Rethinking Apple’s Recipe for Success

Abstract: For Apple, saying “no” may be getting harder. Eddy Cue, an executive in charge of iTunes and Internet services for the technology giant, raised the possibility of a bid for Time Warner at a meeting with the media conglomerate last year, according to The Financial Times. That seems at odds with the recipe for success championed by Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder: Reject “1,000 ideas” and focus on only the few excellent ones. An aging iPhone, a tepid stock price and a pile of idle cash, however, could make even a mediocre idea look awfully tempting. The deal talk never went beyond a preliminary stage or involved Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook. Making more movies, television shows and other content available on, say, iPads might help strengthen the device’s popularity and sales. It’s unclear, though, why owning content – not to mention acquiring it by paying perhaps $75 billion for Time Warner, including a control premium – would make more sense than just agreeing to distribute it. Apple’s resources are better spent creating compelling devices, not trying to develop a sequel to “Game of Thrones.” The company has been phenomenally successful sticking to Mr. Jobs’s mantra of minimalism. There is growing pressure, though, for something new. Producing beautiful cutting-edge technology is, in some cases, turning into a business of churning out commodities. About 1.4 billion smartphones were sold worldwide last year, so it’s harder to find new customers willing to spend hundreds of dollars extra for an iPhone, no matter how elegant its design. Investors seem to recognize that. Apple’s stock trades at a roughly 30 percent discount to the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. The company’s financial strength also feeds an urge for change. Its net cash exceeds $150 billion, and its free cash flow should easily surpass $50 billion this year. That makes almost any acquisition easier to rationalize. Apple is well known for resisting any impulse to splurge on second-rate ideas. It’s tough to imagine one of its top executives even discussing the purchase of a tangentially related company like Time Warner. Yet the news about Mr. Cue suggests a shift. Apple’s best hope may be that Mr. Cook stands firm on his predecessor’s sage advice.

Apple
Time Warner
Steve Jobs
Mergers and Acquisitions
Timothy D Cook


Wallenda’s Tightrope Crossing of Niagara Falls Is Set for June

Abstract: Fans of funambulists can finally mark their calendars. Nik Wallenda , the seventh-generation circus performer who persuaded the New York State and Canadian governments to allow him to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope, announced on Wednesday that he would undertake his walk on June 15. “I’m pursuing a dream, and it’s all coming to reality,” Mr. Wallenda, 33, said at a news conference at the falls. “I can guarantee you, nothing like this has ever happened before, anywhere in the world. I mean, this is clearly a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” Mr. Wallenda’s announcement followed months of wrangling with officials on both sides of the waterfalls, first in New York and then in Canada, where officials initially rejected his proposal on the grounds that it would offend the dignity of the site. But after further lobbying from Mr. Wallenda and his supporters, the Canadian agency that had opposed the walk, the Niagara Parks Commission , reversed its position in February. Mr. Wallenda said he made agreements final on Tuesday with that commission as well as with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation . Mr. Wallenda said his walk would occur at night and would probably take 30 to 40 minutes; the direction of the walk would be determined based on the weather. He said he would wear jeans and a T-shirt, or possibly a wet suit. He is to begin training next week at the Seneca Niagara Casino and Hotel on the American side of the falls. Tourism officials are hoping to draw thousands of people to watch the tightrope walk. Mr. Wallenda promised a “huge event that will no doubt reach the outskirts of the world.” While the June date leaves relatively little time for families to plan vacations to see Mr. Wallenda’s crossing, State Senator George D. Maziarz, a Republican from western New York, predicted that the event would increase publicity for the region. “People are going to see that front page of the newspaper, they’re going to see it on television,” Mr. Maziarz said, “and they’re going to say, ‘You know, Niagara Falls, you know, let’s give Niagara Falls a try for our family vacation next year.’ ”

funambulist
Canada
Niagara Falls (NY)
Performance Art
Wallenda Nik
Stunts and Stuntmen


Chinatown Case Puts Focus on Illegal Pesticides in N.Y.

Abstract: Dominican immigrants in Washington Heights have long had a ready weapon against vermin: Tres Pasitos, or Three Little Steps, a granular product so named because after rats eat it, they walk three steps and die. But for all its effectiveness, Tres Pasitos is also illegal. Manufactured in the Dominican Republic, it is imported and sold on the black market in unlabeled containers or small plastic bags like those used by drug dealers. “It’s not registered, not controlled, there’s no antidote,” warned Andy Linares, president of Bug Off Pest Control Center in Washington Heights. “It’s really pretty scary.” The recent arrests of vendors in Chinatown accused of selling an illegal, highly potent pesticide apparently smuggled from China opened a window on the underground trade in chemicals used to combat roaches, rats and other vermin in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods. The product at the center of that investigation, which government officials disclosed this week, was sold in a box printed with Chinese characters and an awkward English translation: “The Cat Be Unemployed.” Officials said the substance contained a toxic chemical in a concentration almost 61 times higher than federal regulations allowed. Though several professional exterminators said they had never encountered the product, they said it was just the latest in a stream of goods that for years had flowed from overseas factories into the supply closets of households and businesses in New York. City health officials said that since 2005 they had received about 100 reports of poisoning from Tres Pasitos and two other anti-pest products favored by immigrants, Tempo and Chinese Chalk. While there were no deaths, about 40 percent of the victims had to be treated in medical centers, officials said. Lower prices and language barriers can steer immigrants toward the underground market, immigrant advocates say. So can cultural biases: immigrants become familiar with products in their homeland and import their preferences, and sometimes the substance itself, when they move to the United States. They pass along their knowledge and techniques to neighbors and friends. “It’s word of mouth: get this and do that,” said Gil Bloom, owner of Standard Pest Management, a company founded in 1929 and based in Long Island City, Queens. Government officials have tried for years to clamp down on the trade in Tres Pasitos, which is often used against rodents and which contains aldicarb, an insecticide that is highly toxic to humans and pets. Yet demand remains high. “The people will do what they want to do,” said Omar Campos, co-owner of Exterminadora Latina, a company in Rego Park, Queens. “They don’t care if it murders a kid.” Yaneyri Caney, a Dominican immigrant who works at a cafe on Broadway in Washington Heights, said that while she did not use Tres Pasitos because she did not have a rodent problem, she was a devoted user of Tempo. Sold as a powder, Tempo is legally available in New York only to licensed applicators. But for years it has been traded briskly on the black market in small quantities. It is supposed to be mixed with water at ratios provided by the manufacturer, but untrained users often sprinkle it undiluted around their homes at hundreds of times its recommended concentration. Ms. Caney said she bought it in packets from street vendors and, every couple of weeks, poured the powder in a line around the base of her bed and spread it on her kitchen cabinets and walls to deal with cockroaches. “It’s far more effective” than products like Raid and Combat, she said. Ms. Caney said she was aware of the danger. “If there are children around,” she cautioned, “you have to watch out.” Residents and shop owners in neighborhoods like Washington Heights and the South Bronx said that in the 1990s, vendors would openly hawk Tempo from folding tables on the sidewalks. “They were going: ‘Tempo! Get your Tempo!’ ” recalled Mr. Linares, the exterminator in Washington Heights. “It was out of control.” Since then, a clampdown by the authorities has driven the market further underground. In bodegas throughout Washington Heights, store owners who were asked this week for Tres Pasitos and Tempo reacted as if the request were for crack cocaine. “No way,” one bodega owner said, his eyes widening in alarm. “That’s illegal. You’ll have to get it on the street.” Exterminators said the liveliest sector of the underground pesticide market was the trade in Chinese products, with new substances regularly entering the stream of shadowy commerce. For years, one of the most popular black market products from China was a stick of chalk loaded with insecticides, including the chemical deltamethrin. Known as Chinese Chalk or Miraculous Chalk, it was used to draw a line along a wall or around a piece of furniture, like a bed or a kitchen table. Insects would die when they touched the line. The arrests of several vendors in the city, and a public education campaign warning of the chalk’s dangers, apparently chilled the market. Professional exterminators say customers no longer request the product as often as they used to. Still, exterminators tell horror stories of do-it-yourself efforts gone awry. One practice — used by some immigrants, experts said — involves dousing furniture in kerosene or gasoline to combat bedbugs and other pests. In their homeland, the immigrants would have hauled furniture to the yard. But in New York, with no yard available, some families have left their furniture where it stood and sprayed the flammable liquids inside. In some cases, firefighters have been forced to respond.

