Jones Admits to Doping and Enters Guilty Plea

Abstract: WHITE PLAINS, Oct. 5 — On the day she admitted publicly to using performance-enhancing drugs, the former Olympic track champion Marion Jones wept Friday as she stood on the steps of the United States District Courthouse here and apologized for her mistakes. Inside the courtroom, she did not waver when confessing in a strong voice to Judge Kenneth M. Karras that she had made false statements in two separate government investigations: the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative case and a check-fraud case based out of the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Jones repeatedly answered the judge’s questions by saying, “Yes, I understand,” as he explained the ramifications of her guilty plea. The prosecutors have recommended a sentence of no more than six months, according to the agreement. The maximum sentence is five years. She will be sentenced in January. The International Olympic Committee has indicated it will not wait until then to move to strip her of the five medals she won — including three gold — at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. With her performance that summer, she became the first woman to win five medals in track and field at the same Olympics. Jones, 31, was released after yielding her United States passport and promising to yield her passport from Belize, her mother’s native country. But in her emotional speech outside the courthouse, she made it clear that she believed she had lost far more. “It is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust,” she said, referring to her fans and supporters. She added: “You have the right to be angry with me. I have let them down, I have let my country down and I have let myself down.” She also announced she was retiring from track and field. Jones recently married the sprinter Obadele Thompson from Barbados and now goes by the name Jones-Thompson. She has two children, one with Thompson and the other from a relationship with the former sprinter Tim Montgomery . Her guilty plea, as well as her admission in court that she used performance-enhancing drugs provided by her former coach Trevor Graham, were big developments in the government’s case against Graham for making false statements to federal agents. Graham’s trial is scheduled to begin in November. Jones said in court that from September 2000 until July 2001, Graham gave her a substance he told her was flaxseed oil. But after she stopped training with him in 2001, she said she realized it had been a performance-enhancing drug. By the time she was interviewed in the Balco investigation in November 2003, Jones said, she knew it was the designer steroid THG, known as the clear. But she had denied recognizing the substance and denied taking it in that Balco interview. “Both were lies,” Jones said. She similarly admitted lying to federal officials investigating the bank-fraud case in two separate interviews in August and September 2006. At that time, she denied receiving a fraudulent $25,000 check that she had endorsed and denied knowing about the involvement of Montgomery. Perhaps the biggest consequences of Jones’s sworn statements in court will be the damage they do to Graham, who has repeatedly denied providing his athletes with performance-enhancing drugs. If Jones is called to testify at Graham’s trial, she can no longer invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because she waived that with her guilty plea. “The federal government will vigorously prosecute individuals who provide false statements to its agents,” Scott N. Schools, the interim United States attorney in the Northern District of California, said in a written statement. “Individuals who lie to federal agents interfere with the government’s ability to investigate criminal conduct and undermine the efficiency of government investigations.” Telephone messages left for Graham’s lawyers were not returned. The twist to Jones’s downfall is that it was triggered by her involvement in the bank-fraud scheme. E. Danya Perry, an assistant United States attorney, told the judge there was ample evidence, including Jones’s signature on the $25,000 check and the testimony of other defendants in the case, many of whom have already pleaded guilty. Jones admitted to lying to investigators from the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the United States attorney’s office in interviews on Aug. 2 and Sept. 5, 2006. The strength of the government’s evidence in that case was used to persuade Jones to plead guilty to the false statements to the Balco investigators. Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said he applauded the cooperation between the government lawyers in the two cases. “It’s bittersweet,” Tygart said. “Any time you watch a potential American hero admit to cheating us, sports fans, people that watch the Olympic Games, it’s bittersweet. Clean athletes, who do it right, who play by the rules and honorably, have a sense of vindication today.” Last year, Jones fell under renewed drug-testing scrutiny when she tested positive for the blood-boosting drug EPO. The test was not pursued, however, when the B sample was negative for the drug and did not corroborate the A sample. After that, Jones defiantly denied ever having used drugs. Tygart said Usada, which has had a case open against Jones for several years, would continue investigating and perhaps seek to take away Jones’s Olympic medals. The Olympic sports community reacted with firm condemnation of Jones. “Her admission is long overdue and underscores the shame and dishonor that are inherent with cheating,” the United States Olympic Committee chairman, Peter Ueberroth, said in a statement. “As further recognition of her complicity in this matter, Ms. Jones should immediately step forward and return the Olympic medals she won while competing in violation of the rules.” The more immediate issue, though, was Jones’s role in the continuation of the Balco case, which had seen few developments in recent months. The case has resulted in the guilty pleas of six others: Balco’s founder and president, Victor Conte Jr.; James Valente, the former vice president of Balco; Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’s former trainer; Remi Korchemny, a track coach; Patrick Arnold, a chemist; and Troy Ellerman, a defense lawyer. The cyclist Tammy Thomas, who also denied using steroids, was charged last year with three counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. No trial date has been set. Bonds, baseball’s career home run leader, remains under investigation on the suspicion that he lied to a federal grand jury about his use of steroids. Anderson is in jail for contempt of court for refusing to testify about Bonds.

Steroids
Olympic Games
Jones Marion
Decisions and Verdicts
Frauds and Swindling
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Montgomery Tim
Graham Trevor


New Mexico’s Whitewater-Baldy Fire Could Get Worse

Abstract: Since early May, it has scorched more land than there is in New York City’s five boroughs, sending billows of smoke from the canyons of southwestern New Mexico across the border to Arizona. On Saturday, officials said the wildfire in the Gila National Forest was 17 percent contained but warned that expected thunderstorms could exacerbate it with lightning and strong winds. As embers shoot off from the blaze, “ignition is going to be 100 percent almost,” said Lee Bentley, a fire information officer for the management team with the United States Forest Service. “It’s going to start a fire.” The blaze, called the Whitewater-Baldy Complex fire after the highest point in the region, has burned more than 350 square miles. More than 1,200 firefighters have been deployed to fight the blaze, the largest in New Mexico’s history. The small communities of Mogollon and Willow Creek were evacuated, and the cost of combating the fire has totaled $10.7 million so far. Six injuries have been reported, though Mr. Bentley said none were serious. Twelve homes and eight outbuildings have been destroyed. Mr. Bentley said residents of Mogollon were expected to be allowed back by Monday. Progress along the northern and western flanks of the fire has been made in recent days, officials said. They hoped the fire could be fully contained in 6 to 10 days, though it might not stop burning until well into the summer. “Probably in July,” Mr. Bentley said, “when the monsoons hit.” Winds have carried haze from the fire as far north as Santa Fe, as far south as Las Cruces and west into Arizona. “It was kind of all over the place,” said Dan Ware, a spokesman for the New Mexico State Forestry Division. On May 24, New Mexico’s Environment and Health Departments issued an air quality advisory. Other areas in the Midwest and the Southwest have not been spared. In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a fire ignited by lightning has burned more than 21,000 acres since May 23. Smaller fires have also broken out in Colorado. The New Mexico fire, sparked by a pair of lightning strikes, surpassed last year’s Las Conchas fire as the largest in state history. That fire burned more than 150,000 acres, or 234 square miles, near Los Alamos National Laboratory. “You’ve had the two largest fires in history in back-to-back years,” Mr. Bentley said. “It just means that things are drier and drier.”

New Mexico
Wind
Forest and Brush Fires
Fires and Firefighters
Forests and Forestry


Court Says Canada Must Seek Return of Guantánamo Detainee

Abstract: OTTAWA — A court ruled Thursday that the Canadian government must reverse its position and promptly seek the return of the last Western citizen held by the United States at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba. In a 42-page decision , the Federal Court of Canada found that under the Canadian Constitution, the rights of the detainee, Omar Khadr , had been violated by the government’s decision not to seek his return. Mr. Khadr, a Canadian, was captured in 2002 by American forces in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. He was accused of killing an American soldier with a hand grenade during a battle in which he was seriously wounded. “The ongoing refusal of Canada to request Mr. Khadr’s repatriation to Canada offends a principle of fundamental justice and violates Mr. Khadr’s rights,” Judge James W. O’Reilly wrote. The leaders of Canada’s three main opposition parties and a parliamentary committee have demanded that the Conservative government bring Mr. Khadr back home. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who contends that Mr. Khadr should be tried in the American military judicial system, was noncommittal in responding to the decision. “We will be looking at the decision very carefully and obviously considering an appeal,” Mr. Harper told the House of Commons. In its presentation to the court, the Canadian government said that it would be difficult to convict, or even prosecute, Mr. Khadr in Canada. That argument appeared to have backfired. “To my mind, any concern in this area merely reinforces the case for repatriation,” Judge O’Reilly wrote. Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, Mr. Khadr’s American military defense lawyer, said the combination of the Obama administration’s decision to shut Guantánamo and the Canadian court decision should be the end of the matter. “It would be just ridiculous for the Harper government to appeal,” he said. Mr. Khadr, through his lawyers, has maintained that he was abused by American interrogators in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay. His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed by government forces in Pakistan, was thought by Canadian intelligence officials to be an associate of Osama bin Laden. Nathan Whitling, a lawyer representing Omar Khadr, said he thought that the Canadian government’s reluctance to seek his client’s repatriation was a political calculation based on public antipathy in Canada toward Mr. Khadr’s family. Some public sentiment may have shifted in Mr. Khadr’s favor last summer after the Supreme Court of Canada ordered the government to release video recordings showing a sometimes distraught Mr. Khadr being interrogated.

Canada
Detainees
Khadr Omar Ahmed
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)
Afghanistan War (2001- )


New Owners for an Agency That Markets for a Cause

Abstract: ONE of the first agencies devoted to handling communications efforts for causes, nonprofit organizations, charities, foundations and activists seeking social change — a specialty that is now thriving — is being sold by its founder and longtime leader, David Fenton, to investors who are forming a holding group for agencies of that kind. The agency, named Fenton , is getting new leadership along with its new ownership; the changes are to be announced on Wednesday. Mr. Fenton, who was chief executive, is taking a different role, as chairman, and he plans to devote more time to working on efforts to counter global climate change. To succeed Mr. Fenton as chief executive, the agency is hiring Bill Werde, who was most recently editorial director of the music trade publication Billboard. The new owners of Fenton are Craig J. Leach and James Marcus, who are the principals of Collegium, a holding group specializing in agencies in the category known by terms like cause marketing, cause-related marketing, prosocial marketing and purpose marketing. Such agencies provide services like advertising, public relations, fund-raising, digital media, event marketing, mobile ads and social media. When Mr. Fenton opened the agency in 1982, as Fenton Communications , “everyone said I was nuts, and I was,” Mr. Fenton, 62, said during a recent interview. “At that time, environmental organizations, human rights organizations, health groups didn’t even have press secretaries,” Mr. Fenton recalled. “The biggest change to me over the years is that there is now a market for what we do, a whole big industry in this. And it’s only going to continue to grow.” Fenton has 60 employees who work at a headquarters in New York and offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington. Current and recent clients include the Corporation for Battery Recycling , the Environmental Defense Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Harlem Children’s Zone , the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Save the Children, the Sierra Club and the Wikimedia Foundation . Around 20 percent of the agency’s work, by Mr. Fenton’s estimate, is for clients that are for-profit marketers, helping them in realms like corporate social responsibility and sustainability; examples of those clients are Johnson & Johnson and Unilever. Mr. Marcus, 48, whose title at Collegium is partner, has served as an adviser to Fenton for more than a decade and led a Fenton division, Fenton Studios, that produces video content for clients. Mr. Leach, 55, whose titles at Collegium are partner and chief executive, is also chief executive of a unit of Collegium, Graham-Pelton Consulting , which helps universities, hospitals, social service agencies and environmental organizations with fund-raising and management tasks. Financial terms of the deal by which Collegium is acquiring Fenton are not being disclosed. The purchase price in many such transactions is the equivalent of a year’s revenue; Fenton has revenue of about $11 million. Mr. Fenton has agreed to remain at Fenton for five years. It was Mr. Marcus who brought Mr. Leach and Mr. Fenton together. “We at Fenton wanted someone who had an appreciation for the company, a little company but a company that’s had an impact,” Mr. Marcus said. “Fenton is well known, but there are still a lot of people who don’t know about it,” he added. “We’re going to take what’s right about Fenton and join more battles on the good side.” Mr. Werde, 41, said he initially met with Mr. Fenton “because I wanted to build a platform that could make sustainability a little more accessible to the consumer.” The music industry’s environmental policies was a subject he followed while directing editorial coverage at Billboard. Asked how that turned into Mr. Werde’s joining Fenton, he replied, “I went to David and gave him my pitch, and he said: ‘I love it. Now can I tell you what I need?’ ” “I’m hoping my music background may have particular relevance to the cause space,” Mr. Werde said. “Outside of a few stalwarts like Bruce Springsteen, and some younger artists such as John Legend and J. Cole, music has somewhat abdicated the throne of political relevancy. It’s really time for that to evolve again.” It is also “crucial that underfunded cause organizations and activists have access to the same sophisticated communications and media approaches as well-funded opposing forces,” Mr. Werde said. That echoed an earlier remark of his about how, in his first meeting with Mr. Fenton, “David told me he had started the firm because the bad guys always had publicists and the good guys never did.”

David Fenton
Fenton Communications
Philanthropy
advertising,marketing


New Voice in South Korean Politics, Ahn Cheol-soo, Enters Presidential Race

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — A 50-year-old graduate school dean whose appeal to disaffected voters has made him a political star officially declared his candidacy for president of South Korea on Wednesday, upending the contest by turning it into a three-way race just three months before the election. The announcement by the dean, Ahn Cheol-soo, a former medical doctor and wealthy software entrepreneur and philanthropist who has no party affiliation, had been eagerly anticipated in South Korea, where his political ambitions have been a resilient hot topic because of his plain talk about inequality and justice. “People I have met over the past months have expressed desire for political reform,” Mr. Ahn said at a news conference at the Salvation Army Art Hall in Seoul. “Old politics should be overhauled. I’ll run for president.” South Korean tracking polls reported that Mr. Ahn would be the favored contestant if he were pitted against Park Geun-hye, the candidate of the governing conservative Saenuri Party. She is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, a former president who established a military dictatorship and ruled South Korea for nearly two decades until his assassination in 1979. But the tracking polls also show that Mr. Ahn would come in second behind Ms. Park in a three-way race that includes Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer who was chosen on Sunday as the candidate of the main opposition party, Democratic United. Mr. Ahn declined to answer questions at the news conference over whether he would seek to merge his campaign with that of Mr. Moon’s in an attempt to beat Ms. Park in the Dec. 19 election. Mr. Ahn is the founder of AhnLab, South Korea’s leading antivirus software company, and his name has come to symbolize widespread disillusionment with the two political parties. Known affectionately to supporters as Dr. Ahn, he quit practicing medicine in 1995 and founded his software business, grew enormously wealthy over 10 years and donated much of his fortune to employees when he retired as the chief executive in 2005. Last year he donated half of his remaining stake in AhnLab, worth about $130 million at the time, to charitable causes to help disadvantaged children. Last June, he became dean of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at his alma mater, Seoul National University. He also became a celebrity among young people for his college campus talks that censured the country’s giant businesses and criticized what he characterized as a political culture of greed and arrogance. Many supporters wanted him to run for mayor of Seoul in the 2011 election, and polls showed that he could have easily won. Critics have expressed concern that he has no political experience. Mr. Ahn has countered that he carries no political baggage. “If anything, my diverse experiences ranging in areas from I.T., medicine, management and education will be a plus,” he said at the news conference on Wednesday. “They cannot be a minus.”

South Korea
Ahn Cheol-soo
Elections
Park Geun-hye
Polls and Public Opinion
Colleges and Universities


Does Underripe Fruit Offer Less Nutrition?

Abstract: Q. How much nutritional loss is there from underripe fruit? A. There is a significant change in nutritional value as a fruit or vegetable ripens, but ripeness may not be the major factor in nutrition , said Jennifer Wilkins of the division of nutritional sciences of the Cornell University College of Human Ecology. The change in value varies with factors like variety and post-harvest handling, she said. For example, a 2004 study of blackberries in The Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry found that the level of anthocyanin pigments, which may have antioxidant benefits, increased more than fourfold as Marion blackberries went from underripe to overripe (to 317 milligrams per 100 grams, from 74.7 milligrams); for another variety, Evergreen, they rose a bit more than twofold (to 164 milligrams from 69.9). While antioxidant activities also increased with ripening, they did not show such a significant change. And another nutrient class, phenolics, actually decreased slightly. “For a lot of fruits and vegetables in the supermarket, ripeness is not the big issue,” Dr. Wilkins said. Even though a tomato may be harvested before peak maturity and shipped before vitamin C has a chance to develop fully, bigger factors may be what variety it is; if it’s chilled enough and quickly enough after harvest; what humidity and temperature it is exposed to in shipping; and how long it takes to get to market. C. CLAIBORNE RAY


Australia's Melbourne Cup Is Now a Foreign Affair

Abstract: At least a third of the field in the 153rd Melbourne Cup on Tuesday will be made up of overseas runners, and a couple more were recently purchased from Europe by deep-pocketed Australian owners. But the 6 million Australian dollar, or $5.7 million, Melbourne Cup — run on Melbourne Cup Day, which is a holiday in parts of Australia — was not always an international prize and spectacle. It all began with an Irish and an English horse. Twenty years ago, Vintage Crop and Drum Taps were flown into Flemington Racecourse for the 1993 Melbourne Cup, the first horses from the Northern Hemisphere to make the journey. They traveled as far as any racehorses had in search of a big prize. The Victoria Racing Club, committed to making the Cup a global contest, had courted them as an antidote to a race that had lost some luster. The local horsemen welcomed the foreigners with open arms. The European horses would not acclimatize to their new surroundings, they surmised, or if they did they would unsuccessfully cope with the Cup’s two taxing miles. “Before the race, the feeling was that it was nice to have them, but they couldn’t win,” said Les Carlyon, 71, an award-winning journalist and former editor of The Age in Melbourne. Vintage Crop, saddled by one of Ireland’s greatest trainers, Dermot Weld, had other ideas. Two inches, or about 5 centimeters, of rain had fallen overnight, causing flooding and travel nightmares. The 6-year-old gelding loved the boggy course — it was a reminder of home as he cut through the field for a historic victory. “The weather had turned cold and wet, which is unusual in November, because we’re going into summer,” Carlyon recalled. “It was actually freezing on the track. And Flemington is within sight of the tall buildings of Melbourne, and suddenly, while the race was being run, those buildings dissolved into mist. And this fine rain was coming down. Vintage Crop came back in what you might call soft Irish rain.” It was obvious then that Vintage Crop’s victory would usher in a new era of horse racing, as borders between hemispheres were pulled down. Weld said as much after the race, which he said he had long dreamed of winning. And then he gave a rendition of a poem by the Australian poet Banjo Paterson. Vintage Crop was accompanied by a pack of Irish journalists, who were over the moon, and not only because they had a seminal story on their hands. Vintage Crop went off at 16 to 1, and Carlyon remembers one journalist who bet a thousand dollars. “Up in the press room after the race, the Irish journalists were behaving very sheepishly, even though they had their pockets full of money,” Carlyon remembers gleefully. “Eventually one of the Australians said to them: ‘Listen, don’t feel bad about it, we’d only feel bad if the Pommes won,’ the Pommes being the English. It was all right for the Irish to win, but not the English.” (Drum Taps, the English horse, had finished ninth.) The local owners and trainers, on the other hand, were in a panic. “They said, ‘This is going to happen every year and we’ll be wiped out. We won’t have a chance,”’ Carlyon said. More and more foreigners have followed in Vintage Crop’s hoof steps — 100 horses in all since 1993. The Australian horses have held their own and more, but as far as the cosmopolitan makeup of the race, nothing was ever the same again. Outsiders had won before, but they came from New Zealand and were often called Australian. Vintage Crop returned the next two years, finishing seventh and third, under top weight. Weld’s Media Puzzle, in 2002, became the next foreign runner to win. In 2006, the Japanese horses Delta Blues and Pop Rock reached the wire together in an unforgettable finish. The French raiders Americain and Dunaden won the Cup in 2010 and 2011. With a few blips, the share of overseas-trained horses has increased annually: In 2010, there were eight; in 2011, a record 10; and last year, eight. Nine such horses were vying this year to get into the 24-horse field, according to Leigh Jordon, the Victoria Racing Club’s international recruitment agent. Why did all this happen? One reason was the low-profile change in the handicap system for the Cup, which had assigned the best horses considerably more weight. The spread between top and bottom weights is much narrower now. Also, the financial lure became greater, as the Cup’s prize money has tripled since 1993. Depending on currency fluctuations, it vies with the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in France and the Japan Cup for second-richest race in the world, behind the Dubai World Cup. “The fact that the Aussie dollar has been strong over the last five years also helps,” said Michael Burn, chairman of Victoria Racing Club. “For foreign owners, this is basically a purse increase.” Besides foreign shippers, there is another burgeoning class of Cup runners: those purchased abroad by Australian owners and brought home to race. Buoyed by a strong economy and currency, several wealthy Australians have set out on a quixotic chase to buy Cup hopefuls from abroad. Carlyon calls it the “holy grail.” These acquisitions, unless they finish in the top three, rarely pay back their price tags. These horses are not hidden gems. Paul Moroney, on behalf of local clients, is said to have paid almost 1.5 million euros, or more than $2 million, for the recent Irish St. Leger winner Voleuse de Coeurs — incidentally, trained by Weld — and sent her to his brother Mike to train. The prominent owner Lloyd Williams last year purchased Sea Moon, a multiple Group 2 winner in England, and Fiorente, another major contender, was purchased from France last year. As Carlyon, who has attended nearly every Melbourne Cup since 1959, sees it, this craze lends yet another wrinkle to the changing complexion of a race first held in 1861 and now halfway into its second century. “The extraordinary thing about the Cup is that, at the moment it was beginning to lose a bit of its luster, it reinvented itself,” Carlyon said. “The thing that reinvented it was the coming of the international horses. And it’s probably now as strong as it’s ever been.”


