Michigan Primary Puts Donald Trump’s Rust Belt Strategy to a Test

Abstract: WARREN, Mich. — Neil Mortensen remembers how neighbors lost factory jobs in this suburb north of Detroit, and then, inexorably and sadly, their homes. “I’d see all these businesses that used to produce normal products, even brooms, that everybody uses and purchases today, but are not produced here — they are produced overseas,” he said. A construction manager, Mr. Mortensen escaped the waves of layoffs because his employer, which once built plants for heavy industry, is now in the demolition business. “Those factories are gone, and I get to knock ’em down, unfortunately,” he said. Which is how he and his wife, Kathy, ended up at a rally for Donald J. Trump , the anti-free-trade billionaire who promises to slap 35 percent tariffs on Ford cars built in Mexico. “We’re hopeful that Donald can bring those jobs back, and our neighbors, too,” Mr. Mortensen said. Mr. Trump’s appeal to blue-collar voters, mostly whites, is driving his popularity in Michigan, where he has a polling lead ahead of the Republican primary on Tuesday. And these same voters, who historically supported Democrats, are at the core of his strategy for winning the general election and turning Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states back into the red column. Mr. Trump’s rally here on Friday was in Macomb County, where political strategists first identified the phenomenon of Reagan Democrats. These white, working-class voters felt the party no longer protected their economic interests as it focused on affirmative action, welfare and other policies aimed at minorities. If he is the nominee, Mr. Trump argues, he can deliver not only Michigan but other Rust Belt states, like Ohio and Pennsylvania, into the Republican column in November, broadening the party’s traditional road to the White House. Image A “normal Republican,” Mr. Trump said at Macomb Community College, “cannot think of bringing in Michigan, and if you don’t bring in Michigan, it’s tough. You have a very narrow road.” Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times A “normal Republican,” Mr. Trump said at Macomb Community College, “cannot think of bringing in Michigan, and if you don’t bring in Michigan, it’s tough. You have a very narrow road.” “But I’m going to bring in places like Michigan,” he said, pledging to win back a once-solid Republican state that has supported Democrats in the last six presidential elections. The strategy might be a necessity if the party nominates Mr. Trump, because he would risk losing states, like Florida and Colorado, with large Hispanic populations. He has highly unfavorable ratings among Hispanic voters because of his call for a wall separating Mexico and his pledges to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. Mr. Trump’s signature issues of opposition to free trade and a crackdown on illegal immigration, which Republican leaders once dismissed as outside the mainstream, have brought him a populist following, including independents and some Democrats. “I like what he wants to do with the immigration,” said Marvin Bryant, a former salesman who attended the rally in Warren. Mr. Bryant plans to vote for Mr. Trump this week. Kurt Reidt, a captain of the Warren Fire Department, said his vote for Mr. Trump on Tuesday in the state’s open primary would be his first ever for a Republican. “This is probably the worst state in the country with the economy,” Mr. Reidt said as he entered the rally with members of his firehouse. Although Republican nominees for decades have carried the vote of white men without college degrees, they are a shrinking share of the electorate. Mr. Trump’s ability to win Rust Belt states in a general election would require him to turn out these voters in historically large numbers. On Super Tuesday last week, he won 59 percent of voters without college degrees in Massachusetts and a plurality of 44 percent in Virginia, according to exit polls, en route to winning both states. He won much lower shares of voters who had graduated from college. In Massachusetts, 20,000 Democrats gave up their party registrations to vote in the Republican primary, which Mr. Trump won commandingly. “Look, we have expanded the Republican Party ,” he said on the night of his Super Tuesday victories , when Republican turnout surged in most of the 11 states that voted. But election experts say some of that surge came from people who were motivated to vote against Mr. Trump, which would also be a factor in the general election. “Some polls show him getting about 20 percent of the Democratic vote,” said G. Terry Madonna, who has long polled Pennsylvania. “They live in the Appalachian mountain chain, not just in Pennsylvania. The problem is, he would lose many center-right and moderate Republican voters who make up the voter-rich suburbs in key swing states.” Stanley B. Greenberg, whose research in Macomb County in the 1980s popularized the term “Reagan Democrat,” said Mr. Trump might put the Rust Belt into play. “There’s no doubt there’s new voters coming into the Republican primary process,” he said. But Mr. Greenberg added that there was an equal potential for a backlash in an electorate that is more racially and culturally diverse. “The country’s changed pretty dramatically from the time when Reagan Democrats were calling the shots,” he said. Mr. Trump spoke extensively in Macomb County about his plan to bring back manufacturing jobs, especially automotive jobs. He said he would pick up the phone to call the chief of any American company that moved factories to Mexico and threaten a 35 percent tariff (even though the president does not have that authority, and experts say if Congress agreed, it would likely set off a trade war). “Within 24 to 48 hours” of such an ultimatum, Mr. Trump claimed, the chief of Ford would be on the phone. “They’ll say: ‘Mr. President, we’re moving back. Would you like us to move to Michigan?’ I’ll say, ‘Yeah, I really want you to move to Michigan.’ And they’ll move back.” 2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results According to the Associated Press, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton have each won enough delegates to claim their party’s nomination for president. Since entering the race, Mr. Trump has harped on Ford’s investment of $2.5 billion in a Mexico plant. The automaker’s chief executive, Mark Fields, has said he sent Mr. Trump a letter pointing out that the company had also invested $10 billion in the United States and created more than 25,000 jobs since 2011. Representative Sander M. Levin, a Democrat who represents Macomb County in Washington, and who has opposed major trade deals for decades, said Mr. Trump was playing on people’s fears with no practical solutions. “He pushes the buttons, but there’s nothing behind it,” Mr. Levin said. “The 35 percent tariff thing isn’t workable.” “I think people more and more will realize it’s demagogic,” he added. But a sampling of two dozen voters who heard Mr. Trump on Friday turned up little skepticism about his promises. They felt strongly that he was the lone truth teller in the race. Many said they were doing well economically, even while painting a grim portrait of the state and the nation on issues like immigration and national security. Although the number of private-sector jobs has not returned to prerecession levels, Michigan’s unemployment rate has fallen to 5.1 percent, down from nearly 15 percent at the height of the recession. Detroit’s automakers are experiencing record sales. Nonetheless, the narrative of decline is pervasive, especially because many of the new jobs being created pay far less. “We’ve got McDonald’s and Burger King jobs, and that’s about it,” said Mr. Reidt, the fire captain. Gary Ragland, a retired time clock repairman, said his job had allowed him glimpses of a world of blue-collar jobs in auto plants, breweries and hospitals. “If you lose our manufacturing, you lose your country,” he said. Although he was not sure Mr. Trump’s plan for imposing 35 percent tariffs would bring back factories, he thought the threat alone could shake things up. “You can’t have a sissy up there; you’ve got to have a man,” he said. “He has shown America — anybody that’s awake — what the hell is going on.”

Michigan
Primaries
Donald Trump
Republicans
Manufacturing
2016 Presidential Election
Midwestern United States


