Some Are Denied Emergency Shelter Under New Policy

Abstract: At least two families seeking a place to sleep last night were denied beds at a homeless shelter as the city started enforcing a tougher new policy on emergency sheltering, according to advocates for the homeless and the families themselves. City officials acknowledged that some families were turned away from its main intake center in the Bronx but said they were unable to provide specific numbers. The families were turned down in accordance with a new policy that forbids them from being granted last-minute emergency shelter if they have been ruled ineligible for benefits. In the past, families who were initially denied a place to stay could still get emergency shelter if they reapplied after 5 p.m. But the city stopped allowing that because it said the loophole was being abused by a small number of families. Last night, some homeless families who had received notices that they would be denied shelter nonetheless showed up at the intake center. Most were provided beds. “People working inside the shelter told me that because of the media attention, people are getting placed,” said Patrick Markee, a representative of the Coalition for the Homeless. But at least two families were not. One family was headed by Don Keith Allen, 40, who said he had been seeking emergency housing since Sept. 6, showed up with his sons — John Keith Allen Jr., 11, and John Keith Hamilton, 20 — and was turned away. Outside the shelter, a group of nuns from nearby St. Ann’s Episcopal Church showed up to help. They offered Mr. Allen and his sons a place to sleep for the night, and they accepted.


Cash-Rich, Publicity-Shy, Abu Dhabi Fund Draws Scrutiny

Abstract: Abu Dhabi has about 9 percent of the world’s oil and 0.02 percent of its population. The result is a surfeit of petrodollars, much of which is funneled into a secretive, government-controlled investment fund that is helping to shift the balance of power in the financial world. After decades in the shadows, the fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, is turning heads on Wall Street and in Washington by making high-profile investments in the United States and elsewhere. Known as ADIA (pronounced ah-DEE-ah), the fund recently formed a small team that is now buying big stakes in Western companies. This unit masterminded ADIA’s $7.5 billion investment in Citigroup , the nation’s largest bank, in November. It has also taken a large position in Toll Brothers, one of the country’s biggest home builders. “There is an idea that Abu Dhabi should not be the underdog of the map,” said Frauke Heard-Bey, a historian who has written a book about the political emergence of the United Arab Emirates. “They have the money to buy companies that are ailing, and why should they not? Why not make a mark?” ADIA is the largest of the world’s sovereign wealth funds , giant pools of money controlled by cash-rich governments, particularly in Asia and Middle East. But Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest of the seven Arab emirates, says little about its fund. Few outsiders know for sure where ADIA invests — or even how much money it controls. And secrecy breeds hyperbole; some estimates of the fund’s size surpass $1 trillion. Before long, ADIA will certainly reach that mark. But for now bankers, former employees and analysts familiar with the fund peg it at $650 billion to $700 billion — an amount that is still over 15 times the size of the Fidelity Magellan Fund. In all, sovereign wealth funds in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Singapore, China and Russia control more than $2 trillion, a figure that could approach $12 trillion by 2015, analysts say. Such riches, coupled with the more aggressive stance being taken by ADIA and other sovereign funds, has raised concern that these investors will wield their wealth for political as well as financial reasons. ADIA’s secrecy is also drawing scrutiny. The fund has no internal communications department, although it says it is in the process of setting one up. When sovereign fund leaders from around the world descended on Davos, Switzerland, last month for the World Economic Forum, no one from ADIA saw fit to show up. Executives at ADIA declined to comment for this article. Last week Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on security and international trade and finance, who has raised concerns about sovereign fund transparency, traveled to Abu Dhabi to meet with senior ADIA executives. Also last week, a delegation led by Clay Lowery, a top Treasury official, met with ADIA executives as part of a move to formalize investment guidelines for sovereign funds. In many ways the tension between ADIA’s elephantine size — the fund is twice as big as Norway’s, the second-largest sovereign fund — and its demure aspect is underscored by its investment in Citigroup. Since ADIA’s genesis in 1976, the fund has followed a conservative investment approach. It has farmed out its assets to foreign money managers and taken stakes in companies based upon their weighting in benchmark stock indexes like the Standard & Poor’s 500. ADIA is also one of the largest institutional investors in hedge funds and private equity funds. This approach has served ADIA well and reflects the strongly felt notion that the fund’s ultimate purpose is to serve as a financial reserve for Abu Dhabi in times when oil revenues are less robust. Nevertheless, guided by the advice of a stream of foreign bankers who worked at ADIA in the 1970s and 1980s, the fund has allocated a large portion of its assets to equities. It now has about 65 percent of assets, or about $450 billion, invested in stocks, according to bankers. Currently, the fund averages a yearly return of 10 to 20 percent, say people who have been briefed on the fund’s investment strategy. With oil about $100 a barrel, bankers and analysts estimate Abu Dhabi produces a surplus of at least $50 billion a year. Given the emirate’s small population, 80 percent of which is foreign born, even the most expansive investment and welfare policies make it hard to put a dent in such a sum. The United States is not a big buyer of Abu Dhabi’s oil, most of which goes to Asia, but the surplus is a vivid reminder of the American economy’s own fiscal imbalance, to say nothing of its diminishing global stature, a theme that underpins much of the political worry surrounding sovereign fund investments. “In the short run, that they are investing here is good,” Senator Bayh said. “But in the long run it is unsustainable. Our power and authority is eroding because of the amounts we are sending abroad for energy and consumer goods.” In the past, much of Abu Dhabi’s cash surplus has gone to ADIA, although the formation two years ago of a smaller sister fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, has resulted in a lesser amount flowing to ADIA, analysts say. But ADIA’s new strategic investment group represents the clearest sign that the fund is taking steps to leverage its size and influence. The division was set up in the summer of 2006 and is overseen by Saeed Mubarek Rashid al-Hajiri, a young Western-educated portfolio manager who also heads the fund’s considerable investments in emerging market economies. In addition to Citigroup and Toll Brothers, in which ADIA took a 4.5 percent position last summer, other companies in the group’s portfolio include EFG Hermes, one of the leading investment banks in the Arab world, and Banque de Tunisie et des Emirats, a Tunisian bank. Instead of passively tracking indexes, this unit actively picks investments in hopes of generating market-beating returns. It is a method of stock picking practiced by most hedge funds and asset management companies, and the Citigroup investment, with its size and attendant risk, is a good example of this approach. Compared with the overall fund, the assets within this group are small at about $30 billion, according to people who have been briefed on ADIA’s strategy. As with all its investments, ADIA adopts a long-term, passive approach and does not seek board seats. These people say that outsiders still manage 80 percent of ADIA’s assets, proof that the fund’s commitment to making direct investments is only in its early stages. This hesitation partly reflects the lack of a strong individual within the organization who has the combination of investment experience, trust of the royal family and a bit of international swagger to assume a larger public presence. The fund’s chairman is Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Abu Dhabi. He has a cautious and reserved disposition and does not take an active role in ADIA. When Citigroup’s chairman, Robert E. Rubin, traveled to Abu Dhabi last November, his courtesy call was made to Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the point person for the United States-Abu Dhabi relationship. The fund’s managing director is Sheik Ahmed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a half-brother of Sheik Khalifa who maintains a full-floor office in ADIA’s sleek 40-story headquarters. People familiar with ADIA management, however, say the sheik, who has worked at ADIA for 10 years, delegates significant authority to Jean-Paul Villain, a publicity-shy French money manager who directs investment strategy and asset allocation. Mr. Villain, the most senior foreign-born executive at the fund, joined ADIA in the early 1980s from the French bank Paribas. While other expatriates have come and gone, Mr. Villain has stayed, except for a brief period in the mid-1980s. More so than the other foreigners, Mr. Villain, whose wife is Syrian-born, has gained the royal family’s trust. One view is that ADIA’s penchant for secrecy stems from its experience during the scandal at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in the early 1990s, during which ADIA is said to have lost hundreds of millions of dollars. The al-Nahyan family became embroiled in regulatory investigations, although no charges were ever brought against them. But people who worked at ADIA from its earliest days in the late 1970s and 1980s say that the fund’s reticence dates to its formation. Some see this as a reflection of Abu Dhabi’s small size, insular culture and geographical vulnerability, a sense that the less that is known about the specifics of ADIA’s hoard, the better. “ADIA does not answer to a wide public at home,” said David L. Mack, a former United States ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. “They are a small country in an area with some nasty countries like Iran that can make trouble for them. They don’t like to advertise.”

Abu Dhabi
Finances
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
Banks and Banking
Executives and Management
Public Relations and Publicity
Citigroup Incorporated


No. 11 Butler Looks Sluggish in Win Against Davidson

Abstract: Gordon Hayward scored 17 points and Willie Veasley added 15 to lead No. 11 Butler to a 73-62 win on Saturday against visiting Davidson. The Bulldogs (1-0) rallied twice from 10-point deficits in the first half, then used a late run to seal their win. Though Butler protected its highest preseason ranking in program history, it did not play its usual style. In the first half, the Bulldogs were in foul trouble, committed seven turnovers and made only 7 of their first 22 field-goal attempts. OKLAHOMA 95, MOUNT ST. MARY’S 71 Steven Pledger scored 21 points and his fellow freshman Tiny Gallon had 18 points and 15 rebounds as No. 17 Oklahoma won at home. MICHIGAN 97, NORTHERN MICHIGAN 50 Manny Harris had 18 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists, only the second triple-double in program history, and No. 15 Michigan defeated N.C.A.A. Division II Northern Michigan at home. RUTGERS 74, MARIST 67 Mike Rosario scored 17 points and Gregory Echenique had 13 points and 10 rebounds for host Rutgers in the season opener for both teams. CORNELL 71, ALABAMA 67 Ryan Wittman scored 23 points and made 5 of 8 3-pointers for visiting Cornell. Cornell (1-0) opened the second half with 9 straight points, building a 35-20 lead on consecutive 3-pointers by Chris Wroblewski and Wittman. Alabama turned up its full-court press and whittled the margin to 53-52 with 6 minutes 16 seconds left. But Cornell, the two-time defending Ivy League champion, never gave up the lead. PRINCETON 71, CENTRAL MICHIGAN 68 Douglas Davis scored 16 points, including the last 4 of the game, for visiting Princeton. Central Michigan led by 68-67 with 45 seconds to play. Davis scored on the next possession to give the Tigers (1-0) the lead, then blocked a shot, was fouled and made two free throws to seal the win. BINGHAMTON 54, BLOOMSBURG 49 Moussa Camara had a career-high 16 points, and the newcomer Greer Wright added 15 points and 10 rebounds for host Binghamton, which opened a new era in its program with a victory over Division II Bloomsburg. Binghamton has only three returning players — six were dismissed in the off-season after the arrest of the star guard Emanuel Mayben on drug charges. Women CONNECTICUT 105, NORTHEASTERN 35 Top-ranked Connecticut scored the game’s first 28 points and was never challenged. Connecticut extended its winning streak to 40 games.


Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama Calls for Ethics Overhaul

Abstract: Less than two months after a federal corruption investigation led to the arrest of four state senators, Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama announced Wednesday that he was calling a special session of the Legislature this month and urged lawmakers to pass an aggressive ethics overhaul package. The proposal that the governor unveiled would address several loopholes in state ethics laws, some of which are at the root of recent corruption indictments. “The opportunity to enact real reforms has never been better, and the need has never been greater,” the governor said in a statement. Mr. Riley, a Republican who will leave office in January and is prevented by term limits from running again, called for the special session to begin next Wednesday. Efforts at an ethics overhaul have for the most part faltered in Alabama since the nationwide wave of state ethics initiatives that followed the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. Some rules were strengthened in the mid-1990s, but large gaps have remained. “I think it’s just been institutional resistance,” said James L. Sumner, the director of the Alabama Ethics Commission. “You could never actually single out a person or a group that was opposed to ethics reform. It was essentially death by a thousand cuts.” Law enforcement has stepped in where ethics rules fell short. One governor, Guy Hunt, resigned after a felony conviction on charges that included theft. Another, Don Siegelman, is appealing a bribery conviction. Two wide-ranging federal corruption investigations in the last few years have led to the arrest, conviction or guilty pleas of numerous state officials. As recently as October, 11 people were arrested, including four lawmakers and three lobbyists, on charges related to what the authorities called a scheme by casino operators to buy votes for legislation favorable to gambling. This drumbeat of scandal has made the prospects for a substantial ethics overhaul as good as they have been in years. The state government is also firmly in the control of the Republicans for the first time in more than a century, giving the party’s legislators an incentive to act on a broadly popular issue. The most significant proposal in the ethics package, in Mr. Sumner’s estimation, involves the state’s campaign finance laws, which have gained a national reputation for looseness due largely to the presence of so-called P.A.C.-to-P.A.C. transfers. Currently, a donation to one political action committee can be bundled with other donations and given to another committee, and then to another, a process that essentially launders campaign donations and renders their origins untraceable. The ethics package would ban such transfers. Other proposals are aimed at curtailing the influence of lobbyists, one of the core issues of the federal vote-buying inquiry. Currently, lobbyists, or anyone for that matter, can more or less spend as much as they want on hospitality, meals, travel, tickets and other gifts for public officials. Spending that adds up to less than $250 a day does not even have to be disclosed. The proposed overhaul would, with some exceptions, put a $25 limit on gifts to a public official on any one occasion, and a $100 limit on gifts to an official from one source per year. All spending would have to be disclosed. The package would also give the state ethics commission the power of subpoena for the first time, a shortcoming that has severely hampered state ethics inquiries, leaving investigators dependent on local district attorneys who were often themselves politically compromised.

Alabama
Ethics
State Legislatures
Politics and Government
Riley Bob


Making a Leap to the Big Time, Ready or Not

Abstract: Just before the start of the second half of a game late last month between the New Jersey Institute of Technology and visiting Bloomfield College, the N.J.I.T. cheerleading squad broke a huddle -- and walked out of the gymnasium. The sudden departure of team spirit was not lost upon Jim Casciano, the men's basketball coach at N.J.I.T., a university in Newark with an undergraduate enrollment of 5,366, give or take a dozen cheerleaders. "Where are the cheerleaders going?" Casciano said to Tim Camp, the assistant athletic director. "Did someone tell them that the game was over?" All Camp could do was smile and shrug his shoulders. "Sorry, Coach," he said. "I guess it's another kink in the system that we need to straighten out." Casciano and his Highlanders, an N.C.A.A. Division II squad playing in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference, had better get the kinks out soon. Next season, they will begin playing in Division I as an independent. Ready or not, here come St. John's, Richmond, Columbia and Lafayette, four teams tentatively scheduled for N.J.I.T.'s first tour at college athletics' highest level. "Going into Division I is a great opportunity for us," said Casciano, a head coach for 20 seasons. "I just hope that people understand that what they see next year is not a finished product, but a process that is going to take some time to complete." During the Bloomfield game, there were signs everywhere that the process, which includes everything from improving N.J.I.T.'s on-court talent to creating a big-time atmosphere at the mom-and-pop Fleisher Athletic Center, would indeed take time. The Highlanders have no player taller than Henry White, a 6-foot-7 senior who plays forward and center. Dan Stonkus, a 6-9, 240-pound freshman, is being redshirted. But the Highlanders (7-15) may not currently have the speed and the two-way tenacity to compete in Division I. Clayton Barker is a 5-10 junior point guard with good court vision, a dependable pull-up jumper and stutter-step moves to the basket. He is averaging 20.6 points a game, but he is N.J.I.T.'s only consistent scoring threat. "Next year's schedule is our recruiting tool," said Casciano, sitting behind his desk in a dark suit and a matching mood after his team lost to Bloomfield, 81-75. "Right now, we're recruiting legitimate Division I players, although we do not have a lot to sell them other than having a chance to be a part of something special, to maybe get some good playing time against some of the best competition in the country, and of course, to benefit from playing at an excellent academic school." In addition to adding talent, N.J.I.T. will have to begin shedding the rest of its Division II wardrobe. The game against Bloomfield drew about 150 fans -- about the capacity of two busloads of Syracuse fans. The bleachers were built to accommodate about 1,000 spectators. Barker, from Passaic High School in New Jersey, said that playing before large crowds on the road next season would not be an easy adjustment. "Executing our game plan with thousands of people screaming at us is going to be a tall order, but it's an exciting transition that we are all looking forward to," he said. "Personally, I feel blessed that this has happened to us." N.J.I.T. has a lot of work to do before it happens. The team's public-address system is a laptop computer that pumps songs through a single speaker hanging on a wall behind the scorer's table. There is no news media room, because there is no news media coverage, and no television timeouts, because there is no television contract. But if a university filled with future architects and engineers cannot figure out a way to design and build a winning basketball program, who can? Lenny Kaplan, the athletic director, said there would be a big increase in the budget, "probably fourfold." "At the Division II level, everything is regionally based, but in Division I, recruiting and travel is done nationally, and that becomes a lot more expensive," he said. Kaplan added that N.J.I.T. had raised $2.5 million in a $5 million fund-raising campaign to offset the costs of moving to Division I. Robert A. Altenkirch, the N.J.I.T. president, said: "Our first objective for next season is to be able to play an opponent at the Division I level and not come away from the game feeling embarrassed. If we can just hang in there for minutes at a time and not pay attention to wins and losses, that would be pretty good, and maybe, over the course of three or four years, we might begin to see some improvement." The N.J.I.T. men's soccer team began playing in Division I in 2004. By the fall, all of the university's sports teams -- N.J.I.T. does not have a football program -- will be competing in Division I. "This is all about visibility," Altenkirch said when asked why N.J.I.T. applied to the National Collegiate Athletic Association for reclassification to Division I. "We are a nationally ranked research university, so why not line up with some of our peers and be a nationally recognized athletic program?" Altenkirch said that N.J.I.T. had been in discussions with the Devils about the possibility of playing host to basketball games against major Division I opponents at the Devils' new hockey arena, which is being built along Newark's waterfront and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2007. Altenkirch said that after this season, N.J.I.T. would install a new court at the Fleisher Athletic Center and increase the seating capacity to at least 2,000. "If you think about Newark, and the renaissance that is going on here, well, the city deserves a Division I basketball program," he said. "And we're the only game in town."

NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
BASKETBALL
COLLEGE ATHLETICS


Latvia Stands By Its Currency Peg

Abstract: PARIS — Latvia, the European Union member country worst hit by the economic crisis, sought Thursday to convince investors that it would stand by its currency peg as speculation of a devaluation mounted and the country awaited additional aid. In December, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund , the World Bank and the Nordic countries backed Latvia’s recovery policies with financing worth 7.5 billion euros ($10.6 billion). The I.M.F. agreed to put up 1.7 billion euros of that total, while the European Union offered 3.1 billion euros. But the disbursal of the latest installment of 1 billion euros has been held up as the Latvian government seeks to carry out painful cuts in public sector wages. European Union and I.M.F. officials are in Riga, the capital, to discuss it. Fears of a crisis rose Wednesday after Latvia was unable to sell short-term debt and the currency strained the lower end of the band in which the Latvian central bank allows it to trade against the euro . Investors who expected a devaluation would be unlikely to buy debt denominated in the national currency, the lat. One euro currently trades at about 1.41 lats. The band was set in anticipation of the country’s joining the euro zone, which is expected in 2012 at the earliest. “A breakdown in the relationship with the I.M.F. and E.U. would leave Latvia facing a substantial budget and external financing gap,” Fitch Ratings said Thursday in a report, adding that “such a situation would be likely to precipitate a devaluation of the lat.” Martins Gravitis, a spokesman for the central bank, said Latvia was committed to the peg “until the lat is replaced by the euro.” Latvia, a Baltic country of 2.2 million people, had a gross domestic product of about $34 billion last year. But output plunged in the first quarter and was expected to contract by about 17 percent for the year. The government is struggling to reduce its budget deficit, which is estimated at about 9.2 percent of gross domestic product. The I.M.F. had agreed to a revised budget deficit of 7 percent from the original 5 percent, and meeting the current target would not be possible without further budget cuts. Mr. Gravitis said public sector salaries would have to fall about 30 percent, returning them to 2006-7 levels, to make the budget. The private sector, he said, would find its own equilibrium. In Washington, Caroline Atkinson, a spokeswoman for the I.M.F., said at a news briefing that the situation in Latvia was “challenging,” and that “the authorities have stressed the importance of controlling the government debt and deficits and maintaining the peg.” Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis must tread a fine line, balancing international lenders’ demands with the knowledge that poverty is increasing and social unrest is rising. Riots in January brought down his predecessor. Latvians go to the polls this weekend for municipal elections, and officials said political concerns might have affected the timing of the government’s new budget announcements.

