Putting a Price Tag on Nature’s Defenses

Abstract: After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the United States Army Corps of Engineers got to work on a massive network of levees and flood walls to protect against future catastrophes. Finally completed in 2012, the project ended up costing $14.5 billion — and that figure didn’t include the upkeep these defenses will require in years to come, not to mention the cost of someday replacing them altogether. But levees aren’t the only things that protect coasts from storm damage. Nature offers protection, too. Coastal marshes absorb the wind energy and waves of storms, weakening their impact farther inland. And while it’s expensive to maintain man-made defenses, wetlands rebuild themselves. Protection from storms is just one of many services that ecosystems provide us — services that we’d otherwise have to pay for. In 1997, a team of scientists decided to estimate how much they are actually worth. Worldwide, they concluded , the price tag was $33 trillion — equivalent to $48.7 trillion in today’s dollars. Put another way, the services ecosystems provide us — whether shielding us from storms, preventing soil erosion or soaking up the greenhouse gases that lead to global warming — were twice as valuable as the gross national product of every country on Earth in 1997. “We basically said, ‘It’s an imprecise estimate, but it’s almost definitely a pretty big number, and we’ve got to start paying attention,'” said Robert Costanza, a professor at Australian National University who led the study. That study proved to be hugely influential. Many governments, from Costa Rica to the United Kingdom, started to take the value of ecosystem services into account when they planned environmental policies. But the study also set off a lot of controversy. Some economists argued that it was based on bad economics, while some conservation biologists argued that price tags were the wrong way to save ecosystems. Seventeen years later, the debate is getting re-energized, just as the nation becomes immersed in an intense fight over the Obama administration’s attempt to tackle the emissions that scientists say could threaten many of these ecosystems. Dr. Costanza and his colleagues have now updated the 1997 estimate in a new study , published in the May issue of the journal Global Environmental Change, and concluded that the original estimate was far too low. The true value of the services of the world’s ecosystems is at least three times as high, they said. “As we learn more, these estimates increase,” Dr. Costanza said. That’s putting it mildly. The enormous rise in the price tag stems from hundreds of new studies carried out on ecosystems around the world. Taken as a whole , these studies reveal that ecosystems do more for us than Dr. Costanza and his colleagues could appreciate in 1997. Coral reefs, for instance, have proved to be much more important for storm protection than previously recognized. They also protect against soil erosion by weakening waves before they reach land. As a result, Dr. Costanza and his colleagues now consider the services provided by coral reefs to be 42 times more valuable than they did in 1997. They estimate that each acre of reef provides $995,000 in services each year for a total of $11 trillion worldwide. Most of the 17 services that Dr. Costanza and his colleagues analyzed in 16 different kinds of ecosystems — including tropical forests, mangroves and grasslands — also turned out to be more valuable. When they added up all their new figures, they came up with a global figure of $142.7 trillion a year (in 2014 dollars). But they also had to take into account the fact that many ecosystems have suffered since 1997. Many coral reefs, for example, have been dying off because of pollution and other human activities. Dr. Costanza and his colleagues estimate that the world’s reefs shrank from 240,000 square miles in 1997 to 108,000 in 2011. If coral reefs and other ecosystems were still as healthy as they were in 1997, the value of their services today would have been considerably higher: $165.8 trillion. In other words, deforestation and other damage we’ve inflicted on the natural world has wiped out $23 trillion a year in ecosystem services. To put that loss into perspective, consider that the gross domestic product of the United States is $16.2 trillion. “I think this is a very important piece of science,” said Douglas J. McCauley of the University of California, Santa Barbara. That’s particularly high praise coming from Dr. McCauley, who has been a scathing critic of Dr. Costanza’s attempt to put price tags on ecosystem services. “This paper reads to me like an annual financial report for Planet Earth,” Dr. McCauley said. “We learn whether the dollar value of Earth’s major assets have gone up or down.” But even with the new calculations, Dr. McCauley still thinks valuing those assets with dollar figures is wrong. As ecosystems shrink or suffer degradation, they may be seen as less valuable — and thus less likely to be protected. “I think this approach to conservation is disingenuous and dangerous,” he said. Dr. McCauley is hardly alone. In the journal Conservation Letters, Matthias Schröter of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and his colleagues recently surveyed a number of objections that have been leveled against Dr. Costanza’s approach. Some scientists argue that it doesn’t make sense to look at ecosystems simply as providing us with good things. Ecosystems can also harbor diseases and harm us in other ways. As for his own view, Dr. Schröter said that Dr. Costanza’s method was a powerful way to communicate just how much we depend on nature — and just how much of it we’re destroying. “Time has run out,” Dr. Schröter said. “The message needs to get through that we lose something of crucial value every day.”

Land use
Coral
Reef
Emergency Response and Preparedness
Robert Costanza
Wetlands
Environment
Forests


After Suing, Tenant Comes Home to the Brooklyn Apartment She Was Made to Leave

Abstract: Tranquilina Alvillar stepped out of the truck and onto the curb at Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg just after 9 a.m. on Monday, carrying a Bible and wearing two scarves. “I was so nervous this morning trying to get dressed, I didn’t know what I was doing,” she said in halting English as she unwrapped one gray woolen scarf from around her neck. “I’m feeling very worried.” After more than three years, Ms. Alvillar , 50, was about to return to the second-floor apartment at 193 Bedford Avenue, between North Sixth and North Seventh Streets, where she had lived for 25 years, since coming to the United States from Mexico. Her story is a common one in gentrified Williamsburg, although the resolution is unusual. In February 2011, Reno Capital L.L.C. bought 193 Bedford for $4.5 million and began gut-renovating the five-story tenement building. Ms. Alvillar, who paid $700 a month for a rent-stabilized apartment, said the landlord took her out for coffee and offered her $40,000 to move out. She said she declined, and they continued renovating around her until her living conditions grew so dire that, in August 2011, an inspector from the city’s Department of Buildings ordered her to vacate the premises. After Ms. Alvillar left, the landlord completed the renovation and, in 2012, began renting out the apartments, including Ms. Alvillar’s, to market-rate tenants. Meanwhile, Ms. Alvillar, who has been living with a nephew in Coney Island, Brooklyn, brought a suit in Housing Court, saying she was illegally locked out of her apartment. In June, a decision was rendered that tenants’ rights advocates said set an important precedent. Judge Jean T. Schneider, in a striking move, ordered that the market-rate tenant who was living in Ms. Avillar’s apartment be evicted and that Ms. Avillar could move back in. After the landlord appealed, Judge Schneider’s decision was upheld earlier this month by an appellate court and the eviction was scheduled for Friday, although by the time a city marshal arrived, the tenant was gone. Calls to lawyers for the tenant and to Carnegie Management Inc., which manages the building for the landlord, were not returned on Monday. “I never thought I would come back here,” said Ms. Alvillar, slowly surveying the small studio apartment, which had been renting for close to $2,900 a month. Her belongings, including several shopping bags stuffed with clothes and a folded army cot on which she sleeps, were at her feet. On the windowsill were her Bible and a book, “Jesus Te Llamo,” as well as a vase of colorful flowers, a gift from the lawyers and community organizers who had helped guide her through the case. The apartment is not quite as she remembered. As part of the renovation, the landlord reconfigured apartments, and her home is now much smaller than it once was. There is a dishwasher, a stainless steel refrigerator and exposed brick walls. With so much newness, it is all a bit overwhelming. Ms. Avillar is particularly concerned about harassment from the landlord, and a locksmith was on his way to install a second lock on her apartment door, for which the landlord would not have a key. “Stay positive; you have nothing to fear,” Shekar Krishnan, a director at Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, a nonprofit legal organization, told her. “You won the case and deserve to be here.” With Christmas just days away, Ms. Alvillar has no plans to celebrate, and will instead be working, cleaning empty office buildings. “It has been a very big struggle since I came to this country; I have worked nonstop,” she said, wiping tears from her face. “I have felt depressed and all alone. I don’t feel better yet, but I hope that soon I will.”

Real Estate
Housing
Tranquilina Alvillar
Home Improvement
Williamsburg Brooklyn
Rent
NYC


U.S. Chamber Out of Step With Its Board, Report Finds

Abstract: None of the 108 board members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came forward to explicitly support the lobbying group’s policies on tobacco and climate change, according to a new report from a group of eight Senate Democrats, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders. The report, which was written by Senator Warren and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, followed on reporting by The New York Times that revealed the chamber’s international campaign against antismoking laws and its efforts to undermine policies aimed at curbing global warming. “The chamber’s lobbying is at odds with its own public positions,” the report found. It noted that the “organization strongly professes that it is anti-tobacco” and has claimed to support “efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” In a statement, the chamber described the report’s contents as a “partisan line of attack” that was “egregiously false” and recycled “old myths and tired talking points.” The Times reported that the chamber had focused on antismoking measures advanced by health advocates from Ukraine to Nepal to Australia. The measures targeted by the chamber included restrictions on smoking in public spaces, bans on menthol and slim cigarettes, curbs on tobacco advertising, excise-tax increases and graphic warning labels. Thomas J. Donohue, the head of the chamber, personally lobbied the speaker of the House, the United States trade representative and the Irish prime minister on the tobacco industry’s behalf. The chamber’s campaign has aroused the ire of the World Health Organization, and it put the four health care companies that serve on the chamber’s board — Anthem, the Health Care Service Corporation, the Steward Health Care System of Boston and the Indiana University Health system — in an awkward position. CVS Health Corporation quit the chamber over the revelations. Another report from The Times last year focused on the chamber’s efforts to dismantle President Obama’s climate change regulations. The chamber convened regular meetings of corporate lawyers, coal lobbyists and Republican political strategists more than a year before the regulations were introduced. The report highlights that even though the board is described as “the principal governing and policy-making body of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” the members are often left in the dark. “Approximately half of the companies on the chamber’s board of directors have adopted anti-tobacco and pro-climate positions that contrast sharply with the chamber’s activities,” according to the report. “Not a single board member explicitly supported the chamber’s lobbying efforts,” it said. Ten companies serving on the board told the Senate inquiry that “they had no knowledge of or input into the chamber’s lobbying activities on tobacco or climate issues.” The report was also backed by Senators Barbara Boxer of California, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ed Markey of Massachusetts. It was undertaken to determine whether the chamber’s board actually supported its secretive lobbying activities, and to further publicize the gap between the chamber and its board. The chamber has found itself in a difficult position. Under the leadership of Mr. Donohue, the chamber has become the country’s largest lobbying organization and a stalwart of the Republican Party that has made keeping control of the Senate a priority . But it has been thrown off its stride by the elevation of Donald Trump, who opposes chamber priorities like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In a December interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Donohue said Mr. Trump “won’t be the next president,” adding that he is “entertainment, but he’s not leadership for the American people.” In May, he said, “I hear mostly concern from our members. Who is this guy? What do we know about him? How will he behave?”

