In Egypt, Alexandrian Protesters Rout Police, for Now

Abstract: ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — For one day, in this historic Mediterranean city, the protesters won outright. Alexandria was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the country on Friday as riot police officers fired tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets and protesters hurled paving stones in more than two hours of pitched battle. In the end, the police capitulated in the face of too many protests around the city with too many determined demonstrators for them to contain. The police retreated, leaving the city in the hands of protesters for several hours, as police cars, the regional party headquarters and the provincial government office burned. “There is no government in Alexandria now,” said Muhammad Ahmed Ibrahim, 32. “They are all in hiding.” After darkness fell, soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers were welcomed with cheers in downtown Alexandria, perhaps a sign of Alexandrians’ relief that some semblance of order would be retained after the destruction of a day spent venting pent-up anger. “The people set fire to the police station in Sharq,” said Abdullah Hassan al-Banna, 30, one of the demonstrators, referring to part of eastern Alexandria. “The people set tires on fire and threw them into the governorate” — the government building. “We pulled down all the posters of Hosni Mubarak ,” Egypt’s president. Late Friday, downtown Alexandria was choked with smoke that blotted out the sunset. Flames licked the sides of a downtown tram station. One man stood on a police troop carrier holding up a giant Egyptian flag as police officers inside the vehicle smiled and waved their fingers through the grates. “The people wanted to show their resistance to the regime, but I don’t think they had any idea they would overpower it,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, who observed the street fighting in Alexandria on Friday. “For the first time in the history of the Mubarak regime, the capacity of the police was completely exhausted,” Mr. Bouckaert said. “The police state broke down today.” Such scenes seemed all but impossible when Friday Prayer ended, with police attacking demonstrators as they streamed out of mosques and into the streets intent on marching in protest. “They attacked us as we came out of the mosque, trying to put our shoes on,” said Salah Muhammad, 25, who had his arm around his 12-year-old brother. He said they had been inside the Sidi Beshr Mosque, at a site where one of many pitched street battles broke out. At first the police seemed to have the situation under control, pushing hundreds of protesters back with barrage after barrage of tear gas. But thousands more demonstrators approached, and the riot police officers found themselves outnumbered. Several women dropped bottles and even chairs from the windows of apartment buildings onto the police. Officers were pelted with stones from rooftops and even from the walled graveyard behind the mosque. Tear-gas canisters came flying back, and several police officers vomited as the fumes overwhelmed them. Demonstrators with raised arms walked up to a green truck where a helmeted officer was firing tear gas canisters not into the air but straight into protesters’ bodies. During the fighting outside the mosque, the crowd chanted “salmiya, salmiya,” which means “peaceful.” A man in a striped shirt came forward and knelt in front of the truck. The police massed behind their shields, clutching their batons, but did not strike. “Enough,” police called over their loudspeakers. “Stop young men. Let it be finished.” In a sign of flagging resolve, the police began to retreat and then stopped fighting entirely. It was unclear whether this was an ordered police retreat or a spontaneous, and disorganized, reaction to the situation. After the two-hour street battle ended, protesters and police officers shook hands on the same street corner where minutes before they were exchanging volleys of stones, and tear-gas canisters were arcing through the sky. Riot police officers and kaffiyeh-wearing youths smiled and shared water bottles as piles of tires still burned. Then thousands lined the coastal road, the gentle green waves of the Mediterranean Sea at their backs, as they got on their knees and prayed. Such were the incongruities on a day that began quietly as always on Friday, the Muslim holy day, but soon gave way to the unrest and tensions gripping much of the country. “We wanted this to be a peaceful demonstration,” said Ahmed Muhammad Saleh, 26, as he recounted how the police attacked the crowd as it emerged from the mosque. “But we are all Egyptians,” he said of making up with the police. Mr. Saleh pulled up a pant leg, showing the red welt where a rubber bullet had struck him above his ankle, saying he had been tear-gassed three times. A boy in a yellow shirt pulled a spent canister from his pocket, a huge smile on his face as he held it up as a prize. After the clash, tens of thousands of protesters from around the city marched along the Corniche, the main boulevard along the Mediterranean, chanting for an end to the government of President Mubarak. “I am the father of a 1-year-old daughter, and since I was growing up I’ve seen Mubarak,” said Muhammad Abdelmunmin, 30. “I don’t want my daughter to live under the same dictatorship.” Elsewhere in the city, witnesses said protesters overwhelmed the police, seizing their shields, helmets and batons and burning their trucks. Honking cars weaved through the crowd, as the people inside them waved the captured police equipment as trophies. Witnesses said angry demonstrators carried the body of a slain protester, and numerous injured civilians and police officers were being treated at the scene, but casualty figures were unclear with phones and the Internet down. As darkness fell over Alexandria, the streets began to clear with word of a military curfew. A few hundred protesting men marched, chanting, “Enough, enough,” and, “Leave, Hosni.” Still, the celebratory mood had turned ominous, and many were relieved to see the military arrive. “Someone has to control the situation,” said Amr Muhammad, 42. But Mr. Ibrahim spoke for many when he expressed concerns about the intentions of the military. “We don’t know if the army is with us or against us, so it’s a bad thing,” he said.

Alexandria (Egypt)
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
Mubarak Hosni


Once Again, Weary Rangers Come Up Empty

Abstract: Their coach challenged Rick Nash, Martin St. Louis and other Rangers stars to “put on their big boy pants” against Pittsburgh on Monday. But the weary Rangers responded in miserable fashion, fumbling and bumbling their way to a 2-0 loss, and falling behind the Penguins in their second-round playoff series by two games to one. Coming just 24 hours after a 3-0 defeat in Pittsburgh, it marked the first time since the 1937 Stanley Cup finals against Detroit that the Rangers failed to score in consecutive playoff games. “We are going to score, that’s going to happen,” Brad Richards promised. “And when we do, we’ll get momentum, and we have to ride it.” But the Rangers had no momentum Monday, their fifth game in seven grueling nights. Their power play went 0 for 5 despite a revamped lineup, extending its hard-to-believe goal-less streak to 34 consecutive advantages. Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, long derided as a shaky playoff performer, was brilliant, becoming the first Pittsburgh netminder to post shutouts in consecutive games. Even the Rangers’ puck luck failed them. They hit the goal posts and crossbar at least three times, and their 35-15 shooting advantage went for naught. Sidney Crosby opened the scoring with a breakaway goal 2 minutes 34 seconds into the second period. That ignited the Penguins and ended Crosby’s goal-less streak at 13 games, a personal record. The performance of Crosby and his fellow superstar Evgeni Malkin in the Penguins’ Game 2 victory prompted Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault to issue his challenge two hours before the puck dropped for Game 3. “Their big boys put on their big boy pants last night,” Vigneault told reporters, responding to a question about Nash, St. Louis and the rest of the Rangers’ faltering offense. “I need mine to do the same.” They did not. Nash extended his goal-less streak in the playoffs to 14 games, leaving him with one goal in 22 postseason games as a Ranger. He seemed tentative, snakebit and reluctant to go the net. St. Louis was plagued by the goal post and a stick that broke at an untimely moment, during a rush into the Penguins zone. Mats Zuccarello made an errant pass that wound up on the stick of Jussi Jokinen, who had just come out of the penalty box and barged in for the Penguins’ second breakaway goal of the game against Henrik Lundqvist, at 15:20. “He’s challenging us,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh said of his coach, “and we need more from everybody.” But after the game Vigneault was remarkably positive. “We played a real strong game — we had a lot of strong, quality chances,” he said, and, for the first time, unleashed a moment’s outrage at the difficult schedule the Rangers have been forced to play. “We tried real hard here, and we were forced to play a stupid schedule,” he said. “I’m proud of our guys.” With the Rangers becoming the first N.H.L. team in 25 years to play five playoff games in seven days, Vigneault took wholesale measures to get fresh legs onto the ice. He inserted the speedsters Jesper Fast and J. T. Miller into the lineup in place of the rugged Derek Dorsett and Daniel Carcillo. On defense, he replaced John Moore with Raphael Diaz, whose primary skill is his shot on the power play. And to help Nash, he put him on a line with Richards and Carl Hagelin. Diaz certainly proved active; he took six shots, more than any other Ranger. But like his teammates, he failed to score. The last goal Fleury allowed was Derick Brassard’s game winner in overtime of the Rangers’ 3-2 victory in Game 1. The Rangers’ mark with a manpower advantage fell to 3 for 42 in the playoffs, a 7.1 percent success rate that is the worst among the eight teams still playing in the postseason. “Obviously we’re disappointed with the result, but we did a lot of good things today,” St. Louis said. “The only thing we didn’t do is score goals.” Lundqvist, who made 13 saves, remained steadfast. “It’s first to four wins, we just need to take a deep breath here and regroup tomorrow and just get ready for the next one,” Lundqvist said. “This is definitely not over.”

