Financial Aftershocks With Precedent in History

Abstract: Like earthquakes, financial crises seem to be accompanied by aftershocks, like the one we’ve been living through this week. They can feel every bit as bad as the crisis itself. But economic history and academic research suggest they can set the stage for a sustainable recovery — and eventual sharp stock market gains. The events of the last few weeks — gridlock in Washington, brinksmanship over raising the debt ceiling , Standard & Poor’s downgrade of long-term Treasuries, renewed fears about European debt and a dizzying plunge in the stock market — bear an intriguing resemblance to some of the events of 1937-38, the so-called recession within the Depression , with a major caveat: it was a lot worse back then. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 49 percent from its peak in 1937. Manufacturing output fell by 37 percent, a steeper decline than in 1929-33. Unemployment, which had been slowly declining, to 14 percent from 25 percent, surged to 19 percent. Price declines led to deflation . “The parallels to what is happening now are very strong,” Robert McElvaine, author of “ The Great Depression : America, 1929-1941” and a professor of history at Millsaps College, said this week. Then as now, policy makers were struggling with how and when to turn off the fiscal stimulus and monetary easing that had been used to combat the initial crisis. Are we at similar risk today? David Bianco, chief investment strategist for Merrill Lynch Bank of America , told me this week that “the market is collapsing faster than any fundamentals would warrant.” The possibility that the United States faces a recession as bad as 1937’s seems far-fetched. Nonetheless, Mr. Bianco notes that the market is now pricing in an 80 percent chance of recession, one likely to be more severe than in 1991. (He said Merrill Lynch places the odds at 35 percent.) He noted that there had been only three instances when such a steep market decline was not followed by recession: 1966, 1987 (after the October stock market crash) and 1998 (after the implosion of Long Term Capital Management.) “Confidence is shaken and rapidly falling,” he said, a problem worsened by falling stock prices. By 1937 an economic recovery seemed to be in full swing, giving policy makers every reason to believe the economy was strong enough to withdraw government stimulus. Growth from 1933 to 1936 averaged a booming 9 percent a year (rivaling modern-day China ’s), albeit from a very low base. The federal debt had swelled to 40 percent of gross domestic product in 1936 (from 16 percent in 1929.). Faced with strident calls from both Republicans and members of his own party to balance the federal budget , President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress raised income taxes , levied a Social Security tax (which preceded by several years any payments of benefits) and slashed federal spending in an effort to balance the federal budget. Income-tax revenue grew by 66 percent between 1936 and 1937 and the marginal tax rate on incomes over $4,000 nearly doubled, to 11.6 percent from an average marginal rate of 6.4 percent. (The marginal tax rate on the rich — those making over $1 million — went to 75 percent, from 59 percent.) The Federal Reserve did its part to throw the economy back into recession by tightening credit . Wholesale prices were rising in 1936, setting off inflation fears. There was concern that the Fed’s accommodative monetary policies of the 1920s had led to asset speculation that precipitated the 1929 crash and ensuing Depression. The Fed responded by increasing banks ’ reserve requirements in several stages, leading to a drop in the money supply. The possible causes of the ensuing stock market plunge and steep contraction in the economy provide fodder for just about everyone in the current political debate. Republicans can point to the Roosevelt tax increases. Democrats have the spending reductions, which coincides with Mr. McElvaine’s view. “It appears clear to me that the cause was policies put into effect in 1936-37, mainly cutting spending when F.D.R. believed his re-election was secured,” he said. The Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman blamed the Fed and the contraction in the money supply in his epic “Monetary History of the U.S.” And the stock market itself may have been a culprit, falling so steeply that it wiped out the wealth effect of rising prices, undermined confidence and brought back painful memories of the crash. But taken together, they suggest that policy makers moved too quickly to withdraw government support for the economy. In the current context, it’s hard to blame the Fed for being too restrictive in its monetary policy, as the Fed was in 1937. If anything, critics fault it for being too accommodating, raising many of the same issues that led the Fed to tighten in 1937. Ben S. Bernanke , the Fed chairman, is a student of Depression history and is well aware of Mr. Friedman’s monetary analysis. “He won’t make the same mistake,” Jeremy Siegel, professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said. The Fed’s pledge this week to keep interest rates near zero not just for a vague “extended period” but for a full two years rendered two-year Treasuries virtually risk-free and depressed their yields to a record low of 0.19 percent. This should lead investors to seek income from riskier assets, leading to lower interest rates across the spectrum, including mortgage rates. Despite a brief stock market rally after the Fed’s announcement, Mr. Bianco said he believed investors might be underestimating the significance of the Fed’s move. “You will see household funding costs go down. That will be a benefit and should boost confidence.” At the least, “The Fed has not abandoned us. They’re doing what they can,” he said. But monetary policy can only do so much, especially if fiscal policy is moving in the opposite direction. Christina Romer , a professor at the University of California, Berkeley , who has written extensively about the Great Depression, declared two years ago while chairman of President Obama ’s Council of Economic Advisors: “The urge to declare victory and get back to normal after an economic crisis is strong. That urge needs to be resisted.” Yet both political parties have strapped themselves to the mast of deficit reduction, one through spending cuts, the other tax increases. The recent market plunge may reflect not the largely symbolic S.& P. downgrade of United States Treasuries or worries about political gridlock, but widespread investor fears that both approaches risk a renewed recession by withdrawing stimulus from a fragile economy too soon. No one seriously disagrees that the budget deficit has to be addressed, either through spending cuts or tax increases or in some combination of the two. The question is when. The good news about the 1937-38 recession, severe though it was, is that it lasted just a year, from May 1937 to June 1938 by most calculations. The precipitous 1937 stock market decline and surging unemployment jolted Washington into action. The Fed reversed its higher bank reserves policy and cut the discount rate to 1 percent. In April, President Roosevelt announced a $2 billion “spend-lend” program and embraced deficit spending. But the tax increases remained in effect. Economic growth resumed in June 1938 and was stronger than it had been in the 1933-37 period. Stocks surged. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly, and unfortunately for today’s policy makers, the causes of the 1938 economic rebound seem less clear than the causes of the recession. While Keynesians have embraced the Roosevelt stimulus package to support their arguments for government intervention, others argue it came too late and was too small to account for the recovery. A Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago senior economist, François Velde, concluded that while traditional monetary and fiscal analyses tended to account for the severity of the 1937 downturn, other still-unidentified factors are needed to explain why the economy “rebounded so strongly.” Still, the sense that Washington was doing something to address the problems may have played a key role by bolstering confidence, which was reinforced by rising stock prices. Historians can’t know if the 1938 recovery, strong as it was, would have been enough to finally end the Great Depression. World War II intervened. But nothing today seems nearly as dire as the problems facing the world in 1938. The 1937 aftershocks had the effect of galvanizing policy makers who had grown complacent about the recovery. The result was renewed economic growth, higher employment, higher wages and productivity — and higher stock prices. Investors who had the courage to buy stocks at their 1937 lows were looking at a 60 percent gain less than a year later.

Economy
US Economy
Recession and Depression


To Tell Its Story, Red Cross Goes to Those It Helped

Abstract: THE American Red Cross has commissioned a new public service advertising campaign to raise money in the holiday season by showing how the organization helps people facing problems other than major disasters like Hurricane Sandy . The Red Cross identified people it had helped — who, for example, had experienced home fires or floods, or were reunited with loved ones in the military — and gave them video cameras to film their stories. Twenty-five of the 300 films that were shot ultimately were chosen to be part of the new campaign. Three of the 25 also were selected to run on television as public service spots. Called “The Red Cross Stories Project,” the effort is the third consecutive year-end fund-raising campaign by the organization. Last year’s campaign, by the New York office of BBDO, part of the Omnicom Group, used a Claymation figure named Fred to encourage giving. Peggy Dyer, chief marketing officer of the American Red Cross, said the group decided the Claymation concept was inappropriate in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. “It didn’t feel right,” she said. “There was a disconnect between what people were experiencing and feeling in the aftermath of Sandy and the whimsical approach used last year.” The American Red Cross and BBDO decided to speed up editing of the storytelling videos — which were commissioned this year and were originally intended for release in early 2013 — and run them in place of the Claymation spots. “We wanted to tell the story of the Red Cross through the people we serve, while at the same time demonstrating the breadth of our mission,” Ms. Dyer said. Linda Honan, senior creative director of the New York office of BBDO, said the concept for the storytelling campaign was inspired by a trip agency executives took to Alabama in March 2011, before they won the Red Cross account, to watch the organization in action after a tornado. The trip allowed them to see firsthand assistance provided by the Red Cross and the “moving interaction between the people who were helped and the volunteers,” Ms. Honan said. “It led us to believe that only by firsthand accounts could the Red Cross really tell its story, to turn the storytelling over to people whose lives had been touched themselves.” One of the three 30-second television spots features Angelina Perez, who shows the building where she once lived in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, before a fire destroyed her apartment. “When things like this happen, I think you find a new perspective on life,” she says, adding: “Red Cross put us in a hotel so we were able to stay together. We’re strong, and if we overcame that, or if we can overcome that, we can overcome anything.” Another spot features Sarah Centrella, a single mother whose house in Portland, Ore., was flooded. “The Red Cross arranged the hotel for us — they gave me that break, that leverage, to be able to get it together and take care of them,” she says, referring to her children. “I feel like we’ve come full circle.” Printed copy at the end of this spot says, “Help us be there for disasters big and small,” which is followed by a request to “Donate at redcross.org .” Besides the three television spots, BBDO created a full-page print ad, based on Ms. Perez’s video and a journal she wrote on her experience. The American Red Cross is spending less than $1 million through the end of this year to run the spots on cable channels like AMC, Fox News, IFC and A&E. It is also buying space for the print ad in December issues of Time and The New Yorker. In addition, the organization has asked channels like ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Lifetime to run the spots as free public service advertising through the end of the year. The spots also are being distributed through the American Red Cross’ Facebook and Twitter accounts. They and the other 22 videos selected to be part of the storytelling project are also available at www.redcross.org/stories . Nancy Schwartz, a marketing consultant to nonprofit groups, said the Red Cross had “done a great job directing its beneficiaries to tell their stories.” These stories, she added, “get people first through the heart, then through the head, a message that is more likely to be understood and acted on.” Deborah Small, an associate professor of marketing and psychology at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, expressed similar sentiments. The new campaign, she said, “tugs at our heartstrings. The very best way for an ad to get people to open their wallets is to present them with an identifiable victim. It creates an emotional connection.” Edward Russell, an associate professor of advertising at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, called the campaign “fairly effective,” but expressed concern that the diversity of Red Cross initiatives in the videos “may end up confusing people.” Naomi Levine, chairman and executive director of the George H. Heyman Jr. Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University, however, praised the campaign’s message. “In fund-raising, if you can get people to see what you’re actually doing, it makes it much easier to ask for their support,” she said.

