recalled the dark days of the World War II collaborationist government in France, which rendered hundreds of Jews stateless. France Weighs Limits of Liberty, Equality and Citizenship How proposed changes to France’s Constitution to fight terrorism compare with laws in other countries. France is still under a state of emergency imposed after the attacks, and the police have conducted thousands of raids and put hundreds of suspects under house arrest. Last week, after the Brussels bombings on March 22, officials identified a possible terrorist attack in the “advance d stages” of planning , according to the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, and announced the arrest of a suspect with links to one of the November attackers. On Wednesday, Mr. Hollande said he was pulling back from the citizenship proposal that had become the most intensely debated measure in a bill to overhaul the Constitution. The reversal is likely to reinforce among many voters what pollsters say is Mr. Hollande’s reputation for indecision. Mr. Hollande blamed members of the right-wing opposition, which controls the Senate, for his decision. “I take note that part of the opposition is against all constitutional revision,” he said. “I deplore, profoundly, this attitude, because we must do all we can, under the current serious conditions, to avoid divisions.” Mr. Hollande also abandoned a proposal to create a constitutional provision for declaring a state of emergency, even though it had garnered broad support across the political spectrum. Mr. Hollande’s government had slightly backtracked on the citizenship proposal in January, largely to mollify his critics on the left, in deciding that the bill would not contain any language explicitly referring to dual citizens. The lower house, the National Assembly, where Socialists are in the majority, approved an amended bill that extended the measure to all French citizens, regardless of how many passports they held. But the Senate insisted on sticking to the original idea and restricting the proposal to people with dual citizenship, with its leaders saying that the creation of stateless individuals was a “red line” they would not cross. With a presidential election scheduled next year, analysts interpreted the move as a way of dealing yet another blow to an already weakened Mr. Hollande. Under French law, the National Assembly has the last word when disagreements arise with the Senate over regular legislation. But modifying the Constitution requires the approval of both houses, on an identical version of a bill, before they can convene as a Congress in Versailles to vote on it.

Citizenship
Francois Hollande
France
Terrorism
Paris Attacks
Socialist Party
Brussels Attacks
Civil Rights


