Workers Pay More for Health Care as Companies Shift Burden, Survey Finds

Abstract: State health insurance exchanges created under the new health care law are in turmoil. By contrast, the employer market — where the majority of Americans still get their coverage — seems like a bastion of stability. An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation released on Wednesday shows that the share of employers offering coverage remained steady this year, and that the cost of premiums for health plans remained largely unchanged. “We see historic moderation in premiums and health spending and costs,” said Drew Altman, the chief executive of the Kaiser foundation, a nonprofit in Menlo Park, Calif., that closely tracks the health insurance markets. But underneath some of those figures, some important changes are underway. The biggest shift is that workers continue to pay an ever-greater share of their medical bills, a trend for several years now. That is why Mr. Altman said that despite the overall moderation in costs, “it doesn’t feel that way to average people.” Kaiser’s annual survey of employer health benefits represents a yearly snapshot of the coverage companies offer their workers, and highlights from the survey are being published online in Health Affairs, an academic journal. About 150 million people are covered by an employer, a much larger group than the 11 million or so who buy coverage on the exchanges created under the federal health care law. On Tuesday, the Census Bureau reported that the percentage of uninsured Americans fell last year, to 9.1 percent, in part because of the strength of the employer market. The latest survey helps shed some light on the quickly evolving insurance industry. Here are a few highlights. Slow Rise in Premiums Annual family premiums rose an average of 3 percent, about in line with the average increase in workers’ wages, to $18,142 a year, according to Kaiser, which surveyed more than 1,900 employers. This continued a significant slowdown in price increases. In the period since 2011, the premiums for plans covering a family rose 20 percent, compared with 31 percent from 2006 to 2011, and a 63 percent increase from 2001 to 2006. How long will this last? Mr. Altman says he is doubtful that the reprieve from sharply rising costs is permanent and that he thinks rates will go up again, especially if the economy heats up. “I don’t think we’re living in a new world,” he said. Exactly why the increases have been so modest in recent years is up for debate. The Obama administration argues that some measures in the federal health care law have helped slow the rise in health care costs. Some other experts tend to point to the lingering effects of a sluggish economy as well as the push by employers to shift more costs onto workers. Increasing Deductibles While employer-sponsored plans typically have much lower deductibles than the most popular plans found on the exchanges, more employees have deductibles, and those deductibles are increasing. Over all, employees have deductibles that are about 50 percent higher than they were five years ago. Four out of five covered employees pay a deductible, which averages about $1,500 each, Kaiser found. Employees who get insurance through a smaller company have deductibles that now average $2,100. Workers are also paying a greater share of the premiums, contributing $5,277 annually toward a family plan, nearly a third of the total cost. The move by employers and insurers to push more health costs onto workers is significant, said Mr. Altman, who describes it as a stealth move to “skimpier insurance.” Proponents of higher cost sharing say that asking people to pay more of their medical bills causes them to be more discriminating about what health care they use. Networks Shrinking Remember the days of being able to go to any doctor or hospital of your choice? Many employers still choose plans that let workers visit a doctor out of network, although employees are paying increasingly more for the privilege. But more companies are opting for less choice for their employees. This year, slightly fewer than half of workers are enrolled in so-called preferred provider organization plans, or P.P.O.s, compared with 58 percent in 2014. While you pay more when you go outside the plan’s network, you are still covered if you go to a doctor or hospital that does not belong. Employers started turning to these plans in the 1990s, when resistance to health maintenance organizations, or H.M.O.s, grew. Employers and insurers tend to favor more restrictive plans because they usually contain costs better. The tide may be reversing somewhat. The H.M.O. has been rethought in new forms that are without some of the drawbacks of the old-style health maintenance organizations, like requiring people to get permission to go to a specialist. As a result, some employers are dropping P.P.O.s in favor of the more restrictive plans, Mr. Altman said. “We’re beginning to see that reverse,” he said. The trend toward narrower networks is also seen in plans offered on the exchanges, where the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform recently estimated that two-thirds were H.M.O.s offering a sharply limited choice of doctors and hospitals this year. Employers Staying Put The recent Kaiser survey also emphasizes the endurance of the employer market , despite earlier predictions that the health care law would usher in its demise. Most companies are still offering health benefits to their employees, with the percentage virtually unchanged from last year at 56 percent. “ We’re just not seeing a big impact on employers,” Mr. Altman said. There is also little proof that companies are cutting workers’ hours to avoid the law’s requirement that they offer full-time workers health insurance. Employers with at least 50 full-time workers are required to offer benefits or pay a penalty. More than 90 percent of companies with at least 50 workers are offering coverage.

Health Insurance
Kaiser Family Foundation
Employee Benefits
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act


For ‘Chairman Moe,’ One Last Salute

Abstract: EVEN into his 90s, Moe Fishman never missed a protest. So it was only fitting that the memorial service for Mr. Fishman, an Astoria-born radical who fought Fascism in Spain in the 1930s and in his later years demonstrated against the Iraq war from his folding chair in Greenwich Village, was equal parts a celebration of his life and a rousing antiwar rally. A motley crowd of Grannies for Peace, young leftists, grizzled Vietnam veterans and union organizers gathered last weekend at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square to say goodbye to Mr. Fishman, the voice of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The unit included 3,000 Americans, roughly a third of them impassioned leftists from New York. During the Spanish Civil War, which began in 1936, they volunteered to defend the democratically elected Spanish Republic against Francisco Franco. Today, only about 40 of the American volunteers survive (among them my grandfather Saul Shapiro, who lives in Mexico). As secretary-treasurer of the veterans for more than half a century, Mr. Fishman held the group together by keeping records of his comrades’ whereabouts and publishing a quarterly newsletter that chronicled brigade reunions and exhibitions. In recent years, he also announced the deaths of his fellow brigadistas, as the fighters called themselves. Mr. Fishman died of pancreatic cancer at 91 on Aug. 6. “When he passed, it was like a big hole appeared,” Estelle Katz, the 91-year-old widow of a veteran, and a onetime member of the Young Communist League, said after the service. “Just a whole era — gone.” But, if the memorial service was any indication, hardly forgotten. About 350 people, including two surviving volunteers, turned out to pay their respects and add photographs and other mementos to a wall-length timeline of Mr. Fishman’s life, which began on Sept. 28, 1915. After the singing of the antiwar anthem “Bring ’Em Home” by Pete Seeger, who sent a postcard for the timeline attesting to Mr. Fishman’s commitment to social justice, speakers described Mr. Fishman as a beloved uncle, a champion of the blue-collar worker ( a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, he worked for a time in a laundry and as a truck driver) and a friend to the New York chapter of Veterans for Peace. Friends and colleagues called him “Chairman Moe.” But, above all, Mr. Fishman was remembered as a rebel who always had a cause. “Moe did not lead us for all these years to have us stop here,” said Georgia Wever, Mr. Fishman’s partner of six years. A widower, Mr. Fishman met her at a birthday party for George Harrison (“not the Beatle George Harrison,” she clarified, “the I.R.A. gunrunner”). “He intended for us to remain activists,” said Ms. Wever, 67. “Forever.”

Fishman Moe
Monuments and Memorials
Demonstrations and Riots


Sweat Lodge Leader Is Indicted in Deaths

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — A New Age motivational speaker who led a sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona last year in which three people perished appeared in an Arizona courtroom in handcuffs and waist chains on Thursday to face charges of three counts of manslaughter. His attorney said he would plead not guilty. James A. Ray , 52, president of James Ray International, a multimillion-dollar company in Carlsbad, Calif., that promises followers a path to “harmonic wealth in all areas of your life,” was brought into Yavapai County Superior Court in Camp Verde wearing orange prison garb. He sat impassively as his attorney, Luis Li, told Judge Warren Darrow about the intended plea and asked the judge to reconsider the $5 million bail set for his client, which he has been unable to post. Mr. Ray was indicted on Wednesday. A formal plea would be entered at his arraignment, which is expected later this month, according to Dennis W. McGrane, the chief deputy county attorney. Camp Verde is less than 20 miles from the rustic retreat outside Sedona where the fatal sweat lodge ceremony was held on Oct. 8. The victims — Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y.; James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee; and Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn. — were overcome in a two-hour “spiritual warrior” ceremony, in which hot rocks were placed inside a tent so the 55 participants could sweat out whatever was ailing their souls. Twenty others suffered heat-related injuries. If convicted, Mr. Ray could be sentenced to prison terms as long as 12 1/2 years for each of the three counts. He is also the target of at least two civil lawsuits, one by the family of Ms Neuman and one by two other participants. People who took part in the ceremony have said that Mr. Ray ignored signs that people were falling into distress in the pitch-dark tent, and made remarks like “It’s a good day to die” in his zeal to keep the ceremony going. The lawsuits have alleged negligence and fraud. Virginia Brown, Ms. Brown’s mother, said Wednesday in an interview, “This indictment does not bring my daughter back, so it is very upsetting.” Denouncing Mr. Ray as a phony, she added, “James Ray teaches that people need to take responsibility for their actions, and he clearly has not done that.” Mr. Ray had recently taken his case to the court of public opinion, with his lawyers issuing lengthy letters last month providing their account of what happened and asserting that many damaging statements made by witnesses to the police were inaccurate or taken out of context. They likened Mr. Ray to a driven sports coach, but one who did not commit any crime and did what he could after learning people were in trouble. Mr. Ray said as much in an interview with New York magazine in its Jan. 24 issue; he displayed the article on his Web site. Mr. Li, Mr. Ray’s lawyer, called the charges unjust and said “this was a terrible accident — but it was an accident, not a criminal act.” “James Ray cooperated at every step of the way, providing information and witnesses to the authorities showing that no one could have foreseen this accident,” Mr. Li said, adding, “We will now present this evidence in a court of law, and we are confident that Mr. Ray will be exonerated.” Mr. Ray has been a high-profile self-help guru for years, offering free seminars and making frequent television appearances that recruit hundreds of followers to attend paid events. The five-day retreat, at the Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat Center, was among many held in Sedona, whose red rocks and mountains are thought by some to emit mystical energy, and by others as simply a place of peace and solace. A program for the retreat told participants “that your future holds the most difficult battles, as well as the greatest of victories.” It went on, “As you can imagine, Spiritual Warrior will push you beyond your perceived limits.”


One Person Dies and Many Others Fall Ill After Saline Infusions

Abstract: One person has died and many more were sickened after receiving infusions of a saline solution produced by Wallcur, a San Diego-based company, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. The saline solution was meant for training purposes and was not sterile, officials said. It was shipped to medical clinics, surgical centers and urgent care facilities, some of which administered it to patients. More than 40 people are known to have received infusions, according to federal health officials. Many suffered fever, chills, tremors and headaches. So far cases have been reported in seven states: Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, North Carolina, New York and Colorado.

Wallcur FDA Pharmaceuticals HazMat Fatalities,casualties


In a Message to Poachers, U.S. Will Destroy Its Ivory

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The United States Fish and Wildlife Service will destroy six tons of illegal African elephant ivory next week that it has been stockpiling since the ’80s, officials said on Tuesday. Blaming increased demand for a devastating rise in poaching, largely by organized crime syndicates, members of a task force created by President Obama told reporters in a briefing at the National Press Building that they wanted to send a message of zero tolerance and reduce the appeal of ivory, rhinoceros horns and other illicit animal products. “By destroying our domestic stocks of ivory, we send a very clear signal that these illegally traded products should not be perceived as items of value,” said Robert G. Dreher, acting assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources. At the National Wildlife Property Repository near Denver on Nov. 14, the wildlife service, working with conservation organizations, will crush six tons of tusks, artwork and other ivory objects that were confiscated upon entering the United States. Officials said that to raise awareness further, the crushed ivory would be used to create memorials around the country against poaching. The United States is the second-largest consumer, behind China, of illegal animal products like elephant ivory, rhinoceros horn and tiger bone. Daniel M. Ashe, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said that reintroducing the government’s stock of ivory into the legal market was not a viable option because small sales had been shown to stimulate demand, not satiate it. Officials also said adding to the supply would make it harder to identify and prosecute illegal trade. Image Outside the White House last month, a rally for elephants, which are being killed at a rapid pace. Credit Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Philippines, Kenya and Gabon have also destroyed their stocks of ivory. Elephant tusks are enlarged teeth embedded in the animal’s skull, and removal can be fatal. Poachers usually kill them in any case because the African elephant, the largest land mammal, can be dangerous when provoked. The slaughter of African elephants has intensified recently — scientists estimate that tens of thousands are killed each year — as the value of ivory has skyrocketed above even gold. Much of the demand originates in China, where prosperity has fueled the market, despite a 1989 international ban on the commercial trade of African elephant ivory. Last year ivory sold for $1,000 per pound on the streets of Beijing. “It’s not risk free to kill elephants and illegally traffic in their ivory, but the value of the product is making the risk worth it for many of these criminals,” Mr. Ashe said. Mr. Obama elevated wildlife trafficking as a security issue in July when he issued an executive order that created the task force, composed of officials from the State Department, the Interior Department and the Justice Department, among others. The president also pledged an additional $10 million in aid to Africa to fight poaching. While poaching was once largely a crime of opportunity, officials say it has become increasingly sophisticated, often orchestrated and carried out by heavily armed people, connected to larger criminal groups, who do not hesitate to kill those who try to stop them. The cash goes to fund other crimes like human trafficking and conflicts in the region. “These people are also a threat to international order,” Mr. Dreher said. The task force is also working to step up law enforcement and reinforce trade laws banning illegal animal products. In the United States, hunting trophies and ivory antiques that predate the 1989 ban are permitted as trade exceptions, but Mr. Dreher said it could be hard to tell the age of ivory. Mr. Dreher and other officials acknowledge that they have their work cut out for them. One complication is that soldiers from some African armies, including close partners of the American military, have been among the culprits of poaching.

Poaching
Ivory
Fish and Wildlife Service
Elephant


Iowa’s Ferentz Suspends His Son From the Team

Abstract: Kellen Moore threw three touchdown passes and cornerback Brandyn Thompson had three interceptions to lead No. 15 Boise State to a 27-7 victory against visiting Hawaii on Friday night. The Broncos (6-0, 2-0 Western Athletic Conference) intercepted Hawaii’s Inoke Funaki five times, turning three of them into 17 second-half points that put the game away. The Broncos’ smothering defense pressured Funaki all night, sacking him five times and holding the Warriors (3-4, 2-2) to 288 total yards. Moore finished 25 of 34 for 256 yards. His three touchdown passes gave him 16 for the season and 11 over the last four games. The victory was Boise State’s 17th straight at home and avenged a loss to the Warriors last year that cost them the WAC title. Hawaii beat the Broncos, 39-27, snapping Boise State’s stretch of five consecutive conference titles. Boise State had 367 total yards Friday, 111 on the ground by its corps of three tailbacks. IOWA COACH SUSPENDS SON Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz suspended his son James, a freshman offensive lineman, from the Hawkeyes’ football team after he was cited for under-age drinking early Friday morning. In a statement, Kirk Ferentz said he was disappointed with his son’s behavior. He said James was suspended from all team activities for an indefinite time and would also be required to attend counseling sessions and perform community service.

Football
College Athletics
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
University of Iowa


Crash

Abstract: Crash Around 8:50 p.m., Pacific Time, SEAN YOUNG came skipping toward the photographers staked outside Morton's in Los Angeles, site of the Vanity Fair Oscar party. JENNIFER ANISTON, one of the first arrivals, had just finished posing and flashed the paparazzi a peace sign. And there came Ms. Young in her wake, skipping. A few poses, a wave, and a dash inside. Upon which: pandemonium. Barking into headphones. Yelling at guards. One of the event organizers, a man more prickly than the hedges shaped to spell Vanity Fair in front of the restaurant, ran up to the security detail at the exit, warning them not to let anyone else inside. Ms. Young, apparently, had not been invited. Mr. Event Organizer told the publicists to lean into his mouthpiece and describe what Ms. Young was wearing, so she could be found inside the party. A little after 9, he could be heard announcing into his microphone: "We got her." A security guard then told us that Ms. Young was escorted out of the party, through a back door. Alas, Oscar night. Take heart, Ms. Young. This year the Vanity Fair party was an underlighted, carpeted living room affair, not the klieg-bright, celebrity mosh pit of years past. The guest list was cut down considerably, leaving room for only HILARY SWANK, SIENNA MILLER, WILL FERRELL, SANDRA BULLOCK, SERENA and VENUS WILLIAMS, UMA THURMAN, JEWEL, KIMORA LEE SIMMONS, JEFF GORDON, LARRY DAVID, MADONNA, BEN STILLER, JOHN TRAVOLTA, J. LO, MARC ANTHONY, SASHA COHEN, JESSICA ALBA, KEANU REEVES, MARY J. BLIGE, RACHEL WEISZ, JAKE GYLLENHAAL, HEATH LEDGER, SALMA HAYEK, JAMIE FOXX, CATHERINE KEENER, NAOMI WATTS, ADAM BRODY and THE ROCK. Among others. Others like MICKEY ROURKE, waving around a cigarette, who said he didn't watch the show. "I just came from the gym. I was doing shoulders." Tomorrow, he plans to work on his triceps. And KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, changed from her formal gown to a more slinky number, who answered our question about sitting next to JACK NICHOLSON: "No, and everyone has been asking me that. He didn't hit on me at all, and it's making me rather paranoid. I mean, why didn't he make a pass at me?" And ITZHAK PERLMAN, who drove through the press line on his motorized wheelchair and answered questions about "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," winner of best song. "I like that one," he said. "It deserved to win." Inside the party, JON STEWART walked around with his entourage, and told us, with a hint of surprise, that he enjoyed the night's gig. STEVEN SPIELBERG was standing at the bar, trying to get the attention of the bartender. "I was really happy to be nominated," he said when asked about "Munich." On a related, equally nausea-inducing note, JOAQUIN PHOENIX told us he and the other best actor nominees all shared a great big group hug before the show began. Almost immediately after he said this, ERIC BANA approached. They hugged. We're just being cynical, right? Hollywood is just one big happy. Yes, and tell it to those people, huddled over there in the corner, looking into their martinis. They are the top executives from Focus Features, the ones behind "Brokeback Mountain." While you offer them hugs, we will be mingling. Theories were being mumbled around the room about the upset: Hollywood's embarrassing homophobia, Hollywood's embarrassing lack of homophobia, the way "Crash" plays well on the DVD's that were sent out to Academy voters, the way "Brokeback" doesn't play well on said DVD's. "I love it," Chief WILLIAM J. BRATTON of the Los Angeles police said about "Crash," which he said he had seen three times. "I show it to my officers. It tells you a lot about L.A." All of these discussions are irrelevant, of course. The Academy Awards are over, end of discussion. But this is Hollywood. And life, lucrative, networking, self-promoting life goes on. Nearby, LUDACRIS, newly baptized as an Actor in a Best Picture Movie, rather shyly offered his hand to the producer JERRY BRUCKHEIMER. "I'd love to work with you someday," he said.

VANITY FAIR
YOUNG SEAN
MOTION PICTURES
ACADEMY AWARDS (OSCARS)
PARTIES (SOCIAL)
AWARDS DECORATIONS AND HONORS


Strong Sales Drive a Robust Quarter for Apple

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — While earnings have faltered at other electronics companies, unexpectedly strong sales of Macintosh computers and a surge in iPhone purchases pushed Apple ’s profit up 15 percent in the third quarter, the company said Tuesday. “We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive, said in a statement . Apple recorded its best nonholiday quarter ever when other electronics makers were hurting because of a downturn in consumer spending. According to various estimates, PC shipments for the industry fell 3 to 5 percent over the last three months. But Apple said it sold 2.6 million Macs in the quarter, up about 18 percent from the 2.2 million it sold in the previous quarter, which ended March 28. Apple said Mac sales were helped in June by updates to its line of MacBook Pro laptops, which got new features like longer battery life and a price reduction of $300, or 25 percent, from the previously least expensive Pro model. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said the company saw an “acceleration of sales” after the introduction, which he said had led to some inventory shortages. About half of Mac buyers in Apple’s own retail stores had never owned a Mac before, said Mr. Cook. Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Brothers, said that Macintosh computers were “resonating with increasing number of customers, as it is arguably the best platform for what people do today, which includes Web surfing and creating and managing content.” Apple also benefited from the June introduction of a new smartphone, the iPhone 3GS. Apple sold 5.2 million phones in the quarter, up from 3.79 million in the April quarter. The 3GS includes new features like the ability to record video, send picture messages and dial with voice commands. Apple previously said it sold more than one million 3GS handsets in the first three days of the product’s availability. Apple also lowered the price of the old iPhone 3G to $99 in an effort to increase its market share in the expanding market for smartphones, although the company would not say how well it was selling. The company’s overall gross profit margin grew to 36.3 percent, from 34.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. In the only dark spot for the company, sales of the iPod dropped to 10.2 million, from 11 million a year ago, a decline of 7 percent. Analysts said the slump reflected a saturation of the market for MP3 music players as well as the migration of people to phones that play music. Mr. Cook noted that the company had predicted and planned for the decline, and that sales of the iPod Touch — which looks similar to the iPhone and can also access applications from the company’s online iTunes store — had jumped 130 percent over the last year. Mr. Cook took the opportunity of a conference call with media and Wall Street analysts to again criticize the low-cost, pared-down computers known as netbooks, which had provided one of the few bright spots in the computer industry. He said that many netbook buyers became disappointed and that the devices were “very slow, they have software technology that is old, they don’t have a robust computing experience, they lack horsepower, they have small displays and cramped keyboards.” Though analysts wonder whether Apple could introduce its own low-cost computer — or at least some kind of economical tablet reading device — Mr. Cook said Apple would only deliver a product “that is very innovative and that is something we are very proud of.” Apple reported that its net income grew to $1.23 billion, or $1.35 a share, up from $1.07 billion, or $1.19 a share, in the quarter a year ago. Revenue rose to $8.34 billion, from $7.46 billion last year. That exceeded even some of the optimistic expectations of analysts, who projected Apple to announce revenue of $8.16 billion and a profit of $1.16 a share, according to a survey conducted by Thomson Reuters. Apple shares were up almost $7 in after-hours trading, after closing at $151.51 in the regular session Tuesday. Wall Street is impressed with Apple’s growing traction with affluent urban and suburban consumers unaffected by the recession. Analysts are also increasingly confident in how the company will fare without Mr. Jobs, who had a liver transplant in the spring but has recently returned to work. Mr. Jobs was not present on the earnings call with analysts, as some had hoped. The last six months “have been a resounding endorsement” of Apple’s management team, led by Mr. Cook, said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray. “This basically shows that in six months of running the company, Tim Cook has basically pulled it off in a terrible economy.”


SB Nation Expands for Fans, by Fans Sports Sites

Abstract: Last Thursday, Kobe Bryant tallied 30 points in Game 1 of the N.B.A. Finals. That night, Silver Screen and Roll, a blog dedicated to the Los Angeles Lakers, racked up more than 3,500 comments. The popular site is just one of more than 250 unapologetically biased sports sites owned by SB Nation, most of them dedicated to a single team. The sites, written by fans for fans, do not claim to break news or have an inside scoop, but they often serve as a digital water cooler for the like-minded. So far, that service has been enough to draw eyeballs. According to comScore, in April, the network drew 3.6 million unique visitors to its 21 most popular sites, the only ones tracked by the market research firm. Now the company is getting into the regional sports business, introducing 20 new sites in the next several weeks that are dedicated to all of the sports in a particular city, as varied as New York and Kansas City. The new sites add to a growing list of competitors to midsize daily newspapers, which once enjoyed a near-monopoly on local coverage. Many papers have been forced to cut staff in recent years, and sports sections are usually not spared. “Newspaper sports sections are being squeezed from every conceivable angle,” said Timothy A. Franklin, the director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University and a former editor of The Baltimore Sun. “There’s less of an emphasis being dedicated to regional sports coverage, and we think we’re filling an important need and doing it in a different way — ground up, grass-roots, instead of top-down,” said Jim Bankoff, the company’s chairman and a former executive at AOL. The company, now based in Washington, has come a long way since its first site, AthleticsNation.com , went live in 2003. Tyler Bleszinski and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (the creator of Daily Kos, the popular liberal blog) founded the company, expanding it slowly at first. Investors include Accel Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital and Allen & Company. The pace has picked up in recent years. Last year, revenue increased fourfold, Mr. Bankoff said. Oddly, having the writers keep some distance from the team — they rarely interview the players, for example — is one of the keys to their success, Mr. Bankoff said. That distance allows sports to be less “of a profession than a passion,” he said. “We want to stay on the fan side of things.” They are doing that at a relatively low cost. The company has 29 full-time employees, including people on the advertising and technology side, while most of the contributors to SB Nation’s sites are paid a monthly stipend. Each of the new regional sites will have its own editor. Al Yellon, for example, who has run Bleed Cubbie Blue, a site devoted to the Chicago Cubs, will oversee the Chicago site. One formidable competitor is ESPN, the sports media juggernaut, which started its first regional site last year for Chicago and has since moved into other cities. Official team sites, particularly those run by Major League Baseball, also provide their own articles, images and video. Many papers have cut back on the time and space devoted to high school sports, as well. Some Web sites have started to step into that vacuum, like DigitalSports.com and HoosierAuthority.com . DigitalSports, which is based in Ewing, N.J., largely relies on user-generated content — often from school administrators, parents and students themselves — to provide coverage of high school sports. Angela Watts, a content editor for DigitalSports and a former reporter at The Washington Post, said the coverage was different from that of a professional reporter, “but if we can get 20 people at every school to write, then, yes, it is competition” for newspapers. Sports sections historically have been loss leaders for newspapers, often with sporadic advertisements for tires, cars and niche products. Large retailers usually prefer to be in the paper’s main section and feature sections. But the coverage is a lure for readers, both in print and online. When a local team is doing well, readership often increases. Mr. Bankoff said that newspapers do not have to fear their work and that they would be happy to work with any newspaper. “We are actually complementary from what newspapers do. We embrace fan bias,” he said. “Newspapers focus on objective coverage — and when you combine the two, you get both perspectives.” For one thing, he said, SB Nation rarely sends its writers on the road to cover a game. That helps keep costs down, of course, but Mr. Bankoff said it also helps preserve the fan perspective. “As long as we have the reporters to cover the teams better than anyone else, we’ve got a place in the future,” said Marty Kaiser, editor of The Journal Sentinel of Milwaukee and a former sports editor for The Chicago Sun-Times. “Places like us, we have to wake up, we can’t just sit back and say, ‘We own this stuff.’ ” The SB Nation sites sometimes do get access to team officials. Mr. Bleszinski, a former reporter at The Orange Country Register and a devoted Oakland A’s fan, has sat down for extended interviews with Billy Beane, the team’s general manager. He posts the entire transcript on AthleticsNation.com. But the most important thing that SB Nation sites provide, Mr. Bankoff said, is a place to gather. He hopes that the brand will be able to extend that offline, too. As part of an introduction effort, the company is hosting events in each of the cities with new regional sites. Mr. Bankoff said it was not just a celebration party but part of the product offering. “We wear our hearts on our sleeves,” said Mr. Bleszinski. “We’re looking for people to gather ’round.”

SB Nation
Newspapers
Blogs and Blogging (Internet)
Athletics and Sports
Computers and the Internet


Man Found Dead With Arms Bound

Abstract: An 89-year-old man was found dead in bed in his apartment on the Upper East Side on Thursday night, according to the police, who said they were investigating the death as suspicious. The body of the man, identified as Guido Felix Brinkman, was found by the superintendent at 435 East 65th Street, between First and York Avenues. The police said Mr. Brinkman’s arms had been tied behind his back and he had suffered a head injury. The police said someone — it was not immediately clear who — had called the superintendent because Mr. Brinkman, who lived by himself, had not been heard from in some time. The police said they were looking for a “person of interest” in the case, someone who regularly visited Mr. Brinkman. The superintendent, whose name was not released, went to Mr. Brinkman’s fourth-floor apartment about 7:45 p.m. on Thursday, the police said. Investigators found no indication that the apartment had been broken into, but it had been ransacked, as if someone had been looking for something. Mr. Brinkman’s white-brick building has a 24-hour doorman, and some neighbors said the death was a shock on a block that was usually quiet. “What’s the point of having a doorman?” said Hilary Hudson, 25, who lives next door.

Murders and Attempted Murders
Police Department (NYC)


Spy’s Release Is Unlikely to Assuage Israel on Iran Nuclear Deal

Abstract: JERUSALEM — The two issues with perhaps the broadest consensus and resonance in Israeli politics are opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and support for the release of Jonathan J. Pollard, the convicted Israeli spy, from a North Carolina prison. Now the two could be tied together, as some in Washington appear to be highlighting Mr. Pollard’s likely parole in November in hopes of quieting the vigorous campaign by Israel and some of its American supporters against congressional approval of the deal. But while Mr. Pollard has long been bandied about as a potential diplomatic chit the United States might use to force Israeli concessions, analysts said Saturday that such a linkage had little chance of working now, and could instead provoke a backlash. Iran is seen as too serious a threat for the kind of horse-trading suggested in previous proposals to free Mr. Pollard in exchange for compromise on the Palestinian front, they said. Mr. Pollard has been expected to get out this year in any case, having served the required 30 years of a life sentence, so efforts to portray his release as a grand gesture are already being described as cynical, cheap and misguided. “If this is the motive, it’s naïve,” said Amnon Rubinstein, a law professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, who joined the growing movement calling for Mr. Pollard’s release in recent years. “The two things are totally separate. One is a human consideration, and one is a strategic issue, which most Israelis, including myself, regard as existential.” Aaron David Miller , a State Department veteran on Middle East affairs who is now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said any such move would look bad for President Obama, given that Americans remain in Iranian prisons. And he added that it would probably make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel “fight harder” against the Iran deal “so he’s not thought to have colluded.” “Pollard is apples and the Iran deal is oranges,” Mr. Miller said. “The Pollard card is not just of limited value, but potentially damaging.” A spokesman for the National Security Council said Friday, “There is absolutely zero linkage between Mr. Pollard’s status and foreign policy considerations,” denying a report in The Wall Street Journal that American officials were pressing for his release in part to allay Israel’s anger over the nuclear accord. But while Obama administration officials have previously emphasized that they expect Mr. Pollard to serve out his term, on Friday a Justice Department spokesman punctuated that sentiment with the caveat, “which in this case is a 30-year sentence as mandated by statute.” That spin may be aimed not at Israel but at Democratic — and Jewish — lawmakers like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who has long lobbied for Mr. Pollard’s release and could be among the pivotal votes in Congress on Iran. Even if it does not change either the substance or the tenor of criticism of the nuclear deal, freeing Mr. Pollard would at least remove one item from the lengthy list of complaints about Mr. Obama by Israelis and their backers. A senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation, said Saturday that the government had not “been told anything at all” about developments regarding Mr. Pollard, and that he did not think it had been discussed as part of a so-called compensation package Washington might provide to appease Israel on the Iran front. “Our longstanding position has been, we have made repeated requests over the years, that for humanitarian reasons he should be released,” the official said. “It comes up routinely. I’m not aware that the issues are in any way connected.” Israel on Saturday issued a stern statement that the country would continue to criticize the nuclear agreement with Iran and could not be pressured to stop voicing its objections. The statement was in response to comments made Friday by Secretary of State John Kerry, who warned that the international community might blame Israel if Congress blocked the accord and that as a result Israel might “wind up being more isolated.” Image Jonathan J. Pollard Credit Karl Deblaker/Associated Press “We reject the threats directed at Israel in recent days,” an Israeli official said in a statement provided Saturday to The New York Times. “The U.S. Congress will make its decision based on American interests, which include consideration of U.S. allies,” added the official, who asked not to be named because of the diplomatic sensitivities. “The regrettable attempt to intimidate Israel will not prevent us from voicing our concerns about this deal, which poses direct threats to Israel’s security.” Mr. Pollard, 60 and ailing, was born in Texas to a Zionist family, and shortly after being hired in 1979 as a naval intelligence analyst, started passing suitcases stuffed with classified documents to an Israeli handler, who paid him $1,500 a month, bought his wife a diamond and sapphire ring, and sent the couple on expensive European vacations. He was disavowed by Israelis upon his 1985 arrest, but later embraced — he was granted citizenship in 1995 and, by 2013, had become the focal point of a protest movement that went beyond the original right-wing core to become a coalition of Nobel Prize-winning scientists, retired generals, celebrated authors and dovish politicians like Shimon Peres, then the president of Israel. An online petition demanding clemency drew 175,000 signatures. Mr. Netanyahu has made the fight against Iran’s obtaining a nuclear weapon the centerpiece of his career, but the Pollard case could be a close second. In 1998, Mr. Netanyahu nearly secured Mr. Pollard’s release during a summit meeting with President Bill Clinton regarding the Palestinians at Wye Mills, Md., but it was thwarted when George J. Tenet, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, threatened to resign . Mr. Netanyahu’s aides in 2010 floated to the Obama administration the idea of trading Mr. Pollard’s freedom for an extension of a 10-month freeze on construction in West Bank settlements. And last year, Secretary of State John Kerry persuaded Mr. Obama to put Mr. Pollard on the table as part of a package to save Mr. Kerry’s collapsing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but the negotiations fell apart for other reasons. “It is clear that since the 1990s he’s been a chip, he’s been a playing card,” said Michael B. Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, who visited Mr. Pollard in prison in 2011 and writes about him in his new book, “Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide.” “It’s become sort of built into the peace process.” In Washington, debates about how to maximize Mr. Pollard’s leverage have raged; in 2014, for example, many thought freeing him only to extend the talks, rather than to move Israel on the core issues of conflict with the Palestinians, would be a mistake. As the clock ticks toward the 30th anniversary of his arrest — at the time, parole was generally mandated after 30 years for federal inmates serving life sentences — the value inevitably drops. Amir Oren, a journalist who has covered the case from its first day, said Israelis would “pocket this gesture; they will not even agree that it’s a gesture, they will say it’s a make-believe gesture because he was going to be released anyway.” Mr. Pollard’s ex-wife, Anne, said on Israeli television Saturday night that he would want to live in Israel. With the 30-year mark approaching, Mr. Pollard “deserves to be released based on the American system of justice.” “I just want to see him out,” she added. “I can’t bear it anymore that he sat and lost all of his life in jail.” Oded Eran, a longtime Israeli diplomat who is now a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said the anonymous reports coming out of Washington are “a cheap shot to try and change the tone on Iran, and therefore we are not going to be swayed one way or the other.” Mr. Eran, who served in Israel’s embassy in Washington, said Mr. Pollard’s release would be a 24-hour story of national celebration, while the Iran issue “will be with us for months, if not years.” “I want to be very clear and very categorical,” he added. “If anyone in Washington believes that this is going to change the tone of the debate on Iran, the nature of the debate on Iran, the votes on Iran, he is absolutely, categorically, misleading himself.”

Israel
Iran
Nuclear weapon
Spying and Intelligence Agencies
Jonathan J Pollard
Classified Information
CIA
Barack Obama


Double-Clutching 150 Horses Past the Checkered Flag

Abstract: I FELT my heart start to redline even as my engine idled. I was strapped inside the cockpit of a white Formula Dodge on the main straightaway at Lime Rock Park in northwestern Connecticut. The sun was beating down on my crash helmet. Sweat soaked the T-shirt under my fire-resistant jumpsuit. Amid the din of passing race cars, my mind’s ears somehow heard the Doors blasting out “Roadhouse Blues.” “Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel,” Jim Morrison warned. One of the pit crew members waved a checkered flag, signaling that the track was clear for my last lap. I popped the clutch and floored the throttle. My open-wheel car bolted forward, pinning my crash helmet under the arch of the roll bar. I saw the mottled gray pavement of one of America’s most fabled road racing tracks coming at me, at me, at me. I recoiled from three wind-blown jolts as I upshifted through the gears. There was no way for me to tell exactly how fast I was going. The dashboard had a tachometer, but no speedometer. I knew my car could hit 60 miles an hour in first gear. So I figured I was racing at 90 to 100 m.p.h. as I zoomed past the timing tower in fourth. In a nanosecond, I came upon Turn 1, a specially laid out right-hand hairpin. I had to downshift all the way to second gear before my front wheels reached the orange cone marking the “turn-in” point. Otherwise, I would have had too much speed to make the turn and would be sent flying off the track. Once again, my mind’s ears heard the Doors. “The future’s uncertain,” Morrison wailed, “and the end is always near.” I silently thanked God that my instructors at the Skip Barber Racing School were watching over my reckless executive pursuit from the edges of the track. Founded in 1975 by John (Skip) Barber, a Harvard-educated former road racing champion, the school is widely acclaimed as the premier academy for people who want to learn how to drive to their limits and live to tell about it. Its alumni include leading professional drivers like Jeff Gordon and Michael Andretti, celebrities like Tom Cruise, and Walter Mitty-inspired dilettantes like me. A maniacal greed for racetrack speed is not required. With 20 locations from coast to coast, the school can also teach you how to drive on the arguably more dangerous highways you have to navigate every day. Among the more popular courses are the one-day ($1,495) and two-day ($2,895) programs that combine laps on racetracks with street car exercises in which you learn how to steer into — and out of — potentially disastrous skids. I participated in a day and a half of a three-day racing course alongside an 18-year-old professional driver from Belgium, a 20-year-old would-be pro from Long Island and two pit crew mechanics. The program is open to all comers for a $3,995 tuition fee. The only prerequisites are experience in driving a stick shift and the willingness to sign your life away on a liability waiver and indemnity agreement. I reckoned that the unique thrills of learning to drive an open-wheel Formula Dodge outweighed the risks. Unlike a stock car, a Formula Dodge has no roof and no door panels. It is basically a single-seat steel sled covered by a cigar-shaped fiberglass fuselage. The rear end houses a 2-liter 150-horsepower engine capable of producing a top speed of 130 m.p.h. The front end houses the steering column and the clutch, brake and throttle pedals. You’re sitting about 4 inches above the pavement. The windshield is the visor on your crash helmet. As the baby boomer novice in the class, I was reassured to learn that our instructors, John Murphy, Bruce MacInnes and Stephan Bastrzycki, had more than half a century of combined racing experience. They promised to push me to reach my full potential on the racetrack in incremental stages. “We work on separate skills, then we combine them and gradually hand you more responsibility,” Bruce declared in his opening lecture. “We want to get you good before we get you fast.” I quickly discovered that acquiring even a mediocre proficiency at handling a Formula Dodge was not easy. The hardest thing for me was downshifting. In a street car with synchronized gears, you simply put in the clutch and move the stick. In a race car, however, you’ll grind the unsynchronized gears unless you “double clutch,” a coordination-challenging procedure that requires you to simultaneously step on the brake and rev the throttle with your right foot while twice pumping the clutch with your left foot. The Lime Rock race course presented a similarly daunting challenge. Its 1.54-mile road racing track is shaped like an overinflated bladder. It features one left-hand turn, six right-hand turns, two straightaways, two major elevation changes and a macadam surface punctuated with concrete patches. In graphic testimony to the dangers of the sharper turns, scores of black skid marks known as “Whoa Baby’s” skew toward the guardrails. The key to success (and survival) is keeping the car on the “racing line,” the most efficient path around the track. To hew the racing line, your car has to hit three positions on every corner: the “turn-in” or entry point, the “apex” or midpoint, and the “track-out” or exit point. You can get yourself in serious trouble by slowing down too abruptly as well as by going too fast. I found that out firsthand during a session on a practice track called the autocross. Steering through a left-hand turn, I suddenly realized I had picked up too much speed, so I yanked my foot off the throttle pedal. That ill-timed “pedal snapper” move had nearly the same effect as slamming on the brakes. The weight of the car was thrust forward, which caused the suddenly lighter rear end to skid out of control. My car veered off the track and onto the infield, where it went into a 180-degree spin and hit a grapefruit-size rock that cracked its fiberglass side pod. The following morning, I entered Turn 1 of my last laps at Lime Rock with a gasoline-fumed mixture of remorse and sheer terror. The side pod of my car had been repaired with strips of racing tape, but my spun-out ego was still smarting from the countless mistakes I had made in my previous 49 laps around the track. I vowed against all odds to make a perfect run. My hopes for perfection were immediately dashed by the sounds of my gears grinding as I botched my downshifts to third and second. Cursing myself, I throttled through Turn 2, shifted back up to third, and careened around Turn 3, the lone left-hander, with my tires squealing in frustration. I felt two quick bumps and a shimmy as I slipped through Turn 4 and barreled down No Name Straight toward the treacherous elevation change corner known as the Uphill. Miraculously, I managed the called-for early apex, straightened the steering wheel halfway up the hill, and cleared the crest with my stomach soaring into my mouth. I feathered the brake coming into West Bend, tracked out full throttle, and dove into the final Downhill corner with a quick-handed right turn of the steering wheel. As I flattened back out on the main straightaway, I raised my left fist to signal that I was heading into the pits. Less than half an hour later, I was crouched behind the wheel of my sport utility vehicle with the Lime Rock rock I had excavated from the autocross on my lap. As I left the racetrack en route to a nearby highway, my whole being was still vibrating in unison with the Formula Dodge. An afternoon shower burst out of the sky. The Doors’ CD that had been playing in my mind’s ears for the past 36 hours switched to “Riders on the Storm.”


Texas: Produce Plant Shut After Deaths

Abstract: Health officials have shut down a processing plant linked to contaminated celery that sickened at least six people this year, four of whom died, and ordered the recall of all of the produce that passed through the plant since January. The SanGar Produce and Processing Company issued the recall Wednesday after its plant in San Antonio was shuttered. The Texas Department of State Health Services traced 6 of 10 known cases of listeriosis in the state to celery processed there. The agency is investigating the origins of the other cases, which include one death. Carrie Williams, a health department spokeswoman, said Thursday that the state asked the company to close voluntarily but it refused. Kenneth Sanquist Jr., the company’s president, said that the state used flawed methods to collect its samples.

Texas
Celery
SanGar Produce and Processing Company
Recalls and Bans of Products
Deaths (Fatalities)


Like Hillary Clinton in ’08, Jeb Bush Is Haunted by Specter of Iraq War

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Eight years after Hillary Rodham Clinton was haunted by her Senate vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq, another leading White House hopeful is struggling with questions about the war. And just as Mrs. Clinton seemed torn then between mollifying Democratic primary voters who were against the war and positioning herself to run in the general election, Jeb Bush , a Republican, appears deeply conflicted. He is grappling with how to remain loyal to his older brother, George W. Bush, while acknowledging what has become a mainstream view in both parties: that there would not have been an invasion if policy makers had known in 2003 that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. In Arizona on Thursday, with his fourth different answer of the week, Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, finally conceded that, if he had had such knowledge, he “would not have gone into Iraq.” For Mrs. Clinton in 2008, mishandling what her opponent Barack Obama called “the biggest foreign policy disaster of a generation” created an opening for him and ultimately helped undermine her campaign. There is no strong antiwar current in today’s Republican electorate as there was during the 2008 Democratic contest, but Iraq could prove just as thorny for Mr. Bush now because of what it represents. The if-you-knew-then questions and gibes from his rivals about the 2003 invasion of Iraq are a stand-in for a larger challenge confronting Mr. Bush: demonstrating that he is not merely another would-be heir to a political dynasty. Video In the days since an interview with Fox News, Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, has sought to clarify his position on the invasion of Iraq. Credit Credit Deanna Dent/Reuters “That’s the issue here: Are you actually a unique, different person or are you a third Bush?” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “To the degree that he’s defined as a third Bush, he has a bigger mountain to climb, though I think he certainly has the potential to carve out a path because he has an extraordinary record as governor.” In his opening months as an all-but-declared candidate, Mr. Bush has seemed unsurprised, if irritated, by questions about how he is different from the previous presidents named Bush. He has explained that he loves his father and brother, but recognizes that he will have to make his own case to win the nomination. (Unmentioned is that much of his strength as a candidate owes to the fund-raising network he largely inherited from his family.) Yet while he has been willing to address the issue of his family ties generally, the past week shows he is either unprepared or deeply reluctant to discuss specific policy issues stemming from his brother’s presidency. Mr. Bush’s resistance to engage on Iraq also underlines the degree to which he is determined to run his campaign on his terms. But he may be too sure of himself and his approach. His dayslong bobble became the talk of Republican politics, from the campaign trail in Nevada to Washington. A group of Republican senators meeting this week on Capitol Hill were nearly incredulous that Mr. Bush did not have a better answer and joked about how many press aides he needed to respond to such a basic matter, according to a party strategist who heard the conversation. “Jeb’s curb appeal was supposed to be experience, pedigree and smarts, and therefore ready to lead,” said one Republican senator, who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly about a presidential hopeful. “These kinds of statements plant him squarely in the middle of the primary pack — with G.O.P. voters unsure of exactly what political lessons he truly has learned.” Who Is Running for President? Donald J. Trump officially accepted the Republican party's nomination on July 22. Hillary Clinton was officially nominated on July 26 at the Democratic Convention. Sensing vulnerability, and eyeing an opportunity to bring the closest thing there is to a Republican front-runner down a peg, Mr. Bush’s primary opponents have pounced. Nearly all of them immediately and succinctly answered the question he dodged for days. “I don’t know how that was a hard question,” Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, said Thursday at the Republican National Committee spring meeting in Arizona. Some took advantage of the opening to attack Mr. Bush for what they say is the baggage he would bear as the party’s nominee. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said that the country should be wary of “having a nominee who is stuck in relitigating the Iraq war.” “We need to know what we’re getting ourselves in for,” Mr. Paul said in an interview on Thursday. “The difficulty that Jeb is going to have is on two fronts. One, he’s got conservative mistrust in the primary. That’s going to be difficult to overcome. But should he become the nominee, he’s going to have difficulty with independents who were opposed to the Iraq war. I see it as a very difficult place for him to be in.” Mr. Paul has his own difficulties: The Republican primary voters he must court, on the whole, are considerably more hawkish on national security than he is. But his remarks bluntly raised what has loomed over Mr. Bush’s likely candidacy just as much as his positions on immigration or the Common Core education standards: the perception that he embodies the restoration of a dynasty many do not want to see restored. Mr. Paul may overstate the extent of Mr. Bush’s legacy problems with Republicans — a New York Times-CBS poll this month showed 7 in 10 Republicans viewed George W. Bush favorably. And there is little doubt that the party members are far more animated about what they see as President Obama’s foreign policy blunders than about the mistakes of the last Bush administration. But Mr. Bush’s difficulties discussing his brother and Iraq hand his opponents the same cudgel that Mr. Obama so effectively used against Mrs. Clinton in 2008. “It is about the past versus the future,” Mr. Obama said then. “And when I am the nominee, the Republicans won’t be able to make this election about the past.” Or, as the conservative writer David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, put it on Twitter this week: “Jeb Bush has just converted an election that should be about the past eight years into an election about the eight years before that.” Mr. Bush’s aides say he is anxious to move past his schedule focused on fund-raising to a more intensive campaign that will allow him to discuss his own vision. But it is unclear he will ever be able to shed himself of forced exercises in retrospection. Danielle Pletka, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute , noted that when Senator Marco Rubio of Florida began his presidential campaign last month he “chose to do so with this explicit break with the past, which of course means the Bushes and the Clintons.” “That’s going to be more resonant for Republicans than ‘He’s going to get us into another Iraq war,’ ” Ms. Pletka said. Mr. Bush’s overarching problem “is this eternal relitigation of every decision of George W. Bush,” she added. “As much as he’s saying ‘I’m my own man,’ every time he says that, we’re reminded he’s not.”

Hillary Clinton
Jeb Bush
Iraq War
Iraq
Republicans
American Enterprise Institute
2016 Presidential Election
US Politics


Earthquake, and Much Smaller Tsunami, in Japan

Abstract: TOKYO — An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 struck off the coast of Fukushima early Saturday, triggering tsunami and evacuation advisories for a wide swath of Japan’s Pacific coast, but recorded waves were far smaller than the destructive tsunami that hit the region in 2011. The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, crippled by the 2011 tsunami, said that it had temporarily pulled workers back from the waterfront to a fortified building at the plant but that there were no immediate signs of fresh damage. The quake struck around 2:10 a.m. local time about 200 miles off the coast, rattling much of eastern Japan. About 40 minutes later, tsunami waves measuring up to 1.3 feet hit the coasts of Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate, according to Japan’s Meteorological Agency. No major injuries or damage from either the quake or tsunami was reported. A magnitude 9.0 quake in March 2011 triggered tsunami waves as high as 32 feet, and the water reached four times that height as it raced up mountainsides. Almost 20,000 people died. The tsunami also caused meltdowns at three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, prompting more than 100,000 people to flee their homes. Recent storms have threatened efforts to contain contaminated water at the site, where a cleanup that has been plagued by problems continues. Workers were bracing Saturday for more rain from twin typhoons off the coast.

Earthquake
Tsunami
Japan
Tokyo Electric Power


Finding Hope Online, and Hoping a Job Follows

Abstract: COLUMBIA, S.C. — Nearly a year after he was laid off from his job as a window installer, Raymond Vaughn is still out of work, still scanning job listings on the computer and still sending résumés into a seemingly indifferent void. But Mr. Vaughn now has another activity, one aimed at breaking free of his chronically meager financial straits: He is studying for a career in medical billing through an online course he found on the Internet. For several hours each morning, Mr. Vaughn, 43, sits at a desk in the modest rented house he shares with his fiancée, memorizing medical procedures and absorbing detailed drawings of the human anatomy. “Medical terminology is kicking my butt,” he says. He takes quizzes online, making progress toward the diploma that will, the school promises, set him up to work from home, processing bills for insurance companies while earning as much as $50,000 a year. “That sounded all right to me,” he says. He passes the evening hours on a sagging couch, a pack of Newport cigarettes on the coffee table, and the television remote in hand, surveying a world mired in distress. He flips between action movies and news channels, absorbing a discomfiting tableau of cinematic violence and real-life economic deterioration — job cuts, holdups at a local automated teller machine, taxpayer-financed bonuses for disgraced Wall Street chieftains. He takes note of the reports that South Carolina has the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation — 11 percent in February, behind only Michigan. He seethes as he hears that his state’s Republican governor, Mark Sanford, is preparing to reject $700 million in federal aid aimed at generating new jobs, arguing that spending more now will simply add to public debt in the years ahead. “How can somebody who’s never been broke say with any confidence what someone needs who’s struggling?” Mr. Vaughn asks disgustedly. Everywhere, he hears solemn talk of recession, as if the same reality that has defined most of his life has finally caught up with the rest of the nation. “For me, it’s always been a recession,” Mr. Vaughn says. “I’ve always struggled to find work and pay my bills. And now we’re hearing recession this, recession that, and I’m like, yeah, now that it’s hitting the rich people, it’s officially a recession. They’ve got to give up eating in those fancy restaurants with their $100 chicken dinners, and now they’re stuck eating Church’s with me.” He still draws a $221-a-week unemployment check, and he still depends on the generosity of his fiancée, whose wages from her job as a secretary at a hospital pay the bills. “She could cover this place on her own,” Mr. Vaughn says. “She could kick my butt out and she’d be fine. It bothers me. That’d be hard for any man.” And yet, more than a year into a punishing economic downturn, and more than four decades into a life whose only consistent thread has been struggle itself, Mr. Vaughn is keenly aware that pride is a commodity he cannot afford. Nationally, unemployment is at its highest rate in more than a quarter century, a picture that will probably worsen on Friday, when the government releases its snapshot of the labor market for March. Most economists expect the report will show that more than 650,000 jobs disappeared from the economy last month, bringing total job losses beyond five million since the recession began in December 2007. Prospects have been especially bleak for African-American men like Mr. Vaughn, who lacks a college degree, and has long earned his living with his hands. Born and raised in Jamaica in Queens, New York, Mr. Vaughn has spent the last 17 years in South Carolina, moving here to escape the often-violent streets of his youth. Nationally, less than 60 percent of black men 20 years and older were employed in February, the lowest share since the government began tracking such data in 1972, and down from 66 percent a year earlier. Amiable and prone to wisecracks, Mr. Vaughn joined the recession’s victims last May when he was laid off from his job installing and repairing windows and doors, where he had earned $11.50 an hour and health insurance. In December, he lined up with hundreds of other people at the state fairgrounds, applying for the few listings at a job fair. The most promising possibility was for a position as a technician at an air-conditioning company. It paid $3 an hour less than his last job. He never got that job, and soon the company resorted to layoffs. He says he has applied for more than 50 jobs since, including posts as a welder, an auto mechanic and a painter. “Anything,” he says. “I’ve been applying for anything.” Back in February, he was granted an interview at a factory that makes industrial adhesives, yet his very need for a job emerged as an impediment to getting one: The company ran a credit check, discovered his checkered history, and turned him down, he says. “They told me things had looked good until the credit check,” he says. Mr. Vaughn’s credit history stands as a crude composite of the national experience. It is sprinkled with deals that went awry, transactions not sufficiently understood, assurances accepted without critical scrutiny and purchases made in anticipation of income that never arrived. Seven years ago, he bought a mobile home, agreeing to a mortgage that he says was supposed to be $653 a month for the home and the land. When a bill came for an extra $200 a month, he walked away, convinced he had been cheated. Two years ago, he ran up $200 worth of charges on a Visa card that he failed to pay. “It was basically gas and what-not,” he says. In January, an e-mail message landed in his in-box from something called the U.S. Career Institute, based in Colorado, which offered to train him online for “an exciting, professional career” in medical billing. He bought in, enrolling for $69 a month, attracted by the thought of a middle-class paycheck. Does he know anyone who has pulled this off? “No, but I called and checked it out,” he says. “Basically, they said their school is accredited. Their school has weight. It’s not like the school is frowned upon.” He discussed it with his fiancée, and she supported the idea, figuring that health care is a growing field. He says this in the tone of voice of a man whose aspirations have been dashed more than once, now trying to convince himself of the truth of something dubious; a man who has sent out so many job applications and received so few replies, happy to have finally found mail in his in-box painting a promising future that is supposedly waiting for someone just like him.

South Carolina
Unemployment
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Recession and Depression
United States Economy


Harvey, Asked to Delete Post, Leaves Twitter

Abstract: Tuesday morning marked six months since Matt Harvey had Tommy John surgery, and the Mets ace wanted to celebrate. He dug through photographs from that day in October, found one that made him chuckle, and posted it to his Twitter account. The image — showing Harvey sitting on a hospital bed making an obscene gesture with his left hand — wound up going viral, and the Mets responded by asking Harvey to delete the Twitter post. He responded by deleting his account. “It was all fun and games and just me showing a little personality,” Harvey said. “I’m not going to apologize for being myself.” He added, “Now I’ll just keep those pictures to myself.” A Mets spokesman said the team felt the photograph was “inappropriate,” although Harvey did not exactly agree. He said that his mother had taken the photograph and that it showed his determination to “beat the process,” meaning returning to health. “It’s my personal account,” Harvey said. “I thought the whole reason to have a Twitter was to put out some fun and show your personal side a little bit. I guess when that gets questioned, there comes a time when you have to get rid of something.” The Mets have tried to keep Harvey out of the news media cycle while he rehabilitates, but it has been a struggle. In March, Harvey griped about having to do his rehabilitation in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and the Mets agreed to allow him to be with the team during homestands. Harvey said he was disappointed the gesture had taken away from the message of his post: that he was six months closer to returning to the field. “The main frustration is not being able to play or pitch,” Harvey said. “If there’s one thing I’m sorry for, it’s not being able to play.”


For Job as Mets Catcher, Caracas Will Have Been Worth It to Josh Thole

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Josh Thole bought his fiancée a box of Frosted Flakes, a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread, kissed her and walked out of the Best Western hotel in Caracas, Venezuela , for a three-day trip. Thole’s fiancée, Kathryn Poe, who does not speak Spanish and was warned not to challenge fate on the streets of one of South America’s more dangerous cities, holed up in her room for 72 hours until Thole returned. Over the three days, she worked her way through the cereal, ate peanut butter until she could stomach no more and demonstrated her ingenuity by toasting pieces of bread on the coffee machine’s heating plate. “I was kind of proud of that one,” Poe said in a telephone interview. “But it was a tough three days. By the end I felt like I was literally starving.” Patience and resourcefulness are two qualities every minor league baseball player’s girlfriend or wife needs in abundance, but the endurance Poe demonstrated for those three days in early October was remarkable. So if it takes a few more months or years for Thole (pronounced TOE-lee) to complete his transformation into a catcher and make it permanently in the majors, they can both tough it out. Thole will probably start the season in Class AAA Buffalo, but he certainly appears on his way to a starting job with the Mets . Considering the way he played at the end of last season — hitting .321 in 17 games for the Mets in September, after being called up from Class AA Binghamton, and then flirting with .400 in the caldron of the Venezuelan winter league — Thole, like his fiancée, has shown the mettle and determination to succeed anywhere. Poe is originally from Owego, N.Y., population 3,700. Thole grew up 40 miles outside St. Louis in Breese, an Illinois hamlet, population 4,000. Caracas on the other hand, is a crowded city of more than four million, spiced by music, food, snarled traffic and talk of baseball, but where kidnappings and other violence are all too frequent and where foreigners are cautioned not to venture out alone. Baseball players and their families have been targets of violence, too, which is why the winter league is blanketed with security. Thole acknowledged he was concerned about going, but said he had been so focused on the experience he would gain by catching every day that he refused to be consumed by anxiety. He was told that when he arrived at the airport he would be met by a security agent for his team, Leones del Caracas , who would then pass him off to a Major League Baseball security official. “I was still very nervous,” Thole said. “What if there is no one there when I get off the plane? What if I go with the wrong people? Then when you drive in from the airport, you see the barrios and all the terribly poor neighborhoods and I thought, Wow, this is what I’m really getting myself into.” While Thole was in Venezuela, the country’s president, Hugo Chávez, warned the populace that war with neighboring Colombia could be imminent. Thole was also there when the mother of the former Mets pitcher Victor Zambrano was kidnapped for ransom. Despite all of this, Thole not only persevered, he prospered, hitting .381 and driving in 28 runs in 44 games for the Venezuelan champions, earning him the nickname el Infierno, the Inferno. Nevertheless, when the Zambrano kidnapping occurred, the Mets checked with Thole to make sure he was O.K. He said that he was and that he had no intention of coming home before his scheduled Dec. 8 departure. But he also followed their advice to be careful. For the two months he was there, he ate outside the hotel complex only once, and that was with people who knew Caracas. Still, Thole said he came to embrace Caracas while he was there. “It was a fantastic experience,” he said. “I loved it, and my fiancée loved it, too, except for those three days when she was alone in the hotel. It was pretty intense at times, but over all it was great, and the way people treated us was unbelievable.” Passion for baseball is feverish in Venezuela, and even Thole’s brief time in the majors could not prepare him for what he saw — the rollicking stadiums, the cheerleaders in front of the dugouts, the blaring reggaetón music. In one game against archrival Magallanes of Valencia , Thole was catching when he noticed his center fielder turn and stare past the outfield wall. A brawl had broken out in the bleachers and the game was stopped for 10 minutes as the fans, players and umpires all watched. Thole went out to the mound and took it all in with the pitcher, whose name he could not recall. “He shrugged and said, ‘This happens every day here,’ ” Thole recalled. “Then the police came.” The first game Poe attended, she was driven to the stadium by the brother of the team bus driver. Driving in Caracas can get inventive, and at one point Poe’s car ended up on the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians who seemed not overly surprised. Inside the stadium, she attracted curious questions from fans. When they found out she was the future wife of el Infierno, their affection grew. “People were really very nice,” Poe said. “I met some wives who were bilingual, and they helped me out a lot. More than once I had beer dumped on me. But you know, it’s all part of the experience.” So were the Frosted Flakes and peanut butter. Poe and Thole can do without those items for a while. The rest of it, they’ll take. “You know what?” Thole said. “I would love to go back next year.”

Venezuela
Baseball
Caracas (Venezuela)
Thole Josh
New York Mets


Bill Would Set Foreclosure Moratorium

Abstract: The Bush administration recently announced a plan to delay foreclosures for some troubled homeowners for 30 days. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. But two state legislators have been quietly pushing for an even longer reprieve for homeowners in New York State: a one-year moratorium. Assemblyman James F. Brennan, a Brooklyn Democrat, and State Senator Frank Padavan, a Queens Republican, have introduced a bill in both houses that would delay foreclosure proceedings throughout the state for one year. The measure would allow residents to remain in their homes while granting them time to work with lenders to modify their mortgages. The bill is one of the most far-reaching state proposals to address the crisis in subprime lending and foreclosures, and it recalls the long-term foreclosure moratoriums that provided relief to homeowners in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It has been gaining momentum since its introduction in December. More than 60 Assembly members have signed on to it, Mr. Brennan said. New York Acorn, a community organizing group that boasts nearly 60,000 members statewide, has also been urging enactment of the moratorium. If it became law, the moratorium would be the first of its kind in New York State since 1933, when state lawmakers and Gov. Herbert H. Lehman imposed a moratorium of roughly one year on foreclosure on all real estate for which interest, taxes and other charges had been paid. That moratorium was renewed annually until 1949. “Some people say, ‘Well, that’s too crazy,’ ” said Bertha Lewis, executive director of New York Acorn, referring to the proposed one-year moratorium. “We say, ‘Look, either we are in a crisis or we’re not.’ We have to do something in New York State. This crisis is real, just like it was real in 1933 during the Depression.” Mr. Brennan said the idea for the new legislation could be traced back to his days as a student at Brooklyn Law School, when he first learned about a 1934 Supreme Court case, Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell, that upheld a Minnesota foreclosure moratorium. “There’s nothing wrong with giving people some time to see if better arrangements can be worked out,” said Mr. Brennan. In a statement, Richard H. Neiman, New York’s superintendent of banks, said his agency would review the proposal. The Mortgage Bankers Association has said that suspending loan payments for a period is an effective tool in some cases, but not a long-term solution. “Each loan is an individual transaction and situation, one which needs to be addressed individually between the lender and the borrower,” John M. Robbins, then the association’s chairman, said in a statement last year after civil rights groups called for a national six-month moratorium. The bill’s proponents will have to allay concerns that a one-year moratorium might make mortgage lenders less inclined to extend loans to New York home buyers, by reducing their leverage over borrowers who do not keep up with payments. But the bill has received support not only from many Democrats, but also from Mr. Padavan’s fellow Republican lawmakers including State Senators James S. Alesi of the Rochester area, Martin J. Golden of Brooklyn and William J. Larkin Jr. of the Newburgh area of the Hudson Valley. Mr. Padavan described the bill as an immediate, “common-sense solution” to the foreclosure crisis. “This is a freight train coming down the tracks,” he said, “and we’re just trying to slow it down so people can deal with the underlying problem.” The state’s rapid pace of foreclosure filings has alarmed both elected officials and housing activists, and the call for a moratorium is one of many attempts by local, state and federal lawmakers and officials to respond to the problem. Foreclosure filings in New York City for two-to-four-family properties have more than doubled in recent years, increasing to 8,263 in 2007 from 3,461 in 2004, according to an analysis of housing data by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University. In the Jamaica and Hollis sections of Queens, where subprime lending has proliferated, there were 784 foreclosure filings for two-to-four-family properties in 2007, more than three times the 233 filings in 2004. The Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit research group, estimates that 2.26 million families nationwide will face foreclosure on their homes in the next few years from subprime loans, made primarily since 2005. On Thursday, at a Congressional subcommittee hearing in Washington, Michael D. Calhoun, the group’s president, said that in the 16th Congressional District, which includes the South Bronx, more than one in five subprime loans would end in foreclosure. Foreclosure delays and moratoriums have been proposed in other states. Last April, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts directed state banking officials to seek foreclosure delays of up to two months from lenders. The delays were sought on a case-by-case basis for any homeowner who had filed a complaint with state banking regulators. In Michigan, a group of activists has been pressuring Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm to impose a five-year foreclosure moratorium. New York’s one-year moratorium, if passed, would not take effect on a case-by-case basis; it would be mandatory for court-ordered foreclosures. It would impose a one-year delay from the time a lender has proved its entitlement to foreclosure to the time the court order allows the foreclosure to proceed. The bill, which has been referred to the Judiciary Committees of the Assembly and Senate, calls for the lenders and the homeowners in foreclosure cases to work out monthly payment schedules in the interim under terms that are “equitable and just.” The goal of a payment schedule is to preserve the financial position of both parties, and a homeowner’s failure to adhere to the terms of the payment schedule could result in a lifting of the moratorium, the bill states. “This is not a giveaway,” Mr. Padavan said. “We’re not paying these people’s mortgages for them.”

Foreclosures
Housing
Mortgages
Padavan Frank
Brennan James F


Buster Posey’s Homer Lifts Giants

Abstract: Buster Posey hit the go-ahead home run in the seventh inning, helping the San Francisco Giants end a five-game skid with a 5-4 victory over the Phillies in Philadelphia.

Buster Posey
San Francisco Giants
Phillies
Baseball


Under Armour Seeks to Do for Maryland What Nike Did for Oregon

Abstract: Within a few years, the midcentury red-brick field house in the center of the University of Maryland campus will be a glassy, sunlit home of medical facilities and classrooms, as well as an athletic conditioning center, a locker room and three football fields — two outdoors and one inside. The transformation of historic Cole Field House, the university’s former basketball arena, signifies a grander plan being carried out in College Park: Maryland is trying to emulate the University of Oregon, riding the largess of a multibillion-dollar apparel company to athletic prominence. Athletic departments throughout the country watched with envy in recent years as Phil Knight, a founder of Nike and an Oregon alumnus, donated hundreds of millions of dollars to help propel the Ducks from relative obscurity to the upper echelon of college sports . “We are the University of Nike,” Oregon declared unapologetically. Now, 2,800 miles east, Maryland is positioning itself as the University of Under Armour , thanks to the founder and chief executive of Nike’s ascendant rival. As the Terrapins begin their second year in the Big Ten Conference next week, the university is striving to establish a nationally relevant program in football, the sport around which all others financially revolve in big-time college athletics. Central to that goal is Kevin Plank, a 43-year-old Maryland graduate and former Terrapins football player. Mr. Plank is the founder and chief executive of Under Armour, which expects to bring in nearly $4 billion in gross revenue this year and has soared past Adidas to become the second-largest sports-apparel company in the country. “I saw the beginnings of what Nike did with Oregon,” said Maryland’s athletic director, Kevin Anderson, who grew up on the West Coast and previously worked at Stanford, Cal and Oregon State. “And that’s been our conversation from Day 1 — that we can and do have that kind of relationship.” “Before Nike got involved with the University of Oregon,” Mr. Anderson added, “nobody knew where Eugene was.” Under Armour is trying to similarly put College Park on the map. “Our brand, and at some level, our business, has really grown up with Maryland — in Maryland, and with the university around the corner,” said Adam Peake, Under Armour’s executive vice president for global marketing. “We’ve helped each other grow.” Image Kevin Plank, founder and chief executive of Under Armour, is also a former Maryland football player and has pledged a $25 million gift to the university. Credit G Fiume/Maryland Terrapins, via Getty Images (Mr. Plank declined to discuss his company’s partnership with Maryland.) Though still much smaller than Nike, Under Armour has secured beachheads that no other would-be Nike rival has, and it may pose a threat to the Oregon-based company over the long haul. David Weiner, a senior research analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, said there were indications that Nike and Under Armour could engage in “much more of a cage match in the coming years.” Under Armour and Maryland signed a 10-year contract extension last year that will pay the university nearly $33 million in cash and gear. Under Armour already tests new products on campus, including a new so-called ungrabbable fabric, using athletes as part of its research-and-design process. Randy Edsall, the Maryland football coach, said players were sometimes “the first to put everything on — uniforms, shoes, gloves, you name it.” After all, as Mr. Peake explained, “The faster you can be, the better you can be as a brand.” The playbook for such an arrangement was written by Nike. Oregon’s $95 million Football Performance Center was completed two years ago, courtesy of a gift from Phil and Penny Knight. It features rugs woven by hand in Nepal, furniture sourced from Italy and floors made of Brazilian wood. Nike stirred a revolution in team uniforms by outfitting the Ducks loudly and proudly — in verdant green, neon yellow and charcoal . Maryland, and Under Armour, followed with their Maryland Pride uniforms , which feature an almost Cubist deconstruction of the Maryland state flag ’s taxicab yellow, wavy checkers and clover-capped crosses. Under Armour’s investment in the summer basketball scene — long dominated by Nike — also seems to be paying dividends for the Terrapins. Maryland’s top recruit last year, the sophomore point guard Melo Trimble , played for a team sponsored by Under Armour before college. So did the freshman Diamond Stone , considered by many the class of 2015’s best center. If all goes to plan, the renovations at Cole Field House — including the football facilities, to be called the Terrapin Performance Center — will be ready for the 2018 season, spurred by a $25 million lead gift from Mr. Plank. These facilities, according to promotional material, will be “ unmatched in Division I sports .” The university president, Wallace D. Loh, who since arriving in 2010 has encouraged more entrepreneurship among Maryland’s 37,000 students, said of Mr. Plank’s desire to converge business strategy and athletics: “There is truly a meeting of the minds. We are soul mates on this.” Mr. Plank’s influence at Maryland does not extend to the hiring and firing of coaches, according to Maryland and Under Armour officials. But he is not a passive check-writing machine. Mr. Anderson said his interview process, which culminated with his hiring as the athletic director in 2010, included an interview with Mr. Plank. He said that he and Mr. Plank were involved with the brainstorming session at Under Armour’s waterfront headquarters in Baltimore that spawned the first edition of the Maryland Pride uniforms. “From the very beginning, he’s set some very clear boundaries and told me he was here to support the school, me and the athletic department,” Mr. Anderson said. “He knows our mission, and he wants to prepare all students for success.” Recalling his interview with Mr. Plank during the hiring process, Mr. Anderson added: “He asked me what my vision was with Maryland. I said we’re a top-10 program and win national championships.” Image Under Armour and Maryland signed a 10-year contract extension last year that will pay the university nearly $33 million in cash and gear. Credit Rob Carr/Getty Images Under Armour’s founding mythology is interwoven with Maryland. As the special-teams captain of the Terrapins’ football team, Mr. Plank, who grew up in Kensington, Md., came to loathe his sweat-stained cotton T-shirts. An inveterate entrepreneur — one story has him selling roses on campus on Valentine’s Day — Mr. Plank started a business selling sweatproofed exercise clothes out of his trunk after graduating in 1996. Mr. Plank went on to fortify his company’s connections to his home state. The first Under Armour television commercial featured the former Maryland defensive end Eric Ogbogu. Maryland was the first college Under Armour signed to an all-school deal. An early endorser was the former Baltimore Ravens star linebacker Ray Lewis, and Under Armour’s website touts its relationship with the “Baltimore native Michael Phelps.” “Maryland is one of the greatest schools that we have in this country,” Mr. Plank said last year at a ceremony announcing the winner of Cupid’s Cup, an entrepreneurial competition he sponsors at Maryland’s business school (named for that long ago Valentine’s Day endeavor), “and it’s our job to show people why.” Maryland, whose football program has rarely been nationally competitive, is under increased pressure to improve. State financing for Maryland’s flagship university has declined recently, forcing the institution to find money elsewhere. The university joined the Big Ten last year, a financially-driven decision that tested the loyalty of a fan base that cherished longstanding rivalries with Atlantic Coast Conference teams like North Carolina and Duke. After the move was announced, Mr. Loh said he required a security detail, but he added, “In this era of fiscal constraints — meaning, there’s less state funding, and so much federal research funding is uncertain — my model is, partner or perish.” In November, Maryland announced its plan for Cole, which has not hosted Terps basketball since it was replaced by the Xfinity Center for the 2002-3 season. The renovated facility is expected to house a new headquarters for the campus’s Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which encourages students to develop original products and start their own businesses (including, occasionally, with Under Armour’s aid, as with a new kind of sticky football glove ). It is also expected to include the university’s sports medicine center, which will conduct research around hot-button issues like brain trauma. But the new Cole’s signature feature will be the Terrapin Performance Center. Last year, Maryland said it would raise $105 million, mostly from private donors, and that a $25 million lead gift had been pledged — by Mr. Plank. According to Francis Kelly, a former state senator who is on the university’s Board of Regents, Mr. Anderson had long sought a closer link between Maryland’s sports medicine program — which is based in Baltimore, where the University of Maryland medical school is — and the teams in College Park. Mr. Plank, Mr. Kelly said, vocally supported Mr. Anderson’s wish. “He was the linchpin, no question about it,” Barry Gossett, the vice chairman of the Board of Regents, said of Mr. Plank. The board approved the project with only one dissenting vote, from the student representative. According to Mr. Gossett, $45 million in private funds has been pledged, and a university spokesman said another $39 million is in “active discussion” and solicitations on another $34.5 million have been scheduled. According to the plan, $25 million will come from the athletic department, which now has a much larger annual windfall thanks to its membership in the Big Ten, and the final $25 million will come from the state. Three former student leaders wrote an op-ed article in The Baltimore Sun arguing that the $50 million in athletic and state funds should instead be spent on academic buildings and need-based financial aid. “We understand that there are wealthy donors and powerful alumni who brought this proposal forward,” they wrote. “But the university must ultimately be accountable to the people of Maryland over merely those who write big checks.” Tom McMillen, a former Maryland congressman and star basketball player for the Terrapins who was the sole member of the Board of Regents to vote against joining the Big Ten, said the Cole plan was worthwhile. “The tremendous sports-medicine complex, the iconic facility in the middle of campus and the entrepreneurial incubation center make this a tremendous facility for the campus,” he said. Athletes and coaches seem to support Under Armour’s pronounced presence on campus. William Likely, a cornerback on the football team, called Maryland “the school that you want to play for” because of its uniforms and facilities. Mr. Edsall, the coach, said he regarded his relationship with Mr. Plank and Under Armour as “a great partnership.” “They’re helping us to get better,” he said, “and we’re helping them.”

Under Armour
Nike
University of Maryland
University of Oregon
Phil Knight
Uniform
College football
Kevin A Plank
Stadiums Arenas
advertising,marketing


Origin of the Pesky Pole Feeds Red Sox Lore

Abstract: The truth is, no one really knows exactly how — or why — the right-field foul pole in Fenway Park came to be known as the Pesky Pole. The truth, too, is that no one was really giving the subject that much thought until Johnny Pesky died on Monday at age 92 after seven decades with the Boston Red Sox as a player, manager, coach, broadcaster and beloved baseball ambassador. But his death created some curiosity — after all, it is not as if numerous foul poles in other major league stadiums are named after people living or dead. So why Pesky? The answer, or what passes for one, probably has something to do with Mel Parnell, a former Red Sox pitcher and broadcaster and teammate of Pesky’s who is believed to have coined the term, or at least popularized it, while doing color commentary on radio and television broadcasts for the team in the 1960s. It is part of baseball folklore that Parnell was inspired to name the pole in Pesky’s honor because the former Red Sox shortstop, a good hitter with little power, once hit a game-winning home run that curled around the pole. And that the home run — Pesky hit all of 13 in his seven-plus seasons in Boston , and just 6 at Fenway — made Parnell the winning pitcher. “That makes for an interesting story, but it isn’t true,” Dick Bresciani, the Red Sox’s vice president-emeritus and team historian, said Tuesday. “The real origin is unknown, but Parnell is involved. It just took on a life of its own over the years.” “We know Mel said it,” Bresciani said of Parnell. “But there’s a lot of mystique as to what he really meant. You can’t really put a finger on it and, in a way, I suppose that makes it even more intriguing a story.” Pesky and Parnell were teammates in Boston from 1947 until Pesky was traded to Detroit in June 1952. But it was not until Parnell became a Red Sox broadcaster that the term Pesky Pole became part of the Red Sox lexicon. Parnell apparently never elaborated much on the topic — at least not for publication — and he died in March at 89. The Red Sox officially named the pole after Pesky on Sept. 27, 2006, his 87th birthday. This was some 40-plus years after Parnell became a Boston broadcaster and talked of the Pesky Pole and more than 60 years after the Red Sox owner Thomas Yawkey reconfigured the right-field line to make it more homer-friendly for a young Ted Williams. As a result, the distance to the foul pole was reduced to 302 feet from 325, making it an easy home run if the ball is hit down the line. One theory is that Parnell coined the term to poke fun at Pesky, and his utter lack of power. But is it possible that Pesky actually hit a home run or two around the pole? “It’s an open question,” said the Vermont-based author Glenn Stout, who wrote “ Fenway 1912 ,” an account of Boston’s first season at Fenway Park. “In the end, however, it doesn’t really matter,” Stout added. “If this gives us another reason to remember and appreciate Johnny Pesky, so much the better.” In doing research for his book, Stout said he did not come across another park that had named a foul pole in someone’s honor. Not that it matters, either, in Stout’s opinion. “There’s only one foul pole that has a name,” he said. “Any other is just an homage to the original.” Parnell’s first year in the broadcast booth came the year after Pesky finished the second of his two years as the manager of the Red Sox. When Parnell left the booth after the 1968 season, he was replaced by Pesky, who, as far as can be determined, never attached Parnell’s name to a piece of Fenway.

Boston Red Sox
Baseball
Fenway Park (Boston)
Pesky Johnny
Parnell Mel


Russia Abruptly Cancels Rocket Launch

Abstract: MOSCOW — The long-awaited inaugural launch of a new Russian space rocket, the Angara, was abruptly canceled on Friday just minutes before takeoff, the Russian space agency Roscosmos reported. The decision to abandon the high-profile launch prompted President Vladimir V. Putin to order that officials provide an explanation. The launch, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, was canceled after an automatic “abort” system was triggered for an unknown reason, officials said. Roscosmos tentatively rescheduled the launch for Saturday afternoon, suggesting, at least preliminarily, that the problem was not serious. The Angara rocket has been in development for more than 20 years, since shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is intended to become the primary vehicle for Russia’s unmanned space missions and to secure the independence of the Russian space program. The rocket has some crucial benefits for Russia. It can be launched from Plesetsk, rather than the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which Russia uses under a long-term lease agreement with its southern neighbor. The Angara is also manufactured entirely by Russia, potentially reducing its reliance on foreign rocket technology, especially from Ukraine. The conflict with Ukraine has underscored the need for Russia to produce its own rockets, some Russian officials have said. At the same time, the United States is entirely dependent on Russia for its manned space program, including trips to the International Space Station. Russia’s space program has suffered several humiliating failures in recent years, many involving the existing generation of Proton-M rockets. In the latest setback, a Proton-M carrying a sophisticated communications satellite crashed last month shortly after takeoff from Baikonur, apparently as a result of engine failure.

Russia
Rocket
Roscosmos
Vladimir Putin
Baikonur Kazakhstan