The Recovery of a Boston Marathon Bombing Victim

Abstract: BOSTON — Jeff Bauman stared straight ahead, his eyes wary and unconvinced, as his doctor told him the next procedure would be easy and painless. He sat in his wheelchair at Boston Medical Center, and Dr. Jeffrey Kalish, his primary surgeon, explained how a resident would remove the sutures from his legs. Most of Bauman’s legs were gone. He had been waiting for his girlfriend near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 when the first of two bombs detonated and blew them off. An iconic sporting event had turned into a scene of chilling devastation , and a photograph of Bauman in the aftermath, his legs gruesomely lost, later became a searing symbol of the attacks. A Marathon Survivor Starts Over 20 Photos View Slide Show › Image Josh Haner/The New York Times The day of the bombings, Bauman had had an emergency, through-knee amputation that lasted about two hours. A surgeon had sifted through layers of skin, tissue and muscle, preserving what was healthy, cutting what was dirty and sick. He had removed what was left of Bauman’s lower legs at the knee joints. Two days later, Kalish had performed a formal amputation at about four inches above the knee. He had measured the legs and cut each layer — skin, tissue, muscle and bone — farther up in the thigh, like a staircase. Then he washed out the legs for 10 minutes, tucked the muscle, and stitched the tissue. Bauman’s legs had been reduced to stumps, sewn shut across each base. Now, as Kalish spoke, Bauman pulled his left leg toward his chest and eyed the sutures. Image Waking up at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. Jeff Bauman found it difficult to get any sleep because of the pain. “We literally just yank and cut,” Kalish said. Bauman looked away. “Compared to everything you’ve been through, this is going to be a breeze. How about that?” Kalish left the room, Bauman climbed onto a table, and the resident started on his left leg. There were 25 sutures to remove from his left and 24 from his right. The resident worked slowly, pulling and cutting, leaving the especially deep ones for Kalish to do. Bauman did not care to watch. He lay back, rested on his elbows and glanced out the window at the darkening sky and an American flag at half-staff. It had been one month since the bombings. The resident moved on to his right leg, and on the third suture, as she pulled and cut, he cried out and grimaced and closed his eyes. Image Bauman as the sutures were being removed from his amputated legs. He had been waiting for his girlfriend near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 when the first of two bombs detonated. “O.K. — pain? O.K.,” she said. “We’ll just — we’ll go from the other side.” She paused and watched his face twist. “Do you need a break?” she asked. “No,” he said as the pain left his face and he opened his eyes. “That one hurt.” She did what she could with the right leg, and then went and retrieved Kalish. There were 10 deep ones left for him to do. He started with the left leg, and a few minutes later, Bauman whimpered again, softer now. He tried to hold back. Image A resident at Boston Medical Center removing Bauman's sutures, a month after the bombings. After this, there would be no more procedures. There was nothing more his doctors could do. His legs would be this way for the rest of his life. Learning to walk again, and whatever happened after that, was up to him. Kalish said nothing and kept working. Bauman was crying now. “Sorry,” Kalish said, without looking up. “Almost done.” Five minutes later, he was finished, and Bauman’s legs were bleeding. “You did it,” Kalish said. “I hope that wasn’t so awful.” Image Medical responders and a bystander, Carlos Arredondo, center, rushed Bauman from the scene in what became a symbolic image of the Boston Marathon carnage. Credit Charles Krupa/Associated Press A Backpack and a Bang Early on the morning of April 15, Bauman drove his girlfriend, Erin Hurley, to a meeting point for her charity running team. “You better win,” he said as she got out of the car. She laughed. Bauman then napped at Hurley’s apartment in Brighton, and at about 1:15 p.m. drove with her roommates, Remy Lawler and Michele Mahoney, to a marathon checkpoint in Newton. Bauman spotted Hurley there, and she ran over. The four of them group-hugged, and then Hurley took off. The plan was to meet her again at the finish line. Bauman, Lawler and Mahoney took a cab to Boylston Street and waded through the crowd, looking for a good spot. Spectators were five and six deep. Lawler and Mahoney wormed their way closer to the street, and Bauman stayed near the back. Image At home, Bauman packed three tablets of the painkiller oxycodone in a baggie before going to a restaurant for his father's 53rd birthday. He was looking for Hurley when a man behind him, about five feet to his right, caught his eye. The man was wearing a dark, heavy coat, sunglasses, a backpack and a baseball cap low and tight on his head. He looked strange. Why was he dressed so warmly on a sunny day? He looked serious, too. And why was he standing so far back? Bauman looked away. He scanned for Hurley again, and then looked back over his right shoulder. The man was gone, but his backpack was there on the sidewalk. Then Bauman saw a flash and heard a bang. Suddenly, he was lying on the sidewalk, dazed and a bit numb. He smelled sulfur. Or was it burning metal? What a firework, he thought. He sat up and saw bodies strewn and a lot of blood. Mahoney was a few feet away. She tried to scoot toward him, but her left leg would not budge. She looked at Bauman, then at his legs, and then back at him. He looked down, then back at her, horrified. Bauman grabbed what was left of his legs, lay back down and was writhing there when Allan Panter found him. Panter, an emergency room physician from Gainesville, Ga., had been in the crowd, too, but was unharmed. He pulled Bauman from the pile of bodies and placed the loose tissue back into his leg. Bauman screamed. Image Carlyn Wells, Bauman’s physical therapist at Spaulding, measured his range of hip and leg motion. Panter tied a makeshift tourniquet around his right leg, placed a jacket on him and left Bauman so he could tend to the woman sprawled nearby whose eyes were open and empty. I’m going to die, Bauman thought, lying there alone. He had sat up again when a man in a cowboy hat named Carlos Arredondo came bounding toward him. Arredondo had watched the chaos unfold from across the street. He called for help, and a woman came with a wheelchair. He nudged Panter, and they lifted Bauman into the chair, and off Bauman went, Arredondo running by his side. Then the tourniquet on Bauman’s right leg caught in the wheel and came undone. Arredondo tried holding the tourniquet together, but an emergency medical technician caught up to them and grabbed Bauman’s right leg, applying pressure to slow the bleeding, while Bauman held his left leg up with his hands. Image Bauman joking with his girlfriend, Erin Hurley, whose first marathon he had gone to see. They made it to the medical tent, and Bauman was loaded into an ambulance headed for Boston Medical. A woman sat behind him and leaned over his face. He looked up at her and realized she was trying to talk to him. His eyes widened, and he said, “I can’t hear.” She spoke louder. “Where were you on Boylston Street?” she asked. “Up the street a little, by the grandstand,” he said. He was calm. She asked what he was doing there, and he told her about Hurley. She asked how old he was, and he said 27. She asked where he was from, and he said, Chelmsford, Massachusetts. The questions were mostly to keep him engaged and conscious. They arrived at the hospital just as the pain started to set in. Image Casts of Bauman's thighs were made to build the sockets for his prosthetic legs. What Was Left of Him Bauman lay asleep in a bed at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston as the sun peeked over the buildings across the harbor. Light filled the room, and when it came across his face, he stirred. His face was long and thin and forlorn with deep lines under his eyes and eyelashes singed so short they looked like eyeliner. He hardly slept anymore. The pain from his injuries kept him up at night, and this morning sun did not help. It had been two weeks since the bombings, and the burns on his back were still healing. Much of the skin was bright red and a few patches were raw, and it stung if he rolled or shifted or turned the wrong way. The bedsheets also bothered his sutures. So at night, he tried to lie still, but his legs would spasm. The pain pulsated down his thighs. Sometimes, it felt as if someone were beating on his knees. Most mornings, he woke up sore. On this morning, Hurley fetched his clothes and his toothbrush and climbed into bed with him. She had spent the night on the couch at the foot of the bed, as she spent most nights now. After a while, she kissed him goodbye and left for a run. Image Bauman had a chance to examine a prosthetic leg for the first time. Bauman pulled his wheelchair alongside the bed and took the two-and-a-half-foot wooden plank from the chair’s back pouch. He laid the plank from the bed to the chair, and, pushing down on it, he lifted himself slowly and scooted across into the chair. This was his new means of moving around. Now, for a fleeting moment, he was alone. His mind wandered. He thought of the marathon, that day. He had accepted what had happened, perhaps as much as anyone could, but he was reminded whenever he saw his legs. He could not stand to see them. He was getting better about it, but he still got shaky. And they were always so sore. Sitting there, he held them and tried to rub away the pain. Carlyn Wells, his physical therapist, arrived for his 8 a.m. session, and they went down to the rehabilitation gym. He started his stretches, lying on his left side and lifting his right leg sideways into the air. He did this 12 times, his leg wobbling more with each lift. Then he flipped onto his right side and did the same with his left leg. Image Bauman and Carlos Arredondo, the bystander who had helped him, were introduced at Fenway Park on May 28 before throwing the ceremonial first pitch for a Red Sox game. “Can you hear me well?” Wells asked. He had not answered her last question. Bauman stopped and sat up. He rubbed his face. “It’s hard to hear in this room,” he said. “It’s so big.” His right eardrum was destroyed in the blast, and his left one had a sizable hole in it. He had told people it felt as if someone were holding something over his ears, only to let up every now and then. His ear doctor said he was missing about 20 decibels of hearing and that the holes were unlikely to close on their own. He recommended surgery, but Bauman refused. He had had three operations since the bombings and had decided that was his limit. “You want me to talk louder?” Wells asked. “Yes, please,” he said. “Will it bother you if the others turn music on?” she asked. Image Bauman hanging out with friends, who were wearing bracelets with the words "Bauman Strong" on one side and "April 15, 2013" on the other. “The sound, it ricochets off the walls,” he said, looking up. “It, like, echoes.” He paused and looked back at her. “I hear it more than once. I won’t be able to hear.” He finished stretching, and then worked with leg weights and a medicine ball. After 45 minutes, he was done, and Wells left him alone again in his room. He climbed back into bed and watched television. He tried to nap, but doctors and nurses kept popping in, and his thighs were sore. So he just lay there, resting. The room was starting to smell distinctly like him. He showered only a few times a week because it was such a challenge. Later that morning, his mother, Patty, arrived. She worked as a waitress, but was given time off to attend to him. She nervously paced around the room, tidying things and reading unopened mail. She was always fretting over him, it seemed, cringing whenever he moved. Then he had to calm her down. Image At a final fitting for his prosthetic legs, Bauman walked on his own for the first time since the day of the marathon. In the afternoon, he had occupational therapy, and his mother left. Then he climbed back into bed, rubbed his legs, picked at his eyelashes, and watched TV. More people visited. Some days, amputees from support groups came, showing off their prostheses. Sometimes, Chris Carter, the hospital psychologist, stopped in to chat. Each Tuesday afternoon, Carter led a discussion with the marathon victims. When it was his turn, Bauman said he was optimistic, he had goals, he was trying to move on, and it could have been worse. He called the bombers cowards and clowns. He rarely thought of them, only when someone asked. He was more concerned with himself now. His father had closely followed the manhunt. He came to see Bauman each night after work. This was by design. Bauman’s mother and father had separated when he was a toddler, and they generally did not get along. So by day and night, Bauman had two sets of relatives competing for his attention. Then his friends brought food, or he played the guitar, or Hurley came over, and he felt better. Image Waking up