With Kiffin as Coordinator, the Cowboys Are Hunting for Turnovers

Abstract: IRVING, Tex. — Monte Kiffin looked impossibly fresh and enthusiastic after a recent practice in heat approaching 100 degrees. He promptly greeted reporters with a septuagenarian energy rush that surely had to subside into a nap at some point. “What do you say gang, huh?” Kiffin said. “We doing good? A little hot out there. Were you inside or outside?” At 73, Kiffin appears indefatigable in his return to the N.F.L. as the defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys after four seasons in the college ranks. He is two years older than his boss, the team owner Jerry Jones. Kiffin is 40 years older than quarterback Tony Romo, at 33 the oldest Cowboy on the roster. And with the Cowboys taking on the Giants in Sunday night’s season opener, players say morale and confidence have been lifted by Kiffin, a coach old enough to be their grandfather. “If you close your eyes, you will forget his age,” cornerback Brandon Carr said. “You can just see the passion for the game oozing out of him every time he talks. His antics, everything that he says and does, he keeps you engaged.” Image The Dallas assistant Monte Kiffin worked with his son, Lane, for four seasons in college. Credit Gus Ruelas/Associated Press Kiffin has been entrusted with rejuvenating a defense tarnished by meltdowns against N.F.C. East rivals, especially late last season, and reintroducing the Cowboys to the concept of causing turnovers. The Cowboys’ defense had only 16 takeaways last season — its seven interceptions were tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for the fewest in the N.F.L. — and was ranked 27th in turnover differential. “That’s what makes it weird, but great at the same time,” linebacker Bruce Carter said. “There’s his age, and he acts like he’s 20. You don’t want to be in defensive meetings all bored. Guys are buying into his system and what he’s preaching.” Fittingly, Kiffin has brought back the 4-3 Cover 2 alignment that created havoc among opponents during his 13 years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On the surface, it will be a major shift from the complex, read-oriented 3-4 defense instituted by the former coordinator Rob Ryan, who was fired. The Cowboys, though, played down any difficulty in switching systems and sounded more comfortable under Kiffin than Ryan. Kiffin’s style demands an instinctive approach and a focus on turnovers, which has kept the Cowboys buzzing in meeting rooms and on the practice field. “Just get it and go,” Carr said. “Take out the room to think about it.” Carr added: “A lot of gray has been taken out. The mentality has changed. They’ve been pounding and beating it into us since they stepped foot inside these doors and our first meeting as far as effort and hustling to the ball and creating and forcing those turnovers.” Defensive tackle Jason Hatcher said: “We had the right personnel in place to do it. It was a grind, coming from a 3-4 where you’re just kind of reading blocks, and a 4-3 where you’re kind of penetrating first. So you had to reprogram yourself to playing fast and hitting gaps and just getting to the football.” Image Monte Kiffin spent 13 years with the Buccaneers and has taken the 4-3 Cover 2 alignment to Dallas. Credit Phil Coale/Associated Press The Cowboys had three takeaways in their previous three games against the Giants, whose defense totaled nine turnovers in those meetings. Dallas also could not capitalize with a big play in last season’s finale against the Washington Redskins, failing to create a turnover in a 28-18 loss that ended its playoff hopes. Injuries along the defensive line have further complicated the debut of Kiffin’s system. Left end Anthony Spencer and the backup tackle Ben Bass are hurt and were not expected to play against the Giants. Tackles Jay Ratliff and Tyrone Crawford were shelved during training camp. “We just got to make do,” Kiffin said. “When you play Sunday night, and there’s 11 guys out there, you’re a starter, and you’ve got to play like a starter. That’s why you signed on.” Kiffin’s arrival caused Giants quarterback Eli Manning to dig through film archives of Kiffin’s 4-3 defenses with the Buccaneers. Manning said this week that he also looked at game footage of the University of Southern California, where Kiffin coached under his son Lane for the past three seasons. Previously, the father-son duo worked together for a season at Tennessee. “Those guys know us; that’s no secret,” Kiffin said of Manning and his brother Peyton. Kiffin’s fiery nature keeps him in continual motion on the practice field, and he throws around old-school terms — slobberknocker being a favorite. The players, at first, had a hard time deciphering his rapid-fire, gravelly delivery. “He wanders back and forth, in and out, checking on every position group and every drill,” Carr said. “Anytime he gets a chance to get in front of the board in a meeting, or outside to teach us a drill or some type of technique, he’s hands on with it. You need that for a defense. “All the heat we take around here, he’s that guy that’s always got our back and always talking positive for us.”

Monte Kiffin
Dallas Cowboys
Giants
Football
USC


Fortuneteller in Manhattan Is Sentenced to 5 to 15 Years in Prison

Abstract: Sylvia Mitchell, the Manhattan fortuneteller whose ornate Greenwich Village parlor and air of uptown sophistication attracted well-to-do, distraught clients who preferred the finer things in life, was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison on Thursday, a month after a jury convicted her of grand larceny. In handing down the sentence, Justice Gregory Carro of State Supreme Court in Manhattan acknowledged that the penalty was harsher than that requested by prosecutors at Thursday’s hearing. The Manhattan district attorney’s office had requested a sentence of three to nine years in prison. “You had a perfect setup,” Justice Carro said. “We have lots of con artists here in New York City,” he said, citing three-card monte dealers and those who pretend their glasses were just broken by a stranger who bumped into them on the street. But Ms. Mitchell lured “someone who is having some dramatic stress in their life, some great problems they were going through, looking for some kind of help,” the judge said. Image Sylvia Mitchell on Thursday. Last month, a jury found her guilty of grand larceny. Credit John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times Ms. Mitchell, 39, began to weep upon entering the courtroom, handcuffed and somewhat haggard after a month in jail on Rikers Island and glimpsing a row of mostly elderly men, presumably relatives, who were sitting with the father of her two teenage children. She told the judge she was sorry for what she had done . “I want to go back to school and start a new profession and start my life again,” she said. She was ordered to pay more than $110,000 in restitution to the two victims in the case, something her lawyer, Kenneth Gribetz, said he came prepared to do with a check from an escrow account. He said he planned to appeal the sentence, which he said was overly harsh given that prosecutors, long before trial, had offered her a plea deal involving no jail time. She refused the offer. Both victims, Lee Choong and Debra Saalfield, wrote letters describing the pain caused by their dealings with Ms. Mitchell. Both had approached her during periods of romantic upheaval in their lives. Both testified against Ms. Mitchell, and in doing so, admitted that in hindsight, all her talk of curses and evil spirits seemed far-fetched, but at the time, unsettling. Ms. Choong said she was drawn to the parlor, called Zena on Seventh Avenue South, because it was plush and relatively pricey. Ms. Saalfield said that the news media coverage of the case had further hurt her. At a recent wedding rehearsal dinner that she attended, she wrote, “one of the guests stared at me at great length and put an ‘L’ for loser on her face while looking at me.”

Sylvia Mitchell
Fortune-telling
Fraud
Psychic
Greenwich Village Manhattan
NYC


F.C.C. Backs Charter’s Acquisition of Cable Companies

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission confirmed on Friday that it had approved Charter Communications’ acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. The deals, which would create the second-largest broadband provider and third-largest video provider in the United States, now need approval from regulators in California. A state administrative judge there recommended last month that California’s public utilities commission approve the deal. That decision is expected at a hearing on Thursday. The Justice Department gave antitrust approval to the acquisitions with conditions on April 25, and Charter and Time Warner Cable shareholders have already agreed to the deals. Charter has valued its deal for Time Warner Cable at $56.7 billion, excluding debt, and the acquisition of Bright House at $10.4 billion. Thomas M. Rutledge, president and chief executive of Charter, said in a statement on Friday that the transactions had “significant benefits,” including greater competition, broader access to affordable broadband and new American jobs. He said the conditions imposed by the F.C.C. were “largely extensions of the longstanding consumer-friendly values and practices of our company.” The Justice Department said Charter had agreed to refrain from telling its content providers that they could not also sell shows online as conditions of its approval. A majority of the five-member F.C.C. voted to approve the deals earlier this week. The agency said in a statement on Friday that an “order detailing the commission’s reasoning and the conditions will be issued in the coming days.” The commission’s conditions would require Charter to extend high-speed Internet access to another two million customers within five years, with one million served by a broadband competitor, the F.C.C. chairman, Tom Wheeler, said. Charter, backed by the billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media, has pursued Time Warner Cable since 2013. The two companies had acrimonious exchanges in 2013 and early 2014. That ended with Time Warner Cable rejecting unsolicited approaches by Charter and instead pursuing a deal with Comcast, the No. 1 United States cable provider. That transaction was ultimately abandoned. In addition, the commission on Tuesday approved the European telecommunication group Altice’s acquisition of the United States cable company Cablevision Systems in a $17.7 billion deal that includes assumption of debt. Altice still needs approval from the State of New York and New York City. If the deal is approved, Altice would become the fourth-largest cable provider in the United States. Cablevision has 3.1 million subscribers, mostly in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Charter Communications
Time Warner Cable
Bright House Networks
FCC
Mergers and Acquisitions
Cable television
Competition law
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


