New Charges for Man Held in Infant Son’s Death

Abstract: ATLANTA — A Georgia man who was accused nearly two years ago of intentionally leaving his toddler son to die in a hot S.U.V. now faces charges of sharing sexually explicit communications with underage girls, according to an indictment filed by prosecutors. The new indictment, which was filed on Friday, charges Justin Ross Harris with two counts of sexual exploitation of children and six counts of dissemination of harmful material to minors. Mr. Harris already faces multiple charges , including murder, in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son Cooper. His trial on those charges is set to begin April 11. “We are concerned that the timing of this indictment is a calculated maneuver to inflame public opinion against Ross on the eve of jury selection,” Mr. Harris’s lawyer, Maddox Kilgore, said in an emailed statement. “It is clear that these allegations are wholly unrelated to the accidental death of Cooper Harris.” The state has investigated every aspect of Mr. Harris’s life for nearly two years, and makes no new allegations of cruelty, abuse or neglect in the new indictment, Mr. Kilgore said. “The content and timing of this indictment confirms the absence of such evidence, and it signals the state’s desperation to convict Ross of the worst mistake any of us as parents could make,” he said. The Cobb County district attorney, Vic Reynolds, said in an emailed statement that the new charges stemmed from advances in electronic forensic analysis and newly discovered victims. If the state had waited any longer to file the new charges, some would have been barred by the statute of limitations, he said. The indictment names three underage girls and says Mr. Harris had lewd photos of two of them, sent nude photos to two of them, and gave two of them printed material containing “explicit and detailed verbal descriptions and narrative accounts of sexual excitement and sexual conduct.” Mr. Harris was previously indicted in September 2014 on charges including malice murder, felony murder and cruelty to children. That indictment also includes charges related to accusations that Mr. Harris tried to get an underage girl to send him a photo of her genitalia, had sexually explicit online conversations with her, and sent her a sexually explicit photo. The police have said that Cooper Harris was left in an S.U.V. for about seven hours on a day when the Atlanta area temperature reached at least the high 80s. The medical examiner’s office has said the boy died of hyperthermia — essentially overheating — and called his death a homicide. Mr. Harris has been in jail without bond since the day his son died. His lawyers have said the boy’s death was an accident.

Atlanta
Georgia
Justin Ross Harris
Children
Cooper Harris
Murders and Homicides
Child Abuse
Pornography


Marijuana Legalization in New England Is Stalled by Opiate Crisis

Abstract: MONTPELIER, Vt. — First came Colorado and Washington. Then Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C. Now advocates for legal marijuana are looking to New England, hoping this part of the country will open a new front in their efforts to expand legalization nationwide. But this largely liberal region is struggling with the devastating effect of opiate abuse, which is disrupting families, taxing law enforcement agencies and taking lives. And many lawmakers and public officials are balking at the idea of legalizing a banned substance, citing potential social costs. “The shadow of the heroin epidemic is something that people think about when they think about the legalization, and they ask themselves, ‘Are we sending the right message about legalization?’ ” said Shap Smith, the speaker of the House in Vermont, who is open to legalizing marijuana. “I think in the public’s mind, it’s making passage of this bill more difficult.” A Vermont bill supported by Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, and approved by the State Senate in February would create a regulated market for recreational marijuana in this deeply progressive state — the cradle of Phish and New England’s proud hippie haven. But the bill is hobbling through the House, where it was stripped this month of the parts that would allow legalization. As of Friday, it contains only a cautious provision to allow home-growing and legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana — well short of the regulated market that Mr. Shumlin has called for. Lawmakers’ largest concerns are those that have emerged in state after state as the legalization movement has taken off: use and abuse by young people, impaired driving and commercialization. But the opiate crisis, in which heroin, fentanyl and other drugs have killed more than 2,000 people in New England in the last year, is a substantial stumbling block, complicating efforts throughout the region and figuring into anti-legalization political alliances. “At a time when we are trying and working so desperately hard to get help to those who need it, telling young people to not do drugs, trying to eliminate some of the barriers to treatment and to promote recovery, this effort at legalization seems to be directly at odds with those efforts,” said Maura Healey, the attorney general in Massachusetts and a Democrat, who opposes an initiative that is expected to land on the ballot in November. It would allow adults to possess up to 10 ounces of marijuana at home, permit edibles and create a regulated market. Advocates are using the heroin crisis as an argument in favor of legalization, saying that it would move the substance out of the hands of traffickers and that it “would reduce the amount of interaction with hard drug dealers, period,” said Matt Simon, the New England political director of the Marijuana Policy Project, a national organization working on legalization. National advocates of legalization hope that with New England, they can find success in a new part of the country. “One part of it is demonstrating quite powerfully that marijuana reform is not just a West Coast phenomenon; it’s also an East Coast one,” said Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. But the future of the Vermont bill is unclear. A bid to place a proposal on the ballot in Massachusetts is opposed by the state’s most powerful politicians; a ballot question in Maine was held up by the secretary of state (although it may have new life); and officials in Rhode Island are moving slowly, partly to see what happens with their fellow New Englanders. “I think if there was any motion in any state in the Northeast, Rhode Island would take it up very quickly,” said State Senator Joshua Miller, a sponsor of a bill there that would legalize marijuana. The heroin epidemic was at the center of debate in Massachusetts last week, when a coalition of state leaders — including Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, and Speaker Robert A. DeLeo of the House, a Democrat — announced a campaign against the initiative. Image A man in New London, Conn., preparing to inject heroin last month. Supporters and opponents of marijuana legalization have cited the region’s opioid crisis as part of their arguments. Credit John Moore/Getty Images An analysis last month by WBUR, a public radio station in Boston, noted that all 85 marijuana-related ballot questions in Massachusetts’s history had passed, and public opinion could well favor legalization this time around, too. But in a statement, Mr. Baker argued that legalization would “threaten to reverse progress combating the growing opioid epidemic so this industry can rake in millions in profits.” The coalition also has the support of Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston, a recovering alcoholic who is widely admired for his outspokenness about substance abuse. “It’s definitely a personal issue,” Mr. Walsh said in an interview. “I have too many people that I know that started their addiction road by smoking marijuana.” The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol responded on Friday by highlighting Mr. Baker’s and Mr. Walsh’s support of policies that would loosen liquor regulations — although a graphic of the men with a speech bubble saying “Drink More Alcohol” was criticized as insensitive to Mr. Walsh. The groups said opponents of legalization were unfairly conflating heroin and marijuana. “There is no more evidence that using marijuana leads to heroin than there is that riding a tricycle leads to joining the Hells Angels,” Jim Borghesani, the campaign’s communications director, said in a statement. In states that have legalized marijuana, voters, not lawmakers, made the decision. That could become the case in Maine, which has a libertarian streak and began decriminalizing marijuana decades ago. A proposed ballot initiative there was halted when the secretary of state invalidated thousands of signatures, but it was recently granted a new review. If that initiative makes the ballot, “I think they’ve probably got a relatively good chance of passage,” said Mark Brewer, a political scientist at the University of Maine. Health officials in that state are considering whether to make opiate addiction a qualifying condition for the use of medical marijuana. On Tuesday, Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services heard testimony from advocates who said marijuana could help treat opiate withdrawal, and from experts who disagreed. Vermont does not have a referendum process, and that has made the state a test case for legislative approval. Mr. Shumlin, who is in his final term, said a carefully constructed bill legalizing marijuana could raise tax dollars that could be used to combat substance abuse and improve public safety. “If Vermont really is the first state that writes a cautious, sensible bill that’s adopted through a legislative process and signed by a governor, that would be a big deal,” Mr. Shumlin said in an interview. “It would be a big step forward for legalization.” Many law enforcement officials are opposed. “All assets — whether it be rehabilitation, medical, law enforcement — we should be focusing our assets on opiate addiction,” said George Merkel, the police chief in Vergennes and the president of the Vermont Police Association. “That’s a reason not to legalize marijuana, because it’s going to make things even worse.” The bill advanced on Friday by the House Ways and Means Committee in Vermont would create permits for residents to grow marijuana for personal use, but it would not legalize the sale of the drug. In a statement , Mr. Shumlin welcomed the development. “The committee’s action today takes a step towards addressing the nonsensical system that asks the one in eight Vermonters who admit to using marijuana on a monthly basis to buy it from a drug dealer,” he said.