at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. Jeff Bauman found it difficult to get any sleep because of the pain. At some point, though, they had all stared at him. They expected him to be broken, angry and sad. He joked about his legs. He was trying to move on. But there was no escaping all these people, all their pity and all their questions. Then his legs were always so sore. He never asked any of his visitors to leave, but he was a private person, and here he was confined to this bed or his wheelchair. He felt as if he were on display — hurt, tired and vulnerable for all to see. He hated the hospital for that. But he kept this all to himself. One night, just as his patience waned, Hurley arrived; seeing her was the best part of his day now. They had been together for about a year. He had decided he wanted to marry her, buy a house with her, start a new life with her. But he sensed her guilt. She said she loved him more now. She was more affectionate. They had figured out how to be intimate in his hospital bed. She just had to be careful of his legs. Image Bauman as the sutures were being removed from his amputated legs. He had been waiting for his girlfriend near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 when the first of two bombs detonated. Now she kissed him and sat in the large chair next to his bed. He was lying there, his left hand behind his head. She was playing with her hair, twirling an end with her finger. She asked about his day. He wanted to talk about hers instead. She asked if she should renew the lease on her apartment. He hesitated. He tried to dissuade her, but when she resisted and made a case to keep the apartment, he suggested they buy a house together. “It’s a lot of work buying a house, you know,” she said, looking down. She felt his eyes watching her. “You have to like — I don’t know. It’s a lot of work. It might be too much for you right now. And me, too.” She let go of her hair and scratched her nose. His eyes glossed over. “Eventually, though,” she said softly. Image A resident at Boston Medical Center removing Bauman's sutures, a month after the bombings. Painkillers and New Legs Bauman was discharged from the rehabilitation center about four weeks after the bombings. He went back home to live with his mother in Chelmsford, and during the day, most days, it was just the two of them. Sometimes, his cousin came over to play video games. Otherwise, Bauman passed the time lying in bed until Hurley came over after work. He slept easier at home. There was not much else he could do. Sitting in his wheelchair for a long time strained his legs. On the few occasions he did go out, he packed a zipper bag with his medication. He regularly took 1,200 milligrams of gabapentin for the phantom leg pain, 1,000 milligrams of Tylenol and 5 milligrams of oxycodone. And if the pain was still unbearable, he took more oxycodone. He packed a baggie of painkillers the day he had his sutures removed and then again a few days later for a friend’s bachelor party. It was an all-day affair at a local gun club. He had never fired a shotgun and was a bit apprehensive about it. But he learned how, and the others wheeled him out between rounds to shoot by himself, all eyes on him. He was a sideshow again. Maybe that would change when he could walk. Image Medical responders and a bystander, Carlos Arredondo, center, rushed Bauman from the scene in what became a symbolic image of the Boston Marathon carnage. Credit Charles Krupa/Associated Press A few days after that, Bauman had his first appointment with the prosthetist, Paul Martino, of United Prosthetics in Dorchester. Bauman sat on the edge of a bench in a patient room and listened intently as Martino explained how his new legs would work. To put them on, Martino said, Bauman would roll a gel liner, which resembled a skintight sock, onto his thigh, then slide his thigh into a carbon-fiber socket. He would strap the liner to the socket, and the socket would be connected to the rest of the leg. Ottobock manufactured the legs, Martino said. It was a German company that he had trusted for years. Its Genium knees had microprocessors, he said, that would be programmed to follow Bauman’s gait, to swing as he stepped, move as he moved. Image At home, Bauman packed three tablets of the painkiller oxycodone in a baggie before going to a restaurant for his father's 53rd birthday. Bauman nodded and rubbed his thighs. He was trying to retain it all. He did not know what it would be like, walking on the prosthetic legs, but he hoped he would like it. He figured he would be restricted. He had made a running mental list of all the things he thought he could no longer do. He could not fly a plane, he thought, or work construction. He could not play hockey, as he used to in his father’s backyard, or play sports in general. He was not sure he could ever wear pants again. The purpose of this first visit was to make casts of Bauman’s thighs to create the sockets. So first, he rolled on the gel liner; it felt strange and tight on his thighs. Then Martino put a plastic bag over it and a mesh netting over that. He took measurements, and then marked the netting and applied the plaster by dipping strips in water and setting them on. Martino had come recommended by a doctor at Spaulding, and Bauman trusted him. He was lying on his back, watching Martino work, when Martino’s assistant asked where he worked before the injury. He told her he had worked at Costco. He had started there, in the delicatessen, about two and a half years ago, while he was taking college classes. And when he left college without a degree, he had committed himself to his Costco shifts. Image Carlyn Wells, Bauman’s physical therapist at Spaulding, measured his range of hip and leg motion. The assistant said she wanted to make sure his prosthetic legs would not prevent him from doing anything he was doing before. He thought for a moment and said: “I just want to get to the places I can’t get in the wheelchair, you know? I want to stand up.” When Martino finished casting both thighs, he wiped down the bench, and the assistant showed Bauman an Ottobock leg. It felt solid and surprisingly heavy. “Can you put pants on right over this?” he asked, and they assured him he could. He nodded. He was satisfied. On his way out, his mother noticed a photograph on the wall. Image Bauman joking with his girlfriend, Erin Hurley, whose first marathon he had gone to see. “Look, Jeffy!” she said. “An all-amputee hockey team!” Face of the Tragedy Another week passed, and Bauman started going out more in his wheelchair. His legs would still get sore, but by now, he was familiar with the pain and was bored at home. He and Hurley went out to eat, and inevitably, someone recognized him. He rarely paid for a meal anymore. Chefs and managers offered him gifts. They had seen the marathon-day photograph, published around the world, of Arredondo wheeling him away, his legs shredded. Bauman could not bear to see the photo now. But it resonated with people in Boston. It was shown on the scoreboard at Fenway Park when the Red Sox had Bauman and Arredondo throw out ceremonial first pitches together. The crowd roared as they took the field. One man asked Bauman for an autograph. “You’re an inspiration,” the man said. Bauman had recently asked his mother why people so adored him. They respected his bravery, she had said, and he was the face of the tragedy, of those who survived. Image Casts of Bauman's thighs were made to build the sockets for his prosthetic legs. The day after the Red Sox game, Bauman and Hurley were invited to attend James Taylor’s rehearsal as he prepared to perform at a concert to benefit the marathon victims. After the set, Taylor sat with them. “So, you’re a guitar player, I hear,” he said, tapping Bauman’s forearm. “Yeah, I can play a couple of chords,” Bauman said. His ears were still ringing from the music, but he did not mention this, or how he played the guitar for only five minutes at a time now, his ears frustrated him so. They chatted about Bauman’s first pitch at Fenway, about his rehabilitation, and the future. Bauman had to learn to walk first, and after that, he did not know what to expect. Taylor was asking questions Bauman had to ask himself. Image Bauman had a chance to examine a prosthetic leg for the first time. Taylor asked about Costco and whether Bauman would return to work there. Bauman said yes, he would, once he was strong enough. But he had worried about having to stand all day. He had thought, maybe instead, he could do something that helped people. Then Taylor asked about his health insurance at Costco and if it was covering his expenses, and Bauman said yes. But he did not know entirely. He had not seen a bill from Boston Medical or Spaulding. His new legs cost about $100,000 each, but he expected them to be covered by his insurance and a foundation called Wiggle Your Toes . “You probably get a lot of donations, too, huh?” Taylor said. “Yeah, I get a lot of donations,” Bauman said. “It’s a lot. I’m getting money all the time.” Image Bauman and Carlos Arredondo, the bystander who had helped him, were introduced at Fenway Park on May 28 before throwing the ceremonial first pitch for a Red Sox game. An online fund-raiser for him had reached nearly $800,000, and he would soon receive a $2.2 million check from the One Fund , which was established to benefit the marathon victims. But he feared his money and fame would run out. He retained a lawyer and two financial advisers. He put his money in a trust fund. He would trade it all, though, just to have his legs back. But he tried not to think like that. “Yeah, I guess I’m going to need it,” Bauman told Taylor. “I guess this stuff’s expensive.” Image Bauman hanging out with friends, who were wearing bracelets with the words "Bauman Strong" on one side and "April 15, 2013" on the other. “You should sit back and let people do what they can,” Taylor said, “because it makes people feel good — like they’re doing something.” Bauman nodded and stared at the ground. The First Steps The day after the concert, Bauman was going to try to walk. His prosthetic legs had been made, and now the thigh sockets needed to be fitted. At his last appointment at United Prosthetics, he had taken a few short steps, but Martino had held his hips. Martino wanted him to walk on his own now, to see how everything felt and if any more adjustments were necessary. Bauman’s mother, his girlfriend and a few others gathered to watch in a hallway narrow enough that Bauman could reach the railings on each wall. He was in his wheelchair as he rolled the gel liners onto his thighs. He held his left thigh and squeezed it. Image At a final fitting for his prosthetic legs, Bauman walked on his own for the first time since the day of the marathon. Martino held the legs in place as Bauman pulled on the sockets. He strapped the liners to the sockets as Martino adjusted the knees and set the feet on the ground, with their black, size-10 ½ sneakers. Bauman scooted forward in the chair, grabbed the railings and pushed himself up. Martino had a hold of him and helped him stand all the way up. Hurley was behind him, and she, like the others, watched quietly. Bauman pursed his lips as he balanced using the railings and straightened himself over the legs. The chair was pulled out from behind him, and Martino crouched down to examine the sockets. The first time Bauman had stood, the top had pinched his skin and the bottom had hurt the ends of his thighs. But Martino had corrected the sockets, and everything felt fine now. Bauman’s legs were sore, as they always were, but the pain no longer deterred him. A Marathon Survivor Starts Over 20 Photos View Slide Show › Image Josh Haner/The New York Times He seemed at ease with his torso leaning forward and supported mostly by his hands on the railings, as Martino worked. Then Bauman let up on the railings, stood up straighter, and felt the pressure on his thighs, the ground firm underneath him. He felt in control. “All right, you O.K. to stand on that?” Martino said. “I’m going to run for a wrench.” Martino left the room, and Bauman arced his neck back toward Hurley. “How you doing, honey?” she asked. “Good,” he said. He was completely upright now. He looked sturdy. He turned forward and watched himself in the mirror at the end of the hallway. He lifted his hands off the railings, wobbled a bit and put his hands back. Hurley had not seen him do it. He did it again, lifting his hands higher now, and grinning. Video After the bomb blast at the Boston Marathon that took most of his legs, Jeff Bauman began his own long and painful journey. “No!” Hurley said. “Be careful!” She wrapped her arms around him and kissed the back of his neck. “Be careful,” she said softly. “You’re making me nervous.” She leaned against the wall, keeping hold of his midsection. She looked down at his legs. “Does it hurt?” she whispered. “No,” he said. “I feel tremendously balanced.” Martino returned, and Hurley moved away and left Bauman standing there by himself. Martino examined the legs, then stepped back and asked Bauman to walk. Bauman leaned on the railings, hunched over, and swung his left foot ahead, barely off the ground. His face strained. He took five steps, each a bit more cautious than the last.

