David Cameron Faces Rebellion in His Party

Abstract: LONDON — First, a prominent Tory called the party’s rank and file “swivel-eyed loons.” Then the populist politician Nigel Farage called Prime Minister David Cameron and his Tory-led government “a bunch of college kids.” Then The Daily Mail called Mr. Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, a “pint-guzzling eccentric.” At the heart of all this competitive insulting in the halls of Westminster this week was something deadly serious: a battle over the future of the fractured, fractious Conservative Party and its leader, the increasingly fragile prime minister. Mr. Cameron had a respite Thursday from the negative chatter swirling around him when he appeared outside 10 Downing Street to denounce the murder a day before of a British soldier on a London street. The attack, he said, “will only bring us together and make us stronger.” The country, maybe. But the Conservative Party itself is in no mood for unity. Buffeted by criticism of his policy on Europe, battered by rebellion in the ranks over his bill to legalize same-sex marriage and wounded by the perception that he is supercilious, contemptuous and out of touch with mainstream Conservatism, Mr. Cameron earlier this week took the highly unusual step of sending a mass e-mail (or, as he called it, “a personal note”) to his party’s grass-roots members. Mr. Cameron praised what he said were common Conservative values like “duty, decency and civic pride.” He said he believed “that you change things not by criticizing from your armchair but by getting out and doing.” And then, in a reference to damaging reports that one of his closest allies had dismissed provincial Tories as unhinged (and crazy-eyed), he declared that he had nothing but respect for such Tories. “I am proud of what you do,” Mr. Cameron wrote. “And I would never have around me those who sneered or thought otherwise. We are a team, from the parish council to the local association to Parliament, and I never forget it.” At a time when Mr. Cameron is being squeezed from both sides — from the right by members of his own party and by the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party, and from the left by his Liberal Democrat coalition partners — the move seemed uncharacteristically clunky. “Is it not a bizarre moment when a party leader has to write to his members to say he respects them?” Chris Bryant, a Labour member of Parliament, said on Twitter . Indeed, the party does not seem convinced. Last week, the problem was Europe; this week, it was same-sex marriage. When Mr. Cameron said he would introduce legislation to make it legal for same-sex couples to marry, the bill seemed like a sure thing, a chance for him to fulfill one of his progressive social policy goals with relative ease. But the bill ran into unexpected trouble this week, as more and more Tories publicly attacked it, with 129 of them deviating from the party line to vote against it Tuesday. The bill is likely to become law eventually, but only with help from the Labour opposition and only after inflicting substantial wounds on the government. Image Buffeted by criticism, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain sent a mass e-mail to Conservatives saying he respected them. Credit Pool photo by Oli Scarff With Mr. Cameron already on the back foot after a parade of influential Tories declared that Britain should hold an immediate referendum on whether to leave the European Union — instead of waiting, as Mr. Cameron favors — other unhappy party members have seized on the chance to air wider criticisms. Their basic complaint: Mr. Cameron is too liberal, too metropolitan, too snobby, too out of touch with what traditional Tories, who tend to be older and live outside London, are feeling. Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary, the University of London , and the author of “The Conservative Party From Thatcher to Cameron,” said the prime minister had made a fundamental mistake in trying to impose his socially liberal agenda on members of his party without convincing them of its merits. “One can make a reasonable argument that the guy is out-Thatchering Thatcher in some ways,” Dr. Bale said, referring to the government’s austerity spending program and increasingly tough line on immigration, “and yet his party still has a problem.” Capitalizing on the restive mood, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, took out an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph this week inviting unhappy Tories to defect. In it Mr. Farage sniped that the Cameron government — made up disproportionately of career politicians who graduated from Eton and Oxbridge — was “run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives.” Moreover, he said, these “kids” are “obsessed with wind farms and introducing gay marriage, and happy to open the door to 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians from January 1 next year.” (The last bit was a reference to the lifting in 2014 of restrictions on the movement of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens through the European Union). London’s right-leaning newspapers, which tend to run hot and cold on the prime minister, are veering toward Arctic right now. The Times of London said that Mr. Cameron was weak and “lacking in the most basic party management skills.” The Daily Mail, which provides a running litany of how the country is going down the tubes, accused the prime minister of “sublime incompetence,” calling his management of the European Union issue a “fiasco” and his handling of the same-sex marriage bill “an embarrassment.” The Daily Telegraph compared the current situation to that faced by former Prime Minister John Major, whose premiership was buried beneath a mountain of internecine squabbling, mostly over Europe. And then, from out of right field, came Norman Tebbit, a former Conservative Party chairman who tends to speak for a small but steady right-wing minority in the party, dead against same-sex marriage. In an interview with the magazine The Big Issue , Mr. Tebbit imagined a situation in which some future queen is a lesbian “who marries another lady and then decides she would like to have a child.” If “someone donates sperm,” he continued, “and she gives birth to a child, is that child heir to the throne?” Downing Street had no comment.

David Cameron
Conservative Party
Great Britain


Welcoming Testing, Team Battles Cycling’s Image

Abstract: JULIAN, Calif. — On these mild, clear winter days in the mountains east of San Diego, one professional cycling team is trying to set itself apart from the doping scandals that have shaken its sport. Like most teams, Team Slipstream is training on roller-coaster roads, sometimes more than 120 miles a day for more than six hours at a time. But there is a visible difference between this team and others: at the crook of the riders’ arms are a series of dark needle marks. They are the results of repeated blood tests, part of a drastic and innovative anti-doping program the team began here last month in an attempt to prove its riders are clean. Antidoping scientists say the program, which includes blood and urine testing, is the new paradigm in the fight against doping because it tries to close loopholes in the current system. Cycling is not alone among major sports in trying to stem its doping problems, but none of them use programs as aggressive as this one. Instead of relying on drug tests or police investigations, this method tries to weed out those who use performance-enhancing drugs by catching them before they win a trophy or wear a race leader’s yellow jersey. Each Slipstream rider is tested not for the illegal substances, but for the body’s reactions to doping. To do that, riders are blood-tested 50 times a year, at least five times more than usual. In the program, they are also urine-tested 50 times a year. “It’s an absolute severe pain for us to do, but I’ll do anything to keep from being lumped with the guys accused of cheating,” said Danny Pate, 27, a former under-23 world champion and one of Slipstream’s top riders. “I’ll give DNA. I’ll post all of my information on the Internet. I’ll do anything to help save the sport.” The team, which is one step below the top level in cycling, is composed of young men who aspire to ride in the Tour de France or in the Olympics. Slipstream is scheduled to compete in races throughout the world, including the Tour of California, which begins Feb. 18. The team hopes to receive an invitation to the 2008 Tour de France. Doug Ellis, a private investor from New York City who owns the team, said he wanted it to win, but for now, he is willing to celebrate the smaller victories, such as winning a stage of a race. The team has a main secondary sponsor in Chipotle, a chain of Mexican restaurants. Still, the problem of finding a primary sponsor remains. Discussions with potential sponsors last summer fell apart after the 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone, Ellis said. Slipstream’s antidoping program would serve as “an insurance policy” for a potential sponsor that might be skittish about getting involved in cycling, Ellis said. “I’m really committed to reaching our end point, and that’s having a clean team compete in the Tour de France,” he said. “But if we got there, and no sponsor showed up, and if we finished last in every race, then I think it would be hard to stick with it.” Slipstream, which was formed in 2003, put in its radical testing program last month as a way to counter the sport’s recent history of cheating, with top riders caught using EPO and testosterone as well as banned methods, like blood transfusions. The fallout from those scandals has touched nearly every team member. Riders falsely accused of using performance-enhancing drugs have felt helpless in proving their innocence. One cyclist lost his job because his team folded after it was riddled by positive tests. The team director and former United States Postal Service rider Jonathan Vaughters said it was his mission to start what he called “a clean team” after his retirement from racing in 2003. Throughout his career, he said, riders battled the ethical question of whether to use performance-enhancing drugs. In the 1990s, he said, the use of the blood-boosting drug EPO was rampant and teams felt pressured by sponsors to win at any cost. “I don’t have a halo over my head; I made some mistakes when I was a rider,” said Vaughters, who would not directly say whether he had used performance-enhancing drugs. “I don’t want to have any of the riders under my direction to have to face the decisions I did. I’ve made that my responsibility.” Initially, riders asked Vaughters how they could be successful under such a strict antidoping program. In response, he told a story about the Tour de France in 2001, when he rode for Crédit Agricole, a team he believed was clean. Though not expected to be a contender, Crédit Agricole won the team time trial, after the top teams crashed or had flat tires. “I tell my guys, ‘You can beat someone using EPO but you can’t do it overnight,’ ” said Vaughters, who was on the team that helped Lance Armstrong win his first Tour de France title, in 1999. “You just have to do everything perfectly and you need a little bit of luck.” An organization called the Agency for Cycling Ethics runs Slipstream’s testing program. It is an independent agency formed by Paul Scott, a former chemist and client director at the U.C.L.A. Olympic drug-testing lab, with people dedicated to antidoping. The agency pays for the collection and testing of the blood and urine samples. But money is running out, and it is looking for sponsors for the costly enterprise. Testing each rider each season would cost about $20,000, a price tag of $400,000 for a team. Ideally, there would be no financial relationship between the agency and the teams it tests, Scott says, so the entire process remains impartial. If money does run out, Ellis said he would pick up the cost of the frequent testing. Normally, cyclists are drug-tested if they win or finish near the top of a race, or if they are selected at random. They are also tested out of competition by their international federation or by the World Anti-Doping Agency. But that model is changing. In Slipstream’s program, each rider’s blood and urine samples would be tested by an outside lab, then sent to an independent agency to be analyzed. That agency would then compile a biological record of each rider, including his levels of hemoglobin, naturally occurring steroids and red blood cell count. Over time, the information gathered would show what was normal for each individual. Team management has asked WADA to audit those results. If any part of a rider’s biological record changes markedly — for example, if his natural steroid level skyrockets — it could be an indication of doping, or of a drug for which there is not yet a test. In that case, the athlete has agreed to sit out for two weeks to undergo further drug testing to see what caused the anomaly. If those numbers remain consistent, however, it could mean a rider is clean. But no conclusion is guaranteed — yet. Antidoping scientists say that this testing method is more complicated than it seems. Testers need to determine what they monitor and for how long before an athlete in that system can definitively be stamped as a clean athlete, they say. Still, those officials applauded Slipstream for making an effort to be at the forefront of a program that rewards athletes for being clean. “I see this as a baby step, but an important step, in trying a new approach,” said Don Catlin, director of the U.C.L.A. testing lab. Other professional cycling teams, like Team CSC and T-Mobile, have instituted rigorous in-house testing programs, but Slipstream’s is different because it is independent of the team and does not test for banned substances. Instead, the riders’ biological report cards are analyzed in conjunction with physiological testing, so scientists can see how the body changes when the riders work out, travel or when they are ill. To take the testing a step further, Vaughters has asked WADA to receive the results directly from the drug-testing laboratory and to use those results as research. So far, the agency has not made a decision, but it has showed interest in the program. It has financed a research study in France on a method of testing similar to the one used by Slipstream, said the agency’s science director, Olivier Rabin. That program will test athletes who volunteer to be tested for a longer list of biological data. To the 23 riders on Slipstream, it does not matter how many similar projects get under way. Theirs is among the pioneering ones. They arrived at this training camp in mid-January, some skittish about giving blood, most eager to do their part to help restore their sport’s reputation. Pat McCarty, a 25-year-old Texan and Slipstream rider, was swept up in the biggest doping scandal of the year last summer because he rode for Landis’s team, Phonak, in the Tour de France. When the team folded, McCarty lost his job. He felt helpless defending himself as a clean rider, he said. An antidoping program like the one Slipstream has put in would be a way for him to prove his innocence and to build trust among teammates, he said. “We’re doing something to help pull cycling out of the ditch,” McCarty said.

