These Competitors Measure Their Times in Years

Abstract: The trash talking began days before Sunday’s New York City Marathon . Not among the elite runners, though, at least for this story. Among runners in their 60s. David Laurance, a 63-year-old podiatrist from Manhattan, had heard last week from a fellow marathoner that another runner thought Laurance had not run fast enough in recent New York marathons. Basically called him a wimp. “I was told that this one particular person thought I was babying myself too much and that I needed to go harder,” said Laurance, who said he didn’t know the smack-talker’s name but had a feeling it was someone in his age group. “That particular person said I wasn’t pushing like I used to, and that didn’t make him happy, because to him it wasn’t fair.” Why unfair? Because both men have run more than 30 consecutive New York City Marathons — and both were near the top of the list of runners who had extended streaks. According to unofficial statistics kept by New York Road Runners, which organizes the race, Laurance was tied for second on the list of most consecutive New York City Marathons. Going into Sunday, he had run 37 straight. Road Runners calls those who have completed at least 15 consecutive New York marathons streakers. All run clothed. “Some people are extremely covetous of their streaks and are jealous of me; I know it,” Laurance said. “But for the most part, the streakers are a pretty friendly group. When we get together every year, it’s like a group of Marines seeing each other after a long time.” An Early Start Before a Flourish to the Finish 17 Photos View Slide Show › Image Benjamin Norman for The New York Times But there’s a reason Marines are Marines. And it’s not because they like being defeated. They pride themselves on accomplishing goals with drive and intensity. There are about 1,000 people who have run the New York City Marathon again and again and again. And among the roughly 50,000 who crossed the finish line on Sunday, these streakers take marathons to another level. Because they just can’t stop running the New York City Marathon. In the late 1990s, Connie Lyke Brown fell near Mile 2 of the 26.2-mile race, smacking the pavement after doing what she called “a Pete Rose dive” and bloodying her knees and hands. Brown, who will turn 72 this week and is the top female streaker, with 37 in a row, wanted to stop running but simply couldn’t. “I’ve done so many now, I just can’t quit,” she said. Richard Shaver, who is tied for second on the men’s list, with 38 straight finishes after Sunday’s, had had knee surgery since last year’s marathon but didn’t consider skipping this one, even though he hadn’t trained as much as he had planned. He is achingly close to the top of the streakers’ leaderboard, you know. “Am I the one with the longest streak?” Shaver, 63, said. “Frankly I don’t know. But I’m going to be the last one standing.” He then took a shot at a 72-year-old runner named Dave Obelkevich, the current No. 1 streaker, who finished his 39th straight New York City Marathon on Sunday. “I’m sorry; he’s a retired music teacher, a grandfather,” Shaver said. “I’m working every day, and I fit my running in.” Shaver, a lighting specialist, laughed as he spoke because Obelkevich seems invincible, having finished 104 marathons and 185 ultramarathons. But I got the feeling Shaver wasn’t kidding. This is a tough guy we’re talking about, one who passed out from heat exhaustion a half-mile from the finish in 1979 and then said to medical workers, “Give me back my shoes!” so he could finish. (For the record, Shaver finished Sunday’s race in 4 hours 56 minutes 35 seconds. Obelkevich finished in 4:57:01.) A streaker is now even running the Road Runners organization. Michael Capiraso became the president and chief executive of Road Runners in the spring and even then didn’t pull his entry in Sunday’s marathon, which was to be his 24th in a row. After all, there was a guy named Mark Myers who lived two buildings away from him and who started running the race in 1991, just as Capiraso did. Each year, the two of them competed to see which one ran faster. “Let’s just call it a friendly competition,” Capiraso said. So even though Capiraso is one of the people in charge of the whole marathon, he still ran on Sunday. Afterward, he told me it was worth the trouble of squeezing the epic run into a more-than-full workday. On the Queensboro Bridge, about 15 miles in, he saw Myers in the distance and caught up with him. They ran side by side for the next four or five miles, joking, “You can go first; I don’t want to hold you back.” Then, “No, you go first.” Capiraso eventually pulled ahead, to finish in 3:54:05, nine minutes faster than Myers. The Queensboro Bridge, however, only brings up painful memories for Laurance. “These days, when I’m running on that bridge, I have to strike it from my mind that I used to be finished by now,” he told me on the eve of Sunday’s race. He tries to put things in perspective. He is still healthy. Still has his streak going. All of that, even though he finished in the dark, in 6:45:06. For him, what counted most was that he just kept going. “My father used to tell me about my eating habits, ‘Even a machine stops sometimes, David,’ ” he said. “But I always proved him wrong.”

Marathon
Michael Capiraso
NYC Marathon
New York Road Runners Club


From College to N.B.A., Coaching Approaches Differ

Abstract: March Madness is typically dominated by head coaches. While 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast has grabbed the spotlight, we often emphasize the brains — not the muscle — behind successful programs. The puzzling question is, Why have so few outstanding college coaches done well in the N.B.A. — the highest level of competition? Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim are institutions. They have listened to pro offers, but neither has ever taken the leap. Carmelo Anthony, who won a national championship with Boeheim, said Boeheim would “absolutely not” become an N.B.A. coach. “He wouldn’t ever consider it,” Anthony added. “College coaches build these little communities which they don’t want to leave.” Other accomplished college coaches like Rick Pitino, John Calipari and Leonard Hamilton have coached in the N.B.A. with mediocre to disastrous results. There have been exceptions. Jack Ramsay had a successful coaching career at St. Joesph’s and later led the Portland Trail Blazers to an N.B.A. championship. Dick Motta enjoyed success at Weber State and won an N.B.A. championship with the Washington Bullets. Larry Brown led Kansas to an N.C.A.A. championship and then led the Detroit Pistons to an N.B.A. title. But highly successful college coaches are often too consumed with control to consider sharing power with players. Others are bullies. “It’s a different game,” Lionel Hollins, the Memphis Grizzlies’ coach, said. “You’re in control in college. In colleges, coaches are the face of the university. In the N.B.A., it’s players.” Talented young athletes are aware of the millions of dollars to be made in the N.B.A. Previous generations used to be content simply to be on a college athletic scholarship and play on television. Gary Williams, who has been a head coach at multiple colleges, most notably at the University of Maryland, said: “I’d be the first one to say players should get a stipend. At a big-time program, you’re generating not just the dollars you bring in but the interest of your alumni that will give money to the school, not just to the athletic department. And the applications increase, which is really important to school. “It used to be if you went into a parent’s home, you’d better have for a pretty good fact that the kid could play basketball and graduate from your school,” he added. “Now the question becomes: ‘If my kid goes to your school, will he be able to play in the N.B.A.?’ Or, ‘Would you mind if he left early?’ The questions are different now, but at the same time, my job as a college coach isn’t different — to prepare the players who won’t reach the N.B.A. for the rest of their lives.” Williams had a volatile coaching style, which would not fly at the N.B.A. level. “I don’t think the pros ever looked at me, because I’d get on players,” he said. “Part of what you get with 18- and 20-year-olds is a chance to instill discipline when, in a lot of cases, they have not had any discipline at all in their lives.” But the mentoring never stops; it merely changes form. The N.B.A. coach must be more diplomatic, more respectful and more mindful of a relationship that is a two-way partnership. J. R. Smith came to the Knicks with a reputation as a talented but undisciplined player. Coach Mike Woodson has tried, with some success, to channel Smith’s talents. “You’ve got to put him in the right positions, and you’ve got to be demanding of him and not let him off the hook,” Woodson said. “I’m trying not to do that. Sometimes I can get away with things that I saw with him. Sometimes I can’t; he fights it. That’s just a part of coaching — player relationships. It’s give and take sometimes.” “I had an opportunity to coach a lot of 18-, 19- and 20-year-old players when I first became a head coach,” Woodson said. “Young players are different than veteran players. You’ve got to be able to coach them, and then you’ve got to pat them too.” Indiana Coach Tom Crean said he learned from his N.F.L. coaching brothers-in-law, John and Jim Harbaugh, to treat players as equals and not solely as business partners. “I think what those two have done and what I’ve continued to take from them is they don’t come in with a business mind-set,” Crean said. “They don’t treat their players like it’s business. There is a business aspect to it, but they really do try to build one-on-one relationships.” Many of Crean’s colleagues have a “my way or the highway” approach to coaching. But Crean does not have a problem with relinquishing control when it comes to solving basketball problems. Before his team fell to Syracuse on Thursday, Crean agreed with his players that they needed to change the way they defended a particular play. The players were right, and their solution made sense. “If they’re locked in and absorbing it, I’m all for it,” Crean said. “I don’t know if college coaches look at it this way, but I don’t care. That’s how I look at it. If you have a player-run program, you can run into an issue, but when it comes to how we’re going to play that pick-and-roll, I’m all for it.” Some successful college coaches shy away from the pros because they relish the role of teacher. As the N.B.A. continues to get younger, there will be a need for talented young college coaches who speak the players’ language. The two must meet on a common ground of mutual respect. “You treat them like men, but you never forget you’re playing a kids’ game,” Crean said. “To me, if you turn the game into too much of a business, then I think you’re running into problems. Let’s never get away from the fact that this is a game that they are supposed to enjoy.”

