Milos Raonic Earns First Win Over Federer in Seventh Try

Abstract: Milos Raonic had never beaten the 17-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer in six previous meetings. But Raonic hit 21 aces and lost only 15 points on his serve in completing a 7-6 (5), 7-5 victory over Federer on Friday to advance to the semifinals of the Paris Masters. The seventh-seeded Raonic will face Tomas Berdych, a 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-4 winner over Kevin Anderson. Raonic hurt Federer’s chances of overtaking top-ranked Novak Djokovic in the race for the year-end No. 1 spot. Djokovic defeated eighth-seeded Andy Murray, 7-5, 6-2, and will face Kei Nishikori, who beat David Ferrer, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.

Milos Raonic
Roger Federer
Tennis
Assn of Tennis Professionals


Red Sox Hold Strikeout Mark Along With the Series Trophy

Abstract: If the Mighty Casey, baseball’s most famous mythical character, were to come to life, he would fit right in with the world champion Boston Red Sox. Throughout the playoffs, the Red Sox kept swinging and missing, looking overmatched against the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals. But somehow, despite a constant stream of strikeouts, Boston kept winning. It may not have been pretty, but it was enough to secure the team’s eighth World Series title and third in the last 10 seasons. On Wednesday, Michael Wacha and six relievers for the Cardinals combined to strike out nine Red Sox batters. That continued a trend as Boston struck out 165 times in 16 playoff games, beating out the 2010 San Francisco Giants for the most by a team in a single postseason. The team’s 59 strikeouts in six games against St. Louis followed an American League Championship Series in which Boston struck out 73 times in six games against Detroit, setting the record for a postseason series. Scenes From a Series 25 Photos View Slide Show › Image Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports, via Reuters While Little League coaches everywhere were very likely cringing throughout Boston’s championship run, high strikeout numbers have become standard fare. Since 1903, just seven teams have struck out as many as 130 times in a postseason, but each of the last four World Series winners has surpassed that mark. All postseason records of recent vintage come with an asterisk as teams can play in as many as 20 playoff games, whereas until 1969, teams played in a maximum of seven playoff games in all but four seasons (in 1903, 1919, 1920 and 1921 the World Series was a best-of-nine). Even with that in mind, Boston’s average of 10.3 strikeouts a game was off the charts. Contrast that with the 1927 Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that holds what could be an unbreakable record, striking out just seven times in the postseason. To be fair to modern teams, Pittsburgh played just four postseason games that season in a losing effort against the Yankees. Despite setting team records for strikeouts in the postseason and strikeouts in a playoff series, Boston’s hitters failed to set any notable individual records. Mike Napoli paced the team with 21 strikeouts in the playoffs, becoming the seventh batter to strike out 20 or more times in a postseason. The record was set by Alfonso Soriano of the Yankees, who struck out 26 times in the 2003 postseason. Perhaps most impressively, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, one of Boston’s catchers, struck out 19 times in just 32 at-bats. The conventional thinking has always been that dominant pitching is the best recipe for postseason success, but this Red Sox team was dominated at times by the Tigers and the Cardinals, and it did not seem to matter. There may have been no joy in Mudville when the Mighty Casey struck out, but in Beantown a record number of strikeouts was nothing to cry about.

Red Sox
Baseball
St. Louis Cardinals
World Series


The Slow and Contested Count for One Last Senate Seat

Abstract: Amid the leadership drama in Albany, where three dissident Democrats are threatening the party’s newfound majority in the Senate, the eyes of Democratic and Republican leaders are also fixed on a large, humid room with linoleum floors in Queens. There, the ballots are still being counted in a razor-thin race in which Senator Frank Padavan , a Republican, remains ahead of Councilman James F. Gennaro, a Democrat, by about 500 votes. The stakes are particularly high for Senator Malcolm A. Smith , who leads the Senate Democrats and is monitoring the complicated math that challenges his leadership. The Democrats have apparently won 32 seats in the Senate, but three dissident members have yet to pledge their support for Mr. Smith. That limits him, at the moment, to 29 votes in the 62-member body. A victory by Mr. Gennaro would bring the Republicans down to 29 votes and provide Mr. Smith with a 30th vote. One of the dissident Democrats, Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., says he would not vote for a Republican leader. So, at the very least, a Gennaro victory would improve the prospects for Mr. Smith and dim them for the Senate Republicans. The politics of Albany have therefore made the counting of the remaining paper ballots in the 11th State Senate District race a high-stakes production. And the painstaking process of counting ballots has led to accusations of voter disenfranchisement and ethnic discrimination. The preliminary results after the Nov. 4 election had Mr. Padavan leading by 723 votes. That margin narrowed when voting machine totals were recounted. Now, more than 8,000 absentee and other emergency paper ballots are being tallied at the New York City Board of Elections offices in Forest Hills, in a process overseen by lawyers for both candidates. Democratic officials and lawyers have accused the Republicans of systematically challenging the ballots of voters with surnames that sound Asian or Hispanic, a charge that Republican officials deny. The charge is particularly stinging in a Senate district that, in the 2000 census, was nearly 25 percent Asian and 13 percent Hispanic. “They are challenging ballots based on a technicality that had never been enforced in the past,” said Michael H. Reich, the executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party and one of the lawyers overseeing the counting. “But they are only doing it to Democratic voters and voters with names that they assume are African-American, Latino or Asian. They’re not doing it with voters they presume are white. I am outraged by this.” Specifically, Mr. Reich said that under a longstanding bipartisan practice, the votes of those who have filled out paper ballots have been counted, so long as they are listed as registered voters. The controversy centers on so-called affidavit ballots, in which voters attest to having moved into a district other than where they are registered. In some cases, the paper ballots failed to include the voter’s prior address. In other cases, the voter neglected to check one of several boxes indicating a change of address. Those ballots have been deemed ineligible by the Republican officials. In the past, Democrats claim, all such ballots were counted. But this time, they say, the Republican commissioner of the Board of Elections in Queens has ruled that ballots should be invalidated if they do not include the signature or stamp of a poll worker. That ruling brought a firestorm of criticism from Democratic officials and lawyers, who point out that the Republican commissioner, Judith Stupp, is also employed as the manager of downstate operations for New York State Senate Republicans. She is also a contributor to Mr. Padavan’s campaign. Ms. Stupp defended her role, saying: “I took an oath to make sure that every legal vote be counted. And I feel that what I’ve done has been honest and fair.” She said she did not think it appropriate to comment on the specifics of the vote-counting process. Ms. Stupp said that after the initial days of the paper-ballot counting, she stopped attending the sessions, turning over her responsibilities to the chief Republican deputy clerk, Katherine James. When asked whether she would recuse herself from further involvement in the counting, she said, “I honestly don’t see any reason why I should.” On a recent afternoon, over a period of several hours, a reporter observed that the Democratic lawyers objected to none of the ballots that came before the group. Meanwhile, the Republican lawyer, John Ciampoli, registered repeated objections, in several cases regarding voters with names that could be perceived as Hispanic or Asian. Mr. Padavan strongly denies that the objections are related to ethnicity. Rather, he said, they were raised in cases in which people were registered to vote in other districts. “Surnames have nothing to do with this,” Mr. Padavan said. “The pertinent question is whether the voters are registered in the district. Every vote is counted in our democracy. But if a voter is registered in another district, that voter is disqualified. So, every legally cast vote should be counted.” He said that the charges of Republican discrimination represented “more of the sleazy, hypocritical work” of Democratic operatives. He pointed out that Ms. James, the Republican clerk monitoring the process, is black and that her Democratic counterpart, George Gonzalez, the deputy executive director of the board, is Hispanic. “They are the ones making the judgments about whether the ballots are valid,” Mr. Padavan said. For the time being, the disputed ballots are placed in a cardboard box on the floor of the meeting room, and a judge will eventually rule on their validity. As the pile grows, so does the anticipation among Democratic and Republican leaders throughout the state.

Elections
Democratic Party
New York State
Politics and Government
Padavan Frank
Gennaro James F
Smith Malcolm A
Legislatures and Parliaments
Republican Party


