user: Input: Barcelona 5-0 Levante | La Liga match report | Football | The Guardian
Lionel Messi marked his 300th La Liga appearance with a record-equalling hat-trick and an assist for Neymar as Barcelona stayed hard on the heels of the leaders, Real Madrid, with a 5-0 romp at home to Levante on Sunday.

Messi has been in electric form in recent weeks and his pinpoint cross set up Neymar to put Barça 1-0 ahead in the 17th minute at the Nou Camp. The Brazil forward skewed his close-range volley, but the ball looped up over the Levante goalkeeper, Diego Marino, and into the net.

Barcelona doubled their lead seven minutes before half-time, when the centre-back Marc Bartra won the ball near the Levante penalty area and threaded a pass through to Messi for the Argentina captain to score with a low shot.

The home side were utterly dominant against their relegation-threatened opponents and Messi made it 3-0 in the 59th minute after neat work from Sergio Busquets and Pedro.

Messi completed his 23rd La Liga hat-trick from the penalty spot in the 65th minute, giving him a share of the record set by Real’s Cristiano Ronaldo earlier this season. Messi has 31 trebles in all competitions for Barça, tying the record for a Spanish club held by the former Athletic Bilbao forward Telmo Zarra, while Ronaldo has 27 for Real.

Messi’s latest hat-trick took the four-time World Player of the Year’s tally in Spain’s top flight to 269 goals and the 27-year-old’s total for the latest La Liga campaign to 26, two fewer than the top scorer, Ronaldo.

Luis Suárez came off the bench to crown a fine Barcelona performance with a bicycle kick to make it 5-0 in the 73rd minute and Messi came close to his fourth, but was denied by a fine Marino save four minutes from time.

With just over half the season played, Real lead on 57 points after Saturday’s 2-0 win at home to Deportivo La Coruña. Barcelona, who host Real on 22 March, have 56 points, six clear of Atlético Madrid ahead of the champions’ game at Celta Vigo later on Sunday.

Earlier, Valencia reclaimed La Liga’s fourth Champions League qualification berth from Sevilla when the forward Álvaro Negredo won and converted a penalty in a 1-0 victory at home to Getafe.
What was this article about?
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It's about: The Catalan side moved to within one point of La Liga leaders Real Madrid after demolishing the relegation candidates at Camp Nou


Q: NEW YORK - WESTWAY - THIRD RATE COVER UP - NYTimes.com

Those who are still advocating the building of the lavish $4 billion, 4.2-mile superhighway-waterfront scheme known as Westway have been nervously trying to dismiss the recent Federal court decision as a technical hitch about environmental concern over striped bass that can be swiftly addressed and swept aside.

Governor Carey, one of the project's most zealous champions, deplored the delay caused by the decision, which voided the Federal permit for Westway's 110 acres of landfill to be carved out of the Hudson River, but he saw no permanent damage. In his view, it was solely ''the result of a procedural error by a Federal agency.''

Anyone who has read the solid, meticulously documented ruling by Judge Thomas P. Griesa knows that it has as much to do with a ''procedural error'' as Watergate had to do with a ''third-rate burglary.''

What the Federal District judge says throughout the 94 pages of his decision is that the Corps of Engineers, in collusion with New York State officials, primarily the Transportation Department, sought to suppress, withhold and cover up strong data about Westway's environmental impact on fish resources. This material showed that the ''inter-pier area'' that would be destroyed by Westway's landfill was a crucial sheltering and growth habitat for the Hudson striped bass that constitute a major part of a $100 million-plus recreational and commercial bass industry along the Atlantic Coast.

Judge Griesa found that the agencies promoting the most expensive highway in history not only ignored information from three Federal environmental and wildlife agencies, but state officials even sought to keep from public view a detailed aquatic study carried out by their own consultants. And when that study was finally forced into daylight, its results were distorted, the judge ruled, so as to do the least damage to the Westway campaign.

Last week, in a memorandum and court order implementing his decision, the judge made it clear that in requiring the Federal engineers to conduct a proper and updated environmental study, ''the considerations ... are not, of course, limited to the fisheries issue.'' He said: ''The Corps must assess the impact on fisheries, but must then weigh that impact against the asserted benefits of Westway, taking into consideration available alternatives. This is the basic process of decision which is mandated by the relevant statutes.''

Judge Griesa spelled out with precision what the Corps had to weigh in deciding whether to issue a new landfill permit: ''... current cost estimates of the Westway project; current plans for uses of the landfill area for residential and commercial development and parkland ... and financial arrangements with ... developers; any substantial new information regarding alternatives, including current cost estimates. ...''

What this means is that the entire project is at stake and all of its policy underpinnings in question. The Westway proponents know that Judge Griesa's demands for fresh information are not procedural trifles. At the heart of the opposition to the project is the belief - shared here -that the money to build Westway does not exist in this time of emaciated budgets and that the prudent course is to build, instead of the megaproject, a modest highway-cum-promenade along the lower Hudson and use the money left over for mass transit.

Judge Griesa is not, by his record, an interventionist jurist who tried to change public policy or alter legislative intent from the bench. He is known as a strict constructionist who gets disturbed when people don't take the law seriously.

Listen to some of his explicit language: ''The issues here do not involve a minor technicality. ...'' ''It is evident ... that (state officials) wished to prevent the results of the LMS study from becoming public. ... Moreover, some of the presentations in the report manipulated the data in a misleading fashion. The obvious purpose was to attempt to detract from the startling revelations about the presence of fish in the proposed landfill area.''

The document is laced with phrases describing the state and Federal cover-up - ''this sleight of hand,'' ''the complete opposite of the true facts,'' ''an almost fixed predetermination to grant the Westway landfill permit.''

Finally, Judge Griesa concludes: ''The total failure of the Corps to comply with these (disclosure) obligations has been demonstrated beyond any question. ... The proposed landfill would have the impact of destroying this habitat. The Corps was obligated under NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) to publicly disclose this information. ... It did not do so. Instead it acquiesced in the urgings of the New York State DOT (Department of Transportation) and the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) to withhold the information.''

So much for Governor Carey's ''procedural error.''

A:

assistant: Those who are still advocating the building of the lavish $4 billion, 4.2-mile superhighway-waterfront scheme known as Westway have been nervously trying to dismiss the recent Federal court decision as a technical hitch about environmental concern over striped bass that can be swiftly addressed and swept aside.   Governor Carey, one of the project's most zealous champions, deplored the delay caused by the decision, which voided the Federal permit for Westway's 110 acres of landfill to be carved out of the Hudson River, but he saw no permanent damage. In his view, it was solely ''the result of a procedural error by a Federal agency.''   Anyone who has read the solid, meticulously documented ruling by Judge Thomas P. Griesa knows that it has as much to do with a ''procedural error'' as Watergate had to do with a ''third-rate burglary.''