Deutsche Bank’s Head of Mergers and Acquisitions Said to Be Leaving

Abstract: LONDON — Henrik Aslaksen, the global head of mergers and acquisitions at Deutsche Bank, is preparing to leave the company, according to a person briefed on his departure. Mr. Aslaksen, who is based in London, has been with the German bank since 2002 and served in a variety of positions, including as co-head for mergers and acquisitions for Europe. He joined the bank from Merrill Lynch. It was unclear what Mr. Aslaksen, 52, planned to do after his departure, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Deutsche Bank declined to comment. His departure was reported earlier Monday by The Financial Times . Mr. Aslaksen is the latest executive to leave the bank as it reshapes its top leadership. This month, Deutsche Bank announced that Anshu Jain, one of the company’s co-chief executives, would step down at the end of June and that Jürgen Fitschen, the other co-chief executive, would stay another year but would leave before his contract expired in 2017. Mr. Jain is to be replaced by John Cryan , a former executive at the Swiss bank UBS. Deutsche Bank announced in May that Rainer Neske, the head of its retail bank, would leave the bank this month and would be succeeded by Christian Sewing, the head of the bank’s legal department.

Deutsche Bank
Mergers and Acquisitions
Europe
Merrill Lynch
Anshu Jain
John Cryan
Appointments and Executive Changes
Jurgen Fitschen


Shares Decline in Japan for 12th Consecutive Day

Abstract: European markets fell and Asian markets were mixed Friday as investors digested uneven readings on the United States economy and oil prices remained near records. Japan posted its 12th consecutive day of losses. Trading was subdued as American financial markets were closed for the Fourth of July holiday. In Europe, the FTSE 100 in Britain closed down 1.16 percent at 5,412.80, the DAX in Germany fell 1.28 percent to 6,272.21 and the CAC-40 in France slid 1.8 percent to 4,266. In Asia, Indonesia’s main index rebounded after selling off nearly 4 percent on Thursday. Hong Kong and Australian equities were also higher. With stocks hit hard recently, some Asian investors were returning to the market to take advantage of lower prices. Others who bet on falling prices were starting to take profits, further supporting prices. “Investors are still bearish. We’ve been down a lot in the past few weeks. But even those bears are a bit hesitant on selling at this level,” said Y. K. Chan, fund manager at Phillip Capital Management in Hong Kong. Markets in Japan, China, South Korea and Malaysia lost ground. The market climate in Europe is “a bit morose anyway” because of the high price of oil and the credit squeeze, said Andrew Bell, head of research at Rensburg Sheppards, an investment management company in Britain. While in the first quarter of the year, “people were genuinely panicking because they didn’t feel confident in the banking system,” Mr. Bell said, investors no longer fear “the whole system unraveling.” “But that doesn’t stop the markets falling because company earnings are being squeezed by rising costs, weaker economic growth and tighter credit,” he said. On Friday, shares of the Swiss bank UBS rose after the company said it expected second-quarter results to break even or fall slightly short because of a tax credit that would offset investment losses. It said it would not need to seek capital for a third time this year. Analysts expected a second-quarter loss of as much as $4.9 billion. Investors got little guidance from the United States overnight after a mixed assessment on the country’s economy. While the nation’s service sector shrank, a tame jobs report eased some worries about the labor market. Oil prices slipped toward $144 a barrel in electronic trading in Europe. The contract hit a record high at $145.29 a barrel Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average fell 0.2 percent to 13,237.89 points. The index has shed more than 8 percent of its value over the 12-day fall — the longest losing streak since it stumbled 15 consecutive sessions in 1954. The market was dragged down by real estate companies, paper makers, retailers and power companies. Hong Kong’s blue-chip Hang Seng index climbed nearly 0.9 percent to 21,423.82 points. Financials helped lift the market amid reports that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s biggest lender, expected net profit to rise 50 percent in the first half. Telecommunications companies, viewed by some analysts as a safer play during periods of high inflation, rose. The China Netcom Group was up almost 4 percent and China Unicom gained 2.1 percent. Hong Kong rose despite weakness in mainland China, where the key Shanghai index skidded 1.2 percent to 2,669.89 points. Chinese coal shares fell on fears of a possible coal resource tax revenue plan, which could be announced this weekend. Most institutional investors remain worried about the big picture, said Fan Zejie, an analyst for Shanghai Leading Investment and Consulting. “There are too many uncertainties in the next half-year, like inflationary pressures brought by natural disasters, the management of nontradeable shares and the high production prices of raw materials,” Mr. Fan said.

International Trade and World Market
Stocks and Bonds
Nikkei Stock Average


The Gardens of Bruised Feelings

Abstract: IN 27 years as a federal prosecutor, Ruth Nordenbrook faced down such formidable foes as the reputed Bonanno family boss Joseph Massino and his onetime underling Vincent Basciano, a k a Vinny Gorgeous. But Ms. Nordenbrook, who is 62 and who retired in 2005, may have finally met the adversaries persistent enough to wear her down. They typically stand one or two feet tall, and have damp noses and names like Roxy and Geo. They are the dogs belonging to Ms. Nordenbrook’s neighbors in the Fulton Ferry Landing area of Brooklyn, and they are in the middle of a struggle between pet owners and community groups over a series of traffic islands at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. Ms. Nordenbrook, who along with a few other volunteers maintained flower beds on the islands for more than a decade, notified her neighbors this spring that she was quitting, complaining that local dogs’ use of the land as a chamber pot was making it too hard to continue the work. Her resignation was reported in The Brooklyn Paper. No replacement gardeners have yet emerged, the beds are tangled and overgrown, people still walk their dogs on the islands, and the Fulton Ferry Landing Association, a neighborhood group, is preparing to ask for city help. • On a sunny afternoon last week, Ms. Nordenbrook stood by the one small patch that she is still tending and announced that she remains resolute about giving up the rest of the gardens. “I’m sorry to see it that way,” she said, “but I don’t miss the aggravation.” In fact, she finds the break calming. “I can even now see people walking down there with their dogs, and I don’t start foaming at the mouth.” Some of her neighbors are less sanguine. “That has been the labor of a few totally dedicated residents to maintain the area,” said Katrin Adam, a board member of the Fulton Ferry Landing Association. “If you have people in the area who are willing to take these things on, to be disrespected by dog owners is a terrible thing.” Ms. Adam said her group plans to meet this month to discuss options like putting low fences around the flower beds or seeking maintenance help from the city’s Parks Department. Exactly who has jurisdiction over the traffic islands, however, is complicated. The spaces were created in the 1990s when the state’s Department of Transportation overhauled the bridge’s off-ramp, but at the time the neighborhood group agreed to maintain them. Things went along smoothly for years, Ms. Adam said, but with the population of the nearby Dumbo neighborhood swelling, the area is home to more pets than ever. Many are escorted to the traffic islands, and many stop to relieve themselves there. Last spring came a series of confrontations involving both professional dog walkers and area residents who were walking their dogs themselves. Ms. Nordenbrook admitted that she uttered some unkind words, and said that people generally responded by informing her that they were on public property, in a free country, and she should mind her own business. • One of those people was James Lewis, who lives in a co-op across the street from the traffic islands and regularly walks through the area with the aforementioned Roxy and Geo, a miniature dachshund and a Boston terrier. Mr. Lewis, as it happened, was passing through the abandoned flower beds last week just as Ms. Nordenbrook was recalling their first tense meeting. This time, the two exchanged polite, if sheepish, greetings; they buried the hatchet some time ago, Mr. Lewis said, and his dogs now relieve themselves in a different area. Once everyone cooled off, he said, the way to solve the problem was easy. Thinking back on the dispute, Mr. Lewis said: “I don’t even know if it really has anything to do with pets. I think people’s reactions in a lot of situations have to do with who’s in control, and ‘What are my rights?’ rather than ‘What are another person’s feelings?’ ”

Dogs
Walking
Parks Department
Flowers and Plants
Brooklyn (NYC)


Michigan State Wins War of Words Against New Mexico State

Abstract: SPOKANE, Wash. — The trash-talking that began days before Michigan State and New Mexico State took to the court on Friday night, as players from both teams engaged in a stirring debate of vocal one-upmanship and sharp-shooting rebuttals. But in the end it was Michigan State that had the last word, even as the irate New Mexico State Coach Marvin Menzies had to be steered away from the game officials after the final buzzer. The fifth-seeded Spartans, who led by as many as 16 points in the first half, eventually quieted No. 12 New Mexico State with a 70-67 victory in the Midwest Region Michigan State guard Kalin Lucas, who led the Spartans to the national-title game last year but whose name did not ring a bell this week for New Mexico State’s Jahmar Young, led the Spartans with 25 points. Young, who said he would not “bow down” to Lucas, had averaged 20.5 points per game this season. But he was held to 13 against the Spartans before fouling out in the final minute, when his team could have used him most. At halftime, with Michigan State leading, 42-29, Young had more fouls (3) than points (2). “We played as well in that first half as we’ve played all season long,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. Young and the bruising center Hamidu Rahman helped feisty New Mexico State outscore Michigan State by 13-2 to open the second half. The Aggies finally wrestled away the lead, 53-52, on Gordo Castillo’s 3-pointer with 11 minutes 39 seconds left. The game see-sawed from there. Michigan State’s Raymar Morgan missed a free throw with 18.6 seconds remaining, only to be given a second chance because of a lane violation by the Aggies. Morgan made the free throw, forcing New Mexico State to fling a pair of 3-pointers in the waning seconds. Menzies had to be restrained by assistant coaches as he screamed at officials after the final buzzer, and fans serenaded the officials with boos as the officials were escorted off the court by a police officer. New Mexico State (22-12) was led by Troy Gillenwater (17 points, 11 rebounds) and Jonathan Gibson (16 points). It was looking to win an N.C.A.A. tournament game for the first time since 1993. Michigan State (25-8) awaited the Maryland-Houston winner in the Sunday’s second-round game. The contentious ending seemed oddly fitting for a strange, spunky game. The lead-up featured some back-and-forth between opposing players through reporters. In a conference call with reporters earlier in the week, Young was asked about Lucas. “What’s his name? Kalin Lucas?” Young responded. “I have really never heard of him. But if he’s that good, he has got to show it.” Lucas, an all-Big Ten player, led the Spartans to the brink of the national championship game last year, when Michigan State lost to North Carolina. He was not amused by Young’s remarks and called them “disrespectful.” Young later said that he did not mean to disrespect Lucas, or get into a war of words, but he was not going to “bow down,” either. Players brought that attitude to the court. In the game’s first few minutes, one official shouted at Michigan State’s Durrell Summers and, putting his fingers to his mouth, told Summers to zip his lips. Moments later, with 16:31 left in the half, Young and Michigan State’s Delvon Roe were handed technical fouls for their ongoing conversation. “It was different than we were used to,” Izzo said. “We caused some of it. I hold my guys accountable.” The attitudes were not just wielded against one another. When New Mexico State’s Jonathan Gibson made a jumper and thought he was fouled, he turned to an official and put circled fingers around his eyes, like eyeglasses. The official did not notice, or pretended not to. Young picked up his third foul with 4:54 left in the first half and went to the bench with just 2 points. Moments later, Menzies was assessed a technical foul for arguing. Eventually, the score had the final word.

NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men)
Michigan State University
New Mexico State University
Basketball
College Athletics


Giants Become the Aggressors to Change Their Trajectory From Last Season

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Last season, the Giants not only were a bad team but also seemed hopelessly star-crossed, losing four close games in the final 75 seconds of play. But this season, the Giants, who reached the midpoint of their schedule Sunday, have already protected leads in the final minutes of four tense games, winning each by 5 points or fewer. Are this year’s Giants that much better than last season’s disaster of a team, or are they just luckier? As if quoting an adage, athletes always insist that they can make their own luck, and this year’s Giants are no different. On the wrong end of another bad break in the final minutes of their taut game with the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, the Giants did not crumble. Instead, they made a stirring defensive stand, repelling four last-ditch Eagles passes from the Giants’ 17-yard line to preserve an important 28-23 victory at MetLife Stadium. “Last year, when that kind of stuff happens, we blow it,” said Giants cornerback Trevin Wade, who defended against the Eagles’ final pass attempt. “We’re changing how some things happen.” One thing is certainly new and different. Thanks to a three-game winning streak, the Giants (5-3) are legitimate playoff contenders in November for the first time since 2012. And the Giants appear to have a new attitude when confronted with adversity: They have decided to go down fighting. It was a deflected Eli Manning pass that was intercepted by Philadelphia linebacker Jordan Hicks that gave the ball to the Eagles deep inside Giants territory with slightly less than two minutes left in the game. Image Giants quarterback Eli Manning throwing against the Eagles in the first half. Manning had four touchdown passes, but a late interception nearly cost the Giants the game. Credit Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images The Eagles (4-4) picked up one first down, but on the next four pass plays, the Giants’ defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, boldly blitzed the rookie quarterback Carson Wentz, sending multiple linebackers and defensive backs into the Eagles’ backfield play after play. Backpedaling and sometimes on the run, Wentz repeatedly missed his receivers. “Spags doesn’t back down,” Giants linebacker Keenan Robinson said, using Spagnuolo’s nickname. “That’s not how we want to play.” Throughout the Giants’ locker room, Sunday’s outcome was having an emboldening effect on the team, especially since the opponent was the division rival Eagles, who entered the day with a four-game winning streak against the Giants. “Philadelphia has had our number the last few games,” said Manning, who threw four touchdown passes while completing 22 of 36 passes for 257 yards. “So it’s nice to reverse that. “The important thing is that we’re finding ways to win in close fourth-quarter games. It’s one of those things you have to do, and do with consistency.” The season may only be half over, but already the Giants are doing more things correctly than in the past three seasons, each of which they ended with a losing record. The Giants, for example, jumped out to a 14-0 lead on Sunday after their defense twice intercepted Wentz, who completed 27 of 47 passes for 364 yards. In recent seasons, the Giants struggled to force turnovers and were inept offensively once they neared an opponent’s goal line. But after each of the interceptions of Wentz, Manning quickly threw a touchdown pass. The first was to wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who caught a short pass and was nearly untouched as he outran two defenders for a 26-yard score. Beckham’s ability to catch routine over-the-middle passes and turn them into easy scores is becoming one of his trademark contributions. The second Giants touchdown was a 30-yard bomb to the rookie wide receiver Roger Lewis Jr., who dashed alone behind the entire Philadelphia secondary. The Giants took an 11-point lead into the third quarter, but the persistent Eagles cut the lead to 4 points before Manning struck again. Waiting in a crowded pocket, and just before being decked, Manning lofted a well-timed pass to the rookie wide receiver Sterling Shepard in the right corner of the end zone for a 32-yard touchdown. The score put the Giants ahead by 28-17, but two field goals by Philadelphia kicker Caleb Sturgis whittled the Giants’ lead to 5 points. The Giants have also had difficulty in previous seasons running out the clock with a lead, mainly because they struggled to mount an effective rushing game. But after they took possession with 3 minutes 51 seconds left in the fourth quarter, it appeared that the Giants’ running game might yet bail out a defensive unit that had already made two fourth-down stops in the game. The Giants took over at their 12-yard line and immediately picked up a first down on successive runs by the rookie running back Paul Perkins, whose role is increasing exponentially. But on a third-and-4, Manning’s pass over the middle was deflected into the hands of Hicks. The crowd grew noticeably anxious, and the Giants’ sideline seemed restless as well. But the Giants’ defense had been aggressive for most of the game, not often sacking Wentz but regularly unsettling him, an insistent approach the defenders prefer in tough situations. “Absolutely, we want to blitz and attack,” said linebacker Jonathan Casillas, whose leadership role continues to expand. “You don’t want to sit back and let them attack you.” In the end, the Eagles’ final rally stalled, and the Giants took over and ran out the clock. “We believe in each other, and we put our foot on the gas and keep playing that way,” Coach Ben McAdoo said. “I don’t think we’re going to play any differently for the foreseeable future.” The news for the Giants was not all good on Sunday. Left guard Justin Pugh, one of the team’s best offensive linemen, limped off the field with a sprained knee and did not return. Wide receiver Victor Cruz, who set up a score with a 46-yard catch along the right sideline, was sidelined by an ankle injury. In the end, it was left to Manning, the team’s most seasoned and accomplished veteran, to define what the Giants had achieved in half a season. “If you look at the scores, a lot of N.F.L. games are now close and come down to the final minutes,” Manning said. “And those are the things that can make or break a season. So it’s good we’re starting to learn to get on the good side of some of those games. But we’ll also have to continue to do that. That’s what matters.”

