With Mickelson, a Slam Seems a Little Less Fanciful Than Usual

Abstract: CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The surprising spectacle of Tiger Woods ’s missing the cut at the Quail Hollow Championship — shooting 79 on Friday by three-putting twice, four-putting once, hitting only two fairways, stringing together three straight bogeys and back-to-back doubles — showed how quickly things can change in golf. Back when Woods was still seemingly invincible, before all the unpleasantness that began about six months ago, many golf experts had already designated 2010 the year of Tiger Woods. The analysis was simple. In his prime at age 34, surgically repaired, strong and healthy and a decade after two of his greatest seasons, with the majors returning to courses that fit him like a tailored suit, Woods would be primed to win the Grand Slam in its purest form — all four major championships in the same year. Now, rather than the stars being aligned for Woods to run the table, they seem to be forming the outline of a crown around the head of his archrival, Phil Mickelson . Mickelson, 39, cleared the first of the four hurdles with his win at the Masters last month. He is playing well and putting with confidence. (He is two shots off the lead at Quail Hollow after a 71 on Saturday). And with summer on the horizon, he is staring into the very bright possibility of attaining the unattained because, first of all, he is the only one with a chance to win all four this year. If that were the only thing in his favor, then this would be another fanciful notion in the season for such romance, just as talk of the Triple Crown is annually on the lips of those smitten by the Kentucky Derby winner. But there is more, actually, “a whole lotta more,” as the legendary and very unromantic Clubber Lang told Rocky Balboa before knocking him out early in “Rocky III.” There are the three remaining stops on the major championship road — Pebble Beach Golf Links in June, the Old Course at St. Andrews in July, Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis., in August — all preordained as home sites for Woods before last November happened. They now look pretty friendly to Mickelson. Mickelson, of course, did not win the United States Open by 15 strokes at Pebble Beach in 2000. That mind-bending feat was accomplished by Woods. But Mickelson has had his moments there, three times winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the last in 2007. He tied for 16th at the 2000 Open there, and has five runner-up finishes in the Open as an additional motivator, should any be necessary. He was asked last week if he had considered the possibility of the Grand Slam, and whether the golf courses suited his game. “Somewhat,” he said. “But for me, I finished second in the U.S. Open five times. It’s a tournament — it’s my national Open. Growing up here, that’s a special event for me. So rather than jump ahead to other events, I really want to give myself the best opportunity in the U.S. Open. I had a good chance last year. A couple of years I’ve had great chances and haven’t come through, and it’s the one event that I’d love to win.” Before jumping ahead to Mickelson’s track record at the British Open and at St. Andrews, it is worth noting that his expanded clichéd answer of “one at a time” may be a key to success. So far, no one — not Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Watson or Woods — has been able to win the modern Grand Slam, which makes Bob Jones’s feat of winning the original Slam in 1930 — the British Amateur and Open and the United States Amateur and Open — all the more impressive. Woods came the closest in 2000 when he won the United States Open, British Open and P.G.A. Championship after starting the year with a fifth-place finish at the Masters. In 2001, he won the Masters, to become the only man to hold all four major championship trophies at once. The Tiger Slam, as it became known, was an amazing feat. But it was not the Grand Slam. Each attempt has been swallowed in part by the compounding pressures. Even before the concept of the modern Slam was conceived by Palmer and the golf writer Bob Drum in 1960, only two golfers were able to win the Masters and United States Open in the same year — Craig Wood in 1941, and Hogan in 1951 and 1953 — when Hogan won the first three by adding the British Open, a feat that has not been repeated. Hogan did not play in the P.G.A. in 1953 because it conflicted on the schedule with the British Open. Since then, Palmer won the first two in 1960, as did Nicklaus in 1972 and Woods in 2002. None won the British Open. Palmer and Nicklaus finished second. Woods was two strokes behind the eventual winner Ernie Els after two rounds at Muirfield, but shot 81 in the third round amid a fierce wind and rainstorm, and wound up tied for 28th. Should Mickelson manage to prevail at Pebble Beach, he will then focus on St. Andrews, where his best finish is a tie for 11th in 2000. He would be armed with the first two majors and on a high like few since 1960, when Palmer — whose muscular, aggressive style Mickelson’s most resembles — went there for his first British Open. And after that? Whistling Straits is a wild card, a big, brawling, windswept links course on a lake that has hosted one previous major — the 2004 P.G.A., where Mickelson finished tied for sixth. Mickelson has his bona fides in order. Four times he has won four events in a year. He has finished all four majors 10 times, and in 2004 he was first at the Masters, second at the United States Open, third at the British Open and tied for sixth at the P.G.A. It is too early to count him out. He may just have a whole lotta more.

Mickelson Phil
Golf
Masters Golf Tournament
British Open (Golf)
Woods Tiger


Game Moved After Floods

Abstract: South Carolina is moving its home game against Louisiana State on Saturday to Baton Rouge because of flooding around the university. South Carolina officials wanted to keep the game in Columbia but said that law enforcement personnel were needed elsewhere in the area to help clean up from the flooding. ■ Eastern Kentucky moved Thursday night’s Ohio Valley Conference game against Tennessee Tech north to Georgetown College after a security threat led university officials to cancel classes for the rest of this week. ■ The Rutgers football team reinstated wide receiver Leonte Carroo, a day after criminal charges against him were dropped. Coach Kyle Flood said Carroo had agreed to undisclosed conditions and “accepted the responsibility” that came with his return to the team. ■ Tennessee wide receiver Alton Howard was dismissed from the team for a violation of unspecified team rules. Howard had 54 catches for 618 yards last season, but he had only one reception for 8 yards this year while playing in two games. ■ The former Michigan offensive tackle Logan Tuley-Tillman was charged with three felonies, nearly a month after he was kicked off the team. Tuley-Tillman was arraigned on one count of using a computer to commit a crime and two counts of capturing/distributing an image of an unclothed person.

College football
Flood
South Carolina
Louisiana State University
University of South Carolina


Outdoor ‘Living Rooms’ Bring Touches of Cheer to Central Los Angeles

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Their requests could have been lofty, expensive and totally unrealistic, but in the end what the people of central Los Angeles really wanted was just a place to sit down. While the visual idiom of this city is no doubt the automobile, thousands of Angelenos rely on public transportation, particularly the bus, to ferry them to and fro, especially in the poorest areas of town. The best of the city’s bus stops feature a plastic toffee-colored bench, occasionally adorned with the visage of a frosted-blond real estate agent, her upper lip festooned with a Magic Marker mustache. But scores of bus stops around town, especially in the areas south of Interstate 10 and close to downtown, not only are trash-strewn and barren but also offer no place to sit. Old women press heavily against their walkers, peering down the street to see if the bus is coming, and children cling to the bus stop sign, often perilously close to the street, as their mothers beckon them sharply to stand back. So, armed with grant money, hammers and some technical help, residents around the city have gone about spiffing up bus stops, among a number of other outdoor spaces, into something known as community living rooms. The idea began several years ago in Oakland, where community organizers and residents got together to improve places where neighbors tended to congregate — the corner store, outside the barbershop — amid a decidedly downtrodden environment. “The idea was to enable low-income communities to create their own social spaces and improve their neighborhoods without bringing on gentrification,” said Steve Rasmussen Cancian, the landscape architect who helped introduce the living rooms. With the help of residents, simple pieces of furniture were erected here and there around Oakland, giving bits of cheerful life to corners where there was little to look at. Mr. Rasmussen Cancian then imported the idea to Los Angeles, on a corner where drug dealers and prostitutes did business near a Y.M.C.A. used by families. At the same time, Central City Neighborhood Partners, a nonprofit group that focuses on low-income families here, surveyed residents in the city’s center about their transportation needs. At the top of the list was a well-maintained place to wait for buses, which, according to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, are boarded citywide an average of 1.2 million times a week. Thus the marriage of community living rooms and bus stops. Supporters say the innovation has brought some efficiency to what was once a cumbersome process. “People said that when they wanted a bus stop repaired or to fix the lighting or get a bench, they had to address five different entities,” said Veronica McDonnell, executive director of Central City Neighborhood Partners. “We were really drawn to the idea of community living rooms. We saw it as an inexpensive way to deal with the bureaucracy of the city.” Community leaders and residents are asked to help plan a site. Landscape architects do the drawings, and community groups get permits from the Office of Community Beautification within the city’s Department of Public Works. Experts help to cut wood and give other technical assistance to the residents, who build and finish the furniture. “They are intentionally made to look like things found in living rooms,” Mr. Rasmussen Cancian said, like chairs and ottomans, and “are made out of simple pieces.” Saplings or flowering plants are often part of the mix. Of the 15 living rooms that have sprouted around Los Angeles — seven more are on the way — about a third are at bus stops. “What has kept them expanding is communities without resources,” Mr. Rasmussen Cancian said. “A simple pocket park takes a half-million dollars and takes two to three years to build, while a living room takes as little as a month and between $5,000 and $15,000.” On a recent afternoon in the Westlake neighborhood just west of downtown, small children wriggled on a wooden bench that formed a semicircle around a tree. Pink and white begonias bloomed nearby. An elderly man sat at a polished wooden table suitable for a game of checkers. Lisa Taylor, 41, settled into a bench, waited for her bus and surveyed her surroundings. “This is nice,” Ms. Taylor said. “It kind of dresses up the neighborhood a little bit. It lets this community have something unique.”