California
World Anti-Doping Agency
Steroids
Bicycles and Bicycling
Landis Floyd
Armstrong Lance
Scott Paul


Wild Card Advances Out of First Round in Munich

Abstract: Janko Tipsarevic, a wild-card entry, rallied to beat sixth-seeded Bernard Tomic, 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (3), in the first round of the BMW Open clay-court tournament in Munich. Tipsarevic, once ranked No. 8, is making a comeback after being sidelined 17 months following two operations to remove a benign tumor from his left foot.


‘Unintentional’ Human Error Led to Airstrikes on Syrian Troops, Pentagon Says

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Tuesday blamed “unintentional” human mistakes for the American-led airstrikes in September that killed dozens of Syrian government troops. The attacks were conducted under the “good-faith belief” that the targets were Islamic State militants, according to the official inquiry. The investigation, led by an Air Force general, concluded that the strikes did not violate the law of armed conflict or the rules for the American military. Danish, British and Australian forces also participated in the strikes. “In my opinion, these were a number of people all doing their best to do a good job,” said Brig. Gen. Richard A. Coe, the officer who led the investigation. At the time, the Russians, who have been working closely with the forces of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to fight the Islamic State and other rebels, said the attack had killed 62 Syrian troops and wounded more than 100. Russia said the strikes had enabled the Islamic State to capture more territory. The Syrian government said they were “a very serious and flagrant aggression” and accused the United States of supporting the Islamic State in its efforts to overthrow Mr. Assad. The strikes occurred as a deal to ease hostilities in Syria, brokered by the United States and Russia, was unraveling. They undercut American efforts to reduce violence and further exposed the challenges faced by the Obama administration in Syria. According to a redacted copy of a report that summarized the investigation, a drone examined an area near an airfield in Deir al-Zour Province in eastern Syria on Sept. 16, identifying a tunnel entrance, two tents and 10 men. The forces were not wearing recognizable military uniforms or identification flags, and there were no other signs of their ties to the government, the inquiry found. “In many ways, these forces looked and acted like the Daesh forces the coalition has been targeting for the last two years,” General Coe said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Human factors like ‘confirmation bias,’ ‘improper labeling’ and ‘invalid assumptions’ resulted in labeling of individuals as Islamic State of Iraq and Levant forces early in the process, which colored later analysis and resulted in continuing misidentification of the forces on the ground,” the United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement. The next day, drones and jets were deployed to attack the airfield. They began hitting tanks and armored vehicles. In all, 34 precision guided missiles were dropped on the Syrian forces. An hour after the strikes began, the Russians informed the United States that the coalition was attacking Syrian forces. Four minutes later, the strikes were halted. The investigation laid out a series of changes to the targeting process that the military has already made, including more information-sharing among analysts. The Air Force is also reviewing its process for identifying targets. “In this instance, we did not rise to the high standard we hold ourselves to, and we must do better than this each and every time,” said Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, the commander of the Air Forces within the Central Command.

Syria
Russia
Bashar al-Assad
US Military
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Free Syrian Army


Suspect in Hofstra Home Invasion Had Extensive Criminal Record

Abstract: A 21-year-old Hofstra University student who was killed in a home invasion on Friday was mistakenly shot in the head by an officer who fired eight times at a man who was holding a gun to the student’s head and then pointed it at him, the police said on Saturday. Seven of the bullets hit the man, who was also killed. The student, Andrea Rebello, and her twin sister, Jessica, who also lived at the home, just blocks from the university, were among several people taken hostage on Friday morning in an apparent robbery attempt. The Nassau County police identified the gunman as Dalton Smith, 30, a Hempstead, N.Y., resident with an extensive criminal record who was wanted for violating parole on a robbery conviction. About 15 or 20 minutes elapsed from the time Mr. Smith burst into the home about 2:20 a.m. Friday until the last shot was fired, the police said. Several hostages had already escaped when police officers arrived and surrounded the house at about 2:30 a.m., Detective Lt. John Azzata said at a news conference on Saturday. The police, who had been alerted to the invasion by one of the people who had escaped, initially thought that only Mr. Smith remained in the house, he said. Image Andrea Rebello as seen in the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook. Credit Sleepy Hollow High School, via Associated Press At least one officer had entered the home as Mr. Smith, clutching Ms. Rebello in a headlock with a gun to her head, tried to get to the back door, Detective Azzata said. After noticing the officer in the hallway, Mr. Smith brought Ms. Rebello closer to his body, Detective Azzata said. Mr. Smith then pointed his gun at the officer. “At that point, the police officer fires several rounds,” Detective Azzata said. “Seven of those rounds struck our subject; one of those rounds struck the victim.” Ms. Rebello was taken to the hospital, where she died. Mr. Smith’s weapon, a 9-millimeter handgun, had one bullet in the chamber and another in the magazine, Detective Azzata said. He never fired a shot. Detective Azzata said the officer who fired the shots was a 12-year veteran of the force, but would not identify him or say whether the officer had acted according to protocol. He said the authorities were still investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting. At the news conference, Thomas V. Dale, the Nassau County police commissioner, said he had gone to Ms. Rebello’s parents’ home in Tarrytown, N.Y., to personally inform them that it had been a police officer’s bullet that killed their daughter. Telephone calls made to Ms. Rebello’s parents on Saturday night went unanswered. Given Mr. Smith’s criminal past, questions are likely to be raised about how he was being monitored. Image Dalton Smith Credit Nassau County Police Department The authorities issued a warrant for his arrest on April 25, after he failed to check in with a parole officer. He had served multiple sentences in prison, mostly for robbery convictions, and was released on parole in February after serving a nine-year sentence. It is unclear why Mr. Smith chose the house on California Avenue where Ms. Rebello lived to break into, the police said. At the time of the invasion, Detective Azzata said, the front door of the home had been left open by another resident, who had gone upstairs to get his keys with the intention of moving his car. While the authorities said Mr. Smith lived in Hempstead, there is no address for anyone by his name in public records. The invasion left residents near the university fearful at a time when many would be preparing for graduation. Hofstra officials said commencement ceremonies on Sunday would go ahead. On Saturday, many students were preparing to leave for summer vacation. While many said they felt secure on campus, some expressed concern about security in the neighborhoods surrounding it, where some students prefer to rent houses. Ms. Rebello and her sister lived on a typically quiet block in Uniondale that some said was uncomfortable to walk through after dark. “Walking after class after 7 p.m. or 9 p.m., it feels really unsafe to walk outside of campus across Hempstead Turnpike,” said Jack Qiu, 20, a sophomore who said he preferred to live in the dorms because they are safer. “If you walk around California Avenue and the streets around them, there are streets there that don’t have street lamps.” A funeral for Ms. Rebello is set for Wednesday in Tarrytown, N.Y., the Coffee Funeral Home said. She will be buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Citing New Evidence, Philippines Asks China to Stay Executions

