Obama Factor Adds to Fears of Democrats

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed about their midterm election fortunes amid President Obama’s sinking approval ratings, a loss in a special House election in Florida last week, and millions of dollars spent by Republican-aligned groups attacking the new health law. The combination has led to uncharacteristic criticism of Mr. Obama and bitter complaints that his vaunted political organization has done little to help the party’s vulnerable congressional candidates. The latest in a cascade of bad news came Friday when Scott Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, announced an exploratory committee to challenge the incumbent Democrat in New Hampshire, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, and when the Republican-aligned “super PAC” American Crossroads said it would spend $600,000 to help his effort. Earlier, another top-tier Republican recruit, Representative Cory Gardner, decided to challenge Senator Mark Udall of Colorado; the two races create unanticipated opportunities improving Republicans’ chances to take control of the Senate. No prominent Democrats predict their party will win back the House. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, state party officials and strategists revealed a new urgency about the need to address the party’s prospects. One Democratic lawmaker, who asked not to be identified, said Mr. Obama was becoming “poisonous” to the party’s candidates. At the same time, Democrats are pressing senior aides to Mr. Obama for help from the political network. “I’m a prolific fund-raiser, but I can’t compete with somebody who has got 50-some-odd billion dollars,” said Representative Joe Garcia of Florida, a vulnerable first-term member who has already faced more than $500,000 in negative TV ads from third-party conservative groups. “One hopes the cavalry is coming. One hopes the cavalry is coming.” The gap is yawning. Outside Republican groups have spent about $40 million in this election cycle, compared with just $17 million by Democrats. When two senior White House officials — Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director, and Phil Schiliro, the health care adviser — went to the Capitol late last month to address Senate Democrats about the Affordable Care Act, they were met with angry questions about why Mr. Obama’s well-funded advocacy group, Organizing for Action, was not airing commercials offering them cover on the health law. Among those raising concerns was Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who also has a low-key style and warm relationship with Mr. Obama. “They did not want to hear about health care enrollment,” one source familiar with the meeting said, describing “a high level of anxiety.” After the loss in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, which Mr. Obama carried in 2012, Representative Steve Israel of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic campaign arm, asked the White House political director, David Simas, for additional help during a Wednesday meeting at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Responding to these concerns, several Democrats said Friday that Organizing for Action would cut back its fund-raising activities so the group would not be in competition with the candidates for donors. Katie Hogan, a spokeswoman for it, said, “We understand and expect that some of our more than 420,000 contributors will shift their focus to their local campaigns during the midterm season.” Democrats also said that the White House would make Mr. Obama available for additional fund-raisers and that the president was starting to meet with small groups of the party’s largest contributors that could benefit the party’s own super PACS. “Everyone is trying to send the signal: Don’t get ahead of yourself — 2016 is critical, but 2014 comes first,” said David Plouffe, the president’s former campaign manager. Mr. Obama’s approval rating of 41 percent in a Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll last week matched that of a New York Times/CBS News survey in February and represents one of the clearest reasons for Democratic malaise. Since the post-World War II era, that measurement has been one of the most accurate predictors of midterm results, and any number below 50 means trouble for the party that holds the White House. Image Speaker John A. Boehner, far left, held a swearing-in ceremony last week for Representative David Jolly, right. Mr. Jolly defeated a Democrat in a special election in a Florida district. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times “The state of Democrats is very much tied to the state of the president, and in that regard, these are far from the best of times,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. In addition to problems with the health law, the White House is losing the support of Democrats on key appointments such as Mr. Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and his choice to be surgeon general. Also last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, broke with the administration with a scalding criticism of the Central Intelligence Agency. Historical trends over all also argue against the president’s party in a sixth year. In 1958, Republicans lost 48 seats in the House and 13 in the Senate; in 2006, Republicans lost 30 seats in the House and six in the Senate. In the past 50 years, only Bill Clinton in 1998, when his approval ratings were much higher than Mr. Obama’s today, did not drag down his party in a second midterm; Democrats picked up five House seats. Republicans also seem to be benefiting from the argument — reinforced by advertising and by their media surrogates — that Mr. Obama has presided over an activist government that has overreached and proved incompetent. Most Democrats up for re-election are trying to put some distance between themselves and the president, choosing surrogates such as Mr. Clinton to campaign for them, particularly in the South and parts of the West. Asked whether Mr. Obama is a liability, Representative Ami Bera, Democrat of California, demurred. “We haven’t really focused much on the president,” he said. “We’re focused on Sacramento County and the folks that are there.” Other Democrats are openly critical of the health care law in their advertisements. In one ad promoting Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, Democrat of Arizona, the narrator says she “blew the whistle on the disastrous health care website, calling it ‘stunning ineptitude,’ and worked to fix it.” Democrats also face a contradiction: As woeful as they are about their prospects in 2014, they are buoyant about their chances for winning the White House in 2016. Polls show that Hillary Rodham Clinton has clear leads over possible Republican challengers. Even though special elections are rarely reliable predictors for future elections, Alex Sink’s loss to David Jolly in Florida’s 13th District last week added to the Democrats’ negative story line. Frightening Democrats further, none of the Republican third-party money in the race came from the Koch brothers, the wealthy industrialists whose political groups have funded the bulk of the TV ads hammering Democrats this election cycle. “Florida 13 doesn’t keep me up at night, but the aggregate Republican super PAC money makes me toss and turn,” Mr. Israel said. This unease is also prompting Democrats to speak more candidly about what many see as the root cause for their political difficulties: the bungled unveiling of the health law, in particular the insurance website, and the White House’s failure to market the initiative effectively. “The rollout left a bad taste in people’s mouth from Day 1, and it’s hard to create a new flavor now,” said Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee. To stem losses, the Democratic National Committee is focusing on technology and data to give their candidates, as well as the state parties, the latest tools they will need to turn out the vote more effectively and efficiently. And Senate Democrats will try to make races about local issues rather than a referendum on Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama’s aides say he is not idly watching congressional Democrats drown in a Republican wave. By the end of June, the president will have attended 14 events for Democratic groups. But on Capitol Hill, Democrats are furious that the same major contributors who enabled Mr. Obama and allied outside groups to raise over $1 billion for his re-election in 2012 are not rallying to ensure the president does not face a Congress controlled entirely by Republicans for his final two years. Democrats say that the party needs more donors with the means of the California billionaire Thomas F. Steyer, who is helping candidates who support addressing climate change, to protect candidates who backed the health law. “I’m not in the super PAC business, but we need somebody like a Steyer to get in the fight on the Affordable Care Act,” said Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky. Democrats, he said, are “getting beat to death.”

Democrats
Republicans
Polls
Barack Obama
US Politics
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
House races
Congressional elections
Senate races
US


Bronx District Attorney Says New System Will Reduce Case Delays

Abstract: When Darcel D. Clark was a judge in the Bronx, she used to see criminal cases in her courtroom delayed for weeks, even months, as they were handed from one prosecutor to another. At a minimum, every case would pass through the hands of three prosecutors, each of whom oversaw a different step in the legal process, from writing the initial complaint to going to trial. If a prosecutor changed jobs, yet another person would have to scramble to become familiar with the case. “I saw the way the delays were built in,” Ms. Clark said. “How many times did I hear, ‘Oh judge, I need another two or three weeks.’” Ms. Clark, now the Bronx district attorney, intends to reduce those delays by adopting a new system of handling all cases starting this month. The system — known as “vertical prosecutions” — will assign every incoming case to a single prosecutor who will be responsible from beginning to end. Ms. Clark said the system would allow prosecutors to get to know their cases better and to take ownership of them. It would also foster closer relationships with victims and their families, she added. To put the system in place, Ms. Clark’s office will hire an additional 45 assistant district attorneys and two dozen new legal assistants in the next year at a cost of $3.8 million. The money used for the vertical prosecutions is the biggest part of an additional $11.5 million that the Bronx district attorney’s office received in the New York City budget. Another $1.8 million will be used to pay for a new prosecution bureau at Rikers Island, where assistant district attorneys will be stationed as part of Ms. Clark’s efforts to focus on crimes committed at the city’s main jail complex. The changes come as the Bronx struggles with the largest backlog of felony cases in the five boroughs. There are 1,476 felony cases that are a year or older in the Bronx, compared with 775 in Manhattan; 682 in Queens; 662 in Brooklyn; and 73 on Staten Island, according to state court data. Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, which runs the court system in New York State, said the Bronx district attorney’s move to vertical prosecutions complemented the state court system’s own efforts to address case backlogs in the Bronx and across the city. “Providing litigants with a timely justice process is a collaborative effort,” Mr. Chalfen said. Robin Steinberg, the executive director of the Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit that represents 28,000 people a year in criminal proceedings, said she saw vertical prosecutions as a positive step. “Creating a system of individual responsibility will enhance prosecutorial accountability and is a good first step towards ending the systemic delay that denies residents of the Bronx their day in court,” Ms. Steinberg said. Vertical prosecution models are already used in Manhattan and Queens and on Staten Island. In Brooklyn, they are used to handle certain types of crimes, such as homicides, but not all cases. Joshua Marquis, a member of the governing executive committee of the National District Attorneys Association, said that more district attorneys around the country were moving to embrace this approach at a time of a growing emphasis on victims’ rights. In addition, he said, many see vertical prosecutions as an efficient management tool because when a prosecutor is heavily invested in a case, it is less likely to get overlooked or lost in a pile of other cases. “I’m a big supporter of vertical prosecutions,” said Mr. Marquis, who is also the district attorney for Clatsop County, Ore., and uses them in his office. In the Bronx, this approach had previously been used on a limited basis with cases involving domestic violence and child abuse. But it was put in effect for all cases for the first time on July 5. Under the new system, even seasoned prosecutors will now work alongside junior colleagues to take statements from victims and write out complaints, the first step in prosecuting crimes. Ms. Clark, a Democrat who took office this year, said she had yet to receive any resistance from assistant district attorneys over the change. On the contrary, she said some had expressed excitement that they would have more control over their cases. In addition, Ms. Clark said she had been addressing the current backlog of cases by convening weekly meetings with her senior staff members, who account for the status of old cases. In total, 1,361 cases have been reviewed since February, of which 570 have gone to trial, have been dismissed or have resulted in defendants’ accepting a plea deal. “It’s like CompStat,” Ms. Clark said. “It’s ‘TrialStat,’ and you have to answer.” Peter Jones, a lawyer who is in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s criminal defense office in the Bronx, said he believed a system of vertical prosecutions would help move cases forward to disposition or trial more quickly. He added that under the new district attorney, the office had already begun prioritizing older cases. “Having one assistant handle the case beginning to end,” Mr. Jones said, “will encourage an earlier and more substantive case evaluation that hopefully avoids decisions being put off until a case is two to three years old.”

