Large Number of Governors’ Races Grips Both Parties

Abstract: CHICAGO — For all the talk of midterm elections and control of Congress, the political parties are obsessing this year more than ever over the nation’s 37 races for governor. The Republican Governors Association has already poured $11 million into these campaigns, and halfway through the year had raised $28 million — more than its entire budget for the 2006 election season — bringing its current reserves to $40 million. The Democratic Governors Association says it intends to devote $50 million to these races, nearly three times as much as ever, and the Democratic National Committee has dedicated as much direct financing to governors’ races as it has to Senate and House campaigns. The White House is also pitching in. President Obama is scheduled to fly to Wisconsin next Monday to raise money for Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee , who is trying to keep the governorship in Democratic hands, and, two days later, Mr. Obama will do the same in Ohio for Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat in a tight re-election race and someone for whom the White House has already dispatched others, including the vice president, four times so far this year. There is ample cause for so much attention. At stake is far more than local policy making in a few state capitals. The new crop of governors will play a major role in deciding which party benefits from the pivotal redrawing next year of Congressional and state legislative districts, a once-in-a-decade occurrence. Across a swath of states here, near the Great Lakes , especially, Republican leaders sense a rare opportunity to seize key governorships that have been dominated recently by Democrats. The results in the Midwest will also help to define crucial party organizing efforts leading up to the 2012 presidential campaign in some of the most coveted, up-for-grab states — like Iowa , Michigan , Minnesota , Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A governor, the thinking goes, can open fund-raising doors, get-out-the-vote operations and volunteer lists for his or her party’s presidential candidate. “Looking through the scope of national politics, I would make the case that the governors’ races this year are as important as the federal races, if not more important,” said Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association. In a year with an especially large number of governor elections — made even larger by a special election in Utah — an unusually high portion of them, 24, are for open seats, meaning that nearly half of the states (and probably more) will have new leaders after the midterm elections. For those running in these governors’ races, the national ramifications rarely seem far from view. “This is really a 10-year election,” Tom Emmer, a Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, said as he rode toward Duluth in a 32-foot R.V. while campaigning recently before Tuesday’s primary. Some Midwestern states are expected to lose seats in Congress under the redrawing of political districts that will follow the 2010 census, making the decisions about how these districts are redrawn of particular concern. “If the Democrats win the governor’s office, they will be in charge of redistricting Minnesota, and you can almost guarantee that they will try to squeeze out Michele Bachmann’s Congressional district in that equation,” Mr. Emmer said, referring to Representative Bachmann, a conservative Republican who recently started a Tea Party Caucus in Congress. So focused are party leaders on the redistricting fight ahead that Democrats have created a small donor fund-raising program — called Project Surge (for Stop Republican Gerrymandering) — aimed around the remap ahead. As it stands, 26 governors are Democrats and 24 are Republican. Of the 37 seats up for election this year, just over half are held by Democrats. And of the 24 incumbents who are not running for re-election — because of term limits, poor odds of winning or something else entirely — the political parties are evenly split. But in a moment of anti- Washington , anti-incumbent sentiment, grim economic times and a Democratic administration, most agree that the odds do not favor Democrats. A president’s party generally loses five or so seats in a midterm election, said Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. “As difficult as we knew this year would be, given both a historic midterm effect and a Bush economic hangover, voters still want to move forward to a brighter future,” Mr. Daschle said. “What they do not want is to go back to the failed Republican policies that created this mess.” Some nonpartisan observers, however, are predicting a modest but potentially important shift to the Republicans. Jennifer Duffy, who tracks governors’ races for the Cook Political Report, said that she expected the parties to swap governors’ seats here and there in November, but that, in the end, Republicans would probably gain three to five seats. Karl Rove , the Republican strategist, said he saw opportunities for sweeping gains through the industrial Midwest and into other national battlegrounds — like Nevada , New Mexico and Oregon — all of which would create new obstacles for an Obama re-election bid. Months of campaigning, of course, still loom — which Democrats are quick to point out. “I think the G.O.P. insiders are so cocky and overconfident right now that they are acting like they have won all these,” Mr. Barrett, the Democratic candidate in Wisconsin, said last week after speaking at opening ceremonies of the State Fair in West Allis. “By the time we get to November, the voters are going to want to change again.” Mr. Barrett’s likely Republican opponent, Scott Walker, the executive of Milwaukee County, has been crisscrossing the state for months, talking to factory workers in dozens of brown-bag lunches, and cautioning that a Governor Barrett would mean four more years of the same economic policies as Gov. James E. Doyle, a Democrat who, amid anemic approval ratings, decided not to seek a third term. “Austerity is in,” said Mr. Walker, who regularly reminds audiences that he has for years carried brown-bag lunches (two ham-and-cheese sandwiches) to his office and is pledging to shrink the size of state government. “For me, the ultimate question I tell voters is: If you feel like the last eight years of Jim Doyle has helped the economy of Wisconsin, then you should vote for Tom Barrett.” While issues like education, illegal immigration , same-sex marriage , high-speed rail and energy have emerged in some of the races for governor, the conversation this season in nearly every state almost always swiftly returns to the economy: the mostly dismal state budget deficits, disappearing jobs and high unemployment. “I hear it in virtually every part of the state,” said Mr. Barrett, who said he himself was “not happy with where things are,” and sometimes imagined arriving at the governor’s office to find, among the welcome baskets and flower bouquets, an unwanted gift — a $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion deficit, the size of Wisconsin’s budget gap. “There is dissatisfaction and uneasiness,” Mr. Barrett said. “That’s real.” Mr. Barrett, who has proposed a “Put Madison on a Diet” program, has notably not campaigned with Mr. Doyle (though the two have appeared together at times), nor, Mr. Barrett says, does he agree with all of the governor’s programs. Perhaps in a reflection of unease, another trend has emerged in the governors’ races: a wave of nontraditional campaigns. In three New England states, independents are seen as true contenders. Elsewhere, business people who have never (or rarely) sought political office are emerging as nominees. Last week, Rick Snyder, who once led Gateway Inc. and has never won public office, beat two longtime elected officials for the Republican nomination for governor in Michigan, a state held by a departing Democrat and which Republicans have high hopes of capturing in November.

Governors
Election
Voting
US Politics
Redistricting and Reapportionment


Obama Concedes That Courts Can Review Acts of Congress

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration stipulated the incontestable to a disgruntled federal court on Thursday, formally declaring that “the power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute.” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. , bowing to an unusual demand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans , made official the backpedaling of the past few days over remarks by President Obama about the Supreme Court ’s coming ruling on the constitutionality of his health care overhaul . Mr. Obama said on Monday that it “would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step” for the court to overturn the law. Ever since, the White House has been struggling to explain what the president meant. Mr. Obama himself tried to clarify things on Tuesday, explaining that “the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress.” The appeals court, where the administration is challenging jurisdiction over an unrelated lawsuit, took the unusual step during oral arguments of demanding a detailed memorandum addressing the executive branch’s view of the judicial branch’s power over the legislative branch’s acts — in short, the separation of powers. “Where a plaintiff properly invokes the jurisdiction of a court and presents a justiciable challenge, there is no dispute that courts properly review the constitutionality of acts of Congress,” Mr. Holder wrote. His letter was filed in precise obedience to the court’s demands, which included a noon deadline, a three-page length, single spacing and a reference to the president’s statement. But the letter also offered a reminder that the Supreme Court has presumed that acts of Congress are constitutional, and that the executive branch has frequently urged courts to respect the judgments of Congress. “The longstanding, historical position of the United States regarding judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation has not changed,” Mr. Holder wrote, adding that he was unaware of any case in which the Justice Department had asked a court to reconsider or limit the court’s power in this regard. Even so, the president’s statement on Monday has continued to reverberate. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky , the Republican leader, said just before Mr. Holder’s letter was released, “Respectfully, I would suggest the president back off.” “The American people should be able to expect that their president will defend the independence of the court, not undermine it, safeguarding and strengthening our country’s institutions, not actively weakening them,” he said. “The president crossed a dangerous line this week,” Mr. McConnell added. “And anyone who cares about liberty needs to call him out on it.” Mr. Obama, himself a constitutional lawyer, never tried to defend the literal meaning of his words; apparently he meant either to express a more subtle thought or merely to voice a common campaign point about how judges sometimes overreach. “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” he said on Monday. Because the vote by which the health care law was enacted was razor-thin and largely partisan, and because the court’s powers have been established since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the president’s words were false on both counts, PolitiFact.com declared. Mr. Obama and his aides have tried to explain what he meant, but they have relied on arcane arguments that may fall beyond the grasp of ordinary voters who have not studied the distinctions drawn over the commerce clause and the Lochner judicial era that preceded the New Deal. In his letter, Mr. Holder argued that deference to Congress was particularly important in a case involving interstate commerce. “The president’s remarks were fully consistent with the principles described herein,” he wrote in closing.

