Rangel Found Guilty by Ethics Panel

Abstract: A House panel on Tuesday found Representative Charles B. Rangel guilty of 11 counts of ethical violations , ruling that his failure to pay some taxes, improper solicitation of charitable donations and failure to accurately report his personal income had brought dishonor on the House. After a public hearing on Monday that was truncated when Mr. Rangel walked out in protest, an adjudicatory subcommittee of the House ethics committee deliberated for four hours before finding him guilty of all but one of the 13 counts against him. (Two counts, involving Mr. Rangel’s misuse of House mailing privileges, were merged into one.) In a somber tone, Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the panel, announced the findings just before noon. Ms. Lofgren described the contentious process as “difficult and time-consuming.” The entire committee is to decide on Thursday what punishment to recommend for Mr. Rangel. The full House must vote on the recommendation. While the rules permit a range of penalties, up to expulsion, ethics experts and panel members have said that Mr. Rangel, 80, is more likely to face a reprimand or a formal censure. Mr. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, did not appear before the panel as it announced its verdict, but he released a statement shortly afterward calling it unfair because he could no longer afford a lawyer to mount a defense. And, even though he was the one who stormed out of the proceedings on Monday, he complained that the panel had taken action when he was not present. “How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room?” the statement read. “I can only hope that the full committee will treat me more fairly, and take into account my entire 40 years of service to the Congress before making any decisions on sanctions.” Because Mr. Rangel did not mount a defense, the panel is moving quickly through its three-phase proceeding: On Monday, it accepted as “uncontested” the facts underlying the prosecution’s case against him. On Tuesday, it determined that his behavior constituted violations of House ethics rules. The last phase deals with the penalty. The panel’s verdict was a humbling rebuke for Mr. Rangel, who has represented Harlem for 40 years and who was once one of the most imposing Democrats in Washington. Since the accusations were first raised two years ago, Mr. Rangel has acknowledged bookkeeping errors in his financial disclosure forms and has said that his failure to pay more than $60,000 in taxes on rental income from a Dominican beach house was an oversight, caused, in part, by his inability to speak Spanish. But he angrily denied accusations that he used his position to receive special treatment or misused his office as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to raise money for a City College school of public service being built in his honor. The only charge the committee cleared him of was an accusation that his involvement with the effort to build the school, the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, constituted an improper gift because it would provide him with an office and an archivist to oversee his papers after he retires. The investigation of Mr. Rangel began after news reports that he had accepted four rent-stabilized apartments at prices hundreds of dollars per month below market value. In the months that followed, Mr. Rangel confronted more ethics accusations. He was accused of failing to declare hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal assets on his financial disclosure forms, failing to pay state and federal taxes on rental income on his villa in the Dominican Republic and helping to preserve a tax loophole worth hundreds of millions of dollars for an oil company at the same time that he was seeking a $1 million contribution to the Rangel Center from a company executive. Because of Mr. Rangel’s high profile on the political stage and sway within the Democratic caucus, the case became viewed as a major test of the newly revamped Congressional ethics process. In the Republicans’ effort to recapture the House, they used Mr. Rangel to symbolize Democratic wavering on a promise to “drain the swamp.” Democrats countered by pledging that their determination to handle the matter fairly would prove their commitment to raising the bar on ethics in Washington. While Democrats have been reluctant to criticize Mr. Rangel publicly, he was pressured into relinquishing his coveted position as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in March. The ranking Republican member of the ethics committee, Representative Michael T. McCaul of Texas, said Tuesday that the investigation and verdict should allay concerns about the House’s ability to enforce its rules. “I’m hopeful as we move forward with this matter into the next phase,” Mr. McCaul said, “that at the end of the day we will be able to begin an era of transparency and accountability, a new era of ethics that will restore the credibility of this house.” But government accountability groups were critical of the secrecy and delays that surrounded the process. “There’s no good reason why it should have taken so long to bring a relatively simple case to a head,” said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause. While Mr. Rangel has been weakened by the long-running scandal, he will nonetheless retain the power to determine his own political fate. He has remained defiant throughout the process — at one point making a rambling defense of his actions on the floor of the House — and is all but certain to brush aside any calls for his resignation from Republicans or government ethics advocates. Just this month he won re-election to a 21st term. One unanswered question about the investigation is the committee’s decision to charge Mr. Rangel with ethics violations for only one of the four rent-stabilized apartments he accepted from a Manhattan developer. In addition to the apartment he used as a campaign office, Mr. Rangel and his wife used three discounted apartments as their residence for years. In his statement, Mr. Rangel sought again to stress that he was not acting to reap personal financial gain. “The committee’s findings,” he wrote, “are even more difficult to understand in view of yesterday’s declaration by the committee’s chief counsel, Blake Chisam, that there was no evidence of corruption or personal gain in his findings.”

House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct


How the Pay Figures Were Calculated

Abstract: To measure the amounts that chief executives were paid last year, Sunday Business asked Equilar Inc., an executive compensation data firm, to compile and analyze pay data from corporate filings. The data set includes information for the chief executives at the 100 largest American public companies, by revenue, that filed proxy statements by April 4. For each executive, total compensation is calculated as the sum of base salary, discretionary and performance-based cash bonuses, the grant date value of stock and option awards, and other compensation. Other compensation typically includes benefits and perquisites. All data are taken from the summary compensation table provided in each company’s proxy statement. Whenever grant-date values are not provided for option awards, Equilar calculated the value of stock option grants using the widely accepted Black-Scholes method and the company’s own option valuation assumptions. Grant-date values represent the estimated value of new stock and option awards. Although companies disclose grant-date values for these awards, there is no guarantee that executives will actually realize these amounts. They may earn more or less, depending on stock price movements. Equilar’s analysis reports equity awards in the fiscal year when they were granted. In some cases, especially in the financial sector, companies grant equity awards at the beginning of each fiscal year based on performance in the previous fiscal year. As such, the equity awards granted in a fiscal year should not necessarily be viewed as indicative of corporate performance in that same year. Percentage change in pay for each executive is calculated by using compensation data from the previous fiscal year. For some executives, particularly recent hires or newly promoted chief executives, their change in pay is listed as “n/a.” Their compensation, however, is included in averages and medians for other columns in the pay table.


No Mechanical Problems Found After Boston Train Crash

Abstract: BOSTON (AP) — A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday that no mechanical problems had been found on a trolley that crashed into another one here last week, injuring about 50 people. A trolley driver told the police he had been sending a text message to his girlfriend before his train hit a stopped train on the Green Line on Friday. The spokesman, Peter Knudson, said no problems had been found with the brakes or other equipment. Mr. Knudson said that the train was going 25 miles per hour when it crashed and that the stopped train was first visible to the moving train from 480 feet away. All the injured passengers are recovering, and the Green Line reopened on Sunday. The driver could be fired and faces possible criminal charges. On Saturday, the chief of the Boston area transit authority said he would prohibit train, bus and trolley operators from carrying cellphones and other personal electronic devices while working.

National Transportation Safety Board
Text Messaging
Transit Systems
Boston (Mass)
Accidents and Safety


A Samsung Phone Helps to Give the BlackBerry a Run for Your Money

Abstract: Samsung's latest smart phone, the SCH-i830, is an ambitious attempt to kick Research in Motion's BlackBerry out of the limelight. The phone -- with the Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC operating system and a tiny keyboard -- lets travelers work at home or abroad with aplomb. The SCH-i830 will be available from Verizon later this month for $600 with a two-year service agreement. It also supports quad-band G.S.M. service, allowing you to pick up a prepaid SIM card anywhere in the world and keep talking without incurring roaming charges. The phone can receive e-mail and Web pages over a high-speed EV-DO wireless Internet connection, and it has an expansion slot that lets you add Wi-Fi networking. You can edit Word and Excel files on the 2.8-inch touch-sensitive screen. Function keys offer easy access to frequently used programs like the phone dialer and menu selection shortcuts. The keyboard slides out from underneath the screen when needed. While it may be hard to pull the ubiquitous BlackBerry from the clutches of the die-hards, the SCH-i830 seems to include everything necessary for a trip overseas -- or across the country -- in an attractive package. JOHN BIGGS

CELLULAR TELEPHONES
TRAVEL AND VACATIONS


Arizona: Hospital Loses Catholic Affiliation

Abstract: Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix announced on Tuesday that St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center could no longer identify itself as Roman Catholic because it violated church teachings by ending a woman’s pregnancy in 2009. Hospital administrators said the procedure was necessary to save her life, and stood by their decision even after Bishop Olmsted excommunicated a nun on the hospital ethics committee. The hospital, which receives no money from the Phoenix diocese, can no longer hold Masses. But Catholics can continue to work and be treated there.

