Racial Identity, and Its Hostilities, Are on the Rise in American Politics

Abstract: Why do working-class Americans vote as they do? The question has long bedeviled analysts on the left, troubled that people who would largely benefit from a more robust government seem so often to vote for right-leaning politicians eager to cut federal programs to pay for tax cuts for the rich. The unusual Republican presidential primary, evolving from one surprise to the next, has revived the debate, but with an important racial coda. As Donald Trump and Ted Cruz surge in the polls, buoyed by the enthusiastic support of angry white men, they raise a narrower question: What’s going on with working-class whites? Though subtle, this variation reflects an important shift in American politics: Perhaps even more than economic status, racial, ethnic and cultural identity is becoming a main driver of political choice. It suggests that the battle over the purpose and configuration of the American government — what it’s for, who it serves — may become more openly about “us” versus “them,” along ethnic lines. Consider the Trump phenomenon. While polls find that he also leads the Republican pack among women and higher-income voters, by far his most solid support comes from less educated, lower-income white men, according to a Pew Research Center analysis conducted in October. Donald Trump is backed by 43 percent of Republicans with at most a high school education, but only 28 percent of those with bachelor degrees and 21 percent of those with some graduate school, according to an analysis of the most recent New York Times/CBS poll. Similarly, a Quinnipiac University poll last month found that Hillary Clinton would readily beat Mr. Trump in a general election among college-educated voters, while Mr. Trump would eke out victory among those without a college degree. This is also true of the other angry Republican at the top of the list, Senator Ted Cruz. Their supporters are overwhelmingly white. White non-Hispanics are the only ethnic group that leans Republican, according to a study of party affiliation by the Pew center. White men who have not completed college favor the G.O.P. over the Democratic Party by 54 to 33 percent. President Obama and Bernie Sanders have speculated that frustration over lost jobs and stagnant wages can explain much of the blue-collar support for Mr. Trump and conservative populists more generally. The explanation, however, is not quite satisfactory. As Matthew Yglesias at Vox suggests, many white Americans are most likely drawn to Mr. Trump’s xenophobic, anti-immigrant message because they agree with it. Such voters are nostalgic for the country they lived in 50 years ago, when non-Hispanic whites made up more than 83 percent of the population. Today, their share has shrunk to 62 percent as demographic change has transformed the United States into a nation where others have a shot at political power. Their fear is understandable. In general, the concerns of Hispanic and black American voters are often different from those of white voters. But the reaction of whites who are struggling economically raises the specter of an outright political war along racial and ethnic lines over the distribution of resources and opportunities. Race, of course, has shaped political choices for a long time. The Republican takeover of the South is understood by scholars as a reaction to whites’ sense of betrayal after the Democratic push for desegregation under President Lyndon Johnson. Racial animosity has long helped foster a unique mistrust of government among white Americans. Nonwhite voters mostly like what the government does. But many white Americans, researchers have found, would rather not have a robust government if it largely seems to serve people who do not look like them. Americans owe their unusually minimalist state in large measure to racial mistrust. As the economists Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote put it in an important paper , European countries are much more generous to the poor relative to the United States mainly because of American racial heterogeneity. “Racial animosity in the U.S. makes redistribution to the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters,” they wrote. The eminent sociologist William Julius Wilson described two decades ago how race and economics collided. In the United States, he wrote, white taxpayers have opposed welfare because they see themselves “as being forced, through taxes, to pay for stuff for blacks that many of them could not afford for their own families.” Scholars have found evidence for these attitudes all over the place. For instance, Julian Betts of the University of California, San Diego and Robert Fairlie of the University of California,Santa Cruz found that for every four immigrants entering public high schools, one native student switched to a private school. Daniel Hungerman from the University of Notre Dame found that all-white congregations became less charitable as the share of black residents in the community rose. Perhaps because they have relied more on government programs and protections, members of minority groups have decidedly different beliefs about supporting social solidarity. Another study published by the Pew center in November found that 62 percent of white Americans would like the government to be smaller and provide fewer services. Only 32 percent of blacks and 26 percent of Hispanics agreed. Notably, minorities in the United States have never held much power. They are unlikely to feel that political influence to direct and constrain what government does is slipping away. The rich democracies of the West are living through strange times. In Europe, voters are increasingly drawn to xenophobic politics, driven, according to the former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer , by fear “based on the instinctive realization that the ‘white man’s world’ — a lived reality assumed by its beneficiaries as a matter of course — is in terminal decline.” Right-wing parties, Mr. Fischer added, are replacing the notion of a nation built on a shared commitment to a common constitutional and legal order with an ethnic definition of nationhood, derived from common descent and religion. White Europeans, in other words, are circling the wagons. A few years ago it looked as if the United States — long more tolerant of immigration, with a more fluid sense of national identity that readily allowed for hyphenation — could avoid this turn. But judging by this year’s political debate, held against the background of improving but still insufficient prosperity, Americans are moving in the same direction. Racial identity and its attendant hostilities appear to be jumping from their longstanding place in the background of American politics to the very center of the stage.

US
Republicans
Donald Trump
Democrats
Minorities
2016 Presidential Election
Race and Ethnicity
Black People,African-Americans
US Politics
Social Trends


Reported Golden Dawn Sightings Rattle Astoria, Queens

Abstract: IT was news to arouse the indignation of many residents of Queens: Golden Dawn , the neo-Nazi group based in Athens, had established an office in Astoria — or so it seemed. The evidence was elusive: late last month, a professional Web site suddenly appeared, showing the party’s swastikalike logo set against a dark Manhattan skyline and calling on the city’s Greek diaspora to donate food and clothing to a charity drive to benefit struggling poor people in Greece. There were pictures on the site: one was of a group of men with their backs turned to the camera, wearing black T-shirts reading, in Greek, “Golden Dawn New York.” Although the site went down within days of its emergence — targeted, it was reported , by Anonymous, the hackers’ group — it provoked sufficient outrage that local politicians, doing what they do, rallied at a news conference to condemn the right-wing party, and a grass-roots protest movement sprang up in an effort to oppose it. The problem was — and, indeed, still is — that almost nothing is known about the party’s actual presence in the neighborhood. Does Golden Dawn really have an office in Astoria, the center of the city’s Greek community? That is not clear. What are its goals? Also unclear. Is its membership significant or minimal? No one knows for sure. As far back as two years ago, one local resident says, he saw a car in the neighborhood with a Golden Dawn bumper sticker. “They’ve had people in New York for a while now,” said the resident, George Davis, 34, a Greek-American financial adviser. “It’s not like these guys woke up yesterday and decided to join.” The Golden Dawn sightings became more frequent, and perceptible, over the summer when a few business owners in Astoria were approached by members of the group, asking for donations for the charity drive, said Nicholas Levis (pronounced Luh-VEES), an activist with Occupy Astoria-L.I.C. The men did not identify themselves at first, although they apparently returned days later with Golden Dawn T-shirts for those who had made contributions. When the business owners realized that the food and hand-me-downs they had given were destined for an ultranationalist party, some of them, Mr. Levis recalled, became upset. It was around that time that party members also placed charity-drive collection boxes at the Stathakion Cultural Center in Astoria with labels that read, “For Greeks Only.” Christos Vournos, the first vice president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York , which is based at the center, said that he confronted the party members at the time and that they left the building — but only after a near-altercation. “I almost had a fistfight with one of their members,” Mr. Vournos said. “One of their supporters came back and apologized and I said: ‘If you want to perform your activities, it can’t be here. Not here. No political parties — none.’ ” Riding waves of economic apprehension and fears about illegal immigration, Golden Dawn won 18 of the Greek Parliament’s 300 seats in national elections in June — even after the party’s chief spokesman, Ilias Kasidiaris, slapped a rival during a televised political debate. The party has increased its presence in middle-class areas of Greece with vows to “rid the land of filth” and is accused of being behind attacks against immigrants and journalists. According to its home page, the group has opened offices in Greek communities as far away as Montreal and Melbourne, Australia. In New York, the party seemed to increase its outreach efforts starting late last month, after the appearance of the local chapter’s Web site. Christos Skarlatos, 67, works behind the counter at the Little Coffee Shop in Astoria. He said he was approached one day last month by a Golden Dawn member who asked if he could leave some Golden Dawn cards near the cash register. While Mr. Skarlatos said he had no fondness for the group — “I try to stay out of politics,” he offered with a shrug — he let the man leave about 30 cards behind. Within a week, he added, they were gone. Mr. Davis, the financial adviser, said that he saw members of the party, in groups of three or four, coming and going from the Stathakion Cultural Center only weeks ago. “This is still going on,” he said, adding that he had asked officials at the center if the party was meeting there. “Now that the leadership has seen the reaction from the community,” Mr. Davis said, “they’re denouncing Golden Dawn.” That much seems to be true. Elias Tsekerides, president of the Hellenic federation, said in an interview this month that several Golden Dawn members had, indeed, dropped by the center weeks ago and hastily snapped some photos — including, it appears, the one of the men in the party’s black T-shirts. “They took some pictures without our knowledge and posted them to the Internet,” Mr. Tsekerides (pronounced Seh-ker-RIDE-ees) said. “We had calls from here and from Greece asking us, ‘What are you guys doing giving them shelter?’ But there’s no such thing. We do not associate with political parties, and they are extremists. What do they have to offer the community at large? Just divisiveness, nothing constructive, in our view.” Eventually, this street-level conflict, and its attendant whispering campaigns, caught the ears of local politicians who, on Oct. 5, held a rally in Athens Square Park in Astoria to denounce Golden Dawn. There was much condemnation of “extremism” and “intolerance” and “bigotry” and well-meaning words in praise of “diversity” and “openness” and “broad coalitions.” But what there wasn’t was any new or actionable information about Golden Dawn New York. Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, who organized the event, acknowledged that no one knew the whereabouts of the party’s supposed office or the number of its supporters in New York. Costa Constantinides, the Democratic district leader, said he had never actually seen any local members of Golden Dawn and was more or less going on what he had picked up indirectly. After the event, a phone call in search of some specifics to Peter F. Vallone Jr., the local city councilman, produced an e-mail from a spokesman saying that Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, who represents Astoria, knew more about the group. While trying to be helpful, Ms. Simotas said, “I only know a little — and it’s all secondhand.” Nonetheless, the following week, in a forceful show of solidarity, more than 200 people crowded into the basement of the Church of the Redeemer in Astoria to protest the presence of fascists whom no one could definitively locate. The groups represented included the Socialist Alternative, Al-Awda NY, the Union Theological Seminary and the Hell Gate Anarchist Black Cross. Because it was not possible to speak in detail about Golden Dawn New York, the gathering became a kind of teach-in , with academics lecturing on Greek history in the post-Nazi era, what was called the failure of European immigration policy and the symbiotic relationship between Golden Dawn in Greece and the Greek power structure. “Does Golden Dawn have an office here like they’re claiming online?” Mr. Levis asked at the start of the event. “We don’t actually know,” he said. “But if they do turn up somewhere, at a storefront or a building, you can rest assured we’ll be there till they’re gone.”