Mike Krzyzewski
Jim Boeheim
Rick Pitino
Dick Motta
Larry Brown
Gary Williams
Tom Crean
College basketball
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness


4 Killed in Shooting by U.S. at a Bus Carrying Afghans

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — United States soldiers opened fire on a bus carrying civilians Friday in central Afghanistan, killing four passengers after the driver refused to stop, military officials said. The bus was heading toward 20 soldiers on foot patrol on a highway in central Wardak Province, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said. The soldiers first fired warning rounds in the air to stop the vehicle, then shot into the engine block, the spokesman said. The bus kept coming, so they opened fire on the vehicle in self-defense, he said. The provincial governor and local residents confirmed that the soldiers were American forces. At least 10 passengers were wounded, said Halim Fidai, the governor of Wardak Province. The military said the wounded had been evacuated to military hospitals. The shooting occurred about 40 miles south of Kabul, the capital, on the main road between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar. The episode was one of a series that threatened to undermine Afghan support for foreign troops, just as the United States is preparing to significantly increase its military presence in the country. The United Nations said in September that 577 Afghan civilians had been killed this year by American, NATO and Afghan troops, a 21-percent increase from 2007. Taliban fighters and other insurgents killed an additional 800 civilians this year. The blue bus was moved to the side of the road by Friday afternoon, and American troops cordoned off the area, according to a camera operator on the scene. The windows of the bus were shattered, and one side was pocked with holes. People gathered nearby to try to view the wreckage. Rahmat Ullah, who owns a construction company in Kabul but lives in Wardak, said he heard the shots around 10 a.m. from his house. He said he went outside to watch the wounded being moved into helicopters. Spokesmen for American forces declined to comment, referring all inquiries to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, because the troops were operating under its auspices. Wardak and the neighboring province of Logar are two of the areas scheduled for an infusion of American combat forces in January, when the first of a total of 20,000 additional soldiers requested by American commanders are expected to arrive.

Afghanistan
United States Armament and Defense
Afghanistan War (2001- )


Romanian Keeps Elevating Her Game and Her Confidence

Abstract: PARIS — A year ago at the French Open, Simona Halep was ranked 57th and lost in the first round. Since then, she has won seven tournaments, moved to No. 4 in the rankings and strung together her best consecutive results at Grand Slam tournaments, a fourth-round appearance at the United States Open and a quarterfinal at the Australian Open. Now she can add a quarterfinal berth at Roland Garros to her year on the rise after a 6-4, 6-3 victory Monday over Sloane Stephens of the United States. But Halep, a 22-year-old Romanian, is not done yet. She said she had gained confidence and felt prepared to advance further in a Grand Slam tournament, though she preferred to concentrate only on her next match. “I believe in my chance,” said Halep, the highest remaining seed in the women’s draw. “But I don’t think too far, so I stay focused for my quarterfinals first.” In the quarterfinals, she will face Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2009 French Open champion, who has a history of winning majors five years apart. She collected her only other Grand Slam singles trophy at the 2004 United States Open. Going into Monday’s match, Stephens had been more successful than Halep in Grand Slams, reaching at least the fourth round in six straight majors. In 2013, she was a semifinalist in Australia and a Wimbledon quarterfinalist. “A good player is a good player,” Stephens said. “Obviously someone playing with a lot of confidence, someone playing consistently over a long period of time, no matter what stage it is, no matter if they have never been there, no matter if they’ve never played on that court or whatever it is, they’re always going to play consistently and play their game. Image No. 23 Gaël Monfils of France returning a shot to Guillermo García-López of Spain in a 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 win that sent Monfils to the quarterfinals against Andy Murray. Credit Vincent Kessler/Reuters “That’s what she did today. Just unfortunate that I didn’t play that great.” Stephens, the No. 15 seed, was the last American in the singles draws. And with the loss of top-seeded Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan in the men’s doubles quarterfinals, the only American left at the senior level here is Eric Butorac, who advanced to the mixed doubles semifinals with Timea Babos of Hungary. Francis Tiafoe, the top seed in the junior boys tournament, also lost Monday, to Jan Choinski of Germany, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, in the second round. Stephens said she took no particular pride in being the last American standing in singles, as she has been in four of the past six Grand Slam events. But Gaël Monfils seems to take particular pleasure in being the last darling of the French fans. He thrilled the Philippe Chatrier Court crowd with a 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 victory over Guillermo García-López, reaching the quarterfinals of his home major for the first time since 2011. “I grew up here, and I just feel great here,” Monfils said. “It’s different energy.” Regarding the support from fans, he added: “It will help me if I have big decision in the match or I feel tired or maybe I’m down. For sure they will help me a lot.” Monfils will next try to channel the crowd’s energy against seventh-seeded Andy Murray, a 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (3) winner over Fernando Verdasco. Monfils and Murray have played only five times on the ATP Tour, with Monfils winning the two matches in Paris. They have not faced each other in four years, but their friendly rivalry goes back to childhood. They first played each other when Murray was 10 and Monfils 11. “He was the same as he is now,” Murray, 27, said. “He was just a great athlete, moved unbelievably well, smiling on the court. Enjoyed playing in front of a crowd, even though it was a small crowd. You know, when you’re 10, 11 years old, playing in front of 40, 50 people feels like it’s loads.” Murray added, “He’s just always been a great entertainer, and he’s great for the sport.” Murray counts himself among those for whom Monfils is a favorite to watch. And Murray understands what it means to play the last French player in the singles draw with a semifinal berth on the line. He said it would be more like a Davis Cup match. “I don’t care whether no one in the crowd wants me to win or everyone wants me to win,” Murray said. “I will fight just as hard to try to get the right outcome.”

French Open
Simona Halep
Sloane Stephens
Tennis
Rafael Nadal
David Ferrer
Dusan Lajovic
Andrea Petkovic
Leonardo Mayer


Search Is On for Wreckage of Missing Air France Jet

Abstract: The disappearance of an Air France jet en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Sunday evening left seasoned crash investigators with a mystery to plumb and very little data to work with. The Airbus A330-200 , carrying 228 passengers and crew members, is believed to have vanished in a towering thunderstorm with no word from its pilots that they were in crisis. The plane had beamed out several signals that its electrical systems had malfunctioned and, according to one report, that it had lost cabin pressure. The signals were sent not as distress calls, however, but as automated reports to Air France’s maintenance system, and were not read for hours, until air traffic controllers realized that the plane’s crew had not radioed in on schedule. As a search for wreckage began over a vast swath of ocean between Brazil and the African coast, experts struggled to offer plausible theories as to how a well-maintained modern jetliner, built to withstand electrical and physical buffeting far greater than nature usually offers, could have gone down so silently and mysteriously. There were no suggestions on Monday that a bomb, a hijacking or sabotage was to blame. Whatever of the plane’s final minutes was recorded in its black box may never be known, because it is presumably at the bottom of the Atlantic. As is common with trans-ocean flights, it was too far out over the sea to be tracked on land-based radar from Brazil or Senegal . Whether its location was captured by satellite or other planes’ radar is not known yet. The plane, Flight AF 447, was scheduled to arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport at 11:10 a.m. local time. Stricken relatives descended on Terminal 2D, where the airline established a crisis center. A black-robed priest was making his way past hordes of police officers and journalists to comfort relatives of those on the flight. “Air France is extremely distraught, and the whole team of Air France is suffering,” Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, the chief executive of Air France-KLM, told reporters in Paris. “We would like to say to the relatives of the victims that we are totally with them and will make every effort to help them.” President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said: “It’s a tragic accident. The chances of finding survivors are tiny.” There were people of 32 nationalities aboard, including 58 Brazilians, 61 French and 2 Americans, Air France said in a statement based on information from Brazilian authorities. The flight took off from Rio de Janeiro at 7:30 p.m. local time (6:30 p.m. Eastern time), and its last verbal communication with air traffic control was three hours later, at 10:33, according to a statement from Brazil’s civil aviation agency. At that time, the flight was at 35,000 feet and traveling at 520 miles per hour. About a half-hour later, it apparently encountered an electrical storm with “very heavy turbulence,” Air France said. The last communication from it came at 11:14 — a series of automatic messages indicating it had suffered an electrical-system malfunction. The Associated Press reported that it also suffered a loss of cabin pressure. Brazilian officials said the plane disappeared over the Atlantic somewhere between a point 186 miles northeast of their coastal city Natal and the Cape Verde islands off Africa . The area is known as the intertropical convergence zone, where the tropics of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres mix, sometimes creating violent and unpredictable thunderstorms that can rise to 55,000 feet, higher than commercial jetliners can go. Experts were at a loss to explain fatal damage from lightning or a tropical storm, both of which jetliners face routinely, despite efforts to avoid them — as much out of concern for passengers’ nerves as for the planes’ safety. Pilots are trained to go over or around thunderstorms rather than through them. Brigitte Barrand, an Air France spokeswoman, said the highly experienced pilot had clocked 11,000 flying hours, including 1,100 hours on Airbus 330 jets. “A completely unexpected situation occurred on board the aircraft,” Mr. Gourgeon told France’s LCI television. “Lightning alone is not enough to explain the loss of this plane,” Julien Gourguechon, a longtime Air France pilot, said. “Turbulence alone is not enough.” “It is always a combination of factors,” Mr. Gourgeon said. By some estimates, jetliners are typically hit by lightning at least once a year. But the strike normally travels across the plane’s aluminum skin and out the tail or a wingtip. Passengers are insulated in the nonconductive, largely plastic interior, and vital equipment is shielded. A loss of cabin pressure could suggest a break in the fuselage, but planes are built to withstand buffeting from a storm’s updrafts and downdrafts. It could also be a consequence of an electrical failure, if the plane’s air compressors stop working. Large hailstones created by some thunderstorms have been known to break windshields or turbine blades, though pilots would be likely to rapidly report something like that. The missing aircraft was relatively new, having gone into service in April 2005. Its last hangar maintenance check was on April 16, Air France said. No Airbus A330-200 passenger flight ever had a fatal crash, according to the Aviation Safety Network . Hans Weber, head of the Tecop aviation consulting firm in San Diego , offered a hypothesis about the episode, based on his knowledge of severe losses of altitude by two Qantas jets last year. The new Airbus 330 was a “fly-by-wire” plane, in which signals to move the aileron, rudder and elevators are sent through electric wires to small motors rather than through cables or hydraulic tubing. Fly-by-wire systems can automatically conduct maneuvers to prevent an impending crash, but some Airbus jets will not allow a pilot to override the self-protection mechanism. On both Qantas flights, the planes’ inertia sensors sent faulty information into the flight computers, making them take emergency measures to correct problems that did not exist, sending the planes into sudden dives. If the inertia sensor told a computer that a plane was stalling, forcing it to drop the nose and dive to pick up airspeed, and there was simultaneously a severe downdraft in the storm turbulence, “that would be hard to recover from,” Mr. Weber said.