Hospitals
St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center
Roman Catholic Church
Phoenix (Ariz)
Olmsted Thomas J


Westchester to Offer Plan to Create V.A. Village in Montrose

Abstract: WITH hopes of building a multipurpose village for military veterans, Westchester County officials say they will submit a plan to develop the Veterans Affairs campus in Montrose to the federal government, which will put the county in competition with private developers. After an informational meeting Tuesday with representatives of the Department of Veterans Affairs and more than a dozen developers, county leaders said they would answer the V.A.’s call for proposals for the 189-acre riverside campus, confirming their commitment to creating the village. It would include housing, medical services and a commercial center with service-oriented businesses like small grocery shops or dry cleaners. Creating such a community, which has been advocated by County Executive Andrew J. Spano, would require the county to become a partner with other government and nonprofit agencies, as well as developers, to finance the project without affecting taxpayers, said Thomas G. Meier, director of the Westchester County Veterans Service Agency. But moving forward with the plan is essential, given the threat the pending relocation of veterans’ services from Montrose and potential private development poses to Westchester veterans, Mr. Meier said. Though veterans’ advocates have long fought Veterans Affairs plans for changes at the site, including moving nursing home and psychiatric beds to the Castle Point center in Dutchess County, formally putting the county’s plan in federal officials’ hands is the best chance it has for coming to fruition, Mr. Meier said. He said that with formal proposals due in less than three months, the county must flesh out details of its plan and find developers and financing. “We need to continue to participate in the process the V.A. has set up so at least we’re in the running,” Mr. Meier said. “If we fight them, the train is going to leave the station, and we’re going to be left there standing.” Local veterans say they are dubious about the department’s plans for the Montrose campus, primarily because the county cannot offer the Department of Veterans Affairs the kind of money private developers can. Daniel Griffin, executive director of the Westchester Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said he believed that the Department of Veterans Affairs would ultimately put the value of the prime Montrose property above veterans’ needs. In turn, developers will most likely have an advantage over the county when it comes to winning federal approval, Mr. Griffin said. “It’s a big money grab is what it is, to make up for the huge deficit that we have,” he said. “And they are doing this on the backs of veterans.” In addition, Veterans Affairs is considering what to do with much of the Montrose property at a time when veterans’ needs are increasing, Mr. Griffin said. The fate of the Montrose campus has long been a source of tension between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the approximately 80,000 veterans in the Hudson Valley area. After years of debate, the department recommended late last year that the 175 inpatient nursing home and psychiatric beds be moved to Castle Point. At the same time, it recommended building an outpatient clinic at Montrose and maintaining the 116 beds there for recovery programs for veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse problems or who are homeless because of psychiatric issues. Veterans Affairs representatives could not be reached for comment. Department leaders, however, have said that approving a redevelopment plan that benefits area veterans is part of their larger plan.

Veterans
Area Planning and Renewal
Westchester County (NY)


Hotels as Global Explorers

Abstract: ALL over the world, people are traveling internationally as never before. And major hotel chains are aggressively planting the flags of their various brands in cities and suburbs around the globe — so that a Chinese traveler who likes the Holiday Inn in Guangzhou, for example, might be inclined to stay at a Holiday Inn on a trip to Los Angeles. The idea is to “create brand loyalty, which requires brand presence” in a global marketplace where travel is surging, said Bjorn Hanson, the head analyst at the hospitality division of PricewaterhouseCoopers. This explains, for example, why Hilton Hotels recently announced a plan to open 25 of its Hampton and Garden Inn hotels — familiar brands on American highways — in Russia and across Eastern Europe. “The Internet and low-cost airlines have been massive enablers of travelers” worldwide, said Stevan D. Porter, the president of the Americas division of InterContinental Hotels, which, with more than 560,000 rooms in 3,800 hotels, has the most rooms of any hotel chain in the world. Like most major hotel companies, InterContinental has a portfolio of brands, each intended to appeal to a certain segment of the market. Typically, a hotel company will have a top luxury brand (Ritz-Carlton, for example, is Marriott International’s); a big urban luxury brand with space for meetings and conventions (Hilton Hotels’ flagship Hiltons, for example); and an array of limited-service, midmarket lodging (Hilton’s Hampton Inn and Marriott’s Courtyard and Residence Inns). Some also have brands in the budget categories. Thanks to assiduous marketing, most frequent travelers have a good idea what to expect from a particular brand in the United States, where there were more than 47,000 hotels with 4.4 million rooms at the end of last year, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Domestic hotel profits were $26.6 billion on revenue of $133.4 billion, up from $22.6 billion in profit on $122.7 billion in revenue in 2005, the trade group says, citing data from Smith Travel Research. That is a lot of spending, and it isn’t confined to the budget traveler. As hotel companies raise their flags globally, some of the most aggressive growth is in luxury properties. Marriott, for example, has 30 hotels throughout China representing most of its brands, including three Ritz-Carltons and three JW Marriotts, its other luxury brand. Six more Ritz-Carltons are scheduled to open in China by 2010, Marriott said. Whether it is business or leisure travel (and sometimes a combination of the two), the biggest single travel-spending demographic group is the baby boom generation, not only in the United States and Europe but also, to a lesser extent, in Asia. This group, in turn, has spawned a generation of savvy travelers. The oldest baby boomers are 61, with years of disposable income for travel ahead. In the United States, they grew up with parents who helped popularize the first major hotel branding success, Holiday Inn. It introduced a recognizable product and a consistent level of service in the 1950s to a market that had been served by individual (and often unreliable) roadside motels. “In that niche, people still want basically the same experience at Exit 175 as they had at Exit 1,” said Mr. Porter, whose company owns the Holiday Inn brand. At the same time, in the United States, InterContinental is aggressively expanding its top-niche InterContinental Hotels, which are generally better known abroad. InterContinental is also expanding a new, younger-market boutique brand, Indigo. “Our market today, more than ever before, is driven by globalization,” said Raymond N. Bickson, the chief executive of Taj Hotel Resorts and Palaces, owned by the Tata Group of India. Taj, established in 1903 in Mumbai, now has 49 hotels across India and 18 in other countries, including 3 in the United States. Taj’s first United States acquisition was the Pierre Hotel in New York, in 2005. This year, it acquired the Ritz-Carlton in Boston and the Campton Place in San Francisco. Taj is now looking for a property in Los Angeles. “It’s just crucially important to have a beachhead in the United States,” Mr. Bickson said. Holiday Inn, the granddaddy of all chain brands, is a quintessentially American icon. But did you know it’s also the No. 1 hotel brand in China? It has 44 Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels there and 43 in development, a spokeswoman said. And where is this American icon based? In London, at the headquarters of InterContinental, its parent company.

Hotels and Motels
International Trade and World Market


Discord Over Snooping Muted by Security Fears

Abstract: PARIS — In July 2013, a month after former C.I.A. contractor Edward Snowden shocked the world with his revelations of a massive United States surveillance program, a top French government minister took the stage at the American Embassy’s Fourth of July party here to gently scold his hosts for spying on friends. On the same day, the French newspaper Le Monde broke a story about what it called France’s own Big Brother surveillance program. The article revealed “two excellent reasons” why France’s reaction to Mr. Snowden’s disclosures had been relatively muted. “Paris was already informed,” the paper wrote. “And it does the same thing.” Much has changed since June 2013, when the Snowden revelations unleashed a global debate about how to balance the right to privacy with the need for national security. That debate is still alive but its parameters have changed, particularly in Europe, where public opinion has shifted in reaction to recurrent terrorist attacks on the Continent. Today, widespread popular outrage in Europe at whole-scale American snooping — which three years ago was both real and feigned — has been replaced by calls for more effective intelligence gathering at home. “There was a time in France and Germany when people would put privacy above security, but that is changing,” said Anthony Glees, director of the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies. “Whereas in 2013 they held up their hands in horror at what Snowden revealed, now they are holding up their hands in relief.” If the French government’s reaction to the Snowden revelations was mild, Germany’s was positively electric, in keeping with the country’s heightened sensitivity to violations of privacy. When it came out that the Americans had listened to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own cellphone, she took it up directly with President Barack Obama. Then in November 2015, Der Spiegel published an article saying that Germany’s intelligence service had itself been spying on foreign governments, European, American, even the Vatican, and international organizations such as the United Nations, Oxfam and Care. Since 2013, several European governments have seized on the public’s fear of terrorism to expand surveillance but also to put in place better safeguards to control it, with clearer rules and more stringent civilian oversight. France, Germany and Britain are now in the process of adapting surveillance laws in the face of the terrorist threat . In Germany, terrorist attacks this summer prompted the government to step up security efforts, including closer surveillance of the so-called “dark web,” where terrorist communications often lurk. In Britain, a proposed Investigatory Powers bill — also known as the “snoopers’ charter” — would essentially enshrine in law the bulk data collection and phone-hacking operations carried out by British secret services that were revealed by Mr. Snowden along with National Security Agency operations. Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, noted that, as the debate on appropriate government surveillance evolves, secret service agencies have an interest in defining their limits. “What is interesting in the U.K. is that, while the agencies are pushing for as much as they can, they also recognize that it is important to have oversight,” he said. “They have no interest in living in an Orwellian world either. It is a question of having the right structures.” According to Mr. Glees, the latest British bill is a roundabout way for the government to avoid public acknowledgement of what it was already doing. “The Investigatory Powers bill is in a sense for show,” he said. “The government is not saying, yes, we are doing it but rather saying, we must do better to regulate it.” In the meantime, the jury is out on how effective massive data collection efforts have been in identifying terrorists and stopping attacks. In the wake of the Snowden disclosures, a report by the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on the collection of telephone records of millions of Americans found no instance in which “the program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism operation.” Some experts beg to differ, noting that counterterrorist operations are necessarily secretive. Some also said that terrorist groups shut down communication networks in the wake of Mr. Snowden’s disclosures. “The behavior of terrorist groups has changed,” said Mr. Pantucci. “There was a negative impact of these revelations.” What has also changed since 2013 is that there is an ever growing awareness of how the concept of privacy has shifted in an era when citizens freely dish up information about their location, their communications, their purchases, their dining choices and travel plans to private internet companies, which in turn use the information for their own profit. Whether those companies can be forced to hand over this information to government agencies on the lookout for suspicious actors and activities is another matter. The fact is that what once might have been considered personal information has now become public. As the British newspaper The Guardian put it last November, state surveillance is only the half of it. “If you know someone’s real name, it doesn’t take much to find out where they live, who they like to sleep with and what their sister’s name is,” the columnist David Shariatmadari wrote . Ordinary citizens don’t have to look far for examples of how private information has become vulnerable to public exposure. From the hacking scandals at News of the World in Britain, to the data breaches at Sony Pictures to the recent release of Democratic National Committee documents to WikiLeaks, leaks — or some might say, theft — of personal details are becoming alarmingly frequent, sometimes with embarrassing or financially devastating consequences. Tech entrepreneurs have responded by creating encrypted communication systems that promise users that their information will be kept confidential. That is the good news, hailed by Mr. Snowden himself in an opinion piece for The New York Times. The bad news is that these systems are favored by terrorist groups like the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. According to French investigators, one such system, Telegram Messenger, was used by terrorists ahead of two recent attacks in France. Created by two Russian brothers who had to flee Russia under government pressure, Telegram finally agreed last February — after the November 2015 attacks in Paris — to close down 78 ISIS-linked platforms. But its founder, Pavel Durov, publicly backed the technology giant Apple this year when it refused to cooperate with the F.B.I. and unlock the phone owned by the killer in the December 2015 San Bernadino massacre. “Our right to privacy is more important than fear of terrorism,” Mr. Durov said at the time. That’s not a view shared by the French police who, like the F.B.I. in the San Bernadino case, were able to get access to the terrorists’ messages — although not in time to prevent the attacks.