New England
Heroin
Opioids
Referendum
Marijuana,Pot,Weed
Drug Abuse
Regulation and Deregulation


In Surprise, Recovery in China Loses Steam

Abstract: HONG KONG — China’s newly installed leadership is facing a major challenge on the economic front, after data released Monday showed that the country’s growth had unexpectedly lost momentum in the first quarter, complicating Beijing’s efforts to promote higher-quality output that relies less on credit-fueled investment. China’s economy expanded 7.7 percent during the first three months of this year, compared with a year earlier, falling well short of forecasts for an increase of 8 percent and slowing from 7.9 percent during the final quarter of 2012. Analysts described the data variously as “a big disappointment” and a “truckload of unpleasant surprises.” Several banks — among them JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland and Société Générale — responded by markedly reducing their full-year growth forecasts for the Chinese economy. Stock markets, too, reacted negatively. The Shanghai composite index dropped 1.1 percent, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 1.4 percent, and the Nikkei in Japan shed 1.5 percent. European markets also opened lower. The Chinese economy had been mired in a prolonged slowdown for much of 2011 and 2012 before it finally began to pick up some steam toward the end of last year. The data released Monday, however, suggest that the gradual recovery is proving more fragile than most analysts had expected. “We have been expecting growth to slow down again, but not until the second half of the year,” said Zhiwei Zhang, a China economist at the Japanese investment bank Nomura in Hong Kong. “The next couple of quarters will bring more headwinds, and growth will probably trend down even more.” Investment data also disappointed, while industrial output figures for March, also released Monday, showed that factory output growth, compared with a year earlier, had sagged to the lowest level since August 2012, when fears of a “hard landing” in China were widespread. Mr. Zhang said the economy’s lackluster first-quarter performance left policy makers in Beijing in the difficult position of having to strike a balance between maintaining solid growth and containing financial and property market risks. “I don’t envy them,” he said. “They have a very difficult job to do.” Beijing is struggling to shift the economy gradually away from the exports and heavy investment that have been the main engines of growth in recent years, seeking instead to foster expansion that is driven more by domestic demand and that will bring higher living standards and greater productivity. The Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, who took office last month, summed up the challenges Friday. “To come to grips with economic policy, we must both keep a steady footing and focus on upgrading,” Mr. Li told a group of economists and business executives in Beijing, in comments reported Sunday by Xinhua, the state-run news agency. “Since the start of the year, China’s economic performance has, over all, made a steady start, and this will help to stabilize everyone’s expectations,” he said. “But at the same time, we must see that there are still quite a few unstable and uncertain factors in the domestic and international environment, and deep-seated problems are constantly arising.” The flood of data Monday highlighted some of the uncertainties ahead. The pickup in growth in the past few months had been mainly the result of a rush of government-mandated infrastructure spending, as well as relatively firm exports. Liquidity also has been ample — so much so, in fact, that some analysts have warned that the resulting buildup of debt carried substantial risks, including asset price bubbles and potentially destabilizing defaults. Much of the new liquidity, however, appears to have been absorbed by borrowers seeking to service debts, rather than used for new investments or to take on new projects, according to Mr. Zhang of Nomura. He added that that might have been one reason that the first-quarter data had come in so much weaker than expected. Economic activity may also have been held back by policy uncertainties, as government and corporate decision makers awaited pronouncements from the new leadership team on important issues like the property market, shadow banking and the buildup of local government debt, analysts said. The authorities have signaled tighter controls in recent weeks in many of those areas, leaving some analysts to worry that the effect may be to dampen economic activity further. “While August 2012 proved the bottom for last year’s downturn, we doubt March will be the turning point for 2013, given macro policy has shifted to a tighter stance with renewed controls on the housing market, local government financing vehicles and wealth management products,” Xianfang Ren and Alistair Thornton, analysts at IHS Global Insight in Beijing, wrote Monday in a research note. Fears over an outbreak of avian flu and new signs of slowing investment momentum could also sidetrack growth in the second quarter of this year, Li-Gang Liu, a China economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking in Hong Kong, wrote in a research note. A spokesman for the Chinese statistics bureau sought to play down the disappointing data Monday. “Our overall judgment is that although there was a slight dip in growth in the first quarter, it was, generally speaking, a steady start with stable progress,” Sheng Laiyun, the spokesman, said in a televised news conference in Beijing. “China’s basic circumstances have not undergone any fundamental shift, and it still has the conditions for maintaining sustained and healthy economic development over the long term,” Mr. Sheng said. The country’s industrialization and urbanization will remain powerful engines for relatively rapid growth, he said, while the data also contained signs that domestic consumption was making a growing contribution to that growth, displacing China’s traditional reliance on industrial and infrastructure investment. Indeed, some other analysts agreed the data reflected a temporary slowdown and dismissed thoughts of any hasty policy response. “There is no evidence to suggest even a bit of panic among senior policy makers,” China economists at the British bank Standard Chartered wrote in a research note. They wrote that China’s growth outlook remained positive, and the completion of the leadership reshuffling in March meant that more investment projects could get under way.


Fed Report Shows Modest Growth in Many U.S. Areas

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The United States economy continued to show mixed signals from late November to early January, as improvements in the labor market and consumer spending were offset by the drag of a strong dollar and low energy prices, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday. Economic activity expanded in nine of the country’s 12 districts, the Fed said in its Beige Book report of anecdotal information on business activity collected from contacts nationwide. The Boston Fed described economic activity as upbeat, while the New York and Kansas City districts described it as essentially flat. Most others described activity as modest. Half the central bank’s districts in the United States said the outlook for future economic growth remained mostly positive. But while the labor market continued to improve and most districts reported “slight to moderate” growth in consumer spending, other sectors showed further strain. Most manufacturing sectors weakened and “several districts reported the strong dollar’s negative impact on demand,” the Fed said. Contacts in the Philadelphia and San Francisco districts also cited weak global demand as contributing to declines. Elsewhere, most areas of the energy sector “struggled further” as oil and gas prices continued to drop. The Cleveland and Kansas City districts reported that warmer-than-usual weather “increased already abundant inventories of oil and gas and kept downward pressure on already low energy prices.” The Fed raised interest rates last month by a quarter of a percentage point, from near zero, the first increase in almost a decade. On the whole, Fed policy makers see four additional quarter-point increases in 2016 but have made clear that would depend on data and a tangible move in inflation toward the Fed’s 2 percent target. The report showed little sign that the wage pressures that started to tick up in October and November were becoming sustained. Nearly all districts said overall price pressures were minimal, and just two districts reported an acceleration in wage gains. “Wage pressures remained relatively subdued,” the Fed noted. The Beige Book was compiled by the Philadelphia Fed with information collected on or before Jan. 4, 2016.

Federal Reserve
US Economy
Consumer behaviour
Jobs


Serena Williams Falters Early but Captures Title

Abstract: KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. — As usual, Serena Williams had all the answers against Li Na. But there was at least one question that left her stumped Saturday after her 7-5, 6-1 victory in the final of the Sony Open. Asked what she remembered about the first singles title she won at this tournament, she pursed her lips, widened her eyes, hemmed and hawed and ultimately drew a blank. “Who was it? Venus?” she asked. No, she was told. Her first victory came against Jennifer Capriati. The year was 2002, when Williams was 20 and the tournament had just been renamed the Nasdaq-100 Open. The name has continued to morph since then, but Williams has remained a constant. And though she clearly does not have a tennis memory to match Andre Agassi’s, it is understandable at this stage if the victories are beginning to run together in her mind. Her poses with the trophy at the stadium and on the beach have become a rite of spring, and she has now won seven singles titles here at the event she considers a home tournament, as it is about a 90-minute drive south from her home in Palm Beach Gardens. “I’ve grown up coming to this tournament as a kid, watching so many players,” Williams said, “and to be one of those players now is really, really awesome.” There have been days on this island when Williams — power and will personified — has looked unbeatable. Saturday was not one of them. Her fearsome serve was far below par; she put just 42 percent of her first serves into play and had more double faults (five) than aces (three). Her footwork was often imprecise, and her timing was off for much of the early stages of this final between Williams, the world’s No. 1 ranked player, and Li, No. 2, both of whom are thriving at the advanced tennis age of 32. Li, in the form of her life, has rarely had a better shot at pushing Williams at a major moment than she did Saturday, but Williams, as she usually does, found a way to get her hands on the trophy. This time, Williams flicked her internal switch late in the first set, with Li up two breaks of serve and leading, 5-2. With ample help from Li’s erratic forehand, Williams proceeded to reel off the next five games to win the set and take command. “When you wake the sleeping giant, you’re in big trouble,” said Sascha Bajin, Williams’s longtime hitting partner, who was sitting courtside next to her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. “Something has to happen for her in order to wake up. Whether it’s the crowd that wakes her up, whether it’s the switch she flips, whatever it is, she manages somehow always to turn it around. That’s why she’s one of the greats, and I don’t think this can be taught. It’s just a gift, and we’re all in our team so happy and blessed she has it.” Mouratoglou, the Frenchman who has worked with Williams since Wimbledon in 2012, would prefer less suspense. After Williams’s slow starts against Maria Sharapova in the semifinals here and in the final on Saturday, he sees much room for improvement. Williams appeared to be almost too far within herself early on Saturday, moving at a snail’s pace between points and looking tight once they were underway. “The body language says a lot, and you have the impression that it’s all too heavy for her at the beginning,” he said. “It’s a burden, but I think objectively that there’s huge pressure on her this year. From Miami last year, she won everything, 35 matches in a row, so there’s pressure. We can say whatever we want, but it’s there. And as she started the season with mediocre results, just like she did last year, the pressure has become really strong here. That’s the explanation, but it’s not enough. Even if that’s all true, I have to find solutions so she can start her matches stronger.” Li’s only set point came at 5-4, 40-30, and she appeared to be in strong position to win it when she hit a convincing forehand down the line, but Williams, well behind the baseline, moved quickly to her left and slammed a backhand winner down the line. It was a great shot under great pressure, and it was a reminder that, despite some early-season disappointments and a back injury that kept her from practicing for three weeks after the Australian Open, Williams is still in position to rule the women’s game again in 2014. “The only great tennis she showed was from 5-2 down in the first set till the end of the match,” said Chris Evert, an analyst and former No. 1 player. “She needed to get mad, and when that happens, watch out. She played very average up until then, and she still wins. What does that tell you?” Williams’s seven singles titles in Key Biscayne are her most at any tournament. She still has a long way to go to match Evert’s longtime friend and rival Martina Navratilova, who won 12 titles in Chicago and 11 at Eastbourne, England. But Williams is now the fourth woman in the Open era, which began in 1968, to win the same event seven times. The club includes Navratilova, Evert and Steffi Graf. The real rivals for Williams at this stage remain long-retired champions, particularly with Victoria Azarenka out with a foot injury. Williams has won 15 straight matches against top 10 players. Despite winning the first Grand Slam singles title of the year at the Australian Open, Li had not played anyone in the top 10 this year until Saturday. She trails Williams, 1-11, in their career matchups. On Saturday, it was Williams again posing in the Florida sunshine. It was business as usual except for one difference. This time, she was holding up seven fingers.