Boston Marathon Bombings
Leg
Amputation
Therapy
Jeff Bauman Jr
Physical therapy


Palestinian, 15, Killed as Israeli Forces Sought to Halt Stone Throwing

Abstract: JERUSALEM — Israeli forces opened fire at a Palestinian car in the occupied West Bank early Tuesday, killing one Palestinian teenager and wounding four others, according to relatives and Palestinian officials. The teenagers appeared to be innocent bystanders who were hit while the military tried to halt Palestinians who were throwing stones and firebombs. The military said its soldiers had been pursuing several Palestinians who were trying to hit Israeli cars on Route 443, a highway that cuts through the West Bank as it connects Jerusalem with Israel’s densely populated coastal plain, injuring three civilians, including a pregnant woman. Palestinian officials identified the dead teenager as Mahmoud Rafat Badran, 15, from the village of Beit Ur al-Tahta, west of Ramallah, and said that two of his brothers, ages 16 and 17, were among those injured. “Nearby forces acted in order to protect additional passing vehicles from immediate danger and fired toward suspects,” the military said. “From the initial inquiry, it appears that uninvolved bystanders were mistakenly hit during the pursuit.” A military spokeswoman said later Tuesday that the military police investigation unit was examining all aspects of the episode, presumably including whether the soldiers involved had opened fire according to protocol. The shooting comes as an Israeli sergeant, Elor Azaria, is standing trial in a military court on a manslaughter charge after he fatally shot a wounded and disarmed Palestinian assailant in the West Bank city of Hebron. Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, described the killing of the Palestinian youth as a “coldblooded assassination,” adding in a statement, “The international community has the responsibility to stop allowing Israel’s impunity for the crimes it commits against the occupied land and people of Palestine.” Muhammad Badran, the father of one of the injured Palestinian teenagers from Beit Ur al-Tahta, Majed, said that his son had decided to go swimming with his cousins and friends in the nearby village of Beit Sira after breaking the Ramadan fast on Monday night, and that they had left in a taxi. As they were driving home, he said by telephone, shots were fired at their vehicle. “I don’t know if it was soldiers or settlers who opened fire and hurt our children,” he said. Mr. Badran, who works as a building contractor in Israel, said that after receiving a call from a resident of the village around 1:45 a.m., he rushed down to the road and saw the wounded teenagers on the ground, bleeding. He said that soldiers had put his son and one of the other teenagers in a jeep and had driven off, and that he had not received any more information about his son’s whereabouts. The Israeli military said that three of the injured Palestinian youths were taken to a hospital in Ramallah and that the fourth, apparently Majed, was taken to the Hadassah Medical Center, an Israeli hospital in Ein Kerem, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that the three teenagers in the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah had been shot in the head and chest, and had sustained serious injuries. The three civilians who were believed to have been wounded by rocks were taken to Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem for treatment. A hospital spokeswoman said the wounded included two Israeli men who also hold other citizenships and a pregnant Belgian. All three had light injuries and were released from the hospital. The roughly 10-mile stretch of Route 443 that runs through the West Bank, constructed on land that was expropriated from the Palestinian villages, has a military checkpoint at each end, and for many Palestinians it has become a symbol of the injustices of Israeli occupation.

Palestinians
West Bank
Military
Israel
Elor Azaria


F.B.I. Raids Trenton’s City Hall After Searching Mayor’s Home

Abstract: Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided City Hall in Trenton, New Jersey’s capital, on Thursday, a day after searching the homes of its beleaguered mayor, his brother and a campaign contributor who is a convicted sex offender. The mayor, Tony Mack, a Democrat, has faced accusations of corruption and mismanagement since he took office two years ago. On his Facebook page and in a statement on city letterhead, Mr. Mack, 46, denied violating the public trust, but said he would have no further comment. The F.B.I. confirmed the search but declined to say which offices it included or which officials were the focus of the investigation. City employees said they saw agents in the recreation, purchasing and finance departments, as well as in the mayor’s office. “They’re looking for anything involving corruption, and corruption is there,” said George Muschal, a councilman who has long accused Mr. Mack of ineptitude and cronyism. A number of Mr. Mack’s high-level appointees have resigned after being linked to crimes including forgery, theft and drug possession. The mayor has also been accused of impropriety in several lawsuits filed by former employees, and properties he owns have repeatedly faced foreclosure. About 10 agents arrived at Mr. Mack’s home just after midnight on Wednesday and spent about five hours searching it before leaving with at least two boxes. Mr. Mack’s half-brother, Stanley Davis, also known as Muscles, sat outside the house as the agents searched it. Mr. Davis pleaded guilty in January to two counts of official misconduct after he used public employees and equipment from the Trenton Water Works to do private work on three homes. Investigators also searched the homes of the mayor’s brother, Ralphiel Mack, who is the head football coach at Trenton Central High School, and Joseph Giorgianni, a sex offender who had been one of the mayor’s earliest and biggest donors. Separately, the county prosecutor said his investigation into city government was continuing.

Mayors
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Politics and Government
Mack Tony
Trenton (NJ)
Corruption (Institutional)


Afghan Civilian Deaths Reported in NATO Strike

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO officials acknowledged preliminary reports that four to a dozen or more civilians were killed in a coalition airstrike Thursday in Nangarhar Province. Afghan accounts put the civilian deaths as high as 32. A statement from the international forces confirmed that they had mounted an operation with Afghan forces in the area to search for a Taliban commander, and killed 2 senior Taliban leaders as well as 15 to 20 other insurgents. As the forces left they were fired on from several locations and called in an airstrike to cover their withdrawal, they said. “Coalition forces deeply regret that our joint operation appears to have resulted in civilian loss of life and we express our sincerest condolences to the families,” Rear Adm. Greg Smith, the international force’s director of communication, said in a statement. At the scene, in the village of Hashim Khail Wadi in the Khogyani district, a reporter for The New York Times counted 12 fresh graves. Residents said that they had just buried civilian victims of the bombing and that a total of 32 people had been killed there and in another village nearby, Nakrro Khail, in the Sherzad district. The victims were said to be in a house in Nakrro Khail and at a ford in Hashim Khail Wadi, where vehicles were blocked by a flood and the drivers had parked, waiting to cross, when the vehicles were rocketed by planes. The attack took place about 4 a.m., the residents said. President Hamid Karzai ordered an inquiry. Tolo TV in Kabul quoted local officials putting the civilian death toll at 12. Hajji Zaman Khairy, a prominent tribal elder in the Khogyani district and a candidate for Parliament, also said 12 civilians were killed, but added that coalition forces captured seven people and killed 14 Afghan and foreign Taliban fighters. A statement from the international forces said that 10 rocket-propelled grenades and multiple automatic weapons had been found at the scene. In another case of civilian casualties, Afghan and coalition officials continued to dispute what happened in the Sangin district of Helmand Province on July 26, when United States Marines fired a missile at a house from which they had received gunfire. A senior intelligence official for the international forces, speaking on condition of anonymity as a matter of policy because of his position, said that about 6 civilians were killed, as well as Taliban fighters, for a total of 14 deaths. The civilians were killed when the Marines fired a shoulder-mounted Javelin rocket at a house where Taliban had taken up positions on the roof, while keeping civilians trapped inside. “The Marines were unbelievable in the length of the time they waited to return fire,” the official said, adding that they took fire from the house for more than four hours before the decision to fire the rocket was made. Afghan officials had put the death toll at 52 civilians , while officials from the international force denied at first that civilians had been killed. President Karzai sent provincial and local officials to investigate and announced after meeting with them on Wednesday that 39 civilians were killed by the rocket strike on the house, where people had taken refuge from the fighting. The announcement noted, however, that the Taliban had been fighting from the house. Asked to explain the divergence in accounts, the international force official said, “In Helmand, there are significant political challenges going on, to put it mildly.” In addition, coalition forces were unable to visit the scene because the Taliban controlled the area, the official said. The announcement from Mr. Karzai’s office said that the president “once again insisted that under any conditions civilian casualties are not acceptable to him.” Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Thursday, a suicide bomber struck an American and Afghan convoy, killing 11 police officers and wounding seven civilians in northern Kunduz Province, Afghan officials said. None of the Americans were hurt. The convoy was on a patrol in the Pul-e-Khesti area, in the Imam Sahib district, when the car bomb exploded near the patrol at 7:30 a.m., said Mohammad Ayub Haqyar, the district governor. He said an American armored vehicle was slightly damaged, but no one inside was hurt. In Helmand Province, a roadside bomb struck a civilian vehicle on Thursday, killing nine civilians, pilgrims preparing for the hajj to Saudi Arabia.

Afghanistan
Police
Afghanistan War (2001- )


Charges Dropped in Cyberbullying Death, but Sheriff Isn’t Backing Down

Abstract: MIAMI — In both word and deed, Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County has long approached crime fighting as a moral quest, a clear-cut fight between good and evil, with no-nonsense punishments for offenders. A church-going Baptist who has been handily re-elected twice, Sheriff Judd has battled prostitution and pornography and spearheaded an effort to shutter every sex-related business in the county in Central Florida. He gave away the jail yard’s basketball hoops because “if you want to play basketball, stay out of jail,” as he once said, and put a stop to buying underwear for inmates. At the moment, his office is in court over its treatment of juveniles in detention, one of many lawsuits he has faced over suspected civil rights violations. But on Wednesday, his latest effort to root out wrongdoers — this time, child cyberbullies — came unraveled. Polk County prosecutors decided to drop felony charges against two girls in a September cyberbullying case that the police said contributed to the death of 12-year-old Rebecca Ann Sedwick, who jumped from a cement plant tower two months ago. The decision was made by the Polk County state attorney’s office after weeks of investigation and an analysis of thousands of Facebook messages failed to turn up enough evidence to charge the girls, one 14 and the other 12. While the messages revealed that the 14-year-old had insulted Rebecca and called her ugly names, the kind of bullying that some children could find emotionally crushing, the posts did not rise to the level of a crime, lawyers for the two girls said. The New York Times had not identified the girls because they are juveniles, but one, Katelyn Roman, now 13, said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday that she had done nothing wrong. Image Pallbearers wearing antibullying T-shirts carried the coffin of Rebecca Ann Sedwick. Credit Brian Blanco/Associated Press While commending the prosecutor, Jose Baez, the lawyer for the 12-year-old girl, called it “outrageous” that Sheriff Judd arrested the girls in October, releasing their names and photographs — which appeared on national television — without evidence to support criminal charges. The girls, he said, were vilified. Kaetlyn, he said, had had no contact with Rebecca since December, when the two girls, once best friends, had a fight and their friendship crumbled. In fact, the postings show that Mr. Baez’s client had also been bullied. “He wants to get up there and act like a crusader, and this time it was at the expense of two girls,” Mr. Baez, who also represented Casey Anthony, the Orlando woman acquitted two years ago of murdering her toddler, said of Sherriff Judd. “They had zero by way of evidence.” Experts in bullying said it is difficult to bring charges in cyberbullying cases like Rebecca’s because multiple factors are often at play in a suicide. The police and lawyers said Rebecca was a fragile girl who had a troubled home life, had been cutting herself and was ordered to go to a psychiatric facility to get help last December. The laws on the books are not always written to deal with the nuances of cyberbullying, and the laws, so far, have had little impact on changing behavior, they said. Insults and goading online, depending on their severity, do not typically merit felony charges. “How can we prove that posts and content led to someone directly taking their own life?” said Sameer Hinduja, a criminal justice professor at Florida Atlantic University and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center . “The vast majority of the kids that have taken their own lives have other elements that have been pretty major.” Brian Haas, a spokesman for the state attorney’s office, said prosecutors could not comment because of laws protecting juveniles. Image A memorial for Rebecca at the cement plant where she committed suicide. Credit Brian Blanco for The New York Times Sheriff Judd defended his actions on Wednesday, saying that he had had enough probable cause to make an arrest and that it was up to prosecutors to decide whether to proceed. And under Florida law, law enforcement officials are allowed to release the names and photographs of juveniles charged with felonies. Sheriff Judd said he had no regrets over his handling of the case, adding that the arrests brought attention to the growing threat of cyberbullying and its corrosive effects on children. The two girls, he said, wound up getting the help they needed. “We’ve raised awareness and we’ve helped kids,” the sheriff told reporters, adding, “I’m glad we did what we did, and we would do it again tomorrow.” But that reaction drew criticism from Kaetlyn’s family, the girls’ lawyers and Sheriff Judd’s critics, who said it was damaging to the children. The arrests of the two girls in October, one month into the investigation, took even the state attorney’s office by surprise, said Andrea DeMichael, a lawyer for the 14-year-old. Lawrence Walters, a First Amendment lawyer who has sued Sheriff Judd and his office a number of times, said: “That is the misuse of the criminal justice system. You don’t bring felony charges against a 12-year-old to raise awareness of a social issue, especially if there is not a valid basis for those charges.” Emilio Roman, Katelyn’s father, said his family had been hounded after the arrests. His daughter was expelled from school; the family had to fight to get her back in. He and his family had also been threatened and insulted. Image Rebecca committed suicide after being repeatedly bullied in person and online. “They had nothing whatsoever,” Mr. Roman said of the sheriff’s office. “My daughter had had a fight with the girl a year ago, and then there was no contact with her.” Critics say the sheriff, who has a strong, loyal following, allows his personal agenda to drive him to use questionable tactics against suspects, including people who visit prostitutes and pornographers. Lawyers who have challenged him in court said his office has a pattern of overcharging defendants or using racketeering laws to force defendants into a plea, a settlement or simply out of town. The sheriff has a particular fondness for sting operations to thwart prostitution. By his own account, Sheriff Judd, who regularly trumpets his successes, has long fancied himself as a cross between two fictional sheriffs — the genial common-sense sheriff of Mayberry played by Andy Griffith, and Matt Dillon, a moral touchstone in the “Gunsmoke” town he oversees. Sheriff Judd does not apologize for his tactics, zeal or plain-spoken words, which he views as an antidote to a culture of political correctness. When asked several years ago why a man who had killed a deputy was shot 68 times by officers who fired 110 rounds, he replied, “That’s all the ammunition they had.” Others see him as a version of Joe Arpaio , the controversial Arizona sheriff with a similarly tough approach to criminals and also illegal immigrants. It is a comparison he mostly enjoys. Asked in 2011 by the website CorrectionsOne whether he minds the controversy, his answer was unequivocal . “It’s only controversial for the people who don’t understand ‘real America,’ ” he said. “Those are the hard-working, God-fearing people who built this country who understand what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong.”

Bullying
Florida
Rebecca Ann Sedwick
Suicide
Social Media


In Monsey, N.Y., Passover Preparations in the Spirit of a Campfire

Abstract: MONSEY, N.Y. Maybe it was the intersection of the beginning of Passover and the Birkat Hachamah, or Blessing of the Sun, celebrated by observant Jews once every 28 years, when, according to Talmudic tradition, the sun returns to the position it occupied at the same time during the week of its creation. But there did seem to be an exceptional degree of ardor at the site of the old Rockland Drive-In, its giant white screen hovering ghostlike over the vacant land next to the Kosher Castle restaurant, cars jamming Route 59, flecks of snow falling from the sky, at the annual Monsey chametz burning Wednesday morning. “No plastic bags, no aluminum foil, no children,” Nathan Rothschild, Monsey’s fire commissioner, joked as people, about two-thirds of them Hasidim in traditional black garb, approached a giant trash bin, waves of heat and smoke pouring into the sky, with loaves of rye bread, crackers and cookies, boxes of cereal and other food to be burned before the Passover holiday began Wednesday evening. “You can throw in your mother-in-law if you want.” Observant Jews are required to remove all chametz, the Hebrew word for leavened bread, from their homes, cars and person before Passover begins, then burn a portion of it and throw out the rest. The idea is for a spiritual cleansing as well as a house cleaning, and a prayer is recited that releases the family from ownership of any crumbs left behind. Burning chametz is an ancient tradition that sometimes runs afoul of modern fire codes, population densities or standards of safety. A rabbi’s 27-year-old son was badly burned and four others were burned less seriously in 2004 when he poured paint thinner on a chametz fire in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Hence the communal chametz burnings, which have become increasingly organized in recent decades. Monsey’s dates to 1977, when Mordechai Eizik, a local firefighter, brought two trash barrels to the firehouse parking lot for chametz. Since 2002, it’s drawn thousands to the former drive-in, which once was the proposed site of a new Wal-Mart. It sits on a busy avenue where immigrants looking for work, international markets and Hispanic clubs eventually give way to the suburban shtetl of Monsey. And so they came, in old Buicks and new S.U.V.’s, mostly men and their children while the women were home cooking the Passover meal. Some were from far away: Shlomo from Baltimore, who gave only his first name, and his children, who usually burn chametz at the Pimlico racetrack; Martin Bernstein from Buenos Aires. Both were visiting friends or family in Monsey. A vast majority were locals who brought their chametz in plastic bags from the Rockland Kosher Supermarket or the All Fresh Supermarket just up Route 59, or in a pickle bucket from Flaum Appetizing. In addition to white bread or melba toast, many brought lulav, fronds of the date palm tree used during the Sukkot holiday and customarily destroyed in the ritual fire. The men brought prayer books and read them, rocking back and forth, islands of religious focus amid the hubbub. The children, for the most part, just seemed taken with the spectacle and the opportunity to throw anything in the fire — bread, potato chip bags, licorice. “It’s free entertainment,” said David Rabinowitz with a shrug, as his kids suggested assorted offerings for the blaze. People started coming before the site opened at 6:30 a.m., and kept piling in until well after the scheduled closing at 11:41 a.m. — the product of another Talmudic calculation. It took about 200 wooden pallets to keep the blaze roaring. Water was poured on the embers around 1:15. The final count — suspiciously precise, but we’ll go with it — was 9,876 participants. It was, all said, a big success. There were eight trash fires elsewhere in town during the day, all presumably chametz-related, compared with the 40 or so expected without the communal burn. Do-it-yourself chametz burning, some pointed out, is very inefficient — bread being much harder to burn completely than paper or wood — so the religious purpose was better served in the industrial-strength trash bin. And, just as some traditions are old and some not so old, Mr. Rothschild pronounced it a worthy community event. “What I find rewarding is to see so many different parts of the community, different Hasidic groups and others, coming together in one place in unity,” he said. “And kids love it and look forward to it. If you have a fire in your backyard barbecue and burn chametz, it’s not a memory. You do this, standing among 500 or 1,000 people doing this together, it’s a memory.” And, at least, they all got his jokes. One man looked at the burning trash bin and the orange one behind him for bags, trash and the rest, as if not sure what each was for. “Milchig and fleishig,” Mr. Rothschild said — dairy and meat, the basic delineation of keeping kosher. The man smiled and threw his chametz into the fire.

Passover
New York State
Jews and Judaism


Republicans Turn Spotlight on Jobs

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Under fire for focusing heavily on cutting spending rather than stimulating job creation, House Republicans are taking new steps to emphasize their efforts to spur hiring, including a jobs forum with business leaders to be held in the Capitol next week. “We have been about cutting and growing since Day 1,” Representative Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican and majority leader, said. “This is the growth end.” After a session this week with committee chairmen, Mr. Cantor and two key lawmakers — Representatives Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee — ticked off tax changes and efforts to curb regulation that they said Republicans would pursue to restore jobs. Republicans have also invited executives of both small and large businesses to come to the Capitol and to participate via teleconference next Wednesday in a session on how Congress can improve the hiring climate. Mr. Cantor said the idea was to solicit suggestions on removing what Republicans see as governmental barriers to job creation and taking aggressive steps to bolster the business sector. “We are not interested in giving any speeches but really want to see what the impediments are here, what we can do,” Mr. Cantor said in an interview. “We are not interested in beating our chests. We are trying to get results.” Republicans are clearly sensitive to mounting accusations from Democrats and others that the new House majority has devoted most of its energy so far to cutting spending — and potentially putting thousands of government jobs at risk. Democrats have sought to turn the “where are the jobs” mantra on the same Republicans who deployed it so aggressively against them in last year’s elections. “Ten Weeks, Zero Jobs Bills by G.O.P. ,” declared a memo issued Tuesday night by the office of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader. Instead of working on jobs legislation this week, the memo said, Republicans are spending their time trying to undo programs intended to help struggling mortgage holders and opening a high-profile committee investigation into what some say is the radicalization of American Muslims. Democrats have also received some support from economists who say the Republican plans to slash spending by $61 billion in the current year could threaten the nation’s economic recovery. They say Republicans have abandoned their pledge to get Americans back to work. “The one thing that the Republicans have not talked about is the one thing the American people care about more than anything else, and that is jobs,” Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said this week. Republicans say such assaults are partisan sniping. They argue that the drive to cut spending and attack the deficit can bring some sense of stability to the economy and build confidence among business operators that it is safe to expand payrolls because the government is working to improve its fiscal situation. And they have marshaled their own economists to back up that view. Still, they have faced skepticism about the strength of the link between government spending cuts and job growth, and they are trying to bring more attention to their push to directly foster job creation to avoid being identified solely as a budget-cutting monolith. It also puts them in line to take some credit if the national employment picture improves. Mr. Camp said Republicans were strongly encouraging the Obama administration to move forward with free trade pacts that could lead to 250,000 new hires. He noted that half of the eight hearings held by his panel this year were devoted to simplifying and overhauling the tax code to stimulate economic growth. He said he had been in touch with Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, about moving forward with tax law changes. “Fundamental tax reform is key,” Mr. Camp said. “It is a critical issue for us to work on.” Mr. Upton said the chief job-creating focus of his panel had been to identify and move to block regulatory efforts by the Obama administration, and specifically the Environmental Protection Agency, that he said would strangle the economy. “The last thing that we need to do,” he said, “is impose new regulations on industry across the board, across the country. Because it is going to cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, many billions of dollars.” Among those invited to take part in the jobs forum are executives from a machine tool company, a specialty coffee-roasting company, a coal producer, a cement company, the banking industry and a high-tech firm. Mr. Cantor said they were the type of job-creating businesses Republicans were trying to assist. “We are trying to get solutions that make sense and that can get bipartisan support,” he said.

Republican Party
Labor and Jobs
United States Politics and Government
Federal Budget (US)


Hincapie, an Armstrong Teammate, Seen as Reluctant but Reliable Witness

Abstract: In his books about cycling, cancer , fame and family and how they have intertwined to make him who he is, Lance Armstrong , the seven-time Tour de France winner, delves into fine detail about the roles his top teammates played on his champion teams. He talks about how those riders became as close as family and how George Hincapie, his road captain and longtime lieutenant, grew to know him the best. “There have been times when I’ve practically lived out of the same suitcase with George Hincapie,” Armstrong said in “Every Second Counts.” “In cycling, we’re on the side of a mountain for weeks, in small hotel rooms, sharing every ache, and pain, and meal. You get to know everything about each other, including things you’d rather not.” Those things he and Hincapie learned about each other are now at the center of yet another doping scandal involving Armstrong’s Tour-winning teams. Because Hincapie is considered a credible and reluctant witness, his testimony could be the most damaging evidence against Armstrong, who is accused of doping and playing a key role in a vast doping conspiracy. According to people with knowledge of the case, Hincapie has told the United States Anti-Doping Agency about systematic doping on Armstrong’s teams, of which Armstrong played a part. Last month, the agency charged Armstrong and several of his associates with doping violations. “There are certain riders who, you know, ooze respect, and George is one of them,” said Stuart O’Grady, an Australian rider who has raced against Hincapie for about 20 years. “I don’t think anyone dislikes George. He’s just an all-around nice guy.” The details of what Hincapie, 39, told antidoping authorities remains a mystery — though it could become public if Armstrong’s doping case goes to arbitration. Armstrong’s lawyers have filed a federal lawsuit to stop the antidoping agency from moving forward with punishing him. He faces a lifetime ban from Olympic sports and the loss of his Tour titles. If Hincapie does testify, it has the potential to be one of the starkest, most jarring revelations in a sport known for its code of silence regarding doping. Hincapie is likely to know more about the behind-the-scenes activity on Armstrong’s squads than any other rider; he was the only one to be at Armstrong’s side for all seven of his Tour victories. Joe Papp, a former professional cyclist and convicted steroid trafficker turned antidoping advocate, said Hincapie’s word would be “unimpeachable” and “will finally lead people to the point where they don’t believe Lance is innocent anymore.” Armstrong, who has denied ever doping, has criticized the antidoping agency’s handling of the case. In an e-mail on Tuesday, Robert D. Luskin, one of his lawyers, accused the agency of attempting to extort testimony “through a process of threats and inducements.” At first, though, Hincapie was prompted to provide information about the doping on Armstrong’s teams when he received a subpoena to testify to the grand jury in the now-defunct federal investigation of Armstrong for doping-related crimes, said two people involved in the investigation. Instead of testifying before the grand jury, Hincapie cooperated and gave sworn statements. He then provided evidence about Armstrong and the organized doping on their teams to the antidoping agency. It is not clear whether Hincapie has admitted doping while helping uncover the principals in a larger plot. If he has, he could receive a reduced suspension, rather than the usual two-year ban for a first-time offender. If he is asked to testify before an arbitration panel and declines, however, he could face a stiffer punishment. Because the antidoping agency does not have an outright failed drug test on which to hang its argument that Armstrong had doped, testimony like Hincapie’s will be crucial to its case. The agency said it had 10-plus riders whose testimony would bolster its case, but what sets Hincapie apart from some others who have given evidence — like Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton — is that Hincapie is not among those who have publicly admitted they used performance-enhancing drugs. Those who know Hincapie say his role in the case goes against everything ingrained in him as a gregario, which, in cycling terms, is a rider who sacrifices himself in the service of the team leader by doing things like sheltering that rider from the wind or protecting him from attacks. Bob Stapleton, former owner of HTC-Highroad, a squad for which Hincapie used to ride, said it would be “a terrible conflict” for Hincapie to testify against a teammate. “He’s a guy who fundamentally wants to do the right things, but he is also fantastically loyal,” Stapleton said. “But when George talks, people are going to listen. You’re talking about the most liked and most respected American cyclist, maybe ever. We called him Captain America, for all the good reasons.” Hincapie’s life has had a fairy-tale ring to it. The son of Colombian immigrants, he grew up in Queens and began cycling because his father, Ricardo, had been a competitive cyclist. His father, who worked in United Airlines ’ cargo department for more than 30 years, never made it big. But George Hincapie became one of the most accomplished riders in United States history. He is a five-time Olympian, a three-time national road race champion and is currently riding in a record 17th Tour. As a worker bee, he has helped Armstrong, Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans win Tour titles. In 2002, Hincapie and his brother, Rich, started a now successful cycling apparel company, Hincapie Sportswear, and employ several of their relatives in its factory in Colombia . A year later, Hincapie met his future wife on the awards podium at the Tour when she worked as a hostess there. “The Tour brought me everything,” he said in June when announcing that he would retire at the end of this season. At this Tour, when Hincapie was asked about Armstrong’s doping case, he did not confirm or deny his involvement, simply saying his current team had nothing to do with it. “I’m sad he is going through this,” he said of Armstrong. “He’s done so many things for the sport.” Hincapie and Armstrong first met as scrawny teenagers headed for the national team. Later, they became teammates on the Motorola squad in the mid-1990s and stayed together on the United States Postal Service and Discovery Channel squads. Through it all, Armstrong was the frontman and star. Big George Hincapie, at 6 feet 3, 165 pounds, was the ever-present teammate that often paved the way to Armstrong’s success. He was the ultimate setup man. His job was to pull Armstrong through the flats by riding in front of him and then deliver him to the bottom of the mountains, where the team’s pure climbers would take over. Davis Phinney, the first American to win a Tour road stage, said he remembered seeing Hincapie at the 2004 Tour, leading the Postal Service team up a climb in the Pyrenees. The image of Hincapie, toiling as sure as a machine, has stayed with him. “When we saw those guys go by, with the speed that they carried and with George out front just giving his all for the good of the team, setting up Lance perfectly for what was a stage victory, it was just so impressive,” Phinney said. “But that was George. What made people like him even more was that he did it all in the service of someone else.” While the five other Americans on Armstrong’s first victorious Tour team, in 1999, eventually left, Hincapie remained at Armstrong’s service. In a film about Hincapie called “A Ride With George Hincapie,” Armstrong was asked how he would describe Hincapie in a word. “I’d have to choose loyal,” he said. “He was loyal to me as a team captain, he was loyal to me as a friend.” He also has called Hincapie his “best bro in the peloton,” a guy to whom he spoke at least every other day. Now, though, Hincapie — the only rider mentioned by name on the dedication pages of both of Armstrong’s main books — says they have not spoken “in a while.”