Texas Ranch Where Scalia Died Is Rugged Oasis for the Famous

Abstract: HOUSTON — The closest community to the West Texas resort where Justice Antonin Scalia died is barely even a place anymore: It is a virtual ghost town where perhaps only a dozen people still live. And when a silver hearse drove across the rocks outside the Cibolo Creek Ranch on Saturday, it was from a funeral home at least an hour away. “People go there with great confidentiality, I think,” said Teresa Todd, the city attorney for Marfa, more than 30 miles from the ranch. “People go there, and you’re not bothered.” For years, public figures, including Justice Scalia and Mick Jagger, and wealthy, anonymous vacationers have descended on the 30,000-acre enclave of the Chinati Mountains. It is a place where remoteness is cherished, and where, without ever leaving the grounds, guests can spend weeks in historic adobe forts. The ranch, first established in 1857 and used to defend against Native American tribes, fell into disrepair before its purchase in 1990 by John B. Poindexter, a manufacturing executive from Houston. Mr. Poindexter oversaw an aggressive restoration effort that transformed three forts into a retreat where rooms typically begin at $350 a night, and star gazing and horseback riding are among the preferred activities. (The amenities at the property, just north of the border with Mexico and close to the former mining town of Shafter, include a 5,300-foot airstrip.) “If your goal is to get away and not be bothered and be in the lap of luxury,” Ms. Todd said, “it’s the perfect place.” Yet some guests venture to Marfa, a city of fewer than 2,000 people with a funky culture, a penchant for the arts and a decidedly more cosmopolitan vibe. “It doesn’t jibe, and it doesn’t conflict,” Jerry Patterson, a former Texas land commissioner, said of the secluded ranch’s relationship with Marfa. “There’s not many people out there. It’s an historic oasis in the middle of a very remote area of Texas.” Image The Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas, where the cost of rooms typically starts at $350 a night, and stargazing and horseback riding are among the preferred activities. Credit Stevens Fremont/Corbis For all its inaccessibility, though, the property has been a hub for politicians and celebrities. Mr. Patterson, a Republican, has hunted quail at Cibolo Creek, and a member of the country band the Dixie Chicks was married there in 1999. “My guess is, he has plenty of Republicans and Democrats hanging out together,” said a Texas senator, José Rodriguez, a Democrat from El Paso who has been to the ranch. He said that Mr. Poindexter has hosted a community event at the property each Labor Day that allowed residents to experience the rugged West Texas terrain and Mr. Poindexter’s careful efforts to restore structures now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “It’s a far West Texas, Big Bend landscape,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “It’s wide-open spaces. You see the silhouettes of mountains in the distance. I think people from Europe, from New York, are not used to seeing that sky.” On Saturday, photographs published by The San Antonio Express-News showed a lone man, in a button-down shirt and bluejeans, seated in a white chair outside the gate to the resort. The man, the photographs showed, stood when the Cadillac hearse — presumably sent to ferry Justice Scalia’s body — passed the ranch’s stacked-stone fence. Earlier in the day, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of El Paso said, a priest from a nearby parish was summoned to deliver the last rites for Justice Scalia.

Antonin Scalia
Cibolo Creek Ranch
Texas
Funerals


More Coveted Than a Sack? A Jersey With a Single Digit

Abstract: In their spring and summer practices before this season, the players on Virginia’s football team wore uniforms without numbers. The Cavaliers’ new coach, Bronco Mendenhall, instituted the policy as a way to make players compete for and earn the jersey numbers they wanted. So on a Saturday night in late August, a week before the season opener, the Cavaliers gathered in their locker room and held a draft to select their numbers, the order determined by players’ work ethic and performance in the off-season. Jordan Ellis, a sophomore running back, received the first pick. He wanted to choose No. 1 but instead stuck with 10, the number he wore last year. Ellis said he thought the senior defensive tackle Donte Wilkins, who had the second pick and desperately wanted No. 1, deserved it more. “It’s like a big boy’s dream to get to wear the small number,” said Wilkins, who had worn 93 for the previous three seasons. Turn on any college football game this season, and it is a safe bet that many of the best players will be wearing single-digit numbers, which have become a status symbol at many top programs. Long a favorite of skill-position players, the numbers are increasingly in demand among even defensive linemen and linebackers. Image Washington linebacker Joe Mathis also favors low-number jerseys. Credit Ted S. Warren/Associated Press This season, a handful of defensive starters on national championship contenders — including Alabama’s Da’Shawn Hand, Michigan’s two-way star Jabrill Peppers, Ohio State’s Sam Hubbard, Clemson’s Dorian O’Daniel and Washington’s Joe Mathis — are among the most prominent single-digit devotees. Some top high school players have even made the numbers a condition of the recruiting process. “I’ve noticed over the years if it’s a great player, a college coach will go out of his way to get that number for the kid so they can land the kid,” said Tom Lemming, who has been covering college football recruiting since the 1970s. Lemming added: “They’ll tell him, ‘I might come if I can get the No. 9.’ And then the coach will take that No. 9 away no matter who’s got it. They’ll work something out so they can get the player.” Most college teams have more than 99 players on their rosters, so they often have offensive and defensive players with the same number — since players with the same number cannot be on the field at the same time. At Alabama last season, that meant duplicates for Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9 . But at places as varied as Michigan, Notre Dame and Temple, the demand for low numbers has grown so much that some coaches have devised reward systems to determine who gets them. “If you have a single-digit number,” Notre Dame wide receiver C. J. Sanders said, “it’s kind of a big deal.” The new interest from defensive players aside, quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers remain the biggest single-digit enthusiasts. The last four Heisman Trophy winners have worn single-digit uniform numbers, and the trend is expected to continue this year, as most of the leading contenders — Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson (No. 8), Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson (No. 4, which was unretired specifically for him), Washington quarterback Jake Browning (No. 3), Florida State running back Dalvin Cook (No. 4) and Peppers (No. 5) — fit the mold. Yet the increased demand from recruits and current players has made for a tough balancing act for coaches. Several have chosen to follow the path taken by Virginia’s Mendenhall and Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly by effectively making the jerseys valued prizes and having their players compete to earn them. Sanders, a Notre Dame sophomore, wore No. 9 last season, but there was no guarantee that he would keep it. For the first time in his seven years in South Bend, Kelly did not announce the single-digit roster numbers until this summer. He told a radio station that high school recruits had been pressing him about wearing single digits, so instead of promising them to anyone, he and his staff created a point system to track players on and off the field. Players who had the most points would be rewarded with single-digit jerseys. Sanders was one of the top performers, and he traded his No. 9 for No. 3, which he had worn in high school. Kelly had an entirely different plan for the biggest prize, No. 1. He told his players that he would alternate it each week, giving it to the player who most deserved it. But the plan did not work out as he had hoped; after the Fighting Irish started the season 1-3, Kelly discontinued the practice. No Notre Dame player has worn the number in the team’s last three games. The competition for uniform numbers has panned out much better at Michigan, which is 7-0 and ranked fourth in the Associated Press poll. During preseason workouts, Coach Jim Harbaugh allowed several Michigan players to wear the same single- and double-digit jerseys. Before the season, he decided which players could keep their preferred numbers. “Guys wanted to play their best every day in practice,” Michigan offensive lineman Erik Magnuson said. “Skill guys love the one-digit numbers. It motivated them to work hard and be the best at their position.” Temple, under the former coach Al Golden, was one of the first programs to have players compete for single digits. The Owls’ current coach, Matt Rhule, who was an assistant under Golden, reinstated the tradition when Temple hired him in December 2012. Players who wear Nos. 1 through 9 at Temple are considered by their coaches and teammates to be the toughest and hardest workers on the team. Image Ohio State defensive end Sam Hubbard, another single-digit devotee, playing Indiana on Oct. 8. Credit Jay Laprete/Associated Press Rhule and his staff chose the players the first three years, but this year they had the players vote. “I didn’t just want to reward people because of what they did in high school,” Rhule said. “I didn’t want to give them a number just to try to get them to come here. I want everything to be earned.” Star players are not the only ones with low numbers at Temple. Last season, the walk-on fullback and linebacker Nick Sharga earned No. 4 even though — as a transfer from Division II — he had been ineligible to play in games the previous year. “I thought it was really cool, something I really strived for that season,” said Sharga, who earned a scholarship this year. “I couldn’t play, so I just figured I’d go on scout team and just hustle and do my best.” At Virginia, Wilkins is cherishing his No. 1. The N.F.L. does not allow defensive linemen to wear single digits, so Wilkins hopes to return to his old No. 93 if he makes a team next year. Ellis, who deferred on No. 1 this fall, hopes to get a second shot at it next summer. “I just fell in love with it as a kid,” Ellis said of No. 1, which he wore in high school. “I just like everything about it, just the way it looks on me.”