U.S.-Russia Nuclear Deal Stalls as Tensions Over Ukraine Rise

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The growing confrontation between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine has derailed a recent accord that promised one of the most expansive collaborations ever between the countries’ nuclear scientists, including reciprocal visits to atomic sites to work on projects ranging from energy to planetary defense. It was only 11 months ago that the American energy secretary — Ernest J. Moniz, a former M.I.T. professor who has championed scientific programs that would bury the Cold War competitions between the United States and Russia — went to Vienna to sign the agreement, an indication of how recently the Obama administration believed it had a chance of building on a quarter-century of gradual integration of Russia with the West. Handshakes and congratulations exchanged with Mr. Moniz’s Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Kirienko, sealed an arrangement that would let Russian scientists into, among other places, the heart of the American nuclear complex at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was constructed 70 years ago, and a dozen sister laboratories devoted to the making of the American nuclear arsenal. In return, American scientists would be allowed deep into Russian nuclear facilities, including the birthplace of the Soviet bomb. The Energy Department’s announcement of the deal also highlighted its potential for “defense from asteroids,” shorthand for a proposal to recycle a city-busting warhead that could be aimed at an incoming earth-destroyer — a plot Hollywood had imagined 15 years before in two far-fetched thrillers, “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact,” in which Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, among others, saved humanity. Today, the real-life accord is on ice. This year, the Energy Department canceled nuclear meetings, symposia and lab visits with Russia. Daniel B. Poneman, the deputy energy secretary, said that Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March had prompted the decision to freeze the accord. “We’ve made it very clear that this is not a time for business as usual,” Mr. Poneman said Friday in his office. He added, however, that the Energy Department continued to work with Russia on the security of atomic materials. American officials and experts say the decision will limit how much each side knows about the other’s capabilities and intentions after more than two decades in which American and Russian nuclear scientists worked alongside one another. Those programs let once-bitter rivals, locked in the ultimate arms race, take each other’s measure and deepen relationships, reducing the chances for deadly miscalculation and technological surprise. Now, both sides are slipping back toward habits reminiscent of the Cold War. The joint atomic projects have declined substantially. Last week, Washington accused Moscow of violating a major arms treaty on missile technology. After the negotiation of the modest New Start treaty in 2010, progress toward another round of nuclear warhead reductions is dead in the water and unlikely to be revived during President Obama’s term in office. Satellite photographs released publicly by American intelligence agencies purport to show the movement of heavy arms across the Ukrainian border from Russia — evidence reminiscent of the kind released by the United States during conflicts half a century ago over Cuba and Berlin. Perhaps most startling is not the direction of these steps, but their speed: As recently as January, the two sides were meeting regularly on joint arms control and scientific programs. The cancellations show how rapidly Mr. Obama has moved from a strategy that assumed Russia’s continued interest in cooperation to one that assumes that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is out to take as much territory and control as he can, and that letting Russian scientists into America’s nuclear complex is unwise. For Mr. Obama, the motivation for negotiating the accord clearly had much less to do with asteroid destruction than geopolitics. The United States’ 20-year effort to secure Soviet nuclear materials was winding down. Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons lab who has worked closely with Russian scientists, said the agreement had promised a new phase of teamwork and technical collaboration. “It was an attempt to get back to good scientific cooperation,” Mr. Hecker said. “Unfortunately, such things were struggling before Ukraine and have gone nowhere since.” Image Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz. Credit Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters That is not true of every effort at cooperation. Americans and Russians are still working alongside each other, though increasingly at cross-purposes, on the Iranian nuclear negotiations . The United States still needs its astronauts to ride to the International Space Station on Russian rockets , and it wants to keep buying Russian engines for its missiles. Even so, at a moment when the White House is imposing sanctions and working to counter the flow of weapons into Ukraine, it might be difficult to justify an exchange of nuclear scientists. But some experts say it is when times are tense that such midlevel interchanges are the most critical. “The idea of having thick relations with Russian nuclear scientists is a good idea,” said Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who negotiated some early deals on securing the Soviet arsenal during the Clinton administration, the peak of cooperation between American and Russian nuclear weapons scientists. “People get to know each other, work on joint projects, and there is a basis for conversation and cooperation.” That was part of the impetus, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, behind the West’s effort to fund new projects for Russian nuclear scientists. Keeping them busily employed, the theory went, made it less likely that they would sell their expertise to Iran, North Korea or a terrorist group with nuclear ambitions. But the agreement last fall went far beyond that: It promised cooperation on complex, if peaceful, nuclear programs, including wide Russian access to the American nuclear complex. While it would have allowed both sides to exclude “sensitive” military sites, it listed 137 American installations at 15 locations from coast to coast, including the centers for nuclear weapons design at Los Alamos and in Albuquerque and Livermore, Calif. The 25 installations at Los Alamos included firing sites, the Warhead Verification Test Lab, the Sigma Complex for materials development and the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility , a giant X-ray machine that can peer into bomb processes. The accord also listed five installations at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, including a giant particle accelerator that runs through miles of tunnels. At the Livermore lab, the Russians were to get access to a $5 billion laser the size of a football stadium designed to ignite miniature hydrogen bomb explosions. The September accord was posted online late last year by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit news organization based in Washington. The disclosure received little public notice. In October, a month after the accord was signed, Russian and American scientists from the nuclear laboratories held preliminary discussions on planetary defense, said an American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the topic’s political implications. In January, the State Department held a space forum in Washington with representatives of many countries, including Russia. It called for international cooperation on projects such as defending Earth from asteroids. “We may have different flags patched to our spacesuits,” John P. Holdren , the president’s science adviser, said in an opening address . But as cooperative space projects have demonstrated, he added, “we can transcend these differences.” William J. Burns, the deputy secretary of state, told the group that the United States welcomed global support for missions that would “help us learn how to better defend our planet from a catastrophic asteroid collision.” While asteroid defense may seem like the stuff of science fiction, the risk burst into public consciousness early last year when a meteor exploded over Russia and injured more than 1,200 people, mostly as windows shattered into clouds of flying glass. “It’s not a laughing matter,” said William E. Burrows, author of the new book “The Asteroid Threat.” “If it brings the international community together, that’s a good thing.” But the cooperative mood vanished after the invasion of Crimea. Russia complained bitterly: In April, Rosatom, its state nuclear energy company and partner in the accord, put out a statement calling the suspension of the partnership “a mistake that contradicts the constructive atmosphere that has built up.” Politics, it added, “should have no place in this field.”

Russia
US
Ukraine
Energy Department
Nuclear weapon
Nuclear energy
Ernest J Moniz
Barack Obama
Vladimir Putin


A Succession at Walmart Puts an Insider at the Helm

Abstract: As Walmart enters a fiercely competitive holiday season while still hampered by sluggish sales, the company’s board announced on Monday that Michael T. Duke, its chief executive, would retire early next year and a longtime executive, C. Douglas McMillon, would replace him. Mr. McMillon, 47, president of Walmart International, will take the helm on Feb. 1, just after the holiday season, the company said. He was also elected to the board effective immediately. “Doug is uniquely positioned to lead our growing global company and to serve the changing customer, while remaining true to our culture and values,” S. Robson Walton, chairman of Walmart’s board, said in a statement . “He has broad experience — with successful senior leadership roles in all of Walmart’s business segments — and a deep understanding of the economic, social and technological trends shaping our world.” Mr. Duke, 63, has been the company’s chief executive since 2009, and was vice chairman from 2005 to 2009. His departure had been rumored for several months, industry watchers said. “The question was not whether, but when,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting and research firm. The choice to name Mr. McMillon — who will be the youngest chief executive to lead the company since its founder, Sam Walton — elevates an insider with deep roots in the company. He joined Walmart in 1984 as a summer associate in a distribution center, then rejoined in 1990. From 2006 to 2009, he was president of Sam’s Club, Walmart’s warehouse stores division. Mr. McMillon’s new salary and compensation package were not revealed on Monday. His salary for the 2013 fiscal year was nearly $930,000, while his total compensation was slightly over $9.5 million, according to the company. Mr. Duke’s salary was about $1.3 million, and his total compensation was roughly $20 million. After retiring, he will stay on as an adviser for a year. “The opportunity to lead Walmart is a great privilege,” Mr. McMillon said in the company’s statement. “Our company has a rich history of delivering value to customers across the globe and, as their needs grow and change, we will be there to serve them.” At the shareholders’ meeting in 2012, Mr. McMillon told a story of receiving a Post-it note about the price of trilene fishing line from Walmart’s founder, “Mr. Sam,” in 1991, on his first day on the company’s merchandising team. Kmart’s price, the note said, was just a bit lower than Walmart’s. “This is from Sam Walton,” Mr. McMillon’s new boss said, he recounted. “Have you fixed it?” At Walmart, a connection to “Mr. Sam” is currency. Mr. McMillon’s main competitor for the job, industry experts said, was probably William S. Simon, the chief executive of Walmart U.S. Mr. Simon joined Walmart in 2006 from Brinker International, a company that owns restaurant franchises like Chili’s Grill and Bar. “It looks like they took an insider over an outsider,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester. “Bill Simon joined more recently, he had more of a restaurant background,” Ms. Mulpuru said. “Doug McMillon is more of a company lifer, so to speak. He’s been at the company a long, long time.” In recent years, Ms. Mulpuru said, the international arm of Walmart has been a greater engine of growth than either the domestic division or Sam’s Club, and since 2009 Mr. McMillon has been running the international operation. In October, the company announced it would open up to 110 new facilities in China by 2016. In recent years, Walmart’s international division has been touched by scandal, though Mr. McMillon has not been implicated. The Justice Department has been investigating whether Walmart violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Mexico and other countries, since The New York Times reported last year that officials at Walmart de Mexico paid bribes to grease the wheels of expansion. Brooke Buchanan, a Walmart spokeswoman, said the activities being investigated preceded Mr. McMillon’s leadership of Walmart International. In its most recent quarterly earnings release, Walmart acknowledged that it faced headwinds going into the holiday season. With its core customers still encountering stagnant wages and persistent unemployment, the company trimmed its yearly earnings forecast. In addition to those challenges, Mr. McMillon will take Walmart’s helm as the retailer faces challenges from organized labor. Unions and their allies are threatening to stage protests at 1,500 Walmart stores across the nation on Black Friday to demand that the company increase wages. And last week, the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board accused Walmart of illegally firing or otherwise retaliating against workers in 14 states for pushing for higher wages. In recent weeks, Walmart has been busily promoting its holiday deals in one of the most fiercely competitive sales seasons in recent memory. Major retailers are already slashing prices and many have been chipping away at the lure of Black Friday deals by offering them even earlier, driven partly by the short window this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Nonetheless, the next few days will probably be among the busiest of the holiday season. David Tovar, Walmart’s vice president for corporate communications, said the timing of the announcement about Mr. McMillon, just four days before Black Friday, was dictated by the schedule of company board meetings — the November meeting is closest to the company’s new fiscal year, which begins Feb. 1. “This was solely his decision, a personal decision Mike made to retire at this point,” Mr. Tovar said of Mr. Duke. “Other than playing a lot of golf, I don’t think he’s going to be working on anything at this point,” he said. When Mr. Duke leaves the company, he will be entitled to more than $113 million in deferred compensation.