Greek-Americans
Golden Dawn (Greece)
Queens (NYC)
Fringe Groups and Movements
Astoria (NYC)


Despite Killing, Mexican Backs Drug Policy

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — Faced with a surge in drug-related killings in recent days, President Felipe Calderón on Monday offered a spirited defense of his government’s antidrug offensive. On Thursday night and Friday morning, attacks between rival drug trafficking organizations left 85 people dead in states across Mexico , according to newspaper tallies, making it the bloodiest 24-hour period in Mr. Calderón’s three-year-old presidency. Mr. Calderón responded with his most extensive defense of his administration’s drug war, a 5,000-word missive published on the presidential Web site and in local newspapers that shifted some blame for violence to previous administrations and to the United States and insisted that backing down was not an option. “If we remain with our arms crossed, we will remain in the hands of organized crime, we will always live in fear, our children will not have a future, violence will increase and we’ll lose our freedom,” Mr. Calderón wrote. On Monday, as television and radio commentators analyzed the president’s statement, authorities announced another bad day, with 10 federal police officers killed and more than a dozen others wounded in a clash with traffickers in Zitácuaro, a town in the central state of Michoacán. The gunmen, some of whom died as well, used buses to close off major highways and obstruct reinforcements by the authorities, an increasingly common tactic employed by Mexico’s drug cartels. In another episode on Monday, 28 inmates were killed and 3 guards were wounded in an uprising led by detained traffickers in a prison in Mazatlán, in the Pacific state of Sinaloa, authorities said. The president, elected in 2006 to a six-year term, also condemned the huge demand for drugs and the easy availability of guns in the United States. “It is as though we have a neighbor next door who is the biggest addict in the world, with the added fact that everyone wants to sell drugs through our house,” Mr. Calderón said.

Mexico
Calderon Felipe
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Murders and Attempted Murders


Comptroller Says a City Property Is in Dangerous Condition

Abstract: A two-acre city property that stretches from East 18th to East 23rd Streets along the East River has serious structural damage, including corroded piers, water penetration and a parking garage that is at risk of “catastrophic failure,” according to an audit released on Tuesday by the city comptroller. The 32-page audit urged the Bloomberg administration to pay immediate attention to the site, which the city has leased since 1959. The lease is now held by a private company, New York Skyports, which uses the site as a marina, gas station and parking garage. “The Economic Development Corporation’s inadequate oversight of this lease may have jeopardized public safety, placed the city at financial risk, and may cost the city upwards of $5.5 million or more to rectify conditions dangerous to the public,” said the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr. “The parking garage at the site deteriorated to the point that the Department of Small Business Services admitted ‘catastrophic failure’ was imminent.” The Department of Small Business Services oversees property management at the site, while the Economic Development Corporation oversees the lease. For its part, New York Skyports adamantly disputed the findings of the audit. “The report is a subjective, unsupported, unverified and intentionally one-sided presentation,” a lawyer for the company, Philippe M. Salomon of the firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, wrote in a seven-page response included in the final audit report. Mr. Salomon said Mr. Thompson’s office had “failed to investigate independently the underlying facts, ignored countervailing but controlling circumstances, misstated matters — some of which have been previously resolved — exaggerated the significance and implications of the current state of affairs, and relied exclusively on the landlord’s contentions and allegations without resort to objectivity.” The audit, which covered the years 2006 and 2007, found that New York Skyports violated several lease terms and might owe the city nearly $6.1 million, including $5.5 million to fix the dangerous conditions; $464,000 for emergency repairs at the garage; and at least $46,614 in revenue payments resulting from the sale of merchandise and advertising at the site under the lease. The audit also found that New York Skyports had an outstanding water and sewer bill of $40,677, owed to the city. Mr. Thompson, who plans to run for mayor next year, urged the Economic Development Corporation to consider terminating the lease and to continue pursuing legal action to recoup all the money owed to the city. In a one-page response, Christopher Malin, the controller for the Economic Development Corporation, said the agency agreed that New York Skyports had violated the terms of its lease and that the city should seek to recoup the nearly $6.1 million. Mr. Malin’s letter did not address the harsh criticism of the development corporation in the audit.


Jeff Wilpon Says Family Won’t Sell Controlling Interest in Mets

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Jeff Wilpon, the Mets ’ chief operating officer, spoke to reporters Wednesday for the first time since a lawsuit seeking as much as $1 billion from the team’s owners was unsealed on Feb. 4. Wilpon, the son of the longtime principal owner of the Mets, Fred Wilpon , said his family had received many offers to buy part of the team, but he emphasized that his family would not relinquish a majority share. “We’re not selling controlling interest in the team,” he said. “It’s not on the table.” The lawsuit, brought by the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme , says that partners in the Mets’ parent company, Sterling Equities, particularly Saul Katz, the Mets’ president and Fred Wilpon’s brother-in-law, knew or should have known about the fraud. Katz and Fred Wilpon had a 25-year relationship with Madoff. The trustee, Irving H. Picard, is seeking money for Madoff’s victims and is going after the owners of the Mets because he said they were overall winners in their investments with Madoff. In January, Fred Wilpon said that because of the uncertainty brought by the lawsuit, the owners would seek to sell up to 25 percent of the team. Since then, negotiations between Picard and the Mets’ owners have broken off. Fred Wilpon is expected in camp Thursday and will speak with reporters. On Tuesday, Donald J. Trump told The New York Times that he contacted Fred Wilpon two weeks ago about buying a share of the team, but that he wanted a controlling share. Jeff Wilpon seemed to play down the prospect of a Trump bid for the team. “There’s been a lot of interest,” he said, “and good interest from real people that you haven’t read about in the paper. Most of what you read about in the paper is not real.” He then reiterated that his family would not relinquish its eight-year majority ownership of the team. “That’s it,” he said. “We’re not giving up control.” Wilpon also said the lawsuit would not affect the Mets’ day-to-day operations and pointed to the team’s payroll, which is projected to be the fifth or sixth highest in baseball in 2011. He said players should not be concerned. “This is an ownership issue, a Sterling Equities issue, and it has nothing to do with what goes on here,” he said. “As you know, our payroll is going to be $145, $150 million. That’s tops in baseball, or right up there, and we’re going to be committed to make sure all the resources are here and continue to run this team the way it’s been run.” Although the payroll is high, almost all of it was committed before the lawsuit and before the team’s financial uncertainties. The Mets were one of the most frugal teams this off-season. Wilpon said the payroll could increase, or decrease, depending on decisions by General Manager Sandy Alderson. “There’s flexibility to go up and flexibility to go down,” he said. “That’s more a question for Sandy, though.” Wilpon said the lawsuit had not affected him personally, but he defended his father and Katz against what he said were unfounded attacks. “I’m doing fine,” he said. “This is obviously all a little bit of a distraction, and I feel really bad for our family and for my dad and my uncle because this is unfounded criticism on them. They’ve had years and years that they’ve been good citizens, been good businessmen, and to attack them the way they’ve been attacked is really very unfair, unfounded and that’s all I really want to say on that.” Wilpon would not address a judge’s recent appointment of former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo as the mediator in the case, but he indicated the defendants were prepared to see it through in a trial. “We’re going to fight it, and we’re going to be victorious in the end,” he said. In an interview with The Times from prison in Butner, N.C., on Tuesday, Madoff said Fred Wilpon and Katz were not aware of his fraud. When asked if he felt that Madoff’s comments vindicated his father and uncle, Wilpon deferred. “I’m not going to discuss that,” he said. REYES MAY TRY FREE AGENCY Shortstop Jose Reyes is in the final year of his contract, and he appears headed for free agency. A Met since he was a teenager, Reyes said Wednesday that he did not want to be distracted by contract talks during the season, and he indicated he would rather try free agency for the first time. “I prefer talking after the season, when I’m going to be a free agent,” he said. “But what I see in my mind right now is play baseball and focus to staying healthy on the field and try to help this team to win a lot of ballgames.” Jeff Wilpon said the team was projecting situations that included and did not include Reyes in the future.

Baseball
New York Mets
Wilpon Jeff
Wilpon Fred


At Newark Museum, a Centennial Fete for Tibetan Art

Abstract: KATHERINE ANNE PAUL, curator of the Newark Museum ’s Arts of Asia collection, says that when she travels the world researching Tibetan art, “I see more about the Newark Museum than any other institution.” The museum was the first in the world to display an exhibition dedicated solely to Tibetan art, in 1911, Dr. Paul said. She is the curator of “Tibet Collection Centennial,” a nine-month celebration of the museum’s more than 5,000 Tibetan artworks, scheduled to open on March 5 and run until December. Programs, workshops and special events are in the works. The most special of the events, arguably, will be a visit by the Dalai Lama when he is in the city for the Newark Peace Education Summit , which runs from May 13 through May 15. He will stop by the museum for an invitation-only talk. Dr. Paul said, “This will be his fourth visit to us at the museum, and we’re very lucky, because he is the most amazing, charismatic speaker.” The museum has five galleries permanently dedicated to the display of Tibetan art, which are being reinstalled for the centennial over the next two months. Objects on display include sculptures of longevity deities and prayer stones. All five galleries are arranged around a Tibetan altar, parts of which have been in the museum’s possession since 1935, and which the Dalai Lama consecrated in 1990. Also opening on March 5 — the date coincides with the Tibetan New Year festival of Losar — is a temporary exhibition called “Tsongkhapa — The Life of a Tibetan Visionary.” It is a complete set of 15 paintings newly conserved, thanks to a National Endowment for the Arts Masterpiece grant, and it is one of only three known complete sets worldwide, Dr. Paul said. The paintings, part of the museum’s founding collection, date from the 18th century and illustrate the biography of Tsongkhapa (1357 to 1419), founder of the Gelug religious order of Tibetan Buddhism, whose most renowned member is the Dalai Lama. Before the centennial celebration closes in December, the museum will host three Tibetan art lectures, a fall art course called “Teachings of Tibet” and a Tibetan bazaar running from May 8 to May 15. At the bazaar, visitors will be able to buy rugs, furniture, prayer wheels, jewelry, Tibetan music and incense from vendors. “We’re doing it to overlap with the visit” from the Dalai Lama, Dr. Paul said. “We want him to feel right at home.”

