Google to Alert Users to Chinese Censorship

Abstract: BEIJING — Google has quietly upped the ante in a long-running dispute with the Chinese authorities over censorship, adding a software twist to its search page that warns users when they type a search term whose results are likely to be blocked in China . The change, announced without publicity on Thursday on one of Google’s corporate blogs , is described as an improvement in the search experience for users in mainland China, who can be disconnected from Google without explanation when they try to open a Web page that was found using a censored search term. But it also seems likely to irritate Chinese officials, who have already employed an array of techniques to punish the company since a clash over censorship led Google to move its servers to Hong Kong in January 2010. Google’s market share in mainland China has plunged to about 17 percent from 35.6 percent, according to Analysys International, an Internet consulting firm specializing in China, as users have wearied of blocked Web sites and timeouts that can bar them from conducting new searches for more than a minute. The announcement deftly sidestepped any allusion to censorship, saying only that users had been frustrated by error messages and disconnections and that Google engineers had “taken a long, hard look at our systems and have not found any problems.” “However, after digging into user reports, we’ve noticed that these interruptions are closely correlated with searches for a particular subset of terms,” it stated. “So starting today we’ll notify users in mainland China when they enter a keyword that may cause connection issues.” The blog post, by Alan Eustace, a senior vice president who oversees search services, said the company had analyzed 350,000 popular search terms to find words that were “disruptive queries.” Now, when users enter one of those terms and try to begin a search, they are presented with a yellow box stating that searching for the term “may temporarily break your connection to Google.” “This interruption is outside Google’s control,” the message concludes. Users are then given a chance to enter a different search term. Censorship often spills over from delicate topics to searches that would ordinarily be bland. The blog cites the example of the Chinese character for river, or jiang, which causes an error message or a timeout on Google. The reason is that it is also the surname of a former Chinese president, Jiang Zemin , whose name, like the names of many other leaders, is banned from Google searches in China. Users of Chinese search services like the popular Baidu, on the other hand, can search for “jiang” without difficulty, but only because government censors have already sanitized the results of a search to delete any problematic Web pages. As a result, the user sees a list of pages that gives no indication of censorship. Chinese censors cannot fine-tune Google’s search results because they are produced by servers outside mainland China, and thus are out of the censors’ reach. So the government resorts instead to blocking any search or page that includes an offending term. Mr. Eustace said users could often get around censorship by entering the banned term in English or Pinyin, the Romanized Chinese writing system. A Google spokesman who asked not to be identified declined to elaborate on Google’s decision to warn users of blocked terms. But there is an approximate precedent: Before 2010, when Google maintained its servers in mainland China and its search results were sanitized, it included a note at the bottom of Web pages noting that some results had been blocked. The spokesman also declined to address the prospect that the Chinese authorities might retaliate for Google’s action. Among other issues, the company has experienced unexplained problems with its popular Gmail service in recent years, and its Google Plus social networking service has been blocked.

Censorship
China
Google Inc
Search Engines
Computers and the Internet


Investors Sue Countrywide Over Modified Loans

Abstract: As policy makers push banks to help struggling homeowners, some angry investors are pushing back. On Monday, a hedge fund sued the Countrywide Financial Corporation , the giant mortgage lender, demanding that Countrywide compensate holders of some securities backed by mortgages if the lender changes the terms of the loans. The fund, Greenwich Financial Services, said it and other investors stood to lose money if Countrywide, now part of Bank of America, modified loans under a settlement that it reached with 11 state attorneys general in October. In recent months, some investors who own mortgage securities have begun voicing concern about how loans are modified, but few have filed suit. The Greenwich Financial case, filed in state court in New York, highlights the complexity associated with modifying loans that have been bundled into securities. It also signals that more aggressive government and private efforts to help borrowers could face stiff resistance from investors. The lawsuit claims that under contracts governing 374 Countrywide mortgage trusts, the company must purchase at face value any mortgage that it modifies. William Frey, president of Greenwich Financial, said an estimated $150 billion in mortgages could be covered by the requirement. “Their intention is to modify them, and they don’t have the right to do that,” Mr. Frey said. Though his firm is the only named plaintiff in the case, Mr. Frey said many other investors were supporting his effort and would benefit if the court granted the case class-action status. In a statement, Countrywide declined to address the lawsuit’s specific claims but said the suit “represents an unlawful effort to assert the rights of the trusts.” It also said it took investors’ interests into account when it agreed to the settlement with the states. “Loan modifications have been occurring for decades without objections or challenges, so we are especially troubled at the timing of this complaint,” Countrywide said in the statement. “We are confident any attempt to stop this program will be legally unsupportable.” Under the settlement with the states, Countrywide agreed to modify up to 400,000 loans and to provide $8.4 billion in relief to borrowers to settle predatory lending accusations. Mr. Frey has been a vocal opponent of loan modifications, arguing that contract law severely restricts what mortgage servicing companies are allowed to do when borrowers default on their debts. His and other investors’ complaints have drawn a strong rebuke from some policy makers.

Mortgages
Countrywide Financial Corp
Suits and Litigation
Subprime Mortgage Crisis


Juan Pablo Montoya Struggles to Keep Up With His Dominant Team

Abstract: LONG POND, Pa. — Juan Pablo Montoya found himself in a different place as the IndyCar Series returned to Pocono Raceway. With four races left in the season, he is not the man to beat. Entering Sunday’s race at Pocono, which represents the one-year anniversary of the tragic death of Justin Wilson after a freak accident at the racetrack, Montoya sat 12th in the standings, the last of Roger Penske’s four cars. The other three — Simon Pagenaud, Will Power and Helio Castroneves — are 1-2-3, with Pagenaud and Power separated by just 58 points and Josef Newgarden 120 points behind Pagenaud in fourth. “The gap to a different competitor from a different team is bigger,” Montoya said, comparing this year’s competition to last year’s. “It might just come down to Simon and Will. I think we’ll be much better prepared going into the last race to make sure we all work together, and so we can win the championship as a team. We’ll see what happens.” A year ago, Montoya led in points for much of the season before losing the series title in the season finale to Scott Dixon, unable to make one last pass for position on the final lap to secure the championship. Dixon dominated a race worth double points to tie Montoya and was declared the champion because he had one more victory. “Move on, you know,” Montoya said of the loss. Montoya, a hard-driving Colombian, seemed poised to make amends for his heartbreaking title loss when the new season began. He started on the second row and won the season opener at St. Petersburg, Fla. He was still third in the standings after two top-five finishes in the next four races, but then his season began to unravel at the Indianapolis 500. Montoya lost control of his car on Lap 64, crashed into the wall and finished last in a race he had won the previous year for the second time. He rebounded with a third-place finish at Belle Isle, but since then he has fallen out of contention with 20th-place finishes in the second race at Belle Isle, at Iowa, and at Toronto, along with an 11th at Mid-Ohio. He had contact at Belle Isle and mechanical problems at Iowa with his Chevrolet car, and strategy cost him at Toronto and Mid-Ohio. “It’s been tough, because we’ve had cars fast enough to be there,” Montoya said. “Race pace is really, really good. I’m not really struggling. We’ve been making the wrong calls. At Iowa, I was the fastest team car. When you go every week and you’re competitive and things just go wrong, there’s nothing you can do.” Montoya returned to IndyCar two years ago after a 14-year stint in Nascar, won at Pocono and finished fourth in the championship. His contract with Team Penske is up after the season, and he said he was looking at three options, trying to decide the best fit for him personally. “They’re going to wait until after the season to make a decision,” Montoya said of Penske. “We’ll see what happens. I think I’ve done a really good job. I won the Indy 500 for them last year. They hadn’t won it since ’09. I nearly won the championship, but as a team we didn’t execute well enough. “Personally, I think we have the potential to keep going doing nice things. This year, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.” Barring a miracle, history is not very likely to follow recent form in the open-wheel series. Including Pagenaud this season, a driver from Team Penske has led the championship with four races to go four times in the past six years — Power (2010), Castroneves (2013 and 2014), and Montoya — and none won the title that season.


South Korea Can Keep Buddhist Statue Stolen From Japan, Court Says

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — A court ruled Thursday that a South Korean temple can have a Buddhist statue that was stolen from a Japanese temple in 2012, on the grounds that it had been taken from Korea centuries earlier by Japanese pirates. Japan called the ruling “regrettable” and urged the statue’s return. The dispute is being closely watched by both governments, whose relations are often roiled by historical disputes . The 20-inch gilded bronze statue, of a bodhisattva known as Kanzeon in Japan and Gwaneum in South Korea, was taken from a Buddhist temple on Tsushima , a Japanese island halfway between the two countries, by South Koreans who also stole another statue from a Shinto shrine there. The thieves were caught while trying to sell the artifacts in South Korea, and the statue from the Shinto shrine was eventually returned to Japan. But a South Korean temple, Buseoksa, which says the bodhisattva statue was made there in the 14th century, won a court injunction in 2013 preventing its return until it could be determined whether it had originally been brought to Tsushima legitimately. The statue shows the bodhisattva, a being on the path to enlightenment, in the lotus position. It has been in the government’s custody since 2013, and on Thursday a district court in Daejeon, a city south of Seoul, ruled that it should be given to Buseoksa. The government, which was the defendant in the civil suit, did not say whether it would appeal. Upbeat monks at Buseoksa, in the west coast city of Seosan, prepared for the statue’s homecoming. The temple’s chief monk, the Venerable Wonwoo, hailed the ruling as a milestone that should inspire South Koreans to try to bring home what he claimed were 70,000 ancient Korean artifacts that had been looted and brought to Japan. Buddhists and other South Koreans have rallied behind Buseoksa’s campaign. The Japanese temple, Kannonji, was not a direct party to the lawsuit, but it argued at the trial that the statue had not been removed from Korea illicitly, noting that there had been legitimate trade in goods, including Buddhist statues, between Korea and Tsushima in ancient times. The statue has been designated an important cultural asset in Japan. After an investigation, South Korea’s Cultural Heritage Administration said in 2014 that the statue had probably been taken to Japan by plunderers, though it could not reach a definitive conclusion. Scholars supporting Buseoksa’s cause cited a document found inside the statue’s belly in 1951, which they said showed that the statue was manufactured in Seosan in the 14th century. They said it did not record a transfer of ownership to the Japanese temple, although such a document normally would. They also presented the court with historical documents showing that parts of Korea’s west coast near Seosan had been visited by pirates from Japan during the 14th century. And they said the statue had burn damage, which they said could be a sign it had been plundered by pirates. “There is enough reason to think that the statue belongs to Buseoksa,” the presiding judge, Moon Bo-gyeong, ruled Thursday. In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called the ruling “very regrettable.” He urged South Korea to take “appropriate” action to ensure the statue’s swift return to Japan. “The Japanese government has appealed to the Korean government through various diplomatic channels to request the return of this statue to Japan as soon as possible,” he said at a news conference. A spokesman for the South Korean Foreign Ministry, Cho June-hyuck, said the ministry would try to resolve the matter with Japan “based on mutual trust.”

