Powerful Cleric Urges Islamic Rule in Yemen

Abstract: SANA, Yemen — Yemen ’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh , maintained a tenuous hold on power on Tuesday, blaming the United States and Israel for protests across the Arab world, while a prominent radical cleric joined the growing crowds demanding his ouster and called for an Islamic state. American officials expressed concern about the statement of the cleric, Abdul Majid al-Zindani , a one-time mentor of Osama bin Laden, which introduced a new Islamist element to the turmoil in a country where Al Qaeda is viewed as a grave threat. The protests that toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and that now have spread to Libya, Bahrain and Oman have been largely secular in nature. Mr. Zindani spoke on an open-air stage before several thousand antigovernment protesters, guarded by 10 men carrying AK-47s and shielded from the scorching sun by two umbrellas wielded by aides. “An Islamic state is coming,” he said, drawing cries of “God is great” from some in the crowd. He said Mr. Saleh “came to power by force, and stayed in power by force, and the only way to get rid of him is through the force of the people.” It was not clear how much support Mr. Zindani had among the protest movement. As the opposition held what it called “a day of rage,” the pro-government camp mustered one of its biggest crowds in weeks of turmoil. Men danced in the streets, waving aloft traditional curved daggers and replacing their opponents’ slogan — “the people want the regime to fall” — with the words “the people want Ali Abdullah Saleh.” Obama administration officials increasingly fear the power vacuum that they believe would follow if Mr. Saleh, whose son, nephews and close allies in the Sanhan tribe control the military and intelligence agencies, departed. Mr. Zindani has long supported Mr. Saleh, and his defection, which followed that of tribal leaders and a refusal on Monday by opposition parties to join a unity government, was a sign of how quickly the president’s patronage system is dissolving, a senior administration official said. Thomas C. Krajeski, the American ambassador to Yemen from 2004 to 2007, who just returned from a visit there, said he would put Mr. Saleh’s chances of staying in power at no better than 50-50, despite the Yemeni president’s long history as a wily survivor and tribal deal-maker during three decades in power. Mr. Krajeski, now senior vice president of the National Defense University, said that the State Department each year had studied possible successors to Mr. Saleh and “came up empty.” A collapse of the government in Yemen would pose a serious threat to Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s far wealthier neighbor to the north, Mr. Krajeski said. “If I’m sitting in Riyadh and looking south, I would be very, very worried,” he said. A senior Pentagon official, Garry Reid, said that given Mr. Saleh’s close cooperation on operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, he saw no alternative to Mr. Saleh. “In my view, it’s the best partner we’ll have, and hopefully it will survive,” said Mr. Reid, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism, in a talk at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. Mr. Saleh, for his part, sought to put distance between himself and Washington with comments that were all the more startling given the United States’ political support and military aid to his government. “From Tunis to the sultanate of Oman,” Mr. Saleh said, the wave of protest is “managed by Tel Aviv and under the supervision of Washington.” American officials dismissed the accusation. “We don’t think scapegoating will be the kind of response that the people of Yemen or the people in other countries will find adequate,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. Mr. Carney said that the Obama administration has “made clear to the leadership in Yemen, as we have to the leadership in other countries, that they need to focus on the political reforms that they need to implement to respond to the legitimate aspirations of their people.” Privately, administration officials said they believed that Mr. Saleh was posturing to try to hang onto his job. “We’re not taking those comments that seriously,” one administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “American diplomacy, when it’s working well, is mature enough to see when leaders are playing to their own domestic interests,” said Juan Carlos Zarate, a former Bush administration national security official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “To the extent that Saleh feels he needs to distance himself from us publicly, I think we can live with that.” For the Obama administration, the immediate preoccupation was whether Mr. Saleh could survive. “A lot of people are really worried about what happens the day after Saleh is gone,” said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen specialist at Princeton University, in a telephone interview from Cairo. Yemen is a famously well-armed country, he noted, and if a power struggle were to break out, it is hard to predict how the factions would shape up. Yemen is very different from Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak stepped down but the military command structure stayed very much in place, Mr. Johnsen said. If Mr. Saleh goes, his relatives and tribal allies are unlikely to hold onto their positions, he said. The early demonstrations in Yemen were inspired by Egypt’s largely secular, pro-democracy protests. But the appearance of Mr. Zindani on Tuesday suggest a possible shift to a more overtly religious direction, Mr. Johnsen said. “Religion has a larger place in public discourse in Yemen than in most other countries in the region,” he said. Since 2004, Mr. Zindani has been named a “specially designated global terrorist” by the United States Treasury Department, which accused him of a role in financing terrorism — a designation Mr. Saleh’s government fought to reverse. Mr. Zindani’s word as a spiritual leader carries considerable political and moral weight in Yemen. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist network’s affiliate in Yemen, “is nowhere near strong enough to make a play for control of the state,” Mr. Johnsen said. But he said that if Mr. Saleh’s departure raised hopes for rapid change, the country’s rampant unemployment and poverty, growing population, shrinking oil revenue and dwindling water supply would remain. “In a year, that could open the way for Al Qaeda to say, ‘You tried Saleh, you tried democracy, now you have to try the way of the prophet and the rule of Shariah law,’ ” Mr. Johnsen said.

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


With Presidency in Play, Can France Embrace Economic Change?

Abstract: PARIS — He compares himself to Margaret Thatcher, the British leader who set her country on a right-leaning economic course. A French newspaper splashed him on its cover with the Iron Lady’s hairdo and pearl earrings. François Fillon, the conservative politician who has vaulted to the forefront of France’s presidential race against the far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, is vowing to make France’s economy great again. Campaigning on fears of a country in decline, he has pledged “shock therapy” to liberalize the economy, à la Mrs. Thatcher, through a program of shrinking big government, aiding business and facing down France’s powerful labor unions. His brash talk has raised concerns about a radical shift from French traditions, while reviving a perennial question: Can France actually be reformed? “The short answer is yes, but not so ambitiously,” said Mujtaba Rahman, the managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. “The French love economic reform in theory. They hate it in practice once they understand what it means.” While the French economy has become more open and competitive in recent decades, resistance breaks out almost anytime the government tries to reshape France’s way of life, especially the vaunted social model, designed to protect citizens from the ravages of the free market. When the focus is on whittling hard-fought human and worker rights — a concept whose roots reach back to the French Revolution — tensions can boil over. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets this year when President François Hollande sought to loosen labor laws to stoke employment, proposals that do not go as far as Mr. Fillon wants. Garbage piled up on sidewalks. Oil refineries were blockaded. Banks were defaced and police cars were firebombed. In the end, Mr. Hollande’s Socialist government forced the measures through by special decree. With his approval ratings at record lows, Mr. Hollande announced on Thursday that he would not seek a second term, the first postwar French president to do so. If elected in May, Mr. Fillon will probably face a similar showdown as he seeks government cuts and deeper labor overhauls while the economy is weak. “France’s social model is broken,” he said on the campaign trail. “Sometimes you just need to pull the house down and rebuild it.” His most bitter medicine involves shrinking a government that accounts for more than half of the country’s economy, by cutting 500,000 Civil Service jobs and slashing 100 billion euros in spending over five years. To enhance competitiveness, he wants to weaken labor union power, kill the infamous 35-hour workweek, cut corporate taxes and distill France’s 3,400-page labor code to 150 pages. Much of that will not be easy to carry out. Mr. Fillon will face opposition on austerity from Socialist and National Front lawmakers in Parliament. Heightened security after the terrorist attacks in France will add pressure not to include police and hospital workers in Civil Service reductions. And his ambitious plans for helping businesses are likely to bring unions and workers back out into the streets. “At the smallest sign of change, there’s protest,” said Philippe Plantier, the founder of Travaux Grande Hauteur, a midsize industrial cleaning company near Aix-en-Provence, in southern France. He is one of thousands of businessmen across France who hope that Mr. Fillon, if elected, will stand firm in the face of almost certain strike action. “As an employer, anything that will streamline the labor code and get rid of the 35 hours would help create jobs,” Mr. Plantier said. “We need to liberate this economy, Anglo-Saxon style, if France is to be competitive.” In the sluggish economy, his orders fell this summer for cleaning big industrial structures, like bridges and cement factories. Mr. Plantier moved to lay off several of his more than 50 employees to adjust for declining income. But the workers sued to block the layoffs and sought more than €100,000 in damages. “When you hire someone in France, it’s for life,” he said. French politicians, and the French people, agree that the economy needs repairing. Since France emerged from a recession in 2010 after Europe’s debt crisis, growth has languished below 2 percent annually. Unemployment is stuck around 10 percent, more than twice the rate in Germany. Nearly a quarter of young people are without work, and many of the new jobs being created are on precarious temporary contracts. France is, of course, still a rich country. It has the second-largest economy in the eurozone behind Germany’s, scores of world-class multinational companies and a stream of international investment. Yet there remains a heated debate about how to improve growth. The Socialist party now in power did little to invigorate the economy. It is divided and weak, and will be in more disarray with Mr. Hollande’s resignation. Other possible contenders on the left include Emmanuel Macron, a young, reformist former economy minister, who wants what he calls an “Uber-ization” of the economy to stoke innovation, an idea that would also dilute worker security. Ms. Le Pen’s program is more populist, keeping the retirement age at 60, enhancing labor protections and raising the minimum wage. She would spurn international trade deals, and promises a national referendum on “Frexit,” a reference to a French exit from the European Union, after Britain’s departure vote this summer. Economists say those plans are unsustainable. But Ms. Le Pen is betting that voters are more worried by Mr. Fillon’s Thatcheresque vision for the country. And the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States has given a lift to populists like Ms. Le Pen. “People are going to realize that he wants to fire 500,000 civil servants, scrap the 35-hour workweek, cut social security and raise the sales tax,” Florian Philippot, vice president of the National Front, said of Mr. Fillon. “It’s terrible.” While Mrs. Thatcher also tackled labor rules to reshape Britain, many in France don’t buy the argument that companies will hire more if they are allowed to fire more. On this issue, France’s labor unions are able to rally support. Philippe Martinez, the secretary general of the hard-line General Confederation of Labor, which spearheaded the nationwide strikes this year, threatened a “mass mobilization” if Mr. Fillon tried to liberalize the economy too much. He warned that Mr. Fillon’s platform was little more than a pretext to strip workers of rights while companies profited. Although union membership in France has slumped to around 8 percent of the work force, unions still wield power and don’t hesitate to use it. Last year union members ripped shirts off the backs of Air France executives as they escaped over a fence after detailing layoffs. Union workers have also held company bosses hostage or damaged property to make their point. Mr. Fillon argues it’s time for France to “go around the unions.” On a recent visit to a Smart Car factory in eastern France, he heralded the company as a model for letting employers negotiate more directly with employees. Last year, workers there agreed in a split vote to work 39 hours a week while being paid for 37 hours, because the company was facing difficulties. And where mass demonstrations have struck fear into the hearts of previous presidents, Mr. Fillon’s attitude is: Bring it on. “I’m willing to face strikes if that’s the price to save France,” he said.

