Poll Finds Support for de Blasio, if Not All His Ideas

Abstract: New York City voters want to keep Raymond W. Kelly as police commissioner. They want more charter schools. And nearly half of them support the Police Department’s use of the stop-and-frisk tactic. But the city’s voters, by an enormous margin, are planning to support Bill de Blasio for mayor next month, despite the fact that Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, opposes each of those positions, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Friday. The poll found a huge challenge facing Joseph J. Lhota, the Republican nominee, as he seeks to persuade voters in an overwhelmingly Democratic city to choose him. With the election just a month away, on Nov. 5, Mr. de Blasio held a commanding lead of 68 percent to 19 percent among likely voters. More than 4 in 10 likely voters said they had no opinion of Mr. Lhota, while only about a quarter did not have an opinion of Mr. de Blasio, currently the city’s public advocate. And 58 percent had a favorable opinion of Mr. de Blasio, compared with 22 percent who viewed Mr. Lhota favorably. Mr. Lhota is seeking to change the dynamic. He began broadcasting his first general election television advertisement on Wednesday, pointing out that he supports same-sex marriage, abortion rights and the legalization of marijuana, but that, unlike Mr. de Blasio, he does not plan to raise taxes. Mr. de Blasio, seeking to thwart any advantage Mr. Lhota might gain from being on the airwaves alone, immediately introduced his own ad, showing a clip from his victory speech on the night of the primary. Image Voters shared several of Bill de Blasio’s priorities, particularly his desire to address income inequality. Credit Bryan Thomas for The New York Times The race is not over: the two men have agreed to televised debates on three successive Tuesdays this month, and those exchanges, as well as the television ads, will introduce the candidates to New Yorkers who have not yet tuned in. But the poll found extraordinarily daunting odds against Mr. Lhota, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Mr. de Blasio’s lead cut across just about every category: he led among voters regardless of age, race, gender, and income and education level. Registered Republicans made up the only group in which a majority backed Mr. Lhota. “I like de Blasio’s general demeanor, his bearing and his poise, and he is more for the common man than Lhota,” Doris Bruntel, 69, a legal proofreader from Chelsea, said in a follow-up interview. She described herself as conservative, but said she believed that Mayors Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, and Michael R. Bloomberg, an independent, had prioritized the concerns of business, and that Mr. de Blasio was “looking out for the rest of us.” Voters shared several of Mr. de Blasio’s priorities — particularly his desire to address income inequality and the high cost of housing and to improve public education. And a majority of voters suggested that they want the next mayor to prioritize reducing the gap between rich and poor, a key plank for Mr. de Blasio, rather than to create a climate that would reduce taxes and regulation to sustain job growth, something emphasized by Mr. Lhota. On most issues, the poll found, Mr. de Blasio enjoyed a strong advantage over Mr. Lhota. By almost four to one, voters thought that Mr. de Blasio would do a better job than Mr. Lhota in improving public education. By almost three to one, they supported Mr. de Blasio’s proposal to increase taxes on high-earners to finance an expansion of prekindergarten education. And by almost two to one, they believed that Mr. de Blasio, not Mr. Lhota, would keep the city safe from crime or a terrorist attack or during a natural disaster. Seven in 10 supported creating an independent inspector general to monitor the police — a measure passed by the City Council with Mr. de Blasio’s support and Mr. Lhota’s opposition. More than 8 in 10 voters wanted to make affordable housing a top priority, an issue also most associated with Mr. de Blasio. Voters said Mr. de Blasio better understood their needs and problems. And, in a troubling sign for Mr. Lhota, voters said that Mr. de Blasio was better equipped to manage the city’s complex government, even though Mr. Lhota was a budget director and a deputy mayor under Mr. Giuliani. Daniel Meehan, of Bayside, Queens, 64, a retired warden with the city’s Correction Department, said Mr. Lhota was being hurt by his Republican label. “I think Lhota’s getting caught up in what I perceive to be a backlash against Republicans, especially with what’s going on now,” he said. “It’s becoming an issue of the haves and the have-nots.” Image Joseph J. Lhota is about 50 points behind Bill de Blasio in the mayoral race, a survey says. Credit Kirsten Luce for The New York Times But some voters said they would be interested in at least hearing Mr. Lhota out. “If he was the better problem solver and had solutions to increasing jobs in the city and bettering our school system, that could change my mind,” Jeffry Perez, a 21-year-old college student from the South Bronx, said. Donald P. Levy, director of the Siena Research Institute, said that while “anything can happen,” Mr. Lhota faced an uphill challenge because potential lines of attack — that Mr. de Blasio would take the city back to an era with more crime, and more fiscal woes — were not clicking with voters. “He’s got a lot of problems, let’s face it,” Mr. Levy said. “It’s time for him to pull out whatever he thinks is his best stuff at this point: his biography, his toughness, his ability to respond to disasters, his ability to keep New Yorkers safe from a terrorist attack, and make difficult decisions.” There were a few signs of concern for Mr. de Blasio. Although his blunt criticism of the stop-and-frisk tactic helped to propel him to victory in the Democratic primary, general election voters have mixed feelings about it. Voters favored creating more charter schools, echoing a position taken by Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Lhota, but not one favored by Mr. de Blasio, who has proposed charging charter schools a sliding scale of rent. They also agreed with Mr. Lhota’s desire to keep Mr. Kelly as police commissioner, while Mr. de Blasio would replace him. But occasionally voiced criticisms of Mr. de Blasio — that he is too liberal for some, or that he might be overemphasizing his family in his television commercials — have not gained much traction with voters. Only 20 percent of those surveyed said they felt that he is too liberal. And 47 percent said the media attention on his family and personal life had been about right, while 35 percent said it had been a bit much. Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Lhota are not the only choices for mayor. There will be 15 candidates on the ballot, including Adolfo Carrión Jr., a former Bronx borough president who is the Independence Party nominee and Jack Hidary, a high-tech entrepreneur. Mr. Carrión had the backing of just 2 percent. The citywide Times/Siena College poll was conducted on landlines and cellphones from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 with 700 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points.

Polls
Bill de Blasio
Siena College
Mayoral races
Joseph J Lhota
NYC


Democrats Offer $6.5 Billion in Cuts

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As they opened negotiations with Republicans over budget cuts, the White House and Congressional Democrats on Thursday offered to trim an additional $6.5 billion from current spending, a figure far short of the Republican goal of cutting agency budgets by $61 billion. The gap between the opening Democratic bid and the cuts already approved by the new House majority illustrated the difficulty the two parties faced in reaching a compromise before the March 18 expiration of a two-week budget bill even with more participation by the White House. To test support for the competing plans and lay the groundwork for a compromise, officials said that Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, planned to allow debate and votes on the proposals next week to demonstrate that both parties would need to make concessions in any agreement on financing the government through Sept. 30. The plan to push the spending dispute onto the Senate floor emerged after a high-level meeting presided over by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Congressional participants — Speaker John A. Boehner; Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader; Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader; and Mr. Reid — had no comment after the hourlong session, leaving it to Mr. Biden, who issued a short statement. “We had a good meeting, and the conversation will continue,” Mr. Biden said. Before the session, White House officials disclosed that they were willing to accept an additional $6.5 billion in cuts, on top of $4 billion in reductions enacted in a short-term budget bill earlier this week. Gene Sperling, the chief White House economic adviser, said, “We’ve made clear that we are willing to cut spending further if we can find common ground on cuts that we can all agree would help reduce the deficit without harming the economy in the short term or harming our long-term competitiveness.” But even before the negotiating session began, Republicans said the new figure proposed by the White House in consultation with Congressional Democrats was inadequate, particularly given the pressure Republican leaders are under from their rank and file to not give ground from the $61 billion in cuts. In assembling the proposed cuts, Democrats combed through the bill passed by the House looking for programs that had also been singled out by the White House or Democrats on Capitol Hill. Among the initiatives to lose financing under the Democratic plan, officials said, are a variety of agricultural programs, Federal Emergency Management Agency grants, a Federal Bureau of Investigation construction program, a Great Lakes restoration effort and a wildfire suppression program. The Democratic plan would also reduce spending on embassy maintenance, cut $227 million from information technology efforts at the Department of Veterans Affairs and pare back some economic development efforts. Mr. Sperling agreed in part with Republicans that cutting spending can help the economy recover by signaling that the government is getting its finances in order, even as it costs some jobs in the short term under either side’s proposed level of cuts. But the White House portrayed the Republican cuts as deep enough to threaten the economy. “There can be confidence benefits in showing that you are starting the path of getting your fiscal house in order,” Mr. Sperling said. But cuts on the scale of the House Republicans’ package, he added, would have a “negative impact for the immediate economy” that offsets any benefits. In planning to bring the competing spending bills to a vote in the Senate, party leaders expect to show that neither the Democratic plan nor the Republican plan has the support to clear the Senate, forcing both sides to give ground. The Senate vote could be particularly helpful, aides said, in showing the 87 new Republican members of the House that the $61 billion in cuts cannot survive, giving the leadership leverage in pushing for a compromise that can pass. Earlier Thursday, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, said she welcomed a chance to vote on the House plan and discuss its wide-ranging cuts. “I think the American people need to look at what’s going on with my Republican friends who are in charge of the House of Representatives,” she said. “We all know we need to reduce the deficit, but we also know the right way to do it.” The interim spending bill passed by the Senate and signed by the president on Wednesday extends through March 18, giving Congress and the administration two weeks to strike a deal to finance the government through Sept. 30, pass another short-term measure or see parts of the government shut down. Representative Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican and the majority leader, said Thursday that if lawmakers were unable to reach a deal, House Republicans would continue to pursue cuts through temporary budget bills. “Our intention is to continue to go forward reducing spending at the rate of $2 billion a week until we can see some signal from the Senate that they are serious about cutting spending,” Mr. Cantor said.