South Korea
Japan
Tsushima Island Japan
Arts and Antiquities Looting
Decisions and Verdicts
Buddhism


E.U. and U.S. Release Details on Trans-Atlantic Data Transfer Deal

Abstract: American and European officials released details on Monday about a new trans-Atlantic data transfer agreement, prompting a new round of debate about how companies like Google move digital information between the two regions. The pact is the formal version of an agreement hashed out in early February after often-bitter negotiations, revamping the rules for how technology giants like Facebook and other conglomerates like General Electric look up, collect and manage online data, including social media posts, search queries and e-commerce purchases. As part of the new agreement — known as the E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield — companies will face stricter rules over how they move people’s digital data from the European Union to the United States. American officials have also agreed to new limits on the powers of the country’s intelligence agencies to gain access to Europeans’ online information when it is transferred to the United States. “The U.S. has different structures to Europe, but both sides offer robust privacy protections,” Penny Pritzker, the United States commerce secretary, said in an interview in February. “The challenge was to show Europe how our system works, because we don’t have a single overriding privacy law.” The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, also gave its official backing on Monday after it released a so-called adequacy decision, an official text required to turn the data transfer pact into law. 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. Though the agreement still needs to be ratified by European Union member states, that is not expected to be contentious and is likely to happen in the coming months. Europe’s approval, however, was somewhat offset by a separate document also released on Monday, in which the European Union called on the United States to bolster its domestic privacy rules. Federal efforts to offer new privacy protections have so far produced few new controls for American consumers. The tension between American and European policy makers over privacy rights had caused significant strain as negotiators tried to agree on the new trans-Atlantic data transfer pact, an accord that would underpin billions of dollars of trade between the two regions. “Restoring trans-Atlantic trust is crucial to businesses,” said John Higgins, director general of DigitalEurope, a technology trade group whose members include Google and Microsoft. “We welcome progress towards the adoption of the E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield Adequacy Decision.” Despite the agreement, privacy campaigners have been quick to balk at the deal, saying that it does not offer Europeans sufficient protections when their data is moved across the Atlantic. Several groups have already said that they will challenge the pact in court, and Europe’s increasingly powerful national data protection authorities have yet to give their approval. Those national regulators, which are still waiting to receive details on the new agreement, said in early February that they needed more information about how the pact would protect Europeans’ rights before they would agree to support the deal. “The new Privacy Shield framework appears to amount to little more than a re-marketed version of the pre-existing safe harbor decision, offering little more than cosmetic changes,” said Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German politician who has favored stronger privacy rules, in reference to the old data-transfer agreement known as “safe harbor.” To assuage such concerns, American officials released several documents on Monday that outlined the new checks on both companies and government agencies that wanted to gain access to Europeans’ digital footprints. In a letter to Vera Jourova, the European justice commissioner, Secretary of State John Kerry explained how a new ombudsman would act as a first point of contact for Europeans if they believed American government agencies had misused their data. The role would apply to the new Privacy Shield agreement, as well as to other mechanisms used to move European data to the United States, Mr. Kerry added. American intelligence agencies will also face stricter limits on the digital information that they can retrieve on Europeans, while the data transfer agreement provides new legal powers for European citizens who believe either companies or United States government agencies have misused their digital information, according to the American documents released on Monday. Ms. Jourova added, however, that the European Commission would continue to monitor the new deal to ensure that Europeans’ privacy rights — which are viewed as being equal to other rights, such as freedom of expression — would be upheld in the United States. That monitoring would include an annual meeting between Europe and the United States to review the new data. The first meeting is expected to be held in the summer of 2017. “Rules on paper are essential, but they also must be fulfilled,” Ms. Jourova said in an interview in February. “We need ways to check that this works.”

Privacy
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
EU
US
Spying and Intelligence Agencies


As Peace Talks Approach, Rebels Humiliate Prisoners in Ukraine

Abstract: DONETSK, Ukraine — On the sidewalk of a busy street beside a checkpoint, a bearded gunman wrapped a woman in a Ukrainian flag and forced her to stand, sobbing in terror, holding a sign identifying her as a spotter for Ukrainian artillery. “She kills our children,” it read. Because the woman was a spy, said the gunman, a pro-Russian militant, everything that would happen to her would be well-deserved. Passers-by stopped their cars to get out and spit, slap her face and throw tomatoes at her. Her knees buckled. She struggled to mumble in protest of her innocence and to shake her head in denial. This theatrical scene of abuse unfolded a day after the rebel movement had paraded Ukrainian prisoners of war down a main thoroughfare here at bayonet point, then dramatically washed the pavement behind them. The public humiliation of prisoners came as the presidents of Russia and Ukraine prepared to meet for peace talks in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, on Tuesday. The taunting and provocation appeared to be aimed at dissuading the Ukrainian government from accepting a settlement that might forestall a broader Russian intervention, a development that separatists here are banking on as their military fortunes wane. Further muddying the prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough, Ukraine accused Russia on Monday of opening a new front in the war by sending an armored column across the border from Russia south of the Ukrainian lines that surround the rebel capital, Donetsk. The Russian government dismissed the accusation and the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Moscow, said that Western governments should not expect Russia to make all the concessions in a settlement and that Ukraine, too, would have to compromise. The Ukrainian military said 10 tanks and two armored infantry vehicles manned by Russian soldiers disguised as separatist fighters had crossed the border near the town of Novoazovsk and engaged in combat with Ukrainian border guards. The claim could not be independently confirmed. Also on Monday, Russia announced it would send a second convoy of humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine across a border area controlled by pro-Russian separatists; Ukrainian officials say the movement of goods is calculated to undermine the country’s sovereignty. The drama that played out on the streets of Donetsk Monday seemed sure to ratchet up tensions. A military unit of Russian nationals from the region of North Ossetia, in southern Russia, held the woman at a checkpoint in a roundabout in Donetsk known as “the Motel,” for a nearby hotel. The men, smiling and gesturing toward the woman, waved over cars for drivers to observe or take part. Image Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, at a news conference in Moscow on Monday. Credit Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters “We should hang you on the square,” one woman in the crowd yelled, then walked up and spat in the face of the victim, then kicked her in a thigh, causing the woman accused of spying to stagger back. The gunmen looked on. At times, the pro-Russian soldiers posed beside the crying woman to take selfies on their smartphones, or playfully twirl her hair with their fingers. At one point, a fighter walked a few paces back, crouched in the street and aimed a Kalashnikov rifle at the woman in a mock execution. The woman shut her eyes. “Open your eyes, stand up straight!” another of the gunmen yelled. A call placed by The New York Times to an aide for a senior separatist commander informing him of the abuse resulted in the rebel soldiers at the checkpoint briefly detaining the journalists. The aide, who uses only the nickname The Georgian, sent a car with gunmen to extricate the suspected spy and journalists from the Motel. The two groups of gunmen agreed to release the journalists, but were not able to agree on handing over the woman. After the discussion, the captors drove her away to an unknown location. Image A Russian convoy parked in a field outside Donetsk after crossing into Ukraine through a border crossing held by pro-Russian separatists. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times The man known as The Georgian, who is a member of the Vostok Battalion, which consists of mostly local Ukrainians, said the Ossetian volunteers at the Motel checkpoint do not report to Ukrainian commanders, so nothing further could be done. He said he condemned the abuse. At the peace talks in Minsk, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine will be joined by representatives of the European Union and the Russia-led Customs Union, including the presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus. Although the talks offer some hope for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, both Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko are under strong pressure from nationalists at home to press on militarily. Oleh Voloshyn, a former Ukrainian diplomat, said in a telephone interview from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, that Mr. Poroshenko will use the summit meeting to ask Mr. Putin to halt the flow of Russian volunteers and military hardware across the border and may offer, perhaps in private talks or via subordinates on the sidelines, autonomous status for portions of eastern Ukraine in exchange. The Ukrainian government, however, will not accept any legitimization of the main rebel group here, the Donetsk People’s Republic, Mr. Voloshyn said, particularly after the public abuse of prisoners. “After yesterday’s parade of prisoners of war, the sympathy toward the people of the Donbass is low in other regions in Ukraine,” he said, making it politically difficult for Mr. Poroshenko to negotiate, something that factions in the separatist movement intent on drawing in Russian peacekeepers want, Mr. Voloshyn said. “Most Ukrainians want peace. But if it comes to a choice between total humiliation and war, they will choose war.” In Moscow, Mr. Lavrov, the foreign minister, was questioned about the parade held Sunday in which prisoners of war from the Ukrainian Army were displayed. Researchers with Human Rights Watch said the parade violated Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment against prisoners of war.” Mr. Lavrov said the parade did not appear to meet that standard. “I saw a picture of this parade,” he said. “I did not see anything close to abuse.”

