Lakers Put Celtics in a Hole

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — This was the type of game Lakers Coach Phil Jackson relishes, in which Kobe Bryant is not employed as an escape valve with the ball in his hands and the outcome on his shoulders. Bryant picked his spots — a free throw here, a layup there, 3-pointers everywhere and even a couple of dunks from his 31-year-old legs — as if he were leisurely leafing through a magazine while his teammates steadily bludgeoned the Boston Celtics , 102-89, in Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals Thursday at Staples Center. In the span of two years and on the heels of one game, the more aggressive team in this matchup was decked in gold, not green, thanks to the addition of Ron Artest, the inclusion of Andrew Bynum and two years of Pau Gasol’s bad memories. Bryant finished with 30 points and emptied 14 of them in the third quarter, as the Lakers outscored the Celtics, 34-23, in that quarter to break the game open. Entering the fourth, the Lakers enjoyed an 84-64 lead and four of their starters had scored in double digits. Derek Fisher, the other starter, had 9 points. “We got it from different places,” Jackson said. “Guys chipped in at different times, helped us out.” Redemption weighed heavily on both teams before momentum swayed strongly in the Lakers’ favor. Even the Hollywood fans got up out of their seats whenever Bryant finished off an alley-oop or Gasol topped off a fast break. “Just being aggressive and tonight I got the benefit of the whistle,” said Bryant, who also had seven rebounds and six assists, while making 9 of 10 free throws. The performance served notice to a Celtics team that had beaten the Lakers in 2008 to win their 17th N.B.A. championship. In those finals, the Lakers never held a series lead. Gasol was deemed soft in the interior against Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins. On Thursday, Gasol amassed 23 points and 14 rebounds. “I knew it was going to be physical, that’s a given,” Gasol said. “This being our third consecutive finals, we understand the nature of the game.” In one telling sequence in the third quarter, Gasol turned around for a hook shot and bumped into Perkins, while the ball careered off the rim. Gasol grabbed the rebound and gained his composure before missing again and scooping up the shot and elegantly laying it in. “If you heard what you couldn’t do for two years, you’re probably going to come in and try to prove that,” Celtics Coach Doc Rivers said. Bynum did not participate in the 2008 finals because of an injury but was effective Thursday, three days after having fluid drained from his right knee. He and Gasol outrebounded Garnett and Perkins, 20-7. Paul Pierce, who led the Celtics with 24 points, was cloaked by Artest, and he never found consistent offensive traction. Ray Allen was burdened by early foul trouble and scored 12 points. But the Celtics bemoaned their defense, a strong character trait throughout their playoff run that suddenly turned into a weak link. The Lakers owned all the power categories: 16-0 in second-chance points, 48-30 points in the paint and 42-31 in rebounding. “It was horrible,” Rivers said of Boston’s defense, adding: “That wasn’t our defense tonight. I can tell you that.” Meanwhile, Bryant skated around Boston as the Celtics appeared to just be on skates. “Everybody knows he’s going to shoot the ball,” Pierce said. “Everybody knows he’s going to be aggressive. So we’ve got to do a better job of getting the ball out of his hands.” The Celtics trailed by double digits much of the game and never pieced together a solid run. Garnett could have pulled the Celtics closer in the fourth quarter, but he missed badly on two close attempts to the basket, and the Lakers answered with a layup from Lamar Odom. The renewal of the rivalry after two years happened much faster than the previous series, which came 21 years after the teams had last met in the finals. In all, they have played 11 times for the title, with Boston holding a 9-2 advantage. When this series is over, the teams will have won 34 of the league’s 65 titles. As long as numbers are discussed, the Lakers will enjoy the one they can take into Sunday’s Game 2. Phil Jackson’s teams are 47-0 in playoff series after winning the first game. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, but it’s nice to know that that’s on our side,” Jackson said. With all the history included, most involved are appropriately staying in the present. Rivers is like a parent who will not say who his favorite child is when asked to compare his finals appearances of two years ago and now. “In some ways,” Rivers said when asked before the game if the paths were the same. “We have the same starters, but our bench is completely different.” When asked if the series held added significance on Wednesday, Bryant responded even more economically. “No,” he said. They arrived in different ways. Rivers assumed the Lakers would carve a path to the finals. The Celtics’ bid appeared flimsy at times through the regular season, although he believed. Rivers told ABC that he collected $100 from every player and stashed it in a ceiling panel when Boston visited the Lakers during the regular season in February. The players could only retrieve the money if they met the Lakers in the finals. They got their money on Wednesday, and the officiating staff got its money’s worth in the first half. The first half dragged through 28 foul calls and both Rivers and Jackson were forced to employ their benches early. Artest made a quick introduction in his first finals and helped inspire an 11-2 run by igniting it with a 3-pointer and layup. Bryant followed with a layup, and Fisher made a floater. The Lakers surged to a 50-41 halftime lead, sliced into mildly when Rajon Rondo nailed a 22-foot buzzer-beater as the second quarter expired. Rondo scored 10 of his points in the first half by sneaking through creases in the Lakers’ defense and mostly nullifying Jackson’s decision to initially defend him with Bryant. It took only a few seconds for emotions to flare in one of the series’ most anticipating matchup between Pierce and Artest. Rondo began the scoring with a layup and on the Lakers’ possession, Pierce and Artest fought for positioning and dragged each other to the court. Both were tagged with technical fouls, the beginning of what is anticipated to be an emotional series.

Boston Celtics
Los Angeles Lakers
Bryant Kobe
Gasol Pau
Basketball
Pierce Paul (1977- )


Methodists Against Bush Library Lobby for Vote

Abstract: DALLAS — Methodists opposed to a George W. Bush Presidential Library, museum and policy institute at Southern Methodist University here are mounting a last-ditch effort to block a nearly completed deal by throwing the decision to a regional church conference in July. Opponents of the project, including current and retired bishops and faculty members hostile to President Bush over the Iraq war and social issues, say church rules require that an agreement be submitted to the 290 elected delegates of the church’s South Central Jurisdiction. The Rev. Andrew Weaver, a research psychologist in New York who said an online petition drive against the project had drawn 11,200 signatures, said about 35 percent of the delegates were “progressives” opposed to the plan. “We need to inform and recruit 16 percent of the moderate delegates to block the project,” Mr. Weaver said. But officials at Southern Methodist, which is owned by the jurisdiction, say they already have the church’s approval, through the jurisdiction’s Mission Council and College of Bishops, to lease land to the George W. Bush Foundation and are close to an agreement to do so. “We continue in discussions with the foundation,” Brad E. Cheves, the university’s vice president for development and external affairs, said Tuesday. “We believe they’re near completion.” The nature of the policy institute stirs much of the debate. In outlining the project to prospective universities in 2005, two officers of the foundation, Marvin P. Bush, a brother of the president, and Donald J. Evans, said the institute would be answerable to the foundation, not the university. And they said: “Part of its mission will be to further the domestic and international goals of the Bush administration,” including “compassionate conservatism” and “defeating terrorism.” Bishop Scott Jones of Wichita, Kan., president of the jurisdiction’s College of Bishops and a trustee at Southern Methodist, said Sunday in Dallas that the bishops had voted 10-to-0 this month, with one abstention, to allow the process to go forward. “S.M.U. has the authority to sign a 99-year lease, renewable up to 249 years,” Bishop Jones said. But asked what would happen if the delegates failed to ratify the decision when they meet July 15 to 19, Bishop Jones seemed stumped. “I think the situation you’re describing has never arisen,” he said. Bishop Kenneth W. Hicks of Little Rock, Ark,., who retired in 1992 and is a nonvoting member of the College of Bishops, said “it would be much healthier” to leave the decision to the delegates. The issue is unlikely to make it to court as judges generally steer clear of church disputes. The South Central Jurisdiction represents the 1.83 million Methodists in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and Louisiana. A year ago, Mr. Bush told the local television station WFAA that he was close to settling on Southern Methodist, where his wife, Laura, is an alumna and a trustee, and he added: “I understand there are some who have reservations, and my admonition to them, or my advice to them, is just understand that a library, an institute, would enhance education. It would be a place for interesting discussion.” And Mr. Bush, after he leaves office, would probably be a neighbor, as he intimated to Texas mayors last week at the White House, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Sunday. Greeting Mayor Tom Leppert of Dallas, Mr. Bush said, “There’s my new mayor.” Taylor Griffin, a Washington spokesman for the foundation, said the cost of the project had not been announced; published accounts have put it as high as $500 million, to be raised privately. Bishop Jones said the controversy was to be expected. “We’re a big enough tent that both Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush are active faithful members of our church,” he said.

