A Law Facing a Tough Road Through the Courts

Abstract: Can Arizona’s controversial new immigration law — allowing the police to stop people and demand proof of citizenship — pass constitutional muster? To many scholars, the answer is, simply, no. “The law is clearly pre-empted by federal law under Supreme Court precedents,” said Erwin Chemerinsky , an expert in constitutional law and the dean of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law. Since the 1800s, the federal government has been in charge of controlling immigration and enforcing those laws, Professor Chemerinsky noted. And that is why, he argued, Arizona’s effort to enforce its own laws is destined to fail. But even some experts who say they are troubled by the law said it might survive challenges. “My view of the constitutional question is that it is unconstitutional,” said Hiroshi Motomura , co-author of leading casebooks on immigration law and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. “But it’s a far cry from predicting empirically what a judge who actually gets this case will do.” Whether any challenges to the Arizona law succeed could come down to the perception of judges about whether it competes with federal law. To Kris W. Kobach , the law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law who helped write Senate Bill 1070 and many other immigration measures around the country, the key issue is “concurrent enforcement” — that is, whether the state law parallels federal law without conflict. Because the Arizona statute draws directly on federal statutes concerning documentation and other issues, “the Arizona law is perfect concurrent enforcement,” Professor Kobach said. The tests will come soon enough. Civil rights organizations are already planning their suits, said Lucas Guttentag , director of the immigrants’ rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union . The law, Mr. Guttentag said, “will increase racial profiling and discrimination against Latinos and anyone who might appear to be an immigrant.” President Obama criticized Arizona’s bill last week before it was signed, calling for a comprehensive immigration overhaul as an alternative to such “misguided” efforts. He also asked the Department of Justice to “examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation.” On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the department was considering several options, including a federal court challenge. The major issue in those challenges will be whether federal law should trump state action. “The closer the law comes to the traditional federal role,” said Juliet P. Stumpf , an associate professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School, “the more likely it is that the state law will be considered to be trespassing on the federal government’s domain.” The new law, Professor Stumpf added, “sits right on that thin line of pure state criminal law and federally controlled immigration law.” The courts have rebuffed state efforts through pre-emption in the past. Californians passed a voter initiative in 1994 that denied social benefits to illegal immigrants; a federal district court judge struck down the law in 1997 and the state later dropped its appeal . Arizona has already won one challenge to a different immigration bill: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a 2007 law that penalizes businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Federal law is not settled, however, and a similar law in Hazleton, Pa., was struck down by a federal judge . An opinion in the appeal of the Hazleton ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is pending. Such conflicts, once they work their way through the appeals courts, often attract the interest of the Supreme Court. The new law is controversial even within Arizona. Its critics include the attorney general, Terry Goddard, a Democrat running for governor. Mr. Goddard called the law a “tragic mistake” that “does nothing to make us safer.” Mr. Goddard, however, has the obligation to defend it in court as the state’s chief lawyer. He said he would probably recuse himself, and enlist Mr. Kobach for the defense, as he did in the case involving the 2007 law. Even if the new law is found constitutional on its face, critics suggest that when it is applied, it will lead to abuses that will be deemed unconstitutional. “I think it’s an inevitable consequence of the law,” Mr. Motomura said. Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general who opposed the bill, agreed, saying, “People will be profiled because of the color of their skin.” Mr. Kobach said the courts had long given the police broad authority to stop people and to make immigration arrests — and asserted that the bill “expressly prohibits racial profiling,” because it stated that officers “may not solely consider race, color or national origin.” Julie Pace, an Arizona lawyer who brought suit challenging the 2007 law, issued, with her colleagues, an analysis of the new law arguing that “the word ‘solely’ makes this purported anti-discrimination provision an authorization to allow racial profiling and discrimination, as long as the government is not 100 percent racially motivated.” Stewart A. Baker , a former Department of Homeland Security policy official who worked on immigration overhaul in the Bush administration, said fears of the new law were overblown. “The coverage of this law and the text of the law are a little hard to square,” Mr. Baker said. “There’s nothing in the law that requires cities to stop people without cause, or encourages racial or ethnic profiling by itself.” Nonetheless, Michael A. Olivas , a professor at the University of Houston Law Center and a member of the board of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund , predicted that the new law would fall. “At the end of the day, we will prevail, and will get these things struck down as the constitutional jokes that they are,” Professor Olivas said. “It is regrettable — but it’s so over the top that it may very well galvanize people.”

Arizona
Illegal Immigrants
Law and Legislation
United States Politics and Government
Civil Rights and Liberties


Bill Would Require More Monitoring of Implants

Abstract: Amid growing problems with artificial hips and other medical implants, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday that would force manufacturers to track the performance of such products after they were approved for sale. The bill would allow the Food and Drug Administration to compel companies to track implants, such as replacement hips, that belong to a category of products that do not require human testing for approval. The proposal is an effort to address longstanding complaints by patient advocates and others like the Institute of Medicine about a system known as the 510(k) process that the F.D.A. uses to clear the sale of certain implants like artificial joints. To sell a new product under that system, a producer need only show that it is “substantially similar” to a product already on the market. Thousands of the all-metal hips that are now failing prematurely in patients were approved through the 510(k) system. The new proposal would not require added premarket testing of such implants but would broaden the F.D.A’s postapproval oversight by giving it the authority to mandate that companies collect data on device performance. The bill, if adopted, would also tighten federal scrutiny of product recalls. The bill was sponsored by two Democrats, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and a Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa. In a telephone interview, Mr. Blumenthal said that the legislation would enhance patient safety without slowing device approval. He called the all-metal hips a “classic example” of why such monitoring was needed. “There is clearly a need for scrutiny once products are implanted or used on patients,” he said. A wave of recently introduced bills backed by the medical device industry would “streamline” F.D.A. rules to allow new products to reach market more quickly. And while the bill introduced Wednesday most likely faces an uphill fight, it may serve as a negotiating chip in a Congressional debate next year over F.D.A. device regulation. A spokeswoman for the F.D.A., Karen Riley, said that the Obama administration had not taken a position on the bill. Wanda Moebius, a spokeswoman for a device industry trade group, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, said the group had not seen the bill but added that studies had shown that the current 510(k) approval process was “remarkably safe.” Along with introducing the bill, the three senators sent letters Wednesday to five major producers of medical devices seeking documents about how they track product safety and recall devices. The companies were Johnson & Johnson , an artificial joint maker; Zimmer Holdings, another producer of artificial joints; Medtronic, a heart and spinal implant producer; Boston Scientific, a heart device maker, and C. R. Bard, a surgical implant maker. Specifically, in the case of Johnson & Johnson, Congressional investigators want to know when the company was warned that one of its all-metal hips — the A.S.R., or Articular Surface Replacement — was failing and how it tracked those problems. Last year the DePuy division of Johnson & Johnson recalled the device after it had been implanted in some 93,000 patients worldwide, including 40,000 in this country. As of early October, about 3,500 lawsuits have been filed against Johnson & Johnson in connection with the A.S.R., and studies here and abroad suggest that the A.S.R. may have already failed a few years after implant in more than twice that number of patients here. Artificial hips are supposed to last 15 years or more before requiring replacement. Last month, a legislative panel in Australia issued a report that concluded that Johnson & Johnson was probably aware of serious problems with the A.S.R well before recalling it. The panel also characterized the company’s responses to its questions as “decidedly opaque.” “Many people could have avoided considerable pain, suffering and diminished quality of life if the company had acted in a responsible manner to known problems with these devices,” the Australian report stated. In a statement, a spokeswoman for DePuy, Mindy Tinsley, said, “We believe we made the appropriate decision to recall at the appropriate time given the available information.”

Implants
Food and Drug Administration
Medical Devices
Johnson & Johnson
Law and Legislation
Recalls and Bans of Products
DePuy Orthopaedics


500 Athletes, and All but One Steroid Free

Abstract: THE New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association announced last week that in its first statewide random steroid tests of high school athletes, only one of the 500 teenagers tested last year produced a positive result. Proponents of the testing, the first of its kind in the nation, say it has reduced steroid use by making teenagers afraid they will get caught. Opponents say the testing wastes money and makes it easy for athletes to avoid getting caught. Steven J. Timko, executive director of the athletic association, said the tests were a deterrent to steroid use. “Everyone knows we’re doing it, and if young men and women are staying off steroids because of what we’re doing then we’re reaching our goal,” he said. The 500 athletes were tested during playoffs for all major boys’ and girls’ high school sports, including football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, wrestling and soccer, Mr. Timko said. Students from 99 of the state’s 433 high schools were tested. The state and the association each provided $50,000 for the tests. The tests will be given again this year, he said. Linn Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, who, with grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has studied high school steroid use, said the tests were useless because athletes know when they will be tested. “They announced they would test during the playoffs,” Dr. Goldberg said. “You could use all the drugs you wanted and then you could stop.” He called the tests a “colossal waste” of money that could be better spent on anti-steroid educational programs. Mr. Timko said that although the random tests suggest a low percentage of high school students using steroids, one national survey said that 5 percent of high school students admitted trying steroids. In New Jersey, with nearly a quarter-million high school athletes, that number could be as high as 13,000, he said. Nationwide, the number of high schoolers who admit to steroid use is dropping, said Lloyd D. Johnston, a University of Michigan professor who conducts studies for the National Center for Drug Free Sport. The number of seniors who admitted using steroids within the past year fell to 1.8 percent last year from 2.5 percent in 2002.


Colorado: New Psychiatric Exam Is Ordered for Theater Gunman

Abstract: A judge on Wednesday ordered a new psychiatric examination for James E. Holmes, who killed 12 people in an Aurora theater in 2012, saying that an earlier evaluation by a state doctor was “incomplete and inadequate.” The ruling, by Judge Carlos A. Samour, orders the state mental hospital to have a new mental-health expert examine Mr. Holmes and offer an opinion on whether he was sane on the night of the shooting. Mr. Holmes’s lawyers have admitted he was the gunman, but argue he is not guilty by reason of insanity. The exam is to be completed by July 11, further delaying the trial.


