Supreme Court Issues Split Ruling on Civil Contempt

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday gave a complicated answer to the simple question of whether poor people facing jail time for failing to pay child support are entitled to court-appointed lawyers. In a 5-to-4 decision that divided along ideological lines, the court said there is no automatic right to counsel for people charged with civil contempt, at least when the parent seeking to collect child support does not have a lawyer. In those circumstances, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the majority, states must use “substantial procedural safeguards.” In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the answer to the simple question the court had agreed to decide is that there is no constitutional right to counsel for people facing jail for civil contempt. He also objected to the court’s decision to fashion safeguards based on suggestions from the federal government, which was not a party to the case. In a series of decisions starting with Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, the Supreme Court has held that poor people facing the loss of liberty for crimes must be provided with lawyers. But those decisions were rooted in the Sixth Amendment , which concerns only criminal proceedings. Civil contempt is meant to coerce rather than punish, and judges often say that people held in such circumstances hold the keys to their own jail cells. The case decided Monday involved a South Carolina man, Michael D. Turner, who was repeatedly held in civil contempt and jailed for as much as a year at a time for not paying child support. Mr. Turner argued that he was too poor to pay what he owed and that a lawyer could have helped him convince the judge that jailing him was impermissible. Justice Breyer’s majority opinion was sympathetic to people like Mr. Turner who face jail without lawyers and yet wary of “an asymmetry of representation” when the custodial parent seeking child support has no lawyer. In those circumstances, Justice Breyer wrote, states should at least provide notice to defendants that ability to pay is a critical issue in the case, use a form or something similar to elicit information on that point, give defendants a chance to be heard in court and require judges specifically to determine whether the defendant can pay but refuses. Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion in the case, Turner v. Rogers, No. 10-10. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined all or substantial parts of Justice Thomas’s dissent.

Supreme Court
Child Custody and Support
Sixth Amendment (US Constitution)
Legal Aid for the Poor


In Effort to Defeat ISIS, U.S. and Iran Impede One Another

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces, backed by American airstrikes and advised by American officers, have been making strides in Anbar Province, slowly taking back territory from the Islamic State. But in Falluja, a city in Sunni-dominated Anbar that has been in the hands of the Islamic State longer than any other in Iraq or Syria, civilians are starving as the Iraqi Army and militias lay siege to the city. And elsewhere in the province, Shiite militias supported by Iran are carrying out kidnappings and murders and restricting the movement of Sunni Arab civilians, according to American and Iraqi officials. For seasoned observers of the American military involvement in Iraq — going back more than 25 years to the start of the Persian Gulf war — it is all part of a depressingly familiar pattern: battlefield gains that do not bring stability in their wake. “Unfortunately, as has been a trademark of American involvement with Iraq at least since 2003 (and arguably since 1991), military success is not being matched with the commensurate political-economic efforts that will ultimately determine whether battlefield successes are translated into lasting achievements,” Kenneth M. Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a longtime Iraq analyst, wrote recently in an online column . A growing number of critics are warning that American-backed military victories need to be backed up with political reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Arabs, something Iran is working against, and with determined efforts to rebuild cities so that civilians can return. In Anbar, they note, the situation is bleak: Shiite militias have worsened sectarian animosities, and hundreds of thousands of civilians have been unable to return home. More broadly, analysts and officials say, it has become clear that though the United States and Iran both want to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq, they have been unable to work together to promote unity in the country — even after a deal was reached last year over Iran’s nuclear program, which many hoped would allow them to cooperate more closely. Image Shiite fighters firing a recoilless rifle toward Islamic State militants last week on the outskirts of Falluja in Anbar Province. Credit Reuters Nowhere is this dynamic more pronounced than in Anbar, a vast desert area of western Iraq that for years has been a homeland for the Islamic State and its forerunner, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and where hundreds of American soldiers and Marines were killed after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. As the United States supports the Iraqi Army and some local tribal fighters in battling the Islamic State, Iran has quietly pursued its objectives in the province, officials say. It wants to secure a land route to Syria and its allies, the government of President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement, and to protect Baghdad and the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq. The situation in Anbar has grown increasingly muddled as the Obama administration has stepped up its military support to Iraq, announcing that it will deploy Apache helicopters and position more troops closer to the front lines. It has touted victories in Anbar as an important step toward liberating the country from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and as a prelude to a campaign, possibly this year, to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. But Iran’s proxies are undercutting efforts to unite the civilian population, a necessity if Iraq is to eventually extinguish extremism. In the siege of Falluja, a Sunni city, the Shiite militias have prevented civilians from leaving Islamic State territory while resisting calls to allow humanitarian aid to reach the city. Sunni Arab civilians in the province are increasingly reporting kidnappings and murders by the militias, accounts that American and Iraqi officials say are credible. In some cases, after civilians have disappeared, their families have received ransom demands. Abu Abdulrahman, a resident of Amiriyat al-Falluja, a city in Anbar under the control of the government, said three of his cousins vanished last year after being stopped at a militia checkpoint. “We haven’t heard anything about them since then,” he said, although a man approached the family and demanded a ransom of $8,000, which was paid. “He disappeared with the money,” he said. Conditions are so dire in Falluja for the tens of thousands of civilians trapped there that dozens of people have starved to death, civilians and activists say. Food prices have skyrocketed, with a bag of flour that would cost $15 in Baghdad going for $750, Human Rights Watch has reported . The rights group recently warned that if aid does not reach Falluja, “the results for civilians could be calamitous.” “We are profoundly worried about Falluja,” Lise Grande, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a recent statement . “There are reports of widespread food shortages and lack of medicines. We don’t have access to the city, but we have to assume based on what we are hearing that people are in terrible trouble.” Hadi al-Ameri, a prominent Iraqi official who leads the Badr Organization, a longstanding militia backed by Iran, said in an interview this year as the siege of Falluja began that it was a military necessity to “surround the city, to cut off supply lines.” When asked about the demand from the United Nations and other groups to find a way to send food in, he said, using another acronym for the Islamic State, “to give food to who — to Daesh?” Inside Falluja, some civilians who say they initially supported the Islamic State as preferable to the government in Baghdad now say they would welcome liberation. But they say they are caught between the Islamic State, which has become more brutal toward civilians as the siege has dragged on, and the government and militias. “The situation inside Falluja is difficult because of the siege imposed by the security forces outside Falluja, and from the inside by ISIS, who won’t let us get out of the city,” said Ahmed Mohammed, a Falluja resident reached by telephone. Cellphone reception is spotty, and anyone seen talking on a cellphone is at risk of arrest. “It has become very difficult for us to use our mobile phones because ISIS expects that we may be talking with the government,” said Qais al-Jumayli, who was reached by phone last week. “Therefore, we are very cautious.” He added, “We don’t know our destiny, or the destiny of our families.”

Iran
Iraq
Anbar Province
Sunnis
Iraqi Army
Shiite
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Fallujah
US Military
Civilian casualties


As Orioles Honor Cal Ripken Jr., Buzz Is Back at Camden Yards

Abstract: BALTIMORE — Before the season, the Orioles announced they would unveil six large bronze statues for the Baltimore players who have had their numbers retired, arranged in a leafy grove beyond the bullpens in left field. For the ceremony honoring the Hall of Fame shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. , the team reserved Sept. 6 — the 17th anniversary of the night he broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. Of course, these plans were made well before the Orioles barnstormed through the first five months of the season. Thursday’s link to Ripken, who played on the last Baltimore team to reach the postseason, in 1997, was especially apt since the Yankees were in town to begin a four-game series with more meaning than any September games here since he retired in 2001. “Being an Oriole,” Ripken told the crowd, “is about playing meaningful games in September.” The fans responded with a roar. Baltimore’s 10-6 win over the Yankees on Thursday would have served as a throwback even without Ripken, Eddie Murray, Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, Earl Weaver and other Orioles legends in attendance. It was a rekindling of an all-too-distant rivalry. “It feels really good to walk into that stadium and see the excitement, to see such a big series in September against the Yankees,” Ripken said. “This is an exciting time for this team.” The crowd soaked it in, packing every crevice of Camden Yards with orange and black, waving homemade banners and chanting homegrown players’ names. It was a refreshing sight for Orioles fans, who had endured six straight seasons with at least 90 losses, a dizzying procession of players and managers, draft flameouts and bungled acquisitions. Their connection to a storied past was severed almost as soon as Manager Davey Johnson resigned after a 98-win season in 1997. In the 30 previous years, the Orioles finished in first or second 18 times, making 10 trips to the postseason and 6 appearances in the World Series. They sent five players from that period into the Hall of Fame and won four Most Valuable Player awards and six Cy Young Awards. But those boom times stood in stark contrast to the 14 consecutive losing seasons that followed. After averaging more than 42,000 fans a game in the nine years after Camden Yards opened in 1992, the O’s managed just 22,000 a game in the last four seasons. The team’s success this season has not brought everyone back. Although attendance is up 12 percent from last season, an average of only 11,759 showed up for a four-game series against the Chicago White Sox last week. The sellout Thursday was only the sixth of the season for the Orioles, although they are nearing 2 million fans for the first time since 2007. Ripken believes the fans are thirsting to root for a winning franchise again. “I don’t think anybody could have projected this,” Ripken said. “I think everyone was hoping that they would continue to develop and that they would be challenging for the wild card. This is exciting. It’s been a while since you’re watching, you’re checking up, you’re listening everywhere you are to what’s happening in the game.” Orioles Manager Buck Showalter said his players fed off the crowd’s energy Thursday, particularly late in the game after the Yankees came back to tie it. In the ninth, O’s third baseman Mark Reynolds said, he couldn’t hear shortstop J.J. Hardy, who was standing no more than 10 feet away. “It was unbelievable,” Reynolds said. Showalter said: “I remember coming in here in the other dugout and how tough it was. You could tell our fans were locked into it from the first pitch. If our players here didn’t know, they know now what our fan base is all about.” Showalter also cautioned that his team still “has a lot of ground to cover,” and indeed it was slightly difficult to discern whether fans had showed up to see a winning team or a local legend. Or both. A lifelong Orioles fan, Stacy Seward, 34, peered through a row of bushes to catch a glimpse of Ripken as he spoke. Her view was obstructed by a tent, but she contorted her body to take pictures of what she could. “We were here an hour before the gates opened and the place was packed,” said Seward, of Denton, Md. “Usually it’s the Ravens that are all you hear about this time of year. The Orioles are making baseball relevant again in September.” As the ceremony finished, fans moved through the crowded concourse toward their seats, eager to get the first taste of meaningful late-season baseball here in years. It may take some getting used to. “See,” one fan said to his wife. “This is what a sellout looks like.”

Baseball
Ripken Cal Jr
Baltimore Orioles
New York Yankees


Terrapins and Greyhounds to Meet in All-Maryland Title Game

Abstract: FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Maryland men’s lacrosse team and more than a dozen staff members traveled here in two charter buses Wednesday, taking the scenic route. They had their entire roster, 47 players, which so crowded their locker room that they did their postgame stretching on the concrete floor of the tunnel outside. The Terrapins were unseeded entering the N.C.A.A. tournament and often criticized for their slowdown offensive style. Yet after upsetting Duke , 16-10, in a semifinal at Gillette Stadium on Saturday, the Terrapins have nudged their way into college lacrosse’s upper tier. “To beat a great program like Duke, who we have so much respect for, it takes a big game like that,” said Coach John Tillman, whose team earned its second consecutive trip to the national title game. “I’m excited for our players, our school, our state and our alums.” Maryland will face an in-state rival, top-seeded Loyola, on Monday afternoon for the national title. Loyola beat Notre Dame , 7-5, in the first semifinal. “They’re the No. 1 seed for a reason,” Tillman said of Loyola. “They’re a terrific team.” Maryland’s rise coincides with the absences of the perennial contenders Syracuse, Virginia and Johns Hopkins. For the first time since 1975, none of those teams reached the semifinals. Against Duke, Maryland jumped to a 7-4 halftime lead after scoring four goals on only five shots in the second quarter. The Terrapins’ defense, which held teams to 7.8 goals a game this season, limited the Duke attackers Josh Dionne, Christian Walsh and Jordan Wolf to seven shots on goal. An unassisted goal by Duke’s Rob Rotanz early in the fourth quarter cut the lead to 10-8 before Maryland pulled away. Terrapins midfielder Drew Snider tied a career high with four goals, and Owen Blye added three. “We all felt really comfortable with our offensive game plan,” Snider said. “We were pretty organized. And we fed off our defense.” In the first semifinal, Loyola’s defense outplayed Notre Dame, the stingiest team in the nation. For the third year in a row, the Irish were limited to five goals in a losing effort in the N.C.A.A. tournament. Jack Runkel, Loyola’s sophomore goaltender, made 15 saves, and attacker Eric Lusby scored five goals for the second game in a row to lead the Greyhounds to their first national title game since 1990. Lusby has 18 points (13 goals, 5 assists) in three games in the tournament. Loyola was unranked at the beginning of the season; 17 wins later, it will play for the title. “It’s a special feeling as a coach when you get to coach a group of guys that give you everything every day,” Loyola Coach Charlie Toomey said. “We’re having fun out there.” After losing last year’s title game to Virginia, 9-7, Maryland began the season ranked eighth. The team started well but lost to Colgate, 13-11, on May 5, dropping its record to 9-5. Tillman changed the team’s practice drills to avoid stagnation. The Terrapins have not lost since. “They felt like their practices might be getting a little more routine,” Tillman said. “They wanted to change up the flow.” Maryland beat Duke, 9-4, in last year’s semifinals in a game that solidified Maryland’s reputation for being a slowdown offensive team. After 37 goals in three postseason games this year, the Terrapins might have broken that mold. “We’ve been playing together for nine months now,” the senior Joe Cummings said. “We feel like we have some chemistry on offense.” Maryland has not won a championship since 1975, and Loyola has never won one. After Saturday’s game, a Maryland player ran onto the field waving the state’s checkered flag. The ultimate in-state bragging rights will be decided Monday afternoon.

Lacrosse
Loyola University Maryland
University of Notre Dame
NCAA Lacrosse Championships
College Athletics
University of Maryland
Duke University


Investigation of Council Said to Grow

Abstract: The federal inquiry into how City Council members spend the discretionary money they control appears to be expanding, and city investigators have begun questioning workers at a variety of nonprofit organizations that received money, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Several of the nonprofit groups whose activities are being reviewed by federal prosecutors and lawyers for the city’s Department of Investigation are those financed by Councilman Larry B. Seabrook, a veteran Bronx legislator. In recent weeks, news reports have focused attention on several nonprofit groups to which Mr. Seabrook directed funds, including the Bronx African American Chamber of Commerce, which for years was located across the hall from Mr. Seabrook’s office on White Plains Road. The group has since moved, but recently the Mayor’s Office of Contracts froze $912,244 in funds for the group while the investigation proceeds. Mr. Seabrook could not be reached for comment. Representatives from the Bronx African American group and others that received funds from Mr. Seabrook could not be reached for comment Tuesday night, and it was unclear exactly which organizations investigators were concentrating on. The inquiries are part of an investigation that has led to charges against two Council aides who were accused of embezzling at least $145,000 in city funds that Councilman Kendall Stewart directed to a nonprofit agency run by his chief of staff. Mr. Stewart has not been charged and has denied any knowledge of any misappropriation of money. The investigation has focused intense scrutiny on the way the Council handles money appropriated for use by local community groups that aid the city in the delivery of social services to young, old and poor residents. In recent weeks, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn has announced steps to tighten oversight of the money after it was disclosed that her office, and those of her predecessors, had set aside money for years in the name of fictional organizations to be distributed later outside the normal budgetary process to favored groups. On Tuesday, the Council released hundreds of pages of forms asking members to disclose any potential conflicts of interest they saw in the groups to which they, or the Council as a whole, had hoped to channel funds in the last budget cycle. About a dozen members disclosed that they or their staff members had some tie to groups receiving money, according to the documents, which were released as a result of a Freedom of Information request filed by The New York Times and other news agencies. Councilwoman Diana Reyna of Brooklyn, for example, said she had directed money to the Los Sures Senior Citizens Center, which is run by her mother-in-law and received $39,500 in the current budget, at least part of that directly from Ms. Reyna’s discretionary funds. She also disclosed that she had directed funds to the Striking Viking Story Pirates, a group that provides after-school activities and of which her sister-in-law is a founding member. Several council members said they were concerned that in disclosing their ties to established, reputable groups that had made good use of city money, they would be lumped in with members who have financed groups whose programs and monetary controls are being questioned. Ms. Reyna said in an interview that she properly disclosed the relationships and that she gave the money because she believed in the groups. The senior center had regularly received Council money before she became a council member, and is only one of about a dozen in her district she helps, she said. “If my mother-in-law was not the director of the senior center, I would still be helping it,” she said. On his form, Councilman Erik Martin Dilan disclosed that his wife runs a nonprofit agency, the North Brooklyn Community Council, to which he has directed $187,500 in discretionary funds since 2005. Mr. Dilan’s chief of staff, Woody Pascal, defended the allocation, saying Mr. Dilan announced in the Council chamber that he was directing funds to a group headed by his wife. “They’ve had great impact on the lives of the residents of Bushwick,” he said, noting that the group runs an after-school athletic league and provides legal services for immigrant families and busing for the elderly. The city’s conflict-of-interest rules generally do not bar elected officials from sending money to groups to which they have direct or indirect relationships. Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo did not list any potential conflicts in her disclosure, though The Daily News reported last week that she directed funds to a group, the South Bronx Community Corporation, that employed her sister and a nephew. Ms. Arroyo has said her relatives were no longer employed by the group at the time the funds were received. She did not return phone calls seeking comment on Tuesday. Council members were required to file the disclosures for the first time as a result of new regulations put in place by Ms. Quinn in what she has described as an effort to bring more transparency to the budget process. Prior to that, members were only required to state the potential conflict on the record during open Council meetings, said Maria Alvarado, a spokeswoman for the Council. In some cases, council members listed potential conflicts when their relationships with the organizations were distant. Inez E. Dickens, a Manhattan Democrat, listed the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce on her form because, as a businesswoman, she had once been a member, her office staff said. Ms. Quinn disclosed that her partner, Kim Catullo, is an unpaid board member of a group to which Ms. Quinn directs funds, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which provides services to lesbian and gay youth. The group, which received about $327,000 this year, had been regularly supported by Ms. Quinn’s two predecessors as speaker, she said. Some Council leaders support a proposal barring a member from financing groups if the groups pay the member or a relative. Ms. Quinn declined to say whether she would support such a proposal. She said, though, that she believes there is a difference in whether a member’s relative is employed by the group or is a volunteer. "We don’t want to do something that inadvertently deters people from volunteerism in New York, because it’s not easy to get people to volunteer for nonprofit organizations," she said.

City Councils
Nonprofit Organizations
Finances
Budgets and Budgeting


The Atlantic Picks Writer at The Times as Its Editor

Abstract: After a lengthy search, The Atlantic Monthly yesterday named a new editor -- James Bennet, a reporter for The New York Times, who will be following a long line of storied editors from James Russell Lowell and William Dean Howells to Michael Kelly. Mr. Bennet, 39, is The Atlantic's first official editor in chief since Mr. Kelly stepped down in September 2002 to return to writing. Mr. Kelly was on assignment for the magazine in Iraq when he was killed the following year. The magazine has been in some turmoil. Cullen Murphy, the managing editor, oversaw The Atlantic without the title of editor; when David G. Bradley, the magazine's owner, announced in April that he was moving the magazine to Washington from its 149-year-old home in Boston, Mr. Murphy decided to stay in Boston, winding down his duties while continuing to edit some articles. Scott Stossel became managing editor and handled the move to Washington, which is now virtually complete. Many other staff members in Boston decided to stay put as well. Mr. Bradley has hired several writers on his own and rebuilt the operation in Washington, all without an editor at the top. In a sign of the flux, the current issue carries no masthead. Circulation is about 370,000, after dropping to 325,000 from 450,000 in 2003. The magazine has enjoyed some recent success, selling what Mr. Bradley said was a record number of newsstand issues in December with a cover story by James Fallows about Iraq. The Atlantic has won six National Magazine Awards under Mr. Bradley, who bought it from Mortimer B. Zuckerman in 1999 for $10 million, but it remains a money-losing proposition, at the rate of $4 million to $8 million annually. Mr. Bradley has put more than $30 million into the magazine over the last six years. Mr. Bennet, who has covered political campaigns and served as Jerusalem bureau chief for The Times, was offered the job by Mr. Bradley on Tuesday and accepted it and resigned from The Times yesterday. He said he expected to start at his new job in about two weeks. A graduate of Yale, Mr. Bennet held an editing post at The Washington Monthly from 1989 to 1991 but has otherwise devoted his career to writing. He joined The Times in 1991 and has covered the auto industry in Detroit and the White House for the paper as well as serving as a staff writer for The Times Magazine. He briefly resigned from The Times in 2003 for a job at The New Yorker, but before starting decided he was not ready to leave the newspaper and continued at his post in Jerusalem. He was to become the paper's Beijing correspondent later this year and has been in language training since November. Mr. Bennet said he accepted the offer because "it's a chance to help, encourage and preserve the practice of serious, long-form journalism and a chance to work with great writers and editors." He said that because of the "uncertain time" for print journalism, "this kind of undertaking is more important than it's been." Mr. Bradley said he had selected Mr. Bennet, whom he first met through a mutual friend eight years ago, after a lengthy "listening tour," for which he gathered the names of 250 journalists to talk to about his search for "extreme talent" and the mission of The Atlantic. He spent more than 200 hours discussing his ideas with 80 journalists around the country, a process that he said wore out himself and his staff. He said he chose Mr. Bennet because he had "lived life near the headlines," had excelled at long-form narratives, and had a "selfless nature" that would allow him to work closely with writers and editors. Mr. Bradley also said he was seeking someone "in his vertical hour," meaning that his career was still on the rise as opposed to an older person looking for a sinecure. Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, said he hated losing Mr. Bennet and called him "an extraordinary talent -- voraciously curious, an original thinker and a dazzling writer." "He'll have to slow his heartbeat to the pace of a monthly, which may be frustrating for a guy so deeply engaged in the news, but it's a brilliant choice," Mr. Keller said. "His name on the masthead will be enough to make me grab for the magazine."

ATLANTIC MONTHLY
NEW YORK TIMES
MAGAZINES
NEWSPAPERS
BENNET JAMES
KELLY MICHAEL
SUSPENSIONS DISMISSALS AND RESIGNATIONS
APPOINTMENTS AND EXECUTIVE CHANGES
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
NEWS AND NEWS MEDIA


New Film Studio Planned

Abstract: Two Hollywood veterans announced plans yesterday to form a new independent film company with $200 million in financing secured from a consortium of private investors. The new company, called the Film Department, has been formed by Mark Gill, formerly president of Warner Independent Pictures, and Neil Sacker, a former executive vice president at Miramax. Plans call for the company to produce six films a year, with budgets of $10 million to $35 million. The two men said they would fully finance their films and license them to domestic and international distributors through an internal sales unit.


House Republicans to Investigate Planned Parenthood Over Fetal Tissue

Abstract: WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders on Wednesday announced a congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood, a day after anti-abortion activists released a video of an unsuspecting official from the organization explaining how it provides fetal tissue to researchers. Echoing the activists’ allegation, Speaker John A. Boehner and other top Republicans suggested that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal parts, which is illegal if done for profit. But Planned Parenthood said that while it charges for expenses such as processing and transporting, it makes no money from the fetal tissue donated by women who get abortions. The official shown in the video repeatedly says something similar to two activists posing as biotechnology representatives. The California-based group responsible for the video, the Center for Medical Progress, appears to have been started relatively recently. Its creator, David Daleiden, once worked with another anti-abortion group, Live Action, and he and Live Action’s leader, Lila Rose, who also promoted the video, are familiar to Planned Parenthood affiliates from previous undercover videos. Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Rose did not return calls and emails on Wednesday. The release of the video and subsequent House investigation opens a new round in the partisan wars over Planned Parenthood that have raged since the Republicans took control of the House four and a half years ago. This time, Republicans running for president eagerly joined in, promising to stoke the furor, as anti-abortion conservatives took to social media to demand action. Past battles provoked backlashes against congressional Republicans and against Mitt Romney, the party’s presidential nominee in 2012. But even before the video began circulating online, Republicans had moved to cut all money for Planned Parenthood and the Title X family-planning program from a spending bill awaiting a House vote. “When an organization monetizes an unborn child — and with the cavalier attitude portrayed in this horrific video — we must all act,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement. Four senior Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which will conduct the investigation, said in a statement that they would “get to the bottom of this appalling situation.” Two Republican governors ordered investigations in their states: Greg Abbott of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who is a presidential candidate. Other Republican contenders for president condemned Planned Parenthood, including Jeb Bush, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry. Another candidate, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, drew the most applause during a campaign stop in South Carolina on Wednesday when he boasted of having defunded Planned Parenthood in his state. A spokesman for Planned Parenthood, Eric Ferrero, said in a statement that the Republicans’ claims were “flat out” untrue, “but that doesn’t matter to politicians with a longstanding political agenda to ban abortion and defund Planned Parenthood.” “Our medical practices and guidelines in this area are clear,” he added, “and we do this important work just like other high-quality health care providers — with full, appropriate consent from patients, under the highest ethical and legal standards, and with no financial benefit for the patient or Planned Parenthood.” But the companies that acquire such tissue from Planned Parenthood can command high prices, depending on the processing required, given the demand among researchers. “These tissues are very valuable for studying human development and finding out what makes it tick,” said Dr. Susan Fisher , who directs the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Program at the University of California, San Francisco. “Can we reprogram cells in the same way to repair disease processes? Can we have a better understanding of the sort of haywire development that accompanies some tumors?” “A lot of women want to make these donations” in the hope that useful information can be gained, Dr. Fisher added. The National Institutes of Health spent $76 million in 2014 on research involving human fetal tissue, and it expects to spend the same amount this year. Researchers at universities with medical centers that perform abortions may obtain fetal tissue there, but private companies also act as middlemen, obtaining tissue from abortion providers and selling it to researchers. The Planned Parenthood official in the video, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services, mentions StemExpress, a five-year-old business in Placerville, Calif., that describes itself as “the largest provider of maternal blood and fetal tissue globally.” The Sacramento Business Journal reported in November that the company’s revenue had grown by more than 1,300 percent in three years, and Inc. magazine in August put its yearly revenue at $2.2 million. The company, which advertises “special discounts to the academic community,” sells tissue from fetuses, afterbirth and cadavers, including fetal livers and liver stem cells — Dr. Nucatola says in the video that fetal livers are much in demand — as well as placentas, umbilical cords, skin, diseased tissue and tumors. Some of the materials are highly processed, and the prices reflect that: The company’s catalog shows that a vial of two million fetal liver cells sells for $2,240. By contrast, Dr. Nucatola said in the video that Planned Parenthood clinics might charge $30 to $100 for a fetal specimen, to recover the costs of preserving, transporting or shipping. A brochure on the StemExpress website quotes Dr. Dorothy L. Furgerson of the Planned Parenthood chapter in Mar Monte, Calif., saying, “Our partnership with StemExpress is beneficial in a number of ways,” including contributions to “lifesaving research.” Prices for companies’ fetal materials can reach thousands of dollars, but the sales are not illegal, said Arthur Caplan, the director of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. Still, he said, abortion providers like Planned Parenthood face ethical considerations, as well as the appearance of potential conflicts of interest when they take fees for fetal tissue acquired from patients. Dr. Caplan said one practice that Dr. Nucatola described in the video was clearly unethical: manipulating the fetus in the womb and using surgical tools in ways meant to preserve certain organs for researchers. “You cannot, must not, alter how or when you do an abortion simply to obtain tissues you want,” Dr. Caplan said. “Basically, the only concern is the health and safety of the mother.” The allegations against Planned Parenthood should be investigated, he said. But, he added: “I’d like to see it done by independent experts, not by 15 presidential candidates in Congress. It would turn into a presidential-posturing festival.”

Republicans
Planned Parenthood
Congress
Abortion
Embryonic stem cell
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
House of Representatives
NIH


Warner Music Is Singing Again

Abstract: Memorial Day used to be a celebratory event for the music industry. It wasn’t just the start the summer concert season and its attendant record sales, but also the weekend when FM radio stations coast-to-coast would play their top 500 countdowns, promoting the biggest hits from the Warner, Universal, Sony and EMI back catalogs. Nowadays, not only have the countdowns, with their predictable “Stairway to Heaven” and “Free Bird” finishes, diminished. So too have the economics of FM radio and the music industry. Sales of CDs are at half their levels at the start of the millennium. Yet as the few remaining Memorial Day countdowns reach their climax this year, some surprisingly dulcet tunes are emerging from one quarter of the industry. Since the start of the year, shares of the Warner Music Group, the only publicly traded pure play on the recorded music business, have doubled, including a 23 percent gain just last week. Investors may be right in betting that the industry’s worst days are behind it, and that Warner is best positioned to capitalize, potentially by acquiring EMI. The most bullish signal is Warner’s ability to refinance itself. Last week the group led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. decided to try to sell $500 million of new bonds to replace some of its existing debt and extend the overall maturity of its liabilities. Like tickets for a 1970s concert for The Who, investors practically stampeded to get their hands on the paper. Investors were so enthusiastic that the company expanded the deal and sold $1.1 billion of senior secured notes. As a result, Warner paid off all its existing debt and extended the date by which it needed to pay it back until 2016. A couple of factors accounted for the surprisingly robust demand. First, markets were in an agreeable mood overall. And the 9.5 percent annual yield on the bonds that Warner dangled certainly looked juicy compared with similarly dated Treasury bonds at 3.4 percent. It also could not have hurt that the label’s latest release by rock superstars Green Day, “21st Century Breakdown,” had just hit the top of the charts after only a few days in the stores (though it wasn’t available at the biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, because of some of its spicier lyrics). A new pricing policy by Apple iTunes, where hits are now sold for $1.29 instead of 99 cents, is also seen as a positive for the industry as a whole, because record companies are expected to get the largest share of that price increase. But Warner itself has some other things going for it. The group has increased its market share by more than a percentage point over the past year to 21.8 percent. And while not immune to the troubling trends in the music business, Warner has performed relatively well. In its most recent quarter, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization fell 14 percent compared with a 34 percent decline for the segment. What is more encouraging, the company’s revenues are now expected to hold flat at just over $3 billion over each of the next three years, Goldman Sachs estimates. True, Warner is now paying a bit more in interest. But the new securities also come with fewer strings attached. This elimination of covenant pressure inspired Standard & Poor’s to revise its credit rating outlook to stable from negative. The rejigged debt arrangements give Warner flexibility to do deals. And the timing of its coffer-filling exercise couldn’t be better. Its rival EMI is struggling under the $5 billion of debt borrowed by Terra Firma, the British private equity outfit run by Guy Hands, to take the company private. In the past, EMI tried to buy Warner. But now the boot could be on the other foot. EMI, home of the Beatles and Beastie Boys oeuvre, is in no state to pounce. Moreover, its chief lender, Citigroup, would love to exit its position. When the two last talked, the potential synergies from a combination looked to be in the order of $250 million — which would carry a net present value of some $1.6 billion. That’s reason enough for investors to begin their countdown to a Warner-EMI merger.


Subway Worker Electrocuted in Rockaways

Abstract: A subway maintenance supervisor was electrocuted early Monday morning while working on track repairs in the Rockaways, the first on-the-job death of a transit worker in three years . The supervisor, James Knell, 45, a 13-year veteran of the subway system, was assisting on a track replacement project near the Beach 90th Street Station on the A line when he slipped and fell, touching the electrified third rail, officials said. The accident occurred around 4:30 a.m., as workers were preparing to reopen the track for morning rush service. “It’s never easy to have an employee fatality, but we did have one today,” said Thomas F. Prendergast, the president of New York City Transit , who announced the death at a meeting of the authority’s board. Mr. Knell, of East Rockaway, N.Y., is survived by his wife and two stepchildren, the authority said. The agency is investigating the accident.

Subways
New York City
Accidents and Safety
New York City Transit Authority


F.B.I. Appoints New York Leader

Abstract: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has named a new leader for its New York field office, the agency said on Tuesday. The director of the agency, James B. Comey, named Diego G. Rodriguez the assistant director in charge for the New York field office. Mr. Rodriguez had been the special agent in charge of the Dallas field office since 2012. He will succeed George Venizelos, who is retiring after working for the F.B.I. for 24 years. The assistant director in charge oversees all operations and personnel in New York City, eight counties in New York State, and La Guardia and Kennedy International Airports. Mr. Rodriguez joined the F.B.I. in 1990 after working as a teacher in New York City. In 2010, he became the special agent in charge of the New York field office, where he oversaw the criminal division’s investigations of financial crime and insider trading, public corruption arrests and gang roundups.

New York
Diego G. Rodriguez
George Venizelos
FBI
NYC


House Approves Tougher Rules for Wall Street

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The House approved a Democratic plan on Friday to tighten federal regulation of Wall Street and banks , advancing a far-reaching Congressional response to the financial crisis that rocked the economy. After three days of floor debate, the House voted 223 to 202 to approve the measure. It would create an agency to protect consumers from abusive lending practices, set rules for the trading of some of the sophisticated financial instruments that fueled the crisis, and take steps to reduce the threat that the failure of one or two huge banks or investment firms could topple the entire economy. Whether all of those measures will become law, however, is uncertain because the Obama administration wants certain revisions and the Senate will not take up its version of the legislation until next year. The Democratic authors of the House legislation hailed the bill as the biggest change in oversight of Wall Street since the Great Depression , and said they believed they had struck a careful balance between protecting the public and the economy while not stifling economic growth and market forces. “We have a set of rules in place that will allow the most productive parts of the free market economy, and particularly the financial system, to play the role they should play, but with much less chance of abuse,” Representative Barney Frank , Democrat of Massachusetts and a main architect of the measure, said after the vote. The approval of the bill is the most significant step lawmakers have taken to confront the financial crisis since the $700 billion bailout package was rammed through Congress at the peak of the emergency more than a year ago. The bill represents an attempt to address comprehensively what many of its supporters have called the underlying causes of the collapse — reckless risk-taking unrestrained by regulation. No Republican voted for the measure, and 27 Democrats, most from more conservative districts, broke ranks with their party. Republicans strongly criticized the Democratic legislation, saying it could restrict the availability of credit , cause job loss and lead to future bailouts of failing businesses. “The array of new regulations and taxes on consumers, investors and businesses will destroy jobs and further undermine the fragile economy,” Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama , the senior Republican on the Financial Services Committee, said. The bill would create, at a cost that could run into the billions, a Consumer Financial Protection Agency in an attempt to head off the kinds of lending practices that led many homeowners to take on mortgages they could not afford. The bill would bring regulation for the first time to a portion of the over-the-counter market for derivatives. It would create a process for dealing with troubles at very large financial institutions that might pose a risk to the financial system and the economy, and require large firms to contribute to a fund to help with an orderly dissolution of those institutions if they are in danger of failing. And the bill includes a number of other provisions to address executive compensation , investor protections and regulation of hedge funds. Before approving the measure, House Democrats held off an attempt led by Representative Walt Minnick, Democrat of Idaho , to replace the proposed new consumer protection agency with a council made up of existing regulators. He and other moderate Democrats, joined by Republicans and much of the banking industry, argued the new agency — a central element of the overhaul — represented an unnecessary bureaucratic approach that would give the federal government excessive control over mortgages, credit cards and other financial products. “How many new government agencies are necessary to accomplish this task?” asked Representative Dan Boren, Democrat of Oklahoma . Their effort was defeated on a vote of 223 to 208, removing a final obstacle to the measure. In other important preliminary votes, lawmakers slightly scaled back the bill’s ambitions to address objections from powerful financial interests. Heeding complaints from banks, the House rejected an effort to allow bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgage payments, a plan that has passed the House before but not the Senate. House members also agreed to relax some of the proposed new controls on trading in derivatives. Rather than subject all over-the-counter derivatives to open trading, the bill would subject such derivatives only if they were traded between Wall Street firms, or with a major player like the American International Group . But the transactions between dealers and customers will remain largely hidden, so customers will not be able to compare the prices they are being charged with the prices charged to other customers. The overhaul of Wall Street regulation is a top domestic priority of the Obama administration, which supported the House bill and applauded its approval. But Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner signaled that the administration would seek changes in any final measure. Despite the House action, final legislation is not imminent. The Senate is still developing its own measure for debate early next year and any Senate bill is likely to differ substantially from the House measure, necessitating further negotiations. Most Democrats agreed that stiffened regulation of the financial services industry was warranted by the events leading up to the financial crisis. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland , the House majority leader, cited what many considered a lack of adequate regulation during the administration of President George W. Bush as a central reason for the economic collapse. “This bill puts the referees back on the field,” Mr. Hoyer said. The chief argument in the House centered on the Democratic proposal that would assess large financial companies a fee to create a $150 billion fund to cover the costs of dissolving companies that pose a threat to the economy. Democrats said the fund did not amount to a reserve for bailouts since it would not be used to keep companies afloat but would instead lead to a more orderly shutdown and would be paid for by large companies, not taxpayers. Republicans, trying to capitalize on public frustration with financial bailouts, said that failing firms should instead go through normal bankruptcy proceedings. “We just think at the end of the day that $150 billion in a permanent bailout fund is not the direction the American people want this nation to go,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana , the No. 3 Republican in the House. Both sides saw the vote as a political opening in the coming midterm elections. Republicans sought to turn the issue on dozens of potentially vulnerable Democrats in swing districts, noting that they had opposed a Republican procedural move that would have shut down the bailout fund and put the money toward paying off the national debt.

Subprime Mortgage Crisis,2008 Financial Crisis


Party Elder Still Jousts With China’s Censors

Abstract: BEIJING FOR nearly two decades, the Communist Party strove to wipe out the national memory of Zhao Ziyang , the reform-minded party secretary who opposed the use of force against pro-democracy protesters in 1989. So when a former aide of Mr. Zhao’s, Du Daozheng, disclosed in May that he had helped secretly record Mr. Zhao’s memoir for posthumous publication, Mr. Du’s daughter refused to let him walk outside alone for fear of possible repercussions. She need not have worried. On June 25, a top official in charge of propaganda showed up at Mr. Du’s western Beijing apartment with a reassuring message from Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Communist Party and the government. Mr. Du said he was told that, as an old friend of Mr. Zhao’s, “Zhongnanhai and party central can understand why you did this.” Mr. Du used to be among those who delivered such judgments. Until he was ousted in 1989 with Mr. Zhao, he served as head of the government’s press and publications administration, an agency that helps enforce censors’ orders. Now he spends his days jousting with such officials, trying to foist unmentionable topics like Mr. Zhao’s career into the public domain. Helping with Mr. Zhao’s memoir — a rare look at the party’s inner conflicts that was published this May outside China — was a particularly daring thrust. But strategic ventures into forbidden territory are characteristic of his monthly scholarly journal, Yanhuang Chunqiu. In 2005, he published articles on Hu Yaobang, the former party leader whose death helped set off the Tiananmen protests. Infuriated authorities threatened to reduce copies of the magazine to pulp, according to Mr. Du’s daughter, Du Mingming. After a string of journal articles last year touched on Mr. Zhao’s accomplishments, party authorities issued an internal regulation so precisely focused that it could have been named after Mr. Du. The order forbids retired government or party officials to serve as publication directors. Party sources say Jiang Zemin , the now-retired leader who replaced Mr. Zhao, was irritated by the articles and instigated the pressure on Mr. Du to step down. Sitting in the magazine’s musty offices, Mr. Du said he dealt with the order by reshuffling titles. “I just ignore it,” he said. “I am old enough and tough enough that if there is any pressure from the government, I can hold on here.” MR. Du survives such skirmishes because he is 86, wily and quietly supported by certain party luminaries. He says as many as 100 former party officials back his magazine’s attempts to draw lessons from the party’s buried past and nudge it toward democratic reforms. Some current officials also sympathize with the effort, he suggests. “Nobody dares close it,” he said, lest that provoke a reaction from “old cadres.” Last year supporters promised him, “If the magazine closes, we will take to the streets,” he said. They said: “We are old. We are in our 80s. We have heart problems. We will probably die in the streets.” “So the conservatives don’t take any action,” Mr. Du said, “because they are afraid of that responsibility.” Others suggest the party can afford to be tolerant. Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based analyst of China politics, said that Mr. Du and other liberal-minded party “elders” posed no particular threat to today’s Communist Party, so slaps on the wrists sufficed. “I admire the courage and the conviction, but the conservatives really won this battle some time ago,” he said. “I really see him as a tragic figure, still holding the flag after most of the armies have left the field. “He is fighting a struggle against the political tenor of the times, as well as against time itself,” Mr. Moses said. Mr. Du is not, however, fighting with himself. He sees his modest magazine, printed on newsprint-quality paper and distributed to some 100,000 subscribers for about a dollar a copy, as “the best thing he has done in his life,” his daughter said. The struggle between truth and propaganda has been a constant theme in Mr. Du’s life. He was an early Communist Party loyalist, dropping out of middle school at age 14 to join the battle against Japanese invaders. After the Communists rose to power in 1949, he dutifully — and falsely — reported the party’s claims of record harvests and free food as a reporter for Xinhua, the state-run news agency. But by April 1959, he could no longer reconcile the discrepancy with reality. In a 4,900-word letter to a superior, he documented widespread famine and disease in the countryside. Within two months, his letter was turned against him during the campaign against antiparty “rightists.” He was publicly condemned 17 times — once before an auditorium filled with 6,000 people — and dismissed from his job and party post. He escaped even worse punishment, as many did, by betraying others to his government tormentors. The four people he named “suffered greatly,” he said. One refused until his dying day to forgive him. Mr. Du was persecuted anew during the Cultural Revolution. “It was as though I was sent to hell and back,” he wrote in his magazine in January. Once rehabilitated, he rose quickly in the ranks of the state-run media. He held a vice ministerial position during the 1989 pro-democracy protests. Mr. Du tried to marshal support for Mr. Zhao’s position that the crisis should be resolved peacefully. In a letter signed by some 30 other government officials, Mr. Du urged party leaders not to use force against the demonstrators, according to his daughter. When the troops opened fire on the night of June 3, he, his wife and some friends “cried from our hearts” in his living room, Mr. Du said. “We all shared one feeling,” he said. “The Communist Party is over.” IT was three years before he could discuss the tragedy with Mr. Zhao, who was removed as party secretary and placed under house arrest. Mr. Du, who was also ousted, said he urged Mr. Zhao to record his version of events for history’s sake. In the ensuing years, Mr. Du said, he filled two notebooks with Mr. Zhao’s words, then switched to a tape recorder. Four other former officials also pitched in. Mr. Du hid his copies of the tapes in his daughter’s underwear drawer and later she transported the copies to Hong Kong. After Mr. Zhao, still under house arrest, died in 2005, Bao Pu, the son of Mr. Zhao’s top aide, began transcribing and translating other copies of the recordings. Ever the strategist, Mr. Du recommended that the memoir be published only after the 20th anniversary of the crackdown in June. But with the support of Mr. Zhao’s family, in May Mr. Bao arranged publication of a Chinese version in Hong Kong and an English version, titled “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang.” Hong Kong bookshops have reportedly sold 100,000 copies. “I have not seen such excitement about a book in years,” said Lam Mingkei, owner of Causeway Bay Bookstore, a prominent bookseller in Hong Kong. Mr. Du said he believed that the democratic ideals expressed in Mr. Zhao’s book and in the pages of his beloved journal would eventually take hold, though not, he predicted, under the current leaders. “If the Communist Party refuses to take political reform, then there must be some other force that rises up to carry it out,” he said. In the meantime, he says, he will defend his journal’s role as a liberal windsock. Said his daughter: “My father knows how to fight.”

China
Zhao Ziyang
Jiang Zemin
Xinhua
Communism (Theory and Philosophy)
Politics and Government
Tiananmen Square (Beijing)
Moses Russell Leigh


Development Rises on St. Louis Area Flood Plains

Abstract: ST. LOUIS, May 14 — Miles and miles of bigger and stronger levees have been built along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers since the deadly floods of 1993, and millions of dollars have been spent on drainage improvements. Yet as the rush of water that caused the Missouri River to overflow its banks and submerge dozens of towns last week rolled toward St. Louis on Monday, attention was turned to a metropolitan region that since 1993 has seen runaway residential and commercial development in the rivers’ flood paths. About 28,000 homes have been built and more than 6,000 acres of commercial and industrial space developed on land that was underwater in 1993, according to research by Nicholas Pinter, a geologist who studies the region at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Building is happening on flood plains across Missouri, but most of the development is in the St. Louis area, and it is estimated to be worth more than $2.2 billion. Though scientists warn about the danger of such building, the Missouri government has subsidized some of it through tax financing for builders. “No one has really looked at the cumulative effect,” said Timothy M. Kusky, a professor of natural sciences at St. Louis University, who calculates that there has been more development on the Missouri River flood plain in the years since 1993 than at any other time in the history of the region. The good news for St. Louis right now is that forecasters say the two rivers will crest well below their 1993 levels by Tuesday, sparing the area significant flooding. But many scientists remain concerned that the effect of the new construction, should a levee break, could eventually be even more severe flooding. Levees constrict a river’s path and raise its water level, which causes higher, faster flow. A flood plain, conversely, exists in nature to absorb a river’s overflow. “The more levees we build, the higher we have to build them,” Professor Kusky said. “It’s a self-perpetuating problem.” Still, people have been drawn to the area, assured by the sense of security the levees provide. Disincentives beyond the possibility of flooding seem to be few. “This was absolutely a dodged bullet,” Professor Pinter said. “This could have been a very bad situation for St. Louis, but luckily it was a near-miss.” People living in the flood plains are eligible for the National Flood Insurance Program or for any private insurance they can secure, though the private alternatives are increasingly difficult to obtain. And they are entitled to whatever federal disaster relief is offered to the state after a flood, be it temporary housing or buyouts, said Butch Kinerney, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. THF Realty Inc. used Missouri’s tax program, known as tax increment financing, to build what is said to be the largest strip mall in the country on land in the Chesterfield Valley area of St. Louis County that was submerged in the floods of 1993. The shopping center, which cost $275 million to build, opened in 1999 and now has more than two million square feet of retail space, mall officials said. The developers spent more than $35 million on levee and storm drainage improvements, replacing an old levee that had offered protection against a 100-year flood with a levee that met the standards for a 500-year flood. And, they said, they have brought jobs and revenue to a formerly sleepy part of the county. “We built the shopping center and interchange that opened the entire valley,” said Marian Nunn, the chief operating officer of THF Realty. “The difference is that the levee is maintained now, on top of being bigger, stronger and better. The risks are really substantially mitigated.” The company was able to use the special financing because Missouri allows it for projects in areas that are considered blighted, or where development is not likely to occur without help. “We will continue to build even more,” Ms. Nunn said. Faith in the levees seems to trump other concerns here. “We’re not even close to having any issues,” said Brian McGownd, the deputy director of public works in Chesterfield. Of the new levee, Mr. McGownd said, “We have 100 percent confidence that it’s done right, and the way it’s supposed to be, and that it will be a good, strong levee for many years.” Fear of flooding did not appear to scare off prospective buyers at the New Town at St. Charles, a housing development whose sales office hummed with activity on Sunday, even as the Missouri River was rising. Although the community is near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, residents are not required to have flood insurance, because they are beyond the 100-year flood plain. The location was a selling point for Ken Snider, a high school teacher from St. Louis. “It’s not going to flood here for another 100 years,” Mr. Snider said, “and I won’t be around by then.” But critics of the developments say someone else is likely to be around then, and taxpayers in general will carry the tab after the next disaster bailout. “If history tells us anything, it’s that levees once built eventually fail,” Professor Pinter said. “But instead of being farmland there, now it’s a strip mall or residential area, or a whole city.” The floods of 1993 killed 38 people and caused $16 billion in damage across the Midwest. More than 500 counties were declared federal disaster areas. Adolphus A. Busch IV, a member of the Anheuser-Busch brewing family who helped found the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance in St. Louis in 2000, is alarmed at the pace of development in the rivers’ paths after the 1993 flood. “That was the milestone for us,” Mr. Busch said. “At that point the federal government came in and did major buyouts, and people said, ‘Look, we’ve learned our lesson: no more development.’ Well, that lasted for about six or seven years.” He continued, “We always realized that there would be fringe development, but we never envisioned after 1993 that anyone would try to build major levees and enclose thousands of acres.” Some people already living in the flood plain at the time of the last big flood now say that it just makes economic sense for them to stay close to the river, and that it is an issue of personal-risk calculation and property rights. Doris Hulst, a 65-year-old school bus driver, is the sole homeowner on a 109-acre swath of land that once housed three trailer parks near the Missouri River in St. Charles County. “They all took the buyout,” Mrs. Hulst said of her neighbors who relocated after the flood. “I took the buyout on a trailer I owned across the street, but you didn’t make enough money to buy anything decent.” Today, Mrs. Hulst’s trailer is elevated on three rows of cinder blocks. “We’ll be fine as long as the Mississippi doesn’t back up,” she said. Alan Dooley, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District, said people, like water, had certain natural inclinations. “People have a tendency to locate near water,” Mr. Dooley said. “These people vote; they pay taxes. It’s kind of difficult to go through with a broad brush and say, ‘You all ought to get out of here.’ ”

Floods
Housing
St Louis (Mo)
Dams and Dikes
Retail Stores and Trade


At Journal, the Words Not Spoken

Abstract: On Wednesday night, employees of The Wall Street Journal gathered in the Grill Room at the World Financial Center to bid farewell to Stuart Karle, the former general counsel of The Journal, a tenacious defender of journalism who is regarded as a reporter’s lawyer. The event was held by Marcus W. Brauchli, the paper’s managing editor, who will be getting his own send-off soon enough after it was revealed last Tuesday that he would be stepping down just four months after Rupert Murdoch ’s News Corporation bought the paper’s corporate parent, Dow Jones & Company, and serving as a consultant with unspecified responsibilities instead. Mr. Brauchli, who had the look of the recently run over, stuck to prepared remarks, wanly observing that he chose this time to resign because he didn’t want to be outshone by Mr. Karle, his friend and former classmate at Columbia. Mr. Karle then cracked wise that he was glad Mr. Brauchli’s corporate credit card hadn’t been canceled yet. Funny stuff. Mr. Karle then urged the journalists in attendance — along with an interloper from another newspaper who hung in the back — to continue the newspaper’s history of vigorous and unfettered pursuit of the truth. But there were elephants, big ugly ones, all over the room, chief among them that neither Mr. Brauchli nor Mr. Karle would now be there to defend that work. Both men, who had spent their lives helping others speak truth to power, were unwilling to do the same after getting kicked to the curb. Each is under a nondisparagement clause as part of his negotiated agreement, so Journal reporters and editors watched the odd specter of a First Amendment lawyer and a lifelong journalist talking about everything except what was on everyone’s mind. Mr. Karle acknowledged as much and said from the dais, “You could imagine what I am thinking right now.” Full stop. “Keep going, keep going. ...” he said, as laughter rolled around the room. Not everyone was smiling. “Here you have two people who are icons of freedom of expression and they can’t talk because of NDA’s they signed,” said one reporter who was in the room but did not want to be identified speaking ill of his former bosses. “It was disgusting. They were talking about preserving the culture of The Wall Street Journal when it’s clear that the buffer is gone and that culture is history.”  Back in December, Mr. Murdoch mounted a small podium made of cardboard boxes in The Journal’s newsroom and told his new employees, “I just wanted to say that we do know and understand the tremendous values of Dow Jones and particularly, of course, The Wall Street Journal, and the very high bar you have set yourselves.” Robert J. Thomson, the paper’s new publisher, spoke, and so did Leslie Hinton, the company’s new chief executive. Mr. Brauchli went unmentioned and was left standing silently by. Editorial safeguards were rendered moot with a flick of nomenclature: it was clear the publisher could be running ediorial operations. After that, Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Thomson quickly set about the work of making the newspaper’s articles shorter, its coverage broader and truncating its trademark front-page narratives. “Murdoch has always talked about how much he liked The Journal,” said one reporter who spoke last week on the condition of anonymity. “But he’s changing so much that you have to wonder what he liked.” There is certainly no evidence that Mr. Murdoch has turned the newspaper into a tool of his business or political interests — something that had been widely feared and predicted. But there are clear signs that a sui generis business paper is fast becoming a very common general-interest paper, albeit one with a really dynamite business section. Further changes were unveiled last week, but they seemed to reflect a broader range of stated interests without any additional staff or expertise. The Project for Excellence in Journalism completed a content survey last week and found that the newspaper’s front-page coverage of politics had tripled and that front-page coverage of business had been cut in half. Mr. Murdoch has a few more billions to his credit than I do, but the paper looks to me to be surrendering much of its fundamental value. In order to make The Journal a first-read, Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Thomson are toying with the interest of those of us who have always thought of it as a can’t-miss second read. “It is an odd and risky change from a reader and advertising standpoint,” said Lauren Rich Fine, a professor at Kent State University and a former media analyst. “They have a rich, targeted demographic, and what are they trading it for?” Mr. Brauchli had promised to find a middle way between the two cultures running the paper, but from the moment in December when Mr. Murdoch made his newsroom speech, he was a dead man walking. He managed up with flexibility and alacrity, first suggesting that The Journal’s DNA was strong enough to withstand any changes, then suggesting that its genetic material should be seen as a straitjacket. He dutifully carried out every change ordered up by others as if it were his idea, and Mr. Murdoch, global titan that he is, took every move as permission to grab for more. Whatever objections Mr. Brauchli made during his tenure, in the end he decided to open Mr. Murdoch’s wallet and close his mouth. True to its history, The Journal itself did a great job covering his departure. Rather than swallowing the script, its reporters wrote that Mr. Brauchli had been summoned to the office of Mr. Hinton and told that “it might be better to have their own person running the newspaper.” Mr. Murdoch, always good with a quip, was quoted saying that Mr. Brauchli “will be a great asset — especially in Asia.” As a result, Mr. Brauchli is able to remain at the company and avoid the journalistic martyrdom heaped on John S. Carroll, Dean Baquet and James E. O’Shea, three former editors of The Los Angeles Times who spoke their minds while departing. (Mr. Karle, by contrast, was fired with no choice in the matter.) Perhaps more to the point, Mr. Brauchli also receives a payout reported to be $3 million to $5 million, which he negotiated with the help of his lawyer, the old Washington hand Robert Barnett. Mr. Brauchli’s decision to go quietly conforms with a pattern of rolling complicity ever since Mr. Murdoch made a play for the paper. The family that owned the paper, the Bancrofts, ran in circles, and then accepted Mr. Murdoch’s money and his promises to uphold the paper’s traditions and just plain ran. Paul E. Steiger, then the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, was notified by Mr. Murdoch that he intended to buy the paper and quietly sat on the story for at least a week. For Mr. Brauchli, it didn’t have to happen this way. Under an agreement Mr. Murdoch signed when the News Corporation bought the paper, Mr. Brauchli could be dismissed only with the approval of an independent five-person editorial oversight committee. In legal terms, Mr. Brauchli’s loss of authority to Mr. Thomson would seem to easily meet the threshold for the committee. After all, what is more ethically undermining than a publisher’s running the news side of the paper? It may not have made much difference, but some degree of embarrassment would have been meted out. But Mr. Brauchli didn’t give the members much to work with. A statement the committee issued said, “He said that his departure from the position was amicable and assured the committee that his decision had nothing to do with any integrity issue at The Journal. He said that he has confidence in News Corporation’s respect for the editorial integrity of The Journal.” The Audit, a blog of the Columbia Journalism Review, compared the oversight committee unfavorably to “five Mr. Bill dolls molded with facial expressions of concern and dismay.” One reporter, one who doesn’t have a cushy severance agreement so we will leave his name out of it, apparently found the mannered wake at the Grill Room a little too much to bear. According to two people who overheard the conversation, the reporter stepped up to both Mr. Steiger and Mr. Brauchli and said how disappointing their acquiescence had been. Among the reporters and editors I spoke with, the anger toward Mr. Brauchli, 46, was particularly acute. True, he was in a difficult position. The job he had coveted his whole working life was being taken from him and it would be hard to turn down the money on the table. (Give me $3 million and I’ll stop typing right now. Or maybe not.) As many Journal people also pointed out, all senior editorial staff at the paper are covered by generous severance agreements, providing Mr. Brauchli with more than enough for his family to be secure in the near term even without the hush money. Somehow, everybody in the News Corporation’s way managed to do well, including members of the editorial committee, who are paid $100,000 a year. The ultimate editorial committee, of course, is the readers, and circulation figures will be released Monday for the last six months ending on March 1. Given the quickly evolving Journal, it will be some time before we learn how the new approach is landing on its readers. But the verdict is already in on one matter: Inside and outside of the paper, there’s no confusion about who the paper belongs to. Not the editors who built it, not the reporters who fill it with articles, but the men who bought and paid for it.

Wall Street Journal
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Appointments and Executive Changes
News Corporation Limited
Freedom of the Press
Murdoch Rupert
Brauchli Marcus W


For Clinton, Government as Economic Prod

Abstract: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration. In one of her most extensive interviews about how she would approach the economy, Mrs. Clinton laid out a view of economic policy that differed in some ways from that of her husband, Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton campaigned on his centrist views, and as president, he championed deficit reduction and trade agreements. Reflecting what her aides said were very different conditions today, Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them. She said that economic excesses — including executive-pay packages she characterized as often “offensive” and “wrong” and a tax code that had become “so far out of whack” in favoring the wealthy — were holding down middle-class living standards. Interviewed between campaign appearances in Los Angeles on Thursday, she said those problems were also keeping the United States economy from growing as quickly as it could. “If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced.” She added: “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.” In the last two weeks, Mrs. Clinton has devoted most of her public remarks to the economy, and she won the New Hampshire primary and the Nevada caucus largely because of support from households making less than $50,000 a year, according to polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky. Mrs. Clinton’s approach to the economy would have three main components. She would roll back the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes over $250,000 while creating more tax breaks below that threshold; impose closer scrutiny on financial markets, including the investments being made by foreign governments in the United States; and raise spending on job-creating projects like the development of alternative energy. “We’ve done it in previous generations,” she said, alluding to large-scale public projects like the interstate highway system and the space program. “But we’ve got to have a plan.” Using blunt and at times populist language in the interview, Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, tried to steer a course between the often business-friendly themes embraced by her husband and the straight populism that John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, has used in his presidential campaign this year. Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s main rival for the Democratic nomination, has also begun using more of her kitchen-table language in recent days. Although the two Clintons share similar views on a wide range of economic issues, she has long been more skeptical about the benefits of freer trade and other aspects of a free-market economy. While he peppered his 1992 campaign speeches with both populism and calls for personal responsibility, including welfare reform, she talks less about irresponsibility among individuals and more about irresponsibility in corporate America and the government. Perhaps the bigger difference, though, is that Mr. Clinton was running for president when the federal budget deficit was much larger than it is now and the United States seemed to be falling behind Western Europe and Japan in economic competitiveness. Mrs. Clinton is running when the economy has grown at a healthy clip for six years but incomes for most Americans have barely outpaced inflation. Republicans say that her tax increases on the affluent and her spending proposals would increase the deficit, but Mrs. Clinton’s advisers respond that she, like her husband, is a fiscal conservative. They add that reducing the deficit is no longer sufficient, because today’s problems have less to do with the size of the economic pie than the way it is divided. “Inequality is growing,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The middle class is stalled. The American dream is premised on a growing economy where people are in a meritocracy and, if they’re willing to work hard, they will realize the fruits of their labor.” Mrs. Clinton’s approach involves programs narrowly focused to deal with specific problems, a strategy that economists say has pluses and minuses. Her proposal for short-term economic stimulus, centered more on home-heating and mortgage subsidies than a broad tax rebate, has generally received lower marks from economists than Mr. Obama’s plan, which emphasizes immediate tax rebates to most workers. The Clinton plan “has moving parts” and is “more complicated,” said Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “It’s not as clear the stimulus would get into the system rapidly.” Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign initiated the interview, can speak in both fine detail and sweeping historical terms about the economy — almost as would a policy adviser, which she essentially was for a long time. When talking about the middle class, she divides the decades since World War II into two periods, using the same cutoff point that many economists do. In the first period, from 1946 to 1973, the pay of most workers rose steadily. The income of the median family — the one earning less than half of all other families and more than half of all others — more than doubled during those years, to almost $50,000, in inflation-adjusted terms, according to Census Bureau data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal group in Washington. Since 1973, the income of the median family has grown only about 25 percent. During the earlier period, Mrs. Clinton said, the share of workers in labor unions grew, allowing workers to win raises and benefits that they can rarely win on their own. Marginal tax rates on the affluent were “confiscatory” by today’s standards, she said. (In the early 1970s, the top rate, which applied to income above $1 million in today’s terms, was 70 percent; the top rate now is 35 percent.) Jobs once paid enough that only one parent in many families needed to work, saving them from expenses like day care. And not only did the federal government invest in public goods like the highway system, but companies also invested more in communities than they do today. In Rochester, for example, Kodak helped build hospitals and schools. “You had a corporate ethos, that, because of the more self-contained American economy, was really focused on community,” Mrs. Clinton said. “There was a sense of multiple obligations. It wasn’t just to one’s shareholders. It was also to one’s employees, to one’s community.” Mrs. Clinton mentioned technological change, which has eliminated the need for many blue-collar jobs, as well as global trade, which studies suggest may be holding down the wages of some Americans. But when discussing the causes of the middle-class wage slowdown, she tends to focus not on market-based changes, like technology and trade, but on institutions, like unions and the government. Her first priority, she said, would be changing the tax code. She has proposed tax credits for college tuition, retirement savings, health care and alternative energy use, most of which would go to lower- and middle-income families. She would also raise the top marginal rate to 39.6 percent, its level for much of her husband’s administration. Increasing high-end tax rates would bring in $52 billion a year, her campaign says, and help pay for some of her other proposals. “It’s shocking that there is such a continuing political pressure to lower tax rates on the wealthy, when so much of what we look back on now with nostalgia and pride,” she said, referring to the decades immediately after World War II, “was at a time when those who were well off were paying a significantly higher percentage of their income.” She said she would also use the White House bully pulpit to inveigh against the current level of executive pay. Though it is difficult to reduce such pay with new laws, she said, she wants to consider proposals that law school and business school professors have made along these lines. “We have this class now of professional corporate managers who are not the creators of the corporation — they very rarely had anything to do with starting the business or building it up,” she said. “And then they come in and they believe their No. 1 obligation is to secure the biggest possible pay package at the expense at everybody else.” On this subject, she sounds very much like Mr. Edwards, yet, unlike him, she has still received considerable support from top executives. She has been endorsed by John J. Mack, the chief executive of Morgan Stanley; Peter Chernin, president of the News Corporation; and Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, who received a $67.9 million bonus last year. David Bonior, Mr. Edwards’s campaign manager, said her support from Wall Street suggested that she would be as friendly to corporate America as her husband was. Still, if Mrs. Clinton is elected, she might bring the toughest regulatory scrutiny of any president in a generation. Mr. Clinton nudged the Democratic Party toward a more laissez-faire economic policy, and President Bush has gone considerably further in this direction. “I just believe strongly that we are in great need of a total overhaul,” she said, arguing that the Bush administration has outsourced too many functions and damaged the federal government’s competence. Last March, when many officials in the administration and at the Federal Reserve were saying that the housing slump would not be too severe, she warned in a speech about “trouble signs below the horizon” with subprime mortgages. She has suggested that she would have been more willing to crack down on some lending practices than the current administration has. But perhaps the most telling example of her approach is how she would try to clean up the mortgage problems. She has called for a 90-day halt to foreclosures on homes with subprime mortgages and a five-year freeze in the interest rates on all subprime mortgages, many of which are scheduled to jump. The proposal would most likely reduce the number of coming foreclosures. But it would also potentially reward real estate speculators and others who took out mortgages they could not afford. In the process, it could raise interest rates for everyone else, economists say, by forcing banks to rewrite the terms of loans retroactively and to lose money on some. Her plan goes significantly further than Mr. Obama’s. She decided, in effect, that the downsides of rewarding irresponsible borrowing was outweighed by the benefits of reducing foreclosures. She said she could “understand totally” the frustration of people who did not take out such loans and now wonder why the government would help those who did. “What I’m trying to do,” she said, “is practically stabilize the patient so we can begin to try to cure this mess that everybody got us into.” If she were to win the Democratic nomination and the general election, she would most likely take office at a similar economic moment as her husband, with the economy struggling to emerge from a downturn. In 1993 — with Mrs. Clinton playing a role that Bob Woodward later described as “de facto chief of staff” — Mr. Clinton pushed through an economic plan without a single Republican vote. Many analysts say that plan played a role in the Democrats’ loss of Congress the next year, but it is also widely credited with helping lay the groundwork for the 1990s boom. Mrs. Clinton suggested that she would be willing to take a similar approach in 2009. “You try to find common ground, insofar as possible. But if you really believe you have to manage the economy,” she said, “you have to stake a lot of your presidency on it. Because at the beginning is when you’re strongest.”

United States Economy
Presidential Election of 2008
Clinton Hillary Rodham


The Neediest Cases - One Misstep, and a Dream is Deferred

Abstract: The first momentous change to Olga Berroa’s life came six years ago, when she packed her bags, and she and her two daughters left Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, for the South Bronx. She came to reunite with her mother, an American citizen who had applied for green cards for Olga and her daughters, and to search for better opportunities. Ms. Berroa, now 41, had worked as a teacher back home — of French and literature, and then of an elementary class at a public school for troubled children. In New York, she had to settle for whatever type of work came her way: folding paper to make envelopes, making windows, baking bread, binding books. But she hoped to improve her English enough to become certified as a teacher in New York, making more money than she could at home. “I was looking for my American dream,” she said. Then came the second momentous change to her life. Two years ago, Ms. Berroa tumbled down the steps to the platform at the Jackson Avenue subway station, near her home on East 156th Street, and her American dream slipped away. It was July 31, 2006, and Ms. Berroa was off from the job she had at the time, as a home health aide, she recalled. She slipped on the stairway’s second or third step, rolling down a dozen more before she hit the ground. “I could think, but I couldn’t move and I couldn’t speak,” Ms. Berroa said, her right hand resting on the cane that she relies on to this day to steady herself as she walks. She had landed facedown, her arms outstretched to break her fall. No one stopped to help, she said, but someone called a police officer or transit worker, who called an ambulance. She had torn the ligaments in her left shoulder, pulled a muscle in her chest, and eventually developed hernias in her neck and lower back, she said. She went on disability for six months, but the doctor did not clear her to go back to work, so she had to leave her job. “That’s when the problems started,” Ms. Berroa said. She applied for welfare for herself and her daughters — Eliana Lozada, 18, a junior at Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School, and Natalia Berroa, 12, a sixth grader at the Academy of Public Relations, both in the Bronx. But when she applied for disability assistance, Ms. Berroa found out that as a legal immigrant who was not yet a citizen, she had not paid federal taxes long enough to qualify. “It was a disaster,” Ms. Berroa said. “I couldn’t pay the bills. I couldn’t buy clothes for my children. I couldn’t afford anything.” She covered most of her rent with a federal housing subsidy. But when the rent went up and her share increased, she realized that she could not pay the rent anymore. One day, an eviction notice arrived at her door. Early this year, she was at a thrift store run by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York and told a clerk of her predicament. By then, she owed about $1,000 in back rent and she did not know how much longer she and her daughters would be allowed to stay in the apartment. The clerk advised her to seek help at the organization’s office. In February, Ms. Berroa received $678 from Catholic Charities, which is supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund . (The rest of the money came from the city’s Family Eviction Prevention Supplement , which helps cover rent costs for families on public assistance.) “If that hadn’t happened,” she said, “we would be on the streets right now.” Ms. Berroa no longer hopes to return to teaching and is unsure when, or even if, she will be able to return to work. Her focus is on helping her daughters succeed in America. She hopes to find a new place to live, in a building that has an elevator so she will not have to climb five flights of stairs to get home, as she has to do now. “We’re still happy in this country, our country,” Ms. Berroa said. “All we need is a stable life.” How to Help Checks payable to The NewYork Times Neediest CasesFund may be sent to: 4 ChaseMetrotech Center, 7th FloorEast, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn,N.Y. 11245. All gifts are acknowledged;special lettersare not possible. Checks intendedfor a particular Neediestagency should be writtento and mailed to the agency,noting that it is a Neediest gift. BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE 285 Schermerhorn Street Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 310-5600 THE CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK 1011 First Avenue New York, NY 10022 (212) 371-1000 CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS 191 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 722-6000 THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY 105 East 22d Street New York, NY 10010 (212) 949-4800 THE COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 105 East 22d Street New York, NY 10010 (212) 254-8900 THE FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES, INC 281 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10010 (212) 777-4800 UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, NY 10261-4100 (212) 980-1000 For instructions on how to donatestock to the fund, call(212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 730-0927. No agents or solicitors are authorizedto seek contributionsfor The New York Times NeediestCases Fund. The Times pays the fund'sexpenses, so all contributions godirectly to the charities, whichuse them to provide services andcash assistance to the poor. Contributions aredeductible from federal, state andcity income taxes to the extentpermitted by law. To delay may mean to forget.

Housing
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Families and Family Life
Immigration and Refugees
Bronx (NYC)


South Carolina: Primary Do-Over Sought

Abstract: A Charleston County council member asked Monday for a new Democratic primary for the Senate after losing last week to an unemployed military veteran who had raised no money and had no signs and no ads. The Democratic Party's 92-member executive committee plans a hearing Thursday on a protest by the losing candidate, Vic Rawl. Party leaders cannot remember ever overturning the results of a primary. Alvin Greene, 32, a political unknown, defeated Mr. Rawl, a former state lawmaker, for the right to face Senator Jim DeMint in the fall. Representative James E. Clyburn said he thought someone put Mr. Greene up as a shell candidate to embarrass the Democratic Party. (AP)


City Contractor Is Investigated for Possible Underpayment of Some Workers

Abstract: A company that has been awarded more than half a billion dollars in public contracts in recent years is being investigated for possibly underpaying some of its employees on a subway construction project, law enforcement officials said this week. Over the summer, the company, M. A. Angeliades, which is based in Queens, was forced by transit officials to allow an independent monitor to supervise its activities as a condition of being given a $94 million contract for the renovation of the Bleecker Street subway station. In addition to its work for New York City Transit, the company is also a major contractor for the School Construction Authority, with five projects under way in the city, and the monitor will supervise those jobs as well. The company has been suspended from bidding on future school projects pending the outcome of the investigation, said Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Education. The officials said that the investigation, by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s inspector general and the Manhattan district attorney, was continuing and that Angeliades had not been charged with any wrongdoing. “This comes the closest that one can to balance the interest of completing a project at a fair and reasonable cost to the M.T.A. and the public, and ensuring the integrity of a company that is under investigation while engaged in an M.T.A. project,” said Barry L. Kluger, the inspector general. Michael Angeliades, the president of the construction company, said he employed only union workers and paid them the appropriate wage. State law requires that contractors on public projects pay their employees no less than a prevailing wage set by the government to be similar to union pay scale. “I don’t think we did anything wrong,” Mr. Angeliades said. “According to the agencies, we are very good contractors.” Late last year, a new construction fraud unit within the inspector general’s office started investigating the possibility that the company was violating the prevailing-wage law in a project to install elevators at the Chambers Street station on the J, M and Z lines, Mr. Kluger said. The company is being paid $23 million for its work on that project, which is scheduled to be completed in December. Mr. Kluger refused to provide details of the investigation or the specific allegations. Toby Thacher, head of Thacher Associates, the monitoring company chosen to oversee Angeliades, said he was not authorized to discuss the company. Speaking of the construction industry in general, he said prevailing-wage violations were a common problem. “Because in public construction, the lowest bid gets the contract, the contractor who can reduce his labor costs the most, and most of your costs are labor, will be able to provide the lowest bid,” said Mr. Thacher, who was inspector general of the School Construction Authority until 1996. Law enforcement officials said that in May, investigators for the inspector general and the Manhattan district attorney executed search warrants at the Angeliades offices. At the time, the company was being considered for the Bleecker Street project, for which it had submitted the low bid of $94 million. The project, which involves renovation of the station, would eliminate one of the anomalies of the subway system. The contract calls for building a passageway between the uptown No. 6 platform at Bleecker Street and the nearby Broadway-Lafayette station serving the B, D, F and V lines. Currently, the only transfer available there is from the downtown No. 6 platform. Transit officials were told of the investigation but decided to give the job to Angeliades on the condition that it would agree to the outside monitor. The contract was awarded in July, and the monitoring agreement was completed in mid-September. The School Construction Authority was also brought into the talks and established a monitoring agreement for its own jobs as well. Under both agreements, Angeliades must pay the monitor. Construction work is expected to start at Bleecker Street early next year. The transportation authority has been trying to restrain its rapidly growing construction costs, and it said it decided to keep doing business with Angeliades as a way to preserve competition for its contracts. “There are only a limited number of contractors capable of performing contracts of this size,” Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit, said in a written statement. “As we had a number of contracts in this dollar range being solicited at the same time, bypassing M. A. Angeliades on this contract and awarding the work to the second low bidder would have had the effect of reducing or eliminating competition for ongoing solicitations for other contracts,” he said. Mr. Fleuranges said the company had performed well in its work for the transit agency and would not be barred from bidding on other contracts while the investigation continued. Angeliades is nearing completion on the Chambers Street project. Other projects that it finished this summer were a $53 million project for renovation of five stations on the No. 4 line in the Bronx and a $15.5 million project to install elevators at the Church Avenue station on the F line in Brooklyn. In its work with the school authority, Angeliades is currently under contract to build four new schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island for a total of $173 million. It is also working on a project on Governors Island to convert a building for use by the New York Harbor High School, at a cost of $34 million. It also recently completed three other school projects totaling $150 million.