American Red Cross
Television
Advertising and Marketing
Humanitarian Aid


Expectations for Growth in Europe Are Increased

Abstract: Economic growth across Europe is expected to be slightly stronger this year as the recovery gains ground, according to a new forecast from the European Commission that was released on Tuesday. The economy of the 18-country euro zone is expected to grow by 1.2 percent in 2014 and by 1.8 percent next year — a tenth of a percentage point more each year than the commission predicted in November. “The recovery in the European Union is gaining ground and spreading across countries, although it remains modest,” said Olli Rehn, the bloc’s top economic official. “The worst of the crisis may now be behind us.” Spain stands out as firmly turning the page on a two-year recession. The commission doubled Spain’s 2014 growth outlook to 1 percent. Its high unemployment rate, however, is expected to fall only slowly below 26 percent this year. For the euro zone as a whole, the jobless rate is seen as staying flat around the current record high of 12 percent, falling to 11.7 percent next year. The economy in the wider 28-nation union, which includes members like Britain and Poland that do not use the euro currency, will grow by 1.5 percent this year and 2.0 percent in 2015, according to the commission forecast. That outlook is also revised upward by 0.1 percentage points each. Over all, solid growth in major trading partners will help Europe by increasing its exports, Mr. Rehn said. “The recovery in the European Union will be supported by the advanced economies, notably the U.S.,” he said, while the emerging markets will fare unevenly. Still, Mr. Rehn urged European governments to keep strengthening their economies’ competitiveness and to trim their deficits, saying the recovery remains modest and cannot be “an invitation to be complacent.” The only countries forecast to remain stuck in recession in 2014 are Cyprus, whose economy is expected to shrink by 4.8 percent, and Slovenia, where a contraction of 0.1 percent is expected. In Greece, which has lost about a quarter of its economic output over a six-year recession, the commission continues to predict a timid return to growth this year, of 0.6 percent. The unemployment rate is expected to fall only slightly below 26 percent.

European Commission
Recession and Depression
Euro Crisis
EU


Europeans Debate Castration of Sex Offenders

Abstract: PRAGUE — Pavel remembers the violent night sweats two days before the murder. He went to see a family doctor , who said they would go away. But after viewing a Bruce Lee martial arts film, he said, he felt uncontrollable sexual desires. He invited a 12-year-old neighbor home. Then he stabbed the boy repeatedly. His psychiatrist says Pavel derived his sexual pleasure from the violence. More than 20 years have passed. Pavel, then 18, spent seven years in prison and five years in a psychiatric institution. During his last year in prison, he asked to be surgically castrated. Having his testicles removed, he said, was like draining the gasoline from a car hard-wired to crash. A large, dough-faced man, he is sterile and has forsaken marriage, romantic relationships and sex, he said. His life revolves around a Catholic charity, where he is a gardener. “I can finally live knowing that I am no harm to anybody,” he said during an interview at a McDonald’s here, as children played loudly nearby. “I am living a productive life. I want to tell people that there is help.” He refused to give his last name for fear of being hounded. Whether castration can help rehabilitate violent sex offenders has come under new scrutiny after the Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee last month called surgical castration “invasive, irreversible and mutilating” and demanded that the Czech Republic stop offering the procedure to violent sex offenders. Other critics said that castration threatened to lead society down a dangerous road toward eugenics. The Czech Republic has allowed at least 94 prisoners over the past decade to be surgically castrated. It is the only country in Europe that uses the procedure for sex offenders. Czech psychiatrists supervising the treatment — a one-hour operation that involves removal of the tissue that produces testosterone — insist that it is the most foolproof way to tame sexual urges in dangerous predators suffering from extreme sexual disorders. Surgical castration has been a means of social control for centuries. In ancient China , eunuchs were trusted to serve the imperial family inside the palace grounds; in Italy several centuries ago, youthful male choir members were castrated to preserve their high singing voices. These days it can be used to treat testicular cancer and some advanced cases of prostate cancer . Now, more countries in Europe are considering requiring or allowing chemical castration for violent sex offenders. There is intense debate over whose rights take precedence: those of sex offenders, who could be subjected to a punishment that many consider cruel, or those of society, which expects protection from sexual predators. Poland is expected to become the first nation of the European Union to give judges the right to impose chemical castration on at least some convicted pedophiles, using hormonal drugs to curb sexual appetite; the impetus for the change was the arrest of a 45-year-old man in September who had fathered two children by his young daughter. Spain , after a convicted pedophile killed a child, is considering plans to offer chemical castration. Last year, the governor of Louisiana , Bobby Jindal , signed legislation requiring courts to order chemical castration for offenders convicted of certain sex crimes a second time. In the Czech Republic, the issue was brought home last month when Antonin Novak, 43, was sentenced to life in prison after raping and killing Jakub Simanek, a 9-year-old boy who disappeared last May. Mr. Novak, who had served four and a half years in prison for sexual offenses in Slovakia , had been ordered to undergo outpatient treatment, but had failed to show up several months before the murder. Advocates of surgical castration argued that had he been castrated, the tragedy could have been prevented. Hynek Blasko, Jakub’s father, expressed indignation that human rights groups were putting the rights of criminals ahead of those of victims. “My personal tragedy is that my son is in heaven and he is never coming back, and all I have left of him is 1.5 kilograms of ashes,” he said in an interview. “No one wants to touch the rights of the pedophiles, but what about the rights of a 9-year-old boy with his life ahead of him?” Ales Butala, a Slovenian human rights lawyer who led the Council of Europe’s delegation to the Czech Republic, argued that surgical castration was unethical, because it was not medically necessary and deprived castrated men of the right to reproduce. He also challenged its effectiveness, saying that the council’s committee had discovered three cases of castrated Czech sex offenders who had gone on to commit violent crimes, including pedophilia and attempted murder. Although the procedure is voluntary, Mr. Butala said that he believed some offenders felt they had no choice. “Sex offenders are requesting castration in hope of getting released from a life of incarceration,” he said. “Is that really free and informed consent?” But government health officials here and some Czech psychiatrists counter that castration can be effective and argue that by seeking to outlaw the practice, the council is putting potential victims at risk. Dr. Martin Holly, a leading sexologist and psychiatrist who is director of the Psychiatric Hospital Bohnice in Prague, said none of the nearly 100 sex offenders who had been physically castrated had committed further offenses. A Danish study of 900 castrated sex offenders in the 1960s suggested the rate of repeat offenses dropped after surgical castration to 2.3 percent from 80 percent. But human rights groups say that such studies are inconclusive because they rely on self-reporting by sex offenders. Other psychiatric experts argue that sexual pathology is in the brain and cannot be cured by surgery. Dr. Holly, who has counseled convicted sex offenders for four decades, stressed that the procedure was being allowed only for repeat violent offenders who suffered from severe sexual disorders. Moreover, he said, the procedure is undertaken only with the informed consent of the patient and with the approval of an independent committee of psychiatric and legal experts. Jaroslav Novak, chief of urology at the Faculty Hospital Na Bulovce in Prague, said: “This is not a very common procedure. We carry it out maybe once every one to two years at most.” Several states, including Texas , Florida and California , now allow or mandate chemical castration for certain convicted sex offenders. Dr. Fred S. Berlin , founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University , argued that chemical castration was less physically harmful than surgery and that it provided a safeguard, because a psychiatrist could inform the courts or police if the patient ordered to undergo treatment failed to show up. A surgically castrated patient, Dr. Berlin said, can order testosterone over the Internet. For Hynek Blasko, the father of Jakub Simanek, neither form of castration is the answer. “These people must be under permanent detention where they can be monitored,” he said. “There has to be a difference between the rights of the victim and the perpetrator.”

