Yum Brands Profit Up 4.4% on Sales Growth in China

Abstract: Yum Brands, the owner of the Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC chains, said on Tuesday that third-quarter profit rose 4.4 percent, led by sales growth in China. The company has focused on international expansion as sales in the United States, which account for about half of Yum’s revenue, continue to slow. Consumers have reduced spending on dining out because of higher gasoline prices and food expenses. Net income increased to $282 million, or 58 cents a share, from $270 million, or 50 cents, a year earlier, the company said. Sales climbed 11 percent, to $2.84 billion from $2.56 billion. Sales at stores open at least one year increased 5 percent in China and 4 percent in Yum’s international division. Sales in the United States rose 3 percent on growth at Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. KFC sales fell 4 percent. Yum increased the number of restaurants in mainland China by 21 percent in the quarter, to 2,840. The company expects to open at least 1,400 new international locations by the end of the year, including 506 in China. “Clearly, for the long haul, they are positioned better than any other fast-food brand in China,” Jack Russo, an analyst at Edward Jones & Company in St. Louis, said in a telephone interview. Profit was 4 cents more than the average estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Foreign currency gains and a lower tax rate contributed to the gain. Yum reiterated its earnings forecast for the year through Dec. 27 of $1.89 a share, excluding some items. Fifteen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimate profit of $1.90. The company raised its earnings per share forecast twice this year before Tuesday. Yum shares rose 72 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $28.22 in after-hours trading after the earnings were released. The company’s earnings were released after the markets had closed.

Yum Brands Inc
Company Reports
Fast Food Industry
Sales


Contested Primaries Are Expected for Fossella’s Seat

Abstract: Nearly a month after Representative Vito J. Fossella of Staten Island said that he would not seek re-election for his Congressional seat in November, the political combat lines are finally being drawn. And it appears that competition for the seat will be fierce. On Friday, Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, visited New York to make clear that party officials recognized a once-in-a generation opportunity to capture the seat that has been in Republican hands for 28 years. From the steps of City Hall, Mr. Van Hollen endorsed City Councilman Michael E. McMahon, a Democrat who is running for the seat in the 13th Congressional District, which covers Staten Island and includes parts of Brooklyn. “We will do whatever is necessary to win this campaign,” Mr. Van Hollen said, standing next to Mr. McMahon and other Democratic leaders. Similarly, Francis H. Powers, a wealthy, retired Wall Street executive who was endorsed by the Staten Island Republican organization, said over the weekend that he would open campaign offices in Staten Island and Brooklyn, adding that he and his party would “spend whatever it takes for me to get myself elected.” Daniel C. Kramer, emeritus professor of political science at the College of Staten Island, said that the race would be highly charged because “winning means so much to both sides. Both sides will be fighting hard for this seat.” On May 20, Mr. Fossella announced that he would not seek a sixth full term in November. That came two weeks after the congressman was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated. Soon after, Mr. Fossella revealed that he had fathered a daughter, who is now 3, out of wedlock. The Republicans are hoping that history will be on their side in this district, the only one they hold in New York City. It is a moderate- to conservative-leaning district that has elected Republicans for decades, including Mr. Fossella and his most recent predecessors, Susan Molinari and her father, Guy V. Molinari. But the Democrats are feeling a newfound confidence. They point to the fact that there are 165,000 registered Democrats in the district, compared with 102,000 registered Republicans. And they add that the Democratic advantage in registration has grown in the last several elections. Furthermore, they said, Mr. Fossella has been a popular incumbent, but he has not won more than 60 percent of the vote in his last few races. Although the Democratic and Republican party organizations have made their endorsements and are talking about the November election, it appears that both parties are headed for primaries. Stephen A. Harrison, a Brooklyn lawyer, is also a candidate on the Democratic line. Mr. Harrison ran against Mr. Fossella in 2006 and did better than any previous challenger, winning 43 percent of the vote. Mr. Harrison has made clear his annoyance that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has broken with its longstanding practice of not endorsing a candidate before the primary. “They said they would not be involved in a primary, and yet they got involved by endorsing McMahon,” Mr. Harrison said in an interview on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to be headed for their own primary. Jamshad Wyne, a cardiologist who is also the finance chairman of the Staten Island Republican Party, said he planned to run. After Mr. Fossella announced his intention not to run for re-election, Dr. Wyne indicated his interest in the race. But shortly after, he announced that he would not run (for a time, he said he might support Mr. McMahon). “There was a lot of pressure from party officials for me not to run, and they pushed me aside,” he said. But last week, Dr. Wyne said he was collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot. “I have done a lot of civic work on the island, and I have a great deal of support,” he said. The race is already receiving attention locally and beyond the district because it offers an opportunity for the Democrats to increase their majority in Congress. And the candidates say they are mindful about the long-term stakes of the race. “I hope in the long run, we can all come out as Democrats and be supportive,” Mr. Harrison said. “We have to remember that the holy grail isn’t in the primary in September, it’s in the election in November.”

Democratic Party
Staten Island (NYC)
Elections
Fossella Vito J Jr
Van Hollen Christopher Jr
United States Politics and Government


Woman Is Found Strangled at Luxury Hotel on Central Park

Abstract: The naked body of a 48-year-old woman was found strangled and with a knife wound to the neck in a condominium on Central Park South on Saturday, the police said. About 2:30 p.m., the police said, a maid in a 10th-floor apartment at the building, the Jumeirah Essex House hotel, found the woman on the kitchen floor. The maid called hotel security, who alerted the police. The woman had been stabbed with a 10-inch serrated bread knife, which was still in her neck when the body was found, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s police spokesman. A jump rope had been draped around her neck, but it did not appear to have been a factor in her death, Mr. Browne said. The woman’s name was not immediately released, but a detective at the scene said she was from Dubai and had been renting the unit from a tenant. There was no evidence of forced entry, and it was not clear how long the woman had been dead. Asked about a motive, Mr. Browne said, “We don’t have a theory yet.” But detectives were interviewing hotel staff members to learn more about the movements of employees and people with access to the apartment. “Our heartfelt condolences go out to the victim’s family,” said a spokeswoman for the hotel, Jenny Glover. “Jumeirah Essex House management is working closely with the police on this,” Ms. Glover added. The Essex House was completed in 1931. In 2005, Sheik Muhammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, now the ruler of Dubai, paid about $440 million for the 45-story Art Deco building, which has condominiums as well as hotel rooms. On Saturday night a little girl who seemed to be in the care of security guards was seen crying in a lobby on the 10th floor. A man from Dubai, who asked that his name not be used, said he was staying on the 15th floor for a wedding at the hotel Saturday night. “They’re obviously doing a good job of keeping normality and not scaring the guests,” he said. “The bar is open, the restaurant is open.”

Murders and Attempted Murders
Central Park (NYC)


Tanaka Follows Iwakuma, Then Sets Himself Apart

Abstract: SEATTLE — When Masahiro Tanaka went from high school into the Japanese professional leagues with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in 2007, his mentor was the team’s ace and best player, Hisashi Iwakuma. With a bow not just to experience but to age and culture, Tanaka quietly soaked up anything he could gather from Iwakuma, who had a dazzling 2008 season in which he went 21-4 with a 1.87 earned run average and won the Eiji Sawamura Award, Japan’s equivalent of the Cy Young Award. Five years later, Tanaka, in full flight as a pitcher, went 24-0 with a 1.27 E.R.A. and won the Eiji Sawamura. Lessons learned. The two Japanese right-handers have both come to the United States, and they would have pitched against each other Tuesday in Seattle. However, a rainout Monday in Kansas City allowed Yankees Manager Joe Girardi to move his rotation back a day. Tanaka now is set to start Wednesday. Iwakuma opened the series for the Mariners on Tuesday. “I’m a little disappointed,” Tanaka said through an interpreter. “I would have liked to pitch.” Iwakuma, 33, remains a good friend to Tanaka, 25, and is still his mentor. The two had planned to see each other after the game. Iwakuma, much less celebrated, took a much different road to the major leagues from the one taken by Tanaka, who signed a $155 million, seven-year deal with the Yankees in the off-season. Iwakuma was turned down by the Oakland Athletics in 2012 because of concerns over a shoulder injury. He then signed with Seattle for $1.5 million before that season. The Mariners brought him along slowly in 2012, mainly because the club did not know how to use him and was worried about his shoulder. He appeared in five games in the first two months. He did not make his first start until July 2, but he has started ever since. In 56 career starts with Seattle, he is 27-13 with a 2.82 E.R.A. He was 14-6 last year with a 2.66 E.R.A. and finished third in the American League Cy Young voting. By contrast, Boston paid $113 million in 2006 to land Daisuke Matsuzaka. In his first 56 starts with the Red Sox, Matsuzaka went 31-14 with a 3.75 E.R.A. Yu Darvish, who signed a six-year, $56 million deal with the Texas Rangers in 2012 — on top of the $51.7 million posting fee Texas paid — went 28-16 with a 3.57 E.R.A. in his first 56 starts. “I never concern myself with dollars; that’s not my area,” Mariners Manager Lloyd McClendon said. “But as far as pitch ability, I’ll take my guy over any of them.” Iwakuma started at the low entry point in the majors and has set a high standard for his protégé Tanaka. “The fact that Iwakuma is playing really well and getting good results, in that sense, Tanaka has a good presence to learn from,” said Hiroki Kuroda, the Yankees’ 39-year-old right-hander. He played in the same league with Tanaka and Iwakuma in Japan. Iwakuma got his money in 2013, signing a $6.5 million deal and qualifying for his $6.5 million option for 2014. This season, the rookie Tanaka (9-1) leads the American League in E.R.A., at 2.02, and walks plus hits per inning pitched, at 0.957. Iwakuma, who missed the first month of the season with an injured finger, is 4-2 with a 2.66 E.R.A. “I can’t really say for sure,” Tanaka said, “but I would like to do well here and kind of show the people here in America” that players from Japan can pitch here. SITE OF JETER’S FIRST HIT Derek Jeter, retiring at the end of the season, is making another final stop this week, in Seattle, but his visit would not pass without bringing up a treasured memory. He played his first game for the Yankees on May 29, 1995, in the Kingdome, which was demolished in 2000. The next night, he got his first hit, a single off the Mariners’ Tim Belcher. “I always liked coming to Seattle,” Jeter said before Tuesday’s game. “This is where I first came up, so every time I come up here, that’s the memory that comes to mind.” Jeter was honored before the game. Four other players took part in the festivities: Jeter’s former teammate Robinson Cano, now the Mariners’ second baseman; Cano’s teammate Felix Hernandez; and the former Mariners Edgar Martinez and Jay Buhner. Cano presented Jeter with a watch. Hernandez donated $5,000 to Jeter’s Turn 2 Foundation, and the club gave him a base and a Kingdome chair to commemorate his first game and hit. KELLEY CLOSE TO RETURN Reliever Shawn Kelley, who had been on a rehabilitation assignment at Class AA Trenton, threw Monday and was deemed ready to return, possibly by Wednesday. He was out with a strained lumbar spine.