College football
University of Virginia
University of Notre Dame
University of Michigan
Temple University
Sports Drafts and Recruits
Uniform


The Dutch Prime Minister Is a Big Fan of Robert Caro

Abstract: The last time Robert Caro set foot in Robert Moses’ office, Moses abruptly ended their interview and never spoke to him again. On a bright morning last week, Mr. Caro, 80, climbed into the back seat of a rented Toyota Camry to visit that office for the first time in 48 years. In the interim, Mr. Caro’s biography of the public works titan, “ The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York ,” which he wrote for an advance of $5,000, has had 49 printings and was recently bought for publication in China, where it has been available in unauthorized editions. In the front seat of the car sat the prime minister of the Netherlands. “Hi, I’m Mark,” said the prime minister, Mark Rutte. Mr. Rutte and his friend Koen Petersen, a historian and coffee company executive, had invited Mr. Caro to lunch last year and asked if he would someday show them some sights from the book. They said they visited the city every year with a copy of “The Power Broker.” “We’re like groupies,” Mr. Rutte said. Now the day had arrived. Mr. Petersen drove the Camry. Prime Minister Rutte wore jeans and a blue blazer, the top two buttons of his shirt open. Mr. Caro, who had overslept that morning because he was unsatisfied with something he was writing for the fifth volume of his biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, pointed out Moses handiwork, which was basically everything in sight: the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the northern extension of the F.D.R. Drive, the massive public housing projects in Queens and Upper Manhattan. “Every building you see here was built by Robert Moses,” Mr. Caro said, gesturing toward the projects. “And there’s not a single architectural element to make them look better. Moses wanted the people living in them to feel poor.” We were bound for Randalls Island, where Moses based the Triborough Bridge Authority and built an office for himself, even though he already had four others — each with a lavish dining room and staff on duty, in case he chose to eat there, Mr. Caro said. Eventually, Moses had 12 offices, but he preferred this one because people had to work hard to reach him, and because they had to pay a toll to his agency, Mr. Caro said. The price of admission today was a short talk by Mr. Caro. Image Robert Moses in one of his offices — he came to have 12 — in 1962. Credit Sam Falk/The New York Times As soon as we left Manhattan we were lost. Which was fitting, Mr. Caro said. “I’m laughing because Moses didn’t want anyone coming here,” he said. “It’s still hard to find.” Mr. Rutte for his part noted the generosity of people who gave directions, even when they were wrong. “It’s amazing how kind everyone is here in the U.S.,” he said. When we finally found the building, practically underneath the bridge, it brought back memories for Mr. Caro. “To visit Moses in that office was not pleasant,” he said. At the same time, the scale of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge — which Mr. Caro still calls the Triborough — was a testimony to Moses’ genius, Mr. Caro said, likening it to Picasso’s. “The impression you had was a guy shaking the city from this place in the center of the city, but no one could see him there,” he said. The Triborough Bridge Authority is now part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller created to force Moses from power, Mr. Caro said. “It was the only way to get him out. Moses didn’t think it could be done.” Upstairs, Mr. Rutte squeezed into a cluttered room that had once been part of Moses’ office. “And this is where you had your meeting with him?” Mr. Rutte asked Mr. Caro. “And the whole atmosphere was power?” It was, Mr. Caro said. “He had one telephone, and everyone who came to see him, even if you were the governor or the mayor, had to wait until he got off the phone.” The prime minister said he was not tempted to emulate Moses. “You could never do that in the Netherlands,” he said. “It’s too egalitarian of a country. I hasten to add that that’s a good thing.” Mary Hedge, the archivist for the authority, wore a button that read “I Finished The Power Broker.” Near the end of the visit she gave it to Mr. Rutte. Soon it was time to see another of Moses’ works, the Cross-Bronx Expressway, whose construction devastated a mile-long swath of the Bronx, uprooting a stable low-income neighborhood and leaving urban misery in its place. Image Mr. Rutte and Mr. Caro on Randalls Island with a photograph of Robert Moses. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times When Mr. Caro was working on that part of the book, he said, it made him depressed and angry. He’d track down people who had been displaced, and the word they used to describe their lives afterward was “lonely.” “‘Lonely’ is a word that you never use unless you’re really lonely,” Mr. Caro said. In that period, he said, he was also struggling to pay his own bills. He had long since spent his advance, and when he delivered a half-million words to his editor in hopes of shaking loose some more money, the response was not good. The editor took him to a cheap Chinese restaurant. “He said, ‘Everybody loved it, but no one’s going to read a book about Robert Moses, so you have to brace yourself for a small printing,’” Mr. Caro said. “I just couldn’t see a way forward.” Finally he found one, with another publisher and four long excerpts in The New Yorker. When his agent, Lynn Nesbit, told him how much the magazine would pay, he said, “I asked, ‘How long does a check like that take to clear?’ She said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because we’ve always wanted to go to France.’” The next day Mr. Caro and his wife, Ina, were on an airplane. They asked the stewardess on board to recommend an inexpensive hotel. At lunch on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, Mr. Caro apologized for repeating several anecdotes during the morning. “I’m going to shut up now,” he said. Then he told some more. “Now you see why my books take so long,” he said. The restaurant was called Mario’s, and it was nearly a century old. Mr. Caro and his wife had been going there for decades. A 94-year-old woman sat in the corner with a serious martini, which she recommended for others who hoped to see 94. She had white hair and a lively smile. “Amsterdam is a very liberal city,” she chided the Dutch visitors, wagging a playful finger. The West Side Highway was next, with two perspectives on Moses: the visionary beauty of Riverside Park, and the ugliness of a Harlem playground that Moses had built under duress. On the trellises of the playground’s comfort station, Moses had ordered wrought-iron monkeys, a commentary on the people who might be using it. “He was the most racist person I ever met,” Mr. Caro said. The trellises have since been removed. The playground now looked modest but lively, a survivor of Moses’ ill will. Much has changed since “The Power Broker” came out in 1974, when it earned its subtitle about “The Fall of New York.” Mr. Caro said the subtitle reflected the city as Moses left it: crime rising, schools decaying, the city’s finances crumbling. Now the verdict feels premature. For Mr. Rutte, a lesson of the intervening years was that “leadership does matter,” he said, adding: “I used to walk in the Bowery in the early 1980s and it was not safe. It went from this to Disneyland under Giuliani and Bloomberg. This is now one of the best-run big cities in the world.” Mr. Caro wondered. “I don’t know if people would say that now,” he said. “New York has been coming back from Moses for 40 years,” he said. “Is it starting to tip in the other direction?” He let the question hang. And we were off to another destination, this one as ambivalent in its import as the last.

Robert A Caro
Robert Moses
Mark Rutte
NYC
Randalls Island
The Power Broker


Google Co-Founder Has Genetic Code Linked to Parkinson’s

Abstract: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Sergey Brin , a Google co-founder, said Thursday that he has a gene mutation that increases his likelihood of contracting Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that can impair speech, movement and other functions. Mr. Brin, who made the announcement on a blog , says he does not have the disease and that the exact implications of the discovery are not clear. Studies show that his likelihood of contracting Parkinson’s disease in his lifetime may be 20 percent to 80 percent, Mr. Brin said. Mr. Brin, whose personal fortune was recently pegged at $15.9 billion by Forbes, ranking him as the 13th richest American, said that he may help provide more money for research into the disease. Through a Google spokesman, Mr. Brin declined to be interviewed for this article. Mr. Brin said he learned that he carries a mutation of the LRRK2 gene, known as G2019S. His mother, Eugenia Brin, also carries the gene mutation and has Parkinson’s. Medical experts said that those who carry that gene mutation are more likely than not to live disease-free. “Many people with this mutation never develop the disease,” said Dr. Susan B. Bressman, chairwoman of the neurology department at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. “He is more likely to have a normal life than a Parkinson’s disease life.” Dr. Bressman, who specializes in movement disorders and genetics, said that about 30 percent of people with the gene mutation develop the disease. Mr. Brin said he discovered that he carried the gene mutation using a service from 23andMe, a biotechnology start-up co-founded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki. The company can map customers’ DNA and help them find information about their ancestry and their risk of getting certain diseases. Google, where Mr. Brin is president of technology, invested $3.9 million in 23andMe in May 2007. Parkinson’s disease is typically a late-onset disorder, in which people often first exhibit symptoms in their 50s or 60s. Mr. Brin is 35. Symptoms, which can include tremors, stiffness, slowness of movement and speech impairment, can sometimes be managed through medication and surgery. While many people with the disease continue to function at a high level for many years, the disease is not curable and highly variable. Symptoms tend to become progressively worse over time. “This leaves me in a rather unique position,” Mr. Brin wrote in his blog post. “I know early in my life something I am substantially predisposed to. I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds (e.g. there is evidence that exercise may be protective against Parkinson’s). I also have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long before it may affect me.” Mr. Brin and his family have already endowed the Eugenia Brin Professorship in Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where his mother is being treated. Analysts said they did not believe that the news about Mr. Brin would have a negative impact on Google’s shares.

Brin Sergey
Parkinson's Disease
Google Inc
Genetics and Heredity
Medicine and Health
Nerves and Nervous System
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)
23andMe
Wojcicki Anne