Latvia
Currency
European Union
International Monetary Fund


4 SEC West Teams Are in Top 5

Abstract: With Alabama moving to No. 4 and Auburn to No. 5, the Southeastern Conference became the first league to place four teams in the top five of The Associated Press’s poll. All four, including No. 1 Mississippi State and No. 3 Mississippi, are from the SEC’s West division.

Auburn
Southeastern Conference
College football
AP
University of Alabama


Yankees to Debate on Future of Torre

Abstract: In his news conference late Monday night, Joe Torre tried to dissect another Yankees playoff loss and explain what it meant for his future. Watching on a television in the manager’s office as Torre choked up, the coaches struggled with what they were seeing. “Joe treats everybody with respect, whether you’re a batboy, a coach or a trainer,” said Larry Bowa, the third-base coach. “He does everything the right way. What he has to go through, after all that he’s done, it doesn’t seem right. But we’ve all been in baseball for a long time. That’s the process.” The painful process of parting with a manager was enough to make Bowa and the others teary on Monday. A day later, as the coaches and some players packed up their lockers at Yankee Stadium, Torre was a no-show and George Steinbrenner , the principal owner, was silent. His only statement came through his publicist, Howard Rubenstein, who said Steinbrenner was flying home to Tampa, Fla., and had nothing to say for now. Steinbrenner will seek opinions on whether to offer Torre a new contract, but his public decree before Game 3 of the division series — that Torre would lose his job if the Yankees lost the series to Cleveland — resonates. If Steinbrenner lets Torre go, as expected, most people around the team believe the front-runner to succeed him is the bench coach, Don Mattingly . Others believe Joe Girardi has a chance, and Tony La Russa — like Lou Piniella last year — is the biggest name on the managerial free-agent market. Mattingly yesterday would not directly address whether he would want Torre’s job, but he said he had always made it clear that he would like a chance to manage. Yet he knows that replacing Torre, his close friend who won four World Series, would be an extraordinary challenge. “I would think it’s like following John Wooden or somebody,” Mattingly said yesterday. “The guy’s won championship after championship, and he’s in the playoffs every year. It’s pretty much a no-win situation for someone to come in here and be able to experience what he’s done. It’s not going to happen. So as far as coming in here and taking on that job, it’s not necessarily a great situation.” Girardi was Torre’s bench coach in 2005 before taking over the Florida Marlins and winning the National League Manager of the Year award. He clashed with management and was fired, but he is still widely respected, especially by General Manager Brian Cashman. When Steinbrenner wanted to fire Torre last fall, Cashman interceded and saved Torre’s job. Torre had a year remaining on his contract then, but the deal is up now, and Cashman would not say if he would still recommend Torre. “I’m not going to comment, in fairness to the process, until I have a chance to sit down with ownership,” Cashman said yesterday, adding later of Steinbrenner: “He’s always picked the manager here. Obviously, I had a great deal of input in last year’s process, so we’ll see. You can’t get ahead of the process.” The Yankees are planning their annual organizational meetings, and before he left for Tampa, Steinbrenner’s son Hank, a senior vice president, told The Associated Press that no decisions had been made. “I really do like Joe a lot,” he said. “I have a lot of admiration for him.” Torre stayed at his home in Westchester County yesterday, speaking by phone with Cashman, Mattingly and others. Torre contacted the Yankees’ media relations director, Jason Zillo, because photographers were camped on his lawn, even though he had pleaded for privacy in his news conference. The idea of La Russa replacing Torre would seem to appeal more to the vintage Steinbrenner, who craved the biggest name, than the Steinbrenner of today. La Russa’s contract with the St. Louis Cardinals is also expiring, and the Cardinals are without a general manager. “You know how rumors are; anyone can start one,” said outfielder Shelley Duncan, whose father, Dave, is La Russa’s pitching coach. “Even my dad would tell you there is nothing substantial until action starts to take place. None of that has happened. Joe is our manager.” Steinbrenner, 77, has a warm spot for ex-Yankees and has always held Mattingly, a former Yankees captain, in high regard. Four years ago, he called Mattingly at his farm in Evansville, Ind., making a personal appeal for him to coach the Yankees’ hitters after eight years of retirement. When Mattingly was given the bench coach job last October, after Lee Mazzilli was dismissed, he was seen as the clear heir to Torre. Players believe Mattingly would have a similar style. “He’s got a great baseball mind,” first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz said. “He and Joe were both great players. Sometimes you lose how hard this game really is, but Joe and Donnie didn’t lose that. Usually, the longer it is since you played, the better player you were and the easier the game was to you. But with those guys, they never make you feel like they’re talking down to you.” Mientkiewicz and the other players who showed up yesterday expressed support for Torre, praising him for steering the Yankees to the postseason after a 21-29 start. Mientkiewicz revealed that Torre “let us have it” during a team meeting in Toronto in May, just before the turnaround began, and another first baseman, Andy Phillips, said he could not contemplate the Yankees without Torre. “I refuse to think that way right now,” Phillips said. “I won’t let that thought enter into my mind.” Most important, of course, is how seriously that thought is bouncing around the brain of Steinbrenner, who must decide — officially — whether to part with the most popular and successful manager he has had. “His reign so far here has been terrific,” Cashman said of Torre. “You’d sign up for it right now, if you could find that. It’s been magical and it’s been incredible through ’07. What goes on going forward, in ’08 and beyond, is the discussion topic on the table.”

Baseball
New York Yankees
Torre Joe
Mattingly Don
Steinbrenner George M 3d
Girardi Joe


Marketers Chase Evolving Consumer

Abstract: PHOENIX — THE senior executives who spoke at a major marketing conference here seemed to be auditioning for a reality show called “Extreme Makeover: Corporate Edition.” The executives, appearing during the annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers , urged their peers to recognize that the pace and scope of technological and societal changes — described as “crazy” in two presentations — required what one speaker called a “constant reinvention” of marketing. The stakes are high enough, some suggested, that the need to make over marketing may be a matter of life and death — at least, perhaps, when it comes to careers. “You either innovate or die,” said Roger Adams, the chief marketing officer at the United Services Automobile Association. John Costello, the president for global marketing and innovation at the Dunkin’ Brands Group, advocated providing consumers with “a real clear point of product differentiation” by declaring, “Differentiate or die.” And Stephen Quinn, the executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the Walmart U.S. division of Wal-Mart Stores, held up a copy of the current issue of ANA Magazine, which depicts on its cover a chameleon beside the headline, “Change or Die.” “We as marketers have never had to face this before,” Mr. Quinn said, particularly against a backdrop of “an economy that’s not that great.” Marketers must acknowledge they are operating in “a new era, a customer era,” he added, one in which “the consumer is in control” and decides what hits or misses. He referred to the huge popularity of the South Korean singer Psy — “There is not a marketer in this room good enough to engineer this” — and the TV series “ Duck Dynasty ” — “We sell hundreds of millions of dollars of ‘Duck Dynasty’ merchandise.” “This is a painful transition for us,” Mr. Quinn said, “but it is going to make everyone in this room customer-centric.” Joseph V. Tripodi, the executive vice president and chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company, discussed how risk-taking must become second nature, citing the “big, hairy, audacious goal” his company adopted in 2010, under the rubric of Vision 2020 , to more than double revenue in a decade. Among other recent risky business decisions, Mr. Tripodi listed the introduction in Argentina of a soft drink named Coca-Cola Life , which mixes sugar and stevia and is sold in a recyclable bottle, made with plant material, bearing a green label rather than the Coke brand’s familiar red one. “It’s like playing with the crown jewels,” he said, “but we’re encouraged by the results early on.” Image “We talk around the world, ‘We need to be bold, be disruptive,’ ” said Joseph V. Tripodi, the marketing chief for Coca-Cola. Credit Kevin Keelan/Clarion Pictures With so many consumers engaging with companies, and one another, through social media sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, marketers should consider “provocations,” which generate responses that are “shared broadly,” Mr. Tripodi said. “We talk around the world, ‘We need to be bold, be disruptive,’ ” he added, offering as examples an effort that encouraged Indians and Pakistanis to connect with one another through interactive Coca-Cola Small World vending machines and a commercial that explained why the company sponsored sporting events like the Olympics. Beth Comstock, the senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the General Electric Company, took a long-term perspective — portraying Thomas A. Edison, a founder of G.E., as “the Steve Jobs of his day” — in offering “some lessons learned as we try to navigate the change.” “Know yourself,” she advised, adding: “At G.E., we’re not going to be Facebook. We’re not going to be Apple. We’re pretty cool with what we are.” And what is that? “We have embraced our geeky side,” Ms. Comstock said. “We’re geeky, and we’re proud of it.” She provided examples of how “sci fi goes to sci real” in social media that include Facebook , Instagram, Tumblr, Vine and YouTube through initiatives with names like “ Datalandia, the small town saved by Big Data ,” “factory flyovers,” “140 things we made today” and “ six-second science fairs .” Mr. Costello of Dunkin’ Brands warned that “in the crazy, ever-changing world we face,” where “marketing has become very, very complicated,” it has become “easy to get caught up in trying to do everything.” Rather, it is important to “confront reality,” he said, adding, “Marketers tend to be optimists, but you know, hope is not a strategy.” For Dunkin’ Donuts stores, Mr. Costello said, a decision was made to promote differentiation with a campaign, “ America runs on Dunkin’ , ” that presents the brand’s coffee products as “how everyday folks who keep America running keep themselves running every day.” Although “ ‘ Time to make the donuts ’ was an iconic campaign” for Dunkin’ Donuts for decades, Mr. Costello said, executives realized that “coffee was the future.” And reflecting how “change has become the norm,” he added, the company plans to introduce new commercials on Monday with a social-media focus. The spots end with consumers proclaiming, “Hashtag my Dunkin’,” which appears on screen, in Twitter-friendly fashion, as “#mydunkin.” The conference, which began Thursday and ended on Sunday, drew a record attendance estimated at close to 2,200; the previous record, set last year , was about 1,850.