Baseball
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles
Yankees
Mariners
Masahiro Tanaka
Hisashi Iwakuma


Martin Lel Withdraws From New York City Marathon

Abstract: Martin Lel of Kenya, a prerace favorite, withdrew Wednesday from Sunday’s New York City Marathon , citing a leg injury. Lel, 31, won the Great North Run, a half-marathon in England, last month. But lingering leg pain led to his decision, said his manager, Federico Rosa. Tegla Loroupe of Kenya, who twice won the women’s race in New York, said that Lel had complained of feeling something like sciatica or a problem with his gluteal muscles before the run in England. He felt some small pain — “It was nothing,” Rosa said — in that half-marathon, which was viewed as a test for marathon fitness. Preparations for New York had been encouraging, then, in recent days, “the problem came out again,” Rosa said. Lel, who won New York in 2003 and 2007, has won the London Marathon three times, with a personal best of 2 hours 5 minutes 15 seconds. He is known as one of the strongest finishers in the sport. His absence may leave this year’s marathon wide open. Among the favorites remaining are two of Lel’s Kenyan training partners: Robert Cheruiyot, a four-time winner of the Boston Marathon ; and James Kwambai, who won the 2009 Rotterdam race in 2:04:27, the third-fastest marathon in history. The American Ryan Hall (2:06:17) is also expected to be among the contenders, along with another American, Meb Keflezighi (2:09:21), the 2004 Olympic silver medalist who is now recovered from a hip injury that hampered him last year. Also among the top runners in the field are another Kenyan, Patrick Makau (2:06:14), the defending champion Marilson Gomes dos Santos (2:08:37) of Brazil and the two-time world champion Jaouad Gharib (2:05:27) of Morocco.

New York City Marathon
Running
Lel Martin


Tom Watson Says Tiger Woods Remains an Option for U.S. Team

Abstract: LOUISVILLE, KY. — He’s back, or he’s not back. Or it’s all about his back. The golf world wonders and waits once again on Tiger Woods. Hours after the sport had its finest day of the year, the American Ryder Cup captain, Tom Watson, held a news conference to talk about the nine players who officially qualified for his team in the wake of a breathtaking P.G.A. Championship. Guess who was the major topic of conversation? No, not Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson or Rickie Fowler. Don’t be silly. Here’s a hint: He finished 71st in the 2014 Ryder Cup standings and missed the cut at the P.G.A. Perhaps it felt as if we had seen the last of Woods this year when he left the golf course on Friday, limping, forlorn and his game in shambles. Woods indeed knew he would not be playing — or was not eligible for — the remaining PGA Tour events this season. But Watson made it plain that he still had Tiger on his mind in a significant way. “He is Tiger Woods, and he brings a lot to the team,” Watson said of Woods’s Ryder Cup chances. “If he has the ability to play and he’s healthy, he brings a lot to the team. I’d be a fool not to consider him.” It is roughly six weeks until the Ryder Cup in Scotland, and on Sept. 2, Watson must name his three remaining at-large picks for the team. What transpires next is a 21-day boot camp in which Woods tries to prove himself fit and skilled enough for golf’s most demanding and pressure-filled competition. And since nothing about Woods’s career has been routine for the past five years, his audition for a Ryder Cup spot will not be on the golf course. Watson will essentially take Woods’s word about the condition of his balky back and his erratic golf game. “I can’t assess his medical condition, and I honestly can’t assess how he’s playing,” Watson said. “It really is going to be having to come from information from Tiger himself. But again, I don’t make this comment loosely. He is Tiger Woods.” O.K., this might all sound a little nutty. Have Watson and Woods signed a reality television show contract? Image Tiger Woods with Padraig Harrington after the second round of the 2014 P.G.A. Championship. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times “Tom and Tiger: Destination Scotland.” But know this. Watson is a serious-minded, wise, golf-hardened man. He is not bending over backward for Woods out of personal empathy or benevolence, because the two have never been close. At the same time, Watson is staring across the Atlantic Ocean at one of the most fearsome European Ryder Cup teams ever. The Europeans have Rory McIlroy, who is far and away the best player on the planet. The team also has Martin Kaymer, the reigning United States Open champion with a formidable Ryder Cup resume; Henrik Stenson, ranked third in the world; Sergio Garcia, another Ryder Cup veteran who is having his best season in years; and Justin Rose, a steely-eyed competitor who is ranked fifth in the world. That’s just the top of the European lineup. With all that firepower and experience waiting to greet him in Scotland, does Watson trust the 2014 statistics and results that tell him that dozens of young, untested American golfers are the most suited for the Ryder Cup crucible? Or does he trust in the body of work Woods has compiled for most of the past 20 years? What would the nine American players currently on the roster, including, for example, Mickelson or Fowler, say? Watson was asked point-blank if he trusted Woods. “Absolutely,” Watson answered. Woods’s Ryder Cup record is not stellar. He is 13-14-2 over all. But Woods, who was a great match-play individual competitor as an amateur, is also 4-1-1 in Ryder Cup singles. Image Tom Watson said of considering Tiger Woods, “He brings a lot to the team.” Credit A. Messerschmidt/Getty Images Listen to Watson’s words. He is not dissuaded about Woods’s poor play lately. “Obviously, Tiger has not been playing well,” Watson said. “But I think it’s been a result, as you well know, of his injury and his coming back from back surgery. “It comes down to whether he can physically play and is he playing well? Right now, he can’t play 36 holes in a day, we all know that.” But Watson has three weeks. His team has been decimated by injuries and personal crisis. Jason Dufner, a sturdy, mentally tough player, has a neck problem that caused him to withdraw from the P.G.A. “I saw Jason Friday,” Watson said. “He didn’t look too good.” Matt Kuchar, who qualified for the team, missed the P.G.A. because of a back problem. Dustin Johnson, who might have been expected to be one of the team’s stars, has taken a voluntary leave for “personal challenges.” Image Tom Watson speaking at a news conference on Monday. Credit John Locher/Associated Press Bubba Watson, the Masters champ, has not been in the top 10 of any event since April. Patrick Reed, who also qualified for the team, has one top-10 finish since March. Jordan Spieth missed the cut at the P.G.A. and finished 49th the week before that. Is there any wonder Watson is leaving a light on in the window for Tiger Woods? “I’m going to monitor the situation,” Watson said. Later, Watson likened his job to being a stage manager. “I set the stage for these guys to go out and compete,” he said. “They are the actors. I’m looking for the guys who remember their lines the best and who want to be there at the end with the curtain call, getting that standing ovation.” One guy, even in absentia, is still stealing the show. He lingers in the wings. The golf world awaits his next act.

Golf
Tiger Woods
Ryder Cup
PGA Tour
Tom Watson


After Isles’ Big Step, Tavares Takes Pressure in Stride

Abstract: UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Casey Cizikas, a gritty 22-year-old center who excelled in 2012-13, his first full N.H.L. season, is all eyes and ears when near John Tavares, the team’s new captain. That is wise, given what Tavares has achieved since the Islanders selected him first over all in the 2009 draft. Tavares’s calm professionalism, sparkling playmaking and clutch goals have enlivened the Islanders, who start a promising season Friday night against the Devils at Prudential Center in Newark. “The way he carries himself, the way he brings himself toward every game, I try to take that all in,” said Cizikas, whose locker is opposite Tavares’s at Nassau Coliseum. “Everyone on our team respects him.” Tavares’s No. 91 sweater is easily the most popular among fans, whose expectations are sure to rise after the Islanders reached the playoffs last season for the first time since 2007. After a first-round playoff loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who finished first in the Eastern Conference, and a summer of relentless conditioning, Tavares and his squad are ready for the next step. Tavares shares the credit with his predecessor as captain: defenseman Mark Streit, who signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia Flyers this summer. Image The leadership of John Tavares, the new captain of the Islanders, reminds some observers of Denis Potvin, who guided the team to four championships in the early 1980s. Credit Bruce Bennett/Getty Images “I have so much respect for Mark as a person and a hockey player,” Tavares, 23, said after practice this week. “He challenged everyone and wanted us to get better. It was great as a young guy being his assistant. Becoming captain is basically an extension of an experience that helped me grow into this role.” After spending last fall’s 113-day lockout playing with Streit in Bern, Switzerland, Tavares was the catalyst for the Islanders through the shortened 48-game season with 28 goals, third in the N.H.L. behind Alex Ovechkin (32 goals) of the Washington Capitals and Steven Stamkos (29) of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tavares scored three goals in the six-game playoff series against the Penguins, during which the Islanders lost two home games in overtime, giving Tavares a taste of the tantalizing nature of the Stanley Cup chase. “To be part of it, you realize how much fun it is and how passionate people are and what they will do to win the Cup,” said Tavares, a finalist for the Hart Trophy, the league’s Most Valuable Player award. “The atmosphere was incredible. The Island was just alive — there was buzz about us — and we were only in the first round.” As with any burst of success, heightened expectations and new pressures inevitably emerge. “You want to get back there and you want to win,” Tavares said. “Those are special times and some of the best moments of your life, and hopefully we’ll have a lot more.” Tavares’s ascension has a corollary in Islanders history, said Stan Fischler, a hockey analyst for the MSG Networks who has been covering the team since its inception in 1972. “John reminds me of Denis Potvin,” Fischler said, referring to the Hall of Fame defenseman who was the No. 1 overall pick by the Islanders in 1973 and later helped them win four straight Stanley Cups. “There’s a parallel to the way both were top overall picks plus the growing pressure and attention as the team improved. John’s growing maturity is roughly equivalent to the way the team is maturing. He’s as dedicated a young player as I have ever seen.” Tavares was made captain just before training camp by Islanders Coach Jack Capuano, General Manager Garth Snow and the owner Charles Wang. The presentation, held before the team’s charity golf tournament, was witnessed by the entire organization. Image A teammate said of Tavares, center, “When he chooses to speak, everyone wants to hear what he has to say.” Credit Liam Richards/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press “I’ll always remember having my teammates there; they’ve been such great support for me,” said Tavares, who grew up in the Toronto area. “They helped me get to where I am. I couldn’t have done it without them.” Capuano often says his players are a brotherhood. He is confident his young team has the perfect leader. “To be a captain — you have to get the respect from your teammates, the organization and the community,” Capuano said. “John certainly has that. We have a lot of young players looking to get better. And he’s a model example of that.” Tavares has had a steady linemate in left wing Matt Moulson, but the right side of the Islanders’ top line has varied. Last year Brad Boyes, now with the Florida Panthers, skated on the right wing. For the two seasons before that, it was P. A. Parenteau, who now plays for the Colorado Avalanche. That coveted spot could next belong to 29-year-old Pierre-Marc Bouchard, who signed with the Islanders as a free agent after 10 seasons with the Minnesota Wild. Josh Bailey and Kyle Okposo also skated with Tavares and Moulson during the preseason. Whoever assumes the role, it is a near certainty Tavares will make his latest wing a better player, as Moulson’s 112 goals over the past four seasons attest. “John doesn’t have to say a lot, but when he chooses to speak, everyone wants to hear what he has to say,” Cizikas said. “Even guys in this league for 15 years sit quietly and listen when John talks. That speaks volumes to what he brings to this team.”