Europe
Czech Republic
Testosterone
Crime
Rape
Human rights
Medical Sterilization
Criminal Sentence


Second Straight Missed Opportunity by Rivera and the Yankees

Abstract: The Yankees and Mariano Rivera had a full day to recover from their upsetting loss to the Boston Red Sox late Sunday night, when Rivera blew a save opportunity in the ninth inning and the Red Sox went on to win in the 10th. But a day of rest Monday could not prevent the sour feeling that would return on Tuesday, when Rivera was the victim of another disheartening loss. This time, after the Yankees rallied to tie the score behind Derek Jeter’s two-run single in the seventh , Rivera entered with the score tied in the ninth inning. And this time, the result was just as shocking. Bobby Abreu , who left the Yankees as a free agent after the 2008 season, ripped his second home run of the night, a towering two-run shot to right field off Rivera with two outs in the ninth, and the Los Angeles Angels won, 6-4 , to send the Yankees to their third consecutive defeat. It is the first time the Yankees have lost three in a row since they were swept by the Red Sox in the second week of June. It is unusual for left-handed hitters like Abreu to take advantage of Rivera like that. But Rivera said he threw a cut fastball that just did not cut enough, and he said there was no correlation to what happened at Fenway Park on Sunday, when Marco Scutaro doubled and scored on a sacrifice fly. “These things happen,” Rivera said. “I’m not concerned.” Equally as shocking as Rivera’s stumbles in two consecutive games was the manner in which the game ended. Curtis Granderson was caught stealing on a standard pickoff play by closer Jordan Walden that almost never results in an out. “That’s what everybody thinks,” Walden said. “But I guess Curtis was trying to get second base.” Indeed, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees had runners on first and third with Mark Teixeira, the team leader in home runs, at the plate as the potential winning run. Eduardo Nunez was at third and Granderson, who had hustled to avoid a double play on his ground ball to second, was at first. It was vital to the Angels that Granderson, who represented the tying run, not steal second and get into scoring position. So Walden, who was inside Yankee Stadium for the first time in his life, kept faking a pickoff to third base, then looking Granderson back to first. The play usually elicits boos from the fans of the team at the plate — and it did this time, too — but it keeps the runner at first close to the bag. Walden made the move a couple of times as Granderson scurried back to the bag while first baseman Mark Trumbo yelled, “No, no, no,” meaning Granderson was not attempting to steal second. After that, Granderson assumed Walden would be throwing home. But he did not. Once again Walden stepped off the rubber toward third base, and this time Granderson broke. As Walden looked to first base, all he saw was Trumbo pointing to second. “That time he didn’t say nothing,” Walden said. “I looked over and he’s pointing and I’m like, ‘All right.’ ” Walden wheeled and threw to shortstop Erick Aybar covering second base. Garnderson put on the brakes and turned back toward first, but Aybar threw to Trumbo, who chased down Granderson and applied the game-winning tag. Granderson had the green light and said he felt if he was on second he could tie the game on a single. And yes, he understood that Teixeira, who has 32 home runs, could have won the game with one swing of the bat. “But the odds are, that’s probably not going to happen,” he said. In fact, it was Granderson who homered in the first inning. But the Angels, scored four times off starter A. J. Burnett in the sixth, with Abreu hitting a leadoff home run. The two home runs for Abreu accounted for one-third of his season total. With a .255 average and only 45 runs batted in, Abreu is not having a good season, and he came into the game in a 1-for-21 slump. The Yankees evened the score with a two-out, three-run rally in the seventh. Not surprisingly, Jeter had the key hit, a single up the middle off reliever Fernando Rodney. The game then moved to the ninth, when Rivera was summoned with the score still tied. Alberto Callaspo singled to right, and Aybar reached on a fielder’s choice. One out later, Rivera threw Abreu the cutter that never cut. INSIDE PITCH A. J. Burnett was booed off the field after surrendering all four runs in the sixth, but said he would not change a lot about the outing. Manager Joe Girardi said he would not remove Burnett from the rotation. ...Alex Rodriguez could play in a minor league rehabilitation game Friday or Saturday. ... The Yankees will continue with six starting pitchers for now as Phil Hughes will start Saturday.

Baseball
New York Yankees
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Rivera Mariano
Granderson Curtis
Abreu Bobby


Eyes on Kennedy, Women Tell Supreme Court Why Abortion Was Right for Them

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Amy Brenneman, an actress, wants Justice Anthony M. Kennedy to know about the abortion she had when she was a 21-year-old college junior. Taking a page from the movement for same-sex marriage, Ms. Brenneman and more than 100 other women have filed several supporting briefs in a major Supreme Court abortion case to be argued on Wednesday. The briefs tell the stories of women who say their abortions allowed them to control their bodies, plan for the future and welcome children into their lives when their careers were established and their personal lives were on solid ground. The briefs are aimed largely at Justice Kennedy, who holds the crucial vote in abortion cases. They use language and concepts from his four major gay rights decisions, notably his invocation of “equal dignity” in June’s ruling establishing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. “Why has marriage equality gained so much ground, and reproductive justice seems to be losing so much ground?” Ms. Brenneman, known for her roles on “NYPD Blue” and “Judging Amy,” said in an interview. Partly, she said, because gay couples have come out of the shadows but many women still believe abortions to be shameful secrets. The briefs seek to counter that, as well as what some people saw as a streak of uninformed paternalism in a 2007 majority opinion in which Justice Kennedy said many women regretted their decisions to have abortions and experienced depression and plunging self-esteem But Allan E. Parker Jr., a lawyer with the anti-abortion group the Justice Foundation , said the women’s briefs may only alienate Justice Kennedy. “The abortion industry is trying to make it sound like abortion is a joyful experience,” he said. “But even women who say it was necessary say it was not joyful. It is a grief and a blackness, and it changes you.” Mr. Parker filed a brief on behalf of more than 3,000 women, many identified by their first names or initials, who say they suffered psychological or physical harm from their abortions. “Because abortion is such a difficult and painful decision,” the brief said, “the initial reaction may be relief because the trauma of the actual event is over and the decision making process is over, but that may sow the seeds of trauma and emotional injury that lasts for decades.” Helen J. Knowles, the author of “ The Tie Goes to Freedom: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on Liberty ,” said she had her doubts about appealing to Justice Kennedy by using personal stories. Image A patient advocate at Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion clinic in San Antonio. Credit Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times “I suspect that taking that approach is not going to get much traction with Justice Kennedy,” she said. “I’m just not convinced that this is the right way to come at him in this case.” The better approach, one taken in many other briefs, she said, is to focus on the obstacles created by the Texas law rather than on general conceptions of motherhood. Wednesday’s case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, No. 15-274, concerns a challenge to a restrictive Texas law brought by several abortion clinics in the state. They say the law could reduce the number of clinics in Texas to about 10 from roughly 40 by requiring doctors who perform abortions to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and requiring clinics to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers. The court’s balance of power has shifted with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but abortion rights advocates will almost certainly still have to secure Justice Kennedy’s vote to win the case. A 4-to-4 tie would automatically affirm an appeals court decision that sustained the restrictions with minor exceptions. Justice Kennedy’s abortion jurisprudence is muddled. In 1992, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey , he joined Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and David H. Souter in a joint opinion that reaffirmed the core of Roe v. Wade , the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life,” the joint opinion said, in a passage that only Justice Kennedy could have drafted. But Justice Kennedy’s reputation as an abortion rights champion is undeserved, said David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University. “He has only once found an abortion restriction unconstitutional in his 28 years on the Supreme Court,” Professor Cohen said, while allowing 20 other restrictions to go into effect. In 2007, Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion upholding the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, supplementing his legal analysis with observations about motherhood. “Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child,” he wrote, adding: “While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.” Janice Mac Avoy, a lawyer with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, said the passage troubled her. “It was incredibly paternalistic,” she said. She told her story in a brief signed by 113 female lawyers who said they did not regret their abortions. How the Supreme Court’s Decision Will Affect Access to Abortion The case centers on a Texas law that has resulted in half its clinics closing. “I was 18 years old, in high school, outside of St. Louis,” Ms. Mac Avoy said in an interview. “I was about to be the first person in my family to graduate from high school. And I had a scholarship to college, and I knew that I wanted to go to law school. And I knew that being a mother was not compatible with any of those things at that time in my life.” Ms. Brenneman also said Justice Kennedy’s musings about regret were misguided. “It is patronizing,” she said. “It is saying that women are not capable of knowing their own mental health. And 95 percent of women do not regret it, so this is an opportunity to set the math straight.” In her own case, Ms. Brenneman said she was a 21-year-old junior at Harvard when her birth control failed and she had an abortion. “It allowed me to choose when to become a mother,” she said. “As a mother now, I know I was correct at 21.” “I didn’t have a college degree,” she said. “I didn’t have an income. I didn’t have a marriage. I didn’t have anything a child needs. And I didn’t want it.” Professor Cohen, who has filed a brief supporting the Texas clinics, said the women’s briefs were unusual in focusing on real-life narratives. “They are not addressing any legal principle but are trying to get inside Justice Kennedy’s head that women are moral agents who make decisions and that regret is not something that should be part of his thinking,” Professor Cohen said. “It was clearly part of his thinking in 2007.” Michael J. Dell, a lawyer with Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel who represents Ms. Brenneman and other women, said it was worth reminding the justices that abortions are common. “There shouldn’t be a stigma,” he said. “A third of women have abortions. Many of the people that Supreme Court justices know and socialize with, and their children and friends, have had abortions, and they’re probably totally unaware of it.” Alexia D. Korberg, a lawyer with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison who represents the female lawyers, said her work on a major gay rights case had informed the legal strategy in the abortion case. “We had seen just how powerful humanizing issues that can seem abstract can be, not just for the justices but for everyone, and how powerful empathy can be,” Ms. Korberg said. However effective such an approach may be, much of the attention at the Supreme Court on Wednesday will be focused on Justice Kennedy, as often happens and for good reason. “One man’s perception of abortion is what matters the most here,” Professor Cohen said.