Essence Editor Is Leaving Magazine

Abstract: Susan L. Taylor, the longtime editor and driving force behind Essence, the magazine aimed at black women, is leaving the publication after 37 years to devote more time to an organization she founded to help troubled children. Ms. Taylor, 61, joined Essence in 1970, the year it was first published, as a freelance fashion and beauty editor after founding her own company, Nequai Cosmetics. She became editor in chief in 1981, a post she held until 2000, when she was promoted to publications director. She has most recently been the magazine’s editorial director and author of its In the Spirit column, which dispenses inspirational words about things like finance and prayer. Although Essence, which is owned by the Time Inc. division of Time Warner, did not make an official announcement, Ms. Taylor chose to send out word of the change via e-mail. “I am taking a break in South Africa and will have little access to e-mail,” she wrote in an automated out-of-office message this month. “When I come back to the states in mid-January, I will be leaving Essence to do what at this juncture in my life has become a larger work for me — building the National Cares Mentoring Movement, which I founded as Essence Cares and today is my deepest passion.” Essence Cares encourages black adults to serve as mentors for at-risk young people. According to the program’s Web site, “Essence Cares is a call to action for every able black adult to take under wing a vulnerable young person, which costs nothing.” While Ms. Taylor rose to the top of the magazine world — in 1999 she became the first black woman to receive the Henry Johnson Fisher Award from the Magazine Publishers of America, one of the industry’s top honors — she used her position to highlight civic causes. As an advocate for children and improving education, she once calling failing schools “the pipelines to prison.” This year she appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to promote the National Cares Mentoring Movement, which she founded in 2006 with the goal of signing up more than one million people to become mentors. The organization is a coalition of advocacy groups, including the National Urban League, 100 Black Men in America and the Y.W.C.A. “It’s a burning desire to use whatever resources she has to help our young people,” said Terrie Williams, a longtime friend of Ms. Taylor’s and a former communications executive at Essence who runs a public relations firm in New York. “She lives and breathes it.” Ms. Williams said that Ms. Taylor “takes young people with her to most of the events she goes to. She’s put kids through college. She’s made calls to get kids in distressed situations in to college. She really is an icon in the black community.” After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Ms. Taylor used Essence as a platform to keep the plight of New Orleans, where the magazine had long held an annual music festival, in the nation’s consciousness. She was appointed by Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, a panel that advised the governor on rebuilding efforts. In July, an article in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans described her as a “traveling saleswoman for New Orleans and other hurricane-battered regions of the state.” Ms. Taylor’s fourth book, “All About Love,” a collection of her columns, will be published in February. Essence, a monthly publication, has a circulation of about 1 million. On Dec. 18, Michelle Ebanks, the president of Essence, sent a memo to the magazine’s staff, saying of Ms. Taylor, “it is not often that you have the chance to work with a living legend, and we are all lucky to have had this extraordinary privilege.”


The Importance of Straight Talk

Abstract: This interview with Anne Williams-Isom, chief executive of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit antipoverty organization, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. Were you in leadership roles when you were younger? A. I have three brothers, who are many years older than me. So when I came along, everybody was superexcited to have me there. And I got to ask a lot of questions and do a lot of different things. I was a little spoiled, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, because the world can throw a lot of crazy things at you as you get older. From the time I was 6, I felt that my voice mattered. We lived in a small house in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Queens. Across the street there were garden apartments, and I remember being aware that there was a class difference between them and us. But I was always drawn to playing with the kids across the street. We would put on plays in my garage during the summer, and I was always the director. We had refreshments, and we’d invite the people from the neighborhood. Looking back, any thoughts on why you were drawn to the kids across the street? I think I was always wondering from a young age about why I had my kind of life and someone else had a different kind of life. Why do differences exist like this? Why do people have certain opportunities? It’s something I’ve always been drawn to. What about influences of your parents? My mom is superstrong. And when I look at just about everything I’ve done, I’ve always been connected to really difficult work with people’s lives. There are real tragedies that can happen, but you have to have the ability to be present in those moments and then still be able to go to a board meeting or do fund-raising. I have this way of staying calm through the madness, and I have an extraordinary ability to deal with conflict or things that other people would shy away from. The first time I noticed that I had a gift for this was when I was about 14, and we were in church one Sunday. There was a girl who stood up in the middle of Mass with a baby and started making a scene, calling people hypocrites. We were all stunned, and everybody was just sitting there. She was crying and hysterical. The pastor started saying to her: “You need to sit down. This is not the place.” He was just sort of dismissing her. I don’t know what made me do it, but in the middle of a church filled with probably 200 people, I got up and I walked over to her and I put my arm around her. I didn’t really know her — she was probably about two or three years older than me — but I whispered to her, “I don’t think this is good for the baby. I can take her back in the rectory and then we can wait there, and you can say what you want to say after Mass.” She was looking at me like, “Who are you?” But then she handed the baby to me and the two of us walked back into the rectory. Not being afraid of conflict or uncertainty or risk is something I’ve had for a long time. What about lessons you learned from mentors? I worked for a woman named Wilhelmina Holliday, who was the deputy police commissioner of community affairs in New York. I learned a lot about authentic leadership from her. I’m notorious for straight talk. I’m the queen of straight talk now. And I remember her not holding her tongue much and not being mean, but being really clear about what she was saying and what she needed. I remember seeing her get angry at people, and I remember seeing her fire people. I saw her handle crises in a particular community and talk about how she wanted to deploy staff and what she wanted to do. She had clear goals and really had this ability to be straightforward with people. You recently took over from Geoffrey Canada as C.E.O. What did you learn from him? I help do the evaluations for every single teacher, all 180 of them. That’s something I learned from him — in his mind, it shouldn’t just be the principal doing it. The teachers should really have an opportunity to see me and to see what I feel about the mission and what they’re doing. As a leader, there are certain things you have to do yourself. You have to be there. How do you hire? At the Harlem Children’s Zone , it’s not just about being smart and talented. It’s about doing whatever it takes, never stopping, and going the extra mile. So I try to get a sense of what’s important to people. Do they like to just give orders, or do they like to get their hands dirty and to solve problems? If I see something on the floor, I’m going to pick it up. If there’s ice on the walks in front of the building, I’m going to get a shovel and take care of it. Self-awareness is a huge thing for me. It’s not that flaws are a problem. I think people’s flaws, and how they try to work through them, are what makes them interesting. But you have to be aware that you have the flaws. And it’s not so much about me asking, “What do you think your weaknesses are?” It’s about figuring out what have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced and how you managed through them. What advice do you give to graduating college students? People can get so caught up in what we think they’re supposed to do and what’s going to be right for them. But you should just want to get better at whatever you’re doing and always be volunteering for that next thing. Be the go-getter. Be authentic and a person of integrity. Then you’re going to meet people, and opportunities will come to you. And keep the noise around you to a minimum so that you can hear the right opportunity when it comes to you.

Anne Williams-Isom
Management
Harlem Children's Zone


Washington: Suit Over Oil Drilling Fleet Advances

Abstract: A state judge said Friday that a lawsuit challenging the Port of Seattle’s decision to lease one of its terminals as a home port for an Arctic oil drilling fleet can go forward. Environmental groups say the port broke state law in February when it signed a two-year lease with Foss Maritime to rent 50 acres near downtown. Foss’s client is Royal Dutch Shell, which plans to base its Arctic fleet there. The groups said the port should have conducted an environmental review before granting the lease. Judge Mariane Spearman of King County Superior Court allowed the case to proceed, agreeing with a key argument made by the environmental groups, that basing a drilling fleet at the terminal is different from its prior use as a cargo terminal.

Lawsuits
Port
Seattle
Oil and Gasoline
Offshore drilling


Knicks Display Their Newfound Resolve by Dispatching Mavericks

Abstract: DALLAS — The Knicks arrived in Texas last week as a fragile, broken team. Two of their rotation players did not even make the trip because of injuries. Their starting point guard spent all three games in street clothes as he recovered from a strained groin. Iman Shumpert could not shoot. The Knicks could not win. And Coach Mike Woodson could do little to avoid questions about his job security. “You have to move forward,” Kenyon Martin said. Far from the pressure cooker of Madison Square Garden, the Knicks proved surprisingly capable of reassembling their confidence on the road, capping their four-day swing through Texas with a 92-80 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night at American Airlines Center. While the Knicks (11-22) have to shake an addiction to distractions that borders on self-immolation — much of the pregame talk here centered on their late-game blunders in Friday’s loss to the Houston Rockets — they are suddenly showcasing some toughness and resolve, clawing their way back from rock bottom. On Sunday, Shumpert again asserted himself when it mattered most. After scoring 53 points in his previous two games, he was quiet until late in the fourth. After the Mavericks’ Jose Calderon connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to cut the lead to 82-76, Shumpert answered with consecutive baskets for the Knicks. He scored on an up-and-under layup after he recognized that Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavericks’ 7-foot forward, was standing straight up, anticipating Shumpert would attempt a 3-pointer. Instead, Shumpert attacked the basket. On the next possession, Carmelo Anthony spotted Shumpert outside the 3-point arc. “I was wide open,” said Shumpert, who had 9 points and turned in another fine defensive effort. “I think they forgot about me.” In the locker room after the game, Shumpert asked for cold medication. He was under the weather, and he blamed Tyson Chandler, who had left the game in the first quarter with an upper respiratory infection. Specifically, Shumpert blamed Chandler’s children. “Kids got all them germs,” Shumpert said. Despite feeling less than their best, the Knicks played their finest basketball of the season in Texas, upsetting the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday before engaging in their ill-fated duel with the Rockets. Sunday’s victory was a total team effort, to borrow one of Woodson’s favorite phrases. Consider a sequence early in the fourth quarter. After trailing by 19 points, the Mavericks (19-15) reduced the deficit to 68-62 when Vince Carter made a 3-pointer. The Knicks’ reserves responded with a 7-0 run that included contributions from J. R. Smith (long jumper), Toure’ Murry (aggressive drive) and Tim Hardaway Jr., who swerved his way to the basket for a 3-point play. Woodson kicked his leg and pumped his fist. “It’s been a good, successful trip,” Woodson said. “Now, we have to go home and establish something there.” Anthony led five teammates in double figures with 19 points. Martin, appearing in his hometown after missing Friday’s game with a sore ankle, had 14 points and 6 rebounds. His contributions were especially important in the absence of Chandler, who played only four minutes. It was an important win. The fumes from the Houston debacle were still lingering Sunday morning when the Knicks gathered here for their shootaround. That contest had ended with a series of crushing mental lapses by the team, including Smith’s stupefying decision to launch a 3-pointer with about 20 seconds left in a tie game. The Knicks could have held the ball for the final shot. Instead, Smith missed and the Rockets converted two free throws to secure a 102-100 win. Woodson remained at a loss to explain Smith’s 3-point attempt, other than to say he “went blank.” Curiously, Woodson named an accomplice in the meltdown: Beno Udrih, who had erred by passing the ball to Smith in the first place, Woodson said. “Did Beno have to throw him the ball? You got to look at that,” he said. “There are a lot of things that you just — when you’re winning and losing games, man, it’s a fine line. When you’ve had those struggles that we’ve had, you just can’t make those mistakes.” For another team, perhaps all this chatter would be disruptive. The Knicks seem used to it by now. Distractions are their milieu. It is something of an art, and they are suddenly thriving amid it all. Udrih, in particular, had a strong start against the Mavericks. He drained an early 3-pointer, and then dropped a bounce pass to Martin for a layup and a 20-13 lead. But no player was more dominant early on than Anthony, who collected 15 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists in the first quarter, as the Knicks raced to a 29-17 advantage. Udrih, who finished with 8 assists, again supplied big minutes as Raymond Felton sat out his sixth straight game with a strained groin. Woodson described Felton as “day to day,” a phrase that has also become an indispensable part of Felton’s vocabulary. He has missed 16 games this season with various ailments. “I’d like to get a healthy team,” Woodson said, “and see where we are as a ball club.”