John Tavares
Ice hockey
Islanders
Jack Capuano


Spain's Soccer Problem: Too Much of a Good Thing

Abstract: LONDON — Santi Cazorla is a marvelous soccer player in the prime of his career. Whether you take an aesthetic approach to the game or try to count effectiveness on a slide rule, he has topped the bill in the English Premier League since moving to Arsenal this summer. Yet take him home, and Cazorla slides back to being third in line on the Spanish national team. He accepts it. Though he can play on the right or left side with equal skill, and though Arsenal has given him license to be the team’s strategist from central midfield, he has grown up in Spain in the shadows of two of the most accomplished players on earth. Cazorla’s own role model is Andrés Iniesta. They played together on the Spanish youth teams, and Iniesta, 28, is barely six months older than Cazorla. Quick-witted and versatile, Cazorla can do as he does with Arsenal by playing creatively from the center ground. But there, as everyone knows, is where Xavi Hernández is the maestro for Spain. Xavi may be older at 32, but as long as there is life in his legs and the ability to stroke the ball around like an angel, he will not be displaced from the team that reigns as world and European champion. Right there is the source of Cazorla’s humility. Last Friday, Iniesta was rested at the start of the match, while Xavi came off in the second half. Cazorla was the reliable deputy to both players. He played the full 90 minutes as Spain trounced Belarus, 4-0, in Minsk, while another winger, the Barcelona player Pedro, staked his claim as the best player of the night, with a hat trick of goals. Such riches. Such interchangeability. And so much talent. Cazorla, though, would not be a reserve in most other nations. Even Brazil, the five-time world champion, is looking for a pass-master who can give its midfield cohesion and show the talented youngsters Neymar and Oscar the way to win matches. That is why Brazil coach Mano Menezes recalled Kaká last weekend. Kaká is still only 30, but his knee injuries have been so severe and so long-standing that Real Madrid has spent fortunes recruiting his replacements. The club now views him as a reserve to Mesut Özil and Luka Modric. However pleasingly Kaká slotted back into the Brazilian fold in a 6-0 victory over Iraq last week, scoring then and on Tuesday in a 4-0 beating of Japan, the problem there is that all of Brazil’s games leading up to its stint as host to the 2014 World Cup are designated as friendlies. Experiencing the pressure of qualification games is denied to Brazil, and rehearsals are never quite the same test. Nevertheless, Kaká’s return demonstrates how much Brazil need a controlling midfielder. And Cazorla’s side-lining, along with the play of Cesc Fàbregas, shows how many qualities Spain has in abundance. Menezes acknowledged as much this week when he admitted, “I’m not trying to copy Spain, because I think the system you play is dictated by the players you have. You can’t get up one morning and say I’m going to play like Spain, because it’s impossible.” The coach to the greatest soccer country in history bows to the omnipotence of the nation that could not win a thing until the present crop of players came together and won the Euro in 2008. “We aren’t on the same level as Spain,” Menezes told Marca, the Spanish newspaper. “Nobody has been able to play their own style of football against them. Every national team submits to Spain’s style and changes their own style accordingly, because they’re forced to. The ball control they’ve acquired is amazing. They’ve got it all.” Got it all, and in Cazorla’s case, it might almost be a case of too much. This is a little man, standing 1.68 meters, or 5-foot-6, built in the mold of Iniesta, Xavi and so many more of the current generation. Their style of play, called tika-taka, is tailored to their strengths. They are small, quick, two-footed, bright individuals. They move the ball with lightning speed, tik-tak, quick, quick. They move their feet, their bodies. They move into spaces where opponents — bigger men, perhaps — cannot or will not see the opportunities. And some critics, myopic folks, called them boring during the Euro 2012, when they retained the European championship in July. We should be so bored! When Arsenal lost Fàbregas the summer before last when he went home to Barcelona, there was a struggle within the London team to recreate the movement that its coach, the Frenchman Arsène Wenger, craves. Wenger went shopping 12 months later and paid what for Arsenal is a considerable sum — around £18 million, or $29 million — for Cazorla. People questioned the fee. Cazorla, they argued, was peripheral to Spain’s world-champion starting eleven. His career path took him from Oviedo in his boyhood to Villarreal and later to Malaga, back when its Qatari owner was still spending money. He did well enough, but at Arsenal he is doing better still. The statistics that coaches and studio analysts increasingly count upon put Cazorla atop the Premier League with his 84.82 percent accuracy of passes in attacking situations. For those of us who prefer movement to math, the sheer joy of Cazorla sliding a perfect pass to his new Arsenal teammate, Lukas Podolski, counts for even more. Two foreigners arrived in the English league, where pace and physical power is so renowned. They were unknown quantities in the league until Wenger decided to put them together and to trust their skills. It is often said that Wenger is a teacher. Maybe a better word is a liberator. He does not tell Cazorla where to pass, and he cannot tell Podolski when to run. But in the words of Podolski, an experienced international player with more than 100 appearances for Germany, “I like to play with Santi. I am looking for him and he is looking for me.” It is in the mind’s eye — and it comes together through the instinct of a coach able to envision what they might create together. In Cazorla’s case, it may latent, but the talent was always there. Spain’s style did not start with the Euro 2008 title; it was schooled by a coach, now retired, José Ignacio Sáez. Sáez is a father figure of tika-taka. He coached Spain at youth levels for a decade, and his pupils included Iniesta and Cazorla.


