Inaugural Balls: The Trumps’ First Dance

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Trump and his wife, Melania , made stops at three official inaugural balls on Friday night, after an Inauguration Day full of celebrations — and protests . The divisiveness of the campaign, however, was an afterthought inside the galas. Two of the balls, the Freedom Ball and the Liberty Ball , were attended by supporters who donated to the inauguration or purchased tickets. They were held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center . Image The president and first lady, with, at left, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, and at right, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times The third ball was the hotter ticket: A Salute to Our Armed Services , at the National Building Museum , featured active duty and reserve military members, wounded veterans, emergency medical workers and Medal of Honor recipients. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, attended all three events. We party-hopped to provide a look at the festivities. Answers to the big questions of the night: What did the Trumps choose as their first dance as president and first lady? (“My Way.”) And what did Melania wear? (A collaboration between herself and Hervé Pierre.) First things first: Who’s performing? 6:05 p.m.: Mr. Trump and his inauguration team have had trouble locking in A-list celebrities for the festivities, and have made it a point to say they didn’t want them to attend in the first place. Performers include Sam Moore, one half of the ’60s R&B and soul duo Sam & Dave, and The Piano Guys. Both acts performed at a welcome concert for Mr. Trump on Thursday. The armed services ball will feature a performance by the singer Tony Orlando and the Texas musician Josh Weathers. If you thought getting a ticket was tough ... 6:55 p.m.: The idea of an inaugural ball might sound fun, but let’s talk about how hard it is to actually get into these events. Guests have to walk several blocks through a labyrinth of security fences, road barriers and a human wall of police officers dressed in riot gear in front of the convention center. (Several women are cursing their decision to wear high heels.) Empty city buses and garbage trucks are establishing a loose perimeter around the convention center. They are likely parked here to safeguard against bomb blasts. At the end of the long lines, a set of metal detectors await. It’s hard to keep a festive mood with the sounds of helicopters flying low overhead and the sight of the occasional protester with signs that read “resist extermination,” but these revelers are managing to do it somehow. “Trump’s going to be here, it’s a great day, let’s enjoy it,” a woman said as she joined the line of people waiting to get into the Freedom Ball. Freedom isn’t free, and neither are the drinks 7:51 p.m.: Things are in full swing at the Freedom Ball, where the festivities were supposed to begin around 8 p.m. Attendees are enjoying a buffet of pasta and rolls. After a $20 glass of champagne (cash bar), we’re ready to mingle. If there’s one big fashion theme emerging, it’s that these revelers enjoy their sequins. One ballgoer, 26-year-old Ashley Walukevich, chose a dress with silver sequins and embellishments down the sleeves after searching for a week for the right look. She posed with a friend, Lauren Hodge, who chose a dress made of black velvet and lace. Aside from trying to hail an Uber driver who got trapped by protesters, Ms. Walukevich said the protests around Washington haven’t bothered her. “I wanted to come out to celebrate our country coming together,” she said, “and to celebrate our new president.” Into the swing of things 8 p.m.: The concert at the Freedom Ball has started. The singer Tim Rushlow, who performed as part of the Frontmen of Country at the “Make America Great Again” concert on Thursday, appeared with His Big Band to the convention center. He opened the show by heralding a “landslide victory and an amazing time for our president.” (Mr. Trump has also called his victory a landslide, despite losing the popular vote.) The swing jazz group opened with Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” a melancholy hit about persevering though life’s ups and downs. As Sinatra said, “I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.” Mr. Trump would disagree . Dueling pianos 8:23 p.m.: With two balls in one building, and with guests at one ball separated from guests at the other, acts were performing both on stage and on large screens. At the Freedom Ball, The Piano Guys, introduced as “four musical dads from Utah,” played covers of pop music songs, including Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” — which Hillary Clinton used as an anthem during the campaign. While The Piano Guys played on stage, a squad of 18 Rockettes danced on screen (with the sound muted), dressed in gold-sequined outfits and glittery tights. Image The Rockettes performing at the Liberty Ball on Friday evening. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times This company of women had been at the center of a media firestorm since December when the Madison Square Garden Co., the group that manages them, committed the dancers to perform at the inauguration, even though some members dissented. At the ball, however, the women performed with their trademark precision. Their smiles, of course, were huge. The people’s parties 8:35 p.m.: Instead of focusing on A-list artists — which the inauguration committee struggled to book anyway — the entertainment here is centered on what might be called “classic American” music. In other words: lots of Frank Sinatra covers. It also turns out the performers are alternating between the two stages at the convention center. It’s a little disorienting, but the guests don’t seem to mind. Image People waiting for President Trump and his wife, Melania, at the Freedom Ball on Friday. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times The Rockettes are at the Freedom Ball now, in Uncle Sam outfits. Despite the celebrity snafus, the Trump team wants to make one thing clear: The Freedom and Liberty balls are about the people. Tickets were $50 each, according to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, much lower than the cost of other balls happening around town this weekend. The committee raised more than $100 million for the inauguration over all. Where’s the President? 9 p.m.: This ball shuts down in two hours and the president and vice president are still no-shows. That didn’t bother Trump supporters like Tye Hill, a Republican from Indiana, who stood in a plum-colored gown as she waited for the night’s headliners to arrive. “Right off the bat, when I heard Trump, I knew he spoke for me,” she said. “He’s conservative. He’s promised jobs, he’s promised immigration reform.” She added: “And I’m going to hold him to it.” Their first dance as first couple 9:36 p.m. : President and Mrs. Trump emerged at the Liberty Ball shortly after 9:30, and Mr. Trump sounded familiar themes from his postelection speeches when he addressed the crowd. “They said we — and me — we didn’t have a chance, but we knew we were going to win, and we won,” the president said. “Today we had a great day,” he continued. “People that weren’t so nice to me were saying that we did a really good job today. They hated to do it, but they did it.” Though it had appeared to begin raining just as Mr. Trump was sworn in at noon, he apparently did not notice. The rain held off until the dignitaries had moved inside, Mr. Trump said. “It was like God was looking down on us, I will tell you,” he added. Meanwhile, a crowd formed near video screens at the Freedom Ball to watch Mr. Trump dance with the new first lady, who wore an architectural off-the-shoulder white sheath with a high slit, a thin burgundy bow belt, and a silk organza wave curving from one dropped sleeve to the opposite hip, and then down the skirt. The video was muted as ballgoers watched the couple sway to a cover of “My Way” (Sinatra again!). Image President Trump and his wife, Melania, danced for the first time after the inauguration to “My Way.” Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Despite dancing to a song about the bittersweet struggle and ultimate reward of individuality, this president apparently likes to double date. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, were invited to the stage. And then, of course, the whole Trump clan joined in. The scene was a flurry of nude-toned dresses and very slow swaying. Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka wore a champagne-colored fairy princess gown covered in sparkles by Carolina Herrera. At the end, the families bowed and beamed, signaling the end of the show. For this ball, at least. A dress makes waves 10:08 p.m.: Our fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, reports that Mrs. Trump’s dress is a collaboration between herself and Hervé Pierre, a former chief designer for Carolina Herrera who also worked at Oscar de la Renta. Image President Trump and his wife, Melania, making their entrance at the Freedom Ball. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times The first lady’s choice to wear a powder-blue Ralph Lauren to the swearing-in ceremony both nodded to the American establishment and referenced history. Her look was reminiscent of Jacqueline Kennedy , a first lady whose clothing choices became synonymous with classic American style. Having it ‘My Way’ 10:19 p.m.: Mr. Trump arrived at the Freedom Ball and greeted the crowd with “Howdy folks” and a few more well-worn remarks. His supporters, it seems, think he should keep his personal Twitter account. “Should I keep the Twitter going or not?” the president asked. The crowd said yes. “The enemies keep saying, ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’” Mr. Trump said, “but it’s a way of bypassing dishonest media, right? If the opening dance at the Freedom Ball looked a lot like what happened at the Liberty Ball, that’s because it was about exactly the same. After what seemed like a momentary audio glitch, “My Way” was back on the sound system. The Trumps were once again joined by the Pences and — all together now! — the rest of the Trump clan. Now it’s time to head to the National Building Museum, where Mr. Trump and the gang will attend the Armed Services Ball. On to the final ball 10:54 p.m.: After a leisurely walk though several blocks of security barricades and a screening by a few friendly Secret Service agents and police officers, we have arrived to catch the tail end of the Salute to Our Armed Services Ball, where Mr. Trump is expected to speak. This black-tie affair was the harder ticket to get, and about half of the guests here are members of the military in full dress. Unlike the last one, this ball is open bar. There is no music right now and the crowd is lingering to hear Mr. Trump speak. The new commander-in-chief 11:15 p.m.: Arriving at around 11, Mr. Trump greeted supporters at the armed services ball by praising law enforcement and the military. “I like you for a lot of reasons. Also I like the fact that you all voted for me,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. They laughed and cheered. Image The first couple dancing at the Salute to Our Armed Services Ball. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times A live feed of troops in Afghanistan was projected on the screen. “How is it over there? How’s it going?” asked the new commander-in-chief. “I like them much better than I like the media,” he said of the troops. “These are much nicer people, finer people.” “Don’t be like these people — don’t be too tough on me,” Mr. Trump told them, gesturing toward the news media corralled in the stands. (This reporter somehow managed to skirt the entrance and found a spot somewhere near the open bar.) Image President Trump and Melania Trump speaking with members of the military at the National Building Museum. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Mrs. Trump then spoke publicly for the first time on Inauguration Day. “Thank you all for your service,” she told the attendees. “I’m honored to be your first lady. We will fight, we will win, we will make America great again.” The couple chose a different song to dance to this time, a cover of “I Will Always Love You.” Signing off 11:22 p.m.: After dancing alongside each other for the third time tonight, the president and vice president together used a saber to cut through a giant red, white and blue cake. Image President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cutting a cake at the Salute to Our Armed Services Ball. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times And with that, it’s time to sign off. Thanks for trailing along tonight. The next stop for me is covering the Women’s March on Washington , where I will be wearing flats.