Nearly 1.4. Million Vehicles Added to Toyota Airbag Recall

Abstract: Toyota added nearly 1.4 million cars, trucks and S.U.V.s to a growing recall for airbags that can explode with too much force. The company said it was expanding a previous recall after Takata of Japan agreed in May to double the size of its airbag inflater recall to 33.8 million. Vehicles added to the recall include the 2003 to 2007 Corolla and Corolla Matrix, 2005 and 2006 Tundra pickup, 2005 to 2007 Sequoia S.U.V. and the 2003 to 2007 Lexus SC430 convertible. Last month, Takata bowed to pressure from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and declared many of its products defective, agreeing to what is now the largest auto recall in United States history. The problem has been blamed for at least seven deaths and more than 100 injuries. The recall expansion brings the number of Toyota and Lexus vehicles being recalled in the United States to 2.9 million.

Toyota
Takata
Recalls and Bans
Automobile safety


NATO and Afghan Forces Push Taliban Out a Seized Town

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO and Afghan forces pushed back hundreds of Taliban fighters from a district center in northeastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, sending them fleeing into the rugged mountainside just hours after the fighters had seized control over a portion of that same area, Afghan officials said. About 300 insurgents began surrounding the district center of Do Ab in Nuristan Province four days ago, engaging in sporadic gunfights with the local police as they approached, said Jumaluddin Badar, the provincial governor. The militants overran the eastern part of the town late Tuesday night, destroying a government building, a mosque and a health clinic with rocket strikes, he said. The Taliban victory may have been short-lived but represented a continuing effort by militants to grab and hold land in the province left vacant by American forces, who have been steadily withdrawing from remote outposts in the region in favor of protecting population centers as part of their counterinsurgency strategy. Mr. Badar said he doubted the government could maintain control in the future, without a permanent presence of NATO or Afghan forces. “We did not have enough weapons and ammunition to defend” against the attack, Mr. Badar said. “The enemy had heavier and more developed weapons with them, that’s why our police had to withdraw.” Badly outgunned and running low on ammunition, the police initially fled across the river that divides the district center to regroup on the other side. The counterstrike began when NATO helicopters dropped about 100 Afghan commandos and an undisclosed number of NATO troops into the center on Wednesday afternoon, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense. The forces immediately came under fire. They returned fire and called in airstrikes, killing more than 10 insurgents, NATO said in a statement. Gunfire continued into the evening, but NATO and Afghan officials said the district center was back under government control. No NATO or Afghan forces were killed in the counterattack, officials said. Mr. Badar said at least an additional five Taliban fighters were killed in the fighting before coalition forces arrived. Mr. Badar said that three police officers were also killed, but Allah Dad, the provincial police chief, said none were killed or wounded. NATO did not say how many of its forces took part or what countries they were from, though mainly American forces are in the region. In other regions, particularly in the country’s volatile east and south where NATO maintains large numbers of troops, the militants have relied largely on suicide attacks, roadside bombs, and quick-strike raids on government compounds and civilian contractors since the Taliban announced the launch of its offensive late last month. Militants were still holding onto Waygal district in Nuristan nearly two months after seizing control, Mr. Badar said, warning that more districts were at risk. “Waygal district is still under Taliban control and there are Kamdesh, Barg-e-Matal and Wama districts under Taliban threats, and we may face attacks on these district centers as well,” he said. Mr. Badar has complained that police forces in the province are poorly trained and ill-equipped, leaving them vulnerable to militant attacks. Militants overran Barg-e-Matal and held it for a few days last summer before American Special Operations forces and Afghan commandos were brought in to restore it to Afghan control. Most of the districts that Mr. Badar said are vulnerable lie near the Pakistan border and serve as virtually unrestricted transit routes for militants crossing into Afghanistan. But Do Ab, a district of steep jagged mountains, is farther west, making it an attractive target for insurgents hoping to launch attacks from there to interior provinces, a prospect that perhaps influenced NATO’s decision to move quickly to restore government control. But Mr. Badar expressed doubts about the district’s ability to defend itself in the future. “Right now 50 percent of the police in Do Ab don’t have weapons and most of them are not even trained,” Mr. Badar said. “They are local police. We hire them as police and they start working, but when they face threats or get attacked they leave their check posts and quit their jobs because they are from the same village and they don’t want to create personal enmity for themselves and their families.”

Taliban
Afghanistan
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Afghanistan War (2001- )


Editor Fires Parting Shot at His Chain

Abstract: The ousted editor of The Los Angeles Times on Monday offered a scathing critique of the newspaper industry and specifically his longtime employer, the Tribune Company, arguing that cost cuts, a lack of investment and an aversion to serious news was damaging the business. The editor, James E. O’Shea, left after he refused to carry out another in a series of newsroom budget cuts sought by the publisher in Los Angeles, David D. Hiller — 15 months after Mr. Hiller fired the previous editor over the same kind of dispute. The current showdown and Mr. O’Shea’s parting comments made for a remarkable statement by an editor who was seen as a Tribune loyalist and was sent to Los Angeles to calm a rebellious staff. “I disagree completely with the way that this company allocates resources to its newsrooms, not just here but at Tribune newspapers all around the country,” Mr. O’Shea wrote in a memo to the newspaper’s staff, echoing farewell remarks he made Monday morning in the newsroom. The chairman and chief executive who took control of Tribune a month ago, Samuel Zell , sided with Mr. Hiller. Mr. Zell had criticized the previous management’s cost-cutting and said that further reductions were not the road to prosperity. But he has also said that he was giving Tribune managers greater autonomy. “I’ve said loud and clear that I’m returning control of our businesses to the people who run them,” Mr. Zell said in a statement, in response to coverage of Mr. O’Shea’s departure. “That means David Hiller has my full support. He carries direct responsibility for the staffing and financial success of The L.A. Times. I understand that David and Jim, together, came to the conclusion that Jim’s departure was the best decision for the direction and future of The L.A. Times.” Mr. O’Shea said repeatedly that he was forced out; other Times executives said he was fired. But Mr. Hiller said in an interview Monday, “I thought it was a mutual conclusion that it was time to part ways.” Times executives, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said the confrontation had been brewing for more than a month and reached a turning point about a week ago. Speculation about a successor focused on Russ Stanton, formerly the business editor at The Times, who has been the innovation editor for a year, overseeing the newspaper’s Web site. Mr. Hiller said he expected to name an editor in a few days. Mr. O’Shea argued in the memo that The Times had shown several times — in revising its Sunday magazine, in adding fashion coverage — that it could generate more revenue and higher profit by offering more, not less. “Even in hard times, wise investment — not retraction — is the long-term answer to the industry’s troubles,“ he wrote, while suggesting that Tribune executives have been unable to see the logic of anything but budget cuts. “Journalists and not accountants should seize responsibility for the financial health of our newspapers,” he wrote, “so journalists can make decisions about the size of our staffs and how much news remains in our papers and Web sites.” But Mr. Hiller said the paper was investing as much as it could, especially in its Web site, and the cuts were nothing more than an acceptance of reality. “Last year, our operating cash flow went down by about 20 percent,” he said. “Can you solve the newspaper industry’s problems by spending more?” Mr. Hiller said. “It’s an attractive theory, but it doesn’t work.” Mr. Zell took control of Tribune last month in an $8.2 billion transaction that took the company private. He said at the time that he was confident that the company could find revenue. In the last year, the newspaper industry has suffered a steep decline in advertising revenue, and Tribune has been hit harder than most. The slumping real estate markets in California and Florida have cut deeply into real estate ads, and Tribune has big papers in both states. In addition, analysts say that years of turmoil at The Times has hurt ad sales; Mr. Hiller agreed that the tumult has been a distraction. The company’s most recent detailed financial report, for the third quarter of 2007, said that classified ad revenue was down 18 percent from the period a year earlier, including a 26 percent drop in real estate ads. Los Angeles had one of the worst declines. Through three quarters last year, the company had an operating profit margin of 16 percent, down from 19 percent the year earlier. But with sharply higher debt service costs because of the takeover, net income fell by more than half, to 4 percent. Times executives say the paper still has a double-digit operating profit margin, though the number has dropped steeply. Mr. Hiller said that Mr. O’Shea asked for a $3 million increase in the newsroom budget. He said he told Mr. O’Shea at first that he expected to keep the figure at $120 million, unchanged from last year. Mr. O’Shea argued that a flat budget amounted to a 4 percent cut, given the costs of covering a presidential campaign and the Olympics in Beijing — to say nothing of inflation. Tribune took over the Times Mirror Company, the parent company of The Times in 2000, and with executives in Chicago repeatedly seeking a smaller newsroom, relations with Los Angeles have been rocky ever since. The Times has a news staff of about 870 people, down from more than 1,100 a few years ago, but still larger than the roughly 600 of the flagship paper, The Chicago Tribune. Since the takeover by Tribune, turnover has been frequent in The Times’s top positions, in the newsroom and on the business side. Mr. Hiller is the third publisher installed by Tribune, and Mr. O’Shea’s successor will be the fourth top editor. John S. Carroll, the first editor installed by Tribune, quit in 2005 rather than make more newsroom budget cuts. The next year, his successor, Dean P. Baquet, and the publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson — who, like Mr. O’Shea, was a longtime Tribune employee — were fired when they refused to do more cutting.

