Service Aids Fearful Drivers Across the Chesapeake

Abstract: STEVENSVILLE, Md. — On stormy days, it is difficult to see the shore from the halfway point. The bridge, arcing high into the air, has tall ships passing beneath. Its guardrails look like split-rail farm fences, revealing a dizzying drop to choppy waters. Driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge stirs fear in the hearts of no small number of Baltimore and Washington residents, an anxiety that resumed its seasonal peak over the Memorial Day weekend and the start of the annual pilgrimage to the beach towns and quaint sailing harbors of the Eastern Shore. “Everyone talks about the fear of crossing the bridge,” said Carolyn Casey, who lives in Washington with her family and has a second home near St. Michaels, Md., across the bridge. On Friday, she pulled her silver Lexus S.U.V. to the side of the road before the western end of the bridge, which stretches more than four miles. The passenger seat was piled with Whole Foods bags, and two Labrador retrievers were curled in the cargo area. As Ms. Casey climbed into the back seat with her 3-year-old daughter and a nanny, Alex Robinson got in behind the wheel. “When I told people I’d found someone to drive me over the bridge, they laughed,” said Ms. Casey, 41, a homemaker whose husband is a consultant. “But it all came out — everyone is afraid of the bridge.” Mr. Robinson, 27, runs Kent Island Express , which charges $25 each way to shuttle people in their own vehicles across a bridge that Travel & Leisure magazine ranks as one of the world’s scariest . As he drove to pick up one customer, he fielded the kind of telephone call he receives all day. “Do you have a lot of people you drive because they’re afraid?” a woman asked, with uneasiness in her voice. “About 5,800 people use our service,” Mr. Robinson told her. “Whoa,” the woman said. “That makes me feel better.” Mr. Robinson’s business, which he took over last year from his mother and stepfather after they had run it for five years, has made him an amateur psychologist. He hires only upbeat drivers so as not to further alarm clients. “Their stress and anxieties feed off of your mood,” he tells employees. He knows to talk about anything but the bridge during the 10 to 15 minutes it takes to cross: first, a disconcerting dogleg curve, then a precipitous climb over the initial suspension span; then downhill and over a second span, a cantilever whose boxy sides and roof feel like a suffocating tunnel. “Most people, when they’re nervous, they babble,” Mr. Robinson said. “They talk about their first boyfriend. Their kids. People will tell you about their entire life story.” But not everyone. Construction workers have been known to ride in the back seat of their pickup trucks, hats pulled over their eyes and their ears plugged. A woman once rode with a blanket over her head. A man asked to be put in his trunk, an offer that was refused. The fear of bridges has a name, gephyrophobia. Psychotherapists say it is common and often traces back to a panic attack during a particular crossing, even after years of driving over the same bridge without incident. Aiding the Fearful Across the Chesapeake 6 Photos View Slide Show › Image Matt Roth for The New York Times Kathleen Busch, who retired from the human resources department of a Baltimore company, said she could cross carefree “when I could wear a bikini.” Her fear began after she was stuck in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel for hours. (Experts say the fear of bridges and tunnels are sometimes linked.) Trying to drive through the tunnel later, “everything went white,” Ms. Busch recalled. “I had a full-blown panic attack,” with racing heart and shortness of breath. “I thought I was going to pass out.” In the two years since she and her husband bought a retirement home on the Eastern Shore, she has not tried to drive on the Bay Bridge for fear of causing an accident. The bridge, officially the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge, is not the only one with a service to help anxious drivers. The five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, one of the world’s longest suspension bridges, offers a free drivers’ assistance program. In the Florida Keys, enterprising college students have been known to wait at either end of the Seven Mile Bridge to drive tourists. But the Bay Bridge, because of its proximity to major cities — 366,000 were expected to cross from Friday to Monday — is apparently the only one busy enough to support commercial drive-over services. (Two other companies, besides Kent Island Express, ferry drivers across the bridge.) On Friday, with holiday traffic backed up more than an hour at the 11 toll lanes, Mr. Robinson made about 10 trips. One client was a heavy-equipment operator who has used Mr. Robinson to drive him twice a day over the bridge to and from work, for eight years. “I classify Alex as a friend. I see him more often than most other people,” said the equipment operator, Jay Gaskins, 37, who has tried doctors, hypnotists and anti-anxiety drugs to overcome his fear of the Bay Bridge. Dr. Una D. McCann, a psychiatrist who directs the anxiety disorders program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, said the fear of bridges could be a simple phobia, or it could be part of a more complex anxiety disorder like obsessive-compulsive disorder. “I suspect there is some sort of genetic link,” she said. “Fear is there for a reason. It’s harm avoidance. It’s not natural to be driving at great speeds high above water.” She said a treatment known as cognitive behavioral therapy is effective. It involves graduated exposure to the source of fear to tame it. Mr. Robinson’s service, Dr. McCann said, is a way of avoiding the problem. Mr. Robinson offers gephyrophobes his version of a graduated exposure treatment. It involves three steps, beginning with clients’ riding in the passenger seat and ending with their driving themselves across followed by a chase vehicle. He has had few takers. A woman made it as far as Step 2, driving while Mr. Robinson rode in the passenger seat. “She locked up on the climb,” he said. “She wouldn’t hit the brake. I had to physically push her leg to the brake pedal.” He had her stop while he got out and ran around the car to take the wheel. Fear of the bridge is not limited to men or women, the young or the old, the educated elite or the working class. A driver of a large van for an environmental services company paid Mr. Robinson to ferry him west after a day’s work on the Eastern Shore. “It’s the weirdest thing in the world,” said the man, who asked that his name not be used because he found his fear embarrassing. After years of crossing with no problem, he had an anxiety attack on the bridge three years ago. A doctor suggested it could be the stress of becoming a husband, a father and a homeowner. Earlier in the day, he had crossed a bridge over the nearby Severn River without a hitch. “I was telling my wife it just doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The Bay Bridge just freaks me out. I think it freaks everybody out.”

