At Heart of U.S.-South African Trade Dispute, a Serious Game of International Chicken

Abstract: MILFORD, Del. — The 40,000 chickens — a few short weeks from becoming Valu-Paks at the supermarket — scratched their way toward the rows of water drips, eager for a little midday sip. Eyeing an open door, one bird made a vague attempt to wander away, before it was gently returned to the brood. Such prancing poultry rests at the center of a major trade dispute between the United States and South Africa , with large economic stakes, especially in states like Delaware, the birthplace of the American chicken industry. For decades, in addition to chemicals (think DuPont) and corporate registrations, the state has been known for three other C’s: cards, cars and chickens. The car business has imploded, as manufacturers have closed operations. The card business — credit cards, that is — is humming. The last C, chickens, accounts for only about 3 percent of the state’s jobs, but it is big where it is needed most, in the Delmarva Peninsula with Maryland and Virginia. Indeed, Sussex County is the nation’s biggest producer of meat chicken, and the future of this business rests in large part overseas, especially for the savory dark meat that is disfavored here but enjoyed abroad. “There are more and more people in the world,” said Charles Postles, who has raised chickens here for decades and, like most people in the poultry business, sees foreign markets as an essential tool in expanding the trade. “And chickens are an economic form of protein.” But one of the industry’s potentially most lucrative importers, South Africa, has been placing tariffs on American chickens for years, essentially shutting them out, frustrating farmers, trade officials and members of Congress from the unfortunately named Chicken Caucus. “There are 14,000 people in my state whose lives depend on chicken,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. “Chicken here is not just a product; it’s a way of life.” Image Mr. Postles has farmed chickens for decades and sees foreign markets as an essential tool in expanding the industry. Credit Matt Roth for The New York Times American officials, led by Mr. Coons and Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, a huge chicken-producing state, are now threatening South Africa’s continued inclusion in a trade partnership that has been particularly beneficial for that nation. If South Africa continues to shun the chickens of America to protect its own, officials say, then perhaps that nation should be removed from the trade agreement that allows it to send its wines, luxury automobiles and other goods here. “You want unlimited access to American market to sell autos, yet you won’t let my state send its biggest agriculture export into your country?” fumed Mr. Coons, who has long been involved in African affairs. The dispute over chickens comes just as President Obama is pushing an aggressive trade agenda in Congress. But for some lawmakers the rejection of American chicken is emblematic of other disputes, and evidence that trade agreements often do not live up to their billing for the United States. “Members of Congress are fed up with this,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut. The African Growth and Opportunity Act , a trade deal providing duty-free treatment for some products from sub-Saharan Africa, was first passed in 2000 to help bring that impoverished region into the international economy. That was the same year South Africa — which accounts for the majority of American imports under the trade deal and which exports billions of dollars in goods to America — began to impose large duties on chickens, which officials here believe is a trade violation. South Africa contends that the United States is trying to “dump” chicken on its market below the cost of production. For several years, questions have been raised about the need for the inclusion of South Africa, a member of the Group of 20 largest industrial economies with a booming middle class. Chicken producers have been pressing the White House on the issue, and lawmakers are considering dropping South Africa from the trade deal, which is scheduled to expire this year if not extended, unless the country relents. Mr. Coons, Mr. Isakson and others have met with South African trade officials to issue their not-so-veiled threats. Image Senator Chris Coons is threatening South Africa’s continued status in a trade pact. Credit J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press “What is important is that we convince South Africa that we have that capability and they believe it,” Mr. Isakson said. “We have a full-court press on poultry.” Sidwell Medupe, a spokesman for South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry, said that while the two nations continued to haggle over fowl, his country’s position is that it should be renewed in the trade agreement, “without any new and onerous eligibility criteria.” The Obama administration would like to see the agreement renewed sooner rather than later, but officials concede that the chicken issue is greatly complicating the process. The two sides remain far apart, according to trade officials and industry executives here. While several Southern states produce more chicken than Delaware, the chicken industry is responsible for a very large portion of the state’s farm income, according to trade associations. According to local lore, the chicken business began here in 1923 when a woman named Cecile Steele ordered 50 chicks for egg-laying purposes, but accidentally received 500. The brood eventually became a clutch of birds weighing about 2.5 pounds apiece. Sticking with the industry she created, she grew her numbers to 10,000 by 1926. The broiler industry has been nourished by the peninsula’s mild climate and sandy soil, both hospitable to chicken raising, and the local chicken knowledge developed over years by many small farmers with tiny but productive egg-laying farms. Farmers here raise chickens for some of the nation’s biggest names in the industry, like Perdue, Tyson and Mountaire. While rising feed costs and environmental regulations took a toll on the business in the late 1990s, chickens are on the upswing again, said Mr. Postles, who raises 120,000 chickens several times a year. Foreign markets — which make up about 20 percent of the nation’s business now — are one reason. “We keep growing people,” Mr. Postles said. “And we have a way of wanting to eat.”

Chickens
South Africa
International trade
Tariff
Delaware
US Politics
Christopher A Coons


U.S. Sues 2 Over Gold-Mine Tax Promotion

Abstract: The Justice Department filed two lawsuits on Thursday in a move against what it said was a fraudulent gold-mining scheme sold to dozens of wealthy investors, including seven current or former National Football League players. Prosecutors say the promoters of the investment, known as Midas, for mining interest development action strategy, promised investors a return of at least 34 percent if they invested refunds they got after filing amended tax returns that claimed bogus deductions related to supposed gold-mining expenses in Colorado, Arizona and elsewhere. According to prosecutors, the amended returns generated large tax refunds for earlier years. Investors were to give those refunds to the promoters as their investment in the mining project, and in some cases they did so. The Justice Department lawsuits did not name the professional football players, but said that one was from Texas and another was from Georgia. One lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Houston, named an accountant, Eric J. Peterson of Channelview, Tex., as defendant. A second lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Seattle, named another accountant, William H. Camp Jr. of Washington, D.C., as defendant. According to the lawsuits, the investment’s promoters falsely told customers that the federal government had set up a program that allowed taxpayers to receive tax refunds and invest the money in redevelopment of inactive mines. Investors were asked to invest $10 million over 10 years. In some cases, the lawsuits contend, the mines did not exist, did not have licenses or had reserves far below what promoters promised. The Midas investments were promoted by Merendon Mining of Colorado, a part of the Merendon Mining Corporation of Calgary, Alberta. The corporation is affiliated with the Institute for Financial Learning, also based in Calgary, which is operated by an investor named Milo Brost. Merendon Mining, which has affiliates and subsidiaries in the United States, Canada and Honduras, was mentioned in the injunctions but was not named as a defendant, nor were its affiliates. The Justice Department declined to answer questions on why it had not named Mr. Brost or his organizations as defendants, but the Internal Revenue Service usually goes after tax preparers when trying to shut questionable tax shelters. In February 2007, the Alberta Securities Commission censured and fined the Institute for Financial Learning for its role in a Canadian investor fraud, known as Strategic Metals. Last July, the commission banned Mr. Brost from securities operations and fined him $650,000 for his role in Strategic Metals, which involved funneling funds to Merendon. The commission is also reviewing additional accusations of fraud involving Mr. Brost in connection with Merendon Mining. Merendon Mining did not respond to an e-mail message sent on Thursday. Investors in Midas were told that they first had to become members of the Institute for Financial Learning for an initial fee of $1,450 and an additional $350 annual fee, according to the complaints. Mr. Peterson and Mr. Camp, according to the complaints, worked with Merendon Mining to sell and carry out the Midas promotion. Mr. Peterson, the Texas defendant, is accused of preparing tax returns for at least 21 Midas investors, including seven professional football players, that claimed bogus tax refunds of more than $27 million, or about $1.3 million an investor. Mr. Camp is accused of preparing bogus amended returns claiming Midas-related deductions for at least 22 wealthy investors, including an unnamed computer programmer from Clyde Hill, Wash. Neither Mr. Camp nor Mr. Peterson could be reached for comment.

Justice Department
Gold
Taxation
Frauds and Swindling
National Football League
Mines and Mining


Progress on Fire by Yosemite

Abstract: MARIPOSA, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters said Saturday that they were getting closer to containing a 53-square-mile wildfire that had destroyed more than 20 houses in the mountains outside Yosemite National Park. The blaze, sparked by a target shooter, was about 90 percent contained by afternoon. All evacuation orders had been lifted. California fire officials say wildfires have charred more acreage already this year than in any other since the 1930s, when the state began compiling statistics. Elsewhere on Saturday, a wildfire in north-central Washington had blackened more than three square miles of timber and rangeland near Omak.

Forest and Brush Fires
Yosemite National Park
Parks and Other Recreation Areas
California


Trial Is Scheduled in Enron Case

Abstract: HOUSTON, Sept. 6 (Reuters) — The judge in the case of the former British bankers who fought extradition to face Enron-related fraud charges set the trial for next year and rejected a defense motion that he quit the case because of possible bias. The three bankers — David Bermingham, 43; Giles Darby, 44; and Gary Mulgrew, 43 — have been accused of conspiring with Enron executives in 2000 to defraud National Westminster Bank of $19 million. Federal District Judge Ewing Werlein set possible trial dates for Feb. 5 and Sept. 4, 2007, in the hope that defense lawyers can get ready earlier than they now expect. In rejecting the defense motion that he remove himself from the case, the judge said that the implication of his former law firm, Vinson & Elkins, in the case would not prejudice him. He severed his ties to the firm 14 years ago, he said. The law firm helped Enron create the special-purpose financial entities that led to the former bankers’ indictment. In asking the judge to set a late trial date, defense lawyers argued that preparation could take a year because they need to investigate the case in Britain as well as in the United States.

