For Olympic Weight Lifters, It’s More Than Snatch, Grunt, Drop

Abstract: LONDON — It may be the cruelest moment of the Summer Olympics, the check-your-watch-and-you-missed-it span of time that weight lifters are required to hold the barbell above their heads. Athletes do not have a successful lift until they prove to the judges that they have control of the weight. It sure looks like an ordeal. Competitors puff, wheeze, hold their breath and occasionally scream. Limbs tremble, veins bulge. You know the way a face contorts from excessive gravitational forces? There is a lot of that. What is invisible are the thoughts that race through the athletes’ heads during this brief and excruciating purgatory. Does it seem brief? For that matter, is it excruciating? “When the weight is above my head, I think about my mother,” said Iulia Paratova of Ukraine in a postevent interview Sunday. “I don’t know why that happens. But I always think about my mother.” Other athletes pray. Some focus on technique. Many say their minds go absolutely blank. “I don’t hear a thing,” said Aleksandra J. Klejnowska-Krzywanska of Poland. “I don’t hear the crowd. I can’t even hear my coach. But as soon as I’m done and the weight hits the floor, there is an eruption of noise. Then I hear it all.” The interior life of a weight lifter is just one element of intrigue at this surprisingly engrossing event, which, initially at least, does not sound all that engrossing. The sport is so elemental that it is one of the few at the Olympics that Paleolithic man would grasp instantly. Weight heavy. Lift. Drop. Bye. The rules are actually a little more involved. There are two different skills in both the men’s and women’s competitions. First is the snatch, in which the bar is lifted overhead in one continuous action. Next is the clean and jerk, in which the bar is first hoisted to the top of the chest, then pressed overhead. Athletes get three attempts in both skills. Their heaviest snatch and heaviest clean and jerk are combined, and the person with the biggest number — measured in kilograms, of course — wins. If there is a tie, it goes to the lifter who weighs less. This may sound complicated, but organizers have given the event a 21st-century makeover and easy-to-follow framework, inspired by reality TV. When an athlete approaches the barbell, background music fills the hall here at the Excel Centre, with tension-filled sounds that seem stolen from boardroom scenes in “The Apprentice.” It is that familiar heartbeat ba-boom over a low synthesized rumble. This is a showdown, the music says. Don’t touch that dial. There are elements of “Survivor” as well, including a camera-ready host who appears on a series of large video screens and warms up the crowd before the action begins and during a 10-minute intermission. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for a very exciting snatch,” he said, with innocent sincerity, during halftime Sunday. The athletes in this version of “Survivor” are their own tribes, and each faces the same foe: ring after ring of weights. The competitors approach the foe in their own way. Sergio Alvarez Boulet of Cuba puts his hands around the bar and screams at it a couple of times. Yuderqui Contreras of the Dominican Republic grabs the bar and gently nods her head over it, as though she were double-checking the terms of a deal she and the weights negotiated a few days earlier. The drama starts before the athlete even gets on stage. Each has one minute to attempt a lift, and after 30 seconds, a horn blasts. It is loud and long enough that if you heard it while driving it would come across as “Move along, pal.” Some attempts are over nanoseconds after they begin, as though the athlete got the barbell an inch off the ground and thought, Oh, you’ve got to be kidding. If competitors fail three times in either skill, their Olympics are over. An unseen narrator with a refined British accent helpfully details the stakes, sometimes by providing biographical information; “Before she became a weight lifter, she was a circus performer.” Often there are exhortations to the crowd to chip in with cheers; “O.K., ladies and gentlemen, let’s wind her up so she can make this.” The applause and supportive screams for an athlete on the verge of elimination can reach jet-engine volumes. That is followed, in the buildup to the actual attempt, by dead silence, which is pierced occasionally by less than helpful advice. “Lift it!” one man screamed Sunday. But onlookers can only do so much. More than a few athletes end up flat on their backs, or hunched over on their knees, or skulking away in defeat. Sorry, Ruslan Makarov of Uzbekistan, Khalil El Maoui of Tunisia and Bezkat Osmonaliev of Kazakhstan: the barbell has spoken. We need you to pack your bags and leave the competition. After the event, the athletes are corralled into an area where members of the news media can conduct interviews. The weight lifting competitions, which go on for days, start with the lightest athletes. Up close, men in the 56-kilogram category — about 123 pounds — look like bionic jockeys. They regard the barbell, many say, as a lethal enemy. “I think of it as a snake,” said José Lino Montes Gongora of Mexico. “I feel like I need to keep it over my head or it will bite me. That’s why I take a big breath before I get near it. I’m puffing up with air to keep this snake away.” Yuliya Kalina of Ukraine, the bronze medalist in the women’s 58-kilogram category, makes no secret of what she is thinking as she awaits the light and buzzer that says her lift will count. She screams two words. “ ‘Hold!’ and then ‘Stay!’ ” she explained through an interpreter Monday. If it holds and stays, she walks away from the barbell and gives it a withering look that is understandable in any language: “Is that all you’ve got?” Jackelina Heredia Cuesta of Colombia is the only competitor who smiles when she has the weight where she wants it. And the smile is not subtle. She is beaming. “I can’t cry,” she said with a shrug, “so I smile.” Is there also part of her trying to psyche out her opponents, to let them know that she is not merely in control, she is actually having a good time? “Sí,” she said with a laugh. The gold medalist Om Yun Chol of North Korea came by the media room after setting a world record Monday in the men’s 56-kilogram competition by clearing 168 kilograms, about 370 pounds, in the clean and jerk. That put him in the tiny club of athletes who have lifted three times their own body weight. He was mobbed by members of the Asian media and then was hurried by British organizers into a more formal news conference. Before he was whisked away, he was asked what goes through his mind when he locks elbows triumphantly under the weights. Om thought for a moment, then put down the victory bouquet of flowers he was holding, so he could demonstrate. He shot both hands over his head and grinned. “I think to myself,” said Om, who weighs about 122 pounds and stands just under 5 feet tall, “I have lifted the world!”


Prosecutor Overseeing Turkish Graft Inquiry Is Removed From Case

Abstract: ISTANBUL — An Istanbul prosecutor who had been overseeing a sprawling corruption investigation of the prime minister’s inner circle was removed from the case on Thursday, in a new sign of a profound power struggle over Turkey’s judiciary and police forces. The prosecutor, Muammer Akkas, issued a condemnation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, accusing it of interfering with the judiciary and preventing him from carrying out his work. Mr. Akkas said that the government had prevented the police forces from pursuing a new round of suspects in the widening inquiry. Among those suspects, according to several Turkish news media reports, is Mr. Erdogan’s son, whose name was on a summons that was leaked to the press on Thursday evening. “The judiciary has clearly been pressured,” Mr. Akkas said in a written statement, charging his superiors with “committing a crime” for not carrying out arrest warrants, and saying that suspects had been allowed to “take precautions, flee and tamper with evidence.” On Friday, a top Turkish court suspended an attempt by the government to funnel all corruption investigations through top police and judicial officials, The Associated Press reported. The High Administrative Court said it would suspend the rule while allowing more deliberations on the issue, a week after Turkey’s bar association petitioned the court for its cancellation, according to The A.P. Separately, three members of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials A.K.P., resigned from the party, bring the total to six in the past week and indicating more dissension in its ranks. The military said in a statement on its website that it would not get involved in a political dispute, a declaration that seemed to be an affirmation of Mr. Erdogan’s success over the years in banishing the military from politics. This is just the sort of crisis that would likely have already triggered the intervention of the military in the past, experts said. In a sense, the conflict amounts to a test of Turkey’s ability to move through a massive political crisis without the military standing by as a guarantor of stability. The prosecutor’s removal from the case came a day after the resignations of three ministers whose sons had been implicated. One of them, the environment and urban planning minister, Erdogan Bayraktar, broke precedent by calling for the prime minister to resign, too. Soon afterward, Mr. Erdogan announced a broader overhaul of his cabinet. Though some of the moves had already been planned, so that certain ministers could run in mayoral elections in March, the shake-up was widely seen as an effort to install loyalists around him. The unfolding scandal has already done significant political damage to Mr. Erdogan, who has been in power for more than a decade and was widely considered a likely candidate in next summer’s presidential election, which for the first time will be determined by a national vote. Image Muammer Akkas Credit Osman Arslan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The corruption allegations are centered on claims of bribery involving vast real estate projects, many of them in Istanbul, that have become a hallmark of Mr. Erdogan’s time in power. No one has been convicted, but several people, including two sons of government ministers, have been arrested, and one of the departing ministers on Wednesday said that the prime minister himself had been involved in the real estate deals facing scrutiny. As the crisis has deepened, Mr. Erdogan has taken to suggesting that the inquiry is a foreign plot, and in remarks published on Thursday he said that he believed that he was the ultimate target of the investigation. Mr. Erdogan told the daily newspaper Hurriyet that those who tried to embroil him in the investigation would be “left empty-handed.” He made the comments to reporters on a plane as he returned from a visit to Pakistan on Tuesday. After the prosecutor, Mr. Akkas, went public with his allegations of judicial interference, Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, Turhan Colakkadi, made his own remarks, saying that Mr. Akkas had been removed because he had been leaking information to the news media. A higher judicial authority, the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, which appoints judges and prosecutors and also oversees disciplinary actions against them, supported Mr. Akkas. The council also condemned a recent government decree that requires prosecutors to receive permission for investigations from ministers, calling it a blatant attempt to rein in the inquiry. The organization said that the new decree “violates the Constitution, and those who govern the country are subject to the supervision of the judiciary.” The prosecutor’s removal on Thursday was the newest and most direct step yet in a government purge of police and judicial officials responsible for the inquiry. Many officials within Turkey’s police and judiciary are followers of Fethullah Gulen , an Islamic spiritual leader who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. Mr. Gulen and Mr. Erdogan represent competing Islamist traditions and once were partners in dismantling much of the structure of Turkey’s secular state, which ruled for decades with the military as the ultimate power. Now, the same police and judiciary that pursued the generals — and won, through a series of court cases that put many officers in prison — appear to be pursuing Mr. Erdogan’s government. The investigation became public last week with a series of raids , and subsequent leaks to the news media, and the government has already dismissed dozens of police chiefs and many other lower-level officers. Turkey’s opposition on Thursday accused Mr. Erdogan of trying to rule via a secretive “deep state,” following the cabinet reshuffle in which he moved to cement his control over the police by installing a key ally at the powerful Interior Ministry. Mr. Erdogan “is trying to put together a cabinet that will not show any opposition to him,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, said in remarks reported by the Turkish news media. “Erdogan has a deep state.” The term “deep state” has a sinister connotation in Turkey. It alludes to a murky group of operatives once thought to be linked to the military that many Turks believe carried out operations outside democratic structures.

Corruption
Turkey
Muammer Akkas
Recep Tayyip Erdogan


ISIS Followers in U.S. Are Diverse and Young

Abstract: WASHINGTON — American authorities this year have arrested nearly five dozen people in the United States for helping to support or plot with the Islamic State, according to a new study , the largest number of terrorism-related arrests in the country in a single year since September 2001. The Islamic State recruits defy any single profile, the study found, although they are younger than previous terrorism suspects, are drawn heavily from converts to Islam and reflect increasingly prominent roles for women in the terrorist organization. A demographic snapshot of the 71 individuals arrested on charges related to the Islamic State since March 2014, including 56 this year, emerged from a comprehensive review of social media accounts and legal documents of nearly 400 American sympathizers of the Islamic State conducted by researchers at George Washington University. The volume and diversity of those arrested underscore the growing challenge the F.B.I. and local law enforcement agencies face in trying to identify, monitor and, if necessary, apprehend suspects at a time when the Islamic State has sharply increased its appeal to Westerners through Twitter, Facebook and other social media. “The individuals range from hardened militants to teenage girls, petty criminals and college students,” said Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the university’s program on extremism, which conducted the study. “The diversity is staggering.” How ISIS Expanded Its Threat The Islamic State emerged from a group of militants in Iraq to take over large portions of Iraq and Syria, and now threatens other countries in Europe and elsewhere. The report, “ ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa,” was made public on Tuesday. Even before the recent attacks in Paris , at least three dozen people in the United States suspected of ties to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, were under heavy electronic or physical surveillance, according to American officials. Those under investigation typically have little terrorism expertise or support from a cell, making it even more difficult for the authorities to predict or detect who might carry out a strike. “For law enforcement, it’s extremely difficult to determine who makes a big leap from keyboard jihadist to doing something,” said Dr. Vidino, who has studied Islamism for 15 years. The people in the George Washington University study ranged from a 15-year-old boy to Tairod Pugh, who was formerly enlisted in the Air Force and was 47 at the time of his arrest. The average age of the American supporter of the Islamic State was 26, the report found, reflecting a pattern unfolding in other Western countries as social media attracts younger recruits. John P. Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, has said that of the terrorism-related arrests in the past 18 months, mostly involving the Islamic State, 80 percent of those arrested were younger than 30, and 40 percent were under 21. According to the study, about 14 percent of those arrested were women, and the vast majority were American citizens or permanent residents, emphasizing the threat the authorities are combating from homegrown recruits, compared with foreigners infiltrating the country. Some 40 percent of those arrested were converts to Islam, a larger representation among American supporters of the Islamic State than the 23 percent of American Muslims over all who are converts, according to the study. Slightly more than half of those arrested had tried to travel abroad, most likely to Iraq or Syria, or were arrested during their travels to conflict zones, the report said. At least seven Americans have died fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq or Syria. Where ISIS Has Directed and Inspired Attacks Around the World More than a dozen countries have had attacks since the Islamic State, or ISIS, began to pursue a global strategy in the summer of 2014. But American authorities have recently detected a trend that they believe shows the effect of the group’s new message to stay at home and carry out attacks there: There has been a significant drop in the number of Americans seeking to go to Syria and Iraq to join the group. Counterterrorism officials say that since July, an average of two Americans a month have tried to travel or successfully traveled to Islamic State territory, compared with nine a month over the previous year. More than half of those charged were arrested in an operation involving an informant or an undercover agent, the report said, a tactic that has caused tensions between the F.B.I. and some American Muslims. The story of a newlywed couple arrested in August in Mississippi as they began a trip to Syria to join the Islamic State illustrates several of these trends. The couple, Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 19, and Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, 22, were on their way to the airport in Columbus when they were arrested by F.B.I. agents after unwittingly making travel plans with undercover federal agents on social media that included discussing a trip to Syria via Greece and Turkey as a honeymoon ruse. That case was just one of about 900 open inquiries that the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said were related to the Islamic State. Most of them have not become wide-ranging investigations, because they were generated by tips that were not substantiated. According to law enforcement officials, the F.B.I. typically has about 10,000 open counterterrorism inquiries. The Islamic State’s use of social media to recruit followers has been widely reported, but Dr. Vidino said the study found that paths to radicalization were varied: Some responded to online propaganda; others sought meaning in like-minded groups that actually travel to Syria and Iraq. Much of the study’s research focused on the Twitter activities of about 300 individuals identified as American supporters of the Islamic State. Nearly a third of those accounts are said to be operated by women. The American Islamic State adherents who traveled to war zones posted real-time updates of their exploits, the report said, and at times scolded supporters of the group back home “for their lack of commitment to the cause.”

Terrorism
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Muslim Americans
Paris Attacks
FBI


Honda Expands Takata Airbag-Related Recalls

Abstract: Honda Motor is expanding a national recall of vehicles with Takata-made airbags to include more than 104,000 cars, including one model that had not been included in previous recalls for the defect. Takata airbags can deploy violently and send metal fragments at passengers. On Thursday, the automaker said it would recall certain 2008 Pilots, 2004 Civics and 2001 Accords. No 2008 Pilots had been recalled before for the defect. The company said in a regulatory filing that all of the vehicles had been identified on March 5 through a process of matching Takata airbag inflater part numbers to individual vehicle identification numbers, or VINs. Honda discovered that the more than 88,000 Pilots should have been included last year’s Takata-related recall, a limited regional action that was expanded nationally in December after pressure from federal regulators. Chris Martin, a Honda spokesman, said the company had no reason to believe that further expansions of the recall would be necessary. Mr. Martin said that about 6.2 million Honda and Acura vehicles in the United States had now been subject to safety campaigns related to airbag ruptures. He said that Honda had not been able to estimate the number of vehicles affected worldwide, but that about 14.3 million Takata airbag inflaters in Honda and Acura cars globally have been subject to recalls . More than 18 million vehicles with the faulty airbags, including cars produced by Honda, Chrysler, Ford and other major automakers, have been recalled in the United States, and at least six deaths worldwide have been linked to the defect. Last month, safety regulators began to fine Takata $14,000 a day for not fully cooperating with its investigation into the Japanese supplier’s hazardous airbags.

Honda
Takata
Recalls and Bans
Automobile safety


India: ‘Superbug’ Gene Found in Environment

Abstract: Bacteria containing an antibiotic -resistant “superbug” gene have been found in 2 of 51 tap water samples in New Delhi and in dozens of puddles and pools that children could play in, according to a report published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases . A team from Cardiff University in Britain found the gene, NDM-1, in 11 different types of bacteria, including those that cause cholera and dysentery. Bacteria with NDM-1 have caused fatal infections in people hospitalized in India , Pakistan and Bangladesh and in a few foreigners who visited those countries for surgery, but this is the first time they have been found in the environment. Their presence in water has not caused any known outbreaks of untreatable disease, but experts fear it could, especially in the rainy season.

India
Bacteria
Antibiotics
Food Contamination and Poisoning


Palestinian Detainees Suspend Their Mass Hunger Strike in Israel

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Scores of Palestinian detainees in Israel have suspended their mass hunger strike after more than two months without food, Israeli and Palestinian officials said on Wednesday, removing one source of friction in a volatile period since the recent kidnapping of three Israeli youths in the West Bank and a subsequent Israeli military crackdown. All 75 detainees who remained on the hunger strike as of Tuesday, and who are hospitalized, agreed to suspend their protest against Israel’s practice of administrative detention, in which suspects are held without charge or trial, without securing any change in that policy, according to representatives of both sides. Instead, representatives said, the detainees received commitments that they will not be punished or fined for taking part in the strike and that a dialogue on broader issues relating to administrative detention will continue between prisoner committee representatives, the Israeli prison authorities and security officials. The Palestinian Authority’s minister for prisoner affairs, Shawqi al-Aissa, and the nongovernmental Palestinian Prisoners Society announced the end of the hunger strike at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Sivan Weizman, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service, said the 75 would remain under supervision in the hospital, where they had been taking water and nonfood supplements, until they were fit enough to go back to prison. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel praised his minister for internal security and the prison authorities for their “determined” effort to end the strike. He added that Israel was introducing additional methods to deter future prisoner strikes — a reference to contentious draft legislation that would allow the courts to authorize force-feeding of hunger strikers in cases where their lives were deemed to be in danger. The Israeli Parliament is expected to vote on the bill next week. But Qadura Fares, the president of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, said in a telephone interview from Ramallah that the strike had ended through dialogue and that “neither side broke.” Israel feared that the death of a hunger striker would set off widespread unrest in the prisons and beyond. On the Palestinian side, Mr. Fares said, motivation for the strike had waned, despite widespread sympathy among the Palestinian population, because it was largely overtaken by other events. The strike, he said, had dropped from the headlines in the aftermath of the kidnapping of the Israeli teenagers. Mr. Fares added that the approach of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, scheduled to start this weekend, also contributed to the decision to end the strike. At the peak of the hunger strike in late May, more than 300 administrative detainees and convicted prisoners were participating. The suspension of the strike came as Israel began scaling back its military operation in the West Bank, an intensive campaign that Palestinians and human rights groups have denounced as collective punishment. Israel had set itself two goals: to find the missing youths and to weaken the West Bank infrastructure of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that Israel blames for the abduction. While the first has not yet been met, the second appears in large part to have exhausted itself. Since the June 12 kidnapping, 371 Palestinians have been arrested, 282 of them suspected of being Hamas operatives, according to the Israeli military. Among those detained are 57 former prisoners who were released in 2011 as part of an exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was held captive by Hamas in Gaza for five years. The military has searched nearly 2,000 locations and has acted against 64 institutions suspected of supporting Hamas, seizing equipment and funds. Movement around Hebron, where Israel has centered its search for the abducted teenagers, was restricted for about a week. The toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire during the campaign rose to five on Wednesday. A Palestinian man died at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, according to a hospital spokeswoman, six days after being shot in the head by Israeli troops during a clash in the Qalandiya refugee camp near Ramallah . The man, identified by Palestinian health officials as Mustafa Aslan, 22, was brought to Hadassah Hospital hours after he was shot early Friday morning, and had been in critical condition since. It was questionable how long Israel could maintain the pressure on the Palestinian population given the mounting tensions and the approach of Ramadan. Palestinian resistance to the Israeli forces has been on the rise, and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has come under growing domestic pressure because of his unpopular pledge to help find the abducted Israelis. Israel has come under increasing international scrutiny, and rocket fire from Gaza against southern Israel has risen, along with retaliatory airstrikes by Israel. Israeli officials have pledged to continue the intensive search for the teenagers, Eyal Yifrach, 19; Gilad Shaar, 16; and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, who also holds United States citizenship. But the restrictions on movement in the Hebron area have eased in recent days, and there has been a significant drop in the number of arrests. Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said on Tuesday that the easing was not the result of any political decision but that the military operation against Hamas’s infrastructure and support system had largely run its course.


There but for the Health Coverage Go I Out the Door

Abstract: MANY save for years, dreaming of early retirement. But there is often a catch: though the potential retirees may no longer need the salary, they cannot forgo the health insurance. These people are too young for Medicare, the federal program that typically provides coverage for those 65 and older. And as more employers eliminate retiree health benefits, early retirees are unlikely to have any sort of company-sponsored plan once they stop working. The result, say health policy experts and financial planners, is that many people who want to retire early may not be able to find health insurance they can afford — if they can find it at all. When Gene Matthews retired three years before he could qualify for Medicare, he assumed he would have no trouble buying an individual insurance policy. “I was really silly in my thinking,” said Mr. Matthews, who lives in Park City, Utah. He discovered he could not get private insurance because he had high blood pressure, even though he was active, playing golf and skiing, and taking the proper medication. He took advantage of a federal law that allowed him to continue the coverage he had with his former employer for 18 months. After returning to work for the same employer for a short period, he was then able to retire again and extend that coverage for another 18 months. In August, he turned 65 and happily enrolled in Medicare; he pays just $150 or so for his benefits, which include prescription drug coverage. His wife, Ann, who has worked part time at a local ski resort, is not so lucky — she still faces one year in which she will not have coverage and will still be too young for Medicare. Mr. Matthews said that his wife may simply work full time for the health benefits she needs. “The risk of not having health insurance is catastrophic,” Mr. Matthews said. But Mr. Matthews’s experience is hardly unique, said Bil Jeppson, a financial planner with Financial Strategies Institute in Midvale, Utah, where Mr. Matthews is a client. He estimates that about a third of the group’s clients face the same challenge: they have the financial means to retire but difficulty in finding health insurance. Some pay as much as $1,200 a month for a plan offered by the state for people who are unable to get coverage elsewhere. “We’re seeing this problem more and more,” said Mark Rylance, a financial planner with RS Crum in Newport Beach, Calif. Despite longstanding recognition of the lack of options for early retirees, there is little activity on the federal or state level to address the issue. The idea of allowing early retirees to buy Medicare coverage, for example, has been “a perennial” in policy discussions in Congress, but “it doesn’t go anywhere,” said David A. Osterndorf, a senior health consultant for Towers Perrin, which specializes in employee benefits and compensation. Congress is reluctant to come up with a national solution because most people who retire early are able to find insurance, said Paul Fronstin, a researcher at the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Recent counts put the number of uninsured retirees between the ages of 55 and 64 around 800,000. “Congress doesn’t perceive this as a problem because the numbers aren’t so big,” he said. And some policymakers are unwilling to consider expanding Medicare because it could represent a step toward government-run health insurance, said Richard W. Johnson, a health economist at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit policy research group. “You get that much closer to universal coverage,” he said. On the state level, legislative efforts have focused on addressing the insurance needs of active workers. Early retirees “tend to be a lost group and missed in this conversation,” Mr. Osterndorf said. Options and their availability depend on circumstances. If just a year or so short of 65 — and Medicare eligibility — the retiree can probably use company-sponsored coverage for at least 18 months under provisions of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, known as Cobra. While choosing to continue the coverage may not be cheap, it allows employees to pay the group rates available to their former employers rather than their trying to forage for an individual policy, experts say. Mr. Matthews, for example, paid roughly $600 a month for his coverage. Another option may be to buy coverage from a former employer even if that employer does not subsidize the cost of the plan. Intel, for example, is one of many large companies that allow its retirees to buy health insurance from the company, even when they have a pre-existing condition that would disqualify them in the individual market. Some 30 to 40 percent of the company’s retirees have enrolled in the program, said Steve Lensing, a benefits program manager for Intel. The company also contributes to an account, based on an employee’s years of service, that retirees can use when they leave Intel to lower the premiums they would otherwise pay. The cost of coverage varies, Mr. Lensing said, but tends to be around $9,000 a year for early retirees. Many early retirees are able to avail themselves of some insurance, relying on company-sponsored plans or policies available through a spouse’s employer. But a sizable number of retirees are left to their own devices, according to Mr. Johnson. Buying an individual policy can be easier in a few states, like New York, where insurers are required to offer community-rated coverage, grouping individuals into a “community” and charging the same rate for the entire group. “It means the premiums in these states tend to be higher, but you cannot be turned down,” said Nancy E. Frank, a financial planner in Manhattan who heads Frank Advisory Services. Depending on the plan, a resident of New York City may pay as little as $500 a month for coverage — or roughly twice that amount. Other states that rely on community-based pricing include Vermont and New Jersey, but most states allow insurers to set the rates for individual coverage, which can make policies for people at high risk for medical treatment either unaffordable or unavailable. Individuals may have other options, depending on where they live. Because Mr. Matthews’s former employer was based in California and used a California insurer, his wife has the option of converting the coverage she had through Cobra to an individual policy. Mr. Matthews also said that AARP, the group that represents the nation’s retirees, offers health insurance in some states for people older than 50. Mr. Matthew’s home state, Utah, so far is not among them. But even when the premiums are affordable, many people are disappointed in the benefits that are offered, said Thom K. Hall, a planner with Financial Strategies Institute. The coverage does not match that of their former employer, and they may have to switch doctors or pay more for care. For people who simply cannot get private insurance, many states offer programs that are intended to cover high-risk individuals. But those plans can be costly — priced at well over $1,000 a month — and may not offer much in benefits. “It’s a huge problem,” said Mr. Matthews, who said that many of his friends have found that they could not buy individual policies. The result is that many early retirees may have to consider finding work that offers them coverage. Some people can work out an arrangement with a former employer who will give them work as a consultant. Others might want to consider finding work with employers who offer coverage to part-time workers, like Starbucks Coffee, which gives benefits to those who work 20 hours or more a week. Financial planners and health policy experts agree that the options available to those under 65 who want to retire are few, with people paying much more of their retirement savings to health care than they had expected. “I don’t know any silver lining we’re missing,” said Mr. Rylance, the California planner, who said that many of his clients had simply not thought about health care when they started to discuss retiring early. “When it’s brought up, it does scare people,” he said. And, of course, some people decide not to retire after all. “A lot of people keep their jobs simply for the benefits,” said Ms. Frank, the New York planner. While they may flirt with the idea of retiring, they may stop thinking about it once they realize just how much it costs. “People who have worked in a corporation all their life have no idea what health insurance costs,” she said.

Retirement
Medicare
Health Insurance and Managed Care


Checking the Graphics Card Specifications on Your Computer

Abstract: Q. I have no idea what kind of graphics card my computer has inside, or the amount of memory it has. Is there a quick way to find out? A. On a Windows 10 computer, one way to find out is by right-clicking on the desktop area and choosing Display Settings. In the Display Settings box, select Advanced Display Settings and then choose the Display Adapter properties option. On the Adapter tab in the box, you should see the brand of the graphics card and its memory amount listed. You can also get to the same Properties box from the Windows 10 Start menu — select Settings, then System to get to Advanced Display Settings, and then Display Adapter Properties. On a Windows 7 system , right-click on the desktop area and choose Screen Resolution. Click the Advanced Settings link and click the Adapter tab to see the type of graphics card is installed. (Going through the Control Panel to the Appearance and Personalization settings also starts you on the path to the display adapter box.) Some graphics cards may also have their own control panel that can be reached by right-clicking on the computer’s desktop; look for a Graphics Properties option to see specific settings and information about the card. You can quickly see more general information about your PC — like the amount of memory it has installed, the processor speed and the version of Windows it is running — by pressing the Windows key and the Pause/Break key to call up the System control panel. On a Mac that’s running a fairly recent version of OS X, click the Apple Menu icon in the upper left corner of the screen and choose About This Mac. The Overview tab lists the computer’s basic hardware information — like the amount of memory installed, the type of processor and the graphics card specifications. For more details, click the System Report button, and on the next screen, under Hardware, click Graphics/Displays. Apple makes its own hardware, so it has more control over the types of cards in its Macs, and you can read more about the integrated graphics cards it uses on its Intel-based Macs on Apple’s support site.


More Doctors Turning to the Business of Beauty

Abstract: In her three years as an obstetrician and gynecologist in Brooklyn, Dr. Ngozi Nwankpa-Keshinro delivered several hundred babies, conducted several thousand pelvic exams and diagnosed everything from infections to infertility . But this year, with a little additional training, she has entered a new field: cosmetic medicine. As one of the owners of a medical spa in Brooklyn that opened in January, she has given dozens of clients Botox injections to relax their wrinkles and Restylane injections to fill out their smile lines and plump their lips. “The two fields are as alike as an apple and an orange,” Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro said. “One can be lifesaving, while the other is not. But when you clear up someone’s acne or facial hair, they are as grateful as if you delivered their baby.” Cosmetic medicine also provides a more relaxing lifestyle, she said. “And it’s very satisfying.” Five years ago, cosmetic medicine was primarily the domain of plastic surgeons, facial surgeons and dermatologists — medical school graduates who undergo several years of training in facial skin and its underlying anatomy. But now obstetricians, family practitioners and emergency room physicians are gravitating to the beauty business, lured by lucrative cosmetic treatments that require same-day payments because they are not covered by insurance and by a medical practice without bothersome midnight emergency calls. Dermacare Laser and Skin Care Clinics, for example, is one of the nation’s largest medical-spa chains. It has 28 franchises run by 32 doctors, including 6 internists, 7 family physicians, 3 emergency room doctors, 2 urologists, 3 naturopaths, a chiropractor, an ophthalmologist and a psychiatrist, according to the company’s Web site, dermacareusa.com . There is also one dermatologist, a facial surgeon and another doctor whose specialty is not listed. And there are five obstetrician-gynecologists, including Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro and Dr. Oyenike E. Kilanko, her business partner, whose Brooklyn spa is a Dermacare franchise. Dermatologists and plastic surgeons refer to their new colleagues as “out of scope” or “noncore” physicians, and they strongly object to the intrusion, insisting that cosmetic medicine requires lengthy training. But the dispute also has all the elements of a turf war, with specialists reluctant to cede ground in a field in which Americans spend an estimated $12 billion a year. “Dentists are doing Botox, and urologists are doing hair transplants and vein removal,” said Dr. Ellen Gendler, a dermatologist in Manhattan who is a clinical associate professor at New York University School of Medicine. “Everyone wants to be a plasticologist.” For their part, some doctors from other fields contend that the latest cosmetic procedures, like facial injections and vein removal, are far less complicated and risky than Caesarean sections or appendectomies and that the fundamentals can be learned in continuing-education classes. “We are all doctors with the same primary training whose education continues after medical school by learning new techniques,” Dr. Kilanko said. “I know core physicians don’t want noncore physicians like me in it, but dermatologists and plastic surgeons can’t own aesthetic medicine by themselves.” In the United States, all doctors with state medical licenses are allowed to administer all kinds of treatments, regardless of their training. But after residencies in specialties like ophthalmology or anesthesiology, doctors have not commonly set up shop in fields far outside their expertise, administrators at medical associations say. That has been changing. Insurers and medical groups do not track what kinds of doctors perform cosmetic medical procedures. But specialists and pharmaceutical companies who make cosmetic medical products agree that more and more doctors from other fields are joining in, with some incorporating beauty treatments into their practices, and others opening medical spas. MedSurge Advances, a Dallas company that trains doctors in beauty procedures and sells them devices like lasers, said that in the last four years, it had helped more than 300 doctors, including emergency room physicians, internists and gynecologists, to go into cosmetic medicine. The American Academy of Family Physicians, a national group that represents 94,000 family practitioners and medical students, has started offering courses for its members on how to use Botox, facial fillers, lasers and chemical peels. Dr. Larry S. Fields, the group’s chairman, who is a family physician in Ashland, Ky., said that such “cash-upfront treatments help family doctors stay in business at a time when Medicare is cutting reimbursements.” Some see a danger in the trend, especially as nonspecialists move into more-invasive cosmetic procedures like breast augmentation and liposuction . “You can’t assume that everyone with a pilot’s license can fly a 747 as well as a Piper Cub,” said Dr. Stephen H. Miller, president of the American Board of Medical Specialties, an umbrella organization for the examining boards that certify doctors after their residencies. Dr. Miller said certification confirmed a doctor’s ability to deliver quality care in a specialty. “When you use a generic medical license to practice other forms of medicine,” he said, “there is an inherent danger to patient safety.” Dr. Mark L. Jewell, a plastic surgeon in Eugene, Ore., who is a past president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, said the advent of physicians from other fields was likely to confuse patients, who do not always investigate a doctor’s training when looking for a cosmetic medical expert. Even more confusing to consumers is that many nonspecialist physicians are marketing themselves using terms like “cosmetic surgeon,” “aesthetic surgeon” and “laser surgeon,” he said. “Next thing you know, chiropractors will be doing liposuction,” Dr. Jewell said. “And psychiatrists will be ‘head surgeons,’ giving you Restylane with your Prozac.” Robert Huckels, vice president for marketing at MedSurge, said some nonspecialists were turning to cosmetic medicine because they were tired of heavy patient caseloads, long workweeks, high malpractice insurance premiums and the paperwork and payment structure imposed by Medicaid and managed care. But Mohit Ghose, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry group, denied that managed care was the impetus. “These doctors are just looking to generate new revenue streams,” Mr. Ghose said. According to an annual survey of doctors’ incomes published in July in Modern Healthcare magazine, family physicians earn $142,000 to $190,000 a year, while emergency room physicians earn $180,000 to $262,000 and obstetricians earn $219,000 to $302,000. But doctors have increasingly been complaining about their income, particularly as malpractice insurance costs have risen, Mr. Huckels said. The average medical spa takes in $40,000 a month, with popular ones in big cities taking in $100,000, he said. “It works well for emergency room doctors seeking less stress and for gynecologists who already have a ready-made female audience,” Mr. Huckels said. Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro and Dr. Kilanko are board-certified obstetrician-gynecologists who graduated from N.Y.U. School of Medicine. After several years of working at hospitals — Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center and Dr. Kilanko, who is still practicing at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, both in Brooklyn — they wanted to open a practice. But Dr. Kilanko said the $160,000 they would each have to pay yearly for malpractice insurance for obstetrics in New York was prohibitive. The doctors, who both have young children, wanted to find a specialty that would allow them to continue working in women’s health but spend more time with their families, Dr. Kilanko said. They settled on cosmetic medicine, where they set their own hours; malpractice insurance is costing them about $20,000 each this year, Dr. Kilanko said. “This is another part of women’s health that we can contribute to without managed care telling us that they are going to pay us $90 per visit, regardless of what gets done during the visit,” Dr. Kilanko said. The two started their Dermacare franchise in August 2005, when they traveled to the company’s headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz. After a week of training at Dermacare, which included learning how to use several kinds of lasers and injections, Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro and Dr. Kilanko enrolled in a daylong training course on Botox and another on Restylane in New York, they said. In January, they opened their storefront spa on a bustling block of Atlantic Avenue in a neighborhood of town houses. The spa has warm terra-cotta-colored walls and wall-to-wall carpeting; the menu includes face peels, acne treatments and laser hair removal. Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro said she expected the clinic to take in about $300,000 this year but projected that revenues would reach $1 million within the next two years. She said the doctors’ backgrounds enhance their ability to work with female patients; they also treat men. But Dr. Kilanko said she and her partner knew their limits. “We are introducing these treatments for the everyday woman who wants to take care of her lips and her frown lines,” Dr. Kilanko said. “If a woman wants her cheeks or chin sculpted, I refer her to a plastic surgeon.” Still, critics say treatments by physicians with one week of training cannot compare in safety and efficacy with those performed by dermatologists and plastic surgeons. Dr. Amy E. Newburger, a dermatologist in Scarsdale, N.Y., says she regularly treats complications caused by noncore physicians. One recent patient, she recalled, came in with a botched Botox treatment from an oncologist: one eyebrow was almost an inch higher than the other. “All the patient got was a wallet biopsy,” Dr. Newburger said. Dr. Alexa B. Kimball, an assistant professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, said that while there were no studies specifically focusing on complications caused by doctors from other fields who practice cosmetic medicine, there were ones showing that other kinds of doctors make more mistakes diagnosing skin ailments than dermatologists. “When doctors practice out of their scope, you would anticipate problems to arise from inadequate training,” Dr. Kimball said. Dr. Kilanko said that in their first year of cosmetic practice, she and Dr. Nwankpa-Keshinro have not seen complications among their patients except for “maybe a couple of ulcerations in the skin, but no permanent scarring.” She said that the doctors were as qualified and adept at performing cosmetic procedures as were some dermatologists who did not focus on aesthetics in their residencies and now study how to inject Botox at medical meetings. Still, Dr. Kilanko said she understood the discomfort over physicians who practice outside their board certification, and she objected to the suggestion that a dermatologist might perform a Caesarean section after a day course in obstetrics. “They would have no business performing a C-section,” she said. “But you can’t compare the knowledge of the anatomy, level of difficulty and risk of complications of a C-section with Restylane injections.” Dr. Gendler, the Manhattan dermatologist, vehemently disagreed. “They don’t think it’s brain surgery until they have a problem,” she said. “Then the first thing they do is send the patient to a dermatologist.”


Protesters in Paris March Against Gay Marriage

Abstract: PARIS — Several hundred thousand people massed at the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Sunday to protest a plan by President François Hollande to legalize gay marriage and adoption. Three columns of protesters, waving pink and blue flags showing a father, mother and two children, converged from different meeting points in Paris. Many came after long train and bus rides from the provinces. Mr. Hollande has pledged to push through the law with his Socialists’ parliamentary majority but a campaign by opponents has dented public support and forced deputies to put off a plan to allow lesbian couples access to artificial insemination. The park at the Eiffel Tower was packed, but turnout estimates varied widely. Organizers claimed 800,000 had protested, while police put the number at 340,000, high even in protest-prone France. “Nobody expected this two or three months ago,” said Frigide Barjot, a flamboyant comedian leading the protest. At the rally, she read out a letter to Mr. Hollande asking him to withdraw the draft bill and hold an extended public debate. Strongly backed by the Catholic Church hierarchy, Ms. Barjot and groups working with her mobilized churchgoing families and political conservatives as well as some Muslims, evangelicals and even homosexuals opposed to gay marriage to protest. Mr. Hollande’s office said the turnout was “substantial” but would not change his determination to pass the reform. “The French are tolerant, but they are deeply attached to the family and the defense of children,” said Daniel Liechti, vice president of the National Council of French Evangelicals, which urged its members to join the march. Opponents of gay marriage and adoption, including most faith leaders in France, have argued that the reform would create psychological and social problems for children, which they believe should trump the desire for equal rights for gay adults. Mr. Hollande has angered those opposed to same-sex marriage by trying to avoid public debate on the reform, which the justice minister, Christiane Taubira, described as “a change of civilization”, and then wavering about some of its details. Same-sex weddings are legal in 11 countries including Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Norway and South Africa, as well as nine American states and the District of Columbia.

France
Catholic Church
Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
Francois Hollande


Australia Blocks China’s Purchase of Mining Company

Abstract: HONG KONG — Citing national security, Australia blocked on Friday one of several acquisitions China is seeking in the country’s natural resources sector, a move that may stoke concerns about rising protectionist tendencies around the globe. The decision to block the purchase of OZ Minerals, a mining company, by state-owned China Minmetals Corporation, coincides with a heated debate concerning a much larger investment that the Chinese metals company Chinalco is planning to make in the British-Australian mining group Rio Tinto. Two weeks ago, Chinese antitrust authorities blocked a move by Coca-Cola to take over Huiyuan Juice Group, a Chinese juice manufacturer, for $2.4 billion — a decision that caused widespread concern about China’s attitude to foreign takeovers of local companies. Australia’s treasurer, Wayne Swan, said on Friday that he decided to block the OZ Minerals transaction because the company’s Prominent Hill gold and copper mine, its core asset, is near a sensitive military facility. “The government has determined that Minmetals’ proposal for OZ Minerals cannot be approved if it includes Prominent Hill,” Mr. Swan said in a statement. He added that discussions were continuing “in relation to OZ Minerals’ other businesses and assets, and the government is willing to consider alternative proposals relating to those other assets and businesses.” The chief executive of OZ Minerals, Andrew Michelmore, said the company and Minmetals were discussing potential changes to the deal and would make an announcement “as soon as possible.” Battered by falling earnings as raw materials have plunged in line with the slowing global economy, both OZ Minerals and Rio urgently need the cash injection that the Chinese companies’ investments represent. OZ Minerals is scheduled to repay more than $900 million in debt next week, and must now renegotiate the deal or obtain a loan extension. Analysts on Friday said it was unclear whether Minmetals would proceed without Prominent Hill, which is considered a core asset. In a statement issued in Australia, Minmetals said Friday it wanted to continue talks: “Our focus is on delivering an agreed solution to OZ Minerals that meets national interests, can satisfy lenders, deliver stability to employees and protect existing operations.” Whatever happens, Friday’s announcement will fuel the debate about a rise in global protectionism — even if Canberra’s rejection was due to security concerns rather than business protectionism. A recent flurry of bids for some of Australia’s most prized natural resource assets has caused public and political unease in the country, as well as, in the case of the proposed Chinalco transaction with Rio, angry protests from shareholders. At the same time, however, China is the main buyer of the natural resources that form the bedrock of Australia’s economy, making the approval of such deals politically sensitive. Chinalco, or Aluminum Corporation of China, as it is officially known, last month proposed investing $19.5 billion in the miner. That deal, currently being evaluated by Australia’s antitrust authorities, would be the biggest foreign investment to date by a Chinese company and increase its leverage in pricing negotiations for iron ore from Rio’s mines. The attempted OZ Minerals takeover, and a separate bid by the Chinese steel manufacturer Hunan Valin Iron for a 17.5 percent stake in Fortescue Metals Group, another Australian company, are much smaller — $1.7 billion in the case of OZ Minerals. But all three transactions, each announced in the last few months, reveal China’s desire to take advantage of the recent drop in commodities prices to secure its hold over natural resources.

Australia
China
Mines and Mining
Metals and Minerals


A Chinese Scholar on the Changing World of the Yugur Nomads

Abstract: There are fewer than 15,000 Yugurs in China , making the ethnic group one of the smallest of the 56 officially recognized by the government. For centuries they were nomads, moving among pastures at the foot of the snowcapped Qilian Mountains in Gansu Province. Some spoke a language related to Mongolian, while others spoke a Turkic one. They practiced shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism. Chinese scholars trace the Yugurs’ origins to the Huihu people, who migrated south from present-day Mongolia and split into several branches. One went west and became the Uighurs, the main ethnic group in large areas of the Xinjiang region. Most of that branch converted to Islam. Western scholars also use the term Uighur to refer to the Huihu. In recent years, the central government has implemented a program, “ returning pastures to grasslands ,” which it says aims to protect the region’s environment. Under the plan, nomads herding animals on grasslands newly classified as “nongrazing pastures” are offered subsidies to resettle elsewhere . Those who occupied grasslands now classified as “pastures where grazing is temporarily banned” or “rotation pastures” are compensated if they follow state regulations. The policy has been opposed by some nomads . In an interview, Wang Haifei, a professor at Lanzhou University’s College of History and Culture , discussed the transformation underway in Sunan Yugur Autonomous County in Gansu, the heartland of the Yugur people. We interviewed him after r eturning from a trip to Sunan , where we spoke with Yugurs there about their traditions. What are the biggest changes to Yugur life in Sunan? An ethnic group’s culture is derived from its unique living environment as well as the means of livelihood dictated by that environment. Most of the tangible remnants of traditional Yugur culture stem from their longstanding nomadic life. The Yugur people’s collective memory, heroic epics, folk songs and dances, languages, customs, taboos and other things arose from the process of “migrating to follow the water and grasslands.” As history moves forward, nomadic culture is also in a process of constant development. The project to resettle nomads starting in the 1990s has brought far-reaching changes to the way of life and livelihoods of China’s Yugur people. It’s not that the Yugur people had never lived in permanent settlements in the past, but the wide dispersal of natural resources across grasslands and deserts determined that most Yugurs had to live as nomads. The government resettlement program has been far-reaching, transforming Yugur society. You have said that the culture is both declining and enjoying a revival. How are Yugurs trying to preserve or revive their culture? What are the most obvious signs of decline? Would they include the fading of the languages among young people? Image Wang Haifei, a professor of anthropology at Lanzhou University’s College of History and Culture. He says the Yugurs’ nomadic way of life is disappearing. Credit Wang Jing Yugur studies have seen an upswing in the past 10 years, with a large number of scholars devoted to gathering, researching and preserving traditional Yugur culture, including many scholars, researchers and even nomads belonging to this ethnicity. In terms of preserving traditional culture, there are projects involving museum exhibitions, and videotaping and recording oral histories. There are also many efforts to revive the culture. For example: There are Yugur people who have restored, produced and commercially promoted the costumes of various Yugur tribes, based on considerable research. The costumes are very popular among Yugurs. Many of them had never had a traditional ethnic costume of their own, but are now able to. Manifestations of the so-called decline of Yugur culture are mainly seen among children. The Yugurs have always regarded education as important. Many Yugur children have been sent to cities far away from their homes for schooling. Also, with urbanization, many young Yugurs have traveled for work. As a relatively small group, a major problem now in the transmission of traditional Yugur culture is that a large number of Yugurs are outside the environment of traditional ethnic culture, weakening their connections with it. Within the Sunan Yugur Autonomous County, the old ways of passing on ethnic culture to the younger generation have also been affected by the spread of new culture. Is this true of other ethnic minorities in China? The changes faced by traditional ethnic minority cultures are common amid the global modernization process. They’re not exclusive to Yugurs or other ethnic minorities in China. It’s just that each one experiences the process differently because of different circumstances. Their languages are part of the Altaic language group. How close is this to modern or ancient Mongolian? The western Yugur language belongs to the Turkic branch of the Altaic language tree. It is also known as the Yaohu’er language. The eastern Yugur language belongs to the Mongolic branch of the Altaic language tree. It is known as the Enge’er language. The eastern and western languages are very different. According to some scholarly research, the eastern Yugur language is close to the Mongolian language of the 13th to 14th centuries, retaining quite a few characteristics of ancient Mongolian’s vocabulary and grammar while absorbing elements from other languages. Is the nomadic lifestyle fading in Sunan? Are there restrictions on grazing animals, as in other parts of China? Do the nomads have to spend the winter in resettlement villages? The traditional nomadic way of life is disappearing. As in other areas relying on livestock production, the Yugur territory’s pastures are divided into different types, including some where grazing is banned, where grazing is temporarily banned and rotation pastures. Following the resettlement project that has lasted for more than a decade, all the nomads in the county have moved to permanent homes except for a few families whose pastures are especially remote.


Friendship of Justice and Magnate Puts Focus on Ethics

Abstract: PIN POINT, Ga. — Clarence Thomas was here promoting his memoir a few years ago when he bumped into Algernon Varn, whose grandfather once ran a seafood cannery that employed Justice Thomas’s mother as a crab picker. Mr. Varn lived at the old cannery site, a collection of crumbling buildings on a salt marsh just down the road from a sign heralding this remote coastal community outside Savannah as Justice Thomas’s birthplace. The justice asked about plans for the property, and Mr. Varn said he hoped it could be preserved. “And Clarence said, ‘Well, I’ve got a friend I’m going to put you in touch with,’ ” Mr. Varn recalled, adding that he was later told by others not to identify the friend. The publicity-shy friend turned out to be Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and a major contributor to conservative causes. Mr. Crow stepped in to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery, featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point that has become a pet project of Justice Thomas’s. The project throws a spotlight on an unusual, and ethically sensitive, friendship that appears to be markedly different from those of other justices on the nation’s highest court. The two men met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Justice Thomas joined the court. Since then, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia, helping finance a Savannah library project dedicated to Justice Thomas, presenting him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly providing $500,000 for Ms. Thomas to start a Tea Party -related group. They have also spent time together at gatherings of prominent Republicans and businesspeople at Mr. Crow’s Adirondacks estate and his camp in East Texas. In several instances, news reports of Mr. Crow’s largess provoked controversy and questions, adding fuel to a rising debate about Supreme Court ethics. But Mr. Crow’s financing of the museum, his largest such act of generosity, previously unreported, raises the sharpest questions yet — both about Justice Thomas’s extrajudicial activities and about the extent to which the justices should remain exempt from the code of conduct for federal judges. Although the Supreme Court is not bound by the code, justices have said they adhere to it. Legal ethicists differed on whether Justice Thomas’s dealings with Mr. Crow pose a problem under the code. But they agreed that one facet of the relationship was both unusual and important in weighing any ethical implications: Justice Thomas’s role in Mr. Crow’s donation for the museum. The code says judges “should not personally participate” in raising money for charitable endeavors, out of concern that donors might feel pressured to give or entitled to favorable treatment from the judge. In addition, judges are not even supposed to know who donates to projects honoring them. While the nonprofit Pin Point museum is not intended to honor Justice Thomas, people involved in the project said his role in the community’s history would inevitably be part of it, and he participated in a documentary film that is to accompany the exhibits. Deborah L. Rhode, a Stanford University law professor who has called for stricter ethics rules for Supreme Court justices, said Justice Thomas “should not be directly involved in fund-raising activities, no matter how worthy they are or whether he’s being centrally honored by the museum.” On the other hand, the restriction on fund-raising is primarily meant to deter judges from using their position to pressure donors, as opposed to relying on “a rich friend” like Mr. Crow, said Ronald D. Rotunda, who teaches legal ethics at Chapman University in California. “I don’t think I could say it’s unethical,” he said. “It’s just a very peculiar situation.” Justice Thomas, through a Supreme Court spokeswoman, declined to respond to a detailed set of questions submitted by The New York Times. Mr. Crow also would not comment. Supreme Court ethics have been under increasing scrutiny, largely because of the activities of Justice Thomas and Ms. Thomas, whose group, Liberty Central, opposed President Obama’s health care overhaul — an issue likely to wind up before the court. Mr. Crow’s donation to Liberty Central was reported by Politico. In January, the liberal advocacy organization Common Cause asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia should have recused themselves from last year’s Citizens United campaign finance case because they had attended a political retreat organized by the billionaire Koch brothers, who support groups that stood to benefit from the court’s decision. A month later, more than 100 law professors asked Congress to extend to Supreme Court justices the ethics code that applies to other federal judges, and a bill addressing the issue was introduced. It is not unusual for justices to accept gifts or take part in outside activities, some with political overtones. Justice Stephen G. Breyer has attended Renaissance Weekend, a retreat for politicians, artists and media personalities that is a favorite of Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participated in a symposium sponsored by the National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, and a philanthropic foundation once tried to give her a $100,000 achievement award. She instructed that the money be given to charity. But in the case of Justice Thomas and his dealings with Mr. Crow, the ethical complications appear more complex. Conservative Ties Mr. Crow, 61, manages the real estate and investment businesses founded by his late father, Trammell Crow, once the largest landlord in the United States. The Crow family portfolio is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and includes investments in hotels, medical facilities, public equities and hedge funds. A friend of the Bush family, Mr. Crow is a trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation and has donated close to $5 million to Republican campaigns and conservative groups. Among his contributions were $100,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group formed to attack the Vietnam War record of Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, and $500,000 to an organization that ran advertisements urging the confirmation of President George W. Bush’s nominees to the Supreme Court. Mr. Crow has not personally been a party to Supreme Court litigation, but his companies have been involved in federal court cases, including four that went to the appellate level. And he has served on the boards of two conservative organizations involved in filing supporting briefs in cases before the Supreme Court. One of them, the American Enterprise Institute, with Mr. Crow as a trustee, gave Justice Thomas a bust of Lincoln valued at $15,000 and praised his jurisprudence at an awards gala in 2001. The institute’s Project on Fair Representation later filed briefs in several cases, and in 2006 the project brought a lawsuit challenging federal voting rights laws, a case in which Justice Thomas filed a lone dissent, embracing the project’s arguments. The project director, an institute fellow named Edward Blum, said the institute supported his research but did not finance the brief filings or the Texas suit, which was litigated pro bono by a former clerk of Justice Thomas’s. “When it came time to file a lawsuit,” he said, “A.E.I. had no role in doing that.” Coming Up With a Plan In addition to his interest in politics and policy, Mr. Crow is well known for his keen devotion to history. A backyard garden at his $24 million Dallas residence is dominated by old statues of dictators he has collected from fallen regimes, including Lenin and Stalin. His private library is packed with 8,000 rare books and artifacts, including a Senate roll call sheet from Justice Thomas’s confirmation and a “thank you” letter from the justice, according to local news reports. There are a number of reasons Justice Thomas might be thankful to Mr. Crow. In addition to giving him the Douglass Bible, valued 10 years ago at $19,000, Mr. Crow has hosted the justice aboard his private jet and his 161-foot yacht, at the exclusive Bohemian Grove retreat in California and at his grand Adirondacks summer estate called Topridge, a 105-acre spread that once belonged to Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress. Christopher Shaw, a folk singer who said he had been invited several times to perform at Topridge, recalled seeing Justice Thomas and his family “on one or two occasions.” They were among about two dozen guests who included other prominent Republicans — last summer, the younger Mr. Bush stopped by. “There would be guys puffing on cigars,” Mr. Shaw said. “Clarence just kind of melted in with everyone else. We got introduced at dinner. He sat at Harlan’s table.” Mr. Crow’s $175,000 donation to the library in Savannah in 2001 started out anonymous, but it was eventually made public amid opposition to the project by some local black leaders who did not like Justice Thomas’s politics. Similarly, Mr. Crow sought to keep his role in the museum quiet. At first glance the Pin Point Heritage Museum, scheduled to open this fall, would seem an unlikely catalyst for an ethical quandary. That Pin Point’s history is worthy of preservation is not in dispute. Part of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor designated by Congress, it is representative of tight-knit Southern coastal settlements that trace their roots to freed slaves and were often based around fishing. In Pin Point, the Varn crab and oyster cannery, founded in the 1920s, was a primary source of jobs until it closed in 1985. Mr. Varn and his wife, Sharon, said they had long hoped the property could be saved from commercial development but had little success coming up with a plan. That changed after their chance encounter with Justice Thomas, who was visiting his childhood home with a television news crew. Justice Thomas, 62, was born and raised near the cannery overlooking the Moon River, where it was not uncommon for babies to rock in bassinets made of crab baskets while their mothers shucked oysters. He sympathized with the Varns’ wishes and said he had a friend who could help, Mr. Varn said. The Varns eventually sold their property in April 2008. During a recent interview at their home near the cannery, they made it clear that they were “not supposed to say” who the buyer was, and a news release issued last November by a Savannah public relations firm said the museum was being “privately funded by an anonymous donor.” But the paper trail leads back to Mr. Crow, and in interviews at the project site, people working on it acknowledged that he was financing it. Property records show a company called HKJRS/Pinpoint bought the land for $1.5 million, and incorporation records say the company is controlled by a Dallas-based partnership run by Mr. Crow. Project documents reviewed by The Times show a preliminary construction budget of $1.3 million, but it is unclear if that includes expenses related to the content and design of the museum. Justice Thomas remains closely involved with the project. Emily Owens, a museum spokeswoman who works for Mr. Crow’s company, said the justice “played a big part” in creating a video documentary that will be part of the museum experience. He hosted a design team from Dallas for a four-hour meeting at his Supreme Court offices in February. And he has had a role in picking people to help with the museum. Barbara Fertig, a history professor at Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, said that she was asked to meet with Justice Thomas last spring and that “by the end of the meeting, he said he would like me to work on this project.” She said she had “never been particularly curious” about why Mr. Crow is financing it, adding that costly preservation projects are often possible only because of philanthropy motivated by friendships. Justice Thomas and Mr. Crow would seem to fall into that category, Ms. Fertig said. “I’ve been in the company of the two of them together,” she said, “and they certainly really are friends.” The Code of Conduct That friendship is important to determining whether Justice Thomas’s interactions with Mr. Crow conflict with the code, said Raymond J. McKoski, a retired state judge in Illinois who wrote a law review article on charitable fund-raising by judges. If Justice Thomas did not “misuse the prestige of office” in getting Mr. Crow to take on the project, it should not be a concern, he said. “Some of it depends on the conversations that took place,” Mr. McKoski said. “Who brought up the idea? How willing was Mr. Crow to do it? What exact questions were asked by Justice Thomas?” Beyond the admonition against fund-raising, the code generally discourages judges from partaking in any off-the-bench behavior that could create even the perception of partiality. It acknowledges the value in judges’ being engaged with their communities, lecturing on the law and doing charitable work, but draws a line where those activities might cause a reasonable person to worry that a judge is indebted to or influenced by someone. “The code of conduct is quite clear that judges are not supposed to be soliciting money for their pet projects or charities, period,” said Arn Pearson, a lawyer with Common Cause. “If any other federal judge was doing it, he could face disciplinary action.” The justices are not bound by the federal judiciary’s conduct code, because it is enforced by a committee of judges who rank below the justices. Even so, Justices Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy said in testimony before Congress in April that the justices followed the code. Beyond the code, the justices must comply with laws applying to all federal officials that prohibit conflicts of interest and require disclosure of gifts. Justice Thomas’s gift acceptances drew attention in 2004, when The Los Angeles Times reported that he had accumulated gifts totaling $42,200 in the previous six years — far more than any of the other justices. Since 2004, Justice Thomas has never reported another gift. He has continued to disclose travel costs paid by schools and organizations he has visited for speeches and teaching, but he has not reported that any travel was provided by Mr. Crow. Travel records for Mr. Crow’s planes and yacht, however, suggest that Justice Thomas may have used them in recent years. In April 2008, not long after Mr. Crow bought the Pin Point property, one of his private planes flew from Washington to Savannah, where his yacht, the Michaela Rose, was docked. That same week, an item appeared in a South Carolina lawyers’ publication noting that Justice Thomas was arriving aboard the Michaela Rose in Charleston, a couple of hours north of Savannah, where the Crow family owns luxury vacation properties. The author was a prominent lawyer who said she knew of the visit because of a family connection to Mr. Crow. Justice Thomas reported no gifts of travel that month in his 2008 disclosure. And there are other instances in which Justice Thomas’s travels correspond to flights taken by Mr. Crow’s planes. On Jan. 4, 2010, when Justice Thomas was in Savannah for the dedication of a building in his honor, Mr. Crow’s plane flew from Washington to Savannah and returned to Washington the next day. Justice Thomas reported in his financial disclosure that his travel had been paid for by the Savannah College of Art and Design, which owned the building. In his 2009 financial disclosure, Justice Thomas reported that Southern Methodist University in Dallas — Trammell Crow’s alma mater — had provided his travel for a speech there on Sept. 30. Flight records show that Mr. Crow’s plane flew from Washington to Dallas that day. Among the questions The Times submitted to Justice Thomas was whether he was on any of those flights, and if so, whether the colleges reimbursed him or Mr. Crow. The colleges declined to comment. One item not required to be reported in Justice Thomas’s financial disclosures is the millions of dollars Mr. Crow is spending on the museum. That is because the money is not being given to the justice as a gift. For Algernon and Sharon Varn, who said they were thrilled to see a cherished piece of local history being restored, the museum is a gift to the community. While it is about more than Justice Thomas, they said, he deserves credit for putting them together with someone who had the money and the interest to make the project a reality. “He was instrumental in getting the process started, because he wanted it preserved to show that no matter where you came from, you can go where you want,” Mr. Varn said. “He had a meager existence, and yet look where he is today. It’s a great American story.”

Supreme Court
Ethics (Institutional)
Thomas Clarence
Crow Harlan


Finra Names Robert Cook Its Chief Executive

Abstract: The brokerage industry’s overseer, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, on Monday named a former markets regulator, Robert W. Cook, as its president and chief executive officer. Mr. Cook had been a partner in the Washington offices of the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton since 2013. Before that, he was director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of trading and markets, where he oversaw the staff’s review and analysis of the “flash crash” in May 2010. He also oversaw the carrying out of new rules for Wall Street arising from the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation overhaul and the 2012 JOBS Act. He had been at Cleary Gottlieb for 18 years before joining the S.E.C. in 2010. Finra is splitting the roles of chairman and chief executive now that Richard Ketchum is scheduled to retire later this year. Mr. Ketchum has held both titles since 2009, and he announced last fall his intention to retire in the second half of 2016. The regulator said in a statement on Monday that its board, which is led by the former Vanguard Group chief, Jack Brennan, would name a new chairman in the coming months. As a lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb, Mr. Cook focused on the regulation of the securities markets as well as broker-dealers, exchanges, alternative trading systems and clearing firms. He will join Finra as the agency is in the middle of a review of cultural values in the brokerage industry, asking more than a dozen brokerage firms earlier this year to answer questions about their own practices, including how executives identify rogue employees whose actions contradict company policy. Finra said the appointment would take effect in the second half of 2016.

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
Regulation and Deregulation
Stockbroker
SEC


IAC Tops Forecasts, but a Mix-Up Sends Shares Down

Abstract: Shares of the online media company IAC/InterActiveCorp fell as much as 14 percent Wednesday amid investor confusion after a mistake by a financial information provider. IAC’s third-quarter results, which were released before the market opened, beat Wall Street’s expectations and the company’s stock was up slightly in early trading. But share prices declined after what appeared to be a misinterpretation of the company’s guidance for 2013 by FactSet Research. Shortly before its 11 a.m. earnings conference call, IAC, which is run by Barry Diller , issued a statement saying that it expected to report an operating loss for its “media and other” segment in 2013. FactSet mistakenly reported that IAC was expecting an operating loss for the whole company. IAC said it pointed out the error during the conference call. FactSet said it recognized the error and issued a correction. In the confusion, Nasdaq briefly halted trading in IAC stock. Nasdaq later canceled some trades. Even with the mistake cleared up, IAC’s stock ended Wednesday’s trading down $4.41, or 8.4 percent, at $48. IAC runs a variety of Web sites, including Match.com and Ask.com, as well as About.com, which it acquired from The New York Times Company for $300 million in a deal that closed last month. It also has a controlling stake in the company that publishes Newsweek and the Daily Beast Web site. In the third quarter, IAC reported net income of $40.7 million, or 43 cents a share, a decline of 41 percent from $65 million, or 69 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding onetime items, IAC earned 71 cents a share. Revenue grew 38 percent to $714.5 million from $516.9 million. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 66 cents a share on revenue of $692.8 million, according to FactSet.

IAC/InterActiveCorp
Company Reports
Computers and the Internet
Factset Research Systems Inc
Diller Barry


Recall Leads Whole Foods to a Change

Abstract: Whole Foods Market said Monday it would tighten oversight of its suppliers to keep substandard products out of stores, after recalling ground beef that apparently sickened customers in two states. Scrambling to contain the fallout from a recall that threatens the chain’s reputation for quality, Whole Foods acknowledged that it had failed to catch an important change made by one of its suppliers of ground beef, Coleman Natural Beef. After coming under new ownership, Coleman Natural began using a slaughterhouse in Omaha that had received multiple citations and had fought a long-running battle with the Agriculture Department. The government has said the plant was the source of ground beef that has sickened scores of people around the country. Most of the beef was sold at grocers other than Whole Foods and recalled this summer. An additional 1.2 million pounds were recalled on Friday by the processor after illnesses in several states were tentatively linked to ground beef sold at Whole Foods and other stores. At least four regional grocery chains — Fred Meyer, King Soopers and City Market, all owned by the Kroger Company, and Dorothy Lane — have also recalled suspect beef packages in recent days. Whole Foods acknowledged that a code stamped on beef packages arriving at its stores accurately reflected the change in processing plants. But the grocery chain said it had no procedures in place to watch the codes on arriving meat packages, and therefore failed to notice it was getting beef from a packing plant it had never approved. Whole Foods will immediately institute new procedures to detect such a change in the future, the chain said. A spokeswoman, Libba Letton, said the company would also undertake a broad review of procedures for approving suppliers and scrutinizing the quality of products. “It’s going to mean going back and examining these other things and making sure there aren’t holes, especially in terms of food safety,” Ms. Letton said. In addition to auditing shipments more carefully, Whole Foods will also require E. coli testing of beef that goes beyond government requirements, she said. The recall is the latest blow for a company already struggling with anemic sales growth because of the economic slowdown. “The assumption is that for the extra money that you pay for most Whole Foods products, in return you’re getting something that’s safer, fresher and more nutritious,” said Gene Grabowski, head of the crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic Communications, who has handled several food-recall cases. “And this damages that perception a great deal.” The beef in question, which has been linked to illnesses in several states, came from an Omaha company called Nebraska Beef. The same company had, earlier this summer, processed the 5.3 million pounds of beef linked to nearly 50 cases of infection with a disease-causing strain of the organism E. coli. Whole Foods has long bought beef from Coleman Natural Foods, of Golden, Colo. That company announced in April it would sell its beef line to Meyer Natural Angus, of Loveland, Colo. After the sale, Coleman apparently started processing some of its beef at Nebraska Beef, of Omaha. Ms. Letton said Coleman was obliged to get Whole Foods’ approval for the change, but did not do so. “We relied on our suppliers to follow the rules,” she said. After buying the beef line, Meyer received rights to use the Coleman brand name for a year with existing customers, said Katie Coakley, a spokeswoman for Coleman Natural Foods. A Meyer Natural Angus spokesman, Del Holzer, confirmed that Meyer is using the Coleman name. He declined to comment further and would not address questions about why Meyer began using the Nebraska plant. A representative for Nebraska Beef did not return calls on Monday requesting comment. Ms. Letton said Whole Foods scrutinizes every supplier on how it raises, transports, slaughters and processes animals, and audits suppliers every year. “They already have a lot more inspection than most retailers would have,” said Doc Hatfield, a rancher in Brothers, Ore., who is part of a cooperative that sells beef to Whole Foods. Whole Foods recalled all fresh ground beef sold between June 2 and Aug. 6 at its stores in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Food-safety advocates said that the recall was troubling. “Part of this is, this is another example of a broken federal system that hasn’t put enough resources into stopping this problem,” said Jaydee Hanson, policy director at the Center for Food Safety in Washington. As for Whole Foods, “they have positioned themselves as a company that takes food safety very seriously,” he said. “If they really didn’t know who was processing beef for them, they should have.”

Meat
Food Contamination and Poisoning
Recalls and Bans of Products
Retail Stores and Trade
Whole Foods Market Inc


Rejuvenated Harlem Building Becomes a Business Incubator for Biotechnology

Abstract: It is no secret that Harlem is changing. There is a new Red Lobster, a Joe’s Crab Shack, a DSW shoe store, and soon there will be a Whole Foods on 125th Street. But some of the most interesting changes are not so obvious. Inside the Sweets Building, a renovated structure that was formerly a confectionery research lab, is Harlem Biospace , a new business incubator focused on biotechnology. Situated on West 127th Street between Amsterdam and Convent Avenues, north of Columbia University and south of City College, Harlem Biospace is an effort to tap the scientific talent and entrepreneurial spirit of the two storied educational institutions. For the neighborhood, the incubator represents a new front of economic investment in a place that for decades struggled to restore the economic and social vitality that defined Harlem in its heyday. Founded by a Columbia biomedical engineering professor, Samuel K. Sia, and his wife, in partnership with the city’s Economic Development Corporation , Harlem Biospace opened last November. Scientists and entrepreneurs rent lab space for projects. Among those underway are efforts to develop antimicrobial polymers that would keep socks bacteria-free and to come up with new ways of testing for allergens. Tyler Poore, 28, a chemistry graduate student at Columbia, is developing the antimicrobial polymer. Harlem Biospace has allowed him to remain in New York and capitalize on the connections he has made here. Image Founders Samuel K. Sia, a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia, and his wife, Christine Kovich, a science educator. Credit Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times “There are places like Boston or San Francisco that have cheap lab space, but we have all of our contacts here,” he said. “Without Harlem Biospace I don’t think it would have been possible to do the work in New York City.” Columbia is encouraging Harlem Biospace and other such projects. “It’s fantastic to have another strong center of entrepreneurship,” said Orin Herskowitz, executive director of Columbia Technology Ventures, the university arm that identifies funding to support research and create partnerships with the biotech world. The university hopes to find ways to collaborate with Harlem Biospace, Mr. Herskowitz said. “Having a strong bioscience entrepreneurship community as close as possible to the university can only help the creation of this kind of start-up ecosystem in New York City,” he said. The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which provided Harlem Biospace with $626,000, saw the venture as an opportunity to make the city more competitive with more established biotech hubs, like San Francisco and Boston, said Kyle Kimball, the organization’s president. Harlem Biospace is one of 16 business incubators in the city. With all the change sweeping the neighborhood, Harlem is more than just part of the hub’s name, Mr. Sia said. “West Harlem is one of the more exciting areas of the city that is being transformed,” Mr. Sia said. “It really fits in with what we’re trying to do.” With a relatively low rent of $995 and with five subways lines nearby, the incubator is affordable and accessible to many prospective tenants, he said Image Tyler Poore, 28, a chemistry graduate student at Columbia, is developing an antimicrobial polymer at Harlem Biospace. Credit Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Michael Tirgan, 55, rents space at Harlem Biospace, where he is trying to develop a new drug and better treatment for keloids, overgrowths of scar tissue that follow skin injuries. “Harlem Biospace gives you access to a lot of infrastructure and gives you the ability to network with other like-minded people, and you can share your ideas,” Mr. Tirgan said. “On my own this would have been very difficult to do,” Mr. Tirgan said. Mr. Sia knows of the struggles and risks many of the incubator’s tenants are facing as they try to build something from the ground up. He had a start-up of his own, a company that developed a blood testing device. In 2012, Mr. Sia sold the company, Claros Diagnostics, for $49 million. “By giving people the infrastructure and the space to do the work, we can give the start-ups in New York as good a chance as they can have to succeed,” Mr. Sia said. With new businesses and new people flocking to Harlem, Mr. Sia said he wanted to make sure his venture was giving back to the community. He and his wife, Christine Kovich, have started an after-school program called Hypothekids. The program brings unconventional science education to the students at Teachers College Community School, a public school on Morningside Avenue. “We have the most promising innovation here and we’re doing it in Harlem,” said Mr. Sia, who said he wanted to take advantage of the science innovation and “introduce it to the community, especially young kids.”

Harlem
Biotechnology
Harlem Biospace
Columbia
College
Entrepreneurship
Urban Planning
City College of New York
Samuel K Sia