Mets Expect Pitchers to Help Themselves at the Plate

Abstract: VIERA, Fla. — The pitches darted toward home faster than he expected. Three fast ones, and it was over. For the most part, Matt Harvey’s second-inning strikeout at the plate was an afterthought in the Mets’ 8-5 loss to the Washington Nationals on Wednesday afternoon. The talk regarding Harvey during spring training has naturally been about his pitching, not his performance holding a bat. “It looked a little quick,” Harvey said of his at-bat, drawing some laughs from the assembled reporters. On the mound, he pitched four innings and made one pitch he wished he had not. It resulted in a three-run homer by Bryce Harper in the first inning. Still, for the Mets, a team that will try to scrape runs this season from every last crevice of its roster, Harvey’s moment at the plate was a noteworthy one. It was the first plate appearance this spring by a member of the pitching staff, a group that Mets coaches expect to help the offense. “They’re baseball players once they get the bat in their hands,” Manager Terry Collins said of his pitchers. “So we’ve got to get them ready.” The Mets as a team did not rank highly in many offensive categories last year. But they did excel in one category that goes largely unnoticed year to year: batting by pitchers. As a group, the Mets’ pitchers batted .155, the third-highest average in the National League after the Nationals’ and the Cincinnati Reds’. And their pitchers boasted the lowest strikeout rate of any N.L. team, at 27.7 percent. Hitting numbers for pitchers involve small sample sizes — N.L. teams tend to get just under 400 total plate appearances from their pitchers — and many circumstantial factors. Owing partly to this, perhaps, the Mets’ statistics have varied significantly from year to year. In 2010, the Mets’ pitchers batted .171, the league’s fourth-best average. One season later, their .104 average was the league’s second worst. Relative to the batting averages of players at other positions, even the highest averages among pitchers seem comically low. But players and coaches insist they matter. “I think it’s a big part of the game,” Collins said of pitchers’ at-bats. “There’s no reason why they shouldn’t get some quality at-bats.” Though the Mets lost R. A. Dickey, whose skills with a glove and a bat contributed to his consistently ranking as one of the better all-around athletes on the team, there appears to be some hitting talent on the pitching staff. Last year, Jon Niese batted .218, finishing with the fourth-best average in the National League among pitchers with at least 50 plate appearances. And Shaun Marcum, who signed as a free agent this winter, came to the team with a reputation as an able batter. In 2011, he drove in six runs and was one of only 24 pitchers in either league to hit a home run. “We’ve got some pretty good hitters here, a lot of guys who can handle a bat well,” said Dave Hudgens, the Mets’ hitting coach. In spring training, pitchers start hitting later than position players for a number of reasons. Starting pitchers need only a half-dozen at-bats or so before the start of the season, Hudgens said, while position players try to get 50 or more. And because there are so many players in camp, the designated hitter spot becomes useful in getting position players enough plate appearances. On top of that, there are concerns about injuries if pitchers swing bats before they are in optimal shape. Zack Wheeler, the Mets’ top pitching prospect, pulled a muscle taking batting practice at the end of February. But the Mets started sending their pitchers up to hit Wednesday, beginning with Harvey, who is considered one of the team’s best pitchers with a bat. An unexpected subplot of his highly anticipated debut last year was his effectiveness at the plate. He went 6 for 18 with two doubles. “He’s just a good athlete, and it looks like he probably hit quite a bit when he was a kid,” Hudgens said. “He’s got some power. He stays in the middle of the field and can also pull a ball.” Most important, Hudgens said, “he likes to hit, and he’s good at it.” The general casualness of spring training created an unusual situation Wednesday because while the Mets inserted their pitcher into the ninth spot in their order, the Nationals continued to use a designated hitter. Harvey did not care about that discrepancy and said he relished the chance. “I take big pride in hitting,” Harvey said. “These are my opportunities to practice.” Harvey said he and the other pitchers would probably keep track to see who had the most hits this year. The Mets only hope that competition will be a hotly contested one. INSIDE PITCH The force of a 94-mile-per-hour fastball from Justin Verlander was sufficient to prompt a permanent change to Jordany Valdespin’s game wardrobe. Valdespin, who is trying to make the Mets as an outfielder and second baseman, left a game Monday after taking a pitch directly to his groin area. He was not wearing protection at the time. “I’ve got to do it now,” he said of wearing a cup. “I’ll never forget.”

Baseball
Mets
National League
Matt Harvey
Zack Wheeler
Dave Hudgens


Deadly Floods in India Force 1.2 Million People From Homes

Abstract: GAUHATI, India — Heavy rains and floods have killed at least seven people and forced about 1.2 million in India to leave their waterlogged homes in the northeastern state of Assam. Soldiers used boats to rescue thousands of people stranded on the roofs of their homes on Tuesday and moved them to safer areas after incessant rain over the past few days caused widespread flooding in Assam. Disaster management officials in the state said the downpours had disrupted travel and telephone communications in the Morigaon, Jorhat and Dibrugarh districts. Vast tracts of Kaziranga National Park, home to the rare one-horned rhino, and another wildlife reserve were underwater. Forest officials said they had found the remains of at least one rhino that had drowned in the flooding. The Brahmaputra River and its tributaries overflowed their banks in 18 of the state’s districts, washing away roads and highways, and toppling power transmission towers. Floodwaters entered homes in at least five districts, causing houses to collapse. In some areas, soldiers moved people who were marooned on the roofs of buildings to makeshift camps set up in schools and government buildings on higher ground. Floods are an annual occurrence in Assam and many parts of India during monsoon season from June to September.


Window Is Opening for Change in Tax Code

Abstract: Could this be the year that a comprehensive tax reform law is passed by Congress and signed by President Obama? On the face of it, the very idea sounds absurd. To call the current Congress dysfunctional would be an understatement. Simply reaching a budget compromise this week was viewed as a surprising accomplishment. But the below-the-radar reality is that a lot of work has been taking place in the tax-writing committees, at least to some extent on a bipartisan basis. They have churned out thoughtful reports and proposals that go into real detail on several complicated issues. Moreover, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camp of Michigan, faces a deadline. Under Republican caucus rules, he must step down as chairman at the end of this year. Until recently, it appeared his Senate counterpart, Max Baucus of Montana, faced a similar deadline. He had announced plans to retire at the end of this Congress. But Senator Baucus will now leave far sooner than that. He has been nominated to be ambassador to China and will leave the Senate after he is confirmed. The new chairman of the Finance Committee will be Ron Wyden of Oregon. That could be interesting. Few senators have shown as much eagerness to work across the aisle as he has. He has been pushing his own tax plan in concert with Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana. That plan at least broadly follows the lines of any tax overhaul now possible: a reduction in stated tax rates, with the loss in revenue made up by closing loopholes and exemptions. Senator Wyden is not talking about his plan now, pending his ascendancy to the chairmanship, but it remains on his website . Image Dave Camp, who leads the House Ways and Means Committee, must step down this year. Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images That plan is not, it must be said, a profile in courage. It goes after some loopholes and preferences but not enough of them to justify the cuts in rates that are included in the proposal. He is more specific than some, however, in saying that he would end the practice of not counting as income the value of employee fringe benefits. That would substantially raise the reported income of a lot of people and would not be popular with many, including labor unions. Even so, the net result of the plan, according to an analysis done by the Joint Committee on Taxation in 2011, would have been to lose revenue. That is not what we need now. Federal tax revenue in recent years has been at historical lows, at least as measured by a percentage of gross domestic product. One cause of that was the Great Recession, but it was not the only one. The fundamental problem was that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 were too great. Tax revenue soared in the late 1990s, for reasons that were not well understood. The economic analysis supporting the cuts simply overestimated how much revenue would come in during future years. If Congress is serious about tax reform — and about curbing the power of special-interest lobbyists to carve out exemptions and special breaks for favored industries — there is, it seems to me, one relatively simple way to go about that. Congress would start with an estimate of how much money needed to be raised — an estimate that would be based on what the entire Congress was willing to spend. That estimate would be over a multiyear period, for the course of an economic cycle. The government should be expected to run deficits during recessions, as revenue shrinks and safety net spending grows, and to offset them during good times. They could even program in an assumption of a multiyear surplus. The next step would be to decide how much revenue should come from the corporate income tax — a tax that now has the highest stated rates of any leading country but that produces shockingly little revenue. That odd combination reflects in no small part the ability of many multinational companies to avoid paying significant taxes. The rest would presumably come from individual taxes, including payroll taxes like Social Security and Medicare. I know none of that would be easy. But if it could be done, the interesting part would start. First, the government could have the tax experts estimate the marginal tax rate needed to produce the desired revenue. If they wanted, they could maintain some progressivity with higher rates on higher incomes. That estimate would produce astoundingly low necessary tax rates. It would do that by assuming the elimination of every tax preference, deduction and credit. It would also assume no deductions for mortgage interest or charitable giving and no exemption for interest on municipal bonds. It would assume that the value of health insurance provided to employees would be taxed just like any other compensation. It would assume the same tax rate for capital gains and other income — an assumption that would automatically end a lot of games that are played now to convert ordinary income into capital gains. The “carried interest” tactic used by private equity firms — the one that enabled Mitt Romney to pay so little in taxes — is just the most famous of those. On the corporate side, it would assume that all income was subject to tax when it was earned, including overseas income. There would be tax credits for foreign taxes actually paid. But all the special incentives — to invest in low-income housing, or in wind energy projects, or in a myriad other things — would be assumed to vanish. Image Senator Ron Wyden will take over soon as chairman of that body’s Finance Committee. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times With that as the starting point, Congress could debate restoring as many of those as anyone wished. But each proposed amendment would have to pay for itself with higher rates. A vote to preserve the mortgage interest deduction would clearly be a vote to raise taxes on those who don’t receive that deduction. The same goes for the capital gains preference and the charitable deduction. All too often now, we pass tax benefits as if they had no cost to others. This would make it clear that is not the case. If we start with the assumption that a certain amount of revenue must be raised, then giving me a break means making everyone else pay more. On the corporate side, it could lead to a splitting of interests among business groups. If General Electric and Apple can come up with ways to largely avoid actually paying federal income taxes, that means that other companies, including small ones, must pay more. Some of them would suddenly have reasons to lobby against complicated breaks that, in the past, had no real opposition. On the individual side, perhaps, it could lead to a similar change in attitude. If a rich person is able — through perfectly legal use of tax breaks — to pay a very low tax rate, then the rest of us will have reason to resent the fact that those breaks exist. If they did not, we could pay lower rates. It might be reasonable to phase out some existing breaks rather than cancel them immediately. Some breaks could be maintained but revised in a way to keep them from being overly generous to high-income people. Currently, a $1,000 charitable deduction from a person in the 39.6 percent bracket saves $396 in taxes, while a similar contribution from a person in the 28 percent bracket saves only $280. Offering a $280 tax credit instead would cost the middle-income giver nothing but would raise revenue from higher-income taxpayers. If this process did lead to a new tax law, it would probably result in a far, far simpler tax code than the current one — simply because a lot of tax breaks would not pass if the cost to the rest of us was clear. Is all this a fantasy? Probably. The most likely outcome this year is that no bill will be enacted. Achieving significant change would require a willingness on both sides of the aisle to stop seeking easy political gain. That happened in 1986, when the last serious tax reform law was passed, but it is hard to imagine it happening now. Nonetheless, Senator Wyden has shown a willingness to reach across party lines in ways that have sometimes made his fellow Democrats uncomfortable. In 2011, he sponsored a Medicare proposal with Representative Paul Ryan, who became the Republican vice-presidential nominee the next year. It is hard to believe that he and Representative Camp could reach an agreement that would gain support from both parties and both houses. But he might be willing to try.

Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions


Colorado Wildfire Forces Evacuation of 11,000

Abstract: A rapidly expanding wildfire in Colorado forced the evacuation of more than 11,000 people in communities near Pikes Peak on Sunday, as crews struggled to contain several large blazes around the state amid 100-degree temperatures and strong winds. The fast-moving Waldo Canyon fire had grown to more than 2,500 acres by Sunday afternoon and had pushed to within a quarter-mile of Manitou Springs, at the base of Pikes Peak, said David Hunting, a spokesman for the town’s fire department. All 6,000 residents of the town were ordered to evacuate, he said. The authorities also evacuated several other nearby communities and closed the Pikes Peak Highway. A number of parks, including the Garden of the Gods Park, with its towering columns of red rock, were also closed. The sparsely populated region, west of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, is popular with tourists, who were evacuated from campgrounds and lodges. Rob Deyerberg, a fire information officer for El Paso County, said the fire was “changing rapidly on us,” complicating efforts to contain it and protect nearby homes and businesses. “Dry fuels, temperatures and wind are, if not record setting, then right at it,” he said. More than 400 emergency workers were trying to contain the blaze, officials said. As of Sunday afternoon, no structures had been damaged. A dry winter and hot spring have made for a combustive summer in Colorado and surrounding states, straining local resources as firefighters battle multiple blazes that seem only to grow. A fire in Larimer County, Colo., started by lightning nearly two weeks ago, has destroyed at least 191 homes and burned more than 82,000 acres, officials said. There are at least 19 major wildfires burning across the western United States, including one of the largest blazes in the history of New Mexico.

Forest and Brush Fires
Evacuations and Evacuees
Colorado
Fires and Firefighters


Iran Accuses U.S. of Theft in $2 Billion Court Ruling for Terror Victims

Abstract: Iran reacted furiously on Thursday to a United States Supreme Court ruling that Iran’s central bank must pay nearly $2 billion to American victims of terrorist attacks, calling the ruling thievery and a new threat to any improvement in relations. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, said in a statement quoted by state media that the court’s ruling on Wednesday was a mockery of international law and “amounts to appropriation of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s property.” Congress enacted a law in 2012 to make it easier for families of Americans killed in terrorist attacks, like the 1983 truck bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, to recover damages from Iran. Investigators have concluded that Iran was responsible for that attack, something Iran has long denied. The court ruled 6 to 2 that Congress did not exceed its constitutional role in enacting the law. The ruling will, at least theoretically, allow the families to obtain compensation from Iranian central bank assets that have been impounded. Press TV, an Iranian government news website, reported Mr. Ansari warning that the ruling “increases the distrust between Tehran and Washington.” The ruling came at a time when Iran and the United States are engaged in a new dispute over fulfilling the commitments of the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. That agreement calls for sanctions to be eased and for certain impounded assets to be released in exchange for guarantees that Iran’s nuclear activities remain peaceful. Iran has complained that nonnuclear-related American sanctions on Iran have dissuaded many international companies from investing or trading in the country out of fear that they could still run afoul of American law.

Decisions and Verdicts
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
Iran
Terrorism
Nuclear weapon
US


Brazilian Tennis Player’s Success Follows a Childhood of Obstacles

Abstract: When Gustavo Kuerten, the three-time French Open champion, refers to a “one-in-a-hundred-million” chance of making it in professional tennis, he is not referring to Novak Djokovic or Serena Williams, who have combined for 32 Grand Slam titles. Those enormous odds more accurately describe Teliana Pereira, a Brazilian compatriot of Kuerten’s who has a 2-8 record at majors. But wins and losses, the usual formula with which to assess success in sports, are only part of the equation for Kuerten. The path to becoming a tennis professional was littered with obstacles for Pereira, 27, which makes her winning two clay-court singles titles on the WTA Tour and reaching the top 50 in the rankings particularly astounding. The highest-ranked Brazilian woman by a significant margin, Pereira is expected to represent her country at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August. “I’m really impressed about her ability to overcome challenges in her life, an extraordinary effort for surviving,” Kuerten said in an email. Djokovic, a Serbian, grew up in a country ravaged by war, and Williams had to avoid gangs while practicing as a youngster in Compton, Calif. Pereira faced her own obstacles, as she and her family lacked what many would consider household basics when they lived in Pernambuco, a state in northeastern Brazil. Their toilet was in the backyard. For breakfast, bread was a rare treat. Pereira, who has three brothers and three sisters, said another sister died as a baby because of dehydration. No hospital was in the vicinity, she said. She did not attend school until the age of 8, after the family moved to Curitiba, in the southern state of Paraná. That is also where she began playing tennis at 9, a late start for a pro. Her father, Jose, worked as a custodian at a tennis academy. “In the morning I went to school, and after that I had nothing to do, so I went to help my dad clean the courts and also just to stay at the tennis club,” Pereira said. She started as a ball girl at the club to make some money and eventually took up a racket. Her brother Jose , 25, also became a pro tennis player. Didier Rayon, who ran the academy, became a mentor to Teliana. He said he did not think anyone in the upper echelons of tennis “ever started as poor as Teliana.” Rayon recalled a junior tournament in Peru in 2006, when, he said, Pereira went without food for an entire day. “She didn’t have any money or a credit card, so she didn’t eat for a day until she received the money I sent to her,” said Rayon, who left France for Brazil 30 years ago. “You can imagine the conditions.” To fund Pereira’s travels in the juniors, people who frequented the academy would chip in 10 euros here and there; on one occasion, someone bought her a plane ticket, Rayon said. Pereira moved up the tennis ladder despite the dearth of cash. But then she had to contend with a knee injury that required two operations in 2009. Once she was fit again, friends donated money for tennis travel. The knee injury slowed Pereira, but in 2013 she achieved a significant milestone, becoming the first Brazilian woman since 1990 to appear in the top 100. Last April in Bogotá, Colombia, Pereira became the first Brazilian woman to claim a top-level title since Neige Dias in 1988. Along the way, Pereira ousted the 2010 French Open winner Francesca Schiavone. Three and a half months later, with most of her family and Kuerten watching from the stands, Pereira won her second title in Florianópolis, Brazil, about 190 miles south of Curitiba. “In the final, I was really sick,” Pereira said. “But I was thinking, ‘I have to play my second final, my family is here, a lot of people came from Curitiba to watch me.’ I had to play my best. I couldn’t give up.” In the aftermath of her triumph in Bogotá, her schedule meant there was little time to celebrate. But after the victory in Florianópolis, Pereira said, she spent two weeks with family and friends and held a “big, big party.” At the end of her season, Pereira returned to Pernambuco to remind herself of how life used to be. The visit was documented by Brazilian television. “I told my mom: ‘We have to go back. I have to go back because I have to see where I came from and can’t forget this,’ ” Pereira said. “So I went to see my city and where I came from, because I can feel everything again and start the year stronger.” So far, though, Pereira is struggling to replicate her 2015 success, earning only one victory outside Fed Cup competition. Her ranking is set to tumble from 55th after she lost in the first round in Bogotá last week. Competing on clay, her preferred surface, through the French Open should raise her win total over the next two months. The Olympic tournament, which will be played on hardcourts, also figures to be a highlight of Pereira’s season. But if her career ended now, she said, she would be O.K. She reveled in being able to buy her mother, Maria, a house last year, mostly a result of amassing $319,000 in prize money in 2015. “Now my mom has a big house — well, not a big house — but for us it’s a perfect house,” Pereira said. “Now we have everything.”

