Fans Will See the Super Bowl Halftime Show in a Different Light: The Sun’s

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — When halftime arrives at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday, the now wildly popular entertainment extravaganza that follows the first half will have a different feel, and not just because it is the 50th Super Bowl . The show will also be held in broad daylight. Dramatic lighting and pyrotechnics have become synonymous with recent Super Bowl halftime shows, and the absence of a dark sky or a dimly lighted stadium as a backdrop presented a big challenge for the event’s organizers, who start planning each show over a year in advance. “Something has to replace those elements — I can’t say what — but we knew we had to do something,” said Mark Quenzel, the senior vice president for programming and production at NFL Network, which produces the pregame and halftime shows. “Have we found the solution? I sure hope so.” He continued: “I don’t want to say it’s going to be the best ever because that’s not really fair to the Katy Perrys and the Madonnas of the world. But it’s going to be different, for sure, in a lot of respects.” For as big as the halftime show has become over the years , growing from intimate performances by marching bands to elaborate collaborations among some of the most popular artists in the world, the team that dreams it all up is relatively small. Quenzel and two N.F.L. staff members, plus Ricky Kirshner, the producer, and Hamish Hamilton, the director, continually add to a list of performers they would like to see perform and keep tabs on those artists’ tour dates and commitments. If their schedules appear open for the roughly four months leading to the Super Bowl, the team begins negotiating with the artists. They usually have a deal in place by the fall. The N.F.L., which pays for the show along with a sponsor (this is Pepsi’s fourth consecutive year in the role), would not say how much it costs, saying only “a lot.” The artists often chip in, paying for rehearsal space and for extra pizazz. “There’s a certain amount we can spend on Super Bowl halftime, and if they want to do more than that, then at some point, they have to pay,” Quenzel said. Image Katy Perry performing at the Super Bowl halftime show last year. Coldplay will headline this year’s show. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times While some artists have turned down the offer to play for logistical reasons, rejection is rare because of the platform the show provides. More than 118.5 million viewers tuned in to last year’s show, which was headlined by Perry, making it the most watched television program in United States history. Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay , joked during a news conference Thursday about the honor of headlining this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. “We started in Iowa campaigning three years ago,” he said. Special guests, usually suggested by the main act, are added to the show to reach a broader audience. This year, because it is Super Bowl 50 and Quenzel’s team wanted the show to rise to the occasion, the planning process stretched well into December. “People ask me, ‘Who are you trying to reach?’ ” said Quenzel, who is overseeing his sixth halftime show. “At 120 million people, it’s everyone from 8 to 80. It’s also the goal, we hope, that Super Bowl halftime, besides whatever other attributes it has, it has become known a little bit to put together artists and looks and concepts that you don’t see every day.” Secrecy is also of utmost importance, and employees and volunteers must sign confidentiality agreements. Coldplay was announced by the N.F.L. as the main act in early December, and an appearance by Beyoncé was confirmed Thursday. Bruno Mars is among those rumored to be joining them. “There’s people in the stadium during rehearsals,” said Frank Supovitz, a former N.F.L. senior vice president for events and entertainment who runs his own event management and consulting business. “You try to keep it down to a minimum number of people for both security purposes and also so you’re not finding secrets on Twitter, but it’s really hard.” Another challenge is timing. The stages need to be set up in less than eight minutes, the performance lasts about 12, and everything needs to be cleared from the field in seven. Only then are the football teams allowed back on the field. A few times, as when Beyoncé performed in New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, the shows have run long. In those cases the halftime clock, which is extended from 12 minutes to 30 for the Super Bowl, needed to be stopped. “What’s important is that you have to direct traffic,” Supovitz said. “You can’t have tons of staging coming up the tunnel at the same time as the players are coming on the field. You don’t want those two things to mix because it’s just dangerous.” Keeping the field in top shape for the second half is a priority. Quenzel’s team is in constant discussion with the league’s groundskeepers. Many times, ideas have been quashed once they are already in motion. Several N.F.L. officials held their breath last year when Perry made a grand entrance into University of Phoenix Stadium on a giant mechanical lion. There were about 800 people on the field for her show, all wearing ballet slippers to keep the natural grass vibrant. “We can’t do anything that would negatively affect the game,” Quenzel said, noting the natural grass at Levi’s Stadium. “And that guides a lot of decisions we make about who comes on the field, who goes off the field, what kinds of things do we do. That’s the biggest thing that people probably don’t realize is that we have to be respectful of the fact that we’re really, in an odd way, the sideshow, if you want to call it that.” Compared with Super Bowl XXII in 1988, when Chubby Checker performed in San Diego with 44 Rockettes and 88 grand pianos that were pulled onto the field by John Deere tractors, Perry’s lion seems tame. In fact, the head groundskeeper in 1988, George Toma, was so worried about the grass that he made the performers rehearse in socks. “We provided everyone with the same all-white Adidas sneakers,” said Supovitz, who worked at the time for Radio City Music Hall, where the Rockettes usually perform, and was the associate producer of the show. “So it was hilarious at the end of the rehearsal for 1,400 people to go out and try to find a left and a right of the correct size out of 2,800 sneakers sitting in the chute out to the field. That’s just some of the goofy stuff that happens.” For the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in 2014, organizers had to worry about the possibility of ice and snow on the field, so the planning started two years in advance. The solution was to stage the show off the field, near a team bench. For indoor stadiums, pyrotechnics must be practiced ahead of time because of the smoke they create. “You want people to be able to actually see the second half,” Supovitz said. Other notable occurrences, of course, were Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction in Houston in 2004 and the blackout that happened just after halftime in 2013. “We’re not obsessed by it, but we think about it for sure,” Quenzel said of Jackson’s brief display of nudity. “If something similar happened as the wardrobe malfunction, it would be a big deal. Whatever we do has to be in line with and enhance the N.F.L.’s brand.” The blackout is another story. It is a common theory that Beyoncé caused the blackout, but that is not true, Supovitz said. Beyoncé’s show ran on its own generators, but when the lights were turned back on in the Superdome, the computer that monitored how much power was being consumed saw an aberration and shut down the power. “It was like a giant circuit breaker, and it just flipped off,” Supovitz said. “So the spectacle of Beyoncé, as great as she was, did not create the blackout.” In daylight on Sunday, organizers will not have to worry about flipping the power back on. They will merely be hoping for another memorable spectacle that stands on its own.

Super Bowl
Football
Music
Beyonce Knowles
Coldplay Music Group


M.L.S. Suspends Two Red Bulls for Violating Drug Policy

Abstract: The Red Bulls, who are battling for a playoff spot in Major League Soccer , will play the final two games of the regular season without two starters — goalkeeper Jon Conway and defender Jeff Parke — after both were suspended Thursday by the league for violating its substance-abuse policy, the first drug suspensions in league history. The two players were suspended for 10 games, including the balance of the regular season and the playoffs, and fined 10 percent of their salaries after testing positive for androstatriendione and boldenone metabolites, performance-enhancing substances that were purchased over the counter at a vitamin store that is part of a national chain. Conway’s salary this season is $115,000; Parke was due to earn $58,487. The Red Bulls (9-10-9, 36 points), who are vying for one of two wild-card playoff berths, play Columbus on Saturday before ending their regular season Thursday at the Chicago Fire. Conway had started and played every minute of the Red Bulls’ 28 games this season. Parke, who has been with the club since 2004, has appeared in 24 matches this season. “We have met with both players and they informed us that they ingested an over-the-counter supplement that unknowingly contained a banned substance,” Erik Stover, the Red Bulls’ managing director, said in a statement. “However, the Red Bulls support M.L.S.’s policy and believe that performance-enhancing drugs have no place in professional sports.” JACK BELL

Major League Soccer
Soccer
New York Red Bulls


Mets’ García Takes Step Forward, but Time Is Not His Ally

Abstract: LAKELAND, Fla. — No one had a better view of Freddy García last season than Dusty Ryan. He caught all 15 innings García threw for the Tigers, each of his 208 pitches. “If he’s able to get close to where he was last year, I think he’d be set,” Ryan said. As the competition for fifth starter intensifies, the Mets are trying to gauge how close García is to regaining his 2008 form. And if he can, whether that will be enough to win the job. Early indications are that Liván Hernández holds the edge, but García has improved with every start, including his two-and-a-third-inning outing Friday in the Mets’ 9-3 victory against Detroit. He allowed two runs and two hits before leaving after 46 pitches. He remains behind Hernández and Jon Niese in positive impressions and in volume, but Manager Jerry Manuel said García had enough time to bounce back. “Right now, he just has to be real fine,” Manuel said. “If the arm strength comes back, that’ll be a great blessing for him that he was able to manage through this particular period.” The Mets’ pitching coach, Dan Warthen, said Garcia’s fastball command — poor in his last few starts — was better Friday, and he, like Hernández, did not need to throw in the 90-mile-per-hour range to succeed. His fastball, which reached 86 m.p.h. Sunday against the University of Michigan, ranged from 84 to 86 on Friday. “If he can pitch 85 to 88, he can certainly help us,” Warthen said. Players are accustomed to seeing fastballs between 88 and 93 m.p.h. That is the ideal hitting speed, Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge said, and anything faster or slower can take time to adjust to. Before striking out Gary Sheffield on a 79-m.p.h. changeup to end the first, García threw pitches reaching 74 and then 86 m.p.h. “If you were to put me in a high school game, I’d need about two at-bats before I felt comfortable,” Inge said. “It’s the same thing with Freddy. He’s so crafty that he can throw 86, 87 and get away with it if his command is working.” García went 1-1 with a 4.20 earned run average in three starts for Detroit, returning 13 months after having major shoulder surgery . He battled soreness over the winter and has worked with the Mets’ training staff to loosen his shoulder, and with Warthen to smooth out his mechanics. García is using his legs more than before. “You have surgery like mine, take your time,” García said. “I ask a lot of people, they say take it slow.” As García has lagged, the competition has proceeded. The Mets are inclined to send Niese to Class AAA Buffalo to gain experience. Tim Redding’s $2.25 million guaranteed contract all but assures him a roster spot, although his dreadful performance Thursday and his overall spring pitching line — 13 hits, 14 runs and 5 homers in two and a third innings — has Manuel considering him for a long-relief role. That leaves García and Hernández, the two crafty veterans. Hernández has already impressed the Mets with his guile and durability. García has three weeks to do the same. “You don’t produce, you’ll be somewhere,” García said. “If you don’t perform the way they want you to, you’ve got to go somewhere.” INSIDE PITCH Single-game tickets for April and May home games will go on sale at 10 a.m. Sunday online at mets.com and losmets.com , and by telephone at (718) 507-8849.

