Mississippi Law on Serving Gays Proves Divisive

Abstract: To hear some supporters tell it, a measure signed into law last week in Mississippi does little more than let bakers reject wedding cake orders from same-sex couples. But its provisions allowing people with religious objections to deny certain services to gay couples have ignited fierce opposition, with some critics portraying them as a free pass to open-ended discrimination. The Mississippi measure , the latest in a wave of similar legislative efforts across the country, has turned a harsh national spotlight on the state, as gay rights organizations, several major companies and at least five other states have publicly denounced it. Gov. Phil Bryant has strongly defended the law , known officially as the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, by arguing that it was drafted in the “most targeted manner possible.” “This does not create any action against any class or group of people,” he said during a talk radio show on April 5, the day he signed the law. “All this bill does is stop the government from interfering with people of faith who are exercising their religious beliefs.” Critics of the bill, he added, “give the worst possible examples that may happen.” An examination of the bill by Columbia Law School, however, found that it created a number of specific potential harms to gay, transgender and other people in schools, workplaces and government settings. Among the scenarios described in the report , which was signed by 10 law professors: • A school mental health counselor could refuse to work with a transgender student • A government agency manager could require female employees to wear skirts or dresses • A religious university could fire a single mother working in the cafeteria In each case, the acting group or individual would only need to profess adherence to any of three religious beliefs specified in the bill: that marriage is between a man and a woman, that sex is reserved for heterosexual marriage, or that gender is determined at birth as male or female. Messages left with Mr. Bryant and the main sponsor of the bill, House Speaker Philip Gunn, were not returned. Image Gov. Phil Bryant, in the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., has dismissed concerns about the law as overblown. Credit Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press “I think it’s one of the most aggressive bills that we have seen that would target L.G.B.T people,” said Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “This explicit targeting of specific populations, many of whom are already fairly marginalized and face discrimination in everyday life, poses huge problems.” Much of the law focuses on same-sex marriage. It spells out more than a dozen of the services that could be denied by individuals or businesses on the basis of religious objections, among them poetry, printing, flowers and limousine rentals. Wedding ceremonies are what this is really all about, said Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, which has supported the legislation. “This is specifically tailored to keep the state government from going after small business owners who may be Christian or Jew or whatever,” he said. “They have a religious objection to being forced to participate in a gay wedding ceremony.” But the law goes much further than that, opponents say. One the most grievous passages of the legislation, they say, grants government clerks the right to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. “Here we’re talking about public employees, who can potentially use religion as a means of denying somebody else their civil rights,” said Rob Hill, the state director of the Human Rights Campaign in Mississippi. Legal experts have noted that such refusals would additionally pose a stigmatizing effect on same-sex couples that is forbidden by the Constitution. Ms. Rho, of the A.C.L.U., said assertions by some politicians that the law would cause no harmful consequences to gay and transgender people "couldn’t be further from the truth.” “It’s difficult for me to understand how they think this is narrowly tailored given the breadth of the populations that are affected,” she said. “I suppose if you’re a heterosexual married couple, you’re fine?” Mr. Wildmon and other supporters of the law have depicted a country whose religious convictions are under siege. The outcry over measures in North Carolina and Mississippi , the argument goes, is the result of a cultural insurgency of pro-L.G.B.T. forces that have taken over big business, Hollywood and the news media. “These people are so paranoid, the L.G.B.T. bunch, about this, when nobody is discriminating against them because of who they have sex with,” Mr. Wildmon said. “They want to go after these Christians to prove a point and that’s why these laws are being enacted.” That sentiment has become increasingly acute in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year guaranteeing a right to same-sex marriage. Nowadays, Gov. Bryant said during his radio interview, religious people who raise objections to gay marriage are stigmatized as hateful. Religious believers aren’t trying to dictate other people’s lives, he said. “We’re just saying, ‘Can you let us lead our lives? Can you just let us decide what we want to do?’ ” Several legal experts have predicted that the law, which goes into effect July 1, would not survive judicial scrutiny in part because its elevation of specific religious beliefs violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which bars an official endorsement of one particular religion. Mr. Hill, of the Human Rights Campaign, said the gay rights group and its partners were already exploring their litigation options. Some analysts have dismissed the whole legislative effort as political theater, arguing that the bill won’t significantly alter the ground reality for gay and transgender people who are already vulnerable under state law. Mississippi lacks any legal protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people in housing, employment or public accommodations such as restaurants, hospitals and schools. At the same time, the Fair Housing Act, passed in 1968, does not cover sexual orientation and gender identity. Page Pate, a legal analyst who has studied the legislation, offered the example of the wedding cake baker who refuses the business of a gay couple. “This law doesn’t give that person any more rights than they currently have under Mississippi law and the United States Constitution,” Mr. Pate said. “So from their perspective — ‘We need this law to protect our religious freedom’ — Uh, no you don’t.”

US Constitution,United States Constitution


Mayor Taps Old Antagonist to Aid His Re-election Effort

Abstract: Signaling that he will take no chances in his bid for a third term, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has hired a former antagonist, Howard Wolfson , the aggressive Democratic spokesman and longtime adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton, to serve as the public face of his campaign. Mr. Wolfson, who is known to rivals and journalists as a skilled, combative tactician but a straight shooter, said he would join the campaign in January, as the mayor gears up his political operation for what could prove a more bruising contest than his 2005 race. Mr. Bloomberg may well remember how Mr. Wolfson repeatedly urged Democrats to keep the mayor on the defensive by attacking him as an “out-of-touch billionaire.” “That was my evil twin,” Mr. Wolfson said jokingly Tuesday. Now, with the Wall Street meltdown, the city’s worsening budget crisis and the mayor’s successful push to change the term limit restriction, two Democrats planning to run for mayor, Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. and Representative Anthony D. Weiner, are making similar populist appeals, arguing that Mr. Bloomberg does not understand the plight of ordinary people. For his part, Mr. Bloomberg, a Democrat turned Republican turned Independent, has been making some of the moves that a Democratic incumbent might: voicing support for Caroline Kennedy as Mrs. Clinton’s appointed successor in the Senate, and now making a nationally known Democrat a top campaign aide. Mr. Wolfson’s decision to work for Mr. Bloomberg is surprising in part because of his ties to the two chief Democrats seeking to challenge the mayor. Mr. Weiner was a staunch supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s, and Mr. Thompson was a client of Mr. Wolfson’s firm, the Glover Park Group , during his 2005 re-election campaign. In an interview, Mr. Wolfson acknowledged those ties, but said, “I just think that Mike Bloomberg would be the best mayor.” A spokesman for Mr. Thompson declined to comment on Tuesday, as did an aide to Mr. Weiner Mr. Wolfson said his decision to work for the mayor reflected a slow but steady turnabout in his opinion of Mr. Bloomberg. He said he voted for Mark Green in 2001, Mr. Bloomberg’s opponent in the mayoral race, often spoke critically of him in his first term, and had worked against him a number of times. In 2003, he oversaw the state Democrats’ campaign that defeated Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal for nonpartisan city elections. But when Kevin Sheekey, the mayor’s top political aide, reached out to him this fall, Mr. Wolfson said, “The first thing I said was, ‘You know I’ve said a number of unkind things about the mayor over the years, don’t you?’ ” “I think it’s a testament to their leadership style that they recognize there are a lot of Democrats in the city, people who may have been skeptical of him initially, who believe now he’s the best person for the job,” he added. Mr. Sheekey said by e-mail that he had always considered Mr. Wolfson “the best political strategist in New York.” Mr. Wolfson, 41, is married to Terri McCullough, a chief of staff to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. They have a 3-year-old daughter and are expecting a son in April, he said. Until now, they have split their time between New York and Washington. He said he would stop appearing on the Fox News Channel, where he has a long-term contract, and would work for no other clients once he joins the mayor’s campaign. He declined to say what he would be paid. “It’ll all be disclosed,” he said. But, as Mr. Wolfson said five years ago, then as an adversary of Mr. Bloomberg’s: “You can never count out the richest guy in the city because he will have unlimited resources at his disposal.”

Elections
Bloomberg Michael R
United States Politics and Government
Third-Party Moves (US)
New York City
Wolfson Howard


China Plans on Continuity in Economic Policy in 2013

Abstract: BEIJING — An annual conference that helps set economic policy in China ended with a lengthy government statement Sunday warning of difficulties in the global economy as well as industrial overcapacity and financial-sector risks at home. But a review of the two-day conference’s activities, which was released by the official Xinhua news agency, suggested few changes in existing economic policies, calling for continuity for the time being. The statement endorsed tax cuts, continued curbs on real estate speculation and a broader effort to increase domestic consumption and wean the economy from its dependence on exports and investment. “The opportunities facing us are no longer the traditional ones of simply entering the international division of labor, expanding exports and accelerating investments, but rather new opportunities forcing us to expand domestic demand, improve innovative capacities and promoting the transformation of the mode of development,” the statement said. Held in December each year, the Central Economic Work Conference in theory is jointly run by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and by the government’s cabinet of ministers. In reality, the Standing Committee of the Politburo has the power, and all seven of its members attended the conference, together with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who left the standing committee last month but remains in office as prime minister until the National People’s Congress next March. While China has many economic opportunities, “we must soberly recognize that there are still many risks and challenges confronting our national development,” the overview released by Xinhua said. “Problems with imbalances, ill-coordination and lack of sustainability remain pronounced.” “The contradiction between downward pressures on the economy and relative overcapacity in production is deepening,” the statement continued. “Business operating costs are rising while innovative capacities are inadequate. There are latent risks in the financial sphere.” Previous annual conferences have lasted three days. The government issued no explanation of why the conference this year appeared to last only two days, opening Saturday and closing Sunday. The conference called for the agricultural sector to pay attention to maintaining an adequate food supply for the population, and endorsed continued urbanization, a favorite theme of the incoming prime minister next March, Li Keqiang. “Urbanization is a historic task of our country’s modernization, and also possesses the greatest potential for expanding domestic consumption,” the statement said. The statement called for continued but unspecified industrial reforms to address the problem of overcapacity. It was not clear what would be done to address risks in the financial sector, but a government official had said before the conference that China’s leaders were eager to move toward the introduction of a system of bank deposit insurance. The precise details of discussions at Central Economic Work Conferences sometimes take days or weeks to dribble out.

China
Li Keqiang
Economic Conditions and Trends


Mali Says Rebels Fired on U.S. Military Plane Ferrying Supplies

Abstract: BAMAKO, Mali , Sept. 13 (Reuters) — Tuareg rebels fighting government troops in Mali’s far northern desert have fired on an American military plane, Malian officials said Thursday. The attack occurred early Wednesday when the plane was delivering food to a Malian Army garrison at Tin-Zaouatene in a desolate mountain region bordering Algeria and Niger, where the rebels have staged raids in recent weeks. The United States Embassy in Mali said the aircraft returned safely here to the capital, after being hit by gunfire but denied a report by Malian officials that an American service member was wounded. “Shots were fired at the plane,” an embassy spokesperson said. “It was resupply drop of food done to help our partner nation. There was minimal damage and they were able to successfully complete the mission.” The United States views Mali as a staunch military ally in its global campaign against terrorism, but it was believed to be the first time that the American military had actively supported a continuing Malian military operation against Tuareg insurgents. The attack on the plane came after a joint counterterrorist exercise in the Malian desert that involved American troops and the armies of several states in the Sahel region, the band of nations just south of the Sahara. “We had the plane in country, and when the government requested assistance to resupply food, we were able to do it,” the embassy spokesperson said. “The Malians provided the food.” The Tuaregs, a nomadic light-skinned people in northern Niger and Mali, have long complained of being neglected and marginalized by black-dominated governments ruling far away in the south, and they demand more autonomy and a greater share in their region’s wealth. But the governments of Niger and Mali have dismissed them as renegades and bandits involved in trafficking arms and drugs. The Tuaregs staged an uprising in the 1990s that ended with a treaty in 1995; a new uprising began this year. Mali’s armed forces have been hunting Tuareg insurgents led by Ibrahima Bahanga. In recent weeks the rebels have carried out several attacks and ambushes in the remote Tin-Zaouatene region. The insurgents have taken several dozen soldiers prisoner and seized vehicles and ammunition. The government also blames them for laying mines that have killed at least 13 people. Mali has appealed for international help. Tuareg rebels across the border in Niger have also carried out attacks on military posts, and officials from both countries say they see links between the insurgencies. The embassy spokesperson did not say whether the United States military would make more resupply flights for Mali’s army. The American military has been active in Africa, particularly just east of the Sahel, in the Horn of Africa. The military used an airstrip in Ethiopia to mount airstrikes against Islamic militants who had taken control of much of neighboring Somalia. The counterterrorism effort was described by American officials as a qualified success that disrupted terrorist networks in Somalia, led to the death or capture of several Islamic militants and involved a collaborative relationship with Ethiopia that had been developing for years.

Mali
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
United States Armament and Defense
Military Aircraft


As Death Hit His Family, Responsibilities Grew

Abstract: When he is at church, Kenneth Williams fills his soul by singing gospel. When he is at home, dancing with his children, Kenyetta Kathleen Reaves, 16, and Lamont Ali Reaves, 17, and his brother, Russell, 37, lifts his spirits. Recently, at a friend’s house, he also discovered that rap could relieve his stress. “He just put on a beat, and I just started spitting out words,” said Mr. Williams, at the WeCare Center in Brooklyn. Since August, he has been in job training at the center, which is a beneficiary of the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service, one of seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund . Mr. Williams, 47, chanted some of the lyrics to the song he calls “Struggle”: “The children weren’t listening to me, me not being able to work, bills not being paid. Why? Why was I put in this situation?” When he stopped singing, his voice turned serious. “Releasing the emotions, I could sit and ponder who could do this, if not me,” he said of taking care of his teenage children, and of his brother, who is autistic and unable to live independently. “All I could come up with is — nobody but me,” he said. But his determination has not always been so strong. Ten years ago, he was filled with anger and resentment, he said. His mother died of cancer, and within eight months, his aunt and grandmother died, too. “I blamed them for leaving me alone,” he said. Mr. Williams, who had been sleeping on the tattered couch in his mother’s two-bedroom apartment in East New York, Brooklyn, took over his mother’s bedroom and her job taking care of Russell. He never neglected his brother, he said, but he began to neglect himself. While he continued to work as a security guard, making $11 an hour, he sank deeper into depression after the mother of his two children, who had sole custody, began to restrict his visits with them. Because of that, he said, “I started doing the wrong things.” And he lost his faith in God. In 2000, a drunken fight ended with a near-fatal blow to his head. It was a turning point. He found religion again, at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where he attends activities three days a week. He has performed at Lincoln Center with the church choir. In 2005, his children’s mother’s death from lupus ended a long custody battle. He sang at her funeral, then the children came home with him. Mr. Williams went back to sleeping on the couch, his daughter took his mother’s old room and his son shared a bed with his brother. “Being a father is tough,” he said. “Boys are easy, but girls — girls have particular needs,” he said. Not long after adjusting to full-time fatherhood, he was injured in a car accident. The collision, in August 2007, impacted three discs in his neck, pinching his nerves. Unable to stand for hours at a time, as his job required, he went on public assistance. He receives $220 a month plus $235 in food stamps, in addition to $625 his brother receives from Supplemental Security Income and $350 his children receive in survivor’s benefits. But in some ways, the accident improved his life, he said. As part of the welfare-to-work program, he was required to attend job training at the WeCare Center. He also was able to apply for subsidized housing, and found a four-bedroom apartment for $142 a month in East New York. “It was a godsend,” he said. “Now we all have our own space.” He bought beds, but he could not afford other furniture. During a meeting with Stelean Smith-Garbey, a welfare to work specialist at WeCare, he expressed concern that his children’s clothes were on the floor. Ms. Smith-Garbey used $429 from the Neediest Cases to buy dressers. “Through the help from Brooklyn Bureau, I’m going to make it,” he said. Mr. Williams is also in computer training. He said he wants to work in an office when he graduates from the program in January. Then he paused, and added jokingly, “Or be on stage.”

New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Brooklyn (NYC)
Park Slope (NYC)


Bailout Plan Stalls After Day of Talks; Paulson Heads Back to Capitol Hill

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The status of a rescue plan for the nation’s financial system was in doubt on Thursday, at least for the moment, as lawmakers emerged from a meeting with President Bush to say that negotiations had a ways to go. The Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. quickly returned to Capitol Hill to try to revive the proposal. One critical snag seems to be opposition to the $700 billion plan by conservative House Republicans. “My hope is that we can get a deal,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd , chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, hours after House and Senate negotiators had announced that an accord was at hand. President Bush had hoped that an agreement could be announced after the late-afternoon meeting. Mr. Dodd, looking tired and annoyed, complained that the late complications were making the episode sound more like “a rescue plan for John McCain ,” the Republican presidential candidate, than one for the financial system. It does no good, Mr. Dodd said, “to be distracted for two or three hours by political theater.” The senator was apparently alluding to a growing revolt by conservative Republicans, and the fact that Mr. McCain had not yet endorsed the plan, whose concept runs contrary to the policy positions he has taken. Mr. McCain and his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama , left the White House by a side entrance without commenting. The initial silence of the presidential candidates reinforced the impression that thorny issues still need to be addressed. Shortly afterward, Mr. Obama said in an interview on CNN that he was confident that a deal would be reached “eventually,” but he said, “I think there’s still some work that needs to be done.” Mr. McCain said he, too, was optimistic, at least in the long run. “I am confident that we will reach an agreement that gets a majority of my colleagues on my side of the aisle as well as a majority on the other side,” he said on CBS . The impression that much remains to be done was reinforced by Mr. Dodd’s comments. After saying he still hoped for a deal, the senator said it was important to take “whatever time it takes” to arrive at a good arrangement, since the effects will be felt for “years and years to come.” It has become abundantly clear, that members of Congress are hearing from their constituents, many of whom are furious about the proposed rescue. Democrats said that Senate and House Democrats and Senate Republicans and the White House were ready to hammer out a deal, but that House Republicans balked. “We were ready to make a deal,” said Representative Barney Frank , Democrat of Massachusetts , who attended the meeting and was standing next to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Mr. Paulson Jr. asked for more time. “The House Republicans now tell us we’re not for this, we have got something else,” Mr. Frank said. He complained that the new House Republican counter-proposal included ideas about private mortgage insurance and a cut in the capital gains tax that Mr. Paulson had already testified would not work. Mr. Frank blamed a “troika” of conservative House Republicans — Jeb Hensarling of Texas , Paul Ryan of Wisconsin , and Eric Cantor of Virginia — for pushing the alternative proposal. Earlier Thursday, House and Senate negotiators said they had reached a deal on a rescue, authorizing unprecedented government intervention to buy distressed debt in a move to prevent what President Bush warned could be a widespread economic collapse. Republicans and Democrats said that the legislation would include limits on the pay packages for executives of some firms that seek assistance and a mechanism for the government to take an equity stake in some of the firms, so taxpayers have a chance to profit if the bailout plan works. The announcement that lawmakers had reached an accord came on a day of high political theater at the Capitol and at the White House — in a drama whose ending may be quite unpredictable, it seemed after the late-afternoon White House meeting broke up. “We’re in a serious economic crisis,” Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began, shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room of the White House, adding, “This meeting is an attempt to move the process forward. My hope is we can reach an agreement very shortly.” Mr. McCain was seated at one end of a long conference table, Mr. Obama at the other, with the president and congressional leaders between them. Neither spoke, though Mr. McCain smiled broadly as reporters shouted questions that went unanswered by Mr. Bush. The president, in a prime-time televised speech on Wednesday night, appealed to the nation — and to reluctant lawmakers — to support the plan. After the address, the drafting effort continued through the night on both sides of Capitol Hill — with pizza on the House side, and Thai food in the Senate. (Negotiations between the House and the Senate can be nearly as complicated as negotiations between Democrats and Republicans.) But even as Congressional leaders shook hands on an agreement, House Republicans warned that opposition was building. Conservative Republicans, in particular, have said that such a huge government intervention violated their free market principles. A senior Republican lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to undermine the party leadership, said there was a “violent reaction” among House Republicans to the Paulson plan. He said backers of the alternative, one of several that have been proposed in the House, are calculating that they can force the negotiators to accept it as part of a larger deal.

