Jewish Settlers Begin Evacuation of Ulpana

Abstract: BEIT EL, West Bank — The rooms are much smaller, with kitchens running along a wall of the salon rather than in a separate space. But freshly potted flowers and trees awaited the new residents on each doorstep. There are no hilltop views, no grassy yards, though neighbors share courtyard patios of the same red brick that formed a path behind the old place. Gas, sewage, water, air-conditioning and electricity — including timers for Shabbat — were all in place on Tuesday as families ousted from the disputed neighborhood known as Ulpana made their way to their new homes down the hill here. The relocation was the most peaceful evacuation of a Jewish settlement from the occupied territories in memory. “You can see they’re making an effort,” Michal Kitay, 23, said of the government as she told movers where to put bookcases and beds. “But it hasn’t got memories. Our home is in Ulpana. We brought both of our babies back from the hospital there.” After months of legal wrangling, political infighting, threats of violence and marathon negotiations, the Ulpana families moved quietly if not willingly on Tuesday, resentful of losing homes they love but grateful that the government had agreed to build 10 times their number in this sprawling religious settlement near the Palestinian city of El Bireh. The evacuation was ordered by Israel’s Supreme Court because 5 of Ulpana’s 14 buildings, housing 30 families, sit on private Palestinian land. Wary of enraging the international community, yet eager to appease the settlers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last week that the Israeli government would add 300 homes here in Beit El and 500 more at settlements elsewhere in the West Bank . And on Tuesday, the government petitioned the court to delay by several months the scheduled July 1 removal of the buildings at Ulpana, in hopes of finding a way to relocate rather than demolish them. So while Palestinians and their supporters saw the court ruling as a moral victory, the practical result is an expansion of the settlement enterprise. Several experts said the agreement further diminishes the prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and some saw the deal as a sign that Mr. Netanyahu was leaning toward a unilateral rather than bilateral approach to the issue, with Israel essentially defining the borders of a future Palestinian state. “Netanyahu is pushing toward a de facto annexation, but without paying the diplomatic price of such blatant violation of international consensus,” Michael Manekin, director of policy for a new research group, the Center for Renewal of Israeli Democracy, wrote in a paper on the subject. “If this position constitutes a move to the center, how exactly does the center differ from the right wing?” Most of the international community considers all the settlements in the West Bank territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war to be illegal. But Israel distinguishes between those built with permits on state land and those constructed on private plots or without authorization. Beit El, about 15 miles from Jerusalem, is seen by most experts as one of the settlements that would be removed if a peace agreement were reached with the Palestinians, making its expansion now more significant. “There is no two-state solution with Beit El,” said Tzaly Reshef, a Jerusalem lawyer who was among the founders of Peace Now, a left-wing group that opposes the settlements. “While Netanyahu may say from here to eternity that the Israelis will negotiate, the Israelis will compromise, what he does on the ground shows his real intentions.” Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, said the prime minister in fact did see Beit El, which was founded in 1977 and now has about 7,000 residents, as “one of those communities that will remain part of Israel,” but he said the Ulpana deal should be seen as separate from the stagnant peace process. “He thinks the fate of these communities must be determined in negotiations,” Mr. Regev said of Mr. Netanyahu. “From the point of view of the prime minister and the government, the fact that we could implement the Supreme Court decision peacefully and avoid violence — that’s a major achievement.” Despite early threats from his right flank that lawmakers would bolt from the governing coalition if Ulpana was evacuated, Mr. Netanyahu seems to have navigated the politics of the situation successfully. But the matter has produced strife within the settler movement. Hard-liners urged confrontation with the Defense Ministry workers who were sent to evacuate the residents, and a veteran settler leader had his tires slashed during a meeting over the weekend. On Tuesday, pamphlets circulated criticizing Beit El’s chief rabbi, Zalman Melamed, who helped negotiate the agreement, and teenage boys hung signs saying “Supreme Court is Sodom” and “Bibi is destroying our country” on construction containers in the new neighborhood. In the evening, about 10 youths tried to occupy one of the evacuated apartments, but Ulpana residents removed them. Dani Dayan, the head of the settlers’ Yesha Council, has called for a vote of confidence in his pragmatic strategy on July 9. “There is, you can call it, a leadership crisis,” said Israel Harel, the founding chairman of Yesha and now a senior fellow at the Institute for Zionist Strategies. “In the general arena, the settlers’ movement made a big victory. But there is a big inner debate about if this compromise should be accepted.” Here in Beit El, that debate played out writ small, as tearful families watched more than 100 workers pack their Talmudic texts and toddlers’ toys into boxes. The movers arrived around 7 a.m., while the men of the settlement were in the middle of morning prayers, their heads covered in prayer shawls. “It is not the first time in history that evil rulings turned into blessings,” Rabbi Melamed told the congregation. “We pray here that this evil will turn into a blessing, with many more homes built on the land of Israel.” The mood through the morning was a mix of somber and frenzied, as cranes hoisted steel cages crammed with furniture and boxes. On the side of one, someone had written, “We are not evacuating by choice, we are evacuating under imposition.” Residents, including months-old babies, wore black T-shirts declaring, “We will be back.” Around noon, the trucks headed down the hill about two miles to a military base that was hastily converted into a neighborhood over the past 21 days. Workers were still connecting telephone lines, and a tractor was still finishing a patio as women wiped down kitchen shelves in the modular yellow stucco buildings known here as “caravillas.” They are about two-thirds the size of the apartments the settlers left behind, and are single-level cottages rather than three-story walk-ups; each is scheduled to have another room added by Aug. 15. Neighbors from Ulpana mostly found themselves side by side in the yet-unnamed new spot, where each front door bore a handwritten welcome sign. Mrs. Kitay, who emigrated from Australia in 2009, said she would first make sure that the cribs and changing table were set up before her 2-year-old daughter and 5-month-old son returned from day care in midafternoon. Then, after bedtime, she would confront the rest of the job, deciding which pieces of their furniture would fit, and which would have to wait in storage until more permanent homes are built. “I made aliyah, I moved to Israel, because of something deep down I didn’t quite understand,” Mrs. Kitay said. “Now I understand. The minute someone tries to take something that you love, you go crazy. I’m going crazy for this land.”

West Bank
Palestinians
Israel
Israeli Settlements


Clinton Says Candidate for Aid Agency Is Tangled in Vetting

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In a rare burst of public frustration with the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she could not announce a new director for the United States Agency for International Development because the candidate was stuck in a lengthy vetting process. “It’s frustrating beyond words,” she declared at a town hall meeting of agency employees. “I pushed very hard, when I knew I was coming here, to get permission from the White House to be able to tell you that help is on the way and someone will be nominated shortly.” “I was unable,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The message came back: ‘We’re not ready.’ ” The White House declined to comment on the matter. The exhaustive vetting process has left posts unfilled across the Obama administration, but the international development agency has been hit particularly hard, with no director since President Obama took office. The administration is expected to name Paul Farmer, a Harvard physician who is also an anthropologist and who has run public health programs in Haiti and Rwanda. Mrs. Clinton said several people had declined the job, now filled by an acting director, because the financial and personal reporting requirements were so onerous. “I mean, it’s ridiculous,” she said. “Some very good people just didn’t want to be vetted.” The process has become more demanding in the Obama administration, with candidates required, for example, to list every place they have lived since age 18.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)


Looking for Reasons for David Dewhurst’s Failure to Win Big

Abstract: Ross Ramsey, the managing editor of The Texas Tribune, writes a regular column for the Tribune. Even with nine candidates in the Republican primary to replace United States Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, just about everybody bet on Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to win outright. Instead, he is in a runoff against Ted Cruz, the former state solicitor general, an energetic opponent who tapped into the anti-establishment vein in the Texas Republican Party . Mr. Dewhurst is still the front-runner, but he is no longer the inevitability presented throughout the spring. And now the spotlight is brighter. Mr. Dewhurst and Mr. Cruz don’t have to compete for attention with a presidential race or contests in other states. National political reporters looking for things to cover are more likely than normal to be planning visits to the Texas barbecue trail. They — like the people they cover — are trying to connect the dots this election year, to figure out whether there is any theme or trend in the results. Did Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, a six-term United States Senator, lose his seat because of some conservative uprising or did he just fall out of sync with the state that elected him? Was that a result of the Tea Party ’s support of Richard Mourdock or was it about some idea that the guy representing the state ought to have a house there? What about Nebraska? Did Deb Fischer win the Republican nomination for United States Senate because she was more conservative than the two statewide officeholders she beat? Or was it because those two front-runners knocked each other’s brains out and she was the only candidate still standing at the end? Does the recall election in Wisconsin mean anything? Gov. Scott Walker faced down an effort by the state’s unions and Democrats to undo his 2010 election. Some see that as a reaffirmation of the conservative movement that put him in office. Is the Texas race connected? Are there signs that the establishment is crumbling and that insurgent conservative partisans are taking over the Republican Party? Maybe. The folks in the Cruz control room are hoping so, and you can certainly expect them to hype that story line. Mr. Cruz — who had never previously sought public office and acquired most of his experience as a lawyer in government service — received more advertising and organizing support, in terms of spending, from the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks than from his own campaign. If he can keep those and other outside groups interested through the July 31 runoff, he may have the resources to compete with Mr. Dewhurst. History is on Mr. Dewhurst’s side. Statewide candidates who collect votes as he did — 44.6 percent in the first round — almost always win their runoffs in Texas elections. But Mr. Dewhurst ran like an incumbent. He skipped most of the candidate forums around the state this year, opting instead to speak on his own and in his advertising. To someone paying less than full attention, he appeared to be an officeholder seeking another term. That story line about the insurgents isn’t a great one for him. The Dewhurst camp will point to the nine candidates on the ballot, to the fact that three of them — Mr. Dewhurst, Mr. Cruz and former Mayor Tom Leppert of Dallas — advertised heavily. And they will point to the relative prominence of a fourth candidate, Craig James, who played professional football and worked as an ESPN analyst. It’s worth noting that Mr. Cruz, Mr. Leppert and Mr. James snagged a combined 51 percent of the primary vote. This is even more interesting: In early voting, Mr. Dewhurst got 48 percent of the vote to Mr. Cruz’s 30 percent. On Election Day, Mr. Dewhurst’s advantage was skinny; he received 41.5 percent while Mr. Cruz got 38.1 percent. One more: The non-Dewhursts — Mr. Cruz, Mr. James and Mr. Leppert — received a combined 47.6 percent during the two weeks of early voting; on May 29, they got 54.4 percent. Put another way, Mr. Dewhurst tied his three chief rivals in early voting, but they clobbered him on Election Day. Maybe the connecting dots that matter here don’t go through Indiana, Nebraska and Wisconsin. It’s worth looking at the timeline instead of the map. After delayed primary dates and months of campaigning and advertising, Texans finally got to vote. From the middle of May, when voting began, to May 29, Mr. Dewhurst’s numbers got worse. Mr. Cruz’s got markedly better. Now they are both in a position to find out what will happen over an extra nine weeks.