Garcia Freddy
New York Mets
Baseball
Manuel Jerry
Athletics and Sports


U.S. Steps Up Inquiry of Google Book Settlement

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — In a sign that the government has stepped up its antitrust investigation of a class-action settlement between Google and groups representing authors and publishers, the Justice Department has issued formal requests for information to several of the parties involved. The Justice Department has sent the requests, called civil investigative demands, to various parties, including Google, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild and individual publishers, said Michael J. Boni, a partner at Boni & Zack, who represented the Authors Guild in negotiations with Google. “They are asking for a lot of information,” Mr. Boni said. “It signals that they are serious about the antitrust implications of the settlement.” The Justice Department began its inquiry into the sweeping $125 million settlement this year after various parties complained that it would give Google exclusive rights to profit from millions of orphan books. Orphans are books still protected by copyrights, but that are out of print and whose authors or rights holders are unknown or cannot be found. Attorneys general in several states are also investigating the settlement. The complex settlement agreement, which is subject to review by a federal court, was aimed at resolving a class action filed in 2005 by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers against Google. The suit claimed that Google’s practice of scanning copyrighted books from major academic and research libraries for use in its Book Search service violated copyrights. Under the settlement, announced in October, Google would have the right to display the books online and to profit from them by selling access to individual titles and by selling subscriptions to its entire collection to libraries and other institutions. Revenue would be shared among Google, authors and publishers. Critics said that the settlement would unfairly grant Google a monopoly over the commercialization of millions of books. The Justice Department’s requests do not necessarily mean that the government will oppose the settlement. But the department’s investigation could delay any approval of the settlement, antitrust specialists said. “The government must be a lot further along with this than people thought,” said Gary Reback, a lawyer who wrote a book on antitrust. “Now, there is a big boulder sitting on the judge’s desk. It is hard to see the judge approving this if a government investigation is pending.” Judge Denny Chin of Federal District Court in Manhattan, who is overseeing the settlement, is to hold a hearing in September. The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Tuesday that some publishers had received civil investigative demands.

Google Inc
Books and Literature
Suits and Litigation
Antitrust Actions and Laws
Assn of American Publishers


Seemingly Ordinary Football Game, Then a Player Dies

Abstract: PHOENIX, N.Y. — Football coaches and school administrators at John C. Birdlebough High School congregated in a small room off the library Monday, huddling around a computer for a most painful and unusual review of game video. They examined every play that one student was involved in, assuming the role of medical examiners. They were trying to discern which collision of the hundreds in a football game at Homer High School on Friday night might have caused Ridge Barden, a 16-year-old defensive tackle, to fall to the turf in the third quarter and die within a few hours. The coroner attributed Barden’s death to a subdural hematoma , or a brain bleed. “There’s nothing here; there’s still nothing there; there’s nothing there; there’s nothing there — and now he’s laying on his stomach,” Jeff Charles, the head coach, said while watching the sequence frame by frame. As those who play and coach football learn new ways to improve safety — through training, medical response and equipment — sometimes they are left to contemplate this: brains remain vulnerable, and even the most ordinary collisions on the field can kill. Teenagers are especially susceptible to having multiple hits to the head result in brain bleeds and massive swelling , largely because the brain tissue has not yet fully developed. According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, Barden was the 13th high school player to die from a brain injury sustained on a football field since 2005 and the third this year. Including college and youth football players, there have been 18 fatalities since 2005. With heightened attention focused on brain injuries in football in recent years, Barden’s death delivered an unwelcome reminder that even the best-known practices sometimes fall short. As it happened, the Senate Commerce Committee, the latest group in Washington to explore the topic, held a hearing Wednesday to discuss concussions in sports and the controversial marketing of “anticoncussion” equipment. Barden had no history of head trauma and showed no concussion symptoms, his coaches and father said. The Cortland County coroner’s office said the autopsy showed no evidence of a pre-existing problem. Barden’s helmet, a Riddell Revolution, was purchased by the school two years ago directly from Riddell. It was reconditioned after last season and recertified for use in 2011 by Stadium System, a company based in Canaan, Conn., that reconditions helmets for hundreds of schools around the country. Two certified athletic trainers and three student trainers from the nearby State University of New York at Cortland were on hand and treated Barden on the field, and emergency medical technicians arrived with an ambulance within minutes. “You can have the perfect plan in place but if all of these things happen, it can still result in a catastrophic injury and death,” said Kevin Guskiewicz, the chairman of the department of exercise and sports science at the University of North Carolina and a leading researcher on sports concussions. Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, director of the Michigan NeuroSport concussion program at the University of Michigan , was among the witnesses who testified at the Senate hearing Wednesday. “Those kind of injuries are very rare, they’re catastrophic, they will happen and there’s no real way of preventing them through equipment,” he said about Barden’s death in an interview after the hearing. “That’s going to happen any time there are impacts to the head of significant force.” After reviewing the video, the coaching staff deduced that the critical blow was sustained on Barden’s second-to-last play, a routine collision with an opposing lineman at the line of scrimmage. But Barden appeared to be fine as he prepared for the next play. At first, after collapsing, he was groggy but responsive and coherent, Mr. Charles said. Barden told his coach that he had sustained a helmet-to-helmet hit and that his head hurt. Barden rolled over on his back then sat up on his own, but his condition quickly deteriorated. He began moaning and closing his eyes. When asked to stand up, he tried but immediately collapsed. The emergency technicians planned to take Barden to University Hospital in Syracuse, about 45 minutes away, but they rerouted when Barden went into cardiac arrest. While the crew performed CPR, the ambulance drove three minutes to Cortland Medical Center instead. When Barden’s father and grandmother arrived from Phoenix, the doctor told them he was dying; only CPR was keeping him alive. At 10:18 p.m., less than two hours after the seemingly ordinary play at the 6-yard line, Barden was pronounced dead. Dr. Guskiewicz said the only way Barden might have been saved from a subdural hematoma would have been if he had undergone immediate surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain. But a CT scan would have been needed to diagnose the problem, and, according to accounts, Barden’s condition deteriorated too quickly for him to have a CT scan. Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon at Boston University and a leading expert in sports-related head injuries, said that in cases similar to Barden’s, in which the person was conscious right after the hit before quickly deteriorating, he had discovered that the subdural hematoma was not the cause of death but rather massive brain swelling. And in many cases the condition began with a previous hit and a second impact was the lethal blow. Dr. Cantu said he could not speak to the particulars of Barden’s case without examining the brain. “All I can simply say is that when I see this precipitous deterioration, my ears immediately go up and I wonder about second-impact syndrome in association with subdural hematoma,” Dr. Cantu said, adding that an original blow can be sustained off the field. “But it’s the second impact that’s the lethal part.” Students, coaches and administrators remembered Barden this week as a straight-A student who would walk a long way from his home to school for voluntary workouts in the summer. Friday night’s game was his first start with the varsity team. The community was left wondering what could have been done differently. The coach, Mr. Charles, contemplated whether he could return to coaching football. His team’s last game of the season has been canceled. “I will never bad-mouth the sport of football,” Mr. Charles said. “I played it and I loved it and I’ve coached for years, but it does make me take a second look at it. “I’ve had a few people asking if I’d coach again, and you know what, I don’t know. Right now I think the irrational thing would be to say: ‘No, I don’t feel like coaching again. It scares me.’ But to be honest, I don’t know how it’s going to affect my coaching. It scares me right now that I don’t know if I will be a good coach.” Barden’s father, Jody, said he had no objection to the sport in the wake of his son’s death. “I just don’t want a negative spin on this,” Mr. Barden said Sunday. “There is no blame in this. I don’t want to scare kids from playing the game. Ridge loved playing the game, and I know he wouldn’t want it to get a bad name.”