Sochi Olympics Construction Weighs on City’s Future

Abstract: SOCHI, Russia — Now comes the hard part. After Sunday night’s closing ceremony, Sochi must confront life after the Olympics and the impact of a building boom that, for a time, made it the world’s largest construction site. The area is now home to more than 40,000 hotel rooms, four ski resorts, dozens of restaurants and retailers, five sports arenas, one stadium, and enough roads and railways to handle 20,000 visitors an hour. That made sense during the Games, but what will happen when fans and athletes leave? This question faces every Olympic city, but it seems acutely problematic in Sochi, experts say, in part because the scale of overbuilding vastly exceeds what occurred in Vancouver, London and elsewhere, and in part because the area will face competition from resort towns in other countries. It also seems that few people in the upper echelons of the Russian government have given the future of Sochi much thought. “I don’t think anyone is sure what to do with it,” said Sufian Zhemukhov, co-author of a coming book on the Sochi Games. “I say that because President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev have changed the concept many times. First, it was going to become a kind of capital of southern Russia. Then they talked about dismantling the arenas and taking them north. A few months ago, Medvedev said they were going to open casinos there.” Virtually everything about the Sochi Games has been improvised, it seems, and their aftermath will not be any different. Russia’s primary goal in 2007 was to submit the winning bid to the International Olympic Committee, and one of the appeals of Sochi to the I.O.C. was that the area was largely undeveloped, meaning that Russia would have to produce lots of spiffy new buildings and infrastructure. The country delivered. Ultimately, more than 220 miles of roads and bridges and 700 sports grounds were built, along with overhauls and renovations to the power grid, the airport and the sewage system. The committee got its wish, Russia got its Games and now Sochi is at risk of becoming a gold-rush town that just ran out of gold. A recent report by Moody’s Investors Service said that the area would need to double its flow of visitors, to at least five million a year, to keep the hotels full. That is highly unlikely. Real estate companies estimate that occupancy rates could fall to between 35 percent and 40 percent after the Games, the report said. Image A gondola above the Rosa Khutor ski resort, which features 18 ski lifts, 48 miles of slopes, six hotels in operation and four others near completion. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times It is unclear where additional tourists will come from. Like many hoteliers here, Brian Gleeson, the general manager of the Radisson Blue Beach Resort and Spa, is not looking to the United States market, and he has written off Europeans for at least a year. Americans and Europeans have vacation options closer to home, in countries that will not require them to obtain a visa to enter. “What we need to do is focus on getting the home market up and running,” Gleeson said on a recent afternoon. “That’s 145 million people, and we need to get very creative about giving those people a reason to choose Sochi.” Some obvious assets are the Olympics themselves and the objects and buildings they have left behind. But hotels have to be a bit coy about promoting these attractions. An intellectual property law passed in Russia at the behest of the I.O.C. prohibits certain things, like the word “Olympics” and representations of the Olympic rings, in advertising. “So here’s our campaign for the wedding market,” said Gleeson, opening a ring binder filled with print ads in Russian. “It says, ‘Add your ring to our collection in Sochi.’ Here’s one for families: ‘Bring out the champion in your child.’ ” What about those tourists who want summer sun or winter snow? Many in the moneyed class of Russia prefer foreign destinations. A flight from Moscow to Sochi is two hours. You can spend another hour in the air and go to Innsbruck, Austria, where you are unlikely to encounter the weather anxieties that led Russia to stockpile millions of cubic feet of snow in the run-up to the Games. During the summer, Sochi’s traditional peak, it competes for upper-class rubles with beach towns like Cesme, Turkey. As for the middle and lower classes, they may be priced out of Sochi, where one-star hotels start at about $140 a night. The strange truth about these Olympics is that little has been built with long-term profits in mind, said Martin Muller, a professor of geography at the University of Zurich, who spent five years studying the area. At the start of the planning of the Games, private investment was meant to contribute more than half of the costs. As more projects turned out to be unprofitable, the Russian government stepped in. Image The Olympic Park has a huge media center that some have said can be converted into a mall, but the plan has few details. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times Now, Muller estimates that the public is paying more than 90 percent of the Games’ reported $51 billion cost. Much of what has been built is regarded here not as an investment at all, but rather as a kind of national project for the people. When taxpayers were not footing the bill directly, they were paying indirectly, courtesy of outlays by companies like Gazprom, the natural-gas behemoth. The vast majority of the company is owned by the state, and it was tasked with bankrolling the construction of the Laura Ski Resort, which has more than nine miles of trails. The resort, along with the site for the biathlon and cross-country competitions, located a gondola ride up from the base of Laura, cost close to $3 billion. Gazprom’s plans for continuing to advertise and operate Laura are unclear. Emails to the company were not returned. Adding to the sense that Sochi was not built for long-term prosperity are the dozens of businessmen who won contracts for other projects, large and small. Muller said that profits in these cases were often pocketed soon after bids were won. “You inflate the price tag of the project, give part of the money back to the official who awarded you the project, then subcontract out as much of the work as possible, and hide the money you took out,” he said. “That’s a much easier way to earn a profit than drafting a long-term business plan, and taking the risk associated with trying to bring in guests and having to invest in maintenance.” One upshot is that many of the buildings here were constructed on the cheap. Muller said that he met with engineers in charge of quality assurance and that “they told me there is no quality to assure.” “Quality wasn’t an issue,” Muller said. “It wasn’t demanded by investors, and nobody asked for it. Builders would sometimes even try to bribe their way through the quality assessment phase. This is not uncommon as a business practice in Russia.” Image The ceremony included a nod to the Olympic rings that had malfunctioned during the opening ceremony, leaving an incomplete insignia of just four rings. 1 / 17 That means many of these hotels will incur huge upkeep costs far sooner than well-built structures. Add in the problem of overcapacity of hotel rooms, and it is understandable why Muller is predicting losses and bankruptcies. Not everything here was built with such seemingly limited ambitions. A ski resort called Rosa Khutor, which hosted downhill events like aerials and halfpipe, has 18 ski lifts, 48 miles of slopes, six hotels in operation and four others near completion. Take one look at it — a cross between an Alpine nirvana and a chalet-themed strip mall — it is clear that this is supposed to be a destination with legs. Rosa Khutor is owned by the metals magnate Vladimir Potanin, whose net worth was estimated at $14.3 billion by Forbes last year. He conceived the idea before the Olympic bid had been won, then expanded his vision for the place. “We have no doubt whatsoever that this resort will ultimately survive and will stay a ski resort,” Sergey Belikov, a Rosa Khutor representative, said recently at a news conference. “Not everything happens overnight, especially if we take into consideration the sheer scope of investments that were channeled toward building such a massive resort.” But Rosa Khutor is only one part of Sochi. For the place to thrive more broadly, many here believe that the Russian government needs to promote it, often and loudly. That does not seem to be happening. “The government has the intention to promote Sochi as a destination, but there is no specific plan about how to do that,” Ekaterina Shadskaya, a director at the Russian Union of Travel Industry, said in an email. “President Vladimir Putin declared that Sochi will not be included in the government program of tourist development in Russia, because all the infrastructure is already implemented.” There has been some talk of converting the enormous media center in the Olympic Park — which is large enough for a collection of zeppelins — into a mall, but that idea is low on specifics. A Formula One track is under construction here, and some of the arenas could be converted into exhibition halls or used by professional teams for practice. When Russia hosts soccer’s World Cup in 2018, some games will be played here. But those events will use only a fraction of the capacity. Muller thinks that Sochi has a good chance to become, in effect, a ward of the state, subsidized for the sake of warding off accusations that the Olympics were a multibillion-dollar mistake. But that future is hardly guaranteed. “Economic forecasts predict low growth for Russia in coming years,” he said, “and there will be more urgent projects as well.”