Apps Make the Most of Spare Time in a Strange City

Abstract: Layovers, canceled meetings or time before a flight home — whatever the reason, business travelers may find themselves with a few hours to spare. Some use the time to catch up on e-mail or beat the BrickBreaker high scores on their BlackBerrys. But there is another option: exploring the local sights. And Web sites and smartphone applications have made that a lot easier. Alana Hoskin Smith works with consumer products and retail clients for Deloitte & Touche and is usually in one to two cities a week around the United States. She uses her extra time to visit local shops, boutiques and malls. “It’s a personal interest, and it helps me with my work,” she said. Ms. Hoskin Smith says she asks for neighborhood recommendations from the hotel concierge, her clients and friends. But she also uses an app called Poynt that is available on all smartphones to find local retailers, restaurant reviews and reservations, as well as gas stations so she can fill up her rental car. The app uses the location of her phone to recommend places nearby, and can display a map of how to get to them. A similar app is AroundMe , which lists nearby banks, gas stations, hospitals, restaurants, hotels and other places, without user reviews. For business travelers abroad, the free app World Customs and Cultures , available on iPhones, iPads and iPods, offers a quick briefing on local mores. Sections cover greetings, personal space, laws, gender issues and local gestures and taboos. Travelers can also use a variety of language translation software and apps for their laptops and smartphones. Some require the phrase to be typed in, while others have speech recognition that works to varying degrees. Most, like Google Translate, are free. Globetrotters loyal to a favorite brand of travel book, like Fodor’s , Frommer’s , Lonely Planet or Rough Guides , will find that their Web sites are also filled with information on destinations worldwide. Another option is to search the Internet for “Top 10 things to do in Barcelona” or another city. That will net a variety of lists with suggestions. And travelers can compare a few of the lists to discover the most commonly recommended sites. Travelers with the new iPhone can ask Siri for recommendations, like “Are there any museums nearby?” Siri will respond with a list of museums close to them. Directions are also available. The Siri service can also answer specific questions like, “Is there a Cuban restaurant near me?” or “How do I get to the airport?” But it does not understand general queries like, “I have four hours to spend in San Francisco, what should I do?” For crowd-sourced local information, travelers can go to the free Trover Web site to see photos of nearby sights as well as stores and restaurants. The Web site was introduced last year and now includes 100,000 photos from 160 countries artfully arranged from closest to the location specified to farther out with an icon of a person walking, on a skateboard or in a car to indicate distance. It is also available on Android phones and the iPhone. Spotted by Locals provides another useful Web site, series of blogs, and iPhone app with locally written travel guides and reviews of hangouts and events in 41 European cities. Wi-Fi Finder for the iPhone uses its GPS function to show where the closest free and paid Wi-Fi hot spots are and includes more than 650,000 locations in 144 countries. For guided tours, the app HearPlanet , for iPhones and Android phones, provides audio files describing local sights, like the Empire State Building , that travelers can listen to as they gaze, walk or ride past in a taxi. Rick Steves’s Audio Europe offers free self-guided audio walking tours for the iPod , iPhone and Android, as well as podcasts from his NPR radio program. A slide show accompanies the walking tours, which focus on London, Paris, Athens, Rome, Florence and Venice. Travelers who are often on the road may be not be interested in sightseeing, but still want a break from the hotel-taxi-meeting treadmill. Co-working, or “hot desk,” spaces in some cities offer businesspeople work spaces and couches, meeting rooms and basic office equipment to share. But the biggest attraction may be the other people there. Liz Dunn, a real estate developer who travels from Seattle to London several times a year, said she appreciated meeting the local start-up employees and designers when she arrived with her laptop and briefcase at the Hub at King’s Cross, part of a network of 28 worldwide shared work spaces geared toward social entrepreneurs and innovators. Local residents and visitors can buy a membership or pay for a day pass at the Hub. “It’s funky and affordable,“ Ms. Dunn said, “and I feel like I’m embedding myself in the entrepreneurial nature of the city.” The experience has even inspired her to open a similar gathering place, called the Agnes Underground , last month in Seattle. And for the traveler who may not have enough time to see the sights in town, GateGuru , for the iPhone and Android phones, provides information on the food and retail outlets at airports. Then, there are travelers like Mark Patricof, managing partner at Mesa Global, a media and entertainment financial and strategic advisory firm, who relies on old-fashioned techniques, like asking business associates or serendipity, to find some out-of-the-way spot in town. “When all you see is the inside of the airport, the hotel and the antiseptic meeting rooms when you’ve traveled so far around the world, it’s just a shame,” he said. On a recent trip to Shanghai, Mr. Patricof said he used a map to navigate the city on foot in search of the Propaganda Poster Art Center , which turned out to be a few rooms in the basement of a nearly deserted cinderblock apartment complex, guarded by a non-English-speaking watchman. “Trying to find it was a little daunting, but inside was a gorgeous display of 50 years of propaganda posters, and I had it all to myself,” he said. On the way back to his hotel, he stopped at street vendors for pancakes with hot chilies, and duck blood soup. “The whole adventure, the uncertainty of it, was wonderful,” he said. Mr. Patricof advised thinking about sites to visit, but also taking advantage of opportunities that arise. On a recent trip to Mumbai, Mr. Patricof stopped his taxi so he and a colleague could walk down a famous shopping street they were passing. “We were staring at all the fascinating things they were selling,” he said, “and the shoppers were all staring at the tourists in business suits.”

Mobile Applications
Travel and Vacations
Business Travel
Smartphones


Daniel Snyder Bellows in Comic Opera of the Redskins

Abstract: Once upon a time, the Redskins were a bedrock franchise of the N.F.L., a perennial playoff team and a winner of three Super Bowls. The paranoiac coach George Allen took calls from the paranoiac president Richard Nixon, who even drew up a few plays for the team. Quarterbacks Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Theismann, Billy Kilmer and Doug Williams piled up wins. Many years, all that Republicans and Democrats could agree upon was their passion for this team. That feels as if it happened in 1014 B.C. Now, the Washington Redskins play like a comic opera, one that was years in the making and that finally achieved exquisite grandeur this past week. In the midst of (yet another) losing season, the Redskins played at home last Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, perhaps the most execrable team in the N.F.C. The Redskins lost, 27-6, and fell to 3-7. Blown coverage, interceptions, a fumble, penalties, a half-dozen sacks, missed blocks and tackles: The Redskins’ roof did not spring a leak; it collapsed in a cloud of plaster dust. Then quarterback Robert Griffin III decided to get real, which is a rare and always wonderful treat in the Pentagon-speak world of pro football. How terrible were the Redskins, Robert? “It’s a travesty out there today,” he said by way of excellent introduction. “We had false-start penalties, holding penalties; it was just bad ball out there. The fact of the matter is that we’re not a very good football team right now.” It should be noted that he included himself in his critique — his interceptions, his failed looks. There are no All-Pros here, he said, but then he felt compelled to add: “If you want to look at the good teams in this league and the great quarterbacks, the Peytons and the Aaron Rodgers, those guys don’t play well if their guys don’t play well. They don’t.” On he went as reporters squeezed their recorders and prayed silently that their batteries wouldn’t fail. Hours later, the All-Pro receiver DeSean Jackson published a match-tossed-atop-gasoline post on Instagram. Using an expletive, he said you couldn’t play in an “epic” way “with basic people.” Some speculated that he had meant to rip Griffin. Or that he had supported him. Jackson declined to play deconstructionist. “Whoever felt it was directed at them, that’s who it was directed at,” he said. Cool that, DeSean. The pot was on high boil. And, God bless him, the team’s baby-faced head coach, Jay Gruden, stepped to the lectern the next day and stuck his hand in and swirled it around. He spoke like an aggrieved spouse of Griffin’s. “First of all, Robert needs to understand he needs to worry about himself, No. 1, and not everyone else,” Gruden said. “He stepped up when he didn’t have to step up and stepped into pressure. He read the wrong side of the field a couple of times. From his basic performance, just critiquing Robert, it was not even close to being good enough.” Oh, Coach, as long as you’re chewing up the scenery, what about Jackson? Gruden momentarily looked puzzled. “I don’t exactly know what DeSean meant,” he said. Image “We’re not a very good football team right now,” Robert Griffin III said of the 3-7 Redskins. Credit Patrick Mcdermott/Getty Images Of late, the assumption is that the bad mojo centers on Griffin. He came on the scene as a colt of a quarterback, fast, with a beautiful arm and a reckless pinball abandon. And he had the personal branding down, with a megawatt smile. For the better part of a year, he rocked the league. Then Mike Shanahan, the Redskins’ coach at the time, committed the macho blunder so beloved of football coaches and conspired with Griffin for him to play through pain. Griffin limped into the playoffs, and in the first game his knee more or less exploded. Griffin missed a year. His magic was like loose change fallen out of his pocket and down the sewer. The new Griffin has looked tentative, the pell-mell gone from his game. Gruden has tried to turn him into a pocket-occupying quarterback, which tends to emphasize what he does not do so well, such as reading defenses. That’s the conventional theory. Me? I point to suburban Maryland, which happens to be the home of the billionaire Daniel Snyder, who owns the Redskins. I lived in Washington when Snyder came stomping into town in 1999, talking like a pint-size George Steinbrenner. Everything was going to be bigger, tougher and more profitable under Danny. He succeeded on the profit front and failed at everything else. He has changed coaches, on average, every other year. Since he bought the team, the Redskins have gone 109-147, and counting. He sued season-ticket holders who, in the depths of a recession, were unable to pay exorbitant ticket fees. He banned signs because they tended to poke fun at him. He launched a libel suit against a writer for Washington City Paper who wrote a clever “Cranky Redskin Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder.” “Mr. Snyder is a public figure,” Snyder’s lawsuit noted. “As such, he accepts the right of the public and the press to criticize him.” This acknowledgment was big of him. He later dropped the suit. He also chopped down a long, grand row of old-growth trees to improve his view. Most important, and this is where I get to the point of my digression, he infuriated Native Americans by insisting on retaining his team’s offensive name. This is peculiar because relatively few owners of highly visible franchises like to intentionally insult entire groups. Of late, he has claimed a long-ago owner named the team to honor a Native American coach. This was doubly false: The long-ago owner intended no such honor, and the coach in question very likely was not Native American. Oh, Snyder has sued the Oneida Indian Nation for opposing his use of the name Redskins. What does Snyder’s thrashing about have to do with anything? If you don’t believe in karma, you might say, “Nothing.” As for me, I’m ambling back into the sweat lodge to listen to Griffin, who by week’s end sounded utterly neutered. Any thoughts on this past week? he was asked. “Like I said, I’m going to trust the guys.” Some have criticized your work habits. Is that fair? “Yeah, man, like I said, focus on San Francisco, man.” Have you tried to make too many changes in your game? “Focus on San Francisco, man.” How is your relationship with the coach? “Great.” Griffin knows how to keep a straight face, even in the middle of Washington’s comic opera.