Football
Ridge Barden
Brain
Sports injury
Concussion


If the Sun Salutation Has to Fit Into a Cell

Abstract: PALESTINE — Quiet is hard to find in prison. But in the Powledge Unit gym on Tuesday afternoon, the silence was interrupted only by the sounds of breathing, toes on sticky yoga mats and occasional moans from nine men in white uniforms as they sank deeper into pigeon pose. “It hurts in a good way,” said Stephen Vinez, who is serving a 20-year sentence for a manslaughter conviction. The class was the fourth that Jim Freeman, a lawyer turned yogi and the founder of Conviction Yoga, has led at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Powledge Unit in East Texas. For the inmates, the weekly two-hour sessions offer a reprieve from their cells and the boredom of prison life, along with physical and mental health benefits. And the Powledge chaplain said corrections officers saw better behavior from inmates who took part in spiritual programs that gave them a chance to exercise. Mr. Freeman, 48, who started the volunteer yoga classes this summer, hopes to expand the program to all 109 Texas prison units. But there are financial and administrative challenges. Mr. Freeman spends about $300 a week driving to four rural prisons from his Austin home. And the criminal justice department classifies yoga as a religious offering, he said, so at some prison units, only inmates who identify themselves as practitioners of Eastern religions like Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism are allowed to attend . Mr. Freeman said he was determined to bring the transformative value he had found in yoga to as many prisoners as possible. “I just see them as men,” he said of the inmates, “and men that are starving for something.” Tuesday’s session was Bobby Husband’s first experience with yoga. Mr. Husband, who is serving 15 years for aggravated assault, grimaced as he moved through what Mr. Freeman called a “sun cell-utation,” a version of the traditional series of poses, modified to be done in a narrow cell. Later, as Mr. Husband struggled to move from the downward-facing-dog posture to a lunging pose, Mr. Freeman offered encouragement. “That was perfect,” he said, leading the men in applause as Mr. Husband achieved the lunging pose. “I’m excited you did that. It’s tough.” Sweat beaded on Mr. Freeman’s bald head as he urged the inmates to connect their breath and movements and focus on the sensations of the stretching. At 6 feet and 230 pounds, Mr. Freeman has been told that he looks more like an inmate than a yoga instructor. That could be one reason the men respond so positively; at most of the units, he said, participation is growing. Mr. Freeman, who struggled with addiction in the past, said yoga changed his life after he used it for post-surgical rehabilitation in 2011. For the first time, he said, he felt true compassion. Yoga in prison is a growing trend, and more than a dozen correctional facilities offer classes through the California-based Prison Yoga Project. Mr. Freeman started Conviction Yoga after attending a seminar hosted by James Fox, the founder of the California program. Denise Veres, a clinical researcher and yoga instructor, is founder and executive director of the Shanthi Project, a prison yoga program in Pennsylvania. The program began in youth detention centers, where Ms. Veres gathered data about the boys’ responses. “They felt calmer, less stressed, less anxious,” she said. Mr. Freeman hopes that if prison officials here recognize those benefits, he will be able to offer more classes, he said. He also aims to raise funds to hire more instructors and envisions offering yoga at all prisons, including Texas’ death row. “I hope to be 70 years old in prison teaching yoga,” he said.


Wondolowski Leads Earthquakes Back to the Playoffs

Abstract: Only one playoff berth in Major League Soccer remains to be claimed after the Seattle Sounders and the San Jose Earthquakes clinched spots last weekend. For the Earthquakes, it will be the first trip to the postseason since the club was reconstituted for the 2008 season. The previous M.L.S. incarnation moved to Houston but, like the N.F.L.’s Cleveland Browns, the reformed Earthquakes retained the club history. Perhaps the most interesting story out of the Bay Area has been the emergence of striker Chris Wondolowski, a 27-year-old California native who leads the team with 14 goals, two behind the league leader, Edson Buddle of Los Angeles. Drafted by San Jose before the club’s move to Houston, Wondolowski was reacquired by the Earthquakes in June 2009 after giving the Dynamo little indication that he was a bona fide goal-scoring threat. He scored only four regular-season goals in 37 games for Houston, mostly off the bench. He scored both goals against D.C. United on Saturday to send San Jose to the postseason. “It’s been our goal from the start, and we know that once we make the playoffs anything can happen,” Wondolowski, who was named the league’s player of the week, told MLSsoccer.com . “We’re hitting a good stride and we’re really excited right now. It’s not always the prettiest with us, but we always try to go out there and get the job done.” Wondolowski is one goal shy of the club record, set by Ronald Cerritos in 1999. Around M.L.S. With Saturday’s 2-2 tie against Colorado, F.C. Dallas (12-2-14) set a single-season record in M.L.S. by going 19 games without a loss. F.C. Dallas also set a league record with its 14th tie. Two other teams, Houston (7-15-6) and New England (8-15-5), are playing out the string, with both eliminated from postseason contention. The Revolution beat the Dynamo, 2-1, on Sunday night. Houston has won two league championships and made the playoffs two more times in four years in M.L.S. New England played in three consecutive championship games (2005-7), losing each time. Both were among the rare clubs in M.L.S. that were able to maintain a reasonably priced core of players for several seasons. Only the Dynamo dipped its toes into the designated player pool, but it was a disappointing experience with Luis Angel Landin, who is now back in Mexico. Houston traded away Dwayne De Rosario a few years ago and last year sent Chris Wondolowski to San Jose. New England’s once impressive roster has been chipped away over the years and also plagued by injury. Gone are Clint Dempsey (to Fulham in England), Steve Ralston (retired) and Taylor Twellman (who missed the season because of repeated concussions). The Red Bulls will open the playoffs with a game at either Colorado, San Jose or Seattle. The Red Bulls will host the second game at Red Bull Arena on Thursday, Nov. 4. Forward Juan Agudelo, who has spent time with the United States under-20 national team this year, made his M.L.S. debut for the Red Bulls in Saturday’s scoreless tie against Real Salt Lake. Defending league champion Real Salt Lake may soon have its first designated player. The club is eager to retain the Costa Rican international Alvaro Saborio, who has scored 16 goals this season in all competitions while on loan from the Swiss club F.C. Sion. But any deal would entail R.S.L.’s buying out Saborio’s contract for $1 million, which would count against the club’s salary budget. Saborio is earning $128,000 in M.L.S. this season. Notes ¶In France on Monday, the American striker Charlie Davies, 24, who plays for Sochaux in Ligue 1, was fined $1,040 and had his license suspended. Davies and his teammate Jacques Faty were pulled over on Oct. 3 after being clocked at 125 miles an hour. Davies, who was involved in a fatal car accident outside Washington last year that cost him a spot on the World Cup roster, said he got behind the wheel because Faty thought he was driving with a suspended license. Both men now say that Faty was the driver . ¶The High Court in Britain will hear arguments Tuesday about the proposed sale of Liverpool. The team’s current owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, face a deadline to repay a $380 million debt to the Royal Bank of Scotland. The club’s board of directors has reached an agreement to sell the club to New England Sports Ventures, the owner of baseball’s Boston Red Sox, for $477 million, an amount that Hicks and Gillett contend undervalues the team. If the court rules against Hicks and Gillett, it could mean the club would be put into administration, a form of bankruptcy, and be penalized 9 points in the Premier League standings. ¶Montreal, Carolina, Puerto Rico and Vancouver all advanced to the semifinal round of the U.S.S.F. D-20 Pro League playoffs. Puerto Rico, seeded eighth, eliminated top-seeded Rochester. In the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver ousted Portland in a series between teams that will join M.L.S. next season.

Major League Soccer
Soccer
San Jose Earthquakes


Rider Barred for Life

Abstract: The former Giro d’Italia winner Danilo Di Luca was given a lifetime ban after a third doping offense. He is one of the highest-profile riders to be barred from the sport. The Italian Olympic committee’s antidoping court issued the verdict after Di Luca, 37, tested positive for the blood booster EPO in April.

Danilo Di Luca
Doping
Road Cycling
Giro d'Italia
Biking


Treasury Auctions Set for the Week of Oct. 10

Abstract: The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes Monday’s regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.32 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.46 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.24 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: MONDAY Florida Board of Education, $140.4 million of unlimited tax general obligation refinancing bonds. Competitive. Florida Turnpike Enterprise, $137.3 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. TUESDAY Irvine, Calif., Unified School District, $95 million of general obligation unlimited tax bonds. Competitive. WEDNESDAY Campbell County, Ky., Sanitation District No. 1, $138 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK California Department of Water Resources, $470.2 million of Central Valley Project water system revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, N.C., $381 million of Carolinas Health Care System health care revenue refinancing bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Chesterton, Ind., $62 million of StoryPoint project economic development revenue bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Cypress-Fairbanks, Tex., Independent School District, $426.8 million of unlimited tax school building and refinancing bonds. Raymond James. Duke University, N.C., $530.1 million of taxable bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Great Lakes Water Authority, Mich., $416 million of sewage disposal system revenue refinancing bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Great Lakes Water Authority, Mich., $899 million of water supply system revenue and revenue refinancing bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. Harris County, Tex., Cultural Education Facilities Finance Corporation, $83.2 million of first mortgage revenue bonds. Ziegler. Illinois, $1.35 billion of general obligation refinancing bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Indianapolis, Ind., Water System, $223.5 million of first lien revenue refinancing bonds. Morgan Stanley. Knox County, Tenn., Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board, $105.6 million of revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. Leander, Tex., Independent School District, $190.5 million of unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Goldman Sachs. Long Island, N.Y., Power Authority, $407.8 million of electric system general revenue bonds. Goldman Sachs. Los Angeles County, Calif., Sanitation Districts Financing Authority, $164 million of District No. 20 and capital projects revenue bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Maricopa County, Ariz., Industrial Development Authority, $766.1 million of revenue bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Montebello, Calif., $50 million of lease revenue bonds. Citigroup Global Markets. New York Dormitory Authority and Department of Health, $143 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Loop Capital Markets. Philadelphia, $192.6 million of water and wastewater revenue refinancing bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. Pinal County, Ariz., Electrical District No. 3, $100 million of electric system revenue refinancing bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. South Dakota Housing Development Authority, $54 million of single family mortgage bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch. South Regional Joint Development Authority, Ga., $88.1 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Wells Fargo Securities. Victoria, Tex., Independent School District, $119 million of unlimited tax refinancing bonds. Citigroup Global Markets.


After Stumbling, Facebook Finds a Working Eraser

Abstract: Facebook.com , stung last week by the wrath of members who want to sever their relationships, tripped again when it tried to let them do so. But the company said over the weekend that it had fixed the problems, making it possible — and not too difficult — to delete an account from the site entirely. The problems, which Facebook described as technical, had to do with a form it introduced last week for users who want to obliterate their accounts. Until then, deleting an account was a fairly cumbersome procedure. But as a few departing users found out, Facebook — a social networking site that lets people create profiles of themselves and identify other people as “friends” — still had a few bugs left. Some people who used the form discovered that only certain parts of their accounts had disappeared. Katie Geminder, Facebook’s director for user experience and design, said internal adjustments to the tool used to delete accounts had created a technical snag that affected “a small percent” of Facebook users. “None of their information was exposed, but the empty account continued to exist even though all of its data had been removed,” she said by e-mail. The bug was fixed within 24 hours, she said. One such partially deleted user was Matt Dauphin, a 22-year-old office manager for an interior design firm in Tempe, Ariz., who tried to delete his account after reading about the new form last week. He received confirmation by e-mail of the deletion from Facebook’s technical support team. But even after he received that confirmation, a working link to his empty Facebook profile was the first result in a Google search for his name. While his name, photo and profile information had been deleted from the Facebook page, his friends who still used the service could see his lists of friends and the external applications he had added to his profile. “It’s a little disturbing that you can see people that I used to talk to — that’s not right,” Mr. Dauphin said Friday. He said he was annoyed at Facebook’s refusal to create a one-step “delete account” button instead of the form. By Saturday, Facebook had removed the remaining traces of his account from the site. Still, such experiences have done little to quiet the jitters of many users, who see Facebook’s adjusted policy as an inadequate response to their demand for an easy opt-out button and to their larger concerns over the network’s efforts to profit from the private information they volunteer to the site. In November, Facebook introduced an advertising program called Beacon that tracked its users’ activities on other Web sites and sent reports to their friends. Users complained that it was intrusive, leading Facebook to scale back the program. Magnus Wallin, the founder of a Facebook group called “How to permanently delete your Facebook account,” posted a warning on Friday. “Users who have requested to be deleted via the recently introduced form are only partly deleted, even though the deletion is confirmed by Facebook staff,” Mr. Wallin wrote. On Saturday, after the partially deleted profiles disappeared, Mr. Wallin said in an e-mail message, “Now there seems to be a way to completely remove yourself from Facebook, without having to delete items individually.” But he does not plan to retire from his group. “It’s pretty obvious that Facebook are scared of losing loads of members if they made the delete option easily available,” Mr. Wallin said. Mr. Wallin also posted the message that Facebook sends to people to confirm their deletion, which says in part, “We have deleted your profile information and removed your e-mail address from our login database.” But, as Mr. Wallin added, “if you are paying close attention, you can see that they’re actually not saying that they delete your profile, only that its information and your login is removed.” In response to these concerns, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, confirmed that deletion “removes all personal information from the account.” Many Facebook members use an application called “the wall,” which lets them swap graffiti-like messages with friends in their network; Mr. Kelly said the wall posts of deleted members also disappear, though traces remain. “After deletion, there may still be a record in Facebook’s archives that a user made a particular wall post in a group on a particular date, but Facebook’s servers no longer contain the information needed to connect that user ID (e.g., name, e-mail address, networks, etc.) to the person associated with that account,” he said in an e-mail statement on Friday. Some people said they found it much easier to leave Facebook last week. John Keefe, a 52-year-old freelance financial writer in Manhattan, said that he contacted Facebook on Tuesday asking to be deleted “and got back a satisfactory answer in a few hours.” Nipon Das, a Manhattan business consultant who had gone so far as to threaten legal action in order to quit Facebook, also got some satisfaction: After resubmitting his request to be deleted from Facebook on Wednesday and reconfirming it on Thursday, Mr. Das received a confirmation e-mail from Facebook on Friday. “This started around October,” he recalled in an e-mail message, adding that now, in mid-February, “we may have closure.” Mr. Das may be in distinguished company. On Feb. 8, a British newspaper, The Sun, reported that Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, had deleted his Facebook account  not out of privacy concerns, but because he got “more than 8,000 friend requests a day and spotted weird fan sites about him.” A post on a Wall Street Journal blog later reported that Mr. Gates had stopped using the profile instead of fully deleting it; a Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment.

Facebook.com
Privacy
Computers and the Internet
Geminder Katie
Wallin Magnus
Kelly Chris
Das Nipon
Gates Bill


Challenges to Policies on Terror Are Halted

Abstract: WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday held that the government could enforce a statute dealing with the indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects, reversing a district judge’s decision last year to permanently block the law, part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. The decision, a victory for the Obama administration, came the same day that the Justice Department persuaded another federal appeals court in Washington to block a district judge’s order last week that had barred the military from conducting groin searches of detainees in the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Together, the rulings represented a double win for the Obama administration in its efforts to challenge attempts by district court judges to interfere with its counterterrorism policies and legal authority. In the New York case, a unanimous three-judge panel issued a 60-page ruling that held that the plaintiffs who had challenged the detention law lacked standing to bring the case. They included Chris Hedges, a journalist who interacts with terrorists as part of his reporting, and several activists who support WikiLeaks. But Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote that the plaintiffs lacked standing because the law “says nothing at all about the president’s authority to detain American citizens,” and that while it might have a bearing on foreigners apprehended abroad, the plaintiffs who were not citizens “also have failed to establish standing because they have not shown a sufficient threat that the government will detain them.” In the statute, lawmakers maintained that they were codifying existing legal authority to detain Al Qaeda suspects indefinitely, as the United States had been doing since 2001 based on the vague authorization by Congress to “use military force” against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and those who helped them. But the text they devised to define who could be detained went beyond Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It also covered others who substantially supported those groups or their associated forces. Lawmakers did not explain what conduct would qualify, nor did they say whether American citizens or others arrested on domestic soil could be detained. The plaintiffs argued that the existence of the statute chilled their First Amendment rights because it created a basis to fear that the government might declare that their activities made them supporters of an enemy and seek to detain them under it. Last year, Judge Katherine B. Forrest of Federal District Court agreed with the plaintiffs, barring the government from relying on the new law to hold people in indefinite detention on suspicion that they “substantially supported” Al Qaeda or its allies — at least if they had no direct connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. But the Obama administration appealed, saying that the plaintiffs’ fears were unfounded and that her ruling could jeopardize its ability to keep detaining certain prisoners captured during the war in Afghanistan . The appeals court immediately stayed her order, and on Wednesday vacated it. “We’re reviewing what our options are, but I strongly suspect that we will appeal to the Supreme Court,” said Carl Mayer, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. Meanwhile, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stayed an order issued last week by Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court, who had barred the military from touching the groins of Guantánamo detainees when they were moved from their cells to speak with lawyers. Guards began using that procedure to search for contraband in May. The administration told that appeals court that compliance with the order “would have severe consequences for the safe operation” of the prison, and the court agreed to stay the order while the government appealed.

Terrorism
Detainees
Decisions and Verdicts
Guantanamo Bay
Lewis A Kaplan
US Politics


Kaepernick Receives Six-Year Contract

Abstract: San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick on Wednesday received a six-year contract extension that could keep him with the 49ers through the 2020 season. The contract’s total value was not announced, although news media accounts put it at nine figures. Kaepernick had been set to make less than $1 million this season. ■ The 2016 championship game will be known as Super Bowl 50, with no Roman numerals in the name. N.F.L. executives said they found it hard to build an attractive logo image around a single L. In 2017, the game will revert to using Roman numerals, as Super Bowl LI. The N.F.L. first used Roman numerals with the fifth Super Bowl, in 1971. ■ Buffalo Bills defensive end Jerry Hughes confirmed that he was driving the second car in a race last week that led his teammate Marcell Dareus to crash into a tree.


British Central Bank Cuts Growth Forecast

Abstract: LONDON — The Bank of England lowered its growth forecast on Wednesday, predicting an even slower exit from recession than foreseen just three months earlier, but its governor, Mervyn A. King, ruled out an imminent cut in interest rates or other quick moves to stimulate the economy. “The underlying picture is that output has been at best broadly flat over the last two years,” Mr. King said at a news conference after the release of the central bank’s inflation report , which emphasized the extent to which Britons had felt the chilling effects of the euro zone’s debt crisis. The study said that economic output contracted 0.7 percent in the second quarter and that surveys indicate growth was likely to be weaker in the third quarter than the bank projected in May. In that forecast, the bank said overall growth for the year would be 0.8 percent. The bank’s modeling now suggests that growth will be close to zero this year, and its report predicted that output was not likely to rise above its precrisis level until 2014. Inflation, which was climbing toward a rate of 5 percent a year earlier, was the bright spot in the report, as it is now close to the central bank’s 2 percent target. But that was the most positive element of a somber document that was accompanied by gloomy rhetoric. “We are navigating through rough waters, and storm clouds continue to roll in from the euro area,” Mr. King said. Despite this, Mr. King said that cutting interest rates further from their current record low could hurt some financial institutions and might be counterproductive. He also said that a new program involving low-cost loans for businesses needed to be given time to work before additional measures were contemplated. The outlook, he argued, “doesn’t suggest the urgent need for further action.” Several analysts, however, countered that the report’s underlying message indicated that the bank would eventually have to stimulate a stagnant economy. “Less growth and inflation in 2012-13 means more quantitative easing and probably an interest rate reduction as well,” said Graeme Leach, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, which represents business leaders. He added that the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, would consider the report as he pushed through Britain’s biggest austerity program in decades in an effort to control a large budget deficit. “If the bank’s view on the economy comes to pass, the chancellor faces a very rough road with the public finances as he tries to cut the deficit,” Mr. Leach said. Andrew Smith, chief economist for the accounting firm KPMG, also said that further quantitative easing, or pumping money into the economy through central bank purchases of securities, was likely once the current program was completed in November. At its meeting this month, the Bank of England decided to leave its main short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.5 percent and elected not to expand its asset-buying program beyond the current £375 billion, or $587 billion. “Even the previously dismissed measure of a reduction in interest rates is back on the table,” Mr. Smith said. Opposition politicians have long called for a plan with fewer government spending cuts and more investment in infrastructure. Rachel Reeves, a Labour Party spokeswoman, said Wednesday that the report showed a need for a “change of course” on fiscal policy. Mr. King outlined difficulties confronting policy makers, including a drop in the value of the euro, which posed problems for British exporters and complicated the task of moving the British economy away from its reliance on financial services and toward manufacturing. The report released Wednesday by the Bank of England said the British economy had suffered from a slowdown in construction and from the effect of business closings to celebrate the queen’s diamond jubilee in June. Nevertheless, the economy shows the extent to which even countries outside the euro zone have been unable to escape the downturn. The central bank’s report also noted that employment growth remained “puzzlingly robust,” a peculiarity of the double-dip recession. Private sector productivity is still below its precrisis level, however.

Bank of England
Interest Rates
British Pound (Currency)
Great Britain
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Economic Conditions and Trends
King Mervyn A


Wall St. Gains After Release of Retail Data

Abstract: Stocks on Wall Street surged Tuesday after the United States government released new statistics on the economy, including a retail sales report that traders viewed as positive. Analysts described the stronger market, which represented the Dow’s biggest gain this month, as a relief rally. David Krein, a senior director for Dow Jones Indexes, said investors were pleased with the retail sales report. Best Buy ’s fiscal first-quarter results also helped buoy the markets, Mr. Krein said. The company reported earnings of $136 million, or $0.35 a share, compared with $155 million, or $0.36 a share, for the same period in 2010. The results beat forecasts, and shares of Best Buy rose more than 4.5 percent to $30.13. An indicator of consumer purchasing from the Commerce Department showed that overall retail sales in May declined by 0.2 percent , less than the 0.5 percent fall that had been forecast by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The figure was a reversal of the 0.3 percent increase in April, and it was the first monthly decline after 10 consecutive gains. While the decline was not as steep as expected, economists cited areas of concern. “With higher gas prices eating into the income available for discretionary spending, the consumer faces stiff headwinds,” said Joshua Shapiro, the chief United States economist for MFR. The Producer Price Index , which reflects commodity prices for manufacturers, rose 0.2 percent in May, according to seasonally adjusted figures provided Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics . The increase was slightly higher than the 0.1 percent analysts had forecast, and it was below the 0.8 percent rise in April. The increase in May in the index was attributed mostly to prices for energy goods — including gasoline and electricity — which rose 1.5 percent, the eighth consecutive monthly advance. The food component of the index declined 1.4 percent. Analysts suggested that the markets were helped after data from China pointed to an increase in industrial output as well as a rise in consumer prices that was in line with forecasts . That helped markets in Asia move higher, and the momentum continued in trading in Europe and the United States. “It is a pretty powerful relief rally,” said Keith B. Hembre, the chief economist and chief investment strategist at First American Funds. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 123.14 points, or 1.03 percent, to 12,076.11. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 16.04 points, or 1.26 percent, to 1,287.87. The Nasdaq composite index average climbed 39.03 points, or 1.48 percent, to 2,678.72. The stock market had been in a six-week slump, partly fueled by concerns over the pace of the global and domestic economic recovery, and concerns over sovereign debt problems in the euro zone. Protracted political wrangling over the national debt ceiling in the United States also has been a factor. Moody’s Investors Service said early this month that it might downgrade the United States credit rating if lawmakers did not raise the ceiling “in coming weeks.” On Tuesday, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, warned about the consequences of continued delay, saying even a short suspension of payments on principal or interest on the Treasury’s debt obligations could severely disrupt financial markets. He also said that interest rates soared as investors lost confidence, as seen in a number of countries recently. “Although historical experience and economic theory do not show the exact threshold at which the perceived risks associated with the U. S. public debt would increase markedly, we can be sure that, without corrective action, our fiscal trajectory is moving us ever closer to that point,” he said. On Tuesday, the yield on the Treasury’s 10-year note, which is linked to interest rates on mortgages and other borrowing, rose to 3.10 percent, from 2.98 percent late Monday. Its price fell 1 point, to 101 7/32. Stocks, however, kept their momentum throughout the day. J. C. Penney rose nearly 17.5 percent to $35.37, after the retailer announced that the head of Apple ’s retail stores would lead its company. The Apple executive, Ron Johnson, will replace Myron E. Ullman III as Penney’s chief executive on Nov. 1, the retailer said. “The markets have been in a corrective stage, and I think we have reached levels now that perhaps we can see some renewed interest in terms of valuations,” said Peter Cardillo, the chief market economist for Avalon Partners.

Bureau of Labor Statistics
Nasdaq Composite Index
Stocks and Bonds
United States Economy
Shopping and Retail
Standard & Poor's 500-Stock Index
Dow Jones Stock Average
Best Buy Company Incorporated
Penney J C Co


Few Focus on Religion in One Cairo Neighborhood

Abstract: CAIRO — A generation ago, Ahmed Mitwalli’s parents were Islamists in this neighborhood along the Nile once nicknamed the Islamic Republic of Imbaba. But their son is not, and his convictions, echoed in the caldron of frustrations of one of the world’s most crowded quarters, suggest why the Muslim Brotherhood is not driving Egypt ’s nascent revolution. “Bread, social justice and freedom,” the 21-year-old college graduate said. “What’s religious about that?” Egypt’s revolution is far from decided, and the Muslim Brotherhood remains the most popular and best-organized opposition forces in the country, poised to play a crucial role in the transition and its aftermath. But in a neighborhood once ceded to militant Islamists, who declared their own state within a state in the early 1990s , sentiments here are most remarkable for how little religion inflects them. Be it complaints about a police force that long resembled an army of occupation, smoldering class resentment or even youthful demands for frivolity, a growing consciousness has taken hold in a sign of what awaits the rest of the Arab world after President Hosni Mubarak’s fall on Friday. Three times more crowded than Manhattan, Imbaba offers a window on the shift away from religious fervor. A fiery preacher, derided as a drummer-turned-cleric, imposed his rule on Imbaba’s streets for years until the government drove him and his followers out after a long siege in 1992. With American largess, the government tried to wrangle a city still not recognized on its maps back on the grid. By the accounts of residents, it failed, eventually withdrawing from a sea of resentment that neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor anyone else has managed to channel. “The last thing youth are thinking about is religion,” said Mr. Mitwalli, who hides his cigarettes from a family where all the women wear the most conservative veil. “It’s the last thing that comes up. They need money, they need to get married, a car, and they don’t have anything to do with anything else. They’ll elect whoever can deliver that.” Though parts of Imbaba are upscale, much of it feels like the countryside washing across the pretenses of a city, unfinished red-brick buildings overlooking markets disgorged in the streets. Three-wheel buggies known as tuk-tuks, blaring the latest pop song of Amr Diab , an ageless Egyptian pop star, navigate a mélange of overflowing trash bins, mannequins in the median and racks of clothes in the street. Mr. Mubarak’s government long stigmatized neighborhoods like Imbaba as a netherworld of crime and danger. There is that, though its people extol their own sense of community, where streets band together at the slightest provocation. When the uprising devastated the economy, vendors brought down prices to help people cope. And in almost every conversation, residents, especially the young, frame their plight as us against them. “There was no dialogue,” said Walid Sabr, a 29-year-old who works at a shoe store. “There was force and there was bullying. Dialogue with that? It’s impossible.” Samih Ahmed, a vendor down the street, added, “This isn’t the Jan. 25th revolution,” calling the uprising by its most popular name. “This is a revolution of dignity.” Everyone in the neighborhood had a story about officials — a $2 bribe to enter a hospital to see a relative, a $20 fine imposed for stealing electricity, a $10 payoff to a municipal official to get an identity card. Mr. Sabr talked about getting arrested for trying to report a traffic accident. Ibrahim Mohamed complained that he had been thrown in jail after the police planted hashish on him. Umayma Mohamed, a 23-year-old woman carrying her 3-month-old baby, begged for help in getting her brother released after a fight. “You raise your voice,” Mohamed Ali said, “and they answer by beating you.” Egypt is deeply devout, and imposing labels often does more to confuse than illuminate. Amal Salih, who joined the protests against her parents’ wishes, dons an orange scarf over her head but calls herself secular. “Egypt is religious, regrettably,” she said. Mr. Mitwalli wears a beard but calls himself liberal, “within the confines of religion.” A driver, Osama Ramadan, despises the Muslim Brotherhood but has jury-rigged his car to blare a prayer when he turns on the ignition. Defining sentiments is no more precise. Youths defiant in their praise of Mr. Mubarak only last week joined the celebrations on Friday, some bringing flags and fireworks to Tahrir Square. Residents say some of the most ardent Islamists here had the best connections with the police, who sought to cultivate them as informants. But in streets suffused with trash, occasionally drawing flocks of sheep, a common refrain is that political Islam, as practiced by the Muslim Brotherhood, does not offer the kind of solutions that may decide an election. “We don’t need prayers, sheiks and beards,” said Mr. Mohammed, standing with the angry crowd on a street filled with trash. “We’ve had enough of the clerics.” The Islamic Group, known in Arabic as Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya, waged an intermittent insurgency against the government in the 1990s, and Mr. Mitwalli’s uncle was one of its leaders. He was jailed for 13 years. A man known as Sheik Gaber belonged to the same group, and he and his followers imposed their notion of order here, drawing thousands to sermons where they occasionally — and triumphantly — broadcast a tape of President Anwar el-Sadat’s assassination in 1981. They arbitrated disputes and provided for the poor, while sauntering through the slum to drive away prostitutes and drug dealers, to impose the veil, to burn shops that rented Western videos, and to force Christians to pay a religious tax. An embarrassed government eventually sent in 12,000 soldiers and armored cars in a crackdown that began a six-week occupation. With the help of American aid, it flooded the neighborhood with investment for a time, paving roads and bringing sewerage, telephones and electricity. Just last year, the governor of Giza, which oversees Imbaba’s side of the Nile, pledged it would soon look like one of Cairo’s wealthier neighborhoods. It does not. In fact, Imbaba feels overwhelmed, as the rich flee to suburbs with names like Dreamland, Beverly Hills and the European Countryside, and a new government faces its predecessor’s failure to provide housing for a population where nearly 7 in 10 are under the age of 34, numbers that mirror much of the Arab world. “The youth today think this way: let me live my life today, and I don’t care if you kill me tomorrow,” said Mohammed Fathi, a 23-year-old friend of Mr. Sabr’s at the shoe store. “Next year isn’t important. All I’m thinking about is getting by today.” In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and grim stretches of urban Iraq, populist clerics often manage to channel youthful anger. But the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood is perhaps most distinguished for representing the demands of an aspiring middle class; it counts some of Cairo’s wealthiest among its ranks. No one in Imbaba mentioned a religious figure as an inspiration. Asked about their choice for a new president, many shrugged or offered up Amr Moussa, the aging departing secretary general of the Arab League. The biggest draw here seemed to be one of Imbaba’s favorite sons, the Little Arab, a pop singer who runs a cafe on Luxor Street decorated with his own pictures. “I don’t want to be pinned down by any political tendency,” Ms. Salih said. It remains an oddity of the long struggle between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood that both an aging opposition and a corrupt state spoke the same language of moral conservatism. It has left Egypt more ostensibly religious over the years. Measured by sentiments here, it may have also provoked a backlash among youth recoiling at the prospect of yet more rules promised by an even more stringent application of Islamic law. “In my view?” asked Osama Hassan, a high school student who joined the protests in their climactic days. “We need more freedom not less. The whole system has to change.”

Islam
Egypt
Cairo (Egypt)
Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt)
Politics and Government
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
Mubarak Hosni


A Corner Bar Cashes In as Newark Redevelops

Abstract: NEWARK FOUR years ago, John Brito and Antonio Rodrigues, natives of the Ironbound section of Newark, bought a rough-and-tumble corner bar downtown on Mulberry Street called the Caverna. They planned to turn the three-story building into an establishment that was part pub and part lounge, both uncommon then in Newark. Nearly $1 million in renovations later — more than 15 times as much as they had expected to spend, they said — their Arena Bar and Lounge has become a popular pre- and postgame stop for fans of the New Jersey Devils, the National Hockey League team that began playing at the Prudential Center, one block north, last October. After another round of renovation, the bar has reopened just in time for the start of the hockey season (the Devils’ first home game is Oct. 10). Mr. Brito and Mr. Rodrigues are anticipating a replay of last season’s successes. Then, about two hours before each game, fans, many wearing red or white Devils apparel, streamed into the bar for a beer or a burger. When a game ended and thousands of fans poured out of the 17,625-seat Prudential Center, many stopped at the Arena Bar to wait out the traffic. The arena is also home to Seton Hall University basketball games and many concerts. But even when nothing was going on at the Prudential Center, the bar did a brisk business at lunchtime and on many nights. “We knew the area was going to turn around,” said Mr. Brito, 35. “It was just a matter of time.” Newark, six miles west of Manhattan, has been slowly trying to revive itself, particularly since the Prudential Center opened. The Arena Bar appears to be among several successful small businesses that are hoping both to piggyback on the city’s recovery and contribute to it. “Wagering on Newark makes for a smart bet,” said Stefan Pryor, deputy mayor for economic development. “Newark is an up-and-coming city. We’ve got incredible assets that have been underleveraged for a long time, and we’ve got more assets along the way. Every day, businesses and residents are arriving in Newark with the expectation that the city’s only going to get better.” The Arena Bar was a much riskier venture when Mr. Brito and Mr. Rodrigues bought the space in March of 2004. A site nearby had been selected for the arena, but it was far from certain that it would be built. Then, for 20 months of the nearly two years through late 2007 that it took to build the arena, the stretch of Mulberry Street in front of the Arena Bar was closed to car traffic. Construction workers still came, and Mr. Pryor held his office Christmas party there as a show of support, but the business foundered. “It was uncomfortable, to say the least,” Mr. Brito said. “It devastated us for a while,” said Mr. Rodrigues, who is 36. Both had experience in real estate, and they still thought they had a sound idea. The Arena Bar is a block from the Newark police headquarters and about two blocks from City Hall, so government workers provided a core of customers. There was no place downtown quite like the bar, with its cherry-wood floors and hardwood moldings. From the beginning, they wanted to create more than a sports bar, so they shied away from names like Devil’s Den. They picked a logo that included a silhouette of the Colosseum in Rome. They painted the walls burgundy, rather than the Devils’ bright red. Business was so good that the owners began a $350,000 renovation and expansion project in July. They received a license to sell food and drink outside, and the sidewalks were repaved in stone as a seating area. The main room was remodeled, with “Jerusalem gold” stone walls and a new bar. A garage in the back of the building is being converted into another bar. The main room and new area will be open to everyone at lunchtime and before games and events. The intention, Mr. Brito and Mr. Rodrigues said, is to create two late-night ambiences: an elegant lounge with a dress code and disc jockey, and a louder, higher-energy sports bar. The menu is to be expanded to include salads and freshly squeezed juices in the main room, but there will always be space on the menu for a burger. Draft beer is a big seller before Devils games, but the Arena Bar also offers more than 50 martinis and a menu that includes picadinho, a Brazilian hash with pork cubes, shrimp and potatoes. Mr. Brito and Mr. Rodrigues furnished the back of the main floor with plush sofas and wingback chairs, and they lower the curtains on weekends to create the aura of a lounge. The emergence of the Arena Bar and other businesses has changed the decades-old perception among suburbanites that Newark was unsafe at night. Many doubted that Devils fans would come to the Prudential Center in quite the same numbers as they had to the team’s former home, now known as the Izod Center, in East Rutherford, 12 miles away. But when the Prudential Center opened with a series of Bon Jovi concerts, the police established a mobile command center near the arena and a huge presence for blocks around, to make sure people felt safe. The Devils drew about 10 percent more fans last season than they did the year before, and the Arena Bar’s business tripled after the Prudential Center opened. Chip Hallock, president of the Newark Regional Business Partnership, said of the neighborhood: “What I’ve heard is people saying, ‘This isn’t what I expected.’ There’s kind of a good will and a good feeling. People are on the street, and I think it’s just the beginning of what’s going to happen around here.” When Jim Tencza and Lou Linn, who work in Paramus, arrived early for their first Devils game, they asked a police officer to direct them to a good place for a beer, and he pointed to the Arena Bar. “You’ve got good food, good beer and good scenery,” Mr. Tencza said before a game last season, smiling as he nodded at one of the waitresses. And the prices are reasonable, Mr. Linn said. “They don’t gouge you.” A pint of domestic beer sells for $4, and there are often specials. Inside the Prudential Center, a 12-ounce bottle of domestic beer is $7. The Arena Bar has also given discounts in “Restaurants Round the Rock” fliers — referring to the Prudential Rock logo that has become the arena’s nickname — put under the windshield wipers of cars parked nearby. People will stay hours after a game because they are more comfortable in the neighborhood now. “I’ve never had a problem,” said Kelly Maione, a Devils fan from Flanders, N.J. “I thought it was going to be a dirty and not a friendly area. I used to wait for somebody to walk with me to my car. Now, it’s like, ‘See ya!’ ” Above the bar’s main floor are two open floors, which Mr. Brito and Mr. Rodrigues said might be converted into a V.I.P. lounge and a cigar lounge. They have 15 employees, including a recently hired general manager, and they plan to do more hiring as the business grows, they said. “People are starting to understand that there’s a 24-7 resident population here now,” said Alfred C. Koeppe, president of the Newark Alliance, a nonprofit group of business leaders. “It’s just a matter of time before you see something like a first-class bookshop going in downtown. It’s like what’s happened at Yankee Stadium for all those years. How many feet can you walk without seeing Derek Jeter’s jersey in a storefront?” The streets around the Prudential Center are often awash in hockey fans wearing copies of the red jersey worn by the Devils’ goaltender, Martin Brodeur. A 350-room hotel is planned for the area, and Mr. Brito said business at the bar could double over the next year. “Yeah, it was a big risk that we took,” Mr. Rodrigues said. But, he added after a pause, for the Devils and the Newark business community, “it was an even bigger risk.”

New Jersey Devils
Prudential Center (Newark)
Stadiums and Arenas
Alcoholic Beverages
Newark (NJ)


Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett Unite for a Weekend, at Least

Abstract: HOUSTON — Carmelo Anthony walked into the grand ballroom of the Hilton Americas hotel on Friday wearing a white and gold long-sleeve shirt and big brown sunglasses. Anthony captured what All-Star weekend is all about for many players: enjoying the spotlight. Kevin Garnett, however, was conspicuous in his attire: black shirt and dark blue jeans. Anthony and Garnett, 50 feet apart, told reporters that their relationship had no problems and that they looked forward to playing together as starters for the Eastern Conference in Sunday’s game. “We just had a meeting where we talked,” Anthony said. “This is a fun weekend.” Garnett said: “Actually, I’ve seen Carmelo a couple minutes ago. It was good to see him here. I’m happy for him. That’s what this weekend is about, nothing negative.” It was quite a change from Jan. 7, when Anthony went after Garnett following the Boston Celtics’ win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden and shouted obscenities outside the Boston locker room and later near the Celtics’ bus. Anthony was suspended by the N.B.A. for one game. Anthony said he would play in the All-Star Game despite bruising his right bicep during Wednesday’s 92-88 loss to the Toronto Raptors. That night, Anthony was not sure if he would play this weekend. “The day after, it was sore, but once I got some treatment, we found it wasn’t as deep of a contusion as I thought it was,” he said. “I feel pretty good for the most part.” During practice on Saturday, Anthony will talk to the East’s coach, Erik Spoelstra, about how many minutes he should play. Spoelstra said he expected to limit Anthony’s playing time. For his part, Garnett clarified an earlier comment that this All-Star weekend would “definitely” be the last one of his career. “I should have never said that,” said Garnett, a 15-time All-Star. “I wasn’t comfortable with solidifying that I was going to be an All-Star next year.” KING AMONG HALL FINALISTS Carmelo Anthony said he was glad to see that Bernard King was a finalist for the Hall of Fame. Anthony’s style is similar to King’s. King, a four-time All-Star and a former Knick who was previously nominated as a finalist, was a prolific scorer in the paint and from the perimeter. He averaged 22.5 points a game in his 15-year career. “I became a student of Bernard King just watching some of his game tapes and seeing his go-to moves,” Anthony said. “He definitely belongs in the Hall of Fame. He should have been in there a long time ago.” The other finalists are Tim Hardaway, Gary Payton, Mitch Richmond, Maurice Cheeks, Rick Pitino, Guy Lewis, Jerry Tarkanian, Spencer Haywood, the longtime North Carolina women’s coach Sylvia Hatchell and the five-time W.N.B.A. All-Star Dawn Staley. Tom Heinsohn, already inducted as a player, is a finalist in the coaching category. Richie Guerin, who played nine seasons with the Knicks, was elected to the Hall by the veterans committee. Guerin, a six-time All-Star, averaged 17.3 points and 5 rebounds in his 13-year career. He was also the first Knick to score 2,000 points in a season (1961-62). The 2013 class will be announced at the Final Four in April. BIDDING FOR 2015 GAME The Knicks and the Nets are among the teams that have applied to host the 2015 All-Star Game. The third and final phase of nearly $1 billion in renovations to Madison Square Garden will include a new lobby entrance on Seventh Avenue. The arena will also have two catwalks that will hang over the court for limited seating. There will also be a state-of-the-art scoreboard and a remodeled ceiling. New Orleans will host next year’s All-Star Game. The Nets hosted the game in 1982 at the Meadowlands; the Knicks hosted it in 1998. “The most fun I’ve had in an All-Star Game was the one in New York,” Kevin Garnett said. “That was Kobe’s first one, Michael Jordan was there and it was in New York. That was a special one for me.” BIG NIGHT FOR A KNICK James White thought he would be in the Slam Dunk Contest a few years ago. White also felt that he would sign a guaranteed contract with an N.B.A. team. White, 30, finally achieved those goals this season, in his first year with the Knicks after several years overseas. White, given the nickname Flight in college, hopes to show why by winning Saturday’s dunk contest. He has played little this season and is known mostly for a dunk contest in Russia in 2010, when he beat Gerald Green with a one-handed dunk from the free-throw line. Green will also be in Saturday’s contest. For White, it will be the biggest individual performance of his career. “I’ve always dreamed about this moment since I was 15, honestly,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do this. I’m glad I finally get the opportunity.” Carmelo Anthony said he expected White to win. “I saw a couple of things, but I can’t reveal them,” Anthony said of White’s planned dunks. “We don’t call him Flight for nothing.”

Carmelo Anthony
Kevin Garnett
All-star game
Bernard King
Hall of fame
Tim Hardaway
Gary Payton
Basketball


Study on Use of Tools in Butchering Is Disputed - Observatory

Abstract: A report in August that the early ancestors of humans used stone tools to butcher meat at least 3.4 million years ago is being challenged by other researchers, who say that the study misinterpreted cut marks in animal bones. “They look like cut marks made from stone tools, but they are not,” said Manuel Domínquez-Rodrigo, an archaeologist at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain and one of the authors of the new report , published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “They look very different when you look at them microscopically.” Microscopic analysis and comparisons with other bones revealed that the markings were more likely scratches caused by animals trampling across the bones, he said. The first study, by an international team of paleoanthropologists, archaeologists and geologists, including Shannon P. McPherron, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and Zeresenay Alemseged, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist at the California Academy of Sciences, proposed that the species Australopithecus afarensis , which lived in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, used stone tools. The species is best known for a skeleton named Lucy. Because of its large teeth, it was assumed to be primarily vegetarian . But scientists who found the animal bones, a fossilized rib and thighbone, said that the cut marks on it were indisputable evidence that Australopithecus was using stone tools to butcher meat about 800,000 years earlier than previously thought. Though the bones with cut marks were uncovered, no remnants of stone tools were found in the area, Dr. Domínquez-Rodrigo said. This made him and some of his colleagues suspicious. A microscopic analysis of the bones validated their doubts, he said. That means that scientists must revert back to the previous date for when stone tools were first used to butcher meat, about 2.5 million years ago, he said. “We must go back to this later date that we had,” Dr. Domínquez-Rodrigo said. “That is the oldest evidence that we can identify for meat consumption by humans.”

Bones
Archaeology and Anthropology
Science and Technology


Abner Mikva, Lawmaker, Judge and Mentor to Obama, Dies at 90

Abstract: Abner J. Mikva, who was one of the nation’s leading liberal politicians for decades and an influential figure at the top levels of all three branches of the federal government, died on Monday in Chicago. He was 90. Sanford D. Horwitt, a friend and colleague, confirmed the death, at a hospice care facility, saying Mr. Mikva had bladder cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Mr. Mikva represented the Chicago area in Congress for nearly nine years, became the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — widely regarded as second in importance only to the Supreme Court — and concluded his federal service with a stint as White House counsel under President Bill Clinton during a tumultuous period in the executive branch. He had also been a mentor to President Obama and to Justice Elena Kagan of the Supreme Court. Mr. Mikva was an unusual combination of a highly regarded legal scholar who taught at the University of Chicago Law School and a skilled street-level politician who flourished in the raucous politics of Chicago. He was one of the few consistently successful opponents of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s political machine at the height of its power. A son of Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Ukraine, Abner Joseph Mikva was born in Milwaukee on Jan. 21, 1926. He often spoke about his early childhood years, when his father was out of work and the family was subsisting on welfare. He said the knit blue cap and clunky work shoes he wore for years marked him as a welfare recipient. He attended public schools and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he met Zorita Wise, known as Zoe, on a blind date. They married in September 1948, and she survives him. He later transferred to Washington University in St. Louis. During World War II he was a navigator with the Army Air Corps. Though he did not complete an undergraduate degree, he eventually graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and served as a clerk to Justice Sherman Minton of the Supreme Court. He began his career in politics as a volunteer for Senator Paul Douglas and Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson, two of the leading liberal politicians in Illinois. His first taste of Chicago politics, as he recounted in a taped oral history of the city, came when he walked into the headquarters of the Eighth Ward Regular Democratic Organization to volunteer: “Who sent you?” the committeeman asked. “Nobody,” he replied. “Well,” the committeeman said, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” The ward leader told him that they had no paying jobs to give out. “I don’t want a job,” Mr. Mikva replied. “Well, we don’t want nobody that don’t want a job,” the leader said. In 1956, Mr. Mikva won his first election as a state assemblyman and was sent to Springfield, Ill., the capital, where his roommate was Paul Simon , later a longtime United States senator. Mr. Mikva took on the Daley machine in 1966, when he lost a primary challenge to an 84-year-old congressman, Barratt G. O’Hara. Two years later, he defeated Mr. O’Hara and went to Washington. The machine took its revenge by changing the boundaries of his district, and Mr. Mikva was defeated by a Republican in 1972. Ousted after two terms, Mr. Mikva began practicing law, but his wife bluntly told him that he was not cut out for it — that his temperament was more suited for boisterous elective politics. Heeding her advice, he ran for Congress again in 1974 in a new district on the region’s North Shore. Despite the district’s high Republican voter registration, he won, narrowly. Image President Obama awarded Mr. Mikva the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in 2014. Credit Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press He served another two terms, winning re-election in 1976 by only 201 votes out of 213,407 cast. In Congress he served on the House Judiciary Committee and sought to toughen criminal laws, saying that as a liberal supporter of protections for criminal defendants, as established by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, he had a special obligation to address public fears about crime. Mr. Mikva was noted for his unrelenting efforts to outlaw all privately owned handguns — each session he introduced a bill to do so — a position that won him the enmity of the National Rifle Association. When President Jimmy Carter nominated him to the appeals court in 1979, the N.R.A. spent more than $1 million in an unsuccessful lobbying effort to thwart his confirmation. On the District of Columbia appeals bench, which was deeply divided ideologically, Judge Mikva became a leader of its liberal faction. He once got into a shouting match with a conservative judge in a private conference over whether to uphold an affirmative action plan for the city’s fire department. Rising to chief judge of the court in 1991, he wrote an opinion reinstating a gay midshipman who had been expelled from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, striking down a Clinton administration regulation barring gays from serving in the military. On most days before taking the bench, Judge Mikva used his privileges as a former congressman to visit the House gym, play paddleball and socialize with former colleagues. Judge Mikva was 68, one of the most powerful judges in the country and on a comfortable path to retirement, when he decided to leave the bench for what he later called the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the White House. President Clinton brought Mr. Mikva in as White House counsel in the fall of 1994 to provide stability in judgment at a time when the president was facing several inquiries stemming from his investment years earlier in a local real estate venture known as Whitewater when he was governor of Arkansas. Mr. Mikva served a year in the post. After leaving the White House, he served as a mentor to Barack Obama, then a young Illinois state legislator. Mr. Mikva had first become aware of Mr. Obama when he was told about a promising Chicago-area law student in his last year at Harvard Law School. An appeals court judge at the time, Judge Mikva reached out to recruit Mr. Obama as a law clerk. Mr. Obama declined, however, saying he wanted to try his hand at community organizing in Chicago. “I’ve lost a mentor and a friend,” President Obama said Tuesday in a statement. “No matter how far we go in life, we owe a profound debt of gratitude to those who gave us those first, firm pushes at the start,” Mr. Obama said. “For me, one of those people was Ab Mikva. “When I was graduating law school, Ab encouraged me to pursue public service. He saw something in me that I didn’t yet see in myself, but I know why he did it — Ab represented the best of public service himself, and he believed in empowering the next generation of young people to shape our country.” In 2014 Mr. Obama awarded Mr. Mikva the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. As a federal judge, Judge Mikva hired Elena Kagan as a law clerk, recommended her to clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, endorsed her move to a professorship at the University of Chicago and persuaded her to join him in the counsel’s office at the Clinton White House. In 1997, Mr. Mikva and his wife founded the Mikva Challenge , an organization that raises money to encourage inner-city youths to become active in elective politics. Besides his wife, he is survived by their daughters Mary, Laurie and Rachel, all of whom use the surname Mikva, and seven grandchildren. In 2004, the couple served as international observers for elections in Ukraine. He wrote that the voting itself seemed straightforward, but when he followed the ballots to the central counting station, he saw 2,100 of them summarily discarded. He objected to no avail. “I thought I had seen a lot of tough elections in Chicago,” he said, “but they were mild compared to this one.”