Getting Silas Redd Caps U.S.C.’s Rebirth

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Monte Kiffin’s face filled with anticipation and disbelief. His eyes gleamed like marbles, reflecting the late afternoon sun. Have you not heard, he said, how Southern California landed Silas Redd ? That was an addendum to a larger feat: how U.S.C. could endure a two-year bowl ban to be voted No. 1 in the preseason rankings, how Matt Barkley and T. J. McDonald stayed to see the team’s revitalization through to the end, and how Kiffin’s son Lane, the U.S.C. coach, had meticulously planned it all. Two years ago, the fallout from the Reggie Bush scandal — four years of probation, three years of limited scholarships and the two-year bowl ban — seemed crippling. But there was no doubting the enthusiasm of Monte Kiffin, a U.S.C. assistant. It was not simply for Redd, a former Penn State running back. It was for how U.S.C. presented Redd with the idea of coming west, convinced him, “in true S.C. fashion,” as Lane Kiffin described it, and how that had embodied the vigor in U.S.C.’s resurgence. If U.S.C.’s dip — going 8-5 and then 10-2 in the past two seasons with no bowl games — was ever more than a hiccup, landing Redd offered some reprieve. And quite a tale. It began with a phone call to a booster. That resulted in a private plane’s being made available for Lane and Monte Kiffin, and two other assistants, to use on July 25, a Wednesday. Two other U.S.C. coaches planned to meet them near Norwalk, Conn., Redd’s hometown. All the while, Lane Kiffin was sending text messages to Redd’s father, Silas Sr., trying to establish the kind of trust that can often take years to develop during recruiting. Nonetheless, Kiffin was giddy. The N.C.A.A. had freed him and other coaches of the usual recruiting restrictions in the wake of Penn State’s child sexual abuse scandal. Redd had been perhaps the Nittany Lions’ best player, and U.S.C. needed to improve its depth at running back. After Curtis McNeal, the Trojans’ speedy lead back, Redd would be a proven commodity. The traveling party arrived just before midnight, and in the morning. the contingent gathered at a Dunkin’ Donuts, where Kiffin diagramed the presentation they were about to make to Redd and his family and assigned talking points to each coach. Kiffin had calculated this just as he had the sanctions. Two years ago, when Pat Haden was named the athletic director , Kiffin greeted him with a thick binder, eager and impatient. “He had a guidepost, a path, of how he was going to work his way through this penalty year by year,” Haden said. “He really had this well thought out.” Kiffin developed an academic plan to put recruits on track to graduate in three years — with degrees in popular majors like business or communications — and enter the N.F.L. Practices would be shorter, to protect starters, and emphasize special teams to gain some edge — in the two seasons since, U.S.C. has blocked 14 kicks. Kiffin would entice recruits with the promise of playing right away. Perhaps most important, Kiffin realized that he could not miss with a recruit. They could not afford to sign players who struggled academically or put themselves before the team. That could result in a waste of a precious scholarship. Redd provided no reason to worry. So at 9 a.m. that Thursday, July 26, six U.S.C. coaches arrived at the home of Dan Gouin, Redd’s high school coach. Muffins were served and friendly banter was enjoyed. Then Silas; his mother, Yvonne; his father; his older brother Michael Little; and Gouin gathered around the dining room table, and Kiffin began his presentation. “There was no showmanship,” Gouin said. “He was very to the point.” Next, Kennedy Polamalu, the offensive coordinator, detailed how he had coached two 1,000-yard rushers — Bush and LenDale White — in 2005. Redd and McNeal could replicate that feat, and there was no arguing with tradition, Redd would say later. James Cregg, the offensive line coach, explained their rushing offense. Monte Kiffin, 72, chatted with Silas Redd Sr., easing concerns for his son about playing or living in Los Angeles. The defensive backs coach Marvin Sanders had been hired in February, and he adapted painlessly, he said. A PowerPoint slide show outlined a new athletic building. And Ed Orgeron, the defensive coordinator, was there to speak about all the aspects of the university and the program that had not been covered. In so many words, this meeting explained why U.S.C. might have been too big, too successful to fail, despite the sanctions. The presentation stretched into a third hour before Lane Kiffin closed with a summary. One message stuck: Together with Barkley, McNeal and the dynamic receivers Robert Woods and Marqise Lee, Redd would be a key piece. But on a team like U.S.C., expectations would be shared, as would the touches. Kiffin extinguished every doubt, manicured every point and made Redd feel not wanted but needed. Already, Redd had been awed when six coaches walked through the door. His mother, who valued her son’s education, heard what she needed — U.S.C.’s communications program comfortably fit Redd’s postfootball plans to become a broadcaster — and his father, who hoped his son would not be underappreciated, found Kiffin sincere. Redd decided to visit the campus, and Kiffin knew his goal of signing him was in reach. “Once they get out here and they’re around our players and the power of S.C. and the program that we run, we thought we had a really good shot,” Kiffin said. It may have been as good as done by that Saturday, when Redd, his father and his brother flew to Los Angeles. They toured Los Angeles Coliseum and Redd got chills walking out of the tunnel, thinking of all of the great U.S.C. running backs like O. J. Simpson, Marcus Allen and Charles White. Redd’s host was Lee, a sophomore receiver and a member of the crucial 2011 recruiting class. U.S.C. had lost its appeal of the N.C.A.A. sanctions, but the appeal process delayed the scholarship limit of 75 with 15 incoming recruits a year. That allowed Kiffin to stockpile talent before the restrictions began this season; this year’s team could have as many as nine starters from that last full recruiting class. “A lot of people said, ‘Take it, get it over with and come back five, six years from now,’ ” said Kiffin, who played his underclassmen early in 2011, so they would be experienced when U.S.C. became bowl eligible this year. “That meant a lot to us, that the president and A.D., even under pressure, decided, O.K. we’re going to believe in the plan.” Not by chance, Redd’s visit felt like an all-conference team gathering. He played video games with Lee and enjoyed dinner with McNeal, Barkley and center Khaled Holmes. It would be important, Gouin said, that Redd felt accepted. He did. McNeal assured him that he bought into the two-back idea, and Barkley asked Redd to join them in their pursuit of a national championship. The sanctions had robbed Barkley of that opportunity for two seasons. Yet, had there been no sanctions, Barkley said he probably would have left for the N.F.L. after last season. “We haven’t had a Christmas, in a sense, for the last couple of years,” Barkley said. “And now it’s like the presents are under there; we just can’t wait to open them.” Redd flew home that Monday and announced the next day that he would transfer to U.S.C. Now, as the sun set one day during the first week of practice, Monte Kiffin marveled at it all. McNeal had tutored Redd, but his new teammates on defense were not so accommodating. They taunted Redd, belittling the Big Ten, yelling, “This isn’t Penn State,” before they would swarm and engulf him. Stopping Woods, Lee, McNeal and himself would be harder for lesser defenses, Redd said. The teasing he took in stride, as their sign of acceptance. In years past, being talented alone may have warranted inclusion, but this group has forged a bond in strife. “People thought we were going to be a broken program for years and years,” Barkley said. He added, “The institution tried to crush us, and we came out, I’d say, victorious.” The field was nearly empty, and when Monte Kiffin finished telling Redd’s story, he let out a laugh and hung his head. He collected himself. But then his smile vanished as a realization appeared in his eyes, for how bombastic he had made it all seem. He did not mean to brag, he said. But it had been such a thrill.

Redd Silas Jr
University of Southern California
Kiffin Monte
Kiffin Lane
Football (College)
Draft and Recruitment (Sports)
Pennsylvania State University


How Much More Can These Growth Stocks Grow?

Abstract: WHEN the economy appears on the verge of rebounding — as it does today — investors tend to gravitate toward economically sensitive stocks , which stand to benefit from improving financial conditions. Often, this leads them to traditional growth sectors, like technology, materials and consumer discretionary stocks, which include retailers. Economically cyclical companies in areas like financial services and manufacturing may also seem appealing. True to form, these five sectors have been among the best-performers in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index so far this year. And, since March, each of these categories has surged more than 70 percent. That’s roughly double what many of these sectors have averaged in gains in the first 12 months of new bull markets since 1949, according to S.& P. “Certainly, we’ve seen a tremendous run-up in the most economically sensitive stocks,” said Jeffrey N. Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial in Boston. Now, some market strategists are beginning to wonder whether these stocks have already had their day. At the very least, prices of the most economically sensitive groups already reflect expectations of a robust recovery. For example, the price-to-earnings ratio for the materials sector of the S.& P. 500 (which includes companies like Dow Chemical and International Paper) has more than doubled over the past year, to 36 from 17, according to S.& P. This figure is based on 2009 operating earnings. But Wall Street analysts are forecasting a 99 percent rise in earnings for that category in 2010. Based on these projections, the so-called forward P/E of the materials sector is a much more palatable 18. Analysts are similarly betting on huge earnings recoveries in 2010 for several other economically sensitive groups, like financials. Mr. Kleintop says these earnings expectations aren’t necessarily unreasonable. “But you do need to see some follow-through here,” he said. “You can’t just see higher and higher valuations on the hope for more growth. At some point, you have to see companies, particularly in those sectors that have risen the most — like consumer discretionary, technology and industrials — deliver on those earnings expectations, or the market will be disappointed.” That test is beginning, with the start of the third-quarter earnings season. Christian Anderson, an associate portfolio manager at Russell Investments in Tacoma, Wash., said the rally that started in early March might be entering a second phase. In the first stage, the stocks that fared best were economically cyclical shares and those that had been beaten up in the bear market. Now, with valuations starting to come into question, investors may want to turn their attention to what Mr. Anderson calls “organic growth” stocks — shares of companies that don’t rely entirely on a robust recovery to expand their business and profits. He said technology might be an area to consider. Many tech companies don’t have any debt on their balance sheets, and tend to enjoy healthy cash flows. And unlike, say, retailing, this sector doesn’t require a quick consumer recovery, he said. What’s more, technology is a growth sector in which valuations still look reasonable. JACK A. ABLIN, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago, says that growth stocks in general have been outperforming the rest of the market for the past couple of years. “The group is beginning to look expensive and tired,” he said. Still, tech stocks have generally not seen their valuations rise, he added. Indeed, the average P/E ratio for tech companies in the S.& P. 500 is now 22.2, based on 2009 operating earnings. That’s lower than it was in the second quarter this year — and well below the sector’s median P/E of 30.5 since 1995. Tech is the sector most favored by investment managers now, according to a survey by Russell Investments . Health care comes in second. While health care stocks don’t depend on a strong recovery, they are still traditionally considered growth investments. And they’re currently cheap. The P/E for health care stocks in the S.& P. 500 is 12.8 — about where it was a year ago. The consumer discretionary sector, another traditional growth area, may be worth a look, although it is dependent on a rebound not just in the economy but also in consumer spending. But earnings here have already started to improve — up 64 percent this year. As in the technology sector, valuations for these stocks have already started to fall even as stock prices have soared. So if the overall market were to plunge, these stocks’ more modest prices might cushion their fall.

Stocks and Bonds
Economic Conditions and Trends
Company Reports
Standard & Poor's 500-Stock Index
Wall Street (NYC)


Wisconsin: After Leave for Shooting, Officer Kills Man

Abstract: On his first day back from a mandatory leave for shooting and wounding a knife-wielding man this month, a Kenosha police officer shot and killed an armed suspect after confronting him following a chase, the authorities said. The officer, Pablo Torres, returned from leave Saturday, 10 days after shooting a man, armed with knives, who advanced on the police, the department said. While that March 4 shooting was investigated, Officer Torres was placed on administrative leave by department policy and attended annual in-service training before returning to work, police said. On Saturday, the police chased a car driven by Aaron Siler, 26, who was wanted on a felony probation and parole warrant, Lt. Brad Hetlet said in a statement. Mr. Siler crashed around 9:30 a.m. and took off running. When Officer Torres confronted Mr. Siler, the man “armed himself with a weapon” and Officer Torres fatally shot him, Lieutenant Hetlet said. He said the police had no more information to release about the shooting of Mr. Siler.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Hagel Lifts Veil on Major Military Center in Qatar