Football
Daniel M Snyder
Robert Griffin III
Redskins


Rookie’s Hat Trick Gives Fire First Win, Ending Red Bulls’ Run

Abstract: The rookie midfielder Harry Shipp scored three goals, his first in Major League Soccer, to rally the Chicago Fire to a 5-4 victory over the host Red Bulls on Saturday night. Shipp, who led Notre Dame to last year’s N.C.A.A. title, gave Chicago the lead in the fourth minute and then added goals in the 54th and 58th minutes as the Fire got their first win of the season. Chicago (1-2-6), which came into the game as the only remaining team in M.L.S. to not have won a game this season, withstood a late surge to end the Red Bulls’ four-game unbeaten streak. “It’s tough for me to be critical of my team, because every year you’ve got to allow yourself for a game like this, maybe two,” Red Bulls Coach Mike Petke said. “And I’ve been there before. I told them it wasn’t good enough. But I’ve been on the losing end of a game like this and I’ve been exhausted like them.” Bradley Wright-Phillips scored three goals for the Red Bulls, who rallied from a 5-2 deficit in the second half. It was Wright-Phillips’s second hat trick in four games and gave him eight goals in that stretch. VILLARREAL CRUISES IN SPAIN With a Europa League berth already secured, Villarreal rolled to a 4-0 win over 10-man Rayo Vallecano in its last La Liga home game of the season. Villarreal is in seventh place, 2 points behind Sociedad. If Villarreal finishes above Sociedad, it will avoid a playoff to reach the Europa League group phase. Also, Levante beat Valencia, 2-0, to sit one round away from finishing above its city rival for the first time. LEVERKUSEN CLINCHES CHAMPIONS LEAGUE BERTH Nuremberg and Eintracht Braunschweig were relegated on the final day of the Bundesliga season, and Bayer Leverkusen clinched the last Champions League qualification spot. Leverkusen came from behind to beat Werder Bremen, 2-1, and secure fourth place immediately. Hamburger SV got the relegation playoff place despite losing 3-2 at Mainz, which secured a Europa League berth. Neither Nuremberg nor Braunschweig could capitalize on Hamburg’s loss. Nuremberg lost, 4-1, at Schalke, and Braunschweig stayed bottom after a 3-1 loss at Hoffenheim. It was a Bundesliga record eighth relegation for Nuremberg, while Braunschweig returns to the second division one season after securing promotion. INTER NEARS EUROPA BERTH Javier Zanetti’s last home match at San Siro was celebrated with a win as Inter Milan beat Lazio, 4-1, to all but guarantee a Europa League berth from Serie A. Zanetti, the 40-year-old captain, will retire after 19 seasons at Inter, and the stadium was sold out as fans packed in to bid farewell. Earlier, Udinese fought back from two goals down to draw, 2-2, at Hellas Verona. P.S.G. SETS POINTS RECORD The French league champion Paris St.-Germain broke the record for most points in a season by defeating Lille, 3-1. P.S.G. has 86 points, two more than Lyon’s record in 2006. Marquinhos, Lucas Moura and Blaise Matuidi scored for P.S.G.

Soccer
New York Red Bulls Soccer Team
Chicago Fire Soccer Team


U.S. Industries Post Gains in Production

Abstract: From steel making to mining, American industries posted higher-than-expected gains in production in November, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday, offering some hope that manufacturers would soon begin to accelerate their output. But many factories were still operating below capacity, economists noted, and the gains could disappear if spending by American consumers remained weak. “Positive momentum is building, but at this point a broad-based economic recovery has yet to materialize for American industries,” said Dave Huether, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers. “The recovery is still fragile and in the beginning stages.” Federal Reserve policy makers are expected to weigh the data on production, as well as a separate report released Tuesday showing an increase in wholesale prices, when they meet to set interest rates on Wednesday. But despite an increase in production and prices, many economists say they believe that inflationary pressures remain in check and that the Fed will leave rates unchanged. Over all, industrial production rose 0.8 percent in November — the largest increase since August — outpacing expectations. Capacity utilization, which measures how much of the nation’s production capability is in use, remained at 71.3 percent, far below the historical average of 80.9. Fed officials have said in recent weeks that the large amount of excess capacity in the economy will keep inflation under control. The rise in industrial production suggested companies were backing off efforts to rid their shelves of excess goods and switching into production mode to keep up with orders. The shrinking value of the dollar has helped nurture demand abroad for products like computers and machinery. But economists say they believe that gains in production cannot be sustained only by rising exports: American consumers must increase spending. “We’re not going to go back to the high-flying, debt-based spending we had this last decade,” said Daniel J. Meckstroth, chief economist for Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. “But you have to have a moderate pace of growth in consumer spending.” Mr. Meckstroth said it would probably take three years before manufacturing returned to its pre- recession levels. Even as production ramps up, hiring remains weak. Many companies face increasing costs, placing limits on how much they can spend on workers and equipment. Wholesale prices on products as diverse as trucks and vegetables climbed 1.8 percent in November, according to a Labor Department report released Tuesday, in large part because of a surge in fuel costs. Analysts had predicted a more modest increase of 0.8 percent, and several economists said the next several months would probably show less significant gains as energy prices stabilized. Still, the government recorded the first year-over-year increase in prices since the height of the financial crisis a year ago. At a time when 15.4 million Americans are feeling the squeeze of unemployment and businesses are struggling to regain their footing, companies may find themselves unable to pass the higher prices along to consumers. “It’s going to complicate the lives of businesses a lot,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS Global Insight. “I don’t think it will derail the recovery, but it’s a problem that could slow down hiring if they can’t pass these costs down.” Rising oil prices led the gains, with the cost of gasoline increasing 14.2 percent. Even after energy and food costs were excluded, the index rose 0.5 percent, the largest increase since October 2008, lifted by a 4.2 percent increase in the cost of light trucks and sport utility vehicles and a 2.6 percent rise in cigarettes. A separate index on manufacturing in New York State fell to its lowest level since July, after four months of steady increases. The number of factory employees also fell.

Producer Price Index
United States Economy


McCain’s Camp Tests Fund-Raising Limits

Abstract: Senator John McCain toiled for years to push a campaign finance overhaul through Congress. After the measure finally passed, Trevor Potter, a lawyer and vigorous advocate for reforming the system, was instrumental in defending the law from challenges and pressing for strict enforcement. Now, as Mr. McCain makes his final sprint for the White House, Mr. Potter is again helping Mr. McCain, but this time by maneuvering to wring the maximum out of campaign finance laws in ways that some contend are at odds with the spirit of the reforms they championed. The tactics appear to be legally permissible. And some argue that the McCain campaign is simply doing what is necessary in the face of the record fund-raising by his Democratic rival for president, Senator Barack Obama, and Mr. Obama’s decision to bypass public financing and its attendant spending limits. But critics point out Mr. McCain is capitalizing on legal loopholes that a watchdog organization headed by Mr. Potter has fought against. “There are very, very few lawyers in the country that are better at exploiting campaign finance loopholes than Trevor Potter,” said Bradley A. Smith, a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “Of course, that’s one of the odd things about the McCain campaign: ‘Here’s the rules we want, but we’ll play by the rules that are here.’ ” Mr. McCain was an author of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as the McCain-Feingold law, an ambitious measure that supporters hoped would help drive big money out of politics. He has also helped sponsor legislation to improve the public financing system for elections and attacked Mr. Obama for backing away from a pledge to participate in it for the general election if his opponent accepted public money as well. But now, as Mr. McCain’s top legal adviser, Mr. Potter, a former F.E.C. chairman, and his team have been helping the campaign finesse the strict spending limits it faces under public financing. Although Mr. McCain is supposed to be out of the business of private fund-raising after he received his $84 million infusion from the Treasury this month, it is sometimes difficult to tell. This month, the McCain campaign began running banner Web advertisements asking for donations to the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund, a fund-raising vehicle rooted in a 1980s F.E.C. ruling that candidates who accept public financing can still collect private donations for legal and accounting costs for complying with campaign finance laws. Only a careful observer, however, would have noticed the advertisements’ fine print, which said donations to the fund would be used to pay for “a portion of the cost of broadcast advertising,” as well as other expenses. That would seem to be a far cry from the legal and accounting exemption. But the F.E.C. issued an advisory opinion last year that said Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign could use its compliance fund to cover up to 5 percent of its advertising costs, because of the several seconds candidates must devote in their advertisements to a disclaimer. The Campaign Legal Center, founded by Mr. Potter, joined with Democracy 21, a watchdog group, to file a strongly worded brief opposing the practice, warning that it would be exploited. The McCain campaign declined to make Mr. Potter available for an interview. Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the campaign, said in a statement that the campaign had not yet paid for advertising with its compliance fund but “reserves the option to do so under this recent, clear F.E.C. precedent.” The centerpiece of McCain-Feingold was its efforts to rein in “soft money,” or unregulated contributions, in national elections. But McCain fund-raisers continue to build much of their efforts around the solicitation of large contributions of up to about $70,000 for a special joint fund-raising account for the Republican National Committee and several state parties, which can spend money on behalf of the campaign, called McCain-Palin Victory 2008. Campaigns have used the joint fund-raising committees in the past, but the McCain campaign took the practice to a new level by linking them with state party accounts, which can accept contributions of $10,000, on top of the $28,500 collected for the national party, $2,300 for the compliance fund and, until recently, $2,300 for the campaign’s primary coffers. Critics have contended that the large donations to the joint fund-raising accounts amount to a form of soft money. The Obama campaign has been using its own joint fund-raising committee with the Democratic Party, but it only recently created a separate account for the state parties, so the checks are not nearly as big. “The real irony here,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, a watchdog group, “is we fought so hard to get B.C.R.A. through, McCain-Feingold through, with the whole intent of getting rid of those large donations, which everyone, including McCain, realized were potentially corrupting. And we’ve gone full circle with these large donations for the joint fund-raising committees.” McCain fund-raisers certainly seem to pitch donations to the victory committee as supporting the ticket. The McCain campaign Web site attracts donors with a prominent “Contribute” button that sends them to a donation page for the committee, along with some lengthy disclaimers of the various entities that benefit from it. By contrast, the Kerry campaign’s contribution button on its Web page in 2004 was more clearly labeled “Contribute to the Democratic Party.” The Obama campaign is not soliciting contributions for its joint fund-raising committee on its Web site. Some lawyers said that some of the ways the McCain campaign is pushing its victory committee fit awkwardly with the broader mandate of public financing to halt private fund-raising, as well as rules that ban the designating of funds to party committees for specific candidates. “I think it’s both an appearance and a legal question,” said Lawrence H. Norton, who left his post as general counsel to the F.E.C. last year. But Mr. Rogers pointed to explanatory language used in literature by the joint fund-raising committees and said they undertook “substantial efforts to avoid any potential misunderstanding.” Mr. Potter built his reputation as an activist while he was F.E.C. chairman in the 1990s and later founded his reform-minded legal center. He took a leave this year from his position as president to devote himself to being the McCain campaign’s general counsel while also still maintaining a private practice. Guided by Mr. Potter, the McCain campaign is also adopting one of the most controversial innovations introduced by the Bush campaign in 2004: the use of so-called hybrid advertisements, which allowed it to split the cost of television commercials with the Republican Party. The practice was later copied by the Democrats. The F.E.C. deadlocked on the legality of the advertisements last year, paving the way for the McCain campaign to rely heavily on them. But Mr. Potter’s Campaign Legal Center joined Democracy 21 last year in a vigorous objection to the practice, labeling it a “scheme to evade the spending limits.” Some election law lawyers speculated that the McCain campaign might push the envelope further and try to split the costs of its hybrid advertisements with state parties as well, or produce some advertisements in which the party picks up more of the cost. Mr. Rogers said the campaign had no plans to change the 50-50 ratio for dividing the advertising costs but declined to comment on the state parties question. Mr. Rogers said Mr. McCain’s detractors often insinuated that because of his reformist reputation “almost anything he does to raise or spend money is a violation of his principles.” But Mr. Rogers said the campaign was complying with all laws. Indeed, some lawyers argued that Mr. Potter and Mr. McCain were simply dealing with the realities of a close race. “They’re taking full advantage of opportunities the law provides for them,” said Robert D. Lenhard, a former Democratic F.E.C. chairman.