Enron Corporation
Suits and Litigation
Great Britain
Banks and Banking


It’s Like Sharks vs. Jets in the Senate, but Without the Music

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Of the multitudinous insults that have zinged across the Capitol this year, a taunt most brutal was leveraged by the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on the Senate floor on Thursday night. He accused the Democratic leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, of “fundamentally turning the Senate into the House.” Mr. McConnell’s rage — and its expression roughly akin in this town to comparing the Hope diamond to a Joan Rivers baguette sold on cable TV — stemmed from a last-minute tweaking to the Senate’s intricate rules that prevented Republicans from forcing Democrats to vote on a stream of unrelated amendments to a China currency bill. One of the measures was to bring up President Obama’s jobs bill, which Republicans said they believed they could defeat. The change, which hamstrung Mr. McConnell and marginalized Republicans on a bipartisan bill, set off a remarkably pointed exchange between the two leaders on the Senate floor, a culmination of sorts of months of bitter wrangling in the Senate, where little had been accomplished. The procedural change was as convoluted as it was incendiary. In a rare move, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate this week agreed to move forward on a trade bill aimed at the Chinese, who have been accused of manipulating their currency. Under the Senate rules, once the chamber has agreed to end debate on a bill, there is no chance for unrelated amendments to come to the floor. But the Republicans moved Thursday to get around the rules; they wanted to offer several unrelated amendments, including a politically charged vote on the jobs bill. The presiding officer ruled the motion in order. But Mr. Reid held a vote to overturn that ruling, which passed 51 to 48, with all Democrats but Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska voting for it. The result was that a Senate precedent was set in which motions to suspend the rules — to offer unrelated amendments — after the Senate had agreed to end debate on a bill would no longer be permitted. The Senate often makes precedents — there are more than 1,000 pages of them in the Senate procedure book — which define the rules, and they come and go. As a matter of legislative consequence, the precedent is not hugely significant. Few senators move to suspend the rules with a vote after debate has ended on a bill; the last such effort to succeed was in 1941. But this move underscored the partisan hostility in the Senate on the eve of a big election year and could make it harder to get a polarized Senate to move forward on bills, said Martin Paone, a former Senate Democratic secretary and now executive vice president of Prime Policy Group, a lobbying firm. “The minority is chafing at the fact that there hasn’t been an open amendment process in a long time,” he said. The change attracted strong feelings because it reflected each party’s central gripe. “The fundamental problem here is the majority never likes to take votes,” said Mr. McConnell, his voice rising from the Senate floor. “The price of being in the majority is you have to take bad votes.” A desire for vigorous debate is why people run for the Senate, not the House, Mr. McConnell said. “They wanted to be able to express themselves.” He added: “This is a free-wheeling body, and everybody is better off when we operate that way.” (The House does most things by majority rule, and the minority has very little voice.) Mr. Reid, who has time and again been hornswoggled by Mr. McConnell’s cunning parliamentarian moves, countered that the problem was Republicans slowing bills and sometimes killing them with procedural tricks. (Most recently, Mr. McConnell refused to give unanimous consent to allow the Democrats to fix a typo in a short-term measure to finance the government.) “This is not the way to legislate,” Mr. Reid said. “We have to make the Senate a better place,” and the best way to do so, he added, is to “do what was done tonight and get rid of these dilatory amendments.” On Thursday evening, senators filled into the chamber, voting along party lines on Mr. Reid’s new precedent. Reporters watched riveted, from the gallery. “For me, having been there that long, it was like reality TV,” said Mr. Paone, who caught the action on C-Span. Mr. Reid could be seen browbeating Mr. Nelson, and in a somewhat agitated conversation with Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat of Missouri, one of the last to vote. The Senate then became vaguely “West Side Story,” with enraged Republicans on one side of the chamber, snorting at times in disgust as Mr. Reid spoke, while Democrats stood near their leader, some with clenched hands. After all the fuming, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Reid and all members present agreed to put off their vote on the China bill until Tuesday.

United States Politics and Government
Law and Legislation
McConnell Mitch
Reid Harry
Republican Party
Democratic Party
Senate
House of Representatives


Mylan’s Bid to Buy Perrigo Is Complicated by Opposing Declarations

Abstract: Mylan appeared on Friday morning to hit a significant hurdle in its quest to buy a fellow drug maker, Perrigo, when an influential advisory firm recommended that investors vote down the pursuit. But by the afternoon, Mylan had gained the support of one of its biggest investors , the hedge fund Paulson & Company. The two moves complicate a $36 billion hostile takeover bid by Mylan, a manufacturer of generic drugs that recently managed to fend off an unwanted acquisition campaign by another pharmaceutical company. The adviser, Institutional Shareholder Services, said in a report on Friday that the merger bid posed too many risks for too little reward. It urged investors to reject the campaign at the Mylan shareholder meeting on Aug. 28. The move by I.S.S., as the proxy advisory firm is known, could throw a wrench into Mylan’s plans, given the sway I.S.S. holds over big institutional investors. Yet the emergence of Paulson as a supporter could indicate stronger backing for the Perrigo bid, given both the hedge fund’s roughly 4.3 percent stake in Mylan and its influence among investors. In its report, I.S.S. acknowledged the logic in combining Mylan, which manufactures a host of generic drugs, with Perrigo, which makes a variety of branded treatments. But the deal also appeared to be expensive for Mylan shareholders for a relative $800 million in cost savings as a reward. “Given that the only certainty, for Mylan shareholders, is that in approving this proposal they would sign up for significant dilution — but have almost no subsequent leverage to drive an optimal outcome, despite the many uncertainties to the rest of the process — support for the proposal is not warranted,” the proxy adviser wrote in its report. Mylan, which first offered to buy Perrigo in the spring and was consistently rebuffed, is currently offering $75 a share in cash and 2.3 of its shares for each Perrigo share. It breathed a sigh of relief last month after Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which had pressed a roughly $40 billion takeover bid, withdrew in favor of another transaction. But analysts have suggested that at least some of Mylan’s shareholders would have preferred to sell their holdings to Teva and do not favor the proposed Perrigo transaction. Shares in Mylan have fallen 17 percent since the end of Teva’s takeover campaign. Even if Mylan wins over its own investors, there is no guarantee it will garner enough support from Perrigo’s. To claim victory, it needs the backing of at least 50 percent of its target’s investors and one additional share — down from an initial requirement of 80 percent. Perrigo said in a statement that I.S.S.’s decision vindicated its steadfast opposition. “Ultimately, we do not believe that Perrigo shareholders will tender into this transaction — whether at 80 percent or 50 percent — and I.S.S.’s recommendation only further reinforces our view that Mylan’s approach demonstrates an act of desperation as there is no rational path to a full acquisition of Perrigo,” said Joseph C. Papa, the chairman and chief executive of Perrigo. But the unusual public declaration of support by Paulson, which despite its renown for its mortgage bets started by betting on the outcome of mergers, could prove just as important. The hedge fund said that it believed in the logic of the deal, which in its estimation would create “a global pharmaceutical powerhouse.” Mylan’s effort has other factors in its favor. Abbott Laboratories, the drugmaker’s biggest investor with a 14 percent stake, has said that it supports the Perrigo campaign. And two other shareholder advisers, Glass Lewis & Company and Egan-Jones Ratings Company, backed the takeover effort this week, though both are considered less influential than I.S.S. “While today’s report from I.S.S. repeatedly recognizes the clear industrial logic and solid business strategy of combining Mylan and Perrigo, it misunderstands and/or underestimates, without a meaningful basis, many other key aspects of the transaction,” Robert J. Coury, Mylan’s executive chairman, said in a statement. “We have spent a great deal of time talking to our shareholders about this opportunity and remain extremely confident we will receive their support,” Mr. Coury said.

