U.S. Offers to Help Florida With Overtime Costs From Massacre

Abstract: ORLANDO, Fla. — After denying the state of Florida’s petition for $5 million in emergency funding to cover costs associated with the massacre at a popular gay nightclub, the Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would offer $1 million to help pay for police overtime. Attorney General Loretta Lynch visited Orlando on Tuesday, nine days after Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, opened fire at the Pulse nightclub. Ms. Lynch met with some of the wounded and relatives of the 49 people killed in the attack, as well as with top law enforcement officials in the region. Ms. Lynch said the Department of Justice would make $1 million available to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement so local jurisdictions could cover the overtime costs associated with the killings. “We will move quickly to make the award as soon as possible,” she said, adding that the administration was also providing counseling resources for traumatized officers and medics. “We are also making federal emergency funds and victim compensation funding available to cover, for example, family travel expense, medical, mental health expenses and other costs related to this tragedy,” she added. Her announcement came after Gov. Rick Scott criticized the administration for declining his application for $5 million of Department of Homeland Security emergency funding. In a letter on Monday , the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, W. Craig Fugate, told the governor that the request, made the day after the shooting, had been denied because the appeal did not explain how the incident was beyond the capability of the state and local governments. The request also did not demonstrate how federal funds could help protect lives and property, the letter said. “An emergency declaration is not appropriate for this incident,” Mr. Fugate wrote in the letter, which was released by the governor’s office. Video Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch offered details into the investigation of the Orlando, Fla., shooting and expressed support for the L.G.B.T. community. Credit Credit Carlo Allegri/Reuters Records show that FEMA has approved the vast majority of emergency funding requests made after hurricanes and other disasters, but that no state has applied in the wake of a mass shooting. Mr. Scott called the denial “incredibly disappointing” and said the state would appeal. “It is unthinkable that President Obama does not define this as an emergency,” Mr. Scott, a Republican, said in a statement. “We are committing every state resource possible to help the victims and the community heal, and we expect the same from the federal government.” Sheriff Jerry L. Demings of Orange County said he learned about the $1 million at the news conference when Ms. Lynch announced it. His department was still trying to determine how much had been spent, he said. “One million dollars?” he said. “You know what? It’s a start.” Sheriff Demings confirmed that Mr. Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, had visited the nightclub several hours before the 2 a.m. shooting spree. He appeared to have stepped outside for some period of time and returned just before firing on the patrons, he said. He declined to give any more details. Ms. Lynch also declined to provide any new information on the case. She said the agency would reveal more information later, including results of firearms testing to determine whether any victims had been killed by police bullets. She also said she would eventually release the audio tape of Mr. Mateen’s 911 call. The administration was criticized Monday for releasing a partial transcript of just one of his calls, which deleted references Mr. Mateen made to the Islamic State and its leader. A few hours later, the Department of Justice released a version without the redactions. Ms. Lynch’s visit to Orlando came as the downtown area surrounding the Pulse nightclub began returning to normalcy. “There is no doubt that this was a shattering attack,” Ms. Lynch said. “But the message of Orlando goes far beyond one night of unspeakable terror. The message of Orlando that I have seen today — and what the American people have seen in the wake of this horrific assault — is a message of determination to remove hatred and intolerance from our midst.”

Police
Omar Mateen
Islam
Pulse
Rick Scott
Orlando Shooting
Justice Department
Murders and Homicides
Loretta E Lynch
Orlando shooter


Qaeda Leader Reported Killed in Pakistan

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Eight militants, including an Egyptian allied with Al Qaeda , were killed Tuesday in what residents and a Pakistani security official said was a United States drone strike in the South Waziristan tribal area near this country’s Afghan border. The United States has intensified its campaign of drone attacks against suspected militants in the border areas of Pakistan, but most have been concentrated in North Waziristan, an area that Western officials consider the most important refuge for militants with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Tuesday’s attack was the second within a few weeks in South Waziristan after a lull that lasted months. Last October, Pakistan invaded part of South Waziristan to drive out militants; many who fled north are now returning south. The drone was believed to have fired two missiles at a compound in a village near Wana, the regional capital. The Egyptian, Hamza al-Jufi, had lived in Wana for many years, said a fighter in the area who visited the site after the attack and spoke by telephone. Most of the other militants killed in the strike lived nearby, though two came from another province, Punjab, the fighter said. The fighter said that the eight bodies were mutilated beyond recognition but that no one else was wounded in the strike, which leveled the compound in the village, Ghwakhwai. According to some accounts Mr. Jufi was leading a group called Jundullah, or Army of God, which Pakistani security officials said was involved in sectarian violence around the port city of Karachi. On June 19, militants affiliated with Jundullah barged into the city courts there and freed three of their members from police custody while one arrested militant and a policeman were killed in an exchange of fire. The freed militants had been arrested by the police and were suspected of involvement in episodes of sectarian violence in Karachi. According to security officials, the militants were working under Mr. Jufi, a well-known figure in South Waziristan who was said to have survived a drone attack in 2008. The area around his base of Wana is controlled by the Waziri commander Maulvi Nazir, who has been accused of sheltering foreign fighters affiliated with Al Qaeda and of sending militants to Afghanistan to fight American-led forces there.

Al Qaeda
Waziristan (Pakistan)
Drones (Pilotless Planes)
Afghanistan War (2001- )


Scion of Turkish Banking Family Stresses Traditional Values

Abstract: ISTANBUL — Old-fashioned banking is back in vogue, and so is family ownership of institutions. Both suggest the sort of stability and values that were left behind in a boom characterized by overly complex derivatives and a twisted version of capitalism that saw investors generally not take up their responsibilities as owners. Akbank, the largest Turkish bank by market capitalization, fits neatly into the conservative category. Sabanci Holding, a family conglomerate, owns about 44 percent of the shares; individual family members own another 7 percent. As the largest shareholder, the family has supported management’s transformation of a 61-year-old bank that began life providing funding for local cotton producers in Adana, the fourth largest city in Turkey. But Suzan Sabanci Dincer, a granddaughter of one of the founders and the current chairwoman of Akbank, believes that the secret of the bank’s success lies partly in the arm’s-length relationship with Sabanci Holding. “We present our budget to them, but we have a Chinese Wall between us, and I have no relationship with their board,” she said of the company run by her relatives. She believes this approach marries a long-term investment perspective with a hands-off management by the family. During a recent interview, Ms. Sabanci Dincer, whose career at the bank spans 23 years, noted that traditional banking was Akbank’s strong suit. “We don’t have any derivatives,” she said. “What you see is what you get on our balance sheet.” This includes a capital adequacy ratio of 17.6 percent, more than double that of most banks in developed countries. To be fair, part of the reason is the stricter bank supervision that resulted from a financial crisis that wracked Turkey in 2001-2002. Ecem Nalbantgil, an analyst at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, said in an April research note that Akbank’s balance sheet was in better shape than the industry generally. Three percent of the Turkish bank’s total loans are nonperforming and this is not expected to increase much by the end of the year. The Turkish banking system has a nonperforming-loan ratio of 3.6 percent and analysts expect it to be well over 5.5 percent by the end of the year. But Mr. Nalbantgil said he expected Akbank’s shares to underperform its competitors, mainly because the share price had held up well. A lot of the support comes from international investors, who own 80 percent of the 25 percent of the bank that trades on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. In early 2007 Citigroup bought a 20 percent stake in the bank for $3.1 billion. The troubled U.S. bank, which is looking at selling a number of its businesses, has said it sees Akbank as a strategic business. The benefits of the close relationship — Ms. Sabanci Dincer sits on Citigroup’s international advisory board and a Citigroup director sits on Akbank’s main board — are not only in the development of new products. She said that the connection also gave her an early warning sign in the first part of 2008 about how troubled international banking markets were, so that Akbank became much more careful about its exposure to foreign markets. Despite the arrival of foreign banks before and during the boom years, Turkish banks have generally held onto their market share. The seven biggest banks, including three government-owned ones, have a combined market share of nearly 80 percent. Sinan Arslaner, a banker and founder of the corporate finance consulting firm CFS, believes that it all comes down to the human touch. “At Akbank you can still visit your branch manager, have a nice cup of Turkish coffee and explain your problems,” he said. “You are not just a multiple digit number on the bank’s computer. Treating clients as human beings helps Akbank to maintain and even increase its market share despite the crisis.” Ms. Sabanci Dincer, who always comes out of her office to welcome visitors, is a married mother of two who studied finance and international marketing at Richmond College, near London, and got her MBA at Boston University. She said it was not unusual for women to hold top roles in business in Turkey, listing as examples the heads of Vodafone Turkey and the Turkish Industrialists’ and Business Association. Akbank’s business is about evenly split among loans to companies, to small- and medium-sized enterprises, and to consumers. The bank posted net profits of 569 million lira, or $363 million, for the first quarter of 2009, a year-on-year increase of 11 percent, excluding extraordinary items. Turkey’s gross domestic product in the first quarter is estimated to have fallen at least 6 percent. The economy is expected to contract by 3.5 percent in 2009. For Ms. Sabanci Dincer, the crucial difference between Turkey and many other emerging markets is that in her country there is no banking problem. “We have a different issue: How we can make Turkey grow,” she said.