Discovering Concavenator Corcovatus, the Dinosaur With a Hump

Abstract: Researchers have discovered the most complete fossil of a meat-eating dinosaur from Europe in Las Hoyas, Spain. Curiously, it is humpbacked. The study appears in the journal Nature . Named Concavenator corcovatus, the dinosaur belongs to the theropod family. In most ways, the dinosaur is not unusual, and it shares many characteristics with other medium-size theropods. But the humplike structure on the 20-foot creature has previously never been seen in a dinosaur. “We have no idea if this hump had flesh tissues; if so it could have been a fatlike deposit,” said Francisco Ortega, a biologist at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia and the study’s lead author. “Or if it was decoration, it was used as a display.” The hump probably looked similar to that seen on some cows today, he said. The fossil also suggests that the dinosaur had bony bumps on its limbs, possibly structures from which feathers protruded. The dinosaur lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago. Earlier dinosaur fossils have shown evidence of feathers, and birds are now generally considered to be dinosaur descendants. He and his colleagues uncovered the dinosaur in a 2003 dig, but the assembly and analysis took seven years. The complete fossil can be seen at the Museum of Science in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain.

Dinosaurs
Fossils
Paleontology
Science and Technology


Alaska’s Rural Schools Fight Extinction

Abstract: NIKOLSKI, Alaska — This distant dot in the Aleutian Islands needed just 10 students for its school to dodge a fatal cut from the state budget. It reached across Alaska and beyond but could find only nine. Built by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1939, the little Nikolski School will not be the last in Alaska to close. Four others have closed this fall and at least 30 more are at risk because of dwindling enrollment; one school in remote southeast Alaska survived only by advertising on Craigslist for families with school-aged children. “We lose one or two every year,” said Eddy Jeans, the director of school finance for the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. As Alaska celebrates its 50th anniversary of statehood amid new political prominence and urban aspirations, it is confronting a legacy of loss in rural communities that are unlike any others in the United States . Some of these communities, like Nikolski, are linked to the earliest human settlements in North America , yet are now buckling beneath the accumulated conflict of old versus new. Alaska Natives are increasingly leaving villages for cities. Young women, in particular, have departed, and birth rates, once disproportionately higher in villages, have dropped. Jobs for the young people who remain are declining. Village elders have fewer peers who share their dialects. Heating fuel, gasoline and groceries can be expensive and medical services minimal. The annual statewide student counting period, completed last month, is a census of the exodus. After several decades of growth, the overall rural population has declined about 4 percent since 2000 and much more in many regions. In the Aleutians, the population is down 19 percent, to about 4,500. About 20 percent of Alaska’s 680,000 people live in rural areas. Rural school districts, desperate to make the cut, are known to move students between schools to prop up enrollment during the counting period, while some have sought out families willing to relocate from other states. “We were desperate,” said Gordon Chew, whose wife runs the school in Tenakee Springs, where two families with a total of six children relocated earlier this year in response to an advertisement on Craigslist. “That saved us.”The decline of rural schools is at the heart of a broader debate in Alaska over the treatment of native communities, which dominate the state’s rural population. Here in the Aleutians, native Unangans, or Aleuts, are linked to people who traveled the Bering land bridge from Asia more than 10,000 years ago. They survived off the sea, making skiffs from seal skin and building houses from sod for shelter against the endless ocean gales. They endured violence and religious conversion by Russian explorers and, during World War II, forced evacuation by the American military. Now they face budget cuts and the pressures of modern Alaska. “If you put it in the calculus we use today to determine public policy, places like Nikolski probably have a difficult time measuring up,” said Byron Mallott, a Tlingit leader who has advised several Alaska governors on native issues. “But look at Nikolski in the context of Alaska, look at it in the context of America. These are the native homelands, and we ought to recognize that and not forget that.” Concerns over the cost and quality of education in rural areas have long generated tension: can preserving village life be balanced with preparing students for a broader world? A court settlement in the 1970s required the state to build high schools in most villages, prompting an expensive construction boom. But by 1998, with oil revenues no longer soaring, the State Legislature decided that schools with fewer than 10 students would face severe cuts in financing. With some parents leaving villages in pursuit of better education anyway, some lawmakers said saving schools was missing the point. “Schools may close, but the fact of the matter is, we’re in the education business,” said Gary Wilken, a former Republican state senator from Fairbanks who pushed for the higher enrollment requirement. “Our state has to provide a quality education to all, and sometimes you can do it better through the Internet with home school programs or in regional boarding schools.” For some, more recent standardized tests showing relatively poor performance among rural and native students have confirmed skepticism over investing in declining schools. Others have pressed more aggressively than ever for schools to nurture fading native cultures and languages, once banished in the name of education. Georgianna Lincoln, 66, a former Democratic state senator who lived in the village of Rampart, northwest of Fairbanks, until she was 9, was among the lawmakers who fought raising the financing threshold to 10 students. The school in Rampart closed shortly after the new requirement was imposed. After the vote, Ms. Lincoln recalled: “I told everybody, ‘I don’t care if you import your cousins or your friends. Do not allow the school to close because that’s the death of the community.’ ” Larry LeDoux, Alaska’s commissioner of the Department of Education and Early Development, noted that the state had just filled a new position, director of rural education, but he also said that did not mean the state would try to save village schools. Nikolski , nearly 1,000 miles southwest of Anchorage, is the last of what once were more than 20 native villages on Umnak Island. A few decades ago, the village had 80 people; it is now down to about 30. Enrollment here fell below 10 last year, but the Aleutian Region School District stretched its budget and kept the school open. To run the school with 10 students for one year costs $400,000 to $500,000. By last spring, enrollment had fallen further but there was new optimism: Yuki and Maria Iaulualu, natives of American Samoa , agreed to move here from Seattle with their five school-age children. Joe Beckford, the district superintendent, arranged for the district to pay several thousand dollars for the Iaulualus’ airfare. Yet Mr. Iaulualu soon lost his job working for the village, and it became clear that even his family’s arrival would not raise enrollment to 10. Now, Mr. Iaulualu said, “we’re out of here.” Grace Oomittuk, the village health aide, and her two school-aged children came from the state’s north coast two years ago. Consulting with Mr. Beckford, she timed their initial visit to coincide with the student counting period. Now, Ms. Oomittuk said, her family will most likely move to her mother’s home in Palmer, about 40 miles northeast of Anchorage . Another student, Ivan Krukoff, 18, whose father lives in Nikolski, has moved back in with his mother on a neighboring island. If only his cousin, Darin Krukoff, 17, had been open to Mr. Beckford’s efforts to “entice him,” as the superintendent put it, to move to Nikolski. That would have made 10. But Darin likes the neighboring island, where the school has a basketball team and other attractions, including girls his age. “You have to live your life,” Darin said. That gets to Eric Willhite. He is 13 . Nobody had to ask him to prop up ancient Alaska. He is from here, a descendant of generations of seal hunters and salmon fishermen. The Black Eyed Peas thump through his iPod . His hoodie helps cut the wind that roars across the Bering Sea. He longs for middle school cool at the edge of America. “I don’t want to leave,” he said. After moving to Missouri with his parents several years ago, Eric decided he preferred life in the village and returned after a year to live with his aunt and uncle. He has heard the stories of how his grandfather was punished in school for speaking Unangan. He says he understands that he is now the only child left in Nikolski with a direct connection to the native bones and artifacts anthropologists have taken from its tundra. While he says this is home, flight is his obsession. He simulates takeoffs on a computer and makes jets out of Legos. His goal is to follow his older brother, Daniel, 19, to a vocational boarding school in interior Alaska. “He could fly pilot,” Eric said, “and I’ll fly co-pilot.” First he needs to pass the eighth grade. After spending several weeks this fall uncertain whether the Nikolski School would remain open, he is now in a home-school program. “This is a crucial year for Eric, and things aren’t going well,” said Scott Kerr, Eric’s uncle and legal guardian. Mr. Kerr is not native, but he is largely responsible for perpetuating native traditions in Eric’s life, from hunting and fishing for food to finding peace in Umnak’s isolation. “I’ve told him, ‘If you have nothing else in this world, you are Unangan, you are Aleut,’ ” Mr. Kerr said. “That’s something to be proud of.” The few people who remain here still gather in the evening on the rocky beach of Nikolski Bay to fish for dinner or something to salt for winter. Volcanoes loom, one dormant, one not. Eagles coast. Sea otters float. Cattle wander the hills, wild descendants of a long-ago ranch and, now, a particularly good meal. Foxes poke through the small landfill. At one end of the village, elders recently reburied bones of their ancestors, reclaimed from various collections. At the other, the shell of an old Reeve Aleutian airliner sits beside the gravel runway, wreckage from a 1965 flight caught in crosswinds. The school is in the middle, the newest relic. “That school,” said Arnold Dushkin, president of the Nikolski village council, “is our major reason for the village to be going.”