Chicago
Bill Clinton
Judiciary
Barack Obama
Abner J Mikva
Obituary


McClatchy to Resell 12 Papers It's Buying

Abstract: There was both joy and despair across the Knight Ridder newspaper chain as employees learned that the McClatchy Company, which announced plans yesterday to acquire the company's 32 papers, would promptly sell 12 of them. Those at the Knight Ridder papers being kept by McClatchy -- including The Miami Herald and The Charlotte Observer -- will be working for a family-controlled business known for disciplined management and solid journalistic standards. "This is the absolute best outcome we could have hoped for," said Carol Rosenberg, a reporter at The Miami Herald, the largest paper to be retained. "It's a newspaper family with a tradition of journalism, not a corporate chop shop." But those at the 12 papers to be sold -- including The Philadelphia Inquirer and The San Jose Mercury News -- now face continued uncertainty about who will own them, and the prospect of a less desirable owner than the one they had expected. Rick Nichols, The Inquirer's food columnist and a 27-year veteran of the paper, said the staff was deflated, as if it "had been orphaned and told that its replacement parent didn't even want it." Stu Bykofsky, a columnist at The Philadelphia Daily News, which is also one of the 12 papers back on the block, said he understood that of all the entities that had expressed interest in Knight Ridder, McClatchy was the best. He was disappointed the company was selling the Philadelphia papers so quickly. "It's like death by drowning instead of death by fire," Mr. Bykofsky said. "McClatchy, which was portrayed as this savior, will turn around and sell us to the highest bidder. That's not a confidence-builder for us." McClatchy, which owns 12 papers -- including the Bee papers in Central California, The Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. -- will become the nation's second-biggest newspaper company, behind Gannett, if it completes the $4.5 billion acquisition. The Gannett Company, which publishes USA Today, did not make a bid for Knight Ridder, but analysts said it remained a possible buyer for some of the 12 papers that McClatchy does not want. Other possible buyers include William Dean Singleton, chief executive of the MediaNews Group, which publishes The Denver Post and The Salt Lake Tribune, and who presided over the shutdown of The Houston Post. Eight of the 12 papers are unionized, which could make them less desirable acquisitions. The Newspaper Guild has also expressed interest in buying them. Analysts said Mr. Singleton, who has taken on difficult markets like Detroit, was likely to be in strong pursuit of at least some of the papers, particularly in California, where he already owns several small papers as well as The Los Angeles Daily News. He visited some Knight Ridder newsrooms in the last several weeks but did not make a final bid for the company. "We believe Gannett and MediaNews Group will be buyers in some of these newspaper divestitures," a financial analysis by J. P. Morgan stated. "The outcome reinforces that Gannett is a highly disciplined acquirer." Gary B. Pruitt, chairman and chief executive of McClatchy, said yesterday that he was open to all possible combinations of sales, and might sell some papers individually or several together. He also said that he had already been contacted by potential buyers, whom he did not identify and that he wanted to sell the 12 papers on the same day -- sometime this summer -- that he closes the deal to acquire the 20 other Knight Ridder papers. "McClatchy would not operate those papers for even one day," he said. Mr. Pruitt said he was confident that he could sell the 12 papers and that they would fit into the strategies of other newspaper companies, confidence that analysts said suggested that Mr. Pruitt might already have lined up buyers for some or all of them. Mr. Pruitt said he was aware of concern among employees that if a private equity firm were to acquire the papers, it would most likely strip them down and eventually resell them. He did not rule out any potential buyers, but in an indication that he would not sell to someone loathsome to journalists, he joked that "Slobodan Milosevic died over the weekend, so he's out." "We care who we sell to," Mr. Pruitt said, adding that "obviously price will be an important factor, but it won't be the only factor." He said "speed of execution will matter; we don't want to prolong this." "We think newspaper companies are out there that can do well by these papers," he said. Nonetheless, Wall Street reacted negatively to news of the sale. Knight Ridder closed down $1.08 in trading yesterday, at $63.92, and McClatchy closed down $1.51, at $51.55. Because of the decline in McClatchy shares, the value of the deal to Knight Ridder shareholders declined to $66.38 from $67.25. A spokesman for P. Anthony Ridder, the chairman and chief executive of Knight Ridder, said Mr. Ridder was disappointed that McClatchy was not keeping the chain intact. "He's upset about the dissolution of the company that he has spent more than 40 years with," said Polk Laffoon, the spokesman. "It's been very difficult for him emotionally to see the company sold and particularly now to see it not sold as a whole." Potential buyers for the 12 papers on the block were the talk of the newsrooms. "I think people are generally pretty terrified of Singleton," said Dominic Papatola, the theater critic at The Pioneer Press in St. Paul, who has worked there since 1997. He said he did not see a private equity firm "coming in because McClatchy has cherry-picked the most lucrative titles." "The chains that took a pass on us whole," Mr. Papatola said, "may find that what's left is less desirable." Goldman Sachs, which advised Knight Ridder on the sale, said in a research report that McClatchy's acquisition made strategic sense. But, Goldman said, "many questions remain on the financial implications of the deal," in part because the sale price of the 12 papers is unknown. Wall Street will be watching closely, Goldman said, until McClatchy -- with shares already down 28 percent over the last year -- demonstrates it can increase profitability at the 20 papers it is buying and sells the 12 at a price close to what it paid per share for Knight Ridder. Under the terms of the deal, Knight Ridder shareholders are to receive $40 in cash and 0.5118 of a McClatchy Class A share for each of their shares. To finance the deal, McClatchy secured commitments for a $3.75 billion loan from J. P. Morgan Chase and Banc of America Securities, according to the companies' merger agreement. The agreement, filed with regulators late yesterday, seemed to hold open the possibility of Knight Ridder's accepting a higher offer should one come along before its deal with McClatchy is concluded. If the deal falls apart, McClatchy would receive a $171.9 million termination fee from Knight Ridder. McClatchy is moving quickly to meet with Knight Ridder employees. Mr. Pruitt has begun making a barnstorming tour of his new papers, starting today with a visit to The Miami Herald. Howard Weaver, McClatchy's vice president for news, visited Knight Ridder's Washington bureau yesterday and, according to employees, said there would be "no layoffs and no shrinkage." He said McClatchy's 15-person bureau would be combined with Knight Ridder's 45-person bureau and David Westphal, McClatchy's Washington bureau chief, would succeed Clark Hoyt, Knight Ridder's Washington editor, as the senior person. McClatchy will also keep Knight Ridder's 10 foreign bureaus. But these reassurances offered little solace at the papers set for a fast resale. Mike Antonucci, a reporter at The San Jose Mercury News for 28 years, said there was so little information that it was impossible to pinpoint any single mood prevailing in the newsroom. "There are families and lives and loans and benefits and mortgages and careers on the line, and that's why we'd like the uncertainty resolved in a positive way," he said. "But we don't even know when the uncertainty is going to be resolved or how positive it is going to be." And at The Daily News in Philadelphia, there was anger at repeated assumptions by analysts that whoever bought that paper would shut it. "We have been living under anxiety and trepidation for months," said Kitty Caparella, a longtime organized-crime reporter for The Daily News. "It doesn't help that know-nothing stock analysts keep predicting the close of The Daily News."

KNIGHT RIDDER
MERGERS ACQUISITIONS AND DIVESTITURES
NEWS AND NEWS MEDIA


Cabdriver Dies in Brooklyn After Argument About Fare

Abstract: Correction Appended Nikolay Ionin still had three hours left in his shift and the morning had turned bitterly cold. About 4 a.m. yesterday, Mr. Ionin, a livery-cab driver, picked up a group of people at a restaurant in Coney Island. Fifteen minutes later, the dispatcher at the livery-cab company heard an argument over the radio: it sounded as if Mr. Ionin was fighting with his passengers over the fare. At 5 a.m., a stranger called the dispatcher from Mr. Ionin's car. "Your van is parked on the sidewalk and your man is lying on the ground," the dispatcher quoted the stranger as saying. "I don't know if he's alive." By 6 a.m., Mr. Ionin, 59, was dead. Those are the outlines of a riddle, told by the police, who did not know whether Mr. Nikolay -- a big man who was taking medication for heart problems, according to relatives -- died of natural causes or something else. There were no visible signs of trauma, the police said, adding that the city medical examiner would determine the cause of death. Early this morning, officers found Mr. Ionin on 39th Street in Sunset Park, lying unconscious near his car. He was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, and pronounced dead, the police said. Mr. Ionin had worked for the Seaside Car Service on Coney Island Avenue for about six years, said Tony Blinder, 41, a dispatcher. "He was a nice guy, a hard-working guy," said Mr. Blinder, adding that Mr. Ionin worked overtime almost every weekend. "Once in a while, he had a short fuse." Yesterday morning, Mr. Ionin, who worked the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, called his dispatcher, Val Fedorovsky, and told him that the passengers he had picked up at the Café St. Petersburg on Brighton Beach Avenue all wanted to be dropped at different locations in Brooklyn, Mr. Fedorovsky recalled, adding that he told Mr. Ionin to charge them $34. The next thing Mr. Fedorovsky heard was the argument, before the stranger's call. "We're all very upset," Mr. Fedorovsky said. Mr. Ionin's son, Russell Ionin, said that his father came to the United States from Odessa 16 years ago and worked in a restaurant, at a refrigerator company and as an ambulette driver before taking a job as a livery driver. "He was here to make a life," Mr. Ionin said. Correction: March 1, 2006, Wednesday An article on Monday about the death of a livery cab driver who was found lying on a street in Brooklyn after picking up passengers at a restaurant, Cafe St. Petersburg, misidentified its location. It is in Brighton Beach, not Coney Island.

BROOKLYN (NYC)
NEW YORK CITY
IONIN NIKOLAY
VIOLENCE
TAXICABS AND TAXICAB DRIVERS
PRICES (FARES FEES AND RATES)