Senate
House of Representatives
United States Politics and Government
Federal Budget (US)
Democratic Party
Republican Party


Serena Williams and Lucie Safarova Reach French Open Final

Abstract: PARIS — Lucie Safarova triumphed over her nerves Thursday, Serena Williams over her health. Now, they will meet in the French Open final. It is an unexpected matchup for Williams, the undisputed No. 1 player, as she takes aim at her 20th Grand Slam singles title. But Safarova, a Czech veteran who will be playing in her first major final at the advanced tennis age of 28, certainly has earned her spot. Seeded No. 13, Safarova has made her own luck at Roland Garros, sweeping through a rough draw without the loss of a set. On Thursday, she defeated seventh-seeded Ana Ivanovic, 7-5, 7-5, keeping her composure and securing the victory after double-faulting on her first match point and failing to hold her serve. “I was really like overthinking and couldn’t really concentrate to be there in the moment,” Safarova said of that lost opportunity. It is one of the great challenges of tennis, a sport where there is so much time to think: on changeovers, between points, between serves. Williams has had her troubles focusing on the essential, too: some of them on the same Philippe Chatrier Court where she stared down another deficit in the day’s second semifinal, against Timea Bacsinszky. It has been a shaky French Open for Williams, and she wobbled plenty more against the clever, composed Bacsinszky. Feeling ill, Williams looked on the verge of toppling over on the clay on several occasions, but generally looked much more stable when the ball was in play. She had lost the first set in three consecutive matches before defeating Sara Errani in straight sets in the quarterfinals. But Bacsinszky, the No. 23 seed playing in her first major semifinal, put Williams in a hole again, winning the first set, 6-4, and going up a break of serve at 3-2 in the second. It should come as no great surprise at this late stage of the combative Williams’s career that it was all Williams from there. Despite reaching for her ice towel like a lifeline on changeovers and occasionally dribbling balls off her feet as she prepared to serve, she swept through the next 10 games to win, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0. When Bacsinszky’s last shot sailed long, Williams turned slowly and looked at her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou; her mother, Oracene Price; and others in her box. She appeared more relieved than delighted. After struggling to say a few words in French to the crowd, she then cut short her postmatch interview because of a coughing fit, gathered her equipment and walked slowly toward the exit. Mouratoglou, who said Williams had the flu, said she had begun feeling weak early in the tournament but her symptoms developed later. “She is super sick,” he said. “She had fever and was coughing the whole night. She was empty but she made it.” He added: “When she was broken in the second set, her reaction was pure and simply incredible. She won 10 games in a row right? That’s the difference between the champions and the others. There’s no rational explanation for that, and she has in her this capacity when she feels the danger to react, and the reaction is such a strong one that in general it’s very difficult on the other side of the net to resist it. And the games go fast.” Williams was later seen by a tournament doctor; she cancelled her postmatch news conference. “I have been feeling unwell for a few days, and after this tough match against Timea, I needed to see the tournament doctor,” Williams said in the statement. “I am proud to be back in the final here at Roland Garros, in a city that means so much to me, and am determined to be 100 percent ready for the final.” Image Serena Williams appeared to be on the verge of toppling over several times during her semifinal match. Credit Clive Brunskill/Getty Images Williams, 33, will have a chance to win her third French Open championship after her titles in 2002 and 2013. She also can become the first woman to win the first two legs of the Grand Slam in the same year since Jennifer Capriati in 2002. If healthy (and maybe even if not), she will be a heavy favorite against Safarova, whom she has beaten in all eight of their previous matches . “That’s true,” acknowledged Rob Steckley, Safarova’s bearded and upbeat coach. “But we’re getting closer every time.” Their most recent official match, in the Round of 16 in Beijing last year, went three sets before Williams won, 6-1, 1-6, 6-2. In January, Williams beat Safarova in the exhibition team event, the Hopman Cup, in a third-set tiebreaker. “It’s a lot down to experience,” Steckley said. “Not only is Serena the best ever to play, she’s still human.” Safarova, a left-hander with a particularly potent forehand, beat big-serving Sabine Lisicki in the third round and upset Maria Sharapova , the No. 2 seed and defending champion, in the fourth round. She then beat the promising, hard-hitting Garbiñe Muguruza in the quarterfinals and Ivanovic, the 2008 champion here who can blast her groundstrokes, particularly her forehand, with major pace. In short, Safarova should be prepared for Williams-style power. The problem is that Williams usually reserves her best for Grand Slam singles finals; she is 19-4 in them over all and has won six in a row, with her last loss coming to Samantha Stosur at the 2011 United States Open . That match was played without a day’s rest between the semifinal and the final. This time, Williams will have a full day to recover for Saturday’s final. She looked very much in need of rest as she leaned on her racket like a crutch between points Thursday, only to spring to life with the ball in play. Bacsinszky said she had not been distracted. “She’s the only one who knows how she was feeling,” she said of Williams. “I have no idea how fit she was or not. I knew on court it would be a difficult match. I never forgot that.” Mouratoglou said there had been no question about Williams’s not playing. “She is in a Grand Slam semi; this is not the type of match you want to miss unless you are injured and it can get worse,” he said. “She showed once again that she is the strongest player mentally in history.” Rest is not in Safarova’s plans. She is in the semifinals of the women’s doubles event with Bethanie Mattek-Sands, and they are scheduled to play Friday. A popular figure on the women’s tour, Safarova long struggled with her nerves in singles but is now producing strong results under Grand Slam pressure. She reached her first major semifinal at Wimbledon last year. She has retooled her groundstroke technique with the help of Steckley, a former Canadian touring professional, by trying to get her body weight farther forward on her groundstrokes instead of sticking with an open stance. Steckley said Safarova had used visualization lately to improve her focus, and he also has tried to help her project more self-assurance. “It’s as simple as this,” Steckley said. “In practice, if you go and make a call, make it with confidence, I tell her. Because sometimes she’s not so sure and gives it away, even though it’s clearly on the line. It’s not that you’re not being nice. You’re sending the signal to the other player that they are able to come and enter into your territory. So that was one of the things we’ve tried to toughen up a little. Not to be a jerk, but just don’t let it all come onto your shoulders. Don’t be a pushover.” Earlier in Safarova’s career, a shaky game like the one she played when serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set might have led to defeat. She served three double faults in the game, including one on her first match point. “When I lost the serve, I shake it off and started to play aggressive again,” Safarova said. With Ivanovic serving at 5-5, 30-30 in the next game, Safarova hit a convincing forehand down the line that Ivanovic could not handle. Ivanovic, under pressure again, then missed a forehand wide to give back the break. Safarova had a second chance to serve for a place in the final, and this time there were no double faults. Ivanovic saved one more match point at 40-15, but on the next point, Safarova cracked an inside-out forehand winner off a short ball. After it had bounced twice, she dropped her racket and fell flat on the clay. “I have been on tour, it’s my 12th year,” she said. “You appreciate it much more.”

Serena Williams
Lucie Safarova
French Open
Tennis
Ana Ivanovic
Timea Bacsinszky


Europe Trying to Catch Up in Teaching e-Business

Abstract: PARIS — When Google announced this year that it would sponsor a chair at H.E.C. Paris, one of the most prestigious business schools in France, the news was welcomed by both academics and digital entrepreneurs. The Google@HEC chair — the first direct investment by the company in a business school — is seen as a sign that Europe is finally trying to catch up with the United States in teaching digital entrepreneurship. While it is not the first European foray into this field, it comes amid the realization that universities in Europe are lagging behind their U.S. counterparts. “We need role models for the digital economy,” said Eloïc-Anil Peyrache, an associate dean at H.E.C. Dr. Peyrache said that students were becoming more interested in the subject. “Most of this is the willingness to open up your new company, of which two-thirds is related to the Web,” he said. A decade ago, most of H.E.C.’s graduates would have found employment in big corporations or consulting firms, but the more recent graduates were more likely to go at it alone, he said. The grandes écoles, the elite French schools where most corporate or government leaders are traditionally trained, have been teaching digital entrepreneurship for several years. Business schools are seeing the urgency of building e-business curriculums and programs lest they miss out. “In the next coming years there will be a difference in the business schools where this is worked out and those where it won’t be,” said Bernard Ramanantsoa, H.E.C.’s dean. Essec , another grande école, started teaching “Managing IT in a Networked World” last year as part of its Global M.B.A. program, which is taught in both Paris and Singapore. The course combines the more traditional discipline of information technology management with e-business. Peter O’Connor, who teaches the course at Essec, said it had been conceived to keep up with what he called the “digitalization” of virtually all aspects of business. “The wide-scale acceptance of it has come in the last two or three years, as we’ve seen the value of having a digital strategy in vast amounts of businesses,” Dr. O’Connor said. A course on e-business entrepreneurship, also in its second year at Essec, is especially popular because, together with another course on business planning, it allows students to apply to the school’s incubator, which provides start-ups with seed money and office space. Professor Antonio Dávila, who heads the Entrepreneurship Department at the I.E.S.E. Business School , which has campuses around Spain , said that online commerce was by far the most popular post-graduate plan among his students. “Digital entrepreneurship is what marketing was in the ’80s and ’90s and banking and consulting in the 2000s,” he said. Part of the appeal resulted from decreasing interest in more traditional fields because of the global economic slowdown. “On the Internet, if you are successful in about five years, you’re global,” he said. More business schools are using both traditional professors and outside experts who are well-versed in real-life changes. This is the strategy that the Google@HEC chair employs. Instead of paying for a single professorship, as the word “chair” might suggest, Google is supplying the school with experts, both from its own ranks and from outside companies. “What they can learn is how to actually use the practical experience of building and running an e-commerce Web site,” said Michel Bénard, who is university relations manager at Google France. Celine Lazorthes, an H.E.C. graduate and digital entrepreneur who now mentors students at her alma mater, said that Google’s investment was a step forward. “In France, we need to make better links with companies,” she said. Ms. Lazorthes thinks that students, particularly those opening H.E.C.-based start-ups, can benefit from Google’s technical guidance and market data. In Denmark, the Copenhagen Business Schools, or C.B.S., has tried to teach the subject for decades, said Jan Damsgaard, the head of the Department of IT Management. The school was a pioneer in developing a center of electronic commerce in 1998, with a dedicated professor and a resource center, but it may have been too early for its own good. In 2005, it shut down when the dot-com bubble burst, and it never reopened. Still, the school is considered to be on the cutting edge of including instruction on doing business online. Since last year, C.B.S. has offered a course on social media marketing. “Nowadays it is in everything,” said Dr. Damsgaard about e-business at C.B.S. Still, the United States is far ahead in promoting Internet companies. “If you are trying to prepare business students for the world and you are not taking into account digital technology, you are failing in your mission,” said Andrew McAfee , a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. McAfee, who teaches and researches the business effects of information technology, said U.S. schools were better placed to attract outside experts, since most of them worked in the country. “It is easy for us to bring people into class,” he said. “High-tech is mainly centered in the States.” Mr. O’Connor of Essec said that the United States was several years ahead of Europe and Asia, mostly because of the presence of venture capital and the positive attitude toward risk-taking, and even failure, in e-business in the United States. “There is such a concentration of talent, money and facilities in Silicon Valley that it is going to be successful for a very long time,” he said. However, he was optimistic about transferring that expertise across the Atlantic and around the world. As e-businesses gain importance in places like Russia, China and India, the global expertise and demand will no longer be focused in the United States. Business school curriculums will follow the trend, he explained. “The amount we’re trailing is definitely reducing rapidly and will disappear,” he said of European business schools.