Giants
Philadelphia Eagles
Eli Manning
Carson Wentz
Football


Flagged Two Times in 2014, Ahmad Rahami Passed Scrutiny

Abstract: When Ahmad Khan Rahami returned in March 2014 from a nearly yearlong trip to Pakistan, he was flagged by customs officials, who pulled him out for a secondary screening. Still concerned about his travel, they notified the National Targeting Center, a federal agency that assesses potential threats, two law enforcement officials said. It was one of thousands of such notifications every year, and a report on Mr. Rahami was passed along to the F.B.I. and other intelligence agencies. Five months later, when Mr. Rahami’s father told the police after a domestic dispute that he was concerned about his son having terrorist sympathies, federal agents again examined his travel history. And again, despite Mr. Rahami’s now having been flagged twice for scrutiny, the concerns were not found to warrant a deeper inquiry, one of the law enforcement officials said. Ahmad Rahami was not interviewed by federal agents. But now, the travel history of Mr. Rahami, who is accused of carrying out bombings in New York and New Jersey last weekend, has become a focus of investigators, a subject made all the more urgent by details contained in a notebook that suggests he drew inspiration largely from the Islamic State. In particular, Mr. Rahami cites a founding member of the Islamic State who called on Muslims around the world to take up whatever arms they could find and spill the blood of nonbelievers. The assessment of Mr. Rahami by the F.B.I. began in August 2014, and it once again reviewed the report by the National Targeting Center. The center was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to function as an intelligence analysis agency within the Department of Homeland Security. “By identifying high-risk passengers and cargo well before they would cross our land borders, sail into our ports or touch down on our tarmacs, the N.T.C. team is on duty to protect our people and economy 24/7,” the federal government’s description of the agency says. It is unclear how much information the report contained about Mr. Rahami’s activities during the 11 months he was in Pakistan, starting in April 2013, and about any other trips he made while abroad. Investigators are interested in learning more about both a three-week trip he made to Afghanistan and another trip he may have made to Ankara, Turkey, according to the law enforcement officials, who spoke about the continuing investigation under the condition of anonymity. The report by the targeting center did not mention any travel to Turkey, according to one of the officials. Image Mr. Rahami’s bloodstained notebook. Records the New York Police Department provided to customs officials indicate that Mr. Rahami traveled to Ankara for an unspecified length of time in January 2014, according to another law enforcement official and documents obtained by The New York Times. That trip would have happened at a time when international authorities were concerned about the flow of foreign combatants to Syria to fight in the civil war there, but before the Islamic State became widely known as a source of global terrorism. The Islamic State was just making its first expansion into Iraq then, taking the city of Falluja. Mostly, the group was seen as an Islamist rebel force in the Syrian conflict that had become focused on grabbing territory from fellow opposition groups — especially the Nusra front, which, like the Islamic State, had started as a branch of Al Qaeda but instead became an enemy. The questions about where Mr. Rahami drew his inspiration and whether he had help are at the center of the investigation even as an intense legal battle takes shape over how his case is being handled. Defense lawyers are fighting to get Mr. Rahami before a judge so he can be appointed a lawyer and have charges laid out against him, while prosecutors are pushing back. The new information being gleaned from Mr. Rahami’s notebook, a copy of which was provided to The Times by another law enforcement official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, paints a substantially different picture from what could be understood by the snippets highlighted in the criminal complaint filed in federal court on Tuesday night. That summary mentioned Anwar al-Awlaki, once Al Qaeda’s leading propagandist, who is equally popular with the Islamic State’s followers, but made no mention of the ISIS spokesman and senior strategist Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. The pages of Mr. Rahami’s journal echo the talking points of Mr. Adnani, who in May advised followers around the world to commit violence in their home countries if travel to Syria proved too difficult. Fragments of the journal — much of it rendered illegible because of blood stains — suggest that Mr. Rahami may have himself been frustrated in his attempts to reach Syria and was using that as justification for committing terror at home. One page has the word “blocked,” followed by: “You should have let us meet death overseas.” On a subsequent page, he wrote “back to Sham,” an archaic regional name that has come to be used for Syria. He goes on: “I looked for guidance and Alhumdulilah,” he says, using an Arabic expression praising God. “Guidance come / Sheikh Anwar / Brother Adnani / Dawla. Said it clearly attack The Kuffar in their backyard.” The last sentence appears to refer to Mr. Adnani’s speech this summer in which he beseeched followers to hurt unbelievers in whatever manner they could and wherever they found them. Mr. Rahami makes clear that he planned to die a martyr: In “my heart, I pray to the beautiful wise Allah / to not take jihad away,” he said. “I begged for shahada,” he continued, using the Arabic for martyrdom, “and inshallah this call will be answered.” Mr. Rahami also refers to more recent comments Mr. Adnani made. “If the tyrants have closed in your faces the door to Hijrah, then open in their face the door of jihad and make their act a source of pain to them,” Mr. Adnani said in a speech released by the Islamic State in May. “The smallest action you do in the heart of their land is dearer to us than the largest action by us, and more effective and more damaging to them.” Image The F.B.I. wants to question two men who were in Chelsea on Saturday night when an explosion on 23rd Street occurred. The authorities do not believe they are connected to the bombing suspect. The authorities are also still searching for two men who apparently stumbled on one of the bombs planted in Manhattan on Saturday evening and took the explosive device out of a bag before walking away with the bag — although officials said they were not believed to be part of the plot. On Wednesday, investigators, who believe the bag may be a valuable piece of evidence, released images of the men — one wearing a pink golf shirt and the other wearing a light brown button-down collared shirt. The images were taken from surveillance video that shows the men walking on 27th Street between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue in Chelsea between 8 and 9 p.m. on Saturday. The authorities said they did not believe the men were tied to Mr. Rahami. “We have no reason to believe they’re connected,” Chief James Waters, head of the New York Police Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, said at a news conference on Wednesday morning. The city police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, said they were considered witnesses. Mr. Rahami is recovering in Newark from wounds he sustained in a shootout with the police in Linden, N.J., on Monday morning, when he was taken into custody. The United States attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch, said on Wednesday that the government would bring Mr. Rahami to New York City to face charges. “In the near future, it is our intention to bring the defendant to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York,” she said in remarks made in Washington. The chief federal public defender in Manhattan, David E. Patton, wrote late on Tuesday night to Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein, asking for a court hearing at the earliest possible time and proposing that if Mr. Rahami’s health did not permit his travel to Manhattan, Mr. Patton’s lawyers could represent him in New Jersey at the hearing by telephone or video. “The Sixth Amendment requires that he be given access to counsel on the federal charges, and that he be presented without delay,” Mr. Patton wrote. The United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, asked the judge to deny the request. In court papers on Wednesday, his office said that because Mr. Rahami was arrested by the local police and is being held on state charges in connection with the shootout, he is not in federal custody. That, the prosecutors argued, means that he does not yet have a right to a prompt appearance in federal court and the provision of a lawyer there. Mr. Patton responded later on Wednesday that it was “undisputed that federal law enforcement are involved in detaining and questioning” Mr. Rahami, and that his office had decided to represent Mr. Rahami after determining that he qualified as an indigent defendant. But the judge, in a ruling issued on Wednesday night, found that the court did not have the authority to appoint Mr. Rahami a lawyer or order an appearance at this time. Peter Liguori, the deputy public defender in Union County, where the shooting of the Linden police officers took place, said he had not received notification that Mr. Rahami had requested a lawyer. “We want to make sure that his constitutional rights are protected,” Mr. Liguori said. “If he or his family has requested our assistance, we will certainly help him and make sure that he gets proper representation.”

Ahmad Khan Rahami
Pakistan
Terrorism
Al Qaeda
Chelsea Bombing
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State


In Central Park, Cyclists Still Compete With Pedestrians

Abstract: Two days after a Connecticut woman died of injuries sustained after she was hit by a bicycle, pedestrians and cyclists were vying for space on the popular loop road in Central Park where the accident occurred. Police enforcement appeared scant on Tuesday on West Drive, near West 63rd Street, where Jill Tarlov, 58, was struck by a cyclist on Thursday. Most cyclists stopped for the red lights dotting the road, but others, joined by a pedicab or two, zoomed through, even when pedestrians were waiting to cross. Some pedestrians described an increasingly hostile environment on the six-mile road, which is closed to car traffic in the middle of the day. In recent years, they said, the number of cyclists on racing bikes has grown, and those riders jockey with more leisurely cyclists, joggers, walkers, horse-drawn carriages and pedicabs. “It’s a free-for-all,” said David Crawford, an opera singer, who was with his wife, Laura Wells, pushing their 2-year-old daughter in a stroller. “They need to have a barrier between the bicyclists and the walkers. It’s scary.” Ms. Tarlov, of Fairfield, Conn., was walking through the park during a shopping trip to Manhattan. In the late afternoon, she stepped onto the roadway and was hit by a bicyclist, Jason W. Marshall, 31, who told authorities that he had swerved to avoid other pedestrians. Ms. Tarlov died on Sunday. In August, a 75-year-old jogger died on the other side of the park after being struck by a teenager who was riding on the pedestrian path, part of the loop road near East 72nd Street. In recent weeks, the police have stepped up enforcement of the cycling rules in the park, which include a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit (the same as for cars) and a requirement to stop at red lights. Also, cyclists are not supposed to wear earphones and must slow down at crosswalks. So far this year, authorities have issued more than 465 moving summonses for bicycle violations in the park. That is more than triple the number issued in the same period last year, the police said. But in Central Park on Tuesday afternoon, the police presence was light. In the immediate vicinity of Thursday’s accident, only one police car appeared during a two-hour period. Through a loudspeaker, the police officer, without leaving his car, warned a cluster of cyclists to stop at the red light. As the afternoon wore on, nearly a dozen other cyclists ran red lights, sometimes looking around as if to see if anyone was watching. They also rode in a lane on the inbound side of the road that is designated for pedestrians and joggers. One cyclist even did so while heading in the wrong direction. Jamie O’Reilly, a dog walker with two Labrador retrievers and a Catahoula in tow, said she was intimidated by the packs of racing cyclists. “They are horrible,” she said. “They scream obscenities at tourists who have one foot in the road. They are like a gang.” A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday, “Making our streets safer means raising the bar for everyone’s conduct, and that includes cyclists.” And in response to Ms. Tarlov’s death, City Councilman Mark D. Levine, chairman of the Council’s parks committee, called on the city to lower the speed limit for bicyclists and vehicles in all public parks. He also urged the city to ban car traffic from Central Park year-round. One cyclist, George Valdez, 55, questioned why his fellow riders trained in the park in the middle of the day. “The best time to train is early,” he said. “I go out at 4:30 or 5 in the morning. It’s too congested later on.” Some cycling enthusiasts said new electronic tools had increased the competitiveness of bicyclists. Two in particular, Strava and Garmin Connect , allow cyclists to track their average speed over a set distance and then to compare their times to those of other users. “You can compete with someone without having to physically ride together,” said Ray Delgado, manager of Tread Bike Shop in Upper Manhattan. “It’s like, ‘Oh, this guy went around Central Park in five minutes, and I want to see if I can do it in four minutes and 55 seconds.’ ” Mr. Delgado said many serious cyclists left the city altogether to train. One attractive location is Route 9W in New Jersey, near the George Washington Bridge. “It’s a straightaway that goes for miles,” he said. “The way Central Park is designed with the red lights, you should never have that kind of training there. It’s just not meant for it.” For tourists who rent bicycles in Central Park, the rules can be especially confusing. Bike and Roll is a bike-rental concession in Columbus Circle, at an entrance to the park. At its counter on Tuesday, the park’s cycling rules are printed on the back of a map. Joseph Brites, who was visiting from South Africa, was riding a rental bike with his 15-year-old son. When they first set out, they noticed that cyclists were going through red lights. Then they saw others who came to a stop. “I was confused,” Mr. Brites said. “I wasn’t sure if we should stop or not. But then we decided it was the logical thing to do.”


