Canada Takes Steps to Address Discriminatory Policies Against Gays

Abstract: OTTAWA — Canadian lawmakers introduced legislation to make the age of consent 16 for all forms of sexual intercourse, one of two overtures the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took on Tuesday to combat a history of discrimination against sexual minorities. Jody Wilson-Raybould, the justice minister, introduced an amendment to make the age of consent 16 for anal sex, as it is for vaginal sex. She said the government agreed with four appeals courts that previously declared the current age of 18 to be discriminatory. Mr. Trudeau also on Tuesday appointed a member of his Liberal government to determine the nature of an apology and possible compensation and pardons for gay and transgender people who were discriminated against and sometimes jailed because of federal laws and practices. The appointee, Randy Boissonnault, last year became the first openly gay member of Parliament to be elected in Alberta. As in many countries, homosexual acts were a crime in Canada for much of its history. Mr. Trudeau previously announced that he would posthumously pardon Everett George Klippert , who was indefinitely imprisoned — effectively a life sentence — after telling the police in 1965 that he had consensual sexual relations with four men. Mr. Boissonnault will also look into cases of men and women who were fired or forced to resign from positions in the military and public service because of their sexual orientation. Programs to drive out gay people, at least within the armed forces, persisted until 1990. Believing that gay people posed a threat to national security, a group within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police known as Section A3 began an extensive surveillance program in the 1950s. At one point, the police force commissioned a psychology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa to develop a “fruit machine” to determine public servants’ sexual orientation. The device, which never fulfilled its claims, photographed the eyes of test subjects as they were shown photographs of naked and seminaked people. It was based on the theory that the pupils of gay subjects would dilate when they viewed someone of their gender. How many people lost their jobs as a result of the programs is unclear. A report by the Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, a sexual minority rights group, concluded that the government suspected that about 9,000 public servants were gay. A number of former public servants and members of the military are currently suing the government for compensation. Speaking to reporters shortly after his appointment, Mr. Boissonnault indicated that while an apology would come, he was unable to predict its timing, adding that he would first meet with people who faced discrimination. “When our government is ready to provide an apology, we want to to make sure it is worthy of the community,” he said. Noting that he had been appointed Mr. Trudeau’s special adviser on sexual minority issues just 90 minutes earlier, Mr. Boissonnault similarly avoided questions about a timeline for pardons and compensation. Helen Kennedy, the executive director of Egale, said that her group is willing to wait for an apology. “I’m interested in getting an authentic apology rather than a fast apology,” she said. “This is not a race.” She said her group was not seeking pardons for people who were convicted under earlier laws, which effectively criminalized homosexuality. “We don’t want to be forgiven, we didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “We want all the records expunged.” The issue of compensation, she said, will be the subject of discussions between her group, other activists and the government. In May, Mr. Trudeau’s government introduced legislation to protect the rights of transgender people. Last month, the British government said that it would pardon thousands of men who were convicted under various laws that made gay sex a crime. But, as yet, those pardons — which will be granted only if people apply — have not come with an apology.

Canada
Discrimination
Justin Trudeau
Gay and Lesbian LGBT


In Denver, a Thousand Little Pieces

Abstract: The party held by Vanity Fair and Google on the last night of the Democratic convention in Denver had all the A-list juice you might expect, with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Madeleine Albright mixing it up with Spike Lee, Jamie Foxx and Susan Sarandon. Reporters and editors from mainstream media outlets were finally at ease, off deadline, swilling drinks and munching sushi and doughnuts. Most felt acquitted, having spent punishing amounts of time and effort on an event that was supposed to be short on news, but seemed to generate plenty. The party is a charming ritual, except this year there seemed to be a few hundred extra faces at what was billed as a tough ticket. “Who are all these people?” sniffed one editor who had been in the game for years. “They are your colleagues,” I said. “But they may not be your friends.” During the convention, Google had hosted the Big Tent which housed 500 bloggers, vloggers and other nontraditional media types. Google also made sure that these journalistic insurgents were invited to the after-party, people like James Kotecki from Politico, Baratunde Thurston of Jack & Jill Politics, Chuck Olsen of Blogumentary and Noah Kunin of Blanked-Out. They may not have gotten face time with Chevy Chase, but then they had their own A-list to meet, like a YouTube co-founder, Chad Hurley, Craig Newmark of Craigslist and Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and an Obama strategist. The new kids are tipping the balance in their favor, certainly compared with 2004. Many big media organizations cut back their presence at conventions this year, in part because conventions are so choreographed and in part because it is not a great time to be throwing money around. But the continuing shift to online advertising that is hurting big media is helping small media, to the point that the number of journalistic boots on the ground — if not equal — are at least competitive. Politico, which also puts out a newspaper, had 40 people in Denver. The Huffington Post had 20 people, Talking Points Memo had 9, Daily Kos had 10, Slate had 7 and Salon had 9. That list is far from comprehensive and does not begin to describe how thoroughly mediated this convention was. (I was talking with Craig Newmark while he blogged in the Big Tent and realized the kids across from him were live-blogging our conversation.) The numbers are changing the game. Old media have often (not always) regarded bloggers and their ilk as fleas on the dog. If newspapers and networks didn’t break the story, the gatecrashers wouldn’t have anything to write about. But the new media players who came to Denver were not there just to annotate mainstream coverage: they’re in the hunt themselves. The cable television blabbers still put a frame around the event, and the morning analysis pieces in The Washington Post and The New York Times continue to generate pickup and chatter, but the picture that emerged from this convention was also rendered in a thousand other pixels of coverage. (Most of us were so busy making media that we had little time to consume it — when I checked out of my Denver hotel, I left behind a stack of newspapers and bookmarks that I had set aside to read.) At this convention, depending on where you looked, the Clintons were still fighting from the hills or totally on board; big money got stiffed at the convention or was in full cry; and Senator Joe Biden was a brilliant choice as a vice president or a complete fiasco. At a panel put on by the Huffington Post midweek, Representative Rahm Emanuel said the big fish were still important, but that they had been joined by others. He said media coverage would be more like “a collective, intuitive consciousness.” He added: “It will be like a school of fish. You won’t hear anything, you’ll just see the air bubbles and then the whole group will suddenly decide to turn at the same time.” Mainstream media outlets are meeting the insurgency with guerrilla tactics of their own, with major newspapers using huge reporting assets to infuse the 24-hour news cycle with deep reporting and videos. “You had mainstream reporters wandering around with video cameras, and bloggers doing a lot of original reporting and everything in between,” said Arianna Huffington. “At a convention, it is the little pieces that complete the puzzle, and you had all of these sources of input here.” Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo sees the new media environment as more of an ecosystem than a jungle, “with lots of different sorts of news orgs playing different and sometimes complementary roles.” Some of the coverage was wondrous to behold, but with 15,000 media people in Denver, the meta began to pile up pretty quickly. “I witnessed some High Noon showdowns with digicams,” said Jacob Weisberg, editor in chief of the Slate group. “They’d say, ‘Am I interviewing me or am I interviewing you?’ These threatened to generate an infinite regression of media coverage, in which you interview me about what I thought about you interviewing me during my interview with you. It made me want to go home and read a book.” Just four years ago, the big white tents at the conventions that housed the media hordes would come to life slowly, with stories from the night before being passed around along with articles from the daily press. Now reporters and editors jack in when they wake up and stay there. “It used to be you could sort of take it easy in the morning and chat over lunch and then maybe start to fire up some stories by midafternoon,” said John F. Harris, editor in chief of Politico and a veteran of The Washington Post. “At this convention, our reporters work from 8 in the morning until midnight.” Politico had a particularly nice run this week, setting up the convention with the McCain housing crisis, detailing some of the sniping between the Clinton and Obama camps and suggesting that Karl Rove made every effort to kill the possibility that Joe Lieberman, the Democrat turned independent, would be nominated for vice president. And in what may be something of a model for big coverage of events in specific verticals of interest, Politico, a Web site now almost two years old, worked with The Denver Post, providing gossip and news that gave the daily newspaper additional heft and salience. That sort of hybrid also happens to mirror the way that information is now consumed. Bloggers and political Web sites have come to realize that wisecracking alone will not hold reader interest and that (other than pornography) news is the Web’s killer app. They’re developing sources, following lines of inquiry and trying to advance specific stories through reporting. And all the best traditional news organizations have come to grips that the news, and the people who consume it, sets its own schedule. As reporting staffs at newspapers are cut, journalists have spoken of the threat that important civic issues — say, for instance, the first major party nomination of a black candidate — would go undercovered. But almost anyone who wanted to know anything about what was going in Denver could find it somewhere. “I’m certainly preparing Daily Kos for the day when Internet and television are one and the same,” said Markos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, which estimated its traffic at 37 million page views for the busy month of August. “One of our jobs is to wrestle as much of that away from them as possible. A few gatekeeping elites shouldn’t be allowed that much influence.”