Tennis
Teliana Pereira
2016 Summer Olympics
Brazil
Poverty


U.S. Men’s Soccer Team Falls to Belgium in Friendly

Abstract: CLEVELAND — In the first game of a busy summer schedule, the United States national soccer team was convincingly defeated by a powerful Belgian team, 4-2, on Wednesday night at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland. The United States was coming into the game off the high of two impressive World Cup qualifying results in March, a win over Costa Rica and a draw against Mexico. Belgium entered the game leading its European World Cup qualifying group and boasting one of the strongest teams in Europe, with a roster full of players from elite clubs. Belgium controlled the game early and struck first in the sixth minute when Romelu Lukaku of Chelsea got behind the United States defense. American goalkeeper Tim Howard was unable to hang on to the initial shot, and Kevin Mirallas of Everton chipped it into the net for a 1-0 lead. The United States found an equalizer against the run of play in the 22nd minute when Graham Zusi took a short corner and sent a deep cross for Clint Dempsey, who headed the ball back across the goal. Geoff Cameron easily headed it past Belgian keeper Simon Mignolet for his first career international goal. In the 40th minute, Belgium nearly regained the lead after a counterattack. Lukaku unleashed a powerful shot from 25 yards, which forced Howard to make a diving save. Midfielder Sacha Kljestan said: “In the first half, things got a little bit hectic and we were getting tired already. We needed to slow it down. No one likes to lose. Belgium is a good team, but we made mistakes tonight that gifted them goals, so that’s what’s disappointing. We have to be tight in everything we do.” In the 56th minute, Belgium found the go-ahead goal after a sloppy turnover from Brad Davis in midfield sprung a counterattack down the right side. A poor defensive clearance attempt from defender Omar Gonzalez allowed Kevin De Bruyne to make a cross to an open Christian Benteke in front of the goal. Benteke finished easily past goalkeeper Brad Guzan, who replaced Howard at the half. Image Clint Dempsey, left, of the United States battled for the ball with Toby Alderweireld of Belgium. Credit David Maxwell/European Pressphoto Agency “During these friendlies, these mistakes can happen, but during the qualifiers, they cannot happen,” Gonzalez said. “I want to be focused enough so I can get these things out of here now against these teams and hopefully not do them in the future.” Klinsmann said: “We want to make sure that there is a flow and there is a rhythm, there is a better understanding between players on the field and better communication when the games come that we badly need to win. I think those are games you need to play. They understand when you make mistakes, they have to pay for it.” In the 65th minute, the Belgians put the game out of reach. De Bruyne sent in a high cross to the far post, which Marouane Fellaini was able to head past Guzan from close range. “You have to have a short memory,” Cameron said. “It’s a friendly. You have to take the good with the bad. You learn from your mistakes, you take the positives out of it. We’ll keep our heads held high. We can perform better.” After another goal from Benteke in the 71st minute, the United States cut the deficit to 4-2 when it was awarded a penalty after Toby Alderweireld was called for a hand ball on Eddie Johnson’s cross. Dempsey beat Mignolet to the left side for his 33rd career international goal. The game brought the 100th cap for DaMarcus Beasley, who started out of position at left back. Normally a speedy winger, he was the only player on the United States roster remaining from the 2002 World Cup, where the Americans advanced to the quarterfinals. The loss leaves the United States with a 1-2-2 record in 2013. It will face Germany on Sunday before heading to Kingston for a World Cup qualifier against Jamaica on June 7.


Showdown in Arizona Over ‘Most Western’ Motto

Abstract: CAVE CREEK, Ariz. — A baby buffalo stood guard outside Town Hall, snorting at the approach of three mounted police officers from nearby Scottsdale who had towed their horses here on a trailer. From the sideline, Larry Wendt, a former sheriff’s deputy whose saloon holds weekly live bull-riding spectacles, took the first shot. “They’re riding English!” he hollered — as in English saddles, which, being hornless, “are no saddle for real cowboys,” he explained. And so the tone and stage were set for a modern-day Western showdown that would be punctuated not by bullets, but by words on paper and a vote by seven elected Cave Creek officials, three of whom are actually East Coast transplants. At stake was Scottsdale’s motto, “ The West’s Most Western Town ,” which it has claimed on its official seal for more than 60 years. The people of Cave Creek were determined to prove that their town deserved the title instead. In a lighthearted way, the challenge distilled a familiar Western story, in which growth and development, having changed the land, threaten to transform tradition and a way of life. A resolution approved unanimously by the Cave Creek Town Council on Monday night listed three pages’ worth of justification for the town’s claim. Cave Creek, the Council asserted, is “both legally and properly called a town,” while Scottsdale is a city. It has “the only mayor that runs a horse-racing track, vice mayor that practices equine law, and a live-bull-riding town manager” — Rodney Glassman, who lasted under eight seconds, by his own estimation, in a competition at Mr. Wendt’s saloon, the Buffalo Chip. Image A resident of Cave Creek dressed as a cowboy. Credit Samantha Sais for The New York Times “Our mayor and Council are throwing down the gauntlet to claim a title that is rightfully theirs,” said Mr. Glassman, a former city councilman in Tucson who ran as a Democrat in 2010 against Arizona’s long-serving senator, John McCain. Close to 100 people packed the biggest room at Town Hall, most decked in Western gear, even if some did not seem entirely at ease in chaps and cowboy boots. One man, Bob Fox, strolled to the microphone carrying a live owl wearing a faux-diamond necklace — “big, flamboyant,” like Scottsdale, he said. Dennis E. Robbins, a Scottsdale councilman, wore perhaps the only straight face in the audience as he read a letter inked on a parchment scroll in defense of his city’s motto. “Our brand isn’t up for grabs,” he deadpanned. (He was accompanied by the city’s chief information officer, Kelly Corsette, who typed intently on a smartphone. “It wouldn’t be a Wild West showdown if someone wasn’t Tweeting about it,” he said.) It is hard to picture Scottsdale as it once was — a desert community of cattle ranches and fig, nut and citrus farms, many of which were subdivided long ago and sold for housing developments. The city is best known these days for its lavish spas, verdant golf courses, buzzing night life and bustling spring-training scene; the San Francisco Giants play in a ballpark downtown, within walking distance of many bars. New high-rise condos that sell for millions of dollars dot Scottsdale’s center. Its Old Town shopping district is a merely a replica (but so, it should be said, is Frontier Town in Cave Creek, where a yoga studio and a restaurant, the Horny Toad, share the main drag). By contrast, Mr. Wendt, the saloon’s owner, pointed out, most of Cave Creek, where hitching posts are a common sight, can still be reached on horseback, “like in the old days.” The town was settled in 1870 as a remount station for Army cavalry units working to protect settlers against Indians. It was the hub of a gold-mining district that spread across 144 miles, and home to one of the largest ranches in Arizona, the Cartwright Ranch, boasting 65,000 acres of grazing land. Image Mr. Thorstenson, back to camera, and other Cave Creek residents looked the part at a town meeting, trying to make the case that Scottsdale is not “the West’s most Western Town,” as it claims. Credit Samantha Sais for The New York Times Today, working ranches are considerably more modest, but they still exist. Parts of town are zoned for properties no smaller than five acres to encourage horse ownership. At the local Laundromat, two machines are reserved for horse blankets. Still, for old-timers like Bev Metcalf Brooks, who has lived here for 53 years, changes have been enough to fundamentally alter the town’s character. Cave Creek, she said, “used to be” the West’s most Western town, when “real working cowboys” were around. No longer. “We’re a motorcycle town,” Ms. Brooks told Mayor Vincent Francia, Vice Mayor Adam Trenk and the town’s five city councilmen, among them Reg Monachino, who grew up in the Bronx. On weekends now, motorcycles cruise Cave Creek Road, which is lined by hills speckled by mesquite trees and saguaro cactuses. But to Evelyn Johnson, a Texas native who moved here from Seattle 17 years ago, it is not the ride or attire that certifies Cave Creek’s Western ethos. “Western isn’t about diamonds and denim, Levi’s and lace,” said Ms. Johnson, executive director of the Cave Creek Museum. “It’s a way of life.” In the letter Mr. Robbins read during Monday’s meeting, the mayor of Scottsdale, Jim Lane, suggested a meeting to “discuss real issues of mutual concern and benefit to our citizens.” Mayor Francia sent him a response on Thursday, saying he appreciated the invitation, but nonetheless hoped to settle the score the old-fashioned way. He challenged Mr. Lane to a quick-draw contest in the parking lot of the Horny Toad, to be held Nov. 2, at high noon.