Alaska
Aleutian Islands
Population
Rural area
Indigenous peoples


Federal Reserve to Unveil a Redesigned $100 Bill

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve will begin circulating a new $100 bill on Tuesday with some modern and colorful anti-counterfeiting features, after overcoming problems that postponed its debut for more than two and a half years. In addition to traditional safeguards like a paper blend that would be difficult to duplicate, the redesigned note will have two new features: a three-dimensional blue strip with images that appear to move when the note is tilted, and an image of a copper inkwell containing a holographic bell whose color changes when tilted. The note is the last United States currency denomination to undergo the “ New Color of Money ” face-lift that started with the $20 note in 2003, introducing subtle hues and other security features to paper currency as part of efforts to stay ahead of counterfeiters. Image The new type of $100 note, the most counterfeited currency outside America, arrives Tuesday. Credit Bureau of Engraving and Printing “It only takes a few seconds for people — if they know what they’re looking for — to know what they’re looking at is genuine,” said Michael J. Lambert, associate director of the Federal Reserve. The $100 bill is an especially hot item on the global stage: The Federal Reserve estimates that one-half to two-thirds of $100 notes in circulation are abroad at any given time, making them one of the nation’s largest exports. As a result, the $100 bill is the most commonly counterfeited note outside the United States. Mr. Lambert said officials at the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the Secret Service had devoted extra time to redesigning it and spreading the word — including on newmoney.gov , which is available in 23 languages — with that in mind. The note took more than a decade to develop. It was originally scheduled for release in February 2011, but about four months before its debut the Federal Reserve said that an unanticipated printing problem had caused some notes to be creased and thus unfit for circulation. Investigating and resolving the issue meant there would not have been enough bills ready by February. Another printing problem caused ink to smear. The inspector general’s office at the Treasury Department released a report in 2012 attributing the delay to “a production failure that potentially could have been avoided and has already resulted in increased costs.” Image The Federal Reserve will begin circulating a new $100 bill on Tuesday with some modern and colorful anti-counterfeiting features. Experts say the efforts appear to have paid off. “I would say it’s absolutely worthwhile to do whatever it takes to make sure that we have the best currency that we can,” said Benjamin Mazzotta of Tufts University, an expert on the cost of currency. “That’s something that’s not going to be able to be reproduced on a photocopy machine, that’s for sure, or even on the computer,” said Dennis Forgue, a currency expert in Chicago. But the transition may not be seamless everywhere. When the United States issued a new $100 note in 1996, for instance, Russians — accustomed to a system in which old currency becomes worthless — worried that there would not be enough bills to meet demand. While older United States currency retains its value, Mr. Forgue said that overseas, especially in Eastern European countries, people may demand the newest bills as the only acceptable form of payment. “They’re afraid of getting stuck with something that’s not good because they’ve gone through so many changes like that,” he said. Mr. Lambert said the Federal Reserve was prepared. “We stand ready to get them the notes that they need, and obviously our goal and our objective is to meet the demand,” he said. “Whether that’s international or domestic, it doesn’t matter.”

Federal Reserve
Currency
Treasury Department
Counterfeit money


Queens as a Tourist Destination? Readers React

Abstract: An article Wednesday on the rising number of tourists visiting Queens — attributed to the Lonely Planet guidebook’s designating the borough to be the No. 1 travel destination in the country this year — attracted reader responses from along the No. 7 train line and beyond. Some could not believe what they read. “I believe the end-time prophecy of the Book of Revelation calls for the appearance of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the 7th Seal, and the Beast, all to be followed by Queens and Staten Island becoming hip,” said EDG of New York . “We’re apparently up to Queens.” Many Queens residents, present and former, wondered why The New York Times blew open their secret. “The reason why Queens was so great was because there were no tourists. And now, it will be ruined,” said TJ of New York . “Keep tourists out of Queens please! And stop giving them tips on places to visit! Whenever I have out-of-town guests I literally make them swear on their mother’s grave that they will not under any circumstances tell anyone about my ‘secret’ places,” said Betti of New York . “Does Queens really need a bunch of tourists going to Roosevelt Avenue and gawking at all the brown, yellow and black people? It’s not a zoo, you know,” said a Queens native, Admiral Halsey . Others expressed a common fear of that great arbiter of gentrification, artisanal mayonnaise, once the word gets out. “And with the tourists, let’s welcome the developers that will try, no doubt, to create the next Brooklyn in Queens. Let’s thank Lonely Planet in five years for giving the kiss of death to all the cultural diversity and mom and pop shops that they put out once they jack up the prices and build a bunch of boutique hotels, microbreweries, and artisanal mayonnaise shops to appease the masses,” said Layla of Queens . “RIP Queens, you were good while you lasted.” “We enjoy fairly reasonable rents (compared to Brooklyn and Manhattan), we have small businesses that are practical and usable (butchers, bakeries, fish mongers) and there’s not an artisanal mayonnaise shop or gluten free anything in the bunch,” said Zazie of New York . “We love living in Queens and would gladly leave it untouched as a ‘destination.’” But a few influential Queens business people said they welcomed the influx of tourists. The founder of Sweetleaf, a Long Island City cafe mentioned in the article, wrote in to express his excitement that Parisian tourists, among others, had heard of his store. “There is so much more food, art, cultures to be explored. We are the world’s greatest melting pot!” said Alfred Arundel of Costa Rica and Queens . Image Journalists from Mexico were among the tourists who visited the Socrates Sculpture Garden in Queens last month. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times Ellen Kodadek of Queens, said , “While Times Square may be known as the Crossroads of the World, Queens has become the Crossroads of our City!” Ms. Kodadek is the executive and artistic director of Flushing Town Hall, a Queens performing arts center. Tourists themselves chimed in with praise. “I visit Queens for a week every year — for the US Open. And although most of my time is spent watching tennis, we love to visit Jackson Heights, Flushing, and other neighborhoods. We stay out in Bayside and are welcomed every year by the waitress at the Italian restaurant on Bell Blvd; when we walk into the Vietnamese place for a late dinner, the owner gets up and switches the TV to tennis for us. He recognizes us, too. Not to mention the friendly and helpful bus drivers. Not an Onion parody at all. Queens is real,” said jw of Boston . Mr. B from Buffalo said , “Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. Fantastic! And the Beer Garden around the corner.” “Can’t believe you fail to mention Rockaway Beach, an absolute jewel,” said Seano from Pennsylvania .” Well, not all tourists had praise. Porter of Sarasota, Fla., said: “This is truly beyond all understanding. Yes, some stretches of coast are appealing, but overall Queens is dirty, gritty, unkempt, and seriously in need of investment on its roads, bridges and in its public parks and spaces. And a good sand-blasting for most of its buildings. Visit it on vacation? You’re out of your mind.” Undaunted, Queens residents who did not mind giving away their secrets wrote in with their own travel advice for visitors. “If you’d like a little wilderness mixed into your urban vacation, try the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. If you want a little beach time, visit the revamped Rockaways,” said Ecce Homo of Queens , who also plugged the culinary delights of his neighborhood, Jackson Heights. “Food critics have long recognized Queens as the home to truly excellent restaurants of all descriptions … The chefs tend to be recent immigrants, so the food is the real thing.” “Oh, and our hotels/motels are mostly more affordable and much more parkable than Manhattan offerings,” said Carol Goldstein of New York . “Most are near subway lines that will get you into Manhattan in no more time than it takes to go from midtown to the Battery.” “And don’t forget the Queens Farm Museum, the aviary at the zoo, the botanical garden,” said Anthony N. of New York . “Ride the 7 train and see the world,” Larry ULURP of New York wrote, apparently testing a new tourism slogan that many Queens natives hope never catches on.


Running Out of Time in Greece

Abstract: LONDON — As interest rates on Greek debt spiral upward again, the question facing Europe is no longer whether Athens has the political will to cut spending and raise taxes to curb its gaping budget deficit, but whether Greece will run out of money before it gets the chance to do so. With the rate on 10-year Greek bonds reaching as high as 7.5 percent on Thursday, up from 6.5 just three days ago, the cost of insuring against a Greek default hit a record high. The message from the market could not be clearer: artfully worded communiqués from Brussels will no longer suffice. To avoid bankruptcy, analysts said, Greece needs a bailout from Europe, and fast. “This is no longer about liquidity; it’s a solvency issue,” said Stephen Jen, a former economist at the International Monetary Fund who is now a strategist at BlueGold Capital Management in London. But with European officials consumed with a debate over whether loans to Greece should be offered at rates consistent with a typical I.M.F. bailout or punitive ones closer to current market levels, the risk is that while Brussels fiddles, Greece is burning. At a press conference on Thursday, Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, sought to break the fever in the markets by saying that the aid program proposed by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union was a “very, very serious commitment.” The statement helped bring yields on 10-year Greek government bonds down from their peak for the day, to 7.35 percent, but it was not enough to turn around the mood of pessimism that contributed to a further fall in Greek and other European stocks. “Time is running out,” said a senior official in the Greek government who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. “The market is testing Europe’s resolve.” To a large extent, this latest bout of Euro-stasis is a function of Germany’s view that it is not the market contagion from the Greek drama that presents the greatest risk to Europe. Instead, Berlin is far more worried, as Mr. Jen puts it, about the supposed “contagion of bad behavior” in other countries like Portugal and Spain that might follow if Greece were to become the beneficiary of a bailout on relatively generous terms. “This should be easy to do; Greece is only 3 percent of Europe’s G.D.P.,” said Paul De Grauwe, an economist based in Brussels who advises the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso. “But this is no longer a financial issue. It is about politics and nationalism, and it is a real setback for those who believed in a united Europe.” There are unmistakable signs that individuals and corporations are withdrawing funds from Greek banks, although the sums involved do not yet constitute a bank run. Still, weakened Greek banks, increasingly shut out of the capital markets, have become largely dependent on the European Central Bank and have turned to the Greek government to release more money from a previously established rescue fund. The Greek government is coming close to giving up on private investors as well. While Athens said it would go ahead with its short-term borrowing auctions this week, the planned fund-raising trip this month by Greece’s finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, to tap Wall Street investors is unlikely to happen as long as Greek borrowing costs remain high, said a person who was briefed on his plans. Greece’s hope is that it will be able to borrow as much as 30 billion euros ($40 billion) from Europe and the I.M.F. at a rate of about 4 percent or so, which is consistent with the terms offered by the fund to other indebted countries. Such a view, however, assumes that the I.M.F. would be the lead actor in the rescue, as it was in countries like Hungary and Latvia that are not in the euro zone. In all the vagueness of the European Union’s agreement with the I.M.F. on Greece, the one point of clarity was that Brussels rather than the I.M.F. should dictate terms, even if a team of I.M.F. experts was already in Athens advising the government. As a result, European officials, pressed hard on this point by Germany, are now saying that Greece must not receive the carrot of concessional interest rates available to those who agree to accept the stick of an I.M.F.-style austerity package. Greece’s interest payments on its net debt, as a percentage of its gross domestic product, are already the highest among developed nations, according to recent research by Deutsche Bank. And as the economy withers further in the face of spending cuts and tax increases, its ability to generate the revenue to pay these sums decreases. “If you look at Greece’s G.D.P. potential and its borrowing costs,” Mr. Jen said, “there is a gigantic gap.” The sharp rise in rates has spurred increased talk of some form a debt restructuring. In such a situation, analysts said, holders of Greek debt could perhaps be forced to accept a loss of 20 percent or more on their bonds. That would be similar to what happened after Argentina defaulted on $93 billion in debt in 2001. Like Argentina, Greece has suffered from a fixed currency, fiscal deficits and a growing lack of industrial competitiveness. Still it seems unlikely that Europe — which through German and French banks owns over 100 billion euros in Greek bonds — could countenance such a solution. “If you do a restructuring, people would not lend any further money to Greece,” said Yannis Stournaras, an economist and an adviser to previous Socialist governments. “That would be a huge mistake,” he added. “Greece has the mechanism. It just has to ask for the money.”