Edward Snowden
Privacy
Computer security


If It’s June, the Blackhawks’ Hossa Must Be in the Stanley Cup Finals

Abstract: CHICAGO — Marian Hossa has been here before; he knows the drill. He has faced the cameras, answered the questions and endured the dog and pony show of Stanley Cup media day. “It’s so much fun to be here with you guys,” Hossa said with a chuckle Tuesday, answering questions in front of a sea of reporters. To be fair, Hossa also knows little of the alternative. A Blackhawks forward, he is making his fourth Cup finals appearance in the past six years. On a team with playoff experience across its roster, Hossa, 34, is the elder statesman, a player from Slovakia in his 15th season in the N.H.L. He helped the Blackhawks to a championship in 2010, after being on the losing end of back-to-back finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings in 2008 and 2009. Hossa played for Pittsburgh in 2007-8 and Detroit in 2008-9. “Somebody said I was choosing good teams when I was a free agent,” he said sheepishly. While some good fortune is assuredly needed for such a stretch, Hossa is more than lucky. He is a gifted and physical two-way forward with a nose for the net. He is fourth among active players with 434 goals in 1,018 regular-season games and seventh with 43 goals in 147 playoff games. After a season in Detroit, Hossa signed a 12-year, $63 million contract with Chicago, the type of deal cited for necessitating a salary cap. But unlike Brad Richards of the Rangers (five years, $39 million) or Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo (12 years, $64 million), Hossa has produced — and played a key role on Chicago’s second march to the Cup finals in four seasons. “Hossa is one of those guys known for scoring 40 goals a season and putting up big numbers, but he’s such a solid player, such a good guy in the locker room,” Blackhawks forward Patrick Sharp said. “When you have that body of work in his career, that’s a lot of hockey being played. It means he’s a good player, that good teams want him.” This trip to the Stanley Cup finals has a different feel, though, Hossa said, after a tumultuous off-season in which he feared for his career. In a first-round playoff series last year, Hossa was on the receiving end of a cheap shot from Raffi Torres that knocked him out of the postseason with a concussion. All last summer Hossa battled the recurring symptoms from his head trauma, but the injury was so severe that each bit of progress was stalled by relapse. “You have so much time off that you start thinking about different things,” Hossa said. “I definitely appreciate that I am still healthy and can play at a high level. I was glad I could return and be myself and I’m here now.” He was not cleared to return until December, but thanks to the lockout he was ready for the beginning of the season. He scored two goals in each of the Blackhawks’ first two games. But in February he was again the victim of a vicious hit that left him splayed on the ice in need of medical attention — this time from the Vancouver Canucks’ Jannik Hansen . The scene was eerily similar to the one that knocked him out of action for seven months, but Hossa needed just a few days to recover. He tallied 31 points in 40 games for the season, and reached the 1,000-game milestone for his career. Several Blackhawks teammates called him a player to emulate. “He’s been to four finals and I’ve been to one,” Dave Bolland said. “For sure, you look at a guy like that and want to learn.” The rookie Brandon Saad, 20, added: “He’s done it all. To be around him, it’s helped me a lot.” As he readies for another Stanley Cup finals, Hossa prepares to face his longtime friend and compatriot Zdeno Chara, a 6-foot-9 defenseman who also happens to be his neighbor in Trencin, Slovakia. Chara recalled rooting for Hossa to get his first ring when the Blackhawks defeated the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010, but promised there would be no such warm feelings this time around. “I try to joke with him because he likes to be serious all the time on the ice,” Hossa said of facing Chara. “He doesn’t like to talk. I try to throw some funny stories on a face-off and hopefully make him laugh a little bit.” Then there is the story of the Bruins’ Jaromir Jagr, who needed 21 years to return to the finals after last reaching them in 1992, quite the contrast to Hossa’s run. It is not lost on Hossa. “It never gets old being here,” he said. “And it’s even better when you win the last game.”

Stanley Cup
Marian Hossa
Bruins
Ice hockey
Chicago Blackhawks


Congo: Rebels Take Eastern Town in Setback to U.N.

Abstract: Rebels have taken back an eastern town that was captured a month ago in a United Nations-backed offensive, handing the world body and the government a major military setback. The rebel stronghold of Tchei was captured in late May by a joint force of 3,000 Congolese Army soldiers and 1,000 United Nations troops with attack helicopters and armored trucks. Those troops withdrew June 26, and a rebel offensive four days later took the town back, officials said. Congo's first democratic elections in decades are set for July 30.

UNITED NATIONS
CONGO REPUBLIC
CONGO (FORMERLY ZAIRE)
AFRICA
CIVIL WAR AND GUERRILLA WARFARE


Turkey Criticizes Kerry Over Request to Delay Gaza Trip

Abstract: ISTANBUL — Turkey chastised Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday, describing his request that its prime minister postpone a visit to the Palestinian territory of Gaza as a display of arrogance. The Turkish criticism signaled resilient tensions in the friendly relationship with the United States and suggested that the Gaza visit would proceed. The criticism came a day after Mr. Kerry, while on a visit here, told reporters that he had urged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to delay the Gaza trip to avoid inflaming tensions at a time when the Americans were trying to revive talks between the Palestinians and Israel. “Only our government decides where and when our prime minister or another Turkish official would go to, and is not in a position to seek permission or acceptance of any authority,” Mr. Erdogan’s deputy prime minister and government spokesman, Bulent Arinc, said in a televised statement. “Because both Mr. Kerry and the world know that Turkey has the power to do whatever it wishes at the desired time.” Mr. Arinc’s statement may have been partly intended for a domestic audience, aimed at countering the possible impression that a visiting American secretary of state could give Turkey orders. It was also notable that the Turkish reaction was delivered by a lower-ranking official, an indication that the Turks did not want the issue to escalate. Nonetheless, the brusque response reflected some Turkish irritation with Mr. Kerry during his first few months on the job. Mr. Arinc said Mr. Kerry’s public advice was “diplomatically objectionable, wrong and incorrect.” He also said Mr. Kerry had done something that “an experienced foreign minister would have never done.” The State Department spokesman, Patrick H. Ventrell, said he had not seen the full context of Mr. Arinc’s remarks, but he reiterated Mr. Kerry’s contention that “now is not the time” for a visit to Gaza by the Turkish leader. Gaza is governed by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that Israel and the United States consider a terrorist organization. Mr. Erdogan, who has long expressed a desire to visit Gaza, said last week that he might go in late May, after a visit with President Obama in the United States. But the precise date for a Gaza visit has not been announced. Mr. Erdogan made his Gaza plans known with Turkey and Israel in the midst of trying to repair their severely strained relations over the Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla from Turkey in 2010, which was seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The raid killed eight Turks and an American of Turkish descent. Mr. Obama brokered a Turkey-Israel reconciliation last month when he visited Israel. As part of the agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel officially apologized for the human losses, promised compensation and said the blockade would be eased — which the Turkish government demanded before full relations could be restored. Mr. Arinc’s criticism came on the same day that an Israeli delegation arrived in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, to discuss terms of compensation for families of the Gaza flotilla victims.