Slogans and Mottoes
Cave Creek AZ
Scottsdale AZ
Cowboy
Ranch
Arizona


Herbert Saffir, 90, Dies; Created Hurricane Scale

Abstract: MIAMI, Nov. 23 (AP) — Herbert Saffir, an engineer who created the five-category system used to describe hurricane strength and warn millions of an approaching storm’s potential danger, died Wednesday in Miami. He was 90. The cause was complications from surgery, said his son, Richard Saffir. A structural engineer, Mr. Saffir created his scale in 1969, laying out for the first time what kind of damage could be expected from an approaching hurricane. It has since become the definitive way to describe intensity for storms that form in the Atlantic basin and parts of the Pacific Ocean. Before the scale, hurricanes were simply described as major or minor. Mr. Saffir’s innovation was ranking storm destruction by type, from Category 1, in which trees and unanchored mobile homes receive the primary damage, to Category 5, which involves the complete failure of roofs and some structures. The five descriptions of destruction were then matched with the sustained wind speeds that would produce the corresponding damage. Mr. Saffir’s scale was expanded by a former National Hurricane Center director, Robert H. Simpson, and became known as the Saffir-Simpson scale in the 1970s. The scale is now so well known that many coastal residents toss off shorthand like “Cat. 1” and few need to be told that it refers to Mr. Saffir and Mr. Simpson’s creation. Mr. Simpson, 95, said the system was invaluable in helping him communicate the power of an approaching storm. “We needed that type of thing desperately at the time,” he said Thursday in a phone interview from his home in Washington. Speaking in an interview earlier this year, Mr. Simpson said he had a hard time before the scale explaining the kinds of damage each storm could cause. “I couldn’t tell the Salvation Army, for example, how much and what materials they should be shipping,” said Mr. Simpson, whose contribution was adding possible storm-surge heights for each category. “The scale gave them a much better handle on that.” Mr. Saffir was born in New York in 1917. He graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in civil engineering in 1940 and then served in World War II, later moving to South Florida to become a county engineer. Because of the area’s vulnerability to hurricanes, Mr. Saffir quickly became an expert in how hurricane-force winds affected buildings. He helped write and unify building codes in South Florida. Mr. Saffir began working on an intensity scale in 1969 as part of a United Nations project. He had been asked how the United Nations could reduce hurricane damage to low-cost buildings worldwide. To help officials understand the full range of hurricane damage, Mr. Saffir proposed rating storms from 1 through 5. Scales for rating earthquake damage were already well known, and Mr. Saffir believed hurricanes needed their own system of ranking. He presented his system to Mr. Simpson, who began to use the rankings internally and later for a weather report meant largely for emergency agencies. The scale was so useful that others quickly adopted it. It was later used for public hurricane forecasts, and each man’s name was later attached. Mr. Saffir did not talk about the scale much, his son said. While his mother and sister sometimes got upset when the category system was referred to without Mr. Saffir or Mr. Simpson’s name, “it wouldn’t seem to bother him,” his son said. Mr. Saffir’s wife, Sarah, died before him. Besides his son, he is survived by a daughter, Barbara Saffir, and a brother, Leonard Saffir. Mr. Saffir continued to work as a structural engineer at a Coral Gables office until he entered a hospital four weeks ago, his son said. He also traveled to inspect storm damage, producing reports on the performance of structures during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Despite devoting much of his life to thinking about hurricanes and preparing buildings for them, Mr. Saffir acknowledged earlier this year that his own home was not completely protected from a storm with hurricane shutters. He had done studies on the glass in the windows and found it was relatively shatterproof, he said. At the same time, he told The Associated Press, “I confess I only have partial shutters.”

Hurricanes and Tropical Storms
Weather
National Hurricane Center
Deaths (Obituaries)
Engineering and Engineers
Weights and Measures
Saffir Herbert


Holiday Sales Slide 60% at Struggling Barnes & Noble Nook Unit

Abstract: In late 2009, Barnes & Noble introduced its first e-reader, the Nook, and within a relatively short time had picked up 25 percent of the e-book market, slicing into Amazon’s dominance. Now those gains seem to have faded. On Thursday, Barnes & Noble, the nation’s last remaining major bookstore chain, said that it had steep sales declines in its digital division during the holiday period, continuing a steady decline for a unit that was once the centerpiece of its growth strategy. Revenue in the Nook division, which includes digital content and devices, was $125 million, a 60.5 percent drop compared with the nine-week holiday period a year earlier. Barnes & Noble executives said their total share of the e-book market had fallen to 20 percent. The drop-off underscores the significant challenges facing the new chief executive, Michael P. Huseby, a company insider who was appointed to the post on Wednesday. He said Barnes & Noble was determined to find a way to reverse the losses. “Our objective is to stop the decline and turn it around so we get back into growth mode,” Mr. Huseby said in a telephone interview. “Obviously the loss was big. So that’s why our focus is on rationalizing the business.” The news was much cheerier from the brick-and-mortar side of Barnes & Noble, with its 673 retail stores. Bookstore sales decreased only 6.6 percent compared with the previous year, to $1.1 billion. Mr. Huseby said he was “very happy” with the company’s performance in retail bookstores, which have set aside space in recent years for toys, educational games, greeting cards and other gift items. Image A Barnes & Noble in Pasadena, Calif. The company’s holiday retail sales fell 6.6 percent. Credit Mario Anzuoni/Reuters Mitchell S. Klipper, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble’s retail division, said he did not expect any significant changes ahead in the bookstores. “You’re not going to see any major departures in the near future in our stores,” he said. “We’re happy with what we have.” The losses in the Nook division reflect Barnes & Noble’s decreasing digital ambitions, as it declined to release a new color tablet in 2013. The bookseller has said it will pull back from trying to compete in the crowded tablet market against big companies like Amazon and Apple. Asked to explain the decline in digital sales, Mr. Huseby said that Barnes & Noble was fighting intense competition from Amazon and Apple and deep discounts on books from other retailers that influenced Barnes & Noble’s own pricing. Analysts suggested that the Justice Department’s lawsuit against publishers, which resulted in allowing retailers to discount e-books more freely, might have contributed to Barnes & Noble’s troubles. Mr. Huseby, previously the president of Barnes & Noble and chief executive of Nook Media, added that Barnes & Noble was looking into forming partnerships with other device manufacturers, but that no plans had been completed. Jack W. Perry, a publishing consultant, said that Barnes & Noble’s position had become precarious. “They need to get their act together now,” he said. “They need to do something now before the Nook is no longer viable.” Barnes & Noble has sold more than 10 million Nook devices since its debut in 2009. The results, which cover the nine-week period that ended Dec. 28, are likely to further unsettle publishers, authors and agents who have fretted about Barnes & Noble’s stability for years. Since Borders went out of business in 2011, Barnes & Noble is the last significant bookstore chain in the country. Publishers depend on the bookseller for display space and the spontaneous purchases that can result from casual browsing. Last year, Barnes & Noble’s holiday results were disappointing, as sales from bookstores and BN.com decreased 10.9 percent, to $1.2 billion, from the comparable nine-week holiday period in 2011.

Barnes and Noble
Publishing
Earnings Reports
BN Nook


Guantánamo Conditions Have Fallen, Military Lawyers Say

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Lawyers representing six of the highest-profile detainees at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba, sent a letter on Friday to the Pentagon complaining that their clients’ living conditions have deteriorated since a new commander took over the prison last year. In the five-page letter addressed to William K. Lietzau, the top detainee policy official at the Pentagon, the lawyers complained that some of the food, medicine, and hygienic items given to the prisoners has not been certified as halal, as required for observant Muslims. They also suggest that the amount of recreation time and access to educational and entertainment items, like Arabic newspapers, has been curtailed. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, denied any mistreatment of prisoners, saying guard force policies and training aimed “to ensure respect for the dignity of every detainee in our custody.” “The Department of Defense requires all its detention operations to meet an extraordinarily high standard of humane care and custody and that we work closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has access to all detainees interned by the Department of Defense,” he said. While it has become routine for civilian lawyers representing Guantánamo detainees to complain about their clients’ treatment, the letter was unusual because it came from a group of mostly military lawyers representing six high-level members of Al Qaeda, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , the self-described architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mr. Mohammed and the other five detainees named in the letter — Walid bin Attash, Ammar al-Baluchi, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi bin al-Shibh — were among the 16 Guantánamo prisoners known as “high-value detainees” formerly held by the Central Intelligence Agency. The six live in a high-security part of the complex called Camp 7. The letter quotes from an early 2009 study by a Navy admiral who made recommendations aimed at reducing solitary confinement at Camp 7, including allowing group recreation and religious practices. His recommendations were “entirely disregarded,” the letter said, and conditions have instead “deteriorated.” It also said that some of the changes “appear to coincide with the arrival” last summer of the current prison commander, Rear Adm. David B. Woods, who has separately clashed with detainee lawyers over policies he put in place requiring more extensive searches of communications between the prisoners and their lawyers. The letter contends that conditions at Camp 7 fall short of the minimum guarantees of humane treatment under the Geneva Conventions . The lawyers asked for the letter to be treated as a report of a possible “violation of the law of war.” Under military policies, that sets off a requirement to investigate and remedy any problems. While the letter does not include many specific details, it refers to a companion Top Secret memo, also dated Feb. 24, entitled “Detainee Account of Violations.” And it lists other memos dating to March 2009, suggesting there has been a long dialogue about conditions in Camp 7.

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)
Detainees
Defense Department
Mohammed Khalid Shaikh
Prisons and Prisoners


Panama Papers Show How Lawyers Can Turn a Blind Eye

Abstract: During the savings-and loan-crisis in the early 1990s, the question “Where were the lawyers?” was asked about the wrongdoing taking place at numerous banks. The confidential documents known as the Panama Papers , which show how lawyers helped set up offshore bank accounts and shell companies, provides one possible answer: The lawyers have always been right in the middle of it. This is not the only recent example of lawyers acting as willing participants in trying to help clients, while seemingly turning a blind eye to possible violations of the law. A report issued by the nonprofit organization Global Witness, featured on the “60 Minutes” news program in January, included undercover videos of lawyers in New York who appeared quite eager to advise the mysterious representative of an African minister about how to move funds into the United States to buy assets while keeping his ownership anonymous. Rather than seeking to keep clients from violating the law, it appears that some lawyers are willing to go right up to the line of legality in their representation. By keeping themselves ignorant about what may be going on, these lawyers have been able to maintain the facade that they are not involved in potentially illegal activities, even though they are often the prime enablers of misconduct. Has the legal profession lost its moral compass? The answer is that the ethical rules governing lawyers do not put much of a barrier in the way of helping clients engage in transactions that would appear questionable but do not violate any specific laws, so it is not clear whether lawyers pushing to the edge of the law are acting improperly. Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.2(d) , issued by the American Bar Association, says that a lawyer should “not counsel a client to engage, or assist a client in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent.” Note how the rule is premised on the lawyer’s knowledge, and many lawyers are expert at keeping themselves ignorant about exactly what is taking place to maintain plausible deniability. Moreover, that same rule says that “a lawyer may discuss the legal consequences of any proposed course of conduct,” so exploring the limits of the law can be permissible. Ramón Fonseca, one of the founders of the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, the source of the leaked Panama Papers, told The New York Times that the lawyers did nothing wrong in helping their clients set up shell companies. “We are like a car factory who sells its car to a dealer (a lawyer for example), and he sells it to a lady that hits someone. The factory is not responsible for what is done with the car,” he wrote. Lawyers in the United States are not required to comply with anti-money laundering compliance procedures imposed on financial institutions that require gathering information about the identity of account owners and the source of funds or assets. By avoiding the duty to inquire about their clients, lawyers can turn a blind eye by focusing only on what the client wants without asking the harder questions about what led to seeking legal advice. That may be the root of the issue of how lawyers enable their clients to engage in questionable transactions while avoiding any direct involvement, which allows them to claim to have done nothing improper. If legal advice is viewed merely as a tool, just like a car, with no requirement to inquire any more deeply about the client’s background and intentions, then it is easy to see how lawyers become part of the problem. The lawyers who were caught on video by Global Witness can assert they were simply discussing options with a potential client, with no obligation to question too deeply because this was only a preliminary discussion that might not advance any further. Lawyers often defend themselves by asserting that their only obligation is to represent their clients, with no greater public obligation. As long as they do not know the client will engage in criminal or fraudulent conduct, then advancing the client’s interests by ostensibly legal means is not only permissible, but a positive social good, even if their services might be misused. The way to change this approach is to focus on the tools that lawyers have available by making it harder for clients to use their services to engage in misconduct. The Panama Papers detail the use of shell companies to hide assets, something The Times also described extensively in its series “Towers of Secrecy” articles about how the Manhattan condominium market is rife with anonymous owners shielding their identities behind corporate facades. The Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act, which has been introduced in the House and Senate , would require states to gather the names of those who control corporations and limited liability companies, the vehicles used to hide the true owners of assets. These proposals have not gained any traction yet in Congress, with the American Bar Association opposing earlier bills on the subject. The Panama Papers may give a push to the effort to require that ownership of corporate entities be available to law enforcement, even if it is not publicly disclosed. The Treasury Department is close to issuing a rule that would require banks to determine the identity of any individual owner of 25 percent or more of a corporation or L.L.C. that opens an account, along with individuals who exercise control over them. Lawyers will have to provide that information to banks if their clients are going to have an account, which may push lawyers to gather more information. Neither of these proposals is guaranteed to reveal who is using legal entities to maintain anonymity. One way around the disclosure requirements would be to set up separate entities so that only one person has control of the bank account or owns the entity’s shares, thus limiting whose identity must be revealed. Lawyers could also be subjected to the same anti-money laundering rules as banks, although that is sure to provoke fierce opposition from the legal profession. The attorney-client privilege is usually invoked as the reason to exclude lawyers from having to comply with the “know your customer” rules that would require disclosing the identity of their clients. Whether such disclosure would actually threaten the relationship between a lawyer and client is an open question. The power of the profession to point to the need for client secrecy has successfully thwarted most efforts to compel lawyers to reveal information. It is no surprise that lawyers are at the center of the debate about how to deal with the use of shell companies and secret accounts to hide assets because lawyers are frequently involved in structuring the entities. Despite the elevated rhetoric about the role of lawyers in society, the legal ethics rules do little to restrict how lawyers can represent clients who flirt with the edges of the law. Limiting the tools for helping clients engage in misconduct would make it harder for lawyers to claim they are only serving the wishes of those clients.

Lawyers
Ethics Misconduct Malfeasance
Mossack Fonseca
Global Witness
Banking and Finance