Rangers
Rick Nash
Playoffs
Ice hockey
Pittsburgh Penguins


Flood Lost the Battle, but Won the Free-Agent War

Abstract: Earlier this week the Mets unveiled the Jackie Robinson Rotunda at Citi Field. It was a continuing act of respect by the Mets and Major League Baseball to pay homage and repay a debt that can never truly be repaid. Now baseball needs to make peace with Curt Flood. One of the vexing questions of the new baseball season is why Flood isn’t in the Hall of Fame. Is it simply ignorance of history by the voters? Or does contempt have no statute of limitations? Some omissions are an embarrassment for the sport and for those who are considered its caretakers. The omission of Fritz Pollard from the Pro Football Hall of Fame was an embarrassment until it was corrected a few years ago. The omission of Flood is another embarrassment. Flood, who died in 1997 at age 59 from throat cancer, was one of the best center fielders of his era. After the 1969 season, he refused to accept a trade from St. Louis to Philadelphia. Guided by Marvin Miller, the first head of the Players Association and ultimately backed by the union, the case was heard by the Supreme Court. Flood lost the case, but his stance emboldened other players to fight a successful battle for free agency. Flood’s letter to the commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, in 1969 was the opening assault on baseball’s chokehold on the players. He wrote: “After twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several States. “It is my desire to play baseball in 1970, and I am capable of playing. I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decision. I, therefore, request that you make known to all Major League clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.”  Flood has not done well in the balloting by the baseball writers. He retired in 1971. In 1977, his first year on the ballot, Flood received 4 percent of the votes. In 1978, 2 percent; in 1979, 3 percent. Flood had a 15-year career as a major league baseball player, but only three years on the Hall of Fame ballot. After 1979, Flood’s name was not on the ballot, and his candidacy fell to the Veterans Committee. Thirty years ago, Flood was a casualty of a conservative sports news media that often sided, or at least identified, with management. Today? Ignorance or contempt? Thirty-seven years after Flood retired and more than 20 years after his death, Donald Fehr thinks an influential baseball official may still hold a grudge. “He took the personal risk to demonstrate what was wrong with the system,” said Fehr, the executive director of the players association. “That amounts to in the end basically saying, ‘A bunch of people who were running baseball back then didn’t treat me right, and didn’t treat a lot of people right, didn’t treat any of the players right.’ I think maybe that still grates. I hope it doesn’t.” Brad Horn, the director of communications of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, predicts that time will work in Flood’s favor. “Time, in one of those evolutionary ways, may show that 5, 10, 20 years from now Curt Flood is a stronger candidate for the Hall of Fame because of the perspective on his career, not only for the on-field accomplishment and achievements,” he said. Flood was a .293 hitter in his career, led the National League in putouts four times and won the Gold Glove award in his last seven full seasons. He batted over .300 six times. The Hall of Fame Museum has documented Flood’s impact on baseball. Over time the feats that Flood accomplished on the field — Gold Gloves, stolen bases, great plays in center field — were dwarfed by his decision to take on Major League Baseball. “The things he’s done off the field may have become more important that what he did as a player,” Horn said. “The intangibles tend to take longer to be realized.” No other player had the guts to jump out and challenge baseball. Flood is the patron saint of major league players. If well-compensated players have an iota of fiber, they should demand that members of the Veterans Committee induct Flood into the Hall of Fame. “His impact is still being developed, still being felt,” Horn said. “People look at Flood much differently in 2008 than they probably did in 1980.” We’ll see.  In his book, “The Way It Is,” Flood described a scene from his court hearing against baseball when Jackie Robinson, his body ravaged by diabetes, his eyesight failing, entered the courtroom. Flood leaned back to thank him, to which Robinson, replied, “Well, you can’t be out there by yourself and I would be remiss if I didn’t share these burdens with you.” Jackie Robinson embraced Flood. When will Hall of Fame voters?

Major League Baseball
Baseball
Baseball Hall of Fame
Flood Curt


Deal to Reduce Isolation of Mentally Ill Inmates in Massachusetts

Abstract: BOSTON — A federal judge on Thursday approved a settlement meant to guarantee alternatives to segregation for mentally ill inmates in Massachusetts prisons. The settlement results from a lawsuit filed in 2007 by an advocacy group. It sought to stop Massachusetts from placing mentally ill inmates with disciplinary problems in small isolation cells for up to 23 hours a day, saying that doing so violated their constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act. The group, the Disability Law Center, sued the Massachusetts Department of Correction after 11 prisoners, including some with serious mental illness, committed suicide in segregation cells within a 28-month period. The suit described the experiences of numerous inmates in state prisons whom it said had engaged in self-destructive behavior while in solitary confinement without adequate mental health services. They included some who, according to the suit, were segregated for years at a time against the recommendations of clinicians. Suicides at state prisons continued after the suit was filed, including eight in 2010. Among other things, the settlement calls for the state to use two recently created units at prisons in Shirley and Walpole as alternatives to disciplinary segregation for prisoners with mental illness. When seriously mentally ill inmates must be placed in segregation, they will receive extra psychological help, and their cases will be reviewed regularly to determine whether other options are appropriate. In an order approving the agreement, Mark L. Wolf, chief judge of Federal District Court in Massachusetts, noted that the Correction Department had already made many of the required changes and “succeeded in decreasing self-injurious behavior.” The deal, he wrote, “provides a reasonable process for minimizing the confinement of inmates with serious mental illness.”

Massachusetts
Prisons and Prisoners
Mental Health and Disorders


Rattled Lundqvist Chased in Rangers’ Loss

Abstract: PITTSBURGH — Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist each scored in the final 2 minutes 13 seconds of the second period, leading the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 4-1 victory over the Rangers on Thursday night. Malkin added two assists and Phil Kessel scored into an empty net for the Penguins, who frustrated Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist midway through the second period and chased him with a three-goal flurry at the end of it. Hornqvist has five goals in his last three games for Pittsburgh. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 27 shots for the Penguins and is one away from becoming the 20th goalie in N.H.L. history to reach 350 wins. Chris Kreider scored his 14th goal for the Rangers, whose three-game winning streak ended. Defenseman Marc Staal missed the game with the flu. Lundqvist made 19 saves through two periods before Antti Raanta took over for him and stopped three shots in the third. Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault said Lundqvist was experiencing neck spasms after the second period and the trainers thought it would be best to hold him out during the third. “I don’t think it’s anything serious, but they wanted to go on the safe side, so we took him out,” Vigneault said. Lundqvist was whistled for delay of game during an odd second-period sequence in which he threw his own net off its moorings to get a stoppage in play. He was visibly upset after colliding with teammate Ryan McDonagh following a Penguins 2-on-1 rush and tossed his net into the end boards as Pittsburgh re-entered the zone seconds later, drawing the ire of the home fans. “I think he was trying to tell the referee he was hurt and I don’t know if the signals didn’t cross or whatever, but obviously the referee didn’t pick up on it and he wasn’t feeling right,” Vigneault said. Pittsburgh was given a power play, but squandered the advantage after Kessel was called for slashing. Kreider scored the game’s first goal with 3:10 left in the second period, but Crosby, Malkin and Hornqvist answered for Pittsburgh with three goals in 2:36. Pittsburgh had won only two of the previous 13 meetings (1-11-1) against the Rangers. Lundqvist started each of the last 13 games against Pittsburgh and allowed three goals on 119 shots during the previous four meetings. That included a 34-save effort last month for his fourth career shutout against the Penguins. “Each game kind of tells its own story, so I don’t read into it too much,” Crosby said. “Whether we got one in the past or three tonight, I think we’re confident that we can score goals if we do the right things no matter who we’re playing.” Rangers forward Rick Nash skated for the first time in a month on Thursday. He has not played since Jan. 22, missing his 17th game with a bone bruise in his left leg.