Meet Our Man in Tehran

Abstract: Thomas Erdbrink and Roel van Broekhoven, the director of the series on the Dutch television channel VPRO, answered some of your questions about living and reporting in Iran. To learn about new episodes of “Our Man in Tehran,” you can subscribe to The Times Video email newsletter . Q. & A. Q. What do you think Americans and Iranians would be most surprised to learn about each other if we could sit down for dinner in each other’s homes? — Martin Molloy; Hillsborough, N.C. @dylan555 on Twitter A. For starters, the Americans would learn that crisp rice from the bottom of the pot in which it is cooked is a delicacy here. In fact, Iranians love it so much that whole families fight over it during lunch, the main meal of the day in Iran. Around the dinner table it’s all about family in Iran. Relatives come together often, especially these weeks, as Iranians celebrate their new year , which started on March 21. If they were to visit America, they’d expect food courts in shopping malls. These have also sprouted up in Tehran and other cities. I guess what they’d learn is that, across the world, families are really not that different. They all like to sit down together, eat and talk. — Thomas Erdbrink Q. Is there a Sunni population there or other minorities? How are they treated? – Phelps Shepard; Monmouth, Ore. A. My mother-in-law, who taught me to speak Persian, is an Iranian Kurd. She is a proud and strong woman, loves Iranian Kurdistan just as much as she loves Iran. Kurds are Sunni, but not like Arab Sunnis. Her husband is Shia. They have been happily married for almost 38 years. Now while there are issues for religious minorities, such as Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews, they are in much better positions compared with minorities in other countries in the region. In Iran, those minorities have their own members of Parliament and are granted their places of worship. There are dozens of synagogues in Tehran, and thousands of Jews here — the most in the region after Israel. The minority that has serious problems in Iran are the Baha’i, who are not allowed to attend universities or have houses of worship. Iran’s Shiite clerics do not accept the Baha’i belief that their prophet came after Mohammad, who the Muslims say is the final prophet. — T.E. Q. How does an average Iranian feel about Jews and Israel? — Mark Levy; Montreal, Quebec, Canada. A. Iran’s leaders often call for the end of Israel, calling the country a “tumor” that needs to be removed. They are against Zionism, the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. But Iran’s leaders almost never speak out against Jews. Image Thomas Erdbrink Credit VPRO Why would they, as Iran is home to the largest population of Jews in the Middle East after Israel? Where Jews have left most other countries, thousands have remained in Iran, where they are not persecuted . Ordinary Iranians have no specific ideas about Jews, though some Iranians might have the same prejudice you would hear elsewhere in the world. The policies of Israel are, however, widely despised here. Many Iranians might not feel drawn to Arab issues, but last summer’s war in Gaza turned many moderate Iranians against Israel. The speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Congress also made many Iranians angry, as they heard him trying to undermine the nuclear deal that so many people here are hoping will happen. — T.E. Q. Do people there feel as though they have a voice in their government, or in the outcome of the nuclear negotiations? — Coby Goldberg; New York, N.Y. A. Iranians can vote in several elections, including for Parliament and the presidency. The candidates, however, are vetted by councils that do not allow anyone they deem against the Islamic Republic to run for office. In the 2013 elections, Iranians surprised many observers, including this reporter, by turning out in large numbers to vote for Hassan Rouhani, the self-labeled moderate, whose government is participating in the nuclear negotiations with the United States and other world powers under the supervision of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is appointed for life. — T.E. Q. You try to bring perspective in our view about Iran. How do Iranians look at our Western society? Is there any perspective, despite the government-controlled media? — Marcel Hovens, the Netherlands A. Over the past decade, riding a wave of technological changes such as the wider availability of the Internet and satellite television, and inexpensive travel, Iranians have become more in tune with the world. Many Iranians in the cities are up-to-date on the news, the latest music and trends. Generally, Iranians know that in the West, contrary to what many here believed in the past, the streets are not paved with gold. Still, state television is the largest medium in the country and has the widest reach. Its broadcasts are often anti-Western and highly ideological. — T.E . Q. Have these reports been vetted/censored in any way by the Iranian authorities? – Alan Dubrow; Saugerties, N.Y. A. No, there was no censorship, nor were the films vetted or seen before they were first broadcast on Dutch television. We worked with a local production company. They organized permission for us to visit the places and people we were interested in. Sometimes they told us some locations or people they didn’t want us to come and film, or it was impossible to visit. On the whole, we were pretty free to film whatever we wanted. There was no demand to see what we did film, or to show them the edited material in advance. Of course, Thomas has been living there long enough to judge what stories we could tell. — Roel van Broekhoven Q. Are you free to discuss anything you want with friends and acquaintances? Do they share their views on politics, government, society, religion freely with you, or is there a culture of fear? — Yew Lee; United Kingdom A. Step into a shared taxi here in Tehran and your fellow passengers will start talking about everything, from the weather to the effect of the sanctions to their opinion of the president. People talk very freely here, in small groups. There is no culture of fear. But that definitely doesn’t mean that everything can be said, all the time, not only politically, also culturally. — T.E. Q. Is there a start-up or tech community in Tehran? What are entrepreneurs like? — Sam Aparicio; Herndon, Va. @samaparicio on Twitter A. Yes. There is the Tehran start-up weekend, which brings together tech entrepreneurs. Iran has a large number of highly educated engineers, some of whom are doing quite well in tech. Iran’s Amazon is called Digikala . There is Fidelio, a restaurant guide, and many more. — T.E. Q. Can Iranians have Gmail accounts? Can artists do business w/Americans? — Victoria Dickinson; Portland, Me. @Goya225 on Twitter A. Google still blocks its business email accounts in Iran, as part of American-imposed sanctions. The answer to this question is written on such an account, which I can only access using software that makes it look as if I — an employee of an American news organization — am actually online in San Jose, Calif. For artists, there are no restrictions, but credit cards are blocked under U.S. sanctions, as are international bank transfers. — T.E. Dossier: Thomas Erdbrink Image Thomas Erdbrink. Credit VPRO Date of birth: Jan. 27, 1976 Hometown: Leiderdorp, Netherlands Lives: Tehran Education: B.A. in journalism, Hogeschool of Utrecht Employment: Tehran bureau chief, The New York Times Life Experience: I moved to Iran in 2002 and I’ve been married since 2003 to Newsha Tavakolian, a well-known Iranian photographer and artist . In 2008, I became the bureau chief for The Washington Post, where I was succeeded in 2012 by Jason Rezaian, my colleague who has been jailed without charge since July . When I tell people that I have lived in Iran for 13 years, they’re often shocked. How, they ask, can one live in a country where angry mobs roam the streets denouncing Westerners, burning flags and shouting “Death to America”? Are you not afraid? No. I am not. Iran is more modern, livable and friendly than some portrayals would have you believe. The country’s modernity goes beyond symbols, such as the number of skyscrapers in Tehran, or the fact that Porsche sells more cars here than anywhere else in the Middle East. In the time I’ve been living and working here, Iranian society, under the influence of the Internet, satellite television and inexpensive transportation, has undergone fundamental changes: Iran became an urban country, with 70 percent of its people living in or near cities. Illiteracy has been almost wiped out. More than 60 percent of university students are women. More than 150,000 highly educated Iranians leave the country each year. The Internet, though censored, is widely available, as is software to get around those censors. I live here with my wife and our cat in a three-bedroom apartment in a 26-floor residential building, constructed before the 1979 revolution by an American company. Newsha has been my guide to this complex society, and she continues to be my most important critic. I have made many Iranian friends and I learned to speak Persian, which makes it easy for me to get around in this city of 12 million. And though I am married to an Iranian woman, I am a Dutch citizen and my visa is good for only six months at a time. I am an accepted foreigner, but I am a lonely foreigner, too. Iran is a very isolated country and there are only a handful of Westerners living here. After four years of requests to the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture, the same office that allows me to work here as a correspondent, I received a special permit to film for five weeks a documentary series with the Dutch director Roel van Broekhoven for the VPRO network in the Netherlands. The reaction to the series in the Netherlands, a small, liberal European country whose citizens enjoy looking beyond its borders, was overwhelmingly positive. Iranians are used to foreign media portraying their country as sinister — from the movie based on Betty Mahmoudi’s book “Not Without My Daughter” after the 1979 revolution, to Ben Affleck’s Academy Award-winning film “Argo.” People here — especially those in power — would rather showcase the country’s natural beauty, ancient culture, hospitality and great food. “Why doesn’t the West understand how nice we are?” one Iranian official asked me. “If only they see our beauties they will love Iran.” Iran has some very impressive sights, but for me the real attraction is its people. You will meet some of them in this series as we examine together complicated issues that illustrate how Iran is slowly changing.