Supreme Court
Barack Obama
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
US Constitution
Judiciary
Health Insurance


In the Heat of the Night

Abstract: Q. When I’m having a hot flash, does my core body temperature actually rise, or does it only feel that way? A. A small but measurable rise in core body temperature usually comes before a hot flash, which is a mechanism for dispersing heat. A small, rigorous study , reported in 1996 in the journal Fertility and Sterility, detected hot flashes by measuring the skin temperatures of women sleeping in a temperature-controlled laboratory. A majority of the hot flashes were preceded by a small but significant elevation of core body temperature, as measured by a tiny, remotely read thermometer that the subjects were asked to swallow. (The increase had been too small to measure with conventional instruments.) The researcher, Robert R. Freedman of Wayne State University, concluded that such an increase was one trigger for a flash. Hot flashes are clearly related to declining estrogen levels around menopause, but the exact mechanism is not understood. For example, Dr. Freedman noted in a 2001 review article in The American Journal of Human Biology that estrogen levels did not differ between women who had flashes and those who did not. Research suggests that sympathetic nervous system is more active in women who have hot flashes, with even a small temperature change touching off symptoms. A 2013 M.R.I. study led by Dr. Freedman also found that activity in the brain stem increased even before a hot flash. question@nytimes.com


UBS Shareholders Voice Opposition to Bonuses

Abstract: LONDON — UBS shareholders showed their frustration over bank bonuses Wednesday, with far fewer than usual voting at the annual shareholders’ meeting to back last year’s compensation decisions. Almost 40 percent of UBS shareholders voting at the meeting rejected the bank’s 2009 compensation report, while 55 percent approved it. In previous years, UBS shareholders approved the remuneration policies with a clear majority of more than 80 percent. The vote is nonbinding but a way for investors to express their opinions. UBS reduced the total bonus pool for 2009, deferred stock bonuses for senior employees and introduced a rule that would allow the bank to reclaim bonuses when certain performance targets were missed. But some shareholders at the meeting Wednesday in Basel, Switzerland, said that the changes did not go far enough. Ethos Foundation, a Swiss shareholder advocacy group, had called on UBS shareholders to reject the compensation report because the bank continued to pay bonuses to managers of unprofitable divisions. The chief executive of UBS, Oswald Grübel, defended the bank’s remuneration policies, saying he needed to continue paying competitive salaries and bonuses to attract and retain top staff if he was to put together the team that could help revive the bank. “The board of directors and management have the responsibility of leading your business so that it operates successfully,” Mr. Grübel said. “To do so we need specialists and executives, whose price is determined by the global market. That is a reality we must acknowledge if we want UBS to compete globally.” UBS’s chairman, Kaspar Villiger, added that scrapping all bonuses would diminish the bank’s “chances for recovery and survival.” “Good people who generate high revenues with their teams are still highly sought after,” he said. “Retaining and recruiting them requires compensation at levels that are customary in the respective job markets.” Since Mr. Grübel took the helm of the Swiss bank a year ago, he has changed the way employees are paid, cut jobs, focused on strengthening the investment banking business and made retaining private banking clients a top priority. In a first sign that the changes paid off, UBS said Monday that pretax profit in the first quarter was at least 2.5 billion Swiss francs, or $2.2 billion, the highest in more than two years. Mr. Grübel expects that the earnings report will help shed UBS’s image of being one of the biggest victims of the subprime mortgage crisis in Europe following some ill-advised investments. “The fact that we will continually be confronted with mistakes from the past is a reality we have to live with,” he said. The bank’s disputes with U.S. tax authorities remain unresolved and continue to drag on UBS’s progress in stemming client money outflows. The Swiss Parliament is expected to vote in June on a settlement UBS originally reached with Washington last August. The vote is intended to overcome objections raised by a Swiss court about the settlement, in which UBS agreed to disclose names and account details of thousands of wealthy Americans suspected of tax evasion.


Drug-Testing Loophole May Not Be Worth It

Abstract: WHAT did Congress know and when did Congress know it? All right, that might not be the place to start. Those questions are relevant, but only if you are aware of the provision in the steroid-testing program that allows the union to terminate it and revert to the status quo ante. That's lawyer talk for what existed before. The Associated Press disclosed the existence of the provision, which links the testing program to the collective-bargaining agreement. The overall labor agreement expires Dec. 19. The provision says that if no new labor agreement is reached by Aug. 1, the union has until Aug. 15 to tell the owners it will terminate the testing agreement Dec. 19. Even though both sides understand the provision, what it means and what will probably result from it, the provision will most likely be a hot topic of conversation at the negotiating session that is scheduled for today. Yes, lawyers for the owners and the players have begun talks in their attempt to work out a new labor contract. They also met Tuesday, which means they will have met twice in three days. That kind of schedule can only be classified as post-preliminary. The two sides had previously acknowledged meeting, but they said the sessions were preliminary. Neither side has presented a proposal. But they are talking, discussing issues and facts. The lead negotiators — Rob Manfred for the owners, Donald Fehr for the players — declined to discuss the talks yesterday. They declined to comment, too, on the possibility that Tuesday's talks became testy during a discussion of baseball economics. Major League Baseball is flourishing economically, and the union may have some thoughts about some of the elements of the economic system, like revenue sharing and debt service. Some players from the Boston Red Sox attended Tuesday's session and planned to attend today's, demonstrating that there is something other than the Yankees in their lives. Beginning the talks this early doesn't guarantee an early agreement, but it's better than not talking at all. In 2002, the owners and the players actually negotiated a new agreement without a work stoppage. It was a stunning development, a unique achievement in 30 years of baseball labor negotiations. A desire to achieve a new agreement early was one of the reasons the union wanted the termination provision in the steroid-testing plan. If Commissioner Bud Selig thought there was a chance the union would invoke the provision, he might push his negotiators to reach an agreement sooner rather than later. That would probably mean not taking a hard-line stance on some of the issues. But would the union actually consider invoking the provision? No one from the union or among the owners suggests it could happen. Why would the union take that step? Union officials reluctantly agreed last November to a more stringent testing program. The suspensions for positive tests were increased to 50 games, 100 games and life from the original 10 days, 30 days and a season. Why did the union agree to reopen the basic agreement a second time, when the first time had already been unprecedented? The answer is Congressional pressure. Selig knew the two-ton elephant was in the room and was certain the union did not want to prompt Congress to pass a steroid act itself. If the union wasn't going to defy Congress last year, it won't act defiantly this year. Ah yes, Congress. What a bunch of disingenuous politicians they are. After The Associated Press contacted the office of Representative Tom Davis, chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, for comment on the link provision, Davis wrote a letter to Selig and Fehr. "As part of the Committee's ongoing review," Davis, a Republican from Virginia, wrote, "I have identified a section of the new program that raises Congressional concern." Citing the provision, he asked both men to assure him in writing that the provision "does not leave open the possibility, under any circumstances, that the 2007 season will be played subject to the 2005 drug testing policy." It would seem that Davis had just learned of the provision. But he and other critical Congressmen had received copies of the 33-page agreement months ago and had been briefed on it by Manfred and Michael Weiner, the union's general counsel. Robert White, Davis's communications director, acknowledged that Davis had the agreement and had received it "a while ago." Why, then, didn't Davis know about the link provision? "It's just something that didn't catch our attention at first," White said. "It was just a matter that this one little provision didn't get any attention at first, and upon closer look we had some questions. We wanted reassurance that this wasn't going to be used as an escape clause to return to a weaker drug policy. We don't expect that it will be used for that purpose." But it's nice to know that Congress knows about it now.

Steroids
Labor
Baseball
Tests and Testing


Chinese Vase Is Sold in London for $70 Million

Abstract: LONDON — As treasure-in-the-attic stories go, the 18th-century Chinese vase sold at a suburban auction house in outer London on Thursday night will be hard to beat. The delicate, decorative 16-inch vase started at a not-inconsequential $800,000, but after a half-hour of unexpectedly spirited bidding, the gavel fell at $69.5 million. It was the highest price ever paid at auction for a Chinese antiquity. Adding in the 20 percent buyer’s premium levied by the auction house and Britain’s value-added tax , the total came to $85.9 million. Auction insiders said the buyer was from mainland China and bid by telephone. Of the sellers, the auction house, Bainbridge’s, said only that they were a brother and sister who had found the vase “in a dusty attic” when they were clearing out the family home in west London, near Heathrow Airport, after their parents died. The other Chinese knickknacks they found sold for as little as $65. “They had no idea what they had,” said Helen Porter, a spokeswoman for Bainbridge’s. “They were hopeful, but they didn’t dare believe until the hammer went down. When it did, the sister had to go out of the room and have a breath of fresh air.” The vase dated from the period of the emperor Qianlong, who reigned from 1735 to 1796, at the height of the Qing dynasty. He vastly expanded China’s western territories and left a legacy as a great patron of Chinese arts, including ceramics. Experts who have examined the vase, which bore an imperial seal, have said it was likely to have been made for one of the imperial palaces. Ovoid in shape and predominantly pastel yellow and sky-blue in color, the vase has a narrow neck, four enameled circular motifs known as cartouches that show colorful fish and flowers, and elaborate perforations in the outer vase that give onto a smaller vase inside. It was believed to have been fired in the imperial potteries in Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi Province, west of modern-day Shanghai, which functioned for 1,000 years as the porcelain capital of China. Ms. Porter said the sellers had no knowledge of how the vase came to be in their parents’ possession, although they believed it had been in the family since the 1930s. One theory, according to Ivan Macquisten, the editor of Antiques Trade Gazette, a British magazine, was that it could have been among the treasures looted by British troops when they sacked the imperial palaces in Beijing during the second Opium War, from 1856 to 1860. It was one of Mr. Macquisten’s reporters who found out what little was known about the buyer. With China’s wealth rapidly rising, mainland Chinese buyers have been a major force in pushing up the prices of Chinese antiquities, reversing, at least in small measure, the flow of Chinese artworks to the West during the centuries before the Communist revolution in 1949 — and the loss of imperial treasures when the Chinese nationalists fled the Communist victory for Taiwan, taking huge quantities of antiquities with them. The vase’s price exceeded the record for Chinese antiquities set just last month in Hong Kong, when another Qianlong vase sold for $34.2 million. For Bainbridge’s, the sale price of the vase represented a huge leap, putting the auction house, at least momentarily, in a league with the blue-ribbon art houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s, where sales running into the tens of millions of dollars have become almost routine in recent decades. Bainbridge’s biggest sale before Thursday was $160,000 for a Ming enamel piece it sold two years ago. The sale was held in the London suburb of Ruislip, neighboring Pinner, where the vase was found. Pinner is best known in modern times as the place where the singers Elton John and Simon Le Bon went to school. As the auction house was trying to establish a selling price, Ms. Porter said, the vase had been taken for viewing at the Arts Club in London, where it was deposited for some time on a “metal table next to the kitchen.” The auction house itself began to realize its rarity only when a consultant on Chinese ceramics, Luan Grocholski, was called in to evaluate it. “Luan took a long, hard look at it and could hardly believe his eyes,” Ms. Porter said. Still, Bainbridge’s had set its presale estimate between $1.3 million and $2 million. “We are absolutely stunned,” Ms. Porter said after the auction. “This must be one of the most important Chinese vases to be offered for sale this century. How it reached Ruislip is something we will never know, and that it is in such fine condition is amazing. “We’re just a very typical local auction house, so as you can imagine it was something of a surprise.”