Bronx
District attorney
Bronx Defenders
Lawsuits
Darcel D Clark
Judiciary


Agency Scandal Highlights Conference Contracts

Abstract: Meeting and conference planners had plenty to say about the General Services Administration ’s lavish 2010 conference in Las Vegas, where guests were served $5 mini-Monte Cristo sandwiches and shrimp that cost $4 apiece. But unlike members of Congress, they argued that the hors d’oeuvres were among the few things that were properly priced. Conference planning has its own opaque economics, which meeting experts say are poorly understood. “There’s a lot of give and take that goes into negotiation,” said Jonathan Howe, a lawyer who works with conference organizers on their event contracts. Advocates of the process say it allows a seasoned negotiator to get a better deal. The G.S.A. would seem to fit the definition of an experienced bargainer, since its responsibilities include managing real estate for the government and setting the rules and daily spending allowances — per diems — on hotels and food for traveling federal government employees. “My first thought was, ‘Doesn’t the G.S.A. know better, out of everyone?’ ” said Teri Anticevich, owner of a meeting planning company that works with government clients. The organizers of most meetings held at hotels in the United States do not pay for the meeting space their groups use. But the cost of this “free” space does not go away, said Patti Shock, a professor at the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The hotel still has to pay operating costs. Those expenses tend to get funneled into the cost of meals, coffee breaks and other services, Ms. Shock said. To those outside the process, though, the listed costs for the food can seem high. In his report on the G.S.A.’s profligate spending at the Las Vegas conference, the agency’s inspector general noted, “G.S.A. also paid $30,207.60 — or roughly $95 per person — for the closing reception and dinner.” “It’s very easy to attack how lavish the meeting is by talking about the names of the food items,” said Steven Rudner, a lawyer who represents hotels in contract negotiations and disputes. The real financial issues, he said, hide in the fine print of contracts. Planning government meetings can be more complicated than private sector meetings because organizers have to work within per diems. But in the case of the G.S.A. conference, the inspector general’s report details what seems to be an elaborate method to circumvent these spending limits. Mr. Rudner argued that the current system was too vulnerable to manipulation. “The spirit of the government regulations has been lost in the maze,” Mr. Rudner said. The system, he said, “invites abuse.” The circuitous method of pricing and negotiating that is common in the United States is not the norm everywhere. In Europe, for instance, groups generally pay for meeting space. The roots for these divergent processes go back nearly a century, according to Joe Goldblatt, professor and executive director of the International Center for the Study of Planned Events at Queen Margaret University, in Edinburgh, Scotland. In the United States, hotels were built with meeting space. In the second half of the 20th century, cities began building municipal convention sites, often making the space available below cost to attract out-of-town conventions that would bring in hotel, dining and tax revenue. To compete, hotels had to offer their space for little or nothing, then figure out a way to recoup the loss. By contrast, Mr. Goldblatt said hotels in Europe developed without meeting space and European trade show halls tend to be for-profit, which eliminates the competitive pressure from publicly financed sites. After all the bad publicity, the G.S.A.’s acting director, Daniel M. Tangherlini, announced that 35 of the agency’s scheduled conferences had been canceled, which he said would save American taxpayers nearly a million dollars. Other federal agencies, according to Charles S. Sadler, executive director and chief executive of the Society of Government Meeting Professionals, also canceled sessions after the G.S.A. scandal, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department. But, it turns out, canceling conferences is not a simple cost-cutting move. Mr. Rudner said he was representing five hotels that held contracts to host federal conferences that were canceled. “Based on my experience and sense of how they’ll turn out, we’ll probably recover between $600,000 to $750,000,” he said. Mr. Sadler said that if the organizers of government conferences go through a proper procurement process, there are no cancellation fees. That may be a big “if.” In his report, the inspector general noted that in the original agreement the planner signed with the M Resort Spa Casino for the 2010 conference, “That agreement required G.S.A. to pay a $50,000 fee if the event were canceled.” A G.S.A. spokesman said that the agency did factor cancellation costs into its estimate of $1 million in savings and characterized the expense as minimal. He said he did not expect any litigation as a result of the cancellations. The M Resort declined to comment on any issue related to the 2010 conference. After the publicity about the G.S.A. conference, the Senate and House gave preliminary approval last week to legislation that would limit government travel spending and require more public disclosures of those expenses. Ms. Anticevich, the meeting company owner, was among several conference professionals who said they feared the G.S.A. event had given their business a black eye. “Even the people on the staff didn’t know how to negotiate a proper contract,” Ms. Anticevich said. “It was kind of a mess from the get-go.”

General Services Administration
Conventions Fairs and Trade Shows
Business Travel


Miami Ponders Whether the Good Outweighs the Bad

Abstract: MIAMI — The office of Mayor Manny Diaz smelled of fresh paint and departure. He had only a few hours left before term limits pushed him out, but when the city’s planning director mentioned a development by a large Spanish bank, the mayor’s eyes lit up. “I’d love to see it,” Mr. Diaz said. “Will you call me?” It was a telling exchange for a mayor who oversaw one of Miami’s most extensive physical transformations. The city he served for eight years now has cafes where prostitutes used to strut. There are more trees and art offerings, too, but mostly there are buildings. More than 100 million square feet of residential and commercial space has been added since 2001 — mostly towers and not just downtown, but also across neighborhoods with one-story homes. And in assessing these additions, which range from diamonds to rhinestones, Miami has come to exemplify a deep, national ambivalence about the boom’s lasting impact. This month’s mayoral election was in many ways a referendum on the idea that more construction means progress. And as was the case in Seattle, where the incumbent lost in a primary, and in New York, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg won, but not by much, the results pointed to retrenchment: Tomás Regalado, after campaigning against grand plans, beat a protégé of Mr. Diaz’s, Joe Sanchez, winning 72 percent of the vote. “It was wild,” Mr. Regalado said, describing the Diaz era. “And many times, irresponsible.” The causes, of course, are complicated. In a time of easy credit, experts said, Mr. Diaz inherited a laissez-faire zoning code that let developers rule. By legal right, they could build a 40-story building beside a retiree’s 1950s ranch-style home. In terms of design, the city could only request alterations. “It’s a little like the Ten Commandments,” said Arva Moore Parks, a historian and member of the Miami Planning Advisory Board from 2002 until this year. “It’s just suggestions.” Still, there is no doubt that Mr. Diaz, a registered independent, welcomed development. He said he came into office in 2001 with a sense of urgency because Miami had yet to experience a revival like New York City’s or Miami Beach’s. This was a city with a $140 million surplus where rusted-out cars filled empty lots and thunderstorms caused flooding, and politicians talked more about Havana than Tallahassee. “We were something of a laughingstock,” Mr. Diaz said, adding, “I wanted to turn that image around, and I think I did.” Those who saw his administration up close generally agree. Several former officials said Mr. Diaz, 55, a lawyer, modernized city government. His office did not even have a computer when he arrived; now Miami’s police officers have laptops with voice recognition software in their cruisers. For some residents, the good outweighs the bad. “I’m thrilled that Miami has become a major international city,” said Bert Silvestre, 51, a resident of the Roads neighborhood and a senior manager for I.B.M. “Development is the price we pay.” But for now at least, Mr. Silvestre appears to be in the minority. With record unemployment, foreclosures and budget cuts — in an area with one of the nation’s largest gaps between rich and poor residents — anger is the norm. Like many others, John Thomas, 76, had one question: “Where did all the money go?” Though he lives on a street with new storm drains, near a park overhauled under Mr. Diaz, he criticized politicians as expecting bailouts after “they spent themselves into the grave.” Just as common are the views of Miriam Galliana, 63, who said she voted for Mr. Diaz but now believes “this is not New York City, and it shouldn’t be.” Ms. Galliana lives in Mr. Silvestre’s neighborhood, in a simple home just off Coral Way. And her opinion has been shaped by what she sees from her front door: a new 13-story apartment building. “This was a quiet, nice, beautiful neighborhood, and it’s not like that anymore,” she said. “It’s horrible.” Elvis Cruz, an activist with Miami Neighborhoods United , said the building exemplified the Diaz era. He said that because it was in a designated “special district,” which allows for more oversight, the city should have insisted that the design “respond to the physical, contextual environment,” as the zoning ordinance requires. “This is an illegal building,” Mr. Cruz said. “But the city allowed it.” Ms. Parks, who was chairwoman during her last four years on the planning board, said the problem of loose enforcement preceded Mr. Diaz, though during the building boom, the mechanisms of government were overwhelmed. The planning board sometimes met until 2 a.m., Ms. Parks said, and lawyers for developers held more sway than critics. Developers, after all, were major campaign contributors, who could drag the city into expensive lawsuits. Even in the case of the large, controversial projects that did come before Miami’s five-member commission and the mayor, “yes” votes carried the day. Mr. Diaz could have stepped in, for instance, to veto the commission’s approval in 2007 of three condominium towers near Vizcaya , the historic museum in Coconut Grove. But he did not. Instead, the development died in the courts last year after preservationists (including Ms. Parks) sued to stop it. Other divisive projects, like the new stadium under construction for the Florida Marlins on the site of the Orange Bowl, also received the Diaz signature. In eight years, he said, he did not veto anything. He said he preferred transformation. It took four years, but in October, the City Commission approved his ambitious urban blueprint, Miami 21, which will encourage more mixed use and bring stricter height restrictions to residential areas. It also gives the planning board the power to reject projects based on their design and other criteria. But for many, Miami 21 has come too late, leaving open whether Mr. Diaz will be remembered as a visionary or by the nickname he picked up along the way, Money Diaz. He was, by his own admission, “a deal man.” At times, he said, he wondered if he did too much deciding and not enough explaining. His friends said he hated public relations and preferred sharing Scotch in his office with fellow insiders. It is that culture that has left Miami with a bitter aftertaste. Two commissioners who were often Diaz allies have left office since the election because of corruption scandals, and the city today faces a fiscal nightmare — partly because of pension obligations, partly because of declining revenue from property taxes. Both are now part of the Diaz legacy. “In the time of the boom, you could do everything and anything, and no one would notice,” Mr. Regalado said. Now, he added, it is time to emphasize different values: accountability and caution.