A Wall Street Landmark Seen by Millions, but Often Overlooked

Abstract: One of New York’s greatest historical landmarks, Federal Hall National Memorial , can be defined by what it is not. It is not widely enough known. It is not well enough visited. And it is not Federal Hall. The most important things that ever happened at Wall and Broad Streets — the convening in 1789 of the first Congress and the inauguration of George Washington as the first president — occurred in a building, Federal Hall, that was demolished in 1812. An imposing bronze statue of President Washington has long surveyed this great crossroads of Lower Manhattan, in sight of the New York Stock Exchange and Trinity Church. But the memorial behind him, a majestic work of rock-solid Greek Revival architecture that looks as if it could have been the seat of government, was built in 1842 as the Custom House. Washington had been dead for nearly 43 years and the last surviving member of the first Congress had been four years in the grave. Image A diorama depicts the original Federal Hall during George Washington's inauguration in 1789. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times So an easily distracted public is asked to walk up a steep flight of steps to enter a mysterious building that appears from the sidewalk to be sealed shut. Once inside, they find a memorial that has no direct connection to most of the events being memorialized there. Of the estimated 15 million visitors who pass through the crossroads every year, only 200,000 enter Federal Hall National Memorial, even though it is free and open eight hours each weekday. Its solemn inscrutability is a problem that the memorial’s advocates have wrestled with for as long as I’ve covered landmarks. “ We want to polish it up and make it gleam ,” Richard H. Jenrette, the head of Federal Hall Memorial Associates, told me. (In 1984.) Its admirers are about to make another attempt at engaging the public, beginning with the donation of $300,000 from the American Express Foundation to repair and repoint the front steps, some of which are cracked, spalled and misaligned. Image A statue of President Washington outside Federal Hall. Only a small percentage of the millions who pass by Broad and Wall Streets each year enter the memorial, which is free to the public. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times “We hope this preservation effort will encourage visitors to downtown Manhattan to climb these stairs and explore this valuable landmark,” Timothy J. McClimon , the president of the foundation, said in a statement. The foundation also gave $75,000 in 2012 to repair, clean and add a protective coat to the Washington statue, by John Quincy Adams Ward. Meanwhile, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy are devising ways to raise the memorial’s profile, in partnership with the National Park Service, which manages Federal Hall. “What we’re aiming to do is put together a nine-month calendar of events, a sustained effort to reintroduce the public to Federal Hall,” said Stephanie Meeks , the president and chief executive of the trust. Marie Salerno , the president and co-founder of the conservancy, said she envisioned promotional banners, scrims and signage to draw people in. (The other co-founder, Marian S. Heiskell , is a member of the family that controls The New York Times.) Image A worker adjusts lighting on an eagle sculpture in the main rotunda of Federal Hall. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times Once inside, visitors may learn more about the productive first Congress than they do about Washington’s inauguration on a balcony of which remnants survive . Ms. Salerno acknowledged that a primary issue “is not just having the right idea but having one that is economically sustainable.” The best thing that has happened at Federal Hall in recent years was the removal in 2007 of airport-style security devices from the entrances. They were installed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, during which 300 people found shelter at the memorial. “The screening process took at least one minute per visitor and, over the years, we found that some visitors refused to enter the site and others left messages with the rangers or sent letters to the park indicating that they felt intimidated by the process,” said Shirley McKinney, the superintendent of Manhattan sites for the National Park Service. Given how heavily patrolled the Wall Street area is, she said, the park service developed new procedures with the Police Department, upgraded the surveillance equipment at Federal Hall and removed the magnetometers. Attendance has quadrupled since then. ■ Fond reminiscences of the wooden escalators at Macy’s on Herald Square in Manhattan greeted the Building Blocks column last week. But several readers described perils, too, none more vividly than my Times colleague Gary Bradford: “Took me back roughly 50 years when I’m riding one of the escalators with my great-aunt Sissy. Naturally one of her shoe heels get stuck in a track and chaos ensues. The stairs are turned off, but we still can’t pull her loose; she sits down, hikes up her dress and pulls off her leg! I had no idea she wore a prosthesis. She didn’t use a cane or a crutch and had to be in her 70s, at least. Macy’s gives us a coupla gift certificates.”


Too Old for Foster Care, and Facing the Recession in New York

Abstract: Even in boom times, young people who become too old for the foster-care system often struggle to make it on their own, lacking families, job skills or adequate educations. Now, the recession has made the challenges of life after foster care even more formidable, especially for those seeking federal housing vouchers, which are contingent on having an income. Since the beginning of this year, the city’s Administration for Children’s Services has been providing letters to those about to leave the foster care system, certifying that they are likely to be eligible for public assistance and thus easing the application process when they are ready. Yet, many child-welfare advocates worry that a growing number will still end up homeless. “They get a lot of resources until they’re 21, and then essentially none,” said James J. Golden, the executive director of the Edwin Gould Academy in East Harlem , which provides housing exclusively to former foster children. “It’s like falling off a cliff for some of them.” In New York, foster children are allowed to leave the system when they turn 18 but can stay until 21; last year, 407 wards turned 21, while 547 opted out early — 375 at age 18, and 172 at 19 or 20. Once discharged from the system, some move in with family or friends, get jobs or go to college. Others apply for welfare as their sole source of income, and often end up homeless. Administrators at the Chelsea Foyer at the Christopher , which houses dozens of former and current foster youths, said that typically, 90 percent of their residents were employed, but that in February only 70 percent had jobs. “They are the low man on the totem pole for jobs anyway,” said Jerome Kilbane, the executive director of Covenant House New York, a nonprofit that operates shelters for young people. “Now they are even more at a disadvantage.” Michael Smith, 20, said he was increasingly anxious as he approached the day in August that he will have to leave his foster home in Brooklyn . He has been searching for work since October, leaving résumés at places like McDonald’s and the clothing stores Express and H & M. Mr. Smith graduated from high school in Queens in 2006 and went to Kingsborough Community College, but he dropped out after his sickle-cell anemia caused him to miss class frequently. “I’m coming up to my 21st birthday, when I’m no longer going to be supported,” Mr. Smith said. “I feel overlooked all the times I do go apply for these jobs. But I have to do this, or else I’ll be out on the street.” Officials at the Administration for Children’s Services say they do everything possible to avert that, including the letters that help smooth the application process for public assistance. The child-welfare agency and the 36 foster-care groups with which it contracts begin to prepare children for independence as early as age 14. There are workshops on budgeting, job hunting, how to sign up for health insurance and how to negotiate with a landlord over rent. At age 19, foster youths begin to talk to caseworkers about housing options, which commonly include Section 8 vouchers, public housing projects and supportive housing, where counseling and job training might be available on site. The Administration for Children’s Services provides a one-time stipend of $750 as a cushion to foster youths when they exit the system. They are also eligible for a monthly payment of $300 from the city, from the time the leave foster care until they are 21 ½, if they are not receiving any other public housing subsidy, such as Section 8. Most of those leaving foster care are entitled to Section 8, which typically allows tenants to rent apartments for one-third of their monthly income. But that means they need income to qualify. And with unemployment rates in New York rising precipitously, foster-care workers are worried. “To be honest, I’m afraid that our youth are really going to be unable to secure housing,” said Jane Feyder, the assistant director at the New York Foundling Fontana Center for Child Protection. “They don’t have the work experience that other people have who are looking for jobs right now. They’re competing with so many other people who have advantages over them.” Even advocates for foster youth acknowledge that they are a particularly difficult group to employ. Many lack high school diplomas, having spent adolescence being shuttled from home to home. The responsibilities of a first job can come as a shock, and many quit out of frustration. “A year ago, if they’d lose one $9- an-hour job, there was usually another one that we could find them,” Mr. Golden said. “Now it’s a little more costly to become unemployed.” One of the former foster children in his care, Jessica Molina, landed a job in January 2008, working in computer technology at Merrill Lynch . She was laid off in June when the company downsized, and has been working at temporary jobs since. “Like everyone else, I have my fingers crossed that I’ll find something,” Ms. Molina, 22, said. But looking at the gaps in her résumé, she is often reminded of the constant moves between group homes she endured during her teenage years. “Sometimes you’re looked at as a castaway,” she said. “It’s like coming from a totally different place.” Brenda Tully, the program director for Chelsea Foyer at the Christopher, said residents have been laid off or seen their hours reduced at jobs in gyms, nightclubs and clothing stores. “There’s a much greater fear among the young people about what to expect,” Ms. Tully said. “They are very, very concerned that they’re not going to be able to find housing that’s affordable.” Stephany Diaz, a housing specialist for New York Foundling, one of the city’s largest foster-care agencies, said she has begun prodding youths to apply for public assistance once they are officially discharged from care. “I used to discourage them to go down that route,” she said. “But now we almost have to.” Since 2002, the Administration for Children’s Services has tried to move teenagers out of group homes and into foster care, hoping that when the time comes to leave, the children would have families to turn to. “We want children to leave care with a loving, caring and supportive adult who’s going to continue to work with them long past their 21st birthday,” said Lorraine Stephens, a deputy commissioner at the Administration for Children’s Services. “We don’t want any kid to leave without someone connected to them.” But many children have tenuous connections to foster families, at best. Mr. Smith, whose aunt is his foster parent, said staying with her after his 21st birthday is not an option. “She’s moving in with her boyfriend,” he said. Melissa Diaz, 19, left the foster care system more than a year ago, shortly after her foster mother died. Ms. Diaz later moved to Covenant House, and after nearly three months of searching found a job stocking shelves at Duane Reade. She is training to become a nursing assistant and trying to earn enough money to become independent and afford housing on her own. “That would be great,” she said. “It would be a blessing from God.”

Foster care
New York
Family
Homelessness
US Economy
Section 8 Housing


Jaguars Fire Coach Mike Mularkey and Comment on Jets’ Tim Tebow

Abstract: The Jacksonville Jaguars made it clear Thursday that they had no plans to pursue Tim Tebow, a Jets backup quarterback and a Jacksonville native. The team’s new general manager, David Caldwell, said, “I can’t imagine a scenario in which he’ll be a Jacksonville Jaguar — even if he’s released.” The Jaguars also announced the firing of Coach Mike Mularkey after one season, the worst in franchise history at 2-14. Mularkey became the eighth head coach fired since the end of the regular season. ¶ Rob Chudzinski, who spent the past two seasons as Carolina’s offensive coordinator, was hired by Cleveland as its sixth full-time coach since 1999. The Browns are hoping Chudzinski, a first-time head coach who grew up rooting for the team, can resurrect a franchise that has made one trip to the playoffs in 14 years. ¶ Mike Pettine was hired as the Bills’ defensive coordinator. Pettine spent the past four seasons as the Jets’ defensive coordinator before turning down an offer to extend his contract.