Greece
Bankruptcies
International Monetary Fund
European Union
Economic Conditions and Trends
Credit


George Steinmetz’s Aerial Photography of New York

Abstract: New York has stories it doesn’t reveal to the people walking its surfaces; you have to get up high to see them. This is where the photographer George Steinmetz works: in a lightweight one-person paraglider, in a tiny two-person helicopter, sometimes on a high floor in a tall building. In his 30 years of taking aerial photographs, Mr. Steinmetz, 58, has aimed his camera at animal migrations in sub-Saharan Africa and the sculpted sands of the world’s deserts. More recently, he has plied the airspace above the city. You see things up there, he said. You see a rooftop pool designed with an Andy Warhol filmstrip — “Who knew there were all these swimming pools?” he said — or townhouse blocks in Brooklyn that could be toy sets as interpreted by early Modernist painters. One morning, flying around the Frank Gehry-designed building at 8 Spruce Street in downtown Manhattan, Mr. Steinmetz’s camera captured a man wandering naked through his apartment. “You see lives inside very expensive pigeonholes in the sky,” he said. These days the city skies are getting crowded — not just with new skyscrapers but also with drones , whose numbers are likely to multiply on the morning of Dec. 25. “Drones are revolutionizing aerial photography,” Mr. Steinmetz said. “They’re doing what the iPhone did for still photography, putting it within everyone’s grasp.” The catch for Mr. Steinmetz is that it is currently against the law to take drone photographs for commercial purposes. “So my son can use my drone to take all the pictures he wants,” he said, “but if I do it, it’s illegal.” The images here are collected in a new book, “New York Air” (Abrams), and are part of an exhibition at Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side through Jan. 31. The gallery prints tell yet another story about the city. The dots become people. “You really have to see the big prints,” Mr. Steinmetz said. “When they’re small, you see the patterns. Up close you see the people and the life in the city.”

George Steinmetz
Photography
Manhattan
Drones
Books
Anastasia Photo
NYC


In Struggles of Artist With His Work, Hints of Mexico’s Own

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — DAMIÁN ORTEGA’S completed installation outside the new Museo Jumex here looks, at first, like a workaday kitchen filmed in space. A teapot, plates, bowls and utensils slowly spin above an unassuming wooden table. A chair, then another, seem to be balancing on one leg. Gradually, deeper meanings emerge. First, complexity lies below. The piece includes five concentric circles of floor, each spinning slowly. Second, Mr. Ortega’s domesticity is a quiet rebuke to its surroundings, lying between Mexico’s newest icons of wealth: the billionaire Carlos Slim Helú’s shimmering new Soumaya Museum and the Jumex, the new home for the widely admired art collection of Eugenio López Alonso, the Jumex juice heir. Mr. Ortega’s piece, in short, is a rebellious interloper, a playful whirligig combining simplicity, beauty and a surprisingly anticorporate message. “It’s a monument to everyday life,” Mr. Ortega said. “I thought it would be interesting to have a public plaza with something intimate and individual.” Mr. Ortega is certainly not the first Mexican artist to be concerned with class or the quotidian, but his interest in re-examination — in taking old things apart and putting them back together in new ways — makes him well matched to the moment. Mexico is in the middle of a perception crisis. Optimists who insist the country should be portrayed as rapidly modernizing are constantly arguing with those who see a society stuck in place, with metastasizing violence, continuing corruption and poverty that may or may not be receding, depending on the data set. In the midst of this confusion (compounded by a lack of government transparency), Mr. Ortega’s art seems to offer a comforting sense of agency and connection. Even before his piece was finished, people walking by touched its familiar items. “People want it to move,” said Rosario Nadal, the curator who oversaw the commission for the piece. “They go up to the table and move things around.” Mr. Ortega, 45, with longish hair and a voice that moves quickly from soft to firm, welcomed the interactivity. The son of an actor and a teacher at an alternative school housed in a former stable, Mr. Ortega came to art through play. He fondly recalls a boyhood shaped by seeing his father practice comedic roles in front of the mirror, putting on mustaches or wigs, and hanging around set designers for movies and theater. Mr. Ortega said he was also strongly influenced by watching the area where he grew up — Tlalpan, on the southern edge of Mexico City — go from mostly rural to densely urban. There was little planning or forethought, he said, just lots of activity. “Mexico is a country that’s very productive,” he said. “There is a lot of making and fixing things. It’s a very rich culture of resolving things and finding solutions to problems, alternative solutions.” That turned out to be exactly what Mr. Ortega needed for “Cosmologia Doméstica,” his piece outside the Museo Jumex. It was his first installation with a large international team: Designers in Europe drew computerized markups of the complicated mechanism that would move the floor, with Mexican construction firms assigned to build and assemble it. Mr. Ortega and two art coordinators he met a decade ago at the Venice Biennale would supervise. BUT putting it all together turned out to be far harder than expected. Despite promises of precise measurement from Mexican producers, the metal rings meant to turn the floor were not perfect circles; they would move a bit, then get stuck, like a warped bicycle tire caught by the brakes. Video The Times’s Damien Cave tracks the delayed debut of Damián Ortega’s modern art installation outside the new Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Then the teams meant to construct the piece kept delaying. With just a few days before art collectors from all over the world were to arrive for the Museo Jumex opening in November, Mr. Ortega’s piece looked like an open maw full of steel, wood and workers. Wearing a plaid shirt and trying to sound upbeat five days before the official debut, Mr. Ortega described it as a culture clash between rigidity and flexibility. The steel gears below the floor represented European engineering, but when combined with improvisational Mexican production, movement proved to be a challenge, he said. Mr. Ortega bent down with some of the workers and tried to explain his vision of a floating system of motion, with some larger gears allowed to move back and forth within the flawed circle. It did not work. A day later, he tried ropes and pulleys. That failed, too. Then he and his team went even simpler, with rubber wheels spinning the larger metal rings. This seemed to succeed, but only after what would become a major overhaul: The circles would have to be cut and welded again to make them round enough for easy movement. Each new day produced minimal progress. It was a race of stress and physics, and a reminder that art does not spring from the mind fully formed and ready for Sotheby’s. Contemporary art today, much of it at least, is less effete than industrial, a battle of calloused hands and computers fighting the limits of resistant materials, in a mad search for beauty or provocation. When he was in a good mood, Mr. Ortega compared the process to a Mexican carnival, with the grizzled mechanics who make the rides go despite rust, bent steel and lost screws. In darker moments, he compared his experience to the famed disaster of filming “Apocalypse Now .” Or constructing a crypt. “I’m like the last slave building a tomb,” he said the night before the official opening, drilling long after dark. “I’m going to be here all night. Definitely.” AND he was. The following morning, as foreign visitors sipped Champagne and toured the museum with curators and the building’s architect, David Chipperfield, work continued on Mr. Ortega’s piece. He had missed the deadline and the elaborate parties, losing out on a chance to hobnob with the global art elite and old friends like the artist Gabriel Orozco, with whom he had shared a studio roughly a decade ago as they both sought greater acclaim. It was frustrating, he said, depressing. Unintentionally, though, he had also become a monument to the routine of most Mexican workers: long days, little guarantee of a clear payoff. “With him, it’s like going back to the original,” said Grazia Cattaneo, 43, an art coordinator from Italy whom Mr. Ortega hired to help oversee construction. “He is always trying for simple solutions that work. He has a very poetic vision.” Museum officials stood by him as well. Patrick Charpenel, the director of the Museo Jumex, insisted that the museum would always be “committed to following local artists.” “We stick with them,” he added. “It’s a beautiful piece.” And eventually, he was right. Two months — yes, months — after the official opening, Mr. Ortega’s installation was finally finished. With everything orbiting as planned, it was understated on the surface, with deep complications down below. Mr. Ortega resisted describing the piece as a metaphor for Mexico, but at a second opening the museum held on his behalf on Feb. 3, he said he was relieved and thrilled to see the piece completed. Asked what kind of project he planned to take on next, he did not hesitate: “A painting,” he said. “A very small painting.”