Europe
Business Schools
Spain
Education
Google Inc
Paris (France)
Colleges and Universities


Home Sales at Slowest Pace in More Than a Decade

Abstract: Sales of previously owned homes fell 5.3 percent in January from December, an industry group reported Wednesday. The National Association of Realtors reported that existing-home sales, fell to an annual rate of 4.49 million in January, the slowest rate in more than a decade. Sales were down 8.6 percent from January 2008. The median home price fell to $170,300, its lowest point since March 2003. The median price in January was down 26 percent from its peak of $230,100 in July 2006. On Tuesday, a closely watched gauge of housing prices reported that single-family home prices fell 18.5 percent in December from a year earlier, the fastest rate on record, and economists said that housing would probably continue to sink as buyers wait for the economy to improve. Chris York and Rebecca O’Connell are two such buyers. For the last year, they have been looking to move from Mr. York’s one-bedroom condominium to a three-bedroom home in northeastern Massachusetts or southern New Hampshire where they could start a family. The couple say they intend to spend $350,000 to $400,000 but that many homes in the area still seem overvalued. They have made two bids — one for $25,000 below the asking price, and another for $60,000 below the asking price — but have not been able to work out a deal. “We continue to go into houses and think, ‘Yeah, maybe we’ll buy this house if it drops another 30 grand,’ ” said Ms. O’Connell, 32, who works for a marketing services company. But with no pressing need to move, they can afford to hold out for a better deal. “We can sit around and wait,” said Mr. York, 33, a civil engineer. “We’d like to buy a house tomorrow, but we know we can wait and find the perfect house.” Their broker, Richard Rosa, said many other would-be buyers were circling the real estate market, tempted by falling prices in Massachusetts towns like Chelmsford or Billerica but hesitating because they expect that if they wait three months, they could get an even better deal. He said sales were slowest in more affluent communities, where housing values have held up, but have picked up in towns where values have fallen the farthest. Home sales in January were up in the more distressed corners of Southern California and the San Francisco Bay area, according to the property research firm DataQuick. Home values in the Los Angeles and San Francisco metro areas are down some 40 percent from their peaks. The National Association of Realtors estimated that foreclosures or distressed sales — among the cheapest homes available — made up 45 percent of sales in January. The Obama administration has laid out a $275 billion plan to help as many as nine million families refinance their mortgages or avoid foreclosure using a variety of incentives and government subsidies to reduce interest rates and principal amounts. In January, home sales were flat in the West. They dropped 5.7 percent in the Midwest and the South, and fell 14.7 percent in the Northeast. The inventory of unsold homes fell to 3.6 million nationwide from more than 4.5 million last summer. At the current rate of sales, it would take 9.6 months to exhaust the excess supply of homes.

Sales
Housing
National Assn of Realtors
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Colorado Mother Yanks Boy From Mountain Lion’s Grip in Front Yard

Abstract: A 5-year-old boy was in fair condition on Saturday after his mother wrested him from a mountain lion that had pounced on the child outside their home near Aspen, Colo., the police said . The boy, whose name was not disclosed, was playing outside with his older brother around 8 p.m. on Friday when his mother, who was inside the house, heard screaming. She ran outside and saw a mountain lion on top of her son, who sustained injuries to his face, head and neck during the attack, the police said. The Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office said the woman “was able to physically remove her son” from the animal’s grip, sustaining injuries to her hands and legs. Her son was transferred to a hospital in Denver on Saturday, the sheriff’s office said. Image The carcass of the mountain lion that attacked a 5-year-old boy near Aspen, Colo., on Friday night. Credit Pitkin County Sheriff's Office The police did not say if the injuries sustained by the mother and her child were caused by scratches or bites. The Aspen Times reported on Saturday that the animal had bitten the child. “She was able to pry the cat’s jaws open,” Michael Buglione, a sheriff’s deputy, told the paper . “She’s a hero.” The authorities learned of the attack when the boy’s father called 911 as he drove his son to Aspen Valley Hospital on Friday, the sheriff’s office said. The attack happened in an unincorporated area of Pitkin County roughly 10 miles outside Aspen. The sheriff’s office said deputies responded to the family’s home, along with a United States Forest Service officer, shortly after receiving the father’s 911 call. The Forest Service officer killed a mountain lion in the front yard. Officers from Colorado Parks and Wildlife examined the dead mountain lion and searched for a second lion that had been reported in the area earlier that day. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a statement on Saturday that lion sightings had increased across the state as a result of “a robust lion population” and development encroaching on their habitats. The last known attack on a human happened last July near the town of Dotsero.


A Time to Dream, and a Time to Decipher

Abstract: The signs for the Queens Dream Meetup Group were pasted on the front of the small green house in Ozone Park, above a carefully marked flower bed sleeping beneath a layer of ice. The house belongs to Kumar Thomas, 35, a registered nurse who always ends his e-mail messages with: "Life began in a garden. Plant a seed and let your dreams grow." The signs had arrows pointing to the back door. The members began by giving titles to their dreams: "The Crocodile Is After Me," "Exotic Island," "Hall of Mirrors," "Sailing the High Seas," "Visiting the Winter Garden a Second Time," "This New Life" and "The Bear Came to Visit." The newest member, Donna Faiella, 48, a video editor for Ogilvy & Mather, who lives nearby, linked her dream -- of an old man, thin, bruised and missing his right eye -- to her father, who is in a nursing home. The dream also involved the sensation of a seizure. "I felt like someone was pulling my legs," she said. "Is there anything deeper?" she asked the tight circle seated around her, adding that her dreams were often violent and were premonitions. "Osiris" commented Cesar Godoy, 61, an architect from Morristown, N.J., who designs corporate spaces and is drawn to symbols, like this one of the Egyptian god of the underworld. "The wounded man." Next, his wife, Bianca Godoy, described her "Exotic Island" dream: a trip to a volcanic place, her Garden of Eden, where trees formed a canopy over the lush colorful flora and fauna. There was a sign, "The Best Frogs in the World." Emily Tell, 32, a Spanish translator from Fort Greene, Brooklyn, asked, "Why did I dream about Sarah Jessica Parker?" People read the celebrity appearance in her dream as the parallel to her own life as a single woman in the big city looking for love. How did she find the dream group? "I hit 'go' on Yahoo, and it took me here."