United States Chamber of Commerce
Smoking
Climate Change
Global Warming
Lobbying
Elizabeth Warren
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
Board of directors
Senate
Congress


New Jersey Moves to End Its Death Penalty

Abstract: TRENTON — The New Jersey General Assembly approved a bill eliminating capital punishment on Thursday, clearing the way for Gov. Jon S. Corzine to sign the measure as early as Monday. Mr. Corzine said he would act quickly. “It will be very, very prompt,” he said at a news conference on Thursday. “I’m sure it will be within the next week.” Once he signs the bill, New Jersey will become the first state in the modern era of capital punishment to repeal the death penalty. The measure has moved at an unusually fast pace through the Legislature. In the last week, it passed a Senate committee, an Assembly committee and both houses, leading many Republicans to accuse the Democratic leadership of trying to rush the bill through a lame-duck session. “I am ashamed the Assembly would consider this bill today,” said Assemblyman Richard A. Merkt, a conservative Republican from Randolph. The voting did not break down exclusively along party lines, however. Three Republicans joined 41 Democrats in the Assembly to pass the bill, 44 to 36. Surprisingly, nine Democrats voted against the measure. On Monday in the Senate, 4 Republicans joined 17 Democrats to muster just enough support to get the 21 votes needed to pass a bill. “We need to put politics aside,” said Christopher Bateman, a Republican from Somerville. “I think we have an opportunity today to change the course on this very important issue.” Several state legislatures have tried to overturn their death penalties since 1976, when the United States Supreme Court set the framework for the current system of capital punishment. And while executions have come to a halt by other means — through a moratorium, for example, issued by the governor of Illinois, and a court ruling declaring New York’s penalty unconstitutional — no state legislature has ever flatly outlawed the death penalty. Once the governor signs the bill, the New Jersey Department of Corrections will begin deciding what to do with the eight men on death row in the New Jersey State Prison here. Under the bill, inmates sentenced to death have 60 days to petition their sentencing courts to commute their sentences to life in prison with no possibility of parole. They also must agree to forego their rights to any further appeals. If they do not petition the court, their death sentences remain in place. But since the state’s capital punishment statute will be repealed, their sentences will be effectively equivalent to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Some of the most violent death-row inmates — those who are allowed no contact with other inmates — will probably be placed in a unit of the prison that is nearly identical to death row, confined for almost the entire day in a cell measuring 7 feet by 11 feet, correction officials said. The less violent death-row inmates may be moved to the prison’s general population. The Department of Corrections has said it will take up the matter once Mr. Corzine signs the bill.

Corzine Jon S
Capital Punishment
New Jersey


Concern Grows in Karachi as Social Worker Is Mourned

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Concern over deteriorating law and order in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, continued to grow Friday as politicians and newspapers paid tribute to a celebrated social worker who was shot dead by unidentified assassins. The victim, Parween Rahman, ran a development agency that works in the city’s Orangi slum, one of South Asia’s largest. She was gunned down inside her car by assassins riding a motorbike at a traffic intersection on Wednesday evening. An emotional outpouring followed her burial on Thursday, when protesting students hailed her as “the mother of Karachi.” On Friday, the news media paid tribute to her fearless work and progressive vision in a city otherwise blighted by corruption, crime and violence. “Pakistan loses another brave, devoted and resourceful person,” said an editorial in The News International , a major English-language daily. “But tributes, honor and respect are no shield against a gunman’s bullet.” Karachi, a sprawling coastal megalopolis of an estimated 18 million people, is already reeling from a series of violent episodes this year, including a devastating bombing in a Shiite neighborhood on March 3 that killed at least 45 people. No group claimed responsibility for the death of Ms. Rahman, who was in her mid-50s, although much suspicion fell on Karachi’s ruthless land mafias, with which she had frequently clashed. The police, however, blamed the Pakistani Taliban, who have in recent months been boldly asserting themselves in some of the poorest parts of Karachi. Javed Odho, the district police chief for western Karachi, said that Qari Bilal, a Taliban commander who was killed in an exchange of fire on the edge of the city on Thursday night, might have been involved in Ms. Rahman’s death. Although militants have long used Karachi for shelter or financing, the Pakistani Taliban have behaved more aggressively there over the past six months, killing dozens of political workers and police officers, and stepping up efforts to extort money from ethnic Pashtun traders. Many commentators fear that Ms. Rahman’s death will ultimately be added to Karachi’s lengthening list of unsolved murders. “What will become of a society that, for the most part, sits quietly as its messiahs are systematically wiped out?” said an editorial in the newspaper Dawn on Friday. An architect who left her practice to help the poor, Ms. Rahman had been brought into conflict with the city’s criminal, political and ethnic networks for her fearless work in slum areas. In an interview last October, she acknowledged the risk to her life. “For us to say the truth is to face the fire,” she said. “We have faced death threats.” The Orangi Pilot Project , which she headed, works with poor communities to carry out sanitation, housing and microcredit projects. Ms. Rahman said she avoided seeking Western assistance, preferring to mobilize Pakistani capital. “We believe in a partnership between government and their people,” she said. “If the World Bank says something can be done with $10, with a little guidance we say it can by done with $1.”

Pakistan Karachi Murders Taliban Assassination


New York, the City, Meets New York, the Condom

Abstract: Correction Appended The corporate branding of stadiums and sporting events has become routine. When the Bloomberg administration took office, it applied that corporate mentality to the city itself. To begin with, hats and shirts were emblazoned with the logos of the Police and Fire Departments. Now, taking the concept of branding to a new and quite intimate level, a New York City condom will soon be available. In a statement released yesterday, the health department said it was "currently developing the first NYC-branded condom, to be released in coming months." Sandra Mullin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, explained that the effort was more about packaging than about branding, providing the department with a better way to measure the effectiveness of its free condom distribution. "We wanted to develop condom packaging that was noticeable and memorable so that we can later track the effectiveness of our distribution," she said. "We also aim to use the packaging to promote condom use and awareness." Under the Bloomberg administration, the health department has greatly expanded condom distribution in an effort to reduce sexually transmitted disease such as H.I.V. Last June, the city created the Web-based "Free Condom Initiative" to provide community and social service organizations with condoms. Since the program was introduced, the city has distributed more than one million condoms a month, according to officials. Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city's health commissioner, said in yesterday's statement, "A condom can save your life." Still, some religious groups and social conservatives have long objected to aggressive condom promotion by government agencies, arguing that it promotes promiscuity. When told about the health department's plan, Michael Long, the chairman of the Conservative Party of New York State said, "Isn't it a sad commentary on how the government wastes money?" While health officials stressed that they did not plan to use the condoms to raise funds, Mr. Long said that even if the city did not raise money, it would be promoting a certain lifestyle. City officials said that a "New York condom" was not a part of the broader branding campaign that has been touted by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg many times since he was elected. For example, the city receives a royalty from the sale of products that legally use the Police and Fire Department logos. But, in the end, whatever the design of the package for the condom, it would be uniquely identified with the city, although exactly how -- whether it would include a logo or an iconic city image -- has yet to be determined. The statement from the health department seemed to catch many City Hall officials off guard. "This project is in the very early stages of development," said Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for the mayor. Despite assurances that the city does not plan to use the condoms to turn a profit, Joy Linn Alegarbes, 26, an employee at the West Village store Condomania, said she thought they would be wildly popular. "If this is actually going to happen, I think New Yorkers are absolutely going to love it," she said. "Of course, we live in a little liberal haven. But one group I think will really go for it are the tourists." She said they are asked for condoms with an "I heart New York" logo all the time. "I think the rest of the country would find it cute and kitschy when visiting New York," she said. "But I don't know if they would want them in their local drugstore." Correction: February 15, 2006, Wednesday Because of an editing error, an article yesterday about the New York City health department's development of a city-branded condom misstated the surname of the health commissioner in some copies. He is Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, not Friedman.