Office Buildings and Commercial Properties


U.S. Growth and Employment Data Tell Different Stories

Abstract: Think of it as the looking-glass economy. The stock market has been sinking since the beginning of the year and oil prices have plummeted, yet auto sales are at record highs and Federal Reserve officials are expressing confidence that the economy is on the upswing. Bidding wars are breaking out for sought-after hires in software and technology even as corporate behemoths like DuPont , BP and Morgan Stanley disclose plans to lay off tens of thousands. Measured by traditional yardsticks for growth, like gross domestic product , the American economy definitely looks weak. View it through the prism of hiring and employment, however, and the economy seems surprisingly strong. “It is a real mystery how you can have nearly 300,000 new jobs created in December with the economy growing by 1 percent or less,” said Torsten Slok, chief international economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. “We can’t have this discrepancy for a long period of time.” The divergence in the data is not just a puzzle for Wall Street. With the 2016 presidential candidates about to face their first test with voters, the split is also shaping the campaign debate of Democrats and Republicans alike. President Obama’s rosy take on the economy in his State of the Union address relied largely on the fact that hiring over the last two years was the healthiest it has been since the late-1990s boom. But the bleak mirror image presented in the Republican debate last week is also based on some hard-to-dismiss economic data: The proportion of Americans in the labor force is the lowest since the 1970s, and wage gains for most workers in the recovery have been scant. The explanation for this dissonance may lie at least in part in the changing nature of the American economy. Indeed, a crucial cause of the split is that the sectors that have been hardest hit — manufacturing and energy production — nowadays count for much less in terms of employment than they do in output. The nation’s vast array of service industries, which are more labor-intensive, are actually doing far better, said Laura Rosner, senior United States economist at BNP Paribas. And the thriving, domestically driven sectors like restaurants, health care, and professional and business services are serving as a firewall protecting the American economy from growing turbulence overseas. “We are predominantly a services economy,” Ms. Rosner said. “In 2016, the test will be how service industries fare, and if hiring holds up.” Last year, employment in services, which account for 86 percent of the American work force, jumped by more than 2.3 million, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Manufacturing, which accounts for a mere 9 percent of employment these days, experienced an increase of just 13,000 jobs. Given the recent numbers for hiring, said Michael Gapen of Barclays, the job market appears to be fundamentally sound. For those seeking to discern the future direction of the economy, he added, “labor markets have sent the better signal.” And according to those in a position to know, like Tom Gimbel, a Chicago recruiter, demand for new workers remains brisk. “I’ve got more open job orders than I’ve had in a long, long time,” Mr. Gimbel said. His staffing company, LaSalle Network, places workers ranging from operators in call centers who hold just a high school diploma to specialists like accountants and engineers with salaries in the six figures. Small to medium companies, in particular, are providing the growth. “It’s a tale of two cities,” Mr. Gimbel said. “With big companies being more cautious, there’s an opportunity for smaller firms to hire and take market share.” Nationally, in December alone employers increased payrolls by 292,000 , the Labor Department reported this month, well above what Wall Street had expected. That kind of employment gain is an important reason more optimistic forecasters like Mr. Gapen believe the economy is not nearly as bad as the modest G.D.P. numbers would suggest. Overall growth last year was dragged down by weakness in trade and the factory sector, reflecting the sting of the strong dollar on exporters and softness in key markets like Europe and China, Mr. Gapen said. The plunge in oil prices, meanwhile, has meant a reduction in drilling activity and capital expenditures by energy companies in the United States, further crimping output as measured by G.D.P. That has hit the economy even though cheaper gasoline and heating oil are delivering a big bonus to ordinary consumers. Warmer than normal temperatures in many parts of the country in the fall also meant utilities burned less oil, coal and natural gas to heat homes, with homeowners also spending less. That’s another economic positive, but it translates into a headwind once the numbers are crunched. “Consumption was likely held back by transitory factors,” Mr. Gapen said. Based on the data reported so far, he estimates the economy expanded by a mere 0.3 percentage point in the fourth quarter of 2015, even worse than the anemic 0.6 percentage point gain recorded in the first quarter of last year. In a parallel to the broader split, Ms. Rosner of BNP Paribas does not think the economy grew at all last quarter — but she thinks it could actually pick up momentum and expand faster than expected in the first half of 2016. “The resources are there to support more consumer spending because of hiring,” she said. To be sure, some experts are not convinced that healthy payroll increases necessarily portend faster growth, arguing that the economy is on very shaky ground. “People commonly use employment as a leading indicator,” said David A. Levy, a veteran independent economist in Mount Kisco, N.Y., “but it’s a lagging indicator.” Mr. Levy said the optimists were underestimating just how big the impact from weakness overseas will be. “The U.S. economy is going to be pulled into a recession for the first time since World War II by overseas events,” he said. “Emerging markets, including China, are this cycle’s housing bubble.” No matter who is right about this year, another conundrum faces economists looking at long-term trends. Experts like Mr. Slok at Deutsche Bank are concerned that weak productivity growth may lift hiring now but ultimately undermine future prosperity. At many companies, there is not much room left to cut costs or improve efficiency, but executives remain hesitant about investing heavily in new machines and technology that would increase output. That means adding more workers, he explained. While that is certainly beneficial for employment, without productivity gains the economy’s real potential will continue to go unrealized. With the annual pace of growth in the current recovery averaging 2 percent — well below the trajectory of past expansions — and future projections not looking much better, some prominent economists say the United States has settled into a lengthy period of what they term “secular stagnation.” The surge in hiring late last year could be a sign that the American economy has better days ahead. But no one says it’s a sure thing. “Having 300,000 more consumers last month is unambiguously good news for the U.S. economy,” Mr. Slok said. “But I’ve argued for several years that we haven’t been in secular stagnation and I’ve been wrong.” Despite a few prominent pockets of weakness, like manufacturing or energy industry investment, demand for the services that consumers want remains healthy, and that ultimately is what now drives the American economy, said Drew T. Matus, an economist at UBS Securities. “Exports look worse and demand for goods is volatile but services are holding up,” Mr. Matus said. “If people aren’t worried about buying a coffee or going to the doctor or the barbershop, there’s less of a reason to worry.”