Raising Capital and Using It Well

Abstract: Few banks take their chances with raising capital better than Standard Chartered does. The British bank, which specializes in emerging market lending, is planning a rights issue of $5.2 billion, net of fees, which comes just as stock markets in Asia are pumped up on cheap money from the West. The bank’s own valuation, long at a premium to peers, is looking distinctly high. The money the bank plans to raise should take its core Tier 1 ratio of capital to assets, the measure regulators watch most keenly, to almost 12 percent. Its expected year-end ratio of 10 percent already beats most European banks. But new capital buffers under Basel III, combined with extra demands on systemically important banks, will make higher capital levels the standard rather than the exception. Capital ratios are affected by other factors, too. Risk-weighted assets — the denominator in the Tier 1 ratio — are also rising as regulators tighten their demands. JPMorgan Chase, for instance, predicts its risk-adjusted balance sheet will expand by almost 40 percent under the new rules, while UBS and Credit Suisse expect theirs to double. Standard Chartered should not suffer as much. Assume a 10 percent uplift, and the lender would need almost half the rights issue proceeds just to keep its capital ratio steady. Even so, the fund-raising looks premature at first glance. Regulators have given banks nine years to make the Basel grade, and Standard Chartered is generating some $3 billion a year in retained earnings. The reason for the haste lies in the bank’s soaring share price. Even after a 1.5 percent drop after the rights issue announcement, and taking into account the extra capital, its shares trade at about 2.3 times the tangible book value expected at the end of this year — well above the rating of rival HSBC. And the billions it raises should find a use. As well as appeasing regulators, the bank could do with increasing its presence in areas like South America, where it remains far behind the likes of Citigroup, and Africa, where it might soon be leapfrogged if HSBC acquires Nedbank. That is Standard Chartered challenge. It can raise capital opportunistically, now it must show that it can deploy it, too. A Bear Roars Short-sellers just seem to try harder. Consider David Einhorn, the fund manager famous for his prescience about Lehman Brothers. Mr. Einhorn, the founder of Greenlight Capital, has gone negative on the Florida real estate outfit St. Joe. His presentation on Wednesday (running 139 pages, more than St. Joe’s annual report) shows the thesis has been tested. If only stock bulls always dug as deep. St. Joe’s market cap is only around $2 billion after investors dumped about 10 percent off its value after Mr. Einhorn’s appearance at a high profile investment conference. Mr. Einhorn must be confident if he has made a big bet against the fortunes of such a relatively small company. Mr. Einhorn believes property is extremely overvalued on St. Joe’s books. An owner of nearly 600,000 acres of land in Florida’s northwest, the company turned into an ambitious developer in the boom years running up to 2007. The fund manager argues the best of the land has been sold and further development is uneconomical. He believes the shares trade at several times the actual value of St. Joe’s assets. This thesis could be the result of an abstract and subjective calculation. But the Greenlight crew marshaled an impressive collection of maps, land records, photos and even a video to bolster its analysis. Mr. Einhorn called some of St. Joe’s developments “ghost towns,” noted entire streets of houses for sale, and found a well-appointed golf course that was completely empty on the day his team visited. Such hands-on due diligence is commendable, and unfortunately rare. Mr. Einhorn could be wrong. But it’s a fair bet that he has done more digging than the four analysts recorded by Thomson Reuters, whose recommendations on St. Joe run from a neutral hold to an optimistic buy. Moreover, approaches to the company and a big investor went unanswered, according to Mr. Einhorn. Mr. Einhorn makes both long and short bets. But as Lehman showed, a detailed short case from a serious investor should be examined, not dismissed. The management of the company concerned might do well to engage, too. To overcome the cheerleading majority, lonelier cynics usually do more work — and their insight makes markets more efficient for all.