Air France-KLM
Airlines and Airplanes
Accidents and Safety
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Paris (France)


European Finance Ministers Delay Decision on Bailout Fund

Abstract: BRUSSELS — European finance ministers want their permanent rescue fund to be able to lend more money to struggling countries, but held off Tuesday from making any formal decisions. Ministers ended two days of meetings on Tuesday with conflicting signals, as concrete decisions on short-term steps to deal with future debt crises were postponed despite growing market pressure on Portugal. Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, who leads the euro zone finance group, said late Monday that ministers had reached a consensus on expanding the money available for lending to 500 billion euros ($677 billion) — double the fund’s current capacity — beginning in 2013. He added that ministers were discussing several ideas for making the fund more flexible. The increase would be an acknowledgment that the fund’s current lending capacity was inadequate, while also limiting ambitions to enlarge it further. Several ministers emphasized that no final decisions had been made, given that a comprehensive package on the bailout fund and closer economic coordination were still being negotiated. “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” the French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, said. In the meantime, pressure is growing on Portugal, whose 10-year bond yield rose to 7.42 percent Tuesday, a measure of investor nervousness about the country’s ability to finance its debts. The Portuguese finance minister, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, criticized the slow pace of European decision-making. “The discussions are taking longer than desirable, and delays and hesitations affect the euro zone and the stabilization of the euro,” he said Tuesday after a meeting of ministers from all 27 European Union countries. The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said there was no need to change the existing temporary fund. Member states could act with “lightning speed” to make changes if necessary, he added. Though the rescue fund now totals 440 billion euros, only about 250 billion euros is available for lending because of the fund’s structure and its requirement for capital buffers. The proposal would effectively double that amount, beginning in 2013, but the ministers have also been debating whether to increase the fund’s capacity to the full 440 billion euros before then. The Dutch finance minister, Jan Kees de Jager, suggested Tuesday that this was not an immediate priority. “The shape and size of the bailout fund is neither the problem nor the solution for the crisis,” he said. “It’s ultimately about strong fiscal discipline and building healthy economic fundamentals.” Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said the lack of a decision at the two-day meeting did not suggest that support for increasing the temporary fund had waned. He argued that ministers could agree on the details of the post-2013 fund “and then apply sufficient and suitable elements” to change the current fund. On Monday, Mr. Juncker acknowledged the concern over about the Portugal’s position. “The situation on the sovereign debt markets remains worrying,” Mr. Juncker said. “We do think that Portugal is broadly on track, but all this has to be observed from our point of view in the coming months and weeks.” The finance ministers also discussed possible concessions to extend the period over which Greece must repay its loans. On Monday, Mr. Rehn said there might be room after this year to adjust the interest rates Ireland paid on the portion of its 85-billion-euro bailout that comes from loans from the European Union. In Ireland, the interest rate charged to the government has been a significant issue in elections scheduled for Feb. 25, with the opposition leader, Enda Kenny, promising to renegotiate the deal. Ireland, which is borrowing from two European Union funds and the International Monetary Fund, pays on average an interest rate of less than 6 percent, a premium of about three percentage points over market rates. Germany has urged terms tough enough to deter countries from straying, and some countries argue that the high profile adopted by Irish politicians makes it difficult to agree to concessions without being seen as rewarding critics of the deal.

European Union
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
European Financial Stability Facility


Binghamton Fires Men’s Basketball Coach Mark Macon

Abstract: Binghamton University cut the final coaching tie to the scandal-ridden Kevin Broadus era on Monday night, firing Mark Macon as basketball coach. The news came in the aftermath of a 2-29 season, although the late timing of the firing indicates that recent player transfers cost Macon his job as much as his 24-68 record. Macon, a former assistant under Broadus, had two seasons remaining on his contract, and the university will pay him $300,000 to leave. That payment adds to the significant financial toll of the basketball scandal at Binghamton, which paid Broadus $1.2 million to leave and also paid just under $1 million to finance an independent investigation of the university and basketball program. The money for Macon will come exclusively from the athletic department. Macon was surprisingly given a contract extension in February 2011 by the university’s interim athletic director and interim president. The team was 6-18 at the time. It proved just another costly decision in the wake of a scandal that left the university with a new president, provost and athletic director. Broadus led Binghamton to the N.C.A.A. tournament in 2009, but after his star point guard was arrested for selling crack a few months later, the program spiraled to oblivion in amid a flurry of legal, academic and N.C.A.A. issues. The transfer of at least two solid young players, including the star freshman Ben Dickinson, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, appeared to be the final straw for Macon. Binghamton was considered the worst team in college basketball last season and the departure of Dickinson, who is expected to go to Loyola Marymount, means they could actually be worse next season. “The decision was about the future,” Binghamton Athletic Director Patrick Elliott said in a telephone interview. “I wanted to position ourselves as good as we can going forward.” Elliott said he would not use a search firm and would prefer a coach who had recruited at the Division I level. The firing came the same day as a report in The Washington Post that Broadus would be elevated to a full-time assistant at Georgetown. (A Georgetown spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report.) Broadus served as a special assistant there last year, and in a prior assistant stint there and at George Washington earned a reputation for his ability to recruit academically at-risk players from so-called diploma mills. Broadus was recruiting for Georgetown in Hampton, Va., on Sunday at a Nike basketball event.

State University of New York at Binghamton


For Bush and Press, Informal Talks

Abstract: President Bush has been holding informal off-the-record sessions with major news organizations over the last several days. Starting Thursday, he began meeting with groups of about a half-dozen reporters from newspapers, television, news agencies and magazines. They have discussed a variety of issues including the war in Iraq, said a reporter who attended a session. The meetings, which the journalists have agreed not to describe publicly, have been in the White House residence. They come as several news organizations have assigned new reporters, who had no relationship with Mr. Bush, to cover the White House. David Bohrman, the Washington bureau chief for CNN, one of whose reporters attended a session, said they were a good idea. "Most of the time, the environments that our reporters deal with the president in are very structured, very managed, and they rarely get to just kick back and have a conversation," he said. "I think there's a lot of value in it for both sides." He also said he did not see the sessions as compromising. "If something pops up in there that someone wants to follow, they are free to follow up on it," he said. The New York Times, which was invited to attend a session today, has declined to participate. Philip Taubman, the Washington bureau chief for The Times, said in a statement last night: "The Times has declined this opportunity after weighing the potential benefits to our readers against the prospect of withholding information from them about the discussion with Mr. Bush. As a matter of policy and practice, we would prefer when possible to conduct on-the-record interviews with public officials." Times editors and reporters have participated in such unreported sessions with several presidents, including Mr. Bush, over the years. These have involved both social situations and substantive discussions. This appears to be the first time that the Bush administration has systematically brought in members of the White House press corps, although Mr. Bush holds an annual off-the-record barbecue with reporters during his summer vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Tex. One reporter who attended a recent session said Mr. Bush had appeared relaxed and seemed to enjoy showing the group around the residence. They met in the yellow oval room and were taken out on the Truman balcony. A few of Mr. Bush's aides were present as the reporters were served iced tea, water and soda and chatted for about an hour. Mr. Bush does better in such informal sessions than in formal presentations, said Mr. Bohrman, who added that he would like to see more.