Texas
Senate
Republican Party
Elections
Dewhurst David
Cruz Ted
United States Politics and Government


Wall St. Sees Silver Lining in Economy

Abstract: As Wall Street rallied this week, it seemed that investors were taking comfort in the notion that the economy had become so imperiled by the crumbling housing market that it was forcing the government to finally mount an aggressive rescue effort. Investors found reassurance yesterday in talk that the White House was brokering a deal with banks that could diminish a looming tidal wave of home foreclosures. Soothing words from the Federal Reserve earlier this week revived the hope that more interest rate cuts are on the way, drowning nervousness in a din of buying. “The market now feels comfortable that the Fed has come to appreciate the severity of the situation,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the brokerage and advisory firm ITG. “The bad news gives you the blessing of lower interest rates.” But even as investors took heart in palpable signs that the government was preparing to dole out more medicine for the ailing economy, a number of economists cautioned that the pain itself was still unfolding, with its ultimate magnitude far from known. Signs point to a slowdown in the creation of jobs and investments by companies. Consumers are clutching their wallets more tightly. Banks are denying loans to many businesses, unwilling to bet scarce capital in a time of risk and uncertainty. A glut of unsold homes keeps prices falling and the construction industry in distress. And even the sharp fall in the price of oil, which offered the comfort that higher energy costs might be easing, reflects a broader fear that global economic activity may slow as growth falters in the United States. Looming large over the landscape is uncertainty about the size of losses still confronting banks and other financial institutions as they reckon with bad mortgages along with credit card debts, auto loans and the complex detritus of an era of loose money now over. “It’s a sucker’s rally,” said Nouriel Roubini, a former Treasury official who runs an economic consultancy, RGE Monitor. “The market is essentially hoping the Fed can rescue the economy. But they are discounting the onslaught of really lousy economic news.” The price of oil, which only last week threatened to break through $100 a barrel, closed yesterday at $88.71, completing its steepest weekly plunge in the last two years. Cheaper oil blunts the threat of inflation, adding to the sense that the Fed has room to take interest rates lower without worrying about setting off an upward price spiral. But the lower price also reflects the view of investors who now expect a substantial American economic slowdown, which would ease the pressure of the rising demand for energy. “The market is realizing how much of a train wreck the economy is right now,” said John Kilduff, an energy analyst at MF Global in New York. There are plenty of reasons, of course, to count on the economy’s inherent countervailing forces to ultimately help restore it to health. Lower interest rates should indeed spur more economic activity. A falling dollar has helped spur American exports and curb imports, contributing to a narrower trade deficit. And if the banks really do sign on to the deal the Bush administration is pushing to keep lower rates in place for subprime mortgages, that should keep a lot of people from losing their homes. Yet many of the forces gnawing at the economy remain in place, and actually appear to be intensifying. The trajectory was reinforced by data released yesterday, which showed that Americans now have less money in their pockets and are less inclined to spend. Personal income grew at a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.2 percent in October compared with September, the Commerce Department reported. That was only half the rate expected. Consumption grew a paltry 0.2 percent, dropping from the 0.3 percent increase registered in September. Construction spending plummeted at double the anticipated pace. Perhaps more ominously, a government report released yesterday suggested that the number of jobs created in the spring was far smaller than previously assumed. The economy generally needs about 125,000 new nonfarm jobs each month to absorb newcomers entering the labor force and employ those who have lost work, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com . In 2006, the economy was still creating about 200,000 positions a month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But in the first 10 months of this year, the number slipped to 125,000. On Friday, the government is to disclose how many nonfarm jobs were created in November. Mr. Zandi and many economists expect the number to fall to about 75,000. “That will erode confidence in the economy,” he said. “It becomes self-reinforcing, and the economy will slide into recession.” If the economy does land in recession, “that would mean we’re going to lose a million jobs over a two-year period,” predicted Alan D. Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price Associates in Baltimore. Whether the economy can avoid that fate, Mr. Levenson suggested, may ride on whether the words of comfort the market heard this week turn out to be sincere. The Fed has to drop rates enough to break the financial logjam and encourage businesses and households to borrow and spend anew. The White House has to deliver a deal that really will prevent millions of families from losing their homes, he said. “If the president puts his seal on it, that would tell me the grown-ups are in charge,” Mr. Levenson said.

Interest Rates
Credit
United States Economy
Economic Conditions and Trends
Stocks and Bonds
Federal Reserve System


Pocono Raceway Becomes Solar-Powered

Abstract: LONG POND, Pa. — Doc Mattioli is 85 and does not get around his racetrack in the mountains quite as well as he used to. Even 10 years ago, he would hop into a bulldozer to take care of a rough spot. Now he must use a wheelchair, and his once-booming voice seems several decibels softer. But there he was on Friday, on a muddy, 25-acre patch outside Pocono Raceway, celebrating an accomplishment with his great-grandchildren. Pocono Raceway, carved out of a former asparagus farm 40 years ago, became what it says is the world’s largest solar-powered sports facility. In the background, stock cars buzzed around the racetrack, practicing for Sunday’s 500-mile Nascar Sprint Cup race. Mattioli’s unique, triangular track has been criticized by drivers over the years — even later Friday afternoon — but they keep returning. “When I hear these negative reports, I say, ‘Well, then, why do you come back? If you don’t like it, why are you coming back?’ ” Mattioli said. “There’s always somebody criticizing when you’re in a business like this.” He paused, smiled and said: “I’ve been hearing this for 30 years. I just laugh.” The solar farm, which The Associated Press reported cost $16 million, will power the racetrack and 1,000 nearby homes. This was not the brainstorm of Mattioli, a former Philadelphia dentist who is rarely called by his given name, Joseph; it was the idea of his 34-year-old grandson, Brandon Igdalsky, now the track president. But Igdalsky had to get Mattioli’s blessing. Igdalsky and George Ewald, the track superintendent, said they were thinking about a much more modest solar project until Mattioli said they could use a cleared parcel of land once used as parking lots for the track. Other work is about to begin at Pocono. After Sprint Cup cars race around the track on Sunday for the 66th time, obsolete steel guardrails will be removed. Soft walls known as Safer barriers will be erected. Igdalsky said the renovation would have been done faster had the Sprint Cup Series not just been here in June. Before practice on Friday, Kevin Harvick, the Sprint Cup points leader, said he was glad to learn that Pocono planned a renovation. A week earlier, before a race at Indianapolis, Harvick said Pocono had the worst barriers of any Sprint Cup track. Igdalsky is not shaken by remarks like that. “You can’t get better if you don’t get criticism,” he said. And Harvick had something positive to say about the aging, bumpy racetrack at Pocono. “It’s not like Indy, where everything is dead smooth,” he said. “We’re going to have some character in the racetrack to work on this week.” The drivers would also welcome having more of the infield paved, especially after witnessing what happened to Kasey Kahne’s car on June 6 in the last race here . Kahne’s car, which was blocked entering a corner, lost traction on the infield grass and skipped back onto the track. It was hit hard by several other cars and nearly flipped over the outside wall at the track, which is lined with a row of short trees. Kahne was not injured, but the driver Greg Biffle said in a July interview with Sports Illustrated, “They’re going to kill someone there.” On Friday, Jimmie Johnson, the four-time Sprint Cup champion, said of Kahne, “I mean, he could have been out there in the trees.” Johnson also said: “Not just this track, but I don’t think grass has any purpose inside the walls of a racetrack any more. There’s no friction to slow down the vehicle, and then the cars just hammer the wall when that’s the case.” Pocono is hardly the only pincushion for drivers’ complaints. And drivers seem to be grumbling a little less than they did even earlier this season. Part of the reason is that word leaked last week that Nascar fined two drivers , Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin, for making detrimental comments about the sport, which has been hit hard by the poor economy. At a news conference Friday afternoon, Tony Stewart, an owner and driver who has been critical in the past, said, “We’re all shooting ourselves in the foot because we’re convincing some people this stuff is bad.” Igdalsky said that criticisms of the track were, in a way, appreciated. When he and Mattioli were asked in separate interviews how often they thought about improving the facilities, they had the same answer: constantly. Nascar is expected to return for two more races in 2011. Ticket sales for this weekend’s race, Igdalsky said, were good. On Friday, Mattioli had a cutting-edge solar farm to show the public. Maybe that would not improve the racing on Sunday, but he said it would make an impression on the four generations of his family that attended. “And that, to me, makes it worth the whole thing,” Mattioli said.