DREAMS
QUEENS DREAM MEETUP GROUP
SLEEP
QUEENS (NYC)


Officials Cite Possible Knife in 2nd Video of San Antonio Shooting

Abstract: SAN ANTONIO — A second video of two deputies fatally shooting a Hispanic man here on Friday shows the man holding an object that officials believe was a knife, but the video also makes clear the man had his hands in the air before he was shot, the authorities said Wednesday. The Bexar County sheriff, Susan L. Pamerleau, declined to release the second video of the shooting, citing her agency’s continuing investigation, but she said what the video showed “causes us concern.” She did not provide details about the person who recorded the video. A bystander’s cellphone video released this week by a television station also showed the shooting, but from a partly obstructed angle. In that video, recorded by a motorist who had observed police activity, the two deputies appear to open fire on the man, Gilbert Flores, 41, as he faces them with his hands raised in surrender while standing still. A utility pole obstructs the view of Mr. Flores’s left arm. The second video, from a different angle, shows Mr. Flores with hands raised, officials said. Sheriff Pamerleau did not explain what she saw in the second video that gave her concern, but she said that an investigation by her office had not yet determined if the shooting was justified. “If, through this investigation, it’s determined that there was any wrongdoing on the part of the deputies, we will deal with that,” she said. In addition to the sheriff’s inquiry, the F.B.I. in San Antonio has opened an investigation to determine whether Mr. Flores’s civil rights were violated. Fatal Police Shootings: Accounts Since Ferguson A selection of police shootings that have been reported by news organizations since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., in August. “We have already been working jointly with the F.B.I., and they are seeing everything that we have,” Sheriff Pamerleau said. Sheriff’s officials said they believed the object in Mr. Flores’s hand was a knife. They submitted the second, unreleased video to a state crime laboratory for analysis. The two deputies confronted Mr. Flores on Friday afternoon as they were responding to a report of domestic violence in a northwest San Antonio neighborhood. According to the authorities, Mr. Flores resisted arrest. Sheriff Pamerleau said that one of the deputies had tried to use a Taser stun gun but that the probes had failed to make contact. The two deputies, Greg Vasquez and Robert Sanchez, who are also Hispanic, are on administrative leave. Sheriff Pamerleau said she had spoken with the deputies and their lawyers on Friday but declined to discuss their explanations for the shooting. In an audio recording of conversations between a dispatcher and paramedics at the scene, posted by The San Antonio Express-News from radio traffic published by the Broadcastify website, a dispatcher said as the confrontation unfolded that the suspect was “threatening suicide by cop.” The dispatcher also told paramedics that the suspect had a knife in his hand. The bystander who recorded the first video, Michael Thomas, 20, a paint company worker, said Mr. Flores had his arms raised and did not appear to threaten the deputies before they opened fire. The sheriff’s department posted a message on its Facebook page that called KSAT’s decision to show Mr. Thomas’s video “unethical and sad.” At a meeting Tuesday, a Bexar County commissioner, Tommy Calvert, criticized the Facebook posting, telling a sheriff’s official that it was inappropriate and “erodes the trust of the public.” Sheriff Pamerleau said that she had met with KSAT representatives on Wednesday and that “we have cleared the air about any disagreements.” She said the department’s only objection to the posting of the video was that it showed a man’s death, and his relatives would have the experience, “time over time after time, of seeing their loved one die.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Croatia: Apologies at Sites of ’91 Killings

Abstract: The presidents of Serbia and Croatia on Thursday apologized at the sites of mass killings during their 1991 war in a symbolic step toward reconciliation. President Boris Tadic of Serbia, left, became the first Serb leader to visit Ovcara, Croatia, where more than 200 Croats were massacred. He laid a wreath and said that he came to “bow down before the victims.” Later, President Ivo Josipovic of Croatia laid a wreath at the grave of 18 Serbs killed by Croats in 1991 in the nearby village of Paulin Dvor, saying that “those who are left behind those victims deserve our apology.”

Croatia
Apologies
Serbia
Murders and Attempted Murders
Tadic Boris
Josipovic Ivo


Anti-U.S. Attack Videos Spread on Web

Abstract: LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 — Videos showing insurgent attacks against American troops in Iraq , long available in Baghdad shops and on Jihadist Web sites, have steadily migrated in recent months to popular Internet video-sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video. Many of the videos, showing sniper attacks against Americans and roadside bombs exploding under American military vehicles, have been posted not by insurgents or their official supporters but apparently by Internet users in the United States and other countries, who have passed along videos found elsewhere. Among the scenes being viewed daily by thousands of users of the sites are sniper attacks in which Americans are felled by snipers as a camera records the action and of armored Humvees or other military vehicles being hit by roadside bombs. In some videos, the troops do not appear to have been seriously injured; in one, titled “Sniper Hit” and posted on YouTube by a user named 69souljah, a serviceman is knocked down by a shot but then gets up to seek cover. Other videos, however, show soldiers bleeding on the ground, vehicles exploding and troops being loaded onto medical evacuation helicopters. At a time when the Bush administration has restricted photographs of the coffins of military personnel returning to the United States and the Pentagon keeps close tabs on videotapes of combat operations taken by the news media, the videos give average Americans a level of access to combat scenes rarely available before, if ever. Their availability has also produced some backlash. In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended the accounts of some users who have posted them, a reaction, it said, to complaints from other users. More than four dozen videos of combat in Iraq viewed by The New York Times have been removed in recent days, many after The Times began inquiries. But many others remain, some labeled in Arabic, making them difficult for American users to search for. In addition, new videos, often with the same material that had been deleted elsewhere, are added daily. Russell K. Terry, a Vietnam veteran who founded the Iraq War Veterans Organization, said he had mixed feelings about the videos. “It’s unfortunate there’s no way to stop it,” Mr. Terry said, even though “this is what these guys are over there fighting for: freedom of speech.” One YouTube user, who would not identify himself other than by his account name, facez0fdeath, and his location, in Britain, said by e-mail that he posted a video of a sniper attack “because I felt it was information the U.K. news was unwilling to tell.” “I was physically sickened upon seeing it,” he said, adding, “I am wholly opposed to any form of censorship.” The video he posted, which had been viewed more than 33,000 times, was removed earlier this week. Another YouTube user, who said he was a 19-year-old in Istanbul and who posted more than 40 videos of Iraq violence, said via e-mail that “anti-war feelings and Muslim beliefs (the religion of peace) motivates me.” Neal O. Newbill, a freshman at the University of Memphis who viewed some of the YouTube videos and posted comments on them, said in an interview that he was enraged by the recorded chants of “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” that follow some of the sniper attacks. But Mr. Newbill added that he was awed by the size of the blasts from the improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, used against American vehicles. A son, nephew and grandson of American veterans, Mr. Newbill said he had sought out the videos, searching on YouTube for “I.E.D.,” “because I like watching stuff blow up.” The Web sites also contain a growing number of video clips taken by American soldiers. One shows the view from the back of a truck containing several members of a platoon, whose vehicle then hits an I.E.D. and is turned on its side. A few videos also show American servicemen or private security guards firing at attackers, and one shows an American rocket-propelled grenade hitting a building from which insurgents are firing. A spokesman for United States Central Command, which oversees troops in Iraq, said the military was aware of the use of common Internet sites by both insurgent groups and American military personnel. “Centcom is aware we are facing an adaptive enemy that uses the Internet as a force multiplier and as a means of connectivity,” Maj. Matt McLaughlin, the spokesman, said by e-mail. While posting of Web logs, pictures and videos by American troops is subject to military regulations, Major McLauglin said, “ Al Qaeda uses the Internet and media to foster the perception that they are more capable than they are.” Some of the videos are obvious propaganda, with Arabic subtitles and accompanying music, while others simply have scenes without sound or graphics. They appear to be real, though the results of attacks are not always clear. One frequently posted video shows individual photographs of several hundred American soldiers allegedly killed by a Baghdad sniper referred to as Juba. But a television news report from the German weekly Der Spiegel that also has been posted on the video sites shows an interview with one American soldier whom the insurgent group claimed to have killed but whose protective vest stopped the sniper’s bullet. Geoffrey D. W. Wawro, director of the Center for the Study of Military History at the University of North Texas and a former instructor at the United States Naval War College, said the erosion of the command structure of terrorist and insurgent groups had led them to increase their reliance on the Internet and videos to gain recruits. American troops, too, have always sent snapshots home from the front, Mr. Wawro said, and digital pictures and video are simply a new incarnation of that. “This is how the new generation does things,” he said. “It results in a continued trivialization of combat and its effects,” Mr. Wawro added, “but no one feels completely comfortable saying, Don’t do it.” YouTube does feel comfortable saying so, however, as does Google Video. Both have user guidelines that prohibit the posting of videos with graphic violence, a measure that spokeswomen for each service said was violated by many of the Iraq videos. Julie Supan, senior director of marketing for YouTube, said the company removed videos after they were flagged by users as having inappropriate content and were reviewed by the video service. In an e-mail message, Ms. Supan said that among the videos removed were those that “display graphic depictions of violence in addition to any war footage (U.S. or other) displayed with intent to shock or disgust, or graphic war footage with implied death (of U.S. troops or otherwise).”

Iraq
Al Qaeda
Recordings (Video)
United States Armament and Defense
Computers and the Internet
YouTube.com
Google Inc
Defense Department