Mike Mularkey
Jacksonville Jaguars
David Caldwell
Football


One Agency in Harper Lee Inquiry Ends Its Role, Saying Author Is ‘Aware’ of Book Deal

Abstract: An Alabama agency that had been helping with an investigation into whether Harper Lee, 88 and infirm, was manipulated into agreeing to publish a second novel this summer said on Thursday that it had ended its role in the inquiry. Joseph Borg, the director of the Alabama Securities Commission, which, among other things, tries to prevent financial fraud of the elderly, said his investigators had interviewed Ms. Lee and found “she has opinions and seems to be aware of what is going on with her book and the book deal.” As a result, he said, his team had closed its part of the investigation. Investigators conducting the larger inquiry for the Alabama Department of Human Resources continued their work this week and on Wednesday spoke by phone with the Rev. Thomas Butts, who has known Ms. Lee for many years and had been the pastor of her church. A spokesman for the department, Barry Spear, declined to comment Some of Ms. Lee’s friends and acquaintances in her hometown, Monroeville, and in other places have questioned whether Ms. Lee, who has severe hearing and vision problems, is lucid enough to have consented to the book deal. But other friends have joined Ms. Lee’s lawyer and her publisher, HarperCollins, in saying that Ms. Lee is alert and excited about the book, “Go Set a Watchman.”

Harper Lee
Books
Go Set a Watchman
Writer


Chargers’ Tomlinson Seems to Be Fading Into the Background

Abstract: SAN DIEGO — For all the talk about parade plans, whether Darrelle Revis can be cloned to cover Vincent Jackson and Antonio Gates, and how much weight Mark Sanchez can carry into his homecoming, the one sure-fire Hall of Famer who will step on the field Sunday when the Jets play the Chargers is not part of the conversation. That player, LaDainian Tomlinson, was tucked away in the far corner of the Chargers’ locker room Thursday. Coach Norv Turner was asked more than 50 questions last week; one concerned Tomlinson . He is not likely to be the subject of any game plans, either. After being sidelined with injuries while the Chargers were eliminated from the playoffs the past two seasons, Tomlinson is at least healthy enough to help in the chase. It may also be his last. “I won’t even think about it,” Tomlinson said of playing perhaps his final game at Qualcomm Stadium. “Sometimes there’s times when you enjoy the moment and then close the chapter. There’s no time for me right now to reflect. That’s just the way I am.” Tomlinson is well known nationally for his 2006 league Most Valuable Player award, five Pro Bowl berths, a string of major endorsements and many years of being the first pick in fantasy league drafts. But in San Diego, the connection is deeper. Tomlinson’s production has waned; his 730 yards, 223 carries, 3.3 yards per carry and 20 receptions are all career lows. But his popularity has not. “When we get out there at Qualcomm and get inside the 5-yard line, the L. T. chants come, just as they always have,” Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers said. “What L. T. has meant and still means to this team is huge.” There is an everyman appeal about Tomlinson that resonates in a working-class city. He is to football in San Diego what Tony Gwynn has been to baseball, a master craftsman who could be anyone’s next-door neighbor. Tomlinson may be featured in spots for Nike and Gatorade, but he is also a willing local pitchman, jumping in front of the camera for pizza parlors, spas and backyard turf. The ads are as corny as they are low budget. The character people see on TV — the charming smile, the earnest words and an absence of pretense — is usually who he is in person. Tomlinson, through Tomlinson’s Touching Lives Foundation , has made a point of connecting with San Diegans — seemingly one at a time. He puts on an annual free football clinic, pays for college scholarships, heads a celebrity golf tournament, makes sure needy youngsters get presents at Christmas. His foundation also helps provide Thanksgiving dinners for more than 2,000 families. Tomlinson enlisted the mayor, the police chief and the fire chief as volunteers. “I’ve been blessed to watch every one of his carries in person,” said Hank Bauer, the former Chargers running back and longtime radio analyst, “and I’ve spent time at his camps and foundation events. But that’s the one situation that speaks to everything that L. T. is.” Bauer added, “I’ve stood next to him and there are people from all walks of life and he looks them each in the eye and personally wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving.” Tomlinson, who grew up in Waco, Tex., said the spirit of giving shown by his mother, Loreane Chappell, who took in the less fortunate, “rubbed off on me.” When it came to football, Walter Payton made an impression. Watching Payton run made him want to play running back as a boy, said Tomlinson, who named his pit bull terrier Sweetness. It is not lost on Tomlinson that he has followed a career arc similar to his idol’s. Their early brilliance was squandered on bad teams, which they eventually carried to the playoffs. Payton won a Super Bowl in the 1985 season, two years before he retired. Tomlinson is seeking his, knowing that time is running out. “That’s the best way to have it,” he said of a championship. “You’re put through so much — all the blood, sweat and tears you go through in a career, and to be able to have the pinnacle at the end, I think that’s the best.” Ron Rivera, the Chargers’ defensive coordinator, who was a Chicago teammate of Payton’s, sees the parallel. Just as Payton was spelled by Dennis Gentry on passing downs, Tomlinson gives way to Darren Sproles. “Initially, it took him a little while to get back to his new role, the quote-unquote decoy,” Rivera said. “But his play-action value is still huge.” How huge will be a looming question this winter. Tomlinson, 30, is due a $2 million roster bonus on March 1 and a $3 million salary next season. He can be bought out for $1 million. Many believe the stage for Tomlinson’s departure was set last March, when General Manager A. J. Smith considered releasing or trading Tomlinson when he balked at restructuring the final three years of an eight-year, $60 million contract. “I know the business side of it,” said Shannon Brazzell, a former college roommate who manages Tomlinson’s foundation. “But speaking as a friend, it’s like a slap in the face the way it happened. I think he’d like to leave on his own terms.” Dean Spanos, the team president who has stepped in twice to broker deals with Tomlinson, declined through a spokesman to be interviewed. But last March he said, “It was unthinkable he wouldn’t be here.” The will-he-or-won’t-he dance last winter caused Tomlinson to take stock of his career. “Every player goes through a point where you reflect on where you are and what are the things that need to be done,” he said. “Going through that made me come to the point where I had to think about why am I still playing.” His conclusion? “I love it,” Tomlinson said. “I really enjoy the moment right now. I don’t want to retire too early and say, ‘Man, I should have played a little bit longer.’ The love of the game really makes you love whenever you’re able to contribute. I’m just going to keep playing until I feel it’s time. I’ll know it.”

Football
Super Bowl
San Diego Chargers
Tomlinson Ladainian
New York Jets
Playoff Games


Pete Rose’s Statistics: 4,256 Hits and a Big Error

Abstract: CLEARWATER, Fla. — Mike Schmidt and Paul Molitor watched an exhibition game Monday from opposite dugouts here at the Philadelphia Phillies’ spring training camp. Historically, they belong to the same team, as Hall of Famers with plaques in Cooperstown, N.Y. But on an issue that divides so many in baseball, Schmidt and Molitor disagree. Pete Rose, the career hits leader, has applied for reinstatement to Major League Baseball, which barred him for life in 1989 for gambling on games played by the Cincinnati Reds, the team he was managing. Rose’s request will be reviewed by the new commissioner, Rob Manfred, who succeeded Bud Selig in January. Selig never ruled on the Rose case, effectively upholding the agreement Rose had signed under Commissioner Bart Giamatti, who died of a heart attack eight days later. Fay Vincent, who served between Giamatti and Selig, believes Manfred will not bring Rose back. “I really don’t think it’s very difficult at all, and I don’t think Manfred is going to think of it as very difficult,” Vincent said in a telephone interview. “He’s going to think of it only in baseball terms.” That lens, Vincent said, is the only one that matters to a commissioner. To view the issue from Rose’s point of view, he said, would miss the critical point. “The issue is the deterrent,” Vincent said. “The reason the deterrent works is that nobody has ever been let back.” Schmidt grew up in Dayton, Ohio, when Rose was a young star for the Reds. Schmidt’s grandmother hung a Rose poster on the back of her bedroom door so she could tailor her grandson’s uniform to look like Rose’s. Later, Schmidt and Rose were teammates on the Phillies. He believes the purpose of the ban has been met. “I think they have proven a point, through Pete, very strongly, to the players,” Schmidt said here Monday. “If there was ever a player that thought he might place a bet on a game, or his team, I think that the Pete Rose example has driven it home. I don’t think we’ll ever see a player consider betting on a game that he’s involved in, or any other game, if he’s a major league baseball player.” In November 2002, Schmidt flew to Milwaukee to accompany Rose, who had steadfastly denied betting on baseball, to a meeting with Selig. Whatever momentum that meeting might have generated died when Rose later made his first public admission of betting on baseball, and the Reds, in a book — a revelation that upstaged the announcement of the new Hall of Fame class in January 2004. The class included Molitor, who now manages the Minnesota Twins. Molitor said Rose’s accomplishments should be recognized at the Hall of Fame, but he stopped short of endorsing Rose’s reinstatement. “The one rule that is read in every clubhouse, every spring training, for I don’t know how many decades, has been made clear that if this is violated, this is the consequence,” Molitor said. “Now, if they decide to make a change in the stance that they’ve taken to this point, you are going to say that every time we read that, we really didn’t mean it.” Molitor said it was worth asking if Rose had done enough time and paid enough penance. He said he understood that many people loved Rose, 73, and he acknowledged that Rose had handled things better since the 2004 admission. “And we all know he’s not getting younger,” Molitor said. “But to me, that’s the question that baseball has to face. We have tried to make this such a clear-cut thing. But you’re going to say, If you’re the all-time hit leader, it might not be like that? That’s the debate. That’s why, I think, it’s tough for baseball to change it.” Rose did not respond to a request by telephone for comment, and Manfred, through a spokesman, declined to comment beyond his statement in Arizona last week that he would consider Rose’s application on its merits. Image Pete Rose in 2011. “He eats, sleeps and drinks baseball,” the Phillies coach Larry Bowa said. Credit Charlie Nye/Indianapolis Star, via Associated Press Tony Clark, the executive director of the players’ union, has said that many modern players support Rose, and one player here noted the incongruity of the career leader in hits, the career leader in home runs (Barry Bonds) and the career leader in Cy Young Awards (Roger Clemens) not being enshrined in Cooperstown. Bonds and Clemens have links to performance enhancers and have fallen far short of election on the writers’ ballots for the Hall of Fame. Rose has never been considered. The Hall of Fame passed a rule in 1991, just before Rose would have appeared on the writers’ ballot, that said anyone on the permanently ineligible list was also barred from the Hall. That rule could be reversed by the Hall of Fame’s board, but there has been no push to do so. If Rose were reinstated, the Hall of Fame said, the earliest he would be considered would be December 2016, by the veterans’ committee, which is partly made up of Hall of Famers. Schmidt said he sensed that most members would now favor including Rose. “There are some older, hard-line guys — surely about P.E.D. users there are — that say, ‘He lied, he broke the cardinal rule in the clubhouse,’ and they still have that grudge,” said Schmidt, a guest instructor in spring training. “Is it a handful, 10 or 20? If I’d have said 15 years ago it was 50-50, I’d say now it’s getting to be more like, probably, 70 percent of the guys would welcome Pete.” Rose was never accused of betting on the Reds to lose, but betting on them to win was dangerous enough to the game’s integrity. In theory, Rose might have managed differently if he had a lot of money riding on a game. And he might have tacitly sent a signal to bookmakers about his lack of confidence in the Reds in games on which he did not bet. In any case, it is hard to argue that Rose’s actions directly affected more games than the actions of some users of performance-enhancing drugs did. Ryan Braun, the Milwaukee Brewers star, tested positive after a victorious 2011 playoff game in which he went 3 for 4. Braun served a 65-game ban in 2013 and has been a member in good standing ever since. Dallas Green, Rose’s former manager, asked, rhetorically, which misdeed was worse for the game. Green said that it was time to lift the ban and that Rose could still be a useful ambassador for baseball. “He can certainly talk the talk about what he’s done,” Green said. “There’s not a lot of guys that are P.E.D. guys or alcoholics or wife-beaters or whatever that come out and preach against it, and I think Pete would. I would see some value in that.” Green, now a senior adviser to the Phillies, said the good that Rose had done for baseball should still outweigh the bad. Rose has appeared on major league fields only sporadically since his ban, always with permission from Selig, and spends most days selling autographs and meeting fans in Las Vegas. “If you know him, he eats, sleeps and drinks baseball, 24/7, even today,” said the Phillies coach Larry Bowa, a former teammate of Rose’s. “He’ll tell you stats. He’ll look at players and say, ‘I like this guy,’ or ‘This guy’s a dog.’ He knows the game. If an owner can overlook that — and, hey, it might be hard — but you mean to tell me he couldn’t come in and be a guest instructor and help some young kids out?” Green said baseball would be better if more players followed Rose’s example of passionate, hard-nosed play. Yet Vincent said the other side of Rose, the hubris to think he was above the game’s most sacred law, should not be forgotten. Vincent said Rose’s lawyers had told him that it would be baseball’s loss if it barred Rose. “But we’re here 26 years later, and baseball is booming,” Vincent said. “Baseball hasn’t missed Pete Rose at all.” Maybe not, but Rose’s family and fans have missed him and would like to see him back. That will not be what drives Manfred’s decision, but it is a backdrop as he deliberates. “I have the exact same opinion about this that all Pete Rose supporters have: Enough is enough,” Schmidt said. “We should forgive. We have forgiven other people for things you could argue are very similar.”