Turkey
John Kerry
Palestinians
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Israel
US Foreign Policy
Gaza Strip


Obama Releases Tax Returns

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama’s personal income has plummeted in the four years since he was first inaugurated, thanks mostly to declining sales of his two best-selling books, according to his 2012 tax returns released on Friday. For 2009, Mr. Obama and Michelle Obama reported earning $5.5 million in income, almost all of it from royalties related to Mr. Obama’s books, “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.” Sales of the books made him a multimillionaire. By 2012, the couple’s taxable income had dropped to about $608,000, with only about $273,000 from sales and royalties from the books, according to the tax return. Most of the income came from Mr. Obama’s presidential salary of $400,000 per year. In 2012, the president and first lady paid about $112,000 in federal income taxes. The White House said their effective tax rate was 18.4 percent, but added that it would have been more if Republicans would accept his tax proposals. “Under the president’s own tax proposals, including limitations on the value of tax preferences for high-income households, he would pay more in taxes while ensuring we cut taxes for the middle class and those trying to get in it,” Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, said in a statement on the White House Web site. The effective tax rate quickly generated some criticism on Twitter from people who recalled Democratic criticisms of Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. Mr. Romney reported an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent in 2011. Like Mr. Romney, who donated nearly 30 percent of his 2011 income to charity, Mr. Obama and his wife also lowered their effective tax rate by giving away a substantial portion of their income. (Mr. Romney and his wife did not claim their full charitable deduction; had they done so, the effective tax rate would have been lower.) In 2012, the Obamas gave $150,000 of their income, or about 25 percent, to 33 charities, including a gift of $103,000 to the Fisher House Foundation, a Chicago-based group that provides free or low-cost housing to veterans receiving medical treatment at military hospitals. Mr. Obama and his wife also paid about $30,000 in state taxes in Illinois, the White House said. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill, also released their tax return for 2012. The couple reported earning $385,000 and paying about $88,000 in federal taxes. They also paid about $17,000 in state taxes in Delaware and Virginia and contributed $7,200 to charity.

Michelle Obama
Income tax
Barack Obama
Joe Biden
Jill Biden


O’Sullivan Takes Fourth Snooker World Title

Abstract: Ronnie O’Sullivan beat his fellow Briton Ali Carter, 18-11, to win the world championship in Sheffield, England, for the fourth time. Resuming with a 15-10 lead, O’Sullivan won three of the opening four frames in the final session to clinch victory.


Japanese Economy Contracts, Suggesting Return to Recession

Abstract: TOKYO — Japan’s economy shrank at a pace of 0.9 percent in the three months through September, government data showed Monday, as sluggish exports compounded slowing demand and edged the nation’s economy toward recession. The decline in gross domestic product came to an annualized 3.5 percent contraction. It was a reversal from Japan’s robust performance earlier this year, when it outperformed most of its peers in the Group of 7 industrialized nations. But growth has since stalled, hit by a slump in exports amid economic woes in Europe and a damaging territorial spat with China, both major trading destinations for Japan. A strong yen has also hurt competitiveness among Japanese exporters. At home, the pace of reconstruction after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster of March 2011 appears to be slowing. Private consumption declined at the largest rate since early 2011. “These are tough numbers,” Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told a parliamentary session Monday. He said the government, which has led the post-disaster reconstruction effort with ¥20 trillion, or $252 billion, in spending, would consider further measures “with a sense of urgency.” Still, some economists say they expect the Japanese economy to continue to shrink in the next quarter, pitching it into recession before conditions improve. “Japan’s recovery since both the Lehman shock and the Tohoku earthquake appears to have halted lately,” and Japan now appears headed for recession, Masamichi Adachi, economist for Japan at J.P. Morgan Securities, said in a research note after the G.D.P. numbers were released. “The recession is likely to be short, however, as a resumption of positive growth from the first quarter next year is expected with a pickup in external demand, and associated firming in domestic private demand,” Mr. Adachi said. Economists at the Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo also predicted that a recession was probable but would probably be short-lived. “Although the Japanese economy will face harsh challenges for the time being, the situation is likely to bottom out by the end of the year,” the economists said in a note. “A rebound in economic indicators in the United States and China suggests that Japan’s exports will also bottom out by the year’s end, so the possibility that the economy will continue to retrench in the new year is low.” If, however, Japan’s rocky relations with China were to worsen, the recovery could take longer, the economists said. A spat over a group of islands in the East China Sea that are claimed by both nations has prompted some Chinese consumers to boycott Japanese brands, casting a pall over Japan’s exports to its neighbor. The numbers Monday also put renewed pressure on the Japanese central bank to do more to shore up the economy. The central bank, the Bank of Japan, eased monetary policy last month for the second month in a row by expanding an asset lending program, after government officials had urged the bank to take more drastic steps to keep economic recovery on track. The bank, which has struggled over the past decade in its efforts to kick-start the Japanese economy and tackle persistent deflation , is set to review monetary policy again next week. “The government must pursue various measures to address fiscal woes, ease regulations and bolster economic growth. But I would also like the Bank of Japan to take powerful monetary easing measures to get the country out of deflation,” Seiji Maehara, the economics minister, told a news conference Monday. With its mature economy and declining population, Japan, which now has the world’s third-largest G.D.P. behind that of the United States and China, faces being further eclipsed by its Asian neighbors. In a report published last week on long-term economic trends, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development said Japan would continue to grow but at a sluggish rate, and its share of global economic output would fall far behind that of fast-rising China and India over the coming decades.

Japan
Economic Conditions and Trends
Recession and Depression


U.S. and Europe in ‘Safe Harbor’ Data Deal, but Legal Fight May Await

Abstract: European officials on Tuesday agreed to a deal with the United States that would let Google , Amazon and thousands of other businesses continue moving people’s digital data, including social media posts and financial information, back and forth across the Atlantic. With billions of dollars of business potentially at stake, the data-transfer deal was the result of more than three months of often tense negotiations between United States and European Union policy makers, who have clashed over what level of privacy individuals can expect when companies and government agencies follow ever-expanding digital footprints. Part of the challenge is balancing individuals’ privacy concerns with national security obligations, particularly in light of mounting fears about international terrorism. The agreement announced on Tuesday aims to address those privacy concerns and strike that balance by including written guarantees by the United States — to be reviewed annually — that American intelligence agencies would not have indiscriminate access to Europeans’ digital data when it is sent across the Atlantic. Whether that provision will reassure privacy-rights groups remains to be seen. Many obstacles still await the deal, which must be officially approved by the European Union’s 28 member states. National data protection regulators have yet to give their support to the pact, and European privacy-rights advocates are preparing to file legal challenges seeking to overturn it. The data-transfer agreement, replacing a 15-year-old pact that Europe’s highest court struck down in October , is intended to let the free flow of digital data — the lifeblood of many global businesses — continue as usual. In seeking to ensure the continued free flow of data, the deal announced on Tuesday could especially benefit big American companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon that tend to dominate Internet searches, social media and digital commerce in Europe. But it is also meant to let nontech companies like the drug maker Pfizer and the industrial conglomerate General Electric continue to send customer and employee data between the United States and Europe. Europe’s privacy watchdogs had demanded that European and American officials agree to a new deal by Jan. 31. Although negotiators missed that deadline , they had been meeting almost continuously in Brussels since Sunday to reach an agreement. They were driven by a sense of urgency, as industry executives and trade bodies on both sides of the Atlantic worried that the means for transferring data between two of the world’s largest economies remained in jeopardy. Most sensitive, perhaps, were provisions demanded by the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, aimed at limiting how American intelligence agencies collect data on Europeans when companies send their personal information to the United States. How Europe Protects Your Online Data Differently Than the U.S. All the talk about data privacy can get caught up in political wrangling. But the different approaches have practical consequences for people, too. The American negotiators, in response, agreed to provide the annual written assurances. These guarantees, European officials said, will be reviewed each year, with American and European policy makers meeting to ensure that the strict privacy rights of Europe’s more than 500 million citizens are respected by United States agencies. “We will hold the U.S. accountable on the commitments that they have made,” Vera Jourova, the European Union’s justice commissioner who has led the negotiating team, said on Tuesday. The new deal “is a major achievement for privacy and for businesses on both sides of the Atlantic,” Penny Pritzker, the United States Commerce secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday. ”It provides certainty that will help grow the digital economy.” Both sides will now spend the next two weeks completing the details of the new pact, which is to be called the E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield. If formally approved, it would go into effect by early April. But the deal’s first hurdle comes on Wednesday, when Europe’s increasingly powerful national privacy agencies plan to pass their own judgment on how data can be safely transferred outside the European Union. Many of these agencies, which can investigate and issue fines to companies that they suspect of misusing people’s digital information, remain skeptical that rules protecting Europeans’ data will be upheld in the United States. And some of these monitors have said that they will support further restrictions on how companies can move the data if they suspect it may be misused. “We are part of the game,” Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, France’s privacy chief, said in an interview last month in Paris. “If you provide these services, then you have to protect people’s privacy rights.” Ms. Falque-Pierrotin is the chairwoman of the Pan-European body that will announce its assessment on Wednesday. The agreement drew praise on Tuesday from DigitalEurope, a group representing trade associations and multinational tech companies doing business in Europe, including Apple, Google and Microsoft. John Higgins, the group’s director general, called in a statement for national privacy agencies “to view this signal from the European Commission as a sign of good faith and to hold off with any potential enforcement action until the new agreement has been fully implemented.” How Europe Is Going After Apple, Google and Other U.S. Tech Giants The biggest American tech companies face intensifying scrutiny by European regulators, with — pressure that could potentially curb their sizable profits in the region and affect how they operate around the world. Privacy groups, though, expressed concern that the data-transfer deal does not comply with European law, which views an individual’s right to privacy almost on par with freedom of expression. Several consumer groups have said that they will file complaints with European privacy agencies to challenge the new agreement, while others have called on the United States to improve its own privacy laws to match those currently available in Europe. “The problem is that the U.S. remains unchanged,” said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. Despite these expected challenges, some European officials on Tuesday defended the new safe harbor agreement. In particular, the European Commission highlighted how the United States had proposed greater oversight on the access American intelligence agencies have to Europeans’ data. The United States also agreed to establish an ombudsman in the State Department to act as a first point of contact for Europeans if they believed American government agencies had misused their data. Access granted to American intelligence agencies had become a sticking point in light of revelations by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, about that agency’s surveillance of foreign citizens. During the most recent talks in Brussels, which involved officials from the United States Commerce Department and the Federal Trade Commission, among others, American negotiators had argued that United States law provided greater oversight and supervision of American intelligence agencies’ use of personal data than rules now in place across the European Union, according to several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. National security arguments had become more vehement following the terrorist attacks in Paris last November, those officials said. United States ambassadors had defended the integrity of oversight of American intelligence agencies in discussions with senior politicians in countries like France, Germany and Britain in recent weeks, according to the officials who asked to remain anonymous. But European Commission, which does not have the power to rule on its member states’ national security practices, had demanded written guarantees. “This isn’t going to be a one-off decision by the commission,” said Ms. Jourova, the European justice commissioner. “We have achieved effective protection of Europeans’ rights.”

