India Defeats Sri Lanka and Ushers in a New Era

Abstract: However the rest of the world comes to recall Dec. 6, 2009, in the annals of Indian cricket it is likely to be written in letters of gold as the day on which its national team first ascended to the top of the most prestigious world rankings. India displaced South Africa from first place in the International Cricket Council ranking for five-day tests when it defeated Sri Lanka by an innings and 24 runs in Mumbai on Sunday. The result completed the 2-0 series victory it needed to overtake the South Africans. Much of cricket, not least former perennial leader Australia, remains dubious about the true value of rankings. They have, moreover, only been in existence for eight years. Yet this is still a highly significant moment. It is the point at which India’s on-field status has matched its political and economic standing within the game. It would almost certainly be its first time at the top even if the rankings extended back to its debut in tests in 1932. In spite of India’s huge population — more than double the rest of the test-playing countries combined — it has a poor historic record. Only New Zealand of the eight long-established test countries has a poorer all-time ratio of wins to losses. India has enjoyed periods of success, notably in the early 1970s and mid 1990s, but nothing to match the four consecutive series wins — and seven of the past 10 — that have propelled it to the top. Its batting legend Sachin Tendulkar said it was “fantastic to be at this position. I have been waiting a long time to get to this position.” Tendulkar, 36, who earlier in the series became the first man to hit 30,000 runs in all forms of international cricket, further cheered the crowd by saying that he would not retire as long as he was enjoying the game. India’s captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, said the team had raised the bar for teams that follow. “The real tough task from now on is to maintain this performance,” he said. “The real tough job starts from here.” Its time at the top might be a short one. South Africa can reclaim the lead if it beats England by a two-match margin in the four-match series beginning at Centurion, near Pretoria, on 16th December. India’s victory was rapidly sealed Sunday morning. Sri Lanka resumed with four wickets standing and a deficit of 59 and its hopes of prolonged resistance ended in the first over when its captain Kumar Sangakarra, who had defied India’s bowlers for nearly six hours Saturday, was caught by Dhoni from the bowling of left-arm paceman Zaheer Khan for 137. The remaining three wickets went down in little more than half an hour, with Dhoni completing the win when he caught Muttiah Muralitharan from the bowling of Harbhajan Singh. The win was built on remarkable batting by Virender Sehwag, who continued his one-man assault on the conventional wisdom that the biggest scores are best constructed at a measured pace. Sehwag’s 293 left him just seven short of becoming the first man ever to score three triple-centuries in tests and was compiled at such a rate — he faced only 254 balls — that India had ample time to bowl Sri Lanka out twice in favorable batting conditions. It also typified a series characterized by prodigious scoring. India’s innings of 726 for 9 was the highest in its 77-year test history and the second-largest in a test in India, beaten only by the 760 for 7 scored by Sri Lanka two weeks ago in Ahmedabad. Nobody is going to complain when big scores are compiled with the style and panache shown by Sehwag. It does, though, raise issues of the balance between bat and ball. The Australian writer Chris Ryan recently offered an intriguing proposal for redressing a relationship skewed by favorable pitches and huge technological advances in the manufacture of bats — reducing the size of the ball. Among the toiling bowlers the conspicuous sufferer was Muralitharan, the all-time record wicket-taker in tests, who has averaged an extraordinary six wickets a match throughout a 132-test career. Here he took only nine wickets in three matches at a cost of 65.66, almost triple his career average. While he was facing a superb batting line-up hugely favored by the conditions, it was notable that Sri Lanka’s other spinner, Rangana Herath, bowled with greater penetration and economy. In marked contrast to Tendulkar, Muralitharan is talking of bringing forward his retirement, previously scheduled to follow the 2011 World Cup.


Saturday’s College Football Games to Watch

Abstract: 14 WISCONSIN vs. 13 L.S.U. 9 p.m. Eastern, ESPN, Houston The most intriguing matchup of the weekend, this game represents the first time these two powerhouse programs have met since 1972. Louisiana State is a 4.5-point favorite, but it needs to replace much of its offensive firepower. Les Miles has yet to name a starting quarterback, and it seems as if the freshman Brandon Harris and the sophomore Anthony Jennings will both see time. Much attention will be paid to running back Leonard Fournette, one of the most celebrated recruits of 2014. There are a couple of upperclassmen at the position, but expect to see Fournette get his chances. The Badgers are unsettled at quarterback as well, but Tanner McEvoy, who played safety and receiver last year, appears to have gotten the starting nod over the incumbent, Joel Stave. Whoever starts will have the luxury of handing the ball off to Melvin Gordon, who averaged 7.8 yards per carry last season. Gordon will be running behind a typically stout Wisconsin offensive line, which is big and experienced. On the other side of the ball, Wisconsin has had to replace its front seven. The last time Wisconsin lost a season opener was in 1997, when Donovan McNabb led Syracuse to a 34-0 victory. L.S.U. has reeled off 45 consecutive nonconference regular-season wins, the best mark in the nation. If the Badgers can find a way to break that streak, it will go a long way toward earning some respect for the Big Ten. 16 CLEMSON at 12 GEORGIA 5:30 p.m., ESPN Last year’s game between these teams was a classic, and this one ought to be pretty entertaining, too. Georgia’s Todd Gurley is arguably the best running back in the Southeastern Conference, and that ought to help Hutson Mason ease into the role of starting quarterback. Mason, a fifth-year senior who saw time last year when Aaron Murray went down with an injury, knows the offense and will also benefit from experience at receiver. Clemson has to replace players like Tajh Boyd and Sammy Watkins on offense, but it figures to shine on defense. Defensive end Vic Beasley is one of the most fearsome pass rushers in college football, and he and his teammates will need to make some big plays if the Tigers are to come up with the upset. 5 OHIO STATE at NAVY Noon, CBS Sports Network The star Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller is out for the season, and his replacement, the redshirt freshman J. T. Barrett, has never taken a collegiate snap. Still, the Buckeyes have plenty of talent, especially up front on defense. Navy’s triple option is always tough to plan for, though, and this one might be a little closer than some think. 1 FLORIDA STATE vs. OKLAHOMA STATE 8 p.m., ESPN, Arlington, Tex. The Seminoles begin their title defense as huge favorites. Although they lost some talent on offense, they have the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jameis Winston, most of their offensive line and much of their defense back. ARKANSAS at 6 AUBURN 4 p.m., SEC Network Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall will not start after being cited for marijuana possession in the off-season, although he will probably play for the Tigers, who came agonizingly close to a national title last season. This is the first game at Auburn for Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema, a former Wisconsin coach. Last season, the Razorbacks failed to win a single conference game. PENN STATE vs. CENTRAL FLORIDA 8:30 a.m., ESPN2, Dublin Why not wake up early to watch a little football live from Ireland? Penn State and its first-year coach, James Franklin, will be looking to avenge last season’s home loss to Central Florida. OTHER GAMES West Virginia vs. No. 2 Alabama, 3:30 p.m., ABC (Regional) Fresno State at No. 15 Southern California, 7:30 p.m., FOX Miami at Louisville, 8 p.m. Monday, ESPN FRED BIERMAN

College football
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Louisiana State University


At the Paradise Theater, Hoots and Hate for an M.T.A. Plan

Abstract: The Loew’s Paradise Theater, a sumptuous picture palace on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, opened in 1929 with a talkie called “The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu.” The most recent offering, on Wednesday night, might well have been called “The Great Bus and Train Disaster.” It was not a movie. Sadly, this was reality. The landmark is simply called the Paradise Theater now. The Loew’s part — pronounced “Lo-eez” by generations of Bronxites — is long gone. For many years, the theater itself seemed a goner, a victim of vandalism and neglect. But it has undergone a glorious restoration. It looks almost as good as it did in its prime, with caryatids and cherubs all around, evoking an Italian Baroque garden. That was the ornate setting on Wednesday for board members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority . It was the Bronx leg of their road tour to hear what New Yorkers think of plans to slash train and bus service to plug an enormous hole in their budget. Everyone knew going in what the several hundred people who showed up would think. They hated everything. They hated the idea of eliminating bus routes. They hated shriveled train runs. They hated threats to the Access-a-Ride program. They really hated a plan to eliminate free MetroCards for students. Some people relied on sarcasm. John Rozankowski took the board members to task for, in his view, valuing “high-tech gimmicks” over basic services. He drew laughs from the crowd as he slipped into alliterative high gear and rolled his R’s to denounce the authority’s “myriad menagerie of mechanical marvels.” Some packed an emotional wallop. John Rose brought the vast Paradise hall to silence. Seriously disabled, Mr. Rose spoke with extreme difficulty from a wheelchair, his words often hard to discern. But he was quite clear when he said, “It is inconceivable for the M.T.A. to balance its budget on the backs of those who are most vulnerable.” Naturally, politicians appeared, wearing shades of outrage. First up was the Bronx borough president, Rubén Díaz Jr. He urged the board members to find new solutions and to “put aside all the gossip and bochinche up in Albany.” But how is it possible for anyone to put aside the bochinche, Spanish for gossip? It isn’t bochinche at all. What’s happening in Albany is a desastre. Gov. David A. Paterson, more hapless and hopeless by the day, has tried to cast himself as the world’s most misunderstood victim, a man beset by unfair rumors and hostile forces. But the real victims of Albany’s chaos are ordinary New Yorkers, including those who depend on trains and buses. The hearing at the Paradise reinforced that point. Riders’ needs have gone untended in the state capital. And why? In part because of the political paralysis that Mr. Paterson has gone far to create. WHATEVER the transportation authority’s failings, its troubles hinge to a considerable extent on the chronic failure of state and city politicians to provide anywhere near enough money to sustain bus and train operations. Those free cards for students that sparked so much political huffing and puffing? Albany used a cleaver to chop its support for them. City funds for the authority have been static since 1995. “Transit funding is a political problem,” said Veronica Vanterpool, associate director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign , a nonprofit group that advocates for mass transit. It is time, she told the board members, for Mr. Paterson and the Legislature to “step it up.” Don’t count on it. People in the audience on Wednesday clearly recognized the politicians’ hand in the transit crisis. There were hoots when an aide to State Senator Pedro Espada Jr. rose to speak and explained the senator’s absence. “He’s doing the people’s work in Albany,” the aide said. There were more hoots when he read a statement from Mr. Espada demanding that the authority give “a full accounting of its financial records.” This from a politician whose murky finances have sparked endless investigations. People knew chutzpah when it walked right up to them. Even if the political posturing provided scant inspiration, the theater setting did. If the Paradise could reclaim some of its old grandeur, there was no reason to write off the transportation authority as beyond a comeback if it could get some help. Whether any amount of restoration can save Mr. Paterson is by now another matter.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Access-a-Ride
Transit Systems
Rose John
Diaz Ruben Jr