French Authorities Hunt What May Be a Wildcat Near Disneyland

Abstract: PARIS — Police officers were sent to guard schools, while hundreds of security officers scoured large areas near the French capital. Spooked drivers locked their car doors. Residents cowered at home, fearful that a menacing tiger would devour them whole. But a little more than 24 hours after the French police began their frantic search, they concluded that the errant feline was no tiger but, possibly, a large or perhaps overweight domestic cat. Image Officials estimated that a large wildcat on the loose on the outskirts of Paris weighed as much as 150 pounds, based on the size of its tracks. Credit Olivier Lejeune/Le Parisien/Maxppp, via European Pressphoto Agency At a time of economic and political malaise, the French could use a diversion, and the renegade beast — first spotted in Montévrain, a town east of the capital not far from Disneyland Paris — captured the national imagination, while also stoking more than a little fear. It may also have played into what commentators have said is a growing public anxiety, stemming from 14 illegal drone flights over French nuclear plants in recent weeks, raising concern about the security of the country’s main source of electricity. French authorities say they have no idea who was behind the mysterious flights. Then came the reports of a large wild cat on the loose, slinking around the outskirts of the French capital and eluding a hunting squad that included officers armed with tranquilizer guns and a helicopter equipped with a thermal detector. As of Friday evening, they proved no match for the elusive cat, which officials estimated weighed at least 100 pounds, based on the size of its tracks. The national agency for hunting and wildlife was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying that the cat was not dangerous. “It is between a domestic cat and a larger feline,” said Eric Hansen, an official from the agency, who also ruled out that it was a lynx. Image This photo provided by the town council of Montévrain on Thursday shows what was initially described as a tiger. Credit via Associated Press Nevertheless, a fuzzy photograph of the creature was circulated by the French news media, and minute-by-minute sightings have been reported here as if the country were on alert for a serial killer or U.F.O. The police said dozens of sightings have been phoned in. One driver reported spotting the cat crossing the A4, a major highway, prompting the authorities to tell drivers and residents in the area not to leave their cars, or, worse, venture into the woods. The feline was also seen stalking a gas station and prowling near the parking lot of a supermarket, news reports said. Writing on Twitter, Olivier Rimmel, an entrepreneur, mused that the obsessive hunt seemed to reflect a current French obsession with nonsensical things. “Every two days, a new bogus issue keeps us busy,” he wrote . “This time it’s a little tiger that is going to eat lots of children.” After it emerged that the tiger could, in fact, be an obese cat, Libération, the French newspaper, offered reassurance to its readers. “The tiger is not a tiger,” it wrote in a post on Twitter. “You can resume normal activities.”


Alex Rodriguez Takes a Seat Again as the Yankees Cite His Anemic Numbers

Abstract: Alex Rodriguez emerged from the Yankees’ clubhouse two hours before the game against the Texas Rangers on Monday at Yankee Stadium. He hunched over on the dugout steps, looking meditatively out at the field. Rodriguez then walked toward the batting cage, helmet in his right hand and two bats in his left. Kneeling down, Rodriguez began massaging his bats and meticulously patting them down with a rosin bag, ready to go to work. Only Rodriguez was not in the starting lineup, benched against a right-handed starting pitcher for the second straight game. General Manager Brian Cashman said that he met with Manager Joe Girardi and the Yankees staff a few days ago and decided the best short-term plan was to make Carlos Beltran the designated hitter against right-handed pitching. Aaron Hicks started in right field. “Carlos has been so hot, to keep him going, we want to play him every day,” Cashman said. “If we take advantage of some time to D.H. him here, play him in the outfield in San Diego while we’re in the National League ballpark, where we lose the D.H., it’s going to come at the expense of Alex. That’s it. None of these things are easy decisions.” Cashman cited Rodriguez’s .584 on-base plus slugging percentage against right-handed pitchers. “Alex has struggled mightily against right-handed pitching this year, and again, we’re almost hitting July,” he said, adding, “It’s the winds of change, and it’s blowing us certain directions.” Neither Girardi nor Cashman labeled the move a platoon. Entering Monday, the Yankees were 37-37, seven and a half games behind the first-place Baltimore Orioles in the American League East. They have shown little ability to move above the .500 mark all season. “Time’s of the essence,” Cashman said as Rodriguez took batting practice a few steps away. “We can’t keep treading water, and I want to be a contender, not a pretender. That’s why the last two weeks we were like, this team’s going to have to show us sooner than later that what we had last year was real and can happen again. I believe the team on paper is better than it was last year, it just hasn’t played that way. At some point, you are what your record says.” Cashman said the Yankees had not discussed releasing Rodriguez, who will be 41 in July and is due to make $21 million per year through 2017. Girardi said that it was a hard decision to sit Rodriguez, who is batting .223 with eight home runs. Entering Monday, Beltran led the team in hits (74), home runs (19) and R.B.I. (53). Rodriguez said that he felt healthy and that he was a little surprised by the decision. After a short session with the news media, he collected his gear and headed toward the field to continue his regular pregame routine, as if he were starting. “I’ve always enjoyed proving people wrong, and I’ll be ready to play,” Rodriguez said. “I’ll be ready when my number’s called.”

Alex Rodriguez
Yankees
Brian Cashman
Carlos Beltran
Baseball
Randy L Levine


Fire Death Leads Police to Codify Protocols

Abstract: The New York Police Department has issued mandatory protocols for officers entering buildings in response to fires, after an officer responding to a blaze in a Brooklyn high-rise died . The order represents the first effort to formalize such procedures for officers. Police Commissioner William J. Bratton described the lack of guidance as a “policy deficiency” and said the department had been working on instructions since the fire on Sunday that killed the officer, Dennis Guerra, and critically injured his partner, Officer Rosa Rodriguez. Officers are now instructed to take the stairs when possible and take precautions in elevators, including inspecting open shafts for smoke and stopping at least two floors below the fire to walk the rest of the way. On Sunday, the two officers responded to a report of a 13th-floor fire in a Coney Island housing development. They took the elevator, which when they arrived filled with smoke. They radioed for help and then collapsed. Officer Guerra, a 38-year-old from Queens with nearly eight years on the force, died on Wednesday of severe smoke inhalation. He was the first officer killed in a fire in the line of duty in nearly three decades. On Monday, the police arrested Marcell Dockery, 16, who lived in the building, and charged him with arson, reckless endangerment and assault; he said he had lit a mattress in the hallway, the authorities said. A grand jury is weighing increasing those charges, possibly to murder. Image Officer Dennis Guerra Credit New York City Police Department The newly issued instructions detail steps dispatchers and officers should take when entering a building for a reported fire. If officers take an elevator, they should “stop the elevator every fifth floor and repeat the visual inspection,” and take the stairs at any sight of smoke. If two or more officers are going in, they should take separate elevators or stairwells, the order says. It also includes basic fire safety, such as checking doors for heat, staying low to the ground and closing stairway doors to prevent fire from spreading. Speaking at the Police Academy on Tuesday, Commissioner Bratton said that the earlier lack of guidance was “not unique” to New York and that he anticipated those set in New York would spread “to the larger profession.” For Edward D. Mullins, the president of the sergeants’ union, the order formalized “common-sense practices” taught to him years ago at the Police Academy. But the order also includes a new requirement for police supervisors to respond to all fire calls, some of which turn out to be unfounded, and could conflict with other duties, he said. A wake for Officer Guerra in Ozone Park, Queens, is planned for Sunday. He is to be buried the next day after a funeral Mass at a church in the Rockaways. On Thursday, a police sergeant and an officer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, were hospitalized with minor injuries from smoke inhalation after responding to a fire around 1 p.m. in a four-story building, the police said. The officers helped residents, including a 1-year-old child, to evacuate, the police said. There were no other reported injuries, the Fire Department said.