Pete Rose
Mike Schmidt
Paul Molitor
Baseball
Reds
Rob Manfred
Bud Selig
Baseball Hall of Fame
MLB


‘Fame’ School Students Discuss Its Film Incarnations

Abstract: In the original “Fame” movie, which depicted four turbulent years in the lives of students aiming for stardom at New York’s renowned High School of the Performing Arts, students from the actual school were recruited as extras, and actual teachers, including James Moody, who recently retired from the drama department, had speaking parts. Not so in the remake — the producers call it a “reinvention” — which opened Friday and stars Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth and Debbie Allen, the lone holdover from the 1980 version, promoted to principal from her perch in the dance studio. But six seniors at the Upper West Side school, now known as the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, who attended a preview of the new film said the fledgling actors in the principal roles — three are from New York or New Jersey — reminded them very much of themselves. And they said the boot-camp speech that Ms. Allen delivers to freshmen in the new ‘Fame’ is right on target. ROBIN FINN ● ASHA NELSON-WILLIAMS, 17 (top left) LIVES IN Sunset Park, Brooklyn MAJOR Vocal music “When I was in fifth grade, my mom noticed that the original ‘Fame’ was on TV, and she told me I should watch it. That’s when I knew I wanted to go to LaGuardia. I sang ‘On My Own’ from ‘Les Miz’ at my audition; I was terrified, but I got in. LaGuardia is like all colors of the rainbow: it’s a safe environment where you can be yourself. My idol is Whitney Houston: When I heard her version of ‘Home’ from ‘The Wiz,’ I knew that’s what I wanted to be — a singer who makes the songs she sings her own.” ● SAMANTHA BARRIENTO, 17 (top, second from left) LIVES IN Ozone Park, Queens MAJOR Dance “It was the same title, same plot, same school, but it didn’t feel like a copy of the first. It felt new and real. I found myself thinking, ‘Right here they’re exposing the talent of a new generation: ours.’ I’ve been dancing since I was 3, and LaGuardia was always at the top of the list. Of course you want to go to the ‘Fame’ school if you want to be a dancer.” ● TAYLOR PATTERSON, 16 (top, second from right) LIVES IN Chelsea MAJOR Drama “I’ve been working since I was 4. I guess I’m a workaholic, but acting is all I know. I was watching ‘Barney’ one day on TV and I said to my mother, ‘I could do that.’ And she said, ‘What, be Barney?’ And I said no, ‘I could be one of those kids on TV.’ So that’s what I did. The audition scenes — they nailed it on the head. It’s chaotic. And guess what: The talent you saw up on that screen you can see and hear every day when you walk through the hallways of our school.” ● LUCY PARTMAN, 17 (top right) LIVES ON Upper East Side MAJOR Visual arts “I thought the movie captured our passions: We live, breathe, eat and sleep for our art. Even though they call it ‘Fame,’ fame is not what our school is about. It’s about being surrounded by talented people and their drive and desire to do what they love and be who they want to become.” ● JULIAN LANGFORD, 17 (bottom left) LIVES ON Upper West Side MAJOR Instrumental music “I picked the cello because it’s one of the closest instruments to the sound of the human voice. I’ve played two concerts with Yo-Yo Ma; the second one was on PBS’s ‘Live From Lincoln Center’ at Damrosch Park. He’s a really nice person.” ● CARLOS KERR JR., 16 (bottom right) LIVES IN East New York MAJOR Dance “I think of the first ‘Fame’ as a classic. I could relate to every single character in different ways. The emotions were deep. The remake is a different entity: It’s more about the competition and stress and sacrifices that anyone who wants to become successful in their art has to go through. But I think, same as with the first ‘Fame,’ that the film represents our school well — all except for dancing on the tables in the lunchroom. We don’t do that.”

Movies
High School of the Performing Arts
Education and Schools
High School of Performing Arts
New York City
Fame (Movie)