Walmart Stores
Appointments and Executive Changes
Michael T Duke
C Douglas McMillon


Opening a Door to the Burmese Past, and the Present, Too

Abstract: BAGAN, Myanmar — In a delicate operation here, specialists gingerly eased a priceless, 1,000-year-old national treasure — a Buddhist bronze casting in the shape of a lotus flower — from its perch in a museum showcase. A small group of curators on a recent visit from the United States, flashlights in hand, admired the tiny metal hinges that allow the flower to open and close as well as the intricate detail on the miniature Buddhas craftsmen attached to the petals long ago. The piece was found in pristine condition inside a stone box flung to the surface by an earthquake here nearly 40 years ago. The curators pronounced it a star attraction among hundreds of rarely seen ancient objects in the neglected museums and dusty storerooms they have been scouring across Myanmar as they prepare for a 2015 exhibit at the Asia Society in New York City that will celebrate the nation’s long-hidden Buddhist art. As Myanmar wrestles with the problems and uncertainty of a nascent democracy, and Buddhist extremists tarnish the image of the country’s dominant religion with attacks on Muslims, early Buddhist art offers a different dimension of a country that until recently languished under a military dictatorship, and before World War II served as a tropical outpost of the British Empire. The curators rummaged through the humid basement of the Bagan museum, where they found outsize chamber pots used in the princely palaces that once flourished on the banks of the Irrawaddy River. They examined gilded wood monastery boxes that stored palm-leaf manuscripts, the paint now peeling. They peered into grimy glass cabinets at gold-painted sphinxlike creatures in a rundown library in the town of Prome, near where the first Buddhists in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, lived. “The show will be a coming out for Burma,” said Melissa Chiu, museum director of the Asia Society. “The country has been closed off for so many years, we hope the show will assume a bigger significance, and shed new light on material not seen before. Buddhism is the state religion and plays such a major role in daily life.” Image A bronze lotus flower from the 11th century with images from Buddha’s life in the petals. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times The curators searched in the former capital, Yangon; in the new capital, Naypyidaw; in Prome; and here in Bagan, which from the ninth century to the 13th century was the center of a royal kingdom where the creative energy was so intense that nearly 2,000 brick and gilded temples were built across a vast plain. In Bagan, a popular destination for tourists imagining the glory days among faded temples, farmers still unearth ancient gold jewelry. The antiquities hunt has the support of President Thein Sein. During a visit to the United States last year, he approved the loan of dozens of artworks for the 2015 show, ensuring that the curators were welcomed in usually off-limits inner sanctums. Of the estimated 70 objects planned for the exhibit, about three-quarters will come from Myanmar and the remainder from collections in the United States, Ms. Chiu said. In exchange for the right to borrow the art, the Asia Society has pledged to provide training in conservation techniques to Myanmar’s museum employees, who must make do with a scant $100,000 budget that leaves the nation’s museums with little electricity, poor air-conditioning and no money for acquisitions. Although the visitors had extraordinary access and freedom to choose the objects they wanted, some items were too precious to ship to New York, including an elaborately carved gilt door from the royal court in Mandalay that was salvaged before the British Army looted the palace in 1885. The door was low, making it impossible for subjects who visited the king to enter without bending in obeisance. The curators coveted it, but it was one of the few pieces that the directors of the National Museum in Yangon vetoed. “Impossible,” said Daw Nu Mra Zan, a former deputy director of the museum. But that still left many images of Buddha — in stone, bronze and wood — to choose from. Some looked similar to other famous images. A few were judged to be fakes. But with so many remarkable pieces, it will be difficult to make the final selections, the curators said. A wood carving more than two feet high from the 12th century that shows Buddha descending from heaven after giving a sermon to his mother will surely be on the A-list. “This is very special,” said Sylvia Fraser-Lu, a guest curator for the show, as she admired the movement carved into the piece. “It’s luck that it was preserved. It may have been inside a temple, or on the shady side of a temple.” Image Credit The New York Times For a spectacular object that would impress hard-to-please New York audiences, the curators liked an 11th-century stone sculpture of a jaunty-looking Prince Siddhartha shearing his hair with a sword as he vowed to begin the journey that would lead him to become the Buddha. “It could be the signature piece of the show,” said Ms. Chiu, thinking ahead to marketing possibilities. Over the years, waves of looters depleted much of the great storehouse of treasures. In the 1885 Anglo-Burmese war, British soldiers plundered smaller items like mirrors, manuscripts and jewelry, said Ms. Fraser-Lu, who lived in Burma in the 1970s. In the 1920s, German souvenir hunters carted away chunks of walls from several monasteries, she said. Monks told her that during the military dictatorship from 1962 to 2011 they wielded baseball bats to protect the treasures in their monasteries from smugglers in league with the authorities. Still, many of the stone Buddha images that were too heavy for even the most ardent looters to move remained in the country, so the New York exhibit will be a chance to show the pieces for the first time outside Myanmar. “There is not a single major Bagan-era stone sculpture outside of Burma,” said Donald Stadtner, also a guest curator and the author of books on Burma’s Buddhist heritage. At the curators’ last stop, the tin-roofed annex of the museum in Prome, a 1,500-year-old bronze Buddha, encrusted with a rough patina from centuries buried in the ground, stood on a green plastic tablecloth under a bare neon strip light. A rice farmer stumbled across it in 2005 while plowing his fields, said U Thein Lwin, the deputy director general of the National Department of Archaeology. “He hit something hard,” Mr. Thein Lwin said. “We are lucky it wasn’t broken.” Shipping the tough bronze Buddha to New York should not be risky, but the fragile lotus flower at Bagan is another matter, and may need special permission from the government to exit the country, Ms. Chiu said. Daw Baby, the deputy director of the museum here, said the prized lotus flower should travel to New York. “All of the collection is in my heart,” she said. “Every day I check the 1,000 pieces in our museum. A temporary loan to New York is not a problem for me. But not permanently.”

Museum
Art
Asia Society
Buddhism
Sculpture
Myanmar,Burma


Morgan Stanley Will Eliminate 600 Jobs

Abstract: Morgan Stanley plans to cut 600 jobs after a decline in mortgage-related revenue led to lower third-quarter earnings than analysts estimated. About 500 jobs will be eliminated in the United States and about 100 in Europe, including 90 from a British mortgage subsidiary, the firm said yesterday. The cuts represent about 25 percent of Morgan Stanley’s residential mortgage origination and servicing jobs, said a spokesman, Mark Lake. Morgan Stanley follows competitors like UBS and Merrill Lynch in eliminating jobs after record United States home foreclosures sapped demand for bonds backed by mortgages. Wall Street firms, which make money by packaging loans into bonds and reselling them to investors, acquired mortgage companies in recent years to get more loans, a trend that is now reversing. The firm took a bigger role in mortgages in December, just as the subprime crisis was unfolding, when it bought Saxon Capital for $705 million. In addition to being a mortgage provider, Saxon services home loans to people with patchy credit histories by collecting payments, maintaining records and foreclosing on delinquent borrowers. Morgan Stanley plans to merge its three United States residential mortgage businesses — Saxon Capital, the Morgan Stanley Credit Corporation and Morgan Stanley Mortgage Capital Holdings — and base the combined business in Irving, Tex. Last month, Morgan Stanley reported that third-quarter profit from continuing operations fell 7 percent, to $1.47 billion, or $1.38 a share, missing analysts’ estimates for the first time in at least six quarters. The firm said that credit trading revenue, which includes mortgage-related securities, dropped by more than $1 billion from the second quarter. The firm also wrote down the value of loans and loan commitments by $877 million. Shares of Morgan Stanley rose $2.09, or 3.3 percent, to $66.10.

Morgan Stanley
Mortgages
Layoffs and Job Reductions


In Police Misconduct Lawsuits, Potent Incentives Point to a Payout

Abstract: When lawsuits against the police are settled, like the one announced this week in which New York City agreed to pay $4 million to the family of Akai Gurley , people tend to focus on the amount of money changing hands. Sometimes overlooked are the institutional reforms embedded in the deals, and the difficult decisions made by plaintiffs and their lawyers in trading a full public airing of the facts for the recovery of damages. In many police misconduct cases, the victims and their families are people of limited means for whom a six-figure check could be life-changing. At the same time, lawyers said, those who file, and settle, such suits belong to what might be called a community of the wronged, and often have a strong desire to tell their stories or force the system to change. “Frequently, plaintiffs in these cases are badly damaged and want or even need compensation,” said Barry Scheck, a lawyer who helped negotiate the $9 million settlement for Abner Louima , a Haitian immigrant who was sexually assaulted by the police with a broomstick inside a Brooklyn station house in 1997. “But you have to trade that off sometimes with their aspirations to expose what happened, and to find solutions.” Mr. Louima’s suit, which was filed against the city and its main police union, was a rare example of litigation that produced enormous monetary damages and real alterations to policing policy. When the settlement was reached in 2001, Mr. Louima said that he had dropped his three-year battle because he was convinced that the city and the union had started to improve the ways the Police Department trained, monitored and disciplined its officers. Ultimately, the decision of whether to settle a suit or to air the facts of the case, hoping to both win a judgment and secure reform, is up to the client, said Scott Rynecki, who handled the suit involving Mr. Gurley, an unarmed man killed two years ago by an officer on patrol in a Brooklyn public housing project. “Our primary job is to get our clients” — in this case, it was Mr. Gurley’s domestic partner, Kimberly Ballinger, and their daughter — “a decent recovery,” Mr. Rynecki said. “If the recovery is fair, we have an obligation not to go forward just to ‘go forward.’” Image Mr. Gurley was killed by a police officer in 2014. Mr. Rynecki said it was also important to create a public record and push for structural change. As part of his negotiations with the city, he said, he urged officials to improve training at the Police Academy in areas like firearms handling and emergency medical care. “I have made repeated calls for this, both in public and in private, with politicians and on TV,” he said. “It’s a constant mantra. We have the greatest police force in country, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.” In Mr. Gurley’s case, as in some others, litigation was preceded by an extensive criminal trial which produced a detailed narrative about everything that had happened. Sometimes, the revelatory nature of a criminal proceeding can persuade a plaintiff, like Ms. Ballinger, that she does not need her day in civil court. But sometimes, even a long criminal trial can leave the record incomplete. Howard Hershenhorn, a lawyer who represented the family of Amadou Diallo , a Guinean immigrant who was shot 41 times by the police in 1999, said he “had no choice but to fully litigate the civil case” because the officers who had killed Mr. Diallo were acquitted and the story of his client’s death was never fully told. Working with his partners, Mr. Hershenhorn took numerous depositions during the case’s discovery phase, unearthing information that never emerged fully at the criminal trial. Much of it concerned the Street Crimes Unit, a plainclothes patrol in the Police Department that employed the officers who shot Mr. Diallo and was eventually disbanded. “We never would have settled the case without assurances from the right people that that would happen,” Mr. Hershenhorn said. “The unit was on its way to being disbanded because of information that we produced in discovery and that, frankly, the city didn’t know.” Since by definition plaintiffs in these cases have suffered the apparent trauma of personal injury or the death of a loved one, there are powerful incentives to take a settled payout and not relive it all at trial. “These cases aren’t easy for the plaintiffs; they’re very difficult and emotional,” said Jonathan Moore, a lawyer who won a $5.9 million settlement in a lawsuit by the family of Eric Garner, who died after an officer placed him in a chokehold while arresting him for selling untaxed cigarettes on Staten Island. “It may not be exactly what they want, but settling a case at least puts an end to it.” Then there is the question of the money, which can be a godsend for plaintiffs. “More often than not, when we first meet our clients they tell us in all sincerity that ‘it’s not about the money,’ but in the end, even a jury verdict is a dollar figure,” said Andrew Stoll, who has represented several plaintiffs in police misconduct cases. “It’s the rare victim that has the luxury of refusing that money to make a bigger point.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Loss Isn’t Only Reminder That Era of Yankees’ Dominance Has Waned