Obama on ‘Brooding’ Over the Interminable Wars of His Presidency

Abstract: ROTA, Spain — For President Obama, war is never far from his thoughts. On Sunday afternoon, he flew to this sprawling naval air station near the mouth of the Mediterranean to tour the Ross, one of four guided-missile destroyers that patrol from the Baltic to the Black Sea, potent symbols of America’s military presence in Europe. “That’s pretty impressive,” Mr. Obama said to Petty Officer Second Class Garrett Nelson, after the sailor told his commander-in-chief about the accuracy of a five-inch, 54-caliber gun mounted on the ship’s foredeck. “That’s better than I do at skeet shooting.” Mr. Obama’s advisers fought to keep this stop on his five-day trip to Spain and Poland, even after he decided to cut the trip by a day and return home on Sunday to deal with the deadly shootings in Dallas. Sightseeing in Seville, as the president had planned to do, was easy to skip; surveying the military hardware in Rota was not. Throughout this trip, Mr. Obama has confronted the reality that the United States is engaged in military operations around the world. At a NATO summit meeting in Warsaw, he announced that American troops would lead a battalion stationed in Poland to deter an aggressive Russia. The destroyer in Rota is a pillar of a missile-defense program that Mr. Obama has stuck with despite the tensions it raises with Moscow. Small wonder, then, that Mr. Obama was in a reflective mood on Saturday when a reporter asked him at a NATO news conference about the nature of war in the 21st century — and, specifically, how he felt about the likelihood that he would be the first two-term president to have presided over a nation at war for every day of his presidency. Speaking with striking candor for a public setting, Mr. Obama said: “As commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world, I spend a lot of time brooding over these issues. And I’m not satisfied that we’ve got it perfect yet.” But he added, “I can say, honestly, it’s better than it was when I came into office.” The president pointed out that when he took office in 2009, the United States had 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that number is about 15,000. He also said these service members were not engaged in combat but in training, advising and equipping Iraqi and Afghan troops — though such roles have increasingly put them in combat situations. Still, a week after announcing that the United States would leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, Mr. Obama acknowledged that the threat of terrorism, the resilience of groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and the weakness of governments in Iraq and Afghanistan made it difficult for the United States to ever leave. “It’s very hard for us ever to get the satisfaction of MacArthur and the emperor meeting and a war officially being over,” he said, referring to the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II. Mr. Obama characterized his approach to war as a hybrid: committing limited numbers of American troops to conflict-ridden countries, but working with those countries to develop their own armies and police. He drew attention to an announcement at the Warsaw meeting that NATO would begin training Iraqi troops inside the country. (The alliance had already been training them in neighboring Jordan.) ISIS Has Lost Many of the Key Places It Once Controlled A visual tour of the 126 places that defined the group’s territory. The result of such efforts, Mr. Obama acknowledged, is mixed. Iraq’s American-trained army melted away in the face of the Islamic State’s jihadist fighters in 2014, forcing him to send troops back into a war he thought he had ended two years earlier. Weaknesses in the American-trained Afghan Army allowed the Taliban to retake some lost territory. “What I’ve been trying to do is to create an architecture, a structure — and it’s not there yet,” the president said. The difficulties of working with unreliable partners is “probably going to be something that we have to continue to grapple with for years to come.” Mr. Obama said chronic, low-level counterterrorism campaigns could have a debilitating effect on society. “This different kind of low-grade threat, one that’s not an existential threat but can do real damage and real harm to our societies, and creates the kind of fear that can cause division and political reactions — we have to do that better,” he said. Earlier in his presidency, Mr. Obama spoke of taking the United States off the perpetual war footing of the post-9/11 era. These days — with troops going back into Iraq and Afghanistan, airstrikes in Libya, and drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan — he says less about this. For Mr. Obama, who was a lawyer, the shadowy legal status of this hybrid form of warfare is another heavy burden. That, he said, helped explain why the White House issued a report two weeks ago disclosing estimates of the civilian casualties from drone strikes. “What I’m trying to do there is to institutionalize a system where we begin to hold ourselves accountable for this different kind of national security threat and these different kinds of operations,” he said. The president granted that outside experts disputed the casualty numbers as too low. He did not address another criticism: that by failing to break down those numbers by country, the report did not provide enough insight into the nature of the drone program. Mr. Obama also looked on the bright side. There are fewer wars today between states, he said, and no wars between great powers. That is a testament to institutions like NATO, he said, and a reason that Russia’s revanchism was such a big concern at the summit meeting. As Mr. Obama enters the final six months of his presidency, his approach to war clearly remains a work in progress. But he insisted that — whether it was drone strikes, the surveillance programs of the National Security Agency, the long effort to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay or the training of soldiers of other countries — he had tried to bring 21st-century warfare out of the shadows. “But we’re going to have more work to do,” he said. “It’s not perfect, and we have to wrestle with these issues all the time.” With that, the president adjourned the news conference so he could fly to Spain and tour a destroyer.

NATO
Russia
Iraq
Afghanistan
Barack Obama
US Military


Women’s World Cup: When These Two Stars Clash, the Gloves Are On

Abstract: MONTREAL — When Germany, the world’s top team, meets the United States, the world’s second-ranked squad, in a Women’s World Cup semifinal game Tuesday, there will be a matchup of goalkeepers befitting the stakes. On one end will be Hope Solo, whom many, particularly those on her team, consider the best keeper in the world. On the other side will be Nadine Angerer, who two years ago became the first goalkeeper to win FIFA’s World Player of the Year award. Their juxtaposition will be all the more meaningful if the elimination game goes to penalty kicks, an area in which both excel. Germany’s Prolific Offense vs. United States’ Stingy Defense The matchup between Germany and the U.S. features the tournament’s best offense and defense. Which side will come out on top? “I think this match is going to be the biggest test for both goalkeepers,” said forward Alex Morgan, who has played with Solo during her entire international career and recently welcomed Angerer to her club team, the Portland Thorns. Solo has been a stellar, steadying presence between the goal posts, even as she has not particularly been tested. Since the first game of the tournament, the United States has gone 423 minutes without conceding a goal and has allowed an average of only 2.6 shots on goal per game. It should be a wholly different challenge for Solo and the Americans against Germany, which has taken 134 shots in this tournament. As defender Ali Krieger warned on Sunday, the German players seem willing to try their luck on goal from anywhere. Solo, whose tournament began under the shadow of a report on ESPN that detailed her arrest last year on domestic violence charges, has barely been available to the reporters in Canada this month. Image Hope Solo of the United States is thought by many to be the best goalkeeper in the world. Credit Michael Chow/USA Today Sports, via Reuters “We’re proud of her, and it gives us a lot of confidence to have her behind us,” her teammate Heather O’Reilly said. The teams have spoken respectfully of each other, with the goalkeepers taking much of the spotlight. Krieger said of Angerer, “She’s a leader of that team, and I think that they really look to her for making these M.V.P. plays, and she consistently does that at the right times.” Angerer’s most vivid play came in Germany’s last game, a shootout win over France, in which she made the clinching save. Angerer, who first played for the national team in 1996, has played in 144 international games and has won two World Cups. She has served as the team’s captain since 2011, attaining a beloved stature on the squad. Image Angerer of Germany making the clinching save against France. Credit Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images “She’s a very happy person, and for us younger players, she’s always available,” said Alexandra Popp, 24, of Germany. “You can have fun with her. You can have serious talks with her. She’ll give you advice, if you want it.” Just before the tournament, Angerer announced that she planned to retire after her club season concluded. German Coach Silvia Neid said Monday that she had been disappointed to hear of Angerer’s decision. She described Angerer as her “right-hand” woman on the field. She said they often met to discuss the state of the team, as if Angerer were another coach. “We have a very close relationship, and it’s too bad that she wants to retire,” Neid said. “We will definitely miss her.” Angerer’s coach and teammates would like to send her off with a third World Cup title. The next step toward that goal will occur Tuesday in a game that could have more firepower than the finals. “It’s the No. 1 and the No. 2 teams,” said Morgan, who noted that she and her teammates had paid close attention to Germany, knowing they could meet this round. “It’s almost like a final in itself.”