Abortion
Amy Brenneman
Texas
Planned Parenthood
Birth control
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
Anthony M Kennedy


Apple Is Set to Announce Two iPhones

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — The handset market is so brutally competitive that Apple, the most successful smartphone maker, is preparing to step up its game this week by offering two new iPhones instead of one. At an event on Tuesday at its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, the company is set to unveil for customers worldwide a new iPhone with a faster processor, along with another model that will be sold at a lower cost. The company’s profit growth has slowed in response to a saturated handset market in America and parts of Europe. Many people already own a smartphone and are not upgrading to new devices as often as before. A lower-cost smartphone could allow Apple to expand into overseas markets — especially China, where the iPhone has been highly desired among many consumers but is just out of reach because of its price. “A cheaper model will open up the market significantly for Apple,” said Chetan Sharma , an independent telecom analyst who consults for phone carriers. Apple declined to comment on the new products. But analysts expect the higher-priced model to be an improvement over the current iPhone, including a faster processor and better camera flash, as well as a fingerprint sensor for security. The second iPhone is expected to be a cheaper version of the soon-to-be-outdated iPhone 5, coming in a variety of colors, with a plastic case instead of aluminum. Analysts expect the full price of the lower-cost iPhone to be $300 to $400, positioning it as a midtier product. Apple has been enormously successful, with the iPhone driving most of its revenue. In the second quarter, the company took 53 percent of the profit in the global smartphone market, with Samsung Electronics, which uses Google Android software to run its smartphones, taking the rest, according to a survey by Canaccord Genuity, an investment bank. But both Apple and Samsung face a common enemy: the tide of manufacturers that produce dirt-cheap Android phones . While they make all the profits, Apple and Samsung have seen their combined share of the worldwide smartphone market drop to 43 percent in the second quarter from 49 percent a year earlier. The makers of cheaper phones — including Huawei, Yulong and ZTE of China, and Micromax and Karbonn of India — are raking in sales in emerging markets where high-end smartphones are not popular. Image Pedestrians in Tokyo last week passing posters for the iPhone. A new model with a faster processor is to be unveiled Tuesday. Credit Toshifumi Kitamura/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “We’ve had several indications from the handset market that vendors are in real trouble,” said Tero Kuittinen, an analyst for Alekstra, a mobile diagnostics firm. “The biggest threat to all the companies seems to be the low-end Androids.” In terms of sales, smartphones surpassed traditional flip phones this year. There are a few markets remaining where traditional cellphones are still outselling the smartphone , including India, Brazil and Russia. Data from Qualcomm suggests that Latin America, China and India are adding substantially higher numbers of smartphone subscriptions than North America, Japan, Korea and Europe. China, with its huge population, is an attractive target for Apple . But Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said recently in a call with investors that the company was puzzled about why sales of its products were struggling in China. Sales there fell 4 percent in the second quarter compared with the same quarter last year. And Apple’s sales in Hong Kong were down about 20 percent. A cheaper iPhone could help it gain traction in China, depending on its cost. Analysts said the introduction of the cheaper iPhone would probably coincide with an expected partnership deal with China Mobile, which has about 700 million subscribers — about seven times as many as Verizon Wireless. Capturing even a small percentage of China Mobile customers would translate to tens of millions more iPhone sales. Apple already sells its phones in China through China Telecom, a major network operator, but it slipped into sixth place among smartphone makers there in the second quarter, with a share of only 4.8 percent, according to Canalys, a research firm. Over all, China is the largest smartphone market in the world, accounting for one-third of worldwide shipments of smartphones in the second quarter; the United States is in second place, accounting for about 14 percent of shipments in the same period, according to Canalys . Despite Apple’s efforts to keep its plans secret, clues about the new iPhones leaked out. China Telecom briefly posted a message last week on a blog platform soliciting early orders for the new devices. It identified the high-end model as the iPhone 5S, and the lower-cost one as the iPhone 5C. The post was later removed. A spokesman for China Telecom declined to comment, citing nondisclosure agreements. In Japan, where Apple is much stronger but faces a renewed challenge from domestic smartphone makers like Sony, the company has struck a deal to sell the iPhone with the country’s biggest mobile phone carrier, NTT Docomo, two people briefed on the situation said Friday. Docomo has 60 million customers, but it has been losing market share to Japan’s other two main mobile operators, SoftBank and KDDI, which operates under the brand name au. Both have been marketing Apple’s phones aggressively, giving Apple a 40 percent share of smartphone sales in the first quarter, according to IDC, a research firm. Historically, so that it can protect the quality of its products as well as profit margins, Apple has refused to make cheaper products just to get more customers. Therefore, a lower-cost iPhone would most likely be positioned as a midtier product, similar to the approach Apple took with the iPad Mini . At $330, the iPad Mini is cheaper than the bigger, $500 iPad, but not as affordable as the smaller Android tablets offered by Google and Amazon, which cost from $160 to $230. Realistically, a lower-cost iPhone will be $300 to $400 at full price, Mr. Kuittinen, the Alekstra analyst, said, significantly less than the current iPhone, which costs $650. Overseas, many phone carriers charge full price because they do not subsidize the upfront cost of a smartphone the way carriers do in the United States. And while a lower-cost iPhone would drive up Apple’s revenue, it would probably not be a blockbuster hit in economically disadvantaged markets, Mr. Kuittinen said. “Nobody is saying Apple should have a $130 iPhone,” he said, “but if they price this iPhone 5C at $400 or above, it’s just not going to be effective in countries like India, China or even Brazil.” Still, even if the price is fairly high, a cheaper iPhone should appeal to a subset of people in developing countries who flaunt gadgets as status symbols, like jewelry. People who were on the fence about buying an iPhone might pay a little extra just to be able to show off, Mr. Sharma, the telecom analyst, said. “Consumers are willing to shell out money to own a brand,” he said. “I think a $300 price gives them a chance to own it.”


Justin Waller Is Arrested in Fatal Stabbing of John Lea

Abstract: A suspect in the fatal stabbing this week of a security industry event planner has been captured in Vermont after New York City detectives tracked him there, partly by tracing his use of the victim’s credit cards, the authorities said. The suspect, Justin Waller, 30, agreed to meet with city investigators at the police station in Manchester, Vt., on Friday after the authorities discovered that he was staying at a friend’s apartment there, officials said. Detectives from the city’s Midtown North Precinct had been seeking Mr. Waller since Thursday, when John S. Lea’s body was discovered with its throat slashed, lying under a mound of clothes on the floor of Mr. Lea’s home, at 439 West 46th Street, between Ninth and 10th Avenues, officials said. Mr. Lea, 41, an event planner with the New York Society of Security Analysts, had been allowing Mr. Waller to live with him over the past several weeks, ever since the two met at the Mid City Gym on West 42nd Street, the police said. But the two men began arguing over the living arrangement, the police said. Investigators believed that Mr. Lea wanted Mr. Waller to move out, because Mr. Waller was apparently not paying rent, but Mr. Waller refused to leave, the police said. “The dispute was over this guy not paying any rent,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. “He moved in and was not paying anything.” Mr. Lea had several defensive wounds on his hands, indicating a struggle with his killer, and the apartment had been ransacked, an official said. A knife was also found at the scene. After the killing, investigators learned that Mr. Waller had charged “a few hundred dollars” to one of Mr. Lea’s credit cards to hire a car to drive him to Vermont, said Sgt. Michael Hall of the Manchester Police Department. Mr. Waller also used the credit cards to buy food, including “eggs and bananas and things like that,” at a grocery in Manchester, Sergeant Hall said. The sergeant said that Mr. Waller had relatives in southern Vermont and had lived there for a brief time earlier this decade. Officers from the Manchester police worked with a sergeant and two detectives from the city to find Mr. Waller in an apartment on Cass Terrace, the police said. At the apartment, Manchester officers asked Mr. Waller to accompany them to the station to speak with the New York detectives, “and he did,” Sergeant Hall said. Under questioning by city detectives, Mr. Waller “subsequently confessed to the murder,” Sergeant Hall said. “He admitted to them that he had, in fact, had an altercation with Mr. Lea and killed him, and I believe he admitted to stabbing him.” Sergeant Hall said that Mr. Waller was being held on Saturday evening as a fugitive on a second-degree murder charge. He was being held at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland, Vt., on $500,000 bail, he said. Mr. Brown said that Mr. Waller was “awaiting extradition for murder charges.” He said a hearing was scheduled for Sunday. A profile of Mr. Lea on the Web site LinkedIn.com indicated that he had worked for the Society of Security Analysts for about seven months and earned a bachelor’s degree in personnel administration at the University of Kansas in 1989. The profile also indicated that he had worked as a risk management specialist for G.E. Capital and as a faculty manager for the American Management Association. The police went to Mr. Lea’s second-floor apartment on Thursday after a friend had not heard from him and became concerned. The door was locked and officers used a fire escape to enter through a window.