New Florida Rules Return More Than 115,000 Ex-Offenders to Voting Rolls

Abstract: MIAMI — Gov. Charlie Crist announced on Tuesday that 115,232 Florida felons had regained their voting rights since new rules took effect last April, but 80 percent of the state’s disenfranchised ex-offenders remain off the rolls. The governor — a Republican who had initially pushed for a broader clemency program — said he was proud of the progress and hoped the number of those regaining voting rights would increase. “Once somebody has truly paid their debt to society, we should recognize it, and we should honor it and we should welcome them back into society and give them that second chance,” Mr. Crist told a crowd of law enforcement officials and advocates for prisoners’ rights in Tallahassee. “That could make an enormous difference in November,” he said. Indeed, the new figures arrive during a hotly contested presidential race — and as Florida has come under increased scrutiny for erecting barriers to voting. Since 2000, Florida has passed some of the strictest voter registration rules in the country. It is also the most populous of three states (the others are Kentucky and Virginia) whose constitutions require withdrawal of voting rights from all felons. So while ex-inmates in 47 states typically have their civil rights restored automatically, in Florida until April, most felons who finished prison and probation had to endure a lengthy review by state officials. About 7,000 each year were cleared to vote, to serve on juries and to get jobs that require state licenses, like a nurse or barber. The newer rules create a three-tiered system for ex-convicts, based on the severity of their crimes. Those who have completed sentences and probation for the least violent, Level 1 offenses since April can have their rights restored without having to fill out paperwork, after the state confirms payment of restitution. Of the 115,232 who have regained their rights, the vast majority are older cases that preceded the law. But most of the state’s estimated 950,000 felons must request reinstatement. It is not clear how many more people are eligible. “There is a large demand for this,” said Muslima Lewis, director of the voting rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida. “And it is a lot higher this year with the election.” Ms. Lewis said Mr. Crist deserved credit for changing the rules. But, she said: “It does need to be seen in context. There is a lot more that needs to be done.” The issue of voting rights here has long been intertwined with race. The ban on voting by felons became part of the state Constitution in 1868, when many Southern states found ways to suppress black votes in the wake of the Civil War. More recently, liberal groups have accused the state’s Republican-controlled government of retaining the policy in an effort to keep blacks, who tend to vote Democratic, from registering. Some Republicans have argued that felons of all races forfeit their rights when they commit crimes. Mr. Crist, in turn, has emphasized the Christian value of redemption. And yet, for those who are looking to have their rights restored, voting is just part of the appeal. Gregory L. James was released from jail in March after serving 12 years on a federal drug conspiracy conviction. A talkative 46-year-old who founded a nonprofit organization that mentors former prisoners, Mr. James said he hoped to have his rights restored over the next few years. He sees it as a way to finally move beyond prison. “Being whole again means that I have my rights again,” Mr. James said. “Without my rights, it’s like I’m still doing time all over again.”

Florida
Voter Registration and Requirements
Crist Charlie
Presidential Election of 2008


Blue Jackets Make a Series of Moves

Abstract: The Columbus Blue Jackets have recalled center Michael Chaput and left wing Kerby Rychel from their American Hockey League affiliate in Springfield, Mass. Chaput had two assists in 18 games with the Blue Jackets this season and had a goal and four assists in five games with the Springfield Falcons. Rychel, the club’s second first-round pick, 19th over all, in the 2013 draft, had six goals and seven assists in 22 games with Springfield.


Mets’ Bolstered Rotation Is Again in Doubt

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The Mets decided years ago to build their team around elite young pitching, a strategy that carried some inherent risk. Strong and vibrant pitchers are lost to arm injuries every year , so general managers almost have to walk around with their fingers crossed, hoping for the best. The Mets are no exception. They essentially passed on the 2014 season when Matt Harvey sat out after Tommy John surgery. This year, his comeback is the biggest story of their spring training, but three other pitchers have injuries that will cause Mets fans to hold their breath. Zack Wheeler, whom the Mets consider nearly as important as Harvey, will miss his next start because of elbow tenderness and a blister on his index finger. Josh Edgin, the team’s top left-handed reliever, is considering Tommy John surgery. Vic Black, one of the team’s top setup men, is having his right shoulder examined. The Mets announced the news about Wheeler on Friday, and General Manager Sandy Alderson insisted that the injury was not serious. He said that Wheeler experienced the same thing at times last season, managed the problem, then had it examined over the off-season. The Mets seemed satisfied with the results, because Wheeler started the spring with no public restrictions. Alderson pointed out that Wheeler was spectacular in the second half of the 2014 season. Over his last 15 starts, he compiled a 2.80 E.R.A. and averaged more than a strikeout an inning. His fastball was among the fastest in the National League. “We don’t think it’s serious because it’s something that he’s experienced before,” Alderson said. “It’s sort of an intermittent issue that he has to manage. At this point, we don’t expect it’s going to be a major issue.” Alderson expected Wheeler to miss just one start. Black was sent Friday to have a magnetic resonance imaging test on his right shoulder. But Alderson did not seem too concerned about him, either, calling the test precautionary. Alderson indicated that the problem was tendinitis. Edgin’s injury appeared to be the most serious. The Mets previously said he had a stretched elbow ligament and was given a choice: Have Tommy John surgery and miss the season, or try to rehabilitate the injury. Before Edgin decides, he will get a second opinion from Dr. James Andrews, an orthopedic surgeon.

Mets
Surgery
Zack Wheeler
Josh Edgin
Vic Black
Baseball
Texas Rangers
Yu Darvish


Courting a Crowning Moment in Prague

Abstract: After more than 10 nomadic months, Tomas Berdych’s A.T.P. Tour season ended last week in London and the weary Czech, eliminated from the World Tour Finals after a loss to Novak Djokovic, was asked to share his best moment of the year. “I hope that the best moment is still to come,” Berdych said with a grin. Berdych, for all his fearsome ability to pound a tennis ball into submission, has yet to win a Grand Slam singles title and may never do so in the age of Roger Federer, Djokovic, et al. But Berdych still has a chance to achieve closure this year by winning the Davis Cup with the Czech Republic. Berdych and his longtime teammate and doubles partner, Radek Stepanek, have been on essentially a two-man quest since 2007. And, after losing to Rafael Nadal and Spain in the final on indoor clay in 2009 in Barcelona, they now get the chance to play the final at home against Spain without Nadal in the equation on a much (much) quicker indoor hardcourt. Hopes are understandably high even if David Ferrer, who is playing this week for Spain, has won just as many tournaments this year on indoor hardcourts (two) as the more powerful Berdych. It has been 32 years since Czechoslovakia won its first and only Davis Cup title and even though the Czechs and Slovaks split amicably in 1993, it is difficult not to see the Davis Cup final this week through the lens of that 1980 final, which was also staged in Prague. The Czechs kept Czechoslovakia’s place in the elite 16-team World Group after the country’s division, while the Slovaks had to start again in the event’s minor leagues and work their way back up, which they did quite impressively, reaching the 2005 final, which they lost to Croatia. But while the Slovaks have had their stars, including Miloslav Mecir and, more recently, Dominik Hrbaty, Karol Kucera and Daniela Hantuchova, it is the Czechs who have provided the bulk of the champions through the years. The women include Martina Navratilova, Helena Sukova, Hana Mandlikova , Jana Novotna and the potential masterwork in progress, Petra Kvitova. The men include Jaroslav Drobny, Jan Kodes and Ivan Lendl. Lendl and Kodes were on the 1980 team that defeated Italy, 4-1, in Prague, but the Czechs were, like Berdych and Stepanek, essentially a two-man band, with Lendl and Tomas Smid the only Czechs to play in the final. Lendl was just 20 then, not yet the obsessively rigorous player who would rise to world No.1 and win eight Grand Slam singles titles. But he and Smid squeezed the suspense out of the final, with Smid beating Adriano Panatta in five sets, Lendl beating Corrado Barazzutti in four and then the two Czechs clinching the victory by beating Panatta and Paolo Bertolucci in five sets in doubles. Lendl later said that winning the final was not as big a highlight for him as his victories on the road in the semifinal over the Argentine stars Guillermo Vilas and José Luis Clerc. But the final was definitely the bigger highlight for his country, which he later left — like Navratilova — for exile in the United States. Czechoslovakia was the first Communist country to win the Davis Cup since the competition began in 1900. But capitalism and the naming rights that accompany it are now firmly entrenched and this final will take place in the O2 Arena, with a capacity of 13,800, which sold out on the same day that tickets were released to the general public in October. That is a reflection of the passion the Cup can still generate as the Czechs and Spaniards prepare to play the 100th final in the event’s history. But the Cup final has also become more a local than a global occasion, with interest often building to a peak in the two finalist nations but with less resonance in the wider world. More star power would not hurt, but it is not as if the game’s biggest draws have not taken their swings at the title. In 2010, Djokovic led Serbia to victory, using it as a springboard to winning three Grand Slam singles titles and finishing No.1 in 2011. Nadal has been part of four Cup-winning efforts for Spain, including the victory last year over Argentina in Seville. Although Federer is uncertain to play the Cup next year, he had every hope of finally winning it this year, but he and the Swiss were upset in the first round by John Isner, Mardy Fish and the Americans in Switzerland. This final still has heft. Ferrer and Berdych are both ranked in the top six. Spain’s second singles player, Nicolas Almagro, is 11th. The doubles rubber is expected to match Spain’s Marc López and Marcel Granollers, who won the title at the World Tour Finals, against Berdych and Stepanek, who have a remarkable 11-1 record in Davis Cup together. Their only loss came against Spain in the 2009 final, when Feliciano López and Fernando Verdasco beat them in straight sets. The Spanish, with Ferrer and Nadal in the singles, went on to sweep that final 5-0. But a rout looks unlikely this time around. Berdych might play his most persuasive tennis on fast surfaces: See his run to the final on the slick, blue clay in Madrid this year. But Spain has the deeper team even without Nadal and its new captain, the former leading player Alex Corretja, has ably managed the tricky task of following on the work of his friend Albert Costa, who won two titles in his three-year run as captain. “The year has been very good but we want it to be excellent,” Corretja said. “Nobody on this team is satisfied with the possibility of losing. We will give it our all.” Corretja and Costa were on the team that won Spain the Cup for the first time, in 2000. The Spanish have since been the competition’s dominant force, winning again in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2011. Berdych, Stepanek and the Czechs would be delighted to do it just once.