Wall Street Exodus: Fear, Panic and Anger

Abstract: THE mind wraps itself around losing a job, one of life’s great traumas, in jagged and swerving fits. When the call comes in, when rumor turns to reality, when it’s not the broker in the next cubicle but you who is presented with a stack of severance papers, the psyche takes over. It goes numb. It goes into survival mode. Fear quickly turns into anger. For some, there may be relief in saying goodbye to what therapists call the “psychological terror” that has haunted the corridors of troubled financial institutions since last summer. But what follows — the unknown — may be no less frightening. Since August, banks worldwide have announced plans to eliminate as many as 65,000 jobs. Many losing their jobs now have lived through other crises on Wall Street — the 1987 market crash, the widespread layoffs of the early 1990s and the financial upheaval of 1998. But investment bankers, recruiters and psychologists say the current economic downturn, the cascade of layoffs and the steady beat of grim financial news have exacted an especially daunting psychic price. “These are people’s lives,” said an investment banker in his 30s who was laid off in November from his job at a Bank of America office in New York. “It’s not head count. We’re not cattle.” Like other employees interviewed for this article, the Bank of American employee spoke on the condition of anonymity. He and several others who were laid off said that under the terms of their severance packages, they are not permitted to sue the company or to speak out negatively about it. In an e-mail message, Bank of America said: “Job reductions are sometimes a necessary course of business, but they are never easy, whether you are receiving the message or delivering it. We always try to be as respectful as possible.” Even for some of those who survive a job cut, the emotional landscape can change. “It’s like I woke up and I’m in a different country,” said a person who has worked for Merrill Lynch for more than two decades and has weathered a recent round of layoffs there. He described widespread anger, mistrust and angst at Merrill, both among those leaving and those staying. “People are reeling,” he said. “The culture has turned. It is a nasty culture.” Merrill Lynch laid off 20,000 people in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and while many Wall Street workers say the deaths of co-workers were a shattering experience, they draw a distinction between banks’ actions then and now. Merrill has laid off 4,000 employees this year. In this round, “these were self-inflicted wounds,” the Merrill employee said. The Merrill banker spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying the company does not permit employees to speak to reporters without permission, and he said he feared retribution if he sought that permission or identified himself. Officials at Merrill Lynch declined to comment. MARLIN S. POTASH, a Manhattan psychologist who specializes in financial issues and whose practice has been overwhelmed with new clients from Wall Street in recent months, describes the emotional reaction as “the depression of the depression,” even as she acknowledges that the economy hasn’t ground into a recession, let alone a depression. “This time versus other times, it feels like there are more moving parts moving faster, and more unpredictability,” she said. “The lack of predictability seems to be taking a huge psychological toll.” After the crash of 1987, for example, the markets stabilized quickly. And even with the financial markets gaining some ground recently, analysts say that there is underlying panic, a sense that more bloodshed lurks, that upturns are only fleeting. “The financial market volatility leads to a kind of emotional volatility,” Dr. Potash said. “There are seismic shifts, up and down and up and down: ‘I’m optimistic — the market’s looking good, the mortgage crisis is over. Oh, my God, they canceled an order. I can’t concentrate.’ ” Among the patients who have seen Alden M. Cass, a psychologist who treats Wall Street traders and executives, are several who were laid off from Bear Stearns after the bank collapsed. “They felt as if they were led with blindfolds on into a firing squad,” Dr. Cass said. Officials at JPMorgan Chase & Company, which is acquiring Bear Stearns, declined to comment. Dr. Cass and other psychologists and researchers who have worked with Wall Street employees say that these workers — often drawn to the intensity and volatility of their profession — are more prone to anxiety , depression, substance abuse and other mental stresses than the general population. They drive themselves hard. Working 10, 12, 14 hours a day is not only expected; it is also a badge of honor. In some ways, these experts say, Wall Street types are perhaps better prepared to handle the shock of sudden change than those in more stable professions. But because they are typically measured by the size of their paycheck — bonuses, in particular — their self-worth is deeply threatened when the money evaporates. “We’re talking about individuals who base their identities and egos on what they do for a living and how much they make,” Dr. Cass said. Yet Wall Street is also a macho, “don’t let them see you sweat” world where showing self-doubt and weakness, whether to clients or co-workers, is about as welcome as a stock whose value is taking a nosedive. Still, psychologists say, for those being laid off, whether or not they are comfortable expressing it, there is boiling anger, a sense of betrayal and loss that is bound to rise to the surface. That appears to be true for the former investment banker at Bank of America who talked about being treated like cattle. He said he went numb when he was brought into a conference room with his manager and told he was being let go. He would get no bonus for 2007, either, typically 40 percent of his $120,000-a year salary, he said, and he was offered eight weeks of severance pay, which he accepted. “I had no emotional response,” he said. Yet he is clearly angry now. “Someone who shows up to work every day, that should engender some sense of loyalty,” he said. He was at Morgan Stanley in 1998, when it and other Wall Street banks were laying off thousands of workers. He had joined the bank in 1997, and before the layoffs, he said, “There was a sense of loyalty, they got my back, that sense of pride.” “But that loyalty idea is gone for most of these banks,” he said. He had been with Bank of America for three and a half years when the layoff rumors, swirling in his department for weeks, reached a high pitch. Since October, the bank has cut 1,150 jobs. He looked for work for six months, ran through his savings and recently found consulting work. He is single, rents an apartment in Manhattan and is still paying off loans from business school, as well as several thousand dollars of credit card debt. He says he decided to stick to consulting because he no longer believes he can rely on bonuses or the guarantee of a long-term full-time job. With the layoffs, he said, the banks are “destroying their greatest assets. It’s an us-against-them mentality now.” KATHLEEN GURNEY, a financial psychologist, a researcher and the author of "Your Money Personality: What It Is and How You Can Profit From It," has developed several personality profiles of workers on Wall Street. Each, she says, will respond differently to layoffs. The “High Roller” lives on the edge financially and becomes addicted to the thrill of earning large sums of money. But when things go bad, “they feel the greatest frustration both financially and psychologically,” she said in an e-mail message. The most common profile is what she calls the “Entrepreneur,” thriving on ambition but not taking as many risks as the High Roller. “But they can be their own worst enemy in setting up ever-larger challenges and more rewarding challenges,” she said, and in the face of losing a job, the Entrepreneur may deny the emotional impact. “Denial is a wonderful defense mechanism as it eases the pain,” she said, “but it also delays the day of reckoning.” A third type is what she calls the “Money Master.” People who fit this profile typically earn less than and take far fewer risks than the other two types and are better prepared to handle market swings and even layoffs, she said. “They can come out of it feeling even more confident than before if they use their flexibility and figure out a new game plan,” she said. A 50-year-old Merrill financial adviser had already survived the 1987 stock market crash and crushing waves of layoffs before the Bank of America employee had even graduated from business school. For him, the layoffs at Merrill were not surprising, and the opportunity he took this month for a buyout felt like a gift. He said that because Merrill would not authorize an interview, he did not want to be identified and risk jeopardizing the package, which provided him with 67 weeks of pay on a $101,000 salary, and the ability to stay on the company health plan, paying out of pocket about $400 more per month than he did when he was with the company. He said he was sometimes irked by news media coverage that described the layoffs as shocking and devastating. “If you went to school and you studied this industry and you studied economic cycles, why are you now surprised that this is happening?” he said. “It’s like going into politics and saying, ‘I didn’t know I could be voted out of office.’ ” He described himself as very cautious in his own financial affairs and said he began planning for retirement early in life. “I’m in financial planning,” he said. “Isn’t it a sin not to do so for yourself?” For others, though, especially those not close to retirement, the trauma of losing a job and the uncertainty in its wake can be devastating. That is particularly true for Wall Street workers, psychologists say, because their colleagues, family members and neighbors typically consider them to be financially secure. “Since they are expected to be experts, job loss and financial strain can trigger shame and embarrassment,” said Bradley Klontz, a psychologist who specializes in financial matters. “The shame can be similar to a cop who gets mugged.” FOR a 40-year-old midlevel employee at Bank of America in New York, being laid off was akin to losing her identity. She had been in the industry for more than 15 years, and at Bank of America for five. But she was quick to say that no one should have a “pity party” for her when people earning far less were losing their jobs. In good years, with a good bonus, she earned as much as $400,000. Still, it was the money that made her feel worth something, she said. “There’s not a sense that you’re helping the world,” she said. “I’m not curing cancer . If the money goes away, then what?” She was offered 10 weeks of severance pay. “When I got laid off, I felt a sense of panic — what am I going to do next?” she said. But after that initial shock, she grew calm. “I don’t have to get up anymore and go and pretend things are fine when they’re not.” She spoke on condition of anonymity because she said she feared retribution. She has been looking for jobs, but, as many recruiters say, it is an employers’ market. She has had trouble sleeping; she has lost weight. She started therapy but wonders whether it is helping. Not having a schedule is disorienting. She was accustomed to leaving the house even before her child woke up and getting home after dark. “The first thing people ask you is what you do,” she said. “If you don’t do anything anymore, then how do you feel about your- self?”

Emotions
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Psychology and Psychologists
Banks and Banking
Brokers and Brokerage Firms
Mental Health and Disorders
Executives and Management
Wall Street (NYC)


Kazakhstan: Suicide Bomber Strikes

Abstract: Authorities in Kazakhstan were trying to determine whether a man who blew himself up on Tuesday inside a government office building in a provincial town had links to Islamic radicals. If so, it would be the first known terrorist suicide bombing in oil-rich Kazakhastan. Governments in the region, including Russia, have expressed concern that violence from the Afghan war is spreading to formerly Soviet Central Asia. The attack wounded two bystanders at a local police headquarters in the city of Aktobe. Kazakh prosecutors said it appeared that the bomber had ties to organized crime but not to radical Islamic groups.

Kazakhstan
Politics and Government
Terrorism
Muslims and Islam


Hamilton Joins Long Ball Club in Yankee Stadium

Abstract: At its core, it is a club of failures — Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Josh Gibson, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg. But in baseball lore, it is a club of players who flirted with one of the few marks in the game that still seems insurmountable. Each of them came close, though not close enough, to hitting a ball clear out of Yankee Stadium, something that no one has accomplished in a game in the ballpark’s 75-year history. On Monday night, the Texas Rangers’ Josh Hamilton joined them when he hammered a monstrous shot off a Bank of America billboard at the rear of the right-field bleachers during the Home Run Derby. Hamilton said Tuesday that he had hit longer home runs, citing one in particular that traveled 549 feet at a Class A park for the Bakersfield Blaze. “It wasn’t a very big field,” he said. “But where it ended up, stuck in a canal behind it, was a long way away.” Yankee Stadium’s most famous close call was a Mantle home run on May 22, 1963. In the 11th inning of a game against the Kansas City A’s, he belted a Bill Fischer pitch down the right-field line that hit the stadium’s decorative facade just a few feet from the top. Told about it Tuesday, Hamilton didn’t know that Mantle had hit it in a game. “So you’re saying mine might have gone out if it was going 95 coming in there?” he said. And if that Mantle shot has gone down as the closest effort, the former Yankees’ public relations director and baseball historian Marty Appel said, it certainly wasn’t a fluke. He said Mantle had had another near-miss seven years earlier. More obscure, according to Appel and the historian Ray Robinson, was Gibson’s effort during the 1930’s, which is the only home run considered to have possibly left the Stadium. “It wasn’t written about by any of the newspapers that covered the Negro leagues,” Robinson said. Still, Appel offered a theory consistent with the debate surrounding it. In those days, the Yankees’ bullpen ran right along the end of the left-field grandstand. In theory then, it meant that Gibson, a right-handed hitter, could have hit a ball over the roof of the grandstand and still watched it land in the back of the bullpen. In the late 1930’s, Foxx came close to doing exactly that. As Robinson remembered it, Foxx was playing against the Yankees in a doubleheader in a packed Stadium. “There were people sitting in the aisles and on the steps violating all the fire codes,” he said, having been a member of the crowd that day. “And Foxx hit one deep, deep into the top deck in left field.” But at least all of those still counted as home runs. When Greenberg hit a huge drive to center field, more than 450 feet, according to Robinson, the scorecard only recorded a fly ball. Joe DiMaggio had scampered around the back of the outfield monuments — then still on the playing field — to make the catch. Of course, in any discussion of Yankee Stadium home runs, it is impossible to leave out Ruth, though not even he could drive a ball out onto River Avenue. At least not in a game. According to Bill Jenkinson, author of “The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs,” Ruth routinely knocked batting-practice meatballs out of the Stadium when the right-field stands in fair territory were still bleachers, and there was no upper deck to clear. Ruth reportedly found the 70th row of those bleachers with a drive he hit in a game on May 24, 1930. So it seems that Hamilton is in good company, even if it is for coming up a bit short.