Newspapers
Huffington Post
Daily Kos
Presidential Election of 2008
Blogs and Blogging (Internet)
Computers and the Internet
News and News Media
Conventions National (US)
Democratic Party


A Top Aide Who Helped Mold de Blasio’s Public Image Is Leaving

Abstract: The powerful steward of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s public image is leaving the administration, the most significant shake-up yet at a close-knit City Hall. The aide, Peter Ragone, held a title, senior adviser, that only hinted at his outsize access to Mr. de Blasio. He acted as the mayor’s chief communicator and consigliere, massaging his message on priorities such as prekindergarten and affordable housing and helping devise the administration’s responses to a series of crises during an often tumultuous first year. He will be replaced by the mayor’s press secretary, Phil Walzak, who will become a senior adviser for strategic planning, city officials said. A successor for Mr. Walzak has not been named. The changes will take effect at the end of the month. Mr. Ragone plans to return to California, where his family lives and where he had often commuted on weekends. “Working at City Hall is the greatest political job in the world,” he said in an interview on Thursday. But, he added, after trying and discarding a few versions of the quote, “Nobody’s indispensable but the mayor.” A veteran of New York campaigns who served as an aide to Andrew M. Cuomo before he became governor, Mr. Ragone was hired to bring a bare-knuckled political sensibility to the mayor’s team. Mr. Ragone’s departure, which he said had been in the works since late last year, comes as Mr. de Blasio has maintained a steady, if unexceptional, approval rating , weeks after the city was roiled by a public dispute between the mayor and police officers . The administration’s handling of that conflict was typical of Mr. Ragone’s philosophy — a belief, he said, in “the long view.” As police union leaders sharply criticized the mayor after the shooting deaths of two officers in December — at one point accusing the mayor of having blood on his hands — Mr. de Blasio largely disappeared from center stage. He did not take questions from reporters for two weeks, declining to engage with his critics and focusing his public comments almost exclusively on the families of the victims. “At the time, that was a difficult position for the mayor to take,” Mr. Ragone said. He added that “voters ultimately sided with the mayor,” alluding to recent polls showing the public’s distaste for the unions’ behavior Image Mayor Bill de Blasio and his senior adviser, Peter Ragone, who is leaving his job at the end of the month. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times By some accounts, Mr. Ragone could be a polarizing figure within Mr. de Blasio’s broader circle. Unlike advisers who had served in the trenches of the mayor’s campaign, Mr. Ragone was a longtime friend who returned to New York as the mayor ascended to office. Mr. Ragone said he did not believe there were tensions beyond “some of the daily disagreements on what you should do.” Mr. de Blasio, in a separate interview on Thursday with Mr. Ragone and Mr. Walzak in the room, said it was critical “to have some advisers who I had a tremendous history with” at the start of his administration. “That to me was very important in terms of the thought process, really figuring out how I wanted to approach things and what I wanted to prioritize,” he said. Mr. Ragone never entirely fit the de Blasio down-home brand: In casual conversations, he referred to skiing in Colorado and shopping at Brooks Brothers. (He describes himself as “particular” about his clothing, and is often seen in neatly tailored suits with a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses hanging from a belt loop.) A former top aide to Gavin Newsom, the onetime mayor of San Francisco, Mr. Ragone boasted that he could sidestep the pitfalls of New York’s competitive media market. In describing his media strategy, he emphasized television interviews and social media as the most effective outlets for the mayor’s message. When Mr. de Blasio faced difficult periods, such as a controversy over his wife’s top aide, Rachel Noerdlinger , Mr. Ragone would sometimes make it known that he had not bothered to look at the morning’s tabloid newspapers — a statement that made clear his intent to distance City Hall from the churn of day-to-day coverage. Mr. de Blasio said Mr. Ragone’s departure would not markedly affect his communication efforts. “I don’t think there’s going to be a change, in the best sense,” he said, adding that “the broad strategic approach has been very, very effective.” But, the mayor conceded, “I know we can do some things better tactically.” The mayor is also naming another aide, Andrea Hagelgans, as his communications director. Asked about any missteps to date, both Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Ragone cited the city’s initial response to criticisms of its effort to curb the growth of charter schools last year, which Mr. Ragone called “flat-footed.” But the administration has expressed few regrets about the handling of other controversies, including the police conflict and the departure of Ms. Noerdlinger. Mr. de Blasio said he would “never be shy calling upon Peter from 3,000 miles away” for advice. Mr. Ragone, explaining his departure, cited a moment in November when his 10-year-old son asked if he was ever coming home again. “When your son asks you if you’re ever coming home, it’s a pretty profound moment,” he said, using one of Mr. de Blasio’s favorite adjectives.


Williams Top Seed at Open

Abstract: Top-ranked Serena Williams is seeded No. 1 as she seeks her third straight United States Open title. Simona Halep, this year’s French Open runner-up, is seeded second after reaching a career-best No. 2 ranking this month. She has never advanced past the fourth round at the United States Open. ■ The four-time Connecticut Open champion Caroline Wozniacki lost, 6-4, 6-2, to Camila Giorgi of Italy in the second round of the event in New Haven. Giorgi also beat Wozniacki in last year’s United States Open.

Serena Williams
Tennis
US Open Tennis
AP


Judge Temporarily Bars Removal of Picasso Tapestry From Four Seasons

Abstract: A distinguished tenant of the Seagram Building on Park Avenue for more than 50 years will avoid eviction for at least a month, after a Manhattan judge’s ruling on Friday. The tenant is not a person or a business, but “Le Tricorne,” a large curtain painted by Pablo Picasso that has decorated the Four Seasons Restaurant since its opening in 1959. Justice Matthew F. Cooper of New York State Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction barring RFR Holdings, the real estate company that owns the Seagram Building, from moving the painting. The company had announced plans in late January to remove the painting early Sunday morning, much to the dismay of the New York Landmark Conservancy, which owns the work. Peg Breen, president of the conservancy, said in an interview on Saturday that art conservation experts hired by the conservancy warned her that moving the brittle tapestry, which stretches 20 feet across, could destroy it. Ms. Breen said that if “Le Tricorne” had to be moved, the experts recommended a process “that would take at least eight working days that would move it slowly and carefully.” RFR’s plan called for moving the painting significantly faster. At a hearing on Friday, RFR’s “attorney said, ‘If we break it, we’ll buy it,’ ” Ms. Breen said, referring to Andrew Kratenstein. “In fact, he repeated it in court.” In email messages on Saturday, Mr. Kratenstein did not comment on his words at the hearing, but said that RFR would submit a full briefing to the judge before the official March 11 court hearing. “ ‘Le Tricorne’ is not part of the internal landmark designation of the Seagram Building and thus the tapestry can be removed,” he said in the email. “As owner of the building and in reliance on the advice of professionals, RFR has determined that the tapestry should be removed from the wall so that necessary work can be done,” he added. “RFR believes that the tapestry can be removed from the wall safely through a careful process that had been scheduled to take approximately eighteen hours.” On Friday, Justice Cooper said he felt differently about the matter. “I don’t want to be the judge who has a Picasso destroyed,” he said, according to The Daily News . “If some damage were to occur, no amount of money could make up for the loss of any Picasso.” The dispute over the Picasso tapestry comes as the Four Seasons and Aby J. Rosen, the developer who controls the building, are in the midst of rent negotiations that could cause the restaurant to leave the building. Ms. Breen said that Mr. Rosen, who is a prominent art collector and chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts, first contacted her in November about removing “Le Tricorne.” Mr. Rosen did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. RFR told The New York Times earlier this month that it wanted to remove the painting after engineers told the company to repair the wall from which it hangs. Ms. Breen said that engineers the conservancy hired had determined that the walls were slightly displaced and the best course of action would be to monitor them. “Le Tricorne,” painted in 1919 for the Ballets Russes, is widely considered integral to the landmark interior of the Four Seasons, designed by Philip Johnson, and the Seagram Building, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. (The painting did not receive landmark designation because it is not part of the building’s architecture.) Its value was appraised at $1.6 million by Christie’s in 2008. “It is part of the experience of anyone entering the building,” the architecture critic Paul Goldberger argued in an appeal to preserve the painting on Vanity Fair’s website on Friday. “It is so identified with the space that the corridor has always been known as ‘Picasso Alley.’ ” Mr. Rosen has considered the nexus of art and architecture for some time. He addressed the issue as it pertained to the Seagram Building in an interview with the real estate publication “The Real Deal.” He cited owning the Seagram and Lever House as his greatest business accomplishments, adding, “They are basically pieces of art. It fits exactly what I want to do — meld the art and the architecture together.”

Pablo Picasso
Four Season restaurant
Restaurant
Art
Historic preservation
Aby J Rosen


Yoox Net-a-Porter Sells Stake to Middle East Retail Giant

Abstract: Yoox Net-a-Porter, an e-commerce group that calls itself the “world’s biggest luxury fashion store,” is setting its sights on the Middle East, selling a 100 million-euro stake to Alabbar Enterprises, the Dubai, United Arab Emirates-based owner of Emaar Properties, which includes the Dubai Mall, the world’s most-visited luxury shopping mall. “The world’s biggest online retailer is joining forces with the world’s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer,” Federico Marchetti, chief executive of Yoox Net-a-Porter, said in a call from Milan. In a deal announced on Tuesday in Milan, Alabbar, which is controlled by Mohamed Alabbar, will pay €28 a share, a premium of 5.7 percent on the closing share price of Yoox Net-a-Porter on Monday. The deal values the company at €3.7 billion, or about $4.2 billion. Richemont, the former parent of Net-a-Porter, will remain the group’s largest shareholder; Alabbar will have 4 percent of ordinary shares. It is the biggest move Mr. Marchetti has made since Yoox merged with Net-a-Porter in March 2015. Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net-a-Porter, who was expected to be executive chairwoman, resigned from the group a few months later. Shares in they company rose as much as 7.4 percent Tuesday morning in Milan, before paring their gains and closing at €27.80, a 5 percent increase. Yoox Net-a-Porter “is a business that promises continuing gross revenues, as more and more brands convert to digital,” said Luca Solca, an analyst for Exane BNP Paribas. “It is understandable why a long-term investor may be attracted to it.” The investment reflects Mr. Marchetti’s ambitions for Yoox Net-a-Porter, which also includes the e-commerce sites Mr Porter and The Outnet , and which manages and powers the websites of brands like Giorgio Armani and Lanvin. It is also a vote of confidence in the future of Yoox Net-a-Porter without Ms. Massenet, who was widely seen as having the trust of the luxury world, and with Mr. Marchetti, who founded Yoox as an off-season sale site, cast in the role of corporate manager. In December, it was revealed that Carmen Busquets, one of the original shareholders of Net-a-Porter, had questioned the decision by Richemont to approve the merger as well as the valuation of the business. Since that time, however, Moncler, Brunello Cucinelli and others have joined the stable of elite fashion brands sold on Net-a-Porter. Mr. Marchetti said the money would be used to develop an integrated platform across the group’s brands, as well as to fund increased localization of websites, especially in Middle Eastern countries. Though they deliver to over 180 countries, neither Yoox nor Net-a-Porter has a website in Arabic, despite the fact that the Middle East represents 5 percent of the luxury market. The company said the region was a “marginal” contributor to net revenue, which reached €1.7 billion over all in 2015. Despite a report from the consulting firm Bain that said sales of luxury goods in the Middle East flattened in 2015, in part because of reduced Russian tourism and unstable oil prices, Mr. Marchetti said: “We are not seeing any deceleration in demand. We have big plans for the region.” The region also, it seems, has big plans for luxury. In 2012, for example, Investcorp, based in Bahrain, bought the Danish silver brand Georg Jensen for $140 million. The next year, Mayhoola for Investments, based in Qatar, bought the Valentino fashion brand for $850 million; it also has a stake in the British leather goods brand Anya Hindmarch and a majority stake in the Italian men’s wear brand Pal Zileri. The Qatar Investment Authority has a stake in the luxury behemoth LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, as well as Tiffany & Company, and in 2013 formed a joint venture with the Italian state investment fund called IQ Made in Italy, in which they pledged to invest up to €1 billion in Italian luxury goods and lifestyle companies. Bank of America Merrill Lynch was the adviser for the deal.