Massachusetts Chief’s Tack in Drug War: Steer Addicts to Rehab, Not Jail

Abstract: CANTON, Ohio — Leonard Campanello, the police chief of Gloucester, Mass., took the microphone here in mid-December and opened with his usual warm-up line: I’m from Gloucester, he said in his heavy Boston accent. “That’s spelled ‘G-l-o-s-t-a-h.’” A casually profane man with a philosophical bent, Chief Campanello, 48, first drew national attention last spring when he wrote on Facebook that the old war on drugs was lost and over. Convinced that addiction is a disease, not a crime or moral failing, he became the unusual law enforcement officer offering heroin users an alternative to prison. “Any addict who walks into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment (needles, etc.) or drugs and asks for help will NOT be charged,” he wrote. “Instead we will walk them through the system toward detox and recovery” and send them for treatment “on the spot.” That post from a small-town police chief was shared more than 30,000 times and viewed by 2.4 million people. By June, his Police Department had put his promise into action in what became known as Gloucester’s Angel program. Critics said that he did not have the authority to take the law into his own hands and forgo arrests. But other police departments, fed up with arresting addicts and getting nowhere, saw the Gloucester approach as a promising way to address the epidemic of heroin and prescription pain pills, which together killed 47,055 people in 2014 nationwide — more than died in car accidents, homicides or suicides. Since the program began, 391 addicts have turned themselves in at the city’s brick police station. About 40 percent are from the Gloucester area; the rest come from all over the country. All have been placed in treatment. Just as surprisingly, 56 police departments in 17 states have started programs modeled on or inspired by Gloucester’s, with 110 more preparing to do so. In addition, 200 treatment centers across the country have signed on as partners. In six months, Gloucester, which steers people to treatment but does not itself provide it, has developed a nationwide network of centers willing to provide beds and take referrals by the police, regardless of whether the addict has insurance. “This has the potential to be a disruptive innovation that changes the picture of how we deal with the disease,” said David Rosenbloom, a professor of health policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health, who has been analyzing data for Gloucester. And it is a measure of the widespread desperation to move beyond the war on drugs that so many have been willing to try it. These days, the chief is often on the road, addressing police departments, parents and treatment providers in speeches like the one here last month to 150 substance abuse clinicians, sponsored by the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Stark County. He told the audience how his officers had developed their own database of treatment sites, which they call over and over until they secure a bed. Image Leonard Campanello, the police chief in Gloucester, Mass., is spearheading an effort to guide addicts toward treatment instead of arresting them. Credit Shiho Fukada for The New York Times “A bed not available at 10 a.m. might be available at 10:10, but they won’t tell you that,” Chief Campanello said. “If you want Bruce Springsteen tickets, you aren’t going to stop calling because you get a busy signal.” But being matched with a bed is just the first step on the long, grueling road to recovery. Heroin retains such a ferocious grip on brain cells that relapses are viewed as part of the process. Chief Campanello said addicts in his program were always welcomed back, no questions asked. He then turned somber, telling the audience about a phone call he received that morning. A man named Steve Jesi had called to say his daughter, Stephenie, 33, who had been in and out of the Gloucester program, had relapsed for a third time, overdosed and been found dead. She was the first person in the program who did not make it. “Despite our best efforts, we know people will die,” Chief Campanello told the audience. “That doesn’t make it feel any better.” His voice caught. His eyes welled with tears. “I know it’s successful,” he said of the program. “And I know we’re saving lives. But we worry about the one we lost.” The Eriks of the World The youngest of four children, Mr. Campanello grew up in a Roman Catholic Italian family in Saugus, a blue-collar town 10 miles north of Boston. His father was a department store salesman, while his mother raised the family. In 1990, Mr. Campanello was studying criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, when he joined the Saugus police force. He later earned a master’s degree in criminal justice administration at Boston University. Russell Campanello, his older brother by 12 years, a technology industry executive, tried to talk him into becoming a lawyer. But, Russell said, “he felt there were enough lawyers and not enough police on the street helping people.” During his 22 years on the Saugus force, Chief Campanello worked undercover in the narcotics unit for seven years. There, he met a boy named Erik whose parents were heroin addicts. Erik was using by age 12 and dead by 19. “We arrested Erik a dozen times,” Chief Campanello recalled one night on his way to O’Hare International Airport after participating in a panel discussion in Chicago. “We thought things like ‘Erik needs help,’” he said. “But there were no avenues for that, especially through the police force. It wasn’t our responsibility.” Image A small group of activists — including Chief Campanello — from We Care, or Waldo Encourages Community Assisted Recovery Efforts, a group dedicated to providing support and resources for addiction recovery, walked through Belfast, Me., in September. Credit Tristan Spinski for The New York Times In 2012, he became chief in Gloucester, a fishing town of 28,000 and the setting for “The Perfect Storm.” The chief, who plays the piano by ear, is drawn to songs like Mr. Springsteen’s “You’re Missing,” an elegy about loss after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It reminds him, he said, of those who have lost someone to heroin. And as head of a 60-person police force, he said, he was at last in a position to do something for the Eriks of the world. With Compassion The Gloucester Angel program grew out of a town forum last spring on the heroin crisis. Four people had died of overdoses in the first three months of 2015, more than had died in all of 2014. Residents said they wanted addicts treated with compassion. The idea that addiction should be treated as a health issue instead of a crime has gained currency as heroin has spread from inner cities to the nation’s suburbs, rural outposts and the white middle class. Chief Campanello said the program, which operates around the clock, “is about a community’s journey helping one another, a humanitarian effort that they wanted their Police Department to reflect.” When addicts show up, an officer calls on one of 55 “angels,” local volunteers who are in recovery or otherwise familiar with addiction, to listen and offer moral support. The officer takes a history and starts dialing treatment facilities, where clinicians determine what treatment best suits the addict and of what duration. Beds have been found in as little as 17 minutes and as much as a couple of days. Some of those beds are as close as Gloucester; others, as far as California. Many local businesses support the program: A pharmacy in Gloucester discounted naloxone, which reverses the effects of an overdose, and CVS and Walgreens followed suit. Taxi companies provide free rides to treatment facilities or the airport. The ambulance service offers a reduced rate. The department spends an average of $55 for each addict, Chief Campanello said, compared with $220 spent to arrest, process and hold an addict in custody for a single day. Most of the costs are borne by the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative , which Chief Campanello founded last summer with John E. Rosenthal, a businessman who lives in Gloucester. Mr. Rosenthal has worked to alleviate homelessness in Boston and founded Stop Handgun Violence. The police initiative has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and received millions in in-kind contributions, including placement in treatment centers. “When the chief wrote that blog post in the spring and got 2.4 million hits, he called and said, ‘Help!’” Mr. Rosenthal said. “I saw very quickly that this could be a tipping point.” Among the program’s success stories is Kristina, 29, who had a steady job and lived near Gloucester. She did not want her last name used. She broke an ankle, started out on pain pills and ultimately moved on to heroin. After about two years, she said, she started “creating wreckage” in her life, crashing her car and losing her apartment. She tried without success to find treatment on her own. Image Cheryl Marlow and Steve Jesi visiting the gravesite of their daughter, Stephenie Jesi. She was in and out of the Angel program and is described as the first person in it who ultimately did not make it. Credit Shiho Fukada for The New York Times Finally, she said, facing jail time, she turned herself in at the Gloucester police station. “They worked every avenue to get me into treatment,” Kristina said. Occasionally officers call to check on her. “They said, ‘If you ever need anything, the doors are still open, no matter what.’” Still, the program has its critics. Jonathan W. Blodgett, the district attorney of Essex County, where Gloucester is, warned Chief Campanello that he did not have the authority to offer amnesty to someone for the crime of heroin possession. The chief and other law enforcement officers insist that the police have discretion when it comes to arrests. Elizabeth D. Scheibel, a former district attorney for the Northwestern District of Massachusetts in Northampton, raises other questions. “Selective enforcement” of the law, she said, “could well have a disparate impact on the constitutional rights of other offenders.” And, she said, promising amnesty not only takes away an incentive to complete a treatment program, it could also complicate an investigation involving an addict who might have been involved in a serious crime before surrendering to the police. Chief Campanello said that his officers pursued drug traffickers, and that some addicts had even pointed the police to their dealers. But during one speech, to officers in Belfast, Me., he realized he might come across as soft. “I’m sounding less like a police chief and more like a social activist,” he said. “I’m going to have to go arrest somebody.” Chief Campanello has laid out his philosophy — encapsulated in a bumper sticker on his office wall, “Strong Men Don’t Bully” — and the program’s nuts and bolts in officer-to-officer talks around the country. Chiefs from Scarborough, Me.; Cooperstown, N.Y.; Lodi, Ohio; and Rolling Meadows, Ill., among others, have sought his advice as they duplicated his program. So far, more than 400 addicts nationwide have turned themselves in at 56 police departments. “Lenny triggered some amazing out-of-the-box thinking,” said Frederick Ryan, the chief in Arlington, Mass., a Boston suburb, which plans to offer its own amnesty program this year. Gloucester’s mayor, Sefatia Romeo Theken, also stands behind the chief. “I think it’s a fantastic program,” she said. “If we arrested every single addict, they’d just be back on the street.” Of course, overdoses continue to occur. On Jan. 17, Gloucester grappled with four in a 24-hour period. Naloxone revived the addicts. And Chief Campanello again took to Facebook, reaching out to all addicts and assuring them that if they turned themselves in, there would be no judgment. “We accept you,” he posted. “If you’re discouraged because you’ve tried before,” he wrote, “know that relapse is part of the disease, and we will be there again and again and again until you make it.” Image The addict left scratches on his skin during drug use. Credit Katherine Taylor for The New York Times Eulogies, Still For all his efforts, sometimes all Chief Campanello can do is deliver a heartfelt eulogy, as he did for Stephenie Jesi on a frigid Saturday before Christmas. Her problem started when she broke an ankle in 2012 and was prescribed OxyContin. She soon went from a good-paying job with Verizon and a nice home in Stoneham, about 10 miles north of Boston, to a losing battle with heroin. A year ago, she went to rehab in Florida, but relapsed. “She was using again, and was off and running,” said her father, 62, a business consultant. Over the next several months, it would be the same story of treatment, relapse and trouble. Stephenie entered the Gloucester program in August, and the chief got her into a treatment facility. After further relapses, Chief Campanello got her into a second treatment facility, and then a third. “There’s no manual about what to do,” said her mother, Cheryl Marlow, 61. “The chief was our only resource.” On Dec. 8, Stephenie overdosed again, was treated at a hospital and was then discharged. Three days later, she sent her parents an email saying she was on a waiting list for a bed, but not through Gloucester. “I don’t know how to put all my pieces back together, and this is very embarrassing to go through this in front of so many people who don’t understand anything about addiction,” she wrote. “The people who say, ‘If she really cared at all about her family, she would have stopped a long time ago,’ or, ‘she’s tried getting clean more times then I can count; what makes this time any different?’ — those are the kinds of questions that make this so embarrassing and so hard to come back each time.” The next day, she exchanged texts with her mother, who asked if she had Chief Campanello’s number. She did. “I don’t know why she didn’t call him,” her mother said later. Stephenie died that night, alone in a hotel room. Her parents said that despite having lost their daughter, they were grateful to the chief and his officers for all they had done. “He was the only go-to person that I had to go to,” Mr. Jesi said. They urged friends and family to make donations to the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative and asked the chief to deliver their daughter’s eulogy. Hundreds of mourners packed the church, St. Mary of the Annunciation, in Danvers. “Her death for us is a great loss, and one that we will suffer as a police department with all of you for a very, very long time,” Chief Campanello said. His officers would redouble their efforts to fight the disease, he told the mourners. “We will, in the words of Dylan Thomas, rage against the dying of the light, again.” His voice cracked. Stephenie’s four brothers carried her coffin to a waiting hearse. Gloucester police cars led the procession to the cemetery. She was buried next to her grandparents.

Heroin
Gloucester Mass
Leonard Campanello
US
Police
Drug Abuse
Addiction
Social Trends


British ‘Flash Crash’ Trader to Appeal Bail Terms

Abstract: LONDON — Navinder Singh Sarao, the British trader accused of helping cause the stock market “flash crash” in 2010, will appear in the High Court in London next week to appeal the terms of his bail. Mr. Sarao, 36, has been in jail since he was arrested on April 21. He faces 22 charges in the United States, including wire fraud, commodities manipulation and commodities fraud over his role in the “flash crash,” when stocks plunged in just minutes and then quickly recovered, causing panic among professional and retail investors alike. The trader is fighting extradition to the United States. His bail was set at 5.05 million pounds, which he has been unable to meet. As a result, he comes to court every Wednesday, dressed in various track suits, to discuss the terms of his release. At his first bail hearing, his lawyer said he was a man of means with access to more than £5 million in trading and betting accounts, though they said one of those accounts included a £4.7 million loan. His lawyers quickly learned that his worldwide assets were frozen, making it impossible to raise the £5 million he owed (his parents and brothers are required to put up another £50,000). They appealed the bail decision on the basis that he had no access to funds and asked that his release be conditional on only the £50,000. District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe refused that request, and his team will appeal that decision on May 20 in the High Court. It emerged on Wednesday that Mr. Sarao has been granted legal aid. United States authorities say that that he made $40 million with his trading, which he allegedly conducted out of a simple row house near Heathrow Airport, where he lives with his parents. Last week, he said that he had “done nothing wrong” and “I am just good at my job.”

Navinder Singh Sarao
High Frequency Trading Flash Orders
Bail
Extradition
Elizabeth Roscoe