Most Expect to Give More Than They Receive, Poll Finds

Abstract: A majority of Americans say they expect to pay more in federal taxes over their lifetime than they will ever receive in benefits from the government, according to a recent New York Times poll. At the same time, the taxes Americans pay today are not keeping pace with the growing costs of government. Medicare is the program projected to add the most to federal spending over the next decade, likely increasing the government’s annual budget deficits. But only one in five Americans surveyed named Medicare as the fastest-growing benefits program. From a number of choices, 27 percent identified programs for the poor, 17 percent said unemployment benefits and programs, 14 percent said Social Security and 5 percent named veterans’ benefits. Twenty-two percent named Medicare. Most Americans realize that the taxes they pay during their working years may not be enough to cover either their Medicare or Social Security benefits. But a majority of those surveyed, 55 percent, also said they would pay more in taxes than they would ever get back from the government in benefits. In follow-up interviews, some respondents said that was because their tax dollars were also paying for government programs that did not benefit them directly, like foreign aid, the military and assistance for the poor. Some also said government waste contributed to their pessimism. Majorities of Americans also say Social Security and Medicare will not be there for them when they reach retirement. Nearly three-fourths of those under 45 do not expect Medicare to provide benefits for them, and more than two-thirds of these younger Americans said Social Security would not have money available for their retirement years. That pessimism is another likely reason that 6 in 10 Americans under the age of 45 said the taxes they pay over their lifetime would exceed the benefits they would receive. Those who currently receive benefits from the government were more likely than others to say their taxes would match what they receive in benefits. To keep Medicare solvent, a majority of Americans favor raising taxes or premiums rather than reducing benefits. When asked to choose just one proposal to reduce the program’s deficit, 37 percent said they supported higher taxes on current workers, and 22 percent supported increasing the premiums paid by current recipients. Just 16 percent supported reducing benefits for future recipients, and 8 percent endorsed reducing benefits of current Medicare recipients. Eighty-five percent agreed that increasing taxes on the wealthy should play a role in reducing the overall federal deficit, and three in five said it should play a major role. Seventy percent also favored raising taxes on all Americans, although only 32 percent said this should play a major role. And 56 percent favored cuts in Medicare and Social Security; only 20 percent said this should play a major role. The poll was conducted from Dec. 14 to 18 among 992 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

New York Times
Medicare
Social Security (US)
Federal Taxes (US)
Polls and Public Opinion
United States Economy
Income Tax


Israel Braces for Border Protests

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Israel on Saturday was bracing for possible clashes along its borders after Palestinian activists in the region called for protest marches on Sunday, three weeks after a similar wave of coordinated protests led to deadly clashes with Israeli troops. Protests on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the Palestinian “naksa,” or setback, in the June 1967 Middle East war were being planned in the West Bank and Gaza , territories that were conquered by Israel then. There have also been calls on social networking Internet sites for Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria to march at the Israeli border. That echoed the conditions that led to the violence on May 15, the day Palestinians mark as the “nakba,” or catastrophe, of Israel’s establishment in 1948. Taking a cue from the so-called Arab Spring movement, organizers in multiple countries and territories called for a coordinated action against Israel, and huge crowds of Palestinians responded. They clashed with Israeli troops on four fronts, and breached the border between Syria and the Golan Heights for the first time in more than 30 years. At least 14 protesters from Lebanon and Syria were killed, stoking outrage in Palestinian camps across the region and intensifying pressure on Israel to create the conditions for a return to peace talks. The Israeli military was not giving out details of its preparations, but television reports showed soldiers repairing fences and bulldozers digging trenches along the borders in the north. On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed Israeli forces to act with restraint, but also with determination, to protect Israel’s sovereignty and borders. According to reports from Lebanon, activists there canceled plans to march to the Israeli border after the Lebanese authorities declared the border area a closed military zone. On Saturday, Palestinian officials signaled another possible source of pressure on Israel, saying they would accept a French proposal to attend a peace conference in Paris next month with the aim of restarting negotiations based on the broad principles laid out by President Obama last month. Mr. Obama said that talks should be for a future Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps. He also suggested that talks should focus first on the issues of borders and security, and deal later with the contentious issues of the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war and their descendants. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that in principle, the French proposal was acceptable. He told the Reuters news agency on Saturday that under the plan, neither Israel nor the Palestinians would carry out “unilateral actions.” The Palestinians have demanded a freeze in Israeli settlement building, while the Israelis oppose Palestinian plans to bypass negotiations and seek recognition for statehood at the United Nations this fall. There has been no public response to the French plan from the Israeli side, but Israel has previously rejected talks based on the 1967 lines. Moshe Yaalon, the minister for strategic affairs in the Israeli government, told Israeli television on Saturday that Israeli leaders would discuss the French proposal this week. In a sign of growing frustration in Gaza, travelers tried to force their way through a crossing on the border with Egypt that was temporarily closed on Saturday, a week after Egypt declared it open permanently in a move hailed by Palestinians as an end of the Israeli-led blockade of the coastal enclave. Officials of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, said they had not been told in advance about the closing. Egypt said it was a result of delays in renovation work that should have been completed on Friday. Dozens of Palestinian travelers gathered in front of the closed gate leading to the Egyptian side of the crossing in the morning. Peering through barbed wire next to the gate, they realized that it would be impossible for buses to pass through because of the works on the other side. After waiting for three hours, the travelers forced open the gate and entered the Egyptian section. The Egyptian police persuaded them to return peacefully. By the afternoon, there was some one-way traffic of people crossing from Egypt into Gaza by foot. But Palestinian officials would not let people pass through to the Egyptian hall on foot, saying it would be an offense to travelers. It was unclear whether the crossing would formally reopen open Sunday. After Hamas took full control of Gaza in 2007, Israel responded by cutting off the territory, and Egypt kept the crossing mostly closed. In June 2010, former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt ordered the crossing to reopen on a regular basis, but conditions for travel remained tightly restricted. The border was sealed again from January, when Egypt was rocked by protests that eventually ousted Mr. Mubarak. Last Saturday’s opening, ordered by Egypt’s interim leadership, was seen as a sign of a new approach, giving Gazans a gateway to the world that bypassed Israel. But complications have already emerged. By Tuesday, Hamas officials were complaining that the movement of travelers was being limited and that dozens had been returned from the Egyptian side.

Israel
Palestinians
Egypt
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
Gaza Strip
International Relations
Politics and Government


When Railroads Designed Their Own Version of Time Zones

Abstract: Taking the broad view of things — or, admittedly, the very broad view — the history of post-Civil War America might be read as the history of expanding corporatization. After all, starting with the victory of Northern industrialists over Southern planters, Big Business has increasingly put its stamp on national matters, from foreign policy and presidential politics to higher education. None of this will come as a surprise to those who work for major corporations, which even today exercise control over issues large and small — everything from health care, say, to the scheduling of vacations. But even the most contentious corporate wage slaves may not know that on Nov. 18, 1883 , the country’s railroad magnates, acting on the theory that they needed provisional time zones to coordinate their train schedules, seized control of the hands of time itself. It was on that date, four weeks after a gathering in Chicago called the General Time Convention , that Standard Railroad Time was created, in a commercial co-optation of the clock whose echoes can be felt today, high above Park Avenue in Manhattan, on the sixth floor of Grand Central Terminal. There, at the top of two ladders and tucked away behind the terminal’s operations center, is a cramped brick room that contains the greasy innards of a hundred-year-old clock with a stained-glass dial, the largest of Grand Central’s noteworthy timepieces. “The New York Central Railroad knew it couldn’t run the system back then without time zones,” said Dan Brucker, a spokesman for Metro-North Railroad . “So they petitioned Congress.” And eventually, with the passage of the Standard Time Act in 1918 , the railroads’ time zones were essentially enacted into law. You could certainly make the argument that beyond the trains themselves, accurate clocks may be Grand Central’s most important objects. And if that’s the case, it makes sense that the Clock Room, as it’s called, is an elegant, if somewhat dusty, exercise in mechanical exactness. The clock’s motor, plugged into a standard outlet, is vastly unpretentious and not much bigger than a large commercial sewing machine. The gears are rather tiny and are slick with lubricants. But they haven’t lost a step since the clock was built in 1913. The room itself is filled with airy silence as bars of sunlight shimmer through the stained-glass panels. You can barely see the gears in the timepiece actually moving — none of that tempus fugit nonsense often ascribed to working clocks. Instead, there is a giant and authoritative stillness, the stillness one imagines inside of time. Which, of course, is how the New York Central probably wanted it. The Vanderbilts, who built Grand Central Terminal, helped to do away with local solar time — it’s noon in Kansas City when the sun is overhead — replacing it with a commercially driven convention eventually approved by act of Congress. What better way to normalize that act than to make the Clock Room seem as calmly everlasting, as naturally commanding, as Father Time himself? But the room has one small trick, as Mr. Brucker slyly pointed out. The clock’s No. 6 is on a tiny hidden door that can be pulled back on its hinges in such a way that rebellious souls can carefully wedge their heads out for a view of Park Avenue traffic streaming away below. The corporation may control the clock, but when that tiny door is open, a human grin can suddenly appear inside the stained-glass face of time.