Fires
Dennis Guerra
Marcell Dockery
NYPD
Coney Island Brooklyn


On Eve of Passover, Bread Stirs Deep Thoughts in Israel

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Israel ’s public debate shifted this week from Hamas to hametz. But it remained no less heated. Hametz is bread and other leavened products that many Jews do not eat for the eight days of Passover , which starts Saturday night. The Bible says that when God freed the Jews from enslavement in Egypt, they left in such a hurry that there was no time for their bread to rise, and to mark that circumstance, consuming leavened bread during the holiday is forbidden. The focus of the debate here is a ruling by a Jerusalem municipal judge overturning the convictions of four shops and restaurants for having sold pizzas and rolls during the holiday last year despite a law that many thought prohibited businesses from doing so. The judge said the law barred only the public display of hametz, not its sale inside shops. While most debates about the painstakingly negotiated public role of religion in Israel line up along predictable lines of observant versus secular, this discussion has been different. And it speaks to a palpable anxiety over the need to define and defend the Jewish nature of the state, even as Israel’s 60th anniversary approaches next month. In opinion articles and informal conversations, some nonreligious Israelis said that they liked the eight-day absence of hametz, and that it was a small but potent symbol of a unique collective identity. The most prominent advocate of this point of view was Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a thoroughly secular woman, who wrote in the newspaper Maariv that she regretted the judge’s decision. “Ostensibly, the ban on the public display or sale of bread on Passover is a minor and marginal issue, but I believe that this is not the case,” she wrote. “In my view, this prohibition is part of the substantive question of how we wish to characterize our identity in the national home for the Jewish people.” Many agreed with her and contended, as she did, that since Israel’s Palestinian negotiating partners and their supporters rejected defining Israel as “a Jewish state,” it was more important than ever to do so. “The further we allow ourselves to go from Jewish tradition, the easier it will be for those who reject our legitimacy as a Jewish state,” said Sharona Mazalian, who lives outside Tel Aviv, works for a secular, conservative legislator and wants hametz banned during Passover. “We call ourselves a Jewish, democratic state. But the less Jewish we are the easier it will be for others to say, ‘Why not just be a democratic state for Jews and Arabs to live in together?’ ” Amnon Rubinstein, a secular and liberal former minister of education and a former dean of Tel Aviv University’s law school, said the Jerusalem judge was right in her ruling because the intent of the law was to avoid offending religious sensibilities by publicly displaying hametz, not to end the sale of hametz entirely. But he noted: “There is this mood now that we must remain Jewish somehow, some way. Tzipi Livni represents that — a secular hankering for Jewish ambience.” That seems especially true at Passover. In recent polls, 65 to 70 percent of Israeli Jews say they will avoid hametz next week, although most are not generally religiously observant. There is something especially meaningful about Passover in Israel. As Liat Collins, a columnist, wrote in The Jerusalem Post, Passover, the festival of freedom, “represents everything we are proud of: survival against the odds; national identity; and a return to the Promised Land. All the things for which we have been admired — and reviled — over thousands of years.” But just as many Israeli Jews seek a Jewish feeling from Israel’s public life — they like the way the country slows down on Friday afternoon for Sabbath, the way it follows the Jewish calendar — they resent the fact that religiously defined parties are the ones setting the agenda. After the judge handed down her decision, several Orthodox parties declared it a calamity and vowed to pass a law barring all sales of hametz during Passover. When the cabinet declined to take up the issue, the Shas Party threatened a governmental crisis but backed down, saying it would take its case to Parliament. Moshe Halbertal, a professor of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University here, said: “What I see going on is a sense of a search for Jewish identity, which I really appreciate. But I think it is wrong to do so through the legal system.” He said his model for Jewish public expression was the way Israel marked Yom Kippur, when, through unwritten convention, no one drives. “There is no law about driving on Yom Kippur, yet everyone respects it,” he said. But Yair Sheleg, an observant Jew who writes for the newspaper Haaretz, made the opposite case in a recent column that supported banning the display and sale of hametz during Passover. He said a society should use its laws regarding public space to help shape its core values, “and in this regard prohibiting the public display of hametz on Passover is no different in principle from legislating the closure of restaurants and movie theaters on Holocaust Remembrance Day or on Memorial Day.” He noted that some years ago Parliament passed a law to destroy a monument to Baruch Goldstein, the Brooklyn-born Jewish settler who killed 29 Muslims praying in Hebron in 1994. Mr. Sheleg noted that it was hidden from public view and caused little evident harm, but that eliminating it was an appropriate expression of core public values. Nahum Barnea, a columnist for Yediot Aharonot, said the dispute made him realize how Israel, even as it approached its 60th anniversary, “is still trying to define itself, something most states don’t have to do.” “We are still debating our existence, not only in terms of policy but in terms of ideology,” he said. “What is Israel? What is a Jewish state? And how can hametz help us find the answer?”


Sundance Is Selling, but Prices Are Down

Abstract: PARK CITY, Utah — Hollywood is back in the mood to buy indie films — even if not at the old prices that came with inflated expectations. Heading into the Sundance Film Festival , which opened in this ski town on Thursday, if you couldn’t quite feel the crackle of commerce in the air, you could certainly hear it in the voices of purchasing executives. They privately (no sense in tipping the competition) rattled off films they were circling. “On paper, at least, it looks like there is something for every distributor,” said Arianna Bocco, head of acquisitions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films. Among other factors, the strong box-office performance of specialty films over the last six months has created optimism that the art house sector has emerged on the other side of a correction. After a glut of mediocre titles pushed as masterpieces ravaged the indie market, there came the likes of “Black Swan,” which cost $13 million to make, has sold more than $75 million and is still playing. Similarly, the emergence over the last year of video-on-demand services as a significant revenue generator for independent films has eased the concerns of distributors about dwindling DVD sales. “The marketplace is now equipped to understand that video-on-demand can add real value to a film’s distribution cycle,” said Kevin Iwashina, managing partner of Preferred Content, a production, sales and finance advisory company. Several distributors started shopping before the festival even began, with Sony Pictures Classics paying an undisclosed amount for the psychological thriller “Take Shelter” and HBO snapping up the documentary “Project Nim,” about a chimpanzee at the center of a 1970s-era sign language experiment. “You’re seeing a lot more people making deals before the festival, in part because the expectations are more realistic,” said Tom Bernard, the co-president of Sony Pictures Classics. “Fewer filmmakers are surrounding themselves with four middlemen who are all trying to create the illusion of hype. That strategy generally has not paid off in the past.” On Thursday, Sony announced that it had bought “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” a documentary about product placement (financed entirely by product placement) from Morgan Spurlock, the director of “Super Size Me.” Terms of the sale, handled by Creative Artists Agency, were not disclosed. Meanwhile, the commercial swirl around the edges of the festival is back. After staying home for the last few years, brands like Levis jeans have returned, outfitting celebrities in free merchandise and staging a parade of dinners and parties — an effort to bask in the festival’s heat. In another sign of a thaw after two recession years, Sundance this year added several new corporate sponsors, including two at the $150,000 threshold: Acura and Chase Sapphire, a high-end credit card. Nobody expects Sundance to return anytime soon to its freewheeling days when Fox Searchlight paid $10.5 million for “Little Miss Sunshine” and Focus Features paid an overheated $10 million for “Hamlet 2.” The buzzwords among most sales agents this year are “recalibrated expectations” and “new normal.” This essentially means that deals will get done but that prices will be confined to the mid-seven figures or less. According to several agents, films that easily nabbed $1.5 million in minimum guarantees are now looking at about $250,000. One reason for the lower prices is a simple matter of leverage. A large number of indie distributors went out of business, and now the big fish that remain (the specialty divisions of the big studios, the Weinstein Company, Lions Gate, Summit Entertainment, Relativity Media) can wait out the sellers. Filmmakers and financiers have adjusted budgets for their pictures accordingly, said Jamie Patricof, a producer of films including “Blue Valentine,” a darling of last year’s festival, and the drama “Little Birds,” which will have its premiere here on Sunday. “The $3-million-budgeted movies of five years ago are the under-$1-million movies of today,” Mr. Patricof said. Graham Taylor, who oversees finance and distribution for William Morris Endeavor, which is handling sales for seven Sundance titles, agreed. “There has definitely been a market correction,” Mr. Taylor said. “The days of inflated budgets are so 2007.” So, what Sundance movies have the best prospects of igniting buyer attention in the coming days? Topping the list of must-see films for most distributors is “My Idiot Brother,” a comedy starring Paul Rudd as Ned, a guy who looks for the good in life but always seems to end up with the short end of the stick. Also generating strong interest is “The Details,” a dark comedy/love story that stars Tobey Maguire, Laura Linney and Ray Liotta. “Margin Call” — a thriller set against the backdrop of the financial crisis that stars Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons and Demi Moore — also looks promising, according to several buyers. Other strong contenders are “The Devil’s Double,” the true story of Latif Yahia, an Iraqi army lieutenant who was hired in 1987 to be Saddam Hussein’s body double, and “Like Crazy,” a romance that is already a winner with critics. Several smaller distributors are seeking this year’s version of “Winter’s Bone,” a dark $2 million drama that played Sundance last year and has sold almost $8 million at the box office. Could it be “On the Ice,” the bleak tale of two seal-hunting boys who live in an Alaskan village? In the end, everything depends on the screenings that will take place here over the next week. While multiple films look exciting on paper, sales will turn on whether buyers see quality on the screen. “The market looks strong for films that are really well done,” said Rich Klubeck, a partner at United Talent Agency, which is shopping 14 movies at this year’s festival. “The market for movies that fall into the category of ‘I’m surprised that got made’ — not so much.”