Israel Approves Additional Funding for Settlements in West Bank

Abstract: JERUSALEM — The Israeli government on Sunday approved about $20 million in additional financing for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, underlining its strengthened right-wing orientation and raising the ire of political opponents and the Palestinians. The move came as the Israeli hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman was to arrive in Washington on his first visit in his new role as defense minister, during which he is expected to meet with Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter. Mr. Lieberman, a settler, was appointed last month in a coalition deal that brought his ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party into the government. The new money would add to what the settlements already receive from various parts of the government’s budget. It was approved days after blistering condemnations of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by two former Israeli defense ministers and military chiefs of staff. Speaking at a prestigious security conference, they accused the prime minister and his government of pushing a divisive agenda that threatened Israel’s future as a Jewish democracy and undermined its core values. In remarks before the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu, the leader of the conservative Likud Party, said the assistance plan was intended to strengthen security for the settlements, as well as to bolster small businesses and encourage tourism. Yariv Levin, the tourism minister, said in a statement that some of the money would “provide financial support for the construction of hotels in the main tourism areas in Judea and Samaria,” referring to the West Bank by its biblical name. The settlements have long been a source of friction between Israel and the United States, along with much of the rest of the world. Most countries view settlement construction as a violation of international law and an impediment to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the Obama administration has described the settlements as “illegitimate.” Israel considers the West Bank territory that it conquered from Jordan in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 to be disputed, not occupied, and says the fate of the settlements should be determined in negotiations. Under growing international pressure, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Lieberman recently affirmed their commitment to the principle of “two states for two peoples,” meaning the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but the Palestinians and others are skeptical about the Israelis’ motives. Image Houses in the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim in the West Bank, with the Palestinian village of Al-Eizariya in the background. Credit Baz Ratner/Reuters “Israel is doing everything possible to sabotage every effort to achieve a just and lasting peace,” Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said in a statement after the Israeli government approved the settlement financing. “It is time for the international community to assume its responsibilities towards this extremist government that openly supports apartheid and stands against the two-state solution.” While strengthening the settlements, Israel has continued to demolish unlicensed Palestinian homes and livestock pens in the part of the West Bank known as Area C, the more than 60 percent of the territory where Israel exercises full security and civil control. The financing measure was approved after months of deadly Palestinian attacks in and around the settlements, as well as in Jerusalem and in cities around Israel. But Amir Peretz, an Israeli legislator from the center-left Zionist Union and a former defense minister, said of the financing measure, “They are using the name of security baselessly, because the defense establishment will not abandon the settlers even without getting the millions it is getting today.” Mr. Peretz added that the allocation was “rubbing the salt in the wounds of those who need every shekel.” He pointed to a cross-country protest march led by mayors of towns far from the center of Israel as they campaign for a fairer distribution of government funds for education and welfare. Moshe Yaalon , a Likud politician and a former military chief of staff who resigned from his post as defense minister last month after it was promised to Mr. Lieberman, said at the annual Herzliya security conference near Tel Aviv last week that he intended to run for prime minister in the next elections, which are to be held by late 2019. Mr. Yaalon, who has supported settlement growth, accused the Israeli leadership of scaremongering. Citing the nuclear agreement with Iran , which Mr. Netanyahu strenuously opposed, and the capabilities of the military, he said, “I can say that today and in the foreseeable future, there is no existential threat on the State of Israel.” Ehud Barak, another former military chief and defense minister, who, as the leader of the center-left Labor Party, served a short and largely unsuccessful term as prime minister, said at the conference that “a fanatic seed of extreme ideology has taken over the Likud.” He added that Mr. Netanyahu’s priority was not security but “a slow and cunning advancement of the one-state solution agenda.” Mr. Barak said that would lead to either an apartheid state or a binational state “in which the Jews will become a minority within a couple of generations.” Likud dismissed Mr. Barak, who also gave a lengthy television interview on Friday night, as a failed politician who was seeking attention. Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Yaalon’s criticism as politically motivated, saying in a statement, “You cannot express full confidence in the leadership when you are on the inside and say the absolute opposite when you are on the outside.”

Israel
Israeli settlement
Palestinians
West Bank
Benjamin Netanyahu
Moshe Yaalon
Ehud Barak
Likud Party Israel
PLO
Military


To Understand Clinton’s Moment, Consider That It Came 32 Years After Ferraro’s

Abstract: The scenes blend like images from a kaleidoscope. A woman, blond, jubilant in a white dress, shown magnified on a convention center screen in San Francisco. It is Geraldine A. Ferraro in 1984 accepting the Democratic nomination that made her the first woman in the nation to be tapped by a major party to run for vice president. Turn the lens. A woman, blond, in a white tunic, smiling, arms thrown wide at a rally in Brooklyn this past week. It is Hillary Clinton claiming the Democratic nomination , the first woman to become the presidential standard-bearer for a major party. There are those who now say that a woman running for president was inevitable, that the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling that Mrs. Clinton talks about are just time moving on. There are the sighs that Mrs. Clinton is the wrong woman, the unexciting woman, the compromising woman. And there are those who say they could never vote for a Democrat, particularly this one. But it took 32 years to get from one scene to the other, so a look back to the Ferraro campaign can tell a lot about how the country has changed, and how it has not, through these decades of cultural ferment over the roles of the sexes. It may be hard to remember how few women there were in public life when Ms. Ferraro told cheering Democrats, “If we can do this, we can do anything.” The Democrats had no female senators. (The Republicans had two.) There was only one female governor — Martha Layne Collins of Kentucky, a Democrat. Dianne Feinstein was still the mayor of San Francisco, yet to start her long Senate career. Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 1972, had already retired. Image Ms. Ferraro and Walter F. Mondale, the Democratic nominee for president, in 1984. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Women have since become the majority in college , and women in both parties have made a steady march forward in politics. Some are senators and governors and three have been secretary of state, all making the idea of a woman at the helm of the nation seem far less revolutionary. Ms. Ferraro was quizzed relentlessly about arms control and about whether she could even be credible as the commander in chief should she have to step up and be president. Could a woman be trusted with the nuclear button? But with her background as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton is not questioned about her toughness. Instead, the left asks whether she might be too quick to seek military intervention and the right critiques her judgment. She is the one now asking whether Donald J. Trump’s finger should be anywhere near the nuclear button. In other ways, things have changed less. As Mrs. Clinton, Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina can attest, female candidates are still examined not only for competence, character and policy priorities, but for the way they look, the tone of their voice and the state of their marriages. For Ms. Ferraro it was the tangled financial dealings of her husband, John Zaccaro, his subsidy of her first congressional campaign, and her back and forth on whether she would release his tax returns, which she tried to brush off with the damaging quip, “You people who are married to Italian men, you know what it’s like.” Video In 1984, Geraldine A. Ferraro became the first woman nominated for national office by a major party. Credit Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Now Mr. Trump promises to keep the Clinton marriage, and the former president’s infamous infidelities, in the spotlight. Mrs. Clinton time and again had to help save her husband’s candidacy and presidency, tarnishing her feminist credentials for some. (“I’m not sitting here — some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” she said way back in 1992, when his run for president nearly foundered. “I’m sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honor what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together.”) And then there is the press corps. Politico recently wrote of the current crop of Clinton reporters , “No one can remember a political press corps this heavily female.” I can. It was the Ferraro press corps, and I was part of it. I was dispatched to the campaign — like women from most major networks and publications — because editors sought women to capture the history of one of their own at a time when we were breaking into the ranks of the campaign press. Perhaps, we occasionally suspected, some of them also thought it would be beneath a man to ride that campaign plane. As a reporter for Newsday, I watched the euphoric, rapturous crowds, mostly women and girls who showed up with “To Gerry with Love” signs, even in the campaign’s last days, when it was going down to a decisive defeat to President Reagan and George Bush. Some campaign bands could make you wince, playing “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” or “Hello, Dolly!” There were the strange male missteps: the mayor of Los Angeles saying he wanted “a vice president I can hug,” the Mississippi official who called Ms. Ferraro “young lady” and asked whether she could bake a blueberry muffin. The grim drumbeat about her husband’s finances, his real estate dealings and his tax returns. There was the constant watch for weakness — would the woman cry? Image Ms. Ferraro on “Meet the Press,” with Roger Mudd, left, and Marvin Kalb, in October 1984. She was once asked on the program, “Do you think that in any way the Soviets might be tempted to try to take advantage of you simply because you are a woman?” Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times It is easy to forget those moments these days, when women in power don’t seem so unusual. If you have a long memory you have watched other women on the national stage, too. Representative Patricia Schroeder explored a Democratic race in 1987, after Gary Hart stood down. Senator Elizabeth Dole dropped out of the Republican presidential race in October 1999 before any of the primaries. Former Senator Carol Moseley Braun ran in the Democratic primaries in 2004. Governor Palin of Alaska became the first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency in 2008 — 24 years after Ms. Ferraro. And we have been watching Mrs. Clinton for so long, through so many iterations, that it can feel like we know everything about her. But in the 1980s the quest to put a woman in the White House started as a cause without a candidate. It was driven by women’s groups and by the numbers. The notion of a gender gap was being talked about by both parties. Suddenly it was significant that more women than men registered to vote and that women seemed more likely to vote. The Equal Rights Amendment had collapsed, failing to win the required ratification of three-fourths of the states. Politically active women in the feminist movement, including Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem, wrote a manifesto to the Democratic candidates for president in 1983 warning them to agree on an agenda for issues affecting women or face the possibility of women staying home on Election Day: “We will not hold still to be treated as an afterthought, a side issue, or a powerless constituency that can be betrayed without consequences.” By 1984, they were fighting to get a woman on the ticket. When Walter F. Mondale selected Ms. Ferraro as his running mate, she was a three-term congresswoman from Queens. She came from New York, which had unexpectedly swung to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 landslide. Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. was a mentor and proponent. She was pretty, married, 48 years old and traditional enough that party leaders thought she could excite women but might not alienate male voters. “What is different,” says Ann Lewis, a longtime Democratic activist, “is that Hillary Clinton in the last 20-25 years has achieved national stature in ways that too few women have. Gerry Ferraro is nominated in 1984 and she is almost unknown. It isn’t until 1986 that Barbara Mikulski becomes the first Democratic woman who makes it to the Senate in her own right.” On The Trail: The Week of June 5 10 Photos View Slide Show › Image Chang W. Lee/The New York Times The mood at that convention was electric. But the choreography around this first woman could also be tortured. How should Mr. Mondale and Ms. Ferraro share the stage? Could they touch? They shouldn’t hug. Who should hold her pocketbook when she spoke? “It sounds so strange now, but everything was being done for the first time,” Ms. Lewis said. “We had until then lots of images of women and men on stage together, but they were married. All the stage craft we had taken for granted had to be looked at very carefully.” Madeleine K. Albright was Ms. Ferraro’s issues adviser, briefing the candidate on foreign policy and preparing her for her race against Mr. Bush, years before Ms. Albright became the nation’s first female secretary of state in the Clinton administration. She remembers some of the jarring juxtapositions of that candidacy. “There was the business about what she had on and what her hair looked like,” she recalls. “On the other side was her being asked questions about throw weights and nuclear capabilities that they weren’t asking Bush.” On “Meet the Press,” Ms. Ferraro was once asked, “Do you think that in any way the Soviets might be tempted to try to take advantage of you simply because you are a woman?” By November, the disclosures about Ms. Ferraro’s husband’s businesses had damaged a campaign that was already an uphill battle. Though women and girls showed up at her rallies to the end, TV network polls showed that she may have cost the Democratic ticket more than she gained for it. Looking back, was the scrutiny of Ms. Ferraro, who died in 2011 , fair game or driven by discomfort with the idea of a woman as vice president? Ms. Ferraro’s campaign manager, John Sasso, calls it some of both. “Experience matters,” he said, noting that because Mrs. Clinton has the deep résumé that Ms. Ferraro lacked, she will run and face a very different campaign. This time, of course, the first woman is at the top of the ticket, calling all the shots. “She’s been on the front lines of this process for a very long time,” said Lissa Muscatine, a friend and former speechwriter to Mrs. Clinton. “She’s been the vessel for lots of women’s hopes on the one hand, but also has had to take the brunt from people who aren’t ready for it.” Mrs. Clinton’s detractors look dimly on appeals to support her as a pathbreaker. “I’m not a huge fan of identity politics and this is sort of the apotheosis of identity politics,” said Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Basically, to me Hillary Clinton is saying: ‘I wasn’t good enough to get here on my own. Forget that people voted for me on the merits, they voted for me because I was a woman.’ How demeaning is that?” On Friday, Ms. Fiorina, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination this year, told a crowd, “Hillary Clinton, news flash. I’m a feminist and I’m not voting for you.” Maybe Hillary Clinton is right — that she has become our national Rorschach test. Do you admire her perseverance? Dislike her compromises? Seek more passion? Question her honesty? Ponder her marriage? Love her policies? Hate her policies? Debate whether she is a feminist? Debate whether it matters? For one night last week, it was hard to deny her words that “tonight caps an amazing journey — a long, long journey.”