Standard Chartered PLC
Banking and Financial Institutions
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision


The Pajama Party Is Over, Ethics Group Tells Congress

Abstract: A Washington ethics watchdog says it is time for Congress to crack down on lawmakers who sleep in their offices rather than pay for a place to live. Reacting to a surge in lawmakers’ bunking down in their work spaces, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wants the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate whether the politicians are getting an unfair tax break and violating their own rules by making personal use of public resources. “House office buildings are not dorms or frat houses,” Melanie Sloan, the group’s executive director, said Thursday. “If members didn’t want to find housing in Washington, they shouldn’t have run for Congress in the first place.” Aside from the legal and rules questions, Ms. Sloan said she has heard reports from Congressional staffers about uncomfortable work environments. “Especially if you’re a woman and you’re working late and your boss is there getting ready for bed, that seems designed for discomfort,” she said.


North Carolinians Bridle Over Plan to Free Inmates

Abstract: Because of a little-known North Carolina statute defining a life sentence as 80 years, the state is preparing to release dozens of prisoners convicted of violent crimes in the 1970s, leading to widespread criticism from politicians and victims groups. The prisoners were given life sentences for rape, murder and other violent crimes, but starting this month, they are scheduled to be released because of the 1974 life sentence statute. Though the prisoners have not served the full 80 years, they are able to take advantage of other state laws allowing sentences to be reduced by half or more for good behavior or prison labor. Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, and other lawmakers are searching for ways to prevent the releases, which have prompted a public outcry across the tough-on-crime state. “I am appalled that the State of North Carolina is being forced to release prisoners who have committed the most heinous crimes, without any review of their cases,” Ms. Perdue said in a statement. The issue arose in 2005, when Bobby Bowden , an inmate who has now served 36 years in prison for two murders, argued in a local court in Cumberland County that he had completed his life sentence, citing the 80-year maximum. State officials argued that the 80 years referred only to the eligibility for parole, but the State Court of Appeals agreed with Mr. Bowden’s calculation. Earlier this month, an appeal by the state was rejected by the North Carolina Supreme Court. Those decisions laid the groundwork for the release of dozens of other inmates who, like Mr. Bowden, were convicted in the mid-1970s and have finished or will soon finish their reduced life sentences. “This is an outrage of justice,” said Thomas Bennett, the executive director of the North Carolina Victim Assistance Network. “We’ve got a hole in the law, and these felons are going to use it to crawl out of prison.” Prison officials are scrambling to notify victims and their families of the decision and explain the requirement to comply with the court rulings. Thomas Maher, the director of the state’s indigent defense program, which defended Mr. Bowden, said the law was clearly in the prisoners’ favor. “The purpose of the sentencing law was to encourage inmates to engage in productive behavior in prison,” Mr. Maher said. “Judges understood that when they sentenced these people. To block their release from prison now because we don’t like the result would be grossly unfair.” The first 20 prisoners are scheduled for release on Oct. 29. Then, over the next few years, more than 100 other inmates could be released, said Keith Acree, a spokesman for the State Department of Correction. The governor’s general counsel, Edwin M. Speas, said his office was “examining all options that might be available to the state to avoid the result that seems to be required by this State Supreme Court decision.” The definition of a life sentence as 80 years was changed in 1977 to the conventional meaning of the life of the prisoner, and the old law applies only to prisoners convicted between 1974 and 1978. And while most prisoners given life sentences in recent years will stay in prison for the full time, that has not always been the case, legal experts said. “A life sentence means a life these days,” said Douglas A. Berman, an expert on sentencing at the Ohio State University law school. “But back in the ’60s and ’70s, it was very much the norm that prisoners would be eligible for parole at some point during their lives.”

Prisons and Prisoners
North Carolina
Sentences (Criminal)
Bowden Bobby
Law and Legislation