Abstract: AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s visit to the advanced air operations center here this week was not just a stop at an important outpost of the United States military. It was also a major step forward for Pentagon transparency. The highly classified American facility, officially called the Combined Air and Space Operations Center, coordinated all of the attack and surveillance missions for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and would be equally critical if an American president decided that only bombs and missiles could halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It hosts liaison officers from 30 allies in Europe and the Persian Gulf. Until this week, however, its location was carefully guarded by the Pentagon and the Qatari government, out of concerns from both about sensitivities to its presence. In the past, journalists had to sign nondisclosure agreements if they wanted to report from inside the base in the desert outside the capital, Doha. And, when asked, the Pentagon said the operations center was somewhere in Southwest Asia. But on his latest trip to the region, which ended Tuesday, Mr. Hagel lifted the gag rule. Touring the headquarters, usually referred to by its acronym, CAOC (pronounced KAY-ock), Mr. Hagel described the air operations hub as “one of the most impressive facilities we have.” Inside the warehouse-size command center, three giant digital maps carried tracking details of every aircraft — civilian and military — in the skies over three vital regions: Syria and its neighbors, the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. Pressed to explain the rationale for finally acknowledging the air operations center and its location. Pentagon officials said the point of the defense secretary’s week of travels was to prove to Persian Gulf partners that the United States would remain engaged in the region — despite budget pressures at home, a rebalance of interests to Asia and the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In essence, the American military cannot reassure its allies and deter potential adversaries if it hides what it does, and it helps to show that it can do it from right in the neighborhood. There was no official comment on the disclosure from the Qatari government. But a senior Pentagon official described Mr. Hagel’s conversation with his Qatari counterpart, Maj. Gen. Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah, on the standard diplomatic rules of anonymity. The general noted that Bahrain openly embraces the American Fifth Fleet, and so that tiny nation is known as the focus of efforts to defend waters of the Persian Gulf. According to the Pentagon official, General Attiyah then said that Qatar was proud of its role hosting the command center defending the region’s airspace. Defense secretaries always stop at American military installations on their global travels, both to speak with commanders about the mission and to extend the nation’s thanks to forward-deployed troops. But the sensitivities of host nations sometimes make it difficult on reporters. For example, on Mr. Hagel’s previous trip to the region, in the spring, when he unveiled arms-sales deals worth almost $11 billion, the traveling press boycotted one troop visit because the gulf state said the location could not be identified — even though it routinely appears even in official Pentagon announcements. Officials at the center said the United States and its allies still fly more than four dozen fighter or bomber missions over Afghanistan every day, all coordinated here — although the number of times they drop ordnance in support of troops on the ground is rare as the war winds down. But interest in what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan is undiminished, and the center gathers more than 800 hours of surveillance video over the war zone every day. In a single long workday on a trip whose purpose was essentially to shore up allies, Mr. Hagel was on the ground in Afghanistan — as well as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It would be difficult to pick four partner nations in a single strategic crescent where the prize is higher — or that have more complicated relations with Washington. In Afghanistan, Mr. Hagel made a conspicuous decision not to meet with its mercurial president, Hamid Karzai, who has refused to sign a bilateral security agreement that was unanimously approved by a council of elders that he himself convened. Mr. Hagel’s strategy seemed to be for Mr. Karzai to feel the heat from his own public, which polling shows overwhelmingly supports an enduring, if limited, allied military presence. And in Pakistan, Mr. Hagel and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agreed on the dangers of terrorism, but disagreed over how to combat militants operating inside Pakistan. The signals from Saudi Arabia and Qatar were a bit fainter, but no less important. In recent weeks, Saudi Arabia has expressed great anxiety about the interim nuclear deal with Iran as giving far too much in the way of sanctions relief in exchange for far too little in the way of guaranteeing that Tehran can never build a nuclear weapon. And both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have rejected American appeals not to arm rebel militias in Syria, especially those with a more extremist agenda than the moderate Free Syrian Army, which has been Washington’s portal into the civil war. A senior Pentagon official said that in his meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Mr. Hagel said “that the United States will continue planning for all options to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon,” according to a senior Pentagon official. In Qatar, Mr. Hagel and his counterpart signed a new Defense Cooperation Agreement that includes joint training and exercises and other unspecified cooperative military actions. That was in the winnings category. But officials said Mr. Hagel and the Qataris ended the meetings with their positions unchanged on how to deal with opposition forces in the complicated and bloody Syrian civil war.

Chuck Hagel
Doha
Qatar
US Foreign Policy
Afghanistan War
Pentagon
US Military
Persian Gulf


For No. 2 Tar Heels, Early Favorites to Win Title, the Hard Part Starts Now

Abstract: CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina Coach Roy Williams has long promised his teams that things would get tougher as they entered the conference schedule. It has taken a month for his second-ranked Tar Heels to reach that point in their Atlantic Coast Conference slate, thanks to a quirk in the schedule that loaded up the second half of the schedule with the teams picked to finish in the top third of the conference race. “We don’t necessarily think about it,” guard Joel Berry II, a sophomore, said Friday. “I think we just know what’s coming up, and we know what we have to do the next couple of games.” The Tar Heels (18-2, 7-0 A.C.C.) are off to their best league start in 15 years, hardly a surprise for a team that was ranked No. 1 nationally in the preseason and picked to win the league title. But only one of North Carolina’s league wins has come against a team currently in the top half of the A.C.C. standings, and the Tar Heels have yet to play a team picked in the preseason to finish in the top five of the 15-team conference. Their opponent Saturday will be Boston College (7-13, 0-7), checking in at 214th in the N.C.A.A.’s most recent rating percentage index rankings. The tests are lined up immediately afterward, starting with Monday’s trip to No. 16 Louisville (17-3, 6-1) to start a three-game road swing. And after not having faced a team ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 through their first eight A.C.C. games, the Tar Heels will play six games against currently ranked teams during in February. The most pressing issue for the Tar Heels is recalibrating their shooting touch. After shooting at least 45 percent in their first 17 games to rank among the nation’s most accurate teams, they have failed to crack 40 percent in their last three games against North Carolina State, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech. The most obvious example is Marcus Paige, a preseason A.C.C. player of the year, who has made 5 of 35 shots (14 percent) since scoring 30 in a win at Florida State. Another perimeter scorer, Justin Jackson, has made just 10 of 33 shots (30 percent) over the last three games. And with those two struggling in particular, U.N.C. has made just 11 of 61 3-pointers (18 percent) in those games. Williams said the team had spent a little more time on honing its shooting in practice. “There’s no question we need to fix the shooting, because we’ve won some games because we had more talent,” Williams said. “But you’ve got to play better to win some games we’ve got coming up, too. You can’t say that you should play better if you don’t put the ball in the basket.” After the visit to Louisville, U.N.C. travels to No. 25 Notre Dame on Feb. 6, hosts No. 15 Miami on Feb. 20 and travels to No. 11 Virginia on Feb. 27, in addition to a pair of rivalry games against No. 24 Duke. Five of the last 10 games over all are on the road. Berry said he felt the earlier games had still done enough to prepare the Tar Heels for “a heavy backload.” “I don’t think it’s necessarily a thing where we’re worried about it,” he said. “We just have to continue to play — and hopefully those jump shots will start going in.”