Senate
Legislation
US Politics
US Economy
House of Representatives


Trial Begins Next Week for Human Rights Activist in China

Abstract: HONG KONG — One of China’s most prominent human rights activists, Xu Zhiyong , will stand trial next week and believes that his conviction is all but certain, although he will fight the charges, his lawyer said Friday. The lawyer, Zhang Qingfang, said that after a day of unsuccessfully trying to convince court officials in Beijing that there were major procedural flaws in the case, the officials handed him a notice that Mr. Xu would face trial on Wednesday for “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” If convicted, Mr. Xu could spend up to five years in prison, Mr. Zhang said in a telephone interview. “I also visited Xu during the day, and he was very normal and steady,” Mr. Zhang said. “But he sees that this trial is basically just going through the motions. We can foresee the outcome already.” Another defense lawyer for Mr. Xu, Yang Jinzhu, who also went to the court meeting, confirmed the trial date in a brief telephone interview. The trial will be a show of the determination of President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party leaders to extinguish any organized opposition, however mild, emerging to challenge their control, Mr. Xu’s supporters have said. China’s courts are controlled by the Communist Party and rarely find defendants innocent, especially in politically contentious cases like this one. Mr. Xu will nonetheless contest the charges, Mr. Zhang said. Image Xu Zhiyong in Beijing in 2009. Credit Greg Baker/Associated Press “All the prosecution’s witness testimony will probably be given in writing, with none of the witnesses called to the courtroom, and Xu Zhiyong has said he will stay silent for that phase, and we will respect his wishes,” Mr. Zhang said. “But in the defense phase, it’s likely that we’ll vigorously reject the whole basis of the charges, and Mr. Xu hasn’t excluded also making his own statement then.” Over the past decade, Mr. Xu, 40, has become one of China’s best-known rights advocates, campaigning against, among other things, arbitrary detention by the police, discriminatory barriers against rural schoolchildren and “black jails” used to secretly detain aggrieved citizens who travel to Beijing to complain to officials. He taught law at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He also became the most prominent advocate of the New Citizens Movement, which won widespread attention early last year with small protests across the country demanding that Communist Party officials disclose their wealth, release political prisoners and give people more say in government. Mr. Xu was detained by the police in July and had been under informal house arrest since April. After Mr. Xi assumed leadership of the party in November 2012, he promised greater accountability and a fairer legal system. But Mr. Xi and other leaders have also emphasized that they wanted to bolster, not weaken, controls over the Internet, ideology and social unrest — and the efforts to stamp out the New Citizens Movement have reflected that determination. “They believe there’s a crisis of control and civil forces are constantly strengthening, so finally we have this intense contention,” Teng Biao, a Chinese legal scholar who has long been friends with Mr. Xu, said in an interview. “It’s very difficult for a system like this to abandon power of its own accord.” Altogether, about 18 participants in the New Citizens Movement were arrested last year, although a few were released, according to Maya Wang, a researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch. Three stood trial in Jiangxi Province in southeast China late last year, and are awaiting verdicts. The prosecutors’ indictment against Mr. Xu , issued last month, dwelled on allegations that he had orchestrated protests in Beijing, including a gathering by people calling for equal schooling opportunities for rural and urban children. Only a handful of Mr. Xu’s relatives will be allowed in the courtroom, Mr. Zhang said. Mr. Xu’s wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter, on Monday.


Dutchman Claims Vuelta Lead

Abstract: Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands passed this year’s Tour de France winner, Chris Froome, with about 50 yards left in a steep climb to win the ninth stage and take the overall lead of the Vuelta a España. Froome jumped ahead with less than 200 yards to go but could not hold off Dumoulin’s late charge. Dumoulin crossed the line in 4 hours 9 minutes 55 seconds. Froome had his best stage so far and finished only two seconds behind, but he remains more than a minute back in the overall standings.

Tom Dumoulin
Biking
Christopher Froome
Road Cycling
Vuelta a Espana


Clocking Your Train

Abstract: Tic Toc Transit, introduced in August, fulfills one very simple purpose: It tells you when your subway train is coming. It does so with an eye-pleasing countdown to the next two train arrivals on any line, at any station. As long as you tell it before heading out which station you plan to depart from, it works underground. I was glad to have downloaded Tic Toc Transit when I did. Since it has been so cold in New York recently, anything that allowed me to minimize the time between leaving my house and entering the warmth of a subway car had to be considered a lucky find. The app was born of transit experience: Miles Fitzgerald, one of its creators, moved to New York from France about five years ago and became a regular rider of the F train. Mr. Fitzgerald was tormented by his wait on the platform every morning. “The F train, I call it like an old horse,” he said. “It always works, but it’s just slow.” He said he wished that he could look at a display that would tell him when his train was coming, something like the countdown clocks that, for the moment, exist only on some lines. So he decided to make a digital version based on the set train schedule. Transit apps like HopStop also include the train schedules. But because Tic Toc Transit presents the information with a ticking clock counting down the seconds, using it is more satisfying than looking at a flat schedule. With its lovely minimalist design and single function, the app is a good example of a software type that has become fashionable with developers in the last couple of years: Many have been breaking down multifunction services — like Facebook, for instance — into the constituent parts of the services they provide. There are obvious disadvantages to taking this approach with Tic Toc Transit. The app does not give you directions or a subway map, and it does not provide any handy extras, like allowing you to plug in more than one starting station. Let’s say you are set to get on the F line at East Broadway and are planning to transfer at West Fourth Street. You can’t set up the app to tell you when the next A train is due. Then there is the obvious catch of using a schedule: The app is not updated with live information, so it’s accurate only when the trains are running on time. The F was quite punctual for me last week, so the app was a godsend. On Saturday, though, it was snowy and my Q train was delayed. At first, I continued to enjoy using Tic Toc Transit, as a means of holding the tardy train accountable for the damage it was doing to me. Indeed, the app would be a great way to measure when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not performing as it should. But as my phone counted down arrival after supposed arrival with no train pulling in, I started to lose my trust and eventually slid my phone into my pocket. Tic Toc Transit can provide a soothing illusion of order. But the app that can hasten the arrival of a late train has yet to be invented.


Thain’s Change: From Assurance to Desperation

Abstract: From cockiness to capitulation. From distinction to desperation. From pride to panic. Such is the story of John A. Thain as the chief executive of Merrill Lynch . The question is whether the fear Merrill showed this week in dumping securities for pennies on the dollar — and on terms that did not even foreclose the possibility of further losses — is an indication that the stock market bottom has been reached. A man who rose to prominence at Goldman Sachs, where risk-taking is an art and a source of pride, decided that his new firm had to get its pile of collateralized debt obligations off its books. It had ridden them from 100 cents on the dollar to 22 cents, but now it would unload them for little more than a nickel, with the possibility of getting the rest of the 22 cents later. It would give up any claim to profits from a rebound. Mr. Thain was brought in to Merrill in December, with a résumé to envy. He had done an excellent job running the New York Stock Exchange. Before that, he had risen to president of Goldman, making him No. 2 there behind Henry M. Paulson Jr., who is now Treasury secretary. Practically everybody on Wall Street was raising capital at the end of 2007, but Mr. Thain did it with particular flair. When a Singapore government entity ponied up billions of dollars, at $48 a share, it did so with protection against dilution. If Merrill had to sell stock at a lower price within a year, Singapore would get a refund of the extra money it had paid. That was a gutsy move for Mr. Thain, sending a signal that he was confident in his new firm’s prospects. A few weeks later, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Thain assured me that Merrill had raised $2 billion more in capital than it actually needed. One financial executive there commented that Mr. Thain was the only Wall Street boss who seemed to be happy. Merrill’s stock sale this week raised $8.5 billion. The price was $22.50 a share, less than half Singapore’s original price. Singapore is plowing its refund back into Merrill, but at a big cost in dilution to the firm’s other shareholders. Mr. Thain would not talk to me for this column, but it is clear that he has a lot of crow to eat. The securities Merrill is dumping, at least temporarily, are “super-senior C.D.O.’s.” If you haven’t been paying close attention, I’ll try to explain what they are, from the bottom up. First there were mortgages, taken out by homeowners. Then there were mortgage-backed securities. Those securities were sliced into tranches. Some tranches got first call on the interest and principal payments from the mortgages. Each month, if money was left over, it went to the next level of tranches, and then to the next, and so on down. If there were enough mortgage defaults, the lowest tranche would be wiped out. More losses would make the next tranche up worthless, and so on. The next level of complexity is C.D.O.’s, or collateralized debt obligations. The C.D.O.’s own tranches of mortgage-backed securities. They issue their own tranches. So-called super-senior tranches — a term coined to indicate they were all but risk-free — rank near the top of a C.D.O. I won’t get into synthetic C.D.O.’s, which are supposed to act like they own M.B.S. tranches, but don’t. Nor will I get into C.D.O.-squareds, which are C.D.O.’s that own tranches of other CDO’s. It is not clear if Merrill owned any of those. The super-senior tranches were once rated AAA, and perhaps some of them still are. The theory was that even if the underlying mortgages were very risky, the top tranches were protected by the fact the lower tranches would absorb the first losses. Similarly, even C.D.O.’s that included some poor tranches of M.B.S. would have safe tranches, since not all the dicey M.B.S. tranches would go bad. Merrill won’t say which C.D.O.’s it owned, so there is no real way to evaluate the price they are accepting. Nor will it give details of the financing. We know that Lone Star, the fund buying the C.D.O.’s, has the right to send them back to Merrill, which would keep only the down payment. But we don’t know how long the fund can delay making that decision, or how much interest it might be able to earn before sending the C.D.O.’s back. So it is hard to judge the extent of Lone Star’s risk. What is clear is that only a month ago, Merrill valued the package of C.D.O.’s at 36 cents on the dollar, and that Lone Star will get all of the upside if the eventual value is higher than 22 cents. The fact that so little is known about Merrill’s particular C.D.O.’s may make it easier for other Wall Street firms to avoid taking similar write-downs. They can argue that their securities are better, and perhaps they are. Since Merrill is booking this as a sale — an accounting treatment that could seem a little optimistic if Lone Star sends the securities back — it won’t have to go through the painful process of valuing them, and taking more losses, every quarter. It appears that Mr. Thain decided he had been embarrassed enough. That could be the kind of capitulation that will later be seen as marking the bottom of despair on Wall Street. It is Wall Street legend that bottoms are made when the most optimistic give up. The stock market reacted as if Merrill’s move was such a sign, although it gave up many of the gains on Thursday, after a disappointing report on growth in the American economy. The rise in share prices after the Merrill announcement — for both the overall market and for Merrill itself — drove some bearish investors crazy. They have been right on the growing financial crisis, but the thanks they get are well-publicized investigations into whether they profited from spreading false rumors that firms were in trouble. As if the reality were not bad enough. The investigations may not turn up anything, but they provide more evidence that regulators in both the United States and Britain are going to do everything they can to keep big firms afloat. It is risky to bet against them. The worst of the economy is almost certainly ahead of us. But it is possible that the worse of the stock market is not.

Economic Conditions and Trends
Merrill Lynch & Co
Thain John A


San Diego Chargers vs. Detroit Lions Matchup

Abstract: Lions at Chargers 4:05 p.m. Line: Chargers by 3 Detroit said goodbye to defensive tackles Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley, and the San Diego offense will feature a rookie running back and not Antonio Gates, a star tight end who has been suspended for four games. Matthew Stafford of the Lions and Philip Rivers of the Chargers are quality quarterbacks who are just a notch below the league’s top tier, but with enough question marks on both sides, the Lions have the edge, with Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate providing Stafford with better options downfield than Rivers has. PICK: LIONS


Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese Votes to Leave the Church

Abstract: JOHNSTOWN, Pa., Nov. 2 — By more than a two-to-one vote, members of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh voted Friday in favor of separating from the national church because of a theological rift that began with the consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003. The vote sets the stage for what could become a protracted legal battle between the diocese and the Episcopal Church U.S.A., which had warned Pittsburgh’s bishop not to go forward with the vote. After passionate appeals from both sides of the debate, clergy members and lay people voted 227 to 82 to “realign” the conservative diocese. If Friday’s vote is approved again in a year, the diocese will begin steps to remove itself from the American church and join with another province in the worldwide Anglican Communion. After the vote, Bishop Robert W. Duncan of Pittsburgh, who is also moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, an alliance of conservative dioceses and parishes, defended the decision. “What we’re trying to do is state clearly in the United States for the authority of Scripture,” Bishop Duncan said after the vote, taken during the diocese’s annual convention in this city about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. The vote was necessary, he said, because the more liberal bishops now in the majority in the national church “have hijacked my church, and that’s how most of the people here feel.” Some who opposed separation said it would create nothing but chaos for the diocese. “I think it was tragic,” said Joan Gunderson, president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh and a lay deputy who voted against the resolution. “I’m concerned what will follow.” A day earlier, the head of the Episcopal Church U.S.A., Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, sent Bishop Duncan a letter, warning him that he could face discipline and civil suits if he “committed canonical offenses” including overseeing approval of the resolution. A spokesman for Bishop Jefferts Schori referred questions to the Rev. George Werner, president of the House of Deputies for the national church until last year. “Katharine Schori is extremely clear,” Mr. Werner said. “If a diocese like this chooses to claim $30 million in trust funds and 70 churches, she’d be negligent in her duty to let them leave. She can’t back down.” Mr. Werner was referring to the possibility that the diocese would try to retain control of its resources, buildings and land if it separates from the national church. Bishop Duncan said he was willing to face whatever action the national church takes. “We may face more legal action, and I may face action myself, but it is clear from our leaders that they’re willing to pay the price of their position, and so am I,” he said. Pittsburgh joins one other diocese, San Joaquin in Fresno, Calif., to have a preliminary vote to separate from the national church. San Joaquin’s annual convention is in December, when it could vote a second time to make its decision formal. At least one other diocese, in Fort Worth, is considering a similar preliminary vote. In 2003, the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay man, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.

Episcopal Church
Homosexuality
Pittsburgh (Pa)


Hospitals Devastated in Syria, War-Wounded Seek Treatment in Jordan

Abstract: AMMAN, Jordan — Mohammad Smarat sat gazing at the few plants sprouting outside the entrance of the white stone hospital here, recalling how he had collapsed in a sea of green fields after getting shot. He had been helping farmers pick tomatoes near his home in Dara’a, Syria, when a stray bullet shattered his left hip joint. Though he had obeyed his father’s orders not to join the fight against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, Mr. Smarat found himself lying wounded in the field anyway — yet another casualty of a war that has killed nearly 250,000 people. “I saw towns besieged, corpses burned and bodies left on the street,” said Mr. Smarat, a shy 21-year-old. “I did not have it in me to be a part of it, yet one cannot escape from the conflict. It was fate.” Like other patients recovering from surgery at this hospital in the security of Jordan, Mr. Smarat spent many afternoons sitting on a black leather chair on a patio overlooking a range of arid mountains in the distance and dreaming of home. As the Syrian civil war, which started in 2011, stretches on, and the numbers of killed and wounded soar, growing numbers of people like Mr. Smarat are crossing the border into Jordan for treatment at hospitals that are more secure than back home, where medical facilities have been devastated. The United Nations has accused Mr. Assad’s forces of targeting hospitals in rebel-controlled areas of Syria, and Physicians for Human Rights has documented nearly 300 such attacks since the conflict began. Medical aid organizations have also pulled their workers out of Syria, after 13 Doctors Without Borders employees were abducted by the Islamic State last year. The Amman surgical program, run by Doctors Without Borders, was set up in 2006 to care for the war-wounded from Iraq. At first, the organization renovated a floor of a hospital belonging to the Red Crescent in Jordan, but the program has expanded to treat victims of the many wars raging in the region — in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. This month, Doctors Without Borders officially opened a new eight-story reconstructive surgery hospital here. The hospital will handle a growing number of casualties, mainly from the war in Syria, as the wounded arrive in need of amputations and treatment for shrapnel wounds and burns from bombs. Physiotherapists and mental health counselors will also help those brought here to handle life after injury. “It’s not only about closing the wound,” said Marc Schakal, Doctors Without Borders’ head of mission for Jordan and Iraq. “It’s about helping people to live with the disability and improve their lives as much as possible here, to help them go back to their home country with better acceptance and functionality.” Since the surgical program began in 2006, more than 3,500 patients from across the region have received free medical care, at a cost to the group of $8,000 to $11,500 per patient. Doctors Without Borders says that more than 1,000 Syrians have been treated at the old and new Jordan facilities since the conflict began. A public hospital in the northern town of Ramtha, just three miles from the Syrian border, also receives wounded Syrians. Often, neighbors, friends or relatives take the wounded from field hospitals inside Syria to the border, where Jordanian ambulances wait on the other side to transport them. Mr. Smarat arrived at the Jordanian border after doctors at a field hospital in his hometown said he needed surgery that they could not perform. He was taken by car to the border, where a Jordanian ambulance transported him to the hospital in Ramtha. There, a metal rod was inserted in his side where his hip bone was shattered, as a temporary measure, before he was moved to the hospital in Amman. The hospital here is clean and shiny, a far cry from the crowded and grimy facility in Ramtha, and Mr. Smarat spent a month and a half here in relative comfort before returning to Syria on Sept. 14. In an empty hospital room here recently, men, both young and old, passed the time between surgeries or the long months of physiotherapy sessions by playing dominoes and Monopoly. In the corridors, restless girls and boys — some with severe face burns, others with head bandages and amputated limbs — roamed the hospital corridors, playing games like tag. Some are victims of domestic accidents, but a majority of them have been wounded in war, including civilians and non-civilians from Syria. There are also people from places like Najaf and Kirkuk in Iraq and from central Yemen, which has been engulfed in conflict for the past six months after Houthi rebels ousted the government. Fatima Qataish, 9, escaped from Syria with her family in 2012, fleeing to Jordan, where they settled in the Zaatari refugee camp . Soon after arriving there, she tripped into a pot of boiling oil, sustaining severe burns to her head. She underwent several unsuccessful operations at other hospitals across the country, some resulting in infections, her father, Anees Qataish, said, before Doctors Without Borders took her case last year. Last month, surgeons inflated a balloon under her scalp to stretch the skin and grow new hair. Only three days after the surgery, Fatima chased around two younger girls with severe burns on their faces and feet — the result of a missile that fell on their house in Homs, Syria. How Syrians Are Dying Over four years of war has forced more than four million to flee the country, fueling a migrant crisis in the Middle East and Europe. “My parents already lost two of their children,” Fatima said. One died of leukemia and the other was run over by a car in the turmoil of the war, she said. “All of what happened to us is a test of patience for people like my father, but also for the Syrian people.” Elsewhere in the hospital, four young Syrian men lay in their beds with shrapnel wounds in their legs and arms caused by barrel bombs, doctors said. Most of the recent arrivals at the hospital had injuries caused by bombs. “The region today has a big capacity to produce injured people,” Mr. Schakal said. “When we have access in places like Syria and Yemen, which we don’t really have right now, we expect that we will find a lot of people that need reconstructive surgery.” Frederique Drogoul, a psychiatrist for Doctors Without Borders, based in Paris, said many wounded patients showed signs of post-traumatic stress. “Not only do the patients have wounds from injuries, but they are traumatized because of war,” she said by phone from Paris. “They also stay a long time in the hospital, isolated from their communities, and they need a lot of support.” Saad Shayieh, 33, an Iraqi, lost two brothers in 2006 when gunmen shot them in Baghdad, accusing them of working for an American company. Two years later, both of his parents and another sibling were killed when a missile fell on their home. When Mr. Shayieh ran to his house to see what had happened, chunks of concrete fell on top of him, breaking his thigh bone and shattering all his teeth. With surgery and the help of a shoe lift to compensate for a discrepancy between the lengths of his legs, he is able to walk now. He has been receiving medical care for nearly three months, recovering near the hospital and returning often for physiotherapy sessions. “I am tired,” he said. “Tired, tired, tired.” Unlike Mr. Smarat from Syria, Mr. Shayieh does not want to return home. “I am not living,” he said. “I am stuck and thinking how I can start over in a country like Sweden.”

Hospital
Syria
Jordan
Doctors Without Borders


Giants Neutralize Impact of Eagles’ Westbrook

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — In the run-up to the Giants ’ game against the Philadelphia Eagles , the defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo made sure that on every snap, regardless of his coverage assignment, every player in a white jersey had the same thing in mind. “We need 22 eyes on No. 36 every play,” he said. Thousands were wearing No. 36 on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, but the only one who counted was Eagles running back Brian Westbrook. After spending eight years with the Eagles, Spagnuolo knew all about him. So it did not matter to him that Westbrook had been struggling with ankle and rib-cage injuries all season, or that he had surpassed 100 rushing yards in a game only once this year. But on Sunday, Westbrook hardly mattered at all in the Eagles’ 36-31 loss to the Giants. In a quiet first half against the Giants’ seventh-ranked run defense, Westbrook managed only 17 yards on 6 carries. The Eagles were down by only 3 points at halftime, 20-17, but Westbrook’s numbers did not bode well for them. Before Sunday night, Westbrook had played in two of Philadelphia’s three losses and was held under 60 yards both times. Westbrook finished Sunday’s game with 26 yards on 13 carries. Quarterback Donovan McNabb said: “Teams are going to put eight in the box to obviously stop Westbrook from running the ball and that’s what forces us to throw the ball a little bit more. So when we do run the ball, we have to do it a little bit more effectively.” As Westbrook floundered, McNabb failed to make up for it in the air against the Giants’ tight pass defense, which began the night ranked second in the league, allowing 175 yards a game. McNabb threw for three touchdowns, but the scoreboard flattered him. On their first three touchdown drives, the Eagles did not have to travel more than 60 yards because of two clumsy turnovers by the Giants and a 37-yard kickoff return by Quintin Demps to begin the second half. Through three quarters, McNabb had 12 completions on 25 attempts for 118 yards with one interception. He might have been picked off a second and third time, but safety Aaron Ross dropped a ball thrown right to his hands in the second quarter. Antonio Pierce did the same in the fourth. “Those things kill drives,” Eagles wide receiver Jason Avant said. “The fewer mistakes that you make, the better offense you are. We have made a lot of mistakes, but sometimes we don’t and we can move the ball. But those little, nagging missed assignments are killing us.” In the fourth quarter, McNabb suddenly found his groove, the way he has in Philadelphia’s last three games, and led the Eagles to within a touchdown of victory. With just under two minutes left and momentum on his side, McNabb faced third-and-3 on his 43. Naturally, he gave the ball to Westbrook. His 2-yard sweep to the right side brought up fourth-and-1. Though McNabb’s instinct told him to run the single yard himself, his orders from the sideline called for him to hand off the game to Westbrook. White jerseys converged on him. Westbrook came up short. “I blame myself,” he said after the game. “I have to find a way to get those first downs. If I do that, then we would have had a first down and moved it down the field. So I’m going to back and look at the film and see if I can do something different.” On the final play, 22 eyes were on him and, it seemed, 22 hands, as well.

Philadelphia Eagles
New York Giants
Spagnuolo Steve
Westbrook Brian
Football


Cargo Workers at Kennedy Airport Get a Glimpse of the Future

Abstract: He is as unlikely a trend spotter as they come, working in a cargo warehouse at Kennedy International Airport . But some moments do not escape Rich Burkhardt: like the time a customs agent opened a box from Brazil and, inspecting its contents, found a pair of patent-leather shoes with exotic animal prints. “I said, ‘God, those are the ugliest shoes in the world,’ ” Mr. Burkhardt recalled. “Sure enough, I was with my wife a couple of weeks later at Nordstrom, and there they were.” New York is filled with people trying to discern the next big thing , but few cover the ground that Mr. Burkhardt does: the American Airlines cargo warehouse at Kennedy. The warehouse, which is slightly larger than two football fields, is nondescript and removed enough from the main terminals that many airport visitors miss it. But every day, about one million pounds of imports and exports pass through, making it the region’s largest air cargo terminal. The goods processed have given the 275 American Airlines workers here a glimpse into what the world is about to wear, eat and sell. On a recent afternoon, over the steady chimes of forklift bells gliding across the floor, terminal workers talked about how foodies from Zurich were craving California asparagus and how the latest fabrics from Milan were burgundy and tan. They talked about how much less United States mail they had seen lately, and how they could tell when companies had lost their patents on drugs: generic versions suddenly filled the warehouse. “We get to see it first,” said Mr. Burkhardt, the managing director of cargo services for American Airlines. “You see them coming in, sort of the edge of the wave, before it gets out there.” In many ways, the cargo terminal resembles the airport’s passenger terminals, with designated areas for imports and exports and a massive X-ray machine to screen the most ungainly packages. In the departures section, goods were organized by airport. Under a sign for Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport sat shrink-wrapped containers stuffed with 2,000 lobsters apiece. Under a sign for Miami-bound goods, there were stacks of newspapers to be flown to Bermuda from Jamaica, Queens, and a casket heading to Panama from Brooklyn, with the name of the deceased written in green marker on the top. (The terminal ships 450 human remains a year, mostly to Latin America, airline officials said.) The arrivals section was more chaotic. There were 63 Mercedes engines arriving from Stuttgart, Germany, giant spools of fabric from Milan and a package of brown leather the size of a small car from Peru. Carlos Alfaro, who works in international sales for Baldor Specialty Foods in the Bronx, said his workers picked up eight containers of food from Kennedy each night: haricots verts from Peru, greengage plums from New Zealand and porcini mushrooms from South Africa. His workers deliver the food the next morning, to restaurants like the Four Seasons. Business seems to be growing for some goods. Wesley Wheeler, chief executive of Marken , which ships pharmaceuticals, said his company shipped up to 5,000 parcels a month through the cargo terminal. He said many regional pharmaceutical companies shipped drugs for conditions like cardiac disease and depression to Europe for use in drug trials. “It’s a growing area,” Mr. Wheeler said. “Just think about how many drugs are being developed at any given time.” In other areas, business is shrinking. Jim Mullen, director of transportation for Worldwide Perishables , which ships lobsters through the cargo terminal to places like Paris and Barcelona, said he had been shipping fewer lobsters lately. Europeans, he said, are not splurging and eating out the way they used to. “I think the situation in Europe is getting worse,” Mr. Mullen said. “I’m not laying any people off, but I’m not hiring.” American Airlines has its own financial problems, and it remains unclear what will happen to the cargo workers as the airline files for bankruptcy. David R. Brooks, president of American Airlines’s cargo division, said the airline had presented a proposal to the Transport Workers Union that would outsource much of the cargo operations by the fall. He said discussions were continuing on “these and other restructuring alternatives.” The union did not respond to a request for comment. Still, transportation experts said cargo terminals like Kennedy’s were vital to the region’s economy. Robert M. Gottheim, district director for Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, said airports were cash cows for transportation agencies like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, bringing in far more income than other sources, like tolls from bridges and tunnels. Cargo is especially profitable, Mr. Gottheim said, because businesses will pay whatever they have to to ship certain perishable goods quickly. “These terminals won’t go away,” Mr. Gottheim said in an e-mail. “Air cargo, which focuses on high-value goods, is a key part of J.F.K. and contributes significantly to the airport’s bottom line.”

American Airlines
Freight (Cargo)
Kennedy International Airport (NYC)
New York City
International Trade and World Market


Bronx Neighborhood Has Unofficial Mayor

Abstract: Maybe it was the sudden screech of the bus’s brakes or the orange flash of its hazard lights. But something caught Sidney Flores’s attention on a recent Friday night. Something was not right. Mr. Flores quickly made a U-turn and came to a stop behind the bus on East Fordham Road in the Bronx. Mr. Flores dialed 911 and, as if on cue, the bus’s electronic sign suddenly displayed a disturbing plea: “Call Cops.” Mr. Flores is not a police officer. He is a handyman and a painter in his 24th year of working at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center. But the episode with the bus, which turned out to have only mechanical problems, was typical. On Fordham Road, a few blocks north of the Mount Eden section of the Bronx, Mr. Flores, 52, seems to have taken the role of unofficial neighborhood “mayor” to a different and perhaps obsessive level. He describes himself as the “eyes and ears” of the community and a “411 on wheels.” Whenever he is not working, Mr. Flores is usually on patrol, calling the city’s 311 line about a pothole, an abandoned vehicle or a missing stop sign. If he spots a fistfight or what he suspects to be a drug deal, he calls the police. He relies on an emergency scanner to show up at scenes of fires or crimes, distributing snacks to people forced out of their homes by flames and even carrying yellow crime-scene tape should an officer need extra. “This life isn’t just about you,” Mr. Flores said. “It’s about reaching out to other people as well.” It started in 2004. Mr. Flores had been keeping sentry over the blocks near his apartment on the Grand Concourse when he decided to be more ambitious about the crime and decay that he said extended well beyond his doorstep. His sliver of the Bronx had recovered from its crime-ridden nadir of the 1970s and ’80s, but plenty of problems remained. Drugs and prostitution were common, burned out streetlights were left unreplaced, there were more rats than residents and doctors at Bronx-Lebanon were all too often assaulted on the streets surrounding the hospital. “I said, ‘Wow,’ ” Mr. Flores said. “There’s work to be done in my community. There are quality-of-life issues that are going unseen, unreported.” Mr. Flores is most proud of his grass-roots efforts, including leading a petition drive, to help clean up the Morris Mesa Playground next to his building; it had been infested by drugs and prostitution. His handiwork is also evident in a number of other neighborhood cleanup projects and numerous antigraffiti and curb-your-dog signs that he has put up. He often delivers hot chocolate to the 44th and 46th Precinct station houses. Lt. Edward Gonzalez said he had been impressed with Mr. Flores while formerly stationed in those precincts as an officer and a sergeant. “Sidney is never looking for anything in return,” Lieutenant Gonzalez said, recalling Mr. Flores’s neighborhood cleanup efforts. “His work is based on all goodness.” Mr. Flores digs into his wallet to pay for his self-appointed role as Mount Eden’s guardian, relying on his hospital salary of $50,000 a year. He has put together a sort of precautionary pantry, including safety lights, cones, fire extinguishers, flashlights, bottles of water, hot chocolate and crime-and-safety pamphlets. Despite suggestions from police officers and other community members that he run for office, Mr. Flores, whose mother and father were active in local politics, maintains that he has no interest. A devout Roman Catholic, he said he sought no recognition for his charity other than from “the guy upstairs.” Nevertheless, community leaders have taken notice. Xavier Rodriguez, the district manager of a local community board, said Mr. Flores managed to show up whenever there was an emergency in the neighborhood. Though, he added, “it’s not like he rips off his clothing and he’s got a big ‘S’ on his chest.” Adolfo Carrión Jr., a former Bronx borough president, recalled how Mr. Flores worked hard to bring attention to the Morris Mesa Playground’s neglect. “What I’ve always said is the difference between success and failure of these investments we make as government, what makes or breaks them, is local leadership,” said Mr. Carrión, who now works for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “And Sidney really represented that.” Mr. Flores, who has never married, lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment amid the incessant crackle of police radio chatter. He admits that his near round-the-clock volunteer work might have contributed to the end of at least one relationship, and some might question his motivation. Yet Mr. Flores, those who know him say, is genuinely selfless. “I believe that when you give of yourself,” he said, “it comes back to you somehow, some way.” And on Jan. 1, 2005, it did. Mr. Flores had a winning lottery ticket that day. He said he used part of his roughly $81,000 payout to buy an all-terrain vehicle, with which he clears snow in the neighborhood. He also bought a Toyota Highlander sport utility vehicle that he uses on his watch duties. Mr. Flores has affixed magnetic decals on the car that say in red lettering: Bronx Community Boards 4 & 5 Quality of Life Task Force & Safety. Mr. Flores, however, is neither a member nor an employee of either board, and Mr. Rodriguez has told Mr. Flores that the line between his volunteerism and his unofficial affiliation with Board 5 should “never be blurred in terms of representation.” Still, Mr. Rodriguez had nothing but praise for Mr. Flores. “This guy’s out there evenings, nighttime,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “I think he probably has a police radio in his bed.” For the record, he does.

Flores Sidney
Bronx (NYC)
Volunteers and Community Service


A Garden Helps Heal a Family

Abstract: On the morning of her scheduled brain surgery, Sheila Young woke up and glanced over at her husband, always the early riser, and was surprised he was still in bed. She nudged him. But his body was rigid, blood trickling from his mouth. Ms. Young’s speech, frantic and impaired by her brain tumor, was so jumbled that her son had to call 911. When they arrived, emergency responders tried to put her, rather than her husband, in the ambulance. On that day in December 2006, Ms. Young and her husband, Michael, were treated at the same hospital in the Bronx. Mr. Young, who had bitten his tongue during a seizure in the night, learned he had epilepsy and severe heart problems. Ms. Young postponed her operation, but doctors monitored her situation because of a minor injury she suffered helping her husband from the bed. Waiting at home with her older brother, their daughter, Jada, then 6, worried whether she would grow up without her parents. About a year later, Ms. Young underwent a risky, 12-hour operation to remove a benign tumor that wrapped around nerves on her face and pressed against veins on her neck. The surgery, while successful, paralyzed the left side of her face. “I looked like a monster,” she said, adding that her left cheek sagged four inches. “Looking in the mirror, I wouldn’t see myself.” Mr. Young, who had quit his carpentry job to help care for his wife, was unable to return to work. He underwent open-heart surgery a year after his wife’s surgery. Image Sheila Young in the Padre Plaza/Success Garden on St. Ann’s Avenue in the Bronx. Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times Family photographs frozen in time line the walls of the apartment. The couple, back to back, in evening dress, smile from the living room corner. Nearby, a teenage Ms. Young in a tweed suit stands with an arm around Michael Jackson in a New Jersey hotel lobby. In another, a 4-year-old Jada in a white gown, the proud winner of a Harlem beauty pageant, stands with her mother. They smile and wave. After Ms. Young’s surgery, she would not have another photograph taken for six years. The happiness captured in the family photos on the walls of their South Bronx apartment had faded. The stress of her parents’ illnesses turned Jada inward. She fell behind in school and failed classes. In the family’s anguish, they found sanctuary in a nearby garden lost to piles of garbage and frequent drug deals. Where others saw blight, they saw potential. On trips to the lot, the family joined neighbors, picking up trash and eventually clearing the land on East 139th Street to revive the community garden. Mr. Young filled garden beds with bulbs, dug a pond, constructed storage sheds and built plots for some 20 neighbors to grow their own herbs and vegetables. Jada, now 16 and typically soft-spoken, changes in demeanor once inside the gates of Padre Plaza/Success Garden . With authority, she can list every plant: “Serrano peppers, squash, mint, collard greens,” she said, laughing. She walked past the bridge and gazebo in the garden and toward a haunted house that was built days before Halloween. Inside, green cobwebs stretched across the ceiling, ghouls and goblins with glowing eyes swung from posts along the wall and a holographic portrait of a child changing into a skeleton lay on the table. Her father adjusted cobwebs in the entranceway. He built the entire house in a few days, Jada boasted, adding: “I did the webbing.” The two, who often work together, transformed the garden for the year-end holidays, giving it a winter wonderland theme. “It’s not just about teaching people about fresh fruits and vegetables, but about working together to get things done,” Mr. Young said. “It might sound crazy, but this place minimizes negative, outside forces and builds our community.” The family has seen the healing power of the garden. Weak after his heart surgery, Mr. Young, now 55, rebuilt his strength tilling vegetables and finding a way to use his carpentry skills outside of a full-time job. When his health permits, he still volunteers daily in the garden. Jada took pride in every plant, memorizing all the varieties and building her confidence and self-worth, which has manifested itself in better grades this school year. For Ms. Young, 55, healing came with visits to the garden in the months after surgery. Surrounded by children visiting the garden, she slowly overcame the fear of looking different. She realized the children did not care how she looked. She now leads the nearby Mott Haven Farmers Market , where she works as a volunteer every Tuesday. Image Michael Young looking out from the Halloween haunted house he and his family built in the community garden. Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times With renewed confidence, Ms. Young got reconstructive surgery and Botox to improve mobility and realign her face. With consecutive operations, covered by insurance, her mouth is slowly untwisting, and she can now shut her eyes naturally. In 2014, she walked into a movie theater in Union Square in Manhattan and talked her way into a part-time cleaning job, her first job since her tumor diagnosis in 2006. There she earns $300 a month. Still, the couple’s health problems have severely reduced the family’s income. Because of frequent seizures, Mr. Young has not been able to hold a steady job since his diagnosis. Living paycheck to paycheck, they receive $1,439 in Social Security disability payments each month, as well as $168 in food stamps. They pay $418 in monthly rent; the rest is covered by a government-assisted subsidy. As the Youngs rebuilt themselves within the garden walls, they encouraged Jada to venture out to find other outlets to relieve stress. She joined Black Girls Rock , a youth empowerment and mentoring organization, and sings with Gospel for Teens , an ensemble and arts education program in Harlem. She also joined Catholic Big Sisters and Big Brothers , an affiliate of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The organization provided Jada with $275 from the Neediest Cases Fund to replace lost reading glasses. Now, once again, Ms. Young poses for family photos, managing a partial smile. Taped across the top of her bathroom mirror are the words, “My Black Is Beautiful.” Ms. Young’s doctors recently offered to perform cosmetic surgery, promising to erase the marks of the last decade. But Ms. Young was not interested. “I don’t want to be 10 years younger,” she said. “It took a whole lot of time to get to where I am.” She wishes her doctors could provide something else. “I want to smile again,” she said.

Surgery
Michael Young
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Gardens and Gardening


Is Leftist Era Fading in Latin America? Ask Colombia and Brazil

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — It was not a banner day for Latin America’s leftists. Colombia rejected a peace deal with Marxist rebels on Sunday, delivering a very public victory to the conservative former president who campaigned passionately against it. On the same day, voters in Brazil handed a resounding defeat to the leftist party that once controlled their country, knocking it down in municipal elections. It was just another sign of the shift to the right in Latin America. In less than a year, voters have thwarted the leftist movement in Argentina and elected a former investment banker as president of Peru, while lawmakers impeached the leftist leader of Brazil. “Put simply, conservatives are on the rise in Latin America,” said Matías Spektor, a professor of international relations at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a university in Brazil. Many factors are feeding the trend. The sharp drop in commodities prices has eroded economic growth around Latin America and the support leftist governments once drew from it. The clout of evangelical Christian megachurches is expanding, and they are confronting socially liberal policies and channeling widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo. But in one country after another, the results are the same: Leaders embracing market-friendly policies are eclipsing the leftists who exerted sway around the Americas in the previous decade. Once-powerful leftist presidents like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina now face corruption inquiries . Still, political analysts caution that the trend does not necessarily involve a wholesale rejection of the policies that won admiration and votes for leftist governments in previous years. For instance, Michel Temer and Mauricio Macri, the leaders of Brazil and Argentina, have expressed support for maintaining popular antipoverty programs. Peru’s new president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, relied on an alliance with the left to defeat his rival, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, the imprisoned former president. Likewise, Colombia’s vote on the peace deal offered an example of how unpredictable politics is getting in some parts of Latin America. Leaders around the region — from an array of ideological backgrounds — had supported the agreement, which was forged between President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC. Colombians rebuffed the deal largely because they thought it was too lenient on the FARC, enabling most fighters to walk away scot-free. But the result also showed how ready voters were to reject what the political establishment was offering. “Voters defying the status quo is hardly peculiar to Colombia,” said Michael Shifter, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a policy group in Washington. “It fits a pattern that can be discerned in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico and other countries.” Leaders around Latin America are paying close attention to the shifting mood in their countries. In Chile, President Michelle Bachelet returned to office in a landslide in 2013 on a platform of reducing inequality. Image President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Peru, a former investment banker, relied on an alliance with the left to defeat Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the former President Alberto Fujimori. Credit Mariana Bazo/Reuters But Ms. Bachelet shifted course in the face of a slowing economy and a graft scandal involving her family , naming a finance minister respected by the business establishment. Her government’s budget for 2017 prioritizes Chile’s tradition of fiscal prudence while reining in stimulus spending. In Brazil, a country of 206 million, half of South America’s population, the shift to the right has unfolded against a backdrop of rising political divisiveness. Supporters of the impeached president, Dilma Rousseff, argue that her ouster was the equivalent of a coup, a view that has weighed on the legitimacy of Mr. Temer, her former vice president who rebelled against her. Candidates from his centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party were also roundly defeated in Sunday’s mayoral elections in Brazil’s largest cities. But the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, which had its origins in the opposition to the country’s military dictatorship before evolving into a more conservative grouping that now anchors Mr. Temer’s coalition, scored big gains. One of the party’s members, João Doria, a former host of a reality television show that involved firing participants on the air, glided to victory in the mayoral race in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. Some in the region see parallels with the “Brexit” vote in which Britain elected to leave the European Union, or the chance that Donald J. Trump, who also starred in a reality game show in which he fired contestants, will win the presidential election in the United States. The vote in Colombia reflected a shift “from magical realism to tragic realism,” the Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince said on Twitter, referring to the mythical narratives of Latin American authors like Gabriel García Márquez. “All that’s left now is for Trump to win.” Colombia, for its part, has long defied easy explanations of its politics. A top ally of Washington in Latin America, the country has traditionally been more politically conservative than some of its neighbors, even as nominally leftist guerrillas persisted for decades in its jungles. The rightward shift has stalled in some parts of the region. While the opposition won control of Venezuela’s National Assembly earlier this year, the country’s leftist president, Nicolás Maduro, has managed to delay a referendum to remove him from office despite the collapsing economy. In Bolivia, the leftist government of President Evo Morales has won plaudits from the International Monetary Fund for its management of the economy. Bolivia’s central bank said in September that it expected gross domestic product to expand by about 5 percent this year, ranking it among Latin America’s fastest-growing economies. But in a recent speech peppered with references to Marx and Lenin, even Bolivia’s vice president, Álvaro García Linera, acknowledged the ebbing influence of leftists in the region. “We are facing a historical turning point in the region; some are talking about a throwback,” Mr. García Linera said, comparing the current situation to previous periods of conservative resurgence in Latin America. “We must relearn what we learned in the ’80s and ’90s, when everything was against us.” As leaders on the left pick up the pieces in parts of Latin America, their dilemma now resembles that of the conservative politicians they long struggled to dislodge. “We can think of the shift as a Latin American variant of the West’s blossoming romance with anti-establishment movements,” Mohamed A. El-Erian, the chief economic adviser at Allianz, the German financial services giant, wrote in a recent essay. “For now, rightist parties and policy agendas are the main beneficiaries of the region’s economic and social disillusion.”

Latin America
Colombia
Brazil
Election
Referendum
Coups D'Etat


John Tavares Provides Glimpse Into Islanders’ Future

Abstract: John Tavares , the Islanders ’ star rookie, is probably going to have a long, successful career, and will play at Madison Square Garden many times. The Islanders made his first visit to the Garden a winning one Wednesday night, but the game was more likely to be remembered as one of the worst played there in some time. The Islanders beat the Rangers , 2-1, in a contest of remarkably low quality, a parade of missed shots and flubbed chances all around. Fans of both teams can only hope it won’t be repeated when the teams meet again Thursday night in Uniondale. Both clubs are struggling, but the Rangers were especially bad in the first period, and their general manager, Glen Sather, took the brunt of the fans’ frustration. The Rangers were outshot, 10-3, sparking chants of “Fire Sather!” from the irritated Garden crowd. While Islanders Coach Scott Gordon praised his team for being “ready from the pregame skate” and having “genuine enthusiasm,” Rangers Coach John Tortorella fumed. “I have no explanation for how we started; I wish I could give you one,” Tortorella said in one of the few printable passages from a brief, profanity-laced news conference. “It was simply unacceptable how we started the game.” The Islanders took the lead at 14 minutes 25 seconds of the first period when the puck bounced off the skate of the Islanders’ Jon Sim and blooped over goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and into the Rangers’ net. Blake Comeau made it 2-0 with 3:10 to play when he fired in a long rebound. Tavares, the No. 1 overall pick in last June’s N.H.L. draft, did not figure in the scoring. Enver Lisin scored for the Rangers with just 55 seconds left, ending a stretch of 231:55 in which they had not scored an even-strength goal. But they could not equalize and went down to their fifth straight loss. The two teams began the day in a five-way tie for 10th place in the Eastern Conference. At one point during their 7-1 start to the season, the Rangers were in first, but over the past six weeks they have compiled the league’s second-worst record and have gone 1-6-2 in their last nine games. The Islanders, who early in the season were next to last, are slowly inching their way up, but they are still far from an impressive team. They are 13-14-7, and tied for ninth in the conference. Tavares, 19, is the top scorer on the Islanders and among all N.H.L. rookies with 15 goals and 27 points. On Wednesday, he had just two shots, both in the third period, and won only 3 of 12 face-offs. But given the general tenor of the game, he played solidly. “I thought I played well,” Tavares said. “I was all over the ice. I had a great chance in the third period, but I should have waited and tried to go around Lundqvist. Instead I shot, and he made a great save.” Wednesday’s game was not the first time Tavares had set foot in the Garden. That happened on Nov. 28, when he and his Islanders teammate Matt Moulson watched Moulson’s brother play for Cornell against Boston University. No one recognized him at that game, he said. Nor was Tavares recognized on Tuesday night, he said, when he and some teammates had dinner near the Islanders’ hotel and walked around the Times Square area. “It’s a lot of fun to come here for the first time,” he said after the morning skate. “It’s going to be one of many, so I just want to make sure I treat it like any other, and obviously want to play well in a big rivalry game.” Presumably, the future games he plays at the Garden will be better than Wednesday’s. SLAP SHOTS Before the game, Islanders Coach Scott Gordon invoked a name from the club’s Stanley Cup past when asked if he would have a defenseman shadow the Rangers star Marian Gaborik, as Detroit had done with Nicklas Lidstrom. “Yes,” Gordon said. “We’re going to bring in Kenny Morrow.” As it happened, he had his best defenseman, Mark Streit, cover Gaborik, who has scored 23 of the Rangers’ 87 goals this season. Gaborik had several chances and finished with a game-high six shots — but no goals.

Tavares John
Hockey Ice
New York Islanders
New York Rangers


Arsenal and Manchester United Earn Hard-Fought Wins

Abstract: There is no defense for English soccer this season, and that is its virtue. In the Italian or German leagues, a two-goal lead usually brings closure to the outcome of games; in the Premier League it can sometimes be the spur to a great comeback. Few have been as thrilling as the way Arsenal came from two goals behind to defeat its London neighbor Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. Spurs started the day 10 points ahead of the Gunners in the league standings, and Arsenal’s spirits seemed on the floor after successive defeats against A.C. Milan in the Champions League and Sunderland in the F.A. Cup. But in sports, in Arsenal’s case anyway, the spirit is strong even when given just a ghost of a chance. By game’s end Sunday, Arsenal had overturned Tottenham, 5-2, and narrowed the gap in the last race it has to run, for a place among the top four of the league, and with it the chance to qualify for next year’s Champions League. In many ways, financially and competitively, Arsenal’s future depends upon it. At the same hour Arsenal was rallying, Manchester United, fielding two players beyond the age of normal retirement, outlasted Norwich City to win, 2-1. Here, again, was something out of the ordinary. The goals scored by United came from Paul Scholes, who at 37 has come out of retirement to play again, and by Ryan Giggs, who at 38 was playing his 900th game for the club. Extraordinary players for extraordinary times. Giggs’s winner came two minutes into injury time, and kept United, the only club he has played for at the senior level, breathing down the neck of league-leading Manchester City. However, the game at Norwich was fairly commonplace compared with what happened in north London. Only a few miles separate Arsenal and Tottenham. Their rivalry spans 168 games in 103 years, and it is doubtful if there has been a comeback like the one their fans saw Sunday. The early signs were ominous for Arsenal. Louis Saha gave Spurs the lead after four minutes, scoring with a deflection off the heel of defender Thomas Vermaelen. After 32 minutes, the pace of Gareth Bale caused panic in the Gunners’ defense, and doubt in the referee’s mind. Bale went down and the referee gave a penalty kick against the goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, but, tellingly, no red or yellow card. That suggested, and slow-motion replay confirmed, that the keeper had not actually made contact with Bale. Szczesny made no contact, either, with the penalty kick scored by the former Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor. With Arsenal trailing by 2-0 to a team above it in the standings, this looked to be another sorry day. The first inklings that theirs was no lost cause came when the American Brad Friedel, Tottenham’s goalkeeper, had stretched high and low to keep out shots from a couple of unlikely Arsenal starters, the Israeli Yossi Benayoun and the Czech Tomas Rosicky. This in itself was an indication that the fast and frenzied and unpredictable swirl of a derby match is not only an English affair. There were men from 14 nations in the cultural mix on this field, and all of them were caught up in the atmosphere of one London community baying for action against another. Friedel felt his luck begin to turn just before halftime. First Bacary Sagna and then Robin van Persie scored against him. Sagna’s story is one of a personal comeback inside the comeback of the match. The last time he played against Spurs, in October, he broke a leg. Now, after four months of rehabilitation, his energy level is back up to speed. His determination to join in attacks from left back paid off with a powerful headed goal. Inspired by that, van Persie, who had provided the pass for Sagna’s score, curled in a left-footed strike from the edge of the penalty area. It was all square at halftime, but now the impetus was with Arsenal. Harry Redknapp, Tottenham’s manager, blinked first, making changes to stabilize his team’s defense. Too late: Arsenal was playing the only way it knows: by all-out attack. Five minutes into the second half, Rosicky ran and delightfully flicked the ball over Friedel. Then at the 65th and 68th minutes, Theo Walcott, a wing whose confidence has looked absent of late, scored twice, each time with dead-eye precision into the far corner of the net. That was that. Arsenal’s much questioned character had come through the test of a neighbor that had started the afternoon with thoughts of chasing down the Manchester teams and winning its first English league title since 1961. More than 50 years have passed since Spurs had a team like this. One defeat, even one so humbling as Sunday’s, will not take away Tottenham’s hopes of regaining the championship. But Redknapp acknowledged that nothing he tried could put the spark back into his Spurs this weekend. Next Saturday, his team plays Manchester United. For Arsène Wenger, the eternal optimist of Arsenal, a season of despair has a glimmer of light. “This,” he said, “was a performance full of everything you want from your team. It had style, spirit and resilience. We just refused to lose the game, no matter what.” And he smiled, for the first time in months.

English Premier League
Arsenal (Soccer Team)
Tottenham Hotspur (Soccer Team)


Second-Quarter Economic Growth Revised Down to 1.6%

Abstract: Economic statistics released Friday offered the clearest sign yet that the recovery, already acknowledged to be sauntering, had slowed to a crawl. The government lowered its estimate of economic growth in the second quarter to an annual rate of 1.6 percent, after originally reporting last month that growth in the April-June period was 2.4 percent. The revision is a significant slowdown from the annual rate of 3.7 percent in the first quarter and 5 percent in the last three months of 2009. The news came at the end of a week that showed the economic retrenchment that began in the second quarter has spilled over into the summer. Existing home sales in July were down to their lowest level in a decade, and sales of new homes last month were at their lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1963. Orders for large factory goods, excluding the volatile transportation sector, dropped in July, indicating that recovery in the manufacturing sector also was stalling. With such grim reports, economists are now concerned that the outlook for job creation, which has been spluttering all summer, could deteriorate further. Companies and consumers tend to be spooked by bad news, and market analysts and economists worry that faltering confidence could cause employers to hold back on hiring. “When you get a downshift in growth there is a risk that it will feed on itself,” the chief economist at MF Global, James F. O’Sullivan, said. “The question now is to what extent has the improving trend just been temporarily set back or has it really been short-circuited.” In a speech Friday morning, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, said that he expected the economy to continue on a growth track, “albeit at a relatively modest pace.” He also indicated that the Fed would be willing to resume large purchases of longer-term debt if the economy worsened. Such moves could have the effect of lowering mortgage rates. Although rates are already at historic lows, economists suggest that lower rates could eventually spur some home-buying or at least refinancing, which gives households more cash to spend. Meanwhile, a closely watched survey by the University of Michigan and Thomson Reuters showed that consumer sentiment ticked up marginally in August from July, but remained well below levels seen during the previous six months. The bulk of the downgrade in the second-quarter G.D.P. was because government analysts had assumed that American companies added more inventory to their warehouse shelves than they actually did. The adjustment also took into account a sharp rise in imports, leading to a wider-than-estimated trade deficit. Economists polled by Bloomberg News had been expecting the second-quarter growth figure to be revised down to 1.4 percent. Inventories, originally reported to have grown by $75.7 billion, actually grew by $63.2 billion. Some economists pointed to a silver lining in the figure. Because companies have kept inventories relatively low, “if demand was to take off, they would have to hire additional workers and ramp up production,” said Omair Sharif, United States economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland. “So the fact that businesses did not accumulate enough inventories sets the stage for a much stronger pickup in employment and hours worked in the future, if demand picks up.” For now, companies are not building up inventories. “There is some hesitancy out there now about building up any more than they have to,” said Thomas J. Duesterberg, chief executive of the Manufacturers Alliance-MAPI, a trade association. Imports, which were first reported to have grown at an annual rate of 28.8 percent, the biggest jump in a quarter-century, grew by 32.4 percent, compared with a much lower gain of 9.1 percent in exports. Mr. Duesterberg said he expected exports to grow further in the second half of the year. What strength there had been in the original growth number came from business investment in items that included office buildings, equipment and software. The revised number showed that such spending rose at an annual rate of 17.6 percent, not much different from the 17 percent estimated in the initial second-quarter report. Consumer spending, which economists often look to as a primary indicator of recovery, grew 2 percent. That was a slightly better rate than the Commerce Department originally said last month when it reported that consumption grew at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the second quarter, and just above the 1.9 percent increase in the first quarter. Optimists pointed to that bump in consumer spending as a sign that the recovery, while weak, still had legs. Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group, said that he expected the Fed to take action and for companies, now sitting on large cash reserves, to eventually start hiring again, moves that he believed would translate into more robust consumer spending. But more bearish analysts said there was little evidence that the economy was recovering in anything but name only. With more recent indicators showing a shrinking housing market, dwindling orders for factory goods and rampant discounting among retailers, some economists saw far more clouds than sun. “Given all the stimulus and all the steroids and all the medication, the economy should be ripping right now,” said David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist for Gluskin Sheff & Associates. “The fact that it’s not should lead people to believe that this is certainly not a common recession .” Mr. Rosenberg pointed out that during the Great Depression , the economy experienced several quarters of official growth, despite the presence of bread lines and rampant unemployment. Now, he said, “it seems the diagnosis is pretty clear, but people don’t like to talk about it, because Depression depresses people.” Economists have been revising their forecasts for growth in the second half, with Goldman Sachs now projecting annual growth of 1.5 percent. Ben Herzon, a senior economist at Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting group, said the firm had taken its estimate for third-quarter growth down to 1.7 percent from 2.5 percent at the beginning of July. Mr. Herzon said that he was not expecting a double-dip back into recession, however. “It’s difficult to point to a shock that would be bad enough to put the economy back into a recession,” he said. “I just think it means that this recovery is going to be slower and more painful than we originally expected.”

Gross Domestic Product
United States Economy