After a Rating Downgrade, U.S. Treasuries Turn a Profit

Abstract: TWO months ago, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the bond rating of the United States government. So far, at least, the move has done wonders for investors in the very bonds that the rating agency disparaged. The rating downgrade, along with continued turmoil in European markets and fears that the United States might be entering a new recession , caused a flight to safety among investors. And, notwithstanding the agency’s opinion, money flooded into Treasuries and the demand for American dollars grew. Since then, Treasury bonds have been one of the few investments that have produced good profits. As can be seen from the accompanying charts, an investor in long-term Treasuries would have earned a double-digit return, counting the small interest earned and the larger capital gains from rising prices. Shorter-term Treasuries have also rallied, although by smaller amounts. When S.& P. cut the United States’ rating from AAA to a still-high AA+, it went out of its way to praise France, which retains a AAA rating. Investors in long-term French bonds have not done badly over the period, with a gain of nearly 4 percent, measured in euros, since the S.& P. move. Unfortunately, however, the weakness of the euro has more than offset that return. Among the world’s major currencies, the dollar has been nearly the strongest since the downgrade. Only the Japanese yen has outpaced it, and that by a small amount. The Chinese renminbi, whose value is set by China and allowed to rise gradually against the dollar, is also up, but that would have been true no matter what happened in other markets. If the Chinese currency did trade freely, it would no doubt be much higher than it is, but it too might have had a bad two months. Many currencies from emerging markets had been strong until recently, in part because foreign investors were buying them to invest in their stock markets. But it appears some investors are fleeing those markets as part of the flight to safety. Both the Korean and Indian stock markets are down significantly in local currencies, and their currencies have depreciated against the dollar. In Brazil, the stock market came close to holding its own, so long as you look at local prices. But the real has lost about a tenth of its value, so the performance in international terms has been poor. China’s stock market has been among the worst in the world, losing nearly a fifth of its value over those two months. The American market, by contrast, has been among the best after adjusting for currency movements. It is a feature of the modern world that many countries, less concerned about the loss of buying power for their own citizens, welcome weak currencies, hoping that will help their exporters. As a result, the recent rise of the dollar has itself been a cause of worry in the United States.

Credit Ratings and Credit Rating Agencies


Mike Pence Is Rebuffed as He Tries to Rally G.O.P. Leaders Over ‘Deplorables’

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Gov. Mike Pence came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday on a mission to promote Republican unity, attacking Hillary Clinton for describing many supporters of the G.O.P. ticket as bigoted “deplorables” and urging Republicans to rally behind their nominee, Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Pence struggled to press the attack: In separate news conferences, House and Senate Republican leaders declined to join Mr. Pence, the Indiana governor and vice-presidential nominee, in rebuking Mrs. Clinton over her remark . Mr. Pence wound up raising the subject only when pressed by a reporter — and then gave a halting answer in which he would not call David Duke , a white supremacist and onetime Ku Klux Klan leader, “deplorable.” He insisted instead that Mrs. Clinton did not have “that bad man” in mind when she assailed Mr. Trump’s supporters. It was a noticeable break in stride for the Trump campaign, which had zeroed in on Mrs. Clinton’s remark at a Manhattan fund-raiser Friday night — one for which she expressed regret the next day — running a new commercial and dispatching surrogates to attack her for what Mr. Trump has termed a “slander” of his “wonderful, amazing” followers. Congressional Republicans were even blunter in private. An otherwise friendly morning meeting with House Republicans turned awkward when Mr. Pence was pressed by Representative Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska about Mr. Trump’s difficulties with women, said two House Republicans who relayed the conversation. Mr. Fortenberry told Mr. Pence that his young daughter had come to him and said, “Daddy, Donald Trump hates women,” according to one of the lawmakers, who both insisted on anonymity to recount a private conversation. “It’s just not true,” Mr. Pence shot back, arguing that Mr. Trump was improving with women, the two House Republicans said. Mr. Pence faced resistance again when he met privately with Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas, neither of whom has endorsed Mr. Trump. Mr. Lee pressed the governor on his reluctance to denounce Mr. Duke and the so-called alt-right movement more explicitly, stressing “that Republicans must identify David Duke’s racism as deplorable,” according to Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Mr. Lee. For Every 10 U.S. Adults, Six Vote and Four Don’t. What Separates Them? People are motivated to vote by a combination of individual priorities, group culture, candidate outreach, and how easy or hard it is to cast a ballot. Mr. Pence was greeted warmly by Senate Republicans when he joined them for a lunch of Chick-fil-A sandwiches, but received a firm rebuke from John McCain of Arizona, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Calling Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, “a thug and a butcher,” Mr. McCain said Mr. Trump’s embrace of the autocratic ruler was unacceptable, according to a Republican official present who also insisted on anonymity. Mr. Pence insisted that he and Mr. Trump were trying to belittle President Obama rather than to laud Mr. Putin. The very nature of Mr. Pence’s visit to Capitol Hill offered some insights as to why Mr. Trump, who had his own testy visit with Senate Republicans here in July, is still confronting difficulties with his party. Playing the part of troubleshooting diplomat as much as running mate, Mr. Pence spent much of the day behind closed doors reassuring his former colleagues, with whom he retains close ties, that they could trust Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence said Mr. Trump behaved differently in private, and even had a spiritual side. Congressional Republicans said they were pleased that the presidential race was tightening and that Mr. Trump appeared more viable, partly because their own prospects depend on his being competitive enough that Republicans still bother to vote. With his modest uptick in the polls, Mr. Trump may have forestalled an outright break with Republicans in Congress. As recently as a few weeks ago, party leaders and strategists in Washington were preparing to take emergency measures, having their candidates disavow Mr. Trump and present themselves to voters as a counterweight to a President Clinton. Republicans may still activate those plans if Mr. Trump stumbles badly against Mrs. Clinton in the final stretch of the race. But for now, the party has adopted a middle-ground approach, with most Republicans in Washington nominally supporting Mr. Trump while advancing campaign messages that differ widely from his in almost every respect. That distance was on display when congressional Republicans refrained from echoing Mr. Trump’s indictment of Mrs. Clinton over her saying that half his supporters were bigots, sexists and homophobes. Few Republicans want to confront thorny follow-up questions about Mr. Trump’s supporters, and fewer still want to make matters of race, gender and sexual orientation central to their campaigns. The silence about what has for the last three days been at the core of Mr. Trump’s campaign also underscored a more fundamental gap: Republicans on Capitol Hill have their own agenda and intend to run their campaigns apart from Mr. Trump — not as a unified ticket. So Speaker Paul D. Ryan tried to use his news conference with Mr. Pence to promote his own “Better Way” proposals on the economy, military and poverty, which were formulated separately from the Trump campaign. David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises congressional leaders, said lawmakers were right to focus on their own political interests. “That’s a Hillary Clinton statement, and that’s who Trump is running against,” Mr. Winston said of the “deplorables” debate. “For a lot of these members, what they’re trying to do is define their view of the future in contrast to what they’re facing. These are members representing individual districts with specific concerns.” That Mr. Pence had to assume a Willy Loman-meets-Henry Kissinger role and sell elected Republicans on Mr. Trump’s merits less than two months before Election Day illustrates the unique challenges Republicans are facing. By contrast, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mrs. Clinton’s running mate, is spending much of his time appealing to voters in swing states — not pleading with recalcitrant Democrats in Senate cloakrooms to endorse their nominee. Mr. Pence was plainly unable to win over Republican holdouts. Representative Carlos Curbelo, a first-term Florida congressman who has said he will not vote for Mr. Trump, was left pining for an alternative reality. “The country would probably be more pleased with the vice-presidential candidates than the two candidates at the top,” Mr. Curbelo said with a grin. Representative Lee Zeldin of New York, a Long Island Republican who supports Mr. Trump, said it was widely accepted that some Republicans would seek distance from the national ticket and focus on a congressional agenda. But Mr. Zeldin urged Republicans to take sides in the presidential race, and said he planned to talk “not only about issues impacting the next Congress, but also understanding that who is in the White House is important.” “There are people watching this race as if there’s another option that’s going to win on Nov. 8,” Mr. Zeldin said. “It’s Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton versus Ronald Reagan arriving as a white knight and becoming a substitute and winning.”