Abstract: A postseason berth no longer comes easily for the Yankees, who dominated the baseball landscape not too long ago. But that was in a different era, with different players, a fact that became all too clear before Saturday’s game, when the Yankees honored the former outfielder Paul O’Neill with a plaque in Monument Park. A number of former players, including David Cone, Tino Martinez, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada, participated in the ceremony. Wins were plentiful for that group of players. But who among the current players, other than Derek Jeter, will receive the honor of a plaque at Yankee Stadium? After the O’Neill ceremony, the Yankees took a step back in their slog toward a potential postseason berth with a 3-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians. The Yankees were thwarted by Indians starter Corey Kluber, who pitched six scoreless innings and allowed only four hits. The Yankees never got a runner past second base. “He’s just got really good stuff,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. “He’s got an outstanding slider that he uses to right-handers and left-handers. I know there was a lot of talk about what we faced this week with Detroit. You look at the top five guys in the A.L., he’s right there.” Brandon McCarthy allowed only a two-run homer to Jose Ramirez in six and a third innings, but he lost for the first time since joining the team. He was struck in the right foot by a line drive from Michael Brantley in the third inning but remained in the game. Precautionary X-rays after the game were negative. “It was numb for a little bit, and a little later on, it was just hard to keep strength on it,” McCarthy said. The Indians added a run on Brantley’s home run against Chase Whitley in the eighth inning. The news got worse for the Yankees when the Kansas City Royals defeated the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night. The Yankees now trail Kansas City by a game and a half in the race for the second American League wild card. Image The former Yankee outfielder Paul O’Neill and his wife, Nevalee, unveiling his plaque in Monument Park before the game. Credit Jason Decrow/Associated Press These Yankees are cobbled together through waiver-wire pickups, low-risk trades and low-round draft picks. The Yankees teams that won four World Series titles in five years were carefully constructed through astute trades and high draft picks. The Yankees have done well this season in contending despite numerous injuries to their starting rotation and starting lineup, but these are not the daunting teams of the past. “This is starting to look like this was an era you’re not going to replicate soon,” O’Neill said about his Yankees teams in a news conference after the ceremony. “It was just the perfect people together, and obviously the perfect management. Everything came into play at once.” Jeter is the final remaining player from that era, although he often deflects being lumped into that group of retirees, regardless of whether the end of his career is coming soon for him, too. During the ceremony, Jeter presented O’Neill with a matted replica of his plaque that will hang in Monument Park. But Jeter immediately went back into the dugout. As soon as the dedication ended, Jeter was the first player to race to the outfield to begin warm-up sprints. Each game brings Jeter closer to the end and closer to another milestone. His sixth-inning infield single against Kluber was his 3,431st hit, which put him ahead of the Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner for sixth place on the career hits list. “It’s one of those wow moments, you know what I mean?” Jeter said. “To say that you have more hits than anyone who has played the position, it’s something that I’m extremely proud of.” Jeter will most likely be asked to participate in one more pregame ceremony, the retirement of Joe Torre’s uniform number on Aug. 23, before he has his own goodbye ceremony on Sept. 7. Unless the Yankees have an unexpected surge in the next few weeks, they will have to scratch and claw toward a postseason berth. Jeter’s final season, like Rivera’s last year, might end without a playoff appearance, a seemingly unthinkable notion only a few years ago. But this is a different era and a different Yankees team. INSIDE PITCH The Yankees placed catcher BRIAN McCANN on the seven-day concussion disabled list. McCann was struck in the mask by a foul tip in the third inning of Friday’s 10-6 win against the Indians. He was taken out of the game after the sixth inning. As part of Major League Baseball’s concussion protocol, McCann was examined Saturday by a specialist, who recommended that he sit out the required seven days. Catcher AUSTIN ROMINE was recalled from Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take McCann’s spot on the roster. ...First baseman MARK TEIXEIRA missed a third consecutive game with pain in his left little finger, which he injured on Wednesday. Manager Joe Girardi said Teixeira could be available on Sunday. ... Girardi said he would wait to announce a starter for Wednesday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles. MICHAEL PINEDA, who allowed one run in four and a third innings in a rehabilitation outing on Friday for Scranton, said Saturday that he felt no pain in his injured shoulder. ESMIL ROGERS, who allowed one run in five innings on Friday, is also a contender.

Yankees
Baseball
Cleveland Indians
Paul H O'Neill
Awards


Manchester United’s Run for 4th Title Is Under Way

Abstract: LONDON — With the English season kicking off Sunday in the Community Shield, Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti is still getting acquainted with his squad while his counterpart, Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson is trying to decide who to field in the absence of key players. Ferguson said he was approaching this year’s match between the Premier League champions and FA Cup winners at Wembley differently than in the past because both clubs have already been on preseason tours. “We used to treat the match as a barometer for the players’ fitness when certain players needed that extra game,” Ferguson said Friday. “We are not looking at it that way now because the players’ fitness is pretty good and they have had the appropriate minutes on the clock.” But for Ferguson and the three-time defending champions, there is always something at stake when playing the Blues. “Whenever we play against Chelsea, pride comes into it,” the Scot said. “Although Carlo Ancelotti has his own system of playing, which he used at AC Milan for years, with the diamond in the middle of the pitch, which will be different from the way Guus Hiddink did, they have got a lot of experience. They’ve a lot of terrific players.” United lost both Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez in the offseason, and will also be without center back Nemanja Vidic because of a calf injury that will rule him out of the league opener against Birmingham next week. Wes Brown will miss the Wembley match with a thigh problem but is expected to return by the following Sunday’s match. The Community Shield presents another opportunity for Ben Foster and Tomasz Kuszczak to succeed Edwin van der Sar in the United goal. Van der Sar, a 38-year-old Dutchman, has been ruled out for up to 10 weeks with broken fingers and is in the last year of his contract. “It’s a dilemma. It’s not an easy decision,” Ferguson said. “It depends on performances really. If you have watched the games Ben and Tomasz have played, Tomasz has had more activity and therefore more saves to make. But I will speak to both of them about the situation.” Striker Michael Owen, a surprise arrival from Newcastle, will also be eager to prove his fitness and form. “There’s no doubt that Michael still loves the game and is hungry to play,” Ferguson said. A third straight Community Shield triumph for United on Sunday would provide a confidence-booster before the bid for an unprecedented fourth straight English title begins. Ferguson also wants to forget May’s Champions League final loss to Barcelona. “Adversity is always an important factor in developing and improving,” Ferguson said. “When you lose the last game of the season you have two or three months to reflect on the disappointment. We have not enjoyed that. But we will cope — and we will bounce back.” Both United and Chelsea have so far adopted a cautious approach in the transfer window, not trying to match the big-spending at Real Madrid and Manchester City. The match is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. in London.