NEW YORK TIMES
BUSH GEORGE W
UNITED STATES POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
NEWS AND NEWS MEDIA


Knicks and Lakers: Contrast for the Ages

Abstract: The Knicks have gone so retro this season that they acquired, among various performers long in the proverbial tooth, the Argentine Dick McGuire. That is whom Pablo Prigioni — at 35 the N.B.A.’s oldest rookie — stylistically brings to mind for students and scholars of ancient Knicks history. McGuire, the passing wizard of the 1950s, was known for being so reluctant to shoot that he stopped short of filling out a consent slip when he resigned himself to hoisting one up. Even into his 50s, scrimmaging on occasion with all-thumbs sports reporters, McGuire was capable of breaking the prominent nose (mine) of an unprepared teammate rather than taking aim at the rim. “Trust me, Pablo has no idea who that is,” said Kurt Thomas, 40, a seven-year Knick back when McGuire, who died in 2010 after decades of Madison Square Garden employment as a player, coach and scout, was still a most welcome sight upon getting within bounce-pass distance of the team. In the dressing stall next door, Marcus Camby, 38 and another member of the alumni association to return this season, nodded in support of Thomas’s logical assertion. Prigioni, for his part, never made an appearance in the Knicks’ festive locker room after their 104-94 victory over Dallas on Friday night. Presumably he was shamed by his abject selfishness in taking two shots and missing both while generating one assist in his 10-plus minutes of playing time. Otherwise the Knicks’ happy caravan of all-in campers rolled on to a fourth consecutive victory, all by double digits. Optimism has spread so quickly that delirious fans may have set a record for the earliest unveiling of the hackneyed M.V.P. chant for Carmelo Anthony as he shot free throws on the way to pouring in 31 more points Friday. Not even Nate Silver could have forecast such disparate developments on opposite coasts over the season’s first week and a half. In hurricane-ravaged New York, the Anthony-led Knicks have looked indomitable as the league’s last remaining unbeaten team. In sunny Los Angeles, the Lakers were heralded as the newest — albeit oldest — N.B.A. superteam, but slogged so much out of the gate that they fired Mike Brown as coach on Friday after four defeats in five games. Like his newest Twitter enemy, Donald Trump, the Mavericks’ owner, Mark Cuban, is not one to gloat — at least not in his sleep — but he couldn’t resist poking his Western Conference rival and its high-priced lineup of four likely Hall of Famers. Asked what his thoughts were when the Lakers acquired Dwight Howard to continue their history of luring dominating centers to Hollywood, Cuban said, in so many words, he wasn’t blown away. “I think I said we’ve seen this play before,” he said. “Look, it had nothing to do with the Lakers, just my attitude in general about team building. You’ve got to understand the team culture and you’ve got to have a variety of pieces.” In his trademark snarky way, Cuban also seemed amused by the Lakers’ apparent panic when the dismissal of Brown was inevitably raised. “Don’t you hate when that happens?” he said. “Like I said, nothing surprises me, every team’s different, has their own approach. I just hope it was a huge mistake, and they continue to make them.” For the record, he wasn’t counting on that, or anything. “Only thing uncertain is uncertainty,” he said before recalling how his Mavericks, in 2006-7, lost their first four games, won 67 of their next 78 and were promptly eviscerated in the first round of the playoffs by Golden State. He added, “I don’t take anything after five games.” Those no doubt were among Brown’s less-profane thoughts after he was made scapegoat with the Lakers about to begin a six-game homestand, all but one against beatable teams. With Bernie Bickerstaff serving as interim coach, the Lakers hammered Golden State, 101-77, on Friday night while Los Angeles contemplated Phil Jackson’s coaching the Lakers for a third time and fulfilling his destiny as Billy Martin West. It is clear that the Lakers are not going to stink, but it’s also quite possible they will not be the second coming of Miami, whose three stars were all under 30 when they assembled two years ago. Before anyone cites Boston’s Big Three, remember that Ray Allen was 32, Kevin Garnett 31 and Paul Pierce 30 when they united to win the title in 2008. In Los Angeles, Steve Nash is 38 and hasn’t been able to guard anyone since the first Bush administration, if ever. Kobe Bryant is 34 but has seemingly been at this since the days of Earl Monroe (if not McGuire, who, like Monroe, has a No. 15 Knicks jersey hanging from the Garden rafters). Gasol, the Spaniard, is only 32 but was playing professionally before he was old enough to drive. Lots of miles on those three key bodies. That is what feels different about these Knicks, about whom we have all made a few geriatric jokes. Their principal players — Anthony, Tyson Chandler, Raymond Felton, J. R. Smith — are in their career primes. “I think that’s been overstated in a sense,” said Kidd, 39, of the Knicks’ collective age. “Our core is young. The guys who are the smaller pieces of the puzzle are over 30 but still have a lot in the gas tank.” How much remains to be seen, but Kidd, the American Prigioni, has certainly brought the highest basketball I.Q. to the Knicks in years along with a canny calm to the half-court sets. Experience and wisdom suddenly seem plentiful. Kidd and Chandler were part of Dallas’s 2011 championship run. Camby and Thomas were Knicks when they last made the Finals in 1999. Rasheed Wallace has a ring. “It’s a great mix of young and old,” Thomas said. “Guys who have been deep in the playoffs can help the guys who haven’t.” It all sounded good and it has looked equally good, but as far as the playoffs go, let’s just say that a team of this vintage should take it one day and game at a time. When dealing with basketball’s elderly, coast to coast, better to pass on the long-term projections.

Carmelo Anthony
Mike Brown
Kobe Bryant
Basketball


U.S. Seizure of Suspect in 2012 Benghazi Assault Ends Long Manhunt

Abstract: WASHINGTON — American commandos operating under the cover of night seized the man suspected of leading the deadly attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, the government announced on Tuesday, ending a manhunt that had dragged on for nearly two years and inflamed domestic and international politics. With drones hovering overhead, about two dozen Delta Force commandos and two or three F.B.I. agents descended on the outskirts of Benghazi just after midnight local time on Monday; grabbed the suspect, Ahmed Abu Khattala; stuffed him into a vehicle and raced away, according to officials briefed on the operation. No shots were fired, and the suspect was spirited out of Libya to a United States Navy warship in the Mediterranean. The capture was a breakthrough in finding the perpetrators of an episode that has been politically divisive from the start. President Obama and the State Department have been buffeted by multiple investigations and charges of misleading the public about the circumstances of the attack, which cost the lives of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11, 2012. The president and administration officials have strongly rebutted the allegations and accused Republicans of politicizing a national tragedy. Through it all, Mr. Abu Khattala has remained free, at times almost taunting the United States to catch him, eliciting more criticism of Mr. Obama for not doing enough to bring him to justice. In recent months, Mr. Abu Khattala had gone underground. But officials said new intelligence obtained last week indicated that he was going to be in a place that was “advantageous,” as one put it, because there would be few people around and less risk to American commandos. Mr. Obama gave the order on Friday to capture him. “It’s important for us to send a message to the world that when Americans are attacked, no matter how long it takes, we will find those responsible, and we will bring them to justice,” Mr. Obama said during an unrelated trip to Pittsburgh on Tuesday. “And that’s a message I sent the day after it happened, and regardless of how long it takes, we will find you.” Video President Obama said that Ahmed Abu Khattala, suspected of being the ringleader in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, was being transported to the United States. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times The capture provided a rare piece of good news for Mr. Obama at a time when challenges have mushroomed in places like Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. Yet even a casualty-free raid generated further debate, in this case about what should happen to Mr. Abu Khattala. Officials said he would be brought to the United States in the coming days to face charges in a civilian court. A sealed indictment sworn out secretly last July and made public on Tuesday outlined three counts against him in connection with the deaths of Mr. Stevens, Glen A. Doherty, Sean Smith and Tyrone S. Woods. But some Republicans argued that Mr. Abu Khattala was a terrorist who should be sent to the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and held as an enemy combatant. Either way, the operation brought relief to relatives who had been eager for some sort of action to find the organizers of the attack. “It’s about time,” said Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, on Tuesday. “We’ve been trying to be patient, and we’re very happy that this does seem part of the course of justice,” said Greg Doherty, Glen Doherty’s brother. “They assured us that this is not the end of their efforts, and they have a lot of good people working hard, and they haven’t forgotten us.” Even as they hailed the capture, Obama administration officials were vague in explaining why it took so long to go after Mr. Abu Khattala, who was linked to the attack shortly after it happened and even gave an interview to a New York Times reporter over a strawberry frappé on a hotel patio without apparent fear of being found. Some American officials, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing sensitive operations, said there had been a proposal to capture Mr. Abu Khattala for at least a year. But it was not clear that Mr. Obama had considered such a plan. “It is not true that the president has had the operation sitting on his desk for a year,” said another official familiar with the White House’s point of view. Image Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was one of four Americans killed in the attack, which has been highly politically divisive. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times Officials said they had been waiting for the right combination of factors that would enable them to know where Mr. Abu Khattala would be at a specific time, in a situation that would minimize the chances of casualties. While Mr. Abu Khattala had kept a fairly high profile in Libya at first, he changed his pattern after American commandos seized the terror suspect Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai in October in a daylight raid in Tripoli, according to a law enforcement official. He became more difficult to track as he moved around quietly to evade detection, the official said. Then, last week, the official said, the United States obtained information about his whereabouts that enabled an operation. “We had finally worked out a scenario where we felt it was right operationally to be able to pull it off,” another official said. “The circumstances were right; the environment was right.” Government agencies on Tuesday brushed off critics who asked why the authorities had needed so long to grab a man who met openly with a reporter. “Frankly, it’s not a surprise that an individual like this would show up for an interview,” said Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman. “We don’t think they would show up for a scheduled meeting with the Special Forces.” Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, scoffed at the idea that Mr. Abu Khattala should have been captured earlier. “The presumption in the question is that, you know, he was going to McDonald’s for milkshakes every Friday night, and we could have just picked him up in a taxicab,” he said. “I mean, these people deliberately tried to evade capture.” By the time the president made the decision on Friday, officials said, his national security team was unanimous in supporting both the operation and the decision to bring Mr. Abu Khattala back to the United States for a civilian trial. Image Ahmed Abu Khattala Both the Pentagon and the State Department referred to the operation as a “unilateral U.S. action.” An administration official said the United States had not told the Libyan government until after the operation, a choice that guarded against possible leaks and enabled Libyan officials to deny any involvement in case the capture led to popular protests. The raid proceeded without complication, officials said. “It was very clean, in and out, with no one hurt,” said one official briefed on the details. “It was textbook,” said another. The Washington Post first reported Mr. Abu Khattala’s arrest. The Post said it had learned of the operation on Monday but agreed to delay its story after a request from the White House citing security concerns. While the Delta Force soldiers provided the muscle, the raid was carried out under law enforcement authority, not as a military operation under the longstanding congressional authorization of force against Al Qaeda and its associated forces, according to administration officials. The extent of ties between Mr. Abu Khattala’s militia in Libya, Ansar al-Shariah, and Al Qaeda has been a matter of dispute. While the two groups share similar ideologies, the United States government does not believe them to be formally affiliated. The F.B.I. agents who participated in the operation were told to preserve any evidence and to ensure that the suspect was interrogated under criminal justice procedures. “This entire operation, from start to finish, was law enforcement,” one official said. That does not mean that Mr. Abu Khattala was read a Miranda warning of his right to remain silent and have legal counsel. The Obama administration has adopted a policy of delaying that warning for extensive questioning of suspected operational terrorists. Mr. Abu Khattala faces charges of killing a person in the course of an armed attack on a federal facility, providing material support to terrorists and using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. “We retain the option of adding additional charges in the coming days,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement. Among those relieved by the capture was former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been broadly criticized for her handling of the Benghazi attack. “It took, as you know, 10 years to bring Osama bin Laden to justice,” she said on CNN during an event to promote her new book. “It’s taken more than two years to bring this perpetrator to justice.” But, she added, “Khattala has been very much on the minds of our law enforcement, our military and our intelligence professionals since that night in September of 2012.” Still, others cautioned about celebrating too soon, noting that Mr. Abu Khattala was just one person suspected in the mass attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi. “I wouldn’t say we’ve broken the back by any stretch of the imagination,” Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC. “This was an important activity to happen, to take someone like Khattala off the battlefield,” Mr. Rogers said. “It sends a very clear message in Libya that we haven’t gone away.” But, he added, “there’s over a dozen individuals of interest, I think, that the United States needs to gather up.”