Bush George W Presidential Library and Museum


True or False? Hillary Clinton, a Native Chicagoan, Is a Cubs Fan

Abstract: It started with a photograph — the shot retweeted round the world, if you will. Snapped aboard Hillary Clinton’s campaign plane late Saturday by her traveling press secretary, Nick Merrill, the picture captured Mrs. Clinton staring at a smartphone, mouth agape in astonishment, as she watched the Chicago Cubs clinch a World Series berth. Mr. Merrill posted the picture on Twitter at a little after 11. “That look when you cap off a day on the trail by watching the @Cubs cement their trip to the #WorldSeries,” he wrote. That look when you cap off a day on the trail by watching the @Cubs cement their trip to the #WorldSeries . #FlyTheW pic.twitter.com/94KMWpKHwe — Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) October 23, 2016 Almost instantly, the image ricocheted across social media — and kicked up a heated debate, one that cuts to the heart of the character and integrity of the Democratic presidential nominee: Was Mrs. Clinton, a native Chicagoan who ostentatiously donned a Yankees hat during her 2000 campaign for the Senate from New York, really a Cubs fan at heart? Or was she a baseball flip-flopper, cynically falling in behind whichever team was more advantageous in an election year? The evidence was soon being parsed more carefully than her record on free trade. An indictment was quickly circulated, and in one of Mrs. Clinton’s hometown papers, no less. (Or, shall we say, in one of the Chicago papers.) “It’s time to recount Hillary Clinton’s tortured explanations about being a die-hard Cubs fan — and how she’s also for the Yankees,” Lynn Sweet, a Sun-Times columnist, had written in a piece published on Thursday. And yet, with Game 1 of the World Series to be played Tuesday night in Cleveland, the fact of Mrs. Clinton’s Cubs fandom was not really open to dispute. Born in Chicago in 1947 — two years after the team last appeared in the World Series — Mrs. Clinton grew up in the suburbs, watching the Cubs on television with her brothers. They even re-enacted plays from the games, according to a newspaper column she wrote in the spring of 1996. Her father was a devoted fan, too, making her loyalty both geographic and genetic. “Even when baseball has tested my patience and allegiance, I’ve always managed to hold on to my soft spot for the Cubs,” she wrote. The source of suspicion about Mrs. Clinton’s baseball loyalties is another set of facts: In 1999, only days after announcing that she was forming an exploratory committee to run for the Senate from New York, she and her husband, President Bill Clinton, welcomed the Yankees to the White House for a visit. Mrs. Clinton donned a Yankees cap given to her by the team’s manager, Joe Torre. The resulting photographs fueled scorching criticism for years. “She went to the Yankees so that she could run for senator from New York,” Chris Matthews said in 2007 on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” “It’s so obvious. Why is she — doesn’t she know she looks like a fraud?” In her defense, Mrs. Clinton has pointed to ample evidence, including interviews from the early 1990s, that as a young girl in Chicago, she followed the Yankees in addition to the Cubs because she “needed an American League team,” and “in our neighborhood, it was nearly sacrilegious to cheer for the rival White Sox,” as she wrote in her 2003 memoir, “Living History.” As a 7-year-old, Mrs. Clinton recalled in a speech in 2011, she dressed up as Mickey Mantle for Halloween, adding, “I have the picture to show you and to prove it.” And in a lengthy 2007 profile, “ Growing Up Rodham ,” the respected Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins had corroborated this claim: “By age 10, Hillary was a tomboy obsessed with baseball, especially the switch-hitting Mickey Mantle.” Claims and counterclaims about baseball fandom are almost inescapable in presidential election years, when the campaign inevitably bumps into the baseball postseason. Candidates are pressed to express a rooting interest — ideally with a plausible pre-existing explanation. And yet these are treacherous waters to wade into. In 2004, John Kerry made the mistake of linking his candidacy’s fate to that of his beloved, World Series-bound Boston Red Sox. He compared himself to the team’s lights-out closer, Keith Foulke, and vowed to disprove the notion of any “curse” on either him or the Sox. The Red Sox won. Mr. Kerry did not. At least no one could accuse him of national pastime pandering. The same cannot be said of other presidential candidates. In 2008, Barack Obama told an audience in Philadelphia that because his Chicago White Sox had been knocked out of the playoffs, he was going to root for the Phillies against the Tampa Bay Rays. Not 10 days later, he joked with an audience in Florida that he was thinking about getting a mohawk, a trend at the time among hard-core Rays fans. His opponent, John McCain, pounced: “It’s pretty simple, really. When he’s campaigning in Philadelphia, he roots for the Phillies, and when he’s campaigning in Tampa Bay, he shows love to the Rays.” Mrs. Clinton’s dual loyalties, longstanding and verified or not, may be an affront to baseball purists, who believe that a true fan can have only one team. And some of today’s Cubs fans may not feel that she deserves to share in their celebrations. But there is no mistaking the look of bliss on Mrs. Clinton’s face in that photograph taken aboard the campaign plane. As any sports fan can attest, it is a state that not even the most gifted politician can manufacture. Besides, if the goal was to pander to voters, she would be far better off rooting for the Cubs’ swing-state opponents.

Hillary Clinton
Chicago
Chicago Cubs
Yankees
New York
Baseball
2016 Presidential Election


Owner of a Brooklyn Brownstone From ‘Crooklyn’ Sees Herself Caught in Airbnb Crossfire

Abstract: The doorbell rang. On the steps of the brownstone in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn were two police officers, two firefighters and two Buildings Department inspectors. The one who did the talking said to get out immediately, not because there was a gas leak, not because anyone was suspected of selling illegal drugs, but because the brownstone was being used as a bed-and-breakfast . He also said that anyone who tried to go back in would be arrested. That left seven people in limbo on that September afternoon. Six were tourists. Four were upstairs, the other two were out sightseeing or doing whatever else tourists do in New York. The inspector said they could not even pack their luggage. The seventh was Ambyr D’Amato, the live-in host. The scene played out on a stoop that moviegoers with good memories might recognize. The brownstone, at 7 Arlington Place, was the backdrop for Spike Lee’s 1994 film “Crooklyn,” a warmhearted film that critics praised for its pleasant focus on a lost place and time. The place was Bedford-Stuyvesant, the time the 1970s. How different 7 Arlington Place was then: It was a two-family house. That was before the housing frenzy swept through Bed-Stuy; before 7 Arlington Place was sold for $1.7 million ($400,000 above the asking price); before it underwent a top-to-bottom renovation; before it was rezoned as a one-family house; and before the bed-and-breakfast opened. The owner, Liz Mandarano, sees herself as a casualty in a battle over Airbnb, the online rental service, even though she does not list her $195-a-night-and-up accommodations on the website. Ms. Mandarano maintains that after Airbnb refused to divulge to investigators the addresses of properties listed on its site, the city began to target bed-and-breakfasts, which have their own websites. She called them “low-hanging fruit” — easy, she said, for city enforcement agents to identify. “We are not Airbnb,” she said, “we are classic B & Bs, but we were targeted to show that O.S.E.” — the mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement — “was doing what it was supposed to do.” Bed-and-breakfast owners say that the rules that should apply to them are unclear. To the city, the violations at Arlington Place involved the housing code, not a recently passed law aimed at property owners who list short-term rentals with sites like Airbnb. The city said that Arlington Place had installed locks on the guest rooms, which turned the operation into a hotel and raised safety issues not only for guests but also for firefighters or police officers who might respond in an emergency. Ms. Mandarano maintained that the hotel regulation cited by the city is outdated. The special enforcement office has been on the lookout for problem bed-and-breakfasts as far back as 2012, when Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent, was the mayor. The enforcement actions have accelerated under Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, Ms. Mandarano said. Buildings Department records show that an inspector went to 7 Arlington Place after a complaint was called into 311 on Nov. 3, 2015, with extremely detailed information: “Was a one-family home, now has been constructed into a bed-and-breakfast, rents the rooms and has people coming in and out with suitcases. Advertises events there.” Ms. Mandarano does not suspect that her neighbors called 311 — she said she got along well with them — but she believes that the caller was someone from the enforcement office, a claim that a spokeswoman flatly denied. Image The house, at 7 Arlington Place, was used in Spike Lee’s film “Crooklyn.” Credit Universal City Studios, Inc. New York law prohibits people from renting rooms in their apartments for less than 30 days when they are not present, but many questions about bed-and-breakfasts in the city remain open. And while Jersey City and Newark have legalized short-term rental services like Airbnb, with users paying the same 6 percent hospitality tax as hotel guests, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York signed a bill last month that would fine hosts up to $7,500 for advertising a property rental for less than 30 days on sites like Airbnb. The company challenged the new law with a lawsuit in federal court almost as soon as Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, signed it. Buildings Department officials said they were not out to get bed-and-breakfasts. But Ms. Mandarano and other bed-and-breakfast owners have banded together, forming the New York City Bed and Breakfast Association, which has suggested local regulations. “We wanted to be regulated because we wanted to be differentiated from Airbnb,” Ms. Mandarano said. The 311 complaint about Arlington Place was made two months after the bed-and-breakfast opened. By then, Ms. Mandarano and other bed-and-breakfast owners had already met with two City Council members, Robert E. Cornegy Jr. and Jumaane D. Williams, both Democrats. “We all agreed, if they knock on the door, don’t let them in,” she said, referring to city inspectors, “because in the past, they closed the complaint after two visits if they didn’t get in.” That did not happen after the inspector paid a second visit in September, and Ms. D’Amato, the live-in host, turned him away. The inspector returned 19 days later, and Ms. D’Amato again said he could not enter. She presented a letter from Mr. Cornegy and Mr. Williams that said as much. “The inspector refused to look at it and got angry and said, ‘I’m coming back with a warrant,’” Ms. Mandarano said. Two hours later, the inspector returned, with police backup. Ms. Mandarano said that with help from Mr. Cornegy, an emergency meeting was held with officials from the Buildings Department and the mayor’s enforcement office. She said that Christian J. Klossner, the enforcement office’s director, “did not want to let me back in and did not want to tell us what to do to get back in.” “His background is as a prosecutor who handled narcotics and police,” she said. “Sometimes when you have a prosecutor they get overzealous.” She said this after explaining that she knows the breed: “I’m a former prosecutor.” Buildings Department records show that the “violation conditions” were resolved because, Ms. Mandarano said, Ms. D’Amato had quickly removed the locks from the bedroom doors. That meant, to the department, that the brownstone could no longer be used as a hotel. But Ms. Mandarano said the city refused to withdraw the violations, and she is preparing for a hearing before the Environmental Control Board, which handles Buildings Department cases, in February. She said the department told the contractor who oversaw the building’s renovations that it could not drop the violations because they had been issued by the enforcement office. Ms. Mandarano said the fines could total “in the low six figures.” Besides the safety issues, there is a violation for a toilet in the basement that was added after the bed-and-breakfast opened. “I feel there’s harassment here,” Ms. Mandarano said. “We’re people who serve you tea in the morning, we make muffins, we make eggs, we show you guides and say, ‘Have you thought about taking this walk? You’d enjoy it.’ There are bad players. There are people who violate their co-op and condominium bylaws. We are not those people. We are not fly-by-night people. We are vulnerable because we are easy to find.”