Manchester United
Soccer
Chelsea Football Club


Administration Plans Tougher Antitrust Action

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama ’s top antitrust official this week plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share. The new enforcement policy would reverse the Bush administration’s approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims. It would restore a policy that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s. The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, is to announce the policy reversal in a speech she will give on Monday before the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy research organization. She will deliver the same speech on Tuesday to the United States Chamber of Commerce. The speeches were described by people who have consulted with her about the policy shift. The administration is hoping to encourage smaller companies in an array of industries to bring their complaints to the Justice Department about potentially improper business practices by their larger rivals. Some of the biggest antitrust cases were initiated by complaints taken to the Justice Department. Ms. Varney is expected to say that the administration rejects the impulse to go easy on antitrust enforcement during weak economic times. She will assert instead that severe recessions can provide dangerous incentives for large and dominating companies to engage in predatory behavior that harms consumers and weakens competition. The announcement is aimed at making sure that no court or party to a lawsuit can cite the Bush administration policy as the government’s official view in any pending cases. In the speeches, Ms. Varney is expected to explicitly warn judges and litigants in antitrust lawsuits not involving the government to ignore the Bush administration’s policies, which were formally outlined in a report by the Justice Department last year. The report applied legal standards that made it difficult to bring new cases involving monopoly and predatory practices. As a result of the Bush administration’s interpretation of antitrust laws, the enforcement pipeline for major monopoly cases — which can take years for prosecutors to develop — is thin. During the Bush administration, the Justice Department did not file a single case against a dominant firm for violating the antimonopoly law. Many smaller companies complaining of abusive practices by their larger rivals were so frustrated by the Bush administration’s antitrust policy that they went to the European Commission and to Asian authorities. Ms. Varney’s new policy more closely aligns American antitrust policy on monopolies and predatory practices with the views of antitrust regulators at the European Commission. Herbert Hovenkamp, a leading antitrust scholar regarded as a centrist between those seeking more aggressive enforcement and those who generally argue for restraint, said the guidelines by the Bush administration were “a brief for defendants.” He said that the repudiation of those guidelines by the Obama administration “will almost certainly have a greater impact than the guidelines themselves had.” “This will be bad news for heavyweights in the tech industries — companies like Google and Microsoft,” said Professor Hovenkamp, who teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law. “People aligned with plaintiffs will rejoice. Those aligned with defendants will wring their hands. A lot of law firms will be indifferent because they take money from both sides.” Ms. Varney is expected to say that the Obama administration will be guided by the view that it was a major mistake during the outset of the Great Depression to relax antitrust enforcement, only to try to catch up and become more vigorous later. She will say the mistake enabled many large companies to engage in pricing, wage and collusive practices that harmed consumers and took years to reverse. While Ms. Varney is not expected to mention any specific companies or industries vulnerable under the new policy, those who have talked to her about the speech say she is aiming at agriculture, energy, health care, technology and telecommunications companies. She may also be reviewing the conduct of some in the financial services industry, which is now undergoing a wave of consolidation as a result of the financial crisis. Ms. Varney, who headed the Internet practice group of the Washington-based Hogan & Hartson law firm, served as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission in the 1990s after working in the White House during the early years of the Clinton administration. Signaling her intent to revive a moribund antitrust program, she has recruited a collection of senior aides, many of whom are seasoned antitrust litigators or worked in the Clinton administration and the Federal Trade Commission and were involved in many prominent cases, including the one against Microsoft. They include Molly S. Boast, William Cavanaugh, Gene Kimmelman, Carl Shapiro and Philip J. Weiser. Antitrust policy is set by Washington in two ways: by the interpretation of laws announced by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission through guidelines for the courts and private litigants, and by the enforcement cases that those agencies decide to bring. The government’s guidelines are often cited by lawyers and given considerable weight by judges in antitrust cases, including those lawsuits that the government does not participate in. It is not unlawful for a company to gain control of a market. It becomes unlawful if the company engages in conduct to exclude or harm competitors with no business justification. Conservative antitrust experts, some judges and defendants in such cases have said that the line is too difficult to draw and that it is better to let rivalries play out in the marketplace than in the courts. After more than a year of hearings and studies, the Justice Department in 2008 published a 215-page report analyzing Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, explaining the government’s approach to the monopolistic and predatory practices of companies. Reflecting deep skepticism of the role of government in the marketplace, the 2008 report made formal a set of policies that had largely been followed by the Justice Department, but not by the Federal Trade Commission, during the Bush administration. When the report was issued, Thomas Barnett, then the head of the antitrust division and the architect of the guidelines, said that they were meant to articulate “clear standards” for determining whether certain types of conduct by large companies would harm competition. In a rare split with the Justice Department, three of the four commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission denounced the guidelines, calling them “a blueprint for radically weakened enforcement” against anticompetitive practices.

Antitrust Actions and Laws
Obama Barack
Varney Christine A
United States Politics and Government
Suits and Litigation
Bush George W


As Buzz Fades, Focus Will Be on Nets’ Play. Fine by Them.

Abstract: It was two seasons ago that the Nets made their much-trumpeted move from New Jersey to Brooklyn. The franchise underwent a thorough rebranding, one displaying the calculated coolness of an artisanal butcher shop. Last season, the ballyhoo took a new shape. The organization made the bold decision to hire Jason Kidd as a first-year coach and brought in a cadre of new stars, ones who knew how to win. Everything became about chasing the championship trophy. It is unmistakable now, as a new season is set to get underway, that the fanfare in Brooklyn has faded, that the volume of everything has been turned way down. The defining quality of the preseason has been a lack of buzz, and more than the last two years, it feels as if the team will be judged and followed and debated based on its basketball. Attention and respect, it seems, will be earned on the court. The Nets say they are fine with that. “Whether someone puts you in a poll or in an article as winning or not — I can’t really say what I want to say — but you have to take that with a grain of salt and continue to move on,” Kevin Garnett said Monday. “We internally here have our own goals as a team, and that’s our priority. We can’t get into the naysayers or the people that are supposed to be professional analysts, people who have never touched a basketball.” As Garnett said, prognosticators are not giving the team much of a chance, with the Eastern Conference perceived to be a race of two teams a tier above the rest: the Cleveland Cavaliers, with LeBron James, and the Chicago Bulls, with their strong-again star Derrick Rose. It is not that the Nets are believed to be a bad team — just a bit uninspiring. They have maintained a collection of talent, so there has been a tendency to leave the door slightly ajar for them to make an impact in the conference. An interchange Monday afternoon between the TNT analysts Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith — who, it should be noted for Garnett’s sake, have touched a basketball and done it quite well — seemed to encapsulate the prevailing estimation of the group. “They have a formidable one-two punch, a recognizable one-two punch, in Deron Williams and Brook Lopez,” O’Neal said at a lunch event organized to promote the TNT show “Inside the NBA.” “I don’t know if Lopez is going to play, but that’s their one-two punch.” Smith said, “That punch has been very light,” prompting O’Neal to say, “It’s been light because of injuries — injuries and inconsistency.” Health will be the ever-present question mark. The roster was not overhauled, as it was last year, but it nevertheless feels different because Williams, who had surgery on both ankles, and Lopez, who had surgery on both feet, are supposed to be at full speed again. But already, Lopez is questionable to play the team’s opening game Wednesday in Boston after straining a muscle in his right foot in a preseason game. The atmosphere around the team has calmed in part because Paul Pierce was not offered a new contract. Pierce, now a Washington Wizard, told NBA.com this month that the organization was looking to cut costs and that the front office did not view the Nets as a legitimate contender this year. Billy King, the team’s general manager, rejected Pierce’s characterization, saying a trophy was still the goal. “We are not taking any steps back,” King said. This is how things have gone around the Nets’ camp this fall. Ask a player or staff member point-blank about the team’s goal, and the N.B.A. finals will be dutifully mentioned. But such declarations have not been emerging unprovoked, as they did last season. “I like the Nets, but the hype last year was so big — you had Paul and Kevin come in, that veteran, championship pedigree — and then it fizzled,” Smith, the TNT analyst, said. “You look at it now: You have less championship pedigree; the team didn’t really get that many new players or that much better.” He shrugged and said, “It’s not exciting.” Smith said he was excited to see how Lionel Hollins, the Nets’ new coach, would shape the team. He cited the subtle, stubborn power of the Memphis Grizzlies, the last team Hollins coached, as something the Nets could emulate. Hollins has already made an impression, with his tough practices and a sense of humor that pops up in unexpected ways. For example, when he was asked this month about the team’s tempo, he shuffled his feet back and forth in an improvised dance step. “We’re going to be like Gladys Knight and the Pips,” he said. Hollins said it was foolish to think that the Nets felt no urgency this season. Using himself as an example, he said that coaches were often fired after one mediocre season. But either way, he said, his motivation will not come from the outside. “As I’ve said many times, high expectations don’t mean you’re going to meet them or exceed them,” Hollins said. “Low expectations don’t mean that you’re not going to be above them. It’s all about playing.” The Nets start playing Wednesday, with less noise than in recent memory.

Jason Kidd
Basketball
Kevin Garnett
Billy King
Lionel Hollins
Brooklyn Nets


American Museum of Natural History Evacuated Because of Smoke

Abstract: Thousands of visitors at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan were evacuated on Friday afternoon after a blow torch being used outside sparked a small fire that filled an exhibition hall with smoke, officials said. The fire broke out near the museum’s West 77th Street entrance around 3:30 p.m. and filled an exhibition hall on the first floor with heavy smoke that set off fire alarms and water sprinklers, said Anne Canty, a spokeswoman for the museum. There was no fire inside the building, which was quickly evacuated, she said. Museum officials will determine on Saturday whether any items were damaged, Ms. Canty said. The museum remained closed to visitors late Friday afternoon; only staff members were allowed back inside. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people were visiting when the fire broke out, Ms. Canty said, and none of them were injured. The fire started outside the building when a construction worker using a blow torch near an air-conditioning unit accidentally set fire to nearby materials, the Fire Department said. The smoke filled the Hall of the Northwest Coast Indians, a permanent exhibition hall that features artifacts from Native American tribes from Washington State up through Canada. The items on exhibit includes totem poles, masks and weavings, some of which are more than 100 years old. An event for teachers on Friday evening was canceled. The museum will reopen to visitors at its normal time on Saturday, Ms. Canty said.