Festivals
Movies
Sundance Film Festival (Park City Utah)
Park City (Utah)


Jets’ Pass Rush Is Yielding Results

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The last time a Jets defense dropped as many quarterbacks, it earned the nickname the New York Sack Exchange. Led by Joe Klecko and Mark Gastineau, the 1981 defense compiled 66 sacks, a franchise record. But not even that renowned defense amassed 29 sacks in the first eight games, the way these Jets have. “We take pride in it,” linebacker Calvin Pace said. “If you can rush the passer, it’s a premium. Every team wants to, but not every team can do it.” The Jets share a stadium with their sack-specialist neighbors, the Giants, and now the teams also share space near the top of the N.F.L. sack rankings. The Giants are second; the Jets are third. The Jets have made their climb with a defense far removed from the Sack Exchange days and different from the 4-3 employed by the Giants. Reasons for the turnaround from last year, when the Jets managed 29 sacks in 16 games, include off-season additions that brought size and speed, a more experienced and versatile group of players and a highly motivational line coach. The Jets use a 3-4 defense, geared toward gap responsibility and playmaking linebackers. Although 4-3 defenses have familiar rush patterns, the 3-4, with linebacker-defensive end hybrids, allows the Jets to rush from multiple angles and multiple positions. For instance, last week on a blitz, cornerback Darrelle Revis stripped the ball from Buffalo quarterback Trent Edwards, then recovered it. “We come from everywhere,” said defensive end Shaun Ellis, who leads the team with seven sacks. The Jets, who are ranked 13th in total defense, are built on interchangeable parts that coaches use in different situations based on the opponent. Safety Kerry Rhodes blitzes often. Ellis rushes from the interior of the line and from the outside. Linebackers like Pace and David Bowens can blitz or drop into coverage. Players said their game plan each week was split evenly between basic philosophy and specific ways to rush an opponent’s passer. The defense has looked different from Week 1 to Week 9. “That’s the beauty of it,” Pace said. The defense also thrives on the energy that the second-year defensive line coach Dan Quinn passes on to his players. Linebacker Bryan Thomas said that after practice, sometimes as many as a dozen Jets huddle with Quinn for extra work. “I don’t know what he’s taking during the game, but he’s always excited,” Thomas said. “He’s like that every day. High motor. Jumping around. Screaming. It rubs off.” The defense became bigger, and better against the run, in the off-season with the additions of nose tackle Kris Jenkins and Pace. The Jets rank fourth in the N.F.L. at stopping the run. That helped the pass rush by forcing teams into situations in which they have to throw. “If you don’t stop the run, it doesn’t matter how many good pass rushers you have,” defensive end Kenyon Coleman said. “You’ll never get to see them out there.” The Jets practice their pass-rush techniques every day. The key, according to several players, is that the rushers have been together for a while. Last year, Coleman and Bowens were new to the system, as were Revis and linebacker David Harris, who were in their rookie seasons. “At the end of the day, though, it’s real simple,” Bowens said. “It’s called effort. We have guys who are relentless and stay after it, and that’s how you get sacks.”


Organic Farms Become a Winner in Putin’s Feud With the West

Abstract: MOSCOW — Boris Akimov’s cellphone, which quacks like a duck, started to sound like a whole flock soon after President Vladimir V. Putin imposed sweeping food sanctions barring many Western imports last August. Major Russian grocery chains, desperate to find new suppliers, tracked down Mr. Akimov, the founder of Russia ’s fledgling farm-to-table movement, to ask urgent supply questions. How many chickens and eggs could he provide, they wanted to know, and could he deliver 100 tons of cheese, say, immediately. Mr. Akimov, 36, who has a heavy beard and an infectious grin, had to turn them away — his 100 farmers produce nowhere near the amounts requested. LavkaLavka, the organic farm cooperative he and a friend set up about five years ago, sells between six and 12 tons of artisanal cheese annually, for example. “The main thing which the sanctions have already changed is in people’s minds — in government, in business and on the streets, they have started to think more about where their food comes from,” Mr. Akimov said in an interview in his new, homey restaurant in central Moscow, where the light fixtures are sawed-off milk cans painted red. “If the sanctions give a chance to develop local farmers, to develop sustainable agriculture, it is very good. But I am not sure it will happen.” In August, Russia banned all beef, pork, fish, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from the European Union , the United States, Canada, Australia and Norway for one year, retaliating for Western economic sanctions imposed after the Kremlin destabilized Ukraine. Senior leaders, starting with Mr. Putin, heralded food sanctions as a chance for Russians to finally stock their larders with homegrown products. Dmitri A. Medvedev, the prime minister, released a “road map” for agriculture last month. “The aim of our efforts is to increase our own agricultural produce and to reduce Russia’s dependence on food imports,” he said. But the content of the road map was basically “watch this space,” with new agricultural policies promised by the end of 2015. Critics said the government typically announced the sanctions first and thought about the fallout afterward. A range of experts and organizations noted that beyond the populist, patriotic speeches about growing food locally, there is minimal government support when it comes to supplying the new land, long-term credit and transportation logistics that Russian farmers desperately need to expand. Flying over France’s Cognac region two years ago, Mr. Akimov noticed that every field, every lake, every copse was neatly groomed and exploited — there was no space for new projects. “If you looked at Russia there is nothing, nothing, nothing — you can do everything,” he said. Russian agriculture basically collapsed twice in the 20th century. Immediately after the revolution, the new Bolshevik government organized what amounted to gangs licensed to strip the countryside of anything edible to feed the agitated urban poor. Output dropped to half what it had been in 1913. Production had just recovered when forced collectivization started in 1928. Stalin decided that Russian grain exports would underwrite large-scale industrialization, and by 1937, 90 percent of Russian farmers had been pushed onto collective farms. Those who resisted were killed or sent to the gulag. After the Soviet Union disintegrated, the government advanced large-scale corporate farming and basically favored imports. “Peasants have always been second-class citizens — during the czarist era, during Soviet times and still today,” said Vladimir V. Miloserdov, an agriculture expert raised on a collective farm in southern Russia, who vividly recalls the maximum two sacks of grain his family received as its annual salary. In the last 20 years, more than 106 million acres of arable land have fallen out of production, Mr. Miloserdov said, and Russia has fewer cattle now than it did in the 1940s. Experts agree that is a sorry state of affairs for the largest country on earth. Far from spurring production, sanctions so far have served mostly to raise food prices . Inflation has risen to 8.3 percent this year, well above the anticipated 6 percent, with the rise attributed to escalating food prices as local producers exploit shortages or importers pass on the costs of shipping in salmon from places like Chile instead of nearby Norway. Prices for meat and poultry rose more than 18 percent through October, while dairy products were up by over 15 percent, according to the federal statistics agency, Rosstat. “Russia cannot provide itself with dairy products, fish, vegetables and other types of food,” said Mikhail Anshakov, the head of the Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights, which calls for food sanctions to be rescinded. “Self-imposed sanctions under these circumstances were madness.” The public has generally supported the sanctions, however, because the Kremlin wrapped the idea in nationalist colors, and state-run television regularly broadcasts programs showing supermarkets bursting with goods from Africa, Asia and Latin America. While the foreign news media tend to focus on the dismay of the urban elite over the sudden dearth of oysters and foie gras, Mr. Anshakov said, the real story is the potential gap in providing staples like milk. Dairy farms have plenty of forage at the end of summer, he said, but with winter comes the main challenge to farming in Russia — virtually the entire country freezes. At that point dairy companies usually import vast amounts of powdered milk to mix with real milk, Mr. Anshakov said. “Now with the sanctions that is impossible,” he said, with powdered milk from traditional suppliers barred. Some farmers, however, have been slightly gleeful about their prospects under sanctions. Justus Walker, an American immigrant farmer in Siberia, became a YouTube sensation for a short news clip showing him laughing at the thought that he could finally sell the mozzarella he produces because the cheaper Italian variety would no longer be available. Chicken is another example. Only about 10 percent of chickens sold in Russia come from abroad, mostly from the United States. Sanctions were a gold mine for local producers as imports no longer kept prices down. But experts said that over the long run higher prices would not overcome more basic problems faced by small local farmers like those who sell through LavkaLavka. (Lavka means “little shop” in Russian.) Andrey Ovchinnikov, 53, worked as an interior designer when a friend’s endeavor persuaded him to become a chicken farmer. Sales went well, but he could get neither the credit nor the land to expand. He raises thousands of birds on less than an acre. Since his farm sits about 50 miles from Moscow, prime country for dachas, the local government has been reluctant to give him land it can sell at a premium. After almost a year of cajoling, he finally persuaded local officials to at least visit his farm this month. “I cannot say the government is really paying attention to agriculture yet, but at least they are looking in our general direction,” he said. LavkaLavka has made getting that attention its mission. The cooperative started after Mr. Akimov, then the creative director for an online magazine, and his friend Sasha Mikhailov, an information technology specialist, started paging through the most famous cookbook from czarist times, “A Gift to Young Housewives.” The two men kept stumbling across unfamiliar root vegetables like rutabagas, parsnips and scorzonera . “When you read this book you wonder how many interesting things there were, how many delicious things we had here in Russia that disappeared during the Soviet period,” Mr. Akimov said. The two began rooting around in farmers markets near Moscow for ingredients, and eventually their hobby “changed from a hedonistic project to a social project” to support local, organic farmers, Mr. Akimov said. They now run five shops, two small cafes and a restaurant. Members of the collective hope sanctions stick around long enough for Russians to start exploring their own food, not just substitute imports from China or Turkey for what once came from the United States and Europe. To try to speed that process, LavkaLavka has started monthly food festivals celebrating something local. This month it is the parsnip, which is called pasternak in Russian, just like the surname of the “Doctor Zhivago” author. “If you ask a Russian what is a pasternak, he will say a famous writer,” Mr. Akimov said, “It is a vegetable, but nobody knows it.”