Baseball
Yankee Stadium (NYC)
Hamilton Josh


Trial Delayed in Abortion Doctor’s Killing

Abstract: The trial of the man accused of murdering a Kansas doctor nationally known for performing late-term abortions was delayed on Monday, as lawyers disagreed about how far the defense should be permitted to go in presenting opposition to abortion as a reason for the killing. Prosecutors in the case against Scott Roeder , an abortion opponent charged with shooting Dr. George R. Tiller at his Wichita church last May, asked a judge to bar Mr. Roeder’s public defenders from portraying the crime as voluntary manslaughter as opposed to first-degree murder. Mr. Roeder, of Kansas City, Mo., has acknowledged in legal documents to having carried out the shooting, but he has pressed to be allowed to show that he believed he was saving unborn children in the process. Late last week, Judge Warren Wilbert of Sedgwick County District Court in Wichita suggested he might consider allowing evidence that could support a theory of voluntary manslaughter, which can be defined, under state law, as “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.” That possibility has outraged prosecutors and some national abortion rights groups, which say that consideration of such a lesser charge could encourage more violence against abortion providers. Mr. Roeder’s supporters, who profess that violence against abortion providers can be justified by the lives it saves, took Judge Wilbert’s remarks as a clear and surprising victory. But on Monday, as jury selection was to begin, court officials announced a delay until Wednesday, after another hearing on the entire question.

Abortion
Roeder Scott
Tiller George R
Operation Rescue
Murders and Attempted Murders


Toronto Residents Have Funny Feeling About Mayor, and His Longevity

Abstract: TORONTO — When your city becomes the punch line of an international joke, it pays to keep your sense of humor too. “Mayor Ford put Toronto on the map, and he continues to do so,” said Manny Amaral, a sports club manager in the western suburb where Mayor Rob Ford lives. “I guess if he makes Toronto seem like a fun city, that’s a good thing.” The day after the City Council here stripped Mr. Ford of most of his budget, staff and power but not his title, residents on Tuesday settled in for what may be nearly a year of life with a mayor whose powers are largely limited to ribbon cuttings, but whose capacity for embarrassing antics and inebriation has few limits. Mr. Ford has admitted to smoking crack and, according to a police report, has consorted with drug criminals, and his increasingly erratic behavior has drawn international attention to City Hall. Among both supporters — who appear to be waning even in Etobicoke, Mr. Ford’s home suburb — and detractors, there seems to be agreement that he will not resign, that he will continue to make headlines and that he possibly, quite possibly, could even win re-election next year. “If anything, I think all of this encourages him,” said Barb Allen, who lives downtown. “I think given some time to resolve his issues, he will be back.” Short on institutional support — his beloved football team, the Toronto Argonauts, has asked him to stop wearing its jersey, and the Iceberg vodka company chastised him for drinking and driving — Mr. Ford seems set on dealing with his problems through lawsuits he has promised to bring against the council. “We are in the process of putting an injunction on their decision,” Doug Ford, Mr. Ford’s brother and a councilor, said in an interview. “This was not done democratically. This won’t happen overnight, but we are moving ahead with the process.” Image Supporters and detractors of Mayor Rob Ford agree re-election is not out of the question. Credit Chris Young/The Canadian Press On Tuesday, most of Mr. Ford’s powers began to be redistributed. The most significant ones went to the deputy mayor, Norm Kelly , a 72-year-old council veteran who seemed mildly overwhelmed by the odd turn of events. While the premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, has suggested that she stands ready to intervene in Toronto, the province’s capital, city lawmakers have been struggling to maintain the dignity of autonomy. “We feel we are functional,” said Sarah Doucette, a council member. “It is the mayor that isn’t.” While Mr. Ford maintains the power to declare an emergency, it is others who would respond. And he has lost his ability to appoint committee leaders, a key power in Toronto, said John Filion, the council member who wrote the measure to strip Mr. Ford of his budget. That action was taken Monday at a meeting during which Mr. Ford and his brother stormed around the council chamber, yelling at hecklers and vowing retaliation. “Judging from the Ford brothers’ behavior yesterday,” Mr. Filion said, “they don’t intend for there to be any calm. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get our business done. It’s a bit like trying to carry on with your dinner party while your 6-year-old is in the other room screaming.” Mr. Ford, essentially reduced to a councilor again, seems determined to embrace his obstreperous ways of yore, holding up legislation. While largely shunning the local news media, he has given several interviews to American television hosts, staunchly defending his conservative agenda for the city and chalking up his problems largely to his substantial girth. On Monday, just hours after he was stripped of his powers and staff, Mr. Ford appeared with his brother on the first — and, it turned out, last — installment of their talk show on the tiny Sun News Network . Mr. Ford punctuated that appearance by helpfully observing that he had “urinated in a parking lot” but was not sure how that would affect his ability to carry out his statutory obligations. On Tuesday, the network canceled the show. Like Washington after its mayoral scandals, Detroit after years of fiscal demise and New Jersey on a regular basis, Toronto is learning to live with some shame, but with a twist. “Some were feeling increasingly embarrassed by Toronto’s insistent, desperate need to be recognized as a world-class city,” said Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of political science specializing in municipal government at Ryerson University here. “Well, the Fords have certainly taken us off that trajectory.” In Orwell’s, a bar not far from Mr. Ford’s home (they pour Steam Whistle, a local brew, which is rather delicious), he remained somewhat popular, if divisive. “My house is divided,” said Maria Tavares, the bartender. “My husband is a Ford supporter, but I don’t believe his behavior is one a mayor should be demonstrating.” Still, some colleagues believe he will be back. “He will survive,” said Frances Nunziata, the speaker of the City Council, who represents a nearby ward. “Rob Ford is a fighter, and I think what’s happening will make him stronger than he was.”

Toronto
Rob Ford
Mayoral races
Cocaine and Crack


New York Police Sergeant to Face Internal Charges in Eric Garner Confrontation

Abstract: A New York City police sergeant was served with departmental disciplinary charges on Friday for her role in the confrontation that led to the death of Eric Garner in 2014. The sergeant, Kizzy Adonis, was one of two Police Department supervisors to initially respond to the scene of the encounter. The charges are the first official accusations of misconduct against any of the officers involved in the case. Mr. Garner, 43, died after being grabbed from behind by one officer, Daniel Pantaleo , who threw an arm around Mr. Garner’s neck as he and several colleagues tried to arrest him on suspicion of selling loose cigarettes. The death of Mr. Garner, which the Justice Department is investigating, illuminated the aggressive tactics employed by officers in New York when confronting people suspected of minor offenses. A grand jury’s decision not to charge the officers involved fueled protests in the city and elsewhere and, along with several other police-involved deaths around the country, led to calls for criminal-justice reforms. Mr. Garner, who was unarmed, died after repeatedly saying he was having difficulty breathing. Representatives of his family, civil rights lawyers and others, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, called for changes to the secretive grand jury process. The Police Department had said that it was waiting for the results of the federal investigation before proceeding with its own actions with regard to Mr. Garner’s death. But police officials were forced to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Sergeant Adonis because of an 18-month statute of limitations dictated by the state’s Civil Service law, said Stephen Davis, the department’s chief spokesman. Mr. Davis said the department had filed the internal charges after consulting with the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. The statute does not apply to Officer Pantaleo, Mr. Davis said, because federal authorities were reviewing his conduct and a “criminal aspect exception applies.” The department has completed its internal inquiry into Officer Pantaleo, he said. Sergeant Adonis, 38, joined the Police Department in 2002. She was assigned to the 120th Precinct on the North Shore of Staten Island at the time of the confrontation with Mr. Garner, on July 17, 2014, in the Tompkinsville neighborhood. She had been promoted to sergeant less than a month earlier, on June 25. Her yearlong probation was extended by six months last year. On Friday, she was placed on modified duty, stripped of her gun and badge, and barred from doing street enforcement, Mr. Davis said. Portions of the officers’ encounter with Mr. Garner were caught on video. That footage showed Sergeant Adonis entering the frame as Officer Pantaleo and his colleagues pressed Mr. Garner onto the sidewalk after taking him to the ground. A second sergeant, Dhanan Saminath, arrived, though it is not clear when. He was the anticrime team supervisor. The encounter occurred on Bay Street, outside Bay Beauty Supply. The store manager said he heard the female sergeant say to the officers, “Let up, you got him already.” An officer looked up but did not let go, the manager said. At a news conference on Friday, Sergeant Adonis stood silently with Edward D. Mullins, the head of the sergeants’ union, as he criticized Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, calling the charges “political pandering” at the expense of an officer with an “unblemished record.” In an interview earlier in the day, Mr. Mullins said: “Commissioner Bratton bears the full responsibility for what occurred on Staten Island in the Garner case. He was the commissioner in charge of a policy, a failed policy, that should never have been. And that policy being the enforcement of untaxed cigarettes. And if anyone should be put on modified assignment, it should be him.” Mr. Mullins said the charges against Sergeant Adonis were four counts of “failure to supervise” the situation. “We don’t hear about the duty captain,” added Mr. Mullins, who said Sergeant Adonis was assigned to be at a meeting, not on patrol, and responded at her own initiative, at the time of the confrontation. “We don’t hear about a borough commander, a zone commander.” As a practical matter, the internal case against Sergeant Adonis will be delayed until the federal inquiry is complete. While the deadline for filing internal charges against other officers has not passed, Mr. Davis said that none beyond Sergeant Adonis were “subject to department charges in connection with this at this point.” Ultimately, a departmental judge will make a recommendation to Mr. Bratton about how to address the sergeant’s actions. Punishment could involve termination. As commissioner, Mr. Bratton is the final arbiter. In November, the state’s highest court declined to order the release of transcripts from the grand jury that considered evidence in the death of Mr. Garner. Christopher T. Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that sought the transcripts, questioned why the federal inquiry was still open. The matter, he said, is “not a tough call under the federal statute.” “This is fine and good, but the much bigger issue is what is happening with Officer Pantaleo,” he said. “There is ample basis for a federal prosecution, and we see no reason why the Justice Department needs more time to decide whether to proceed.” The Justice Department opened its investigation in December 2014, and it is not unusual for such inquiries to stretch past a year. Federal law enforcement officials in New York and Washington said the investigation remained active.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings