Talking to Animals, and Sniffling

Abstract: Nyack, N.Y. - IT'S not clear what's less likely -- that Shira Plotzker's career as a pet psychic is going great guns despite the small problem that she's allergic to animals or that a group of graduate students at Pace University, studying unlikely business challenges, decided to do a marketing study on her entrepreneurial prospects. But then, maybe there's no stopping an idea whose time has come, which, at least in part, explains the adventurous career path Ms. Plotzker has followed as she's expanded her product line in the psychic business from mere humans -- on this side or having crossed over -- to dogs, horses, fish and at least one bearded dragon lizard. We're not going to get into the murky mysteries of how Ms. Plotzker (who is known professionally only by her first name) does what she does and whether dogs really begin gabbing with her about their medical histories and sartorial preferences or whether carriage horses in New York confide in her about which of their teeth hurt. But even in their report, "A Market for Animal Communicators: How Pet Psychics Can Create Value for Their Customers," the Pace business students seem to think that Ms. Plotzker has found an appealing target audience. After all, as the baby boomers age and pets (or animal companions, the preferred term) become the new children, why shouldn't we have as much access to their inner lives as we do to our own? To back up, Shira is a 47-year-old divorced woman who lives in Rockland County and who conducts readings in various places, including Nyack, which is to psychics what Greenwich is to hedge-fund managers. She began dabbling in psychic activities in her 20's and has made this work full time over the last few years, doing medium sessions with the dead, numerology, and tarot card and other readings. She got into the pet-reading business about three years ago while watching Sonya Fitzpatrick, a pet psychic who has a television show on Animal Planet. As she watched Ms. Fitzpatrick channel the pets, she realized -- holy cow! -- that she could tap into the same frequency. That began a sideline business in which people pay for readings over the phone, attend her lectures or invite her to barns or kennel clubs, where she listens to what the animals have to say. Yes, this is made more difficult by the fact that she's become allergic to most animals, but it turns out that pictures work as well as the real thing. If you're good at this, you need not actually be in the same room with Rover or Spot anyway. Shira doesn't actually hear animal voices, she says, like a gruff bark telling her where a lost pet can be found. Instead, she receives telepathic messages in something like a very animated child's voice. Dogs, not surprisingly, are better communicators than cats. Horses communicate in deeper impressions than dogs. Snakes are more interesting than you may think. But mostly, they all just want to gab a little, allowing her to translate for them in something of a singsong voice along the lines of: "And Walter says he wants to know when he'll go in the car again, because he likes the leisurely rides." Or, "And Walter says: 'I can use a bath, you know. I'm smell elegant.' " NOW, fuddy-duddies and skeptics may scoff, but we'll give Shira two things. The first is the Pace study, which came about when the graduate students were asked to research why customers might purchase a product that the students could never imagine anyone purchasing. They found that spending on pets had almost doubled in the past decade and that the "humanization" of pets is a continuing trend, so the potential market is there. They also found that most of Shira's clients came away satisfied and felt closer to their pets, er, animal companions. The second is that not only did she intuit the intellectual depths of Walter, our slightly bipolar, two-dogs-long, half-a-dog-high corgi/something mix ("If he was a person, he'd be a philosopher"), but she also sensed correctly that a friend's dog was ailing. Still, being a pet communicator can have its challenges. "If I had to talk to cats all the time, that would not be as much fun," she said. "They're mostly into themselves, how they look or how nice their fur is and how they compare with other cats. Dogs can talk about pretty much anything. Cats are more particular about what they want to talk about, and it's mostly about themselves." Our Towns E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com

ANIMALS
PACE UNIVERSITY
NYACK (NY)
PLOTZKER SHIRA
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
PSYCHICS AND PSYCHIC PHENOMENA
ALLERGIES


Host at Last, Arizona Shows Atlanta the Door

Abstract: GLENDALE, Ariz. — It had been 3 cities and 61 years since the Cardinals hosted a playoff game. But if there was anyone outside their locker room who believed they would beat the Atlanta Falcons, the search to locate them might have required many more towns and just as much time. Oddsmakers listed Arizona as a home underdog; pundits mostly picked in favor of a Falcons team with a rookie quarterback and a rookie head coach; and even their fans had their doubts. The Cardinals needed an extension from the N.F.L. to sell enough tickets to prevent the game’s broadcast from being blacked out locally. As it turned out, the Cardinals’ faith in themselves was not blind. Thanks to a game-changing fumble return for a touchdown by Antrel Rolle, some clutch passing by Kurt Warner and the re-emergence of running back Edgerrin James, the Cardinals beat the Falcons, 30-24, before 62,848 at University of Phoenix Stadium. Arizona will play at the Giants or the Carolina Panthers next weekend, each of whom the Cardinals lost to during the regular season. “I guess I can say, we are who I thought we were,” Cardinals defensive end Bertrand Berry said with a hearty laugh. Berry’s quip was a riff on the former Arizona coach Dennis Green, who during a fist-pounding rant after the Cardinals had blown a game to the Chicago Bears two years ago, said, “They are who we thought they were.” That was the type of moment that typified the Cardinals during a long, woeful history. They have always seemed to draft the wrong players, hire the wrong coaches and make the wrong moves on the field. Even this season, when they won the National Football Conference West, their first playoff appearance in a decade seemed to be the product of playing in a lackluster division. In the last five weeks, they were routed by Minnesota, Philadelphia and New England. “A lot of people coming in to this game said that we were the worst playoff team to ever get in and no one ever gave us a chance,” Cardinals Coach Ken Whisenhunt said. “We rallied around that.” Safety Adrian Wilson, who has spent his eight-year career with the Cardinals, said with a shrug: “Since when does anyone say anything nice about the Arizona Cardinals?” They may this week. The Cardinals, after all, did many things Saturday that nobody figured they could do. They slowed Atlanta’s second-ranked rushing attack, limiting Michael Turner to 42 yards, equaling a season low. “It seemed like they had guys everywhere,” Turner said. “They crowded the line of scrimmage. They looked like they knew what play we were about to run.” They also ran the ball well themselves, particularly James. Benched early in the season, James asked the Cardinals to release him and they refused. He carried the ball 11 times during an eight-game stretch and was used mostly as a blocking back. He said earlier this week that he would not return to Arizona even though he was under contract. But James, 30, looked as he did during his heyday with the Colts. He carried 16 times for 73 yards, busting through some tacklers, making others miss and preventing the defense from zeroing in on Warner. Warner, playing in his first postseason game since he took the Rams to the Super Bowl after the 2001 season, was not sacked and was rarely harassed. He completed 19 of 32 passes for 271 yards, 2 touchdowns and an interception. His biggest pass came when he connected with tight end Stephen Spach for 23 yards on third-and-16 from the Atlanta 46 just before the two-minute warning. The play allowed Arizona to run out the clock. “When it opened up, I was a little surprised,” said Spach, who was wide open behind the three linebackers who bit on Warner’s play-fake. “Because of the way we had success running the ball, that’s what set it up.” From beginning to end, the Cardinals usually made the big plays. They intercepted Matt Ryan twice, but their biggest defensive play was Rolle’s return on the second play of the second half. The Falcons had ground out a pair of 14-play scoring drives to rally from an 11-point deficit, taking a 17-14 lead on Ryan’s 2-yard touchdown pass to Justin Peelle 23 seconds before halftime. “We took a deep breath at halftime and said let’s just play football,” Berry said. “Let’s not make this game bigger than it is.” When they emerged, defensive tackle Darnell Dockett dove at the legs of Turner as he was about to take a handoff. Turner sidestepped him, but lost control of the ball. It popped right to Rolle, who raced 27 yards for a touchdown, giving the Cardinals a 21-17 lead. “That gave the team a lot of juice,” Berry said. The Cardinals did not allow a first down after that until late in the fourth quarter, forcing an interception and a safety. Arizona, which had averaged a league-worst 3.3 yards a carry, added another score on Tim Hightower’s 4-yard run. The catalyst for the drive was James, who carried four times and caught a pass from Warner on the 14-play drive. But even with a 30-17 lead, the Cardinals had to work in the final minutes. Ryan’s 5-yard pass to Roddy White cut the lead to 6 points with 4:15 left. But Warner completed a pass to Larry Fitzgerald for 15 yards and another to Steve Breaston for 25 before his throw to Spach sealed the game. “You’re not supposed to give people second chances,” said James, whose early running set up a 42-yard flea-flicker from Warner to Fitzgerald for a touchdown. “If they just need one score, there is no telling what can happen in this league. When you’ve got an opportunity to get rid of somebody, you have got to get rid of them. You can’t let someone breathe.” There were plenty of deep breaths being taken afterward in the Cardinals’ locker room. Players like Wilson, who had spent his entire career with Arizona, savored the victory. So did others, like James and Berry, who had to jog their memories to remember how winning a playoff game felt. Whether the game changed any minds outside the locker room did not seem to matter, but it might change the way the Cardinals feel about themselves. “As a collective team, we’ve never done this before,” Berry said. “We’ve never been in a playoff game and we’ve never won a playoff game. We’re making history now as we go. The more we win, the more confidence we get in each other.”

Playoff Games
Atlanta Falcons
Football
Arizona Cardinals
Warner Kurt
James Edgerrin


McNamee Describes Injecting Clemens With Illegal Drugs

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The details, if familiar, were still powerful: a hotel room in Toronto in 1998, drugs and a syringe laid out in a bathroom and the best pitcher of his generation asking for what no one ever thought he needed: artificial help. Brian McNamee , a former New York City police officer who was then an emerging clubhouse training guru, said that Roger Clemens had asked him to shoot him up with a steroid. It would not be the only time, McNamee said, as he began testimony on Monday at Clemens’s federal perjury trial. “Are you ready?” McNamee recalled asking Clemens. There they were, McNamee said, in the third-floor hotel room of Clemens, the reigning Cy Young Award winner and a certain future Hall of Famer. “Roger pulled down his pants, exposing his right buttocks cheek to me,” McNamee said. “I irrigated the area with a pad, and he bent his leg and flexed his butt and relaxed, and said, ‘I’m ready.’ Oh, right before, he said, ‘Make sure there are no air bubbles.’ ” And then, McNamee said, “I plunged the fluid into his buttock.” McNamee’s testimony on Monday was four and a half years in the making, its origins in the December 2007 report by the former United States senator George J. Mitchell on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. The report cited McNamee, implicated Clemens and, over all, contained some of the most striking accusations from the sport’s tainted steroid era. The report, in turn, led to a nationally televised Congressional hearing early in 2008 in which Clemens and McNamee offered contradictory testimony as to whether Clemens had used performance enhancers. The Congressional panel that heard the testimony then requested that the Justice Department investigate Clemens on suspicion of perjury. Eventually, Clemens was indicted. Last summer, the first Clemens trial ended in a mistrial after just two days, and McNamee never got to testify. But on Monday, he finally did, as his onetime hero, benefactor and training success sat across from him in the courtroom. In roughly four hours of testimony that will continue Tuesday, McNamee said that he injected Clemens 8 to 10 times in 1998, was ordered by Clemens to dispose of a zip-lock bag full of used testosterone ampuls and was asked by Clemens if oral steroids were safe to use. McNamee said he once hurriedly injected Clemens inside a utility closet in the visitors clubhouse at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., on getaway day. McNamee — thin, wan and wearing an olive suit at least a size too big for him — is the government’s linchpin witness against Clemens. Federal prosecutors need the jury to believe that from 1998 to 2001, McNamee injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone — and not vitamin B12 and the painkiller lidocaine, as Clemens insisted during his Congressional testimony. Prosecutors will need to deflect Clemens’s defense that McNamee is a liar, a forger and a substance abuser with two convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol. They will need to refute the contention by Clemens’s lead lawyer, Rusty Hardin, that McNamee was “at the end of his rope” emotionally and financially when he made his accusations about Clemens to Mitchell’s investigators. On Monday, McNamee was most at ease discussing training regimens he devised for Clemens and other players. He originally joined the Yankees as a bullpen catcher and batting practice pitcher in 1994 and 1995, then remade himself as a trainer. By 1998, he was the Toronto Blue Jays’ strength and conditioning coordinator. McNamee was rehired by the Yankees in 2000, at Clemens’s request, and given the title of assistant strength coach. But he was really Clemens’s and Andy Pettitte’s personal trainer. On the stand, McNamee answered questions from one of the prosecutors, Daniel P. Butler, but rarely looked at him. Instead, he directed almost all of his answers to the jury. At the defense table, Clemens occasionally glanced at his accuser, but spent most of his time reading from a loose-leaf binder and writing notes. McNamee showed unease as a prosecutor, Daniel P. Butler, led him through the process of how he injected Clemens. He said he had never injected anyone but his son, who needs insulin for his diabetes. He said he was not even sure he was doing the right thing and did not have enough time to check the proper protocol before first giving Clemens the “booty shot” he requested. “I knew I was doing something illegal,” McNamee said. “I did what I was asked and I shouldn’t have.” He said he wanted to protect Clemens yet continued to shoot him up. “I was under the assumption that this wasn’t the first time he had someone do it for him,” he added.

Steroids
Perjury
Baseball
Clemens Roger
McNamee Brian
Doping (Sports)


N.H.L. G.M.’s Will Review Rule on Hits to Head at Annual Meeting

Abstract: On Tuesday, N.H.L. general managers are scheduled to discuss Rule 48, which prohibits blindside and targeted checks to the head, amid mounting pressure to outlaw all contact to the head. Discussion of Rule 48, put in place at the start of the season, is the lead agenda item at the annual general managers meeting in Toronto. Recent research from the Mayo Clinic and other groups has indicated that head trauma in hockey is far more extensive than previously believed. Although the International Ice Hockey Federation, the N.C.A.A. and the Ontario Hockey League penalize all contact to the head, the N.H.L. allows hits to the head if delivered on a “north-south” check. After one month, apparent inconsistencies in enforcing Rule 48 have arisen. In one example, the Flyers’ Daniel Carcillo was not penalized and has not been suspended for delivering a check to the head of the Rangers’ Ruslan Fedotenko during the Flyers’ 4-1 win in Philadelphia on Friday. Fedotenko, who was hit as he was falling, said that the referee Marc Joannette told him that he shouldn’t try to avoid the hit. Fedotenko added, “ ‘Don’t duck,’ was his explanation.” According to a players union study that was also sponsored by the league, the N.H.L. averaged about 75 concussions a year. But another study released this month, in which junior teams were given close medical monitoring for an entire season, showed that players sustained concussions at seven times the previously reported rate. Other items to be discussed include a proposal to extend overtime to eight minutes, half of which would be played three skaters on three, to reduce the rising number of shootouts; and the installation of N.F.L.-style coaches’ challenges of goal/no-goal calls. CAPITALS 3, FLYERS 2 Mike Green scored a power-play goal 29 seconds into overtime for host Washington. It was Green’s fourth goal of the season. Nicklas Backstrom had two assists for the Capitals, who moved ahead of Philadelphia into the Eastern Conference lead. Braden Holtby made his first N.H.L. start in goal for the Capitals, making 23 saves. Holtby earned a standing ovation about halfway through the third period after making a pair of saves on point-blank shots. “I knew they’d be crashing the net hard, and I like it when guys do that,” Holtby said. “It gets me into the game.” In the opposite net, Flyers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky fell a game short of the team record of seven consecutive wins by a rookie. He entered the game tied for the league lead with eight wins over all. (AP) OILERS 2, BLACKHAWKS 1 Sam Gagner scored the go-ahead goal for visiting Edmonton 14 seconds after Kurtis Foster tied the score at 7 minutes 13 seconds of the third period. Nikolai Khabibulin made 26 saves for the Oilers, who won only their second road game; both were in Chicago against the defending Stanley Cup champions. Edmonton defeated the Blackhawks, 7-4, at United Center on Oct. 29. The Chicago star forward Marian Hossa returned after missing five games with a shoulder injury, but it was the former Oiler Fernando Pisani who scored the Blackhawks’ lone goal. (AP) DUCKS 5, PREDATORS 4 Defenseman Paul Mara scored his first goal since February 2009 with 1.7 seconds left as host Anaheim won despite blowing the lead four times. Saku Koivu had two goals, and Teemu Selanne added a goal and an assist. Nashville has lost five in a row. (AP)

National Hockey League
Hockey Ice
Head (Body Part)


Peapod Challenges Fresh Food on Manhattan Deliveries

Abstract: Fresh Direct started selling groceries online in New York City nine years ago, and in that time, one of its biggest national competitors, Peapod , has circled ever closer to Manhattan. But it has not crossed the river — until now. Starting on Sunday, armed with a hefty budget for parking tickets, Peapod plans to roll its delivery trucks through big sections of Manhattan, and a new kind of food-delivery war will be on. But winning over Manhattanites, analysts said, will be no easy chore for Peapod, which is affiliated with Stop & Shop supermarkets, a chain that has no physical presence in the borough. “There’s no doubt New York is the biggest prize that exists with respect to this business,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. “I don’t blame them for going after it, but I think it’s going to be really hard for them.” Manhattan residents have so many options for fresh-food deliveries and so many sources for groceries, including corner bodegas and Whole Foods markets, that it will be a challenge for Peapod to break through, especially after giving Fresh Direct such a long head start. “It’s going to be a pretty vicious fight,” Ms. Mulpuru said. That could be good news for New Yorkers who get their food from guys driving around in big trucks, and may see a price war. “I think there will be a lot of aggressive offers to try out the Peapod service and aggressive offers from Fresh Direct to try to preserve their turf,” she said. The two companies have co-existed in Queens and parts of Westchester County and Long Island for years. But last fall, Peapod started delivering to customers in some Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Park Slope and Carroll Gardens. Then, in November, Peapod tested out delivery in a few areas on the Upper East Side, said David McHugh, its vice president and general manager. He said the company had stayed away from Manhattan because of the difficulty of maneuvering through traffic, finding places to park trucks and, in some buildings, hauling groceries up several flights of stairs. Mr. McHugh recalled a ride-along he did with a driver in November: “There were not a lot of elevators. Our drivers are definitely going to have to walk up a lot of stairs. They’re all in good shape.” Mr. McHugh acknowledged that Peapod had budgeted twice as much money to pay parking tickets — the scourge of grocery deliverers — in Manhattan as it had for other cities it operates in, like Boston and Washington. But he would not say how much that was. As Peg Merzbacher, Peapod’s director of marketing, put it: “You have to sell a lot of cans of peas to cover one parking ticket.” She said the company would have two workers in each truck so that one could move it if a ticket agent arrived. Peapod hopes to eventually have at least 20 trucks carrying groceries to Manhattan from a Stop & Shop store in Mount Vernon, N.Y., about 15 miles north of Midtown. Peapod started out in Chicago as an independent company but was acquired by Ahold, a Dutch retailer that owns the Stop & Shop. Peapod customers choose from a list of the store’s most popular items, which are kept in an adjacent space that the company calls a “wareroom.” The delivery fee is $9.95 for a minimum order of $60, which drops to $6.95 for orders of $100 or more. Nationally, Peapod’s average order is about 60 items that cost about $158. Peapod’s delivery fees are higher than Fresh Direct’s, which cost $5.99 in Manhattan, with a minimum order of $30, a Fresh Direct spokeswoman said. Fresh Direct is not affiliated with a supermarket. It assembles orders at a warehouse in Long Island City, Queens, and delivers them around the city and to Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut. Fresh Direct says its typical order in Manhattan is about $120. Jason Ackerman, the founder and chief financial officer of Fresh Direct, responded to Peapod’s incursion by focusing not on his company’s delivery service but on what he said was its higher-quality food. “Fresh Direct has a very loyal customer base due to our highest-quality fresh-from-the-farm products, highest standards of customer service and high value,” Mr. Ackerman said. Polly Klein, 32, is one of those loyal customers, having received deliveries to her Midtown apartment at least twice a week for more than two years. But Ms. Klein, who sells floral arrangements, said on Friday that she planned to take Peapod up on an offer of $15 off her first order. “I think their prices are kind of high, but you’re also paying for convenience,” Ms. Klein said of Fresh Direct. “That’s why I also want to try Peapod.” Ms. Klein said she had just spent about $60 to have Fresh Direct deliver a few prepared meals, some pasta, broccoli, feta cheese and about 20 juice oranges. She said she might buy basic items, like the seltzer her husband guzzles, from Peapod if it proves to be cheaper.

Supermarkets
Delivery Services
Peapod Inc
FreshDirect
Manhattan (NYC)


South Carolina Racetrack Enabling Fans to Swap Flags

Abstract: Darlington Raceway in South Carolina will give out American flags to those who want to turn in a Confederate battle flag, continuing an initiative that began in Daytona, Fla., soon after nine people were shot to death at a landmark African-American church in Charleston, S.C., in June. Chip Wile, the track president, said he hoped fans attending the Southern 500 on Sunday would “join us in creating an inclusive atmosphere” at Darlington, Nascar’s oldest superspeedway.

South Carolina
Flags
NASCAR
Car Racing
Charleston Shooting


Knicks and Nets Expected to Share 2015 All-Star Game

Abstract: The N.B.A. is expected to announce Wednesday that New York will host the All-Star Game in 2015. The hosting of the annual event will be shared by the Knicks and the Nets, who will hold events in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. Adam Silver, the league’s deputy commissioner, said in February that one of the New York teams would be awarded the game. A person with knowledge of Wednesday’s announcement said that the game would take place at Madison Square Garden and that many of the weekend’s other events — the dunk contest, the 3-point shooting contest and the skills challenge — would be held at Barclays Center. Since the Nets moved to Brooklyn last year, the rivalry between the two teams has intensified on and off the court. It may have grown even more this summer when the Nets acquired Paul Pierce, a Knicks tormentor throughout his 15-year career with the Boston Celtics. After the acquisition, Pierce spoke of his hatred for the Knicks and predicted that the Nets would be the better New York team. The Knicks’ J. R. Smith scoffed at Pierce’s remarks soon after. Each team has wanted the All-Star Game, without the other involved, for several years. The $1 billion Barclays Center, which opened a year ago, is the newest arena in the N.B.A. The Garden is set to finish a three-year, $800 million renovation next month. The league ultimately decided that both teams were worthy. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is expected to be at the news conference Wednesday alongside Commissioner David Stern and Silver. The Knicks’ owner, James L. Dolan, and Bruce C. Ratner, a Nets minority owner and the developer of Barclays Center, will also be there. The All-Star Game will be played in New Orleans next season. The Garden last hosted the game in 1998, when Michael Jordan was named the most valuable player.

Knicks
All-star game
Madison Square Garden
Basketball
Barclays Center Brooklyn NY
NBA
Brooklyn Nets


Bush Policies Are Weakening National Guard, Governors Say

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 - Governors of both parties said Sunday that Bush administration policies were stripping the National Guard of equipment and personnel needed to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies. Tens of thousands of National Guard members have been sent to Iraq, along with much of the equipment needed to deal with natural disasters and terrorist threats in the United States, the governors said here at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association. The National Guard, which traces its roots to the colonial militia, has a dual federal-state role. Governors normally command the Guard in their states, but Guard members deployed overseas in support of a federal mission are under the control of the president. The governors said they would present their concerns to President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday. In a preview of their message, all 50 governors signed a letter to the president opposing any cuts in the size of the National Guard. "Unfortunately," the letter said, "when our National Guard men and women return from being deployed in foreign theaters, much of their equipment remains behind." The governors said the White House must immediately re-equip Guard units "to carry out their homeland security and domestic disaster duties." Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican and chairman of the governors association, said: "The National Guard plays an incredibly valuable role in the states. What we are concerned about, as governors, is that when our troops are deployed for long periods of time, and their equipment goes with them but does not come back, the troops are very strained, and they no longer have the equipment they were trained to use." Nearly one-third of the American ground forces in Iraq are members of the Army National Guard. This month the Pentagon backed away from a budget proposal to reduce the authorized strength of the National Guard to 330,000 soldiers, from 350,000. "We have no intention of cutting the number of Guard or Reserve brigades, reducing the number of Guard or Reserve soldiers, or cutting the level of Guard or Reserve funding," said the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker. Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, a Republican, said Sunday that he was still "very concerned." The administration may have set aside the proposal on authorized strength, but it has not restored money to the budget to pay for 350,000 Guard members, he said. In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said that "extensive use of the Guard's equipment overseas has significantly reduced the amount of equipment available to governors for domestic needs." Since 2003, the report said, the Army National Guard has left more than 64,000 pieces of equipment, valued at more than $1.2 billion, in Iraq. The Army has not kept track of most of this equipment and has no firm plans to replace it, the report said. Governor Kempthorne said the National Guard was bearing "a totally disproportionate share" of proposed cuts in the growth of the Army's budget over the next five years, even as the Guard's responsibilities at home were increasing. Governors of both parties said a Pentagon plan to reorganize the Army National Guard would significantly weaken its ability to save lives and property at home. After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, more than 40,000 Guard members helped evacuate storm victims, distributed food and water, provided emergency medical care, repaired homes and restored power. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, a Democrat, said: "The Guard played an awesome role. We should be increasing the number of National Guard combat brigades, not reducing it." Two other Democrats, Govs. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, said the strength and resources of Guard units in their states were being depleted. "We are not only missing National Guard personnel," Ms. Sebelius said. "We are also missing a lot of the equipment that's used to deal with situations at home, day in and day out." Despite assurances from top administration officials, Mr. Vilsack said, "many of us are very concerned about what we're hearing, that the Pentagon, the administration, might reduce the resources for the National Guard so they can redirect resources to pay for more boots on the ground, more full-time military." David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, who heads the Government Accountability Office, said the governors had some basis for their concerns. "The Army cannot account for over half the equipment that Army National Guard units have left overseas," Mr. Walker said. "And it has not developed replacement plans for the equipment, as Defense Department policy requires."

NATIONAL GUARD
DISASTERS
STATES (US)
ARMAMENT DEFENSE AND MILITARY FORCES


New Orleanians Gather to Watch as the City Takes the Spotlight on HBO

Abstract: NEW ORLEANS — In the family center of the Charbonnet-Labat-Glapion Funeral Home on St. Philip Street, the local historic neighborhood association came together for a meeting on Sunday night. After a few mentions of “beautification issues,” they got down to the matter at hand: in a few minutes’ time, the city’s Tremé neighborhood, unknown to most and mispronounced by many, was about to become very, very famous. The viewing party at the funeral home — red carpet attire requested — was one of countless all over town on Sunday night for the first episode of the HBO series “Treme,” a narrative of the city that starts in the months after Hurricane Katrina and one of the mostly widely anticipated shows here in years. (The show’s name, unlike the neighborhood’s, is unaccented; both are pronounced treh-MAY.) People crowded in to watch at bars, like the Ernie K-Doe Mother-in-Law Lounge and Buffa’s. Others horse-traded with friends who have HBO: I’ll cook dinner if I can watch at your place. When the premiere ended and the lights went up at the funeral home, the floor was open for reactions. “The Mardi Gras Indian,” a woman said, hesitating, “didn’t quite cut it.” David Simon, the creator of “Treme” and, previously, HBO’s “The Wire,” realizes he is playing for a tough crowd. The show is packed with references tailor-made for the locals, from Brocato’s lemon ices to the bread pudding at Lil Dizzy’s, from the difficulty of staffing a restaurant in the months after the hurricane to the abomination of imported crawfish. In an open letter to the people of New Orleans in The Times-Picayune on Sunday, Mr. Simon offered a preliminary defense of the parts of the show that deviate from fact. He began by offering an explanation as to why a Hubig’s pie shows up in the first episode when Hubig’s bakery did not reopen until months after the incidents in the episode took place. The city’s obsession with getting it exactly right may seem a little defensive at times, but it is hard to second-guess a city that knows so well what happens when outsiders like, say, the government get it wrong. This was at the root of much of the elation last fall when a judge held the Army Corps of Engineers liable for the flooding in certain areas after Hurricane Katrina. “Finally,” many people here said. “We’ve been saying it over and over, and they’re starting to get it right.” Local television critics have heaped praise on “Treme” for doing just that, for being “the screen depiction that New Orleans deserves” and managing “ to capture something of the undefinable essence of New Orleans.” Mark Folse, a native of the city who is one of several bloggers at a Web site called Back of Town that was created to dissect the show, likewise gave it a rave. “People here have spent their lives watching bad film and television about New Orleans,” he said in an interview, referring to Dennis Quaid’s attempt at a Cajun accent in the 1987 movie “The Big Easy.” “For people from New Orleans, it was a tremendous opening show.” Mr. Folse, who subscribed to HBO just for the series, acknowledged the city’s “intrinsic Gallic chauvinism,” but said it was protective, the way a parent brags about a child. Mr. Folse did worry, however, that the show was so authentically New Orleanian that the rest of the country would not be able to follow the plot from episode to episode. Nonetheless, there is no question that “Treme” is a big deal down here, the biggest thing since, well, the Saints won the Super Bowl a couple of months ago. A “Treme” billboard towers over Canal Street; magazine advertisements for the show are tacked up in bar restrooms. It is a chance for New Orleanians to watch themselves, often literally. The central characters are based, in varying degrees of looseness, on local D.J.’s and lawyers and Mardi Gras Indians. Then there are those, like the trumpet player Kermit Ruffins, who simply play themselves. And many more who show up as extras, like Olivia Greene , a jazz singer who was at the funeral home on Sunday night. A 10-year Tremé resident, Ms. Greene said she had been filmed in six scenes herself. She had a blast. And like many, she wondered what the future may hold after the neighborhood has its turn in the spotlight. “Am I going to be able to afford the rent anymore?” Ms. Greene asked. The response to the show among many here was rather cool, but they are more invested than most in the authenticity of “Treme”: though it takes place all around the city, their neighborhood’s reputation is on the line. “Who was the big guy?” asked Norman Smith, 56, whose roots in Tremé go back seven generations. “I thought he had it right.” The anger of that character, a Tulane University professor named Creighton Bernette and played by John Goodman, was true to that time period, Mr. Smith said. On the other hand, Mr. Smith did not care for the foul language. “Over all, I give it an eight,” he said. Eight. Eight is pretty good. “That’s because I know a lot of the people in it,” he said.

Hurricane Katrina
Television
Treme (TV Program)
New Orleans (La)
Home Box Office
Simon David


Honeywell Doubles Profit and Raises Forecast

Abstract: MORRIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Honeywell International said Friday that its fourth-quarter profit more than doubled , raised its forecast for 2011 and agreed to sell an auto supply division for about $950 million. The earnings improvement stemmed mainly from accounting adjustments, but the company cited improved market conditions as it raised its financial forecast. Honeywell is selling the automotive products business, which makes Fram oil filters, Prestone antifreeze, Autolite spark plugs and other brands, to the Rank Group, a private investment company based in New Zealand. The division, based in Danbury, Conn., has more than 2,000 employees and had revenue of about $1 billion in 2010. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. The chief executive, David M. Cote, said in a statement that while it was “a good business, it doesn’t fit with our portfolio of differentiated, global technologies.” The company, based in Morris Township, N.J., reported that net income rose to $369 million, or 47 cents a share, from $163 million, or 20 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding an accounting adjustment related to pensions, earnings were 87 cents a share. Revenue rose 12 percent, to $9.04 billion from $8.07 billion. Mr. Cote said market conditions improved during the fourth quarter and full year, with investments contributing to growth, along with new customers and new products. Stock in Honeywell, which is based in Morris Township, fell 60 cents, to $55.32 a share, amid a general market drop, but was moving up in after-hours trading.

Company Reports
Honeywell International Inc


Trenton: Defendant in Kidnapping Flees

Abstract: A landscaper charged with kidnapping his former boss’s wife was being sought yesterday after he escaped from a state psychiatric hospital by breaking through a window, the authorities said. The defendant, Edgar Rene del Cid-Perez, 34, was discovered missing from the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital about 5 a.m. yesterday, said Ellen Lovejoy, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services. He was charged in December with kidnapping Karen Maffucci, of Bernardsville, weeks after her husband had fired him from his landscaping business.


Venus Williams Flashes Old Form at Wimbledon, but It Is Fleeting

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — It has been six years since Venus Williams last won a Grand Slam singles championship, a title that came here at Wimbledon. At 34, an age by which nearly every other top tennis player has retired from the sport, she shows up and, more often than not, is dismissed in an early round. Her stately presence, and occasionally her quick serve, remains, but her staying power is a fraction of what it once was. So it seemed that Williams had little chance Friday against a Wimbledon champion of a more recent vintage. Petra Kvitova, the 2011 champion and the No. 6 seed at this year’s tournament, is a 6-footer in Williams’s mold, an imposing figure of strength and reach. The pair traded two sets and unflinching service games deep into the third before Williams faltered. Seeded 30th but playing as if she might just have another championship in her, she was quickly broken by three consecutive mishit backhands, the last on match point. Kvitova escaped with a 5-7, 7-6 (2), 7-5 victory. It was, on the scoreboard and in the bracket, another middling result by the standards of Williams’s career. Afterward, though, she sounded like a player with plenty of years left. “People have been trying to retire me since I was, like, 25,” she said. “For some reason in tennis, we always do that to our players. It’s weird. We don’t encourage them to stick around. It’s like, ‘Get out of here.’ “I’m not getting out of here. I think this year has been a great year for me. I’ve had some tough losses, but I’ve learned a lot from them. I’m finding my way back on my feet. I’m proud of myself for what I’m achieving on the court.” The match was on Centre Court, the site of Williams’s five tournament triumphs from 2000 to 2008 and the scene of Kvitova’s coronation three summers ago. It had all the heft of a pivotal match, the type played in the second week, not on the first Friday. The bracket ahead of the two players was smoothed by other upsets, given each a chance to dream of a deep run. Kvitova, a 24-year-old from the Czech Republic, moves on to play unseeded Peng Shuai in the fourth round. The toughest potential opponent in the quarterfinals would be 16th-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, thanks to second-seeded Li Na’s upset loss to unseeded Barbora Zahlavova Strycova. For Williams, it will be remembered as an opportunity lost. As the years continue to tick past, it is reasonable to imagine the possibility of this being her final performance on Centre Court. She left with a smile and a proud wave. “It’s a shame there had to be a loser in this match,” Williams said wryly. “And more of a shame that it had to be me.” Image “People have been trying to retire me since I was, like, 25,” Williams said. Credit Carl Court/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Williams has always been a difficult read, her tennis career perpetually distracted by outside interests, such as fashion and interior design. In 2011, she said she had Sjogren’s syndrome , an immune-system disorder, often accompanied by others, that causes dryness of the eyes and mouth and debilitating stretches of fatigue. Williams, ranked fifth at the end of 2010, fell to 103rd a year later. While she made it to the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2011, she has not lasted that long in a Grand Slam tournament since. Friday represented her best opportunity. Early on, she sported a balky but powerful first serve as well as a nimble willingness to move forward, pressing the points against the more robotic Kvitova. Williams tried to move Kvitova around the baseline, preventing her from hammering her strong, left-handed ground strokes that, when working effectively, paint the corners and test the eyesight of the line judges. Kvitova won at Wimbledon in 2011 as the eighth seed, beating Maria Sharapova in the final. It was no fluke. Since emerging as an unknown, unseeded semifinalist in 2010, she has established a habit of long stays, reaching at least the quarterfinals in each of the past four years. She had six victories in 2011 and reached No. 2 on Oct. 31, 2011. But Kvitova struggled over the past year, finding herself mired in so many three-set matches — a tour-high 37 — that she earned a new spelling of her name: P3tra. “It’s funny,” Kvitova said this week. “I prefer to have a ‘2’ over there, but still.” She displayed that good humor even though she has not reached a final this year and was knocked out of the Australian Open in the first round and the French Open in the third. Kvitova, who remains part of an amorphous group of favorites at Wimbledon, said that on Friday, she played her best match on grass since her Wimbledon triumph three years ago, particularly given her prematch nerves. “You know you are playing somebody who loves to play on the grass, that she had already five titles,” Kvitova said of Williams. “It’s not easy. You have respect. You are expecting everything from her.” Williams won the first set by shattering Kvitova’s final service. But Kvitova showed the steadier nerves and more reliable serve in a second-set tiebreaker. “I want to win Grand Slams,” Williams said. “Everybody does. You don’t just get them. “Look at what happened today. No one gives it to you. They snatch it away and say, ‘Mine.’ That’s what I’ll have to do, is snatch it. Say, ‘Mine,’ too. Growl if need be.” With both players in a groove in the third set, neither able to break the other, they stayed on serve until the 12th game. At 15-15, with Williams serving, she hit a backhand into the net. Fans shifted with unease, and some shouted encouragement. A backhand hit long created match point, and in a moment of little drama, the next point ended with another backhand into the center of the net. Williams gave Kvitova a smile and a handshake and did the same for the chair umpire. Within a minute, she was gone, off Centre Court. It was time to make room for others.

Venus Williams
Tennis
Petra Kvitova
Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon


South Texas Drilling Country Saying No to Waste

Abstract: NORDHEIM, Tex. — Paul Baumann proudly listed his hometown’s features as he drove his Ford truck down its empty Main Street: “One grocery store, two bars, one cafe, one beauty salon and one shooting club.” He pointed to the local school that houses students from kindergarten through 12th grade — which recently underwent a major remodel thanks to a $3 million bond vote. But Mr. Baumann’s tone turned somber when he addressed what he and his neighbors are fighting to keep out: a 143-acre oil and gas waste plant that developers hope to build just outside of this village of about 300. “This is going to affect the whole area with the smell,” said Mr. Baumann, who retired from the DuPont chemical company and owns ranchland. The proposed facility would border Mr. Baumann’s hayfield and a rental property. “After they put in the pits, I won’t be able to rent it out,” he added. The proposed site — about half the size of Nordheim — would accept truckloads of solid waste from the surrounding Eagle Ford Shale and hold millions of gallons of toxic sludge from drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The site’s developer, Pyote Reclamation Systems of San Antonio, insists the facility would be safe. But those assurances have failed to quell one of the first organized protests in the heart of South Texas’ drilling country — a sight that could become more common as energy producers search for places to dispose of their leftovers. Signs with messages like “Don’t dump on Nordheim” have cropped up along the highway and country roads between here and Yorktown, about 10 miles away. And more than 200 people — including two state lawmakers and the county judge — have sent letters to the Railroad Commission of Texas asking the oil and gas regulator to deny Pyote permits to build and operate the facility. They have shared fears that pollutants would leach into groundwater, that winds would carry volatile compounds outside of the site and that heavy truck traffic would tear up roads. Despite this noise, they are the underdogs. The Railroad Commission’s engineers have expressed support for Pyote’s application. And because the agency’s jurisdiction is mostly limited to groundwater impacts, it cannot factor in concerns about traffic, air pollution or quality of life. “There’s no concept of land use planning, if you will, for those types of facilities,” said Jim Bradbury, an environmental lawyer who has been involved in cases concerning other solid waste facilities. Mr. Bradbury said that while these types of facilities were necessary for shale development, there was no forum for locals to say that “they shouldn’t be right here.” Not everyone in the area is opposed to the waste facility. Pete Dlugosch, a Yorktown businessman who owns the land Pyote is considering, has pushed back against the protests. In March, he sent letters to residents assuring them that the facility would be “state of the art” and “comply with the strict environmental standards established by regulatory authorities.” Calls to Mr. Dlugosch’s listed number were not answered. Drilling and fracking a well leaves operators liable for vast amounts of waste. They typically get rid of liquid waste by injecting it into disposal wells deep underground. But operators must discard solid waste such as drill cuttings, oil-based muds, fracking sand and other toxic substances above ground. Pyote’s facility would handle that type of waste. The site would include a mix of lined disposal pits and land treatment cells where more benign waste would be scattered and allowed to mix with soil. The Railroad Commission has permitted 20 such facilities statewide, most of which are in South Texas, and it is considering permits for two dozen others. About 30 Nordheim residents — a 10th of the town’s residents — attended a three-day hearing last month in Austin to contest Pyote’s permits. The hearing resembled a trial in which companies and their critics presented evidence and testimony in front of an administrative law judge, who later issues a nonbinding decision that might sway regulators’ opinions. In the Pyote case, the judge’s decision is likely months away — and the Railroad Commission will make its decision after that. “We moved here to live and to be old,” Barbara Fulbright, who lives less than two miles from the proposed site, said at the hearing. “My 150 acres will be worthless. No one wants to live on a road with oil and gas waste.” John G. Soule, a lawyer for the waste company, assured those at the hearing that “Pyote is certainly not going to be doing anything on the cheap,” and “they want to be good neighbors.” “Like every one of you, they have the right to use their property in any manner that is legal,” he said. The company says the Nordheim site is ideal for waste disposal. It sits not far from the highway and is surrounded by drillers needing to unload waste. Pyote says its tests show that a 25-foot-thick layer of clay lies beneath the land, providing an extra layer of protection for the groundwater underneath. Supporters of the site emphasize that it would only house materials classified as “nonhazardous” by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, though that does not necessarily mean they are safe for humans to breathe. In 1988, the agency exempted oil and gas wastes from its list of hazardous materials, though previous studies showed that some emit high levels of toxic compounds such as benzene. Meanwhile, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s air regulator, has limited jurisdiction over such facilities, and only those with certain types of equipment require air permits to operate. Andrea Morrow, an agency spokeswoman, said Pyote had not contacted the agency, so it did not have details on the proposal. But the facility could be subject to air nuisance laws once it is up and running, she said. Though many people following the fight expect the Railroad Commission to grant Pyote permission to open the facility, approval has not come easy. In June 2013, the commission denied Pyote’s initial application. Its letter to the company said the plant “may cause or allow pollution to surface or subsurface waters,” and identified 38 areas of concern, including those related to the strength of the site’s proposed waste pit liners, its proximity to water wells and its ability to capture runoff after rains. After Pyote responded to those points and made changes to its application, the commission’s staff recommended the permit. Sitting in the living room of her ranch house just down a dirt road from the proposed waste site, Lynn Janssen said such a decision would only complicate life for her fellow ranchers. “It’s a struggle because you gamble against the weather,” she said. “You’d like to be able to say, ‘Please, not this.’ ”


AT&T to Sell Equipment to Monitor Workplaces

Abstract: AT&T plans to introduce a nationwide program today that gives owners of small- and medium-size businesses some of the same tools big security companies offer for monitoring employees, customers and operations from remote locations. Under AT&T’s Remote Monitor program, a business owner could install adjustable cameras, door sensors and other gadgets at up to five different company locations across the country. Using a Java-enabled mobile device or a personal computer connected to the Internet, the owner would be able to view any of the images in real time, control room lighting and track equipment temperatures remotely. All the images are recorded on digital video, which can be viewed for up to 30 days. “It is Big Brother, but in this day and age, you need these type of tools” for theft protection, weeding out false accident claims and other risks, said Beaux Roby, owner of a chain of five Mama’s Café restaurants and two banquet halls in Texas. Mr. Roby has been using the system for nine weeks as part of a pilot program. “You have fraudulent claims from customers that trip and fall and things like that,” he said. Aside from helping to verify insurance claims, the system can detect break-ins, alert an owner if a boiler breaks down and monitor employees who “are just sitting around on the clock not doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Mr. Roby said. In one instance, he said, a worker seen operating a meat slicer without wearing protective gloves was reprimanded. The program from AT&T, the only phone company to offer a remote monitoring system to businesses, expands a residential initiative that began in late 2006 that offered limited remote monitoring and captured still pictures from a home. For businesses, digital video monitoring at multiple sites is added. “It’s a unique and affordable option for a small business that wants to keep in touch with various locations,” said Steve Loop, executive director for business development at AT&T. “It saves them a lot of time in their day from having to physically go to all of their locations.” Equipment costs range from $199 for a fixed camera starter kit in a single location to $349 for multiple cameras including ones that will pan or tilt. Monthly monitoring charges range from $9.95 for a single location to $39.95 for five locations. AT&T’s main competitors in this field, ADT and Digital Witness, charge higher prices and do not offer sensors to control lighting or to monitor temperatures. The AT&T system is not foolproof, however. As a Web-based service, it is vulnerable to the loss of a broadband connection. If the system fails, the monitor would lose the ability to view locations remotely. “This is not positioned as a security service,” Mr. Loop said. ADT and Digital Witness’s equipment and services, while more costly than AT&T’s, are able to continue monitoring a business even if a broadband connection fails.

Cameras
AT&T Corp
Computers and the Internet


An Endorsement from France’s First Lady Causes a Stir

Abstract: PARIS — France ’s new first lady, Valérie Trierweiler, created a small scandal and considerable stupefaction on Tuesday when she lent her support to a party dissident who is trying to defeat Ségolène Royal — President François Hollande ’s former partner of some 30 years and the mother of his four children. It seemed like a scene from Molière — or from “Macbeth” — with Mr. Hollande’s current companion breaking with his party’s position and trying to undermine her predecessor in the president’s affections. Around noon on Tuesday, Ms. Trierweiler wrote on Twitter , “Courage to Olivier Falorni, who has not been unworthy, who fights unselfishly alongside the people of La Rochelle for so many years.” A lovely message, certainly. But Mr. Falorni is a Socialist Party dissident who is challenging Ms. Royal, the official party candidate, for a parliamentary seat in La Rochelle. Officials at the Élysée Palace confirmed later on Tuesday that Mr. Hollande supports Ms. Royal in the race, but they refused to comment on the Twitter message. The initial reaction in France was that Ms. Trierweiler’s post must have been a hoax. That was the position initially taken by the Socialist Party leader, Martine Aubry, who was in La Rochelle on Tuesday to campaign for Ms. Royal. But Ms. Trierweiler confirmed to Agence France-Presse that she had posted the message. A call to her spokesman was not returned, but the Élysée Palace did not deny that the post was authentic. Ms. Royal refused to comment on the matter. Ms. Aubry said “the only thing that counts” is Mr. Hollande’s support for Ms. Royal. A Royal supporter, the legislator Jean-Louis Bianco, said, “People elected F. Hollande, not Valérie Trierweiler; in what is she meddling?” He said he thought her Twitter message was “purely and simply disgraceful.” Politicians of other parties enjoyed themselves. Eric Ciotti, from former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement, said that “vaudeville has come to the Élysée,” while others compared the drama to a soap opera. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a well-known Green politician, said, “I find it indecent that she takes a position in this business.” In the first round of the legislative elections on Sunday, Ms. Royal won 32 percent of the vote and Mr. Falorni 29 percent, so they both qualified for the runoff on Sunday. Mr. Falorni has refused to give up his candidacy to clear the way for Ms. Royal now, just as he refused to stand aside for her in the first place. Mr. Falorni said he “delighted” in “this beautiful message of friendship, of personal support” in a situation “where I have suffered many blows.” Ms. Trierweiler, 47, twice divorced and a mother of three, has also caused comment and some criticism by deciding to keep working as a journalist for the magazine Paris Match, writing mostly on cultural issues. Her first article since the election appeared last week, discussing a new book in French about Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote a newspaper column about her life in the White House. In the article, Ms. Trierweiler commented: “Well! Will you look at that? A first lady who is also a journalist isn’t a novelty.” She added: “Obviously, you need to look at the other side of the Atlantic to find this unique case and not cry foul.” So there were immediate questions about whether a journalist should be openly supporting a political candidate, let alone whether the president’s partner should embarrass him this way. Ms. Trierweiler has said in interviews that she wants to preserve her independence, of livelihood and of thought, even while her partner is the French president, a stance that has also brought her praise. During the campaign, she also got attention for a Twitter post criticizing “my own magazine” for putting her on its cover, saying, “Bravo to Paris Match for its sexism.” The relationship between Ms. Trierweiler and Ms. Royal is strained. They met in 1992 when Ms. Trierweiler, who was then married to Denis Trierweiler, an editor at Paris Match, wrote an article for the magazine about the birth of Ms. Royal’s fourth child with Mr. Hollande, featuring photographs of the happy mother in the hospital. The two couples became friendly, but according to Mr. Hollande’s biographer, Serge Raffy, Mr. Hollande and Ms. Trierweiler began an affair in 2005. Ms. Royal and Mr. Hollande kept their relationship going formally through the legislative elections of 2007, after which she announced their separation. When Mr. Hollande’s mother died in early 2009, Ms. Trierweiler insisted that Ms. Royal not attend the funeral, though her children did, Mr. Raffy wrote. And when Mr. Hollande was inaugurated as France’s president last month, Ms. Royal stayed away. Ms. Trierweiler’s most recent previous Twitter post, on May 31, concerned a Unicef report about child poverty in France; the last before that, on May 21, thanked Michelle Obama for her “warm welcome” at the White House and in Chicago and “for her precious advice.” In an interview in 2010 with Le Journal du Dimanche, Ms. Trierweiler spoke about journalists: “We need rules, they exist, but hypocrisy reigns. All journalists have opinions, they all vote, they all have sympathy, friendships. But they’re not asked to justify them. We believe in their integrity, we trust them and we’re right to do so.”

France
Twitter
Trierweiler Valerie
Hollande Francois
Royal Segolene


Strolling and Snacking With Calvin Trillin in Manhattan

Abstract: The writer Calvin Trillin ’s gastronomic walking excursion in Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown and Little Italy, which took place Sunday as part of the New Yorker Festival, is called “Come Hungry” with good reason. Thirty-five lucky participants — lucky because tickets sold out online in less than two seconds, according to organizers — were told as the tour began at 11 a.m. that there would be nine tasting stops at some of Mr. Trillin’s favorite haunts along a two-mile stretch. The outing also included some sidewalk food deliveries. “So in the one or two blocks where we’re not going to be eating, we’ll eat,” said Mr. Trillin, who was casually dressed in hiking boots and a baseball cap. He made his announcements into a portable microphone, his voice trailing behind the group through a portable amplifier rolled along by an assistant. The tour is now in its eighth year and is always one of the most sought-after events of the three-day festival . The organizers do not reveal the dining spots in advance and asked that the specific starting point not be revealed. Although he was born in Kansas City, Mo., Mr. Trillin has written about New York for The New Yorker for more than 40 years, making him seem more the quintessential New Yorker than most native-born residents. He has published 25 books including, “Feeding a Yen: Savoring Local Specialties, From Kansas City to Cuzco” and “Alice, Let’s Eat.” The tour stems from the Sunday strolls he would take with his wife, Alice, and their two daughters. Starting from their home in Greenwich Village and ending in Chinatown, they would stop to sample some of the city’s best ethnic dishes at various Old World and hole-in-the-wall establishments. “They come and they go, these places,” Mr. Trillin said. After an initial taste of sopressata, the group rounded the corner of Sullivan and Houston Streets and bags of cellophane-wrapped sandwiches from a Chinatown restaurant were handed out by tour assistants. “What kind of greens are in this?” one woman inquired about her bun filled with sautéed greens. “We don’t know,” Mr. Trillin said, adding that one year they brought along a Chinese translator who asked and reported that it was mustard greens. “But it turned out that she spoke the wrong kind of Chinese,” he said. As the group continued down Sullivan Street toward the Grandaisy Bakery for a few bites of potato pizza, Mr. Trillin said he never had an interest in reviewing restaurants. Writing about eating, he said, was a way to report on the country in a richer, more humorous fashion. “I’m not interested in finding the best chili restaurant in Cincinnati,” he said. “I’m interested in Cincinnatians fighting about who has the best chili.” Each year, he varies the tour. But a regular stop at the Banh Mi Saigon Bakery on Mott Street drew one of the most enthusiastic responses from the crowd. As they chomped down on thick Vietnamese pork sandwiches retrieved from a nondescript food counter tucked behind a jewelry store, Mr. Trillin said, “And you’re allowed to buy jewelry if you want.” “Do you have a trick for getting everything in your mouth?” someone asked. “Mouth twisting,” said Mr. Trillin, grimacing and biting at the same time. During a stop for Vietnamese summer rolls, he told the crowd that, in his opinion, the greatest thing to happen to American cuisine was the Immigration Act of 1965, which allowed more third world immigrants. Before that, national quotas favored the British over Asians. “I guess the idea was that people who like bland food make good citizens.” He added, “In food terms, it wasn’t a good policy.” Standing outside, dipping his roll into peanut sauce, he said he liked to eat standing up. “If I couldn’t eat in a four-star restaurant again, it would mean nothing to me,” he said. “But if someone said I couldn’t eat any more cilantro, I would be very upset.” As the group circled past the Chinatown Fair on Mott Street, he pointed out some old lettering on the arcade’s facade that announced, “World Famous Dancing & Tic-Tac-Toe Chicken.” He reminisced how his family liked to stop to play a few games of tic-tac-toe with the chicken, until a complaint that it was demeaning caused the chicken to be retired. “It didn’t seem very demeaning to me,” he said of the games against the trained chicken. “He never lost.” With each stop, everyone grew fuller. “I’ve lived here all my life, but I never knew where to go in Chinatown,” said Jean Hanff Korelitz, a novelist who managed to get tickets for her and her husband. Megan Heister, 32, a development officer for a fund-raising organization, revealed her technique. She went to the online ticket site minutes before the sale and hit the refresh button over and over. She couldn’t believe it when it worked. “I did a victory dance around the office.” After a tasting of some thick rice noodle rollups with a distinctively fishy flavoring, Mr. Trillin announced that the next and last stop would be a dim sum feast at an establishment under the Manhattan Bridge. “I hope you’re hungry,” he said, “because it’s time for lunch.”

New Yorker
Restaurants
Trillin Calvin
Writing and Writers
Greenwich Village (NYC)
SoHo (NYC)
Chinatown (NYC)


She Vanquished a Cruel Addiction, but Challenges Remain

Abstract: Della Murray just didn’t care. Chalk it up to an addict’s apathy. If her body, already weakened from crack cocaine use, also had to endure beatings from drug dealers she had cheated, so what? Threats on her life made at knife point for the same transgression? No difference. What about the gaunt and faded doppelgänger that faced her in the mirror; might that visage be frightening enough to drive her toward sobriety? Not a chance. “That drug can take you from being a churchgoing girl to a hooker,” said Ms. Murray, 51. “And that’s what had me.” Crack had her going through its tawdry motions for 15 years. Her daily quest for a fix, her fading health and her destructive behaviors, the entire downward spiral, were all right out of the textbook. As was her back story. The factors that led Ms. Murray to fall under the sway of the drug are recurring elements in many addicts’ tales of origin. She had been a victim of abuse, she said, as a child and in her adult life. Peer pressure and prior experimentation came into play; she blamed the coaxing of a friend for her first taste of crack, and she admitted that she had already dabbled in other drugs, like marijuana and cocaine. “I kept on doing it, kept on doing it, until I got hooked,” Ms. Murray said. Even her redemptive arc has a familiar ring. In 1999, Ms. Murray believed that God had answered her prayers for change, in the form of an arrest on a drug possession charge. A court mandated that she enter a two-year drug recovery program at Odyssey House, in East Harlem. Her graduation from the program was triumphant; her habit was kicked. But it was not the end. It is the second part of her story, the part unfolding now, more than a dozen years after she got clean, that warrants more careful examination, as she confronts the consequences of clarity and the challenges faced by any former addict hoping to make something more of a life wasted in its prime. Depression reared its head mightily while Ms. Murray was at Odyssey House. Reflecting on her unsavory past may have restored her conscience, but humility brought with it its own burdens. “I discovered that I had wasted a lot,” she said. “Time, money, and I wasted time with my children.” In 2002, Ms. Murray moved to St. Stephen, S.C., where she had family, and continued to struggle with her guilt for years. But it was not until 2011 that her doctor diagnosed a depressive disorder. “The process goes by steps,” she said. “At the time, I did not forgive myself. I was mad at myself because I wasted all my time doing drugs. Once you get to that step that you can forgive yourself, and God forgives you, your family can forgive you.” Eventually, Ms. Murray decided she wanted to be closer to her children, now grown, and to her grandchildren. She returned to New York in 2010 to live with her daughter in Brooklyn. But her daughter was evicted, and Ms. Murray ended up in the shelter system. Her daughter eventually moved to Michigan. The homeless shelter referred Ms. Murray to the East New York Clubhouse, which offers support to adults with mental illness. The program is one of many offered by Brooklyn Community Services, one of seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The Clubhouse placed Ms. Murray in a transitional cleaning job, where she works in the kitchen five days a week for two hours per day. Brooklyn Community Services allotted $450 from the Neediest Cases fund so that Ms. Murray could keep her belongings in a storage unit. She has since moved into an apartment in Brooklyn that she shares with several other people, and receives $797 monthly from the Supplemental Security Income program. “The hopes and dreams I had in life, I’m just now doing it,” Ms. Murray said. “I could have done that a long time ago. But I was on drugs.” With a support network in place, ambition has replaced uncertainty. She aims to attain her high school equivalency diploma, land a better job, and get herself off government support. “I try to let the fears stand to the side and look to the future,” she said. “If I put my fears in front of that, then I’ll never get my degree. I’m not going to let anything hold me back. No more time to waste.” There is no question in Ms. Murray’s mind that she will reach her goals, however challenging they prove to be. And yes, she is fully aware that self-doubt may hamper her studies, that stigmatization may affect her goals, that past mistakes could manifest as obstacles to her future. She just doesn’t care.

Brooklyn Community Services
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Philanthropy


Kings Beat Sharks to Reach Western Conference Finals

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Justin Williams scored two goals in the second period, and the Los Angeles Kings advanced to the Western Conference finals with a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks in Game 7 on Tuesday night. Jonathan Quick made 25 saves as the Kings, the defending Stanley Cup champions, finished off this agonizingly even series with their 14th consecutive home victory over the past two months. The home team won all seven games in this series, and the Kings barely rode their home-ice advantage to victory in their first potential elimination game in the last two years. Antti Niemi stopped 16 shots, and Dan Boyle scored early in the third period for the Sharks. The Kings will face Chicago or Detroit when they attempt to reach the Stanley Cup finals for the third time. The Blackhawks host the Red Wings in Game 7 on Wednesday night. Los Angeles has won eight straight home playoff games dating to last season’s Stanley Cup clincher, but this one might have been the toughest. San Jose pressed the action throughout the third period after Williams’s back-to-back goals put the Sharks in a mid-game hole, but the Kings hung on for a win in their first Game 7 at home since 1989. Williams scored on a power-play tap-in and a one-timer 2 minutes 57 seconds apart early in the second, putting the Kings on top to stay. Quick and the Kings’ defense barely held off the Sharks in a frantic third period. Quick showed off his Conn Smythe Trophy form yet again, finishing the seven-game series by allowing only 10 goals.

Los Angeles Kings
San Jose Sharks
Playoffs
Ice hockey


Houston Goes All Out to Gain Entry to Big 12

Abstract: HOUSTON — Almost as soon as the Big 12 announced this summer that it was open to expanding to 12 teams, from the conference’s current stable of 10, nearly two dozen universities clambered forward like shoppers outside a Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving. It is a diverse group — Brigham Young and Boise State, Temple and Tulane, Cincinnati and Connecticut — but at the front of the line, to the chagrin of some, stands the University of Houston. Left behind 20 years ago when several of its rivals in the defunct Southwest Conference teamed with the old Big Eight to form the Big 12, Houston, whose sixth-ranked football team is the best one in the second-tier Group of 5 conferences, presents itself as a geographic, historical and just plain logical fit for the Big 12, which already sends almost half of its mail to Texas addresses. Image A former commuter school, Houston now has Texas’ third-largest on-campus student population. Its football team is ranked No. 6 this week. Credit Todd Spoth for The New York Times Last Saturday, the Cougars had something their rivals for Big 12 favor could not match: a captive audience for a visit by the conference’s defending champion, Oklahoma, on the opening weekend of the college football season. Following university officials on the field and as they dropped in and out of the suites on NRG Stadium’s luxury level offered a glimpse into the uniquely Lone Star State blend of power, politics and football that Houston can bring to bear in its quest to graduate to the big time. Membership in a Power 5 conference — and the attendant media rights revenue that it brings — is a golden ticket in college sports. Last fiscal year, for instance, while the Cougars took in about $3 million in media rights payments as a member of the American Athletic Conference, Iowa State’s membership in the Big 12 was worth 10 times that — about $30 million — even as the Cyclones won 10 fewer games than the Cougars, who were 13-1. Houston’s athletic director, Hunter Yurachek, acknowledged that success of that kind, in a season that concluded with a win over Florida State in the Peach Bowl, could be fleeting. Image Houston’s campaign for Big 12 membership has been a uniquely Lone Star State blend of power, politics and football. Credit Todd Spoth for The New York Times “Can we sustain that at the conference we’re currently in?” Yurachek asked. “No. Absolutely not.” Without the perks of Power 5 membership — the millions of dollars from media contracts and the additional revenue in ticket sales, sponsorships and donations that annual games against the Sooners and state rivals like Texas, Baylor, Texas Tech and Texas Christian could generate — a program like Houston’s will have a tougher time appealing to top recruits. It will also struggle to retain coaching talents like its second-year head coach, Tom Herman, something the Cougars learned recently as two of his predecessors, Art Briles and Kevin Sumlin, departed for Baylor and Texas A&M. “You aren’t going to go from Houston to Waco or Houston to College Station if you’re in the Big 12,” Tilman Fertitta, the chairman of the University of Houston Board of Regents, said. Yet Houston insists that its desire for Big 12 membership transcends football, and even sports. When Renu Khator ascended to the university’s presidency and chancellorship in 2008, she was coming off a tenure as provost at the University of South Florida, which added football in 1997. She said in an interview the day before the Oklahoma game that she had seen what big-time athletics could mean to an institution. Image Houston’s 33-23 victory over Oklahoma carried the Cougars into the top 10, and the Sooners out of it. Credit Todd Spoth for The New York Times “If you’re going to have top-class academics here — which is what we’ve always wanted to build, a nationally competitive university — you just are not going to be a mediocre athletics program,” she said. “Bringing that national competitiveness in academics and athletics has been the goal since Day 1.” The mingling of politics and football is as Texan as Frito pie. Twenty years ago, Baylor had the support of a friend in a high place — the former governor Ann Richards, a Baylor graduate — when it and Texas Tech got into the Big 12 ahead of Houston and T.C.U. Similarly, when Texas A&M left the Big 12 for the richer Southeastern Conference before the 2012 season, it had the implied blessing of the governor at the time, Rick Perry, a proud Aggie. So it seemed auspicious when Texas’ governor and lieutenant governor — as well as the University of Texas’ top two officials — posted Twitter messages in favor of Houston’s membership in the Big 12 on the same Thursday in July. There is even talk that Texas Tech’s support for Houston’s bid was aided by Houston’s backing of a Texas Tech veterinary school to rival the one at Texas A&M. (It was perhaps inevitable that horse-trading in Texas would eventually involve actual horses.) Image Houston’s president, Renu Khator, left, with Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who has expressed support for the Cougars’ Big 12 candidacy. Credit Todd Spoth for The New York Times The university has the backing of a political action committee that has reportedly donated nearly $1 million to Texas politicians since 2012 in advocacy of the university’s agenda — which includes Big 12 membership. “You could say politics would have nothing to do with that,” said Welcome Wilson Sr., the PAC’s chairman, “but in my experience over a lifetime, it has everything to do with that.” Apart from powerful connections, Houston, whose biggest sports moment was its Phi Slama Jama basketball teams of the early 1980s, would seem to have much to recommend it to the Big 12. A former commuter college, it now has Texas’ third-largest on-campus student population. Its city is the country’s fourth largest, with all the valuable television sets and cable cords that come with such a distinction, and it gushes high school football talent the way the nearby fields ooze oil. Image Can Houston sustain its recent athletic success in its current conference? “No,” Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek said. “Absolutely not.” Credit Todd Spoth for The New York Times A snug on-campus football stadium with a view of the downtown skyline opened in 2014, at a cost of $125 million. The university spent $25 million on a new basketball practice site and will spend another $60 million — $20 million of it already pledged by Fertitta — on a new home arena. The university plans $275 million in athletics construction by 2020 — and $1.5 billion in infrastructure spending over all. But for the Big 12’s non-Texas members, which are Plains States universities of the old Big Eight plus West Virginia, the Cougars are another Texas team in a conference dominated by them financially and, in some important sports, competitively. Nervous football coaches at some of those programs expressed concern that elevating the Cougars could create a monster that absorbs Houston-area recruiting talent. David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma, is thought to be the conference’s key power broker outside Texas. Through a spokesman, he directed an inquiry about expansion to Commissioner Bob Bowlsby. Bowlsby, through his own spokesman, declined to comment. At this point, Houston’s greatest rival might be a decision by the Big 12’s presidents and chancellors not to expand after all. At last Saturday’s Houston-Oklahoma game, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, once a judge based in Houston, presided over the coin toss in a red University of Houston polo shirt. Khator, the university president, was ubiquitous: glad-handing on the field before kickoff; darting in and out of the university’s luxury suite; mugging with Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston on the big screen, a lavaliere of a Cougars ring dangling from her necklace. Midway through the third quarter, John Zerwas, a state representative who represents a Houston suburb and is chairman of the Texas House Higher Education Committee, pointed to the scoreboard showing the Cougars’ 19-17 lead and said, “That is all the legitimacy you need.” As if on cue, the play of the game unfolded: Cougars cornerback Brandon Wilson caught a field-goal attempt by the Sooners inches from the back of the end zone and returned it the length of the field for a touchdown. The lawmakers and boosters and friends who filled Houston’s suite erupted. Hours later, in the heady joy of the Cougars’ 33-23 victory, someone took Houston’s methodical courtship of the Big 12 public in the most modern possible way. It was quickly deleted, but, briefly, the university’s main Twitter account had asked, “Hey, @Big12Conference, are you watching?”

University of Houston
College football
College
Big 12 Conference


Arkansas: Compromise on Medicaid Is Held Up

Abstract: The Arkansas House failed Tuesday to renew the state’s compromise Medicaid expansion plan, leaving in limbo a program heralded as a model for Republican-leaning states to implement the federal health overhaul. The 100-member chamber fell five votes short of the 75 needed to reauthorize the “private option,” in which the state is using federal Medicaid funds to buy private insurance for 87,000 low-income residents. The program was approved last year as an alternative to expanding Medicaid enrollment under the federal health law. House Speaker Davy Carter, a supporter of the private option, said representatives would take up the bill again on Wednesday and each day of the session after that until it passes. Arkansas was the first state given federal approval to use Medicaid funds to buy private insurance for the newly eligible under the health law. Majority Leader Bruce Westerman, however, said the vote would allow the state to show its opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

Arkansas
Medicaid
Health Insurance
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
Legislation
US Politics


From Women, Skepticism About Marriage and a Hunger for Workplace Equality

Abstract: The latest New York Times/CBS News poll took a reading on the attitudes of American women on a range of topics, from politics to opportunities in the workplace to their overall level of satisfaction in life. We called back a number of them to talk further and also consulted some experts about the challenges facing women today. Here are some of their voices. Karianna Brown, 30, a paramedic from Ambridge, Pa., has never married; she said marriage is not that important to her, but having children is. “I’ve seen so many failed marriages and people who get married just because they’re having kids. It’s not exactly a happy home, and I don’t think you have to be married to have happy children.” Marcia Tucker, 52 , works in Philadelphia as a program director at the Public Health Management Corporation. She said that over 20 years at the company, she had seen more women enter executive roles — something that encouraged her to climb the leadership ladder. “It’s been my experiences here and having the ability actually to work for a period of time under a woman’s leadership where I was able to get promotions and get equal pay to my male counterparts. It wasn’t just policy; I definitely did some advocating for myself. And there were some other women here who were in leadership roles who advocated as well.” Pat Pendleton, 63 , a retired teacher living in St. Louis, Mo., said she was able to provide a loving household for her children even though she never married. “There’s no guarantee that having a spouse is going to work out. But when you have a child, you’re molding the future; you have an investment in it. As an educator, children have always been an important part of my life. I have one biological son and one I adopted. There are moments when I regret not having a spouse, primarily for my biological son because he didn’t have contact with his father, but he was blessed to have the strong support of a lot of family members who loved him. I didn’t start out with the attitude that I’m going to have children without a husband, but it just happened that way, and so you move on and do what you have do to. When I realized I was to be the sole provider, I had to beef up my education and work hard because my priority was my children. I feel I made the right decision, and now I am looking forward to being a grandmother.” Carla Lytle, 52 , a manager of election officials in Shelby County, Tenn., suggested that women with children often bring a unique set of skills to leadership roles. “When you’re a parent and you’re molding lives, and you walk through issues with your children, it’s a 24/7 job; it’s not just a nine-to-five job. That prepares you. A lot of people say, ‘You have so much patience and understanding, but yet you still get the job done.’ And I think you can take that from the home to the workplace.” Claire Goldstene, 48 , of Davis, Calif., expressed skepticism about Hillary Clinton’s policies and ethics. “I find her approach to foreign policy often too belligerent. Economically, for me, from my perspective, I would like her to be more progressive around issues of economic inequality. And I do think there are legitimate concerns about the relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the personal income of her family members that I find very troubling. I wouldn’t want my niece to model her behavior off Hillary Clinton, just because of those issues.” Lauren Briggs, 26, a journalist living in Los Angeles, said she planned to vote for a third-party candidate because of doubts about Mrs. Clinton’s honesty. “I definitely feel worse about her after this campaign. I was never exactly a huge fan, but she wasn’t as much on my radar. During the campaign, some things kind of didn’t sit well with me. Not only how she ran her campaign during the primaries, but also just general dishonesty in terms of her long record. She’s not exactly known as the most honest politician.” Christine Southworth, 38, a musician living in Lexington, Mass., is one of the many women polled who expressed concern about workplace policies that were unfair to women. “The main thing is that women still don’t get equal pay for equal work. Also, I am not a parent, but I see so many moms that need to work, or want to work, and they have trouble juggling work and taking care of the kids. And if they get divorced, there are so many more things to deal with and it’s hard. I have several friends going through a divorce right now, and I see all sorts of changes they have to deal with. It seems things get settled more in the man’s favor. It hurts the moms, and they have to start all over again building a career from scratch. And of course there is still discrimination and harassment in the workplace.” Robin Morgan , who was at the forefront of the women’s movement in the 1970s, is dismayed that the battles against racism and sexism are pitted against each other, but has an idea about why some women over 65 think sexism is more intractable than racism. “That is part of a generation — partly my generation — some of them younger, some of them older, who were very active in the ’70s. I remember thinking we will have won this by the time I am 35 or I will be dead!” Gillian Thomas , a lawyer specializing in women’s workplace issues and the author of the recent book “ Because of Sex ,” a history of the legal cases that changed women’s working lives. “Sexual harassment is absolutely rampant, especially for low-wage workers. As we’ve seen with Roger Ailes, if it happens with Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly, imagine how much it happens with housekeepers and dishwashers and clerical workers and what have you.”

Marriage
Workplace
Polls
Hillary Clinton
Discrimination
Sexual harassment
Women and Girls
2016 Presidential Election
Women's rights,Feminism
Income Inequality


Newman Edges Stewart to Win in New Hampshire

Abstract: LOUDON, N.H. (AP) — Ryan Newman held off Tony Stewart, his boss and teammate, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday to win his first race of the season. Newman won from the pole and became the 13th different winner in 19 Sprint Cup races. Newman and Stewart made it the first front-row start for Stewart-Haas Racing in qualifying Friday and they went 1-2 again when it mattered in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301. It was a banner weekend for the team, and Newman and Stewart hope they have positioned themselves as contenders for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. “This was a perfect weekend,” Stewart said. “Just an awesome day for Stewart-Haas.” It was a pair of near-flawless runs for the drivers as they prepare for championship runs. Newman won for the first time since April 2010 in Phoenix, and Stewart earned only his second top-five finish of the season. “It’s no secret we’ve been struggling this year,” Stewart said. “But it really shows me the depth of the people we got in our organization.” Newman became choked up as he dedicated the win to the military, friends and relatives. “We knew we were capable of it,” he said. “We were so close so many times this year.” Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and the five-time champion Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top five. Johnson and Jeff Gordon, who finished 11th, both rallied from major setbacks for strong finishes. Kyle Busch, who started the race as the series points leader, had tire problems and was forced to the garage. He finished 36th. With some of the top drivers scuffling, Newman and Stewart stayed out in front down the stretch. Newman led 119 of the 301 laps and won his 15th career Cup race. Only seven races remain until the Chase field is set. The top 10 drivers automatically earn a spot. Two spots in the Chase will go to the drivers with the most wins ranked between 11 and 20. Newman is in eighth place. “It puts us in a lot better position that’s for sure,” he said. He is the latest new face in victory lane. The 13 winners match the total from last season.

Nascar Sprint Cup Series
Stewart Tony
Newman Ryan
Automobile Racing


Mourning a Boy, Crowds in Syria Defy Crackdown

Abstract: CAIRO — Syrians poured into the streets on Friday in some of the largest antigovernment protests yet despite the shutdown of much of Syria ’s Internet network, which has been crucial to demonstrators’ ability to mobilize and a major source of information for those outside the country. The crowds protesting the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad appeared fueled in part by escalating anger about the torture and killing of a 13-year-old boy. Witnesses said protesters in dozens of communities on Friday dedicated their marches to him and other children killed during the uprising. They defied the continuing brutal crackdown that has killed more than 1,000 people, with hundreds more rounded up in mass arrests. On Friday, more than 30 protesters were killed in the city of Hamah, according to Rami Abdelrahman, a human rights monitor. That report could not be immediately confirmed. The boy who was killed, Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, has become a symbol of government oppression after a video of his mutilated body was circulated on YouTube . “We won’t forgive, we will kill the child killer,” chanted protesters in Homs, a center of dissent, according to a witness who gave his name as Mohamed. “We will continue until your end.” Earlier this week, Unicef issued an unusual statement describing “extreme violence against children in Syria.” “We are particularly disturbed by the recent video images of children who were arbitrarily detained and suffered torture or ill-treatment during their detention, leading in some cases to their death,” the statement said. Though Unicef has issued more general warnings about the effects of recent unrest in the Middle East on the lives of children there, the statement is the first time since the Arab Spring began that the organization has called on a specific government to investigate what it called “horrific acts” against children. The Internet shutdown severely disrupted the flow of the YouTube videos and Facebook and Twitter posts that have allowed protesters and others to keep track of demonstrations, since foreign news media are banned and state media are heavily controlled. Both land lines and cellphones are so frequently monitored by Syria’s feared secret police that Skype had become a major means of communication among activists, and its loss as a tool may be a blow to the protest movement. Government Web sites, including those for the Ministry of Oil and the state news agency, SANA, remained online. Two-thirds of Syria’s Internet network went offline at 6:35 a.m. Friday, said James Cowie, an analyst at Renesys, an Internet analytic firm, in a cascading blackout that took 30 minutes. Forty of the country’s 59 Internet pathways were disabled, including Syria’s entire 3G mobile network, run by the country’s only telecom provider, Syriatel, which is owned by Rami Makhlouf, Mr. Assad’s cousin. “People that want to use their smart phones to Tweet or read Web pages cannot,” Mr. Cowie said. “All of the IPs on those phones appear to be down.” Phone service was also heavily disrupted across the country, and for the past several days, rights activists have reported that water and electricity had been shut off in a string of towns in central and southern Syria. Egypt and Libya had earlier shut off access to the Internet in an attempt to crush popular uprisings led by young people and aided by social media networks. “When a government shuts down the Internet, it shows the disconnection between the governing and the governed,” Alec Ross, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s senior adviser for innovation, wrote in a Twitter post on Friday afternoon. Oula Abdulhamid, a Syrian activist who helped organize a conference for members of the Syrian opposition in Turkey this week, said the protest videos posted Friday were mainly the work of activists who had crossed Syria’s borders. “In some of the areas on the borders, they’re using Jordanian lines and Lebanese lines,” Ms. Abdulhamid said. “They’re crossing the borders and going to Internet cafes. They’re doing such hard work just to get a few videos out. They’re risking their lives.” According to Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the efforts of Syria’s scattered political opposition to unite at the Turkey conference appeared to have been embraced by activists within Syria and might be helping to fuel more vigorous protests. “There’s a feeling now that everyone is united against Assad, though everyone recognizes that this effort is going to take a while, a long while,” Mr. Tabler said. Activists in various cities reported that people had turned out despite their fears after weeks of suppression that has included virtual blockades of several defiant cities. The Local Coordinating Committees in Syria, a loose group of organizers, reported that turnout at Friday’s protests was as high as 70,000 in Maarrat an Numan and 50,000 in Ariha, both in the northwest. “The situation is so tense here,” said Sheik Nawaf al-Bashir, an activist in Dayr az Zawr in eastern Syria. He said that four people had been injured and that eight army units appeared to be heading toward the city center. “Heavy gunfire is heard all around,” Mr. Bashir said. “I am afraid of a clash between the army and the protesters.” Anwar Fares, a former political prisoner who spoke from Dara’a, said four groups of protesters marched in city, the birthplace of the uprising, where security forces operating checkpoints throughout the city kept them from converging. He put the number of protesters at 2,000. “Even if the demonstrations are small in Dara’a, for us it is an achievement because the person who participates is a possible martyr,” Mr. Fares said. “Those who join the demonstrations might not come back,” he added. In recent weeks, SANA has described the protest movement as an insurgency. Syrian television has offered limited coverage of the demonstrations, describing them as peaceful protests calling for the government to speed the reform process. But Mr. Abdelrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, described concerns that worsening attacks on the protesters by the security forces might cause the protesters to respond with violence of their own. “I have fears that things will go out of control in the street,” he said. “Not all the people participating in the rallies are intellectuals, so it’s hard to control things, especially families who lost their sons. The opposition is not leading the street, the people are, and that is my deep fear.”

Arab Spring
Politics
Hamza Ali al- Khateeb