Europe
Google
Amazon
Social Media
Privacy
Facebook
EU
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
US Foreign Policy


Kansas State Upsets Kansas

Abstract: MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Michael Beasley scored 25 points and Bill Walker had 19 as No. 22 Kansas State (15-4, 5-0 Big 12) ended a 24-year home losing streak against its rival Kansas (20-1, 5-1) with an 84-75 victory Wednesday against the No. 2 Jayhawks . Always double- and sometimes triple-teamed when he touched the ball inside, the 6-foot-10 Beasley was held to 8 points in the first half but scored 6 in a row in the first few minutes after intermission. Beasley, the nation’s top rebounder and No. 4 scorer, was 4 for 4 from behind the 3-point arc as the Wildcats took over first in the Big 12. Kansas, two wins short of matching the best start in team history, lost on its state rival’s home court for the first time since 1983.

Kansas State University
University of Kansas
Athletics and Sports
College Athletics


Advocates of Israel Boycott Dismayed by Colbert’s Hummus Ad

Abstract: A comedic product placement for Sabra hummus near the start of Stephen Colbert’s first episode as host of “The Late Show” on Tuesday night earned him praise from marketing experts, but catcalls from supporters of a movement to boycott Israeli-owned companies. #Sabra plug. #LateShow pic.twitter.com/bJ3p7HjpyN — Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) September 9, 2015 In a segment that simultaneously mocked paid endorsements and was one, Mr. Colbert explained to viewers that he had made a deal with a demonic amulet, which gave him the chance to host the show but required “certain regrettable compromises,” like endorsing Sabra-brand hummus. Stephen Colbert’s comic endorsement of Sabra-brand hummus. Credit Credit The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, via YouTube While most of Mr. Colbert’s viewers were quite likely unaware of any political implications of the tongue-in-cheek endorsement, fans who support a Palestinian-led campaign to pressure Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions, or B.D.S., were dismayed by the gag. The hummus, which is produced in the United States, has been subject to calls for a boycott because it is made in a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group , an Israeli food company that has provided financial support to the Israel Defense Forces’ elite Golani Brigade. The brand responded to the plug by playing along on Twitter, but advocates of the boycott campaign expressed their disappointment on the social network during the broadcast. According to statistics from Amobee Brand Intelligence shared by Matthew Belloni, executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter, the brand was not mentioned favorably in most of the initial responses on Twitter. For some of Mr. Colbert’s fans on the left, his uncritical joking about Sabra-brand hummus seemed like evidence of his shift from an edgy, politically engaged comedian — who once mocked President George W. Bush to his face — into a figure of the mainstream entertainment industry. That transformation was perhaps underscored by the fact that his first show featured a friendly interview with Jeb Bush, the former president’s brother. Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker’s television critic, described the interview as “aggressively collegial, a kick in the shins to anyone who worried that Colbert would be some liberal muckraker.” Given that Mr. Colbert seemed so eager to broaden his appeal for a network audience, after years of playing a satirical version of a conservative pundit for basic cable viewers who skewed left, any fans who expected him to champion a boycott of Israel — a country that enjoys nearly unanimous support from Republicans — were always likely to be disappointed. Some supporters of the B.D.S. movement, including Maysoon Zayid, a Palestinian-American commentator, and Omar Baddar, a former director of the Palestine Cultural Center for Peace in Boston, chose to focus on the contextual frame of the endorsement: that the sketch presented Mr. Colbert’s plug as part of a pact with evil forces. Ms. Zayid pointed out that the celebrity guest for Mr. Colbert’s second show on Wednesday night is Scarlett Johansson. Ms. Johansson inadvertently drew attention to the B.D.S. campaign last year, when she starred in a commercial for SodaStream , an Israeli product manufactured until this year in a factory in the occupied West Bank. Although calls to boycott Sabra have been heard on college campuses for several years, and the product’s name is a term for Jews born in Israel, there was no sign in the segment that Mr. Colbert was aware of the debate. In a sketch on his previous show , “The Colbert Report,” the comedian seemed to refer to Sabra as a generic product of the Middle East, introducing a joke about “the imploding Muslim country of the week” being “brought to you by Sabra hummus. Serve Sabra at your next party and your guests will be chanting, ‘Death to hunger.’ ” Although the in-show ad for Sabra attracted little notice at first from supporters of Israel, as the news spread that advocates of B.D.S. were upset with Mr. Colbert, and was picked up by the Israeli press , opponents of the boycott movement rejoiced online.

Israel
Boycott
Stephen Colbert
Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Scarlett Johansson
West Bank
Divestment and Sanctions BDS
Sabra Dipping
Palestinians


Blackstone Profit Plummets in First Quarter

Abstract: The Blackstone Group, the private equity giant, suffered a sharp 77 percent decline in its net income for the first quarter, as volatile market conditions kept the firm from unloading assets and cashing in rich performance fees. The results that were announced on Thursday did not come as a surprise. Last year was one of the most profitable years in Blackstone’s history, driven in large part by bountiful performance fees, so investors had expected the company’s results in 2016 to offer a poor annual comparison. Economic net income for the first quarter came in at $370.7 million , down from $1.62 billion a year earlier. Still, the precipitous profit drop is a reminder why Blackstone’s share price continues to trade at a noticeable discount — despite the loud efforts of its chief executive, Stephen A. Schwarzman — to asset management companies like BlackRock and T. Rowe Price, which do not see such sharp profit swings. The uncertain market environment did not keep the firm from raking in money though. Assets under management, the most crucial gauge for an investment manager, rose 11 percent in the first quarter, compared with the quarter a year earlier, to $343.7 billion, by far the most under management of any alternative investment company. Blackstone attracted $17 billion for the quarter and an impressive $80 billion over the last year. Wall Street Earnings: A Grim Quarter for Big Banks It is shaping up to be another grim year for the nation’s biggest banks. They were hit hard by a bad environment for trading and deal-making. “Global investors continue to turn to the alternatives asset class, and Blackstone in particular, to provide superior long-term investment performance in a challenging and uncertain environment,” Mr. Schwarzman said in a statement. The persistent increase in assets under management highlight Blackstone’s most crucial competitive advantage: its ability to keep attracting new funds and lock in the money it does have for as long as 10 years. Most other asset management firms have suffered outflows as skittish investors have withdrawn funds. Over time, Blackstone has been able to invest these funds in lucrative private equity and real estate deals and when the company sells these stakes in the markets it can collect some of the highest performance fees in the industry. The firm reported profit declines in all its market segments, with private equity dropping 89 percent and real estate down 64 percent. Hedge fund profits fell by 59 percent and credit profits fell 65 percent; the units are smaller profit contributors.

Blackstone Group
Private equity
Stephen A Schwarzman
Earnings Reports


Plane Overshoots Runway in Jamaica

Abstract: An American Airlines flight carrying more than 150 people skidded off a rain-slicked runway as it landed in Jamaica Tuesday night, hitting a fence and plowing into a sandy embankment before it came to rest a few feet from the Caribbean Sea. No one was killed in the accident, which knocked off the engines of the Boeing 737-800 and cracked its fuselage, but about 90 passengers were treated for minor injuries at hospitals around Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, according to a statement from Norman Manley International Airport. Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines, said two of the 148 passengers had been admitted to the hospital for observation. Mr. Smith said he did not know the extent of their injuries, but said they were not life-threatening. Investigators from the United States and Jamaica have begun the work of trying to determine how the airplane overshot the runway, and whether rain and wind played a role in the crash, officials said. The Federal Aviation Administration supplied a plane for six National Transportation Safety Board investigators and one F.A.A. safety investigator, which left Washington at about 9 A.M. The Safety Board referred reporters to the Jamaican Civil Aviation Authority, which, by international treaty, the Safety Board is assisting. It seemed likely, though, that the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder would be decoded in the United States, probably by the Safety Board itself. The flight originated from Washington, D.C., then stopped in Miami before taking off at about 9 p.m. for Kingston. Photographs from the scene Tuesday night show distraught-looking passengers being wheeled through the airport and into hospitals, some holding towels and shirts to their heads, others with cuts and bruises on their faces. In interviews with Jamaican newspapers, passengers said the plane, American Airlines flight 331, landed in pouring rain after a turbulent flight from Miami. Some passengers clapped as the plane touched down at 10:22 p.m., they said, but then it started skidding. “The plane crashed and broke almost in front of me,” one passenger, Naomi Palmer, told the Jamaica Observer. Passengers started screaming as the plane slid down the runway, crossed a road, smashed through a perimeter fence and then crashed into a sandy embankment, according to the passengers’ accounts. The lights went out, and suitcases and bags popped out of the overhead bins and fell onto passengers. “We just buckled and bumped,” another passenger, Natalie Morales-Hendricks told NBC’s Today show. “It was like being in a car accident. People were screaming. I was screaming, covering my face and hands, and the next thing you know, we’re at a standstill.” The flight’s six crew members — who were not seriously injured — helped the passengers make their way off the plane through the emergency exits, and into the rain.“When I came off the aircraft I saw that we were about 10-15 feet from the sea and boulders, so I walked on the beach to the road, where we were picked up by a bus,” Robert Mais, a passenger, told the Jamaican Gleaner newspaper. Mr. Smith of American Airlines said both engines had come off and that the fuselage had cracked in two places. Passengers told Jamaican newspapers that they could feel rain inside the cabin once the plane came to a halt. American Airlines would not name the captain and first officer, but said that both were experienced in this aircraft. The captain had nearly 2,700 hours as a captain on the Boeing 737, and the first officer, more than 5,000 hours in that job on that plane, airline officials said. Airline officials said Tuesday was the first day of work for the pilots in a flight sequence that was supposed to last several days. They took the airplane from Reagan National Airport, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., to Miami, departing at 3:37 P.M., seven minutes behind schedule, and then from Miami to Kingston. Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American, said that he had heard reports that the captain had suffered a minor injury to the arm or wrist, but that none of the cockpit crew or cabin crew appeared to have been seriously injured. “I suspect at minimum they had bumps and bruises like everyone else,” he said. The airline sent a plane from its Dallas base after midnight, with support personnel. Boeing, which built the plane, also sent representatives to Kingston.