Asian Schools Jump in Rank

Abstract: When Christoph Kramer of Germany surveyed the field of universities offering undergraduate business programs, he focused on their locations as much as on their academic programs. “ China is always in the media; everyone says it is the future,” he said by telephone from Düsseldorf. So he enrolled in a three-year program at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, because he thought it would be a culturally enriching experience. According to a recent study on graduate employability, Mr. Kramer’s H.K.U.S.T. degree puts him ahead of business graduates from many well-known Western universities. The 2012 Global Employability Survey, which is being released exclusively in the International Herald Tribune, characterized the ideal young candidate on the basis of skills, personal qualities and the schools they attended. The study, a collaboration of Emerging, a French consulting firm, and Trendence, a German research institute specializing in recruitment, asked hundreds of companies what they looked for when hiring recent graduates, regardless of their course of study. The study also asked employers what universities produced the ideal young graduates. In terms of desirable schools, U.S. and British universities retained their commanding lead. The list is dominated by the same names that top most rankings: Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, M.I.T., Columbia, Princeton and Imperial College London, with Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main rounding out the top 10. But Asian schools are also emerging. The most striking finding this year is the growth in the reputations of universities in China. Just outside the top 10 is Peking University, which leapt to No. 11 from No. 109 in just one year. This year, four mainland Chinese universities made the top 100, as opposed to only two last year. Shanghai Jiao Tong University went to No. 44 from No. 139. Meanwhile, H.K.U.S.T., where Mr. Kramer recently graduated, jumped to No. 46 from No. 94. The only Indian institution to make the list both last year and this year, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, rose to No. 35 from No. 134. The fact that top Asian universities are being held in higher esteem is both a reflection on their success in preparing students for the global work force and the realization among employers that students trained in Asia are better equipped to work there. “A lot of employers are looking for global players,” said Tony Chan, H.K.U.S.T.’s president. Dr. Chan attributes part of his institution’s success to the fact that it bridges the gap between China and the rest of world. “China being the second-largest economy in the world is a huge factor,” he said by telephone from Hong Kong . His institution’s strength, he explained, lies in building bridges between different business cultures and languages. “We are one of the most international universities in China,” he said. “We hope to train graduates that know both East and West.” Guy Breton, rector of the Université de Montreal, also attributed his institution’s position in the global ranking — No. 30 in the recent study, up from No. 46 in 2011 — to a successful combination of several cultures. “We teach in French; we are the most European of the North American universities, and I think that is of added value to employers,” he said by telephone. According to Dr. Breton, Montreal’s multiculturalism and multilingualism contribute to his university’s openness and worldliness, something global employers are increasingly seeking. “We are exposed to the international reality,” he said. The Emerging/Trendence survey was conducted in two waves. Initially, 2,500 recruiters in 20 countries were asked to complete a personalized online survey designed to characterize the ideal new graduate. Several months later, more questions were asked of top recruiters from 10 countries deemed to be active employers. Those supplementary interviews resulted in the list of the top 150 global institutions in terms of graduate employability. In ranking the importance of second languages, aside from English, recruiters responded that they appreciated Chinese, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Arabic, Italian, Russian and Portuguese, in that order. Global recruiters also listed the countries that produced the best graduates: the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada, India, China, France , Australia and Switzerland. The quality portion of the survey found that international recruiters appreciated soft skills like adaptability, communications and the “ability to work in a team,” more than leadership qualities or “the ability to work under pressure.” Steffen Laick, a top recruiter at Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, agreed that the ability to work with a team was important. Besides a strong and focused academic record, he also looked at extracurricular activities. “Not everyone can have been a volunteer firefighter,” he said by telephone. Showing recruiters that you have done something more than just fixated on studies is very important, he said. The universities also mattered, he said, because there might not be much more for recruiters to go on when the candidate is quite young and lacking in work experience. Many well-known universities have partnerships with global recruiters, which can help graduates in their applications and interviews. In other cases, universities have alumni networks that put recent graduates ahead of competitors from lesser-known schools. Not all emerging economies contributed to the top universities in terms of their attractiveness to employers, the survey found. Universities in Brazil, Russia and the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas, for example, did not do as well in the rankings as Asian schools. Brazil, which has the sixth-largest economy in the world, had only Fundação Getulio Vargas, at No. 95, and the Universidade de São Paulo, at No. 112. The study also lists two Mexican universities — Tecnológico de Monterrey and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México — at 110 and 113, respectively, but no other Latin American universities were represented. “It is surprising that Brazil and Mexico, that have really good universities, are low on the list; they are still too focused on American universities,” Sandrine Belloc of Emerging, the company that designed the study, said about recruiters in those countries. Russia’s only contribution to the list is Moscow State University , in 150th place. Mr. Kramer, after graduating from his global business program this year, found a job with the Boston Consulting Group in his hometown in Germany. Having a Chinese degree did not raise eyebrows in his German job interviews. “I was looking for a job in an international consultancy, so it was probably fairly common,” he said.

Education
Colleges and Universities
Business Schools
France
Germany
Hong Kong
China
Labor and Jobs