Kent Island Express
Phobia
Car Service
Bridges,Tunnels


Adam Scott Gets British Open Lift From Compatriot’s Blessing and Caddie’s Savvy

Abstract: ST. ANDREWS, Scotland On the eve of the 144th British Open, Peter Thomson picked his fellow Australian Adam Scott to win the tournament. Scott could not have received a more divine benediction if the dark clouds above the Old Course had parted like parlor curtains and Old Tom Morris had swooped down to bless Scott with his homemade club. Thomson, 85, won the tournament five times, including the 1955 edition at the Old Course, the home of golf in the hometown of Morris, a four-time Open champion. On Wednesday, Thomson participated in the four-hole Champion Golfers’ Challenge, featuring former winners, and Ernie Els said Thomson had told him he could feel he was “running out of time.” “That gives you chills, doesn’t it?” Els said. Thomson was the first Australian to win the British Open, in 1954. Scott became the first Australian to win the Masters in 2013, and Thomson had no doubts that Scott could join the list of British Open champions. “There is no obstacle for him — he can win, really,” Thomson said. If Scott is looking for any other sublime signs, there’s this: Another Australian winner of a major tournament, David Graham, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in a ceremony here this week. After two rounds, Scott, 35, has positioned himself for a run at the claret jug, which belonged to Thomson for much of the 1950s and again in 1965. Playing in the most challenging conditions the first two days, Scott cobbled together scores of 70 and 67 and is at seven-under-par 137, two strokes behind Danny Willett, the leader in the clubhouse. Forty-two players, including the first-round leader Dustin Johnson, did not finish their second rounds before darkness fell. Scott’s scorecard Friday was bogey-free. In his last three starts at the British Open, he has finished no worse than fifth. As if Scott needed reminding, a few reporters alluded on Friday to his 2012 finish , in which he bogeyed the last four holes and lost by a stroke to Els. This is Scott’s fourth tournament start at the Old Course, and he has shown steady improvement. After missing the cut in his British Open debut in 2000, Scott tied for 34th in 2005 and held a share of 27th in 2010. The man on his bag, Steve Williams, is working his seventh British Open at St. Andrews and caddied for Tiger Woods during his victories here in 2000 and 2005. Williams, who was working for Scott when he won the Masters, retired after last year’s Tour Championship , but Scott coaxed him out of a seven-month absence with the promise of magical weeks like this one. “I thought I’d take a shot and give him a call even though he was adamant he wasn’t coming out,” Scott said. “It was lucky that the Open was at St. Andrews. I then had to go practice really hard so I was going to play as good as he’d expect.” Had this year’s tournament been anywhere else, Williams acknowledged, “it would not have been as easy to persuade me, to be honest. But this course is a great place. It’s a great place to come and caddie for the week.” The Old Course was transformed into the Old River in the wee hours Friday, when sheets of rain and howling winds moved through the area. Williams said he had been walking the course to check the pin placements at 5:30 a.m., roughly an hour before the scheduled start of play, and had gotten soaked. “I stood on the second fairway and watched it flood in seven minutes,” Williams said. “That’s how hard it rained for a 30-minute period. So in my head I’m thinking there’s no way we can be playing or we can be starting today. You couldn’t walk into the wind, it was blowing that hard and raining that hard.” Two threesomes were sent off the first tee; play was then suspended for three hours so the course could be squeegeed and sandbagged. Once play resumed, the greens were more receptive, but only for those players with the mind-set necessary to battle the wind, the cold and the crosswinds. “I think I was a little bit lucky in the delay coming because it looked really awful when I woke up,” Scott said, adding, “I woke up not happy and then had three hours to really think I’ve gotten lucky here and try and take advantage of it.” Scott has rarely looked clearer of mind or crisper of form than on the par-4 17th — the Road Hole. He played the right-to-left wind perfectly with his drive, which traveled 287 yards, then eschewed a 6-iron, his normal club of choice from where he stood, to launch a low approach with his 4-iron. “That was a very pleasing shot,” said Scott, who ran the ball to within 10 feet of the pin. He hit a good putt that got caught up in the wind and stopped one roll short of the hole. “If it is windy, you’ve got to navigate the bunkers and play some good golf shots,” Williams said. “That’s what makes St. Andrews special.” What makes Williams special is that he challenges Scott to take those shots and imbues him with confidence that he can pull them off. Asked if he would be where he is, within striking distance of the lead with 36 holes left at the year’s third major, if Williams were not on his bag, Scott did not blink. “I’d like to think so for my own sake,” he said, “but it was the right call for me to make at this point in the year to get him back out and instill a bit of confidence in my game and get back in that flow.” Scott wouldn’t change a thing. “The last few years at the Open have been some of my favorite golf,” he said. “Getting into contention at this championship and having a chance to lift the claret jug is what it’s all about.”

Adam Scott
British Open
Peter Thomson
Golf
Steve Williams
Australia


20 Years After, Rwanda Pauses to Recall Carnage

Abstract: LONDON — Rwanda on Monday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the genocide there with a fusion of tears, recrimination and regret at the killing of more than 800,000 people in 100 days that shocked the world, redrew regional battle lines and continues to shape the debate over how nations should respond to mass atrocities. With sectarian bloodshed staining conflicts from Syria to the Central African Republic, the ceremonies offered a reminder of the volatile torrents that have coursed through modern times, propelled by differences of faith, clan or ethnicity, often leaving the outside world on the sidelines. “We must not be left to utter the words ‘never again,’ again and again,” the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, told a crowd packing a soccer stadium in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, acknowledging oft-voiced criticism of the world body for its delays and failings during the 1994 slaughter. “Many United Nations personnel and others showed remarkable bravery,” Mr. Ban said. “But we could have done much more. We should have done much more.” Image Performers at the packed Amahoro Stadium in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, re-enacted the events of the 1994 massacres. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press He added, “The world has yet to fully overcome its divisions, its indifference, its moral blind spots.” The genocide began after an airplane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana of the majority Hutus was shot down on April 6, 1994. Almost immediately, roadblocks sprang up. The killing of minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus by soldiers and Hutu extremists began. Churches were burned to the ground with congregants inside. Homes were attacked. The slaughter with guns, grenades and machetes offered mercy to no generation, from infants to grandparents. Since the bloodletting, President Paul Kagame, the onetime leader of rebel Tutsis who marched in to quell the killing, has sought to project his land as a haven of stability and a magnet for investment in a turbulent region. He has taken credit for creating a functioning health care system, raising living standards and improving women’s rights. “Today we have a reason to celebrate the normal moments of life, that are easy for others to take for granted,” Mr. Kagame was quoted in news reports as saying. “If the genocide reveals humanity’s shocking capacity for human cruelty, Rwanda’s choices show its capacity for renewal.” As some in the crowd recalled the days of horror, many wailed and screamed, witnesses said. But the grief of the survivors was soured by diplomatic tensions between France and Mr. Kagame. Image Many in the crowd, consumed by grief, wailed and screamed. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press Before the commemorations, Mr. Kagame rekindled an old dispute with France — an influential player in francophone Africa, though Rwanda had once been a Belgian colony — accusing France of helping the killers escape and of playing a “direct role.” He seemed to allude to those allegations, frequently denied by France, as he spoke to the gathering on Monday. “Behind the words ‘never again’ there is a story whose truth must be told in full,” he said. “No country is powerful enough, even when they think they are, to change the facts,” Mr. Kagame said in a seeming reference to France, Reuters reported. “Facts are stubborn.” In response, France, which aided the Hutu-dominated military under President Habyarimana, canceled plans for its justice minister, Christiane Taubira, to attend Monday’s ceremony. Overnight, the French ambassador in Kigali, Michel Flesch, said he was told by an official that he was no longer accredited to attend the memorial, news reports said. The theme of Rwanda’s renewal was echoed by other leaders. “Twenty years ago today our country fell into deep ditches of darkness,” said Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, according to The Associated Press. “Twenty years later, today, we are a country united and a nation elevated.” Critics have accused Mr. Kagame of running a regime that tolerates no dissent , and of sponsoring rebels in the chaos of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda’s neighbor — allegations that he has strenuously rejected. At the ceremony, attended by several African leaders and senior officials from Europe and the United States, Mr. Kagame and Mr. Ban lit a flame that is set to burn for 100 days — the same length of time it took for the slaughter to unfold.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


Condoleezza Rice to Write Book for Henry Holt

Abstract: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is writing a book that will examine the creation of democracy at home and abroad, drawing upon stories from her career and personal life, the publisher Henry Holt & Company said Tuesday. The book will be published in 2015. In a news release, Holt said Secretary Rice would focus on “essential questions of contemporary democracy, including the centrality of education, immigration, free enterprise and civic responsibility. She will also address American’s destiny as a beacon for global freedom.” Ms. Rice, who is currently on the faculty at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, was the first female African-American to be secretary of state, from 2005-2009, and President George W. Bush’s national security adviser from 2001-2004. As national security adviser she championed the war in Iraq, arguing that the United States knew there were weapons of mass destruction, which were never found. She also played a role in the Bush administration’s policy on torture. At the State Department she backed a policy known as transformative democracy, arguing that the cause of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was rooted in oppressive governments.

Condoleezza Rice
Publishing
US Politics
George W Bush
International relations


Pakistan Accused of Link to Kabul Attacks

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan —Suicide bombers who stormed the Justice Ministry and a prison department building in the Afghan capital last month were trained in Pakistan ’s lawless border region, Afghan intelligence officials have said. The attack on Feb. 11 , which left 26 people dead and more than 50 wounded, was conducted by eight armed men wearing suicide vests, and has been compared to the militant attacks in Mumbai, India, in November and against the Sri Lankan cricket team in the Pakistani city of Lahore on March 3. The attackers’ aim was to kill as many people as possible, Sayed Ansari, a spokesman for the National Security Directorate, said Wednesday at a news conference in Kabul. They also intended to take hostages inside the Justice Ministry and demand the release of Taliban members held in Afghan jails, he said. Mr. Ansari said seven accomplices had been arrested, and several more killed in a raid in Logar Province, south of the capital. At least one of those arrested has said he was trained in Waziristan, a tribal region of Pakistan, by a man named Mohammad Haris, who Mr. Ansari said organized the operation. “He played an active role in organizing the attack from the other side of the border,” he said, adding that Mr. Haris uses a number of aliases. “He was using a Pakistani mobile phone number to contact other members of the group.” A Taliban fighter based in Pakistan’s tribal areas confirmed that a group led by Mr. Haris and operating out of North Waziristan was behind the Kabul attack. Mr. Haris is an Afghan and conducted operations on both sides of the border, he said. One of the attackers killed in Kabul was also known to him and was an Afghan from Zabul Province, said the fighter, who spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity. Mr. Ansari also suggested that Pakistani intelligence had a role in planning the attacks. “I would like to say specifically that the intelligence agency of our neighboring country is involved and behind these attacks and organizing these activities,” he said. Afghan security officials have long said Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, aids the Taliban insurgency, and increasingly complex attacks on Kabul in the past year have indicated greater sophistication. In particular, a senior Afghan security official has said that phone calls from a facilitator who organized a suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul last July was in direct phone contact with a Pakistani intelligence official in Peshawar, Pakistan. American intelligence agencies also concluded from intercepts that Pakistani intelligence officials helped plan that attack, American officials said later. India has also accused the Pakistani intelligence agency of being behind the suicide attack on its embassy in Kabul last year and the attacks in Mumbai. Pakistan has denied the allegations, blaming “nonstate actors,” at most, for the attacks. The attackers at the Afghan Justice Ministry were all killed in the battle there. In order to take hostages and demand prisoners’ release, Mr. Ansari said, they had a megaphone, enough food for several days and cellphones to keep in touch with one another and with the mastermind in Pakistan. Even though the eight gunmen were able to breach security and reach the center of the city, Afghan security forces ended the siege within three hours. Five Afghan members of the police and intelligence services were killed.

Pakistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan War (2001- )
Terrorism


Massachusetts: Lye Taints Drinking Water

Abstract: Nearly 100 residents of Spencer were taken to hospitals with burns or rashes after the town’s water supply was accidentally treated with too much corrosive lye, officials said. No serious injuries were reported. People were advised not to use or touch the water, said Ed Coletta, a spokesman for the State Department of Environmental Protection. Officials determined that a malfunction at the town’s water treatment plant had released too much sodium hydroxide into the water supply. Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is routinely put into water to reduce acidity and limit pipe corrosion, Mr. Coletta said. The town of 12,000 is about 50 miles west of Boston.


Thai Police Seize Explosives in Bangkok Bombing Investigation

Abstract: BANGKOK — The Thai police on Monday expanded their investigation into a deadly Bangkok shrine bombing, seizing explosives from a suburban apartment building and warning that the group they are pursuing had been preparing “quite a lot of bombs.” Yet two weeks after the attack , which killed 20 people, the authorities have remained vague on the possible motives of the perpetrators and have refused to classify the blast as terrorism, despite what security experts say was a clear intent to cause maximum civilian casualties. Video Thailand’s police chief praised officers investigating a deadly bombing and promised to hand out about $84,000 among them as a reward for catching a suspect who has not yet been charged. The Aug. 17 blast at Erawan — a popular Hindu shrine in the heart of the city — was the worst bombing in Thailand in decades. Thailand’s military government has decreed that officials call the attack a “disturbance” and ordered all government agencies “to avoid using the terms terrorism or sabotage.” One of the leading theories about the attack is that it was connected to the repatriation in July of more than 100 ethnic Uighurs , a Turkic-speaking minority who live in northwestern China. The Thai news media have speculated that the group’s repatriation to China may have prompted a revenge attack. Image Photos provided by the Thai police and the military government showing what officials say is evidence, including nuts and bolts. Credit National Council for Peace and Order, via Associated Press The same Thai directive that instructed officials to avoid the word terrorism, issued by the Interior Ministry, also barred officials from “mentioning any connection to Uighurs in this incident as it could create problems and have an international impact.” The July repatriation was widely criticized at the time by the United Nations and Western governments because of the prospect that the Uighurs would face persecution in China. Thailand’s consulate in Istanbul was attacked soon after the Uighurs were sent back. But any Uighur connection to the shrine bombing has yet to be established. Commentators in Thailand have criticized numerous missteps in the investigation, including the showing on national television of what appeared to be a suicide vest when the police were revealing evidence seized from an apartment on Saturday. The police later said that the vest had nothing to do with the case. Image Photos provided by the Thai police and the military government showing what officials say is evidence, including a watch. Credit Thai Police, via Reuters The national chief of police had offered a reward of about $84,000 for assistance in finding the perpetrators of the bombing, money that he said had come from his own pocket and that of a friend. On Monday, he announced that the money would be awarded to the police themselves. Officers working on the case deserved the cash, he said. The authorities issued two warrants on Monday, including one for Wanna Suansan, 27, a woman from a Muslim area in southern Thailand whose family said she had married a Turk and moved to Turkey. Just hours after the release of her name and photograph, Ms. Wanna’s family said she had moved to Turkey months before the shrine attack. Ibrahim Komkham, the headman of the village in southern Thailand where Ms. Wanna’s family lives, said that she had spoken to him by phone, telling him she had left the apartment in June and did not understand why the police thought she was a suspect. Image Thai soldiers during a search of apartment blocks on the outskirts of Bangkok on Sunday. Credit Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Ms. Wanna was willing to come back to Thailand to prove her innocence, he said. He quoted her as saying she would “surrender anywhere, anytime.” The police said they posted the warrant for Ms. Wanna’s arrest after they raided a house late on Sunday where they found gunpowder and urea fertilizer, among other items. In a separate raid on Saturday, the police arrested a foreign man and seized bomb-making materials, including fuses, pipes and ball bearings of the kind that they said were used in the shrine attack. The suspect arrested on Saturday had a fake Turkish passport. The police have declined to disclose his nationality, or whether they know it. Police officials said that information gained from him had helped them discover the apartment that was raided on Sunday night. “We found evidence that indicated the preparation to produce quite a lot of bombs,” said Gen. Somyot Poompanmoung, Thailand’s national chief of police. “We are concerned.”

Police
Bangkok
Bombs
Terrorism
Civilian casualties
Thailand
Uyghur


About $100 Each to Customers in ’06 Blackout

Abstract: Customers in western Queens can expect to receive about $100 each from Consolidated Edison as compensation for having to sweat through nine days without power in July 2006, according to officials who have been briefed on the settlement. The approval of the settlement, which the utility proposed several weeks ago and which will total $17 million, was to be announced at a news conference on Thursday. Customers will receive a credit on their monthly bill, which will also include a brief apology from the company. Additionally, Con Edison will not be allowed to charge customers to recoup $40 million in repair costs from the blackout, according to the officials briefed on the matter. The recompense and the ruling on repair costs follow an investigation by the state’s Public Service Commission into the failure of the electrical network in Long Island City during a period in July 2006, which affected an estimated 174,000 customers. The terms of the proposed settlement were reported in The Daily News this month. Officials with Con Ed and the Public Service Commission declined to comment on Wednesday. The results of the investigation were to be announced at a news conference that will include representatives of Western Queens Power for the People Campaign, a group of residents that formed during the blackout. Memories of the power failure are still raw in Queens, where residents were forced to abandon their homes and businesses and ferry medicine and food to friends and relatives who were unable to navigate the stairs in their apartment buildings. The damages and the apology will only partly satisfy the lawmakers and community groups that have been fighting with Con Ed, and its chief executive, Kevin Burke, over their handling of the crisis. “Kevin Burke makes $100 for every two minutes he works,” said State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, who represents Astoria, Queens, but was not privy to the terms of the settlement. “For Con Ed to provide a mere $100 for the millions of dollars in damages to this community is a slap in the face.” According to a filing to securities regulators made by Con Ed on Friday, Mr. Burke received $5.52 million in compensation last year, nearly $800,000 more than in 2006. In May, Mr. Gianaris proposed in a bill that the Public Service Law be changed to make it easier for customers to recoup damages from gas and electric companies. News of Mr. Burke’s pay package and the ratepayer compensation settlement come just a month after Con Ed won the biggest one-time increase in its bills for electric service. Despite criticism from lawmakers and residents over repeated failures at Con Ed, state regulators approved a $425 million increase in rates. That means a typical household in New York City will pay about $4.25 more this month. In Westchester County, typical residential customers will pay an additional $5.60 a month. The rate increase is far less than the $1.2 billion increase that Con Ed initially sought.