Mike Pence
Republicans
Hillary Clinton
Senate
Congress
Congress
Donald Trump
2016 Presidential Election
House of Representatives


P.G.A. Championship — Woods’s Drought Continues

Abstract: KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Tiger Woods buried his face in a white towel, then threw the towel at his bag with undisguised contempt. His tee shot at the par-5 seventh hole had landed in gnarly rough, and going for the green appeared out of the question. When Woods exchanged a hybrid club for a short iron to lay up, he had unofficially thrown in the towel. There would be no Sunday charge at the P.G.A. Championship. Woods shot a par 72 in the final round for a total of 286 and a tie for 11th place. His chase of Jack Nicklaus’s record 18 majors remains stalled at 14, and he has still never won a major when trailing after 54 holes. Eighteen majors have come and gone since Woods limped his way around Torrey Pines on an injured left knee and won the 2008 United States Open in a playoff with Rocco Mediate. That was a time when Woods rarely yielded a lead. His invincibility began to shatter three years ago when Y. E. Yang chased him down at the 2009 P.G.A. Championship. This year, Woods has struggled on the weekends at majors as never before. For the second time in the past three majors, Woods shared the 36-hole lead and squandered his opportunity. Woods entered the third round here tied at the top with Carl Pettersson and Vijay Singh at four under, but it took only seven holes for him to tumble down the leader board Saturday. When bad weather halted play in the third round, he had slipped five shots behind the leaders. Some thought the overnight break would rejuvenate Woods. But when play resumed Sunday, he wrapped up his front nine of the third round in four-over-par 40. Only one golfer in the field, Scott Piercy, shot a higher score. “I came out, probably, with the wrong attitude,” Woods said in assessing his Saturday performance. “I was too relaxed and tried to enjoy it, and that’s not how I play,” he said. “I play intense and full systems go. That cost me.” It used to be that whenever Woods looked to be on the brink of disaster, he summoned recovery shots that left fans breathless. For the first two days of the P.G.A. Championship, his putter bailed him out; he took only 46 putts and had 23 one-putt greens. On Sunday, Woods returned to the course with his red shirt and his brooding intensity and made three birdies and one bogey to finish with a 74 in the third round. But Woods’s velvety touch on the greens disappeared, and he was never within four strokes of Rory McIlroy, the eventual winner, during the final round. Over the weekend, Woods required 30 putts in each round. Most staggering, he failed to break par in any weekend round at the four majors this year. At the Masters, Woods closed with 72-74 and finished tied for 40th. Then, at the United States Open, Woods shared the 36-hole lead but bogeyed four of his first eight holes on Saturday and plummeted out of contention with a five-over 75. He finished tied for 21st. Woods’s conservative game plan off the tee at the British Open worked wonders for two days. He carded a pair of 67s but shot 143 on the weekend and tied for third. It was two years ago at the 2010 P.G.A. Championship that Woods committed to reinventing his swing with the instructor Sean Foley. The results so far are mixed. Woods, 36, has three PGA Tour victories this season, but his failure to finish at majors suggests there is still work to be done. “He’s just desperate, which is a very human property that just about every other player bar Tiger Woods used to be,” the Golf Channel commentator Frank Nobilo said. Nobilo continued, “Now, Tiger at the moment, when he is desperate, then all of the sudden his golf becomes — I would never use the word ordinary, but it comes pretty close to it.” Before the tournament, Woods was asked if it was harder to win a major than it was 10 years ago. “Is it harder?” he said. “Well, I haven’t won one, so probably.” It was another lost year for Woods at the majors. With McIlroy and several other young players showing no fear at the majors, the road ahead will not be easier. And now Woods’s pursuit of his 15th major will have to wait until April.


Tax on Financial Trades Gains Support in Europe

Abstract: LUXEMBOURG — Italy and Spain joined nine other European Union countries on Tuesday in backing a tax on financial trades, bringing the most significant attempt at such an initiative a step closer to success. The levy, also known as a Robin Hood tax, or Tobin tax, gained momentum in Europe in better economic times. It was originally expected that the revenue would mostly go to humanitarian and environmental causes, including ways to combat climate change . Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, the emphasis has shifted. European officials now mainly see the tax as a way of penalizing the financial sector and returning some of the money that was spent on bank bailouts to citizens squeezed by austerity and the economic slowdown. “I think that taxpayers have legitimate expectations that they will be paid back for what was used in the bailouts, and the financial transactions tax can provide for this,” Algirdas Semeta, the European commissioner for taxation, said Tuesday after a monthly meeting of European Union finance ministers, where a number of nations pledged their support. “Many citizens are angry about these problems over the causes of the financial crisis, and this small contribution of very tiny rates could help rebuild confidence in the financial sector,” Mr. Semeta said. A qualified majority of all 27 European Union finance ministers would have to approve the measure for the tax to take effect among those nations that support it. Mr. Semeta said that step could be taken at the next meeting of the finance ministers, in November. Such a tax has been under discussion for decades, and the idea is closely associated with James Tobin, an economist who proposed a version of it in the 1970s and received a Nobel in economic science in 1981. In the United States, the tax has become a rallying point for labor unions, nongovernmental organizations and the Occupy Wall Street movement, which view it as a way to claw back money from the top wage earners. Last year, demonstrators urged the leaders of the Group of 20 nations to do more to help the poor, including passing a tax on financial transactions. Mr. Semeta has already proposed legislation that would impose a tax of 0.1 percent on the value of all stock and bond trades, and of 0.01 percent on all derivatives trades. That could raise 57 billion euros ($74 billion) annually, or about 0.5 percent of European Union output, if it were applied across the bloc. But with fewer than half of those countries expected to participate — and without the revenue from the tax that could be generated by Britain — the amount would probably be significantly less. Britain opposes the measure, fearing that it could drive business from the City of London, a world financial center. But Britain would probably have a partial exemption because only trades between British banks and those in countries that adopted the system would be taxed. Many specialists contend this would push even more financial business toward the City, as banks seek a base in a no-tax country. “This is giving a present to London, the best present you can imagine,” said Karel Lannoo, the chief executive of the Center for European Policy Studies, a research organization. The drive for investment bankers, hedge fund managers and high-frequency traders to pay for the economic difficulties had become a paramount concern, Mr. Lannoo said. Politicians “see there is pressure to do something about the financial sector,” he said. European officials said Tuesday that George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, would not oppose the measure as long as Britain was allowed a partial exemption from the plan. Sweden and the Netherlands also have shown no interest in applying a new European tax. “We still think that the financial transaction tax is a very dangerous tax,” Anders Borg, the Swedish finance minister, said. “It will have a negative impact on growth.” The Dutch finance minister, Jan Kees de Jager, said his country was “not in favor of a financial transaction tax” and was “even reluctant about introduction in other countries.” Mr. Semeta acknowledged on Tuesday that the countries seeking to introduce the tax did not agree on how, exactly, the revenue would be spent. “Of course the big question is how the money will be used, but first we need to agree on the tax itself,” he said. Mr. Semeta said some countries still would like to use some of the money to supplement financing for overseas aid projects, while others want to use it to help offset their contributions to the annual European Union budget of about 140 billion euros. The opposition from Britain and Sweden led the biggest supporters of the tax, Germany and France, to push hard for a procedure known in European Union jargon as enhanced cooperation. It allows a core group of European nations to proceed with policies that other nations oppose. A minimum of nine nations is required for the commission to write legislation. In recent days, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia pledged their support for the levy. On Monday, they were joined by Greece. On Tuesday, Italy, Spain, Slovakia and Estonia pledged support.

Italy
Spain
European Union
Taxation
Banking and Financial Institutions
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )


Bridging the Gap on Cars and Beef

Abstract: SEOUL — Differences over cars and beef have been holding up a free trade agreement between South Korea and the United States for more than three years. The question now is whether the two countries can reach a deal as President Barack Obama and President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea meet this week in Seoul. The two countries signed on to a free trade agreement in April 2007, but the deal awaits ratification by both the U.S. Congress and the South Korean National Assembly. So deep are the differences that Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton both opposed it in 2007 when they were U.S. senators and George W. Bush was nearing the end of his presidency. They have changed their minds, but the agreement remains stymied, as far as the Americans are concerned, on the issues on which they based their objections: the huge disparity between sales of South Korean vehicles in the United States and those of American vehicles in Korea and restraints on the amount of U.S. beef imported into South Korea. Both sides do agree on one thing: that the Group of 20 meeting this week somehow marks a deadline for top negotiators on both sides — South Korea’s trade minister, Kim Jong-hoon, and the U.S. special trade representative, Ron Kirk — to come up with a formula. At the G-20 summit meeting in Toronto in June, Mr. Obama told Mr. Lee that he would “make sure everything is lined up properly by the time I visit Korea in November.” The differences are so sensitive that Park Tae-young, a director in the trade division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, after five hours of inconclusive negotiations recently with Mr. Kirk and other U.S. officials in San Francisco, refused to discuss them. He repeated what has become a mantra for the Korean side: “We don’t want to revisit the text of the agreement.” Still, he indicated there might be other ways to come to terms. “Basically it’s about autos and beef,” he said. “We are open to consult about U.S. concerns.” Whether more consultations will work, however, is far from clear. In two-way trade last year totaling $67.8 billion, the U.S. imported products valued at $39.2 billion from Korea while exporting $28.6 billion. Both figures were way down from 2008, when U.S. imports from Korea came to $48.1 billion compared with $34.7 billion earned from exports to Korea. U.S. carmakers sold vehicles worth $161 million in Korea in 2009, down from $370 million in 2008, while Korea’s manufacturers, led by Hyundai Motor and its sister, Kia Motors, earned $5.7 billion from 2009 exports to the United States, down from $7.4 billion in 2008, a disparity due in part to rising production at Hyundai’s plant in Montgomery, Alabama, and Kia’s new plant in West Point, Georgia. In the first nine months of 2010, U.S. manufacturers exported 10,162 vehicles to Korea, compared with 41,664 exported from Germany. Korean manufacturers exported 449,403 cars to the United States in that period. The fear among U.S. manufacturers is that the free trade agreement, by eliminating tariffs on trucks in the next 10 years, would blow apart burgeoning sales of pickup trucks made by U.S. manufacturers while Korean sport utility vehicles and cars pour in unabated. The Americans attribute low exports to Korea to a wide range of tests, standards and taxes aside from tariffs. While the tariffs might go, they say, other barriers would keep U.S. exports within circumscribed limits far below the figure of 100,000 vehicles a year that some analysts believe would be possible if the playing field were totally level. Passage of the agreement, however, has one major American advocate whose voice reflects the views of many U.S. business people: the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea. “We are probably the strongest supporters,” said the Chamber’s president, Amy Jackson. “We’re the ones on the ground here. We see the possible effects” of a free trade agreement. “There are significant tariff cuts that will give U.S. manufactured and agricultural goods preferential access to this market.” When it comes to beef, she notes, U.S. exporters have captured 35 percent of the market since mass demonstrations in central Seoul for months in 2008. Protesters, spurred on by a sensational television documentary, said Koreans would be at risk of mad cow disease if they ate the U.S. product. With U.S. beef imports gradually increasing, tariffs ranging as high as 40 percent under the agreement would diminish to zero in 15 years. For its proponents, one of the most persuasive arguments for ratifying the agreement, however, is that South Korea and the European Union have recently signed a similar deal to take effect on July 1 — one that could put U.S. sales in South Korea at a disadvantage.