NEW YORK CITY
HEALTH DEPARTMENT
VENEREAL DISEASES
ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
CONDOMS
BIRTH CONTROL AND FAMILY PLANNING


End to a Fight Over Skype May Be Near

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — The bitter battle over the future of the Internet calling service Skype appears to be nearing an end. A resolution of the litigation surrounding the service, which is owned by eBay , could be announced as soon as this week, according to several people who have been briefed on the situation. The parties “sound optimistic that there’s a settlement,” said one of these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because talks were at a delicate stage and could still collapse. The proposed settlement is between a consortium of private equity investors, who successfully bid for Skype in September, and the original founders of Skype, who have filed several lawsuits in an effort to scuttle the consortium’s $1.9 billion deal to buy a majority of Skype from eBay. Skype allows its 520 million registered users to make free calls to one another using their PCs or mobile devices that run Skype software. It charges its users comparatively low rates to call regular phones, but that money adds up. Skype brought in $185 million for eBay in the last quarter and was the fastest-growing part of its business. The legal settlement, according to two people briefed on its outlines, would restructure the group that is buying Skype. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who created Skype and sold it to eBay in 2005, would take a significant stake in the new Skype. Index Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm whose partner, Michelangelo Volpi, was at the center of litigation over the Skype sale, is most likely withdrawing from the deal. It was not clear how much of the new Skype Mr. Zennstrom and Mr. Friis would own, although they would receive at least one seat on the new company’s board. Crucial to the proposed deal is that they drop their various lawsuits against eBay and the other Skype buyers. Lewis M. Phelps, a spokesman for the founders, said they had no comment on “rumors about the existing litigation.” Alan Marks, an eBay spokesman, declined to comment. The settlement would bring a close to a legal battle that started in March, when Mr. Zennstrom and Mr. Friis sued eBay in a British court. The pair said that eBay had violated the terms of a contract that allowed Skype to use a core technology, held by a company they own called Joltid, that provides the service’s underlying peer-to-peer infrastructure. The move was primarily tactical. Behind the scenes, Mr. Zennstrom and Mr. Friis were organizing their own bid to buy Skype back from eBay. As part of their proposal, they offered hundreds of millions of their own money and the Joltid intellectual property, and were joined by a group of private equity firms. But eBay did not accept their bid, partly because of animosity between the Skype founders and eBay management, according to a person involved in the proposal. Then in September, eBay said it was selling 65 percent of Skype to a rival group of investors led by Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm in Silicon Valley. That group had been organized by Index Ventures. Mr. Volpi, a new partner there, had worked for the Skype founders at Joost, an unsuccessful online video start-up that also used the Joltid technology. Mr. Volpi asserted that he had the expertise and contacts to lead the effort to redevelop Skype so that it no longer relied on the Joltid code. A wide-ranging legal imbroglio ensued. Mr. Zennstrom and Mr. Friis sued eBay and the consortium of buyers on the grounds of violating the Joltid copyright, this time in United States District Court in Northern California. They asserted that damages could accrue at $75 million a day. Joost and Joltid also sued Mr. Volpi and the other members of the buyout group in federal court in Delaware. That lawsuit claimed that Mr. Volpi had improperly used confidential information about Skype’s software to assemble the buyout team and make a successful bid. The lawsuit sought to prevent Mr. Volpi and Index from sharing that knowledge, making it difficult for them to continue as participants in the group. According to a person with knowledge of its legal strategy, eBay was prepared to argue that it was Mr. Zennstrom himself who, as chief executive of Skype until late 2007, closely intertwined the Skype and Joltid code and made it difficult for eBay to make changes to Skype without violating its Joltid contract. But even the act of fighting the lawsuit seemed likely to damage the reputations of everyone involved. For example, in some of the e-mail messages entered into evidence and made public, between Mr. Volpi and Danny Rimer, a fellow partner at Index Ventures, Mr. Volpi frankly assessed the strengths and weaknesses of other members of the deal-making team. GigaOm, an industry blog, first reported last weekend that the parties were close to a deal.

Skype Technologies
Suits and Litigation
Zennstrom Niklas
Friis Janus
eBay Inc


Amid a Lingering Recession, Small Businesses Face New Challenges

Abstract: A butcher and a restaurant owner receive breaks on their rent as their sales continue to dwindle. A bicycle maker shifts to building more food vending carts to sell to people who have lost their jobs. To combat a post-holiday drop in bookings, a tour operator hires a manager of online marketing. For a group of small businesses The New York Times has been tracking since October, the persistent recession keeps presenting new challenges. But on the brink of spring, a more hopeful tone was repeatedly struck in recent interviews conducted by Patrick McGeehan, Brent McDonald and Erik Olsen. (One of the businesses, a Saab auto dealer in Rochelle Park, N.J., declined to participate this month.) Wayne Sosin Wayne Sosin, 55, the president of Worksman Cycles in Ozone Park, Queens, is trying to shift his company’s product line away from the heavy-duty tricycles it sells to automakers and other big industrial companies. With a trimmed-down staff, Worksman is making more food vending carts for entrepreneurs and delivery bicycles for couriers and restaurants. We’ve seen a big decline in demand for our product beginning in October, coming off a phenomenal 2008. It all came to a sort of disappointing stop as the economy crashed, because a lot of our customers are the big industrial customers like Chrysler and Ford and G.M. So, certainly, they’re not buying any industrial tricycles from us in this market, nor are their suppliers. We haven’t gotten the final numbers for February, but I’d say January and February were down about 30 percent in our industrial cycle sales, while the rest of our business is pretty much holding its own. Definitely back in November-December, we had to make adjustments in our employment level and the hours that we work. So it’s been hard. We don’t like to see people working less hours. There’s been no overtime, and there’s been some people laid off. We’ve seen relatively flat sales in our recreational adult trikes and recreational bicycles. And our food vending cart business has actually seen strong demand. You can get into a business that is relatively inexpensive to start — as little as $3,000 for a cart. Everybody can picture, back in the Depression, Apple Annie standing on the street and selling her apples. In a way, that might be an extension of what’s happening today. The food vending cart offers someone the opportunity to go out and be entrepreneurial and make a living. So for us, the hot-dog cart might become for us the symbol of this current recession. The new Yankee Stadium will be outfitted with a lot of our hot-dog carts. It’s great to get an order like that at this time. And certainly, it came at a good time for us. The initial order was for a dozen hot-dog carts, but we think there’s going to be more to follow. If anyone was asking me what numbers we’re expecting, it would not be a reasonable forecast. I can’t really know at this point. I know we’re going to be down. If we’re not down, it would be a miracle. It’s just a matter of are we going to be down 10 percent or 30 percent. Ruben Villasante Ruben Villasante, 47, owns a small contracting firm, V & V Construction, that specializes in painting and home renovations in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. He cut his staff from nine men to three in the second half of 2008. Now, he says, he has just enough business to keep the four of them working. The new year started kind of slow. March is the month when everybody starts thinking about what they’re going to do with the house, so we’re getting a lot of calls. But a lot less than last year, about 50 percent less than last year or the year before, even. When you get calls, it’s, ‘We’re looking at doing something. We’re getting prices.’ They’re not in a big hurry, and they’re more careful about what they’re doing. They’re just waiting. It’s, ‘Thank you for the quote. We’ll call you in two weeks.’ They’ll keep me in mind. Nothing definitive. There’s less ambition and probably more maintenance than home improvement, just to keep the house in good shape. They won’t go into redoing a whole floor, or a new kitchen or a new bathroom. We’re probably going to be busy with maintenance, painting and windows. I’m not going to go under because I know what I am doing and I’ve been doing it for many years. I would like to be running around the whole day. But things happen in a free market and the economy, and you have to adapt to the circumstances. This time we went down a lot, so we’re going to climb soon. Next year, if you had to bet, I would say is probably better. I don’t know if it’s going to be 100 percent better, but it’s going to be better. Michael Menna Michael Menna, 46, is the owner of Menna’s Quality Meats and Salumeria , his family’s 50-year-old meat market in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. He has had to reduce the hours of his small staff and bring his wife in to help a few days a week. With sales down after the holidays, he managed to persuade Con Edison to accept lower monthly payments and his landlord not to raise the rent. I’m feeling a little optimistic because I feel as though we got through the toughest months. So if we’re able to withstand these last couple months that have been pretty lousy, I feel optimistic that we’re going to push forward and get to some good times. I’m not really sure if we hit bottom yet. I’m hoping we did. Like I said, I feel as though there are days where I’m very optimistic, where I feel as though it’s starting to come back, which is a good sign, We’ll have a day and say, ‘Wow, this is where we’re supposed to be.’ But it’s not consistent enough yet. The next day will be off. A lot of people are still looking for work. I still hear that. A lot of customers, their husbands are in construction, they haven’t worked in months. So it’s definitely still playing out for a lot of my customers. If they want credit, I’ll give it to them. Sometimes when it gets out of hand, I have to kind of stop and just put a limit on it. Prices have been a little more stable. As soon as the weather breaks, your middle meat will probably go up, your steaks and stuff like that will start going up because of barbecue season. Lamb will start going up because of Easter. It’s a big holiday for us. They’ll still buy their roast, their leg of lamb. They didn’t really cut back for Christmas; let’s hope they don’t cut back for Easter. We cut back hours and everybody’s been very patient. Whenever I feel that I could give them more hours that week because we have some busy days ahead of us, I do. And people are grateful for that. I don’t think we’re going to get back to where we were a couple years ago, but I’m hoping to get to a struggle-free year. I think it’s going to take a few more months, but I feel as if there’s been some optimism in the last few weeks, and hopefully the package that the president put together is going to play out and help us all. You work a lot of hours and sometimes you don’t take a salary, so it’s definitely a wear. It definitely wears you down. Georgette Blau Georgette Blau, 34, is president of On Location Tours in Midtown Manhattan , which gives bus tours of New York locations from popular movies and television shows like “Sex and the City,” “Gossip Girl” and “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” Though sales slumped after the holidays, they have begun to pick up again, Ms. Blau said. She was confident enough to hire a full-time online marketing director this month, but has cut back on ads that have not yielded enough sales and canceled plans to attend two trade shows this year. As usual, we had a phenomenal end of year, the last 10 days up to Jan. 4. That’s always our best week of the year. A lot of the people we spoke with said, “Yeah, it’s a recession, but we really love New York at New Year’s.” But it goes from the best time of the year to the worst time of the year, literally, in a two-week period. The rest of January and into February was pretty rough. It was a really, really fearful time for us. I feel much better since the beginning of March. I’ve been more optimistic because the numbers I’ve seen have been more like 2007. As long as we’re staying at those numbers, we’re O.K. I feel like a lot of people waited until March to book. Once March hit, it’s been consistent. One thing that’s definitely down from last year is the private tours, private customized limo tours. Last year, we were doing three a weekend; now we’re lucky if we do one or two a weekend. For “Sex and the City,” groups of 9 or 10 girls on a bachelorette tour would definitely have taken a limo, and now they’re riding the buses. They save around $100 a head. We also have little things that you can purchase, like a bachelorette party kit. Our numbers are drastically down on those. Tipping is down for our tour guides, way down. People are deciding to buy a tour but not to give a few dollars as a tip to the tour guide. I do get worried for our full-time staff. I think they are getting the message that they have to work hard. I’ve been hearing reports of a payroll tax increase. They should be doing the opposite. We’re hiring; we should be getting some kind of credit for hiring someone. Mouhamad Shami Mouhamad Shami, 54, the owner of Alfanoose , a Middle Eastern restaurant on Maiden Lane in the financial district, says he would have had to move to a smaller space if his landlord had not reduced his rent for six months. As orders from financial workers have dwindled, he has steadily pared down his staff and is paying only the interest on his debts. We take it just day by day. One day we have fairly good day and the second day you don’t know. Before, it was pretty consistent Monday through Thursday. At dinner, we used to get orders from companies. Now we can’t tell. Before they used to work overtime, and at night, they used to order for a group of people. Now, we don’t have that. If we do get a group order, it’s a small group order. It’s not more than $50, $60 an order. It’s not worth it really sometimes, even, to take these small orders. But in these days, I’m taking anything, just to get the delivery guys going on deliveries to make some money. My day is longer. I work harder. I work the lunchtime here and then when I finish the lunchtime, I go upstairs and I work in the kitchen doing more preparation, which I didn’t have to do before this all started. The same thing with my wife. My wife, she is helping me more. My son, whenever he gets a chance, he comes down and helps me. So actually we are working harder and making less. The landlord, he cut down the rent for me. He told me that he would drop the rent for six months, but I’d have to pay it back at the end of the year. So, I told him I can’t do it. He said don’t worry. We’ll see after the first six months expire how things are. If the economy starts to recover, then I’ll go back to my old rent. If not, then we’ll talk about it. If it wasn’t for him with this offer, I’d have to relocate to a smaller place, and it would have been an aggravation for me and more stressful. I don’t do any changes in my recipes. On quality, I don’t cut corners. Customers, they put their trust in me. I live for that reputation, and that means a lot to me because I want to be remembered that way. That somebody from Lebanese descent, he was in the financial district, he was honest and he served us from his heart, not just to get his living and he didn’t care.