Art
National Endowment for the Arts
Buddhism
New Jersey


In a City Wary of Skyscrapers, a New Tower May Rise

Abstract: PARIS — The last skyscraper built in Paris opened in 1973, an unadorned dark block, rising 59 stories — the Montparnasse Tower. It was considered a disaster. To this day, Parisians joke that the tower offers the best views in the city, because it is the only place from which you cannot see it. City officials went to work banning future skyscrapers altogether. Now, however, four decades later, Paris is again considering a new skyscraper — a triangular, 42-story glass office tower designed by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron that would stand in the city’s southwest corner. Over the years, Parisians have come to embrace some of the city’s bolder architectural adventures, such as the glass pyramids inside of the Louvre courtyard or the Pompidou Center, built with its network of colorfully painted water pipes and air-conditioning ducts on the outside. But the resistance to skyscrapers has been fierce. For some Parisians, the new proposal is another Montparnasse in the making, an architectural star turn that would further disfigure one of the city’s key selling points — an almost perfect 19th-century skyline. For the last few decades, they say, the city has done very nicely by keeping office towers outside the city limits in areas like La Défense, on its western edge, now a forest of glass and steel. But in these trying times, with the country’s economy moribund, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has been arguing otherwise, delighted to see such a huge private investment in an area of Paris that, at the moment, is not much to look at. For now, the area is a collection of conference centers that lie between the highway that runs around the city periphery and a not particularly distinguished residential neighborhood in the 15th Arrondissement, near the Porte de Versailles. The tower would provide 5,000 construction jobs, city officials say. It would offer marquee office space that could attract new companies to establish headquarters here. Backed by Unibail-Rodamco, a top European property developer, the Triangle Tower would cost about 500 million euros, or about $627 million. “There are many selling points to this project,” said Jean-Louis Missika, the city’s deputy mayor for architecture and urbanism. “It would be an important economic development for the city.” Mr. Missika argues that a project like the new tower would act as a kind of lighthouse, giving distinction to the entire neighborhood, as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, prompted a rejuvenation of that city. Nonetheless, the project came close to dying this week as it failed to garner enough votes in the City Council. But as the vote came to an end, the winners made the mistake of brandishing their “no” ballots, making public what was supposed to be a private poll — and giving Ms. Hidalgo an opening to bring the whole matter to court. The vote was close, 78 to 83, pitting Ms. Hidalgo’s Socialist city councilors against those from the center right and the environmentalist parties. A little more time and a new vote, city officials believe, and the tower might yet be built. Those against the project are furious at the mayor’s maneuver. “It the vote had gone the other way, you can be sure that the mayor would have been just fine with it,” said Olivier de Monicault, the president of SOS Paris, an association founded in the 1970s to oppose architectural projects, such as skyscrapers, that it believed would destroy Paris’s distinct heritage. Mr. de Monicault said there were all kinds of arguments to be made against the tower, including that it was not a tower, but a wall that would cast a huge shadow on the surrounding neighborhood. But perhaps most fundamental, he said, is the fear of doing damage to the look and feel of the city: “Tourists do not come here to see Manhattan,” he said. Leading the charge against the tower in the City Council was Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, from the center-right Union for a Popular Movement, who ran for mayor against Ms. Hidalgo this year and lost. Ms. Kosciusko-Morizet said the city’s experience with solitary towers had proved them disastrous. “They overwhelm the neighborhood,” she said. Moreover, she said, the tower would only help signal the edge of the city at a time when Paris is trying to reach across the highway that encircles it to better integrate the neighborhoods beyond. “We are not against modernity,” Ms. Kosciusko-Morizet said, “but this is not about modernity. What we are hearing is the same arguments that got us the Montparnasse Tower. There is nothing unique here. All the cities in the world have glass towers. There is nothing inventive here.” Ms. Kosciusko-Morizet said she found the use of a secret vote to be particularly dishonest since such votes were never used except over issues of personnel nominations. She said her party members had objected to the secret ballot all along and said before the vote that they would not keep their votes private. A poll conducted last year by the B.V.A. polling agency found that most Parisians — 62 percent — were against any new skyscrapers, even if for much-needed new housing. Often it seems it is the younger Parisians who are more inclined to see the new Triangle Tower in a positive light. “For me it makes economic sense,” said Ralph Hippocrate, 28, a publicist for a French television channel. “For jobs it might create, but also for the good it might do for the businesses in the neighborhood.” But many older Parisians fear that city officials did not learn the lesson of Montparnasse, a building that regularly makes lists of the 10 ugliest buildings in the world. They believe that skyscrapers are simply out of place in the heart of Paris. “We are not in Dubai,” said Danielle Outreman, 60, who is retired. “I like it that in Paris I am not surrounded by enormous buildings. I think that putting them all in La Défense is just fine.”

Anne Hidalgo
City council
Polls
Buildings
Paris France


Jets Endure the Storm Before the Calm

Abstract: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Aug. 21 — It felt like a damp and drizzly November day at Jets training camp Tuesday, and that was fine for the man in charge. Coach Eric Mangini has not seen everything go his way this preseason, but he could not have asked for better (that is, worse) weather. “I was happy to see the weather today,” Mangini said. “It’s great — cold, hot, snow, wind, rain, hail. Whatever it is. Noise. The more distraction you have, the tougher it is, the more pressure the group can be under collectively, that’s important.” To simulate the game-day din, the music was cranked up for the soggy practice. The soundtrack included “Umbrella” by Rihanna, as well as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” One person who has appreciated the camp’s meteorological hardship is David Bowens, a 30-year-old defensive end who signed in April. A versatile veteran who may play a hybrid role at linebacker, Bowens wants to be ready for everything this season, including the worst possible weather. “We’ve had all elements this camp: cold, rain, heat, humidity,” he said. “It’s a thing that gets you acclimated to game situations.” Closing last season as a free agent with 26 sacks in the last three seasons, Bowens, who has a little salt and pepper in his goatee, had several options as he looked for a place to finish his career. Why did he choose the Jets, who are known for tough workouts? “It’s pretty similar to the way Nick ran his camp,” said Bowens, referring to Nick Saban, his coach for the last two seasons with the Dolphins. He said he knew Mangini expected a lot from his players and that “everybody was held accountable and responsible for his own actions.” “It’s something I believe in,” Bowens said. In New York, Bowens has been reunited with two coaches with whom he has a long history. When Bowens was at the University of Michigan, Jim Herrmann, the Jets’ linebackers coach, was a defensive assistant there. And for the last two seasons in Miami, Bowens worked with the Jets’ new defensive line coach, Dan Quinn. What Bowens needs to find now is a teammate who shares his passion for bowling, which may be a tall order. He has a 210 average, and is traveling with four 16-pound bowling balls. (His father was in the Professional Bowlers Association, he said.) Laveranues Coles is said to be a competent bowler. When will Bowens challenge Coles, the team’s star receiver, on the lanes? “We’ll get together sooner or later and figure it out; we just don’t have time right now,” said Bowens, who listed Jerome Bettis and O. J. McDuffie, each retired, as two of the respectable bowlers in the N.F.L. Mangini feigned indignation over the suggestion that he has a reputation for running a tough camp. After a month, the Jets have finally scaled back from two-a-day practices. “In terms of fatigue, I think anytime you get to this point in camp, you’re fatigued, and everybody around the league is fatigued,” Mangini said. He sounded cautiously positive in comparing the team’s level of preparation to that of a year ago, when he was starting out in the job. “It’s different in the sense that you’re teaching at a different level, because you’re not focused as much on the core things: terminology, base formations, base adjustments, base route conversions,” Mangini said. “You’ve got a body of work there.” EXTRA POINTS The Jets traded linebacker Jerry Mackey to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Tuesday for an undisclosed draft pick. It will be Mackey’s second stint with Tampa Bay this summer, after it signed him as an undrafted free agent out of Syracuse on May 3 (and released him to the Jets in June). ... The Jets’ first-round pick, Darrelle Revis, is learning as fast as he can after a contract holdout delayed his arrival until late last week. “It’s starting to come to me now,” said Revis, who said he had not played a football game since about last Thanksgiving. “I’m looking forward to playing on Saturday, even if it’s just one play. That is up to the coaches.”