South Korea
United States
International Trade and World Market


The New Girl in School: Transgender Surgery at 18

Abstract: In a cozy cottage decorated with butterflies to symbolize transformation, Katherine Boone was recovering in April from the operation that had changed her, in the most intimate part of her body, from a biological male into a female. It was not easy. She retched for days afterward. She could hardly eat. She did not seem empowered; she seemed regressed. “I just want to hold Emma,” she said in her darkened room at the bed-and-breakfast in New Hope, Pa., run by the doctor who performed the operation in a hospital nearby. Emma is her black and white cat, at her home outside Syracuse in central New York State, 250 miles away. Her childlike reaction was, perhaps, not surprising. Kat, whose side-parted hair was dyed a sassy red, is just 18, and about to graduate from high school. It is a transgender moment. President Obama was hailed just for saying the word “transgender” in his State of the Union address this year, in a list of people who should not be discriminated against. They are characters in popular television shows. Bruce Jenner’s transition from male sex symbol to a comely female named Caitlyn has elevated her back to her public profile as a gold-medal decathlete at the 1976 Summer Olympics. With growing tolerance, the question is no longer whether gender reassignment is an option but rather how young should it begin. No law prohibits minors from receiving sex-change hormones or even surgery, but insurers, both private and public, have generally refused to extend coverage for these procedures to those under 18. In March, New York’s Medicaid drew a line at that age, and at 21 for some procedures. But the number of teenagers going through gender reassignment has been growing amid wider acceptance of transgender identity, more parental comfort with the treatment and the emergence of a number of willing practitioners. Now advocates like Empire State Pride Agenda are fighting for coverage at an earlier age, beginning with hormone blockers at the onset of puberty, saying it is more seamless for a teenage boy to transition to becoming an adult woman, for example, if he does not first become a full-bodied man. Image Katherine Boone, who goes by Kat, showing the scars from cutting herself when she was 17. Credit Andrew Spear for The New York Times “Some of these women are passing, but barely, when they transition at 40 or 50,” said Dr. Irene Sills, an endocrinologist who just retired from a busy practice in the Syracuse area treating transgender children, including Kat. “At 16 or 17, you are going to have such an easier life with this.” Given that there are no proven biological markers for what is known as gender dysphoria , however, there is no consensus in the medical community on the central question: whether teenagers, habitually trying on new identities and not known for foresight, should be granted an irreversible physical fix for what is still considered a psychological condition. The debates invoke biology, ideology and emotion. Is gender dysphoria governed by a miswiring of the brain or by genetic coding? How much does it stem from the pressure to fit into society’s boxes — pink and dolls for girls, blue and sports for boys? Has the Internet liberated teenagers like Kat from a narrow view of how they should live their life, or has it seduced them by offering them, for the first time, an answer to their self-searching, an answer they might later choose to reject? Some experts argue that the earlier the decision is made, the more treacherous, because it is impossible to predict which children will grow up to be transgender and which will not. “Basically you have clinics working by the seat of the pants, making these decisions, and depending on which clinic you go to, you get a different response,” said Dr. Jack Drescher , a New York City psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who helped develop the latest diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. On the other hand, Dr. Drescher said, “Is it fair to make a child who’s never going to change wait till 16 or 18 to get treatment?” A Teenager’s Pain Kat Boone did not fit the stereotype of a girl trapped in a boy’s body. As a child, she dressed in jeans and shirts, like all the other boys, and her best friend was a boy. She liked to play with cars and slash bad guys in the Legend of Zelda video games. She still shuns dresses, preferring skinny jeans and band T-shirts. But as a freshman in high school in Cazenovia, N.Y., she became depressed and withdrawn. “I knew that the changes going on with puberty were not me,” Kat said. “I started to really hate my life, myself. I was uncomfortable with my body, my voice, and I just felt like I was really a girl.” Image Gail Boone, left, and her daughter, Kat, waiting for a doctor's visit in New Hope, Pa. Credit Andrew Spear for The New York Times When she discovered the transgender world on the Internet, she had a flash of recognition. “I was reading through some symptoms, not really symptoms, but some of the attributes of it did click,” she recalled. It took a few months, but one night, she crept into her mother’s room and sat on the bed, crying. When she finally came out with what was bothering her, her mother’s first impulse was to comfort her, holding her hand and saying: “It’s O.K. It’s O.K.” But inside, Gail Boone was terrified. She had wondered if her son was gay, and that, she says, would have been easier to deal with than a child who wanted to be the opposite sex. “There’s this fear,” Ms. Boone said, “what is this going to do to my kid, what are people going to think, what are people going to think about me?” Kat’s father, Andrew, had moved out when she was in fifth grade, and it took a few months for Kat and her mother to find the courage to tell him. Gail Boone had a background in psychology, which helped her understand. Mr. Boone, an operations and project manager, had a harder time, but was brought around for the sake of his child. He read books about being transgender and raked his memory for clues in Kat’s early childhood, but could not find any. “Maybe she thinks this is the thing, and there’s something else going on,” he remembered thinking. “How do we know?” He wished there were something scientific like a blood test that would give him 100 percent certainty. Mr. Boone recalls going into “a zombie trance,” a period of mourning for the child he thought he knew. “I was really eating myself up because I couldn’t help this overwhelming feeling as if my child had died,” he said. “But here was my child right in front of me.” At 16 and a half, after seeing a therapist, Kat began taking estrogen and a blood pressure drug, spironolactone, that is also used to block the actions of testosterone, to help her look more female. In the fall of junior year, she showed up at school wanting to be called Katherine, or Kat, because she likes cats. She does not want anything to do with her birth name, Caden. She also has discovered that she likes girls. “I identify as a lesbian,” she said, though her attractions have not been reciprocated. Image As a high school freshman, Kat says, she knew “the changes going on with puberty were not me.” Now 18, she will start college as a woman. Credit Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times It was the cutting that convinced them that if she could not live as a girl, Kat would kill herself. She still has two angry scars on her left forearm. “It became clear to me that this wasn’t a passing phase or some choice or reaction,” Mr. Boone said. “This was truly the basis of what she was.” Part of what brought her father around was the support network that has sprung up around transgender issues. In Syracuse, it is the Q (for queer or questioning) Center, run by the nonprofit ACR Health . It is not easy to find. Visitors have to be buzzed in through an unmarked back door in a shabby neighborhood. But inside, it is homey, with a well-appointed library, a kitchen and a meeting room outfitted with beanbag chairs. A meeting of teenagers in April began with each one declaring a name and pronoun of the day. Their choices were not always intuitively obvious. A young man with a scruffy beard and shaggy hair asked to be called Jackie and with the pronoun “she.” “One of the nice things a trans person gets to do during transition is pick a new name,” said the facilitator, Mallory Livingston, a lawyer, “assigned male at birth,” now looking feminine in a tight pink camisole, black lace-up boots and miniskirt. “I went with the name of a character from my kids’ favorite movie, a strong female swordsperson.” But there were hints of the pain the children had to endure. One child was required to use a separate bathroom at school, and a hidden camera was later found there. Kat told the group that she was looking forward to surgery in six days. They clapped. “I’m scared,” she confessed. A Young Movement The ability to alter a child’s gender physically has never been greater. But the drive to treat children is relatively new. One of the first and biggest hormone programs for young teenagers in the United States is led by a Harvard-affiliated pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Norman Spack , at Boston Children’s Hospital. Image Two transgender youths, Jackie Wilson, left, and Mason Wolsey, both 17, sharing a laugh during a transgender support meeting at the Q Center in Syracuse. Credit Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times Dr. Spack recalled being at a meeting in Europe about 15 years ago, when he learned that the Dutch were using puberty blockers in transgender early adolescents. “I was salivating,” he recalled. “I said we had to do this.” The puberty-blocking protocol gained legitimacy in 2009, when it was endorsed by the Endocrine Society, the leading association of hormone experts, on the recommendation of a task force including Dr. Spack. The protocol calls for administering puberty-blocking drugs, generally Lupron, an injection, or histrelin, an implant, that are normally used to treat precocious puberty as well as prostate cancer and endometriosis, abnormal growth of uterine tissue. The theory is that this drug-induced lull from about 12 to 16, sometimes younger, will help teenagers decide if they truly are transgender, without committing to irreversible physical changes. Puberty blockers are reversible. But in practice, some experts warn, once children have “socially transitioned” it is very difficult to go back. If a psychological evaluation confirms gender dysphoria, teenagers are treated with cross-sex hormones (estrogen for boys, testosterone for girls), so they will, in effect, go through opposite-sex puberty. A consequence of going through the whole protocol is infertility. The blockers cost thousands of dollars a year, and like all drugs used for transgender treatment, have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for that use, though they may be legally prescribed “off label.” Dr. Spack said his clinic had treated about 200 children since 2007, and less than 20 percent had been covered by insurance. “That’s where the dilemma came in: Who the hell could afford it?” he said. Doctors say that if children are started on puberty blockers young enough, insurance is less likely to question it. Some doctors have been able to drive the price down to $120 a month by getting the adult implant, which is much cheaper than the pediatric one, from sympathetic urologists and stretching it out over two years instead of just one. Image Kat this month with her surgeon, Dr. Christine McGinn, who is also a transgender woman. Credit Andrew Spear for The New York Times While hormones for minors are sometimes covered by insurance, surgery almost never is. But several doctors said they had performed surgery on minors. Kat’s surgeon, Dr. Christine McGinn, estimated that she had done more than 30 operations on children under 18, about half of them vaginoplasties for biological boys becoming girls, and the other half double mastectomies for girls becoming boys. “We’re trying to find the sweet spot,” Dr. McGinn said. “The problem is, it’s not an age, it’s a situation.” Advocates say that extending treatment to teenagers will alleviate depression and suicide. With that in mind, Oregon’s Medicaid began covering the gamut of treatment, regardless of age, in January. Patients as young as 15 do not need parental consent. The evidence is mixed. A large-scale Swedish study at the Karolinska Institute found that starting about a decade after gender reassignment surgery, transgender people were still more than 19 times as likely to die by suicide as the general population. Complicating matters, studies suggest that most young children with gender dysphoria eventually lose any desire to change sex, and may grow up to be gay, rather than transgender. Once into adolescence, however, their dysphoria is more likely to stick. Dr. Paul McHugh , a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and its hospital’s former psychiatrist in chief, is skeptical of the use of surgery for a psychological condition, and even more so for children. “Bruce Jenner — who cares?” said Dr. McHugh, who said he played a role in closing a transgender surgery program at Johns Hopkins about 35 years ago. “He’s a wonderfully successful person. He’s got all kinds of social networks. He’s got plenty of money. No one’s objecting to him if he wants to live as a woman. This is America, be my guest. “But we’re talking about children with a future ahead of them.” A New Beginning Kat went into the surgery on April 7 with high hopes. Dr. McGinn was far from Cazenovia, in Lower Bucks Hospital in Pennsylvania. But Kat’s parents trusted her not only as a specialist, but also as a role model: She had been a dashing male doctor in the Navy, before becoming a beautiful female doctor in civilian life. Image Kat and her mother at a guest house in New Hope owned by Kat's surgeon. The family made the four-hour drive from a town near Syracuse. Credit Andrew Spear for The New York Times Kat had been accepted at Champlain College in Vermont, where she planned to use her artistic talent (she designed the rose tattoo on her shoulder) to study video game design. Her goal was to start college as a woman. Through luck — a cancellation — they were able to book a date during spring break, when Dr. McGinn’s calendar begins filling up with college-bound patients. Gail Boone’s insurance plan initially denied coverage for the operation. A customer service agent told her genital reconstructive surgery was allowed only for conditions like birth defects. “You got it,” Ms. Boone retorted. They prevailed. It was too late to change some things, like Kat’s tenor voice and facial hair. “I hate my voice,” she said. “I shave.” She chose not to save sperm — to her, a revolting reminder of masculinity — so she cannot have children, the one sacrifice that gave her father a pang. The operation involved deconstructing her male genitals and repurposing the nerves and skin as female anatomy. When it was over, Kat developed aspiration pneumonia and had vomiting and dry heaves for days, normal reactions to anesthesia, narcotics and antibiotics, but Dr. McGinn said Kat was hit harder than most. Before the surgery, she had been impish and playful. Now she buried her nose in her Nintendo 3DS and cracked a rare smile at an old text message consisting entirely of “Meow,” “Meow.” Her father felt helpless as she refused food and lost about 20 pounds. Dr. McGinn said it was not unusual for patients to become depressed after surgery and compared this to postpartum depression. Kat was anxious about having enough privacy in college, since her new vagina needs constant care or it will close off like a wound. “The only thing I’m thinking about now is the room situation,” she said. Six weeks after the operation, she was still so weak that she had to take the elevator at school instead of the stairs. At her two-month checkup, she had gained back half the weight she had lost, but still looked frail and self-conscious. She treated herself to a new hair color — strawberry blond — for graduation. Kat said she had “zero regrets.” But it was clear to all of them that the operation was not a quick fix. It is not a “yippie, jump up and down fireworks situation,” Mr. Boone said. “It’s a grand relief that something that’s been such a bother to her is finally gone.”