Tennis
Davis Cup
Czech Republic
Spain
Prague (Czech Republic)


Police Release Sketch of Suspect in Shooting of Cuomo Administration Lawyer

Abstract: New York police officials have released a sketch of a man who they say is being sought for questioning in connection with the shooting of a Cuomo administration lawyer in Brooklyn early on Monday. The lawyer, Carey W. Gabay, 43, was shot in the head during a predawn celebration in the Crown Heights neighborhood before the West Indian American Day Parade. A friend of the family said he remained in critical condition on Thursday morning. Mr. Gabay was a bystander caught in a shootout that is believed to have been between gangs, the police said. He was taken to Kings County Hospital Center , where he has been in a coma. His family and friends have been keeping vigil at the hospital since Monday. The man sought for questioning has been described as a black man, 19 or 20 years old, who was wearing a white T-shirt and black pants, and had a Jamaican flag around his neck. The officials have not specified whether the man is suspected of being the gunman or a witness. Image Mr. Gabay Credit Judy Sanders/Office of the New York Governor, via Associated Press The New York Police Department has also offered a $12,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the gunman. Mr. Gabay, the son of Jamaican immigrants, grew up in the Boston Secor Houses , a public-housing project in the Bronx, and graduated at the top of his class at Truman High School . He studied government at Harvard, where he was elected president of the undergraduate council, the main body of student government, in his senior year. Later, he attended Harvard Law School. Mr. Gabay worked at several firms in New York, specializing in corporate finance law before turning to public service. In 2011, he became an assistant counsel for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. In January, he was appointed first deputy counsel for the Empire State Development Corporation, the state’s main economic development agency. Mr. Gabay and his wife, Trenelle, a hair and makeup artist, live in an apartment in the Clinton Hill neighborhood. Mr. Gabay celebrated his Jamaican heritage by going every year to J’ouvert , a predawn festival where bands play West Indian music and revelers dance in the streets. Early Monday, he was walking home with his younger brother and several friends when nearly 30 bullets sprayed the crowd around 3:40 a.m. near the corner of Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place, about two blocks from the east side of Prospect Park, the police said. Mr. Gabay ducked behind a car, but was struck by a bullet in the top of his head.

Brooklyn
West Indian American Day
Gang
Carey Gabay
Assault
Crown Heights Brooklyn
NYPD
NYC


Racing to See Banksy Graffiti, While It Can Still Be Seen

Abstract: Ilyssa Fuchs, a lawyer whose office is just below City Hall, logged onto Facebook at lunchtime on Tuesday and immediately bolted from her desk. She asked two other lawyers in her suite if they were interested in joining her on a six-tenths-of-a-mile dash, and not to get to some emergency hearing in court. “I said, ‘You like art?’ “ she explained. “They said no. I said, ‘You like graffiti?’ They said not really. To be fair, they are prepping for a trial. So I said, ‘I’m running up there,’ and my heart was going the whole time. Was it still there?” “It” was a silhouette of the twin towers looming over the Lower Manhattan landscape, with a burnt-orange chrysanthemum dangling where one of the hijacked jets struck on 9/11. And it was apparently the latest work by the elusive British street artist Banksy, who is halfway through a monthlong “residency” in New York. It may or may not be one of his more provocative installations, but it drew a crowd alerted by a photo on Instagram , then a post from his Twitter account: “Time to step it up.” He did not elaborate. He rarely does. He is famously anonymous, putting up his distinctively playful stencils unnoticed, and there was no response on Tuesday to an e-mail to a London publicist who represents him. He did not even say exactly where the twin towers silhouette was, but others soon pinpointed the location, again on Instagram and Twitter. That made things easy for Jane Viera, a publicist from Los Angeles who is on vacation in Manhattan. “They said ‘Jay and Staple,’ and we were like, ‘We’re there,’ ” she said, referring to the location of the silhouette, on the Staple Street side of the building at 9 Jay Street, about half a mile from where the World Trade Center stood. Some in the crowd discussed blog posts about other Banksy works that have appeared in recent days. They wondered how long this one would last before being tagged over, or damaged. They said they had heard stories of locals who commandeered a site, covering the Banksy and making visitors pay to see it . That did not happen at midday on Staple Street. The crowd took photos of the twin towers silhouette, some with cellphones, some with digital cameras. Some trained their eyes on others in the crowd — and up, at the windows of surrounding buildings — because they figured Banksy was somewhere nearby. They said true artists attend their own shows. Oscar Salguero, who designs children’s products, wondered whether the flower was Banksy’s, or had been put there by someone else. Either way, he said, the flower “looks like flames.” “But the connotation is so different, it’s beautiful,” he said. His Web site said he set up a table in Central Park last Saturday and sold signed canvases for $60 apiece , far less than they would otherwise sell for. A sign on the table advertised the work simply as, “Spray art.” The buyers, if they knew Banksy’s work, apparently did not realize they had bought originals, not knockoffs. But he did not part with many. The Web site said his total for the day was $420. “I’m amazed at the publicity this guy gets,” said Robert Janz, who said that he had painted several images on the Staple Street wall before the Banksy silhouette appeared. (“I am not a graffiti artist,” Mr. Janz said. “I draw on top of graffiti.” He pointed to a buffalo he had painted inside someone else’s graffiti.) As for whether he admired Banksy, Mr. Janz said, “I admire him for putting up a piece right under one of mine.”

Banksy
Graffiti
Art
Instagram
World Trade Center
NYC
Social Media


That Must Be Bob. I Hear His New Hip Squeaking.

Abstract: The first time John L. Johnson’s artificial hip squeaked, he was bending down to pick up a pine cone in his yard in Thomasville, Ga. Mr. Johnson looked up, expecting to find an animal nearby. Susan O’Toole, a nutritionist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, who first squeaked going up stairs after getting home from her hip-replacement surgery in 2005, said she thought the banister she was gripping needed repair. And Edward Heary, an apprentice appraiser in Hatboro, Pa., said clients sometimes look with embarrassment or concern at their floorboards when he walks though their homes. As all three patients — and hundreds of others — discovered once they pinpointed the source of the noises, they had become guinea pigs in an unfolding medical mystery. Their artificial hips are made of ceramic materials that were promoted as being much more durable than older models. But for reasons not yet fully understood, their hips started to squeak, raising questions about whether the noises herald more serious malfunctions. “There is something amiss here,” said Dr. Douglas E. Padgett, chief of adult reconstructive and joint replacement service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. More than 250,000 Americans get total hip implants each year, a procedure that generally costs close to $45,000. Hip replacements have a success rate of more than 90 percent, based on patients’ achieving relatively pain-free mobility after recovery periods that range from a few months to a year. Any artificial hip can occasionally make a variety of noises. But until Stryker, a medical products company, began marketing highly durable ceramic hips in the United States in 2003, squeaking was extremely rare. Now, tens of thousands of ceramic hips later — from Stryker and other makers that entered the field — many patients say their squeaking hips are interfering with daily life. One study in the Journal of Arthroplasty found that 10 patients of 143 who received ceramic hips from 2003 to 2005, or 7 percent, developed squeaking. Meanwhile, no squeaks occurred among a control group of 48 patients who received hips made of metal and plastic. “It can interrupt sex when my wife starts laughing,” said one man, who discussed the matter on the condition that he not be named. Beyond annoyance and embarrassment, many patients and their surgeons fear that the squeaky ceramic hips may signal that the joints are wearing out prematurely. That could force patients to undergo the very operation — a second replacement of the same hip joint — they had hoped to avoid by choosing ceramics. Already, dozens of patients have elected to endure subsequent surgeries to replace the noisy hips. Some have sued Stryker, the pioneer and market leader, which some doctors say has been slow to take their patients’ concerns seriously. Last fall, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to Stryker, saying it had failed to take the steps needed to prevent squeaking and other problems. Clouding things further, Stryker last year recalled ceramic hip parts made at its factory in Cork, Ireland, after determining that some did not meet its sterility specifications. Stryker says that none of the problems underlying the recall or the warning letter from the F.D.A. reflect problems that cause squeaking, which it contends occurs in less than 1 percent of implants. Whatever the actual frequency, some investigators who have looked at the problem say the squeaking seems to be associated with extreme flexing of the ceramic implants, but exactly how is unclear. In X-rays, many of the squeaking hips appear to be perfectly aligned. Nor is there a clear relationship between squeaking and hip pain or other conditions some patients say they have encountered, like the sensation that the hip disengages slightly when a patient walks. Some patients squeak even they are walking normally, like Ms. O’Toole or Michael Mueller, a software executive in Scottsdale, Ariz. Mr. Mueller is so frustrated with squeaks, pain and popping noises for which he blames his ceramic hip that he has displayed his problem on YouTube. While there have been no reported cases of serious mishaps, some surgeons fear that the ceramic material might shatter at some point, leaving a patient with so many inflammatory shards in the hip that a doctor could never find them all. “Catastrophic failure has been a concern in the past, with older ceramic components,” said Dr. James M. Bried, a surgeon in Poway, Calif. Ceramic materials have been used since the 1960s. Dr. Bried, who implanted Mr. Mueller’s hip last year, said he was concerned that squeaking might be “a harbinger of something similar.” Mr. Mueller said Dr. Bried had told him to consider getting the hip replaced “sooner rather than later.” Stryker says such fears are overblown. “It is important to keep this in perspective,” said Aaron R. Kwittken, a spokesman for Stryker. “Published research shows squeaking is rare compared with other total-hip-related risks like infection, dislocation and leaving patients with uneven leg length.” But plaintiffs lawyers, who have already filed scores of lawsuits on behalf of ceramic hip patients, are gearing up to argue that squeaking is not a minor problem for many who experience it. “We’re in the infancy of this,” said Douglass A. Kreis, a personal injury lawyer in Pensacola, Fla., whose clients include Ms. O’Toole and Mr. Johnson, who has had his ceramic hip replaced. Most artificial hips, whatever material they are made of, share a basic design: a socket implanted in the pelvis, into which a spherical head is fitted. The head is attached to a spike that is driven into the femur, or thigh bone, to anchor it. Durability is paramount with artificial hips. Patients worry that they will outlive their artificial hips and require a second, more extensive and even more expensive procedure at an age when their bodies may be less able to cope with the trauma. Ceramic hips were promoted as lasting much longer than the 15 years or so for conventional artificial joints made of steel and plastic. Now that the squeaking has raised caution flags, researchers are weighing the noted durability of ceramic-on-ceramic hip joints like Stryker’s Trident model against products with other combinations of materials. Each combination has known or suspected drawbacks. Metal-on-metal devices, for instance, slowly shed tiny ionized particles that some researchers say might promote cancer . And even the newest plastics are still not as durable as other materials, raising the risks of fragments that can lead to bone-destroying inflammations. For patients who have already received ceramic hips that have started to squeak, many orthopedic surgeons advise nothing more than watchful waiting unless there are also signs that the hip is slipping out of place or that ceramic particles are breaking loose from the head or the socket. Doctors who have removed ceramic hips say they find dark stripes that indicate accelerated wear on the ceramic heads. But durability tests have suggested that even those extracted hips would have outlasted conventional metal-and-plastic replacement joints, according to researchers. “There is no evidence that the wear associated with squeaking would lead systems to fail,” said Dr. James A. D’Antonio, an orthopedic surgeon outside Pittsburgh, who was a chief investigator on the clinical trials that led to regulatory approval for Stryker’s Trident. Dr. D’Antonio, whose longstanding role in Stryker’s product development efforts earned him $1.1 million in consulting payments from the company last year, said he had implanted 400 Tridents since the clinical trials began in 1996. He said that only four of his patients had noticed squeaks and that none of them were able to reproduce them in his office. But Dr. Fabio Orozco, a surgeon at the Rothman Institute, a major orthopedics group in Philadelphia, said that a recently completed review of about 1,500 Rothman patients with ceramic hips had found that the squeaking condition occurred in 49 of them, or about 3 percent. “I’m very hesitant to use ceramic-on-ceramic now,” Dr. Orozco said, “unless we are talking about somebody very young.”