Pesticides
Black Markets
Hazardous and Toxic Substances


Immigration Issue Pushes Cameron Into a Corner

Abstract: David Cameron is on the verge of making a historic error. The Sunday Times says the British prime minister has already decided to set an annual cap on the number of Continental Europeans who are legally entitled to work in the country. But it seems more likely that he is still agonizing over exactly what to say on immigration in a speech promised before the end of the year. The snag is that imposing quotas would infringe on the European Union treaty commitment to allow free movement of people. If Britain just goes ahead and stops people from going there to work, it will be hauled up in front of the European Court of Justice. More likely, Mr. Cameron will seek to secure the right to set a cap on immigration as part of his plan to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union before holding a referendum on whether the country should stay in the 28-nation bloc. The problem is that it is inconceivable that he can negotiate such a deal. Therefore, if the prime minister commits himself to getting the right to impose quotas, the logic of his position will force him to campaign to quit the union — assuming, that is, he wins next year’s general election and is in a position to hold his promised in/out referendum. Few people believe Mr. Cameron wants to pull Britain out of the European Union. He seems to understand that it would be bad for Britain’s prosperity and influence. But he is increasingly boxed in by the rise of the U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP, which wants Britain to quit the Union and has succeeded in persuading many voters that immigration is the most important issue facing the country. Last month, a member of Parliament from Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives switched to UKIP and won a landslide special election. A second defecting legislator is expected to win a special election this month. The Tories are panicking because they fear they will lose next year’s election as a result of its voters’ turning instead to UKIP. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, the popular Conservative mayor of London, has come out in favor of quotas on European Union immigrants. Mr. Johnson plans to become a member of Parliament next year, putting him in pole position to take over the party if Mr. Cameron slips. Mr. Cameron is, therefore, under huge pressure to match Mr. Johnson’s pledge on quotas — to hold off the external threat from UKIP and the internal threat from the London mayor. The prime minister’s allies at home and abroad must try their hardest to stop him from making this error. Other European Union leaders should make it clear to Mr. Cameron that they have a red line when it comes to the free movement of people. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has already done this. But others should do so, too, either privately or publicly. It would be great if other European Union leaders could at the same time offer Mr. Cameron an olive branch. They should repeat Ms. Merkel’s message that while the free movement of people is nonnegotiable, they support tightening up the rules so that it is harder for immigrants to abuse benefit systems. Very few Continental Europeans actually come to Britain to live off benefits. But the voters have been so whipped up into believing that they are being swamped by scroungers that Mr. Cameron unfortunately needs to secure some deal on this topic. Other European Union leaders should also make it clear that they are sympathetic to Britain’s ideas for overhauling the bloc — like cutting red tape, completing the single market in services and decentralizing decisions where possible. But beyond that, there is little they can do to save Mr. Cameron from himself, apart from stressing the risks of quitting the Union. Many of his Conservatives think they can have their cake and eat it: leave the bloc but still retain full access to its single market. So it would be useful if Ms. Merkel and others said this would be impossible. They could stress that Switzerland doesn’t get a passport for its banking industry to operate in the Union, despite allowing free movement of people; and that if Britain quit and imposed quotas, it would get even less access. But it is not just foreign leaders who should be trying to bend Mr. Cameron’s mind. British businesses need to say publicly that they are opposed to quotas on commercial grounds and that they are worried that promising to introduce them could put Britain on a fast track to quitting the Union. It might even be helpful if business leaders, most of whom normally back the Conservatives, made clear they were rethinking their support. Although Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition, is not an appealing prospect as prime minister, at least he wouldn’t take Britain out of the European Union. The other person who might be able to influence Cameron is Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister. His Liberal Democrats want to stay in the Union. He should, therefore, tell the prime minister that there’s no way he will renew the coalition after the election if Mr. Cameron insists on quotas. The prime minister will make his mind up in the next few weeks. European Union leaders, British businesses and Mr. Clegg need to make their moves fast. Hugo Dixon is editor at large of Reuters News.

Immigration
David Cameron
Great Britain
EU
Europe
United Kingdom Independence Party


Jets Will Start Tomlinson Against His Old Team

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Rex Ryan spent five minutes Thursday awkwardly fielding questions about what he repeatedly called his “unintentional” slam of San Diego Chargers Coach Norv Turner earlier in the week, then pirouetted to a much more pleasant topic. Ryan announced that LaDainian Tomlinson was going to start Sunday — or at least take the first snap of the game — against the Chargers, for whom Tomlinson played nine mostly glorious seasons before joining the Jets last season. Relayed the news a half-hour later by reporters, Tomlinson grinned slyly and got a big laugh when he said, “I hope he’s talking about defense.” Tomlinson, 32, has played 162 N.F.L. regular-season games, rushing for 13,501 yards and 144 touchdowns. He said it really did not matter to him if he starts Sunday and did not feel as if the game was a grudge match against a team that released him. But Ryan made it clear he does not consider starting Tomlinson to be purely ceremonial, either. The Jets are 3-3, with only one victory in their last four games. Twenty-one months after the Jets eliminated them from the playoffs, the Chargers are 4-1. Ryan is looking for any edge he can get. “I had an old football coach who coached me in college — by the way, I was a hall of famer — he used to, if a kid transferred from a college or whatever, he’d play the guy,” Ryan said, referring to his career at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. “We had a running back who hardly played,” Ryan said, “and when we played this other team that he transferred from, he started, and this kid had something like 160 yards. That’s something that’s always stuck with me.” Ryan added: “Those are always special moments for guys. It’s not that it’s a bad thing — ‘I’m going to show that team.’ He’s getting to play in front of his team. That’s the biggest thing.” Wide receiver Santonio Holmes said playing against his former team, the Steelers, “is probably more fun than anything. You got an opportunity to know what you’re up against because you’ve played against those guys in practice, you’ve seen what they’ve done on film. It’s second nature, and you can use that to your advantage.” Although Ryan has stuck — stubbornly, Jets fans might say — with Shonn Greene as his featured running back after relegating Tomlinson to a backup role, Ryan still considers Tomlinson to be a valuable addition, if for no other reason than providing leadership. Tight end Dustin Keller said it has been “kind of awesome” to watch Tomlinson step back from a starring role and continue working with younger running backs like Greene and Joe McKnight, who has become something of a sensation in his second year. “He really is the ultimate teammate,” Keller said of Tomlinson. “Before games, he gets us up, breaks us down. He’s the one who gets us going. He fits the description of an ultimate teammate perfectly. He’s a great role model.” A year after rushing for 914 yards in the regular season — and sitting out the finale against Buffalo to rest for the playoffs — Tomlinson has gained only 97 yards rushing in six games and has caught 17 passes for 223 yards and a touchdown. Still, Ryan said Thursday of Tomlinson: “He’s everything I thought he’d be. He really is. I thought we were getting a guy who could really help us. The thing is, even more so, is the kind of person he is. As a former N.F.L. Man of the Year, you’d assume he’d be the kind of guy he is, but, wow, when you see it in your locker room, how he picks his teammates up, builds them up, he’s been fantastic that way.” Tomlinson thought it would be a good idea to run wide from a comment that Ryan made Wednesday, when the coach told San Diego reporters, “I think I would have had a couple of rings” had he been hired to coach the Chargers in 2007 instead of Turner. Ryan said he called Turner to tell him he had meant to be complimentary of the Chargers’ talent, although Turner said later in the day, “I was wondering if he had those rings with the ones he’s guaranteed the last couple of years.” “I think we’re even,” Ryan said Thursday. “He did get me with a good shot, there’s no question.” Tomlinson later said, “Certain coaches have the ability to get the best out of their players, and I think Rex does that better than anybody.” When asked which coaching method worked better, Ryan’s or Turner’s, Tomlinson smiled and said, “I think they have the right kind of players for their systems.” Tomlinson called Ryan’s comments “just Rex being Rex. We laugh. The guys who get offended by it are in San Diego. For us, we don’t care. We don’t care.” A year ago, after a victory over Denver, the Jets were 5-1 and the Chargers were 2-4. Asked at the time how it felt to be playing for a team with a winning record instead of one with a losing record, Tomlinson said: “No comment. The smile says it all.” His perspective seems to have been changed by the Jets’ struggles, and Tomlinson said he did not mean to offend anyone. When asked what stopped the Chargers from winning it all during his nine years in San Diego, Tomlinson said, “Other good teams.”

San Diego Chargers
Football
New York Jets
Ryan Rex
Tomlinson Ladainian
Turner Norv