American Museum of Natural History
Evacuation
Fires
NYC


Profit Expands for BlackBerry Maker

Abstract: OTTAWA — Research in Motion , the maker of the BlackBerry, said on Wednesday that its first quarter profit was more than double that of last year. But the result fell short of analysts’ estimates, causing the company’s shares to fall in after-hours trading. R.I.M., as the company is better known, earned $482.5 million during the quarter that ended May 31, compared with $223.2 million during the comparable period last year. Its revenue of $2.24 billion represented a 107 percent increase and the 2.3 million new subscribers it signed up were about 100,000 more than it had forecast. But its profit of 84 cents a share, up from 39 cents a year earlier, was one cent below estimates and the company’s stock fell 7.6 percent in after-hours trading. Its stock rose $1.86, to $142.34 a share, in market trading. During a conference call with analysts, several executives, including the co-chief executive, Jim Balsillie, attributed the earnings disappointment to increased spending by the company. The company has increased spending on the systems that operate the BlackBerry’s secure e-mail system in anticipation of significant demand for several new products that will be released in the coming months. This summer carriers will begin selling the BlackBerry Bold, a model with what the company says is a larger and sharper display for viewing videos. Other models still to be announced will come in time for Christmas shopping. There has been speculation that they may include a flip-phone style BlackBerry as well as a touch-screen model similar to the Apple iPhone . “Summer is a busy time for R.I.M. and this summer will be especially so,” Mr. Balsillie said from the company’s head office in Waterloo, Ontario. “We see many aspects of the business shifting.” Reflecting R.I.M.’s shift to the broader consumer market from its traditional base of corporate BlackBerry users, some of the company’s increased spending went into its first large-scale television advertising campaign. Mr. Balsillie said that marketing effort will be increased and directed more toward promoting specific products later this year. As if to confirm the BlackBerry’s new role as a consumer product, the conference call was peppered with references to the company’s promotions for Mother’s Day and the return to school in September. Mr. Balsillie initially avoided offering direct answers to questions about the impact on R.I.M. of Apple’s decision to lower the price for a new version of the iPhone, which will also become available in July. But when an analyst asked if he was concerned about an overlap between iPhone and BlackBerry users developing, Mr. Balsillie replied: “Nah, nah.” Deepak Chopra, an analyst with Genuity Capital Markets, said he was not concerned about the earnings shortfall. “They’re basically building out infrastructure for accelerated expansion,” he said.

Research in Motion Ltd
Company Reports
Wireless Communications


U.S. and Russia Miss Treaty Deadline

Abstract: MOSCOW — The United States and Russia missed their deadline on Friday to adopt a new arms control treaty, though they pledged that they would generally abide by the old one while they continued negotiating. The two sides were stepping up talks in Geneva in hopes of shortly concluding the new agreement, which would cut the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals by up to a third. The cold war-era pact, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, known as Start, expires early Saturday. Neither side blamed the other for the delay, which was apparently caused in part by an abundance of highly technical matters that need to be addressed. Negotiators have been focusing this week on issues related to monitoring and verification. In a joint statement, the White House and the Kremlin declared their “commitment, as a matter of principle, to continue to work together in the spirit of the Start treaty following its expiration, as well as our firm intention to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enters into force at the earliest possible date.” On Friday, President Obama discussed progress on the treaty with Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in Brussels. While both sides said they would essentially honor the old treaty after the deadline, one major change was clear: an American monitoring post in Russia that kept track of Russian missile production was closed on Friday. The post, in the city of Votkinsk, 600 miles east of Moscow, was authorized under the old treaty, and Russia had blocked any effort to keep it under the new one or to provide for a temporary extension. The Russian military had long objected to the presence of American observers based in the heart of Russia. Under the old treaty, the United States and Russia also had the right to use periodic inspection teams in the other country to guarantee that the treaty was being followed. In October, the Obama administration expressed concern that if the deadline for a new pact passed and official authority for inspections lapsed, the United States would be unable to monitor the Russian nuclear stockpile. According to the understanding that was announced Friday by the two countries, they might conceivably be able to send ad hoc inspection teams in this interim period. But both countries seem to be hoping that it will not come to that — that a new treaty will be signed and ratified in time for an official inspection program to occur. Over all, the outlines of the new treaty are already apparent. At a summit meeting in Moscow in July, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev narrowed the range for a cap on warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675, down from about 2,200, which each side has now. The two countries are also expected to lower the ceiling on delivery vehicles — intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based missiles and strategic bombers — to below 800, from 1,600. In Washington on Friday, Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said that after the deadline, the United States and Russia “will simply maintain where the agreement has been for the last 15 or 20 years” until a new treaty is approved. A senior American official, who was not authorized to speak to the news media and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said negotiators in Geneva “are focusing on getting final issues solved” and expressed optimism that a new treaty would be completed in the coming days. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry also offered a positive take. “The future treaty should become another milestone in disarmament and nonproliferation,” the ministry said, “marking the transition to a higher level of interaction between Russia and the United States and reaffirming the common goals of the two countries in the promotion of mutual and global security.”

Arms Control and Limitation and Disarmament

United States Defense and Military Forces


In a More Diverse City, a More Diverse Slate of Mayoral Candidates

Abstract: BOSTON — Like many of the candidates running for mayor here, John Barros attended house party after house party over the weekend. He found a warm reception from his hosts and the small groups they invited, as he spoke of his plans to improve schools, increase diversity in the Police Department and create more affordable housing and more mixed-income neighborhoods. For the first time in a generation, the race for mayor of Boston is wide open. With Thomas M. Menino, the city’s mayor for the last 20 years, retiring, the race has attracted no fewer than a dozen candidates. Five of them are black, and one is Latino. One is a woman. The city has never held a mayoral election with such a racially and ethnically mixed roster of candidates. Nor has its population ever been so diverse. It is now a minority-majority city, with 53 percent of the population identifying as something other than non-Hispanic white. “It’s nice to have so many of us running,” Mr. Barros said. But Boston has never elected a nonwhite mayor. In fact, of the nation’s 25 biggest cities, Boston is one of only two in the North (Indianapolis is the other) that has never elected a mayor of color. And Mr. Barros acknowledges that the odds — and the demographics — are against him and his fellow minority candidates. Jeffrey Berry, a political scientist at Tufts University, said his research showed that nationwide, black candidates “have a terrible time getting elected from districts where there isn’t a very, very large African-American population, and in the case of Boston, what base they have is splintered.” Despite the hoopla over having so many candidates who are black or Latino, some analysts expect the city will fall back to type and send an Irish-American man to City Hall, resuming an old habit that Mr. Menino, an Italian-American, only interrupted; he was the city’s first non-Irish mayor elected since 1930. “To a lot of people, it seems like Groundhog Day, the endless cycle repeating itself,” said Thomas Whalen, a political historian at Boston University. So far, none of the six candidates has broken through the crowded field into the top tier, as measured by polls and fund-raising. Then again, no one at all has emerged as a clear front-runner; those doing best in the polls have only 10 percent or 12 percent of the vote, and as many as 40 percent of voters may be undecided. The fluidity of the race and the unpredictable nature of voter turnout — there has not been a competitive mayor’s race here in three decades — has given hope to the minority candidates that with community organizing in the weeks to come, they might succeed. The preliminary election is Sept. 24; the top two vote getters will face off on Nov. 5. Mr. Barros, for one, said he believed that Boston was ready to elect a mayor of color, despite its history of racial strife in the 1970s over court-ordered busing to desegregate the schools. “Boston helped propel Deval Patrick to the governorship and Barack Obama to the presidency,” he said. Image When Thomas M. Menino, now retiring, was elected in 1993, he was the first non-Irish-American Boston mayor since 1930. Credit Charles Krupa/Associated Press But, he said, the minority candidates have had a harder time raising money and becoming known citywide because they do not have the extensive financial, business and social networks that the white candidates have. Though this year’s varied crop of mayoral candidates reflects how much the city has changed since Mr. Menino was first elected in 1993, the top tier of candidates underscores just how much has stayed the same. The three biggest fund-raisers through the end of August were Irish-American men: Daniel F. Conley, the Suffolk County district attorney; John R. Connolly, a city councilor who has focused on overhauling the public schools; and Martin J. Walsh, a state representative who has strong union support. Closing in on them was Michael Ross, a city councilor who is Jewish. He seeks to represent the “new Boston” and wants to work with neighboring cities like Cambridge on collective causes. Among the minority candidates, Charlotte Golar Richie, a former aide to Mr. Menino and former state representative who is African-American and the only woman in the race, was the top fund-raiser. But the chasm between her and the top fund-raisers, who had raised more than $1 million each, was wide: Ms. Golar Richie pulled in just $260,000. Close behind her was Felix G. Arroyo, another city councilor and the only Latino in the race. Mr. Barros, a former member of the Boston School Committee and executive director of a neighborhood initiative focused on affordable housing, was next. The other three minority candidates trailed far behind. Having all the minority candidates bunched at the bottom, at least in fund-raising, has been frustrating for them and their supporters and has prompted some soul-searching. It has also led to one of the few eruptions of tension in an otherwise remarkably rancor-free campaign. Several black leaders held a closed-door meeting with about 80 or 90 minority activists Wednesday night and said they wanted the lagging candidates to drop out so voters could coalesce behind one or two others who seemed better positioned. The proposal infuriated many in the audience, who saw it as a strong-arm tactic to engineer support for Ms. Golar Richie. “We don’t all speak with one voice, and this kind of discussion just didn’t feel good,” said Kim Janey, a community leader who supports Mr. Barros. Maggie Brown, a grass-roots organizer who also attended, said, “We will not be silenced.” Ms. Brown has stirred controversy of her own by planning a forum for Tuesday at which only the six minority candidates have been invited to speak. Critics have called this shortsighted, saying that whoever is elected will be mayor of the entire city and that all candidates deserved a chance to appeal to all voters. The event was to be held at Freedom House, a nonprofit group, but Katrina Shaw, the group’s head, said that because the forum did not include all candidates, it was no longer welcome. “Regardless of who wins,” she said, “we are not the Boston where bottles were thrown at me when I was growing up, and we want to be inclusive.” Ms. Brown, who now plans to hold the forum on a street corner in Roxbury, said she did not want to let the white candidates speak because “it takes away from the historical moment.” Some analysts said minority communities were experiencing the growing pains of any group with political aspirations. “Out of this election, there will be a whole realignment of city politics,” said Peter Kadzis, the former executive editor of The Boston Phoenix, who is now a political commentator. “I think the black community, which is more cohesive than the Irish-Catholic community these days, will be stronger after the election.”