Brownstone
Crooklyn
Airbnb
New York
Spike Lee
Bed-Stuy
Hotels
Buildings Department NYC
NYC


On a Windy Day, the Elders Stand Their Ground

Abstract: PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — There was something for everybody Friday at the T.P.C. Sawgrass, where the hot summer winds came early and stayed late, and a few PGA Tour pros were last seen limping into the fitness trailer for chiropractic care. By the time the last putt lipped out in the second round of the Players Championship, 47-year-old Kenny Perry had shot a 70 for a six-under-par total of 138 and a one-shot lead. He was followed by 50-year-old Bernhard Langer and 43-year-old Paul Goydos. And, oh yeah, 28-year-old Sergio García, who aged a few more years after hitting every fairway and 16 greens, shot a 73 to share second place. Youth may yet be served — as it has been in five of the last six PGA Tour tournaments, which were won by twentysomethings — but for now the operative theme is the attack of the baby boomers. And don’t get in their way because they are cranky. “I mean, you know, I want to shoot people when they say, ‘I want to do your job, you’re so lucky playing golf,’ on a day like today,” Perry said. “That is just work out there today. You’ve really got to stay in it mentally and physically, and really stay committed to what you’re doing out there.” There have been worse conditions at this golf course in the 26 years the tournament has been played here, but Friday was a day to remember. Think of a massive hairdryer, on its highest setting, gusting 35 miles an hour through the tall pines, blowing all but the purely struck shot off line and making the dried-out greens harder than a chain-smoker’s arteries. There were 18 balls hit in the water at No. 17, one putter thrown in the water at No. 13, and a caddie nearly impaled by a putter tossed by his irate boss at No. 14, the toughest hole of the day. And with all this going on, Langer sank a 60-foot putt for birdie at the Island Hole and dialed up a 67 that was the low round of the day and, under the circumstances, astounding. Langer thought he might have to withdraw on Wednesday with a bad back, an aching knee and a throbbing shoulder. But he decided to make his 7:30 a.m. tee time Thursday and shot a 72. On Friday, after being worked on by the trainers in the trailer, he was tied for second with some bounce in his step and a smile on his face. “I started feeling a little bit better yesterday, and I thought, If I can get through this, I might improve every day, and that’s exactly what happened,” said Langer, who played the first eight holes in six under, with an eagle and four birdies. “So, I’m thrilled to be here, to be talking, to be swinging, and obviously thrilled with the score as well.” He should be. The average score for the day was 74.4, and the only other round in the 60s was a 68 by Stephen Ames, the 2006 Players champion, who is tied for seventh at 142. On the other end of the spectrum was Vijay Singh, who missed the cut, along with Brandt Snedeker, the United States Open champion Ángel Cabrera and Rich Beem. Beem’s afternoon was particularly galling because he was five strokes off the lead when he arrived at the 15th tee. He finished double bogey, bogey, double bogey and quadruple bogey, hitting four balls in the water over the last three holes, including two at the 18th. Goydos, who was once a substitute schoolteacher in Long Beach, Calif., was pleased to be where he was, but wary about what may be coming. “I’m a grinder,” he said after his 71 left him tied for second. “If I were a baseball player, I’d be the utility player, the guy who could play every position.” Mainly, he is on the leader board because he can putt. He took only 25 putts in the first round and 27 on Friday. “This golf course is very, very demanding,” he said. “Every hole you play, if you hit just a mediocre shot, just one, you might be playing the hole for 20 minutes.” Fred Couples, in his 25th Players Championship, worked his way into contention with a 72 that left him at 142, two under par. He said he felt good about his play, O.K. about his chances, and worried about the weather. “Two days of this is about enough,” he said. “Tomorrow is going to be brutal, and Sunday it’ll be borderline U.S. Open-like.” Which means the winner on Sunday may be someone whose name has yet to be mentioned.


No Redemption for Ryan Lochte

Abstract: Daiya Seto of Japan again upstaged the American star Ryan Lochte on the second and final day of the Aquatic Super Series in Perth, Australia, edging Lochte to win the 200-meter individual medley for his fourth victory of the meet. Lochte did not win an individual event at the meet. Seto, 20, is best known for his short-course exploits, but made it four wins for the event when he beat Lochte, the world record holder in the event, in the 200-meter individual medley. Lochte led for the opening 100m and looked to be on track as the field turned at the half-way mark, but Seto surged into the lead in the third lap. Lochte tried to overhaul Seto in the final freestyle lap, but the Japanese swimmer maintained his ascendancy to win in a time of 1:58.27. Lochte was 0.30 seconds back, and Japan’s Hiromasa Fujimori finishing third. Seto, the 2013 400-meter individual medley world champion, had also won the 200-meter freestyle, in which Lochte finished fifth, earlier in the evening.


Sticking Together, Up to a Point

Abstract: One floor above the din of New York City, the clang of metal on metal and the squeak of rubber soles echo in every corner of the room at the Manhattan Fencing Club. But in the heads of the five Olympians who came to the city to prepare for Beijing, there are nothing but positive phrases, repeated like rosary prayers. The fencers’ trance-like state allows them to shift their training to the level of instinct, because in a sport where points come and go in a matter of seconds, every moment spent overthinking is a moment wasted. These five Olympians — Tim Morehouse, Jason Rogers, Keeth Smart, James Williams and Dagmara Wozniak — arrived from all over the country to learn that skill from Yury Gelman, who has served as the United States Olympic team’s men’s sabre coach since 2000. He counts every national champion saberist since 1998 among his students. “People come to New York for different reasons,” said Morehouse, who traveled to Athens for the 2004 Summer Games as an alternate but will compete in Beijing. “Some people come here and go to a school like Columbia or N.Y.U., but really it’s to train with Yury.” New York has always been a hotbed of fencing, thanks to some of the nation’s most prestigious clubs and a steady stream of coaches from Europe. Gelman, a Ukrainian, has been preaching his gospel of sabre fencing since he came to the United States in 1991, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since 1996, he has been the head coach at St. John’s, one of the handful of local universities with top fencing programs. There, Gelman coached Smart, who in 2003 became the first American fencer to be ranked No. 1 in the world, and Wozniak, an alternate on the talented women’s sabre team. Williams, the alternate on the men’s team, moved from Los Angeles in 2004 to attend Columbia. Rogers, also from Los Angeles, moved to New York last year without a job and with no guarantee he would qualify for Beijing. But the prospect of becoming the first American man to win a medal in fencing since Peter Westbrook in 1984 was tempting enough to suppress any second thoughts. “It was a major commitment and it was definitely a risk,” he said. Gelman worked at the Fencers Club in New York until 2007, when a number of coaches left. Last September, when he founded the Manhattan Fencing Club, his disciples followed him to the club’s home on 39th Street, to a room no bigger than a basketball court. “In New York City, you cannot afford much more than this,” Gelman said in his thick Ukrainian accent. “But it’s enough for us.” The selection process for Olympic fencing is based on a strict points system over performances in seven World Cup events and two national competitions. The top four fencers in the rankings automatically make the Olympic team. But doing well in those competitions required more than finding the right riposte or contre sixte. A stomach for airplane food and a resistance to jet lag helped. This year alone, the men’s sabre team has traveled across the country and to Iran, Thailand and Europe. The last time Morehouse checked, he had 300,000 miles in his frequent flyer account. “And that’s not the only airline we fly,” he said. The team typically arrived on a Friday — whether in Las Vegas, Bangkok or Barcelona — and competed through the weekend, only to return on Monday. During trips, the athletes crammed in schoolwork, reading and a bit of sightseeing. “We play a lot of Scrabble,” Williams said. “And we watch entire seasons of television shows I’ve never heard of.” So the trip to Beijing in August will be nothing out of the ordinary. Gelman has tried to preserve the team’s regular training cycles, from their daily conditioning in the gym to their intense mental workouts that involve yoga and meditation. “The only difference between the Olympic Games and other events is nerves,” Gelman said. “I just try to let them know that it’s normal, and we decided it’s best for us to practice as we usually do.” The team also meets at Gelman’s Manhattan club about four times a week to work on technique and to fence against one another. Considering the way Morehouse started fencing, the experience of training nearly every day is still a strange one. He said he picked up the sport 17 years ago to get out of gym class. “Now my life is gym class,” he said. But when the gym class goes on its most important field trip next month, it is quite likely that the teammates who have trained and traveled with one another for the past year will have to face off in Beijing, as they do in practice. “When you step on the strip, it’s all business,” Williams said. “But we’ve been training together for so long that it’s a pretty natural transition in and out of the two mind-sets. It’s a surprisingly warm environment here.” A warm, if noisy, environment, where the gravelly staccato of a Ukrainian accent is the only sound that matters.