Sabanci Holding
Turkey
Suzan Sabanci Dincer
Banks and Banking


Avoiding the Dreaded ‘Second-Term Curse’

Abstract: Two years ago, as President Obama wrestled with an array of political challenges, pundits and partisans reached for a familiar explanation: the “second-term curse.” To conservative opponents, battles over the Affordable Care Act website , Internal Revenue Service practices and the Benghazi attack signaled the Democratic president’s failure. A former economic adviser to Mr. Obama, Lawrence H. Summers, seeing echoes of second-term struggles for presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush, revived the idea of a constitutional shift to a single six-year presidency. Such talk has all but vanished. Mr. Obama has overseen shrinking unemployment , a reduction in the proportion of Americans without health insurance and diplomatic breakthroughs on trade , climate policy , relations with Cuba and Iran’s nuclear program . Republicans are now more likely to denounce his ideology and use of executive power than his competence. “Unfortunately, I think he has been successful at achieving his agenda,” Senator Marco Rubio, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, lamented recently. Former Representative Vin Weber, a Republican who came to power in Ronald Reagan’s landslide in 1980, said: “It’s very hard for Republicans to acknowledge that. But you can’t deny the successes.” Smooth sailing in the final year is by no means guaranteed. Ten months before Bill Clinton left office, the technology bubble burst ; the 2008 Wall Street collapse made a ruin of Mr. Bush’s final chapter. Frightened by the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, most Americans say Mr. Obama’s strategy against the Islamic State isn’t working. But the evidence points to a second term for Mr. Obama that is more successful than most. “If you go back to the Truman era, his stacks up favorably — in fact, much better than the majority,” said Thomas Cronin, a scholar of the presidency at Colorado College. Presidential achievement takes different forms. Some predecessors accomplished more with Congress in second terms. Mr. Reagan, for example, signed sweeping overhauls of the tax and immigration systems . But partisan polarization has steadily made legislative compromise more difficult. Although Mr. Obama still hopes that Congress will approve his Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, he has spent much of his second term using his executive authority and fending off Republican attempts to thwart him. The presidential historian Robert Dallek described Mr. Obama’s performance as “well above average,” calling it a model for an era of ferocious partisanship. “That he can carry this off sort of sets a new parameter,” Mr. Dallek said. National consensus remains beyond Mr. Obama’s reach. As measured by Gallup, his approval rating among Republicans has remained below 20 percent throughout his second term; his approval among Democrats has remained at 75 percent or higher. Those numbers broadly resemble the partisan divide over Mr. Bush’s second term, a split that has inflamed a steady stream of allegations over management of the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Justice Department, among others. Yet none has blossomed into the sort of second-term disaster suffered by Mr. Reagan with the Iran-contra scandal , or Mr. Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky affair, not to mention Richard Nixon with Watergate. “Compared to recent presidents, the number of scandals is exceptionally low,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston professor who monitors executive branch scandals. The closest thing to a public corruption prosecution tied to an Obama appointee’s official duties was a guilty plea by the former C.I.A. director David Petraeus in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge for allowing his mistress access to classified material. The durability of Mr. Obama’s second-term legacy depends partly on his successor. Every twice-elected president since World War II left office with Congress controlled by the opposing party. Unless Senate Democrats gain at least four seats in November, Mr. Obama will, too. Even a friendly successor could discard Mr. Obama’s initiatives if they prove ineffective. Mr. Weber, the former lawmaker, questions whether the Cuba opening will change much, for example, and said, “I’m not sure the Iran deal’s going to accomplish what he wants.” The only judgment possible now, Mr. Weber added, is this: “He did it.”

President of the United States
US Politics
Barack Obama


U.S. Officials Get a Taste of Pakistanis’ Anger at America

Abstract: KARACHI, Pakistan — Judith A. McHale was expecting a contentious session with Ansar Abbasi , a Pakistani journalist known for his harsh criticism of American foreign policy, when she sat down for a one-on-one meeting with him in a hotel conference room in Islamabad on Monday. She got that, and a little bit more. After Ms. McHale, the Obama administration’s new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, gave her initial polite presentation about building bridges between America and the Muslim world, Mr. Abbasi thanked her politely for meeting with him. Then he told her that he hated her. “ ‘You should know that we hate all Americans,’ ” Ms. McHale said Mr. Abbasi told her. “ ‘From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.’ ” Beyond the continuation of the battle against militants along the Pakistani-Afghan border, a big part of President Obama’s strategy for the region involves trying to broaden America’s involvement in the country to include nonmilitary areas like infrastructure development, trade, energy, schools and jobs — all aimed at convincing the Pakistani people that the United States is their friend. But as Ms. McHale and other American officials discovered this week, during a visit by Richard C. Holbrooke , the special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, making that case was not going to be easy. “We have made a major turn with our relationship with Pakistan under President Obama,” Mr. Holbrooke told reporters at a news conference in Karachi on Wednesday. Time and again, Mr. Holbrooke tried to delineate the differences between the Obama administration and the Bush era, painting the new administration as one that wants to see a better life and more business opportunities for Pakistanis. He said his very presence in Karachi — Pakistan’s largest city and its commercial capital — demonstrated that drone attacks and the hunt for Al Qaeda were not the only American foreign policy activities in the country. To polite applause, Mr. Holbrooke told local officials at the Governor’s House that the United States Consulate in Karachi would start granting business visas —100 a week — instead of making would-be business travelers to the United States go to Islamabad for the visas, as has been the case. He stopped at a shantytown in the city to chat with schoolboys crowded into three classrooms, and even visited the home of a local resident, to get a feel for how people in Karachi live. On Tuesday, he met with opposition leaders in Islamabad, including Liaqat Baloch, the secretary general of the anti-American political party Jamaat-e-Islami, and Fazlur Rehman, the leader of another anti-American party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, who is sometimes referred to as the spiritual founder of the Taliban. In Karachi on Wednesday, Mr. Holbrooke kept bringing up a trade bill that just passed the House, which would set up so-called reconstruction opportunity zones so that textiles and other goods made in Pakistan’s tribal areas could get preferential access to the United States market. And Ms. McHale, whose job is, in part, to try to repair America’s relations with the Muslim world, strayed from his side only when she ventured out on fence-mending missions of her own, meeting with 17 Pakistani journalists, 8 officials of nongovernmental organizations and members of several political parties, all in an effort to deliver one message: America cares about Pakistan. But Mr. Abbasi’s reaction — a response that, Ms. McHale acknowledged, apparently reflects the feelings of about 25 percent of the population, according to a recent poll — demonstrated just how tough the job is. For all of the administration’s efforts to call attention to the nonmilitary ties that would bind the two countries, America is still being judged by many Pakistanis as an uncaring behemoth whose sole concern is finding Osama bin Laden, no matter the cost in civilian Pakistani lives. “He told me that we were no longer human beings because our goal was to eliminate other humans,” Ms. McHale said Wednesday, recounting the conversation with Mr. Abbasi. “He spoke English very well, and he said that thousands of innocent people have been killed because we are trying to find Osama bin Laden.” Following Mr. Holbrooke’s example when he received a similar lashing from Mr. Baloch, Ms. McHale said she argued her points with Mr. Abbasi, points that to many Americans would appear logical, but that often fail to impress over here: Al Qaeda and Mr. bin Laden attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001; the war in Afghanistan, unlike the war in Iraq, is blessed by the United Nations and is a multinational effort; America will always do whatever it takes to defend itself. She said that even though she knew that she did not sway Mr. Abbasi, it was good to hear what he thought because she wanted to try to understand the source of much of the anti-Americanism in Pakistan. Meanwhile, in Karachi, Mr. Holbrooke continued to push an agenda of soft power, telling business leaders that the United States wanted to invest in energy projects in Pakistan. But he acknowledged that some of the projects that Karachi technocrats put before him, with their complex ownership structures, would never get approval in the Congress. The trade bill, now before the Senate, has labor provisions that are unlikely to get past free-trade Republicans, whose support is needed for it to pass. And on top of that, in a concession to the United States textile industry, the bill would not include imports of cotton tops and pants, items that are made in abundance in Pakistan.

