Bargains Abound for Car Buyers at Police Auctions, but Watch Out for Blood and Bullet Holes

Abstract: The secret to buying confiscated cars at the police auction, regulars say, is knowing what not to bid on. “Once, I was looking at a nice BMW X5 going for only $5,000, a great price,” said Mike Randall, 37, of Queens. “But then I saw that there were two bullet holes, and blood on the seats. I mean, you know what you’d have to spend just to clean the upholstery?” Mr. Randall says he has learned to notice such warning signs by being a regular at the New York Police Department’s twice-a-month auctions, where buyers bid on vehicles, some of whose original owners have run afoul of the law. “If the car was seized from a drunken driver, it’ll still have the keys in it,” he said. “But if it was taken from a deadbeat dad, or just repossessed from someone who couldn’t make the payments, well, the owner’s not going to come running in handing them over. So you have to have one made before you can drive it home.” On Tuesday, Mr. Randall sat inside a huge hangar-style building at the Erie Basin Auto Pound on the Brooklyn waterfront in Red Hook, where the Police Department was holding its regular auction of impounded and confiscated vehicles. This was Public Auto Auction No. 1138, and bidders held up big blue cards with their numbers on them. The auctioneer gave makes and models of cars and began fielding offers from bidders, who included people seeking a personal car and dealers looking to add to their inventories. Mr. Randall, who buys cars for himself, watched a man win a bidding war for a Mercedes-Benz CLK with an offer of $7,700. Then, a woman bid $500 for a 1999 Kia that drew little interest. Mr. Randall came away with a Dodge Magnum for which he bid $5,500. The car would have a book value of $6,700 on the used-car market, he said. “It’s trial and error,” Mr. Randall said. “You can lift the hood and check the dipsticks and smell the transmission fluid to see if it smells burnt, but you really can’t know what’s wrong with the car.” Nearby, Haim Cohen, 36, from Hillcrest, Queens, bid $4,200 for a 2002 red Jeep Cherokee with 30,000 miles on it, a gift for his wife. He said it would take $500 more to get a key made, install new brakes and get the inoperable car towed to his home. Mr. Cohen, an installer of surveillance cameras, said he came about once a year to buy himself a car. “It’s a bit of a risk, but I’ve had good luck so far,” he said. “Some people don’t know what they’re doing and have to invest another $2,000 or $3,000 in a car once they buy it, because it’s in such worse shape than they thought. “With these cars, you find tickets, court papers, baby stuff — all kinds of things stuffed in the seats,” he said. “Sometimes the car stinks really bad and you have to clean it.” Police officials say roughly 200 vehicles are sold per auction, including cars that have been abandoned, towed for illegal parking and never reclaimed, or in some cases forfeited in criminal cases, like for driving while intoxicated. So far this year, there were 3,095 sold (550 in drivable condition and 2,545 sold for scrap), bringing in $2.7 million. The basic rules of the auction are that shoppers are buying at their own risk. People make all payments in cash, or with a money order or certified bank check. And the cars are not actually at the Brooklyn lot, so the winning bidders must go to the College Point Auto Pound in Queens, where the cars are kept. A cottage industry has sprung up around these auctions. Most of the cars are not in drivable shape, and only tow truck drivers are allowed on the pound lot, so drivers of flatbed tow trucks solicit customers outside the auction in Brooklyn, then meet them at the pound in Queens, to tow the cars to the new owners’ homes. Also, locksmiths show up to make keys on the spot, as cars are towed out of the pound gates. “I can make a key for almost any car in a few minutes,” said one locksmith, filing a key into shape at the pound for Robert Marte, 22, a Bronx man who paid $1,100 for a 1996 Nissan Maxima, a car to be used by his sister. Nearby, a man who said he went by the name Prince Willie Love smiled when he saw the white 2000 Escalade that he had bought for $4,000 being carted out on a flatbed truck. He laughed when asked whether he had given thought to why the Escalade had been seized. “Hey, I’m buying the car, not the crimes,” he said.

Police
Auctions
Automobiles
Brooklyn (NYC)


N.S.A. Chief Says Surveillance Has Stopped Dozens of Plots

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Top national security officials on Tuesday promoted two newly declassified examples of what they portrayed as “potential terrorist events” disrupted by government surveillance. The cases were made public as Congress and the Obama administration stepped up a campaign to explain and defend programs unveiled by recent leaks from a former intelligence contractor. One case involved a group of men in San Diego convicted of sending money to an extremist group in Somalia. The other was presented as a nascent plan to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, although its participants were not charged with any such plot. Both were described by Sean Joyce, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at a rare public oversight hearing by the House Intelligence Committee. At the same hearing, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency, said that American surveillance had helped prevent “potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11,” including at least 10 “homeland-based threats.” But he said that a vast majority of the others must remain secret. “In the 12 years since the attacks on Sept. 11, we have lived in relative safety and security as a nation,” General Alexander said. “That security is a direct result of the intelligence community’s quiet efforts to better connect the dots and learn from the mistakes that permitted those attacks to occur on 9/11.” The hearing was aimed at bolstering public support for surveillance programs after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor who was one of about 1,000 systems administrators who ran the agency’s networks. Its title: “How Disclosed N.S.A. Programs Protect Americans, and Why Disclosure Aids Our Adversaries.” The Republican chairman of the committee, Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, and the top Democrat, Representative C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, both defended the surveillance programs revealed by Mr. Snowden and expressed anger over his leaks. “It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside,” Mr. Rogers said. Image Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday. Credit Christopher Gregory/The New York Times The testimony on Tuesday by General Alexander, Mr. Joyce and three other national security officials focused on two types of surveillance. One was a huge database logging all domestic American phone calls, which Mr. Snowden’s leaks brought to light. The other was the collection of the contents of certain e-mails and phone calls under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which allows surveillance without individualized warrants if the targets are noncitizens abroad, even if the collection takes place on domestic soil. As an example of how the domestic calling log database has been used, Mr. Joyce cited the case of several men convicted by a jury in February of raising and sending about $8,500 to Al Shabab , a terrorist group in Somalia. The N.S.A. had flagged the calling activities of one of the men as suspicious, he said. Representative Mac Thornberry, Republican of Texas, pressed Mr. Joyce to say more, asking, “But there was some connection to suicide bombings that they were talking about, correct?” Mr. Joyce replied, “Not in the example that I’m citing right here.” Speaking of the calling log program, the deputy director of the N.S.A., John C. Inglis, said that “only 20 analysts at N.S.A. and their two managers, for a total of 22 people, are authorized to approve numbers that may be used to query this database.” The N.S.A. has said that it searched for links to fewer than 300 numbers in 2012. Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, pressed General Alexander to explain why the F.B.I. could not simply get the relevant logs of calls linked to a suspicious number without keeping a database of all domestic calls. General Alexander said he was open to discussing doing it that way, but added, “The concern is speed in crisis.” As a newly disclosed example of how the FISA Amendments Act surveillance authority has been used, Mr. Joyce described a case in which he said the authorities had discovered and disrupted a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. Image Sean Joyce, a deputy director of the F.B.I., testified before the House Intelligence Committee. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Monitoring a terrorist in Yemen, the N.S.A. discovered that he was talking to a man named Khalid Ouazzani in Kansas City, Mo. After applying for a separate warrant for Mr. Ouazzani’s communications, they identified two additional conspirators and discovered they were “in the very initial stages” of the stock exchange bomb plot, he said. Mr. Ouazzani pleaded guilty in 2010 to sending money to Al Qaeda but was not charged with any domestic plots. Later on Tuesday, law enforcement officials said Mr. Joyce had been referring to Sabirhan Hasanoff and Wesam El-Hanafi , two Brooklyn men who pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism. A sentencing memorandum filed by prosecutors contends that in 2008, “at the direction of a senior terrorist leader,” Mr. Hasanoff conducted surveillance of the New York Stock Exchange and sent the leader a one-page report on it. “The report was rudimentary and of limited use” for any terrorist operation, the memo acknowledges, while nevertheless contending that Mr. Hasanoff’s willingness to conduct such surveillance bolstered the case for giving him a 20-year sentence. At the hearing, Mr. Thornberry asked Mr. Joyce whether the stock exchange attack was a “serious plot” or just “something that they kind of dreamed about.” Mr. Joyce replied, “I think the jury considered it serious, since they were all convicted.” However, Joshua L. Dratel, a lawyer for Mr. Hasanoff, called Mr. Joyce’s portrayal “astonishing” because none of the defendants was charged with the stock exchange allegation and there was no jury trial in any of the cases. Mr. Joyce also invoked two cases officials have previously linked to surveillance conducted under the FISA Amendments Act — a plot to bomb the New York City subway and the discovery that David Headley, a Chicago man, was working on a plot to bomb a Danish newspaper that published cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. Representative Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, told General Alexander that he was “more troubled” by the domestic calling log program, which he called “historically unprecedented in the extent of the data that is being collected on potentially all American citizens,” than with the gathering of foreign data. He pressed the officials to say how many attacks were stopped by it. Mr. Joyce replied that it was “an almost impossible question,” but that “I can tell you, every tool is essential and vital. And the tools, as I outlined to you, and the uses today have been valuable to stopping some of those plots.”