Boston
Voting
Mayoral races
Race and Ethnicity


Two Killings That Didn't Make News

Abstract: NO sidewalk memorials have appeared in front of 208 Classon Avenue in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, where two Chinese women were slain on March 5. No photographers lie in wait, no crowds have gathered at the site. In a city that has a way of managing to focus on only one tragedy at a time, it is almost as if the double homicide never happened. But it did. While the public follows every detail of the investigation into the killing of Imette St. Guillen, a graduate student whose body was discovered 16 days ago, the families of the two Chinese women have come together to mourn, quietly and unnoticed. They do not seek attention. They just want to know who fatally stabbed Xiu Fang Jiang and Lan Juan Chen, found dead in the warehouse where they ran a business that supplied food to Chinese restaurants. The killings are still unsolved, as rumors swirl in the Chinese-American press that the women, both in their 40's, knew their killer, and that the crimes were related to the business. "It's been five days, they need to give more attention," Ms. Jiang's sister, who gave her name only as Miss Kong, said in a whisper on Friday. "It's heartbreaking." She sat with other family members on the second floor of 41 Division Street in Chinatown, in a room jarringly decorated with tinsel and bright red furniture. The room, being renovated for use as a karaoke club, is now a place for mourning and nervous smoking, for weeping and hushed conversations between friends, relatives and business associates. The husbands of the two victims stared at the floor, answering questions in monosyllables, showing their New York driver's licenses when asked their names, as if they thought they might be doubted. They were clearly not only grief-stricken but also uncomfortable -- a reflection, perhaps, of the isolation of so many recent Chinese immigrants impeded by a language barrier, and often fearful because of their immigration status. The two slain women, from the same Fujianese town of Langqi, ran their company, Yong Heng Trading, out of the Brooklyn warehouse, where they frequently slept in a makeshift bedroom because they worked constantly. "Every day, my mother work 18 hours," said Ms. Chen's 24-year-old son, Lin Yan Jiang, who found the slain women. Lin Yan, as he prefers to be called, immigrated four years ago, six years after his mother left Langqi, where she was a bank accountant. Ms. Jiang came at about the same time, he thinks. The husbands followed, then the children. LIN YAN is an only child. Ms. Jiang had a son, 23, and a daughter, 9, who lives weekdays with another family in Chinatown -- not unusual for many recent Chinese immigrants. They work long hours to help relatives immigrate, to pay off exorbitant smuggling debts, or to improve their family's lives. Lin Yan explained that he knew something was amiss early on the day of the killings because his mother missed an appointment she had made with a matchmaker that morning in Chinatown. "She was coming with me to meet a girl," he explained, speaking both in halting English and through a translator. When his mother didn't show up, and he got no answer when he called her, Lin Yan went to the warehouse. Finding the gate locked, he said, he called 911, was referred to 311, then used a ladder to scale the gate. He discovered the two bodies and called 911 again. The funerals are tomorrow and on Wednesday. Relatives hope the police will be able to tell them more by then. Steven Wong, a Fujianese-American community leader, argued that the authorities were giving unbalanced attention to the killing of a young, attractive student at the expense of investigating the deaths of two Chinese women. "I blame the mainstream media. If a crime gets enough coverage, the police have to do something." Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said the police are actively investigating the crime. "Just because the news media gives disproportionate attention to one crime over others, does not mean the police do the same," he said. Those who went to the future karaoke club on Division Street were studiously nonpolitical. They just wanted to know what had gone so wrong in their adopted city. Why had he and his family left Langqi for New York in the first place, Lin Yan's father, Jiang Jing, was asked at one point. He looked surprised. "Freedom," he said, then sank his head into his hands. Metro Matters E-mail: purnick@nytimes.com

BROOKLYN (NYC)
NEW YORK CITY
ST GUILLEN IMETTE
CHEN LAN JUAN
JIANG XIU FANG
MURDERS AND ATTEMPTED MURDERS
SEX CRIMES
NEWS AND NEWS MEDIA


Variety of Projects Vying for Grants From $19.5 Million Oil Spill Fund

Abstract: For decades, oil seeped from the refineries that once occupied parts of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and pooled under nearby homes and businesses, into a plume roughly the expanse of 50 football fields. The total oil spill , estimated at 17 million to 30 million gallons, remains one of the largest in United States history, a distinction the neighborhood is not exactly proud of. But it is about to start receiving its consolation payments. The first grants from a $19.5 million fund, part of a settlement between ExxonMobil and the state, are about to be announced. The aim of the fund is to make lasting environmental improvements in Greenpoint and address current environmental concerns. If the volume of proposals is any indication, the needs in Greenpoint — where some residents point out how the black dust coughed from trucks settles on windowsills — are varied and many. The fund received 96 grant proposals ranging from modest to grand. The Greenpoint Reformed Church on Milton Street wants $5,000 to look into getting a green roof. The Brooklyn Public Library wants $5 million so that, with matching funds, it can build an environmental education center at the Greenpoint Library on Norman Avenue. There are proposals to use robots as environmental educators, erect a large-scale public art project about Greenpoint’s environmental story and to put ashtrays outside neighborhood bars. There are projects that look to limit air pollution, and improve waste-management practices and water quality. The proposals total $65 million, more than three times what is available. After a series of public meetings and workshops, fund administrators will begin to award the small grants, up to $25,000 each, this week. “Even though $19.5 million seems like a lot of money, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about the reversal of the environmental destruction that has happened in Greenpoint,” said Richard Mazur, 65, who grew up in the neighborhood playing ball near the plastics factory on Dupont Street. He is the executive director of the nonprofit North Brooklyn Development Corporation , which is administering the fund with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. “The whole point is to start cleaning up some of the problems,” he said. “The whole point is these things have to have a positive impact.” Newtown Creek was declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010, because of the oil refineries, chemical plants, glue factories, coal yards and other industries that once lined its banks and left it polluted. The neighborhood also contains the bulk of the city’s waste transfer stations. Trucks carrying garbage, scrap metal and debris spit fumes and roar along McGuinness Boulevard — where for years residents have called for traffic-calming measures — and on surrounding streets to get to or from one of the neighborhood’s tangle of trash stops. “It looks like something out of ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,’ ” said Josh Gooch, 39, who has lived in Greenpoint for eight years and who submitted a $110,000 grant request for a traffic study. He wants to look into rerouting truck traffic from McGuinness Boulevard. “It’s just a dirty, dirty, dirty, filthy output that happens with it,” Mr. Gooch said. “That shouldn’t be happening in a residential neighborhood.” As for the spill itself, ExxonMobil said it had 21 wells extracting oil from the ground throughout the area and to date had recovered about 12 million gallons since the remediation began in 1979, under the oversight of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. The recovered product is recycled and sold for about $60,000 a year, which is donated to Greenpoint organizations and schools. The city itself has also submitted requests for some of the money. The parks department and the City Parks Foundation submitted grant requests for almost $7 million to plant trees throughout Greenpoint’s streets and parks, enhance the Box Street Park and acquire a 7.5-acre parcel next to Bushwick Inlet to turn into parkland. To help improve the cleanliness of Newtown Creek, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection applied for $304,750 to find a design of curbside gardens that would filter storm water and $288,465 to study the use of floating wetlands to reduce pollution. Within the leafy canopy of Monsignor McGolrick Park, Audubon New York would use about $50,000 to work with students at Public School 110 and St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Academy in a habitation project. It would restore some of the local plantings to attract native bird species, such as warblers and scarlet tanagers. “It will allow those in Greenpoint to form a relationship with the natural world that they would not have been able or had the opportunity to in the past,” said Erin Crotty, executive director of Audubon New York. She added: “It would be amazing to see what kinds of birds come back. It is kind of a magical thing to see a new species in the park and to hear that song.” There are proposals to educate Greenpoint residents about how diet and exercise impact the environment ($750,000), to help 10 local businesses reduce their environmental burdens ($433,000) and to create a digital map of the environmental story of the community ($24,160), marking, for instance, the incinerator that was shut down a generation ago, garbage truck routes and of course, the oil spill. “I want whoever is looking at the map to change their perspective,” said Alan Minor, 27, who submitted the mapping request and often goes to Greenpoint from Williamsburg to look out from one of its piers. He hopes after that person looks at the map and sees all the damage, “that person respects the environment more.”


South Africans Prepare for Days of Mourning and Commemoration

Abstract: JOHANNESBURG — The rainbow nation that Nelson Mandela fought so hard for decades to make a reality turned out in droves at his home here on Saturday to pay tribute to South Africa’s departed leader. Old women who vividly recalled the struggle against apartheid, toddlers born after Mr. Mandela retreated from the public eye, Jews and Muslims, Christians and Hare Krishna disciples — all flocked to the house in the upscale neighborhood of Houghton with flowers, candles and even hand-painted portraits of the former president. Jenny Hoggarth of Johannesburg said the mood reminded her of the country’s first post-apartheid elections in 1994. “It’s sad, but I feel a lot of love,” she said. “He’s old. We knew it had to come, even if we didn’t want it to.” Beside her, a young girl had begun to weep. Ms. Hoggarth patted her gently on a shoulder and said, “I feel like crying, too.” After days of vigils, celebrations and prayers following Mr. Mandela’s death on Thursday night at age 95, South African leaders prepared for a week of more formal commemorations, which will culminate in a state funeral next Sunday in the small rural village that was Mr. Mandela’s childhood home. According to a schedule published Friday by President Jacob G. Zuma on an official government website, the days leading up to the state funeral will be punctuated by reflection and prayer on Sunday; a national memorial service in an 80,000-capacity soccer stadium on Tuesday; and a three-day period, starting on Wednesday, for Mr. Mandela’s body to lie in state at the Union Buildings, the formal seat of presidential power, in Pretoria. The White House said Saturday that President Obama and the first lady, Michelle Obama, would attend the memorial service on Tuesday. Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, along with former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, will travel to South Africa on Air Force One as Mr. Obama’s guests. Former President Jimmy Carter will attend as well, according to his spokeswoman, but the first President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, will not. With elections scheduled for April, Mr. Zuma has urged South Africans to focus on the preparations for the funeral. Mr. Mandela’s family broke its silence after his death with a statement read by a spokesman, Lt. Gen. Themba Templeton Matanzima, saying it had “not been easy” in recent days and referring to Mr. Mandela’s long years behind bars. “The pillar of the family is gone, just as he was away for the 27 painful years of imprisonment,” the statement said, adding that his “spirit endures.” On Saturday, the South African government said that Mr. Mandela’s body would be taken to the Union Buildings from a military hospital in a public procession spanning three days, and that the route would be announced in advance so the public could witness it. The memorial schedule made clear that people filing past the coffin would be subject to tight controls to ensure that the process was “dignified and orderly,” with cameras and cellphones forbidden. “The security forces will control access to the Union Buildings and facilitate the file-past process,” the schedule said. “Roads immediately surrounding the Union Buildings will be closed.” People wishing to view the coffin will have to report to one of two central venues to be shuttled to the Union Buildings, Collins Chabane, a government minister in the president’s office, said in a statement . He said hundreds of other events would be held in provinces and towns away from the centers of government. The arrangements were designed to offer ordinary South Africans some access to a momentous period in their modern history. But the state funeral in Qunu, in the Eastern Cape region, will present the authorities with logistical challenges of a different order as they work to ferry dignitaries to the grave site. According to the memorial schedule, the South African military will be in charge of the final transfer of the body when it is flown to the Eastern Cape from an air force base in Pretoria. When it arrives at the airport in the small town of Mthatha, the schedule said, “a military guard of honor will welcome the mortal remains, which will be draped in the national flag.” The state airline will provide charter flights to take mourners there, news reports said. The day after the funeral is a public holiday in South Africa known as the Day of Reconciliation, which has been observed since 1994, after the end of apartheid. For South Africans across the racial spectrum, it is laden with associations from earlier times in the country’s tortured history. In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Zuma said he would attend a Methodist church service in Johannesburg on Sunday. He repeated his call “to all to go to stadiums, halls, churches, temples or synagogues” to celebrate Mr. Mandela’s life. “We should, while mourning, also sing at the top of our voices, dance and do whatever we want to do, to celebrate the life of this outstanding revolutionary who kept the spirit of freedom alive and led us to a new society,” Mr. Zuma said. “As South Africans, we sing when we are happy, and we also sing when we are sad to make ourselves feel better. “Let us celebrate Madiba in this way, which we know best,” he added, referring to Mr. Mandela by his widely used clan name. “Let us sing for Madiba.” Mr. Zuma quoted Mr. Mandela as saying it “would be very egotistical of me to say how I would like to be remembered. I’d leave that entirely to South Africans. I would just like a simple stone on which is written, ‘Mandela.’ ” Since Mr. Mandela’s death was announced on Thursday, tributes have poured in. Among the most recent, published in Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper on Saturday , is an encomium from President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who called Mr. Mandela “the great icon of African liberation.” The praise masked Mr. Mugabe’s uneasy relationship with Mr. Mandela, who spoke in 2008 of a “tragic failure of leadership” in Zimbabwe as the economy there fell into a tailspin and political violence seized the land. In a letter to Mr. Zuma on Friday, The Herald reported, Mr. Mugabe said: “Mr. Nelson Mandela’s renowned and illustrious political life will forever remain a beacon of excellence. Not only was he a great champion of the emancipation of the oppressed, but he also was a humble and compassionate leader who showed selfless dedication to the service of his people.” One of the mourners at Mr. Mandela’s home in Houghton, Vusi Ntuli, 34, said he and his family had come from Pretoria on Thursday night after the announcement of Mr. Mandela’s death, and had taken part in the informal observances on Friday and Saturday. He said he would also travel to Qunu for the burial. “This man has done so much and deserves to be followed,” Mr. Ntuli said. “As you can see when you look around, this really is a rainbow nation, with people from all different walks of life.”

South Africa
Nelson Mandela
Funerals
Jacob G Zuma


‘Inverted Cheerios Effect’ Returns Physics to the Breakfast Table

Abstract: Is it polite to discuss the fundamental forces of the universe at the breakfast table? The Cheerios effect — which described why those little O’s clump together on the surface of milk in your bowl — brought physics to morning mealtimes when it was identified more than 10 years ago. Now, scientists are extending that conversation over breakfast with “the inverted Cheerios effect.” But for this one, you should swap your bowl of cereal for a pan full of Jell-O. Here’s why: The Cheerios effect isn’t really about cereal, it’s about how solids come together atop liquids. The lessons you can learn from playing with your breakfast are so broad that astrophysicists have used them to better understand how gravity binds objects in space. Now, a group of European and American scientists have asked: What would happen if the roles of solids and liquids were reversed? How do liquids behave atop solids? Some things were known: Two drops of milk on a Cheerio will just soak in. Drops of liquid on something rigid and flat, like the bottom of a bowl, stay put unless an external force moves them together. And on a soft surface that can deform itself, like Jell-O, liquid drops will attract, just like bits of cereal in milk (except over a much longer time frame). But the scientists were surprised to find that if that soft surface is sufficiently thin, the drops will repel, according to their pape r published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their findings provide insights for materials science and bioengineering. The Cheerios effect results from surface tension and gravity. The weight of the cereal deforms the surface of the milk, curving it, allowing gravity to pull the little morsels together like a trampoline might pull together two heavy stones. The same thing goes for bubbles, paper clips, pocket change and other objects, as you can see in this YouTube video: This configuration allows solid objects to use less energy. “That’s how nature creates everything,” said Siddhartha Das , a mechanical engineer at the University of Maryland who worked on the study. “Mankind, plants and even galaxies.” In a similar way, in most cases it also holds true for drops of water atop a silicone gel, according to the paper. But it’s easier to imagine another way: If you placed drops of water on a slab of Jell-O and waited long enough, the two drops would merge, as you can see in this simulation of the inverted Cheerios effect from the paper: But, if your Jell-O slab were much thinner, those drops would repel. This is what the scientists found when the gel was a tenth the thickness of their drops. That they could change the behavior of the drops by manipulating the thickness of a silicone gel on which they rested came as a surprise to Stefan Karpitschka , a physicist who worked on the study. “This is not often found in nature or physics,” he said. With the inverted Cheerios effect, attraction or repulsion is a result of an interplay between elasticity and surface tension. When liquids are placed on top of a thin enough soft surface, one part of the surface will rise as the other dips. This behavior, known as the incompressibility effect, forces the drops apart. The same universal tendency to conserve energy that causes the classic Cheerios effect is at play. By understanding the inverted Cheerios effect, Dr. Karpitschka and Dr. Das say, bioengineers and materials scientists could make liquids that rest atop various surfaces behave differently. In the future, cells, which are basically liquid drops inside a membrane, could be brought together or sent apart by manipulating the thickness of the surfaces they touch. That could lead to medical treatments that might prevent tumor cells from spreading. At a less life-or-death level, it could also make it possible to keep the windows in your car or the glasses on your face from fogging.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America


In Iran, 3 Degrees of Separation From Truth

Abstract: TEHRAN — Iran ’s interior minister admitted Tuesday that a doctorate he said he had earned from Oxford was a fake, and said that he was pressing charges against an intermediary who had forged it without his knowledge. Later on Tuesday, the leader of a parliamentary investigation of the matter said it appeared that the minister, Ali Kordan, had lied about his bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well, the ILNA news agency reported. In a letter released to the public, Mr. Kordan informed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he doubted the validity of the degree only after members of Parliament raised questions about it during a vote of confidence in August, the state newspaper, Iran, reported. Mr. Kordan said he had been victimized by a man who introduced himself eight years ago as a representative of Oxford and had given him the fake degree in return for a thesis he had written previously. “My degree was issued, based on my management and executive experience and in return for a thesis, by a man who had opened an English-language school in Tehran,” Mr. Kordan wrote. Mr. Kordan said that he reacted with “utter disbelief” when he discovered that his doctorate was a fake. He said that he had filed a complaint against the man, but had not been able to trace him. He did not give the man’s name. Mr. Ahmadinejad sent a copy of the letter to Parliament and a copy to the judicial authorities to pursue “the violator and prevent such cases,” the Fars news agency reported. Mr. Ahmadinejad appointed Mr. Kordan as the interior minister in August. But one of the president’s opponents in Parliament, Ahmad Tavakoli, later posted on his Web site a letter from Oxford denying that it had granted Mr. Kordan a degree, honorary or otherwise. Parliament held a meeting behind closed doors on Tuesday to discuss the case, but there were no reports that Mr. Kordan would resign or be dismissed. A member of Parliament, Ali Abbaspour, who was in charge of the investigation, told reporters that a decision on Mr. Kordan’s status was the responsibility of the speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani, and other members of the presiding board. Mr. Abbaspour added that Mr. Kordan, who has taught at the university level, had taken courses at Iran’s Open University, but that the dean there said Mr. Kordan had not been granted the bachelor’s and master’s degrees he claimed he had, ILNA reported. Mr. Ahmadinejad has come under increasing pressure from the parliamentary opposition in recent months. To date, Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on state matters, has backed him publicly. In mid-September Ayatollah Khamenei told parliamentary critics of Mr. Ahmadinejad, who were pressing him to dismiss a close aide for comments that Iran was a friend of the Israeli people, to back down.

Iran
Kordan Ali
Frauds and Swindling
Colleges and Universities
Ahmadinejad Mahmoud