Pakistan Soccer in Turmoil, Both Off the Field and On

Abstract: Pakistan’s national team was scheduled to face the host India on Wednesday in the opening game of the 2015 South Asian Football Federation Championship , but it won’t play after Pakistan’s soccer federation withdrew from the tournament in November. It was the latest soccer-related turmoil for Pakistan, whose biggest rival seems to be itself at the moment and where most action takes place not on the field, but in the courts. The national team has not played since March, and the withdrawal from the eight-team SAFF tournament means the inaction will continue well into 2016. Ranked No.184 in the world by FIFA, Pakistan has never won the competition, but the decision not to participate at all was met with fierce criticism at home. “It’s a great loss for football and the players,” acknowledged Sardar Naveed Haider Khan, the vice president of the Pakistan Football Federation. “I feel sorry for them. It hurts as these games are opportunities to be seen by scouts by clubs.” Khan is instead preoccupied with legal issues. “We are hoping our situation will be resolved early,” he said. In June, Faisal Saleh Hayat was suspended as president by the P.F.F. after allegations of mismanagement and financial irregularities. Hayat went ahead with an election on June 30 anyway and won a fourth term. FIFA recognized Hayat’s victory, but the Lahore High Court did not and appointed Asad Munir, a former judge, to run the P.F.F. in August, though FIFA did not recognize the move and in September threatened sanctions over what it sees as government interference in the sport. Munir currently controls the federation’s funds but does not have the authority to send teams to international tournaments. The P.F.F. does have the authority to send teams, but Khan said it does not have the financial means to do so. “If the accounts are restored in our name, then we can move forward, and it takes money to organize training camps and games, but that is under the control of the administrator.” Umaid Wasim, a sports reporter for the national newspaper Dawn, said he believes that the federation could have sent a team to the SAFF Championship had it been inclined to work with Munir. “The Hayat faction claims that it didn’t have funds to send the team,” Wasim said. “SAFF is a fully paid trip by the organizers, so money shouldn’t have been an issue. I strongly believe that the P.F.F. never intended to send a team.” Wasim said that after poor results in March, after the team was eliminated by Yemen in the first Asian qualifying round for the 2018 World Cup, the federation was wary of more criticism. At the moment, the national team is without a coach after Mohammed al-Shamlan returned to his native Bahrain in June. His predecessor, Zavisa Milosavljevic of Serbia, was head coach from 2011 to 2013 and has mixed memories. “I can only say that the P.F.F. did not pay me my last salary payment from my contract and money for food for two years. It is about $15,000. Where that money went, I do not know.” He said other coaches were awaiting payment, too. For Wasim, this is just one example of mismanagement and even worse. The journalist said that of the eight projects in Pakistan under FIFA’s Goal program — initiatives that help nations develop facilities — only one ever came to fruition: the P.F.F.’s headquarters in Lahore. “The one in Peshawar — awarded in 2006 — is canceled, and it isn’t mentioned on the FIFA website anymore. They did construct a building there, but that facility now lies in ruins,” Wasim said. “The Karachi Goal Project was also given in 2006 and till now it doesn’t have a playing field,” he added, “although a deserted building stands.” Wasim also disputes the P.F.F.’s assertion that the money went directly from FIFA to contractors. Amid numerous other allegations, earlier in December, Dawn reported that officials sold their allocations of World Cup tickets at inflated prices. Other allegations center on a $400,000 donation made by the former FIFA vice president Chung Mong-joon and $250,000 from the Asian Football Confederation to help rebuild facilities damaged after floods. According to reports in Dawn, the project was never started. Khan denied any wrongdoing. “Whenever there are two factions and they are fighting, one side spreads allegations. Whatever financial assistance was provided by the A.F.C. and FIFA, it was all audited. They don’t release the second installment until the first stage is completed. If it is not done properly, future funding is stopped.” Khan blamed the reports on “outsiders who are passing this to the media.” “FIFA and A.F.C. have paid the money but are not complaining; they are satisfied,” Khan said. “What proof has been put forward?” All the while, Pakistan soccer continues to fall behind regional rivals. Milosavljevic believes the problem lies with the leaders. “Where is Pakistan in the FIFA ranking list?” he asked. Of the 46 A.F.C. teams ranked by FIFA , only six are ranked lower than Pakistan’s 184th. Immediately above Pakistan in the rankings are Chinese Taipei and Bangladesh (tied at 182) and Cambodia (180.) For Milosavljevic, there is potential in the country. “All children in the world have the same potential and talent, but talent without professionalism and long-term work, very quickly disappears. When the federation changes the system of youth development and brings in professional coaching staff, we can expect football progress.”

Pakistan
Soccer
South Asian Football Federation
FIFA
Pakistan Football Federation
2018 FIFA World Cup


India Vanquishes Pakistan in Geopolitically Tinged Cricket Match

Abstract: NEW DELHI — India rejoiced on Wednesday after defeating Pakistan in the World Cup of cricket , a sporting event charged with geopolitics. The prime ministers of the nuclear-armed neighbors had sought to improve relations by sitting together in the grandstands. For India and Pakistan, both cricket obsessed, the semifinal match was an epic showdown. A gigantic audience watched the match on television in both countries. Much of India, a nation of 1.2 billion people, essentially shut down for the day as people suspended their daily affairs to watch the bitter rivals play. By late Wednesday, after India’s victory was secure, people began lighting fireworks and celebrating across the nation. In Pakistan, by contrast, a sense of despair and disappointment swept through cricket fans. Excitement had run so high that even inmates at prisons were permitted to watch the game, news media there reported. While Pakistan remained calm, and there was no outbreak of rioting — unlike in past matches — angry protesters did gather outside the house of the Pakistani captain, Shahid Afridi, and chant slogans against him in the southern port city of Karachi, according to Karachi news reports. The politics of the match were as important as the outcome. Days earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India issued a surprise invitation to his counterpart, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan, to join him for the match. The overture came as the countries were trying to restart diplomatic discussions and prompted speculation about what the leaders might discuss and whether a breakthrough in relations was possible. Still, the rivalry-driven emotions of each country were reflected in the televised images of each leader as it became clear toward the end of the match that India had won. Mr. Singh was clapping, while Mr. Gilani sat grim and silent. India will play Sri Lanka in the final match in Mumbai on Saturday.

India
Pakistan
Cricket (Game)
International Relations


More Scrutiny of Lewis-McChord, Home Base of Accused Soldier

Abstract: JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — A soldier from Los Angeles blamed the combination of dangerous deployments and the gloom and gray that units encounter when they return to this sprawling military base in the often cloudy Pacific Northwest. A private from Michigan said it was not the weather, just the war. He said he was getting out of the Army for good next week, after being demoted, and that he planned to spend the foreseeable future smoking dope in Amsterdam. Another soldier said his superiors challenged his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder; his case was one of hundreds that have been challenged. This base, the largest on the West Coast, with more than 40,000 soldiers and airmen and women, has become accustomed to scrutiny during a decade of war, even to sweeping generalizations that it is somehow more flawed than other major installations. It has a controversial record of handling mental health issues, high rates of suicide, domestic violence and homicides committed by its soldiers, the most notorious of which were carried out by a rogue unit known as the “kill team” that staged combat situations to murder three Afghan civilians in 2010. Questions have only increased since Sunday, when a Lewis-McChord soldier was accused of killing at least 16 Afghan civilians , including 9 children, in an assassination-style ambush. Early reports have said that the soldier, who is in custody but has not been identified, previously suffered a form of traumatic brain injury in a vehicle crash. Yet interviews and data suggest that the picture is complicated, that while Lewis-McChord has been troubled — particularly in its struggles to address mental health — many of the issues here surface at other major bases. “I certainly think that we are seeing some serious issues there, but I think it is a national issue,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington. Ms. Murray, a Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has pushed the Army and the Pentagon to investigate how Madigan Army Medical Center, based at Lewis-McChord, handles mental health issues. Last week, she told The Seattle Times that the hospital had reversed 285 diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder. Critics say the changes may be linked to efforts to cut costs. Two doctors who screened for the disorder have been removed from that duty. In an interview on Tuesday, a senior noncommissioned officer at Fort Lewis, who recently received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder after two deployments in Iraq, said his superiors here initially expressed doubt about his condition. “It was greeted with great skepticism from my command,” the 40-year-old officer from Chicago said, referring to his provisional diagnosis during a pre-deployment screening by a doctor in October that was corroborated about a month later by a psychologist on the base. He recounted that a supervisor said to him that “The reality is that I am skeptical” and that, in his personal opinion, he was seeing an increasing number of soldiers use this as an excuse to put one over on the Army. “I was absolutely shocked that the word ‘skeptical’ came out,” the soldier said. “Here I have 13 years of active duty with two deployments, so the idea of me lying to get out of work came as a real blow.” After meetings with a military psychologist, the diagnosis was confirmed. Jorge Gonzalez, a veteran from Lewis-McChord who served 15 months in Iraq and now is executive director of Coffee Strong, a coffee house and nonprofit resource center for soldiers, said: “A huge problem is that the soldiers are not given time to heal before they are redeployed. It is a military-wide problem, and there is a lot of it going on at this base.” In the case of the soldier accused of the massacre on Sunday, the possibility that he experienced some form of traumatic brain injury, known as T.B.I., before his most recent deployment has prompted questions about whether he should have been sent to Afghanistan. The soldier, part of the Third Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division, had served three tours in Iraq and was sent to Afghanistan in December. He worked in support of Special Forces operations. But the reports about traumatic brain injury have also raised alarms among some veterans advocates, who say they are worried about broad-brush assessments of all combat veterans, particularly those with head injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder. “I know lots of people who have T.B.I., and that doesn’t make them killers of civilians,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “I think that it’s really important that we, as a community, push back on a rush to judgment, a rush to simplify.” Mr. Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran, said there seemed to be a “concentration of problems” at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, but a lack of clear data made it hard to draw conclusions about whether it had a higher level of crime, substance abuse, domestic violence or suicide than other bases. Of the Second Infantry Division’s three Stryker brigades, each containing roughly 4,000 soldiers, the Third Brigade has deployed the most: three times to Iraq before its current tour in Afghanistan. All of those were for 12 months, except for an extended 15-month tour in Iraq at the beginning of the surge, from June 2006 into September 2007. Joint Base Lewis-McChord had 16 soldiers commit suicide last year, the most of any Army post, Army statistics show. Since 2003, 68 soldiers from the base have killed themselves, among the higher totals for the Army in that period, but still below Fort Hood, Fort Campbell and Fort Bragg.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Nadal, Spain Dominates the Year in Tennis