Daniel Murphy Visits Mets and Gets Ring and Video Tribute to Go

Abstract: The National League championship ring is big, Daniel Murphy said on Tuesday, and very nice. Wearing it would be bad form around the Washington Nationals — considering the Mets logo on the face — but Murphy would have every right to do so, if he chose. More than anyone else in uniform, he was responsible for the Mets’ march to the World Series last fall. “I made it clear to Murph that without his substantial contribution, none of us would be wearing that ring today,” General Manager Sandy Alderson said. Murphy said he appreciated the words but had not done it alone, despite his .421 average and seven homers in the N.L. playoffs. There were too many others to name, Murphy said, but he listed a few, beginning with the Mets’ foundation: their extraordinary starting rotation. That group is showing signs of vulnerability lately, though most teams would welcome such problems. The Mets’ young starters — all bargain-priced — have helped the rotation to a 3.30 E.R.A., after Noah Syndergaard’s seven shutout innings in Tuesday’s 2-0 victory. Yet Jacob deGrom has not been putting hitters away, Steven Matz missed his last start with elbow discomfort and Matt Harvey has been a mystery. Manager Terry Collins acknowledged Tuesday that he wondered if this was the new normal. He is trying to give extra rest to some starters now, hoping to trigger the lightning of October. Image Murphy, center, with Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom, left, and the first-base coach Tom Goodwin before Tuesday’s game. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times Alderson spoke about the pitchers, too, but not before talking about his own health concerns, which are far more serious. Alderson has an unspecified form of cancer, and he said he had surgery for it last Wednesday as part of the plan his doctors devised last December. “The surgery itself was, I’m going to say, fantastically successful,” Alderson said. “The doctors were able to do everything they had hoped to do and were able to avoid everything they had hoped to avoid. So from that standpoint, everything worked out extremely well. From where we were to where we are today — still on a road to full recovery.” Alderson, 68, said he would be at Citi Field for some portion of every day, and is in regular contact with ownership and his baseball operations staff. There was no reason to push himself to work full days now, Alderson said, but he could if he had to, and plans to soon resume his regular schedule. He said doctors were discussing whether he needs further chemotherapy, but his focus now is recovering from the operation. “We know he’s not feeling well, and yet that’s never been in the way,” Collins said. “I’ve never been around somebody stronger that’s ever been through something like this before. Ever. The fact that he’s here today after he just had surgery a few days ago tells you how tough he is. It was great to see him, we’re glad he’s doing well and we can’t wait till he’s back here full time.” Alderson’s decision to let Murphy leave last winter, without a multiyear offer, has not hurt the Mets much. Murphy’s replacement at second base, Neil Walker, has 10 home runs, and the long-term heir, Dilson Herrera, is hitting .303 at Class AAA. But Murphy, who was 1 for 3 on Tuesday, is leading the majors with a .399 average — unsustainable, to be sure, but a sign that his playoff joy ride might have a lasting impact. He said he continued to emphasize the adjustments he made with the Mets hitting coach Kevin Long: moving closer to the plate to attack outside pitches and trying to pull balls in the air rather than serving singles to left. “I think the playoffs helped elevate him to another level,” Nationals Manager Dusty Baker said. “His confidence is at an all-time high. He has an idea, and he has a plan on what he’s looking for.” Besides the ring, the Mets gave Murphy a video tribute before Tuesday’s game, and he said he was still close to his old teammates. He sent Matz a text message after learning that the pitcher got good news on his elbow, and has spoken with the injured catcher Travis d’Arnaud. Murphy also said he was looking forward to meeting deGrom’s infant son on Wednesday. “You spend almost a decade in the Mets’ organization, so I don’t know if that’s something I will completely wash off,” said Murphy, who signed a three-year, $37.5 million contract with Washington. “The relationships my wife and our family were able to build will go far beyond baseball. But the red gets more comfortable each day.” Life with the Nationals is just fine, Murphy said. He did not have a yard in New York but has one now in Alexandria, Va., and his son loves it. The biggest surprise, he said, is the extent of Bryce Harper’s talent; for a baseball addict like Murphy, watching Harper every day is a joy. As for his gaudy average, Murphy said, he is simply looking for a pitch in his zone “and trying to hit it as hard as humanly possible.” He had only five homers before this series, and may never again combine the average and power he showed in the playoffs. But those shining moments made a lasting impact, reflected in the N.L. ring. As grand as it is, Murphy knows, it could have been even more impressive. “It was a fun ride,” he said. “I wish I had cracked a couple of homers in the World Series.”

Daniel Murphy
Mets
Washington Nationals
Sandy Alderson
Baseball


Search for Missing Woman Focuses on a Sex Offender

Abstract: The search continued on Sunday for Laura Garza, the 25-year-old Brooklyn woman who vanished on Wednesday and was last seen with a convicted sex offender. The authorities also sought other women whom the sex offender may have approached. The sex offender, Michael Mele, 23, was in the Rockland County Jail, where he was being held on a probation violation, according to Detective Lt. William Barbera of the Rockland County sheriff’s office. Mr. Mele was sentenced to probation in cases involving forcibly touching four women at the Palisades Center mall in Rockland County, according to an employee of the State Division of Criminal Justice Services’ sex-offender registry. The probation violation, for drinking and failing to report to a probation officer, is unrelated to the disappearance of Ms. Garza, the authorities said. He turned himself in to the police in Newburgh, N.Y., on an unrelated charge on Friday and was then charged with the probation violation. In a statement released on Sunday, the New York State Police, the agency heading the investigation into Ms. Garza’s disappearance, said that Mr. Mele “has a history of being sexually aggressive toward women and confronting women in secluded areas to perform lewd acts.” The agency said it was seeking information from women he may have approached but who never reported those contacts. Mr. Mele had not spoken to the State Police, on his lawyer’s advice, the statement said. A lawyer representing Mr. Mele, Kathleen Wells, declined to comment. Ms. Garza and Mr. Mele were seen together at least twice early on Wednesday morning, the authorities said. At 4 a.m., they were seen leaving a Chelsea nightclub, Marquee, on 10th Avenue, and they later were spotted in Mr. Mele’s car, an Infiniti S.U.V., in Newburgh — about 70 miles north of Manhattan — the authorities said. In the days since Ms. Garza’s disappearance, the authorities have seized Mr. Mele’s car and searched his condominium in Wallkill, N.Y., several miles northwest of Newburgh. A law enforcement official said investigators were interested in finding out what happened to a portion of the carpet in Mr. Mele’s condo, which had been removed. On Sunday, investigators brought evidence bags out of the apartment, part of the Regency Club, a development of two-story town houses. Police dogs searched woods nearby. Mr. Mele’s neighbors said he had lived in the apartment for less than a year. They said he sometimes drove a Lamborghini or a Jaguar and would hold parties that lasted until the early morning.

Women
Missing Persons
Sex Crimes
Brooklyn (NYC)


Congo and Angola Agree to End Expulsions

Abstract: JOHANNESBURG — Tens of thousands of people — some of them wrenched from their homes with only the clothes on their backs — have been expelled recently from both Angola and Congo in what has been a tit-for-tat immigration dispute between two of Africa’s behemoth neighbors. But after weeks of acrimony, with inflammatory statements a staple in the local news media, both countries on Tuesday finally agreed to suspend the expulsions, said Congo’s information minister, Lambert Mende. “The two heads of state have reached an understanding, and something formal will be signed based on what has been agreed,” Mr. Mende said. The expulsions began in Angola, where the government has been annoyed by the number of impoverished Congolese who cross the border. Some are fleeing the continuing war in their homeland, which has claimed millions of lives . Others cross in search of an economic lift, including those who hope to pluck a fortune from diamond fields. Angola has often relied on mass expulsions to discourage the migrants, sending home waves of Congolese from 2003 onward, according to the United Nations. But this year’s expulsions were particularly upsetting. “We never challenged the expulsions themselves; we challenged the way they were being conducted — all the beating of people and looting their goods, even sometimes their clothes,” Mr. Mende said. “We began our own expulsions as a kind of retaliation.” During 27 years of civil war , thousands of Angolans poured across the long, porous border into Congo. Many acquired refugee status, though this apparently failed to keep some from being ousted in recent sweeps. “Most of those Angolans had been there for years, working in factories, doing small business, even teachers who were teaching in the schools,” said Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs . The largest share of the Angolans came from the western Congo province of Bas-Congo. Most of the Congolese expelled from Angola were taken from an area around the northwestern city of Soyo or the enclave of Cabinda. Humanitarian agencies are concerned about the living conditions of about 40,000 uprooted people. Many have made it safely back to their original homes. But others are congregated near border checkpoints. “The situation is very worrying,” Mr. Giuliano said. “There are potential risks, among them the lack of drinking water, the lack of sanitation.” Relations between Angola and Congo have largely been cordial of late. Angola’s emergence from decades of war has allowed the government to exploit the country’s natural wealth in oil and diamonds. So far, the revenues have largely benefited a small elite. Two-thirds of the people get by on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Yet Angola is a lodestone for migrants. Congo, too, has vast mineral wealth, unrealized as yet, which has been misallocated to war.