Germany
Hope Solo
Nadine Angerer
US
Soccer
FIFA Women's World Cup


Tribute and a Reunion for Dick Cheney in Capital

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Before making a rare return visit to the nation’s capital on Thursday, former President George W. Bush said he mentioned to his father that he would be attending a ceremony honoring his vice president, Dick Cheney . “Dad perked up,” the younger Mr. Bush recalled, “and he said, ‘Send my best regards to Old Iron Ass.’ ” Mr. Cheney and a roomful of admirers at the Capitol on Thursday laughed at the joke, a knowing reference to a new biography of the elder George Bush that quoted him criticizing his son’s vice president for being too hard-line. The younger Mr. Bush grinned at Mr. Cheney and then added, “That is indeed a badge of honor.” Mr. Bush joined Republican congressional leaders, veterans of his administration and hundreds of others on Thursday to pay tribute to Mr. Cheney as his official bust was unveiled at the Capitol. Under the Constitution, the vice president serves as president of the Senate and since 1885 Congress has cast in marble the likenesses of those who held the position. Mr. Bush used the occasion to embrace his former vice president despite the distance between them after leaving office amid various disagreements . The two have appeared in public together only a few times in the last seven years — at the groundbreaking and later opening of the Bush presidential library and at a party Mr. Bush threw last year for Mr. Cheney’s wife, Lynne Cheney , when she published a biography of James Madison . Mr. Bush heaped praise on Mr. Cheney on Thursday. “For eight years, Dick stood by my side and always did what was right for our nation,” he said. “I could not have asked for a better vice president than Dick Cheney . He’s a good man who loves his country and really loves his family.” Mr. Cheney returned the sentiment. “I worked for someone who I respected and liked without reservation,” he said. “He’s a man of great strength and also great gentleness. He has integrity, a sense of humor and utter lack of pretense.” The former vice president also offered kind words for the elder Mr. Bush despite the criticism in “Destiny and Power,” the biography by Jon Meacham . “If you had to design an individual to serve as commander in chief during those times, it would look a lot like George H.W. Bush,” said Mr. Cheney, who was his defense secretary. “I was proud and honored to serve under him.” No mention was made of Mr. Cheney’s controversial positions on waterboarding and the Iraq war, but then, it was something of a one-sided affair because Democrats stayed away. Senator Harry Reid , the Democratic leader, was listed in the program as a speaker alongside Republicans like Senators Mitch McConnell and Roy Blunt and Speaker Paul D. Ryan . But Mr. Reid canceled after scheduling a Democratic caucus meeting for the same time. The only prominent elected Democrat on hand was Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “I actually like Dick Cheney,” Mr. Biden said. “I have nothing but inordinate respect for you, Dick, and I mean that sincerely.” Mr. Biden noted that after his son Beau died this year, the Cheney family reached out with condolences and contributed money to a memorial. Washington should not personalize political differences, Mr. Biden said. “Dick and I can argue like hell about everything from foreign policy to domestic policy,” he said. “But if we went at each other in personal ways, questioning motives, there would be no possibility of reaching resolution.” In addition to Mrs. Cheney and the Cheneys’ daughters, Liz and Mary, the event brought together well-known figures of the past administration. Mr. Biden jokingly thanked his predecessor “for letting me crash your family reunion.” Beyond Mr. Biden, one of the few Democrats was Robert Barnett , the Washington lawyer who played Mr. Cheney in debate preparations for the Democrats in 2000 and 2004 before representing him in selling his memoir. The bust, sculpted by William Behrends of North Carolina, captures the former vice president’s famously serious visage with just a hint of his tight-lipped crooked smile. Mr. Cheney pronounced it “superb” and told Mr. Biden, “You see, Joe? There’s something to look forward to.” Mr. Bush said the bust would be “prominently displayed in an undisclosed location” and that his own “looked like Alfred E. Neuman” of Mad magazine. He said he never worried that Mr. Cheney could step in as president “if I were to get hurt by a bus or choke on a pretzel.” He also teased Mr. Cheney about the time he cursed Senator Patrick J. Leahy , a Democratic critic. “Although he didn’t spend much time speaking on the floor, he managed to convey a lot in a few words,” Mr. Bush said. “Just ask Senator Leahy.” Referring to the unveiling of his official portrait at the White House, Mr. Bush said returning to Washington had its worries: “The last time I showed up here I was hanged in the White House. This time, I return to find my vice president getting busted in the Capitol.”

Dick Cheney
Congress
Congress
Senate
United States Capitol
Monuments and Memorials
US Politics
House of Representatives
Lynne V Cheney


With a Major Oil Discovery, Guyana Is Poised to Become a Top Producer

Abstract: HOUSTON — Guyana, the tiny English-speaking South American country, is poised to become the next big oil producer in the Western Hemisphere, attracting the attention and investment dollars of some of the biggest oil companies in the world. This week, Exxon Mobil and Hess announced the successful drilling of a deepwater exploration well that may soon confirm that the seafloor beneath Guyana’s coastal waters contains one of the richest oil and natural gas discoveries in decades. Experts now estimate that one of its offshore fields alone, known as Liza, could contain 1.4 billion barrels of oil mixed with natural gas, comparable to some of the larger fields drilled in South America. With a population of fewer than one million people, Guyana — Venezuela’s eastern neighbor on the continent’s north coast — would be able to export nearly all of the oil that it will begin producing, probably starting around 2020. The company announcements came only days after the Guyanese government announced its intention to build a $500 million petroleum processing and service center on Crab Island, an enormous investment for one of the poorest countries in the region. Early rough estimates by experts of how much recoverable oil Guyana could have range to more than four billion barrels, which at today’s prices would be worth more than $200 billion. But the country, which currently produces precious little energy, sorely needs pipelines and other support infrastructure to begin a major production and export effort. “It’s not often that a country goes from 0 to 60 so fast like this,” said Matt Blomerth, head of Latin American Upstream Research for Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy firm. Industry excitement over Guyana was stirred by a widely distributed report on Friday by the firm that said, “Guyana is rapidly joining the ranks of serious oil and gas players.” The discovery is one more indication that South America is becoming a critical supplier to world oil markets. Brazil and Colombia are already major producers, and Argentina took a big step in the same direction on Tuesday when Chevron and several other international oil companies pledged to invest at least $5 billion this year and billions more in the years to come in the shale field in Patagonia known as Vaca Muerta, or Dead Cow. Neither Exxon Mobil nor Hess would estimate how much oil was found in a field called Payara, a few miles away from the well drilled by Exxon Mobil in the Liza field. More tests are to be done. The Payara field is part of a block of 6.6 million acres that Exxon Mobil is exploring with Hess Guyana Exploration and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana, a Chinese-owned company. “This important discovery further establishes the area as a significant exploration province,” Steve Greenlee, president of Exxon Mobil Exploration Company, said in a statement. John B. Hess, Hess’s chief executive, said, “We believe that the resources recently discovered are significant.” With Exxon Mobil’s global fields aging and its new interests in Russia frozen by United States sanctions, the discoveries in Guyana have the potential to add significant reserves to the company’s holdings. Rex W. Tillerson , the former Exxon Mobil chief executive, was scheduled to travel to Guyana to meet with its president, David A. Granger, but the trip was canceled when he was nominated to become secretary of state. But for Hess, which has much smaller reserves than Exxon Mobil, Guyana is a far bigger bet with bigger potential gains. Hess has announced an aggressive $2.25 billion exploration and production budget for this year, an 18 percent increase from 2016. Of that, roughly $475 million will go to developing the fields in Guyana. Exxon Mobil has not reported what it will invest, but experts estimate the amount will easily surpass $500 million. The company has drilled five exploration wells off Guyana so far, only one of which was dry. Exxon Mobil officials stressed that the Liza and Payara fields are close to each other but are separate reservoirs and not connected, suggesting there may be more fields in the vast, unexplored areas of Guyana’s offshore waters. “We are encouraged to find a second field that tells us that Liza was not a one-hit wonder,” Alan Jeffers, an Exxon Mobil spokesman, said. Oil companies have explored only two of roughly 20 potential fields offshore, some of which are in waters claimed by Venezuela . Some analysts have compared Guyana’s potential to that of Angola, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that is the second-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria. The growing Guyana exploration effort is part of a slow global recovery of the oil industry, which was hobbled by a collapse in oil prices. After rising well above $100 a barrel in recent years, prices fell below $30 a year ago and now stand at just over $50. Industrywide, exploration and production investments are expected to rise 3 percent this year over depressed 2016 levels, to roughly $450 billion. But with technological improvements and falling production costs in recent years, more oil can be produced at a lower expense. In recent years, the State Department has been trying to prepare Guyana for its potential oil rush with a program that advises the government on how to draft environmental regulations, financial arrangements and other forms of oversight. Environmentalists have cautioned that involvement with the Guyana project will create a conflict of interest for Mr. Tillerson should he be confirmed by the Senate. If he is confirmed, Mr. Tillerson has pledged to recuse himself from any decision that might affect Exxon Mobil for one year, and to consult with ethics officers at the State Department after that.