New York City
Fencing (Sport)
Olympic Games (2008)


Italy Edges Mexico in World Baseball Classic

Abstract: Anthony Rizzo hit a two-run double off San Francisco Giants closer Sergio Romo in the ninth inning, and Jason Grilli escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half of the inning to help Italy rally past Mexico, 6-5, in the opening game of Pool D in the World Baseball Classic in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Italy
Mexico
World Baseball Classic
Baseball


Some of Sharecare.com’s Health Advice Will Be From Advertisers

Abstract: THE expression “sharing is caring” was coined long before the Internet and social media like Facebook and Twitter made it easier for information, opinions and advertising to be shared among multitudes. Starting on Thursday, the Web site Sharecare.com is to arrive, offering what its proprietors call an interactive social Q.& A. platform to provide consumers with what they want to know on health and wellness subjects — with the A’s being contributed by, among others, marketers. Those behind Sharecare, a company formed last year to operate Sharecare.com, hope its features will enable the new Web site to thrive in a crowded field. Others in the online health care category include About.com, AOL, CNN, eHow, Everyday Health, Health.com , MSN, WebMD and Yahoo. Sharecare.com will begin with content contributed by organizations like AARP, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins and the National Academy of Sports Medicine, along with medical professionals like Dr. Mehmet Oz. Those contributors are to be known as experts on the site. There is another label, knowledge partners, for marketers that are paying an estimated $1 million to $7 million to become sponsors of Sharecare.com. The initial roster is composed of Colgate-Palmolive, for Colgate oral care products; the Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals division of Johnson & Johnson; the Medicines Company, a drug maker; Pfizer; Unilever, for Dove skin-care products; UnitedHealthcare, the health insurer; and Walgreen, for its Walgreens drug stores.  Plans call for the content provided by the sponsors to be labeled, bearing their names and logos, so that visitors to Sharecare.com can distinguish their contributions from those of other sources. Still, some visitors looking for objective answers to questions on health matters may raise their eyebrows at the presence of marketers. For instance, in a demonstration of the Web site on Wednesday, a reporter saw that among the questions being answered by Dove, on topics like treating varicose veins and the effects of tanning beds, was one asking why good skin care is important. “I’m sure there will be people who do that,” Jeff Arnold, chairman and chief architect at Sharecare in Atlanta, said of potential eyebrow-lifters. But in tests of the Web site in the last year, “the brand answers were read as much as the expert answers,” he added. “It’s interesting to see how seriously the brands are taking their answers,” Mr. Arnold said, because they know their replies will not be far from those of the experts. There are more than 100,000 answers to questions on Sharecare.com, he added, with a goal of “a million by the end of the year.” Paul Ewing, senior director for patient marketing at the United States primary-care business unit of Pfizer in New York, said his company would provide answers to questions “in the areas of fibromyalgia and smoking cessation ” but “not around any products we offer” in those areas, which are, respectively, the prescription drugs Lyrica and Chantix. Anyone who reads content on Sharecare.com, whatever the source, will “have to work with their health care providers to make sure they’re making the best decisions about what the next steps would be” for any condition they want treated, Mr. Ewing said. Pfizer’s interest in taking part in the Web site stems from a belief that “informed people make better decisions about their health,” he added, “and have better interactions with their health care providers.” Christine Kubisztal, director for media services at Walgreen in Deerfield, Ill., said she would “be curious to see if” users of Sharecare.com perceived the answers from sponsors differently from the others. “Yes, we are a retail place to go to,” she said of the Walgreens stores, “but we are also a brand trusted for 109 years.” People are looking to “consume health care online in a much more user-friendly way,” Ms. Kubisztal said, and the “very individualized, very localized” answers to be provided by Sharecare.com are part of how Walgreen wants to demonstrate that its pharmacists “can be experts, providing answers and advice beyond 30 pills in a bottle.” Sharecare was formed by a consortium that includes Mr. Arnold, who founded WebMD and later was chief executive of HowStuffWorks.com when it was sold to Discovery Communications; Dr. Oz, whose career as a health care arbiter was made by Oprah Winfrey; Harpo Productions, Ms. Winfrey’s company; Sony Pictures Television, a unit of the Sony Corporation that co-owns “The Dr. Oz Show” with Ms. Winfrey; and Discovery, a partner with Ms. Winfrey in OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable channel to be introduced in January. In a sort of soft debut for Sharecare.com, the Q.& A. section of Dr. Oz’s Web site ( doctoroz.com ) bears the words “powered by Sharecare.”  Sony Pictures Television is handling the search for sponsors for Sharecare.com. “Their answers are never ‘This dental floss brand is better than that dental floss brand,’ ” said Amy Carney, president for advertising sales at Sony Pictures Television in New York. “When the answers are as high quality as they will be,” she added, “if there is an initial skepticism on the part of the consumer it will quickly go away.” According to comScore, the top health information Web site in the United States in August was Everydayhealth.com , with 25.7 million unique visitors, followed by WebMD, with 23.3 million. Of the total American Internet audience that month of 212.6 million, comScore reported, 96.6 million, or 45.4 percent, sought health information.

Sharecare.com
Online Advertising
Medicine and Health
Computers and the Internet


Michigan: Steps Taken to Test for Lead in Flint’s Water After Change in Source

Abstract: Facing mounting concerns about lead exposure, state and local authorities on Friday announced a plan to test all drinking water in Flint’s public school system, provide free water filters to residents and expand examinations of the water supply to homes. There have been complaints about the water for more than a year, since the city left Detroit’s supply and began using the Flint River. The authorities say that the water is safe as it leaves the city’s treatment facility, but that it is corrosive and is in some cases pulling lead from older pipes.

Michigan
Lead
Water
Flint Michigan
K-12 Education


Thrilling Action in Flawed Wrappers

Abstract: MOST people, if trapped in a burning building, would call 911. But in Taito's puzzle game Exit, those in peril instead pick up their charred phone books and look under "escapologists" for the number of Mr. Escape, a zoot-suited hero-for-hire. Even if you've been snowed in by an avalanche or hit by a flood, Mr. Escape will be glad to help. Just make sure to have your credit card handy. Mr. Escape navigates through crumbling buildings, pushing crates together to form makeshift staircases, clambering up ladders and leaping chasms to save clients. The game doesn't explain why the fire department doesn't do this. Exit is made up of a series of logical puzzles, but the developers apparently used up so much brain power designing the puzzles that they were too exhausted to come up with a premise that made any sense at all. What the game lacks in sense it makes up for in style. Wearing a fedora and a red scarf that blows in the wind even when there is no wind, Mr. Escape walks past oddly angled furniture to the sound of a theremin-inspired score. He is an agile hero, able to jump over collapsed sections of floor and to drop from great heights. The people Mr. Escape saves are both a help and a hindrance. They are considerably less agile, and it is necessary to create alternate routes for them to cross; fires must be extinguished, planks must be laid over gaps and doors must be unlocked. At the same time, they can help move heavy crates or stand on a trigger plate on the floor that gives Mr. Escape access to an elevator. Every decision in the game is crucial. Pushing a crate the wrong direction or sliding down a rope too early will result in having to restart the level. You must think logically and creatively; the obvious choice is almost always the wrong one. Exit is tremendous fun for fans of logic puzzles, but it has a few annoying quirks. Jumping large gaps in the floor is tricky, and I died far too often doing this. The process for giving commands to other people is a bit cumbersome. The biggest annoyance is the canned dialogue. There are many non sequiturs; Mr. Escape will say "I really hate stairs" when he's climbing on top of a crate, while victims will sometimes say "Is anybody there?" even after they've been discovered. Victims also never stop talking. You will often have to listen to a woman whine "I really need a shower" every few seconds until you reach the exit. The flaws in Grandia III from Game Arts Company are more subtle. The game offers what is arguably the greatest combat system of any turn-based role-playing game in existence, but it falls short of true greatness, not because it does anything glaringly wrong but because it doesn't do quite enough things right. Grandia III begins as a budding airplane pilot, Yuki, saves a beautiful priestess from mysterious pursuers. Yuki, along with his adventurous mother, agrees to escort the young woman to her destination. Since Yuki's plane has crashed, they all must walk. The forests and deserts they pass through are beautiful but full of danger. Unlike role-playing games in which you are constantly pounced upon by enemies with no warning, monsters in Grandia III can be seen and even avoided, but since the experience in each fight makes your traveling party more powerful, skipping too many fights will make you too weak when facing enemies you cannot avoid. You battle thousands of monsters in Grandia III, but it never feels like a chore because the fights offer such a wonderful combination of deep strategy and frenzied excitement. Grandia III has a real-time component mixed in with its turn-based fighting. Each battle plays out as a mad scramble, with combatants running around the battlefield swinging swords and throwing blows with such force that their enemies sometimes fly into the air. A wheel in the upper left corner of the screen shows whose turn is coming up through icons representing each combatant. When one of your fighters' icons reaches the command point of the circle, the action freezes, with characters caught in midstride or a monster hovering where it was thrown into the air. You can then leisurely consider whether to attack with your sword or cast a magic spell that conjures up a lightning storm or sends a flock of flaming birds at an opponent. Some attacks take more time to complete, so if a monster is preparing an elaborate spell, it is sometimes possible to cancel its attack. This can also be done to your side. Throughout a fight, you must know where each combatant is on the wheel, in relationship to the others in physical space and what their next attacks will be. At times all you can do is raise your shield to ward off a blow; other times, if you see that a monster is airborne, you can jump up for a devastating aerial attack. Grandia III's game design is very close to perfect, with exhilarating battles; a simple, well-designed approach to gaining new skills; and an excellent mapping system that keeps you from getting lost. All game designers should steal from Grandia III with abandon. Sadly, the imagination and innovation of the battle system is nowhere to be seen in the generic narrative. In most games this wouldn't be that great a problem; the world is full of action, strategy and puzzle games with forgettable or nonexistent stories. But Grandia III is a Japanese role-playing game, and in that subgenre gamers have come to expect epic, imaginative tales with memorable, endearing characters. Grandia III's story isn't tedious, but neither is it memorable. It begins well but never gels. The story is well presented, with beautiful animated cinematic scenes and good voice acting. But in spite of the occasional plot twist or mysterious character, I never had more than a mild curiosity about what would become of the game's bland characters. The strange thing is, there are games that I consider superior, even though I enjoyed their game play less than Grandia III. Classic games like Final Fantasy X and Xenosaga Episode 1 lacked the perfection of Grandia III's game mechanics, yet both created original, immersive worlds populated by living, breathing characters I cared about. While playing Grandia III, I should have been worrying about its characters and wondering what would happen next, but instead I just kept thinking, how much money does an escapologist make, anyway? EXIT Developed by Taito and published by Ubisoft for PlayStation Portable; for all ages; $40. GRANDIA III Developed by Game Arts and published by Square Enix for PlayStation 2; for ages 13 and up; $50. GAME THEORY E-mail: Herold@nytimes.com

GAME ARTS
UBISOFT
SQUARE ENIX
REVIEWS
COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES
GRANDIA III (VIDEO GAME)
EXIT (VIDEO GAME)


Czech Wounds Still Open, Communists Face a Ban

Abstract: PRAGUE — For many Czechs, it is a historical reckoning that is 20 years too late. Two decades after the Velvet Revolution overthrew Communist rule here in 1989, a group of Czech senators is pressing to ban the Communist Party, the only surviving one in the former Soviet bloc in Europe and, to its many critics, a national embarrassment and aberration. “The Communists ruined this country and oppressed freedom and yet here they are 20 years later in our Parliament,” said David Cerny , the iconoclastic Czech artist, who in 1991 painted a Soviet tank pink , transforming a memorial to the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Red Army in 1945 into the equivalent of a large toy. “It is a national disgrace. The Communists are endangering the country. The Czechs need to wake up.” This month senators took the first step, petitioning the government to file a legal complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court, the country’s highest electoral authority, for suspension of the Communist Party’s activities. While there is an incongruity here — the anti-Communist campaigners say they are acting to defend democracy while working to ban a party that is still doing well in elections — the senators insist that there is a real danger. They say the Communist Party, the third strongest force in the Czech Parliament, remains loyal to undemocratic revolution. And they are calling for it either to disband or to abandon its Marxist call to arms, which they say flouts the Czech Constitution’s insistence that political parties renounce violence. Under Czech law, the court has the power to outlaw a party — but only on an initiative from the government or the president. So the senators are pinning their hopes on Prime Minister Jan Fischer, an economist and a former member of the Statistics Office during the Communist era, who has described his nine-year membership in the Communist Party as one of his “biggest mistakes.” The senator leading the campaign, Jaromir Stetina, 66, may seem an unlikely anti-Communist firebrand: his grandmother was one of the founding members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. But Mr. Stetina, a former war correspondent, argued that the unreconstructed party was a dangerous relic. “We believe the Communist Party should be suspended until they give up the title of ‘communist’ and denounce Marx and Lenin, who regarded violence as a legitimate means of gaining power,” Mr. Stetina said. “Not even the millions of dead bodies, which are the consequence of Lenin’s policies, have convinced the Czech Communist Party to abandon his teachings.” Mr. Stetina and his commission have been sifting through dozens of past speeches and statements by the party in search of transgressions against democracy. Their campaign was given impetus during the recent Velvet Revolution anniversary celebrations in November when the Communist Party issued an incendiary statement lambasting the democratically elected governments that followed the revolution for 20 years of “promises and lying.” Czechs, the Communist Party contended, had not wanted to discard communism in 1989. Unlike the Communist parties in countries like Poland and Hungary, which transformed themselves after 1989 into more mainstream center-left parties, the Czech Communist Party has studiously avoided a comprehensive overhaul. Yet it is still flourishing and gained nearly 13 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary elections in 2006. Its supporters are mostly those fed up with politics as usual and regime nostalgics, many of them elderly pensioners, for whom life before 1989 seems better than life today. The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, named after the two main regions of the Czech Republic, is the successor of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. While the party has sought to distance itself from its violent past, its many critics contend that it never really cut its umbilical cord to its pre-1989 predecessor — a contention the party vehemently denies. Vojtech Filip, the Communist Party’s leader, was adamant in an interview that the party did not support undemocratic regime change. But he fell short of condemning the Marxist principle of revolution and called Marx “the greatest thinker of the millennium.” “We are a legal party and always act according to the Constitution,” he said. Defending his party’s philosophy, Mr. Filip paradoxically invoked Vaclav Havel , the former Czech president who led the revolution that overthrew Communism, arguing that Mr. Havel himself had equated contemporary Czech politics with “mafia-capitalism.” Mr. Havel, who languished in prison under the Communist regime, has also, in fact, called the Communist Party “a boulder weighing down” the political system. But many Czechs blame him for refusing to ban the party when he became president or to put on trial a system that allowed people to send their neighbors to labor camps. Some saw in his approach a noble effort to avoid polarizing the nation; others consider it a moral lapse that prevented the country from coming to terms with its past. Lubos Dobrovsky, a former dissident and defense minister, who ran Mr. Havel’s office when he was president, argued that it was not possible to ban the Communist Party in the immediate aftermath of 1989 because the reform wing of the party had been an essential ally during the transition to democracy, and helped avoid violence. But he acknowledged that Czech politicians, including himself, had been naïve in thinking the party would just disappear. “We thought we could overcome them with our own programs, and we were wrong,” he said. Mr. Havel himself recently stood by his decision not to ban the party but said he nevertheless regretted that former Communists had prospered after 1989 while those they persecuted had suffered. “I regard it as very sad that people who struggled to ensure freedom and were persecuted their entire life retire with a microscopic pension,” he said recently at an event marking the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, “while their tormentors and secret policemen have huge salaries and are successful entrepreneurs.” While many Czechs today are outwardly hostile to the Communist Party, in the past the party was accepted, even embraced. Founded in 1921, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the country’s first postwar general elections in 1946, with the memory that the Soviet Army had helped vanquish the Nazis still fresh. The party came to power in a coup in 1948. While a majority of Czechs have no desire to return to the Communist era, Mr. Dobrovsky, the former dissident, said he hoped that the current attempt to ban the party would expose it for what it is, while helping the country come to terms with history. “The proposal forces the Communists to react and by doing so they will show their true nature,” he said. “When people listen to the Communists’ arguments, they will realize that the party does not belong in a democratic party system.”

Velvet Revolution
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Prague (Czech Republic)
Communism (Theory and Philosophy)
Politics and Government
Havel Vaclav


Study Finds Greater Income Inequality in Nation’s Thriving Cities

Abstract: WASHINGTON — If you want to live in a more equal community, it might mean living in a more moribund economy. That is one of the implications of a new study of local income trends by the Brookings Institution, the Washington research group. It found that inequality is sharply higher in economically vibrant cities like New York and San Francisco than in less dynamic ones like Columbus, Ohio, and Wichita, Kan. The study , released on Thursday, comes as a number of cities across the country are trying to tackle income inequality and expand opportunity through measures like increasing the minimum wage, which President Obama has promised to do at the federal level. In no city is the effort more prominent than in New York, where the new mayor, Bill de Blasio, has promised higher taxes for rich families and better services for poor ones, including expanded early-childhood education and affordable-housing developments. “The truth is, the state of our city, as we find it today, is a tale of two cities, with an inequality gap that fundamentally threatens our future,” Mr. de Blasio said this month, echoing his campaign speeches. “It must not, and will not, be ignored by your city government.” Local officials here in Washington and in Boston, New Haven, San Francisco and Seattle have also seized on the issue. But in some cases, higher income inequality might go hand in hand with economic vibrancy, the study found. “These more equal cities — they’re not home to the sectors driving economic growth, like technology and finance,” said its author, Alan Berube. “These are places that are home to sectors like transportation, logistics, warehousing.” He added, “In terms of actual per capita income growth, these are not places that would be high up the list.” That does not mean that measures intended to mitigate inequality will necessarily reduce the vibrancy of a local community. But the study confirms what many others have shown: The country’s big cities tend to have higher income inequality than the country as a whole. For instance, in the 50 biggest American cities in 2012, a high-income household — which the study measured at the 95th earnings percentile, putting it just into the top 5 percent — earned about 11 times as much as a low-income household, at the 20th percentile. Nationally, that ratio was 9 to 1. Some places tend to have much more intense income inequality than others. A high-income family might earn 15 or 16 times what a low-income family earns in San Francisco or Boston, compared with earnings multiples of six or eight in places like Virginia Beach or Wichita. Low-inequality cities, the study found, tend to be located in the South and the Midwest. They also tend to be geographically large, encompassing neighborhoods that in many other cities would be considered suburbs. Generally, the average for the top income group in such cities tends to be lower than it is in high-inequality cities — $150,000 to $200,000 a year, compared with $354,000 in San Francisco and $280,000 in Atlanta. The driving force behind spiraling inequality at a national level is the rich getting richer. But in many cases, the Brookings numbers indicated, poverty is as important a factor at the local level. In Miami, for instance, a household in the bottom 20th income percentile earned just $10,000 a year in 2012. Inequality in the 50 biggest cities grew modestly from 2007 to 2012, the study found. The effect was not primarily because of rapid income growth among the richest families — generally, earnings for the top 1 percent of the income distribution have not yet surpassed their prerecession peak. Rather, it was because poor families, saddled with debt and high unemployment rates, have suffered through the recession and the recovery. The single biggest increase in inequality over that period occurred in San Francisco, where earnings for the typical low-income household dropped $4,000 and soared $28,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a high-income household. But in most other places, inequality intensified because the poor got poorer, including in Cleveland, Sacramento, Tucson and Fresno, Calif. “High-income households did not lose much ground during the recession,” Mr. Berube of Brookings said. “Low-income households lost ground and haven’t gained it back. And the pressures around cost of living are higher at the low end than they are at the high end.” Researchers say local inequality trends are related to national inequality trends, but are not the same. Any individual city’s earnings ratios might be more defined by who can afford to and wants to live there — whether a family of relatively low-skilled new immigrants, or a computer programmer in high demand or a financier from abroad — than by tidal economic trends like unionization and technological change. But New York and many other cities have promised to tackle inequality, in part by shifting the tax burden, but also through initiatives aimed at attracting middle-class families with cheaper housing and better schools.

Income Inequality
Brookings
Research
Urban area


Airlines Advise Stranded Travelers to Rebook Flights

Abstract: Still trying to figure out whether you can get to Europe this weekend in spite of all the chaos caused by the cloud of volcanic ash that has virtually shut down air traffic there? You’re out of luck but not out of options. Here’s the advice of the airline industry: Consider taking up the airlines on their offers to rebook flights without a penalty. You cannot depend on the airlines to provide you with room and board if you are stranded in the meantime. Because the cancellations are not the airlines’ fault, they have no obligation to feed or house passengers stranded at airports in the United States or Europe. “These are acts of God, force majeure,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, which represents American air carriers. “If you have flexibility to not go, take advantage of it.” Air carriers based in the United States canceled more than 83 percent of their flights to Europe on Friday. That left thousands of travelers with two choices, neither of them good: Stay at the airport and take a chance at a seat on one of the few flights scheduled, or give up and travel some other time. Airlines are providing guidance, by listing cancellations on their Web sites. The United Airlines site, for instance, said Friday that all flights to Europe were canceled except one from Washington to Rome. Other airline sites, like those for Continental , American and Delta, listed the destinations where ticket holders would be allowed to make a change to their itineraries without a penalty, or provided a form to apply for a refund for a canceled flight. For anyone still intent on keeping their original travel plans, “We will re-accommodate them as soon as possible, though that will take quite awhile for some of them, depending on when we are allowed to actually restart service,” Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines , said in an e-mail message. “The flights that operate when we restart were already booked to some degree with customers seeking to travel that day. So re-accommodations will take some time depending on how long we are out.” Delta Air Lines was alone in saying it had put on extra people to handle rebooking of passengers. But all the major carriers are taking advantage of digital technology to keep passengers informed. Mr. Castelveter said even people who did not normally use social media Web sites would be wise to sign up for their airline’s Twitter feeds or e-mail alerts for news about specific flights. He also suggested going online to check an airline’s flight frequency schedule since not all airlines offered daily flights to international destinations. Travelers opting to try their luck at the airport should bring food and other supplies for a long wait, Mr. Castelveter said. A list of contact information for nearby hotels might also come in handy. But above all, passengers will be well served to lower their expectations. “The problem with volcanic ash is not just a meteorological function but the material is both abrasive and corrosive,” said Kevin Humphreys, director of safety regulation for the Irish Aviation Authority. “So it’s not just the danger of engine failure or flameout because of the ingestion of the dust, it’s the damage the material does to the airplanes.” The northern portion of Ireland was clear of the ash cloud on Friday, leaving the Dublin airport one of the few European airports operating. The impact of the ash cloud is monumental because it has drifted across the busiest air route in the world, where an estimated 900 to 1,200 flights pass over the North Atlantic every 12 hours, according to Pat McDonough, an air traffic controller whose job involves handling flights over oceanic air space. “I’ve been controlling traffic for 20 years,” Mr. McDonough said, “And this is the first time that we’ve had a situation like this.”

United Airlines
American Airlines
Airlines and Airplanes
Volcanoes
Air Transport Assn
Continental Airlines Inc
Delta Air Lines Inc
Social Networking (Internet)


Train Derails in Cameroon, Leaving Dozens Dead

Abstract: ESÉKA, Cameroon — At least 55 people were killed and 575 injured on Friday when a packed passenger train traveling between Cameroon’s two largest cities derailed and overturned, the country’s government said. Fourteen people remained trapped under the wreckage on Friday, the government said in a communiqué read on state television. The accident occurred near the train station in Eséka, a town about 50 miles west of the capital, Yaoundé. The intercity passenger train was traveling from Yaoundé to the commercial hub Douala when the accident occurred around 11 a.m. Before the train’s departure from Yaoundé, a railway employee said additional cars had been added to the train to accommodate extra passengers, though it was unclear if that had played a role in the accident. The collapse of a bridge along the main highway between the capital and Douala had prompted an increase in the number of passengers taking the journey by rail. Joel Bineli, a passenger, said he saw dismembered bodies on the tracks. Social media users posted photos taken at the scene of the accident that showed several cars overturned on a slope beside the rail line. “Rescue workers arrived, and they are pulling bodies from the wagon,” said Rachelle Paden, another passenger. “I’ve already counted around 40 bodies they’ve removed.” The train service, Camrail , which is operated by Bolloré Railways of France, said that it had sent teams to the site and that victims were being transported to a local hospital and to Douala. A Bolloré spokesman confirmed only that an accident had occurred. Many rail lines in western and central Africa have a reputation for poor maintenance and failures to respect safety procedures. Derailments are relatively common. Though Bolloré is generally viewed as a reliable operator, part of a bridge along a line it controls in Ivory Coast collapsed under a freight train last month.


In Florida, Alex Sink and Rick Scott Rally the Faithful

Abstract: ORLANDO, Fla. — Rick Scott and Alex Sink sprinted across the state. Polls have continued to show that neither candidate has been able to build a lead in the bitter race for governor, which has been dominated by a barrage of television ads about each other’s character and ethics, or lack thereof. But Mr. Scott, the Republican, and Ms. Sink, the Democrat, toned down some of the negative language this final weekend and instead emphasized their plans for education and argued that they were the best candidate to turn around the state’s moribund economy. Florida has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation and close to 12 percent unemployment. “We create jobs by getting government out of your life, lower regulation, lower taxes, lower fees and an attitude that business people are the lifeblood of this country,” Mr. Scott said during a rally held by the Republican Party of Florida at a commercial air hangar near downtown Orlando. The event in Orlando — which was crowded with nearly 200 ardent Republican supporters — was just one in a steady stream of campaign stops for Mr. Scott. He went to three rallies on Saturday, including a Tea Party event in northeast Florida. Along the way he continued to castigate the federal stimulus and “Obamacare,” as he calls the federal health care overhaul, as reasons to vote for him and other Republicans. On Sunday, both candidates hopped from church services in the morning to barbecues in the afternoon. The weekend campaigning saw Ms. Sink performing the coin toss at the Saturday homecoming game at Florida A & M University, the state’s public historically black college in Tallahassee — a sign that her fate will hang on African-American turnout. Decked out in a polo shirt featuring the school colors of orange and green, she spent time before the game greeting tailgating fans. Earlier, Ms. Sink received a roaring reception when she talked to members of the Florida Education Association, the state’s teacher union, at their annual delegate assembly. Ms. Sink, who opposed a controversial teacher tenure bill that was vetoed this past spring by Gov. Charlie Crist, vowed to work with teachers, as opposed to letting “Tallahassee politicians and bureaucrats” dictate how schools should work. “We cannot build a stronger economy without a stronger public education system,” Ms. Sink said. After her speech, an excited group of teachers from Orange County posed with her and handed Ms. Sink a shirt that read: “Without Sink we are sunk.” Ms. Sink’s weekend stops appeared aimed at trying to rally traditional Democratic supporters to help stem a potential Republican tide. She was joined on her stops in central Florida by Representative Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat who came to Florida to help rally Hispanic voters. Mr. Scott had political stars of his own. He was joined at rallies in Orlando and Tampa by former Gov. Jeb Bush and Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi. Mr. Bush contended that Mr. Scott would be a “principled centered” governor who would lift the “cloud” that he said had descended on Florida. GARY FINEOUT

Florida
Republican Party
Sink Alex
Elections
Governors (US)
United States Politics and Government
Democratic Party
Scott Richard L


Flyers Rescue Season Behind Interim Coach and a Few Good Bounces

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — On Nov. 1, one month into the N.H.L. season, the Philadelphia Flyers lost to the Alex Ovechkin-less Washington Capitals, 7-0. They took nearly three times as many penalty minutes as shots , and goalie Ray Emery attracted criticism by leaving the crease to fight Washington’s Braden Holtby. The Flyers’ record fell to 3-9, and their star center Claude Giroux still had not scored a goal. But just when it looked as if the Flyers would sink into mediocrity, or worse, a low point became a tipping point. Giroux snapped a 15-game goal drought with a third-period goal in the Flyers’ 4-2 home win over the Edmonton Oilers on Nov. 9, and the team’s play started improving. The Flyers seem to have figured out the system of the interim coach Craig Berube, gaining points in eight of their last nine games and going 5-0-1 in their last six. Now 9-10-2, Philadelphia has moved up to fifth in the Metropolitan Division. “Confidence is a big thing, especially with your top players,” said Berube, who took over when Peter Laviolette was fired after three games. Berube preaches aggressive forechecking to force turnovers, and the Flyers are taking his direction to heart. This season’s troubles began at home, where the Flyers typically play well. Philadelphia has finished with a sub-.500 home record only once since 1993-94. But through nine games, Philadelphia had lost as many home contests in regulation, seven, as it did all of last season. “We haven’t been a good hockey club at home,” goalie Steve Mason said. “We’ve had leads going into the third and let them go, and that’s a lot of valuable points.” The Flyers may have announced capacity crowds for every home game this year, but with pockets of empty seats and tickets available on secondary markets for below face value, the fans seem to be cautious. While Giroux’s play has the Flyers breathing easier, Philadelphia’s 44 goals are third-fewest in the N.H.L. The third line of Matt Read, Sean Couturier and Steve Downie, who arrived in a trade from Colorado on Oct. 31, has picked up the offensive slack. They have combined for 14 points in the Flyers’ last six games. After a listless start Thursday left Philadelphia trailing the last-place Buffalo Sabres, Couturier and Downie set up Read’s two goals in Philadelphia’s 4-1 victory . “I think the first period we got away from our system,” Read said. “We talked on the bench, Downie, Couts and I, and we said, ‘Let’s keep it simple, get the puck deep and go to work,’ and it happened.” The bounces that went against the Flyers in the season’s first month are also going their way now, as they did against Ottawa on Tuesday. With 10 minutes left in regulation and the score tied at 2-2, Senators forward Bobby Ryan found Kyle Turris at the top of the crease with a wide-open net. But Turris’s shot, instead of putting the Senators ahead, hit defenseman Nicklas Grossmann’s leg and stayed out. It appeared to be a goal from some angles, but the video review was inconclusive and the no-goal ruling was upheld. “I think it was more of a reflex than anything,” Grossmann said. “I was pretty sure it was out, but then I saw the review, and you never know. It looked like the puck wasn’t in.” Seconds later, Kimmo Timonen scored the first of two Philadelphia goals in 23 seconds and the Flyers went on to win, 5-2 . Against Buffalo on Thursday, Read scored his second goal after Sabres defenseman Tyler Myers’s clearing attempt hit the linesman’s skates and the puck stayed in the zone. Downie corralled the loose puck and found Read for the eventual game-winner. “We got a couple lucky bounces and a couple of lucky goals,” Read said. Over the past decade, Philadelphia has had a love-hate relationship with a revolving cast of goaltenders. The latest to exit was Ilya Bryzgalov, who was bought out this off-season and replaced by Mason. After winning the Calder Trophy in 2008-9 with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Mason was inconsistent. The Blue Jackets dealt him to Philadelphia at last season’s trade deadline, and the change has helped him. Through 15 games, Mason is ninth in the N.H.L. in save percentage (.932) and 10th in goals-against average (2.12). Late in the second period Tuesday against Ottawa, Mason went post to post to rob Clarke MacArthur. He then smothered Turris’s third-period penalty shot, keeping the Flyers ahead by two. “He’s been playing well all year,” Berube said of Mason. “Big save on the penalty shot. That was a huge, timely save.” The Flyers may have also come up with a timely save of their season.

Flyers
Claude Giroux
Craig Berube
Ice hockey


Despite Feats, Daniel Murphy Is Only the Second-Busiest Member of His Family

Abstract: KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Tori Murphy took a seat in the family section of Kauffman Stadium for Game 2 of the World Series on Wednesday, she pulled up a photo on her cellphone that her mother had sent her. There was her 19-month-old son, Noah, surrounded by a group of children admiring his bright shoes. The day before, back in New York, Noah’s grandmother had taken him to his favorite neighborhood park, not far from the family’s Upper East Side apartment. A group of children there thought they recognized him — those shoes helped — and asked his grandmother, “Is Daniel Murphy his father?” The answer was yes. Daniel Murphy had become so well known for his heroics during the Mets’ October run, and had done enough interviews during Champagne celebrations while cradling Noah, that Murphy had, in turn, made the boy somewhat easy to spot, too. “It kind of freaked me out,” Tori Murphy said. “I’m not going to lie.” This is the sort of thing that happens after your husband hits seven home runs in the first two rounds of the playoffs, one shy of the record for a single postseason, and leads the Mets to their first pennant in 15 years. Murphy also hit a home run in six consecutive playoff games, a feat never before accomplished, and did it off some of the best pitchers in baseball. Tori Murphy, of course, does not view her husband the way excited fans do. She is overjoyed by his startling success, but weighed against that are other priorities, like raising Noah and preparing for their second child, a girl, due in December. Playoffs or not, Noah still races into his parents’ bedroom to wake up his father to play with him. Tori still needs help with errands and chores. Murphy still changes diapers if Noah wakes up in the night. In recent weeks, as the Mets kept winning and Murphy kept rounding the bases, he and Tori never really had the time to celebrate. A nice dinner? Forget it. “Seamless is the best thing in the world,” Tori said, referring to the food delivery service. They like to order fried rice, sesame chicken and sushi from Tao. Image Murphy's wife, Tori, cheering at Game 2 of the World Series on Wednesday. The Murphys are expecting their second child, a girl, due in December. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times When Game 2 began, with Noah still with his grandmother in New York, Tori, who agreed to let a reporter watch the game with her, stood nervously when her husband came to bat. She swayed back and forth on her feet, her hands shoved into her pockets. When the at-bat was over, she would sit down and immediately check her phone for an update on her son. Because she is pregnant, Tori cannot stand for too long. She has attended most of the postseason games, which have included stays in Los Angeles and Chicago, but has not lasted through all of them. When she stands up, she also feels the urge to use the bathroom. During the five-hour, 14-inning Game 1, she said she visited the restroom at least 10 times. After that game, Murphy was wired, wide awake, but Tori felt exhausted. She ordered him room service — chicken fingers and cheesecake — and went to bed. The wives and girlfriends of Mets players have a group text chat they use to share a running commentary during games. They use the bomb emoji to describe home runs. “Or the muscle,” Tori Murphy said, raising her right arm and flexing. But over the past few weeks, when she would jump up to celebrate each time her husband hit another homer, she had to sit down to catch her breath. If her due date were earlier than December, she said, she might have thought twice about even being at the ballpark. Throughout Game 2, when the action slowed or stopped, conversation with Tori would drift toward her son — how he’s dressing as his father for Halloween, how he smeared mud on his father’s face during one postseason celebration. Her husband, she noted, hates getting dirty. During the fifth inning of the game, when the Royals scored four runs to take a commanding lead, third baseman Mike Moustakas capped the rally by driving a run-scoring single by a diving Murphy at second base. Tori silently crossed her arms, frowning, taking in the celebrating Royals fans around her. Then she checked her phone, almost impulsively, for any updates on Noah. In August, Tori thought she might be going into early labor. She had been sitting on the floor, reading to Noah, when she stood up and felt a shooting pain down her back. Her body froze in the shape of a question mark. Noah started crying. She didn’t know what was wrong, and her husband was at Citi Field, preparing for a day game. Tori asked Maegan Parnell, Bobby Parnell’s wife, to come over to help. Her fears that she was going into labor soon subsided, but her back did not get much better. She texted her husband: Get home as soon as the game is over. Which he did. “Time to be a father,” Murphy said he said to himself as he drove home as quickly as he could. In recent years, Daniel Murphy has become increasingly religious, to the point that many fans are now aware of how much that factors into his life. During team chapel sessions, he asks his teammates to pray that he be a better husband and father. He prays during games as a way to calm himself. Aside from maybe Kevin Long, the Mets’ first-year hitting coach, who adjusted his mechanics, Murphy credits his faith as the most important factor in his postseason performance. But Murphy was not as religious when Tori met him. He was a handsome, confident baseball player at Jacksonville University. She was a softball player at the University of North Florida. One day, she asked a friend to help move a couch, and Murphy came along to help. “Offered him 20 bucks,” she said. “Gentleman wouldn’t take it.” They dated for a few years, but they broke up in the fall of 2011. Murphy has described his behavior at the time as “selfish.” It was around then that he embraced Christianity, and not long afterward he and Tori got back together. Next came marriage and parenthood, an ever-deepening faith for both of them and what Tori refers to as “this crazy time.” “Crazy” may be putting it mildly. Entering the postseason, Murphy had never hit more than 14 home runs in a season. He had made one All-Star team. Some fans criticized him for his deficiencies on defense and questionable decisions on the basepaths. In any case, the Murphys could take their son to the park without being treated as front-page celebrities. That has now changed, at least in New York. During an off day after the Mets swept the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, the Murphys took Noah outside to play baseball and go down a playground slide. A few children came over, then a few more. A nearby school was out on recess, and soon a mob of children surrounded Daniel Murphy, asking for autographs. They asked him to sign lunchboxes. They asked him to sign leaves, whatever they could get their hands on. A few days after that, Noah was being treated as a big deal in his own right. All of this, of course, can subside as easily as it arises. For the Murphys, for the Mets, and for an army of disappointed fans, the first two games of the Series have been nothing like the two rounds of the N.L. playoffs. The Mets have lost twice, and Murphy has not come close to hitting another homer. In Game 2, the Royals’ pitcher, Johnny Cueto, seemed to treat Murphy carefully, walking him twice (and also striking him out twice). Of the 22 pitches Murphy saw in the 7-1 loss, he later estimated that three of them had been worth trying to hit. In the end, he went hitless for the first time this postseason. When the final out came, Murphy walked off the field jawing at an umpire over the strike zone, and Tori Murphy commiserated with another woman in the family section. Back home, Noah was fast asleep.

Daniel Murphy
World Series
Mets
Baseball
Dating
Pregnancy


Trump Backers Go to Court to Block Vote Recounts in 3 States

Abstract: LANSING, Mich. — President-elect Donald J. Trump and his allies have filed separate legal challenges in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in a suddenly robust effort to stop the presidential election recount efforts there. None of the challenges immediately derailed the recounts in those states, but they promised to complicate them with more legal wrangling by Mr. Trump, groups supportive of him, state officials and Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate. Ms. Stein initiated the recounts and a successful fund-raising drive after suggesting that voting machines were susceptible to hacking. On Friday, Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Appeals in an attempt to block the recount there, which had not yet begun. “If the Bureau of Elections moves forward with the recount, it will waste the State’s scarce resources, create a logistical nightmare for counties across the State, and assure that Michigan’s Electoral College voters will not be counted,” the filing said. Bill Schuette, Michigan’s attorney general, filed a separate lawsuit in a bid to halt the recount, saying that it put the state’s voters at risk of “paying millions and potentially losing their voice in the Electoral College in the process.” In his court filing, Mr. Schuette, a Republican who is widely mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2018, said, “This court cannot allow a dilatory and frivolous request for a recount by an aggrieved party to silence all Michigan votes for president.’’ In Wisconsin, a lawsuit against the state Elections Commission was filed Thursday in Federal District Court by the Great America PAC, the Stop Hillary PAC and Ronald R. Johnson, a Wisconsin resident. The lawsuit said that the recount could “unjustifiably cast doubt” on Mr. Trump’s victory in that state. The plaintiffs argued that the recount, which began across the state’s 72 counties on Thursday morning, should be halted immediately, in part because there was a substantial chance that it cannot be accurately completed by mid-December. Results must be certified before the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19. In 2011, a statewide recount took close to a month. A federal judge said Friday that he would not halt the recount, but allowed the lawsuit to proceed. Lawyers for Mr. Trump and his allies are also seeking to halt legal proceedings by Ms. Stein to contest the statewide election results in Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has participated only lightly, paying for lawyers to be present at recount sites. Still, the recounts have generated excitement among some of her supporters, hoping that the small margins in the three traditionally Democratic states might swing to Mrs. Clinton in a recount. But Edward B. Foley, director of the Election Law Project at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said there was no comparison between this recount and the 2000 Florida impasse between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Then, he said, “it was quite plausible that Gore might prevail in a recount.’’ The chance that these state recounts could reverse the outcome of the 2016 election, Mr. Foley said, was “essentially zero or infinitesimal.” Ms. Stein, in a statement, said the challenges to the recounts were an effort to put “party politics above country.” “Trump’s desperate attempts to silence voter demands for recounts raise a simple question: Why is Donald Trump afraid of these recounts?” she said. In Michigan, where the recount is still pending, the Board of State Canvassers on Friday heard a formal objection from Mr. Trump and his campaign to plans to recount that state’s 4.8 million votes. Lawyers for Mr. Trump told the state board, which is made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, that it should not allow a new count, describing it as needless, too expensive and not required under Michigan law. Ms. Stein, who got 51,463 votes in Michigan, hardly met the state’s standard as an “aggrieved” party, the lawyers argued. But a lawyer for Ms. Stein, Mark Brewer, said Mr. Trump’s campaign was making a “desperate attempt” to avoid a recount. Of the three states where recounts are contemplated, Michigan had the smallest gap between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton: 10,704 votes. “I would remind everybody that the original source of the allegation that this election was rigged was Mr. Trump,” Mr. Brewer, a former chairman of Michigan’s Democratic Party, told the board. In the end, after several tense exchanges over the practical value and cost of a recount, the Board of State Canvassers split, 2 to 2, along party lines, meaning the recount objection failed. Barring a court order in Mr. Schuette’s case or some other legal development, Michigan, which has not seen a statewide recount in half a century, could begin a hand recount by Wednesday. In Pennsylvania, Ms. Stein’s recount campaign is operating along dual tracks, with its challenge of the statewide results proceeding along with petitions to recount specific voting districts. Lawrence J. Tabas, general counsel of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said in an interview on Friday that Ms. Stein’s lawyers had fallen short of demonstrating that there was fraud or illegal action in the Nov. 8 election. “They know they have no claim,” he said. “This action by Jill Stein and her supporters — I couldn’t even call it a Hail Mary pass, because that would be insulting to the Hail Mary pass,” said Mr. Tabas, who along with other lawyers, submitted a lengthy court brief on Thursday. On Friday afternoon in Philadelphia, teams of observers were monitoring election workers as they rechecked counts on electronic voting machines used in 75 precincts, a small fraction of the nearly 1,700 across the city. The groups — which included representatives from each of the parties and candidates — quietly made their way from machine to machine in a dimly lit warehouse in North Philadelphia where the city stores its 4,000 machines. Philadelphia has been using the machines, which record votes on cartridges, since the early 2000s. The review mirrored the steps that automatically take places after elections, said Al Schmidt, a city commissioner and a Republican, who said he did not expect the vote tally to change. “We are doing the exact same thing that we did during the computation process,” he said. “We are just doing it once again.” Rich Garella, 50, a Stein supporter who petitioned for the recount and was serving as a monitor on Friday, said the effort felt worthwhile, but he had hoped that election officials would approve a more rigorous forensic audit of the machines, which Ms. Stein had requested. “We as voters don’t really understand how these machines work,” Mr. Garella said. “We don’t understand how they are programmed.” He predicted that one result of the recount effort, at least in Philadelphia, could be to shed light on the unseen part of the voting system. “What we may end up showing from this is just that we are not being allowed to see how our election works and to see that our votes are being counted properly,” he said.

Voting
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Bill Schuette
Donald Trump
2016 Presidential Election


Juventus Wins First Italian Title Since 2003

Abstract: Juventus won its 28th Serie A title and first in nine years after it beat Cagliari, 2-0, and second-place A.C. Milan lost to Inter Milan, 4-2, in the next-to-last games. It is Juventus’s first Italian league championship since 2003; two titles since then were revoked because of match fixing. ¶ Feyenoord won a Champions League berth by downing Heerenveen, 3-1, in the Dutch league’s final round.


India's Plan to Set Aside Jobs for Poor Stirs Protest

Abstract: BANGALORE, India, May 15 — What began in New Delhi last month as a doctors' strike to protest an affirmative action proposal for disadvantaged Indians spread over the weekend and is threatening to flare into a government vs. industry battle. As a strike by thousands of doctors and medical students intensified on Monday, services in dozens of hospitals across the country were disrupted. In India's technology capital of Bangalore, 500 medical and engineering students marched in the streets over the weekend. The protests are a reaction to a federal proposal that calls for nearly half of the jobs at government hospitals and half the seats at medical schools to be reserved for lower-caste and other disadvantaged Indians. Beyond that, several ministers have pushed for legislation to reserve spots at other types of schools as well as jobs in private companies for people belonging to disadvantaged groups. Supporters of the proposal say that India's economy, which is growing by 8 percent annually, has only accentuated the inequalities of Indian society. In a television interview over the weekend, India's industry minister, Kamal Nath, declared that the government was committed to affirmative action and that it wanted to ensure that growth was "inclusive." But some industry executives said that increasing affirmative action in the private sector would rob the country of its competitive edge. In fact, unregulated labor markets and the country's education system are credited with the spectacular growth of India's outsourcing industry. "There is rising concern that affirmative action in jobs will erode competitiveness and put off multinational firms," said Partha Iyengar, vice president for research at the Indian operations of Gartner Inc., a technology research and consulting company. Mr. Iyengar said that companies were lobbying against a large-scale move to reserve jobs in the private sector. "If affirmative action is enforced in the outsourcing industry, for instance, it will lead to resource turbulence," said Mr. Iyengar, who said challenges like language and culture would reduce the employable pool of candidates for companies. Representatives of the Confederation of Indian Industry, India's largest industry group, said that foreign investors were watching the latest developments carefully. Affirmative action is a thorny political issue in a country where much of the economy is farm-based, and about one in three Indians live on less than a dollar a day. About two-thirds of India's 1.1 billion people live in villages with poor access to schools and even less access to well-paying jobs. More than half of India's schools have only one teacher for every two classrooms. At the same time, applicants fight fiercely for admission to India's most prestigious medical and technical schools. Competition is widely said to be more intense than in Ivy League schools in the United States. And global companies like Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Microsoft and General Electric routinely hire graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management. "In the knowledge economy, job reservations will put India at a disadvantage in the global bazaar," said N. R. Narayana Murthy, chairman and founder of Infosys Technologies, one of India's largest outsourcing companies. "Our customers don't care what color we are or where we are from as long as we are labor-competitive." Mr. Murthy said he had no doubt that the caste system had done a terrible injustice to a large section of Indian society. But to address it, he said, the country should strengthen the primary and secondary education system. Several founders of Infosys pay for midday meal programs and primary school programs in the country, he said. The company has also recruited disadvantaged residents for its processing unit and has helped put them through school. In two months, he said, the company is starting a software engineering course for candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the first class will have 100 students.

India
Demonstrations and Riots
Economic Conditions and Trends
Education and Schools


Clinton Wants to Improve Ties With Israel

Abstract: Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a representative of a group of prominent Jewish leaders on Sunday that she wanted to put the relationship between the United States and Israel back on “constructive footing,” the representative said. Mrs. Clinton’s comments, made in a phone call to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, contrasted in tone from recent remarks by members of the Obama administration, who have publicly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel amid tensions over a nuclear deal with Iran and comments Mr. Netanyahu made in the final days of his re-election campaign this month. “Secretary Clinton thinks we need to all work together to return the special U.S.-Israel relationship to constructive footing, to get back to basic shared concerns and interests, including a two-state solution pursued through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians,” Mr. Hoenlein said in a statement issued by his organization on Sunday evening. “We must ensure that Israel never becomes a partisan issue,” he quoted her as saying. Mrs. Clinton knows Mr. Hoenlein from her time in the Senate. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton confirmed that she had spoken to Mr. Hoenlein, but would not elaborate on what they had discussed or say if he had quoted her accurately. Mrs. Clinton’s comments are her first on the United States- Israeli relationship to be made public since Mr. Netanyahu’s re-election on March 17, when the strains between the two countries reached their height in the days surrounding the election. Mr. Netanyahu urged supporters to counter Israeli Arabs who he said were voting in “droves,” comments widely criticized as racist , and asserted that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch, a statement that President Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, called “very troubling.” After his victory, Mr. Netanyahu backed off both statements. Obama administration officials have left open the possibility of changing the United States’ stance on Israel at the United Nations since the election. Historically, the United States has acted as a shield for resolutions that Israel found troublesome. A senior White House official was quoted by The Wall Street Journal recently suggesting that some in the Obama administration felt “personally sold out,” after accusations that Israel had spied on negotiations for an Iran nuclear deal and that those aides could be around for the “next administration,” a clear reference to a potential Clinton White House.