Angola
Congo (Formerly Zaire)
Immigration and Emigration
International Relations
Third World and Developing Countries


Cuban Vendors, in Rare Move, Stage a Protest

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — In a rare demonstration of public dissent, dozens of Cuban artisans and vendors protested in the city of Holguín this week, marching to local government offices and demanding the right to work without government harassment, witnesses said. The march — which took place on Tuesday in a provincial capital just an hour or so from Fidel and Raúl Castro’s childhood home — was a surprising and spontaneous response to a crackdown earlier in the day at a local market, residents said. Inspectors enforcing rules prohibiting the self-employed from selling products that are either imported or possibly pilfered from government shops confiscated a variety of items from several sellers, prompting them and many others to take to the streets. Some residents said in telephone interviews that the protest involved just a smattering of people who were lawbreakers with invalid complaints. Others, especially those who identified themselves as government opponents, said there were 100 to 150 protesters, whom they described as brave and justifiably angry. “The government revoked their licenses and took away their resources, their work,” said one local dissident who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. He added that several protesters were beaten when confronted by the authorities, and that at least three people were detained and then released. “It’s one of the most important things to have happened in Cuba in 54 years,” he said. “It was a protest by workers; it wasn’t dissidents. We support them, but we didn’t do this.” Analysts differed on the significance of the protest. Some noted that the group promoting the protest, with a YouTube video supposedly showing marchers shouting “We want to work,” is known for being militantly anti-Castro, and possibly infiltrated by Cuban security forces. But even pro-government residents in Holguín — including a taxi driver and an employee at a hospital near the market — acknowledged that the protest occurred and was led by people licensed to work for themselves as part of Cuba’s limited effort to encourage private employment. Ted Henken, a professor at Baruch College and president of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, said that any worker revolt in Cuba, however small, reflects frustration with Raúl Castro’s attempt to improve the nation’s communist economy through calculated, cautious economic openings. Though around 445,000 Cubans now legally work for themselves, according to government figures, growth among the self-employed has plateaued and complaints about stricter enforcement have been growing for months. “It’s been so far fairly easy for the government to dismiss or defame most dissidents given their small number and total lack of exposure in the mass media,” Mr. Henken said. “It will be much harder to control and contain everyday citizens who are protesting not about the lack of political freedoms but over their rising frustration at the on-again-off-again pace of Raúl’s so-called economic reforms.”


On Japan’s Catholic Outposts, Faith Abides Even as the Churches Dwindle

Abstract: SHINKAMIGOTO, Japan — Fringed with sheer cliffs and the narrowest strips of flat land, covered in mountains of dense forest, the islands of the Goto Archipelago of Japan are some of the country’s most remote and forbidding. And yet atop hills overlooking fishing villages, reached by bridges and serpentine roads paved over just a generation ago, rise the steeples of Roman Catholic churches. Japan’s persecuted Christians fled here centuries ago, seeking to practice their faith in one of the country’s southwesternmost reaches. They eventually forged Roman Catholic communities found nowhere else in Japan, villages where everyone was Catholic, life revolved around the parish and even the school calendar yielded to the church’s. Today, one quarter of the roughly 25,000 inhabitants of the district, a collection of seven inhabited islands and 60 uninhabited ones, are Roman Catholic, an extraordinary percentage in a country where Christianity failed to take root. It is by far the highest level in Japan, where Catholics account for about one-third of 1 percent of the overall population and where the total number of Christians amounts to less than 1 percent. But like Japan’s Roman Catholicism in general, this redoubt is also losing its vitality for reasons both familiar to Catholics in other wealthy nations and peculiar to Japan. Young Catholics here are loosening their ties to the church, their spiritual needs fulfilled elsewhere. Those who have left for the cities are marrying non-Catholics and are being absorbed into an overwhelmingly non-Christian culture. Several churches have closed here in recent years. The membership is graying and dwindling at many of the surviving 29 churches, especially at those on the islands’ least accessible corners. “The situation here is severe — a question of which churches will be abandoned next,” said the Rev. Shigeshi Oyama, 61, who, because of a shortage of priests, celebrated Mass at two churches on the Fifth Sunday of Lent recently. Parishioners arrived at Hiyamizu Church for the 7 a.m. Mass, ascending a steep concrete stairway to reach a small wooden white building with a red roof. They took off their shoes at the entrance, in keeping with the custom at many Japanese churches, and stepped onto the church’s cold, though carpeted, floor. Mostly elderly, with the women hewing to tradition by covering their heads with white veils, they listened to the liturgy on the raising of Lazarus. After Mass, one of the few younger members, Toshiyuki Mori, 40, stood outside in the courtyard, smoking a cigarette and peering down at a small bay that a solitary boat was silently crossing. An irregular churchgoer, Mr. Mori had brought his son, Tomoyuki, 8, an altar boy, to church on this morning. Much of Mr. Mori’s boyhood had centered on the parish, and he had married a woman of the same faith. But unlike their parents, the young couple had lost the habit of praying before meals or attending Mass. It was not that their lives now were so busy, Mr. Mori said. “I guess my faith gradually faded,” he said. He said he would not compel his son to remain a Catholic, adding, “Once he becomes aware to a certain degree, he can quit if that’s what he wants.” For now, though, his son said, school was more fun than church. “But Father Oyama bought us sweets,” the boy added. “And the day before yesterday, he bought us ice cream, for everybody up to sixth grade.” Japan’s Catholic population — 452,571 in 2006, or 0.35 percent of the country’s total population of 127 million — is believed to have peaked, said the Rev. Ritsuo Hisashi, a spokesman at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan in Tokyo. The church is grappling with problems like a shortage of young Japanese priests and nuns. In the diocese of Naha, in Okinawa, priests from Vietnam and the Philippines have come to fill the posts, Father Hisashi said. Most Japanese follow a combination of Buddhism and Shintoism, though Christmas and weddings in chapels, stripped of their religious meaning, have taken root in Japanese society. Christianity had a promising start in Japan with the arrival in 1549 of Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary. But the isolationist Tokugawa Shogunate eventually proscribed Christianity and expelled all missionaries; persecuted Christians went into hiding and fled to places like the Goto Archipelago. For more than two centuries, Japan’s “hidden Christians” practiced their faith in secret and without priests until after the United States forced Japan to open up in the mid-19th century — an example often held as proof of the resilience of Japanese Christian faith. “Given that history, it’s all the more puzzling why there are so few believers now,” Father Hisashi said. Here in Shinkamigoto, many say growing wealth has sapped the people’s faith. Catholics were far poorer than non-Catholics, occupying villages along this district’s harsh, western shore, or on its fringes, some more accessible by water than by land. But starting three decades ago, roads were built linking the most remote villages. Catholics began making economic strides, erasing the gap between them and non-Catholics. Interest in the church began declining. “The same thing happened in Europe,” said the Rev. Yasuhiko Hamasaki, a priest at the Kamigoto Catholic Center here. “When people start gaining material wealth, they end up seeking comfort and healing in material things.” Aggravating matters were a low birthrate and demographic changes afflicting all of rural Japan. Here, with a decline in the fishing industry and public works, the young have gravitated to cities; many never return, inviting their aging parents to join them instead. With the town’s population declining by double digits every month, local government officials are hoping to turn their churches — two of them soon to be added to Unesco’s World Heritage List — into tourist attractions. One of them, Kashiragashima Church, is on an islet that was linked by a bridge to the main island only a couple of decades ago. Today, 16 elderly parishioners are left, served by a priest who visits two Sundays a month. Nine of the residents took turns cleaning the church and adorning it with flowers from their own gardens. The parish’s lay leader, Yoshiki Matsui, 70, a fisherman, had mixed feelings about its designation as a World Heritage site. The parishioners were sure to decrease and the government would cover major repairs with the listing. “But this was not built with the thought that it would become a cultural heritage site,” Mr. Matsui said. Away from the archipelago’s Catholic villages, more and more of the young now live in cities with few churches and believers. “The bishop of Nagasaki once said that when Catholic kids go out into a city, it’s a religion’s graveyard,” said Kyushiro Urakoshi, 77, a member of Komeyama Church. Mr. Urakoshi had arrived early for Saturday evening Mass at Komeyama, the northernmost parish on a slender, fingerlike piece of land jutting out into the sea and reachable by a single-lane mountainous road. Another parishioner, Tsuyako Takeya, 66, said all but her youngest child had migrated to cities. Only two of her five grandchildren had been baptized. “My other children married non-Catholics,” Ms. Takeya explained, adding that she was unsure how many of her children had kept the faith. Those who remain do what would have been unthinkable a generation ago by skipping Mass or marrying non-Catholics. The growing ties with non-Catholics have already changed some practices at Ohso Church, nearer the center of town. Parishioners now say prayers for the dead during the Buddhist festival for ancestors in mid-August, one of Japan’s biggest holidays. Catholics also gather and, following Buddhist custom, pay tribute to a relative one year or three years after a death. “In this age,” said Mitsunori Ikuta, 60, Ohso’s lay leader, “we have come to accept these things.”

