Amazon Has Big Plans for Alexa: Running the ‘Star Trek’ Home

Abstract: SEATTLE — Amazon surprised a lot of people when its Echo, a $180 so-called smart speaker, became a hit, giving them a novel way to play music, turn on the lights in their homes and set thermostats with voice commands. Amazon, though, has much bigger plans for the technology behind Echo. It wants the Alexa Voice Service, which powers Echo, to be an ingredient in devices around the home and beyond, even if they aren’t made by Amazon. The vision of an omnipresent intelligent assistant is one Amazon shares, in one form or another, with most other big technology companies, including Apple, Google and Microsoft. Along with a handful of start-ups, these companies see their intelligent assistants as powerful new ways for users to interact with devices and internet services — just as smartphone touch screens were. Many technology specialists think that people will be O.K. with a single intelligent assistant in their lives but that most won’t have the patience to regularly use two or three of them, each with its individual quirks. As a result, each company is racing to weave its assistant into as many devices and services as possible. Amazon, for example, wants Alexa to be a part of products like Nucleus , a smart-intercom system with a touch screen and a camera that went on sale last week for $249 (or $199 each if you buy two or three at once). Nucleus owners can have Alexa play music and read a weather forecast through the device. In a phone interview, Jonathan Frankel, the chief executive of Nucleus, said that adding Alexa to Nucleus was a no-brainer because it made the device far more useful. “We’re taking $180 worth of utility and adding it into a $200 device,” he said. So far, a handful of smaller companies have released or promised to release products with Alexa built into them. There’s Triby , a portable speaker; CoWatch , a smartwatch; and Pebble Core , a wireless wearable device by the maker of the Pebble smartwatch. Ford Motor is working with Amazon to integrate Alexa into its vehicles so drivers can control smart-home features like lights, thermostats and security systems from their cars. Over 10,000 developers have registered to integrate Alexa into their products, Amazon said. It won’t say how many Echo units it has sold, except to say that millions of devices with Alexa in them have been purchased. John MacFarlane, the chief executive of Sonos, another well-known device maker, hinted in a blog post this year that Sonos was working on a way to play music through its speakers using Alexa voice control. In an interview this spring, David Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president for devices, said that the company wanted there to be as many Alexa-linked “endpoints” around the home as possible and that Amazon did not really care who made those devices. Amazon has expanded its lineup of devices that use Alexa with its Echo Dot, a miniature version of the Echo speaker, and Amazon Tap, a portable Bluetooth speaker. “The longer-term vision is a little bit like the ‘Star Trek’ computer,” Mr. Limp said. “Captain Kirk or Picard could sit on the bridge and ask anything and get the right answer.” But while Amazon has made a lot of progress in this regard, it may have a hard time extending Alexa’s reach outside the home because of its weaknesses in mobile technology, analysts say. The success of Echo has been described as a redemption of sorts for Amazon after it suffered a brutal defeat in the smartphone market with its Fire Phone, which the company stopped selling after poor sales — a misstep that has left Amazon vulnerable. Apple and Google have clear advantages over Amazon because of their dominant positions in the mobile market. And they are pushing their versions of Alexa — Siri and Google’s assistant — as ways to control other devices throughout the home. Apple has a technology called HomeKit that allows people to control thermostats, light switches and other devices with Siri from Apple devices. Google has announced plans for an Echo-like home speaker called Google Home. As intelligent assistants improve in quality, Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research, thinks people will want these virtual helpers to follow them all day like a companion. “What you want from an assistant is that they are always available to you everywhere,” he said. While Amazon could eventually give people access to Alexa’s functions through apps on smartphones (a couple of apps from independent developers do this already), Mr. Dawson is skeptical that Amazon will be able to make them work as well as assistants more deeply integrated into smartphones by Apple and Google. “They’re basically absent on smartphones, which are devices we take everywhere we go,” he said.

Amazon
Wireless
Smart Homes,Internet of Things
Audio Speakers
Speech recognition


Confusion and Sorrow for Trainer of Filly

Abstract: LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Larry Jones has watched the replay dozens of times. He has examined photographs of Eight Belles, and he still cannot fathom how the filly he trained was at one moment crossing the finish line in second place in the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby , and then in the next, she was gone. Jones was proud of Eight Belles as she stormed down the stretch, chasing the winner, Big Brown, a powerful colt. He is now heartbroken after she shattered her front ankles as she galloped out around the far turn and had to be euthanized on the racetrack. Mostly, however, he is mystified. “We have some photographers that we really got to know last year,” said Jones, who finished second here last year with Hard Spun. “They were on the first turn taking pictures as everybody was galloping out. “We’ve got a lot of great pictures, they say, of her, and she’s got her ears up and was not in any kind of distress galloping out around the turn. I don’t know what happened and when. Just all of the sudden, it just went.” Two years ago, Barbaro ’s breakdown in the Preakness and his death later helped usher in an era of synthetic racing surfaces. The composition of these racetracks was designed to provide more cushion. The surface was installed at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.; Arlington Park in Chicago; and at racetracks in California. But Churchill Downs Inc., which owns Arlington Park, has not embraced the move to a synthetic surface here at its flagship racetrack and home of America’s most famous horse race. In fact, horsemen have come to expect the oval to be hard and fast on Derby day. While the Derby was not run unusually fast Saturday, the times for races on the undercard were very fast and suggest that stakes-caliber horses were rocketing along on a speed-aiding surface. In the Grade I Humana Distaff, eight fillies and mares battled through fast factions over seven furlongs in a race won by Intangaroo in a brisk 1 minute 22.03 seconds. “We like the racetrack we have right now,” said John Asher, a spokesman for Churchill Downs. “We’re studying the synthetic surfaces, but we want to see data for four or five years because the technology is evolving all the time. We want to know exactly what we’re getting.” Early results from studies of the safety of synthetic tracks versus dirt ones are promising but inconclusive. Dr. Mary Scollay, a veterinarian at Calder Race Course, organized an equine injury reporting system for more than 30 tracks and has found that fatality rates have been lower on synthetic surfaces: 1.47 fatalities per 1,000 starts for synthetic surfaces against 2.03 per 1,000 for dirt tracks. “The revised statistics are based upon injury reports from a limited number of racetracks and represent a reporting period of less than one year at some racetracks,” Scollay reported to the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, which is coordinated by the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation. “Therefore, it is important to remember that these fatality rates are just a snapshot in time from a less than statistically significant number of tracks, and cannot be considered scientifically conclusive at this point.” Dr. Larry Bramlage, an equine surgeon who was the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ on-call veterinarian at the Derby, said it appeared that Eight Belles’s injuries would not have been prevented on a synthetic surface. “I don’t think the forces on her legs pulling up would be any different on dirt or artificial surface,” Bramlage said. John Ward, a third-generation horseman who trained the 2001 Derby winner, Monarchos, says the industry must continue working on technologies that can screen horses more closely before they go into competition. He told a story of a 3-year-old filly who was promising as a 2-year-old but had not seemed to be her best. An early set of X-rays did not show any injuries. When Ward sent her to the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital for more sophisticated full-body tests, veterinarians found she had microfractures in three of her ankles. “She was a catastrophe waiting to happen, and she had never spent an unsound day in her life,” Ward said. “We have got to start examining these animals at the molecular level, and protect them.” For Jones and his staff, sad days are ahead without Eight Belles. They leave Monday with the Kentucky Oaks winner Proud Spell to Delaware Park, where he is based. In fact, Jones had three horses competing there Sunday. “Your first impulse is to be overprotective of everything you’re around, but with them being an athlete, you’ve got to still do the business and do it right,” Jones said. “I have 48 horses in Delaware. You’ve got to get to business as normal. We’re not scratching those other three, afraid to lead them over. Are we going to be overjubilant and all? No, it’s going to be very depressing for several days around here. We’re going to do the work because we have to, not because it’s going to be fun to do.”

Eight Belles
Kentucky Derby
Horse Racing
Churchill Downs Incorporated
Jones Larry
Big Borwn


For Giants Co-Owner John Mara, a Wild Ride

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Over the past 12 months, here are some things that have happened to the Giants co-owner John Mara: He saw his team endure a brutal collapse, missing the 2010 playoffs in such devastating fashion that it turned his stomach. He listened to fans call for the firing of his head coach, his general manager and, occasionally, himself. He spent long summer nights hoping there would be a 2011 N.F.L. season, then worked long summer days during the lockout to ensure that there would be. Somewhere in the middle, he spent four weeks on the jury in a federal drug trial that resulted in two men going to prison. This fall, he reveled in the Giants’ 6-2 start. He became a grandfather (again). He wallowed in a four-game losing streak. He heard more calls to fire the head coach. He chewed off fingernails as the Giants salvaged a playoff berth. He sweated through three postseason victories. He beamed when his niece was nominated for an Academy Award. He cringed as his 82-year-old mother upbraided Terry Bradshaw on national television while the Giants were awarded the George Halas trophy as N.F.C. champions. Then, a day later, he fretted after his mother fell in church and fractured her shoulder. “Sometimes, when I’m driving home at night after another long day here, I’ll turn off the radio and just look out the window ...” Mara said Thursday during an interview in his office, before trailing off and shifting in his chair. Mara does his best to avoid reminiscing. At 57, he has been around the Giants his entire life. He endured the losing of the 1970s. He watched his father accept two Super Bowl trophies. He stood on a stage four years ago and accepted a trophy of his own. He has seen plenty and likes to look forward, not back. Next week he will be in Indianapolis to watch the Giants try to win another Super Bowl and so, for a moment, he allowed himself to ponder it all: Twelve months after a meltdown, nine months after wondering if there would be any games at all, six months after a threadbare training camp, two months after his team seemed doomed and one week after winning the conference title on a swampy field by San Francisco Bay, Mara’s team is on the cusp yet again. He shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re in this position,” he said. “Not after everything that’s gone on.” The stack of letters has always sat on Mara’s desk because that is how his father, Wellington, said it should be. Wellington died in 2005, and Mara has always been diligent about answering mail from fans — he even writes some replies longhand. But this season the pile grew nearly unmanageable. In November, the Giants were fading. “That’s when this stack goes back to,” Mara said, pulling a clump of paper from a manila envelope. He flipped pages, scanning a few. He gave a low sigh. “Most of these were written on Sunday nights and Monday mornings,” he said. The vast majority demanded change. The fans wanted Coach Tom Coughlin out, wanted General Manager Jerry Reese out. Pick a coordinator and someone wanted him fired, too. As the Giants’ season hit its nadir in an embarrassing blowout loss to the New Orleans Saints on “Monday Night Football,” the pile on Mara’s desk seemed to reach the ceiling. But Mara said candidly Thursday that he never seriously considered firing Coughlin, either after last season or during this one. “Did I get discouraged sometimes? Sure. How could you walk out of the Superdome and not be discouraged?” he said. “But you have to feel like the arrow is pointing up and this person can turn things around. And I did.” Mara added that “it would be hard to imagine” Coughlin, 65, not being able to walk away from the Giants on his own terms. He said he would address Coughlin’s status after the Super Bowl — one year is left on his contract — but indicated that he expected Coughlin to return for a ninth season. “I don’t think he’s ready for the shuffleboard circuit,” Mara said. That consistency is what Mara craves. His father long espoused the virtues of stability, and Mara pointed to other successful franchises — the New England Patriots, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers — as examples of organizations run with a similarly steady hand. Mara seeks that on all levels. He gets up at the same time each day, is in the gym by 6 a.m. and then makes the same stop at the same Starbucks before heading into work. He took comfort in that routine when his team was in the midst of losing four games in a row and the pressure on Coughlin was the greatest. “If you start making too many changes and getting impulsive, it just doesn’t work,” Mara said. “Put it this way: With Tom, I’m glad we let things play out.” One day late in the regular season, Mara got a phone call from Patriots Coach Bill Belichick. The Giants had won the previous weekend and Belichick was calling to congratulate Mara. “He told me, ‘We’ll see you guys again,’ ” Mara recalled Thursday. “It surprised me. We weren’t even in the playoffs yet and I thought, ‘Well, you’ll be in the Super Bowl, but I’m not so sure about us.’ ” Mara found the phone call particularly odd because four years ago, after the Giants lost to the Patriots in the final game of the regular season, Mara ran into Belichick near the service dock of the old Giants Stadium. “He said the same thing that night,” Mara said, “and I thought the same thing. We had a long run through the playoffs to make and I thought, ‘Well, they’ll get there, but us?’ But we did. And now we are playing them again.” Mara gave a mock look of exasperation when he talked about the logistics of getting his entire family to the Super Bowl — the contingent is nearing 70 people, he said — but he does not mind. After all, it was not that long ago that he had “significant doubts” about the Giants playing any games at all because of the lockout. “It was scary,” he said. “It is amazing to think about how fast it seems to have gone from that point to now.” Among the relatives joining him will be his niece Rooney, who earned a best actress Oscar nomination for her role in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” as well as his mother, Ann, who became an Internet sensation after scolding Bradshaw for always picking against the Giants. While Wellington Mara surely had his moments of public glory, John Mara said he believed the expression on his father’s face “would have been the same as the one on mine” if he had seen Ann Mara persistently poking Bradshaw in the arm. “I thought to myself, ‘What in God’s name is she going to say?’ ” Mara said. “But I knew there was no stopping her. She just had a big smile on her face. She enjoyed it.” The family e-mails about the incident have been nonstop, though the mood was tempered after Ann Mara slipped in church on Monday morning. Still, John Mara said he expected his mother to be at the Super Bowl, although “she probably won’t be jumping up on any stages.” “Then again ...” he said, trailing off once more with a smile. He shrugged. After a year like this one, Mara cannot wait to see what will happen next.

Super Bowl
Football
Mara John
New York Giants
Coughlin Tom


Arian Foster of Texans Is Sidelined With Injury

Abstract: Houston Texans running back Arian Foster will miss Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns with a groin injury the Texans said. Foster, second in the N.F.L. with 822 yards rushing, was injured Nov. 2 against the Eagles before Houston’s bye week. Foster also missed a game in Week 3 with a hamstring injury.


Suicide Bombers Strike in Afghanistan

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — In a further sign that the insurgents’ spring offensive is under way, suicide bombers struck in western and southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 16 people, according to Afghan officials in Herat and Helmand, where the attacks took place. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yusuf, claimed that Taliban fighters were responsible for the attack in Helmand, but even hours after the bombing in Herat said he had no information on it. The target of the bombing in Herat initially appeared to be the government center in the Guzara district, which is on the edge of the city on the road to the airport. The suicide bomber drove a sport utility vehicle almost to the gates of the government center, which at 8:45 in the morning was crowded, but as policemen opened fire, he detonated a huge bomb. If he had come closer to the district center building the casualties would have been far higher, but even so 12 people died in the blast, among them at least 3 were policemen who were killed as they tried to stop the bomber, said Sayid Aqa Saqib, the provincial police chief. Though in the past few years fighting has been more a year-round than seasonal affair, combat does pick up sharply in eastern Afghanistan and parts of the north as the deep snow begins to melt in the mountain passes and fighters and supplies can more easily enter the country. It is early, however, to gauge the strength of this spring offensive because much local support for the Taliban comes from farmers — and they are too busy to fight because they are tending their poppy crops. Afghan military commanders say they expect the ranks of fighters to swell once the poppy harvest is in, but they also expressed optimism about their ability to face them down. “The Taliban will not miss any possible opportunity if they ever get it against the Afghan government,” Gen. Mohammed Salim Ahsas said. “But, we are becoming stronger and have the ability to halt their attempts.” In Herat, for instance, there have been numerous attempts by suicide bombers to attack targets, but they have failed, said Ghulam Mohayuddin Noor, the provincial spokesman. He said that government officials believe that the real target on Tuesday was the provincial governor, who was scheduled to be traveling on that road to the airport. A police intelligence unit was tracking the bombing vehicle’s movements and called for it to stop, but the driver ignored the instructions, said the provincial police chief, Sayid Aqa Saqib, adding that there appeared to have been two people in the vehicle. “When we told them to stop, they sped up, and as they approached the entrance, the police started to fire on them and the bombers blew themselves up,” he said. “There were two suspects in the vehicle, one in male clothes and one in female clothes, but we cannot tell if it was really a woman.” Herat is Afghanistan’s second most populous city and a place that has seen relatively little violence in recent years. Some of the attacks that do happen can be large-scale, however. Last May there were two suicide bombings , one of them attacking the NATO provincial reconstruction team on the outskirts of the city. In February, after the mistaken burning of Korans by American military personnel at Bagram Air Base, there was a demonstration in the city in which several people were killed and many others wounded when a police truck filled with bullets exploded. In Helmand Province, where at least four police officers were killed in the Musa Qala district headquarters when the suicide bombers attacked, the bombing was an ominous sign that despite an enormous effort on the part of American and Afghan forces, the area was not entirely secure. Helmand is scheduled to have thousands of United States Marines pull out over the next eight months in order to meet the goal of reducing the number of American troops in Afghanistan to pre-surge levels. The attack on Musa Qala was the first in months since American Marines had painstakingly cleared the district of Taliban fighters. For several years, the Taliban had been so dominant in Musa Qala that they ran a parallel government, including a justice system and prisons. They allowed the growing of poppies, the precursor for opium, and there was a thriving narcotics bazaar when the Taliban were in control, said an elder in Musa Qala, who asked not to be named. The target may well have been the district police chief, who has fought staunchly against the Taliban. He was critically wounded in the blast and was taken to a NATO base for treatment, said Daoud Ahmadi, the provincial governor’s spokesman.

Afghanistan
Taliban
Afghanistan War (2001- )
Terrorism


Arroyo Legacy Tour Troubles Her Critics

Abstract: MANILA — All over the Philippine capital, a sort of re-greening is under way: dozens of footbridges that were once pink and blue have now been repainted green — the signature color of the outgoing president’s party. Tied to these structures are huge banners with the words, “Thank you, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, for this footbridge.” At the same time, Mrs. Arroyo has been busy crisscrossing the country to make speeches at call centers, ports and highways that were built during her nearly nine years in power. All these efforts, administration officials say, are to highlight Mrs. Arroyo’s legacy as she prepares to leave office. Many of her critics, however, see more ambitious aims in all this activity. Nationwide elections are scheduled for May 10, and Mrs. Arroyo’s critics say she is putting into motion a plan that will help her return to power in another position — maybe even as prime minister — after she steps down in June. The Philippine Constitution mandates that a president can only serve one full term, but Mrs. Arroyo has long championed a move to transform the Philippines into a parliamentary system, which would allow her to become leader again. Mrs. Arroyo, 63, is running for a seat in Congress, in a district of her home province of Pampanga, just north of Manila. Why she is doing this has been a subject of frenzied speculation in the Philippines since she announced her decision to run in November. “I am not ready to step down completely from public service,” she said at the time. Her critics say the decision to run for Congress, where her allies hold a majority, is merely a ploy to return to power. “By being in Congress, she keeps her option open to become either House speaker or prime minister,” said Representative Teddy Casino, an opposition congressman. “Unlike other presidents who faded away graciously, Mrs. Arroyo has no intention of fading away,” he said. Mrs. Arroyo’s support in the legislature is likely to be strengthened after the elections Monday, analysts say. Eight members of her cabinet are running for the Senate or the House of Representatives. Four family members are running for Congress. Moreover, more than 40 so-called party-list groups — organizations that are supposed to represent marginalized sectors in Congress — are either allied or directly supported by Mrs. Arroyo and her party, the Lakas-CMD-Kampi. “If there was ever any doubt, it is now clear that Arroyo is absolutely intent on consolidating and perpetuating her power by shifting it from the executive to the legislative branch,” Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a political and business risk consultancy in Manila, said in a report in March. Mrs. Arroyo, through her lawyer Romulo Macalintal, has denied that such a plan exists, dismissing the charge as a conspiracy theory. To her critics, Mrs. Arroyo’s rule has been a disaster for the Philippines. A U.S.-educated economist and daughter of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, she became vice president in 1998 and then became the nation’s leader in 2001 after a popular revolt ousted former President Joseph Estrada. She was elected to a full term in 2004. Mrs. Arroyo leaves a “legacy of widespread poverty, electoral fraud, massive corruption, human rights violation and a culture of impunity that surpasses that of the Marcos dictatorship,” said Judy Taguiwalo, a professor and member of the board of regents of the University of the Philippines. An allegation, which has been investigated by the Senate, that she rigged elections in 2004 hounds her to this day. Attempts to impeach her because of this have been blocked by her allies in Congress. Her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, and other relatives have been accused of corruption as well. Mr. Arroyo has denied the charges, even filing libel cases against those who made them. Mrs. Arroyo’s government has also been accused of involvement in the killing, torturing and abducting of thousands of Filipinos, mainly activists, peasants, human rights advocates, religious leaders and journalists. Investigations by groups like Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Human Rights Council have pointed to the Philippine military as the perpetrators. They also castigated the Arroyo government for not doing enough to stop the atrocities and for failing to prosecute or apprehend the suspects in most of these cases. Mrs. Arroyo and her supporters have denied the charges. To her supporters, Mrs. Arroyo will leave a legacy of economic growth that, no matter how modest compared with others in the region, has shielded the Philippines from the impacts of the global recession. “While we are already reaping the benefits of the president’s economic and social reforms at this time, the full result will be felt by generations to come,” Francis Chua, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said during a forum in April. Mr. Chua said Mrs. Arroyo’s government created jobs, maintained industrial peace and fostered a sound investment climate. In the nine years she has been in power, incidents of strikes by workers dropped to 173, compared with 1,846 during the term of President Corazon Aquino, according to official records. Administration officials also said Mrs. Arroyo’s travels had reaped 500 billion pesos, or $11.2 billion, in investments. They cite a study by the Asian Development Bank that found poverty in the country fell 5 percent — the equivalent of four million people lifted out of poverty, they said — between 2006 and 2008. What Mrs. Arroyo can expect after she steps down remains unclear. One thing seems certain, though: her critics are likely to keep hounding her. “We will file plunder and human-rights violations cases against her the moment her term expires come noon on June 30,” said Jules Garcia Matibag, a spokesman of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, a nonprofit legal defense group. Mr. Casino, the opposition congressman, said his party members would begin investigations on the allegations against Mrs. Arroyo “beginning in Congress, all the way to the courts.” All this has some analysts in the Philippines speculating that Mrs. Arroyo’s run for Congress is motivated by a desire to shield herself from prosecution, which a leadership role would enable her to do. Gary Olivar, a spokesman for Mrs. Arroyo, bristles at such talk about her motives. “Frankly speaking, all these allegations come from the unreasonable, ignorant or malicious,” Mr. Olivar said in an interview. He challenged her critics to “bring it on” if they planned to file charges against her. “They are entitled to file charges if they felt they were not given a fair hearing under this administration,” Mr. Olivar said. “But the president remains confident that none of these charges will prosper.” He said that if she were elected to Congress, Mrs. Arroyo would focus on economic, environmental and education matters. “I don’t see why people are holding this against her,” Mr. Olivar said. “Her vast background, vast connections and vast experience would be a plus.” He added: “How often do you get former presidents to sit in Congress?”

Philippines
Elections
Arroyo Gloria Macapagal
Politics and Government


Cuomo Says He’s ‘Fine With 60%’ in Primary and Looks to General Election

Abstract: BUFFALO — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo does not see the primary result on Tuesday as anything resembling a rebuke. Yes, a little-known law professor won a third of the vote and around half of New York’s counties. But in the Mr. Cuomo’s view, he had bravely taken on several narrow but well-organized special interests — state employees, teachers and hydrofracking opponents — who, he said, were upset with him because he did not give into their wishes. “Was this an opportunity for the groups that had an ax to grind to come together? Yes,” Mr. Cuomo said in an interview, adding, “I’m fine with 60 percent.” Now, Mr. Cuomo is looking ahead to a general-election opponent about whom he and even the most fervent, frustrated liberals in his party can have little disagreement. At a victory rally here, the governor went on the attack against his Republican challenger, Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, assailing him as out of step with New Yorkers because of his conservative stances on social issues like gun control, same-sex marriage and abortion rights. “This is an ultraconservative movement that wants to take over the State of New York,” Mr. Cuomo said. Afterward, speaking to reporters, he drove home his argument. “It’s repugnant to the values of this state,” he said. “It’s repugnant to what the people in this state believe. Maybe you can sell it in Washington, maybe you can sell it in other parts of this country, but you can’t sell it here.” At the rally, the governor and his allies presented an air of jubilation, though news coverage of the primary result largely focused on the performance of his opponent, Zephyr Teachout. Taking the stage, Mr. Cuomo clapped to the song “Shout,” the campaign anthem of his running mate, Kathy Hochul, a former congresswoman from Buffalo. Mayor Byron Brown of Buffalo called Mr. Cuomo’s victory “tremendous.” Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County executive, called it “huge,” drawing a thumbs-up from the governor. Later, Mr. Poloncarz and other Democrats pointed to the low turnout — about 530,000 Democrats, or roughly 10 percent of the party’s members, cast votes — as one factor in the strong showing by Ms. Teachout, who had little campaign money and minimal name recognition. “A lot of people,” Mr. Poloncarz said, “thought the governor was going to win, and ‘if the governor is going to win, why should I go out to vote?’ ” Mr. Astorino offered his own interpretation of the Democratic primary on Wednesday, calling it a “major embarrassment” for Mr. Cuomo. Image Zephyr Teachout, who was Mr. Cuomo's top challenger in the primary, preparing her speech moments before conceding the race. Ms. Teachout's performance exposed some of the governor's vulnerabilities. Credit Andrew Renneisen/The New York Times “There is no base of support for Andrew Cuomo,” Mr. Astorino said on WNBF-AM. “I don’t know who his base is, really, because he doesn’t stand for anything. Nobody is passionate about him, and he tries to be all things to all people, and as a result, nobody is thrilled with him.” “No matter how Andrew Cuomo tries to spin this, there are major problems on his left,” he added, “and there are major problems he has with the electorate as a whole.” But Mr. Cuomo said he attributed the opposition on Tuesday to unhappiness with what he described as several politically unpopular decisions he made — such as negotiating a wage freeze for state workers, reducing pension benefits for future public workers and establishing more rigorous teacher evaluations. He said the voters who opposed him were not doing so out of unhappiness with his economic centrism or his broader philosophy. Rather, he said they wanted something from him — for instance, a more favorable contract, in the case of a union of state workers that endorsed Ms. Teachout. “Don’t call them Democrats or liberals,” the governor said. “This is not about an ideology. It’s about a transaction.” He described the primary result as “liberating,” noting that he did not lose, despite the unhappiness from the unions. “You can do the right thing, and endure the political retaliation, and still get 60 percent,” Mr. Cuomo said, describing his lesson from the primary. Mr. Cuomo’s march toward the general election in November seems to be free of comparable obstacles. He will benefit from favorable demographics as well as the ability to draw a stark contrast with his Republican opponent, who has conservative positions on social issues. Without referring to him by name, Mr. Cuomo highlighted Mr. Astorino’s opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion rights. Over and over, he referred to “ultraconservatives” and “hyperconservatives” as if naming New York’s worst nemeses. The chairman of the state’s Democratic Party, former Gov. David A. Paterson, assailed Mr. Astorino in a statement as an “extremist.” Referring to a former Republican presidential candidate, Mr. Paterson added that Mr. Astorino’s record on social issues “would makes Rick Santorum smile.” While Mr. Cuomo avoided attacking Ms. Teachout until just before the primary, the governor and his allies have been assailing Mr. Astorino ever since he declared his candidacy six months ago, unleashing negative television advertising. The party has also tried to hurt Mr. Astorino over ethics, an area in which Mr. Cuomo is vulnerable, in light of an investigation by federal prosecutors into his office’s dealings with the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption panel that the governor created and then shut down. A commercial released in July accused Mr. Astorino of doling out patronage jobs and engaging in “petty, corrupt politics,” concluding, “We just can’t trust Rob Astorino.” Last month, after another ad accused him of racketeering, conspiracy and fraud, Mr. Astorino’s campaign wrote to television station managers and demanded that it be pulled. The state Democratic Party defended the ad and was still running it on Wednesday. After the rally here, Mr. Cuomo pronounced himself elated. “I am happy, happy, happy,” he said of his performance. “Where I come from, you win with 60 percent, you say one thing: ‘Thank you very much.’ ”

Primaries
New York
Zephyr Teachout
Andrew Cuomo
Gubernatorial races


Mandela Is Looking Better, President Says After Visit

Abstract: JOHANNESBURG — President Jacob Zuma of South Africa gave a largely upbeat assessment on Tuesday of the health of Nelson Mandela , the nation’s first black president and anti-apartheid icon, who has spent more than two weeks in the hospital for a lung infection and gallstones. Mr. Zuma said in a statement that Mr. Mandela, 94, “is looking much better” and that “the doctors are happy with the progress he is making.” The president visited Mr. Mandela on Christmas morning at a Pretoria hospital along with Mr. Mandela’s wife, the children’s rights activist Graça Machel. “We found him in good spirits,” Mr. Zuma said in the statement. “He shouted my clan name, Nxamalala, as I walked into the ward.” Mr. Mandela has been in increasingly frail health, and his latest hospitalization has been the longest since he was released from prison in 1990. His health is closely watched; local news organizations have been camped outside the hospital. He has suffered recurrent lung infections, a legacy of the tuberculosis he contracted in prison. The government tightly controls information about his condition, releasing only occasional updates. When Mr. Mandela was first hospitalized on Dec. 8, the government said that he was in no danger, but Mr. Zuma later said that Mr. Mandela’s condition was serious. Mr. Mandela has been out of politics since 1999, when he stepped down after a single term as president, and retired from public life in 2004. He has not been seen in public since 2010, when he briefly appeared at the opening of the World Cup soccer tournament, which South Africa hosted. His extended illness comes at the end of a year in which South Africa has faced perhaps the most serious unrest since the end of apartheid. His party, the African National Congress, was deeply divided over a leadership struggle, and a wave of wildcat strikes by angry mine workers — followed by a harsh police crackdown against them — dented the country’s image as a bastion of peace and reconciliation.

South Africa
Zuma Jacob G
Mandela Nelson


Subprime Mortgage in Bronx Building Where 3 Died in Fire

Abstract: The promise made by a mortgage company in San Diego could not have been more blunt. “Accredited Home Lenders offers an unusually broad line of subprime mortgage products for wholesale mortgage brokers,” the company’s Web site boasted in its heyday. “Send us your toughest loans, and let us earn your business.” Those were the days: from 2005 to 2007, Accredited made $29 billion in subprime loans. Among them was a balloon mortgage for $384,000 in November 2005 to one Domingo Cedano, who used the money to buy a three-family building at 2321 Prospect Avenue in the Bronx . The mortgage carried an interest rate of 7 3/8 and monthly payments of $2,491. Mr. Cedano put none of his own money into the purchase. By this week, Mr. Cedano had long since stopped making payments. The property was in foreclosure. Accredited Home Lenders itself had gone bankrupt. On Monday morning, when a fire in the building killed three people who lived on the top floor, it was a warren of rooms nested inside rooms. As the stairway roared with flames, illegally built walls blocked access to the fire escape for Manuel Lopez and Christina Garcia and their 12-year-old son, Christian Garcia. How did the building get this way, and who was responsible? Here was one of the most confounding legacies of the subprime era: the nearly cosmic invisibility of who owns what. Loans were made, then bundled and sold in securitizations to investors, and these were traded again. The connection between lender and borrower vanished. Sometimes the bundles of loans were sold through public filings, but often they were not. The Prospect Avenue loan began with a company in San Diego, then moved to another one in Flint, Mich., and was taken over by a company in Oklahoma City. As of one year ago this month, a state law makes it clear that the lenders are responsible for a property once it has gone into the foreclosure process. “The legislation required that once a foreclosure takes place, it’s up to the bank or whoever foreclosed on the property to take care of it, maintain it, make sure it’s safe,” said State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, a Bronx Democrat who sponsored the bill. “If not, the local building department can go in and make the proper repairs.” That’s not what happened at 2321 Prospect. In response to complaints about illegal subdivisions and other problems at the building, city inspectors went to the building 10 times, but they were never able to get in and they left notices outside. The city also mailed notices to Mr. Cedano, who was listed as the owner of the property, said Tony Sclafani, a spokesman for the city’s Buildings Department. Mr. Klein said building departments in other parts of the state had used the law to force lenders to take care of properties in foreclosure. “In my own district, in the northeast Bronx and southern Westchester, we’ve been able to use it to push the lenders into dealing with their responsibilities,” he said. “These foreclosures can cause community eyesores.” The loan made by Accredited six years ago is now the property of a trust for unidentified investors, and the Bank of New York Mellon serves as their trustee. The bank has engaged Vericrest Financial , a company in Dallas, to handle the loans in that trust, including the foreclosure proceedings. Did Vericrest take care of the building while it was in foreclosure, or even know that it was supposed to? “Vericrest is not going to comment,” a spokesman said. The state law was a start, said Harold Shultz, who worked with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development for 30 years and is now a senior fellow with the Citizens Housing and Planning Council of New York. “We have a big mess to unwind, and foreclosure is going to be a big part of it,” he said. “We have to make sure that our foreclosure procedures can deal with our actual problems. Despite the attempts of the New York State Legislature, we need to do more.” Among his suggestions: Make sure that competent receivers are appointed to run troubled properties, and set up a system in which government authorities are alerted when a building is in the limbo of a lengthy foreclosure proceeding. “We need to make sure, in general, that foreclosure is a process in which properties are watched over and don’t get lost in the shuffle,” Mr. Shultz said.

Foreclosures
Accidents and Safety
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Bronx (NYC)
Bloomberg Michael R


South Korean Premier Offers His Resignation

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo of South Korea said Tuesday that he had offered to resign over a snowballing bribery scandal, dealing a blow to President Park Geun-hye, whose government has already been rocked by a ferry disaster. Mr. Lee has been under mounting pressure from within Ms. Park’s governing Saenuri Party, as well as from the opposition, to step down after an allegation emerged this month that he took 30 million won, or $27,700, in illegal cash donations from a South Korean businessman in 2013. The businessman, Sung Wan-jong, hanged himself from a tree on April 9, the day he was scheduled to appear before a court to fight attempts by prosecutors to arrest him on corruption charges. He was the first target in the Park government’s widening investigation into corruption allegations that were said to have taken place under her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak. Yet Mr. Sung, a former lawmaker and chairman of a bankrupt construction company, did not go silently: He left behind a memorandum and a tape of a telephone interview that he gave to a South Korean newspaper hours before he died. On the tape and in the memo he detailed illegal cash gifts that he said he had given to Mr. Lee and a few other key political allies of Ms. Park, including both of her former chiefs of staff. Like the others on Mr. Sung’s list, Mr. Lee denied receiving illegal cash. He even denied knowing Mr. Sung well. But his credibility crumbled fast as domestic news media revealed photographs, telephone records and Mr. Sung’s diaries that indicated the two had spoken on the phone or met numerous times. Mr. Lee faced the increasing likelihood that he would become the first sitting prime minister to be questioned by prosecutors in a corruption inquiry. In a statement sent to reporters early Tuesday, Mr. Lee’s office said he had offered his resignation to Ms. Park on Monday. Ms. Park, who was on a trip to South America, called Mr. Lee’s decision “deeply regrettable,” according to her spokesman, Min Kyung-wook. South Korean news media quoted unnamed top aides to Ms. Park as saying that she would officially accept Mr. Lee’s resignation as soon as she returned from the trip next Monday. If that happens, Mr. Lee, once a powerful and cocky party insider, will go down as one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in South Korean history. During his confirmation hearings in February, an audio tape emerged of him boasting to young journalists over lunch in January that he was so well connected with top news media executives that he could ruin the career of unfriendly reporters. Ms. Park has called for a thorough investigation of the bribery scandal. Besides Mr. Lee, Hong Joon-pyo, a former head of Ms. Park’s governing party who now serves as a provincial governor, was cited in domestic news media as the first to face a summons. Mr. Sung said he gave Mr. Hong 100 million won, or $92,000, in illegal campaign donations in 2011. Mr. Hong, who as a young prosecutor built a reputation as an anticorruption crusader, has denied the accusations. Ms. Park’s governing party faced the bribery scandal on the eve of elections for four parliamentary seats next week. Her approval ratings plunged after the ferry Sewol capsized off the southwestern coast a year ago, killing 304 people, most of them teenagers. Corporate greed, regulatory failures and corrupt relationships between government officials and businessmen were cited as factors. In the past week, as the country marked the first anniversary of the disaster , protesters marching on Ms. Park’s office clashed with tear-gas-spraying riot police officers in downtown Seoul. The marchers, including bereaved families, demanded that the government reopen an investigation into its failures in rescue efforts.

South Korea
Lee Wan-koo
Park Geun-hye
Corruption
Bribery and Kickbacks
Saenuri Party South Korea


Honda Unveils a Cheaper Hybrid Challenger to Toyota’s Top-Selling Prius

Abstract: DETROIT — The Toyota Prius , which currently dominates the American hybrid car market, will face its most serious challenger this year. Honda is showing its new Insight hybrid, which looks remarkably similar to the Prius, at this week’s North American International Auto Show . It is smaller and less fuel efficient than the Prius, but it is expected to sell for as little as $18,000, about $4,000 less than the Prius. “It’s the first direct competitor to the Prius,” said Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis at the Power Information Network of J. D. Power & Associates. “And it’s from Honda, so I think it’s going to be a major success.” But Toyota is countering with an improved version of the Prius, which became one of the top-selling vehicles in 2008. Toyota on Monday said the third-generation Prius will average 50 miles per gallon, a 4 mile improvement. The Insight will go an estimated 40 miles per gallon in the city and 43 on the highway. Toyota also unveiled the first hybrid-only sedan for its Lexus luxury division, aimed at consumers who viewed a Prius as too basic and underpowered. The Ford Motor Company plans to build hybrid versions of its midsize Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan sedans. The Fusion is rated at 41 miles per gallon in city driving, one mile better than the Insight, but will have a price of at least $27,270. Detroit’s hybrids, so far, have not developed anywhere near the following of the Prius, which accounted for 75 percent of the American hybrid market last year. Large hybrid vehicles made by General Motors and Chrysler have not sold well, leading Chrysler to eliminate its hybrid full-size sport utility vehicles after only a few months this year. Honda also has had difficulty making inroads with hybrids. The company discontinued its original Insight — a car often likened to an upside-down bathtub — in 2006 and stopped building the hybrid version of its popular Accord sedan two years ago because of low sales. One reason is the price of those vehicles, which generally cost several thousand dollars more than a gasoline-only version of the same model. Only when gas prices surged to more than $4 a gallon last summer did most hybrids begin to make financial sense for many people. Now that gas costs less than $2 a gallon, sales of hybrids have cooled. One reason for the popularity of the Prius is its unique body style, which many drivers appear to like because it sends a clear signal to others about what they are driving. Many other hybrids are indistinguishable from gas-only models, save for a small logo on the vehicle. Now Honda thinks it can succeed with a similar look and an advantage in price. The Insight will be the least-expensive hybrid vehicle in the United States, and it will face off against the Prius, which is the most fuel-efficient vehicle sold in this country. “Toyota, to their credit, made it a fashionable thing,” John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda, said in an interview. “Insight was designed to make hybrid technology more affordable to consumers than it is today. It doesn’t carry the high-price stigma that hybrids normally carry.” Publicly, at least, Toyota officials do not claim to be concerned about the rival to the Prius. They said Toyota expected to sell 180,000 Prius cars in the first 12 months, 13 percent more than it sold in 2008 and double Honda’s goal for the Insight. “I think it’s going to help us expand overall consideration for hybrids,” James E. Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales in the United States, said of the Insight. But analysts say Toyota will have to work harder this year to fight for its share of a smaller market. “I don’t think having a competitor that’s so close in shape and abilities and is undercutting it by several thousands in any way helps Prius sales,” said Aaron Bragman, an automotive marketing research analyst with IHS Global Insight. “Cost of ownership is much more important to most people than saving a few more miles a gallon. Right now people are so price sensitive for vehicles.” While much of the attention at this year’s Detroit show has been focused on electric vehicles that are still several years away, Toyota insists hybrids are not merely a passing fad, regardless of gas prices. It plans to offer a hybrid version of every model it makes by the decade beginning in the year 2020. “We’re committed to hybrid as our core powertrain,” Mr. Lentz said. “We think it’s the most versatile powertrain we can have going forward.” Mr. Libby of J. D. Power said that the Prius was still hard to find in some parts of the country. He expects that to still be the case even after the Insight arrives at dealers in April. “There are enough people out there who want to make a statement that they are environmentally conscious to make those vehicles successful,” he said.

North American International Auto Show
Fuel Efficiency
Hybrid Vehicles
Honda Motor Co Ltd
Toyota Motor Corp
Automobiles


Philae Lander Nears a Cosmic Touchdown

Abstract: In its 10-year chase of a comet, the European Space Agency’s ambitious Rosetta mission has pushed the edges of engineering ingenuity. After three slingshot flybys of Earth to fling it at ever faster speeds to catch up with its target, Rosetta was so far from the sun that its solar arrays could not generate enough electricity, and it was, by design, put into hibernation for two and a half years. To the relief of mission managers, Rosetta woke up from its cold, deep sleep as scheduled in January. In August, it finally pulled up alongside the comet, known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, both flying closer to the sun at 34,400 miles per hour. In the months since, Rosetta has snapped photographs just 4.5 miles above the craggy surface. Now it is attempting its greatest feat yet: drop a small lander onto the comet. On Wednesday, at 3:35 a.m. Eastern time, the 220-pound lander, named Philae, detached from Rosetta and began to be pulled downward by the comet’s gravity. Philae will be aimed at a landing site that covers about a third of a square mile; the area looks relatively smooth and clear of boulders but is still close to streams of dust and gas shooting off the surface. Seven hours later, give or take some minutes, Philae is to bump onto the surface. The comet, 2.5 miles wide, is so small and its gravity so slight that even after that long fall, Philae will be traveling no faster than walking pace. To keep the lander from bouncing, thrusters will fire for 15 seconds, pressing it against the surface, and a harpoon will shoot into the comet to anchor Philae. Both the European Space Agency and NASA, which contributed three instruments to the $275 million lander mission, will broadcast coverage on their websites. In this era of social media and anthropomorphized spacecraft, Philae and Rosetta have their own Twitter feeds: @Philae2014 and @ESA_Rosetta . “I’m so ready!” a Twitter post announced Sunday. Scientists hope that Philae and its 10 instruments will conduct 64 hours of work before its batteries drain. After that, if the dust and gas rising from the comet do not obscure too much sunlight, Philae’s solar panels are to recharge the batteries enough to provide an hour’s worth of observation every couple of days. Engineers expect Philae to survive until next March, when the surface of the comet becomes too hot. Philae is a high-risk, high-reward gamble. The lander could miss its mark, touch down on a boulder and topple over, or land in shadows where solar arrays cannot produce enough power. Landing on a Comet, 317 Million Miles From Home The Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae lander is attempting to land on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. If it succeeds, scientists will have a breathtaking view from the surface of a comet. If it fails, mission managers say, Rosetta will still be a resounding success with the slew of data coming back from the orbiter. Planetary scientists have never had a look at a comet so close up for so long. Previous spacecraft missions have zoomed by comets at high speeds, providing only brief examinations. By contrast, Rosetta will be a constant companion as Comet 67P approaches the sun, swings around and heads out again, its instruments potentially providing more than two years of data. “We will watch this comet evolve,” Matt Taylor, the project scientist, said during a news briefing last week. “It’s never been done before.” Even at its brightest, Comet 67P will not be visible to the naked eye from Earth. At its closest point to the sun, it is still as far away as Earth. At the other end of its 6.5-year orbit, it is as far from the sun as Jupiter. Still, the changes on Comet 67P have been considerable already. Rosetta initially measured about 0.3 liters of water coming off the comet every second, Dr. Taylor said. “This is increasing,” he said. “We’re talking of kilos per second now coming off.” (A liter of water has a mass of one kilogram.) By the middle of next year, the comet will be spraying hundreds of liters of water a second, Dr. Taylor said. The comet has already provided a number of surprising findings, beginning with its shape. Instead of something roughly round, “we saw the duck,” Dr. Taylor said, referring to Comet 67P’s two-lobed structure that somewhat resembles a rubber bathtub toy. Among the gases that Rosetta has detected coming off the comet are hydrogen sulfide (the scent of rotten eggs), ammonia, methane, hydrogen cyanide, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde. “It may be not be the perfume that some of us would choose to wear,” Dr. Taylor said. “It’s a bit smelly.” He added, “At least there’s some alcohol, which some of us might enjoy.” Or not — the alcohol in the comet is methanol, also known as wood alcohol, which is poisonous and can cause blindness when imbibed. In preparation for the landing operation, Rosetta has moved farther from the comet. A few hours before letting go of Philae, it took a sharp turn toward the comet on a not-quite collision course. To get the lander to the selected site, Rosetta has to drop Philae at the right time at the right spot at an altitude of 14 miles from the comet’s center while traveling at the right velocity. But after Philae is let go, the mission managers can only be helpless onlookers. The thrusters are not capable of making any midcourse corrections. “We cannot actively steer the trajectory of the landing on descent,” said Andrea Accomazzo, the flight director. “That’s the part that worries me most, because I have no control.”


Sure, I Rock, but I Need Health Care

Abstract: BEFORE They Were Rock Stars," the VH1 show that skidded off the air before it had a chance to unearth much more than Britney Spears's preteen turn as a Mouseketeer, should have spent more time in New Jersey. Patti Smith worked in a mattress factory here before becoming a punk-rock poet. The guitar god Zakk Wylde pumped gas. And Bruce Springsteen paid some Steinbeckian dues (though some say not long enough) as a landscaper. Toiling in the name of rock, while waiting for that one big break, is a statewide tradition. Thing is, these days that break doesn't necessarily mean giving up the day job, whether you're born to run or not. Rents in New Jersey are hostile to on-again, off-again retail clerks, even if they can play guitar with the skill and passion of Clapton and write lyrics that are downright Dickinsonian. And signing with a record label and going on, triumphantly, to play to packed houses worldwide is no longer an automatic ticket to smirking at the boss and waving goodbye. "Obviously, music is what I really, really want to be doing," said Jenny Owen Youngs, a singer-songwriter, a few days after finishing a recent month's residency performing her literate and occasionally acid-tongued pop songs at the Living Room in Manhattan. "But I need health care." To get it, Ms. Owen Youngs, 24, who shares an apartment in Montclair with a roommate, drives an hour northwest every weekday to Shanachie Records in Newton. There she clocks in eight or nine hours behind a desk, doing the same sales and marketing job she was hired for right out of college in 2004. Evening hours are devoted to music — at least a couple of nights a week, when she is not opening for higher-profile artists like Duncan Sheik and Erin McKeown at Manhattan clubs, Ms. Owen Youngs often drives two hours to Purchase, N.Y., where she rehearses with a band before "going home to pass out at 2 a.m." "I'm not getting a lot of sleep," said Ms. Owen Youngs, whose remaining vacation days are dwindling while she completes another monthlong residency, this one at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles. "But it's important to me to stay as on-task as possible. My job is laid back, which I love, and everyone's aware of what I do, and supportive. The president of the company is a great song critiquer. And my direct supervisor has been amazingly understanding. Before he started working on the business side, he was a rapper." That fate — the used-to-be musician — and the reluctance to join those sad ranks is what keeps a band like the Wrens, of Teaneck, making critically acclaimed discs while its members work sales jobs and watch the sun set on their 30's. It is what keeps Fred Cornog, the independent rocker from Summit known as East River Pipe, selling flooring at Home Depot well into his 40's even as major labels come calling. It is also what keeps Justin Morey, frontman for the Black Hollies and bass player for Rye Coalition, both based in Jersey City, making candy 40 hours a week at Al Richards Homemade Chocolates in Bayonne. "I never considered entering that field, the chocolate field," Mr. Morey said after a recent shift, just hours before he was to lead the Black Hollies, a 1960's-revivalist band, at the Pussycat Lounge in Manhattan. But 11 years ago, when he was 19 and particularly strapped for cash, he was offered the job by the stepfather of his band mate Herbert Joseph Wiley. That Mr. Morey would still be contemplating chocolate bunnies, even after signing with a major label through Rye Coalition, seeing his picture in Rolling Stone and reading favorable reviews of his music in Spin magazine, is something he never would have guessed. "I'd summarize my lifestyle as being a couple of notches below comfortable," said Mr. Morey, who lives with his wife in a $2,000-a-month apartment in Jersey City. "There are weeks when I consider some other way of getting by. You'd think we'd have some solid earnings by now, but not really. "My biggest complaint, though, is that between the hours of 10:30 and 2 I have brilliant ideas but can't write music. I'll have five great ideas, and by the time I get home, when I can finally reach for an instrument, it's reduced to one and a half. That gets frustrating." The ideas of Chris Kosnik of Allenhurst, the bass player and singer for the Atomic Bitchwax, on the other hand, keep coming back to him. "Pretty often, I get these checks from BMI," the songwriting organization, he said over the phone from Munich, where he and his Asbury Park-based band mates were finishing their second European tour in less than a year. For its "Homewrecker" series, "MTV is using five of our songs off the new record" — "III" (Meteor City) — "and Fox Sports has used our songs, a Swedish radio station uses stuff, that sort of thing." But even those royalties, the money he earns from performing and album sales, and the "pretty good penny" from the merchandise table at shows do not let him return home without lining up house-painting jobs first. "I've been painting houses since I was 19 or 20, and now I'm 36," he said. "Of course I'd rather not do it, but it comes down to this: Every year you're touring you're making more money. With music, you get out what you put into it. The goal is to continue on, opening for bigger acts. But at this level, I've got to keep a job. The painting is about half my income." Because it is, and because so many established artists he knows also pull on painter's pants or something equally un-rocklike when they are not touring, the whirlwind success of the barnstorming act Satanicide is bound to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of plenty of would-be stars. Especially in New Jersey. "After eight years together, we're officially out of debt, and we've gotten our big break," said Phillip Costello, who leads the four-piece spoof outfit that regularly sells out seats across Manhattan for its sendup of New Jersey hair bands. "We didn't aim to be a parody of Jersey bands at first, but then we wrote a song called 'Jersey Knights,' and people got really into it." Mr. Costello, a former real estate lawyer who lives in Manhattan, added: "We used to play every few weeks at smaller clubs, but now we've started headlining at the Bowery Ballroom, and we're on a Cingular commercial. We never expected Satanicide to get this far. But it's really achieved a lot for us. On an artistic level, it's like making it in the N.B.A., and we're thrilled. Most bands don't make money. "A lot of them have to work day jobs."

Music
Medicine and Health
Recordings (Audio)
Rock Music


Iraq’s Soccer Team Faces Tough Battle at Asian Cup

Abstract: For a short time, it looked as if fairy tales could have sequels after all. At Iraq’s opening game at the 2011 Asian Cup against Iran, it took just 12 minutes for its captain and star striker, Younis Mahmood, to evoke memories of the glorious triumph of July 2007. After a simple cross to the far post led to confusion in the Iran defense, Emad Mohammed headed the ball into the penalty area for Mahmood, known as the Desert Fox, to pounce on and poke into an empty net. If the substantial contingent of wildly celebrating Iraqi fans felt that the team was going to continue in 2011 where it had left off in Jakarta 42 months before, when it lifted the Asian Cup in triumph, its rival and neighbor had other ideas. Iran fought back to win, 2-1, in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday evening to leave the champions with much to do if they wanted to stay in the tournament. “I think that Iran played very well. We created some chances and for me it was a 50/50 game,” said Iraq’s coach, the German Wolfgang Sidka. In truth, however, Iran deserved the victory against a team that ran out of steam. Many of the same players are in place as were in 2007, among them Mahmood, playmaker Nashat Akram and winger Hawar Mulla Mohammed. But the situation has changed. No longer is Iraq the plucky underdog riding on a tide of good will and emotion. Instead, it is the Asian title holder, a prized scalp and, if you talk to local journalists, past its peak. After the drama and emotion of 2007, it would be too much to expect a repeat in 2011. It would probably not feel the same, anyway. Iraq’s triumph at the 2007 Asian Cup was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, stories that Asian soccer ever produced. A rare feel-good story from a nation in turmoil following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the tale broke out of sports sections to make headlines around the world. The plaudits were deserved. Never before could a champion have endured worse preparations. The national team had been unable to play a home match since the start of the war, and few players had been untouched by personal tragedy in the sectarian violence that followed. Yet, Iraq, which had qualified for just one World Cup, in 1986, and reached the final four of the Asian Cup just once, in 1976, overcame genuine powerhouses like Australia and South Korea to defeat Saudi Arabia in the final in 2007. This time, either South Korea or Australia is likely to be the quarterfinal opponent if Iraq can make it that far, but the loss against Iran means that advancing would be guaranteed only by victories in the remaining matches against the United Arab Emirates on Saturday and North Korea next Wednesday. Those two teams tied, 0-0, in their clash Tuesday. Iraq paid the price for its inability to add to Mahmood’s strike in the first half when it was on top. As half time approached, Iran was edging its way back into the game and just before the whistle, Gholamreza Rezaei beat the offside trap to fire home coolly past the Iraqi goalkeeper. The goal celebration from the attacker, who turned and walked away with a shrug of his shoulders, was equally cool, though the reactions of his teammates, who soon engulfed him, was more representative of the passions that were running high in this Group D opening match between two nations that fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988. As the game entered its final stages, Iraq had seemingly settled for a tie that would have left all four teams with one point after the first match. Iran was not settling for a tie, however, and five minutes from the end, Iman Mobali’s late free kick bounced in the penalty area and somehow ended up in the back of the net. Iran’s coach, the American Afshin Ghotbi, was delighted with the comeback. He dedicated the victory to the families of the victims of the plane crash in the Iranian city of Orumiyeh on Sunday, which killed at least 77 people. “The game was complicated for us because of the rivalry between the two sides, and also it was the first match of the tournament, while Iraq is the defending champion,” Ghotbi said. “After going one down, I was confident that we could come back. I have experience of playing against Iraq and they are the masters of killing time, so I thought that if we score before the half time then we have a chance to win.” Since the 2007 triumph, Iraq has done little to suggest that it can repeat its success, even if it gets out of Group D. The security situation has improved to an extent: exhibition matches have taken place in the country, but competitive qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers were held in Doha and Amman. Having to play all six matches away from home certainly contributed to the failure by Iraq to reach South Africa last summer, but the inconsistent performances of the team suggested that it would have struggled against the world’s best, anyway. Against Asia’s best, however, it could be a different story. As 2007 Asian Cup winners, Iraq gained automatic entry to the 2011 tournament, and there is still hope. Sidka praised his team’s fighting spirit. It is not beyond the spirit of the 2007 squad to recover from the early setback. It remains to be seen how the 2011 vintage reacts, but with many members from the triumph four years ago still around, it is too early to write off the champions. “Through winning the cup, we did what America and the government couldn’t do, which was to unite the country,” said Mahmoud before the Iran game. “Our ambition is to be the champion again.”


Ryan Braun, and Lingering Questions Over His Drug Test

Abstract: TAMPA , Fla. For fans of Ryan Braun, a group that includes his fellow major league players, no ambiguity is needed. Braun is innocent. He is not suspended. His record is clean. The second and third points are indisputable. Braun is free to play for the Milwaukee Brewers this season. The record will show no signs of the 50-game suspension he had faced since testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone after a playoff game in October. An arbitrator, Shyam Das, sided with the union and upheld Braun’s appeal. The question of innocence is more nuanced. This was a legal fight, and Braun found a way to win. Does that make him innocent of cheating? We still do not know. All we know is that protocol broke down in at least two crucial areas. The test administrator made the first mistake. Braun’s defense team was successful in raising questions about how the tester stored Braun’s urine sample in his home refrigerator instead of taking it directly to a FedEx center for shipment to a laboratory in Montreal . The second mistake was by the sources who leaked the positive test result to ESPN in December. The information was solid, the news value substantial. The reporters did their job in breaking an important story, and bashing them is misguided. But players do have reason to feel violated. A positive test result is not supposed to be made public until a player’s punishment is official. Since Braun, technically, was never punished, he has a right to feel persecuted by whoever leaked the story. Thursday’s ruling, Braun said in a statement, “is the first step in restoring my good name and reputation.” “We were able to get through this because I am innocent and the truth is on our side. We provided complete cooperation throughout, despite the highly unusual circumstances. “I have been an open book, willing to share details from every aspect of my life as part of this investigation, because I have nothing to hide. I have passed over 25 drug tests in my career, including at least three in the past year.” Braun is among the more appealing superstars in the majors, polite and well-spoken, conscious of his reputation but in an earnest sort of way. When he came to the New York baseball writers’ dinner in January to accept his National League Most Valuable Player award, he spoke about his deep respect for the game. But Braun’s open book cannot be filled with thick, black lines covering up what really happened. Nothing can be redacted. By all accounts, Braun did not use a steroid . But some sort of banned substance caused him to fail the test, and if he really has nothing to hide, he needs to say what it was. Anything less than a full explanation will leave lingering doubts, at least among people who consider his case beyond the surface. He won on a technicality; there’s no other way to say it. Storing a sealed drug test in a refrigerator for the weekend cannot change the properties of the sample. Braun might have a perfectly reasonable explanation. He seems too smart to have knowingly used a banned substance, but he bears the burden of his predecessors, who stood against steroid testing to protect the cheaters among them. Players were sneaky, management was oblivious, reporters were not vigilant and fans were duped. Suspicion reigns, understandably. On some level, baseball is probably happy that Braun was not suspended. He is the best player on a small-market playoff team, and keeping the Brewers strong furthers Commissioner Bud Selig ’s goal of competitive balance. Publicly, though, baseball came out firing against Braun, with Rob Manfred, the executive vice president for labor relations, saying in a statement that the league “vehemently disagrees” with Das’s ruling. Tough talk against performance-enhancing drugs usually sounds good, but this came off as excessive. In effect, Manfred was saying that Braun can play, but fans must view him with suspicion, even though they never should have known that he failed a test in the first place. Baseball’s frustration is understandable. Their doping cops nabbed a big name and let him get away. Braun is a free man, but he still must give a good reason for how he got into this mess.

Ryan Braun
Drug test
Testosterone
Baseball
Doping


Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs

Abstract: Two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes. Industry analysts estimate that such payments — to cancer doctors and the other big users of the drugs, kidney dialysis centers — total hundreds of millions of dollars a year and are an important source of profit for doctors and the centers. The payments have risen over the last several years, as the makers of the drugs, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson , compete for market share and try to expand the overall business. Neither Amgen nor Johnson & Johnson has disclosed the total amount of the payments. But documents given to The New York Times show that at just one practice in the Pacific Northwest, a group of six cancer doctors received $2.7 million from Amgen for prescribing $9 million worth of its drugs last year. Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration added to concerns about the drugs, releasing a report that suggested that their use might need to be curtailed in cancer patients. The report, prepared by F.D.A. staff scientists, said no evidence indicated that the medicines either improved quality of life in patients or extended their survival, while several studies suggested that the drugs can shorten patients’ lives when used at high doses. Yesterday’s report followed the F.D.A.’s decision in March to strengthen warnings on the drugs’ labels. The report was released in advance of a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, during which an F.D.A. advisory panel will consider whether the drugs are overused. The medicines — Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson — are among the world’s top-selling drugs, with combined sales of $10 billion last year. In this country, they represent the single biggest drug expense for Medicare and are given to about a million patients each year to treat anemia caused by kidney disease or cancer chemotherapy . Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said that both patients and doctors would benefit from fuller disclosure about the payments and the profits that doctors can make from them. “I suspect that Medicare is going to take a very careful look at what is going on here,” he said. Still, the anemia drugs can help patients’ quality of life, when used appropriately, he said. “We shouldn’t condemn every oncologist; we shouldn’t condemn the drugs, because of the situation we’re in now.” Federal laws bar drug companies from paying doctors to prescribe medicines that are given in pill form and purchased by patients from pharmacies. But companies can rebate part of the price that doctors pay for drugs, like the anemia medicines, which they dispense in their offices as part of treatment. The anemia drugs are injected or given intravenously in physicians’ offices or dialysis centers. Doctors receive the rebates after they buy the drugs from the companies. But they also receive reimbursement from Medicare or private insurers for the drugs, often at a markup over the doctors’ purchase price. Medicare has changed its payment structure since 2003 to reduce the markup, but private insurers still often pay more. Combined with those insurance reimbursements, the rebates enable many doctors to profit substantially on the medicines they buy and then give to patients. The rebates are related to the amount of drugs that doctors buy, and physicians that agree to use one company’s drugs exclusively typically receive higher rebates. Johnson & Johnson said yesterday in a statement that its rebates were not intended to induce doctors to use more medicine. Instead, the rebates “reflect intense competition” in the market for the drugs, the company said. Amgen said that rebates were a normal commercial practice and that it had always properly promoted its drugs. “Amgen is dedicated to patient safety,” said David Polk, a spokesman. “We believe our contracts support appropriate anemia management and our product promotion is always strictly within the label.” Both companies’ stocks fell yesterday after release of the F.D.A. report. Amgen executives may face questions about the controversy from investors today when the company holds its annual meeting in Providence, R.I. Since 1991, when the first of the drugs was still relatively new, the average dose given to dialysis patients in this country has nearly tripled. About 50 percent of dialysis patients now receive enough of the drugs to raise their red blood cell counts above the level considered risky by the F.D.A. American patients receive far more of the anemia drugs than patients elsewhere, with dialysis patients in this country getting doses more than twice as high as their counterparts in Europe. Cancer care shows a similar pattern. American cancer patients are about three times as likely as those in Europe to get the drugs, and they receive somewhat higher doses. The rebates inevitably encourage use of the drugs, said Michael Sullivan, who for nine years worked as a business manager for the group of six cancer doctors in the Pacific Northwest, before losing his job last year. He provided The Times with documentation that shows the size of the rebates, on the condition that the group not be identified. “Personally, I think rebates should go away,” said Mr. Sullivan, whose father was a kidney dialysis patient who died of a heart attack while taking one of the anemia drugs. “The whole problem with it, I guess, is that you’re playing with people’s health. It’s not the same as buying widgets.” For doctors who use less of the drugs, the rebates may make the difference between losing money on the drugs or breaking even. Mr. Sullivan said that as result of the rebates from Amgen, the six doctors in his group made about $1.8 million in net profit on the drugs they prescribed. Unlike most drugs, the anemia medicines do not come in fixed doses. Therefore, doctors have great flexibility to increase dosing — and profits. Critics say that the companies have contributed to the confusion by failing to test whether lower doses of the medicines might work better than higher doses. “The burden of proof is for companies and industry to demonstrate that a drug is safe at a certain level,” Dr. Ajay Singh, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Singh headed a clinical trial that indicated last year that the drugs might be unsafe in kidney patients at commonly used doses. Known generically as epoetin and darbepoetin, and often referred to simply as EPO, the drugs are genetically engineered versions of a human protein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells and increase the body’s ability to carry oxygen. Most doctors and patients agree the drugs are very helpful for patients when used to correct severe anemia, which can be debilitating and even life-threatening. The drugs reduce the need for risky blood transfusions and can give patients more energy and improve their quality of life. “We have transformed the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease,” said Dr. Norman Muirhead, a professor at the University of Western Ontario who has given talks and consulted for Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. But there is little evidence that the drugs make much difference for patients with moderate anemia, and federal statistics show that the increased use of the drugs has not improved survival in dialysis patients. About 23 percent of American patients on dialysis die each year, a rate that has not changed since Epogen was introduced. Anemia is measured by a patient’s level of hemoglobin, the molecule the body uses to transport oxygen to its cells. Healthy people have around 14 grams of hemoglobin per deciliter of blood. Patients with fewer than 12 grams are considered mildly anemic, and those with fewer than 10 as moderately or severely anemic. The labels on the drugs, as currently approved by the F.D.A., encourage doctors to aim for a hemoglobin level of 10 to 12. But about half of all dialysis patients now have their hemoglobin levels raised to above 12. Critics of the drugs say their increased use has been driven by profit. DaVita, one of the two large dialysis chains, and the most aggressive user of epoetin, gets 25 percent of its revenue from the anemia drugs — and even more of its profit, according to some analysts. Dr. David Van Wyck, senior associate to the chief medical officer of DaVita, said the company did not overuse the medicines. Doctors determine how much to use, Dr. Van Wyck said. “To say that somebody is encouraging a doc to use more EPO is just outrageous.” Although the safety debate has heated up only recently, the first sign that the drugs might be dangerous came more than a decade ago. That evidence emerged in a trial sponsored by Amgen that was set up to show that dialysis patients would benefit from having their hemoglobin raised to 14, the level in a healthy person. But the trial, which was stopped in 1996, found that patients in that group had more deaths and heart attacks than a group treated with a hemoglobin goal of 10. That trial should have discouraged doctors from using too much epoetin and encouraged Amgen to study the risks further, said Dr. Steven Fishbane, a nephrologist at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island. Instead, use of epoetin continued to soar. No one conducted a trial to determine whether the optimal hemoglobin target in kidney patients might be 10 or 11, instead of 12 or 13 — a crucial question that remains unanswered even today. Dr. Anatole Besarab of the Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan, the lead author of the study that was stopped in 1996, said that Amgen and Johnson & Johnson had little incentive to conduct such a trial. Dr. Robert M. Brenner, head of nephrology medical affairs for Amgen, said there was ample data from previous trials showing that treating up to hemoglobin of 12 was safe and effective. Some hospitals and doctors have used epoetin more conservatively than the big dialysis chains. Dr. Ronald A. Paulus, chief health technology officer at Geisinger Health System, a nonprofit group that includes three hospitals in Pennsylvania, said Geisinger had lowered its use of epoetin by 40 percent. Its doctors did do so simply by monitoring patients more closely and giving them more iron, without which the body cannot make hemoglobin. Dr. N. D. Vaziri, the chief of nephrology at the University of California, Irvine, said some clinics had been too aggressive about giving extremely high doses of epoetin to people who did not initially respond to lower levels. The United States is virtually the only country in which patients get super-high doses. “You create a toxicity situation,” said Dr. Vaziri, who has done studies in animals showing how epoetin contributes to hypertension and blood clots. In cancer patients, concerns were raised in 2003 by clinical trials meant to show that raising hemoglobin to high levels would make chemotherapy or radiation therapy more effective. Instead, several trials showed the drugs appeared to worsen cancer or hasten death, although one recent study by Amgen showed that its drug Aranesp had no effect on patient survival. The conflicting studies are among the issues the F.D.A. advisory committee is expected to discuss tomorrow. Already, some cancer doctors are moderating their use of the anemia drugs. Dr. Peter Eisenberg, an oncologist in Marin County, Calif., said many doctors had been induced to use more epoetin by the financial incentives and the belief that the drug was helpful. “The deal was so good,” he said. “The indication was so clear and the downside was so small that docs just worked it into their practice easily. “Now it’s much scarier than that,” he said. “We could really be doing harm.”

Doctors
Anemia
Food and Drug Administration
Rebates
Amgen Inc
Johnson & Johnson Inc
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Medicine and Health


New Obama Adviser Brings Corporate Ties

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The defense contractor Northrop Grumman gave money to the left-leaning Center for American Progress, founded by John D. Podesta, as the nonprofit group at times bemoaned what it called the harmful impact of major reductions in Pentagon spending. Pacific Gas and Electric sent in a donation as Mr. Podesta championed government incentives to promote solar energy and other renewable sources that the California company buys more of than nearly any other utility. The pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly was also a donor because of what it said was the Center for American Progress’s advocacy for patients’ rights — and just as the debate heated up in Washington over potential cuts to the Medicare program that covers Lilly’s most profitable drugs. Mr. Podesta, named a senior adviser to President Obama, is not currently a lobbyist and therefore does not have to worry about the Obama administration’s self-imposed ban on hiring lobbyists to administration jobs. But he will nonetheless arrive at the White House after having run an organization that has taken millions of dollars in corporate donations in recent years and has its own team of lobbyists who have pushed an agenda that sometimes echoes the interests of these corporate supporters. These financial ties offer a hint of the blurry lines in Washington between the research organizations like Mr. Podesta’s — which is a virtual external policy arm of the Obama administration — and lobbying shops. The ties could also cause some complications for Mr. Podesta as he heads into the West Wing. Executives at the Center for American Progress said Thursday that the roughly $3 million a year they receive in direct donations from corporations is a small part of its $42 million annual budget, and has no impact on the policy positions it advocates. The donations do not include the many millions of dollars more given by family foundations, which in some cases are run by boards whose members include executives with ties to major corporations. Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, said in an interview that the group frequently takes positions that conflict with the corporate agendas of its donors, including companies like Eli Lilly. Ms. Tanden cited a study the center issued late last year calling for maintaining Medicare services for the elderly by cutting payments to drug companies. She also said that senior scholars at the center had supported major cuts in military spending, even while others wrote about their harmful impact. Image John D. Podesta, founder of the center, will become a senior adviser to the president. Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images “This is an institution that tries to find the right answers,” said Ms. Tanden, who reports to Mr. Podesta, the board chairman. “It does not answer to the agenda of any individual supporters or corporations.” But Mr. Podesta, who was paid $220,000 last year by the center and who last served as a registered lobbyist in 2006, also arrives at the White House after serving on the corporate boards of at least two companies with ties to the clean-energy industry, Equilibrium Capital of Portland, Ore., and Joule of Bedford, Mass. The future of both companies depends in part on environmental policies set by the government and heavily promoted by the White House. Mr. Podesta has also served on an advisory board to Gryphon Technologies , a Washington-based contractor that has done work for the Defense Department and Homeland Security, an assignment that earned him $10,000 this year. In addition, he earned $90,000 as a consultant to the HJW Foundation of West Chester, Pa, according to an aide working with him on the disclosure report he is preparing. HJW is a nonprofit group run by Hansjörg Wyss, a billionaire businessman and major contributor to the Center for American Progress. Mr. Podesta has one of the most distinguished résumés among liberal policy experts in Washington, having served as a chief of staff in the Clinton White House and as a senior Capitol Hill aide to a former Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, among others. “His appointment and background is completely consistent with the administration’s ethics pledge, which was never intended to ban anyone who works in the public policy space from joining government service,” said Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman. “To the contrary, he is exactly the kind of person you hope to attract to public service.” Mr. Podesta will join a list of others at the White House who are veterans of Center for American Progress, including Denis McDonough, the chief of staff, who was a senior fellow there, and Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director, who led the center’s lobbying wing. But the sensitivity to Mr. Podesta’s private sector work and the stands he has taken on issues is already apparent. Even before the White House officially confirmed his appointment, officials said that Mr. Podesta would not participate in the debate over the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline connecting Canada to the Gulf Coast. Mr. Podesta, with the support of clean energy groups, has been a steadfast opponent of the plan. Joule, a company that has tried but failed to win federal grants to help turn its experimental carbon dioxide-to-ethanol concept into a commercial scale project, is betting its future on its ability to deliver alternatives to fossil fuel. Image Neera Tanden, president, said the Center for American Progress frequently takes positions that conflict with the agendas of its donors. “This is an institution that tries to find the right answers.” Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times Mr. Podesta, who has been at the Center for American Progress since he created it in 2003, has visited the White House at least 130 times since 2009, serving as an informal adviser to the administration. In his new role, expected to last perhaps a year, Mr. Podesta will work on issues including health care and climate change, which have been major issues at the Center for American Progress as well. Executives who have worked with Mr. Podesta describe him as a man whose passion about public policy has driven his career. “I don’t think John has ever joined a board or organization for economic reasons — certainly not ours,” said Bill Campbell, the chief financial officer of Equilibrium Capital, which manages about $560 million in assets that it invests in energy-efficient, sustainable agriculture, among other projects. “He is driven by a sense of purpose and a sense of responsibility.” The company paid Mr. Podesta by giving him a small ownership share in the firm as well as some cash compensation, Mr. Campbell said. Mr. Podesta, in advance of his White House appointment, has since sold that stake for an amount Mr. Campbell would not disclose. Mr. Podesta’s move to the White House comes as the Center for American Progress is preparing for the first time to release a list of its donors. It will start first with corporations that are part of what it calls the American Progress Business Alliance, which it promotes as a way for corporations to gain access to its experts and receive invitations to “V.I.P. events with leaders from government” and “Hill and national leaders,” according to a brochure the group published. The American Progress Business Alliance this year includes Eli Lilly, Northrop Grumman, Pacific Gas and Electric, Verizon, Bank of America and dozens of other prominent corporations. Ms. Tanden said the decision to release the list — which comes after a report this year in The Nation magazine naming some of the companies — is not related to Mr. Podesta’s move to the White House. She said it was instead a choice made by the organization’s board this past summer to promote more transparency related to its funding. Mr. Podesta, who stepped down from his post as president of the organization in 2011, has not been regularly involved in fund-raising efforts since then, Ms. Tanden said.

Center for American Progress
Lobbying
John D Podesta
Appointments and Executive Changes
US Politics
Barack Obama


Small, Steady Growth for Europe’s Economy

Abstract: PARIS — Europe’s fragile recovery remains alive, according to the results of a closely watched corporate survey released on Thursday. The composite purchasing managers index compiled by Markit Economics, a data and analysis firm, came in at 51.5 in October, above the 50.0 mark that signals expansion. While that is a slight deceleration from September’s 52.2 showing, it was the fourth consecutive month in positive territory. The growth trend is a “modest” one, Chris Williamson, Markit’s chief economist, noted, but “the expansion is reassuringly broad-based across the region, reflecting signs of economic recoveries becoming more entrenched in the periphery as well as ongoing expansion in Germany and stabilization in France.” The report was the latest to reinforce the message that after lurching from the Lehman Brothers crisis five years ago to its own sovereign debt problems, Europe appears to be struggling to its feet. The euro zone officially exited recession in the second quarter with a small upturn. On Wednesday, the Spanish government said the country’s economy pulled out of a two-year recession in the third quarter with a modest expansion . More positive news arrived from Spain on Thursday, as the National Statistics Institute said in Madrid that the jobless rate dipped to 26 percent in the third quarter from 26.3 percent in the second quarter. While joblessness in Spain remains at depression levels, and that of the overall euro zone is elevated at 12.0 percent, both appear to have reached a plateau. Daimler, the maker of Mercedes cars, underscored that outlook on Thursday, reporting that car demand has “stabilized at a low level in Western Europe, and a gradual improvement of the market situation is to be anticipated in the rest of the year.” The German automaker also announced a third-quarter net profit of 1.9 billion euros, or $2.6 billion, up 53 percent from a year earlier. No one is predicting a near-term economic breakout, and the purchasing manager survey revealed that growth appeared to be slowing slightly in Germany and registering “only a negligible expansion” in France. But the other 15 members of the euro currency area “reported modest growth of activity for the third month running, representing the first period of growth for these countries since early 2011.” Ben May, an economist in London with Capital Economics, wrote in a note that in spite of the small monthly decline in the index from September’s level, it was still far higher this month than in January. He noted that in contrast to a slightly weaker showing in the services sector, manufacturing actually improved. “On past form, the index is now consistent with quarterly growth in euro zone G.D.P. of about 0.2 percent,” for an annualized rate of about 0.8 percent, Mr. May wrote. While that is weaker than the second-quarter expansion of about 1.1 percent annualized, he added, it is “positive nonetheless.”

Euro
Europe
Euro Crisis
Recession and Depression


Austrian Captures Third Slalom in a Row

Abstract: Marlies Schild of Austria successfully defended her first-run lead to earn her third consecutive World Cup slalom victory, capturing a night race in Flachau, Austria. Schild finished in 1 minute 51.53 seconds. She also won the season opener in Aspen, Colo., in November and the race in Courchevel, France, on Sunday. Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany was 0.46 behind in second, and Tina Maze of Slovenia took third, 0.82 behind. Lindsey Vonn finished 2.01 seconds back in eighth and remains atop the overall standings. ¶ The American Hannah Kearney and Mikael Kingsbury of Canada extended their perfect starts in World Cup freestyle skiing by winning dual moguls events in Meribel, France.

Skiing
Schild Marlies
World Cup (Skiing)
Alpine Skiing