Ukraine
Russia
Sergey V Lavrov
Vladimir Putin


Ukraine Rebels Upbeat After an Infusion of Aid

Abstract: HORLIVKA, Ukraine — The rebel commander casually led the way down a muddy trench, shoulder high with shaved walls of moist earth, his boots slapping at wooden slabs sunk into the muck. Finally, he reached an earth-covered observation post. “There, you see,” he said, pointing a gnarled index finger, its brown nail twisted after 30 years in the coal mines. A few hundred yards away, across an icy lake and a field, were some scattered office buildings, close enough to count the windowpanes. “There are the Ukrainians,” said the commander, whose real name is Pavel and who asked that his surname not be used, for fear of reprisals. His fighters call him Batya, an endearment for father in Russian and a common nom de guerre for rebel commanders in eastern Ukraine . The smack of artillery fire rose from a village in the valley below, captured just a few days earlier by Batya’s rebels. A nearby crack, a tense pause, then a distant thud somewhere beyond the lake. “Sometimes, at night, they come at us with their tanks,” Batya said. “But we do not let them advance.” The mood here on the rebel front lines is upbeat these days. Two weeks ago, Russian-backed rebels captured the airport in Donetsk , kicking off the fiercest round of combat in the region since last fall. Their commanders declared a four-month-old cease-fire defunct and vowed new attacks, which began almost immediately, including one in which a barrage of rockets struck a crowded market in a coastal town on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol , that left 31 dead. The conflict in eastern Ukraine exploded nearly a year ago, after the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovych was toppled by pro-Western forces. Since then, more than 5,000 people have died as the separatists, backed by Russian money, strategic guidance, weapons and, NATO says, troops, have defeated all of Kiev’s efforts to bring them back into the fold. Now, powered by what Western officials say was a fresh injection of Russian aid last month, the rebels feel they have the upper hand. Image Rebel fighters at a front-line position in Horlivka, Ukraine. Their commanders have declared an end to a four-month cease-fire. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times On Monday, the top commander, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, said that the rebels would answer Ukraine’s recent announcement that it would conscript more troops by organizing a voluntary mobilization of their own that, he vowed, would increase the size of the rebel army to as many as 100,000. At the moment, the rebels are within reach of surrounding a contingent of hundreds of Ukrainian troops dug into the town of Debaltseve, a crucial rail hub. “We are on the move and they are trapped,” Batya said. His fighters are deployed on the edge of the strategic city of Horlivka, not far from the only road still connecting Debaltseve — 23 miles to the east — with Ukrainian-controlled territory to the north. The road has come under regular fire in recent days and is sometimes impassable. The grand house where Batya and his troops make their headquarters used to belong to a regional prosecutor. But he fled in the face of the separatist advance, so now the rebels are lords of the manor. The soaring, two-story entryway, wrapped in a grand wooden staircase, is now the company canteen, a pot of bubbling stew perfuming the air, boxes of medical supplies stacked in the corner. Batya makes his office in a front parlor, chattering on walkie-talkies with his troops while his top fighters smoke cigarettes on a sofa and flick ashes into a shell casing. “This is our famous fighter,” he said, laughing happily and gesturing to a small woman seated beside the window. Her name is Ira, and before the war she was the secretary at a kindergarten in Shakhtarsk, a town several miles to the south. Batya is from the same town, as are most of his fighters — outside of a couple who described themselves as volunteers from Russia. “She is known as 01,” he said, pronouncing it “zero one,” which is an emergency telephone number, like 911 in America. “She goes into the field to rescue our fighters when they are wounded. Plus she is our best sniper. She can cook for us. She can drive our tank.” He reached into a corner behind a tattered chair and pulled out a long rifle with a thick scope. “Here is her sniper rifle,” he said. Ira sat on the sofa, blushing slightly and rubbing her feet together, clad in fuzzy red slippers. She had no sniper training. “I just decided to give it a try,” she said. Batya barked a few orders into his walkie-talkie, then turned and said, “There will be loud noises soon.” Almost instantly, the company’s tank, parked down the road, barked loudly and the percussion wave rolled up the venetian blinds. Batya said his troops had held this position for four months, but were looking forward to moving once the road to Debaltseve is severed. After that, well, that is another question. In August, Russian-backed rebel troops routed Ukrainian forces around the town of Ilovaisk , obliterating entire units of soldiers, leaving about 100 armored vehicles in smoking ruins and reversing the tide of the war. There is talk now of “another Ilovaisk” in Debaltseve. “We will win, I know that,” Batya said. “We will not accept to live with these Ukrainians any more. But what the world will look like after the fighting, really, I don’t know.” The venetian blinds danced a few more times. Coffee was served and Ira traded her fuzzy slippers for leather boots and a fur-lined combat cap. Batya fingered the medals hanging from his battle tunic; one of them is for conspicuous bravery, the highest decoration the rebels bestow. Horlivka is a crucial position for the rebels, both because of its substantial industrial facilities and because of five huge water pipelines that converge here. If Ukraine captures the town, Batya said, it could choke off the entire region’s water supply. “Lose Horlivka and we lose the war,” he said. “But we do not lose Horlivka.” The streets in the center of town were crowded with shoppers over the weekend, most of them elderly women with pushcarts. Image A rebel commander known as Batya, right, was greeted by a wounded comrade in Horlivka as Ira, a sniper, left, looked on. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times The billboards had not been changed for nearly a year, so the paper on them hung in shreds, layer upon layer, with only the occasional smiling eyeball or number peeking through. People waited at stoplights, ran for buses. A statue of Lenin peered sternly over a central square. To the north, though, where the front lines meet the edge of town, street traffic was sparse. A bus stop had been blasted to bits. A pedestrian bridge collapsed onto a water pipe. A scorched ninth-floor apartment was all that was left of a family of three, hit with a shell two nights earlier. At only one point did Batya’s mood sour, when he asked how Americans could support Ukrainian troops who were doing such things to his people. “Do we look like terrorists?” he asked. “Do we look like Russian soldiers?” He reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out a Ukrainian passport — “See!” he shouted — and then a stack of laminated ID cards, one for each of the towns in which he has fought, beginning with Slovyansk last spring. “Every time we move to a new town, there are new forms to fill out,” Batya said, suddenly smiling again. After a brief tour of the front lines, he paused at one of his northernmost emplacements, just to check the temperature of his troops. An elderly woman was arguing angrily with a pair of soldiers who refused to let her through to buy bread, fearing she was a Ukrainian spy. A few yards away, Ira smiled again shyly, cradling an automatic rifle across her chest. On its nose was a grenade launcher carrying a shell called the frog, because it hits the ground, jumps up and explodes at stomach level. “I saw what happened in Maidan,” she said, referring to the popular uprising that had unseated the previous, pro-Russian government last year. “I knew I was against the people who had come to power in Kiev.” For her, she said, there was no choice. “I just had a feeling that something should be done,” she said, “And I thought, ‘Why not me?’”

Ukraine
Horlivka
Russia
Aleksandr Zakharchenko
Debaltseve
Donetsk Ukraine
People's Militia