American Airlines
Accidents and Safety
Airlines and Airplanes
Jamaica (NYC)


Trump Signs Deal to Develop Two Towers in Georgia, the Republic

Abstract: For Georgia’s president, it was a chance to show that his country, the former Soviet republic, is grand enough to attract the world’s best-known real estate developer. And for that developer, Donald J. Trump , it was yet another opportunity to demonstrate that he is world class. In a ceremony with caviar and wine at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Thursday, Mr. Trump signed a deal to develop the two tallest towers in the republic of Georgia, the former Soviet state at the nexus of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Giving his blessing to the deal was Mikheil Saakashvili , the flamboyant, English-speaking president of Georgia. Mr. Saakashvili is eager to attract foreign investment as he tries to yank his impoverished country from the Russian orbit and align it more closely with the United States. Mr. Trump, the world’s first virtual developer, will not actually build the towers. At this point in his career, he is more inclined to license use of the Trump name on someone else’s building than develop a property himself — although he still occasionally erects skyscrapers, like Trump World Tower in New York. Mainly, the deal is another chance to extend the global reach of the Trump brand, whose brassy gold letters are already stamped on buildings on four continents, as well as a long-running television program, a Scottish golf course, vodka, chocolate, books and jewelry. (The signing ceremony was held at the bottom of the Trump Tower’s four-level atrium, where the surrounding shops include Trump Grill, Trump Bar and a Trump t-shirt stand.) Any actual construction, if it begins as scheduled in 2013, would be overseen by Giorgi Ramishvili, chairman of the Silk Road Group, one of the largest private investment companies in the south Caucasus region. The deal, which the partners estimate at $300 million, calls for two projects. The Trump Tower Tbilisi would go up on Rose Revolution Square in Georgia’s capital. The Trump Riviera would be part of a planned Silk Road complex that includes a casino, an exhibition hall and a marina, in the resort city of Batumi on the Black Sea, near Turkey. The residential buildings will each contain 100 apartments and rise nearly 40 stories — average by New York standards, but nearly twice the size of the republic’s tallest structures. The partnership was born of a two-year friendship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Saakashvili. The Georgian president sought out Mr. Trump during a trip to New York after reading Mr. Trump’s 2008 book “Trump Never Gives Up.” The men formed a friendship, and last year Mr. Trump sent an executive, Michael Cohen, to Georgia to consider working with Silk Road on several projects. Mr. Saakashvili said in an interview that although Mr. Trump was sometimes criticized as being self-centered, he found him "intellectually curious" and knowledgeable about Georgia and its region. “I think Donald Trump has amazing intuition,” he said. Mr. Saakashvili himself is known for a gregarious style. Elected president in 2004, he is a staunch American ally. At one point Georgia contributed the third-largest force to the mission in Iraq, after the United States and Great Britain. A street in the capital is named after George W. Bush. After tamping down corruption in the police, Mr. Saakashvili built a new ministry of interior building, designed by the Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, with an all-glass facade to symbolize transparency. Now, all new police stations in Georgia are made of glass, too. And he has lavished attention on the resort town of Batumi, where 35 hotels have gone up in the last four years. In 2007, to inaugurate a new amusement park in the town, Mr. Saakashvili and his young presidential staff rode the carnival rides themselves. In Georgia, Mr. Trump will license his name, and his company will manage the two properties. He will also work with Silk Road to line up financing for the projects and market the towers. Mr. Trump said that so far he had no plans to put his own cash into the deal. "We’ll decide whether or not we want to invest," he said. Mr. Saakashvili has been eager to draw celebrity foreign investors to show Georgia is again open for business, after the global recession and a war with Russia in 2008 dried up the foreign direct investment that had been propelling the economy. Georgians remain poor. The average income, in a country of about 4.3 million people, was $2,455 in 2009. Before the Russian war, Georgia had attracted about $2 billion a year in foreign investment. Mr. Saakashvili welcomed the inflow as an endorsement of his pro-Western reforms. During the crisis, Georgia pivoted to work with Middle Eastern investors like the sovereign wealth fund of Ras al-Khaimah, one of the United Arab Emirates. That fund bought the Georgian port of Poti on the coast just north of the site of Mr. Trump’s planned tower in Batumi. Georgia has squeaked by with foreign aid donated after the war by the United States and European countries. But with the new deal, Mr. Saakashvili is sure to try to use the Trump imprimatur to encourage other American investors to put money in the tourism and transportation projects he sees as the future of his country’s economy. While Mr. Trump is the first large American developer to come to Georgia, some locals have worked with American partners or financing from United States banks, Irakli Matkava, a deputy minister of economy, said in a telephone interview. Silk Road, which recently opened the Radisson Tbilisi hotel in the capital, expects to open another hotel, the Batumi Radisson this summer. Tourism is a relative new field for Silk Road, which is a major fuel trader and transporter, and also the largest Internet provider in Georgia. The company also has a contract to move American military equipment to Afghanistan from Iraq. The Georgians seem to have had their eye on the Trump clan for some time. Two years ago, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, an assistant to the chairman of Silk Road, invited Mr. Trump’s Czech-born ex-wife, Ivana Trump, to Georgia to consider investing there. She visited Batumi and met with President Saakashvili during her stay. It was a tough decision, Mr. Rtskhiladze said, and although Mr. Trump has yet to visit the country, “we went with the husband.”

Office Buildings and Commercial Properties


Bin Laden Aide Convicted of Conspiracy in 1998 East Africa Bombings

Abstract: A Saudi who was accused of being one of Osama bin Laden ’s earliest and most trusted lieutenants was convicted on Thursday of joining a global conspiracy to kill Americans that included Al Qaeda ’s deadly 1998 bombings of two United States Embassies in East Africa. The defendant, Khaled al-Fawwaz, ran a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and helped lead Al Qaeda’s cell in Nairobi, Kenya, before becoming “Bin Laden’s man in London” in 1994, federal prosecutors told the jury. There, he worked closely with Bin Laden’s then second-in-command, Muhammad Atef, helping Western journalists arrange interviews with Bin Laden and working to publicize Bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa calling for Muslims to kill Americans anywhere in the world. “Khaled al-Fawwaz was a man who understood the West in a way that Bin Laden, Atef and other Al Qaeda members could not,” a prosecutor, Sean S. Buckley, said last week in a closing argument in Federal District Court in Manhattan. “Before the age of the Internet,” Mr. Buckley added, “this man was the bridge that assured that Osama bin Laden’s murderous message could cross the globe and enter American homes.” Among the journalists who interviewed Bin Laden with Mr. Fawwaz’s assistance in 1997 and 1998 were Peter Arnett of CNN and John Miller of ABC News. Mr. Arnett and Mr. Miller, who is now the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, testified during the five-week trial. Mr. Fawwaz, 52, was convicted on four conspiracy counts, and could face up to life in prison on each when he is sentenced by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. The verdict, coming less than a year after two other prominent terrorists — Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a Bin Laden son-in-law, and Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian cleric — were convicted and given life sentences, seems likely to bolster the Obama administration’s stance that international terrorism cases can be safely tried in the nation’s civilian courts. All three men received “full justice in a Manhattan courtroom,” said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. “We hope this verdict gives some comfort to Al Qaeda’s victims around the world,” Mr. Bharara continued. Bobbie C. Sternheim, a lawyer for Mr. Fawwaz, said the case would be appealed. “Trying a pre-9/11 terrorism case in the post-9/11 era within blocks of the World Trade Center site ensured that Khaled al-Fawwaz could never receive a truly fair trial by a truly impartial jury,” she said. Mr. Fawwaz was arrested in Britain after the embassy attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7, 1998, which killed 224 people and wounded thousands. After a long extradition fight, he was sent to the United States in 2012 to face trial. The defense portrayed him as a Saudi dissident who knew Bin Laden but had strongly rejected his violent tactics and who advocated for “peaceful reform.” “It is very clear that Osama bin Laden took a very bad turn, and the turn that he took shocked, disturbed and angered Khaled al-Fawwaz,” Ms. Sternheim argued. She said the case was built on “suspicion, association, theory and inference.” Prosecutors did not accuse Mr. Fawwaz of a direct role in planning or carrying out the bombings, but rather of participating in a conspiracy that included the attacks. “I found myself buried under the debris,” recalled one of the victims who testified , George Mimba, a Kenyan who worked at the embassy in Nairobi and escaped by throwing himself through a second-floor window after the blast. He was rendered unconscious, he said, and when he awoke, “all I could see was shattered buildings, burning vehicles, people lying on the ground.” One piece of telling evidence introduced by the government was a handwritten Qaeda membership list that United States forces recovered in Afghanistan in December 2001. Bin Laden was listed first, Mr. Atef was No. 3 and Mr. Fawwaz was No. 9, prosecutors said. Ms. Sternheim told the jury that the government had “exaggerated” the list’s importance, but another prosecutor, Stephen J. Ritchin, said evidence and testimony confirmed its significance. “The defendant’s name is not on this list by accident,” Mr. Ritchin said.