Pakistan
United States International Relations
Holbrooke Richard C


Justice Dept. Accuses Albuquerque Police of Excessive Force

Abstract: ALBUQUERQUE — At least 37 times in the last four years, police officers here have responded to threats with bullets, killing 23 people and wounding 14 others. On Thursday, the Justice Department weighed in with a scathing assessment, accusing the Albuquerque Police Department of a “pattern or practice of use of excessive force” that routinely violated people’s constitutional rights. Too often, the Justice Department said, the officers kicked, punched and violently restrained nonthreatening people, and seldom were the officers reprimanded. Many of the victims suffered from mental illnesses, and some were disabled, elderly or drunk, the 16-month investigation concluded. “What we found was a pattern or practice of systemic deficiencies that have pervaded the Albuquerque Police Department for many years,” Jocelyn Samuels, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said at a news conference here on Thursday. The Albuquerque police, she said, suffered from “inadequate oversight, inadequate investigation of incidents of force, inadequate training of officers to ensure they understand what is permissible or not.” As a result, the Police Department had engaged “in a pattern or practice of violating residents’ Fourth Amendment rights” and of using deadly force “in an unconstitutional manner,” Ms. Samuels said. Police departments in several other cities have been targets of similar investigations, also in the wake of accusations of bias, brutality and other types of misconduct. Some cities — including Seattle, Portland, Ore., and New Orleans — remain under federal oversight as they try to adjust to new policies and procedures that took months, sometimes years, to put in effect. The report on the Albuquerque police did not specifically ask for a federal monitor, but the city’s mayor, Richard J. Berry, has said that he would like to have one appointed to ensure that the department is in compliance with whatever changes are ultimately agreed upon. The changes called for by the Justice Department — 44 remedies in all — included extensive revisions to the department’s use-of-force policies. The term “force” would be more clearly defined, and officers would have to report to superiors when they used various tactics: chokeholds, kicks, leg sweeps and tackles. Under the recommendations, officers would be trained to rely more on verbal warnings and less on stun guns, and new recruits would be required to undergo psychological, medical and polygraph examinations to assess their fitness for the job. Also recommended: clearer procedures for handling people with mental illnesses and minimizing the use of unnecessary force against them, as well as an expansion of the number of officers trained to work with them. The review was prompted by complaints about the department, particularly the fatal shootings. One of the most recent killings was of James Boyd, a homeless man with a long history of violent outbursts and mental instability, who was shot by heavily armed police officers last month and whose death led to street protests and cries for reform. At a news conference last week, Mr. Berry, the mayor, unveiled other measures, among them hiring a deputy police chief to oversee the implementation of the federal recommendations. Calling Mr. Boyd’s death a “game changer,” Mr. Berry said he wanted all of the Police Department’s field officers to be trained and certified in crisis intervention, which would better equip them to handle people with mental disturbances. Image Jewel Hall, left, and Sylvia Fuentes, whose son was killed by the Albuquerque police in July 2010, at a news conference in the United States attorney’s office in Albuquerque on Thursday. Credit Mark Holm for The New York Times “I’m calling on our legislators to take action as well,” Mr. Berry told reporters, “to craft laws to help individuals living with mental health issues, particularly individuals who have a propensity to do harm to themselves or others.” The Justice Department report brimmed with examples of police misconduct. Police officers here once fired a stun gun at a deranged man who had doused himself in gasoline, setting him ablaze. Another time, they fired one at a man who yelled, “Bang, bang,” as the officers approached. They have fired one at a 75-year-old homeless man for refusing to leave a bus stop, at a 16-year-old boy for refusing to lie on a floor covered in broken glass and at a young man so drunk he could not get up from a couch. City officials, mindful that calls for reform were inevitable, had already started to make changes, like mounting video cameras on police officers’ helmets and lapels. One of those cameras recorded the dispute in the Sandia Foothills that ended in Mr. Boyd’s death . But by releasing the video in the name of transparency, the Police Department also stoked outrage in many residents, setting off protests that brought hundreds of people to the streets in this city of 500,000 — New Mexico’s largest — and, on one day, ended in violence. Though Mr. Boyd’s death did not figure in the Justice Department’s report, it has been the subject of a federal criminal investigation, and it amplified calls for reform. The City of Albuquerque has already paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits and will have to spend more to comply with the new remedial measures. Workers for the Justice Department interviewed dozens of rank-and-file officers after the investigation began in November 2012, as well as community leaders and relatives of some of the victims, carrying out an investigation that some people here had been seeking for years. Often, the Justice Department report said, the criminal background of the victims of excessive force “receives greater scrutiny than the actions of officers,” fostering what victims’ families and civil rights advocates here have characterized as an “us-versus-them” culture that undermined trust in the Police Department. “Many of us don’t have a great deal of confidence in the mayor and the police chief,” Steve Torres told Ms. Samuels during the report’s release at the United States attorney’s office here. Mr. Torres’s son, Christopher, found to have schizophrenia, was fatally shot by plainclothes officers at his home in 2011. Later, Kenneth Ellis, the father and namesake of another of the shootings’ victims, an Iraq war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder killed while pointing a gun at his own head, said, “Officers in this city have literally gotten away with murder.” In a statement, Stephanie Lopez, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association, said that her organization welcomed the recommendations. “Change is hard for everyone,” she said, adding that the police force “looks forward to learning and advancing,” using the Justice Department’s guidance and additional training “to make us a better department in the future.” Any change requires agreement among the Justice Department, city officials and the police union, and Ms. Samuels warned on Thursday that reaching such agreement could take time. Damon P. Martinez, acting United States attorney for the District of New Mexico, said that despite the “serious constitutional problems” uncovered, the investigation “also has confirmed that the great majority of officers are honorable law enforcement professionals who risk their physical safety and well-being for the public good on a daily basis.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Honduras: Cocaine Lab Said to Be Sign of Mexican Gangs

Abstract: The police have discovered what they said was the largest cocaine processing lab ever found in Honduras , calling it a troubling sign of Mexican drug trafficking organizations spreading into their territory. The lab was found Wednesday on a remote coffee farm in mountains 100 miles north of Tegucigalpa after a six-month investigation with the assistance of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, said Oscar Álvarez, the security minister. It was capable of producing about a ton of cocaine a month. Honduras is a growing transshipment point for cocaine from Colombia to the United States but Mr. Álvarez said the laboratory suggested the drug, usually processed in large clandestine laboratories in Colombia, was being refined in Honduras as well. Mr. Álvarez estimated the lab had been operating for the past two or three years. No arrests were made.

Honduras
Mexico
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Cocaine and Crack Cocaine


State Department Blacklists Militant Haqqani Network

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani officials reacted cautiously on Friday to news that the United States had designated the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network as a terrorist group, allaying fears that the move could drive a fresh wedge between the two uneasy allies. The designation order, signed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Brunei before heading to Russia for a conference, ended two years of debate inside the Obama administration about the merits of formally ostracizing a powerful element of the Afghan insurgency that American officials say has uncomfortably close ties to Pakistan. Within hours of the designation, American officials in Washington were seeking to play down worries that it could stymie peace talks with the Taliban or lead to the designation of Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism. In the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the designation received a studiously muted reception. Previous diplomatic clashes between Pakistan and the United States have set off condemnation in Pakistan’s electronic media, often encouraged by military officials who are not identified. But on Friday, government and military officials largely avoided comment. Instead, evening news programs concentrated on domestic politics, the insurgency in Baluchistan and a visit to Islamabad by India’s minister for external affairs. “This is an internal matter for the United States. It’s not our business,” Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in a statement. “We are not in the business of coddling terrorists and those who challenge the writ of our state.” The restraint was consistent with indications from Pakistani officials in recent weeks that they would publicly accept the designation, even if they privately opposed it. “The Pakistani side is playing it by ear at the moment,” said Cyril Almeida , an analyst with Dawn, a leading English-language newspaper. “They knew it was being pushed by the American military.” Still, he said, “it adds another complicating layer to a fiendishly complicated relationship.” Mrs. Clinton said the designation was a sign that the United States would “continue our robust campaign of diplomatic, military and intelligence pressure” on the Haqqani network. A Pentagon spokesman said it would “degrade the network’s capacity to carry out attacks, including affecting fund-raising abilities, targeting them with our military and intelligence resources, and pressing Pakistan to take action.” A senior Haqqani commander, however, called it a sign of the United States’ “lame tactics.” “Americans are claiming that by declaring us terrorist, we would lose support of some Muslim countries,” said the commander, who spoke by satellite phone through an intermediary in Pakistan. “Let me assure everyone that we only seek Allah’s and the Afghan nation’s support.” Based in the mountains straddling the Pakistan- Afghanistan border, the Haqqani network has carried out some of the most audacious assaults of recent years. Armed with suicide vests, guns and rocket launchers, the group’s fighters have targeted the United States Embassy, NATO’s headquarters and a five-star hotel in Kabul. Their links to Pakistan’s military, especially its Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, have been a sore point with the United States. American intelligence indicates the group enjoys some support from the ISI, although few officials now support a contention by Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the Haqqani network is a “veritable arm” of the ISI. Pakistani officials say their contacts with the Haqqanis are part of normal intelligence operations, and deny any role in directing violence against American and other NATO troops in Afghanistan. The designation was the product of a vivid two-year debate inside the Obama administration that current and former officials said ultimately loomed as a lose-lose proposition for Mrs. Clinton. Any decision to designate could have been seen as the product of pressure from a Congress angry with Pakistan over NATO supply lines negotiations and the fate of Dr. Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani who was jailed after helping the C.I.A. locate Osama bin Laden. Avoiding designation could have handed Mr. Obama’s Republican opponents an opportunity to accuse the president of being weak on a lethal militant group that in June penetrated the perimeter defenses of an American base in southern Afghanistan. In a conference call with reporters, two senior administration officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, played down concerns from critics of the action and offered examples of how they said the designation would help the United States. The designation provides the Department of Justice with new means of bringing prosecutions for material support of the Haqqani network, which has raised money among conservative Muslims in the Persian Gulf since the 1980s. “It gives us a stronger tool as well for going out to other countries and saying we’ve taken this level of action against the group, and we urge you to do the same,” said one official. The two officials also dismissed the idea that the designation would undercut peace talks with the Taliban, which have been suspended since March. American officials, they said specifically, are not barred from talking to a designated organization. “Our policy in Afghanistan, as you well know, is fight, talk and build, which is focused not only on putting military pressure, but also seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” one said.