Curiosities Emerge in Suspected Russian Spy Ring

Abstract: One explained her Russian-sounding accent by saying she was Belgian. She consulted a landscape designer who wondered why the living room was filled with piles of wood but figured the woman’s husband was a carpenter and would eventually get around to making some furniture. One put a blowup Santa on a motorcycle in the front yard around Christmas, a kitschy touch in a stately neighborhood of hilly streets, and kept two schnauzers in the backyard. The man told a neighbor the dogs were a relic from their years in South America, where a break-in had left his wife traumatized. One seemed to belong to the laptop-and-latte crowd, killing time in a Manhattan coffee shop — except that instead of writing another chapter of the Great American Novel, she beamed messages to a suspicious van that drove by. Later, when she bought a cellphone, she told a clerk in the Verizon store that her address was “99 Fake Street.” They seemed so normal, buying houses in the suburbs, walking their children to the bus stop in the morning, bringing home flowers in the evening, telling the neighbors they worked in trendy industries like financial services. But the Justice Department says that they were deep-cover spies from Russia and that their mission was to infiltrate American “policymaking circles.” Two days after they were taken into custody, it remained unclear exactly what secrets they had managed to get hold of. The charges did not include espionage; the 10 suspects were charged with failing to register as foreign agents. The story has all the elements of a thriller or, considering some of the details described in court documents, a sitcom about people who had fraudulent passports and used code words. The suspects had learned enough American slang to get by — enough, anyway, to start a sentence with the words “Everything is cool.” They had also been taught lines to recite, lines that only another spy was supposed to recognize and respond to, although some of those lines apparently came from an undercover F.B.I. agent who was pretending to be an employee of the Russian Consulate in New York. The undercover F.B.I. agent told one of the suspects, Anna Chapman, to listen for this greeting at a rendezvous about a passport: “Excuse me, but haven’t we met in California last summer?” “And you will say to her, ‘No, I think it was the Hamptons,’ ” the undercover F.B.I. agent instructed her. The government said the suspects all worked for the S.V.R., the successor to the Soviet K.G.B. And for whatever they knew about the technology of spying — and the Justice Department says they knew a lot — they were well schooled in other tricks to avoid drawing attention. They took ordinary names: Ms. Chapman of Manhattan; Mr. Heathfield and Ms. Foley of Cambridge, Mass.; the Murphys of Montclair, N.J., where young neighbors realized the Murphys would put them in the spotlight. On Facebook, Joelle Capone, 12, wrote, “My neighbors were arrested for spying for Russia!!!! I’m going to be famous on TV!!!!” And in Yonkers, there were Vicky Pelaez and Juan Lazaro. She was a columnist for El Diario-La Prensa, the Spanish-language newspaper in New York, and had earned acclaim in her native Peru as a television reporter. A colleague at El Diario-La Prensa, where employees said they were not authorized to talk about the case, said that Ms. Pelaez had written critical commentaries on American foreign policy. Mr. Lazaro taught a course in politics in Latin America and the Caribbean at Baruch College, and his students said he was a professor like none other. The reason? His passionate denunciation of American foreign policy. He maintained that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a money-making ploy for corporate America. He praised President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and disparaged President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia as a pawn for paramilitary groups that have broad control over drug trafficking. “He challenged us intellectually,” said one student who graduated in May. “He criticized a lot about what happens in the United States, and that’s what I think got some people upset.” Someone was so upset that he or she complained about Mr. Lazaro, students said, adding that Mr. Lazaro had been let go at the end of the semester. Some students signed a petition seeking his reinstatement, but they said it had had no effect. Thomas Halper, the chairman of the political science department at Baruch, said that Mr. Lazaro had been hired as an adjunct professor “at the last minute” for the 2008-9 academic year. He taught for a single semester because his instruction was not up to standard, Dr. Halper said. He added that he did not recall any brouhaha about Mr. Lazaro’s anti-American views or remember a student petition to keep him. “We had someone observe his class, and that person didn’t think he did a very good job,” Dr. Halper said, noting that all new adjuncts were monitored. El Diario quoted the couple’s 17-year-old son as saying the federal agents who took his parents into custody had interrogated him about their political affiliations and their finances — and about whether there were hidden places in the house. “They knew my nickname,” he told El Diario. “They knew absolutely everything.” They knew, he said, that he was an aspiring pianist who was considering applying to music school, adding, “They asked me if I’d looked at conservatories in Russia, if I spoke Russian or German.” One neighbor said they never seemed to rake the leaves in the backyard, a no-no among suburbanites who pride themselves on tidy landscaping. But they tried to make things right when there was trouble: One neighbor said that when a limb from one of their trees crashed into her yard, Ms. Pelaez stopped by to apologize. Ms. Pelaez even hired someone to remove the limb. The Murphys in Montclair also fit right in. When they moved in more than a year ago, they told people they had lived in Hoboken, N.J. The move to Montclair, they assured their bosses in Moscow, “was solely a natural progression of our prolonged stay here. It was a convenient way to solve the housing issue, plus to ‘do as the Romans do’ in a society that values home ownership.” Not that they themselves owned the house: “We didn’t forget that the house was bought under fictitious names,” the criminal complaint quoted them as telling Moscow. The price was $481,000. The Murphys hired Mary Chalek to design the landscaping for their front yard, but after paying for Ms. Chalek’s preliminary designs, they hired someone else, Ms. Chalek said. Mrs. Murphy explained to Ms. Chalek that her family had run into some unexpected expenses while renovating the house. Ms. Chalek said she had told Mrs. Murphy, “I get a lot of complaints from people because I charge what I feel I’m worth.” Ms. Chalek said Mrs. Murphy had replied, “I get the same complaint all the time from people when I tell them the same thing.” Ms. Chalek said she had asked Mrs. Murphy what she did for a living. Mrs. Murphy replied that she worked in the financial services industry. She had told Elizabeth Lapin, who lives a few doors from the Murphys’ house, the same thing. And Ms. Lapin said that just last week, she had considered going to Mrs. Murphy for financial advice. “But the F.B.I. got there first,” she said. “For someone who grew up during the cold war, this feels very strange. It’s suddenly my childhood breathing down my neck four doors away.” It was Ms. Chalek who saw the wood in the living room. She described the rest of the house as “sparse.” She said that Mrs. Murphy wore stylish clothes and left for a bus to Manhattan every morning, returning around 7:30 p.m. Ms. Chalek said she assumed that Mr. Murphy was a stay-at-home father because she saw him walking their two elementary-school-age daughters to and from the bus stop. “We would talk about gardening and dogs and kids,” said Corine Jones, who lives nearby. “We would complain about contractors because they never got the work done.” Neighbors said the F.B.I. descended on the house — 15 to 20 agents in black vans. The Murphys, led out in handcuffs, were put in separate cars. Neighbors said their younger daughter was home; their older daughter, who enter middle school in the fall, was at a friend’s birthday party. She was driven home by a friend while the raid was going on. She and her sister later left the house, carrying sleeping bags.

Russia
Justice Department
Espionage
Russian Illegals Program (2010)


In Repeat From ’89, Siena Tops Stanford

Abstract: Josh Duell scored 16 points yesterday to lead Siena past No. 20 Stanford, 79-67, in a game reminiscent of the Saints’ stunning victory against the Cardinal in the 1989 N.C.A.A. tournament. Alex Franklin had 14 points and a game-high 9 rebounds for host Siena, and Kenny Hasbrouck added 12 points in a rare meeting between the teams. In 1989, the 14th-seeded Siena squad knocked third-seeded Stanford out of the N.C.A.A. tournament in the first round with an 80-78 victory. Yesterday, the Siena student section raced onto the court after the final buzzer sounded. It was Siena’s first victory against a ranked opponent in 18 years. Edwin Ubiles scored 11 points for the Saints (2-2). Kenny Brown had 12 points for Stanford (4-1). HOFSTRA 73, MANHATTAN 71 Antoine Agudio scored 6 of his 30 points in overtime to help host Hofstra beat Manhattan. Trailing by 61-59 with 1.1 seconds left in regulation, Manhattan (2-1) tied the score when Devon Austin put back a miss. Charles Jenkins had given Hofstra (1-1) a 2-point lead by hitting two free throws with 44.5 seconds left in the second half. FLORIDA 88, RUTGERS 63 Marreese Speights had 18 points and 12 rebounds as Florida beat visiting Rutgers to help Coach Billy Donovan earn his 300th career victory. The Gators (4-0) closed the first half on a 17-2 run. ST. PETER’S 72, WAGNER 69 Raul Orta scored 18 points — including the winning 3-pointer with six seconds left — to lift host St. Peter’s. LOUISVILLE 104, HARTFORD 69 Terrence Williams recorded the third triple-double in Louisville history, with 14 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds, as the sixth-ranked Cardinals rolled by visiting Hartford in their season opener. GONZAGA 84, U.C.-RIVERSIDE 48 The freshman Austin Daye scored 16 points to lead four players in double figures as No. 14 Gonzaga routed visiting California-Riverside. TEXAS A&M 85, OUACHITA 59 The freshman DeAndre Jordan had 12 points and 10 rebounds to lead No. 15 Texas A&M to a victory at home against Divison II Ouachita. KANSAS STATE 77, WESTERN ILLINOIS 64 The freshman Michael Beasley scored 23 of his 28 points in the second half and had 22 rebounds, lifting No. 22 Kansas State at home. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 88, NORTHERN ILLINOIS 68 Bryan Mullins scored 15 of his 16 points in the first half to help No. 23 Southern Illinois rout visiting Northern Illinois. BUTLER 60, EVANSVILLE 47 A. J. Graves scored 22 points to lead No. 25 Butler past host Evansville. Women WESTERN CAROLINA 77, LOUISVILLE 72 Brooke Johnson scored 17 points and Western Carolina held off a late rally by No. 22 Louisville in Minneapolis.

Basketball
Stanford University
NCAA Basketball Tournament
National Collegiate Athletic Assn


Tool Makers Offer Dim Forecasts

Abstract: Two tool makers, the Black & Decker Corporation and Stanley Works, offered dim forecasts for 2008 on Monday as a slowdown in the housing market has stifled demand for building equipment. Black & Decker, which makes DeWalt power tools and Price Pfister faucets, offered a first-quarter profit outlook that was lower than Wall Street forecasts, and Stanley Works cited a “possible mild and short-lived U.S. recession,” for its full-year sales growth forecast of flat to up 1 percent. Black & Decker forecast earnings of $1.10 to $1.20 a share for the first quarter, while analysts surveyed by Reuters Estimates, on average, were expecting $1.40. “We recognize that the U.S. economy is slowing, and we do not expect a housing recovery in 2008,” the chief executive, Nolan D. Archibald, said in a statement. The company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $187.4 million, or $2.94 a share, up from $95.7 million, or $1.38 a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, however, profit fell to $1.06 a share from $1.38. The analysts’ average forecast was $1.03, according to Reuters Estimates. Sales rose 3 percent, to $1.7 billion. An analyst at the investment firm Sterne, Agee & Leach, Nicholas P. Heymann, said investors were concerned about the home remodeling outlook. When the economy slows, remodeling picks up as people renovate their homes rather than build new ones, he said. But the credit squeeze is making it more difficult for homeowners to get loans, even for remodeling projects.

Forecasts
Company Reports
Black & Decker Corp


U.S. Gymnast Is Cleared to Compete in Beijing

Abstract: One of two Hamm brothers is free to pack his bags for Beijing to compete in his third Olympics. USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee announced Wednesday that the gymnast Morgan Hamm — the twin of the reigning men’s Olympic champion in all-around, Paul Hamm — was still on the Olympic team despite his positive test for a banned anti-inflammatory drug at the United States championships in May. The United States Anti-Doping Agency gave Hamm a warning July 3 for receiving a shot of the anti-inflammatory glucocorticosteroid in his injured left ankle without receiving clearance from the agency. Hamm’s results from the second day of the United States championships were thrown out. The results from that event and from last month’s Olympic trials were used to help determine which six men would represent the United States at the Beijing Games. “USA Gymnastics evaluated the impact of the ruling against the selection criteria for both participation in the Olympic trials and ultimately his selection to our men’s Olympic team,” the USA Gymnastics president, Steve Penny, said Wednesday in a statement. “After thorough analysis, the men’s selection committee determined that Usada’s ruling did not affect either of those decisions.” After review, the U.S.O.C. supported that decision. Hamm said he had received a shot of the anti-inflammatory, which is like cortisone, on May 2, so he could cope with pain in his ankle. The shot resulted in the positive test three weeks later. “I was a little bit upset; I felt really bad,” Hamm said in a video posted on the Web site he shares with his brother, makingtheolympics .com. “It was an innocent mistake. This wasn’t performance-enhancing at all.” With Morgan Hamm on the Olympic team, it means there is one Hamm down and one to go. Paul Hamm, who broke a bone in his right hand at the United States championships, is not guaranteed a spot in the Beijing Games. Although he has been named to the Olympic team, he must prove Saturday at a training camp in Colorado that he is healthy enough to compete. His coach, Miles Avery, said Hamm had been preparing for Saturday’s performance. Avery said that Hamm’s hand still hurts, but it was nothing that would keep him from making the team. But Avery said he expected Hamm to do more than that. “It’s a relief to see him back out there,” Avery said. “I’m confident that by the time the Olympics roll around, he’ll be ready to defend his gold medal.” Hamm broke the bone May 22, during his pommel horse routine. A doctor inserted a titanium plate and nine screws to stabilize the bone. Hamm was off gymnastics equipment for six weeks before easing back onto each apparatus. On July 3, the day his brother received the public warning from the antidoping agency, Paul Hamm obtained his doctor’s clearance to begin training again. The men’s Olympic gymnastics competition begins Aug. 9. An alternate can take Hamm’s spot up to 24 hours beforehand.

Gymnastics
USA Gymnastics
United States Olympic Committee
Olympic Games (2008)
Hamm Morgan
Hamm Paul
Olympic Games


Massachusetts: Lieutenant Governor to Resign

Abstract: The lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Timothy P. Murray, said on Wednesday that he would resign on June 2, a move that surprised the political establishment there. Mr. Murray, who has played a prominent role in the administration of Gov. Deval Patrick since 2007, was once considered likely to try to succeed his boss, but his public image suffered from an early-morning accident in 2011 in which he crashed a state-owned car, and from a current state inquiry into campaign fund-raising done on his behalf by a public housing official, Michael McLaughlin, who this year pleaded guilty to federal charges. Mr. Murray is taking a new job leading the regional chamber of commerce in Worcester, Mass., where he was mayor from 2002 to 2007.

Massachusetts
Car Crash
Timothy P Murray


A Death Tied to 9/11 Dust Is Not Cause for Alarm to Others, Experts Say

Abstract: When the New York City medical examiner decided last week that Felicia Dunn-Jones’s death was directly linked to the dust of the destroyed twin towers, making her the 2,750th victim of the attack on Sept. 11, Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s husband, Joseph, was relieved beyond words. But while that decision brought some comfort to Mr. Jones, who had fought for three years to have his wife’s name added to the city’s official list of victims, it is likely to have an unsettling effect on thousands of other people who also came into contact with the dust on Sept. 11 and in the days after. Many New Yorkers who breathed in the dust were not responders who rushed to help at the disaster site but were office workers like Mrs. Dunn-Jones, a 42-year-old lawyer whose office was a block from the trade center. She developed a troubling cough weeks after fleeing the attack and died in February 2002. Many other people who were working downtown that morning were also engulfed by the roiling plume of dust, smoke and ash. Thousands of schoolchildren and people living in as many as 30,000 apartments and condos in Lower Manhattan also breathed in some of the dust as they escaped that day. But city officials said that the medical examiner’s decision to reclassify Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s death did not alter those people’s health outlook. Even those exposed to the toxic dust do not need to be overly concerned, medical experts say, especially if symptoms of respiratory or other problems have not yet developed. At a news conference yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that although the kind of exposure that Mrs. Dunn-Jones experienced on Sept. 11 was not unique, the circumstances of her case were. “Think of it as though somebody had gotten — had a beam fall on them and it just took a little while for them to succumb to their injury,” Mr. Bloomberg said. The New York City’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, has attributed Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s death to sarcoidosis — which produces microscopic lumps called granulomas on the lungs and other vital organs — and cardiac failure. Dr. Hirsch determined that exposure to the dust had exacerbated — though not necessarily caused — the disease and contributed to her death. Experts say that it would be unusual for sarcoidosis to develop so rapidly. Often, they say, the disease can go undiagnosed for a long time and be fairly well developed before symptoms arise. Indeed, doctors say, in many cases, sarcoidosis becomes a chronic condition that is never life-threatening. Experts do not understand exactly what causes sarcoidosis, but it is often associated with exposure to environmental hazards. Some people are more predisposed to developing the disease than others, doctors say. Black people are more susceptible than white people are, and women tend to get it more than men do, according to epidemiological studies. It also tends to be a disease of people in their 30s and 40s. Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s personal profile matched those categories. Dr. Hirsch said in his statement that she probably had the disease before Sept. 11, and that the intense, though brief, exposure to the dust on the day of the attack worsened an existing condition. Several clinical studies have drawn strong connections between exposure to the dust and a broad range of respiratory ailments, but they suggest that after an initial spike in the number of people reporting illnesses, incidence rates in later time periods have returned more or less to normal for certain diseases. That was the pattern described in a recently published report on members of the New York Fire Department. The report, published this month in Chest, a medical journal, showed that 13 firefighters or emergency service workers developed sarcoidosis in the first year after the attack, a rate five times higher than normal. Another 13 members of the Fire Department work force developed sarcoidosis from 2002 to 2006. That number is still slightly higher than normal, but it is much lower than the first year and is an indication that the potential danger dropped as the level of dust in the air declined. For many residents, workers and students in Lower Manhattan, the physical symptoms of dust-related ailments may be secondary to the anxiety produced by hearing about the clinical studies and the deaths of some ground zero workers. The reclassification of Mrs. Dunn-Jones’s death is likely to increase that level of anxiety. Dr. Joan Reibman, a pulmonologist who directs the W.T.C. Environmental Health Center at Bellevue Hospital Center, has added psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to her staff because many patients show stress-related symptoms that stem from their concerns about medical problems that could develop. “Most people are fine,” Dr. Reibman said yesterday, “and if they haven’t developed symptoms by now, I doubt very much they will.” Still, she said, those who have respiratory, gastrointestinal and other problems that might be related to the dust should seek medical help. The Bellevue W.T.C. clinic is treating more than 900 people, and Mayor Bloomberg has encouraged everyone who was exposed to trade center dust to go there to be screened.

New York City
World Trade Center (NYC)
Medicine and Health


Chip Sales Help Push Profit Up at Samsung

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics reached another high in its quarterly profit thanks to a revival in its semiconductor business, which offset flat growth in high-end smartphone sales. The company said Friday morning that its July-September net income rose 25 percent over a year earlier to 8 trillion won ($7.5 billion). It was the seventh quarter in a row that Samsung reported higher earnings. While stellar performance in previous quarters was propelled by Samsung’s expansion in the high-end smartphone market, the third-quarter gain was led by a recovery in its memory chip business and growth in sales of less expensive smartphones. Third-quarter profit from its semiconductor business doubled over a year earlier to 2.06 trillion won as demand rose for memory chips used in mobile devices, servers and digital game consoles. Samsung’s mobile business posted a record profit, contributing to nearly 70 percent of Samsung’s overall operating profit. However, growth in premium smartphones, the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note 3, came to a halt during the third quarter, staying in the same level as the previous quarter. Samsung forecast that growth in the sales of high-end smartphones would remain low, at less than 5 percent during the final three months of this year, even though the fourth-quarter is the peak season for the consumer electronics market. The company said it expected more than a 20 percent growth in sales of tablets, hoping to narrow its gap with Apple.

Samsung
South Korea
Samsung Electronics
Smartphone
Earnings Reports
Computer Chip


Treasury Auctions Set for the Week of Aug. 18

Abstract: The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes the regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills on Monday and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.05 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.06 percent and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.01 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: TUESDAY Wake County, N.C., $345 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK San Diego County Regional Transportation Commission, $350 million of debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. Regents of the University of Colorado, $303 million of university enterprise revenue and refunding bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Kansas Department of Transportation, $212 million of highway revenue refunding index bonds. Barclays Capital. Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Authority, New Mexico, $185 million of refunding revenue bonds. J.P. Morgan Securities. Miami Beach Health Facilities Authority, $165 million of revenue refunding bonds. Raymond James & Associates. District of Columbia, $158 million of income tax secured revenue refunding bonds. Siebert Brandford Shank & Company. Peralta Community College, California, $150 million of general obligation refunding bonds. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Bossier Parish, La., $119 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Stephens Inc. Washington State Health Care Facilities, $100 million of debt securities. Bank of America. San Diego County, $94 million of debt securities. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. New Haven, $92 million of general obligation bonds. Raymond James & Associates. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, New York, $79 million of revenue refunding bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Bethlehem Authority Northampton and Lehigh Counties, Pa., $69 million of revenue bonds. Janney Montgomery Scott. Bridgeport, Conn., $69 million of general obligation bonds. William Blair & Company. Clovis Unified School District, Calif., $65 million of debt securities. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Cuyahoga County Public Library, Ohio, $55 million of debt securities. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company. Columbus, Ohio, $53 million of general obligation limited and unlimited refunding bonds. PNC Capital Markets.


Jets Generate a Different and Unexpected Drama

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — It has been quite a two weeks for the Jets . Their offensive line coach went rogue. A linebacker blasted their fans. Their self-appointed mascot resigned from his self-appointed post. There also may have been something about a quarterback benching — a controversy or some such. Pretty standard, really. In this season of the absurd, one of the most absurd things happened late Sunday afternoon: the Jets joined the A.F.C. playoff chase. A season that has appeared lost for months, or at least stranded in the snowy wilderness, perked up soon after the Jets defeated the Jaguars in Jacksonville, improving their record to 6-7. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, the leading contenders for the conference’s final wild-card berth, both lost at home, dropping to 7-6, slicing their lead over the Jets to one game with three to play. (At 9-4, the Indianapolis Colts are well positioned for the other wild-card berth.) Can the Jets make the playoffs? “We don’t even deserve or warrant the right to speak about the playoffs,” linebacker Bart Scott said. “All that we’ve earned is the right to talk about the Tennessee Titans.” O.K., then. So what you’re saying is ...? “The fact that we’re one game under .500,” Coach Rex Ryan said, “I think you’re probably not in the playoff conversation.” But what about ...? “We’re not making more of the situation than it really is,” cornerback Kyle Wilson said. Not even a little? “I try to not even get involved with that,” guard Matt Slauson said. “I think you make life a lot more difficult if you choose to ride the roller coaster. I just like to stay positive all the time.” In that spirit, then, a quick glance at the standings indicates that, as defensive end Mike DeVito said, anything’s possible. That makes sense because with the Jets, anything usually is. But for every playoff possibility that boosts their hopes — and yes, some do exist — there are about a dozen more that deflate them, not the least of which is the Week 16 matchup between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati that elevates the winner to prime playoff position. The permutations are exhausting, almost all involving tiebreakers like head-to-head success and common opponents, strength of schedule and best banana cream pie. There are combinations of results in which the Jets win their final three games to finish 9-7 but miss the playoffs. There are others in which they finish 8-8 and sneak in. There is also a possibility that the Jets can be eliminated from contention as soon as Monday night in Tennessee, if they lose to the Titans and if Pittsburgh (at Dallas), Cincinnati (at Philadelphia on Thursday) and Indianapolis (at Houston) all win. Trying to sort through the rest is, for now, a fruitless endeavor, which also could have described the state of the Jets’ season two weeks ago. Their 30-point humbling by New England on Thanksgiving lampooned the Jets nationally, embarrassed them locally and introduced the term “butt fumble” into the lexicon. It also plunged them to 4-7. The day after the Patriots loss, Damien Woody, the former Jets right tackle who is now an analyst for ESPN, said in an interview: “Those teams, they look at the Jets last night, and they’re like: ‘Oh, man, we can go thrash the Jets. We’ve got the Jets next? Oh, O.K., we can win that.’ By no means do they have any games left where they can feel like they should win this one.” The idea that the Jets could somehow rebound to grab a playoff spot was rooted entirely in their soft schedule and not because they had revealed to that point any evidence of passing excellence, running proficiency or defensive dominance. Heading into Sunday, their final four opponents — with Tennessee, San Diego and Buffalo ahead — were 15-33. That the Jets needed all 60 minutes to dispatch Arizona, which lost, 58-0, to Seattle on Sunday, and Jacksonville corroborated Woody’s point: the Jaguars and the Cardinals own the two worst offenses in the N.F.L., right behind the Jets’. But here they are anyway, after gashing the Cardinals and the Jaguars for a combined 343 yards rushing, after limiting them to 2 for 31 on third down, after figuring out a way to score more points than they allowed. After Sunday’s victory, a triumphant Mark Sanchez assumed his place behind the lectern and fixed his gaze on the back wall of the cramped interview room. A small television, hanging in a corner, showed the A.F.C. playoff standings, which included the Jets. A cameraman asked Sanchez if he found them interesting. “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t even see it.” EXTRA POINTS Receiver Stephen Hill sprained the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee, and linebacker Bryan Thomas strained his pectoral muscle. Their status for Monday’s game at Tennessee is uncertain. ... Down to two healthy receivers, the Jets might consider adding a former member, Braylon Edwards, who was cut by Seattle. ... Kickoff for the Dec. 23 game against San Diego has been moved to 1 p.m. from 8:20 p.m.

Football
New York Jets
Jacksonville Jaguars
Pittsburgh Steelers
Cincinnati Bengals
Playoff Games


Wall Street Struggles to Find a Guidepost

Abstract: Traders hit the pause button on Thursday as they confronted a murky jobs report and reports of weak retail sales. Stocks have been falling in recent weeks as investors anticipate another decline in profits from a year earlier as companies begin reporting second earnings next week. The major indexes finished in narrowly positive territory. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 4.76 points, or 0.06 percent, to 8,183.17. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 3.12 points, or 0.35 percent, at 882.68. The Nasdaq was up 5.38 points, or 0.31 percent, at 1,752.55. Crude oil prices fell briefly below $60 for the first time since mid-May before rebounding slightly to settle at $60.41 a barrel, their fitful moves a sign of continued volatility in the market for oil. The aluminum maker Alcoa weighed down the Dow index of 30 blue-chip companies, falling 2.4 percent to $9.23 a share after reporting its third consecutive quarterly loss on Wednesday. The results were better-than-expected, however, and lifted stocks in early trading. A slump in retail sales at major department stores and clothing chains undercut hopes that consumers were spending with any commitment, even as tax cuts from the government stimulus added a few more dollars to weekly paychecks. Sales in June fell by nearly a third at Abercrombie & Fitch and were down by 4.9 percent across the retailing industry. Retail stocks rose slightly. A sharp decline in first-time unemployment claims appeared to provide some relief in the job market, but economists cautioned that the drop was probably a fluke. The Labor Department reported that new weekly jobless claims fell 52,000 to a seasonally adjusted 565,000 last week, their lowest level in months. Continuing claims for unemployment insurance rose to 6.8 million for the week of June 27, up 159,000 from a week earlier. Much of the drop in new claims came because government offices were closed last Friday for Independence Day, giving people one fewer day to file for unemployment insurance. Also, automotive plants that normally go offline to retool during the first weeks of July had already closed down, meaning there were fewer laid-off autoworkers filing new jobless claims than normal, economists said. Those seasonal factors pushed the jobless claims lower this week, but they are likely to reverse themselves later this month. “There’s a knee-jerk reaction that this might be a sign that the labor market’s improving, but it’s still under considerable stress,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com . “The labor market is not going to turn on a dime. We’re going to see some additional large declines in jobs ahead.” Also on Thursday, the Commerce Department said that wholesale trade ticked up 0.2 percent in May from a month earlier, and that companies cut their inventories 0.8 percent as they coped with lower demand from consumers and other businesses. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note fell 25/32, to 97 22/32 , and the yield rose to 3.40 percent from 3.31 percent Wednesday. Following are the results of Thursday’s Treasury auction of 30-year bonds:


Child Labor Rings Reach China’s Distant Villages

Abstract: LIANGSHAN, China — The mud and brick schoolhouses in the lush mountain villages of this remote part of southwestern China are dark and barebones in the best of times. These days, they also lack students. Residents say children as young as 12 have been recruited by child labor rings, equipped with fake identification cards, and transported hundreds of miles across the country to booming coastal cities, where they work 12-hour shifts to produce much of the world’s toys, clothes and electronics. “Last year I had 30 students. This year there are only 14. All the others went outside to find work,” said Ji Ke Xiaoming, 35, a primary school teacher whose students in Erwu Village are mostly ages 12 to 14. “You know, we are very poor. Some families can’t even afford a bag of salt.” China is now investigating whether hundreds, perhaps thousands, of poor children of the Yi ethnic minority group in Liangshan were lured or even kidnapped to work in factories that are increasingly desperate for the kind of cheap labor that powered China to prosperity over the past two decades. Labor recruiters — government investigators and some local residents portray them as con men — have connected two radically different parts of China’s turbulent society. They have brought together ethnic minorities untouched by economic development in their mountainous isolation, and factory owners in the prime export manufacturing zones of southern Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong. Exporters have struggled to adjust to soaring inflation, a fast-rising currency and, with some irony, stricter enforcement of labor laws that make it harder to hire regular workers on a seasonal basis. Using child workers from a remote region, many of whom cannot even speak Mandarin, the country’s main national dialect, have provided a temporary, albeit illegal, solution. A scandal involving Liangshan’s children first came to light late last month, when Southern Metropolis, a state-run newspaper, reported that as many as 1,000 school-age workers from the area were employed in manufacturing zones near Hong Kong. The report was deeply embarrassing for Beijing, which is preparing to host the Olympics and coping with international criticism of its handling of riots in Tibet. Last week, the authorities in Liangshan said they had detained several people for recruiting children and illegally ferrying them off to factories. And officials in Dongguan, one of the manufacturing zones where the children worked, said that they had “rescued” more than 160 young people from factories. The legal minimum working age in China is 16. Now, officials have begun to play down the scandal, saying there is little evidence of widespread violations of child labor laws. A two-day government sweep involving more than 3,000 factories around Dongguan, which was conducted after the initial raids, turned up only 6 to 10 children, officials said. But residents of Liangshan say abject poverty, drug abuse and a lack of jobs have forced many children to head for factories. Sometimes it is with their parents’ permission. Other times, children disappear, on their own or with job recruiters, and then call home from a factory dormitory, hundreds of miles away. “When our daughter left, we were quite worried,” said 42-year-old Qi Ji Gu Xi, whose 14-year-old daughter left last February. “We didn’t know where to find her. Then she called us and told us she’s a migrant worker in Guangdong.” Such stories are not unusual. In more than two dozen interviews this week, children who had returned home from factories told of hardship and abuse. Parents living in squalor acknowledged that their children had been lured into traveling to factories. And other residents said conditions in these mountain villages were so appallingly poor that young people felt they had no choice but to leave home. On Wednesday, more than 10 families interviewed in the span of five hours in Zhaojue County, part of Liangshan, said they had children working in factories, often earning less than $90 a month for 12-hour days, seven days a week. Even if the children were of working age, the pay, equivalent to about 25 cents an hour, and the working conditions would violate China’s labor laws. In the prime manufacturing zones, the official minimum wage is at least 65 cents an hour, and employers are required to pay significantly more for overtime. Ji Ke Ri Sha said he had spent more than a year working in factories in several provinces, including Shandong and Shanxi. His family could not survive on farming alone, he said, and so he took a chance on the world outside. He hopped from factory to factory, holding four jobs before his 15th birthday. “My father worried about me going away, but we had no money,” he said quietly, squatting on the mud floor of a farmhouse. “I had to go outside, but the work turned out to be too difficult.” An employment agent persuaded his parents that he could find their son a factory job. But the boy says the agent ended up making a secret deal with a factory, and pocketing half the boy’s pay as a finder’s fee. Liangshan, formally known as the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, may have become a target of child labor rings precisely because it is a place of desperation. The villages, populated almost exclusively by Yi, are reached by traveling for hours along winding roads through the thickly forested part of Sichuan Province. Most people survive on subsistence rice farming. Others fall prey to the drug trade. One of the main heroin trafficking routes passes through these parts on the way from northern Myanmar to Chengdu, the largest city in the region. The area is plagued by drug abuse and AIDS. Many people have no formal education and cannot converse in Mandarin, making it difficult to seek employment in cities on their own. Luo Gu A He, 69, said his 14-year-old granddaughter left Keqie Village for Beijing in March, after the death of her father, who had been addicted to drugs. She now earns about $4 a day working seven days a week at a construction site, he said. “She is too young,” the grandfather said. “I worry about her being alone in Beijing. But if she stays with me she couldn’t live either; she’d starve to death.” A woman spoke of a daughter who left home at 15 to work in a brick factory in Shandong Province but returned recently. “My daughter was taken by a foreman,” said the woman, Pa Cha Ri Gu, 62. “I was concerned, but we are poor. You see the small house we live in.” Residents say they have heard of children being kidnapped and forced to work in factories. Other villagers say that desperate parents, some addicted to drugs, resort to selling their children to child traffickers. As the supply has grown, so has the demand. Over the past few years, coastal factories have complained of labor shortages and said many migrant workers were reluctant to work for low pay on factory campuses in the country’s coastal provinces. Factories find themselves caught in a squeeze between foreign buyers, who are addicted to lower prices for manufactured goods from China, and surging food and energy costs. Profit margins, never very fat, have shrunk, and Beijing has passed new labor laws that restrict the use of temporary workers. Employment agents have come to the rescue, providing the factories with pliable children who carry falsified documents attesting that they have reached the legal working age, state news media and local parents said. They take half the child’s wages, but people in Liangshan are hungry for any cash income. During an interview with a group of residents in Keqie Village, a man in a leather jacket initially spoke up and identified himself as an employment agent, but then declined to give many details, saying only, “I help them find a way out.”