WellPoint Matches Forecasts, but Company’s Shares Decline

Abstract: WellPoint, the largest United States health insurer by enrollment, posted an 11 percent rise in quarterly profit yesterday with a lift from net investment income, but the results failed to excite investors and the company’s shares fell. WellPoint, whose results matched Wall Street’s projections, also cut its forecasts for health plan membership and revenue after it said second-quarter enrollment fell from the first quarter amid declines for its national accounts business. “There’s nothing overly negative, but there’s nothing overly positive either,” a Stifel Nicolaus analyst, Thomas Carroll, said. “There’s no major catalyst to jump into the shares right now.” Net income rose to $835.2 million, or $1.35 a share, from $751.2 million, or $1.17 a share, a year earlier. The earnings results matched analysts’ average forecast, according to Reuters Estimates. Health plan membership at the company, based in Indianapolis, rose by 604,000 from a year ago to 34.9 million. Membership fell by 108,000 members from the first quarter, however. WellPoint cited employee reductions in various industries, including the automobile, home building and mortgage sectors. WellPoint forecast full-year earnings of $5.55 a share, also in line with Wall Street’s target. The company lowered its year-end medical enrollment target to 35.1 million from 35.5 million. It also cut its full-year operating revenue goal to about $60.5 billion from its earlier projection of about $61.1 billion. WellPoint shares fell $2.18, or 2.65 percent, to $79.99.

Wellpoint Inc
Company Reports
Health Insurance and Managed Care


From the Onion to Comedy Central to the Oscars

Abstract: HE asked for a pneumatic tube, but his otherwise affable Comedy Central employers -- the cheapskates -- refused to fork over anything more than the cost of a scooter. That is why Ben Karlin, the executive producer of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and co-executive producer, with Mr. Stewart, of a spinoff news spoof, "The Colbert Report," shuttles between his shows' separate studios in the far West 50's on a scooter. Live large like a generic executive producer and take a limo? Too pompous. He'd feel like his own punch line. Once a writer, always a writer. He honed his sarcasm at The Onion, the satiric newspaper, and thrives in offbeat, inmates-run-the-asylum workplaces. So why the heck is he running himself ragged writing copy for the ever-so-mainstream Academy Awards? He can explain. The unkempt guy breathlessly scooting up 11th Avenue from Mr. Stewart's show to Mr. Colbert's in the evening rush is Mr. Karlin, 34, who favors jeans and boots in winter and shorts and flip-flops in summer and lives in a loft in a downtown neighborhood he hates to pinpoint (saying it's NoHo feels pretentious). Show business has its sustainable routines, and this is his. Or was. Frenetic on a good day -- the shows tape one after the other, two blocks apart -- Mr. Karlin's funny little universe suddenly includes Hollywood now that Mr. Stewart is maître d' of the Academy Awards Sunday night on ABC. Just call him fried. Where Mr. Stewart ventures, so too goes Mr. Karlin. He signed on as head writer for "The Daily Show" in 1999 and has contributed to what emanates from Mr. Stewart's glib mouth ever since. Naturally the Oscars are no exception. Mr. Stewart plays front man; Mr. Karlin gets to watch his back and help supply his shtick. His funny bone is frayed from working overtime. Sure, he knows how to make 1.4 million Comedy Central addicts laugh, but what about 40 million network-addicted Americans and a roomful of antsy movie stars? "The Oscars is the most staid, traditional proving ground there could possibly be," he admits. Not to rub it in, but staid and traditional are emphatically not "Daily Show" attributes. So this is a stretch. Propped up by kilim pillows in his office at "The Colbert Report," where a jar of artichoke chutney -- "Colbert Report" swag -- occupies the empty desk, Mr. Karlin has bloodshot eyes, his wits on automatic pilot. Besides huddling with Mr. Stewart to finesse Oscar material before flying to Los Angeles for rehearsals, he's also scheduling a wedding -- his -- to take place in Italy in May. At least, he thinks he's still engaged. Hard to tell. Oscar duty puts a crimp on "one's normal interpersonal relationships." "We're like these sad reptiles who just treat it as the next task in front of us and don't really have the ability to process the larger ramifications of doing the Oscars, the scale or the glory," he says, going the self-deprecation route. "We're not people who luxuriate in show business trappings: we go into our little rooms and type and try to make each other laugh." But Oscar repartee demands a different tactic: "The amount, the sheer volume of rejected material is frightening; it's like we use every single usable part of the animal, and anything we don't use, believe me, you don't want to see it. It's more disgusting than offal. There's one bit we've done 75 versions of." Any censorship on the network end? Mr. Karlin reveals his plan to soften up Gil Cates, the 71-year-old Oscar producer: "I'm going to tell him I would like him to be my grandpa." On second thought: "It might hurt his feelings." Here's the Oscar assignment as interpreted by Mr. Karlin: "The Oscars is not the place for any kind of revolutionary act. We don't want to do something that feels cheap, like we totally gave up on doing something that makes us laugh, but if we're doing material that's political in nature, we want to make sure it's filtered through the world of movies, not just political for the sake of being political. We're trying to find that balance. It's all about being able to beat yourself up in a pure way." Sounds like fun. MR. KARLIN, citing pre-Oscar secrecy, is nonspecific about Mr. Stewart's slant. "We're not going to avoid any topic for fear of it being sacrosanct. But we're not going to be mean, either." Take George Clooney. "I happen to love George Clooney. Writes, acts, directs, produces, very attractive; he's everything a movie star should be. But he should be a little less. You know, leave one of those categories to the rest of us guys." Mr. Karlin grew up "with a stunning lack of obstacles" in Needham, Mass., where his popularity was enhanced by his father's job as an advertising executive for Dunkin' Donuts. His dad supplied him with coupons for free doughnuts, and Mr. Karlin spread the wealth. "There was no downside to doughnuts in those days," he says. But his adolescence darkened at age 13: his father switched to the upholstery business. He went to the University of Wisconsin intent on becoming a journalist, wrote sports for a campus newspaper and switched to The Onion in his senior year. From 1993 to 1996 he was editor of The Onion, and then decamped to Los Angeles with several colleagues to test the television market. Known as the Onion Guys, they quickly sold a pilot, "Deadline: Now," to Fox. It parodied a news show, with actors playing newscasters, and was, he recalls, "too funny to air." So it never did. But he's making up for that now.

DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART THE (TV PROGRAM)


Nieuwenhuis, in Season Debut, Powers Mets Over Diamondbacks

Abstract: By Tim Rohan PHOENIX — In general, competitive major league baseball teams tend to have several traits in common. Chief among them, perhaps, is depth, or the ability to overcome injuries and consistently perform well over the long, grueling season. It is unclear this early where the Mets stand, or just how good they can be. But they showed some of their depth Tuesday night as they walloped the Diamondbacks, 9-0, at Chase Field. Their newly recalled center fielder, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, drove in three runs, two of them on a homer in a six-run fourth inning. Their fifth starter, Jenrry Mejia, pitched five scoreless innings. And their bullpen polished off the next four. After 14 games, the Mets’ record stands at 7-7. At first, Mejia, 24, seemed off to one of the better starts of his young career. He retired the first nine batters, cruising on 33 pitches. It seemed all the more remarkable given that he had allowed 10 hits and nine walks over his first two starts. He walked the first batter he faced in the fourth, Gerardo Parra, on six pitches, and allowed Paul Goldschmidt to single, but escaped the inning unscathed. He allowed two more runners in the fifth, but, again, left them stranded. But he left the game abruptly after five innings with a blister on his middle finger. His career has been interrupted by more serious injuries in recent years. Tommy John surgery and then bone spurs in his elbow limited him to eight starts in 2012 and 2013, and he was labeled injury-prone. The Mets seemed reluctant to give him the fifth-starter spot. Could they trust him? He also had dealt with a bunion during spring training, was hit by a comebacker in Montreal, and, now, this blister. “You feel bad for him,” Manager Terry Collins said. “But it seems like it’s something. And I feel terrible for the poor guy. Because he’s certainly shown everybody, every time he’s ever been out there, when he’s healthy, that he’s got the stuff to be a winner at this level.” Mejia pitched his five scoreless innings on only 77 pitches. Before the game, the Mets had placed Juan Lagares on the 15-day disabled list with a pulled right hamstring. Curtis Granderson was also out but was said to be day-to-day after crashing into an outfield wall Monday and bruising his forearm, ribcage and knee. He wore cleats with “Thank You Jackie” printed on the back, in honor of Jackie Robinson Day, and said he planned to auction them off to benefit the Jackie Robinson Foundation. In Lagares’s place, Nieuwenhuis had been recalled from Class AAA Las Vegas, where he hit .310 and drove in eight runs through 10 games. He played just as well Tuesday night, going 3 for 5. He also made a nice diving catch in the fifth, looking like Lagares. In all, four Mets had at least two hits. Three drove in at least two runs. “The more consistent you can be, the better. That’s what it takes to stay up here,” Nieuwenhuis said. “One game is great. But I’ve got to keep going.”


Donald Trump’s Long Record of Degrading Women

Abstract: Donald J. Trump’s comments and behavior toward women have been the subject of criticism over the course of his presidential campaign. The revelation on Friday that Mr. Trump spoke about women in vulgar and degrading terms was the latest in a string of disclosures in which the Republican presidential nominee has been accused of unwelcome advances, unsettling workplace conduct and lewd comments. Below is a look at some of those episodes as reported by The New York Times: How Trump behaved with women The Times interviewed dozens of women who had worked with or for Mr. Trump over the past four decades, in the worlds of real estate, modeling and pageants; women who had dated him or interacted with him socially; and women and men who had closely observed his conduct since his adolescence. (Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private, May 14, 2016) Their accounts revealed unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women and unsettling workplace conduct. The interactions occurred in his offices at Trump Tower, at his homes, at construction sites and backstage at beauty pageants. The Times spoke with Temple Taggart, a 21-year-old Miss Utah, who was startled by how forward Mr. Trump was with young contestants like her in 1997, his first year as an owner of Miss USA, a branch of the beauty pageant organization. As she recalls it, he introduced himself in an unusually intimate manner. “He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought: ‘Oh, my gosh. Gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate.’” After watching the newly released recording of Mr. Trump bragging about pushing himself on women and kissing them without permission, Ms. Taggart said she sees her own experience in a new and harsher light. “It was like, ‘Thank you.’ Now no one can say I made this up,” Ms. Taggart said in an interview on Saturday. The Times also interviewed Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe, whom Mr. Trump shamed repeatedly for putting on weight. In addition to private scolding, Mr. Trump, who was an executive producer of the pageant, insisted on accompanying Ms. Machado, then a teenager, to a gym, where dozens of reporters and cameramen watched as she exercised. Mr. Trump, in his trademark suit and tie, posed for photographs beside her as she burned calories in front of members of the news media. “This is somebody who likes to eat,” Mr. Trump said from inside the gym. After Hillary Clinton brought up Ms. Machado during the first presidential debate , Mr. Trump went on Twitter and began a burst of digital fury, mocking her as a “con,” the “worst” and “disgusting.” The Republican presidential nominee finished by claiming that she had appeared in a “sex tape.” Fact checkers have found no evidence of such a tape, rather just a risqué clip that was filed as part of a reality TV show. A history of insults and tasteless comments Mr. Trump has also been criticized for his comments toward women with whom he has had public disagreements. ■ After the first Republican primary debate, Mr. Trump suggested that Megyn Kelly, a Fox journalist and one of the debate moderators, had questioned him forcefully because she was menstruating. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever,” Mr. Trump said. ■ Mr. Trump has had a long-running public feud with the entertainer Rosie O’Donnell, who criticized him over his treatment of a 20-year-old Miss USA winner. Mr. Trump called Ms. O’Donnell “disgusting” and “a slob” with “a fat, ugly face”; referred to Ms. O’Donnell, who had come out as a lesbian, “a degenerate”; and called her “fat” , “rude, crude and not smart” and “a mentally sick woman, a bully, a dummy and, above all, a loser. ” And he has a history of speaking in lewd terms of women’s looks and his own sexual prowess, particularly during appearances on Howard Stern’s radio show. ■ “A person who is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10,” Mr. Trump said to Mr. Stern in 2005 . ■ During the Republican primary campaign, Mr. Trump criticized the appearance of one of his opponents, Carly Fiorina, saying she was too ugly to be elected. “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine .

Donald Trump
2016 Presidential Election
US Politics
Women and Girls
Sexual harassment


Giants’ John Mara Cites Lack of Progress in Labor Talks

Abstract: The Giants co-owner John Mara said Tuesday he was resigned to an uncapped season in 2010 and thought the union and owners might be moving further apart in talks toward a new labor agreement. Mara was one of the owners who took part in the 11th negotiating session with union leaders in Washington on Tuesday. He is the first owner to speak extensively since negotiations began. An uncapped year would have no salary limits or floors for teams and would begin in March. It would also start the clock ticking toward a lockout starting in March 2011. Mara said he still had hope that a lockout could be averted. “I don’t think we’re making any progress,” Mara said in a telephone interview. “We made a proposal in early November. I don’t think we’ve received a meaningful counterproposal. The point that we try to make to them is that the costs and risks are much greater than they ever have been. Especially in this economy. I don’t think there has been enough of a recognition on their part of that concept.” Mara added, “They want a deal that is equal to or better than the existing one, and that is not acceptable to us.” Mara’s comments represent a ratcheting up of rhetoric between the two sides and is particularly noteworthy. Until now, owners have avoided speaking publicly about negotiations at the behest of Commissioner Roger Goodell. But in recent weeks, leaks have revealed some details. By allowing Mara, one of the league’s most respected owners, to speak about feelings privately shared by other owners, management is likely hoping to win over public opinion. The crux of negotiations is how to divide a revenue pie of about $8.5 billion. The current collective bargaining agreement calls for players to receive nearly 60 percent of revenue, but union leaders are concerned that the $8.5 billion does not represent the true revenue pool available to players because of credits owners receive to pay for league costs like NFL Network. The union views the real percentage players receive as closer to 51 percent, and union leaders think owners want a rollback of 18 percent, which would put the players’ share at about 33 percent. The union has insisted that owners provide financial information to prove their situation is dire enough to merit a rollback. Owners have countered that the union already knows where the overwhelming majority of the money goes. The owners’ position is that the 18 percent would come from additional credits against the revenue base. The effect on veteran players would be mitigated by, among other things, a proposed rookie salary cap that would make more money available to pay veteran players and a restructured season that, with additional regular-season games, would produce more revenue. Owners think they need the additional money to invest in things like new stadiums and that current players would not experience a decline in overall compensation. Both sides seem to agree that a rookie cap is necessary to redirect money to current and retired players. An e-mail message from the union leader DeMaurice Smith to player representatives obtained by ESPN this month said the union had proposed a plan that would redirect money that from rookies to veterans. Owners would like a rookie wage scale to be implemented in time for the 2010 draft class, even if there is no new collective bargaining agreement. The savings from the first year, estimated at around $200 million, could then go to a fund for retired players. “We’d rather have money going to retired players and veteran players as opposed to unproven rookies,” Mara said. The need for a limit on rookie wages may be the only common ground players and management have. “I’m frustrated,” Mara said. “March 1 is coming pretty quickly.”

Mara John
Organized Labor
Football
National Football League


Knicks Get a Much-Needed Victory, Albeit a Frustrating One

Abstract: MILWAUKEE — In a season that has been abysmal for the Knicks, Wednesday began with a bit of good news and a much-needed break when they arrived at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Tyson Chandler, the 7-footer who provides a steady presence in the lane and in the locker room, returned to the lineup after missing 20 games with a broken right fibula. The Bucks’ leading scorer, O. J. Mayo, missed the game to attend the funeral of his grandmother. The Knicks (8-17) needed all the help they could get — even against the worst team in the N.B.A., squeaking out a 107-101 victory in double overtime. With the Knicks ahead, 99-98, Carmelo Anthony (55 minutes, a team-high 29 points on 9-for-29 shooting) hit two free throws and then a 3-pointer to finally end a most maddening game for the Knicks. J. R. Smith set a team record by shooting 17 3-pointers. He hit 5, and over all, he shot 7 for 23 for 19 points. Chandler played 37 minutes, grabbed 9 rebounds and scored 9 points. The Knicks had a chance to win the game in regulation with less than 90 seconds remaining and leading by 4 points, but they grew cold and allowed the Bucks (5-20) to tie the score. The more egregious mistake, though, came in the first overtime, when they could have — and should have — won the game. Leading by 94-92 with 15 seconds remaining, Chandler rebounded an Anthony miss and passed the ball to Andrea Bargnani standing at the top of the key. Instead of holding the ball to run out the clock or waiting for the Bucks to foul with the shot clock turned off, Bargnani inexplicably, and immediately, fired a 3-pointer that bounced off the rim. The Bucks corralled the rebound and John Henson tipped home the tying basket with 0.3 seconds remaining to send the crowd into hysterics, Bargnani to the doghouse and the game into another overtime. “It was a bad decision,” Bargnani said. “It was a mistake. Good thing we won the game.” It was a painful reminder of Monday’s gut-wrenching, last-second loss to the Washington Wizards, when a mental defensive lapse led to the winning basket and then strategic confusion arose when Coach Mike Woodson declined to take a timeout with the game clock running out. Anthony slowly took the ball up court, and when he realized Woodson did not call time, he forced an errant shot. The Knicks and the Bucks went back and forth throughout the second half and both overtime periods, though it meant very different things. The Bucks are a depleted team of youngsters. The Knicks have been proclaimed a championship contender by their owner, James L. Dolan. But the teams traded baskets as equals, with neither team ever cracking a double-digit lead. Image Carmelo Anthony (29 points) knocking the ball away from the Bucks’ Brandon Knight (36 points). Credit Morry Gash/Associated Press Tied at 81-81 in regulation, the Knicks had a chance to win it when Beno Udrih drove the baseline and missed a short jumper. The Bucks had two chances at the final buzzer, but Henson and Khris Middleton had potential game-winning shots clang off the rim. The Knicks opened a 9-point lead in the second quarter, but could not pull away — mostly because they had such a hard time hitting shots. Anthony struggled mightily at times. On two possessions in overtime, he first failed to get a good shot with the shot clock running down, and was forced to fling the ball toward the basket. On another, he dribbled the ball out of bounds. “The game should have been over,” Anthony said. “I shot the ball poorly tonight.” Chandler landed awkwardly in the second overtime and seemed to injure his left leg. He played on, noticeably limping, and afterward said he just cramped up a little. “I apologized to him,” Woodson said of Chandler’s minutes. “But I needed him.” He was injured Nov. 5, the Knicks’ fourth game of the season, against the Charlotte Bobcats in a collision with Kemba Walker, who drove the lane and rolled into Chandler. In his absence, the Knicks were 4-16. Chandler’s ability to guard the rim, his aggressive style of play and his leadership were sorely missed. Without him, Woodson was forced to mix and match his lineups and had recently relied heavily on Amar’e Stoudemire, who did not make the trip to Milwaukee because of soreness in his surgically repaired knee. Still more controversy could be brewing as Woodson declared Stoudemire “out a while,” although Stoudemire tweeted that he was not injured. Raymond Felton remained out with a hamstring injury, Kenyon Martin missed the game with a strained abdominal muscle and Pablo Prigioni sat out with a toe problem. Such a victory — a desperation win over one of the league’s bottom feeders — however parsed, is certainly not enough to turn the Knicks’ season or quiet the calls for Woodson’s job. As the mental mistakes, missed shots and a general lack of sharpness piled up, there was little — aside from the final score — to put a positive spin on.


Argentina: Top Court Rules for Family of Patient in a Right-to-Die Case

Abstract: In a landmark decision, Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a patient who has required life support for two decades can be allowed to die, renewing debate here over a so-called death with dignity law. In their ruling, the justices fended off resistance against a measure approved in 2012 by lawmakers that allows patients, or their relatives, to refuse life support. The patient, Marcelo Diez, who is reported to be around 50, has been in a vegetative state since a motorcycle crash in 1994. Mr. Diez’s sisters asked that life support be removed, but officials in Neuquén Province objected and used his case to challenge the 2012 measure. In a television interview, Lucas Pica, their lawyer, criticized figures in the Catholic Church who he said had resisted their moves in the courts.

Argentina
Marcelo Diez
Withdrawal of Life Support
Decisions and Verdicts


Ruling Backs Longer Detention for Man Who Spread H.I.V.

Abstract: BUFFALO (AP) — The state can try to keep a sex offender who infected at least 13 women with the virus that causes AIDS locked up beyond the 12-year prison sentence he completed in April, a judge ruled on Monday. Prosecutors can use the state’s civil-confinement law — intended to keep the most dangerous sex offenders out of communities after prison — to try to detain the offender, Nushawn Williams, indefinitely, Justice John Michalski of State Supreme Court said. Mr. Williams is scheduled to face a civil-confinement trial in October. Mr. Williams, 33, mouthed “I love you” to his wife as he was led in handcuffs into the courtroom on Monday and said nothing as Judge Michalski announced that he was denying a request by Mr. Williams’s lawyer to throw out the attorney general’s civil-confinement case. In June, Mr. Williams’s lawyer, Daniel Grasso, argued that Mr. Williams should not be subject to the three-year-old civil-confinement law because it was passed long after he pleaded guilty, in 1998, to statutory rape and reckless endangerment. He also said Mr. Williams had already finished the rape sentence at the time and had begun serving his consecutive sentence for reckless endangerment, a crime not eligible for civil confinement. But the judge agreed with the argument by an assistant attorney general, Wendy Whiting, that sentences merge in prison, so Mr. Williams was still in prison for a sex crime when the law was passed. “The clawing back is what’s really egregious here,” Mr. Grasso said after the decision. He said Mr. Williams could not have known when he pleaded guilty that he could be subject to a lifetime of civil confinement once his sentence ended. The law allows the state to lock up a sex offender indefinitely if it proves the person has a mental abnormality and is likely to commit more crimes. Offenders are held at psychiatric facilities, with their cases reviewed yearly. “The law is not a bad law if it’s done going forward,” Mr. Grasso said. In court documents, the attorney general’s office described Mr. Williams as a mentally disturbed, sex-obsessed drug user who was cited for 21 disciplinary offenses in prison. In 1997, before he was charged, health and police authorities in rural Chautauqua County took the unusual step of making Mr. Williams’s H.I.V. status public to try to stop further spread of the virus by his infected sex partners.

Sex Crimes
Williams Nushawn J
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
Decisions and Verdicts
Buffalo (NY)


After Quake, an Italian Crisis Unit Races to Rescue a Region’s Heritage

Abstract: AMATRICE, Italy — The rescuers worked tirelessly under a scorching sun. Wearing white masks to fight off the dust, they formed a human chain, passing from hand to hand all they could salvage from the gravelly destruction of the earthquake that struck this region in August. They had to work quickly, fearing the precariousness of an adjacent building splintered by wide fissures. It was not lives they were saving on this recent day, nor corpses they were retrieving from the mounds of stone ruins, but the history of Amatrice itself. Working alongside firefighters, the team included a specialized art squad of Italy’s carabinieri police that had been deployed specifically to vacate the city’s municipal archives — 300 years in the making. At least 296 people died in the violent shaking on Aug 24. Many more were left homeless and injured. But those few, fraught and devastating minutes also placed at risk thousands of books, dossiers and folders amassed since past earthquakes destroyed this town in 1639 and 1703. There were also countless pieces of art and artifacts in churches and museums across the earthquake zone, which touches towns in four Italian regions. “For now, we have secured a trace of Amatrice’s past — that’s the principal thing, that the community has preserved its history,” said Maria Letizia Sebastiani, the Culture Ministry official who oversaw that afternoon’s recovery. The crisis unit of the Culture Ministry was created after an earthquake engulfed central Italy in 1997, severely damaging a number of monuments, including the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. It has since been deployed in dozens of disasters, both natural and man-made, in Italy and abroad, and last year was formally instituted via a ministerial decree. This year, the Culture Ministry even created a task force that works with Unesco to carry Italy’s longstanding restoration expertise to war-torn corners of the world. United Nations officials had hoped to send it to Syria, where the monumental ruins in Palmyra were badly damaged after the Islamic State entered the ancient city in 2015. But the Syrian conflict has remained too intense for the team to enter. “We’re operative, ready to go at a moment’s notice,” said Capt. Michelange Stefàno, an official with the carabinieri art squad and a member of the Unesco-trained task force. For now, in any case, there is work to be done in Italy. The crisis unit was dispatched in the first hours after the earthquake. As emergency operations were winding down, trained experts began inspecting buildings to assess the damage to the area’s cultural patrimony. Image Experts are rushing to preserve thousands of books, dossiers and folders from the rubble. Credit Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times Since then, squads of rescuers and Culture Ministry officials have entered churches, museums and town halls, all with an eye to saving the territory’s heritage, and its very memory of its past. Paintings, statues and ecclesiastical objects, like crucifixes and processional crosses, have been bundled and sent to what amount to field hospitals for art and artifacts, for preservation and an early evaluation of the damage. The work has been risky and painstaking. Many buildings in Amatrice and elsewhere are still in danger of collapse , and weeks after the quake, aftershocks continued to strain already-weakened structures. The teams photograph and document artifacts, and recover what can be easily removed from some sites — “those that we can enter; many are still in a bad state,” Captain Stefàno said — with the assistance of firefighters and civil protection rescuers. Image A volunteer at a temporary shelter for earthquake victims in Amatrice. Credit Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times The crisis unit’s immediate task was to safeguard monuments as best as possible, “to halt any further deterioration,” said Prefect Fabio Carapezza Guttuso, the unit’s leader, who acts as a liaison between art experts and firefighters and civil protection officials. He described it as a complex but harmonious synergy of individual expertise. Experience gained in every disaster that the unit has dealt with “has improved our capacity to intervene,” he said. In the weeks since the quake, the crisis unit has emptied Amatrice’s municipal museum, as well as some churches here and in towns including Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto, which were also badly hit. But thousands of artifacts still need to be salvaged from unsteady churches and palazzos, many in remote areas. “One by one, we will get to them all,” the prefect said. Image A camp for survivors of the quake in Amatrice. The disaster killed at least 296 people, and displaced many more. Credit Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times Many of the artworks from Amatrice are being taken to a huge warehouse belonging to the State Forestry Corps, a national police agency, in nearby Cittaducale. There, emergency restorations are carried out, said Antonia Pasqua Recchia, the Culture Ministry’s secretary general, who traveled to Amatrice this month to coordinate with local ministry officials. It is a model that proved to be successful during the last major Italian earthquake, which struck the Emilia-Romagna region in 2012, she said. The salvage operations take place alongside initial restoration efforts. In Amatrice and elsewhere, firefighters have begun to reinforce precarious church facades. They have wrapped steel bands around wobbly steeples and towers, working under the watchful eye of Culture Ministry architects and art historians. Carabinieri officers also make regular rounds among the ruins to guard against theft. Though each operation is being carried out with every possible precaution, an element of urgency prevails. “We’re at 1,000 meters altitude,” Prefect Carapezza Guttuso said. “There will be snow in a month.” Some priorities were identified, the prefect said, like an 18th-century replica of the Shroud of Turin, the linen that faithful believe wrapped the body of Jesus. It was removed from a church in Arquata del Tronto and placed in the Cathedral of Ascoli Piceno. “It was important for the population,” he said. “It had the value of a relic.” A small cameo of the Virgin Mary, known as the Madonna of Filetta, Amatrice’s patron saint, was also recovered from the rubble of the church of Sant’Agostino and was displayed during the town’s communal funeral. In the face of devastating loss, “what’s left has even more meaning,” said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s firefighters, the corps that carried out most of the recoveries. “They’re the ones risking their skin.” Restorers with the crisis unit have also begun to pick out ancient stones and bricks from the rubble, which will be reused when possible in a reconstruction. “As much as possible, the idea is to build as it was, where it was,” the prefect said. “We want to render the idea that we are salvaging artifacts and construction materials” so that the towns will be as authentic as possible, he added. “That is the profound sense of what we’re doing.”

Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism


Mary Jane Schriner, Keeper of Chivalrous Letters From a Young George Steinbrenner, Dies

Abstract: George Steinbrenner was a collegian with a powder-blue Plymouth convertible when he met Mary Jane Schriner in the summer of 1949. She was 16 and dreaming of a writing career. He was 19, nearly a quarter-century from buying the Yankees. During their four-year relationship, which started in Bay Village, Ohio, Steinbrenner wrote her 60 or so letters — warm, chivalrous, informative. She saved them in her dresser. The young Steinbrenner wrote about how much he missed her and the excitement he felt when his fraternity brothers at Williams College told him a letter from her had arrived (“I think I broke all speed records”). He told her about buying a pair of white bucks, his concerns about the coming war in Korea, the black eye he got in a dormitory brawl and his frustrations at losing hurdling races to Harrison Dillard , an Olympic gold medalist. Three days after Steinbrenner’s death in 2010, Schriner wrote about their long-ago friendship for The New York Times . She recalled strolling the shores of Lake Erie hand in hand, “while watching a golden sun melt into a frozen horizon.” On Saturday, Schriner died at 79, leaving behind the well-preserved Steinbrenner letters — filled with gentlemanliness and some of the impatience that he would be known widely for — and her own blog , where she described her memories of sweet times with the future Boss. One day, she wrote, after they were both married to others, they met unexpectedly at a delicatessen . “We kept the conversation light and friendly until we were getting ready to go,” she wrote. “Then, from out of nowhere, I startled George by announcing, ‘I still have all the letters you sent me.’ ” When Steinbrenner “regained his composure, a wonderful smile lit up his face and with a quick wink, he said, ‘M. J., burn them!’ ” She wrote that she intended to obey his wish that day but became sidetracked; then, at 2 the next morning, she found the letters and took them downstairs to her family room. With a fire lit, she wrote, she held a letter over the flame but pulled it away when she saw Steinbrenner’s last words: “I miss you something awful Mary Jane. bonne nuit — Love, George.” The Yankees would have preferred a bonfire of all the correspondence. When they learned of her plan to use the letters in a modest memoir, they invoked the Steinbrenner family’s copyright on them . Schriner’s reaction was to put herself in the position of Steinbrenner’s widow, Joan. “Maybe it’s hurtful to hear that someone else had a relationship with him,” she said in an interview at the time. Nearly 60 years later, she still could not pin down what their relationship was. “I don’t know if it was a friendship or a romance,” she said. “I think he saw it as a romance.”

Letters
Schriner Mary Jane
Steinbrenner George M 3d
New York Yankees
Baseball


Saltwater Aquariums Spur Debate on Sustainability

Abstract: On the reefs in the Florida Keys , plenty of snorkelers and scuba divers take in the sights, and others fish with spear guns for sport. But a small third group collects blue-legged hermit crabs, peppermint shrimp and other invertebrates, not for food or fun, but for the aquarium trade. There are an estimated 700,000 saltwater home aquariums in the United States , and tropical fish with a bit of rock and a plastic Diver Dan are no longer enough to satisfy the keepers of many of these miniature oceans. The fish are still there, but as technology and technique have improved, the aquariums are now often small-scale reef ecosystems, with living coral and “live” rock brimming with anemones, shrimp, sea urchins, crabs and snails. The result has been a growing market for these and other reef invertebrates, many of which are supplied by about 165 licensed collectors in Florida . Those involved in the Florida fishery, which is concentrated in the Keys, say that it is sustainable and more closely managed than many others, with no new licenses permitted and daily limits on many species. But scientists argue that the collecting poses a threat to the very ecosystems aquarium hobbyists aim to replicate. Aside from the long-recognized ecological impact of the trade in live coral itself, these researchers say the demand for invertebrates — creatures that often serve the same cleaning and pest-control roles in a tank that they do in nature — is such that the fishery may be unsustainable. “We may be increasing the catch up to a point where you push something over the edge,” said Andrew Rhyne, a marine biologist with Roger Williams University and the New England Aquarium who has studied the Florida invertebrate fishery. “The question is, where is that edge?” If a species is overharvested to the point where its numbers decline dramatically, Dr. Rhyne and others say, there can be a cascading effect in the ecosystem. Without invertebrate grazers and herbivores, for example, a reef may be overrun with algae. Jessica McCawley, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission , disagrees that the fishery is threatened. She helped update the regulations last year, and said: “These collectors are a special type of fisherman. They’re very concerned about the environment and the sustainability of the fishery. And they came to us and said, ‘Can you put some regulations on us?’ ” Collectors also say that scientists don’t have the experience they do in seeing these invertebrates go through regular cycles of bust and boom. Pete Kehoe, who has been collecting marine life near Key West for 35 years, recalled that after Hurricane Ike in 2008, he found one reef that had been scoured clean of blue-legged hermit crabs, which are valued in reef tanks because they eat detritus, helping to keep the coral clean. “You couldn’t find a shell on that reef,” he said. But two years later, he said, the crabs have recovered, and then some. “The other day we were on that reef and someone said, ‘Have you ever seen so many blue-legged hermit crabs in your life?’ ” Mr. Kehoe said. While acknowledging that some collectors are aware of the dangers of overfishing, Dr. Rhyne said there had been little scientific study of the blue-legged crabs and the hundreds of other species that are collected, including the 15 that make up about 90 percent of the catch. For example, with certain snails it is not known how long it takes for them to start to reproduce. If it is more than a year, then harvesting many of them from the same location year after year could be disastrous. There are many species that are probably not a concern, Dr. Rhyne said, but he added, “I don’t think anyone can use the word ‘sustainable’ when they don’t know enough about the animals.” What is not in dispute is that the fishery has changed in the past two decades, coinciding with the rise in popularity of reef tanks. These aquariums include home or office tanks of a few gallons to several hundred gallons or more, and attractions like the 20,000-gallon coral reef tank at Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, N.Y., considered one of the finest anywhere. Jeff Turner, owner of Reef Aquaria Design of Coconut Creek, Fla., which builds and maintains large reef aquariums in homes, offices, hospitals and other institutions, says these are not mere decorations, but “an educational window into the sea.” The hobbyists and professional aquarists who undertake these projects, he said, “are concerned about the marine environment.” The popularity of the tanks is reflected in a study of Florida fishery data by Dr. Rhyne, Michael Tlusty, director of the New England Aquarium , and others. As the researchers detailed in a paper earlier this year in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, the number of organisms collected from 1994 to 2007 increased by about 13 percent a year, on average, to about 8.8 million in 2007. Over the same period, the types of invertebrates changed. In 1994, only 6 species among the top 15 were collected and sold for their ecological roles as cleaners, grazers, water filters and the like. The others were harvested for their ornamental value — because they look pretty in an aquarium — or as curios to be sold in shell shops and other stores. The most popular “working” invertebrates were turbonella snails, with about 175,000 collected. Thirteen years later, 9 species among the top 15 collected were sold to fill ecological niches in aquariums, including nearly 700,000 turbonella snails and 2.4 million blue-legged crabs. “Now, there are whole suites of taxa that people don’t really care what they look like,” Dr. Rhyne said. “They only care that they perform these services that are exactly the same as they are performing in the wild.” For example, Dr. Rhyne said, peppermint shrimp, of the genus Lysmata, are not as showy as some other shrimp species, but since they control a pest anemone in tanks, their harvested numbers have increased twentyfold in Florida since 1994. “There’s just a huge demand,” he said. The attraction to the hobbyist or professional is that using these creatures both replicates the natural ecosystem and reduces the need for less-natural forms of tank maintenance. At Atlantis Marine World, Joseph Yaiullo, curator and co-founder, scuba-dives in the reef tank regularly to scrape algae off the glass or trim the many multicolored corals, some of which he has been growing for two decades. Yet he also has sea urchins — scavengers that do some of the cleaning. “If I can put some critters in there that make my life easier, I’ll do it,” said Mr. Yaiullo, whose tank has inspired many a home hobbyist. “I’d rather have urchins scraping away than me doing it.” Mr. Yaiullo does not use crabs or snails in his big tank, and the urchins he uses come from the Indian and Pacific Oceans, another source of invertebrates. His coral thrives so well that he is constantly removing pieces, or “frags,” which he provides to hobbyists on Long Island and elsewhere for home tanks. But home hobbyists are not always as skillful at maintaining their tanks, which are susceptible to even small changes in water chemistry or temperature. Invertebrates die, for natural or other reasons, and must be replaced. “The thing that’s always bothered me is the disposable nature of these animals,” said Eric Borneman, a longtime aquarist who has written two books on coral husbandry and is studying for his doctorate in reef ecology at the University of Houston . With invertebrates, he said, “there’s a huge amount of mortality in shipping,” and in tanks kept by people just starting out in the hobby. “How do you stop this mortality and this constant influx of animals from the wild to supply this trade?” Collectors and others argue that even with high mortality creating an even greater demand, the numbers of creatures harvested every year in Florida are still not a cause for major concern. They say their fishery is not like other commercial fisheries that harvest huge numbers of fish or shellfish for eating. And the invertebrate catch is closely monitored by the state, said Ms. McCawley, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist. “If we see an explosion in a particular species, then we can come back and revisit this at any time,” she said. “We feel these things are pretty well protected.” Collectors point out that an unusual cold snap in January probably killed far greater numbers of invertebrates than are harvested each year. “Our biggest threat to this fishery is the changing conditions down here,” said Ken Nedimeyer, a longtime collector. “Our little collecting effort can’t even compare to a natural event.” But Dr. Tlusty, of the New England Aquarium, said that in Florida “they are trying to manage this as a single fishery,” when there are hundreds of diverse species being collected, and about which not enough is known. While the state has done a much better job of managing its fishery than governments overseas, he said, “it’s probably time to go to a more adaptive management strategy.” “Let’s make sure in our own backyard we’re doing things right.” Dr. Rhyne added: “We’re not saying it’s going to collapse tomorrow or next year. But we need to do due diligence, so all of a sudden we don’t say, ‘Oops, we just caught the last one.’ ”

Aquarium
Reef
Florida
Fish
Collecting
Commercial fishing


Jets Close-Up

Abstract: KEY PERFORMANCE Chris Ivory continues to entertain and enthrall, rushing for 146 yards, including a 54-yard dash in the second quarter. The Redskins tried to contain Ivory between the tackles, so he kept his feet moving and bounced outside. NUMBER OF THE WEEK: 1 That was how many penalties the Jets were called for — an illegal-hands-to-the-face infraction by Sheldon Richardson in the fourth quarter. They committed 14 penalties two weeks ago in their victory over Miami in London. NEXT UP Some team called the New England Patriots, in a game loaded with subplots — including the return of Darrelle Revis, above, to Gillette Stadium — but above all the chance for at least a tie atop the A.F.C. East.


Federal Agency and New York State Are in Accord Over $8 Billion Medicaid Waiver

Abstract: The Obama administration has agreed “in principle” to grant an $8 billion Medicaid adjustment for New York State that could help stabilize some hospitals in Brooklyn and would reconfigure the delivery of health care there and throughout the state, state officials said on Thursday. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had lobbied heavily for the money in the last few weeks, complaining at a recent news conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio that the federal Department of Health and Human Services had awarded such so-called waivers to other states but had not acted on New York’s request. Mr. Cuomo’s office said that his administration and the federal agency had reached an agreement “in principle” on the waiver, which would allow the state to move Medicaid money around. The $8 billion over five years that has been agreed upon is somewhat lower than the state’s $10 billion request. “While the state will be reviewing the terms and conditions of this agreement, it is clearly the biggest step forward towards a positive conclusion for our communities, particularly in Brooklyn, that have suffered from diminishing health care services,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. Federal officials confirmed the agreement, but said that all the details had not yet been worked out, and that receiving the full amount would be continent on benchmarks along the way. “We are encouraged that this agreement is entering the final stages of approval, and we look forward to continuing work with the state to achieve meaningful delivery system reform in New York,” Joanne Peters, a federal spokeswoman, said. Senator Charles E. Schumer, who had elicited a promise from Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, to make a decision on the waiver by the end of the month, said the money would “give the state flexibility in keeping hospitals open.” Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, called it a “shot in the arm” for New York’s health delivery system. But it was still unclear on Thursday exactly how the money would be used. Hospital unions and community activists have held out hope that it would be used to keep troubled hospitals open, including Interfaith Medical Center and Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. During the mayoral campaign, Mr. de Blasio said that the waiver would be one way of saving those hospitals. But he has always been careful not to say they would stay open in their current form, and he has recently showed some signs that he might accept turning Long Island College Hospital into a combination of a free-standing emergency room, clinic services and affordable housing. Mr. de Blasio treaded carefully again on Thursday. “With this funding,” he said, “we can finally turn the page on a decade of reckless hospital closures, and confront the immediate crises facing seven hospitals in Brooklyn alone. This is our opportunity to focus on long-term solutions that deepen access to preventative, primary and emergency care.” Federal officials have discouraged talk of using the waiver money to prop up hospital operations; they have said that it should be used to reduce the need for hospitalization and to provide more outpatient care. Echoing that thought, Mr. Cuomo has said that the waiver money would be used to “transform” health care. The waiver agreement came hours after he raised the ante on Thursday, saying at a news conference that if the waiver was not approved, not only would hospitals close, but also “it will endanger the operation of our health exchange.” The state’s health insurance exchange has been almost a model arm of the Affordable Care Act, enrolling more than 400,000 people in insurance plans since it opened in October.

New York
Medicaid
Hospital
Brooklyn
Barack Obama
Andrew Cuomo
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act


Russian Rights Groups Criticize Inquiry of Magnitsky’s Death

Abstract: MOSCOW — Two human rights campaigners said Thursday that despite personal intervention by President Dmitri A. Medvedev , officials responsible for the death of a lawyer last year in pretrial detention were facing no substantial punishment. In November, Mr. Medvedev ordered an inquiry into the treatment of the lawyer, Sergei L. Magnitsky, 37, who died in a prison hospital after carefully documenting his requests for medical care. Amid public outrage over the case , Mr. Medvedev dismissed around 20 prison officials. Prosecutors opened an inquiry into negligence and failure to provide medical care, charges that carry sentences of up to five and three years in prison, respectively. But five months have passed, and no one has yet been charged with a crime. Lyudmila M. Alexeyeva, who sits on Mr. Medvedev’s human rights council, said she would recommend that the body take control of the case, which she said “is not moving.” “We have a vertical of power,” said Ms. Alexeyeva, who is chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group , a nongovernmental rights organization. “Our president has constitutional powers no emperor ever had. But did that help punish those who brought Magnitsky to his death? Nothing of the kind. All those people are still working in their positions.” She added, “The president is indignant, but this signal does not make its way to the bottom.” A spokesman for the investigative committee of the Russian prosecutor general’s office was not available for comment. An Interior Ministry spokesman last year said Mr. Magnitsky never told investigators about his health problems, while a top prison official acknowledged “clear violations on our side.” Mr. Magnitsky had been working as outside counsel for the Hermitage Fund, whose owner, William F. Browder, had accused Russian officials of using his companies to embezzle money. Russian officials charged Hermitage with tax evasion and arrested Mr. Magnitsky. During the year Mr. Magnitsky spent in pretrial detention, his defenders say, investigators pressed him to testify against Hermitage. Valery V. Borshchev, who heads a watchdog group that monitors prison conditions, said his organization received no response to a scathing report it submitted to prosecutors in December. He said that he believed Mr. Magnitsky was intentionally denied medical care on the orders of the lead investigator in the tax-evasion case, who Mr. Borshchev said was guilty not of negligence but of a far graver crime, “intentionally creating the conditions that led to death.” In response to the outcry, Mr. Medvedev also rewrote the criminal code so that suspects of tax crimes could not be jailed. “This is not just a matter of the life and death of Sergei Magnitsky, it is a question of our entire system,” said Mr. Borshchev, who heads the Public Oversight Commission, adding that last year 4,600 inmates died in Russian prison colonies, and 540 in pretrial detention centers.

Magnitsky Sergei L
Russia
Medvedev Dmitri A


Bart Scott Foresees His End as a Jet

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The Jets , in all likelihood, have three games left. Three games for pride. Three games before an off-season of uncertainty and change. Three games until Bart Scott cleans out his locker at the Jets’ center here for the final time. Of this, Scott is not completely certain. Or, if he is, he is not saying. But, as he has said, he is not dumb. He understands the facts. He has a balky toe. He has an onerous contract. He turns 33 in August, and has spent the last seven months grooming Demario Davis, his potential replacement at weakside linebacker. “I’ve benefited from guys losing their jobs because of their price tag, and I’m sure that time is approaching for me,” said Scott, whose base salary for 2013 is $6.9 million. “I understand they can’t pay me $7 million next year. I understand that. I accept that. My numbers and age don’t warrant that kind of money. If I was hoping to get that, I’d have to make an argument for it, and I don’t have the numbers, the game-changing plays, to do that.” Back in 2009, Scott did have those game-changing plays. That was his first season with the Jets, after following Rex Ryan from Baltimore — “hitched my caboose onto his trailer,” Scott said — because he wanted to win the Super Bowl for him, with him. The minute free agency began that year, Ryan showed up to Scott’s home, intent on recruiting a violent and physical linebacker for the most violent and physical defense in the league. Their first two seasons ended with losses in the A.F.C. championship game. This season is likely to be the second straight one without a playoff berth. Scott can be moody and impulsive, as shown by his locker room conduct: boycotting the news media, threatening to punch a reporter, ripping a segment of Jets fans. But he is also among the most articulate and thoughtful players on the team. During a lengthy interview Friday, three days before the Jets’ game at Tennessee, Scott was in a reflective mood, sharing his disappointment over an increasingly frustrating season. That is not how Scott expected or wants to leave Ryan, wants to leave Dennis Thurman and Mike Pettine, his comrades for the last 11 seasons — like Scott, they joined the Ravens in 2002. Scott was the undrafted linebacker from Southern Illinois who so impressed a Baltimore scout at his workout that the Ravens agreed not to say his name again, lest other teams catch on; Thurman arrived that year as the secondary coach and Pettine as a video assistant from a Pennsylvania high school. “It’s like elementary school, when you’re just young and stupid, and you laughed together, cried together and learned together,” Scott said. “You only get one time to do that. You only get one time in the N.F.L. Those memories can never be taken away, and if I’m not back here, I’ll always have them. You can’t take that away.” They all knew Scott when he was the ultimate underdog, a special-teams standout with grander aspirations. In his rookie season he stunned Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair by making a diving, acrobatic grab in the end zone for his first career interception. When Scott bragged about it at practice last week, linebacker Bryan Thomas thought he was joking. “It’s absolutely true,” said Pettine, now the Jets’ defensive coordinator. “I was there. He loves having me as a reference.” And they all know Scott now. Pettine said it hurt last year when he scaled back Scott’s playing time, which has diminished again this season. Once a mainstay in passing situations, Scott is now viewed as a liability. Defending the run has long been a strength — still is — but according to the analytical Web site ProFootballFocus , he ranks as the league’s least-efficient tackler at his position. In Scott’s first two games, Ryan said he was playing at a Pro Bowl-caliber level. “Bart can still play,” Ryan said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt.” But in his third game, on the Miami Dolphins’ second offensive play, Scott’s foot got caught beneath a pile. His toe swelled. So did his foot. He could not move it. It was hyperextended. Initially, the Jets expected Scott to miss three weeks, maybe four. Too proud to rest, he started the next game, a 34-0 loss to San Francisco, and missed a few tackles, unable to change direction, plant or cut. “You’re willing to put up with some issues here and there because of how physical he is,” Pettine said. “You take the good with the bad.” A few days before the Jets’ Oct. 28 game against Miami, Scott approached Ryan to tell him he could not play, halting his consecutive games streak at 119. He did not want to hurt the team any longer, he said. In hindsight, Scott said, maybe he should have rested for a few weeks — as did Dallas running back DeMarco Murray, who missed six games with a foot injury. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to play — maybe two, three more years if I’m lucky,” Scott said. “So why retire with gas in the tank, you know?” To compensate, he wears a size 13 ½ cleat instead of his normal 12. The top of the cleat has been cut to make room for his foot. The bottom is fitted with foam padding. Sometimes his foot pokes through the shoe during games, so Scott runs to the sideline for a quick repair. He is used to playing through pain, but playing while injured is new, difficult. The toe, mangled like a lineman’s gnarled finger, probably needs surgery. But Scott is delaying it as long as possible, having witnessed how toe operations pushed Deion Sanders and Jonathan Ogden into early retirement. All this has gotten Scott thinking. He is considering switching positions, to middle linebacker. Such a move would accentuate his on-field strengths (leadership, communication, run stopping) and minimize his weaknesses (diminished speed and coverage skills). It would also prolong his career, he figures — wherever it takes him. It has been quite a ride, Scott said, “and if it’s over, I understand.” “But if it’s not, let’s keep going,” he said, “because they know I’ll lay it on the line for them. I didn’t continue to play through pain just for me. I did it for Rex. I did it for us.”

New York Jets
Scott Bart
Ryan Rex
Sports Injuries
Football


Bank Group Asks S.E.C. to Override Guidelines

Abstract: The American Bankers Association asked the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to override accounting rule makers’ new guidelines on mark-to-market accounting, saying they still relied too heavily on distressed asset values. The staff of the Financial Accounting Standards Board released guidelines on Friday intended to formalize a Sept. 30 joint clarification with the S.E.C. that said banks could rely on internal estimates, rather than deeply discounted market prices, to value assets in illiquid markets. In a letter to Christopher Cox, the S.E.C. chairman, the bankers association said the board’s guidance was “circular” and refused “to recognize the realities of the current situation” by requiring companies to still evaluate liquidity risk in their calculations. “Given the importance of this issue, the impact it has on the crisis in the financial markets, and the seeming inability of the FASB to address in a meaningful way the problems of using fair value in dysfunctional markets, we believe it is necessary for the S.E.C. to use its statutory authority to step in and override the guidance,” Edward L. Yingling, the president and chief executive of the bankers’ association, said in the letter. The guidelines, titled “Determining the Fair Value of a Financial Asset When the Market for That Asset Is Not Active,” differed slightly from the original Sept. 30 statement. The changes reflected concerns raised in more than 90 comment letters sent to the board last week on the change. Mr. Yingling also said in the letter that FASB’s guidelines were “too narrow and too complex,” making them extremely difficult for large banks and their auditors to apply and requiring too many resources of smaller banks. He also requested that the S.E.C. provide guidelines on when “other than temporary” impairment charges needed to be taken on illiquid assets, and he asked that the S.E.C. suspend any work FASB was doing on other standards using fair value until Congress had completed its study of the rules as required by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. A FASB spokesman declined to comment on the letter. An S.E.C. spokesman was not immediately available.

Securities and Exchange Commission
Financial Accounting Standards Board
American Bankers Assn
Accounting and Accountants


Support for Replay Has Its Limits

Abstract: ORLANDO, Fla. The general managers, it seems, have been discussing instant replay for years. And for years they have rejected the idea, taking their owners off the hook of having to decide whether they wanted to spoil the human element of this very human game. At their annual meetings here this week, the general managers will discuss replays again. “Every G.M.’s meetings I’ve ever been to, it’s come up,” said Theo Epstein of the World Series champion Boston Red Sox, the co-chairman of the meetings. The idea may have a better chance than ever for passage. That, however, doesn’t mean you will be sitting in your living room next season watching potentially game-changing replays on television. The owners are technically the people who would have to vote to adopt a replay system, but Commissioner Bud Selig exerts great influence on the owners, and he has long opposed the idea. Asked the other day if he had changed his view, Selig said: “I can’t say that I have. I’d really like to hear from them, but my views are the same.” The general managers’ planned discussion on replays will not be wide-ranging; it will be limited to boundary calls — fair or foul, over the wall or off it. “There will be no discussion about strike zone calls or safe-out calls,” said Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president for baseball operations. “No trapped balls either. Just boundary calls.” • The recent playoffs produced some fly balls that were or were not home runs, depending on the view of the umpire making the call. The National League one-game playoff was determined by Matt Holliday’s headfirst slide home on which replays showed he never touched the plate. Under the limited-use proposal, the play at home would not have been subject to review. “I suppose I could accept that,” Selig said, speaking of the limited-use concept, “but umpires have been part of the sport for so long, the most I could ever see — and I won’t even commit to that — is something very limited, like on a home run call.” Selig said he was curious to see what the general managers thought, “but essentially I haven’t changed my view.” “That’s the best they could hope for,” he said. If the general managers, the owners and Selig approve the limited use of replays, the players union and the umpires union would have to agree for it to be implemented because of the change in working conditions. “We’d have to talk to the players,” said Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players union. “There are some players who are in favor of it.” John Hirschbeck, president of the umpires union, said he hadn’t heard specifically what the general managers would be considering, but when he was told about the limited-use plan for boundary calls, he said: “That would be fine. That makes it simple. On the foul lines, if you don’t see it clearly, you can check the replay.” Umpires may have negative feelings about any kind of replays because they may see the system as threatening their position on the field. But that’s not the way Hirschbeck reacted. He raised questions, asking who would “be the person in the booth?” and “How is it going to be done?” But, he said: “It’s a very interesting concept. We’re open to listening to anything.” The general managers’ position on replays may change from past years because of the influx of younger men in the jobs. They are more likely to be into technological advances than their predecessors. “There was a time,” Solomon said, “when nobody had cellphones and BlackBerries. Technology is coming in a way that we’re all being bombarded by it. We have technologically savvy general managers now, and they’re interested in how we can improve the game. Our fans are going to require us to look at all the technology that will improve the game.” • It’s debatable that instant replay would improve baseball, but the general managers will discuss another element that, if changed, could definitely improve the game. “Pace of game will get a lot of attention,” Solomon said. “We will discuss how we can shorten games.” Hirschbeck said the pace of games was discussed on a recent conference call of the umpires union’s board of directors. The replay and pace issues would seem to conflict. I turned on an N.F.L. game last season and instant replays broke out. Solomon said replays of boundary calls would not slow baseball games. “Now,” he said, talking about a disputed home run call, “you have an umpires conference followed by arguments.” Hirschbeck said umpires wouldn’t want games to take any longer than they already take. He quoted Marty Springstead, a former umpire and now an umpiring official, on the subject. “Marty said in a two-hour game, you’re out there for only two hours to get into trouble,” Hirschbeck said. “The longer you’re out there, the more trouble you can get into.”

Baseball
Executives and Management
Selig Bud
Epstein Theo


Pennsylvania Court Blocks Charges Against Attorney General

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a county prosecutor from filing charges against the state attorney general, Kathleen G. Kane, who has been accused by a grand jury of perjury and other offenses in connection with the disclosure of an investigation to a Philadelphia newspaper. The court said the district attorney in Montgomery County, Risa Vetri Ferman, could not file charges against Ms. Kane as outlined in a grand jury document released Wednesday , pending further order of the court. Ms. Ferman, who has not commented on the case, would be the prosecutor to bring any charges against Ms. Kane based on the grand jury report, which also recommended charges of false swearing, official oppression and obstruction. Ms. Kane, who took office in 2013 as the first woman and the first Democrat to be elected as Pennsylvania’s attorney general, has denied any wrongdoing. The case involves her office’s disclosure of details about the secret investigation of J. Whyatt Mondesire, a former president of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Ms. Kane has acknowledged disclosing information to The Philadelphia Daily News last year about a 2009 investigation by her Republican predecessor into Mr. Mondesire’s financial activities. But Ms. Kane said she had not been aware that the material might have included documents presented to a grand jury as part of that investigation. Her lawyer, Lanny Davis, said on Thursday that his staff had sought the stay on the grounds that Thomas Carluccio, a special prosecutor for the case, did not have legal standing. The Supreme Court did not give a reason for its agreeing to the stay. Also on Thursday, Judge William R. Carpenter, who supervises the grand jury investigating Ms. Kane, released a report saying that the grand jury had concluded that information was disclosed to the news media in violation of a law designed to preserve grand jury secrecy. Mr. Davis accused Judge Carpenter himself of violating the secrecy law by publishing the document, which he said should have been kept sealed because it contains an accusation of a crime and could prejudice Ms. Kane’s defense if the case reaches trial. “Judge Carpenter violated the grand jury secrecy act by publishing the report, which prejudices Kathleen Kane because it accuses her of a crime,” Mr. Davis said during a conference call with reporters. Mr. Davis has said the accusations against Ms. Kane were motivated in part by her investigation of a three-year delay in prosecuting Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State University football coach who was later convicted of child sexual abuse. During that investigation, Ms. Kane discovered sexually explicit emails on the computers of some state employees, including staff members in the attorney general’s office, angering some in positions of power, Mr. Davis said. This investigation, he said, “has been largely driven from the beginning by angry men, many of them embarrassed by extreme pornography found on their state-paid-for computers.”

Pennsylvania
Perjury
Risa Vetri Ferman
J. Whyatt Mondesire
Kathleen G Kane
NAACP