Benghazi
Libya
Ahmed Abu Khattala
Benghazi Attack 2012
US Military
Barack Obama
Diplomats Embassies and Consulates


In Closing Arguments, Conflicting Accounts of Man’s Role in Silk Road

Abstract: A prosecutor asked a Manhattan jury on Tuesday to convict a California man, Ross W. Ulbricht, of narcotics trafficking conspiracy and other charges in a trial involving Silk Road, the black-market website for drugs and other illicit goods. The website became Mr. Ulbricht’s passion and secret livelihood, the prosecutor, Serrin Turner, told the jury. Mr. Ulbricht, 30, had been accused of operating the website under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts for more than two years on a hidden part of the Internet, where deals could be made anonymously, away from the scrutiny of law enforcement. The federal government has said there were more than 1.5 million transactions on the site, generating more than $200 million in revenue. Deals were made in Bitcoins. “He built it. He grew it. He operated it from top to bottom until the very end,” Mr. Turner said. The prosecutor’s comments came as the government and the defense clashed in closing arguments during the fourth week of Mr. Ulbricht’s trial in Federal District Court. The jury is expected to begin deliberations on Wednesday after instructions from Judge Katherine B. Forrest. Mr. Turner said Mr. Ulbricht’s “criminal turf” had been a “dark corner of the Internet,” and the website “made it easier for drug dealers to get users hooked, users from all over the world.” “His conduct was brazenly illegal,” Mr. Turner said. “He knew perfectly well what he was doing the whole time.” Mr. Ulbricht’s lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel , had earlier told the jury that his client created Silk Road as a kind of “economic experiment,” and after a few months handed it off to others — including the real Dread Pirate Roberts — before being lured back and made a “fall guy.” Mr. Ulbricht was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in San Francisco in October 2013. On Tuesday, Mr. Dratel pressed the contention that his client had been framed. He suggested the actual Dread Pirate Roberts and confederates had planted or edited the incriminating chats and other evidence that the government had used to tie Mr. Ulbricht to the website’s activities. “The Internet is not what it seems,” Mr. Dratel said, adding, “You can create an entire fiction.” He cited the screen names prosecutors have said were used by Mr. Ulbricht’s employees in Silk Road. “Where is the proof that they are separate people?” Mr. Dratel asked. Mr. Ulbricht did not testify, but the defense called several of his friends, who said that they knew him as a nonviolent person. The government had also accused Mr. Ulbricht of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bitcoins to orchestrate the murders of several people he saw as threats to his business. The government has said there is no evidence that anyone was harmed. Mr. Ulbricht, if convicted, could receive a life sentence on the narcotics trafficking conspiracy count. Another charge, that he engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise, carries a maximum of life and a minimum of 20 years. Mr. Turner, in outlining the government’s evidence, cited journal entries that prosecutors have said Mr. Ulbricht kept while running Silk Road. In one, the defendant allegedly wrote: “In 2011, I am creating a year of prosperity and power beyond what I have ever experienced before. Silk Road is going to become a phenomenon and at least one person will tell me about it, unknowing that I was its creator.” The entry, Mr. Turner argued, showed Silk Road was not “some experiment.” “It’s an obsession,” Mr. Turner said. “He wants power. He wants prosperity. He is relishing the thought, the site becoming a phenomenon with him the secret mastermind behind it.”

Silk Road
Ross William Ulbricht
Black market
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Drug Abuse
Katherine B Forrest


Man Accused of Mortgage Fraud Now Indicted on Ponzi Scheme Charges

Abstract: Sharmon Wade did business out of a Park Avenue office suite, where he ran a company called the Covenant Equity Group. The company solicited investors by promising them astronomical returns in real estate investments — 50 to 100 percent within two months. But Mr. Wade was a con man, Manhattan prosecutors said, and for the second time in two weeks he was charged with real estate fraud. In an indictment announced on Tuesday, District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau accused Mr. Wade of taking investors’ money and spending it at nightclubs, restaurants, hotels and spas, among many other places, rather than on real estate ventures. Even as Mr. Morgenthau was announcing a state indictment, Mr. Wade was in federal court, about two blocks away, for a hearing on charges that he led a conspiracy to obtain more than $10 million in fraudulent home mortgage loans. Mr. Morgenthau also charged Mr. Wade’s business partner, Claudius Hannah, in the real estate investment scheme, which the district attorney said lasted from June 2007 to August 2008. Mr. Wade and Mr. Hannah are accused in the state case of stealing more than $1.3 million from more than a dozen investors. Mr. Wade is still in federal custody and Mr. Hannah, 45, was arrested in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday. Each faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted on the state charges, which include grand larceny and fraud. The scheme started after Robert Martin, a municipal clerk in Jersey City, invested money with Covenant, Mr. Morgenthau said. Mr. Wade and Mr. Hannah returned a small amount to Mr. Martin, and he recommended the firm to other investors, Mr. Morgenthau said. On several occasions, the defendants gave a small amount of money, which they described as profits, to investors to entice them to encourage friends and family members to invest, Mr. Morgenthau said — using the phrase Ponzi scheme . The defendants told investors that they would invest their money in commercial properties obtained at very low prices. They were to be resold or refinanced for large profits, Mr. Morgenthau said, but the defendants never bought real estate. In some instances, Mr. Wade and Mr. Hannah asked investors to invest money directly into their company, and encouraged investors who did not have enough money to do so to borrow, Mr. Morgenthau said. In the federal case, prosecutors accused Mr. Wade and three others of using former prisoners and residents of a housing project to pose as home buyers and obtain subprime mortgages, usually for more than the cost of the property, falsifying information on the straw buyers’ applications. They then kept the difference between the sale price and the amount received from the mortgage, federal authorities said. The loans soon went into foreclosure. The federal charges were brought against Sharmon Howell, but Mr. Morgenthau said that he and Mr. Wade are the same person. “The important message is there’s no free lunch,” Mr. Morgenthau said at a news conference discussing the state charges in his office. “Anybody who tells you they’re going to double your money in 30 to 60 days, that should be a red flag.” But the defendants were so convincing that Michele Bilotta did not think to question them until it was too late. In an interview, Ms. Bilotta said she learned of the possibility of investing with Covenant through her hairdresser’s brother. After an initial telephone conversation with Mr. Wade, she received several follow-up calls, she said. Eventually, she agreed to meet with him, and he sent a car service to her home in Bayonne, N.J., to bring her to his office in the Helmsley Building in Midtown Manhattan, she said. “It was beautifully fronted,” said Ms. Bilotta, 39. “They looked professional.” She agreed to invest with Covenant in November 2007 after it promised to double her money within 30 days. When she did not receive any money after a month, she said, she contacted Mr. Wade, who told her that there was a delay. She continued to contact him but did not receive any of the $110,000 that she said she had given to the defendants. By the end of January 2008, she said she knew something was wrong. She eventually contacted WABC-TV, which ran a report on her situation. Although Ms. Bilotta, who lives with her 17-year-old daughter and is unemployed, said she was pleased to see Mr. Wade and Mr. Hannah arrested, that may not make help her recoup any of her losses: her life savings, her car, a Cadillac Escalade on which she could no longer make payments and her peace of mind. “We went from having everything in life to living from day to day, thinking our lights are going be turned off,” she said.