Abstract: MANILA — The Philippine government has appealed to Beijing to stay the execution scheduled for Wednesday of three Filipinos convicted of drug trafficking in China , saying that new evidence had surfaced that would prove at least one of them had been used as an unwitting drug courier by syndicates operating in the Philippines . Vice President Jejomar C. Binay, who has been tasked by President Benigno S. Aquino III to intercede with Beijing, said Tuesday that the Philippine authorities had arrested a person whom one of the convicts, Sally Villanueva, identified as having tricked her into carrying a suitcase containing the drugs. Ms. Villanueva and Ramon Credo are scheduled to be executed Wednesday morning in Xiamen, while Elizabeth Batain is scheduled to be put to death at around the same time in Shenzhen. Mr. Binay, in his letter to President Hu Jintao of China, said the arrest of a woman named Mapet Cortez broke new ground at least in the case of Ms. Villanueva. Ms. Cortez, according to Ms. Villanueva’s sworn statement, had recruited Ms. Villanueva for a job in Xiamen and later gave her a bag with 4,000 grams, or nearly 9 pounds, of heroin. “I appeal to the Chinese government to help us keep Villanueva and the two others alive to enable us to establish beyond any reasonable doubt whether at least one, or two, or all three of them are mere unwitting couriers, while the real principals are still at large in the Philippines,” Mr. Binay said. He added that Ms. Villanueva may have been “at the wrong place at the wrong time and are defrauded or forced to commit crime by the real criminals.” In Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said at a regularly scheduled news conference Tuesday that the three Filipinos had been tried and convicted according to the law. The imminent execution of the three overseas Filipino workers has become a highly emotional issue in a country that has sent more than 10 percent of its working population abroad, many of them working in harsh conditions. The three overseas Filipino workers were to be executed in February, but Beijing stayed their sentences after appeals from Manila. Manila decided not to send representatives to Oslo in December for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony of the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, a move Filipino commentators said was meant to avoid offense to Beijing. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said relatives of the three convicts would have the chance to visit them Wednesday morning. Last week, the Aquino government said it had done everything it could for the three and that it could only do so much. “We’ve repeatedly said that whatever the decision of the Chinese court on this matter, we will have to respect and we will have to abide by it,” said Abigail Valte, an Aquino spokeswoman. The government had earlier promised to pursue drug syndicates that victimize Filipinos who seek work abroad. On Tuesday, religious groups scheduled prayer vigils and Masses across the country. Several religious and migrant-rights groups released an open letter to Mr. Hu, pleading for mercy and calling the three Filipinos “victims of larger drug syndicates.” Edward Wong contributed reporting from Beijing.

Philippines
China
Heroin
Aquino Benigno S III
Drug Abuse and Traffic


Death Toll Climbs in Arkansas Campgrounds Flooding

Abstract: LANGLEY, Ark. — In the steamy heat of an Arkansas summer, more than 200 rescue workers spread across the banks of the Little Missouri River on Saturday to search for victims and survivors of a devastating flash flood that killed at least 18 people who were caught unaware in the dark of a secluded campground. They found two more bodies, after locating 16 on Friday, but were worried that perhaps dozens more might be hidden in the thick brush of a craggy gorge. As the engorged river — which surged more than 20 feet in a matter of hours early Friday morning — began to recede, some rescuers were able to navigate a 20-mile stretch of river by kayak, canoe and water scooter; others took to the woods on foot, horseback or all-terrain vehicles. Helicopters thundered above the Albert Pike campgrounds in the Ouachita Mountains, about 75 miles west of Little Rock. Government officials met with families of victims and said that state, local and federal authorities would continue to devote all available resources until the missing were located. “There’s not much you can say,” Gov. Mike Beebe said during a news conference in Little Rock. “You try to be whatever comfort you can. They’re virtually in a state of shock.” Earlier in the day, the governor said, he spoke with President Obama, who offered condolences and pledged federal assistance. An official in Mr. Obama’s cabinet said that the local authorities did what they could to warn campers of the flood, but vowed to review procedures. While rescuers discovered two more bodies in the dense, muddy terrain on Saturday, family members of victims and those still waiting to hear from loved ones gathered at Pilgrim Rest Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in Lodi, about 15 miles from the campground. Some had survived by clinging to branches in pitch darkness. “People have lost multiple family members,” the Rev. Graig Cowart said. “It’s hard enough to lose one. It’s just disbelief and horror, and a lot of them are walking around in a daze.” Reverend Cowart said two families, close friends from Louisiana who were vacationing together, had each lost a husband and two children whose bodies had been recovered. One of the families was still missing a young child, he said. The wives had identified their dead relatives from digital photographs taken by rescue workers. “It was just devastating,” Reverend Cowart recalled. “ ‘Yes, that’s my husband.’ ‘Yes, that’s my son.’ ‘Yes, that’s my son.’ How can you process losing seven family members and friends?” One of the families spent Saturday morning clustered outside the church at a table littered with packs of Marlboros, empty coffee cups and boxes of tissues. Several declined to be interviewed, becoming hostile when asked to discuss their loved ones. The Rev. Glen D. Harris of Amity United Methodist Church, who was comforting family members, said that waiting for news had exhausted and stressed many of them. “The not knowing where your son or father or daughter is the worst part,” Reverend Harris said. “I don’t know which is worse, knowing or not knowing. And they’re getting to the stage where they’re angry.” Officials said that as many as 300 people may have been camping along the Caddo and Little Missouri Rivers when the valley was deluged. But the visitors’ log that would have given a more precise number was lost in the sweeping tide, a spokesman for the Ouachita National Forest said. The volunteer host of the campground who oversaw the log found himself having to quickly evacuate and apparently did not have time to alert other campers, said the spokesman, John C. Nichols. “Realistically, he was probably doing what everybody else was doing,” Mr. Nichols said. “He was trying to survive.” Governor Beebe released the names of 15 victims Saturday afternoon. They ranged in age from 2 to 69, and six were under 7, the authorities said. Most were vacationing from Louisiana and Texas. Volunteers canvassing the area under muggy mid-90-degree heat confronted disturbing scenes. Late Friday, Carter Weston, 17, helped load 16 bodies into ambulances to be transported to a makeshift morgue in a nearby town. “It was kind of morbid, but it had to be done,” said Carter, who lives in nearby Hot Springs. The raging waters swept through dense terrain in the middle of the night while many campers slept. Terrified families tried to outrace the churning, swiftly rising water, some fleeing up hillsides as tents vanished and recreational vehicles crashed into cabins. Sawyer Saulsbury, 14, said her mother awoke in the middle of the night, thinking a bear was rattling their camper. When they figured out that water was climbing up the side, they wrapped their two dogs, Luke and Shelby, in blankets and raced up a hill, Sawyer said. Even after riding out the storm, they remained stranded in the woods through Saturday morning, she said, because roads were flooded and their camper was stuck in the mud. This made for tense moments for her grandmother Linda Saulsbury, who shared a tearful embrace with her granddaughter when they reunited in a gas station parking lot in Langley. “I could not sit still, I could not think,” Ms. Saulsbury said. Bill Paxton, 53, was in his cabin — which sat on eight-foot stilts above the river — drinking coffee and watching as the water outside rose six feet within 10 minutes, he said. That was when he heard a recreational vehicle crash into his front porch and saw the scared faces inside it. On Saturday, Mr. Paxton told how he stood on his porch to help a couple, their granddaughter and their schnauzer into his cabin. “We were just glad to be alive,” Mr. Paxton said. “We figured we were safe. We weren’t nervous.” Mr. Paxton was one of several frustrated people at the gas station in Langley pleading with the state police on Saturday to let him up to his cabin to survey the damage. After a trooper told him the area was closed, Mr. Paxton asked to speak with a supervisor and said: “Put bullets in the gun. You’re going to have to shoot me to stop me from getting into my cabin.” A tour of the campground revealed tent sites that looked like they had been invaded by an army of Goliaths. Huge chunks of buckled asphalt had been deposited in drainage ditches. The back end of a white Dodge minivan was lodged four feet up a tree trunk with its nose pointed into the dirt. A camper had been stripped of its back wall, exposing neat stacks of blankets and an unsliced watermelon. The detritus of a camping trip suddenly interrupted was everywhere: mangled folding chairs, plastic plates, waterlogged clothing, paperback novels. A group of government officials including Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, as well as Tom Vilsack, the federal agriculture secretary, swept over the area in a helicopter to assess the damage. At a news conference, Ms. Lincoln said: “We’ve got hope; we’re going to keep working.” Mr. Vilsack said the Forest Service Web site and brochures advised campers to be alert to weather changes. “This thing came very, very suddenly,” he said. “We did everything we could do under the circumstances, but we will absolutely review this, as we should after every circumstance like this.”