Savoring Olympic Games, Despite Their History of Doping

Abstract: I wasn’t surprised that Charles Yesalis had been intently watching the London Olympics. The surprise is that Yesalis is actually enjoying the Games. “If you’re asking me if I feel guilty watching it, the answer is no,” Yesalis, an expert on performance-enhancing drugs, said during an interview last week. “I just take it with several blocks of salt, not a grain of salt. I know what’s behind the curtain when Toto pulls it back, and I know what the wizard looks like.” Yesalis spent nearly 30 years examining the dark side of sports, exploring firsthand the lengths to which athletes will go to get an edge. A spectacle like the Olympics, with its long history of doping, would seem to be the last event that Yesalis would want to watch. On the contrary. “When I was a kid, my dream was to be an Olympian,” said Yesalis, a professor emeritus of health policy and administration, and exercise and sport science at Penn State. He grew up watching the Olympic Games of the 1950s and ’60s, and star athletes like the skier Jean-Claude Killy and the discus thrower Al Oerter . “I felt very patriotic,” Yesalis said. “Well, especially what I did for a living, the bloom came off the rose a long, long time ago.” After the opening ceremony, the Olympic Games rapidly turn into a tantalizing mixed bag of human interest combined with shameless commercialism, muscle-flexing narcissism and, in these London Games, a pronounced race for prominence between the United States and China. One day, a Chinese badminton team is one of four disqualified at the Games for intentionally losing matches to secure a more favorable seed. A day later, the United States’ men’s basketball team wins by 83 points. Winning feels better than losing, and anything less than a gold medal is too often seen as failure. Early in the competition, Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte nearly had to apologize for winning silver instead of gold. When United States swimmers take home bushels of medals, we celebrate Yankee determination. When 17-year-old Missy Franklin wins gold, we celebrate the vitality of American youth. When China wins, we criticize its exploitive athletic system. When a 16-year-old Chinese girl sets a world record and swims one leg of her event faster than one of our best male swimmers, it’s because she may have cheated. This has become the American perspective: the United States is great because it is great; China is good because it cheats. The truth is somewhere closer to the middle. “It’s like watching the Tour de France ,” Yesalis said. “People have asked me for years, ‘How clean is Lance Armstrong?’ I said I think he is as clean as the other 50 guys in the peloton. “I just assumed that Phelps and all the rest of them are pretty much equally clean — or not clean. It’s a relatively level playing field.” Yesalis said he thought the doping community was steps ahead of the regulators and cited Victor Conte, the onetime bass player who founded the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative and provided performance-enhancing drugs to many athletes. “If a former rock musician can hoodwink the best chemists in the world,” he said, “I’ll bet you there are more Victors out there.” Yesalis said he thought drug testing should be eliminated. “It serves as a facade to make people think they’re watching cleaner sports, but they’re really not,” he said. “We’ve had testing since the 1960s; I’m sorry, I don’t think anything’s gotten better. I don’t feel very optimistic that we’ve made any progress.”  At the same time, Yesalis was blindsided and shaken by the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Penn State and led to the firing of Joe Paterno, the conviction of his former top assistant Jerry Sandusky and the resignation of the president and athletic director. For Penn State football, too, victory and the games were the unabashed priorities. Yesalis was stunned by the scandal and disheartened by the reaction internally to it. He said he thought the university should have postponed this football season. “What bothered me most was the continued addiction to college football in State College, Pa., among the Penn State fans, that they just can’t put it away for a year,” he said. “You know about the dark side of sport and you get to a point where nothing surprises you. I’ve been dealing with the dirty side of sports for going on 30 years. I really thought I was impervious to it at this point. But this has really hit me. “I’ve been taken back by how I’ve been taken back by all this.” It’s possible we have become so anesthetized to scandal that our numbed sensibilities allow us to take athletic feats at face value. “There are not too many cultures where it is good to be ugly, fat and a loser,” Yesalis said. “The desire to win, to be successful is universal.” He added: “It is all tied in. The drugs, the cheating in the badminton — it’s not even limited to money sports. I’ve concluded that it’s the nature of man, because we see it in business, we see it in politics. For years, people have said that all sport is a microcosm of our society, and I agree.” We know that some athletes cheat, and at some level, we appreciate why: the quest for an edge. Last week, the South African breaststroke gold medalist Cameron van der Burgh admitted to cheating at the London Games. Underwater footage showed Van der Burgh performing three dolphin kicks at the start of the race in violation of FINA rules permitting only one such kick on starts and turns. Van der Burgh’s defense was that he could not afford not to cheat. He told reporters: “It’s got to the point where if you’re not doing it, you are falling behind or giving yourself a disadvantage. Everyone is pushing the rules and pushing the boundaries, and if you’re not doing it, you are not trying hard enough.”  Human beings get this and in many ways respect this about athletes — especially when their cheating helps their team secure victory. “There is an innate trait in man to gain an advantage, whether it’s in business or war,” Yesalis said. “On top of all that, there is money.” The question is not why athletes cheat for an edge but why we as fans continue to watch these increasingly tainted spectacles. What does that say about the human soul? And what will it take to cure fans of their addiction to the tainted spectacles? Steroids scandals have ruined the appetite for track and field, but the sport remains a centerpiece of the Olympics. The Tour de France continues to draw gigantic crowds. Disclosures of the debilitating long-term health effects of football have not dulled our craving for N.F.L. Sundays. The nation awaits another college football season, and at Penn State, vocal fans turned out to cheer their support when fall practice opened. There are expectations that Beaver Stadium will be filled more often than not this season. “I am just profoundly amazed that they can even be playing football there and filling that stadium,” Yesalis said. “You still have people who somehow think that the show must go on.” And Yesalis, despite all he knows, intently watches the Olympics. How can he? “When I watch a Spielberg movie or a Lucas movie, maybe afterward I might be interested in how a special effect was done,” Yesalis said. “But I really don’t care during the movie. “I just watch. Do I get emotionally involved in it? No, I do not. Absolutely do not.”