Terrorism
Government Surveillance
Classified Information
Keith B Alexander
NSA
US Politics
House Committee on Intelligence
Edward Snowden
Sean M Joyce


Romney’s Tax Plan Leaves Key Variables Blank - Washington Memo

Abstract: WASHINGTON — If any single question can be said to dominate the presidential campaign, it is whether the conservative policies advocated by Mitt Romney would help or hurt the middle class. And no issue hits the heart of that question more than taxes. Mr. Romney says no middle-income Americans will have their tax bill go up if he is president. President Obama says the average middle-class family would pay as much as $2,000 a year more under the Romney plan. It is a conflict that grew in prominence during the party conventions and that both sides intend to push from now until Election Day. And it has focused sharper attention on what many experts agree is one of the tax code’s biggest problems: an array of tax breaks totaling more than $1 trillion a year. The breaks cover activities as varied as cutting timber, providing health insurance to employees, selling stock and buying a home, making them popular with powerful constituencies and voters. But many economists say the tax breaks are inefficient and even distort the economy. Mr. Romney has pledged to cut individual income tax rates for everyone, and to do it without increasing the federal budget deficit or putting new tax burdens on middle-income people to make up for the lost revenues from the rate cuts. But he has provided no further specifics, confounding analysts and leaving himself open to attack from Democrats. Asked on the NBC program “Meet the Press” on Sunday which tax deductions he would eliminate, he said only that he would target “some of the loopholes and deductions at the high end” while lowering the “burden on middle-income people.” Democrats — as well as a broad range of economists from the left, right and center — say that the consequence of ending tax breaks substantial enough to offset the lost revenue from income tax rate cuts would be to hurt middle-class Americans. Many independent analysts contend that the only way to raise the revenue Mr. Romney is talking about would be to eliminate breaks like the preferential treatment of investment income or the mortgage-interest deduction. Their position is central to the Democrats’ argument that eliminating tax breaks — called tax expenditures because they often function like government spending programs — would hit the middle class the hardest. The partisan battle underscores a wide consensus among economists and policy experts that no matter who wins the presidency, tax reform will be near the top of the national agenda before the end of the year, when the Bush-era tax cuts , worth $100 billion a year, are set to expire and lawmakers turn again to addressing the government’s budget problems. “Scaling back the tax expenditures in the tax code will be incredibly difficult,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “There is some constituency ready to go to war for every deduction and credit in the code. They’re ready to go on jihad. It will be very, very hard.” Mr. Romney’s tax proposal is built on three central pillars. He has pledged that he will cut all of the marginal tax rates by 20 percent — so the top tax rate would fall to 28 percent from 35 percent, and the bottom tax rate would fall to 8 percent from 10 percent. That by itself would reduce the government’s revenue by hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Second, Mr. Romney has promised that his plan will be “revenue neutral,” meaning it would pay for those rate reductions by clearing out the underbrush of loopholes and credits in the tax code. But each tax break has its own rationale and fierce defenders. Eliminate the home-mortgage interest deduction (annual cost: $99 billion and rising) and risk that housing prices will plummet just as that sector of the economy is starting to recover. End the deduction for charitable giving (annual cost: $53 billion) and attract the wrath of every hospital chief and museum director. Touch the protections for investment income (annual cost: more than $100 billion) and anger everyone from Wall Street executives to retirees. Given that reality, the campaign has said it would protect some tax breaks — most notably the home-mortgage interest deduction and the investment protections. But it has refused to detail which tax expenditures it would cut, leaving economists and other tax experts guessing and making a definitive analysis of its effects on families, businesses and the economy close to impossible. “Everything is on the table,” R. Glenn Hubbard, a top economic adviser to the campaign, said in an interview, declining to elaborate any further. Third, and finally, the Romney campaign has said that it would not raise taxes on the middle class. The problem, tax analysts say, is that it is mathematically impossible do all three of those things. High-income earners would pay far less as tax rates fell. Even if the Romney campaign eliminated every one of their noninvestment tax breaks and credits, rich families would still not pay what they do today. That raises the question of whether the plan would increase taxes on the middle class, add to the deficit or require less-steep rate reductions. “The combination of stuff they’ve specified is not only impossible — it is impossible several times over,” said William G. Gale, the director of economic studies for the center-left Brookings Institution and a co-author of a definitive Tax Policy Center study on Mr. Romney’s plan , whose arithmetic the Obama campaign is citing. “It’s not as if the entire philosophical approach he’s pursuing is doomed,” said Alan D. Viard, a tax expert at the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute. “But he’s going to need to cut rates significantly less than 20 percent if he wants to honor his other goals.” For weeks, the Obama campaign has used the vagueness of Mr. Romney’s tax plan as an opportunity, filling in the gaps in the equation on its own and, not surprisingly, accusing him of being a class warrior on behalf of the wealthy. Presuming that Mr. Romney would protect the investment income of the 1 percent, Mr. Obama’s campaign has argued that Mr. Romney can pay for his tax cuts only by eliminating tax breaks that benefit the middle class. In his acceptance speech Thursday, Mr. Obama warned that those lost deductions and tax credits would add up to $2,000 to middle-class families’ tax bills. Mr. Obama, for his part, has promised to preserve the Bush-era cuts for income below $250,000. But income over $250,000 would be taxed at the Clinton-era rates — with the rate for the top bracket climbing to 39.6 percent from 35 percent now. All told, Mr. Obama’s proposal would raise about $1 trillion in new revenue over the next decade, according to most projections. Mr. Romney has said that it is “just not true” that he would raise taxes on middle-income earners, with his campaign hitting the Obama campaign for playing “class warfare.” But it is simply not clear how the Romney campaign would fill the holes. And his campaign for the presidency has raised much broader questions about how to carry out tax reform in a heated political climate and a tepid economy. “Slowly,” is the answer that most tax experts give.

Income Tax
Romney Mitt
Presidential Election of 2012
Tax Credits Deductions and Exemptions
Obama Barack


M.T.A. Cuts Free Use of Passes by Its Board

Abstract: Bowing to intense pressure and saying it wanted to move beyond what had become a lengthy distraction, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted 12-0 on Wednesday to give up lifelong free E-ZPass tags and other travel passes for former members and limit their use by current members. Afterward, the authority’s leadership said the board had done nothing wrong in taking advantage of the free travel privilege, a practice that had gone on for decades. “There’s no admission of guilt or illegality in the past,” said the authority’s chief executive, Elliot G. Sander, after the meeting. “It feels more important to get past this issue and deal with what’s most important, with what’s at hand, which is the future of the M.T.A. and the future of this region, and it’s in that context that we do this.” The furor over the free passes began last month when Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo told the authority that giving out the free E-ZPass tags violated a state law that board members must serve without compensation. The board decided at a meeting last month to go to court to oppose Mr. Cuomo. But its chairman, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, quickly reversed the decision to go to court and instead proposed a new policy that would strip former board members of all free travel privileges — including E-ZPass tags and subway, bus and rail passes — and allow current members to use the perks only while on authority business. Many board members were unhappy about the proposal, however, and last week a vice chairman, David S. Mack, brought the issue back into the spotlight when he said he might not ride the Long Island Rail Road if he had to pay and predicted that the board would defy its chairman on the issue. That brought a strong rebuke from Gov. David A. Paterson and renewed threats of legal action from Mr. Cuomo, which quelled any resistance to Mr. Hemmerdinger’s proposal among board members, including Mr. Mack. The board discussed the issue on Wednesday during an unusually long closed session, most of which was devoted to other topics, and then reconvened in public to vote to approve the chairman’s proposal. One member, James L. Sedore Jr., abstained, and two members, including another vice chairman, Andrew M. Saul, were absent. One former board member, Warren S. Dolny, attended the meeting to explain why he thought he should be able to keep the perk. Addressing the board at the start of the meeting, Mr. Dolny, 79, said he served on the board from 1989 to 1996 and was praised in the press for his hard work. When he retired, he said, he was made an honorary board member for life, with all the attendant perks. “How can you take away something you gave to somebody?” he asked. Data released by the authority last week showed that from November 2006 to November 2007, Mr. Dolny had used his two free E-ZPasses a total of 918 times, more than any other current or former board member. Mr. Dolny, who lives in the Bronx, said he used the tags mostly for trips across the Henry Hudson Bridge, from Manhattan to the Bronx, which had an E-ZPass toll of $1.75 at the time. After the vote, he said he would sue the authority to keep his free passes. “I think I earned it, and I worked for it,” he said, and he contrasted himself with many of the current board members, who are wealthy corporate executives. “I’m not one of those millionaires you keep talking about, or those uber-rich.” Speaking after the vote, Mr. Hemmerdinger said he felt bad to strip the privilege from past members like Mr. Dolny. “What I say to him is, ‘I’m very sorry, but the realities are today we can’t have the focus off of the major issues of how we’re going to fund the M.T.A. in the future,’ ” he said. Mr. Hemmerdinger was quick to blame the press for highlighting the issue. Asked by a reporter to explain the rationale for the board’s action, Mr. Hemmerdinger said, “The rationale is that you have made an issue of whether people get a free ride or not, and that pulled the focus off the really epic issues facing the M.T.A.” He said the board would also give up free-parking placards for their cars.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Ethics
Executives and Management


Veritas to Buy Telecommunications Equipment Maker

Abstract: CPI International , a telecommunications equipment maker, agreed to be bought by an affiliate of the private equity firm Veritas Capital for about $525 million. Veritas Capital, which focuses on the military and government services sector, agreed to pay $19.50 a share for CPI, a premium of about 35 percent to CPI’s closing price Wednesday. Veritas Capital, which is based in New York, also owns Aeroflex, a provider of microelectronic and testing equipment to aerospace markets, and Vangent, which provides information management and business processing services. Stock in CPI, which makes microwave and radio-frequency products for military, communications, medical and other applications, rose 33 percent, to $19.31 a share.