Railroads
Grand Central Terminal (NYC)
Manhattan (NYC)
Metro-North Commuter Railroad
Watches and Clocks


15-Year-Old Lydia Ko Wins L.P.G.A. Title

Abstract: Lydia Ko, a 15-year-old South Korean-born New Zealander, won the Canadian Women’s Open on Sunday in Coquitlam, British Columbia, to become the youngest winner on the L.P.G.A. Tour and the fifth amateur champion. Ko closed with a five-under-par 67 for a three-stroke win at 13-under 275. She broke the age record of 16 set by Lexi Thompson last September and is the first amateur winner since JoAnne Carner in 1969. In January, at 14, Ko won the New South Wales Open, an event on the Australian L.P.G.A. tour. She also won the United States Women’s Amateur two weeks ago. ¶ Paul Lawrie of Scotland confirmed his return to the European Ryder Cup team after 13 years and won the Johnnie Walker Championship in Gleneagles, Scotland, by four shots. Lawrie shot a final-round 68 to finish at 16-under 272. Martin Kaymer of Germany clinched the 10th and final automatic place on Europe’s Ryder Cup team. (AP) ¶ Jay Don Blake beat Mark O’Meara with a birdie on the second hole of a playoff to win the Boeing Classic in Snoqualmie, Wash., for his third Champions Tour title.

Golf
Ko Lydia
Records and Achievements
Age Chronological
Canada


Old-Line Snack Is Highlighting Fervor of Fans

Abstract: WHEAT THINS have been sold in the cracker aisle at supermarkets since they were introduced by Nabisco in 1947, but these days marketers for the brand are loath to call them crackers. Rather than as a platform for cheese or dips, Wheat Thins are marketed as an unaccompanied snack. The word crackers, once printed on the front of the box, has been replaced with the word snacks, and even the nutrition panel has banished the word, where a serving size in the original flavor is “15 pieces.” Flavors more familiar to the snack aisle have been introduced, including spicy buffalo and zesty salsa in 2012. Commercials have shown Wheat Thins stirring the sort of ardor in consumers that no saltine ever could. The newest commercial opens with a man in pajamas sitting in his kitchen, a box of Wheat Thins nearby. It is nighttime, and as he puts a contraption on his head, his wife, also in pajamas, enters the kitchen and asks what he is doing. “Using night-vision goggles to keep an eye on my Spicy Buffalo Wheat Thins and make sure nobody touches them,” he says. “Who’s going to take your Wheat Thins?” she says. “Um, I don’t know,” he says, “an intruder, the dog, Bigfoot, Ted from next door.” She turns off the light and the screen goes dark. There is the sound of a struggle in the kitchen and she turns on the light to reveal her husband clinging to the shoulders of an abominable snowman. “Honey, I was close, it’s a yeti!” he shouts, as their neighbor runs into the kitchen and steals the Wheat Thins. Image In a new commercial, a man wears night-vision goggles to protect his box of Wheat Thins. The spot closes with the new slogan for the brand: “Must. Have. Wheat Thins.” The commercial, which will be introduced in Super Bowl pregame coverage on Feb. 3, is by the New York office of Being, part of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group. Wheat Thins, which declined to reveal expenditures for the campaign, spent $19.4 million on advertising in the first nine months of 2012, more than the $18.6 million it spent for the full year of 2011, according to Kantar Media, a unit of WPP. Lisa Topol, a creative director at Being, said that while the commercial was a fantasy, it grew out of interviews with fans whose attachment was startling. “When we interviewed people about Wheat Thins, they used words like ‘I want to marry them,’ and, ‘If you take them away, I’ll die,’ ” said Ms. Topol. “They would get slightly almost insane when they talked about it, and say things like, ‘I love them more than my wife.’ ” Nowhere in the commercial does anyone eat the product, or say it is toothsome, but Brett Edgar, a group account director at Being, said the commercial aimed to depict an emotional connection to Wheat Thins rather than sell them overtly. “More conventional snacks would have a bite-and-smile, but we’re taking it to a more own-able, unique place for Wheat Thins,” said Ms. Edgar. Harry Balzer, an analyst at NPD Group and the author of its annual Eating Patterns in America study, pointed to an upsurge in snacking. The three fastest growing foods in the country over the last decade in terms of consumption are yogurt, nutrition bars and chips, said Mr. Balzer, adding that all are popular between meals. Negative attitudes about snacking have been dissipating, with 43 percent of Americans in 2012 saying that they tried to avoid snacking, down from 71 percent in 1985, according to NPD. Image As a man fights off an attack by a yeti, his neighbor steals the snack. “You don’t have to go far in the food world to find that everyone is interested in snacks because we’re moving toward how to eat without cooking,” Mr. Balzer said. In a promotion leading up to the Super Bowl that began on Jan. 20 and runs through Sunday, the brand is pitting fans of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens against one another on Twitter and Instagram. Users in each city are hoping to post the most messages on the social media platforms that include the hashtag #musthavewheatthins with either #BAL or #SF. In the city that wins , 1,000 consumers will receive a delivery on Super Bowl Sunday of a 10-box assortment of Wheat Thins, valued at about $37. To win, beginning on the morning of the Super Bowl, participants in the victorious city will have to be among the first 1,000 within a set geographic area to register over Twitter. The deliveries will be made by 30 branded vehicles, each with two Wheat Thins representatives, who, along with dropping off the snacks, are being encouraged to linger to watch a play or two when recipients are welcoming. A real-time counter at musthavewheatthins.com is tracking the competition, with the digital execution of the promotion by AKQA, part of WPP. Wheat Thins, which has more than 61,000 fans on Twitter , had a promotion called Twitterventions beginning in 2010. Consumers who were not intentionally reaching out to the brand, but just mentioning it in posts, received unannounced visits from a crew from the brand, with a forklift depositing an entire pallet of Wheat Thins on their property. Some were captured by a film crew and featured in commercials. Katie Williams, marketing director for wholesome crackers at Mondelez International, which owns the Nabisco brand, said that the latest social-media promotion, like the new advertising, is meant to expand the ranks of Wheat Thins fanatics. “This is based on the premise coming from our fans who view Wheat Thins as more than a snack and is really about this passionate relationship,” Ms. Williams said. “We wanted to celebrate that relationship in an entertaining way and hopefully lead others to discover that love, and entice them to join that clan, as we call it.”

Super Bowl
Mondelez International
advertising,marketing


A Tantalizing Offering From a Meal Kit Service: The Box

Abstract: FreshRealm got its start as a meal kit business, sending customers all the fixings to make, say, chicken quinoa salad with arugula and pistachios, or lemon-Dijon salmon with potatoes and green beans. Along the way, it has stumbled upon a different booming business: the packaging system FreshRealm pioneered, a sort of reusable puzzle box for meal kits. Dozens of meal kit companies have popped up over the last five years, delivering precisely cut and measured ingredients and a set of instructions to help even the most reluctant cook put a fresh meal on the table. But the kits leave behind piles of boxes, plastic bags and cold packs. Pressured by consumers to reduce such packaging waste, some companies have tried to cut down on the garbage they create, including turning to a competitor, FreshRealm, for its shipping crates. “When we were creating it, I think people weren’t necessarily thinking about packaging waste or preparation time or the cold chain needed to preserve fresh foods,” said Michael Lippold, chief executive of FreshRealm, a subsidiary of Calavo Growers, which markets fresh produce and a variety of fresh prepared foods. “Now that consumer concerns about packaging are coming up, there’s definitely a lot of interest in our box.” Packaging is perhaps the most critical element of the meal kit business, which must ensure that raw meats and vegetables get to the consumer without being contaminated or looking as if someone played soccer with them. So any tweak to reduce the insulation needed to maintain proper temperatures or the plastic that protects precut food from discoloration and contamination requires judiciousness and a good bit of innovation. Some companies have stopped using plastic foam insulation. Others try to encourage recycling, or give people the option of sending the packaging back. FreshRealm has made its box a central selling point of its delivery service. But it has also started providing its box system to competitors as part of a bundle of services that includes prepped ingredients supplied by a sister company, the Renaissance Food Group. The meal kit business Terra’s Kitchen, for instance, uses FreshRealm’s system. Mike McDevitt, its founder and chief executive, started the company after becoming a father and deciding that he wanted his child to have a dinner table experience like the one he had growing up. But when he tried one of the major meal delivery services, there were two things about it he didn’t like: the amount of time it took to prepare the meals, and the packaging. “Every Tuesday, as I was going out to the recycling bin, I had at least 12 to 15 little plastic bags, ice packs and another cardboard box, and that just felt like it wasn’t sustainable,” he said. So Terra uses FreshRealm’s “shipping vessels,” reusable boxes tailored to the prepared foods that it sends to customers. The boxes are 17-inch-square cubes made of polyurethane. Inside, five drawers house metal plates that help maintain the desired temperature. The drawers can hold up to four grab-and-go meals or the ingredients for two meal kits, Mr. Lippold said. The boxes are delivered by FedEx. Once the food is removed from the box, the customer just puts the container back together and slaps on a return label. FedEx picks it up and returns it to FreshRealm. The company then sanitizes the box and puts it to use again. “If you’re a meal kit company with a national program that delivers perishables to the door, you have to build your own infrastructure of refrigerated trucks — and that’s a big challenge,” Mr. Lippold said. “Our boxes are able to ship everything from a heat-and-eat lasagna to a grab-and-go salad and fresh-cut watermelon at 32 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit — it’s a massive competitive advantage.” Other meal kit companies argue that their services produce less waste than a trip to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for the same meals. They say that sending customers precisely measured ingredients cuts down on food waste, and that grocery stores also produce a lot of packaging waste. But Adam Gendell, associate director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, an environmental group, says this is the same sort of argument that Keurig made about its single-serve coffee pods when they were introduced. “We all know, though, that coffee pods have become an environmental issue,” he said. So far, environmental groups have not expressed much concern about packaging waste generated by the meal kit industry, in part because the business is still so nascent. A recent report on the business from the NPD Group, a consumer research firm, found that only 3 percent of people 18 and older had tried a meal kit in the last year. Still, the meal kit industry knows that packaging is an Achilles’ heel, so companies continue to work to reduce it. Matt Salzberg, a founder of Blue Apron, one of the first meal kit companies, said the company worked constantly to reduce the packaging waste that its kits create. Mr. Salzberg said Blue Apron was trying to make sure everything in its kits was recyclable. It also was one of the first meal kit businesses to give consumers the option of returning Blue Apron packaging to the company. “We’ve routinely redesigned our packaging to take out lots of packaging,” he said. “We’ve probably cut out packaging by 50 percent just through better packaging design.” Freshly, a prepared meals company, made a change to its packaging after hearing complaints from customers concerned about the Styrofoam it was using to insulate its boxes. So it did some research and came up with a substitute made from recycled denim, which has been used for insulation in housing. “Because millions of people are getting meal kits in boxes, as an industry we’re gaining the purchasing power to go to major packaging concerns and say we want better solutions,” said Michael Wystrach, a founder and the chief executive of Freshly. “Styrofoam,” he said, “is no longer the best or even the most economic choice.”

FreshRealm
Cooking
Food
Recycling
Delivery Services
Containers and Packaging


In Toulouse, Muslims Fear Diversity Is at Risk

Abstract: TOULOUSE, France — As near to the Spanish border as it is to the Mediterranean, this sunny red-brick city has long been known as a place of welcome and diversity, far removed from the divisive politics of Paris. In contrast to much of the French south, the far right, with its virulent anti-immigrant stance, has little presence here. Nor does radical Islam. Toulouse is by no means without racism, anti-Semitism, crime or the deep social segregation that marks many French cities, but with a culture shaped by successive waves of immigration , it is described by its inhabitants as a place of particular tolerance. Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards fled the Franco dictatorship into France after the Spanish Civil War, and many settled here. So, too, did the pieds noirs, the French expelled from newly independent Algeria in 1962, as well as the harkis, the Algerians who had backed the French colonialists, and thousands of Jews. In addition to a host of universities and research centers, the aerospace giant Airbus is based here, attracting engineers and scientists from around the world. So while Muslims across France speak of feeling vilified, this city has largely been spared the tensions that surround Islam. “It is true that from time to time we are subjected to hateful political discourse,” said Mohamed Tataï, the imam at the mosque El Nour in Empalot, a poor neighborhood. It is effectively imported from outside the city, though, he said, often around election time. “Afterwards, we’re able to return to calm once again.” There are concerns, though, that Mohammed Merah may have changed that. The seven brutal killings carried out this month by Mr. Merah — a 23-year-old son of Toulouse, and a professed jihadi — occurred during a divisive presidential race that had already turned toward questions of immigration and Islam. Even though investigators say Mr. Merah was effectively a lone, self-radicalized extremist, his violent ideology fits closely with some French stereotypes of Islam, and Muslims here fear that the tensions brought on by the murders may prove more lasting. “All of this does not correspond at all with what Toulouse is,” Pierre Cohen, the mayor, said of the killings. But “we’ve just come out of a very tense period,” he said. “Unfortunately, this risk exists.” Already, a false rumor has spread through the city, Mr. Cohen said, suggesting that Muslims were organizing a demonstration in defense of Mr. Merah. “There will be a ‘before’ and an ‘after,’ ” said Yassin Elmu’min, 23, a round-faced young man with blue eyes and short hair slicked into tight curls. Typically, Mr. Elmu’min said, there is “dialogue” between cultures in Toulouse, and Muslims are treated well. But he and other Muslims, many living in the poor suburbs outside downtown Toulouse, said they had already begun to detect nervous gazes that were uncharacteristic of this city. “Someone had the nerve to ask me, ‘Do you agree with what he did?’ ” Mr. Elmu’min said, exasperated. President Nicolas Sarkozy called for the rejection of “easy falsehoods” about Muslims last week, after Mr. Merah was killed by police commandos, Mr. Elmu’min said. “The ‘easy falsehoods’ are already here,” he lamented. A friend, Abd’allah, 19, dressed in a cream-colored djellaba beneath a hooded sweatshirt, said, “We’re the victims in the story.” He declined to give his full name, saying he feared trouble from the French authorities. Despite Mr. Sarkozy’s recent appeals for tolerance, many Muslims say he has done much to stigmatize them, pointing often to a 2010 law banning the Islamic full veil , or niqab , and to a debate on “the national identity.” Marine Le Pen , the presidential candidate for the far-right National Front , has been vociferous in her response to the killings. “What happened is not the matter of one man’s madness; what happened is the beginning of the forward march of green fascism in our country,” Ms. Le Pen said on Sunday, referring to radical Islam. “How many Mohammed Merahs are there in the boats, the planes that arrive each day in France, full of immigrants?” Muslim leaders have denounced such attempts to exploit the killings politically. In a statement shortly after Mr. Merah’s death last week, Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, asked that the term “Islamism” be abandoned because it “feeds the confusion between Islam and terrorism and brings suffering to millions of Muslims who feel it important to defend the dignity of their faith and their religion.” In Toulouse, Mr. Elmu’min and his friend had come from Friday Prayer at the Mosque of Mirail Toulouse, a sprawling makeshift prayer space in a temporary building at the edge of a mall parking lot, beneath the elevated railroad tracks at the terminus of Line A of the Métro. Mamadou Daffé, the Malian-born imam at the mosque, said he had never been the target of so much as a racist remark in Toulouse. “None, none at all,” Mr. Daffé said. “Maybe this is surprising, but so be it.” Mr. Daffé, who makes his living as a pharmacological researcher, describes himself as a moderate Muslim, a proponent of “local Islam” who preaches in French. But in his address to the hundreds of men who gathered at the mosque on Friday — some in white djellabas, thick beards and skullcaps, but most in jeans, suit coats or leather jackets — he spoke angrily of the “injustices” being wrought against Muslims in France, especially after the killings. Politicians have called for restraint, Mr. Daffé said, but those same politicians have long stoked the very hate they now say they must smother. He called upon the faithful to be exemplary in their behavior, though. “We are responsible for the image that’s been given to Islam, this beautiful religion,” he said. With the murders, which Mr. Merah said he committed in the name of Islam, “God has tested us,” Mr. Daffé said. His fellow cleric, Mr. Tataï, has led a project to build a grand mosque in Toulouse. A decade ago, local authorities were opposed, Mr. Tataï recalled, but gradually warmed to the notion. The domed, multistory ocher building, at the edge of the Empalot neighborhood, adjacent to the highway, is now almost complete. (Uncharacteristically, the mosque will be open to the non-Muslim public, outside hours of prayer.) “Of course there is the fear that there will be backlash from the black week we’ve just lived through,” Mr. Tataï said. He added, “This is a test of the good will and wisdom of the wise.” He remains optimistic.

Muslims and Islam
Toulouse (France)
Merah Mohammed
Politics and Government
Murders and Attempted Murders
Jews and Judaism


Gunmen in Iraq Kill an Official and His Family

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Unidentified gunmen stormed the house of a Health Ministry employee in a city north of the capital on Sunday and killed him, his wife and their three children, the police and medical officials said. Other attacks across the country left at least 14 more dead, officials said. The ministry employee lived in Sadiya, a largely Sunni city in Diyala Province, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. The attackers entered the house early Sunday morning and killed all five members of the family, including the couple’s two sons, who were 10 to 15 years old, and a daughter, said to be 8. Witnesses said they saw three masked gunmen. Also on Sunday, gunmen in a car in Salahuddin Province opened fire on an army checkpoint, killing three soldiers, the police said. The attack was one of several that day, underscoring the deterioration of the country’s security since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011. In Baghdad, the capital, a bomb blew up a minibus, killing two people and wounding three others. In Sadr City, a Shiite stronghold in Baghdad, another bomb killed three people on a minibus and wounded seven others, the police said. In northern Iraq, gunmen killed a journalist near her house in Mosul on Sunday evening, the police said. The journalist, Nawras al-Nuaimi, worked for a local television channel, Al-Mosuliyah, the police said. In Husseiniya, a largely Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad, a bomb in a parked car exploded, killing four people and wounding 11, according to the police and medical workers. And in Amil, in western Baghdad, an explosion at a market killed one person and wounded three others, the police said.


Finland’s 100,000-Year Plan to Banish Its Nuclear Waste

Abstract: It is, in the words of the Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen , “a place we must remember to forget.” On a wooded island more than a hundred miles northwest of Helsinki , in the town of Eurajoki, Finnish engineers are digging a tunnel. When it is done 10 years from now, it will corkscrew three miles in and 1,600 feet down into crystalline gneiss bedrock that has been the foundation of Finland for 1.8 billion years. And there, in a darkness that is still being created, the used fuel rods from Finland’s nuclear reactors — full of radioactive elements from the periodic table as dreamed up by Lord Voldemort, spitting neutrons and gamma rays — are to be sealed away forever, or at least 100,000 years. The place is called Onkalo (Finnish for “hidden”) and it is the subject of “Into Eternity,” a new documentary by Mr. Madsen. Watching it during the recent Tribeca Film Festival brought me into a more visceral contact with the vicissitudes of geologic time than I might have really wanted. These days I find that I can barely envision the future more than about six months ahead — hardly enough time even to plan for a proper summer vacation. My images of the deep future have always been vaguely utopian, like “Star Trek,” but “Star Trek” takes place only a few hundred years into the future, not 100,000 years. Onkalo, on the other hand, is supposed to last 20 times as long as the pyramids have so far — so long that the builders of the site have to take into account the next ice age, when the weight of two miles of ice on top of Finland will be added to the stress on the buried waste containers, copper canisters two inches thick. It might seem crazy, if not criminal, to obligate 3,000 future generations of humans to take care of our poisonous waste just so that we can continue running our electric toothbrushes. But it’s already too late to wave off the nuclear age, and Mr. Madsen’s film comes at a perfect time to join a worldwide conversation about what to do with its ashes. On June 3, administrative law judges from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will begin hearing arguments about whether the Department of Energy can proceed with shutting down development of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada , where the United States had been planning since 1987 to store its own nuclear waste. If the Obama administration prevails, the United States will be back to square one in figuring out how to get rid of its own 77,000 radioactive tons, including 53 million gallons left over from the dawn of the nuclear age sitting in leaky tanks in the Washington desert near the Columbia River. There are somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste already in the world, much of it in pools on the sites of nuclear power plants where the rods have to cool for years before they can be put into containers. Onkalo is being built to do its job without human intervention or maintenance. Once it is done and sealed back up a hundred years or so from now, the problem is less with keeping all the radioactivity in than keeping people out. Unfortunately, nothing in history suggests that humans will actually keep out. Indeed the builders themselves, according to their environmental impact statement, have not ruled out the possibility that future technological development will make it feasible to dig all this stuff back up and reprocess it to create more fuel or weapons material, in which case Onkalo will be like buried treasure The pyramids, after all, are not an auspicious precedent. They have been looted and their inhabitants dispersed to the museums of the world by intrepid archaeologists and grave robbers not at all deterred by rumors of the Curse of the Mummy. Mr. Madsen seems to agree. The film is framed as a message to the future, to those of us who might have blundered into this place We Were Never Meant to Go. Mr. Madsen himself appears in the darkness, illuminated by a burning match just long enough to drop rhetorical bombs, like the idea that we are encountering the last remnant of the fires that once warmed our civilization. I found myself wondering just who, after another ice age, he might be talking to: Computers? Cockroaches? Ourselves, reduced to Stone Age lifestyles after the collapse of civilization under the weight of ice or nuclear or biological apocalypse? Citizens of the galaxy on a sentimental tour of the old home world? Does future history go up or down or sideways? Robots won’t mind the radioactivity; cockroaches might live on it. The rest of us, if history is any guide, will forget it. We’ll be lucky, for that matter, if those future galactic citizens even remember the Earth in anything more than fairy tales. We’re always reading about time capsules being buried, but we rarely hear about them being dug up and opened. One of the most famous archaeological discoveries of modern times, the terra-cotta army buried with the first Chinese emperor, Qin, outside the city of Xian , was made by a farmer digging a well. As a species, we are good at forgetting. So maybe the best, ultimate, defense against people messing with Onkalo would be simply to forget that it is there. The best way to keep a secret is not to let on that there is a secret at all. But what about the ethical duty to warn those future generations with some kind of marker that would survive the scouring of Finland by glaciers and evolution of language? If, in fact, the canisters are rediscovered a few hundred years or a few thousand years from now, we can imagine our descendants’ reaction at having been left such a nasty surprise. Of course, we ourselves could be surprised, like the peasant who found Qin’s army. One joke that went around the Onkalo project for a while, according to Mr. Madsen’s film, could have come straight from a novel by Arthur C. Clarke . What if, the team thought, the first thing it found when it started digging were canisters left by somebody else?

Finland
Nuclear Waste
Michael Madsen
Nuclear energy
Movies
Science and Technology


Australian Fairywren Teaches Chicks a ‘Password’ Call

Abstract: Some species of cuckoo are known as brood parasites for their devious tactic of laying their eggs in other species’ nests so those birds can care for the cuckoos’ young. Now scientists have discovered that an Australian bird called the fairywren has evolved a way around this tactic: The mothers teach their unborn chicks a unique begging call — a sort of password. “We call this an incubation call,” said Mark Hauber , an animal behaviorist at Hunter College at the City University of New York and an author of the study, which appears in the journal Current Biology. “The more times the mother calls, the better the mimicry of the chicks.” The teaching begins a few days before the birds hatch. And while “the cuckoo chick is very adaptable and tries out many begging calls until it sounds similar to the fairywren,” Dr. Hauber said, it also has a shorter incubation period. So it hatches several days before fairywren chicks, leaving it little time to practice and perfect the passwordlike call of the fairywren mother. Generally, when a cuckoo hatches it throws out the other eggs in the nest. When a mother does not hear her unique call from her babies, she abandons the nest. Male fairywrens help their mates care for their young, so the mother teaches her mate and any other helpers the password through the performance of a special song. “In the future we’d like to do some brain imaging on the embryos using noninvasive functional M.R.I.’s,” Dr. Hauber said. “We want to see how these embryos are listening, practicing and learning these relevant vocalizations.”


In Homes and on Streets, a War That Feels Deadlier

Abstract: RAFAH, Gaza — The war here comes from the sky: fast, sharp and coldly lethal. And even when it is not crushing a building or collapsing a tunnel, its sound is always near in the nasal whine of drones and the earsplitting roar of fighter jets. Here in Gaza’s south on Saturday, the 22nd day of the war, conversations were punctuated by the whistles and occasional cracks of Israeli ordnance hitting its targets — a maze of underground tunnels that served as smuggling routes for Hamas . To many people in this bustling town on the Egyptian border, this short war has been the worst in living memory, one that they say is likely to further deepen age-old resentments. As their walls shook and windows rattled, they said it seemed that Israel was seizing the opportunity to destroy as much as possible before a unilateral cease-fire was to take effect early Sunday. In past conflicts, the attacks came in spurts, people here said, with missiles shot from helicopters that could take out a living room, but not an entire building. Now, said Muhammad Hamed, 24, things feel different. He lost some of his hearing for a short while, after a house on his street was destroyed. “You see a plane, but you don’t know where it will hit,” he said, standing near an empty playground where several houses, and the tunnels that probably lay underneath them, had been crushed. The weapons, he said, were so big that people just disappeared. “Even if you are a giant, all that could remain is your finger.” It left a feeling, he said, of weakness and insignificance. Of being outside his body as if he were watching events from somewhere else. It also presented more tangible obstacles: engaged to be married, he now has to wait until after the war to tie the knot. “There are far too many martyrs right now to get married,” he said, in a black T-shirt with the number 78 on the front. A number of government institutions were hit, including the police and fire station. Israel argues that Hamas is a terrorist organization and therefore many of its agencies are legitimate targets. To be sure, some members of the police department are part of the group’s security apparatus, but many officers, whose duties include writing traffic tickets or registering cars, have no ideological loyalty to Hamas. So when the main police station was hit, Jabbar Shalah, 40, thought it was all-out war. He had been sunning himself outside his house in a plastic chair and felt an explosion thump in his chest. “I thought — it’s over,” he said, sitting on a mat at home with his family around a hot plate that has served as the only cooking device since their gas supply was cut off. “They’re going after all of us.” The building was demolished, and the police chief, Tawfiq Jabbar, had been obliterated, he said. Chief Jabbar’s family buried only his legs. Samira Shalah, who was making coffee on the hot plate, chimed in: “They say it’s Hamas’s fault. They don’t want to take responsibility for anyone else they kill.” Muhammad Muhaisin, 35, a member of the rival Fatah party who was not particularly enthusiastic about Hamas, said people were getting the sense that the real target was Palestinian civil society itself. “We see this war as a war on the Palestinian state, not against a party,” he said. “They are targeting the institutions of the Palestinian state.” The municipal building and another public building that handled marriages and electricity payments were also hit. Those buildings, he said, were built by Fatah. “They say they want to replace Hamas with Fatah, but really they just don’t want anybody in charge,” he said in his living room, where the windows had no glass and a clock hung sideways, stopped at 12:27, the time a bomb hit the mosque across the street. The war, he said, will not diminish Palestinians’ national aspirations. “The idea of Palestine is in people’s minds, not in buildings,” he said. “Every time they press us it gets stronger.” Rafah, in many ways, has been spared. Tanks do not roll in its streets, and because its power comes from Egypt, it has had electricity for most of the war. In all, according to Muhammad al-Hams, director of the main hospital, Al Najar, 46 people have been killed in the fighting here, a fraction of the toll in Gaza City. And though the war has caused serious destruction, leveling buildings and certain neighborhoods along the border, there are surprising pockets of normality. In the center of town, donkey carts were stuck in a traffic jam. On the outskirts, a field of cultivated flowers was untouched. People had even grown accustomed to the sounds of the planes and bombs, and went about their lives resigned to it. Abdullah Shamali, a 60-year-old in a sheik’s headdress and suit coat, did not look up from his hummus, when a crack sounded at lunchtime. “We’re used to it,” he said, shrugging. War has been here for what seems like forever. Mr. Hamed, the groom-to-be, lives in a house pockmarked by shrapnel from a previous war. He was standing outside with a group of friends, watching planes shoot flares into the blue sky, and thinking about his wedding. His fiancée’s name is Palestine.

Hamas
Israel
Palestinians
Gaza Strip
Civilian Casualties
Armament Defense and Military Forces


Spencer Stone, Airman Who Halted Attack on Train, Will Attend State of the Union

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone of the Air Force was driving to work on a stormy morning a few days ago when a White House aide phoned with an invitation to join the first lady on Tuesday for President Obama ’s last State of the Union address to Congress. He told the aide to call back later: “I didn’t want to crash and die in the bad weather.” Sergeant Stone, 23, was understandably cautious, having come close to death twice in recent months. His first brush with mortality — as one of those who subdued a gunman in August on a Paris-bound train in France — earned him an invitation to sit in the House gallery for Mr. Obama’s nationally televised speech. The second near-death experience was in October, when he was stabbed repeatedly outside a Sacramento bar after intervening in a dispute between a man and a woman. Still nursing wounds from both episodes, but back to work at Travis Air Force Base in California, Sergeant Stone will fly to Washington as one of about two dozen people chosen to be Michelle Obama’s guests because they personify — as the White House put it — “who we are as Americans: inclusive and compassionate, innovative and courageous.” This will be Sergeant Stone’s third trip to Washington since the train attack. In September, he was honored at the White House and the Pentagon along with two friends — Alek Skarlatos, a specialist in the Oregon National Guard, and Anthony Sadler, a senior at California State University, Sacramento — who followed him down the train’s aisle to tackle and disarm the attacker. On a second trip, Sergeant Stone participated in events at the Pentagon and the French Embassy, including a round-table discussion on the topic of homeland security. “I should be dead twice now, so I just feel super relaxed,” Sergeant Stone said in an interview. “I have so many new friendships all over the country and all over the world.” Among the new friends is the French-American professor whose life Sergeant Stone was credited with saving on the train, by using his skills as a medic to stop the bleeding from a gunshot wound to one of the man’s arteries. Sergeant Stone did express one worry: that after two violent encounters in short order, he might be seen as a “brawler.” He said he could not discuss the Sacramento episode, in which a suspect has been arrested. “I’m a nice guy,” the sergeant said. “I don’t like to fight people.” After four years in the Air Force, Sergeant Stone said, he plans to go to college, major in international relations and perhaps go into law enforcement, “maybe even politics down the line.”