Yesalis Charles
Olympic Games (2012)
Doping (Sports)
Steroids
Cheating
College Athletics
Olympic Games


Stranded in a Sea of Cars, Where Speedometers Barely Budge

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — From the top of a tall building on a clear night, the traffic here looks like a stream of light — bright white flowing one way, ruby red the other. On the ground, however, it’s painfully obvious that the opposite is true: nearly everyone is stuck. How stuck varies, but here in a crowded city of 20 million people and around four million cars, six-hour commutes are not uncommon. Some wedding receptions end more quickly than the time it takes to drive a dozen miles at 6 p.m. Outsiders tend to be stunned. On YouTube, dozens of videos show visitors marveling at long lines of cars as motionless as a corpse, or drivers shamelessly ignoring red lights while traffic cops watch. Local residents complain, too, of course. But usually they just endure. Cars are still status symbols here, preferred even when public transport is faster, and drivers have generally come to accept the lost time and dirtier air brought by too many cars on clogged roads. “There is a resignation when it comes to traffic,” said Bernardo Baranda Sepúlveda, Latin America director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy , an international nonprofit promoting sustainable transit. “In a way it’s good because otherwise we’d be killing each other, but it’s also frustrating because people here aren’t complaining and demanding better options.” Instead of acting as conduits, many streets and highways have morphed into human retention ponds. Experts say that drivers have become increasingly trapped in a sea of idling cars as the middle class has grown and bought into driving, and as government construction on a second level to the main peripheral highway creates havoc. Add regular street protests — including recent marches by thousands of teachers trying to block an education overhaul — and it’s no wonder that strange scenes have emerged wherever maddening traffic can be found. At the locations where walking is faster than driving (highways included), an ecosystem of class, creativity and commerce has evolved. Buskers and street vendors hawking an ever-expanding array of products, from bug zappers to puppies, can be found alongside criminals reaching into open windows. There are also new arrivals, like women in tight uniforms handing out samples of the latest energy drink, or holding giant banners advertising cellphones or televisions. At the center of it all, despite increased bicycle use, is still the driver. “A car is a bubble,” Mr. Baranda noted, and inside millions battle the boredom of being stuck. That often involves technology. At rush hour in many neighborhoods, getting e-mail on a phone is a frustrating game of chance because of overwhelming demand. A city law prohibits talking on the phone, but it is widely ignored. On one recent morning, at the intersection of Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida Hidalgo, a police officer pulled up to the light in a silver hatchback blabbing away, a phone stuck to his ear. Image An intersection jammed with pedestrians. Credit Rodrigo Cruz-Perez for The New York Times Every red light revealed much the same — distracted driving amid chaos. At one point, a woman peeling an orange arrived at a red light, and another driver was texting as a man with a mohawk rushed his dachshund across the wide intersection. A quarter-mile back, a police cruiser tried to weave through the knotted cars, its siren competing with honking horns and Roman Catholic hymns flowing from a church at the corner. Defying it all, a homeless man slept in the median. A few lights later, a taxi broke down in the right lane, further complicating the mess. A man selling gum pushed the car out of the way, though it took a while because of the traffic. “Foreigners are always asking me to go faster,” said the driver, Roberto García, 40. “It’s just not possible.” He said he had just come from Aragon, a neighborhood about five miles away, though he insisted it had to be triple that distance: “It took me 40 minutes to get here,” he said. “It should have taken 10.” Asked what taxi drivers do when stuck in traffic, Mr. García said they simply look for fares. But many others look at themselves. Instagram is full of self-portraits, or “selfies,” from people stuck in Mexico City traffic. Vimeo and YouTube reveal broader signs of creativity. Humor is inevitable — for example, the cartoon of a man struggling to convince himself he is progressing in stopped traffic — but there is also music, some of it good. Indeed, if there is a benefit to the choking helplessness of traffic here, it may be the clip of Jenny and the Mexicats jamming in their van a few months ago. And where are the traffic police, one might ask? Absent, mostly. If they happen to be at an intersection, they are rarely obeyed. In interviews, some say their bosses do not even give them tickets to hand out. A few fed-up Chilangos, as Mexico City residents are called, have started to fill the void. High school and college students with Mexico’s Ministry of Youth sometimes direct traffic while dressed as mimes, taking a cue from a creative approach once used in Bogotá, Colombia. Around Reforma, a young man in a Lucha Libre mask calling himself Peatónito — little pedestrian — can also be found pushing cars out of the crosswalk in a personal effort to improve public safety. (Around 1,300 people die annually in Mexico City traffic accidents; more than half are pedestrians and cyclists.) But mostly the job of reminding drivers to pay attention falls to those trying to squeeze money out of rolled-down windows. Around 6 out of 10 workers in Mexico toil in the informal economy, according to government figures, and some experts say that as car ownership and traffic have increased, more people have taken to the streets to make a living from those who are stuck. At the very least, vendors and drivers say, the variety of what is being sold has expanded. An incomplete list now includes: guitars, herbs, world maps, cellphone chargers, water, tamales, tacos, roses, newspapers, umbrellas, breakfast trays, waist-high Spider-Man action figures, single cigarettes, blankets and hammocks. Criminals have also jumped in, robbing people trapped in traffic, and so have big businesses, including Samsung, with attractive men and women handing out sales fliers or holding banners at busy intersections. And not surprisingly, it works. For those with nothing better to do, a glossy pamphlet and a little human interaction seem to be welcome. After all, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.


From Most Valuable Jet to the Most Improved

Abstract: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Coach Eric Mangini saved his highest praise so far at training camp for Leon Washington, who won the team most valuable player award last season and followed it with the award for most improvement in the off-season. Washington did so by going back to basics, running stadium steps at a high school and pulling tires. He came into camp at 202 pounds, the same weight as last season, but with increased muscle mass and noticeably more quickness. “He had an excellent off-season,” Mangini said. “And you can see the work that he did translating on the field, in all the different areas.” This is a far cry from training camp two years ago, when Washington spent as much time running laps for the mistakes he made as he did practicing. Speaking of laps, Mangini said quarterback Brett Ratliff was “Leon-esque-squared in his first camp,” adding that, in the huddle, “getting out the play was like an act of Congress.” Mangini singled out Ratliff for praise as the Jets finished their fourth day of camp. He also complimented tight end Jason Pociask and tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson. Speaking of quarterbacks named Brett, Mangini again declined to say anything about the possibility of adding Brett Favre to the team. For now, the Jets’ roster appears to be an unlikely destination for Favre. “They’re working through that,” Mangini said. “And we’re working through the rain.” The Jets were forced to move their practice inside the bubble after a storm struck nearby during practice. Mangini said the rookie linebacker Vernon Gholston, the sixth pick in the draft, has his hands full learning the Jets’ playbook. Gholston missed minicamp finishing classes at Ohio State, then the first few days of training camp while he negotiated his contract. “Talk about swimming,” Mangini said, adding that “the younger guys that were here had a chance to digest” the playbook in smaller pieces. “He doesn’t have that chance. He’s got to eat the whole plate right away.” Kellen Clemens’s struggles continued Sunday. He fumbled another snap and threw his fourth interception in four days of training camp, compared with zero for Chad Pennington. The two are competing to be the starter. JOHNSON ENDS DRAMA The Pro Bowl receiver Chad Johnson reported for training camp in Georgetown, Ky., ending his off-season drama with the Cincinnati Bengals. He had nothing to say as he arrived with a leave-me-alone look on his face. Now, the Bengals can try to move on. By showing up on time and without complaint, Johnson brought his teammates some relief after his attempts at being traded failed. They were glad that Johnson was no longer a hot issue. “I think it’s water under the bridge,” receiver T. J. Houshmandzadeh said. Johnson made his entrance without fanfare. Carrying a pillow under one arm and an Xbox in one hand, Johnson walked past reporters without responding to questions. In a recent interview, Johnson apologized to fans who were put off by his lobbying for a trade. He also said he would revert to the way he acted before he was caught up in controversy. “You’re going to get the same Chad, maybe a double dosage of what you got in the past,” he said. “I’m going to make it fun. I’m going to be flamboyant. I’m going to talk. I’m going to run my mouth. You’re going to get everything you got in the past, maybe a little more.” (AP) HESTER GETS NEW DEAL Kick returner Devin Hester has signed a four-year contract with the Chicago Bears, the team announced. Hester skipped the first two days of training camp because he wanted to renegotiate his contract, which had two years left. Hester returned to camp Friday, saying there was progress in the negotiations. The deal is reportedly worth up to $40 million. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Hester received about $15 million in guaranteed bonuses. (AP) BALTIMORE’S NGATA INJURED Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata was carted off the field with an injured right leg after being caught in a pileup during a full-contact drill. Ngata was on the ground for several minutes before limping to the sideline with assistance; he was then driven off the field. “We don’t think it’s serious, but we’ve got to find out as we go,” Ravens Coach John Harbaugh said. Ngata’s injury was the latest in a long list during Harbaugh’s first week of training camp. (AP) AROUND THE LEAGUE The Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro cornerback Asante Samuel is day to day with a mild hamstring strain, an injury sustained while working in 7-on-7 drills Saturday. ... The rookie defensive tackle DeMario Pressley was placed on injured reserve by New Orleans, forcing him to miss his rookie season. Coach Sean Payton said Pressley, a fifth-round draft pick, was increasingly bothered by a right foot fracture that had never healed properly. He will have surgery to repair it. (AP)

Mangini Eric
Washington Leon
National Football League
New York Jets
Football