Japan
Priests
Christians and Christianity
Religion and Churches
Marriages


Pastry Chef to Obamas Hanging Up His Whisk

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The first lady, Michelle Obama, is soon to lose her executive pastry chef, Bill Yosses. And she is partly to blame. She has piqued his interest in the relationship between food and health, he said in a recent telephone interview, so the man who made the Hawaiian chocolate-malted ganache for the White House state dinner for the president of France is now headed to New York with an aim to teach children and adults about eating better. In the meantime, he has given up his usual breakfast doughnuts for a smoothie made with apple, kale, spinach and ginger — from time to time. “It’s a bittersweet decision,” Mr. Yosses said of his move to New York. Hired by Laura Bush in 2007, when he was already acclaimed in New York for the raspberry and pear soufflés he created at restaurants like Montrachet and Bouley, Mr. Yosses began moving beyond the traditional sugar sculptures and cookie plates after Mrs. Obama arrived at the White House. He was directed to make more healthful desserts, and in smaller portions, that were to be served only sparingly to the first family. Mr. Yosses began experimenting with alternatives to what he called “the usual blitzkrieg” of butter and cream. Now, he said, “we replace butter with fruit purée, which gives some body.” He often uses honey and agave in place of sugar, has added whole grains to desserts and is considering heirloom varieties of whole wheat without the bitterness of wheat bran and germ in modern whole-wheat flour. Mr. Yosses has also been inspired by the White House garden, where he has chosen from a cornucopia of strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb, figs, papaya, carrots, sweet potatoes and herbs like lemon thyme flowers, lavender and pineapple sage. Nearby is honey from the White House beehives. The result — oatmeal bars, baked apples and pear-quince cobblers, among many others — will have a lasting impact on his eating habits, as will Mrs. Obama. “She has done it with humor and good will, without preaching, just the way you would hope the ‘Mom in chief’ would do,” Mr. Yosses said. He called her “definitely an inspiring boss, a combination of spontaneity and seriousness.” Nonetheless, Mr. Yosses has hardly turned his back on his old, sweet life. “I don’t want to demonize cream, butter, sugar and eggs,” he said. Especially for White House company. “For special, nostalgic occasions, we still make 20 percent traditional desserts,” he said. “Coconut cake with seven-minute frosting, lemon steamed pudding with layers of custard, mousse and cake, sticky toffee pudding, and every kind of chocolate dessert possible.” On holidays, Mr. Yosses earns his nickname, The Crustmaster, bestowed on him by a grateful President Obama. “For Thanksgiving, it is five or six different pies,” Mr. Yosses said. Image Bill Yosses, who is stepping down as the White House pastry chef, described the offerings for an upcoming formal dinner to Michelle Obama and culinary students in 2009. Credit Pool photo by Kevin Dietsch And when you are baking for the president of France, as Mr. Yosses was at the White House last month, there are no worries about fat and sugar. The thought of that dinner, however, was both thrilling and frightening, Mr. Yosses said, because the French are the masters of the pastry arts. Mr. Yosses came up with the idea of making classical French components with American elements, inspired by the soda fountain: a chocolate malt, devil’s food cake and the brownie. The White House described the dessert as “a modern version of an all-American layer cake presented in a geometric form.” Mr. Yosses said he thought his biggest triumph, also hardly low-fat, was the version of strudel he created in 2011 for the state dinner for Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany: phyllo, farmer’s cheese, golden raisins and a little apple. When Mrs. Obama introduced him and Cristeta Comerford, the White House executive chef, to all the guests, Mr. Yosses said the chancellor and her husband “gave a thumbs-up when the dessert was mentioned.” In other ways, Mr. Yosses has built on the culinary traditions of the presidency, like the gingerbread version of the White House, which is the center of attention at Christmas and every year more elaborate than the last. This past year, the gingerbread White House was placed on a full-size fireplace made entirely of springerle cookies, the traditional anise-flavored treats eaten at Christmas in Bavaria and Austria. Mr. Yosses figured that about 120 hours went into making it all. There have been disasters, too. Several years ago, a four-foot-tall chocolate egg, normally kept inside, was wheeled outside for the White House Easter Egg Roll. “When the sun hit the dark chocolate directly, our beautiful egg began to take on gruesome Salvador Dalí-type waves and had to be rushed inside on life support,” Mr. Yosses said. Mr. Yosses, 60, said he was also moving to New York to be with his husband, Charlie Jandusay Fabella Jr., a teacher. The two married in Washington in 2011, but “for the 11 years my husband and I have known each other, we have lived in different cities,” Mr. Yosses said. The pastry chef will not leave the White House until June, when he hopes to put together “a group and foundation of like-minded creative people” for promoting delicious food as healthy food. He offered no more details about his venture, but said it would be devoted to food literacy from the bottom up. “There’s much talk about STEM in schools — science, technology, engineering and math,” Mr. Yosses said. Instead, he thinks it should be Steam, adding arts, for culinary arts. “Food knowledge should be part of a complete curriculum,” he said. “We used to learn about food as a part of everyday growing up, but I think we’ve lost that. I think it has a place in schools.” Mrs. Obama released a statement saying she was “incredibly sad to see Bill Yosses go.” She added: “I am also so grateful to him for his outstanding work, not just as the White House pastry chef, producing the most delectable creations for everything from birthday celebrations to state visits, but also as a key partner helping us get the White House kitchen garden off the ground and building a healthier future for our next generation. I wish Bill and his husband, Charlie, all the best in their future endeavors.” Mr. Yosses’ successor has not been chosen.

Pastry
Michelle Obama
Bill Yosses
White House
Cooking
Nutrition


Data on Factories and Lending Raise Hopes for Euro Zone Recovery

Abstract: FRANKFURT — The long-suffering euro zone may be slowly emerging from recession, as manufacturers in Germany and France begin to ramp up production to meet stronger demand, according to a closely watched report published on Wednesday. The survey of purchasing managers by Markit, a data provider, suggested that Europe might be near the end of a prolonged slump that has pushed unemployment to record highs. But the recovery is likely to be slow and fragile, economists warned, and recession could persist in some southern countries. Evidence also appeared Wednesday that a credit squeeze in the euro zone was easing. A survey of banks by the European Central Bank showed that credit for consumers was becoming more available for the first time since the financial crisis began in 2008. While credit for businesses remained tight, tentative signs indicated that lending could begin to recover within months. “The recession in the euro zone seems to be coming to an end after two years,” Ralph Solveen, an economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, said in a note to clients. But he added that the upturn could be uneven, with some indicators continuing to fall. “Activity is still dampened by numerous problems,” he wrote. The Markit index of economic output rose to an 18-month high of 50.4 in July, from 48.7 in June, preliminary figures showed. A reading above 50 is considered a sign of economic growth. The July figure was the first above 50 since January 2012. European stocks rose after the survey was released. Benchmark indexes in Madrid, Paris and Rome all ended up more than 1 percent, and the euro gained slightly against the dollar. The Markit index suggested that growth was increasing in Germany and that the recession was nearly over in France. Manufacturing was rebounding in both countries, perhaps aided by growth in the United States economy, which has increased demand for European exports. Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, said on Wednesday that unit sales of passenger vehicles rose 9 percent in the second quarter, in part because of surging demand in the United States for models like its redesigned S-Class luxury sedan , and its net income more than doubled from the period a year ago. The Markit survey showed that the French economy continued to contract over all, but more slowly, while manufacturing was growing again for the first time since February 2012. The data suggested that the French economy, the second-largest in the euro zone after Germany, was stabilizing and could emerge from recession soon. In Germany, managers reported solid growth in manufacturing and services, raising hopes that the country could help haul the rest of the Continent out of its slump. Markit did not issue separate data for other European countries, but an index of economic sentiment in the rest of the euro zone that was part of the report also showed signs of stabilization. The various encouraging data mean the European Central Bank is probably not likely to cut the benchmark interest rate, already at a record low of 0.5 percent, when it meets next week. Unemployment, often one of the last problems to respond to economic growth, could be near its peak after reaching 12.2 percent in the euro zone, its highest. Still, the region remains vulnerable. More than a quarter of workers are unemployed in Greece and Spain. Signs of slowing growth in China, which accounts for about 25 percent of European exports, also present a risk for the euro zone. “An economic recovery is looming, which is encouraging,” Martin van Vliet, an economist at ING Bank said in a note, “but we still doubt whether the region is about to embark on a sustainable recovery.”