Guyana
Exxon Mobil
Hess
Offshore drilling
Oil and Gasoline
Rex W Tillerson


Many Ways to Stream Music From Computer to Stereo

Abstract: THE idea of wirelessly streaming the music collection on the computer to the stereo system usually comes after one (or both) of these realizations: “Gee, this album I just downloaded would really sound much better coming through my impressively large and expensive speakers in the living room,” or “This apartment is too small for huge piles of cracked CD jewel boxes.” Large or small, there are plenty of options for broadcasting that Green Day playlist or Internet radio feed around the house. So many, in fact, that it can get confusing as to what you actually need. But the good news is new, cheaper products make it easier and more affordable to live the stream dream. The systems listed here are all less than $500 and with some, you don’t even need a Wi-Fi network, just some music you want to play loudly. Have Wi-Fi and Stereo? Adding a device called a media bridge or media receiver to your existing Wi-Fi network is one of the oldest and most common methods of bringing your stereo system online so your computer can use it. No matter which one you buy, the same principle is at work: two small devices (one connected to your computer, one connected to an input on your stereo) work together to send music from your PC’s soundcard to your existing amplifier and speakers. Using a wireless bridge or router has its pros and cons. On the positive side, it is a relatively inexpensive solution — $100 or less. On the negative side, it involves fiddling to get the device on a password-protected wireless network or creating a network from scratch. For people with a significant investment in music from the iTunes Store, Apple’s AirPort Express mobile base station ($99) is a common solution. The Airport Express can join an existing wireless network or even serve as a wireless router itself. It works with Windows and Mac OS X systems and has an audio-out jack on the bottom. Once connected to your audio system (or a set of powered speakers), the AirPort Express streams the computer’s iTunes library from computer to stereo. You do have to return to the computer to change the playlist — not the most convenient thing to do when hosting a party. But with an iPhone or iPod Touch and Apple’s free Remote program from the iTunes App Store, you can control playback from anywhere in the house with a tap of the touchscreen. Windows users have an even lower-budget option. The Linksys WMB54G Wireless-G Music Bridge can be found for as little as $34 at Amazon. The Music Bridge, like the AirPort Express, connects to the stereo with standard AV cables. It jacks into the home network wirelessly, or with an Ethernet cable. Unlike the Airport Express, however, it will not serve as a wireless router. Another way Linksys is not like Apple is that the company is not known for clear, concise technical documentation. Many owners have complained about the confusing set-up process. Still, if time and patience are in greater supply than money, the Music Bridge is an inexpensive way to play any audio file on the PC through the stereo system, including copy-protected files from online music stores. No Network or Stereo? If setting up a network or messing with it doesn’t appeal, consider a Wi-Fi-free option. A digital receiver system like Creative’s $100 Xmod Wireless works with Windows and uses its own, direct wireless connection to stream audio between the Xmod transmitter (connected to the U.S.B. port on your PC) and the X-Fi receiver (connected to an audio-input connection on your stereo system). The Xmod Wireless, which includes technology to help enhance the sound of streamed music, comes with a pair of remotes to control the operation at either end. If you’d rather play music off your iPod instead of your PC — not only taking a Wi-Fi network out of the equation, but also a computer — Creative has another version called the Xdock Wireless ($200). That system uses an iPod instead of the computer as the music source, which is handy for people who have multiple computers but keep the definitive music collection on the iPod. Creative’s products assume that you have a stereo to connect to. But say you don’t. Sony has also jumped into the streaming business with its S-Air Play Music System. This $400 package eliminates the need for an existing wireless network, a computer (its source is the iPod) and even an audio system. It will stream music to up to 10 self-powered stereo speakers (you still have to plug them in, but no amplifier is required). In addition to sharing an iPod’s music around the house, the S-Air Play system plays AM and FM radio. The remote speakers act independently, which means that the one in the kitchen can be broadcasting the basketball game on AM radio, while the unit in the bedroom is playing the latest Jonas Brothers track. The system ships with a base unit that docks the iPod and transmits the audio signal, three remote controls and two S-Air speakers. Extra speakers cost about $130 each. For Wi-Fi Radio Fans Sometimes you want someone else to drive. That’s the promise of Internet radio: something more than another rehash of the same music files you’ve had for years. It used to be that listening to Internet radio made you a slave to a desktop or laptop computer if you wanted to change channels or adjust the volume. Now, fortunately, there are devices that look and feel like stereo components, but wirelessly connect to your home network to pull these stations and music services (like Rhapsody, Pandora, etc.) into your living room. The Squeezebox Boom from Logitech ($300) is one of the latest products to fall into this category. The Boom looks like a smallish bookshelf stereo system — it has two onboard speakers, a control panel and a display. Since the Boom is linked to your computer, you use your PC to set up and configure the device, but day-to-day operation happens via the Boom’s control panel. All your online music sources are grouped together on a Web site called the SqueezeNetwork that you need to set up a free account to use. Once enabled, it’s easy to add new Internet radio discoveries and podcast feeds to the content mix. With the included SqueezeCenter desktop software, the Squeezebox Boom can also broadcast tracks from the computer’s music library — except for copy-protected files. Network setup can be fairly straightforward unless you have a password in plain English. The Boom only uses hexadecimal keys — long strings of numbers and letters — for encryption, so you might need to do a quick Web search for a site that can convert your English password into hexadecimal code. It’s easy enough, though it trips up the instant-gratification momentum. But this principle is at work in all of these systems: a little effort at the beginning results in better organized, more easily searchable music. And more bookshelf space to boot.

Radio
iPod
Digital Audio Players
Recordings and Downloads (Audio)
Loudspeakers
Wireless Communications
Computers and the Internet


Hamlin Wins Again at Martinsville

Abstract: Denny Hamlin passed Kevin Harvick for the lead with 29 laps to go Sunday and won his third straight Nascar Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. He became the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to sweep both races on the shortest, tightest track in the series, and he and Harvick closed the gap on Johnson, the leader in the points race with four races to go. Hamlin cut his 41-point deficit to 6 points, and Harvick is 62 behind. ¶Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso overcame rain-slicked roads to win the inaugural Formula One Korean Grand Prix in Yeongam, South Korea, surging to the top of the drivers’ championship standings with two races left, and within sight of his third title.

Formula One
Hamlin Denny
Alonso Fernando
Automobile Racing
National Assn of Stock Car Auto Racing


Y Chromosome, Though Diminished, Is Holding Its Ground

Abstract: Men, or at least male biologists, have long been alarmed that their tiny Y chromosome, once the same size as its buxom partner, the X, will continue to wither away until it simply vanishes. The male sex would then become extinct, they fear, leaving women to invent some virgin-birth method of reproduction and propagate a sexless species. The fear is not without serious basis: The Y and X chromosomes once shared some 800 genes in common, but now, after shedding genes furiously, the Y carries just 19 of its ancestral genes, as well as the male-determining gene that is its raison d’être. So much DNA has been lost that the chromosome is a fraction of its original size. But there are grounds for hope that the Y chromosome has reached a plateau of miniaturized perfection and will shrivel no more. Researchers led by Jennifer F. Hughes and David C. Page of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge , Mass., have reconstructed the Y chromosome’s past and find that its gene-shedding days seem to be over. Men are not living on borrowed time after all, they reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature . In people, sex is determined by a single gene that resides on the Y chromosome. Chromosomes come in pairs, with one set bequeathed by each parent, and the Y is paired with X such that men have an X-Y pair and women an X-X. When the male-determining gene first arose, some 320 million years ago, the X and Y were both full-length chromosomes, each bearing the same set of 1,000 or so genes. The Y chromosome began its self-sacrificing downsizing in the gallant cause of protecting women. As is well known, the purpose of sex is to exchange DNA between the mother’s and father’s version of each gene, creating novel combinations that will help children adapt to a new environment better than their parents did. So before generating sperm and eggs, the two members of each pair of chromosomes line up side by side and swap large chunks of DNA. But the male-determining gene on the Y cannot be allowed to sneak across onto the X because it would insert maleness where it should not be. So a no-swapping zone was created around the male-determining gene. That inhibitory zone was extended in five stages until it covered the whole of Y chromosome except its very tips. Genes at the tips of the Y exchange DNA with the X in the usual way, but all those in between were condemned to a monklike existence. And being unable to innovate, most of these genes became first antiquated and then dispensable. The X chromosome now has 790 genes in its no-swap zone, according to best current estimates, but the Y retains a mere 19 of these original genes. As the only part of the human genome that never passes through a woman’s body, the Y is the ideal refuge for male-favoring genes, especially those having to do with sperm production. Eight such genes have leapt onto the Y from other chromosomes, bringing its total score to 27. But these few additions have not allayed concern about the chromosome’s long-term viability. The Whitehead team’s new report provides solid assurance by showing that the Y’s shedding of genes is not a continuing process. Almost all of its genetic self-sacrifice occurred in the distant past. This insight was gained by decoding the Y chromosome of rhesus monkeys, which shared a common ancestor with humans at the time, and retain 20 ancestral genes, meaning those that have a counterpart gene on the X. Only one of these genes has been lost in humans at some time in the last 25 million years, showing that the Y chromosome became essentially stabilized long ago. “It’s my sincere hope that this article might put the notion of the disappearing Y chromosome to rest,” Dr. Page said. He and his colleagues have reconstructed the entire history of the Y chromosome, showing that its no-swap zone expanded in five stages, of which the first began 320 million years ago and the last ended 29 million years ago. Each stage was caused when a chunk of DNA fell out of the Y chromosome and was accidentally flipped the wrong way when it was patched back in, so it would no longer line up correctly with its counterpart region on the X. At each stage, loss of genes was precipitous at first but then leveled off. The first stage originated to fence in the male-determining genes. The driving force for creating more no-swap zones was probably the existence of genes in nearby regions that were beneficial for males and detrimental for females, Dr. Page said. Sexually antagonistic genes probably exist throughout the genome, but only on the Y chromosome can the male-favoring ones gain protection.