U.S. Agency to Handle Tour of California Drug Testing

Abstract: The Tour of California, the most prominent road cycling race in the United States, has hired the United States Anti-Doping Agency to handle its drug testing instead of relying on cycling’s governing body to conduct those tests, a race official said Wednesday. Andrew Messick, the sports director for AEG, the company that runs the Tour of California, said the new antidoping program would be “a strong step” in ensuring that the race involves only clean athletes. In past editions of the race, the International Cycling Union has been in charge of the race’s in-competition drug testing, a situation that Travis Tygart, chief executive of Usada, called “the fox watching the henhouse.” “At this point, it’s frankly difficult to both promote and police your own sport,” Tygart said Wednesday in a teleconference. “There’s this natural tension when the sport attempts to police itself of enforcing firmly and fairly the rules versus the other interest, which is to promote and raise revenue for the sport.” The Tour of California, which will run from May 15th to the 22nd, had previously been criticized for not testing for the blood-booster EPO in 2006, its inaugural year, at a time when that was a standard practice at other major races. The event’s sponsor now and at the time was Amgen, a California biotechnology company that produces a genetically engineered version of EPO for cancer and dialysis patients. The race began testing for EPO the next year. This year, Usada will decide which riders to test, when to test them and what drugs and methods to test for. It will start no-notice out-of-competition testing of all the race’s potential riders 90 days before the event begins. In the past, the race’s competitors were not subject to testing until 10 days before the event began.

United States Anti-Doping Agency
International Cycling Union
Tests and Testing
Doping (Sports)
Tour of California (Bicycle Race)


Turkish Cargo Plane Crashes Into Village in Kyrgyzstan, Killing Dozens

Abstract: HONG KONG — A Turkish cargo plane approaching the airport in Kyrgyzstan’s capital crashed early Monday, killing at least 37 people, most of them on the ground, according to the Kyrgyz government. The Boeing 747, with a crew of four, was owned by ACT Airlines , and it was on its way to Istanbul from Hong Kong with a stopover in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, according to airport officials in the Central Asian city. Video A Boeing 747 cargo jet owned by a Turkish airline and en route to Istanbul from Hong Kong crashed into a village near the capital, Bishkek, killing at least 30. Credit Credit Vladimir Pirogov/Reuters The plane was approaching Manas International Airport in Bishkek when it crashed into a village adjoining the airport. Kyrgyz officials said that 23 of the village’s 43 houses were destroyed, and some buildings burst into flames. There was fog at the time, but it was not clear if the weather played a role in the crash. The Kyrgyz Emergencies Ministry said that at least 12 people had been taken to the hospital. An image on the website of the television station owned by Kyrgyzstan’s government showed a large section of the nose of the aircraft, including the cockpit windows, on the ground after the plane apparently crashed through a building. Wreckage was strewed across a wide area. A video of the crash scene showed emergency workers in a snow-covered neighborhood, with pieces of the plane interspersed among houses and wreckage in flames. Tents were set up to help shelter displaced residents from temperatures of about 13 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius). Kyrgyz officials said they would create a government commission to investigate why the plane came down. The plane, built in 2003, was owned by ACT Airlines, a Turkish company that is 49 percent owned by the Chinese conglomerate HNA Group , which has aviation, tourism and logistics units. ACT operates under the name MyCargo Airlines. The airline said on Monday that the crash was not the result of “technical reasons or loading related factors” on the plane. It said all four crew members — two pilots, a freight specialist and a flight technician — were killed. The Manas airport was the site of a United States military base that was used mainly to support operations in Afghanistan until 2014, when the base was handed over to the Kyrgyz military.

Plane Crash
Kyrgyzstan
Hong Kong
Istanbul
Bishkek
Airlines,airplanes


Immigration Stirs Up Bound Brook, Again

Abstract: FOUR years after the federal government found that Bound Brook was unfairly targeting Hispanic residents for housing violations, the borough found itself once again embroiled in a debate about what municipalities can do to curb illegal immigration . At a packed Borough Council meeting last month, the council’s president, James Lefkowitz, proposed a far-reaching resolution that would require landlords to obtain proof of their tenants’ legal status, deny borough contracts to businesses that hire illegal immigrants and require police officers to check the status of people they arrest. After a passionate debate that stretched on for hours, Mr. Lefkowitz could not persuade any of his colleagues to second his proposal, so it went nowhere. Mayor Carey Pilato, who opposed the resolution, loudly declared it “dead” as he and Mr. Lefkowitz argued. Mr. Lefkowitz vowed to place the measure as a referendum on November’s ballot. “A person once made the suggestion that, with the human suffering that’s involved, we should avoid this issue,” Mr. Lefkowitz said. “As a private citizen that’s your right. As an elected official, I don’t believe I have that right.” Others at the meeting said that his measure would unfairly target all Hispanics, and that the borough would end up having to spend money it could ill afford to defend against legal challenges that would surely follow. Bound Brook is not the only municipality in New Jersey or elsewhere that has attempted to legislate limits on illegal immigration. In nearby Middletown, Mayor Gerard P. Scharfenberger said in an interview that he was watching Bound Brook because he, too, was considering introducing a measure to punish landlords who rent to illegal immigrants. Bound Brook, a community of about 10,000 people in Somerset County, has tried to grapple with the issue of undocumented immigrants before. According to the 2000 census, 35 percent of its residents are Hispanic. When Hurricane Floyd flooded Bound Brook in 1999, those left homeless included Hispanic immigrants, many of them undocumented, who had previously lived discreet lives in this working class borough and now were being helped by agencies like the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. Many long-time residents moved out of the flood-prone center of the borough and were replaced by illegal immigrants looking for affordable housing. While there is no accurate count of illegal immigrants in the borough, a county report said that at least 200 undocumented people were living in Bound Brook at the time of the flooding. In some cases, 8 to 15 people were living in a single-family unit, the report said. Some proponents of local legislation say that overcrowding puts residents at risk and requires taxpayers to shoulder a disproportionate share of costs for services like garbage pickup. Others, like Carmen Salavarrieta, a community activist who aids Hispanics in Bound Brook facing abuse from employers and landlords, said the emphasis on overcrowding was an excuse to target all Hispanic residents. Ms. Salavarrieta and others complained to federal officials when borough housing inspectors began making nighttime inspections accompanied by police officers. The United States Department of Justice investigated, and eventually sued the borough for unfair housing practices. Borough officials agreed to end the housing inspections and to pay damages to some of those who had claimed harassment. Mayor Pilato said the settlement had cost the borough $600,000, about 10 percent of its annual tax revenue. “If we follow along this path over the next couple of months, not only can we expect to get a visit again from the D.O.J., I can see many other private entities that may come and decide to visit us,” he said. Mr. Lefkowitz said the settlement with the Justice Department established a “sanctuary” in Bound Brook for illegal immigrants by keeping inspectors from pursing violations. Those who disagree with him say that existing ordinances on overcrowding are sufficient and that new legislation will inevitably lead to discrimination against all Hispanics. “The feeling right now is very sour. People are afraid,” said Ms. Salavarrieta. “They feel like they’re not wanted here.” Mr. Lefkowitz said going forward could be divisive and costly. “It’s an ‘I don’t really care what you think anymore’ thing,’ ” he said. “It’s personal for me.”