Inside the Failing Mission to Tame Donald Trump’s Tongue

Abstract: Donald J. Trump was in a state of shock: He had just fired his campaign manager and was watching the man discuss his dismissal at length on CNN. The rattled candidate’s advisers and family seized the moment for an intervention. Joined by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, a cluster of Mr. Trump’s confidants pleaded with him to make that day — June 20 — a turning point. He would have to stick to a teleprompter and end his freestyle digressions and insults, like his repeated attacks on a Hispanic federal judge . Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey argued that Mr. Trump had an effective message, if only he would deliver it. For now, the campaign’s polling showed, too many voters described him in two words: “unqualified” and “racist.” Mr. Trump bowed to his team’s entreaties, according to four people with detailed knowledge of the meeting, who described it on the condition of anonymity. It was time, he agreed, to get on track. Nearly two months later, the effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed. He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then, clashing with a Gold Star family , making comments that have been seen as inciting violence and linking his political opponents to terrorism . Advisers who once hoped a Pygmalion-like transformation would refashion a crudely effective political showman into a plausible American president now increasingly concede that Mr. Trump may be beyond coaching. He has ignored their pleas and counsel as his poll numbers have dropped , boasting to friends about the size of his crowds and maintaining that he can read surveys better than the professionals. 2016 Election Forecast: Who Will Be President? The Upshot’s presidential forecast, updated daily. In private, Mr. Trump’s mood is often sullen and erratic, his associates say. He veers from barking at members of his staff to grumbling about how he was better off following his own instincts during the primaries and suggesting he should not have heeded their calls for change. He broods about his souring relationship with the news media, calling Mr. Manafort several times a day to talk about specific stories. Occasionally, Mr. Trump blows off steam in bursts of boyish exuberance: At the end of a fund-raiser on Long Island last week, he playfully buzzed the crowd twice with his helicopter. But in interviews with more than 20 Republicans who are close to Mr. Trump or in communication with his campaign, many of whom insisted on anonymity to avoid clashing with him, they described their nominee as exhausted, frustrated and still bewildered by fine points of the political process and why his incendiary approach seems to be sputtering. He is routinely preoccupied with perceived slights, for example raging to aides after Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, in his re-election announcement , said he would stand up to the next president regardless of party. In a visit to Capitol Hill in early July, Mr. Trump bickered with two Republican senators who had not endorsed him; he needled Representative Peter T. King of New York for having taken donations from him over the years only to criticize him on television now. And Mr. Trump has begun to acknowledge to associates and even in public that he might lose. In an interview on CNBC on Thursday, he said he was prepared to face defeat. “I’ll just keep doing the same thing I’m doing right now,” he said. “And at the end, it’s either going to work, or I’m going to, you know, I’m going to have a very, very nice, long vacation.” Image A boy with a Trump foam hand at a campaign rally in Altoona, Pa., on Friday. Pennsylvania is considered to be among the four states likely to decide the presidential election. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said the Republican nominee was still determined to win, and dismissed accounts that he was downcast. Mr. Miller pointed to the crowds Mr. Trump attracts as a sign of strength. “Behind the scenes we have a very motivated and very focused candidate in Donald Trump, who knows what he needs to do to win this race,” Mr. Miller said. People around Mr. Trump and his operation say they are not ready to abandon hope of a turnaround. But he is in a dire predicament, Republicans say, because he is profoundly uncomfortable in the role of a typical general election candidate, disoriented by the crosscurrents he must now navigate and still relying impulsively on a pugilistic formula that guided him to the nomination. His advisers are still convinced of the basic potency of a sales pitch about economic growth and a shake-up in Washington, and they aspire to compete in as many as 21 states, despite Mr. Trump’s perilous standing in the four states — Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — likely to decide the election. Charles R. Black Jr., an influential Republican lobbyist supporting Mr. Trump, said the campaign was in a continuing struggle to tame him. “He has three or four good days and then makes another gaffe,” Mr. Black said. “Hopefully, he can have some more good days.” Of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Mr. Black said, “They think he is making progress in terms of being able to make set speeches and not take the bait on every attack somebody makes on him.” Donors for Bush, Kasich and Christie Are Turning to Clinton More Than to Trump People who donated to establishment Republican candidates in the primary season are more likely to give money to Hillary Clinton than to Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s advisers now hope to steady him by pairing him on the trail with familiar, more seasoned figures — people he views as peers and enjoys spending time with, like former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. Mr. Giuliani, who campaigned with Mr. Trump early in the week, said he did not see the candidate as unmoored or unhappy. If anyone was disconcerted, Mr. Giuliani suggested, it was the people steering his campaign. “He doesn’t seem to be as unnerved by these things that go wrong as the people around him,” Mr. Giuliani said. Still, he allowed, “I think it is true that maybe it took him a little while to realize that we’re moving from a primary campaign to a presidential campaign.” Mr. Trump, he said, had become “a little bit more realizing there are certain days left and you’ve got to get messages out on those days.” Even before Mr. Trump’s most recent spate of incendiary comments, Republicans who dealt with him after the primaries came away alarmed by his obvious unease as the de facto party leader. After a meeting in late May between Mr. Trump and Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s presidential victories, Mr. Rove told associates he was stunned by Mr. Trump’s poor grasp of campaign basics, including how to map out a schedule and use data to reach voters. Sitting with Mr. Rove in the Manhattan apartment of a mutual friend, the casino magnate Steve Wynn, Mr. Trump said he would compete in states like Oregon, which has not voted Republican since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide . Mr. Rove later told people he believed Mr. Trump was confused and scared in anticipation of the general election, according to people who have heard Mr. Rove’s account. Image Karl Rove, a top adviser to President George W. Bush, at Central Park last month, met with Mr. Trump in May, and told associates he was stunned by Mr. Trump’s poor grasp of campaign basics. Credit Brad Barket/Getty Images A few weeks later, when Governor Christie brokered a meeting at Trump Tower between Mr. Trump and governors from around the country, Mr. Trump offered a desultory performance, bragging about his poll numbers, listening passively as the governors talked about their states and then sending them on their way. Mr. Trump never asked them for their support, three people briefed on the meeting said. With donors, Mr. Trump has been an indifferent ambassador for his campaign. He has resisted making fund-raising calls and, during at least two major events in July, in New York and Chicago, burned valuable hours with potential contributors by asking them to go around the room, one by one, giving him their thoughts on whom he should pick as his running mate. That left little time for the donors to query Mr. Trump about policy or strategy, or for him to reassure them about his campaign. Jay Bergman, an Illinois oil executive who attended the event in Chicago, said he wondered if Mr. Trump had taken that approach “to avoid answering questions.” On matters of policy, too, Mr. Trump has engaged only fleetingly, and idiosyncratically. Before delivering a policy speech in Detroit on Monday, he delegated the formation of an economic plan to a few conservative economists outside his campaign, who consulted him from time to time and ultimately haggled over the details in his office as he followed their conversation. Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation fellow, said he and Arthur Laffer, the supply-side economist, had tangled over the top tax bracket while Mr. Trump observed from behind his desk, eventually siding with Mr. Moore. Mr. Trump, he said, also expressed strong views about the taxation of interest on business loans, citing his experience as a developer. “He’s a typical businessman, right?” Mr. Moore said. “He lets people argue it out, and Arthur made his case and others made their case.” “He’s not the world’s expert on the tax code,” Mr. Moore added, “but he has very good intuition about how these things will affect real people.” At the last minute, Mr. Trump interjected to direct his advisers to incorporate a tax deduction for the cost of child care in his economic plan. The issue, which Mr. Trump had not discussed on the campaign trail, is a favorite of his daughter Ivanka. Mr. Trump’s reliance on his family has only grown more pronounced. Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, who has no background in politics, has expanded his role: He now has broad oversight over areas including the campaign’s budget, messaging and strategy, with the power to approve spending. Mr. Trump has also continued to seek advice from Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager whom Mr. Trump ousted in June at his children’s urging. Efforts to bring in high-profile, experienced hands have been fruitless. Mr. Kushner had suggested enlisting Steve Schmidt, Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, but despite having met once with Mr. Trump during the primaries and speaking with him a few times, Mr. Schmidt never signed on. Mr. Trump’s advisers believe he is nearly out of time to right his campaign. On Tuesday, hours before his explosive comment about “Second Amendment people” taking action if Mrs. Clinton is elected, his brain trust reassembled again at Trump Tower in a reprise of their stern meeting in June. They again urged Mr. Trump to adjust his tone and comportment. The top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, gave an unvarnished assessment, warning that Mr. Trump’s numbers would only move in one direction, absent a major change. Mr. Trump, people briefed on the meeting said, digested the advice and responded receptively. It was time, he agreed, to get on track.

2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Polls
Republicans


Deaths in New York City Fires in 2009 Were Fewest on Record

Abstract: Fewer New Yorkers died in fires in 2009 than in any other year since 1915, when the city began keeping count, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Monday. The figures align with an overall pattern of declining fire deaths over the last two decades. The mayor said the Fire Department also set a record in the average response time, a subject that has been the focus of a debate between the city and the firefighters’ unions over a new dispatching system. Mr. Bloomberg cited what he called the Fire Department’s “extraordinary accomplishments” at the department’s headquarters in Brooklyn after the swearing-in ceremony for the new fire commissioner, Salvatore J. Cassano . In 2009, the mayor said, 73 people died in fires in New York. The previous low, 77, came in 1919, when the city’s population was two-thirds the size it is today. In 2008, the mayor said, there were 86 fire deaths. Before 2002, there were three years in which there were fewer than 100 deaths caused by fires, Mr. Bloomberg added. The mayor also said there were fewer fires — 43,677 — in 2009 than in any other year since 1915. Fire safety campaigns played a role in the decrease in fatalities and fires, the mayor said. The department distributed 123,000 smoke alarms and 75,000 batteries last year, along with educational pamphlets printed in 10 languages that reached half a million people. The mayor also credited the new dispatching system, which was instituted in May. He said it contributed significantly to the record-low average response time, 4 minutes 2 seconds. The new system, referred to as unified call-taking, is meant to streamline the way firefighters are sent out on runs. For years, people reporting fires spoke briefly to 911 operators with the Police Department before being transferred to Fire Department dispatchers, who asked the callers for information and then sent out firefighters. Under the new system, 911 operators answer calls, collect information and dispatch units. In December, representatives of firefighters’ unions testifying at a City Council hearing criticized the new system, saying it did not save as much time as city officials had asserted. When a reporter on Monday reminded Mr. Bloomberg that the unions argue that more time is spent talking to callers under the new system, the mayor disagreed, saying, “That couldn’t be more wrong.” A spokesman for the Uniformed Firefighters’ Association, which represents the city’s 8,800 rank-and-file firefighters, said the group had no comment on the mayor’s remarks.

Fire Department (NYC)
Fires and Firefighters
Bloomberg Michael R
Deaths (Fatalities)
Cassano Salvatore J
New York City


The Women Who Helped Donald Trump to Victory

Abstract: NAZARETH, Pa. — Debbie Biro became a Republican to vote for Donald J. Trump. A lifelong Democrat, Ms. Biro, 57, is a churchgoing single mother who practices yoga and does not eat meat. She works in the office at the Crayola Crayons factory near here, and she can pinpoint her “turning point” — the moment she became convinced that Mr. Trump was “a strong leader, and he’ll get things done.” It came in January, when he skipped a debate in Iowa to host a fund-raiser for veterans — an event that later garnered questions of how much money he had given. Ms. Biro’s father served in the Korean War, and she said she admired Mr. Trump’s business skills, “and I thought it was nice that he was taking care of the vets.” In well-to-do Naples, Fla., Sue Gauta, 47, a small-business owner married to a doctor, also embraced Mr. Trump. So did Wanda Lincoln, 67, a retired college administrator still working to make ends meet in a threadbare mill city in Maine. And Kyleigh Ostendorf, 26, who lives in Los Angeles and produces graphics for ESPN. As America dissects the results of Tuesday’s election, one trend stands out: Tens of thousands of women — 53 percent of all white female voters , according to exit polls — chose Mr. Trump, playing a crucial role in his victory. [ Female Clinton Supporters Are Left Feeling Gutted ] In interviews here in the Lehigh Valley — a bellwether region in a swing state that helped elect Mr. Trump — and around the country, female supporters said theirs was a vote for Mr. Trump and not against Hillary Clinton. America was on the wrong track, the women said, and Mr. Trump alone could fix it. They are women who want their daughters to grow up and run businesses — and who run businesses themselves. Many said they were eager for a woman as president. Were they offended by Mr. Trump’s vile comments about women, captured on tape? Absolutely. Did they believe the women who came forward and said Mr. Trump had groped them? Not necessarily. Did any of it stop them from voting for him? No. Where female opponents took to Twitter with #NotOkay, branding Mr. Trump a misogynist and worse, his female supporters saw “a good man and a good father,” said Mary Barket, the head of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women, who knows Ms. Biro from church and helped her get involved in the Trump campaign. Ms. Biro, who said she was “a quiet, reserved person,” had never knocked on doors or worked in politics before. But she spent one day each weekend since August canvassing for Mr. Trump. Image Mary Barket, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women, in Easton, Pa. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times Where those who voted against Mr. Trump saw someone who bankrupted businesses and ducked paying taxes, these women said they saw a man who built a real estate empire and simply followed the law. They saw a man who had raised and promoted a beautiful and successful daughter, Ivanka, and who let a smart and accomplished Washington strategist, Kellyanne Conway, manage his presidential campaign. In short, they embraced Mr. Trump’s sales pitch for himself. “I think that women see the big picture — women are smart,” Mrs. Gauta said. “The fact that he said something crude,” she said “is not going to change my mind about the good he can do for our country. “Did I like that, no,” she went on. “But do I think he can do a better job than Hillary? Absolutely. I think he has got the best interests of this country at heart. He’s got a beautiful family; he wants to leave a nice country — the great country he was raised in — for his kids. And I think he said the only way I’m going to get that done is by being president myself.” She took her sons, 14 and 16, to a Trump rally, and said she “was even more impressed by him in person than on TV.” But as to his sometimes foul mouth, “If my boys ever said anything like that, I’d put them over my knee and spank them.’’ In Chicago, Nicole Been, 22, a Roman Catholic who attends DePaul University, is deeply opposed to abortion and the “hookup culture.” She complained that other students branded her a racist and a bigot for supporting Mr. Trump. In Philadelphia, Daphne Goggins, 53, an African-American community activist and ardent Republican, always knew she would vote for Mr. Trump. She said she believed decades of Democratic efforts had done little for black people. When Mr. Trump invited her to a minority outreach meeting, she told him tearfully that “for the first time in my life, I feel like my vote is going to count.” (Only 4 percent of black women, exit polls show, supported Mr. Trump, while 26 percent of Latinas did.) For the women interviewed, as for male Trump backers, the economy was of utmost concern. Mrs. Gauta and her husband are tired of paying $1,800 a month in health care premiums, with a $12,000 annual deductible. Ms. Lincoln, the retired college administrator, now works at her husband’s auto body shop in Old Town, Me., to help pay the bills. Ms. Ostendorf, the graphics producer in Los Angeles, watched her father’s million-dollar business implode in the economic crash of 2008. He picked up work doing maintenance for the Y.M.C.A. “I’ve seen America fall down,” she said, “and a big part of Trump that appealed to me was his business plan.” Image Trump’s supporters in Reno, Nev., cheered as it became clear the real estate mogul was going to become the president-elect. Credit Max Whittaker for The New York Times And they said they are troubled, as well, by an America that seems to have embraced multiculturalism and political correctness without question. They said they did not understand the Black Lives Matter movement, wondered why Democrats seemed so fixated on transgender access to bathrooms and tended to be enraged at the way veterans are treated and violence directed at the police. They are concerned about immigration and the threat of terrorism. Bobbye Horton, 67, of Grand Junction, Colo., who is Hispanic, approved of Mr. Trump’s plan to build a wall with Mexico. On Wednesday she wore a “Viva Trump” T-shirt. Immigrants, she said, needed to use legal channels or stay out. “He got at the heart of America.” Research suggests Americans in both parties long ago became open to a female president. By 1999, the Gallup poll found that 92 percent of Americans said they would vote for a woman. When Gallup first asked that question, in 1937, the figure was 33 percent. “People no longer hear, ‘Do you want a woman to be president?’” Ms. Conway said in an interview in February, before she became Mr. Trump’s campaign manager. “They hear, ‘Do you want that woman?’” This held true in many conversations with Mr. Trump’s female supporters. Many said they simply avoided talking about voting for him with Democratic female friends, for fear it would damage their sisterly bonds. (Ms. Biro never speaks of politics at yoga or at work.) “When I told them that I was supporting Trump, they were, like, shocked, oh my gosh, ‘there is no way I could support him,’” Ms. Biro said of her friends. “But I was like, ‘Everybody has their thing.’” Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said the party had expected “a surge of women” to support Mrs. Clinton, but that did not happen. While Mrs. Clinton did better with women in almost every demographic group, Ms. Lake said, “Trump won very solidly the white women’s vote, and we know that was fed by white, blue-collar women.” Ms. Biro comes close to fitting that mold; although she considers herself middle class, she did not go to college. And Nazareth, a middle-class community in Northampton County, is the kind of community where Mr. Trump did well. Yet sitting in the kitchen of her tidy Cape Cod-style home here, with the Trump-Pence signs still stuck in the front yard and a poster that speaks of peace as a path to enlightenment on the living room wall, Ms. Biro expressed the same hopes and fears for the country that many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters now have. “Hopefully he’s going to try to unite people,” she said of the president-elect. “We have to try to help people heal, so people can learn to trust, and have faith that things are going to be O.K.”

2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Women and Girls
White People
Republicans


European Banking Regulator Postpones Next Stress Tests to 2016

Abstract: LONDON — European banks will have another year to prepare for the next round of stress tests that will examine the ability of the region’s lenders to survive a potential financial crisis or severe economic downturn. The European Banking Authority, the banking regulator of the European Union, said on Tuesday that it would conduct its next Europe-wide stress test in 2016, rather than this year. The banking regulator will instead conduct a transparency exercise this year intended to provide detailed data on banks’ balance sheets and loan portfolios. That exercise will be similar to one the authority conducted in 2013. The decision was driven by an acknowledgment that lenders have strengthened their capital positions in response to reviews last year, the regulator said in a news release . In October, the European Banking Authority and the European Central Bank announced the results of parallel reviews of lenders. The central bank’s test , known as an asset quality review, focused on 130 big banks in the eurozone, which at the time comprised 18 countries. The European Banking Authority’s test included banks in Britain, Sweden and other European Union countries that are not part of the eurozone. In its stress test, the authority identified 14 banks that fell short of the capital requirements and that would need additional buffers to prepare for a potential economic downturn. The Federal Reserve in Washington is expected to announce the preliminary results of its own stress tests this week, which will include the United States units of several European banks. The E.C.B. is not planning on repeating last year’s comprehensive assessment in 2015,” a spokesman said. But even with no broad stress test planned this year, local banking supervisors in Europe, whether it is the E.C.B. in the eurozone or the Prudential Regulation Authority in Britain, routinely conduct tests and reviews of the banks under their supervision throughout the year.

European Banking Authority
Banking and Finance
Europe
European Central Bank
EU
Eurozone


With Wild Stocks of Shrimp Dwindling, Tank Farming Is on the Rise

Abstract: STOUGHTON, Mass. — In a warehouse south of Boston, miles away from the city’s bustling harbor, James Tran, a semiconductor designer, is incubating an unlikely product: shrimp. Mr. Tran, who started Sky8 Shrimp Farm two years ago, is one of a growing number of small, high-tech shrimp farmers in America racing to meet the country’s seemingly insatiable appetite for scampi, without ravaging the environment, using harmful chemicals or depending on overseas suppliers accused of labor rights violations. “To go on getting shrimp the way we have is wishful thinking,” said Mr. Tran, cupping several twitching, ready-to-ship scampi in his hand. His extended family in Vietnam engages in traditional coastal shrimp farming, the kind often linked to environmental, food safety and labor troubles. But at Sky8, shrimp mature in fiberglass tanks fitted with advanced recirculation, filtration and temperature control systems. Image James Tran, who started Sky8 Shrimp Farm in Stoughton, Mass. Credit Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times “I think our industry is going to kick off pretty fast,” he said. Americans love shrimp, which overtook canned tuna as the most-consumed seafood per capita in the United States in 2002. Americans consumed an average of 3.8 pounds of shrimp in 2012, twice the amount three decades ago, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the nation’s taste for scampi comes with heavy social and environmental costs. Most of the shrimp the United States imports comes from farms in Latin America and in Southeast Asia, where environmental and human rights experts have long identified labor rights abuses, hazardous working conditions, damage to ecosystems and the use of hormones and antibiotics. Since last year, a bacterial disease has hit shrimp farms across Asia and Mexico, crippling shrimp production. Recent news reports have alleged the use of slave labor on boats that supply fish meal for shrimp farms in Thailand. Shrimp fishing, too, has run into grave problems. Stocks are under pressure across the globe. China, once a major shrimp exporter, now imports shrimp to meet growing demand. American regulators called off this year’s Gulf of Maine shrimping season after research suggested that overfishing and warming waters had driven shrimp stocks to new lows. Those mounting concerns are spurring a new generation of shrimp farmers, like Mr. Tran, who are developing ways to reduce their environmental footprint. Though official statistics are not yet available, the number of small indoor shrimp farms in the United States has grown from just two to at least 22 over the last five years, with dozens more in the pipeline, according to RDM Aquaculture, which provides equipment and know-how to other shrimp upstarts. Some farms are started by entrepreneurs like Mr. Tran Others are started by farmers looking to diversify from commoditized crops and livestock. “The situation is very much in flux,” said Pete Bridson, aquaculture research manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s influential Seafood Watch program , which gives shrimp from these tank-based farms its highest rating for seafood that is farmed or fished sustainably. “We’re seeing newer farms come along that engage in closed, intensive shrimp farming, and there’s certainly a market for that,” he said. The new wave in American shrimp farming is part of a push by both government and industry officials to raise the stature of aquaculture and reverse a disdainful public perception to farmed seafood, in part because of past controversies over cultivated ocean products. Image Keeping the shrimp in the net. One farmer said, “They’ve learned to run to the other side and hide.” Credit Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times Over all, American farmers made up 0.8 percent of global aquaculture production in 2011, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Fisheries officials estimate that doubling American aquaculture production could create 50,000 jobs and more than $1 billion in revenue for farmers. At Sky8 Shrimp, run by four workers, it takes about three months to grow batches of 40,000 shrimp larvae, which feed on fish meal, algae and seaweed, to a size favored by retailers and restaurants. (Sky8 Shrimp is developing a feed that is free of fish meal.) The farm uses tanks of Atlantic Ocean water, filtered and reused from harvest to harvest. There are no antibiotics, no hormones and no pesticides, according to tests carried out at Sky8 last year by the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates shrimp. There is little risk that shrimp might escape and harm wild stocks. That attention to detail comes with a cost. Mr. Tran ships as much as 1,300 pounds of fresh shrimp a month to local high-end buyers at $15 a pound, as much as twice the price imported frozen shrimp can sell for. Still, he says Sky8 is struggling to meet demand from local high-end retailers and restaurants. “We desperately need to expand capacity,” he said. “They’re real pioneers. Hats off to them,” said Michael Rubino, who heads N.O.A.A.'s aquaculture program. “We’re at a tipping point in the public perception of aquaculture as part of the problem to part of the solution,” he said. Long a delicacy, shrimp first became more widely popular in the United States in the 1970s, when the Red Lobster chain introduced popcorn shrimp at its restaurants nationwide. The rise of shrimp farming in Asia had greatly expanded global shrimp production, driving down prices and helping to bring shrimp to a mass audience. Though America’s attempts to kick-start commercial shrimp farming also dates from the early 1970s, the industry struggled to compete with the cheap shrimp imports. Moreover, early shrimp farms were in open-air ponds or near the coast, and sometimes released effluent into sensitive ocean habitats. Hobbled by cutthroat competition from cheap imports, and disease worries, production at these early shrimp farms has declined since the early 2000s. Image Mr. Tran checks a tank full of larval shrimp. Credit Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times But now the tide could be turning. The average price of shrimp imported into the United States during the first quarter of the year was 45 percent higher than last year, according to data carried by the trade journal Undercurrent News. Darden Restaurants, which in May agreed to sell Red Lobster for $2.1 billion, has said rising shrimp costs could add $30 million to the chain’s expenses in 2014 compared with last year. Experts also say consumers are increasingly demanding more sustainability and food transparency — though American shrimp farmers could still struggle to convince the average shopper that seeking out homegrown shrimp at higher prices is worth the deal. “With food, everything revolves around two things: Will this make my life easier and my food cheaper?” said, Harry Balzer, chief food industry analyst at the NPD Group, a consumer research company. “But we do want to be healthy. There’s never been a time we didn’t want to be healthy.” Among the windmills of Indiana, 600 miles from the ocean, Karlanea Brown and her husband, Darryl, have been farming shrimp since 2009 to supplement their income from corn and soybeans. Now, Ms. Brown has become a shrimp-farming evangelist of sorts, running classes on shrimp farming, financing and marketing in a big barn. Image Mr. Tran holds a young shrimp. Credit Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times So far, their company, RDM Aquaculture , has helped get 14 shrimp farms off the ground, started by people from diverse walks of life: farmers, bankers, a phone technician, a former funeral home director. At least six more shrimp farms are coming online in the next year, Ms. Brown said. “The U.S. shouldn’t be importing shrimp when we can make our own,” Ms. Brown said. “We ship our shrimp out so fresh, their legs are still kicking when they go out the door.” Chad Axley of Elgin, Minn., opened his shrimp farm last year to supplement income from his struggling cattle business. “I thought it made sense to do something no one else was doing,” Mr. Axley said. Starting their Northern Tide Farm took detailed research into unfamiliar tasks, like regulating oxygen levels in the water, Mr. Axley said. Now, from eight tanks, the farm sells up to 400 pounds of shrimp a month, which Mr. Axley scoops up with a giant net. He is now building his ninth tank and has figured out most of the tricks. One problem, though: So have the shrimp. “They’ve learned to run to the other side and hide,” Mr. Axley said. “I’m now having to set traps.”