Sochi
Construction
International Olympic Committee
Vladimir Putin
2014 Winter Olympics
Infrastructure,public works
Stadiums Arenas
Travel,Tourism


Off-Duty New York Police Officer Robbed of Gun After Attack

Abstract: Never losing your gun is among the most basic obligations of police work, impressed on officers in training and, if not learned there, then soon made clear in station house war stories about misplaced weapons. The ordeal of having a gun taken unfolded on Wednesday morning for an off-duty New York City police officer, who was attacked in the Bronx by a man who then stole her department-issued handgun, the police said. It is a rare act for criminals, police experts said, but one that can have deadly consequences. Just this month, a Mexican laborer was accused of using a gun stolen from a federal agent to kill a woman on a pier in San Francisco. The robbery on Wednesday underscored the risks of officers’ carrying their firearms away from their bodies, and the added vulnerabilities that can follow when an officer becomes the victim of a crime. The officer, who is 41 and has been on the force for 10 years, was taking an elevator down to a parking garage at Bronx Boulevard and 226th Street around 5 a.m., preparing to drive to her command, which is in northern Manhattan. She was carrying her gun in her purse, the police said. As soon as she stepped out of the elevator, a man thought to be in his late teens or early 20s ripped a gold chain from around her neck and grabbed at her purse. He demanded her wallet. “She fought him, and they were going back and forth in a tug-of-war type of situation,” Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives, told reporters in a briefing on Wednesday. A senior police official provided a more detailed account of the events. The officer reached into her purse to try to get the firearm, a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. But the man punched her in the face two or three times, causing her to lose control of the gun. He stole it and fled on foot, the police said. The officer, whose name was not released, was taken to Montefiore Medical Center, where she was treated for cuts and a contusion to her face. The police recovered surveillance video showing the attacker, a 150-pound man in a tank top, Chief Boyce said. He added that the building supervisor recognized the man from the area, and that investigators were looking for him nearby. The Patrol Guide, the Police Department’s voluminous policy manual, spells out the rules for how officers should “safeguard weapons at all times.” “Do not carry firearms in briefcases, handbags, fanny packs, hip packs, tote bags, knapsacks, paper bags or similar devices,” the guide says. “Carry firearms, on the person, in an appropriate holster specifically designed to afford maximum protection against loss of weapon.” The department also classifies “obvious neglect of care of firearm” as a violation subject to discipline by a commanding officer. Asked whether the officer made a mistake in not having the gun on her body, Chief Boyce said that it was “something for remediation” after the department’s investigation. Stolen police guns, while rare, have resurfaced in several deadly shootings in recent years. A teenager in Austin, Tex., was killed last year in a shooting with a gun stolen from an officer’s personal car. Six people were shot around Washington, D.C., in 2006 with the gun stolen from the desk of police lieutenant, who was suspended for 30 days. Keeping a firearm on an officer’s body is the best way to prevent it from being jarred loose, said John C. Cerar, a former commander of the Police Department’s firearms and tactics section, a lesson drilled into officers during training and reinforced, on occasion, by punishments like the loss of several days’ pay. Mr. Cerar recalled an episode when an officer brought his gun to the beach in a plastic bag and buried it in the sand for safekeeping. He could not find it, a lapse that Mr. Cerar said most likely earned the officer some ribbing. Robert J. Louden, a retired detective lieutenant who is a professor of criminal justice at Georgian Court University in New Jersey, said that the department had grown more rigid over the years about firearm safety, but that some officers were still guided by convenience. “If an officer is getting ready to go to work and is carrying the weapon in a bag, to me, that’s not an indictable offense,” Mr. Louden said. Still, he said, mandates about holding on to a gun cut to the core of an officer’s obligations. “This is a pretty awesome power and authority that police are given,” Mr. Louden said, “and they have a responsibility that goes with that.”

Guns
Bronx
Robbery
NYPD
Assault
Attacks on Police
Samuel Thornton


At a New Michigan Club, a Touch of Wimbledon at Members’ Feet

Abstract: PONTIAC, Mich. — Eliza Brown looked out at the clean expanse of lawn, precisely dissected into tennis courts by fresh chalk lines, and shrugged. Practicing on a grass court with her coach, Armand Molino, seemed strange. Across the ocean, the main grass-court event of the year was taking place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, England. But Brown was standing in this economically battered northern suburb of Detroit at a Midwestern rarity: a new lawn tennis club. The Wessen Lawn Tennis Club, a recently opened 24-court private outdoor grass-court center, is the creative reinvention of a closed community center and its grounds by Bill Massie, a local architect and the owner of the club. “I didn’t know playing on grass was so cool; it was a lot of fun,” Brown, 16, said as she packed her rackets. “Once I got used to the lower bounces, it was fine. I kind of liked how it was different, but still tennis. You have to really think about how you play. “It’s like I was playing at Wimbledon.” Grass courts are part of the origins of tennis, but they have been surpassed by hardcourts and clay courts in popularity. There are a handful of major grass-court clubs in the United States, like the West Side Tennis Club in Queens, the Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange, N.J., and the Philadelphia Cricket Club , which have been around for more than 120 years. This week, Newport, R.I., is hosting the only top-level grass tournament in the United States, the ATP Tour’s Hall of Fame Tennis Championships . “I wanted to bring a new experience, something that tennis players normally don’t get: something sensory, tactile, with a visual element,” said Massie, who is an architect-in-residence at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “Tennis players don’t get the same sensations as golfers do, with nature as a background, being part of the play in a beautiful place. “Being on grass brings a whole different dimension to tennis, and that’s what I love so much. People are drawn to this being different.” Massie, a club-level player, became intrigued by lawn tennis after his son, Tucker, won a 2008 junior tournament at the Longwood Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Image The Wessen Lawn Tennis Club also has a lounge area. Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times He became a student of grass science, putting in his own prototype grass court by his office in 2010. The court was a hit, leading to Massie’s idea for a lawn tennis club. Friends and family were skeptical, given that Massie had never built or run a tennis club. “I remember the first time he told me about it, I honestly didn’t take him seriously,” said Molino, a former touring pro. “I was like, ‘Sure, that’s nice Bill, any other crazy ideas?’ “Now I believe. Bill has big ideas, and I have learned to appreciate his intensity in getting things done.” Massie spent $300,000 on the property, which included the community center, originally built as a city waterworks plant in 1919; a weathered seven-lane pool; and 40 acres of land. The club is named after its address, on Wessen Street, a few blocks from Pontiac’s downtown. Mayor Deidre Waterman of Pontiac is happy to see the dormant land in the heart of her 59,000-resident city come back to life. Pontiac, like Detroit, has been under state control because of financial problems. It emerged from a five-year run under an emergency manager in 2013. “We’re working on recreating ourselves with a new spirit and vision, and this dovetails perfectly with the new Pontiac,” Waterman said. “We want to bring things that are unique and special to the city.” Massie, who has invested $1.5 million in the club, has committed to keeping it connected to the community, pledging to hold junior lessons, donate equipment and host open swims next summer. He is also developing the building into a bar and reception area, pro shop and offices, and, in the near future, a full-service restaurant for members and guests. The pool is being refinished and will open this summer. A few hardcourts and clay courts are in the plans. Massie would like to bring an ATP-level tournament to Wessen and have junior and pro players train there for grass tournaments like Wimbledon. So far, 105 members have joined, paying $1,500 to $5,000 for initiation, depending on where in the Detroit metropolitan area they are from. Massie’s goal is to have 150 founding members by the end of the summer, then to expand to around 300 through social and swim memberships. Image Eliza Brown, 16, and her coach, Armand Molino, playing at the Wessen Lawn Tennis Club. Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times The clear star of the club is the lush perennial rye lawn, mowed to three-eighths of an inch. It was seeded last fall, but some of the grass died during the unusually cold and snowy winter. A spring reseeding repaired the bare spots. Lori Miller, a Pontiac resident, watched Massie and his crew laboring last summer, using a laser level and an earthmover, to flatten the lumps and bumps before seeding. “I was curious what he was doing, and now that I have seen it develop, I decided I had to join,” Miller said. “I don’t know how to play tennis, but I am going to learn here.” Massie picked perennial rye to mirror Wimbledon’s playing surface . As with the All England Club’s famous dress code , players at Wessen must play in all white. The courts are in use only from 10 a.m. to dusk, avoiding slippery morning or evening dew. To manage wear and tear, only half the courts are usually in play, with the other 12 given a day or two off. Joe Vargas, a professor of turfgrass science at Michigan State University, consulted with Massie on the prototype court and club. “Only time will tell to see if the perennial rye is going to make it through the winters,” Vargas said. “The winters are different in London than in Michigan; they’re not as cold on the grass at Wimbledon.” Molino said Wessen’s courts were a step down from the All England Club, but on par with the club in Roehampton that hosts the Wimbledon qualifying tournament. Playing on a grass court requires more footwork for the average player than a hardcourt. The ball bounces a bit lower, sometimes skidding if the grass is wet. The surface feels soft, almost springy, and forgiving on the feet and knees. “It’s tennis that keeps you on your toes,” said Jim Radabaugh, a club member. “There’s something special about being out there, wearing white, on the green grass, enjoying summer like that. Once you experience it, you’re kind of hooked.”