Geraldine A Ferraro
Hillary Clinton
Women and Girls
2016 Presidential Election
1984 Presidential Election
Women's rights,Feminism


Nets Add a Guard and Pick Up a Victory

Abstract: SALT LAKE CITY — Before the resumption of a wilting title chase came a minor retooling. As they readied on Wednesday to take on the Utah Jazz at Energy Solutions Arena, the Nets acquired guard Marcus Thornton from the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Jason Terry and Reggie Evans. And while the Nets eked out a 105-99 win to kick off a six-game trip, a vague feeling lingered that more changes were possible before the N.B.A.’s trade deadline on Thursday afternoon. “Our owner is about trying to get the team going in the right direction with different pieces, and he’s probably not done,” Coach Jason Kidd said before the game of Mikhail D. Prokhorov, whose lofty aspirations have driven the team’s payroll and luxury-tax payments far above those of any competitors. Thornton will make about $8 million this season and $8.5 million next season. His arrival pushed the Nets’ payroll to about $190 million, including a luxury-tax bill of about $88 million. The Nets were also reportedly trying to use their disabled-player exception to acquire Los Angeles Lakers forward Jordan Hill, which would trigger another $17 million or so in taxes. “We’ll see what happens,” Kidd said. Thornton, 26, built a reputation over his first four seasons as a proficient scorer, which has made this season particularly disappointing. Over those four seasons, he averaged 19.4 points per 36 minutes and shot 43.8 percent from the field. This season, he is scoring 12.3 points per 36 minutes and shooting 38.1 percent. The Nets (25-27) overcame a slow start against Utah, outscoring the Jazz by 27-18 in the third quarter to take a 1-point lead into the fourth. Shaun Livingston’s behind-the-back assist on a Joe Johnson 3-pointer with just over four minutes left silenced the fans, and many headed to the exits once Deron Williams drilled a 3-pointer two minutes later. “I thought defensively they were the aggressive team in the second half,” Jazz Coach Tyrone Corbin said of the Nets, who forced 18 turnovers while committing only 7 of their own. “They got our hands on us a little bit and got us out of our offense. We lost our rhythm there.” Johnson led all scorers with 27 points. Andray Blatche scored 25, matching his career high, to help buoy the Nets, who were left momentarily short-handed after the trade. Williams had 19 points and 7 assists and, in his third try, earned his first win over his former club. “It felt good to get one,” said Williams, who had a scare in the fourth quarter when he took an elbow to the right side of his face, near his jaw. “I thought it was broken, because I’ve broken my jaw, and it felt about the same at first.” Thornton is expected to join the Nets sometime before they play the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night. The trade, then, left the Nets short-handed on Wednesday. Terry, 36, was acquired from Boston in the trade that sent Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn. This season, his 15th in the N.B.A., has been his worst. He was averaging 4.5 points per game and shooting 36.2 percent entering Wednesday. Evans, 33, carved out a role as an inside scrapper with the Nets last season, averaging 11.1 rebounds a game. But this season, with his playing time cut almost in half, his average fell to 5.0. Garnett, who considers Terry a close friend and was a fan of Evans before ever playing with him, said he was saddened to see the two players leave. And he acknowledged that it would be a challenge, at this advanced stage of the season, to lose two players and try to incorporate a new face. “It’s very hard, especially when you’re trying to integrate chemistry,” Garnett said. “In the second half, this is when you want to make your push. But the organization makes changes for the better. So, it’s what it is.”

Basketball
Brooklyn Nets
Sacramento Kings
Jason Terry
Reggie Evans
Utah Jazz


Bill Pushes for More Legislative Sessions in Texas

Abstract: AUSTIN, Tex. — Long before lawmakers prepared to gather at the sand-colored Capitol here on Tuesday for the opening day of the legislative session, State Representative Richard Peña Raymond had already filed a little-noticed bill to drastically change not only how they conduct business, but also how often. Texas is one of only four states whose legislatures convene in regular session every two years. Lawmakers in Texas meet in odd-numbered years only — as do legislators in Montana, Nevada and North Dakota — while those in the 46 other states hold legislative sessions yearly, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures . Mr. Raymond’s bill would require the Texas Legislature to meet in regular session in odd-numbered years and to hold a budget session in even-numbered years. The move would mean annual meetings and budgets, an idea that has been debated for decades but has long been viewed with suspicion in a place that prizes small government, low taxes and deregulation. “As big a budget as we have, as big a state as we are, as diverse of an economy as we have, we really should be looking at annual budgets,” said Mr. Raymond, a Democrat from Laredo and a former member of the Appropriations Committee, which writes the budget. “There’s no business in the private sector that does two-year budgets. It’s a very outdated idea.” In Texas, the biennial sessions unfold quickly — beginning at noon on the second Tuesday in January and ending in May after a 140-day run. It is a tradition dating back 137 years, when the State Constitution was ratified and required the Legislature to meet every two years. Although the state’s population has grown in that time to nearly 26 million people from about 1 million, Texas has held on to the biennial tradition. Several Republican lawmakers and conservative activists said it suited them, and the political culture, just fine. They described Mr. Raymond’s bill — his third attempt to change the system since the 2009 session — as a long shot at best. Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature, and even if the bill were to pass, a constitutional amendment changing the legislative schedule to annual sessions would have to be approved by Texas voters before it could take effect. Image Richard Peña Raymond “There’s not a single Republican who would vote for that,” said Steve Ogden , a Republican senator from Bryan who was preparing to officially retire on Tuesday after 22 years in the Legislature. “I think one of the reasons that Texas does as well as it does is because the Legislature meets as infrequently as it does. In a state that believes in limited government, I think it works well for us.” Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, appeared to agree with Mr. Ogden. “The governor believes we need to limit government in people’s lives, not expand it,” said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry. “A part-time Legislature allows lawmakers to come in and complete the business of Texans and then go out and live under the laws that they’ve passed.” As with other state issues, the debate over biennial sessions falls along party lines. Republicans argue that meeting every other year prevents the Legislature from passing frivolous bills, forces lawmakers to focus under considerable deadline pressure and keeps part-time legislators from becoming full-time politicians. Some Democrats and political scientists say the infrequency of the sessions increases the power of the governor and state agencies because of a lack of oversight. They also say it makes the budget process a difficult task amid ever-changing national and state economies. (This session, lawmakers will adopt a budget for the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years.) “It’s very fast-paced and tumultuous and inefficient to have a short 140-day session every other year in a state as big and as complex as Texas,” said Calvin Jillson , a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “You’re trying to budget and anticipate revenues and the need for expenditures 30 months out, and that’s very difficult to do.” Lawmakers, of course, work more often than the legislative schedule implies. Mr. Perry has used his power to call special sessions several times during his 12 years as governor. In even-numbered years, the Capitol does not shut down, but hums quietly with committee hearings. But unlike lawmakers in California, New York and other large states, Texas legislators have the populist distinction, and pay, that come from being part-timers. Members of the House and the Senate are paid $7,200 annually. A per diem for living expenses during the sessions stands at $150 but will most likely rise to $179 through a vote this month by the Texas Ethics Commission . Legislators spend at least part of their time focused on other jobs. Many are lawyers, and others are ranchers, business consultants, insurance agents and pharmacists. Cindy Burkett, a Republican representative from Mesquite, oversees a company that operates Subway sandwich shops. Charles Anderson, a Republican representative who is known as Doc, is a longtime veterinarian. (He planned to be at the Capitol for opening day on Tuesday and back at his practice in Waco later in the week.) Several conservatives said in effect that they want Dr. Anderson to spend as much time on his clients as he does on legislative bills. “The California Legislature meets, I think, 30 hours a day, 9 days a week, 412 days a year, and they seem to invent new ways to cause problems for their citizens,” said Michael Quinn Sullivan, the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. “The last thing Texas needs is a Legislature that meets more often.”

Texas
Politics
Richard Pena Raymond
State legislature
Budget
Rick Perry