Ponzi Schemes
Frauds and Swindling
Housing and Real Estate
Wade Sharmon
Morgenthau Robert M


Afghan Presidential Election Delayed

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials said Thursday that they had decided to postpone the country’s presidential election until August, saying they needed more time to prepare. But the decision, which appeared to contravene Afghanistan’s Constitution, raised questions about the legitimacy of what could be President Hamid Karzai ’s final months in office. Azizullah Ludin, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, said his office had decided to put off the voting until Aug. 20, which would give election workers more time to register candidates and set up voting machinery, and soldiers more time to bring dozens of chaotic districts under control. Mr. Ludin said the new date would allow the presidential election to take place under more favorable weather. But Afghanistan’s Constitution states that the president’s term expires on the equivalent of May 22 on the Roman calendar. Presidential elections, the Constitution says, must be held 30 to 60 days before the end of the term. Citing the Constitution, leaders of the parliamentary opposition to Mr. Karzai said they would stop recognizing his authority after May 22. They called on the United Nations and Western governments to help them appoint a temporary president after Mr. Karzai’s term formally expires. “After May 22, Karzai’s continuation will not be legitimate for either us or the Afghan people,” said Aqa Fazil Sancharki, a spokesman for the United Front, whose members control about a third of the 241 seats in the lower house of Parliament. A spokesman for Mr. Karzai said he would respect the commission’s decision to delay the vote. Mr. Karzai, who was elected to a five-year term in 2004, has led the country since the ouster of the Taliban in November 2001. He has declared his intention to seek re-election, and while a number of prominent Afghans have said they may also run, only three lesser-known candidates have declared so far. The election this year will come at an especially difficult time, with the Taliban insurgency challenging the government’s writ in many areas. A United Nations spokesman said the organization had resigned itself to the delay, given that there did not appear to be enough time to have everything in place by late May. “At this point, it has become a pragmatic necessity,” said Adrian Edwards, a United Nations spokesman in Kabul. Mr. Ludin, the chairman of the election commission, acknowledged that delaying the election was not ideal. But he said he did not have a choice, given the challenges of the country’s harsh environment and the Taliban insurgency. Of the 364 districts around the country, 84 are not safe enough to hold an election, he said. “We are not in a normal situation in Afghanistan,” Mr. Ludin said. Anticipating the delay, American and NATO commanders here have set as one of their main goals for 2009 the securing of the country for peaceful elections. About 70,000 foreign troops are now in Afghanistan, nearly half of them American. The Obama administration has promised to send up to 30,000 more troops over the next 18 months.


Gunman Who Shot Wallace Is to Be Freed

Abstract: Arthur Bremer, the gunman who tried to kill Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama as he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, will be released from prison this year, a Maryland prison official said yesterday. In 1973, Mr. Bremer was sentenced to serve 53 years for shooting Mr. Wallace and wounding three others at a campaign stop in Laurel, Md. The bullet that lodged in Mr. Wallace’s spine paralyzed his legs, and he used a wheelchair until his death in 1998. Mr. Bremer has served 35 years of his original sentence, and managed, through credits for good behavior and steady job performance as a prison clerk, to earn an earlier release date, said Ruth A. Ogle, a program manager at the Maryland Parole Commission. “The computer says he has never had an infraction,” Ms. Ogle said. “Arthur apparently figured out how to stay out of trouble.” Mr. Bremer, 57, is scheduled to be released from the Maryland Correctional Institute in Hagerstown on Dec. 16, but he may be out sooner as he continues to cut time off his sentence. He will continue to be supervised by the Maryland Parole Commission until 2025, the maximum expiration of his sentence, and a special condition of his parole will be that he stay away from political figures and events. “He can’t be around political candidates or any elected official,” Ms. Ogle said. “He can’t go to a rally, a public appearance, a political dinner, anything like that.” In 1996, the commission denied Mr. Bremer’s application for parole, saying early release would mean “open hunting season” on politicians. Mr. Bremer has said he had hoped to gain celebrity by assassinating President Richard M. Nixon, but settled for trying to kill Mr. Wallace instead. While Mr. Bremer failed, he became an inspiration for the would-be assassin Travis Bickle in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver.” That film, in turn, is said to have inspired an attempt by John W. Hinckley Jr. on the life of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Mr. Hinckley said he was trying to show his love for Jodie Foster, one of the film’s stars.

Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations


FEMA Awards New York City a $3 Billion Grant for Hurricane Sandy Repairs

Abstract: New York City is set to receive about $3 billion in federal funding to repair and stormproof 33 public housing complexes that were badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy, a grant that officials said was the largest provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “We got the highest award in FEMA history,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who announced the funding with Senator Charles E. Schumer on Tuesday at a news conference at the Red Hook East housing development in Brooklyn. “You can’t ask for anything more than that,” the mayor added. “That’s as good as it gets.” Half of the $3 billion is expected to fund repairs, including the replacement of heating and electrical equipment and doors, floors, roofs and other architectural elements that were damaged by the storm in 2012. The rest of the money is to be dedicated to resiliency measures, officials said, like the addition of elevated boilers, flood barriers and generators. Work paid for by the grant is set to begin this summer, said Shola Olatoye, chairwoman of the New York City Housing Authority, and the project is expected to take up to three years to complete. The 33 complexes include developments in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. Mr. Schumer, viewed as the front-runner to become the new Democratic leader of the United States Senate, described the funding as “a massive shot of adrenaline into New York City’s public housing developments.” But he also cautioned that the Senate’s Republican leadership could be less amenable in the future to big-ticket spending related to climate change. “Even the most fundamental things were called into question by many of our colleagues, such as FEMA being funded at all,” Mr. Schumer said. He added: “It’ll be a fight, but I think we’ll ultimately prevail.”


First Casualties of a Changing Space Program at NASA

Abstract: In the political battle over the nation’s space program, the first casualties are people like Donny Smith, an engineer who received his layoff notice Monday. “I’ve been preparing, trying to find something else to move to,” said Mr. Smith, who works for Bastion Technologies, one of the companies NASA has hired to help design rockets to return astronauts to the moon as part of its Constellation program. Workers at Bastion and elsewhere are caught in a growing conflict between Congress, which has banned NASA from canceling any part of Constellation, and agency leaders who have directed program managers to scale back their work while preserving the parts that would fit into the new space policy proposed by President Obama. The administration wants to turn to commercial companies for taking future astronauts to orbit while taking a hiatus from any ambitious missions to send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit. Yet Congress has not agreed to the scuttling of Constellation and added a clause in this year’s federal budget that prohibited NASA from canceling the program or starting a new one without Congressional assent. The skirmishing continued in earnest this week. Staff members on the House Committee on Science and Technology are reviewing documents that NASA sent over Friday evening to comply with the committee’s demand for information used in formulating the president’s proposal. In addition, on Tuesday, 62 House members signed a letter sent to President Obama “to express concern” over the direction of NASA. “It is in the nation’s best interest to leverage the investments made in Constellation over the last five years, into a beyond low-Earth orbit exploration program, today,” said the letter writers, which included representatives of both political parties from states far beyond Texas, Alabama and Florida, which are home to the major NASA centers. The basis for the latest Constellation upheaval is a clause in the contracts of Lockheed Martin, Alliant Techsystems Inc. and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, which states that the companies are responsible for setting aside contract money to pay for termination costs if the Constellation program were canceled. In response to letters from NASA this year, Lockheed Martin and Alliant, more commonly known as ATK, said that for decades the space agency paid for termination costs like severance pay for workers and that the companies had not reserved money to cover that. Lockheed Martin has estimated its cancellation costs at $350 million, ATK at $500 million. Two contracts with Boeing, another of the companies working on Constellation, were modified in late January so that NASA, not Boeing, set aside $81 million to pay for termination costs. Those changes were made less than two weeks before the administration announced its desire to cancel Constellation. In a letter this month to leaders of key Congressional committees, Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., the NASA administrator, cited the Anti-Deficiency Act — a law that prohibits federal agencies from spending more money than has been allocated by Congress — in announcing that the agency was scaling back Constellation to cover termination costs. Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the Orion crew capsule that Mr. Obama has proposed turning into a lifeboat for the International Space Station, threatened to shut down the program if it had to set aside the termination costs. NASA has now sped up payment of $80 million to the company and then added $83 million to the contract to help Lockheed Martin manage the termination costs. “We don’t want these contractors to go out of business if we can,” said Andrew Hunter, a NASA budget official. “They were going to shut down work on the 27th. We’re keeping them alive.” ATK is still holding to the position that NASA is responsible for termination costs, and it has not aside money or prepared layoffs. As planned, ATK is receiving $160 million for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Despite the infusion of money, Lockheed Martin is still moving 600 jobs off Orion, including 300 among its subcontractors. Boeing has also announced that layoffs are in the works. And with the shifting of money among the prime contractors, NASA is cutting so-called support contracts. The entire layoff brunt so far is landing on people like Mr. Smith and not NASA government employees. In Huntsville, Ala., often called the Rocket City, Mayor Tommy Battle said he had heard that 700 people could be affected in his city. Nationwide, NASA has estimated that 2,500 to 5,000 jobs could be lost. For Bastion Technologies, that means layoff notices went to 86 of the 190 employees working on the company’s NASA contract for analyzing potential safety issues with the Constellation program’s Ares rockets. Bastion’s workers get 60 days’ notice under federal law, but that law does not apply to all of the contractors. That gives Mr. Smith time to look for work somewhere, but he is not optimistic. “Given the scope of the layoffs and the fact there are more than a thousand people out there now looking,” Mr. Smith said, “I really don’t know.”