As Austrians Prevail, American Skiers Falter

Abstract: KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — The ski racing rivalry between Austria and the United States has been less than subtle at times in the last eight years. At the 2006 Winter Olympics, after Hermann Maier won a ninth medal for the Austrians — the Americans had one medal at the time — he crowed at the postrace news conference: “Who’s the best in the world? Anyone can say he’s the best.” The comment was a stinging jab at the United States ski team’s motto, “Best in the world.” Four years later, at the Vancouver Olympics, the Americans proudly celebrated their slogan with eight medals, double the number won by the usually powerful Austrians. But Saturday, when Anna Fenninger of Austria won the women’s super-G and her teammate Nicole Hosp won the bronze medal to give Austria four Olympic medals at the halfway point of the 2014 Olympic Alpine competition, the pendulum appeared to be swinging sharply toward the Austrians again. The United States ski team, which a week ago appeared to have gold medal contenders — if not favorites — in three of the first five events, has instead been a prominent bust so far. The only medal performance has been Julia Mancuso’s surprise bronze in the women’s super combined six days ago. The Americans have not seriously threatened for a medal since then, with the best finish a sixth in the men’s super combined. Saturday, Mancuso was eighth. But the United States motto is not “top 10 in the world.” In 2010, at the halfway point of the Alpine competition at the Vancouver Games, the Americans had won seven medals: two gold, three silver and two bronze. “I think there’s definitely some disappointment,” Mancuso said Saturday. Referring to her teammate Bode Miller, she added: “For sure, in the downhill I wanted to have a better race and Bode, for sure, wanted to do better. But it’s hard — there’s only three spots that you can get a medal and there’s tons of skiers out here who can step it up and have their best races. “My last two races, I had conservative runs and wasn’t anywhere near having a medal. But it takes everything coming together. It has to be that magical day.” Image Fenninger celebrated after winning the gold medal in the women’s super-G. Austria now has four medals in the Alpine events at the Sochi Games. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times The United States Alpine director Patrick Riml said: “We probably expected a little more, to be honest. But the Games aren’t over yet and we’re halfway there. We still have some strong performers coming next week.” The United States team is partly feeling the effects of the absence of the injured Lindsey Vonn, who won gold and bronze medals four years ago. But skiers who were meant to replace Vonn, like Ted Ligety and Miller, have unexpectedly faltered. Ligety squandered a chance in the super combined by skiing tentatively — the opposite of his usual approach — and Miller, who was spectacular in training before the Olympics, has made a major blunder in every race. While Ligety and Miller have a chance to win medals in the men’s super-G on Sunday, hopes could quickly and desperately turn to the youngest Alpine racer, 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin, whose first event is the giant slalom on Tuesday. Shiffrin’s best event, the slalom, is Friday. Ligety will be the favorite in the men’s giant slalom on Wednesday. The pressure will be on to keep the United States team within sight of the soaring Austrians, who lead the Sochi Olympics Alpine medal table. How Close They Came to Winning A schematic visualization of Olympic finishers. “I don’t know why we as a country are doing so well,” said Fenninger, who finally had the breakout victory expected of her since she became a three-time junior world champion. “It is our national sport. It is important we show that we are good at it. The country is much happier when we do.” Fenninger’s winning time of 1 minute 25.52 seconds was achieved by mastering a deceptively tactical, twisting course that included a devilish final jump. The less accomplished skiers were tossing their skis sideways to make many gates, and 18 racers did not finish. Fenninger, 24, the 2011 super combined world champion, was crisp through the choppy snow of the top section, smooth through the flat, cruising middle section, and navigated the final jump with her skis pointing in the proper direction so she could be early on the pivotal left-footed turn over the knoll that vexed so many of her competitors. Among those who did not handle the final jump well was the silver medalist, Maria Höfl-Riesch of Germany. Höfl-Riesch could have won the race but she soared too far off the jump, leaving her out of position. “I am fortunate to have finished,” Höfl-Riesch said. “But I am happy even for a silver.” It is Höfl-Riesch’s fourth Olympic medal. She had won three golds. The record for Alpine Olympic medals by a woman is six by Janica Kostelic. Image Anna Fenninger, center, took home the gold in the super-G on Saturday, while Maria Höfl-Riesch of Germany, the super combined winner, left, won the silver, and Nicole Hosp of Austria won the bronze. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times Hosp, a versatile all-around skier who missed the Vancouver Olympics because of a knee injury, now has two medals at the Sochi Games and three Olympic medals over all. Mancuso was hoping to tie Miller for most Olympic medals won by an American, but she was unnerved by the number of skiers falling or not completing the course as she watched alongside the start gate. It led to a cautious run and a time that was 1.52 seconds behind Fenninger. “Super-G takes confidence, and seeing so many people go down and have bad runs, it took me back a notch in my confidence,” Mancuso said. “I left the gate wanting to ski well and not necessarily wanting to win. In my mind I wanted to win but after I got down to the bottom of the run, it was definitely conservative.” Still, Mancuso insisted that the United States team’s morale was still high. “Everyone on our team is really good at looking at the big picture,” she said. “Everyone is good at putting things in perspective.” Looking ahead at the remaining five Alpine events of the 2014 Olympics, Mancuso said, “I think there’s a chance in every event left to have a medal.”

Anna Fenninger
Nicole Hosp
Julia Mancuso
Tina Maze
Lara Gut
2014 Winter Olympics
Alpine skiing
Maria Hofl-Riesch


Rumors of Cow Killings in India Deepen Rift Between Hindus and Muslims

Abstract: MEWAT, India — In villages nestled among freshly razed wheat fields, a group of activists, spurred on by rumors, is hunting killers. They hear that these hunters are rounding up their prey by the thousands, snatching them at midnight from ponds and roadsides. They prod them onto stolen cars with heated iron rods, the whispers say, and butcher them. The victims of these attacks are cows, deeply revered by many Hindus, and the perpetrators of these alleged assaults are mostly Muslims, making the fight a flash point between India’s largest religious groups on the eve of state elections. Activism over the protection of cows is a centuries-old tradition in India, expressed in the law with most states banning cow slaughter. Muslim Mughal emperors put in place laws to protect cows in the 16th century to promote religious harmony. In the colonial period, Indian freedom fighters took up cow protection, partly to rebel against their imperial beef-eating rulers. But during elections, which will come to this state, Haryana, and to Maharashtra on Wednesday, the fight to protect cows and the rumors about their mistreatment have ramped up. There are no reliable estimates of cow killings, so it is difficult to say whether they have increased, never mind to determine the religion of the perpetrators. But that has not stopped right-wing political parties, which have whipped up their base by demanding stricter enforcement of laws against killing cows, and some say that local activists working in tandem with those parties are exploiting religious divides for electoral gain. Some analysts in India worry that the emergence of Narendra Modi, a hero of the Hindu right, as prime minister has emboldened religious conservatives to embark on sometimes violent campaigns against Muslims, though Mr. Modi himself has steered clear of religious issues. One such conservative in the northern Indian state of Haryana is Mahinder Pal Singh, who runs a cow shelter. He said he mobilized his network of young men if he so much as heard of a Muslim driving a car late at night that he suspected contained smuggled cows. The work can be deadly: One of his associates was killed six months ago on a midnight raid, he said. “We’ll catch hold of them, even if our workers are killed,” said Mr. Singh, standing at the shelter’s troughs, where dozens of cows fed and the air was thick with the smell of droppings. In a nationally televised speech this month, Mohan Bhagwat, the leader of the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, urged on grass-roots activists. In the state of Maharashtra, a mob objecting to a temporary slaughterhouse set up for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha earlier this month besieged a train and pelted the police with stones. In the mostly Hindu state of Haryana, the Muslim-dominated district of Mewat is one place where the smuggling rumors are swirling. In nearby Jhajjar, local leaders called for a ban on Mewat traders after five cows were found beheaded, gutted and skinned last month, according to a cow protection advocate there. Last week, a Delhi judge imposed life sentences on seven Mewat traders for firing on the police and five years’ imprisonment for cow smuggling, adding that they “belong to the notorious, ferocious and desperate gang of cattle lifters from Mewat known to hit back at police, having no fear of law.” Religious issues have long been used by political parties to spur voters to the polls. Ahead of elections in Uttar Pradesh this summer, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders spoke out against the often cited but never proven practice of “love jihad,” in which Muslim men reportedly seduce Hindu women, a narrative widely seen as an attempt to polarize voters. One of the most widely publicized allegations of love jihad was undermined this week when a woman came forward to say that she had willingly eloped with her Muslim boyfriend and that her parents had pressured her into reporting a case of gang rape and forced conversion. So far, agitation over rumors of cow killings has not reached that pitch. At the B.J.P.’s Mewat office in Nuh, the district’s headquarters, a local candidate, Sanjay Singh, was uncomfortable about overtly linking them to campaign promises. “This is an emotional issue; this is not an election issue,” said Mr. Singh, sitting before a campaign poster featuring an enlarged image of Prime Minister Modi’s face. “It is a religious issue — it is for the entire Hindu society.” But earlier in October, a state B.J.P. leader announced that, if elected, the party would work hard to elevate the punishment of cow slaughter to that of murder, according to the Press Trust of India. Mr. Modi, a longtime member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has kept his distance from contentious religious issues since becoming prime minister, said Neerja Chowdhury, a political commentator. “But the work is done by others on a local level, and he has not kept them quiet,” she said. Many Muslims in Mewat complained that the cases that went to court seemed suspect, adding that Hindus dominated the police force in Mewat. Hafiz Mohammad Hanif, 47, a farmer, said that the B.J.P. was just provoking cow slaughter rumors for the elections. “Each time there is a cow slaughter, it is a Hindu who does it,” he said. “They kill cows and dump the body parts on our land to vilify us.” He said that the cow shelters were actually businesses of their own, and that the so-called protection advocates were rounding up stray cows and selling them for profit. “They’d sell them to me for a high enough price,” he said. Sher Mohammad, a farmer in a nearby village, said that his son had been accosted by Hindu men a month and a half ago when he was trying to transport a cow the family had bought for milk. Mr. Mohammad’s son tried to persuade them that it was a legitimate sale, but the men pushed the driver out of his seat and drove them to a local precinct, where his son was jailed. “In this village everyone keeps their own cows and buffalos, but nobody stops the Hindus,” Mr. Mohammad said. Mahinder Pal Singh, who runs the cow shelter, complained that the Hindu population in the area had fallen precipitously over the years, which he said was part of a Muslim plot. He said that cow smuggling and conversions were designed to weaken Hindus in the region. “They want to establish a buffer state here where terrorists come for refuge,” Mr. Singh said. Mr. Singh was most animated when he spoke of his reverence for the cow, whose milk he said could cure AIDS and cancer. He said that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had given 15 Indian cows to the Soviet Union during her tenure, and that the bacteria from the cow milk had helped to protect some residents against the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. “We consider cows more worthy than our mothers,” he said. Though many Muslims in Mewat said that the law of the land should be respected, there was a degree of bafflement at the cow’s place in Hinduism. More than one resident of Mewat asked about the logic of a law prohibiting slaughter of cows, including Sher Mohammad, whose son had been arrested. “If God has made them to be killed and eaten, what’s wrong in that?” he asked.

India
Narendra Modi
Cattle
Bharatiya Janata Party
Hinduism
Islam
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh India
Haryana India


Republican Race Becoming Mitt Romney Only

Abstract: Mitt Romney ’s victories in Illinois and Puerto Rico this week have expanded his lead over Rick Santorum by roughly 60 delegates, putting him ahead by 300 delegates over all. Increasingly, the nomination race is becoming less a two-man contest between Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum than one that pits Mr. Romney against himself. The question now is this: How certain is Mr. Romney to get the 1,144 delegates required to clinch the Republican nomination without risk of a fight at the convention, and how soon will he do it? The short answer is that Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the required delegates have risen significantly in recent weeks , and the race would probably need to change in a fundamental way to keep him from securing the nomination before the convention. Mr. Romney, who has 563 delegates according to an Associated Press count, is almost halfway to his threshold. But the primary calendar is now entering a slower phase. The soonest that Mr. Romney could officially clinch the nomination, in fact, is May 22, when Arkansas and Kentucky vote. That would require that Mr. Romney win at least 95 percent of the delegates in the 15 states, and the District of Columbia, voting between now and May 22 and that virtually all of the 77 undecided “superdelegates” endorse him by then. (The New York Times has built a delegate tracker which allows readers to do their own analysis along these lines.) Even if he won 70 percent of the delegates in those states, as well as Texas, which votes on May 29, he would still need to wait until June 5 — when California and New Jersey vote — to capture the nomination. This sort of calculation, however, can sometimes be taken too literally. The outcome could be clear far before that point. The more telling statistic may be this one: not quite halfway through the nomination process, Mr. Romney has won 56 percent of the delegates that have been allocated in the Associated Press count. He would need to win only 46 percent of the remaining delegates to get to 1,144. There is no particular reason to think that the remaining states will be much better or worse for Mr. Romney than the ones that have already voted. He should do well in places like California and New York, but less well in states like North Carolina and Texas. If the remaining states play out as prior ones have, Mr. Romney should continue to win, on average, just slightly more than half the delegates. If he wins slightly less than half, he should still have no real problems. Until recently, of course, the Republican race had been highly volatile — introducing the possibility that Mr. Romney could go through a pronounced slump. However, in what is an underappreciated piece of good news for Mr. Romney, the race seems to have become more stable. Mr. Romney has held the lead over Mr. Santorum in the Gallup national tracking poll for the past 24 days. The results in essentially all recent states have been in line with what might be predicted from their demographics (even if the polls sometimes got them wrong). Not since Mr. Santorum’s win in Colorado on Feb. 7 has there been something that cut dramatically against preconceived notions. Mr. Santorum and his campaign team have begun to talk openly about a brokered convention. To some extent, this is a recognition of the mathematical reality: he would need to win 69 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination before the convention, which seems highly unlikely. As this becomes increasingly clear to voters, they may come to see their choice as being less one between Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum and more as between Mr. Romney and a brokered convention, something that polls show two-thirds of Republican voters oppose. So if there is a departure from the status quo in future primaries, it may break against Mr. Santorum. Even if the nomination were to go to the convention floor, it is not clear how Mr. Santorum would expect to prevail there. Before Michigan, it was possible to envision a situation in which Mr. Romney had the plurality of delegates but Mr. Santorum did better by measures of popular support, like the aggregate popular vote, national polls and the number of states won. Mr. Romney now leads in all those metrics and is likely to maintain his lead. The race will continue until Mr. Romney officially clinches the nomination or everyone else quits, but the only real question is whether Mr. Romney somehow beats himself.

Romney Mitt
Presidential Election of 2012
Republican National Convention
Primaries and Caucuses
Santorum Rick


Ashley Madison Chief Steps Down After Data Breach

Abstract: In the last two years, online attacks have led to executive casualties at prominent companies like Sony Pictures Entertainment and Target. Now add to the list the chief executive of the company operating the adultery website Ashley Madison, a lesser known but far more salacious victim. Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison, announced that its chief executive, Noel Biderman, stepped down on Friday, more than a month after hackers broke into the company’s computer systems and released data and emails that suggested it engaged in questionable business practices. The breach of Ashley Madison, an online service that facilitates extramarital affairs, resulted in the leak of personal information attached to more than 30 million accounts, including those of 10,000 American government officials, a handful of celebrities, a few clergymen and, apparently, very few real female profiles. Leaked emails also showed that the company may have hacked into the computer networks of its competitors. Mr. Biderman is the latest executive to have left a company — voluntarily or involuntarily — after a network breach. Amy Pascal stepped down as Sony Pictures Entertainment’s co-chairwoman in February after hackers released stolen data, including many embarrassing emails. In 2014, Target’s chairman and chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, a 35-year veteran of the retailer, stepped down months after a huge breach resulted in the theft of 40 million customers’ payment details. Those ousters have made security a priority among executives. According to a survey by the Ponemon Institute, which tracks data breaches, only 13 percent of senior management said their concern about a data breach was extremely high before the breach at Target. That jumped to 55 percent after the incident. “There’s less forgiveness,” Larry Ponemon, the founder of the Ponemon Institute, said in an interview on Friday. “The board is more concerned now than it has ever been with preserving the reputation of a company after a data breach. If the C.E.O. has to leave the company as a result, that’s the cost of doing business.” A statement from Avid Life Media said that Mr. Biderman was no longer with the company, effective Friday. “This change is in the best interest of the company and allows us to continue to provide support to our members and dedicated employees,” the statement said. “We are actively adjusting to the attack on our business and members’ privacy by criminals.” Mr. Biderman also created the companion sites Established Men, which targeted women looking to meet wealthy men, and Cougar Life, a service for older women. When hackers leaked Ashley Madison’s data this month, they accused the company of fraudulent business practices, like overstating how many women actually used AshleyMadison.com . One analysis showed that of the site’s roughly 34 million users, only 15 percent were female, and that only a small slice of those profiles were actually active. That could constitute a deceptive trade practice that could open Avid Life Media to an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. And if the F.T.C. can prove Mr. Biderman was aware of the fraudulent practice, participated in it and benefited from it, the commission could pursue him as well, said Marc Zwillinger, a founder of ZwillGen, a law firm that specializes in data breach cases. Mr. Biderman did not respond to a request for comment. Avid Life Media said it would not help arrange any interviews as he is no longer with the company. After releasing customer data, hackers last week dumped a second, 30-gigabyte data archive of Mr. Biderman’s emails. Among the emails posted was a 2012 exchange with Raja Bhatia, who was the company’s technology officer then but who has since departed, in which Mr. Bhatia said he had exploited a security hole in a competitor’s website, nerve.com , that allowed him to download and potentially manipulate the site’s user data. Emails show that Avid Life Media planned to offer $20 million to acquire nerve.com and flirt.com , a second website, but ultimately decided against the acquisition. Mr. Bhatia’s emails now seem prescient. “There will be an eventual security crisis amongst one of your properties and the media will leap on it as they always do,” he wrote in one leaked email. Prosecutors could use information from the leaked emails to charge Avid Life Media’s executives under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to enter computers or take information from them without authorization, Mr. Zwillinger said. The operators of nerve.com and flirt.com could also sue for civil penalties, he said. And then there are the class-action suits. The hackers accused the company of charging customers a $19 fee to delete their accounts, but the information posted by the hackers show that customers’ data still lingered on the site. That could constitute breach of contract, said Randy V. Sabett, special counsel at the law firm Cooley in Washington. At least four lawsuits have already been filed in the United States against Avid Life Media. In Canada, two law firms have filed a class-action suit against the company on behalf of a Canadian widower who is suing the company for $578 million. He said he briefly joined the site after his wife died of breast cancer. Mr. Ponemon said his firm had found that the cost of mega-breaches now averages $23 to $25 per exposed record, which includes the costs of lawsuits. That means the cost of Avid Life Media’s breach could rise as high as $850 million. But in this case, “The reputation effect alone is going to kill the company,” Mr. Ponemon said. “Their whole model is based on secrecy and the privacy of the individuals participating in this service. The reputational damage will be very difficult to overcome.” The company said it was working with international law enforcement agencies to investigate the data breach, which Canadian police have also linked to two suicides. Last week, Mr. Biderman hinted that the company knew who had breached its systems, but few leads have been made public. On Wednesday, Brian Krebs, a well-known security blogger, theorized that a Twitter user who posted a link to Avid Life Media’s stolen code before the data leak was made public may at least know who is responsible for the breach. Police in Toronto, where Avid Life Media is based, have said that employees first learned that their systems had been breached when they arrived at work on July 12 to find a menacing message on their computer screens accompanied by the rock band AC/DC’s song “Thunderstruck.” Mr. Krebs said he had downloaded five years’ worth of posts from the Twitter user and found boasts about web attacks and references to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”

Ashley Madison
Noel Biderman
Hacker (computer security)
Appointments and Executive Changes


Legislator in Harassment Case to Quit Albany but Not Politics

Abstract: State Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the once-powerful Brooklyn Democratic leader who has been accused of sexual harassment by several women, said on Friday that he would resign. But his offer only inflamed an uproar over his behavior because, a few words later, he said the resignation would not take effect for five weeks, and then he would run for a seat on the New York City Council. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, whose own handling of the initial allegations against Mr. Lopez has been widely criticized , vowed to press ahead with an effort to expel Mr. Lopez from the Legislature immediately. And the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, called for an all-out effort to prevent Mr. Lopez from winning election to that body this fall. “Vito Lopez should not spend another day in office, let alone a whole month,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement. “He should resign effective immediately, and if he does not, he must be expelled.” The denunciations from the state’s leading Democratic officials demonstrated the remarkably steep fall of Mr. Lopez. Until he was publicly accused of harassment, he had been a political boss with considerable influence. In Brooklyn, he has controlled a sprawling nonprofit agency, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, that served as a de facto political machine for him and his allies. And in Albany, he had clout as chairman of the Housing Committee. Mr. Lopez’s determination to run for the Council also served as a reminder of the extraordinary staying power of incumbents in New York. Mr. Lopez was easily re-elected last fall, against only nominal opposition, even after he had been censured by the Assembly, and few are ruling out an election this fall to the Council. The allegations against Mr. Lopez first became public last August , when Mr. Silver announced that an investigation by the Assembly’s ethics committee had found that accusations by two women were credible. The New York Times later reported that the Assembly had previously settled two other harassment allegations against Mr. Lopez, but had not made those settlements public, and had not referred the accusations to the ethics committee. This week, the anger over Mr. Lopez’s conduct intensified after the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics issued a report saying female legislative employees had told investigators that Mr. Lopez had groped them, sought to stay in hotel rooms with them, demanded they massage him, requested that they dress in more provocative clothing and urged them to write him flattering notes. On Thursday, Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Silver said they wanted the Assembly to expel Mr. Lopez . Mr. Lopez, who is 71 and was elected to the Assembly in 1984, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, but on Friday morning he tried to quiet the furor by issuing a seven-sentence statement in which he said he would resign on the last scheduled day of the current legislative session. Image Speaker Sheldon Silver has himself been widely criticized for his handling of the accusations. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times “Because the citizens of my district voted me back into office last November by an overwhelming majority, I feel obligated to serve out this session of the Assembly,” he said. “I therefore announce that as of June 20, 2013, the last day of the session, I resign my position.” That date was too far off for many. “Lopez is living in la-la land if he doesn’t think his actions warrant immediate resignation,” said Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat. “His lack of shame is almost as repugnant as his behavior.” The New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women not only asked for Mr. Lopez’s expulsion, but also assailed Mr. Silver for what it called “his shameful cover-up and protection of a serial harasser.” The organization also said in a statement, “Up to this point, Speaker Silver has failed the many women who were harassed by Mr. Lopez, in turn failing every woman who walks the halls of the Capitol.” Mr. Silver, who has acknowledged erring in his handling of the initial complaints against Mr. Lopez, now appears determined to move swiftly toward expulsion. (The Assembly has not expelled anyone since it ejected five socialists in the early 1920s.) On Friday afternoon, Mr. Silver circulated a draft resolution that would begin the process of expelling Mr. Lopez by asking the Assembly’s ethics committee to recommend sanctions against him. Mr. Lopez had already been stripped of his committee chairmanship and seniority privileges last August. “Assembly Member Lopez should no longer be in public office,” Mr. Silver’s spokesman, Michael Whyland, said. “We will move forward with our resolution on Monday.” Much of the anger on Friday was focused on Mr. Lopez’s announcement that he intended to pursue a race for the Council. He is a candidate for a seat now held by Councilwoman Diana Reyna, who cannot seek re-election because of term limits. Ms. Reyna once served as Mr. Lopez’s chief of staff, and won her seat with his backing, but later had a falling-out with him . The heavily Democratic district includes parts of Bushwick and Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, as well as Ridgewood, Queens, and overlaps significantly with Mr. Lopez’s Assembly district. His most formidable opponent in that race is another Democrat, Antonio Reynoso, who is Ms. Reyna’s chief of staff. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Reynoso said that Mr. Lopez was “as ineffective a representative as you can possibly have,” given the accusations against him, and questioned why he would seek another office. “I think it’s extremely selfish, more so than anything else,” Mr. Reynoso said. Over the last two months, Mr. Lopez has raised a little over $38,000 for his Council campaign. Mr. Reynoso has raised about $87,000 over all and has three times as much cash on hand as Mr. Lopez. The landscape for Mr. Lopez is obviously complicated: a fund-raiser that he held in April was picketed by a group of activists who held signs that read, “Let’s keep N.Y. City Council a molester-free zone.” Ms. Quinn, a Democratic candidate for mayor whose rise to Council speaker in 2006 was assisted by Mr. Lopez, said in a telephone interview on Friday: “Vito Lopez running for City Council is one of the most offensive things I have ever seen happen in New York City politics. I am disgusted by his behavior, and I am going to work incredibly hard to make sure he never steps foot in City Hall.” And Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, said: “It’s unconscionably laughable that he still thinks he can get elected and serve the public as an elected official. His interest in running for City Council, it just shows how out of touch with reality he is.” But Mr. Lopez is clearly undaunted. “I expect to run a vigorous campaign on the issues facing the citizens of my community and hope to continue to serve them as a member of the City Council,” Mr. Lopez said in his statement. “I believe that the voters of the community should decide who should represent them.”

Sexual harassment
New York City Council
New York
Vito J Lopez
State legislature
Joint Commission on Public Ethics NYS


Investors Increasingly Bullish on Energy Sector

Abstract: It was one of the darkest periods of the oil market slump. The global economy was showing fresh signs of slowing, and crude prices were collapsing so steeply that virtually every well in America was unprofitable. But when Diamondback Energy went out to raise $226 million worth of new stock that week in the middle of January, the oil and gas company found more buyers than it could accommodate. It had to nearly double the amount of shares it sold, to four million. Since Diamondback issued equity that day, the company’s share price has increased more than 29 percent. Across the oil industry, investors have been placing their bets that prices have hit bottom. Risk-seeking investors like hedge funds and private equity firms, which were already lending money to struggling energy companies at high interest rates and onerous terms, are among those to have smelled opportunity in a potential comeback. Yet some of the biggest and most successful bets on oil are being wagered by mutual funds and index funds that are scooping up plain-vanilla equity offerings like Diamondback’s deal in January. With production slowing, oil prices have rallied in recent weeks. On Friday, the International Energy Agency declared in a report that “there are signs that prices might have bottomed out,” citing progress among leading oil producing nations about a production freeze and supply outages in Iraq, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. There is still a way to go before a full recovery. Many analysts caution that the recent recovery in prices could easily reverse itself. They argue that the tentative agreement between Saudi Arabia, Russia and a few other producing countries to freeze output at January levels will probably make little difference to global supplies. On Monday, fresh worries about supplies emerged as analysts expressed more skepticism about whether Iran would abide by a freeze. The United States oil benchmark fell 3.4 percent, to $37.18 a barrel on Monday. Prices, however, are still more than 40 percent higher than their lows in mid-February. And that has made investors more optimistic about energy. Oil and gas companies have issued about $11 billion in equity just in the two first two months of this year, according to the data provider Dealogic, putting the sector on pace to eclipse the $24 billion that was raised last year. Among the companies that have been able to secure capital from the equity markets are many midsize exploration and production companies that have been leaders in the shale revolution, like Marathon Oil, Devon Energy, Pioneer Natural Resources, Concho Resources, Parsley Energy, RSP Permian and Diamondback. The stock offerings are helping the companies maintain their oil fields, meet payrolls and keep up with debt payments at a time when production and revenue are falling. While that adds flexibility for many of the strongest companies, more than 100 mostly small oil and gas companies have been forced into bankruptcy in recent months, as banks call in credit lines and broadly curb lending to the industry. “The market sees the haves and the have-nots,” said Robert Santangelo, co-head of Credit Suisse’s equity capital markets in the Americas. “And has done a good job allocating capital to survivors.” Since the start of 2015, Credit Suisse has netted $126 million in revenue from underwriting equity deals in the oil and gas sectors, including the Diamondback offering, more than any other investment bank, according to Dealogic. Many of the equity issuers are active in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the source of more than 20 percent of the nation’s production, which helps explain why the field’s output has been more resilient than virtually any other field in the country. Production in early February exceeded two million barrels a day, up from 1.4 million barrels a day two years ago. Pioneer Natural Resources, for instance, announced in January a $1.4 billion stock offering intended to help fund its 2016 capital program, heavily weighted in the Permian Basin. Soon afterward, the company decided to reduce drilling when oil prices suddenly dropped by $10 a barrel. The cash from the added equity offering, however, gives the company one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry to increase production when prices stabilize and go up. “If prices recover mid-2016, if they recover late 2016, if they recover early 2017, we have tremendous firepower to start up faster than anybody else,” Scott D. Sheffield, Pioneer’s chief executive, said in a recent conference call. Oil Prices: What to Make of the Volatility Over the last two and a half years, the oil industry experienced its deepest downturn since at least the 1990s. Even the strongest companies are not immune to pressure, however. Diamondback, for instance, had to discount its stock 3.5 percent from the market price when it issued new shares in January. Rebounding oil prices have at least temporarily quelled speculation by analysts that many more companies will go bankrupt or look to merge with larger competitors. There are tentative signs that the oil market is beginning to regain its balance between new supply and demand, but there is still a large glut of oil worldwide. United States oil production is dropping fast, by more than a half million barrels a day since last spring, and that decline should quicken: The oil rig count has fallen by roughly 75 percent from the peak in 2014. This is the first time since the 2009 recession that the rig count has fallen below 400 rigs. Now, with weather warming and refineries beginning their spring maintenance for summer blends, surpluses in gasoline inventories are beginning to ease. Crude production is also falling in Nigeria and Iraq as a result of insurgent attacks on pipelines. A wild card is Iran, which has been slow to meet its promise of exporting an additional 500,000 barrels of crude a day now that nuclear sanctions have been lifted. Nevertheless, tankers full of Iranian oil have left port in recent days destined for Spain, France, Romania and Tanzania. The ability of American companies to go to the equity market for capital is helping them finance production. And once the price of oil rises above $45 a barrel, there could be a revival of at least some of the dropped production. Many companies are waiting until oil and gas prices recover to put wells already drilled on line or fix wells that have been sidelined. “The equity raise isn’t available for everybody out there,” said Vance Scott, oil and gas leader for the Americas at Ernst & Young transaction advisory services. “If we see a firming of oil prices, in the $40 to $45 range,” he added, “there are companies out there with good enough acreage position and cost structure that they can get the returns that they want.” Production costs have declined almost as steeply as crude prices because service companies have been forced to lower their rates and drillers have developed more efficient well designs. Rystad Energy, a Norwegian-based consulting firm that studies oil fields around the world, has estimated that the break-even price for production in the main shale fields of North America declined by more than 40 percent between 2013 and 2015. Although the future for oil prices remains uncertain, experts say the recent rise – if sustained — could mean more equity offerings, but only for strong companies. Mr. Santangelo, the Credit Suisse banker, says that while oil prices may still be volatile over the next few months, the shale industry is proving resilient. “Coming into this you heard shale would be the first to go,” he said. “That is not happening. What’s emerging is a healthy shale industry that is very competitive in the global market.”

Price
Diamondback Energy
Hedge fund
Private equity
Mutual fund
Oil and Gasoline
Stocks,Bonds


Bulgaria Says DNA Shows Man Bombed Bus in 2012

Abstract: PARIS — Two years after a bomb in a tour bus at the Burgas airport in Bulgaria killed seven people, including five Israeli tourists , Bulgarian prosecutors on Friday identified the bomber as a dual French-Lebanese citizen. The prosecutor’s office and the national security agency said in a joint statement Friday that the bomber, who was killed in the blast along with the Bulgarian bus driver, was 25-year-old Mohamad Hassan el-Husseini, who was born in Lebanon. Prosecutors said that Mr. Husseini had carried out the attack using a fake driver’s license under the name Jacques Felipe Martin. Image The tour bus that was destroyed by a bomb in July 2012 at Bourgas Airport in Bulgaria. Credit Nikolay Donchev/European Pressphoto Agency “The identity of the perpetrator of the bomb attack at Burgas airport is firmly established following DNA tests,” Bulgaria’s security agency and prosecutors’ office said in a joint statement. The attack, which wounded 35 people, took place in the Black Sea city of Burgas on July 18, 2012, after an Israeli group had boarded a bus following a charter flight. The Bulgarian government initially blamed Hezbollah , the militant Lebanese Shiite group, but officials later said the evidence for that claim was not unequivocal. Israel and the United States had also linked the attack to Hezbollah, and some analysts had characterized the bombing as part of a larger shadow war between Israel and Hezbollah and Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor. The attack helped prompt the European Union to join the United States in branding Hezbollah a terrorist organization in July 2013 . Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the bombing. Last year prosecutors said the organizers of the attack included two other men of Lebanese origin, Meliad Farah, an Australian citizen, and Hassan el-Hajj Hassan, a Canadian citizen. Neither has been arrested. Image Mohamad Hassan El Husseini Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Officials said the men entered Bulgaria using fake identification, including a driver’s license from Michigan fabricated at an unspecified Lebanese university. Last year the Bulgarian authorities said they planned to put the two on trial in absentia. Law enforcement officials had initially considered Mr. Husseini a suicide bomber, but during the inquiry, investigators said, evidence showed that the bomb had been detonated from a distance after he walked away from the bus. Friends and relatives of Mr. Husseini had praised his death, calling him a “martyr” on social media, prosecutors said. Tsvetan Tsvetanov, a former Bulgarian interior minister, said at a news conference in February last year that evidence gathered at that point supported a “reasonable assumption” that Hezbollah had organized the bombing. Mr. Tsvetanov said that two conspirators, both Hezbollah members of Lebanese descent, had been identified and that a third man had died while placing the bomb in the baggage compartment of the bus in the airport.

Bulgaria
Bombs
Mohamad Hassan el-Husseini
Hezbollah
Israel
Burgas Bulgaria


Ameridose Announces Recall Amid Questions About Drugs’ Sterility

Abstract: A drug producer linked to the pharmacy at the center of a national meningitis outbreak announced a recall of all of its products Wednesday after federal regulators found that it had not provided enough assurance that all the medicines it made were sterile. The company, Ameridose, which is based in Massachusetts and is a major supplier of sterile injectable medications to hospitals across the country, underscored that there had been no reports of impurities in any of its products and said that it had announced the recall “out of an abundance of caution.” The company sells more than 2,200 blended drug products, including tranquilizers, anesthetics and antibiotics, according to its Web site. The drugs are pumped into both injectable and oral syringes, as well as intravenous medicine bags. It said it would post the precise list of all the products on its Web site, ameridose.com . The announcement represented another blow to the family behind Ameridose and its sister company, the New England Compounding Center, whose fungal-tainted steroid medication was responsible for the deaths of 29 people. Ameridose has taken pains to emphasize that it is legally distinct from New England Compounding. But the companies are owned by some of the same people. Federal officials have said Ameridose is part of the investigation because of concerns that it had some of the same business practices as New England Compounding. Federal and state regulators have suspended operations at Ameridose until Monday. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said Wednesday that the agreement with the company was “under review.” Dr. Janet Woodcock, the director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration , said in a telephone interview that the company offered to recall all of its products after federal officials shared the results of their inspection, which found fault with some of its sterility “assurances.” Ameridose said in a statement that the F.D.A. had notified the company that the agency would “be seeking improvements in Ameridose’s sterility testing process.” Dr. Woodcock emphasized that the recall was different from that of New England Compounding, where there was known contamination. The agency is not asking health care providers to track down patients who were given Ameridose products, she said, because there have been no reports of problems. Instead, providers are being asked to send the products back to the company. In a statement, Ameridose said it had shipped more than 70 million “units of product” since its founding in 2006 without problems. It said it had agreed to recall its products “because customer confidence is paramount to its business.” Hospitals have reported difficulties in obtaining certain types of injectable medications that Ameridose produces since the company first suspended its operations, and Wednesday’s recall was likely to exacerbate those shortages. Dr. Woodcock said that the agency was working to mitigate the shortages, in part by asking other manufacturers to increase production. But she added that concerns about lack of sterility were also important. “We have to balance the risk of lack of sterility assurance against the issues of products not being available,” she said. “That’s a line we walk every day.”

Meningitis
New England Compounding Center
Food and Drug Administration
Recalls and Bans of Products
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Ameridose LLC


Blackwater Jurors Urged to Give Iraqis Justice

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Iraqi civilians never stood a chance against a convoy of Blackwater security guards armed with machine guns, grenade launchers and sniper rifles, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday. But he told jurors that an American courtroom, where four members of that convoy are standing trial, “levels the playing field.” As the closing arguments wind down in the trial over a deadly 2007 shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad, that message is a crucial one for the Obama administration. Iraqis have expressed skepticism that an American court will ever rule against former members of Blackwater Worldwide, a company that once had lucrative contracts and close ties to the administration of President George W. Bush. The Justice Department and the White House have sought to allay those concerns. The shooting, which left 17 Iraqis dead, inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad, and it now presents a potential diplomatic issue at a time when Iraq’s government is in transition and the United States is considering expanded airstrikes against Sunni militants. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating early next week. “People who could laugh, who could love, were turned into bloodied, bullet-riddled corpses,” said Anthony Asuncion, an assistant United States attorney. Four former Blackwater guards, Dustin L. Heard, Evan S. Liberty, Nicholas A. Slatten and Paul A. Slough, are standing trial. All face manslaughter charges except for Mr. Slatten, who was charged with murder after prosecutors missed a deadline and let the statute of limitations for manslaughter expire. There is little dispute over many of the facts in the case: A team of Blackwater contractors, working for the State Department, drove four armored trucks into Nisour Square and opened fire. Prosecutors say the shooting was unprovoked, while defense lawyers say the contractors were responding to what they saw as legitimate threats. They say the convoy was taking fire, a point that has been heavily contested in the trial. Mr. Slough’s lawyer, Brian M. Heberlig, spent much of his closing statement talking about evidence of a firefight. Several witnesses said they heard gunfire from AK-47s, which are used by Iraqi insurgents. Radio logs show the convoy reported taking fire. One of the Blackwater trucks was pocked with what defense lawyers said were bullet holes. A taxi had its window blown out from the direction from which some contractors said they were taking fire. And AK-47 shell casings were found around the traffic circle, including in a location from which some contractors believed insurgents were firing. Mr. Asuncion, who spoke softly for much of his three-hour closing argument, said that even if jurors believed there was Iraqi gunfire that day, nothing justified the Blackwater response. When the shooting stopped, he said, it was clear that none of the victims were insurgents, he said. “Why shoot all of these people who are running away?” he asked. “Why shoot women and children who are unarmed? There’s no reason. What they did was criminal.” Lawyers for other contractors were scheduled to give separate closing arguments on Thursday. The contractors’ defense strategy has been to create uncertainty about what unfolded during those frenzied minutes in Nisour Square. Defense lawyers say some of the shootings were justified, and anything that was excessive was the fault of Jeremy P. Ridgeway, a former Blackwater contractor who has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and has testified against his former colleagues. “That’s not on them,” Mr. Heberlig said, gesturing to the four defendants as he spoke of wild shooting north of the traffic circle. “That’s Jeremy Ridgeway. That’s the star witness.” The government’s case has survived a series of setbacks, many of them self-inflicted. Prosecutors dropped charges against another contractor last year because of a lack of evidence. There were indications that State Department officials tried to gather shell casings after the shooting in an effort to protect Blackwater. The State Department also gave the contractors limited immunity after the shooting, which made it significantly harder for the Justice Department to build its case. Another challenge is that prosecutors cannot say for certain which contractors killed which Iraqis. Instead, they are relying on the premise that, by firing, each contractor contributed to the shooting as a whole, and each is responsible for all the deaths. Defense lawyers want jurors to focus on each victim and assess the evidence of who is to blame. “Judge these men on their own shots,” Mr. Heberlig said.

Mercenaries Private Military Contractors


General Motors Is Sued by Arizona for $3 Billion Over Recalls

Abstract: The attorney general of Arizona said on Wednesday that the state had filed suit against General Motors, claiming that the automaker had defrauded the state’s consumers of an estimated $3 billion. The suit is the first major legal action against G.M. over its record number of recalls this year, most notable among them one for a defective ignition switch in 2.6 million small cars that was delayed for a decade. The complaint was harsh and unsparing in its criticism of G.M., suggesting that the automaker intentionally misled consumers through its advertising, website and public statements, and that some of its top leaders were complicit in the alleged misdeeds. It said “New G.M.,” the term used for the company that emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, “was not born innocent.” “It is difficult to find a brand whose reputation has taken as great a beating as has the New G.M. brand starting in February 2014 when the first ignition-switch recall occurred,” the complaint said. In filing suit, Arizona has broken from a group of 48 state attorneys general that has been pursuing a multistate investigation into G.M. for its handling of the ignition-switch defect. The state had been on the executive committee of that multistate inquiry, led by South Carolina and Ohio. State of Arizona v. General Motors Arizona’s lawsuit contends G.M. intentionally misled consumers through its advertising, website and public statements, and that some of its top leaders were complicit in the alleged misdeeds. It seeks $3 billion in compensation. “We’re proceeding with our own suit because it’s the best way to protect the citizens of Arizona,” Attorney General Thomas C. Horne, a Republican, said in an interview. “General Motors represented that it was taking care of the safety of its cars, and in fact there were serious defects that it did not disclose to the public for years.” The complaint offers precise calculations of the losses suffered by owners of G.M. vehicles, and suggests that “no reasonable consumer” would now buy a G.M. vehicle for the same price had “the brand continued to mean safety and success.” “It manufactured and sold millions of vehicles that were not safe, including hundreds of thousands in Arizona, and it failed to remedy serious defects in millions of older G.M.-branded vehicles,” the complaint said. As examples, the Arizona attorney general calculated that the 2010 and 2011 models of the Chevrolet Camaro had lost $2,000 in value, and the 2009 Pontiac Solstice had lost $2,900. The complaint also rejects G.M.'s claims that some longstanding defects resulting in recalls this year had been known only to low-level engineers. It says that Mary T. Barra, now the G.M. chief, had been informed in 2011 about a safety defect in the electronic power steering of some models. “Despite 4,800 consumer complaints and more than 30,000 warranty repairs, G.M. waited until 2014 to disclose this defect,” the complaint says. About 300,000 of the G.M. vehicles recalled this year were registered in Arizona. The Arizona consumer penalty statute stipulates $10,000 per violation, potentially amounting to $3 billion. The action brought by Mr. Horne’s office seeks civil penalties as opposed to restitution for the consumer, which is being sought through pending multidistrict litigation in United States District Court in the Southern District of New York. Fatal Flaws: Crisis in Auto Safety The New York Times has exposed missteps and delays by automakers and federal safety regulators in responding to deadly defects in automobiles during what became a record year for recalls. A spokesman for G.M., James R. Cain, said the complaint “misrepresents the facts, the performance of our vehicles and our work to ensure the safety of our customers. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves.” The suit details dozens of defects in G.M. vehicles, including the highly publicized ignition switch and others involving seatbelts, brake lights, airbags, transmission cables and headlights. It also quotes from complaints filed with federal regulators about many of the problems as evidence that the automaker was aware of them and did not act, or offered inadequate fixes. In the case of the ignition-switch defect, it suggests that “multiple in-house attorneys” were aware of the problem, including Michael P. Milliken, the company’s general counsel for the past five years. G.M.'s internal investigation exonerated Mr. Milliken in the delayed ignition-switch recall, but the Arizona complaint says he was among the company lawyers who “knew of and understood” the defect but kept it quiet. “This quest to keep the ignition-switch defect secret delayed its public disclosure and contributed to increased death and injury as a result of the ignition-switch defect,” the complaint said. Mr. Milliken, who has announced he will retire early next year, came under fire in congressional hearings for his leadership of G.M.'s legal department. While at least five lawyers who worked for him have been dismissed by G.M., he has remained as an important strategist and close adviser to Ms. Barra. General Motors is facing multiple inquiries, including from regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Transport Canada, the agencies that examine car safety in the United States and Canada. N.H.T.S.A. fined the automaker $35 million this year for failing to report the deadly ignition recall in a timely manner. Officials from the company, including Ms. Barra, have been called multiple times to testify before House and Senate committees. The Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting an inquiry, as is the Justice Department, which is investigating the company for possible criminal charges. The suit filed on Wednesday may prompt action by other state attorneys general. “That’s completely their decision, it’s up to other states,” Mr. Horne said. “I need to protect Arizona citizens, and this is the best way to do it.”


What Quagmire? Even in Withdrawal, Russia Stays a Step Ahead

Abstract: WASHINGTON — For five years, President Obama has steadfastly rejected the argument that the United States could intervene in Syria, alter the equation on the battlefield and avoid being sucked into a quagmire. Now, it appears that President Vladimir V. Putin has done exactly that. The Russian leader’s announcement on Monday that he would withdraw the bulk of his forces from Syria not only caught the White House by surprise, it seemed to belie Mr. Obama’s regular warnings that Russia would be severely damaged by its military adventurism. And it reinforced the sense that Mr. Putin has managed to maintain the initiative in Syria against an American president who wants to keep the war at arm’s length. The White House on Tuesday cautiously welcomed Russia’s latest move, even as it continued to criticize its intervention, and administration officials struggled to understand Mr. Putin’s motives for acting now. “The Russia military intervention propped up Assad and only made it more difficult for that political resolution to be reached,” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said, referring to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. “If they continue to follow through,” he added, “then that would be a positive outcome.” Administration officials cautioned that they would need to see further evidence of Russian equipment leaving Syria before they concluded that the withdrawal was genuine. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said the American military had seen fewer than 10 Russian planes depart for Russia and no major troop movements. Video What Syrians, analysts and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia expect going forward after Russia withdraws from Syria. Credit Credit Russian Defense Ministry, via European Pressphoto Agency Still, American officials said there were reasons to believe that Mr. Putin would follow through. He has tied his credibility to the fragile cease-fire now in place, as well as to the peace talks that resumed this week in Geneva. He is eager to ease tensions with the European Union over a migrant crisis that the Europeans blame partly on him. And he is impatient with Mr. Assad, whose forces have been unable to hold territory in Syria’s west, despite Russian air support. Mr. Putin, these officials said, had reached a turning point in his campaign, where the costs, domestically and internationally, of staying engaged outweighed the advantages. Moreover, the Russians had largely achieved their primary goal: preserving the Assad administration and giving Moscow a seat at the table for any political settlement. For Mr. Obama, Russia’s decision is a relief insofar as it eases the pressure on him to increase American support for Syria’s moderate opposition, something he has long resisted. The administration wants Russia to play a role in the political negotiations because it wields influence over Mr. Assad’s government, and analysts predicted the withdrawal would force Mr. Assad to make concessions he was not otherwise willing to make. But the announcement is a reminder that since September, when Russia thrust itself into the conflict, Mr. Putin has consistently seemed a step ahead of the United States on Syria. His withdrawal could also prolong the American-led campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, because while Moscow trained most of its firepower against anti-government forces, it also struck Islamic State targets. The Pentagon spokesman, Peter Cook, said on Tuesday that Russian airstrikes had occurred over the last 24 hours, and those airstrikes were carried out against the Islamic State. Signs of Hope Five Years After Start of Syria’s War The partial cease-fire in Syria, which began Feb. 27, has proved more effective and durable than expected, significantly reducing the level of violence. “Suddenly, the Russians are no longer as available for the fight against ISIS,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That would seem to put a longer timetable on this war and a greater burden on the United States and the West.” Mr. Earnest said the United States had received no “direct advance notice” of the decision from Russia — wording careful enough that it did not dispel questions among analysts about whether Russia had coordinated its announcement with the United States. A senior administration official said that there was no “strategic grand bargain” between the United States and Russia on Syria. Mr. Putin made the announcement just before he got on the phone with Mr. Obama for a call that had been scheduled at the request of the White House. Mr. Obama, in an interview last week with The Atlantic magazine, repeated his assertion that Russia’s intervention was a blunder — one that betrayed weakness rather than strength. To argue that Russia was in a stronger position in Syria since it had intervened, he said, was to “fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world generally.” “They are overextended. They are bleeding,” Mr. Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. “And their economy has contracted for three years in a row, drastically.” Frozen Zones: How Russia Maintains Influence in the Post-Cold War Era Modern Russia has inflamed conflict in former Soviet republics to create “frozen zones,” allowing it to influence events and confound its opponents. Experts on Russia, however, said there was little evidence that Mr. Putin was withdrawing because of economic or political pressure. The Russian press has portrayed the operation as a victory — a “mission accomplished” — with relatively few Russian casualties. “This doesn’t look like a quagmire to me,” said Angela E. Stent, a professor of government and Russia expert at Georgetown University. “If they had been more ambitious in their goals — to destroy the Islamic State or to keep Syria whole — the outcome might be different,” she added. Those are the goals of the Obama administration, which is why some analysts said it made little sense to compare Russia and the United States. Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of a sovereign government, while the Obama administration’s debate has been over how aggressively to get involved in efforts to uproot that government. And the United States could never have taken part, as Russia did, in a campaign that resulted in the kind of civilian casualties inflicted by the Syrian government’s forces. “He clearly set out to buy time for Assad, and that worked,” said Derek Chollet, a former State Department and White House official in the Obama administration, referring to Mr. Putin. “But he made the situation in Syria demonstratively worse. When you go in without scruples, it’s fairly easy to succeed.” The Russians, Mr. Chollet noted, have a long record of surprising the United States with tactical moves, going back to their invasion of Afghanistan. But those moves are not always successful in the long run. Other analysts, however, said that in one respect at least, Russia’s limited operation exposed a fallacy in the president’s argument: that any military involvement in Syria would inevitably lead to deeper engagement. “Syria doesn’t have to be a slippery slope,” Mr. Tabler said. “Putin actually demonstrated you could intervene, bomb, put troops on the ground and still get out. They effectively changed the situation on the ground, and kept the regime from collapsing.”

Russia
Syria
Bashar al-Assad
Vladimir Putin
Barack Obama
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
US Military
US Foreign Policy
Middle East


Detroit’s White-Collar Workers Face Bleak Future

Abstract: DETROIT — For all the ups and downs, and more downs, that white-collar workers here have lived through, they have always managed to put on a brave face, assuring one another that the American auto industry will come back stronger than ever. But now that resolve has given way to grim resignation, as General Motors , Ford Motor and Chrysler have announced wave upon wave of job cuts. After closing plants and shrinking their blue-collar work force, Detroit’s troubled Big Three are cutting white-collar jobs in their hometown at an unprecedented pace — more than 15,000 in the last year, with more to come. Unlike union workers laid off from idled factories, salaried workers have no safety net of health care or guaranteed income for a year. At best, it’s a small severance or buyout, and a voucher for a discount on one of the hundreds of thousands of unsold cars that G.M. or Chrysler has sitting in inventory. White-collar workers who walk out of the headquarters of the auto companies face few prospects in the Michigan economy. And with G.M. and Chrysler surviving on federal loans, facing a deadline Tuesday to submit new and broader restructuring plans to the government, the outlook grows only more bleak. The market for the skills of auto engineers or designers in the prime of their careers has evaporated, with no hope in sight for a turnaround. Moving to another city is hardly an option when there are so few buyers for the suburban homes that would have to be sold first. “I know it’s not great everywhere, but this is probably the worst place to find a job,” said Doug Zupan, a designer who took a buyout in November after working at Chrysler for six years. He was one of 5,000 salaried workers who accepted a buyout the day before Thanksgiving from his job at the Chrysler Technical Center in Auburn Hills, Mich. Mr. Zupan, a 35-year-old father of three preschool-age children, said he was stunned by the sudden and rapid decline in an industry suffering through its worst sales in more than 25 years. “I am going to do my best to get out of the auto industry,” he said. G.M., Ford and Chrysler have eliminated a total of 120,000 manufacturing jobs in the last three years. And now the cuts are drastically thinning the ranks of white-collar professionals, turning the once-bustling office towers of the companies into half-empty monuments to better days. G.M. delivered another blow last week when it said it would reduce its global salaried work force by 14 percent, or 10,000 workers this year. In the Detroit area, that could mean an additional 3,000 workers will be out of a job by May 1. G.M.’s next round of white-collar cuts will not include buyouts. Chrysler has not said whether it plans more cuts. The Detroit area housing market, already deeply depressed, has plummeted since the buyouts. In January, the foreclosure rate increased 102 percent from the same month a year earlier in Oakland County, Mich., home to a huge number of G.M. and Chrysler employees. The state’s unemployment rate was 10.6 percent in December and continues to climb. Job fairs routinely create mob scenes, drawing thousands of out-of-work employees of the Big Three and their suppliers. Jim Badhorn was a Chrysler engineer for 21 years before he took the buyout. Among his accomplishments was designing the rear doors of the Chrysler 300 sedan, one of the company’s last hit products. Recently, he attended a job fair held by a military contractor but was quickly disappointed. So many people showed up that the police blocked off the parking lot, he said. “You couldn’t even find the end of the line.” He considers himself fortunate to be a renter in the Detroit area, where the “for sale” signs are multiplying. “I have friends whose houses have lost 40 percent of their value,” said Mr. Badhorn, who lives in the suburb of Birmingham. Last November, every white-collar worker in the company was offered a one-time buyout — $75,000 for those with 10 years or more and $50,000 for those with fewer than 10 years. With Chrysler on the brink of collapse without more federal loans, Mr. Badhorn grabbed the buyout and put much of his $75,000 into a college fund for two of his daughters. Frustrated by the tight job market, Mr. Badhorn works off his stress by hitting the gym every day. He’s lost 15 pounds since November, but it hasn’t made him feel any better about his circumstances. “I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to move if I want to earn what I made before, or close to it,” he said. The cuts are extending to the vast network of employees who worked on contract to the Detroit companies. Craig Meyer, employed by a supplier named Aerotek, was told by phone that his seven years as a contract designer at Chrysler were over as he was driving to the home of his in-laws the night before Thanksgiving. Mr. Meyer has been collecting unemployment since, although the $362 he gets a week is less than half what he was making at Chrysler. “We’re just about able to pay the bills each month,” he said. “Food and gas is when we need to start to dip into savings.” The prospects are getting worse for Detroit, not better. Last year, United States car sales dropped 18 percent, to 13.2 million, and industry executives expect just 10 million car sales in 2009 and possibly for years to come. “Those white-collar jobs aren’t going to come back any more than the blue-collar jobs are,” said Kevin Boyle, a Detroit native and author of historical books on the city. “As bad as it is everywhere, it’s not as bad as it is in Detroit right now.” The unemployment rate for white-collar occupations in Michigan was 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, a full percentage point higher than the national average for those jobs, according to Department of Labor estimates. Mr. Zupan’s $50,000 buyout from Chrysler is supporting him, his wife and his three children — ages 4, 2, and 6 months — while he looks for work. He’s finishing a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Michigan, paid for until last semester by Chrysler, when it could afford to invest in the education of its white-collar staff. He recently took out loans to have an additional financial cushion. His last nest egg is the 300C he bought with his $25,000 buyout voucher. Mr. Zupan said he might sell it if he needed the money.

Layoffs and Job Reductions
Automobiles
White Collar Workers
Detroit (Mich)
General Motors Corp
Chrysler LLC
Ford Motor Co


After Some Detours, the Sprinter Bailey Finds His Stride

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — Usain Bolt , the men’s world-record holder in the 100 and the 200 meters, will be the main attraction at the Penn Relays this weekend. But he will not be the only intriguing tall young sprinter at Franklin Field. Ryan Bailey, an American who just turned 21, will run the opening leg for one of two Team USA relay teams that will compete against Bolt and his Jamaican teammates in the 4x100 on Saturday. Unlike many others competitors who have run before huge crowds in the Olympics or at major championships, Bailey will be unaccustomed to the throng expected here for the 116th edition of this three-day relay carnival. “I’ve heard there’s upwards of 70,000 people,” Bailey said Thursday at the team hotel. “That’s a lot of people to see someone run around a track.” Bailey is the best sprinter to come out of Oregon, a state known for producing distance runners. He turned pro in August, signing with Nike after an abbreviated high school career followed by a year in junior college. He is so new to top-flight competition that he does not yet have a biography on the USA Track and Field Web site, although that will no doubt change. At the UTEP Invitational last week, his first event of the season, Bailey finished second in the 100 to Churandy Martina, the fourth-place finisher at the Beijing Olympics, then defeated Martina in winning the 200. His times — 10.09 seconds in the 100 and a personal-best 20.40 in the 200 — were among the fastest of the new outdoor season. Next Saturday, Bailey will begin his international tour. First stop: the Jamaica International Invitational, where he is likely to encounter Bolt in the 200. At 6 feet 4 inches, Bailey, who has run 10.05 in the 100, is in the mold of the 6-5 Bolt, who defied the conventional wisdom that height is a disadvantage for sprinters when he set his first 100 world record, 9.72, at the age of 21 two years ago at Randalls Island. Bailey looks more like a football player, which was his choice sport until the end of high school. Becoming a track star was far from predetermined. Bailey’s nascent career has already been marked by false starts. He did not step foot on a track until his sophomore year, and was an irregular competitor throughout high school, the result of injuries, poor grades and disciplinary problems. “The curiosity with Ryan is, What is his potential going to be if he stays healthy for a few years?” said John Parks, 48, his coach and mentor since high school. “He’s still young. He has had a third of the races that most guys that age have had.” The youngest of eight children by seven years, Bailey grew up with his single mother, Debra Galban; his father was rarely around. His mother remarried when Bailey was 7, but his stepfather soon went to prison, and she moved around with her son almost every year to stay close to her husband. They did not have much, and his mother, who is disabled, collected a fixed income. Bailey found his way into gangs and fights. New schools brought new disciplinary problems. Early in the spring of his sophomore year at Douglas McKay High School in Salem, he met Parks, a social studies teacher and track coach. Skipping class one afternoon, Bailey and a friend looked at a board listing the school track records. Neither realized those were also state marks. “I can get those,” Bailey said. He did not know Parks was behind him. Parks told Bailey, “Why don’t you come out and prove it?” His mind squarely set on football, Bailey brushed off Parks. “I thought track was for a bunch of nerds,” he said Thursday, laughing. Bailey never went to see Parks at the track, but he showed up there one day to make up a physical education class. Wearing baggy jeans and basketball shoes, Bailey passed Parks, who had his stopwatch ready, as he peeled off a lap. Parks recalls clocking Bailey at around 51 seconds for 400 meters. Parks saw a future superstar. Parks finally persuaded Bailey to join the team. For his first meet, Bailey did not have spikes, so his teammate lent him a pair at least a size too small. Out of the blocks, Bailey broke a toe. After he returned from his injury, this time with proper footwear, he broke a toe on his other foot. The next year, as a junior, Bailey had a setback away from track, being expelled for fighting. He went to an alternative school and then returned to McKay. That spring, in an altercation with a former acquaintance, Bailey was stabbed three times with a small pocketknife. He again missed most of the track season. As time passed, Parks grew closer with Bailey, becoming his surrogate father. Parks would pay for shoes, dinner and travel expenses for meets around the country. Parks had seen other students return to troubled lives. “I was just determined to not let him fall by the wayside,” he said. Bailey said of Parks: “He’s been a father for me, like I never really had. It’s been a blessing.” In his senior year, despite more injuries, Bailey finally had the chance to show his natural talent. At the 2007 state championships, he set state records in the 100 and 200. The focus now, Parks said, is on technical development, molding all that untapped potential. Parks has guided Bailey along slowly in recent years, successfully avoiding injuries. “I’ve been injury prone every single year I’ve done track,” Bailey said. “I feel like this is the year for me.” It is that confidence that gives Bailey room for one more prediction. “I definitely can see myself being one of the greats in the sport,” he said.