Manufacturing
Germany
France
Europe
Euro Crisis
WSOD
EU


Senator Joni Ernst Is Given Prime Speaking Slot at G.O.P. Convention

Abstract: Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa will speak at the Republican National Convention, making her among the prominent conservative politicians the Trump campaign has lined up for the event, according to three people with direct knowledge of the convention planning. Ms. Ernst will be given one of the most coveted speaking slots, an address scheduled during a prime-time coverage period planned by the major television networks. At the same time the Ernst discussions were formalized, the Trump campaign was trying to resolve a more delicate and difficult situation of what role Senator Ted Cruz of Texas might play at the convention. A senior aide to Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that the two sides were still a long way from a resolution. Giving a prime speaking slot to Ms. Ernst — who was being vetted as a possible running mate to Mr. Trump but is no longer under consideration — is fitting in many ways, like in possibly helping the candidate neutralize the criticism that he has been insensitive to women. As a Midwesterner who hails from a battleground state, Ms. Ernst offers geographical balance to the brash New York developer. And as the candidate who famously held up her experience castrating hogs as a selling point when she ran for Senate in 2014, her view of how to handle Washington politicians seems to square nicely with Mr. Trump’s. But a person close to the Trump campaign, who asked for anonymity to discuss the vice-presidential vetting process, said that the campaign indicated to Ms. Ernst and another contender, Senator Bob Corker, that they would not end up on the final short list for running mate. They were not given a final series of vetting documents, the person said, though a person close to Mr. Corker disputed that. Todd Womack, Mr. Corker’s aide, said in a statement: “Senator Corker provided extensive vetting documents and high-level individuals within the Trump organization confirmed on Tuesday that he was on the final list.” Mr. Trump was expected on Wednesday to release a list of his speakers for the July 18-21 convention in Cleveland. But in a Twitter post he said the announcements would come on Thursday instead. In recent days, some speakers from the political world have started to leak out, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who told a local television station on Tuesday that he would address the convention. As for other former rivals of Mr. Trump’s, the chances of seeing either Gov. John Kasich of Ohio or Mr. Cruz appear at the convention are unknown. Mr. Trump has said he would not let them speak unless they endorse him first . In an interview with The New York Times , Mr. Trump said last month that he envisioned a convention with a mix of traditional and nontraditional speakers — a list that could possibly include people like Serena Williams, Don King, Sarah Palin and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. But so far he has revealed little about what his plans are. By comparison, former Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012 released a list of its convention headliners three weeks ahead of the event.

Joni Ernst
Republicans
2016 Presidential Election
Republican National Convention,RNC
Donald Trump


Undergraduate Rabbinical Students To Get New York Tuition Aid

Abstract: The state budget plan that moved toward enactment on Wednesday calls for 10 percent cuts in aid to public colleges and universities, but it would add about $18 million a year in tuition assistance for students attending some private religious schools. The added money would be available to any theological student who met a new set of criteria for the state’s so-called Tuition Assistance Program grants. The major potential beneficiaries would be an estimated 5,000 men who attend dozens of Orthodox rabbinical schools in New York, state officials and religious leaders said. Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat whose Brooklyn district includes a large Orthodox population, called the additional financing “a matter of equity, to rectify the fact that New York State has denied rabbinical college students tuition assistance for all these years.” Mr. Hikind and other lawmakers have sought unsuccessfully for about 10 years to adopt the new criteria by amending the Tuition Assistance Program rules, eliminating a long-established ban on state tuition assistance for undergraduate students who attend religious schools, like yeshivas, that are not chartered by the state Board of Regents. In negotiations this month, Republican leaders in the Senate asked that the new rules be included as part of the 2011-12 budget agreement. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Democratic leaders in the Assembly have agreed, said Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for the State Division of the Budget. Some opponents of the rule changes have said they violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution. Joseph Conn, a spokesman for the Washington-based Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said his group had tracked legislative efforts to extend state tuition aid to religious students in New York. “By burying this measure in a budget bill, we were caught off guard,” he said. Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, a Manhattan Democrat who is the chairwoman of the state Assembly’s Higher Education Committee, said last year that she opposed expanding eligibility to students attending private institutions while the state was cutting spending and reducing access to public institutions. Ms. Glick did not return phone calls on Wednesday about whether she backed the change this year. David Zweibel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish advocacy group that has lobbied for the new rules in tuition aid, said the new regulations did not violate church-state separation because the aid would go directly to the student, not to the religious institution. “To those who have said, ‘How can you ask for this in these tough economic times?’ ” he added, “My answer is, yes, it’s a tough time. But it’s about time.” Students attending religious colleges are no less in need of tuition assistance than any others, he added. Students who meet the financial eligibility and other requirements for Tuition Assistance Program grants may receive up to $5,000 a year for four years. Under the new rules, students can apply for grants from the program as long as the school they attend is a tax-exempt institution, headquartered in New York, offering a program of instruction of at least three years, and eligible under federal law for Pell grants for undergraduate study. The federal tuition assistance program does not exclude students studying for the clergy. The new New York criteria would, however, continue to exclude students of most seminaries, which accept only students who have completed college. “The way the rules were written, they were pretty much designed” for the undergraduate yeshivas, said Mr. Gordon, of the governor’s budget office. Mr. Zweibel, of Agudath Israel, said he was confident that others besides rabbinical students would benefit from the expansion of the eligibility rules. He said the state had been inconsistent in its policies until now. “In a state that has been so hospitable to the growth of its Orthodox minority,” he said, “and with the largest group of rabbinical colleges in the country right here in New York, how could the state say to our students that no, you are not eligible for what everyone is eligible to receive?”

Tuition
Tuition Assistance Program
New York State
Private and Sectarian Schools
Rabbis
Religion-State Relations


Back in New Jersey, a State of Euphoria for the Giants

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Not long after they received keys to New York on Tuesday, the Giants returned to the city where they practice and play, and the state where most of them live, for a Super Bowl celebration they said was just as meaningful. John Mara, a co-owner of the team, addressed the crowd of approximately 40,000 fans at MetLife Stadium. He said that while the City Hall ceremony in Manhattan was surely enjoyable, seeing the team’s fans turn out in droves at the Meadowlands reminded him that, “There’s no place like home.” That was one of several lines to draw raucous cheers on an afternoon that celebrated both the Giants and New Jersey. The rap group Naughty by Nature — out of East Orange, N.J. — performed before and during the ceremony, showcasing the version of their classic song “O.P.P.” that was transformed this season into an anthem about both the Giants and defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, whose nickname is J.P.P. Gov. Chris Christie was also on the stage with the Giants’ executives and players, though he did not speak during the ceremony and most likely did his best to steer clear of Mara’s mother, Ann. After all, Ann Mara famously upbraided the Fox Sports analyst Terry Bradshaw for picking against the Giants last month, and Christie picked the Jets to beat the Giants in their matchup in December (he was wrong). The ceremony featured introductions of each player and coach, a video presentation highlighting key plays from the season and speeches from John Mara and his co-owner, Steve Tisch, as well as Coach Tom Coughlin, Eli Manning and Justin Tuck. The sweetest moment came when Tuck noted that his son, Jayce, was celebrating his second birthday Tuesday and instructed the crowd to wish Jayce a happy birthday. The fans complied. Tuck also delivered a not-so-subtle tweak to the Giants’ co-tenants at MetLife Stadium. When the Giants and Jets met on Dec. 24, the Jets were the home team and used black curtains to cover a wall outside the Giants’ locker room that has a mural celebrating the team’s three previous Super Bowls. That wall will surely be updated by the time the teams meet again in the preseason, and toward the end of his remarks Tuck said of MetLife Stadium that “the one thing you can be sure of is whose house it is.” Nearly all the Giants players were in attendance — Mark Herzlich had a conflict and left after the Manhattan ceremony, while Justin Tryon and Domenik Hixon were the only players to miss both events — and, in addition to the celebrating, there were also some news developments. Most notable is the Giants’ sudden hole at tight end. Jake Ballard sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament during the Super Bowl, the team announced, and another tight end, Travis Beckum, also tore an A.C.L. On a happier note, linebacker Greg Jones and tackle Will Beatty enjoyed themselves while preparing for their upcoming weddings. Jones proposed to his longtime girlfriend on the field after the Giants’ victory over the New England Patriots, while Beatty spent this season planning his wedding . He will be married on Saturday night. In one of the odder exchanges of the day, an entertainment reporter asked Osi Umenyiora for his thoughts on the comments made by Gisele Bündchen, the wife of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, in which she was critical of New England’s receivers. “She’s supposed to stay out of things like that,” Umenyiora said. “But at the end of the day, that’s their relationship and she’s entitled to say whatever she wants to.” There was also contract talk: punter Steve Weatherford is said to be moving close to an extension with the Giants, while questions will continue to hang over the team about the futures of Umenyiora and Brandon Jacobs. Umenyiora held out of training camp this season and, while still under contract, indicated he was aware of the mystery surrounding his situation. Umenyiora said he would like to return to the Giants — “Of course, we could win again,” he said — but stressed that “this is a business.” Jacobs has also said he would like to retire as a member of the Giants, but it is unclear what direction the Giants will go with the veteran running back. There are 21 free agents on the Giants’ roster and while Jacobs is not one of them, his $4.4 million salary for next season is most likely too large for the Giants to commit to a back-up. Still, those questions are for another day, Umenyiora said, and he smiled as he watched Jacobs run over to the stands. Jacobs held up the Vince Lombardi trophy and the fans screamed and shouted, reaching their hands out over the railing to touch it as Jacobs cheered along with them. From about 20 yards away, Umenyiora laughed; it may not have been the pomp and circumstance of City Hall, but the Giants — back in New Jersey — were home.