Illegal Immigrants
New Jersey
Renting and Leasing


Poll Finds Most Voters Embrace Milestone for Women, if Not Hillary Clinton

Abstract: On Nov. 8, American voters for the first time in history will see a woman’s name on the ballot as a major party’s nominee for president. A broad majority of voters — men and women — say they are happy this milestone has been reached, but fully half of them say they would have preferred that that first woman not be Hillary Clinton, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll looked closely at women’s political views and broader outlook on American life, as well as how the wider society views the role of women. The survey found that women think more progress has been made toward ending sexism than racism in society. They value motherhood more than marriage. They think that sexual harassment is a significant issue in the workplace. And they think the greatest problem facing American women is inequality in pay and career opportunities. Mrs. Clinton is supported by 52 percent of women likely to vote in November, while 39 percent back Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump’s problems with women are significant: 55 percent of female respondents say he does not respect women and about half think a Trump presidency would be bad for women. Only 11 percent think electing him would be good for women, while 45 percent of women say Mrs. Clinton’s election would benefit them. Mrs. Clinton’s nomination has done little to reverse women’s perceptions of gender discrimination in America, and in many cases, their views differ sharply from men’s. Image Cheers at the Democratic National Convention in July as Hillary Clinton was nominated as the party’s presidential nominee. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times Forty-eight percent of women — but just 35 percent of men — think there are more advantages in being a man than in being a woman in society today. Majorities of women with a college degree, those who identify as Democrats, those younger than 30, those with household incomes of at least $100,000, and black women all say men hold an advantage. Asked to name the most important problem facing women today, women cited issues related to gender inequality in the workplace, primarily pay, more than any other. Gender divisions were particularly pronounced on issues related to the workplace. Three-quarters of women said women in the United States are paid less than men doing similar work, while 55 percent of men held the same opinion. “What I see that as a reflection of is that we have a done a good job on the awareness issue,” said Teresa Boyer, executive director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. “The negative is that it still exists.” Women were also more likely than men to say there is “a lot” of sexual harassment in most American workplaces today — fully one-quarter said so, compared with 18 percent of men. But the same number of men and women, 53 percent, acknowledge that there is “some.” Younger women and African-American women are most likely to say there is a lot of sexual harassment. A poll of women conducted for Virginia Slims in 1994 found virtually the same result: Three-quarters of women said there was some sexual harassment or a lot in the workplace. By a ratio of almost two to one — 51 percent to 27 percent — American women think more progress has been made in overcoming sexism than racism in the past 20 years. But Joyce Coleman, an African-American from Southfield, Mich., and a retired human resources consultant, said in a follow-up interview that there had been less progress toward ending sexism. “I’m 71 years old and I was born in Mississippi, so I’ve experienced racism from several different quarters,” Mrs. Coleman said. She said that although racism had not disappeared, there is “a lot more tolerance,” and she could not say the same about sexism because of “things that continue to happen to women in the workplace.” The nationwide poll was conducted from Sept. 9 through 13 on landlines and cellphones with 1,770 adults and has an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Men are significantly more likely than women to see themselves as ever being leaders in business or government. Nearly half of men say they could achieve this while less than a third of women do. African-American women are much more likely than white women to see themselves as leaders (40 percent versus 26 percent). Likewise, women younger than 45 and those with more education or higher incomes are the more likely than other women to think this high level of leadership is achievable. Carla Lytle, a 52-year-old African-American, manages election officials at the Election Commission in Shelby County, Tenn., and is one of the survey participants who sees herself as a leader. “Initially I was a stay-at-home mom, and I have a large family: eight children,” Ms. Lytle said. “I home-schooled them. I think the leadership skills and things I learned at home I was able to bring to the workplace. It’s just hard work and being able to be structured and organized and sustain a vision: having a vision and working for something.” Women rate success at work as much more important than their appearance in determining how they feel about themselves, but significantly more think that society places a higher emphasis on looks than on their success at work. Fifty-three percent of women say their appearance is very important in how they view themselves, while 71 percent say society judges them by their physical appearance. African-American women are far more likely to rate their appearance as very important. Fifty-six percent of women think Mrs. Clinton is a good role model for women. By contrast, in 2007, during her first campaign for the presidency, a Times/CBS News poll found that 70 percent considered her a good role model. Willa Speiser, 68, a freelance editor in Warwick, N.Y., plans to vote for her but does not consider her a role model. “I think she’s achieved much of what she has because of who she married,” Ms. Speiser said. “I don’t think she’s a good role model for women because it’s not a life path that a lot of women have available to them.” A New York Times/CBS News Poll on a Woman for President The poll looked closely at women’s political views and broader outlook on American life, as well as how the wider society views the role of women. Significantly more men than women consider marriage to be very important. While 58 percent of men said being married is very important, just 47 percent of women overall said so. Most women with household incomes over $100,000, those who identify as Republicans and those between the ages of 30 and 45 said marriage is very important to them. But in roughly equal numbers (almost three-quarters), both men and women said being a parent was very important to them. Women under the age of 30 were least likely to rate parenthood as very important, but still, 59 percent hold this belief. Nancy Brownell, a 74-year-old retired teacher in Houston, said: “I’ve been married 47 years, and I have a good marriage. But it was another time. Marriage was another thing on your list. You couldn’t at that time go to a hotel and check in by yourself. When I went to college, they locked us into the dorms at 11 at night.” Today, she said, “I think a woman can do quite well on her own.”

Polls
Hillary Clinton
2016 Presidential Election
Women and Girls


Democratic Candidates Emphasize Need for Unity

Abstract: MILWAUKEE — After days of battling each other in tit-for-tat television advertisements ahead of the Wisconsin primary, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama on Saturday night cooled their rhetoric and reminded Democrats of their fight ahead. Speaking at a state Democratic Party dinner, Mrs. Clinton said she was the only candidate who could “go toe to toe” with Senator John McCain in the general election. “I know some people have said I am tough,” Mrs. Clinton said. “You know what, we need a tough president, because we have tough problems ahead of us.” While Mr. Obama said Democrats must forge a coalition to defeat Mr. McCain in the fall, so the “disastrous policies” of the Bush administration would not be extended, he said voters should look ahead to which Democrat would offer the starkest contrasts with the Republican nominee. “If I am the nominee of this party,” Mr. Obama said, “John McCain will not be able to say that I agreed with him about the war in Iraq, because I didn’t.” After watching the party’s nominating fight from afar for more than a year, thousands of Democratic faithful assembled in a downtown convention hall to inspect their candidates in person. Mrs. Clinton received a polite reception, but when Mr. Obama arrived, the crowd erupted in thunderous applause, with people chanting his name. The back-to-back appearances by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama on Saturday evening were absent the biting language and aggressive tone that has hung over the race in recent weeks. Both candidates emphasized the importance of Democratic voters being united in the general election campaign. It was the closest encounter that the two candidates would have before the Wisconsin presidential primary, one of the oldest in the country. All week, the Wisconsin contest has played out largely on the airwaves, as Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton ran a series of dueling television advertisements over Mr. Obama declining to appear alongside Mrs. Clinton in a debate. For four days, Mr. Obama has campaigned in all corners of the state and has advertised heavily on television. He is working to extend his winning streak on Tuesday, hoping for a final burst of momentum heading into the fight for Ohio and Texas, which hold primaries on March 4. Before arriving in Milwaukee for the Democratic dinner on Saturday evening, Mr. Obama campaigned in central and western Wisconsin, speaking at a community college in Wausau about the costs of higher education and holding a rally for more than 3,500 in Eau Claire. On Saturday, he was endorsed by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the state’s largest newspaper. “This is certainly the most important election in my lifetime — not just because I’m running,” Mr. Obama said, speaking in brief remarks to an overflow crowd outside the gymnasium at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. “But because we’re in a defining moment in our history.” Several Democrats privately expressed disgruntlement that the Wisconsin primary had not been more heavily contested, particularly by Mrs. Clinton, who was scheduled to campaign for less than 48 hours in the state. Mrs. Clinton arrived in Milwaukee on Saturday afternoon and immediately headed south to Kenosha, a blue-collar city of 90,000 on the shores of Lake Michigan. She spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at a town hall event, sticking to bread-and-butter Midwestern issues like education, manufacturing jobs and the rights of legal gun owners. “You may not believe it, but I’ve actually gone hunting,” she said. “My dad taught me how to shoot a hundred years ago.” (She later explained to reporters that she shot “a duck, a lot of tin cans and a lot of targets and lot of skeet.”) Speaking to reporters after the campaign event, Mrs. Clinton renewed her challenge for a televised debate. “I will meet Senator Obama any place in the state,” she said. But on Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Clinton’s aides said that she would cut short her Wisconsin trip and leave on Monday, a day earlier than planned. “It’s no reflection on our commitment to the state,” said Mo Elleithee, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, adding that she had been “well represented” by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and her daughter, Chelsea, who campaigned in the state. “We just had to get her elsewhere.”

Primaries
Presidential Election of 2008
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Obama Barack


To Survive, Net Start-Ups Slow Their Metabolism

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley has always been a land of big, bold dreams. In the first Internet boom its start-ups either grew fast or died trying, sometimes spectacularly. The casualties of the bust, like Pets.com and Webvan, became legendary. In this downturn, say investors and entrepreneurs, start-ups are adopting a strategy that they hope will let them hang on instead of flame out. To preserve cash, many tech start-ups are rushing to lay off employees and cut expenses. They are shelving their dreams of Google-size riches and getting small, humble and thrifty, all with the more modest goal of surviving the coming economic winter. Once upon a time, an unprofitable Internet start-up like Zivity, a social site that revolves around photos of models, might have turned into just another dot-bomb. Though it has paltry revenues and just 20,000 registered users, the company pays only $8,000 a month to rent its offices in San Francisco and has received $8 million from investors. This month it laid off 8 of its 22 employees — saving enough money to stay alive through 2011 and survive even a prolonged recession. “We think we have a valuable product,” said Cyan Banister, Zivity’s co-founder. “We should be able to weather the storm.” Even in normal economic times, a majority of start-ups fail. But the same factors that have made it so easy to create Web 2.0-style start-ups — low fixed costs, access to inexpensive overseas programmers and cheap ways to advertise online — also make it relatively easy for even faltering companies to cut back their operations to the bare minimum and hang on through a slump. Web start-ups “don’t fail in the same way they used to fail,” said Brad Burnham, a partner at the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, adding that the previous generation of Internet companies lived hard and died young. Knowing when to pull the plug on the current crop of more frugal companies is now “different, more subtle, more problematic,” he said. “They don’t run into a wall.” The Web companies in this new generation are so efficient with capital that venture capitalists “may not have the plug in our hand,” Mr. Burnham said. The only certainty in Silicon Valley is that survival is quickly becoming more challenging. The growth in online display advertising, which helps fuel the new Internet ecosystem, is declining. Venture capitalists and other investors in start-ups, like hedge funds, are cutting back. The market for initial public offerings remains closed and potential acquirers — Google, Yahoo and the rest — are deep in their own problems. Many entrepreneurs and deal makers agree that a shake-out is indeed coming. Venture capitalists have begun preaching frugality, urging the start-ups they have invested in to cut costs and get profitable. Their advice shares themes: cut employees, do not count on raising more money and move quickly. The entrepreneurs appear to be listening. AdBrite, an online advertising network in San Francisco that raised $35 million in venture capital, recently laid off one-third of its staff, or 40 employees, to get to profitability next year. The company’s chief executive, Iggy Fanlo, ran the e-commerce site Shopping.com during the first dot-com bust, and he said he recalled how wave after wave of layoffs sank morale. “I had gone through this before and we had death by a thousand cuts,” Mr. Fanlo said. “I wanted to credibly look people in the eye this time and say we are profitable.” Every day seems to bring a new round of layoffs. In the last two weeks, the music site Imeem, the social search site Mahalo, the visual search engine Searchme, the real estate site Zillow, the Internet radio site Pandora and the social network Hi5 all cut as much as a quarter of their employees. For many entrepreneurs, the lone goal has become survival. At Seesmic, a video blogging service, the day of reckoning — when it runs out of the $6 million it raised in May — will come in three years. To make the money last, Loïc Le Meur, the chief executive, recently laid off seven employees, or one-third of his staff, and cut all projects not directly related to the video service. “If I can’t make this work in three years it will be a failure,” Mr. Le Meur said. “If I can and I get through this, it will be much stronger.” Even companies with less than stellar track records and revenues say they can live through a protracted slump. Lala, a music site based in Palo Alto, Calif., has scrapped two music services and recently began a third site in conjunction with the major labels. The company raised $35 million three years ago and, thanks to financial prudence, has $20 million in the bank. It recently delayed plans to double its staff and it put its excess office space up for sublet. Lala’s founder, Bill Nguyen, expressed a measure of relief at the chill in the Valley. “This whole economic crisis allows me not to have to grow,” he said. “I view this as a free hall pass.” That wholesale resetting of expectations might be the biggest change to settle over Silicon Valley. Instead of aiming for blockbuster public offerings or market-shaking acquisitions, most entrepreneurs now just want to endure. But if not enough people use these start-ups’ services and revenue does not grow fast enough to attract potential acquirers, mere survival may not look so good. At Faraday Media, a Palo Alto start-up that is trying to create a personalized version of the Internet for its users, there is no revenue, no office space (the five employees work from their homes) and little chance of raising any capital from the newly miserly angel investors who would otherwise support a start-up of its size. Chris Saad, Faraday Media’s founder, said the company saw no reason to give up. “We are committed to the idea that the company and technology we are building is fundamentally going to reshape the Web,” he said. “We are committed to investing our time into this for as long as it takes.” If these skeletal start-ups do succumb to the downturn, firms like Sherwood Partners, which specializes in bankruptcy consulting and shutting down companies, will be waiting. Sherwood Partners has not yet had the kind of activity it witnessed during the last bust, but Martin D. Pichinson, a partner at the company, is preparing for a burst of new business as many start-ups acknowledge that just because they can survive does not mean they should. Failing start-ups “are already out there, and we are starting to close some of them, when investors say it needs to be done,” Mr. Pichinson said.