Pharmaceuticals
Mergers and Acquisitions
Mylan
Perrigo


Jack Kinzler, Whose Ingenuity Saved Skylab, Dies at 94

Abstract: Had Jack A. Kinzler not built model planes as a boy, had he not visited the post office as a youth and had he not, as a grown man, purchased four fishing rods at $12.95 apiece, Skylab — the United States’ $2.5 billion space station — would very likely have been forfeit. Providentially, Mr. Kinzler had done all those things, and Skylab, imperiled by the loss of a thermal shield on its launch in 1973, was saved. Mr. Kinzler saved it with a parasol. A constitutional tinkerer, Mr. Kinzler, who died on March 4 at 94, was for decades NASA’s resident Mr. Fix-It, building the impeccable full-scale models of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft used in a welter of preflight tests, and solving a spate of other mechanical problems over the years — all without the benefit of a college degree. Mr. Kinzler, the longtime chief of the Technical Services Center at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, also put six flags — and six plaques — on the moon and helped make possible the rarefied sport of lunar golf. “Whenever we run into trouble,” he told The Associated Press in 1973, “that’s when I really get interested.” Mr. Kinzler’s finest hour indisputably came after the launch of Skylab, designed as a scientific research station. En route to what would be a six-year mission, it went up unmanned on May 14, 1973; a three-man crew was due to follow the next day. But the loss of the heat shield proved a grave concern. Though Skylab was able to ascend to orbit, it would be uninhabitable without sufficient protection from the sun. Temperatures would be unbearable, onboard food and film stores would spoil and overheated plastic components could exude toxic gases. The crew’s departure was delayed until a solution could be found. Without one, NASA knew, Skylab would remain forever untenanted, a ghost ship in space. The proposed remedies, urgently solicited by NASA from its own engineers and from outside contractors, included ideas ranging from “spray paints, inflatable balloons and wallpapers to window curtains and extendable metal panels,” as the aerospace website AmericaSpace reported in a commemorative article last year. Mr. Kinzler bought fishing rods. Jack Albert Kinzler was born in Pittsburgh on Jan. 9, 1920. His father, a photoengraver and inventor whose formal schooling had ended with fourth grade, held patents on several photoengraving devices. An ardent model-plane builder, Jack flew his creations in national competitions. He was offered a scholarship to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh but declined: College, he felt, would take time from aeronautical pursuits. He took a job as a bank clerk. One day when he was in his early 20s, he stopped into a local post office. There he saw a help-wanted poster seeking builders of model airplanes. The poster was from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , the federal agency, founded in 1915, that was a precursor to NASA. With the war on in Europe and the threat of war preoccupying the United States, the committee was seeking recruits to build accurate models of military planes for testing in its mammoth wind tunnels. Mr. Kinzler joined the committee’s aeronautical laboratory in Langley, Va., becoming an apprentice model maker and toolmaker before being named the assistant superintendent of the machine shop there. In the late 1950s, when the committee was superseded by NASA, Mr. Kinzler moved with the new agency to Houston; he was its technical services chief from 1961 until his retirement in 1977. When Skylab shed its shield, most of the proposed solutions entailed a spacewalk, with all its inherent dangers. To Mr. Kinzler, that was an unattractive prospect: The commander of Skylab’s crew, Charles Conrad Jr., known as Pete, was his next-door neighbor and friend. Image A diagram illustrates the sequence of parasol deployment. What was needed, Mr. Kinzler knew, was a fix that could be done from the inside. He learned that Skylab had an airlock — a narrow passage meant for use as a camera port — near the site of the damage. It might be possible, he thought, to build a kind of flat, collapsible shade tree, which could be extruded through the airlock and, once outside, made to bloom. He phoned a sporting-goods store and ordered a set of fiberglass fishing rods. The salient thing about them was not that they caught fish, but that they telescoped. To build his prototype, Mr. Kinzler arranged four rods like the ribs of an immense umbrella, securing one to each side of a piece of parachute silk roughly 24 feet square. Folded, the parasol would just fit into the airlock. Once extruded, its canopy could be snapped open by means of springs. Normally, Mr. Kinzler said in interviews, the design, building and approval of such novel equipment might take NASA six months. His parasol was ready in six days — six days in which he and his staff of more than 100 lived, worked and slept in the Johnson Space Center. The finished parasol, built from telescoping aluminum tubes and silver-and-orange fabric of nylon, Mylar and aluminum, was stowed aboard the crew’s Apollo spacecraft. At 9 a.m. on May 25 , the crew — Commander Conrad, Joseph P. Kerwin and Paul J. Weitz — took off from the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Just before midnight they docked with Skylab, where the interior temperature was approaching 130 degrees Fahrenheit; wearing spacesuits, they could work there for short periods. On May 26, after ensuring the station was free of hazardous gases, crew members pushed the parasol through the airlock and released the canopy. It did not open fully — it remained partly puckered — but in the end that did not matter. Over the next few days, Skylab’s inside temperature fell to a companionable 70 degrees. Shedding their suits, the astronauts completed their 28-day mission. For his work, Mr. Kinzler received the Distinguished Service Medal , NASA’s highest honor. By the time he saved Skylab, Mr. Kinzler was already an experienced unfurler. In the late 1960s, as the United States raced to put a man on the moon, NASA officials asked him to suggest what that man might do to mark the occasion once he got there. Plant a flag, Mr. Kinzler said, and leave a plaque. Mr. Kinzler was charged with designing a moonworthy flagstaff . He ordered a large American flag and, recalling how his mother used to hang curtains by sewing a hidden sleeve at the top and inserting a rod through it, did likewise. In his design, the sleeve was supported by a collapsible crossbar attached to the flagstaff. Just such a staff, neatly folded, was stowed aboard Apollo 11 when it set off for the moon on July 16, 1969. Planted on July 20, the flag, held by the crossbar, remained permanently snapped to attention in the moon’s airless atmosphere. (In a photograph taken before the crossbar was fully extended, the flag, hanging in folds, looks as though it is rippling in a breeze.) Each of the five succeeding crews to reach the moon planted one of Mr. Kinzler’s flagpoles. He also oversaw the design and manufacture of the commemorative plaques attached to all six lunar landing vehicles, left on the moon after each crew decamped. In a covert operation — a golfing holiday seemed out of keeping with NASA’s august mandate — Mr. Kinzler’s department helped fabricate the collapsible club , comprising a 6-iron head attached to the handle of a lunar-sample scoop, that Alan Shepard carried aboard Apollo 14 in 1971. Mr. Shepard hit two balls, shanking the first but connecting with the second. Mr. Kinzler’s survivors include his wife, the former Sylvia Richardson, whom he married in 1947; two sons, John and James; a daughter, Nancy Kinzler, who confirmed her father’s death, at his home in Taylor Lake Village, Tex., a Houston suburb; and seven grandchildren. Skylab, which over time was home to two additional crews, remained in orbit — Mr. Kinzler’s parasol still in place — until 1979, when, unmanned, it disintegrated on re-entering the atmosphere. On the moon, Mr. Kinzler’s flags still fly. His plaques endure. And, thanks partly to him, two small white spheres now grace the lunar surface, one of them hit some 200 yards in what will forever remain the most famous golf shot in the universe .

Obituary
NASA
Space
Space station
Jack A Kinzler


In Historic District, Synagogue Plans Are Criticized

Abstract: LITCHFIELD, Conn. — In the center of this quaint New England town, where the green is surrounded by antique shops, boutiques and restaurants, not much changes without the blessing of the Historic District Commission. In the past, the commission has gone so far as to order the removal of flower boxes from the front of homes. And it is entangled in a lawsuit initiated by a homeowner who replaced a 19th-century door with a window. But little has rattled this community like plans by Chabad Lubavitch of Litchfield County, an Orthodox Jewish organization, to turn a Victorian house into the town’s first synagogue. Rabbi Joseph Eisenbach, the spiritual leader of the Chabad, presented his plans — which include replacing the slate foundation with stone and building a steeple to display the Star of David — to the commission last month, and was met with stiff opposition. According to minutes of the meeting, the commission’s chairwoman, Wendy Kuhne, “noted her own objections to the stone, which is not indigenous to the district, feels the clock tower is not appropriate, and the Star of David may not comply with the district.” She also said the proposed stained glass was “an inaccurate feature based on the history of the building.” Rabbi Eisenbach said he was surprised by the objections. “Every synagogue in the world has Jerusalem stone in it,” he said. He also said that a Methodist church two doors down has a steeple and a cross as well as stained glass windows featuring the Star of David from an old synagogue in New Haven. Rabbi Eisenbach’s lawyer, Peter Herbst Sr., said he hoped there would be more understanding about Chabad Lubavitch’s position regarding the religious elements, “which are protected under the Constitution.” Mrs. Kuhne declined to comment on Thursday, saying that she was restrained legally from commenting on matters before the commission and that all questions should be referred to its lawyer, H. James Stedronsky. Mr. Stedronsky said it was the commission’s job to decide what architectural changes were appropriate for the buildings in the historic district, which encompasses about one square mile in the center of town. He said the commission was not allowed to consider the use of the property. But based on Mrs. Kuhne’s statements and the commission’s reaction, Rabbi Eisenbach said he was concerned that “some of the basic elements of our Jewish architecture and traditions are being denied.” Mr. Herbst said on Thursday that he was confident that Rabbi Eisenbach and the commission would find a place for “architectural elements essential to the religion.” According to town records, Chabad Lubavitch bought the property, built in 1872, for $375,000 in 2005. The organization already has a community center here. Despite the dispute, Rabbi Eisenbach said, the town had been “very welcoming” and that “you can’t always abide by what the media makes the town look like.” On Wednesday, as he talked to a reporter outside the Victorian house at 85 West Street, Diane McAlpin, one of six burgesses that help govern the borough, approached him to complain that he was giving the town a bad image by publicizing the struggle. Mrs. McAlpin then said Chabad Lubavitch, a tax-exempt organization, could not get the commission to approve its renovation plan because of liens on the property. “Nobody has an issue with what’s going to happen here,” Mrs. McAlpin said. “This town embraces everything.” After speaking with Mrs. McAlpin, Rabbi Eisenbach went to Town Hall, where he learned that there was an outstanding tax bill. Nancy Southard, the town tax collector, said the taxes were from the previous owner of the property. Instead of pursuing the matter legally, Rabbi Eisenbach wrote a check to the town for more than $10,000. As he left Town Hall, he described Mrs. McAlpin’s visit as a blessing because he wanted to make sure everything was in order before the next commission meeting on Oct. 18. This was not Rabbi Eisenbach’s first tangle with the town’s arbiters of community taste. In 1996 he asked the commission to allow him to place a nine-foot-tall menorah on the town green for Hanukkah, but according to published reports, several local officials complained it would destroy the purity of the green, and others questioned why outsiders had chosen Litchfield for the display. The town ultimately approved the placement of the menorah. But Rabbi Eisenbach said he ended up taking it down because he felt it had been vandalized when borough officials extinguished the flames. The officials said they extinguished the menorah because it had been left unattended. In the latest dust-up, not everyone is concerned about the plans for a synagogue. “It doesn’t bother me,” said Mark Murphy, the owner of Murphy’s Pharmacy on West Street. “It’s a free world.”

Synagogues
Historic Buildings and Sites
Litchfield County (Conn)