Surgery
Katherine Boone
Transgender,Gender Dysphoria
Teens


China: 2 Protests by Students in Tibetan Areas

Abstract: Groups of students in two Tibetan areas of Gansu Province, in western China , have held separate protests after Chinese security forces imposed lockdowns at boarding schools before the anniversaries of previous Tibetan uprisings, according to a report by the International Campaign for Tibet , an advocacy group. The report, based on information obtained by Tibetans in exile with ties to people in Gansu, was similar to an earlier report of the protests by Radio Free Asia.


Moody’s Mirrors Wall St. Salaries

Abstract: Is Moody’s Investors Service a member of the free press, or is it a Wall Street firm? If you listen to the credit rating outfit’s arguments for some of the poor advice it has given investors, you would think it was a member of the Fourth Estate. But when it comes to determining executive compensation , it fancies itself among a wealthier peer group. Like its rival Standard & Poor’s, a unit of McGraw-Hill, Moody’s uses the free speech protections of the First Amendment to shield itself from legal liability when its ratings miss the mark. It argues that ratings are not different from published opinion pieces, so investors shouldn’t be allowed to go after the company if those opinions turn out to be wrong — as they have been in rather staggering quantities over recent years. Yet the assertion that the rating firms deserve the same free speech protections given to journalists doesn’t seem intuitively quite right. For instance, the agencies are paid by debt issuers, analogous to a media organization’s sources rather than its audience. And the rating firms’ status as nationally recognized statistical rating organizations gives them a veneer of officialdom unheard of in the context of independent journalism. Meantime, when it comes to executive pay, Moody’s actually doesn’t seem to consider itself in the same category as traditional publishers at all. Moody’s latest proxy statement lists 21 peers. Among these are money managers like BlackRock, equity and futures exchanges, even the Union Bank of California. There’s not one newspaper publisher among the bunch, though Thomson Reuters and McGraw-Hill appear thanks to their financial data businesses. Based on that peer group, Moody’s chief, Raymond McDaniel, received $7.6 million in total compensation last year — more than double what newspaper groups like Gannett and McClatchy paid their top executives. Maybe this will make no difference to a judge next time the firm pleads its case for protection from disgruntled investors who bought triple-A rated securities that turned toxic. But it does look as if Moody’s bosses are adopting the mantle of the free press — except when it comes to getting paid. Time for Tax Changes Encouraging companies to take on debt is foolish. Yet, that is the effect of allowing interest payments to be deducted from profits before tax bills are calculated. This tax advantage helped bring the world to the brink of crises in leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate. Many companies will go bankrupt and banks will suffer bigger losses — making the recession deeper than it needed to be. The tax deductibility of corporate interest costs is a longstanding tradition. It was part of the first taxes on profits, in 1894. The spurious justification is that interest is a business expense like any other. But it’s better to consider all debt as a type of capital, like equity. The difference is that the payments made by companies to service their debt are tax deductible — whereas dividends generally are not. Companies, therefore, have an incentive to pile on debt. They’re restrained only by the fear that when business slumps, they won’t be able to make interest and principal payments. In the boom those fears melted away, and the cult of “financial efficiency” took hold. The tax deductibility only added to the appeal of low interest rates. There was superhigh debt in leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate, while many companies levered up to buy back shares. Then there were debt-financed acquisition sprees. All this taxpayer-financed speculation created bubbles that have now burst. Losses on corporate and commercial real estate loans originated by American banks will reach $829 billion in this cycle, according to RGE Monitor. To this should be added mark-to-market losses on corporate debt and commercial real estate securities. Efforts have been made to cut the tax advantages for the most highly leveraged companies. The crisis offers an opportunity for greater reform, like phasing out the tax-deductibility of interest payments, so that taxes are paid on operating profits. To make the effect on businesses as a whole neutral, corporate tax rates could be cut. Of course, in a world without subsidies for debt, some groups like the private equity industry would howl in protest at the prospect. They should be ignored. It may be possible to get an international consensus. The Group of 20 leaders have already come together to crack down on tax havens. Why not try to do the same for debt-driven financial engineering? ROB COX, RICHARD BEALES and HUGO DIXON

Executive Compensation
Moody's Investors Service Inc
Wages and Salaries
Freedom of the Press