Boris Akimov
Russia
Agriculture
Vladimir Putin
Organic Food
Embargoes Sanctions
EU


When Charter Schools Are in Churches, Conflict Is in the Air

Abstract: Three years, 5,000 door hangers and several garage sales after its opening, Beta Academy has a long waiting list but an empty bank account. But if the school’s founder, Latisha Andrews, has her way, Beta, a private elementary school that operates out of the Houston Christian Temple Assembly of God Church, will soon transform into a new operation: a publicly financed charter school. If the state approves Ms. Andrews’s application this fall, Beta Academy will join the many charter schools that have partnerships with religious institutions that have cropped up in cities across Texas since the charter school system was established in 1995. In the past three years, 16 of the 23 charter contracts the state has awarded have gone to entities with religious ties. While charter school advocates say the practice often reflects no more than smart budgeting, some educators and others question whether the schools receive the proper oversight to ensure that religious groups are not benefiting from taxpayer dollars intended for public school students — or that faith-based instruction is not entering those classrooms. Ms. Andrews started Beta Academy after her own church, which is across the street from Christian Temple and where her husband is a pastor, closed its private school because of declining enrollment. While an elementary school principal there, she saw classes fill up with students from the local community, an economically depressed neighborhood near William P. Hobby Airport. "We would enroll kids in third and fourth grade, and they couldn’t read and write," she said. Not wanting to abandon parents she said were desperate for options beyond the local public schools, she continued the school on her own. Although Christian Temple was a generous landlord, she said, she struggled to keep the school open. "I sold everything out of my house just so kids could come, and I wasn’t making a drop in the bucket," she said. “Everyone wanted to come for free, it was hard, and I was trying to help all of them, paying half of their school tuitions.” Because they are publicly financed, charter schools are required to teach secular, state-approved curriculums. When founded by a faith-based organization, they are also required to operate under a separate nonprofit entity. Because charter schools do not receive facilities financing from the state, a leasing agreement with a church, whose grounds often stand empty during weekdays, can be a cost-efficient arrangement for both parties. “It’s difficult to turn off the faucet of religion once it’s there, whether it’s in the shape of the building or the people who are running it,” said Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit advocacy group that has sued schools in Texas over this issue. “If you are a person of faith you say, ‘I am religious 24/7.’ It’s just really hard to turn religion off if you are as dedicated or as evangelical as many of these groups are.” Texas Education Agency auditors have found inappropriate use of state money in such arrangements. Last summer, in the most recent example, it discovered that a San Antonio-based charter school’s superintendent had used school funds to buy a former church, then leased that building to the school she led. In June, Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill aimed at expanding the state’s charter school system. Though provisions in the legislation increase state oversight of charters and beef up the vetting process for proposed schools, it does not contain language aimed at charter schools with connections to places of worship. That is because state and federal laws already impose strict boundaries on public schools with any religious affiliations, said David Dunn, the director of the Texas Charter School Association. While there have been instances of abuse in the past, he said, charter operators overall were “very aware” of those restrictions. Image Latisha Andrews hopes to convert her private elementary school, which is housed at an Assembly of God church in Houston, into a charter school. Credit Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune “We think it is working appropriately now,” Mr. Dunn said. “The law is very clear. The agency has very clear monitoring and compliance instructions.” He cited examples of schools going to great lengths to ensure the integrity of the church-state boundary. A church bulletin board was covered while school was in session. Leaders questioned whether a church member could walk down the hallway during the school day. Bracy Wilson, a McKinney-based education consultant, has found a niche business helping build relationships between charter schools and churches. Since 2010, he has worked with nine clients connected with churches, including Beta Academy, through the state’s charter school application process. His professional interests evolved from a family background in the field. His father, Tom Wilson, founded Life Schools, a charter network that operates six campuses in the Dallas area. The first had its beginnings with the Oak Cliff Assembly of God Church, where he was a pastor at the time, more than a decade ago. “When we are looking for a location, that church is often the most conservative lease structure or contract that is the least amount of money and most amount of quality for that school,” Mr. Wilson said. The issue is not so simple for others in the education community. In the 15 years that Jack Ammons spent auditing public schools across the state as a monitor for the education agency, he said he found it was “nearly impossible” for charter schools operating out of church facilities to avoid spending state funds on students in ways that also benefited the church. While he said state supervision of charter schools with religious ties had improved, Mr. Ammons, who left the education agency in 2010, added that “questionable practices” still existed. “There are schools once again where preachers are making good money off of keeping the charter schools in churches,” he said. Ms. Andrews said that before she approached the church across the street, she had exhausted her options trying to find an alternative location. Fifteen minutes after calling the church, she found herself sitting in the pastor’s office, being told that the church had always wanted to have a school. This is her second attempt at securing a charter school contract. Her application failed to make it to the interview process the first time. The State Board of Education, which works with the Texas Education Agency to approve charter contracts, is not required to explain why applicants are turned down, but Ms. Andrews has a theory. She initially applied under a nonprofit foundation that she and her husband had established, Wide Awake Ministries. “It did have the word ministry in it,” she said. “The feedback I’ve gotten from several people was that they didn’t want anyone affiliated with churches — or Christians — to get those charters.” With the name of the nonprofit associated with her application now changed to the Beta Foundation, she said she hoped the outcome would be different. She does not expect the shift from a private Christian school to public charter to be a challenge. “I don’t use a lot of Christian curriculum right now,” she said. “I know full well what the law says, and I have no problem being in compliance with the law.”

Charter school
Texas
Separation of church and state
K-12 Education


Visa Program for Afghan Translators Is Renewed, With New Restrictions

Abstract: WASHINGTON — After a protracted political debate, Congress passed a measure on Thursday that would offer sanctuary to a fraction of the Afghan interpreters and translators who have risked their lives to help the military. The measure, included in an annual military policy bill, renews the nearly nine-year-old visa program for Afghans facing serious threats because they assisted American troops. The Senate passed the broader, $619 billion legislation, 92 to 7, sending it to President Obama for his signature. But the renewal added just 1,500 extra visas, not nearly enough to cover the approximately 13,000 pending applications, and it imposes more eligibility restrictions on an already complicated process. The fix may not be enough to save the program — and the Afghans who are anxiously hoping it will be their deliverance from the Taliban and other threats, said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire. “I think it’s clear that we will run out of those visas,” she said. Last summer, a handful of Republican lawmakers disrupted what has become a somewhat regular allocation of visas to the program, questioning the cost of the 4,000 additional visas requested by the Obama administration this year and, in one case, tying them up procedurally to force consideration of unrelated legislation. Now, the fate of the visa program will hinge on a government led by President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has yet to say how he will handle an issue that is championed by the military but would also bring more Muslim immigrants to the United States. There is some cautious optimism that the more members of the military there are among Mr. Trump’s advisers, the more likely he is to support the program. Gen. David H. Petraeus, a former commander of American forces in Afghanistan who is reportedly under consideration for secretary of state, is among those who have argued the United States has made a commitment to protect those Afghans — one that would hurt the country’s credibility overseas if abandoned. “By failing to allocate sufficient visas to provide our Afghan allies with a path to safety, we fail to keep the faith with them — and with our troops and diplomats who rely on them to succeed in their mission,” Betsy Fisher, the policy director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a statement last week. It was a relatively subdued conclusion for the broader bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, which set off bitter disputes this year about workplace protections for gay men and lesbians employed by federal contractors, and about efforts to restrict the Confederate flag. It also prompted a debate about whether women should be required to register for the draft, a measure that was ultimately cut from the final bill. Republicans trumpeted in particular the fact that the bill would offer troops their largest pay increase since 2010, a raise of 2.1 percent, as well as an overhaul of the troubled health care system for veterans. The legislation will also make changes to the acquisitions office at the Pentagon, splitting it into two to separate its more cutting-edge research work from daily tasks like managing contracts. The bill will lay the framework for the Pentagon that Mr. Trump will soon inherit, leaving it up to the next Congress to set aside the money to fund many of those policies. Mr. Trump said during his campaign that he would toss out the military budget caps known as sequestration, opening the door to more spending. Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said on Tuesday that lawmakers would quickly take up spending bills early next year. Democrats expressed some reservations about the legislation, which totaled more than $3 billion above Mr. Obama’s budget request. While officials have not yet said whether Mr. Obama will sign it, Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, recently told reporters there were parts of the legislation that were “encouraging.”