Pocono Raceway
Solar Energy
Automobile Racing
National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing


As Online Data Theft Escalates, Banks Look to Retailers to Bear the Losses

Abstract: On Sept. 1 last year, the website Rescator, known as the “Amazon.com of the black market,” alerted its customers that huge quantities of stolen debit and credit card data would go on sale the next day. “Load your accounts and prepare for an avalanche of cash!” the website urged. The next day, two batches of cardholder data were reportedly sold, according to legal documents. The website claimed the cards were 100 percent valid and working. Demand was so high that the website temporarily crashed. Over the next few days, several more batches of card data were sold. On Sept. 8, Home Depot issued a news release admitting its data systems had been breached. By then, the damage had been done. Approximately 56 million sets of card data had been stolen, some of which were sold on the black market and remained valid for several days. At a small credit union in California, fraudulent charges of more than $100,000 were posted in just three minutes after the card information was sold on the black market. A bank reported $300,000 in suspicious charges in two hours to the security blog Krebs on Security , which connected Home Depot with the stolen cards before the retailer did. “With the Home Depot data breach, we weren’t even told for days that it existed. That it had happened,” said Diana Dykstra, the chief executive of the California and Nevada Credit Union Leagues. “We didn’t know that the cards had been sold on the black market. It hit credit unions and small banks really hard.” A year later, the full tally of the Home Depot data breach remains unknown. Some estimate the fraudulent charges total well into the billions of dollars. Over the last couple of years, retailing has been a rich hunting ground for online criminals. They hacked into numerous companies, including Neiman Marcus, Sally Beauty and the crafts store Michaels. But the orchestrated theft at Target in late 2013, followed a few months later by the Home Depot data breach, eclipsed all of the others. So far, there have been no arrests in the Target and Home Depot breaches. As the size and scope of such attacks at retailers has grown, so have the losses, which have been largely shouldered by financial institutions. Now some small banks and others want Home Depot and those companies that suffer data breaches to pay. One front of the battle is a federal lawsuit winding through the courts, filed by a number of small community banks and credit unions that contend Home Depot long ignored internal and external warnings from security experts that its systems were vulnerable to attack. A similar lawsuit against Target claims that its security protocols were “so deficient that the breach continued for nearly three weeks while Target failed to even notice it.” That lawsuit was given class-action status this month by a federal judge in Minnesota. But even as the lawsuits move forward, retailers are scrambling to meet a deadline to install machines to read E.M.V. microchips — the small metallic rectangles increasingly found on the front of credit and debit cards, named after Europay, MasterCard and Visa, the original backers of the standard. After Thursday, retailers that have not upgraded their systems to read the new chip-enabled cards will be liable for any charges from counterfeit cards. “Essentially, whoever has the lower level of security will be the one who will be responsible for the unauthorized transaction,” said Doug Johnson, a senior vice president of payments and security policy at the American Bankers Association. For now, that’s likely to remain the banks. By some estimates, only 19 percent of credit and debit cards in circulation will be chip-enabled by the deadline. “It cuts both ways,” Mr. Johnson acknowledged. “If we don’t deploy the chip cards, we maintain the liability that we have currently.” Image A Walmart Supercenter in North Bergen, N.J. Retailers are supposed to be able to handle the new chip cards by Thursday. Walmart was ready almost a year ago. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times Retailers and banks are spending billions of dollars to upgrade to the new chip cards . While they hope the cards will slam the door on criminals obtaining financial data that can be used to create and sell counterfeit cards, they warn that other windows for fraud will remain wide open. “The expectation is that organized criminals are going to move from the physical world to the online world,” said David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, which tracks card industry data. Credit card fraud losses totaled $8 billion last year, but many consumers may see it as a victimless crime. Certainly there is a high hassle factor around reporting suspicious transactions to the bank or waiting for a reissued card to be mailed, but consumers are generally not held responsible for the fraudulent charges that occur. (Furthermore, experts say while consumers were nervous after the Target and Home Depot data breaches, there is no evidence that they shifted their spending patterns to use cash rather than plastic.) Instead, a majority of the fraud losses are absorbed by financial institutions, which have become increasingly concerned as the sweep of data breaches at retailers widens. Historically, when a credit or debit card number was stolen and used to buy goods elsewhere, the banks or financial institutions digested the losses. Then, in cases where the retailer was found to be in breach of security standards, Visa and MasterCard would seek reimbursement for costs associated with the fraud and disburse that money back to the affected financial institutions through a preset formula. In 2007, for instance, TJX Companies, the owner of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores, settled with Visa and others for $40.9 million to cover costs associated with a large data breach. But small community banks and credit unions say the disbursement of any money collected from retailers rarely, if ever, makes it to their doors. Most goes to large banks. “We’ve not received any payments at all for any fraudulent activity,” said Marques Doppler, the chief executive of Profinium, a 140-year-old family-owned bank with four branches in Southern Minnesota and around $350 million in assets. Mr. Doppler declined to say how much Profinium, which is one of the plaintiffs in the Home Depot litigation, lost to fraudulent charges. For small community banks like Profinium or nonprofit credit unions, a little fraud can hurt in a big way. “A $100,000 fraud loss to a large financial institution is nothing. But a lot of credit unions have annual net income that is less than $1 million. If you take a couple of big fraud hits, that’s substantial for them,” said Bill Hampel, chief policy officer and chief economist with the Credit Union National Association. Moreover, it can cost small banks or credit unions much more to reissue cards involved in a data breach. The average cost to reissue cards affected by the Target breach, according to a survey of banks conducted by the A.B.A. last summer, ranged from $2.70 per card for large banks to $12.75 for banks with less than $1 billion in assets. So a number of community banks and credit unions filed lawsuits against Target and Home Depot, seeking bigger payouts. How Many Times Has Your Personal Information Been Exposed to Hackers? Find out which parts of your identity may have been stolen in major hacking attacks over the last four years. In the case of Home Depot, the lawsuit alleges that the retailer had ignored multiple warnings about its vulnerabilities since 2008. The suit says Home Depot failed to turn on a feature of the 2007 version of Symantec antivirus software specifically designed to spot malware that attacks point-of-sale terminals. Symantec’s contractors grew so concerned about Home Depot’s approach to security that three of them refused to continue to work for the company and Symantec threatened to cease doing business with Home Depot, according to the lawsuit. When an employee in 2010 discovered a major security flaw that allowed unauthorized access to Home Depot’s network through devices used by its in-store sales force, the employee was ignored for months. Then he was fired, the lawsuit alleges. Starting around April 2014, hackers gained access to Home Depot’s computer systems using the credentials of a third-party vendor. Targeting the self-checkout registers, the hackers installed malware that siphoned off the information from a payment card when it was swiped on a checkout terminal. The malware remained on Home Depot’s terminals for five months, until around Sept. 7, 2014. Home Depot has broadly denied the allegations. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there about this, much of it based on speculation, rumors and opinion by individuals who don’t have the facts, and we’ll address them in the proper forum,” said Stephen Holmes, a spokesman for Home Depot. But the data breach has been costly for the retailer. In regulatory filings, Home Depot said expenses tied to the breach so far total $232 million, partly offset by $100 million in insurance proceeds. Lawyers say a good insurance policy will cover expenses related to investigating the data breach, public relations, call-center services and credit monitoring services as well as costs arising from lawsuits. The challenge for retailers is buying enough of it. “If you’re a retailer, it’s hard to buy more than $125 million in coverage in today’s market,” said Roberta D. Anderson, a co-founder of the Cyber Law and Cybersecurity practice group at the K&L Gates law firm. “Obviously, the potential liability is so much more.” Even as the lawsuit against Home Depot moves forward, the retailer and others are spending billions of dollars — $100 million at Target alone — to upgrade their registers to accept chip-enabled cards. Home Depot says all of its stores will be ready to read chip cards by the Thursday deadline. The retailing giant Walmart says its stores were chip-ready almost a year ago. Everyone is hoping that the new chip cards will be much tougher for counterfeiters to copy. Among the new security features is a cryptogram, a security code that changes every time the card is used. But retailers, who have a longstanding feud with Visa and MasterCard over fees, are not happy to be bearing the brunt of the costs to install the new chip readers at their stores (some estimate retailers will spend upward of $30 billion over the next few years) to solve what they see as the bank’s problem. Moreover, they say they do not know why the financial industry in the United States is largely issuing chip-and-signature cards rather than the safer chip-and-PIN cards that have been widely adopted in Europe. “Signature is worthless as a form of authentication” at the point of sale, Mike Cook, an assistant treasurer and senior vice president at Walmart, told attendees during an electronic transactions conference in San Francisco this spring. In the cases of the Target and Home Depot breaches, he said, “not a single PIN debit card needed to be reissued in those breaches. The card number was worthless to the individual thief and fraudsters, because they didn’t know the PIN.” The card payment industry argues the new cards will offer better protection against counterfeiting, which they say accounts for the bulk of the fraudulent transactions. “They also don’t want you to have to remember PINs,” said Mr. Robertson of The Nilson Report. “The reality of the U.S. market, which is distinct from everywhere else in the world, is that we have an average of 4.5 credit cards per person. That’s a lot of PINs to remember.”

Retail
Credit card
Home Depot
Debit card
Hacker (computer security)
Computer security
Banking and Finance
Identity Theft


Pro-Qaddafi Forces Press Rebels East and West of Tripoli

Abstract: AJDABIYA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi cranked up military and psychological pressure on the rebels on Monday, offering amnesty to those who surrendered their weapons but bombing a strategic linchpin in the east and invading a rebel-held town in the west. Government warplanes launched fresh strikes against this anxious town on the doorstep of the opposition capital, Benghazi, and almost abreast of a highway crucial to recapturing the eastern border and encircling the rebels with heavy armor and artillery. Residents of Zuwarah, an isolated city near the Tunisian border in the west, told Reuters that the pro-Qaddafi forces that surrounded them three days before had taken control. “Zuwarah is in their hands now,” said one resident, Tarek Abdallah. “They control it and there is no sign of the rebels. They are now in the center — the army and the tanks.” The developments came against a background of quickening diplomatic debate over possible outside help for the Libyan rebels, who have made increasingly anxious pleas for intervention that have, so far, produced none. The United Nations Security Council took up the contentious question of a no-flight zone on Monday, but no decision was reached. In recent days, the rebels have asserted that the retreat of their forces is a tactical choice rather than a desperate measure, and that they are reorganizing to inject more experienced fighters into the ranks. At the same time, their unrelenting calls for the no-flight zone — at news conferences, on banners and even in the face paint of protesters — have made clear that the rebel leadership holds out little hope of its ragtag army defeating the colonel’s loyalists on its own. In a welcome turn for the rebels, who have asked for military assistance, including airstrikes, from Western powers, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with unnamed opposition leaders in a Paris hotel room after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries in the Group of 8 — the first such high-level meeting. In Benghazi, the vice chairman of the interim opposition ruling council, Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, said a rebel representative would use the meeting with Mrs. Clinton to demand quicker intervention. Inaction, Mr. Ghoga warned, “would have negative results on our future relations with the West.” Apparently seeking to undermine the rebels’ determination to continue their fight, government authorities on Monday repeated an offer of amnesty for combatants who give up their weapons, Reuters said, quoting state television. The response was not immediately clear. West of Tripoli, loyalists appeared to be tightening their siege of other rebel-held areas, following a brutal week of battle in which they recaptured — and nearly demolished — the strategically important town of Zawiyah. The legacy of that battle haunted the residents of Zuwarah, a Berber town of about 40,000 people. “We know what happened in Zawiyah, and we think that the same thing is going to happen here soon,” one resident said, speaking anonymously to protect himself and his family from retribution. “They say that if you take down the flag, we will let you live,” he added. “Maybe we will fight, but we will have a lot of casualties.” On the eastern front, amid conflicting claims by the rebels and loyalist forces, the battle lines were hard to locate. The government said on state television that its troops controlled Brega, The Associated Press reported. At the same time, Mr. Ghoga said that rebel soldiers were still fighting in the city, particularly at night, and that on Sunday they had captured more than two dozen loyalist fighters there. But he did not provide any proof of that claim. As the fighting nears Benghazi, Libya ’s second-largest city, rebel leaders, reacting to criticism of their battlefield performance, have contended that they may still have a chance: Colonel Qaddafi’s forces, they contend, are overextending their lines as they push rebels back and might be running short of fuel. Mr. Ghoga said the rebels were not facing a similar fuel shortage. And in an interview on Sunday evening, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, the country’s former interior minister and now the head of the rebel army, said the rebels still retained a sizable fighting force, though he said a no-flight zone was still a necessity. General Younes, the former commander of the special forces, said thousands of officers from that unit were now being recalled and mobilized. He said the rebels also had about 100 working tanks that had not yet been deployed. “The time will come,” he said. There was an eerie calm in Ajdabiya, a strategic town about 100 miles south of Benghazi that has braced for an attack by forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi. Some lines formed at bakeries, and a few cars were seen transporting residents out of the city. Soviet-made warplanes struck a military barracks at the edge of Ajdabiya that has housed the rebels, who seem, at least anecdotally, to be making an effort to bring discipline to their unruly ranks. One blast struck a guard post at the barracks, spraying shards of green glass around the entrance. The other detonated just feet away from a pile of ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades, which did not go off. Hospital officials said five people were wounded, one of them seriously. At the entrance to Ajdabiya, marked by two metal arches, rebels have built dirt fortifications and filled hundreds of sandbags. Ammunition boxes scattered around a courtyard were moved inside or toward fighting near Brega. Rebel leaders repeatedly urged the civilians to leave the entrance, where reporters’ access was limited. “If he takes Ajdabiya, he will win,” said Yunes Mohammed, an oil safety official milling about with a crowd at the town’s edge, where strong winds swept up sand. “His people can go from here to Benghazi. But the people of Ajdabiya will fight because we know that if he takes the area, he will kill us all, and we know he has done this before.”

Libya
Military
Arab Spring
Muammar Kaddafi


Stock Gains Defy Reports of Weakness

Abstract: The stock market gained ground last week, despite surging oil prices and sharp declines in consumer confidence and in the construction of single-family homes. Consumer confidence in May was at the lowest level since June 1980, according to a survey by Reuters and the University of Michigan. The Commerce Department said construction of single-family homes in April was at its lowest monthly level since January 1991, although construction of multifamily units rose significantly. Oil futures in New York rose to $126.29 a barrel, a new high, up from $125.96 the previous week. Alcoa gained 10.5 percent for the week, the biggest gain in the Dow Jones industrial average. For the week, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 240.92 points, or 1.9 percent, to close at 12,986.80. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index climbed 37.07 points, or 2.7 percent, to close at 1,425.35. The Nasdaq composite index gained 83.33 points, or 3.4 percent, to close at 2,528.85. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.84 percent from 3.77 percent the previous week. JEFF SOMMER

Stocks and Bonds
Consumer Behavior
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline


Giants’ Tuck Fights Off Frustration

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Justin Tuck does not like what he sees when he looks in the mirror these days, and part of it, admittedly, is the beard. Tuck, a defensive end for the Giants, is locked into what he referred to as “no-shave November,” so there is a certain grizzled quality to his chin and cheeks that was missing before. “I can’t wait until Dec. 1,” Tuck said Thursday, chuckling as he rubbed his face. Still, there is a larger issue beyond Tuck’s stubble. A year ago, Tuck was the star of the Giants’ defense, totaling 11 ½ sacks and 48 solo tackles in 16 games. He went to the Pro Bowl. He was a second-team All-Pro. Now, as the Giants prepare to face the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night, Tuck has spent most of this season as a shell of that player. Tuck has been hindered by injuries to his groin and neck (he has made only four starts), but allowing for his absence does not fully explain his production; he has recorded only two sacks and eight tackles, putting him on pace for his lowest totals since 2006. In a lengthy interview with reporters Thursday, Tuck initially used strong language in describing his poor play and then, later, turned more introspective. “I’m not a very good player right now,” he said. “It’s not the effort. I feel like I’m putting forth the effort, but it’s just some things are not allowing me to play my style of football.” He added: “I’m not me. I’m not.” The drop-off has been glaring. With Tuck and defensive end Osi Umenyiora dealing with injuries earlier this season, the second-year player Jason Pierre-Paul enjoyed a breakout beginning. But there were concerns about how many snaps Pierre-Paul was playing, and once Tuck and Umenyiora returned to full action, it was expected that the Giants would exploit their depth and resume being the dominant unit they have been in years past. That has not happened. Statistically, the Giants are below average this season at stopping the run (ranked 20th out of 32 N.F.L. teams) and are mediocre in yards allowed per game (17th). For Tuck, though, his self-evaluation is based on more than statistics. When it was pointed out that he nearly sacked San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith last Sunday — a play that, had he completed it, might have colored his overall performance differently — he seemed unmoved. “It’s more than that,” he said. “I’ve had games where stats have been great” and he played poorly, and vice versa. Usually a player who combines speed and power to break into the backfield or chase down tacklers, Tuck has seen his injuries limit him because they have lingered. Tuck did not play in four of the first six games this season in hopes of getting completely healthy, but he said Thursday he had determined that was almost impossible while the Giants were still playing. Because of his neck, Tuck is perpetually cognizant of opposing players grabbing or pushing on his face mask — lest his neck get tweaked. His groin injury is not overwhelming anymore but remains a factor, he said. “It’s not that I’m afraid to do things,” he said. “It’s just, some things I can’t do.” Perry Fewell, the defensive coordinator, said the team understood what Tuck was dealing with and that “it is just taking him a little more time than he and we expect.” Fewell added that Tuck’s presence still drew attention away from the Giants’ other ends (Umenyiora and Pierre-Paul have combined for 16 ½ sacks), so Tuck is still contributing. “He was playing at a high level in the preseason before his injury,” Fewell said. “Has he been able to jump back on the bicycle and ride as fast as we want him to ride? No, but I think it is coming.” Tuck, obviously, would prefer it come sooner than later. And with the Giants facing shifty weapons Sunday like running back LeSean McCoy and, perhaps, quarterback Michael Vick, the defense will again be in the spotlight. Tuck — beard and all, at least for another few weeks — would like to be more than just an emotional leader. Victories, he said, help ease his pain. “On days when you lost, the injuries feel a whole lot worse than on days when you win,” he said. EXTRA POINTS The rookie cornerback Prince Amukamara (foot) was not limited in practice for the first time this season, indicating that he could be active for his first game Sunday. ... Eagles quarterback Michael Vick (ribs) did not practice for a second straight day, so the Giants’ defense is preparing for Vick as well as the backups Vince Young and Mike Kafka.

Football
Tuck Justin
New York Giants
Sports Injuries


An Apparel Underdog, Crons, Outfits a No. 15 Seed, Robert Morris

Abstract: PITTSBURGH — Amid the Nike swooshes and Adidas three stripes that dominate the N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments, it may be hard to spot the logo of a little-known company that is squeezing its foot in the door of the $4 billion sports-apparel industry. Crons, which created its name as an acronym from the phrase “ Come ready or never start ,” is based in Pittsburgh and describes what it sells as “motivational apparel.” It is supplying the uniforms and practice gear for Robert Morris University, which is one of only six teams not wearing Nike or Adidas uniforms. Robert Morris, a small, private university of 5,000 students located just outside Pittsburgh, is seeded 15th in the South Region and plays No. 2 Villanova on Thursday. The Colonials are making their second straight appearance in the N.C.A.A. tournament after again winning the Northeast Conference tournament and the automatic bid that went with it. Crons’s founder and owner is Pat Cavanaugh, 42, who played in the N.C.A.A. tournament three times as a walk-on starter at Pittsburgh in the late 1980s. He points out that Robert Morris’s run of success under Coach Mike Rice coincides with their relationship. “All I know is they’ve been making the tournament wearing our uniforms for the past two years,” Cavanaugh said. Cavanaugh may have a hard time proving a direct correlation between new uniforms and a team’s on-court success. But the surprising thing is that Crons — whose name Cavanaugh came up with 15 years ago — is supplying the uniforms and practice gear at all. Two years ago, the university went looking to buy new uniforms. It found that the bigger companies were not willing to do much more than give it different-colored models of uniforms they were already providing to larger programs — and wanted to charge Robert Morris about 30 percent more than Crons. “We get the booklets these other companies produce, and when you look for a new uniform, it’s usually a Syracuse or Kentucky style, and if you choose it, you’re basically wearing their uniform,” Rice said. It also did not hurt that in the intertwined world of college basketball, Rice had a tie to Cavanaugh. Rice was an assistant coach at Pittsburgh before going to Robert Morris three years ago, and had met Cavanaugh there and seen the line of clothing his company made for local Amateur Athletic Union teams. So when Rice asked him what he could do for Robert Morris, Cavanaugh offered a custom look that completely revamped the team’s red, white and blue tops and bottoms, and added red, white and blue horizontal stripes down the sides — a look the team’s players instantly liked. “The guys liked it and people have talked about it, so, yeah, it’s gotten some buzz,” said Rice, who points out that the team still wears Nike sneakers. All but 12 of the other 64 teams in the N.C.A.A. tournament are wearing sneakers from Nike or its Jordan division. And while it may be only anecdotal, other smaller programs also describe similar situations that demonstrate why companies like Crons — beyond its founder’s kinetic personality — are making inroads with teams that previously would have never considered going with anyone but Nike, Adidas, Russell Athletic or even Under Armour. “The landscape of uniforms and shoes is changing,” said Ryan Marks, the coach of Texas-Pan American, which last year became Crons’s second Division I basketball client. “Major schools are bound by the shoe contract of whether the coach is a Nike guy or an Adidas guy, and we never were. But schools like ours also don’t get the shoe allotments or discounts we used to on uniforms.” Rice said, “It’s kind of the haves and have-nots these days, and Crons is taking advantage of that, making quality apparel that’s affordable.” Both Nike and the universities peg that to the economy. In recent years, as the economy has constricted and budgets have become tighter at smaller places in particular, programs have started to look to save wherever they can. At the same time, companies like Nike are putting more emphasis on larger, more visible programs, while giving fewer free goods and smaller discounts to the smaller guys. “With the economy, we’re not immune to it like everyone else,” said Kejuan Wilkins, a Nike spokesman. That is red meat to career salesmen and entrepreneurs like Cavanaugh, who started his first company when he was 21 while he was at Pitt, and has built the Cavanaugh Marketing Network into a $10-million-a-year company. He created Crons in 1996 , and thought initially he would go straight into retail, so he offered his line to Dick’s Sporting Goods, which is based in a Pittsburgh suburb. “They said: ‘Pat, great product. But come back when you have a track record,’ ” Cavanaugh said. So, over the last four years, Cavanaugh has ignored retail sales and focused on selling to high schools, athletic organizations, then small colleges, smaller professional teams and now bigger colleges and conferences. Last fall, he secured a contract to provide league gear — though not individual team uniforms — for all of the teams in the Big South conference. In all, the company has gone from about 20 clients in 2006 to more than 400. It had revenue of more than $2 million last year, which Cavanaugh believes will grow to nearly $8 million this year. Should Nike ($19 billion in revenue last year) and Adidas ($15 billion) be worried? “Oh, no,” said Jim Hartford, chief executive of SportSourceOne, which publishes the trade journal SGB Update. “But then, Nike wasn’t worried about Under Armour until it was too late.”

Crons
Basketball
Uniforms
Robert Morris University
Sneakers
Sporting Goods
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men)
Colleges and Universities
National Collegiate Athletic Assn


Marian Hossa Still Trying to Adjust to Red Wings

Abstract: DETROIT — Red Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom said he had been following the summer’s free-agency period closely, reading articles on the Internet about all the teams that wanted to sign Marian Hossa, the best forward available. Lidstrom said he was as stunned as anyone to find out that Detroit was among them, news he received in a phone call from General Manager Ken Holland when the Red Wings signed Hossa on July 2. It was the kind of deal that seemed unlikely to happen in the era of salary-cap parity. The Red Wings are the defending Stanley Cup champions, already stocked with a dazzling array of talent. They are supposed to lose the best players in the game, not add them. But Lidstrom remains entrenched as the N.H.L.’s best defenseman on the league’s best team, on the same squad as the sublime forwards Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Datsyuk is signed through 2013-14. Zetterberg’s contract is up after this season. That left the Red Wings with some money available until Zetterberg signs a new deal. Hossa decided to forsake longer, more lucrative offers to accept the Red Wings’ offer of one year at $7.45 million. “There are lots of great players, Hall of Famers, so much experience on this team,” Hossa said. “I said, If I have a chance to be on this team, with those players, when are you going to have a chance to play with them? Maybe they will be finished with their careers next time around. That inspired me.” Hossa, 29, steered his journey to Detroit to chase a championship. He is known for his breathtaking offensive skill — he scored 45 goals in 2002-3 and finished with 100 points two seasons ago. But he is also respected for his defensive diligence. He declined to sign a long-term deal with Atlanta last season because of its organizational sputtering and was sent to Pittsburgh at the trade deadline in February. He became instrumental in the Penguins’ push to the Stanley Cup finals, in which they lost to Detroit. His 26 points put him second in scoring for the postseason, only a point behind the leaders, Sidney Crosby and Zetterberg. As inspired as Hossa was by the players who won that series, his new teammates had been impressed by him, too. “He has explosiveness, speed, and he’s got great hands to go with his speed,” Lidstrom said. “When we first signed him, I was thinking about all the great line combinations we could put out there, if we’re going to split Zetterberg and Datsyuk or keep them together. It gives our team another dimension, adding a player of his caliber.” The Red Wings are not off to a blazing start. They are 2-1-1 entering Saturday’s game against the Rangers. They have already lost twice at home, including their opener after the Stanley Cup banner was raised. Their other loss came Thursday, in overtime against Vancouver. Detroit lost only 12 home games last season. But Datsyuk missed most of the preseason with a groin injury and now Zetterberg is out for an estimated 10 days with a similar injury. The Red Wings have learned that it takes time to add such a major piece to their offense, no matter how talented he may be. At its best, Detroit’s offense looks choreographed. The Red Wings play long stretches without giving up the puck; their passes are made with instinctive knowledge of where every player will be. “It takes time to know the system, to get to know how your linemates are playing,” Zetterberg said, referring to Hossa. “He’s been working hard and he’s getting to the right spots. That’s what you have to do when you play with Pavel. He will find you when you’re open. You have to have patience and be in the right spot.” So far, the Red Wings have decided to put Datsyuk, a center, with Hossa at right wing and Tomas Holmstrom on the left. Zetterberg, who spent last season playing on a devastatingly successful line with Datsyuk, was moved to another line, giving the Red Wings new depth they hardly seemed to need. Detroit has everyone back from its championship team, except for goalie Dominik Hasek and forward Dallas Drake, who both retired. It is a veteran-laden group that knows it must keep complacency at bay. “It’s a new season and we will see what we do now,” Datsyuk said. “Yesterday is yesterday. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Let’s work on now.” Opponents can hardly take solace if Hossa and Datsyuk have not created immediate magic. When Hossa joined the Penguins in late February, he was placed on Sidney Crosby’s line, but they struggled to connect for more than a month. Neither Hossa nor Datsyuk has scored a goal, but Holmstrom leads the team with four; Hossa and Datsyuk have combined for seven assists. “There is always an adjustment point,” Hossa said. “With Sid, it didn’t click right away. It took us a little bit of time to get used to each other.” He added: “Obviously, Pavel is an excellent player, Holmer is an excellent player. We’re just learning how to play together. With a little more luck we would have more goals, but I think it’s coming. Every game is better.” And that sparks fear in the rest of the N.H.L.