Mets Hope Steven Matz Can Make Imminent Return to Rotation

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — As the improvising Mets continue to piece together a pitching rotation for the final 10 days of the season, their hope of adding Steven Matz to the mix is becoming a little more realistic. Matz went through a brief workout here Tuesday and was then preparing to board a flight back to New York. A 25-year-old left-hander, Matz is recovering from a shoulder injury and has also been pitching for much of the season with a bone spur in his left elbow. The plan is for him to throw a bullpen session on Wednesday under the watchful eye of the pitching coach Dan Warthen at Citi Field and proceed from there. If he is declared ready to perform, he could pitch several innings in Friday’s game against the Phillies. He would still need to build up arm strength, so he would probably be limited to 50 pitches, said Mets Manager Terry Collins. “The doctor said I couldn’t cause any further damage,” Matz said as he looked forward to his possible return. Collins noted that with the Mets battling for a wild-card spot, it was hardly the perfect time to ease someone back into the rotation. On the other hand, Matz is a formidable talent, and the Mets’ once-robust rotation can use whatever reinforcements are available. Matt Harvey, after all, is gone for the season, Jacob deGrom recently joined him, and Zack Wheeler’s protracted rehabilitation from Tommy John surgery upended all the plans to have him rejoin the rotation in the second half of 2016. Matz himself has not pitched in a game since Aug. 14. In their absence, relatively unknown pitchers like Seth Lugo, Robert Gsellman, Rafael Montero and Gabriel Ynoa have filled in, and for the most part, they have done well. Collectively, they have allowed the Mets to continue their almost illogical bid for a National League wild-card spot. Since deGrom last pitched on Sept. 1, Lugo, Gsellman, Ynoa and Montero have a combined earned run average of 3.69, a figure that includes a start in which Montero lasted only one and two-thirds innings, allowing six runs. Still, any help that Matz can provide before the end of the regular season would be welcome. And if the Mets can make it to the wild-card game and win it, Matz might be able to help even more in a first-round playoff series. Matz’s shoulder injury was diagnosed as an impingement that led to rotator-cuff irritation. On Tuesday, he played catch and threw long toss on a field next to the Mets’ spring training stadium before participating in pitchers’ fielding drills. As he worked out, he drew little attention while about 250 fans watched Tim Tebow take part in his second day of instructional league drills as a Met. But Matz, who is 9-8 this season in 22 starts with a 3.40 earned run average, is a lot more important to the Mets’ plans than Tebow is, both now and in the foreseeable future. Matz said after his workout that his shoulder felt fine and that he was not worried about jeopardizing his health by trying to get back on the mound before the regular season concludes. “It’s not in the back of my mind at this point,” he said. “We’re in a pennant race, so I’m just going to have my main focus on that.” Matz spent time here in the second half of last season — his rookie year in the majors — as he dealt with the impact of a torn lat muscle on his left side. Eventually, he rehabilitated that injury, built back his arm strength and returned to make four starts for the Mets in September. He went 2-0 with a 2.86 E.R.A. in those four games and then overcame back spasms to pitch reasonably well in the postseason, making starts against the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs and then the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. Before all that, Matz had an even longer rehabilitation than Wheeler’s current one as Matz returned from Tommy John surgery to begin his professional career. So none of this is new to him. “You are going to face adversity in this game, so that’s just what it is,’’ Matz said. “I have to keep my focus and try to get back.”


China Reports 8th Death From Bird Flu

Abstract: China’s state media confirmed that two more people in the eastern part of the country had died Tuesday from the H7N9 virus , bringing the total number of fatalities to nine. One of the victims was from Anhui Province, while another was from Jiangsu, just north of Shanghai, which so far has been hardest hit by the virus, with five fatalities. Officials who disclosed the deaths to Xinhua, the state news agency, did not release further details of Tuesday’s deaths beyond their locations. So far, health officials have urged calm, saying there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus, which could enable it to spread rapidly. To guard against the spread of the virus from other species, Chinese officials have advised people to avoid live poultry, sent virologists to chicken farms and slaughtered tens of thousands of birds at a wholesale market in Shanghai where the virus was detected in a pigeon. So far, Chinese officials have confirmed 28 cases of the H7N9 virus in humans.


The Financial Future of Veterinarians

Abstract: To the Editor: “The Vet Debt Trap” (Feb. 24), about the veterinary student debt crisis, hit the nail on the head. It should be required reading for all prospective veterinary students, regardless of age, to temper their passionate pursuit of the profession with a sobering dose of financial realism before they commit. I am a 28-year veteran of the profession. My demographic of private-practice owners will also suffer the consequences of this vicious debt cycle, since the eventual sale proceeds of our practices represent a significant portion of our potential retirement nest egg. Good luck finding a qualified buyer among our debt-ridden younger colleagues in the next 5 to 10 years and beyond, especially in the face of falling practice revenue. Some newly minted veterinarians won’t be able to qualify for a home mortgage, let alone the financing to buy a practice. JEFFREY T. KRYSINSKI, D.V.M. Grosse Pointe, Mich., Feb. 24 • To the Editor: The article shed light on a subject that is hugely overlooked and underreported. Before I applied to veterinary school, it was my understanding that there was a lack of veterinarians, especially in large-animal practice. Now I face the challenge of paying off student debt when jobs are few and far between. I will most likely have to take an internship that may pay about $26,000 a year — $13 an hour for a 40-hour week, working 50 weeks a year. Considering that an intern may work 60 to 70 hours a week, that’s about $8 an hour. I made more money when I worked shoveling horse manure. I entered veterinary school with the best intentions — I love animals and can’t imagine a career that would make me happier. We are all young, starry-eyed animal lovers with dreams of saving lives; we are not accountants or business people. I hope that veterinary schools, the government and, most important, our future clients will take into account the sacrifices we make to live our dreams. LAUREN PETERSON Baton Rouge, La., Feb. 26 The writer is a third-year veterinary student at Louisiana State University. • To the Editor: I bought my veterinary practice in 2005, just two years out of school. And while the economy in my area has not been kind to veterinary practices, I am still here. But I have seen a change in the face of veterinary medicine, as more pet owners want low-cost, online, do-it-yourself medicine for their pets. Sometimes I foresee the field becoming a trade, rather than a profession — even as so many veterinarians have student loans to deal with. It’s hard to compete, and I have had to resort to coupons and lowering my own costs to get business in the door. I hope that it will be enough to finish paying off my loans. ANDREA MAYBERRY, D.V.M. Grove City, Ohio, Feb. 25 The writer is owner of Grove City Veterinary Hospital.

Jobs
Veterinary medicine
Graduate school


U.S. Formula One Team Struggles to Reach Starting Line

Abstract: One year after announcing grand plans to build a Formula One race team in the United States, Ken Anderson conceded on Friday that it would not be able to make the grid for the 2010 season opener March 14 in Bahrain because of financial problems. The future of the team, USF1, is in the hands of the International Automobile Federation, the sport’s governing body, known as the F.I.A. “We’re working with the F.I.A. to clarify how many races we can miss,” Anderson said during a telephone interview Friday. He said the Concorde Agreement, governing the relationship between Formula One teams and the F.I.A., allows for a team to miss as many as three races in a season. But an F.I.A. clarification Feb. 10 indicated that teams would be penalized for missing races. Anderson said the team was awaiting a decision by Jean Todt, the federation’s president, perhaps as early as this weekend. The team would rather miss the first four races, also skipping the Australian Grand Prix on March 28, the Malaysian Grand Prix on April 4 and the Chinese Grand Prix on April 18, and begin competing May 9 at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. USF1 has a satellite base in Spain. “In an ideal world, we can miss the first four races and show up in Barcelona,” Anderson said. Asked if the F.I.A. penalty for missing races could be severe enough to put USF1 out of business, Anderson said: “I guess anything’s possible. But what would be the point of that? Why would they give us a franchise and just, the first time there’s a bump in the road, yank it and put it out of business? That’s definitely not the message that I’m getting from them. They want to help us, not shut us down.” Anderson acknowledged that sponsorships had fallen through, causing the team’s financial problems. He said the team had paid its employees a day late in January. Anderson said he would be able to come up with additional sponsorship money to build a car and race in Barcelona. “We have a timeline in place that if we get a decision quickly, that triggers funding and we’re good to go,” he said. “If it takes another week or two to make a decision, it keeps backing up.” The team had remained mostly silent through its struggles. But on Friday, Anderson addressed many of the rumors circulating about USF1’s future. He said José María López, a driver from Argentina, remained under contract. But Anderson did not rule out the possibility that López could sign with another team. López could take his sponsorship, reportedly worth $8 million, and drive for another start-up. “I’m sure he’s weighing his options as well,” said Anderson, who had no plans to name a second driver. Anderson said that despite speculation to the contrary, Chad Hurley, a co-founder of YouTube who is a major investor in USF1, was still involved with the team. He also denied that Peter Windsor, another co-founder, had left USF1. The team’s 33,690-square-foot race shop in Charlotte, N.C., is for sale. But a spokesman for the commercial real estate company that is listing the property said the sale had nothing to do with USF1, which does not own the building. Anderson confirmed the team had a five-year lease and would remain there regardless of ownership. Last week, USF1 ran into some technical difficulties that had nothing to do with racing. The server for the team’s Web site, usgpe.com , went down on Thursday, leading to even more talk of its demise. The team turned to Twitter to let fans know it was still functioning. “We are not gone, as many have reported,” was posted on the USF1 team Twitter page. “More news soon.” The Web site was back up and running Friday.


How the New York Times Poll Was Conducted

Abstract: The latest New York Times poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,026 adult residents from throughout New York City conducted Aug. 10 to 15. The interviews were in English or Spanish. The sample of landline telephone exchanges called was randomly selected by a computer from a complete list of active residential exchanges across the city. The exchanges were chosen to ensure that each area of the city was represented in proportion to its share of all telephone numbers. In each exchange, random digits were added to form a complete telephone number, thus permitting access to listed and unlisted numbers alike. In each household, one adult was designated by a random procedure to be the respondent for the survey. To increase coverage, the landline sample was supplemented by respondents reached through random dialing of cellphone numbers. The two types of samples were then combined and adjusted to assure the proper ratio of landline-only, cellphone-only and dual-phone users. Interviewers made multiple attempts to reach every phone number in the sample, calling back unanswered numbers on different days at different times of both day and evening. The combined results have been weighted to adjust for variations in the sample relating to borough, sex, race, Hispanic origin, age, education, marital status and number of adults in the household. Respondents in the landline samples were also weighted to take into account the number of telephone lines in their residence. In theory, in 19 cases out of 20, results based on such samples will differ by no more than three percentage points in either direction from what would have been obtained by seeking to interview all adults in the city. Results based on smaller subgroups have a larger sampling error. Shifts in results among polls over time also have a larger sampling error. In addition to sampling error, the practical difficulties of conducting any survey of public opinion may introduce other sources of error into the polls. Variations in the wording, order and translation of questions, for example, may lead to somewhat different results. Michael R. Kagay of Princeton, N.J., assisted The Times in its polling analysis. Complete questions and results are at nytimes.com/polls .

New York Times
New York City
Polls and Public Opinion
Soft Drinks


Host of MSNBC’s ‘Melissa Harris-Perry’ Is a Professor

Abstract: Week seven of Melissa Harris-Perry’s introductory course in African-American studies at Tulane University includes a lecture about “the hollow prize” — a theory that African-Americans tend to be elected as mayor only after a city has tipped into economic decline. One day last summer, when Ms. Harris-Perry was filling in for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, she recast the class lecture as a television segment, invoking Detroit; her adopted home, New Orleans; President Obama; and tax policy. “I’ve given that lecture a million times — a million times,” Ms. Harris-Perry said in a recent interview. “But I do it once on Rachel’s show, and it was everywhere the next day. It was up on Web sites, people were e-mailing me — that, for me, was a really clear indication of how powerful television is.” Now, MSNBC is about to introduce a progressive talk show called “Melissa Harris-Perry” on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Ms. Harris-Perry will be the only tenured professor in the United States — and one of a very small number of African-American women — who serves as a cable news host. Is this a sign of the rise of the academic on TV? Though cable news is still stereotyped by some as a 24-7 screaming match, there are now pockets of intellectual stimulation that did not exist a decade ago. The significance of cable news is growing. A survey released last week by the Pew Research Center found that cable news channels have, for the first time, eclipsed local television newscasts as a regular source of campaign news for the American people. At MSNBC, “Morning Joe” with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski has become must-see television for politicians and journalists, while Ms. Maddow, a Rhodes scholar, has been lauded for her long, carefully argued essays. Recently, the channel has added several shows with similarities to those two, including “Now With Alex Wagner” at noon on weekdays and “Up w/ Chris Hayes” on the weekends. Ms. Harris-Perry’s show is set to start on Saturday morning and run from 10 to noon. “Today, our audience thrives on being smart,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC. He said he used to worry about outsmarting the audience, but does not anymore, because MSNBC has moved from being “all things to all people” to being “a much more specific channel.” That change was propelled by the popularity of its left-leaning programs. “TV answers to the audience,” said Rick Shenkman, author of “Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter,” which blames television in part for dumbing down the American political process. He said MSNBC had been branding itself “as a partisan network to draw a partisan crowd, following the Fox model.” “That’s proving to be a successful model,” he said. “It’s the Huffington Post model.” The newest hosts at MSNBC, Mr. Hayes and Ms. Harris-Perry, like to say they are Harry Potter and Hermione. Both were groomed by Ms. Maddow and her 9 p.m. program, first as unpaid guests, then as paid contributors and finally as substitute hosts. Mr. Hayes, an editor for the liberal newsmagazine The Nation, started hosting the unapologetically specialized “Up” in September, in MSNBC’s first expansion of point-of-view programming on the weekends. “Up” has averaged about 375,000 total viewers, 25 percent more than the newscast shown previously in the time slot, and about 130,000 viewers ages 25 to 54, on par with the previous newscast. Mr. Hayes said last week: “The postbroadcast universe is incredibly liberating. The show I’m doing now, I can’t imagine a universe in which it would get two million viewers. But we can beat CNN. And increasingly, we are.” And so Mr. Hayes has spent 25 minutes on the subject of mass incarceration, and 30 minutes on Internet antipiracy legislation, and two hours on the consequences of the war in Iraq — topics that are rarely tackled at length elsewhere on television. Sometimes it has taken five minutes, he said, to get past the talking points that are familiar to any cable news viewer. “But we have the luxury of time,” he said. In one recent segment, he and his guests stopped assessing the possible electoral effects of a reignited national debate about abortion and tried to answer something more fundamental: is a fetus a person? “When we get it right, it’s in making the subtext the text,” Mr. Hayes said. A typical hour of “Up” features a panel of four, and at least some of the panel members are people rarely seen on other TV shows — another benefit of the postbroadcast news universe Mr. Hayes describes. With more hours of political talk comes more on-air time for guests of diverse backgrounds. During a Feb. 3 visit to Ms. Harris-Perry’s windowless office at Rockefeller Center, a whiteboard bearing unfamiliar names gave evidence of that. In an interview that day, she recounted numerous times when she had watched political strategists on TV and wondered why political scientists had not been booked instead. “Part of the way I end up here is, I think the ivory tower has a ton of brilliant information that doesn’t show up for ordinary people,” she said. She has studied media stereotypes in the past, including for a book about black political thought. Ms. Harris-Perry herself has had little trouble getting booked on TV throughout the years, first on the Chicago station WGN while teaching at the University of Chicago and later on CNN, “Democracy Now” and “Bill Moyers Journal” while teaching at Princeton. Although she had attained tenure at Princeton, the Center for African American Studies there declined to promote her to full professor — a vote of no confidence that led her to leave for Tulane in 2010. Her second husband, James Perry, who ran for mayor of New Orleans in 2010, already lived there. She plans to spend Monday to Thursday in New Orleans and fly to New York for her show on the weekends. Ms. Harris-Perry never used a teleprompter until she was asked to fill in for Ms. Maddow for a week in July. (She practiced with an iPad teleprompter application during a trip beforehand, “which led to hilarity on the part of my then 9-year-old,” she said.) Mr. Griffin and his MSNBC colleagues were immediately impressed, and talk began about a regular TV show for Ms. Harris-Perry. But she had ruled out a five-day-a-week show commitment until her daughter, now 10, was in college. Then Mr. Hayes’s program began. “When Chris blew open the weekends, I thought, ‘Oh, well I’m not doing anything on Saturdays and Sundays,’ ” she said jokingly. Her husband and daughter plan to join her in New York each weekend. Ms. Harris-Perry says she wants to be very careful not to let her television voice — one of nearly instant opinion — affect her academic writing. But she does want to bring the academic world to television, and even imagines showing portions of her classes on her show someday. Mr. Griffin’s advice, she said, was straightforward: “You have to earn the trust of your audience.” Rephrasing it her way, Ms. Harris-Perry said, “They’ll go with you to nerdland, but you have to earn their trust.”

MSNBC
Melissa Harris-Perry
Melissa Harris-Perry
Rachel Maddow
Chris Hayes
News media
Cable television


Giants’ Defense Battered From All Sides

Abstract: ARLINGTON, Tex. — Under duress thanks to six turnovers and injuries to two starters, the Giants’ defense was battered from every angle Sunday night and had numerous reasons to cast blame. Still, as defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka and others were quickly peppered in the locker room with questions about finger-pointing, they refused to give in, much as they had after watching the offense squander myriad opportunities during the Giants’ 36-31 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. “It’s a tough pill to swallow; we have to look at everybody in the mirror as a group,” he said. “We’re not going to place the blame on one group. If we were sitting here victorious, we wouldn’t be saying, ‘What about this? What about that?’ We would just be saying it was a good team win.” Thus, it was a bad team loss, one in which the Giants were so out of sync it might be hard to gauge the performance of a defensive unit looking desperately to make amends for last season’s 31st ranking in the N.F.L. The defense found itself backed against the end zone five seconds into the game. Eli Manning threw the first of three interceptions on the Giants’ first play, lobbing an attempt at a screen pass directly into the hands of defensive end DeMarcus Ware. Manning threw another interception in Giants territory. Running back David Wilson fumbled at the Cowboys’ 10-yard line. Three possessions, three turnovers — all in the first five minutes. “Statistically, it might be hard to gauge, but we’re looking at it from a physical standpoint. We’re looking at it beyond the numbers,” safety Ryan Mundy said. “Regardless of the situation we’re put in, we have to get off the field and give our offense a chance.” Mundy accounted for the only turnover the Giants forced, a 91-yard interception return that symbolized the frustrations faced by the defense. Mundy was stopped 1 yard short of a touchdown, and after a sack of Manning, the Giants were forced to settle for a field goal. “I gave it all I had; I just hit the wall,” he said. Mundy also knocked a teammate from the game, colliding face mask to face mask with cornerback Prince Amukamara late in the second quarter. Both players were taken to the locker room for observation of possible concussions. Mundy was cleared to play, but Amukamara did not return, forcing the Giants to shuffle their secondary at various junctures. The Giants said on Twitter that Amukamara had sustained a concussion. Image Cowboys tight end Jason Witten scored on Giants safety Ryan Mundy in the second half. Credit Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press Middle linebacker Dan Connor already had been sidelined because of injury midway through the second quarter, and the Cowboys quickly exploited his absence with three straight passes against the backup Mark Herzlich. After an 11-yard pass to running back DeMarco Murray, Tony Romo connected with tight end Jason Witten for 21 yards, and on the next play fired a 15-yard touchdown pass to Witten with Herzlich caught behind him. “I think we did a good job despite the turnovers,” cornerback Corey Webster said. “Those are our brothers out there, and we have to find a way to get off the field. That’s our job. We’re a team, and we have to find a silver lining here.” Despite being constantly boxed into corners, the defense offered a last chance to win, stopping the Cowboys on consecutive possessions midway through the fourth quarter. After the Giants pulled to 30-24, end Justin Tuck and tackle Linval Joseph combined for a sack, followed by another sack by Jason Pierre-Paul to stop the Cowboys with six minutes to play. Mundy ended the next Dallas possession by hauling down receiver Dez Bryant 2 yards short of a first down with 5 minutes 11 seconds remaining. That proved to be all the pressure the Giants’ defense could handle. The Cowboys chipped away while running 74 plays (to 59 for the Giants), and Romo spread his passes around like barbecue sauce, completing 36 of 49 attempts for 263 yards to eight receivers. The Cowboys finished with nearly a full-quarter edge in time of possession (14 minutes 20 seconds). In the first half, the Giants’ defense was especially on its own, spending 21 minutes 31 seconds on the field, but Dallas could only manage a 13-10 lead. Giants Coach Tom Coughlin said: “I think they did good. Just the amount of snaps they took in the first half alone, I thought they stood up well. We went into halftime, what, down 3? That’s amazing.” And now the defense faces the Denver Broncos and Eli’s brother, Peyton Manning, who tied an N.F.L. record with seven touchdown passes in his opener. “We have to be able to play together, in sync, and get a win,” Kiwanuka said. “As a group, offense, defense and special teams, every individual has to look at themselves and be accountable, because this is a long season.” A long first game for the Giants’ defense, too.


California: Michael Jackson’s Doctor Will Be Tried for Manslaughter

Abstract: Michael Jackson ’s doctor was ordered Tuesday to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter after testimony that he administered a lethal dose of a powerful anesthetic and other sedatives then left the pop star alone. The ruling against Dr. Conrad Murray came after a six-day preliminary hearing before Judge Michael Pastor in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Prosecutors concluded their case with testimony from two doctors who said that Dr. Murray acted outside the standard of medical care when he administered the propofol and then failed to provide proper care. Dr. Murray’s lawyers have said he did not give Mr. Jackson anything that should have killed him. One of his lawyers, Joseph Low IV, said Mr. Jackson’s health may have been a contributing cause of his death. The physician could face up to four years in prison if convicted.


The Murky Origins of the Largest Dinosaur Museum in the World

Abstract: PINGYI, China — Here are a few quirky and little-known facts about this industrial backwater some 300 miles southeast of the Chinese capital: Locals have a fondness for fried cicadas, and the city, a major processor of fruits and nuts, bills itself as the “ China Foodstuff Canned City.” All the same, Pingyi is often overlooked for what should probably be its greatest claim to fame: Paleontologists say it is home to the world’s largest collection of complete dinosaur fossils, many of which show evidence of feathers that have in recent years radically transformed scientific understanding of the evolutionary transition from dinosaur to bird. Housed in the Tianyu Museum of Nature — the biggest dinosaur museum on earth, according to Guinness World Records — are more than 1,100 fossilized dinosaurs, 2,300 early bird specimens and thousands of other petrified remains (including a 125-foot-long fossilized tree trunk, another record-holder) that draw paleontologists from around the globe. “It’s an incredible museum like no other,” Jingmai O’Connor, 32, an American paleontologist specializing in the origins of birds, said during a recent visit. “We can test a hypothesis here and the great thing is we can double-check it because they’ve got so many specimens.” The sprawling collection is a testament to China ’s growing importance as a font of paleontological discoveries that are advancing the understanding of the earth’s prehistoric eras. How so many of those discoveries ended up in the museum, which was founded in 2003 and stocked over just five years by the eccentric former head of a state-owned gold mining company, casts light on the murky complexities of the Chinese boom in fossils, which critics bemoan has been tainted with a glut of counterfeits fabricated by unscrupulous sellers. Around 120 million years ago, most of what is now China was largely dry land. But in the northeast, a lush terrain of lakes and volcanoes proved ideal for fossil preservation. For thousands of years, people here revered the so-called dragon bones they found while tilling the soil. Under Mao Zedong, fossils were taken note of during searches for oil and gas but were not studied. “You don’t need to do too much to dig up fossils in China,” said Wang Xiaoli, a local paleontology professor who had come to examine the museum collection. “When the wind blows, they reveal themselves.” As market economics took hold in China in the 1980s and 1990s, farmers realized they could earn a small fortune selling their finds to government officials, museums and foreign paleontologists, particularly if they could offer complete specimens. Forgeries became rife, as did altered fossils, with a different species’ bone glued here, a rib augmented with clay there. Image Zheng Xiaoting, the director and founder of the museum, where photographs of visiting government officials adorned a wall. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times In 1999, a Chinese fossil acclaimed by National Geographic as a “true missing link” between dinosaurs and birds was proved to be a hoax. More recently, a Chinese paleontologist estimated that more than 80 percent of marine reptile specimens displayed in China’s museums “have been altered or artificially combined to varying degrees,” according to a 2012 article in the state-owned China Daily newspaper. Although China has issued regulations aimed at protecting its prehistoric patrimony, fossil trafficking is not considered a serious smuggling offense, a loophole that has contributed to a rise in illegal excavations and thefts. In July, the police in southern China seized 213 fossilized dinosaur eggs from a house after villagers looted a local construction site where eggs had been unearthed, state news media reported. The authorities also found the complete skeleton of a Psittacosaurus, a dinosaur that roamed the earth 100 million years ago. Yet despite the rampant greed and fraud, authentic Chinese fossils continue to reveal fascinating clues about dinosaurs, early avians and primitive mammals. Many discoveries have been made from studies of the Tianyu collection, including a small batlike dinosaur that may have been able to fly or glide without feathers, known as Yi qi, or “strange wing” in Mandarin , the journal Nature reported in April. All of which makes Zheng Xiaoting, the museum’s director and founder, extremely proud. “I love them all,” he said of the fossils, while holding court in a cavernous hall adorned with photographs of visiting government officials and jammed with a herd of brown pleather couches, each the size of a baby Triceratops. Modern China is increasingly populated with men like Mr. Zheng, self-made enthusiasts who suddenly have the money to fund their obsessions. A wiry 62-year-old with a military-style flattop, he dropped out of school at 16 to find work in textile factories. Image A 100-million-year-old fossil of a Psittacosaurus with its offspring, arranged in a display at the museum. Despite efforts to protect fossils, trafficking is on the rise. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times It was in the early ’90s, while managing a government-run gold mine, that he discovered his love for dinosaurs. The part-time hobby eventually became the museum. He said the institution, consisting of three buildings with 28 display halls, was state-owned and required an investment of $61 million, but he would not say where the money came from. He simply said, “I felt I had an obligation to protect the fossils for science.” He waved away suggestions by some paleontologists that his acquisitions were purchased, a practice that was banned in 2008. “People gave us fossils voluntarily,” he said, describing the payments the donors received as small “rewards.” On a recent morning, the museum was almost empty, though local officials boast of 100,000 visitors annually ( the American Museum of Natural History in New York had nearly five million visitors in 2014). In Tianyu’s main atrium, a towering pair of cast hadrosaur skeletons provided optimal selfie opportunities for Zhuang Xue, 30, a saleswoman, and her husband, who had driven seven hours from the coastal province of Jiangsu. “I’ve been to a lot of places, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said, gazing around the Thousand Dragons Exhibition Hall, where the fossil of a 125-million-year-old feathered dinosaur, known as Beipiaosaurus , lay under glass near those of eggs and a specimen of the beaked bird Confuciusornis, its long feathers tinged dark brown from eons pressed into pale stone slabs. On the museum’s top floor, Dr. O’Connor, the paleontologist and an author of several scientific papers based on Mr. Zheng’s specimens, was captivated by a primitive bird fossil in the collection room. Officials keep the large hall off limits to the general public to prevent rogue academics from using the specimens inside as the basis for papers without crediting the museum or its autodidact founder. Image A fossilized Xiaotingia zhengi, a feathered dinosaur named after Zheng Xiaoting, the founder of the Tianyu Museum of Nature in Pingyi, China. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times While Dr. O’Connor, a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, enjoys visiting the museum, its remoteness and the absence of cutting-edge equipment mean that certain specimens must be shipped elsewhere for deeper study. A greater challenge comes from the way many Chinese fossils are extracted. “In the West, fossils are dug up by scientists who know how to preserve them,” she said. “In China, they’re collected by dealers who make alterations because it looks better and makes more money.” Mr. Zheng says that less than 3 percent of the specimens he acquired before 2008 were altered and that most of those were returned to their owners. “There are almost no fake ones in our museum anymore,” he said. The police did visit the museum in 2012 while investigating a fossil dealer they had arrested, he said. “They wanted to figure out where his stash went.” Some of it had ended up at Tianyu, although because Mr. Zheng paid money “merely as a gesture,” the museum was never punished. Notwithstanding his lack of formal education, Mr. Zheng has an honorary professorship in paleontology from a local university, and his name often appears first on scientific papers based on his beloved trove. Then there is another perk of owning the world’s largest agglomeration of dinosaur fossils. On the museum’s ground floor is a petrified chicken-size bird from the Late Jurassic period, about 160 million years ago. Its scientific name, according to the small yellow placard, symbolizes Mr. Zheng’s legacy: Xiaotingia zhengi.