Visas
Translation
Legislation
Taliban
Immigration
Afghanistan
US Military
Afghanistan War


From Top to Bottom, Pacers Dominate Nets

Abstract: If the gulf in quality in the Eastern Conference has not been made clear enough each day in the standings, it was cruelly personified and reiterated Monday night at Barclays Center. The Indiana Pacers, the top team in the conference standings, embarrassed the Nets, outdoing them in all facets on their way to an easy 103-86 victory. The Nets spiraled to a 9-18 record, and Coach Jason Kidd afterward suggested his players might be worryingly comfortable with the pitiable state of affairs. “I think it’s getting very close to just accepting losing,” Kidd said, the knot in his tie halfway down his chest. “We’re kind of getting comfortable with losing, and we’ve got to make a stand with that,” he went on, “because when things get tough, do we just give in? Most of the time, right now, we do.” In this unpleasant way, the Pacers provided a blunt measuring stick for the Nets. The Nets, after all, have been talking about a championship since the roster was retooled this summer. Indiana was precisely the sort of team they were constructed to compete against. But that was simply not the case Monday. The Pacers (23-5) are just one of three teams over .500 in the sorry Eastern Conference. They came to Barclays Center having dispatched their previous two opponents by a combined score of 220-160, and they extended their run of dominance Monday. After wearing the Nets down over the first two, scrappy quarters, they hit the open floor in more stylish fashion to run away with the game. “We’re a confident team that believes in ourselves and is never going to shy away from our goals and wanting to win a championship,” Pacers Coach Frank Vogel said. Lance Stephenson, 23, a Brooklyn native, produced a swaggering, all-around performance to lead the Pacers, finishing with 26 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals. When the game was over, Stephenson walked off the floor with his hands raised over his head, and he received a cheer from some fans assembled near the tunnel. No player on the Nets had matched his athleticism, his effort or his charisma. “I was just very motivated and very hyped for this game,” said Stephenson, who had several family members watching him from the stands. Image The Pacers’ Lance Stephenson had 26 points in the win over the last-place Nets on Monday. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times The Nets as a group are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They shot 38.2 percent, going just 6 for 26 from 3-point range. Joe Johnson had a quiet 17 points to lead them. The Nets trailed by 6 points at halftime, but they were outscored 30-19 in the third quarter. And as their effort was disintegrating, the game took another unseemly turn. The Pacers’ George Hill was racing down the court on a fast break when Paul Pierce ran alongside him at high speed and dragged him to the floor, clobbering him in the head. Upon reviewing the play, the referees determined the foul was a flagrant foul-2, and Pierce was ejected from the game with 4 minutes 22 seconds left in the third quarter. George, who was slow to get up but was not hurt, did not seem to have an issue with the play. “Hard fouls are part of the game,” he said. Pierce did not speak to reporters after the game. He missed all seven of his shots and finished a game without a point for the first time since March 1999, his rookie season. His performance encapsulated the Nets’ night. Deron Williams (9 points, 8 assists) said the Nets were not confident, but he disputed his coach’s theory that they were growing comfortable. “I’m not comfortable with losing,” he said. “It’s not fun.” The Nets were beginning life without center Brook Lopez, who will miss the rest of the season after fracturing the fifth metatarsal in his right foot in Friday’s loss to Philadelphia. Mirza Teletovic played power forward — starting for the third time in his career — while Kevin Garnett shifted to center. They combined to go 6 for 20 from the field and had nine rebounds. The Nets received a small lift in the return of guard Jason Terry, who had not played since Nov. 20 while battling left knee soreness. He played more than 15 minutes and scored 11 points. He said the Pacers were simply firmer in their group identity. “For us, it’s a process, and it’s going to take us a while to get there,” Terry said. “But they’ve set the bar very high.” On Monday, the bar seemed far out of the Nets’ reach.

Pacers
Lance Stephenson
Brooklyn Nets
Basketball


Harlem Church Where Malcolm X Was Eulogized Faces Its Own Final Days

Abstract: “Here — at this final hour, in this quiet place — Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes — extinguished now, and gone from us forever,” the actor Ossie Davis said on Feb. 27, 1965, over the coffin of Malcolm X , a transcendent lightning rod among African-American leaders who had been assassinated by gunmen six days earlier. Now the hour has come to bid farewell to the place itself: the Childs Memorial Temple Church of God in Christ , originally the Bluebird Theater , on Amsterdam Avenue near West 147th Street. It is, indeed, quiet. The congregation has moved its services to a storefront space at 500 West 148th Street. There are no longer any pews in the 600-seat auditorium. The chandeliers under which Mr. Davis spoke have been removed for safekeeping. Darnelle Watts , who identified himself as a minister of the church when we met last week, said the future held demolition and then construction of a 10-story apartment building at the north end of the 125-foot-long site. A new two-story church is planned for the south end, with a sanctuary, a dining hall, classrooms and a chapel that would incorporate the architectural artifacts of the current church. Mr. Watts deferred to the pastor of the church, Kevin Griffin, on questions such as who would build the project. Telephone messages left for Mr. Griffin were not returned. (The city’s Buildings Information System shows no demolition permit for the site.) Image The funeral for Malcolm X in 1965, at what was then known as the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ. The church hosted the ceremony after other local houses of worship declined. Credit Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times “We’re going to build a stronger and a better church,” Mr. Watts said. “Within a year and a half, we should be back.” But there was no disguising his sorrow that the 95-year-old building, with all of its memories, would be lost in the bargain. “We tried for years to keep it up,” Mr. Watts said. “The roof wasn’t as strong as we thought. When you fixed one hole, another one opened up. It just became one hole too many.” The sanctuary was abandoned six months ago, he said. What brought me there was an alert from Michael Henry Adams , the perennially beleaguered but indefatigable defender of Harlem landmarks, official and otherwise. (Childs Memorial Temple is not a designated landmark.) By the time I arrived, the west memorial windows of the church had already been removed. But the east windows — dedicated to Mother Elizabeth Burgess, Irene Roland, LuLa Robinson, Alvara Clarke and Deacon Willie Quick — were still in place. Image The building, on Amsterdam Avenue near West 147th Street, was a synagogue at one point in its varied, 95-year history. Credit David W. Dunlap/The New York Times So was the Bluebird’s elegant proscenium arch, draped in lyrelike ornamental scrolls, painted gold, and framed by balconies faced with golden swags. “What can be done?” Christopher Moore asked in an email, after I told him what was going on. Mr. Moore, a former member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, helped curate the 2005 exhibition “ Malcolm X: A Search for Truth ,” at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. He answered his own question: Move the proscenium intact to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, which is scheduled to open this year, or to the New-York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York or a new theater. One might reasonably wonder how the funeral of an American Muslim leader, known not only as Malcolm X but also as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, came to be held in a Pentecostal church that was once, in its varied existence, a synagogue. As 1965 began, the most prominent Muslim place of worship in New York was Mosque No. 7 of the Nation of Islam, at Lenox Avenue and West 116th Street. Malcolm had been an eminent leader in the Nation of Islam until 1964, when he repudiated that movement, led by Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. After that, Malcolm considered himself a marked man. Image The scene outside Malcolm X’s funeral, which proceeded peacefully despite fears of violence. “Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes,” the actor Ossie Davis said in paying tribute to the slain African-American leader. Credit Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times Members of the Nation of Islam were suspected of killing Malcolm. Mosque No. 7 was firebombed the day after his assassination. As thousands paid their respects to Malcolm at a Harlem funeral home, his followers searched anxiously for a church in which to conduct the funeral, the author Alex Haley wrote in the epilogue to “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” The famed Abyssinian Baptist Church, on West 138th Street, was among those that declined, he said. Bishop Alvin A. Childs of the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ (later renamed in his honor) was the clergyman who finally opened his doors. He and his wife then received bomb threats at home and at church, Mr. Haley wrote. But the hourlong funeral — conducted as a Muslim service, with Bishop Childs on the sideline — turned out to be stately, orderly and peaceful. “It was Davis’s soliloquy on the meaning of Malcolm’s life to the black people of Harlem that captured the public’s imagination, and in subsequent decades would dwarf everything else that occurred that day,” Manning Marable wrote in “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.” Here is how Mr. Davis concluded his valedictory , framed by the little proscenium arch whose future is now uncertain: “Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man — but a seed — which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is — a Prince — our own black shining Prince! — who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.”

Harlem
Malcolm X
Assassination
Demolition
Funerals
Michael Henry Adams
Historic preservation
Black People,African-Americans
Muslim Americans