McCain John
Presidential Election of 2008
Campaign Finance
Potter Trevor


New Film May Sway Brazil’s Vote on President

Abstract: SANTO ANTÔNIO de JESUS, Brazil — In the opening scenes of a new Brazilian movie, a 7-year-old boy roams barefoot through the parched, cactus-filled dirt of the northeastern town of Caetés, collecting water from a creek where cows drink while his mother waits in the one-room house he shares with seven brothers and sisters. The boy, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , would become president of Brazil and one of the world’s most popular leaders, despite his fourth-grade education and impoverished childhood. The movie, “Lula, the Son of Brazil,” which opened in Brazilian theaters on New Year’s Day, traces his inspiring biography from the hardscrabble childhood with a doting mother and a hard-drinking, abusive father, to his heroic rise as a union leader who was briefly imprisoned by the military dictatorship. “What Lula has offered Brazilians is freedom from an inferiority complex,” said Fabio Barreto, the film’s director, an avowed supporter of the president who makes no apologies for glossing over any rough spots in his story. “This society has always been treated as inferior and lazy and less than what they are. No one has ever come here to tell us that our people are strong.” The story stops before Mr. da Silva’s political career takes off. But that has not stopped politicians and other critics from questioning the intentions of the producers, who released the film during a presidential election year. “Everything about this film is political,” said Amaury de Souza, a political analyst in Rio de Janeiro. “You are not just doing a movie about an ordinary Brazilian.” Although Mr. da Silva is barred from running for re-election, he hopes to transfer his popularity to his chief of staff and his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff . Beyond any lift for Ms. Rousseff, who has struggled with name recognition, political analysts see the film as a part of a reordering of the “myth of Lula” that could help him return to power in 2014. For years, the onetime leader of a steelworkers’ union had been portrayed as a success story from the industrial working class, an automobile factory worker who was elected president on his fourth try. As president, his steady economic stewardship, populist appeal and charisma have made him a national icon. But after a congressional vote-buying scandal damaged his Workers Party in 2005, threatening to draw impeachment charges against him, Mr. da Silva began distancing himself from the party and emphasizing his background as “the poor Brazilian that comes from a shack to become president of Brazil,” Mr. de Souza said. The movie will tell that story to perhaps millions of viewers, and if the reaction at a theater here last Thursday night is any indication, they will find its message appealing. “This shows the determination and will to live that many Brazilians have, especially in the poorer classes,” said Gulimar Ferreira, a public prosecutor, as he left the theater. “And it showed Lula’s perseverance. I didn’t know he had suffered so much.” Mr. da Silva, too, was moved, weeping openly at a special screening last November. “I started to cry at the beginning when I saw the image of my mother,” he told reporters the next day. And at a news conference last month, he denied the film would help Ms. Rousseff, whose character did not appear in the movie. “The movie, in reality, is the story of my mother,” he said. “This is not a movie about Lula.” The producers say they did not set out to make a political film, but rather hoped to capitalize on the popularity of Mr. da Silva, who commands approval ratings hovering over 70 percent heading into his final year in office. “I don’t think a movie has the power” to affect an election, said Paula Barreto, the film’s producer. “Lula is Lula and this film is about his family.” The Rio-based Barretos , one of Brazil’s most prominent movie-making families, are open admirers of Mr. da Silva. The family’s patriarch, Luiz Carlos Barreto, 81, who produced the country’s most successful film ever, “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands,” sought to make a film about the president after buying the rights in 2003 to a book by Denise Paraná, a former spokeswoman for Mr. da Silva. The film was released now, Ms. Barreto said, “because it was ready.” It has nevertheless drawn criticism for its omissions and apparent attempts to sanitize Mr. da Silva’s life story. The film fails to mention, for instance, that when he was 29 years old he abandoned his girlfriend, Miriam Cordeiro, when she was six months pregnant. Ms. Barreto said that the filmmakers deleted Ms. Cordeiro’s story after her family threatened legal action. Ms. Cordeiro’s family declined to comment for this article. “I don’t believe it,” said Manuela Almeida, 17, who was told about the omission after she watched the film here. “It seems to me they left it out of the movie on purpose because it would not be good for the image of the president.” The movie also substitutes beer for Mr. da Silva’s favorite cachaça, the national cane liquor. Ms. Barreto said that was because the Brazilian beer company AmBev paid for product placement. “Everything you see is based on real events, with a splash of fiction,” said Fabio Barreto, the director. “It is not a documentary.” (Mr. Barreto was interviewed before he had a serious car accident on Dec. 19. He remains in an induced coma.) Ms. Paraná, the screenwriter, said several scenes of Mr. da Silva’s “heroism” were also left on the cutting-room floor. The Barretos also point out they did not use government tax incentives normally available to companies that invest in Brazilian productions. But the financing raises other questions. Some of Brazil’s biggest companies invested in the film, which at nearly $7 million is the most expensive Brazilian movie ever made. They included the heavy construction firms Odebrecht and Camargo Correa, as well as electric utilities that rely on government concessions. Some critics have asserted that the sponsors may be seeking favor with the government as it enters an intense period of infrastructure development leading up to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Whether the film plays a role in the election remains to be seen. Despite having a population of more than 190 million people, Brazil has only about 2,300 movie theaters; 93 percent of municipalities do not have movie theaters, the Barretos said. Nevertheless, the Barretos are making an intense effort to get the movie seen by many, especially the poor. The filmmakers plan a second release in March in isolated towns that do not have theaters, using trucks and tents to show the movie, Ms. Barreto said. They are in discussions with the Brazilian media giant Globo, which has television rights to the film, about producing a mini-series. Here in Santo Antônio de Jesus, in Brazil’s less-affluent interior, the audience seems receptive. Ms. Almeida, who will be voting for the first time this year, said the movie gave her a better appreciation of the president. “I am going to vote for Dilma this year because I want to see the country continue the way it has been going,” she said. “I don’t know much about her, I need to learn about her, but I have been told she has a similar political story to Lula, that she struggled a lot like him.”


De Blasio Team Violated Campaign Finance Laws, Report Says

Abstract: An investigation by the New York State Board of Elections found evidence of flagrant violations of campaign finance law by a team of people that Mayor Bill de Blasio created to raise money for Democrats running for the State Senate in 2014, according to a confidential board report. The board sent the report to Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, three months ago, prompting a criminal investigation into the fund-raising. The mayor’s Senate effort, which failed in its goal to wrest the legislative body from Republican control, has proved damaging to him in multiple ways. Democrats remained in the minority in the Senate; the mayor’s relationship with Senate Republicans was severely strained, hurting his ability to win support in Albany for his agenda; and now it has led to one of several investigations that are tarnishing his administration. The investigation by the state board was reported on Friday by The Daily News . The board’s investigation, and the subsequent continuing inquiry by Manhattan prosecutors, is looking at whether there was an effort to illegally circumvent limits on campaign contributions to individual candidates by directing money instead through Democratic Party county committees and a statewide party campaign committee. The county and statewide committees can receive contributions of up to $102,300, which is much greater than the general election limit on contributions to candidates’ campaigns, $11,000 per donor. “The evidence demonstrates that the de Blasio team coordinated its fund-raising activities” with the campaigns of several candidates and routed contributions to them through the county and statewide committees “in order to evade contribution limits and to disguise the true names of the contributors,” according to the report. Risa S. Sugarman, the board’s chief enforcement counsel, wrote in a memo to board commissioners, “I have determined that reasonable cause exists to believe a violation warranting criminal prosecution has taken place.” She added, “The violations discovered by this investigation can only be described as willful and flagrant.” The New York Times obtained a copy of the report. The board’s investigation was prompted by complaints from Republican Party officials in Putnam and Ulster Counties, where hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from union political action committees and others poured into the local Democratic county committee in October 2014, shortly before the election. Large sums of money were then transferred to the local Democratic candidates. Those candidates also received large transfers from the statewide Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. The investigation focused on the campaigns of Cecilia F. Tkaczyk, who was running in a district that includes part of Ulster County, and Terry W. Gipson and Justin Wagner, whose districts included part of Putnam County. Image The New York State Board of Election’s investigation focused on the campaigns of Cecilia F. Tkaczyk and other Democrats. Credit Patrick Dodson/The Daily Gazette, via Associated Press The board’s report says that the fund-raising effort was run out of Mr. de Blasio’s City Hall and involved Emma Wolfe, his top political aide, and Ross Offinger, a fund-raiser for the mayor’s election campaign as well as the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit created by Mr. de Blasio to support his agenda. The report also names several union officials and political consulting firms, including BerlinRosen, which has longstanding ties to the mayor. It says that those people worked closely with the candidates and their campaigns in arranging for large donations to be made through the county and statewide committees, and then designated how the money would be spent. Some of the checks to the statewide committee included notations such as “Donation per Mayor,” the report said. One of the potentially most damning pieces of evidence cited in the report was in an email from the treasurer for Ms. Tkaczyk’s campaign, Matthew Lerch, to Hayes Clement, the treasurer of the Ulster County Democratic Committee. “Has the check for $60k cleared?” the email from Mr. Lerch said, according to the report. “Below is our banking info, we need the 60 transferred over ASAP please.” The email was sent on Oct. 16, 2014. State campaign finance records show that the Ulster County committee received a $60,000 contribution from the political action committee of the New York State Nurses Association, a union, on Oct. 14. The records indicate that on Oct. 17, the county committee transferred the same amount to Ms. Tkaczyk’s campaign. In all, the Ulster County committee transferred $330,000 to Ms. Tkaczyk’s campaign over a few days. Around the same time, the Putnam County committee transferred $367,000 to Mr. Wagner’s campaign and $273,750 to Mr. Gipson’s, in each case after taking in similar amounts from donors outside the county. “Reasonable cause exists to believe that all the contributions were made to the county committees simply as straw donors,” the report said. “Therefore they should be considered contributions to the candidates and subject to the candidates’ contribution receipt limits.” Despite the flood of cash, all three candidates lost their races. Investigators said that similar patterns existed with candidates running in Monroe and Erie Counties. Ms. Tkaczyk did not return a call for comment on Friday night. An email message for Mr. Clement was not returned and his voice mail was full. Efforts to reach Mr. Lerch and Mr. Gipson were also unsuccessful. The inquiry comes as Mr. de Blasio is facing investigations by several different agencies, including from federal prosecutors with the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, into his donors and fund-raising practices . “We are confident that all of our efforts were appropriate and in accordance with the law at all times,” Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio, said on Friday. “We will cooperate fully with the investigations.” Of Ms. Wolfe, the mayor’s aide who led the effort to capture the Senate for Democrats, she said: “Emma Wolfe is a highly regarded public servant whose integrity should not be in question. She followed the letter of the law.” Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the statewide Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said that it had followed all campaign finance regulations.

Campaign finance
Board of Elections NYS
New York
Bill de Blasio
NYC
State Legislature elections


U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan , according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation. Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information — some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began. But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence. The American military is largely prohibited from operating inside Pakistan. And under Pentagon rules, the army is not allowed to hire contractors for spying. Military officials said that when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in the region, signed off on the operation in January 2009, there were prohibitions against intelligence gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan. The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region, and information that could be used for “force protection,” they said. Some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities. And they pointed out that the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D. Furlong , was now under investigation . But a review of the program by The New York Times found that Mr. Furlong’s operatives were still providing information using the same intelligence gathering methods as before. The contractors were still being paid under a $22 million contract, the review shows, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by the Pentagon office in charge of special operations policy. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the program “remains under investigation by multiple offices within the Defense Department,” so it would be inappropriate to answer specific questions about who approved the operation or why it continues. “I assure you we are committed to determining if any laws were broken or policies violated,” he said. Spokesmen for General Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, declined to comment. Mr. Furlong remains at his job, working as a senior civilian Air Force official. A senior defense official said that the Pentagon decided just recently not to renew the contract, which expires at the end of May. While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expanded role of contractors on the battlefield — from interrogating prisoners to hunting terrorism suspects — has raised questions about whether the United States has outsourced some of its most secretive and important operations to a private army many fear is largely unaccountable. The C.I.A. has relied extensively on contractors in recent years to carry out missions in war zones. The exposure of the spying network also reveals tensions between the Pentagon and the C.I.A., which itself is running a covert war across the border in Pakistan. In December, a cable from the C.I.A.’s station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Pentagon argued that the military’s hiring of its own spies could have disastrous consequences, with various networks possibly colliding with one another. The memo also said that Mr. Furlong had a history of delving into outlandish intelligence schemes, including an episode in 2008, when American officials expelled him from Prague for trying to clandestinely set up computer servers for propaganda operations. Some officials say they believe that the C.I.A. is trying to scuttle the operation to protect its own turf, and that the spy agency has been embarrassed because the contractors are outperforming C.I.A. operatives. The private contractor network was born in part out of frustration with the C.I.A. and the military intelligence apparatus. There was a belief by some officers that the C.I.A. was too risk averse, too reliant on Pakistan’s spy service and seldom able to provide the military with timely information to protect American troops. In addition, the military has complained that it is not technically allowed to operate in Pakistan, whose government is willing to look the other way and allow C.I.A. spying but not the presence of foreign troops. Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, dismissed reports of a turf war. “There’s no daylight at all on this between C.I.A. and DoD,” he said. “It’s an issue for Defense to look into — it involves their people, after all — and that’s exactly what they’re doing.” Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon has used broad interpretations of its authorities to expand military intelligence operations, including sending Special Operations troops on clandestine missions far from declared war zones. These missions have raised concerns in Washington that the Pentagon is running de facto covert actions without proper White House authority and with little oversight from the elaborate system of Congressional committees and internal controls intended to prevent abuses in intelligence gathering. The officials say the contractors’ reports are delivered via an encrypted e-mail service to a “fusion cell,” located at the military base at Kabul International Airport. There, they are fed into classified military computer networks, then used for future military operations or intelligence reports. To skirt military restrictions on intelligence gathering, information the contractors gather in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas is specifically labeled “atmospheric collection”: information about the workings of militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan or about Afghan tribal structures. The boundaries separating “atmospherics” from what spies gather is murky. It is generally considered illegal for the military to run organized operations aimed at penetrating enemy organizations with covert agents. But defense officials with knowledge of the program said that contractors themselves regarded the contract as permission to spy. Several weeks ago, one of the contractors reported on Taliban militants massing near American military bases east of Kandahar. Not long afterward, Apache gunships arrived at the scene to disperse and kill the militants. The web of private businesses working under the Lockheed contract include Strategic Influence Alternatives, American International Security Corporation and International Media Ventures, a communications company based in St. Petersburg, Fla., with Czech ownership. One of the companies employs a network of Americans, Afghans and Pakistanis run by Duane Clarridge, a C.I.A. veteran who became famous for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Mr. Clarridge declined to be interviewed. The Times is withholding some information about the contractor network, including some of the names of agents working in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A spokesman for Lockheed said that no Pentagon officials had raised any concerns about the work. “We believe our subcontractors are effectively performing the work required of them under the terms of this task order,” said Tom Casey, the spokesman. “We’ve not received any information indicating otherwise.” Lockheed is not involved in the information gathering, but rather administers the contract. The specifics of the investigation into Mr. Furlong are unclear. Pentagon officials have said that the Defense Department’s inspector general is examining possible contract fraud and financial mismanagement dating from last year. In his only media interview since details of the operation were revealed, with The San Antonio Express-News, Mr. Furlong said that all of his work had been blessed by senior commanders. In that interview, he declined to provide further details. Officials said that the tussle over the intelligence operations dated from at least 2008, when some generals in Afghanistan grew angry at what they saw as a paucity of intelligence about the militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan who were regularly attacking American troops. In October of that year, Mr. Furlong traveled to C.I.A. headquarters with top Pentagon officials, including Brig. Gen. Robert H. Holmes, then the deputy operations officer at United States Central Command. General Holmes has since retired and is now an executive at one of the subcontractors, International Media Ventures. The meeting at the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center was set up to inform the spy agency about the military’s plans to collect “atmospheric information” about Afghanistan and Pakistan, including information about the structure of militant networks in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Mr. Furlong was testing the sometimes muddy laws governing traditional military activities. A former Army officer who sometimes referred to himself as “the king of the gray areas,” Mr. Furlong played a role in many of America’s recent adventures abroad. He ran psychological operations missions in the Balkans, worked at a television network in Iraq, now defunct, that was sponsored by the American government and made frequent trips to Kabul, Eastern Europe and the Middle East in recent years to help run a number of clandestine military propaganda operations. At the C.I.A. meeting in 2008, the atmosphere quickly deteriorated, according to some in attendance, because C.I.A. officials were immediately suspicious that the plans amounted to a back-door spying operation. In general, according to one American official, intelligence operatives are nervous about the notion of “private citizens running around a war zone, trying to collect intelligence that wasn’t properly vetted for operations that weren’t properly coordinated.” Shortly afterward, in a legal opinion stamped “Secret,” lawyers at the military’s Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Fla., signed off on a version of Mr. Furlong’s proposed operations, adding specific language that the program should not carry out “inherent intelligence activities.” In January 2009, General Petraeus wrote a letter endorsing the proposed operations, which had been requested by Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan at the time. What happened after that money began flowing to Afghanistan remains a matter of dispute. General McKiernan said in an interview with The Times that he never endorsed hiring private contractors specifically for intelligence gathering. Instead, he said, he was interested in gaining “atmospherics” from the contractors to help him and his commanders understand the complex cultural and political makeup of the region. “It could give us a better understanding of the rural areas, of what people there saying, what they were expressing as their needs, and their concerns,” he said. “It was not intelligence for manhunts,” he said. “That was clearly not it, and we agreed that’s not what this was about.” To his mind, he said, intelligence is specific information that could be used for attacks on militants in Afghanistan. General McKiernan said he had endorsed a reporting and research network in Afghanistan and Pakistan pitched to him a year earlier by Robert Young Pelton, a writer and chronicler of the world’s danger spots, and Eason Jordan, a former CNN executive. The project, called AfPax Insider, would have been used a subscription-based Web site, but also a secure information database that only the military could access. In an interview, Mr. Pelton said that he did not gather intelligence and never worked at the direction of Mr. Furlong and that he did not have a government contract for the work. But Mr. Pelton said that AfPax did receive reimbursement from International Media Ventures, one of the companies hired for Mr. Furlong’s operation. He said that he was never told that I.M.V. was doing clandestine work for the government. It was several months later, during the summer of 2009, when officials said that the private contractor network using Mr. Clarridge and other former C.I.A. and Special Operations troops was established. Mr. Furlong, according to several former colleagues, believed that Mr. Pelton and Mr. Jordan had failed to deliver on their promises, and that the new team could finally carry out the program first envisioned by General McKiernan. The contractor network assumed a cloak-and-dagger air, with the information reports stripped of anything that might reveal sources’ identities, and the collectors were assigned code names and numbers.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Steelers, Beating Ravens, Again Look Like Themselves