State of the Union,SOTU,State of the Union 2015


Cruise Line’s Woes Are Far From Over as Ship Makes Port

Abstract: MOBILE, Ala. — Thousands of hungry and unwashed passengers gathered on the decks of the lifeless Triumph cruise ship, singing “Sweet Home Alabama,” waving towels and cheering as the vessel was pulled into dock here late on Thursday. For 4,200 passengers and crew, the fetid ordeal of five days adrift in the Gulf of Mexico was over. But for the ship’s owner, Carnival Cruise Lines, with headquarters in both Florida and England, the real work was just beginning. There were the immediate concerns, among them how to get the passengers home once they got off the ship, a process that was set to begin shortly after the ship docked Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Central time. Also at issue was how and why a fire came to knock out the propulsion system, the power, and the sewage, heating and air-conditioning systems on the 14-year-old ship, which had mechanical troubles last month that delayed a similar cruise to Mexico. Company officials said the two episodes were not related, but their proximity may help inspire a wall of legal actions from passengers, experts said. And the problems of the Triumph fit into a larger picture, too, one painted by a booming cruise industry that increasingly is priced for the middle class but that critics say has become too large too fast and needs stronger, more consistent oversight. With the industry’s popularity has come concerns over safety, pollution and the impact of thousands of tourists. Communities including Key West, Fla.; Sitka, Alaska; and Charleston, S.C., are weighing the economic gains against the cultural and environmental impact of an industry with ships that can accommodate more than 6,000 people. Image After five days adrift, passengers tried to spell out the word “help” Thursday aboard the Triumph as the disabled ship was towed to harbor off Mobile Bay, Ala. Credit Gerald Herbert/Associated Press “There are more ships out there, so we are seeing a higher number of incidents like this, and that is not good for the cruise industry,” said Ross Klein, a faculty member at Memorial University in Newfoundland who has testified before Congress on the safety and environmental impact of cruise ships. Some of the Triumph’s passengers kissed the dry ground as they exited the long ramp from the boat. Others ran to hug relatives. By 10:30 p.m., buses headed to New Orleans were leaving from the dock. “I’m just so blessed to be home,” said Kendall Jenkins, 24, crying and wearing a bathrobe to keep warm. “I don’t want to hear the word ‘cruise’ ever again.” The passengers had left the Port of Galveston in Texas on Thursday for what was to be a four-day cruise to Cozumel, Mexico. They ended up sleeping for five days on sewage-soaked carpets and open decks, with food so limited that they were reduced to eating candy and ketchup on buns. “It’s like being locked in a Porta Potty for days,” said Peter Cass, a physician from Beaumont, Tex., as the ship crept closer to Mobile on Thursday. “We’ve lived through two hurricanes, and this is worse.” The cruise industry, which has been growing at a rate of nearly 8 percent a year since 1980, hit critical mass in the United States last year when more than 14 million people stepped onto ships looking for a convenient vacation offering the excitement of the open seas and exotic ports, along with casinos, unlimited buffets and umbrella drinks. Image The Coast Guard delivered approximately 3,000 pounds of equipment, including a generator and electrical cables, to the Carnival Triumph cruise ship. Credit Paul Mcconnell/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “We pride ourselves on providing our guests a great vacation experience,” said Gerald R. Cahill, the chief executive of Carnival, before boarding the ship on Thursday to apologize to passengers. “Clearly, we failed in this particular case.” In 2011, about 3 percent of Americans took a cruise, according to the Cruise Lines International Association. That is fewer than half the number of people who ski, but cruising is growing faster. And even the specter of passengers being trapped on the Triumph for five days will not necessarily slow the popularity of cruises, said Matthew Jacob, an analyst with ITG Investment Research. While there may be some fallout, he said, most travelers have gotten used to seeing television reports about cruises that were aborted because of mechanical problems and hearing about viruses that ran rampant among passengers and crew members. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 16 outbreaks of the norovirus on cruise ships in 2012. “We don’t see any spikes downward,” Mr. Jacob said. There were last year, however, after the grounding of the Costa Concordia, a ship operated by a subsidiary of Carnival. Thirty-two people died in the episode off the coast of Italy, and Carnival, the world’s leading operator of cruises, halted advertising for a time. Bookings dropped, and Carnival and other operators had to cut their rates and offer promotions for cruises last summer. Other cruise industry watchdogs say the cruise line will try to minimize bad publicity by playing down conditions on board and minimizing safety risks to travelers. Image Passengers with makeshift tents on the deck of the Carnival cruise ship Triumph in the Gulf on Mexico on Sunday, a vacation nightmare at sea. Credit Kalin Hill/Kalin Hill, via Associated Press “They’re going to go out of their way to be sure people are given what they perceive is a fair deal,” said Mr. Klein, who recently spoke at a conference in Charleston, where preservationists are trying to stop construction of a new cruise ship terminal near the heart of the 300-year-old city. However the plight of the Triumph plays out in public opinion, the damage to the bottom line is already substantial: on Wednesday, Carnival estimated that costs including the ship’s repair and the cancellation of 14 cruises on it over the next three months would reduce the company’s earnings during the first half of 2013 by 8 to 10 cents a share. And then there is the matter of potential litigation by passengers, although the ability of passengers to sue cruise ship operators is sharply limited, lawyers said. Tickets issued by Carnival and other companies contain language limiting how much a passenger can recover and also set the location of the court where any lawsuit filed can be filed. The location typically suits the company involved, said Vincent J. Foley, a lawyer in New York who specializes in maritime cases. In Carnival’s case, it is Miami, where the company has its headquarters. “They select a favorable forum for the cruise line,” Mr. Foley said. Maritime law also bars passengers from recovering damages for emotional distress, unless they can show it was caused by a cruise operator’s negligence. Image Rachel Alderete, 54, of Austin, on the Carnival Triumph before it was stranded. Credit Courtesy of Rachel Alderete Gerald McGill, a plaintiff’s lawyer in Pensacola, Fla., who specializes in maritime cases, said it seemed unlikely that passengers on the Triumph would be able to recover damages for distress because they would also have to show physical injury. “From what I have been seeing, people are not reporting injuries,” he said. Undoubtedly, some litigation will rest on the outcome of an investigation into the fire, which started in the engine room last Sunday. The Maritime Authority of the Bahamas will lead the investigation because the ship bears that country’s flag. The National Transportation Safety Board, along with the Coast Guard, will also inspect the ship, though a full report may not be issued for months. Even when it is, it will probably come as little comfort to people like Cindel Peña, 28, who ended up sleeping on the deck except on Wednesday, when it rained and she curled up on the casino floor. Since Monday, there had been no gambling or drinking, and there also had been no showers. “We are all just beyond disgusting,” she said by cellphone, planning her flight back to California. To appease passengers on the Triumph, Carnival initially announced refunds for the trip’s cost, traveling expenses and the money spent on board, with exceptions like gift shop purchase and casino charges. The company also offered passengers credit equal to their ticket price that could be used on future cruises — a deal some people scoffed at. “Who is going to want to get back on a cruise?” said Travis Jackson, who drove from Paris, Tex., on Thursday to pick up his daughter, Karley. She and a group of her colleagues at a Jazzercise studio were on the cruise ship. Late Thursday night, still awaiting her arrival, Mr. Jackson said he planned to tell her not to take any reimbursement even though a spokesman for Carnival said there would be no waivers or strings attached to the money. Mr. Jackson and several passengers were not so sure. “We think it’s hush money,” he said.