Start-ups
Venture Capital
Computers and the Internet
Layoffs and Job Reductions
United States Economy
Silicon Valley (Calif)
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Chiefs Defend Slow Network for the iPhone

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO, June 28 — On the eve of the Apple iPhone ’s sale, the top executives of Apple and AT&T defended their decision to rely upon AT&T’s slow Edge wireless data network, rather than a faster network that is less widely available. Early reviews of the iPhone, while positive, have faulted the slower network because it will limit the palm-size wireless computer’s greatest strength — making the Internet easily accessible on the go. “It doesn’t concern me,” said Randall L. Stephenson, the new AT&T chief executive, in a joint telephone interview on Thursday along with Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive. The fact that the iPhone offers faster Wi-Fi networking would more than make up for the relatively slow 300-kilobit-a-second pace of its cellular data network, he suggested. The phone goes on sale Friday at 6 p.m. at Apple and AT&T stores. Both executives said they were not certain what to expect at the stores on Friday evening. Lines have begun to form in some parts of the country, but there is uncertainty whether a $500-to-$600 consumer product can attract millions, rather than tens of thousands, of early customers. “We’ve certainly built a lot of iPhones, although it may not be enough,” Mr. Jobs said. Changing a forecast in the consumer electronics industry is difficult, he said, because of the long lead times necessary to build components like semiconductors. And Mr. Stephenson said, “I think it’s going to be an exciting evening.” He said his company had added about 2,000 employees in an effort to handle what it expects will be large crowds. Mr. Jobs said Apple planned to limit sales to two for each customer, and Mr. Stephenson said AT&T would restrict purchases to a single phone. Concern surrounding the AT&T network could be one of the biggest unknowns as the product rolls out. That did not diminish Mr. Stephenson’s enthusiasm. “I got to tell you, carrying this thing around and experiencing those kinds of speeds on a wireless handset, your imagination begins to run in terms of what’s possible,” he said, “and by the way, there’s not a 3G network available in Ottumwa, Iowa,” referring to the so-called third generation of Web-enabled cellphones that require faster networks. “If you want to sell these devices in a variety of places, Edge is the only opportunity you have.” AT&T has invested $16 billion in its network over the last two years, and the network is now designed to handle the expected increase in wireless data users, he said, adding: “Capacity won’t be an issue. The network is ready.” Mr. Jobs said the decision to hold off on using AT&T’s faster HSDPA network — shorthand for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access — was a trade-off. “Edge is good, but you’d like it to be faster,” he said, suggesting that the availability of local Wi-Fi networks would make up for the Edge network’s slower speed. Mr. Jobs also said Apple’s hardware design team had decided against using the more advanced 3G chip sets because they were relatively power-hungry. As a result, Apple improved the battery life of the iPhone. “We felt it wasn’t the right trade-off now,” he said. “I’m sure that will all change in the future.” The iPhone could have an effect on the cellphone industry akin to the influence the Macintosh computer from Apple had on the personal computer industry in 1984, Mr. Jobs said. He said he thought that the iPhone’s “multitouch” control system, in which the fingers are used to scroll through data or enlarge photos on the screen, was the biggest shift in a computer’s user interface since the Macintosh was introduced. “It’s the first thing to come along since the mouse and the bit-mapped display and take things to the next level,” he said. Mr. Jobs seized on the multitouch technology after Apple product designers proposed it as a “safari pad,” a portable Web surfing appliance. Instead, he saw the technology as something that could be used for a similar purpose in a cellphone, a former Apple employee said. The two executives said they were comfortable with the unexplored implications of the business relationship they have forged. In a break with the tradition of the cellphone industry, Apple is taking responsibility for the activation of the iPhone as well as account maintenance through its iTunes software on a customer’s Mac or PC. Account control has been jealously guarded by the cellphone carriers. Mr. Stephenson remarked: “That’s what the customers want, and you can give them a good experience. Why would we not do that? I like this model a lot.” And Mr. Jobs said, “We’re doing the front end, and AT&T is doing the back end on the same computers they would normally use to manage their network.” The new system, he said, would permit store personnel to help people more rapidly by letting customers handle the setup themselves at home. Mr. Jobs hinted that there would be announcements about services for corporate users within several weeks. “There’s already corporations who have been running pilots hooking up to exchange servers and other kinds of mail servers, and they have gone very well,” he said. Neither man was willing to describe where the partnership between the companies might lead if it turned out to be a success. AT&T has joined with Microsoft as part of its effort to enter into direct competition with cable companies. Mr. Stephenson acknowledged that he was intrigued by Apple’s TV system. Recently, Mr. Jobs referred to the system, which is intended to transfer Internet video to television sets and computers, as a “hobby,” suggesting that Apple was still refining its strategy in the market. Mr. Stephenson, however, said, “AT&T is interested in anything that drives more bandwidth requirements, and Apple TV drives significant bandwidth, and the iPhone drives significant bandwidth, and so I think it’s a very logical fit.”

iPhone
Apple Inc
AT&T Corp
Wireless Communications
Computers and the Internet
Cellular Telephones