Osama bin Laden
Al Qaeda
Nairobi
Kenya
Terrorism
Dar es Salaam
Tanzania
Khalid al- Fawwaz
Diplomats Embassies and Consulates


The Devils’ Succession Plan Appears Back on Track

Abstract: NEWARK — Cory Schneider’s first three months in New Jersey have been quite a roller-coaster ride. His nearly flawless preseason turned into a nightmarish first nine starts in a Devils sweater. Schneider was just 1-5-3 through those outings and has only a 4-5-4 record after 13 games. Schneider has not played poorly. His 1.81 goals against average ranks third in the league for those who qualify for the Vezina Trophy, and his .925 save percentage ranks 13th among the same group. But, like a pitcher with paltry run support, Schneider has been adversely affected by the Devils’ goal-scoring struggles. This season they have been shut out five times and held to one goal on five other occasions. The last goalie to finish below .500 with a sub-2.00 goals against average was Harry Lumley, who went 23-24-22 with a 1.94 goals against average with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1954-55. Jose Theodore went 12-13-2-1 with a 2.10 goals against average in 30 games in 1999-2000 (won-lost records at the time included four categories, the last being for overtime losses). This was the last season in which a goalie finished in the top five in goals against average and had a sub-.500 record. Dealt this off-season from Vancouver, Schneider looked for a fresh start, leaving the goaltending competition between him and Roberto Luongo behind . Schneider was to be the heir apparent to Martin Brodeur, and the torch passing appeared to take place in October, as Schneider started 6 of the Devils’ first 10 games. Still, Brodeur is an institution in New Jersey, and his play has improved significantly since a rough stretch at the season’s outset. That, coupled with a minor injury to Schneider, put Brodeur in goal for 11 of the Devils’ next 15 games. Being the backup, and with the added frustration of the Devils scoring only 12 goals in his first 10 starts, left Schneider with a familiar feeling. He told reporters last week, “It’s like Groundhog Day for me.” Schneider, who is also hoping to impress the officials choosing the United States Olympic team, started three of the Devils’ next four games and won on back-to-back nights. Schneider kept the Devils in the Nov. 29 game against the Carolina Hurricanes before the Devils exploded for four third-period goals in a 5-2 victory. He followed that up the next night with a shutout of Buffalo, a 1-0 overtime win, and all appeared healed between Schneider and the Devils. “It’s all I’ve wanted to do: help this team win and be productive,” Schneider, 27, said after Saturday night’s 1-0 overtime win against the Buffalo Sabres. “You have to play well, and you have to produce when you get the chance.” Image Cory Schneider was just 1-5-3 in his first nine starts and has only a 4-5-4 record after 13 games. Credit Elsa/Getty Images Schneider stopped 12 of 13 first-period shots Wednesday night against the Montreal Canadiens, making his best save late in the period when he gloved Michael Bournival’s shot after a turnover by Eric Gelinas. Schneider’s play saved the Devils, who struggled to find energy early. “We looked a little lethargic,” Devils Coach Pete DeBoer said. “He gave us a chance to get our legs under us.” The Devils rewarded Schneider’s effort, as Andrei Loktionov and Michael Ryder scored early third-period goals, giving the Devils a 2-1 lead. Even after Lars Eller’s goal, which beat Schneider through a leaky spot between the pads, tied the game with only 3 minutes 50 seconds left, Patrik Elias broke the tie with 1:06 to play. But Schneider and the Devils could not hold that edge, allowing David Desharnais’s goal mere seconds later, and Montreal went on to win, 4-3, in a shootout. “It’s a tough loss for us,” Schneider said. “We battled hard in the third, and had two leads, and myself included, we’d like to think we could make that stand up.” Wednesday was a rare off night for Schneider. Despite 27 saves, he allowed two nonthreatening shots to get behind him, nearly resulting in Canadiens goals. Schneider also failed to stop either of his chances in the shootout. “I wasn’t good enough,” Schneider said of the shootout. “I didn’t make a save on either one, so it’s hard to win when you give up two-for-two to start.” With games against the Detroit Red Wings and the Rangers coming up Friday and Saturday, and with the Devils locked in a tightly packed division, Schneider appreciates what all the extra points will mean. “We’re scratching and clawing here,” he said. “We’re still in this thing. We’re real close.”


Syrians Airstrike Kills Palestinian Refugees

Abstract: DAMASCUS, Syria — Government forces for the first time hit Syria’s largest Palestinian refugee neighborhood with airstrikes on Sunday, killing at least eight people in the Yarmouk district of Damascus and driving dozens of formerly pro-government Palestinian fighters to defect to the rebels, fighters there said. New signs emerged on Sunday of political pressure on President Bashar al-Assad . Mr. Assad’s vice president was quoted as saying that neither side could win the war and calling for “new partners” in a unity government, a possible sign that at least some in the government were exploring new ways out of the crisis. The comments came as two close allies, the government of Iran and the leader of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, appeared to slightly temper their support. In Yarmouk, burned body parts littered the ground at the Sheik Abdul Qader mosque, which had offered shelter to Palestinians and others displaced by fighting in other areas. Minutes before, a Syrian fighter jet fired rockets at the camp. Women, crying children and white-bearded men thronged the streets with hurriedly packed bags, not sure where to look for safety. For many Yarmouk residents — refugees from conflict with Israel and their descendants — the attacks shattered what was left of the Syrian government’s claim to be a champion and protector of Palestinians, a position the Assad family relied upon as a source of domestic and international legitimacy in more than 40 years of iron-fisted rule. “For decades the Assad regime was talking about the Palestinians’ rights,” said a Palestinian refugee who gave his name as Abu Ammar as he debated whether to flee with his wife and five children from the camp, on the southern edge of Damascus. “But Bashar al-Assad has killed more of us today than Israel did in its latest war on Gaza.” He added: “What does Bashar expect from us after today? All of us will be Free Syrian Army fighters.” The Palestinian militant group and political party Hamas has broken with Mr. Assad over his crackdown on what began as a peaceful protest movement, and while most Palestinian parties still profess neutrality, a growing number of Palestinians support — and have even joined — the rebels. The Syrian government long held the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, giving them health care, education and access to professional careers, among other rights denied by other Arab host countries. But those policies also gave Palestinians a stake and sense of belonging in Syria that have led many to support the uprising. Several of Mr. Assad’s allies signaled a new push for a peaceful solution. Iran’s Foreign Ministry called for an end to military action, the release of political prisoners and a broad-based dialogue to form a transitional government that would hold free elections, Iran’s state news agency reported. Mr. Assad’s vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, said that neither the government nor the rebels could end the conflict militarily, the pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported . And he called for a solution involving a cease-fire and brokered by international leaders that would establish a “national unity government with wide powers.” He added that the battle was for the country’s very existence, not “the survival of an individual or a regime,” and that Syria’s leaders “cannot achieve change without new partners.” The impact of the statements was unclear. Mr. Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim like most of the rebels, has been floated by the Arab League as a possible successor, but many of Mr. Assad’s opponents reject any dealings with leaders of the current government. In neighboring Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, appeared to acknowledge for the first time that the Syrian uprising is at least in part driven by popular sentiment. “Today, in Syria,” he said in a videotaped address at a graduation ceremony, “there is a big part of the population with the Syrian regime and a part against it, and the latter armed themselves to fight the regime.” But Mr. Nasrallah declared that armed rebellion would never resolve the conflict, and he deplored the killing of civilians by opposition groups, especially in rush-hour car bombings in places like Jaramana in southern Damascus. “Are the people of Jaramana Syrians?” he asked. He blamed the United States and its allies for supporting the rebels’ refusal to negotiate with Mr. Assad, saying the West wanted a long conflict to produce “a weak, destroyed Syria that can no longer play a role in the international balance.” The director of public relations for Syria’s intelligence service, Alaaeldin al-Sabagh, announced his defection in a video posted online, saying he had been working with rebels all along. He called on intelligence officers, ministers, diplomats and military attachés, “whom I taught and who know me very well,” to join the revolution. “There is no time left to wait,” he said. “The Syrian revolution opens its doors to everyone before the regime falls completely. For this regime, today, is clinically dead, and all that is left is to disconnect the machines.” Fighting continued in the northern city of Aleppo, where, after declaring they controlled the infantry college in the north of the city, rebels attacked a military academy. In Yarmouk, which despite being called a refugee camp is a thriving neighborhood with a mixed Syrian and Palestinian population, rebel fighters said they had attacked the area to stop pro-Assad Palestinians who have used the camp to attack rebels in neighboring suburbs. A man leading dozens of fighters, who gave his name as Abu Omar, 40, said that controlling Yarmouk would link rebel-held areas in the east and south of Damascus. Early in the conflict, Palestinians implored both sides to keep fighting out of their areas so they could remain neutral and shelter the displaced, to little avail. Yarmouk has been shelled, and its residents have been killed, many times by both sides. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command, a pro-Assad group, has fought for the government from its many headquarters around the city, several of which have been overrun by rebels in recent weeks. Its leader, Ahmed Jibril, was said to have fled to the Syrian coast or to Iran. One of his fighters, who gave a pseudonym, Abu Jihad, said he and dozens of others had joined the rebels on Sunday. He said they had been manning checkpoints ostensibly to protect the camps, but had been asked to fight rebels instead. “I felt that we became soldiers for the Assad regime, not guards for the camps, so I decided to defect,” he said, adding that security forces stood by and watched as they fought the rebels, without supporting them. “I felt that the regime doesn’t care about us,” he said. “Now I am fighting with the right side. We were hosted by the Syrian people, not the Assad regime, when we came to this country in 1948, and we should reward this favor.”