Chromosome
Reproduction
DNA
Science and Technology
Men and Boys
Nature Journal


A Wave of Sewing Jobs as Orders Pile Up at U.S. Factories

Abstract: MINNEAPOLIS — It was past quitting time at a new textile factory here, but that was not the only reason the work floor looked so desolate. Under the high ceilings, the fluorescent lights still bright, there were just 15 or so industrial sewing machines in a sprawling space meant for triple that amount. The issue wasn’t poor demand for the curtains, pillows and other textiles being produced at the factory. Quite the opposite. The owner, the Airtex Design Group, had shifted an increasing amount of its production here from China because customers had been asking for more American-made goods. The issue was finding workers. “The sad truth is, we put ads in the paper and not many people show up,” said Mike Miller, Airtex’s chief executive. The American textile and apparel industries, like manufacturing as a whole, are experiencing a nascent turnaround as apparel and textile companies demand higher quality , more reliable scheduling and fewer safety problems than they encounter overseas. Accidents like the factory collapse in Bangladesh earlier this year, which killed more than 1,000 workers, have reinforced the push for domestic production. But because the industries were decimated over the last two decades — 77 percent of the American work force has been lost since 1990 as companies moved jobs abroad — manufacturers are now scrambling to find workers to fill the specialized jobs that have not been taken over by machines. Wages for cut-and-sew jobs, the core of the apparel industry’s remaining work force, have been rising fast — increasing 13.2 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis from 2007 to 2012, while overall private sector pay rose just 1.4 percent. Companies here in Minnesota are so hungry for workers that they posted five job openings for every student in a new training program in industrial sewing, a full month before the training was even completed. Image Patricia Ramon during a sewing and production specialist class as part of the Makers Coalition, an effort to create a skilled work force from scratch. Credit Margaret Cheatham Williams/The New York Times “It withered away and nobody noticed,” Jen Guarino, a former chief executive of the leather-goods maker J. W. Hulme, said of the skilled sewing work force. “Businesses stopped investing in training; they stopped investing in equipment.” Like manufacturers in many parts of the country, those in Minnesota are wrestling with how to attract a new generation of factory workers while also protecting their bottom lines in an industry where pennies per garment can make or break a business. The backbone of the new wave of manufacturing in the United States has been automation, but some tasks still require human hands. Nationally, manufacturers have created recruitment centers that use touch screens and other interactive technology to promote the benefits of textile and apparel work. Here, they are recruiting at high schools, papering churches and community centers with job postings, and running ads in Hmong, Somali and Spanish-language newspapers. And in a moment of near desperation last year — after several companies worried about turning down orders because they did not have the manpower to handle them — Minnesota manufacturers hatched their grandest rescue effort of all: a program to create a skilled work force from scratch. Run by a coalition of manufacturers, a nonprofit organization and a technical college, the program runs for six months, two or three nights a week, and teaches novices how to be industrial sewers, from handling a sewing machine to working with vinyl and canvas. Eighteen students, ranging from a 22-year-old taking a break from college to a 60-year-old former janitor who had been out of work for three months, enrolled in the inaugural session that ended in June. The $3,695 tuition was covered by charities and the city of Minneapolis, though students will largely be expected to pay for future courses themselves. After the course, the companies, which pay to belong to the coalition, sponsored students for a three-week rotation on their factory floors and a two-week internship at minimum wage. Then the free-for-all began as the members competed to hire those graduates who decide to pursue a career in industrial sewing. “We need to think practically about getting skilled labor,” said Ms. Guarino, a founder of the training effort, known as the Makers Coalition. “The growth is there but we’re going to be in trouble if we don’t have a pool to draw from.” Last year, there were about 142,000 people employed as sewing machine operators in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, which had almost 1.75 million workers last year — and where the unemployment rate as of July was 4.9 percent — only 860 were employed in 2012 as machine sewers.. Airtex had room for 50 of them. “We are looking for new sewers every day,” said Mr. Miller, the Airtex executive. Wooing Immigrant Workers Airtex’s roots in Minneapolis date to 1918, when Mr. Miller’s grandfather started the Sam Miller Bag Company, specializing in potato and feed bags. In the 1980s, Susan Shields founded a baggage company, and the two combined in 2000 as the Airtex Design Group, producing home textiles for companies like Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware. Soon after the merger, the company began producing in China, first in the Dongguan area, then Wuxi and Shanghai. Today, it still employs about 100 Chinese workers through a partner factory in Dongguan, but production there is no longer the bargain it once was, said Ms. Shields, Airtex’s president. Initially Airtex paid $3 an hour on average for its Chinese workers; now, it pays about $11.80 an hour, including benefits and housing. Its American factory-floor workers make about $9 to $17 an hour, though Airtex estimates benefits add another 30 percent to those figures. As costs were rising in China, Airtex was also getting a new message from some of its clients: They wanted more American-made products. Health care clients wanted medical slings and other sensitive medical products made domestically to ensure quality. Retailers did not want to pay overseas freight costs to import bulky items like pillows, and they wanted more flexibility in turning around designs quickly. As Airtex considered production in Vietnam and elsewhere, it became concerned about safety and quality issues — and increasingly interested in the American alternative. “The opportunity for domestic business right now is unbelievable,” Ms. Shields said. “Either we start to bring it back here, more of it, or we start going to places that are marginally unsafe.” But the lack of workers here in Minnesota made shifting business back home frustrating. It had gotten to the point where new business sometimes felt like a headache, not an opportunity. As Mr. Miller was headed to Chicago for a sales pitch in February, for instance, he was more worried than excited about landing a new contract. “What concerns me is, if I get it,” he said, “where are we going to find the people?” In the various waves of American textile production, dating to the 1800s, the problem of an available and willing work force solved itself. Little capital was required — the boss just needed sewing equipment and people willing to work. That made it an attractive business for newly arrived immigrants with a few dollars to their name and, often, some background in garment work. Typically, the mostly male factory owners would recruit female workers from their old countries for the grunt work. From the 1840s until the Civil War, it was new arrivals from Ireland and Germany. From the 1880s through the 1920s, it was Russian Jews and Italians, who would buy newly mass-produced Singer sewing machines and often set up shops in their tenement apartments with wives, daughters and tenants making up the initial work force, said Daniel Katz, provost of the National Labor College and author of a book about the garment industry. Puerto Ricans, who were given citizenship on the eve of American entry into World War I, and black migrants from the South rounded out the work force until the 1960s, when Chinese and Dominican laborers took over, Mr. Katz said. In San Francisco and New York, a small number of Chinese women came to the United States despite the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 barring Chinese laborers , making up a base of garment workers. After 1965, when immigration restrictions eased and Chinese were allowed to join family members , greater numbers of women came and that pool of workers grew. “It was pretty well known that basically the day after you landed, you’d be taken to a factory by a relative to learn how to use an industrial sewing machine,” said Katie Quan, associate chair of the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley. In Los Angeles, Latinos made up much of the work force. And in the Carolinas, Hmong immigrants filled textile manufacturing jobs well into the 1990s, halting — or at least delaying — the migration of jobs overseas, said Rachel Willis, an American studies professor at the University of North Carolina. Now, here in Minnesota, immigrants are once again being seen as the new hope. Wanted: English and Math Last fall, Lifetrack, a nonprofit group in St. Paul that helps immigrants, people on welfare and those with disabilities, began screening clients for possible admission to the sewing training program. Inside a gray-green room in a building on the edge of a four-lane road, people gathered around three tables: Burmese women at one of them, Ethiopian men at another, and at the back of the room an African-American woman, then 61, and a white man, 60, both born in America. The first task was for students to test their English and math proficiency. Language skills are essential so workers can communicate with their bosses, but math skills are just as important in textile work because sewing requires precise measurements. As the students worked on the proficiency tests, Tatjana Hutnyak, Lifetrack’s director of business development, went over the basics. Starting wages: $12 and $16 an hour. Transportation: The college, Dunwoody College of Technology, is on a bus line, but if students interview with a company not on a bus line, Lifetrack will help them get there. After passing career-readiness tests, students could qualify for the course, which would give them a certificate in industrial sewing — and, ideally, a job. “They want to have a career rather than packaging, assembling, cleaning jobs,” said a Lifetrack manager, Dagim Gemeda, explaining why clients were interested in the sewing certification. The Burmese women had come to Minnesota after spending time in refugee camps in Thailand. Paw Done had done piece work, sewing at home while she watched her children. The others had little sewing experience. The Ethiopian men, who ranged in age from 21 to 42, had been in this country several years. A couple were students, one was a former custodian who had moved from another state to be close to his college-bound son, and a fourth, Abdulhakim Tahiro, had been laid off from his job at an airport car rental kiosk. “It’s good, for my level it’s good,” Mr. Tahiro said of the starting wages. Mr. Tahiro and Ms. Done enrolled in the course that started last January, when about half of the class were immigrants. Another student in the course, Patricia Ramon, 56, was an entrepreneur in Mexico with sewing experience. Ms. Ramon already had a job as a sewer at J. W. Hulme, but quit to take the course with the goal of obtaining certification. She wanted proof, she said, that she had technical skills. “I am not like an old-time seamstress,” Ms. Ramon said. She expects to sew as a career, and said that making $16 an hour with health insurance would be enough to live on. The students who were not immigrants often had difficult work histories or other problems. One of them was Lawrence Corbesia, the man sitting at the back table during the screening session. He was a former machine operator and custodial worker who had been looking for work for three months. Another was Edward Johnson, 44, who was homeless when the course started. After food service and call-center jobs, he went to prison for felony assault, and had a tough time finding a job when he got out in 2009. He moved to Wisconsin to pick fruit, moved back to Minneapolis because he hated picking fruit, and was living on the streets and selling watercolor paintings when a homeless-center counselor hooked him up with the sewing program. Until now, the only sewing experience Mr. Johnson had was sewing on buttons — a punishment meted out by his mother when he misbehaved. To save money, Mr. Johnson walked the 45 minutes to and from the college. The program was overwhelming at first, he said, “so frustrating that sometimes I’d go home crying.” But he spent days at the library, watching YouTube videos on sewing techniques and studying terms used by the industry. By the end, it had gotten easier, he said, making pajamas, tote bags and aprons. So many people are on government assistance, he said. “I’d rather learn a trade and go to work — and work,” he said. Video For Edward Johnson, 44, a criminal record made it hard for him to get a job. He turned to an industrial sewing program after enduring bouts of homelessness and unemployment. Credit Credit Margaret Cheatham Williams/The New York Times A Long-Term Solution Manufacturers elsewhere are also trying to build a new labor pool. In a former glove factory in Conover, N.C., the Manufacturing Solutions Center has touch screens showing the technologies that textile manufacturers use today, while new machines spool out printed fabric. In Pennsylvania, a work force investment board has started a program with plant tours, YouTube videos of workers and a Web site promising that “contrary to popular opinion, many good jobs in manufacturing are still available.” Other industry groups have created a curriculum for high schools on manufacturing, including Manufacturing Day , with factory tours for school groups. Still the difficulty attracting young people frustrates Debra Kerrigan, a dean at Dunwoody overseeing the Minnesota program. “I think it’s just the idea of, ‘Oh, I’m a sewer,’ that doesn’t thrill the average young individual today,” she said. “Skills for a lot of different industries are coming back now, machinists and automotive workers and sewers. I think if you have a skill when the economy gets bad, you’re more likely to succeed than someone who doesn’t.” Compared with the other courses Dunwoody offers — graphic design, Web programming, robotics — sewing can seem a little old school, students say. But Elizabeth Huber, 22, who took a break from the University of Minnesota to take the sewing course, said that can also be a selling point. Image Elizabeth Huber, 22, and several Makers Coalition students completing sewing samples. Credit Margaret Cheatham Williams/The New York Times “I like getting back to making things, to touching and manipulating materials rather than just pushing buttons or tweeting all day,” she said. As the sewing course drew to a close, members of the Makers Coalition were jostling for the 18 graduates. Don Boothroyd at Kellé, a firm that makes dance costumes, hoped to snag 10 of them. J. W. Hulme wanted five, and was considering covering a student’s tuition for another course exchange for a contract promising that the student would work at Hulme for one year. Airtex hoped for five to 10 students. But only nine students completed the course — many dropped out for personal reasons, or decided they just weren’t interested in the work — and eight got jobs. The coalition is now revamping the curriculum to focus more on hands-on work and machine maintenance. Airtex decided it could not afford to wait for the coalition’s training program to work out its kinks. So, as the course proceeded, Airtex redoubled its efforts to find people who had some background in sewing. Mr. Miller and Ms. Shields offered a bonus to existing employees who brought in friends. They hosted an open house for prospective workers, and tried to think of groups they had not approached before — like a nonprofit that works with people with disabilities. “I had a guy driving me to the airport the other day,” Mr. Miller said, “and he mentioned he knows a lot of people in the Cambodian community and I should call his pastor.” Finally, Airtex decided it had to pay for training itself, even if that meant the company was less profitable for a while. It trains workers for a few hours a week, with a technical-college instructor and existing employees instructing new ones on topics like ergonomics and handling tricky materials. Airtex has since made 10 new hires for floor jobs, none of whom were highly experienced. “The reality is, if we want good workers we know we have to train them and bring them in ourselves,” Ms. Shields said. The factory floor now seems less barren because there are 25 sewing stations (there is still room for another 25). And most significantly, the additional workers mean the company can take on new work: Airtex has tripled its capacity, and is now making about 70 percent of its products in the United States.