Super Bowl
New York Giants
MetLife Stadium (NJ)
Jacobs Brandon
Umenyiora Osi
Football


The Man Behind the Voice of Formula One

Abstract: Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at Formula One Grands Prix around the world and conducts the official press conferences organized by the International Automobile Federation, the series’ governing body. After university studies in France, Constanduros, a Briton, worked briefly in the insurance industry before becoming a freelance motorsport journalist. From 1972 to 1977, he wrote for Autosport magazine. He then became a freelancer again, driving to races around Europe in a Volkswagen van. He began announcing at races and conducting the press conferences in the early 1980s. The F.I.A. now holds daily press conferences from Thursday to Sunday on Grand Prix weekends, with Constanduros interviewing drivers and other team personnel. He spoke with Brad Spurgeon of the International Herald Tribune. Q. Many of those you interview are not comfortable public speakers, but you have a natural way about you, mixed with a professional veneer, that seems to put people at ease. A. I am really grateful to my mother, who, when I was a boy, used to say, “Don’t fluff your words.” She said, “Speak properly!” And it is very important. It’s important to have a strong voice. I have got slightly hoarse once in a race, because it was a very exciting race, but I have never lost my voice. I have come in here after a race and had a hoarse voice. Also, you recognize with a driver if he has had a very tough race, you recognize that because his voice is quite weak. And you say, “Hmm, that was a big one.” And I’ve seen that quite a few times. Q. What have been some of the biggest moments for you? A. People always remember the funny things. Like Ukyo Katayama, the Japanese driver and mountain climber, telling a particularly irreverent joke about Niki Lauda. And Gerhard Berger was there and I think Ayrton Senna was there, and they were covering their hands and saying: “No, don’t tell that story, don’t tell that story.” And they knew what was coming, and it was just hilarious. And then Eddie Jordan chucking a glass of water all over me because I called him Eddie Irvine — I had been on a plane all night. It was little things like that. But also great moments, like Ayrton Senna talking about when he got knocked off the track — the Japanese Grand Prix in 1988 and 1989 — all around then, all those incidents that he had with Prost. Those were pretty memorable as well, especially when he used the “F” word — what was it? — 26 times in the same press conference? And with all those Japanese people around who had learned a new English word. Q. Is it sometimes difficult to be impartial, as you represent the F.I.A.? A. Yes, that’s the point I have to remember. And it was very difficult, for example, in Austria in 2002 when Rubens Barrichello was asked to slow down for Michael Schumacher [to let his teammate win the race]. Because I was pretty incensed about that. But I did change. It was quite a difficult thing to come to terms with. Yes, I had to remember that I must not get involved, just ask straight questions. Q. A lot of drivers are good in face-to-face interviews but may be different in a press conference. Michael Schumacher is great in one-on-ones but sometimes appears closed off in this situation. What are their particularities? A. Definitely on a Thursday, it feels Michael has nothing to say. Nothing has happened yet, so what can you say? But world champions have always been very good. For example, in the press conference when you have some person who obviously is not experienced in Formula One and is asking a fairly basic question that sounds ridiculous to you and me, who are experienced. The journalist thinks it is a very important question, and the world champions have always taken real care to answer those questions very diligently, they’ve really been good. If I asked the question they would throw me out the door. But because it is someone who is inexperienced they give them the time of day. And it was the case with Michael, it was the case with Ayrton, with Alain Prost, with a lot of them; with Jacques Villeneuve to some extent, and Damon Hill. Sometimes there are very tricky drivers who don’t say very much, Taki Inoue, for instance. Or Kimi [Raikkonen]: It’s always a bit of a challenge to make him smile. It really is. Because he’s lovely when he smiles. Q. Is there much advanced preparation? Do you give people the questions in advance? A. We do discuss the questions for the Thursday and the Friday beforehand with the F.I.A. We sometimes discuss it with the teams, who occasionally want to know what we are going to ask, just to brief their people. Although most of the time it is not a subject that they are surprised about, they know it’s coming. We talk to the F.I.A. just a little, and I get input from several people from several places. Sometimes the F.I.A. says, “We don’t want to talk about that, but if it comes from the floor there’s nothing we can do about it.” That’s the attitude: We don’t want to introduce it, but if it comes from the floor it’s not a problem. Q. What makes a good interview? A. You have to think about the burning question of the moment. What do you want to know about the guy? What do you want to know about his job or what he’s doing? And just go for those questions. It’s about being precise and asking a precise question. There are quite a few people who write out their questions. And once you ask a question sometimes they don’t really answer and so you reiterate it, very politely. The best person in fending off like that is Frank Williams; he is amazing. If he doesn’t want to tell you, he won’t. You were doing commentary when serious accidents happen, including when Ayrton Senna was killed at the race in Imola in 1994. How do you deal with that? A. It was difficult. We didn’t really know too much of what was going on. You just work through it, and you are very, very professional about it. You just carry on informing as much as you can. You have to inform, otherwise you will have a riot on your hands. Q. Do you ever get nervous? A. Occasionally, I do get quite nervous. Particularly the first Grand Prix of the year, I’m sort of feeling a bit shaky. Because I haven’t interviewed anybody for the previous three or so months. And I’m not a very good ad-libber.


Making an Energy Boom Work for U.S.

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The rapid rise in output of natural gas and, more recently, oil in the United States is transforming the country’s energy and economic landscape. These production booms are revolutionary, but not in the way that many people think. Experts, for instance, argue that an increase in North American energy self-sufficiency will lead to equally drastic changes in geopolitics. Suddenly having a great wealth of domestically produced gas and, increasingly, oil, the argument follows, will allow the United States to look inward and take less interest in international affairs, including those of the politically challenging countries that produce oil and natural gas in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. This is unlikely to happen. Despite more production from shale deposits like the Bakken in North Dakota, oil’s share of total U.S. energy demand is expected to decrease only to 32 percent from 37 percent by 2035. Natural gas will increase its share to 26 percent from 25 percent and renewables will grow to 11 percent from 7 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The most strategic factor in American consumption will remain the price of oil and the effect of disruptions on the U.S. and the global economy, not the source or quantity of U.S. imports. The boom will have many economic benefits. The U.S. balance of trade will improve and producing states will enjoy job growth and revenues. The United States will also grow as a refining center, producing the clean diesel-based fuels of the present and future for both consumption at home and export to Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The United States will also see a spurt of infrastructure building as the country builds the pipelines and rail lines to move energy from West to East and from North to South. U.S. oil supplies will now be physically more secure, with weatherproof pipelines from Canada and the northern states. In another big change, the United States will have much greater ability to make up for any import disruption through the country’s strategic reserves of oil. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve , which stores oil in salt caverns, currently has 80 days of import cover. But if U.S. imports fell to 6 million barrels a day from 8.7 million barrels a day now, the S.P.R. would have 116 days of cover. The reduced U.S. dependence on crude imports does not mean an end to history. The issues of price volatility, diversity of supply and helping U.S. friends and allies to be free from monopolistic pricing or coercive supply arrangements will remain as vital 20 years from now as they are today. Reduced oil imports would not provide immunity from supply disruptions. Indeed, as has been seen since the advent of the Arab Spring political upheaval, the effects of useful increases in U.S. production can be overwhelmed by disruptions in producing countries. Prices are set globally. In 2011 the Libyan uprising caused a swift disruption in supply. The lack of much excess capacity to make up for more outages led to prices that further restrained already weak economic growth in the United States and Europe. Saudi Arabia ramped up production, and the International Energy Agency, based in Paris, and the United States agreed on an emergency release of strategic reserves. This year, Iran’s oil exports have declined by almost one million barrels a day, the result of surprisingly effective financial sanctions and the effects of an impending European Union embargo. But unprecedented — and essential — political cohesion to counter the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program came at a price. Reduced Iranian exports and other outages pushed Brent crude prices to around $120 a barrel and U.S. gasoline prices close to $4 a gallon. To help countries, mostly in Asia, that had been large customers for Iranian oil, Saudi Arabia both increased production and reportedly provided discounts on oil sales. Iraq and Libya revived their production. Washington hinted at another release of S.P.R. crude to discourage speculation in the markets. The fact that U.S. production rose 3.1 percent in 2011 from a year earlier, with an expected increase this year of 10.7 percent, was immaterial to managing these disruptions. As long as spare capacity, the world’s buffer against outages, is thin and supply disruptions can harm economies or allow countries to use oil as a weapon, oil will remain strategic. Throughout history, the United States has focused high-level diplomatic attention to ensure that there are diverse sources of fuel — even far from our shores. Washington has had special envoys for Caspian Basin diplomacy for 14 years without importing a drop of oil or a whiff of gas from the region, because the autonomy of those countries and a Europe with freedom of choice of suppliers are strategic foreign policy interests. Likewise, the stability of Nigeria and its neighbors matters for reasons that go well beyond protecting U.S. investments there, or the 800,000 barrels a day of Nigerian oil imported to the United States. Nigeria’s stability and prosperity affect the whole of West Africa and so is vital for the United States. There are many examples of U.S. foreign policy interests being intertwined with oil. The evolution of Iraq’s oil industry and the completion of the pipelines and terminals needed to export it are essential to the country’s economic recovery and territorial integrity. Overhauls of Mexico’s long-troubled oil industry, now supported by two of its three major political parties, could be critical to its prosperity as a trade partner and its ability to foster growth and reduce the possibility of an insurgency on the U.S. borders Most forecasters, as well as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, agree that the world will be using more oil in 2035 than it does today. So we will still live in a world where the price of oil matters. Oil will remain the dominant source of transportation fuel, remaining strategic for the global economy. Next time won’t be different. The boom and bust cycle of oil prices will not be abolished. Spare capacity — the amount of additional oil that could be produced if needed — will probably continue to be a small fraction of total supply. The more modest global buffer stocks are, the greater the market’s anxiety over potential disruptions. While China and India are considering increasing their own strategic reserves, the overall built-in cushion of supply around the world will probably remain thin. A single outage — from a country like Iran, Nigeria or Venezuela, or a nation that fails to meet hoped-for production targets, perhaps Brazil or Iraq — would push oil back onto the front page. This means the United States will still care deeply about keeping sea lanes open for all forms of trade and about diversity of global energy supply. Washington will also want to encourage access to new exploration areas to ensure investment can produce the supply to meet growing demand. The United States will still care about the fate of Arab societies, the stability of West Africa and the stable evolution of new producers in East Africa, the evolution of Venezuela and the need for multiple oil and gas pipelines to Europe to produce competitive prices there. The oil boom will, or at least should, lead to changes in U.S. policy. The approach to strategic reserves and to the engagement of current and future producers should change. With declining imports, the U.S. government will be in a position to respond more forcefully to supply disruptions by providing the global market with real barrels of oil. It will be able to respond more effectively if policy evolves to allow easier exports of S.P.R. oil through a market-savvy decision-making process. It should assist others who want to develop their own resources — as the United States has through the shale gas and tight oil booms — by helping their governments put in place the fiscal, environmental and safety regimes necessary to facilitate the growth of robust domestic markets. More production will help keep prices moderate and diversify supply. Investors may not welcome moderate oil prices. But from a foreign policy perspective, increasing competition and reducing government take from oil is still the best way to constrain the worst tendencies of petro states. U.S. self-sufficiency in natural gas has been a domestic bonanza. The country’s balance of trade has improved, gas is now competitive in price with coal , and despite the absence of a carbon price or cap, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in the first quarter of 2012 fell to levels not seen since 1992, in large part due to the decline in coal-fired electricity generation as utilities substituted gas for coal. Less costly gas is also reviving the U.S. petrochemicals industry at the expense of its European and other competitors. If the United States becomes confident that the new supply is real and starts allowing exports of liquefied natural gas, it could help break the oil/gas price linkage that keeps gas prices high in Asia, which would help those countries thrive. Asian L.N.G. prices remain stubbornly higher than European or U.S. prices, based on the premium governments in the region place on security of supply and the dominance of state-owned utilities as buyers. U.S. L.N.G. exports could help provide competitively priced supplies that could be a major source of economic relief to the struggling Japanese and Indian economies, and help sustain the growth of China, Korea and Taiwan. Such U.S. exports to the Western Hemisphere could help reduce Caribbean dependence on subsidized and high-carbon fuel oil supplies. And L.N.G. sales to Europe could further erode that oil price linkage and give relief to a struggling euro zone. If the technology and project management deployed in the Marcellus, Barnett and Eagle Ford shales can be even partially replicated in Eastern Europe, China and India, the world could see faster greenhouse gas reduction — through substituting gas for coal — at lower cost than any mechanism envisioned by our climate negotiators. The big winners could be the new potential exporters — the United States, Canada and even Poland. Countries now heavily dependent on Russian gas — Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine — might also benefit. The big losers could be the current exporters at high prices — Russia and Qatar — as well as those who want to join that club — Iran and Venezuela. Lower prices, lower emissions, greater diversification, more competitive pricing. It’s a diplomatic royal flush. Here again, the path to this potentially happy potential outcome lies in more engagement, not less, on investment climate, intellectual property protection and environmental best practices. Within United States the debate must focus on whether the U.S. government will trust the market that brought these riches to also be the best mechanism to work out how to supply the domestic market and exports at the same time. The U.S. and North American oil and gas booms are phenomenal economic windfalls. But security always trumps economics in U.S. foreign policy. The country’s commitment to global security and its vulnerability to global oil prices will keep Washington engaged for the foreseeable future. David L. Goldwyn, a former U.S. State Department special envoy for international energy and assistant secretary of energy, is president of Goldwyn Global Strategies.