Cruises
Carnival Cruise Lines
Boat Accidents


House Approves Federal Aid for Churches Damaged by Hurricane Sandy

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved legislation that would allow the use of federal money to rebuild churches and synagogues damaged by Hurricane Sandy, despite concern that such aid could violate the doctrine of separation of church and state. The bill , approved last week by a vote of 354 to 72, had support from Roman Catholic and Jewish organizations. It was opposed by 66 Democrats and 6 Republicans. The prospects for the bill in the Senate are uncertain. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said Monday that she supported the measure and was working to secure its passage in the Senate. She noted that religious institutions like St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Belle Harbor, Queens, had provided aid to many storm victims. Scores of churches, synagogues and other houses of worship were damaged — along with homes, schools, stores and roads — when the hurricane battered the Northeast in late October. Congress has provided $60 billion to finance recovery efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has generally refused to provide grants to rebuild houses of worship. In some cases, federal aid can be used to reimburse houses of worship for social services they provide, and houses of worship can sometimes qualify for low-interest loans from the Small Business Administration. The House bill adds houses of worship to the list of private nonprofit organizations eligible for disaster relief. Federal law already allows such aid to museums, zoos, performing-arts centers, libraries, homeless shelters and other private nonprofit entities that provide “essential services of a governmental nature to the general public.” The House bill would apply to property damaged by the storm and damage from future disasters. Under the bill, “a church, synagogue, mosque, temple or other house of worship, and a private nonprofit facility operated by a religious organization,” would be eligible for federal disaster assistance “without regard to the religious character of the facility or the primary religious use of the facility.” Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, the bill’s chief sponsor, said, “It’s unconscionable that pillars of our communities damaged by Sandy — synagogues, churches, mosques, temples and other houses of worship — have been categorically denied access to otherwise generally available relief funds.” The speaker of the New York City Council, Christine C. Quinn, had unsuccessfully urged FEMA to change its regulations without legislation, writing in a letter to the agency : “Recovery from a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy isn’t a matter of state sponsoring religion. It’s a matter of helping those in need after one of the worst natural disasters our country has ever seen.” Among those who pushed for the bill was Representative Grace Meng, a freshman Democrat from Queens. To deny disaster relief to houses of worship devastated by the storm “would be to discriminate against them because they are religious institutions,” Ms. Meng said. FEMA lawyers raised numerous objections to the bill, saying in a memorandum that it represents “an enormous departure” from current law. That law, they said, requires the agency to distinguish between “worship space,” for which no federal funds are provided, and other space owned and used by religious entities for secular purposes, like a school or a community center, for which federal funds may be provided. FEMA lawyers said the agency’s rules and policies allowed the use of federal money to repair and replace “furnishings and equipment” of eligible nonprofit institutions. The bill, they said, “would thus compel FEMA to make decisions about what contents within houses of worship are eligible — including items like stained-glass windows with religious art, arks of the covenant, prayer books and decorative religious icons.” The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an advocacy group, said the bill was constitutional under Supreme Court precedents that allow houses of worship to receive “generally available benefits” like police and fire protection and sewer connections. But Representative Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, said : “This bill would direct federal taxpayer dollars to the reconstruction of houses of worship. The idea that taxpayer money can be used to build a religious sanctuary or an altar has consistently been held unconstitutional.” The American Civil Liberties Union agreed, saying it was a bedrock principle of constitutional law that “taxpayer funds cannot go to construct, rebuild or repair buildings used for religious activities.” Lawyers at the emergency management agency expressed concern about possible lawsuits by the civil liberties union and others. “FEMA expects that well-financed and aggressive litigation and injunctions would quickly follow enactment of this bill,” agency lawyers said in their memorandum.

Federal Aid
Hurricane Sandy
House of Representatives
Synagogue
Separation of church and state
Congress
FEMA
Northeastern States
church,churches
Restoration and Renovation


H. P. Investigators Sought Meeting With Top Leaders

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 20 — Investigators at Hewlett-Packard sought a meeting last January with the chief executive and the chairwoman to describe internal efforts to trace news leaks and get their leaders’ advice, according to e-mail exchanges between the investigators and a senior company lawyer. The e-mail exchanges, provided to The New York Times by someone with access to the company’s investigative material, took place at a moment of intense activity in the effort to determine the source of a news article that included accounts of a senior management meeting. One e-mail exchange, from the company’s chief ethics officer to a lead investigator, also underscored that those overseeing the operation were worried that their efforts could invite legal scrutiny. In that exchange, Kevin T. Hunsaker, a lawyer serving as chief ethics officer, wrote to Jim Fairbaugh, the chief of global security, that for the sake of confidentiality, he had been asked to take over the investigation by Hewlett-Packard’s general counsel, Ann O. Baskins. “Ann Baskins has asked me to oversee the investigation into this in order to protect the attorney-client privilege in the event there is litigation or a government inquiry of some sort,” Mr. Hunsaker wrote in a Jan. 23 e-mail message titled “Potential Information Leak — Privileged Communication.” Attorney-client privilege is meant to encourage the frank exchange of confidential information in seeking or providing legal advice or in a lawyer’s fact-finding toward that end. It is not a blanket privilege, but can shield some communications in legal proceedings. California state and federal prosecutors are looking into the Hewlett-Packard operation to determine whether any laws were broken in the use of subterfuge to gain private phone records of company directors, employees, journalists and others. In particular, they are trying to determine who at the company authorized or was aware of the questionable and possibly illegal techniques. It is not clear from the e-mail messages whether the company’s chief executive, Mark V. Hurd, or its chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, actually met with the internal investigators to discuss the inquiry. Mr. Hurd scheduled a news conference for Friday afternoon, after the close of the financial markets for the week and after a regularly scheduled Hewlett board meeting on Thursday. A message on Jan. 26 to Mr. Hunsaker from Anthony Gentilucci, the Boston-based head of global investigations, proposed a meeting with Mr. Hurd “if for nothing else to let him know we have a full-court press on this, advise him on what we are doing, introduce the new faces for a future brief, and maybe get a dump from him if he feel like sharing his thoughts.” The same message referred to setting up a meeting with Ms. Dunn as “the priority.” Other exchanges confirm the level of concern over the leaks, and indicate that Mr. Hurd was pointing to possible leakers. In a Jan. 20 e-mail message, the company’s head of communications, Robert Sherbin, wrote to Ms. Dunn that “I’m afraid it’s my duty to tell you that there’s been another leak around the board.” The exchange goes on to say that Mr. Sherbin believed that a reporter from CNET, an online technology news service, had been given information about four issues, including possible software acquisitions and revamping of the sales operation. The timing of that exchange is significant because it preceded the publication of the CNET article by three days, indicating that even its preparation had caused alarm. CNET reported Tuesday evening that it had received information from government investigators that the scrutiny of one reporter, Dawn Kawamoto, had begun as early as Jan. 17 with the tracking of her private phone records by Hewlett-Packard investigators. The dates and times may become critical to prosecutors and Congressional investigators as they try to determine the length and extent of the Hewlett-Packard operation. In a Jan. 20 message to Mr. Fairbaugh, Mr. Sherbin wrote that suspicion about the leaks was centering on five board members: George A. Keyworth II, Thomas J. Perkins, Lawrence T. Babbio Jr., Richard A. Hackborn and Lucille S. Salhany. Mr. Sherbin wrote, apparently in reference to Mr. Hurd: “Mark believes the names worth looking at are Hackborn, Babbio, Salhany, Keyworth and Perkins.”

Ethics
Hewlett-Packard Co
Detectives (Private)
News and News Media
Espionage
Computers and the Internet


Candidate’s Pleased to Remember This Fifth of November

Abstract: Historians and British schoolchildren remember Guy Fawkes as the Roman Catholic, anti-Protestant rebel who on Nov. 5, 1605, tried to assassinate King James I by blowing up the Parliament. Supporters of the Republican primary campaign of the libertarian Representative Ron Paul may remember Fawkes as a wildly successful fund-raising gimmick. On Monday, a group of Paul supporters helped raised more than $4.07 million in one day — approaching what the campaign raised in the entire last quarter — through a Web site called ThisNovember5th.com , a reference to the day the British commemorate the thwarted bombing. Many fans of Mr. Paul know of the day primarily through a movie based on the futuristic graphic novel “V for Vendetta,” by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, in which a terrorist modeled after Fawkes battles a fascist government that has taken over Britain. The Paul campaign has raised more than $6.84 million in the first five weeks of this quarter, more than the $5 million it raised from July 1 to Oct. 1. Many of the contributions appeared to come through the independent Fawkes effort, but how much was unclear. On Monday alone, the campaign signed up more than 21,000 new donors, said Jesse Benton, a campaign spokesman. Among 2008 presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York holds the record for raising the most in a single day: $6.2 million on June 30. But Mr. Paul has surpassed the best day of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who raised $3.14 million on Jan. 8. ThisNovember5th.com includes video clips and the text of a speech by Mr. Paul, a 10-term Texas congressman. In it, Mr. Paul declares, “The true patriot challenges the state when the state embarks on enhancing its power at the expense of the individual.” Mr. Paul has stood out from the Republican field for his opposition to the war in Iraq. In the speech he argues that the fight against terrorism is threatening American democracy. “The American Republic is in remnant status,” he says. “The stage is set for our country eventually devolving into military dictatorship, and few seem to care.” Mr. Benton clarified that Mr. Paul did not support blowing up government buildings. “He wants to demolish things like the Department of Education,” Mr. Benton said, “but we can do that very peacefully, in a constructive manner.”

Presidential Election of 2008
Paul Ron
Finances
Fawkes Guy


Menendez Seeks to Move Corruption Case Out of New Jersey

Abstract: NEWARK — Senator Robert Menendez asked Monday to have his federal corruption case moved to Washington from New Jersey, arguing that virtually none of the 22 counts listed in his indictment occurred in his home state. Lawyers for Mr. Menendez and his co-defendant, Dr. Salomon E. Melgen , filed the request in Newark. Abbe Lowell, Mr. Menendez’s lawyer, said during a court proceeding last month that he would probably file for a venue change. The government will have a chance to respond to the motion. Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, is charged with accepting gifts and donations totaling about $1 million from Dr. Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist, in exchange for political favors. The gifts included flights aboard a luxury jet and a Paris vacation. In exchange, Mr. Menendez is accused of trying to advance Dr. Melgen’s business interests, including intervening in a Medicare billing dispute worth millions of dollars. Mr. Menendez has said he accepted gifts from Dr. Melgen because the two have been close friends for years. Monday’s motion argues that Mr. Menendez is not charged with any acts that took place in New Jersey. The government began the investigation and grand jury presentation in Florida before moving the case to New Jersey, the brief says. The basis for trying the case in New Jersey “appears to be radio communications from the pilot of a plane in New Jersey airspace on which Senator Menendez was a passenger,” the brief states. “Needless to say, the pilot’s cabin and the airport control tower were not the ‘nerve center’ of the conspiracy alleged in the indictment.” The brief argues that the location of the defendants and possible witnesses, the expense to the parties and the location of lawyers and the fact that events at issue took place in Washington are compelling reasons to move the case. In Florida, Dr. Melgen was named in a separate 76-count indictment that accuses him of making false diagnoses and performing unnecessary surgeries that he then billed to Medicare.

Corruption
New Jersey
Robert Menendez
Florida
Salomon E Melgen


Kjetil Jansrud Wraps Up Title

Abstract: Kjetil Jansrud claimed the World Cup super-G title — his first — by winning a race in Kvitfjell, Norway, in difficult conditions. With one super-G race left this season, Jansrud, a Norwegian, has an unassailable 123-point lead over Dominik Paris of Italy, who finished in fourth on Sunday. ■ Lindsey Vonn won a World Cup super-G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to regain the lead in the discipline.