State Department
Blacklisting
Haqqani Network
Pakistan
Terrorism
Afghanistan
Inter-Services Intelligence
United States International Relations
Obama Barack
Clinton Hillary Rodham


A Big Bet That China’s Currency Will Devalue Further

Abstract: When Mark L. Hart III, a hedge fund investor based in Texas, makes an investment bet, he does it in the style of his home state: big time. Since 2007, his winners have included high-risk, high-return wagers that the United States housing market would collapse and that Greece would go bankrupt. But Mr. Hart’s most audacious gamble to date may well be the one he is making on China. He is betting that the mini-devaluation of China’s currency last month was a mere appetizer to a 50 percent currency implosion that he predicts will come when foreign investors pull their money out of China. Such an extreme drop in China’s currency, the renminbi, would propel a broader rout in emerging-market currencies — from South Korea to Turkey to Brazil — and result in a sustained global slump as China’s borrowing binge grinds to a halt. “Extreme credit growth usually leads to a credit bust,” Mr. Hart said in an interview on Real Vision TV — a new media venture in which sophisticated investors and financial experts offer their insights to fellow practitioners in a Charlie Rose-style format. In the video, which was produced a year ago — well before the recent currency devaluation — Mr. Hart explained how investors pulling their money out of China would lead to a collapse of the renminbi. “It is the story of 1997 and the Asian currency crisis,” he warned. A growing number of investors like Mr. Hart have concluded that a dollar that strengthens with the United States economy will have a devastating effect not only on China but on emerging markets in general. Their view is that the trillions of dollars that chased risky investment opportunities in China, Brazil, Turkey and other countries are swiftly exiting and that the pace will pick up when the Federal Reserve eventually raises interest rates. The result, they say, will be plunging currencies, corporate defaults and a sustained growth slowdown over the next few years. This week, emerging-market currencies continued their decline, led by Brazil, Turkey, Mexico and South Africa. John H. Burbank III, a veteran emerging-market investor at Passport Capital, a $4 billion hedge fund in San Francisco, has earned stellar returns this year by betting on weak commodities and imploding emerging-market stock markets and currencies. In a report by HSBC on top-performing hedge fund managers, a special opportunities fund managed by Mr. Burbank increased 29 percent through July of this year. Through August, his Global Strategy Fund was up 14.5 percent. “Emerging markets are being liquidated,” Mr. Burbank said in a separate Real Vision interview . This will continue, he argued, as investors keep taking their dollars out of these economies. At the root of this investment thesis is the belief that China’s 3 percent currency devaluation last month was not a one-time event, as many analysts have suggested. Instead, these investors think that after a borrowing and investing frenzy — much of which was financed by dollar-based lenders — China is experiencing a run on the bank similar to what happened to Asian countries in 1997 when their semi-pegged currencies collapsed. In the first quarter of this year, $109 billion left Chinese banks for overseas institutions, according to the Bank for International Settlements, a clearinghouse for global central banks. And the investors further think that the country’s $3.5 trillion in foreign exchange reserves — down from $4 trillion a year ago — will not be enough to prevent a large-scale currency rout. According to Tim Lee of Pi Economics, a research firm based in Greenwich, Conn., emerging-market borrowers have accumulated $3 trillion in cheap dollar-based loans in the last decade of extra-loose central bank policies. China has been at the forefront of this so-called carry trade, in which corporations and countries tap dollar-based lenders and then invest the proceeds in higher-yielding assets denominated in local currencies, such as real estate, commodities and large-scale investments. As long as interest rates in the United States remain low and emerging-market currencies remain strong, these trades have been highly profitable. But as rates in the United States increase and the values of local currencies plunge, these profits evaporate, causing investors to flee — as they have in countries like Turkey, Brazil and South Africa. Report on U.S. Dollar Debt in Emerging Markets Tim Lee of Pi Economics says that emerging market borrowers have accumulated $3 trillion in cheap dollar-based loans in the last decade of extra loose central bank policies. Mr. Hart calculates that the size of the Chinese carry trade is around $2 trillion, by far the highest figure for any emerging-market borrower. And his view from the beginning has been that the dollars that have flowed into China — financing an investment rate of 50 percent of the overall economy — must eventually flow out again. “It is the greatest carry trade in modern history,” Mr. Hart said. “There is nothing that is even close.” To calculate China’s ability to prevent a run on the renminbi, Mr. Hart has focused on an obscure financial measure that is attracting increased attention as analysts scramble to gauge how vulnerable emerging-market currencies have become. The ratio examines a country’s stash of dollar reserves — its primary asset pile — relative to all the short-term money it must pay back on demand, such as deposits socked away in banks. In the event of a currency crisis, these funds would flee. So economies with a large proportion of cash reserves compared to these broad liabilities would be in the best position to defend their currencies. According to a recent paper by economists at Prudential’s bond division, China’s foreign currency reserve ratio — in effect its net cash position available to defend against speculators — is just a bit over 20 percent, putting it in the neighborhood of countries known to be vulnerable to capital outflows, like Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. “If there is a run on the currency, everyone will want to turn their yuan into dollars,” said Jurgen Odenius, the chief economist of Prudential Fixed Income. Yuan is a shorthand reference to China’s currency. “And on that basis, China’s foreign exchange reserves do not rank among the stronger countries. There is a lot of leverage in the system.” Since the dollar began its relentless move upward about a year ago, the Turkish lira has lost 35 percent, the Brazilian real has dropped 65 percent and the South African dollar has declined 20 percent. But many analysts point to the weakness in currencies that are trade competitors with China as being a more telling sign that China’s currency will devalue further. The Japanese yen has fallen 60 percent against the dollar since 2012, and over the last year, the Korean won and the Taiwan dollar have lost more than 10 percent. As such, China’s 3 percent currency adjustment does absolutely nothing to improve its export competitiveness, said Julian Brigden of Macro Intelligence 2 Partners, an independent research firm based in Vail, Colo. Of course, having a bright idea does not guarantee it will make money. Mr. Hart, who reaped 500 percent and 200 percent returns on his mortgage and European trades, has yet to hit the jackpot on his China play even though he first put it on in 2010. It could also be that the Federal Reserve’s reluctance to increase interest rates will weaken the dollar and take the pressure off China and other emerging-market currencies. Mr. Hart, who is 43, has a different approach compared with most hedge fund managers. There is his Texas domicile, which he credits with keeping him and his team at Corriente Advisors at a safe distance from the groupthink traps found in traditional hedge fund centers in New York, London and Greenwich. (The name of his firm is taken from Corriente cattle, a longhorn breed.) A classic macro investor, he will identify a theme, raise money from wealthy individuals and institutions and then return the cash, regardless if his bet has paid off or not. So he gets paid not for sitting on a pile of assets but when the gamble pays off, at which point he takes a slice of the profit. Mr. Hart’s China bets consist mostly of buying currency derivatives that pay off if the renminbi loses value against the dollar. This June, he closed his China fund, just months before the devaluation. But he has kept his China bet on for himself and several private investors. Mr. Hart would not comment on whether he had plans to start a new China fund. In his Real Vision interview, Mr. Hart explained that since 2006, he had been putting on a series of disaster trades in the belief that the world economy would be entering a sustained phase of deflation and low growth. The United States mortgage and European bets represented the first two legs of this thesis; China was the third. “My fund would have benefited quite a bit, but my timing was off,” Mr. Hart said in an email exchange. “I believe that there is still much more downside in the yuan.”

China
Currency
Hedge fund
Economy
Renminbi,Yuan
Mark L Hart III
International trade


France Advances to Davis Cup Finals

Abstract: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet put France back in the Davis Cup finals on Saturday by winning the doubles and ending the two-year reign of the Czech Republic. Tsonga and Gasquet, who won their singles matches on Friday, sent Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek to a rare defeat in doubles in Davis Cup, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-1, at Roland Garros in Paris. France made the finals for the first time since 2010. It won the last of its nine cups in 2001. The French will face the winner of the other semifinal between Switzerland and Italy. Without Roger Federer, Switzerland lost in doubles to Italy and had its lead cut to 2-1 in Geneva. The Swiss decided to rest Federer and paired Stan Wawrinka with Marco Chiudinelli instead. They lost, 7-5, 3-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, against Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli at Palexpo indoor arena. Federer can clinch a victory against Fognini in Sunday’s opening reverse singles.