Hossa Marian
Hockey Ice
Free Agents (Sports)
Detroit Red Wings
National Hockey League


Ford Delays New Pickup in Sign of Retreat on Big Vehicles

Abstract: DEARBORN, Mich. — The Ford Motor Company said on Friday that it would delay introducing its new pickup, a vehicle critical to its plan to become profitable, and that it would probably lose money for a fourth consecutive year in 2009 because of a precipitous drop in demand for large vehicles. Ford said it would begin selling the highly anticipated 2009 version of the F-150 pickup in late fall, two months later than intended, because dealers needed more time to clear out the current model, which had been deeply discounted. In addition, the company announced its second significant production cut in a month, saying it would build 90,000 fewer pickups and sport utility vehicles in the second half of the year than it had previously planned. It is increasing production of more fuel-efficient cars and crossovers, but over all, Ford plans to build 25 percent fewer vehicles in the third quarter than it did in the same period of 2007. Ford said it expected industry sales of 14.4 million to 14.9 million light vehicles, down from its previous projection of up to 15 million. “As gasoline prices average more than $4 a gallon and consumers worry about the weak U.S. economy, we see June industry-wide auto sales slowing further and demand for large trucks and S.U.V.’s at one of the lowest levels in decades,” Ford’s chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, said in a statement. “Ford has taken decisive action to respond to this accelerating shift in customer demand away from large trucks and S.U.V.’s to smaller cars and crossovers.” Two debt-rating services, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, warned on Friday that they might downgrade Ford, along with the other Detroit automakers. Bruce Clark, a senior vice president at Moody’s, said Ford’s ability to finance its reorganization was becoming a concern. Ford said cash outflows would be larger than expected and that its automotive business would lose more money this year than in 2007, the opposite of its previous guidance. “Ford is going to burn a considerable amount of cash until it adequately expands its fleet of fuel-efficient cars and convinces consumers that these vehicles offer competitive value relative to Japanese product,” Mr. Clark said. A liquidity crisis could allow Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire investor, to gain influence at Ford. On Thursday, Mr. Kerkorian said he had increased his stake in the company to 6.49 percent and offered to infuse additional capital. Ford took another step back from its long-held goal of returning to profitability by 2009, saying it would have difficulty breaking even, which is the projection that executives made in late May. Ford lost $2.7 billion over all in 2007 and has not earned a full-year profit since 2005. The automaker said the market had deteriorated to such a degree that its financing arm, Ford Motor Credit, which had been a dependable source of profit, would lose money this year and was no longer planning a distribution payment to Ford in 2008. Ford Credit will have a pretax loss — excluding any potential payment related to Ford’s profit maintenance agreement — primarily because of further weakness in large truck and S.U.V. auction values. Brian Johnson, an analyst at Lehman Brothers, projected that both Ford and General Motors might have to write down the value of their financing arms by at least $1 billion because of falling used-car prices. Shares of Ford declined more than 8 percent Friday, closing at $5.81, and have fallen 31 percent since May 1. G.M. shares were down nearly 7 percent, to $13.79. The F-150 delay increases the likelihood that the F-series will lose its distinction as the best-selling vehicle in the United States after 26 consecutive years. In May, four Japanese sedans, led by the Honda Civic , outsold the F-series, the first time in 16 years that a pickup truck was not the nation’s top seller in any given month. Sales of the F-series fell 33 percent last month and were down 20 percent so far this year. Ford has spent several years and hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, overhauling the F-150, which has generated huge profits and is responsible for a large part of Ford’s image. It is one of two new full-size pickups scheduled to go on sale this fall, along with Chrysler’s 2009 Dodge Ram. Chrysler said it had no plans to delay the Ram’s release. “There’s no better way to fight a slower pickup market than to introduce what we think is a game-changing truck,” a Chrysler spokesman, Bryan Zvibleman, said. G.M., meanwhile, has indefinitely halted plans to revamp its pickups and S.U.V.’s in order to focus on smaller cars. Earlier this month, G.M. announced plans to close four truck plants in North America. Ford is idling its truck plant in Wayne, Mich., for nine weeks starting Monday, though the adjacent car plant is adding workers. The company will eliminate a shift at each of the two plants that build the F-150 and plans to shut one of them for most of the third quarter before starting to build the new F-150. “We view the move to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles as permanent, and we are responding to customer demand,” Mr. Mulally said.

Sales
Ford Motor Co
Automobiles
United States Economy
Utility Vehicles and Other Light Trucks
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Economic Conditions and Trends


Bypassing Resistance, Brazil Prepares to Build a Dam

Abstract: ALTAMIRA, Brazil — For Raimunda Gomes da Silva, the impending construction of a huge hydroelectric dam here in the Amazon is painful déjà vu. About 25 years ago, the building of another dam more than 200 miles east of here flooded her property, driving a plague of poisonous snakes, insects and jaguars onto her land, she said, before submerging it completely. Now, after starting a new life in Altamira, the government is telling her she needs to leave again, this time to make way for the Belo Monte dam, which will flood a large swath of this city, displacing thousands of people. “This dam is a threat to me because I no longer have the energy I once did,” said Mrs. da Silva, 53, whose family of 11 shares a three-bedroom home with banana trees in the back. “We can no longer invest and build another house like this one. For me, this is like throwing away a lot of hope.” But she will have little choice. Initial construction on the Belo Monte dam, which will be the third largest in the world, is slated to begin by next year. Persistent opposition by environmental and indigenous groups , even with help from high-profile figures like the Canadian-American movie director James Cameron , failed to stop the $11 billion project, which will produce electricity for big cities like São Paulo while flooding about 200 square miles of the Xingu River basin. Indigenous communities say the dam will devastate their lands and force about 12,000 from their homes. They say it will reduce the river level, destroying their traditional fishing industry. The city of Altamira, above the dam, faces the opposite problem, with about a third of it to end up under water. Thousands of residents will be relocated. Last week, regional indigenous leaders met here to plan a dramatic occupation of the dam’s construction site, but after four days of discussion failed to produce a consensus, the protest was called off. Members of nongovernmental groups trying to stop the dam are starting to sound resigned. “The groups are still divided,” said Christian Poirier, the Brazil campaign leader for Amazon Watch , who attended the meeting. “There are a lot of political considerations right now for the indigenous leaders. Some have been neutralized by handouts or threats.” The government has pushed hard to ensure that construction on the dam, decades in the planning, would begin before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leaves office at the end of this year. When some of Brazil’s most important private construction and civil engineering companies grew jittery about the financial risks earlier this year, the government raised its investment stake and is now financing more than three quarters of the project. Valter Cardeal, director of engineering for Eletrobrás, Brazil’s state electricity company, said the project would have no negative economic impact on any indigenous community. He acknowledged that there would be reduced water flow downstream, but not enough, he said, to affect fishing. He said Belo Monte would bring “improvements and advances” to indigenous people, including sanitation, better health and education services, and “territorial security” for their lands. As to Altamira, he said people forced to relocate would be compensated and most would benefit. In the low-lying neighborhood of about 700 homes where Mrs. da Silva lives, for instance, some homes are built on stilts to avoid seasonal flooding. Mr. Cardeal said the relocation would lift those residents out of such “precarious, subhuman conditions.” He said that the government would provide assistance to small farmers and that the construction companies had agreed to put $280 million in a sustainable development plan for the region. Such assurances are disputed by dam opponents and many residents. At a meeting in March, indigenous leaders waved bows and arrows, and threatened to go to war to stop the construction. But two tribes, the Xikrin-Kayapó and the Parakanã, have since dropped their opposition, citing concerns about losing government handouts, Mr. Poirier said. He and others involved in the discussions accuse the government utility Eletronorte of trying to divide the indigenous groups by buying off leaders with gifts or threatening to deny their communities health or other services. Mr. Cardeal and a spokesman for Electronorte denied those accusations. Altamira residents are divided. Some are hopeful that the dam will bring jobs and money to this lightly populated municipality, Brazil’s largest. During construction, the dam is expected to provide an estimated 20,000 jobs, although initially, at least, many of the workers will have to come from elsewhere, said Elcirene de Souza, the head of the Altamira federal employment office. She said 90 percent of the work force in Altamira was not qualified for the skilled jobs the project needs. She said she was concerned that the influx of workers would usher in gangs, drugs and crime, as has happened in the building of other dams. Government officials, though, have told residents that they hope to avoid such problems by not creating a separate village for workers, as they have in the past, but incorporating the workers into the city. Already résumés from applicants are flooding in, about 8,200 in the first four months of the year, from at least five Brazilian states, Ms. de Souza said. Residents like Mrs. da Silva, skeptical of government promises of subsidies and relocation packages, are mainly concerned about where they will live. She said the government badly underpaid her for her last house, paying only the cost of construction materials, not the market price. She fears the same will happen again. “When they arrive, they come with a price table showing what they will offer for our house, and we either accept that price or they won’t offer anything else,” she said. “They will tell me how much my house is worth and will not relocate me anywhere else.” She fears for her husband, a fisherman. “He only has two more years left to get his retirement plan, but we aren’t sure if he will be able to fish for another two years,” she said. “Do you think the fish will hang around here? The fish know where to escape to, but us, we need to go where they throw us.”

Brazil
Indigenous People
Politics and Government
Levees and Dams
Hydroelectric Power
Environment


A Gulf in Ocean Knowledge

Abstract: Scientists probably have significantly underestimated how much the world’s oceans have warmed since the 1970s, according to a new study. The finding may force researchers to revise their gauges of some climate change effects, including the rate of sea-level rise. The study , by Paul J. Durack of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and others, found that the underestimation was the result of decades of spotty sampling of water temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere, home to three-fifths of the world’s oceans. Until 2004, when a worldwide system of autonomous floats, called Argo, became operational, there were relatively few temperature measurements south of the Equator. While atmospheric warming because of the trapping of heat by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases has most of the public’s attention, the oceans store far more of this heat. The study showed that the amount of heat absorbed by the top 2,200 feet of the oceans from 1970 to the mid-2000s may be as much as 58 percent higher than previously estimated. “We potentially may have missed a fair amount of heat that the ocean has been taking up,” Dr. Durack said. The researchers looked at global climate models, partitioned between north and south, and found a strong correlation between these simulations and data on sea-surface height as measured by satellites. But the models were not a good match for temperature, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. This suggested that the problem was not with the models so much as with the lack of temperature data before 2004. The study was published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Sea-level rise linked to climate change is related in part to increased melting of ice sheets and in part to the fact that water expands as it warms. So the finding that more heat has been taken up by the oceans may lead to revisions in estimates of the rate of sea-level rise. The finding also may affect assessments of how sensitive the climate is to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the researchers said.