Sewing
Jobs
Textile
Manufacturing
Vocational Training
Job Recruiting and Hiring
Fashion


Networks Pick Up Pace of Fall Season Ad Sales

Abstract: The broadcast television networks are picking up the pace in selling commercial time before the fall season as all five big networks have started making deals with advertisers. ABC, the last of the networks to sell spots in what is called the upfront market, began to do so Wednesday. Fox Broadcasting is the farthest along of the five; Fox executives said they had sold about 70 percent of the commercial inventory they planned to sell before the 2006-7 season. CBS is about half sold, NBC is about 40 percent sold and the new CW network is 40 percent to 50 percent sold. The pace of sales varies from year to year; this year it is more measured than in recent upfront markets when frenetic buying produced a seller's market. Last year, broadcasters sold about $9.1 billion of commercial time in the upfront market ahead of the 2005-6 season. Predictions this year range from a slight increase to a moderate decline.


In South Korean Voting, No Clear-Cut Victory for Either Party

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — Local election results on Thursday showed the main opposition party winning nine of 17 races for big-city mayors and provincial governors in what was seen as a referendum on the leadership of President Park Geun-hye. Candidates from Ms. Park’s governing Saenuri Party won the remaining eight races on Wednesday, a showing that neither it nor the opposition could call a clear-cut victory. The president has been struggling to shore up support for her government since a ferry disaster in April that killed hundreds, the vast majority of them young students. Although they do not directly affect the makeup of the central government, local elections in South Korea are often treated as a vote of confidence on the president and the governing party. Since 1998, voters have never been generous toward governing parties in the balloting. Ms. Park’s party had hoped to break that pattern — until the ferry sank off southwestern South Korea on April 16 and her once-high popularity plummeted. The disaster and the public criticism of her government’s fumbling on the search and rescue have come to define Ms. Park’s presidency so far. Candidates from her party easily swept races in its traditional support bases in southeast South Korea. The New Politics Alliance for Democracy, the main opposition party, clenched those in its strongholds in southwest South Korea. Regional favoritism remained entrenched in the rival regions, their party loyalty rarely wavering in elections regardless of individual candidates. In the most closely watched race, the opposition candidate Park Won-soon was re-elected as mayor of Seoul, the capital. He beat Chung Mong-joon, a conservative politician and billionaire tycoon of the Hyundai shipbuilding conglomerate, by a comfortable margin. The victory by Mr. Park made him a hot prospect for the 2017 presidential election, analysts said. In battles for swing-vote regions, a Saenuri Party candidate was elected governor of Gyeonggi Province, the country’s most populous, which surrounds Seoul. The party also won the mayoral race for Incheon, a big port city west of Seoul. But the opposition candidates won elections in the Chungcheong provinces in central South Korea and in Daejeon, a major city south of Seoul. Ms. Park has apologized several times for failing to prevent the sinking of the ferry Sewol and vowed in tears that she would fight a culture of corporate greed, regulatory negligence and government incompetence that she said contributed to the scale of the disaster. Under pressure from critics to overhaul her government and presidential staff, Ms. Park moved to replace the prime minister, the head of the intelligence agency and her top national security adviser. She also vowed to disband the Coast Guard for failing in the rescue efforts. South Korea remains deeply divided between mostly old conservatives and mostly young liberals. During the election campaign, candidates from the liberal opposition billed the local elections as a chance for South Koreans to “punish Park Geun-hye.” But candidates from the governing party rallied conservatives by calling on them to “save Park Geun-hye.” In the Wednesday balloting, South Koreans also elected small-city mayors and county chiefs. Governing party candidates won a majority of those races. But opposition candidates won most of the races for superintendents of education.

South Korea
Election
Governors
Park Geun-hye
Saenuri Party South Korea


Two Vaccines to Protect Against Ebola Could Be Available Within Weeks

Abstract: Two potential vaccines against the deadly Ebola virus ravaging West Africa could be available as soon as November and would first be given to health care workers most at risk of exposure to the disease there, the World Health Organization announced on Friday. The organization also announced that blood from recovered Ebola patients and serums derived from that blood should be used to treat the sick, and it said treatment centers should quickly begin testing other experimental therapies to combat the viral disease, which has escalated into a devastating health crisis. “We have to change the sense there is no hope in this situation to a realistic hope,” Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, an assistant director general, told a telephone news conference at the conclusion of a two-day meeting at the organization’s Geneva headquarters aimed at expediting the prevention and cure of Ebola. The disease has now killed nearly 2,100 people over the past six months. Nearly all the deaths have been in three West African countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — but clusters of Ebola patients have recently been found in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Dr. Kieny said nearly 200 scientists, ethicists and clinicians from around the world had reached a consensus in identifying the most promising vaccines and potential treatments and developing strategies for testing them. The two vaccines, which have not yet been studied in humans, are set to undergo initial tests of their safety and immune system effects beginning this month in a small number of volunteers in Britain, the United States and Mali, which borders Guinea, where the outbreak emerged. If the initial safety tests were encouraging, the vaccines, still under evaluation, should immediately be offered in stages to health workers and other “front line staff” in West Africa, according to a prioritization plan set by a panel of ethicists convened earlier this summer by the W.H.O., Dr. Kieny said. The pace of testing, and the bypassing of normal protocols to develop the vaccines, is “absolutely unprecedented,” Dr. Kieny said. She said that the vaccine testing protocol was approved in Mali within days and that there had been a “change of all the processes that we know, for this particular Ebola outbreak.” While it was likely that patents had been filed and intellectual property rights applied to some of the vaccines and treatments, she said, “so far we’ve seen absolutely no problem and no barrier to the use of these.” Dr. Kieny stressed the importance of carefully monitoring results to ensure that vaccines were not harmful and did not paradoxically make people more susceptible to the disease. “We must also be conscious about that — rollout must happen as quickly as possible but step by step.” Upward of 10,000 doses of one vaccine, based on a modified chimpanzee cold virus, may be available by the end of the year, according to materials produced by the W.H.O. The vaccine is being tested by its developers, GlaxoSmithKline and the United States National Institutes of Health, and a British consortium. An initial 800 doses of the second vaccine were donated by the Canadian government to the W.H.O., Dr. Kieny said. “I would love to be the first African” to receive one of the vaccines, Dr. Samba Sow, director general at the Center for Vaccine Development in Mali, told the news conference. Participants at the conference also concluded that countries should be assisted in offering patients transfusions of whole blood, plasma, or so-called convalescent serum produced from the blood of people who have survived Ebola. “A blood-derived product can be used now, and this can be very effective in terms of treating patients,” Dr. Kieny said. However, carrying out such efforts will require strong international support, given that Ebola treatment centers are short of staff and overwhelmed with far more patients than they can handle, leaving care at the most basic level. Such blood transfusions were used with apparent success in several patients during the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Oyewale Tomori, a professor of virology at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, said at the news conference that blood was being collected for this purpose from five Ebola survivors in Nigeria. It was reported that Dr. Kent Brantly , a missionary doctor who contracted Ebola in Liberia and recovered, received a blood transfusion from a patient that he had treated before being evacuated to the United States. A handful of other potential Ebola treatments selected for their promise, including the antibody mixture known as ZMapp , should be evaluated in treatment centers in West Africa as protocols are developed and doses become available, the W.H.O. said. Each patient would be informed of the risks and benefits, and the effects would be evaluated. The meeting in Geneva was part of a broader mobilization within the United Nations system to counter the spread of Ebola. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking to reporters in New York, called the mobilization “an international rescue call.” “The number of cases is rising exponentially,” he said. “The disease is spreading far faster than the response. People are increasingly frustrated that it is not being controlled.” W.H.O. officials recently estimated it would cost $600 million to fight the Ebola scourge, the worst in the nearly 40-year history of the disease, and that 20,000 people could be infected before it is brought under control. “One of the things driving fear and panic in the communities and the world is the belief there is no treatment,” Dr. Kieny said.