Hips
Implants
Medicine and Health
Stryker Corp


Migrants in Kos Inspire Both Hospitality and Anger in Greeks

Abstract: KOS, Greece — Dawn was breaking over a beach near Kos harbor, and the first swimmers threaded their way between orange beach umbrellas into the sea. Suddenly, a black rubber dinghy burst out of the grayness. It tacked rapidly toward the beach, and the life-jacketed young men on board began ululating with joy. Migrants, they had made it across the narrow stretch of water from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos, and what they hope will be a safer and more prosperous life in the European Union . One punctured the boat. Most of the others scrabbled onto the sand, dropped their life jackets and quickly vanished into the nearby alleyways. Two young friends, Shady Khilel and Akram Dakdk, both 21, stopped for just a moment to take a selfie. In their Bermuda shorts and T-shirts, with beards and tousled hair, they could have passed for tourists. Only Mr. Khilel’s scratched and swollen feet hinted that they had had to hike through thorny underbrush on the other side of the channel to get to their boat. After taking the photo, Mr. Khilel made three phone calls. “Allahu akbar,” he crowed to the first person. “Mama,” he explained, laughing joyfully. The next call was to his best friend. The third was to a friend in Kos, who had made the same journey by boat from the Bodrum peninsula in Turkey a few days earlier — Ayman Almotlak, a teacher of Arabic. Mr. Almotlak instructed the two young men to meet him at a cafe near the medieval fortress, less than a mile from where they had washed up. Image One migrant helping another shave early Thursday on the island of Kos, Greece, as they wait to be registered at a police station. Credit Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press At the cafe, another friend, Nour Hamad, a veterinarian, explained why they had made the journey. “We lost everything in Syria ,” Mr. Hamad said. Mr. Khilel said something, and Mr. Almotlak translated: “My friend says he lost his humanity.” On Wednesday, five days after he reached the beach, Mr. Khilel sent a reporter two photographs and a brief voice message. It said, “I am in Macedonia.” His timing may have been lucky. On Thursday, Macedonia declared a state of emergency and said it was tightening security on its normally porous border with Greece, stranding thousands of migrants who are trying to move north to more prosperous European countries. Traveling With Dignity On Kos, the clean white tables and chairs of a seaside cafe overlook a small yachting marina, and a few miles away across the blue Aegean waters, the whitewashed houses of Bodrum can be seen sparkling in the sun. In between are a new addition to the scene this summer: the tents, clotheslines and playing children belonging to thousands of refugees who have fled destitution and war. A group of elderly Greek men in crisp shirts sipping coffee at the cafe could be overheard saying that the Greeks, too, were once refugees. “But we always traveled with dignity,” one added. Dignity, or axioprepeia in Greek, is the word of the hour in Greece. The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, frequently used it as a battle cry against the austerity demands of eurozone creditors. But it seems to have a special resonance here, where the promise and the reality of modern Europe meet. Salvage Operations A peculiar industry has sprung up on the island: salvaging the migrant boats. Every morning, a small group of enterprising Greek men cruise the beaches in jeeps, picking up the punctured dinghies, the abandoned motors, the discarded inner tubes and life jackets. Video Over 1,000 migrants mainly fleeing the Syrian war are being held in the area as the police try to contain the influx of people arriving. Credit Credit Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters One of them is Grigoris, 72, who rides barefoot across the beaches at 5 a.m. in his open jeep. He specializes in life jackets, and every morning he collects a pile of them, as hundreds more migrants arrive in Kos. The jackets generally do not meet European Union standards, so they cannot be legally reused in Greece, he said; instead, he removes the foam from them and turns them into reflective vests, which he sells or gives away. “I do this just to keep busy,” Grigoris said. “Anything illegal, I like.” In his youth he was an itinerant acrobat, he says, traveling as far as Brazil to perform. Now his bare feet are hard enough to walk on glass, he says. He lives on the produce he grows in his garden, while collecting antiques, and now life jackets. He is proud of his cunning. “People like me, we are not educated,” he said. “But we are more intelligent than many educated people.” Common Ground Dealing with the onslaught of migrants has forced the Greeks, who could be excused for being consumed with their own country’s never-ending economic crisis , into a strange kind of double-think. On the one hand, their fundamental hospitality comes out, and they want to help. On the other, they see the flood of migrants as detrimental to tourism and their own economic interests. In public they express compassion; in private, they are very often angry and resentful. In this resentment, Turks and Greeks, enemies for centuries, find common ground. In Bodrum on the Turkish side of the channel, a tour guide and a restaurant waiter ask a visitor whether Kos is overrun with migrants. Yes, they are told, the influx already exceeds 20 percent of the island’s population of about 33,000. That is nothing, the Turks reply. Turkey has nearly two million refugees on its hands just from the Syrian civil war, more than any other country. Priority for Syrians Last Friday, three days after a near riot in a stadium on Kos where migrants were being held , a giant ferry that once cruised between Athens and Crete docked at the island. The ferry was pressed into service as a floating processing center, dormitory and refectory. The hope is that it will take some of the migrants off the streets and beaches of Kos, where they have been camping out while waiting for papers that would allow them to move legally inside Greece . The Global Refugee Crisis, Region by Region In the latest crisis, tens of thousands are racing to Hungary before a border fence is finished. Mayor George Kiritsis of Kos announced that Syrian migrants would be given first priority. Syrians receive preferential treatment in many ways, because the Greeks consider them most likely to be actual war refugees rather than economic migrants. Migrants were told to assemble at midnight Saturday to board the boat. Several hundred men, women and children milled anxiously at the dock. A man brought a feverish baby to the Coast Guard officers providing security for the ferry, and was told to take the child to a hospital instead. The Syrians in the crowd began complaining that many of those assembled at the boat were not Syrian. “Passports!” the Greek authorities demanded, in English. When most of the crowd did not seem to understand, they called for refugees who understood English and Arabic to step forward and translate for the rest. Christian Salloum, a Syrian in a new blue and white souvenir Kos cap, volunteered. Mr. Salloum, who said he had worked as a journalist before fleeing Syria, organized the waiting Syrians into two lines, one for those who had already registered with the authorities and the other for those who had not. A group of men suddenly started jumping up and down, chanting and clapping in protest that they were not being allowed onto the ferry. “They are saying, ‘We are Iraqis,’ ” Mr. Salloum explained. The disturbance passed, and the Syrians began boarding the ship. Asked about his hat, Mr. Salloum said he had gotten it to remember Kos. “It’s a nice place, but we don’t have the heart to enjoy it,” he said. “For us, it’s a road. I hope someday to come here not being a refugee.”