Abstract: MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — As the 2008 tennis season ended in this unlikely city with Fernando Verdasco buried under a pile of delirious teammates, the inescapable conclusion was that it had been a great year for Spaniards on the road. Rafael Nadal left the island comforts of Majorca and hustled to his fourth straight French Open title, his first Wimbledon title and his first Olympic gold medal. Although the Davis Cup no longer carries the same weight in the United States, La Copa Davis still means plenty in other parts of the world, including Argentina, where it shared the front pages with Diego Maradona’s debut as the coach of the Argentine national soccer team. But in the end, David Nalbandian and the Argentines did not receive the kind of attention they were counting on as their bid to win tennis’s premier team title unraveled once more. Instead of dissecting a historic sports triumph, their chroniclers were left to dissect fractured team unity, Nalbandian’s prickly personality and the decision of the team captain, Alberto Mancini, to resign and let someone else attempt to inspire Argentina to its first Davis Cup. “I think for all of us to pull in the same direction requires an effort; it happens, but it demands a lot,” Mancini said in a news conference at which the questions and answers were full of emotion. “I’m not just talking about tennis players. I’m talking about the country as a whole.” Spanish teams, for the moment, do not have such problems after a year in which the men’s soccer team won the European championships and the men’s basketball team gave the American “Redeem Team” a scare in the Olympic final. Now, Spain’s Davis Cup squad has managed to win despite the absence of Nadal. “I’m really proud to share this prize with these players,” the departing Spanish captain, Emilio Sánchez Vicario, said. “For me, it’s the biggest prize of my life.” Spain has won its three Cups in 2000, 2004 and 2008, all Olympic years, which is probably no coincidence considering that overstuffed Olympic years put a major strain on tennis stars and inevitably favor the nations with the biggest reserves of able and willing talent. Spain is not as deep as it was several seasons ago, but it still had much better backups in Feliciano López and Verdasco than Argentina could muster when its new star, Juan Martín Del Potro, pulled up lame during his opening-day loss to López. It is hardly a surprise that health problems were a major factor in men’s tennis this year. Nadal barely played after September. Roger Federer , whose intelligent scheduling and attention to detail had kept him relatively injury free for years, labored through a challenging season. It began with him fighting through mononucleosis (then undiagnosed) and losing in the semifinals of the Australian Open to Novak Djokovic and ended with him enduring back problems and losing in the round-robin portion of the Tennis Masters Cup to Andy Murray. Along the way, he lost his four-and-half-year grip on the No. 1 ranking and nearly slipped past No. 2 as well, with Djokovic, who won the Australian Open and the season-ending Masters Cup, coming 10 computer points of nipping him. But Federer still had a memorable season. He reached the semifinals of one Grand Slam and the finals of the other three. He won his first Olympic medal, a gold in the doubles in Beijing. He then won his fifth straight United States Open title, leaving him one victory from Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slam singles titles. He was also part of the five-set joint masterwork of a Wimbledon final in which Nadal banished any perceptions that he was just another clay-court specialist as he ended Federer’s five-year reign at the All England Club. Nadal became the first Spanish man since Manuel Santana in 1966 to win a major on a surface other than clay, and the first man since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to complete the French Open-Wimbledon double. The Olympic gold, which came on an outdoor hardcourt, was an exclamation point, as was his impressive performance back on clay in Madrid’s Las Ventas bullring against the United States in the Davis Cup semifinals. But the heroics stopped there, which was probably in the best long-term interests of Nadal. Digging too deep this autumn would surely have affected his performance in 2009, which seems like a particularly attractive year with Federer still in his prime, Djokovic and Murray becoming presumably even more dangerous and charismatic outsiders like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France and Andy Roddick of the United States still in the mix.

Tennis
Davis Cup
Verdasco Fernando
Clarey Christopher
Nadal Rafael
Nalbandian David
Federer Roger


Pick for V.A. Is Former Corporate Chief

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday intends to nominate Robert A. McDonald, a former chief executive of Procter & Gamble, to be the next secretary of Veterans Affairs, a White House official said Sunday, betting that a global corporate officer can turn around a government health system that has been rocked by allegations of mismanagement and cover-ups of long patient waiting times. The president last month accepted the resignation of Eric Shinseki , the retired four-star Army general he tapped in 2009 to lead the agency. By appointing Mr. McDonald, 61, Mr. Obama is turning to an outsider to overcome deep bureaucratic problems and the mismanagement that stemmed, in part, from a surge in the number of veterans needing care. In the weeks since Mr. Shinseki’s departure, White House officials had explored three kinds of potential replacements: someone with deep management experience, someone with a military background similar to the department’s former leader or someone with a track record running a sprawling hospital system. By picking Mr. McDonald, Mr. Obama signaled that he views the problems at the department as primarily a management concern, although his nominee is a West Point graduate with a military service record . A report issued on Friday by Mr. Obama’s deputy chief of staff, Rob Nabors, described a “corrosive” management culture and “a lack of responsiveness and an inability to effectively manage or communicate” at the agency. The choice is markedly different from the one Mr. Obama made five years ago, suggesting that he no longer believes that a military commander can fix the substantial problems at the country’s largest integrated health care network, with over 1,700 facilities that serve more than eight million veterans a year. “This is definitely a surprising pick,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the chief executive and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America . “McDonald is not a name that was on anyone’s radar over the last few weeks. His branding background may prove helpful because there are few organizations in America with a worse reputation toward customers than the V.A. right now.” But Mr. Rieckhoff added that because Mr. McDonald had “been away from the military for quite a while, he’ll have to move quickly to show he is committed to and understands the post-9/11 generation of veterans.” From 2009 to 2013 at Procter & Gamble, Mr. McDonald oversaw more than 120,000 employees as he directed a company that had operations around the globe. Officials noted Sunday that Mr. McDonald’s former company served more than five billion customers. The president’s plans to nominate Mr. McDonald were first reported Sunday by The Washington Post. If he is confirmed, Mr. McDonald will face a beleaguered $154 billion-a-year department whose major functions are stricken with a combination of operational and technological dysfunction; serious morale problems exacerbated by what administration officials now acknowledge is a corrosive management culture and hostility to whistle-blowers; and a lack of trust among many veterans. The most severe problem is the scandal over falsified waiting lists that last month led to the ouster of the department’s top two officials, including Mr. Shinseki. He had characterized the lack of honesty and proper behavior at some of the department’s facilities as a “systemic, totally unacceptable lack of integrity” that he could not explain. The waiting-list controversy revealed that veterans in many places faced long delays for appointments — delays that were hidden by administrators and scheduling employees who were under pressure to convince their bosses that waits were typically no longer than 14 days. Results of investigations and audits in recent weeks have suggested that the cover-ups of the delays were spurred in many places by administrators whose performance ratings were tied to measurements of how long it took veterans to see doctors. Veterans Affairs officials have already taken steps to eliminate what they now acknowledge were potentially perverse incentives to manipulate waiting-time data, such as eliminating performance bonuses this year for senior health care executives and deleting the 14-day goal from employee contracts. But the underlying cause of the delays will be harder to address: The department’s medical centers and clinics have seen a sharp increase in visits scheduled by patients, particularly for primary care appointments, but the number of doctors and nurse practitioners available to see them has in many places barely grown. Much of the demand has come from younger veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan with profound and complex injuries that require close monitoring and many follow-up visits. But most veterans seeking treatment at department clinics, though, are Vietnam veterans, many with chronic illnesses like diabetes that require long-term care, or with cancer or cardiovascular disease, which require complicated and expensive treatments. In addition, if confirmed, Mr. McDonald will be confronted with the continuing problem of how to make sure veterans returning from the battlefield, some of them seriously injured or battling psychological problems, receive their disability compensation in a timely manner. In his 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama criticized delays in providing benefits to veterans and promised to make fixing the agency a top priority. But while the White House has bragged about making progress in the timely distribution of benefits, the revelations this spring about delays in seeing patients has raised the agency’s profile to a new political level. To win confirmation, Mr. McDonald will have to win over lawmakers in both parties. Records show that Mr. McDonald has made political contributions only to Republicans, giving $5,000 to Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, and $11,000 to the Romney Victory Committee. He has also made several contributions to Speaker John A. Boehner and Senator Rob Portman, both Republicans of Ohio. Senator Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont and the chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, offered a neutral reaction on Sunday to the president’s pick. “The V.A. needs significantly improved transparency and accountability, and it needs an increased number of doctors, nurses and other medical staff so that all eligible veterans get high-quality health care in a timely manner,” Mr. Sanders said. Mr. Boehner released a statement complimenting Mr. McDonald as “a good man, a veteran and a strong leader.” But he also said any Veterans Affairs secretary could succeed only “if his boss, the president, first commits to doing whatever it takes to give our veterans the world-class health care system they deserve by articulating a vision for sweeping reform.”