Child Labor
China
Economic Conditions and Trends
Factories and Industrial Plants
Education and Schools
Children and Youth
Wages and Salaries


Drivers Pursue Excitement of Racing Onto the Ice

Abstract: MILTON, N.H. — To Joe Belanger, racing cars on asphalt is simply something to do until the ponds freeze over. Ice racing, his sport of choice, is traditional street racing, iced — complete with all the spins, slides, unpredictability and bone-chilling cold that come with racing cars on a frozen surface. “Why?” Belanger said. “It’s an addiction. It’s a wicked adrenaline rush to be able to go 70 miles an hour down a straightaway and make the turn on ice.” Ice racing clubs, most of them in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, chain up their tires and take to frozen ponds and lakes each winter. There is even an elite indoor circuit with stops from Fresno, Calif., to Glens Falls, N.Y. Belanger is the president of the New England Ice Racing Association, a club whose members take to Northeast Pond in Milton Three Ponds here on Sundays from January to March, as weather allows. The club started almost 40 years ago when a group of street racers decided to take their cars to the ice, said John Mattress, 60, one of the founders, who races as the Outlaw. The club has a steadfast rule: no racing if there is less than a foot of ice. A small auger is used to ensure it is thick and strong enough to handle the dozens of cars whose drivers will pay $10 for a few hours of racing. Measuring the ice “is a learned thing” passed down, said Keith Larmie, a club officer. “Good ice is very hard, and bad ice is very soft. It’s kind of a feel thing.” Six classes race each week: four-cylinder front-wheel drive, four-cylinder rear-wheel drive, V6 front-wheel drive, modified, street stock and a junior combined class for drivers ages 13 to 16. Racing starts at noon. Drivers earn points, and the driver with the most points in their class at the end of the season is crowned champion. There are two heats of six to eight laps in each class, and a feature race that is usually 12 laps. Even on ice, things can heat up. Belanger lined up for a front-wheel-drive heat in his 1995 Acura Integra , which he bought for $200 and fitted with a roll cage. His car, No. 35, has a sticker that reads, “Does not race well with others.” Drivers revved their engines. They took to the track, passing one another, skidding across the ice and settling themselves after 180s or 360s. Bumpers touched. Belanger came off the ice. His Acura had to be towed after a knock with another car. “He blew my chances for a championship,” Belanger said. “It’s broken. The whole right front suspension is junk.” But there was some hope. A small orange car was lying around, and Belanger used in the final heat. Troy Washburn was gearing up for the rear-wheel-drive final, tinkering with his 1992 Buick along with D. J. Ellis, a mechanic. “It’s a granny mobile made awesome,” Ellis said. Most cars are fitted with a roll cage because flipping is such a hazard on ice. Asphalt is a faster surface, Washburn said, but ice is more fun and requires better driving. “This is slower, but harder to control,” Washburn said. The tires on each car are chained, allowing for better traction. Drivers say that turning on ice requires finesse — turn too much, and you will spin out; don’t turn enough, and the turn will not happen. Drivers must also strain to prevent the car from fishtailing. Ellis, who does not race, said racing on ice added a whole new element for spectators. “You’re on the ice, and cars are going by and all these ice chips are going up. It’s like watching a magic trick,” he said. Cars are waved on and off the track by Larmie. Plows clear snow and attempt to smooth the inevitable bumps between races. Before the final race, Mattress jumped into his car, attached his harness and lighted a cigar. “I run one-handed,” he said by way of explanation. Also in the final heat were Belanger, another driver and Mattress’s son-in-law, Randy Washburn. Mattress spun out on the first turn but deftly recovered. Washburn pulled ahead, with Belanger quickly gaining ground. It was neck and neck. Spectators jumped up and down. Mattress’s wife, Linda, sat in a truck screaming for her son-in-law. “Go, Randy,” she yelled. Toward the end of the race, Belanger and Washburn appeared to clip cars. Belanger spun, and Washburn pulled ahead for the victory. Washburn drove a victory lap, holding the checkered flag. As the two men greeted their cheering sections on the ice, tensions boiled over. Someone in Belanger’s camp accused Washburn of intentionally knocking into Belanger’s car. Washburn’s crowd said he won fairly. The groups continued to yell and curse at each other until Belanger came over to Washburn and extended his hand. “My brother gets excited, and I get excited back,” Belanger said. “This was exciting.”


India in Queens, With a Caribbean Accent

Abstract: The A train rumbles to a halt at the Ozone Park/Lefferts Boulevard stop in central Queens. To the east, a dozen blocks of Liberty Avenue unfold in a series of roti, sari and gold shops that make up the fragrant spine of Richmond Hill, a community of immigrants who descend from Indians sent to the Caribbean to work on sugar plantations in the 19th century. One must first reconcile the sight of saris and turbans with lilting English inflected with Creole. Then there is the juxtaposition of Hindu temples and gritty convenience stores, and thumping West Indian dance-hall music pouring out of religious shops. On weekend mornings, locals bring their black finches to Phil Rizzuto Park, formerly known as Smokey Oval Park, for chirp-off contests. 1 P.M. Eat lunch at Sonny’s Roti Shop, 118-06 Liberty Avenue, (718) 835-7255, right under the train station. Sonny’s may not be as well known as Brown Betty’s, Sybil’s or the Little Guyana Bake Shop, but the owner, Steven Rajkumal, a Trinidadian immigrant known as Sonny, is happy to introduce newcomers to the dishes. Order rotis ($5.50 for chicken, $8.50 for oxtail), or try snacks and desserts with cool-sounding names like jalibee and paymee ($2 each). 2 P.M. Within a block of the subway station, there are more shopping options than in some entire towns. You can buy a washer-dryer set at G&R Electronics, 114-04 Liberty Avenue, then walk next door to the Outlook Fashions gift shop, 119-03 Liberty Avenue, for a sitar, then take a safari through the crystal jungle of chandelier shops like B.Q. Gifts, 124-02 Liberty Avenue. Anjee Sherman, the owner of Anjees, 123-11 Liberty Avenue, (718) 843-6108, enjoys helping hip Western women try on saris, which start at $10 and can top $1,000 for wedding silks; her shop also carries small idols of Hindu gods, known as murties, worship offerings called pooja, and holiday fare like prasad. 3 P.M. Among the halal butchers and open-air markets stocked with South Asian spices are stores specializing in Guyanese gold, which is particularly glittery and is often used in ornate pendants. 4 P.M. At Rishi Video Palace, 103-44 124th Street, the owner, Raj Dutt, will guide you through the Bollywood classics and CDs of chutney and soca (think calypso on steroids, with singing in Hindi or English). 5 P.M. For tropical refreshment, sidewalk vendors on every other block sell sliced mango flavored with hot sauce, lemon and salt. At other stalls, a worker with a machete will chop open a coconut and stick in a straw for $3. Or, have your palm read by any of a half-dozen psychics; Marie Sanchez, between 128th and 129th Streets, is offering a $5 recession special. The sidewalk entertainment includes young men in cars with tinted windows and flashy metal rims creeping along Liberty Avenue, blasting soca, dance-hall or reggaeton music. 6 P.M. Relax at Rani Spa, 126-08 Liberty Avenue, (718) 641-7600, which offers eyebrow threading, mehndi (temporary henna tattoos on the hands) and shirodhara, a massage that includes the pouring of warm oil on the forehead ($50 for a half hour). The manager, Rumi Begum, will put you at ease, and the friendly locals sitting around the salon will make you laugh. 7 P.M. At the Ranch Restaurant and Bar of Guyana, 134-01 Liberty Avenue, (718) 206-2333, drink Red Stripe, Carib and Banks beer, or a Guyanese overproof rum known as High Wine while playing pool and watching cricket. Order fried shark or jerk chicken appetizers at the bar ($8). A short walk east is Club Tobago, 147-02 Liberty Avenue, (718) 658-9600, which on weekend nights is a hot dance hall popping with big crowds and live DJs.

Queens (NYC)
Immigration and Emigration
Shopping and Retail
Transit Systems
Hinduism
Sidewalk Cafes