Avon Names McCoy as New Chief

Abstract: Battered by the recession, Johnson & Johnson turned in 2009 to Sherilyn S. McCoy, a longtime executive who had joined the company as a scientist in 1982, to overhaul the company’s pharmaceutical division. It was a wrenching process that involved reorganizing the business at a time when patents on important drugs were expiring. “We’re looking at the new commercial model and asking, ‘How do we go to market differently,’ “ she told BusinessWeek at the time. That experience will come in handy in her new job. On Monday, Avon Products announced that it had hired Ms. McCoy as its new chief executive. She takes over a 126-year-old company that is known for its army of door-to-door sales representatives but has been struggling in recent years with declining sales, a bribery investigation and increasingly restless investors. Avon’s profit has declined every year since 2008. This month, Avon promptly rejected a $10 billion unsolicited takeover offer from Coty, a smaller privately held supplier of beauty products and celebrity fragrances, thinking that the bid undervalued the company. In hiring Ms. McCoy after an extensive search, Avon appears to be making the case that it can turn around the company on its own. Avon’s lead director, Fred Hassan, said she had a “unique combination of strategic and finely honed operational skills, a significant turnaround track record, global experience and people leadership.” “Given her consistent record of outperforming against new challenges, we have great confidence that under Sheri’s leadership Avon can successfully execute against our long-term prospects,” Mr. Hassan said in a statement. Les Funtleyder, a portfolio manager at Miller Tabak & Company, which owns Johnson & Johnson stock, said that “she knows something about problems, and she may be able to do something about it.” Ms. McCoy, who is 53, declined to comment beyond a prepared statement. She was one of two candidates for the top job at Johnson & Johnson, but lost to Alex Gorsky, who became chief executive in February. In her prepared remarks, she said, “I am extremely honored and excited to join Avon — a great company with an iconic brand and so much potential.” Shares of Avon fell 3 percent on Monday to close at $22.69. Officials at Coty declined to comment on Ms. McCoy’s hiring. She succeeds Andrea Jung, who took over as chief executive in 1999 and was initially praised for revitalizing a tired brand and energizing its sales force, once known as “Avon ladies.” She was among the first to push into developing markets like China and Russia, giving Avon an early edge. But analysts say Ms. Jung’s tenure was eventually marred by her lack of day-to-day operational skill. Sales slowed in 2005, and two turnaround efforts by Ms. Jung in the years since failed to take hold. Under Ms. Jung, the Securities and Exchange Commission started an investigation to determine whether Avon executives had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by making improper payments to officials of foreign governments. The inquiry is continuing. Investors were so exasperated that on a conference call in October, a Citigroup analyst, Wendy Nicholson, told Ms. Jung, “It strikes me that you guys are so totally screwed up in so many ways, the change has to be radical.” In December, Avon announced that Ms. Jung would step aside as chief executive after a replacement was found but remain as executive chairwoman. “We are thrilled to have someone of Sheri’s caliber assuming the leadership of Avon,” Ms. Jung said in a statement. Connie Maneaty, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said she assumed that Ms. McCoy had assurances that she would have the authority she needed to run the company, without meddling from Ms. Jung. “Otherwise, why take it?” she said. Ms. McCoy, who has a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Princeton and an M.B.A. from Rutgers, began her career at Johnson & Johnson in the consumer women’s health unit. She quickly moved up the ranks, overseeing consumer research and development and becoming global president of the baby and wound care business. Later, as a member of a committee overseeing medical devices and diagnostics, she oversaw the business in Latin America, giving her experience in a crucial market for Avon. In her most recent position as worldwide chairwoman of pharmaceuticals, she oversaw the reorganization during a time when the company was managing significant losses of patent exclusivity. Damien Conover, an analyst who tracks Johnson & Johnson for Morningstar, said Ms. McCoy had been successful in focusing on new products in an area of medical need, like stroke prevention and prostate cancer. Johnson & Johnson has also struggled with manufacturing lapses, government inquiries and product recalls, including millions of bottles of children’s liquid Tylenol in 2010.

Johnson & Johnson
McCoy Sherilyn S
Avon Products Inc
Appointments and Executive Changes
Coty Inc


Democrats’ Convention Speakers Will Show Diversity and Stress Inclusion

Abstract: The Democratic Party rolled out its lineup of convention speakers on Friday, promoting a diverse group that it said would offer a sharp contrast to the polarizing message that it expects the Republicans to put forth at their convention in Cleveland next week. The Democratic convention, which begins in Philadelphia on July 25, will start with speeches from Michelle Obama, the first lady, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who competed against Hillary Clinton for the nomination and endorsed her last week . Also speaking on the first night will be Astrid Silva, a Mexican immigrant and young so-called “Dreamer” who benefited from President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , or DACA, policy. The focus of the convention will then shift to families and criminal justice overhaul on its second night, which will feature a speech by former President Bill Clinton. He will be joined by the mothers of police-related violence victims, including Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will make the case for why Mrs. Clinton should take the baton from their administration. Finally, Mrs. Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, will address the delegates on Thursday night. “Just days after Donald Trump’s divisive convention in Cleveland full of dangerous ideas that would pose a danger to our economy and national security, Democrats will lay out the clear stakes in this election between building walls and tearing people down or an optimistic unifying vision for an America that is stronger together,” the Democratic National Convention Committee said in a statement. Although the Democratic convention comes a week after the Republican gathering, the party appears to be ahead in the planning process. The Republican Party has so far only released a list of speakers, not a full schedule, and there has been persistent confusion about who will actually be coming to address the delegates. As one example, Tim Tebow, the retired football star, who was expected to speak at the convention, said on Thursday that it was only “a rumor” and that he would not be coming to Cleveland .

Democrats
Philadelphia
Michelle Obama
Hillary Clinton
2016 Presidential Election
Democratic National Convention,DNC
Barack Obama
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
Joe Biden


Pursuing a Calling That Leads to West Africa

Abstract: Dr. Steven Hatch, an infectious disease specialist in Worcester, Mass., is volunteering at a new Ebola clinic in Suakoko, Liberia, run by the American charity International Medical Corps. Before going, he wrote this essay about his decision to travel there and administer care. Why I Go In nearly every medical school applicant interview, candidates are asked why they want to pursue medicine as a career. Invariably, the answer takes some form of a simple idea: I want to help other people. It is almost impossible to make this answer sound new or genuine or creative, and yet, for the most applicants it is an honest response. I’ve been thinking about this of late because I’m now being asked a similar kind of question from colleagues and friends. You see, I am going to be headed to Liberia shortly to participate in the efforts to control the Ebola outbreak, and — in addition to being asked whether or not I am insane — people want to know why I would willingly seek out such an assignment. It is a legitimate question. Although I think many Americans have magnified the danger that a person like me faces heading into the current chaos of West Africa, it is nonetheless a risky thing to do, and there is the real possibility that something terrible will befall me while I am deployed. Becoming infected with Ebola is only one of a laundry list of hazards I will face. So why do such a rash thing? For starters, I am an infectious disease physician. Many of those who join the ranks of infectious disease do so out of a passion for epidemics, and the awareness of the impact of human behavior and development on disease. In particular, many infectious disease doctors are driven toward international health, and in particular settings where resources are most limited. Even before Ebola came, West Africa was a place where infections were the leading cause of mortality. Global health groups often refer to the “big three” diseases that constitute the major causes of suffering: H.I.V., malaria and tuberculosis. But that is only the beginning in West Africa. There is yellow fever, pneumococcal disease, meningitis, rickettsial infection, streptococcus and a host of other maladies that can shorten lives and bring general misery to a place. Trying to provide long-term solutions to such places is why I became passionate about infectious disease. I read Laurie Garrett’s book “The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance” (an exhaustive and thoroughly well-researched account of the many infections that threaten our lives) prior to medical school almost 20 years ago, and it changed my life. I agreed with her premise that the rapid technological changes to our world may create a host of unintended consequences, that viruses and bacteria will be only too happy to exploit for their own purposes. As someone who chose this particular profession for the reasons why I did, how could I not want to help out? Why do the police put their lives on the line on a daily basis? To preserve order. Why do firefighters run headlong to the fire? To put it out, of course. Ebola is not really different, and it is my fire; along with many other colleagues, I go to put it out. The vast majority of people who pursue these callings do not make the ultimate sacrifice, but they are willing to do so because they believe in something higher than their own lives. I go also for more personal reasons. Last year, I traveled to Monrovia to help kick-start a residency program for the Liberian Ministry of Health. My host was the chief of internal medicine at John F. Kennedy Hospital, a man named Abraham Borbor. I liked him from the moment I met him. He was kind and intelligent and compassionate, and clearly had inspired fierce loyalty among his staff. But what drew me most to him was his sense of humor. After living through a bloody civil war and seeing death on a daily basis, he still was able to be amused at the world around him. He could joke about the fickleness of American and Liberian politicians as much as he found the idea of pouring some warm Coke into his glass of warm beer a source of great amusement — “Well, going the same place anyway,” he observed. He had a rich cackling laugh that had the effect of making you laugh along with him, a contagion of a different sort than what has befallen West Africa of late. Now, because of Ebola, the world will not hear that laugh again. Especially with Dr. Borbor gone, I go to honor the commitment that he made to his profession and to the next generation. He took me into his world and placed a small part of Liberia in me; how could I not go after the disease felled him? We live in a cynical age, where a term like brotherhood can only be uttered sardonically, tossed out as part of a joke making fun of Victorian idealism. But Dr. Borbor became — at least in some meaningful although small way — my brother when I went over there. I go because I owe him something. I go because I do believe in the idea of brotherhood. I go because if I do not, after where I have been and the people I have met, that concept would mean very little. I would very much prefer to return whole, but if I do not, it will be because I could not see any other way forward.

Steven Hatch
Ebola
Liberia
International Medical Corps
Abraham Borbor


A Catch That Caught Reggie Jackson’s Eye

Abstract: CLEARWATER, Fla. — The eighth inning ended Saturday with a low line drive to center field by the Philadelphia Phillies ’ Michael Cervenak. The Yankee wearing No. 95 raced in and speared the ball, just above his shoe tops. The Yankee wearing No. 44 bounded from the dugout and into the clubhouse, raving about what he had seen. “Best athlete in the organization,” Reggie Jackson said, beaming as he spoke about the 21-year-old center fielder Austin Jackson. “He moves better than anybody. A-Rod moved like that five or six years ago. He’s smooth.” As Reggie Jackson, a spring instructor, described the play, he compared Austin Jackson (no relation) with Devon White and Gary Pettis, frequent Gold Glove winners in the 1980s and ’90s. Austin Jackson said he had vaguely heard of White; his baseball hero was a different center fielder, Ken Griffey Jr. But he appreciated the praise. “It feels good, coming from one of the best players in baseball,” Jackson said. “You hear something like that, you know your hard work is starting to pay off.” Jackson has worked exclusively at baseball since the Yankees signed him for $800,000 as an eighth-round draft pick in 2005. He gave up a basketball scholarship to Georgia Tech and excelled when promoted to high-Class A Tampa last summer, hitting .345 with 10 home runs and 13 stolen bases in 67 games. This is his first major league spring training, and Reggie Jackson projected him to arrive in the Bronx in 2010. Austin Jackson said veterans like Derek Jeter had helped him along. “I’ve talked to Jeter about the grind of baseball,” Jackson said. “He said it’s a long road to get there, but it all pays off.” LOOKING GOOD SO FAR Chien-Ming Wang allowed a double to Ryan Howard and no other base runners over two scoreless innings in the Yankees’ 9-3 victory over the Phillies. Shelley Duncan bashed a three-run homer and a two-run double. Alex Rodriguez added his first spring homer. “You don’t set yourself apart this early, you really don’t,” said Duncan, who also made several slick plays at first base. “Shoot, I was out there five innings and it felt like 15. That’s what it’s like in spring training. So you don’t make too much of it.” Wang said he tried to work on his changeup, a pitch he typically threw only two or three times a game last season. He threw four Saturday and is also refining his slider to keep hitters off his power sinker. “Everything is hard, hard, hard — changeup is soft,” Wang said. “I’ve got to get control of it first and then I can use it in the season.” AN OPENING FOR TRABER? Ideally, Manager Joe Girardi has said, he would like a situational left-hander in his bullpen. That could open a spot for Billy Traber, who held left-handers to a .176 average (9 for 51) in 28 games for Washington last season. Traber faced three left-handers Saturday — Geoff Jenkins, Greg Dobbs and Chris Snelling — and retired them all. Traber has started 28 games in the majors but said he would welcome a specialist role. “I just want to be prepared to do anything,” Traber said. “The more jobs you can do and the more versatile you are, the more attractive you can be.” Traber, 28, was the Mets’ first-round pick in 2000 but was traded to Cleveland the next year in the Roberto Alomar deal. He pitched a one-hit shutout against the Yankees in 2003 but had shoulder surgery at the end of that season.

Reggie Jackson
Phillies
Alex Rodriguez
Ken Griffey Jr


Relocated Iditarod Begins

Abstract: Mushers in the Iditarod began their 1,000-mile trek across Alaska on a new route after poor trail conditions led organizers to push the race’s start north. The race has usually begun in Willow, Alaska, but because of a lack of snow, officials decided to move the entire route around the Alaska Range to Fairbanks, 225 miles to the north.


Former Top Banker Testifies in Spain Behind Closed Doors

Abstract: MADRID — Rodrigo Rato, a former top banking official in Spain and a former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, on Thursday became the most prominent banker to appear in a Spanish court since the start of the country’s financial crisis. Mr. Rato was called to answer accusations that he and fellow directors at the Spanish bank Bankia presented misleading accounts for the company. He testified behind closed doors for nearly three hours and did not make a public statement afterward. Mr. Rato, the former executive chairman of Bankia, and 32 other former executives and board members were named in a criminal investigation that was ordered this year by a judge from the Spanish National Court. Neither Mr. Rato nor the other executives have been formally charged with any crime. But prosecutors have accused Mr. Rato and the others of presenting inaccurate accounts when Bankia became a public company in July 2011. In his court appearance, Mr. Rato denied any wrongdoing. Instead, he argued that the government and the central bank had pressured Bankia to proceed with the stock listing, according to a person with knowledge of the testimony who declined to be identified discussing confidential proceedings. Mr. Rato, who is also a former finance minister, appeared before Parliament in July to answer similar accusations. At the time, he rejected any suggestion that he or other directors had ignored or hidden Bankia’s collection of bad loans. The government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy nationalized Bankia in early May, two days after Mr. Rato resigned from the bank. A month later, after Bankia’s new management announced that the lender needed 19 billion euros, or $25 billion, in additional capital, Madrid negotiated a 100 billion euro rescue package for the country’s banking industry. That rescue operation is still under way. On Thursday, the European Commission cleared the restructuring plans of four smaller lenders — Banco Mare Nostrum, Caja España-Caja Duero, Caja3 and Liberbank — that were also left with an unsustainable burden of bad property loans after Spain’s construction bubble burst. The commission has been reviewing the bailouts of the ailing banks to ensure that the government aid does not distort competition in the financial industry. In connection with the reviews, the commission has demanded that the banks make significant cuts. Spanish banks are set to receive 39 billion euros of the 100 billion euros authorized. The banks have already received 13 billion euros of Spanish government aid since 2010 to help them stay afloat. Bankia’s stock price has dropped since its initial public offering of stock. Many other investors have also incurred losses on preference shares, a type of convertible debt that Bankia and other banks sold mainly to their retail clients. Mr. Rato was confronted on Thursday by a large group of protesters. Some of them screamed insults at him as he made his way into the courthouse. Bankia’s collapse has had political repercussions because the lender has longstanding ties to Mr. Rajoy’s governing Popular Party. Mr. Rato was finance minister in a previous conservative administration, alongside Mr. Rajoy, who was interior minister the time. Bankia was the product of a merger of seven cajas, or savings banks, that was engineered as part of a government-directed consolidation of the industry. Bankia’s initial offering was been hailed in Spain as proof that the financial industry could overcome the consequences of a decade of reckless property lending. Instead, Bankia ended up reporting a loss of almost 4.5 billion euros in the first half of this year, a record for a Spanish bank.

Spain
Bankia SA
Banking and Financial Institutions
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Rato Rodrigo
Frauds and Swindling


Film Forum Celebrates the Old-School Newsroom

Abstract: Didn’t anyone ever tell Bruce Goldstein that newspapers are dead, or on their way? Of course people did, said Mr. Goldstein, who is the director of repertory programming at the Film Forum , the theater on West Houston Street where old movies go to live. That is why he put together, starting on Friday, a four-week festival of films focused on a faded world of news diggers, gossip mongers, scoop hounds, pipe artists, scandal chasers and sob sisters . And those are the more savory types who populated newsrooms before guys ditched their fedoras — most of them, anyway — and everyone started calling themselves, ahem, journalists. “I wanted to do this series before there were no newspapers to write about,” Mr. Goldstein said. “That’s my running joke,” he added. “I know you don’t want to hear it.” That’s O.K. We’re used to it by now. We’re planning to stick around all the same. But it’s not bad to show newspaper life as it once was, or at least as it once looked to Hollywood writers, many of them refugees from the copy desk and rewrite bank. Top of the heap was Ben Hecht. His 1928 play “The Front Page,” written with Charles MacArthur, became a 1931 film classic. “The Front Page” was one reason that Mr. Goldstein had to wait to create this series. Until recently, he couldn’t find a print. But “The Front Page” is not first up. That distinction goes to Billy Wilder’s scathing take on the news business, “Ace in the Hole” (1951). Kirk Douglas plays a thoroughly unscrupulous reporter who keeps a man trapped in a cave to milk every column inch out of a terrific story. “I can handle big news and little news,” the Douglas character says. “And if there’s no news, I’ll go out and bite a dog.” “He’s the ne plus ultra of cynical newspapermen,” Mr. Goldstein said. “The film’s totally cynical. It’s antieverything.” There are nobler types on display as well, like James Stewart’s crusading reporter in “Call Northside 777” (1948) and Humphrey Bogart’s fearless editor in “Deadline U.S.A.” (1952), voted the best newspaper movie ever in an Editor & Publisher poll of readers last year. The series closes on May 6 with “All the President’s Men” (1976), about a couple of gutsy reporters on some newspaper in Washington. But face it: Good news is no news. The wisenheimers and scalawags provide the finger-snap pace, from “It Happened One Night” (1934) to “Sweet Smell of Success” (1957). Newspaper movies were important to Hollywood’s evolution in the 1930s, Mr. Goldstein said. “The newsroom was a beehive of activity, which lent itself beautifully to movies,” he said. “You bring the camera in, and there’s instant activity, instant energy. The dialogue is double quick. The early talkies were very slow and very stodgy. All of a sudden, you have something like ‘The Front Page.’ The reporters are juggling two phones, one in each ear. Everything is double-paced.” Might comparable films be made today about the blogosphere? It’s hard to imagine, Mr. Goldstein said. “The bloggers are isolated people,” he said. “There’s not this interaction that you get with newspapers.” This has been a good week for movie retrospectives. On Tuesday, Parsons the New School for Design began a free weekly presentation of films based in New York that inspired fashion trends. The opener was Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” (1977), with Diane Keaton memorably dressed in felt hat, tie, white shirt and trousers. “ ‘Annie Hall’ became a look — L-o-o-k, capital L — the way nothing else did,” said Judith Thurman, a writer for The New Yorker, who introduced the film at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, on West 12th Street. The 1970s New York is itself a character — “a bankrupt, dangerous, incredibly exciting city,” Ms. Thurman said. The city also looms large in a movie that will not play in the Film Forum series: “The Paper” (1994). It crackles with New York tabloid energy. But it’s too recent, Mr. Goldstein said. Too bad. It’s a lot of fun watching a tabloid editor played by Michael Keaton yelling into the phone after being told he just blew his chance to “cover the world” for a newspaper suspiciously resembling the one you’re reading now. Spraying his rant with an obscenity that you surely know — insert it at will — the Keaton character screams: “Well, guess what? I don’t really care. You want to know why? Because I don’t live in the world! I live in New York City!”

Film Forum
Newspapers
Movies
New York City
Goldstein Bruce