Los Angeles Times
Newspapers
Tribune Company
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Finances
Executives and Management
Advertising and Marketing
Zell Samuel
Los Angeles (Calif)


New Stadium, and Opportunities, for Real Salt Lake

Abstract: Everything is in place in Utah, where Real Salt Lake will open the newest playground in Major League Soccer , Rio Tinto Stadium, with a game against the Red Bulls on Oct. 9. “With a new stadium, we’re talking revenues increasing two-, three-, fourfold that can then go back onto the field,” Bill Manning, the club’s president, said in a telephone interview. “Our No. 1 priority has been opening the stadium, and now maybe we can focus on bringing in a designated player. The right Mexican international would be a nice fit.” The new stadium, which cost about $115 million and seats about 20,000 for soccer games, is located in Sandy, just outside Salt Lake City. Rio Tinto, an international mining company that operates in Utah under the Kennecott name, will pay $1.5 million to $2 million a year for 15 years to have its name affixed to the building. Real Salt Lake played at the Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah for its first three years. Real Salt Lake’s stadium is the seventh soccer stadium in M.L.S. A new stadium for the Red Bulls is under construction in Harrison, N.J., and could be open during the 2009 season. “I’m thinking about what our fans will experience; it’s a fabulous, first-class venue,” Manning said. “We look forward to hopefully hosting R.S.L. playoff games, and we would like to host national team games and more.” Real Salt Lake has already been awarded next year’s M.L.S. All-Star Game. The club has a close working relationship with Real Madrid (forged by the team’s owner, Dave Checketts), so the obvious question is whether the Spanish power would be the opposition. “Wouldn’t it be nice,” Manning said without tipping his hand. “Dave was over there recently. As I said, it would be very nice. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. Let’s say the best-case scenario is that it would be a wonderful game.” By coincidence, a former Real Madrid player, David Beckham, was part of the groundbreaking ceremony in August 2006 when the two Reals met in an exhibition game. In games that do count, Real Salt Lake is vying for its first trip to the M.L.S. postseason. The club has been erratic on the field, it seems to have a solid base of support (averaging 15,733 a game). “When I moved out here I was really surprised,” said Manning, 43, who grew up on Long Island in Massapequa, N.Y., and was an all-American player at the University of Bridgeport in 1986. “What a lot of people don’t realize is that we’re a major team in this market where we only have the Jazz to compete with. We’re a clear second, not like in some other cities where the M.L.S. teams are down the pecking order.” Grassroots Soccer Forty-four days, 215 miles, $75,000 raised, 2 pairs of shoes worn out and a ball lost — that is the score line for Ethan Zohn, who has arrived in New York on his dribbleathon from Boston to Washington to raise awareness and money in the fight against H.I.V./AIDS in Africa. Zohn, who won “Survivor: Africa” and $1 million, decided to start Grassroots Soccer after seeing the devastation caused by the disease when he played professionally in Zimbabwe. “This is a huge undertaking; I underestimated how much work it would be,” Zohn said in a telephone interview from southern Connecticut on Sunday. “The funnest time is when I’m on the road dribbling. I don’t have to think about much, people are really supportive, and some driving by stopped and gave money.” Zohn and his team of former players and celebrities, Grassroots United , will take on Hollywood United (which includes the actors Anthony LaPaglia, Brandon Routh and others) at the Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Lower Manhattan at noon Thursday. “This has been a strain,” Zohn said. “I never really ran that much in my life. Hey, I’m a goalkeeper!” Major League Soccer Has any club fallen further or faster than D.C. United? Beset by injuries to some of its top players (Jamie Moreno and Marcelo Gallardo among them) and involved in five competitions this year (M.L.S., SuperLiga, Concacaf Champions League and Cup, and the United States Open Cup), D.C. appears to be in free fall. The club has played 40 games this year, 7 in September, and has won 1 of 8 since Aug. 20 (including four straight losses during which D.C. was outscored by 12-2). In M.L.S., D.C. (10-13-3, 33 points) is in danger of missing the playoffs. In the Champions League, it has lost its first two games and is in danger of not advancing past the group stage. ¶According to an analysis of more than 100 million blogs, message boards, and postings on social Web sites performed with Zeta Interactive’s RelevantNoise software technology, M.L.S. was third worldwide in the total volume of soccer posts, at 16 percent. M.L.S. followed the English Premier League (42 percent) and Italy’s Serie A (27 percent) but was ahead of Spain’s La Liga (14 percent) and Scotland’s Premier League (2 percent). The analysis also found, however, that M.L.S. was last in positive buzz in the posts, with only 3 percent, compared with the Premier League (47 percent).

Major League Soccer
Soccer
Rio Tinto PLC
Stadiums and Arenas


Liberty Comes From Behind to Surprise the Shock

Abstract: The rub-on Liberty tattoos on Janel McCarville’s wrist were fading. They had started as a locker room gimmick a week ago, when the Liberty was exceeding expectations by simply being in the W.N.B.A. playoffs. But there was serious business to attend to now — no time to focus on temporary body adornment. With McCarville’s team-leading 17 points Friday night, the Liberty took the first step toward making sure that its championship hopes did not go the way of the tattoos. The Liberty came back from a 9-point deficit to defeat the Detroit Shock, 60-56, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals before a crowd of 14,711 at Madison Square Garden. “Janel went to work and they really didn’t have an answer for her,” said Shameka Christon, who finished with 11 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. After the game, McCarville had bruises along her biceps, the badges from the most physical contest the Liberty has had in the playoffs so far. But it was the kind of night the 6-foot-2, 205-pound McCarville has always relished. “It was a physical game,” she said. “And I don’t think we’re a team to shy away from that.” For McCarville, the Liberty’s playoff run has been the culmination of a tortuous journey in which she went from college big shot to W.N.B.A. wanderer. After a stellar career at Minnesota, where she helped the Gophers reach the Final Four for the first time in her junior year, McCarville was the top overall pick in the 2005 draft. She was selected by the Charlotte Sting, and in 58 games over two seasons, she averaged 3.2 points and 3.1 rebounds. But when the Sting folded last year, the Liberty snapped up McCarville with the third pick of the dispersal draft. Since then, she has established herself as a critical presence under the glass and has found an extra gear during the playoffs. In the three-game series against Connecticut, she averaged 12 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.7 blocks. She also shot 50 percent from the field. Her previous playoff campaign, however, ended in heartbreak. After the Liberty’s victory over Connecticut in Game 3, McCarville was adamant that she wanted to face the Shock, just as the team did last season. She had a painful moment she could point to. The Shock and the Liberty met last year in the conference semifinals, a series that came down to overtime in a decisive third game in Auburn Hills, Mich. Detroit had a 71-70 lead, and with 3.7 seconds left in overtime, McCarville missed a free throw that would have tied the game. McCarville did not have a good night from the stripe Friday, scoring on only three of her eight attempts. “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I’ve gotten worse shooting from line. They go in in practice, they go in most of the time, except as of late.” Still, she had her touch from the floor, and with 7 minutes 13 seconds remaining, she tied the game at 43-43. And when Christon drained a 17-foot jumper with 5:30 remaining, she completed a 12-1 run that put the Liberty in front for the first time since the first quarter. The rookie Essence Carson gave her team a scare with 18.6 seconds left, when she committed a foul on Deanna Nolan, who was shooting a 3-pointer. Nolan hit all 3 free throws, cutting the Liberty’s lead to 57-56. Erin Thorn replied with aplomb from the opposite free-throw line, and the Liberty held on.

Detroit Shock
Basketball
New York Liberty
Women's National Basketball Assn
McCarville Janel


Prime Minister Plays Down Pakistani Rivals’ Talks

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Aug. 19 — Pakistan’s prime minister played down the discussions between the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf , and the opposition politician Benazir Bhutto in an interview on Sunday. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that any power-sharing deal would depend on the results of general elections later this year rather than on any prior agreement. Mr. Aziz also spurned American involvement in negotiating the deal, saying it could hurt the parties involved. American officials have said the deal is a way to unite and strengthen the moderate forces in Pakistan. “With due respect, it is for the people of Pakistan who would decide who gets elected,” Mr. Aziz said. “Naturally, what these contacts result in, in terms of the impact on elections or postelections, is premature to say,” he said in an interview at his official hillside mansion above the capital. The agreement between Ms. Bhutto and General Musharraf, which has been widely reported but so far denied by both sides, envisages Ms. Bhutto returning to Pakistan to contest elections and serving as prime minister under General Musharraf as president. The agreement would allow General Musharraf, whose popularity is falling, to continue for another term as president and would allow Ms. Bhutto, who faces several corruption cases, to return to Pakistan and have the cases dropped. But both have encountered opposition to the agreement from within their own parties. “Friendly countries are entitled to their views and we listen to them, but at the end of the day, Pakistanis are a very proud people and they want to manage things themselves,” said Mr. Aziz, who plans to stand for re-election. “These discussions are driven by local political considerations; the moment other considerations creep in, it hurts all the stakeholders.” Other Pakistani officials have gone further, complaining that comments from Washington amount to interference in Pakistan’s affairs. Mr. Aziz said the government was committed to holding free and fair elections and that only pending court cases were preventing Ms. Bhutto and another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, from returning to Pakistan to take part in elections. “There are a host of legal cases against both,” he said. “They have to consult their legal counsel and decide what is best for them, but the circumstances for each of them are driven by their legal situation.” He said Ms. Bhutto was free to return, but that Mr. Sharif, who was forced out of power when General Musharraf seized control in a coup in 1999, had entered an understanding with the government to go abroad in return for having charges against him dropped. General Musharraf, who is president and chief of the army, is expected to run for re-election as president between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15. Parliamentary elections will be held by the end of the year, government officials have said. General Musharraf may give up his post as chief of army staff at the end of the year when a constitutional amendment allowing him to hold the two posts expires, one government official said. A former banker, Mr. Aziz, 58, returned to Pakistan to serve in General Musharraf’s government in 1999, first as finance minister and since 2004 as prime minister. He said he was confident that the government’s record would bring it success in the elections.

Pakistan
Aziz Shaukat
Musharraf Pervez
Bhutto Benazir
Politics and Government


Cell Carriers See Rise in Requests to Aid Surveillance

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In the first public accounting of its kind, cellphone carriers reported that they responded to a startling 1.3 million demands for subscriber information last year from law enforcement agencies seeking text messages, caller locations and other information in the course of investigations. The cellphone carriers’ reports , which come in response to a Congressional inquiry, document an explosion in cellphone surveillance in the last five years, with the companies turning over records thousands of times a day in response to police emergencies, court orders, law enforcement subpoenas and other requests. The reports also reveal a sometimes uneasy partnership with law enforcement agencies, with the carriers frequently rejecting demands that they considered legally questionable or unjustified. At least one carrier even referred some inappropriate requests to the F.B.I. The information represents the first time data have been collected nationally on the frequency of cell surveillance by law enforcement. The volume of the requests reported by the carriers — which most likely involve several million subscribers — surprised even some officials who have closely followed the growth of cell surveillance. “I never expected it to be this massive,” said Representative Edward J. Markey , a Massachusetts Democrat who requested the reports from nine carriers, including AT&T , Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon , in response to an article in April in The New York Times on law enforcement’s expanded use of cell tracking. Mr. Markey, who is the co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus , made the carriers’ responses available to The Times. While the cell companies did not break down the types of law enforcement agencies collecting the data, they made clear that the widened cell surveillance cut across all levels of government — from run-of-the-mill street crimes handled by local police departments to financial crimes and intelligence investigations at the state and federal levels. AT&T alone now responds to an average of more than 700 requests a day, with about 230 of them regarded as emergencies that do not require the normal court orders and subpoena. That is roughly triple the number it fielded in 2007, the company said. Law enforcement requests of all kinds have been rising among the other carriers as well, with annual increases of between 12 percent and 16 percent in the last five years. Sprint, which did not break down its figures in as much detail as other carriers, led all companies last year in reporting what amounted to at least 1,500 data requests on average a day. With the rapid expansion of cell surveillance have come rising concerns — including among carriers — about what legal safeguards are in place to balance law enforcement agencies’ needs for quick data against the privacy rights of consumers. Legal conflicts between those competing needs have flared before, but usually on national security matters. In 2006, phone companies that cooperated in the Bush administration’s secret program of eavesdropping on suspicious international communications without court warrants were sued, and ultimately were given immunity by Congress with the backing of the courts. The next year, the F.B.I. was widely criticized for improperly using emergency letters to the phone companies to gather records on thousands of phone numbers in counterterrorism investigations that did not involve emergencies. Under federal law, the carriers said they generally required a search warrant, a court order or a formal subpoena to release information about a subscriber. But in cases that law enforcement officials deem an emergency, a less formal request is often enough. Moreover, rapid technological changes in cellphones have blurred the lines on what is legally required to get data — particularly the use of GPS systems to identify the location of phones. As cell surveillance becomes a seemingly routine part of police work, Mr. Markey said in an interview that he worried that “digital dragnets” threatened to compromise the privacy of many customers. “There’s a real danger we’ve already crossed the line,” he said. With the rising prevalence of cellphones, officials at all levels of law enforcement say cell tracking represents a powerful tool to find suspects, follow leads, identify associates and cull information on a wide range of crimes. “At every crime scene, there’s some type of mobile device,” said Peter Modafferi, chief of detectives for the Rockland County district attorney’s office in New York, who also works on investigative policies and operations with the International Association of Chiefs of Police . The need for the police to exploit that technology “has grown tremendously, and it’s absolutely vital,” he said in an interview. The surging use of cell surveillance was also reflected in the bills the wireless carriers reported sending to law enforcement agencies to cover their costs in some of the tracking operations. AT&T, for one, said it collected $8.3 million last year compared with $2.8 million in 2007, and other carriers reported similar increases in billings. Federal law allows the companies to be reimbursed for “reasonable” costs for providing a number of surveillance operations. Still, several companies maintained that they lost money on the operations, and Cricket, a small wireless carrier that received 42,500 law enforcement requests last year, or an average of 116 a day, complained that it “is frequently not paid on the invoices it submits.” Because of incomplete record-keeping, the total number of law enforcement requests last year was almost certainly much higher than the 1.3 million the carriers reported to Mr. Markey. Also, the total number of people whose customer information was turned over could be several times higher than the number of requests because a single request often involves multiple callers. For instance, when a police agency asks for a cell tower “dump” for data on subscribers who were near a tower during a certain period of time, it may get back hundreds or even thousands of names. As cell surveillance increased, warrants for wiretapping by federal and local officials — eavesdropping on conversations — declined 14 percent last year to 2,732, according to a recent report from the Administrative Office of the United States Courts . The diverging numbers suggest that law enforcement officials are shifting away from wiretaps in favor of other forms of cell tracking that are generally less legally burdensome, less time consuming and less costly. (Most carriers reported charging agencies between $50 and $75 an hour for cellphone tower “dumps.”) To handle the demands, most cell carriers reported employing large teams of in-house lawyers, data technicians, phone “cloning specialists” and others around the clock to take requests from law enforcement agencies, review the legality and provide the data. With the demands so voluminous and systematic, some carriers have resorted to outsourcing the job. Cricket said it turned over its compliance duties to a third party in April. The outside provider, Neustar, said it handled law enforcement compliance for about 400 phone and Internet companies. But a number of carriers reported that as they sought to balance legitimate law enforcement needs against their customers’ privacy rights, they denied some data demands because they were judged to be overreaching or unauthorized under federal surveillance laws. Sometimes, the carriers said, they determined that a true emergency did not exist. At other times, police agencies neglected to get the required court orders for surveillance measures, left subpoenas unsigned or failed to submit formal requests. C Spire Wireless, a small carrier, estimated that of about 12,500 law enforcement demands it received in the last five years, it rejected 15 percent of them in whole or in part. (Most carriers did not provide figures on rejections.) At TracFone, another small carrier providing prepaid service, an executive told Mr. Markey that the company “shares your concerns regarding the unauthorized tracking of wireless phones by law enforcement with little or no judicial oversight, and I assure you that TracFone does not participate in or condone such unauthorized tracking.” T-Mobile, meanwhile, said it had sent two law enforcement demands to the F.B.I. because it considered them “inappropriate.” The company declined to provide further details. Requests from law enforcement officials to identify the location of a particular cellphone using GPS technology have caused particular confusion, carriers said. A Supreme Court ruling in January further muddled the issue when it found that the authorities should have obtained a search warrant before tracking a suspect’s movements by attaching a GPS unit to his car. Law enforcement officials say the GPS technology built into many phones has proved particularly critical in responding to kidnappings, attempted suicides, shootings, cases of missing people and other emergencies. But Sprint and other carriers called on Congress to set clearer legal standards for turning over location data, particularly to resolve contradictions in the law. While the carriers said they always required proper legal orders before turning over nonemergency information, their assurances were somewhat at odds with anecdotal evidence recently gathered by the American Civil Liberties Union from more than 200 law enforcement agencies nationwide. The reports provided to the A.C.L.U. showed that many local and state police agencies claimed broad discretion to obtain cell records without court orders, and that some departments specifically warned officers about the past misuse of cellphone surveillance in nonemergency situations. Chris Calabrese, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., said he was concerned not only about officials gathering phone data on people with no real connection to crimes but also about the agencies then keeping those records indefinitely in internal databases. “The standards really are all over the place,” Mr. Calabrese said. “Nobody is saying don’t use these tools. What we’re saying is do it with consistent standards and in a way that recognizes that these are tools that really can impact people’s privacy.”

Police
Government Surveillance
Mobile phone
Wiretapping Eavesdropping
Legislation
US Politics


Imprisoned Felon Was Adviser to Madoff Investor

Abstract: One of the top advisers to the money manager J. Ezra Merkin, who invested $2 billion of his clients’ money with Bernard L. Madoff, is a convicted felon who worked for Mr. Merkin while still in federal prison, according to recently filed court documents. The adviser, Victor Teicher, who had been convicted of federal securities fraud and was barred from the securities industry, advised Mr. Merkin on the management of his Ariel Fund Ltd. through phone calls made to Mr. Merkin’s Park Avenue office from a New Jersey prison. Information about Mr. Teicher’s relationship with Mr. Merkin was contained in court papers filed by New York University, one of several institutions now suing Mr. Merkin. The university lost $24 million from its investment in the Ariel Fund, which turned over $300 million of its assets to Mr. Madoff, without disclosing the arrangement to Ariel investors. Ariel Fund Ltd. is not related to Ariel Investments of Chicago. There was, however, one piece of Mr. Teicher’s investment advice that Mr. Merkin did not follow: Mr. Teicher warned Mr. Merkin that Mr. Madoff’s trading results were impossible to achieve. Mr. Madoff is accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme . In a memorandum filed in New York Supreme Court this week, the university said that none of the Ariel fund prospectuses disclosed that “Victor Teicher, a convicted felon, and his staff were the persons actively managing the majority of the Ariel assets, and that hundreds of millions of dollars of Ariel’s funds had also been delivered for management to Madoff — even though Teicher had warned Merkin than Madoff’s returns were not possible.” Mr. Teicher began advising Mr. Merkin’s Ariel fund in 1993 after Mr. Teicher had been convicted of several counts of securities fraud, including using insider information in trading puts and calls. Mr. Teicher, according to the filing, advised Mr. Merkin until 2001, during which time New York University increased its Ariel investment. Since his 1990 conviction, Mr. Teicher has made two recent attempts to return to the securities industry, both denied by the Securities and Exchange Commission. After his conviction, Mr. Teicher was barred by the S.E.C. from association with any broker dealer, registered investment adviser, investment company or municipal securities dealer. Mr. Teicher’s work as an investment adviser for Mr. Merkin’s Ariel Fund apparently was not disclosed to the S.E.C. when he attempted to re-enter the business. In 2007, Mr. Teicher proposed setting up a firm called Ithaca Partners, which had been limited to managing the assets of his immediate family. In his request to the S.E.C., Mr. Teicher said that he had “scrupulously complied with the securities laws and has been an upstanding citizen in all respects.” That motion was denied in November 2007. Last October, Mr. Teicher again appealed to the S.E.C. to be allowed to work as a portfolio manager for a New York firm, Cedarview Capital Management. That motion was also denied on the ground that it would be difficult to supervise him. In the court documents, there was no information about any financial arrangement between Mr. Merkin and Mr. Teicher. Mr. Teicher’s lawyer in recent petitions to the S.E.C. is Andrew J. Levander, who is also representing Mr. Merkin.

Merkin J Ezra
Wayne Leslie
Securities and Commodities Violations


It’s Not All for Sale

Abstract: DEAR DIARY: Recently on a freezing day, I ran into my tiny local Asian health food store to stock up on a few items after vacation. The wonderful aroma of freshly made soup was irresistible, so I asked the man behind the counter, “What kind of soup is that? It smells fabulous.” He told me it was Asian chicken soup with noodles and vegetables. “Sounds good! I’ll have some,” I said. Oddly, he stared as if he didn’t understand, but his English was accented, so I repeated slowly, “I’ll take some of your soup, please.” Again the stare. Then light dawned, and he told me that it was his lunch, which he had just heated up in the back of the store. Susan Weisser Dear Diary: A recent health problem led me to seek a cardiologist. On the recommendation of a friend, I called a Manhattan doctor to make an appointment. In the process, I was introduced to his automated answering system — the name is slightly altered here — which left little doubt about the priorities typical in the health care industry today: “Welcome to New York Cardiac Specialists. For the billing department, please press one. If this is a life-threatening emergency, please press two.” Stephen T. Banci Dear Diary: Three days after the mid-December snowfall, once the alternate-side parking restrictions were back in effect, I headed for my snowed-in car on the Upper East Side to start shoveling — a strenuous task for this 74-year-old. As I labored away, to my consternation, a police car stopped next to me. The policewoman at the wheel rolled down her window and shouted, “Where are your gloves?” She said I would not be ticketed, and suggested I get back in my car and warm up. New York’s Finest was living up to its name. Joseph Diamond Dear Diary: Seven weeks shy of Medicare enrollment, I boarded a subway along with many others. All the seats quickly filled except one, and a 30-ish young man asked in my direction, “Would you like this seat?” A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed, to my surprise, that he was addressing me. When seated, I said to nobody in particular, “Well, that’s a first for me.” From the opposite side, a woman of about 75 with a cane said, “The first one’s the hardest.” Fred Kanter Dear Diary: Time: A recent Saturday afternoon. He: “Thirteenth Precinct. How can I help you?” Me: “I live in the neighborhood. I want to report a large pool of blood on my stoop.” He: “Just a large pool of blood?” Me: “Yes.” He: “Well, unless a weapon or a body is attached to it, we would not get involved.” Me: “Thank you.” Doria Steedman Dear Diary: I took one of my husband’s well-worn moccasins to a local shoe repair shop, as his wide feet had split the stitching along one side. It’s a little place on East 85th Street, crowded with shoes in various states of repair and owned by a crusty Old World craftsman, who was at work by the front window. He barely looked up from his polishing machine when I put the gaping slipper on the counter, smiled a greeting and tried to engage him over the roar and rattle of the spinning wheels and brushes. “Leave it there,” he grunted with a nod, intent upon the shoe he was polishing on the buffing wheel. “Be ready next Wednesday.” “Don’t you want my name or a deposit or something?” I shouted over the noise. He didn’t look up and just threw the comment over his shoulder. “It’s one shoe,” he said. “You’ll be back.” Pamela Harding


Investors Shrug Off China’s Rate Increase

Abstract: Stock indexes were little changed and the dollar lost ground to the euro in thin trading on Monday. Investors largely shrugged off China’s interest rate increase, and a blizzard that pounded the Northeast made for light trading. The quarter-point rate increase by the People’s Bank of China on Saturday was the second in just over two months. While the timing just before the end of the year may have been a surprise, the move itself was not. China’s leaders have pledged to make fighting inflation a top priority in 2011, indicating more rate rises to come. Oil prices dipped after hitting a 26-month peak as the Chinese rate increase raised fears of slowing demand. Oil settled at $91, down 51 cents. Gold prices ended down marginally. “The market is pretty much flat but we ended well off our lows, and although we have no buyers stepping in, we have to give the bulls the victory seeing how the market turned around,” said Ryan Detrick, technical analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is typically considered “the Santa Claus rally time,” Mr. Detrick said, adding that he expects gains on Wall Street to resume in the next few days. On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 18.46 points, or 0.16 percent, to 11,555.03. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gained 0.77 points, or 0.06 percent, to 1,257.54. The Nasdaq composite index rose 1.67 points, or 0.06 percent, to 2,667.27. Retail stocks were hit as the snowstorm on the East Coast kept many shoppers away from malls just after Christmas, casting a pall on the final act of the holiday season. The S.& P. 500 retail index fell 0.3 percent, underperforming the wider market. Among retailers, Nordstrom shares fell 1.64 percent, to $42.09, and RadioShack was down 0.1 percent, to $18.47. Financial stocks rose, in part because of a rally in American International Group shares after it secured $4.3 billion in bank credit lines, taking another step toward winding down its government support. A.I.G. shares gained 9.3 percent, or $5.05, to $59.38, after earlier hitting a two-year high. In Europe, the FTSE 300 ended 0.87 percent lower at 1,137.49. Markets in Britain are closed until Wednesday. China’s central bank on Saturday announced an increase in the benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points, to 5.81 percent, and an increase in the benchmark deposit rate by 25 basis points, to 2.75 percent. The price on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rallied 16/32, to 94 3/32, pushing the yield down to 3.33 percent, from 3.39 percent on Friday. A strong auction for $35 billion in two-year notes helped Treasury prices. “Despite a relatively low-volume day, it performed very well,” said James Golden, head of Treasury trading at Jefferies & Company in New York.


After Trade Evaporates, So Does the Mets’ 6-Run Lead

Abstract: Curtis Granderson had just sent a charge through Citi Field, lifting a three-run homer to right field Thursday afternoon in the fifth inning of the Mets’ game against San Diego, and after he rounded the bases to roaring cheers and made his way through the dugout, high-fiving his teammates, he found Wilmer Flores. Granderson pulled him in for a hug and patted his back, and Flores laid his head on Granderson’s shoulder and smiled. The night before, Flores had been wiping tears from his eyes on the field, with everyone watching his every move, after word spread that he had been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, along with Zack Wheeler, in exchange for center fielder Carlos Gomez. But the deal had fallen through, and now Flores had to live with the fact that the Mets had tried to trade him. And the Mets, in turn, had begun to do what they could to make him feel wanted. Granderson’s gesture helped. And the mood became even brighter as the Mets built a 7-1 lead an inning later. And yet whatever good feelings there were slowly, amazingly imploded. The Mets, amid two ninth-inning rain delays that together lasted nearly four hours, managed to blow the lead and the game. Image Justin Upton after hitting a home run in the ninth inning that gave the Padres the lead. Credit Kathy Willens/Associated Press If Wednesday night’s confusion over the trade that wasn’t had left the Mets and their fans feeling out of sorts, Thursday’s late-game meltdown probably made them feel as if they needed a weeklong break from baseball. Or maybe two weeks. The Mets were just two strikes away from winning Thursday’s game when the rain increased in intensity. Out came the tarps and groans from the crowd. The Mets lingered on the field momentarily, as if in shock over the umpires’ decision to halt play with the Mets leading, 7-5, with no one on base and closer Jeurys Familia needing only one out to send just about everyone home happy. After a 44-minute delay, Familia went back to the mound, play resumed and the Padres strung together three straight hits against him — two soft singles and a three-run homer from Justin Upton that gave the Padres a stunning 8-7 lead. Image Before Thursday's loss to the Padres, Mets Manager Terry Collins said he told Wilmer Flores “You’re still here because we want you, and you’re a big part of this team.” Credit Kathy Willens/Associated Press The rally lasted six minutes. And then the rain started coming down again. This time, the teams waited 2 hours 52 minutes for the game to restart. About 200 fans stuck around to watch the Mets go down in order. Flores, who had been given the day off to clear his head, was available to pinch-hit for Ruben Tejada in the bottom of the ninth but did not. Instead, he and the rest of his shellshocked teammates filed out of the dugout and into the clubhouse, their heads down. Before Thursday’s game, Manager Terry Collins had pulled Flores aside to offer some guidance and empathy. He assured Flores that the Mets wanted him and lectured him on the unsentimental aspects of the game. “That’s all part of the game,” Collins said. “He understands that. It just was a shock to him last night.” During Wednesday’s game, fans had shouted to Flores that he had just been traded. Flores looked to Collins for clarification, but the manager did not know anything about it. As the game proceeded, Mets fans gave him a standing ovation as a way to send him off to Milwaukee. Josh Lewin, one of the Mets’ radio broadcasters, compared it to Flores attending his own funeral. Except there was no deal, and no funeral. Just confusion. Collins said David Wright had told him during the game, “Hey, it’s everywhere, this is a done deal.” “Well,” Collins said he replied, “until that phone rings right there, it’s not done in my mind.” Collins added that he and Sandy Alderson, the Mets’ general manager, had spent two hours with each other on Wednesday, apparently discussing trade options. It was apparently Collins’s way of saying the front office was communicating with him, even if it really did not do so on Wednesday night. In any case, Flores and Wheeler are now in an awkward position and cannot help but wonder if they might be dealt elsewhere before Friday’s trade deadline. And then there is Juan Lagares, who had been slighted, too, by the deal that broke down, since Gomez would have replaced him in center field. Collins did not speak with Lagares individually on Thursday. There was only so much assurance Collins could give any of his players as he prepared to play another game. A game the Mets thought they would win, but did not. Just like the trade they thought was made, but was not.

Mets
Wilmer Flores
Brewers
Zack Wheeler
Carlos Gomez
Padres
Baseball
Sports Trades


The Earth’s Paunch

Abstract: Q. I know the earth bulges at the equator. Does this include the oceans? A. There is an oceanic bulge, said Arnold L. Gordon, associate director of the division of ocean and climate physics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. “As the earth spins, a centrifugal force is directed outward, away from the axis of rotation,” Dr. Gordon said. “This force is strongest for a particle at the equator that has a longer path to follow around the earth’s axis each day, despite its greater distance from the earth’s axis.” Meanwhile, he said, gravity, as induced by the earth’s mass, is also acting on each particle. The forces combine to produce what is called the observed gravity, which does not point to the earth’s center, but is off center. The earth deforms from a sphere to an oblate spheroid, Dr. Gordon said, “that is, a sphere with a slight bulge in the equatorial region, as the centrifugal force is acting to ‘fling’ the particles away from the earth’s axis, whereas gravity is holding on to them.” “Luckily, gravity wins,” he said. The ocean surface conforms with the “solid” earth to the oblate-spheroid shape, Dr. Gordon said. If the earth stopped rotating, there would be a range of catastrophic consequences, Dr. Gordon said, including that “the ocean bulge at the equator would wash as a wave poleward.”

Earth
Oceans
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Gravitation and Gravity
Science and Technology


Wen of China Calls for End of Bank Monopoly

Abstract: SHANGHAI — Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China said on Tuesday that the nation’s biggest state-run banks have too much power and ought to be broken up because they earn far too much money. The remarks, delivered during a national radio address while the prime minister was traveling in southern China, were unusually bold and appeared to be a direct challenge to others in the nation’s Communist Party leadership to speed up reforms of the nation’s financial system. According to China National Radio, Mr. Wen said: “Frankly, our banks make profits far too easily. Why? Because a small number of major banks occupy a monopoly position, meaning one can only go to them for loans and capital.” “That’s why right now, as we’re dealing with the issue of getting private capital into the finance sector, essentially, that means we have to break up their monopoly,” he added. Mr. Wen, who is expected to step down later this year as part of a once-in-a-decade leadership change, has been striking an increasingly vocal tone in recent months about political and economic reform and suggesting that vested interests in the Communist Party leadership were stubbornly protecting their hold on power and derailing his reform efforts. Whether Mr. Wen has the political influence to force changes in the banking system is unclear. While he oversees the nation’s economic policy, many analysts say the Communist Party’s consensus method of ruling limits his ability to push through his own policies. That is perhaps why Mr. Wen has begun to signal his frustration with the party about some major areas of politics and economics. Eswar S. Prasad, a former International Monetary Fund official who teaches at Cornell University, said Tuesday that Mr. Wen’s remarks “reflect a growing consensus among reform-minded officials that breaking up the large banks may be an essential step to reduce their political influence and pave the way for broad, much-needed reforms to the financial system.” The state’s control over the economy has been a chief point of contention among policy makers, with some pressing for greater state control and others favoring more aid to private companies. There may also be more to the prime minister’s remarks. They come at a time when there is fierce jockeying for power in the leadership and an internal debate over how to deal with Bo Xilai, a Politburo member who was dismissed recently from his job as party secretary in the city of Chongqing. Analysts think various power bases in the Communist Party are now battling it out to see who will gain a majority of nine seats on the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee later this year. Because he is nearing retirement, Mr. Wen may be trying to make a final reform push in his last months in office, analysts say, but also moving to challenge his opponents on important issues. He has also been a vocal critic of property developers in recent years and helped push through policies aimed at taming property prices out of fears that a housing bubble was developing and that average people were finding it too expensive to buy a home. Challenging the big state-run banks will not be easy, though. China’s big four state-run banks dominate the economy, holding most of the nation’s financial assets. And they have been racking up huge profits in recent years, largely because of a lack of competition and strict government controls over lending and borrowing rates. The banks have made some of that money, analysts say, at the expense of households, which receive little interest on their savings but pay high borrowing rates. Private entrepreneurs have also complained about the financial system, saying big state-owned banks discriminate against them in lending and favor state companies, forcing many private companies to pay higher rates in the black market. A series of scandals in coastal areas, involving underground banking and entrepreneurs racking up huge debt, has highlighted the need for reform. Many households, seeing they earn little interest from state banks, have invested in property and lent money to private individuals hoping to reap outsize returns. Beijing announced last week that it would set up a pilot project in the city of Wenzhou, in coastal Zhejiang Province, to allow residents to more easily invest overseas and introduce private lending units, including village banks. But banking is hardly the only industry with a state oligopoly. There are also big state-owned oil and telecom companies, each of which earns huge profits and which have recently faced protests from the public over consumer prices.

China
Wen Jiabao
Currency
Communist Party of China
Politics and Government
Economic Conditions and Trends
Banking and Financial Institutions


A Review of Queen Margherita Trattoria, in Nutley

Abstract: THE owners didn’t attend culinary school, and I’ve never seen the word artisanal on their menu. Still, if I were choosing where to have lunch in northern New Jersey, I’d choose Queen Margherita Trattoria , in Nutley. Apparently I’m not alone. By 12:30 p.m. the former drugstore with the spray-painted gold rocks and the fake grass lining the patio is packed. (Lunch is, after all, only $9.95, and terrific.) And forget about walking in on Friday or Saturday night or even some weekday evenings. A sign on the front door on heavily booked nights warns, “Seating by reservation only.” Is the hassle of planning an outing worth it? Yes, for the atmosphere, and especially for the classic Neapolitan dishes like linguine with white clam sauce, the standard by which you will forever judge other versions of this dish. Veal parmigiana is Italian-American, but in terms of quality, typical of the entrees served — hardly unusual, but how often do you get a piece of veal this tender and yet not overfried? Pasquale and Nicola Di Palma, the brothers who own Queen Margherita, modeled it after trattorias in the province of Naples, where they were born. There, more than 30 years ago, their culinary adventures began: They scrubbed floors, washed dishes and learned the skills they later used when they opened Queen Margherita in 2004. Among these is the tricky art of handling the thin and pliant dough used to make the pizza Margherita, their signature dish. What distinguishes this pie, topped simply with San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella cheese, Parmesan and basil? One factor is the blistery crust, a product of the wood-burning oven that Pasquale Di Palma erected with his father — they are, after all, artisans. The other is its tangy, sourdough flavor. Here is pizza so ethereal that two or three slices won’t diminish the appetite for the lusty dishes to follow. Which among them should you order? Choose the mushroom soup — the bit of bacon in it is what makes it so popular — and the tilapia livornese, which, like several entrees, is served at lunch with soup and salad or pasta. Like tofu, tilapia depends on other ingredients to give it life. Here the effect is expertly achieved with olives, capers, onions, cherry tomatoes and anchovies that have been dissolved in oil to give the sauce its gentle kick. “I don’t know what could be better about this dish,” the fussy eater at my table said. It is equally hard to find fault with the pork chop ciambotta, the pork osso buco or that linguine with white clam sauce. Nicola Di Palma, who runs the kitchen, is the kind of conscientious cook who cracks open his cherrystone clams fresh, because, he said, although steaming them is easier, “you steam away all the flavor.” No wonder the pale broth surrounding the mix of Manila, cherrystone and little neck clams in the linguine is such a perfect blend of sweet, briny and fresh. Is the kitchen capable of glitches? Unfortunately, it is. A seafood marechiara, served one night with red snapper, featured rubbery shrimp and tough, sandy mussels. And no amount of grated cheese could bring the minestrone soup to life. The broccoli rabe was also lackluster. So you start to lower your expectations, when along comes a dish like the scialatielli with radicchio, porcini mushrooms and speck (a smoky prosciutto). The thick, ropy noodles bathed in an earthy, smoky, velvety, tangy cream alone will call you back to this restaurant again and again. At least once, you should end your meal with chocolate pizza. Adults make fools of themselves wiping from their chins the chocolate from this delicious concoction of confectioners’ sugar, dough and Nutella, heated so that the oil from the chocolate seeps into the dough. All the other pastries are baked at the bakery next door, Aromi Di Napoli, which the Di Palmas own with their uncle Sal Di Maiolo. He, too, is an artisan, and a skilled one. Bite into the crunchy, vanilla-scented sfogliatella if you doubt me. Queen Margherita Trattoria 246 Washington Avenue Nutley (973) 662-0007 queenmargherita.com/about.html WORTH IT THE SPACE Warmly decorated with sconces and burgundy velvet; Queen Margherita smiles from a portrait on the wall. The main dining room seats 45; an adjoining room, 10 to 15; two outdoor patios, a total of 40 in nice weather. Wheelchair accessible. THE CROWD Ebullient but never raucous. The staff is both beloved and professional. THE BAR Bring your own alcoholic beverages — wine, vodka and even grappa — and everyone does, even at lunch. THE BILL Appetizers, $6.75 to $15.95 (for platters for two); entrees, $9.95 to $24.95; desserts, $2 to $6. Portions are ample. The $9.95 lunch is a bargain. WHAT WE LIKED Mushroom soup, pizza, linguine with white clam sauce, veal parmigiana, scialatielli with mushrooms, radicchio and speck; tilapia livornese, pork chop ciambotta, pork osso bucco, chocolate pizza, sfogliatella. IF YOU GO Lunch: Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dinner: Monday to Thursday, 4 to 11:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. to midnight. Closed Sunday. Reservations recommended at lunch for parties of five or more; at dinner for everyone. For prime times on Friday and Saturday evenings, call a week ahead. Street parking available. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don’t Bother.

New Jersey
Restaurants
Queen Margherita Trattoria (Nutley NJ)
Nutley (NJ)


Emoji Maker Finds Muse in a Kim: Jong-un, Not Kardashian West

Abstract: LONDON — Kim Kardashian West faces a new challenger from the east in the battle for online emotive supremacy: “#Kimunji — The Real Kimoji ,” a set of emojis that represent the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. An app of emojis based on Ms. Kardashian West, released in December and called Kimoji, allows users to send hearts, kisses and doughnuts, but also Ms. Kardashian West with blond hair, crying, in a bra, and even her famous derrière. The app proved to be highly popular and is in second place in the United States paid app chart on iTunes. #Kimunji 😚 pic.twitter.com/iTTkJ1R0xc — Anton Kurniawan (@antonkurniawan) February 9, 2016 “The content is pretty crass — I don’t even want to mention some of the images that are on there,” said the American designer of the Kimunji set, Ben Gillin, 32, referring to Kimoji. “Lots of kids look up to the Kardashians. As far as I gather, most of the people using these are under the age of 20.” The Kimunji set uses imagery based on the North Korean ruler, who most recently antagonized the United States and its allies with a rocket launch on Sunday , a development that was followed by reports that another senior official had been executed . The set, released on Monday, allows people to send one another pictures of Mr. Kim smiling, crying and walking, as well as rockets, North Korean flags, and a nuclear mushroom cloud. There is also an emoji of Dennis Rodman, the eccentric former N.B.A. star who visited North Korea in 2013 and 2014 . Mr. Rodman described himself as Mr. Kim’s “friend” and he sang “Happy Birthday” to the authoritarian leader before an exhibition basketball game in Pyongyang. But he later said, “If you don’t want me to go back there ever again, I won’t go back.” Mr. Gillin’s creation received in three days nearly as many votes as the Kimoji app on the website Product Hunt , an online community that allows designers to post their products and get feedback from other developers. “The reaction has been great, over all,” Mr. Gillin said. “There are people who are angry, who think it’s honoring Kim Jong-un, which is in no way the intent.” While the Kimunji icons mock Ms. Kardashian West’s emojis, Mr. Gillin conceived them with the more serious goal of drawing attention to the influence that comes with the Kardashians’ omnipresence in pop culture. “She has 60 million followers on Instagram ” said Mr. Gillin, who noted that the figure dwarfs the population of North Korea . “The point of my product was to show how silly the Kim Kardashian emojis are, like holding up a mirror at the other Kimojis.” This is not the first time that Kim Jong-un has inspired pop culture: There is a Tumblr page dedicated to photographs of him “ looking at things. ” He has become an Internet meme , and he was the basis for the movie “ The Interview ,” a comedy about a fictional C.I.A. plot to assassinate him. The North Korean leader apparently didn’t approve and declared “war” on the film (maybe next time he can send rocket emojis). With the small icons increasingly being used to communicate, the emoji menu is ever expanding . The Unicode Consortium, the agency that regulates emojis, announced on Thursday that it was thinking of developing a new set of icons, for dumplings, chopsticks and fortune cookies. An online campaign has raised $12,478 to push the dumpling emoji. In April, the consortium released racially diverse emojis, giving users the option to choose from five different skin tones, and updated its international flags database to 257 flags . Emojis started appearing on cellphones in Japan in the mid-1990s and were integrated into Apple’s operating system in 2011. The Oxford Dictionary named the crying-out-laughing emoji its word of the year in 2015. In October, the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, came under question in her country’s Senate for her liberal use of emojis.

Kim Kardashian
Kim Jong-un
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


Lenders Challenge Delphi Plan to Exit Bankruptcy

Abstract: Chrysler largely emerged from bankruptcy in just 42 days. General Motors appears poised to lift the bulk of its desirable assets from Chapter 11 protection in even less time than that. But nearly four years after it first entered bankruptcy, Delphi, the big auto parts supplier, remains locked in contentious negotiations over its latest plan for escaping Chapter 11. It is now trying to sell many of its assets to Platinum Equity, a private equity firm. As a July 23 hearing to approve the sale draws closer, the war of words between some of the company’s lenders and Delphi and Platinum is growing more heated. Delphi’s lenders, including hedge funds that provided bankruptcy financing, have accused the company of striking what they call a sweetheart deal with Platinum. Many of these firms have also complained that they will get only 20 cents on the dollar for the $2.55 billion in debtor-in-possession loans they gave Delphi, financing that is normally paid off in full and in cash. (Holders of other parts of the complicated loan will be paid off in full.) According to the terms of the Platinum deal, which was announced June 1, the private equity firm will provide $250 million in cash and a $250 million credit line to acquire the bulk of the company. G.M., a onetime owner of Delphi and still a big customer, is taking back four plants and its steering business. G.M. will also provide the rest of the $3.6 billion exit financing package. The proposed deal with Platinum came after talks with other potential buyers collapsed, said people briefed on the matter. For several months, Delphi had been engaged in talks with Platinum and Federal-Mogul, a parts supplier controlled by the financier Carl C. Icahn, as well as with its lenders. But discussions between Delphi and its lenders broke down by mid-April: the lenders had spurned a proposal that would have given them a significant chunk of Delphi’s equity for no cash, in exchange for giving G.M. operational control, said one person briefed on the matter. Delphi worked with G.M. and the Obama administration to negotiate with Platinum and Federal-Mogul over a potential deal to sell almost all of the company’s assets. Platinum had held talks with Delphi for three years to buy its steering-parts business, only to have G.M. instead agree to take those operations back. By late May, however, Federal-Mogul — which was considered the lead bidder — had dropped out. Platinum was viewed by Delphi, G.M. and the government as at least having management expertise and a familiarity with Delphi’s operations. Meanwhile, talks with Delphi’s lenders had stalled again, as some of these firms asked for more than the 20 cents on the dollar for their holdings that G.M. and the auto task force were ultimately willing to give, these people said. Delphi intends to file a motion shedding further light on how it reached its Platinum deal by the end of this week, according to people briefed on the matter. Now some of Delphi’s lenders are considering whether to make their own bids for the company. This month, in a victory for these firms, Judge Robert D. Drain of Federal Bankruptcy Court in New York ordered Delphi to open formal bidding, setting July 10 as a deadline for proposals.

Bankruptcies
Delphi Corporation
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Platinum Equity Holdings


A Devils Anomaly: Porous Defense, Potent Offense

Abstract: NEWARK — Tuomo Ruutu almost did not recognize the team for which he was playing. As a member of the Carolina Hurricanes, Ruutu had known the Devils as a hard-nosed, defense-first club. Yet in two games last week after being acquired at the trade deadline, Ruutu watched the Devils surrender 11 goals. “That’s the way they always play,” Ruutu joked this week. Ordinarily, the defense-minded Devils, who had the second-fewest goals in the Eastern Conference before the Olympic break, would be in deep trouble for allowing that much scoring. But they have opened the final push to the postseason as the N.H.L.’s hottest offensive team. The Devils have scored 28 goals in seven games, winning five and moving within 2 points of the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot. Ruutu, who had not scored in 11 games before Saturday, even got into the act, netting the winning goal in the Devils’ 5-4 victory over the Hurricanes on Saturday. The line of Ruutu, Travis Zajac and Jaromir Jagr combined for six points against the Hurricanes, then teamed up for both goals, including the 702nd of Jagr’s career, in a 2-1 win over the Flyers in Philadelphia on Tuesday. “It was great to play with those guys,” Ruutu said. “It doesn’t happen every day, so I can enjoy it.” Jagr continues to climb the career goal list as the Devils’ new top line has excelled lately, but it has been Adam Henrique who has carried the team’s offense since the Olympics. Henrique has nine goals in seven games since the break and has been honored as one of the N.H.L.’s weekly three stars in consecutive weeks. Henrique, a third-year forward, entered the Olympic break on a seven-game scoreless drought but now leads the Devils with 23 goals . Henrique’s recent hot stretch has called to mind his standout 2012 postseason, when he registered 13 points and scored two series-winning overtime goals in helping the Devils reach the Stanley Cup finals. His latest scoring binge has further cemented his status as a big-game player. “I don’t think it’s an accident that a guy like that has that reputation,” Devils Coach Pete DeBoer said. “I think that’s God-given; I don’t think it’s something you can teach. But when you go back to this guy’s history, he has an ability to find another level this time of the year.” Henrique was playing left wing after the break, but he returned to his customary center position last Friday against Detroit, reuniting with the veterans Michael Ryder and Ryane Clowe. The move was intended to spark Ryder, who has not scored in 20 games, and Clowe appreciates what the red-hot Henrique can do for the unit. “Whoever he is playing with is scoring right now,” Clowe said of Henrique. The Devils have registered eight power-play goals in 26 opportunities since the Olympics, and their defense has even gotten into the act offensively. Marek Zidlicky, who had the primary assist on Jagr’s game-winner Tuesday, has points in four straight games. “Our power play has been clicking pretty good,” Clowe said. “We’ve been trying to get our defense in the rush more, and we’ve been getting a lot of offense off the rush, so that helps.” While the Devils have awakened from their goal-scoring slumber, they have also been playing a little too fast and loose for DeBoer’s liking. After winning their first two post-Olympic games by a combined 11-3 score, the Devils allowed three or more goals in their next four games, surrendering seven goals Friday against the Red Wings. In the victory over Carolina on Saturday, the Devils built a 4-1 advantage but allowed the Hurricanes to pull even before Ruutu’s winner. The sloppiness even bled into the team’s strong penalty-killing unit. The Devils led the N.H.L. in penalty-kill percentage until allowing four goals in nine chances in three games to drop to No. 2 . “I think we know we haven’t been perfect,” DeBoer said Monday. “I think as a group, we know we’ve got to tighten things up a little here, and I’m very confident we’ll do that here.”

Devils
Tuomo Ruutu
Adam Henrique
Ice hockey