National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Fighting Stop-and-Frisk Tactic, but Hitting Racial Divide

Abstract: ALBANY — Black and Latino lawmakers, fed up over the frequency with which New York City police officers are stopping and frisking minority men, are battling what they say is a racial divide as they push legislation to rein in the practice. The divide, they say, is largely informed by personal experience: many who object to the practice say that they have themselves been stopped by the police for reasons they believe were related to race. Senator Kevin S. Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat, recalled several occasions when, as a high school student walking home in Flatbush, he was stopped by the police, patted down, told to empty his pockets, produce identification and divulge his destination. Assemblyman Karim Camara , a Democrat from Brooklyn, remembers greeting a woman who was walking down a street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, when, he said, officers in plain clothes approached him and demanded to know who he was, where he was going and whether he had any guns or drugs. And when Senator Adriano Espaillat , a Manhattan Democrat, was just 14, he said, detectives threw him against a wall and patted him down in Washington Heights, in Manhattan, when he was on his way to buy a Dominican newspaper for his father. The lawmakers say the racial imbalance with which stop-and-frisk is applied has a corollary effect: Many white legislators have remained silent on the issue, or have supported the police, revealing a racial gap over attitudes toward the practice. “There is an ethnic divide on who’s being stopped and frisked, and there is an ethnic divide on who’s fighting against the policy,” said State Senator Eric L. Adams , a Democrat and a retired police captain from Brooklyn. The lawmakers’ effort to set off a debate in Albany is taking place with an increased focus on the interplay between race and public safety. It was highlighted in New York by the fatal shooting last month of Ramarley Graham, 18, by a police officer in the Bronx , and nationally by the fatal shooting last month of Trayvon Martin , 17, by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida . The young men were unarmed. “Both illustrate the perils of racial stereotyping when individuals are empowered with the capacity to make life and death decisions,” said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat. He said the shootings had “further emboldened legislators to continue to fight to deal with the out-of-control stop-and-frisk practices.” The split among Albany lawmakers over the stop-and-frisk issue reflects a divide among New York City voters: according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on March 13, 59 percent of white voters approve of it, and 27 percent of black voters do. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly , facing increased complaints about the practice, has pushed back hard against critics. Last week, assailed by the City Council over the practice, Mr. Kelly said that the policy was an important policing tool intended to reduce the violence that has victimized blacks and Hispanics, and that, “What I haven’t heard is any solution to the violence problems in these communities.” “People are upset about being stopped,” he continued, “yet what is the answer?” According to the Police Department, 96 percent of shooting victims last year, and 90 percent of murder victims, were minorities. “There’s more police assigned to a place like East New York than, say, a precinct in Riverdale,” said the Police Department spokesman, Paul J. Browne, “so the police are going to be in a position to observe suspicious behavior more frequently.” The Police Department has said that it conducted a record 684,330 stops last year, and that 87 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic. About 10 percent of the stops led to arrests or summonses and 1 percent to the recovery of a weapon, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights , which has examined police data. But the Police Department frames the numbers in a different way: last year, it said, it recovered 8,000 weapons, 800 of them handguns, via stops. And over the last decade, the number of murders has dropped by 51 percent, “in part because of stop, question and frisk,” Mr. Browne said. Some white elected officials have strongly criticized the stop-and-frisk policy. They included the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer , and the public advocate, Bill de Blasio , both of whom are likely candidates for mayor; and Brad Lander and Daniel Dromm , who are on the Council. Senator Michael Gianaris , a Democrat from Queens , has offered a bill that would make it illegal for the department to set a quota for the number of stops officers must make. Mr. Stringer said it was important for elected officials “who look like me” to help broaden the coalition of New Yorkers fighting against stop-and-frisk. But race continues to dominate discussion of the issue. Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, a black Democrat from Harlem , is still smarting over a legislative debate he had in 2008 with Assemblyman David R. Townsend Jr., a white Republican from central New York, on a proposal to prohibit racial profiling. Mr. Townsend said part of good police work involved questioning people who seemed out of place in a particular neighborhood, regardless of their race. “If you were spotted in an affluent section of Oneida County where we don’t have minority people living, and you were driving around through these houses, and I was a law enforcement officer and a highway patrol, I would stop you to say, No. 1: ‘Are you lost? Is there something we can help you with, or what are you doing here?’ ” Mr. Townsend said to Mr. Wright. Two years ago, the Legislature passed a law requiring police officials in New York City to no longer store the names and addresses of people stopped but not charged. Gov. David A. Paterson , the state’s first African-American governor, signed the measure despite objections not only from city officials, but also, he said, from an all-white panel advising him on the issue. In a recent interview, Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, said his views of the measure were informed by his own experience, which included being stopped three times by the police. “It’s a feeling of being degraded,” he said. “I think that’s what people who it hasn’t happened to don’t understand.” Now, Mr. Jeffries is sponsoring a bill that would make it a violation, not a crime, to possess small quantities of marijuana in public view. The bill, he said, would curb the tens of thousands of arrests each year that result when officers stop people and ask them to empty their pockets, leading to the revelation of small amounts of marijuana. Mr. Wright has been urging passage of a bill that would prohibit police officers from stopping people based solely on their race or ethnicity. Mr. Parker is behind legislation to create the post of inspector general for the police. And in the Council, Jumaane D. Williams has introduced bills that would require officers to inform people they stop that they can refuse to be searched and make mandatory and citywide a pilot program in which officers give those stopped a business card with a phone number, in case they want to lodge a complaint. Mr. Williams has had his own run-ins with police. He said he was stopped in Brooklyn last year, after he had bought a BMW , by officers who said, “We want to make sure it’s yours.” And, in an episode that drew widespread publicity, he was detained by the police last year after an argument with officers over whether he was allowed to use a closed sidewalk during the West Indian American Day Parade. “We know that the legislation is not going to stop stop-and-frisk,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is provide more accountability with the N.Y.P.D. and their practices and policies.”

New York
Racial profiling
Search and seizure
NYPD
Politics


Englewood: Owners of Burned Building Cited

Abstract: A day after a four-alarm basement fire killed two tenants of a three-story house on James Street, its owners have been charged with building-code violations, the police said yesterday. Deputy Chief Arthur O’Keefe of the Englewood Police Department said the owners, Oscar and Nubia Cortes, were charged with violating a municipal ordinance by converting the basement into a dormitory. The fire, which started on a couch near the basement’s only exit, was ruled accidental. Chief O’Keefe identified the dead as Domingo Ortega Flores, 41, of Mexico and Sriwipha Phathan, 27, of Thailand. A third tenant, Augustin Palafox, 22, of Mexico, remained in critical condition yesterday.


An Unusual Line Dance Greets the Trout Season

Abstract: At 6:30 a.m. tomorrow, a spectacle will unfold on the streams of Missouri's trout parks. It is a celebration and a fishing adventure in the same event. Anglers standing shoulder to shoulder will, at the sound of a siren, cast as one into the waters before them in the first seconds of Missouri's annual trout season. What drives the anglers to crowd together every year on the first day of March, enduring cold weather, cold water and unbelievable line tangles to catch a trout? Mike Mitchell, the hatchery manager at Bennett Spring State Park, which is near Lebanon, Mo., said tradition was an important aspect of opening day. "You have people coming here for years, knowing that it's going to be crowded and that it might not be a day for serious fishing," he said. "It's more like opening day of baseball season." The spectacle is a major attraction. Mitchell estimated that there would be more than 2,000 anglers at both Bennett Spring and at Roaring River State Park, which is near Cassville in southwestern Missouri. He said there would be slightly smaller crowds at the privately owned but state-assisted Maramec Spring Park, southeast of St. James, and Montauk State Park, near Salem. Mitchell said that Missouri's program of trout stocking and management was unusual because of the opportunities it offered at its four trout parks and its 150 miles of state-managed streams. The concept of harnessing and directing the natural spring water to grow cold-water fish is a benefit resulting from the rare geological history of the land. The Ozark region is one of the most distinctive areas of North America. It features what is called a karst landscape: Dense limestone deposits laid down by ancient inland seas and dissolved by rainwater have created underground rivers that emerge as springs. Millions of gallons of earth-cooled water flow downstream in short branches to surface rivers, creating ideal trout water. Mitchell and his hatchery crew will rear about 420,000 fish to the 12-inch stocking size this year. For opening day, about 100 of these fish will be lunkers of at least 3 pounds, with some weighing as much as 15 pounds. The crew will stock about two fish for each angler for the opener and throughout the trout season. Even though the streams will be crowded on opening day, the improved chance of catching a large trout is attractive. At the sound of the first siren, thousands of lines will be cast into the water, with anglers being careful to drop their marabou jigs or small spinners just downstream of the ones landing above them. The lures drift as they are retrieved, and the trout, now seeing food everywhere, go into a feeding frenzy for a short time. Fish will be caught quickly, lines will be tangled, and mannerly fishermen will reel their offerings out of the way after someone says, "Big fish on!" The big one may or may not be caught. Soon, the fish will see that these fakes are not food, but danger, and will become trout again. They will be finicky, wary, and will use their amazing, magnifying eyesight to make catching them more difficult. It is at this point, after the initial fast action, that anglers need to use better techniques. One of the best is to drift a micro jig with a bobber above it just off the bottom at the speed of the current. It cannot drag; it cannot be pulled ahead by the line. It must be a drag-free drift. A small, lead spit shot or two can be placed 8 to 10 inches above the lure to get consistency near the stream bed, where the lure performs. At the slightest hesitation or jiggle of the bobber, the fisherman pulls with catlike quickness and hopefully will be fast to an athletic torpedo trying to use current and its own mass to break the two-pound test line. Other fishermen will sight-fish. They will stalk near a trout and try to drift a food imitation so directly to the fish that it literally only has to open its mouth. So little effort for such easy food -- some cannot resist. Later, fly rods will be brought out to fish areas made sparse by anglers gone to breakfast. With many fishermen still around, however, traditional fly fishing will give way to roll casting, with extreme care in the back cast to make sure that what is hooked is not a fellow angler. The crowds will thin as the day ends, and the final siren at 6 p.m. in the trout parks of Missouri will signal that quieter times are coming. The midweek spring mornings before summer vacation and the calm evenings of mid-July will make the memory of opening day seem far away. That is, until next year.

TROUT
MISSOURI
MITCHELL MIKE
PARKS AND OTHER RECREATION AREAS
FISHING SPORT
FISH AND OTHER MARINE LIFE


New York Police, in California, Search Home of Midtown Shooting Victim

Abstract: No drugs. No weapons. No evidence of any kind was removed by New York City detectives from the California home of the man who was gunned down this week in Midtown Manhattan, the victim’s mother said Thursday. “They handed me back the key to his condo and said they found nothing,” said Sandra Wellington, 56, the mother of Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31, who was shot in the back of the head near Columbus Circle on Monday. Despite the seemingly fruitless search of her son’s Playa del Rey condominium on Wednesday evening, two detectives drove to Ms. Wellington’s Los Angeles home and offered her some hope, she said. “One of the detectives said they are very close,” Ms. Wellington said in a telephone interview. “The detectives promised me that they will find the people who did this to my son,” she added. Yet a day after what appeared to be a break in the case — the discovery of the rented getaway vehicle in Queens — the New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said investigators still had no suspects. “We’re certainly not in the position to identify a suspect here,” he said at an unrelated news conference. However, Mr. Kelly’s statement seemed to contradict reports saying the driver had been identified and citing a law-enforcement official familiar with the investigation. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, later said in a statement — released to some reporters — that the police were concerned about reports that the driver had been identified, adding that the gunman, “who appears to be a professional,” may want to kill the driver. Mr. Kelly said detectives knew who had rented the car, a Lincoln MKZ, from an Avis location in Long Island, but he declined to provide details on what relationship they had, if any, to the calculated killing on 58th Street, a block from Central Park. Detectives on Wednesday questioned a person who they believed may have information on the killing. By Thursday, they had homed in on a name for the driver of the car, according to a person familiar with the case. The driver was characterized as a low-level criminal from Queens, and detectives were operating on the theory that the gunman had a similar background, the person said. The absence of new details fueled the mystery surrounding the killing, which appeared to have been highly planned and carried out with a chilling degree of calm in a busy area. Rumors swirled among friends of Mr. Woodard in Los Angeles. “Everyone is scared,” said one friend. With microphones and cameras pressed in to record his words, Mr. Kelly chastised the news media for publishing what he described as leaked information. “I would also say that leaks in this case are undermining — or certainly have the potential of undermining — the investigation,” he said. Detectives had told Ms. Wellington that they would provide her with an inventory sheet listing any items taken from her son’s three-story home. But after about two hours of searching, two detectives from New York drove over to Ms. Wellington’s Los Angeles home at about 9 p.m. on Wednesday and told her there was no need to sign any police paperwork, she said. “They just didn’t have a piece of paper for me to sign because they didn’t have anything,” she said. She added that investigators already had her son’s laptop because Mr. Woodard had left it with his luggage, which he had dropped with a lobby valet at the hotel where he was staying. The police have said that Mr. Woodard, a University of West Los Angeles Law School student, had been arrested at least 20 times, mostly on drug offenses, but had spent little time in jail. He had a court date next month in Los Angeles on a cocaine possession charge.

New York City
Woodard Brandon Lincoln
Murders and Attempted Murders
Columbus Circle (NYC)


U.S. Forces Kill Relatives of Iraqi Governor

Abstract: BAGHDAD — American Special Operations forces shot to death the son and nephew of the governor of Salahuddin Province during a raid on Sunday in the northern city of Bayji, the latest in a series of operations that have resulted in the deaths of civilians or close associates of Iraqi government officials. The governor, Hamed al-Qaisi, threatened to resign in protest and said he would suspend cooperation with American officials. The shootings come at a delicate time in negotiations between United States and Iraqi officials over the terms of a new security agreement. The most contentious sticking point has been an Iraqi demand that American troops no longer be immune from Iraqi criminal laws, an ultimatum that Iraqi officials say has been spurred by unwarranted attacks on civilians. A new agreement is needed for American troops to remain in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year. Also on Sunday, Iraq’s Independent Electoral Commission said provincial elections planned for October needed to be delayed by several months. “The original date of Oct. 1 has become a fantasy, because the Parliament hasn’t passed an election law yet,” a senior election official said Sunday night. “We still hope to have elections by the end of the year.” The provincial elections have long been seen as a way to rectify electoral distortions that have left Kurds and Shiites with vastly disproportionate power over Sunni Arabs in many parts of the country. But lawmakers have not been able to agree on an election law because of feuding over the future control of Kirkuk, a multiethnic city, and other issues. Once a law is passed, elections officials want one month to review and complete voter registration rolls. Then three months will be needed “for campaigning and for getting information to people to educate them,” Faraj al-Haideri, the head of the election commission, said last week. “We have not yet received the election law,” Mr. Haideri said. “There are some parties who want to delay the election.” Iraqi fury over civilian deaths peaked in late June when American troops shot to death three bank employees on their way to work at Baghdad’s airport. The Americans called the three workers — two women and a man — criminals, and said they had fired on troops. But in a rare rebuke of the American military, the Iraqi Armed Forces general command called the shootings cold-blooded murder. Iraqi and American officials offered sharply different accounts of the attack on Sunday in Bayji, 120 miles north of Baghdad, though the deputy provincial governor said American officials had already apologized to both him and Governor Qaisi, who was traveling in Turkey. Aides to the governor said American Special Operations forces broke into a house at 3 a.m. and fatally shot the governor’s 17-year-old son, Hussam. Maj. Muthanna Ibrahim, a spokesman for the governor, said Hussam was shot in his head, stomach and shoulder while he slept. Hussam’s 23-year-old cousin, Uday Khalaf, awoke and tried to push open the door to Hussam’s room, but he was also shot and killed by the American troops, Major Ibrahim said. The house is owned by Hussam’s aunt, who is the mother of one of Hussam’s female cousins; Hussam and the female cousin had planned to marry soon, Major Ibrahim said. The deputy governor of Salahuddin, Abdullah Jabarah, said there had been at least two similar attacks in the area by American troops. “These troops usually use excessive force when they conduct operations,” he said. The Salahuddin Provincial Council issued a statement saying the attack was an indication of “how the American forces disregard the souls of Iraqi citizens.” The governor’s son and nephew appeared not to have been the targets of the raid. The American military command in Baghdad said that the house had been raided to capture a “suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq operative” and that a man “identified as the targeted individual charged coalition forces and was injured during the operation.” That suspect, who was not identified, was taken to a military hospital, and another “suspected terrorist” was arrested, according to a military statement. In a separate statement responding to specific questions about the attack, the military said one of the men who was killed had been armed with an AK-47 automatic rifle and the other had had a pistol. “Both gunmen were armed and presented hostile intent,” the military said in the statement. But the military also acknowledged that “there are no indications at this time” that the governor’s son and nephew were members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the name for a homegrown Sunni insurgent group that often serves as a catch-all description that the military uses for Sunni gunmen who attack American forces. “Coalition leaders will offer our condolences,” the statement added. The raid followed a military operation south of Karbala last month that resulted in the death of a man identified in some reports as a cousin of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ; he was described by other officials as a close friend and associate of Mr. Maliki’s family, which is from the area. American officials said troops acted in self-defense when they killed the man, a security guard who they said had been holding an automatic rifle as if he was preparing to fire. But the attack was condemned by the Iraqi Armed Forces general command, which described both it and the airport road shootings as “a violation of the law and an encroachment on Iraqi sovereignty.”

Iraq
United States
United Nations
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia
Politics and Government
United States Armament and Defense
Accidents and Safety
International Relations
Maliki Nuri Kamal al-