Association of National Advertisers
Social Media
advertising,marketing


The Mystery of the Umbrellas

Abstract: THE first time it happens, the neophyte will probably think it’s an aberration, maybe one oddball’s bizarre pathology. Then there will be another, and another, and it turns out everyone’s doing it. What a funny bunch, these New Yorkers. Autumn has faded, the cold has descended, and then the first snowfall of the year arrives. The flakes start falling, and to the transplant from the snowy provinces, they will be a nostalgic reminder of home. Ah, the snow! So lovely, and what a hush and lulling contrast to the usual hustle and bustle. Then the transplant sees that first person walking down the street nonchalantly holding an umbrella overhead, as if such behavior were normal. Initially this image seems a hallucination. It’s a surprise, to put it mildly, this ridiculous affectation, because as everyone knows, umbrellas are made to be used when it rains. The first few instances in which these umbrellas are sighted will be ascribed to the charitable guess that the people wielding them didn’t notice that the temperature has dropped low enough for the rain to have turned into beautiful white fluffy snowflakes. Or maybe these natives are crazy, or at the very least a little eccentric. But no, these people are everywhere, shrouded by their mostly black umbrellas from the lovely snow. And after the first winter, the now-jaded, not-so-new New Yorker will come to accept this practice as normal and mundane, and he will stop gawking. Yet deep down in his soul, the transplant will hold on to the notion that umbrellas are to be used only as protection against the rain, which is wet and, when it drenches the clothes and skin, makes one uncomfortable. The neophyte, who has turned into a jaded New Yorker, will find out in time that people don’t do this just in New York but in many other cities, too. It’s the old rural-versus-urban divide, the difference between accepting and finding enjoyment in nature’s arbitrary whims and refusing to find pleasure in this sort of thing. In New York, the sight of umbrellas raised aloft in the snow may be more common simply because the streets are filled with people wearing nice clothes and heading to and from work, and they will do anything to prevent melting snowflakes from ruining their outfits or God forbid mussing their hair. Even though this New Yorker will get used to the sight of those harried and hurried walkers warding off one of nature’s most precious gifts, he will still carry with him the feeling that blocking out snow’s charms borders on the insane, that a determined effort to not get touched by those wonderfully soft star-shaped flakes is patently absurd and always will be.


Best Selling Science Books

Abstract: 1 QUIET by Susan Cain. Crown. Introverts — one-third of the population — are undervalued in American society. (1) 2 THINKING, FAST AND SLOW by Daniel Kahneman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The winner of a Nobel Prize in economic science discusses how we make choices in business and personal life and when we can and cannot trust our intuitions. (2) 3 DAVID AND GOLIATH by Malcolm Gladwell. Little Brown. How disadvantages can work in our favor, from the author of “The Tipping Point” and “Outliers.” (3) 4 THE POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg. Random House. A New York Times reporter’s account of the science behind forming habits, and breaking them. (4) 5 WHERE DOES IT HURT? by Jonathan Bush with Stephen Baker. Portfolio/Penguin. The chief executive of a health technology company calls for new business models in health care. 6 THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot. Crown. The story of an African-American woman whose cancerous cells were extensively cultured without her permission in 1951. (10) 7 A TROUBLESOME INHERITANCE by Nicholas Wade. Penguin Press. Genes, race and human history, from a longtime science writer for The Times. 8 THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY by Denise Kiernan. Simon & Schuster. Thousands of women took well-paying jobs in Oak Ridge, Tenn., during World War II, not knowing that the government project where they worked was enriching uranium for the first atomic bomb. (7) 9 MADNESS by Marya Hornbacher. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. A memoir that sheds light on bipolar disorder. 10 LIFE, ANIMATED by Ron Suskind. Hyperion/Kingswell. The parents of an autistic son successfully used animated heroes and sidekicks to achieve communication with him. (12) 11 GULP by Mary Roach. Norton. A science writer’s pilgrimage down the digestive tract; by the author of “Stiff,” “Spook,” “Bonk” and “Packing for Mars.” (8) 12 THE FUTURE OF THE MIND by Michio Kaku. Doubleday. A theoretical physicist examines research at the intersection of neuroscience and physics that points to the day when science has a complete map of the brain, making telepathy, mind-controlled robots and uploading memories possible. (5) 13 INSIDE OF A DOG by Alexandra Horowitz. Scribner. The canine brain. What the world is like from a dog’s point of view. (13) 14 THE KNOWLEDGE by Lewis Dartnell. Penguin. How civilization might theoretically be able to rebuild the world from scratch if the worst happened. (17) 15 THE SPORTS GENE by David Epstein. Current. A study of the science of elite athletic performance addresses questions about whether athletic skill is innate or can be learned. 16 THE SIXTH EXTINCTION by Elizabeth Kolbert. Holt. The New Yorker writer examines the role of human influences in the planet’s current spasm of plant and animal loss. (9) 17 THE SMARTEST KIDS IN THE WORLD by Amanda Ripley. Simon & Schuster. High-performing schools in Finland, South Korea and Poland, seen through the eyes of American high school students abroad. 18 THE SECOND MACHINE AGE by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. Norton. How digital technologies will change our lives and the economy, and what we can do to prepare ourselves. (16) 19 BRAINSTORM by Daniel J. Siegel. Tarcher/Penguin. Understanding the adolescent mind. 20 THE TALE OF THE DUELING NEUROSURGEONS by Sam Kean. Little Brown. Tales of neurological curiosities and adaptations, ranging from phantom limbs to blind people who “see” through their tongues.


Unleashed at Last, Author Marty Appel Digs Deeper Into Thurman Munson’s Life

Abstract: Thirty-one years ago, Marty Appel wrote Thurman Munson ’s autobiography. Now, in an unusual literary leap, he has written a biography of Munson. “I never felt like I let anybody down with the first book,” Appel said last week in his Manhattan apartment. “I fulfilled my responsibilities. But I knew there was always so much more to the story.” Munson, the former Yankees captain and catcher, died 30 years ago when the private jet he was piloting crashed . Appel would not have pursued the new biography had Munson not been so reluctant to open up during 12 hours of interviews in 1977 and 1978. The autobiography was a routine look at a short career, unlike “ The Bronx Zoo ,” Sparky Lyle’s (and Peter Golenbock’s) humorous, candid best-selling book about the Yankees’ 1978 season. Not surprisingly, Munson’s memoir sold far better after his death. “It was Thurman’s book,” Appel said. “He was free to leave out whatever he wanted. He never said, ‘I’m not going there,’ but my questions weren’t Mike Wallace-like, either, because I was cooperating with him and telling the story he wanted to.” Munson might not have agreed to the autobiography had he not trusted Appel, who left his job as the Yankees’ public relations director in early 1977, shortly after Munson was named the 1976 American League most valuable player. Munson did not think much of writing a memoir — he was only 29 and thought it would be too personal an experience — until Appel reasoned that if someone else wrote a biography, Munson would hate it. The collaborator and biographer work at different ends of the life story spectrum. The former writes an as-told-to memoir controlled (but not always read) by the star. The biographer broadens the story in ways that may upset the star or his family. David Maraniss , the author of biographies of Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente, said he would never collaborate on an autobiography that he could not report thoroughly or write a biography authorized by the subject or his family. “How do you collaborate and maintain complete authorial integrity?” he wrote in an e-mail message in response to questions. “I suppose it’s possible, but not easy.” Among the writers who have collaborated on their subjects’ memoirs and wrote their biographies are O. B. Keeler and Al Stump . Keeler did it for a friend, the golfing great Bobby Jones . Stump wrote Ty Cobb’s 1961 autobiography but returned 33 years later with a harrowing, warts-filled biography of Cobb, the Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer, that Stump called redemption for participating in what he called the earlier “cover-up.” “It felt good to lay it on the line,” Stump said in 1994 after the release of the Ron Shelton film “Cobb ,” which described Cobb’s paranoid, unstable behavior. Appel did not have atonement for “Thurman Munson: An Autobiography” in mind while he thought about writing “ Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain ” (Doubleday). Instead, it was a sense that Munson’s reticence to discuss his upbringing in Canton, Ohio, or his emotional life warranted a biography. Also, his love of flying was an afterthought in the autobiography — and his death provided a tragic coda. The biography describes Munson’s love-starved family life in Canton with a difficult, sometimes cruel father, Darrell, and Thurman’s eager embrace by his teenage years of the family of his childhood sweetheart and future wife, Diana. Munson only hinted in the memoir about the turmoil at home that helped form his grumpy adult persona. But Appel’s interviews with Munson’s brother, Duane, and sister Darla describe the dysfunctional family life that turned him so inward. “I didn’t fully appreciate what was out there until I connected with his brother and sister,” Appel said. “They were the key to the book. They were the missing family.” In the autobiography, Munson described a tension-free scene with “happy faces” awaiting him at home in Canton when he signed his first Yankee contract in 1967. The new book had the Munson house “buzzing with excitement” except for Darrell Munson, hollering to the assembled family and friends, “He ain’t too good on pop fouls, you know!” Munson’s other sister, Janice, refused to speak to Appel. And while Diana Munson cooperated to a small degree, she declined to be interviewed. At her request, Appel removed a paragraph describing Munson’s autopsy report. Diana Munson did not respond to a message seeking a comment on the book. Appel’s interviews with Munson’s friends, coaches and teammates stressed his athletic abilities and the sadness that turned into his deep estrangement from his family. “His high school coach said he would typically drop kids off at home after practice,” Appel said. “But Thurman never wanted that because he didn’t want to take a chance of his coach meeting a family member.” Appel does not believe he has betrayed Munson by poking into family matters that he would not discuss in life. “I think he’d come to recognize that his story was an example to people that you can break the cycle,” he said, “that you can live a wonderful family life even if everything in your background says you can’t.”

Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain (Book)


Party Power Struggle Enthralls South Africa

Abstract: JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 11 — A politically powerful industrialist is gunned down in an ambush linked to a reputed mobster. Investigators link the mobster to the national police commissioner. Prosecutors obtain a warrant for the commissioner’s arrest. Then suddenly, the warrant vanishes — and the chief prosecutor who secured it is removed from his job. Not even South Africa ’s political insiders know for sure where this mystery leads, and the man who does know, President Thabo Mbeki , is not saying anything. But political and legal experts alike increasingly suspect the worst: that a brutal two-year battle for power in the governing African National Congress is spreading from party corridors into the government itself. With a convention to choose the party’s next leader barely two months away, a bitter rivalry between the two major camps — that of Mr. Mbeki, who aspires to continue as the party president, and that of the populist politician Jacob Zuma, who wants to replace him — has become even more caustic. Mr. Mbeki fired Mr. Zuma as deputy president in 2005 after investigators tied Mr. Zuma to a bribery scandal involving a multibillion-dollar military contract. Mr. Zuma has regularly accused prosecutors, and by implication Mr. Mbeki, of manipulating the justice system for political ends. Many analysts dismissed that as sour grapes. Now the same issue has surfaced in the case of the national police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, a senior figure in the party who is broadly asserted to be an Mbeki supporter. And some analysts are no longer so certain. Marinus Wiechers, for one, says that that he fears that the temptation to use the government’s powers for political ends has become irresistible. “The party-state is a thing that threatens all democracies, especially young democracies,” Mr. Wiechers, a constitutional law expert and former university vice chancellor, said recently. “If you break down the separation of powers, you’re certainly heading for a constitutional crisis.” Were that true, it would — like Nixon’s use of the Internal Revenue Service against his critics — be widely considered an affront to the nation’s democratic values. In what has become known as the Selebi affair, however, neither Mr. Mbeki nor his aides have explained why they intervened in a legal proceeding to prevent Mr. Selebi’s arrest. Rather, Mr. Mbeki has named a prominent member of the African National Congress to investigate the matter and broadly suggested that the full findings may not be made public for reasons of national security. Political commentators have already noted, acidly, that Nixon used that excuse to cover up his own transgressions. The basics of the Selebi affair are about the only things that remain clear. In September 2005, hit men pumped seven shots into a Johannesburg mining magnate, Brent Kebble. Investigators implicated a reputed organized-crime figure, Glenn Agliotti, known as the Landlord, who later said the Kebble murder was an “assisted suicide” that he helped arrange. Mr. Agliotti’s cellphone records showed that he called Mr. Selebi — South Africa’s police commissioner and the president of Interpol, the international police organization — from near the scene of the murder shortly after it occurred. In the ensuing outcry, Mr. Selebi denied any wrongdoing, called Mr. Agliotti a close friend and said he never discussed police business or criminal activity with him. Mr. Agliotti said he was only being a good citizen and reporting a crime to the police when he called Mr. Selebi. Mr. Mbeki declined to suspend or investigate Mr. Selebi, telling critics to have faith in his judgment. But investigators for South Africa’s elite anti-corruption squad, the Scorpions, found evidence of crimes involving the two men. Last month, Vusi Pikoli, the head of the Scorpions and the nation’s chief prosecutor, presented the secret evidence to two Johannesburg judges and secured warrants to arrest Mr. Selebi and to search his home and office. The warrants, however, were never executed. In late September, Mr. Mbeki’s justice minister apparently learned of the warrants, demanded that Mr. Pikoli resign and then suspended him when he refused, according to local news reports. Mr. Pikoli’s replacement then visited the two judges, asking them to rescind the warrants. The arrest warrant was canceled, the search warrant remains intact, Mr. Selebi remains in command — and to date, nobody has explained why. Mr. Mbeki has asked Mr. Pikoli’s successor to review the evidence against Mr. Selebi and to recommend whether any action is needed. Mr. Pikoli, meanwhile, is under investigation by Mr. Mbeki’s appointee, apparently for prosecutorial excesses. While the public version of the charges is not specific, it suggests that Mr. Pikoli is accused of giving immunity too liberally to organized-crime figures in return for incriminating evidence against Mr. Selebi, and of securing his arrest warrant without informing higher-ups. In South Africa’s Parliament, the African National Congress, which controls 7 in 10 seats, has closed ranks, and calls by the opposition to investigate the affair have been rebuffed. News of the arrest warrant and its reversal, aired in newspapers and only grudgingly confirmed by the government in the past month, has set off outrage in the news media and among South Africa’s minuscule political opposition. After nearly two weeks of daily headlines, Mr. Mbeki’s only public comment on the issue has been to joke that the president does not issue arrest warrants. “It’s a big mess,” said one veteran criminologist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared losing work with the government, “and it’s a mess that comes from the uncertainty about the boundaries that separate the state from the ruling party.” Bereft of facts, South Africa has been rife with speculation. The most damning version accuses Mr. Mbeki of protecting Mr. Selebi, a member of his party’s executive committee with some influence in the debate over the party’s next leader. Another version draws on the longstanding rivalry between the Scorpions and South Africa’s national police, the nation’s leading law enforcement organizations, and suggests that Mr. Pikoli overreached in an attempt to dispatch a rival. The Scorpions also broke the bribery case that led to Mr. Zuma’s dismissal in 2005. Although his friend and financial adviser has been sent to prison in that case, Mr. Zuma so far has evaded prosecution — and some suggest that Mr. Mbeki has sidelined Mr. Pikoli because he has moved too slowly to eliminate Mr. Zuma as a political rival. Or it could mean nothing, with due process occurring behind the scenes. Mr. Mbeki is a famously distant politician, renowned not just for ignoring public opinion but for shunning it. “The failure to answer questions and inform the country of what he’s doing is not a new feature of Mbeki’s style,” Steven Friedman, a longtime political analyst, noted drily.

South Africa
African National Congress
Mbeki Thabo
Zuma Jacob G
Selebi Jackie
Politics and Government
Murders and Attempted Murders


Bridgeport Diocese Acknowledges 32 Abuse Accusations to Court

Abstract: TRUMBULL, Conn. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport has acknowledged in court papers that it documented 32 accusations of sexual abuse of children by priests associated with a parish here over 40 years. The diocese made the admission last week in contesting a lawsuit filed by the estate of Michael Powel, who died last year. Mr. Powel had claimed that he was sexually abused at St. Theresa’s Parish in Trumbull between 1968, when he was 9, and 1972, when he was 13. The diocese is contesting a request from Mr. Powel’s lawyers to turn over all documents regarding sexual abuse by priests at the parish. In its filing in Superior Court in Waterbury, the diocese said it had compiled 126 boxes of documents and files detailing 32 accusations of abuse by eight priests at St. Theresa’s. Nine of the alleged encounters occurred before 1973, according to the court papers, and 18 accusations cover encounters that allegedly occurred from 1973 to 1983. Two accusations involve the period from 1984 to 1989, and three pertain to the years since 1990. The diocese is asking the court to allow it to withhold records on all allegations made after 1973, saying they are irrelevant to Mr. Powel’s lawsuit. In its filing, the diocese said it should not have to spend thousand of dollars to review the documents “simply because Michael Powel alleges he was abused one time for one minute in the winter of 1971.” Mr. Powel’s lawyers said that the motion by the diocese was a “bait-and-switch” to avoid producing documents by Wednesday, a date previously agreed upon to provide discovery materials. Mr. Powel, a former Florida resident, alleged that he was repeatedly abused by a longtime parish landscaping employee, Carlo Fabbozzi. Mr. Powel also accused Mr. Fabbozzi of introducing him to a priest, the Rev. Joseph Gorecki, whom Powel accused of molesting him once at St. Theresa’s school in 1971. A diocesan spokesman, Joseph McAleer, said priests from the parish who were found to have abused children are no longer in ministry and that the diocese removes from ministry any priest who is found to have abused a child. The diocese has fought the release of abuse records in the past. This year, it unsuccessfully appealed to the United States Supreme Court in an attempt to block the release of more than 12,000 pages of documents generated by lawsuits against priests. Judges have ruled that the documents be made public next week.