Kjetil Jansrud
Dominik Paris
Lindsey Vonn
Skiing
World Cup Skiing


Prince Harry Says He Regrets Not Discussing His Mother’s Death

Abstract: LONDON — Prince Harry , who was 12 when his mother, Princess Diana , was killed in a car crash, has expressed regret that he did not talk openly about her death for many years. In comments that were broadcast on Monday by the BBC, Harry, 31, said that he had not discussed his mother’s death until three years ago, and regretted it. He made the comments last Thursday while hosting a barbecue for a mental health charity. The event was attended by star athletes, including the Olympic runner Kelly Holmes and the soccer player Rio Ferdinand. “I really regret not ever talking about it,” he said , referring to his mother’s death in Paris in August 1997. “For the first 28 years of my life, I never talked about it.” He added: “It is O.K. to suffer, but as long as you talk about it. It is not a weakness. Weakness is having a problem, and not recognizing it, and not solving that problem.” The prince went on to say that mental illness could affect anyone. “I think the key message here is that everyone can suffer from mental health issues, whether you’re a member of the royal family, whether you’re a soldier, whether you’re a sports star,” he said. Britons mourned Diana’s death in a paroxysm of grief that deeply touched the nation and elicited a rare, and some say belated, display of public emotion by Queen Elizabeth II. At the time, people across the world were struck by the image of the two young and stoic princes, forced to endure the loss of their mother under the frenzied glare of the global media spotlight. Prince Harry, who is fifth in line to the throne, served on active duty in the British armed forces for 10 years, including two tours in Afghanistan, where he was a co-pilot of an Apache attack helicopter and a weapons officer. In recent years, he has worked to shed his image as something of a mischief-maker and playboy. He apologized in 2005 for wearing a swastika armband to a friend’s costume party , and in 2013 he said he had “let my family down,” after tabloids published images of the naked prince partying in Las Vegas. Harry’s decision to talk openly about his mother’s death comes as a younger generation of royals has been seeking — as Diana did — to exhibit a more modern image of a monarchy that is still broadly respected, but is sometimes seen as distant and anachronistic. Harry is a patron of charities that work with AIDS orphans , disabled veterans and victims of natural disasters . This month, Harry took an HIV test that was broadcast live on the royal family’s Facebook page , to promote the importance of — and reduce the stigma around — testing for the virus. Also this month, his brother, Prince William, appeared on the cover of Attitude , a magazine geared to gay people, to draw attention to the problem of bullying.

Prince Harry
Mental Health
Duke of Sussex
Princess of Wales Diana
Great Britain


At Opel, G.M. Executives Try to Mend Fences

Abstract: A week after angering German politicians and labor leaders by calling off plans to sell Opel to a group backed by Berlin, senior General Motors executives promised more independence for the European unit. “We’re committed to making the business work,” G.M.’s chief executive, Fritz Henderson , said after two days of meetings at Opel headquarters in Rüsselsheim, Germany. “The business will have both the authority and the independence to be successful.” “For sure they’re going to have more independence, but that doesn’t mean they’re not part of G.M.,” he added. More autonomy for Opel will probably assuage German officials still smarting from G.M.’s decision to call off a sale of a controlling interest in Opel to Magna, a Canadian auto parts maker. Mr. Henderson acknowledged Tuesday that G.M. had plenty of fence-mending to do in Germany. “We’ve begun the process,” he said. “We understand there’s still anger in a lot of quarters. At the same time, we have to move quickly to make the business work.” Klaus Franz, the top labor leader at Opel, reacted cautiously after meeting with Mr. Henderson, but has long supported more independence for Opel. “We know what the crucial parameters for a successful future of Opel are about,” Mr. Franz said in a statement. “We will check General Motors’ plan taking these parameters into consideration and then make a decision if we continue talks.” On Tuesday, the automaker announced that Nick Reilly, a long-time G.M. executive, would run Opel on a temporary basis, after the resignation of Carl-Peter Forster, who had backed the deal with Magna. “With his deep experience with the Opel and Vauxhall brands, Nick is well suited to lead this transition and to work toward the earliest possible normalization of the business,” Mr. Henderson said. Last spring, as General Motors prepared to file for bankruptcy reorganization in the United States, Berlin brokered a deal with Magna and Sberbank of Russia to take over G.M.’s European operations, which include Opel as well as Vauxhall in Britain. With nearly half of Opel’s 50,000 work force in Germany, Berlin’s efforts were an effort to protect jobs while safeguarding a company whose roots in Germany go back more than a century. However, critics of the deal in Britain, Spain and other countries with Opel plants argued that Berlin’s financing of Magna would leave workers outside Germany more vulnerable when Opel’s new owners reduced overcapacity and cut jobs. Meanwhile, in Detroit, G.M.’s board worried that an alliance between a car parts maker, a Russian bank, German unions and the German government was too unwieldy and could ultimately fail. While the decision to call off the sale stunned German politicians, it was a sign of G.M.’s new assertiveness. And with bankruptcy behind them, and market conditions improving in both the United States and Europe, executives are signaling a fresh approach. “We do need to change how we operate in Europe, just as in the U.S.,” Mr. Henderson said. “We weren’t successful in the U.S.” G.M. executives emphasized that while the European operations will require a 3 billion euro ($4.5 billion) restructuring effort, the division was important for G.M.’s global prospects, especially because of its success with smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. The company hopes to win help from European governments to cover the cost of the restructuring, and more independence for Opel will probably help as the Detroit automaker starts negotiations for assistance with Berlin and other governments. Mr. Henderson said Tuesday that G.M. was on track to repay a 1.5 billion euro bridge loan the German government provided last spring, in part using money from the United States to repay the debt by the end of November. “Had they not provided the financing in May, Opel wouldn’t be here today,” Mr. Henderson said. For all the company’s determination to hold on to Opel, Mr. Henderson acknowledged industry conditions were still difficult, especially after the end of the cash-for-clunkers auto rebate program in many countries.

General Motors
Henderson Frederick A
Opel Adam AG
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures


Groups Accuse Apple Supplier in China of Labor Violations

Abstract: HONG KONG — With its stock near a high and its latest iPhone expected to be introduced on Tuesday, Apple is facing new accusations of violations of labor rights and workplace safety at a supplier in China. The allegations involve employees at a factory in the eastern China city of Suqian that is owned by Catcher Technology , a Taiwan company, and that makes metal casings for Apple iPads and for other consumer electronics companies. The employees are made to work excessive overtime and handle toxic chemicals without proper protective clothing, according to a report released Thursday by Green America, an environmental nonprofit group, and China Labor Watch, a workers’ rights group based in New York. Apple, like Samsung and several other multinational companies, has previously faced scrutiny over the working conditions at the factories in China where its products are made. But the allegations in the latest report suggest that the company might need to increase its vigilance further over the 200 major global suppliers that account for 97 percent of Apple’s component costs. In a statement on Thursday, Apple said its most recent annual audit of the Suqian plant, in May, had “found some concrete areas for improvement in Catcher’s operations, and we worked with Catcher to develop a corrective action plan.” Apple had scheduled a follow-up visit to the plant for next month but dispatched a team immediately to investigate the allegations in the new report, Chris Gaither, an Apple spokesman, said in a statement on Thursday. An undercover investigation by China Labor Watch at the Suqian plant last month found that fire exits were locked and that flammable aluminum-magnesium alloy dust and shavings filled the air and littered the floors of some workshops. Investigators also found that employees were forced to work as many as 100 hours of overtime a month and failed to receive the social insurance payments required under Chinese law, according to the report. It said the plant made aluminum covers for a coming iPad and parts for the iPhone 5. Workers at the plant, about 300 miles northwest of Shanghai, in Jiangsu Province, were also required by Catcher to sign forms saying they had completed safety training, even though they had received none, according to the report. China Labor Watch privately raised concerns about conditions at the Suqian plant with Apple in April 2013, after an earlier undercover investigation. According to the group, Apple responded at the time by conducting its own inspection, after which it said that Catcher would make changes, especially those related to occupational safety. “The health and safety violations found in this factory two years in a row are startling,” said Elizabeth O’Connell, campaigns director at Green America. Apple’s audits showed that the plant’s aluminum-polishing systems exceeded international safety standards, Mr. Gaither of Apple wrote, while a fire safety inspection last week corrected some of the problems identified in the report, like unblocking corridors and fire exits. He said that the plant made cases for the iPad and MacBook but did not mention iPhone parts. Regarding the allegation of excessive overtime, Mr. Gaither said Catcher had averaged 95 percent compliance, as of the end of August, with the maximum 60-hour workweek that Apple enforces. “We are deeply concerned about the claims made by China Labor Watch, and we take the report very seriously,” Catcher Technology, based in Tainan, Taiwan, said in a statement on Thursday. “We are committed to following Apple’s supplier code of conduct and will investigate thoroughly.” In response to previous allegations of poor working conditions at suppliers’ factories, Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., has placed a greater focus in recent years on auditing its sprawling global network of suppliers. The company said that last year it conducted 451 audits of suppliers, up from 298 in 2012, and that 173 of those had been first-time audits. Apple said that last month it took steps to ban the use of the harmful chemicals benzene and n-hexane at its 22 final assembly factories. China remains Apple’s biggest single source of suppliers, and it is also where most of the company’s products are assembled. In a report on Monday, analysts at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit in Hong Kong estimated that the expected release next week of the iPhone 6 could add around 1 percent a month to China’s export growth rate for the rest of this year. The analysts arrived at that figure after deducting the $10 billion or so in new iPhones that they expect will be sold locally in China this year.

Apple
China
China Labor Watch
Manufacturing
Accidents and Safety
Jobs