Inquiry Sees Chaos in Evacuations After Japan Tsunami

Abstract: TOKYO — Chaotic evacuations after a tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant left children in areas where radiation levels were deemed dangerously high, while causing unnecessary deaths among sickly patients who were hastily removed from their hospitals, a government-sponsored inquiry reported on Monday. The inquiry, the latest in a series of investigations into the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, came amid intensifying debate over the human toll of the disaster. The 450-page report on the inquiry, released on Monday, also said that the government’s failure to act on computer-aided predictions of radioactive releases as the disaster unfolded might have caused residents of at least two communities to be led straight into the radioactive plume. The inquiry’s chairman, Yotaro Hatamura, an engineering professor at the University of Tokyo and an expert on the study of large-scale failure, stressed that he had made it a point to study the disaster from the point of view of communities affected by it. “An analysis from the victims’ perspective takes you beyond studying what equipment or systems broke down,” Mr. Hatamura said at a news conference. “Instead, we begin to consider the suffering brought upon local communities and whether that suffering could have been minimized.” Mr. Hatamura and his 10-member panel detailed how miscommunication among the nuclear site’s operator — the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco — local officials, the police and the Japan Self-Defense Forces set off chaos as about 340 patients, most of them elderly, were evacuated from a hospital facility near the plant. Eight patients who spent almost 12 hours on a bus died on board, while about 35 were mistakenly left behind at the hospital for two extra days. By the end of March, 40 patients had died, either from medical complications or from the fatigue of staying at evacuation centers, according to the hospital. Local governments in the 13 municipalities affected by the Fukushima crisis have certified nearly 600 deaths as “disaster-related,” meaning caused by fatigue or by medical conditions made worse by evacuation. Experts say it is difficult to separate out the effects of the nuclear disaster, however, because many of the evacuees were also driven from their homes by the tsunami. The report detailed how the government decided not to act on the computer-aided estimates, available 12 days into the disaster, which showed radiation levels dangerous for small children in areas to the northwest and to the south of the plant beyond the 12-mile evacuation zone. The report said that Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, considering those projections “grave,” brought the data to the prime minister at the time, Naoto Kan, who eventually decided that they were overblown and elected not to widen the evacuation zone. Instead, he ordered that all children in those areas undergo medical tests “to confirm thyroid exposure through actual test results,” the report said. Those tests so far have not revealed exposure above government limits, the report said. However, some experts have warned that the health effects of longer-term exposure to low levels of radiation are not well understood. Some of these areas — like Iitate village, northwest of the plant — were not evacuated for over a month. Earlier, government scientists had used the same estimates — made by a computer program known as the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, or Speedi — to discover that plumes that had been blowing eastward from the plant out to sea were starting to head inland, in a northwesterly direction. Japan’s nuclear regulator relayed the predictions to Mr. Kan’s office, which raised no alarm, the report said. As a result, in one town near the stricken plant, Namie, the mayor might have inadvertently led evacuees northwest into the radioactive plume, the report confirms. And in Minamisoma, north of the plant, local officials probably organized evacuations by bus on the very day — March 15 — that a radioactive plume swung into their path, the report said. Mr. Kan, who stepped down as prime minister in September, was not immediately available for comment. At the end of May, in testimony before a parliamentary inquiry into the disaster, Mr. Kan defended his handling of the disaster, saying that while he tried to divulge as much information as possible to the public, he was kept in the dark about crucial details by nuclear regulators and Tepco. The report also faults Tepco for failing to give most workers dosimeters that would have kept track of their exposure to harmful radiation as they fought to contain meltdowns in the early days of the crisis. Tepco in fact had access to hundreds of dosimeters sent from other nuclear power plants across Japan, but managers failed to put them to use — a sign that the company paid little heed to worker safety, the report said. The report came after a construction company based in Fukushima admitted that it forced workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to cover their dosimeters with lead plates last year, in a bid to stay under a government safety threshold for exposure. The case has underscored the lax safety standards at the plant, which the government has said is in a stable state but remains highly radioactive. Teruo Sagara, an executive at the construction company, Build-Up, said that nine workers had agreed to put the lead coverings on their dosimeters. He said the company had thought it would be in their employees’ interests to underreport exposure so they could work at the plant longer. “We judged mistakenly that we could bring peace of mind to the workers if we could somehow delay their dosimeters’ alarms’ going off,” Mr. Sagara said. Japan’s Health Ministry said on Monday that it was investigating.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Japan)


Martínez Faces the Toughest Outs Available at the Mets’ Camp

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Pedro Martínez has faced Derek Jeter more than any other hitter. Next is Bernie Williams. Making his way up that list is Víctor Méndez, who has batted against Martínez nine times in the past five days. When Martínez pitches simulated games, as he did Tuesday, the Mets summon their peskiest and most experienced hitters from the minor league side of camp to challenge him. That usually means Méndez, a 27-year-old switch-hitter with only 21 career at-bats above Class AA. He recorded six at-bats Tuesday and supplied exactly the test that Martínez said he needed to prepare for his Grapefruit League debut, scheduled for Sunday against the Detroit Tigers. “If you want to talk about guys that are going to make your at-bat tough for you, Méndez and Beltrán,” Martínez said, also referring to Carlos Beltrán. Mike Carp, another left-handed hitter, was chosen for the same reason as Méndez. “Not so much the right-handers, the left-handers,” Martínez said. “Carlos and Méndez are very difficult to pitch. And then Carp came up in the last at-bat, and he had a pretty good idea of what he was doing and when to swing. That made me feel like it was a real game.” Even if it did not look like one. Martínez threw 59 pitches, 43 of them strikes, with the bullpen coach Guy Conti standing behind the mound as the umpire. The game was held at Tradition Field, which was mostly empty, with minor leaguers serving as fielders. The pitching coach Rick Peterson sat in a chair alongside Jeff Wilpon, the Mets’ chief operating officer, David Wright and Joe Smith, while Jorge Sosa and José Reyes watched from the dugout. Because Martínez said he felt sluggish pitching so early in his last simulated game, at 10 a.m. on Friday, the Mets accommodated him by pushing back the scheduled start time to 12:30 p.m. That prevented Manager Willie Randolph, who was with the team in Fort Myers, Fla., for its game against the Red Sox, from attending. The simulated game began about five minutes early, reversing the catchphrase “Pedro time” that playfully refers to his schedule, and Martínez and Scott Schoeneweis switched after each half-inning. Martínez, pitching the equivalent of four innings, gave up one run and four singles, striking out two and not walking anyone. Beltrán said he thought Martínez had good movement on his pitches, particularly his cut fastball. Martínez topped out at 87 miles an hour and said his changeup was not as sharp as it had been last Friday. He needed only eight pitches to record three outs in the third inning, so he stayed in to raise his pitch count. “It was nice to get the intensity where you want it to be, so when he goes out for a real game, he’s had that test drive and he’s gone around the track a few times,” Peterson said. “You want to see he’s ready for the green flag.” Aside from health, Peterson said the most important thing for Martínez was increasing his pitch volume. He threw 53 last Friday and 59 Tuesday in conditions that approximated a real game, and is on track to throw more during his scheduled four-inning stint Sunday. “Today, I just felt like I was starting to warm up,” Martínez said. “I’m thinking if it was a real game and I felt so good it would have been the same. The main key is just to feel healthy, and that I really felt today. I feel like I’m really, really healthy.” The Mets have built in an extra day of wiggle room for him, but Martínez, by pitching once every five days, remains on track to pitch April 1, the season’s second game, in Miami. The schedule all but confirms that Johan Santana will start on opening day — even if Randolph has yet to make an announcement. “Didn’t you see when Johan arrived?” Martínez said. “That was the first day it was decided. You don’t pay a guy $150 million to just come over here and be a No. 2 or No. 3. It’s impossible.” INSIDE PITCH Carlos Beltrán said he was not sure whether his left knee would feel well enough to let him play the outfield once the designated hitter is not in effect (at National League parks) after March 15. “Now I know where I am,” Beltrán said. “It will depend, having a good game offensively, being around the bases, seeing how I do from first to third or second to home, sliding, all that kind of stuff.”... The Mets could not overcome the four runs that Nelson Figueroa allowed in his three innings, and they lost to the Boston Red Sox, 4-3, in Fort Myers, Fla. Ángel Pagán continued his scorching spring training by driving in the Mets’ first two runs with a third-inning triple.


Kendall Fuller’s Ties With Virginia Tech Are Rooted in Family

Abstract: BLACKSBURG, Va. — Kendall Fuller said that his earliest experience playing football was the flag football league his parents put him in at age 6 or 7. To hear his parents tell it, though, it is not an unequivocally happy memory. “He didn’t want to play,” his father, Vincent Fuller Sr., said. “He wanted to tackle, because he saw his older brothers doing that.” It is a theme that has defined the career of Fuller, an all-American cornerback who will lead Virginia Tech against top-ranked Ohio State on Monday night. Fuller’s three older brothers all played football at Virginia Tech, and then all three went on to play in the N.F.L. Vincent Jr. , 33, had a seven-year career as a defensive back mostly with the Tennessee Titans (he is now a student at Fordham Law School). Corey , 25, is a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions. Kyle , 23, is a cornerback for the Chicago Bears, who selected him 14th over all in the 2014 draft. Bud Foster, Virginia Tech’s longtime defensive coordinator, said Kendall, a 20-year-old junior projected to be a first-round pick if he turns pro next year, might be the most talented Fuller yet. “Kendall has that same instinctiveness about him, but he’s also a little bigger and more physical,” Foster said. Added Vincent Fuller Sr.: “When all of them were 18, Kendall was the farthest. He has the potential to be the best.” It is not clear if he is the most competitive. Fans got a glimpse of the Fuller brothers’ perpetual battle for supremacy last Thanksgiving, when Corey’s Lions hosted Kyle and the Bears. After Corey completed a reception and was tackled, Kyle, who had not been covering him, came over and batted the ball out of his hands. “If one of us picks something up, the rest will pick it up and try to beat the other one at it,” Kendall Fuller said. “So like, me, I started bowling. So now anytime one of us goes bowling, they’re going to bowl to see if they can beat me.” (For the record, Kendall said, his personal record of 246 makes him the best bowler of the brothers. He also acknowledged being the family’s biggest trash-talker.) All the Fullers played in big games in Virginia Tech’s maroon and orange, but few were as high-profile as Monday night’s meeting in Blacksburg. Ohio State, the defending national champion, lost only one game last season — to Virginia Tech. “Everybody’s going to watch that game,” Vincent Sr. said recently at a tailgate outside FedEx Field, where Corey was playing in a preseason game against the Washington Redskins. He leaned back appreciatively in his foldable canvas chair and added, “That’s what it’s all about.” He and his wife, Nina Dorsey-Fuller, plan to be back in another tailgating lot — and in the stands — Monday night. Helpfully, the N.F.L. season starts the week after college football’s; in the past, their sons’ varied schedules have led to harried travel arrangements. On this weekend a year ago, the Fullers were in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday to watch Kendall; in Chicago on Sunday to check in on Kyle; and in Detroit on Monday night to watch Corey and the Lions. They returned to their home just outside Baltimore on Tuesday. Image Fuller’s parents, Vincent Fuller Sr. and Nina Dorsey-Fuller, at a Lions game. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times Vincent Fuller Sr. is a certified public accountant and track coach, and Dorsey-Fuller works in the I.T. department of a large corporation. At FedEx Field, she wore a “Mama Fuller” Lions jersey and blue nail polish, and acknowledged that she keeps up with her sons’ professional exploits through daily Google searches. The Internet, it seems, offers more frequent updates than her sons do. “The only time I find stuff out is when it’s on Bleacher Report,” she said. The Fullers’ Virginia Tech connection began with Vincent Jr., who chose the Hokies over Maryland, Duke and Boston College, in part because a cousin had played there. Corey initially took a different route, attending Kansas on a track scholarship. After Kyle committed to Virginia Tech, Corey decided to transfer as a preferred walk-on the same season. By the time Kendall was preparing for college, the word was out. Though Clemson recruited him fervently, in the end — with some nudging from a mother whose stated neutrality did not seem genuine — he chose the Hokies. These days, Fuller carries himself like a veteran. After a true freshman season in which he started 12 of 13 games and was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s defensive rookie of the year, he played most of last season with a cast on his fractured left wrist. (He still made two interceptions.) Fuller had surgery in the off-season, and draft experts expect him to be chosen in the top half of the first round next year. One afternoon last month, Fuller, held out of practice with a sore hamstring, stalked the turf in Virginia Tech’s brand-new indoor facility. Moist air breezed in from the rainstorms that periodically emerged from and disappeared back into the surrounding Appalachian Mountains. Unable to practice, Fuller started coaching. After watching a redshirt freshman named Terrell Edmunds defend a wide receiver, Fuller yelled to Edmunds while demonstratively grabbing his own snug maroon tank top underneath the arm pit. “I was telling him not to grab him up high,” Fuller said later. Cornerbacks, he explained, can get away with yanking opponents’ jerseys as long as the contact is low enough that the referee cannot spy it. It is a move a national audience may see (or not see) Monday night. Though Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer had not announced whether the sophomore J. T. Barrett or the redshirt junior Cardale Jones would start at quarterback in the opener, it is easy to predict that one of the signal battles will be between Fuller and Buckeyes wide receiver Michael Thomas. Virginia Tech’s stop-the-run defenses traditionally rely on N.F.L.-caliber lockdown corners like De’Angelo Hall, Brandon Flowers and, more recently, Kyle Fuller. “Our boundary corner — that’s our dude, so to speak, our guy, our ‘dog’ if you want to use the term,” Foster said. “That’s our marquee player.” A Barrett-led offense would be more horizontal, effectively neutralizing such a player — unless he has one more skill. In that case, Foster said, “That boundary corner needs to be a good tackler.” Fuller has worked diligently on putting the thickness that distinguishes him from his brothers — the extra 10 to 15 pounds, which you can see in his powerful thighs — to good use. Torrian Gray, the Hokies’ defensive backs coach, recalled one play during the first live scrimmage of camp. The defense knew a rush was coming, and Fuller’s role, as the boundary corner, was to force the ball carrier inside. Only Fuller had another plan. “He put the safety on the outside so he could be the guy in the middle — who goes into the middle and actually makes the tackle,” Gray said. “He wanted to trade so he could be the guy who was the free hitter.” While Fuller’s physical traits are what will put him on teams’ draft boards, it is likely that this mentality is what will get him on a roster. As his father said, “Not everybody has the demeanor to play defense.”

Kendall Fuller
Virginia Tech
Vincent Fuller
College football
Kyle Fuller
Corey Fuller


U.S. Official Shoots 2 Pakistanis During Apparent Robbery

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An American official shot and killed two men on a motorcycle who apparently threatened to rob him at gunpoint while he was driving his car in the city of Lahore on Thursday, according to senior police officials there. The official, Raymond Davis, who was posted to the United States Consulate in Lahore, called the consulate for help during the episode, and a four-wheel-drive vehicle that tried to come to his rescue hit and killed a third man, said the senior superintendent of police, Faisal Rana. Later, Lahore police officials filed murder charges against Mr. Davis on Thursday night in the deaths of the two men on the motorcycle. The police indicated that they were no longer convinced that there had been an attempted robbery. The deaths of three Pakistanis in a case involving an armed American official at midday in a busy metropolitan area could heighten anti-American sentiment, which already runs high in Pakistan . Many here distrust and disapprove of the United States’ support of the fight against Taliban militants in the country. Whether American employees at the three American consular offices in Pakistan, as well as at the embassy in Islamabad, should be allowed to carry weapons erupted as an issue in the Pakistani press more than a year ago. In a brief statement, the consulate in Lahore said Mr. Davis was an employee, but did not specify his position. Pakistani police officers described Mr. Davis as a “security official.” The question of why Mr. Davis was armed while driving by himself in a major city is likely to be raised by Pakistani officials, and by the press. A brother of one of the dead Pakistanis said in a brief television interview that his family would demand that Mr. Davis be “hanged.” But Mr. Rana, the police official, said it was unlikely that Mr. Davis would be charged with murder. The police said one of the men died instantly after being shot by Mr. Davis. The second man who was shot died in the hospital, they said, as did the man who was hit by the vehicle. Lahore residents said roadside robberies by armed men on motorcycles seeking mobile phones and other valuables from drivers are relatively common.

Diplomatic Service Embassies and Consulates


Report Warns of Chinese Municipal Debt Risks

Abstract: HONG KONG — A report by Nomura said Thursday that Chinese municipal debt, a focal point of major concern about the country’s economy, had grown at an alarming 39 percent clip in recent years. The report by Nomura estimated that the financing vehicles used by local governments to raise cash had created debts totaling at least 19 trillion renminbi, or $3.1 trillion, by the end of last year and posed a “major risk to the economy.” “Liquidity risks are rising,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Nomura and one of the authors of the report. He added that the bank’s research — based on a survey of 869 of these local government financing vehicles, entities set up to borrow in various ways on behalf of the cities — showed that more than half of the debt would have been at risk of default last year had local governments not supported it. The number in Nomura’s report roughly matches a recent estimate by Liu Yuhui, an economist in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government research organization in Beijing. “I personally feel that the scale of local debt has already broken beyond 20 trillion yuan,” Mr. Liu told a forum in Beijing in mid-September, according to Caixin, a Chinese business magazine. Yuan is another name for China’s currency, the renminbi. “You can say there is a risk of local government debt getting out of control.” Bank lending and local government debt have soared in recent years, and were a major driver of China’s economic rebound after the global financial crisis. As land sales, a traditional way to raise funds, have slowed, local governments have increasingly resorted to bank loans, bonds or equity market offerings to generate cash for the infrastructure projects that have been propelling growth. The huge increase in this activity, however, has caused analysts and policy makers to worry about the financial risks accompanying it, and the new leadership in Beijing has made it clear that it wants to rein in those dangers. In one of the clearest signs to date that they are trying to get a handle on the situation, the authorities in Beijing in July ordered an audit of local government debt. China watchers expect the results to be published in the coming weeks, probably before a plenary session of the Communist Party Central Committee in November, at which more details of China’s broad economic overhaul are likely to be communicated. Beijing’s eagerness to combat financial risks and bring about more efficient and disciplined allocation of capital will mean slower growth and possibly isolated loan defaults in the coming years, analysts like Mr. Zhang say. But such discipline is also seen as a crucial element of China’s long-term economic development, according to the International Monetary Fund . “Macro conditions will deteriorate if the current pace of local government debt buildup continues,” Mr. Zhang said. “The efficacy of this debt-driven investment strategy will dwindle as funds raised are increasingly used to service existing debt over new investment.” He added that the government not only retained ample financial firepower to prop up ailing borrowers and contain a systemic crisis in the next couple of years, but also appeared prepared to tolerate the slower growth that reduced lending would entail. “We expect some individual L.G.F.V. defaults in 2014, but a systemic default in L.G.F.V. debt in the short term is unlikely, as the fiscal cost to roll over debt is still low,” he wrote, referring to local government financing vehicles. “In other words, the government is still capable of putting L.G.F.V. debt back on a sustainable path, but if it chooses to delay a resolution, the risks — and fiscal cost — may be very high down the road.”