Jordan Sends Envoy Back to Israel as Tensions Ease

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Jordan said on Monday that it was sending its ambassador back to Israel, three months after he was recalled in protest of what the Jordanians called Israeli violations at a contested holy site in East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel welcomed the decision. The decision to return the ambassador, Walid Obeidat, to the Jordanian Embassy in Tel Aviv reflected an easing of tensions and what both countries regard as the importance of the ties between them. It also attested to the calm that has prevailed in recent weeks at the volatile Jerusalem site revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount. Jordan is the official custodian of the sacred compound, the location of Al Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock. Israel is in charge of security. Mohammad al-Momani, the Jordanian government spokesman, said the ambassador was scheduled to be back in Tel Aviv by Monday evening. In a telephone interview, Mr. Momani said that Jordan had seen “significant improvements” in the access Israel allowed Muslim worshipers to the mosque on Fridays, and that there had been better coordination on tourist visits between the Israeli authorities and the Islamic authorities who administer the site under Jordanian supervision. “We felt the message was heard loud and clear, and it is time for the ambassador to go back and to continue following Jordanian interests,” Mr. Momani said. The dispute over the holy site had acutely strained Israel’s relations with Jordan, two decades after the two countries signed a peace treaty. While relations are not warm or openly friendly, the two countries share long borders and coordinate closely on security issues in what has become an increasingly turbulent Middle East. Mr. Netanyahu said of the Jordanian decision, “This is an important step that reflects the shared interests of Israel and Jordan and first among them, stability, security and peace.” Israel’s ambassador to Jordan remained in Amman despite Jordan’s diplomatic sanction, and the Jordanian Embassy in Tel Aviv remained open during the ambassador’s absence. The tensions over Al Aqsa had accrued over a number of months, as some nationalist Israelis increasingly challenged a decades-old ban on Jewish prayer at the site, revered by Jews as the place where ancient temples once stood. Defiant visits by Israeli activists and politicians pushing for Jewish prayer rights, fierce clashes between Palestinian protesters and the police, and Israeli limitations on the entry of Muslim worshipers to the site all contributed to the recall of the Jordanian ambassador. The episode also severely strained Israel’s relations with the Palestinians and fanned unrest in the predominantly Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Israel accused President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority of incitement to violence after he called on Muslims to defend Al Aqsa “by all means.” Palestinians carried out deadly attacks using vehicles, knives, meat cleavers and guns as weapons. Israel seized the compound from Jordan in the 1967 war, along with the rest of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel then annexed East Jerusalem in a move that was never internationally recognized. Israeli Jews and tourists are allowed to visit the compound, but the police do not allow non-Muslim prayer there, saying it poses a threat to public order. The tensions with Jordan spiked in the aftermath of an attempt in late October by a Palestinian gunman to assassinate Yehuda Glick, an Israeli-American activist who had agitated for more Jewish rights at the contested holy site. Mr. Glick was severely wounded but survived. The Palestinian assailant was killed hours later in what police described as a shootout. Israel temporarily barred all access to the revered compound for the first time in many years, citing security concerns. Jordan recalled its ambassador days later, after the Islamic authorities said that Israeli security forces had entered the mosque with their boots on, considered a grave insult, and then damaged the mosque doors, burned carpets and broke glass as they confronted Palestinian protesters. Video filmed by the Israeli police showed masked Palestinians hurling rocks and firecrackers at the police from inside Al Aqsa Mosque. Mr. Netanyahu immediately engaged in damage control , reassuring King Abdullah II of Jordan in a phone call that Israel was committed to maintaining the status quo at the contested site and to maintaining Jordan’s traditional role there — a pledge Mr. Netanyahu has repeated publicly many times. Mr. Netanyahu also called on his ministers and Israeli legislators to refrain from visits to the site. Israel has eased age restrictions on Muslim entry to the site for Friday noon prayers since mid-November, and the clashes have waned. Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said that more than 40,000 Muslims had prayed there on recent Fridays without incident. He added that thousands of tourists and “small numbers” of Israelis have also visited the site during the week, but there have not been any recent, high-profile visits by Israeli leaders. Still, the friction simmers. Mr. Rosenfeld said that a group of Arab women were escorted out of the compound by police two weeks ago after they shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” presumably to disturb a visit by Israelis. Last week, Mr. Rosenfeld said, the police removed six Israeli men from the area after they strayed from the route designated for visitors.

Jordan
Israel
Jerusalem
Benjamin Netanyahu
Walid Obeidat
Diplomats Embassies and Consulates
Temple Mount,Nobel Sanctuary
King of Jordan Abdullah II


Wounded by Defeat, an Indian Party Turns On Itself

Abstract: NEW DELHI — It is an all-too-familiar political story. First there was the electoral drubbing at the hands of a center-left juggernaut. Next came the recriminations, with party leaders taking nasty, public swipes at one another in dueling magazine articles, op-ed articles and talk show appearances. Then came the agonizing debate: should the party lurch rightward to consolidate its base, or rush toward the center to attract moderate voters? And finally, the purge: party members who do not make the ideological cut are cast out or pushed aside. If the script sounds familiar to those who have followed American politics in the last year, this one is playing out in the majestic, colonial-era halls of power in India ’s capital, where the Bharatiya Janata Party , or B.J.P., which seemed almost unstoppable when it swept into power a decade ago, is at risk of slipping into irrelevance. The descent of the B.J.P., India’s second-largest political party, has once again raised a question that has pricked at the world’s most populous democracy since its independence from Britain in 1947: Will the country ever produce a true rival to the Congress Party , which has governed for most of the last 62 years? And if it does not, what does that mean for India’s democracy? Its onetime winning formula, combining a muscular nationalism with pro-market reforms and pledges of good government, fell flat in the face of a revitalized Congress Party in parliamentary elections in May. The bad news did not stop there, keeping India’s lively political press gleefully busy with one scandal after another. The squabbling reached its peak two months ago when the party expelled one of its stalwarts, Jaswant Singh, for writing a book that lionized the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Since its release in August, Mr. Singh’s book, “Jinnah: India — Partition — Independence,” has shaken the B.J.P. Mr. Singh was summarily expelled from the party, and Gujarat, one of India’s wealthiest states and a bastion of B.J.P. support, tried to ban his book. Its main offense is that it does not blame Mr. Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, for the partition of British India in 1947, but Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. The battle over Mr. Singh’s book is merely the latest development in what has been a grim political struggle for the soul of the party. The party was once so successful that it seemed that the Hindu nationalist fervor that brought it to the fore might transform the secular, diverse nation that is modern India into one guided and dominated by a single faith. In the 1980s and ’90s the defiant pose of Hindu nationalism fit well with the mood in India, which was tired of being seen as an impoverished nation forever hobbled by experiments with socialism and inept public administration. Hindutva, as the ideology was known, cultivated a tougher image that matched India’s global aspirations. If the Congress Party, which has governed India for much of its history, gave India freedom, then the B.J.P. gave it self-respect in a world accustomed to thinking of it in terms of human suffering. But in the 21st century, India has become an emerging power whose voice rumbles with growing authority. The old insecurities that drove middle-class Hindus toward the B.J.P. seem to have melted away. To many political observers, the B.J.P. got precisely the defeat it deserved. It failed, the argument goes, to present a coherent alternative to the Congress Party, which had governed in a shaky coalition with decidedly underwhelming results for five years. In this context, what seems like an intramural squabble in a party still nursing its wounds from a nasty whipping has much broader consequences. “We are going back into a period of Congress dominance,” said Prem Shankar Jha, an analyst who writes frequently on politics. “But it is an insecure dominance, which always leads to very bad governance.” Ramachandra Guha, an Indian historian, said the B.J.P.’s implosion made it nearly impossible for the party to play the much-needed role of loyal opposition, keeping the governing party in line. “Clearly we need some kind of robust alternative to the Congress,” Mr. Guha said. “One does not want the Congress to acquire a sense of invincibility.” But if recent events are any guide, the B.J.P. is too busy with its internal tussles to take on the governing party. Such battles have served only to remind voters of the kinds of narrow causes the party has championed in the past, often with tragic results. One is its support for the reconstruction of a temple at the site in the state of Uttar Pradesh that Hindu nationalists believe to be the birthplace of Ram. In 1992, rampaging Hindu mobs destroyed a mosque that had been built there, and spasms of religious violence reverberated in India for years afterward, culminating a decade later in riots in Gujarat that killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims. While such issues fire up the party’s base of militant, upper-caste Hindus, they have over the years alienated many voters from the party. “Middle-class voters seemed embarrassed that in the 21st century they should be asked to debate India’s future on the basis of a dispute over a medieval mosque,” Vir Sanghvi, a columnist for The Hindustan Times, wrote this summer . The Congress Party’s huge victory in parliamentary elections in May was celebrated as a chance to end the fractious era of messy coalition politics that had held back major reforms. But in the past, long periods of virtually unchallenged Congress rule have not been particularly kind to India. It is no coincidence, analysts say, that India’s rise as a global economic powerhouse really took off as the B.J.P. became a viable national alternative to Congress. In a speech to the party faithful after the electoral defeat, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for prime minister, the octogenarian L.K. Advani , was almost valedictory, saying that his party, whatever its failures, had broken the Congress’s lock on national power. “In the last two decades the B.J.P. has succeeded in transforming this single dominant party polity into a bipolar polity,” he said. Sudheendra Kulkarni, a senior party member who quit the B.J.P. after the flap over the Jinnah book, said the party had fallen flat because it misread voters. It is less clear where the party goes now. “We focused on negatives when the people wanted a positive, superior agenda for governance and development,” he said. “People want India to grow steadily on this path, with no disturbances and no turmoil.”