Roman Catholic Church
Connecticut
Sex Crimes


German Media Want Greek Finance Minister’s Head Over ‘Fingergate’

Abstract: Speaking to a small group of Croatian radicals in 2013, an obscure Greek economist suggested that Greece should have simply defaulted on its debts in 2010 and told the German government to deal with the consequences. For emphasis, he used a crude expression and extended his middle finger, in an ancient gesture considered obscene even in the days of Diogenes . Two years later, that economist is Greece’s new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and video of his gesture found on YouTube by the German news media has made him into a lightning rod for populist anger in Germany over the increasingly acrimonious debt negotiations between the countries. Mr. Varoufakis tried and failed to quell the uproar during an interview on German state television on Sunday when he was confronted with the video and claimed that the footage had been “doctored” and that he had never made the gesture. Video professionals were called in and witnesses consulted as Bild, Germany’s most popular tabloid, tried to prove that Mr. Varoufakis had been caught lying about “Fingergate.” Mr. Varoufakis, who came to office after the triumph this year of the leftist Syriza party, suggested that it was “an honor” to have made an enemy of Bild, a right-wing newspaper. The video recording of the talk was confirmed as authentic on Monday in a statement posted on Facebook by its Croatian organizers, who nonetheless attacked the German news media for distorting the context and meaning of the gesture made by Mr. Varoufakis. He was aiming his criticism not at the German people or state but the government in Berlin, the Croats said, “which was at the time and today the main representative of disastrous austerity policies” in the European Union. Late Monday night, Mr. Varoufakis seemed to change tack, posting a link on his Twitter feed to an interview with Srecko Horvat, the Croatian philosopher who arranged the economist’s address to the Subversive Festival in Zagreb in 2013. Mr. Horvat argued that, while the gesture had been made, its meaning had been taken out of context. The finance minister followed suit by posting a link to the full video of the talk, and suggesting that by “doctored” he simply meant the clip had been edited out of its original context. The incident suggested that Mr. Varoufakis — whose Twitter biography says that he was “quietly writing obscure academic texts for years, until thrust onto the public scene by Europe’s inane handling of an inevitable crisis” — is struggling with the intensity of the media glare coming from the rest of Europe. The attention has not been uniformly negative. Last month, the German satirist Jan Böhmermann scored a viral hit with the off-color song “ V for Varoufakis ,” which turned on the premise that his nation was terrified by the primal sex appeal of the radical economist, known for wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle. Mr. Varoufakis even invited a Paris Match photographer into his home in Athens recently, a decision he said he regretted as soon as the images were released and critics accused him of living the high life at the foot of the Acropolis while pressing Europe to bail out Greece. After the Paris Match photographs were posted online, and Mr. Varoufakis was roundly mocked online, he walked out of an interview with CNBC when asked if the images had made him “a liability” for his government.

Greece
Yanis Varoufakis
Germany
Euro Crisis
Social Media


Kerry Says Israel May Deepen Its Isolation by Opposing Iran Nuclear Accord

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that the nuclear accord he negotiated with Iran was in Israel’s interest and that the Israeli government’s decision to oppose it could further its isolation. “I fear that what could happen is if Congress were to overturn it, our friends in Israel could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed,” Mr. Kerry said in an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations. There was no immediate response from Israeli officials to Mr. Kerry’s comments, which he made before meeting with American Jewish leaders in New York. But a number of foreign policy experts said that they risked aggravating the tense relations between the Obama administration and Israel. “It is the kind of statement that would be far more compelling to Israelis, or many in the Jewish community, if it came from an Israeli raising questions about the government’s approach,” said Dennis B. Ross, a former negotiator and senior adviser to President Obama on the Middle East. “I am afraid it will have the opposite effect of what the secretary may have intended.” As if to underscore Mr. Ross’s point, Michael B. Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, assailed the comments. “If American legislators reject the nuclear deal, they will do so exclusively on the basis of U.S. interests,” Mr. Oren said in an email to reporters. “The threat of the secretary of state who, in the past, warned that Israel was in danger of becoming an apartheid state, cannot deter us from fulfilling our national duty to oppose this dangerous deal.” Republican lawmakers, and even some Democratic ones, have complained about the new nuclear accord, saying that core provisions limiting Iran’s nuclear program will expire in 10 to 15 years and that Iran may use the billions of dollars gained from the lifting of sanctions to carry out a more aggressive policy in the Middle East. Who Got What They Wanted in the Iran Nuclear Deal Here is a look at what Iran and the United States wanted, and what they got. Mr. Kerry has argued that the accord presents the best chance to rein in Iran’s nuclear program and that a rejection by Congress would lead to the very situation that the critics wish to avoid: the collapse of the international sanctions and a further expansion of Tehran’s nuclear efforts. But the opposition of the Israeli government has also been a factor in the debate. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sternly denounced the emerging agreement in a March appearance before Congress as a “bad deal” that would encourage Arab nations to pursue their own nuclear programs. Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, has continued to argue against it in meetings with lawmakers, according to news reports. Israel’s opposition has resonated with some lawmakers who say that the Obama administration has turned a deaf ear to the concerns of a longtime ally to negotiate with Iranian leaders who still denounce the United States. In a congressional hearing on Thursday, Mr. Kerry sought to rebut that criticism by citing news reports that some former Israeli intelligence officials backed the agreement, and he highlighted his long record of supporting Israel when he was a senator. “I had a 100 percent voting record for 29 years here on the subject of Israel,” Mr. Kerry told the panel. “There’s no debate in this administration whatsoever about our willingness to commit anything and everything necessary to be able to provide for the security of Israel.” But Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East adviser to Democratic and Republican administrations, said Israeli officials were likely to view Mr. Kerry’s latest remarks in a different light. “It not only alienates the Israelis but fails to influence positively the very constituency the secretary presumably is trying to sway: Congress,” he said.

Israel
Iran
John Kerry
Benjamin Netanyahu
Nuclear weapon
US Foreign Policy


Quarterly Earnings Fall at Staples, as Sales Grow 19%

Abstract: Customers are still putting off big-ticket purchases from the office-supply chain Staples, but the company said it was beginning to see smaller declines in foot traffic and sales to small businesses. For the three months that ended May 2, Staples earned $143 million, or 20 cents a share, down from $212.3 million, or 30 cents a share, a year earlier. Sales, meanwhile, grew 19 percent, to $5.82 billion, from $4.88 billion, helped by the addition of Corporate Express, a Dutch office supply company Staples acquired last year. Stock in Staples fell 46 cents, to $19.93 a share.


Geno Smith Practices as Jets’ Starter, With Ryan Fitzpatrick Unsigned

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — For now, Geno Smith is the starting quarterback of a team that has been candid about wanting to displace him, and he dresses among prominent veterans who have lobbied for his successor to return. It is a bizarre little situation, sort of like being slugged in the face by a teammate over an unpaid debt . Smith absorbed such a punch last August, prompting the promotion of Ryan Fitzpatrick, whose revelatory season, in a way, created this opportunity — however temporary, perhaps — for Smith. “Every player in the N.F.L., I think, deserves a fair opportunity,” Smith said. “Whether or not that’s the case, who knows? But I believe that I do have an opportunity here, and I’ve just got to take advantage of it.” On the surface, he has. Calling himself “just wiser” as he enters his fourth season, Smith said he had a deeper understanding of the offense. The offensive coordinator Chan Gailey agreed, basing his observation, he said, on the questions Smith had been asking during film reviews and meetings. Armed with that knowledge, Smith took a majority of the first-team snaps Wednesday, when the Jets had their second voluntary workout of organized team activities. The longer Fitzpatrick’s contract stalemate lasts, the more of those reps will go to Smith — even though the Jets hope he takes none for them this season. The Jets have been open about their desire to re-sign Fitzpatrick, who wants to be rewarded for leading them to 10 victories and setting a franchise record for touchdown passes in a season. Whether it happens next week, next month or before training camp, the expectation is that a deal will be reached. Fitzpatrick would reclaim his starting job, Coach Todd Bowles has said, pushing Smith into a backup role, ahead of two developmental quarterbacks, Bryce Petty and the rookie second-round pick Christian Hackenberg . In an otherwise peaceful 10-minute session with the news media, Smith bridled when asked if he wanted Fitzpatrick to re-sign. “That’s up to the front office and Ryan Fitzpatrick,” Smith said. “Why would I speak on that? Come on, man.” Bowles hesitated to say he was confident that the Jets would reach an agreement with Fitzpatrick. “You’re hopeful,” Bowles said. That has been the Jets’ sentiment since last season , expressed by General Manager Mike Maccagnan and teammates like receiver Brandon Marshall, one of Fitzpatrick’s most ardent supporters; receiver Eric Decker; and center Nick Mangold, who attended a Rangers playoff game with Fitzpatrick last month. Marshall, Decker and Mangold were not present Wednesday for a second consecutive day, inviting speculation that they were staying away as a sign of solidarity with Fitzpatrick, but Bowles played down their absences. So did Smith. “I think they’ve always been supportive of myself as well,” Smith said, adding, “I don’t think they’ve said anything negative about me.” Smith declined to say whether he envisioned himself starting the Sept. 11 season opener against Cincinnati, and it seemed a prudent decision. Bowles said he does not ask Maccagnan for updates on Fitzpatrick’s contract talks. “Just tell me when it’s done,” Bowles said.

Geno Smith
Jets
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Football


Death Toll in Ukraine Conflict Exceeds 2,200, U.N. Says

Abstract: GENEVA — The United Nations said on Friday that casualties in the fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian rebels had doubled in the past month, with an average of 36 people killed every day. At least 1,200 people were killed and 3,250 injured in the period from July 16 to Aug. 17, according to a report released by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. The office described the toll as “very conservative” and said it did not include the 298 passengers and crew who died when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17. “The trend is clear and alarming,” Ivan Simonovic, the United Nations assistant secretary general for human rights, said in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, according to Reuters. “There is a significant increase in the death toll in the east.” The upsurge in fighting concentrated around the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk brought the total number of people killed in the clashes since mid-April to at least 2,220, and the number of injured to at least 5,956, the United Nations said, citing the reports of a 39-man monitoring mission working out of Kiev and four other cities. Ukraine’s military had to bear responsibility for “at least some” of the heavy loss of civilian life and for extensive damage to property resulting from the use of heavy weapons, including tanks and artillery, in densely populated areas, the report said. But armed rebels were faulted for positioning their heavy weapons in densely populated areas and for launching attacks from them, putting civilians at risk and violating international law. The rebel groups were “now professionally equipped and appear to benefit from a steady supply of sophisticated weapons and ammunition, enabling them to shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft such as helicopters, fighter jets and transport planes,” the report said. Ukraine claims the separatists’ weapons come from Russia. Moscow has consistently denied arming the rebels, even in the face of reports that Russian troops had crossed the border. On Thursday, NATO released satellite images that it said showed Russian forces operating on Ukrainian territory. Pro-Russian separatists had also committed a wide range of abuses including “killings, abductions, physical and psychological torture, ill treatment, executions, murder and other serious human rights abuses,” the report said. It did not provide a figure for the number of people being held prisoner by separatists, but said that as of mid-August at least 498 people were believed to have been detained. More than half the residents of Luhansk and Donetsk have left to escape the fighting and harsh living conditions, but rebels have targeted and killed civilians trying to escape conflict zones, United Nations investigators reported, and have stopped residents from leaving by harassing and robbing them at checkpoints. The United Nations also accused Ukrainian Army units and pro-Kiev battalions of abuses, in particular forced disappearances and torture. More than 1,000 people in eastern Ukraine have been arrested for what the government said was “irrefutable evidence of their participation in terrorist activities,” the report said. It also cited accounts of ill-treatment during arrest and detention.

Ukraine
Russia
Luhansk
Fatalities,casualties
Civilian casualties
Donetsk Ukraine
UN


Coalition Plays Down Afghan Reports of Major Battle in Helmand

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban attacked Afghan police posts in a violent and long-contested corner of southern Afghanistan, setting off two days of clashes that left at least six police officers dead, Afghan officials said Tuesday, though the American-led coalition played down the violence as little more than “drive-by shootings.” The Afghan government portrayed the fighting in the Sangin district of Helmand Province, which began Monday, as a major victory for its forces, with officials describing a massive Taliban effort to overrun the area. Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the provincial governor, put the number of attackers at 1,000 and said Arab and Chechen insurgents — that is, Al Qaeda members — were fighting alongside the Taliban. The Taliban also claimed to be engaged in a broad assault on Sangin, saying in a text message to reporters that insurgents had overrun three police posts and were close to taking more. The coalition, though, was far more circumspect about the scale of the fighting. It said the Taliban force totaled 80 to 100 fighters and managed to launch only sporadic attacks on outlying police posts in the district. Ten groups of between 8 and 10 Taliban fighters were “doing drive-by shootings against five police checkpoints,” said Col. Thomas Collins, a coalition spokesman. “None of the checkpoints were overrun." Another coalition official added that American Marines, who still maintain a sizable presence in the district, would have joined the fight had the Taliban presented any significant threat, and coalition air power would probably have been called in had the Taliban massed in numbers as large as those described by Afghan officials. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly disagreeing with his Afghan counterparts. The Taliban have stepped up their attacks on the Afghan Army and police since the start of the annual fighting season. They say that a broad summer offensive that will expose the weakness of the Afghan security forces is now under way, and that they have managed to inflict significant casualties. At least six Afghan police officers were killed in the past two days in Sangin, for instance, according to Haji-Ghulam Ali Khan, the district police chief. But the most dramatic battles between the Taliban and the Afghan security forces seem to be those portrayed by their spokesmen for media consumption, with both sides claiming to have scored hard-fought victories over one another. This week’s fighting in Sangin could well prove to be part of the intensifying propaganda war. The district was the scene of fierce fighting by British troops and United States Marines to root out the insurgents, and both the Taliban and the Afghan government would benefit from claiming a victory there. But if the Taliban’s attack this week did consist mainly of sending small bands to harass police posts, as the coalition asserted, it would hardly count as a significant victory for either side. It would instead seem to indicate that the insurgents do not have the strength or the will to threaten the entire district with a head-on assault, and that the security forces there have yet to be tested by a big attack. Afghan officials, however, were adamant that their forces had repulsed a huge Taliban attack. “The Taliban were trying to show us their power but they have been repelled by Afghan forces,” said Mr. Khan, the police chief. The fighting had begun early Monday, and Afghan soldiers were called in to help repulse the attacks, he added. Some police were still engaged in isolated firefights, but order had been restored in most of the district, he said, adding that the Marines were not needed at any point in the fighting. “Taliban, with their great forces, attacked the boundary in which the security check posts surround the district center and some of the check posts are still under their constant firefighting,” he said. “We don’t know exactly how many Taliban have been killed. I can say they are losing their men.”

Afghanistan
Taliban
Helmand Province
Afghanistan War


Nazi-Era Art Collection Appears to Find a Home

Abstract: BERLIN — A collection of more than 1,000 artworks obtained by a Nazi-era art dealer and kept private for decades by his son is expected to be accepted by the Kunstmuseum Bern, a small museum in Switzerland , fulfilling the son’s final wish. The discovery of the collection sent the art world into an uproar, renewing concerns about the fate of Nazi-looted art and the rights of the owners’ descendants more than a half-century after the end of World War II . The dealer’s son, Cornelius Gurlitt, threw the collection’s fate into uncertainty with his decision to bequeath it to the Kunstmuseum Bern. After more than six months of deliberation, the museum and the German government said Thursday that they would release information about the future of the estate on Monday. Sources with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said it was likely that the board members would gather in Switzerland on Saturday to decide on Mr. Gurlitt’s gift. Stuart E. Eizenstat , a former deputy Treasury secretary who is now special adviser on Holocaust issues to Secretary of State John Kerry, said Thursday that it was his understanding that the museum would accept the offer. Mr. Eizenstat, who helped to negotiate the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which entrenched the principle that governments and museums must take responsibility for the damage caused by the Nazi looting of Jewish art, applauded the museum for indicating that every item would be screened by experts to determine which have dubious provenance. “They’re going to have international art experts go through the collection,” Mr. Eizenstat said. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the museum intended to accept the collection, barring any last-minute legal hurdles. The Bern museum was stunned to learn after Mr. Gurlitt’s death in May that it had been named the sole inheritor of the hotly disputed collection, which has since been determined to hold at least two works that were looted by the Nazis: a 1921 portrait by Henri Matisse and the Max Liebermann picture “Two Riders on the Beach.” If the museum does not accept the gift, the collection would fall to several of Mr. Gurlitt’s distant cousins and the husband of his only sister, who died childless in 2012. Although his relatives had agreed to honor his wishes, one of his second cousins recently suggested she would challenge Mr. Gurlitt’s will. As of Thursday, she had not yet filed a petition with the Munich court handling the estate. Mr. Gurlitt lived a solitary life in a Munich apartment with the windows either papered over or heavily curtained even before the world’s media camped out at his doorstep after a report of the collection’s existence in the German newsmagazine Focus last year. Art lovers and descendants of Holocaust victims were outraged to learn that more than 1,000 paintings and drawings collected by his father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, had been in the possession of the German police for more than a year, seized as part of an investigation into possible tax evasion. Many works in the Gurlitt collection were plundered from German museums, but scores were suspected of having belonged to Jewish collectors who were forced to sell them at below-market prices, or had them confiscated as they fled the Nazis. Under pressure from Israel, the United States and Jewish organizations, Germany set up a special task force to investigate the provenance of the artworks, hundreds of which were listed in the government’s online database in an effort to increase transparency and speed the identification of possible claimants to the works. Although small, the fine-arts museum in the Swiss capital has its own restoration departments for paintings and sketches, which make up a sizable share of the trove. Many of the works, especially those Mr. Gurlitt had stashed in a home he kept in Salzburg, were for years exposed to fluctuations of temperature and are badly in need of restoration. Daniel Spanke, the museum’s curator, said that he had confidence in his staff’s ability to cope with the responsibilities involved in accepting the collection. Mr. Gurlitt reached an agreement with the German authorities shortly before his death, binding his heirs to return any works determined to have been looted or stolen by the Nazis. One of the paintings, the Liebermann, has been determined to belong to David Toren, an 89-year-old descendant of the Jewish industrialist David Friedmann. Mr. Toren’s attorney said he was confident the Kunstmuseum Bern would accept the collection and was certain that his client would finally receive the painting that he last saw hanging in his great-uncle’s home. “The museum is incredibly fortunate for having this collection fall into its lap, and this presents a real opportunity for the museum to raise its international profile by doing the right thing with regard to the portion of the collection that was stolen by Nazis,” said August Matteis, who represents Mr. Toren.

Collecting
Kunstmuseum Bern
Switzerland
Cornelius Gurlitt
Arts and Antiquities Looting
Holocaust and Nazis


High School Football Inc.

Abstract: BRADENTON, Fla. — The sun had not yet set last Friday on a field ringed by palm trees when, on the first play from scrimmage, Shea Patterson rolled to his left and threw a 69-yard touchdown pass for his high school, IMG Academy, a private, for-profit sports boarding school. On the academy’s campus, a onetime tomato farm, the latest experiment in prep football is taking root and could produce, depending on one’s view, bountiful harvests of talent or a blight of professionalism. Coaches and officials around the country are watching with curiosity and wariness. Patterson, who is considered the nation’s top high school quarterback , threw the scoring pass to receiver Drake Davis, a national indoor sprinting champion. By halftime, Patterson had thrown four touchdown passes, including one to Isaac Nauta, who is rated as the country’s No. 1 tight end prospect. IMG Academy throttled Cocoa High School, a public school, 49-7, in a contest that many had expected to be a taut battle between two national powers from Florida but was so lopsided that a mercy rule took effect in the second half and sped the game. “We’re the best team in the country,” said Patterson, 18, a senior who is 6 feet 2 inches and 192 pounds, has a quick release, and has thrown 104 career touchdown passes with eight interceptions at three high schools. Nauta, 18, who is 6-4 and 237 pounds, said: “Every day in practice is just a grind against our own guys. That’s probably the best competition we’re going to face all year.” Their assuredness is as bold as the company behind the school: IMG, the global sports management conglomerate that has helped propel the competitive leap high school football has made beyond traditional community teams. Those teams still exist. But convention is being challenged by a more professional model at the highest levels as top players urgently pursue college scholarships, training becomes more specialized, big business opens its wallet, school choice expands, and schools seek to market themselves through sports, some for financial survival. Increasingly, prep football talent is being consolidated on powerful public, private, parochial, charter and magnet school teams. And recruiting to those schools is widespread in one guise or another. Image IMG's offensive coordinator, Rich Bartel, with quarterback Shea Patterson, who has attended three high schools and thrown 104 career touchdown passes. Credit Edward Linsmier for The New York Times IMG is at the forefront. It is trying to enhance its academy brand with football, perhaps the most visible sport. And it is applying a business model to the gridiron that has long been profitable for tennis and has expanded to golf, soccer, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, and track and field. The academy has nearly 1,000 students from more than 80 countries enrolled in prekindergarten through 12th grade and postgraduation. About half the students are international. The school, 45 miles south of Tampa, recruits football players from around the country. It offers high-performance training, college preparatory courses, coaches with N.F.L. playing experience, facilities that resemble a small college more than a high school, and a chance to play a national schedule and on ESPN against some of the highest-rated teams. Though IMG Academy has fielded a varsity football team for only three seasons and, as an independent school, is ineligible to play for a Florida state championship, it is stocked with six of the nation’s top 100 senior recruits. The roster has players from 21 states and six countries. This month, IMG flew to Texas for a game. On Saturday, it traveled to New Jersey and defeated another power, Bergen Catholic High School, 59-47. The full cost of tuition and boarding for a year of football at IMG Academy is $70,800, although need-based financial assistance is available. School officials would not provide specific figures, but they said that payments by families could range from tens of thousands of dollars to a competition fee (from $3,750 to $4,500) to nothing. Team helmets are adorned not with a lion or a tiger but with IMG’s corporate logo. The cheerleaders and the pep band come not from the school but are themselves all-star performers from the area. Even the team nickname, the Ascenders, suggests players are there with college in mind. The academy was founded in 1978 by Nick Bollettieri as a tennis boarding school on what he often says were 15 acres of repurposed tomato fields. Andre Agassi, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova have trained there. IMG bought the academy in 1987, and it now covers more than 500 acres. Football began in 2013 as part of a $197 million campus expansion. Games are played in a 5,000-seat stadium outfitted with suites and a jumbo video screen. Digital screens depict each player’s name and face on his locker. Some N.F.L. players train there in the off-season, as do college players preparing for the pro draft. A Finishing School for Football Players 11 Photos View Slide Show › Image Edward Linsmier for The New York Times IMG officials are upfront about their profit motive. And they have been backed financially by state lawmakers. They justify the assistance by citing the academy’s economic impact to the region in training more than 12,000 athletes yearly from the youth level to the pros and in hosting numerous amateur and professional sports competitions. Although it is private, IMG Academy has received more than $7 million from the Florida state budget over the past two years, according to news accounts. An additional $2 million was pledged by lawmakers in June but was then vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott . “We run a business,” said Chip McCarthy, a co-managing director of IMG Academy. “We call it sales and marketing. Some people call it recruiting. We’re promoting our program. If you look at any private school that emphasizes sports, they’re typically doing it to promote their school. A lot are trying to survive. You’re not going to curtail that.” McCarthy added: “With us, we’re very honest about it. We recruit nationally, we don’t recruit in Florida, and we’re probably the only school in the country that admits it.” Officials at IMG also freely say that the academy is not for everyone. Several highly regarded players have left, citing homesickness, a philosophical clash with coaches or a feeling of being overwhelmed by the collegelike commitment. Many high school football coaches and officials are closely following IMG Academy, wondering whether it portends the growth of similar academies or superleagues featuring top teams. “I’m 50-50 split,” said John Wilkinson, the coach at Cocoa High School, who faced IMG Academy last week and said he would do it again. “They’re high school kids, just like us. We’re playing a football game. The other 50 percent thinks the competitive advantage they have is kind of alarming, if they’re allowed to recruit. But it is what it is.” Image Left, the IMG locker room. Right, linebacker Rahshaun Smith at his locker before the game. Credit Photographs by Edward Linsmier for The New York Times Some Florida schools refuse to play IMG Academy. Some coaches from other states are upset that IMG has poached players whom they developed. And there are accusations — vehemently rebutted by IMG — that it is merely a football factory where “student” is a neglected companion in the term “student-athlete.” Other officials express fear that football might follow the path of high school basketball, which many feel has been corrupted by so-called diploma mills and the heavy influence of club teams and recruiting middlemen. “We just wouldn’t play them,” George Smith, the athletic director at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, said of IMG Academy. He won six state championships and two national championships as the St. Thomas Aquinas football coach. “They’re exactly like all these basketball schools, except they’re a football school.” Mickey McCarty, who has coached three state championship teams at Neville High School in Monroe, La., and who lost a senior receiver to IMG Academy days before fall practice began, said the academy seemed less a traditional football team than a showcase for individual talent. “It sounds to me like they’re playing for self, to be promoted and recruited, which takes away everything we stand for,” McCarty said. Another view, of course, is held by IMG Academy. Criticism often seems to be uninformed and secondhand, said McCarthy, the academy’s co-managing director. Academy officials said that 186 athletes from IMG’s 2015 graduating class were playing various college sports, including six at Ivy League universities and four at service academies. Academics and athletics are intended to simulate the college experience with dormitory living, alternate-day classes, block scheduling and a focus on time management. “It is the best preparation for a high school kid to get to the next level quick,” said Kevin Wright, IMG Academy’s first-year head coach. A school guide describes a typical day for athletes: Breakfast from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. Three classes lasting 80 minutes each. Forty minutes of tutoring and preparation for standardized tests. Lunch. Training and conditioning from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. Dinner. Another hour of available tutoring and a mandatory 90-minute study hall. Football players said there was a curfew at 10:30 p.m. “I came here assuming it was going to be easy, it’s just going to be a football school, but I learned within the first week I was completely wrong,” said Kjetil Cline, 17, a senior receiver from Minnesota who plans to play football at the United States Military Academy. “That really opened my eyes about what college would be like, and I think it’s really prepared me for going to West Point and being able to handle that.” To be admitted into the Florida High School Athletic Association, IMG Academy agreed not to recruit athletes from Florida schools. The association said that it had received accusations of recruiting in-state by IMG but that none had been substantiated. The National Federation of State High School Associations has not taken an official position on IMG Academy, said Bob Gardner, the association’s executive director. But he added: “Academy teams, while they may be good teams and give great educations, it’s not something that we really believe in or would promote or espouse in any way. We think the high school experience is best served by the student-athlete who lives at home with his family and is part of his school, family and community.” The players at IMG and their families consider that approach to be antiquated. For Patterson, a quarterback who won state championships the previous two seasons at a high school in Louisiana, IMG Academy is serving as a finishing school. Patterson said he transferred to IMG in June to work on his speed, strength and conditioning. He plans to graduate in December, enroll for the spring semester at the University of Mississippi and challenge for the starting quarterback position there next fall as a freshman. “It’s definitely a professional decision,” he said. Steve Walsh, IMG Academy’s director of football, and Rich Bartel, the offensive coordinator, both played quarterback in the N.F.L. There are also sports psychologists, strength coaches and speed coaches to assist Patterson. He has at his disposal a 10,000-square-foot weight room; a sports science center to aid with hydration and nutrition; a biomechanics center; a vision lab, or “mind gym,” to enhance perceptual and cognitive skills; and a hospital for special surgery and sports rehabilitation should he be injured. Image Announcers and members of the news media watching the team warm up. Credit Edward Linsmier for The New York Times When IMG Academy played in Texas this month, it trained at Texas Christian University, and Wright, the Ascenders’ coach, said, “We’re thinking, ‘Hey, our practice fields are maybe a little bit better.’ ” At the top levels of high school football, some teams routinely travel to play teams in other states. Games are frequently broadcast on regional or national cable channels. Some players are offered college scholarships as early as eighth grade. Apparel companies also exert considerable influence. Nike operates training camps for select players. Under Armour sponsors a postseason all-star football game and IMG Academy itself, where players are told not to wear gear made by other companies. “It’s all driven by money, and you can’t beat money,” said John Bachman Sr., who coached Patterson to state titles the past two seasons at Calvary Baptist Academy in Shreveport, La. As a freshman, Patterson played at a high school in Texas. Bachman said he felt conflicted about Patterson’s decision to transfer to IMG Academy. Parents should have the right to choose the best school for their children, he said. If he had a son of Patterson’s skill, Bachman said, he would have considered the same move. “I’m a liar if I said I wouldn’t have,” Bachman said. Even so, he added, “I don’t think anything’s ever going to take the place of the local public high school or private school that pours itself into the kid, and it’s a family atmosphere and it’s about the team and sacrifice and so on.” Image IMG players after their 49-7 win over Cocoa. Credit Edward Linsmier for The New York Times Calvin Ashley, a top-rated junior tackle, left IMG Academy last spring and returned to his former school, Dr. Phillips High School, in Orlando, Fla. Rodney Wells, the football coach there, said that Ashley was homesick. “There’s a reason kids go to college when they are 18 and not 15, 16 or 17,” Wells said. “Calvin is only 16. A college atmosphere, being away from home, living in a dorm, that’s not an environment for a 16-year-old. You don’t have your neighborhood buddy. You can’t go home to your mom.” But for others, like Patterson, who is 18, IMG has been a comfortable fit. His grandfather played for a season with the Detroit Pistons. His father and three older siblings played collegiate sports. He said that IMG Academy “was going to get me the most ready on the field and academically” to play next season at Ole Miss. “There’s a lot more accountability,” Patterson said. “I’ve got to be at class every day at 7:45. Can’t skip a class. Can’t skip a study hall.” Sean Patterson Sr., Shea’s father, said, “If your son’s a great musician, you want to send him to Juilliard,” adding that for Shea, IMG Academy “is the spot” for polishing his football skills for college. “Some kids don’t want to leave that high school experience,” Sean Patterson Sr. said, describing his son’s transfer from Louisiana. “It’s important for them to have pep rallies. Shea’s already been through that. Sometimes you just know it’s time to move on.” Dressed in an Ole Miss shirt and hat, he added: “Who knows what they’re going to want him to do, but he’s going to be ready. They open with Florida State next year.”

Football
Shea Patterson
IMG Academy
Florida
Steve Walsh
School Sports
K-12 Education