Queens (NYC)
Consolidated Edison Inc
Blackouts and Brownouts (Electrical)


Nearly 2,000 Carrying H.I.V. in Chile Were Not Notified

Abstract: SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile’s health minister said Thursday that the country’s public health system had failed to notify at least 512 people that they were infected with H.I.V. , and that private-sector services did not inform an additional 1,364 that they were carrying the virus, which causes AIDS. Speaking to lawmakers in Santiago, the health minister, Álvaro Erazo, said that in about half of the cases there was no evidence that anyone tried to reach the patients. “There is no justification for that,” Mr. Erazo told members of Chile’s Congress. The health minister’s admission came just weeks after his predecessor, María Soledad Barría, was forced to resign after revelations that a hospital in Iquique, in the north, had failed to notify dozens of patients that they were H.I.V.-positive. Two people in the hospital later died from complications of AIDS. Mr. Erazo was summoned before Congress to give a report on the notification problems. With Thursday’s revelations, the scandal is deepening. Mr. Erazo told the lawmakers that some of the notification problems resulted from a lack of coordination between the National AIDS Commission and the Health Ministry, and that epidemiological security “was not functioning.” The Central Metropolitan Health Service in Santiago, the capital, said Thursday that it would open an investigation into the causes of the 107 cases of patients’ not being notified under its jurisdiction. It expected to have results in two weeks. Two groups dealing with AIDS in Chile, Asosida, a coalition of nongovernmental groups, and Vivo Positivo, said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the notifications scandal was “the worst health crisis that the country has been through in the last several years.” The groups added that the negligence had been “a flagrant violation of human rights and of the right to life.” Cecilia Sepúlveda, the dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Chile, estimated that about 40,000 people in Chile do not know that they are infected with H.I.V. Meanwhile, the government said it was making an intense effort to locate and inform the patients of their status. Mr. Erazo vowed it would be done in as confidential a manner as possible. But that did not appear to be happening in every case. A 28-year-old man in Puerto Montt, a city south of the capital, told Radio Cooperativa in Santiago that two health officials came to his workplace in an ambulance two weeks ago and, in the presence of his boss, told him he was H.I.V.-positive. The following day, he said, his boss told him not to return to work. Mr. Erazo, responding on Thursday to the claims of the man from Puerto Montt, told lawmakers that “clearly there is a legitimate concern about safeguards and technical capabilities.” If what the man said was true, he said, “it would be disgraceful.” The brewing scandal is the latest challenge for President Michelle Bachelet’s center-left coalition government, which has endured a series of protests and scandals in recent months that have emboldened right-wing rivals before next year’s presidential race.

Chile
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
Medicine and Health
Politics and Government
Bachelet Michelle


Egypt’s Autocrats Exploited Internet’s Weaknesses

Abstract: Epitaphs for the Mubarak government all note that the mobilizing power of the Internet was one of the Egyptian opposition’s most potent weapons. But quickly lost in the swirl of revolution was the government’s ferocious counterattack, a dark achievement that many had thought impossible in the age of global connectedness. In a span of minutes just after midnight on Jan. 28, a technologically advanced, densely wired country with more than 20 million people online was essentially severed from the global Internet . The blackout was lifted after just five days, and it did not save President Hosni Mubarak . But it has mesmerized the worldwide technical community and raised concerns that with unrest coursing through the Middle East , other autocratic governments — many of them already known to interfere with and filter specific Web sites and e-mails — may also possess what is essentially a kill switch for the Internet. Because the Internet’s legendary robustness and ability to route around blockages are part of its basic design, even the world’s most renowned network and telecommunications engineers have been perplexed that the Mubarak government succeeded in pulling the maneuver off. But now, as Egyptian engineers begin to assess fragmentary evidence and their own knowledge of the Egyptian Internet’s construction, they are beginning to understand what, in effect, hit them. Interviews with many of those engineers, as well as an examination of data collected around the world during the blackout, indicate that the government exploited a devastating combination of vulnerabilities in the national infrastructure. For all the Internet’s vaunted connectivity, the Egyptian government commanded powerful instruments of control: it owns the pipelines that carry information across the country and out into the world. Internet experts say similar arrangements are more common in authoritarian countries than is generally recognized. In Syria , for example, the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment dominates the infrastructure, and the bulk of the international traffic flows through a single pipeline to Cyprus . Jordan , Qatar , Oman , Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries have the same sort of dominant, state-controlled carrier. Over the past several days, activists in Bahrain and Iran say they have seen strong evidence of severe Internet slowdowns amid protests there. Concerns over the potential for a government shutdown are particularly high in North African countries, most of which rely on a just a small number of fiber-optic lines for most of their international Internet traffic. A Double Knockout The attack in Egypt relied on a double knockout, the engineers say. As in many authoritarian countries, Egypt’s Internet must connect to the outside world through a tiny number of international portals that are tightly in the grip of the government. In a lightning strike, technicians first cut off nearly all international traffic through those portals. In theory, the domestic Internet should have survived that strike. But the cutoff also revealed how dependent Egypt’s internal networks are on moment-to-moment information from systems that exist only outside the country — including e-mail servers at companies like Google , Microsoft and Yahoo ; data centers in the United States ; and the Internet directories called domain name servers, which can be physically located anywhere from Australia to Germany . The government’s attack left Egypt not only cut off from the outside world, but also with its internal systems in a sort of comatose state: servers, cables and fiber-optic lines were largely up and running, but too confused or crippled to carry information save a dribble of local e-mail traffic and domestic Web sites whose Internet circuitry somehow remained accessible. “They drilled unexpectedly all the way down to the bottom layer of the Internet and stopped all traffic flowing,” said Jim Cowie, chief technology officer of Renesys , a network management company based in New Hampshire that has closely monitored Internet traffic from Egypt . “With the scope of their shutdown and the size of their online population, it is an unprecedented event.” The engineers say that a focal point of the attack was an imposing building at 26 Ramses Street in Cairo , just two and a half miles from the epicenter of the protests, Tahrir Square. At one time purely a telephone network switching center, the building now houses the crucial Internet exchange that serves as the connection point for fiber-optic links provided by five major network companies that provide the bulk of the Internet connectivity going into and out of the country. “In Egypt the actual physical and logical connections to the rest of the world are few, and they are licensed by the government and they are tightly controlled,” said Wael Amin, president of ITWorx, a large software development company based in Cairo. One of the government’s strongest levers is Telecom Egypt , a state-owned company that engineers say owns virtually all the country’s fiber-optic cables; other Internet service providers are forced to lease bandwidth on those cables in order to do business. Mr. Cowie noted that the shutdown in Egypt did not appear to have diminished the protests — if anything, it inflamed them — and that it would cost untold millions of dollars in lost business and investor confidence in the country. But he added that, inevitably, some autocrats would conclude that Mr. Mubarak had simply waited too long to bring down the curtain. “Probably there are people who will look at this and say, it really worked pretty well, he just blew the timing,” Mr. Cowie said. Speaking of the Egyptian shutdown and the earlier experience in Tunisia , whose censorship methods were less comprehensive, a senior State Department official said that “governments will draw different conclusions.” “Some may take measures to tighten communications networks,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Others may conclude that these things are woven so deeply into the culture and commerce of their country that they interfere at their peril. Regardless, it is certainly being widely discussed in the Middle East and North Africa.” Vulnerable Choke Points In Egypt, where the government still has not explained how the Internet was taken down, engineers across the country are putting together clues from their own observations to understand what happened this time, and to find out whether a future cutoff could be circumvented on a much wider scale than it was when Mr. Mubarak set his attack in motion. The strength of the Internet is that it has no single point of failure, in contrast to more centralized networks like the traditional telephone network. The routing of each data packet is handled by a web of computers known as routers, so that in principle each packet might take a different route. The complete message or document is then reassembled at the receiving end. Yet despite this decentralized design, the reality is that most traffic passes through vast centralized exchanges — potential choke points that allow many nations to monitor, filter or in dire cases completely stop the flow of Internet data. China , for example, has built an elaborate national filtering system known as the Golden Shield Project, and in 2009 it shut down cellphone and Internet service amid unrest in the Muslim region of Xinjiang. Nepal ’s government briefly disconnected from the Internet in the face of civil unrest in 2005, and so did Myanmar ’s government in 2007. But until Jan. 28 in Egypt, no country had revealed that control of those choke points could allow the government to shut down the Internet almost entirely. There has been intense debate both inside and outside Egypt on whether the cutoff at 26 Ramses Street was accomplished by surgically tampering with the software mechanism that defines how networks at the core of the Internet communicate with one another, or by a blunt approach: simply cutting off the power to the router computers that connect Egypt to the outside world. But either way, the international portals were shut, and the domestic system reeled from the blow. The Lines Go Dead The first hints of the blackout had actually emerged the day before, Jan. 27, as opposition leaders prepared for a “Friday of anger,” with huge demonstrations expected. Ahmed ElShabrawy, who runs a company called EgyptNetwork, noticed that the government had begun blocking individual sites like Facebook and Twitter . Just after midnight on Jan. 28, Mahmoud Amin’s iPhone beeped with an alert that international connections to his consulting company’s Internet system had vanished — and then the iPhone itself stopped receiving e-mail. A few minutes later, Mr. ElShabrawy received an urgent call telling him that all Internet lines running to his company were dead. It was not long before Ayman Bahaa, director of Egyptian Universities Network, which developed the country’s Internet nearly two decades ago, was scrambling to figure out how the system had all but collapsed between the strokes of 12 and 1. The system had been crushed so completely that when a network engineer who does repairs in Cairo woke in the morning, he said to his family, “I feel we are in the 1800s.” Over the next five days, the government furiously went about extinguishing nearly all of the Internet links to the outside world that had survived the first assault, data collected by Western network monitors show. Although a few Egyptians managed to post to Facebook or send sporadic e-mails, the vast majority of the country’s Internet subscribers were cut off. The most telling bit of evidence was that some Internet services inside the country were still working, at least sporadically. American University in Cairo , frantically trying to relocate students and faculty members away from troubled areas, was unable to use e-mail, cellphones — which were also shut down — or even a radio frequency reserved for security teams. But the university was able to update its Web site, hosted on a server inside Egypt, and at least some people were able to pull up the site and follow the emergency instructions. “The servers were up,” said Nagwa Nicola, the chief technology officer at American University in Cairo. “You could reach up to the Internet provider itself, but you wouldn’t get out of the country.” Ms. Nicola said that no notice had been given, and she depicted an operation that appeared to have been carried out with great secrecy. “When we called the providers, they said, ‘Um, hang on, we just have a few problems and we’ll be on again,’ ” she said. “They wouldn’t tell us it was out.” She added, “It wasn’t expected at all that something like that would happen.” Told to Shut Down or Else Individual Internet service providers were also called on the carpet and ordered to shut down, as they are required to do by their licensing agreements if the government so decrees. According to an Egyptian engineer and an international telecom expert who both spoke on the condition of anonymity, at least one provider, Vodafone , expressed extreme reluctance to shut down but was told that if it did not comply, the government would use its own “off” switch via the Telecom Egypt infrastructure — a method that would be much more time-consuming to reverse. Other exchanges, like an important one in Alexandria, may also have been involved. Still, even major providers received little notice that the moves were afoot, said an Egyptian with close knowledge of the telecom industry who would speak only anonymously. “You don’t get a couple of days with something like this,” he said. “It was less than an hour.” After the Internet collapsed, Mr. ElShabrawy, 35, whose company provides Internet service to 2,000 subscribers and develops software for foreign and domestic customers, made urgent inquiries with the Ministry of Communications, to no avail. So he scrambled to re-establish his own communications. When he, too, noticed that domestic fiber-optic cables were open, he had a moment of exhilaration, remembering that he could link up servers directly and establish messaging using an older system called Internet Relay Chat. But then it dawned on him that he had always assumed he could download the necessary software via the Internet and had saved no copy. “You don’t have your tools — you don’t have anything,” Mr. ElShabrawy said he realized as he stared at the dead lines at his main office in Mansoura, about 60 miles outside Cairo. With the streets unsafe because of marauding bands of looters, he decided to risk having a driver bring $7,000 in satellite equipment, including a four-foot dish, from Cairo, and somehow he was connected internationally again by Monday evening. Steeling himself for the blast of complaints from angry customers — his company also provides texting services in Europe and the Middle East — Mr. ElShabrawy found time to post videos of the protests in Mansoura on his Facebook page. But with security officials asking questions about what he was up to, he did not dare hook up his domestic subscribers. Then, gingerly, he reached out to his international customers, his profuse apologies already framed in his mind. The response that poured in astonished Mr. ElShabrawy, who is nothing if not a conscientious businessman, even in turbulent times. “People said: ‘Don’t worry about that. We are fine and we need to know that you are fine. We are all supporting you.’ ”