Abstract: BALTIMORE — Charlie Batch hugged each teammate he encountered long and hard as the Pittsburgh Steelers streamed off the field, as if he knew this was his valedictory. Since quarterback Ben Roethlisberger sustained a shoulder injury and broken ribs three weeks ago and his backup, Byron Leftwich, broke his ribs, the Steelers’ playoff hopes have hung on Batch’s aging arm. A team that early in November had seemed to be finding its playoff form after a victory over the Giants had been watching its annual appointment with the postseason slip away in a flurry of turnovers, missed passes and stalled offense. But on Sunday, the Steelers may have rescued their season with a 23-20 last-second victory over the Baltimore Ravens , their fiercest rival. Only last week, the former receiver Hines Ward wondered whom the Steelers could rely on as a leader in the offensive huddle when adversity struck. The answer, it turned out, was Batch, who threw three interceptions last week as the Steelers turned the ball over eight times in a loss to the Cleveland Browns. “I think every game I go out there, I look at it that way,” Batch said of whether he played with greater urgency because this might be his last game. “I wanted this opportunity because I played poorly last week, and I wanted the opportunity to come out there and prove it and lead this team. I’ve been in the league 15 years. I’ve been a starter in this league, and the one thing you can’t do is dwell on the past.” The victory kept the Steelers (7-5) two games behind the Ravens (9-3) in the A.F.C. North. The loss prevented the Ravens from clinching a playoff berth, and a victory by the Bengals (7-5) over the Chargers kept the Steelers and the Bengals well situated in the A.F.C. wild-card race. The Colts, last-second victors over the Lions, are 8-4 and seem virtually assured of seizing one of the wild cards. That leaves the Bengals and the Steelers to fight it out over the final month of the season for the other, with a Dec. 23 game between them in Pittsburgh looming. In the two previous games that Roethlisberger did not start, both losses and one of them against the Ravens in Pittsburgh two weeks ago, the Steelers scored 10 and 14 points. The Ravens had won 12 consecutive division games and 23 of their last 24 at home. They also owned a lopsided advantage at home, averaging 36.8 points, compared with 16.5 on the road. But the version of the Steelers that appeared in Baltimore looked much more like a vintage Steelers team. The defense entered the game having allowed the fewest yards by opposing offenses in the league, and the fifth-fewest points (an average of 19.1). That left it to the offense, of which Batch — in what could have been his last start, if Roethlisberger returns as expected next week — took control. At almost 38, he completed 25 of 36 passes for 276 yards and was especially impressive in the second half, when the Steelers rolled up 273 of their 366 yards. There were gaffes; Batch wildly overthrew Mike Wallace in the end zone near the end of the first half and was intercepted by Ed Reed in the end zone early in the fourth quarter. But Batch was also sharper than he was in the previous two games, a result he expected when he said last week that he thought he was getting more comfortable with the receivers. When Batch retires, he may look back and admire the block he threw to escort running back Jonathan Dwyer into the end zone early in the third quarter to tie the game. But it was after the Ravens retook the lead later in the third quarter that Batch did most of his work. After Reed’s interception, the Steelers’ defense returned the favor when James Harrison stripped Joe Flacco on a sack three plays later. The Ravens have waited for Flacco to play like an elite quarterback, but he did not on Sunday, completing 16 of 34 passes for 188 yards with an interception, a touchdown and that costly fumble. The fumble gave Batch his opening. He completed a screen pass and then rifled a 17-yard pass down the middle of the field to Emmanuel Sanders. After a run went nowhere, on second-and-goal from the Ravens’ 7, Batch rambled to his right and fired a strike to tight end Heath Miller. Miller caught the ball at about the 3 and stretched out, extending the ball to touch the right pylon. Then, after the defense held the Ravens again, Batch took a hard hit by Haloti Ngata on a 15-yard, third-down pass to Wallace on the right sideline. But he got up. The clock ticked down, time draining away on the Ravens’ chances to get the ball back. The Steelers kept moving. They were at the Ravens 19’ after a roughing-the-passer penalty, and after a false start and a few runs into the pile, Shaun Suisham kicked the winning 42-yard field goal with no time remaining. But it was Batch, with his playing time probably up in the stretch run of the season, who had the most to celebrate. “He did a great job managing the game, keeping us as an offense and making positive plays,” Miller said. Batch was asked if he would try to play again next year. “As long as I can play, I’m going to come back,” he said.

Football
Pittsburgh Steelers
Baltimore Ravens
Batch Charlie


Dance Quietly Is Winner of Busanda at Aqueduct

Abstract: Dance Quietly won a stakes race for her late owner, capturing the $65,000 Busanda for 3-year-old fillies at Aqueduct. Edward P. Evans died Dec. 31 from acute myeloid leukemia. He won more than 100 stakes races in 30-plus years as an owner. Dance Quietly, the stable’s first starter since his death, was bred on his farm in Virginia.


With Rules Suspended, Parking in Brooklyn Was Still Tough, Study Shows

Abstract: When the city suspended alternate-side parking regulations in Park Slope for two months last summer, residents feared the worst for their already crowded streets. As it turns out, however, outsiders did not dump their cars in the Brooklyn neighborhood, and the likelihood of easily finding a parking spot did not change — it remained fairly impossible. Those conclusions are part of a study, released by the Department of Transportation on Tuesday, finding that traffic and parking patterns remained unchanged, for the most part, when the city suspended the rules while they were replacing 2,800 street-cleaning signs, despite what seemed like a radical makeover of the streetscape. Some residents said they were worried that already scarce parking spaces would become harder to find, that trash would pile up and that invaders from other neighborhoods would take advantage and leave their cars. Bruce Schaller , the deputy commissioner of transportation, said the suspension of parking rules “had no effect on how hard it is to find a parking place, and no effect on how often people used their cars.” The study, conducted specifically because of the community concerns, found that turnover rates for parking spots were virtually the same whether the rules were suspended or not, and that 45 percent of residents who filled out an Internet survey said the streets were not much dirtier (30 percent said they were). The study was not able to learn anything of the turnover created when drivers empty one side of the street for cleaning. Even so, officials did provide a revealing glimpse of the Park Slope driver. In the survey, the average length of residents’ searches for parking was 27 minutes, though a lucky 40 percent said they found parking in 10 minutes or less. In all, about 8,000 street cleaning signs were replaced in several Brooklyn neighborhoods. And despite the city’s finding of little disruption of the routine, the suspension seemed to cause at least one noticeable consequence: An Alfa Romeo belonging to a man who died sat untended on the street for months.

Parking
Park Slope (NYC)
Roads and Traffic
Automobiles
Transportation Department