Jobs
Manufacturing
US Economy
2016 Presidential Election
GDP
Job Recruiting and Hiring
Oil and Gasoline


Brilinta, a Blood Thinner, Wins F.D.A. Approval

Abstract: The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved Brilinta, a new blood thinner from AstraZeneca that the company hopes can rival Plavix, the No. 2 best-selling drug in the world. The agency will require a boxed warning about how the drug’s effectiveness will be reduced if it is taken with higher doses of aspirin. But the approved label — critical to marketing the drug — also says Brilinta was proved superior to Plavix in reducing heart attacks and deaths from cardiovascular causes. “It’s good news for patients, and it’s a good result for AstraZeneca as well,” said Dr. Alex Gold, the company’s brand development leader. “We think the label has been a good outcome and will enable physicians to use the drug appropriately.” The F.D.A. opened the United States market to Brilinta — already approved in 38 other countries — while also imposing a monitoring program to require AstraZeneca to inform physicians of the aspirin risk. The agency’s move followed the rejection on Tuesday of another AstraZeneca drug, dapagliflozin, an experimental diabetes drug that an F.D.A. advisory panel decided in a 9-6 vote carried too high a risk of bladder and breast cancer . The F.D.A. usually but not always follows its advisory panel advice. The blood drug Brilinta had also been under tough scrutiny by the F.D.A., analysts said, because test results in an industry-sponsored clinical trial were far worse among patients in the United States than those from the rest of the world for reasons that remain unclear. In December, the F.D.A. rejected Brilinta in a surprising move, opposing the views of a scientific advisory panel that had voted 7-1 in favor of the drug in July 2010. The F.D.A. asked for and received more information from AstraZeneca. In a note to investors, Timothy Anderson, analyst for Bernstein Research, said he continued to believe commercial prospects would be limited because of the pending lower prices for Plavix. The aspirin warning may be significant, he said. “It may give physicians one more reason not to use Brilinta but to stick to gold-standard Plavix.” Brilinta also has a boxed warning about bleeding risk that also applies to other antiplatelet agents, such as Plavix. Another side effect of Brilinta, but not Plavix, is difficulty breathing in some cases. Brilinta is the latest attempt by pharmaceutical companies to outdo Plavix in the lucrative market for a pill to prevent strokes and heart attacks in coronary patients. The F.D.A. in 2009 approved a new blood thinner called Effient from Daiichi Sankyo and Eli Lilly. But it attached a black-box warning about excessive bleeding, and sales have fallen short of expectations. Plavix was the second-best-selling drug in the world last year behind Lipitor , a cholesterol drug from Pfizer. The patent for Plavix, held by Sanofi Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb, expires in May 2012, and should lead to lower prices that may make Plavix more attractive as doctors and insurers weigh the costs, risks and benefits of new drugs. In Europe, where generic forms of Plavix have been available since 2009, the low generic prices have stalled sales of the European version of Brilinta, called Brilique. It was approved by the European Union last year based on a study of 18,624 coronary patients in 43 countries. The study, paid for by AstraZeneca, compared Brilinta and aspirin head-to-head with Plavix and aspirin. It found 16 percent fewer deaths, heart attacks and strokes in a year among Brilinta patients, with no more bleeding problems. But paradoxically, the results were opposite that among the 1,400 Americans in the trial. They had a higher rate of negative outcomes, a figure that was not statistically significant over all because of the lower number of patients, but that certainly caught regulators’ attention. AstraZeneca has attributed the difference to higher aspirin dosing in the United States. The F.D.A. accepted that reasoning in the boxed label warning that says more than 100 milligrams a day of aspirin would “reduce the effectiveness of Brilinta and should be avoided,” but lower doses were recommended. Brilinta prevents blood platelets from sticking together and forming clots. It is faster-acting than Plavix and reversible if the patient bleeds. Some patients respond to Brilinta who do not respond to Plavix, for genetic reasons.

Brilinta
Food and Drug Administration
AstraZeneca PLC
Labeling and Labels


9 New York Doctors Are Accused of Defrauding Medicaid Using Homeless People

Abstract: “Free sneakers, shoes and boots today,” Bernard Rorie shouted, standing outside a soup kitchen in East New York, Brooklyn, where he was being recorded by investigators Mr. Rorie was recruiting homeless people, prosecutors said, and whoever had a valid Medicaid card would be packed into a van and sent to medical clinics around New York City. There, after hours of unnecessary tests and fake diagnoses, the homeless people would be sent off with sneakers — selected from stacks of shoeboxes in the clinics’ basements. The doctors, staff members and billing specialists, meanwhile, would rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars per recruit in false Medicaid claims, prosecutors said. On Tuesday, nine New York doctors were among 23 people indicted in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn in connection with the sneaker scheme, which the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said made almost $7 million and took advantage of thousands of homeless people. The charges in the indictment include health fraud, enterprise corruption and money laundering. “At the heart of this health care fraud scheme was the exploitation of poor people,” Kenneth P. Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, said on Tuesday. “This was a Medicaid mill.” While Medicaid and Medicare fraud cases are common, this one was notable for the number of participants and the use homeless people as fake clients. From a warehouse in Sunset Park, Eric Vainer, 43, oversaw the operation with the help of his mother, Polina, 66, prosecutors said. “We can use the same patients like guinea pigs for anything we want,” Mr. Vainer was recorded saying in a government wiretap. He sent recruiters to offer free shoes to homeless people gathered at places like a shelter in Chelsea and soup kitchens and welfare offices in Jamaica, Queens, and Brownsville, Brooklyn. The recruiters would check the homeless people’s Medicaid cards and, if they were valid, they would be sent to clinics in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Image People were escorted into Brooklyn Supreme Court on Tuesday to be indicted on charges that they participated in a Medicaid fraud. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times Typically, once patients arrived at a clinic, they would be seen by a podiatrist, the indictment says. The podiatrist would give a “fictitious diagnosis,” order more tests or specify equipment like orthotics or leg braces that the patient actually did not need. The podiatrist often referred the patient to additional doctors who were part of the scheme, including psychiatrists and pain-management specialists, who might sign the patient up for recurring visits that they could bill. Cardiologists and vein specialists, meanwhile, might bill as if they were reviewing their unnecessary tests without actually doing any reviewing, or claim to Medicaid they had done procedures that they never had. After all of that, the patient would get to pick a pair of shoes, boots or sandals from a storeroom that, in at least one clinic, Mr. Thompson described as “like a shoe store.” The doctors in the group made money by, for instance, seeing a patient for four minutes and billing for 30 minutes, or claiming they had reviewed tests when they had not, or simply billing for procedures they had never done, prosecutors said. Some doctors paid Mr. Vainer a referral fee for each recruit, while some split the Medicaid payment with him. Mr. Vainer made money from the scheme in several ways: He owns medical clinics where the patients were sent; he supplies devices for foot and leg problems; and he had financial arrangements with doctors to whom he sent the recruited homeless patients, prosecutors said. Mr. Vainer also made money by supplying cheap equipment and billing it to Medicaid as a custom medical device — for instance, supplying a drugstore shoe insert and billing it to Medicaid as a custom orthotic, for which he received about $330. The “fictitious” diagnoses listed in the indictment include “dermatophytosis of nail,” a fungal infection; “abnormality of gait”; “lumbago,” which is lower-back pain; and “radiculitis,” or nerve pain. On Tuesday, almost all of the defendants entered State Supreme Court in Brooklyn in small groups, their handcuffs linked by a chain. Justice Danny K. Chun ordered almost all of the defendants held on bail that ranged from $10,000 to $350,000. Mr. Vainer was arrested Tuesday in Florida, where he was apparently on vacation, Mr. Thompson said, and where he will appear in court on Thursday. Some of the doctors involved are affiliated with well-known institutions. Dr. Joseph Grossman, 82, a cardiologist, was a clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York Medical College. The vein surgeon Dr. David Glass, 65, a former assistant chief of surgery at New York Methodist, is an assistant clinical professor at Cornell, according to his website . Dr. Grossman and Dr. Glass pleaded not guilty. Mr. Thompson said the investigation began in 2012 after a woman walked into the district attorney’s office and said she had been recruited to a clinic and given a knee brace and sneakers, and, when she said she did not need a knee brace, was told she had to take it in order to get the sneakers.

Doctor
Fraud
Medicaid
Homelessness
Brooklyn
Medicare
Eric Vainer
Bronx
NYC


Europe Shows Modest Growth for First Quarter

Abstract: PARIS — The economy in the euro area expanded only modestly during the first quarter of the year, as demand in countries like Germany and France remained sluggish despite a recovery in exports. Gross domestic product expanded 0.2 percent in both the 16-member euro area and the 27-member European Union, compared with the previous three months, according to initial estimates from Eurostat, the Union’s statistics office. Compared with the first quarter of last year, seasonally adjusted G.D.P. increased 0.5 percent in the euro area and 0.3 percent in the Union during the first quarter. While full details of the euro-area numbers are not yet available, analysts noted that business surveys pointed to a stronger pickup from the end of first quarter going into the second. Gilles Moëc, an economist at Deutsche Bank in London, said that on one side, fairly strong external demand, helped by the depreciation of the euro, was giving exports a lift. On the other hand, the employment situation is grim, and “the consumer element is missing.” The euro has fallen about 11 percent against the dollar this year. Weak consumption will act as a brake on growth as government stimulus measures are withdrawn, he said, noting that France has announced a freeze in government spending, while Germany has decided against a second installment of tax breaks meant to spur consumption. More evidence of improvement came in a separate Eurostat report, which showed that industrial production in the euro zone rose 1.3 percent in March from February, and 1.2 percent in the Union as a whole. From a year earlier, industrial production increased 6.9 percent in the euro area and 6.0 percent in the Union. The E.U. industry commissioner, Antonio Tajani, said the data confirmed that “the economic recovery is in progress and that the exit from the crisis is not far.” Among the main members of the euro area, France stood out as a weak spot, with its economy expanding just 0.1 percent during the first quarter from the previous quarter. Analysts had expected an increase of 0.3 percent, after a 0.5 percent gain during the fourth quarter. The French national statistics agency Insee said the modest growth was mainly driven by the external sector, with exports increasing 3.9 percent, while imports rose 2 percent. Households’ consumption spending was flat from the previous quarter, and inventory changes made a negative contribution to growth. The weaker growth figure comes at a time when the French government is trying to reduce its budget deficit by trimming outlays, eliminating tax breaks and reining in its spending on pensions. Christine Lagarde, the economy minister, said in statement that the economic climate remained “difficult” and that the slowdown was in part a result of the phasing out of an incentive program to encourage automobile purchases. Germany, with the largest economy in the zone, posted growth of 0.2 percent, ahead of analyst expectations for no change from the previous quarter. According to the Federal Statistics Agency, the economy was supported by exports, rebuilding inventories and capital spending, while slack consumer spending, construction and imports weighed on growth. “The fact that Germany was able to grow as well as it did is testament to the strength of their exports,” Mr. Moëc said. The Italian economy outperformed those of other major countries, posting an expansion of 0.5 percent from the previous quarter. “Looking through this volatility, we think that the underlying trend is one of moderate recovery and this is likely to remain the case in the coming quarters,” Nick Kounis, chief European economist at Fortis Bank in Amsterdam, said in a research note.

Europe
Gross Domestic Product
European Union
Economic Conditions and Trends


Pirates Said to Ask for $25 Million Ransom

Abstract: Negotiations for the release of the Saudi-owned supertanker seized by pirates off Somalia continued Thursday, with the pirates asking for $25 million in ransom, news agencies reported. Meanwhile, one of Europe’s largest shipping companies announced it would reroute some of its oil tankers around the Suez Canal to reduce the piracy risk, and delegates from Arab nations met in Cairo to discuss how better to protect the region’s vital shipping lanes. The hijacked supertanker, the Sirius Star, is anchored a few miles off the coast of Somalia, near the town of Xarardheere. Its cargo of 2 million barrels of Saudi crude is worth about $100 million; the ship itself is worth more than $100 million. There are 25 crew members aboard. “What we want for this ship is only $25 million, because we always charge according to the quality of the ship and the value of the product,” a man who identified himself as Abdi Salan, a member of the hijacking gang, told Bloomberg in a telephone interview from Xarardheere. A man on the Sirius Star answered the ship’s telephone three times, but hung up without answering any questions. The ship’s owner, Vela International Ltd., a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, has declined to comment on the negotiations. Maritime experts said that ransom demands from Somali pirates generally start much higher than will ultimately be paid, but that the ransom paid would likely be in the millions of dollars. Pirates have already collected from $25 million to $30 million in ransom this year, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, said Tuesday. The African Union ’s top diplomat, Jean Ping, said Thursday the United Nations should send peacekeepers to Somalia urgently to stop the armed strife in the nation that is fuelling the piracy. Islamist insurgents in the country have been taking control of territory and are now within 11 miles of the capital, Mogadishu, where a weak Western-backed federal government is protected by Ethiopian troops. Pirate attacks in the waters off Somalia are more than triple their 2007 totals. In Cairo, officials from Arab League states released a statement condemning the hijacking of the Saudi ship and stating that piracy by Somalis was a result of the deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in Somalia. Egypt has been particularly threatened by the burgeoning number of attacks, as fees collected for transit through the Suez Canal are a key source of national revenue. “We are all thinking of how to deal with this phenomenon and we are establishing our initial positions when it comes to dealing with it,” said Hossam Zaki, a spokesman for Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We are open to discussing with any party ways to help combat and eliminate this phenomenon.” Egypt assembled senior foreign policy officials from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia. It was the first time regional governments had gathered to discuss the issue of piracy, and sovereignty was one immediate concern. “We don’t want a military presence in the Red Sea to become permanent under the pretext of combating piracy,” Mr. Zaki said. The group agreed to coordinate efforts and to meet again in Yemen, though no date was set. Traffic through the canal is already due to decrease. The Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk, Europe’s largest, said in a statement on Thursday that some of its vessels “will, for the time being, avoid the Gulf of Aden and seek alternative routing south of the Cape of Good Hope and east of Madagascar.” The Norwegian chemicals shipping line Odfjell SE announced Monday it would also reroute its ships. Russia’s navy chief, Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky, meanwhile, was quoted by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti Thursday as saying that Russia would dispatch additional military vessels to the region after a warship currently patrolling with a multinational naval coalition leaves. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, also called for an international amphibious operation against pirate strongholds in Somalia, Reuters reported, but such a move seems unlikely. Since the seizure of the Sirius Star, other pirate groups have hijacked at least three other ships, maritime officials say. On Wednesday, the Indian Navy said that one of its warships fought a battle at sea with would-be hijackers in the Gulf of Aden, sinking one suspect vessel and forcing the pirates to abandon a second as they fled. In Rome, Prince Saud al-Faisal , the Saudi foreign minister, confirmed that the owners of the Star “are negotiating on the issue” and were “the final arbiter of the issue”, despite the Saudi government’s official opposition to such discussions with “pirates, terrorists or hijackers,” according to news reports. But he did not elaborate.

Somalia
Saudi Aramco
African Union
Arab League
Piracy at Sea
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Faisal Saud al-
International Relations


Deadline for Boston Globe Bids Is Postponed

Abstract: The New York Times Company will accept initial bids for The Boston Globe through late July, postponing a deadline that had been set for Wednesday, according to people briefed on the bidding. Potential bidders had asked for more time, in part to wait for the outcome of a July 20 vote by members of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the largest union at The Globe, on whether to accept concessions in pay, benefits and job security, according to these people, who were given anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks. They said possible buyers, wary of taking on the respected but money-losing newspaper, were also looking for signs that a deep slump in advertising was beginning to level off, as some industry executives had predicted it would. In addition, two prominent Boston businessmen have joined forces for a possible bid and want time to integrate their strategies and teams of investors. One is Stephen G. Pagliuca, a managing director of Bain Capital Partners, the private equity group, and one of the owners of the Boston Celtics; the other is Jack Connors, the former chief of an advertising agency who now heads a network of hospitals and clinics. Stephen E. Taylor, a former Globe executive and a member of the family that owned the paper until 1993, has also expressed interest in assembling a group of investors to buy the paper. The Times Company originally set a quick timetable for a sale of The Globe, the dominant news organization in New England, and a smaller Massachusetts newspaper with which it shares resources, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette. As set out in a letter sent to prospective bidders by the company’s investment bankers at Goldman Sachs, the company was also looking for a buyer to take on a net $59 million deficit in pension obligations. Separately, the company is trying to sell its minority stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team and related assets. The postponement was first reported by The Globe. Three months ago, the Times Company told union leaders that The Globe was on track for an $85 million operating loss this year, and said it would shut down the paper unless the unions made contract concessions worth $20 million a year. The guild contract, if approved, would be the last step to achieving that goal.

Boston Globe
Newspapers
New York Times Co
News and News Media


With No Beckham and No Playoff Hopes, Giants Submit to a Beating

Abstract: MINNEAPOLIS — About an hour before kickoff Sunday night, the Giants spread out across 40 yards, taking up nearly half the field to warm up. Coach Tom Coughlin, as he always does, walked briskly through his team’s broad formation, stopping to acknowledge each player individually. To the Giants, the game was hollow of import, but Coughlin moved energetically through the group nonetheless, shaking hands with many players and slapping the backs of others. He patted some on the shoulder pads. The moment was lighthearted, but it was also melancholy. The Giants knew their season, and maybe much more, was all but over. The Coughlin era with the team could be in its last days. The mood grew more bleak because the Giants (6-9) were never in their game against the Minnesota Vikings (10-5), losing in an embarrassing, disconcerting 49-17 rout. “I didn’t see it coming,” Coughlin said of the loss. “It’s very difficult for me to explain.” As bad as the Giants were on Sunday, the overarching context of the event was decided Saturday night, when a Washington Redskins victory ensured that the Giants would miss the playoffs for the fourth straight season. This will also be the Giants’ third successive losing season. On Sunday night, what seemed most clear about the Giants was the inevitability of substantial change. Coughlin may have only one more chance to perform his pregame ritual of greeting the players. They will finish the season at home against the Philadelphia Eagles next Sunday. Coughlin, whose last seven teams have qualified for the postseason just once, would not directly address whether his job was in jeopardy. “I’m not worried about that,” he said. “That will all take care of itself.” Perhaps only the Giants’ co-owners, John Mara and Steve Tisch, know the fates of Coughlin and General Manager Jerry Reese. But a decision is coming by early January, and Sunday’s game did nothing to make the Giants appear on the verge of prosperity. Without the star receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who was suspended for the game because of his reckless play a week ago, quarterback Eli Manning did not complete a pass until 4 minutes 10 seconds had elapsed in the second quarter. Midway through the third quarter, Manning had thrown three interceptions, although one was deflected. On another interception, Coughlin seemed to at least partly blame wide receiver Rueben Randle for not running his route properly. A grim-faced Manning took the blame for each turnover. “I made some bad decisions and bad throws,” said Manning, who completed 15 of 29 passes for 234 yards. “I never got into a great rhythm. Obviously, if you lose one of your top players, it’s going to affect things, but not as much as what happened out there.” Image Get the latest tweets from @NYTSports , including breaking news, analysis and live updates. The offense was far from the only problem. The Giants, who have lacked talent on defense since training camp, were powerless to stop the Vikings from the beginning. In a glaring example of the roster’s lack of depth, the Giants started a player they recently cut and dressed three players from their practice squad. The Vikings, like almost every other Giants opponent, also took advantage of weak pass coverage over the middle, attacking the safeties for big gains and scoring plays. It all went downhill very quickly for the Giants. Without Beckham, the Giants’ passing attack floundered as Manning looked downfield and saw nowhere to throw the ball. Sometimes, Manning could not see downfield at all. He was flat on his back as the offensive line was overwhelmed by the Minnesota pass rush. Manning, who was sacked four times in the game, finished the first quarter without a completion in four attempts. The Vikings, who grabbed a 3-0 lead, had possession of the ball for 10:39 in the quarter. On the Vikings’ first drive of the second quarter, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater mixed handoffs to Adrian Peterson, who gained 104 yards on 22 carries, and passes to a variety of receivers to move deep into Giants territory. The defense looked beleaguered, confused and overmatched. On a second-down play, Bridgewater, who generally had ample time to throw, waited in the pocket as tight end Kyle Rudolph deked safety Craig Dahl and burst open in the end zone. Bridgewater, who completed 15 of 25 passes for 168 yards, easily completed a 28-yard touchdown pass that put Minnesota ahead, 10-0. With Manning finally getting his first completion — an 8-yard pass to Randle — the Giants gathered some momentum offensively. Running back Rashad Jennings gained 50 yards on nine carries in the first half. After using four running backs almost equally for most of the season, a tactic that seemed to rob the Giants’ running game of continuity, Coughlin has recently let Jennings have most of the carries — with considerable success. On Sunday, he gained a respectable 74 yards on 14 carries, an average of 5.3 yards. But Jennings’s efforts in the second quarter led only to a 27-yard field goal by Josh Brown. After a Minnesota punt, Manning threw his second interception of the game. Under pressure and trying to force a pass into a narrow opening, Manning threw high to Randle. Coughlin later indicated that he had expected Randle to be closer to the line of the pass, which was picked off by safety Harrison Smith and returned 35 yards for a touchdown. With the Vikings leading by 22-3, Manning tried to throw to wide receiver Brad Edwards — one of the players elevated from the practice squad — but the pass was intercepted by Captain Munnerlyn, whose 32-yard return advanced the ball to the Giants’ 4-yard line. Two plays later, Peterson bulled into the end zone. There was a brief sign of life from the Giants’ offense in the closing minutes of the third quarter. On a second-and-2, Manning was protected in the pocket and had time to connect with Randle for a 72-yard touchdown pass. The Vikings, though, answered with 17 fourth-quarter points. In the end, Coughlin, a coach since 1969, kept his focus on what remained of the season, which could be his last in the only occupation he has known. “We have one week to go,” Coughlin said. “There is some soul-searching that has to be done for players, coaches and myself.”

Giants
Minnesota Vikings
Odell Beckham Jr.
Adrian Peterson
Football


English Premier League Sells British TV Rights for $7.8 Billion

Abstract: LONDON — The English Premier League, the world's most widely watched soccer league, said on Tuesday that it had sold British television rights for a record 5.1 billion pounds, or about $7.8 billion. In an auction , the broadcaster Sky won five of seven packages of games for the three-year rights contract, which begins in 2016. The rest were awarded to its main rival for British sports, BT. That split is the same as the broadcasters now hold for the British rights to televise the Premier League, whose teams, including Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal, play in games that can attract a global audience of about three billion each week. The league is expected to receive at least an additional $3 billion when it sells the rights to international broadcasters, including those in the United States, later this year. The battle to broadcast the English soccer games had set Sky, which is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, against BT, the former British telecommunications monopoly that has aggressively expanded into live sports programming as a way to promote its array of cable television and Internet services. Sky also uses the Premier League to entice customers to sign up for its pay-TV and Internet services. Faced with competition from the likes of Netflix, both companies are willing to spend heavily to secure the rights of high-profile sporting events, including the European Champions League soccer tournament, that consistently attract large audiences. “It is an endorsement of what the Barclays Premier League delivers that these broadcast partnerships have been extended and enhanced,” Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the English Premier League, said in a statement . Barclays is the official sponsor of the Premier League.

Premier League
TV
Soccer
Sky
Richard Scudamore
BT Group
Great Britain


Russia Legislators Use Inquiries Into Wealth to Settle Scores

Abstract: MOSCOW — When the Russian authorities began a series of investigations this spring into the business affairs of a prominent opposition lawmaker, it was widely viewed as thinly veiled political retribution. But in a sign of how quickly the tables can now be flipped in such disputes, allies of the politician, Gennady V. Gudkov, have begun pointing at other members of the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, with private business holdings or whose obvious personal wealth — fancy cars, opulent real estate holdings — could not possibly be afforded on their five-figure government salaries. The scandal, which underscores the growing rebelliousness of the opposition in the Duma and the Kremlin’s concern about it, seems destined to be branded the Golden Pretzel affair, after a bakery said to be owned by Yelena L. Nikolayeva, a member of the majority United Russia party. On her most recent disclosure form, Ms. Nikolayeva and her husband reported owning a Lexus and a Lamborghini. Mr. Gudkov, 56, of the Just Russia party, and his son Dmitri G. Gudkov, 32, also a member of the Duma and Just Russia, are outspoken critics of the government of President Vladimir V. Putin. The younger Gudkov cuts a telegenic fixture at all of the big opposition rallies. Investigators, citing numerous infractions, including violation of gun laws, temporarily suspended the licenses of two security companies connected to the Gudkov family. They also accused the elder Mr. Gudkov of having a management role in two Russian businesses, a construction market called Kolomensky Stroitel, and a textile company called Roshan, as well as active business interests in Bulgaria. And they raised allegations of tax fraud. Members of United Russia are now threatening to strip Mr. Gudkov of the legislative immunity that would shield him from prosecution. According to Russian law, Duma members “may not engage in business or other paid activities” and also may not serve on boards of directors or in any other leadership capacity of a business. But many lawmakers maintain investments that seem not to be restricted by the law, or earn money from family businesses though they may not be listed as owners. Ms. Nikolayeva, who denies breaking any law, is just one of the legislators being featured in blog posts by the younger Mr. Gudkov, and his friend and ally Ilya V. Ponomarev , who is also a Duma deputy from Just Russia and a leader of the political opposition. “We continue to acquaint the ungrateful Russian people with the most honest deputies from the ‘Party of Power’ who have been relentlessly battling corruption and illegal enrichment,” Mr. Ponomarev wrote sarcastically on Thursday, as he posted another installment of their efforts. Among the 10 featured lawmakers was Boris D. Zubitsky, a billionaire whose family controls the KOKS Group, a metallurgical company, and who along with his wife has reported owning multiple homes and apartments, a Bentley Mulsanne (the current model sells for about $300,000) and three Mercedeses. Also on the list was Aleksei V. Knyshov, who is described as having annual income of about $4 million, owning two houses and six apartments, including a property in Miami Beach, and being the founder and co-manager of a wholesale business in Slovakia. And there was Sergey Y. Esyakov, who reportedly co-founded a bank in January while he was serving in office. Yabloko, a liberal opposition party that does not hold any seats in the Duma, has posted its own list — and demanded an investigation — of 13 lawmakers from United Russia who it says have engaged in various private business dealings while in office. In August, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the federal Investigative Committee, which has led the inquiries into the Gudkov family businesses as well as criminal investigations into other opposition leaders, declared at a news conference that investigators had found “evidence providing violations of Constitutional and legal bans by Gudkov.” But Mr. Markin’s office said it could not immediately respond to written questions about whether it is examining the business dealings of other lawmakers. Sergei Mitrokhin, the leader of Yabloko, wrote in a blog post that any effort by United Russia to penalize Mr. Gudkov without disciplining members of its own party would be hypocritical. “If they strip Gudkov of his mandate, members of United Russia must follow him,” Mr. Mitrokhin wrote. “Otherwise it would be selective application of the law.”

Russia
United Russia
Legislatures and Parliaments
Politics and Government
Gudkov Gennady V
Ponomarev Ilya V


Spanish Miners Dig In Against Budget Cuts

Abstract: CIÑERA, Spain — This village in northern Spain has lived on mining for generations, its gritty labors passed from father to son as long as anyone can remember. But these days, its 1,300 inhabitants are less occupied with scratching coal from the earth than with combating government security forces as part of a struggle over the future of Spain’s economy. In recent clashes, the miners blocked roads and railroad lines, used slings to hurl rocks at the police and fired golf balls from homemade bazookas. The police answered with tear gas and rubber bullets. Along the entrance to the village, rocks are still piled up in preparation for renewed battle. “I don’t preach violence, but I guess it’s turning into our version of the intifada,” said Miguel Ángel Iglesias, 42, whose father and two brothers are also miners. “When somebody is determined to take away your job and what has kept families living here for over a century, you fight to the end.” Spain’s miners have become the most visible face of the opposition to the stiff budget cuts that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government has imposed on virtually every state-promoted activity in the country. Those cuts are aimed at forcing formerly subsidized sectors to sink or swim on their own, accelerating a transformation that began with the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco that has taken Spain from an old-world economic backwater to a more competitive, diversified economy, now the fourth-largest in the euro zone. The euro crisis has made the pains of those changes sharper than ever. Nowhere are they felt as keenly as in places like Ciñera, whose very survival is bound to government support. Even after this year’s budget cuts, coal will remain Spain’s most heavily subsidized industrial sector, accounting for almost a sixth of the overall budget of the Industry Ministry, which has been cut by 32 percent this year. Since taking office in December, Mr. Rajoy has confronted deepening recession, record unemployment and a banking crisis that has already required a European Union bailout . The urgency of his struggle to straighten out Spain’s finances was underscored this week when the nation’s borrowing costs surged to unsustainable levels before falling back after the European Central Bank’s president, Mario Draghi, said he would do everything in his power to preserve the euro. In June the government had said that it was ready to present its energy overhaul plan, but has delayed doing so week by week amid a nationwide mine strike and fierce lobbying by power producers. The plan is now scheduled to be unveiled next Friday, but it could be postponed again. However unpopular it proves to be among producers and investors, the plan is nevertheless practically guaranteed ultimate approval in a Parliament in which Mr. Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party enjoys a comfortable majority . The main goal is to reduce a cumulative shortfall of about 25 billion euros, or nearly $31 billion, in paying for the cost of generating power for Spain. The government has already announced a 39 percent cut in coal subsidies for 2012, in effect bringing forward an agreement to eliminate such subsidies by 2018, in line with the European Commission’s crusade against state aid that can distort European market competition. Opposition to the planned energy subsidy overhaul has been intense and has stretched well beyond the coal sector. Producers of renewable energies, led by Spain’s once booming solar and wind power sectors, are preparing to take legal action against any significant alteration to production tariffs that were guaranteed at the time of their initial investments. “It would amount to changing the rules halfway through the game,” said Rocío Sicre, who heads the Spanish wind energy association. “And this would lead to the final breakdown in the trust of investors, both domestic and international, which in turn would raise the country’s risk profile.” Cutting state funding for the renewable energy sector would not only threaten the solvency of producers but also strain the banks that financed its development. In the case of Spain’s photovoltaic industry, banks extended a combined $24.7 billion in loans, two-thirds of which came from Spanish financial institutions. For coal, the steep subsidy cut, coupled with the cost of the ongoing strike, could rapidly force the closure of much of the coal mining sector, concentrated in a few century-old mining regions that have done little to diversify their economy. Coal mining used to be a pillar of the European economy, but has already been wiped out in countries like Belgium and Britain. Its survival in Spain — albeit with 5,000 workers instead of the 50,000 four decades ago — was underpinned over the past eight years by the then prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who comes from the coal heartland. So deep is the resistance to change that in mining regions like Léon, some conservative politicians have broken ranks with Mr. Rajoy. “I understand the government needs to impose more austerity, but not by breaching previous agreements and destroying mining communities that help guarantee Spain’s energy security and autonomy,” said Francisco Castañón, the mayor of La Pola de Gordón, who is also responsible for the surrounding villages, including Ciñera. As part of the protest, miners walked in columns this month from Léon, Asturias and other mining regions to Madrid as part of a so-called black march that also resulted in still more violent clashes with the police. On Friday morning, miners again blocked some roads as well as two major railway lines in northern Spain, leaving hundreds of train passengers stranded until security forces cleared tree trunks from the tracks. In Ciñera, the miners blocked another rail track used for cargo, temporarily stopping a train carrying steel. Beyond the deeper cuts in subsidies that loom ahead, the strike has presented its own hardship. Over the past two months, Raimundo Colinas Marinelli, a retired coal miner, has handed 1,000 euros, about $1200, of his meager savings to his son, also a miner, to help sustain him during the strike and continue the fight. “In the 1950s, when I started mining, there were some tragic accidents, but at least there was an abundance of work,” recalled Mr. Colinas Marinelli, 79. “If the government now has its way, nobody will ever have to worry again about safety because there just won’t be any miners left here.”

Spain
Coal
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Mines and Mining
Budgets and Budgeting
Rajoy Mariano
Demonstrations Protests and Riots


U.S. Open 2014: Serena Williams Serves Her Way Past Kaia Kanepi

Abstract: There she was warming up in the midday sun, in pancakes of humidity that called to mind midsummer Manila, wearing a black petticoat. Just to look at her smacking balls in that garb was to feel the sweat start to trickle down your back. Serena Williams is the reigning queen of Flushing Meadows and the United States Open; drama becomes her. As match time approached, she shed that petticoat to reveal a pink leopard-spot uniform. She bounced on the balls of her feet like a prefight Muhammad Ali, then took her place along the baseline, rocking gently side to side. A few minutes into the match, the first of Williams’s 115-mile-an-hour hellcat serves bore down on her opponent, Kaia Kanepi. Then another, and another. Kanepi, who is long with powerful shoulders and is no slouch, let several serves whiz by without attempting a swing. Not so long after that, Williams won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3. Her performance was inconsistent, a little sloppy, and it didn’t really matter. She was in the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open , where she has won the last two championships. Image Serena Williams, the two-time defending United States Open champion, overwhelmed Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, 6-3, 6-3, Monday to advance to the quarterfinals. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times Kanepi, an Estonian, was the first to meet with the news media. Like the other women who have fallen to Williams in this Open, she offered the wry smile of someone who wanted the number of the bus that had hit her. “Yeah, I think her serve was really good,” she said of Williams. “The whole match, she was really good. She returns the ball very fast.” Soon afterward, Williams lowered herself into her seat on the podium. To call her a diva is to imply no hint of insult. She has achieved her station by laboring brilliantly at the very pinnacle of her sport for more than a decade now. Her blond-tinged tresses, freed of her pink headband, fell in a waterfall about her shoulders. She was gracious about Kanepi: “She plays incredibly hard.” Williams rarely neglects to compliment a prospective or vanquished opponent, even as it is clear that most of them are scampering about in her palace. She lost early in the Australian Open this year, was routed at the French Open and was beaten at Wimbledon , and she poked fun at herself: “I never thought it would be so exciting” to make the quarterfinals. “Yay.” A statistically minded reporter pointed out that Williams now runs far fewer miles on court than her adversaries do. She assayed a world-weary smile. She has learned to navigate and position herself on court as a hunter learns to stay downwind of prey. “I’m not an age where I want to be running a lot,” she said. “I don’t need to be running 20 miles.” Then she paused. Self-abnegation goes but so far. Her eyes narrowed just a touch. “I can run really fast, as we all know,” she reminded the reporters, who nodded despite themselves. “I can run down any ball on the court.” Williams in fact plays with a leonine grace and fierceness, and for any given game or set, she can will herself to extraordinary bursts. When Kanepi, who has a hard serve herself, missed on her first serve, Williams would take three steps forward, daring Kanepi to hit it past her. (Kanepi, by contrast, awaited Williams’s serves in the tennis suburbs, at least four feet behind the baseline.) That said, during the match, Kanepi rifled some seemingly hittable balls past Williams. And sometimes, Williams’s rocket shots lacked their customary loft. Was she pacing herself? Or, as she nears her 33rd birthday, are these the first hints that she is walking near the end of the hallway of her dominance? Williams talks often now about her athletic mortality, and of the younger female players coming up behind her, who are friends, rivals and one day, no doubt, queen-killers. “Obviously, I don’t want this to be the end,” she said. Image Serena Williams displayed some 115-m.p.h. serves in her victory over Kaia Kanepi on Monday. Credit Barton Silverman/The New York Times Tennis at its core is a lonely game. New York fans make a loving and unruly ruckus, yelling out “We love you” and even “I want to marry you, Serena!” How much of this she hears is not clear. On court, her eyes appear turned inward. Early in the second set, as she struggled with her serve, she turned her back on her opponent, clenched a fist and shook it. “Come on! Come on!” she admonished herself. When a Kanepi shot went wide and out, Williams let out a strangled scream. That tension was gone afterward. A reporter asked about her friendship with the movie director Spike Lee. They live near each other in Palm Beach, Fla., and he sometimes persuades her to play tennis with him. “He is super intense; he wants me to play as hard as I can,” she said, and acted out the moment: “Spike?” She peered down, as if looking at the short, owl-eyed filmmaker. “Are you sure?” She added, “We love each other, but it’s an interesting friendship.” She has many stories like this, and she shared a few with the paparazzi as you might throw crumbs to the pigeons. “I feel honored to even be part of such a wonderful sport,” she said. And with that, this still dominant star rose to exit, but not to leave.