Small Business
Recession and Depression
New York City


Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Steven Kirk Go Positive, at Last

Abstract: CHICAGO — Something remarkable has happened in the Senate race here: Gentle, gauzy ads — with no scary music, no sarcastic narrators, no actual meanness at all — are turning up. In one, the mother of Alexi Giannoulias , the Democrat, notes that her son was “born with a big, big heart.” In another, a narrator cheerfully describes Mark Steven Kirk , the Republican, as “Mr. Independent,” someone whose “record’s in the exact center.” It is a dramatic shift in a campaign that more often looked like hand-to-hand combat, even by Chicago’s political standards. While this Senate race has not attracted the national attention of, say, Nevada, it has nonetheless been hugely competitive (the prize is President Obama’s former seat, and no one forgets that), especially drawn out (Illinois’s primary was the first in the nation, way back in February), and — perhaps because of those factors — often look-away ugly. But with the end in sight, the campaigns of Mr. Giannoulias, 34 and the treasurer of Illinois, and Mr. Kirk, 51 and a longtime member of Congress, have entered a new phase. Polls have shown the two nearly even, with signs of the slimmest of leads by Mr. Kirk, and both campaigns are making their last, frenzied calculations to push their candidates over the edge. The rules of the contest’s final leg: Be Nice Even some veteran politicians here say they have been struck by the months and months of battling in this race. By now, everyone knows the two sides’ essential theses: Republicans attach the words “Mob Banker” as a virtual title before any mention of Mr. Giannoulias, referring to loans his family bank once made to people with ties to organized crime; and Democrats regularly accuse Mr. Kirk of telling lies, referring to his admissions that he inflated elements of his military record in the Navy Reserve. This week, though, Mr. Giannoulias announced with great fanfare that he was, from here on in, going positive. It was time to talk about things that mattered, Mr. Giannoulias said, like ideas and jobs. The notion, strategists say: remind voters, in the end, of who you are, not just why they should hate your competition. And, some here suggested, maybe there are votes to be gained from all those who are sick of the nastiness? “Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing,” said Eric Adelstein, a consultant for Mr. Giannoulias’s race. “Sometimes the positive in the end can break through.” And so, the single ad Mr. Giannoulias’s team will run until Tuesday shows his mother — along with President Obama and Michelle Obama praising Mr. Giannoulias, an old basketball-playing friend and political ally of the president. Mr. Kirk’s team, strategists there say, is running three ads: one of which is largely positive, biographical, and focused on reasons to like Mr. Kirk, particularly for independents and women. Two other ads will draw distinctions, Mr. Kirk’s campaign says — and for that, Mr. Giannoulias’s campaign quickly issued a release blasting Mr. Kirk for going “completely negative.” But Also Be Mean Minutes after Mr. Giannoulias pledged to go positive, during a televised forum with the candidates on Wednesday, both men were back at it. They each had pulled out a list (a regular weapon of choice in this race) — Mr. Kirk’s containing names of questionable characters he said Mr. Giannoulias’s family bank had done business with, and Mr. Giannoulias’s containing names of dubious donors he said Mr. Kirk’s campaign had received contributions from. Mr. Kirk described Mr. Giannoulias as immature. Mr. Giannoulias questioned Mr. Kirk’s truthfulness: “What are you talking about, congressman?” Mr. Kirk accused Mr. Giannoulias of flip-flopping on issues, a claim Mr. Giannoulias described as “the most remarkable irony in the history of Illinois politics.” For all the possible benefits of going nice, going mean still works, pollsters said, and letting someone attack without responding, even in the final hours, is too risky. Hang Around People Whom People Like Both sides are calling in their friends. On Saturday, Mr. Giannoulias — who will spent much of the weekend racing to diners and churches — will appear at a rally with the president in Mr. Obama’s old neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Mr. Obama, who has appeared several times with Mr. Giannoulias in recent months, remains popular in this state, and the move is seen as sure to drum up energy from Mr. Giannoulias’s base, city Democrats. (Republican leaders here said they are already planning conference calls to reporters that will bookend Mr. Obama’s arrival and departure.) For his part, Mr. Kirk will fly around the state (he stands to gain outside Chicago, downstate and in the suburbs that collar the city) but will appear at a downtown rally here on Sunday with Scott Brown, the senator from Massachusetts whom Mr. Kirk’s advisers describe as having a similar, moderate image, who similarly faced a state that has traditionally leaned Democratic. Get Supporters to Vote Democrats have long had an elaborate get-out-the-vote effort here, and that was in full evidence this week, when Bill Clinton, the former president, arrived for a rally in a room filled with people carrying clipboards — sign-up sheets to make calls, sign-up sheets to knock on doors, sign-up sheets to help people get to the polls. (You could not get a ticket without agreeing to sign up online to volunteer.) From 200 staging areas around the state — parking lots, ward offices, and so on — Democrats have done dry-runs the past two weekends of which doors to knock on and calls to make on Election Day, organizers said. Republicans are kicking off a statewide effort this year, too, the largest, most coordinated effort state Republican leaders say they have seen in years. From 16 offices across the state, Republicans have identified hundreds of thousands of voters through calls and visits since June. Their plan from Saturday through Tuesday: 1.5 million contacts between volunteers and voters. Say Just One (Or Two) Things In the final days, each side wants voters to emerge from the muddle — and all the sparring — with a single, simple message. Mr. Giannoulias’s strategists describe his this way: He is on the side of everyday working people and understands their fight. Mr. Kirk’s: he is a moderate, in the middle, and wants to tax less, spend less and borrow less. The only question left, perhaps, is whether voters will be listening at all. “It reached a level I’ve never seen,” Representative Bobby L. Rush, a Democrat, admitted the other day, of the negativity in this race. “It’s gotten to a place where people just don’t want any more.”

Elections
Political Advertising
Giannoulias Alexi
Kirk Mark Steven
United States Politics and Government
Voting and Voters


L.P.G.A. Championship: Three Share First-Round Lead

Abstract: PITTSFORD, N.Y. (AP) — Already the top American in the world rankings, Cristie Kerr is aiming a little higher after taking a share of the lead after the first round of the L.P.G.A. Championship on Thursday. Relying on her clutch putting, and untroubled by a downpour that briefly stopped play early in the afternoon, Kerr shot a four-under-par 68 to match Stacy Lewis and Seon Hwa Lee on the Locust Hill Country Club course outside Rochester. It is still anybody’s event as the tough conditions — including a persistent and gusting wind — created a logjam behind the leaders in the L.P.G.A. Tour’s second major of the season. Inbee Park, Mika Miyazato and Lindsey Wright were a stroke back. And score one for Juli Inkster. The 31-time L.P.G.A. Tour winner celebrated turning 50 with a 71. She was tied for 11th, and 19 players were within three shots of the lead. Kerr has plenty of incentive to win this weekend. Alhough she has 13 career victories, she has won only one major — the 2007 United States Women’s Open. “This is what I wanted starting the first day,” Kerr said of being in contention. “You get kind of a taste of the blood in the water. It kind of motivates you and you look forward to getting up to play tomorrow.” Kerr is already enjoying a solid year. She won the State Farm Classic two weeks ago, one of her five top-10 finishes that includes a tie for fifth at the tour’s first major, the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April. Starting on No. 10, Kerr opened with two birdies, then got to four under after a birdie at No. 17, an easily reachable 478-yard par-5. After a bogey on 18, she responded with a birdie on No. 2 and then parred out. It wasn’t easy. She saved par on her final hole — the 172-yard par-3 nine — by two-putting from 35 feet on a tricky green. The early afternoon downpour had just begun when Lewis reached the green at No. 9, her final hole. Facing an 8-foot putt for birdie, Lewis acknowledged she had plenty of incentive to sink it before quickly escaping to the dry confines of the scorers’ tent. “I was glad to hit the tee shot before it started to pour,” Lewis said. “I knew I was going to get soaked. And I knew I could go inside and dry off. I just didn’t worry about it.” Inkster, who was serenaded with “Happy Birthday” from the gallery at least four times on the course, rewarded her fans by getting to four under through 12 holes to briefly take sole possession of the lead. Inkster, however, struggled by finishing with four bogeys — sandwiched between a par and a birdie — over the final six holes. “It didn’t feel any different than it did yesterday,” Inkster said. “Maybe I’m trying to fool myself, I don’t know. But I feel like I’m in good shape.”

Golf
Ladies Professional Golf Assn
Kerr Cristie
Wright Lindsey
Lee Seon Hwa


Police Try to Lower Racial Bias, but Under Pressure, It Isn’t So Easy

Abstract: The recent string of racially charged police shootings, and the deadly response on Thursday in Dallas, have come despite efforts by police departments across the United States to train officers to recognize and reduce the effects of racial stereotypes in potentially violent situations. Whether these bias reduction programs can lead to lasting change in policing is an unanswered question. Their effect on split-second decision making is extremely hard to measure — and experts say some programs may even backfire. Studies find that police officers harbor the same unconscious biases toward minorities, particularly blacks, that the general American population does. In one measure, called the implicit association test , study participants are asked to make rapid-fire associations between images of blacks, whites or other races, and threatening words or images. The pattern of responses is nearly universal: Blacks are more often and more quickly paired with threats. This tends to be true regardless of the ethnicity of the person doing the associating, or that person’s professed views on race. Standard police training and walking a beat can reduce those biases, at least in a laboratory setting, research has found. In a landmark 2007 study that simulated threatening situations, researchers led by Joshua Correll, who is now at the University of Colorado, found that police officers showed no racial bias when choosing to shoot. By contrast, civilians were far more trigger-happy, and shot nearly three times the number of unarmed black men. “This is contrary to what people assume,” Dr. Correll said, “but it’s important to keep in mind that these are simulations, in a lab, where everyone knows it’s a game.” Out in the real world, a different dynamic takes hold. “When people are out on the street, in high-pressure situations, we suspect they’re much more likely to fall back on gut reactions,” Dr. Correll said. “A simulation can’t capture all the factors involved in the real-life encounter — the fear, the behavior of the other person, all that.” Two recent studies illustrate the difference. One, released last week by the Center for Policing Equity, a New York-based think tank, used data from police departments across the country and found that the police were 3.6 times as likely to use force against blacks than against whites. Among people who were arrested, 46 of every 1,000 blacks experienced violence, compared with 36 of every 1,000 whites. The second study , by an economics professor at Harvard, Roland G. Fryer Jr., found that blacks were 50 percent more likely to be subjected to nonlethal uses of force by the police, like being handcuffed, pushed to the ground or hit with pepper spray. But the study found no racial differences in police shootings. Metropolitan police departments have employed various approaches to improve officers’ judgment in threatening situations. One such training program is called Fair and Impartial Policing , a course developed with Justice Department financing by Lorie Fridell, an associate professor of criminology at the University of South Florida. It incorporates role playing and small group discussion and has been adopted by hundreds of police departments in the United States and Canada, including Dallas, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Philadelphia, Dr. Fridell said. “The science clearly shows that the first step in reducing your bias is recognizing that it exists,” she said. One part of the training that Dr. Fridell said was based on studies of implicit bias is directed at countering stereotypes. As an example, she said, an officer might be confronted with a series of situations in which people from a variety of races and ethnicities either present a threat or do not present a threat. “If we did that over and over again, the officers would learn that ‘I need to not focus on demographics,’” she said, because the threat was just as likely to come from a white person or a woman as it was from a black person or a man. Dr. Fridell said one of the central messages of the training was that “policing based on stereotypes and biases is unsafe, ineffective and unjust.” “Maybe some officers are concerned about being unjust,” she said, “but let me tell you, they are all concerned about being effective and safe.” While police officers have reported in written evaluations that the training helped them, no studies have examined its success in reducing bias or whether officers who have taken the training are less likely to be involved in shootings or other uses of force. An increasing number of departments around the country also train officers on ways to defuse volatile situations before force is needed. Such training teaches officers to use time and distance to de-escalate tense interactions and reduce the likelihood that force will be used rashly. One approach that does not work very well, Dr. Fridell said, is traditional diversity or “sensitivity” training, which teaches officers about other cultures and how to deal with them, but does not address implicit bias. Dr. Correll, the Colorado researcher, said such programs could even backfire. “Some interventions you think would work, like having officers try really hard not to use bias, not to think of race — well, in the split-second in which they have to a make a decision, all they think about is race: ‘Ah, he’s black,’ and there’s no time to correct it. They exhibit more stereotyping behavior, not less.” Bias reduction programs, in short, are at this point like experimental drugs, Dr. Correll said. “They may work to reduce biased violence, they may do nothing, and they may cause harm,” he said. “We don’t know, because we haven’t really tested them in a rigorous way.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Amtrak to Screen Carry-On Bags at Random

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — Amtrak passengers will have to submit to random screening of carry-on bags in a major new security push that will include train and platform patrols by officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs, the railroad plans to announce on Tuesday. The initiative is a significant shift for Amtrak. Unlike the airlines, it has had relatively little visible increase in security since the 2001 terrorist attacks, a distinction that has enabled it to attract passengers eager to avoid airport inconveniences. Amtrak officials maintain that their new procedures will not hold up the flow of passengers. William Rooney, the railroad’s vice president for security strategy and special operations, told The Associated Press: “On-time performance is a key element of Amtrak service. We are fully mindful of that. This is not about train delays.” Nor will the moves require passengers to arrive at stations far in advance, officials said. Passengers who are selected randomly for the screening will be delayed no more than a couple of minutes, said Amtrak’s chief executive, Alexander Kummant. Concern about Amtrak security has been mounting since the 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid that killed 191 people. Trains have also been bombed in London, where 52 people were killed in a series of blasts in 2005, most of them on subway trains, and in Mumbai, India, where more than 200 people were killed in 2006 on commuter trains. Russia has also had several train bombings. Amtrak plans to roll out its new “mobile security teams” first on the railroad’s most heavily used route, between Washington and Boston, before expanding them to the rest of the country. The teams will show up unannounced at stations and set up baggage screening areas in front of boarding gates. Officers will randomly pull people out of line and wipe their bags with a special swab that is then put through a machine that detects explosives. If the machine detects anything, officers will open the bag for visual inspection. Anyone who is selected for screening and refuses it will not be allowed to board, and the cost of the ticket will be refunded. The new procedures draw heavily on measures being used in the New York City subways, Mr. Rooney said. That model has been upheld in court challenges, he noted. Amtrak’s previous passenger screening consisted of sporadic identification checks by train conductors, which the railroad says it plans to continue. Passengers are also required to show identification when buying tickets from station agents, though there is no such requirement of passengers who buy tickets from self-serve kiosks.

Security and Warning Systems
Amtrak
Transit Systems
Railroads
Terrorism


What Would It Take to Support a Newsroom?

Abstract: Those of us who work in traditional media have spent a fair amount of time wondering what part of the implosion in advertising revenue is cyclical (ad buying is suffering because of the recession) and what part is secular (we’re making horse buggies). The beginnings of an answer came on Thursday, when Google announced that search advertising had come roaring back and said that stronger-than-expected third-quarter results suggested the global economy might be coming back. Net income rose 27 percent in the third quarter as strong advertising sales, most all of it from search, increased revenue 7 percent. Oh, and there was good news for newspapers as well. Turns out while the McClatchy Company’s advertising revenue fell 28.1 percent in the third quarter, it was not as bad as the 29.9 percent it dropped in the first six months. O.K., not so great, but with net income of $23.6 million in the quarter, it was a huge improvement over the $4.2 million a year earlier. The reason the balance sheet cleaned up so nicely? The company eliminated more than 30 percent of its work force in the 18 months. What this suggests is that we’re facing a paperless recovery wherein old-line content companies need to continue to slash in order to stay ahead of what looks to be a broad secular decline. Leonard Downie Jr. knows the story all too well. As executive editor of The Washington Post for 17 years, he watched as the Web first seemed to enable and eventually came to threaten organizations that support large newsrooms. Mr. Downie and Michael Schudson, a professor at the Columbia University Journalism School, were commissioned by Nicholas B. Lemann, the dean of the journalism school, to write a report on the future of news and the newsroom. It was Mr. Downie who came up with the insight a few years back that the most important fight is not for newspapers, but for the newsrooms they support. The report’s title, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” telegraphs its sober intent, a realpolitik way of thinking that is reflected in the opening words of the report: “Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages, and the hegemony that near-monopoly metropolitan newspapers enjoyed during the last third of the 20th century, even as their primary audience eroded, is ending.” In other words, the current advertising model won’t continue to support so-called accountability journalism. “Some of the advertising is going to come back as the economy does, but I think we all know that much of what has taken place is secular and not cyclical,” Mr. Downie said in a phone call on Friday. “And the Internet philosophers who suggest that individuals posting on the Web are going to replace what newsrooms have been doing are not being realistic. We have to find new ways to maintain professional news-gathering capacity.” Clocking in at just under 100 pages, the report probably isn’t going to get looked at much beyond people in this racket, but it’s a worthy read, in part because it dwells less on the glory days — the amount of real news in 10 metropolitan newspapers doubled from 1964 to 1999 — and meets current realities head-on. The number of newspaper editorial employees grew to 60,000 in 1992, from 40,000 in 1971, and is now driving back to 40,000 in 2009, with no real bottom in sight. Mr. Downie and Mr. Schudson came up with six recommendations, which include tinkering with the tax structure to accommodate nonprofit status for news-gathering organizations, persuading philanthropic foundations to fill the funding gap in more permanent ways, involving universities in news gathering, and opening up databases to make them more useful for both pro and pro-am efforts. Two of the recommendations caught my eye, both of which will create significant turbulence if they gain traction in the discussion. First, the pair suggests reorienting public radio and television to provide local news, historically not a big interest of public broadcasters. The report says somewhat tartly that much of the money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is spent on broadcast facilities and television production companies, with “very little money spent on local news coverage by individual public radio and television stations.” It goes on to suggest that the C.P.B. should step in to consolidate competing fiefs and begin to require a minimum amount of local news reporting in return for funds. “The money is there, but a lot of it gets sunk into facilities and programming to drive membership, and it needs to be reallocated to reflect the need for local coverage,” Mr. Downie said. “And it has to be mandated because this is a time of crisis and we can’t just depend on good intentions.” The other recommendation that will kick up some dust proclaims that it’s time for government to start funding local news, much in the way it enables the arts, humanities and sciences. The Federal Communications Commission spends $7 billion a year collected from telephone bills to underwrite telecommunications services in remote areas and help schools and libraries get wired. The report suggests that some of that money, along with fees paid for broadcast licenses or auctions of bandwidth, should go into a Fund for Local News. And commercial television stations that are not living up to their public-service requirements to provide local coverage should be forced to chip in. Eric Schmidt, chief of Google, was recently in New York meeting with reporters and talked a lot about the importance of the plan for universal broadband in the United States, but “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” goes beyond building infrastructure and suggests it’s time to start funding what goes into those pipes. Mr. Downie said that it can be done with safeguards to ensure that the government doesn’t become the yard boss of what constitutes worthy news. “We are just suggesting that certain kinds of reporting are a public good and should be funded as such,” Mr. Downie said. “There are plenty of precedents and I don’t think that government support necessarily means government control.” He knows that the very idea of government-financed media will put some people in a tizzy, but said, “We are at something of a pivot point, a very real crisis that is happening right now.” So there you have it. All we have to do is get the government to open the kimono on databases, foundations to rethink their priorities, universities to become newsrooms, rewrite the federal tax code, get public broadcasting overlords to think local, and commercial broadcasters to kick in money for the public good, and we will have a dependable news infrastructure for a new, more complicated age. If only it were so simple.

Newspapers
Computers and the Internet
Advertising and Marketing
News and News Media
Corp for Public Broadcasting
Federal Communications Commission


Preparing Yankee Stadium for Boxing Match

Abstract: Brad Jacobs is remarkably calm for someone in charge of the 200 workers feverishly setting up a boxing ring, a 60-foot-high canopy and 6,000 folding chairs on the field in Yankee Stadium . Never mind that the installation is about four hours behind schedule and a slate of fights, including a headline bout between Miguel Cotto and Yuri Foreman, is just a day away. Jacobs tapped on a three-inch-thick loose-leaf binder that he pulled out of his briefcase, a catalog of every last detail needed to turn the new Yankee Stadium into a boxing arena for the first time Saturday night. “This is 30 years of knowledge,” he said, referring to his years organizing more than 700 fights. “This is not a piece of cake. There are multiple challenges. But there are very professional people on all levels.” The first few pages in Jacobs’s binder include a checklist of more than 200 items. The pages are divided into four neat columns: Tasks, Responsible Party, To Do and Notes. Jacobs builds a binder for each fight, often starting months in advance. As the weeks pass, chapters emerge, highlighted by colored tabs that read “Yankee Stadium,” “Tickets,” “HBO” and so on. Jacobs was hired by Bob Arum’s Top Rank , the promoter of the event at Yankee Stadium. He has produced many other events for Top Rank, including the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight in front of 51,000 people at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tex., in March. “The truth is, even in small clubs, most things are the same,” he said. “Only the degree is much bigger at stadiums.” Yet staging a fight night at Yankee Stadium adds an extra layer of complexity. The fight will be outdoors, and rain, wind and especially lightning can delay plans. Traffic bottlenecks often slow the arrival of delivery trucks. Yankee Stadium, tucked into the South Bronx, lacks the big staging areas that other stadiums have. Then there are the Yankees , who played a home game Thursday afternoon. That meant workers had to wait until 6 p.m. Thursday to begin installing the thousands of two-inch-thick plastic tiles that form a floor and protect the field from the ring, chairs and thousands of feet. The crew was slow to assemble the tiles, so other backups followed. The ring was supposed to be put together Friday afternoon. Instead, the task waited until evening. Jacobs, though, left sufficient wiggle room in the schedule. “The first time you do this in a new stadium, you can estimate how long it will take, but you don’t know,” he said. “So you have to leave enough time.” The tiles covered center and right field and the infield dirt between first and second base. The canopy and the ring were in right-center field, though, not the infield. After the last fight at the old Yankee Stadium in 1976, George Steinbrenner complained to Arum (who also promoted that fight) that ground balls were bouncing wildly because the infield was chewed up. “This is like night and day,” said Arum, referring to the new stadium. “No matter how many times they refurbished the old stadium, it was still a 1920s building.” Regardless, the infield remains off limits. “If we didn’t use the infield for the pope, we’re not going to use it for boxing,” said Lonn Trost, the chief operating officer of the Yankees. The only exception, he said, will be for college football games, because they will be played in the off-season. As it turns out, putting the ring in the outfield will allow more fans in the stadium’s seats to see the fight clearly. Jacobs used modeling software to determine that a 60-foot high canopy would not obstruct anyone’s view of the ring. The canopy is perhaps the most complex element of the process. Scaffolding is used to build an 80-foot by 80-foot square on the field. Dozens of lights are connected to the scaffolding. Other bars are attached to form a frame above the square. White tarps are added to form a tent that will protect the ring and the first 10 or so rows of seats. The entire frame is then hoisted up so the ring can be brought in and assembled under the tent. Truckloads of folding chairs are then set up. The positioning of the lights is tweaked to ensure that the ring sparkles both on television and to the more than 20,000 fans expected to attend the fight. Two separate towers were assembled for television cameras. Once the fight ends around midnight, crews will work through the night and into Sunday to disassemble everything — a far faster process, Jacobs said. Everything should be packed up and removed by 8 p.m. Just in case, the Yankees have brought in a truck filled with fresh sod if the field needs to be repaired.

Yankee Stadium (NYC)
Boxing
Stadiums and Arenas
New York Yankees
Cotto Miguel
Foreman Yuri


Apple Logos Show Reach and Hostility of the Web

Abstract: HONG KONG — Few personal journeys can shed as much light on the age we live in as the one traveled by Jonathan Mak in the last week. Mr. Mak, a university student in Hong Kong, went from being an unknown aspiring graphic designer to an Internet sensation after an image he produced spread rapidly across digital platforms after the death of Steven P. Jobs , the co-founder of Apple . Mr. Mak’s design of a silhouetted profile of Mr. Jobs in the Apple company logo was shared across the Web and reported by media. And then, nearly as fast, Mr. Mak found himself being vilified. With a speed befitting the technological age that Mr. Jobs helped usher in, Mr. Mak became the subject of derisive Internet postings and negative media reports. His design, it turned out, closely matched one produced earlier this year by Chris Thornley , a British graphic artist. “It’s been a very overwhelming experience,” Mr. Mak, 19, said by telephone between classes at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design. “I still attend classes and lessons as usual. But as far as following my assignments, it’s been difficult.” Mr. Mak said he had developed his design in late August — a white Apple logo on a black background, with a black silhouette of Mr. Jobs indented in the apple — as a tribute to Mr. Jobs after he stepped down as chief executive of Apple. Mr. Mak said he had searched across the Internet both for inspiration and to ensure he was not copying another design. He said his searches had not uncovered Mr. Thornley’s design. He then posted the tweaked Apple logo on his blog . Mr. Mak also said he asked the public to alert him if they spotted similarities between his work and others. The design lay quietly on his blog for weeks until Mr. Jobs’s death on Oct. 5. “Overnight, my Web site went from getting 80 responses to tens of thousands,” he said. “At first I was very happy.” But by the weekend, Mr. Mak said, people told him how similar his design was to Mr. Thornley’s, which had a black Apple logo on a white background, with a white silhouette of Mr. Jobs at a slightly different angle. Mr. Mak said Mr. Thornley’s wife, Julia, notified him Sunday night about the similarities. In the world of graphic design, such similarities are common, said Juliette Cezzar, director of the communication design program at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. But Mr. Mak’s case showed how easy it has become to unearth similar images or outright copies. “If we were living in a different age, it would take weeks, maybe months to discover copies,” Ms. Cezzar said. “Now it can take 24 hours. That is a good thing.” In a statement, Mr. Thornley said he had followed the controversy while receiving treatment for a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He said he had first developed his design in May “because I wanted to celebrate the fact that someone who had cancer was still working, still driving forward and still thinking positively about the future.” Mr. Thornley, a 40-year-old living in Darwen, England, acknowledged the dangers the digital age presented to creativity. “The Internet can be a double-edged sword,” he said. “You need to use the Internet in order to promote yourself, but in order to do this you are making yourself vulnerable to these situations.” Mr. Thornley said he hoped to speak with Mr. Mak soon.

Logos
Apple Incorporated
Design
Jobs Steven P
Intellectual Property
Mak Jonathan
Thornley Chris


A McCain Commercial Turns Romney’s Words Against Him

Abstract: Senator John McCain ’s presidential campaign introduced a new Web video on Tuesday that portrays his Republican rival Mitt Romney as dismissive of the need for foreign policy experience in a dangerous world, where war and terrorism continue to pose threats to American security. ON THE SCREEN The spot opens dramatically with video of a bomb blast on an undisclosed city street. The scenes are taken from what seems to be an Arabic news channel, because writing at the bottom of the screen is in Arabic. After the explosion, there is a cut to the aftermath. Sirens wail amid a cacophony of voices and cries. A man, possibly dead, is dragged from the carnage by several other men. It then cuts to what appears to be a terrorist training camp. Masked men parade their weapons, proudly displaying some kind of Islamic text as they hold machine guns in the air. Then it cuts to an image of Mitt Romney with the words “President doesn’t need foreign policy experience” on the screen. The last image is of Mr. McCain looking pensively into the distance. SCRIPT There are few words in the spot. After the graphic images, a narrator says simply: “Mitt Romney says the next president doesn’t need foreign policy experience.” ACCURACY Mr. Romney has been pressed in recent days about his foreign policy credentials given the situation in Pakistan. In his own defense, he has tried to distinguish between direct foreign policy experience and matters of judgment. The advertisement uses Mr. Romney’s words to imply that he does not think foreign policy is important, which is not what he was saying. But he did say there was no need for a president to be an “expert” on foreign affairs. The full quotation from the interview cited in the spot is as follows: “Well, if we want somebody who has a lot of experience in foreign policy, we can simply go to the State Department and pluck out one of the tens of thousands of people who work there. They, of course, have been doing foreign policy all their careers. But that’s not how we choose a president. A president is not a foreign policy expert.” THE BUZZ The spot is incredibly graphic and blunt, which is perhaps why it is not being shown on television. Even though it takes Mr. Romney’s own words to create an impression he did not intend, the commercial serves a larger point: redirecting the debate to foreign policy experience. A discussion over who has more national security credentials is not the ground on which Mr. Romney is most secure, particularly given Mr. McCain’s intimate involvement in Iraq and in broader foreign affairs. The Romney campaign has yet to respond in a coordinated way, but going into the final days before the Iowa and New Hampshire voting, a discussion about world affairs is certainly where Mr. McCain would like the focus to be, as opposed to, say, immigration , where he is considered vulnerable. MARC SANTORA

Presidential Election of 2008
McCain John
Romney Mitt


Move Against Taliban Shuts U.S. Supply Line

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery, Pakistani security forces on Tuesday shut down a crucial supply line for NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan as they launched an offensive against Taliban militants who dominate the Khyber Pass region. NATO uses the Khyber Pass, an ancient trade and military gateway that cuts through the mountains on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to transport the majority of provisions for troops fighting the resilient Afghan insurgency. Supplies are ferried from Karachi in Pakistan 700 miles north to Peshawar, and then trucked 40 miles westward through the pass and into Afghanistan. But Taliban militants, including forces led by an upstart lieutenant to the warlord Baitullah Mehsud, have taken over the area between the pass and Peshawar, and now routinely attack convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Many drivers in the convoys have already quit making the trip because the route is so deadly. Militants also ransacked a half-dozen supply depots in Peshawar this month, burning 300 cargo trucks and Humvees destined for NATO troops. The attacks — and the Pakistani government’s inability to quell them — have sent American military officials scrambling to secure other supply routes into Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia. NATO officials said that they believed that shutting down the route through the Khyber Pass during the military offensive that began Tuesday would not deprive them of necessary supplies. “Over all, it’s a temporary irritation,” said a NATO spokesman in Kabul, Capt. Mark Windsor of the British Royal Navy. “There will obviously be a minor effect in the short term, but it’s for the long-term good of our operation.” However, Tariq Hayat, the top civilian official in the Khyber Agency, the formal name for the Pakistani district between the Khyber Pass and Peshawar, said there was no timetable for the operation, which he said would continue until “I am satisfied that the area is clear of all lawless and miscreant elements.” Mr. Hayat declined to say how many troops were involved in the offensive, but he said they were drawn almost entirely from the country’s paramilitary Frontier Corps. Pakistani Army soldiers are standing by in reserve should they be needed, he said. He said that there had been no casualties during the offensive among Pakistani forces but that he had received a report that several children and a woman had been killed by an artillery shell. Ibrahim Khan, who lives near the supply route in the village of Jamrud, said troops came through his village at 3:30 a.m., using loudspeakers to warn residents to stay inside. Helicopter gunships patrolled all day until the afternoon, he said.

Khyber Pass
Pakistan
Afghanistan
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Taliban


Bookstore May Have to Flee the Wrecking Ball, Again

Abstract: Twenty-nine years ago, Rizzoli Bookstore, whose Old World charm, hand-wrought chandeliers and big storefront windows make it a favorite of noted authors, book lovers and tourists, fled Fifth Avenue two steps ahead of the wrecking ball. It may now have to take flight again. The owners of the building at 31 West 57th Street near Fifth Avenue that houses Rizzoli — the LeFrak real estate family and Vornado Realty Trust — recently gave the bookstore the bad news: They plan to demolish the six-story, 109-year-old building, as well as two small, adjoining buildings. The owners declined to describe their plans on 57th Street, where a string of extremely tall and slender ultraluxury towers are under construction. “I can’t comment on those buildings,” Harrison T. LeFrak said. “If you have any questions, speak to my partner.” A spokesman for Vornado did not return calls requesting comment. But one executive who has been briefed on the plans said the owners hoped to find Rizzoli a new home. The executive said the developers had not decided whether to build a commercial or residential tower. The developers may not be talking. But many authors, publishers and preservationists were distraught over the possible fate of one of Manhattan’s most revered bookstores and the former mansion it has called home for nearly three decades. “We’re losing yet another literary landmark in Midtown,” said Michael Signorelli, senior editor at the publisher Henry Holt. “Rizzoli has three magnificent floors of books.” Seven years ago, another favorite, the Gotham Book Mart on East 46th Street, closed. The grand Doubleday and Scribner’s bookstores that once lined Fifth Avenue are long gone. Many others have also shut. “It’s sad if we also lose those three limestone mansions, which were converted to commercial uses decades ago,” said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. “There will be very little left on 57th Street that shows how it used to be. “I think bookstores in New York City need to be protected at all costs,” she added. Pam Sommers, a spokeswoman for Rizzoli New York, said the company was still gathering information. Fifty-seventh Street, which had fallen on hard times, became home to a collection of theme restaurants like Planet Hollywood during the 1990s. Today, the developer Gary Barnett is nearing completion of a 1,004-foot apartment tower near Seventh Avenue, where the penthouse is under contract for $90 million. The developer Harry B. Macklowe is building an even taller tower near 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, where the penthouse went for $95 million. The developer Steve Witkoff bought the nearby Park Lane Hotel, where he, too, plans to build an ultraluxury tower. For Rizzoli, this is the second time it has had to contend with a real estate boom gobbling available space for more profitable projects. Rizzoli Bookstore first opened in 1964 in a five-story, 19th-century building at 712 Fifth Avenue, next to the Coty Building and near both the Doubleday and Scribner’s bookstores. During a building boom in the 1980s, a developer set off a firestorm among preservationists when he sought to demolish the Rizzoli and Coty buildings to make way for an office tower. As a battle ensued, preservationists discovered that the noted glass designer René Lalique had designed the windows at the base of one of the buildings at the beginning of the 20th century. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission then designated the two buildings as landmarks, temporarily thwarting the project . Developers ultimately incorporated the facades of the Rizzoli and Coty buildings into a 50-story tower at 712 Fifth Avenue, home to hedge funds, investment firms and an Henri Bendel store. By then, Rizzoli had moved around the corner, to 57th Street, where a 32-foot arch forms the entrance. The architect Hugh Hardy was brought in to restore the onetime mansion to its original glory. From the old store, Rizzoli brought over four chandeliers, the hand-carved marble door frame and portions of the cherry wood paneling. The opening night party for the new Rizzoli Bookstore was crowded with diplomats, literary agents, Italian business executives and the writers Joan Didion, Theodore H. White and John Gregory Dunne; the photographer Francesco Scavullo; and the artist Stephen Edlich .

Demolition
Historic preservation
Publishing
Books
New York Landmarks Conservancy
Midtown Area Manhattan


Ex-Inmate on Connecticut Parole Board Brings an Insider’s View to Hearings

Abstract: WATERBURY, Conn. — There was the usual grab bag of inmates preparing to be heard here, from the career offender with a heroin problem to the plotter of a jewel heist to the glum men with girlfriend trouble. All were former convicts who had landed back in prison on parole violations, and this was their chance to explain their conduct to the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles. One by one, they were led to rooms at their prisons to participate via teleconference in hearings that dispensed assembly-line justice. Soon, they were offering reasons for their mistakes that ran from the fantastic (“Yes, I had a knife but only because I was cooking”) to the familiar (“My girlfriend made me do it”). One cog in the machine was different, though: The two-member panel weighing each inmate’s fate included a man who was himself a former inmate. The expertise that the former prisoner, Kenneth F. Ireland, brought to the task — intimate knowledge of the state’s criminal justice system — came in a way no one could envy: In 1989, a day after he turned 20, Mr. Ireland was convicted of raping and murdering Barbara Pelkey, a Wallingford factory worker. The crime occurred when he was 16. He received a 50-year sentence and spent nearly half his life, from the age of 18 until he was 39, in prison. Despite his assertions that he was innocent, friends stopped believing in him, and family drifted away. Then, in 2009, DNA testing performed at the insistence of the Connecticut Innocence Project exonerated him and identified the real culprit. Rather than spurn further dealings with the authorities, Mr. Ireland, 45, allowed his name to be suggested for a seat on the parole board this year. “I’ve been on the inside, and I understand the programs, the issues confronting the inmates,” he said. Nominated in October by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy , a Democrat, Mr. Ireland is now serving provisionally, along with four other nominees, until state legislators vote on the appointments next year. Timothy S. Fisher, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law, got to know Mr. Ireland through work he does on behalf of the wrongfully convicted. Mr. Fisher championed the idea of adding Mr. Ireland to the board in a letter to Nancy Wyman, the lieutenant governor, in March. “He has a very cleareyed understanding of the people in prison,” Mr. Fisher said. “How so many of them say ‘I didn’t do it,’ and yet he’s no fool. He’s been around them and he knows there’s injustice, but he also knows that there are people who will try to pull a fast one. I think he will be a more discerning judge of character on this board than almost anyone.” The hearing here served as Mr. Ireland’s first test, and he spent hours poring over each case file before joining Robert A. Murphy, a retired agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who was the panel’s second member. The preparation showed. “What was going on in your life that made you relapse?” Mr. Ireland pressed John Rivera, a 35-year-old Hartford man who had been dragged back into the system as a result of a failed drug test. “Help me understand.” Those three words alone suggested how far from rote Mr. Ireland’s input was likely to be. Similarly, he strained to pinpoint James Edward Reilly’s reason for leaving without authorization the halfway house that he had been placed in, marring an otherwise clean record. The 52-year-old inmate said his departure was prompted by his eviction from an apartment he had been renting and that he had simply “moved my stuff into storage.” Asked about trips he had subsequently taken to Massachusetts and Florida during his absence, Mr. Reilly was repentant. “I know I should have turned myself in after I put my stuff in storage,” he said. “I know. I’m guilty.” Mr. Ireland did not let the matter drop there, though. “You were on parole for four years, and you didn’t seem to have a problem,” Mr. Ireland prodded gently. “What led to this?” Mr. Reilly recounted “a little argument” he had had with his girlfriend that ended in an arrest and a charge of disorderly conduct, but said he had the situation under control: “She’s not around now and we’re broken up.” Like Mr. Ireland, at least seven of the 11 inmates making their cases had entered the criminal justice system as teenagers. There was much talk about “poor choices,” starting with the “bad decision” that Michael Gaston, 26, admitted to making when the police found him brandishing a knife. He said the incident had happened because he was making dinner when a commotion started and he rushed into a hallway. “Absent-mindedly, I still had the knife in my hand,” he said. Alexis deJesus, 28, did not quarrel with the panel’s opinion that carrying heroin for a friend was indeed a “poor choice.” “You did that as a favor?” Mr. Murphy asked. “Well, I was already in trouble,” Mr. deJesus demurred. “I knew I was going back to jail.” Considered administrative affairs, parole revocation hearings are more stripped-down than court hearings, even though the rulings they produce are final. Inmates are advised that they may have a lawyer with them or present evidence, but few do, and some participants were flummoxed by the proceedings. “There’s no way I can go to court?” asked Kendall Hooks, who was dismayed when the panel ordered him to serve the balance of his sentence for his role in an attempted jewelry store robbery without another chance at an early release. He had violated the terms of his parole by leaving a halfway house without permission and was suspected of mailing a package to an inmate. No, sorry, he was told. Though Mr. Ireland showed an interest in each of the inmates’ lives — he took a moment to congratulate Mr. deJesus on the birth of a son, for example — the panel’s decisions did not deviate from the norm. None of the 11 inmates were released into the community, and most had months of prison time restored to their sentences for the misconduct that led them to be arrested again. “You want to set up these guys for success,” Mr. Ireland said later. “No one wants them to be in prison.” He acknowledged that it might be hard for the inmates to perceive that after sitting through a day of “deny, deny, deny.” Addressing the youngest inmate of the day, 23-year-old Geraldo Ruiz, Mr. Ireland took a particularly firm stance. Mr. Ruiz had been accused of violating the rules at his halfway house by letting his girlfriend stay over — twice in the first week he was there. “What did you want me to do?” Mr. Ruiz asked indignantly. “Kick her out in the street?” The choice, as he framed it, was “either her getting raped or killed” or jeopardizing his parole. “I understand you might care for the girl,” Mr. Ireland said. “But you got to look out for yourself.” The idea of having Mr. Ireland on the board appears to have originated with Vivien Blackford, a member of the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, according to people who supported the appointment. “Having been in prison, he brings so much to the board because he understands the experience, the perspectives and the reasons that people do what they do,” Ms. Blackford said. Mr. Ireland quit a steady job as a bookkeeper to accept the appointment, which comes with a salary — though that does not seem to be what motivates him. He stands to collect millions of dollars once Connecticut lawmakers finish reviewing his case. A state law, enacted when Mr. Ireland was still imprisoned in 2008, entitles the wrongfully convicted to compensation. He served more time in prison and was younger when he was sentenced than the man whose case moved lawmakers to pass the law. Harsh conditions at the prisons where Mr. Ireland spent those 21 years, including the fortresslike one in Wallens Ridge, Va. , will also be hard to ignore. He spent a year in solitary confinement when he was 20, lost part of a finger in an assault and watched an inmate die from burns. He said he still has trouble answering the door for fear of who might be lurking there. For all his nerves, there was no flinching when duty called at the parole hearing. Each time the hearing officer asked the board if they had questions for the men peering up at them from the other end of the video cameras, Mr. Ireland certainly did.

Connecticut
Kenneth F. Ireland
False arrest
Probation and Parole
Prison
Criminal Sentence
Innocence Project
Dannel P Malloy
Ex Cons


Ikea Plans to Halt Investment in Russia

Abstract: MOSCOW — Ikea said Tuesday that it was suspending further investment in Russia, apparently because of pervasive corruption and demands for bribes. The announcement came after a rare statement by Ikea’s 83-year-old founder in a radio interview that Ikea had decided not to solve problems by slipping money under the table. Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev has acknowledged that corruption is a national problem, and curbing official corruption is one of the goals of his tenure. Mr. Medvedev has signed a law prohibiting surprise inspections from fire and health authorities of the type often used to extort companies, and has required bureaucrats to disclose not only their own income and assets but their spouses’, a once common conduit for bribes. Beyond embarrassing Mr. Medvedev’s administration, the Swedish retailer’s public stance could mark an economic turning point if it leads to more Western businesses speaking out against corruption here. The decision is particularly damning for Russia because Ikea runs outlets in dozens of countries around the world and is hardly thin-skinned when it comes to dealing with bureaucracies. “We all support the anticorruption policies of President Medvedev,” Elena A. Panfilova, Russia director of Transparency International, the anticorruption group, said in a telephone interview. “But people need to see real results. And if companies like Ikea don’t see results in their daily business practices, it’s sad news for Russia.” In a statement, Ikea’s Russia director cited the “unpredictability of administrative processes” in Russia as the basis of the decision. Outside experts said that was the company’s way of describing a pattern of bribe-taking and shakedowns by Russian officials that had become intolerable. “Ikea as a major shopping center developer wishes to invest in Russia to serve our customers and bring jobs and growth,” the director, Per Kaufmann, said in the statement. “Yet, as long as the principal issues being crucial for Ikea development in Russia remain pending, we have to put all new investment plans on hold.” Ikea’s announcement came after a series of public complaints, including from the company’s founder, the secretive billionaire Ingvar Kamprad, who went on Swedish radio to complain that the company had been cheated out of millions of dollars by overcharging for electricity. Mr. Kamprad linked the problems to Ikea’s decision not to pay bribes in Russia. Western business executives have complained privately for decades that bribery is an integral part of Russian business culture, often tolerated or silently rebuffed. In fact, foreign companies retain legions of lawyers so they can adhere scrupulously to regulations in hopes of avoiding providing an opening for bribe-seeking officials. Russia has fared badly on the group’s corruption perception index, tying with Bangladesh, Kenya and Syria for 147th place, out of 180 countries. The traffic police routinely take cash bribes, and in popular lore, their large motorcycle gloves are especially designed to store wads of bills. However, it is the next level of official venality, so-called administrative corruption, that is most harmful to business as fire, sanitary, tax, customs and other authorities with the power to halt business activity demand bribes. “It becomes a choice of businesses either to pay or get involved in years and years of paperwork exchange,” Ms. Panfilova said. Ikea operates both as a furniture retailer and a developer of malls in Russia, with its stores as anchor clients. Since the first store opened in 2000, the company said it had become the target for corrupt officials in Moscow and the provincial towns where it operated. In a recent interview, Mr. Kaufmann, the Russia director, told The Associated Press that the inspectoral assault sometimes gave him the feeling that “someone somewhere does not like us.” The company had been growing more vocal about its troubles this spring. Mr. Kaufmann went public with a threat to halt investment throughout Russia — the decision taken Tuesday — unless authorities allowed a store in the southern Russian city of Samara completed some months ago to open. Inspectors had said that the building was not sturdy enough to withstand hurricane-force winds; Ikea pointed to historical records showing that such winds have never occurred in central Russia. Regional officials in Samara have said they were ensuring the safety of the store, and that Ikea’s public statements were attempts to pressure inspectors. This dispute at the Samara store fits a pattern. Authorities have consistently blocked openings at the last moment, when a company is most vulnerable to delays because of the capital it has already invested. Days before the first opening of an Ikea store on the outskirts of Moscow, authorities declined to connect the electricity; Ikea resorted to renting generators, and since then has made a practice of having them on hand. In 2004, officials halted an opening ceremony at a separate Moscow store minutes before it was to begin, saying the parking lot was too close to a natural gas pipeline. An outlet in Nizhny Novgorod was closed for its opening holiday season in 2006 on the grounds of fire-code violations; the opening of an outlet in Novosibirsk was postponed over demands to rebuild a road. In his statement, Mr. Kaufmann said Ikea would complete stores already under construction in Omsk, Ufa and the Moscow region but suspend future investment. The central government in Moscow has made no comment.

Russia
Shopping and Retail
Bribery
Ikea
Medvedev Dmitri A


Melanie Oudin Eliminated in First Round of Aegon Classic

Abstract: Melanie Oudin’s defense of her title at the Aegon Classic in Birmingham, England, lasted only 57 minutes, as she lost, 6-3, 6-1, to a Croatian qualifier, Ajla Tomljanovic, in the first round. Oudin beat Jelena Jankovic last year for her only WTA title.