India
Bharatiya Janata Party
Politics and Government


A Flawed but Enduring Leader Returns to Zimbabwe

Abstract: JOHANNESBURG MORGAN TSVANGIRAI , the chief rival of Zimbabwe ’s authoritarian president, Robert Mugabe , drove up to a Harare police station last year to check on dozens of his supporters inside on their bellies, being kicked, clobbered and stomped. The policemen quickly stopped and grabbed the moon-faced opposition leader. Witnesses said the station reverberated with the sickening thwack of blows to his buttocks, back and head. “They were fighting with each other to beat him,” said Tendai Biti, his deputy in the opposition party. Mr. Tsvangirai, whose thrashing made him an international symbol of resistance to Mr. Mugabe’s repressive rule, returned to Zimbabwe on Saturday for a showdown with his nemesis in a June 27 runoff after six weeks of self-imposed exile. He bested Mr. Mugabe in a March 29 election, then fled the country in the middle of the night on April 8 after his staff said it got word of a plot to kill him. Mr. Tsvangirai is a flawed leader who has sometimes been naïve and too conciliatory, according to critics and allies alike. And yet, many of them say, he has endured. Over the years, both sides say, he has credulously fallen into traps laid by Mr. Mugabe, too often avoided aggressively confronting the country’s strongman and lacked the finesse to heal a bitter rift in his own party before the March election. In recent weeks, he has come under increasing criticism for staying out of the country while his supporters have been attacked, tortured and even killed in a sweeping state-sponsored campaign to intimidate all who dare challenge Mr. Mugabe’s re-election. William McGee, the American ambassador in Harare, said there was evidence that an assassination plot was threatened, but he said he believed that it was disinformation meant to keep Mr. Tsvangirai from returning home. Still, Mr. Tsvangirai’s allies and many of his detractors credit him with withstanding excruciating physical and psychic pressure from ZANU-PF, the governing party, and persisting stoically over years of arrests, beatings, assassination attempts, a treason trial, fraud-ridden elections and his own tactical blunders. In the election itself, he vanquished a breakaway faction of his own party and an independent candidate, earning his own scarred claim to leadership. “He’s been imprisoned, humiliated and accused of being a puppet of the West,” said George Bizos, a South African lawyer who represented Nelson Mandela in the apartheid era and was Mr. Tsvangirai’s advocate during his treason trial in 2004. “But I believe he is a Zimbabwean patriot in touch with the vast majority of his people. He has shown he has stamina.” The son of a bricklayer and the eldest of nine children, Mr. Tsvangirai, 56, never went to college and labored in the nickel mines before rising through the ranks of the union movement. He faces a very different opponent in Mr. Mugabe, 84, a university-educated teacher who became the hero of his country’s liberation from white rule and its first and only president since independence in 1980. Mr. Mugabe contemptuously mocks Mr. Tsvangirai for not having joined the guerrilla struggle in his youth, and the state-owned newspaper — a mouthpiece for the governing party — recently belittled him as a coward and Western stooge with “a big black nose” and “chubby and pimply cheeks.” BUT Mr. Tsvangirai (pronounced CHANG-guh-rye) can rightfully claim to be the first politician to win more votes than Mr. Mugabe at the polls — and have it officially recognized. On Thursday, he toured refugee camps here in southern Africa’s economic capital where his countrymen — some of the millions who have fled their nation’s imploding economy — have been subjected to xenophobic attacks in impoverished townships. “We have to finish off this work, and the only way to finish is for us to go back and vote the man out,” Mr. Tsvangirai told a cheering crowd through a bullhorn, encouraging listeners to go home and exercise their franchise. Mr. Tsvangirai was born into what he called “a very humble peasant family” that survived on his father’s earnings as a bricklayer and what they grew on their small farm. He quit school before college and went to work in a textile factory and later in the mines to help pay school fees for his eight siblings. As young men were joining the armed resistance in the 1970s, Mr. Tsvangirai stayed on the job “to look after that brood of Tsvangirai kids,” he said. He rose through the ranks of the mine workers union and in 1988 became secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Stephen Chan, a professor of international relations at the University of London, describes in his book, “Citizen of Africa: Conversations with Morgan Tsvangirai” (Fingerprint Cooperative, 2005), how Mr. Tsvangirai, a pragmatic social democrat, turned the congress into voice for workers at a time when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were pushing “structural adjustment programs” that required African governments to keep a lid on spending, including wages. Mr. Tsvangirai’s record, Mr. Chan wrote, was “nothing short of remarkable.” In 1999, Mr. Tsvangirai helped organize and found the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change, which attracted support from trade unionists, students, intellectuals and white commercial farmers. A year later, the party handed Mr. Mugabe his first electoral defeat when it persuaded voters to reject a referendum that would have expanded his presidential powers. The opposition posed the first serious challenge to Mr. Mugabe, but the wily, ruthless president was not ready to go. In 2002, Mr. Tsvangirai ran for president, and many believe victory was stolen from him through fraud, intimidation and violence. But Mr. Tsvangirai and his party had already made a costly misstep. Just two weeks before the 2002 election, he was charged with treason in an alleged plot to assassinate Mr. Mugabe. It turned out that the opposition party had unwittingly hired a lobbying firm led by an accused swindler and a former Israeli intelligence agent. Defense lawyers said later in court that the firm had been hired by Zimbabwe’s intelligence service and paid more than $600,000 to discredit and frame Mr. Tsvangirai. Ultimately, in 2004, Mr. Tsvangirai was cleared, but for nearly two years the task of combating the capital charges consumed much of his time and kept him under virtual house arrest. Mr. Bizos said Mr. Tsvangirai had been too trusting, giving Mr. Mugabe “an opportunity to spring a trap.” In 2005, the party — already damaged by internal discord — fractured, with some accusing Mr. Tsvangirai of having authoritarian tendencies and tolerating violence against those who challenged him, allegations that he strongly denies. But the opposition was divided, and at a critical time. Zimbabwe’s economy spiraled downward and Mr. Mugabe’s government carried out a brutal strategy to damage the opposition’s political base in 2005, destroying the homes of hundreds of thousands of poor people in urban settlements. Mr. Tsvangirai needed then to unite the opposition to counter the raw power of the state, but “he didn’t find the statesmanlike leadership required at the time,” said Brian Raftopoulos, research director for Solidarity Peace Trust, a nongovernmental organization. Had the breach in the opposition been mended before the March election, it might have managed a decisive victory. Since then, leaders of the faction that broke away have rallied behind Mr. Tsvangirai, improving his odds of prevailing in a fair runoff, though one is unlikely under the current conditions. NOW, Mr. Tsvangirai says he is heading back to Zimbabwe with a sense of foreboding about his own safety and the prospects for democracy. Some analysts believe that a military coup would be likely if he won. Mr. Tsvangirai warned that if Mr. Mugabe’s government shut down dissent “some of us who are advocates of a nonviolent democracy will become irrelevant.” As this pivotal moment approaches for Zimbabwe, a country reduced from the days when it was one of Africa’s most literate and successful, much will depend on whether Mr. Tsvangirai can inspire people to go to the polls. His wife of 30 years, Susan, and the youngest of their six children, the 13-year-old twins, Millicent and Vincent, are living in Johannesburg, safe from the dangers he will soon be facing. On Thursday, Mr. Tsvangirai, dressed nattily in a pinstripe suit, hardly seemed like a man in the mood to rouse his people as he sped from township to township in a silver Mercedes Benz, distractedly answering questions and glancing at his talking points. He yawned in exhaustion and remarked nervously, “What’s happening?” when his driver got turned around in the narrow lanes of Alexandra, hemmed in by shanties, where the anti-foreigner riots started. But when he mounted rickety chairs and tables to address woebegone Zimbabwean refugees, some of them shoeless and carrying squalling babies, his fatigue seemed to fall away. He spoke to them in Shona, and in a call-and-response like that of a preacher and his congregation, they answered him. They told him about seeing their houses destroyed in Zimbabwe, only to come to South Africa for sanctuary and meet the same fate. “We’ve been fighting for you,” said one man. “Should we go back now and be killed?” “No one must be killed fighting for me,” Mr. Tsvangirai replied. “We all are in the line of danger fighting for our country.” But he reminded the murmuring crowd, “This is the opportunity to go and vote Mugabe out.” As he climbed into the Mercedes to leave his final stop, refugees pressed in on the car, chanting “Morgan Tsvangirai is No. 1, ZANU is rotten.” They swayed in time to the chant, their arms waving over their heads and their fingers splayed in the open-handed symbol of the opposition party, a wordless reply to the ruling party’s closed fist.

Zimbabwe
Tsvangirai Morgan
Politics and Government
Leaders and Leadership
Mugabe Robert


Commander Testifies He Felt ‘Under Fire’ Outside Nightclub

Abstract: The commanding officer of the detectives charged in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell testified on Friday that believing he was under fire, he drew his gun and pointed it toward the passenger windows of his car that night. He was ready not only for ambush, he said, but ready to add to the fusillade of 50 shots that claimed Mr. Bell’s life. “If anyone came up on our car, I would have fired,” said the officer, Lt. Gary Napoli, in part of the second-by-second account he gave in the trial of three detectives charged in Mr. Bell’s killing after his bachelor party on Nov. 25, 2006. The lieutenant also testified that an oft-quoted radio transmission from one of the detectives before the shooting that the situation was “getting hot” was, to his mind, a frantic call for help. Prosecutors have said that the team led by Lieutenant Napoli, a 24-year police veteran, was disorganized and incompetent. The group was part of the Police Department’s “club initiative” in which undercover officers bought drugs in clubs and backup officers arrested the sellers. The group that night was hoping to make arrests at a Jamaica strip club, the Club Kalua, where Sean Bell and some friends were celebrating his bachelor party. In State Supreme Court in Queens on Friday, the lieutenant said they were forced into split-second decisions they believed were necessary to protect their lives. Detectives Gescard F. Isnora and Michael Oliver face first- and second-degree manslaughter charges and Detective Marc Cooper faces a reckless endangerment charge. Lieutenant Napoli recalled being in a car with two colleagues — Detectives Paul Headley and Cooper — not far from the Club Kalua, when he got an urgent call on his cellphone from Detective Isnora. “He lets me know there’s two groups basically in a heated argument,” Lieutenant Napoli said, describing Detective Isnora’s call. “He’s near them and he believes there may be weapons involved.” A short time later, Lieutenant Napoli testified, he received another, more frantic call from Detective Isnora, who told him it was “getting hot” and that “I need you here quick.” “That was a call for help in my eyes,” Lieutenant Napoli said. With Detective Headley driving, Lieutenant Napoli in the passenger seat and Detective Cooper in the back seat, their car turned south onto Liverpool Street from 94th Avenue, the lieutenant said. He spotted Detective Isnora, who raised his chin in an upward motion, gesturing toward Mr. Bell’s car, he said. They drove past Mr. Bell’s car and were coming to a stop when he bent down to reach for the flashing bubble light to place on the dashboard, he said. Before he could get to it, Lieutenant Napoli said, he heard a collision and then gunshots. “I told Marc and Paul, ‘Get down, we’re under fire,’ ” Lieutenant Napoli testified. Lieutenant Napoli said that he drew his gun, and that his initial reaction was to aim out the rear window, but Detective Cooper blocked his line of fire. So instead, the lieutenant crouched in his seat and aimed out the side windows, he said. But then he realized, for one simple reason, that their car, a tan Toyota Camry, was not under fire: none of the windows were broken. As the gunfire continued, he said, the three got out of their car. Lieutenant Napoli said he crawled toward the back of the car. Trying to find the source of the gunfire, Lieutenant Napoli said, he reached the rear of the vehicle — but then the shots stopped. “When it ended, there was almost like an eerie silence,” he said. Lieutenant Napoli, who did not fire his gun, said he did not recall the long pause that other witnesses have testified about. “This is seconds,” he said. “Everything is in seconds. A very close approximation of time.” Asked by prosecutors what went through his mind, Lieutenant Napoli said, “Just to see that, thank God, none of us were hurt and we were going home.” The assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, in his questioning, seemed to suggest that the lieutenant had shown restraint when the detectives who fired did not. “You would not just let shots go without having an identified target?” he asked the lieutenant. “Correct,” Lieutenant Napoli responded. From a crouched position behind his car, the lieutenant said, he saw movement in Mr. Bell’s car. He told the passenger to show his hands, and Mr. Guzman stuck his hands out the window and wiggled his fingers, he said. As he got closer to the car, Lieutenant Napoli told Detective Michael Oliver to call an ambulance. Lieutenant Napoli said he could not remember if any of his detectives were wearing their badges. “It was surreal; we were all in a state of shock,” he said. “We were O.K. We didn’t really discuss anything more.” Lieutenant Napoli was the only witness to testify on Friday as the first week of the trial came to an end. Under cross-examination from Anthony L. Ricco, the lawyer for Detective Isnora, Lieutenant Napoli tried to dispel the suggestion that he led an overzealous unit looking for an arrest that would get the Club Kalua shut down and keep his team intact. The department was planning to streamline its club initiative anyway, he said. “If we made an arrest, that wouldn’t have kept our command together,” he said. “That decision was beyond us.” Detective Isnora had helped secure prior arrests at Kalua, Lieutenant Napoli said. But under questioning from Mr. Testagrossa, Lieutenant Napoli confirmed that undercover detectives do not generally make arrests; rather, they are supposed to alert their backup units to handle that. Lieutenant Napoli described Detective Isnora as quiet, thoughtful and good at his job. He said Detective Cooper was a responsible officer. He spoke highly of the detectives’ ability to infiltrate the Club Kalua. “It’s basically a neighborhood location and people tend to know each other,” he said, “unlike Manhattan, which is more transient.”