Telephones and Telecommunications
CPI International Incorporated


Outside Bloggers Affect the Race for Texas Speaker

Abstract: Ross Ramsey, the executive editor of The Texas Tribune, writes a column for The Tribune. Third parties have become so important in the Texas House that the latest volleys in the race for speaker had one candidate attacking another for something posted on a third-party blog. A classic insider’s game — a secular equivalent to cardinals electing a pope — has spilled into the pews. While members engaged in the customary, private pre-session conversations about leadership, bills and where to live and eat in Austin when the Legislature is in session, activists were trying to horn in. Cathie Adams, the former chairwoman of the Republican Party of Texas, has been gathering signatures of conservatives who would like to dump the incumbent Republican speaker. Just before Christmas, the postings of a vaguely identified blogger spurred a flurry of responses from lawmakers. One post was a ramble on the “strange antics and extremist views” of Representative David Simpson, Republican of Longview, who is challenging Speaker Joe Straus. Another listed some representatives whom Mr. Simpson purportedly claimed as supporters. The first blog post inspired Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, Democrat of San Antonio, to write to Mr. Straus about the need to calm his outside supporters, citing “a woefully inaccurate blog post that is being circulated by one of your surrogates.” Mr. Simpson jumped in next, writing in a news release: “We must leave behind the politics of whispered insinuations, intimidation and retribution. I join Representative Fischer in calling on all parties, including my supporters, to rise above the fray.” And one of the lawmakers on the list, Dawnna Dukes, Democrat of Austin, issued a news release saying, “The reports are false and at no time have I stated my support for Representative Simpson.” Here we are, getting a real-time peek into the high-minded politics of leading the House. This wasn’t in the civics textbooks in high school. Who knew transparency would be so disappointing? Actually, the fact that the process is usually private is what prompted the outsiders to intervene, and their intervention has forced House members to defend a process that, left to them, would be more about internal politics and less about ideology. A closed race allows members to choose their own leaders and reap the rewards and suffer the consequences, in the form of committee assignments, pecking orders and all that. Opening it to the public brings the ideologies and loyalties of the various players to center stage. And because only the narrowest sliver of the voting public is paying any attention — only real partisans and very ardent activists give a hoot about this stuff — their particular concerns dominate the conversation. Only two members of the 150-member House have openly expressed support for anyone but the incumbent. Most members haven’t expressed anything; when The Texas Tribune did a nose count right after the elections, calling each member to ask about speaker preferences, 119 members declined to state one. Mr. Straus says he has all the support he needs. He is not worried about those bashful supporters and says it is his job to take the static between now and the vote for speaker on Jan. 8, the first day of the legislative session. Members who declare allegiance to one side or the other risk being pilloried by the outsiders who are trying to influence the race. Those outsiders, for the most part, want someone else in the high chair. In the scrum that is the Texas Republican Party right now, Mr. Straus represents, variously, the establishment, the moderates, the folks willing to talk to and work with Democrats, and — this is key — the people who knocked off a speaker who had put conservative Republicans in important spots in the House leadership. Conservatives occupy some of those spots now, but they’re not the same conservatives as before. Ideology is in the mix, but personalities and power are, too. That’s the tug of war: the current ideological wars, particularly on the Republican side, now compete with the traditional power politics of the Texas Legislature. These third parties are louder than the third parties that have always been quietly present in leadership fights in Texas — the lobby, the trade groups, the geographic factions. The activists didn’t defeat Mr. Straus two years ago. They’ll probably fall short this year, too, but they do have something to work with: legislators are paying attention.

Texas
Republican Party
State Legislatures
United States Politics and Government
Blogs and Blogging (Internet)
Democratic Party
Simpson David


Red Bull Is New Owner, and Name, of MetroStars

Abstract: The person at the other end of the phone line said "Good morning, MetroStars," and then quickly corrected himself, saying, "Ah, I mean good morning, Red Bull New York." And nearly as quickly, the terminally mediocre MetroStars of Major League Soccer received a bracing jolt of Red Bull. Red Bull, a company based in Austria that manufactures and markets an energy drink, is the new owner and operator of an M.L.S. team that has never played in the league championship game and has drawn dwindling crowds at cavernous Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Red Bull, which also owns a club in Salzburg, paid the Anschutz Entertainment Group in excess of $100 million for the club; a share in a new stadium to be built in Harrison, N.J. (now scheduled to open in 2008); and the stadium's naming rights, according to a person with knowledge of the financial details who was granted anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the transaction. The Anschutz group will manage and operate the stadium. "Besides our efforts in Europe, we wanted to be involved and invest in the U.S. soccer scene," Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull's founder, said yesterday in an e-mail message from Austria. "A challenge facing European soccer right now is that teams are bringing in tremendous amounts of revenue and yet they are still losing money. That is due to the lack of cost control. "This league does things differently -- so differently that we may have to adjust our conventional thinking somewhat, but we believe that M.L.S., because it manages spending, is a wise business model." Under the league's single-entity system, M.L.S. owns all player contracts and each team has a $2 million budget for players, with a few notable exceptions, like Freddy Adu. In Austria, Red Bull turned around the Salzburg club (it is currently in second place in the first division) with an infusion of money, most of it spent on new players and marketing. Like its sister club in Austria, Red Bull New York will wear the corporate colors (blue and white), and its new uniforms will include the corporate logo of two bulls banging heads. This is not the first case in North America of a team being named after the corporation that owns it. For example, the 1920 Decatur Staleys, the forerunners of football's Chicago Bears, were named for a corn products firm owned by A. E. Staley. At least two soccer teams in Europe are named for their corporate parents: Bayer Leverkusen in Germany is run by the multinational pharmaceutical company, and PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands is owned by Philips Electronics. "This will have a short-term impact on this team and a long-term impact like no one has ever seen," Alexi Lalas, the New York team's president and general manager, said yesterday in a telephone interview. "This company is committed to soccer, and it will play a huge role in the creation of America's first superclub." In his e-mail message, Mateschitz said that Lalas and Coach Mo Johnston would retain their positions, for now. Red Bull New York begins its 11th M.L.S. season at D.C. United on April 2 and then plays its home opener April 8. The sale of the MetroStars to Red Bull leaves the Anschutz Group with control of four M.L.S. clubs (D. C. United, the Chicago Fire, the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo). Lamar Hunt controls three teams (the Columbus Crew, F.C. Dallas and the Kansas City Wizards). Commissioner Don Garber has long said that one of his goals is to have each of the league's 12 teams separately owned. Another facet of the MetroStars deal is the desire by M.L.S. to put a second team in New York by 2010. A.E.G. owned the rights to a second team within a 75-mile radius of New York City. Those rights reverted to the league as part of the deal. "This is one of the landmark moments in league history," Garber said yesterday in a telephone interview from Las Vegas. "We have long believed that the New York market is central to a popular professional soccer league. We have aspirations to be one of the top leagues in the U.S., but without a strong team in New York, that's difficult to achieve." Lalas said: "Red Bull is cutting edge and loves to push the envelope in everything they do. I hope everyone keeps an open mind because we are going to blow your mind."

RED BULL
METROSTARS
RED BULL NEW YORK
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
SOCCER
NAMES ORGANIZATIONAL


For an Era of Twins, the End May Be Near

Abstract: Walk around the Upper West Side with a double stroller, as I do from time to time, and it’s amazing how long it can take to make it to Fairway. An older gentleman wants to know whether there were twins in the family. A middle-aged woman needs to stop and list every pair of twins she’s come to know in a five-block radius. There are many, many, many young twins in that five-block radius. The listing of them takes a long time. There are twins on 72nd Street and two sets in her building alone and girl twins on the corner and boy twins she always sees at the Starbucks ... Is it something in the water? This person invariably wants the parent of twins to share in her incredulity at the freak nature of so many twins proliferating in so concentrated an area. Never mind that the same abundance quite likely exists in most gentrified areas of the five boroughs, the kinds of places inhabited by two-career families, or women who had a good long run of New York dating before settling down to start a family in their mid-30s. Of course, there’s nothing freakish or remarkable about how so many twins came to crowd the preschools of New York City. Older mothers are more prone to throwing off two eggs at once, but they’re also more likely to have trouble conceiving, and opting for in vitro fertilization. (The number of twins nationwide has increased by 65 percent in the past two decades.) Maybe Jennifer Lopez, who, her father announced on TV last week, is expecting twins, is one of those two-eggs-per-cycle women; maybe, as her father suggested, it’s in the genes (his sister has twins). Or maybe she opted for reproductive technology, as do so many other women in New York and Los Angeles in their 30s and 40s. As one friend (with twins) responds when she’s asked if there are a lot of twins in her family, “No, but there are a lot at our fertility clinic.” Because the pregnancy rate is higher the more embryos are transferred, doctors in the United States often encourage women to transfer at least two, and the older the woman, the harder they push her to transfer three or more. Don’t worry, the doctor will assure an aspiring mother, the chances of getting pregnant with twins, should you transfer two embryos, is only about 20 percent. What isn’t made clear (and what the would-be mother is usually too rattled to ask) are the odds of conceiving twins should the in vitro actually work, and that answer is around 33 percent. To believe that the reproductive technology will work is to accept the high probability that the future will involve endless jokes about double trouble, and yes, there will double trouble, as well as double joy, triple sleeplessness and so much artful juggling that simply leaving the house on time makes the stagecraft of Cirque du Soleil look banal. One could stop here to imagine the way the world will look when so many children in New York come of age as dualities. Will the three sets of twins in Zoe’s kindergarten class leave her feeling that she’s missing an essential other half? Will life as a twin be an easier experience when it’s so much less of an abnormality? If all goes as expected, however, the twins glut we’re experiencing now will not be a permanent facet of life in the city. Instead, there will most likely be a 10- or 15-year window that will be known as the twins years. A 37-year-old-man named Max will mention at some dinner party in 2039 that he’s actually a twin, and the host will say, oh yes, that makes sense, you’re the right age, aren’t you — fraternal, of course? To start, a younger generation of women may begin having children earlier. Surely, women in their 20s today better understand that their fertility really will wane in their mid-30s, a preposterous-sounding reality that women born before 1975 took as media propaganda designed to keep them in their place. Right now, doctors frequently sound cavalier, even jovial, about the possibility of a twins pregnancy. But that, too, may change. In many Scandinavian countries, guidelines push doctors to transfer only one embryo (and in Belgium, the law requires it for reimbursement), since twin pregnancies entail five-fold higher risks for mother and child. For the mother, there are concerns like pre- eclampsia ; for the babies, higher rates of severe or moderate prematurity and the numerous attendant ills. ALREADY, at the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, one of the leading centers in the country, doctors urge patients who could afford more than one cycle to consider transferring only one embryo, so confident are they in a risk-benefit analysis that favors singleton pregnancies. Technology will also hasten the decline of the $300-a-night multiples-specialist nurse, as researchers perfect embryo-vetting techniques, creating a higher degree of certainty with just one shot. In the future, older women who know they want two children but are worried about the timing — and are willing to endure more two-for-one cracks than Hillary — could still have the option to transfer two. But it will be a proactive choice rather than a wild card that comes with in vitro fertilization. Like every age of plenitude, for better or for worse, this era of multiples will probably come to an end.

Twins
Women
Multiple Births
Infertility
Families and Family Life
Reproduction (Biological)
Age Chronological
Upper West Side (NYC)


Malbec, Doing Fine on Its Own

Abstract: Although only a few Long Island vintners make malbec, samples of current releases suggest that it could become the third most successful red wine in the region, after merlot and cabernet franc. Malbec’s appeal lies not only in its drinkability but also in how it teams with grilled steaks and barbecue. In Argentina, malbec is the most widely planted grape and the most popular accompaniment to steak, a national passion. Once a significant blending grape that added color and depth to claret in Bordeaux, where today it has nearly disappeared, malbec arrived in Argentina in the 19th century and boomed toward the end of the 20th. East End malbecs, used for years in blends, tend to be soft, possess earthy aromas and flavors, and offer hints of spice, dark licorice or anise. Tannins are usually supple. The luscious 2010 from Osprey’s Dominion Vineyards ($35), which won a gold medal in August at the New York Wine and Food Classic , the state contest, is virtually the liquid equivalent of a steak. It is opaque, round and a little oaky. The bountifully fruity, graceful, concentrated 2010 from Shinn Estate Vineyards ($35 for a 500-milliliter bottle) is splendid. Its subtleties are kaleidoscopic; as you sip it you wonder what flavors will turn up next. The Lenz Winery’s sultry, flavor-saturated, mouth-filling 2010 ($35) — its first stand-alone malbec — evokes macerated dark berries. (Lenz has used malbec in blends for about five years.) When the wine is decanted and aerated for 24 hours, pleasing nuances emerge. Bedell Cellars’ medium-bodied 2011 ($50) remained vivid and charming for fully three days after being opened and then accidentally left unsealed. The smoky, sultry 2007 from Raphael ($28) is soulful, powerful and easy-drinking. Its six years of aging illustrate how interesting a well-made malbec from an outstanding vintage can be. Raphael limits sales to one bottle per customer.

Long Island
Wine
New York Wine and Food Classic
Shinn Estate Vineyards
Osprey's Dominion Vineyards


Fish Kills in the Great Lakes Region Spur Fears That a Virus May Spread

Abstract: ITHACA, N.Y. — In May, scores of dead fish started washing up along the eastern shoreline of Lake Ontario. James O. LaPlante, 59, first noticed them at a friend’s house. By the following week, so many carcasses had come ashore, they littered the beach near his home in Cape Vincent. “There were lots,” he said. “When I say lots, I mean hundreds and thousands.” The fish had fallen victim to an unknown disease. At first, residents and fishermen were not alarmed, since the victims were round gobies, a nuisance fish that consumes the eggs of more prize-worthy catches. But in the weeks since, Mr. LaPlante and others in the region have noticed varied species of fish dying off — not in big numbers as with the round gobies, but far more than usual. “Now we’re seeing bass washed up, and carp,” he said. “I don’t know, but you wonder if the round gobies were the canary in the coal mine.” Now scientists fear so. Round gobies were apparently the first and most vulnerable victims of a virus new to the Lake Ontario basin and the St. Lawrence River that has the potential to kill large numbers of fish, according to scientists who have investigated the deaths. Though it is not dangerous to humans, even if they eat infected fish, scientists and government officials say it could hurt the multimillion dollar sports-fishing business and complicate trade. Experts also fear that it could spread and ultimately threaten fish populations throughout the Great Lakes. The disease is viral hemorrhagic septicemia, which destroys tissue of the vital organs, causing lethal internal bleeding. Scientists first reported it in Europe, where it has existed for years and it killed 90 percent of the trout in some areas. In 1988, a strain of the virus was discovered in the Pacific Northwest. “To say it caused a major concern is a gross understatement,” said Paul Bowser, a professor of aquatic animal medicine at Cornell University here. “It was panic.” Because developing a vaccination for the fish population is unfeasible, biologists there were able to slow the spread of the disease by killing four million eggs and young fish in the salmon hatcheries where it was detected. Some experts were contemplating killing all marine life in any river system where the disease was found. But there was no need. The virus proved to be a less-contagious strain than its European counterpart. Though it still exists, it has not wreaked havoc. Last year, scientists found a strain of the virus in new bodies of water, including Lake St. Clair, Mich. Then in May, the round goby started dying in Lake Ontario. “I was very, very surprised,” said James Winton, director of the Western Fisheries Research Center for the United States Geological Survey in Seattle. “How it got to the Great Lakes, we don’t know.” Scientists believe the virus mutated into a strain more contagious than the one in the Pacific Northwest. Large fish kills, like the one near Mr. LaPlante’s home, have been reported in the St. Lawrence River, Lake Erie and in the Bay of Quinte, in Canada. At Cornell’s Aquatics lab, Dr. Bowser and Dr. Geoffrey H. Groocock, are trying to determine whether the disease is solely responsible for the kills, and how far it has spread among the fish population. Scientists in New York, Canada and Michigan have confirmed the disease in 12 species, including small-mouth bass, walleye, bullhead, and muskellunge. “The list is growing every couple of days,” Dr. Groocock said. “Hundreds to thousands of fish are dying every week.” In July , the United States Department of Agriculture issued a notice that outlined the potential risks and impacts of the disease. Nationally, it could result in stricter regulations on fish hatcheries, commercial fish businesses and conservation programs, the department said. The World Organization for Animal Health has recommended safeguards to prevent the spread of the disease internationally from exports of live fish. Douglas Stang, chief of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Bureau of Fisheries, said the state was trying to learn how virulent the disease is. He said the agency is considering recommending that fishermen disinfect their boats before moving them to a new body of water to try to limit the spread of the virus. “There are very large potential ramifications,” he said. Fish biologists expect that the Great Lakes will see large numbers of fish kills for several years — the worst occurring in the spring, when weather changes stress the fish. Then, they hope, fish will gradually develop immunity, making it a less-fatal disease, like influenza in humans. “The first exposure is often the most devastating,” Dr. Winton said. “What happens from there, we’re not certain.” Fishing guides in the infected areas are taking a wait-and-see approach. “My customers are concerned; they’re asking questions about it,” said Robert W. Dick, owner of Moby Dick Charters in Henderson Harbor. “But it’s a little too early. We don’t know how it’s going to play out.”

Fishing Commercial
Viruses
Environment
New York State


With Proposed Rail Expansion, Northwest Confronts Its Clean Image

Abstract: SPOKANE, Wash. — The Pacific Northwest’s sense of itself can sometimes seem green to the point of parody: a medium-roast blend of piney peaks and urban cool, populated by residents who look descended from lumberjacks or fishermen. Now, plans by the energy industry to move increasing amounts of coal and oil through the region by rail, bound for Asia, are pulling at all the threads of that self-portrait. Last September, the first trains of crude oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota began chugging through. Since then, energy companies have drafted proposals for new storage, handling and shipment capability almost equivalent to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which is facing a deeply uncertain path of federal regulatory approval. Mile-long trains from the coal mines of Wyoming already run daily, and the load could more than double if three big proposed export terminals gain approval and financing. The expected outrage has ensued. The proposals “do violence to many Northwesterners’ concept of their place and what it stands for,” Alan Durning, the founder and executive director of the Sightline Institute , an environmental research group in Seattle, said in an e-mail. Image Environmental activists like Bart Mihailovich say that trains already spill coal into waterways around Spokane, Wash. Credit Rajah Bose for The New York Times Environmental groups led by the Sierra Club have filed a federal lawsuit accusing the BNSF Railway, which dominates the freight system, of violating the federal Clean Water Act by letting coal spill into waterways from its tracks. The State of Washington, in assessing the permit application of a proposed coal terminal near Bellingham, said in July that it would take a macro-environmental approach, looking at impacts of the project along the entire length of the coal transit route, including the burning of the coal in China. But with the promise of jobs, the effort is moving ahead. The biggest oil shipment project yet proposed, which would be able to process about 360,000 barrels a day, was given an initial lease approval by the Port of Vancouver, Wash. The reality of the Northwest’s environmental image has always been more nuanced than the stereotype suggests. Huge dams on the Columbia River make Washington and Oregon Nos. 1 and 2 in the nation in renewable hydroelectricity. But the cheap electricity from those dams fostered an aerospace industry that is hardly carbon neutral. A multistate planning compact made the region a national leader in energy efficiency. But Washington’s big oil refineries can pump out more old-fashioned gasoline than all but a handful of other states. In the rail debate, the new, more complicated reality could be heard in the voice of Steve Salvatori, a Spokane City Council member who described himself as a fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican. He sees energy development as hugely important and positive for the nation, he said. “I’m very excited over the possibility of us being energy independent, and I love the domestic job capability that that brings,” he said. Because of a constriction point on the rail grid known as the Spokane Funnel, every one of those energy trains on the horizon — 60 a day by some estimates, empty and full — would come right through the middle of Spokane, Washington’s second-largest city, with a population of 209,000. “Spokane is the canary in the mine,” said Ken Casavant, a professor of economics and the director of the Freight Policy Transportation Institute at Washington State University. “They’re in the middle.” Spokane grew up with the rattling of the rails as its theme song. As a transfer hub for freight and passenger service — four competing intercontinental lines once met on the edge of town — the city hitched its star to the idea of an America on the move. The graceful, filigreed architecture of downtown speaks to a moment around World War I when that economic chemistry reached its zenith. Image Steve Salvatori, a Spokane City Council member, sees the potential for new jobs in the region. Credit Rajah Bose for The New York Times But where the coastal areas around Seattle — a hotbed of energy-rail opposition — are largely liberal, Spokane is more conservative, and while the Puget Sound region has boomed in the post-recession years, Spokane has struggled. The unemployment rate here was 8.1 percent in June, according to federal figures, compared with 5.9 percent in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area. Bart Mihailovich, whose Spokane Riverkeeper group has been collecting spill samples along the waterways near the city and is a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, said even if critics of the rail expansion are successful in some areas of western Washington, plans could shift to other localities and the results would be the same for Spokane: trains going through, bound for the coast. “Spokane doesn’t win,” he said. One of the major issues has been safety. Mr. Salvatori stressed that he is not yet convinced that there will be risks to Spokane. Questions about spilled coal dust raised by the federal lawsuit should be something that the railroad should be able to disprove, or not. “Dust should be verifiable,” he said. A spokeswoman for BNSF, Courtney Wallace, said that a widely reported figure used by critics — that each car on a train can lose a ton of coal in transit — was a rough approximation made years ago by the railroad, and that the dust losses were mostly close to the mines. Mitigation with a surfactant, begun in 2011, and the loading of coal into rounded loaf shapes have reduced that amount further still, she said. Spokane’s City Council president, Ben Stuckart, said in an interview that concerns about oil trains have risen since a deadly derailment and fire in Quebec last month, but that the evidence of coal spillage was already there. “Yesterday down at the gorge, volunteers found that, right by our river at Hangman Creek,” said Mr. Stuckart, pointing to a sandwich-size bag of dark chunks on a conference table. The BNSF spokeswoman, Ms. Wallace, said that freight growth is economic growth. Even if none of the proposed terminals is built, she said, freight traffic through the region, which she said is down 26 percent from its peak in 2006, will increase as the nation’s economy rises. “This is a good thing,” Ms. Wallace said in an e-mail, “especially for a state like Washington, where one in four jobs is tied to trade.”

Spokane
Coal
BNSF Railway
Railroads
Pacific Northwestern States
Cargo
Oil and Gasoline
Water pollution


In St. Louis, Cardinals and Ludwick Find Shared Success

Abstract: ST. LOUIS — The first time a Ludwick played in this town, hardly anyone noticed until he was gone. Eric Ludwick, a right-handed pitcher, went 0-2 with a 9.18 earned run average in 11 appearances for the Cardinals over two seasons before being dealt in 1997 to Oakland for some slugger named Mark McGwire. “I don’t even know if half the fans here knew who he was,” said Ryan Ludwick, a Cardinals outfielder and Eric’s younger brother, before St. Louis defeated the Mets, 7-1, on Monday. After enduring nine professional seasons defined by severe injuries and frequent shuttles between minor league outposts, Ludwick, who turns 30 on July 13, has been emblematic of a team that has surprised more than a handful of baseball folks by going 48-36. The Cardinals trailed the National League Central leaders, the Chicago Cubs, by two and a half games entering Monday. Ludwick, a right-handed hitter, has already established career highs in home runs (16) and runs batted in (56), and despite a 5-for-37 slide, he remains among the league’s more productive hitters. His .927 on-base-plus-slugging percentage ranked 14th in baseball, ahead of Texas’ Josh Hamilton, Boston’s Manny Ramírez and Cincinnati’s Adam Dunn, and a spot on the N.L. All-Star team is a possibility. “It’s been a very rewarding season, but the most fun is that we’re winning,” said Ludwick, who was given the night off Monday. “We’ve got a lot of guys on this team that no one could have predicted would be having the year that they’re having.” Maybe so, but Ludwick ranks first. Consider his career path. Ludwick went undrafted out of a Las Vegas high school and attended the University of Nevada-Las Vegas because that was the only college that recruited him as a hitter. Everyone else saw a left-handed pitcher, but not him. “I just knew that I didn’t want to do what my brother did,” he said. Selected by Oakland in the second round of the 1999 draft, Ludwick was traded in 2002 to Texas, where he hit his first career homer off the Angels’ Scott Schoeneweis, who is now with the Mets. But Ludwick fractured his hip in a freak accident, while running, and he had a metal rod inserted so his hip would not crack all the way through. “You’re in the league at 23, have all these expectations, and then spend parts of the next four years on the D.L. not with minor stuff but with major stuff — knee surgeries, hip surgeries, wrist surgeries — and it’s tough,” Ludwick said. “They told me I might never play again. About seven days after they told me that, there was a lot of wondering what the heck I would do after baseball.” Those next four years included two knee operations — with Cleveland in 2003, his kneecap detached as he slid back to first base — and having a metal plate placed in his forearm. He said he did not feel healthy until 2006, well after the Rangers and the Indians had discarded him. So he signed a minor league deal with Detroit. He hit 28 home runs for its Class AAA affiliate but was never promoted. He had an admirer, though, in John Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ general manager, who scouted him at U.N.L.V. Ludwick signed a minor league deal with St. Louis before last season, spending the first five weeks in the minors before being recalled. He has 2,780 minor league at-bats, but has not had one since. He batted .309 in April, .333 with 9 homers and 26 R.B.I. in May. He sent fans into a tizzy with a game-winning 10th-inning homer against Tampa Bay on May 17. He might have slowed a little in June, but the damage has already been done: A Ludwick is no longer anonymous in St. Louis. RAIN DELAYS ALOU’S REHAB Moises Alou was scheduled to play Monday for the Mets’ rookie league team in Port St. Lucie, Fla., but the game was rained out. Manager Jerry Manuel said he spoke at length with Alou on Sunday, and he said Alou told him that his left calf, which he has strained twice in the past six weeks, felt better. If Alou feels fine after playing in a few minor league games, Manuel says there is a “real good chance” he will be available to play against the Phillies this weekend. “The thing he’s concerned about is that it felt that way before,” Manuel said. In his first game off the disabled list, June 10, Alou played six innings before aggravating the injury. ARMAS TO START TUESDAY Tony Armas Jr., who is 5-6 for Class AAA New Orleans with a Pacific Coast League-leading 2.54 earned run average, will start Tuesday night’s game for the Mets. Andy Phillips was designated for assignment to clear roster space. ... Claudio Vargas cleared waivers and is scheduled to report to New Orleans on Tuesday. ... Johan Santana and Cole Hamels, the premier left-handers in the National League, are scheduled to reprise their April 18 duel Friday night in Philadelphia. TATIS’S DEFENSE IS NOTICED The combination of Carlos Delgado’s diminished range and Luis Castillo’s balky leg has led to Fernando Tatis’s becoming a late-inning defensive replacement at first base. Tatis, who has played 58 major league innings at the position, came in for Delgado in the eighth inning Sunday, and Jerry Manuel said he would continue to make the change as long as Delgado was not due to bat. Manuel said he spoke to Delgado before he made the switch Sunday and expounded on his reasoning before Monday’s game. Tatis made two spectacular diving plays during the first game of Friday’s doubleheader on grounders that Delgado almost certainly would not have reached. “If I could get some of that, that could save us a ballgame at the end,” Manuel said.


Abortion Bill Is Passed in Ireland

Abstract: After a grueling debate, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Friday to back Ireland’s first bill on abortion, legalizing the practice in exceptional cases where doctors deem the woman’s life to be at risk from her pregnancy. The vote was 127 to 31, and while the outcome was expected, given Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s parliamentary majority, the debate revealed fears that Ireland’s first legislative step on abortion could put the predominantly Roman Catholic country on a slippery slope to granting wider abortion rights. Divisions ran deepest on the bill’s rule permitting an abortion for a suicidal woman if a three-doctor panel agrees she would try to kill herself if denied the procedure. The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that life-saving abortions should be legal in Ireland, but until now there was no legislation to support that decision.


Barcelona Keeps Title

Abstract: Barcelona retained the Spanish league title, crushing Valladolid, 4-0, in the final game of the season to win the championship for a 20th time. Lionel Messi scored twice in the second half for Barcelona. ¶ Inter Milan beat Siena, 1-0, on Diego Milito’s 22nd goal of the season to seal its fifth consecutive Serie A title and earn a shot at becoming the first Italian club to win three titles in one year. Inter won the Italian Cup and will face Bayern Munich in the Champions League final Saturday. inter ¶The chairman of England’s World Cup bid and soccer federation, David Triesman, quit both jobs after accusing Spain and Russia, rivals in the bid for the 2018 Cup, of bribery. England’s bid team faxed letters of apology to the Spanish and Russian soccer federations and soccer’s governing body, saying it did not support Triesman’s allegations. cup

Valladolid
Inter Milan
Soccer
Barcelona (Spain)
Messi Lionel
Triesman David


Driver Kills Man in Bronx

Abstract: A driver in the Bronx yesterday swerved her Ford Focus to avoid a hitting a bicyclist, but struck and killed a pedestrian, the police said. They said that about 4:55 p.m., the driver, a 62-year-old woman, was southbound on Boston Road, at 169th Street, in Claremont Village, when she swerved her car out of the path of a bicyclist and hit the pedestrian, a 40-year-old man, whose name was not released last night. He was pronounced dead at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center. The police said that the driver, whose name was not released, was not charged and that no criminality was suspected.


After Greek Election, Investors’ Relief Confronts Next Euro Crises

Abstract: Investors expressed relief over the projected victory of pro-bailout parties in the Greek elections on Sunday, but they quickly turned their attention to the structural problems in southern Europe that continue to threaten the global economy. The electoral success of the mainstream New Democracy party in Greece averted, at least for the time being, the doomsday prospect that had investors on edge in recent weeks: a sudden and messy exit of Greece from the euro currency had the leftist Syriza party won. With a coalition led by New Democracy in power, Greece is likely to continue receiving the international aid it has needed to pay the interest on its debt and keep its economy afloat. “We came close to the abyss and we have taken a step away from it,” said Marc Chandler, a global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. Investors wasted little time signaling their approval on Sunday night, pushing up value of the euro, which had fallen in recent weeks amid fear that the currency would be certain to collapse after a Greek exit. In early trading on Monday in Asia, stock markets were up solidly across the board. There are questions over how long the relief will last, however, given the failure of past efforts to resolve the Greek crisis and the country’s deepening recession . “Unless they make a radical change, we will be back with another Greek cliffhanger in three or four months’ time,” said Darren Williams, a European economist at AllianceBernstein in London. What is more, economists remain concerned about the debt and banking crises in several larger European nations, including Spain and Italy. These issues will take center stage at a series of coming international political gatherings, including a meeting of the Group of 20 nations that is set to begin on Monday in Mexico. Later in the week, the leaders of the four largest European economies will meet to begin discussing ways to stimulate growth on the Continent while still shrinking budget deficits and debts. Investors question whether European leaders can achieve the type of increased fiscal and political integration viewed as necessary to keep the Continent’s common currency alive. Specifically, some European leaders have called for some kind of guarantee on bank deposits throughout the euro zone, which would help stop the flight of capital from banks, and for the European Central Bank to have the ability to issue euro zone bonds to help spread risk away from troubled borrowers like Spain and Italy. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, last week promised a blueprint for increased integration “in a matter of days.” “If there are not more decisions toward more integration in Europe, the euro will certainly not survive in its current shape with its current members,” said Antonio Garcia Pascual, the chief southern European economist at Barclays. The situation is still better than many investors had expected immediately after the Greek elections in early May, which highlighted a surge in the popularity of the left-wing Syriza party. The Syriza party had vowed to repudiate the country’s bailout agreement with the so-called troika of the European Union , the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Without financing from the troika, Greek banks would have been unable to continue operating, forcing the country to drop the euro and return to the drachma, at great cost. This in turn would have raised doubts about whether other southern European countries could keep the currency alive. Stocks fell for weeks after the May election, as investors sought to put their money in assets that could withstand a European crisis, most of all American Treasury securities . But investors recently turned more optimistic about the Greek situation after signs that New Democracy would garner enough votes to form a coalition and, if it did not, that the world’s central banks would step in to provide greater liquidity in the financial system. New Democracy’s victory appeared to alleviate the need for any coordinated action by central banks. Both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve were silent after the results were announced. Even with New Democracy in power, there are questions about whether the government will have the political will to adopt the budget cuts the troika has mandated. But leaders from elsewhere in Europe signaled on Sunday that they would be willing to negotiate with the new government to make the necessary budget cuts less onerous. For many investors, though, Greece has long been a threatening sideshow to the banking and budgetary problems confronting the Continent’s fourth largest economy, Spain, and, to a lesser degree, its third-largest economy, Italy. (France is No. 2, and Germany No. 1.) The Spanish economy has been increasingly hobbled by big losses in the country’s real estate sector. The European Union tried to address the problem two weeks ago by giving the Spanish government up to 100 billion euros, or $125 billion, to prop up its banks. But the optimism that initially greeted that plan faded fast. Since then Spaniards have withdrawn their money from the country’s banks. Investors have shown their distaste by selling Spanish government bonds, sending the yields on those bonds to record levels. In case Europe’s turmoil was not enough to discourage investors, markets have also been hit by a string of economic reports showing that growth has been slowing in both the United States and China. The recent uptick in the United States jobless rate has created hope among some investors that the board of the Federal Reserve will offer a stimulus plan when it meets this Tuesday and Wednesday. “Generally the markets are looking for central banks to do something,” Mr. Chandler of Brown Brothers Harriman said.

Elections
Europe
Greece
European Union
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Economic Conditions and Trends
Banking and Financial Institutions


2 Executed in China for Selling Tainted Milk

Abstract: BEIJING — China executed two milk producers on Tuesday for selling more than three million pounds of contaminated milk products in connection with a food-safety scandal that killed six infants, shocking the country last year. More than 300,000 children were also sickened after consuming milk products contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine . The scandal caused panic among Chinese parents, weakened the nation’s dairy industry and provoked a global recall of Chinese-made dairy products. The authorities described the two men who were executed, Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping , as among the biggest culprits of the scandal. Mr. Zhang was found guilty of selling more than 1.3 million pounds of tainted milk powder from July 2007 to August 2008, and Mr. Geng was convicted of selling more than 1.9 million pounds of contaminated product. Nineteen others were tried and sentenced in January for their roles in the scheme. Fifteen of them were imprisoned for terms of 2 to 15 years. One received a suspended death sentence, and three received life sentences. The authorities found that the melamine was added to create the illusion of a higher protein content in the powder. Some critics said that some officials had covered up the problem until after the Olympics in August 2008 to spare the government embarrassment over its widespread regulatory failure. Nearly two dozen Chinese companies sold the contaminated powder. Sanlu Group, a major dairy company in Hebei Province in northeast China at the center of the scandal, was taken over by a state-controlled company. Dairy industry officials said last summer that the farmers and producers had largely recovered from the scandal, but some parents were still seeking redress, arguing that many of those punished so far were only scapegoats.

China
Dairy Products
Poisoning and Poisons


A Review of Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill, in New Haven

Abstract: THE bar scene at Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill in New Haven is exuberant. The restaurant sells more than 300 varieties of tequila and 27 of mezcal, and excellent margaritas are downed by the glass or the pitcher in a dizzying array of flavors and shades. A lively buzz spills from the spacious patio bar, and an arriving stranger — already cheery — greeted me with a hug as I departed one weekday evening. Can such a place also offer good food? Not every dish is a winner, but many are sensational. According to the executive chef, Timothy Scott, Geronimo’s is the cuisine of Santa Fe, N.M., with Apache, Navajo, Mexican and Anglo-American influences. It’s characterized by Southwest ingredients like bison, elk and buffalo, and the heavy use of chilies. Traditional enchiladas, rellenos, tamales and moles are served alongside bison burgers, macaroni and cheese, and tuna tartare tacos. Geronimo’s design carries through the nuevo New Mexican theme: buffalo skulls and strings of dried chilies hang on walls edged by cornices and columns, and a chandelier is fashioned from wrought iron and elk horn. An adobe fireplace is tucked into the corner of one dining area, the adjacent wall decorated with long-handled knives for cutting agave. The friendly staff is well versed in the inventive menu and happy to help. But as the evening heats up, they’re on the run, and service is not always smooth. During one awkward transition, we demurred when dirty utensils from our finished plates were put back on the table. Nonetheless, our server was skilled in his tableside preparation of guacamole, mashing avocado with red onion, tomato, jalapeño, cilantro and lime in the traditional mortar and pestle called a molcajete, for an unbeatable starter. Smoked buffalo brisket tamales were another exceptional appetizer, also offered in an entree portion. Made with beef stock, the corn masa was dense, tasty and dotted with fresh corn kernels; the shredded buffalo filling was spicy and deliciously smoky. An appetizer of three chilies — buffalo, elk and vegetable — was less well received. The vegetable chili was smoky and sweet but thin; both the elk and the buffalo lacked salt, and while the elk meat was tender, the flavor of beer was overwhelming. We were also disappointed by a corazón salad of romaine hearts dressed with a bland poblano dressing. The menu offers soft tacos with a choice of fillings. We particularly liked finely chopped tuna tartare tacos, bound with a modicum of aioli. House-smoked veal tacos were terrific, too, the ultratender meat served in a small cast-iron skillet with fresh pico de gallo. Geronimo’s Navajo frybread, a cross between pizza and traditional Native American fried dough, was a successful combination of old and new. We chose chorizo, fresh fig, ricotta and caramelized onion to top the appealingly rich, soft, deep-fried round of dough. And we fell in love with thick-cut yuca fries whose interiors managed to be both fluffy and creamy. Entrees were almost universally successful, starting with a melt-in-the-mouth pork pibil, marinated in orange juice and tequila. An extraordinarily moist chicken mole breast was coated with vibrant tomatillo-pepita mole. Don’t miss the shrimp tamales, made with lobster stock. They feature whole shrimp and a spicy, creamed, applewood-smoked tomato sauce seasoned with chipotle chilies and cumin. A barbecued pork-stuffed chili relleno was marred only by the smoked tomato sauce — this time, the sauce was harsh tasting, verging on acidic. A lobster special was dry from overcooking. Plates are garnished with savory cilantro rice, and black beans cooked with Sierra Nevada beer; though first bites were tasty, once again the bitterness of the beer was too much for the flavor of the bean. Among desserts, a wedge of chocolate-polenta crusted ganache tart was delightful, as was a moist tres leches cake. A plate of fresh berries with agave syrup made a great summer finish to the meal, and a fruit tart was tasty despite a thick, soft crust. Skip the gummy-textured tequila key lime pie. Geronimo is unquestionably a festive place, but it manages to be serious about both its tequila and its cooking. If you opt for cocktails, don’t be daunted by the strange-sounding combinations: the cucumber margarita and the blood-orange margarita, the latter fueled by jalapeño-infused tequila, are perfect partners to the spicy cuisine. Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill 271 Crown Street New Haven (203) 777-7700 geronimobarandgrill.com WORTH IT THE SPACE An 85-seat restaurant with a lively front room shared by bar and dining areas with high-top and standard tables. Booths in back room allow for somewhat quieter meals. Décor is dramatic with Southwestern artifacts and colorful paintings. Wheelchair access. THE CROWD Young crowd sipping margaritas and tequila. Lots of students: on dates, with friends and in large parties. Very noisy. THE BAR Choose the interior bar or the large, 50-seat, heated, street-side patio bar (open until the temperature falls below 45 degrees). Both serve full bar, a huge selection of tequilas and mezcals. Selection of cocktails and margaritas, and small list of wine and beer. THE BILL Guacamole, $15; salads, soups and nachos, $7 to $12; quesadillas, $10 to $17; burritos, $11 to $14; rellenos, $9 to $20; tamales, $6 to $20; mac and cheese, $8 to $26; main plates, $16 to $26. All credit cards accepted except Discover. WHAT WE LIKED Guacamole, tuna tartare tacos, chorizo and fig frybread; pork relleno, shrimp tamales, smoked buffalo brisket tamales, pork pibil, chicken breast mole; chocolate tart, tres leches cake, fruit tart, fresh berries with agave. IF YOU GO Lunch: Monday through Saturday, noon to 4 p.m. Dinner: Monday through Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. Bar: Sunday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.; Monday to Thursday, 5:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.; Friday and Saturday, noon to 2 a.m. Reservations strongly recommended. Parking on street and in nearby lots. RATINGS Don’t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don’t Bother.

Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill (New Haven Conn)


Occidental Petroleum Chief to Stay Until End of 2014

Abstract: HOUSTON — Bowing to investor pressure, Occidental Petroleum on Monday announced that its chief executive, Stephen I. Chazen, would continue to serve in his position, but only through the end of 2014 to help find a successor. The oil and gas company has suffered through a prolonged boardroom fight between Mr. Chazen and Ray R. Irani, the company’s longtime chairman, who some had speculated wished to return as chief executive. The Los Angeles-based company’s share price has lagged other major oil companies in recent years, because of disappointing results in California, cost overruns and slumping natural gas prices. Shares rose about 1 percent on the announcement at midday. They closed the day up $1.20, or 1.38 percent, at $87.86. The annual shareholder’s meeting, scheduled for Friday, had been expected to be sharply divisive as the board tried to persuade investors to support its February decision to replace Mr. Chazen, who had indicated he did not want to leave. Some influential shareholders wanted Mr. Chazen to remain, while lobbying to remove Mr. Irani, who is 78. Among other decisions the board made were barring Mr. Irani from returning to his old post of chief executive, cutting the pay for board members and adding two new directors. It also set a mandatory retirement age of 68 for the chief executive; Mr. Chazen is 66. Image Stephen Chazen Credit CNBC Not all Wall Street analysts were impressed by the board’s announcements. “It’s a truce but not peace,” said Fadel Gheit, a senior oil company analyst at Oppenheimer & Company. “At the end of the day it was a stalemate. There is still a lack of strategic clarity where this company is heading. They need a new skipper, a new crew and a new strategy.” Mr. Irani, who was chief executive for two decades, and Mr. Chazen, who took the post only two years ago, had long been at loggerheads over the company’s direction. Mr. Irani favored pushing the company’s operations in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iraq, while Mr. Chazen preferred focusing on domestic operations in California, North Dakota and Texas. In a statement released by the company, Mr. Chazen said: “Today’s announcement is consistent with my personal plans. The board and I have discussed the importance of identifying new leadership for the next decade. I support the board and its efforts to move forward on succession and corporate governance issues.” The company statement said that Mr. Irani would be replaced by an independent director, but it did not say when the succession would occur. He had been scheduled to retire in 2014. The statement also quoted Margaret Foran, a company director, as saying the policy changes came “after carefully evaluating all of the suggestions and feedback we received from shareholders.” Important investors like the California State Teachers’ Retirement System had come out in favor of Mr. Chazen. Some have suggested that Occidental Petroleum, the fourth-largest United States oil and gas company after Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, should spin off some of its operations or move some units into master limited partnerships to improve shareholder returns.

Occidental Petroleum
Stephen I Chazen
Appointments and Executive Changes
Oil and Gasoline
Ray R Irani


Capriati Among Those Added to Tennis Hall of Fame

Abstract: NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Jennifer Capriati ’s tennis career — and her teenage life — took a number of twists and turns. She started as a prodigy, was later sidetracked with off-court troubles, then rebounded to become a three-time Grand Slam champion. Now her journey is complete with her induction to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Capriati was inducted into the Hall during a 90-minute ceremony Saturday. Joining Capriati were the recently retired player Gustavo Kuerten, the former star Manuel Orantes, the tennis industry executive Mike Davies and the wheelchair champion Randy Snow, who was honored posthumously. Capriati was presented by the 2009 Hall of Fame inductee Monica Seles. “I still managed to overcome some adversity, win a gold medal, win some Grand Slams and stand at the podium at the Hall of Fame,” said Capriati, 36. “This is one milestone I thought I’d never achieve.” As a 14-year old, Capriati burst onto the scene and reached the semifinals at the 1990 French Open . Three years later, drug and other problems sidetracked her life and career. She temporarily dropped off the tour after the 1993 United States Open . She was arrested that year for shoplifting at a Florida mall and again the next year for marijuana possession. She also spent time in drug rehabilitation in 1994. She returned to the sport in 1996. Five years later, she reached those lofty expectations that were thrust upon her, beating the past champions Seles, Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis en route to the 2001 Australian Open title and her first top-10 ranking in seven years. She was selected as The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year later that year. The comeback did not stop there — she followed that by capturing the French Open and becoming the only player to reach at least the semifinals in all four Grand Slams that year. The highlight match of her career was the 2002 Australian Open final, in which she trailed Hingis, 4-6, 0-4, before rallying to a three-set victory. Capriati also won a gold medal for the United States in 1992 at the Barcelona Games. Her career ended in 2004 with a 430-176 record on tour.

Tennis
International Tennis Hall of Fame
Capriati Jennifer


Yale Killing Suspect Pleads Guilty

Abstract: NEW HAVEN (AP) — A former animal research technician pleaded guilty on Thursday to killing a Yale University graduate student days before her wedding in 2009, and prosecutors revealed that he had left behind evidence of a sexual assault and desperately tried to cover his tracks. The former technician, Raymond Clark III , pleaded guilty to murder and attempted sexual assault of the graduate student, Annie Le , 24, under an agreement with prosecutors that calls for a 44-year prison sentence. His plea on the attempted sexual assault charge was under Connecticut’s Alford Doctrine, in which the defendant in a criminal case agrees only that the state has enough evidence against him but does not admit committing the offense. The sex charge and related DNA evidence offered the first official revelation of a potential motive in the case. “We believed all along that was the motivation,” said Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for the victim’s parents. Mr. Clark, 26, was accused of strangling Ms. Le, who was from Placerville, Calif. Her body was found upside down stuffed behind a research lab wall on Sept. 13, 2009, five days after she had last been seen in the Yale medical building. It would have been her wedding day in New York. David Strollo, the prosecutor in the case, said there was evidence that Mr. Clark had tried after the killing to generate an alibi, scrub the crime scene and even fish evidence out from behind the wall. Mr. Clark appeared happy in surveillance video taken before the killing, but later he was alone with his hand on his face at a time the authorities believe was after the killing, Mr. Strollo said.

Yale University
Clark Raymond III
Murders and Attempted Murders
Le Annie M
Sentences (Criminal)
Sex Crimes
New Haven (Conn)


Absurd Ending Fuels Disgust With Replacement Refs

Abstract: SEATTLE — The play that best defines this N.F.L. season occurred at the end of another game in which replacement officials looked less like actual referees and more like the Keystone Kops. It was bizarre enough to almost defy description. In summary: the player who caught the winning score clearly pushed off to do so. He did not appear to really catch anything. One referee signaled a touchdown for the hometown Seahawks . Another seemingly signaled an interception for Green Bay . Amid the bedlam that ensued, the teams retreated to their locker rooms. The game was over. Until it wasn’t. Both teams came back onto the field. The Seahawks kicked an extra point, extending their winning margin to 14-12 . Celebration No. 2 commenced with some Seahawks half-dressed, all of the Packers incensed, and most football fans wondering why they ever complained about officiating before this season. It was, in a word, absurd. But in this N.F.L. season it was not atypical. It was Monday. “This is comical to me,” Jon Gruden said on the ESPN broadcast. He added: “That’s two of the worst calls at the end of a football game that I can remember.” The Seahawks trailed with eight seconds remaining, fourth-and-10, ball on the 24-yard-line. Their quarterback, Russell Wilson, lofted a pass to the end zone where five Green Bay defenders outnumber two potential targets. Their receiver, Golden Tate, shoved one defender, Sam Shields, out of the way. Another defender, M. D. Jennings, leapt from behind Tate. The ball appeared to land in Jennings’s hands. Tate’s hands were there, too, as Jennings fell to the ground and pulled the ball to his chest. Tate eventually wrestled the ball away. The replacements stood there, with this dog pile in front of them, looked at each other, looked at Tate and almost sheepishly raised their hands. The side judge, Lance Easley , now the most popular Easley here since Kenny roamed the Seahawks’ secondary, thrust both arms skyward: touchdown. The back judge, Derrick Rhone-Dunn waved his arms: a touchback, or game over — it remained unclear. The referee, Wayne Elliott, later said that if both players possess the ball, the tie goes to the offense. Which is true. If both players possess the ball. Tate insisted later that he did indeed possess it. The Packers, predictably but also justifiably, claimed later that he did not. Yet even Coach Pete Carroll later said of the labor impasse between the N.F.L. and its regular officials, “It’s time for it to be over.” Carroll’s team, it should be noted, won the game. And while he did not publicly disagree with the call, he agreed with seemingly every other coach, player and pundit across the league in that the replacement officials should be replaced as soon as possible, whatever it takes, however it happens, with the real ones. On the field afterward, Warren Moon , the Hall of Fame quarterback turned broadcaster, could only shake his head. He, too, had witnessed a game in which the teams combined for 26 points and the officials whistled 24 penalties, for 245 yards, or more than the 238 yards managed by the Seahawks. “This could be the game that gets a deal done,” he said. “Something like this, on the league’s biggest stage, on Monday night, it’s just not good for the game. You could argue the officials had a hand in the outcome, that they cost Green Bay the game or would have cost the Seahawks.” Seattle, it should also be noted, endured its share of botched and questionable calls Monday night. The Seahawks racked up as many penalties as points. But it was the late calls, on the final play especially, that will be remembered. They marred an otherwise magical finish for the home team, football’s equivalent of a game-winning home run, and struck at the very integrity of the sport. Twitter bubbled over as Monday night bled into Tuesday morning. Several Packers posted expletive-laced rants. Offensive guard T. J. Lang suggested the league fine him and use the money to pay the regular referees and later wrote that “any player/coach in Seattle that really thinks they won that game has zero integrity as a man and should be embarrassed.” Receiver Greg Jennings implored Tate to take a lie-detector test. The Packers were not alone. Reggie Bush, the Miami running back, posted on Twitter that the “ refs single-handedly blew this one. ” Drew Brees , the New Orleans quarterback, wrote that “ this is NOT the league we’re supposed to represent. ” Even Jimmy Connors , the tennis player, posted that while he loved the N.F.L. he would never bet on the sport again . “The N.F.L. is a business, and it makes business decisions, but they never should have let this get into the season,” Moon said. “Those guys are in a difficult situation. The N.F.L. thought it could get away with replacement referees. And it’s backfiring on them.” If the winning touchdown was a close call — and few outside Seattle argued that — there were other egregious errors Monday night. As when the Packers’ attempted a 2-point conversion in the fourth quarter and officials handed them a kicking ball. Or when the officials failed to have the Seahawks kick the mandatory extra point after time expired. Receiver Sidney Rice said he left the locker room without shoes, in only his pants and an undershirt, to return for the game’s final play. Long snapper Clint Gresham said it was the least pressure he ever felt on a snap, along with the “longest victory celebration I’ve ever been a part of.” Rice also benefited from a questionable fourth-quarter pass interference call, the kind that has come to define this chaotic, uneven N.F.L. season. “Yeah, it was pass interference,” Rice said. “The ref called it!” So it went. The focus afterward lingered not on the Hail Mary pass, not on the Seahawks’ defense and its eight first-half sacks, not on a young roster filled with talent. The focus lingered, instead, again, on the officiating, on the last people the league wants underneath the spotlight. That should be the most compelling case to resolve the labor dispute immediately. An on-field product that can no longer be trusted.

Referee
Seahawks
Packers
Football
NFL Super Bowl Super Bowl 2015


Vanderbilt Advances in College World Series

Abstract: Taylor Hill and Corey Williams combined on a four-hitter, Connor Harrell hit a three-run homer, and Vanderbilt eliminated North Carolina from the College World Series, 5-1. Vanderbilt (54-11) plays Florida on Friday.

College World Series
Baseball
University of North Carolina
Vanderbilt University


Pennsylvania Town Tries to Keep Jim Thorpe’s Remains

Abstract: The town of Jim Thorpe, Pa., will fight a lawsuit seeking the remains of Jim Thorpe, the athlete, filed by one of his surviving sons. By a 6-0 margin, with one member absent, the borough council voted on Thursday night to try to keep the body of Thorpe, a famous Native American athlete who has been interred at a roadside mausoleum in the eastern Pennsylvania town for more than 50 years. There is little support to change the name of the town regardless of the outcome. Jack Thorpe, a 73-year-old son and former chief of the Sac and Fox tribe, filed a federal lawsuit in June seeking his father’s body so it could be buried with a family plot in Oklahoma’s rural Pottawatomie County, near Shawnee, about a mile from where Thorpe was born. The suit alleges that the town of Jim Thorpe is in violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. Shortly after Thorpe’s death in 1953, his third wife and widow, Patricia, struck a deal with the struggling towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, Pa. — places her husband probably never saw. Build an honorable memorial and care for his remains, and Thorpe’s name could be used for a merged town. The town, by all accounts, has upheld its end of the deal, and not everyone in the extended Thorpe family wants Jim Thorpe moved.


Mets’ Jerry Manuel Is Facing an Uncertain Future

Abstract: Mets Manager Jerry Manuel has a daily routine at Shea Stadium, a way to take temperatures and take inventory of his players. His goal is to speak to all of his starters at least once. The conversations may last 10 seconds or 10 minutes, but he considers these chats vital. So Manuel may stop by José Reyes’s locker, tell him to keep playing with the same edge and thank him. Then Manuel may find David Wright during batting practice, remind him to relax and thank him, too. Then Manuel may find Carlos Beltrán in the trainer’s room, check on how he feels and thank him as well. “I make sure I look them in the eyes and make sure I know how they’re feeling and what they need,” Manuel said. “I think leadership is love for the people you work for and service, quality of service. When guys are giving you something every day, I have to make sure I say something.” When Manuel says things, he does it in a soothing, intelligent way. He could speak in a library or a church as comfortably as he does in the dugout or the clubhouse. In a season that has been filled with injuries and bullpen implosions, Manuel has been a picture of serenity and sanity. He has changed the once-wayward Mets over the last three months, changed them for the better. The Mets have repeatedly succumbed in unusual and frustrating ways, a theme that continued Wednesday night during a 9-6 loss to the Cubs in 10 innings. After botching a four-run lead, the Mets rebounded to tie the game, then failed to score after a leadoff triple in the ninth. The Mets are now tied with the Brewers for the National League wild card and trail the Phillies by a game and a half in the East. Manuel admitted just how disheartening a game it had been. “At this juncture, this is probably our toughest defeat,” he said. As the Mets try to stagger into the playoffs and avoid another September collapse, they have decided to give General Manager Omar Minaya a four-year contract extension. What about Manuel? Since Manuel replaced Willie Randolph on June 17, the Mets are 53-36. Minaya said Manuel’s job status would be discussed after the season, a season that Manuel may be remembered for helping to save. If the Mets overtake the Phillies or outlast the Brewers, a playoff appearance would seemingly be enough to earn Manuel a new contract. After the way the Mets disintegrated last year, reaching the playoffs would allow them to finally exhale. Advancing in the playoffs would strengthen Manuel’s bargaining position. Manuel met Tuesday with Fred Wilpon, the Mets’ principal owner, but Manuel said he never asked about 2009. It was not a calculated decision by Manuel, but it was a savvy one. Manuel proved he was concerned about this week, not next season, and worried about the Mets, not himself. “Managing in this city, with this type of passion, you can’t ask for a better stage to show your skills and to do your thing,” Manuel said. “Whether I’ve shown them enough or not, that’s yet to be determined.” Does Manuel think he has shown enough to return? “Any other place, probably so,” he said. “Here, it’s a little different because the winning is so paramount.” Managing in New York is different, but managing people is not, and Manuel is adept at doing that. He analyzes his players, he questions them, and he tries to put them in the best position to thrive. Randolph was self-motivated as a player and often acted as if he wanted the Mets to be that way, too. Manuel behaves like someone who knows he needs the players more than they need him. There are little things that Manuel does, things that end up being big things. After Johan Santana thought the plate umpire Phil Cuzzi had missed a called third strike on Tuesday, Santana waved his arm in disgust and yelled at Cuzzi. Manuel joined in by screaming at Cuzzi, too. The animated display showed that Manuel supported Santana, something the players noticed. Reyes, who hit .205 last September, is playing better under Manuel this September. He said Manuel’s daily discussions were motivating. “Anytime a manager comes and talks to you like that,” Reyes said, “you want to play harder for the guy.” Manuel is also incredibly honest, a truth-teller in black-framed glasses. Before and after games, Manuel ambles into an interview room and tells it exactly like it is. On Wednesday, he benched Luis Castillo, who has been mercilessly booed at Shea, and admitted that the caustic environment contributed to his decision. But Manuel also joked about the environment that can swallow players and managers. “It’s got me looking 72,” Manuel said. “Shoot, I was 45 when I took this thing.” Actually, Manuel looks a spry 54, which he is. Twenty months ago, Manuel planned to coach William Jessup University, a small college near his Sacramento home, if he was not managing in the majors by 2009. Manuel said it might be time for him to influence the lives of young men. But Manuel explained how his ascension with the Mets had changed those plans. Manuel is already influencing the lives of men, some young and some old. He wants to keep doing that through the end of October and beyond in New York. He wants to keep managing the Mets. “It’s a great challenge, but because of the passion for winning that’s here, I have come to the mind-set that I won’t be happy until we win,” Manuel said. “Regardless of what we’ve done so far and blah, blah, blah, I won’t be satisfied until we win.”


Renault to Build Assembly Plant in Algeria

Abstract: PARIS — Renault will sign a deal with Algeria on Wednesday to build an assembly plant near the city of Oran, giving the French automaker wider access to one of the world’s hottest car markets and a chance to further diversify beyond Europe. The company will sign the pact, three years in the making, on the first day of a state visit by the French president, François Hollande , a Renault spokeswoman, Rochelle Chimenes, said Tuesday. That will pave the way for the construction of a factory to build Renault and Dacia cars to serve a market that grew 50 percent in the year through October. Mr. Hollande is embarking on a two-day visit to smooth France ’s tricky relations with Algeria, a petroleum-rich country with about 37 million people. Algeria, administered as a French department in North Africa during the colonial era, won its independence in 1962 after a bloody war. France is nonetheless Algeria’s largest trading partner. Mr. Hollande, accompanied by a legion of French government and business leaders, is scheduled to meet with his Algerian counterpart, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and to address a joint session of the country’s Parliament. Algeria, which is the second-largest car market in Africa, after South Africa, is eager to reduce its dependence on the petroleum sector, which accounts for about one-third of its economy. But restrictions on foreign investment that were enacted after the financial crisis and a failure to modernize the banking system continue to hold back the country’s economic development, according to the U.S. State Department. Oliver Masetti, an economist at Deutsche Bank, estimates that, depending on oil prices, the Algerian economy will grow up to 2.6 percent this year and as much as 3.4 percent in 2013 — a modest increase by developing world standards. Renault controls about 27 percent of the Algerian market, and its sales have soared about 57 percent there this year. Its Clio supermini car is the country’s best-selling model. In Morocco, Renault opened a factory this year in Tangier to make cars for export to European and Mediterranean markets. Renault is better diversified globally than its ailing French rival, PSA Peugeot Citroën, thanks in part to its alliance with Nissan Motor. But it is looking for growth outside the European Union, which is gripped by recession and faces the possibility that austerity measures will mean years of stagnation. La Tribune, a French financial daily, reported Tuesday that Mr. Hollande would raise with his hosts the possibility that the Algerian government dip into its $200 billion of foreign reserves to take a stake in Peugeot, which is undergoing a painful restructuring to stay afloat. Any such request would probably fall on deaf ears, the newspaper cited an unidentified Algerian official as saying. Cécile Damide, a spokeswoman for Peugeot, declined to comment. Sales of new cars in the 27-nation European Union fell 7.6 percent in the first 11 months of 2012 from a year earlier, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Sales declined in every major market except Britain, bringing absolute sales to a level last seen in 1993. The Algerian government will hold 51 percent of the new factory, with Renault owning the rest, the French daily newspaper Le Figaro reported Tuesday, without identifying its source. The company declined to comment on the details, but such an arrangement would be consistent with the standard foreign investment contract in Algeria. Le Figaro also said the plant would begin operation in 2014 with annual production of about 25,000 vehicles, which could grow to 75,000.

Algeria
France
Foreign Investments
Automobiles
Renault SA
Hollande Francois