Lance Armstrong
Tour de France
George Hincapie
Doping
Road Cycling
Biking
United States Anti Doping Agency


Jason Day Wins P.G.A. Championship in a Record-Shattering Breakthrough

Abstract: HAVEN, Wis. — After a 314-yard drive on the par-5 16th hole at Whistling Straits, Jason Day had a decision to make. Ahead by three strokes in his bid to win his first major championship, Day could lay up with his next shot, which was the smart but conservative move, or go for the green as if he had nothing to lose. Day did not deliberate for long. In the previous two majors, he had held at least a share of the 54-hole lead and had failed to win. Six times since 2013, he had posted top-10 finishes at golf’s four biggest annual events. He was going to win the 97th P.G.A. Championship or go down swinging from his heels. Using his 4-iron, Day hit a towering draw that landed on the fringe of the green. He made a birdie to get to 20 under par, and that was where he finished, closing with a five-under 67 to beat Jordan Spieth by three strokes. Branden Grace of South Africa finished third at 15 under, one stroke ahead of Justin Rose of England. Image Jason Day of Australia hit his tee shot on the fourth hole during the final round of the 2015 PGA Championship in Sheboygan, Wis., on Sunday. Credit Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images Day’s 20-under-par score set a major championship record for strokes under par, beating by one the mark set at the 2000 British Open by Tiger Woods, whose success inspired Day to pursue golf as a career. As a teenager in his native Australia, Day read a biography about Woods that fanned the flames of his desire. “It had results from age 13 to when he turned professional, and the scores were just amazing,” Day said in an interview last year. “It was like, ‘Why am I not shooting these scores?’ That book inspired me to practice and really work on my game.” To alter the major championship record book at Woods’s expense, Day said, “is fantastic — it’s an amazing feeling.” Woods, a 14-time major winner, missed the cut here, but he cast an ethereal shadow over the final pairing, Day and Spieth. While Day motored full speed ahead toward Woods’s major record, Spieth tried in vain to draft off his wake. After titles at the Masters and the United States Open , Spieth, 22, was trying to become the third man, and the first since Woods in 2000 , to win three professional majors in the same year. He carded a 68 to complete his 16 rounds at this year’s major tournaments in 54 under. He set the record spree rolling in April by tying the Masters record of 18 under . After Sunday’s tournament, Woods wrote on Twitter : “Very happy for Jason. Great dude and well deserved. Hats off to Jordan, incredible season.” If a clairvoyant had told Spieth he would shoot a 17-under 271 for the week, he would have prepared a victory speech. He called Day’s performance “a clinic to watch.” “He was sitting there swinging as hard as he could off the tee,” Spieth said, adding: “I mean, power to him. He played like he had won seven or eight majors before.” All was not lost for Spieth, who supplanted Rory McIlroy at No. 1, ending McIlroy’s 55-week reign. “It’s by far the best loss I think I’ve ever had,” Spieth said. He added: “To be No. 1 as a team is fantastic. It certainly was a lifelong goal of mine that was accomplished today.” McIlroy, who shot a 69 for a nine-under 279 and a 17th-place finish, has spent a total of 93 weeks as the world’s top male golfer. He said after his round, with Spieth still on the course, “If he was to get to No. 1 today, I’d be the first to congratulate him because I know the kind of golf you have to play to get to that spot.” Image Jordan Spieth settled for two major titles this year. He also replaced Rory McIlroy as the world’s No. 1 player. Credit Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency With the victory, Day moved to third in the rankings, meaning that golf’s top three have an average age of 25. When Woods was in his mid-20s, he had no one in his peer group to push him. Spieth, McIlroy and Day are but the tip of an iceberg of a globe-spanning generation, inspired by Woods to take up the game, that could end up being golf’s greatest. It includes the American Rickie Fowler, 26, who in May won the Players Championship, considered the most prestigious nonmajor; Grace, 27, a six-time European Tour winner; Hideki Matsuyama of Japan, 23, whose six top-five showings this season included fifth place at the Masters; and Brooks Koepka, 25, who posted his second consecutive top-10 finish in a major. Day’s move up the rankings was made possible, he said, by his fall down the leaderboard at the United States Open in June. He played the last three rounds with vertigo and was on the verge of walking off the course a few times. By grinding out a tie for ninth, Day proved to himself that he had the fortitude to break through the ceiling of his comfort zone. “It was good for me to understand how far I could really push myself and really understand that it’s O.K. to go out there and just keep battling,” Day said. “I felt like it was a real kind of growing moment for me, because every now and then we get to a point in our games where it’s O.K. to just go, ‘O.K., it’s all right; I can just hit it in the middle of the green,’ or ‘I don’t really need to hole this putt.’ It’s taken a long time to get to point where I can actually feel a lot more comfortable in a position where I can just go out and attack.” The hard-earned calluses that Day developed in his closing rounds at the United States Open and the British Open, where he tied for fourth with Spieth, helped him hold his position Sunday. He settled himself with a birdie on No. 2, the first of four he made on the front nine (against one bogey). He made the turn with a four-stroke lead over Spieth and Rose and a two-shot lead over Grace, who was playing in the pairing directly ahead of him. A double bogey at No. 10 slowed Grace’s momentum, and Day did not offer his chasers an opening on the back nine, even after a bogey on the 15th. Afterward, Day became emotional when he talked about how his toughest loss — the death of his father from stomach cancer when Day was 12 — made his golf career possible. After his father’s death, Day began abusing alcohol and getting into fights in school. His mother, fearful of losing him to the streets, sold their home and borrowed money from relatives to send Day to a boarding school, where he came under the tutelage of Colin Swatton. Fifteen years later, Swatton is Day’s swing coach, caddie, mentor and confidant. “To have him walk up the 18th hole with me was just a special, special thing that I could never forget,” Day said. For a few years, Day has been considered perhaps the best golfer not to have won a major. It is a label he is relieved to have shed. “Knowing that I had the 54-hole lead for the last three majors and not being able to finish, it would have been tough for me mentally to really kind of come back from that,” Day said. “Even though I feel like I’m a positive person, I think that kind of in the back of my mind, something would have triggered, and I would have gone, ‘Maybe I can’t really finish it off.’ ”


A Day Laborer, on His Way to See Pope Francis

Abstract: This week brought Pope Francis to the South Lawn of the White House, where he spoke to a crowd of thousands and greeted President Obama. It brought Juan Tapia to a house outside Yonkers, where he spent days painting the living room blue — “the color of the sky today,” he said on Thursday. On Friday, he boarded a Metro-North Railroad Hudson line train from Yonkers to meet a man he had seen only on television, a man who moved him for many reasons but for this one most of all: that when Mr. Tapia spoke in his native tongue, the Latin American pope would understand. Mr. Tapia was on his way to a small brush with grace. He and a group of other day laborers, the men with whom he waits most mornings for construction work at a roadside stand in Yonkers, had bought a tan tool belt as a papal offering. His wife, Agueda Zavaleta, a sewing teacher in their native Mexico, had helped sew altar linens for the pope to use at his Madison Square Garden Mass and another set to give to him. He had told his mother back in San Felipe del Progreso, Mexico, to watch the news on Friday: She might see a surprise. He and his wife had gently broken it to their 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter that they could not come with them to Our Lady Queen of Angels, the East Harlem school where Francis would meet them. They had picked out their outfits, a short-sleeved checked button-down shirt for him, a traditional Mexican sequined skirt and embroidered blouse for her. “Honestly, I feel blessed just to see him, to listen to him and to be near him,” he said. “I hope I have the opportunity to reach out and touch him.” If it was a day for sweeping oratory, it was a day for footnotes, too. Francis came to the United States to minister to the world’s marginalized. He found some in a school gym in East Harlem. Image Mr. Tapia, center, and Ms. Zavaleta, center left, arrived at Our Lady Queen of Angels Elementary School. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times Mr. Tapia, 38, crossed the border and settled in Yonkers a decade ago. In Mexico, work was scattershot: construction, odd jobs, hotel maintenance. Even if it was temporary, he wanted a job that would yield a little more to live on. New York, as for generations before him, was his answer. On Friday, the toil was suspended, and the moment had come. Mr. Tapia and his wife got up at 6 a.m. They had to get the children to school. “Bye, Mom,” their daughter called. “Good luck today.” She had asked her father to take a letter from her to the pope. Born with a heart condition that has required multiple surgeries, she did not ask for prayers for herself. “Please take care of my parents and bless us, and please pray to get my parents home safe and sound,” she wrote. Security personnel nixed the tools the laborers had planned to give Francis with the tool belt. The letter, too, had to be left at home. It was 10:40 a.m. when Mr. Tapia and his wife met the rest of the group — about a dozen altogether — behind St. Peter’s School near their home. They posed for photos. There was a general rush toward the bathroom. Then they all set off for the city, to see a man they had never dreamed of meeting at all. Every so often, as they walked, Mr. Tapia turned around to smile at his wife. They had met when he washed his clothes at the laundromat she worked at in Yonkers. Walking to the train, they held hands. Video The pope toured Manhattan beginning with an address at the the United Nations General Assembly and ending with an evening mass at Madison Square Garden. Credit Credit Eric Thayer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In modest finery and gaudy costumes, the group stood out on the train. They first drew stares, then their grins drew smiles. “You’re famous now,” the leader of the day laborers’ group, Aurelio Castro, joked to Mr. Tapia. “You’re going to be on TV in Mexico.” From the station to the brightness of Manhattan and the bewilderment of the subway, Mr. Tapia, Ms. Zavaleta and the others walked. On the downtown No. 6 train, they sat up straight, shoulder to shoulder, gazing straight ahead, talking little and very low. Ms. Zavaleta clutched her purse. Mr. Tapia clutched his blue-and-white ticket. They were so slow to get off at 110th Street that they were almost stuck on the train. Horror in his face, one laborer had to pry open the doors with his arms. Then came the walk, the re-routings around security perimeters, the hourslong wait in the school gym. When the pope walked in, Mr. Tapia wanted to cry. At the appointed moment, as Mr. Tapia watched, Ms. Zavaleta stepped forward with her altar linens, in her red-green-and-white dress, to greet the man they had seen only on television. She spoke her few words. He understood.

Day labor
Pope Francis
Mexico
Our Lady Queen of Angels
East Harlem
Catholic Church
Immigration
NYC
Yonkers NY


Brazil Opens Inquiry Into Claims of Wrongdoing by Ex-President

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s Public Ministry, a body of independent public prosecutors, has begun an investigation into a claim connecting former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to a vast vote-buying scheme that involved the channeling of funds to the governing Workers’ Party. The inquiry, which was announced in the capital, Brasília, on Friday and comes after several months of analyzing testimony, opens a new phase in what has arguably been Brazil’s largest corruption scandal , already involving the conviction of Mr. da Silva’s powerful former chief of staff , José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, on conspiracy and bribery charges last year. The move by the Public Ministry, which asked the federal police to carry out the investigation, is thought to be the first time that Mr. da Silva has been directly investigated in connection to the scheme, called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, for the regular payments that some lawmakers received. The scandal emerged in 2005, during Mr. da Silva’s first term as president. At 67, he remains a towering figure in Brazilian politics. Marcos Valério de Souza, a businessman who received a 40-year sentence last year after he was found to have operated much of the embezzlement scheme, said in testimony last September that Mr. da Silva and Antonio Palocci, a former finance minister, negotiated in 2005 a multimillion-dollar payment with the former president of a Portuguese telecommunications company. The funds, according to Mr. de Souza, were channeled from a supplier of the company, Portugal Telecom, based in Macau, the former Portuguese colony that is now a special administrative region of China, to accounts of advertising executives in Brazil who worked on campaigns for the Workers’ Party. He also said that the funds were used to pay campaign-related debts. A spokesman for Instituto Lula, the former president’s institute in São Paulo, said Saturday that Mr. da Silva had not been formally notified of the investigation. He declined to comment further. When Mr. de Souza’s testimony was made public last year, Mr. da Silva dismissed it, saying, “I cannot believe in lies.” Portugal Telecom, which has large operations in Brazil, did not respond to requests for comment. While several political figures, including José Genoino Guimarães Neto, the former president of the Workers’ Party, received sentences in November for their roles in the vote-buying scheme, none have gone to prison. Lawyers for the defendants have been maneuvering to delay the Supreme Court from formally publishing its findings from the trial, a step that is needed for those sentenced to go to jail.

Brazil
Embezzlement
Portugal Telecom
Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva
Jose Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva
Workers' Party Brazil
Marcos Valerio de Souza


Group Says It Has Raised Over $1.7 Million for Hillary Clinton

Abstract: Ready for Hillary, the independent group devised to build support for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s potential 2016 presidential campaign, said Thursday that it had brought in 22,000 new donors and raised more than $1.7 million in the three-month period that ended March 31. The group aims to build grass-roots support with small donations solicited over the Internet, which was something of a struggle during Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid. But it said that 98 percent of the contributions in the first three months of the year were for $100 or less, and 9,500 donations were for $20.16, a popular option at Ready for Hillary’s events nationwide. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters are hoping to build a campaign-ready infrastructure and donor base should she decide to run. Fund-raising efforts have recently picked up, with Ready for Hillary and Priorities USA, the so-called super PAC that supported President Obama, asking major donors for tens of thousands of dollars for a campaign that does not even exist. One of Mrs. Clinton’s donation bundlers, who did not want to be quoted by name talking about the recent efforts, said many of the biggest donors from her 2008 campaign will not became fully involved until Mrs. Clinton makes a formal announcement. Mrs. Clinton is not in contact with the groups, but she is aware that the fund-raising efforts are gaining steam and has not told donors to stop giving, the bundler said. Ready for Hillary has said its goal is to focus on small contributions. The group has put a $25,000 limit on donations and has raised more than $5.75 million since it began operations shortly after Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in February 2013. The group has a long list of events planned in cities as disparate as San Juan, P.R., and Kansas City, Mo. Ready for Hillary said it would shut down if Mrs. Clinton announced her intentions to run and would be likely to ask donors to transfer their support to the official campaign.

Hillary Clinton
Campaign finance
Ready for Hillary PAC
2016 Presidential Election


Deciding on a Book, and How to Read It

Abstract: I just read a book! This might not sound so extraordinary, but I didn’t just read a book in print, on an e-reader or even on a mobile phone. Instead, I read a book on dozens of devices. I was not trying to set a Guinness world record or paying off on an obscure bet. I wanted to answer a question I often hear: which e-reader or tablet is the best for reading books? So I set out to try them all, reading a chapter on each: the Amazon Kindle , the first- and second-generation Apple iPads, the Barnes & Noble Nook, an iPhone , a Windows Phone, a Google Android phone, a Google Android tablet and a laptop computer. To be fair, I also read a chapter in that old-fashioned form — a crumply old print paperback. The book I chose was “The Alienist,” by Caleb Carr. It’s a New York City crime novel set in the late 1890s and involves a serial killer, a New York Times reporter and Theodore Roosevelt. This seemed the perfect group of misfits to bring on my reading journey. For the first chapter, I turned to an Amazon Kindle ($140-$190). In a quest for the right e-reader, the software for the device and the simplicity of buying a book play crucial roles. Shopping on Amazon for the Kindle is simple; you go to Amazon’s Web site and purchase the book, which is then sent to any devices with Kindle software installed. Reading on the Amazon Kindle is a joy in many respects. The Kindle is light, weighing under nine ounces. Its six-inch screen is the perfect size for reading, and reading on its black and white E Ink display over extended periods doesn’t strain your eyes. Battery life is outstanding; on average you charge the device only once a month. My only complaint with the Kindle design is the placement of the keyboard at the bottom of the device. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, played a crucial role in the design of the Kindle and has noted during past product announcements that the keyboard is there to help people take notes or search. But to me, it seems like a waste of space. The Kindle also has other limitations. It has a limited Web browser, which does not make for the smoothest experience when you are trying to hop off to the Web to look up facts; something I often wanted to do when reading a historical novel. On the plus side, the Kindle software works on almost every device with a screen and an Internet connection. After reading my first chapter on the Kindle, I read subsequent chapters on a number of mobile phones. The Kindle app syncs your reading location between devices, so whichever one you pick up, it knows exactly where you left off. Despite the small screen on a mobile phone, I find reading on one to be simple and satisfactory. Maybe this is because I have become accustomed to mobile screens, using them for hours at a time to check the news, sift through e-mail and navigate social networks. All of the mobile phones on which I read chapters felt somewhat similar, although screen brightness and the size of the phone’s screen did vary. For example, I began Chapter 12 of the book on a Google Nexus S Android phone, which is made by Samsung. This phone is much lighter than an iPhone, but the screen felt a little less crisp. Reading on a Windows Phone 7 felt smooth, most likely because the Kindle app meshes well with the phone’s slick operating system. If I had wanted to, I could have bought my book through dozens of e-book apps in the Apple App Store. Most are free and offer access to thousands of free e-books or paid versions. But the big downside for many is that you can read them only on Apple devices. Apple also offers its own reading software, iBooks. Although iBooks looks beautiful, with a design that feels more like a traditional book, with sepia-toned paper and stylistic typography, again, it is available only on Apple devices. So if you own an iPad and an Android Phone, you won’t be able to jump between the two devices if you buy books through the iBooks Store. For the next chapter, I downloaded the book from the Google eBookstore and read it on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, a Google Android tablet. The text was clean and easy on the eyes, but over all the experience wasn’t quite as satisfactory as I’d had with the Kindle, the other Android phones or the iPhone. The software hid menu screens in places that I had difficulty finding, and its design felt a little too rigid and even clunky. Google is expected to refine the design of its software in the next version of its Android operating system for tablets, which is expected to make Android tablets easier to navigate. Android phones and tablets come in all shapes and sizes these days, so it could be a matter of looking around at alternatives and seeing which is the right fit for you. Next were the iPads. The iPad 1 ($400) is too heavy and feels more like a dumbbell than an e-reader. But the iPad 2 ($500-$830) is lighter and feels snug in your hands. Both iPads offer an immersive reading experience. I found myself jumping back and forth between my book and the Web, looking up old facts and pictures of New York City. I also found myself being sucked into the wormhole of the Internet and a few games of Angry Birds rather than reading my book. Some might find the temptation of games and e-mail mixed into their e-reader too distracting. If this is the case, your choice is easier. Opt for a simple e-reader with no Web access. The Barnes & Noble Color Nook ($250) is about the size of a Kindle, but unlike Amazon’s device it allows you to surf the Web. It is a little slow, though, and that sometimes frustrated me. Like the Kindle software, the Barnes & Noble reading application is downloadable to several devices. It also offers some neat features that separates it from its competitors. For example, if you own a Nook you can take it into a Barnes & Noble retail store and connect to the store’s Wi-Fi. You can then sample any of the store’s available e-books. When you leave the store, the book disappears from your Nook unless you decide to buy it. For the last chapters of the book, I read the paperback. It took barely a paragraph for me to feel frustrated. I kept looking up things on my iPhone, and forgetting to earmark my page. In the end, it might come down to a personal choice based on the type of phone you own. I was torn between the Kindle and the iPad 2. The Kindle is light and costs much less, but it is also limited in that it can’t connect to the Web. The iPad 2 costs much more, but has so many added features it seems worth the added expense. But if money is tight, go for print. My used paperback cost only $4.