Several Are Killed in Attack on Pakistan Police Post

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban suicide bombers attacked a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing at least eight people, including three police officers, officials said. Two militants detonated their suicide vests during a battle with the police at the station near Bannu, on the edge of the tribal belt, while a third attacker escaped. Bannu’s proximity to North Waziristan, the tribal district that is the main hub of Taliban and Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, makes it particularly vulnerable. Monday’s attack took place at the Kaki police station, eight miles south of the town. Pakistani officials have rejected American pressure to open a military operation in North Waziristan, citing the difficulties of operating in the area, which is also the main focus of the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone operations. One drone strike late last week killed a senior Qaeda commander from Kuwait who was thought to be close to Ayman al-Zawahri, the Qaeda leader. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack, which a spokesman said was revenge for the death of Ibrahim Mehsud, a nephew of the former Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a shootout with the police in November. The spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, vowed that the group would carry out more attacks in the Bannu district, which is on the western edge of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Nisar Tanoli, a senior police official, said the militants, who were armed with light and heavy weapons, had tried to storm the police station. “During the exchange of fire, one of the attackers blew himself up near the police station,” Mr. Tanoli said, speaking by telephone. Another attacker detonated his explosives inside a mosque at the rear of the police station. The explosion killed three civilians, Mr. Tanoli said. Government and security installations have come under attack in Bannu several times in recent years as the militants mount increasingly brazen attacks that underline the fragile authority of the state in the area. Last April, Pakistani Taliban fighters stormed the district jail in Bannu, freeing at least 400 inmates, including one who had been involved in an assassination attempt against a former president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan
Taliban
Bannu (Pakistan)
Waziristan (Pakistan)
Terrorism
Attacks on Police
Bombs and Explosives


A Tradition of Stars With Something to Say

Abstract: Before it was the No Fun League, the N.F.L. had loquacious characters with iconic nicknames. Dandy Don Meredith, Broadway Joe Namath and Deion Sanders, a.k.a. Prime Time, to name a few. They were as memorable off the field as they were on because they had style, a flair for drama and, more often than not, an attention-getting proclamation. Forty-five years ago, Namath predicted that the Jets would upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. He not only cemented his legend and Hall of Fame credentials but helped transform the game into a national celebration by leading the Jets to a 16-7 victory. Sanders, another Hall of Famer and a two-time Super Bowl champion, was playful and sometimes poetic. “If you look good, you feel good,” he said. “If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.” He still is. “When you look up the word cornerback, you see me,” he said the other day. “There’s a picture of me.” What prompted the quip was yet another discussion of cornerback Richard Sherman’s postgame eruption at San Francisco’s Michael Crabtree after Sherman knocked away a pass that led to an N.F.C.-title-clinching interception for the Seattle Seahawks. For better or worse, Sherman’s antics have dominated the days leading to the Super Bowl. Image Don Meredith, the garrulous Cowboys quarterback, was known as Dandy Don. Credit Charles Kelly/Associated Press We’ve learned Sherman is a bright Stanford graduate with a chip on his shoulder and admiration for Muhammad Ali. We’ve learned he is widely regarded as one of the best defensive backs in the game. Everyone from the editorial board of The Seattle Times to David Letterman and the rapper Lil Wayne has weighed in on the public reaction to Sherman. He has been called everything from a thug to a breath of fresh air. “Fans are allowed to be passionate by definition, with obvious limits,” The Seattle Times said. “What the gifted All-Pro player did not deserve or invite are the racist taunts and profane abuse he received.” Letterman blamed the news media. “They want him to be crazy, and then if you’re too crazy, they don’t want him to be too crazy, but they really would rather he was crazy,” Letterman said in a conversation with his guest Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints’ quarterback. As for Lil Wayne, well, he looked into Sherman’s soul and decided that the cornerback was faking his fondness for trash talking and was merely trying to get under opponents’ skin. “It all of a sudden doesn’t seem so natural,” Lil Wayne told Sports Illustrated. They were all a little bit right. In truth, however, trading taunts and quips is a time-honored tradition in the N.F.L. Before Super Bowl XIII in January 1979, Dallas Cowboys linebacker Hollywood Henderson called Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert “Dracula” because he was missing his two front teeth. He derided quarterback Terry Bradshaw: “He couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the C and the A.” “It’s part of the game,” Denver Broncos safety David Bruton said. “There’s always going to be chirpiness, no matter what. But I think just a lot of us are just going to go out there and enjoy the process, and if there’s jaw-jacking that goes on, it’ll be on the field.” The Giants great Lawrence Taylor used to walk quarterbacks back to the huddle, telling him about the play he had just made or was about to make. “I’ve talked some trash,” Broncos linebacker Wesley Woodyard said. “It’s fun and games, man. We don’t really think of it as trash talking, because nine times out of 10, the guy you’re talking smack to you either know or train with him, and you shake hands at the end of the game.” Even the most stoic players had someone who got under their skin. For Troy Aikman, a three-time Super Bowl champion with the Dallas Cowboys and a Hall of Fame quarterback, it was San Francisco 49ers safety Merton Hanks, who had an exaggerated strut he unleashed after making a big play. “It drove me crazy,” said Aikman, who is a color analyst for Fox and will call the game. “The gyrations after the play were enough to set me off.” But Aikman also shared a huddle with one of the mouthiest wide receivers in league history: Michael Irvin. It was mostly a one-way conversation. Image Deion Sanders often announced his superiority while collecting two championship rings. Credit Susan Ragan/Associated Press “The great corners I went up against did not talk,” said Irvin, an analyst for NFL Network. Still, Irvin says he likes Sherman’s confidence and combativeness and admires a competitor who can taunt the former Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis on Twitter, get in the face of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and earn a face-mask push from Washington Redskins lineman Trent Williams. “It messes with your head,” Irvin said. “This is a man who has the ability to impose his will on you. I like that about him.” Sometimes, however, enough is enough. On a Monday night game in November, Carolina Panthers receiver Steve Smith and New England cornerback Aqib Talib wrestled and shoved each other repeatedly. Early in the season, Aikman noticed that the 49ers’ Anquan Boldin was talking to his defender after nearly every play. He pointed it out on the air. “He’s a great player and competitor,” Aikman said. “He’d get up and early start jawing. It was every single time we had a game. When did it end?” On Sunday night, we will see how the Sherman saga plays out on the field at MetLife Stadium. It is clear that he has followed the lead of Hollywood Henderson and some of the other great talkers in N.F.L. history. “I’m doing everybody a favor,” Henderson said before the 1979 Super Bowl. “I’m getting some people to hate me. I’m getting some people to love me. I’m getting some excitement going around here.” Count Sanders among those who have been won over by Sherman and his gum bumping. He recognizes the point of all the noise. “Everybody comes to see him,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, most of you guys want to see him get beat, but that stimulates him. That motivates him. He knows that about you all. I knew that about you all. And do you know how wonderful it made you feel when I disappointed you?”

Don Meredith
Joe Namath
Jets
Baltimore Colts
Super Bowl
Richard Sherman
Football


A Leviathan Turns Philippine Fishermen Into Desperate Darters

Abstract: MASINLOC, the Philippines — On a scorching recent afternoon, fishermen from this sleepy Philippine town hauled blocks of ice onto a rickety, wooden fishing boat bobbing just off the shore. By nightfall, the boat would be on its way to coveted fishing grounds, and to a cat-and-mouse game with the Chinese Coast Guard. The 30-foot boat, with bamboo outriggers to keep it stable in the often rough waters of the South China Sea, was bound for a reef known as Scarborough Shoal. Claimed by both the Philippines and China, the area has long been the stuff of local legend — a haven for blue marlin, red grouper, lobster, skipjack, yellowfin tuna and more. “In Scarborough, you don’t have to catch the fish,” Jerry Escape, the town’s fisheries officer, said with a grin. “They just swim up to you and greet you and let you take them out of the water.” Fish tales aside, the beleaguered boatmen here in Masinloc have found themselves caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight that their country appears to be losing, at least for now. For the past two years, the shoal has been controlled by the Chinese Coast Guard, and the Philippine fishermen who made their livings there find themselves mostly shut out of fisheries they depended on for decades. “The fishermen have no choice,” Mr. Escape said. “They fish there until the Chinese chase them away.” The shoal is just one of a number of places in the South China and East China Seas caught in a tug of war between a rising China claiming vast swaths of resource-rich ocean and the other Asian nations that claim many of the same waters as their own. This particular conflict came to a head in April 2012 when the Philippines accused Chinese fishermen of poaching protected coral and giant clams from the area, about 124 miles off the west coast of the Philippine island of Luzon. A Philippine Coast Guard ship and several Chinese government ships were locked in a tense standoff for more than a month before the Filipinos withdrew. But the Chinese ships never left, instead setting up regular patrols to block entry and protecting Chinese fishing boats in the area. These days, the fishermen of Masinloc return to port with fewer fish and more tales of trying to edge as close to the triangle of azure water as possible and hauling in as many fish as they can before they are chased away. Mario Forones, 54, who returned in late March from a trip, said several Chinese Coast Guard ships constantly circled the reef while one planted itself inside, blocking any boats that might get past the first line of defense. “If you get too close,” he said, “they come at you in rubber boats and yell in English: ‘Go away! Go away!’ ” According to the Philippine military, some fishermen have gotten rougher treatment. During prime fishing season in January, officials said, Chinese ships used water cannons to drive off some of the Philippine boats. Though fishermen from more distant parts of the Philippines venture into these waters, they need larger, more expensive vessels to reach the area, load their catch and make it home, so they rely on it less. But for the people of Masinloc, the closest point in the Philippines to the shoal, the reef is considered an extension of the town. From Masinloc, a 30-foot fishing boat with a single engine can reach the shoal in about 18 hours. That had allowed the small-time fishermen to regularly take in more than a ton of fish a day even with their minimal resources. The catch is especially crucial because the town has so far missed out on the economic surge that has made the Philippines one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. The moribund town center features an open-air market and a mostly abandoned shopping mall. Vendors sell slippers and hot dogs from makeshift stalls, and customers are scarce. Mayor Desiree Edora said the town of about 45,000 was struggling to absorb the loss of business as fishermen returned from the shoal with smaller catches, affecting everyone from ice vendors to truckers to restaurant owners. Although she said she did not add up the losses in what is a lightly regulated industry here in Masinloc, she said they were substantial. The local economy is based on fishing, rice farming and a coal-fired power plant that feeds electricity into the national grid. There are no factories or call centers to absorb the fishermen if they can no longer make a living off Scarborough. The Chinese claim Scarborough Shoal based on ancient maps that identify most of the South China Sea as their territory. The Philippine government has produced its own maps, showing the shoal to be part of the Philippines since at least 1734, when the islands were ruled by Spain. Territorial Disputes in the Waters Near China China has recently increased its pursuit of territorial claims in nearby seas, leading to tense exchanges with neighboring countries. A map of some of the most notable disputes. Philippine officials say their country maintained unbroken jurisdiction over the shoal since independence in 1946, and note that the shoal is well within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The country has taken its claims — over Scarborough and other contested South China Sea areas — to a United Nations tribunal for arbitration, where they are wending their way through a review that is expected to take years. So far, China has refused to participate. In the last two weeks, the Philippines continued its campaign to expose what it describes as Chinese encroachment on its territory. First it seized nine Chinese fishermen it said it had caught poaching in another disputed area of the South China Sea, leading to angry condemnation from Beijing. Then it publicized photos of what it said was land reclamation at yet another reef, suggesting the work was China’s way of solidifying its claims to that area. Despite the government-to-government hostility, here in Masinloc there is little talk among townspeople of a Chinese threat, as there is, for instance, in Japan. Instead, they voice tired resignation. They are used to being poor; even before the Chinese took over the shoal, they said, there were few signs of prosperity here. While the town hopes to regain access to the shoal, Mayor Edora has taken other steps to try to help the fishermen. She has worked with the national government to provide them with artificial reefs that can be anchored to the ocean floor to attract fish, but she said the so-called aggregators had attracted far fewer fish than the natural reef. “That area is ours,” said Mr. Escape, the fisheries officer. “But the Chinese are strong, so they can do what they like. We are weak, so there is nothing we can do.” Tolomeo Forones, Mario’s brother and a part-time fisherman himself, said the solution was clear: Bring back American bases. He noted that when the United States military maintained bases in the Philippines, the Chinese Coast Guard was never seen near the country. In the short term, that looks unlikely. The United States and the Philippines recently forged a deal that would establish military facilities — mostly on the coastlines facing China — that are expected to host large American warships and possibly squadrons of United States fighter jets. But it could take several years to get those facilities up and running. Tolomeo Forones said he felt that the best chance for his weaker nation to stand up to China had been squandered years ago, when the Philippines in the 1990s ejected the Americans from their former naval base at Subic Bay, just 70 miles south of Masinloc. “If Subic was still a U.S. Navy base, those Chinese would not be there,” Mr. Forones said. “Now that the Americans have moved out, the Chinese have claimed our islands. They aren’t afraid of our navy. They only laugh at us.”