Natural Gas
United States
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
United States International Relations
International Trade and World Market
Energy and Power


Violence Mars Cup Match in England

Abstract: Birmingham fans ran onto the field and threw flares at opposing supporters after Wednesday’s 2-1 English League Cup quarterfinal win over city rival Aston Villa, a day before FIFA votes on whether to award England the right to host the 2018 World Cup. Aston Villa fans responded by ripping up seats and throwing them onto the St. Andrews field. It was reminiscent of events that marred the English game through the 1970s and ’80s. Birmingham Manager Alex McLeish said it should not affect Thursday’s vote in Zurich, but said, “It takes us back to the Dark Ages.” ¶Jonathan Spector’s two-goal performance in West Ham’s 4-0 win over Manchester United has given Manager Avram Grant a problem. Grant said that Spector’s switch from defense to midfield Wednesday in the quarterfinals of the League Cup was so successful that he now has to find a way to keep him in the lineup for Sunday’s Premier League match against Sunderland.

International Federation of Association Football (FIFA)


Seeking Single Home for Horse Racing’s Triple Crown

Abstract: If Bob Evans, the chief executive of Churchill Downs Inc., could turn his preference to reality, one television network would broadcast the three Triple Crown races starting next year, as NBC did from 2001 to 2005. “I certainly hope that turns out to be the case,” Evans said Friday from Louisville, where the Kentucky Derby , the most-viewed of the Triple Crown races, will be run Saturday. “But I can’t do it alone.” He wants NBC to be that lone network, a departure from the current setup in which NBC has carried the Derby and the Preakness Stakes since 2006 and ESPN has shown the Belmont Stakes on ABC. Evans is enamored with the way that NBC has turned the Derby into a broader entertainment program by using its sister networks, like Bravo and CNBC, and programs like “Today” to promote the race. Mike McCarley, a senior vice president of NBC Sports, said, “Our ability to cross-promote to a broad audience, both men and women is one of our biggest advantages.” Women, who made up 52 percent of last year’s Derby viewership, have become crucial to boosting viewership. Last year, NBC attracted 16.3 million viewers, the most in 20 years, to see the 50-1 long shot Mine That Bird win the Derby. When Rachel Alexandra won the Preakness, 10.9 million watched, the second most in 20 years. “They’ve changed the way horse racing is presented,” said Evans, alluding to NBC’s Derby production and the series of pre-Derby prep races around the country that Churchill Downs and the network have collaborated on. Evans’s wish is not great news for ESPN. It snared the Belmont Stakes by capitalizing on the New York Racing Association’s dissatisfaction that it received only 25 percent of the $51.5 million that NBC paid in total from 2001 to 2005. The Derby received half the revenue and Pimlico, home to the Preakness Stakes, also received 25 percent. But the split network setup that grew out of NYRA’s secession appears set to end with the expiration of NBC and ESPN/ABC’s contracts this year. NBC wants what Evans wants. ESPN wants, at the very least, to keep the Belmont Stakes and add races from Belmont Park and the Saratoga Race Course, which NYRA also runs. Len DeLuca, a senior vice president at ESPN, said he had been discussing a Belmont extension but that NYRA’s chairman, C. Steven Duncker, had been “extremely transparent” in saying he will examine all options. ESPN would not mind acquiring the rights to the Derby and the Preakness. But DeLuca said that ESPN would be happy to receive a broader deal from NYRA and continue to carry the Breeders’ Cup, which it has through 2013. Having only the Belmont presents a risk if a horse is not vying for the Triple Crown. Viewership spiked in recent years for Big Brown ’s (2008), Smarty Jones’s (2004) and Funny Cide’s (2003) failed attempts to win the third race. It is worth noting that with a Triple Crown at stake in each year from 2002 to 2004, NBC averaged 14.4 million viewers when it still carried the Belmont. Perhaps that is the benefit Evans is seeking in advocating to carry the races on one network. But in 2008, with Big Brown racing for a Triple Crown at Belmont Park, ABC drew 11.3 million viewers. “If you have all three, clearly you have an edge,” DeLuca said. “But the Triple Crown has survived over the past 40 years by being on one network, and being on two. These are championship events that stand on their own.” Although NBC’s and ESPN’s Triple Crown rights fees have not been disclosed, the recession’s effect and the state of horse racing (DeLuca politely calls it “volatile”) seems to give the networks leverage in future talks. Pimlico has been part of its parent company’s bankruptcy reorganization while NYRA struggles financially. Churchill Downs, the strongest entity of the three, is well-positioned to lead the TV negotiations. Evans hedged when asked which side held the best hand. Asked if the races’ rights fees could drop, he said: “I’m trained as a quantitative economist. More is preferred to less.” DeLuca added, “We enter these negotiations in a different world.” It might look like a different world at the Derby on Saturday with torrential rains expected, at least through early afternoon. David Michaels, NBC’s director, said that the track could be a chaotic place. “You have animals running on dirt,” he said on a conference call Thursday. “You have mud everywhere, you have cameramen who are holding pointers to the sky that are nothing more than high-tech lightning rods.” Gary Stevens, who won three Derbys as a jockey and is NBC’s lead analyst, said on the call: “You can see these jockeys wearing up to 10 pairs of goggles. When you’ve got that many layers of goggles stacked up, everything becomes very distorted. Your vision is impaired significantly.”

Television
Kentucky Derby
Churchill Downs Incorporated
National Broadcasting Co
Triple Crown (Horse Racing)


Qaeda Members Escape Prison in Iraq

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Sixteen prisoners, including leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other extremist groups who had been sentenced to death, escaped from a prison in northern Iraq , in what officials described as a brazen breach of security that prompted a manhunt across a large part of the country on Thursday. Iraqi officials imposed a curfew and, with American search dogs and aircraft, began a large-scale search after the prisoners slipped out of a detention center in the city of Tikrit just before midnight on Wednesday, officials said. One of the prisoners was captured Thursday in an orchard about 12 miles away, but the others remained at large, prompting tightened security at checkpoints as far away as Baghdad, roughly 90 miles to the south. Mutashar Hussein Allawi, the governor of the province, Salahuddin, north of Baghdad, said in a telephone interview that there was “a high probability of collusion” by prison officials. The region’s director of counterterrorism was suspended pending an investigation, as were the warden of the prison and several other officials. “There is neglect by guards and prison officials,” Mr. Allawi said, adding that it was the fourth prison escape in five years in the province. The escape highlighted shortcomings in securing prisoners, a task that the American military, which once held tens of thousands of Iraqis, has gradually turned over to the Iraq’s security forces. According to officials’ account, the prisoners used a wrench to unscrew a window grate in a bathroom in a prison located at one of Saddam Hussein’s former palace compounds near his home town. They then slipped down a 12-foot high wall and fled. The officials provided few other details. Iraqi security officials spread leaflets through Tikrit, with patrols appealing through loud speakers for help in finding the escapees. American forces joined the search at the request of Iraq’s government. Violence continued in Mosul, a city in northern Iraq that has become one of the most dangerous. Three policemen were killed in two separate attacks, while three civilians died in cross-fire between security forces and insurgent fighters, a security official in the region said.

Iraq
Al Qaeda
Prison Escapes
Capital Punishment