Associated Press Denies Cooperating With Nazis

Abstract: A German historian said in new research that The Associated Press, the international news organization based in New York, formally cooperated with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, including the employment of a photographer who worked for a Nazi propaganda division. The research by Harriet Scharnberg , of Martin Luther University, argued that The A.P. was complicit in allowing the Nazis to “portray a war of extermination as a conventional war.” Her research was reported Wednesday in The Guardian . The Nazi regime cracked down on local and international press with a restrictive law in 1933, but The A.P. was able to report in Germany until 1941, when the United States joined the war. In a statement , The A.P. said that until Ms. Scharnberg’s research, it “had no knowledge of any accusation that material may have been directly produced and selected by Nazi propaganda ministries.” “A.P. rejects the suggestion that it collaborated with the Nazi regime at any time,” the company said. “Rather, The A.P. was subjected to pressure from the Nazi regime from the period of Hitler’s coming to power in 1932 until the A.P.’s expulsion from Germany in 1941. A.P. staff resisted the pressure while doing its best to gather accurate, vital and objective news for the world in a dark and dangerous time.” The A.P. said Ms. Scharnberg’s research addressed a German photo agency subsidiary of A.P. Britain. The photographer, Franz Roth, was part of the S.S. propaganda division whose photographs were personally chosen by Adolf Hitler, The Guardian reported. The A.P. removed his photos from its website after Ms. Scharnberg’s research was published, according to The Guardian. The A.P. is reviewing any photos credited to Mr. Roth in light of Ms. Scharnberg’s “new-to-us reference to him,” Paul Colford, an A.P. spokesman, said in an email. “A.P. archivists were unfamiliar with Franz Roth and his activities before and during World War II,” Mr. Colford said, adding that the archivists assisted Ms. Scharnberg in her research. “We have no record of him at all.” Mr. Colford said The A.P. does not have personnel records of German employees during the 1930s. The records were most likely destroyed by the Russian military during an assault on Berlin, he said. Photos that came from the Nazi government were labeled in captions or photo credits, The A.P. said. U.S. newspapers would use their own editorial judgment to decide whether or not to publish the images. “Images of that time from Germany had legitimate news value as editors and the public needed to learn more about the Nazis,” The A.P. said. It could not immediately be determined if The New York Times used any of Mr. Roth’s photos because the newspaper did not publish photographers’ names in photo credits in the 1930s. The Times had two correspondents in Berlin until 1941, when Germany expelled all American journalists after Pearl Harbor. In 1939, Louis P. Lochner, the A.P. bureau chief, won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Nazi regime. The A.P. said he resisted pressure to fire Jewish employees and eventually arranged for them to have A.P. jobs outside Germany, perhaps saving their lives.

Germany
Propaganda
Harriet Scharnberg
Adolf Hitler
World War II
Pulitzer Prize
News media,journalism
Holocaust and Nazis
AP
Guardian British Newspaper


Judge Says Unix Copyrights Rightfully Belong to Novell

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10 — In a decision that may finally settle one of the most bitter legal battles surrounding software widely used in corporate data centers, a federal district court judge in Utah ruled Friday afternoon that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system. In the 102-page ruling, the judge, Dale A. Kimball, also said Novell could force SCO to abandon its claims against I.B.M., which SCO had sued. Judge Kimball’s decision in favor of Novell could almost entirely undermine SCO’s 2003 lawsuit against I.B.M. The ruling could remove the cloud over open-source software like Linux, an operating system loosely modeled on the proprietary Unix. The unresolved ownership has been seen as a limiting factor in the willingness of computing managers for businesses large and small to adopt open-source software, which can be adapted freely by software developers and can be legally shared or modified by end users. “It was argued that this was supposed to suggest riskiness in open source, but it turns out that the open-source world was rock solid from the beginning,” said Eben Moglen, a professor of law at Columbia University and the founding director of the Software Freedom Law Center, which advocates open-source software. SCO’s shares declined by 1 cent, to $1.55, in after-hours trading. The company’s stock reached $19.41 after the lawsuit against I.B.M. was filed in 2003. In that suit, SCO said I.B.M. had violated a contract by copying code from the Unix operating system to Linux, an open-source operating system that is distributed free and that I.B.M. uses on some of its computers. SCO had said that Linux was an unauthorized derivative of Unix, which it said it had purchased from Novell in 1995. “The court’s ruling has cut out the core of SCO’s case and, as a result, eliminates SCO’s threat to the Linux community based upon allegations of copyright infringement of Unix,” said Joe LaSala, Novell’s senior vice president and general counsel. Executives for SCO did not immediately return phone calls on Friday evening. The Unix operating system, which has become popular with some independent-minded PC users as well as in the corporate world, was developed by AT&T researchers at Bell Labs beginning in 1969. During the 1970s, the operating system became highly influential in academic computing and in computer science departments. In the ’80s, it had a significant impact in the computer workstation and minicomputer markets, although it never gained a significant foothold in the personal computer business until Steven P. Jobs brought a version of Unix with him when he returned to Apple Computer in 1997. Some PC makers have begun to offer versions of Linux instead of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. Open-source software advocates said the ruling vindicated the open-source approach to software development. “This is a meaningful message in terms of people adopting open-source software,” said James Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium formed to foster the operating system. “This says that Linux is a safe solution and people can choose it with that in mind.” Several legal experts said that minor legal questions might still remain in SCO’s suit against I.B.M., related to promises that I.B.M. may have made in a failed joint development effort.

Unix
Software
Novell Incorporated
Linux (Computer Operating System)
Computers and the Internet


Jets Look for Answers From Uneven Performances

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Throughout the Jets ’ locker room Monday, the answers did not match the record. The rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez sounded giddy. Linebacker Bart Scott remained defiant. Player after player expressed satisfaction with his respective individual or unit performances halfway through this season. None of that changed the bottom line, the string of uneven play, fixing one leak to find another, the 4-4 record those scattered performances produced. The Jets head into their bye week with the N.F.L.’s top-ranked rushing attack and a defense that stands second in fewest yards and fourth in fewest points allowed per game , before Monday’s game. So many questions, so few answers for a team that as a whole is performing as less than the sum of its expensive parts. “We’ve got to find ways to win instead of finding ways to lose,” Coach Rex Ryan said. “We’ve found enough of them.” The Jets spent all off-season, all training camp and most of September and October sounding like professional wrestlers, creating expectations they have failed to live up to. They placed that target on their collective back, and when they started this season 3-0, those already raised expectations shot even higher. By doing so, safety Kerry Rhodes said the Jets opened themselves to criticism. When they won, the bragging and boasting and bravado seemed endearing. When they lost, it seemed misplaced. On NBC on Sunday night, Tony Dungy, the Super Bowl -winning coach, addressed that topic, even quoting his mother, who he said told him: “When you win, say very little. When you lose, say less.” To which Ryan responded Monday: “I was brought up differently. We’re not going to get anywhere by tiptoeing.” That is not Ryan’s style. Not before. Nor moving forward. He was raised by Buddy Ryan, the coach who made the 46 defense famous, who won a Super Bowl in Chicago as a defensive coordinator and later punched a fellow assistant in the face. “The bravado’s not going to change,” Rhodes said. “It’s worked for us.” But has it? Halfway through his first season, Ryan said the Jets had established an identity, one of a tough, physical football team that runs the ball and plays swarming defense. Sometimes, that is true. But it changes, week to week. Their offensive line struggled to protect Sanchez this season, then produced back-to-back 300-yard rushing games, against Buffalo and Oakland, for the first time in the N.F.L. since 1975. Critics suggested running back Thomas Jones might be past his prime, but he ranks fifth in the N.F.L. in rushing with 704 yards . The defense that ranked near the bottom of the league in sacks notched six against the Dolphins. The defense that was embarrassed by the Miami’s Wildcat formation shut it down the second time around. “That’s the N.F.L.,” Scott said, of the ups and downs. “Just ask the Giants.” Even special teams, a strength for most of this season, struggled Sunday, allowing two kick returns for touchdowns to Ted Ginn Jr. The special-teams coordinator Mike Westhoff said the pain from those returns would eventually subside. He paused. “When they’re lowering me in the grave,” he said, adding it was the performance he can remember in his long and celebrated career. So who are these Jets? They are a team that commits too many pre-snap penalties in crucial situations, including several this season by tight end Ben Hartsock, Ryan said. They are a team that has allowed six touchdowns this season when its defense was not on the field. They are a team that has failed to put together a complete performance, tight end Dustin Keller said. They are a team failing in consistency, offensive tackle Damien Woody said. These Jets are searching for that consistency, for positives, for performances that back up their constant chatter. Ryan challenged his team Monday, before giving his players the rest of the week off, the longest period of in-season down time any of them can remember. Ryan also shared with his players a story about the assistant coach Bill Callahan, who in his first season as head coach in Oakland, in 2002, also started 4-4. The Raiders went to the Super Bowl that season. “We’re sick right now,” Ryan said. “We’re 4-4, but we’ve played better than that. Right now, it seems like we’re snake-bitten a bit.” EXTRA POINTS Nose tackle Kris Jenkins will have surgery on the torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee on Nov. 11.

Football
New York Jets
Sanchez Mark
Ryan Rex
Rhodes Kerry
Coaches and Managers


E.P.A. Rule Requires a Big Jump in Biofuel Use

Abstract: The Environmental Protection Agency released its much-delayed biofuel mandate on Monday, raising the amounts of biofuel that refiners are required to blend into conventional vehicle fuel from levels proposed in May. The agency set levels for 2014 and 2015 at what producers actually used in those years, and it increased the total volume of renewable fuel required by the end of 2016 to 18.11 billion gallons, an 11 percent increase from 2014, the agency said. “The biofuel industry is an incredible American success story, and the R.F.S. program has been an important driver of that success — cutting carbon pollution, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and sparking rural economic development,” Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for E.P.A.’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in a conference call with reporters. “With today’s final rule, and as Congress intended, E.P.A. is establishing volumes that grow the amount of biofuel in the market over time.” But the new standards did little to appease critics, who come from many quarters. To some, the new standards did not address what a growing number say are fundamental problems with the mandate and the way it is administered. The E.P.A. has struggled over the years to determine how much biofuel to require for a number of reasons, including a limit known as the “blend wall,” which restricts the proportion of ethanol that vehicles can safely handle. Most gasoline now contains 10 percent ethanol, and only a small fraction of the country’s vehicles are approved by manufacturers to use gasoline that contains more. In addition, the program is losing support among environmentalists who say that it does not reduce carbon emissions when compared with conventional fuel. The assumption that it does, John M. DeCicco, a research professor at the University of Michigan Energy Institute, said in a conference call with reporters last week, stems from a flawed accounting of the amount of carbon dioxide that is recycled by productive farmland through the normal growth of crops used to make biofuel. Despite all the disagreement, there is a growing consensus in Congress that the program is in need of reform, said Scott H. Segal, a lawyer at Bracewell & Giuliani who heads the firm’s Policy Resolution Group. “The program is broken, has become hotly politicized and lacks the kind of foundational scientific support that you would normally associate with major societal investments,” he said. “While there are problems, ethanol is here to stay. They need to mend it, not end it.”

Carbon dioxide
Oil and Gasoline
Bioenergy and Biofuels
EPA
Renewable energy


Finally, a System That Will Listen

Abstract: PORTABLE satellite navigation units for cars are becoming more sophisticated as the technology moves beyond just navigation, putting more control in drivers’ hands. TOMTOM GO 920T One problem with navigation systems is that in spite of manufacturers’ warnings, they inevitably entice drivers to tap in destinations on the touch screens while driving. It’s a potentially dangerous distraction. The GO 920T (about $700) avoids this problem by allowing drivers to bark out addresses to the portable device and have it recalculate directions on the fly. No awkward stretches to peck out a house number. Just say where you want to go. The 920T’s screen, at 4.3 inches on the diagonal, is large enough to keep directions in focus. And inveterate travelers even have the choice of sharing favorite routes with other TomTom owners online, where people tag points of interest and can personalize directions. NAVIGON 7100 Aesthetics has typically not been a hallmark of G.P.S. devices. The Navigon 7100 (about $500) is the exception, from its sculptured mounting arm to its slender piano-black profile; it’s an accessory that looks handsome perched above any dashboard. Better still, however, are the 7100’s 3-D views of thousands of complex intersections across the United States. Instead of squiggly lines, drivers see the actual lanes with orange arrows indicating where they should be to make the next turn. Navigon has added free real-time traffic information to the device, a feature that usually requires paying a monthly subscription fee on other devices. COBRA XRS R9G Radar detectors have gotten an upgrade with the Cobra XRS R9G (about $350). Not only does it detect radar and laser traps, but it also can alert the driver to speed and red-light cameras that can generate tickets without a police officer present. To do this, the XRS R9G has three components: a radar detector, an attached G.P.S. receiver and a wireless remote display and control. Using a regularly updated and verified database of cameras in the United States, the XRS R9G tracks a user’s location and then warns drivers as they approach intersections where there are cameras. As a result, drivers tend to slow down. (Radar detectors are not legal in all states; consult state laws.) ANYTRACK GPS-100 G.P.S. devices can not only tell you where you are but also tell you where someone else is. That’s the idea behind the AnyTrack GPS-100 ($229 at anytrack.com ). Plant the device, which is about the size of a snack box of raisins, in a glove compartment or anywhere else in the car, and you can follow the car remotely or find it immediately in an emergency. To track the location, AnyTrack owners must subscribe to an online service that maps the car’s whereabouts. The company offers several monthly plans, including one for $19.95 (plus a $29 activation fee) for moderate use.

Navigation
Global Positioning System
Automobiles


U.S. Goalkeeper Guzan Goes to Hull on Loan

Abstract: The American goalkeeper Brad Guzan joined the second-tier English team Hull on a one-month loan. Guzan is under contract to the Premier League club Aston Villa but has been unable to oust his countryman Brad Friedel from the lineup. Guzan could make his debut for Hull in a League Championship match against Leicester on Saturday. Guzan joined Villa from Chivas USA in August 2008. His only Premier League appearance came as a 64th-minute substitute against Liverpool in March 2009, after Friedel was sent off.

Aston Villa
Friedel Brad
English Premier League
Soccer


Congress Approves Bill Helping Overseas Voters

Abstract: WASHINGTON — For decades, Election Day has been just out of reach for many American troops and civilians abroad. After struggling to get the paperwork needed to register, they often receive their ballots too late to return them by the deadline. On Thursday, however, federal lawmakers made it easier for American citizens to cast ballots overseas. By a 68-to-29 vote in the Senate, Congress gave final approval to legislation requiring all states to provide overseas voters with the new option of getting ballots electronically and no later than 45 days before the election. This is so voters have adequate time to complete and mail them back to the United States. The bill, attached to the Department of Defense authorization legislation, was introduced after a survey last May showed that as many as one in four ballots cast by overseas voters went uncounted in last year’s presidential election. The bill, which will take effect before next year’s federal elections, bars states from rejecting military ballots that have not been notarized, a difficult procedure in the bases of Iraq and Afghanistan. It also requires the Federal Voting Assistance Program at the Department of Defense, which is the main source of election-related information and assistance for many military personnel, to include voter registration and absentee ballot request information at every base. “It is the least we can do for our troops to make sure their votes get counted when they are serving overseas,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. “This bill will remove the barriers that too often conspire to disenfranchise our military men and women.” The bill comes about a week after a federal judge in Richmond ruled that Virginia had failed to mail more than 2,000 absentee ballots to military personnel and other overseas citizens in time for their votes to be counted in last November’s presidential election, violating their rights under federal law.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Trying to Ease Credit, I.R.S. Eases Loan Regulations

Abstract: The Internal Revenue Service has taken steps to help ease the credit crisis by allowing corporations to ramp up their use of tax-free loans from overseas subsidiaries. The program, quietly announced by the I.R.S. late Friday, was devised at the behest of the Treasury Department, which oversees the agency. It is intended to help ease the credit crisis by luring back into the United States economy a chunk of the estimated hundreds of billions of dollars kept overseas by American corporations through their subsidiaries in low-tax countries. That money could help combat a core problem of the credit crisis: the reluctance by banks to give companies the short-term loans needed for daily business. In an unusually explicit step into the world of financial policy, the I.R.S. made clear that the credit crisis was behind the action. “Recently, circumstances affecting liquidity have made it difficult for taxpayers to fund their operations,” the agency said in a notice made public on Monday. The I.R.S. said it was undertaking the program “to facilitate liquidity in the near term.” Robert Willens, a leading tax and accounting analyst, said Monday that the program could result in “a tremendous amount of money to shore up corporations.” He added that “this is a substitute for commercial paper, and right now companies are having major difficulties rolling over commercial paper” — issuing short-term debt to finance their operations. Overseas subsidiaries of big American companies, typically Fortune 500 companies, “may now be the lenders of last resort, with credit this tight,” Mr. Willens said. “They will now become a major source of funding, the ones to keep operations going day-to-day in this crisis.” United States corporations that take loans from their subsidiaries typically pay a tax of 35 percent on the loans, making them akin to taxable distributions. The tax, which also applies to profits repatriated from foreign subsidiaries, is the main reason that many American companies have sent vast sums of money overseas in recent years. Under an old I.R.S. program, American corporations could receive tax-free loans from foreign subsidiaries but had to repay them within 30 days. The short period meant, among other things, that the parent corporation had to be sure it could repay the money to its subsidiary in time to qualify for the tax break. A Treasury spokesman said the agency had no data on how extensively the 30-day loan program was used. Under the new program, parent companies now have 60 days to repay the loans. It also introduces a limit on the amount of time a corporation can spend in such transactions: 180 days each year. Corporations can take as many 60-day loans as they like from their foreign controlled subsidiaries over nearly half a year, a Treasury spokesman said. But there is a hitch: the new program covers loans made only during the 2008 and 2009 tax years. It does not place any restrictions on how the tax-free loans may be used, however. The program differs from a one-time tax holiday created in 2004 that allowed American corporations to bring back to the United States profits held in overseas subsidiaries at a greatly reduced tax rate. More than 840 of the largest corporations repatriated $362 billion in profits, claiming tax deductions worth $265 billion from 2003 through 2006. The profits, part of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, were intended by Congress to increase job creation and investment, but some companies used the money to bankroll marketing and legal expenses. A few companies used the money to buy back shares or pay dividends, moves prohibited by the act.

Credit
Internal Revenue Service
Treasury Department
Taxation


Indian Supreme Court Rules Against Modi’s Judge Selection Law

Abstract: NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court declared on Friday that a law pushed by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that would have increased the executive branch’s power over the selection of judges was unconstitutional, a decision hailed as a landmark affirming the independence of the judiciary. “If the alignment of tectonic plates on distribution of powers is disturbed, it will quake the Constitution,” Justice Kurian Joseph, one of five judges who heard the case, wrote in the ruling. “Once the constitutional structure is shaken, democracy collapses.” But Friday’s decision was not without controversy, because it upheld a system of appointments to higher courts by a panel of judges, known as a collegium, that has been criticized for a lack of transparency. India has a long tradition of a judiciary independent from the rest of the government, a situation reinforced by a Supreme Court decision in 1993 creating the collegium system and all but cutting the executive branch out of the selection process. Lawyers have said the 1993 decision was reached in part because of controversies surrounding the transfer of judges during a two-year state of emergency, beginning in 1975, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government exercised sweeping and arbitrary powers. In April, Mr. Modi’s government enacted the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, which was struck down on Friday. It had been passed unanimously by a Parliament that is rarely unified, along with a constitutional amendment ensuring its validity, but the commission was never formed because the Supreme Court case was underway. The previous government, led by the Congress party, which is now in opposition, had tried to pass two similar bills but was unable to push them through Parliament before Mr. Modi came to power in 2014. Though legal analysts and the many lawyers who had argued against the law called Friday’s decision a victory for the separation of powers and democracy, experts also agreed with the government’s argument that the existing process of appointing judges was flawed and insufficiently open. “Appointments will continue to be made in an opaque system where all the stakeholders will not have their voice,” said the attorney general, Mukul Rohatgi. The court appeared to acknowledge the criticism in its judgment, calling for a review of the collegium process in a separate hearing “to make it more responsive to the needs of the people” and “to make it more transparent and in tune with societal needs.” Legal experts have criticized the collegium process as vesting too much discretion in a panel of senior judges to appoint the legal decision makers in the country’s highest courts. The law struck down on Friday would have set up a panel of three judges, the law minister and two “eminent persons” nominated by the chief justice and the central government. Many analysts said it gave too much power to the government.

India
New Delhi
Narendra Modi
Constitution
Judiciary


Keiko Fukuda, a Trailblazer in Judo, Dies at 99

Abstract: Keiko Fukuda, who learned judo from its inventor and went on to become the sport’s highest-ranked woman, died on Feb. 9 at her home in San Francisco. She was 99. Her death was confirmed by Shelley Fernandez, who lived with her and helped run Soko Joshi Judo Club, a center of martials, or dojo, in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, where Fukuda taught for more than 40 years. Ms. Fukuda was a living link to her sport’s formation. Her grandfather Fukuda Hachinosuke was a Japanese samurai and jujitsu master who died in 1880. One of his last students, Kano Jigoro, began developing judo in the early 1880s as an offshoot of jujitsu, combining balance and strength with holding and throwing techniques. In the early 1930s Kano, as he was known, invited Ms. Fukuda, then 21 and standing less than five feet tall, to join a new judo class for women at the school he founded in Tokyo, called the Kodokan. It was rare for women to learn judo at the time. “At first, all I could think of was how aggressive the maneuvers were and how unusual it was to see women spreading their legs,” Ms. Fukuda told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2011. She grew to love the sport. When she learned she would have to give it up as part of the arranged marriage planned for her, she refused to be married. By the late ’30s, she had become an instructor and developed an expertise in ju-no-kata, a gentler form of judo. She first traveled to the United States in 1953 to teach as a way of honoring Kano, who died in 1938. “He asked all of his students to travel the world and teach judo,” Ms. Fernandez said. “She was the only one who did.” Ms. Fukuda stayed several years before returning to Tokyo, where she demonstrated women’s judo at the 1964 Summer Olympics. She returned to the United States in 1966 at the invitation of a judo club in California and decided to stay. She eventually became an American citizen. In Japan, Ms. Fukuda had risen to become a fifth-degree black belt, or fifth dan, in the early ’50s. She was one of only a handful of women to achieve the rank, but her progress stopped there for the next 20 years. Ms. Fernandez, a board member of the National Organization for Women, said the male-dominated Kodokan refused to grant her a higher rank until Ms. Fernandez led a petition effort that helped persuade the Kodokan to promote her to sixth dan. She was the first woman to reach that rank. More than 30 years later, in 2006, she progressed through the ranks to become a ninth dan, also called a shihan, the second-highest ranking possible in the sport and the highest rank the Kodokan had ever given a woman. In 2011, when Ms. Fukuda was 98, USA Judo promoted her to 10th dan, the highest level possible. The Kodokan never did. “She was the last living student of the founder of judo,” Ms. Fernandez said. “No one else can say that. It’s the end of the era now.” Keiko Fukuda was born on April 12, 1913, in Tokyo. She received a degree in Japanese literature from Showa Women’s University. No immediate family members survive. Ms. Fukuda taught in many countries and wrote two autobiographical books on judo. Last year, she was the subject of a documentary film, “Mrs. Judo,” its title a reflection of her comment that she had committed her life to the sport. Ms. Fernandez, 82, recalled the day in 1966 when Ms. Fukuda visited the dojo in San Francisco where Ms. Fernandez and other women were practicing judo. Most did not know of this diminutive sensei, but they were immediately impressed. “We were all totally fascinated because she was a tiny person without great physical strength,” Ms. Fernandez said. “But she was totally centered — mind, body and spirit.”


Rethinking Rules on Meningitis Vaccination Mandate

Abstract: Mike Dreith, the former president of Western Texas College in Snyder, remembers early 2012 as a period of sleepless nights. A new state law had just taken effect, requiring virtually every college student to be vaccinated against bacterial meningitis before stepping on campus. With students from 35 states and 17 countries descending on the rural college for the spring semester in January — many of them unaware of the requirement for a vaccine that was in scarce supply locally — achieving full compliance in time would have been impossible, Mr. Dreith said recently. Rather than preventing unvaccinated students from enrolling, he let them attend classes as they awaited inoculation. “There was great personal risk involved,” he said in a phone interview from his new office at John A. Logan College in Illinois, where he is now president. “But we ultimately got the job done.” Now, after a bumpy rollout, during which many administrators felt they had too little warning of the law’s sweeping requirements, even its strongest supporters may be pushing for some changes in the next legislative session. There has been debate about whether it was written too broadly, covering more students than necessary and thus making it harder to comply with. Passed by the Legislature in 2011, the new vaccine law is named for Nicolis Williams, a 20-year-old Texas A&M University student who died after contracting meningitis, and Jamie Schanbaum, a University of Texas at Austin student who lost her fingers and lower legs at age 19. It expanded on a 2009 law that applied only to students living on campus, extending vaccine requirements to all students younger than 30. Anna C. Dragsbaek, president of the Houston-based Immunization Partnership , supported the law but nevertheless thinks it could use some tweaking. “You know how things happen in the Legislature,” Ms. Dragsbaek said. “Sometimes the sausage factory doesn’t produce exactly the sausage you expect.” The age range of the law goes well beyond the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which notes that meningitis risk is highest up to age 22 and calls for immunizations lasting into the early 20s. If immunizations were required only for students up to 22, Ms. Dragsbaek estimated, the number of affected students could be reduced by more than half. Patsy Schanbaum, Jamie’s mother and a vaccination advocate, supports such a change. “We really want to go with the guidelines of science, experts and research, and that’s what we’ve always wanted,” she said. Mike Wintemute, a spokesman for the Texas State University System, said the application of the mandate to some schools might be worth reconsidering. It caught the system’s two-year schools particularly off guard, since many of their students are older and none of them live in on-campus housing, where the risk of spreading disease is thought to be higher. “What may be a good public health requirement for one group of students may not be necessary for others,” he said. He added that he would defer to health experts on what the best practices should be. (The Texas State University System is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) State Senator Wendy Davis, Democrat of Fort Worth and a sponsor of the 2011 measure, said she would be open to discussing changes. “The concern, of course, is that we never get into a situation where we are creating an impediment to students going to college,” Ms. Davis said. “God knows it’s hard enough already with tuition increases and grant decreases. Having said that, this is a very important public health issue.” For now, some students may simply find a way around the provision. Since the law took effect, it has become easier to opt out for religious or philosophical reasons. Now, instead of going through the health department, as is customary, off-campus students are able to download an exemption form from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and turn it in at their schools. Health organizations, including the Texas Medical Association, opposed the new process. Dominic Chavez, a spokesman for the coordinating board, said that in distributing exemption forms the agency had followed the law, but expected changes to the process in the future. “This has definitely been a learn-as-you-go situation,” he said.

Meningitis
Texas
Colleges and Universities
Vaccination and Immunization
State Legislatures


Poor in Guinea, but Making a Living From Crisp New Banknotes

Abstract: CONAKRY, Guinea — The euro is slipping, the American dollar is holding steady and the world’s new digital currency, Bitcoin, is trying to find its foothold. But on a recent sunny afternoon along a main thoroughfare in this busy capital city, the market for stiff new Guinean francs was hopping. “Hello, Madame!” a group of men cried out as they stood along a busy roadway with large stacks of shrink-wrapped Guinean francs tucked under their armpits and stuffed into their back pockets. Guineans like their francs crisp and clean for handing out on special occasions, and that has created demand for new paper money that a cadre of young men, who would otherwise probably be jobless, are eager to serve. Ibrahim Kamera, 29, and his friends make a living selling brand new bills. Standing near a pedestrian bridge across from one of this city’s sprawling markets, they try to reel in customers who want to trade in their old francs, wrinkled, sweaty and dirty, for new ones that have become status symbols to give as gifts at weddings and other celebrations. In much of West Africa, where credit card machines and A.T.M. s are sparse, cash is king. But here in Conakry, freshly printed Guinean francs rule. And that has created opportunities in a nation where unemployment is a serious problem, especially for young people — some government estimates say that as many as 60 percent of youth in the nation are jobless. The employment situation has worsened as Guinea has struggled to rid itself of Ebola and its economy has plummeted. 15 of the Best Journals by Our Reporters Around the World Journals, a fixture of the international section, allow correspondents to step back from the news and write about places that intrigue them. We hope you enjoy our choices. The lucky young men find jobs driving taxis or pushing wheelbarrows at construction sites. Others adopt more unsavory professions, on evidence at the local pickpockets’ market, where the day’s catch of mobile phones, leather wallets and stolen items is on display. And then there are these men, most in their 20s but some as young as 15, gathered under the bridge. “Our life is in this,” said Ishmael Isho Kamera, 23, one of the money-changers and no relation to Ibrahim Kamera, as he patted his stacks of brand new francs. “We don’t have anything else to do.” Across the globe, the legal market for money is huge. Numismatists collect old coins and trade them for hundreds or thousands of times their original face value. The foreign exchange market, where currencies are traded for a profit, is estimated to be a $5.3 trillion-a-day operation. And in some parts of the world, the illegal market for money also is thriving. “In many countries there’s a black market for currencies that is very lucrative for some people,” said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Company in New York. Here in Conakry, Ibrahim Kamera, who like his friends wears a soccer jersey and flip-flops, considers it a good day if he earns 200,000 francs a day, the equivalent of about $26. Typically, a day may bring in half that much. That is still considerably more than the average daily income in Guinea, which in 2014 was less than a dollar and a half. Americans fixated over new state-themed quarters when they were released into circulation in the United States. Guineans are keen on the new 20,000 franc bill, with its indigo and green tones and backside portrait of the nation’s new Chinese-financed hydroelectric dam in Kaleta, about 60 miles north of the capital, and several electric transmission towers. The dam increased energy generation to a nation plagued by blackouts and has been one of President Alpha Condé’s crowning achievements. The denomination was issued in July, curiously timed to Mr. Condé’s campaign for re-election in the fall. The money-changers under the bridge have learned to be good businessmen. Years ago, they found an original investor, a friend who gave them some starting capital. Now, they earn about 50,000 francs in profits — about $6.50 — on every 1,000,000 francs they sell. Potential customers are easy to pick out, especially the women, who usually are on their way to a wedding, carrying umbrellas and large bags for toting the paper money. Most clients buy large stacks of bills; they have to if they want their cash gifts to be meaningful. In Guinea, where inflation has taken a toll in past years, a typical lunch of fish, rice and plantains at a restaurant costs about 114,000 francs. One loyal customer buys 15 million francs at a time. The young men have also honed their sales skills. Mr. Kamera gives discounts to repeat customers. Sometimes he sings to clients, to entertain them so maybe they will buy just a little more money than intended. When Mr. Kamera learns that a customer shares his last name, a common one in parts of West Africa, he makes a scene, pretending to be related for the sake of improving customer relations. Mr. Kamera and his crew compete with one another, jostling to be first to get to an approaching customer. But it is just part of the job, and all is generally forgiven in a matter of minutes. The men possess a charm and cheerful spirit that belies the danger of their trade and the seeming hopelessness of their lot in life. Mr. Kamera and his friends are refugees who fled violence in Sierra Leone in the late 2000s. They take turns delivering part of their proceeds to their families, who are scraping by in an abandoned refugee camp in Boreah in the north of Guinea, some 15 hours away by car. The police occasionally swarm the area by the pedestrian bridge, beating the men, confiscating their stacks of money and jailing them, sometimes for days. After all, their work is illegal. Image Money-changers held packs of freshly issued Guinean banknotes as they waited for customers on a bridge in Conakry. They earn about 50,000 francs in profit — about $6.50 — on every 1,000,000 francs they sell. Credit Samuel Aranda for The New York Times “This job,” said Desmond Conte, 27, in slow, deliberate words, “is not safe.” When it comes to sales of new francs, the competition is real. A group of young Guinean-born men plies the same trade on the other side of the bridge no more than 30 feet from the turf Mr. Kamera and his friends have staked out. The groups mostly ignore each other, except for exchanging dirty looks. For both groups of men, business has been slow because fears of violence around the October presidential election made people wary of scheduling weddings and other events in the city. One day shortly after the election, it was probably the presence of two American journalists that kept customers away from Mr. Kamera and his friends. Business was better for the competition on the other side of the bridge, where a woman in a red and gold head scarf and yellow gown dug into her large bag as she approached to conduct business. The woman was buying new francs to hand out to children as gifts, she said before scurrying away without offering her name. Mr. Kamera and his friends often think about another way of life. Most said they wanted one day to become soccer superstars. If that did not pan out, some said they would like to own a business. Others wanted to become soldiers. “Our future belongs to God,” Mr. Kamera said, “but for now there are no new opportunities.” Mr. Kamera was forced to end his education when he was 12 years old to flee Sierra Leone. He would like to finish school then try for his dream job. “I want to be an American Marine,” he said.

Guinea
Conakry
Currency
Jobs
Economy
Sierra Leone
Numismatics


Administration Is Developing a Housing Rescue Plan

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is trying to come up with a standardized approach for using taxpayer money to modify the mortgages of people in danger of losing their homes, officials said on Thursday. Lawmakers and economists acknowledge that the ailing housing market is at the center of the economy’s troubles and that coming to its aid is a top priority. But there is much debate over who should benefit. President Obama’s top economic advisers have already vowed to spend at least $50 billion on reducing foreclosures, and officials are hoping to unveil a plan within two weeks. Administration officials cautioned that they were still evaluating options, but one possibility is to subsidize lower monthly payments for troubled borrowers after doing a standardized reappraisal of the value and affordability of their homes. The approach would be a variant of one developed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has created a loan-modification program for borrowers at banks it has taken over. The goal of the agency’s approach is to cut a person’s monthly payment to 31 percent of gross monthly income by reducing the interest rate or increasing the loan’s length; some officials favor reducing the outstanding principle. Other options include expanding the Hope for Homeowners program, which was set up to refinance seriously delinquent borrowers; and subsidizing mortgage rates by increasing government purchases of mortgage-backed securities.

Housing
Mortgages
Foreclosures
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Russia Begins War Games Near Georgia

Abstract: MOSCOW — Russian military forces began large-scale war games on Monday in the Caucasus region, not far from the Georgian border, raising tensions between the countries less than a year after they went to war . In a series of news conferences on Monday, military officials said that about 8,500 troops from all branches of the armed services would take part in a week of exercises, the largest such war games since the fall of the Soviet Union. The officials noted that the exercises were intended in part to incorporate lessons learned from the war last August. Russia easily won, but the military officials said the war exposed deficiencies in training and equipment. Military exercises in the Caucasus have been held before, and similar maneuvers there last year ended days before the war broke out on Aug. 7. The war games this year are scheduled to end next Monday, the day that President Obama arrives in Moscow for a summit meeting. The event is also occurring a few weeks after NATO concluded its own exercises in Georgia . “The Russian exercises, given the timing, are a definitive response,” said Dmitri O. Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, the Interfax news agency reported. “We are conducting them to ensure the defensive capabilities of Russia in those areas where we see threats.” Georgia expressed worry on Monday about the exercises. “These exercises are a source of concern because they involve an unprecedented number of servicemen and the newest military hardware of Russia,” said Alexander Nalbandov, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, Interfax reported. Despite intense international objections, Russia has established a military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway Georgian enclaves at the heart of last year’s war. The commander of Russia’s ground forces, Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev, told the newspaper Izvestia this month that Russian troops based in both enclaves would participate in the exercises. The governments of Abkhazia and South Ossetia said no military exercises would take place on their territory.

Russia
Georgia (Georgian Republic)
Defense and Military Forces
Rogozin Dmitri O
North Atlantic Treaty Organization


Injury Statistics by Race Go Uncollected

Abstract: Brad McClellan, an Austin lawyer, became convinced a few years ago that one of his clients, a black man who had been horribly injured at a smelting plant in West Texas, faced discrimination from the insurance company handling his workers’ compensation benefits. Then as he pondered the long line of black and Hispanic workers seeking his legal help, Mr. McClellan wondered if injured minorities, statistically speaking, received equal treatment when they requested benefits or faced disputes. The answer, contained in an email from the Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation, surprised him: It is virtually impossible to know. The state agency has not compiled useful racial statistics for years on injured workers, despite a 1993 state law that requires the division to maintain information on the race and gender of every valid injury claim, known as a “compensable injury.” “Please note that race and ethnicity are rarely reported and, as discussed, inaccurate and incomplete,” the agency told Mr. McClellan in September. “Therefore, these numbers cannot be extrapolated for analysis.” A spokesman for the division, John Greeley, acknowledged that the agency did not maintain racial information on every compensable injury. If employees do not disclose their race or ethnicity, he said, the state does not reject the claim or halt processing. In addition, the electronic forms that insurers send in have no field for race. “We have some data from the injured workers or the employers that have provided it,” Mr. Greeley said. “Unfortunately, it’s a small percentage of all the claims that we get, but we do maintain what we get.” The agency’s lapse in maintaining complete racial data in its claims process has prompted State Representative René O. Oliveira, the Brownsville Democrat who oversees the division as chairman of the House Business and Industry Committee, to press the agency to begin collecting the information as soon as possible. Mr. Oliveira said it was the second time in recent months that the Division of Workers’ Compensation, part of the Texas Department of Insurance, had not complied with its duties under state law. The Texas Tribune revealed in June that the agency was not staffing its 24-hour safety hotline around the clock. The division later announced that it had taken steps to staff the toll-free hotline day and night as required. “I’m disappointed that we discover again that the agency is not following its statutory obligations,” Mr. Oliveira said. While the agency may have logistical hurdles in collecting the information, he added, “that’s not justification for not making an effort and ignoring what the law requires.” The state used to do a better job of gathering such information. Records provided to Mr. McClellan show a majority of the claims tracked electronically included race when the law went on the books in the early 1990s. But compliance has slipped, and by last year less than 8 percent of those claims indicated a worker’s race and ethnicity. Mr. Oliveira and advocates for workers and minority groups say there is good reason to track the race and ethnicity of workers who get hurt or killed on the job. Image Hand injuries prevented Mr. Johnson from using an electronic card to enter a gym. Employees would open the door for him. Credit Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson for The Texas Tribune A February 2013 study by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in recent years, Hispanics have been more likely to die on the job than other racial groups. Foreign-born workers, who are less familiar with English and American safety guidelines, are particularly vulnerable, the study found. “We certainly believe that Hispanics and Latinos suffer injuries at higher rates than white workers,” said Mary Vogel, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. In Texas, the only state in the country that does not require private employers to provide workers’ compensation or a private equivalent, many unskilled Hispanic workers have no occupational insurance coverage and seek care in emergency rooms when they get hurt. Even when workers do have compensation insurance, their employers often discourage them from reporting injuries, and employers sometimes erroneously tell their undocumented employees that they do not qualify for benefits, said Emily Timm, deputy director of the Workers Defense Project in Austin, which advocates for low-income workers. “I think the data would probably reveal some sharp discrepancies about who is getting compensated through the work comp system and who isn’t,” Ms. Timm said. “Anecdotally, I’ve seen cases where employers will deter Latino workers from reporting their injuries, and they’re less informed about how to maneuver within the system.” Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, said he did not know if undocumented workers faced pressure to avoid filing injury claims but said if it is happening his group would gladly join efforts to put a stop to it. (The Texas Association of Business is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) Mr. McClellan said he believes minorities are treated more harshly in the dispute resolution process inside the workers’ compensation system — where benefits can be difficult to obtain even under the best of circumstances . He said one client, Glenn Johnson — a black man married to a white woman in rural West Texas — faced what he believes were discriminatory actions from the insurance company carrying his workers’ compensation policy. Injured in a 1998 smelter explosion in Amarillo, Mr. Johnson sustained second- and third-degree burns on his face, neck, upper body, legs and arms. One of his arms had to be amputated. The other was badly mangled. As part of his rehabilitation, Mr. Johnson, who lived in a small town, worked out at a gym a couple of hours from home. Insurance adjusters suspected he was not using the gym and filed a criminal complaint against him, records show. Soon thereafter, a grand jury indicted Mr. Johnson for insurance fraud, saying the evidence showed he had falsified travel reports. The complaint relied on electronic records indicating Mr. Johnson had not used a swipe card to enter the gym. After he and his wife were arrested, Mr. Johnson explained that the injuries to his remaining hand prevented him from removing the swipe card from his wallet, and that gym employees had opened the door for him. The charges were dropped after gym employees signed affidavits attesting to his attendance. But in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed against Old Republic Insurance Company for bad faith, malicious prosecution and other alleged misdeeds, Mr. Johnson’s lawyers argued the insurer continued to deny him the benefits and medical treatments he was due. That case is pending. Tod Mayfield, who represents Old Republic in the lawsuit, declined to comment. Mr. McClellan provided a copy of Mr. Johnson’s electronic “claimant information” file from the workers’ compensation agency showing blank fields for his race and ethnicity. “If Glenn had been the white male manager, he would never have had a problem,” Mr. McClellan said, “and certainly would not have been indicted for travel fraud in the Panhandle.”

Texas
Discrimination
Race and Ethnicity
Jobs
Workers' compensation
BLS


Sharp Scrutiny for Merger of AT&T and T-Mobile

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Mega-mergers may be celebrated on Wall Street on the theory that bigger is better. But the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile is likely to face intense scrutiny by regulators, lawmakers and consumer advocates. The review of the merger, one of the largest deals since the 2008 financial crisis, will also be a test for the White House. During his campaign, President Obama criticized the Bush administration’s record on antitrust review, and promised to increase scrutiny of merger proposals. Some analysts say it is too early to see if the merger will pass muster. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that the two primary agencies that will oversee any merger — the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust division — look at it with different goals in mind. The Justice Department will chiefly examine whether competition among wireless mobile phone providers would remain sufficient after a merger. The department gave some hint to its thinking when it told the F.C.C. last year that the agency needed to use its “policy levers” to encourage more competition among wireless companies, particularly in wireless broadband access. The F.C.C., on the other hand, has a goal of protecting the public interest in allocating use of the public airwaves, which it does in part by promoting competition. For example, one objective involves pushing the big wireless companies to allow smaller competitors to use their networks for data roaming services. Such policy initiatives give the F.C.C. more flexibility to consider conditions that it could apply to a merger to make it more palatable. “Normally, competition and the public interest go hand in hand,” said Bert Foer, president of the American Antitrust Institute, a nonprofit agency that generally argues for more competition. But federal courts have recently sided with regulatory agencies instead of antitrust enforcers when conflicts occur, something that perhaps will give the F.C.C. the advantage in setting the conditions under which to approve a merger. Congress, too, is likely to play a part in scrutinizing the proposed merger. Several Congressional committees have already announced plans to review the deal. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said it was “absolutely essential” for both the Justice Department and the F.C.C. to “leave no stone unturned in determining what the impact of this combination is on the American people.” Most recently, lawmakers and the White House faced stiff opposition from advocacy groups over the recent merger of Comcast and NBC Universal. That deal was approved by the Justice Department and the F.C.C. with several conditions that subject the expanded company to additional oversight, but many consumer groups and liberal advocacy organizations were unsatisfied with those terms. “I’m not a huge fan of weighing down a merger with a dozen or more conditions,” said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that sharply criticized the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. “As a regulator, you have to ask yourself how a merger could be in the public interest if you have to do all those things to it to get it done.” AT&T is already pre-empting any concerns from lawmakers. Its publicity materials announcing the merger (including a dedicated Web site, mobilizeeverything.com ), pulled language directly from the president’s State of the Union Message with references to providing wireless high-speed Internet to nearly all Americans in the next five years. And to help Senator Rockefeller with his deliberations, AT&T prominently displayed in its online materials a map of how the merger would expand service in West Virginia. AT&T contends that the wireless phone market is highly competitive, with 18 of the 20 largest United States markets each having five or more wireless competitors. That may help AT&T, as the Justice Department has traditionally looked at local competition when considering whether a proposed merger will substantially reduce consumer options, said Michael L. Weiner, a partner and co-chairman of the antitrust practice at Dechert, an international law firm. But national competition also plays an important role in the wireless market. Many mobile phone customers base their buying decisions on whether they will have to pay expensive roaming charges when they travel out of their home area. And after the merger, AT&T and Verizon will between them control nearly 80 percent of the wireless market, with the third-largest competitor, Sprint, lagging far behind. When AT&T Wireless merged with Cingular in 2004, it emphasized the national benefits of the joined companies, Mr. Weiner said. Now, it is making the opposite argument. “We’re very confident that we can achieve a successful regulatory review,” Wayne Watts, a senior executive vice president and general counsel at AT&T, said Monday. “The facts show significant, unique public interest benefits from this transaction.” AT&T also said that it expected to discuss some divestitures with regulators to get approval for the deal. Most likely, those would take the form of the company giving up some wireless airwaves in certain cities where the merger would leave too few competitors. The F.C.C. could use its leverage over the parties in discussing those possible conditions, under the theory that a company trying to get approval for a merger is unlikely to strongly oppose its chief regulator’s policy goals. For example, the agency has been trying to get the large wireless companies to allow customers of other providers to use their networks for data roaming, much as they allow for roaming for voice services. The big providers have been reluctant to do so, because data services use much more bandwidth and, as AT&T customers with iPhones know, that can greatly slow a network. The F.C.C. also has voiced its desire to expand its policy of net neutrality , which requires that Internet service providers not slow or block specific content, to apply to wireless broadband services as well as to wired services. Though the F.C.C.’s position on net neutrality for wired Internet service was opposed by many telecommunications companies, AT&T supported it. This month, amid its talks with T-Mobile, AT&T’s chief lobbyist, James W. Cicconi, testified to the company’s support of the F.C.C. policy before a hostile House subcommittee.

T-Mobile
Federal Communications Commission
Justice Department
AT&T Inc
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Antitrust Laws and Competition Issues
Cellular Telephones
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry


A Defiant Act of Inaction

Abstract: Good for Stephon Marbury . And good for the Knicks . They’re both getting what they deserve: Marbury a clear sense of direction, the Knicks chaos. The Knicks and Marbury are moving in opposite directions, but on Friday night in Milwaukee they collided. With the roster depleted by a flurry of trades and longstanding injuries, the Knicks finally needed Marbury. According to Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni : “When the trades went down this afternoon, I said: ‘Look Steph, one of the principals are gone, Jamal Crawford. There’s 30-35 minutes out there, and they’re yours if you want them. Are you ready to go?’ ” D’Antoni said Marbury replied that he “wasn’t comfortable with the situation, and he did not want to play.” “So at that point,” D’Antoni said, “I go, ‘O.K., that’s your decision, and that’s fine.’ That’s it.” The Knicks have made it clear that Marbury is not part of their long-range plans. He wasn’t part of the short-term plans until Friday, when trades all but wiped out the backcourt when Crawford was sent to Golden State and Mardy Collins went to the Los Angeles Clippers, along with forward Zach Randolph. With only two players on the bench, the Knicks needed another body by league rules. During his postgame news conference, D’Antoni seemed to imply that Marbury, though dressed, refused to play. Marbury, who spent 10 consecutive games on the inactive list, has a different version of what happened. Reached by phone on Saturday, Marbury said he never told D’Antoni he would not play. “He said Stephon, ‘I got 20 to 25 minutes,’ ” Marbury said. “I never said, ‘No, I’m not going to play.’ That never came out my mouth. “I said, ‘You told me y’all were going in another direction, and you were moving forward.’ ” Marbury said D’Antoni replied: “ ‘I understand where you’re coming from.’ “Why would I say I’m not going to play? That’s insubordination. Why would I say that?” Later Friday afternoon, Marbury said he received a call in his hotel room from D’Antoni asking him to dress for that night’s game. “He said, ‘Stephon, I’m going to need you to dress out because we’re going to need eight guys,’ ” Marbury said. “I said: ‘No problem, Coach. I’ll dress out.’ That was it.” The organization has made it clear that it does not want Marbury, not even on the roster, by subjecting him to the ignominy of sitting on the bench in street clothes. You can certainly make the case that Marbury is an employee and as such should perform on command. The Knicks are paying Marbury to be a yo-yo: sit, don’t sit; play, don’t play; dress, don’t dress. On the other hand, what’s the point? He has not played in a game during the regular season. Why go from cold to hot, risk injury and look bad in the process. Whose case does that help? D’Antoni called the Marbury fiasco a distraction, but the Knicks have chosen this course of inaction by refusing to play Marbury, making him inactive and telling all who will listen that he is out of the Knicks’ orbit, out of their plans. All the organization has to do is agree to give Marbury the money he’s due and send him on his way. The Knicks, after getting off to an encouraging start, are in a state of flux. The flurry of activity is taking place, we are told, because the Knicks are planning for 2010 when so much great talent — most notably LeBron James — can become available. But in a culture that measures time in nanoseconds, two years are like a century. Who knows where James will be in 2010? And if I’m James looking at the Knicks’ ongoing dysfunction from the relatively tranquil confines of Cleveland, I would ask, Is this where I want to be? And even if James dislikes Marbury, and I’m not sure he does, he has to be wondering at some level, Wow, is this how I’ll be treated when I’m used up , or if I somehow fall out of favor with these guys? On the other hand, James may not be able to see that far ahead because, in the here and now, he is King James. He is the Olympic hero who helped fetch the gold, who curried favor by deferring on Darfur and the China connection during the Summer Games in Beijing. But what happens if he stumbles in New York? Or, more likely, what happens when James discovers that the franchise really is cursed and cannot be rescued? Will they make him stand in a corner? The Marbury-Knicks relationship continues to deteriorate. And with it the promise of peace and a drama-free season. Larry Brown. Isiah Thomas. Stephon Marbury. Mike D’Antoni. Will it ever end?

New York Knicks
Marbury Stephon
D'Antoni Mike
Basketball


Spokesman Finds He Has Less to Say

Abstract: Hank Steinbrenner’s emergence as the blunt voice of the Yankees ’ ruling family is a seismic change in how the team publicly communicates its actions. He is candid, sounds tough and is available to members of the news media in ways his father, George, no longer is. Hank’s openness raises a critical question: What about Howard J. Rubenstein? Rubenstein is the family’s conflict-averse consigliere of spin, who for some years has pasteurized the elder Steinbrenner ’s thoughts and words in statements that are e-mailed to reporters, some of whom recall the Boss at his most Pattonesque. Will the family still need Rubenstein to be his master’s filtered voice now that Hank Steinbrenner’s remarks over the past weeks have stamped him as his father’s son? • “George is hanging back, but whenever he has something to say, I’ll be the voice of George,” Rubenstein said yesterday. “I can’t predict how often George will ask me to put out a release, but I’ll do it. They won’t be as frequent, but that’s up to the family.” He added that with Hank as chief spokesman, “I don’t have to write a line for him.” Certainly not. After Joe Torre rejected a one-year contract to remain the Yankees manager as an insult earlier this month, Hank told The New York Post in words that sounded as blustery and quotable as his father’s used to be: “Where was Joe’s career in ’95 when my dad hired him? My dad was crucified for hiring him.” Rubenstein would not have written those words in a statement — unless ordered to deep-six his verbal sifter and go for the gusto — but he insisted that he agreed with Hank’s sentiment. “Everyone has his own style,” Rubenstein said. “I think he did the right thing. That’s what I told him. If I disagreed, I would have told him, but I wouldn’t tell you.” Rubenstein said that Hank was not available to talk about Rubenstein. I’ve discovered that my e-mail in-box is packed with Rubenstein releases; my odd collection shows that the last time he acted as the Boss’s voice was on Aug. 14, when Phil Rizzuto died. “I guess heaven must have needed a shortstop,” he wrote. Sometimes, I’ve thought about the decision-making that resulted in putting a release in Steinbrenner’s mouth or in Rubenstein’s paid voice. Consider this one from three weeks ago, which was issued three days after the flesh-and-blood Boss told The Record of Hackensack, N.J., from his hotel room that Torre wouldn’t return if the Yankees lost the division series against the Cleveland Indians. “George Steinbrenner is traveling back to his home in Tampa,” read the Rubenstein-as-Boss e-missive, “and will have no statement at this time.” Wouldn’t it have been better said as, “I’m going home to Tampa and I’m never picking up my phone at the Regency Hotel again?” The Rubenstein archive is a Yankee diary, albeit one that historians would find rather empty. The statements are products of YankeeThink — team officials, George and his sons Hank and Hal combining to produce unmemorable prose. “For the last five years,” Rubenstein said, “it’s been, ‘Howard, put this out, Howard, put that out.’ ” Remember the statement of April 17, 2005, after a 4-8 Yankee start? “Enough is enough,” Howard/George said. “They are not playing like true Yankees.” Two months later, after the team lost its 10th of 12 games, Howard/George said, in language unlike Steinbrenner’s: “Joe Torre’s job is safe. He’s safe at home.” In October 2006, after Torre was not fired after a first-round playoff exit, Rubenstein issued a release that purportedly contained a partial transcript of the very words that Steinbrenner said to his manager: “I have high expectations and I want to see enthusiasm, a fighting spirit and a team that works together. The responsibility is yours, Joe, and all of the Yankees.” Can’t you hear the censor’s buzzers? Sometimes, Rubenstein’s statements contained faint echoes of Steinbrenner’s gung-ho, football coach’s rhetoric. But they also sound like publicity releases with the least scent of authentic Bossism. Last April, Howard-as-George said: “I am gratified at the Forbes valuation of the Yankees. We are continuing to build a worldwide brand for the people of New York and Yankee fans everywhere.” • A day later, with the Yankees in a deep funk, came a cliché-packed release that concluded by saying: “Let’s get going. Let’s go out and win and bring a world championship back to New York. That’s what I want.” Rubenstein is well aware that his releases do not sound like the Steinbrenner of yore. “I’ve always thought they’ve sounded like George,” he said, “because that’s what he wanted me to sound like.” With his ghostwriting career altered by the rise of Hank, Rubenstein said his future lies in family-themed releases that more than ever reflect modern YankeeThink, not in his small soliloquies as Steinbrenner. “Whatever I put out in the future will be consensus releases,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say they’ll be Howardized.”

Rubenstein Howard J
Steinbrenner George M 3d
Steinbrenner Hank
New York Yankees
Baseball


Google Offers Search Service on Finance

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO, March 20 - Harnessing yet another data category to its search-engine prowess, Google is introducing a financial information service intended to compete directly with offerings from Microsoft, Yahoo and other sources, Google executives said Monday. Google said the service, at finance.google.com, would distinguish itself by providing stock charts with interactive qualities like those on its Google Maps service, allowing users to find deeper or specified layers of data by sliding the cursor. The site will focus on current and historical data for both public and private companies, and following a Google practice for its new offerings, it will not immediately carry advertisements. "Our focus is on the user and the product," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president for search products and user experience. She said the company would consider revenue possibilities later. Google said the initiative grew out of a survey it conducted 15 months ago, asking its users what kinds of new services they would find helpful. The response was dominated by two themes: maps and finance. Financial analysts said the service played to obvious Google strengths. "Financial information is a category of information that can lend itself fairly well to the task of organizing and presenting, what Google is really good at," said Safa Rashtchy, a financial analyst at Piper Jaffray, an investment firm. At the same time, Google faces a challenge in entering the extremely competitive consumer market for financial information against rivals like Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL and financial companies like Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab. Like many competitors, Google will purchase financial information and data from third parties including Hoover's, Interactive Data, Reuters and Morningstar. But Katie Jacobs Stanton, a senior product manager, said Google had taken advantage of its Web database to add material, like executives' photos culled from corporate Web sites. "We wanted to make it easier for our users to query by a company name or a chief executive," she said. The new service, developed by an engineering team split between India and the United States, makes extensive use of Google News, a service that tracks more than 4,500 Web news sites. One feature the company emphasizes is the ability to track when news stories appeared along a timeline display of stock prices. It will also link to discussions on Web logs about specific companies. The service will offer its own bulletin-board discussions on financial topics. The boards will be moderated by a new group of Google employees hired to ensure the quality of the discussions, Ms. Stanton said. Currently, Google directs Web surfers who look up stock ticker symbols on its site to four financial information Web services. The company said it would continue to offer that option.

FINANCES
MICROSOFT CORP
REUTERS GROUP PLC
INTERACTIVE DATA CORP
MORNINGSTAR INC
GOOGLE INC
YAHOO INC
HOOVER'S INC
STOCKS AND BONDS
COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET


Warren A. Croll Jr., Trainer, Is Dead at 88

Abstract: Warren A. Croll Jr., a Hall of Fame trainer who won the 1987 Belmont Stakes with Bet Twice and trained four thoroughbred champions, died Friday in Long Branch, N.J. He was 88. His death was announced by Monmouth Park racetrack. The cause was complications of an infection, said his daughter, Nancy Croll Murphy. Mr. Croll, usually known as Jimmy, started in racing in 1940 and moved his stable to Monmouth in 1946. His breakthrough came in 1965, when he claimed a horse named Parka for $10,000. Parka went on to win several major stakes races and was named champion turf horse of 1965. Parka was just one of four champions trained by Croll, the best of which might have been Holy Bull. Holy Bull was originally owned by Rachel Carpenter, but she died shortly before the horse’s racing debut. Croll inherited the colt from Carpenter, a longtime client, and became his owner and trainer. Holy Bull was undefeated as a 2-year-old but finished 12th in the 1994 Kentucky Derby as the betting favorite. He rebounded from that poor effort to win 8 of 10 races that year and was named 1994 Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old. His notable victories included the Florida Derby, the Metropolitan Handicap, the Haskell and the Travers. He was retired after sustaining an injury in the 1995 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park. “I said the day he retired would be the saddest day in my life,” Croll said after the injury. “It happened a lot sooner than I expected.” Mr. Croll also trained Forward Gal (the champion 2-year-old filly of 1970) and Housebuster (the champion sprinter of 1990 and 1991). Another notable horse he trained was Mr. Prospector, who went on to become one of the most successful sires in the sport’s history. One of Mr. Croll’s biggest wins came in the 1987 Belmont Stakes. With the 3-year-old colt Bet Twice, he finished second behind Alysheba in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes . With Alysheba aiming to become racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner, Bet Twice pulled away to a 14-length win in the Belmont. Mr. Croll was born in Bryn Mawr, Pa., and briefly attended the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school before deciding to pursue a career at the racetrack. He received his trainer’s license in 1940 and won his first race that year at Delaware Park. In 1946, Mr. Croll moved his stable to Monmouth for the track’s inaugural meet and continued to race horses there every summer through the 2002 season. After retiring as a trainer in 2002, he turned his stable over to his son, William, and remained active as an owner until his death. His two children survive him, along with his wife, Roberta. In 1994, he was elected to the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Belmont Stakes
Monmouth Park
Horses
Horse Racing
Deaths (Obituaries)
Triple Crown (Horse Racing)
Croll Warren A Jr


Formula One Drivers Lift Their Careers With Wins Elsewhere

Abstract: MONTREAL — For some drivers at the pinnacle of auto racing, it can pay to move sideways or even take a step backward to jump-start a stalling career. As Formula One prepares for the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend, the series has had another reminder that there are more ways than one for a driver to climb the ladder to the top. For the second year in a row, a Formula One driver hitting a slow spot in his career has found his reputation embellished by success in a different series, with victory in one of the world’s “Triple Crown” of greatest car races: the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Monaco Grand Prix or the Indianapolis 500. Two weeks ago, Alexander Rossi, a 24-year-old American reserve driver at the Manor Formula One team, won the Indianapolis 500 race in his first try. In Monaco on the same day, drivers at Rossi’s Manor team finished in the last two positions, 14th and 15th. In five Formula One races last year, Rossi never finished higher than 12th. A year ago Nico Hülkenberg, a German driver with the Force India team, took advantage of a weekend off his busy Formula One schedule to race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans , and like Rossi, he won a Triple Crown race in his rookie year. The effect for both Rossi and Hülkenberg was to burnish their reputations and give Formula One team owners another look at their talent. Hülkenberg has yet to gain a top-three podium spot in a Formula One race, but his victory in Le Mans clearly raised his stock. “Winning Le Mans didn’t change my career, but it definitely gave me a boost,” said Hülkenberg on Thursday in Montreal. “It is a huge achievement, probably the biggest in my career.” Rossi had spent nearly his entire career climbing a well-established ladder of lower racing series in Europe, competing with future Formula One drivers from around the world on their own turf. But he never had sufficient sponsorship to ensure a full-time seat in the series. He spent several years as a well-respected test and reserve driver and finally raced in five races last year. After winning in Indianapolis, Rossi said he had been thinking of the race in Monaco that day, just as he would always seek out television coverage of the Indianapolis 500 in a bar in Monaco while he was racing there. But it was the surprise victory in Indianapolis that will have done more than anything to raise his stock in Formula One. “It definitely wasn’t the direction I was heading," said Rossi of the IndyCar series, after the victory. “I didn’t expect to be here three months ago. And I’m not going to try and predict where I will be in a couple of years.” The victories of both Rossi and Hülkenberg raise anew the question about the best way for a modern driver to conduct his career in a world that has become increasingly more professional and demanding of time commitment. Until around the 1980s, top drivers commonly raced simultaneously in several series in addition to Formula One. Drivers like Stirling Moss would also race at Le Mans, in Italy’s Mille Miglia, in rallies and other sports car races. But Graham Hill is the only driver to have won the career Triple Crown. Mario Andretti, one of only two American Formula One champions, raced in IndyCar in the 1960s, where he won the Indianapolis 500 in 1969, as well as in occasional Formula One races and other series. He began a full-time career in Formula One in the mid-1970s, finally taking the title in 1978. In recent years, Formula One teams have written exclusive contracts with their drivers, often forbidding them not only to take part in other forms of racing or in potentially dangerous activities, like riding motorcycles or skiing. There can be a good reason for it: In February 2011, Robert Kubica, a Polish driver who was a rising star in Formula One, had a serious accident in the Ronde di Andora rally race in Italy, and permanently lost full use of his hand and arm, ending his career at the age of 26. In any case, if a sidestep into a different series is not always a recipe for success, the two-step backward method can still work for Formula One drivers. Romain Grosjean, a French driver found that by stepping down a rung, he could revive a false start in Formula One. Before entering Formula One full time in 2009, Grosjean had won four of the steppingstone series beneath Formula One, in a fabulous start to his career. But it took just seven difficult races in Formula One, in his rookie year, for Grosjean to find himself without a team the following year. So in 2010 and 2011 he drove in sports car racing, and other open-wheel, single-seat series. He won the AutoGP series in 2010, and in 2011, he won the GP2 Asia and then the international GP2 series in 2011. That series is the traditional feeder series to Formula One, where he had already raced in 2008 and early 2009, and his results there saved his career. “They looked at me differently,” Grosjean said in Montreal on Thursday, of the Formula One team directors. “They decided that maybe I wasn’t that bad after all, since I had won the GP2.”

Formula One
Car Racing
Monaco Grand Prix
Alexander Rossi
Nico Hülkenberg
Romain Grosjean
Indy 500
Le Mans Race


Migrants Provoke an Identity Crisis in Europe

Abstract: DEAL, England — For centuries they sailed to the south, conquistadors and colonists, wresting control of a continent’s riches and imposing alien ways of faith and governance. Yet, in recent weeks, watching the inexorable exodus of migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean toward Greece and Italy in leaky craft, it is tempting to wonder whether the tide has turned. Now, it is the powers of Europe, which once divided Africa between them, that face an invasion that could reshape their societies. The presence of outsiders seeking a niche in cosseted lands has long unsettled Europeans who boast of big-heartedness while protecting privileged lives built in part on oil, minerals and cheap labor from farther south. But, more recently, xenophobia has gathered new strength, displayed in the rise of right-wing parties that oppose migration across the European Union’s open internal frontiers. It draws strength from the fear of The Other embodied in the migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean from Eritrea and Syria, Nigeria and Senegal — colonial-era creations overlaid with war, oppression, corruption or decline. What’s Behind the Surge in Refugees Crossing the Mediterranean Sea There were about 17 times as many refugee deaths from January to April this year as there were during the same period last year. Just last week, voters in Denmark dumped their center-left government , shifting toward the far-right Danish People’s Party, which, like the insurgent National Front in France or the U.K. Independence Party in Britain, had once been relegated to a cantankerous European fringe. And this week, European leaders, debating a plan to take in 40,000 asylum seekers across the Continent, confronted a stark choice to determine the very nature of their land. “If selfishness and fear prevail,” the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, wrote in The Guardian , “we risk losing the noble idea underpinning the European project.” At a time of wider divisions over Greek debt and Britain’s discernible shift toward leaving the European Union, the question is this: What purpose will Europe serve if its successes are measured exclusively by the narrow self-interest individual states? Here, on England’s south coast, history seems to offer one answer: It was ever thus. On the ramparts of the 16th-century Deal Castle, built by Henry VIII to defend his realm against invaders, the long snouts of old cannons point out to sea, leading the eye across the English Channel, toward France. Again, this week, that waterway was Britain’s bulwark against turmoil when a wildcat strike by French workers brought the port of Calais to a standstill. Tires were burned. Hundreds of England-bound trucks ground to a halt. Most alarming for many Britons, some of the thousands of migrants camping out around Calais scrambled for hiding places in the log-jammed vehicles to cross the channel — the last hurdle of an odyssey that, according to United Nations figures, brought a record 150,000 migrants to Europe last year. Video Migrants attempting to enter Britain have been boarding trucks stuck in traffic at the port of Calais in northern France. Credit Credit Thibault Camus/Associated Press Arguably the south-north flow is one more sign of the failure to build a new order after the Cold War to contain divisions of belief, ethnicity and geopolitics. Just last week, indeed, the United Nations produced the startling assessment that the number of people pushed out of their homes by combat, repression and unrest had reached a record 59.5 million — nearly 14 million of them in the past year alone. That enormous wall of human misery stands behind those fleeing toward Europe, hundreds of them dying in the process. Much of Europe’s putative response has focused on curbing human traffickers and turning back migrants with no legitimate claim on asylum. That approach, however, ignores what David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee , called a broader effort to settle conflicts that force people from their own lands. “By the time ships are pulling bodies from the Mediterranean,” he said in a speech last week, “it is too late.” In the 19th century, Europe’s industrialization fueled the imperial drive for riches. In the 21st, the imperative has turned back on itself, offering portends of what Mr. Miliband called a “decade of disorder” — if not much longer.

Europe
EU
Refugees,Internally Displaced People
Danish People's Party
Immigration


Climate Efforts Falling Short, U.N. Panel Says

Abstract: BERLIN — Delivering the latest stark news about climate change on Sunday, a United Nations panel warned that governments are not doing enough to avert profound risks in coming decades. But the experts found a silver lining: Not only is there still time to head off the worst, but the political will to do so seems to be rising around the world. In a report unveiled here, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that decades of foot-dragging by political leaders had propelled humanity into a critical situation, with greenhouse emissions rising faster than ever. Though it remains technically possible to keep planetary warming to a tolerable level, only an intensive push over the next 15 years to bring those emissions under control can achieve the goal, the committee found. “We cannot afford to lose another decade,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist and co-chairman of the committee that wrote the report. “If we lose another decade, it becomes extremely costly to achieve climate stabilization.” The good news is that ambitious action is becoming more affordable, the committee found. It is increasingly clear that measures like tougher building codes and efficiency standards for cars and trucks can save energy and reduce emissions without harming people’s quality of life, the panel found. And the costs of renewable energy like wind and solar power are falling so fast that its deployment on a large scale is becoming practical, the report said. Moreover, since the intergovernmental panel issued its last major report in 2007, far more countries, states and cities have adopted climate plans, a measure of the growing political interest in tackling the problem. They include China and the United States, which are doing more domestically than they have been willing to commit to in international treaty negotiations. Yet the report found that the emissions problem is still outrunning the determination to tackle it, with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rising almost twice as fast in the first decade of this century as they did in the last decades of the 20th century. That reflects a huge rush to use coal-fired power plants in developing countries that are climbing up the income scale, especially China, while rich countries are making only slow progress in cutting their high emissions, the report said. The report is likely to increase the pressure to secure an ambitious new global climate treaty that is supposed to be completed in late 2015 and take effect in 2020. But the divisions between wealthy countries and poorer countries that have long bedeviled international climate talks were on display yet again in Berlin. Some developing countries insisted on stripping charts from the report’s executive summary that could have been read as requiring greater effort from them, while rich countries — including the United States — struck out language that might have been seen as implying that they needed to write big checks to the developing countries. Both points survived in the full version of the report, but were deleted from a synopsis meant to inform the world’s top political leaders. The new report does not prescribe the actions that governments need to take. But it does make clear that putting a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, either through taxes or the sale of emission permits, is a fundamental approach that could help redirect investment toward climate-friendly technologies. If climate targets are to be met, the report said, annual investment in electrical power plants that use fossil fuels will need to decline by about 20 percent in the coming two decades, while investment in low-carbon energy will need to double from current levels. Rising Seas Some areas of the globe are especially vulnerable to rising sea levels and inhabitants are being forced to make stark changes in their lives. The report warns that if greater efforts to cut emissions are not implemented soon, future generations seeking to limit or reverse climate damage will have to depend on technologies that permanently remove greenhouse gases from the air; in effect, they will be trying to undo the damage caused by the people of today. But these technologies do not exist on any appreciable scale, the report said, and there is no guarantee that they will be available in the future, much less that they will be affordable. The intergovernmental panel warned that the longer countries delayed aggressive action, the more difficult it would be to limit global warming to the level that the international community has agreed to, namely a rise in the global average temperature of no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above the preindustrial level. Scientists fear that exceeding that level could produce drastic effects, such as the collapse of ice sheets, a rapid rise in sea levels, difficulty growing enough food, huge die-offs of forests, and mass extinctions of plant and animal species. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a United Nations body that includes hundreds of scientists, economists and other experts. The group periodically reviews the science and economics of climate change and issues major reports every five or six years. Along with Al Gore, it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for calling attention to the climate problem. The new report, dealing with ways to limit the growth of the emissions that are causing climate change, is the third in recent months. A report released in Stockholm in September found a certainty of 95 percent or greater that humans were the main cause of global warming, and a report released in Yokohama , Japan, two weeks ago said profound effects were already being felt around the world, and were likely to get much worse. The latest report found that if countries keep stalling on tougher climate rules, trillions of dollars will be invested in coming years in power plants, cars and buildings that use too much energy from fossil fuels. The result, the report said, would be an emissions path that would be almost impossible to alter in time to get to the very low carbon pollution levels that scientists think are necessary by 2050. The authors found that tackling the problem in a serious way would carry large costs, shaving a few hundredths of a percentage point off global economic growth each year. By the end of the century, societies would most likely be far richer than today, but almost 5 percent poorer than they would have been had they not spent the money to protect the climate, according to the study. “Climate policy is not a free lunch,” Dr. Edenhofer said at a news conference Sunday in Berlin. Against those costs, the economic benefits of acting are essentially impossible to calculate, the report found. The biggest reason is that scientists do not know how likely it is that unchecked global warming could cause some sort of wildly expensive calamity, such as a rapid melting of ice sheets that would drown the world’s major coastal cities. This and other disasters are distinctly possible, the authors found. In essence, the committee described money spent fighting climate change as a form of insurance against the most severe potential consequences. “It is up to the public and up to decision makers to decide if it is affordable or not,” Dr. Edenhofer said. The report was quickly welcomed in Washington, where President Obama is trying to adopt aggressive climate policies despite congressional opposition. His science adviser, John P. Holdren, said the report showed that “the longer society waits to implement strong measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the more costly and difficult it will become to limit climate change to less than catastrophic levels.”


Japan Tops New Asian University Ranking

Abstract: Times Higher Education has published its first university ranking focusing on Asia . While it includes the Middle East, South Asia and Turkey, its standout performers were all East Asian economic powerhouses. On the top-100 ranking released last week, Japan had the most institutions (22), followed by Taiwan (17), mainland China (15) and South Korea (14). The top 10 individual schools were: the University of Tokyo, National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong, Peking University, Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Kyoto University, Seoul National University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. The T.H.E. statement called Hong Kong, a city of seven million with six universities in the top 100, a “star performer, particularly given its size.” It cited “challenges facing India,” a nation of 1.2 billion with only three schools, all of them technology institutes, in the Asian top 100 and none in the top 10. “Rapid growth in the face of staff shortages and declining per-student spending has affected standards,” Pawan Agarwal, an Indian government education adviser, wrote in the T.H.E. supplement. Foreign students to return to London Metropolitan London Metropolitan University, which lost its right to admit students from outside the European Union last autumn over allegations of visa problems, announced last week that it would be able to resume accepting foreign students. The move by the Home Office to strip it of its “trusted sponsor” status meant that thousands of students had faced deportation. It also cost the university, which serves some of London’s poorest neighborhoods, nearly £20 million, or about $30 million, in lost income. “That translates directly into educational opportunities and resources for staffing,” the university’s vice chancellor, Malcolm Gillies, told The Financial Times. Although university officials welcomed the decision, the university said it would continue to pursue legal action against both the Home Office and the U.K. Border Agency. A High Court judge ruled in September that current students should be allowed to stay in Britain to complete their studies. He also granted the university the right to seek a judicial review of the government’s action. — D.D. GUTTENPLAN German universities to get €4.4 billion more funding Germany is injecting an additional €4.4 billion worth of funding into the country’s universities, the German media reported Friday. The extra funds, worth more than $5.7 billion, are to come in equal parts from the federal and the länder, or state, governments. They will be used to help institutions deal with a boom in student enrollment. The government estimates that between 2011 and 2015, 630,000 students will enroll in German universities, 360,000 more than predicted. Chancellor Angela Merkel and heads of the länder are expected to approve the funding boost in June. The jump is due partly to higher birthrates and the discontinuation of mandatory military service, according to Der Spiegel. — CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE Most Asians save regularly for education, survey shows Two-thirds of households in the Asia-Pacific region save money on a regular basis for their children’s education, which takes up 14 percent of their total income, according to a new study by MasterCard on consumer education spending. The Asian component of the survey released last week, for which MasterCard polled 7,678 consumers in 16 countries and territories, found that the portion of household income saved for education tended to correlate with a country’s developmental status. In Myanmar, families on average save 18 percent of their household income for education. Meanwhile, families in Japan save 10 percent of their relatively much higher salaries for education. Most Asian parents plan for their children to attend universities locally; the three exceptions were China, South Korea and Bangladesh. Two thirds of Asia-Pacific households also spend money on extracurricular classes for their children, though geography tended to determine what those activities are. Foreign languages are popular in China and South Korea. Meanwhile, 43 percent of children in New Zealand who did outside activities chose to engage in sports. — KRISTIANO ANG

Japan
Education
Taiwan
China
South Korea
Hong Kong
College


Brazilian Panel Says Ex-Leader Was Murdered

Abstract: SANTIAGO, Chile — The Truth Commission in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, said Tuesday that Juscelino Kubitschek, the country’s president from 1956 to 1961, was murdered in 1976 in a conspiracy by the military dictatorship ruling Brazil at the time. Mr. Kubitschek, long thought to have died in a car accident on the highway between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, was killed as a result of his driver being shot in the head, said Gilberto Natalini, the commission’s president. Mr. Natalini said the commission based its conclusion on the testimony of witnesses and other evidence, including a metal fragment found in the cranium of the driver, Geraldo Ribeiro, when his body was exhumed in 1996. The São Paulo commission, one of various such entities in Brazil examining abuses by the military dictatorship, had sought to exhume Mr. Ribeiro’s remains in recent months as part of its investigation, but delivered its report without doing so. Its findings will be sent to federal authorities and the National Truth Commission, which is also looking into Mr. Kubitschek’s death. Even if prosecutors open an investigation into the matter and eventually charge individuals with killing Mr. Kubitschek, a 1979 amnesty law still shields from prosecution those responsible for politically motivated crimes during the period of military rule.

Brazil
Murders
Juscelino Kubitschek
Assassination