Don’t Count on Vitamins for Better Sleep

Abstract: Q. Are decreasing levels of vitamin B12 in old age related to the insomnia from which so many older people suffer? A. There are many causes of insomnia in older people, most of them related to some kind of illness, and B12 deficiency can have many neurological consequences. But scientific studies focusing on that nutrient and sleep in the elderly are lacking. Insomnia is known to increase in older people, with prevalence rates as high as 65 percent, depending on the criteria used, according to a review of 50 studies of insomnia in general. How to Get a Better Night’s Sleep How do you become a more successful sleeper? Grab a pillow, curl up and keep reading to find out. Healthy older people who are not in institutions were found to sleep as well as younger people. B12 deficiency is also more common in the elderly because of dietary, digestive and absorption problems. B12 is involved in many nervous system processes. There is strong evidence that deficiency of the vitamin is linked to abnormal mental symptoms, including dementia, psychosis and mood disturbances, according to a Mayo Clinic review , but its role in sleep disorders has yielded unclear results. In two small studies, published in the journal Sleep in 1990 and 1991 , four people were successfully treated for sleep-wake rhythm disorders with B12 supplements, even though their B12 levels were normal. Insomnia is known to have a strong link to depression, and one case study of a severely depressed elderly patient found that treating her B12 deficiency significantly improved her mood. The results, published in 2009 in The Primary Care Companion to The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, led researchers to suggest that people with mental disorders such as treatment-resistant depression be evaluated for a B12 deficiency. They also called for large-scale research on the subject. One of the first broad studies to consider the effects of vitamin supplements on sleep found that, in general, taking them was actually associated with sleep disorders, but no cause-and-effect chain was shown. question@nytimes.com

Vitamin
Sleep
Vitamin B12
Insomnia
Old age,elderly,senior citizens
Mental Health


YouTube Buys Next New Networks, a Video Producer

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube, the video site owned by Google, formally announced on Monday that it had acquired Next New Networks, a Web video production company, in its biggest effort yet to move beyond short, quirky home videos to professionally produced content. The acquisition of Next New Networks , which produces original programming and helps video creators distribute their films and make money, is YouTube’s biggest leap into creating its own programming. But that will be minimal, the companies said. Original programming has taken a back seat at Next New Networks, and Google has shied away from producing its own content. “We want to make as clean a line as possible for us to build the platform on YouTube and then let the content production happen with our partners,” said Tom Pickett, director of global content operation at YouTube. Google will pay less than $50 million for the company, according to two people briefed on the terms of the deal. The New York Times first reported YouTube’s interest in the company in December. The companies declined to comment on the price. Improving its original programming is crucial for YouTube, which faces competition from Web video services like Hulu, iTunes and Netflix. For its part, Google, which is trying to popularize its Google TV service, needs more Web video that people will watch for hours at a time. “There’s still a lot of YouTube that’s about the single video experience right now,” Mr. Pickett said. “We want to think about sets of videos and program experiences. That’s where we’re heading and we think this team is going to help us get there.” Many video creators on YouTube “are making money and doing great, but as a group they have not added up to shake the foundations of the way people watch content,” said James L. McQuivey, a digital media analyst at Forrester Research. “Maybe it’s just that they’re not aggregated in a meaningful way, but as long as YouTube remains something you do between phone calls at work, it won’t change the way the industry envisions its relationship with the viewer.” The company also said Monday that it was creating a program called YouTube Next that will help the video makers with whom YouTube shares ad revenue to produce more professional content by giving them grants and training. Next New Networks, which attracts two billion views a month, compares itself to cable networks, which do not own all their programming but package and broadcast other people’s shows. It helps video creators with advertising, distribution of their shows to various Web sites, and in building an audience by including shows as part of a programming package. It created the shows “Barely Political” and “Indy Mogul.” It produces videos for the Gregory Brothers , whose video “Bed Intruder Song” was the most-watched video on YouTube last year, and Hungry Nation, a series of online food shows. The Gregory Brothers’ videos, for instance, had up to 20,000 views an episode before the group started working with Next New Networks, and now they have up to two million views for an episode, said Lance Podell, chairman of Next New Networks. Most of Next New’s shows are on YouTube, but others appear on services like iTunes and Vimeo, and that will continue. “At this point, we are YouTube-focused, but that doesn’t mean that as an adviser to creators we won’t be able to suggest to them how their business can build on YouTube and off of YouTube,” Mr. Podell said. He will be director and global head of YouTube Next lab and audience development. YouTube also said it hired the former head of digital distribution at Paramount, Alex Carloss, to work on content acquisition. Next New Networks, which was founded in 2007, has raised $26 million from investment firms including Spark Capital, Fuse Capital and Goldman Sachs. The company is based in New York and will remain there. YouTube is based in San Bruno, Calif.

Next New Networks
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Recordings and Downloads (Video)
Web-Original Programming
YouTube.com


Neil Barofsky’s Journey Into a Bailout Buzz Saw — Fair Game

Abstract: IT might seem remarkable that there’s more to say about our late Bailout Age. But there is more — a lot more. Nearly four years after Washington began its huge rescues of banks with taxpayer dollars, an important player in this, one of the great financial dramas of all time, is offering a damning account of how the Bush and Obama administrations handled the whole episode. He is Neil Barofsky. Remember him — the man whose job it was to police the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program ? And his new account, a book titled “Bailout” (Free Press), to be published on Tuesday, is a must-read. His story is illuminating, if deeply depressing. We tag along with Mr. Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor, as he walks into a political buzz saw as the special inspector general for TARP. Government officials, he says, eagerly served Wall Street interests at the public’s expense, and regulators were captured by the very industry they were supposed to be regulating. He says he was warned about being too aggressive in his work, lest he jeopardize his future career. And so Mr. Barofsky, who formerly prosecuted Colombian drug lords as an assistant United States attorney in New York City, is schooled in the ways of Washington. One telling vignette comes early on in his book, when he is advised by inspectors general in other agencies about how to do his job. As Mr. Barofsky writes, he had assumed that his assignment to oversee TARP meant that he should be fiercely independent from the Treasury Department , and vigilant against waste, fraud and abuse. But after canvassing other inspector generals for guidance, he writes, he learned of different priorities: maintaining and possibly increasing budgets, appearing to be active — and not making enemies. “The common refrain went like this,” Mr. Barofsky writes. “There are three different types of I.G.’s. You can be a lap dog, a watchdog or a junkyard dog.” A lap dog is seen as too timid, he was told. But being a junkyard dog was also ill-advised. “What you want to be is a watchdog,” he continues. “The agency should perceive you as a constructive but independent partner, helping to make things better for the agency, so everyone is better off.” He also learned, he says, that success as an inspector general meant that investigations come second. Don’t second-guess the Treasury. Instead, “focus on process.” Thus the collision course was set between Mr. Barofsky and a crew of complacent, bank-friendly Treasury officials. He soon discovered that the department’s natural stance of marching in lock step with the banks meant that he had to question its policies and programs repeatedly to ensure that taxpayers weren’t at risk for fraud and abuse. “The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true,” Mr. Barofsky said in an interview last week. “It really happened. These suspicions are valid.” To be sure, Mr. Barofsky and his team were up against a powerful status quo. And that meant that they ran into plenty of brick walls. “Bailout” covers a lot of ground, running through attempts of the inspector general’s office to ensure that additional rescue programs suggested by the Treasury had safeguards in place to avoid conflicts of interest, collusion and fraud. One battle involved the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to get troubled mortgages off banks’ balance sheets by encouraging private investors to buy them using mostly taxpayer dollars. When the inspector general’s office recommended ways to protect against fraud and to fix other flaws in the program, Mr. Barofsky writes, the Treasury rejected the suggestions, maintaining that they would gut the programs and reduce participation. Another skirmish involved the department’s ill-conceived loan modification plan, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program. When the Treasury began discussing the program’s outlines, Mr. Barofsky said he became concerned that it would open the door to fraudulent foreclosure rescue schemes, in which large upfront fees could be extracted from desperate borrowers eager to participate in what was supposed to be a free government program. When his office recommended fraud-prevention measures, several were ignored, he writes. A few months after the modification plan was announced, his office began a preliminary audit of its rollout. “We soon verified what we had suspected,” Mr. Barofsky writes. “Treasury had failed to ensure that the servicers had the necessary infrastructure to support a massive mortgage modification program.” It barely got off the ground, and few homeowners have received the help they hoped for. THIS was just one of many examples from Mr. Barofsky’s 16-month tenure, during which, he says, Washington abandoned Main Street while rescuing Wall Street. “There has to be wide-scale acknowledgment that regulatory capture exists, dominates our system and needs to be eradicated,” Mr. Barofsky said in the interview. “It was my job to bring as much transparency to taxpayers so they knew what was going on. Writing the book, I tried to bring the same level of transparency so people understand how captured their government has become to the financial interests.” I asked Mr. Barofsky, now a senior fellow at the N.Y.U. School of Law, what could be done to get regulators to man up, as it were. “We need to re-educate our regulators that it’s O.K. to be adversarial, that it’s not going to hurt your career advancement to be more skeptical and more challenging,” he said. “It’s implicit in so much of the regulatory structure that if you don’t make too many waves there will be a job for you elsewhere. So we have to limit those job opportunities and develop a more professional path for regulators as a career. That way, they won’t always have that siren call of Wall Street.” Mr. Barofsky’s assessment of his former regulatory brethren is crucial for taxpayers to understand, because Congress’s financial reform act — the Dodd-Frank legislation — left so much of the heavy lifting to the weak-kneed. “So much of what’s wrong with Dodd-Frank is it trusts the regulators to be completely immune to the corrupting influences of the banks,” he said in the interview. “That’s so unrealistic. Congress has to take a meat cleaver to these banks and not trust regulators to do the job with a scalpel.” Finally, Mr. Barofsky joins the ranks of those who believe that another crisis is likely because of the failed response to this one. “Incentives are baked into the system to take advantage of it for short-term profit,” he said. “The incentives are to cheat, and cheating is profitable because there are no consequences.” Despite all of this, Mr. Barofsky ends on something of a positive note. Meaningful changes to our broken system may finally come about, he writes, if enough people get angry. His conclusion is this: “Only with this appropriate and justified rage can we sow the seeds for the types of reform that will one day break our system free from the corrupting grasp of the megabanks.” That’s not much of a silver lining. But I guess it’s better than none.