Robert A. McDonald
Veteran Affairs
Appointments and Executive Changes
US Military
Barack Obama


Craig Becker Appointed to A.F.L.-C.I.O. Role

Abstract: Craig Becker, the former embattled member of the National Labor Relations Board, will become co-general counsel of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. , the labor federation announced on Tuesday. Mr. Becker stepped down from the board in December after serving under a recess appointment by President Obama since March 2010. Senate Republicans had previously blocked his confirmation, saying he was too liberal and too pro-union. Before serving on the N.L.R.B., Mr. Becker had been associate general counsel to both the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the Service Employees International Union, with those groups sometimes turning to him to write their most important appellate briefs. Since leaving the labor board, he has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law School. In announcing the appointment, Richard Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, “Craig Becker is a brilliant lawyer and creative thinker with deep experience in labor law, litigation and organizing; his combination of legal acumen and experience on the ground is simply unmatched.” Lynn Rhinehart, the labor federation’s longtime general counsel, will remain co-general counsel along with Mr. Becker. During his 21 months on the labor relations board, Mr. Becker backed two policies that the business community strongly resisted and labor strongly backed. One required employers to post notices on their bulletin boards explaining employees’ rights to form unions and bargain collectively, and the other established new rules to speed up unionization elections, a move expected to increase unions’ success rate in organizing drives. Last month, a federal appeals court suspended the notice requirement after a United States District Court judge ruled that the labor board lacked the authority to require such notices, although another district court judge previously upheld the rule. And last week, the N.L.R.B. temporarily suspended putting in place its new election rules soon after a federal district judge found that the board had improperly adopted those rules without a quorum. In February 2010, Senate Democrats fell eight votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster of a vote for Mr. Becker. Two Democrats, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, joined Republicans in the 52-to-33 vote. Mr. Becker’s supporters said he was a victim of Washington’s increased political polarization, noting that the Senate Labor Committee had voted overwhelmingly — 15 to 8 — to confirm Mr. Becker with two Republicans, including Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, the committee’s senior Republican, voting to confirm him. But soon afterward, he became a lightning rod in Washington’s fierce battle between business groups and labor unions. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, wrote a letter opposing Mr. Becker, calling him “probably the most controversial nominee that I have seen in a long time.” In opposing the nomination, Senate Republicans wrote to President Obama that Mr. Becker, a former law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Chicago, “could not be viewed as impartial, unbiased or objective” in labor board cases. Republicans and business groups repeatedly attacked a law review article that he had written that said employers should not have a voice in unionization elections. But in Congressional testimony, Mr. Becker said that those were his personal views and that as a labor board member he would follow the letter of the law.

American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations


Bloomberg L.P. Rents Space in Philip Morris Building

Abstract: In another sign of Bloomberg L.P. ’s growth, the company announced on Wednesday that it had signed a lease for 16 floors in the former Philip Morris building, across from Grand Central Terminal. Bloomberg, a financial information and technology company founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said that it needed the additional space to accommodate its swelling work force. The number of employees in New York City alone has grown by nearly 40 percent, to 6,500, since December 2008. “We continue to hire in New York and we expect that to continue as we expand our businesses and move into new markets worldwide,” Daniel L. Doctoroff, the company’s president, said in a statement. The company recently announced that it would build a new European headquarters in London with more than 500,000 square feet of office space. Several years ago, Bloomberg built a headquarters in New York, at Lexington Avenue near 59th Street, where it has almost 900,000 square feet. It signed a lease Wednesday for an additional 400,000 square feet of space in the old Philip Morris building, at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and 42nd Street — more than half of the 26-story tower, which has been largely vacant for several years. The Altria Group, which owns Philip Morris, sold the building to Global Holdings in 2008 for $525 million, after it moved its headquarters to Richmond, Va. Global Holdings has struggled to find tenants for the building at the rents it wanted. The company had recently signed a nonbinding letter of intent with Wells Fargo, which was negotiating a lease for a large block of space, according to three real estate executives, but Bloomberg got the space.

Office Buildings and Commercial Properties


Carolina Boy, 14, Held After Father Is Killed and 3 Are Shot at School

Abstract: A 14-year-old boy in South Carolina killed his father at home, then went to a nearby elementary school and shot two boys and a teacher with a handgun on Wednesday, according to local authorities. The teenager, whose name was not released, was taken into custody around 2 p.m. at Townville Elementary School in Anderson County, about 100 miles northeast of Atlanta. One of the students was shot in the leg, one was shot in the foot and the teacher was shot in the shoulder, Capt. Garland Major of the Anderson County sheriff’s office said. The student who was shot in the leg, Jacob Hall, was in critical condition on Wednesday night at the Greenville Health System Children’s Hospital, according to the hospital. Ross Norton, a spokesman for AnMed Health Medical Center in Anderson, said the other student and the teacher were treated at the hospital and released two hours later. The father, identified as Jeffrey Osborne, 47, was found dead with a gunshot wound after a 911 call from family members, according to Greg Shore, the Anderson County coroner. The suspect’s grandparents, who live nearby, got a phone call from their grandson, who was crying and upset, Mr. Shore said at a news conference on Wednesday night. They could not understand what he was saying and, concerned about what was wrong, went to his home and found their son — the gunman’s father — had been shot, he said. The suspect drove about three miles to the school, though it was not clear where he got the vehicle. Image Townville Elementary students in South Carolina were taken to a nearby church after a shooting at the school on Wednesday. Credit Katie McLean/The Independent-Mail, via Associated Press Sheriff John Skipper Jr. of Anderson County said the shootings happened outside the school, which has about 280 students. The teenager was caught without incident after the shootings by Jamie Brock, a 30-year volunteer firefighter, the department said. The remaining students were bused to Oak Dale Baptist Church, where they were reunited with their parents. The suspect’s mother was at work and saw the news of the shootings on television, Mr. Shore said. The motive for the shootings was unclear and there was no known connection between the suspect and the school or the victims there, officials said. Captain Major said the teenager had been home-schooled. Joanne Avery, the superintendent of Anderson School District 4, said that the school did not have a full-time resource officer, but did have security cameras and an airlock entry system, and that employees had undergone active-shooter training. Image Parents reunited with children from the school. The police were investigating. Credit Katie McLean/The Independent-Mail, via Associated Press “We are heartbroken about this senseless act of violence, but we are so thankful for the quick response by law enforcement and school employees who prevented further injuries,” she said. The police, notified of the shooting about 1:45 p.m., were at the school within seven minutes and caught the gunman “within a matter of minutes,” Dr. Avery said. School has been canceled for the rest of the week and counseling is available to students and staff members, she said. On a live-stream posted to Facebook by WYFF -TV in Greenville, S.C., buses could be seen taking students away. The video also showed parents flocking to the building. Image Police officers at the site of a shooting Wednesday at Townville Elementary School in South Carolina. Credit Mike Ellis/The Independent-Mail, via Associated Press At one point, a group of armed police officers could be seen moving from one school entrance to another, and others could be seen on the school roof. Townville, near Lake Hartwell in northwest South Carolina, is about 40 miles southwest of Greenville. It had a population of 4,586 in December 2015. Kimberly Poulin, a clerk for the County Council, said the school served a sparsely populated agricultural area. “It is very small,” Ms. Poulin said. “It’s a very small community. A rural community.” Ms. Poulin said she had never heard of gun violence in the area until Wednesday. In a statement, Gov. Nikki R. Haley said state officials would “work together with law enforcement to make sure they have the support they need to investigate what happened in Townville.” She also asked that “everyone across South Carolina join us in praying for the entire Townville Elementary School family and those touched by today’s tragedy.”

South Carolina
Townville
Townville Elementary School
Jeffrey Osborne
School Shootings and Attacks
Murders and Homicides


New Jersey Man Pleads Guilty to Pledging to Join ISIS

Abstract: A 21-year-old New Jersey man pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to planning to travel abroad with other men from New York and New Jersey to join the Islamic State. The man, Samuel Rahamin Topaz, who his lawyer said had been raised by a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, pleaded guilty to conspiring to support a foreign terrorist organization and remained held without bail. Mr. Topaz, of Fort Lee, was arrested in June , around the time a small network of men he was accused of associating with were charged with pledging allegiance to the Islamic State or taking preliminary steps to planning attacks. Mr. Topaz, who is scheduled to be sentenced in November, faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. But his lawyer, Ian Hirsch, said Mr. Topaz had planned to cooperate with the government in telling them about the other men who were arrested in the investigation. Mr. Hirsch portrayed his client on Wednesday as a naïve man who grew up confused about his faith and, starting in high school, fell under the sway of friends with extreme views. “He was lost between the two,” Mr. Hirsch said of Mr. Topaz’s relationship with his parents, speaking after a hearing in Federal District Court in Newark. “He chose something different.” His father, David Topaz, a clerk at a pizza restaurant who is from Israel, was charged in New Jersey in 2009 with transporting stolen prescription medication with a wholesale value of around $800,000. He pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods, and was released from prison in July 2014, after serving just over a year. He was detained for another 14 months by the immigration authorities after his release because he had never become an American citizen, said Mr. Hirsch, who had also defended the father. Mr. Hirsch said Samuel’s mother, Ruth Topaz, a schoolteacher, was a “very, very Catholic” woman from the Dominican Republic. David Topaz’s absence “had a significant effect on his son,” Mr. Hirsch said, describing how the younger Mr. Topaz had started bringing ill-intentioned people to his home. Efforts to reach Mr. Topaz’s parents by phone and online on Wednesday were not successful. Mr. Topaz was drawn to Islam, and Mr. Hirsch said he had learned the religion thoroughly and had prayed five times a day. A high school friend introduced him to a small circle of people with more fundamentalist religious beliefs, Mr. Hirsch said. “He was influenced by the wrong people,” Mr. Hirsch said. “There’s a good side of Islam and a bad side. I think he got introduced to the bad side. I think he understands that now.” A criminal complaint said Mr. Topaz had made plans to travel to Turkey and then join the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL. The complaint said he had told law enforcement officials that he had sympathized with the group. Mr. Hirsch said some of Mr. Topaz’s associates had talked about attacking the White House if they failed to make it to Syria or Iraq. “He heard that talk,” Mr. Hirsch said, “but he had nothing to do with that.” The criminal complaint, prepared by a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said someone had told the authorities that several people had been “trying to recruit” Mr. Topaz by “preying” on his insecurities. In a statement on Wednesday, Paul J. Fishman, the United States attorney for New Jersey, said, “The crimes Samuel Topaz admitted today threatened the safety of Americans here and abroad.” He added, “Our efforts to cut off the flow of fighters and resources to known terrorist organizations will not stop with his guilty plea.”

Islam
Samuel Rahamin Topaz
Terrorism
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Newark NJ
Fort Lee NJ


Obama Eulogizes Dorothy Height, Civil Rights Leader

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama eulogized the civil and women’s rights leader Dorothy Height on Thursday as a “drum major for freedom,” describing her as an American icon who tirelessly pursued justice. Ms. Height, who died April 20 at 98, had an “unambiguous record of righteous work,” Mr. Obama said at her funeral at Washington National Cathedral. Mr. Obama drew frequent chuckles from the audience with a fondly humorous portrait of the feisty Ms. Height. “When you have a nephew who’s 88, you’ve lived a full life,” Mr. Obama said. “We did come to know her during the early days of my campaign, and we came to love her as so many loved her,” the president said. “We loved her stories, and her smile, and those hats.” He said Ms. Height had been a constant presence at the Obama White House. “She came by not once, not twice,” he said. “Twenty-one times she stopped by the White House.” Ms. Height, who even in the last months of her life took part in health care discussions at the White House, had been scheduled to come by in February for a meeting between Mr. Obama and civil rights leaders, he recalled. Washington was buried by a blizzard, he said, but Ms. Height wanted to come anyway. “She was not about to let just a bunch of men in this meeting,” Mr. Obama said. “It was only when the car literally could not get to the driveway that she decided not to come.” Ms. Height was widely viewed as one of the last links to the social activism of the New Deal era. Her civil rights career spanned almost a century, starting with antilynching protests and culminating in the inauguration of Mr. Obama. She recounted for reporters meeting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was 15 years old, and she was on the stage when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. Mr. Obama ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff on Thursday in Ms. Height’s honor.

Dorothy Height
Civil Rights
Barack Obama


A Rare Choreography for Riders Caught Between an F and an M

Abstract: They toil in a city of haggard indifference and missed connections, where the simplest task can devolve into a competitive sport. But consider the altruists of the Sixth Avenue line on the Lower East Side, keepers of perhaps the most collaborative corner of the subway system. Since the service cuts of 2010 rejiggered pieces of the transit map, the station at Delancey and Essex Streets has assumed a peculiar quirk: uptown F and M lines are physically segregated. For much of Manhattan, the two lines stop at the same stations and platforms; riders simply hop on the first arriving train. But at Delancey Street, the F is downstairs, a short walk from the M, but hopelessly out of view from the other train’s platform. The M shares a track with downtown J and Z trains. There are no station announcements to signal to riders which train will arrive first. There are no countdown clocks. And so the travelers help one another, communicating the hints they have trained their senses to capture: the pitch of a screech when a train comes to a halt — unique depending on the line, some insist; the rustling of newspapers, windswept by an oncoming train; the wave of a hand, the nod of a head, a pull on the top of a baseball cap, like a third-base coach advising his player to steal. “It’s kind of funny,” said Sam Gable, 26, from the Lower East Side. “You don’t really see people help other people in Manhattan very often.” As with any worthy production, the participants have come to master their roles. On a recent weekday morning, an orderly line formed, stretching from the upstairs M platform, down a flight of stairs to the F, then back up a separate staircase. (Riders say this formation allows word to travel fastest when the proper train arrives.) Some travelers heard a stirring overhead — an M train, they wondered? No, a young man instructed from the top of the staircase, peering at the platform. Hold your positions. A breeze wafted up to the turnstiles. An F? Not yet, said a station sage, unmoving. The gust, he said, had not been stiff enough to have come from an F. But soon the perfect rumble arrived. Eyes turned to the top of the staircase until, finally, the call rang out from on high — a subterranean Paul Revere summoning his charges. “Train!” the young man shouted, and down the line the word traveled. On a busy morning, the station can appear to exist in a different city. Above ground, commuters intercept approaching cabs, jostling for curbside position. Below, many typical subway riders read like a cast of Seinfeldian villains. Door-blockers. Pole-huggers. Seat-hoggers. For newcomers, the effect can be jarring, like watching a flash mob convene without any music. “I kind of ignored it,” said Kevin Sullivan, 24, who recently began riding the J train from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and transferring at Delancey Street to get to work in Midtown. Then he noticed the cues, and assumed they were worth following. Lizzy Kushner, 23, from the Lower East Side, insisted “you can judge by the wind.” “This is probably an F,” she said on a recent morning, as a train could be heard swooshing toward the station. She was right, and soon the masses converged. Even those with a language barrier have taken to the routine. Saul Krus, 50, a diamond cutter from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said he speaks little English, but knows to take his place in the middle of the stairs, where he can communicate to the people behind him that a signal has been given. “The people go,” he said, “so I know the train comes.” There are, of course, other stations that separate local and express trains, including at 59th Street, where the No. 6 runs above the 4 and 5. But that station has countdown clocks informing riders of the next arrival. On a recent visit to the station, one of the system’s busiest and most sprawling hubs, there were no outward signs of coordination. Eyes were trained to the ground, or inside bags of Bloomingdale’s gifts lugged across the concourse. Downtown C and E trains are likewise separated at 50th Street. But for whatever reason — a more sprawling station? More tourists? Occasional announcements that point riders in the right direction? — communication among travelers is rare. Former Mayor Edward I. Koch suggested that travelers’ reluctance to help one another stemmed from a bygone era of more frequent subway crime. “The rule was, avert your eyes because eye contact meant battle,” Mr. Koch said. “Like two animals.” Mr. Koch, who has said he often rode the subway during his tenure to ask riders how he was performing, defended the integrity of some local riders. “I’ve been offered seats by pregnant women,” he said, insisting that he always says no. But Delancey Street is not without its delinquents. Some shirk the responsibility of being a chief informer, nearest to the M platform, slinking down the steps. Others keep their knowledge to themselves. On a recent morning, Victor Torrez, 60, from Queens, stood at the F train platform. “Train,” someone said, and a group made its way up the steps, expecting an M. “The noise,” Mr. Torrez said quietly, pressing his index finger into his temple, “that’s a J.” Moments later, the others had learned this for themselves and doubled back. Far more often, though, the riders maintain a kinship. Last week, Edward Cruz, 26, from Bushwick, Brooklyn, had begun ascending the steps toward an M train, passing the news of its arrival down to the platform. But a woman, pushing a two-seat stroller, called him back, asking if he could help carry the children up the stairs. He obliged. “That’s never happened before,” Mr. Cruz said, slipping onto the M. “Usually it’s one kid.”

Subways
Lower East Side (NYC)
New York City


Skeptics in Washington, Sellers on Wall Street

Abstract: For most of Tuesday, stocks ambled from modest rise to modest fall, avoiding the triple-point swings that have become the trademark of a market adrift in uncertainty and fear. With half an hour to go in the session, it looked as if Wall Street might enjoy a relatively quiet day, despite the political fisticuffs on Capitol Hill. But investors could not keep their nerve. Stocks started to fall around 3:30 p.m. At the close, the Dow Jones industrials were down 161.52 points, falling 1.47 percent, to 10.854.17. It was the seventh consecutive day that the index has moved up or down by more than a percentage point. The decline, though shallower than Monday’s 372-point loss, underscored the anxiety among investors about the government’s $700 billion bailout plan. Wall Street is still wondering how the plan will look and whether it can offer a panacea of sorts for the financial system’s woes. “The market can’t decide whether it wants or doesn’t want this package,” said Howard Silverblatt, the senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Until the details come out, we’re not going to go one way or another.” Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, and Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, spent the day embroiled in tense testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, where they asked skeptical lawmakers to move quickly on the measure. The major stock indexes opened higher, at the outset of the hearing in Washington, but fell back as the intense questioning made it clear that there would be no easy resolution to the negotiations. A broad measure of the stock market, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, ended down 1.6 percent, or 18.87 points, at 1,188.22. The Nasdaq composite index fell 25.65 points, or 1.18 percent, at 2,153.33. The bailout proposal has drawn sharp criticism from some lawmakers for the broad authority that it grants to the Treasury, and Democratic leaders have called for the plan to include more protections for middle-class homeowners and some limits on executive compensation . The Bush administration has countered that any debate over the plan’s details would delay its passage and further threaten fragile financial markets. Despite the broader declines, financial stocks ended mixed, with shares of two closely watched firms, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, each gaining about 3.5 percent. Bank of America, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch all declined. The Dow has lost 534 points this week. Oil prices, which jumped above $120 a barrel on Monday after the biggest-ever single-day gain, fell back to $106.61 as the technical factors that drove those gains fell away. The dollar rose against the euro, recovering slightly from a 2.3 percent decline on Monday. Investors remained wary about lending, a critical gauge of fear in the markets. Borrowing rates among banks rose, and the yields on short-term Treasury bills fell again, a sign that investors were willing to accept a smaller return in return for a safe bet. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year bill rose 9/32, to 101 20/32, and the yield, which moves in the opposite direction from the price, was at 3.80 percent, down from 3.84 percent late Monday. The price of gold, a traditional hedge, slipped $17.80 to settle at $891.20 an ounce, after a big gain on Monday. Stocks were also lower worldwide as investors in Europe and Asia expressed skepticism that the bailout package would stave off a protracted recession in America and Europe. In London, the FTSE-100 closed down 1.9 percent. The CAC-40 lost 2 percent in Paris and the German DAX was off 0.6 percent in Frankfurt. “We’re looking at a commitment to avoid the breakdown of the financial system but we’re not going to avoid a recession,” said Philip Isherwood, a strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort. “The difference this time from the early 1990s and 2000s is the likelihood of a coincidental recession — corporations and households in all regions might suffer this time.” Mr. Isherwood said traders remained nervous about what sort of valuations the American authorities would put on distressed assets.

Nasdaq Composite Index
Stocks and Bonds
United States Economy
International Trade and World Market
Treasury Department
Dow Jones Stock Average
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)