Egypt
Hosni Mubarak
Computers and the Internet
Politics


Will El Chapo Risk Trial? (Can He Afford Not To?)

Abstract: Now that Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the crime lord known as El Chapo, has been extradited from Mexico and has pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn to charges of running the planet’s biggest drug empire, his prosecution will enter a crucial phase — provided, of course, he does not manage to tunnel free from the high-security jail in Manhattan where he is being held. Two chief questions will define what comes next: Will Mr. Guzmán decide to go to trial? And if he does, what sort of defense will he mount to counter what appears to be a Matterhorn of evidence against him? When Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, outlined the government’s case against Mr. Guzmán at a news conference on Friday, he seemed unable to disguise a sly smile of satisfaction. After all, that morning, Mr. Capers’s office had filed a memorandum that set forth in exhaustive detail the cinematic story of Mr. Guzmán’s rise from a teenage marijuana farmer to an international kingpin who armed himself with a diamond encrusted pistol. It further noted that dozens of witnesses were lined up to testify and corroborate what prosecutors described as extensive secret recordings in which Mr. Guzmán discussed drug transactions. Several lawyers who have represented drug lords in the past said that the aggressive tenor of the memo suggested that, at least for now, federal prosecutors were serious about trying Mr. Guzmán and were unlikely to offer him a deal to plead guilty to lesser charges. Mr. Guzmán, moreover, is facing life in prison on a sweeping count of running a continuing criminal enterprise. So there was no real downside, the lawyers said, for him to fight the government’s case. Image Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, outlining the government’s case against Mr. Guzmán at a news conference last week. Credit Dave Sanders for The New York Times “The government has made it clear that they’re going full bore with this,” said David O. Markus, who negotiated the 2006 guilty pleas for Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela , Colombian brothers who helped found the Cali cartel. “For El Chapo, if there’s no offer on the table and it’s life if you go to trial and life or near it if you plead guilty, it’s pretty easy — he’ll go to trial.” Before Mr. Guzmán has to make that decision, however, a number of complicated issues are certain to arise. Given that he has been indicted not only in Brooklyn, but also in six other federal districts, his legal team is likely to question whether he is being prosecuted in the appropriate jurisdiction. They could also attack the manner in which he was sent to New York, some lawyers said, casting doubt on whether he was properly extradited. Then there is the question of his hiring a private lawyer. For the moment, Mr. Guzmán is being represented by two seasoned public defenders, Michael Schneider and Michelle Gelernt. While there is a so-called narco bar of lawyers, mainly in Florida and Texas, who regularly handle cartel cases, many of them are already representing people who may appear as witnesses at Mr. Guzmán’s trial. Further complicating matters, the federal government has said that it wants to seize $14 billion in profits that Mr. Guzmán was said to have made while running the Sinaloa cartel, leaving his financial situation unclear. “Many good criminal defense lawyers may shy away from the case not only because of the conduct that’s been charged, but because it’s hard to get paid if the government argues that all his money is quote-unquote tainted,” said Benjamin Brafman, one of New York City’s top defense lawyers. But if Mr. Guzmán does end up before a jury, Mr. Brafman and other lawyers said that he could borrow a tactic from the manifold Mafia trials that have taken place in Brooklyn and defend himself by attacking the credibility of the government’s witnesses. According to the prosecution’s memo, “a large coterie of cooperating witnesses” — among them, Colombian cartel members, Mexican couriers and United States-based distributors — is ready to testify about every aspect of Mr. Guzmán’s organization, including bribes paid to politicians and murders of rival drug dealers and government and law enforcement officials. Image Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers, Michael Schneider and Michelle Gelernt, outside Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Credit Joe Penney/Reuters “It’s inconceivable to me that these people don’t have baggage of their own,” Mr. Brafman said, “if, indeed, they were involved in the organization for a long time.” The case of Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Ismael Zambada García, who long served as Mr. Guzmán’s top lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel, offers another possible avenue of defense. Mr. Zambada was arrested by the Mexican authorities in 2009 and extradited to Chicago, where he was poised to stand trial as the cartel’s chief logistics officer for importing drugs into that city. But a few years into the case his lawyers suddenly claimed that he could not be prosecuted in the United States because he had been secretly working as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Though the government subsequently acknowledged that D.E.A. agents had in fact met with Mr. Zambada, it denied that it had engaged with him in any quid pro quo. Nonetheless, in 2014, the D.E.A. announced that Mr. Zambada would not stand trial because he had pleaded guilty to trafficking charges and was working as a government informant. The possibility that Mr. Guzmán might also become an informant is a complicated one. Some lawyers said that because he was accused in court papers of kidnapping, torture and causing the deaths of thousands of people, it would be hard to imagine the government allowing him to cooperate — unless, perhaps, he had reliable and damning information on high-ranking Mexican officials. Others said they found that prospect dubious because of Mr. Guzmán’s reputation as a Robin Hood-like hero in his homeland. “He has this mythic legacy behind him,” said W. Rob Heroy, a lawyer for Carlos Ramon Castro-Rocha, a Mexican who pleaded guilty in 2014 to producing and distributing heroin in the United States, much of it in and around Charlotte, N.C. “Maybe the government would want him as an informant, but I just can’t see El Chapo getting done with all of that and then going to work at a Cinnabon in Omaha.”

Mexico
Sinaloa Cartel
Joaquin Guzman Loera,El Chapo
Drug Abuse
Drug cartel
Organized crime
DEA


Hardy’s Single Lifts Orioles Past Reds

Abstract: J. J. Hardy hit a tiebreaking two-run single in the seventh inning, and the Baltimore Orioles beat the visiting Cincinnati Reds, 9-7, for a three-game sweep. Nelson Cruz hit his major-league-leading 37th home run in a six-run first inning, but the Reds chipped away and finally pulled even with a four-run seventh before Baltimore rebounded. The American East-leading Orioles (82-57) are assured a third straight winning season for the first time since 1994. MARINERS 10, RANGERS 2 Robinson Cano had his first game with four runs batted in for wild-card-contending Seattle as it beat host Texas. BLUE JAYS 1, RAYS 0 Pinch-hitter Colby Rasmus homered in the 10th inning, and Toronto earned its first three-game sweep at Tampa Bay. ANGELS 5, TWINS 4 A ninth-inning sacrifice fly by pinch-hitter Chris Iannetta lifted visiting Los Angeles over Minnesota. Huston Street earned his 36th save in 38 chances to give the Angels a five-game lead in the A.L. West over idle Oakland.


Billy Horschel Wins at BMW Championship as Others Stagger Toward Year’s End

Abstract: CHERRY HILLS VILLAGE, Colo. — Ponte Vedra Beach, you have a problem. The FedEx Cup playoffs, instituted by the PGA Tour to deliver a fabulous finish to the season, has become a dusty stagecoach ride to exhaustion. It’s clear the PGA Tour’s yellow-brick road is in dire need of repairs when the reigning Tour Championship winner, Henrik Stenson, does not qualify to defend his title and expresses relief. Stenson, who posted a wire-to-wire victory over Jordan Spieth and Steve Stricker at last year’s event to pocket $11.44 million, tied for 23rd Sunday at the BMW Championship, won by Billy Horschel, to finish 52nd in the standings. The top 30, minus Dustin Johnson, who is on a voluntarily leave of absence to deal with personal issues, will compete to be the top dog this week at East Lake Golf Course in Atlanta. That group includes Morgan Hoffmann, who carded the low round of the day at Cherry Hills Country Club, a seven-under-par 63, to jump to 21st, from 68th, in the points standings. Stenson finished 11 strokes behind Horschel, who closed with a 69 for a 72-hole total of 14-under 266, two strokes better than Bubba Watson, and then described his situation as “win-win.” He explained: “East Lake is a really great golf course, and I would really like to come back and defend and to play it again. But I finally get a bit of a break.” To the fans who come to the playoff events expecting the greatest show on grass, Stenson offered his heartfelt apologies. “I think it’s hard for the crowds sometimes to understand what we go through with the schedule,” he said. “Again, if you want to perform at the very highest level, at your peak, you’ve got to get the rest and practice in. You can’t play every week.” The Australian Geoff Ogilvy, who was 151st in the FedEx Cup standings on July 27, parlayed a miler’s closing kick into a spot in the Tour Championship. After tying for 36th at one over on Sunday to finish 25th in the points race, Ogilvy said, “To be honest with you, I’m not a 100 percent excited about playing golf next week, but I’m really excited about what making the Tour Championship does for you.” The players blessed/cursed to be continuing on to East Lake earn exemptions into the first three majors of 2015. “I’ll be happy when I’m not so tired,” said Ogilvy, who has played six of the last seven weeks. The unintended consequence of a bottom-heavy schedule, in which two majors, a World Golf Championships event and four playoff events are crammed into the season’s final nine weeks, is that it is going to hurt the top. Don’t be surprised if players disappear between October — when the season starts anew — and the Florida swing in March. “You’re going to start seeing some of the best players rarely between next week and March,” Ogilvy said. He added: “No one wants to feel sorry for us, because this is an amazing thing we get to do. But if they want us to play our best in six or seven or eight of the biggest tournaments of the year in a 10-week stretch, it’s just too much.” Image Henrik Stenson, awaiting a ruling in the third round, will not move on to defend his Tour Championship title after finishing 11 strokes back. Credit David Zalubowski/Associated Press Ernie Els closed with a 67 to finish tied for 16th at five-under. Els, 44, missed qualifying for the Tour Championship by 11 places, but he could not summon the energy to be disappointed. This was his ninth consecutive tournament, dating to the Scottish Open. Looking ahead, Els said, “We need a break somewhere because next year is the Presidents Cup in Korea, the majors, the Olympics are coming up ...” His voice trailed off. Just talking about the schedule exhausted him. “If someone comes up with a good plan, hopefully they’ll listen,” he said. At 25, Rory McIlroy, the world No. 1, is nearly half Els’ age and he considered taking this week off to steal some rest. Though he showed up, his concentration went missing. The cumulative fatigue McIlroy experienced from contending in nearly every tournament he has played since the start of July caused him to make mental mistakes that cost him dearly. McIlroy four-putted the par-3 No. 12 on Saturday and again on Sunday when he closed with a 66 to finish tied for eighth at four under. “On the third putt, I’m actually thinking, O.K., you don’t want to 4-putt again,” McIlroy said. He could laugh about it because he is fourth in the points race, which means he can win the FedEx Cup, and the $10 million bonus, outright with a victory this week. McIlroy was checking his watch repeatedly as he finished his press-related obligations. The Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning had given him tickets to the team’s season opener against the Indianapolis Colts, and McIlroy was anxious to make it in time for the opening kickoff. The PGA Tour has a problem when its No. 1-ranked player sees fit to praise the N.F.L. for the sanity and sensibility of its schedule. “I think the great thing about football is how short the season is,” McIlroy said Thursday. “So it’s always in demand. People want it. Once the Super Bowl finishes, they can’t wait for football season to start up again.” If Horschel looked fresher than most, it could be because this was his fifth tournament since he missed the cut at the British Open in mid-July. On the PGA Tour nowadays, that kind of schedule practically qualifies as bankers’ hours. “Hopefully this win will give me some more confidence and shoot me up there into an upper echelon player,” Horschel said. “I want to be where the Rory McIlroys are, the Tigers are, the Phil Mickelsons, the Bubba Watsons, the guys that are winning majors.” Perhaps Horschel should be careful what he wishes for, because where the top players were on Sunday was beyond exhaustion.

Billy Horschel
PGA Tour
Henrik Stenson
Golf
Bubba Watson
Geoff Ogilvy


Jets Are Wary of the Hard-Luck Chargers

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The Jets last traveled to San Diego four seasons ago, and still, receiver Jerricho Cotchery remembers even the smallest details from that visit for his first playoff game. Cotchery was a rookie then, a kick returner caught up in the atmosphere at Qualcomm Stadium in January 2005. He can still smell the smoke that wafted “everywhere” through the air, still see the crowd waving thousands of white towels. The Chargers missed a field goal that would have beaten the Jets, and Cotchery & Company escaped with a 20-17 overtime victory in the wild-card game. It was the Jets’ third straight win in San Diego. “I just remember the dramatic ending,” Cotchery said last week. The Jets return to San Diego to play on Monday night for a Week 3 game between two teams with a combined 1-3 record. Still, the players say they expect a similar playoff-type atmosphere. They can picture another rowdy crowd, a dangerous Chargers team desperate for a win and a national TV audience watching the Jets’ first appearance on Monday night since Christmas Day 2006. Quarterback Brett Favre used the words “must win” in describing both teams’ mind-sets. He also used the word heartbreaking to detail the Chargers’ last two losses. San Diego entered this season as a popular Super Bowl pick, a team considered among the most talented in the N.F.L. And so far: two losses in two games, by a total of 3 points. “You look at the two plays at the end of the games,” Jets Coach Eric Mangini said. “You’re talking about 6 to 8 inches on both those plays, the difference between winning and losing. It’s a constant reminder of how close these games are, how small a difference can dramatically change the record. “They could easily be 2-0.” Such is life in the N.F.L. What looked like two victories for the Chargers turned into losses in the final 30 seconds of each game. Against Carolina in the opener, the Chargers took a 24-19 lead late in the fourth quarter. The Panthers got the ball with 2 minutes 27 seconds remaining. Eleven plays and 68 yards later, tight end Dante Rosario cradled the winning touchdown pass with no time left on the clock. If that one did not hurt enough, the next loss hurt more than any Chargers loss the team can remember. Again, they came back to take the lead late in the fourth quarter. Again, their opponent, this time the Denver Broncos, marched downfield to score a touchdown. The twist came when the referee blew a crucial call, and the Broncos executed a 2-point conversion to secure the victory. So this is where the Jets find themselves on Monday night: 1-1, 3,000 miles from home, facing a desperate team filled with Pro Bowl players. Just last week, the Jets played the Patriots, who were without quarterback Tom Brady, marking another game against another team intent on delivering a message. Will the Chargers do the same? “Guess that’s luck of the draw,” defensive tackle Kris Jenkins said. “We’re getting into games where people definitely want to make a statement. I don’t feel you can look at that record and say that they’re a bad team. I’m sure they want to prove that.” The Chargers have taken the long road before to the American Football Conference playoffs. In 1992, they were the first team in N.F.L. history to start the season 0-4 and advance to the postseason. As recently as last season, the Chargers started 1-3, drew even at 3-3 and 5-5, then reeled off eight consecutive victories en route to the A.F.C. championship game. Traditionally, they play better in December than in September. But the Chargers are dangerous, at least offensively, in any game. That is because they are not defined by one strength but by the totality of their offensive options. The Chargers can run the ball, behind the All-Pro LaDainian Tomlinson, who missed last week’s game with turf toe, and his backup, Darren Sproles, who dominated the Broncos with 317 all-purpose yards in Tomlinson’s absence. The Chargers can pass the ball, with quarterback Philip Rivers throwing to perhaps the best tight end in football, Antonio Gates, or firing deep to receivers Chris Chambers and Vincent Jackson. This is how an 0-2 football team still scares opponents — by averaging 31 points and nearly 400 yards a game. Even Rivers acknowledges the luxury inherent there. “I sometime wish I could throw more than one pass per play,” he said on a conference call last week. “There are certainly a lot of playmakers out there.” Chargers Coach Norv Turner gathered his team for a meeting last week and told them everyone would be watching to see how they reacted to starting the season with two losses. Here come the Jets, on “Monday Night Football,” for the first viewing.

Football
New York Jets
San Diego Chargers


2 States Split Bitterly by One River

Abstract: BANGALORE — Last Saturday, several political and cultural pressure groups, which have thousands of muscular men on their rolls, enforced a suspension of normal life from dawn to dusk in the southern state of Karnataka. Their action was a protest against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ’s order to the state to release about 250,000 liters, or 66,000 gallons, of water per second from the Kaveri River to the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. Karnataka does not wish to be so generous with precious fresh water and resents that the Indian government is coercing it to be so. In the Karnataka state capital, Bangalore, most shops and offices remained shut Saturday. Some buses and cars were stoned by protesters. Thousands of people were unable to reach the airport or the train station until after dusk. The luxury hotel Taj West End closed its massive iron gates and requested that its guests not step out. The hotel also planted over its gates a yellow-and-red flag that is Karnataka’s cultural symbol. It is a banner that has, in recent times, represented the fellowship of several jingoistic outfits that, while not offering candidates in elections, exert influence over the state’s politics. A 4-year-old girl who stood with her father behind the hotel’s gates asked the security guards why the national flag was not on display. “So many different flags these days,” she said. Waves of menacing men on motorbikes and cars passed in front of the gates, looked with contempt at the expensive hotel and screamed that Karnataka was great and anyone who stood in its way would be vanquished. Around 5 in the evening, there was a sudden downpour over Bangalore, and it rained like a reprimand. For an hour, it appeared that the water dispute had been solved by a higher authority. Gangs of men who were patrolling the streets to ensure that the shutdown of the city was complete looked a bit sheepish, but many of them soon began to dance in the rain. Only two of Karnataka’s districts, which have received very little rainfall this monsoon season, are affected by the state’s sharing of the Kaveri water with Tamil Nadu, but the dispute between the states has been a political issue for more than a century. The river originates in Karnataka and flows into Tamil Nadu. Karnataka, through a system of dams, is in a position to control how much water will continue into Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu believes that even though it is downstream it has as much right to the river as Karnataka. The Indian government has tried to solve the dispute, but has largely failed. Over the years, the river dispute has turned the two states into bitter foes. The issue has even developed into a battle of cultural supremacy between Tamil, which is spoken in Tamil Nadu, and Kannada, the language spoken by a majority in Karnataka. In the past, Tamil migrants in Bangalore have been attacked. Partisans of Karnataka have gone to the border to throw stones at Tamil Nadu. And every now and then, as is the case this month, the screening of Tamil films is banned in Karnataka. A few years ago, Tamil and Kannada film stars confronted each other in a border village by staging a death fast. Kannada stars sat in Karnataka territory and lamented Tamil Nadu’s demands for more water. Tamil stars sat in their state and demanded more water from the Kaveri. As usually happens with death fasts in India, nobody died. The river dispute has also influenced the content of Tamil and Kannada films. About a decade ago the film “H2O” was released. A bilingual film, in both Tamil and Kannada, it was a story of two men in love with the same woman. The unambiguous metaphor of the film cast one suitor as Tamil Nadu and the other as Karnataka, and the woman was the river. Her character, not surprisingly, was called Kaveri. The film boldly tried to educate the people of both the states that politicians were trying to create a rift between the two peaceful populations. There is a scene in which a villain releases gossip into the air, which transmogrifies into many tiny arrows that enter villagers’ ears, turning friends who are walking together into sudden foes who start fighting. It was not at all intended to be a funny film. To a large extent, politicians in both states have ensured that the issue remains alive and simmering and far from resolved. Prakash Belawadi, a filmmaker and journalist who has written extensively about the river dispute, told me: “Politicians cannot and do not want to resolve the issue. The dispute can be solved only by engineers and farmers who have a stake in the river.” As the dispute escalates, it is a reminder that in contemporary India, where regional political forces are more powerful than ever and even politicians affiliated with national parties do not always respect the notion of a central command, New Delhi’s power to resolve tensions between states has steadily diminished. Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People.”

Water
Karnataka (India)
Tamil Nadu (India)
Bangalore (India)
Singh Manmohan
Levees and Dams


Afghan Militia Member Said to Drug and Kill Colleagues

Abstract: KHOST, Afghanistan — A member of a militia promoted by the American military to protect rural villages drugged his Afghan colleagues and killed at least nine of them as they slept on Friday, a police official said, in the third deadly episode involving the irregular guard force in March. The killings added to concerns about the militia, known as the Afghan Local Police. Supported by American military commanders as a way to give Afghans a larger stake in battling the insurgency, the program has been assailed by rights advocates and many Afghans as bringing former Taliban and criminal elements into positions of armed authority. Friday’s killings took place at a small local police command post in the remote Yahya Khel district of Paktika Province, an area of eastern Afghanistan thick with Taliban and allied insurgents. The suspect in the killings, identified as Assadullah, who like many Afghans goes by a single name, had on Thursday night laced food being served at the post with crushed sleeping pills, said Dawlat Khan Zadran, the provincial police chief. He then waited a few hours for the drugs to take effect, and sometime after midnight turned his AK-47 assault rifle on his colleagues, Mr. Zadran said. Mr. Zadran said Assadullah escaped in a Ford Ranger pickup truck with most of the weapons from the post. Officers from the national police force have since arrested two of his brothers and the man who recommended that Assadullah be recruited into the local police, Mr. Zadran said. Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said Assadullah had rejoined the insurgency’s ranks after infiltrating the command post a few days ago. He referred to the assailant by what appeared to be a nom de guerre, Mujahid Sanaullah. The Taliban often take responsibility for attacks by members of the Afghan security forces, especially when coalition service members are killed. American and Afghan officials say they do not believe that most attacks on the coalition by Afghan Army and the national police are the work of Taliban infiltrators. But there is less certainty about Taliban infiltration in the local police forces. An American military report released in December found that some members of the force had engaged in illegal taxation, carried weapons outside their villages and committed assault. The report was a response to a highly critical study of the program by Human Rights Watch . Still, the December report concluded that the American military leadership thinks the Afghan local police have generally been effective. But problems with the local police have continued. Another Afghan local policeman allowed Taliban to enter his guard post on March 7 and kill nine of his fellow local police officers in the southern province of Oruzgan. On Monday, an Afghan local policeman shot and killed a coalition soldier in Paktika Province, the same province where Friday’s killings took place. The province borders Pakistan ’s North Waziristan tribal area, a hub for Islamist militancy in South Asia . Also on Friday, NATO reported that one of its service members was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan and another in an insurgent attack. The number of coalition deaths here this year stands at 94, according to icasualties.org , an independent Web site that tracks deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq .


U.S. Roster for Bosnia Match

Abstract: John Anthony Brooks and Aron Johannsson, who last week declared their international allegiance to the United States men’s soccer team, were named Monday to the 23-man roster for Wednesday’s friendly match against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. “This is another opportunity to give ourselves a benchmark against a great opponent and one of the top teams in Europe,” United States Coach Jurgen Klinsmann said in a statement . “Our European-based players are just getting started with their seasons and this gives them a chance to get going a couple weeks before our big World Cup qualifiers. We’re also excited to bring some new faces into the senior team and have them start to become part of the group.” Brooks has been a part of the United States youth national team program at the under-20 level. He made his debut in Germany’s Bundesliga over the weekend, scoring in Hertha Berlin’s 6-1 season-opening victory against Eintracht. Johannsson has applied to FIFA for a change of association after having represented Iceland at the U-21 level. He has scored twice in two games for AZ (Jozy Altidore’s former team), including a penalty kick in a 3-2 win against Ajax on Sunday. Johannsson was born in Mobile, Ala., to Icelandic parents, and returned to Iceland at a young age. He is expected to make his debut for the United States as he awaits the completion of the change of association process so he can be eligible to participate in future matches. The United States, which is coming off a three-game sweep of World Cup qualifiers in June and the championship in last month’s Concacaf Gold Cup, returns to qualifying action Sept. 6 when it travels to Costa Rica for the return match after their match in a snowstorm in March outside Denver. Four days later the United States will host Mexico in Columbus, Ohio. The United States is riding an 11-game winning streak, a team record. Bosnia is No. 13 in the latest FIFA rankings, which were released last week; the United States is back in the top 20 at No. 19. The match will be played at Asim Ferhatovic Hase Stadium, with a kickoff scheduled for 2:30 p.m., Eastern (ESPN2, WatchESPN, and UniMas). Klinsmann has called only two players from M.L.S., both from the Seattle Sounders, but Clint Dempsey is not one of them; striker Eddie Johnson and defender Brad Evans will make the trip to Europe. Klinsmann also included three players from the Mexican league — Edgar Castillo (Club Tijuana), Michael Orozco Fiscal (Puebla) and Joe Corona (Club Tijuana). Four players are with the senior team for the first time: Brooks, Cody Cropper (Southampton), Johannsson and Bobby Wood (1860 Munich). (If he plays, Wood will be only the second player from Hawaii to appear for the national team, after Brian Ching.) Defender Tim Ream (Bolton Wanderers) is also back with the national team for the first time since October 2011. The roster: Goalkeepers Cody Cropper (Southampton), Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Everton); Defenders John Anthony Brooks (Hertha Berlin), Geoff Cameron (Stoke City), Edgar Castillo (Tijuana), Brad Evans (Seattle), Michael Orozco Fiscal (Puebla), Michael Parkhurst (Augsburg), Tim Ream (Bolton); Midfielders Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes), Michael Bradley (Roma), Joe Corona (Tijuana), Mix Diskerud (Rosenborg), Fabian Johnson (Hoffenheim), Jermaine Jones (Schalke), Sacha Kljestan (Anderlecht), Danny Williams (Reading); Forwards Jozy Altidore (Sunderland), Terrence Boyd (Rapid Vienna), Eddie Johnson (Seattle), Aron Johannsson (AZ), Bobby Wood (1860 Munich).

Soccer
Jurgen Klinsmann
US Men's Soccer Team


Private Security Group Says Russia Was Behind John Podesta’s Email Hack

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — At the start of 2014, President Obama assigned his trusted counselor, John D. Podesta, to lead a review of the digital revolution, its potential and its perils. When Mr. Podesta presented his findings five months later, he called the internet’s onslaught of big data “a historic driver of progress.” But two short years later, as chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Mr. Podesta would also become one of the internet’s most notable victims. On Thursday, private security researchers said they had concluded that Mr. Podesta was hacked by Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the GRU, after it tricked him into clicking on a fake Google login page last March, inadvertently handing over his digital credentials. For months, the hackers mined Mr. Podesta’s inbox for his most sensitive and potentially embarrassing correspondence, much of which has been posted on the WikiLeaks website. Additions to the collection on Thursday included three short email exchanges between Mr. Podesta and Mr. Obama himself in the days leading up to his election in 2008. Mr. Podesta’s emails were first published by WikiLeaks earlier this month. The release came just days after James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, and the Department of Homeland Security publicly blamed Russian officials for cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee, in what they described as an effort to influence the American presidential election. To date, no government officials have offered evidence that the same Russian hackers behind the D.N.C. cyberattacks were also behind the hack of Mr. Podesta’s emails, but an investigation by the private security researchers determined that they were the same. Threat researchers at Dell SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based security firm, had been tracking the Russian intelligence group for more than a year. In June, they reported that they had uncovered a critical tool in the Russian spy campaign. SecureWorks researchers found that the Russian hackers were using a popular link shortening service, called Bitly, to shorten malicious links they used to send targets fake Google login pages to bait them into submitting their email credentials. The hackers made a critical error by leaving some of their Bitly accounts public, making it possible for SecureWorks to trace 9,000 of their links to nearly 4,000 Gmail accounts targeted between October 2015 and May 2016 with fake Google login pages and security alerts designed to trick users into turning over their passwords. Among the list of targets were more than 100 email addresses associated with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, including Mr. Podesta’s. By June, 20 staff members for the campaign had clicked on the short links sent by Russian spies. In June, SecureWorks disclosed that among those whose email accounts had been targeted were staff members who advised Mrs. Clinton on policy and managed her travel, communications and campaign finances. Two security researchers who have been tracking the GRU’s spearphishing campaign confirmed Thursday that Mr. Podesta was among those who had inadvertently turned over his Google email password. The fact that Mr. Podesta was among those breached by the GRU was first disclosed Thursday by Esquire and the Motherboard blog, which published the link Russian spies used against Mr. Podesta. “The new public data confirming the Russians are behind the hack of John Podesta’s email is a big deal,” Jake Sullivan, Mrs. Clinton’s senior policy adviser, said Thursday. “There is no longer any doubt that Putin is trying to help Donald Trump by weaponizing WikiLeaks.” The new release of Mr. Podesta’s email exchange with Mr. Obama from 2008 made clear that Mr. Obama’s team was confident he would win. In one of the emails, Mr. Podesta wrote Mr. Obama a lengthy memo in the evening on Election Day recommending that he not accept an invitation from President George W. Bush to attend an emergency meeting of the Group of 20 leaders. “Attendance alongside President Bush will create an extremely awkward situation,” the memo said. “If you attempt to dissociate yourself from his positions, you will be subject to criticism for projecting a divided United States to the rest of the world. But if you adopt a more reserved posture, you will be associated not only with his policies, but also with his very tenuous global standing.” The White House did not respond to questions about the email.

Russia
Hillary Clinton
SecureWorks
John D Podesta
Cyberwarfare
Spying and Intelligence Agencies
2016 Presidential Election