Gordon Fox Pleads Guilty in Rhode Island Corruption Case

Abstract: The climb took decades, but the fall was swift. Less than a year removed from his reign as speaker of the Rhode Island House, Gordon D. Fox pleaded guilty on Tuesday to taking bribes, wire fraud and filing a false tax return. Mr. Fox, 53, took $52,500 in bribes to help a bar and restaurant get a liquor license and illegally diverted $108,000 in campaign funds to pay for personal expenses. He made the admissions in Federal District Court in Providence as part of a plea agreement that calls for a three-year prison sentence — though a judge will ultimately decide the penalty — and will almost certainly cost him his law license. Outside the courthouse, when asked by reporters whether he felt remorse, Mr. Fox said, “Absolutely, absolutely, without question.” Last March, state and federal agents raided his offices and home, and Mr. Fox, one of the most powerful figures in state politics, quickly resigned the leadership post and announced that he would not seek re-election in November. Peter F. Neronha, the United States attorney for Rhode Island, and Peter F. Kilmartin, the state attorney general, said at a news conference that the investigation had begun as a look into campaign finance abuses. Over a six-year period, Mr. Neronha said, Mr. Fox used campaign funds to pay “the mortgage on his home, the loan payment on his car and his personal American Express card,” covering charges ranging from shopping at Tiffany & Company to paying the bill at an animal hospital. The paperwork seized in the raids turned up evidence of another crime: bribes that Mr. Fox accepted in 2008, when he was vice chairman of Providence’s Board of Licenses, to help the Shark Bar & Grille, in the affluent College Hill neighborhood, obtain a liquor license. “Not surprisingly, he reported none of the personal income from repeatedly stealing from his campaign accounts” or taking bribes, Mr. Neronha said. Citing the state’s long history of misdeeds by its political leaders, Mr. Neronha said, “As Rhode Islanders, we need to lose our political corruption amnesia.” Prosecutors would not say whether anyone connected to the Shark Bar & Grille had helped in the investigation, or might also face charges. Calls to the restaurant on Tuesday went unanswered, but the owner, Raymond Hugh, told The Associated Press that the bribery allegation against Mr. Fox was “news to me.” Mr. Fox, a Democrat, was the first openly gay person and the first mixed-race person to lead either of the state’s legislative chambers, and he led the drive to legalize same-sex marriage in 2013. He grew up as one of six children in a blue-collar family, with a black mother and a white father, and he liked to recall how he had worked in an ice cream shop to help pay his way through law school. He became a lawyer and part owner of a nightclub, and in 1992 he was elected to the House. He became the majority leader in 2002 and the speaker in 2010. Rhode Island has had more than its share of scandal-scarred politicians over the years, notably Buddy Cianci, a former mayor of Providence. Mr. Cianci resigned that post in 1984 and was convicted on an assault charge. He made a political comeback to be elected mayor again, then resigned again and was convicted of racketeering in 2002, serving a prison sentence. Former Gov. Edward D. DiPrete pleaded guilty to bribery and extortion in 1998 and also served time. Two consecutive chief justices of the State Supreme Court resigned in the face of corruption investigations, Joseph A. Bevilacqua in 1986, and Thomas F. Fay in 1993. John Harwood resigned as House speaker in 2002, and William V. Irons stepped down as Senate president in 2004, amid other scandals.

Gordon D Fox
Rhode Island
Bribery and Kickbacks
Fraud


Rockland County Legislator Concedes in Close Assembly Race

Abstract: A Rockland County legislator who hoped to become the state’s first Hasidic Jewish assemblyman has been defeated in a closely contested primary for the Democratic nomination for an open Assembly seat. The legislator, Aron B. Wieder, 40, conceded on Wednesday to Elisa A. Tutini, an employee of the Town of Monroe, after a count of absentee ballots left Ms. Tutini’s final margin of victory at about 60 votes, according to election officials. Mr. Wieder, a member of the Belz sect of Hasidim, ran an unusual campaign, with little advertising and only a last-minute telephone blitz, hoping instead to capitalize on the bloc voting among Orthodox Jewish voters in the district, in the northern New York suburbs, where thousands of Hasidim make their home. But he may have lost, in part, because of simmering divisions among Hasidim: Ms. Tutini apparently earned the support of many members of the Satmar sect in Kiryas Joel, in Orange County. Ms. Tutuni will face Karl A. Brabenec, the Republican nominee, for a seat most recently held by another Republican, Ann G. Rabbitt, who left the Assembly at the beginning of the year to become the Orange County clerk. “When you come so close there’s always, ‘You coulda, shoulda, wouldas,’ ” Mr. Wieder said on Thursday. “But there’s always another day.”

State Legislature elections
Aron B Wieder
New York
Elisa A Tutini
2014 Midterm Elections


For Wheeler, 118 Pitches, All of Them a Struggle

Abstract: This was a chance for Zack Wheeler to assert himself, to shake off his recent struggles, when he took to the mound against the Yankees at Yankees Stadium on Tuesday night. At 23, he is still a work in progress, still learning how to pitch deeper into games. He had lost the feel for his slider recently, and had only one victory in seven starts coming into the game. With Matt Harvey lost for most, if not all, of the season to Tommy John surgery, Wheeler would need to be better to help the Mets. On Tuesday, they spotted him four runs before he even threw his first pitch against the Yankees. But he nearly gave it all back, allowing three runs in the bottom half of the first. But his teammates gave him a second chance, tacking on seven more runs over the next four innings. With the Mets ahead, 11-4, Manager Terry Collins sent Wheeler back out for the fifth inning. His was at 99 pitches and was facing the Yankees’ 3, 4 and 5 hitters — Jacoby Ellsbury, Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann. Image With Rafael Montero taking the place of the struggling Jenrry Mejia in the Mets' rotation, Mejia will be adding fire to the bullpen. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times Collins figured this was an opportunity for Wheeler to work with little pressure, set him up for a second victory of the season. With the way Wheeler had been pitching, this was a risky proposition. Wheeler recorded only one more out. He walked Ellsbury on five pitches before getting Teixeira to pop out. But he then allowed singles to McCann and Alfonso Soriano, bringing in one run. Collins had seen enough. Wheeler had thrown a career-high 118 pitches when he was replaced Daisuke Matsuzaka with one out and runners on second and third in the fifth. The Mets’ bullpen finished off the rest of a 12-7 win. Matsuzaka was awarded the victory. “He’s got a win on the line,” Collins said of Wheeler. “A lot of people, you can say what you want, but wins are wins at the end of the year, when your name is next to some wins. So I thought, well, let’s see if he can go out there and do it. “He just didn’t have any consistent release point. No feel for where the ball was going. He struggled. But he did as good as he could do, got us as far as he could.” Wheeler did not retire the side in order all night. Yet the Yankees could have made his night much worse. In the second, they had runners on the corners, with one out, when Wheeler struck out Brett Gardner and got Derek Jeter to ground out. Wheeler walked the first two batters to start the fourth, and though one run scored, he got Jeter to ground into an inning-ending double play. In all, Wheeler gave up seven hits, issued six walks and allowed five runs. His earned run average increased to 4.53. Image Thriving as a starter at Class AAA Las Vegas, Jacob deGrom was set to begin his career with the big-league club as a reliever. Credit Carlos Osorio/Associated Press To this point, the Mets had been pleased with Wheeler, especially after he tinkered with his delivery. Around early April, he was “just messing around,” he said, when he started bringing his hands over his head during his wind up. He found it helped him slow down, stay more upright and pitch more downhill. “I was hitting my spots like crazy,” he said. He first tried it April 14 and threw six and a third quality innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Dan Warthen, the Mets pitching coach, noticed how relaxed Wheeler looked, how he was executing his pitches. Wheeler decided to stick with that windup. It seemed to work just fine his next two starts, too. He held the Atlanta Braves to three runs in six innings and then struck out 10 against the Miami Marlins over six innings. But then he lasted only four innings against the Colorado Rockies, in the shortest outing of his career. He rebounded, throwing six scoreless innings against the Marlins. Collins had said he was excited to see Wheeler on this stage. Then the Yankees roughed him up. “Nothing was working, obviously,” Wheeler said, rubbing the back of his head. “It was one of those nights. Nothing was going right for me. Couldn’t throw a strike.” INSIDE PITCH Rafael Montero, 23, will replace the struggling Jenrry Mejia in the rotation and is scheduled to make his major league debut Wednesday at Citi Field against the Yankees, opposite Masahiro Tanaka. ... The Mets called up the 25-year-0ld starter Jacob deGrom, who will move to the bullpen for now, and put reliever Gonzalez Germen on the disabled list with a virus.

Baseball
Mets
Zack Wheeler
Terry L Collins
Jacob deGrom
Rafael Montero
Yankees


Rebels Used to Boots, Not Suits, Seek to Govern Congo

Abstract: RUTSHURU, Congo — Consider it the capital — the rebel capital, that is. From the cracked concrete steps of an expropriated government building, Jules Simpeze Banga looked out at a mass of hundreds of freshly displaced people on Wednesday morning and delivered one of his first speeches as the new, rebel mayor of this town. “People,” he said to the crowd, his voice gaining a little more confidence with each word. “We want to help you, but you need to talk to your chiefs. Talk to your chiefs first, have them write down your names and then we will distribute food.” A loud cheer. The crowd broke up. And Mr. Banga exhaled as if he had just ducked a bullet. Mr. Banga is the closest thing in war-ravaged eastern Congo to a white-collar rebel. And like his cohorts, he is clearly underprepared and overwhelmed. The humanitarian needs here in rebel-controlled territory are staggering, after weeks of heavy fighting and wave after wave of displacement. But administrative résumés are thin. Most of the higher-ups seem much more comfortable in swamp boots than in suits. Though the rebels have espoused national ambitions — “We will keep fighting until Congo is liberated!” sang a truckload of boisterous soldiers cruising through Rutshuru on Wednesday — they seem to be having a hard enough time just governing the few muddy little towns they now control. Laurent Nkunda , a renegade army general who leads the rebels, is trying to refashion himself from a military man into a national political leader. But it is not clear if he has the professional rank and file to get him to higher office. On Wednesday, an elderly woman with thick glasses and beer on her breath presented herself as “the secretary” for Rutshuru’s mayor and playfully attacked a group of foreign journalists who walked through their office door. She punched one of the journalists in the back, cackled and then spun around and did a sloppy little dance. Inside his office, Mr. Banga sat at a desk behind a rising stack of paper, listing residents by neighborhood. Rutshuru and neighboring Kiwanja are home to about 150,000 people in all, the largest population area in eastern Congo under rebel control. “Hoes and seeds,” he said. “That’s what we need. We want to get these people back to work.” But Mr. Banga, a former power plant engineer who said he joined the rebel army “for revolution,” said his new administration was short of cash. Not surprisingly, rebel soldiers have begun tax collection — at gunpoint, demanding $120 from each truck that passes through their checkpoints. Aid workers say that the rebels seem more serious about providing security than Congolese government troops, who are notorious for raping and plundering, but that the new taxes are hampering the emergency efforts. There are new rebel stamps saying “Unity, Justice, Development.” And even a new rebel police force, distinct from the bush fighters, with officers wearing stolen government police uniforms. “What’s the difference between us and soldiers?” said one young police officer, too young to shave. “We protect people.” But many of their new subjects are not so sure. “At night, they invade our homes, looking for money,” said Kavuo Anatasia, 17, a mother. “Kill us, no. But they beat us.” Several aid officials have said the rebels are press-ganging teenage boys into their army, a perennial problem in eastern Congo that seems to have flared up again. “The truth is, children are critical to their operations,” said Jaya Murthy, a spokesman for Unicef. He said that recently the rebels, with homegrown militia groups, have taken hundreds of children into their ranks. “Children are used as porters, as spies, as sex slaves and as soldiers,” he said. “Many have been fighting on the front lines.” Most of that fighting has died down since the rebels declared a cease-fire last month after routing government troops from several strategic towns. On Wednesday, the rebels began pulling back troops from a few towns to give aid workers better access to the hundreds of thousands of displaced people huddled in huts made of dried banana leaves. The paper-thin shelters are no match for the tropical rains that brew all morning and fall every afternoon in sheets. “There’s no excuse for a country as rich as ours to be living like this,” said Mwiti Ngashani, a rebel administrator in Rutshuru. When asked what his position was, he said, “Minister of justice.” Then he paused. “And human rights.” Another pause. “Oh, and of aid organizations, too.”