Player Ratings: Ukraine 2, U.S. 0

Abstract: In a game that offered little comfort to Coach Jurgen Klinsmann 99 days before the start of the World Cup in Brazil, the United States lost decisively to a team from Ukraine that appeared inspired in the face of the international crisis gripping its country. Wednesday’s game was the final exhibition for the U.S. on an official FIFA international date before the start of its World Cup camp in May. So for Klinsmann, it was the last chance for him to evaluate his European-based players before choosing a preliminary World Cup roster. He could not have been encouraged because so many of the individual performances were flat. It was especially true in defense, where central defenders Oguchi Onyewu and John Brooks played poorly and left back Edgar Castillo was vulnerable. Klinsmann must hope that players based in Major League Soccer — a list which includes Michael Bradley, Landon Donovan, Graham Zusi, Matt Besler and Omar Gonzalez — can help transform the underperforming team that was display in Cyprus into a team that can challenge Ghana, Portugal and Germany (the first-round opponents for the U.S.) in Brazil. It looks like a tall task. Starters Tim Howard It was a game where Howard was let down by his defense. He came up with the initial save on both of the plays that resulted in Ukrainian goals only to have the defense fail to stop the second attempts. He deserved much better and was the best American player among the starters. Rating: 6.5 Geoff Cameron Playing at right back in his second consecutive appearance for the U.S., Cameron struggled but mostly because of the disorganization in central defense. It is not saying much, but he was the best of the starting back line. In the brief times when U.S. offense was active, Cameron was a part of it. He should have had an assist in the 54th minute but Jozy Altidore headed his cross over the bar. Rating: 5.5 Oguchi Onyewu Making his first start for U.S. since last summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup, Onyewu was caught out of position on both goals. He was not effective passing out of the back and it hurt the midfield’s ability to press forward. He needed a good performance to justify a ticket to Brazil and he appears to have come up short. Rating: 3.5 John Brooks Brooks is one of Klinsmann’s prized prospects and is clearly capable of more than he showed against Ukraine. He was not in sync with Onyewu in central defense and was similarly exposed on both goals. He looked nervous and his World Cup dreams will likely have to wait until 2018. Rating: 4.0 Edgar Castillo It was a golden opportunity for Castillo to show he could play left back at high level but he failed to take advantage. His one-on-one defending was suspect and he offered little moving forward into the attack. Despite his regular call-ups this cycle, it is difficult to envision him going to Brazil. Rating: 3.5 Image U.S. keeper Tim Howard, center, stopped the first shot by Ukraine's Marko Devic, right, but could not cover the rebound as Devic scored the game's second goal past Fabian Johnson, left. Credit Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters Jermaine Jones With the back line struggling in the first half, Jones did his best to try to settle the situation. He drifted back in the first half and helped to protect Onyewu and Brooks. He also covered a lot of ground to break up the Ukrainian attack. The effort was there but it will not bode well for U.S. in Brazil if he has to bail out his defense. Rating: 5.5 Sacha Kljestan In the first half Kljestan was not able to help U.S. keep possession or create scoring chances. He improved slightly at the start of the second half before coming off but it was not a performance that helped his chances to join the team in Brazil. Rating: 4.0 Alejandro Bedoya In the first half, Bedoya was the most energetic player in an otherwise overrun midfield. He hustled on defense and had a good chance in the 53rd minute with a shot from distance. He took most of the team’s set pieces and his delivery was acceptable. Rating: 5.5 Clint Dempsey Dempsey returned to his former club, Fulham, on loan this winter in the hope of regaining his sharpness ahead of the World Cup. His loan was mostly a disappointment as he failed to score a goal or help the club in its relegation fight in the Premier League. Against Ukraine, Dempsey showed that he is still capable of a lot more and is not playing the way he was in 2012. He passing was off and he rarely looked dangerous on offense. He will have to turn it around quickly. Rating: 4.0 Fabian Johnson Over the past two years, Johnson has showed impressive versatility and was slotted in at left midfield against Ukraine. Like all other starters, he did not play up to his capabilities. He was invisible for long stretches of the first half but his move to the back line helped the team in the second half. Rating: 5.0 Jozy Altidore In the middle of what has been a disappointing season with Sunderland, Altidore was starved for service against Ukraine and did not have an impact. He drew a few fouls and had a decent chance on a Cameron cross in the 54th minute. A forgettable match. Rating: 4.0 Substitutes Aron Johannsson He was an improvement in the 30 minutes he was on the field and nearly scored in the 87th minute on an impressive volley from a Bedoya corner kick. He was composed on the ball and probably deserved the start. Rating: 6.0 Brek Shea Since making the move to Europe in 2013, Shea has been inconsistent for both club and country. Surprisingly against Ukraine, Shea was one of the better American players. He looked aggressive and eager to take on defenders. Over all, it was a 30 minutes of action he can feel good about. Rating: 6.0 Juan Agudelo Brought some life into U.S. attack but the Ukrainians were in command by the time he entered the game. Rating: 5.5 Danny Williams The Reading-based midfielder was sharp in his 10 minutes and was an overall improvement for the team. He made a case that he should have been playing from the opening kickoff. Rating: 5.5 Terrence Boyd Came on in the game’s final minutes for a brief cameo: Rating: Incomplete

Soccer
2014 World Cup
US Men's Soccer Team


Evidence of Prokaryotes Far Below the Ocean Floor

Abstract: The lost civilization of Atlantis may just be legend, but way down below the ocean (to quote the folksinger Donovan) there are some things that are very real — namely, bacteria and archaea. By some estimates, sub-seafloor prokaryotes may account for two-thirds of the biomass of these types of organisms on Earth . The latest evidence for such a huge undersea biosphere, and a depth record of sorts, is reported in Science by R. John Parkes of Cardiff University and colleagues. They have found living prokaryotes 5,335 feet below the ocean floor off Newfoundland, about twice as deep as the previous record. Intact cells were found in cores drilled through sediments up to 111 million years old, although the age of the prokaryotes themselves is an open question. The researchers were able to amplify genetic material, which strongly suggests that the cells are living, feeding on trapped methane, other hydrocarbons and organic carbon. Temperatures of the deepest core samples were estimated from 140 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so the cells qualify as extremophiles, able to withstand harsh conditions like those found around deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Some of the genetic sequences found match those from known heat-loving bacterial strains like Pyrococcus. Living cells have been found at greater depths under land, but the concentration of cells in the undersea cores (about a million per milliliter) is much higher. The finding is another that stretches the boundaries of where life can flourish — with all that implies about the situation on worlds other than Earth.


Slain Singer’s Mother Says Coyotes Should Be Spared

Abstract: Even in a country with a lot of wilderness, it was a shocking death. Taylor Josephine Stephanie Luciow, a promising 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto who performed under the name Taylor Mitchell, was attacked by two coyotes as she set out for a hike in Cape Breton Highlands National Park , one of Eastern Canada’s leading tourist destinations. She died late Tuesday night in Halifax, where she had been airlifted for treatment. The reaction of Ms. Mitchell’s grief-stricken mother was perhaps more unusual: Emily Mitchell issued a statement to news organizations in which she asked authorities to spare any coyotes involved in the attack. “We take a calculated risk when spending time in nature’s fold — it’s the wildlife’s terrain,” she wrote. “When the decision had been made to kill the pack of coyotes, I clearly heard Taylor’s voice say, ‘Please don’t, this is their space.’ She wouldn’t have wanted their demise, especially as a result of her own.” Even before the statement appeared, a Parks Canada conservation officer had already killed one coyote that was behaving aggressively. And a police officer who came to Ms. Mitchell’s aid thought he had shot and injured a second coyote. Attacks by coyotes, even minor ones, on people are very unusual. Chip Bird, the Cape Breton field superintendent for Parks Canada, said that over his 30-year career, he had never seen a serious attack until last week, although six years ago a coyote “nipped someone’s arm” in the park. The trail where the attack occurred was still closed on Sunday afternoon, and a team from Parks Canada was continuing to study the coyotes in the area, which number about five. Mr. Bird would not rule out further killings if there were other dangerously aggressive animals, but he added that Ms. Mitchell’s wish might be honored. “We really have a lot of sympathy for her perspective,” he said. “We’re not out here conducting a general cull.” IAN AUSTEN

Coyotes
Canada
Folk Music
Wilderness Areas
Death and Dying
National Parks Monuments and Seashores


Wisconsin: Court Challenger Seeks Recount

Abstract: JoAnne Kloppenburg asked election officials on Wednesday for a statewide recount in her race against Justice David T. Prosser Jr. of the state Supreme Court. Final county tallies showed Justice Prosser held a 7,316-vote lead. The margin entitles Ms. Kloppenburg to a recount at local governments’ expense.

Wisconsin
Supreme Courts (State)
Kloppenburg JoAnne
Prosser David T Jr


Special Elections for the Legislature Today

Abstract: Special elections are being held today for Assembly seats in Manhattan and Brooklyn that opened up when the incumbents resigned or were elected to other positions. The most heated race is on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in the 67th District, where four candidates are competing to fill the seat vacated by Scott Stringer, a Democrat who was elected Manhattan borough president. The Democratic candidate in the race is Linda Rosenthal, who most recently worked as an aide to Representative Jerrold Nadler. Ms. Rosenthal is also running on the Working Families Party line. The Republican candidate is Emily Csendes, a public school teacher, and the Independence Party candidate is Michael Lupinacci, who is also a teacher. Mr. Lupinacci also got enough signatures to run on a ballot line that his campaign created, called the New Leadership Team. The fourth candidate in the race is Charles Simon, who was deputy director of the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. Mr. Simon got enough signatures to run on his own ballot line, the West Side Progressive Party. The district is overwhelmingly Democratic in its registration, and Ms. Rosenthal has been endorsed by a wide range of Democratic officials, from Mr. Stringer to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Mr. Simon, who is the son-in-law of Tom Brokaw, the former NBC news anchorman, has collected a considerable amount of money. There is another Assembly election in Manhattan, to fill the 74th District seat held by Steven Sanders. Mr. Sanders retired Jan. 1 after 28 years in the Assembly to join a lobbying firm. In that race, on the East Side below Midtown, the candidate of the Democratic and Working Families Parties is Sylvia Friedman, a member of Community Board 6 who has an active history with a number of civic groups. Ms. Friedman secured the Democratic nomination in a vote of party leaders in the area over strong competition from Mr. Sanders's former chief of staff, Steven Kaufman. The Republican candidate is Frank Scala, a district leader who has been active in the campaigns of Republican candidates in Manhattan for decades. In Brooklyn, the special election in the 59th District is to fill the seat vacated by Frank R. Seddio, a Democrat who was elected a judge of the Surrogate Court in Brooklyn. The Democratic candidate is Alan Maisel, who was Mr. Seddio's chief of staff. The Republican candidate is Ronald Haugstatter, and the Conservative Party candidate is Alice Gaffney, a district leader in that party. The district includes Canarsie, Bergen Beach, Mill Basin and Marine Park. John Ravitz, the executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, said polls would be open today from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. Another special election, for a State Senate seat, is being held in Buffalo. That seat became available after Byron W. Brown, who represented the 60th District, was elected mayor. The Democratic candidate is Marc A. Coppola, a member of the Buffalo Common Council. The Republican candidate is Christopher L. Jacobs, a member of Buffalo's school board.

ELECTIONS
NEW YORK CITY
NEW YORK STATE
BROOKLYN (NYC)
BUFFALO (NY)
MANHATTAN (NYC)
LEGISLATURES AND PARLIAMENTS


Guilty Plea Entered in Gambling Case

Abstract: A Canadian man who helped create Neteller, a company to process Internet gambling transactions, pleaded guilty yesterday to a federal conspiracy charge, about two weeks after another founder of the company entered a guilty plea. John D. Lefebvre, 55, a Neteller co-founder, entered the plea in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where prosecutors are trying to stop companies that operate overseas from violating United States laws against Web-based gambling. Neteller is based in the Isle of Man. Another co-founder, Stephen Lawrence, previously pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy. In a plea deal, Mr. Lefebvre agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify if necessary. He also agreed to be partly responsible for the $100 million the government is seeking in restitution. Although the conspiracy charge carries a potential prison term of up to five years, cooperation in the case is likely to greatly reduce any potential sentence. The government has said that nearly all of the $5.1 billion in transactions processed in the first half of 2006 involved online gambling, and most of the revenue was generated by American customers.

Decisions and Verdicts
Canada
Computers and the Internet
Manhattan (NYC)


The ‘Fill in the Blanks’ Court Game of Indefinite Detention

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Think of them as Mad Libs, Gitmo edition. Recent opinions from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit are studded with redactions that call to mind the zany game, the one where players fill in blanks in little stories, sometimes to absurd effect. Consider the case of a Yemeni man who was picked up near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in December 2001. The main question in his case was whether a decade-old intelligence report could justify his indefinite detention at Guantánamo Bay , Cuba. In a recent dissent, Judge David S. Tatel of the appeals court explained why he thought the report, “produced in the fog of war,” should not be given nearly conclusive weight. “One need imply neither bad faith nor lack of incentive nor ineptitude on the part of government officers,” Judge Tatel wrote, “to conclude that [BLACKED OUT] compiled in the field by [BLACKED OUT] in a [BLACKED OUT] near an [BLACKED OUT] that contain multiple levels of hearsay, depend on translators of unknown quality, and include cautionary disclaimers that [BLACKED OUT] are prone to significant errors.” Let your imagination run wild. Play with your kids. It is hard to fill in the blanks with words that inspire confidence in a system that places great weight on such a document. Even the judges in the majority on the three-judge panel that ruled against the detainee acknowledged that the report was imperfect. It was, Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote, “prepared in stressful and chaotic conditions, filtered through interpreters, subject to transcription errors and heavily redacted for national security purposes.” A trial judge had ordered the prisoner released, saying the report was not reliable enough to justify holding him for the rest of his life. The appeals court reversed that decision, ruling that the report was entitled to “a presumption of regularity.” It is hard to tell just what the report was, much less what it said, thanks to the extravagant redactions in the appeals court’s decision, entire pages of which are blacked out. But a good guess is that the document was a C.I.A. intake report prepared as agency officials received prisoners held by Pakistan, probably in exchange for bounties. The report seems to recite Pakistani claims about the prisoners’ affiliations with Al Qaeda or the Taliban. An appeal in the case, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif v. Barack Obama, will be filed in the Supreme Court next month. The justices have not heard a Guantánamo case since their 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush , which gave prisoners there a “meaningful opportunity” to challenge their detentions in court. Latif is the next great Guantánamo case — whether the Supreme Court agrees to hear it or not. As things stand now, Judge Tatel wrote, “it is hard to see what is left of the Supreme Court’s command in Boumediene.” If the justices agree to hear the Latif case, they can explain whether their Guantánamo decisions were theoretical tussles about the scope of executive power fit for a law school seminar or whether they were meant to have practical consequences for actual prisoners. If the Supreme Court turns down the case, it will be signaling that it has given up on Guantánamo. That would effectively outsource judicial supervision of the prison camp there to the federal appeals court here, which includes some judges who do not bother to hide their hostility to the Supreme Court. Listen, for instance, to this lecture from Judge Brown in her Latif opinion. “Boumediene’s airy suppositions have caused great difficulty for the executive and the courts,” she wrote. “Boumediene fundamentally altered the calculus of war, guaranteeing that the benefit of intelligence that might be gained — even from high-value detainees — is outweighed by the systemic cost of defending detentions decisions,” she continued, warming to her theme. “Boumediene’s logic is compelling: take no prisoners,” she concluded. “Point taken.” The Latif decision, Benjamin Wittes wrote last month on the invaluable Lawfare blog, “all but dares the Supreme Court” to grant review. Judge Brown’s commentary was not really relevant to Mr. Latif’s case, which boils down to a decision about whether to credit the intelligence report or Mr. Latif’s own account of what he was doing in Afghanistan in late 2001. His version is that he was in a bad car accident in Yemen in 1994, suffering a broken skull and a punctured eardrum. He was sent to Jordan at his government’s expense for treatment. In the years that followed, he complained of headaches and hearing loss. In 1999, he was told to return to Jordan for treatment, but at his own expense. Mr. Latif said he could not afford that. Instead, he went to Pakistan to seek free medical treatment and then to Afghanistan to meet a Yemeni man who had promised to help him. The trial judge, Henry H. Kennedy Jr. of United States District Court in Washington, wrote last year that Mr. Latif had presented a “plausible alternative story” to counter the government’s contention, based largely on the intelligence report, that he had been recruited by Al Qaeda and fought with the Taliban. Mr. Latif’s appeal is due at the Supreme Court around Jan. 11. That is, as it happens, the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners at Guantánamo.

Detainees
Supreme Court
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)
Habeas Corpus
Latif Adnan Farhan Abdul
Boumediene Lakhdar
Tatel David S
Brown Janice


Doctor Who Treated Top Athletes Is Subject of Doping Inquiry

Abstract: This article was reported by Don Van Natta Jr. , Michael S. Schmidt and Ian Austen and written by Mr. Van Natta Jr. A Canadian doctor who has treated many N.F.L. players as well as Olympic medalists like Donovan Bailey and the world’s top golfer, Tiger Woods , is under criminal investigation in the United States . He is suspected of providing athletes with performance-enhancing drugs, according to several people who have been briefed on the investigation. The F.B.I. investigation of Dr. Anthony Galea, a sports medicine specialist who has treated hundreds of professional athletes across many sports, follows his arrest on Oct. 15 in Toronto by the Canadian police. Human growth hormone and Actovegin, a drug extracted from calf’s blood, were found in his medical bag at the United States- Canada border in late September. Using, selling or importing Actovegin is illegal in the United States. Dr. Galea is also being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for smuggling, advertising and selling unapproved drugs as well as criminal conspiracy. He is tentatively scheduled to appear in a Canadian courtroom on Friday. Dr. Galea and his lawyer say his innovative treatments do not break any laws or violate antidoping rules in sport. “We’re confident that an investigation of Dr. Galea will lead to his total vindication,” said Brian H. Greenspan, Dr. Galea’s criminal-defense lawyer. “Dr. Galea was never engaged in any wrongdoing or any impropriety. Not only does he have a reputation that is impeccable, he is a person at the very top of his profession.” Dr. Galea has developed a reputation among elite athletes for accelerating recovery after surgery or for helping them avoid surgery altogether by using a blood-spinning technique known as platelet-rich plasma therapy, as well as other pioneering procedures, on knees, elbows and Achilles’ tendons. Although he said he prescribed human growth hormone to some patients in his general practice and had used it himself for 10 years, Dr. Galea, 50, said in an interview that he had never treated professional athletes with H.G.H. Dr. Galea said Mr. Woods was referred to him by the golfer’s agents at Cleveland -based International Management Group, who were alarmed at the slow pace of Mr. Woods’s rehabilitation after knee surgery in June 2008. The doctor said he flew to Orlando , Fla., at least four times to give Mr. Woods the platelet therapy at his home in Windermere, Fla., in February and March of this year. When asked for comment about Mr. Woods’s involvement with Dr. Galea, Mark Steinberg, of I.M.G., responded in an e-mail message: “I would really ask that you guys don’t write this? If Tiger is NOT implicated, and won’t be, let’s please give the kid a break.” Dr. Galea’s legal problems began in late September when his assistant was stopped entering the United States from Canada. Her car was searched by border-crossing guards and authorities found Dr. Galea’s medical bag, which contained four drugs, including human growth hormone, Dr. Galea said. “It was for my own use,” he said. The authorities also seized his laptop computer and a sonogram machine, he said. His assistant, he said, often drove him around and that was why his belongings were in her car. The assistant, whom Dr. Galea declined to identify, has stopped working at his clinic and, he said, is now cooperating with the authorities. Federal investigators in the United States are basing their investigation, in part, on medical information found on Dr. Galea’s computer relating to several professional athletes he treated, according to the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation. They did not identify any of the athletes whose names appeared on the computer. Dr. Galea said “it would be impossible” for the authorities to have found information linking any of his athletes to performance-enhancing drugs. On Oct. 15, the Canadian police raided Dr. Galea’s clinic, the ISM Health & Wellness Centre in Toronto. Sgt. Marc LaPorte, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said Dr. Galea was arrested and released the same day after questioning. Mr. Greenspan said court documents, which are not public under Canadian law, show that his client faces three charges, one under Canada’s food and drugs act, one under its customs act and a conspiracy charge under the criminal code. The customs and the drug charges relate to the misrepresentation of goods and drugs. As part of his practice, Dr. Galea said he prescribed human growth hormone to patients 40 and over to improve their stamina when working out and to combat fatigue, among other health benefits. “The authorities here and elsewhere have it wrong,” Mr. Greenspan said. “They don’t understand the medical aspects.” Prescribing human growth hormone is legal in Canada but approved in the United States only for a few specific uses that do not include hastening recovery from surgery or injury. In the world of sports, under World Anti-Doping Association guidelines, H.G.H. is banned though not widely tested for because it requires a blood test. The N.F.L., the N.H.L., the N.B.A. and Major League Baseball do not test for H.G.H. Ten years ago, when he turned 40, Dr. Galea said he began injecting himself with human growth hormone five days a week. Using H.G.H., he said, may allow him a longer lifespan with his wife, who he said is 22 years younger. “If the body is healthy, then your mind and intellect are free to study, to feed your spirit,” he said during one of several lengthy phone interviews over the past several days. Dr. Galea said he used Actovegin to treat the injuries of some of his patients, including players on the Toronto Argonauts football team, for which he has been the team doctor since 2004. Dr. Galea said he did not use Actovegin to treat Mr. Woods or other United States athletes. Actovegin is a controversial drug that is not approved for sale in Canada and is being closely monitored, though not banned, by the World Anti-Doping Agency. It is essentially strained and purified calf’s blood, and is produced in Austria by Nycomed, a Swiss-based company. Actovegin first came to the attention of antidoping authorities in the late 1990s when elite cyclists were found to be using it. Actovegin “was tested by antidoping laboratories and no growth hormone or prohibited hormones were found,” said Frédéric Donzé, a spokesman for the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is based in Montreal . “WADA, however, closely monitors Actovegin since we are aware of its use in some sports, possibly in conjunction with other substances that may be prohibited.” In cycling, for example. some athletes apparently believe that it can accelerate the healing of injuries, especially tendon and muscle tears. Many leading antidoping experts, however, believe there is no benefit and all the athletes get is a placebo effect. The United States Anti-Doping Agency has developed “intelligence” that athletes are using Actovegin to attempt to improve performance, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Usada asked the World Anti-Doping Agency to ban Actovegin this year but it declined. Although he prescribes H.G.H. and Actovegin in some cases, Dr. Galea said he never combined those drugs with his platelet-rich plasma injections. His practice has become a regular destination for injured professional athletes, including N.F.L. players who take red-eye flights on Monday nights for treatment on Tuesdays, their day off, because of the platelet-rich plasma methodology that he began using eight years ago. News of his arrest shocked many in the sports world, especially those who refer to him as “Miracle Man.” “We’re all surprised by this — we believe it’s going to go away and it’s a misunderstanding,” said David Cynamon, co-owner of the Argonauts. “He might be one of the elite sports medicine doctors anywhere, and that’s why the likes of Tiger locate him.” Dr. Galea said he had used Actovegin to treat several Argonauts players’ injuries, but Mr. Cynamon said he was not aware of that. The use of platelet therapy, which has become more prevalent in sports medicine in recent years, is believed by some doctors to dramatically speed up recovery times. Platelet-rich plasma is created by putting a small amount of the patient’s blood in a centrifuge, which separates the red blood cells from the platelets that release proteins and other particles involved in the body’s healing process. No more than a teaspoon of the substance is injected into the damaged area. In some cases, the high concentration of platelets — from 3 to 10 times that of normal blood — catalyzes the growth of new soft-tissue or bone cells. The treatment catalyzes the body’s instincts to repair muscle and other tissue, said Dr. Allan Mishra, an assistant professor of orthopedics at Stanford University and one of the primary researchers in the field. Dr. Mishra and other doctors say that the technique appears to help regenerate ligament and tendon fibers. But other doctors say that more research is needed before the therapy can be embraced as scientifically proven. Doug Richards, a professor at the University of Toronto and a physician for the N.B.A.’s Toronto Raptors , hosted a presentation on the platelet therapy by Dr. Galea at the university shortly after his arrest. “It’s a technique that shows promise,” Dr. Richards said, “but research is required to show its effectiveness.” Dr. Mark Lindsay, a chiropractor from White Lake, Ontario , who works with Dr. Galea, said his colleague is at the cutting edge of sports medicine, and has extended the careers of countless elite athletes. “Ten years from now, they are going to say, wow, this guy was a pioneer,” Dr. Lindsay said in a recent phone interview. “That’s the unfortunate thing.” Dr. Galea blames his current legal problems on his success rate. “All these athletes come see me in Canada cause I fix them, and I think people just assume that I’m giving them stuff,” he said. “They don’t have to come to me to get H.G.H. and steroids . You can walk into your local gym in New York and get H.G.H.” The N.F.L. quarterback Chris Simms and wide receiver Javon Walker swear by him. In March, Dr. Galea arranged for Mr. Walker to have cartilage-replacement surgery on his knee in Jerusalem because the procedure is not approved in the United States or Canada. Mr. Walker said the recovery time was half what it would have been if he had had the procedure doctors recommended in the United States. “He’s a person who just wants to help and heal,” Walker said. “And the world is going to soon know about him.” The Olympic swimmer Dara Torres said she sought out Dr. Galea to help diagnose the cause of continuing pain in her knee earlier this year. “He found a tear in my quad tendon that was undiagnosed,” Torres said in an e-mail message. “Excluding draining my knee, he has never treated me, but I did see his chiropractor who did soft-tissue work on my leg. That was the extent of my visit with him.” Mr. Bailey, a retired Canadian sprinter, said Dr. Galea helped him in 1999, when he received treatment from him for a ruptured Achilles’ tendon, but did not receive any kind of injections. Dr. Lindsay said he led Mr. Woods’s rehabilitation team after the golfer’s June 2008 surgery to repair his anterior cruciate ligament. In addition to Dr. Lindsay, who is best known for overseeing Alex Rodriguez ’s rehabilitation from hip surgery last spring, the Woods team included Dr. Galea and a Vermont -based strength coach named Bill Knowles. Dr. Lindsay said he worked with Mr. Woods at his home throughout his eight-month rehabilitation. The work included strength training, conditioning and exercises in a swimming pool, Dr. Lindsay said. In February, discouraged by the lack of progress, Dr. Lindsay asked Dr. Galea to look at Mr. Woods, who was suffering from patellar tendinitis and had scarring in the muscle. “It’s common after the A.C.L. to have tendinitis,” Dr. Lindsay said. “And the P.R.P. helped.” Dr. Galea said he treated Mr. Woods in his home four or five times with a borrowed centrifuge from an Orlando doctor. Each time, he said he drew blood from Woods, spun it to increase the platelets’ count and then injected a small amount directly into Mr. Woods’s left knee. Two days after the first treatment, Woods texted him, Dr. Galea said: “He said he couldn’t believe how good he feels. He’d joke and say, ‘I can jump up on the kitchen table,’ and I said, ‘Please don’t.’ ” Dr. Galea said that Mr. Woods stayed in touch, texting him after the British Open in July that his left knee had begun bothering him again. Dr. Galea said he flew to Orlando in early August and gave Mr. Woods P.R.P. therapy for a final time. In October, he said he heard again from Mr. Woods that his knee was still bothering him, “but all this stuff started with the investigation, and I couldn’t go see him.”

Doping
Donovan Bailey
Tiger Woods
Anthony Galea
Sports medicine
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Steroid
Dara Torres
Drug Abuse
HGH


A School That Cost $20,000 Not to Go To

Abstract: About six weeks ago, Michele Bender, a freelance writer who lives in SoHo, took out her checkbook. She wrote a $10,000 check for the balance of what she owed a desirable West Village private school, the Little Red School House, bringing the total she had paid to $20,000. She put it in the mail. Then she called her husband and cried. Many New York parents paying private school tuition probably feel some pain when it comes time to pay the bill. But for Ms. Bender and her husband, David, an artist, it really hurt — they were paying for a school their daughter will never attend. It seems quintessentially New York that someone whose daughter landed so many options could still end up thoroughly miserable. In February 2007, their daughter was given a coveted spot in the kindergarten at Little Red. More than three months later, in June, they learned their daughter had also been accepted into one of three gifted and talented schools available citywide, the equivalent of a Stuyvesant or Bronx Science for elementary-school children. They had fallen in love with Little Red, but “for us, the financial aspect is huge,” Mr. Bender said, and they knew the public school was stellar. After agonizing for a few weeks, Mr. Bender called Little Red officials in early July to tell them their decision. He knew they would lose their $2,500 deposit; he even feared they would have to fight to get back the other $7,500 they had already put down. (That’s crazy talk, his friends told him.) But he was shocked when a school official immediately informed him the school would hold him accountable for all of it — the whole tuition, a commitment he had made when he signed the contract back in February. For all the lawyers reading this column, let’s get this out of the way: A signed contract is a signed contract, it’s a foundation of Western civilization, and madness would surely reign if people started breaking them left and right. Now, to the gray areas. In an era in which New York City parents are scraping and supplicating to get their child a spot in school, “it wouldn’t have been hard for Little Red to fill that spot,” says Emily Glickman, the president of Abacus Guide Education Consultants, a service for parents trying to gain admission to private schools in the area. “Put in a call to the Parents League. Put an ad on Craigslist! There are always relocating parents desperate for spots.” Generally, schools try to fill the spot before demanding full tuition, said Cynthia Bing, the head of school advisory services for the Parents League, an association of independent schools. Little Red declined to comment, but given tight margins, and everyone’s desire for closure in a psychologically torturous process, “there are many schools that feel very strongly about their contracts,” said Mimi Broner, co-chairwoman of the Independent School Admission Association of Greater New York. This year, with public school notification through middle school coming later than ever, more parents who rolled the dice with public and private school applications could find themselves worrying about this unpleasant bind. That is a situation, by the way, that’s no fun for the private schools either, since they clearly don’t relish searching for replacement students just when half their application pool is heading for the beach. So why can’t the public schools and the private schools work out the timing for the sake of everyone’s mental health? The Department of Education has only so much flexibility, said David Cantor, a spokesman, given that they can’t begin testing students until Jan. 1, and it takes months to process thousands of applications. And it would be fanciful, he added, to think that the private schools, which often request signed contracts as early as late February, would accommodate the public school timeline. “They have no incentive,” he said. “Why compete for kids when you don’t have to?” For her part, Ms. Broner offered, “Unfortunately, it’s impossible to collaborate on the timing with the public schools when the dates change every year.” This dilemma for parents, in some circuitous way, actually reflects well on the progress that public schools have made. “It used to be you were a private school parent or a public school parent,” said Robin Aronow, who runs School Search NYC, a consulting business that helps parents navigate the public and private schools. “In the past few years, some public schools have started to prove themselves and all kinds of parents are really considering them.” The Department of Education has been praised for increasing the number of public schools that can compete with private schools. But they still seem to be operating on the principle that if they build it, students will come. When it comes to schools, no matter how high the quality, many parents won’t come if they can’t plan their lives around them with sufficient notice. If timing and deposit issues deter families from applying to public schools, it’s not just those middle-class parents who lose out, it’s the public schools and their students who obviously would benefit from the support, financial and otherwise, those parents would bring in. The Benders originally chose the Little Red School House because of the family-like atmosphere they sensed as they went through the application process. It would have been nice, from their point of view, if Little Red, which ultimately forgave about $6,000 of the $26,000 tuition, ran itself a little bit less like a competitive business; but it would also have helped if New York’s public school system reliably ran itself more like one.

Little Red School House
Tuition
Education and Schools
Private and Sectarian Schools
West Village (NYC)


New Superintendent Named at New York Prison Where Inmate Died

Abstract: The state corrections department on Tuesday named a new superintendent for the Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, N.Y., and vowed to review “safety concerns” after the April death of a prisoner who inmates said was handcuffed and badly beaten by a group of corrections officers. The new superintendent, Robert Cunningham, has been tasked with focusing specifically on problems in Building 21, where the inmate, Samuel Harrell, died on April 21, a statement by the department said. The announcement comes a week after The New York Times reported details of the encounter between Mr. Harrell and the officers, some of whom were part of a group known around the prison as the Beat Up Squad, based on accounts from 19 inmates. Though corrections officers initially told an ambulance crew that Mr. Harrell had likely had a drug overdose, an autopsy report found no illicit drugs in his system. Rather, the report classified his death as a homicide. Building 21 and nearby 21A have long been known as particularly brutal sections of the prison. The Correctional Association of New York, which inspects state prisons, singled them out in a 2013 report that was shared with the acting corrections commissioner, Anthony Annucci, and the previous superintendent, William J. Connolly. Mr. Connolly abruptly resigned this month. The corrections department said Mr. Cunningham would meet with members of the corrections officers union, as well as representatives from Fishkill’s inmate council.

Prison
Fishkill Correctional Facility
Robert Cunningham
Samuel Harrell
Prison Guards,Corrections Officers
Appointments and Executive Changes
Beacon NY


Disabled Man Is Found Dead in Van in East Harlem

Abstract: A 48-year-old disabled man was found dead Tuesday in the rear seat of a van where he was left for six hours, the police said. The van arrived at 2082 Lexington Avenue in East Harlem about 9 a.m. and dropped off a group of developmentally disabled people for a daytime program there. But one of the passengers, Eason Alonzio, never made it out of the van. The van is owned by AHRC New York City , a social services agency. At about 2:30 p.m., as workers were preparing to take people home, the van was moved to the front of the building. But it was not until about an hour later that Mr. Alonzio was found slumped in the back seat, lying face-up with his feet still on the ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene. It was not known whether the van’s windows were closed while it was parked. The temperature reached 91 on Tuesday afternoon. The medical examiner has yet to determine a cause of death. The van operator and a caretaker were questioned by the police and released.


Samsung Sees Its Profit Fall as Smartphone Sales Slow

Abstract: Samsung Electronics reported its second consecutive fall in quarterly profit on Tuesday, as weakness in flat-screen panels and the maturing high-end smartphone business weighed on the South Korean giant’s earnings. But it said the World Cup games in Brazil should help increase sales in the current quarter. For the first quarter, Samsung’s operating profit fell 3.3 percent from a year earlier to 8.5 trillion won ($8.2 billion). Profit in the mobile division fell 1.2 percent, to 6.43 trillion won.

Smartphone
Samsung Electronics
Earnings Reports
HDTV


L.S.U. Beats Arkansas to Keep Its B.C.S. Hopes Alive

Abstract: Jarvis Landry made a spectacular one-handed touchdown catch, and No. 8 Louisiana State kept its Bowl Championship Series hopes alive with a 20-13 win at Arkansas on Friday. L.S.U. must now hope for an Alabama loss to Auburn and a Texas A&M victory Saturday to reach next weekend’s SEC championship game. ¶ Andrew Furney kicked a 27-yard field goal on Washington State’s first possession of overtime, and the Cougars overcame an 18-point deficit in the fourth quarter to stun No. 25 Washington, 31-28, in the Apple Cup. ¶ Rex Burkhead scored the go-ahead touchdown in his return from a knee injury and No. 17 Nebraska beat host Iowa, 13-7, to claim a berth in the Big Ten championship game. The Huskers (10-2, 7-1 Big Ten) will face Wisconsin next Saturday in Indianapolis.

College Athletics
Football (College)
Louisiana State University
University of Arkansas


Russia: Arrests in Fatal Train Bombing

Abstract: A Moscow court on Wednesday approved the arrest of 10 suspects in the November 2009 bombing of the Nevsky Express passenger train, which derailed while en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg and killed 28 people. Nine of the suspects were arrested during a federal raid last week on a village outside Nazran, the capital of the republic of Ingushetia. Nine of the suspects are members of the Kartoyev family, and the 10th is an arms-trafficking suspect named Zelimkhan Aushev, according to the news agency Interfax.


Silverstone’s Enduring Character

Abstract: Throughout the decades since the first Formula One race was run at Silverstone in 1950, the racetrack in the English Midlands has retained its traditional feel like few other elite racing circuits. Built in the middle of sprawling countryside on an abandoned World War II air base, the circuit’s layout was little changed from the mid-1950s until 2010, when the track was lengthened, with the addition of a larger inner loop, or arena section. The next year, a vast pit, paddock and hospitality facility was built. Those changes have not altered the essential character of the track. It remains one of the fastest on the Formula One calendar, a flowing, high-speed track with low downforce corners and high-speed straights, which means that a compromise on car setup is needed. “It’s a real driver’s track,” said Max Verstappen, who drives for the Red Bull team. “The track is always changing, so you have to adapt to the circumstances. It’s very challenging.” The circuit also features a series of corners, turns 10 to 14, that most Formula One drivers define as the finest, most interesting and difficult of the season, flowing from the corner called Copse to Maggotts, Becketts, Chapel and then Stowe. “The combination of Maggotts-Becketts has legendary status for good reason,” said Jenson Button, the McLaren Honda driver. “It’s one of the most exhilarating corner combinations of any circuit on the Formula One calendar.” Daniil Kvyat, a driver at the Toro Rosso team, said he drives that section in a single breath. “If you get everything right with the car and your confidence is high, then it brings you a lot of joy,” he said. “The high-speed corners are what it’s all about. That’s where you really feel like you are driving a Formula One car, really pushing hard.” At such high speeds, driver confidence is essential — just as it is on the slowest circuit in the series, Monaco. Drivers seek stability with the car to find the flow. “Silverstone is very technical, both for the drivers and the engineers,” said Matt Morris, director of engineering at McLaren Honda. “It’s a real momentum track because many of the corners are interlinked, especially through Maggotts and Becketts. A driver needs total confidence in his car, and that comes from having a good high-speed balance.” Pole position on the 3.66-mile circuit is obtained with an average speed of about 150 m.p.h. There are long periods during which the power unit is on full throttle, including 40 seconds from the Luffield corner to Stowe. The track is not hard on brakes, though brake cooling can be difficult. “It’s a track that’s very low on braking energy, which means you can sometimes struggle with brake temperatures,” Morris said. “The drivers barely touch the brakes from Luffield through to Stowe, and that can make life interesting if you haven’t got your sums right.” Fifty-six percent of the lap is done at full throttle. Hangar Straight, 2,870 feet long, is the longest straight, with speeds peaking at more than 199 m.p.h. and the throttle full for 12 seconds. Because of such a long full-throttle period, the heat energy recovery system is highly effective at Silverstone. Some of the low-speed corners also allow for kinetic energy recovery from the brakes, particularly at the Wellington Loop complex and at Luffield. In the Maggots-Becketts-Chapel section, the engine’s turbo must be responsive to keep up the rhythm, allowing the driver to flow through it without the usual braking and acceleration. The average speed through this area is about 140 m.p.h., and never less than 112 m.p.h. With the construction of the new pit building in 2011, the start and finish straight was moved, placed between the Club and Abbey corners. The straight is taken almost flat out to Abbey, which leads to the left-hand Farm corner. The drivers then drop to second gear and take the Village corner. Then come the Loop and Aintree corners before the DRS zone of Wellington Straight, which was created to help facilitate overtaking. After the right-hand Woodcote corner comes the old pit straight, or National Pits Straight, which leads to the famous series of flowing corners starting with Copse. At Silverstone, the safety car is rarely called, with only about a 55 percent chance of its use during the race. There are usually two pit stops for tire changes, generally around Lap 24 and Lap 40 of the 52-lap race. The most unpredictable aspect of a British Grand Prix is the capricious weather. In the English Midlands, it can often suddenly rain, which changes the dynamics of the race. “If we have one of those nice, hot blue-sky sunny weekends, then the atmosphere’s amazing,” said Daniel Ricciardo, the other Red Bull driver. “If it’s gray, wet and windy, then the atmosphere’s still amazing. I’m not sure how that’s possible — but Silverstone manages it. As for driving in those conditions, it’s still exciting — but in a very different way.” Like the Italian and Japanese Grands Prix, the British race has some of the most devoted fans in Formula One. Their presence year after year is another traditional feature of the track. “With its technical demand, historical heritage and passionate crowds, the so-called home of British motor racing is one of the most traditional circuits where we race Formula One cars,” said Marcus Ericsson, a driver at the Sauber team.


Marlins’ McGehee and Mariners’ Young Named Comeback Players of the Year

Abstract: Miami third baseman Casey McGehee and Seattle pitcher Chris Young were selected as Major League Baseball’s comeback players of the year. McGehee hit .287 with 29 doubles and 76 runs batted in after a season with the Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan’s Pacific League. Young, limited by injuries, had nine starts in the minors in 2013. He was 12-9 with a 3.65 earned run average in 29 starts and one relief appearance this year.

Mariners
Casey McGehee
Chris Young
Baseball
Miami Marlins


Retooled, Revived and Running on All Cylinders

Abstract: FOXBOROUGH, Mass., Oct. 10 — The scouting report was established early, at the 2000 East-West Shrine game, but it still stands up. He was a skinny backup quarterback in an all-star game that no longer drew the biggest stars of college football. But even then there was something tantalizing about Tom Brady . “He had really good accuracy,” Gil Brandt, the former personnel chief of the Dallas Cowboys, said. “And tremendous charisma. He had this great interaction with the players, and players perform better because of that interaction.” Brady still oozes charisma — ask Giselle Bündchen — but his astonishing accuracy is captivating the N.F.L. the way his dating proclivities intrigue the tabloids. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Brady’s 74.1 completion percentage is the highest ever through the first five games of a season, well above the 70.55 percentage that is the highest for a full season, set by Kenny Anderson in 1982. Brady’s career percentage before this season was 61.9. The Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys, each 5-0, play Sunday in a matchup of the two top offenses in the N.F.L. If the Cowboys’ Tony Romo is the league’s hot young thing, Brady, in his eighth season, may be forging his way past Peyton Manning as the best quarterback in football. He is the early front-runner to win the league’s Most Valuable Player award, in part, because the Patriots have won with such ease, scoring at least 34 points a game. It would be his first M.V.P. award, a testament, perhaps, to the view that Brady was merely the most famous cog in a highly efficient machine. “He’s appreciated here, I can tell you that,” Coach Bill Belichick said this week. “I don’t know what somebody else thinks.” Brady and Belichick have developed a symbiotic relationship, the glam and grunge refusing to acknowledge the obvious — that Brady is playing better than he ever has, that his game has been elevated by his all-star array of wide receivers. As his stature grows, Brady has minimized his individual luster. He deflects questions about his performance and conducts his weekly news conferences at his locker, not at a podium in the team’s press room, because he does not want to be set apart from teammates. “This offense ... the longer we work together, hopefully, the better we play,” Brady said. “I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement.” That is terrible news for opponents. Brady’s 16 touchdown passes — an average of 3.2 a game — are more than halfway toward his previous season high of 28 and puts him on pace for 51, two better than Manning’s single-season record. The records may ultimately be beyond Brady’s reach because it is a considerable disadvantage to play late-season games in the bitter cold and wet weather of New England, when running the ball is safer than passing. But Brady’s performance has been so outstanding that he accomplished the near-impossible last week against Cleveland. He threw for 265 yards, 3 touchdown passes and no interceptions, and his quarterback rating went down. It is 128.7. Manning holds the record at 121.1, set in 2004. Almost four years ago, before the Patriots won the second of their three titles, Belichick briefly let his guard down during the giddiness of a playoff run and said that Brady was “one of the most aware and poised players I’ve ever been around.” But this is only Week 6 and, record-breaking performances aside, Belichick has limited his praise in direct proportion to Brady’s output. “I think Tom has been a pretty good player for us now,” Belichick said. “It’s hard to criticize his play over all. I’d say over all his play — he’s a pretty good quarterback.” Dallas Coach Wade Phillips compares Brady with Dan Marino, because it is so hard to design a defense that will bother them. He calls facing Brady “a chore.” Perhaps this is what the Patriots had in mind when they spent the off-season assembling the league’s best receiving corps. Last year at this time, Brady was barely concealing his frustration after the Patriots traded his top receiver and friend, Deion Branch, after a contract stalemate, leaving him throwing to a collection of receivers that could best be described as forgettable. The top receiver last season, Reche Caldwell, was promptly cut. Enter Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte’ Stallworth. The infusion of talent has allowed the offense to open up, and the Patriots are throwing deep more often. Brady already has 19 passes for 20 or more yards, 9 to Moss. After five games last season, he had 11. “The longer you play in this league, the more chance you have to get things right,” the veteran tackle Matt Light said. “The experience we have on offense — not just the guys that have been around here, but the guys that came in during the off-season — we have a lot of experience.” And Brady has enough experience to know that he does not want to talk about what the receivers have done for him. “It’s been great for the entire organization,” Brady said. “But it’s so early in the season. Our goal this season is to win more than five games.”


Uncertainty Clouds David Wright’s Potential Return to Mets

Abstract: SAN DIEGO — David Wright walked through the visitors’ clubhouse at Petco Park on Tuesday afternoon, greeting teammates he had not seen in several weeks. He moved gingerly, his posture straight as a board in an effort to protect his back as much as possible. When he stands, it often feels achy and tight and uncomfortable. Those are the symptoms Wright experiences as he deals with spinal stenosis, the ailment he has been rehabbing extensively in the Los Angeles area, the condition he will have to manage for the rest of his career. Wright, who has already missed about seven weeks this season, was visiting the Mets for the day, just to check in, because he was still unsure when he would swing a bat again. There is no timetable for his return. But the sight of Wright seemed to remind the Mets that even if he returns, they are unsure what they can expect from him. That uncertainty only added weight to all the questions about his recovery and the Mets’ search for a stopgap replacement. “I don’t expect him back in the next couple of weeks, by any means,” General Manager Sandy Alderson said. “But at the same time, we do expect him back sometime this season.” Even though Wright has been gone for so long, he had his own locker set up here, and he stood there answering questions for about 23 minutes. He described his current schedule: working with the back specialist Dr. Robert Watkins, attending therapy seven days a week and checking his progress once a week. Wright said that from his understanding, the condition developed because of two factors: He naturally has a narrower spinal column than normal, and a stress fracture he sustained in his back in 2011 narrowed the column even further. Wright recalled a moment when he was talking with a doctor over the phone, relaying his symptoms, and he first heard the word “stenosis.” The doctor warned Wright not to search the term on Google, but Wright did so anyway. He fretted, going over the worst possible outcomes in his head, comparing one website’s explanation to another. “Anything with ‘spinal’ in it, you start getting a little nervous,” Wright said. Wright is the only bona fide star among the Mets’ position players, so the team is probably feeling nervous, too. Earlier in the day, Wright sat in Manager Terry Collins’s office, talking about his injury, his progress and himself. One by one, when his teammates passed the door, they stopped to talk, too. Many of them had been texting him frequently. “I don’t have any problems getting ready,” Collins said. “But I can’t tell you how those guys feel. I just know that when David got hurt the first time, when he hurt the hamstring the first day and was going to be out, the veteran guys stood up and said: ‘Listen, we still have a good team. We can still do this. He’ll be back.’ ” The Mets have played all but eight games without Wright this season. They have tried to squeak by at third base, playing backups — Eric Campbell, Danny Muno, Ruben Tejada — as if they thought Wright’s return was imminent. But on Tuesday, Alderson indicated that he would search the free-agent and trade markets. The most logical candidate would be a veteran whose contract expires at the end of the season, which would minimize the cost to acquire and pay the player. Alderson also indicated that Wilmer Flores or Daniel Murphy could move to third base. Collins said Monday that aside from Wright, Murphy was the Mets’ best third baseman. Flores’s athleticism would seem better suited for third, but Alderson stressed the importance of continuity. He worried that moving Flores would imply that the Mets did not believe in his ability at shortstop. “We’re not on the edge of our seat waiting for David to come back at this point,” Alderson said. “We have to continue to assess what our options may be. We do that, not on a daily basis, but very frequently.” Still, he later added, “we’re not looking for his replacement.” For now, Wright is trying to relieve the inflammation in his back. Then he will continue strengthening his back muscles as a way to compensate for the weak areas. He will have to exercise a certain way, and prepare for games in a different way. His doctors have warned him that if he rushes his rehab, the injury will worsen. The likelihood of having surgery would then increase, and at Wright’s age, if he wanted to keep playing, they strongly suggested he avoid the surgery. When Wright eventually returns, he will have to be mindful of his back at all times. If he tries to play through pain the way he has in the past, he could easily reinjure it. “If that means being a little more conservative, then that means being a little more conservative,” Wright said. “Because we’re not just talking about playing baseball. We’re talking about walking and standing and being pain-free.”

David Wright
Mets
Baseball
Sports injury


Inside Donald Trump’s Plans to Attack the Clintons, and Why They Might Fail

Abstract: Donald J. Trump plans to attack the character, honesty and authenticity of Hillary and Bill Clinton in the months ahead, in hopes of increasing their unpopularity among voters and deflecting attention from his vulnerabilities. Here are some of his lines of attack against the Clintons, which he described in a recent interview with The New York Times. The Affairs Why Trump Would Attack: Mr. Trump has already used Mr. Clinton’s history of infidelity against Mrs. Clinton to repel criticism that Mr. Trump is sexist. He claims that Mrs. Clinton enabled her husband by staying with him despite the affairs and protected him by trying to blame the women. “We have to destroy her story,” Mrs. Clinton said of one woman, according to the memoir of Mr. Clinton’s former adviser George Stephanopoulos. Why It Might Fail: Even some of Mrs. Clinton’s harshest critics think that she handled her marital problems with grace, and the opening of old wounds could engender sympathy for her. This line of attack also opens up Mr. Trump, who has been married three times, to questions about his philandering. Image Mrs. and Mr. Clinton during a “60 Minutes” television interview in 1992 during which Mr. Clinton denied having an extramarital affair. Credit CBS, via Associated Press _____ The Impeachment Why Trump Would Attack: The Monica Lewinsky scandal raises many questions that could benefit Mr. Trump: Should Mr. Clinton again have a role in the White House after conducting such an affair on the job? Did Mrs. Clinton mistreat Ms. Lewinsky when she called her a “narcissistic loony toon?” And do voters really want to relive the dramas of the 1990s? Why It Might Fail: Polls from the late 1990s showed that Mrs. Clinton’s popularity soared as the scandal unfolded, suggesting that Mr. Trump might actually help his opponent by bringing up the subject. Mrs. Clinton often responds by calling the controversy old news, and she could be correct that voters are tired of hearing about it. _____ The Cattle Futures Why Trump Would Attack: Old questions about how Mrs. Clinton managed in the late 1970s to turn a $1,000 investment in cattle futures into nearly $100,000 with little financial experience is a prime target for Mr. Trump because it fits into the theme that she is “crooked,” a narrative that he has been carefully cultivating. This line of attack also puts the debate on friendly turf for Mr. Trump, a billionaire businessman with plenty of experience investing. Why It Might Fail: The cattle controversy never amounted to much, and resurfacing it opens up Mr. Trump to rebuttals about his many failed businesses and the lawsuits facing Trump University, which has been accused of fraudulent practices. _____ The Emails Why Trump Would Attack: The issue of Mrs. Clinton’s conducting business on a private email server as secretary of state is relatively fresh fodder for Mr. Trump, and a continuing federal investigation is grist for him to claim that she should be disqualified from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton has been spared much discussion of this in her primary campaign, but the nebulous nature of her email practices gives Mr. Trump the chance to argue, without having any evidence, that she showed poor judgment and had something to hide. Why It Might Fail: Mrs. Clinton has already expressed regret for her email practices, and the situation is frozen while the F.B.I. conducts its investigation. There is little new to say on the matter, and there has been no evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s private server put national security at risk. _____ The Benghazi Attacks Why Trump Would Attack: The attacks at a United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, are a favorite subject of Republicans, and Mr. Trump will surely try to use them to paint Mrs. Clinton as incompetent. He has already said that she was asleep for her “3 a.m. call,” accusing her of failing to respond quickly enough to the attacks, which led to the deaths of four Americans. The episode will also make for powerful television ads. Why It Might Fail: Mrs. Clinton has already weathered hours of grilling before Congress on Benghazi, and she has her responses well practiced. By bringing it up, Mr. Trump could highlight a lack of foreign policy knowledge. Image Mrs. Clinton testifying in October before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

Donald Trump
Bill Clinton
Republicans
2016 Presidential Election
US Politics
Benghazi Attack 2012
Hillary Clinton
Democrats


Beginning of the End for NATO?

Abstract: BERLIN — The U.S. defense secretary, Robert M. Gates , knows how to speak his mind. In a speech on Friday in Brussels, his last in Europe before he leaves office, Mr. Gates lambasted NATO . Mr. Gates warned the Europeans that unless they improved their military capabilities, spent more on defense and pooled resources, NATO faced “the very real possibility of collective military irrelevance.” The Europeans are used to being berated by Washington. The United States did that even during the Cold War, when the Continent was divided between NATO troops defending Western Europe and Warsaw Pact troops standing at the ready in Eastern Europe. Then, the Europeans generally obliged. They knew that the threat was real and that they needed U.S. troops to protect them. As late as 1999, after more cajoling, the Europeans helped bomb Serbia in a bid to end almost a decade of civil war and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia that was taking place in Europe’s own backyard. But now, most European countries, apart from Britain and France, do not see the need for military power. They seem not to believe that military force can resolve conflicts. And despite the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Europeans do not share the same threat perceptions as the Americans. That, say analysts, is what is undermining the trans-Atlantic relationship. “The U.S. is a global power, while Europe thinks regionally and believes it is surrounded by friends,” said Markus Kaim, defense expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. “The U.S. sees how this demilitarization is undermining NATO.” Only 5 of the 28 NATO members — the United States, Britain, France, Greece and Albania — spend the agreed 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, “the U.S. share of NATO defense spending has now risen to more than 75 percent, at a time when politically painful budget and benefit cuts are being considered at home,” Mr. Gates said. “If that trend continues, in which the Europeans are not willing to share more of the burden, then the trans-Atlantic relationship is in serious trouble. It might not be even possible to talk of NATO in the coming years,” said Andrew A. Michta, director of the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The United States could not muster NATO support when it invaded Iraq in 2003. Instead, it had to rely on “coalitions of the willing,” which undermined the cohesion of the alliance. The cracks were papered over as the Europeans, reluctantly, continued to help the United States in Afghanistan . Indeed, Mr. Gates said he was surprised how NATO had stayed the course in Afghanistan in a war that is highly unpopular among all European capitals. “Four years ago, I never would have expected the alliance to sustain this operation at this level for so long, much less add significantly more forces in 2010,” he said at the Brussels gathering. The contrast with the current air campaign in Libya could not be more striking. “While every alliance member voted for the Libya mission, less than half have participated at all, and fewer than a third have been willing to participate in the strike mission,” Mr. Gates said, referring to NATO’s North Atlantic Council and not the United Nations, where Germany abstained. He blamed the lack of military capabilities. The political will is not there, either. Indeed, Libya is the clearest example of this and shows why the United States can no longer rely on the Europeans to do some of its bidding but also why the Europeans are unwilling to use military force as a tool for regime change. “Libya is for NATO its first post-Afghanistan mission,” said Mr. Kaim. “The Europeans have learned the lessons of Afghanistan. They are more and more reluctant to get involved in state and nation building on the back of using force.” Mr. Gates understands this divergence and the growing apart of the trans-Atlantic relationship. He is not even sure whether the United States will continue to believe in NATO and invest in it. Indeed, Mr. Gates represents a generation that grew up with the Cold War. On both sides of the Atlantic, that generation, which wielded considerable influence, is ceding power to younger elites who place far less worth on the trans-Atlantic alliance. “NATO and the trans-Atlantic relationship has always been a consuming interest of Gates’s professional life,” said Stephen J. Flanagan, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “But the new generation of political leaders in the United States does not share his experience of the common Cold War struggle with our European allies,” he said. “They are inclined to look at U.S. resources devoted to trans-Atlantic defense in a much more calculated way, questioning whether the investments are worth the cost.” NATO as such will probably survive. The alliance will continue to be of use to the United States when it looks to build coalitions of the willing. It might also come in handy to confer some added legitimacy to future military missions. But its role as the central trans-Atlantic organization with a truly united purpose and solidarity among all of the allies is in doubt. There may be a bright side to this. The United States has long encouraged the European Union to develop a security policy so that the Europeans can take care of their own backyards like Bosnia, Moldova, the southern Mediterranean, Belarus, Ukraine and the Caucasus. So far, the Union has shown few signs of strategic thinking, not to speak of defense coordination. That is why last November, Britain and France agreed to a far-reaching deal over military cooperation. “The agreement called into question the sustainability and relevance of the E.U.’s security and defense policy,” said Clara Marina O’Donnell, defense expert at the Center for European Reform in London. Other European countries mostly ignored the deal. It might take the gradual withdrawal of the United States to convince the Europeans that they need a long-term security strategy that deserves its name.

Iraq
Afghanistan
Libya
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Gates Robert M
Defense and Military Forces


Sharper Image From 4K TVs Is a Gimmick Worth Having

Abstract: Americans have made it clear: They don’t want a lot of gimmicks in their TVs. In an effort to improve sales, though, television makers have tried gimmicks anyway. They have praised 3-D TVs. They have promoted voice controls. And they have highlighted Internet-streaming interfaces. None have really moved the needle. The latest big selling point — ultrahigh-definition displays, also known as 4K — also faces an uphill climb. But unlike many of the gimmicks and features that have been tried in years past, 4K is one we will probably adopt. And with one name-brand 4K television available for $1,000, this could be the year that starts happening. From a technical perspective, the term 4K refers to displays with twice the vertical resolution and twice the horizontal resolution of high-definition TVs. The UHD designation combines the higher pixel count of 4K with improvements to on-screen colors that make the on-screen picture brighter and more realistic. The terms are used fairly interchangeably, and most TV manufacturers tack on both. There is no doubt that with the right video playing, 4K simply looks better than an HD TV. And history shows that better-looking televisions with bigger displays will win us over, as long as the price is right. “Pretty simple message, right?” said Stephen Baker, head of hardware analysis at the retail research organization the NPD Group. “This is a better picture. Everything you watch, without your having to do anything, is going to look better.” He added: “I think it’s clearly a sales catalyst, if only because it gives the TV brands and the retailers something to talk about that doesn’t require them to explain a whole bunch of other weird things.” Ultrahigh definition, like high definition before it, seems to be the natural evolution of TV technology: a quality improvement that is prohibitively expensive at first and limited to televisions of unusual size but that soon becomes mainstream in smaller sets at lower prices. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, it took six years of high definition TVs being on the market — from 2003 to 2009 — before 50 percent of American households had them. Now, nearly 90 percent of households have one. The C.E.A. estimates that 800,000 ultrahigh-definition TVs will be sold in the United States in 2014, out of the 38.5 million total television sales. Mr. Baker said he did not expect big sales numbers anytime soon because 4K TVs will be large and expensive in the immediate future. “The real revolution comes when we get better quality products in smaller screens,” he said. “It’s all dependent on, obviously, the costs.” For the last two years, electronics makers like Samsung, LG and Sony have been selling 4K televisions with huge screens and matching price tags. Samsung has made the most aggressive push into ultrahigh definition. The company made headlines with its 85-inch TV with built-in stand, which retailed for $45,000 (it has since come down to $40,000). Smaller UHD TVs started at $5,500. Sony announced 4K models in 2013 that cost $5,000 for 55 inches and $7,000 for 65 inches, and LG’s prices have been similar. Image 4K TVs have displays with twice the vertical resolution and twice the horizontal resolution of high-definition TVs. But those prices have come down significantly in just a year. A 55-inch Sony 4K TV can now be found for $1,800; Samsung’s feature-filled 65-inch 4K TV with a curved design and next-generation LED is a surprisingly tempting $2,800. And Vizio, the budget-price electronics maker, has just introduced its P series line of ultrahigh-definition TVs that start at $1,000 for a 50-inch model. The TVs contain impressive display technology and do not represent a huge quality compromise despite their lower prices. Mr. Baker said an offer like that is likely to have an effect. “Vizio will change the market because people have a lot of trust in Vizio,” he said, “and they’re in a range of outlets that range from Walmart to Costco.” The adoption of 4K TVs will also depend on the programming available in the higher definition — a sort of chicken-and-egg situation. Without extensive 4K programming available, people have less incentive to buy the sets. And if few people buy them, there is less incentive to make videos in 4K. So far, no channels are broadcasting in 4K, and very few DVDs come in 4K quality. That means if you have such a television now, the video will probably have to be “upscaled” to match the higher resolution, a software process that tries to fill in missing pixels by guessing what they should look like. The results can be choppy. Mark Coxon, a former high-end audio-video installer who writes about television technology, said upscaling often leads to blurry on-screen images, especially in scenes with a lot of movement. “Obviously, more resolution is a good thing if we have the content to follow,” he said, “but scaling has never been something that’s been pretty.” More expensive 4K TVs will contain better technology for upscaling picture quality, he said, and some third-party manufacturers make expensive set-top boxes that can provide better scaling. But until more 4K programming is available, consumers may be in for a rude surprise when they watch high-definition TV on ultrahigh-definition sets. More 4K programming is being made, though. Some movie studios are shooting films in 4K. And Sony is pushing video makers to 4K with its devices, selling professional and semiprofessional cameras that shoot in the higher-resolution format. The company has also released a $700 set-top box that stores and plays back 70 movie and TV titles to owners of next-generation sets. A start-up, UltraFlix, is scanning older movies from 35 millimeter film and remastering them into 4K digital movies that stream on its app. The UltraFlix app is included on Sony and Vizio ultrahigh-definition TVs. And Netflix streams some of Sony’s movies and TV shows, and it is shooting some of its original series in 4K, including “House of Cards” and coming series like “Marco Polo.” “This is going to be the first format that will become popular first online, as a streaming format, versus a physical media format,” said Cliff Edwards, a Netflix spokesman. But streaming 4K has its own next-generation requirements. It requires Netflix’s most expensive $12 a month plan and a pretty fast broadband connection — the movies have about twice the file size as regular high-definition movies. Consumers streaming a lot of those big files will also want to watch their data limits, if they have them. As for that upscaled HD content, Mr. Coxon offers advice for shoppers who will face a wall of TVs this holiday shopping season, each showing crisp, perfect photographs, slow-moving images or animation. Look at an HD TV and a 4K TV side-by-side and ask the store to put the same channel on both, he said. “If you like the 4K TV better, you’ll like your choice.” And of course, wait for the holiday sales price, too. You will like your choice a lot more the less you have to pay.

Samsung
Sony
Vizio
Netflix
TV Sets
LG Electronics


Joshua Wong and 2 Others Convicted Over Their Roles in Hong Kong Protests

Abstract: HONG KONG — Three leaders of Hong Kong ’s huge student-led demonstrations in 2014 were found guilty on Thursday of charges stemming from their roles in events that set off 79 days of defiant street protests for freer elections in the self-governing Chinese territory. Joshua Wong , 19, the bespectacled public face of the demonstrations, was found guilty of unlawful assembly, as was a fellow student leader, Alex Chow, 25. Nathan Law, 23, who is seeking to win a seat in Hong Kong’s legislature in the September elections, was found guilty of inciting people to take part in the assembly, a charge on which Mr. Wong was acquitted. The judge, June Cheung, released the three men on bail until their sentencing, which is set for Aug. 15. They face a maximum of two years in prison, although the ultimate punishment may be considerably lighter; the judge is seeking a report from probation officers on whether community service might be a suitable alternative. “No matter what penalty or price we need to pay, we will still continue to fight against suppression from the government,” Mr. Wong told reporters outside the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts on Thursday. The verdicts represented the first convictions of leaders of the 2014 protest, known as the Umbrella Movement. It was prompted by the Chinese government’s decision to impose strict limits on who could run in what would be the first direct election of Hong Kong’s chief executive, requiring that all candidates be vetted by a loyalist nominating committee. While the movement failed to bring about any political change that would allow greater citizen participation in the election’s nominating process, it has inadvertently given rise to a political force that is making a more direct challenge to China’s rule over Hong Kong. That includes people like Mr. Wong and Mr. Law, who have formed a new political party to advocate a citywide referendum on whether Hong Kong should become independent. “We can no longer follow the Chinese government’s rules in fighting for democracy in Hong Kong,” Mr. Law, chairman of the party Demosisto, said in an interview on Wednesday. “Our one simple goal is to protect Hong Kong’s interests and preserve its way of life from being warped under the Communist regime.” By applying to run in the legislative elections in September, Mr. Law joins a crowded array of participants from the Umbrella Movement who are seeking to bring their calls for greater autonomy, if not independence, into Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. On Wednesday, Beijing’s top representative in Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaoming, warned that allowing such advocacy in the city’s legislature could bring “calamity.” He also promised that the so-called one country, two systems governing principle that underpinned the return of the former British colony to Chinese rule would remain in place. “The central government has absolutely no intention to mainlandize Hong Kong, turning it into another Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen,” said Mr. Zhang, who is the director of Beijing’s Liaison Office in the city. But his promise is unlikely to dampen calls for constitutional changes that would give Hong Kong greater autonomy, an idea that has strong support among young Hong Kong residents. Concerns of eroding civil liberties were recently heightened by the detention of Hong Kong booksellers deemed offensive to China’s leadership. The guilty verdict on Thursday puts Mr. Law’s candidacy in doubt, because according to Hong Kong law, a candidate is disqualified if sentenced to more than three months in prison or is in prison on the date of an election. The charges stemmed from actions on the night of Sept. 26, 2014, at the end of a school boycott in protest of the Chinese government’s limits on voting rights, when the three led a group of students to break into a recently fenced-in square in front of the headquarters of the Hong Kong government. The move marked the start of a series of clashes with the police that culminated in the use of tear gas, which backfired by drawing even more sympathizers to the area and spurring protests in other parts of the city that drew international attention.

Joshua Wong
Hong Kong
Alex Chow
Politics
China
Occupy Central,Umbrella Movement
Nathan Law Kwun-chung
Civil Unrest


Businesses Turn to Airbnb

Abstract: Lauren Hauber has moved past the days of trudging down the hotel corridor with an ice bucket. Like a growing number of business travelers, Ms. Hauber, a San Francisco resident, and her co-workers have started staying in apartments and houses managed through Airbnb, which in July started a site aimed at attracting more business travelers. The service allows travelers — business and leisure — to rent space for short periods. Ms. Hauber and two colleagues rented a three-bedroom condominium in downtown Austin, Tex., for this week’s SXSW Eco conference. The apartment was less expensive and more convenient than hotels in the area, she said, and it had other benefits. “I really like having a kitchen,” said Ms. Hauber, who does business development for Wildlife Works, an environmental firm in Mill Valley, Calif. “A lot of times they’ll have washers and dryers. I don’t feel like I’m losing anything by using an Airbnb.” Companies large and small, increasingly focused on budgets, are starting to look beyond hotels to apartments and houses. “We’re seeing really kind of shocking growth in the use of Airbnb by business travelers,” said Tim MacDonald, an executive vice president with Concur, which designs software for managing business expenses and travel. Use of Airbnb properties by companies using the Concur system has surged in the past year, Mr. MacDonald said. San Francisco, New York and Austin, as well as Paris and London, have been particularly popular destinations for business travelers opting for Airbnb, he said. The service has been embraced especially in San Francisco, where hotel occupancy rates hover around 90 percent, said Joe D’Alessandro, president and chief executive of the San Francisco Travel Association. During technology conferences like Oracle OpenWorld and Macworld, “the city’s basically in sellout mode,” Mr. D’Alessandro said. Before Airbnb, he added, “there were times when the city was full and people just couldn’t get in.” The trend is part of a growing reliance on the so-called sharing economy, which also includes companies like the Uber car service and TaskRabbit, where clients can find people to help with everyday chores and other tasks. Although Airbnb declined to give the number of business travelers using the service, at least 55 companies are using the site to plan business trips, said Lex Bayer, who heads Airbnb’s business development. The site’s new business portal mostly excludes shared apartments and quirkier properties, like boats and tree houses, in favor of entire houses or apartments, Mr. Bayer said. The service has proved popular with property owners, he said, especially since business travel helps fill vacant sites during the week. “Typically business travelers are good travelers,” he said. “Hosts enjoy having them.” Among the hosts who have benefited is Steve Puryear, who said up to two-thirds of the guests in his Austin condominium — including Ms. Hauber and her colleagues — were business travelers. The headline on his Airbnb listing makes his preference clear: “Perfect 4 Executives/Professionals.” “I was getting a lot of bachelor parties and stuff,” he said. “I wanted to steer toward business travelers. There are long-term residents in the building and noise complaints are expensive.” Airbnb’s primary competitor, HomeAway, has not focused on business travel and has no plans to do so, said Jon Gray, its senior vice president for the Americas. Business trips account for 2 percent of the company’s bookings, he said. HomeAway, which runs VRBO and VacationRentals.com, among other sites, is looking at a new site focusing on homes in urban areas, however, Mr. Gray said. Increased business travel may “come along for the ride,” he said. Increased competition from Airbnb and others will force hotels to find ways to bring back business travelers, said Michael W. McCormick, executive director and chief operating officer of the Global Business Travel Association. For now, he said, it is no wonder that companies are using the new service. “Travelers and companies are always looking for creative options,” Mr. McCormick said. “From that perspective, everybody’s intrigued.” Like Uber, which has run afoul of taxi operators and transit regulators around the world, Airbnb has battled hotel owners and officials in cities from San Francisco to New York, as well as in Europe , as governments try to figure out how to tax and regulate the sharing economy. But businesses have started to embrace Airbnb in the meantime. The service has come in handy for GitHub, a San Francisco-based software start-up with about 150 employees who work outside the Bay Area. Without Airbnb, many of those employees would have trouble finding hotel rooms during conferences, said Brian Doll, a GitHub vice president. “All the hotels are pretty much booked,” he said. “Anything that’s left is going to be six times the market rate.” Airbnb properties, which often include common areas like family or dining rooms, also give employees more working space than a hotel room, Mr. Doll said. “We might have four to six people traveling to a location to do work together,” he said. “Hotel rooms aren’t well suited for that.” The business travel market is still big enough for both hotels and Airbnb, said Mr. McCormick of the Global Business Travel Association. Many travelers will opt for the convenience of room service over the freedom of a kitchen, he said. “Yes, they are all competing,” he said. “But I think Airbnb is bringing something different to a different segment of the marketplace.”

Airbnb
Uber
Hotels
Business travel
Rent
HomeAway
Global Business Travel Assn