Dinosaur Museum China Paleontology Fossil


CiCi Bellis’s Charming Run Through the U.S. Open Ends Swiftly

Abstract: CiCi Bellis was the youngest player left in the women’s draw when she arrived Friday night for her third-round match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The lights dimmed when Bellis, a 17-year-old Californian, made her entrance. She got a warm reception. She unpacked her tennis bag and got ready for the biggest stage of her life. Bellis, whose given name is Catherine, provided one of the more intriguing subplots during the first week of the United States Open, owing to her youth, her status as an amateur and her American citizenship. Her penchant for hammering strokes from the baseline was also endearing. The crowd roared whenever she roped a winner. Unfortunately for her, highlights were few and far between against an opponent as fearsome as Angelique Kerber, the second seed and one of the championship favorites. Kerber rolled past Bellis, 6-1, 6-1, in 55 minutes to end the teenager’s tournament run. Despite the loss, Bellis said the match was the “best experience” she had ever had in tennis. “Her groundstrokes are perfect,” Bellis said of Kerber. “I hope one day to be able to play like her.” Kerber’s stirring play this year has landed her on the doorstep of the No. 1 world ranking. She won the Australian Open in January for her first Grand Slam title. Last month, she claimed the silver medal at the Rio Olympics, losing to Mónica Puig in the final. With her win against Bellis, Kerber improved her 2016 record to 50-14. Once renowned for her ability to push the ball back and lull her opponents into unforced errors, Kerber has added some aggression to the mix. Bellis was no match. “For sure, she will have a great future,” Kerber said. Bellis had won five matches since the start of qualifying, including two in the main draw. She needed three sets to get past Shelby Rogers, a fellow American, in the second round, one of the most significant wins of her young career. By advancing to the third round, Bellis was set to earn $140,000 in prize money — if she would turn professional so she could accept it. Bellis has maintained that she plans to play at Stanford, which means she must forfeit the majority of her prize money to keep her amateur status. But her week at the Open seemed to reinforce the belief that she can compete at an elite level. She will have some decisions to make. “Right now, I think it’s still definitely an option for me,” Bellis said of Stanford. “I’m not going to make any quick decisions.” Bellis’s ranking could jump by as many as 40 spots, which would put her near the threshold of being able to enter Grand Slam main draws directly, rather than going through qualifying. Bellis was also the lone remaining qualifier in the draw, but there was at least a recent precedent that ought to have been encouraging. Last year, two qualifiers — Anett Kontaveit and Johanna Konta — advanced to the fourth round at the Open. Bellis, who had her first service game broken at love, had no such luck. She did not exactly wallow in defeat. “Now is going to be the best part of my trip here, because now I actually get to go shopping,” she said.

Tennis
Angelique Kerber
US Open Tennis
Catherine Bellis, CiCi Bellis


U.S. Court Reinstates Home Care Pay Rules

Abstract: WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated regulations drawn up by the Obama administration to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to almost two million workers who provide home care for the elderly and disabled. The regulations, struck down by a lower court about nine months ago, were intended to remove an exemption in federal minimum wage and overtime laws for home care workers employed by third-party staffing agencies. A three-judge appellate panel in Washington ruled Friday that the Labor Department has the authority to eliminate the exemption. Labor law specialists, noting that Democratic administrations have been trying to eliminate the exemption since the early 1990s, called the ruling momentous. “It’s not that surprising, since it’s absolutely correct as a legal matter,” said Kate Andrias, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. “But it has an extremely important effect on the home care industry, home care workers, which is a lot of people.” Professor Andrias added that the ruling represented a major victory in the administration’s effort to revise labor regulations to reflect the economy today. Union leaders and advocates were also quick to embrace the decision. “This is an enormous step forward for home workers and for our country,” said Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, which has pushed for the change for decades. The Labor Department created the exemption in 1975, while carrying out a law that Congress passed the year before. But the Obama administration argued that much had changed in the industry since the mid-1970s, when most patients received professional care in institutional settings, or received less-demanding care at home, known as “companionship” services, from workers they hired directly. Today, professional home care is widespread and is typically provided by employees of staffing agencies. Advocates and labor lawyers have long argued that Congress meant for all full-time care providers to be covered by the minimum wage and overtime provisions of federal labor law when it revised the law in 1974. The Labor Department made this argument when it issued the regulation in 2013, and on Friday the appellate panel, in the District of Columbia Circuit, agreed. “What the court recognized is that Congress intended this exemption to apply to people who do casual work, not people doing home care work as a full-time vocation or job,” said Peter Romer-Friedman, deputy director of litigation at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. A lawyer for the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, one of the industry groups that challenged the new regulations, indicated that the plaintiff did not consider the fight over. “We’re reviewing the decision and considering all our options, including Supreme Court review,” said the lawyer, William A. Dombi of the Center for Health Care Law, which is backed by the home care and hospice industry. But the circuit court decision may be difficult to reverse. In its opinion, the court relied on a Supreme Court case from 2007 explicitly ruling that the 1974 law gives the Labor Department discretion over how to define the exemption, as long as the department’s interpretation is reasonable. The Supreme Court held that “Congress had granted authority to the department to resolve the issue,” the circuit court wrote in its opinion Friday. It also said that the Labor Department interpretation in question was reasonable. Instead of appealing directly to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs could also file a motion with the District of Columbia Circuit for a so-called rehearing en banc, which would involve all of its active judges rather than simply a three-judge panel. But the circuit rarely grants such motions, and the unanimous ruling by the panel, which included one Republican appointee and two Democratic appointees, suggests that the full court would be unlikely to reverse it, legal specialists said. While the decision does not directly affect the status of other administration regulations that are likely to face litigation — most prominently its recent proposed expansion of overtime benefits to millions of workers by narrowing exemptions to the law — it suggests that the legal basis for such regulations is sound. Mr. Romer-Friedman, a former labor counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said the opinion showed that the Labor Department, “when interpreting statutory provisions not specifically defined” by the Fair Labor Standards Act, “has a lot of discretion and authority.” If anything, he said, the courts are more likely to uphold the proposed overtime rule than the Labor Department’s home care worker regulation, because the department has been issuing similar changes in the overtime exemption for professional, managerial and administrative employees for decades, whereas in this case the major previous rule cut in the opposite direction. But more important than the narrow legal implications for other Labor Department regulations may be the way that politics and the law interact on such questions. “For the department’s authority to interpret its own statutes to be affirmed in a highly contested case that’s one piece of a series of important moves it has made to benefit low wage workers is a big victory,” Professor Andrias said. “Politics matter a lot. Both this rule and the overtime rule are staunchly opposed by industry. That can affect the way the courts understand legal issues.”


Amid Protests, Inmates Escape From Libyan Prison

Abstract: BENGHAZI, Libya — More than 1,000 prisoners escaped from a prison near here on Saturday, security officials said, after a wave of political assassinations and attacks on political offices across Libya. The mass escape from the Queyfiya prison took place early Saturday after a series of marches in a number of Libyan cities protested the assassinations and the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been blamed for recent political killings. It was not clear whether the inmates had received inside help. Libya’s prime minister, Ali Zeidan, said in a televised news conference on Saturday that local residents had broken the inmates out of the prison. “The prison was attacked by the citizens who live nearby, because they don’t want a prison in their region,” he said. “Special forces were present and could have got the situation under control by using their arms, but they had received orders not to use their weapons on citizens, so the citizens opened the doors to the prisoners.” Mr. Zeidan said he had ordered the border with Egypt to be closed to prevent the inmates from fleeing there. But security officials here, speaking on the condition of anonymity, vehemently denied the assertion that residents had incited the prison break. The officials said it had started with a fracas and shooting among military police officers inside the prison, leading to a fire that allowed the inmates to escape. The inmates were mostly common criminals, not the militants who are blamed for much of the violence here, officials said. “It was a dispute with the military police that the prisoners mistook for an uprising, so they started smashing things and setting things on fire to be released,” said a member of a top joint security operation in Benghazi. “What do you expect? Prisoners saw an opportunity to escape, and they took it.” The security official said several escapees had returned on their own, reasoning that they were safer behind bars than in the street, where they feared reprisals from relatives of their victims. The prison break followed a day of extraordinary violence, even by the standards of Libya, which is overrun by heavily armed militias unwilling to come under government control. Assassins shot five people dead on Friday in Benghazi and Tripoli, the capital. Among the dead were security officers and a prominent lawyer, Abdul-Salam al-Musmari, a harsh critic of the Brotherhood and the militias, He was also known for his role in helping instigate Libya’s 2011 revolution against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Mr. Musmari, who was shot in the heart while leaving a mosque in Benghazi, was the first victim in a long string of recent assassinations who was neither a military official nor a figure from the Qaddafi government. Hundreds gathered in Tripoli after dawn prayers on Saturday and denounced the killing of Mr. Musmari, The Associated Press reported. They set fire to tires in the street and demanded the dissolution of Islamist parties. Protesters appeared to be inspired by events in Egypt, where millions took to the streets on Friday to answer an appeal from the top military commander, who said he wanted a mandate to fight “terrorism” by supporters of the country’s ousted president, Mohamed Morsi. Mr. Morsi is allied with the Islamist-led Brotherhood. On Saturday, the Egyptian military killed at least 72 people in a ferocious attack on Islamist protesters, the deadliest attack by the security services since the 2011 revolution. “We don’t want the Brotherhood; we want the army and the police,” Libyan protesters chanted, The A.P. reported, repeating a slogan used in Egypt. Last week, rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Tripoli, and at a Tripoli hotel where government figures live, though no one was killed. A bomb detonated at a police station in Benghazi, the eastern city where Islamist militias remain powerful and where the United States ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed last year in an assault on a diplomatic compound by heavily armed militants. Mr. Zeidan said that an investigation had begun into Mr. Musmari’s killing and that a foreign criminal investigation team would join Libyan investigators in Tripoli and Benghazi on Monday, but he did not offer further details. Human Rights Watch urged the Libyan government to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation” of Mr. Musmari’s death. “Libya’s fragile transition is at stake if political killings go unpunished,” said Nadim Houry, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “This makes investigating al-Musmari’s murder all the more urgent.”

Libya
Prison
Prison escape
Arab Spring
Fatalities,casualties
Muslim Brotherhood Libya
National Forces Alliance Libya