France
Politics
Marine Le Pen
Election
Francois Fillon


Basis for Case in Brooklyn Police Shooting: No Threat Led Officer to Fire

Abstract: On the surface, the police shooting of an unarmed man in a housing project stairwell in Brooklyn seemed like a freakish accident. The officer, Peter Liang, told his superiors that his gun had gone off unintentionally, the bullet rattling off a wall and into an unsuspecting man’s chest, killing him. Even the New York City police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said there was no suggestion that the officer intended to shoot the man, Akai Gurley. Nonetheless, the circumstances surrounding Mr. Gurley’s death led to a manslaughter indictment this week, setting it apart from other well-publicized police encounters that took the lives of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner on Staten Island. Criminal charges appeared more likely in the asphyxiation death of Mr. Garner; a cellphone camera captured the arrest, including Mr. Garner’s pleas for air as officers held him down. But as a legal matter, the case against Officer Liang was stronger, and hinged on two factors: Unlike the officers in the Brown and Garner cases, Officer Liang declined to testify before a grand jury, and he did not claim he was acting against a perceived threat — making it difficult for him to argue he was using legitimate force. “I can’t think of a case in any recent time where an officer took someone’s life and there was no explanation of why,” a senior prosecutor in Brooklyn said. “He had no justification defense.” The officer’s claim that he fired his weapon by accident did not spare him from criminal culpability, prosecutors and legal experts said. Prosecutors can bring charges based not on the person’s intention to do harm but on his failure to perceive the danger of his acts, or worse, his willful decision to ignore that danger. Prosecutors also contend that Officer Liang, 27, who had been on the force for less than 18 months , disregarded his safety training by putting his finger on the trigger and pointing the gun ahead of him into the dark, even though there was no obvious threat. The officer’s lawyers argue that the indictment is politically motivated. They say the Brooklyn district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, a Democrat who was elected on a reform platform, aggressively pursued the case in response to public outrage in his borough over the Brown and Garner cases. The Garner and Gurley cases turned on whether the officers either disregarded or failed to perceive an unjustifiable risk of death from their actions, one that a normal person — or in their case, another officer — should have been aware of. In both, the officers deviated from police rules in their encounters, fueling the argument that they should have known the risks that their actions posed. Such recklessness, legal experts say, would be enough for a second-degree manslaughter charge, the most serious of the six counts against Officer Liang. In the Garner case, grand jurors had to decide if the force used by Officer Daniel Pantaleo was legally justified in his struggle to arrest Mr. Garner, who weighed more than 350 pounds and was accused of selling loose cigarettes. Officer Pantaleo wrapped his arm around Mr. Garner’s neck to bring him to the ground, and other officers swarmed in to assist; Mr. Garner later died of a chokehold and chest compression, the city medical examiner found. The Staten Island district attorney, Daniel M. Donovan Jr., a Republican, followed the standard playbook for politically sensitive killings at the hands of officers. He impanelled a special grand jury and presented testimony from 50 witnesses over nine weeks, including the accused police officer. Officer Pantaleo narrated videos of the confrontation, telling the grand jury that he was trying to arrest and subdue Mr. Garner with a wrestling move, not hurt him. In contrast, Mr. Thompson presented 14 witnesses — including the officer’s partner and the victim’s female companion — over several days to a regular grand jury that heard other cases. Officer Liang’s decision not to testify left prosecutors and the jurors facing one key question: Did he consciously disregard the obvious risk that someone might die when he put his finger on the trigger and pointed his gun down the stairway, something he had been trained not to do? “Here it’s a straight-up streamlined question of was he careless to the point of criminality,” Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said. Prosecutors will try to prove that Officer Liang knowingly disregarded the risk of death by holding his weapon with his finger on the trigger — a necessary point in winning conviction of second-degree manslaughter at trial. Prosecutors say there is no evidence that the gun malfunctioned or that Officer Liang tripped or was jostled. Because significant pressure is needed to pull the trigger, the prosecutor’s theory is that the discharge was not accidental, even if Mr. Liang did not aim at Mr. Gurley. “Only Officer Liang knows why he pulled the trigger,” the senior Brooklyn prosecutor said. “That’s why it’s a difficult case. But what we do know is that at no time did anyone indicate Gurley was a threat.” John C. Cerar, a former commander of the Police Department’s firearms and tactics section, said that in the 1990s, the department increased the pounds per pressure required to fire officers’ handguns. That pressure was adjusted after the department found that the early versions of the semiautomatic weapons were easier to fire and resulted in too many accidental discharges, Mr. Cerar said. “They call it the New York trigger,” Mr. Cerar said of the weapons that are more difficult to fire. But, he said, the greater pressure did not preclude that Officer Liang fired by accident. “It doesn’t take much for a finger to slide to the trigger from the frame, depending on what’s happening at the time,” he said. Each year, the Police Department logs several unintentional discharges, most of which involve improper handling while cleaning or storing. In two cases in 2013, officers fired unintentionally when their shooting hand was struck by a door, the department found in its annual report. That had been the initial theory offered by police officials: Officer Liang struggled to get through the door and fired unintentionally as he did so. But Mr. Thompson, the district attorney, said Officer Liang opened the door by pushing with his right shoulder as he held the gun in his left hand. He then turned to the left and fired the bullet that ricocheted into Mr. Gurley. “When the officer fired, his conduct was reckless,” said James A. Cohen, a criminal law professor at Fordham Law School. “Implicit in this is he didn’t intend to kill, and he didn’t intend to injure.” Still, Mr. Cohen said the indictment in Brooklyn reflected Mr. Thompson’s political willingness to take a stance unpopular with rank-and-file police officers. “We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the district attorney ultimately controls this process,” he said. Officer Liang’s lawyer, Stephen C. Worth, echoed that point more strenuously, telling reporters after the arraignment on Wednesday that his “instinct was it wasn’t going to be a fair grand jury.” “It was clear there was an attempt to get an indictment all along,” Mr. Worth added, “and lo and behold, there was an indictment.”

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Legislation to Protect Against ‘Patent Trolls’ Is Shelved

Abstract: WASHINGTON — A yearlong effort to pass legislation protecting companies against so-called patent trolls was declared all but dead on Wednesday, when the bill was removed from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s agenda. Supporters of the bill said heavy lobbying by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities and trial lawyers prevented the bill from advancing. “Unfortunately, there has been no agreement on how to combat the scourge of patent trolls on our economy without burdening the companies and universities who rely on the patent system every day to protect their inventions,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. The bill was meant to limit those companies, widely known as patent trolls, whose main business is to gather dormant patents, threaten infringement lawsuits against supposed violators and then offer to settle for less than the target’s probable cost of mounting a defense. “I have said all along that we needed broad bipartisan support to get a bill through the Senate,” Mr. Leahy said. “Regrettably, competing companies on both sides of this issue refused to come to agreement on how to achieve that goal.” In December, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would have required more disclosure about who owned a patent and who would benefit from a lawsuit, as well as requiring a judge to determine early in the process whether a given patent was valid. In the Senate, though, negotiators got hung up on a provision that would have required a patent plaintiff to put up a bond to cover the potential payment of the winning side’s legal fees. That was opposed by lawyers’ groups, Senate aides said. Universities and medical companies, which often have big patent portfolios, feared the new law would make it hard for them to defend their intellectual property. The effort to write a new patent law began only two years after President Obama signed into law the America Invents Act, a sweeping overhaul of the patent system enacted in 2011. That law prevented patent holders from lumping together into a single docket a lawsuit against multiple companies — a provision aimed at trolls. The result, however, was the opposite of what had been intended; it caused the number of patent lawsuits to soar. Retailers and technology and software companies, the most frequent targets of the lawsuits, expressed dismay over the apparent death of the latest patent bill. Calling the event “a victory for patent trolls,” the National Retail Federation said in a statement it was “deeply disappointed that groups representing the status quo have continued to stall and stymie attempts at effective patent reform.”

Legislation
Lawsuits
US Politics
Inventions and Patents


Syria Commits to April 10 Withdrawal Plan

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS — The Syrian government has agreed to withdraw its security forces from in and around major population centers by April 10, ostensibly paving the way for a general cease-fire two days later, the special envoy told the Security Council on Monday. Many Security Council members greeted the information from Kofi Annan , the joint special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League , with a certain skepticism given Syria ’s record of disregarding peace plans it had accepted. Even Mr. Annan asked the Council to publicly endorse the April 10 deadline as a means of pressuring Syria to respect it, said diplomats who were in a closed-door briefing conducted from abroad by satellite. Mr. Annan also asked that the Council commission contingency plans to deploy United Nations observers should the cease-fire become a reality, the diplomats and United Nations officials said. Council members moved to make an endorsement, but the idea of sending a United Nations observer mission was expected to be more problematic. Both Russia and China have repeatedly wielded their Council veto power to reject anything that they suspect might result in outside interference. Still, the deadline was the first concrete if small step toward a cease-fire in an uprising that has grown increasingly violent since it erupted in March 2011, leaving more than 9,000 people dead and thousands more wounded, by the United Nations’ count. “We hope that the Syrian authorities will implement fully the commitments that they have made without any conditions,” said Susan E. Rice , the American envoy to the United Nations, who as this month’s Security Council president briefed the news media on the closed meeting. “And should they do so, we will expect the opposition to follow suit within 48 hours.” Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesman for Mr. Annan, later specified by e-mail that the Syrian government had committed to begin withdrawing its forces on Sunday and to finish by April 10, with a general cease-fire within 48 hours contingent on that withdrawal. It will be harder to get word to the ragtag opposition units as opposed to a standing army, diplomats said Mr. Annan told the council. Ms. Rice pointed out that the withdrawal was just one point of Mr. Annan’s six-point peace plan, with crucial aspects unresolved, including talks with the opposition about a new political process, requests for emergency-relief worker access that would include a two-hour daily humanitarian pause for delivery of aid, and news media access. Opposition groups said such aid was critical, with internal refugees fleeing major cities like Homs making life in surrounding villages untenable. “We have seen promises made and promises broken,” Ms. Rice said, summarizing the American point of view shared by Syria’s critics. “We have seen commitments to end violence followed by massive intensification of violence. The proof is in the actions, not the words.” The United Nations peacekeeping arm would begin planning for how to monitor a cease-fire, Ms. Rice said, even though many necessary elements of such a monitoring — most notably the Syrian government’s agreement — remain unsettled. Such a force would probably consist initially of a small core group, which could grow to 200 monitors, drawn from other peacekeeping contingents in the region, according to diplomats and United Nations officials. But it could not be established without an end to the actual fighting, an agreement on all sides that it be deployed and a Security Council mandate, they said. Analysts have long questioned Syria’s ability to withdraw security forces from any population centers, lest such a move prompt antigovernment protests. The uprising in Syria has not succeeded partly because President Bashar al-Assad ’s government has violently thwarted any attempt to establish any equivalent of Tahrir Square in Cairo or Benghazi in Libya . Government opponents used Tahrir and Benghazi as fulcrums to overthrow the leaders of those two countries, so the disappearance of Syrian security forces could provide the opportunity to seed similar beachheads there. The Syrian government’s commitment to withdraw came a day after many Arab nations, Turkey and the United States moved closer to shoring up the opposition, partly on concern that Mr. Annan’s diplomacy would stall. Participants in the “Friends of Syria” conference in Istanbul , Turkey, agreed to provide equipment and money to the loose array of rebel forces known as the Free Syrian Army. The conference, also attended by representatives of the Syrian National Council, an umbrella group of anti-Assad exiles, was assailed by Mr. Assad’s government as an “enemies of Syria” plot, intended to sabotage Mr. Annan’s effort. Speaking to reporters outside the Security Council on Monday, Syria’s United Nations ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, said that Syria was committed to Mr. Annan’s plan and that “all the details will be part of the final commitment of everybody, not only the Syrian government.” Asked about the “Friends of Syria” meeting on Sunday, Mr. Jaafari spoke harshly — particularly toward Turkey, once a friend to Mr. Assad. Turkey now calls Mr. Assad’s government illegitimate and hosts armed anti-Assad groups. “The so-called conference of the enemies of Syria is in itself a violation and contradiction of Kofi Annan’s mission,” Mr. Jaafari said. “This is a parallel track set up by enemies of Syria to compete with Kofi Annan’s mission, maybe to undermine his mission.” The Turkish government’s policies, he said, including calling for regime change “around the clock” are “a declaration of war by this country,” he said.

Syria
Kofi Annan
Bashar al-Assad
Free Syrian Army
Arab Spring
UN Security Council
Hillary Clinton


A New Shade of Port Wine

Abstract: Portugal’s wine rules require port to be red or white. Observing the rising popularity of rosé, Croft, a port maker in the Douro Valley, came up with Croft Pink. The term “rosé” doesn’t appear on Croft’s label, which promotes the “first ever Porto” with “a light ruby color.” Croft Pink, chilled, is a charming aperitif. It’s $18.99 at 67 Wine, 179 Columbus Avenue (68th Street).

Wines
Goldberg Howard G
Alcoholic Beverages


George Cressman Dies at 88; Led Weather Service

Abstract: George Cressman, a pioneer in the use of computers to predict the weather and a former director of the National Weather Service , died on April 19 in Rockville, Md. He was 88 and lived in North Bethesda, Md. The immediate cause was pneumonia, said Frances Cressman, his wife of 32 years, but he also had Alzheimer’s disease, she said. Before computers ushered in the technique known to meteorologists as numerical weather prediction, forecasting had more in common with artful guesswork than scientific mapping. The technique, which involves plugging measurements of worldwide atmospheric conditions into sets of complex equations that describe the world’s weather patterns, was still in its experimental phase in the early 1950s, when Dr. Cressman, then a civilian consultant for the Air Weather Service at Andrews Air Force Base, became involved in the planning of a research group sponsored by the Navy, the Air Force and the United States Weather Bureau. The agency, known as the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, was founded in 1954 with Mr. Cressman as its first director. Under his leadership, its scientists developed the first program to produce forecasts on a routine basis derived from data gathered from around the world. “George was so important because he was interested not only in science but in service,” said Dr. Richard Hallgren, executive director emeritus of the American Meteorological Association. “This development meant for the first time numerical weather prediction was helping the local forecasters prepare better forecasts for the people of the United States.” George Parmley Cressman was born on Oct. 7, 1919, in West Chester, Pa. His father was a teacher and a superintendent of schools. Dr. Cressman graduated from Pennsylvania State University, serving as a forecaster for the Army and working in various stations of the Weather Bureau before earning a Ph.D. in meteorology from the University of Chicago. While at Andrews Air Force Base, he was sent to Nevada and assigned to provide meteorological data for tests of atomic bombs, witnessing, he would write in an unpublished autobiography, a dozen nuclear explosions. In 1958, the joint weather prediction unit splintered into separate centers serving military and civilian interests. Dr. Cressman took over as director of the civilian branch, the forerunner of today’s National Centers of Environmental Prediction. He became director of the United States Weather Bureau in 1965. (It was renamed the National Weather Service two years later.) During his tenure, which lasted until 1978, Dr. Cressman concentrated on making the service more useful, expanding the number of weather radars and creating a national radio network and an early warning system for floods and tornadoes. The year he stepped down, he was given the International Meteorological Organization Prize, an annual award presented by the World Meteorological Organization and considered the highest honor in the field. In addition to his wife, to whom he was married for 32 years, he is survived by a brother, Earle, of Denver, and four children from his previous marriage, to Nelia Hazard, which ended with her death, also after 32 years, in 1974. They are George I., of Manchester, Mo., Ruth Boyd of Kealakekua, Hawaii, Catherine Beck of Grove City, Pa., and Florence Gardner of Mooresville, N.C. He is also survived by six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. “I spent my professional life in pursuit of two main objectives: to learn how to integrate six simultaneous, partial differential equations and to figure out what to do with the answers,” Dr. Cressman wrote in his autobiography. “It was fun, and I’d do something like it again.”

Weather
National Weather Service
Deaths (Obituaries)
Cressman George
Computers and the Internet


Cuomo Hints Speech Will Offer Ethics Reforms After Week of Grand Proposals

Abstract: ALBANY — Since the beginning of the year, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has repeatedly implored New Yorkers to “think big,” a mantra he has seemingly also applied to his own State of the State address, which in effect he has made into a weeklong event. In recent days, the governor has rolled out a series of “signature proposals” up and down the state: He has promised to raise the pay of State University of New York workers and to spend more money on the environment ; promoted major infrastructure projects on Long Island, in Manhattan and upstate; outlined better broadband and Wi-Fi in subway stations; and made plans for more minority-owned businesses and for criminal justice reforms . And while such a rollout may have robbed the speech on Wednesday of some of its drama — even Mr. Cuomo last week characterized it as a “boring speech” — it also seemingly gives the governor a chance to focus his speech on big themes, if he chooses. “It clears the deck,” said Blair Horner, the legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, a nonpartisan watchdog organization, and a former Cuomo aide. “So the State of the State can be all about what he wants it to be about.” The State of the State had traditionally offered the first formal look at the various legislative battlegrounds for the session to come. And the importance of the day has only been increased by the decision by Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who is serving his second term, to deliver his budget proposal the same day, most likely unveiling some $150 billion in proposed spending. Mr. Cuomo has offered hints that his speech will contain major new pushes on ethics, an issue that seems likely to hang over the speech — and over the rest of the legislative session, which runs through mid-June. Last year, he joshed during the State of the State speech with Sheldon Silver and Dean G. Skelos, then the leaders of the Assembly and Senate, whom he referred to as his “amigos,” complete with a mock-up of the three men in sombreros . But that was then. During 2015, Mr. Silver, a Democrat, and Mr. Skelos, a Republican, were both arrested and convicted of federal corruption charges, leaving Mr. Cuomo as the only amigo left standing. On Monday, the governor’s own worries about legal problems eased when Preet Bharara , the United States attorney in Manhattan, said that there was “insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime” regarding Mr. Cuomo’s sudden shutdown of an ethics panel known as the Moreland Commission. Speaker Carl E. Heastie of the Bronx, who succeeded Mr. Silver as leader of the Assembly, which Democrats dominate, said regaining the public’s trust remained a work in progress. “Every session is the session of ethics,” Mr. Heastie said in an interview on Tuesday, adding that his conference was already discussing caps on outside income and other ethics proposals this week. But even with the issue seemingly resonating in polls , the speaker cautioned that such proposals are complex and may take time. Moreover, he said, “Most of the people who come here come here for the right reasons.” Exactly what the governor plans to propose on ethics is uncertain, but it is expected to include a renewed call for more disclosure and transparency, and for closing the so-called L.L.C. loophole, which effectively allows corporate interests to funnel almost unlimited campaign funds to candidates through limited liability companies. While he has benefited from that loophole, in the past Mr. Cuomo has also supported closing it, as does Mr. Heastie. State Senator John J. Flanagan, the Long Island Republican who serves as majority leader, has been noncommittal on ethics reform, and on paid family leave, another issue on which Mr. Heastie seems hopeful. The governor and Mr. Heastie also agree on wanting to raise the state minimum wage to $15, though that seems unlikely in the Republican-led Senate, where some members see such largess as anathema to their goal of adding jobs. Of course, that balance of power, too, could change with 2016 being an election year. Mr. Skelos’s conviction — and vacant Long Island Senate seat — left the Republicans clinging to the slimmest of majorities, made possible only by an allegiance with a Democrat, Simcha Felder of Brooklyn. A special election could be called by the governor as soon as April, though it is not clear whether Mr. Cuomo, who has worked well with the Republicans in the past, will do so. Another guessing game surrounds the governor’s plan for the homelessness crisis, which has emerged in recent weeks as another front in his long intraparty squabble with Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, who will travel to Albany on Wednesday to hear the speech for himself, and meet with the governor and other leaders. Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio, said his priorities for the session included the homeless; affordable housing; and education, including the issue of mayoral control of the city’s schools. The mayor had sought permanent control last year, only to be rebuffed by Mr. Flanagan, who would approve only a one-year extension. How the mayor is received in the state capital will be a notable undercurrent of the day, as will Mr. Cuomo’s proposals for the city. The governor has mentioned the city’s budget surplus in the past , though the mayor’s office says that such characterizations are inaccurate, noting that excess revenue has gone toward filling gaps in future budgets and shoring up reserves. Ms. Hinton seemed to suggest that the mayor had high hopes for progress, noting that he and his staff had “been meeting with state legislators for months” in hopes of winning over Albany and “pushing an aggressive legislative agenda that will benefit all New Yorkers.” But she said the mayor seems to know he would be expected to help those in Albany, too. “The mayor recognizes the relationship,” she said, “is a two-way street.”

New York
Budget
NY State of the State
Andrew Cuomo
Transportation


Formal Investigation Against Chirac Begins

Abstract: PARIS, Nov. 21 — Former President Jacques Chirac was placed under formal investigation on Wednesday on suspicion of misusing public funds by handing out bogus work contracts when he was mayor of Paris. Mr. Chirac’s lawyer, Jacques Veil, said that a judge who was examining “fraudulent misuse of public funds” had questioned his client for three and a half hours on Wednesday morning. “They talked in general terms about the organization of the Paris City Hall,” Mr. Veil said, adding that more hearings would follow. Mr. Chirac, who was mayor from 1977 to 1995 and then president until May of this year, defended himself in an article published Wednesday on the opinion pages of Le Monde. He wrote that he had made “legitimate and necessary” appointments while he was mayor, and that “there was never any personal enrichment.” He said that so many “inaccuracies, often caricatures, sometimes excesses,” had been circulating about the subject that he found it necessary to address the French people directly about them. Mr. Chirac is the first former president of modern France to be placed under formal examination. Under French law, this procedure is a step short of an indictment. The legal step creates a new setback for Mr. Chirac, who has been linked to other investigations connected with his 18 years as mayor. In July, soon after he lost his presidential immunity from prosecution, he was heard by a judge in a different case who is investigating corruption in political party financing. Mr. Chirac asked to be questioned in his suite of offices, as he was in July, but the judge assigned to this case by the French judiciary, Xavière Simeoni, summoned him to her chambers in the Palace of Justice. The two investigations are complex and may reveal as much about past political and business practices in France as they do about anything Mr. Chirac may have done personally. In his Le Monde article, Mr. Chirac wrote that he had appointed many people while he held several posts at once — mayor of Paris; member of Parliament for Corrèze, in central France; prime minister from 1986 to 1988; and head of his political party, the Rally for the Republic, which merged with another party in 2002. Such overlapping of posts has been common in France, although there is debate about curtailing the practice. Mr. Chirac wrote in his article that for the sake of efficiency, and to “devote myself better to Paris,” he surrounded himself with special advisers, sometimes on temporary contracts. “I decided or authorized these because they were both legitimate and necessary,” he wrote. But judicial investigators, who have been investigating hiring practices at the City Hall, said they had found cases of people on the public payroll who were doing work for Mr. Chirac’s political party or for his associates. In one case, investigators said they questioned a man assigned as personal driver to a senator and political associate of Mr. Chirac. The driver told investigators he could not explain why his work contract had been signed by the mayor himself. Mr. Veil, Mr. Chirac’s lawyer, said the investigation involved “some 20 to 30 work contracts” that Mr. Chirac had approved or signed. The lawyer declined to give further details.

France
Chirac Jacques
Frauds and Swindling


Portugal Says It Needs No Bailout and Won’t Seek One

Abstract: Prime Minister José Sócrates of Portugal insisted Tuesday that his country would not follow Greece and Ireland in requiring a bailout, despite record borrowing costs and a forecast from the country’s central bank that Portugal would sink back into recession this year. As pressures on several euro zone countries grew, the bloc got a vote of confidence from Asia, when Japan said it would buy a chunk of the bonds being issued to cover the recent bailout of Ireland. In Brussels, meanwhile, European Union officials continued work on contingency plans for a new bailout fund. In Lisbon, Mr. Sócrates said that Portugal’s cost-cutting efforts had been vindicated, with a 2010 budget deficit that fell below the government’s goal of 7.3 percent of gross domestic product. His bullish comments were echoed at a separate news conference in Madrid, where José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, said that Spain was expected to meet its 2010 budget deficit goal of 9.3 percent “with leeway.” Both prime ministers reaffirmed that their countries would meet their deficit goals this year, of 6 percent for Spain and 4.6 percent for Portugal. But further deficit-cutting progress will be tough, especially for Portugal. The Bank of Portugal predicted a 1.3 percent contraction of the country’s economy this year because of recent cuts, having previously forecast zero growth. The government of Mr. Sócrates is anticipating growth of 0.2 percent this year. Spain and Portugal have been in investors’ line of fire after respectively posting in 2009 the third- and fourth-highest deficits among the 17 countries that share the euro , behind Greece and Ireland. Recent signs of budgetary improvement, in part because of billions of euros in spending cuts, have done little to ease concerns, particularly for Portugal. A critical test will come Wednesday, when Portugal plans to sell 1.25 billion euros ($1.62 billion) in long-term debt. Spain is scheduled to follow suit Thursday. Despite repeated purchases by the European Central Bank of Portuguese debt, the yield on the country’s benchmark 10-year bonds, which surpassed 7 percent last week, remained close to that record on Tuesday — a level many analysts called unsustainable. In Tokyo, meanwhile, Japan announced that it would make its first direct contribution to the so-called European Financial Stability Facility. Japan’s commitment comes after recent Chinese pledges to buy more Portuguese and Spanish debt. “As the euro zone jointly plans a large-scale bond issuance, I think it is appropriate for Japan, a major country, to make its own contribution by purchasing a certain amount of funds,” said Yoshihiko Noda, the finance minister, adding that Japan planned to buy about 20 percent of the bonds issued. Finance officials in Tokyo expressed concern that Europe’s debt crisis could hold back Japan’s recovery by hurting trade with the region, its third-biggest market, after China and the United States. Deepening problems in Europe could incite a further flight from the euro to safe currencies like the yen , which has soared in the last year, an additional headache for Japanese exporters. In Brussels, preparations were being made for a meeting of finance ministers next week, when they will discuss the size and function of a new, permanent bailout fund to replace the current one, which expires in 2013. Among the questions still undecided was whether to increase the size of the 440 billion euro fund — possibly even before 2013 — or allow it to use its resources more flexibly, for example, to buy bonds of euro zone countries facing market pressure. But officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no decisions were imminent. In Lisbon, Mr. Sócrates was adamant that he would not be tapping that fund. “Portugal won’t request any financial help for the simple reason that it doesn’t need it,” he said, adding that “the government is doing its job and is doing it well.” Still, in the run-up to the bailouts of Greece and Ireland last year, politicians there repeatedly claimed that such rescues would not be required. The Portuguese government’s defiant stance has also been undermined recently by uncertainty over whether Germany and France had in fact already urged Portugal to seek help. Underlining possible tensions, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, the Portuguese finance minister, took a swipe at his European partners. “We are doing our job. Clearly, Europe is not doing its job to defend the stability of the euro,” he said on TSF radio, without elaborating further, The Associated Press reported. In a recent research note, Deutsche Bank analysts argued that “it would be rational for Portugal to call for external help sooner rather than later.” The situation for Spain is less urgent, according to Deutsche Bank, because its sovereign financing needs are skewed toward the second half of the year, unlike in Portugal, where there is a risk that reserves could be used up by mid-2011. Portuguese banks, meanwhile, face a peak in their refinancing needs in January and February, while the peak for Spanish banks will come in March and April, Deutsche bank estimated.

Portugal
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Credit and Debt
Government Bonds


Investment Funds Profit Again, This Time By Paring Mortgages

Abstract: As millions of Americans struggle to hold on to their homes, Wall Street has found a way to make money from the mortgage mess. Investment funds are buying billions of dollars’ worth of home loans , discounted from the loans’ original value. Then, in what might seem an act of charity, the funds are helping homeowners by reducing the size of the loans. But as part of these deals, the mortgages are being refinanced through lenders that work with government agencies like the Federal Housing Administration . This enables the funds to pocket sizable profits by reselling new, government-insured loans to other federal agencies, which then bundle the mortgages into securities for sale to investors. While homeowners save money, the arrangement shifts nearly all the risk for the loans to the federal government — and, ultimately, taxpayers — at a time when Americans are falling behind on their mortgage payments in record numbers. For instance, a fund might offer to pay $40 million for a $100 million block of mortgages from a bank in distress. Then the fund could arrange to have some of those loans refinanced into mortgages backed by an agency like the F.H.A. and then sold to an agency like Ginnie Mae. The trick is to persuade the homeowners to refinance those mortgages, by offering to reduce the amounts the homeowners owe. The profit comes when the refinancings reach more than the $40 million that the fund paid for the block of loans. The strategy has created an unusual alliance between Wall Street funds that specialize in troubled investments — the industry calls them “vulture” funds — and American homeowners. But the transactions also add to the potential burden on government agencies, particularly the F.H.A., which has lately taken on an outsize role in the housing market and, some fear, may eventually need to be bailed out at taxpayer expense. These new mortgage investors thrive in the shadows. Typically, the funds employ intermediaries to contact homeowners and arrange for mortgages to be refinanced. Homeowners often have no idea who their Wall Street benefactors are. Federal housing officials, too, are in the dark. Policymakers have encouraged investors and banks to put more consumers into government-backed loans. The total value of these transactions from hedge funds is small compared with the overall housing market. Housing experts warn that the financial players involved — the investment funds, their intermediaries and certain F.H.A. approved lenders — have a financial incentive to put as many loans as possible into the government’s hands. “From the borrower’s point of view, landing in a hedge fund or private equity fund that’s willing to write down principal is a gift,” said Howard Glaser, a financial industry consultant and former official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development . He went on: “From the systemic point of view, there is something disturbing about investors that had substantial short-term profit in backing toxic loans now swooping down to make another profit on cleaning up that mess.” Steven and Marisela Alva say they do not know who helped them with their mortgage. All they know is that they feel blessed. Last December, the couple got a letter saying that a firm had purchased the mortgage on their home in Pico Rivera, Calif., from Chase Home Finance for less than its original value. “We want to share this discount with you,” the letter said. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Mr. Alva, a 62-year-old janitor and father of three. “I kept thinking to myself, ‘Something is wrong, something is wrong. This sounds too good.’ ” But it was true. The balance on the Alvas’ mortgage was ultimately reduced to $314,000 from $440,000. The firm behind the reduction remains a mystery. The Alvas’ new loan, backed by the F.H.A., was made by Primary Residential Mortgage, a lender based in Utah . But the letter came from a company called MCM Capital Partners. In the letter, MCM said the couple’s loan was owned by something called MCMCap Homeowners’ Advantage Trust III. But MCM’s co-founders said in an interview that MCM does not own any mortgages. They would not reveal the investor that owned the Alvas’ loan because they had agreed to keep that client’s identity confidential. Michael Niccolini, an MCM founder, said, “We are changing people’s lives.” In Washington, mortgage funds are lobbying for policies that favor their investments, particularly mortgages held in securitized bundles. They want more mortgage balances to be lowered, which might help mortgage bonds perform better. Big banks generally oppose such reductions, which lock in banks’ losses on the loans. In April, about a dozen investment firms formed a group called the Mortgage Investors Coalition to press their case. One investor who is speaking out is Wilbur L. Ross , who runs a fund that buys mortgages and owns a large mortgage servicing company. Mr. Ross said modifications that simply lower interest rates or lengthen the duration of a loan, as is typical in the government modification program, do not work well. “They make a payment or two, but then one night the husband and wife will sit down at the table and say, ‘Do we really want to make 140 monthly payments into a rat hole?’ ” Mr. Ross said. The Fortress Investment Group , a hedge fund in New York, is one of the firms at the forefront of picking through mortgages. Fortress created a $3 billion credit fund in 2008 partly to buy loans from banks like Citigroup , which were under pressure to purge loans to raise cash. “They’re going ahead and they are refinancing them and getting their money out right away,” said Roger Smith , an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton. “What Fortress is doing is actually good for the borrower.” Congress, however, may not be happy that hedge funds are making money this way, Mr. Smith said. Fortress, which declined to comment, typically buys batches of loans and works with other companies to evaluate which ones might qualify for F.H.A., Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac refinancing. Sometimes Fortress works with Nationstar, a mortgage servicer and originator that it owns. Other times, Fortress uses an outside partner like Meridias Capital, a lender in Henderson, Nev., that once originated Alt-A loans, which are just above subprime. After the mortgage market imploded, Meridias began dissecting portfolios of troubled loans for investment funds. Because firms like Fortress purchase blocks of mortgages at distressed prices, they are able to reduce the principal amount of the loans. Nick Florez, president of Meridias, calls such transactions an “incentive refinance.” He said he would not agree to take a loan unless he could help the homeowner. He said he was able to reduce the loan amount by 11 percent on average. “I’m giving money away,” said Mr. Florez, who is a 35-year-old Las Vegas native. “It’s really a feel-good business.” It is too early to know how the new loans will work. David H. Stevens, the new commissioner of the F.H.A., said he was monitoring F.H.A. lenders but did not have thorough information about which ones work with distressed investors. So far he has not seen a problem from loans coming from hedge funds. “They’re helping to protect people in their homes and they’re refinancing people from a distressed situation,” he said. But he acknowledged that funds have an incentive to aggressively push homeowners into federally guaranteed loans, since the investors get their money back as soon as they complete the refinancing. Seth Wheeler, a senior adviser in the Treasury Department who specializes in housing policy, declined to say whether the investment firms that are lowering principal for homeowners are altruistic or not. “Investors are doing it where it both benefits the investor and the borrower,” he said. Part of the risk may be determined by how the funds compensate the F.H.A. lenders and whether the lenders are beholden to the funds for business. David Zitting, the chief executive of Primary Residential Mortgage, the company that refinanced the Alva family’s loan, said his company did not receive fees from the hedge funds. “They have all sorts of motivations that, frankly, we don’t understand,” he said. “We don’t do anything special for them because that’s not fair lending.” The Alvas had to dip into their savings to qualify for their new federally insured loan, since the biggest F.H.A. mortgage they could get was for $285,000, they said. They paid off $21,000 in credit-card and car loans, and put up an additional $29,000 for their new mortgage, depleting their already meager savings. Brian Chappelle, a mortgage consultant, said loans to people like the Alvas, with modest incomes and scant savings, could turn out to be risky. “It does raise risk concerns for F.H.A.,” he said. The Alvas are grateful for the help. Their home is, Marisela said, a dream come true. “I’m very happy,” she said. “We never thought this was possible.”

Federal National Mortgage Association Fannie Mae

Subprime Mortgage Crisis,2008 Financial Crisis


Iran Frees Political Prisoners on Eve of President’s Visit to U.S.

Abstract: TEHRAN — On the eve of a visit by Iran’s moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, to the United States, the Iranian authorities on Wednesday unexpectedly freed 11 of Iran’s most prominent political prisoners, including Nasrin Sotoudeh , a human rights lawyer. Analysts said the prisoner release was a significant step in Mr. Rouhani’s efforts to repair Iran’s relationship with the West, mired in a dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and criticism of its human rights policies. His visit to New York to attend the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly is part of a diplomatic offensive he began after his election in June. Ms. Sotoudeh was serving six years in prison for endangering national security and misusing her profession as a lawyer. In a telephone interview after her release, she said: “I don’t know why they released me. I don’t know under what legal basis they released me. But I am free.” Her husband, Reza Khandan, said: “I just drove her home. My wife is freed.” Of the prisoners freed on Wednesday, eight are women and three are men. They include a journalist, Mahsa Amrabadi, whose husband and fellow journalist, Masoud Bastani, remains in prison. Some of them were taking part in Iran’s prison leave system, in which some prisoners are allowed to live at home but remain under the threat of imprisonment if they cross the authorities. But dozens of people remain in prison, especially those who have been sentenced for their roles in an antigovernment protest after the disputed 2009 election results. Mr. Rouhani is scheduled to speak next Tuesday before the General Assembly, where he is expected to portray an Iran ready to engage with the West. Analysts said the prisoner release could soften some of the criticisms over Iran’s human rights policies and allow for Mr. Rouhani to focus on finding a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran’s disputed nuclear program. “Clearly these releases are related to Mr. Rouhani’s trip to New York,” said Farshad Ghorbanpour, a political analyst close to the new president. “Iran wants to make a good impression on the eve of his trip.” The release of Ms. Sotoudeh, 50, is especially significant. For a long time, she was the only lawyer in Iran taking on high-profile cases, defending children, activists and minorities. Unlike some activists, Ms. Sotoudeh never chose to leave Iran, despite constant pressure on her by Iran’s intelligence services, which arrested her in 2010. In addition to her jail sentence, she had been banned from practicing law for 20 years; it was unclear Wednesday whether the ban had been lifted. In his annual message for Iranian New Year in 2011, President Obama specifically singled out Ms. Sotoudeh. “We have seen Nasrin Sotoudeh jailed for defending human rights,” he said. Iranian officials deny that there are any political prisoners in Iran, saying that all those behind bars have been tried according to the country’s laws. While in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, Ms. Sotoudeh went on two long hunger strikes after her 12-year-old daughter was denied permission to travel outside the country. In 2012, the European Union awarded her the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought . Among the other prisoners released on Wednesday was former Commerce Minister Feizollah Arabsorkhi, a member of a reformist political party declared illegal after the 2009 antigovernment protests, which were triggered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election victory. Mr. Arabsorkhi was in a hospital in Tehran undergoing a shoulder operation when he heard that he had been officially freed, his wife, Maryam Sharbatqods, said over the phone. “Rouhani’s election victory has forced the authorities to release the political prisoners,” Ms. Sharbatqods said. Two presidential candidates in 2009 — former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, a former Parliament speaker — have been under house arrest since 2011, along with Mr. Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard. During his election campaign, Mr. Rouhani said he would work to secure their release. Mehdi, 27, a university student who took part in the 2009 protests and asked that his surname not be published, said: “Today’s prisoner releases show that there are negotiations going on regarding their freedom. Maybe it will take some time to get them freed from house arrest. I am much more hopeful now.” An imprisoned American of Iranian descent, Amir Hekmati, was not among those freed on Wednesday. Mr. Hekmati, 30, a former Marine, was arrested more than two years ago on espionage charges during what his family called an innocent visit to his grandmother. Mr. Hekmati’s family, who is from Flint, Mich., has been publicly pleading for his release, and American officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have been calling on Mr. Rouhani’s government to let Mr. Hekmati go home. On Tuesday, Mr. Hekmati’s congressman, Daniel T. Kildee, sent a letter to Samantha Power, the new American ambassador to the United Nations, urging her to press the issue when Mr. Rouhani visits for the General Assembly session next week.

Iran
Political prisoner
Hassan Rouhani
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Mahsa Amrabadi
Feizollah Arabsorkhi
International relations


Hansen Won’t Run in Preakness

Abstract: Hansen, the Juvenile champion, will not run in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday. In the Kentucky Derby , Hansen, who had sprinted to the front in his other starts, was caught in traffic and was never a factor, finishing ninth. The owner Kendall Hansen said he expected Hansen’s next race to be the Woody Stephens Stakes on June 9 at Belmont Park. ¶ Bodemeister, runner-up in the Kentucky Derby, will run in the Preakness. He was deemed fit for the race by the trainer Bob Baffert after a smooth mile-and-a-half gallop around a muddy track at Churchill Downs. Bodemeister tired in the stretch in the Derby. (REUTERS)


Looking Ahead to Economic Reports This Week

Abstract: ECONOMIC REPORTS Chicago purchasing managers’ index for October (Monday); the I.S.M. manufacturing index for October and construction spending for September (Tuesday); ADP employment for October (Wednesday); weekly jobless claims, third-quarter productivity, the I.S.M. nonmanufacturing index for September, and factory orders for August (Thursday); and unemployment for October (Friday). CORPORATE EARNINGS Companies reporting will include Allstate and Humana (Monday); Pfizer (Tuesday); AOL, Clorox, Comcast, El Paso, Kraft Foods, MasterCard, News Corporation, Qualcomm and Time Warner (Wednesday); CBS, CVS Caremark, Eastman Kodak, NYSE Euronext and Starbucks (Thursday); and KKR (Friday). IN THE UNITED STATES On Tuesday, automakers will release their sales for October. On Thursday, retailers will release same-store sales data for October. On Friday, shares of Groupon will begin trading on Nasdaq. OVERSEAS On Monday, Mario Draghi will succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European Central Bank. On Thursday and Friday, Group of 20 leaders will meet in Cannes, France. On Thursday, the European Central Bank will issue a decision about interest rates.

Company Reports
Economic Conditions and Trends


For Golfers, Fore Isn’t Last Word on Ducking

Abstract: An errant shot that left a man blind in one eye has produced a message for golfers: you are not responsible for all of your bad shots. The errant shot came while three friends were playing at Dix Hills Golf Course on Long Island in 2002. The man who lost part of his vision, Azad Anand, was no longer able to work as a neuroradiologist. He sued Anoop Kapoor, the golfer whose shot hit him, claiming that Kapoor should have warned him by yelling fore. But on Tuesday, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that Kapoor was not responsible for yelling fore because Anand was not in the intended path of the ball, so Kapoor was not responsible for paying damages. The court, which sided with several lower courts, ruled that Anand assumed the risk that he could be hit by an errant ball when he decided to play golf. And Kapoor was responsible for yelling fore only to golfers in the ball’s intended path. “What this now means,” said Carl Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond, “is that when you play golf in New York, you are only liable for hitting someone” if that person is in front of you. Anand said he never heard anyone yell fore. On the first hole, Kapoor’s second shot landed in the rough about 20 yards from Anand’s ball, which was sitting in the fairway. Kapoor did not wait for Anand to find his ball and hit his third shot, which struck Anand, who was not in the intended direction of the ball, according to the court ruling. The decision was the latest in a series of similar rulings about who is liable when a golfer is struck on a course. In 2007, the California State Court of Appeals made a similar ruling, saying golfers were not responsible for many injuries sustained by fellow golfers on the course. New York and California are two of the leading states in tort law, and both states ruling the same way “will almost certainly have larger implications for the rest of the country,” Tobias said. Fore has been used by golfers since the 18th century to warn others of an errant shot. Although historians are divided on its origins, many believe it originated in the 1700s, when, before artillery was fired, it was customary to shout, “Beware before.” Dalton B. Floyd, a lawyer in Surfside Beach, S.C., who specializes in golf-related litigation, said courts had traditionally found that golfers are not liable for hitting those golfers not in their intended path. “There is an inherent risk in golf that not everybody is going to hit a straight shot,” he said. “It’s different, however, if you are driving the ball and you normally hit 200 yards and there is a person 150 yards out and you hit them and don’t yell fore. In that case you have to warn them and if you don’t you are liable.” Most issues arise, Floyd said, when a golfer hits someone on a green when the golfer thought the green was farther away than it actually was. “Where we have the most controversy is with the suing of the clubs,” he said. “A guy hits a 3- iron and thought he was 210 yards out but the marker on the course was wrong and someone on the green is hit.”

Golf
Suits and Litigation
Decisions and Verdicts
Long Island (NY)
Anand Azad


Why the Fed Is the Best Choice to Prevent Systemic Risk

Abstract: THE Federal Reserve has long been the odd man out in the American system of government — powerful, yet designed to be nonpolitical and neither checked nor balanced. Now two contradictory crosscurrents are swirling in Washington — one that would enhance the Fed’s powers and one that would curtail them. The Treasury ’s recent white paper on financial regulatory reform would have the Fed “supervise all firms that could pose a threat to financial stability,” even if they are not banks, turning the Fed into what some people are calling the nation’s “systemic-risk regulator.” Doing so would expand the Fed’s reach — though, of course, it has reached into those places already. (Think Bear Stearns, A.I.G., etc.) On the other hand, some members of Congress are grumbling that the Fed has already overreached, usurping Congressional authority. Others contend that it has performed so poorly as a regulator that it hardly deserves more power. Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican, has even introduced a bill that would have the Government Accountability Office audit the Fed’s monetary policy — a truly terrible idea that could quickly undermine the Fed’s independence. Let’s break down the issue into three questions: Should the United States have a systemic-risk regulator? If so, should it be the Fed? And, if so, are there other powers the Fed might give up in return? My answers are yes, yes and yes. The main task of a systemic-risk regulator is to serve as an early-warning-and-prevention system, on the prowl for looming risks that extend across traditional boundaries and are becoming large enough to have systemic consequences. Can this job be done perfectly? No. Is it worth trying? I think so. Suppose such a regulator had been in place in 2005. Because the market for residential mortgages and the mountain of securities built on them constituted the largest financial market in the world, that regulator probably would have kept a watchful eye on it. If so, it would have seen what the banking agencies apparently missed: lots of dodgy mortgages being granted by nonbank lenders with no federal supervision. If the regulator saw those mortgages, it might then have looked into the securities being built on them. That investigation might have turned up the questionable triple-A ratings being showered on these securities, and it certainly should have uncovered the huge risk concentrations both on and off of banks’ balance sheets. And, unless it was totally incompetent, the regulator would have been alarmed to learn that a single company, American International Group, stood behind an inordinate share of all the credit-default swaps — essentially insurance policies against default — that had been issued. This counterfactual suggests that history might have been quite different — and much better. Some people would end the systemic-risk regulator’s role there, making it an investigative body and whistle-blower whose job is to alert other agencies to mounting hazards. But if systemic problems are uncovered, someone must take steps to remedy or ameliorate them. Under one model, the regulator would be like the family doctor, taking a holistic view of the patient, making a general diagnosis and then referring the patient to appropriate specialists for treatment: to the Securities and Exchange Commission for securities problems, to the banking agencies for safety and soundness issues, and to someone for problems with derivatives — once we figure out whom that someone is. But if multiple agencies are involved, their actions would need coordination. Would a systemic-risk regulator become the field marshal of a well-coordinated army, or find itself herding cats? An alternative model would work more like a full-service H.M.O., where an internist refers patients to in-house specialists as necessary. To make that work, the systemic-risk regulator would need more power — not just to diagnose problems, but also to fix them. And it would need a huge range of in-house expertise. Crucially, when truly systemic problems arise, a lender of last resort is almost certain to be part of the solution — and that means the central bank. So if there is to be a systemic-risk regulator in the United States, it should be the Fed. Furthermore, unlike any other agency, the Fed would not be starting from scratch in performing these expanded regulatory duties. At least in theory, every central bank is its nation’s principal guardian of financial stability. The Fed already has the eyes and ears (though not enough of them) to do this job, and has the broad view (though, again, not broad enough) over the entire financial landscape. It must have such a view to handle monetary policy properly. I am also deeply skeptical that a consortium or a committee would succeed at systemic-risk regulation. Creating a hydra-headed regulator, as some have proposed, invites delays, disagreements and turf wars — and dilutes accountability. So the Treasury plan sensibly puts the Fed in the driver’s seat, with the others playing advisory roles. Now to the final question. Critics who worry about the Fed accumulating too much power have a point. But the Treasury proposal already clips the Fed’s wings by stripping away its authority over consumer protection, and further wing-clippings are possible. But when it comes to dealing with systemic risk, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said last month, “I do not believe there is a plausible alternative.” Neither do I.

Federal Reserve System
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Credit
Banks and Banking
United States Economy
United States Politics and Government
Treasury Department


Korean Summit Results Exceed Low Expectations

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea , Oct. 4 — Expectations for what could be achieved at the first summit meeting between the Koreas in seven years had been low. Worries that South Korea’s president, Roh Moo-hyun , a lame duck criticized for being soft on the North, would give away too much had been high. But a declaration signed Thursday by Mr. Roh and the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il , contained a number of specific projects that could build closer economic and security ties between the Koreas, experts said. The North, in turn, appeared to have made some modest, though important, concessions to the South. The more difficult step of actually carrying out the projects with the North — whose leadership, Mr. Roh said, still does not trust the South — lies ahead. But if the declaration was a confirmation of the South’s engagement with the North, a policy set in place during the first such meeting in 2000, it also laid out a road map for the next, likely conservative, administration here in Seoul after presidential elections scheduled for Dec. 19. According to the declaration, the South will build a special economic zone in Haeju, a port town in southwestern North Korea , and establish a joint fishing area in nearby disputed waters in the Yellow Sea. The two sides will also work to establish joint use of a nearby river and shipping routes in waters that have long been the focal point of military clashes between the Koreas, most recently in 2002. Haeju is not far from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the economic zone already established inside the North by South Korea. Under the declaration, the South pledged to accelerate the development of Kaesong, where South Korean factories employing North Korean workers began operating in 2004. The South will also rebuild a railway connecting Kaesong with Sinuiju, a North Korean town on China’s border, as well as a highway between Kaesong and Pyongyang, the North’s capital. In addition, the South will construct a shipbuilding complex in Nampo, a town southwest of Pyongyang. “What South Korea needed to do this time was to demonstrate some practical achievements,” said Koh Il-dong, an economist at the Korea Development Institute in Seoul. “If we look at the joint declaration, it’s not that striking. Most of the ideas were ideas we had expected. But there are accomplishments.” The projects are in keeping with the South’s long-term goal of reducing the economic gap between the Koreas, a necessary step toward reunification, possibly decades from now. More immediately, though, the declaration reflected the South’s strategy of trying to gain security on the peninsula by forging economic and other ties. Under the declaration, the two sides agreed to work toward signing a formal peace treaty for the Korean War, which ended with a simple cease-fire in 1953. This point, experts said, appeared to be a concession by the North. It had long maintained that South Korea would not be involved in any peace negotiation because the signers of the 1953 armistice were North Korea, China and the United Nations force led by the United States. In addition, the North agreed to make efforts to carry out the nuclear agreement reached in February, and reaffirmed this week, as part of separate six-nation nuclear talks. Even before Mr. Roh had departed for the North on Tuesday, he had been severely criticized in South Korea for saying initially that he would not bring up the nuclear issue during the summit meeting. “These are the things that North Korea gave to South Korea,” said Choi Jin-wook, an expert on North Korea at the government-affiliated Korea Institute for National Unification here. “These are not big things, but they will allow the South Korean government to say it got something from North Korea.” He added: “Many people in South Korea were worried that the president would make some grand declaration of peace, but he did not. In that sense, it’s hard to say we are satisfied with the summit, but at least we are not dissatisfied.” For the North’s leadership, the declaration would yield the economic growth it is seeking without demanding the political change it fears. On Wednesday, in comments to his aides, Mr. Roh said that both Mr. Kim and the North’s No. 2 leader, Kim Young-nam, had reacted with “distrust and reluctance” at the mention of “reform and openness.” The declaration sought to allay the North Korean leadership’s anxieties about the side effects of economic liberalization, stating that the two Koreas would regard each other with “mutual respect and confidence irrespective of differing ideologies and systems.” Appearing visibly upbeat, Mr. Roh left Pyongyang on Thursday after a lunch given by Mr. Kim. At the luncheon, Mr. Kim, 65, who on the first day of the summit meeting was seen leaning to one side as he walked, addressed head-on speculation in South Korea that he was severely sick, dismissing stories that, he said, suggested he had “diabetes or even a heart disease.” “I make a little move, and that gets huge coverage,” Mr. Kim added. “It seems like they’re fiction writers, not journalists.”

South Korea
North Korea
Roh Moo Hyun
Kim Jong Il
International Relations
Economic Conditions and Trends
Leaders and Leadership
Summit Conferences
Politics and Government


A Soccer Team, Its Foreign Owner and Local Discontent

Abstract: THE HAGUE — A new Chinese owner arrived at the Dutch soccer club ADO Den Haag in early 2014, promising multimillion-dollar investments and better days ahead. Fans of the club liked the sound of that. Yes, the money to buy the team arrived a few months late, but it did arrive in the end, along with firm deadlines for further investments and a handful of new signings. Even if the most ardent fans were wary of the new owner’s intentions, they held their tongues. ADO, a 110-year-old club, has not won the top Dutch league, now known as the Eredivisie, since the end of World War II. But the new owner, a wealthy businessman named Wang Hui, promised to turn the team into a powerhouse — one that could challenge the likes of Ajax, P.S.V. Eindhoven and Feyenoord, clubs that have long dominated Dutch soccer, and play well enough to qualify for top European competitions like the Champions League. Wang seemed like fun, cheering wildly for goals from his box at ADO’s Kyocera Stadium and throwing up his hands in disbelief whenever the team conceded a penalty. At least once, he even took part in a practice session with the players. “Wang was very enthusiastic,” said Jacco van Leeuwen, the chairman of the club’s fan association. “He promised European football, so everyone was very happy with him. We showed a banner with Wang on it.” But 18 months later, the supporters’ patience is wearing thin. ADO Den Haag is mired in the middle of the Dutch standings, the flashy signings have stopped, and Wang has missed several deadlines to make payments he promised. Some at the club fear that Wang, who spent millions to buy the club and pledged millions more to improve it, has lost interest in it. Wang, in an interview in his Beijing office, said he was merely recalculating his strategy, but he also pointedly said that he was under no obligation to do more than he had. “After I pay the takeover, the club is mine,” he said. “It is my business in terms of how much I will invest in the club.” That change in attitude may not go over well in The Hague. While ADO supporters collected food and supplies to be distributed to the local poor in the weeks before Christmas, they also have a fearsome history. (In the 1980s, they were even accused of setting fire to their own stadium , the Zuiderpark.) And to people from The Hague, words — and actions — matter. Image Wang during a game at ADO Den Haag’s home stadium in April. He partly blamed cultural differences for tension with fans. Credit VI Images, via Getty Images “In Den Haag, the character of the people is that when you don’t like it, you say it directly; you don’t hide,” van Leeuwen said. “So we have a rough reputation.” Promise, Then Uncertainty ADO Den Haag is the only major soccer club in The Hague, a coastal city and the seat of government in the Netherlands. ADO Den Haag — in Dutch, ADO is an acronym for “everything through practice” — came to represent the city’s large working-class population. The club enjoyed little success in the postwar era and instead gained notoriety for a following that included some of Europe’s toughest hooligans. “It was always a midtable club, but a good club, good young players coming from The Hague,” said Dick Advocaat, a former coach of the Dutch national team who began his playing career at ADO. Despite the large sums of Asian money that have been invested in European soccer — including a recent $400 million Chinese investment in Manchester City, a club bought by the royal family of Abu Dhabi in 2008 — few expected ADO Den Haag to be ready to join Europe’s elite. Enter Wang, a wealthy, Beijing-based businessman whose marketing company, United Vansen International Sports, helped organize the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Last year, he bought a 98 percent stake in ADO for a reported $8.9 million and announced his intention to take the club into European competition while sending Dutch coaches from the club to China to improve young players there. “At the time, we had a clear preference this was sold to local businessmen,” said Tom de Bruijn, a politician who sits on The Hague’s municipal executive committee and was close to the deal. The municipality owns Kyocera Stadium and had a so-called golden share in the club, meaning it could block any purchase on one condition: that the club find another buyer willing to pay the same price for the shares. But no local investors came forward, and after verifying that Wang’s finances were legitimate, the club was sold. “I had a good impression when I spoke to him,” de Bruijn said. Despite the agreement, it took months for the money to materialize. When it did, a period of optimism followed. Further investments were made, and expensive new players were acquired, including the Dutch-Japanese striker Mike Havenaar, and Wang was seen at several matches. When the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, visited China with a trade delegation, Wang presented him with a green and gold ADO shirt. (Rutte took it with good humor when he noticed his name was written as “Rutten” on the back .) While a handful of ADO coaches went to Beijing to coach at the former school of China’s president, Xi Jinping, an avid soccer fan, the former Chinese national team coach Gao Hongbo was unveiled as an ADO assistant coach. Gao’s move soon caused tension: After every game, ADO’s incumbent coach, Henk Fraser, was asked by reporters whether he was about to be replaced . “To be honest, I spoke to him occasionally,” Fraser said of Gao. “But he is not part of my training staff.” Fraser added: “He was here to get the Dutch way of working. Most of the time, he was upstairs in one of the units watching the way we train.” When Fraser was asked about Wang, the club ended the interview. The greatest tensions, though, were related to finances. Deadlines for Wang to make a further $4.1 million investment in the club in September and November were missed. More important, the club was forced to admit that it had not been able to speak with Wang. A third deadline, Dec. 18, had been agreed upon for the money, shortly after a league match against Willem II, but that, too, passed without payment. The uncertainty has left many people in the city unhappy, not least Advocaat, who had called for the Chinese influence in ADO to come to an end. “He had some good ideas, but you’ve got to do it,” said Advocaat, who acknowledged that he had discussed taking an advisory role at the club with Wang. “But now he is not paying the money. That is why I said people from Den Haag should take over.” Offering Assurances On the 22nd floor of a building in downtown Beijing, Wang keeps a small green and yellow ADO Den Haag pennant pinned to his bookcase. He was not hard to locate, and he quickly agreed to an interview. Wang maintained that his plans for revitalizing ADO remain unchanged. He promised that he still had the best intentions for the club and that the $4.1 million would be paid. “I hope that ADO can get in to the top five clubs in Eredivisie in three years — that’s my goal,” he said. “To achieve this goal, we can invest more money and do whatever necessary.” Wang also partly blamed cultural differences for the current tension — “In The Hague,” Advocaat said of the forthright attitude of city’s populace, “black is black, and white is white” — as well as ADO’s modest start to the season. “The club thinks in a very simple way, ‘You’ve said you will invest, so you should invest,’ ” Wang said. “But they are intervening the boss’s decision-making process. You can offer suggestions. But now the circumstances are different, and I need to adjust my strategy.” When asked specifically about the missed payments, Wang said the money was “not a promise because I don’t need to promise anything to anyone in terms of investing more money into my own club.” He added, “But as long as you want to do better and you don’t have enough money to do so, of course I’m willing to help.” Back in The Hague, there were no banners or chants against Wang in the stands before Dutch soccer’s holiday break. Before the game against Willem II, van Leeuwen, on behalf of the supporters, wrote an open letter to Wang asking for a meeting and promising that the fans would give Wang time to prove his intentions. “Now everyone is very quiet because you can say everything about the Chinese but then you make him angry,” van Leeuwen said. Still, the Dec. 18 deadline came and went. The money was not paid, and Wang did not visit the club, saying he had canceled because of an important meeting with the Chinese Football Association. A spokesman for the club said Sunday that the money had not arrived but that the club was hopeful it would on Tuesday. The spokesman, who said the club hoped Wang might come in January, also said that he “had seen documents that prove the money is on the way — that has rebuilt trust.” The holiday break is giving ADO time to sort out the situation, but the fans will not wait forever. The first game after the break, on Jan. 17, will be the biggest derby of ADO’s season, against first-place Ajax. “If the money isn’t there by then, I think you will see banners,” van Leeuwen said. “And then there will be a problem.”

Soccer
Hague
ADO Den Haag
Wang Hui
Wang Hui
Netherlands
Coaches
China


Farewell to the Celebrity Beat - Nocturnalist

Abstract: Does anyone need a gown? Nocturnalist has five in our closet, bought at consignment shops at prices a reporter can afford, or furtively from garment district stores with “wholesale only” signs in the window. Two are regal — one met the queen of Spain , the other a prince of Serbia . Two are glamorous, the perfect outfits for watching white steeds clop around the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria or toasting the first same-sex wedding held at the Four Seasons . And one is funky, ideal for dining next to Hugh Jackman while he scarfs your supper as a chaser to his own. The gowns are camouflage, the sartorial duck blind under which Nocturnalist has hidden as we staked out night life across New York City. We no longer need them. This is our final column. The last opportunity this reporter will have to refer to ourselves in the plural (that is, without raising concern for our mental health). When the column began 1 year, 8 months and 10 days ago, we were given the charge of pulling back the curtain on the rarefied circles that populate the night. We were assigned to press the reader’s nose up against the glass. More than 200 parties later, with the help of a team of nearly a dozen tireless, spry and chameleonlike correspondents, we hope we did so — and even cracked that glass a little. Over the course of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week last spring, we covered 25 parties in five days. Racing from Alexander Wang ’s carnival-themed party in Chelsea to another at the former home of CBGB on the Bowery, we pulled off our stilettos, vaulted onto our photographer’s motorcycle, flung the heels in our hand over his shoulder and yelled: “To the next party! Step on it!” We stared at each other and burst out laughing, nearly tipping the bike over. Was this real life? Yes and no. The fantasy landscape of the party scene is miles away from everyday experience, and yet the luminaries who frequent it often turned out to be no loftier than most New Yorkers. Disarming moments reflecting that were our favorite part. As when Sting rested his head on the shoulder of his wife, Trudie Styler , during our interview, or when Joel Grey plopped down across the stairs at the party celebrating his Tony Awards , leaving us little choice but to conduct the interview prostrate on the floor. And yes, when a celebrity crashed our dinner with friends and took it upon himself to show us how to debone sea bass . Being hassled, threatened, yelled at and kicked out were all grist for the mill. We’ll never stop marveling at the party reporter’s bizarre Catch-22: being invited to events to cover them, and then being prevented from doing so. After the Black Eyed Peas skipped us on a red carpet , a publicist called us on the phone hours later. “I’m really not comfortable with your article,” he squealed. That was impossible, we told him. We hadn’t yet written it. After we were invited to write about a celebrity dance party at Hiro Ballroom , the host told us we were welcome to interview anyone, as long as it wasn’t someone on the A List. Our correspondent turned to the man next to her on the dance floor to lament her fate . The man, Leonardo DiCaprio , was incredulous. When a Nocturnalist correspondent, on her way back from the powder room, bumped into Jon Bon Jovi at a gala , a self-appointed bouncer tried to march her out of the event without her purse. To this day, no one knows who he is. Unfriendliness was sometimes more revealing than the saccharine, routine sound bites many stars give reporters. Once, Martha Stewart saw us inspecting a goody bag at a party at Joan Rivers ’s home. (We’re not permitted to take freebies as a journalist, but to write about what’s inside a goody bag — funny thing — you have to see what’s inside a goody bag.) Ms. Stewart crept up behind us. “I’ll report you,” she hissed. The dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied , perhaps frustrated that his other half, Natalie Portman, was the newsmaker in the family, kicked us out of a gala in his honor after our correspondent asked one simple question: “How’s Natalie doing?” And with that, at last, he had made his own headline. From meeting queens, we head to Queens, where our next assignment as a beat reporter takes “the woman now formerly known as Nocturnalist,” and where we doubt we’ll have much use for those five gowns. “Don’t you get bored at all those parties?” is one of the questions asked most frequently of Nocturnalist, and one of the most surprising. Parties are never boring when viewed David Attenborough-style: as a chance to study people in the wild. People, it turns out, are the most fascinating creatures on earth. So we leave behind the dark of night, the dust of glamour and the camouflage of gowns. We — or rather, I — will see you in Queens. I’ll be the one in jeans.

Celebrities
New York City
News and News Media
Parties (Social)