Philippines
South China Sea
China
Poaching
Commercial fishing
Masinloc Philippines


NBC Still Likes Its Notre Dame Strategy

Abstract: If Brian Kelly resuscitates the Notre Dame football program, he will make NBC very happy. You will never hear an NBC official publicly carp at Notre Dame’s recent mediocrity or the 35-27 record that got Charlie Weis fired after five seasons. They won’t say they wish that Alabama Coach Nick Saban or Florida Coach Urban Meyer were in South Bend or that Weis was the wrong guy for the job. That would violate the terms of the love story between the university and the network that began 18 years ago and is contracted through 2015. The toughest tough love that Dick Ebersol , the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, could muster was what he offered Thursday during a telephone interview. “Unquestionably, we would always like them to have a higher degree of consistency,” he said, adding that he felt they tried hard to “get it right.” Asked if Notre Dame’s value to NBC has diminished, he slipped the question a bit, saying that young fans “don’t know an era when it was the dominant brand in college football.” A lot of us are starting to forget those better times, too. During a 6-6 season in which NBC broadcast seven home games and the first of a new annual series of off-site, prime-time games, the network averaged 3.7 million viewers, better than last year’s 3.2 million during a 7-6 season, but a notable dropoff from Weis’s first two seasons, when the games averaged 5.2 million and 4.2 million viewers. Notre Dame’s eight games were, on average, seen by more viewers than the number who watched ESPN’s schedule of several gazillion games (2.87 million), but fewer than ABC’s (6.1 million) or CBS’s (7.0 million). CBS’s viewership was up 29 percent, thanks, in part, to the 17.9 million who watched Alabama beat Florida to win the Southeastern Conference championship game. Notre Dame games on NBC peaked with the 6.5 million for the home team’s loss to Southern California on Oct. 17. After that, no game was witnessed by more than 3.4 million viewers. NBC is paying about $15 million a year in the current deal, enough to help fund most of the reported $18 million Notre Dame must pay to buy out Weis’s contract. Jack Swarbrick, the Notre Dame athletic director, need only endorse NBC’s check over to Weis and add $3 million from the university’s exchequer. If Notre Dame is no longer a national power — and it hasn’t been for quite a while — is the NBC contract losing what once made it distinctive? Not yet, it seems. Notre Dame is still a big name and whatever happens there, good or bad, is newsworthy. The speculation about Weis’s survival was a national story. So was the roster of rumored replacements. And whether it can successfully recruit the best possible players to an institution with high academic standards (but without a warm inviting climate) is a running theme. “I think the package is fine and NBC is very happy with it,” said Kevin O’Malley, who worked with Notre Dame on the negotiations with NBC that yielded the five-year extension. He said that the numerous competitive games this season allowed NBC to retain viewers late into the broadcasts. A veteran college TV rights negotiator and former CBS and Turner Sports executive, O’Malley said that on a per-game basis, Notre Dame got more money than any other university in the country. And the eighth game that NBC now shows — next season, Notre Dame plays Army at Yankee Stadium — is a bonus for the network. Murray Sperber, a visiting professor at the graduate school of education at the University of California at Berkeley, said the Fighting Irish had a hardcore viewership that watched regardless of the win-loss record. “But common sense tells you that if you’re a mediocre team, don’t break into the top 25 often and don’t go to B.C.S. bowls, NBC will not be happy,” said Sperber, the author of “Shake Down the Thunder: The Creation of Notre Dame Football.” From Concord, Calif., he said: “They are still, in some ways, Catholic America’s team, but Catholic America is shrinking. A whole generation of Catholics haven’t grown up with the Fighting Irish.” He added: “What really stood out this year was the loss to Navy” — Notre Dame’s second in three years. Even with a light that is dimmer than it was in better days, NBC believes it is getting good value for its money, and it enjoys the association. “It’s one of the most important institutions in the United States,” Ebersol said. “It’s not a property that we’ve made an enormous amount on but we’ve never had a loss that would frighten anyone.”

Football
National Broadcasting Co
University of Notre Dame
Television
College Athletics
Ebersol Dick


Georgia: Court Rejects Challenge to Voter ID Law

Abstract: The state Supreme Court threw out a challenge to the state’s voter identification law, but sidestepped a decision on the law’s validity when it ruled that the plaintiff did not have legal standing to challenge it. The court’s unanimous opinion reversed a decision made in September by Judge T. Jackson Bedford of the Fulton County Superior Court, who ruled that the voter identification law was unconstitutional and an undue burden on voters. After that ruling, the State Election Board decided not to require voters to show a photo ID to cast a ballot in the November elections. A federal challenge to the law is pending.

Georgia
Voter Registration and Requirements


Gas Drilling Far From Imminent, but Debate Roils Otsego County

Abstract: ONEONTA, N.Y. — If Otsego County were Hollywood, then its debate over hydraulic fracturing, the contentious method of drilling for natural gas, would be resolved as it is in the movie “Promised Land,” which opened here over the weekend at the Southside Mall. That is, a good-looking representative of a villainous gas company would dupe the townspeople into selling him their mineral rights, only to repent after deciding that his employer was bad and fracking, as it is known, potentially worse. And this would win him the heart of the prettiest teacher at the local elementary school. Instead, people here are not following the script. Natural gas companies have yet to flock to this region at the foot of the Catskills, and truth be told, drilling is more of a distant possibility than an imminent event, since a state decision on whether to allow the process is still pending. But the debate between supporters and critics is so caustic it is as if rigs were already sinking pipe into every farm and backyard. On the movie’s first day, about 50 people from this area of 21,000 appeared for the four showings, a “good, but not great” turnout, one theater worker said. But they were a magnet for environmentalists who believe that landowners wanting to sell exploration rights to gas companies are bent on despoiling the pristine farms and foothills that ring the town. “When the gas comes up here, there isn’t going to be anything left,” said Barbara Loeffler, a retired farmer whose pickup is covered with antifracking slogans. “I own some land in Pennsylvania, and I’ve learned some things. If what’s going on there comes to this area, that’s the end of it.” Dan Mark Sr., a retired environmental health and safety inspector, was one of 15 ticket holders at the first showing of “Promised Land” on Friday. “If you look at the movie, it’s a feeling people here have had for a long time,” he said. “People here want to hold on to what they have. The other side, they want money.” Image The film “Promised Land,” about the gas-drilling process, also known as fracking, opened on Friday at the Southside Mall. Credit Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times On that other side, Dick Downey, the 78-year-old head of a landowner’s association, said he would not pay a cent to see “Promised Land” lest the money enrich its backers. “The evil gas company against the noble environmentalists isn’t what’s happening,” he said. “That’s a Hollywood construct. What’s really happening is, people up here with land who want to develop it against people who are quite comfortable and don’t want any disturbance. “There’s a lot of charlatans on the other side. They’re not telling the truth a lot of the time.” Truthful or not, the opponents of hydraulic fracturing are winning. Otsego County, like much of south-central New York, sits atop the Marcellus Shale formation, a gas-rich sheet of rock that underlies much of the Appalachian Basin. In Pennsylvania, where fracking is already under way, some landowners have made a comfortable living by allowing drilling on their property. But the critics’ case against the process — that land and groundwater can be poisoned by the chemical cocktail that is forced into the earth to fracture the shale and free the gas — is carrying the day. The number of Otsego towns with bans or moratoriums on fracking has risen in just 18 months to nine, from five, including the city of Oneonta and the surrounding town. And the share of the land under lease to gas companies for future exploration has dropped as well. “Leases have been expiring,” said Adrian Kuzminski, the moderator at Sustainable Otsego , a social network with several hundred subscribers. “A couple of these companies have gone bankrupt, and others have pulled out. So there’s a deceleration in activity.” But the movement has not relented. At the Southside Mall, “Promised Land” viewers wore buttons against hydraulic fracturing, and windows throughout the town display signs warning of its alleged environmental consequences. Proponents have responded with homemade placards extolling the virtues of gas: “Let’s boost our local economy” and “Support safe drilling and pipelines, jobs.” Image Signs of support for hydraulic fracturing in Oneonta, N.Y. Credit Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times Despite their critics’ accusations, landowners in favor of the process say they are not pawns of the gas industry. Rather, they see drilling bans as an infringement on their property rights, and drilling itself as the economic savior of a region they say is on the skids. Anna Marie Lusins was for years a member of the Oneonta Town Board. “I’ve seen a gradual decline,” she said. “Though we’ve seen an increase in retail space, I see a decline in schools. Our young people are going away. We need the economic development that will come with gas.” Mr. Downey of the Unatego Area Landowners Association said that contrary to critics’ assumptions, landowners wanted strict regulation of hydraulic fracturing and stiff punishment for any environmental damage it might cause. Indeed, he said, gas may be the only way to preserve the area’s rural nature. “You have people here who used to farm, and they don’t farm now because they can’t make a living at it,” he said. “The land’s been in their family for six, seven generations. They’d love to go back to farming but they can’t. But if they have the money from gas, they can.” Regardless of how likely or remote the chances of victory — or how close or distant the prospect of an actual well — neither side has any plans to stop. “We’ve won the campaign for public opinion,” said Mr. Kuzminski, of Sustainable Otsego. “But that’s just a battle. It’s not the war.”

Natural gas
Fracking
New York
Catskill Mountains
Otsego County NY


E.U. Reaches Compromise With the Netherlands on Closer Ukraine Ties

Abstract: BRUSSELS — European Union leaders reached a compromise with the Netherlands on Thursday that should allow the bloc to enact an agreement on closer ties with Ukraine, regarded as a landmark deal to counter the influence of Russia. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Thursday that he now had the necessary guarantees to start pushing the agreement through his country’s Parliament and to overcome the objections of Dutch voters, who voted against the agreement in a referendum in April. The Netherlands has been the lone holdout in ratifying the agreement within the European bloc’s 28 member nations. “I am going to fight to get a majority” in Parliament, Mr. Rutte said. “We will have to see. It won’t be easy. We’ll have to work hard for it.” If it is approved, the deal would allow the European Union to show a unified front against Russia, and to boost trade and cooperation with Ukraine, which has found it difficult to remain out of Moscow’s sphere of influence. “The E.U. can now keep a united front against the destabilizing policies of Russia,” Mr. Rutte said. The agreement between Ukraine and the European Union had looked like a done deal until earlier this year, when the Dutch government was forced into a nonbinding, or advisory, referendum. The rejection by voters had left the bloc in a conundrum because the agreement needed unanimous approval from member countries. Under the compromise, Mr. Rutte obtained assurances the agreement was not a step toward European Union membership for Ukraine, and that it could not be used as one in the future. The deal does not provide a collective-security guarantee or extra money for Ukraine, and it also requires the Ukrainian government to do more to counter corruption. The Dutch prime minister said enacting the deal was essential for national and geopolitical reasons, and pointed to Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian conflict and its annexation of Crimea. The Netherlands will hold national elections on March 15, and the move to sidestep the advisory referendum results with an updated agreement might not play well with an electorate that has been increasingly prone to snubbing the political elite. In a post on Twitter , Geert Wilders, a lawmaker known for his opposition to Islam, immigration and the European Union, posted a photo of Mr. Rutte with the Dutch words for “Resign and go.” Mr. Rutte also realized the challenge ahead. “This is not an election-winning point,” he said. “It is not a vote winner. But my job is ultimately to make decisions in the interest of the Netherlands and our security.”

Netherlands
Ukraine
Russia
Mark Rutte
Referendum
Politics
Geert Wilders
Legislature
EU


Calipari in Town as a Coach and a Topic

Abstract: As the Knicks were fighting to avoid their longest losing streak since 2006, fans might have been justified for keeping an eye on the action happening across the river at Barclays Center on Sunday night. No, the crosstown rival Nets were not playing. The No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats were in town, along with their coach, John Calipari, whose name continues to simmer in the discussion of potential candidates to replace Mike Woodson if the Knicks continue faltering. Calipari, 54, who coached the Nets from 1996 to ’99, is no stranger to the speculation about a possible return to the N.B.A., much the same way Nick Saban, the football coach at Alabama, is often rumored to be flirting with the N.F.L. Both have sustained their status at the top of their professions. Calipari, 130-27 with Kentucky after Sunday’s 79-65 win against Providence, won the national title in 2012, and recruits like few others. “I don’t listen to any of it and I don’t think my team does,” Calipari said after Sunday’s game, referring to the speculation that he may move on. “Every year I’ve ever coached, I’ve been — if there was a college job open I was going there, a pro job, a high school job, I was taking every job and I just don’t buy into it. The greatest thing for me, it took me 20 years to get a job like Kentucky.” At the college level, Calipari has proved to have a deft touch at nurturing N.B.A. talent, recruiting and coaching future professional stars like Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis. Image Coach John Calipari of No. 3 Kentucky coached the Nets from 1996 to ’99. Credit James Crisp/Associated Press Calipari is also a client of Creative Artists Agency, the talent management firm that represents several key figures on the Knicks, including Carmelo Anthony, J. R. Smith, the assistant general manager Allan Houston and Woodson. Calipari has had a close relationship with William Wesley, known as Worldwide Wes, a well-known basketball power broker and consultant for C.A.A. who is believed to have ties to the Knicks’ front office. “My focus is here, and I don’t get into all that, rumors and innuendo,” Calipari told reporters in Lexington, Ky., last month. “And it won’t be the last one that’s out there. I just don’t deal with it.” Bill Raftery, the longtime college basketball analyst who was set to call Sunday’s game for Fox Sports, said in a telephone interview last week that he thought Calipari would at some point be interested in jumping back to the pros. But he did not see it coming now. “Why would he leave?” Raftery said. “He’s so comfortable in how to get players, and he knows kids are going to rally to go there and want to go there. I just think not that he’s on cruise control, but he’s getting the pick of the litter.” With those blue-chip prospects coming in, Raftery added, Calipari’s Wildcats would always seem to have a shot at winning a national title, but there may be a point when that will not thrill him as much as it used to. “I don’t know if that’s now, though,” Raftery said. In June 2011, Calipari signed an eight-year contract extension worth $43.3 million, which includes a $1 million buyout if he leaves the program before March 31, 2014, and $500,000 if he leaves before 2015 — not enough, it would seem, to significantly deter a professional franchise from pursuing him. At Madison Square Garden, Woodson had his hands full in a futile attempt to keep his fraying Knicks from losing their ninth consecutive game. Before Sunday’s 103-99 loss to New Orleans, Woodson blamed himself for the team’s inability to establish an on-court identity. “That’s still on me,” Woodson said, “to correct that and get that headed in the right direction.”

Coaches
Knicks
John Calipari
Mike Woodson
Basketball
College basketball
University of Kentucky


Dunford Nominated to Lead Afghanistan War

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday nominated Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps and a combat veteran who led a regiment in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan . If confirmed by the Senate, General Dunford will preside over the withdrawal of most of the 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan expected by the end of 2014. General Dunford is to replace Gen. John R. Allen . General Allen was in turn nominated by Mr. Obama on Wednesday to replace Adm. James G. Stavridis as the supreme allied commander of NATO , whose duties include leading the American military’s European Command. Admiral Stavridis is to retire this spring. General Dunford would take over the 11-year-old Afghan conflict, America’s longest war, at a difficult time . Although American forces have pushed back insurgents in critical areas, particularly in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, eastern Afghanistan remains volatile, and over all the Taliban have proved potent. In recent months more than 50 American and coalition troops have died in a wave of insider attacks at the hands of their partners, the Afghan security forces, which have been infiltrated by the Taliban. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, speaking at a NATO meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, praised General Dunford as “an exceptionally gifted strategic leader.” He will be the sixth American commander in Afghanistan since October 2001, when President George W. Bush began the war as a response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Last month the United States withdrew the last of the 33,000 “surge” forces from Afghanistan that Mr. Obama ordered to try to bring the war under control. With the reduction over the next two years of the remaining 68,000 American troops, General Dunford would lead a force that is to operate from fewer bases and will train Afghan forces to take the lead in combat. Mr. Obama said Wednesday in a statement that General Dunford “will lead our forces through key milestones in our effort that will allow us to bring the war to a close responsibly as Afghanistan takes full responsibility for its security.”

United States Defense and Military Forces


I.O.C. Official Feeling Better About Rio

Abstract: John Coates, the International Olympic Committee vice president who almost a year ago called Rio de Janeiro’s preparations for the 2016 Olympics the worst in memory, now says much has changed. “I’m a lot more relaxed,” said Coates, who gave some of the credit to Gilbert Felli, a former Olympics official who has been in Rio as a troubleshooter. ■ Nevada gambling regulators voted to allow the state’s sports books to offer bets on the Olympics.

International Olympic Committee
Rio de Janeiro
2016 Summer Olympics
John D Coates


New Restrictions on Social Networking Sites in Beijing, China

Abstract: BEIJING — Officials announced new rules on Friday aimed at controlling the way Chinese Internet users post messages on social networking sites that have posed challenges to the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machinery. For many users, the most striking of the new rules requires people using the sites, called microblogs, or weibo in Chinese, to register with their real names and biographical information . They will still be able to post under aliases, according to a report by Xinhua, the state news agency. Some analysts say the real-name registration could dampen some of the freewheeling conversations that take place online, and that sometimes result in a large number of users criticizing officials and government policy. The rule on real-name registration had been expected for several months now by industry watchers, and Internet companies in China had already experimented in 2009 with some forms of this. It was the ninth of 17 new microblog regulations issued on Friday by Beijing government officials, who have been charged by central authorities with reining in the way microblogs are used. The regulations also include a licensing requirement for companies that want to host microblogs and prohibitions on content, including posts aimed at “spreading rumors, disturbing social order or undermining social stability.” But officials have long put pressure on microblog companies to self-censor, and the lists of limits on content are more an articulation of the boundaries already in place. The regulation announced by the Beijing officials applies only to companies based in the capital, where several of the largest microblog platforms, including Sina and Sohu, are located. One large rival, Tencent, is based in Shenzhen, a special economic zone in the south, and an editor there said Friday that the authorities had yet to issue any new regulations that would affect the company. But analysts expect that that city and others across China will soon put in place rules similar to the ones announced by Beijing. “It’s just a further sign of the way things are going,” said Bill Bishop, an analyst and businessman based in Beijing who writes about the Internet industry on a blog, Digicha . Some Internet users, he added, may now ask themselves, “ ‘Why bother to say something? You never know.’ ” There were many comments of outrage on Friday from those posting on microblogs. “Society is going backwards,” wrote one user by the name of Cheng Yang. “Where is China’s path?” Many prominent commentators and writers with influence over public opinion already post under their real names. For example, Pan Shiyi, a wealthy real estate developer who posts regularly, has more than seven million followers. He recently used his platform to advocate stricter air pollution reports from the Beijing government. “In fact, serious weibo users have already opted to use their real names out of their own interests,” said another editor at Tencent who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of talking about government policy. Internet companies hosting microblogs have been told to comply with the new rules within three months. Sina and Tencent have more than 200 million registered users each; it is unclear how the companies will go about ensuring that each user has registered with real data. But Mr. Bishop said the technology was already in place and had been used by one large Internet company, Baidu, when it ran its own version of a microblog, which no longer exists. The registration information that users enter online can be matched up against a police database, he said. Leaders here have long discussed how to better control the Chinese Internet, which has about 485 million users, the most of any country. Most vexing for officials has been the speed with which information can spread on microblogs. This year, several episodes highlighted the reach of microblogs, including posts that ignited mass anger over both the Wenzhou high-speed train crash and the hit-and-run death of a 2-year-old toddler, Yueyue. China has for years blocked Twitter and Facebook, and officials here carefully monitored the rebellions this year in the Middle East to see how they were organized and what role social networking sites played. But Chinese officials also see the microblogs as useful. The sites allow people to vent anger, and officials can track posts to see the direction of public opinion. More and more officials are also being encouraged to use microblogs for propaganda and to mold discussions. Talk within the party about controlling the Internet accelerated after a policy meeting of the party’s Central Committee in October that focused on culture and ideology. In the announcement Friday, Beijing officials said microblogs should “actively spread the core values of the socialist system, disseminate socialist advanced culture and build a socialist harmonious society.”

China
Beijing (China)
Social Networking (Internet)
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Computers and the Internet
Politics and Government


Prison Workers Fired After Shocking Children With Stun Guns

Abstract: MIAMI (AP) — Demonstrations at three Florida prisons where more than 40 children were shocked with stun guns have led to the dismissal of three employees and the resignation of two others, the Department of Corrections said. The incidents took place on April 23, national Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. As part of demonstrations at two prisons, children held hands in a circle, and one was shocked with the stun gun, passing the shock around the circle. At another prison, children were shocked individually. The children, ages 5 to 17, felt the shocks either directly or indirectly, but none of the children were seriously hurt, the department said. All of the children had parents who work for the department and some parents gave permission for their children to be shocked. That did not excuse officers’ using the stun guns, the Department of Corrections secretary, Walter McNeil, said on Friday. “We believe this behavior is inexcusable,” Mr. McNeil said in a telephone interview. “I apologize to the children and parents. None of these kids should have been exposed to these devices.” Mr. McNeil said that he had never been shocked by a stun gun but that the circle demonstration was commonly done in training classes for correctional officers. Officials are also investigating a demonstration of tear gas at Lake Correctional Institution in Clermont. Children there were accidentally exposed to the gas when the wind shifted, but none required medical care. That investigation is not complete. The circle stun gun demonstrations were at two prison in the southern part of the state, Indian River Correctional Institution in Vero Beach and Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown. Seven other children were shocked directly at Franklin Correctional Institution in Carrabelle, southwest of Tallahassee. Unlike a Taser gun, which shoots a probe that delivers a shock, the devices used at the prisons were stun guns, which work when touched to a person’s skin and affect a smaller area of the body. The result is two temporary marks that look like mosquito bites but may later turn into bruises about the width of a pencil eraser. The department said that 55 of its prisons, just under half, participated in the national event. Many of the facilities had pancake breakfasts, speakers, canine demonstrations and tours of the outside of prisons. Some facilities had trainers demonstrate stun guns on themselves, not a violation of the department’s policy. None of the wardens knew the devices would be used with children, Mr. McNeil said.

Stun Guns
Florida
Children and Youth
Prisons and Prisoners


True Hero for Patriots Put Rookie Butler in Spotlight

Abstract: With less than a minute remaining in the Super Bowl on Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks lined up in a three-wide-receiver set at the 1-yard line. To the right of quarterback Russell Wilson, Ricardo Lockette stood nearly directly behind another wide receiver, Jermaine Kearse, a yard back and on Kearse’s outside shoulder — an alignment commonly used on pick plays. New England Patriots cornerback Brandon Browner stood across the line of scrimmage from Kearse, a couple of yards in front of Malcolm Butler, who was tasked with guarding Lockette. For Seattle, the concept was simple. Kearse would run what is known as a clear-out route: With Browner and Butler aligned so close together (in response to the way the Seahawks’ receivers were set), Kearse’s job was to make Browner backpedal. That would block Butler from cutting across the field to cover Lockette, who was to run a slant to the inside. After the game, critics of the play call said Seattle might have had a better chance at scoring if it had run the ball. According to the website Football Outsiders, the Seahawks’ rushing attack was tied for No. 1 in the N.F.L. in regular-season short-yardage situations, converting for a first down or a touchdown 81 percent of the time, a far better mark than the league average (65 percent). The Patriots’ rushing defense, meanwhile, ranked last, allowing conversions 81 percent of the time. Yet the sort of pick play that Seattle settled on is often called at the goal line because even a small disruption in a cornerback’s angle to the ball can lead to an easy score. If Kearse did his job, Butler would need to loop around both Browner and Kearse to be in a position to defend the pass. That is a lot to ask of any cornerback, particular one who is fifth on his team’s depth chart, as Butler was. And that is why Browner was the real hero of the play . Browner, who at 6 feet 4 inches is one of the most physically imposing cornerbacks in the N.F.L., jammed Kearse at the line from the start of the play, stretching out his long arms as soon as the ball was snapped and gaining superior position. Kearse was barely able to move Browner, which meant that Butler’s path to the football was not disrupted. To Butler’s credit, he read the play correctly from the snap and attacked with the perfect amount of aggressiveness, ending up with an interception that sealed the outcome, a 28-24 Patriots victory . Butler told reporters later that he had been tipped off to the throw by the stacked receivers and by Wilson’s eyes, which allowed him to beat Lockette to a Wilson pass that appeared to be on target. “The guy made a great play,” Wilson told reporters. Still, it was Browner who allowed Butler to become the star.

Patriots
Super Bowl
Seahawks
Russell Wilson
Brandon Browner
Malcolm Butler
Football