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008)

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010)


Events in New Jersey

Abstract: A guide to cultural and recreational goings-on around the state this week. Items may be submitted by mail to On the Towns, Sunday New Jersey Section, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018-1405; or by e-mail to njtowns@nytimes.com . Film BLOOMFIELD Bloomfield Public Library “Bad Day at Black Rock,” Monday. “The Big Store,” Thursday. “Time After Time,” Feb. 14. “The Karate Kid” (2010), Feb. 17. All are at 12:15 p.m. All are free. Bloomfield Public Library, 90 Broad Street. (973) 566-6200. NEW BRUNSWICK Rutgers University-Voorhees Hall New Jersey Film Festival Spring 2011, featuring new international films, American independent features, experimental and short subjects, revivals and documentaries. Through March 5. $8 to $10. Rutgers University-Voorhees Hall, 71 Hamilton Street. (732) 932-8482; njfilmfest.com . For Children ELMER Appel Farm Arts and Music Center “Click, Clack, Moo,” children’s musical based on the book by Doreen Cronin. Ages 3 and up. Feb. 12 at 2 p.m. $10. Appel Farm Arts and Music Center, 457 Shirley Road. (856) 358-2472; appelfarm.org . MADISON Museum of Early Trades and Crafts “Family Fun Day,” make your own chocolate Valentine treats. All ages. Feb. 12 at 1 p.m. Museum of Early Trades and Crafts, 9 Main Street. rosenet.org/metc ; (973) 377-2982. NEW BRUNSWICK State Theater “Hub City Carnivale,” musical performances, theater and more. All ages. Through Feb. 25. $13 to $23. State Theater, 15 Livingston Avenue. (732) 246-7469; statetheatrenj.org . NEWARK New Jersey Performing Arts Center Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company performs in celebration of the Chinese New Year. Feb. 6. $20 and $22. Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst conducting will perform works from Wagner, Schumann and Strauss. Feb. 6 at 2 p.m. $29 to $88. New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street. njpac.org ; (888) 466-5722. PRINCETON Waldorf School of Princeton “Snow White and Rose Red,” presented by the Folk Tale Puppet Troupe. Ages 4 to 12. Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. $5. Waldorf School of Princeton, 1062 Cherry Hill Road. (609) 466-1970; princetonwaldorf.org . PRINCETON JUNCTION West Windsor Arts Center “Yosi,” rock concert. Ages 2 to 9. Feb. 13 at 3 p.m. $9 and $10. West Windsor Arts Center, 952 Alexander Road. (609) 716-1931; westwindsorartscenter.org . TENAFLY JCC on the Palisades “The Imaginary World of Kimmy Schwimmy,” live music. Ages 3 and up. Feb. 13 at 10:30 a.m. $15 to $20. JCC on the Palisades, 411 East Clinton Avenue. jccotp.org ; (201) 569-7900. Museums and Galleries CLINTON Hunterdon Museum of Art “John Ripton: Against the Wall,” photographs of urban walls covered with signs, graffiti, public notices and commercial icons. Through Feb. 13. Donation: $3. Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hunterdon Museum of Art, 7 Lower Center Street. (908) 735-8415; hunterdonartmuseum.org . CLINTON Red Mill Museum Village “The Stars and Stripes: Fabric of the American Spirit,” exhibition of antique American flags. Through June 14. $8; seniors, $6; children 6 to 12, $5; members and children under 6, free. Red Mill Museum Village, 56 Main Street. (908) 735-4101, ext. 107; theredmill.org . EDISON Performing Arts Center, Middlesex County College “Toys,” sculpture and photographs. Through March 10. Performing Arts Center, Middlesex County College, 2600 Woodbridge Avenue. middlesexcc.edu/theatre ; (732) 548-6000, ext. 2545. ENGLEWOOD Englewood Public Library “Kenneth Davenport — A Life Retrospective,” exhibition featuring oil paintings from 1952 to 2003. Through Feb. 28. Free. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Englewood Public Library, 31 Engle Street. (201) 568-2215; englewoodlibrary.org . HAMILTON Grounds for Sculpture “Fall/Winter Exhibition 2010,” a group show. Through April 10. $8 to $12; members and children under 5, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Grounds for Sculpture, 18 Fairgrounds Road. groundsforsculpture.org ; (609) 586-0616. HOPEWELL Gallery 14 “Monks of Burma and Laos,” exhibition of photographs by Michael Paxton. Through Feb. 6. Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Gallery 14, 14 Mercer Street. (609) 333-8511; photogallery14.com . LAWRENCEVILLE Rider University Art Gallery “Michael Graves: Landscapes and Still Lifes,” rarely exhibited paintings by Michael Graves, designer and architect. Through Feb. 27. Free. Tuesdays to Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Rider University Art Gallery, 2083 Lawrenceville Road. rider.edu/artgallery ; (609) 896-5168. LINCROFT Monmouth Museum “32nd Annual Juried Art Exhibition,” works in a variety of media. Through Feb. 27. “Chairish the Museum Exhibition and Silent Auction Benefit,” an exhibition featuring one-of-a-kind chairs designed by local artists and crafts workers, and chairs autographed by celebrities. Through Feb. 12. $7; members and children under 2, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Monmouth Museum, 765 Newman Springs Road. monmouthmuseum.org ; (732) 747-2266. MONTCLAIR Montclair Art Museum “Engaging Nature: American and Native American Artists (A.D. 1200-2004),” an exhibition featuring a variety of art and artifacts, from prehistoric American Indian ceramics to historical 19th-century landscape paintings to contemporary staged photographs. Through Sept. 25. $12; seniors and students, $10; members and children under 12, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Montclair Art Museum, 3 South Mountain Avenue. montclairartmuseum.org ; (973) 746-5555. MONTCLAIR Studio Montclair “Sustainability and the Artistic Vision,” a group show featuring artists who use sustainable materials. Through April 29. “Rendering Green,” a green art exhibition featuring the work of 18 Studio Montclair members. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment. Studio Montclair, 33 Plymouth Street. (973) 744-1818; studiomontclair.org . MOORESTOWN Perkins Center for the Arts “Photography 30,” a juried exhibition of photography by regional, professional, student and amateur artists. Through March 6. Free. Perkins Center for the Arts, 395 Kings Highway. (856) 235-6488; perkinscenter.org . MORRISTOWN Atrium Gallery “Memories of Russell,” exhibition featuring works by more than 30 outstanding African-American artists. Through March 11. Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Atrium Gallery, Court Street. (973) 540-0615; artintheatrium.org . MORRIS TOWNSHIP Morris Museum “Frank H. Netter, M.D., Michelangelo of Medicine,” featuring more than 40 works of art by Dr. Frank Netter. Through Feb. 27. “The Art of Shirley Winthrope Rivo,” exhibition of photography and paintings. Through Feb. 13. “O Write My Name: American Portraits — Harlem Heroes,” an exhibition featuring 50 photographic portraits of African-American artists, writers and musicians by Carl Van Vechten, from the collection of the Newark Museum. Through Feb. 27. “Teapots by Design: From the Collection of Unjeria C. Jackson, M.D.,” an exhibition of more than 150 teapots. Through April 3. “Antonio Petruccelli: An Unsung American Illustrator,” exhibition of more than 65 works. Through March 20. $7 to $10. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Morris Museum, 6 Normandy Heights Road. (973) 971-3700; morrismuseum.org . MOUNT HOLLY At Home Fine Art Gallery “Theaters of Dreams,” paintings by Jim and Lynn Lemyre. Through Feb. 27. Free. At Home Fine Art Gallery, 2 Church Street. homefineart.org . NEWARK Newark Museum “Posing Beauty: African American Images From the 1890s to the Present,” an exhibition of photographs. Through April 28. Free to $10. Wednesdays through Fridays, noon to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Newark Museum, 49 Washington Street. (973) 596-6550; newarkmuseum.org . NEWARK The Newark Museum “Skies Alive: Bird Migration in the Garden State,” photographs and interactive computer programs illustrate and explore migration. Through June 1. Free to $10. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. The Newark Museum, 49 Washington Street. (973) 596-6550; newarkmuseum.org. NEW BRUNSWICK Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum “Animal Fair: Birds, Beasts and Bugs in Children’s Book Illustrations,” an exhibition featuring 28 original illustrations in various media that explore the wide range of artistic styles and diverse interpretation of storybook animals. Through June 5. “Embodied Dreams: The Later Work of Boris Sveshnikov.” Through April 10. “Vladimir Nemukhin: Works on Paper.” Through March 27. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton Street. (732) 932-7237; zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu . NEW BRUNSWICK Rutgers University, Douglass Library Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series 40th anniversary exhibition: “Joan Snyder/Intimate Works,” paintings by Joan Snyder from 1965 to 2010, Mabel Smith Douglass Library Galleries, Rutgers. Through June 5. Free. Mondays through Thursdays, 8 a.m. to midnight; Fridays, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, noon to midnight. Rutgers University, Douglass Library, 8 Chapel Drive. (732) 932-3726; libraries.rutgers.edu . PATERSON Broadway & LRC Galleries (Passaic County Community College) “Paterson: Cityscapes,” an exhibition of large scale prints by Raquel A. Foote. Through March 3. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Broadway & LRC Galleries (Passaic County Community College), Broadway at Memorial Drive. (973) 684-5448; pccc.edu/art/gallery . PRINCETON Bernstein Gallery “Schools for the Colored,” photography by Wendel A. White. Through Feb. 24. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bernstein Gallery, Robertson Hall. wws.princeton.edu/bernstein ; (609) 497-2441. PRINCETON Paul Robeson Center for the Arts “Raw Beauty: An Exhibition of Sculpture,” featuring eight artists whose creations communicate their thoughts and feelings about the female spirit. Through Feb. 26. “Terrace Project: John McDevitt,” steel sculptures by the artist in the outdoor exhibition space of the Paul Robeson Center. Through May 30. Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, 102 Witherspoon Street. (609) 924-8777; artscouncilofprinceton.org . PRINCETON Princeton University Art Museum “Nobody’s Property: Art, Land, Space, 2000-2010,” an exhibition featuring the work of seven artists. Through Feb. 20. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Princeton University Art Museum, Nassau and Witherspoon Streets. artmuseum.princeton.edu ; (609) 258-3788. RAHWAY Arts Guild of New Jersey “Close Encounters,” an exhibition of artwork inspired by science fiction featuring eight artists and curated by Rachael Faillace. Through March 3. Arts Guild of New Jersey, 1670 Irving Street. (732) 381-7511; agnj.org . SPRINGFIELD Donald B. Palmer Museum (Springfield Free Public Library) “Redmorningrunner,” an exhibition of mixed-media artworks by Stanislaw Retinger. Through Tuesday. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Donald B. Palmer Museum (Springfield Free Public Library), 66 Mountain Avenue. (973) 376-4930. springfieldpubliclibrary.com . SUMMIT Visual Arts Center of New Jersey “International Juried Show,” an exhibition featuring works from around the world. “Lisette Bedoya: Ceramics,” an exhibition of works utilizing the potter’s wheel. “Painting Students of Raul Villarreal.” All through March 18. Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, 68 Elm Street. (908) 273-9121; njcva.org . TEANECK Puffin Cultural Forum “After the Flood: The New Orleans Portrait Project,” photographs. Through March 1. Mondays through Fridays, 1 to 5 p.m. Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way. puffinculturalforum.org ; (201) 836-3499. Music and Dance BRADLEY BEACH Giamano’s Upstairs Room Bossa Brasil, Brazilian jazz. Feb. 12, 8 p.m. to midnight. Free. Giamano’s Upstairs Room, 301 Main Street. giamanos.com ; (732) 775-4275. ENGLEWOOD Bergen Performing Arts Center “The Gift of Music,” featuring the Thurnauer Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alan Gilbert of the New York Philharmonic. Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. $50 and $90. Bergen Performing Arts Center, 30 North Van Brunt Street. (201) 227-1030; bergenpac.org . FAIR LAWN Fair Lawn Community Center “A Gilbert and Sullivan Valentine: Songs We Love to Sing,” presented by the Ridgewood Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company. Feb. 12 at 7 p.m. $20. Fair Lawn Community Center, 10-10 20th Street. (973) 423-0300; ridgewoodgands.com . HILLSIDE Enlow Recital Hall at Kean University The O’Connor Quartet, bluegrass. Feb. 20 at 3 p.m. $40. Enlow Recital Hall at Kean University, 215 North Avenue. (908) 737-7469; enlowhall.kean.edu . MIDDLETOWN Middletown Township Public Library “Jazz and Blues,” featuring Jennifer Jordan and Mike Barris. Feb. 13 at 2:30 p.m. Free. Middletown Township Public Library, 55 New Monmouth Road. (732) 671-3700; mtpl.org . MONTCLAIR Alexander Kasser Theater Imani Winds, with Simon Shaheen, featuring “Zafir.” Feb. 6 at 3 p.m. $15. Alexander Kasser Theater, 1 Normal Avenue. (973) 655-5112; peakperfs.org . MONTCLAIR Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair The Claring Chamber Players presents “Winter Romantics,” featuring the work of Dvorak, Beethoven, Barber and Brahms, with Stephen Taylor, oboist, and David Oei, pianist. Feb. 6 at 3 p.m. $10 to $25. Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair, 67 Church Street. (973) 744-6276; uumontclair.org . MONTCLAIR Wellmont Theater Miranda Cosgrove, pop. Tuesday at 6 p.m. $35. Wellmont Theater, 5 Seymour Street. (973) 783-9500; wellmonttheatre.com . MORRISTOWN Morristown United Methodist Church Abendmusik concert series: “I Wish You Love,” cabaret featuring Jim Fredericks, tenor and piano, and June Van Thoen, soprano. Feb. 13 at 3 p.m. $10 to $15. Morristown United Methodist Church, 50 Park Place. morristownumc.com ; (973) 538-2132. NEW BRUNSWICK Mason Gross Performing Arts Center Opera at Rutgers presents “The Magic Flute,” by Mozart, featuring the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra. Feb. 6. $15 to $25. Mason Gross Performing Arts Center, 85 George Street. (732) 932-7511; masongross.rutgers.edu . NEW MILFORD Art Center of Northern New Jersey “Basically Baroque,” performed by the All Seasons Chamber Players with harpsichord, flute and strings. Feb. 6 at 3 p.m. $10 and $12. Art Center of Northern New Jersey, 250 Center Street. (201) 599-2992; artcenter-nnj.org . NEWARK Prudential Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center “Madama Butterfly,” by Puccini, presented by Opera New Jersey and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Tickets: (800) 255-3476 or njsymphony.org . Friday at 8 p.m. $25 to $125. Prudential Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street. (888) 255-3476; njpac.org. PRINCETON Christ Congregation Church Scott Ainslie, blues and folk. Feb. 18 at 8:15 p.m. $5 to $25. Christ Congregation Church, 50 Walnut Lane. princetonfolk.org ; (609) 799-0944. RED BANK Count Basie Theater “Michael Amante’s Valentine’s Day Concert,” opera and pop. Friday at 8 p.m. $19.50 and $49.50. “Kind of Blue 50th Anniversary Tour featuring Jimmy Cobb’s So What Band.” Feb. 13 at 3 p.m. $19.50 to $39.50. Count Basie Theater, 99 Monmouth Street. countbasietheatre.org ; (732) 842-9000. RINGWOOD Community Presbyterian Church Ringwood Friends of Music presents “Polka Dots and Moonbeams: A Night of Cabaret,” with Patti Graham, vocalist, and Bob Leive, pianist. Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. Free. Community Presbyterian Church, 145 Carletondale Road. (973) 962-7431; communitypc.org . TEANECK Puffin Cultural Forum “The American Songbook,” with the Warren Battiste Quartet and Ellen Lafurn, vocalist. Feb. 13 at 4 p.m. $10. Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way. (201) 836-3499; PuffinCulturalForum.org . Outdoors MORRISTOWN Great Swamp Watershed Association “Valentine Night Hike,” for families and adults. Friday at 7 p.m. $8 and $12. The Great Swamp Watershed Association, 568 Tempe Wick Road. (973) 538-3500; greatswamp.org . TENAFLY The Tenafly Nature Center “Full Moon Silent Hike.” Feb. 18 at 6:30 p.m. $5 and $10. Tenafly Nature Center, 313 Hudson Avenue. tenaflynaturecenter.org ; (201) 568-6093. Spoken Word NEW BRUNSWICK Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum “How It Happens/Making Prints and Paintings Lecture by Joan Snyder.” Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. Free to $10. Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton Street. zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu; (732) 932-7237. RED BANK Count Basie Theater “No Reservations: An Evening With Anthony Bourdain.” Thursday at 8 p.m. $35.50 to $85.50. Count Basie Theater, 99 Monmouth Street. countbasietheatre.org; (732) 842-9000. Theater CRANFORD CDC Theater “Moon Over Buffalo,” comedy by Ken Ludwig. Through Feb. 19. $20. CDC Theater, 78 Winans Avenue. (908) 276-7611; cdctheatre.org . MILLBURN Paper Mill Playhouse “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” a musical. Through Feb. 13. $25 to $84. Paper Mill Playhouse, 22 Brookside Drive. (973) 376-4343; papermill.org . MORRIS TOWNSHIP Bickford Theater “The Little Dog Laughed,” satirical comedy by Douglas Carter Beane. Through Feb. 13. $20 to $40. Bickford Theater, 6 Normandy Heights Road. (973) 971-3706; morrismuseum.org. NEW BRUNSWICK Crossroads Theater “Yesterdays: An Evening With Billie Holiday,” by Reenie Upchurch. Feb. 17 through 27. $40 and $50. Crossroads Theater, 7 Livingston Avenue. (732) 545-8100; crossroadstheatrecompany.org . NEW BRUNSWICK George Street Playhouse “The Subject Was Roses,” by Frank Gilroy. Tuesday through March 6. $37.50. George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue. georgestplayhouse.org ; (732) 246-7717. NEW BRUNSWICK Mason Gross School of the Arts “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade,” by Peter Weiss. Through Feb. 19. $15 and $25. Mason Gross School of the Arts, 33 Livingston Avenue. (732) 932-7511; mgsa.rutgers.edu . PRINCETON McCarter Theater Center “The How and the Why,” a new play by Sarah Treem. Through Feb. 13. $20 to $60. “Hot Tuna Blues,” featuring Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, blues and rock. Monday at 8 p.m. $42 to $45. Cirque Eloize in “ID,” circus with theater and dance. Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. $39 to $48. McCarter Theater Center, 91 University Place. (609) 258-2787; mccarter.org . WEST ORANGE Luna Stage “Mercy and the Firefly,” drama by Amy Hartman. Thursday through March 13. $20 to $30. Luna Stage, 555 Valley Road. (973) 395-5551; lunastage.org . WEST WINDSOR Kelsey Theater, West Windsor Campus, Mercer County Community College “The Wedding Singer,” musical comedy. Friday through Feb. 19. $12 to $16. Kelsey Theater, West Windsor Campus, Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road. kelseyatmccc.org ; (609) 570-3333. Comedy HASBROUCK HEIGHTS Bananas Comedy Club Billy Garan. Friday and Feb. 12. $15 and $20. Nick Dipaolo. Feb. 18 and 19. Bananas Comedy Club, 283 Route 17 South. bananascomedyclub.com ; (201) 727-1090.