Mortgage Rates Fall to a Record Low

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — Average rates on fixed mortgages fell to fresh record lows for the second straight week, Freddie Mac , the mortgage company, said Thuerasday. Freddie Mac said the rate on the 30-year loan dropped to 3.36 percent, down from last week’s rate of 3.40 percent, which was the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s. The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, dipped to 2.69 percent, down from last week’s record low of 2.73 percent. Rates are falling after the Federal Reserve started buying mortgage bonds to help strengthen a housing recovery that began earlier this year. The Fed plans to continue the program until there is substantial improvement in the job market. Sales of both previously occupied and newly built homes are up from last year. Home prices are rising more consistently. And builders are more confident in the market and are starting to build more homes. Lower rates are also driving more people to refinance. Mortgage applications surged 16.6 percent last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday. Of those applications, 83 percent were to refinance existing loans. Still, some economists question whether a further decline in rates will make much of a difference. The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage has been below 4 percent since early December. Yet home sales remain below healthy levels. And most people who can qualify have likely already taken advantage of the lower rates. Many people who would like to refinance or buy a home can’t because they fail to meet stricter lending requirements or don’t have enough money to make a down payment.

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (Freddie Mac)


Sally Quinn’s Column on Social Graces Dies for Lack of Them

Abstract: The Party is over in Washington. The short-lived, irregularly appearing column in The Washington Post by Sally Quinn was dumped last week, in part because her last installment — about a wedding fiasco in her own family — landed on the table like an overcooked rib roast. But there’s another reason: The Washington that Ms. Quinn covers, one governed by convivial elites who battle by day and clink glasses at night, no longer exists. In the old paradigm, people with different points of view would assemble in various salons of Georgetown and set aside their differences over an Old Fashioned before the coq au vin was even served. Now the butter knife has been replaced by a machete. People with opposing political points of view are less likely to eat with the loyal opposition at night than to try to dine on them in a quick hit on MSNBC or Fox News. And even once that is accomplished, there is the endless peering into the BlackBerry to observe the day trading in political capital that goes on in blogs, on Twitter and in e-mail newsletters. “The dinner party at Ben and Sally’s or Mrs. Graham’s circa 1975 was The Note or Mike Allen blast e-mail of its day,” said David Von Drehle, editor at large for Time and a former editor of The Post’s Style section, where Ms. Quinn’s work often appeared. “You would go there to see people,” he said, “try out ideas, figure out what was the interesting next take on the day’s news and where the hot story was headed. But now, you find all that out just by opening up your laptop in the morning.” Ms. Quinn acknowledged as much in a phone conversation. “People don’t know each other, they don’t go out, and it is more and more difficult to get people of different political persuasions together,” she said. “It’s just become far more toxic here.” Ms. Quinn said that The Party was just a holiday concept — the column was christened in November — that had outlived its usefulness, but it was more complicated than that. On Feb. 19, The Washington Post published a column by Ms. Quinn in which she described a family drama that had broken out into public view in various blogs: the wedding of her son happened to be scheduled on the same day as the wedding of a grandchild of her husband by another marriage. Her husband, Ben Bradlee, was the executive editor of The Post for decades. It was a long, labored and somewhat bizarre explanation full of far too much information. But the leadership of The Washington Post, perhaps sensing that having a column about social graces written by someone who had committed the kind of faux pas that your average trailer park resident could have avoided, decided it was best to uninvite the column from the paper. The Post’s editor, Marcus Brauchli, forthrightly explained to The Washington City Paper that the column was going back to its original focus of faith — and its original home, online. Ms. Quinn said that the wedding scheduling was the result of a mix-up and that she wrote the column because her son was being harassed in the press. “I have no regrets,” she said. “I’d rather take the blame.” (Let it not be said that Ms. Quinn has lost all her juice: she was among those most deeply offended by the White House crashers, and suggested that the social secretary, Desirée Rogers, needed to be cashiered, a change that also took place last week.) Beyond the specific incident, the decision to pull the plug on The Party is a recognition that a column on fancy entertaining in Washington is a bit like a farming column in Manhattan. In Washington today, the office holders flee to their families who live back in their districts as often as they can, and the city belongs to the horde of young people who staff various agencies, media outlets and lobbying outfits. More than any other city I can think of, Washington is a city transformed. (Although some truisms still attain: Last week, Marion S. Barry Jr., now a D.C. council member, apologized for steering a contract to a woman he has been involved with and faces yet another investigation.) Actual political might has been migrating away from the parties, never mind the people who go to parties, more rapidly than ever. And the official version of Washington has little allure outside the Beltway: one of the more important credentials for incumbents is how little time they actually spend inside the District. “Power in Washington has been dispersed geographically, demographically and politically, and I think establishment Washington is having trouble coming to grips with that,” said Ana Marie Cox, Washington correspondent for GQ, who is working on a power list for a coming issue. “I can’t remember the last time I was in Georgetown.” In an op-ed article in The New York Times, Senator Evan Bayh said he was leaving Washington in part because of a lack of civility and intellectual exchange. Mr. Bayh, the son of a senator, recalled a time when traveling to and from one’s district was more arduous and when people who served in Washington made the best of it, often with others with whom they disagreed. “When I was a boy, members of Congress from both parties, along with their families, would routinely visit our home for dinner or the holidays,” he wrote. “This type of social interaction hardly ever happens today and we are the poorer for it. It is much harder to demonize someone when you know his family or have visited his home.” Some of President Obama’s travails have been attributed to a Washington that is not just polarized politically, but also socially. In an article by Mark Leibovich in The New York Times, Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip, was asked how he might pass the time if he were invited to a White House social occasion. “I would take the opportunity to press the president on why he thinks it’s better to ignore the public,” he said. Thanks for that charming bit of repartee, congressman. Now would you pass the crudités?

Washington Post
Quinn Sally
News and News Media
United States Politics and Government
Washington (DC)
Newspapers


Alabama: Race Begins for House Seat Being Vacated This Summer

Abstract: The campaign to succeed Representative Jo Bonner began on Friday, a day after he said he would resign in August to become the vice chancellor of government relations and economic development for the University of Alabama system. His sister, Judy Bonner, is the president of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, one of the three campuses in the system. Mr. Bonner, a Republican, is in his sixth term representing the First Congressional District, in the southwest corner of the state. State Representative Randy Davis, a retired educator from Daphne and a Republican serving his third term in the Legislature, said on Friday that he would run for the seat. Several others have indicated that they are considering a bid, including Bradley Byrne, a former Republican candidate for governor. Gov. Robert Bentley will set a date for a special election.

Alabama
Republicans
Jo R Bonner Jr
House of Representatives
Congress


Airport-Shooting Victims: Volunteers and Entrepreneurs, Vacation Bound

Abstract: MIAMI — One helped firefighters. Another volunteered at a local church. Two others ran businesses. They came from different cities, and most were starting vacations. They were among the five people killed on Friday in a shooting rampage at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport . Esteban Santiago, 26, a military veteran, has been charged in the killings. On Wednesday, officials in Broward County, Florida, released the names of all five victims. Among them was Mary Louise Amzibel, 69, of Ohio, the only victim whose name had not been reported. Family and friends of the others had previously posted announcements about them and spoken to news organizations. ‘The Cornerstone of Our Family’ Image Olga Woltering, 84, always had a beaming smile, the pastor at the Roman Catholic church she attended in Marietta, Ga., said. Credit Reuters Olga Woltering, 84, regularly attended Mass with her husband, Ralph, at The Catholic Church of the Transfiguration in Marietta, Ga. She worked in various ministries affiliated with the church, where she and her husband had been members since 1978. The “normal” expression on her face? A beaming smile, her church pastor said. Father Fernando Molina-Restrepo, the pastor of the church, said there was a pall of sadness over his church’s 5 p.m. Mass on Saturday. The first pew on the left — Mrs. Woltering’s regular spot — remained empty. He asked congregants to pray for the victims of the massacre, but to also to pray for people like the man accused of killing her, “people who are walking in darkness.” “She was so joyful,” Father Molina-Restrepo said of Mrs. Woltering on Sunday. “Whenever you met her, she left you with this sense of joy and peace.” She and her husband were married for 64 years and were setting out on a cruise to celebrate her husband’s 90th birthday, he said. She was known as the church “social butterfly” who attended every dance. Mrs. Woltering was originally from Ipswich, north of London, but she lived in Georgia with her husband, who had served in the United States Air Force, The Independent newspaper reported. “Olga was so charming, calling everybody ‘Lovey’ or ‘Love’ in her unmistakable British accent,” the church said in a statement. The couple had traveled to Florida to set out on a Caribbean cruise, their son, Tim Woltering, said in a telephone interview. Ralph Woltering was not injured, he said. The Woltering family released a statement about Mrs. Woltering, describing her as a cornerstone of their extended family of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She “rarely seemed to meet a stranger,” it said. “Rather, she had a smile or a hug for all.” ‘Tragic Loss’ Michael Oehme was one of the owners of Boundaryline Surveys , a land surveying business in Omaha. The company, in a recorded message, described the event as a “tragic loss” and said it had been inundated with expressions of sorrow and concern since last week’s shooting. Mr. Oehme, 57, had traveled to Fort Lauderdale for a cruise with his wife, Kari, who sustained a gunshot wound to the shoulder and was expected to recover, Mr. Oehme’s sister, Elizabeth Oehme-Miller, told The Associated Press. “I still can’t believe it’s true,” Ms. Oehme-Miller said. ‘Generous With His Time’ Image The shooting victim Terry Andres, right, of Virginia Beach with his wife, Julia. Mr. Andres, 62, often helped firefighters. Credit Associated Press Terry Andres, 62, of Virginia Beach worked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, a spokeswoman there, Terri Davis, said in a telephone interview. But Mr. Andres also had a history of donating his time to public service. That was how Arthur Kohn, a Fire Department spokesman, described Mr. Andres’s contributions to the Oceana Volunteer Fire Department , where he volunteered alongside Virginia Beach firefighters as a support technician. The work is comforting as well as lifesaving: For six years beginning in 2004, Mr. Andres supplied fresh breathing tanks to the firefighters, as well as food, water and even shade on hot days from his support vehicle at the scene of fires, Mr. Kohn said in a telephone interview. During that time, Mr. Andres stood out from other volunteers in one specific way. “He put forth a lot more time than some others did,” Mr. Kohn said. “He made himself available quite readily. He was very generous with his time. To me, that adds to the tragedy of this whole thing: That is the kind of people that we lose in acts of terrorism.” Mr. Andres was on his way to embark on a cruise to celebrate his birthday, Ryan Kim, his daughter, told The Palm Beach Post. She said her mother, who was not injured, was waiting as her husband fetched a baggage cart, and then waved at her when he had one. “Then everything happened,” Ms. Kim said. “And after all the ruckus ended, they didn’t realize that my dad wasn’t there right away.” ‘Raised an Amazing Family’ Shirley Timmons, 70, of Senecaville, Ohio, was the longtime owner of the Mayfair Stores, now-closed women’s clothing stores in Cambridge, Ohio, according to an Ohio radio station . She and her husband, Steve, who was also shot and was seriously injured, were weeks from their 51st wedding anniversary. A family spokesman told the station that the couple was in Fort Lauderdale for a cruise vacation. “Steve and Shirley raised an amazing family, three amazing girls,” the spokesman said. “Their family was everything to them.”