Climate Change
Paul J. Durack
Oceans and Seas
Global Warming
Nature Climate Change Journal
Greenhouse gas


A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish

Abstract: The articles published today and in coming days are based on thousands of United States embassy cables, the daily reports from the field intended for the eyes of senior policy makers in Washington. The New York Times and a number of publications in Europe were given access to the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of articles based on the cables online on Sunday. The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match. The Source of the Material The documents — some 250,000 individual cables, the daily traffic between the State Department and more than 270 American diplomatic outposts around the world — were made available to The Times by a source who insisted on anonymity. They were originally obtained by WikiLeaks , an organization devoted to exposing official secrets, allegedly from a disenchanted, low-level Army intelligence analyst who exploited a security loophole. Beginning Sunday, WikiLeaks intends to publish this archive on its Web site in stages, with each batch of documents related to a particular country or topic. Except for the timing of publication, the material was provided without conditions. Each news organization decided independently what to write about the cables. Reporting Classified Information About 11,000 of the cables are marked “secret.” An additional 9,000 or so carry the label “noforn,” meaning the information is not to be shared with representatives of other countries, and 4,000 are marked “secret/noforn.” The rest are either marked with the less restrictive label “confidential” or are unclassified. Most were not intended for public view, at least in the near term. The Times has taken care to exclude, in its articles and in supplementary material, in print and online, information that would endanger confidential informants or compromise national security. The Times’s redactions were shared with other news organizations and communicated to WikiLeaks, in the hope that they would similarly edit the documents they planned to post online. After its own redactions, The Times sent Obama administration officials the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication of any information that, in the official view, would harm the national interest. After reviewing the cables, the officials — while making clear they condemn the publication of secret material — suggested additional redactions. The Times agreed to some, but not all. The Times is forwarding the administration’s concerns to other news organizations and, at the suggestion of the State Department, to WikiLeaks itself. In all, The Times plans to post on its Web site the text of about 100 cables — some edited, some in full — that illuminate aspects of American foreign policy. The question of dealing with classified information is rarely easy, and never to be taken lightly. Editors try to balance the value of the material to public understanding against potential dangers to the national interest. As a general rule we withhold secret information that would expose confidential sources to reprisals or that would reveal operational intelligence that might be useful to adversaries in war. We excise material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons material, compromise intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile countries, or disclose information about the capabilities of American weapons that could be helpful to an enemy. On the other hand, we are less likely to censor candid remarks simply because they might cause a diplomatic controversy or embarrass officials. Government officials sometimes argue — and the administration has argued in the case of these secret cables — that disclosures of confidential conversations between American diplomats and their foreign counterparts could endanger the national interest by making foreign governments more wary of cooperating with the United States in the fight against terrorists or other vital activities. Providing an Analysis Of course, most of these documents will be made public regardless of what The Times decides. WikiLeaks has shared the entire archive of secret cables with at least four European publications, has promised country-specific documents to many other news outlets, and has said it plans to ultimately post its trove online. For The Times to ignore this material would be to deny its own readers the careful reporting and thoughtful analysis they expect when this kind of information becomes public. But the more important reason to publish these articles is that the cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. They shed light on the motivations — and, in some cases, duplicity — of allies on the receiving end of American courtship and foreign aid. They illuminate the diplomacy surrounding two current wars and several countries, like Pakistan and Yemen, where American military involvement is growing. As daunting as it is to publish such material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name. In the coming days, editors and reporters will respond to readers on the substance of this coverage and the decision to publish. We invite questions at askthetimes@nytimes.com .

Classified Information and State Secrets


Pennsylvania: Feud Ends in Arrests

Abstract: A man who was angry about a photo of his girlfriend on Facebook took revenge against the former boyfriend who posted it, making a hoax call to the police that set off a terrorism scare and ended with the ex-boyfriend being taken off an airliner at gunpoint, the authorities say. Kenneth W. Smith Jr. was arrested Friday on charges of making a false threat to the Philadelphia police, who recalled a flight bound for Dallas and marched the former boyfriend, Christopher Shell, off the plane on Thursday. The episode led to Mr. Shell’s own arrest on drug warrants after he finally reached Texas to celebrate his 29th birthday. Both men posted bond on Friday. US Airways Flight 1267 was about 90 miles into its flight when the plane was turned around on Thursday morning. After it landed in Philadelphia, heavily armed officers removed Mr. Shell. During questioning, he told the authorities of the romantic feud, which involved hostile text messages with his ex-girlfriend and encounters with Mr. Smith, according to a federal affidavit. Mr. Smith acknowledged calling the police to say Mr. Shell was carrying liquid explosives, the affidavit said.

Airlines and Airplanes
Bombs and Explosives
Threats and Threatening Messages
Smith Kenneth W Jr
US Airways Group Inc


Waiting in Line to See Supreme Court Argue Health Law

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Time becomes an abstract concept after you have spent 47 hours sitting on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court . Searching her memory, Kathie McClure, a 57-year-old trial lawyer from Atlanta, struggled to recall when the fight broke out over the fourth and fifth spots in line to attend this week’s arguments in a constitutional challenge to the health care law . It was sometime on Saturday, she remembered. But was it before or after the “Road to Repeal” Tea Party rally, which started at noon? And when was it that she ducked into a Starbucks to warm up after being out in the rain? Heading into the first of three days of Supreme Court arguments on Monday, the pavement occupied by the approximately 15 people in line Sunday morning was among the most coveted real estate in Washington. Tickets are scarce even for those connected to the case. And for everyone else, there’s the line. It started with two people who were in line by 9:30 a.m. on Friday, waiting to score one of at least 60 seats made available to the general public for each day of arguments, said Kathy Arberg, a Supreme Court spokeswoman. Monica Haymond, a 23-year-old legal assistant who passed the time by watching episodes of “Dr. Who” on her laptop, lined up after work Friday — 63 hours before arguments were to begin. “We were hoping to be the first people here, but apparently it was more competitive than we had ever imagined,” she said. The first two in line declined to be interviewed, and others identified them as paid placeholders. In Washington, anyone who wants to attend a judicial or Congressional hearing and can afford to spend $36 to $50 an hour can hire professional “line standers” through companies like Washington Express to do the waiting for them. LineStanding.com , which had people waiting outside the court over the weekend, lets customers choose how early they want their surrogate to arrive, including an option labeled “please put us at the front of the line.” Witnesses say the fight Saturday was over a couple of placeholders’ spots. According to Ms. McClure, who was just behind the placeholders, a supervisor for one of the companies discovered that two workers had abandoned the line, leaving his prime fourth and fifth spots unattended. He began arguing with the others in line and with the court police, a heated exchange that included “some mild threats,” Ms. Haymond wrote on her blog . Ms. McClure said the police threatened to remove the supervisor’s employees from the line. He managed to negotiate the return of one of his lost seats, moving Ms. McClure up to No. 5 and, according to Ms. Haymond, prompting the creation of an unofficial roster. As Ms. Arberg, the spokeswoman, noted, nobody is assured a seat until Monday morning, at which point those in line can either go in or stick around for Tuesday’s or Wednesday’s arguments. For the most part, the line standers police themselves, generally sticking to a friendly code that allows for bathroom breaks and food runs. Though only a few people joined the line between Friday night and Sunday morning, the faces changed from hour to hour. Most were paid placeholders and volunteers who worked in shifts. John Winslow, the manager of LineStanding.com , said he paid his placeholders $18 an hour, half the company’s fee of $36 an hour. Rev. Rob Schenck, president of Faith and Action, a Christian group that opposes the law’s requirement that employers cover contraception , said that a team of staff members, others the group was compensating and some volunteers were holding spots in line for him and three others. Among the volunteers were his three adult children. “No matter what kind of puny compensation they would receive, it’s way above and beyond the call of duty,” he said of the placeholders. As one might expect during an overcast weekend on a Washington sidewalk, there were ups and downs. The group was upbeat on Friday night when temperatures were in the 50s, but by 2 a.m. Sunday, they were huddled under ponchos and tarps in the pouring rain, struggling to sleep while observing the “no camping” rule that prohibited tents. Faith and Action, which occupies a row house near the court, opened its doors, offering free food and access to its two showers. And as those in line emphasized, there was a congenial atmosphere that disregarded opinions on the case’s outcome as people shared food and offered to pick up extra sleeping bags for those without. But Ms. McClure, who has two children with chronic health problems and has traveled the country in a purple bus to drum up support for the law, said they should not have had to wait in line at all, arguing that the court’s proceedings should be televised. “This is a momentous case,” Ms. McClure said. “Insurance coverage for 30 million people is on the line, and we’re having to sleep on the sidewalk to get a peep at what goes on in there?”

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010)


Even Cupid Wants to Know Your Credit Score

Abstract: As she nibbled on strawberry shortcake, Jessica LaShawn, a flight attendant from Chicago , tried not to get ahead of herself and imagine this first date turning into another and another, and maybe, at some point, a glimmering diamond ring and happily ever after. She simply couldn’t help it, though. After all, he was tall, from a religious family, raised by his grandparents just as she was, worked in finance and even had great teeth. Her musings were suddenly interrupted when her date asked a decidedly unromantic question: “What’s your credit score?” “It was as if the music stopped,” Ms. LaShawn, 31, said, recalling how the date this year went so wrong so quickly after she tried to answer his question honestly. “It was really awkward because he kept telling me that I was the perfect girl for him, but that a low credit score was his deal-breaker.” The credit score, once a little-known metric derived from a complex formula that incorporates outstanding debt and payment histories, has become an increasingly important number used to bestow credit, determine housing and even distinguish between job candidates. It’s so widely used that it has also become a bigger factor in dating decisions, sometimes eclipsing more traditional priorities like a good job, shared interests and physical chemistry. That’s according to interviews with more than 50 daters across the country, all under the age of 40. “ Credit scores are like the dating equivalent of a sexually transmitted disease test,” said Manisha Thakor, the founder and chief executive of MoneyZen Wealth Management, a financial advisory firm. “It’s a shorthand way to get a sense of someone’s financial past the same way an S.T.D. test gives some information about a person’s sexual past.” It’s difficult to quantify how many daters factor credit scores into their romantic calculations, but financial planners , marriage counselors and dating site executives all said that they were hearing far more concerns about credit than in the past. “I’m getting twice as many questions about credit scores as I did prerecession,” Ms. Thakor said. Executives who run online financial advice forums say that topics about credit and dating receive hundreds of responses within minutes of being posted. Alexa von Tobel, founder and chief executive of Learnvest.com , a financial planning firm, said that members are more interested in credit scores than ever before. “It’s the only grade that matters after you graduate,” she said. Josephine La Bella, 25, who works at a payroll company, likes to tackle the delicate subject head on. Ms. La Bella, who has vigilantly monitored her credit score ever since graduating from Rutgers in 2009, has found that broaching the topic of her own credit score causes her suitors to open up, too. In August, Ms. La Bella recalled, while at dinner in Bayonne, N.J., a date blurted out his credit score on the first outing. Instead of making things more awkward, she said, a really productive discussion followed. Since then, Ms. La Bella tries to bring up the topic soon after meeting someone. “I take my credit score seriously and so my date can take me seriously,” she said. A handful of small, online dating Web sites have sprung up to cater specifically to singles looking for a partner with a tiptop credit score. “Good Credit Is Sexy,” says one site, Creditscoredating.com , which allows members to view the credit scores of potential dates who agree to provide the numbers. On another site, Datemycreditscore.com , a member posted on the Web site’s home page that others should to “stop kidding” themselves and realize that credit scores do matter. Dating someone with poor credit can have real implications. Banks remain wary of making loans to borrowers with tarnished scores, typically 660 and below; the best scores range from 800 to 850, and scores above 750 are considered good. A low score could quash dreams of buying a house, and result in steep interest rates, up to 29 percent, for credit cards, car financing and other unsecured loans. A middling credit score can also torpedo an application for an apartment and drive up the cost of cellphone plans and auto insurance . And while eight states, including California , Illinois and Maryland , have passed laws limiting employers ability to use credit checks when assessing job candidates, 13 percent of employers surveyed by the Society of Human Resource Management in July performed credit checks on all job applicants. Lauren Dollard, a 26-year-old assistant at a nonprofit in Houston , said her low credit score had helped to stall her romantic plans. Her boyfriend is wary of marrying her until she can significantly pay down the more than $150,000 she owes in student loans and bolster her credit score, she said. Ms. Dollard’s credit score is so low, around 600, that she hasn’t been able to qualify for a car loan. She sympathizes with her boyfriend’s position because he “doesn’t ever want to be accountable for the irresponsible financial decision I made,” she said. Her boyfriend declined to be interviewed. John Hendrix, a 33-year-old chemist in San Francisco , said he worried that the vast disparity between his girlfriend’s credit score and his own low one could create tension in their relationship. When the couple leased a car in October, Mr. Hendrix had to leave his name off the contract because his poor credit scuttled his chances for the bargain interest rate that his girlfriend qualified for. Mr. Hendrix said he resented that his credit score, which he said was marred by a single contested cable bill, has limited his access to credit. “I always pay my bills so it’s pretty ridiculous that a billing error can ruin your score,” he said. His girlfriend declined to be interviewed. Sarah Klein, who manages myFICO Forums, an online discussion group, likens credit scores to dieting because both affect dating but often are shrouded in secrecy. To motivate members to openly discuss and rehabilitate their credit scores, the site runs an online contest called the myFICO Fitness Challenge , where participants try to increase their scores. ( FICO is a name derived from Fair Isaac Corporation.) Last year, more than 24,000 members participated. In a post on the forum, one member asked for advice after finding out that her boyfriend’s credit score hovered around 400. Some members denounced the member as petty and materialistic while others counseled her to run away from him. Ms. LaShawn, the flight attendant from Chicago, said that she was still shocked that her credit score could sabotage a potentially great date. She had accumulated credit card debt and sporadically fallen behind on bills, and explained that she wasn’t sure of her credit score, but was positive that it wasn’t very good. Days after her failed date, she said, she got an apologetic text message. Her date reiterated that the problem “wasn’t me, it was my credit score.”


An Unusual Public Battle Over an Energy Nomination

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The coal industry, feeling threatened by federal efforts to promote wind and solar power, has opened a counterattack by opposing President Obama’s nomination of a renewable electricity advocate to head the federal agency with jurisdiction over power lines. The Senate Energy Committee is expected to hold a hearing Tuesday on the nomination of Ronald J. Binz to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Mr. Binz, 64, headed the Colorado Public Utility Commission from 2007 to 2011, where he was known for promoting renewable energy and efficiency, and for helping to draft a law that encouraged closing some old coal plants and cleaning up newer ones. The fight over Mr. Binz has been unusually public, considering that the job at stake is at an agency most people cannot name. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said James J. Hoecker, an energy lawyer who is a former chairman of the commission. “It’s an extraordinary show that’s being put on right now.” In April 2012, Mr. Binz was the lead author of a paper favoring “risk-aware energy regulation,” which argued for building wind farms and other sources of renewable energy as a hedge against future fossil fuel price increases and costly new pollution rules on burning coal or gas. He argued that renewable sources should be pursued even if they cost more than conventional ones. But the coal industry maintains that Mr. Binz’s nomination is part of an administration strategy to further reduce the use of coal. “FERC is the last piece of the puzzle,” said Benjamin Cole, the spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, which is financed by coal and other fossil fuel industries. The administration’s goal, he said, was a low-carbon energy strategy that could not win the approval of Congress. Environmental groups have rushed to Mr. Binz’s defense. Regulatory decisions “shouldn’t just be about cost,” said Dan Bakal, director of the electric power program at Ceres, an environmental advocacy group. “So often the least-cost mentality dominates, but you really have to think about the risks.” Ceres published Mr. Binz’s paper. Neither Mr. Binz’s supporters nor his opponents have said exactly what he might do as chairman to advance renewable energy. Since Congress has not acted on climate legislation, the driving force for renewable energy is the states; the federal commission is limited to setting rules that enable such development rather than mandating it. Under the current chairman, Jon Wellinghoff, the agency has already created rules to encourage construction of transmission lines to places where renewable energy projects can be built. The agency is also in charge of authorizing natural gas pipelines, and has a say in whether natural gas exports should be allowed. It also has some influence over how utilities prepare for digital attacks and extreme weather. In the weeks before Mr. Binz was nominated in June, there was some speculation that the chairman’s job would go to John Norris, the senior Democrat on the five-member commission after Mr. Wellinghoff. But Mr. Norris told a trade publication, Transmission Hub, last week that the chief of staff of Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, told him he would not get the job because he was considered “too pro-coal.” Mr. Norris denied being pro-coal, and Mr. Reid’s office denied the exchange. Coal advocates are hoping that some coal-state Democrats, perhaps Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, will not vote for Mr. Binz, creating a tie that could doom his nomination. In an attempt to portray him as radical, they are also raising the idea that Mr. Binz might be opposed to the greater use of cheap and relatively clean natural gas, which he once referred to as a “dead end.” (The reason is that natural gas emits far more carbon dioxide than would be allowed under President Obama’s long-term goal to reduce greenhouse gases.) At the Electricity Consumers Resource Council, which represents large industrial customers, Marc Yacker, a vice president, said that the coal industry had some reason to be worried. The industry believes, he said, that “the whole idea of socializing the cost of new transmission necessary to get wind to population centers is anti-coal.”

Coal
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Renewable energy
Appointments and Executive Changes
US Politics
Regulation and Deregulation
Energy industry


Sweden: At Least Two Are Killed as Gunfire Erupts in Restaurant

Abstract: Several people were shot and at least two died inside a restaurant in a suburb of Sweden’s second-largest city, Gothenburg, on Wednesday night in what the police said might have been an act of gang-related violence. Ulla Brehm, a spokeswoman for the Gothenburg Police Department, said the shootings took place on the island community of Hesingen, an area with a history of “difficulties with youth gangs, drugs and violent criminals.” She said two people died in the shooting and several more were wounded and taken to hospitals. Ms. Brehm added that there was “nothing indicating that this was terrorism at all. Not at all.” The police said the shooting occurred around 10 p.m. in a popular local restaurant called Var Krog och Bar, which means “our tavern and bar” in Swedish, that is on a bustling square.


Gen. Gregorio Alvarez, Last Uruguayan Dictator, Dies at 91

Abstract: MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Gen. Gregorio Alvarez, the last leader of Uruguay’s brutal dictatorship of the 1970s and ’80s, died here on Wednesday while serving a prison sentence for human rights abuses. He was 91. The military’s health service said he died at the Central Hospital of the Armed Forces. Under General Alvarez, Uruguay was part of the secret alliance of South American dictatorships known as Operation Condor , in which military leaders cooperated in persecuting and killing one another’s dissidents. General Alvarez, himself the son of a general, participated in the 1973 coup that dissolved Uruguay’s legislature amid a government crackdown on the Marxist Tupamaro rebels, who were trying to seize power. One of General Alvarez’s brothers had been killed by Tupamaro attackers in 1972. General Alvarez became chief of the army in 1978 and president in 1981. His government imprisoned democratic critics and censored the news media. He agreed in 1984 to hand over power to an elected civilian government as the wave of dictatorships in the region was starting to recede. Argentina’s military rule had ended a year earlier, and Brazil’s ended a year later. Hundreds of suspected leftists were arrested and tortured during the dictatorship, and historians say an estimated 180 Uruguayans were killed, most of them while in the custody of the government’s Argentine allies. Gregorio Conrado Alvarez Armelino was born on Nov. 26, 1925, in Montevideo. There was no immediate information on survivors. In 2009, General Alvarez was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the deaths or disappearances of 37 Uruguayans under Operation Condor. During his trial, he said he knew nothing of illegal abductions and forced disappearances. Prosecutors argued that he had been in a position to know what had happened to the political prisoners, first as army chief and later as president.

Gregorio Alvarez
Uruguay
Operation Condor
Obituary