Alcatel-Lucent Gives Details on Plan to Cut 10,000 Jobs

Abstract: PARIS — The French-American telecommunications equipment maker announced on Tuesday details of a major restructuring plan that includes 10,000 job cuts worldwide over the next two years. The strategy, which Alcatel-Lucent, the company, presented to its European workers council, is aimed at cutting fixed costs by 15 percent by the end of 2015, an amount currently equivalent to 1 billion euros, or about $1.4 billion. “All geographic areas where Alcatel-Lucent operates will contribute” to the job cuts, the company said in a statement, including 4,100 positions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; 3,800 in the Asia-Pacific region; and 2,100 in the Americas. The job cuts work out to nearly 14 percent of the 72,344 worldwide employees Alcatel-Lucent reported at the end of 2012. Only the size of the job losses had been in question after Alcatel-Lucent’s new chief executive, Michel Combes, said in June that he would seek to transform the company over three years from a generalist telecommunications equipment maker into a specialist in the systems at the heart of next-generation networks, including cloud computing, Internet networking and ultra-broadband access. The layoffs represent the latest job cuts in the telecommunications industry, which has become increasingly competitive as companies vie for orders from the likes of Vodafone and China Mobile as they upgrade their data network infrastructure. Nokia Solutions and Networks, one of Alcatel-Lucent’s major European rivals, announced 17,000 job cuts in 2011 as the Finnish firm carried out a major restructuring of its global operations. As many of the world’s largest telecom companies plan major upgrades to their cellphone networks, Asian rivals like Huawei and ZTE are aggressively expanding, and analysts question whether Alcatel-Lucent’s restructuring plans will allow it to compete successfully for new orders. The French-American company has made so-called fourth generation cellphone infrastructure projects a priority, and announced last month that it had secured a deal with China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier, to deploy some of the upgrades to the firm’s data network. Mr. Combes said in a statement on Tuesday that the company had to “make difficult decisions” and that it would “make them with open and transparent dialogue.” Image A demonstration against cuts outside an Alcatel-Lucent plant on Tuesday in Orvault, near Nantes, in western France. Credit Stephane Mahe/Reuters Alcatel-Lucent’s reorganization, he added, “is about the company regaining control of its destiny.” “These changes have been a long time coming,” said Sylvain Fabre, a research director at the consulting firm Gartner in London. “The company needs to make choices about what areas it wants to prioritize.” Alcatel-Lucent, based in Paris, was formed from the 2006 merger of the French telecommunications infrastructure champion Alcatel and Lucent Technologies, a former AT&T unit. The combined company has never fulfilled expectations, fighting a constant battle to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive sector. Simon Poulter, an Alcatel-Lucent spokesman, said in an interview that the 10,000 jobs would be eliminated through a combination of outright layoffs, outsourcing and natural attrition. He revised his statement in an earlier interview that suggested an additional 5,000 jobs were possibly on the chopping block, a figure widely reported in the media, including in the French daily La Tribune. Mr. Poulter said the company also expected to add about 3,700 new employees to bring the skills of its work force in line with its strategic objectives in research and development. He stressed that there would be a net reduction of 10,000 jobs, but declined to comment further. The company will also reduce the number of its international business hubs by half and redirect its research and development spending toward growth areas, it said. Shares of Alcatel-Lucent slid 4 percent in Paris trading. The price had almost doubled to nearly 3 euros since Mr. Combes announced his plan on June 19. His restructuring also calls for the company to gain at least 1 billion euros from the disposal of nonstrategic assets. Nokia has been widely described as a likely bidder for the company’s wireless business, which is losing money. Stuart Jeffrey and Woo Jin Ho, analysts at Nomura International in New York, wrote in a research report that despite regulatory uncertainty and questions about how customers might react to such a deal, “an acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless assets by Nokia would address both companies’ issues so well that a transaction is highly likely.” French employees weary of insecurity and years of restructuring met the news of the downsizing with dismay. One union, the French Confederation of Management — General Confederation of Executives, denounced what it called “an unacceptable social tsunami.” It called for a halt to factory closings and for employees threatened with layoffs to be redeployed into the business areas being targeted for growth under the new plan. Mr. Combes, formerly chief executive of the British cellphone operator Vodafone, said in an interview published on Tuesday in the French newspaper Le Monde that, for Alcatel-Lucent, “Everyone recognizes that this is the last chance.” He added, “The situation in the enterprise is serious, very serious,” reaching a point last year when the company had to pledge its patents to secure bank financing. The previous restructuring plans “were not sufficient for resolving the problems of the group,” he said. The new plan “aims precisely at restoring industrial ambition.”

Telecommunication
Layoffs
Alcatel Lucent


21 Pakistan Tribal Policemen Are Found Shot to Death

Abstract: PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Twenty-one tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot to death in Pakistan’s troubled northwest tribal region early Sunday, government officials said. Officials found the bodies shortly after midnight in the Jabai area of the frontier region of Peshawar after being notified by one policeman who escaped, said Naveed Akbar Khan, a top political official in the area. Another policeman was found seriously wounded, Mr. Khan said. The 23 policemen disappeared before dawn on Thursday, when militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two posts in the region. Two other police officers were killed in the attacks. Militants lined the officers up on a cricket field late Saturday night and gunned them down, said another local official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell on the Pakistani Taliban, who have been waging a bloody insurgency against the government. The tribal region on the Afghanistan border is the main sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. On Saturday, an explosion ripped through a passenger bus at a terminal in the southern city of Karachi, killing 6 people and wounding 52 others, some of whom were in critical condition, said Dr. Seemi Jamali, who works at the hospital where the victims were being treated. The police were trying to determine whether the blast, which reduced the bus to a charred skeleton, was caused by a bomb or a gas canister that exploded, a police spokesman, Imran Shaukat, said. Many buses in Pakistan run on natural gas. Karachi has a long history of ethnic and sectarian violence. It is also believed to be home to many Taliban militants who have fled United States drone attacks and Pakistani Army operations in the northwest.

Pakistan
Taliban
Peshawar (Pakistan)
Terrorism
Attacks on Police


Hoboken Mayor, From Reformer to Defendant

Abstract: HOBOKEN, N.J. — No one seemed to be home in the town house of Mayor Peter Cammarano III on Saturday as about 100 protesters chanted for him to step down. One of the demonstrators put a huge mock check on Mr. Cammarano’s front door and in the memo line wrote in big letters, “To resign.” While Mr. Cammarano, one of several New Jersey public officials arrested in a sweeping federal corruption case last week, vowed the day after the arrests that he would do no such thing and denied all charges, the scene outside his home seemed to show how carefully cultivated political ambitions that began in childhood had been suddenly turned into the stuff of a vaudeville skit. As the city’s youngest mayor, and in office for less than a month, Mr. Cammarano had campaigned as a reformer and had aspirations that seemed to extend well beyond the boundaries of his small city. But some here see his arrest on charges of accepting $25,000 in bribes as another example of how his public persona is at odds with the facts of his life. “He ain’t who he says he is; that’s the bottom line,” said Tom Bertoli, a political operative who has run several campaigns in Hudson County. Born in Wayne, N.J., Mr. Cammarano graduated from Boston University and moved to Hoboken while at Seton Hall University Law School. He joined a law firm, but his heart clearly was in politics. He was the city’s coordinator of the Kerry-Edwards campaign, and two years later was the state legal director in Senator Robert Menendez’s campaign. He was elected to Hoboken’s City Council in 2005. Three days before his arrest, Mr. Cammarano told Dawn Zimmer, whom he defeated in a runoff by just 161 votes, just how long his political ambitions had been with him. “He said, ‘I’ve been preparing for this since I was 11 years old,’ ” said Ms. Zimmer, who is now the Council president and is in line to succeed him should he step down or be forced from office. “His ambition is something you glean from Peter,” said Councilman David Mello, 39, who was sworn in to the Council on the same day as Mr. Cammarano. Mr. Cammarano had integrated himself into Hoboken’s community and seemed to be a devoted family man. He attended St. Ann’s Church each Sunday with his wife, Marita Erbeck, and their daughter, Abigail, said the Rev. Thomas A. Crangle, the church’s pastor. On Wednesday, his 32nd birthday, Mr. Cammarano volunteered at the parish’s annual feast. “As far as what we know of him, he’s a great man, a great family man, a very faithful man,” Father Crangle said. Yet, in 1996, Mr. Cammarano was sued for failure to pay child support in Passaic County for a daughter he had with a high school girlfriend, who declined to comment for this article. If was not clear how or if the case was resolved, and Mr. Cammarano could not be reached for comment. “His hidden family troubles were an example of just how little people in Hoboken truly knew about the guy,” said Perry Klaussen, who writes the blog Hoboken411.com . “Shakespeare wouldn’t write this play because nobody would believe it.” Mr. Cammarano was a regular at the Malibu Diner, an always-open beacon of chrome, neon and over-easy eggs on the northern edge of this city of about 45,000. The diner figured in the criminal complaint against Mr. Cammarano. According to the complaint, Michael Schaffer, a close associate of the mayor, took three payments of $5,000 cash from a government witness, believed to be Solomon Dwek, an F.B.I. informant who was posing as a developer. Prosecutors said Mr. Schaffer, a commissioner on the North Hudson Utilities Authority, took an envelope with $10,000 cash on behalf of Mr. Cammarano in the parking lot of the diner. Inside the diner, according to the complaint, Mr. Cammarano told the government’s witness, “I promise you ... you’re going to be treated like a friend.” Mr. Cammarano’s rise began last year, when Hoboken faced a fiscal and government crisis. Mayor David Roberts and the City Council had failed to pass a budget. As a result, the state mandated a watch on Hoboken’s finances, a distinction that up to that point had been reserved mainly for rough-and-tumble municipalities like Camden, East Orange and Irvington. In the aftermath, Mr. Roberts declined to seek another term. Mr. Cammarano stepped up to run for the vacated seat and, with Mr. Robert’s endorsement, defeated Ms. Zimmer in a squeaker. He promised to curb corruption and quickly set about making a public show of his commitment. The week before his arrest, he issued a statement condemning Hoboken’s housing director, Hector Claveria, who had been arrested on bribery charges in a separate case. “This administration has a clear-cut, zero-tolerance policy against any violation of the public trust,” Mr. Cammarano said on July 15, calling for Mr. Claveria to resign. In a statement on Saturday night, Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who had earlier called for the resignations of two assemblymen charged last week, said he would consider trying to oust elected officials “serving under a cloud” if they refuse to leave on their own. “If no such power exists, he’ll ask the Legislature to devise a law to ensure a public official is removed from office if they are officially charged with a public corruption crime,” the statement said. On Saturday, officials in Lumberton Township, N.J., voted to fire Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt, one of those charged, from his position as township administrator, stripping him of his $90,000 salary. Officials decided to order an independent audit of their own finances, which Mr. Van Pelt supervised in his role as administrator. “We have no evidence at this time that there’s anything wrong,” Mayor Michael Mansdoerfer said in a telephone interview. “But we’d rather be safe than sorry.” Mr. Cammarano’s lawyer, Joseph Hayden, said his client, who is out on $100,000 bond, will plead not guilty. Mr. Cammarano went to work early on Friday and met with representatives from city departments, said Bill Campbell, a spokesman for the city. “It’s business as usual here,” he said. “It’s like any other day.”

Bribery
Cammarano Peter J III
Hoboken (NJ)
Politics and Government