For Nets, a Sore Ankle and a Little Trash Talk

Abstract: Deron Williams was not deemed healthy enough to play dodgeball Thursday, but he still expects to be on the court Oct. 1, when the Nets begin training camp. Williams, who sprained his right ankle about two weeks ago, was wearing a walking boot at the dodgeball tournament he hosted in Manhattan for his foundation, Point of Hope, which benefits autism research. He said his ankle was sore and inflamed, but he called the boot a precautionary measure. “They have me in it now so I don’t have to worry about it when the season starts,” Williams said. Williams worked out for a few days after sustaining the injury, but the pain lingered, so he had a magnetic resonance imaging test. Williams, who battled pain in both ankles for much of last season, said the Nets were being extra careful. “It’s frustrating because I wanted to be hooping with the guys right now,” he said. Williams said he expected to have the boot off by next week, after a follow-up examination. Williams and the Nets are looking to jell early after adding several new faces. Several players worked out together this summer in Los Angeles, and most of the team members have already arrived in the New York and New Jersey area to get ready for the season. “The best part is probably us sitting in the locker room, talking and getting to know one another,” said Paul Pierce, who was traded to the Nets by the Boston Celtics in the off-season. “That’s how you build chemistry.” Pierce has shown a willingness to engage in spirited interborough banter. He was asked Thursday about Knicks guard J. R. Smith, who called Pierce “a bitter person” after Pierce was quoted as saying the Nets would be the city’s pre-eminent team. “Who?” Pierce said. “Who we talking about right now? Exactly. Who we talking about? We talking about nothing.”

Paul Pierce
Brooklyn Nets
Sports injury
Basketball
J R Smith


Windows 10 Upgrade Options for Vista Users

Abstract: Q. My somewhat ancient Hewlett-Packard laptop is running Windows Vista, and I never see Vista mentioned in articles about upgrading operating systems. Can it be upgraded to Windows 10? A . Windows Vista is not mentioned in most articles about updating a computer to Windows 10 because Vista is not included in Microsoft’s free upgrade offer for the new operating system. The free Windows 10 upgrade is available only to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users until July 29. If you are interested in moving from Windows Vista to Windows 10, you can get there by doing a time-consuming clean installation after buying the new operating system software, or by purchasing a new PC. To go the less expensive route, first make sure your computer meets the Windows 10 system requirements, which are listed on Microsoft’s website . At the very least, the PC must have a one-gigahertz processor and one gigabyte of memory for the 32-bit version of the system (or two gigabytes for the 64-bit edition). The computer also needs 16 to 20 gigabytes of hard-drive space and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics card running the WDDM 1.0 driver software. If your hardware meets the requirements and you want to proceed, you also have to buy a copy of Windows 10, which costs $120 for the home version. (Some experienced users have wrestled Windows Insider Preview versions onto older computers, but this is not for the technically faint of heart.) Before you install Windows 10 on the old PC, back up your files to an external drive so that you can copy them back to the computer after the upgrade. You will also need to reinstall all your programs that are compatible with Windows 10. The upgrade process from Windows Vista takes time and money, and if the computer is old and comparatively slow, you may not find it worth the effort. Buying a new PC with up-to-date hardware specifications and Windows 10 already installed (and then using a data-transfer program to move your files to the new computer) obviously costs more, but it provides many more years of Microsoft support and system updates. You could also just keep using your current system if you are happy with it. However, keep in mind that Windows Vista, which was released in 2006 , is approaching the end of its planned life cycle next year. Microsoft’s extended support for the system ends on April 11, 2017.

Microsoft
Microsoft Windows
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


Flying Bodies, Broken Bones and Screams After Cars Leave the Track

Abstract: Dull thuds pulsed through the eight cars of the Metro-North Hudson line train, jolting passengers from an early-morning doze or from the Christmas carols or pop tunes playing on their iPods. In cars at the back of the train, bones broke, shattering glass sliced through skin, cars fell on their sides and dirt flew in as the windows sheared underbrush beside the track. As the cars toppled, some passengers were wedged into overhead luggage racks; others, knocked unconscious, caromed about until the skidding locomotive came to a grinding halt. But in the front cars, the chaos was total. The first car’s nose was just feet from Harlem River. The car’s metal flanks were covered in blood. Video Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will begin fixing the track as soon as the investigation into the cause of the train accident in the Bronx is finished. That was the first thing Emilie Miyauchi, 28, saw when she climbed through the jaws of the shattered window next to her seat. Beneath the blood was the crumpled body of a woman who had been thrown from that car. “You just see that, you think, ‘Nobody survives that,’ ” Ms. Miyauchi said. The passengers who died in the crash were seated in the front three cars, an official said. Sixty-three other people were reported injured, some of them critically. The cars thrashed from side to side, and jolted back and forth. Passengers unable to grab hold of a seat back or armrest flew end to end, smashing into each other, the floor, the ceiling, the seats, the metal handrails. “There was a lot of screaming and a lot of bodies flying around,” said Ryan Kelly, 26, a photo retoucher from Yorktown Heights, N.Y., who braced himself in an overhead rack. His left hand was crushed. Sharon Martin, 42, was wrenched from sleep by the crash. When it was finally over, the woman next to her was unconscious. A Derailment in the Bronx 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Damon Winter/The New York Times Residents in buildings overlooking the tracks stared in disbelief at the scene unfolding below. Michael Keaveney, 22, a security worker who lives in an apartment above the tracks, was awakened by the tumult. When he looked out his window, he said, “I thought I was still dreaming.” When the train came to rest, passengers battered windows until they broke. Other riders were trapped inside for long minutes before emergency workers arrived, according to Kevin Farrell, 28, a hospital administrator who watched from his apartment. Seven minutes and two seconds after the first calls went out, emergency workers arrived, slightly delayed by the train’s imprecise location, a marshy area just north of Spuyten Duyvil Creek station, said Jay Jonas, deputy chief of Division 7, which was in command early in the operation. Diesel fuel glugged out into the dirt. Firefighters quickly stabilized the cars strewed across the marsh grass and sedge. Jacks and air bags were deployed to prevent them from shifting and causing more injuries. Firefighters propped ladders on the carriages and scrambled up to reach windows and doors. Underneath one car was a passenger who had been killed. More than 150 firefighters and emergency medical technicians swarmed over the scene, cutting some passengers free from the metal and glass, some walking from car to car, performing first aid on the injured. Stunned passengers who had been extricated stood or sat in grass spangled with broken glass. A woman sat with her leg hanging at an unnatural angle. Video Several cars on a train headed south from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., left the tracks around 7:20 a.m. near the Spuyten Duyvil station under the Henry Hudson Bridge. As residents of the area watched in disbelief, emergency workers removed part of a chain-link fence running along the tracks and handed passengers to ambulance workers waiting on the other side. There were concerns that the force of the crash might have flung some passengers into the nearby river. Emergency boats and divers scoured the water and cadaver-sniffing dogs searched the shore. No bodies were found. Ms. Martin, of New Windsor, N.Y., who had been sleeping, was bound for her job as a station clerk for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Then suddenly, the noise, the dirt, the glass, the pain. At Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx on Sunday evening, her brother Reginald Ragin said Ms. Martin was mostly hale, but her face was covered in bruises. Some passengers had remained beside the river: forms in black bags. “God spared us that information that someone else is going to have to endure,” Mr. Ragin said.

Bronx
Spuyten Duyvil
Train wreck
Metro North
Fatalities,casualties
Poughkeepsie NY
New York Metropolitan Area