Congo (Formerly Zaire)
Armament Defense and Military Forces
Nkunda Laurent
Politics and Government


Astoria Presbyterian Church Divided on Its Future

Abstract: THE REV. DON OLINGER was supposed to have delivered his last sermon months ago. By now, the bulldozers were supposed to have come through and leveled the Presbyterian Church of Astoria, an 86-year-old gray stone building that sits on a tree-lined residential street in that Queens community. Instead, Mr. Olinger has been preaching before members of the congregation every Sunday, just as he has been doing for 14 years. Only next Sunday will he deliver his final sermon in the church, after which the building will be closed permanently, in preparation for its demolition. Mr. Olinger has continued preaching because, along with what remained of his dwindling congregation, he was waiting for resolution to the long tug of war over the future of the church building, which is to make way for housing for the elderly. An area within the housing development is to be set aside for services and other church activities. The church sits in a neighborhood that has boomed in recent years. Apartments in the area’s mostly low-rise brick buildings are more affordable than many in Brooklyn, outdoor cafes line the sidewalks, and Midtown Manhattan is only 15 minutes away by subway. With land at a premium, the 175-foot strip along 33rd Street, near Broadway, where the church is located, along with its gym and pastor’s residence, was precious turf. Astoria Presbyterian’s history dates to 1846. The current building, a huge Colonial Revival structure, was built in 1922, and behind four columns and three sets of double wooden doors sits a two-level sanctuary that can hold up to 500 people. But the congregation, which during the peak years of the 1950s had more than 1,200 worshipers, has shrunk in recent years to fewer than two dozen active churchgoers. With the decline, the church has struggled to support its buildings, and, especially, to cope with rising utility bills. The church also needed major repairs, including updated wiring and new heating and plumbing systems. Like many dying urban congregations, Astoria Presbyterian faced decisions about whether to lease or sell its valuable land, decisions that led to a bitter debate that has pitted congregants against their minister and one another. This sort of debate is becoming common in historical New York churches. Increasingly, churches are selling their land for development, sometimes in collaboration with nonprofit groups that are pursuing social justice missions and other times to private developers eager to build condominiums. “I like to say I made a wrong turn on I-95 somewhere,” Mr. Olinger, dressed casually in shorts and sneakers, said one afternoon in his parsonage. That may be the easiest way for him to explain how a 56-year-old man from Virginia with a persistent Southern drawl ended up at the center of a controversy in a New York neighborhood 450 miles from his birthplace. A Multicultural Microcosm Although Astoria Presbyterian’s congregation has shrunk, it is deeply multicultural; its members come from at least eight countries, including Portugal, India and Japan. In this respect, the church is a microcosm of its community, long a Greek stronghold but now one of the borough’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Typical among the congregants are Arnold Baboolal, 38, who is from Trinidad, and his wife, Dolly, 31, who is from Guyana. Every Sunday for the past five years, the couple have been attending church with their two children. At a Sunday service shortly before Easter, their 2-year-old daughter, Victoria, was attired in pink from head to toe, save for her purple pacifier. No one seemed bothered by the fact that she roamed around the church during the service and occasionally crept behind the piano to hit the keys. Although the pastor is legally blind, the result of a degenerative disease called Stargardt’s that began taking his vision when he was 38, he has enough residual vision to recognize most of his congregants and greet them by name. That Sunday, Mr. Olinger had asked the younger parishioners to sit in the first pew for the children’s sermon. Lowering his voice almost to a whisper, he talked about why good things and bad things sometimes happen at the same time. For example, he said, Danielle Rhodes, the music director, was leaving for six weeks to perform in Philadelphia. It was sad that she was leaving, he told the children, but people were happy because the opportunity was a good one for her. Nine little heads nodded as Ms. Rhodes took the microphone and with tears in her eyes sang her last song. A Congregation Divided If Astoria Presbyterian seems peaceful these days, that is because most of the 22 people who opposed its forthcoming demolition no longer attend services. They made up nearly half of the congregation but left when the bickering started, when, as one member put it, people stopped acting like Christians. According to Mr. Olinger, Astoria Presbyterian began focusing on its financial troubles as early as 2002. With the church’s holdings valued at more than $4 million, selling the land for development was a lucrative option. But some congregants were not ready to accept such a change if it meant the disappearance of an institution’s character, its history and the sacred place where thousands were baptized and married. The church leadership was interested in pursuing a social justice project, such as lower-rent senior housing, so Mr. Olinger began researching potential developers and nonprofit groups. His efforts were made more complex because Presbyterian churches are governed as democracies. The congregation holds the church property in trust for the institution known as the Presbytery of New York City and plays a role in determining its fate. After the church’s financial troubles became public, the congregation began holding meetings about the church’s future. The debates grew so heated that a mediator was included in discussions. In the summer of 2005, the congregation voted narrowly in favor of considering the sale of the land, with the hope that any development would contribute in a positive way to the community. By the fall, the church was in conversation with Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit organization that finances affordable housing projects. Enterprise and a local nonprofit group called the Hellenic-American Neighborhood Action Committee, known as Hanac, came up with a proposal to build low-rent housing for the elderly. Enterprise would finance the project, with money provided largely through tax credits and the federal government. Hanac offered Astoria Presbyterian $4.25 million for the right to raze the church buildings and erect a 93-unit apartment house. In exchange, the church would have a sanctuary, meeting space and offices in the new building, along with the right to repurchase the land and manage the apartment house in 15 years, if it also agreed to assume any debt on the property. To Mr. Olinger, the deal was an answer to his prayers. “From a business side and a spiritual side, I was aware this had to be,” he said. “We built fortresses instead of being out there in the community, and this was a way to re-engage them.” Saving a Sanctuary Church members who opposed the demolition saw the situation very differently. For them, the debate was never about whether the church needed to address its financial troubles, but whether there was a better way to do so. Shannon Wilkinson, who owns a Manhattan public relations firm and lives across the street from the church, was among 11 people who made up a group opposing the development plan. She insisted that the church could be saved in other ways, for example, by its members’ attending community board meetings and seeking support from local officials. But in her opinion, the social benefits of the project mollified congregants and warded off community opposition. “It’s bullet-proof,” Ms. Wilkinson said of the church’s plan in a conversation at Michael’s Restaurant on Broadway, where she used to have brunch with other church members after Sunday services. “It’s very difficult for a church to be criticized for wanting to replace its structures with senior housing because the other mantra for a church, including this church, is that we’re fulfilling our Christian mission.” No one debates the need for lower-rent housing for the neighborhood’s elderly. George Delis, until recently the district manager of Community Board 1, predicted that when the housing project on the church’s property was completed, about two years from now, at least 4,000 people would apply for apartments. “We get calls every single day for senior housing,” Mr. Delis said. Ms. Wilkinson knows that western Queens is desperate for senior housing but thought the project was wrong for the area. “The development was too large for the space, the street, the neighborhood and would strain the resources of the community,” she said. Still another source of disagreement involved the specifics of the church’s financial situation. According to Mr. Olinger, an architect with Goshow Architects, the firm that is designing the housing for the elderly, told church officials that an estimated $3 million was needed for immediate repairs and other improvements, like air-conditioning. Ms. Wilkinson contended that the church’s fiscal needs, as spelled out in the plan presented to the congregants, had been exaggerated to prevent them from pursuing other alternatives. With the help of outside real estate agents, contractors and the Long Island City Alliance, an advocacy group, her group did its own calculations and in doing so determined that the land was undervalued and that many of the repairs were unnecessary. They concluded that the church could meet its most urgent needs for $1.4 million. The team developed a financial plan that in their opinion would have saved the church. The owner of Adventureland Child Care, an organization that provides child care to low-income Astoria families and rents space in the gym and in the church basement, offered $1 million for the pastor’s residence. The plan was to sell the parsonage, use the money to restore the church, and provide additional income by renting or selling the gym. Although the plan involved having a part-time volunteer minister instead of a salaried, full-time pastor, Ms. Wilkinson insisted that the group’s goal was not to depose the current minister but to use church funds differently. “This was not personally directed toward Reverend Olinger,” she said. But according to the pastor, the fight got deeply personal for some people. He says anonymous letters were sent to the Presbytery of New York questioning his motives for supporting the housing project and his fitness as a church leader. The final decision on the church’s future came at a meeting in April 2006, at which the congregation ultimately voted 17 to 13 in favor of replacing the church with housing for the elderly. Only because the necessary tax credits have been delayed is the building still standing. John Kaiteris, executive director of Hanac, said he hoped that demolition could begin by November. Trying to Let Go A few months ago, sitting in the parsonage he has called home for well over a decade, Mr. Olinger reflected on the long ordeal. He cited the adage saying that God never gives people more than they can handle. Mother Teresa, he noted, used to confess that she wished God didn’t have such a high opinion of her. “I found myself thinking the same thing,” Mr. Olinger said. “But you know, there’s something comical about a blind pastor with a vision for the future.” Nor is Mr. Olinger the only one on whom the long struggle has taken a toll. It was 1982 when Violet Sewgobind, now 66, arrived in New York as an immigrant and discovered Astoria Presbyterian by looking through the Queens Yellow Pages. “I’ve been a Presbyterian since I was a child growing up in Guyana,” Ms. Sewgobind said. “I came over here to be as active as I could in the church.” She took two subways and a bus to attend services, even though another Presbyterian church was a three-minute walk from her home in Queens Village. “Even in snowstorms or rain, I was still there,” she recalled. But she said people treated her differently as she helped lead the group opposing the razing of the church. “I have to put Astoria Presbyterian behind me,” Ms. Sewgobind said. She still loses sleep if she lets herself think about the way people behaved over the course of the debate. “My heart grieves for the church.” Another member of the opposition, Trudy Lee, 64, attended Sunday school at the church when she was 5. She stopped attending the church when the decisions about development were being made. Yet, though her mother was married in the parsonage and her son baptized in the church, her opposition to the housing project did not involve family attachments. “They want to give us a community room,” she said. “I’m sorry, but a community room is not a holy place.” It remains to be determined what the 2,000-square-foot area for worship within the housing development will look like.  Mr. Olinger’s sermon at the service that morning shortly before Easter was about how people get attached to certain places. “We don’t like endings, do we?” Mr. Olinger said to his congregation. “There’s fear of the unknown. There’s always loss.” And yet, he continued, people have to let go to move forward, like trapeze artists who must let go of the bar to catch their partner’s hands. “Sometimes,” he said, “there has to be an ending so that there can be a beginning.”

Religion and Churches
Christians and Christianity
Astoria (NYC)


Scott Forschein, the Terrier of Brooklyn Traffic Court

Abstract: “WE’RE ready for trial, and the plea is not guilty,” said Scott Forschein, defender of Brooklyn drivers, in a hearing room in Brooklyn South traffic court in Coney Island. Mr. Forschein is one of a dozen regular traffic court lawyers who make their living here. It is a short walk from the Cyclone roller coaster and the freakish Sideshows by the Seashore , which have nothing on the scene in court, especially the quirky lineup of lawyers huddled in and around the dank closet that passes as the lawyers’ room. In this traffic-court version of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” the cast of characters includes Mr. Defeated, Mr. Sloppy and Mr. Short-Fuse-Chain-Smoker. Mr. Forschein, with his smart suit, good grooming and hygiene, and all that spunky ambition and idealism, is the oddball here. He has the energy of a Jack Russell terrier, which makes him perfect for defending ticketed drivers full time for $250 a case. The day is a multitude of madcap mini-trials. The goal is dismissal, and — he will attest to this himself — there is no one better at it in all of Brooklyn. On Wednesday at the Coney Island court, Mr. Forschein, 44, sat on a bench with his trademark silver metal briefcase opened on his lap. He held a sheaf of summonses and conferred with clients. A Hasidic woman pushed a stroller over and asked for a business card. “Call me the day you know you want me on your side,” Mr. Forschein said, before entering the hearing room and complimenting the clerk on her glasses (for a clerk’s cooperation is invaluable). The case was a turning-lane infraction, and Mr. Forschein was cordial to the officer and reverential toward the judge. First, he argued like a baseball manager and then closed by leaning in toward the bench for “a few important words, Judge,” namely to ask him to “show a human face” and not be a conviction machine. “That’s why you’re here,” he advised the judge. “This is not cha-ching and you get a ticket.” The judge did not buy it. Guilty. Mr. Forschein shook his head and said, “So much for the human face.” For the next hearing, a highway officer strode up to the bench, wearing riding pants and tall black leather boots with a jackknife tucked in one. Mr. Forschein got him to admit a discrepancy in observed speeds and had the ticket reduced from the original charge — as good as a win, Mr. Forschein would tell his absent client. Mr. Forschein, a lifelong Brooklynite, is married to a public school assistant principal in Park Slope and has no children. He has worked the Brooklyn traffic courts — there is another one on Atlantic Avenue — for virtually all of his 20-year law career, under fluorescent lights and in drab rooms packed with grumpy drivers and grumpier police officers. He trots out the same defenses before the same small set of judges year after year, and cross-examines the same police officers. “I make a difference,” said Mr. Forschein, who claims he wins dismissals or reductions for nearly half the tickets he argues. “For me, the stakes are just right. No one’s going to jail for life, or making a million dollars.” Every morning, he sizes up his calendar of cases the way a card-counter surveys a casino. He determines which summonses have the best chance of being dismissed by which judge, each of whom has particular soft spots and sticking points. A simple hearing rescheduling can move a summons hearing from a tough bench to an easier one at a later date, he said. “There are no good judges — only fair and bad,” Mr. Forschein said. “My job is to know every judge’s tendency and turn it to my client’s advantage.” He marched into Hearing Room 2 at Brooklyn North court on Thursday evening, the late night in traffic court, which tends to bring out a number of testifying rookie officers beginning their night tours — red meat for Mr. Forschein. “You get the cop to make a mistake, and you can win,” he said. Mr. Forschein has heard all the excuses — and has often appropriated them as defenses. “Scott keeps my license up and running — all the dollar-van drivers will tell you,” said Mark Cameron, 39, one of Mr. Forschein’s many dollar-van drivers from the Flatbush area. A friend of Mr. Cameron’s handed Mr. Forschein a ticket for a seat-belt infraction, but Mr. Forschein told the man he could save money by fighting it himself. “That man is now my client for life,” he said as the man walked away. “Every time you win a case, someone remembers your name. He may be out at a bar and he’ll tell someone, “ ‘I got a guy.’ Seven years later, that other guy will call you.”

Traffic and Parking Violations
Brooklyn (NYC)
Legal Profession
Forschein Scott


Bid to Impeach South Korean Leader Stalls as Lawmakers Debate Her Offer to Quit

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye appeared on Wednesday to have stalled a bid to impeach her in South Korea’s National Assembly, at least temporarily, as lawmakers debated how to respond to her surprise offer to resign . South Korea’s three opposition parties vowed to continue their push to impeach Ms. Park, whose government has been crippled by a corruption scandal. But her speech on Tuesday appeared to have swayed some lawmakers in her party who had favored impeachment but now say they are willing to let her step down voluntarily as late as April. Complicating the matter further, some lawmakers said rewriting the country’s Constitution would be the best way to end her term in office. Opposition politicians expressed fury over Ms. Park’s five-minute address to the nation, in which she said she was willing to leave office before the end of her term but left the details — including the date — to the National Assembly, which has a reputation for being able to agree on very little. They called it a ploy meant to derail the impeachment bid, which before Tuesday had appeared within reach of gaining enough support in Ms. Park’s party for a vote as early as Friday. “Her offer is like that of a student who faces expulsion for breaking school regulations but demands an early graduation,” Sim Sang-jung , an opposition leader, said on Wednesday in a widely shared Twitter post. Youn Kwan-suk, a spokesman for the main opposition Democratic Party, said Wednesday that the parties still preferred to call for an impeachment vote on Friday but indicated that they could also wait until Dec. 9, the last day of the legislative session. Image Sim Sang-jung, head of the opposition Justice Party, mocked the president’s willingness to resign. “Her offer is like that of a student who faces expulsion for breaking school regulations but demands an early graduation,” she said on Twitter. Credit Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press In her speech on Tuesday, Ms. Park denied prosecutors’ accusations that she helped an old friend, Choi Soon-sil, extort the equivalent of $69 million from large South Korean companies. Ms. Choi has been charged with influence-peddling and fraud; as a sitting president, Ms. Park cannot be indicted, but she has been formally identified as a criminal suspect. Her approval rating has fallen to a record low for a South Korean president, and large rallies have been held weekly demanding that she resign or be impeached and face charges. Her five-year term is scheduled to end in February 2018. In the National Assembly on Wednesday, loyalists to Ms. Park called on lawmakers to start discussing her offer to step down. Chung Jin-suk, the floor leader of Ms. Park’s party, Saenuri, said that revising the Constitution would be one way of shortening Ms. Park’s term. He suggested that the president step down in April, with an election to be held in June to select her replacement. The idea of rewriting the Constitution has long had the support of politicians, conservative and liberal, who think the government needs restructuring. There was speculation on Wednesday that Ms. Park was trying to engineer that outcome, which would require a two-thirds vote in the National Assembly and approval in a referendum. Opposition parties fear that talks on changing the Constitution, once underway, would divert attention from Ms. Park’s scandal. On Wednesday, they said they would not discuss the matter with Saenuri and would proceed with their plans for impeachment. But to pass an impeachment bill, the opposition needs the support of dozens of members of Saenuri. Some lawmakers from the party had said they would support impeachment but on Wednesday called on Ms. Park to commit to resigning by April, regardless of whether the Constitution is changed. If she does not, they will vote for impeachment on Dec. 9, said Hwang Young-cheul, a lawmaker who acts as the group’s spokesman. “The president must prove her sincerity by specifying when she is going to resign,” Mr. Hwang said. Because the law requires an election within 60 days of a president’s resignation, it is in Saenuri’s interest to delay Ms. Park’s departure. If she steps down now, analysts say, the party would have little time to recover from its dismal approval ratings and to field a viable candidate.

Park Geun-hye
Impeachment
South Korea
Legislature
Extortion and Blackmail
Choi Soon-sil


Amit Singhal, an Influential Engineer at Google, Will Retire

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Alphabet, the parent of Google , is losing one of its most influential engineers, but his successor’s background is indicative of how important artificial intelligence technology is becoming to the Silicon Valley company. Amit Singhal, the company’s senior vice president for search, and one of the earliest builders of its global computer system, announced that he would retire on Feb. 26. He has been involved with many of the technologies that have made Alphabet an engineering powerhouse and one of the world’s most valuable companies. His replacement, John Giannandrea, currently works in artificial intelligence, or A.I., at Alphabet. A.I. has been increasingly important to Google and other companies like Amazon, as they seek to build products that can do things like respond to voice commands, deliver complex alerts about changes to a user’s schedule, or drive a car. In a post to the Google Plus social network, Mr. Singhal indicated that he wished to spend time with his family and intended to give away some of his fortune. “It has always been a priority for me to give back to people who are less fortunate, and make time for my family,” he wrote. Mr. Singhal, 48, joined Google in 2000 as employee No. 176. A native of India, he has a doctorate in computer science from Cornell and worked at AT&T Labs before Google. One of his earliest jobs at Google was rewriting the initial breakthrough algorithms developed by Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google was one of many search engines, but it distinguished itself both in the quality of its results and in building features like spell check, which could offer correct answers to misspelled queries. The early engineering team also developed search-related tools for its advertising, which quickly turned into a very profitable business. Unlike some other early Google employees who scaled back their efforts or left the company altogether, Mr. Singhal appeared to remain fully engaged in advancing search. In an interview last summer , he described his job as looking at “what’s beyond the horizon,” particularly in building ways that people can easily get information from mobile devices. On Monday , Alphabet, now the parent company of Google, announced that its revenue in the last three months of 2015 was $21.3 billion, and operating income was $5.4 billion — both significant increases from the same period a year earlier. Alphabet hopes to draw on skills developed by Mr. Singhal and Mr. Giannandrea to build things like self-driving cars. Last week, a company purchased by Alphabet, called DeepMind , announced that its computers had defeated a high-ranking champion at Go, a game considered more complex than chess. Mr. Giannandrea, 50, came to Google from the 2010 acquisition of another company, Metaweb Technologies. He has played an important role in incorporating machine learning into various Google products, like the image recognition in Google Photos and smart replies in Gmail’s Inbox. In addition to Mr. Singhal’s stated philanthropic and family interests, it is likely that his skills in building large computer networks and in A.I. will still be in demand.

Alphabet
Amit Singhal
John Giannandrea
Artificial intelligence
Google


Arthur H. White Dies at 90; Gauged Public Opinion and Encouraged Reading

Abstract: Arthur H. White, a co-founder of Yankelovich, Skelly & White, an innovative opinion research firm that shed light on American cultural and political changes, who later became a prominent leader in the nonprofit world, died on Aug. 25 in Stamford, Conn. He was 90. His son, Joe, said the cause was complications of a stroke. In the late 1950s, Mr. White joined with Daniel Yankelovich and Florence Skelly Altman to form a research-and-polling firm that spent decades studying a shifting America. Its work explored, for example, the attitudes of young people toward newspapers, ethnic groups’ views about the future of New York in the 1970s, and who supported Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election and why. Ms. Skelly (her professional name) was among the first to label the generation coming of age in the 1960s “baby boomers.” The firm’s clients included businesses, political and trade groups, universities, magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times. Mr. White sometimes served as an interpreter and defender of data. Explaining a survey of reading habits conducted for book publishers in 1978, he was asked whether the firm could trust what people said. On one question, for example, 10 percent of the respondents claimed to read more than 50 books a year. He replied with a yes, noting that his survey interviewers had asked for titles, prices and where readers bought or borrowed books. “We’re hard-bitten skeptics,” Mr. White told The Washington Post, adding that if some people had overstated their reading, their responses were at least evidence of “a desire to read.” Mr. White believed that everyone should have that desire. In 1966 he helped Margaret McNamara start the nonprofit organization Reading Is Fundamental , which improves access to books and reading for poor children, and he spent decades on the group’s board, serving for a time as its chairman. His involvement with Reading Is Fundamental came at the beginning of a long second career in which he helped establish nonprofit organizations that focus on education and employment. In the early 1980s, seeking to improve job training at a time of rapidly changing technology, he helped found Jobs for Connecticut’s Future. In the late 1980s, Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas encouraged Mr. White to bring the idea to his state. Now called Jobs for the Future , the group has expanded to dozens of states. Arthur Henry White was born on March 30, 1924, in Boston. His father, Maurice, was an accountant for a railroad delivery company, and his mother, Frieda, was a secretary at the publisher Little, Brown & Company. He attended Boston Latin School and received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1947 after serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. (The university backdated his degree to 1945, as it did for other veterans.) He dropped out of Harvard Law School to enroll in Harvard Business School, where he received his master’s in 1951. He worked in market research for another company before joining Mr. Yankelovich, his childhood friend and college roommate, and Ms. Skelly. Mr. White often noted that Ms. Skelly had brought creativity and thoroughness to the firm but that she was sometimes not allowed to join him in making presentations to the male-dominated boards of big companies. “Florence would wait in the hallway while Dad would present to the board,” Joe White said. “He’d often have to go out into the hallway and ask her what the answer was and then go back in.” In addition to his son, Mr. White’s survivors include his wife of 65 years, the former Vivien Karatz, and three grandchildren. Ms. Skelly died in 1998 . Yankelovich, Skelly & White was later renamed Yankelovich Inc., with headquarters in Chapel Hill, N.C. In 2008 it merged with the marketing-research and consulting company Henley Centre HeadlightVision Ltd. to form the Futures Company , which has offices around the world. Mr. White served on numerous government boards and commissions. After Mr. Clinton became president, he appointed Mr. White to the National Commission for Employment Policy and to Federal Prison Industries Inc., which oversees inmate labor. In Mr. White’s final days, a group he helped create received a grant to set up a system through which federal inmates could read and discuss books remotely with their children and families. He was busy planning how it would work. “It was not enough to have an idea,” Hilary Pennington, a vice president at the Ford Foundation who helped Mr. White establish Jobs for the Future, said of Mr. White in an interview on Friday. “He had to see that idea produce change.”

Obituary
Yankelovich Skelly & White
Polls
Reading Is Fundamental
Arthur H. White


Fashion Blogger Who Claimed Tie to Johnny Depp Accepts Plea Deal

Abstract: A fashion blogger who claimed to be a stylist for the actor Johnny Depp and the musician Brandon Flowers — and then bought expensive clothing in Manhattan boutiques, purportedly on their behalf — has pleaded guilty in a deal that allows him to avoid prison. The blogger, David Tripp, 32, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of identity theft, attempted identity theft and forgery. He admitted to using stolen credit card numbers to steal from Marc Jacobs, Carven, Acne Studios, 3.1 Phillip Lim, What Goes Around Comes Around, Marni Edition, Jil Sander, Editions de Parfums and Osswald. The thefts occurred over a span of several months last year, beginning in February. Mr. Tripp agreed to pay a total of $50,037.50 in restitution to the stores. If he fails to pay it all in one year, he could face prison time under the terms of the deal, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said. He pleaded guilty on June 24 to an agreed-upon set of charges that is tantamount to a plea bargain, in a Superior Court information document. Mr. Tripp’s lawyer, Rochelle S. Berliner, said he has paid about half the amount so far. Mr. Tripp, who listed a TriBeCa address last year, writes about fashion, architecture, home design and related topics on the blog The Aesthetic Post . “I know that he’s doing some writing and trying to move forward,” Ms. Berliner said. Mr. Tripp did not respond to emails on Wednesday seeking comment. Last year he said , “The narrative in which I’ve been placed is unequivocally inaccurate and unjust.” Boutique clerks told the police last year that a man called and placed orders on behalf of celebrities, naming specific brands, styles and colors, and signing for the orders on forms he returned via fax or email. The man said an assistant would pick up the orders. The man turned out to be Mr. Tripp. A clerk at Marc Jacobs, suspicious that the man used a woman’s name, called the cardholder and then the police. Mr. Tripp was arrested while picking up his order at the Bleecker Street store on June 5, 2014.

Identity Theft
Forgery
Fashion
Johnny Depp
Brandon Flowers
Blog
Celebrity


John A. Garraty, Historian and Trailblazing Biographer, Dies at 87

Abstract: Prof. John A. Garraty, a historian who wrestled into print the gargantuan reference work American National Biography, which in 24 volumes and 20 million words tells the story of the United States through the life histories of thousands of its citizens, died last Wednesday at his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He was 87. The cause was heart failure, his family said. The author of dozens of books, Professor Garraty trained his eye in particular on the place in the American landscape where individual biography and wider social history meet. At his death, he was Gouverneur Morris emeritus professor of history at Columbia University, where he had taught since 1959. Professor Garraty was perhaps best known as the general editor of American National Biography, whose 23,040 pages chronicle the lives of 17,450 people who shaped the United States in ways large and small, from Alexander A. Aarons (1890-1943), a theatrical producer, to Vladimir Kosma Zworykin (1889-1982), a “scientist and television pioneer.” Published in print form in 1999 and electronically the next year, American National Biography is a joint venture of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Oxford University Press. It was designed to supplant the Dictionary of American Biography, a venerable reference work first published in the 1920s and ’30s. (The dictionary has since been updated with 10 supplementary volumes. The last of these appeared in 1995, but it covers only people who died in 1980 or earlier.) Professor Garraty, who edited Volumes 4 through 8 of the supplement, came to feel that what the dictionary really needed was a complete rewrite — one that not only included more recent figures but also redressed the original focus on white male elites. The result, the work of 6,100 contributors over more than a decade, was American National Biography. For Professor Garraty and his collaborators, the process of compiling the work raised large, difficult questions about the function of biography and the power of individuals, famous and not, to shape history. American National Biography cast a much wider net than its predecessor. For one thing, it revised thousands of the dictionary’s entries in light of modern historical sensibilities. The dictionary’s entry on Thomas Jefferson, for instance, dismissed his affair with his slave Sally Hemings as “slander,” while the entry on Hemings in Mr. Garraty’s work says that there is no “conclusive evidence to prove or refute” an affair. (That was written before DNA tests on Jefferson’s and Hemings’s living relatives indicated a genetic link between the families.) The new work also included many women and minorities who were absent from the dictionary entirely. (Among them, astonishingly, was Martha Washington.) Professor Garraty scoured the country for candidates, thumbing through old books and poring over newspaper obituaries, themselves biographies in miniature, in search of the deserving dead. American National Biography still covers the presidents, jurists and war heroes who have been the stuff of history books for generations. But it also includes — as its 200-page index of occupations makes tantalizingly clear — abolitionists, accountants and adventuresses; alleged assassins, alleged heretics, alleged murderers, alleged slave-revolt leaders and alleged traitors; a calliope player, some cellists and a flock of Communists; eccentrics and explosives manufacturers; golfers, harness racers, hatters and a lighthouse keeper; midwives and mimes; orators and outlaws; pamphleteers, puppeteers and Puritans; Socialists and socialites; ventriloquists and vigilantes; and watchmakers, Zionists and zoologists. Each entry opens with its subject in the cradle, much in this way: John Arthur Garraty was born in Brooklyn in 1920. (He was born on the Fourth of July, a fine portent for a future American historian.) He earned a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College in 1941 and a doctorate in history from Columbia in 1948. During World War II, he was a swimming instructor in the merchant marine. Professor Garraty began his teaching career at Michigan State University before joining the Columbia faculty. Professor Garraty’s first marriage, to Joan Perkins, ended in divorce. His second wife, Gail Neilson, died in 1992; his third wife, Rita Angelo, died in 2001. He is survived by two children from his first marriage, Sarah Kerr Garraty of Concord, Mass., and John A. Jr., of Manhattan; and three grandchildren. Another daughter, Katherine, died in 2004. Among Professor Garraty’s books are “Henry Cabot Lodge” (Knopf, 1953); “Woodrow Wilson: A Great Life in Brief” (Knopf, 1956); “The Nature of Biography” (Knopf, 1957); “Unemployment in History: Economic Thought and Public Policy” (Harper & Row, 1978); and “The Great Depression” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986). He was also the author, with Mark C. Carnes, of “The American Nation” (Longman), a widely used college textbook scheduled to be published in its 13th edition next month. As Professor Garraty often explained in interviews, deciding whom to admit to the pages of American National Biography was a weighty responsibility. On the other hand, he added, some people were no-brainers — in every sense of the term. “Presidents, vice presidents and Supreme Court justices were automatic choices," he told The Chicago Sun-Times in 1999. “It doesn’t matter how dumb they are or how short your term is, they have to be included.”

Garraty John A
Books and Literature
History
Deaths (Obituaries)
United States


In Insider Attack, an Afghan Soldier Opens Fire on Coalition Forces, Killing One

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan soldier opened fire on coalition forces in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding at least four others in the first so-called insider attack in more than a month, officials said. The Afghan soldier began firing at a passing convoy of coalition vehicles from a tower at Kandahar Air Field at around 10:30 a.m., according to Abdul Raziq Shirzai, commander of the Afghan Air Force brigade in Kandahar. Officials said they did not think the Taliban were responsible for the attack, but rather that the soldier, identified as Lamber Khan, was disgruntled with the foreign troop presence in Afghanistan. When questioned, the soldier, a five-year veteran, said foreign forces had conducted raids and frequent searches of his village in eastern Afghanistan, prompting him to take action, Mr. Shirzai said. The Taliban could not be reached for comment and did not issue a statement claiming credit for the attack. The group has often claimed responsibility for insider attacks, even those thought to have no link to insurgents. The American-led military coalition said only that one service member had died; it declined to identify the nationalities of the deceased or wounded. The shooting was the sixth reported insider attack — also called green-on-blue violence — in Afghanistan this year, leading to nine coalition deaths. That is a huge drop from a year ago, when the specter of insider attacks dominated headlines and threatened to undermine Washington’s 2014 exit strategy of training the Afghans to fight on their own. By this point last year, Afghan soldiers had killed 27 of their coalition mentors in 20 separate attacks, according to the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, as the coalition forces are called. The issue of insider attacks loomed large last year as both Afghan and coalition forces struggled to implement strategies to halt the violence. At one point, the United States temporarily suspended its training mission, fearful that it could not protect its soldiers from their supposed allies. Since then, the coalition has added new measures to prevent Taliban infiltrators and reduce the potential for attacks spawned by cultural tensions between American and Afghan forces, which are believed to play a large role in the attacks. One factor in the drop is simply that the coalition is fighting less, American and Afghan officials said. As Afghan forces take the lead across the country, fewer Americans are on patrol or at checkpoints, where a number of attacks occurred last year. Coalition forces are also scaling back at joint bases, reducing the chance of such assaults. In Kunar and Nangarhar Provinces, for instance, the coalition footprint is expected to drop from 13 bases at the beginning of the year to three by year’s end. As an added security measure for Americans who interact regularly with their counterparts, the United States military began requiring armed soldiers, known as guardian angels, to accompany any mentors visiting the Afghan side of joint bases. The Afghans, too, have stepped up efforts to curtail what has been an embarrassing problem for their government. Army and police forces have adopted a stricter screening process for new recruits and for those returning from extended leave to identify potential attackers. The National Directorate of Security, the country’s main intelligence agency, has embedded covert agents in the armed forces to ferret out potential attackers. Even as green-on-blue violence has fallen, civilian casualties have continued to rise as Taliban bombs have wreaked havoc on local populations. In the latest bombing, 17 people, most of them women and children, were killed Tuesday evening when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Obei district of Herat Province, according to Abdul Raouf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial police chief. Less than a week ago, four girls, aged 5 to 8, were killed after they accidentally tripped a hidden bomb while fetching water in southern Helmand Province. On the same day, two young boys were killed in Paktika Province when they accidentally struck a roadside bomb. The rise in civilian casualties was recently noted in a United Nations report, which attributed about three-quarters of the deaths to insurgent bombs. Of the nearly 3,100 civilian casualties through early June this year, roughly 20 percent of them were children, the report said.

Afghanistan War
Afghanistan
Kandahar
US Military


Joe Johnson Hits Late 3, Then Overtime Jumper to Lift Nets Over Bucks

Abstract: As energy sources go, Joe Johnson is fantastically deceptive, all sleepy eyes and shrugs and coy smiles, without a single signature exclamation in his emotional arsenal. There is nothing particularly electric about him, until the game is on the line and the seconds are ticking away and the ball is in his hands. In those tense moments of desperation, Johnson is a virtual power station, capable of sending a massive jolt through the atmosphere and thousands of fans into happy delirium with a casual flick of the wrist. Johnson did it twice Tuesday night, sinking a jumper that forced overtime and another at the final buzzer to deliver a thrilling 113-111 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks at Barclays Center, where a crowd announced at 17,334 was left breathless. It was Johnson’s fourth game-winning shot of the season, following decisive baskets against Detroit, Washington and the Knicks. The Nets, who acquired Johnson from Atlanta last July, are getting used to the thrills. “I wouldn’t use the word easy,” Coach P. J. Carlesimo said, “but yes, the end of the play is pretty good when it’s in Joe’s hand.” The score was tied at 111-111 with 5.2 seconds left when the Nets inbounded the ball. Johnson sized up Luc Mbah a Moute, one of the N.B.A.’s better defenders, at the top of the key, crossed over to his left and flung a 17-footer while fading to his left. The ball swished just as time expired. “It’s what he’s been doing his entire career,” Carlesimo said. The usually reserved Johnson roared as he jogged back up the court and was mobbed by his teammates on the bench while, a few feet away, an appreciative Jay-Z — the music mogul and Nets part-owner — applauded with a look of relief. “It’s an unbelievable feeling, man,” said Johnson, who finished with 24 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists. “Regardless of the situation, whether it’s the regular season or the playoffs, it’s always a great feeling, just to see everybody kind of explode and the excitement in the building, is probably the best feeling.” The victory was the Nets’ third in a row, and it made for a promising start to this post-All-Star-Game section of the schedule. The Nets (32-22) also ended a 13-game losing streak to the Bucks (26-26) that stretched back to 2009, including two losses earlier this season. The teams meet again Wednesday night in Milwaukee to close the season series. The Nets were fortunate to make it to overtime. They never could contain Brandon Jennings, who scorched them for 34 points. They blew a 10-point lead in the second half. They had trouble making plays down the stretch of regulation. And they were hit one costly and controversial call, an offensive foul on Deron Williams with 7.7 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Nets trailing by 1 point. But Johnson saved the game, hitting a 3-pointer with 1.3 seconds left to tie the game at 105-105. Jennings missed a long heave at the buzzer, forcing overtime. “Joe’s in trouble,” said Brook Lopez, “because every time he gets it now, I think it’s going to go in. He’s been incredible.” No N.B.A. player has been more clutch than Johnson this season. According to the N.B.A.’s statistics tool at NBA.com/stats, Johnson has gone 9 for 10 from the field in the final minute of games when the margin is 3 points or fewer. He is 4 for 4 in the final 10 seconds when the margin is 3 points or fewer. “When I get the basketball, it’s instincts, it’s reactions,” Johnson said. “It’s nothing that is planned. I totally read the man who’s guarding me, how he’s playing me, that’s basically it.” Williams made an encouraging return to the lineup after taking two games off last week to get treatment on his tendinitis-stricken ankles. Though he could not contain Jennings (and no one could), Williams looked spry and aggressive, finishing with 19 points and 9 assists in 44 minutes 36 seconds. Lopez, who made his All-Star debut Sunday, looked as if he had an All-Star hangover, going 6 for 17 from the field and 0 for 4 in overtime, though he did finish with 19 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocks. Lopez was benched for nearly the entire fourth quarter, as Carlesimo went with Andray Blatche, who at that point was more effective. Blatche finished with 14 points and 6 rebounds, leading a bench group that scored 44 points. Williams spent his weekend in Miami, hanging out at the beach with his family, but it was not an entirely pleasant All-Star break. He was shut out of the All-Star Game for the first time in four years. Then Jerry Colangelo, the president of USA Basketball, told The Daily News that Williams was “overweight” for the Olympics last summer. The wave of scrutiny seemed to irritate Carlesimo, who said he was “befuddled at everything that’s being made.” “Deron has basically been the single most important factor in transforming the franchise,” Carlesimo said. “Honestly, I don’t understand it.” REBOUNDS Billy King told reporters at the Nets’ morning shootaround that there was only a 10 percent chance he would make a trade by Thursday’s deadline. By the evening, he had cut that number in half. “I would put it at probably 5 percent now,” King said. “I don’t see anything happening.” The Nets have pursued Atlanta’s Josh Smith, but they lack the assets the Hawks want: expiring contracts, young prospects and draft picks. The Nets have offered a package built around Kris Humphries, but the Hawks do not want Humphries’s contract, which runs through 2014. In general, the Nets have few desirable assets, outside MarShon Brooks, Mirza Teletovic and future draft picks. Teletovic has drawn serious attention from a number of teams, but the Nets have so far refused to part with the young shooter from Bosnia.

Basketball
Brooklyn Nets
Bucks
Joe Johnson