Serena Williams
Kaia Kanepi
Tennis
US Open Tennis


Yemen: Gunmen Kill French Security Officer

Abstract: France condemned an attack on the European Union’s security team in Yemen on Monday that left one Frenchman dead and two others wounded. The Frenchman, employed by a private security company working for the European Union’s delegation, was killed and his colleagues were wounded when armed men opened fire on their car in a diplomatic area of the capital, Sana. Their Yemeni driver was also wounded in the assault, a security official said. President François Hollande described the attack as “cowardly,” and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, called it “evil and senseless.”

Yemen
France
EU
International relations
Murders


Daily Report: Video Is Everywhere and Regulators Have Noticed

Abstract: I screen, you screen, we all live on video screens. Companies and governments keep taking notice, and are scrambling to catch up with the ways we and video are changing each other. Katie Benner reports that the social media company Twitter has released an app to let people watch its video content on the television services of Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. These include live streams of multiple sports events, as well as news programs. It’s another reminder that, in an era where everything can be recorded or watched on demand, there is a curious premium attached to real-time events. It is quite a step from Twitter’s original purpose, a 140-character “microblogging” service, when it came out in 2006. A way for people to muse about themselves has evolved into a way to comment and share information about events almost as they happen, to participate in hashtag games that appear out of nowhere and now to look at video in real time. Image If, as they say, the internet collapses both time and space, Twitter is trying to address the remaining value in time: knowing about things in the moment they are going on. Elsewhere, Mark Scott reports , European regulators are addressing the way internet video now collapses space. Video on demand from the likes of the BBC or Netflix, even premium Hollywood movies, may become readily available to 500 million European Union residents, regardless of what country they are in. It could take two years or more for this to become law, but if it happens it will be interesting to see how the big video services start to look at an audience that large and generally wealthy as a single unit. There is no denying that the demand is there. For years, video fans have used virtual private networks, or VPNs, to tunnel under national restrictions on what content they can see, at what price. What the E.U. is doing, in this rare case, is acknowledging a reality about how the world works that business still denies.

Social Media
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Regulation and Deregulation


The Echoes of Hearts Long Silenced

Abstract: Efforts to record the pattern of human heartbeats — the wavy lines so familiar on hospital monitors — go back at least to 1854, when a German scientist pressed a weighted plate against an artery, connected it to a stylus made of a strand of hair, and traced the pulsations on a moving strip of paper blackened by the soot of an oil lamp. Now, using innovative digital processing techniques to turn pictures of repeating waveforms into sounds, an artist and a sound historian have converted that mute pattern of lines into the rhythmic lub-dub of a heart. And working with a slightly newer medical chart, they have resurrected in sound the pulse of a 100-year-old Frenchman whose heart started beating in 1769, 20 years before the French Revolution. Image Reviving an Ancient Pulse Using modern digital processing, researchers have given sound to some of the earliest written recordings of pulses and heartbeats. The artist, Dario Robleto , was doing research on artificial hearts for a conceptual art installation in Houston when he met the historian, Patrick Feaster , while both were on a fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution in 2011. (Dr. Feaster had already discovered a technique to give voice to pictorial patterns that were never intended to be heard, like those on an oscilloscope.) Together, the two scoured old medical journals, delving into the history of how 19th-century physicians recorded the pulse and heartbeat of patients and sounding out the information in a way that had never been attempted. “We’re really in a certain sense bringing these physiological processes back to life,” said Dr. Feaster, 43. “I’m not sure what we stand to learn from these recordings, but there is a certain sense of access to the pulse from hearing it that I don’t think anybody would get from just looking at a wavy line on a piece of paper.” Image A schematic of a sphygmograph from 1854 invented by Karl von Vierordt. Credit Courtesy Patrick Feaster and Dario Robleto To Dr. O. H. Frazier , a cardiac surgeon and researcher at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston (and a co-inventor of a beatless artificial heart ), the recordings “open up a new arena to be studied.” “The heart sounds were instrumental in heart diagnoses in the old days,” Dr. Frazier said. “That was when medicine was really an art.” Until the mid-19th century, charting a pulse required the doctor to cut into an artery and place a metal device or a glass tube inside. There were no human volunteers, and studies were limited to animals. The first known recording occurred Dec. 12, 1846, when a German physician, Carl Ludwig , took the pulse of a horse. A 1908 Fetal Heartbeat A fetal heartbeat recorded more than 100 years ago by German physiologist Otto Weiss using his invention, the “phonoscope,” which detected tiny vibrations of a fetal heartbeat using a soap bubble. It was Karl von Vierordt, a German physiologist, who invented the elaborate device that charted human pulses noninvasively. He called it the sphygmograph , or “pulse writer,” and in 1854 he used it to trace 45 feeble pulses of Johann Hahn, a 71-year-old patient who suffered from pulmonary emphysema. To give voice to the tracings, Dr. Feaster digitized von Vierordt’s wavy line inscriptions. For the height of the line, which represents an increase or decrease in the amount of blood pressure, he assigned higher and lower sound frequencies — giving the greatest volume to places in the waveform where the pressure changed abruptly, and lower volume to places where the pressure remained relatively constant. Rapid changes in pressure trace the opening and closing of heart valves. Dr. Feaster used a different technique to create audio files of cardiac tracings compiled by Étienne-Jules Marey , a 19th-century physiologist and cinema pioneer. In 1865, Marey used a new type of stethoscope in which two membranes filled with water were pressed against a patient’s chest; instead of attaching them to rubber listening tubes — as Karl Rudolph Koenig , the inventor of that type of stethoscope, had done — he connected the membranes to a recording device. The wavy lines generated by the device were the earliest recorded sounds of a beating heart. Dr. Feaster relied on software normally used to play movie soundtracks — the same method he and his colleagues have used since 2008 to give voice to pictorial tracings of human speech that predate Thomas Edison’s phonograph by 20 years. Image The recorded heartbeat of Ann Druyan, with her husband, Carl Sagan, was sent into space with the Voyager 1 and 2 missions. Credit Druyan-Sagan Associates Inc. After digitizing Marey’s recording, which displayed the amplitude of the heartbeat changing over time, Dr. Feaster edited the image into a form that the film soundtrack software could convert into a WAV file. The resurrected sounds “demonstrate that thresholds we once thought were permanent barriers to accessing history are sometimes more porous and malleable,” said Mr. Robleto, the 42-year-old conceptual artist. Many of the audios, along with Mr. Robleto’s sculptures and models of the artificial heart, are part of his new installation, “ The Boundary of Life Is Quietly Crossed ,” on exhibit at the Menil Collection in Houston through Jan. 4. Dr. Frazier, the heart surgeon, said the exhibit reminded him of the French phrase “cri de coeur,” or cry from the heart. In the recordings, heartbeats “are crying out over a century or more,” he said, adding that the work “needs to be in the medical literature.” Brain Waves and Heartbeats From The Golden Record Audio from Ann Druyan’s EEG and EKG from the Golden Record, which was sent into space on board the Voyager missions. This fall, after the exhibit opened, Dr. Feaster and Mr. Robleto discovered a photographic chart created in 1869 by a French physician, Charles Ozanam, depicting the pulse of a 100-year-old Frenchman, one Monsieur Léger, a few months before his death. Dr. Feaster converted the tracings into sound, bringing to life the pulse of a man born in the 18th century. Mr. Robleto traces his fascination with the human heartbeat to a recording he first heard when he was 6 or 7. Home sick from school, he heard a news report giving a toll-free number created by NASA to hear the sounds of space. Expecting to hear a communication from an alien civilization, he asked his mother to dial the number — only to be disappointed and bewildered, for all he could hear was static. But he became haunted by the recording, convinced he had missed something important. Only years later did he learn that the noisy passage was actually electrical recordings of the heart and brain waves of a young writer, Ann Druyan. In the late 1970s, Ms. Druyan had worked with the astronomer Carl Sagan to assemble twin time capsules — identical gold-plated copper records , etched with the images and sounds of Earth, that were sent into space on the Voyager 1 and 2 missions in 1977. The Golden Record, as it is now called, includes the sounds of thunder, birds, whales — and the EEGs and EKGs of Ms. Druyan, then 27, recorded in a darkened room at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan just days after she realized she had fallen in love with Sagan. The two later married, a union that ended with his death in 1996 . Last year, Voyager 1 became the first human-made craft to exit the heliosphere, the magnetic bubble that shields the solar system from cosmic radiation, and enter interstellar space. “No single story, artist or creative act has lingered with me more than Ann Druyan and the Golden Record,” Mr. Robleto said. “It’s so much a part of my mental landscape as if it feels like family at some level.” In September, after years of conversation with the artist, Ms. Druyan came to the installation. “I can’t believe I was listening to your heart when I was a little boy,” he told her. During a public talk at the Menil, Ms. Druyan harked back to the much older heartbeats. “I found it so satisfying, so gratifying,” she said, “to know that there were scientists 150 years ago who were first trying to figure out how to record the sounds we make.”

Heart
Art
Dario Robleto
Patrick Feaster
Archive
Audio Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
Acoustics
Medicine and Health