Electronic Books and Readers
Shopping and Retail
Books and Literature


De Blasio Prods Graduates to Challenge Injustice (and Son to Take a Joke)

Abstract: The parents, anxious and proud, filed into their seats clutching flowers and cards, to be presented to students in private embraces after the ceremony. Mayor Bill de Blasio had something more public in mind. “Dante de Blasio,” the mayor called from the stage, as heads turned toward Brooklyn Technical High School’s most famous senior, “will have to listen to me for the next 10 minutes without interrupting.” In a highly personal 17-minute speech, the elder Mr. de Blasio addressed his son’s graduating class on Friday at the Barclays Center, at turns offering emotional guidance to parents, challenging seniors to “not stand idly by” amid injustice and inequality and cracking several jokes at his son’s expense. There were tales of Dante’s flip-flops (which he wore to the ceremony), Dante’s debating prowess ( he is a state champion ) and Dante’s excitement upon finding a “community” of debaters his sophomore year. “My disclaimer up front: Dante de Blasio will dispute this story,” the mayor said at one point. “But he’s not here to dispute it right now, he’s way over there.” Dante, 17, is likely accustomed to such public provocations from the city’s elected leader. Since the mayor’s 2013 election campaign, his family has assumed a central role in his rise, with Dante in particular achieving considerable celebrity. The teen’s star turn in a campaign ad was widely viewed as crucial to his father’s election . Strangers have been known to request pictures with him. Image The mayor's son, Dante de Blasio, 17, was among this year’s graduates. Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times His Afro has drawn the attention of President Obama. “My Afro was never that good,” Mr. Obama said in 2013 , recalling his late-1970s hairstyle of choice. (So immense is Dante’s hairdo that, unlike almost all of his classmates on Friday, he declined to wear a mortarboard during the graduation ceremony.) And Dante’s college selection process attracted the interest of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who could not resist pressing Chirlane McCray, the mayor’s wife, on where he was leaning when the two women appeared together in April. (He chose Yale.) At the same time, the mayor has long drawn attention to his standing as a “public school parent,” a title he must relinquish — or at least modify — with Dante’s graduation. On his Twitter profile , Mr. de Blasio identifies himself that way before any mention of his City Hall job. “Parents,” he said in his speech, “we are feeling a lot today, aren’t we?” A call-and-response exercise followed, ending in the rhyme, “You turned out all right, your future is bright.” The speech’s tenor turned sharply, though, as the mayor recalled asking himself a question on his own graduation day: “Are we stuck in a world of injustice?” He spoke of the mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. on Wednesday, and the black lives matter movement. He described his own search for purpose in Central America as a young man, and recited the words of the French author Albert Camus in a call to action for graduates. “The only way to deal with an unfree world,” the mayor quoted, “is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” Mr. de Blasio concluded with an appeal to the class “as leaders.” “Your talents are so great, and change is needed so badly,” he said. Moments later, the mayor returned to his seat, joining Ms. McCray, their daughter, Chiara, and other relatives. The class president was due up next — followed, eventually, by the recitation of some 1,260 names. “Dante,” a school administrator announced when his turn came, pausing briefly for effect. “It’s de Blasio, right?”

Bill de Blasio
Dante de Blasio
Brooklyn Technical High School
Commencement speech
NYC


HField Wi-Fire Antenna

Abstract: Most jaded Wi-Fi users have moved beyond being awestruck that wireless networking works at all and have started complaining about the times when it fails to deliver a dependable connection. HField technologies ( www.hfield.com ) is going after this problem with Wi-Fire, a $79 antenna that connects to a U.S.B. port on either a Mac or Windows computer (XP and Vista). The palm-size antenna provides faster and more solid connections by combining a sensitive decoding circuit with a directional antenna that amplifies the signal. Pointing the antenna toward the base station can produce a signal that may be two or three times greater than one from a traditional antenna buried in a laptop. Tom DiClemente, chief executive of hField, said the latest version includes improvements to the circuitry, the antenna and the software. “With Vista, we introduced brand-new software that’s very low overhead,” consuming 500 kilobytes of memory, he said. That difference can turn a back room or the most remote corner of the pool deck into a fully functional Web-browsing location. PETER WAYNER

Computers and the Internet
Wireless Communications


Iran Rejects Canadian Terrorism Charge

Abstract: LONDON — Iran on Tuesday strongly rejected Canadian police assertions that a planned terrorist attack to derail a passenger train was linked to elements of Al Qaeda on its soil, saying there was “no shred of evidence” to substantiate the claim, reports by Iranian state media said. Speaking at a scheduled news conference, Ramin Mehmanparast, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, accused Canada of hostility toward his country, according to the Press TV satellite broadcaster. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is the biggest victim of terrorism, but the extremist administration of Canada has put Iranophobia on its agenda over the recent years,” he said. The Canadian police said on Monday that there was no indication of state sponsorship by Iran of the suspected conspiracy. But, announcing the arrest of two men, Assistant Commissioner James Malizia said that the suspects had received “direction and guidance” from “Al Qaeda elements” located in Iran. He declined to explain how the link to Al Qaeda had been made. The men were accused of plotting to attack a train operated by Via Rail Canada, the government-owned rail system, within Canada. The suspects were identified as Chiheb Esseghaier, 35, who has been living in Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 30, of Toronto. The police said the men were not Canadian citizens, but declined to identify their nationalities or to describe their immigration status in Canada. According to the Mehr news agency, Mr. Mehmanparast said Canada, which severed diplomatic relations with Iran last year, had produced “no shred of evidence regarding those who’ve been arrested and stand accused.” Terrorism experts have often said that predominantly Shiite Iran has little in common with Sunni-led Al Qaeda. “Al Qaeda’s mind-set is by no means congruent with the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Mr. Mehmanparast said. Iran opposed “any kind of violent action that endangers lives,” the spokesman said, while “in recent years, Canada’s radical government has put in practice a project to harass Iran and it is clear that it has pursued these hostile actions.” Canada broke its diplomatic links to Iran in September over several issues, including Iran’s disputed nuclear program, its hostility toward Israel and what Canada labeled Iranian support for terrorist groups. At that time, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, John Baird, called Iran “the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today.”


Negotiator in Kidnapping Cases Is Himself Abducted in Mexico

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — An American security consultant who has helped negotiate the release of scores of kidnapping victims in Latin America was himself kidnapped last week in northern Mexico after delivering a seminar there on how to avoid that fate, officials said Monday. The F.B.I. and Mexican law enforcement officials are investigating the abduction, which took place Wednesday evening in Saltillo, an industrial city a three-hour drive from the Texas border. The consultant, Felix Batista, 55, was giving security seminars for business owners in Coahuila State when he was abducted by a group of armed men. He arrived Dec. 6 and gave two seminars on Monday and Tuesday, the local news media reported. On Wednesday, he met with police officials, and later in the day, he was in a restaurant when he received a call on his cellphone that prompted him to get up and leave, officials told the local news media. That is when the armed men took him away, officials and local newspapers said. “I do a lot of security consulting, and the last thing I think of is being a victim in the process,” said Jon M. French, a former State Department official who runs his own security company in Mexico City, Problem Solvers. “Talk about turning the tables.” Mr. Batista works for ASI Global, a security company based in Houston. It operates a 24-hour hot line that aids clients with, among other things, responding to kidnappings. “We’re still gathering information on what occurred,” said Charlie LeBlanc, the president of ASI Global’s parent company. He confirmed that Mr. Batista had been kidnapped, but declined to say whether a ransom had been demanded. Mr. LeBlanc said the company and Mr. Batista’s relatives were working with colleagues and law enforcement officials to gain his release. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Felix and his family at this time,” Mr. LeBlanc said in a statement. Coahuila has not been among the most violent places in Mexico, where killings and kidnappings have soared. Many of them are associated with drug traffickers moving narcotics to the United States. But the state, which abuts Texas, has not been immune either. Two of the state’s anti-kidnapping chiefs have been abducted in recent years, according to local news reports. State lawmakers, clearly frustrated with the rising level of impunity, recently sent a bill to Mexico’s Congress asking for a constitutional amendment allowing the death penalty for kidnappers who kill captives. Mr. Batista, a former United States Army officer credited with helping to free hostages abducted by Colombian rebels, has frequently been quoted by journalists on Mexico’s drug violence. He offered regular seminars to wealthy Mexicans who feared they were abduction targets. At a private security conference in Tijuana in February, Mr. Batista said kidnappings in northern Mexico were especially delicate because drug traffickers were frequently involved. “The narco-kidnappers are not looking for chump change,” he was quoted as saying by McClatchy Newspapers in April. “It’s a pretty darn good side business.” In August, he appeared on NBC News, saying, “The middle class and the middle upper class are suffering the vast majority of the cases.” In an article published this month by Security Management, a trade journal, Mr. Batista detailed how he had helped negotiate the ransom of a wealthy Mexican entrepreneur . Before he was called in, the family had given $1 million to a group of people who had falsely claimed to be the kidnappers. Mr. Batista helped persuade the real kidnappers to reduce their ransom demand to $300,000. A daughter of the kidnapped businessman had nothing but praise for Mr. Batista’s efforts. “Felix even cooked for us sometimes,” she was quoted as saying. “It’s important not to lose hope or get depressed, because you need to keep strong to help.” Hundreds of Mexicans are kidnapped every year, although the authorities can only guess at the exact figure because most cases are never reported. There is widespread agreement that the problem has worsened recently as drug cartels, facing pressure from the army and the federal police, seek new revenue streams. In one case that ended tragically last week, the authorities confirmed that remains discovered recently in southern Mexico City were those of Silvia Vargas, a teenager kidnapped in 2007. Her parents, who went public with her disappearance and offered a reward for information leading to her release, held a memorial service on Sunday, asking everyone to wear white. “We know that Silvia is with God,” the family said in a statement.

Kidnapping
Mexico
Hostages
Security and Warning Systems
Drug Abuse and Traffic