Middle East and Africa Migrant Crisis,European Migrant Crisis


Clijsters and Federer Win First-Round U.S. Open Matches

Abstract: Kim Clijsters , once the world’s No. 1 player, does not favor the word comeback to describe her return to professional tennis after a two-year absence. She considers what she is doing now as tackling a second career, mixing tennis with motherhood to create for herself a fresh start in a sport that once wore her down with injuries. Roger Federer , the men’s No. 1 player, has mixed in fatherhood without missing a practice session. He laughs at the idea that this year is any sort of comeback because in 2008 he fell all the way — gasp — to No. 2. Clijsters and Federer brought their vastly different experiences to Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday but had similarly easy first-round matches at the United States Open. Clijsters looked rejuvenated in a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Viktoriya Kutuzova of Ukraine, and Federer only barely ruffled in a 6-1, 6-3, 7-5 victory over the 18-year-old American Devin Britton. “It was a good start to the tournament for me,” Federer said. “It was a tricky match for me, playing a guy who’s got absolutely nothing to lose. I’m here as a five-time defending champion.” But as Federer rolls into what must feel like home at the National Tennis Center, where he has not lost a match since 2003, Clijsters came in trying to unravel the mystery of how she will do after a two-year absence. She retired in 2007, nagged by chronic injuries and the desire to start a family with her husband, Brian Lynch. Now that their daughter, Jada, is 18 months old, Clijsters decided a few months ago it was time for another try. Federer arrived here coming off victories in the last two Grand Slam events, the French Open and Wimbledon, and with new twin daughters in tow. They were born in late July, with his wife, Mirka, doing the hard part and Federer playing the support role. He talks glowingly about combining fatherhood with his career, which did not miss a beat. Britton took a service game off Federer in the second and third sets, but Federer broke back immediately both times and turned the challenge into something only a little more than a nuisance. The last time Federer was beaten in the Open was by David Nalbandian in a fourth-round match in 2003. Britton was unlikely to be the next one to do it. He won the N.C.A.A. singles title in the spring as an unseeded freshman at the University of Mississippi. He signed a pro contract this summer. “My goal was not to get crushed, and make it interesting for a little while out there,” Britton said. “It was fun for a little while.” Now 26, Clijsters, who is from Belgium, has many supporters here, and Open officials were eager to give her a wild card. She was the 2005 champion, a well-liked personality in a women’s game that has been wanting for more of those since she stepped away. And she gives the tournament a comeback story to follow, whether she considers it one or not. “Little more nervous than usual,” Clijsters said. “It’s a very special court to me, but I really enjoyed it. I felt really good out there.” Her match was the first of the day, and of the tournament, and Clijsters was greeted by a crowd of 2,000 or so when she stepped onto the court into swirling breezes. The crowd grew as she dominated the match, which took 58 minutes, as did her confidence. She said the experience brought back a flood of good memories of her “first” career here, where she won her only Grand Slam title. “Obviously, the situation was a lot different then, but you kind of get the whole feeling for it again,” Clijsters said. “I remember just driving up here this morning, just seeing the court and everything. The same memories come back. But it’s nice. I mean, I’m glad that I have those memories.” Clijsters beat four top-20 players in the two tournaments she entered this summer, and her two losses came to No. 1 Dinara Safina and to No. 4 Jelena Jankovic. Because she is a wild card, she is unseeded. Up next is 14th-seeded Marion Bartoli of France, whom Clijsters beat in straight sets in the first round of the Cincinnati Open in early August. Perhaps the most entertaining match of the day came in Louis Armstrong Stadium when John Isner outlasted Victor Hanescu of Romania, the No. 28 seed, 6-1, 7-6 (14), 7-6 (5). Isner, a big-serving American, made a splash here two years ago when he was just out of college, advancing to the third round and taking a set from Federer with the Ashe Stadium crowd cheering wildly for him. This match was nowhere near that magnitude, but was a challenge for Isner nonetheless. He is bouncing back from a bout with mononucleosis. He was taxed by the 30-point tie breaker but fought off 10 set points by Hanescu to win it on an excellent serve-and-volley play. Serena Williams, the No. 2 seed, made quick work of her first-round match against her fellow American Alexa Glatch in a 6-4, 6-1 victory on the Ashe Stadium court. The men’s No. 12 seed, Robin Soderling of Sweden, a French Open finalist this year, needed four sets to beat Albert Montañés of Spain, 6-1, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4. The No. 8 seed, Nikolay Davydenko of Russia, won, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, over Dieter Kindlmann of Germany.

Tennis
Clijsters Kim
United States Open (Tennis)
Federer Roger


Politics Seen in Cuban Accusations of Military Plot by Miami Men

Abstract: MIAMI — There was a time not all that long ago that Santiago Alvarez, a Miami developer, fantasized about swinging an automatic weapon over his shoulder and heading back to Cuba to incite an uprising. His criminal record shows he did a bit more than daydream. A 30-month federal prison stint for illegally possessing a cache of weapons behind him, the 72-year-old Mr. Alvarez is among a small group of older Cuban exile activists who the Castro government believes are still plotting its demise. He and six other Miami men were accused by Cuban officials Wednesday of plotting a violent attack on military installations in Cuba with the hopes of toppling the Communist government. Mr. Alvarez denies any involvement in the alleged plot. Some others here raised questions about how much the case is about crime and how much is about politics. Four of the men are in custody in Havana in connection with an episode that to Mr. Alvarez and others has the feel of something more from the past than the present. “I wish I could get a rifle and fight the dictatorship, but that is not realistic,” he said on Thursday. “We cannot live in the past.” Fifty-five years after Fidel Castro won an armed rebellion of his own and a week after Washington again kept Cuba on its short list of state sponsors of terrorism , the Cuban government publicly announced that violent plots persist. Cuba-watchers said the case was hard to separate from political theater, particularly because the announcement came on the heels of a visit by four members of Congress to see Alan Gross, an American imprisoned for illegally taking satellite gear to Cuba. With his case on the diplomatic forefront and Cuba still pushing for the release of three Cuban agents jailed in the United States, experts say Havana is likely to use the latest arrests for its diplomatic benefit. Although Miami was long the birthplace of conspiracies to overthrow the Castros, experts say most aging exiles have embraced nonviolent avenues toward democracy. “I just don’t see it,” said Andy S. Gomez, a Cuba expert, who retired last year from the University of Miami and who voiced skepticism about the charges. “There are some old-timers that believe the only way to topple the regime is by doing these activities, but over the years those numbers have decreased to really nothing.” A statement from the Interior Ministry published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Wednesday said that on April 26 four Miami residents “of Cuban origin” were arrested on terrorism-related charges. The men, whom the statement identified as José Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodríguez González, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Félix Monzón Álvarez, reportedly admitted that they had planned to attack military installations and “promote violent actions.” The men sought to break into a military unit and kill soldiers and officers, according to Juventud Rebelde, another state-run newspaper. “Toward this end, three of the individuals had made several trips to the island, since mid-2013, to study and practice the execution of their plans,” the statement from the Interior Ministry said. The suspects in custody said Santiago Alvarez and two other men in their 70s had helped hatch the plan, the government statement reported. Also implicated were Dr. Manuel Alzugaray, an orthopedist who runs an international medical humanitarian organization in Miami, and Osvaldo Mitat, Mr. Alvarez’s co-defendant in a 2006 weapons-possession case . “Osvaldo and I meet every once and a while and drink coffee, but there has been no conspiracy going on between us for years,” Mr. Alvarez said, adding that he had never met the men arrested in Havana. “Some people are saying these guys are infiltrators. To me, these people are real. I think they either got misguided or wrong advice or they came up with the wrong idea.” Little is known about the men who were arrested. Florida corporate records show that in 2009, Mr. Pacheco, 31, founded an organization called the Cuban Liberation Force. “The purpose of this corporation, under the Human Rights Act, is to help the people in Cuba to reconquer their democracy and lost liberties,” the founders wrote by hand in the state records. Attempts to reach their families were unsuccessful. The State Department declined to comment. “I don’t know these people,” Dr. Alzugaray said. “The Cuban government writes something in a controlled Communist fashion, and it resonates around the world. They have done tremendous propaganda here.” Dr. Alzugaray is the founder of the Miami Medical Team, an organization that provides medical assistance internationally. In the 1980s, the group went to Nicaragua to help those wounded fighting the leftist Sandinista government. The Cuban government has accused Mr. Alvarez of terrorist activities before. Mr. Alvarez is known as a benefactor of Luis Posada Carriles, a former C.I.A. operative linked to both the downing of a Venezuelan airliner and a string of hotel bombings in Havana in the 1990s. Mr. Posada was arrested in Panama 14 years ago on allegations that he planned to assassinate Fidel Castro at a presidential summit meeting, and the Cuban government said at the time that Mr. Alvarez was a mastermind of the operation. The Cuban government later released recordings of him talking to an informant discussing placing a bomb in the famed Tropicana nightclub. In 2005, federal agents raided an apartment of his and found five machine guns and a grenade launcher. Mr. Alvarez said the weapons were C.I.A. relics, but were not going to be used in the plots he had hatched with senior Cuban military officers who planned to conspire against the government.


Manchester City’s 6 Goals Defeat Arsenal

Abstract: Arsenal felt the full force of Manchester City’s attack in a 6-3 loss Saturday that cut its lead over Chelsea in England’s Premier League to 2 points. Chelsea pounced on Arsenal’s loss at Etihad Stadium by edging Crystal Palace, 2-1, at home, with Ramires scoring the winner to lift Chelsea provisionally into second place. What had been the tightest defense in the league was dismantled in City’s eighth straight home win, which featured goals by Fernandinho (two), Sergio Aguero, Alvaro Negredo, David Silva and Yaya Toure. City, which is a point behind Chelsea in third, has scored 35 goals in eight home matches. In other games, Everton brushed past Fulham, 4-1; Newcastle drew, 1-1, with Southampton; Cardiff beat West Bromwich Albion, 1-0; and there were 0-0 draws for West Ham-Sunderland and Hull-Stoke. BAYERN EXTENDS STREAK Bayern Munich stretched its unbeaten Bundesliga run to 41 games with a 3-1 home win over Hamburg SV to ensure it goes into the winter break as league leaders. Bayern last lost in the Bundesliga in October 2012. Bayern clinched the unofficial autumn championship at the season’s halfway mark to move to 7 points ahead with 44 points from 16 matches, having won 14 and drawn two, and yielded only 8 goals while scoring 42. (REUTERS) TIE FOR REAL MADRID Ten-man Real Madrid fought back to draw, 2-2, at 10-man Osasuna. Osasuna’s Oriol Riera headed in two goals, and Real Madrid’s Isco Alarcon scored before halftime and passed for Pepe to head one home in the 80th minute. (AP) PARIS ST.-GERMAIN WINS Paris St.-Germain defeated Rennes, 3-1, to consolidate its top spot in the French league. Thiago Motta scored the opening goal in the 19th minute before Zlatan Ibrahimovic recorded his 14th league goal by converting a penalty in the 52nd. (AP) CHINESE TEAM ADVANCES Guangzhou Evergrande of China beat the Egyptian team Al-Ahly, 2-0, in the Club World Cup in Agadir, Morocco, to set up a semifinal match against tournament favored Bayern Munich. Guangzhou, the winner of the Asian Champions League, will play the European champion Bayern on Tuesday. (AP) FIFTH WORKER DIES A construction worker died after falling off the roof of the Arena Amazônia in Manaus, Brazil, FIFA and the World Cup organizing committee said. The worker, Marcleudo de Melo Ferreira, was the fifth to die in the construction of Brazil’s 12 World Cup stadiums. His death heightened concerns about worker safety. Six stadiums are to be completed by April, and some are behind schedule. (REUTERS)

Premier League
Manchester City Soccer Team
Chelsea Soccer Team
Soccer
Arsenal Soccer Team