‘Face and Figure: The Sculpture of Gaston Lachaise,’ at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn.

Abstract: Greenwich, Conn. PASSERS-BY at the Bruce Museum this month may have spotted an eight-foot-long, half-draped bronze sculpture of a female nude suspended from a crane. Dangling horizontally, the approximately 1,300-pound figure glided through the air on her way into the museum, her toes pointed daintily at one end, her small head and powerful shoulders at the other. Massive yet seemingly buoyant, “Floating Figure” now rests in the gallery, arms outstretched, legs extended upward, balanced on one sizable buttock. The piece is among more than 40 works on view in “Face and Figure: The Sculpture of Gaston Lachaise,” an exhibition of figures, busts, bas-reliefs and drawings by the 20th-century sculptor and portraitist . Curated by Kenneth E. Silver, adjunct curator at the Bruce, the show underscores the scope of Lachaise’s vision — from the vitality of his figurative sculptures, primarily inspired by his muse, model and eventual wife, Isabel Dutaud Nagle, to the personality and precision in his portraits, many of notable members of the American artistic community between the world wars, including Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe and E. E. Cummings . “People know Gaston Lachaise for his female figures that are so exhilarating, intense and memorable,” said Dr. Silver, who is a professor of modern art at New York University. “The fact that he was also a very good portraitist is often forgotten. We thought it would be interesting to look at both sides of his body of work — no pun intended.” Born and educated in Paris, Lachaise left France permanently in 1905 to travel to Boston in pursuit of Ms. Nagle, married and 10 years his senior. She was a voluptuous woman with a fleshy belly, wide hips and surprisingly delicate feet. In his 1928 essay “A Comment on My Sculpture,” Lachaise wrote about his creative obsession: “Throughout my career, as an artist, I refer to this person by the word ‘Woman.’ ” Ms. Nagle’s presence is evident in nearly half of the pieces in “Face and Figure.” She is there in “Standing Woman (Elevation),” begun in 1912, a polished bronze nude more than six feet tall, perched on the balls of her feet, her closed eyes and raised arms conveying a sense of transcendence. Across the gallery, she towers even higher in “Standing Woman (Heroic Woman),” from 1932. Here, her proportions are elongated, her diminutive head turned slightly up, her tiny waist unfolding into substantial thighs, her eyes open and her soles planted firmly on the ground. Dr. Silver described these sculptures as “two of the great figures of the 20th century.” Ms. Nagle’s form, usually nude, appears in an assortment of poses: slouched in an armchair, mounted sideways atop a horse, twice interwoven in the embrace of a man. In a marble bas-relief and a crayon drawing, she ascends a flight of stairs; in a bronze bas-relief, she drifts weightlessly through space. Dr. Silver noted this repeated occurrence of gesture in Lachaise’s work. “There’s a dynamic quality to his figures,” he said, “even when they are at rest. There is an elasticity in the relationship of the parts that activates them and makes them exciting to look at.” Gesture is a defining feature in another nude portrait in “Face and Figure.” The bronze “Man Walking (Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein),” which was completed in 1933 and stands just under two feet tall, depicts Kirstein, the author, cultural figure and patron of the arts, midstride, his right foot forward, his left arm bent, his mouth open as if speaking. Kirstein, who with George Balanchine founded the School of American Ballet, and later the New York City Ballet, played a pivotal role in Lachaise’s career. In addition to promoting his work, Kirstein was instrumental in organizing Lachaise’s only retrospective, which was also the first retrospective of any living American artist at the then-fledgling Museum of Modern Art . The exhibition was held in early 1935, just months before Lachaise’s death at 53. The Bruce’s 2010 acquisition of “Man Walking (Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein),” one of only two casts of the work, sparked the planning of “Face and Figure.” “We wanted to give context to our sculpture,” Dr. Silver said, calling the piece “Lachaise’s greatest male nude, and maybe his only great male nude.” In contrast, “Man (Heroic Man),” also bronze, and, at more than nine feet tall, the largest piece in the show, exudes a graceless heaviness, with its undersized head and oversized limbs. “Clearly, Lachaise saw something in Lincoln Kirstein that he did not generally feel in the male figure,” Dr. Silver said. Yet when it came to his portrait busts, Lachaise demonstrated deep feeling for both his male and female sitters. While many modern artists considered portraiture a distracting source of income, Lachaise embraced it enthusiastically. “My interest in portraiture has always been keen,” he wrote in his 1928 essay, “for a portrait of an individual is a synthesis of the prevalent forces within the individual, and in this process there is an expansion for the creator.” In his “Portrait of Edgard Varèse,” for instance, Lachaise manifests the French modernist composer’s prevalent forces in the figure’s inquisitive brow and intelligent gaze. The Varèse portrait is one of eight male busts, each between 12 and 17 inches tall, displayed in a dramatic circular arrangement. Viewers may examine the specificity with which Lachaise modeled his subjects: the weathered visage of John Marin, the modernist painter; the meditative air and etched skin of Edward Nagle, Ms. Nagle’s son by her first husband; the pensive look and slightly parted lips of Edward M. M. Warburg, a philanthropist who was one of Lachaise’s patrons. Among the female busts in the exhibition are “Portrait of Marianne Moore,” in which the modernist poet is presented with a stylish coif and a no-nonsense appearance, and “Portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe,” an alabaster sculpture of the painter with a somber expression. “His skill is remarkable,” Dr. Silver said of Lachaise. “Face and Figure” gathers these bronze, marble, alabaster and sketched representations of the people who populated Lachaise’s life in America, from the cultural circle that surrounded him, to the woman who fueled his emotional and creative spirit. “I think it’s important that you get to see all the pieces together in one place,” Dr. Silver said. Then he cited the Museum of Modern Art’s placement of Lachaise’s “Floating Figure” in its sculpture garden. “As lovely as it may be to see that piece outdoors,” he said, “something happens when it’s given a finite space in the gallery with all the other work. It just bursts with energy.”

Sculpture
Art
Greenwich (Conn)
Bruce Museum of Arts and Science
Lachaise Gaston


Want a Prize? Just Watch This Commercial, Please

Abstract: Advertisers long ago discovered that the digital video recorder, which allows users to skip any commercials they want, is not a friend. Now some marketers are responding with desperate measures: commercials offering viewers incentives to watch. KFC, part of Yum Brands, introduced a commercial last week that contains a secret code word, visible by watching the commercial in slow motion on a DVR. (Or by doing a quick Web search, where the spot has been discussed exhaustively.) Once the secret code is seen, the viewer can go to the KFC Web site, type in the code and receive a prize: a $1 coupon for a Buffalo Snacker sandwich. The commercial was created by Foote Cone & Belding in Chicago, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, and will run on Fox, NBC, CBS and several cable channels through Friday. In another attempt to encourage viewers not to ignore ads, Home Depot is giving consumers a say in the commercials it runs. Its agency, the Richards Group in Dallas, created three TV commercials to promote the addition of two brands of tractors, Cub Cadet and Toro, to the John Deere tractor line that Home Depot already sells. After watching the three commercials online, users could vote for their favorite from early Saturday, Feb. 18, through late Sunday, Feb. 19. The commercial that garnered the most votes was to be chosen to appear on TV beginning today. Home Depot was encouraged by the results: 453,700 votes were cast at the Web site. "Consumers are in control these days and want to pick and choose what they watch," said Roger Adams, senior vice president for marketing at Home Depot in Atlanta. All three commercials featured an actor and actress playing a couple visiting a Home Depot where the three brands of tractors were displayed. The winning spot, "Indecision," which drew 171,188 votes, was perhaps the funniest of the three; the actor is shown taking so long to decide among the brands that he is still at the store, alone, at closing time. The Dentyne line of gum sold by Cadbury Schweppes is also seeking to involve consumers in its TV advertising with a twist on the Home Depot idea: one commercial, with three potential endings. The Dentyne commercial, scheduled to begin running today, shows a young man offering two kinds of Dentyne Ice gum to two attractive young women. The spot "hints at the possibilities for something to happen," said Linda Mayer, a spokeswoman for Cadbury Schweppes Americas Confectionery, and ends by encouraging viewers to visit the Dentyne Web site and vote for one of the three endings. The incentive for casting a vote? A free pack of new Dentyne Ice Soft Chew gum. The Dentyne agency is McCann Erickson Worldwide in New York, part of the McCann Worldgroup unit of Interpublic.

KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN
HOME DEPOT INC
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
TELEVISION


U.S. Transfers Control of Special Operations to Afghans

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — Accelerating the transition of military responsibility to the Afghan government, the United States agreed Sunday to hand control of special operations missions to Afghan forces, including night raids, relegating American troops to a supporting role and bringing the raids under Afghan judicial authority. The deal clears the way for the two countries to move ahead with a more comprehensive partnership agreement that will establish the shape of American support to Afghanistan after the 2014 troop withdrawal deadline. And it resolves one of the most contentious issues for President Hamid Karzai , who faced intense domestic political pressure because of night raids’ deep unpopularity here, even as American commanders had insisted they were the linchpin of the military mission in Afghanistan. As recently as a year ago, American commanders expressed reservations about giving up nearly any measure of control over the raids. Since then, the relationship between the two countries has been reconfigured by a series of diplomatic crises and the American public’s growing fatigue for the war, lending an increasing sense of imminence to the troop withdrawal. At the same time, the United States has mounted an intense effort to move Afghan special operations forces to the fore, even as questions remain about the overall readiness of Afghan troops. At a signing ceremony in the capital, Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defense minister, and Gen. John R. Allen , the American commander here, hailed the agreement as a positive sign of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and the growing abilities of its special operations forces. “This is an important step in strengthening the sovereignty of Afghanistan,” Mr. Wardak said, adding that it was “a national goal” and “a wish of the Afghan people” that raids be conducted and controlled by Afghans. The memorandum of understanding signed on Sunday gives Afghan forces the lead role in night raid operations against suspected insurgents, and also requires an Afghan court warrant within 72 hours of a raid. A warrant can be issued after a raid only in cases where the intelligence needed to be acted on immediately, otherwise it must be executed in advance, according to Afghan officials. Under the terms of the agreement, Afghan forces can still call on American troops for help and authorize them to enter Afghan residences and private compounds. The agreement covers all night raids carried out by special operations forces. However, a small number of night operations are conducted under other auspices, including special C.I.A. -trained units, that are not covered by the agreement, military and civilian officials said. American officials close to the negotiations said that under the agreement, an interministry Afghan command center with representatives of the Defense and Interior Ministries, as well as the National Directorate of Security — the Afghan intelligence agency — would review or develop information about potential targets in consultation with Americans, who would continue to provide extensive intelligence support. The interministry group would then decide whether to go after a target and send Afghan special operations forces to carry out the raid. The Afghans can request American assistance at any point in the operation — for intelligence, for backup military support, air support, medical evacuation and post-operation intelligence gathering. Afghan officials said that the Americans would not have the right to question detainees. Currently, they can question detainees and hold them indefinitely without trial. In practice, however, Americans might well be called on “to assist in an investigation,” said a United States official. The official emphasized that the relationship between Afghan and American troops was “not an adversarial one,” and United States officials did not appear to be worried that Americans would be denied access to detainees. Several diplomats said that the most important aspect of the agreement, which goes into effect immediately, was that the two countries could take the next steps to complete the transition to Afghan control and allow foreign forces to leave the country. “There’s still work to be done, but clearly we have some critical momentum now,” Ryan C. Crocker , the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, said as he left the signing ceremony. In Washington, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta “sees this important agreement as a sign of progress in the transition process, and as a key indicator of the enhanced capabilities of Afghan forces,” said George Little, the Pentagon press secretary. While the deal underscores the continuing diminution of American power here, the fact is that the United States and other allied countries still pay nearly all of the costs of Afghan security forces. That means the West will retain considerable leverage for some time to come, officials here said. “The Americans are not giving up a huge amount,” one Western official said. “And if they are paying $4.1 billion a year for the Afghan military, if they want permission to question someone, I think they’ll get it,” the official added, referring to the approximate amount Western countries are expected to agree to contribute annually to cover Afghan security costs after 2014. Still, an American military official involved in the negotiations described the agreement as “a paradigm shift” that substantially changed who was in charge, although the official emphasized that Afghan and American officers worked as a team, sitting side by side in an operations center, sharing intelligence and decision-making responsibilities on most targets. In recent testimony before Congress, General Allen repeatedly assured lawmakers that an agreement would not weaken the pressure on important terrorist and insurgent leaders who have been the target of the raids. Providing new details, he said that Afghan forces took part in most of the 2,200 night operations last year, and, in practice, led many of them. He also said that civilian casualties occurred in less than 1.5 percent of the missions. But public outrage has focused not only on civilian deaths but also on the invasion by foreign soldiers of private homes, in particular those where women and children are living. On that count, the agreement is a significant victory for Mr. Karzai, because he has long argued that the sense of outrage and violation was a pressing reason for an Afghan takeover of the raids. With this agreement and the one reached on March 9 that laid out a six-month timetable for handing over detention operations to the Afghans, the strategic partnership agreement between the United States and Afghanistan can now go forward. The two governments were to spend the next several weeks completing the partnership document, which would commit the United States to a 10-year involvement in Afghanistan that includes support of an array of civilian efforts including economic development and education. The Afghans and the Americans have wanted to have that agreement in place before a two-day NATO meeting in Chicago that is scheduled to start on May 20. The NATO meeting will obligate countries in the coalition with the United States to commit to continuing financial contributions to Afghanistan’s security forces and to training and equipping them. Not yet clear is the size of the Afghan security forces that the NATO countries will support, but almost certainly they will be a substantially smaller army and police force than Afghanistan has today. The country’s forces currently top 305,000, according to the Afghan Defense and Interior Ministries, and are expected to continue to rise this year to 352,000. The night raid agreement solves one particularly thorny problem for the Americans, who have taken often-burdensome steps to make sure that when they detained Afghans and transferred them to Afghan custody, they avoided sending them to Afghan holding facilities where there was evidence of human rights abuses, including torture. Now, Americans will no longer be responsible for detaining people and holding them, and, as a result, will not be implicated in the treatment of detainees. However, United States officials involved in the negotiations said they expected that Americans would continue to provide human rights training to the Afghan security forces.

Afghanistan
Hamid Karzai
Afghanistan War
John R Allen
US


With Eye on Williams, Nets Agree to Acquire Joe Johnson

Abstract: A dizzying and expensive campaign to revitalize the Nets ’ identity moved into overdrive Monday, when the franchise secured a trade for Joe Johnson, the Atlanta Hawks’ six-time All-Star. The deal cannot become official until July 11, after the N.B.A.’s annual moratorium, and the teams are prohibited from commenting until then. The parameters of the deal, which will send five minor players to Atlanta, were confirmed by two people briefed on the talks. The Nets completed the trade just as they were preparing to meet with Deron Williams, their star point guard, to sell him on a future in Brooklyn. Williams, a free agent, is also being courted by the Dallas Mavericks, who made their pitch earlier in the day. Both meetings were in New York. The trade for Johnson is not contingent on Williams’s staying, nor will it necessarily guarantee his return. But Williams was apprised of the talks and supported the move, according to a person who has spoken with him. The Nets had hoped to pair Williams with Dwight Howard, the Orlando Magic star, who has lobbied for a trade to Brooklyn. But the teams never found the right deal, and the trade for Johnson probably closes that door. In exchange for Johnson, 31, Atlanta will receive Anthony Morrow, Jordan Farmar, Johan Petro, Jordan Williams and DeShawn Stevenson, and the Houston Rockets’ lottery-protected first-round pick in 2013. For the Hawks, the trade is little more than a salary dump — a means to unload the four years and $89.3 million left on Johnson’s unwieldy contract. The players heading to Atlanta are all on one-year deals, and of minimal value. Stevenson, a free agent, agreed to a sign-and-trade deal to make the trade work under the N.B.A.’s complicated salary-cap rules. Houston’s draft pick is lottery-protected through 2016. If the pick has not been conveyed by then, it converts to a second-round pick in 2017. The deal was first reported by NetsDaily.com and The Star-Ledger of Newark. The trade for Johnson came a day after the Nets agreed on a four-year, $40 million contract with Gerald Wallace, their defensive-minded small forward. If Deron Williams re-signs for his maximum amount ($17.2 million), the Nets will have about $44 million tied up in three players next season, and they will effectively be locked into that core for the next four years. The Nets still plan to sign their other top free agents — Brook Lopez, Kris Humphries and Gerald Green — which will push them well past the $58 million cap for 2012-13. (The cap will not be an issue in re-signing Lopez and Humphries, because both have “Bird” rights.) The Nets technically never dropped below the cap before making the Johnson trade, so they will retain all their cap exceptions, including the midlevel ($5 million) and the biannual ($1.96 million). They also preserved their two trade exceptions, worth $3 million and $1 million, which can be used in future trades. One likely target with the midlevel exception is Mirza Teletovic, a 6-foot-9 forward from Bosnia who played in Spain last season. Teletovic, who has the same agent as Williams, has been on the Nets’ radar. The Nets also met on Monday with Steve Nash, who could fill the point-guard vacancy if Williams departs for Dallas. Conversely, Nash could land in Dallas if Williams chooses Brooklyn. Williams is expected to decide within the next two days. Nash is also being pursued by the Toronto Raptors and the Knicks. The Nets are offering Williams a five-year, $100 million deal — the maximum allowed, and one year and $25 million more than Dallas can. The Mavericks’ pitch will focus on the benefits of playing alongside Dirk Nowitzki, a likely Hall of Famer, who led Dallas to a championship 13 months ago. The Nets will counter with the allure of playing in Brooklyn, a short drive from Madison Avenue. Money and marketing aside, the question for Williams is, which team offers a better chance to contend in the long term? The Nets surely enhanced their position by acquiring Johnson, a 6-foot-8, highly skilled swingman who averaged 18.8 points, 3.9 assists and 3.7 rebounds while shooting .454 from the field and .388 from 3-point range last season for the Hawks. Johnson helped revive the Hawks starting in 2005 after becoming a breakout star alongside Nash with the Phoenix Suns. But Johnson comes at a high price. His six-year, $124 million contract was deemed an albatross, and among the worst in the league, the moment it was signed in 2010. Until Monday, it was considered virtually untradeable. Johnson will make nearly $25 million in 2015-16, when he will be 34. The Hawks were also busy Monday, reportedly agreeing to a second trade that would send Marvin Williams to the Utah Jazz for Devin Harris. Seventeen months ago, the Nets sent Harris to Utah in the deal that brought Williams to New Jersey.


Another Slip-Up on the Air, Another Apology

Abstract: It was late in Connecticut’s 81-65 win over St. John’s on Jan. 8 when the ESPN analyst Bucky Waters grew euphoric over the nine steals by Jerome Dyson, the Huskies’ sophomore guard. “I bet there weren’t any hubcaps left in the parking lot,” he said, adding later that Dyson “just stole everything — fillings, hubcaps, the works.” After the game, while extolling Dyson’s defensive work, Waters went too far with his analogies.  “It was a holdup, it was a mugging, and I don’t know if he’s going out after this and hit a couple of convenience stores or not, but he had some night here,” he told viewers watching the game on SportsNet New York and MyTV 9 in Connecticut. Before signing off, he and his partner, John Rooke, chuckled. “I don’t have an alibi,” Waters said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “Dyson put on an incredible display. I was excited for him and in my effort to praise him, I made a poor, over-the-top choice of words. I have no excuse. I regret them and I called UConn to see what I could do to apologize to those who felt any offense to what I said.” Kyle Muncy, an assistant UConn athletic director, said: “It was a bad joke, but Bucky’s a good person. Once Bucky was made aware that he had upset some folks, he was more than apologetic.” Waters, who coached West Virginia from 1965-69 and Duke from 1969-73, said he could not fathom what influenced his comments about convenience stores. “Over the years, when a guy would get two or three steals, I’d say, ‘You’d better watch your rings, fillings and hubcaps,’ but the convenience store part had no place,” he said. He added: “It was stupid. I had no cue cards. Nothing in my mind about it. Just dumb.” Waters was reprimanded by ESPN and sat out one game, but he returned for Wednesday night’s Virginia Tech-Virginia broadcast on ESPNU. ESPN does not usually publicly address personnel issues like its handling of Waters. Although issuing a news release would have given the incident a profile it hadn’t yet acquired, doing so would have proactively informed viewers, like the one who alerted me to Waters’s remarks, that ESPN did not tolerate them. Josh Krulewitz, an ESPN spokesman, said it was “fair” to ask why the network did not release how it dealt with Waters, but that the subject “is something we do talk about internally.” Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida, said: “It was appropriate that ESPN took the sanction immediately, which is positive and really quite unusual with these things. But they had to know that sooner or later, it would become public knowledge and that they’re better served by letting their public know they disapproved and took action.” Waters made his remarks only four days after Kelly Tilghman, who anchors PGA Tour coverage for the Golf Channel, joked that young players seeking to challenge Tiger Woods should “lynch him in a back alley.” However lighthearted her intention and friendly she is with Woods, she used an incendiary word that inflamed rather than tempered her partner Nick Faldo’s comment that the players should gang up on Woods. While Tilghman’s use of “lynch” conjured horrific violence (mostly, but not entirely, against blacks), Waters’s words inadvertently conflated racial stereotypes with memories of the 2005 arrests of the UConn players A. J. Price, a guard who is still with the team, and Marcus Williams, who is now with the Nets, for stealing laptops from campus residences. Each received probation and team suspensions.“The problem in this culture is we have stereotypic associations,” said Susan T. Fiske, a professor of psychology at Princeton University and co-editor of “Confronting Racism” (Sage Publications, 1998). “Some people have more than others, but it is also true that they slip out in unguarded moments, like play-by-play.” She added that based on data from 28 “selective” private and public universities, “there is no average black college student; the student could be an heir to the Ebony fortune or someone whose family was on welfare and was homeless growing up.”  Lapchick offered this analysis of Tilghman’s and Waters’s remarks: “Her use of lynch is partly a function of a society that has lost its sense of history, particularly among young white people, but the imagery in Bucky’s words are prevalent stereotypes.” Muncy said he believed Waters did not have harmful intent and was not making a connection to Price. He said he was not sure if Dyson knew about the “convenience store” remarks. Muncy said Waters would be “welcomed” Sunday in Storrs for UConn’s game against Marquette.

Connecticut
ESPN
Blacks
Television
Colleges and Universities
Athletics and Sports


Hirscher Takes Slalom Event

Abstract: Marcel Hirscher of Austria beat his close friend Felix Neureuther of Germany in front of 15,000 spectators in Zagreb, Croatia, at a World Cup night race, setting up a duel for this season’s slalom title. The two are well ahead in the standings, with Neureuther at 320 edging Hirscher by just 4 points.

Marcel Hirscher
Felix Neureuther
Skiing
Alpine skiing


New-Home Sales Hit a Low in U.S. in January

Abstract: The sickly housing market was socked with another dose of bad news on Wednesday when the Commerce Department reported that new home sales fell in January to the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1963. Almost as disturbing was the continuing reluctance of people to apply for mortgages. The Mortgage Bankers Association said applications for loans to buy homes dropped last week to the lowest level in 13 years. By all rights, the housing market should be doing much better. Prices have fallen substantially in the last three years, mortgage rates are very low by historical standards and the government is giving all sorts of buyers a cash bonus. “This should be an ideal time for people to buy,” said Brad Hunter, chief economist of Metrostudy, a housing consultant. “And yet they’re hesitating.” January’s 11.2 percent drop in new-home sales to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000 came as a surprise to analysts, who had forecast an increase of 3.5 percent. It was the third consecutive month that sales fell. The previous bottom was January 2009, after Wall Street crashed and there was considerable talk of another Great Depression. Wall Street has largely recovered and the depression talk has abated, but sales last month still fell 6 percent below the earlier trough. That does not bode well for the expiration of tax credits for home buyers this spring, especially if mortgage rates rise to anything like their traditional levels. “It’s going to be a very tough summer,” Mr. Hunter said. “You’re not going to have a robust housing market until you have more jobs, and you’re not going to add jobs fast enough to bring down the unemployment rate until you have a robust housing market.” Economists generally do not give too much weight to new-home sales data, which is taken from a small sample size. But analysts said Wednesday that the downward trend was troubling. “When one considers the billions and trillions of dollars that have been spent to prop up the housing market, that the best we could muster is a new low in sales is incredibly worrisome,” wrote Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak. In the fall, new-home sales climbed rapidly as consumers rushed to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, which was originally set to expire at the end of November. But as soon as Congress extended the credit through April 30, sales began struggling. Economists expected a second surge in sales at the beginning of this year as the April deadline approached. But with January’s numbers so low, and consumer confidence weakening, several said they were revising their forecasts and discounting the effect of the credit. “We thought it was going to kick in and boost sales,” said Patrick Newport, a housing economist for IHS Global Insight. “It’s a little bit of a shocker.” With so few buyers, inventory is starting to pile up again. This is contrary to what usually happens after a recession . The Commerce Department said the supply of new homes rose in January to 9.1 months of inventory, up sharply from a recent low of 6.7 months in October. The inventory peak in this cycle was 12.4 months in January 2009. Buyers do not seem to be flocking to houses in February, either. Applications for mortgages to buy houses fell 7.3 percent last week from the previous week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. While purchase applications are not a perfect mirror of the housing market — many foreclosed homes are being bought these days in all-cash deals — the recent plunge is another sign that the market remains in intensive care. Applications have dropped substantially since October and are now at their lowest level since May 1997. The bankers association said applications for refinances dropped by 8.9 percent. Mortgage rates around 5 percent are apparently not attractive enough for some who wish to refinance. Many others are locked out from applying because they owe more than their homes are now worth.

Sales
Housing and Real Estate
United States Economy


Harold A. Poling, a Chairman of Ford, Dies at 86

Abstract: Harold A. Poling, the son of an auto mechanic who helped guide the Ford Motor Company through the recession of the early 1990s as its chairman and chief executive, died on Saturday in Pacific Grove, Calif. He was 86. His death was announced by Ford , where Mr. Poling worked for 43 years before his retirement in 1994. Known as Red because of his auburn hair, Mr. Poling rose through the company’s ranks on the strength of his financial acumen and a low-key leadership style that brought stability during tough times. He gained prominence in the 1980s as the head of Ford’s troubled North American operations, and later as the company’s president and chief operating officer, imposing financial discipline early in his tenure and presiding over plant closings and widespread job cuts. He was also credited with using Japanese production techniques to shave costs and improve quality. In the midst of huge losses, Mr. Poling joined other senior Ford executives in backing a $3 billion program that produced the wildly popular Ford Taurus . “We bet the company,” Mr. Poling said in a Ford news release. “It was a tremendous gamble, but it has paid off handsomely.” He was promoted to president of Ford in 1985 and became a vice chairman two years later. The company’s fortunes improved as well, with Ford reporting what was then an industry record of $5.3 billion in profits in 1988. Mr. Poling was named Ford’s chairman and chief executive in 1990, succeeding Donald E. Peterson. He was 64 years old, but the company gave him an exemption to stay beyond its mandatory retirement age of 65. On his watch, the company introduced models that allowed it to emerge from the recession with a competitive lineup. Through all the ups and downs of the industry and Ford’s management infighting, Mr. Poling was considered a steady, unflappable executive. “He was not a table-pounding kind of guy, just very smart, very cordial and very professional,” said David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. Mr. Cole recalled a dinner in the early 1990s attended by Mr. Poling and Roger B. Smith , then the chairman and chief executive of General Motors, Ford’s hometown rival. Mr. Smith dominated the conversation at the table, Mr. Cole recalled, while Mr. Poling hardly said a word. “So my wife turned to him and said, ‘Red, what do you do?’ And Red just smiled and said, ‘I’m the C.E.O. of Ford.’ ” Harold Arthur Poling was born on Oct. 14, 1925, in Troy, Mich., the son of an auto mechanic and a nurse. He said that he learned the basics about cars from his father. “We’d grind valves, change piston rings and clutches, and do lots of other jobs,” he said. “It was serious work, but to me it was very interesting.” His family moved to Virginia, where Mr. Poling attended high school. He joined the Navy at 17. After being discharged two years later, he went on to earn a bachelor of arts degree from Monmouth College in Illinois 1949 and a master’s degree in business administration from Indiana University in 1951. He joined Ford in 1951 as a cost analyst in the company’s steel division, and had several financial posts before becoming a vice president of Ford of Europe in 1972. He became chairman of the European subsidiary, and in 1980 was named executive vice president of North American operations. In 1986, he received a distinguished service citation from the Automotive Hall of Fame. Mr. Poling is survived by his wife, Marian, whom he married in 1957; two daughters, Kathryn Poling and Pam Cruden; a son, Doug; and five grandchildren.

Ford Motor Company
Poling Harold A
Deaths (Obituaries)
Automobiles


Verizon to Cut 8,000 Jobs in Landline Unit

Abstract: The recession is having two effects on Verizon Communications business. Businesses are cutting back sharply, and laid-off people no longer need corporate cellphones and laptop data cards. As a result, the company said on Monday, after it reported a 21 percent decline in net income for the second quarter, that it would eliminate 8,000 jobs in the second half of the year. Consumers, by contrast, keep buying wireless phones and Verizon’s FiOS TV-phone-Internet package, although the company continues to lose a significant share of home phone business to cable operators. All of Verizon’s job cuts, which will hit employees and contractors, will be made in its landline unit, the part of Verizon’s business that offers traditional communications services over copper or fiber cables to businesses and home users. Verizon lost nearly two million home phone customers in the last year, leaving it with 17.2 million residential voice customers. Of the company’s 235,000 employees, 148,000 work in the landline unit, with the rest in Verizon Wireless, which is 45 percent owned by Vodafone. The cuts are in addition to 8,000 positions Verizon cut in the last year. AT&T, the other large phone company, has been affected by many of the same trends, although it has been quicker to cut costs. The company has eliminated 14,000 positions this year. AT&T’s wireless business has been growing faster than Verizon’s, largely because of AT&T’s exclusive deal to offer Apple’s iPhone . AT&T, which reported second-quarter earnings last week, added 1.4 million wireless customers compared with 1.1 million at Verizon. But that growth came at a price. Because of the heavy subsidy AT&T pays to Apple for each iPhone, its wireless profit margins of 38 percent were far lower than the 46 percent at Verizon. On the landline side, it is Verizon that has increased its growth through investment, but at a cost of profitability. Verizon has invested more in its FiOS fiber optic system than AT&T has spent on upgrading its network, but has lower margins than AT&T. Verizon’s revenue from residential customers is essentially flat over a year ago, while AT&T’s fell by 6.3 percent. Verizon’s average home customer pays the company $72.59 a month, but the average FiOS home pays more than $135 a month. Verizon added 300,000 FiOS TV customers in the quarter and 303,000 FiOS Internet customers. For the second quarter, Verizon reported net income of $1.48 billion, or 52 cents a share, down from $1.88 billion, or 66 cents, a year earlier. Most of that decline was related to costs of its planned sale of some rural phone systems to Frontier Communications. Excluding the one-time charges, Verizon earned 63 cents a share, in line with analysts’ estimates and down 6 percent from a year ago. Total revenue increased by 11.6 percent, to $26.9 billion, but most of that growth came from its acquisition of Alltel. The company’s core business grew by only 1.9 percent, sharply slower than the 5.3 percent pace of a year ago. Wireless revenue was $15.5 billion, up 9 percent (excluding the acquisition), driven by increased use of data plans by cellphone customers. The most profitable group of wireless customers are those that pay bills every month directly to Verizon. The company added 1.1 million such customers in the quarter, down from 1.5 million in the second quarter of 2008. Landline revenue was $11.5 billion, down 5.2 percent. The decline came entirely from business customers. The company has stayed in Wall Street’s good graces, however, by cutting costs fast enough to compensate for the decelerating growth. “Their second-quarter results reveal a tightly run ship,” Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, wrote in a note to clients. On a conference call with investors Monday, Dennis F. Strigl, Verizon’s president, told investors that he was not concerned about the impact of Apple’s popular iPhone. He said Verizon had many new handsets coming out, including the Palm Pre, which it will start selling early next year. And it is planning to open its own store for smartphone applications by the end of 2009. Mr. Strigl said AT&T’s exclusive deal with Apple helped everyone. “It accelerated innovation,” he said. “It is very good for our customers. Everyone is coming out with their own iconic devices.”

Verizon Communications
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Company Reports


Celebrating an N.F.L. Sunday After Hurricane Sandy

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Tunes from Bon Jovi wafted over the rooftops of thousands of vehicles in the sun-washed parking lots outside MetLife Stadium early Sunday afternoon, accompanying the hiss from smoking grills and the hum from tiny generators and the din from a thousand conversations seemingly centering on two topics: gasoline and football. The lots for Sunday’s Giants-Steelers game opened at 11 a.m. Eastern, more than five hours before kickoff, and in the northwest corner, in Section L11, Peter Berger and his party of 40 arrived shortly thereafter. They planted a white tent and began cooking. “We made these plans awhile ago,” said Berger, a chiropractor from Hawthorne, N.J., “and we weren’t breaking plans for nothing.” Such seemed to be the prevailing sentiment among the fans here, many of whom remain without power in their homes or fuel in their gas tanks. Still, they packed MetLife for the first N.F.L. game in battered New Jersey since Hurricane Sandy , and tried to recapture a bit of normalcy despite several obvious differences. For one, there were no New Jersey Transit trains running to the stadium, a preferred mode of transportation for nearly 10,000 fans on game days. Free shuttle buses made frequent trips from Secaucus, N.J., and a New Jersey Transit express bus transported about 2,000 people from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Still, vehicles crammed into every crevice allowable, paved or grassy, within the stadium area’s perimeter. The Giants also held their 16th annual food drive for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey on Sunday, and fans lined up to donate. One was Sean Krieg, who held a shopping bag filled with boxes of cereal. “I know people are hurting all over the place,” said Krieg, an eighth-grade teacher from Massapequa, Long Island. “I brought whatever I could. We have plenty of food at home. My family was without power for five days, but in the scheme of things, we were pretty lucky.” Krieg, like others, considered the game a form of cathartic release, although he and his brother, Kevin, thought hard about whether to make the drive here from Long Island. They dreaded wasting precious fuel, considerations they had never made before. But they opted to worry about that later. “The whole week, we’ve been talking about gas lines and generators and when are we going to get electricity,” Krieg said. “It’s a good diversion to come to the game today and enjoy it.” All week, players on the Giants — many of them without electricity at home either — spoke about the added responsibility they felt with this game, considering the extraordinary devastation. “Hopefully, we can take care of New York and it will be a good Sunday for everybody,” running back Ahmad Bradshaw said. “We need to get everybody through this storm, this weather and everything else; get through this month and get back to normal. “Hopefully, our wins and our success helps.” The Knicks opened their season Friday at Madison Square Garden, and the Nets opened in Brooklyn on Saturday, but N.F.L. games involve many more fans, and New Jersey, especially its coastline, was particularly affected by the storm. “We’re playing a football game, and these people have lost their houses and have damaged everything they own,” linebacker Mark Herzlich said. “If they can even watch the game, then hopefully we can give them something to be happy about.” There was no consideration by the league or the state to postpone or move the game, although some attendees said they would have approved that decision. The New York City Marathon , which was scheduled to race Sunday, was canceled Friday after considerable public outcry. For the most part, though, fans said they could not discern any noticeable pall during pregame festivities that looked, smelled and sounded like most N.F.L. Sundays, and they were glad for that. Gas especially remained on the tip of everyone’s tongue. “We’re all thinking about where you go, how far you go, how many trips you make; everyone’s trying to conserve it,” said Mike Spinato, a lawyer from Mahwah. In the white tent, smoky brisket sandwiches and ribs were being prepared for the Berger party by Frankie Funicelli and his catering company, Frankie’s Gourmet Catering. Funicelli rushed about pouring sodas, mixing sauces and slicing meat. Friends gathered inside it, and for the first time all week, they relaxed. “It’s kind of like it makes you forget about what’s going on around us,” Spinato said. “It’s a little diversion from what’s been going on, and I think that’s a good thing.”

Football
New Jersey
Hurricane Sandy (2012)
New York Giants


Golfer Charlie Sifford’s Relatives Indicted

Abstract: Craig and Sandra Sifford, the son and the former daughter-in-law of the golf pioneer Charlie Sifford, were indicted on charges they stole more than $1 million from him. For four years starting in 2010, they spent the money on travel, dining, clothes, jewelry and landscaping, the Ohio attorney general’s office and the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office said. Craig and Sandra Sifford, who divorced a few months ago, were charged in Common Pleas Court with crimes including theft, money laundering and unauthorized use of property. Sandra Sifford was also charged with receiving stolen property. In 1961, Charlie Sifford became the first black golfer to earn full-time playing privileges on the PGA Tour. He died at 92 in February.

Golf
Charlie Sifford
Robbery
Elder abuse


Card Fees Pit Retailers Against Banks

Abstract: The most profitable item at Patricia Orzano’s 7-Eleven store on Long Island is coffee. Slurpees are a distant second. But as more customers use plastic to pay for even small purchases like these, she has watched a growing share of her revenue vanish in a stream of credit and debit card fees that retailers say raise the price of goods and sharply lift the cost of doing business. Merchants across the nation, from powerhouses like Wal-Mart and Home Depot , to gas stations, mom-and-pop restaurants and 7-Eleven, have spent years unsuccessfully fighting the biggest of these costs, known as an interchange fee, which generates an estimated $40 billion to $50 billion in income annually for banks that issue credit cards . But after Congress passed a law last month to protect consumers from excessive fees and interest on credit cards, merchants are mounting a fresh offensive. This time, they believe the momentum in Washington has turned in their favor. Legislation is winding its way through Congress, a government audit has been ordered and petitions are surfacing in hundreds of convenience stores, including Ms. Orzano’s 7-Eleven, encouraging customers to voice their opposition to the fees. “Congress sort of already illustrated the willingness to take on the credit card companies and the big banks,” said Keith Jones, a lobbyist for 7-Eleven. “We just feel like the job is half done.” And while large and small banks often clash on political agendas, they have formed a united front, joined by payment networks like Visa and MasterCard , to prepare for a furious battle on Capitol Hill. With profit from credit cards likely to diminish because of the new laws, they are determined not to absorb another major hit. “It’s a big deal to them, and they would be fully engaged in it,” said Kenneth J. Clayton, senior vice president for card policy at the American Bankers Association. Every time a consumer uses plastic, about 2 percent to 3 percent of the charge goes to banks and payment networks, which price the fee differently in different countries. Of that, the interchange fee is paid to the cardholder’s bank, and at roughly 1.8 percent of each purchase in the United States , according to June report by J.P. Morgan , it is the largest and most controversial of these costs. But retailers may have a tough time convincing Congress that consumers would benefit if the effective interchange rate, which has increased slightly in recent years, is dialed back. Many other countries, including Israel and Australia , have required banks that issue cards to reduce the fee. Yet there is little evidence that the savings were passed along. In Australia, where regulators required banks to cut the interchange rate for Visa and MasterCard purchases to 0.5 percent from 0.95 percent, the banks offset their loss by reducing rewards programs and raising annual fees, according to a 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office . A similar outcome could happen here, banks and card companies say. In response to 7-Eleven’s petition drive, MasterCard said the convenience store chain was really asking its customers “to claim that they want to pay more for their payment cards so 7-Eleven can increase its profits.” Bill Sheedy, Visa’s president for North America , added: “We really don’t think the legislation is going to move forward.” Banks say they incur substantial risk when offering credit cards, and must make enough of a return to continue to extend credit. Reducing interchange fees would cut profit at both the largest and smallest financial institutions, including community banks and credit unions, Mr. Clayton said. Of $100 charged to a Visa card, the merchant’s bank receives about $2.25, according to a hypothetical example used by J.P. Morgan in a June report. The bank forwards about $1.80 — the interchange fee — to the cardholder’s bank. Both banks pay a fee to Visa, 10 cents apiece. The merchant’s bank then pays another nickel to a third-party processor and keeps the remaining 30 cents. While the fee for each purchase is small, combined credit and debit card payments at merchants have almost tripled over the last decade, to more than 58 billion swipes last year from about 20.7 billion in 1999, according to data compiled by the Nilson Report, a journal on the payment industry. Merchants say that makes their aggregate expense from the fees enormous — and there is no leverage to ratchet it down. “You’ve got to accept the card and pay whatever price the credit card companies want to charge, and by the way, they won’t talk to us about it,” said Mr. Jones, the lobbyist for 7-Eleven. At Target, for example, interchange fees represent the second-largest store-level expense, behind payroll. The costs are similarly eye-popping at Home Depot, where officials say they top the price of health care insurance for employees. “The amount of money we’re spending on interchange would put 10 associates in each of our stores,” Dwaine Kimmet, vice president of financial services for Home Depot, said at a recent conference on credit card fees. Even some government agencies have not been able to negotiate lower fees. According to a recent G.A.O. report, federal agencies paid out more than $200 million in interchange fees in 2007, the most recent year for which data was available. Some retailers simply refuse to accept certain credit cards. Costco, the nation’s largest membership warehouse chain, negotiated a lower interchange rate with American Express and does not take Visa and MasterCard in its stores. And last month, United Airlines began to force a small number of travel agencies to absorb credit card fees of 2 percent to 3 percent for ticket bookings, a trend that agents fear may distort ticket economics if other large carriers follow suit. United is not passing the fee on to consumers who book directly with the carrier. Merchants say the cost may have been justified when credit card transactions were largely done with paper, making processing far more cumbersome. But with bigger volumes and new efficiencies from technology, they argue, interchange fees are simply a cash cow for card companies that wind up lifting the costs of all goods. The credit card industry says retailers’ costs have surged simply because consumers are using plastic for purchases they would never have dreamed of a decade ago, like a cup of coffee or a Slurpee. Of course, the surge in transaction volume has been a boon for credit card companies: Visa’s stock price is around $60, and MasterCard’s is around $165. While they are down from highs hit just before the financial crisis, they are still well above the share price of card-issuing banks like Citigroup and Bank of America . Still, while legislation on interchange fees would not have stood a chance a few years ago when the economy was buoyant and banks were not under the political spotlight, the winds on Capitol Hill have shifted as public anger at banks — and credit card companies — has grown. “The target is still painted bright red on the forehead of every credit card issuer,” said Robert Hammer, a credit-card industry consultant. “It is a brutal, brutal year.” At a 7-Eleven in a blue-collar neighborhood in St. Louis , the owner, Mike Foster, is hoping the petition in his store will help convince Congress to approve curbs on interchange fees. He said he can make adjustments to curb other expenses in his store, but he cannot do anything to change interchange fees, which cost as much as much as $1,600 a month. “It keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said. “And I got zero control over it.”

Retail
Bank
7-Eleven
Debit card
Price
Home Depot
Credit card
Walmart


Donald Trump in the White House: Will He Bring Steve Bannon With Him?

Abstract: Our coverage of the Trump transition continues. Read Friday’s briefing » President-elect Donald J. Trump’s busy day in Washington has come to an end, with smiles all around and the Dow Jones industrial average at a record high, but with protests continuing in the city’s streets. Mr. Trump had intended to stay the night in Washington, but changed his mind and returned Thursday to Trump Tower in Manhattan. Check back with us as we monitor every step of the Trump transition. Image President Obama and President-elect Donald J. Trump met in the Oval Office on Thursday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Bannon for Trump chief of staff? Steve Bannon, the conservative provocateur and Mr. Trump’s campaign chief, is now a leading candidate to become White House chief of staff, but he’d have to beat out another campaign veteran in the running, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Mr. Bannon, the executive chairman of the conservative website Breitbart News, who took a leave to help manage the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s campaign, is well liked among Mr. Trump’s circle of overlapping advisers, who see him as a favorable influence on the president-elect. But Mr. Priebus is said to be viewed favorably by two people especially close to Mr. Trump: his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Priebus is personally close to both Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, the vice president-elect, and he could serve as a helpful bridge to crucial elements of the Republican Party. Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s first campaign manager, has also been mentioned for chief of staff, despite having been fired by the campaign in June. But Mr. Trump’s children, who feuded publicly with him during the campaign, may resist. Two other names being discussed: Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, and David Bossie, a veteran conservative operative who became Mr. Trump’s deputy campaign manager. The president and the president-elect. Mr. Trump, a man who once questioned the birthplace of the president, and Mr. Obama, who scorched Mr. Trump as unfit for the Oval Office, met the news media in that esteemed room, and at least for public consumption, let bygones and bygones. Mr. Trump, who often labeled Mr. Obama the worst president in history during the campaign, this time called him a “very good man.” For a full account, read here. Video President Obama spoke with President-elect Donald J. Trump at the White House on Thursday to discuss the transition of power. President Obama said they had an “excellent” and “wide-ranging” conversation. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Trump on the Hill. After the White House, it was on to Capitol Hill to meet with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and the speaker of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. Mr. Ryan only reluctantly endorsed Mr. Trump, called his attack on a judge of Mexican heritage the “textbook definition” of racism, and then stopped campaigning for him after a video emerged of the candidate bragging about sexual assault. On Thursday, it was all smiles. “Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen, and we’re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people,” Mr. Ryan said, “and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again.” Mr. Trump added: “We had a very detailed meeting, and we’re going to lower taxes, as you know, health care, we’re going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on health care.” Mr. Ryan then showed off the view from his balcony, pointing out the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, which Mr. Trump converted into a luxury hotel. Mr. Trump planned to spend Thursday night in Washington, aides announced. No word on whether he’ll be in the new hotel. Meantime, a new first lady arrives. Michelle Obama welcomed Melania Trump to tea and a tour of the White House residence on Thursday, yet another extraordinary moment as the first lady, who bitterly denounced Mr. Trump and his treatment of women during the presidential campaign, welcomed his wife to her soon-to-be new home. While Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump held their own 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office, the two women stepped out on the Truman Balcony, with sweeping views of the grounds and the Washington Monument, strolled through the State Floor with the resident curator, and even talked about raising children at the White House, said Josh Earnest, the press secretary. When they were finished, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Trump went to the Oval Office to meet their husbands before the Trumps departed for Capitol Hill, Mr. Earnest said. Last call for health care? Tens of thousands of Americans are rushing to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act after Mr. Trump’s victory as revitalized Republicans vow to repeal the law. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, reported that more than 100,000 people selected health plans on Wednesday through HealthCare.gov. It was, she said on Twitter Thursday, the “best day yet” in the current open-enrollment period, which began Nov. 1 and ends Jan. 31. Even though premiums on the Affordable Care Act exchanges have increased sharply in many parts of the country, federal officials say most consumers can still find coverage for less than $100 a month, after subsidies help defray the cost. Mr. Trump has said he will “completely repeal Obamacare,” but has not said in detail how he would replace it. Instead of the subsidies now available to most people buying insurance through the online marketplace, Mr. Trump wants to allow people to take tax deductions equal to their premiums. Planning? Nah, that’s bad luck. “We’ll figure it out on election night.” That’s what Mr. Trump told his advisers after they pressed him this year to name people to a transition team in-waiting that was supposed to give his campaign the appearance of being serious about winning. So if Mr. Trump’s fledgling transition looks a little seat of the pants, well, blame superstition. Mr. Trump said he did not like the idea of planning ahead because he thought it might jinx him. “It’s bad luck,” he told advisers, according to one senior aide who spoke to Mr. Trump about the matter. Democrats: To the left, to the left … They love Bernie Sanders, they adore Elizabeth Warren, but as Democrats regroup from Mrs. Clinton’s defeat, the progressive wing of the party is looking to another candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee: Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota. Donna Brazile replaced Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the committee’s interim leader over the summer after it emerged that the committee was favoring Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Sanders in the Democratic primary contest. Hacked emails released by WikiLeaks also showed that Ms. Brazile had been trying to help Mrs. Clinton. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said on Thursday that Democrats would continue losing elections unless they aggressively take on corporate power and pointed to Mr. Ellison, who is one of two Muslims in the House and is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “The Democratic establishment had their chance with this election,” said Stephanie Taylor, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “It’s time for new leadership of the Democratic Party — younger, more diverse, and more ideological — that is hungry to do things differently, like leading a movement instead of dragging people to the polls.” An immigration lightning rod joins Team Trump. Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and an ardent opponent of immigration, has been added to Mr. Trump’s transition team, according to local news reports . Mr. Kobach, who provided guidance on immigration policy to Mr. Trump during the campaign, will help the president-elect in the weeks before he takes office, according to The Wichita Eagle. He told the paper he did not expect to get an offer to serve in the Trump administration, but just having him in a formal role in the new Washington could send shudders through the nation’s immigrants. Mr. Kobach has been one of the loudest anti-immigration voices in the Republican Party for years. He added Mr. Trump’s call for a border wall along the southern tier into the party’s platform over the summer. Image The British prime minister, Theresa May, at 10 Downing Street in London on Wednesday. Credit Toby Melville/Reuters A ‘very special’ relationship with Britain. Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain spoke by telephone on Thursday, affirming the “special relationship” between the two countries and agreeing to work closely together, according to a readout of the call provided by the British Embassy. It was a meeting of the “Brexits”: the prime minister ushered into power after Britons voted to exit the European Union and a president-elect who has proudly proclaimed himself “Mr. Brexit” — as big a political shock as the British vote. “The prime minister and President-elect Trump agreed that the U.S.-U.K. relationship was very important and very special, and that building on this would be a priority for them both,” said Laura Palts, an embassy spokeswoman. “President-elect Trump set out his close and personal connections with, and warmth for, the U.K.” Mr. Trump encouraged Brexit and has been supportive of Mrs. May. This year he clashed with David Cameron, Britain’s former prime minister, and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, after they criticized his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the United States. But on Thursday Mr. Trump told Mrs. May that Britain was a “very, very special place for me and for our country” and invited her to pay him a visit as soon as possible. R.I.P., T.P.P. Republican congressional leaders have confirmed what might seem obvious with Mr. Trump’s triumph: Mr. Obama’s far-reaching trade agreement with 11 Pacific Rim nations is dead. The Senate majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said flat-out “No” when reporters asked on Wednesday if the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership — the largest regional trade deal in history — would be considered in the lame duck Congress that convenes next week. “I think the president-elect made it pretty clear he was not in favor of the current agreement,” Mr. McConnell said. Mr. Trump has the authority “to negotiate better deals, as I think he would put it,” Mr. McConnell added, but that prospect is unlikely given the difficulty of renegotiating a pact at least seven years in the making among a dozen countries. One of the agreement’s strongest and best-placed Republican advocates, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, echoed the Senate leader. “This important agreement is not ready to be considered during the lame duck and will remain on hold until President Trump decides the path forward,” he said. Pence and Pelosi chat. The office of Representative Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Mr. Pence had reached out on a phone call, and she congratulated him on his win. They agreed to meet in the coming weeks to talk more. Ms. Pelosi, the Democratic leader from California, is acquainted with Mr. Pence from his days in the House, where he was something of a rebel before joining the Republican leadership. Image Rudolph W. Giuliani with New York City police officers outside Trump Tower on Election Day. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times Lock her up? Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, expressed interest on Thursday morning in being attorney general, telling CNN, “I certainly have the energy, and there’s probably nobody who knows the Justice Department better than me.” The next question: Would he actually make good on Mr. Trump’s promise to put Hillary Clinton in jail? Ms. Conway, the Trump campaign manager, left the door open on Wednesday. So did Mr. Giuliani on Fox News when he said Mr. Obama should not pardon Mrs. Clinton for allegedly mishandling classified information on a private server as secretary of state. “I don’t like to see America become a country in which we prosecute people, you know, about politics,” he said. “On the other hand, there are deep and disturbing issues there in which if you don’t investigate them — ” The Fox News hosts finished the sentence: “They’re going to continue.” Legal analysts say that a Trump attorney general would wield the power to open a new investigation, even with a special prosecutor. But he could not guarantee the outcome. Of course, maybe Mr. Giuliani won’t be in the Trump administration. He told The Times’s Matt Apuzzo on Wednesday that he was “not interested in returning to government.” Instead, he and his friend Michael B. Mukasey, the former attorney general, would advise Mr. Trump on potential nominees. “Between us, we can locate a lot of really good people.”

Donald Trump
Republicans
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
2016 Presidential Election
Barack Obama
Timothy M Kaine


China Adds to Security Forces in Tibet Amid Calls for a Boycott

Abstract: BEIJING — Chinese officials have significantly increased security forces across Tibet in the face of a grass-roots movement to boycott festivities during the coming Tibetan New Year, according to residents of the region and recent visitors. The movement aims to use the holiday period to mourn Tibetans who were killed during the government crackdown last March and express concern for those arrested or tortured. The increased forces have been seen in at least four crucial areas of the vast Tibetan region: Lhasa, the capital; Xiahe, a town in Gansu Province that is home to a large and restive monastery; Tongren, a monastery town in Qinghai Province; and Lithang, a town in Sichuan Province that has been locked down this week. The problems in Lithang stemmed from a single person’s protest on Sunday, according to residents and the Free Tibet Campaign, an advocacy group in London. A monk, Lobsang Lhundup, 37, shouted slogans from a street corner supporting the Dalai Lama and calling for a New Year’s boycott, the group said. The next day, hundreds of Tibetans took to the streets to demand the monk’s release; riot police officers broke up the protest and arrested about 20 people. On Tuesday, the government ordered shops and hotels to shut down for three days, several residents said by telephone. A young woman, who asked not to be named for her safety, said, “Shops have all closed, and people do not dare to go out.” Local security officers declined to comment when asked about the episode over the telephone. The campaign for the boycott of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, has spread via text and e-mail messages and fliers. The holiday begins next Wednesday. Last March, Tibetans angry over China ’s policies in Tibet and the suppression of peaceful protests rioted in Lhasa , leading to widespread damage and the deaths of at least 18 civilians and one police officer, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Protests flared up in other regions, and exile groups said hundreds of Tibetans were killed in the ensuing crackdown. The call for a boycott began several months ago and has gained traction among younger Tibetans as well as intellectuals and dissidents. It has been endorsed by overseas Tibetans, including the government in exile in Dharamsala, India. “It’s deeply connected with Tibetan culture, the idea that after such a horrible year filled with death, how can we celebrate?” Woeser, a popular Tibetan blogger, said in an interview. “Instead, it should be a memorial.” The Chinese government is also fearful of unrest in the region next month, on the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s flight to exile in India after a failed rebellion against Chinese control, a date of great moment to Tibetans. The Dalai Lama, revered by many Tibetans, advocates greater autonomy for Tibet. But the Chinese government vilifies him as a “splittist,” and says he ruled over a feudal slave-holding society. In a move that antagonized many Tibetans this winter, the government declared March 28 to be Serf Emancipation Day. The issue of Tibet is already emerging as a delicate one between the Obama administration and Beijing. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is scheduled to visit China this week, said in a speech before the trip that Beijing should ensure religious freedom for Tibetans. Foreign reporters are not allowed to visit Lhasa and central Tibet unless invited by the Chinese government. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said last week that “the situation in Tibet is stable.” But a monk from Lhasa, reached by phone, said, “There are a lot of soldiers and People’s Armed Police in the streets,” referring to China’s main paramilitary force. Like almost all the people interviewed for this article, the monk agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals. The monk said he, like thousands of other monks, had not been allowed to return to his monastery after being imprisoned for several months last year after the March uprising. Many of the main monasteries are being emptied out, he said. There are only about 400 monks now in the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa, he said, a small fraction of the number before the uprising. The monks are still being forced to take “patriotic education” classes that have been going on in many monasteries since the March protests, he added. As a result, the monks study Chinese law rather than Buddhist scriptures and are told to denounce the Dalai Lama. Monks no longer in the monasteries are barred from wearing their robes in public, the monk said, and the police check on the monks at home, at times hauling some off to prison. The monk said Tibetan policemen came to his home three times a month. “They ask, ‘Where have you been?’ ” he said. “ ‘Have you been out? What are Tibetans talking about in the society? Have you met with friends who are in prison?’ ” The monk said many Tibetans in Lhasa were talking of joining the boycott. But he said that Chinese officials were urging the Tibetans to carry on with festivities and were even offering them money to do so. Farther east, in Gansu Province, the authorities have declared the town of Xiahe, the site of the Labrang Monastery, off limits to foreigners. Labrang is considered one of the greatest centers of learning in the Tibetan world, and it was a locus of protests last year. A local tourism official said the area around Labrang was closed to foreigners until late March. Two French television journalists who secretly stayed in the town two nights in early February said they had to sneak past two checkpoints. They said they saw soldiers, police officers and paramilitary troops everywhere. “There was an open plaza, and it was full of People’s Armed Police with black uniforms, helmets and shields,” said one, Charlotte Cailliez. “On the main street, there were police cars going back and forth.” To the west, in the town of Tongren, known to Tibetans as Rebkong, police and paramilitary forces were scarce during the day but came out in force at night, said a local Tibetan man. There, the call for a boycott on festivities not only pertains to Losar, but also included the recent Chinese New Year, which many Tibetans in Rebkong celebrated in past years. Normally, the town would convulse in singing, dancing and pyrotechnics during the two-week holiday. But this year, few Tibetans participated. Local officials handed out hundreds of dollars to people to buy fireworks, the man said. But the Tibetans practiced restraint. In the main temple compound, he said, worshipers lighted yak butter lamps, and “the mood was very, very quiet and solemn.”

China
Tibet
New Year
Dalai Lama
Demonstrations and Riots
Armament Defense and Military Forces


In Case of L’Oréal Heiress, a Private World of Wealth Becomes Public

Abstract: BORDEAUX, France — For five weeks, a French version of “Downton Abbey” has been unfolding in a courtroom here, providing a rare glimpse into the discreet lives of the ultrarich. The real-life drama, set in an Art Moderne mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an exclusive town west of Paris, features a cast that includes long-serving chambermaids, cooks and butlers who tended to one of the world’s richest women, whom they call “Madame.” There are also high-powered lawyers, advisers and confidants accused of exploiting her fading mental state to plunder cash, artworks, life insurance and a private Seychelles island. The woman, Liliane Bettencourt , the 92-year-old heir to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune, lives in the secluded mansion in the shadows of memory — too frail and deaf to attend the trial. But she has been very much front and center in the courtroom here in southwestern France , where both her lifestyle and her state of mind have been at the heart of the trial, as prosecutors and defense lawyers paint vastly different portraits of Madame. Was she an ailing widow exploited by sweet-talking predators and, as the prosecutor contends, manipulated “like a marionette”? Or was she a self-confident woman who did what she wanted in the spirit of a well-worn L’Oréal slogan: “Because I’m worth it”? The trial ended on Wednesday, and a panel of judges said it would announce its verdict on May 28. In many ways, the case, known to the French as the Bettencourt affair, is the universal story of any wealthy family with an elderly relative who vacillates between independence and vulnerability. But Forbes estimated Mrs. Bettencourt’s fortune at more than $40 billion, making her the second-wealthiest woman in the world. The prosecutors said her advanced age, the beginnings of dementia and a daily medical regimen of 56 pills, including antidepressants, also invited exploitation. And investigators contend that the schemes were so widespread that they included a political scandal involving a former finance minister seeking cash for the 2007 presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy. Image A trial that ended Wednesday shined a spotlight on Mrs. Bettencourt, the 92-year-old heir to the L’Oréal fortune. Credit Francois Durand/Getty Images Some of the house staff members risked their jobs to challenge her advisers and confidants, particularly a French society photographer who gained the largest share of her fortune. At one point, investigators estimated that share to be about a billion euros, or $1.13 billion, in gifts during 20 years of friendship ending in 2010. “Liliane wanted to do things for me, to ease my life,” testified the photographer, François-Marie Banier, 67, who is facing the highest penalty of the defendants, three years in prison. “I refused things like a mansion. But she took it so poorly. It’s really hard to cross that extraordinary woman.” On Wednesday, Mr. Banier’s lawyers mounted his final defense, arguing that Mrs. Bettencourt had made calculated choices and challenging the evaluation that she had been showing early signs of dementia when she lavished gifts. One lawyer, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, conceded that his client had an unusual personality, saying that he was “a crazy dog who doesn’t know how to stop, an immature child, but he is not a manipulator.” Also on trial are Mr. Banier’s longtime companion, Martin d’Orgeval, 41; Mrs. Bettencourt’s former wealth manager, Patrice de Maistre; and an 81-year-old notary, Jean-Michel Normand, who certified, with misgivings, Mrs. Bettencourt’s decision to make Mr. Banier her sole heir — cutting out her only child, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, before the document was revoked. The list also includes a lawyer, a businessman, the former manager of Mrs. Bettencourt’s private island and her onetime nurse, Alain Thurin. Mr. Thurin attempted suicide on the eve of the trial and is in a coma. The case has had so many twists that newspapers and radio stations have created short videos explaining the “Bettencourt affair for dummies.” Image Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, center, daughter of the L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, leaving a courthouse in Bordeaux, France, this month with her sons Nicolas, left, and Jean-Victor. Credit Mehdi Fedouach/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Investigators say they believe the amount of money taken from Mrs. Bettencourt totals more than €1 billion from a variety of schemes. A lawyer and a businessman are accused of preying on her for a €143 million investment in an online game, Everest Poker. Her wealth manager is trying to fend off charges that he persuaded her to give him €12 million, plus campaign cash for politicians. The affair dates back to 2007, when Mrs. Bettencourt-Meyers sued Mr. Banier, accusing him of exploiting her mother’s diminished mental health to lay claim to her money. Mrs. Bettencourt-Meyers, 61, has a front-row seat in the courtroom for a case that her lawyer described as “family combat to reclaim a mother and grandmother.” Mrs. Bettencourt-Meyers testified that Mr. Banier drove a wedge between her and her mother, who lives a short walk away from her in Neuilly-sur-Seine and has been monitored since 2011 by a guardian appointed after a court concluded that she had dementia and “moderately severe Alzheimer’s.” “The strategy of Mr. Banier was not just to divide and conquer,” Mrs. Bettencourt-Meyers said in somber tones. “It was to break and conquer. To break our family. It was programmed destruction.” Much of the testimony explored a period after 2007 in which Mrs. Bettencourt’s husband, André Bettencourt, died and Mr. Banier deepened his influence, eventually exchanging more than 2,000 faxed messages with her. His lawyers argue that her notes in response demonstrate her lucidity. Employees first noticed her changing demeanor after she fell in 2006 while on Majorca. Five court-appointed experts later concluded that she may have been overmedicated, because she was taking drugs prescribed by more than 15 doctors. After a surprise visit to the Bettencourt mansion in 2011, they described a disoriented woman who did not know her own age. Mrs. Bettencourt’s grandson Jean-Victor Meyers testified about visiting her in 2008, as the tension between mother and daughter about Mr. Banier intensified. “Your mother is attacking me because I gave a million to François-Marie,” he recalled Mrs. Bettencourt saying. Told it was actually €1 billion, she replied, “Are you sure?” Image At one point, Mrs. Bettencourt made the photographer François-Marie Banier, her sole heir, cutting her only daughter, Mrs. Bettencourt-Meyers, from her will. Credit Jean-Pierre Muller/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A chamber maid, Dominique Gaspard, testified about Mr. Banier’s increasing control, saying he would choose Mrs. Bettencourt’s lipstick and clothing and monitor her appointments. Listening from a bathroom, the maid said, she overheard Mr. Banier suggest that Mrs. Bettencourt adopt him, a claim he has vehemently denied. The maid, an employee of 18 years, was fired after she raised alarms. When one of the judges questioned Mr. Banier about a €262 million life insurance policy signed over to him in a shaky signature with one “t” missing from Mrs. Bettencourt’s name, he said she had been in a terrible mood and had wanted to do it quickly. “Who is the victim of the other?” he asked. “Before this affair, I lived well with my three apartments and a house in the country.” When questioned about former employees who described him as a dominating manipulator, Mr. Banier brushed off the criticism with literary references to Molière and a 1947 play by Jean Genet about maids plotting against their rich employer. “These are people who take revenge for a life they don’t have,” he said. The judicial tribunal also listened to secret recordings made by a butler who distrusted Mrs. Bettencourt’s entourage. The final recording played in the courtroom offered cringe-inducing details of a discussion between Mr. Banier and Mrs. Bettencourt’s wealth adviser about the finances for a private island in the Seychelles that she had ceded to a shell foundation benefiting Mr. Banier. Though Mrs. Bettencourt was present during the conversation, she said virtually nothing. Last week, the prosecutor recommended that charges be dropped against five of the 10 defendants, including the former finance minister, Éric Woerth, because of insufficient evidence. But he demanded the maximum sentence for Mr. Banier, including the prison term, a €375,000 fine — about $425,000 — and the potential seizure of some of his properties in Paris and Morocco. In the waning days of the trial, Arnaud Dupin, Mrs. Bettencourt’s lawyer, expressed gratitude to the mansion employees. He slowly read aloud the names of those fired when Mr. Banier was still a confidant. “For Mr. Banier, they were the petit personnel,” Mr. Dupin said. But for the sake of Mrs. Bettencourt, he said, they showed courage and were “the principal adversaries who could no longer tolerate abuse.”

France
Liliane Bettencourt
L'Oreal SA
Fraud
Francois-Marie Banier
Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers


Ohio: Disgraced Ex-Congressman Back on Ballot

Abstract: James A. Traficant , a former Democratic congressman who served time in federal prison for corruption, has won a place on the Nov. 2 ballot to again run for a House seat, this time as an independent. The Trumbull County Board of Elections ruled Wednesday that he qualified for the ballot in northeast Ohio’s 17th District with 2,154 valid petition signatures, 11 more than required. Mr. Traficant represented the Youngstown area for nearly two decades before his 2002 conviction.

Elections
Traficant James A Jr
United States Politics and Government


Getting People Tricked Out for Halloween

Abstract: Kodi Hadrick, 25, is the manager — or “boss lady,” as her business card has it — at Abracadabra NYC on West 21st Street, a three-level emporium of costumes, for sale or rent, makeup, wigs, magic supplies, props and other paraphernalia essential to the season. This time of year, it is less a job than a way of life; as Halloween approaches, the store is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. She lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn — “In real estate they call it Clinton Hill, but it’s really Bed-Stuy,” she said — with her boyfriend, Scott Bredengerd, 31, who works in film production, and their dog, Rocko, a pug-boxer mix. DOUGHNUT TIME I try to get up early so I can have breakfast with my boyfriend. Our dog wakes us up, so it’s kind of hard to sleep in on Sundays. We’re up probably around 8, 8:30. By breakfast I mean a doughnut at Dough . They have the best doughnuts. Like, it’s the best thing ever. I don’t even like doughnuts and I live for these things. My favorite is lemon poppy. COFFEE? Sometimes. I’m a Dunkin’ girl, Dunkin’ Donuts. Image Credit Evan Sung for The New York Times DOG OUT, DOG IN We take him out, then we put him in. He’s not very good with other dogs, and he’s not a very good walker. That’s the first thing we do. OFF TO WORK I take the C to the F. I try to get in to the store early, just to unwind, have a couple minutes to myself and figure out how the day is going to go, sometimes pick out a costume that we’re going to wear during the season. DRESSING UP We try to dress up on the weekends, or whenever we want, even during the regular season. Wig Wednesdays, Tattoo Tuesdays, stuff like that. SHOWGIRL ... Last year I put together a showgirl costume, a lot of people loved that one: an elaborate headpiece that I wore, I had a corset, it was all bedazzled and bright; it had boas coming off the back. ... OR MICKEY Every year I try to do a Disney character at least one day. Last year I did Mickey Mouse and my hair was two big buns for my ears, so that was kind of funny. Image Credit Evan Sung for The New York Times FLOATING I love to be in the middle of everything with the customers, so I’m always floating around. I’ll try to — I’m very huge on lead by example, so if I’m out there engaging with customers, I expect my staff to engage with customers. THE CROWD We definitely get the crazy New Yorkers, so that’s always fun. We get everybody, we get kids, we get celebrities, we get every genre of people. We just had Shaq in the store. He was buying some magic. He was humongous. He’s the biggest man ever. He was really fun. He had a blast, I think, with our magician. NO LUNCH Mostly on Sundays I don’t take a break. If I do I’ll take a quick break while eating a Pop-Tart at my desk. THIS YEAR’S LOOKS We’ve had a lot of people come in for “Breaking Bad,” and Egyptian’s also really popular lately — pharaohs and Cleopatras. MINIMAL COSTUMES Now that we do body painting, that’s even an option. We do that downstairs, so they’re not in the middle of everything. Just pasties and panties, and we paint the costume. Image Credit Evan Sung for The New York Times HOME AGAIN I get out of the store, try to get home, cook a dinner or at least have a nice dinner. That used to be huge for me when I lived with my parents. It’s much harder. You definitely have to make time. FAVORITE MEAL I want a steak, I want a potato and a vegetable. And a glass of wine. WORK ON THE BRAIN Especially during the season I’m constantly thinking of the store: I forgot to do that, I forgot to tell this person that. My whole year revolves around Halloween, so it’s really hard to shut down from it. SHOWS ONLINE I don’t have cable. I do have shows that I watch, so it’s online. “Dexter” or something, “Breaking Bad.” BEDTIME I go to bed around 12:30 or 1. I would love to be in bed around 11. But that’s a little unheard-of lately. HALLOWEEN PLANS? By the time I get out of the store on Halloween, it’s usually midnight, and in my head I’m, like, 50 years old. I try to get some rest, because we have to do it again the next day, especially since Halloween’s on a Thursday this year. We still have people booking appointments through Nov. 1, Nov. 2.

Abracadabra NYC Manhattan NY Retail Store


Four Orioles Combine to Shut Out Blue Jays

Abstract: Joe Saunders and three relievers combined on a three-hitter, and the charging Baltimore Orioles beat the host Toronto Blue Jays , 4-0, on Monday to pull to within one game of the Yankees in the American League East. The Orioles won for the eighth time in 10 games. Acquired last week from Arizona, Saunders (1-1) retired the first 17 batters before Adeiny Hechavarria lined a two-out single in the sixth. Saunders said he started thinking of a no-hitter early. “I was like: ‘Ooh, nice. I didn’t give up a hit in the first,’ ” he said. RANGERS 8, ROYALS 4 Yu Darvish (14-9) retired the first 17 batters, and Texas hit five home runs while winning at Kansas City. WHITE SOX 4, TWINS 2 Hector Santiago won in his first major league start for host Chicago, which moved a game ahead of Detroit in the A.L. Central. INDIANS 3, TIGERS 2 Asdrubal Cabrera’s tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the seventh inning lifted visiting Cleveland. ANGELS 8, A’S 3 Chris Iannetta homered as the Angels ended host Oakland’s season-best nine-game winning streak. MARINERS 4, RED SOX 1 Jason Vargas pitched seven solid innings for host Seattle, and Boston lost its season-worst seventh straight. BRAVES 6, ROCKIES 1 Kris Medlen struck out a career-high 12 hitters as Atlanta won at home. Medlen (7-1) extended his streak of scoreless innings to 342/3 — the Braves’ longest since a Greg Maddux streak in 2000 — before the Rockies scored an unearned run in the seventh. GIANTS 9, DIAMONDBACKS 8 Marco Scutaro hit a run-scoring single in the 10th after Buster Posey’s double tied the score in the bottom of the ninth as San Francisco rallied to win at home. J. J. Putz blew his second straight save. DODGERS 4, PADRES 3 A. J. Ellis singled in the winning run in the 11th, giving Los Angeles a victory at home in its last at-bat for the second straight game. Andre Ethier, whose two-out single started the rally, tied the score with a homer in the ninth. PHILLIES 4, REDS 2 Jimmy Rollins hit a three-run homer off Johnny Cueto during a cloudburst as host Philadelphia prevented Cueto (17-7) from becoming the major leagues’ first 18-game winner. NATIONALS 2, CUBS 1 Ross Detwiler pitched seven shutout innings for host Washington. ASTROS 5, PIRATES 1 Brett Wallace had three hits, including a three-run homer, to lift visiting Houston. Pittsburgh, which is trying to stay in the N.L. wild-card race, lost its fourth straight. MARLINS 7, BREWERS 3 Jose Reyes drove in three runs as host Miami ended a four-game losing streak.

Baltimore Orioles
Toronto Blue Jays
Baseball


A Movement and a Market Converge at a Bank

Abstract: FOR 14 years, Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco has been making award-winning organic cheeses and growing — to more than $8 million in sales last year. Yet no bank had ever actively sought its business until New Resource Bank came calling. “A bank has never been excited about us,” said Sue Conley, a co-founder of the creamery, which is based in Petaluma, Calif. “Banks just haven’t understood what we’re doing or how it might be successful. We were really taken aback when New Resource said they’d like to work with us.” New Resource opened in San Francisco in 2006 with the theory that helping green businesses like Cowgirl Creamery would be good for its own bottom line. Peter Liu, the founder of New Resource, had worked as a vice president at Credit Suisse First Boston and at Chase Manhattan Bank, but he was also an environmentalist who saw sustainability as a long-term trend. “Green is going to evolve from a social movement to a market opportunity,” Mr. Liu said. “There will be real opportunities for new businesses, new technologies, new products and new services that are demanded by consumers.” Mr. Liu also wanted to hark back to the days of community banking, when a small-town banker could offer high-touch service. With New Resource, that community is the world of solar entrepreneurs, organic farmers and green technology start-ups in Silicon Valley. New Resource, which operates like other federally insured banks, offers customers financial incentives for green building projects. It has also created loans for homeowners that enable them to install solar systems with no money down. New Resource is not only financing a $1.2 million solar project for Veritable Vegetable, a mostly organic produce distributor in San Francisco, but also connected the company with another client, Borrego Solar Systems, which will install the panels on its facility. “We’re a customer of New Resource because we know New Resource is specializing in companies that are environmentally committed,” said Bu Nygrens, an owner of Veritable Vegetable. “We feel like for the first time in our 34-year history, we actually have a personal relationship with the people we’re banking with.” Veritable Vegetable not only abandoned Bank of America after 32 years to put its money in New Resource, but it also became an investor in the bank. So many people wanted to invest in it that the bank gave some money back to investors. “We just wanted to be disciplined in our growth and not overdilute our valuation,” Mr. Liu said. In its first 17 months in business, New Resource has amassed more than $180 million in assets. New Resource has its own green credentials: its offices in San Francisco have a “gold” rating in the Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system. Born in Taiwan, Mr. Liu immigrated to Los Angeles with his family when he was 12 and eventually earned a degree in chemical engineering and material science from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked at the Chevron Corporation, designing production units for refineries. At Chevron, he had his environmental awakening. He wound up at the California Air Resources Board, helping establish rules and watching his former industrial colleagues squawk. “Having been on both sides, I learned that when you set a standard, companies figure out how to reach it,” he said. He decided to re-enter the business world and enrolled in the public policy program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. He then went into international banking during his stints at Chase and Credit Suisse . He moved back to California and wound up at Environmental Entrepreneurs, a business network. He worked with Bob Epstein, a co-founder of that group who had also started the database company Sybase and other technology businesses, and the two hatched the idea for a green bank. “What’s the banking relationship that green businesses are looking for?” Mr. Epstein asked. “We did a lot of research and found that that was an unmet demand.” So when Cowgirl Creamery was ready to borrow money from Bank of America to build a cheese-making operation to increase production and improve quality, New Resource matched the offer with an 8 percent loan for $1.3 million. “We’re not here just to fulfill a social mission,” Mr. Liu said. “We’re here to build a great business.”

Chase Manhattan Bank
Finances
Environment
Credit Suisse First Boston Corp
Bank of America Corp
Credit Suisse Group
Silicon Valley (Calif)


N.T.S.B. Endorses Lower Legal Alcohol Limit for Drivers

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Thousands of people are killed or injured every year by drivers who have not reached the legal standard for being drunk but who have a reduced ability to see, make decisions or operate a vehicle, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday, and it recommended that the states reduce the allowable blood-alcohol concentration by more than a third, to 0.05 percent from 0.08 percent. The current standard was established a decade ago at the instigation of Congress, and progress has stalled, the board said, with about 10,000 fatalities a year. “There are at least 10,000 reasons to tackle this issue,” said Deborah A. P. Hersman, the chairwoman of the board. Foreign countries with stricter standards have had substantially more success, according to the board. The board voted for a variety of recommendations . Some, like requiring that everyone convicted of drunken driving be required to install a Breathalyzer interlock in their car, which would prevent the vehicle from starting without an alcohol test, were focused on heavy drinkers and repeat offenders. Officials said they hoped that a stricter standard would reduce drinking and driving both among social drinkers and among heavy drinkers. Blood-alcohol concentration varies by body weight, gender, stomach contents and other factors, but generally speaking, a 180-pound man could consume four beers or glasses of wine in 90 minutes without reaching the current limit. At a limit of 0.05 percent, he could legally consume only three. A 130-pound woman could probably consume three drinks in 90 minutes and be legal under the existing standard; if the limit were lowered, she could consume only two. The blood-alcohol recommendation faces opposition. Sarah Longwell, the managing director at the American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade association, called the idea “ludicrous.” “Moving from 0.08 to 0.05 would criminalize perfectly responsible behavior,” she said. And “further restriction of moderate consumption of alcohol by responsible adults prior to driving does nothing to stop hard-core drunk drivers from getting behind the wheel.” The board is already on record favoring research on built-in alcohol detectors , which could measure blood-alcohol content through a driver’s palms on the steering wheel or some other unobtrusive way. Those could be available as an option on new cars or could be universally required. Either would affect drinkers who have never been caught driving, who make up more than 90 percent of those involved in fatal alcohol-related crashes. People with a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 percent are 38 percent more likely to be involved in a crash than those who have not been drinking, according to government statistics. People with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent are 169 percent more likely. The standard in most of the industrialized world is 0.05 percent. All 50 states and the District of Columbia switched to 0.08 percent after President Bill Clinton signed a law in 2000 that withheld highway construction money from states that did not agree to that standard. “These tragedies affect both sides,” said Robert J. Sumwalt, one of the board members. He said his wife’s first cousin was killed by a drunken driver who was traveling down a highway in the wrong direction. And his own cousin, he said, goes on Sundays to visit her 21-year-old daughter who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for drunken driving. Progress is mostly a matter of political will, board members said. About 30 percent of all vehicle fatalities are tied to drunken driving, down from 50 percent when President Ronald Reagan raised the issue 30 years ago. The number of deaths is down to about 10,000 a year from about 21,000 over the same period. Highway deaths are decreasing over all because of better-designed cars, seat belt use and better highways. The board has the support of other safety advocates, but not Mothers Against Drunk Driving. That group said it favored many parts of the board’s agenda, including the mandatory installation of the Breathalyzer interlock for anyone convicted of driving drunk, research on the passive alcohol sensors and “administrative license revocation,” which gives police officers on the highway the authority to seize a driver’s license at the time of an arrest. Those show strong potential for reducing the death toll, said J. T. Griffin, a Washington representative of the group. The discussion of changing the definition of drunk, Mr. Griffin said, was the safety board’s “trying to focus on a group of people who are more social drinkers, who haven’t been targeted in a while.” MADD would not oppose the change, he said, but would pursue other remedies.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving
NTSB
Driving Under the Influence DUI
Sobriety Tests
US states