Shrimp
Fish farming
Oceans and Seas
International trade


A Review of Moonshine Modern Supper Club, in Millburn

Abstract: WHEN Joe San Philip and his partners took over a two-story restaurant space in Millburn with noisy acoustics, they moved the bar into the storefront next door to quiet things down. Drinkers, they hoped, would mosey from the bar into the dining room and back again. Their next move was to concoct a cocktail list with a mixture of updated classics, like a ginger sidecar, and newer creations like Cynars and Saints, a bittersweet potion of artichoke and elderflower liqueurs topped with prosecco. Only then did the owners and their chef, Francis X. Falivene, apply the retro-new theme to the menu, where entrees like lobster Thermidor that evoke the Prohibition era cohabitate with bistro-style salads and pizzas. The result, Moonshine Modern Supper Club , which opened in November, provides those so inclined with a taste of nostalgia for an imagined past, while allowing others to keep their plates and palates focused squarely on the present. As it happened, my two visits bespoke a different duality: the first was disappointing, featuring dishes light on taste but heavy on cheese (the Thermidor, alas, and the oysters Rockefeller, as well as a fondue appetizer), slow service and even a dirty bathroom. The second, on a Tuesday, was simply terrific, and caused me to look at the place — where big paintings of animals and other eye-catching appointments interrupt the expanses of dark gray walls — in an entirely different light. It also may be that I sampled fewer of the vintage dishes on the return trip. Instead, my companions and I stumbled across wondrous gnocchi made with chopped truffles and truffle juice, matched with crispy veal-and-truffle meatballs, and bathed with crispy pancetta in a sherry and mushroom cream sauce. We sampled crunchy, tender shrimp, sautéed and spiced with Spanish paprika, bedded down in an even tastier salad of frisée, chickpeas and roasted piquillo peppers drizzled with sherry vinegar and paprika-infused oil. And we tore into a pizza baked plain and then topped, out of the oven, with bitter but unwilted arugula and warmed, not crisped, prosciutto. On my first visit, I’d succumbed to the charms of the duck egg and hash appetizer: a homemade confit (cured with Cognac), shredded and mixed with sweet potatoes and butter and crowned with a poached egg and hollandaise. The roasted beet salad did its job nicely. And the grilled mahi-mahi, with Brussels sprouts, parsnip purée and onions cooked in port wine, seemed a good combination for the end of a mild winter. But the New York strip, a fine piece of meat prepared just as finely, came with a chimichurri sauce that needed more garlic. What was excellent on both occasions was Mr. Falivene’s all-but-dissolving, wholly mouthwatering short ribs, slow-braised in Burgundy and veal stock and cooled in the liquid overnight before being reheated to order. As if that were not enough, he served the meat over both cheddar cheese grits (even fattier for having been cooked in milk and cream) and collard greens that were cooked to perfection, for nearly three hours, with bacon, onions, red wine vinegar and — no kidding — Old Bay. Not everything bowled us over: the generous portion of seared ahi tuna, in a sherry-almond romesco sauce, was overpowered by the chorizo added to its accompaniment of braised borlotti beans. And the duck à l’orange — a duck breast, rather — was slightly overcooked, though we still enjoyed it, as we did the blanched green beans and buttery purée of celery root that came with it. But ounce for ounce, what nearly matched the short rib in delectability was a side dish of braised savoy cabbage, slow-cooked with bacon, Granny Smith apples, onions, garlic, celery and apple cider vinegar. Mr. Falivene served it with a now-bygone salmon Wellington, but he didn’t get around to taking it off the menu. Try it before he does. Dessert is not Mr. Falivene’s specialty, as he volunteered in a phone call after my visits, and Moonshine has given up hiring a pastry chef for now. The apple tart, chocolate mousse and crème brûlée all performed adequately. But what achieved more, with less, were the caramel-and-sea-salt ice cream , and the raspberry-merlot and blood orange sorbets, all from Piece of Cake in Rahway. Mr. Falivene earned strong notices with Ora, his own restaurant in Morristown (since closed), and at City Bistro in Hoboken, after working as chef de cuisine at Artisanal bistro in Manhattan. Whether his new supper club succeeds over the long term will depend not on a fancier dessert selection, however, but on a kitchen that can make those old-school dishes seem truly worth bringing back to the future. Moonshine Modern Supper Club 55 Main Street Millburn (973) 218-6042 moonshinesupperclub.com WORTH IT THE SPACE Bistro-style dining room with open kitchen seating 40; upstairs dining room seating 50; and back room seating 18. The attractively decorated, comfortable bar seats 20, and 18 at lounge tables. Sidewalk and patio seating in warm weather for two dozen or so more. Wheelchair accessible on the first floor. THE CROWD In their 30s and up, on dates or business outings, having a swell old time. The staff was solicitous on a slow night but overmatched on a busy one. THE BAR Excellent cocktails, $10; 20 draft and 30 bottled beers, $6 to $11; international list of about 100 wines by the bottle, $26 to $240; 50 available in 3-ounce glasses, $4 to $11, or 6-ounce glasses, $7 to $20. Live music on some nights. THE BILL Appetizers, $7 to $16. Dinner entrees, $22 to $35 (and a porterhouse for two, which costs $90). The restaurant is on the expensive side, though portions are ample. American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa accepted. WHAT WE LIKED Paprika spiced shrimp, duck egg and hash, truffle gnocchi and meatballs, roasted beet salad, prosciutto and arugula pizza, savoy cabbage, grilled mahi-mahi, duck à l’orange, braised beef short ribs, chocolate mousse, apple tart, ice cream and sorbet. IF YOU GO Lunch: Monday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Brunch: Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Bar menu daily, 3 to 5 p.m. Dinner: Monday to Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m. Reservations recommended Thursday to Saturday. Parking in rear municipal lot and office-building lot around the corner. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don’t Bother.

Moonshine Modern Supper Club (Millburn NJ Restaurant)

Moonshine Modern Supper Club (Millburn NJ)


On Long Island, ‘Photos to Be Saved From the Fire’

Abstract: YOUR house is burning down, and the people and pets are safe but you have time to grab just one object. What would you rescue? Marc Josloff , a photographer and painter, put a similar question recently to members of the Long Island Center of Photography , asking them to think quickly of the one photograph they would save from a fire that was about to destroy all of their work. The choices made by more than 20 photographers make up “Photos to Be Saved From the Fire,” an exhibition curated by Mr. Josloff that is on view at the Freeport Memorial Library through Jan. 31. The exhibition includes the photographers’ impulsive choices as well as their after-the-fact musings on why they think they picked what they picked. “Since I’m asking people to do it without a thought, after they’ve pulled one, I’m asking them to think about why they believe they made that instant decision,” Mr. Josloff said. “So you do something viscerally and then analyze why it might have been your decision to do that.” The resulting show, Mr. Josloff said, offers a window into the mind of each of the photographers. One chose a photo of his parents that he took when he was 7; another picked a shot of witnesses to the Sept. 11 attack at the World Trade Center. Mr. Josloff’s photo, “Man Behind Dark Glasses,” was taken on a street in San Francisco during a trip more than 30 years ago. He later left his exposed film in the glove compartment of his car, where it nearly melted. “When I got to my darkroom and opened up the canister, it felt gooey, and my heart was broken because I thought the shot was lost,” he said. “I tried to develop it anyway, and I ended up with these splotches all over the sky.” He was able to darken the photo, though, and came up with an image “even more powerful than what I’d initially seen,” he said. The lesson, Mr. Josloff said, is that if something means a lot to you, you must keep trying. “Sometimes,” he said, “what comes out of the wreckage can be better than what you originally had in mind.”