F.A.A. Panel Backs Easing of Device Rules

Abstract: Airline passengers should be allowed to use their personal electronic devices to read, play games or enjoy movies and music, even when planes are on the ground or flying below 10,000 feet, according to recommendations an advisory panel sent to the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday. But the panel said that restrictions should remain on sending text messages, browsing the Web or checking e-mail after the plane’s doors have been closed. Passengers can do that only when the aircraft’s Wi-Fi network is turned on, typically above 10,000 feet. The use of cellphones to make voice calls, which was not part of the review, will still be prohibited throughout the flight. The review was the work of a 28-member panel set up last year to revise current policies. It provides a road map to changing the policy, but it is now up to the F.A.A.’s administrator, Michael P. Huerta, to decide whether and when to do so. “The F.A.A. received the report and recommendations today on the expanded use of personal electronic devices,” said Les Dorr, a spokesman for the agency. “The administrator will review the report and determine next steps.” The panel would maintain restrictions on devices like smartphones and tablets with data communication features that could potentially disrupt some airplane systems. For that reason, those devices should be used only on “airplane mode,” which disables their transmission capability. This would leave passengers, broadly, with tablets, e-readers and smartphones to use any material — books, music, or movies — that has been downloaded before the flight. The F.A.A. started its review of current policies more than a year ago and appointed the panel to look at the technical aspects of the ban and outline steps to ease restrictions. Policy changes have been long expected by passengers, increasingly frustrated by rules seen as outdated in a tech-driven world. The F.A.A. recognized the need for change, given the proliferation of electronic devices in recent years, particularly smartphones and tablets. The policy is increasingly difficult to enforce. One study suggested that about a third of all passengers did not turn off their devices once on a plane. Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, who has pressed the F.A.A. to relax the ban, said she was pleased with the panel’s recommendations and hoped that the F.A.A. would adopt them quickly. “Anytime you have a rule that appears to be about safety but it is widely ignored, it undermines the importance of other rules about safety,” she said. “If people are being told to do things because it keeps the public safe, there needs to be solid scientific data that supports that, and clearly that was not the case with this prohibition.” Airlines, too, have been eager to relax the rules, which are seen often as a distraction for flight attendants forced to police the cabin. They are also expanding the use of wireless systems on board, offering live television and considering streaming movies to passengers’ own devices. But given the persistent uncertainty, as well as the potential risk, the F.A.A. has taken a cautious approach. In recent years, pilots have reported hundreds of episodes in which they suspected that electronic devices might have interfered with instruments on the flight deck. But the evidence has been largely anecdotal, and neither regulators nor airlines have been able to formally substantiate them. The effort to regulate electronics on planes began in the late 1950s, when studies found that passengers carrying portable FM radios interfered with radar navigation systems used at the time. The panel recommended that the F.A.A. require airlines to demonstrate that their planes were immune to electromagnetic interference. Many have done so already when installing Wi-Fi. Once that is done the agency can allow the airlines to lift the restrictions. That could happen next year. Consumer electronics makers have long called for the relaxed rules. Amazon, which makes the Kindle electronic reader, once loaded a plane with Kindles to see whether it would have an impact on flight instruments. “We’ve been fighting for our customers on this issue for years — testing an airplane packed full of Kindles, working with the F.A.A., and serving as the device manufacturer on this committee,” Drew Herdener, a spokesman for Amazon, which makes the Kindle. “This is a big win for customers and, frankly, it’s about time.” The current policy is that all electronic devices must be turned off once the main cabin doors are closed and until the aircraft reaches 10,000 feet, or descends below that level for landing. Flight attendants’ efforts to enforce the rule can cause tensions with passengers. Above 10,000 feet, where possible interference is deemed to be less critical and pilots have more time to respond to a problem, passengers are allowed to use laptops, smartphones and tablets, provided that their transmission functions remain turned off. The use of cellphones is not banned by the F.A.A. but by telecommunication regulators because their use in flight could interfere with transmissions between cell towers on the ground.

Electronics
Wireless
Airlines,airplanes
Regulation and Deregulation
FAA
Plane Crashes and Missing Planes


Texans Disagree on Texting-Driving Ban

Abstract: Barbara Graff, an Odessa city councilwoman, knows the dangers of distracted driving. But that does not mean she wants to pass a law against it. “I won’t even answer my phone anymore while I’m driving,” Ms. Graff said. But last October she voiced opposition to a ban on texting while driving in Odessa, saying the measure was not enforceable. Although Odessa did not adopt the law, bans on cellphone use while driving are on the rise in cities across Texas, which is one of just 11 states without a statewide law. Austin and San Antonio are among 28 cities that have banned some degree of cellphone use while driving. Penalties include fines of up to $500. The bans come as increasing evidence shows the dangers of distracted driving. Studies by the Texas Department of Transportation show that traffic fatalities linked to some form of cellphone use increased almost 50 percent between 2006 and 2010. In September, Amarillo banned the use of all mobile devices while driving. According to Mayor Paul Harpole, polls showed 65 percent of residents in Amarillo supported the law. “To me, it comes down to common sense,” Mr. Harpole said. “A lot of people may be able to drive with a phone in their ear, but we have some who can’t.” Mr. Harpole said some Amarillo residents who opposed the ban saw it as an issue of freedom. To Mr. Harpole, though, the question of safety was more important. “Today, none of us would think of getting into a car without air bags or seat belts,” he said. “To me, it’s that kind of issue.” In June 2011, Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a bill written by Representative Tom Craddick, Republican of Midland, that would have banned texting while driving statewide. In a statement, Mr. Perry called the bill “a government effort to micromanage the behavior of adults.” A representative for Mr. Craddick said he would try again to pass the bill in the 2013 legislative session. While Mr. Perry and others call such bans government overreach, some object to texting-while-driving laws for practical reasons. “If you talk to law enforcement,” Ms. Graff said, “they ask, ‘How can we enforce this?’ ” She said enforcing a ban on texting while driving was not feasible because it was often very difficult for officers to know if someone was actually texting. In Amarillo, the police say catching violators will be easier. Sgt. Brent Barbee of the Amarillo Police Department said the city’s ban on all cellphone use “removes a lot of the challenge” of enforcement. “Any device in the driver’s hands will be a violation,” he said. Ms. Graff said that education on the dangers of distracted driving would be more effective in Odessa than a ban. A law, she said, could make the situation worse, causing some drivers to take their eyes off the road while trying to hide their texting. “We could pass an ordinance, pat ourselves on the back and say we took care of it. But did we?” she said. “We need to use education to stop this.”

Texas
Text Messaging
Roads and Traffic
Drunken and Reckless Driving


Xavier Niel, a Billionaire Who Breaks the Mold

Abstract: PARIS — Xavier Niel is not what you would expect in a billionaire. Mr. Niel, the French Internet entrepreneur, is a slightly disheveled 45-year-old fond of jeans and open-collared shirts. He is a high school graduate from a working-class Paris suburb who rails bluntly against the country’s established classes and a business elite culled from a handful of grande écoles — elite educational institutions. But over the past two decades, Mr. Niel has amassed a net worth estimated by Forbes in March at $6.6 billion, emerging as France’s most influential technology entrepreneur, an opportunistic, controversial visionary whose low-cost Internet service provider and mobile network have made the Internet affordable for millions of French consumers. To many struggling in France’s stagnant economy, Mr. Niel is a hero. But to a French business establishment grappling with the competitive disruptions of the Internet — not to mention the same stagnant economy — he is an unwelcome threat, a destroyer of profit margins. “He represents the Internet world and the Internet economy, something that is not really appreciated in France,” said Cedric Manara, a law professor at Edhec, a business school in Paris. “He is not one of them. He represents what scares them — the big battlefield between the old and new economy.” Mr. Niel says his goal is no less than to instill a Web-based entrepreneurial culture in France. “If people like us don’t start to change things in France, nothing is ever going to change,” Mr. Niel said. “Today France is the fifth-largest economy in the world. But if we don’t change things, we will be the 25th biggest in just 10 years.” The role of new economy evangelist did not come naturally to Mr. Niel, who grew up as an introvert in a middle-class home southeast of Paris, not far from where the Marne and Seine rivers meet. His father worked as a patent consultant for a French pharmaceutical maker. His mother was a bookkeeper. Mr. Niel said he was coaxed out of his shell by his younger sister, Véronique. When he was 13, his father bought him his first computer, a Sinclair ZX81, which had no monitor and 1 kilobyte of memory. The gift would change his life. “It was the only thing in the world where I could ask it to do something, and it would do it,” he said. Mr. Niel’s audience has grown since. In 1993, when he was 25, Mr. Niel created France’s first Internet service provider, WorldNet, which he sold seven years later, just before the dotcom bubble burst, for more than $50 million. In 2002, his second Internet service business, Free, sold the world’s first triple-play package of phone, television and Internet. The Freebox service cost just €29.99 a month, or about $40 at current exchange rates, about a third less than the going rate. The triple-play would not arrive in the United States until three years later. Free has since added a Blu-ray disc player, a digital recorder and unlimited domestic mobile calls to the Freebox package, but it still has not raised the basic price. The company is France’s second largest Internet service provider, behind Orange, owned by the former telephone monopoly, France Télécom. But the ISP business was only a warm-up. In January 2012, he created Free Mobile, which became France’s fourth cellphone network operator. In another break with convention, Free sold a no-strings-attached SIM card service with unlimited calls, text and Internet for €19.99 a month, less than half what the other three — Orange, SFR and Bouyges Télécom — had been charging. This came after the three bigger operators had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the European Commission to block Free’s mobile license. Since its inception, Free Mobile is estimated to have cost the top three operators millions in profit, as all created new, lower-cost plans to compete. That does not bother Mr. Niel too much. In December, the French competition regulator, Autorité de la concurrence, fined Orange and SFR, which together have about three-quarters of France’s mobile users, €183 million for abusing their size by offering free on-network calls to their own customers since 2005. The operators are appealing the ruling. But for Mr. Niel, who spoke during a wide-ranging interview on the top floor of his headquarters in central Paris, the case was another example of the cartel-like relationship among industry leaders that pervades the French economy and in which profit trumps the needs of consumers. Free Mobile signed up 5.2 million customers during its first year of business, grabbing almost 8 percent of the French mobile market. Sales reached €844 million but the business generated a €46.1 million loss in 2012 before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The new enterprise increased annual revenue at Mr. Niel’s holding company, Iliad, by 49 percent to €3.2 billion last year. Iliad had a market capitalization Friday of €10 billion. “Our goal is to bring Internet to everyone in France,” he said, speaking in a heavily accented English. But in parts of France, Mr. Niel remains controversial. In the 1990s, his company created services like reverse phone directories, which allow users to search by phone number, for the Minitel, a forerunner to the Internet. His decision to start a sex chat service rankled the French, most of whom are Catholic. Image Xavier Niel created France’s first Internet service provider, WorldNet, in 1993. Credit Agnes Dherbeys for The International Herald Tribune In 2004, he was arrested on charges of aggravated procuring — the French equivalent of pimping — in connection with his part ownership of a chain of French peep shows. One of the businesses, in Strasbourg, was found to be a front for prostitution. Mr. Niel, as a shareholder in the business, was taken in by the police. The procuring charges were dropped, but Mr. Niel was convicted of concealing the misuse of corporate funds in connection with €200,000 in income from the peep shows. He received a two-year sentence that was suspended, but not before he spent four weeks in La Santé Prison in central Paris and paid a €250,000 fine. “I have done a lot of stupid things in my life,” Mr. Niel said, adding that he had subsequently sold his interests in the peep shows. “This was the stupidest.” Jean-Louis Missika, the deputy mayor of Paris and a longtime friend of Mr. Niel who served on Iliad’s board from 2005 to 2008, said the experience — the police had led Mr. Niel away in front of his children — had changed him profoundly. “It made him more careful about what he was doing, but it also made him want to get involved positively to change French society,” said Mr. Missika, who is in charge of innovation, research and universities for the city. “Before, he was only interested in computers and the Internet. Now he is interested in giving something back.” For 10 years, Mr. Niel has been investing tens of millions of euros in technology startups. Each week, his venture capital company, Kima Ventures, invests in two more. Some of the money goes to French companies like Deezer, the streaming music service, but much has also gone to U.S. start-ups, like Square, a maker of free credit card readers for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices that is based in San Francisco. Last month, Mr. Niel announced plans to open a tuition-free Web developer academy for 1,000 students. He has received 10,000 applications from students, each of whom spent four hours filling out a test of computer logic posted on the Web. Tellingly, the test did not ask applicants for their academic credentials. Mr. Niel said he was looking for people like himself — qualified, but unprivileged and lacking the right connections — to give them a leg up. “We are not just trying to change business,” he said. “We are trying to change the mentality in France.” Despite Free’s fast start, success is far from guaranteed. In July, Free will lose a financial advantage over its competitors — a preferential interconnection charge that it levies on rivals when they connect callers to customers on Free’s third generation mobile network. When it awarded Free a mobile license, the French government let Free charge 2.4 cents for the service, three times what competitors could charge Free. In July, Free must begin charging what its rivals charge. Another test for Free Mobile will come at the end of 2017, when France Télécom, which owns the nation’s largest landline grid, an essential low-cost transmission link for all mobile operators, will no longer be bound to connect Free’s calls across France. By then, Free must build out its own infrastructure or negotiate a new agreement that will allow it to continue to use the Orange network. By that point, Free hopes to have 20 million customers, allowing it the best chance to negotiate an acceptable deal with Orange. François Godard, an analyst in Naples with Enders Analysis, said he thought that Free Mobile would eventually be forced to raise prices, which could undermine its low-cost image. Mr. Niel said Free Mobile, like his landline ISP, had no plans to raise prices. “You know, the French mobile market, it is €23 billion to €25 billion in France,” he said. “It is a very big market. You don’t have a problem earning money in such a market. In our first year of operation, we had almost €1 billion in revenue. So it is going to work.” As Mr. Niel’s influence and public stature grows, some are worried he may become a part of what he hates — the establishment. They point to the fact that in 2010, Mr. Niel was one of three investors who bought a controlling interest in Le Monde, the country’s flagship daily newspaper. “I think secretly he wants to become part of the establishment,” said Mr. Godard, the Enders analyst. Mr. Manara, the Edhec professor, said he was not so sure. “In France, we like to burn our idols,” Mr. Manara said. Mr. Niel said he had no desire to join the establishment. He ruled out pursing a political career. “I like being an outsider,” he said. “It is better in France on the outside.”

Xavier Niel
France
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Wireless


Four Arrested in Beating Death of Transgender Man in Vermont Homeless Camp

Abstract: Four homeless people face murder charges after using their fists and feet to fatally beat a transgender man in an encampment in Vermont, and then fleeing across the country to a San Diego beach, where they were arrested, officials said on Friday. The four are accused of killing Amos Beede at the camp in Burlington, the police chief, Brandon del Pozo, said at a news conference. Mr. Beede was beaten up on May 22 and suffered blunt force trauma to his brain, the police said. He died seven days later. Law enforcement officials said they were not ruling out the possibility that the “brute force” assault on Mr. Beede had been a bias attack. The suspects — two men and two women — were arrested Thursday night at Dog Beach in San Diego, a gathering place for the homeless. The police in at least three states joined forces to find them, partly with the help of technology that reads license plates and that tracks phones, officials said. Image Amos Beede They fled Vermont after the attack and ended up in Roswell, N.M., where one of them had relatives, the police said. There, one suspect, Erik Averill, 21, was briefly taken into police custody after being accused of assaulting his partner, Myia Barber, 22, who is also a suspect in the fatal beating. But Mr. Averill was released, and the four continued their journey to California. The police identified the other two suspects as Allison Gee, 25, and Jordan Paul, 21. The four are being held in California on warrants accusing them of second-degree murder, Chief del Pozo said. It was not immediately clear when they would be sent to Vermont to face the charges. The chief said the beating started over a dispute in the homeless camp; someone smeared feces on a tent from the south side of the encampment, and Mr. Beede was believed to have reacted by dumping urine in a north-side tent, the chief said. Mr. Beede, 38, was not homeless. He had an apartment in Milton, but he was staying with friends at the encampment over the weekend because the local bus was not running, the police said. Mr. Averill allegedly enlisted the help of the others to attack Mr. Beede, the chief said. Then the four fled in a Chevy Malibu. Officers in New Mexico helped track the suspects’ car, the police said. “There probably was not an elaborate escape plan,” Chief del Pozo said. There were many witnesses to the beating, but further details were not available. The arrest warrant is sealed, the police said. The mayor of Burlington, Miro Weinberger, said that the city had a chronic homelessness problem despite initiatives to remove the encampments in a “humane” way. The tents are in an industrial area known as the Pine Street Barge Canal. “They really are full of squalor,” Chief del Pozo said. In an interview with WPTZ, a Vermont television station, Mr. Beede’s sister said that he previously tried to advocate for toiletry supplies for the homeless residents at the camp, collecting donations of supplies through Facebook postings. “And that is what Amos was about, was helping others,” said his sister, Ina McKinney. Sitting next to their mother, Ms. McKinney said her family knew that Mr. Beede was “not going to make it” as soon as they saw him after the attack. “He had motions in his arms, and it seemed like the same motion as if he was reaching for us to let us know that he knew we were there,” she said. “We wanted him to wake up, and he couldn’t.”

Vermont
Homelessness
Murders and Homicides
Transgender,Gender Dysphoria


Missing South Carolina Woman Found in Metal Container

Abstract: A South Carolina woman who was reported missing with her boyfriend in August was found alive on Thursday in a metal storage container on a remote 100-acre property and a registered sex offender was arrested in connection with her disappearance, according to officials and news media accounts. The woman, Kala V. Brown, was in good condition and spirits after having been “chained up like a dog for two months,” the sheriff for Spartanburg County, S.C. , Chuck Wright, said at a news conference . He said there was no sign of her boyfriend, Charles D. Carver. Deputies were searching the property when they heard Ms. Brown banging from inside the container, which was 30 feet long, 15 wide and 10 to 12 feet high, television station WYFF reported. The station quoted the sheriff saying she had been fed regularly but had been chained and was “obviously traumatized.” Image Kala Brown from an image posted on a Facebook page when she and her boyfriend, Charles Carver, disappeared. Credit via Facebook He said Ms. Brown told the authorities there may be four people buried on the property, adding that no remains had been found. “We’re still in the baby steps of the investigation and we’re not leaving until we’re satisfied that we’ve uncovered everything we need to,” he said. The television station quoted Sheriff Wright saying “we’re trying to make sure we don’t have a serial killer on our hands” but that “very possibly could be what we have.” The Anderson Police Department , which worked with the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation, said in a post on Facebook that a search warrant was served on about 100 acres of property in the county and that its owner, Todd C. Kohlhepp, was to be charged with kidnapping. Image Charles D. Carver Credit via Facebook Mr. Kohlhepp, 45, of Moore, S.C., is listed on the state’s sex offender registry for a 1987 conviction for kidnapping involving a sex crime in Arizona. Details on that conviction were not immediately available on Thursday night. The sheriff said “really good investigative work” led the police to find Ms. Brown on the property in Woodruff, S.C., about 20 miles east of Greenville, S.C. He would not elaborate but added, “I want to reiterate how this was divine intervention from God himself that we found this young lady alive.” Sheriff Wright said Mr. Kohlhepp sold real estate and also had a landscaping business. Speaking of the property where Ms. Brown was found, he said, there was evidence “that somebody’s been doing some cleanup work there” and that the site had been well cared for. A large amount of weapons and ammunition was found on the property, he said. The authorities were told bear traps were set but so far had not found any. The couple has been missing since late August. A friend of Ms. Brown’s told the police that she had dinner with her on Aug. 29 and spoke to her the next day, but heard nothing more after a text on Aug. 31. The parents of Ms. Brown and Mr. Carver found the apartment the couple shared unlocked and their pet dog without food or water, WYFF reported. Family members said that Mr. Carver was not typically active on Facebook, but his profile picture was changed Sept. 6, and comments were posted that were “uncharacteristic of ones typically made by Charlie,” the station reported. Several posts on his Facebook page that appeared after the couple was reported missing said they were fine and had simply left. Family members said they believed the account had been hacked. Sheriff Wright encouraged the public to offer any leads it could. “No tip is too small,” he said. “It’s crazy anywhere, not just for Spartanburg County,” the sheriff added. “Somebody said earlier when I was doing my first interview this is the stuff that books are written about. Yeah, I agree. This is just nonsense, somebody can be that coldhearted and do this to another human being.”

South Carolina
Police
Missing person
Rape
Kidnapping and Hostages
Greenville SC