A Port to Keep Up With Growth in Abu Dhabi

Abstract: ABU DHABI — The new Khalifa shipping port in Abu Dhabi is huge. Built to accommodate ships that would not fit in the older Mina Zayed port and to promote trade, the $7.2 billion Khalifa port and adjacent Kizad industrial zone — which together form Abu Dhabi’s largest infrastructure project — will be two-thirds the size of Singapore upon completion in 2030. Built on an artificial island that extends five kilometers, or about three miles, offshore, the Khalifa port has an annual capacity of 2.5 million T.E.U. containers, the 20-foot equivalent units that are standard in the shipping industry, and the plan is to increase capacity by another 2.5 million containers in the second phase of the project, to be completed within three to five years. This amounts to a big jump from Mina Zayed’s capacity of 800,000 containers a year. “For Abu Dhabi to continue to grow, it needed a new port anyway,” said Tony Douglas, chief executive of Abu Dhabi Ports Co. “The second driver is that of economic diversification away from oil, so this is a big step for industrialists in areas like aluminum, glass and steel who need a base in the emirate.” By the end of this year, the forty-year-old Mina Zayed port was expected to reach maximum container capacity because of Abu Dhabi’s rapid growth. Set to formally open on Dec. 12, Khalifa Port began operations Sept. 1. It is already handling much of Mina Zayed’s container traffic. The port is set to fully replace Mina Zayed over the next six months, with Mina Zayed used as a hub for cruise liners instead. Aside from sheer size, the port is also the most technologically advanced of its kind in the world. Gone are the days of a rowdy port with tattooed sailors. The Khalifa Port container yard is fully automated, with a control center that resembles an air traffic control tower. If a problem alert arises on a monitor, the automation is switched off and trained technicians are able to lift cranes and shift containers manually from the comfort of control rooms. Khalifa Port is part of a large-scale project under the umbrella of the government owned by Abu Dhabi Ports Co., a developer of ports and industrial zones established in 2006 that aims to revamp transportation and trade in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The project is financed by the Abu Dhabi government. The idea is to improve trade by sea, air, road and rail. Aside from the Khalifa port and Kizad industrial zone, plans are in place to expand road networks by extending Emirates Highway and Sheik Zayed Road, completing the national railroad network and supporting airport developments. The Khalifa port and industrial zone represent continued efforts by Abu Dhabi to diversify away from oil. In 2009, 60 percent of Abu Dhabi’s gross domestic product of $100 billion was linked to oil and natural gas. The aim is to have G.D.P. of $400 billion by 2030 with only 40 percent related to oil and gas, Mr. Douglas said. “So it’s switching the 60-40 ratio of oil dependence around while increasing G.D.P. fourfold, largely by targeting non-oil-related fields, like the industrial sector, which is of greatest interest to us,” he said. Industries including aluminum, glass, food processing, logistics and distribution will have hubs in the industrial zone of Kizad. “Already, 25 percent of the space has been committed to people who have paid deposits and are now putting together the project financing in order to develop big plants,” Mr. Douglas said. “Our plan is to sell all the space in the next two years.” The project will also create jobs. There are currently 1,400 employees, with plans for 100,000 jobs by 2030, he said. The infrastructure for Kizad A and its dedicated Khalifa Port Phase 1 is now complete, while Kizad B is still under construction. They are both at Taweelah, halfway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. “Upon completion, it will place Abu Dhabi in a stronger position to compete with neighboring Dubai as a key regional transport and re-export hub,” said Jamie Ingram, a Middle East analyst at IHS Global Insight, based in London. Khalifa Port’s main rival in the United Arab Emirates is the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, 40 kilometers away. It is owned by DP World, one of the world’s largest port operators, which recently announced plans to invest $850 million over the next three years to increase the port’s capacity to 19 million T.E.U. containers. Regional competitors include Jubail in Saudi Arabia and ports in Europe. But Mr. Douglas said the Khalifa port and Kizad were developed with three principles in mind: having low operating costs, operating in an environment where it is easy to do business, and creating an integrated transportation system that allows for access to global markets. “Europe does not have low operating costs and Jubail in Saudi Arabia is one potential competitor, but it’s relatively not an easy place to do business,” he said. “In addition, the new port in Abu Dhabi is part of a master plan that has easy access to airports, the first port in the region that is designed to have a heavy rail, and has proximity to the biggest highway.” With 60 percent of world trade coming out of the Far East — particularly from ports in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore — Abu Dhabi’s new port is in an ideal geographical position between East and West, he added. “Today, 85 percent of everything we consume travels by sea — what people eat, raw materials that build houses, consumer goods,” Mr. Douglas said. “The Far East will continue to dominate global trade, but maybe not at the same rates as we’ve seen in the last 20 years, and with the completion of our project, we’ll be in a powerful position of growth.”

Ports
United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates)
International Trade and World Market
Ships and Shipping


In Many Cities, Rent Is Rising Out of Reach of Middle Class

Abstract: MIAMI — For rent and utilities to be considered affordable, they are supposed to take up no more than 30 percent of a household’s income. But that goal is increasingly unattainable for middle-income families as a tightening market pushes up rents ever faster, outrunning modest rises in pay. The strain is not limited to the usual high-cost cities like New York and San Francisco. An analysis for The New York Times by Zillow , the real estate website, found 90 cities where the median rent — not including utilities — was more than 30 percent of the median gross income. In Chicago, rent as a percentage of income has risen to 31 percent, from a historical average of 21 percent. In New Orleans, it has more than doubled, to 35 percent from 14 percent. Zillow calculated the historical average using data from 1985 to 2000. Nationally, half of all renters are now spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, according to a comprehensive Harvard study , up from 38 percent of renters in 2000. In December, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan declared “the worst rental affordability crisis that this country has ever known.” Apartment vacancy rates have dropped so low that forecasters at Capital Economics, a research firm, said rents could rise, on average, as much as 4 percent this year, compared with 2.8 percent last year. But rents are rising faster than that in many cities even as overall inflation is running at little more than 1 percent annually. Image Arturo Breton, left, and Aurelio Medina consult their smartphones during an apartment rental search. Credit Angel Valentin for The New York Times One of the most expensive cities for renters is Miami, where rents, on average, consume 43 percent of the typical household income, up from a historical average of just over a quarter. Stella Santamaria, a divorced 40-year-old math teacher, has been looking for an apartment in Miami for more than six months. “We’re kind of sick of talking about it,” she said of herself and fellow teachers in the same boat. “It’s like, are you still living with your mom? Yeah, are you? Yeah.” After 11 years as a teacher, Ms. Santamaria makes $41,000, considerably less than the city’s median income, which is $48,000, according to Zillow. Even dual-income professional couples are being priced out of the walkable urban-core neighborhoods where many of them want to live. Stuart Kennedy, 29, a senior program officer at a nonprofit group, said he and his girlfriend, a lawyer, will be losing their $2,300 a month rental house in Buena Vista in June. Since they found the place a year ago, rents in the area have increased sharply. “If you go by a third of your income, that formula, even with how comfortable our incomes are, it looks like it’s going to be impossible,” Mr. Kennedy said. Part of the reason for the squeeze on renters is simple demand — between 2007 and 2013 the United States added, on net, about 6.2 million tenants, compared with 208,000 homeowners, said Stan Humphries, the chief economist of Zillow. That trend is continuing as young people and doubled-up families move out on their own. “They’re creating a lot of incremental demand,” Mr. Humphries said. But new households rarely plunge straight into homeownership, especially given that mortgages are much harder to obtain than they were before the financial crisis. “The expectation is that when they strike out into their own units they’ll be moving into rental as opposed to the owner side,” he said. And as rents head higher in the tightest markets, many are discovering that living on their own is proving unaffordable, forcing them to double up again. Arturo Breton, a 37-year-old waiter in Miami Beach, said that after years living on his own, he was joining forces with a roommate who works as a manager at J. C. Penney. “I’ve come down to the conclusion that in this country, it’s easier for two people to pay the rent than for one person,” he said. For many middle- and lower-income people, high rents choke spending on other goods and services, impeding the economic recovery. Low-income families that spend more than half their income on housing spend about a third less on food, 50 percent less on clothing, and 80 percent less on medical care compared with low-income families with affordable rents, according to a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. And renters amass less wealth, even non-housing wealth, than homeowners do. The problem threatens to get worse before it gets better. Apartment builders have raced to build more units, creating a wave of supply that is beginning to crest. Miami added 2,500 rental apartments last year, and 7,500 more are expected in the next two years, according to the CoStar Group, a real estate research firm. But demand has shown no signs of slackening. And as long as there are plenty of upper-income renters looking for apartments, there is little incentive to build anything other than expensive units. As a result, there are in effect two separate rental markets that are so far apart in price that they have little impact on each other. In one extreme case, a glut of new luxury apartments in Washington has pushed high-end rents down, even while midrange rents continue to rise. Image Housing units under construction in Miami. The city's rents on average consume 43 percent of the typical household income, up from a historical average of just over a quarter. Credit Angel Valentin for The New York Times “Increasing the supply is not going to increase the number of affordable units; that is a complete and utter fallacy,” said Jaimie Ross, the president of the Florida Housing Coalition. “People say if there really was a great need, the market would provide it; the market would correct itself. Well, the market has never corrected itself and it’s only getting worse.” Money for affordable housing has dried up at a time when it is needed most. Federal housing funds, in a form now known as HOME grants, have been cut in half over the last decade. The percentage of eligible families who receive rental subsidies has shrunk, to 23.8 percent from 27.4 percent, the Harvard study found. And Florida, which like other states faced large budget shortfalls after the financial crisis, has raided its housing trust fund, funded by a real estate transfer tax, for several years running. This year, the Legislature has proposed restoring at least part of the money. Cities have been left to address the problem on their own, with some granting exceptions to their own zoning laws to allow for things like micro-apartments. Miami has allowed some variances to its urban plan for projects like Brickell View Terrace, which will have 176 units in a prime location near a Metrorail station. Ninety of the units will be affordable for people making 60 percent of the median income, 10 for people making less, and the rest will be market rate. But a seemingly insatiable demand for luxury condos in Miami, created in part by wealthy Latin Americans, has caused land prices to soar, making affordable housing projects harder to build anywhere close to downtown. Moving farther out is cheaper, but the cost savings on housing can be quickly wiped out by transportation costs. A 2012 study by the Center for Housing Policy found that Miami was the most expensive metropolitan area in the country when housing and transportation costs were combined. In many markets, buying a home is considerably cheaper than renting, and Miami is no exception . But many people are shut out of buying because their income is too low, they don’t qualify for a mortgage or they are burdened by other debt. In 2008, a quarter of rental applicants were still paying off student loans, according to CoreLogic, but as of last fall half of them were doing so. Steve Gunn, 25, the marketing director for a Miami real estate brokerage firm, said he could certainly afford an apartment on his salary of $52,500 — if he weren’t paying more than $800 a month in student loan debt. Instead, he commutes 90 minutes to work. From his mother’s house.

Rent
Housing
Real Estate
Economy
Urban area


Influence of Mayor’s Departing Deputy Is Seen in His Successor

Abstract: In a move that underscores the mayoral aide Daniel L. Doctoroff ’s continued influence over city development, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Thursday named Robert C. Lieber, a key lieutenant of Mr. Doctoroff’s, to succeed him as deputy mayor for economic development. Mr. Doctoroff handpicked Mr. Lieber to run the city’s Economic Development Corporation last year, and the two have worked together closely on a number of projects on Mr. Doctoroff’s agenda. They include Moynihan Station, a major rezoning in Coney Island and the Hudson Yards redevelopment. Mr. Lieber, 53, did little to dispel the notion that he would follow closely in the footsteps of Mr. Doctoroff, who is leaving City Hall on Jan. 11 to run the mayor’s company, Bloomberg L.P. “I don’t think there’s any change in direction,” he said at a news conference at City Hall on Thursday. “I think it’s just full speed ahead. We’ve got a lot of things to do and not a lot of time to get them done.” The question of Mr. Doctoroff’s future role in shaping development has intrigued City Hall watchers and the development community since Mr. Bloomberg announced Mr. Doctoroff’s departure earlier this month. Mr. Doctoroff, whom Mr. Bloomberg has likened to the master builder Robert Moses, plans to remain officially involved in Hudson Yards, Moynihan Station and some other ambitious projects begun during his tenure. Mr. Bloomberg said he hoped Mr. Lieber would reach out to Mr. Doctoroff and others in the private sector for assistance, as long as the consultations are approved by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board. “Certainly I know of few people who would be as useful as Dan,” Mr. Bloomberg said, adding: “That’s exactly the kind of person that we want to help with the city.” But Mr. Bloomberg said responsibility for the success of city development efforts now fell on Mr. Lieber. “The buck stops with him,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “He’s got to deliver results.” Mr. Doctoroff did not attend the news conference. Like Mr. Doctoroff, Mr. Lieber came to public service after a career on Wall Street. Mr. Lieber was a private-equity executive at Lehman Brothers when Mr. Doctoroff recruited him to become president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, a post he was named to in January 2007. He oversaw nearly 400 employees at the corporation, which is responsible for helping to develop city-owned real estate, assisting businesses, providing financial services and revitalizing the waterfront and industrial neighborhoods. In that position, Mr. Lieber answered directly to Mr. Doctoroff and the two met in biweekly meetings. Mr. Lieber said he saw his new position as an opportunity to help shape a city he has grown to love since moving here from Colorado 30 years ago. “Even before I became part of the team, I was enormously impressed by the breadth and the depth of the economic development Mayor Bloomberg and Dan Doctoroff were doing,” he said. “I am extremely thrilled about — and grateful for — the chance to come to City Hall at this exciting moment in the city’s history.” Mr. Bloomberg credited Mr. Lieber with helping to push through a proposal to transform downtown Jamaica, Queens, into a vibrant “airport village” with hotels and office towers surrounding the AirTrain transit hub. The 368-block rezoning in September was one of the largest in the city’s history. The mayor also praised Mr. Lieber with helping develop the long-awaited rezoning plan for Coney Island, though that plan appears to be halted by a standoff with Joseph J. Sitt, a shopping center developer who owns 10 acres in the heart of Coney Island’s aging amusement district. Mr. Sitt has balked at the city’s offer of a land swap. Though Mr. Lieber has kept a low profile in his short time with the city, people who know him say he has strong ambitions to make a mark of his own. He has expressed support for expanding ferry service across the Hudson and the East Rivers to reduce car and truck traffic. That could mean a revival of the long-stalled redevelopment of the Atlantic Basin in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where two ferry companies have submitted proposals in response to solicitations from the city. Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a land use and preservation group that helped sink Mr. Doctoroff’s plans for a West Side stadium but has supported the PlaNYC environmental initiative, said Mr. Lieber is more low-key than Mr. Doctoroff, but every bit as driven. “Bob Lieber is very approachable, very easy to work with,” Mr. Yaro said. “Maybe he doesn’t have Dan’s hard-driving style, he makes it look a little more relaxed, although I think he’s just as determined to get things done.” Some within city government said he had not done enough to reach out to neighborhood residents and business owners where developments are planned. “In my opinion, the institutional arrogance that has permeated the E.D.C. for years has not changed under him,” said City Councilman Tony Avella, chairman of the council’s subcommittee on zoning and franchises. The former City Council speaker turned lobbyist Peter F. Vallone Sr., who is a consultant for business owners opposed to the city’s development plans of the long-neglected Willets Point neighborhood near Shea Stadium in Queens, presented a different view. He said Mr. Lieber inherited some difficult projects where residents were not involved enough in the planning and has tried to make amends by reaching out to them. “He’s been trying, literally with both hands tied behind his back, to do the right thing,” Mr. Vallone said. “The point is he really is trying, which hasn’t happened before now.” The mayor has not made clear in precisely what capacity Mr. Doctoroff will serve the administration in future projects. The administration is consulting with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board to ensure that Mr. Doctoroff’s new position with Bloomberg L.P. does not conflict with any continuing role he has with city developments. Nat Leventhal, chairman of the mayor’s committee on appointments, led the search to replace Mr. Doctoroff. Administration spokesman Stu Loeser said that Mr. Doctoroff was among those solicited for ideas but did not take part in the interviews, and the final decision was made by Mr. Bloomberg. In a related matter, the mayor on Thursday named Edward Skyler, deputy mayor of administration, to be the new deputy mayor of operations, a post that has not been formally filled since Marc V. Shaw left after Mr. Bloomberg’s first term. The move will increase Mr. Skyler’s responsibilities, making him perhaps second only to First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris in power inside the administration. Mr. Skyler will retain many of the duties he has now, which include overseeing the Police and Fire Departments, the Office of Emergency Management and the Office of Management and Budget. In his new post, he will now also oversee the Departments of Transportation, Buildings and Environmental Protection, among other agencies. Mr. Skyler will also take over Mr. Doctoroff’s role orchestrating the mayor’s PlaNYC environmental agenda, including efforts to impose congestion pricing in the area of Manhattan below 86th Street. His salary will remain at $196,574. Mr. Lieber will begin his new duties on Jan. 8 at a salary of $196,574. He made $189,700 as head of the economic development corporation.

Doctoroff Daniel L
Bloomberg Michael R
New York City
Politics and Government


Upcoming Events: Avian Census, Earth TV and ‘Mating Intelligence’

Abstract: BOOK “Mating Intelligence Unleashed: The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love.” By Glenn Geher and Scott Barry Kaufman. Oxford University Press. 320 pp. $27.95. Like a peer-reviewed version of"The Game,"this geeky treatise mines evolutionary and experimental psychology to help readers “succeed in their own mating-relevant goals.” The authors’ broad test of “mating intelligence,” originally devised as a magazine quiz, measures both desirable traits like creativity and kindness, and relationship skills like empathy, lie-detection — and even a bit of deception. Image A submission to "The Great Backyard Bird Count." Credit Gary Botello OUTING The Great Backyard Bird Count. Worldwide. Feb. 15-18. www.birdcount.org This annual event, organized by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, turns bird-watchers into avian census takers. Last year’s observers counted more than 17 million birds in North America, uncovering an unusual number of snowy owls and a shortage of blue jays in New England. This year the project goes global. TELEVISION “Earth From Space." "Nova,” from PBS. Feb. 13 (check local listings). How do dust storms in the Sahara fertilize the Amazon? How does an undersea waterfall in Antarctica affect climate around the globe? How does the Earth’s magnetic field protect us from solar winds? Orbiting satellites provide the answers in this two-hour special , made with the help of NASA. Talking heads explain the science, from microbiology to meteorology. But the main attraction is a superb batch of computer animations, which reveal the hidden cycles of energy and matter that sustain life on Earth. PANEL “Lust and Love in the Animal Kingdom.” The New York Academy of Sciences. 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St., 40th floor. Feb. 12, 6:30 p.m. $25. Image Credit Paul Wein The New York Academy of Sciences continues its monthly series inspired by the seven deadly sins with a panel on animal sex. Danielle N. Lee, a mammalogist, will discuss the secretive mating behaviors of the African giant pouched rat. Brian Switek, a science journalist, will point to fossil evidence for teenage sex among tyrannosaurs, as well as evolutionary arguments for the theory that dinosaurs had penises. And Marina Cords, a Columbia zoologist, will share her hunch that most primates “lust but probably rarely love their mates” — with the possible exception of humans.

TV
Books
Glenn Geher
Scott Barry Kaufman
Birds
Outer space
Paleontology


Angels Have Yet to Send a Player to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Abstract: Tim Mead was 12 years old when his family moved from Virginia to California. The family drove, arriving at its new home in Highland ahead of its furniture. Mead, who had brought a transistor radio, sat on the floor of his family’s new kitchen, turned the dial and found an Angels game. He was hooked on a team not much younger than he was. After a decade or so, Mead went to work for the Angels in Anaheim. In 35 years as an executive, he has seen a lot. Two players have hit their 500th home runs as Angels. Another earned his 300th victory under the halo, and another slapped his 3,000th hit. The Angels won the World Series in 2002, and their players have won Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards. But Mead has never seen a player enter the Hall of Fame as an Angel. “We don’t lose sleep over it,” said Mead, the vice president for communications and a former assistant general manager. “But it would be nice to go to Cooperstown and see the A. That day will come.” The day came for another early 1960s expansion team, the Houston Astros, when Craig Biggio was elected to the Hall of Fame on Tuesday. Biggio will be the first player to wear an Astros cap on his plaque, a long wait for a team that joined the majors in 1962, as the Colt .45s. The Angels are a year older than the Astros, having joined the American League as an expansion team in 1961. Other current teams not represented on a plaque are much newer, including Arizona (1998), Colorado (1993), Miami (1993), Seattle (1977), Tampa Bay (1998) and Washington (2005). Randy Johnson, another new Hall of Famer, starred for the Mariners and the Diamondbacks. Johnson won one Cy Young Award and no championships with Seattle, but four Cy Young Awards and one title with Arizona. Unless Johnson goes in with a blank cap, Arizona is the better choice. That would allow Ken Griffey Jr., a lock for the 2016 class, to be the first Mariner. The Angels, though, may be waiting awhile. Their homegrown superstar, Mike Trout, is off to a breathtaking start — but at 23, he may be closer to birth than to Cooperstown. Manager Mike Scioscia is building a case but does not appear to be close to retirement. The earliest Vladimir Guerrero could be elected is January 2017, but Guerrero is no lock. His closest statistical equivalents, according to the Baseball Reference website, are Jeff Bagwell and Larry Walker, who are not in. And Guerrero played more games with the Montreal Expos. “But he made postseason appearances and won the M.V.P. for the Angels,” Mead said. “That’s going to be a good test. It’s going to be interesting.” The Hall of Fame makes the final decision on caps, in consultation with the inductee. The plaques do list every stop in the inductee’s career, so the Angels are mentioned 12 times: for Bert Blyleven, Rod Carew, Rickey Henderson, Whitey Herzog, Reggie Jackson, Eddie Murray, Frank Robinson, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Hoyt Wilhelm, Dick Williams and Dave Winfield. Albert Pujols, clearly a future Hall of Famer based on his years with St. Louis, swatted his 500th career homer last April during his third season as an Angel. Jackson hit his 500th in 1984 as an Angel, while Carew got his 3,000th hit the next season and Sutton his 300th win in 1986. Ryan is in the Hall as a Texas Ranger, but he had more victories, innings, strikeouts and no-hitters for the Angels than he did for any other team. He established the single-season strikeout record (383) as an Angel in 1973, but he signed with the Astros before the 1980 season. Buzzie Bavasi, then the Angels’ general manager, refused to make Ryan the game’s first $1 million player. Infamously, Bavasi said he could find two pitchers to go 8-7 to replace one who had just gone 16-14. “Years later, when Ryan was continuing to pitch into his 40s, Buzzie sent him a telegram,” said Ross Newhan, the retired baseball columnist. “He said, ‘Not signing you was my biggest mistake — but you don’t have to keep rubbing it in.’ ” Newhan won the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, presented at the Hall of Fame, in 2000. As a beat writer in 1961, he covered the Angels’ first game, a victory in Baltimore that preceded eight losses in a row. Incredibly, the Angels’ overall franchise record did not rise above .500 again until last July. In the early years, the Angels’ biggest star was shortstop Jim Fregosi, who was eventually traded to the Mets for Ryan. But another player, Dean Chance, briefly offered a glimmer of Cooperstown promise. In 1964, at age 23, Chance went 20-9 with a 1.65 earned run average and 11 shutouts to win the Cy Young Award, then given to just one pitcher in the majors. Chance pitched 50 innings against the lordly Yankees that season and allowed only one run, on a solo homer by Mickey Mantle. Image Nolan Ryan, who set a single-season strikeout mark as an Angel in 1973, is in the Hall as a Ranger. Credit Jeff Robbins/Associated Press “Bill Rigney had seen a lot of young pitchers with the Giants’ organization,” Newhan said, referring to the Angels’ first manager, “and he said Dean Chance was the best he’d ever seen.” Alas, Chance lasted just two more years with the Angels and was finished at 30. The franchise would spend years searching for its way, its periodic successes due largely to imported stars like Jackson, Carew, Fred Lynn, Bobby Grich and Bob Boone. “There were so many changes in the front office, so many managers and so many changes in philosophy, that there was just no continuity — and that was reflected in players’ tenures, and a lot of things,” Newhan said. “In the ’70s and ’80s, it was just constant turnover.” The Angels’ career leaders in wins above replacement are Chuck Finley, Fregosi and Tim Salmon — each a reliable stalwart but not a strong Hall of Fame candidate. Several longtime Angels, like Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad and Troy Percival, can be viewed the same way. Major award winners like Don Baylor (1979 M.V.P.) and Bartolo Colon (2005 Cy Young) spent the bulks of their careers elsewhere. Trout, the reigning M.V.P. in the A.L., is a different case. He is performing at an elite level and is signed through 2020, tying him to the Angels through the first decade of his career. If he stays on his current trajectory, he will have a compelling case to be the first Angel in bronze, provided no one beats him to the honor. “Internally, we were always taught, ‘Don’t put too much public pressure on a player,’ ” Mead said. “And if you look at Mike, it’s not so much what we’ve said about him, but what others have said. The people that have seen some of the great players play, they draw their own comparisons. I think the sky’s the limit for him.” In baseball, the sky means Cooperstown.

Baseball
Baseball Hall of Fame
Mike Trout
Los Angeles Angels


Fallen Leaves Gum Up Brooklyn Subway Travel

Abstract: Subway riders who thought they had come across every reason for train delays — station fires, flooded tracks and sick passengers — have been presented with a new one: falling leaves. Transit officials have put up about 500 signs along three subway lines in recent weeks warning that fallen foliage, “crushed by moving trains,” has been leaving a “slippery residue” that “may affect the train’s ability to start and stop.” Riders of the B and Q lines, which have several open-air stops in Brooklyn, and the Franklin Avenue shuttle in Brooklyn, which is completely exposed, were told to “allow for additional travel time.” The phenomenon is common to the region’s open-air suburban commuter railroads, and to those of other systems, like Chicago’s and Philadelphia’s, but for some hard-bitten New York City subway riders, the warnings seemed like just the latest frustrating excuse. “Because of leaves?” one rider, Sylis Gordon, asked incredulously on Wednesday as she waited for the Q train at the Parkside Avenue station. “That’s new.” She looked around her, noticing garbage on the tracks, but said, “There aren’t that many leaves.” Kate Jassin, 29, a doctoral student at the New School who was waiting for the shuttle at the Prospect Park station, exclaimed: “Delays because of leaves? That’s amazing.” To counter the problem, the transit agency has operated a vacuum train that sucks up leaves and other debris over the tracks once a week, as well as a special rail-adhesion train that applies “a gritty material that helps create some friction between the wheel and the rail” each night, said James E. Leopard, the line general manager for the B and Q and the Franklin Avenue shuttle. Mr. Leopard said he decided to post the roughly 500 signs — focusing on 14 stations at or below street level, as well as in subway-car windows — starting in the middle of last month. The signs are to be taken down by early next week. Leaves from broad-leaf trees like oaks, maples, hickories and poplars are coated with a substance called epicuticular wax, which account for their slippery texture, according to Graeme P. Berlyn, the E. H. Harriman professor of forest management and physiology of trees at Yale. When the leaves are crushed, the wax — made of long-chain fatty acids — mixes with plant cells to leave a gooey residue. “That just adds to the problem, because there is more matter between the tracks and the wheels,” Dr. Berlyn said when told of the New York City subway situation. “The train wheels aren’t able to clamp down as hard on the tracks as if there were no leaves.” The leaf-falling season has largely passed, Mr. Leopard said. “I was out there today and it looks to me that the trees are pretty bare,” he said. He estimated that the leaves would add some two minutes of travel time to the typical journeys of the B (1 hour and 17 minutes, end to end) and Q (54 minutes, end to end). He said that no trains had accidentally overtaken their stations on account of the crushed leaves. The leaf problem, such as it is, does not affect underground subway stations or elevated lines — like the No. 7 — where water washes leaves off tracks. But Charles F. Seaton, a spokesman for the transit agency, said that leaves had hindered other parts of the subway system with at- or below-grade tracks, including parts of the No. 5 line in the Bronx, the A line in Queens, and the L and N lines in Brooklyn. “The fall has always represented one of the biggest seasonal challenges the railway has faced,” said John G. Gaul, chief officer of the Staten Island Railway, whose 14 miles and 22 regular stations are almost entirely exposed. “We’re almost all outdoors, and the majority of the line is heavily vegetated. We operate through residential areas and protected woodlands.” He added, “It’s something that the commuter railroads battle with, just terminal to terminal.”

Subways
Commuting
Railroads
New York City
Delays (Transportation)
Transit Systems
Trees and Shrubs


Trump’s Choice of Stephen Bannon Is Nod to Anti-Washington Base

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In naming Stephen K. Bannon to a senior White House post, President-elect Donald J. Trump has elevated the hard-right nationalist movement that Mr. Bannon has nurtured for years from the fringes of American politics to its very heart, a remarkable shift that has further intensified concern about the new administration’s direction. The provocative news and opinion website that Mr. Bannon ran, Breitbart News , has repeatedly published articles linking migrants to the spread of disease . Its authors have criticized politicians who do not support a religious test for immigrants to screen out potential jihadists. And it has promoted stories that tried to tie Huma Abedin , a top aide to Hillary Clinton who is Muslim, to Islamic militants. In an interview, Mr. Bannon, 62, rejected what he called the “ethno-nationalist” tendencies of some in the movement. His interest in populism and American nationalism, he said, has to do with curbing what he sees as the corrosive effects of globalization. And he believes his enemies are misstating his views and those of many Trump followers. “These people are patriots,” he said. “They love their country. They just want their country taken care of.” He added, “It’s not that some people on the margins, as in any movement, aren’t bad guys — racists, anti-Semites. But that’s irrelevant.” Some of Mr. Bannon’s own statements and behavior have drawn the condemnation of faith leaders and anti-discrimination groups, which reacted to his appointment with alarm on Monday. Jewish groups pointed to allegations from Mr. Bannon’s ex-wife that he had made anti-Semitic comments about the students at his daughter’s school. Critics have resurfaced other episodes from his past, including a 2011 interview in which he mocked liberals who criticize conservative women as “a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools.” Mr. Bannon’s ascent has quickly become the focus of those critics, who broadly condemned the choice as divisive , if not racist, on Monday. But it was also a victory of head-spinning dimensions for a man who is relatively new to the president-elect’s inner circle. When Mr. Bannon joined Mr. Trump’s sputtering presidential campaign in August, he insisted to his friends that even if Mr. Trump lost, he could at least mitigate any damage to the nationalist movement, which he helped fuel as the head of Breitbart. Donald Trump’s Cabinet Is Complete. Here’s the Full List. A list of appointees and nominees for top posts in the new administration. Instead, that nationalist movement — which has promoted and enabled anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and racist sentiments — will now have a champion at Mr. Trump’s side in the West Wing. The place that Mr. Bannon will occupy in the new administration, as senior counselor and chief strategist, also elevates to one of the most powerful roles in government someone whose mission in politics has been to tear down institutions, not run them. His appointment was intended to be a reassuring signal to the vocal and restive members of Mr. Trump’s populist, anti-Washington base who are suspicious of power and anyone who holds it. Mr. Trump is their champion, but Mr. Bannon is their check against the Washington establishment and any efforts it makes to soften the new president’s resolve. Mr. Bannon does not come out of the usual political or ideological backgrounds that have shaped the Republican Party in recent decades. He is not a religious conservative who is focused on social issues. He is not a traditional economic conservative. What especially motivates Mr. Bannon, his friends and colleagues say, is a sense that the country’s cultural and political elite are contemptuous of ordinary Americans. That endeared him to Mr. Trump, who never felt he received the respect he deserved for building such a large political movement. That “arrogance of the elites,” as Mr. Bannon has said, explains why most of the media and political class missed the rise of Mr. Trump. Mr. Bannon’s disgust with the politics of the mainstream Republican Party burns just as hot as, if not hotter than, his animus toward liberals. He sees Republicans as the “ party of Davos donors ” and has scorned them for denigrating Trump supporters as the “vulgarians, the hobbits” and “the peasants with the pitchforks.” He is close to Sarah Palin, and at one point he urged her to take up the kind of Republican versus Republican battle he relishes: a primary campaign against Senator John McCain, her 2008 running mate. (She declined.) He was behind some of the Trump campaign’s most inflammatory moves, like inviting several women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual advances to sit in Mr. Trump’s family box during a debate. He had never worked on a national campaign until signing on with Mr. Trump, and has had eclectic taste in careers. He served as a Navy officer and went into banking for Goldman Sachs. He also helped run Biosphere 2, the domed ecosystem in Arizona where people lived without contact with the outside world. Like many leaders of the emerging hard-right movement, he became engaged in politics with the rise of the Tea Party early in President Obama’s first term. He felt that the government’s bailout of the banking system was an egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars that did almost nothing to help ordinary Americans. His reason was personal: His father, a former telephone company lineman, had to sell off stock in his retirement account to make ends meet. Video In August, Donald J. Trump shook up his presidential campaign for the second time in two months, hiring Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, as the Republican campaign’s chief executive. Credit Credit Carlo Allegri/Reuters. Mr. Bannon has told people in Mr. Trump’s inner circle that the new administration will have a short window of time to push its agenda through and should focus first on the priorities that are expected to be the most contentious. Ever hungry for political combat, Mr. Bannon is expected to be an unrelenting advocate for many of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive plans on immigration. That involves stopping the immigration of Syrian refugees, deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records and devoting more resources to securing the border. Mr. Bannon, who grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Norfolk, Va., earned degrees from Georgetown and Harvard. He often compares Mr. Trump’s political rise to that of Andrew Jackson, the military general and populist hero who took on the political and social elite of his day as the seventh president of the United States. While Mr. Trump became the leader of the movement of disaffected Americans who feel lost and disenfranchised in a nation undergoing rapid cultural and demographic change, Mr. Bannon has been a student of global populist trends, carefully tracking the rise of the far-right National Front in France under Marine Le Pen and the remarkable victory of the U.K. Independence Party in Britain’s vote this year to leave the European Union. “Steve saw — and was a thought leader and a visionary about — the issues and the movement that Trump eventually caught on to and espoused,” said Larry Solov, the chief executive of Breitbart. “He’s like a field general,” Mr. Solov added, “and very much sees the fight for the soul of this country as a war.” Mr. Bannon will take his White House job already at odds with the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, an ally of Mr. Priebus’s whom Mr. Bannon has long sought to undermine. When he ran Breitbart, Mr. Bannon promoted Mr. Ryan’s opponent in the Wisconsin primary in the website’s news stories and radio interviews. Mr. Bannon is personally close to members of Congress like Dave Brat, the Virginia Republican who unseated Eric Cantor, the former majority leader. He has written that the appropriations process under Mr. Ryan was “a total and complete sellout of the American people.” His former colleagues at Breitbart refer to him admiringly as a “honey badger” because of his relentlessness — a quality they now expect him to turn on Washington. “What drives Steve,” said Joel B. Pollak, Breitbart’s editor at large, “is the way the political establishment is holding back American politics.”

Donald Trump
2016 Presidential Election
Steve Bannon
Fringe Groups
US Politics


Evolution Book Sees No Science-Religion Gap

Abstract: In 1984 and again in 1999, the National Academy of Sciences , the nation’s most eminent scientific organization, produced books on the evidence supporting the theory of evolution and arguing against the introduction of creationism or other religious alternatives in public school science classes. On Thursday, it produced a third. But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God. “We wanted to produce a report that would be valuable and accessible to school board members and teachers and clergy,” said Barbara A. Schaal, a vice president of the academy, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University and a member of the panel that produced the book. The panel, convened by the academy and the Institute of Medicine , its medical arm, was headed by Francisco Ayala, a biologist at the University of California, Irvine, and a former Dominican priest. The 70-page book, “Science, Evolution and Creationism,” says, among other things, that “attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.” And it offers statements from several eminent biologists and members of the clergy to support the view. In the book, which will be available on the Web site of the National Academies ( www.nas.edu ), the panel reports that evidence for the theory of evolution is overwhelming and growing. It cites findings from DNA research, fossil discoveries and the observations scientists have made about emerging diseases, like SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome . The book also denounces the arguments for a form of creationism called intelligent design, calling them devoid of evidence, “disproven” or “simply false.”

Evolution
National Academy of Sciences
Creationism and Intelligent Design
Science and Technology


Forget the Cost to the Candidates. This Campaign’s Cost America More.

Abstract: The world, too, is waiting anxiously for this election to be over: In India, right-wing Hindus who pray at their temple for Donald J. Trump to defeat Islamic extremism. In Saudi Arabia, a crown prince who engaged in a Twitter war with Mr. Trump. (“Dopey Prince,” Mr. Trump called him .) In Mexico, economists who predict that the peso will plummet if Mr. Trump wins. In Japan, a generation that has taken United States military protection for granted, but worries that it might no longer be able to do so. But regardless of who wins, after a presidential campaign marred by scandal, political violence, allegations of corruption and fears of voter fraud, America’s image stands tarnished in the eyes of its own people and the world. The United States has always attracted its share of international criticism on foreign policy, especially during the Iraq war. But rarely has its political system been subjected to such widespread scorn and ridicule. Eight short years after the nation was lauded for overcoming its deepest prejudice by electing a black president, this campaign has laid bare an ugly underbelly of American politics. And it has exposed the capacity of a nation defined by its democratic ideals to fall victim to the same antidemocratic forces that have stymied third world countries. How much luster the American brand has lost is hard to quantify. Global polls, taken largely before the campaign’s worst moments, still find the United States the world’s most admired country . Tourism and foreign direct investment are down, but not shockingly so. But the shift is clear nonetheless. In interviews, Americans who travel overseas and foreign observers say that tourists who once felt themselves the envy of the world now feel the sting of embarrassment. Businesses that once marketed their jeans and fleece jackets internationally as tiny pieces of the American dream are being advised to revamp their ad campaigns. United States diplomats more accustomed to mediating other countries’ disputes are now being called on to defend American democracy in the face of allegations that the election is “rigged.” “I think it has affected the way that people see us,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a veteran diplomat who was under secretary of state for political affairs under President George W. Bush. “They don’t expect that from the United States. We are the people who go and monitor other people’s elections.” Across the planet, people are contemplating the possibility that the United States might not be so exceptional after all. “Much of the world is no longer in awe of you,” said Lyall Mercer, managing director of a public relations company in Australia. Mr. Mercer noted that state lawmakers in Sydney had recently adopted a resolution by unanimous accord that described Mr. Trump as a “revolting slug.” “Of course I understand this is about the candidate and not the country,” Mr. Mercer said. “But the very fact that they were willing to do this, with not one M.P. speaking against it — despite knowing they were ridiculing someone who could be the next president of our most important ally — I think speaks to the diminishing awe, or even respect.” In Lebanon, where the United States’ image had already been battered — first by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, then by President Obama’s disengagement from the region — its staunchest defenders have been quieted. “Even during the worst days of anti-Americanism in the Middle East, there were always pockets of people who had studied in the U.S. who still looked up to the United States,” said Hisham Melhem , a correspondent for An-Nahar, Lebanon’s leading daily newspaper. “Now, many of them have given up on the United States as a beacon of progress and enlightenment.” Arabs skeptical of the United States’ efforts to promote democracy in the region have eaten up allegations of sexual misconduct and embarrassing email leaks in the campaign, Mr. Melhem said: “They are mocking the American democratic process in ways that I’ve never seen before, and I’ve been covering elections since the early 1980s.” In Africa, where political contests combining ethnic divisions, violence and the possibility of a challenge to the election’s result are not unfamiliar, some have made snarky suggestions that the African Union broker a “unity government” in the United States, using the Twitter hashtag #Nov8AfricaEdition. The United States’ image abroad has fallen so much that trusty Canadians have begun their own campaign of reassurance: #TellAmericaItsGreat. “The French fry is an American invention,” read one cheerful post. “Thanks America!” Adversaries are also at work, trying to magnify the impression that American democracy is a sham. In Russia, which is accused of hacking into the emails that have dogged Hillary Clinton’s campaign, newscasters portray the United States as under the control of dark, secretive forces. Vesti, a nightly news program in Moscow, reported that the firebombing of a Trump campaign office in North Carolina was an example of “attempts to kill those who have different views.” Then there is Europe, where 85 percent of people in a recent Pew Research Center poll reported having no confidence in Mr. Trump to “do the right thing regarding world affairs.” There, his very popularity has tarnished America’s image. Image A poster of Donald J. Trump on display in New Delhi. Credit Harish Tyagi/European Pressphoto Agency “The overwhelming question that you get about the presidential election is ‘What are you people thinking?’” said Jeremy Shapiro, the Boston-born research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Although Europeans have been troubled by their own right-wing populists, “they expect the United States to be a rock of stability, a safety net they can rely on,” he said. And the scorn does not fall solely on Mr. Trump. K. Riva Levinson, who leads a boutique international consulting firm in Washington, said that during a recent trip to Ghana, people expressed disillusionment with what they saw as the unfairness of the Democratic primary contest between Mrs. Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “America is not a monarchy,” she said people told her. “It is not an office you are entitled to, either by birth or by marriage.” Others ask what has happened to the United States and its political talent pool, to result in two nominees so widely despised. “These are the two best candidates they have to run the biggest economy and oldest democracy in the world?” asked Arvind Gupta, national head of digital and technology for India’s ruling party. Perhaps the most important change in the image of the United States, however, is the one taking place within its own borders. Americans’ trust in the political system has been shaken, whether because they believe Mr. Trump’s claims that it is rigged or because he has gotten so close to the presidency. Fifteen percent of voters have no confidence that their ballots will be properly counted, up from 6 percent in 2004, a New York Times/CBS News poll found. “I believe, like Trump does, that the system is rigged,” said Ted Gregory, 79, of Camp Hill, Pa. To Mr. Gregory, a retired business owner who travels abroad frequently, that loss of faith has gone hand in hand with what he sees as a decline in America’s stature, starting under Mr. Bush and continuing under Mr. Obama. “I’m old enough to remember when you told someone that you were from the United States, they thought, ‘Lucky you,’” he said. “Now, I don’t know what they think.” And so a Pandora’s box of unimaginables has been opened. America’s greatness, once considered a fact, is now a matter of debate. Its ironclad commitment to its allies seems less ironclad. Core values have been thrown into dispute. And for the first time since the republic’s earliest days, many wonder if there will be a peaceful transfer of power. For months, many in government and business have sought to assess the damage. Big corporate leaders, including the chief executives of Starbucks and Wendy’s, have fretted about a tougher climate for American companies. In July, Matt Levatich, the chief executive of Harley-Davidson motorcycles — featured prominently at rallies of bikers supporting Mr. Trump — blamed politics for sagging sales. “Our brand identity is connected strongly to the ideals of America, and when the ideals of America seem to no longer be our ideals anymore, it can’t help things,” he told TheStreet.com. Ruth Bernstein, the co-founder of YARD, an ad agency known for its fashion campaigns, said she was advising American companies that sell overseas to move away from marketing an idealized version of America, because it no longer feels authentic. “The brand of America relies heavily on the perception that the American dream is alive and well, that anyone can make it here and is welcome,” she said. The election has cast doubt on all that. How long those doubts will linger is an open question. Simon Anholt, an independent policy adviser who developed a poll of 25,000 people in 20 countries called the Nation Brands Index , said the United States had fallen to the world’s seventh-most-admired country after the Iraq war, but rebounded to No. 1 after Mr. Obama’s election. Its image is unlikely to suffer lasting damage, he said, as long as the country does not carry out Mr. Trump’s promises to scrap trade agreements and military alliances. “People don’t like countries that withdraw from the international sphere,” Mr. Anholt said, pointing to the tarnishing of Britain’s image after it voted to leave the European Union. Even as the United States experiences an eye-opening look in the mirror, people in younger, shakier democracies are seeing a silver lining. Amara Nwankpa, director of public policy initiatives at the Yar’Adua Foundation, which promotes good governance in Nigeria, expressed hope that “America will emerge from this experience a more empathetic partner” to third world countries. “There’s some ironic reassurance in the fact that even the great United States of America could struggle this much with elections,” Mr. Nwankpa said. If America can get it so wrong, he added, maybe one day Nigeria “could get it right.”

Polls
2016 Presidential Election
US Foreign Policy
Donald Trump
Barack Obama


U.S. Plays Catch-Up on High-Speed Rail

Abstract: AUSTIN, TEXAS — Spanish trains whisk passengers from Madrid to Barcelona in little more than two and one-half hours. Japan has bullet trains. China is building a vast network of high-speed rail routes, including the recently opened line between Guangzhou and Wuhan, which covers 1,070 kilometers at the world’s fastest average speed. Soon, perhaps, the United States, with the world’s largest economy will also clamber on board. So far, the United States — in spite of or perhaps because of its vast size — has virtually no fast trains capable of moving swiftly enough over a long distance to compete with airplanes. That could change over the next decade. President Barack Obama has declared high-speed rail to be a priority. He is interested, he has said, in “innovations that change the way we travel in America” through the creation of cleaner, energy-saving options. The economic stimulus package provided $8 billion toward the development of high-speed rail. Another $2.3 billion in government awards should be announced this autumn, using money from the budget. Soon, the U.S. government will publish its first-ever national rail plan, laying out a vision for the future of freight and passenger rail. It is supposed to be released by Sept. 15, but a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration , Warren Flatau, said in an e-mail that Congress had recently requested an “additional level of specificity in the document,” and the agency is studying how to proceed to provide a thorough and timely report. Right now, the only nominally high-speed option in the United States is the Acela line, which runs through the busy Northeast corridor, from Washington to Boston. The trains are capable of traveling 150 miles, or 240 kilometers, per hour. But their average speeds are far lower, because of the need to share the track with other trains and because of the large, busy metropolises along the route. The major plans for new rail lines in the United States center on California and Florida. Both are contemplating fast trains with dedicated tracks. Peter Gertler, the high-speed rail services chairman of HNTB, an engineering and construction management company based in Kansas City, Missouri, says that Florida is likely to have a high-speed rail line operating first, perhaps by 2015. About 95 percent of the right of way has been acquired between Orlando and Tampa Bay, Mr. Gertler said. California wants to run a line from San Francisco to Los Angeles, hitting the major cities along the way, with speeds as high as 220 miles per hour. (HNTB is managing the Florida program for the state’s department of transportation and is also involved in engineering and environmental work for the California line.) Cities in the American Midwest, like Chicago, are looking to improve their rail lines so they can support faster trains. European and Asian companies — which have experience with high-speed trains — stand to benefit from an American rail boom, although political considerations may require substantial involvement from U.S. companies. “I definitely see there will be some strategic partnerships with European and Asian firms,” Mr. Gertler said, adding that the United States did not currently manufacture high-speed rail vehicles. Companies based in Japan, Germany, South Korea, Spain, France and Italy, among others, have shown interest in working on U.S. projects. As my colleague Keith Bradsher has reported from Beijing, China has offered not only to build, but also to help finance, California’s high-speed railroad. But some companies’ home ties are already causing trouble. S.N.C.F., the French national railroad, which is interested in Florida’s high-speed rail project, is running into protests from Holocaust survivors and their families, who cite its role in taking Jews to concentration camps during World War II. The company has responded that it had no control of its operations during that time, according to The Associated Press. But the protests have gotten the attention of the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, who on Friday ordered his secretary of transportation to review the company’s record. California has already acted: Its legislature passed a bill late last month that would require companies interested in rail contracts to disclose their wartime roles. But the biggest question mark hovering over the future of high-speed rail in the United States is funding. The $8 billion allocated in the stimulus package is not nearly enough, particularly because it is spread across a range of projects around the country. California’s new system alone could cost $40 billion. State governments will shoulder a substantial share of the costs, and they are grappling with budget deficits. Mr. Gertler of HNTB said that one key will be consistent spending from the federal government. He envisioned a dedicated stream of funding, like the gasoline tax , which pays for highway maintenance. “The biggest obstacle is a permanent, sustainable and secure source of funding into the future,” he said. Another hurdle will be complaints from communities along the routes. Last week, city council officials in Palo Alto, California, adopted a resolution of “no confidence” toward the California High Speed Rail Authority. The objections included cost concerns and lack of a business plan, as well as reduced property values, increased traffic and noise and vibrations in Palo Alto — all “with little or no benefits to us.” As the United States struggles forward, high-speed rail seems poised for a boom around the world. China is the real hot spot: As Mr. Bradsher has reported, China has opened or plans to open 42 high-speed lines by 2012. The Chinese have recently reached out to South Africa about working on high-speed rail there. Europe, too, hopes to expand its network, with plans to connect Portugal and Spain via high-speed rail, and to enhance links between France and Spain. Mr. Gertler predicts that after things get rolling, a bandwagon effect will take hold, even in the United States. Once people see a system up and operating, “everybody will want to develop one,” he said.

United States
Federal Railroad Administration
Railroads
High-Speed Rail Projects


Life Technologies Says It Is Exploring Potential Sale

Abstract: NEW YORK (Reuters) — The biotech company Life Technologies said Friday it was exploring a potential sale and had retained banks to advise on the process, news that sent its shares more than 10 percent higher. The market value of Life Technologies, a company based in Carlsbad, Calif., that makes equipment and products used in biotechnology development, surged to roughly $10.5 billion. It hired Deutsche Bank Securities and Moelis & Company to assist in its “annual strategic review.” Shares of Life Technologies rose 10.6 percent to $60.79 on the Nasdaq stock market, after reaching a high of $62 during the session. The Canadian newspaper Financial Post said a potential deal could come in the $65-$75-per-share range. Given the size of a potential buyout, it was possible that several private equity firms would team up to complete a deal.

Life Technologies
Biotechnology
Mergers and Acquisitions