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


Potential Bidders Step Up for Satyam of India

Abstract: NEW DELHI — For sale: one outsourcing company, its reputation severely damaged by fraud. Certified sales figures unavailable, lawsuits pending, customers heading out the door — must go immediately. The sale of Satyam Computer Services may be one of the more bizarre corporate auctions. The Indian government and a new corporate board, scrambling to save Satyam from bankruptcy or dissolution, asked bidders interested in buying a 51 percent stake to make themselves known by Thursday night, even though the company’s numbers are in flux and its future uncertain. By Thursday afternoon, a few potential bidders had raised their hands, including the Indian engineering company Larsen & Toubro; the Indian telecommunications company Spice; and Tech Mahindra, a venture of Mahindra Group and BT Group of Britain. Although other bidders may step forward, the deal has not attracted big-name foreign buyers or private equity firms. Whoever does seal a deal may get a bargain, some analysts say. Satyam’s market capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange was $7 billion last May; it is now slightly more than $600 million. Satyam’s co-founder said in January that he had made up $1 billion in cash and inflated numbers on the balance sheet. Satyam, the fourth-largest Indian outsourcing company, claims some 53,000 employees, but those numbers, sales and profits, are under review. Spice’s chairman, B. K. Modi, told The Times of India that he thought the lawsuits could cost $440 million to $840 million, but analysts in the United States say those figures might be high. The situation may make closing a deal extremely difficult.

Outsourcing
Auctions
Satyam Computer Services Ltd
Frauds and Swindling


Ancient Coins Returned to Greece, Ending U.S. Ordeal

Abstract: Five ancient Greek coins that had nearly been sold at auction at the Waldorf-Astoria were returned on Monday to the Greek government, ending an unusual prosecution that roiled the coin-collecting world and led to the conviction of a prominent surgeon. The coins were among 20 rare pieces from the ancient world that the surgeon, Dr. Arnold-Peter Weiss, tried to sell at the Waldorf-Astoria on Jan. 3, 2012. One of the buyers who approached Dr. Weiss was an informant, who caught him on tape saying he knew that one of the coins he was selling had been recently looted from Sicily. “There’s no paperwork,” the doctor said, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “I know this is a fresh coin; this was dug up a few years ago.” The case never went to trial, but Dr. Weiss’s arrest sent chills through the numismatic world, where state charges for possession of stolen property are extremely rare. In years past, American dealers caught with ancient coins dug up in the modern era of strong patrimony laws in countries like Greece and Italy usually faced civil suits in federal court. At worse, they risked being forced to forfeit the artifacts to the United States government, which in most cases returned them to the source countries without pursuing criminal charges, experts on cultural property law said. As a result, some dealers were willing to market coins with spotty paperwork and murky histories. “You could almost call it a landmark case — he did something that was suddenly seen as criminal,” said Ute Wartenberg, the executive director of the American Numismatic Society. “This was like something that could have happened to a whole bunch of people; there was nothing particularly unusual about it.” Faced with his words on the informant’s tape, Dr. Weiss, 54, a hand surgeon who teaches at Brown University and has served on the board of the American Numismatic Society, pleaded guilty in July 2012 to three counts of attempted criminal possession of stolen property. Those pleas concerned only the three coins he believed to be silver pieces from the fourth century B.C. that he thought had been looted from Sicily, court papers said. Experts using electron microscopes later determined they were clever forgeries. Still, Dr. Weiss had been trying to sell one of them for $350,000 and the other two for $1.2 million, prosecutors said. The investigation was done jointly by agents from the district attorney’s office and the Department of Homeland Security. Under his plea agreement, Dr. Weiss forfeited the other 20 coins in his possession to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, including five authentic Greek coins dating back to the sixth century B.C. Those silver pieces were minted in ancient Thrace, Opuntian Locris, Euboea and Thebes; the coins bear images of Herakles, Demeter, the nymph Euboea and Dionysus, among other things. On the market, the five coins are worth about $200,000, but the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said they were worth far more to Greece. “As tokens of the world’s oldest democracy, they are, in our view, priceless,” he said as he signed papers transferring the coins to the Greek ambassador, Christos P. Panagopoulos. The ambassador said it was “a great day of joy for Greece” and promised the coins would be displayed in the Numismatic Museum in Athens. Rick St. Hilaire, a New Hampshire law professor who specializes in cultural property, said few state prosecutors have pursued cases against dealers for possessing stolen artifacts like ancient coins. Such prosecutions are generally left to federal authorities, he said, even though New York and other states have stronger stolen property laws. “This is an opening volley and certainly has caught the attention of ancient coin collectors and dealers,” Mr. St. Hilaire said. Dr. Weiss avoided jail under the plea agreement. He was sentenced to 70 hours of community service, fined $3,000 and forced to forfeit coins in which he had invested more than $2 million. He also agreed to write a lengthy essay for the American Numismatic Society’s Magazine, titled “Caveat Emptor,” warning other dealers about the danger of hawking coins with murky histories. He acknowledged that American dealers like himself often encountered coins they suspected came from looters but turned a blind eye. “I was very active in the ancient coin marketplace and paid little attention to foreign cultural property laws, as if they really did not matter within the U.S.,” he wrote. “Well, they do.”

Greece
Arnold-Peter Weiss
Numismatics
Ute Wartenberg
American Numismatic Society
Athens
Arts and Antiquities Looting
Cyrus R Vance Jr


Hollywood Starts to Worry as 3-D Fizzles in U.S.

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures. Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America . While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results. One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “ Kung Fu Panda 2 ,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount. Consumer rebellion over high 3-D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3-D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including “ Avatar ” and “ Alice in Wonderland ,” but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars. “Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.” Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3-D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3-D screenings powered “Stranger Tides” to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time. With results like that at a time when movies make 70 percent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter? After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3-D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” due from Paramount on July 1, and Part 2 of Part 7 of the “ Harry Potter ” series, arriving two weeks later from Warner Brothers . The need is urgent. The box-office performance in the first six months of 2011 was soft — revenue fell about 9 percent compared with last year, while attendance was down 10 percent — and that comes amid decay in home-entertainment sales. In all formats, including paid streaming and DVDs, home entertainment revenue fell almost 10 percent, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. The first part of the year held a near collapse in video store rentals, which fell 36 percent to about $440 million, offsetting gains from cut-price rental kiosks and subscriptions. In addition, the sale of packaged discs fell about 20 percent, to about $2.2 billion, while video-on-demand, though growing, delivered total sales of less than a quarter of that amount. At the box office, animated films, which have recently been Hollywood’s most reliable genre, have fallen into a deep trough, as the category’s top three performers combined — “ Rio ,” from Fox; “ Rango ,” from Paramount; and “ Hop ,” from Universal — have had fewer ticket buyers than did “ Shrek the Third ,” from DreamWorks Animation, after its release in mid-May four years ago. “Kung Fu Panda 2” appears poised to become the biggest animated hit of the year so far; but it would have to stretch well past its own predecessor to beat “ Shrek Forever After ,” another May release, which took in $238.7 million last year. For the weekend, “The Hangover: Part II” sold $118 million from Thursday to Sunday, easily enough for No. 1. “Kung Fu Panda 2” was second. Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” was third with $39.3 million for a new total of $152.9 million. “ Bridesmaids ” (Universal Pictures) was fourth with $16.4 million for a new total of about $85 million. “ Thor ” (Marvel Studios) rounded out the top five with $9.4 million for a new total of $160 million. Studio chiefs acknowledge that the industry needs to sort out its 3-D strategy. Despite the soft results for “Kung Fu Panda 2,” animated releases have continued to perform well in the format, overcoming early problems with glasses that didn’t fit little faces. But general-audience movies like “Stranger Tides” may be better off the old-fashioned way. “With a blockbuster-filled holiday weekend skewing heavily toward 2-D, and 3-D ticket sales dramatically underperforming relative to screen allocation, major studios will hopefully begin to rethink their 3-D rollout plans for the rest of the year and 2012,” Mr. Greenfield said on Friday.


Maryland: Officer Faces Attempted Murder Charge

Abstract: A Baltimore police officer who the authorities say shot a burglary suspect at close range after he had been subdued is being charged with attempted first- and second-degree murder. State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced the charges Wednesday against Officer Wesley Cagle. According to a statement of probable cause, Officer Cagle shot Michael Johansen in December after Mr. Johansen had been shot by other officers. In addition to the attempted-murder charges, Officer Cagle faces charges of first- and second-degree assault and use of a handgun in a crime of violence.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings