In the Crash of Bull Horns, Echoes of a Desert Land of Old

Abstract: AL FUJAYRAH, United Arab Emirates — When the fight the audience had been waiting for arrived, a hulking black bull named Rocket, whose horns had been filed to sharp points, strutted into the dirt lot used for this city’s bullfights. Nearby, his opponent, an equally massive bull, scraped up clouds of dust with a front hoof and snorted. His name had been chosen, like those of professional wrestlers, to project strength and inspire fear. His owner called him Satan. At the judges’ signal, the bulls charged, locking horns and trying to push each other backward in a competition that has entertained crowds and given bragging rights to bull owners along the Gulf of Oman for as long as people here can remember. In Arabic, they call it “bull wrestling.” Others refer to it as “bull butting” to differentiate it from the bull-versus-matador showdowns famous in Spain and elsewhere, whose appeal is not understood here. “It’s crazy they would let a man battle a beast,” said Nasser Badr Abdulla, a local match organizer. “He could get killed.” As if to pre-empt attacks from animal rights groups, Mr. Abdulla said the worst injuries that befell the bulls normally required only a few stitches. “Here it’s the bulls that have five-star lives,” he said. “They fight, and then we take them back to the farm for the best food.” The bull face-offs in Al Fujayrah, a sleepy city on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, are one of the cultural holdovers from the time before this patch of rocks and sand jutting into the Persian Gulf became a country in 1971. Before then, most people herded camels and sheep in the desert and fished or raised dates and other crops along the coast. The development since has been rapid, as oil wealth and international business have turned Dubai and Abu Dhabi into skyscraper-lined hubs and given Emiratis a standard of living on par with Westerners’. But echoes of the past remain. Crowds still pack camel races outside Abu Dhabi, although robots have done the riding since the country stepped up a ban on child jockeys in 2005, and the men of Al Fujayrah still pit bull against bull. On a recent Friday afternoon, trailers bearing immense bulls arrived at the dirt lot near the city’s oceanfront following afternoon prayers. The fighters bore names like the Murderer, Blackie, Spicy, Dynamite and Euro, and they bellowed as their owners hitched them near the lot and exchanged prefight banter. “This one you see here is the strongest one in the ring,” said Yazid al-Naimi, 25, pointing his chin at Rocket, his family’s prize bull, and raising his eyebrows. “Those horns are his weapons.” Since his family bought the bull two years ago, Rocket had been on the diet and workout schedule of a prizefighter, dining on grass, corn, dates and dried fish and walking about a mile a day, sometimes on the beach or in the ocean for extra resistance, Mr. Naimi said. Sometimes, he went swimming. Other owners reported similar regimens, though they all said it was impossible to teach a bull to fight. He either knows how or doesn’t. “There are some people who have the instinct to be scared and some who don’t,” said Salem Kalbani, the owner of Satan. “It’s the same with bulls.” Image The fights have long entertained crowds and given bragging rights to the bulls’ owners. Credit Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times No prizes are given for winning, but their owners do it for other reasons. “It’s all about reputation,” Mr. Kalbani said. “If you win, people will talk about your farm and say it has the strongest bulls.” But winning carries a different sort of value as well. A bull bought for $20,000 can sell for twice as much after a victory, or half as much after a loss. “Your pocket is the biggest loser if you own a bull,” said Hassan Ali Hassan, 58, who watches the fights but owns no bulls. You can buy a bull for $13,000, he said, “and then he gets wounded or loses a fight and there goes his reputation and all your money.” When the judges blew the siren for the first match, a few hundred spectators in plastic chairs and on the dirt watched as two bulls were led in. Vendors plied the crowd with soft drinks and chips. There were no women in sight. The handlers tried to get the bulls to face off, but one kept turning away, so the judges declared his opponent victorious. The next two bulls came in, met each other’s stare and rammed their foreheads together. One handler smacked his bull’s rump with a stick, and the bull pushed his opponent sideways, earning a victory. About 60 bulls were registered, and each would get one fight. Normal matches went on for two minutes before the judges called time and a dozen men in white robes and bare feet rushed in to pull the bulls apart. Then the judges picked a winner or declared a draw. It is unclear how old the tradition is, though some suspect it started during the Portuguese colonization of the Omani coast in the 16th century. Al Fujayrah’s old men watched the fights growing up, but they say the season was shorter and the bulls also worked, powering water wheels for irrigation — a far cry from today. “Our old local bulls used to work like slaves all day and then be used for entertainment,” said Abdulrahman al-Sharif, 60, a spectator and bull owner. “Now the bulls are pampered and live in luxury.” Organizers recalled one bull that died after a fight, but they said it was decades ago. So was the time a spectator was gored and ended up in intensive care. A few years ago, the city fenced in the lot to protect spectators, though many sit inside to be closer to the action. Owners seeking to raise their bulls’ profiles — and value — can challenge others, which is how Satan ended up facing Rocket in the featured showdown of the day. The crowd yelled as the bulls’ horns met, but Rocket suddenly turned and made a run for it, causing the spectators to leap from their chairs and cheer the winner. While the handlers led the bulls out, a fight erupted in the crowd, and men rushed over to break it up. An organizer got on the bullhorn and ended the event, telling everyone to go home. As Mr. Kalbani led Satan back to his truck, he said there was no way to know why one bull had beat the other. “It’s all in the instincts,” he said. Rocket’s defeat set off a crisis among his owners. One brother said the bull was so worthless that he should be slaughtered and given to the poor. The father suggested a dignified retirement. Mr. Naimi, who had brought the bull out to fight, wondered what had gone wrong. Was it the heat? A sharp blow to the head in a previous bout? “In the end, they are animals, and you never know what to expect,” he said with a shrug. “Nobody likes a loser.”

United Arab Emirates
Bullfighting
Dubai
Abu Dhabi
Cattle


Big East Presidents to Discuss Possible New Members

Abstract: The inevitable defection of Texas Christian to the Big 12 conference has left the Big East with just six members in football and a sense of uncertainly about its future in that sport. The league’s presidents will be holding a conference call on Friday morning to discuss expansion possibilities. While nothing is guaranteed, three people with knowledge of the call have indicated that invitations to new members will be discussed and could be decided on the call. The Big East is staggering right now, as only Louisville, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Rutgers, Connecticut and South Florida remain in football. The league had appeared determined to lure Air Force and Navy, but those possibilities diminished with the instability that came with the news of T.C.U.’s departure to the Big 12. But East Carolina, Central Florida and Temple are all clamoring for a spot, and that could strengthen the league’s dwindling numbers. The Big East lost both Syracuse and Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast Conference last month.

Big 12 Conference
College Athletics
Big East Conference
Texas Christian University


Big Boasts Against Huskies Lead to Hard Falls Before Them

Abstract: BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Before Duquesne’s round-of-32 game against Connecticut in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament, the Dukes bluntly said they would not be distracted by the illustrious UConn aura. They believed that the Huskies, then 33-0 and winners of 70 games in a row, were in fact beatable. Word of the chirping reached the UConn locker room. On Monday, UConn responded by throttling Duquesne, 97-51. Mississippi State was wise enough to not make any predictions about beating the Huskies before their round-of-16 matchup in the Bridgeport Regional, which may have come as a disappointment to the UConn faithful. Throughout this season, when teams have been emboldened to publicly challenge UConn’s status, the Huskies have thrived. The lack of bulletin board material did not slow top-seeded Connecticut on Saturday, as they dominated fifth-seeded Mississippi State , 98-38, at Webster Bank Arena. Breanna Stewart had 22 points, 14 rebounds and 5 blocks in 25 minutes. Katie Lou Samuelson added 21 points for the Huskies. In one minor moment of boastfulness on Friday, Mississippi State’s leading scorer, Victoria Vivians, said she thought the Bulldogs could win without her offensive contributions by getting defensive stops in transition. Image Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma embracing seniors Moriah Jefferson, left, and Stewart. Credit Jessica Hill/Associated Press That proved to be false. Vivians shot 3 for 15 from the field and UConn spent a majority of the afternoon freely sprinting up the court for uncontested layups, causing Mississippi State Coach Vic Schaefer to compare them to “piranhas on a roast.” “We’re always like, Why are you lighting a fire?” Kia Nurse, a sophomore guard for UConn, said on Friday, adding: “We’ve heard the ‘We’re pretty beatable’ comment a couple of times; it’s like a repetitive comment, for some reason. We’re confident in what we do and we understand that we’re not invincible, but at the same time we’re coming out every single time focused and ready to go and with the intent of winning that game.” Last weekend, UConn was taken aback when Duquesne guard Deva’Nyar Workman said that UConn was not “superhuman” and that she would not “get caught up in their greatness.” At the American Athletic Conference tournament this month, South Florida’s Courtney Williams also claimed the Huskies were not unbeatable. The Bulls went 0-3 against the Huskies this season, including a 77-51 loss in the conference tournament championship game. “When we hear things like that, we’re like, ‘Let’s show them who’s really beatable,’ so we go out there and play extra hard and show them why we’re here and why we’re so successful,” said Saniya Chong, a junior guard for the Huskies. Occasionally, during timeout huddles or pregame shoot-arounds, players will bring up an opponent’s recent comments, as a motivational tactic. UConn Coach Geno Auriemma is also a fan of teams that publicly challenge the Huskies. “I think that forces you to be better that night as opposed to a team that comes in and goes, ‘You know what, we got nothing to lose; we’re just going to go play the game and we’re leaving after the game when we lose by 50,’” Auriemma said. “So nobody wants to play a team like that.” Entering the game, Schaefer said the Bulldogs could build off its battles in the Southeastern Conference, which included two wins over Tennessee. But he said he would not provide a grandiose motivational speech about upsetting Connecticut. “You know, kids are pretty smart,” Schaefer said on Friday. “So I think you can say it, but they’re probably going to look at me with crossed eyes and go, ‘Huh?’ I think everybody in the country and the world that has a heartbeat understands what you’re dealing with, 71 games in a row.” With Saturday’s win, UConn extended its unbeaten streak to 72, and 35 this season. Despite the absence of taunts, Schaefer said the Huskies received even more motivation after two No. 1 seeds — South Carolina and Notre Dame — both fell on Friday. “I thought it worked against us,” Schaefer said. “I didn’t think it would work for me. I felt like this is the worst thing that could have happened.” UConn opened the game on a 13-0 run. It led 32-4 after one quarter and 61-12 at halftime. Shooting almost 63 percent from the field for the afternoon, the Huskies led by as many as 68 points in the fourth quarter. Mississippi State missed all 14 of its 3-point attempts. Those stats create a strong case for UConn’s invincibility. Before Saturday’s game, Auriemma was the only person actually willing to admit that the Huskies could be taken down. “I’m thinking, like, everybody should say that because it’s true,” Auriemma said. “I think every team is beatable, and I think it’s good when you play a team that thinks if we do A, B, and C, we’re going to win this game.” After Saturday’s masterful performance, Schaefer disagreed. “Today it felt like I was playing a W.N.B.A. team,” Schaefer said. “That team right there probably finishes — I don’t know what team in the league they can’t compete with. “They play like they play today, there’s not anybody in the country that can beat them.”

College basketball
NCAA Women's Basketball
University of Connecticut


Somali Insurgents Detain Soccer Fans

Abstract: MOGADISHU, Somalia — As South Africa proudly held the continent’s first World Cup, a Somali insurgent group, Hizbul Islam, detained dozens of fans for watching the tournament in recent days south of Somalia ’s capital, residents said. “They have arrested 25 people on Saturday and Sunday nights from their homes during World Cup games on television screens,” said Abdulle Mayow, a resident in Afgooye. “They are still in prison. We are really scared.” In some rebel-held areas, Somali soccer fans, mindful of the insurgents’ threats, have been compelled to watch the games in a clandestine manner, using makeshift satellite dishes or tuning in to local FM televisions. “Its really horrible; you cannot even do anything in your home,” Mr. Mayow said. New reports that two people had been killed for violating the insurgents’ ban on watching soccer could not be independently verified, but the Somali Information Ministry denounced the rebel restrictions, saying, “The Somali people must be allowed to watch the World Cup football.” Unlike in the rebel-held areas, a number of cinemas have been opened in government-controlled territory to show movies and the soccer games at a very low price. Some analysts say the insurgents may be particularly motivated to block Somalis from playing or watching the games because it could divert the young militia recruits from going to the front lines. Other forms of daily life have been deemed un-Islamic by insurgent groups and therefore off limits. Al Shabab , Somalia’s most powerful Islamist insurgent group, outlawed school bells in a southern town in April after deciding that they were reminiscent of church bells. Similarly, Hizbul Islam recently warned radio stations to stop playing music or face “serious consequences ,” forcing them to introduce their daily programs with an odd assortment of sounds: the roar of an engine, a car horn, animal noises and the sound of water flowing. Al Shabab and Hizbul Islam had already outlawed playing soccer games, bras and forms of entertainment like watching soccer games and movies. Insurgents tossed a grenade into a crowded movie theater and killed four people in Merka, about 55 miles outside Mogadishu, in 2008, apparently in an attempt to shut it down.

Somalia
Hizbul Islam
Islam
World Cup 2010 (Soccer)
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
Al-Shabab


Malaysia Airlines Plane Leaves Trail of Debris

Abstract: GRABOVO, Ukraine — Incongruously, given that the plane fell from more than 30,000 feet, many of the bodies strewn about in the smoldering wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were largely intact. A woman in a black sweater lay on her back, blood streaming from her face, her left arm raised as if signaling someone. Another victim, naked except for a black bra, lay on the field, her gray hair mixing with the green grass, one leg broken and her body torn. Residents spoke of bodies falling from the sky, looking like rags or clumps of ash, before the plane came to a jolting rest in a large wheat field dotted with purple flowers and Queen Anne’s lace, having trailed debris over several miles of sparsely populated Ukrainian farmland. “It was horrible,” said a separatist rebel who was part of the rescue crew and would give only his first name, Sergei. “We were in shock.” Image The wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Debris trailed over miles of sparsely populated Ukrainian farmland on Thursday. Credit Alyona Zykina/European Pressphoto Agency The road to the crash site in eastern Ukraine, not far from the Russian border, was lined with fire engines and other emergency vehicles. Separatist militiamen, plentiful in this rebel-controlled territory, urged journalists to take photographs. There were no houses in the immediate vicinity. The only visible structure was a poultry operation with long white coops in the distance. Rescue workers had already tied small white strips of cloth to tree branches along the debris path to mark the locations of the bodies. As darkness descended on the field, the workers gathered in throngs near a line of ambulances and rescue cars. Dogs barked in the distance, and the air smelled bitter. Pieces of the plane were scattered across the road and field: a seat back with its television display cracked; a giant white piece of the tail with the plane’s insignia emblazoned on it, and a jagged edge where it tore off from the plane. One televised image showed a travel guide for Bali, almost untouched. Did You Know Someone on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17? Times journalists would like to learn more about the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. A strange detail marked what looked like part of a wing, a hole suggesting a burst of metal pushed outward. To an untrained eye, it was unclear whether the damage had been done by ordnance or some other, unknown forces on the way down. Many of the victims were still wearing their seatbelts, attached to pieces of the plane. One man, still in his socks but without pants, lay in the field, his right arm placed on his stomach as if in repose. Others had personal belongings nearby. A young man in blue shorts, wearing red Nike sneakers but no pants, lay with his arms and legs splayed outward, an iPhone by his side. Dutch belongings were scattered through the grass: a pink children’s book; a parking ticket picked up by a man named Hans van den Hende; a book of stickers. Children’s playing cards were sprinkled near the road. Mundane items of daily life covered the grass. Toiletries spilled out of overnight bags. Nivea cream. A razor. White slippers. A glass bottle of cologne. A maxi pad lay in the grass. A soft blue fuzzy blanket spilling from a red suitcase was caught on a sharp metal pole. A bicycle lay in the grass, practically intact. Video After a Malaysia Airlines jet crashed in Ukraine on Thursday, several amateur videos were posted online. The area was also covered in feathers from brown chickens. There were two parrots, one of them lifting its wing as if waving, and a peacock. The closest village was Grabovo, a small coal-mining town whose residents had been among the first to see the plane. Oleg Georgievich, 40, a miner who is also fighting with the insurgency here, said he had heard noises shortly after 4 p.m. and thought the town was being bombed. Aircraft have been flying over daily, he said, and have bombed neighboring villages on a number of occasions. He heard a sound like a whistle, then walked onto his balcony on the fifth floor and saw something falling from the sky. He later understood it was part of the plane’s fuselage. Then he saw things that looked like pieces of cloth coming fast toward the earth. They were bodies, many with their clothes torn off. Rescue workers said they counted many children. A boy who looked to be around 10 lay on his side in the grass in a red T-shirt that read “Don’t Panic.” Maps of the Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 A Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on July 17. A rescue worker staffing a white table, who would give only his first name, Alexei, said the area of the crash was 10 to 15 square kilometers — about four to six square miles —in a rectangle that he had marked in red pen in crosshatching on a map. He said that parts of the plane were scattered over the entire area and that the pilot had not tried to land in the field: The plane appeared to have been torn apart in the sky. “It fell down in pieces,” he said, adding that rescue workers numbered about 60 and were setting up tents to gather the dead. Oleg Georgievich, the coal miner, who would give only his first name and patronymic, not his last name, said he was afraid of what the tragedy would bring. Ukraine has been accusing Russia and the rebels of shooting down its planes , and he said he did not think this situation would be any different. “Tomorrow, the Ukrainians are going to say that I shot this plane down with my gun,” he said, standing in the darkness. “Look at me. I’m in sneakers; I have no flak jacket. You want to know what year it was made?” He looked at a journalist. The date stamped on the gun was 1953.

Ukraine
Russia
Malaysia Airlines 17
Plane Crashes and Missing Planes
Fatalities,casualties
Missiles and Missile Defense


New Online Donor Site Is Shaded Green

Abstract: GlobalGiving, the online system through which garden-variety donors can give money to support international charitable projects, is going green. On Friday the group will introduce a new Web site, GlobalGiving Green, listing 25 projects that it has determined entail minimal greenhouse gas emissions and work in ways that have a positive impact on climate change . “In the last six months to a year, there has been an amazing jump in the level of consumer awareness of green issues, and consumers are donors,” said Dennis Whittle, co-founder and chief executive of GlobalGiving. Mr. Whittle, a former World Bank official, said the world’s lesser developed countries produced more greenhouse gases than wealthier nations. “Right now,” he said, “developing countries face a terrible dilemma: to continue developing and allow global warming to accelerate, or to stop their development and growth in the interests of the environment. We hope GlobalGiving Green will begin to help those countries find ways to get on a development path that’s carbon efficient.” Using money provided by the Packard Foundation, GlobalGiving hired EcoSecurities Consulting, a company that develops carbon trading programs intended to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to develop a scoring system gauging a charitable project’s impact on the environment. All 25 of the projects selected help limit those emissions in some way, the group says, and each also offers broader environmental benefits as well as economic and social benefits. One high-scoring project works to bring fuel-efficient stoves to homes in Honduras, where indoor smoke inhalation is a major factor in poor health. “These stoves, which cost $250, reduce smoke inhalation and thus carbon emissions,” Mr. Whittle said. “In doing that, they help improve maternal health and thus family health, and because the stoves are built locally, they have economic benefits as well.” Timothy N. Ogden, editor of Philanthropy Action, an online journal for donors, said the strategy would help distinguish GlobalGiving from other online donation systems, as well as appeal to donors. “One of the big challenges for individual donors is that it isn’t all that clear what any one person can do to contribute to environmental efforts,” Mr. Ogden said. “What they hear about what’s happening in that arena largely involves public policy and governments, so it’s hard for a donor to feel like he or she alone can have an impact.”


Clinton-Sanders Battle in Iowa May Be Decided by O’Malley Supporters

Abstract: DES MOINES — Martin O’Malley has rarely broken above 5 percent in Iowa polls, but on caucus night he could be the most popular person in the room — or, rather, his supporters will be, as activists for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders desperately try to scoop them up. The arcane rules of Iowa’s Democratic caucuses mean that most O’Malley supporters will be ruled “nonviable” if he does not get 15 percent support at a caucus; his supporters will then be up for grabs by another candidate. With polls showing the race between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders narrowing to a near tie, O’Malley supporters, along with attendees who enter their neighborhood caucuses undecided, could swing the results. “The most coveted person in Iowa politics is an undecided person or the O’Malley nonviable folks,” said Kevin Geiken, a Democratic strategist in the state. Both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns, which have spoken to nearly every potential caucusgoer in the state by now, know who is supporting Mr. O’Malley and, more important, who their second choice is. After an initial count at each of the 1,681 caucus sites, supporters of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders will get a chance, in an often emotional and chaotic scene, to woo O’Malley supporters if they make up less than 15 percent of the people in the room. “They could certainly have an impact if this race is as close as the polls suggest,” said Grant Woodard, who was an Iowa operative for Mrs. Clinton in 2008. “My experience is that it is mostly a personal-relationship situation in that people will go to whichever corner they see the most faces they recognize.” It is unclear whether Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Sanders has more backing among O’Malley supporters. In interviews, backers of Mr. O’Malley appeared divided, with perhaps a small edge to Mrs. Clinton. 2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results According to the Associated Press, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton have each won enough delegates to claim their party’s nomination for president. “I have a feeling and assumption it’s Hillary,” said Taylor Van De Krol, the Democratic chairman of Jasper County, who has endorsed Mr. O’Malley. Unlike the Republican caucuses, where all votes are counted equally, the Democrats’ Iowa caucuses are more complex. Caucusgoers gather in groups for each candidate during a 30-minute alignment period. If a group does not reach the 15 percent threshold, its members must realign with a different candidate or sit out the final head count. Mr. Geiken, a consultant who trained organizers for both Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Malley on what to expect on caucus night, showed some a video of how a savvy precinct captain for Barack Obama in 2008 coaxed nonviable supporters of Joseph R. Biden Jr. into the Obama corner. The Sanders campaign plans to brief its precinct leaders on ways to appeal to an O’Malley supporter, said Pete D’Alessandro, the Iowa campaign coordinator. For example, if an O’Malley supporter is wearing a pro-environment button, a Sanders supporter would describe the Vermont senator’s opposition to a proposed oil pipeline across Iowa, which Mrs. Clinton has not taken a stand on. Mr. D’Alessandro floated another argument that might be the most potent of all: Supporting Mr. Sanders would lengthen the nominating contest, giving Mr. O’Malley more time in the race to push his causes. “If I was a Martin O’Malley supporter,” he said, “by coming over to the Bernie Sanders group, that elongates the process.” In the end, the arguments that may be the most persuasive with O’Malley supporters are the ones they cited in interviews for rejecting one of the two alternatives. Democrats who said Mr. Sanders was their second choice pointed to Mrs. Clinton’s “baggage” of past scandals . “I think she’ll probably be the nominee, but the opposition is going to pound on her,” said Margery Graves, an O’Malley supporter in Newton, whose second choice is Mr. Sanders. Another O’Malley fan, DaNaye Van De Krol, whose second choice is Mrs. Clinton, questioned Mr. Sanders’s electability. “I don’t think Bernie represents what the Democratic Party is about,” said Ms. Van De Krol, who is the mother of Taylor Van De Krol, the county Democratic chairman. “He has nothing to back up how he’ll accomplish what he says.” The O’Malley campaign, with fewer resources than its rivals, is seeking to maximize turnout in certain precincts to reach viability in as many places as possible. On caucus night, the results reported are not individual votes but a percentage of delegates for each candidate who will go to the state nominating convention. “We’re matching up our support and looking very intelligently at the map,” Mr. O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, said in an interview. “The key is to get as may of your people in the right precincts so you can make threshold or better.” He said polls underestimated his support. “It’s still very dynamic,” he said after standing on a chair to give a speech in Newton, where supporters filled a coffee house. “We’re seeing a big uptick in the number of people filling out commit-to-caucus cards for my candidacy.” In the days before the Feb. 1 caucuses, O’Malley supporters will be getting a lot of love. Good neighborhood organizers for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders “probably know the O’Malley supporters by name,” said Derek Eadon, a Democratic strategist in the state. “On caucus night, if you have a very welcoming corner and there are friendly, recognizable faces, it makes it easier to walk over to that corner,” he said.

Iowa
Hillary Clinton
Democrats
Primaries
2016 Presidential Election
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
Martin J O'Malley


Online Deals for Holiday Shopping: Buyer Beware

Abstract: On Black Friday , Kohl’s offered what looked like a terrific deal on the Jawbone UP24, a stylish fitness-tracking band the retailer ordinarily sells for $130. In honor of that hallowed national day of shopping, Kohl’s was cutting its price on the UP24 by more than 20 percent, to just $100. The Kohl’s price cut was heralded by dozens of websites that compile supposedly stupendous holiday discounts. Wired even included Kohl’s UP24 sale in its list of Top 50 Black Friday deals . There was just one problem: Kohl’s price — as is surprisingly typical — wasn’t much of a deal at all. Every year, the holiday shopping season is hit by a blizzard of apparent discounts. From the week before Thanksgiving to the end of the year, retailers and manufacturers pump out tens of thousands of so-called deals — limited-time, often extravagant offers that they suggest you’d be a fool to miss. Searching for deals online has become an increasingly popular way to navigate the shopping season, according to Google’s data, and this year interest has been higher than ever . But the people who study the holiday discount bonanza say that our knee-jerk reverence for these discounts is misplaced. Image A Black Friday deal from Kohl’s offered the Jawbone UP24 fitness-tracking band for $100, but Best Buy and Amazon were selling it for as little as $80. “What surprised me was how many of these deals were bad,” said Jacqui Cheng, the editor in chief of the product review sites The Wirecutter and The Sweethome . During the holidays, Ms. Cheng turns her entire staff of about 20 writers and editors toward investigating advertised discounts on technology and home goods. “I kind of expected that we would be able to say that 85 percent or 90 percent were bad, but it turns out that almost literally every single one is bad,” Ms. Cheng said. So far this year, The Wirecutter and The Sweethome have researched 54,000 holiday deals. They’ve found that only a bit more than 300 of them — less than 1 percent — are worth your time. “When we find a deal that we think is good, it’s a needle in a haystack,” Ms. Cheng said. “We’re super-excited when that happens.” At Best Buy and Amazon.com, for instance, the UP24 fitness band had been selling for as little as $80 . What’s more, Kohl’s $130 “regular price” wasn’t quite regular. Though that is the manufacturer’s suggested price, the UP24 has been selling online for less than $120 since late summer, later falling as low as $100, according to Camel Camel Camel , an oddly named but useful price-tracking site. Even now, well past Black Friday, it’s easy to find the UP24 for $100, the price that Kohl’s advertised as some kind of limited-time opportunity. The explosion of less-than-stellar deals advertised on the web, a medium that has often been held out as a shopper’s best friend, is a bit surprising. Wasn’t it supposed to liberate us from price gimmicks? Image “The stuff that’s really good is almost never on sale,” said Brian Lam, the founder of The Wirecutter and The Sweethome. He has studied holiday deals for years. Credit Christopher Michel “There was this period when people were saying that the Internet was going to usher in a golden age for consumers, where everyone would start comparison-shopping and no one would pay a penny more than they should,” said William Poundstone, the author of “Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It),” a book about the psychology of pricing. “But we are all busy, distracted, and we have limited time and attention to devote to research, so we all fall victim to these tricks.” What’s more, researchers say, the very prospect of getting a deal clouds our thinking. “I think an important factor here is that when describing or dangling discounts in front of consumers, retailers arouse in consumers an emotional desire, a passion, or at least an impulse to get a bargain,” Robert Schindler, a professor of marketing at the Rutgers University School of Business, wrote in an email. That passion can impair our judgment, sometimes so severely that we press Buy without ever bothering to check if the deal holds up. One of the most common holiday gimmicks is to suggest that an item has been heavily marked down from a “suggested price.” Ms. Cheng pointed to an example at Macy’s, which, last week, was offering a Breville Smart toaster oven for a limited-time sale price of $280, plus an additional 10 percent off if you typed in the offer code FRIEND when you checked out. That would get you the oven for about $252, which Macy’s suggested is a huge discount off the item’s regular price of $417. Except that isn’t the normal sales price. According to Camel Camel Camel, a site that Ms. Cheng advises people to check every time they encounter an online deal, Amazon has been selling the Breville toaster oven for $250 for months. Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, and several other national retailers are also offering it for that price. (This week, Macy’s also changed its sale price to $250 .) Image A Breville Smart toaster So where did Macy’s $417 regular price come from? Julie Strider Fukami, a spokeswoman, said in an email that Macy’s advertised “regular” prices are “based on many different factors, including the cost of the item, overhead, benefits we offer ... as well as our ability to offer the item at a lower price during sale events.” She noted, though, that as Macy’s explains in fine print on its site , “regular” prices may never have resulted in any actual sales. To me, this looks fishy — posting a “regular” price that resulted in potentially zero sales seems like a tactic meant to make you feel like you’re getting a deal, even when Macy’s sale price is actually more expensive than other retailers’ ordinary prices. The Breville is one of the best-rated toaster ovens on the market , which suggests another reason to be skeptical of such a deal. “The stuff that’s really good is almost never on sale,” said Brian Lam, the founder of The Wirecutter and The Sweethome. Mr. Lam has been looking at holiday deals for years, and when he comes upon a genuinely huge discount, he has found that it often comes with a huge catch: The item isn’t very good to begin with, and is usually not worth buying at any price. Consider the 55-inch, ultra-high-definition Samsung television that Best Buy was selling for just $899 on Black Friday. It had been discounted $500 from its original price, and with a promise of a high-resolution, so-called 4K screen , it looked like it could be the deal of the century. (Best Buy has since raised the price to $1,299.) But when The Wirecutter staff looked into that model, they found that the Samsung set had a very bad case of “motion blur,” a common effect in flat-panel displays in which images lose their sharpness when they’re in motion. One review found that the Samsung’s “4K resolution only holds true on a static picture; on a moving image you’d be lucky to get 1K.” Considering that most people like to watch shows with at least a bit of on-screen movement, this low-priced set looked more like a high-priced stinker. The lesson here: When you spot a deal, do your homework. “Assume most deals are not good,” Mr. Lam said. “Don’t get distracted by the razzle-dazzle of double-digit percent off. Figure out what you need, and then do the math. Otherwise you’ll get lost in a sea of apparent discounts that are most likely not good things, or not good prices.”

Retail
Price
Black Friday,Cyber Monday
E Commerce
Sales and Discounts


In Virginia, McDonnell Ends Democrats’ Streak

Abstract: RICHMOND, Va. — Robert F. McDonnell , a Republican and a former state attorney general, won a decisive victory in Virginia’s governor’s race Tuesday, a stark reversal of fortune for Democrats who have held control in Richmond for the past eight years. Mr. McDonnell defeated the Democratic candidate, R. Creigh Deeds, an 18-year state senator from rural Bath County in western Virginia. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Mr. McDonnell had 59 percent of the vote, and Mr. Deeds 41 percent. Republicans cited the victory as a repudiation of the Obama administration and the national Democratic Party’s agenda, especially that of departing Gov. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Nonetheless, exit polls conducted by Edison Research on Tuesday showed that support for Mr. Obama had diminished only slightly in the state since his victory here in 2008. The polls suggested that many of Mr. Obama’s voters stayed home on Tuesday, allowing Mr. McDonnell to win on strong support among white men and independents and among voters who say they are very worried about the direction of the nation’s economy. In Maine, voters rejected a law that allows same-sex marriage , which passed in May. With 84 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, a petition drive to reject the law, begun by conservatives, had the support of 53 percent of voters early Wednesday, pointing toward a stinging defeat for same-sex marriage efforts nationwide. In Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino won an unprecedented fifth term, defeating his fellow Democrat, City Councilman Michael F. Flaherty Jr. It was the toughest re-election fight of Mr. Menino’s career, but he relied on his popularity and an impressive political machine to neutralize arguments that the city needed a change. In Atlanta, Mary Norwood, the front-runner whose success has raised the possibility that the city could elect a white mayor for the first time since 1973, will compete in a Dec. 1 runoff with her closest competitor, Kasim Reed, a black lawyer and former state legislator. Ms. Norwood won 43 percent of Tuesday’s vote, short of the majority needed to win outright. Mr. Reed had 38 percent. Mayor Dave Bing of Detroit, a former basketball star and founder of an auto parts supplier, won election to a full term in the financially-struggling city. The night’s results may mark the city’s long-awaited end to the fallout from a scandal that led to the departure of a mayor and has sent Detroiters to the polls four times since February. In Pittsburgh, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl won a resounding victory for a full term at the city’s helm, having inherited the office in 2006 when the incumbent died. And City Commissioner Tomás Regalado of Miami easily won the race to become the city’s mayor, after promising voters a “back to basics” approach focused on improving city services and reining in developers. In Ohio, voters approved a proposal to allow full-service casinos to be built in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo. While the Virginia race garnered national attention, both candidates tried to focus more on local issues, like jobs, taxes and road improvements. Mr. McDonnell, 55, who went into Election Day with a double-digit lead in the polls, is a social and fiscal conservative, but ran on a more centrist platform that appealed to suburban voters. At the same time, Mr. Deeds, 51, had a difficult time introducing himself to densely populated Northern Virginia. “You have allowed me to represent our vision and aspirations in one of the most pivotal elections in Virginia history,” Mr. McDonnell said in his acceptance speech. “And I will not let you down.” While a sour economy and anxiety over Mr. Obama’s health care proposals presented Mr. Deeds with an uphill fight, the Republicans made inroads with constituencies that Mr. Deeds had hoped he could count on. In recent statewide elections, Democrats have won by securing about 60 percent of the vote in Northern Virginia, mainly the affluent suburbs of Washington. Democrats had hoped that by highlighting Mr. Deeds’s rural downstate roots, they would draw in new voters to build on their strength in the northern part of the state. Mr. McDonnell — though actually quite conservative, opposing abortion rights, gun control and increased taxes — focused on appealing to moderates and independents. His campaign avoided divisive social issues, and instead highlighted his ideas to create jobs, improve the economy, and fix the state’s transportation woes. He regularly emphasized that 90 percent of the legislation he proposed as attorney general passed the General Assembly with strong bipartisan support. Mr. McDonnell was careful to keep his distance from the farther right end of his party. When the conservative activist Ralph Reed sponsored robocalls to voters featuring former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska asking them to vote their values, Mr. McDonnell’s campaign declined to answer questions about the calls and emphasized that the campaign had not asked Ms. Palin to make them. The Republicans also undercut some of Mr. Deeds’ support in the state’s rural, more conservative swaths by attacking him for supporting a tax increase to pay for road improvements. Early in his campaign, Mr. Deeds had hoped to paint McDonnell as a radical conservative by publicizing Mr. McDonnell’s 1989 master’s thesis, which roundly criticized working women and single mothers. The strategy failed, pollsters concluded, as voters found those advertisements too negative. More than 6 in 10 voters said in exit polls Tuesday that the master’s thesis had no effect on their vote. The polls showed that Mr. McDonnell had strong support among men and was also backed by most women. Democrats fought hard to avoid a rout. Though the Obama administration initially expressed quiet reservations about Mr. Deeds, the president campaigned twice for him, helped him raise money, appeared in his advertisements and extended the support of his political campaign arm, Organizing for America. Mr. Kaine also campaigned for Mr. Deeds, and, through the Democratic National Committee, put more than $6 million behind his candidacy. Republicans insisted that Tuesday’s results represented a significant shift in national political sentiments from the 2008 vote. “Virginia can be seen as a true bellwether or a mini-national election,” said Michael S. Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, who campaigned vigorously for Mr. McDonnell and pumped more than $9 million into the race. Nevertheless, some factors that played a role in Mr. McDonnell’s victory might not reflect a larger shift in the state when it comes to national politics. In 2008, 53 percent of voters backed Mr. Obama, and exit polls on Tuesday showed that 48 percent of voters approved of his performance. As predicted, minority voters and young voters turned out in fewer numbers on Tuesday than in 2008 for the presidential election. Voters under age 30 accounted for 10 percent of the electorate on Tuesday, compared with 21 percent in 2008. While about 20 percent of the electorate in 2008 was black, exit polls showed that number was 16 percent on Tuesday. “Virginia is probably turning red today because turnout is well down, and the smaller voting population is among the most Republican in modern times,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “But if Obama can pull out his large turnout again in 2012, and the economy has clearly improved, Virginia could be blue once more.” The economy and unemployment were by far the most important issues to nearly half of voters, and most who said the economy was their top issue backed Mr. McDonnell.

Virginia
Elections
McDonnell Robert F
Republican Party
Governors (US)


Clinton’s Flash of Pique in Congo

Abstract: ABUJA, Nigeria — It was hot. She was tired. And it had been a long day in Africa. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was onstage in Kinshasa, Congo ’s shabby capital, in an auditorium packed with Congolese students. And then came the question, from a young man in a suit. “Mrs. Clinton, we’ve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country,” he said. “The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton?” Mrs. Clinton’s answer on Monday has quickly become the No. 1 sound bite from her trip. Her whole seven-nation Africa tour, which has had quite serious intentions, like combating Congo’s appalling rape epidemic and raising her personal profile within President Obama’s administration, may end up being reduced to this: “Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state, I am. So you ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.” Almost immediately, her showdown with the student became a media phenomenon, with a level of attention on an American in Kinshasa perhaps not seen since the so-called Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in 1974. Mrs. Clinton’s aides have been notably frustrated that this brief flash of anger, or undiplo-speak, has come to overshadow a trip that took weeks of planning and was intended to strengthen America’s ties to some of its most strategic allies on the continent. But her evident irritation at the question quickly fueled speculation that Mrs. Clinton felt eclipsed by former President Bill Clinton ’s trip to North Korea last week, in which he rapidly secured the release of two American journalists who had been sentenced to years of hard labor. After the forum, her aides told the traveling press corps that there might have been a mistranslation, and that the student actually wanted to know the opinion of her boss, not her husband. But that interpretation did not dispel the controversy either, since it gave new life to the nagging question of whether Mrs. Clinton felt marginalized in the Obama administration. Her talk with the students had started out friendly enough, with questions about human rights and the environment. But it got a little edgy when several students pushed her on why Congo, whose first prime minister was ousted with the help of the C.I.A., should now trust the United States. She then became a little prickly. Later, her aides released the transcript of the question, as it had been translated to English from French, and further inspection of the audio recording of the event indicated that the translation was fine; the student had indeed said “Mr. Clinton.” After the event, the student apologized to Mrs. Clinton, saying he had indeed meant to ask what Mr. Obama thought. Either way, the hubbub seemed to drain Mrs. Clinton. Until then, she had seemed impervious to the jet lag that was stalking her entourage from the moment they plopped down in Kenya. But on Tuesday, especially after meeting Congolese rape victims and touring a squalid refugee camp where thousands of people lived cheek by sunken cheek, Mrs. Clinton seemed enervated. Perhaps it was the sight of so many civilians suffering from a conflict the world has failed to stop. She said a few words on the plane ride back from Congo, but her language was not as emotional as it had been, or as urgent. No matter the issues she was talking about — encouraging good governing, ending Africa’s wars, lifting women up from their lowly position in a place like Congo. The interest in this trip, it seemed, was not about the problems facing Africa. It was about her. As one journalist covering her trip put it: “She is a celebrity. We have a celebrity secretary of state. When you have a celebrity, you get celebrity coverage.”

Africa
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Congo (Formerly Zaire)
Clinton Bill
United States International Relations


‘A Lot of Oops Moments,’ but the Scores at the U.S. Open Aren’t Too Shabby

Abstract: PINEHURST, N.C. — Matt Kuchar’s second shot at the 18th hole rolled through the green, sped down an embankment and did not stop until it was in the clubhouse. A Brandt Snedeker bunker shot ricocheted behind him and settled in the woods. Justin Rose came within an inch of a hole in one, but after his ball flirted with the cup, it ended up so far from the hole Rose chose a wood to play his next shot. In a flash, a near ace became a bogey. A dose of unpredictability was expected at the 2014 United States Open since the Pinehurst No. 2 golf course had been restored to look and play as it did in the 1930s. But some of the results of Thursday’s first round looked overly retro — as if the players were using crooked hickory-shafted clubs swung at fickle gutta percha balls. “I love the golf course,” said Graeme McDowell, one of four players who shot 68 and trailed the leader, Martin Kaymer, by three strokes. “But even good shots here are going to end up in bad places.” If the first day of the United States Open is about settling in for the grind, then Thursday was also about players trying to adapt to the daunting vagaries of an old course that has found new ways to frustrate and flummox. Image Matthew Fitzpatrick showed the poise of a seasoned veteran even though he was paired with Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times “There were a lot of oops moments out there,” said Rose, the defending champion, who shot 72 and was tied for 50th. “I think every player had at least one time when he was hanging his head.” Not that it was all bad. Fifteen players finished under par, and it was a star-studded leader board with Kuchar, a pretournament favorite, 20-year-old Jordan Spieth, who tied for second at the Masters in April, Dustin Johnson, Snedeker, Henrik Stenson and Keegan Bradley tied at one-under par 69. Tied with McDowell at two under were Kevin Na, who has had five top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour this year; Brendon de Jonge, who is playing in just his second United States Open; and Fran Quinn, who last played in the event in 1996. Also lurking near the lead with even-par rounds of 70 were Phil Mickelson and Jimmy Walker, a three-time winner on the tour in 2014. Kaymer’s 65 was built on six birdies and only one bogey, the kind of meticulous, careful performance that also allowed him to win this year’s Players Championship. “It’s nice to lead the tournament, and I hit a lot of shots where I was aiming today,” said Kaymer, the 2010 P.G.A. champion. “But it’s so early and the golf course is only going to get much, much harder.” Image Martin Kaymer shot a meticulous five-under 65 during a round that was filled with “oops” moments. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Beyond the unforeseen outcomes brought on by an arduous 18 holes, there were also a number of inspiring performances. The 19-year-old reigning United States amateur champion Matthew Fitzpatrick showed the poise of a seasoned veteran even though he was paired with Mickelson and Rose — a group that was followed in the morning by the biggest gallery of the day. Fitzpatrick, who is from Sheffield, England, hit his first approach shot of the day closer to the hole than either of his playing partners. He made birdie and hardly looked back the rest of the day. Fitzpatrick posted a 71, which included a penalty stroke he called on himself after his ball moved slightly when he placed his club alongside it beside the eighth green. But Fitzpatrick, who will turn professional after this week’s tournament, also had four birdies. His boyish looks — he may be the only player in the field who does not wear a hat — and his slight frame seemed to endear him to the Pinehurst fans, who quickly began rooting for the young Englishman. “At first, I only heard my brother and my dad shout for me,” Fitzpatrick said. “With everyone supporting Phil, you feel kind of left out and everyone is against you. But at the same time, once I started playing pretty solid, I had quite a few people shouting my name, so that was quite nice as well.” The wily Mickelson also had a bit of fun with Fitzpatrick. After Fitzpatrick marked his ball on the fifth green, a Mickelson putt rolled directly over the marker Fitzpatrick placed in the green. Mickelson’s putt came to rest just beyond the Fitzpatrick marker — in the path between Fitzpatrick’s marker and the hole. Mickelson approached and said, “Is that all right there?” Mickelson meant that he did not have to move his ball or a mark for it. Video The world’s best golfers will compete for the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. The resort’s landmark course recently got a makeover, and its new look is anything but manicured and green. Credit Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times As Fitzpatrick told the rest of the story: “He was obviously joking, but I didn’t think he was. I said, ‘I’m going to need that moved.’ And he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m only joking.’ ” There were other moments of levity, especially as the golfers tried to navigate the unfamiliar territory of the newly scruffy and sandy waste areas off the fairways. Webb Simpson had his ball come to rest near an ant hill at the 11th hole. The lie was not favorable, which got Simpson to thinking. He called over a rules official and tried to claim that the hill near his ball was inhabited by red ants, sometimes known as fire ants, because an obscure rule allows a player to drop one club length away from a dangerous ant hill or dangerous-looking ants. “But they said they had sprayed that whole side of the hole and there are no red ants,” Simpson said. Simpson added with an impish smile, “I was trying to use the rule to my advantage, but I didn’t get relief.” Balls rolling into buildings, shots squirting over greens and the prospect of fire ants: The revamped Pinehurst No. 2 promised unpredictability and did not disappoint.

Matt Kuchar
Brandt Snedeker
Golf
Graeme McDowell
Martin Kaymer
PGA Tour
Players Championship
US Open Golf
Pinehurst Resort
PGA Championship


The Meaning of Life in Three Letters: M.S.G.

Abstract: David Gronsbell lives on the Upper East Side, but he spends a lot of time at his “second home” on 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue. “I’ve practically grown up at Madison Square Garden,” said Gronsbell, a 33-year-old accountant. “I know all the ins and outs of the place, all the quick exits, the nearest bathrooms, and the bar on the half-floor between the mezzanine and the upper deck.” Gronsbell, who has been going to Knicks and Rangers games with his father, Alan, since the late 1970s, is among 380 who own season tickets for both teams. He bought four Knicks seats (Section 112, Row E) in 1996 and two Rangers seats (Section 220, Row A) in 1999. “There’s nothing like being there in person,” said Gronsbell, who attends some games with his wife, Allison, and others with their 2-year-old daughter, Chloe. “Seasons change, teams change, but it’s all about rooting for the laundry, the uniform, the colors of your favorite teams.” During the 2004-5 N.H.L. lockout, Gronsbell was asked to be part of an advisory board to explore the fan experience and help bridge the gap between the season-ticket holders and the players. The 16-member board is overseen by the Rangers’ marketing department and meets twice a year. “I guess they thought I was a good fit because I’m a familiar face, someone they’ve seen at the Garden over the years,” Gronsbell said. “I was certainly enthusiastic about being asked to be a part of it, and more than happy to help out.” Jeanie Baumgartner, the Rangers’ vice president for marketing, described Gronsbell as “a very valuable member of our team who gives us many different insights he has gained from attending games with his daughter, his wife and his father, all of whom represent different generations of fans.” “David is very serious and very committed,” Baumgartner added. “And he’s very passionate about his teams.” Gronsbell, who attended the Rangers’ season opener against Florida with his father — he wore a Mike Richter jersey and his father a Mark Messier jersey — said that the board was not intended “to tell the Rangers that Brian Leetch should not have been traded or that Glen Sather is doing a bad job.” After their first meeting in 2004, the board members toured the Rangers’ locker room and had a chance to chat with Coach Tom Renney. “He’s a friendly, enthusiastic guy who is very approachable,” Gronsbell said of Renney. “He is the complete opposite of a coach like John Muckler, who had a terrible personality and always seemed to be depressed.” One recent event that arose from the advisory meetings was Casino Night on March 6. Many of the Rangers and their season subscribers schmoozed and played roulette, blackjack and other casino games, with all of their winnings going to the Garden of Dreams Foundation, which supports children in crisis. As he thought back across the seasons on all the great saves, dramatic goals, game-winning baskets and heartbreaking losses he has seen, Gronsbell recalled a scene from a Knicks-Bulls game in 1981. Gronsbell, 8 at the time but more than capable of sizing up talent from his seat behind Marv Albert at the broadcasting table, asked his father to get an autograph from Chicago’s Orlando Woolridge. “My father gets up and goes somewhere for a little while and comes back with a yearbook that he said was signed by Woolridge,” Gronsbell said. “I was ecstatic. I cherished that autograph.” Years later, Gronsbell realized that his father, not Woolridge, had signed the yearbook. “He tried but couldn’t get the autograph, but he didn’t want to disappoint me, ” Gronsbell said. “My dad was, and still is, my best friend, and he was just doing something he felt would make me happy.” Alan Gronsbell, also an accountant, summed up the value of a lifetime of watching the Knicks and the Rangers with his son. “For me and David, the Garden is a pleasant distraction from the grind of everyday life,” he said. “The games, no matter who wins or loses, have always been vehicles for developing a special bond between us.”

Madison Square Garden
New York Knicks
New York Rangers
Basketball
Hockey Ice
Families and Family Life


Mets Fall to N.L. East-Leading Nationals

Abstract: WASHINGTON — With each pitch, Rafael Montero looked more out of place. Montero, a once-promising prospect who has fallen on hard times, could not find the strike zone. And just as in his past starts, the walks were piling up. But this time, the Mets could not survive them. Desperate for wins in a tight National League wild-card race, the Mets fell to the Washington Nationals, 8-1, on Monday night at Nationals Park. Despite high walk totals in Montero’s previous two starts, the Mets had won. Against the Nationals, he lasted only five outs and allowed six runs. Twice in the first inning, he walked batters with the bases loaded. “I tried to do my job, and things didn’t go as I hoped,” Montero said. This three-game series means more for the Mets, who retained their hold on the second N.L. wild-card spot despite the loss, than the Nationals, who possess a lead so large that the East Division race feels all but decided. Injuries have battered the Mets’ starting rotation, and Montero was thrust into a crucial role because of the team’s limited options. Following Monday’s game, Mets Manager Terry Collins said Montero would not start again. Collins was not prepared to announce a replacement. Montero labored in the first and was unable to find the strike zone consistently. He threw 35 pitches, only 19 for strikes. Although his command was poor, Montero somehow surrendered only the two runs he allowed by walks. “That’s what you always try to do: attack the batter,” Montero said. “But sometimes things don’t go the way you want them.” Despite Montero’s troubles, Collins let him bat for himself in the top of the second inning and allowed him to take the mound again. He rewarded Collins’s faith by coughing up more runs. Collins said he had considered inserting Gabriel Ynoa, who was warming up, into the game in the second inning but opted against it because Ynoa was not accustomed to relieving. “I wanted to see if the kid could settle down and pitch,” Collins said of Montero. Montero instead surrendered a home run to Mat Latos, the Nationals’ fill-in starting pitcher. Montero recorded two outs but then gave up a double to Daniel Murphy, the ex-Met who has feasted on his former team’s pitching this season. The Mets had Montero intentionally walk Bryce Harper to face Anthony Rendon, who smashed a towering three-run homer. “When you take the mound at the major league level, there are expectations,” Collins said. “One is to trust your stuff and throw the ball over the plate. That’s certainly something they’re taught in the minor leagues. It’s stressed in this organization immensely. If you get caught up in ‘Wow, these are big games,’ when are you going to get a chance to pitch in big games?” Finally, Collins emerged from the dugout to remove Montero. He was replaced by Ynoa, who allowed two more runs, and the game slipped further out of reach. In the sixth inning, with the Mets down by seven runs, Collins removed two important players — shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera and left fielder Yoenis Cespedes. An inning later, Collins took out another key player, third baseman Jose Reyes, to assure him a little extra rest. With Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz rehabilitating injuries, and Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler both done for the season, the Mets have had few proven options left for the rotation. Logan Verrett struggled when he first filled in for Harvey. But their recent run of improved play was fueled, in part, by the strong performances of the rookie starters Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman. Even Montero, who was demoted to Class AA Binghamton because of his troubles at Class AAA Las Vegas, produced a formidable start for the Mets on Aug. 29 despite six walks. But now that Montero has slipped, the Mets may be praying deGrom can return soon. He threw a 35-pitch bullpen session on Monday afternoon in Washington, another step in his expected return from forearm stiffness that arose on Sept. 1. DeGrom said the discomfort has dissipated. If deGrom is not ready soon, the Mets could use Thursday’s day off to skip a spot in the rotation, or be forced to use Verrett, Ynoa or Sean Gilmartin as a starter. INSIDE PITCH Wilmer Flores tried to hit before the game, but his neck was still sore. Manager Terry Collins said he would not use Flores in a game as long as his injury still bothered him. Flores hurt his neck in a collision at home plate in Saturday’s game. … Steven Matz (shoulder) will throw again in Port St. Lucie, Fla. on Tuesday, Collins said. … Lucas Duda (back) has been taking batting practice in Florida … Collins said he was keeping an eye on the progress of Juan Lagares , who is returning from thumb surgery, because he could use him as a late-game defensive replacement in center field.

Mets
Rafael Montero
Washington Nationals
Baseball


Virginia: Judge Orders Nutrition for Immigrant in Nursing Home

Abstract: A judge ordered Friday that a Rwandan immigrant whose feeding tube was removed three weeks ago against her family’s wishes be given nutrition and hydration immediately. Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, 59, who has been in a vegetative state since suffering a major stroke, lay close to death in a Maryland nursing home early Friday, said her son, Jerome Ndayishimiye. Her family had felt powerless to save her after a court-appointed guardian ordered her feeding tube removed; the guardian, Andrea J. Sloan, believed that Ms. Nyirahabiyambere should be receiving only palliative care because she was “profoundly vegetative” and had no chance of recovery. After The New York Times published an article about her case, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal alliance, petitioned Judge Nolan B. Dawkins of Alexandria Circuit Court on behalf of her children. He ordered her feeding tube reinstated while the legal issues were weighed.

Nursing Homes
Alliance Defense Fund
Rwanda
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Immigration and Emigration


Where the Dugout Is a Stage and Baseball Is a Reason to Sing

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — It was halfway through the first inning of a recent Doosan Bears home game when Han Jae-kwon first climbed onto the performance stage just above the first-base line at Jamsil Baseball Stadium. He had watched the first three outs from the stands, nervously tapping his foot. But now, having tied a traditional Korean robe over his baseball uniform, he looked confident, almost solemn, as he performed a sequence of bows on his hands and knees toward the spectators. After the formal introduction, Han popped back to his feet and grabbed a microphone. Cavorting on the platform, stretching his arms into operatic poses, he yelled, again and again, “Doosan!” Each time, fans chirped back, “Fighting!” Drums thundered nearby. “And one last time, from the very bottom of your hearts: Doosan!” he said, before throwing off the flowing white garment. Han’s job does not have an exact equivalent in the English-speaking baseball world and therefore does not have a widely accepted English-language name. The Korean name, eungwondanjang, translates basically to “cheer leader,” which, of course, connotes something different. Some English speakers and writers use “cheermaster,” though Koreans tend to be unfamiliar with that term. Regardless of what they are called, the people who play Han’s role are the individuals most responsible for creating the dizzying atmospheres inside East Asian baseball stadiums , where songs and chants rarely cease over several hours of play. Even in a 1-2-3 inning, a home crowd might stand and sing numerous songs with accompanying hand motions. Over the course of this game, Han led fans through dozens of songs with his booming voice, a flick of his hand or foot, or even just a facial expression. Image Doosan Bears fans at a recent home game. Credit Jean Chung for The New York Times “It’s almost like conducting an orchestra,” Han said, in Korean. “When I raise a hand, everyone raises that same hand. If I say something, everyone repeats it in unison.” In the second inning, the stands were already pulsating. Every player in the league has at least one personalized song featuring simple lyrics — his name and perhaps a phrase of encouragement — set to the melody of a piece of popular music. For each hitter, sound engineers cue up a backing track, drummers bang out the beat and cheerleaders pantomime the motions. Facing them, the cheermaster gesticulates like a dance instructor teaching a gigantic class. It helps that Korean names — generally with three or, less commonly, two syllables — are exceptionally easy to bend into sports chants. Han’s favorite song belongs to Jung Soo-bin, the Bears’ boyish-looking center fielder. Borrowing the melody of the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” it features separate, intertwining parts for the male and female fans. When designated hitter Hong Sung-heon, 38, came up to bat for the first time, the Doosan fans sang his name to the melody of “What’s Up?” a 1993 hit by 4 Non Blondes. Hong loves the song when he is playing well; when he slumps, he hates it. “Korean stadiums are like karaoke parlors,” Hong said. “American stadiums feel like parks where you go for a quiet picnic with your kids.” Image Han Jae-kwon on the performance stage just above the first-base line at Jamsil Baseball Stadium. Credit Jean Chung for The New York Times In the third inning, a boy wearing glasses walked over and handed Han a bag of Honey Butter Chip, a trendy but hard-to-find snack in South Korea. Han added it to the gifts he had already received: a pack of throat lozenges, a soda and a woven bracelet. Later, a woman brought over 10 iced coffees for Han and his co-workers; less than five minutes after that, an older man walked over with eight more coffees, making Han laugh. Cheermasters in South Korea are minor celebrities, and Han, 36, has felt his life change since starting the job last season. Baseball has experienced a renaissance in South Korea over the last decade, and the profile of cheermasters has risen accordingly. Han is recognized outside the ballpark, and he joked that he feels self-conscious now when drinking in bars. But fans can be fickle with their affection. Heo Ji-wook, the stadium announcer for the slumping LG Twins, said he had seen fans take out their frustrations on Choi Dong-hoon, the team’s first-year cheermaster, aiming sarcastic jeers at him when he asked them to sing. LG shares Jamsil stadium with Doosan, and Choi, 27, offers a smaller, gentler counterpoint to Han’s more physical, thumping style. “I’m obsessed with getting better,” said Choi, who reviews film of every game the next morning. In the bottom of fourth inning, after left fielder Kim Hyun-soo pounded a three-run homer, Han started doing forward rolls across the stage. Confetti shot into the air as the cheerleaders hopped onto the platform to dance. It was Doosan’s first rally, and when it was over, Han plopped back into his seat. Sweat poured down his face. As the fifth inning got underway, on the other side of the stands, Cho Ji-hoon, the cheermaster for the Lotte Giants, was dancing before a drove of visiting fans. Cho is admired among his peers for his cheering skills and his business acumen. Cheermasters in South Korea work for agencies that sign contracts with clubs to provide in-game entertainment services. But Cho, who has been with Lotte for a decade, heads his own agency. He has his own following and can draw a big crowd when he has an autograph event. Image Han Jae-kwon signing an autograph during a Doosan Bears game last month. Credit Jean Chung for The New York Times “He’s the best,” said Han, gesturing across the diamond. By the sixth inning, the cheering had been reverberating relentlessly for hours. Most players enjoyed the songs, Hong said later, but a few occasionally asked for the volume to be lowered. Foreign players, in particular, can take a few weeks to adjust to the noise. “With the songs and atmosphere, I would get so amped up that people were finally like, ‘Hey, you need to calm down,’ ” said Jim Adduci, a Canadian outfielder in his first season with Lotte. Adduci’s song, which interpolates the frenzied theme of a 1990s children’s cartoon called “ Duchi and Puku ,” is one of the quirkier ones in the league. Songwriting tends to be a collaborative effort between the cheermasters and the agencies, with the clubs having final approval over what is used. When a player joins a new team, the clubs may negotiate the transfer of the song. If not, the melody might get recycled. In the seventh inning, Han was massaging his neck and grimacing. He had done a sprinting and jumping routine, and one hard landing seemed to aggravate a herniated disk. A while back, he ruptured his left Achilles’ tendon. Han was hurting, but the game, and his job, were heating up. In the eighth, Han asked fans to turn on their cellphone lights and wave them for a slow song, and as the top of the ninth began, he remained on the stage as Doosan tried to get the game’s last three outs. When the Bears did, securing a 5-3 win, he led the crowd through a rousing victory song that he was proud to have helped compose. As he walked off the stage, fans surrounded him. Several yelled out that he had done a good job, and a flock of them lined up to have photographs taken with him. “You might say he has a nuanced appeal,” Yoo Chang-geun, the Doosan stadium announcer, said with a smile. “He is not particularly good-looking. He has a bit of a Shrek vibe. And yet, everyone likes him.” Han’s face betrayed some anxiety as he viewed the logjam of fans. But then he lingered for several minutes, posing for pictures with each one.

Baseball
South Korea
Doosan Bears
Han Jae-kwon
Cheerleading
Stadiums Arenas


Palmer Gets the Score While Woods Gets the Attention

Abstract: LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On Wednesday, Ryan Palmer had some fun with a gaggle of photographers whose lenses were trained on Tiger Woods as he played a heavily scrutinized practice round at Valhalla Golf Club before the P.G.A. Championship. On Thursday, instead of yukking it up in a photobomb, Palmer made news with his game, parlaying a first-nine 31 into a six-under-par 65 and a share of the first-round lead with Lee Westwood and Kevin Chappell. Palmer’s surge had the cameras focused on him as he shot toward the top of the leader board. “When you get to where people are taking pictures of you walking, then you know you are playing good,” said Palmer, 37, a Texan with three career P.G.A. Tour wins but scant success (one top-10 finish) in 18 previous majors. Palmer was on a foot bridge to the ninth tee Wednesday in front of Woods as he used the span going toward No. 2. “You knew who was on one green because it was 100,000 people on one hole,” Palmer said. “I’m walking down that bridge, and in front of me are a dozen cameras just going at it. And so I just gave them a little, ‘Hey, How you doing?’ I think Tiger photobombed me, personally.” The P.G.A. was the one major championship that eluded Arnold Palmer. Ryan Palmer was asked if he would share the Wanamaker Trophy with his famous eponym if he won. “Well, ask me that on Sunday night,” Palmer said. “I knew this is the one he didn’t win. I guess if this Palmer won it, that would be cool.” NECK PAINS FORCES DUFNER TO QUIT Despite the discomfort of two bulging disks in his neck, the defending P.G.A. champion Jason Dufner had hoped to play at Valhalla and have a decent performance to solidify a berth on the United States Ryder Cup team. But Dufner, 37, made it through only 10 holes before withdrawing because of the injury. He was four over par after three holes, made the turn in five over 40 then called it quits after making a triple-bogey 8 on the par-5 10th hole. “I’ve been feeling pretty bad all week. I felt bad last week,” Dufner said. “I haven’t made a birdie in 45 holes, and I’m just not able to play golf right now. I don’t need to be out here. I tried to do what I could to be able to compete some and give it a go, but it’s just pointless.” Dufner is eighth in the Ryder Cup points standings — the top nine players after the P.G.A. qualify, with three more selections next month by the captain, Tom Watson — having struggled with the injury this summer. MONTGOMERIE BACK IN A MAJOR Colin Montgomerie, one of the best players never to have won a major championship, teed off in his first PGA Tour major since the 2010 British Open thanks to an exemption for winning this year’s Senior P.G.A. Championship. Montgomerie, 51, played solidly, shooting a one-under 70 that left him tied for 35th place. His appearance comes after a stretch of torrid golf on the Champions Tour during which he became only the fifth player to win the Senior P.G.A. and the United States Senior Open in the same season. His senior major success came after going 0 for 71 in regular majors, including several difficult defeats. “I wanted to represent the Champions Tour well, and 70 is O.K. to start with,” Montgomerie said. “You have some sort of duty to perform. I’m glad I’ve done that after Day 1.” He will have another opportunity to represent his fellow elders next year because his Senior Open victory gives him a spot in the 2015 United States Open at Chambers Bay. Montgomerie bested the other six 50-and-older golfers in the field. Vijay Singh shot 71, while Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Tom Watson, Davis Love III and Kenny Perry all shot 72. Mark Brooks, who won the 1996 P.G.A. at Valhalla, shot 78. ROUGH START FOR MICKELSON First-tee jitters are not limited to golf’s bottom feeders. Multiple major champions also get them. Phil Mickelson — despite coming off a final-round 62 at last week’s Bridgestone Invitational to enliven a flat season and believing his game had turned a corner — hit a stinker on his opening hole that missed the fairway by 50 yards. “It was so far left I don’t even know what to say,” Mickelson said of his drive on the 582-yard, par-5 hole. “I was lucky it wasn’t out of bounds. Horrific. I just need to get on the first tee with more confidence. When you haven’t played the way you expect to and you are not in the final groups for a while, you get nervous, and that is exactly what happened.” Mickelson, who has not had a top-10 finish on the PGA Tour in 2014, salvaged a par on his first hole after the wayward tee shot but was two over after eight holes. He rallied to shoot a two-under 69. “Given the first eight holes, it was a good first round,” Mickelson said. “I thought I was going to let loose. I thought I had a mid- to low-60s round in me. I thought I was going to light it up.”

Ryan Palmer
Tiger Woods
Golf
PGA Championship


Demand for Long-Lasting Goods Falls the Most in 6 Months

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — Businesses cut back on their orders for heavy machinery, computers, autos and airplanes in April, reducing demand for long-lasting manufactured goods by the largest amount in six months. Orders for durable goods fell 3.8 percent, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. And orders for nonmilitary capital goods excluding aircraft were down 2.8 percent. The weakness was spread across a number of industries and was probably influenced by supply chain disruptions stemming from the Japanese earthquake in March. Demand for motor vehicles and parts, an industry dependent on Japanese component parts, declined 4.4 percent in April, the biggest drop since last August. Analysts expect the April declines to be temporary. Strong demand domestically and overseas has kept United States factories humming, making manufacturing one of the strongest sectors of the economy since the recession ended in June 2009.

Durable Goods (Economic Indicator)
United States Economy


Dr. Baruj Benacerraf, Nobel Laureate, Dies at 90

Abstract: Dr. Baruj Benacerraf , a Venezuelan-born immunologist who received a Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work in exploring why diseases like multiple sclerosis affect some people but not others, died on Tuesday at his home in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. He was 90. The cause was pneumonia, according to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Dr. Benacerraf, the son of a textile merchant who had hoped he would carry on the family business, was president of the institute from 1980 to 1991. He shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in medicine with Dr. George Snell of the United States and Dr. Jean Dausset of France for their decades of work studying the immune system. Their discoveries explained why some people were better able to defend themselves against infection than others and why certain people were at greater risk than others of contracting multiple sclerosis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases, in which the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues. Their research extended to understanding immunological reactions in organ transplants, explaining why the body would often reject a foreign organ and offering insights on the likelihood of success in transplantation. Dr. Benacerraf’s specific contribution was the discovery that the strength of an individual’s immune response was controlled by a group of genes, which he called immune response genes. Although such an observation may seem unsurprising today, when advances in genetics have elucidated the role of genes in virtually every biological process, it was an intellectual leap in the early 1960s, when Dr. Benacerraf conducted his research. A failed experiment led to his discovery. Dr. Benacerraf, then a professor of pathology at New York University, had injected guinea pigs with a foreign substance, expecting to stimulate production of disease-fighting white blood cells in the rodents, just as an invading virus would. But to his surprise, 40 percent of the guinea pigs failed to mount an immune response against the foreign material. Suspecting a genetic explanation, Dr. Benacerraf conducted a series of breeding experiments, which ultimately demonstrated that the immune reactions in the guinea pigs were hereditary. Dr. Benacerraf theorized that the genetic variation, which was later found to exist in humans and other vertebrates, was an evolutionary adaptation to ensure that some members of a species would survive onslaughts from mutated viruses. This genetic variation, while advantageous from an evolutionary perspective, carried unfortunate consequences. The specialness of each individual, Dr. Benacerraf proposed, ensured the rejection of transplanted organs, except in cases involving genetically identical donors, like identical twins. The genetic variation would also mean that certain people were more vulnerable to autoimmune disease. In awarding the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine, the Karolinska Institute in Sweden said, “The area of research opened up by Benacerraf now offers the possibility of analyzing the background of the varying ability of different individuals to mobilize a response to infections.” Baruj Benacerraf (pronounced bar-OOK ben-ah-seh-RAHF) was born on Oct. 29, 1920, in Caracas, Venezuela, the son of Sephardic Jews. His father, born in Morocco, was a textile importer; his mother, born in Algeria, was a homemaker. He spent most of his childhood in Paris, where his family moved when he was 5 so that his father could more easily buy textiles for resale in Venezuela. As a youngster, Dr. Benacerraf often missed school because of asthma; he later credited his illness with fueling his interest in immunology. His family fled Paris at the start of World War II and eventually settled in New York City, the center of the American textile trade. In high school, he discovered a love of science, a subject he had not studied in France. He went on to Columbia University and received a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1942. Instead of joining the family business as his parents had hoped, he made plans to study medicine. But every medical school he applied to rejected him — because, he suspected, he was both foreign-born and a Jew, as he wrote in his autobiography, “From Caracas to Stockholm: A Life in Medical Science,” published in 1998. His fortunes changed, however, when he obtained an interview at the Medical College of Virginia through a personal connection: the father of a friend was an administrator there. The school, now part of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, admitted him in 1942, one of three Jews and two Hispanics in his class of 80 students. While in medical school, during World War II, he was drafted into the Army with other medical students as part of a wartime training program. In 1943 he became an American citizen and married Annette Dreyfus, a French student and fellow refugee from Paris whom he had met at Columbia. He received his medical degree in 1945 and trained as an intern at Queens General Hospital in New York. Commissioned a first lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps, he was posted to Germany with other physicians in 1946 and later assigned to Paris and Nancy in France. After completing his military service, “motivated by intellectual curiosity,” as he wrote in a Nobel biographical sketch, he “decided upon a career in medical research at a time when such a choice was not fashionable.” He accepted a fellowship in immunology at Columbia University in 1947. Very little was known about the immune system at the time. Antibodies had been discovered, but their structure was a mystery. The immunological basis of allergic reactions had not been worked out. Dr. Benacerraf found the uncharted territory before him irresistible. “I was hooked for life as surely as if I had become addicted to heroin,” he wrote. But his stay in New York was brief. His father, who had relocated to Paris, was incapacitated by a stroke; as the eldest son, Dr. Benacerraf was needed to manage his father’s affairs. In mid-1949, he accepted a research position in Paris so he could oversee his father’s business holdings and eventually divest them. The move felt like a homecoming. But in time Dr. Benacerraf realized that as a noncitizen he had little chance of advancing his academic career in France. In 1956, three years after his father’s death, he returned to New York University for an academic appointment — “the critical decision of my life,” he called it — and began the research that would lead to the Nobel Prize. Dr. Benacerraf left N.Y.U. in 1966. He was briefly chief of laboratory immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Md., before becoming chairman of the department of pathology at Harvard Medical School in 1969. From 1980-91 he was president of the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he put his financial experience to work, transforming a budget deficit into a surplus in two years. His wife, Annette, died, on June 3. An uncle of hers, Jacques Monod , a Frenchman who died in 1976, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1965 for research on bacterial enzymes. Dr. Benacerraf is survived by a daughter, Dr. Beryl Benacerraf, a radiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School; a brother, Paul, a philosophy professor at Princeton University; and two grandchildren. Besides its impact on the field, Dr. Benacerraf’s research had more personal immunological repercussions. Thanks to his intense exposure to guinea pigs during his breeding experiments, developed a lasting allergy to them.

Baruj Benacerraf
Nobel Prizes
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Immune System
Research
Benacerraf Baruj
Deaths (Obituaries)
Medicine and Health
Genetics and Heredity


Gay Veteran, 91, Gets Honorable Discharge After 69 Years

Abstract: For more than half a century, Hubert Edward Spires has lived with the painful memory of being kicked out of the Air Force as a young gay sergeant in the 1940s. The word “undesirable” was printed on his discharge records. But now, at 91, Mr. Spires said he can finally be at peace with that part of his life. On Friday, he was awakened by a phone call to his Connecticut home and learned that the Air Force Board for the Correction of Military Records had agreed to change his status. This time, his discharge would be described as “honorable.” “It was a long haul,” Mr. Spires said on Tuesday in phone call from his home in Norwalk. “I got the confirmation that I had been looking for.” Said his husband, David Rosenberg, whom he met in 1956 and married eight years ago: “His first words were, ‘It’s about time.’ ” Mr. Spires is one of the hundreds of gay former military personnel who have been emboldened by the 2010 repeal of the United States military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy , which prohibited gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military. In 2011, the federal government allowed changes to veterans’ military records, some of which had been labeled “undesirable” or “other than honorable.” The incentives for doing so were sometimes financial. Such designations could make it difficult for the men and women who had served to get employment, loans or access to veterans benefits. But there was another, more important reason. “The respect factor,” said Matt Thorn, an executive director at OutServe-Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which helps veterans with the application process needed to reverse such designations. “I served my country honorably; I want that respect. And they should have that.” Mr. Thorn said many go through an application process that can take up to 18 months. But for Mr. Spires, who recently recovered from pneumonia, it took years of effort that will now allow him to have a burial, when the time comes, with military honors. “I have to quietly go back into my shell now,” he said. “Because I am 91 years old, and my health is not all it should be. I can’t take on jobs that require energy because I don’t have it anymore, but I had it long enough to fight the G.D. Air Force and win,” he said. Brooke Brzozowske, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, said the service branch had denied 27 out of 157 requests for upgrades since the policy was repealed. “We were not necessarily discharging people for just being gay,” she said. “It was associated with misconduct if it was a dishonorable discharge.” The military corrections board first received Mr. Spires’s application to get his status upgraded in 2014, but some of his discharge records had been destroyed in a fire in 1973 that also consumed those of other veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, according to a copy of the records board statement about his case. Other documents found in 2016 showed he served in the military from 1946 to 1948, when he was discharged from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. To help his case, Mr. Spires also filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court for the District of Connecticut in November, assisted by the Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic. The lawsuit asserted that Mr. Spires’s rights had been violated after he encountered unreasonable delays in the Air Force review to change his discharge status to “honorable.” According to the lawsuit and to Mr. Spires account, his life as a young chaplain’s assistant at the base included playing the organ at services and typing letters to distressed families. He attended social events with gay men outside of the base, he said. At a Halloween party in 1947, Mr. Spires dressed in a costume inspired by a sparkly laundry soap. Someone at the party informed his superiors that he was in drag, the lawsuit said. He was interrogated by military officials, threatened with a court-martial and sent to hearings and psychiatrists, the suit says. He signed a statement saying he had engaged in “homosexual acts” to end an interrogation, the lawsuit said. “I never did anything on the base in uniform,” he said. “I had a whole slew of very good friends who were gay and lived off base. We partied together; we had wonderful meals together and went to the opera together. We lived a very normal life. I did not dishonor the Air Force in any way by my actions,” Mr. Spires said in the interview. He was discharged and sent home to Lancaster, Ohio, in civilian clothes. Over the years, he destroyed his military records for fear his Catholic family would find out, he said. He found work in department stores and other jobs. He met Mr. Rosenberg in 1956 at a séance in New York. They have been companions ever since, marrying in 2009, Mr. Spires said. The court did not rule on Mr. Spires’s lawsuit, as the Air Force board resumed its review of Mr. Spires’s application. It finally said in its letter last week that he had no misconduct in the military and concluded there was “the existence of an injustice.” Its recommendation: an honorable discharge dating to March 17, 1948. “I had a terrible time,” Mr. Spires said. “But now I have been able to put so much of that behind me, and now that I have got my honorable discharge, I hope these negative thoughts will leave me permanently.” He added, “It has allowed me to not have to look over my shoulder all the time.”

Hubert Edward Spires
Lawsuits
Gay and Lesbian LGBT
US Air Force