Rangers
Pittsburgh Penguins
Henrik Lundqvist
Ice hockey


After Quake, Rural Haiti Struggles to Absorb the Capital’s Displaced

Abstract: FOND-DES-BLANCS, Haiti — Before the earthquake that changed everything, Chlotilde Pelteau and her husband lived a supremely urban existence. A cosmetics vendor and a mechanic, they both enjoyed a steady clientele and a hectic daily routine, serenaded by the beeping cars and general hubbub of Port-au-Prince. Now, as roosters crow and goats bleat, Ms. Pelteau, 29, toils by day on a craggy hillside in the isolated hamlet of Nan Roc (In the Rocks), which she had abandoned at 14 for a life of greater opportunity. At night, she, her husband and their two children sleep cheek-to-jowl with a dozen relatives in the small mud house where she grew up. “With everything destroyed, what could I do but come back?” said Ms. Pelteau, wearing a floral skirt as she poked corn seeds deep into arid soil unlikely to yield enough food to sustain her rail-thin parents, much less those who fled the shattered capital city to rejoin them. Life has come full circle for many Haitians who originally migrated to escape the grinding poverty of the countryside. Since the early 1980s, rural Haitians have moved at a steady clip to Port-au-Prince in search of schools, jobs and government services. After the earthquake, more than 600,000 returned to the countryside, according to the government, putting a serious strain on desperately poor communities that have received little emergency assistance. “There has been a mass exodus to places like Fond-des-Blancs,” said Briel Leveillé , a former mayor and founder of the leading peasant cooperative in this region, which includes Nan Roc. “But the misery of the countryside is compounding the effects of the disaster. I’ve heard people say it would be better to risk another earthquake in Port-au-Prince than to stay in this rural poverty without any help from the government.” Indeed, some have already returned to the capital seeking the international aid that is concentrated there. But if the reverse flow continues, it could undermine a primary goal of the Haitian government and the international community: to use the earthquake as a catalyst to decentralize Haiti and resuscitate its agricultural economy, said Nancy Dorsinville, a special adviser to former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti. “If we really mean what we say about decentralization, then we have to think fast about a more robust distribution of food to the countryside, cash-to-work programs there, and assistance to agriculture,” Ms. Dorsinville said. Decentralization has long been championed by many advocates for Haiti because the countryside endured decades of neglect while the Port-au-Prince area gained dysfunctional congestion. Now, with the capital city battered, it has become a policy buzzword, even as food is growing ever scarcer in the countryside. “It is only a matter of time before we start seeing severe malnutrition in Fond-des-Blancs,” said Conor Shapiro, director of the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation , which runs a 60-bed hospital and community development organization here. So far, there has been nothing less than a welcome mat provided for the returnees, who are family. Jacqueline Jerome, Ms. Pelteau’s wizened mother, who does not know her age, said, shrugging: “They don’t have anything now, so it’s up to me to take care of them. Like if God gives you a good harvest, you share with those who were not so blessed.” Fond-des-Blancs is a remote, mountainous area 75 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, accessible only by a rocky road impassable by vehicle after heavy rains. Community leaders say the population, counted at 45,000 by a government census in 2001, has swelled by at least a third since the quake. The growth is hard to measure, but the community leaders point to a few indicators. Some 300 needy families surveyed reported taking in an average of five earthquake victims each. St. Francois Xavier, a secondary school, has seen its student body increase by half with 150 displaced teenagers. And an additional 500 to 600 earthquake refugees are seeking to resume their studies although Fond-des-Blancs has only two government schools (and neither goes beyond the ninth grade). The post-quake transformation of Fond-des-Blancs is palpable. At St. Boniface Hospital, earthquake survivors with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries fill the wards, while their relatives live in the courtyard. The hospital, which did not even have an X-ray machine until one was donated after the quake, volunteered to take the patients from the American naval hospital ship the Comfort, which pulled up anchor last Tuesday. In the center of town, the influx from Port-au-Prince has created a night life where none existed before. The sole lamppost draws an evening crowd, and earthquake refugees jokingly call the dusty gathering place the Champ de Mars after the bustling plaza in the Haitian capital. Near that lamppost, Ronange Buissereth has set up a small fresh-air restaurant, trying to mimic the busy one she lost in Port-au-Prince to the earthquake. But, she said, sighing, her relatively small hometown cannot produce a very steady clientele for her fried bananas, potatoes and pork, so her labor is really just a way to pass the time. Several dozen members of Ms. Buissereth’s extended family have returned to a scrubby plot of land that her generation abandoned decades ago. Some, like her sister Rosemen Buissereth, 37, are happy to be back, if anxious about making ends meet. “It’s like you become a Communist here because you never touch money,” she said. “But it’s not so bad. Even though I left 25 years ago, Fond-des-Blancs is still the place that I call home.” Her cousin Monique Alexandre, 45, is already laying down new roots. Last weekend, with rainbow-colored rollers in her hair and pigs rooting through the dirt at her feet, she oversaw the laying of a foundation for a new house — “with a tin roof that cannot crush us!” she said. “If I somehow scratch together some money, I’ll go back to Port-au-Prince and rebuild my business,” a food store, she said. “If not, I’ll stay here and work the land. You have to adapt.” Missoule Alexandre Pierre, 54, was not so sanguine. As her listless daughters leafed through magazines and stared at their nails, she expressed considerable frustration that her children’s education had been interrupted. “These three girls were all university students, and now their future is uncertain,” she said. “They don’t know what to do with themselves here. Every morning they wake up and say, “Mama, take us back. We’d rather sleep on the street.’ ” Fond-des-Blancs has a long history of migration, with residents fleeing to Cuba, New York and French Guiana even in the best of times. “Until 1963, it was beautiful country with all kinds of birds, plentiful rainfall, big old trees and coffee plantations,” said Mr. Leveillé , 62. “But that year, Hurricane Flora devastated our environment in a day. International companies like Dupont began replacing sisal, which we grow, with synthetic fibers. And people started cutting down trees to make charcoal.” By 1982, Fond-des-Blancs, deforested, was at its nadir and the exodus to Port-au-Prince was under way. At the same time, help began arriving: a relatively successful reforestation program and a health clinic started by a Catholic parish in Quincy, Mass., which became St. Boniface Hospital. Projects like the crossbreeding of scrawny local goats with large Dominican studs breathed some life into the economy (with Fond-des-Blancs aspiring to be known as the goat capital of Haiti), but the area still struggles. Worried about the impact of the returnees, local leaders have decided to unite their myriad community groups to figure out how to absorb the newcomers while using the earthquake to draw attention to the plight of rural areas. At a recent New England-style town meeting, they summed up their resources succinctly on a blackboard: “Public health: nonexistent; electricity: nonexistent; water: insufficient.” The former mayor, Mr. Leveillé, his face weathered under a straw hat, told the crowd, “It is time to force the international community and our own government to focus on us, too.” And heads nodded.

Haiti
Earthquakes
Rural Areas
Refugees and Displaced Persons


‘Harriet the Spy at 50’

Abstract: In her review of “Harriet the Spy” in The New York Times in 1964, Gloria Vanderbilt described the young heroine of the title as “delicious, but that’s probably because she hasn’t included us in her spy route — yet.” The 11-year-old Harriet, after all, had announced, “When I grow up, I’m going to find out everything about everybody and put it all in a book.” Ms. Vanderbilt, like Harriet an Upper East Sider, was nervous. “It’s only fun, of course,” Ms. Vanderbilt wrote, “to read the witty, laugh-out-loud, whole truth about other people — never about oneself.” “Harriet the Spy at 50” is the subject of readings and a discussion at the 92nd Street Y on Saturday. Gregory Maguire, author of the novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” (out of which came the hit Broadway musical), is scheduled to participate, as is Leonard Marcus, who writes about children’s books, and Rebecca Stead, a Newbery Medal winner for her novel “When You Reach Me.” All are fans of Harriet, the creation of Louise Fitzhugh, who died in 1974 of a brain aneurysm at age 46. Fitzhugh also illustrated the book, which was published last month in a 50th-anniversary edition. Because the Miser is not an Upper East Sider, the $10 admission is just about right. (Saturday at 12:30; Weill Art Gallery, 1395 Lexington Avenue; 92y.org.) Image From left: Virginia Baeta, Tiffany Abercrombie and Elisabeth Preston are in the farce "Sir Patient Fancy." Credit Bob Pileggi We never seem to tire of proclaiming ours a golden age of TV , offering ever more worthy and sophisticated fare. One of last year’s hits (albeit produced by the online streaming company Netflix) was “Orange Is the New Black,” a women’s prison drama based on Piper Kerman’s best-selling memoir. On Saturday afternoon at the Brooklyn Museum, Ms. Kerman will host “ Sentenced to Change ,” a panel discussion with female former inmates and criminal justice activists and experts. The event is presented by the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and is free with museum admission. (Saturday at 3:30 p.m.; 200 Eastern Parkway, at Washington Avenue, Prospect Heights; 718- 638-5000; brooklynmuseum.org.) SOME 17TH-CENTURY FEMINISM The all-female Queen’s Company ’s production of “Sir Patient Fancy,” by Aphra Behn, a pioneering female playwright of 17th-century Restoration-era Britain, opens this weekend at the Wild Project in the East Village. The show, a bawdy farce involving overlapping love triangles, is directed by Rebecca Patterson. It could make a nice — and with $18 tickets, affordable — complement to Mark Rylance’s recent all-male “Richard III” and “Twelfth Night.” (Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.; 195 East Third Street, East Village; 212-228-1195; thewildproject.com.)

Books
92nd Street Y
Piper Kerman
Brooklyn Museum
Theater
Wild Project Theater


Obama Administration Takes a New Approach to Biological Weapons

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to announce a new policy on Wednesday to curb the spread of biological weapons, but it will reaffirm the Bush administration’s opposition to an international regimen for verifying stockpiles of anthrax, smallpox and other agents. The policy, to be disclosed in a speech in Geneva by the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen O. Tauscher, will focus on increasing health security to reduce the impact of outbreaks of infectious disease, whether natural or man-made, administration officials said Tuesday. The United States, these officials said, will pledge to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, a 1975 treaty barring the development, production and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. But Ms. Tauscher will declare that the Obama administration does not support efforts to create a mechanism for monitoring compliance with the treaty because, a senior administration official said, supplies of biological weapons are “too difficult to verify.” In 2001, the Bush administration abruptly withdrew from lengthy negotiations to create a verification regimen. It cited, in part, the regulatory burdens that verification would place on the American pharmaceutical industry and on the military’s bio-defense research activities. Restarting those negotiations would also likely invite demands from Russia and Iran that could undermine the effectiveness of the broader treaty, according to experts on biological weapons. But the major hurdle, they said, is that biological weapons are simply harder to monitor than chemical or nuclear weapons . They can be produced in small labs, using equipment readily converted from peaceful uses, by a rapidly growing and mostly private biotechnology industry. “It’s almost beyond the capacity of traditional arms control, which is why they are proposing these alternative means,” said Jonathan B. Tucker, an expert on biological weapons at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “They would deal with it with a lot of indirect measures.” Among these are joint law enforcement efforts and efforts to bolster surveillance of infectious-disease outbreaks. Mr. Tucker said the administration would face criticism for “not addressing the fundamental weakness of the convention.” At the same time, he said it was offering a comprehensive approach that emphasized working with other countries, in contrast to the Bush administration. The choice of Ms. Tauscher to unveil the policy underscores the administration’s emphasis on biological weapons as a tool for terrorists. A former House member from California, Ms. Tauscher was in Congress when letters containing anthrax were mailed to Senate offices in October 2001.

Biological Weapons Convention
Biological and Chemical Warfare
United States International Relations
Obama Barack
Bush George W


Ugandan Lawmakers Push Anti-Homosexuality Bill Again

Abstract: KAMPALA, Uganda — At first, it was a fiery contempt for homosexuality that led a Ugandan lawmaker to introduce a bill in 2009 that carried the death penalty for a “serial offender” of the “offense of homosexuality.” The bill’s failure amid a blitz of international criticism was viewed by many as evidence of power politics, a poor nation bending to the will of rich nations that feed it hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. But this time around — the bill was reintroduced this month — it is a bitter and broad-based contempt for Western diplomacy that is also fueling its resurrection. “If there was any condition to force the Western world to stop giving us money,” said David Bahati, the bill’s author, “I would like that.” The Obama administration recently said it would use its foreign diplomatic tools, including aid, to promote equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the world. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain has threatened to cut aid for countries that do not accept homosexuality. But African nations have reacted bitterly to the new dictates of engagement, saying they smack of neo-colonialism. In the case of Uganda, the grudge could even help breathe new life into the anti-homosexuality bill. Antigovernment demonstrations sometimes turn violent and news about corruption scandals fills the tabloids here, but two things most people agree on is that homosexuality is not tolerated and that Westerners can be overbearing. The United States says it remains “resolutely opposed” to the bill, and at the American Embassy in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, officials are actively engaged in lobbying Ugandan policy makers to oppose the bill, too. “Our position is clear,” said Hilary Renner, a State Department spokeswoman. The pressure has worked, to a certain degree. Some of the most contentious elements of the bill — the death penalty, and a clause ordering citizens to report known acts of homosexuality to the police within 24 hours — would be taken out, Mr. Bahati said in a recent interview. That could make the bill less explosive for lawmakers. But the diplomatic tensions surrounding the bill also seem to be increasing its popularity. “While covert behind-the-scenes donor pressure on the Ugandan government has been useful in the past,” said Dr. Rahul Rao, a lecturer at the Center for International Studies and Diplomacy in London, “overt pressure can be extremely counterproductive.” The government of President Yoweri Museveni, while distancing itself from the bill, defended the right for the bill to be debated in Uganda’s Parliament, saying in a recent statement that “cultural attitudes in Africa are very different to elsewhere.” Kizza Besigye, an opposition leader who has courted the West, said Western pressure on the issue of homosexuality was “misplaced” and “even annoying.” “There are more obvious, more prevalent and harmful violations of human rights that are glossed over,” Mr. Besigye said. “Their zeal over this matter makes us look at them with cynicism to say the least.” When Mr. Bahati reintroduced the bill in Parliament, he did so to rounds of applause. In this religious and traditional society, the tug of war between advocates and opponents of gay rights remains tense. Days after the bill was reintroduced, a clandestine gay rights meeting at a hotel was broken up personally by Uganda’s minister of ethics. “In the past they were stoned to death,” said the minister, Simon Lokodo. “In my own culture they are fired on by the firing squad, because that is a total perversion.” Last year, a newspaper published a list of gay people in Uganda and urged readers and policy makers to “Hang Them.” Much of Africa’s anti-homosexuality movement is supported by American evangelicals, the Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Zambia wrote in 2009 , who are keen to export the American “culture war” to new ground. Indeed, American evangelical Christians played a role in stirring the anti-homosexual sentiment that culminated in the initial legislation in Uganda. The few gay rights advocates in Uganda who work publicly on the issue have seen their own exposure — and support — widen, too. One received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award last year. The organization whose conference was shut down this month receives tens of thousands of dollars from the American Jewish World Service , according to the organization’s Web site. As for Mr. Bahati, orphaned at the age of 3 and until recently a relatively unknown politician, the past several years have been a roller-coaster-ride of emotions, from obscurity to fame and infamy. The American news media, he said, have shredded his reputation. “They really worked out on the word ‘death,’ ” he said, referring to coverage of the bill’s death penalty provision. “We used to have friends in America, but most of them are now scared even to identify with us.” It was in the United States, Mr. Bahati contended, that he first became close with a group of influential social conservatives, including politicians, known as The Fellowship, which would later become a base of inspiration and technical support for the anti-homosexuality bill. Mr. Bahati said the idea for the bill first sprang from a conversation with members of The Fellowship in 2008, because it was “too late” in America to propose such legislation. Now, he said, he feels abandoned. “In Africa we value friendship,” Mr. Bahati said. “But the West is different.” Richard Carver, who said he served as president of The Fellowship until August 2011, said members of his group were actively involved in Uganda, including one with close ties to lawmakers. But Mr. Carver said the group never took an official position on the proposed legislation. “This is a very large group,” said Mr. Carver, adding that “individuals can speak for themselves.” Mr. Bahati contends that African nations like Uganda, by contrast, cannot speak for themselves — that reliance on international aid makes “unindependent.” Nothing was more telling, he said, than Prime Minister Cameron’s threat to cut development aid to countries that refuse to accept homosexuality. As for the United States, the State Department has pledged at least $3 million to civil society organizations working on gay rights. According to Mr. Bahati, his anti-homosexuality bill would upend that. A clause in the bill prohibits organizations that support gay rights from working in Uganda, potentially including the development arms of foreign governments. “It becomes very easy,” Mr. Bahati said. “Their licenses will be revoked.” A parliamentary committee has 45 days to debate the bill before sending it back to Parliament or asking for an extension. Mr. Bahati said that he was confident the bill would pass, but that if it did not, he had a Plan B: hope for a Republican victory in November. “The good thing with the West is that we know that Obama can influence the world only up to 2016,” he said. “That’s a definite.”

Uganda
Homosexuality
Politics and Government
Law and Legislation
Bahati David
Foreign Aid
Discrimination
Capital Punishment


Baron Mikel Scicluna, Pro Wrestling Villain, Dies at 80

Abstract: PITTSBURGH (AP) — Baron Mikel Scicluna, a velvet-caped professional wrestling bad guy who enraged fans with his use of foreign objects and other sneaky tactics, died Sunday in Ross Township, north of Pittsburgh, where he returned from New York to live nearly 20 years ago after retiring. He was 80. The cause was pancreatic cancer, his family said. Many wrestlers claim to hail from exotic and even fictitious places, but Scicluna (pronounced sikh-CLOO-nah) actually was from Malta. He went to Toronto and wrestled professionally as Mike Valentino in the 1950s before joining what was then the World Wide Wrestling Federation, now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, in 1965. Scicluna was seen widely in televised matches and a staple on the local Pittsburgh telecast “Studio Wrestling.” He twice wrestled Bruno Sammartino for the world championship at Madison Square Garden, losing both times. He retired from wrestling in 1984 and was inducted into the W.W.E.’s Hall of Fame in 1996. In wrestling’s good-versus-evil paradigm, Scicluna was always a villain. “He loved it when they booed him; to him that was applause,” said Bill Cardille, the host of “Studio Wrestling.” But according to his son, Michael, “He was nothing like his wrestling character.” He added: “He played the role well. Those who didn’t know him thought that’s who he was. But he couldn’t have been more different in real life than he was in the ring.” In addition to his son, Scicluna is survived by his wife of 52 years, Gloria Clifton Scicluna; two grandsons; and a sister.

World Wrestling Entertainment Incorporated


Yonkers Wrestles With Request for Files on ’52 Murder of Teamsters Boss

Abstract: NEARLY 57 years ago, John Acropolis, the Westchester Teamsters boss who contemporaries said took on the mob, was shot twice in the head as he entered his Yonkers apartment, killed in one of the most notorious crimes in the city’s history. The case has never been solved. Despite being more than a half-century old, however, it is technically still under investigation by the Yonkers Police Department’ s cold-case unit, assigned to work on cases that remain on the books despite the passage of significant time, said Frank J. Rubino, the Yonkers corporation counsel . “It’s not like these are sitting in a filing cabinet and no one looks at them,” Mr. Rubino said. Recently, the Acropolis case has been at the crux of a legal dispute working its way through New York State Supreme Court — but not because progress on the case itself has been made. Rather, Acting Justice James W. Hubert ruled on March 18 that the Yonkers police did not provide sufficient reason last year for denying a request by John Bly of Dallas to review the Acropolis case records for a book he is writing, and, in turn, must reconsider that denial. Mr. Bly, a retired schoolteacher whose sister was engaged to Mr. Acropolis, is seeking copies of the official death inquest and ballistics reports. In denying the request, the police cited a state law that allows municipalities to keep confidential records on cases that are still under investigation. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in October on behalf of Mr. Bly after the police refused his Freedom of Information Law request for the records. Mr. Bly could not be reached for comment last week. Linda S. Berns, director of the Lower Hudson Valley Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union , said she was heartened by the judge’s order. “It’s hard to believe any investigation is going on after 57 years, and most of the people have died,” she said. “Do you really think they are sending out detectives to investigate this?” In keeping with the judge’s order, Yonkers city officials and members of the police department were reviewing the Acropolis records, their reasons for denying the request by Mr. Bly and whether to maintain their position that opening the files for review could impede their investigation, Mr. Rubino said. Once the review is concluded, probably within a month, city officials will prepare a response detailing whether they plan to hold their ground, he said. Mr. Rubino said the importance of keeping the Acropolis records confidential had more to do with protecting the city’s ability to keep active records from the public than actually solving the murder. “For us, most importantly, this is about the principle behind the case and not specifically the case itself,” he said, adding that forcing municipalities to release such records could impede continuing investigations. “Cold cases are solved,” he said. But Ms. Berns said that the age of a case should indeed be factored into decisions concerning the release of records. In fact, she said, the New York Civil Liberties Union itself often advises individuals not to pursue the release of records in cases that are too recent to be made public. That tenet, however, does not apply to a decades-old case like the Acropolis killing, she said. “The public’s right to know is compromised repeatedly when FOIL requests from citizens are being denied,” Ms. Berns said. “This will be a warning to all municipalities that they must follow the law,” she said. Mr. Acropolis was president of Local 456 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, when he was killed on Aug. 26, 1952. Colleagues said he stood in the way of organized crime efforts to control garbage hauling. Detectives from Yonkers, Westchester and New York City interviewed hundreds of witnesses, and a grand jury briefly investigated the case before ending its inquiry without indictments.

Police
Murders and Attempted Murders
Supreme Courts (State)
Westchester County (NY)
Freedom of Information Act


Queens Prosecutor Creates Office of Immigrant Affairs

Abstract: The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, announced on Tuesday the creation of a special office to help immigrants navigate the sometimes intimidating criminal justice system and to coordinate the prosecution of immigrant-related crime, including financial exploitation and violence. The initiative was spurred in part by the scheduled rollout in the coming months of sweeping federal immigration initiatives, which immigrants’ advocates and law-enforcement officials say may set off a surge in fraud schemes that victimize the foreign-born. While the district attorney’s office has frequently prosecuted cases involving the victimization of immigrants, Mr. Brown said the new entity, the Office of Immigrant Affairs, will sharpen and enhance those efforts. “We recognize that with immigration policy changing and evolving on all levels of government, there is an opportunity to do more,” he said in a statement. Queens is the third district attorney’s office in New York City to have a unit dedicated to immigration issues. In 2007, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney at the time, formed his office’s Immigrant Affairs Unit. Last year, the Immigrant Fraud Unit in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office was created. In recent months, immigrants’ advocates had been lobbying Mr. Brown to create a similar entity in his office to help increase the protection of immigrants in Queens, the borough with the largest immigrant population and the highest concentration of immigrants. Advocates say immigration fraud tends to spike with the implementation of any new immigration program. Furthermore, they say, the national debate over the past couple of years has both raised expectations and sowed confusion among immigrants, increasing their vulnerability to unscrupulous lawyers and others masquerading as authorized legal representatives. Those concerns increased in November when President Obama announced his executive actions on immigration, including the expansion of a deportation deferral program for immigrants brought to this country as children, scheduled to take effect next month. In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Brown emphasized that the decision to form the new office was driven in part by recent changes in local, state and national immigration policy, though he added, “We heard, certainly, from the advocates, as well, and we found that it would be appropriate to do the kind of thing we’re doing now.” Mr. Brown has appointed Carmencita N. Gutierrez, a senior Queens prosecutor and a daughter of Colombian immigrants, to be the director of the new office, which will include a paralegal. Ms. Gutierrez, who was raised in Queens, said part of her work will involve meeting with community groups and leaders to help demystify the work of the Queens district attorney’s office and other law-enforcement agencies and direct victims to the right bureaus for help. Suspicion of government authorities is common among immigrants, particularly those who do not speak English or are undocumented. But Ms. Gutierrez said she hoped her office’s outreach would help to dispel that wariness. “We have been doing it individually when we meet victims, saying, ‘Look, your status is not important to us,’” she said in an interview. “Our goal is to educate the community on a grander scale.” At the same time, the new office will work internally to help assistant district attorneys handle immigrant-related cases and navigate immigrant issues. Ms. Gutierrez said her office will serve as “a main receptacle” of information related to immigrant populations and crimes against immigrants. “I think it will be a good opportunity to enhance our ability to handle cases of that nature,” Mr. Brown said.

Queens
Immigration
District attorney
Richard A Brown
NYC
Illegal Immigration


For Kerry and Hagel, Doubts About War Born in Vietnam

Abstract: Between them, Senator John Kerry and Chuck Hagel have five Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in Vietnam, shared a harrowing combat experience in the Mekong Delta and responded in different ways to the conflict that tore their generation apart. But in nominating one as secretary of state and the other as defense secretary, President Obama hopes to bring to his administration two veterans with the same sensibility about the futilities of war. Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is the president’s choice for the State Department, came home from commanding a Swift boat in Vietnam to throw away his military decorations in a protest at the Capitol, accuse American troops of systematic atrocities and tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Mr. Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska who is the nominee for the Pentagon, returned home thinking of the war as justified and did his best to put it behind him. “I wanted a life,” he later said. Mr. Hagel eventually turned against the leadership of the war — “I can’t fathom that this country would allow something like that to happen, 16,000 young men killed in one year,” he told Vietnam magazine, a history publication, in October — but not its warriors. Today he is the chairman of the Pentagon’s advisory group for commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. Supporters of Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel say that despite their different responses, their combat experience has had the same effect, making them question the price of American involvement overseas. “I have some pretty strong feelings that those who have been to war are the best to keep us out of it,” said Max Cleland, a former Democratic senator from Georgia who lost three of his limbs fighting in Vietnam. “They have felt the wounds of war, physically, mentally and emotionally. They bring to the table all that they need to bring, and that is that wars are disastrous.” To Mr. Obama, the lessons Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel took from combat were crucial in his decision to name them. “Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction,” the president said on Monday as he announced his selection of Mr. Hagel. “He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that’s something we only do when it’s absolutely necessary.” In announcing his nomination of Mr. Kerry last month, Mr. Obama said that “having served with valor in Vietnam, he understands that we have a responsibility to use American power wisely, especially our military power.” If confirmed, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel would be among the very few Vietnam veterans to reach the top of the national security hierarchy. (Colin L. Powell, a former secretary of state and national security adviser, served two tours in Vietnam.) Mr. Hagel would be the first person who was an enlisted soldier to run the Pentagon, which Mr. Obama called “historic.” The views of Mr. Hagel and Mr. Kerry make them highly compatible with a White House that is almost certain to push for a more rapid withdrawal of the remaining 66,000 American troops in Afghanistan than the military command would like. “The reason we are losing Afghanistan is that it wasn’t ours to win or lose,” Mr. Hagel told Vietnam magazine. “After 10 years in Afghanistan, what are we going to have when we get out? What have we done here?” Like Mr. Kerry, Mr. Hagel voted for the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq but became an early opponent of the Bush administration’s execution of the war. Friends say it is fitting that Mr. Hagel, who was awarded two Purple Hearts, is in line to run the Pentagon, while Mr. Kerry, who was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, is headed for the State Department. “They sort of ended up where you’d think they’d end up,” said Jan C. Scruggs, the founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, who knows both men. In 1971 testimony at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Vietnam, Mr. Kerry heatedly told of American servicemen who “raped, cut off ears, cut off heads” and committed many other atrocities. He later said he regretted some of his language that day, and it came to haunt him as the Democratic nominee for president in 2004 when a group of Swift boat veterans, still outraged by his remarks, tried to undercut his military record. “Kerry turned against the military as an institution in a way that Hagel never did,” said Christopher Gelpi, a professor at Duke University who has studied the attitudes of military leaders on how and when wars should be fought. “My view is that the whole Swift boating thing was unfair, but it reflected a level of animosity between him and the military that was left over.” Mr. Hagel, Dr. Gelpi said, has been more typical of veterans who became disillusioned with the war because of the decisions made by political leaders. Mr. Hagel, now 66, arrived in Vietnam as an Army infantryman in December 1967 and was soon serving near the Cambodian border in the same infantry squad as his younger brother Tom. In March 1968, the squad hit a tripwire in the jungle that set off a huge mine, sending body parts flying and shrapnel into Chuck Hagel’s chest. Tom Hagel stanched the bleeding and bandaged his brother, a favor Chuck returned in April, when the brothers’ troop carrier, with Tom in the turret, hit another mine. Mr. Hagel worked frantically to pull his unconscious brother from the wreckage, knowing that the carrier might soon explode. Both brothers’ eardrums were blown out, Mr. Hagel’s face was badly burned, and the two were taken by medevac to a field hospital. Over the decades, Mr. Hagel’s support for the war began to fade, but what changed him most, he has said, was hearing taped telephone calls, made public in the 1990s, of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 confiding that he saw the war as pointless. “The dishonesty of it was astounding — criminal, really,” Mr. Hagel said in 2007. Ultimately, Vietnam powerfully influenced his opinions about war. “I’m not a pacifist — I believe in using force, but only after following a very careful decision-making process,” Mr. Hagel told Vietnam magazine. “The night Tom and I were medevaced out of that village in April 1968, I told myself: If I ever get out of this and I’m ever in a position to influence policy, I will do everything I can to avoid needless, senseless war.” Mr. Kerry, now 69, arrived in Vietnam as a Navy lieutenant in November 1968 and was soon commanding a Swift boat, a 50-foot aluminum patrol craft. The boats chugged up the rivers of the Mekong Delta in aggressive nighttime incursions to destroy Vietcong outposts and disrupt supply lines. A few months later, in an engagement for which he won the Silver Star, Mr. Kerry beached his boat in a firefight, chased a teenage Vietcong fighter who had aimed a rocket launcher at the crew and “shot him while he fled,” according to the official after-action report. In a 2004 interview about his conduct in combat, Mr. Kerry said, “Anybody who tells you they’re not scared in combat is not telling you the truth.” Two weeks after the firefight, Mr. Kerry rescued an Army Special Forces lieutenant who had been thrown out of a nearby boat. For that he was awarded the Bronze Star. “You don’t want a bunch of people whose only understanding of war is from some issue paper,” Mr. Cleland said. “John and Chuck have the same jaundiced view of jumping into war when we don’t need to be there.”

John Kerry
Chuck Hagel
State Department
Pentagon
Vietnam War
Appointments and Executive Changes
Afghanistan War


European Central Bank, Under New Chief, Cuts Key Rate

Abstract: FRANKFURT — The new president of the European Central Bank , Mario Draghi , quickly responded to the latest developments in the sovereign debt crisis on Thursday, overseeing a cut in the euro zone’s benchmark interest rate while warning of a mild recession . Two days after assuming office in one of the most turbulent phases in the history of the euro zone, Mr. Draghi signaled that he might be more willing than his predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet , to tolerate inflation in the name of economic growth. The bank cut the benchmark rate to 1.25 percent from 1.5 percent, a move aimed at putting more money into the European economy by making borrowing easier. Investors cheered the decision by pushing stocks higher in Europe and the United States . The cut, which surprised some analysts, may signal a shift in strategy — or at least in tone — at the bank, which oversees monetary policy for the 17 European Union nations that share the euro . Known for his caution, Mr. Draghi, formerly the governor of the Bank of Italy, was not expected to make bold moves so soon. But speaking to reporters after he presided as chairman of the bank’s governing council for the first time, Mr. Draghi indicated that he felt he had little choice but to reduce interest rates. He warned that economic growth was likely to be significantly worse than the bank expected. That assessment came a day after the Federal Reserve also reduced its growth forecasts through 2013. While campaigning this year to succeed Mr. Trichet, Mr. Draghi emphasized his credentials as an inflation fighter and as a voice of fiscal prudence in his native Italy . But on Thursday, he played down the risks posed by inflation, which at a current annual rate of 3 percent is above the bank’s target of about 2 percent. Slower growth, he indicated, would act as its own curb on inflation. “In such an environment, price, cost and wage pressures in the euro area should also be moderate,” he said. “Today’s decision takes this into account.” At the same time, though, Mr. Draghi disappointed those who want the bank to help calm skittish global investors by aggressively buying European government bonds, using its ability to print money to reduce the risk that the Greek crisis might create a contagion infecting Italy, Spain and others. He stuck to the position that the bond purchases the bank has been making since the spring of 2010 were temporary and limited, and justified solely as a way for the bank to maintain its control over interest rates. Rather, Mr. Draghi said, it was up to national leaders to regain investor confidence by reining in spending and removing excessive regulations and other obstacles to growth. “The first and foremost responsibility for maintaining financial stability lies with national economic policies,” he said. Mr. Draghi’s statements on bond market intervention led some analysts to conclude that, despite the rate cut, he would not veer significantly from the path set by Mr. Trichet. Mr. Draghi described his predecessor on Thursday as a “role model.” The bank has spent 173.5 billion euros, or $240 billion, intervening in bond markets since May 2010, a modest sum compared with the securities purchases made by the Fed or the Bank of England to help prop up their own financial markets and stimulate their economies. “The E.C.B. seems to be continuing to play its dangerous game of doing the minimum amount possible, counting on the European politicians to extinguish the fire,” Jens Sondergaard, an analyst at Nomura, wrote Thursday in a note to clients. Still, some analysts said that Mr. Draghi’s statements on bond buying should not be taken at face value and that the bank would intervene if necessary to save the euro. “If worse came to worst, the E.C.B. would buy government bonds on a massive scale,” Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, wrote in a note. But Mr. Draghi cannot say that out loud, the thinking goes, for fear that leaders like Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy would renege on promises to remove barriers to competition and improve economic performance. “It is understandable that they don’t want to give governments a free lunch,” said Marie Diron, a former European Central Bank economist who advises the consulting firm Ernst & Young . European stocks rose sharply after the bank rate announcement. The Euro Stoxx 50, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, climbed 2.45 percent, helped by signs that Greece would move ahead with the bailout plan. The euro rose to $1.3812. The main United States stock gauges also rose. After just one meeting of the governing council, it was too early to say whether Mr. Draghi would set the bank on a new course. But he seemed to confirm predictions by some analysts that he would take a more nuanced view of inflation than Mr. Trichet, who was not an economist. Mr. Draghi has a doctorate in the field. Mr. Draghi on Thursday seemed at ease as the top official at the central bank, rather than just one vote on the governing council. He sparred confidently with reporters and seemed to answer questions more directly than Mr. Trichet, who had been prone to digressions. Mr. Draghi seemed to be “a bit more open,” Ms. Diron said. She noted his frank use of the word “recession.” “It is unusual that the E.C.B. would use these words before the data is published,” she said. Mr. Draghi, however, also added an extra degree of formality to the monthly news conference, delegating an aide to choose questioners. Mr. Trichet made such selections himself. The rate cut is the first by the bank since May 2009. It came after interest rate increases in April and July under Mr. Trichet, which many analysts say have made Europe’s economic woes worse than they would be otherwise. Mr. Draghi said the decision to cut rates was unanimous — a surprise considering the reverence with which German members of the bank’s governing council regard price stability. Mr. Draghi has assumed office with Greece’s future in the euro zone in doubt. But he rejected suggestions that Greece could exit, saying there was no legal provision for the country to do so. “It’s not in the treaty,” he said. “I have nothing to add to that.” Mr. Draghi also said that Greece should be the only country to receive debt relief. There have been rumblings in countries like Portugal and Ireland that they, too, should get breaks on their debt. “The Greek situation is exceptional and unique,” Mr. Draghi said. The Portuguese prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, has ruled out renegotiating the main targets set by the International Monetary Fund , the European Union and the European Central Bank, or asking for more money, Reuters reported. But he said the country wanted to discuss “more flexible conditions in applying the program.” The central bank meeting coincided with a meeting of the Group of 20 leaders in Cannes . Mr. Draghi planned to meet with G-20 leaders on Thursday night but said he would attend only in his capacity as chairman of a panel that makes recommendations on bank regulation.

European Central Bank
Mario Draghi
Interest rate
Euro Crisis


Mets Make Statement, Signing Rockies’ Cuddyer

Abstract: PHOENIX — Ever since Sandy Alderson took over as general manager of the Mets in 2010, the team has clung to its draft picks as if they were pure gold, always in the hope that they would lead to a glittering future. The Mets think that future begins in 2015. In a move that started the general managers’ meetings with a jolt, the Mets gave up their first-round draft pick in 2015 to sign outfielder Michael Cuddyer, a free agent most recently with the Colorado Rockies, to a two-year, $21 million contract. The money is relatively modest, but the Mets are acting boldly. The Rockies had given Cuddyer, who will turn 36 on March 27, a $15.3 qualifying offer, meaning that if another team signed him, the Rockies would receive that team’s draft pick. The Mets had targeted Cuddyer as a good fit for their improving young team, but when the Rockies attached the qualifying offer to him, it created an obstacle. But the Mets thought it was an obstacle worth overcoming. “Sandy has talked about, ‘We’re looking to turn the corner here and start to compete in 2015,’ ” said John Ricco, the Mets’ assistant general manager. “I think this is a message that we’re going to be aggressive. Right out of the box, we had a guy we liked, and we went and got him.” A career .279 hitter with a .347 on-base percentage, Cuddyer, who has averaged 170 total bases in a 14-year career, is considered an excellent teammate, and he is a childhood friend of David Wright’s. Cuddyer was drafted by the Minnesota Twins and played the first 11 years of his career there before signing a three-year deal with the Rockies in December 2011. He flourished in the thin air of Colorado, especially in 2013, when he led the National League with a .331 batting average and had a .919 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. Injuries to his hamstring and shoulder limited him to 49 games in 2014 — he hit .332 with 10 home runs and 15 doubles in those games — but the Mets are confident that he is healthy. Ricco said that Cuddyer was in New York on Monday for a physical examination. Cuddyer has played the bulk of his career in right field, so the Mets may position him there and move Curtis Granderson to left. Cuddyer has also played 265 games at first base, so he could fill in for Lucas Duda, especially against left-handed pitchers. Last year, the Mets gave up a modest second-round pick to sign Granderson to a four-year, $60 million deal, but this year they must surrender the 15th overall pick to sign Cuddyer, something they would have been loath to do in the first four years of Alderson’s tenure, when the team was seeking to rebuild. “We’ve talked a lot about not giving up picks,” Ricco said. “In this case, we looked at it, did the analysis, and decided that this player was worth it.” The acquisition of Cuddyer did reinforce the notion that the Mets, who have been operating with a modest payroll of less than $90 million, are still not inclined, or able, to make lavish financial moves. Meanwhile, David Robertson rejected the Yankees’ $15.3 million qualifying offer Monday, but the team will begin to negotiate with him on a multiyear contract. If Robertson, who became the Yankees’ closer last year, signs with another team, the Yankees will receive a draft pick as compensation. Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, said that when the team made the offer, he did not have a feel for whether Robertson would accept it. (In the relatively brief existence of qualifying offers, no player has accepted one.) “The one thing we do have a feel for is how good a player he is,” he said, “how good a person he is, how great a competitor he is. The New York environment, he’s not afraid. He checks every box off. He came in behind Mariano Rivera, and it was a seamless transition. That’s certainly no easy task.” Robertson took over for Rivera as the Yankees’ closer and had an excellent year, recording 39 saves with five blown saves. If Robertson leaves, the Yankees could promote Dellin Betances, but Cashman said he could never be certain whether Betances, or anyone else, was ready for the job until he saw him do it for a while. Cashman also said he would continue his search for a shortstop to replace Derek Jeter, which could be done through a trade or through free agency. Cashman would not say whether he was interested in Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies, who might be available in a trade. But the Yankees do not plan to spend a huge amount of money on free agents the way they did last year.

Mets
Rockies
Sandy Alderson
Michael Cuddyer
Baseball


Disney Gets a Half-Price Deal for Club Penguin

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Club Penguin, the subscription-based online community acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2007, has failed to meet profit targets that were tied to $350 million in payouts to the Web site’s creators. Disney’s purchase of Club Penguin was valued at $700 million, with half of the total paid up front and half coming in two payments based on unspecified growth thresholds. Disney disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last May that Club Penguin had missed the first target. On Wednesday, the company confirmed that the Web site did not meet the second one. The upshot is that a smartly structured deal prevented Disney from overpaying for a high-flying Web business that became tangled in the economic downturn. The question now is whether the site can regain its momentum as consumer spending loosens up, and by how much the targets were missed. Club Penguin , where members pay $5.95 a month to dress penguin characters and play games, is stumbling — at least on the surface. The site attracted about six million unique visitors in April, a 10 percent decline from the same month a year earlier, according to the marketing research firm comScore. In March, it suffered a 7 percent drop, to about 6.7 million. But Disney says those numbers are incorrect, citing internal estimates that show a 20 percent year-on-year increase in unique visitors. Moreover, Disney argues that traffic does not matter because it sells no advertising on the site. What does count are paying subscribers, the number of which has continued to grow quickly, according to Lane Merrifield, a co-founder of Club Penguin who is now partly responsible for strategy and operations at Disney’s online division. Mr. Merrifield would not release subscriber numbers to back up that assertion. Disney said in its second fiscal quarter earnings report on Tuesday, however, that “higher Club Penguin subscription revenues” helped its Interactive Media unit to narrow its loss to $55 million, from $61 million in the year-earlier quarter. At the time of purchase, Club Penguin had about 700,000 subscribers. As for the profit thresholds, Mr. Merrifield also declined to disclose specifics. “We set some big goals and had we met them it would have been great,” he said. “The good news is that we’re not far off.” The important thing, he said, is that Club Penguin has continued to stay focused on quality. “We knew from the beginning that we may never see that back half,” he said. Part of the reason Club Penguin did not meet its profit targets, Mr. Merrifield said, involves faster-than-anticipated expansion overseas. The site now counts customers in 190 countries and is available in four languages with two more on the way. “We wanted to reinvest faster than we thought” in new markets, Mr. Merrifield said. The economic downturn figured prominently in the Web site’s inability to meet its aggressive growth projections. But the fickle nature of children’s entertainment, an oversaturation of virtual worlds aimed at youths and competition from new smartphone games have also contributed, analysts say. Some Disney executives have grumbled about the aggressive manner in which Club Penguin’s founders have controlled the brand when it comes to television and consumer products tie-ins. The urgency to exploit Club Penguin across business units has also faded a bit inside Disney as managers have turned their focus to the new brand in the company cupboard: Marvel. Mr. Merrifield noted that a Club Penguin video game had been a big seller for Nintendo and another was on the way, along with more toys. Club Penguin is still by far the leading online world for children, and other sites have experienced much deeper declines in unique visitors. Webkinz.com, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, registered about 3.8 million unique visitors in April, a 50 percent drop from a year ago. Neopets.com , owned by Viacom, suffered a 39 percent decline, to about 1.5 million. Disney operates a flotilla of online worlds along with Club Penguin. Some, like PixieHollow.com , have found an audience with young girls, but others — particularly one dedicated to “Pirates of the Caribbean” — have suffered from technology bugs. The company is currently testing a long-delayed new offering, World of Cars, which is planned for a summer introduction.

Club Penguin
Disney Walt Co
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Computers and the Internet
Computer and Video Games


Start-Ups Aim to Help Users Put a Price on Their Personal Data

Abstract: Facebook’s pending initial public offering gives credence to the argument that personal data is the oil of the digital age. The company was built on a formula common to the technology industry: offer people a service, collect information about them as they use that service and use that information to sell advertising. People have been willing to give away their data while the companies make money. But there is some momentum for the idea that personal data could function as a kind of online currency, to be cashed in directly or exchanged for other items of value. A number of start-ups allow people to take control — and perhaps profit from — the digital trails that they leave on the Internet. “That marketplace does not exist right now, because consumers are not in on the game,” said Shane Green, who founded a company called Personal in 2009. The idea behind Mr. Green’s company involves two steps. First, his team created a series of personal data vaults, which contain thousands of data points about its users (the company calls them owners). This data can be as prosaic as birth dates, or as specific as someone’s preference for spicy foods. People control what information they share and remove data they don’t want to share at any time. The problem is that companies don’t need to pay for the information when they get it free. “The killer app isn’t here yet,” said William Hoffman, who is working on a multiyear study of the economics of personal data for the World Economic Forum. But with increased consumer awareness of the value of that information — Facebook could be worth as much as $100 billion — that may soon change. “I’m willing to bet that within the next 12 months something big will catch on,” he said. The concept of treating data like currency has long excited certain computer programmers and academics. But to almost everyone else, it is boring. Personal data management has none of the obvious appeal of social networks or smartphones. But concerns about privacy may be changing that, Mr. Hoffman said. Many of the new ideas center on a concept known as the personal data locker. People keep a single account with information about themselves. Businesses would pay for this data because it allows them to offer personalized products and advertising. And because people retain control over the data in their lockers, they can demand something of value in return. Maybe a discounted vacation, or a cash payment. Proponents of personal data lockers do not see them simply as a solution to privacy concerns. Rather, they hope that people will share even more data if there is a market for them to benefit from it. The first step seems to be establishing trust. Reputation.com monitors the Internet for potentially harmful information and tries to remove it, while the Locker Project looks to create a single place where users can find what they see and do online. On Connect.me , which is in a private testing period, users vouch for one another, confirming that, for instance, someone is indeed a basketball player or a bookworm in an attempt to create a credible online reputation. To popularize the concept of the data locker, Personal wants to create a market for exchanging access to data. Mr. Green says users will reap either cash or other benefits, like heavy discounts on certain products. In January the White House announced that it would work with Personal and several other companies to allow students to download their academic data from federal databases and store it in a data locker. Personal says it is also working on partnerships with businesses. A challenge for the company will be whether it can offer enough money to persuade people to use the system. Consumer information is worth billions in aggregate, but individually, the bits of data are worth practically nothing. A study by JPMorgan Chase last year showed that a unique user was worth $4 to Facebook and $24 to Google. Others looked at Facebook’s recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and placed the value of a user as high as $120. Singly , a similar service that is still in a testing period, feels that developers can create better personalized services for people if all of the personal data can be accessed from a single location. With a person’s permission, Singly draws data about them from around the Web, and allows them to share it with developers. Jason Cavnar, a founder of Singly, is skeptical that personal data will be exchanged in the straightforward transactions that other data locker companies propose. While people may be willing to share their lists of Facebook friends, the bar is set higher for, say, the specifics of their financial history. Developers can build dozens of apps based on what one’s friends on social media like to eat, but they are not churning out nearly so many that rely on, say, private financial data. Instead, he says people will create data lockers and share their contents because they will receive compelling services by doing so. This idea has already been successful with Mint.com, which has shown that people will share confidential financial information in exchange for money-management advice. People will not share information without a level of trust, and that is what the personal data management companies are trying to sell. The final barrier is that people may find creating detailed databases about themselves too onerous to justify the potential rewards. In order to create a real market for data, enough people need to see an immediate, tangible benefit in filling up their lockers, said Mr. Green of Personal. He said he took note of this while presenting his product to groups of potential users. They nodded along with him as he told them about privacy and control. But when he showed his audience how entering their data into Personal allowed them to fill out online forms with a single click, something snapped for them. “I don’t think we quite realized how much of an emotional vein that tapped into,” he said, “It’s not easy to make data sexy or fun. It’s not sharing photos with your friends on Facebook.”

Start-ups
Privacy
Computers and the Internet
Social Networking (Internet)
Data Storage


Broker Is Expected to Plead Guilty

Abstract: A former broker at Bear Stearns , Ken Okada, is expected to plead guilty in a wide-ranging insider-trading case, becoming the ninth person to admit wrongdoing in a scheme that also involved employees at UBS and Morgan Stanley. An assistant United States attorney, Andrew Fish, revealed the expectation in a letter to a federal judge presiding over a related case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The letter was entered into court records yesterday. Mr. Okada is one of 13 people charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan in March. Another Bear Stearns broker, Robert Babcock, has pleaded guilty to profiting from secret tips. A lawyer for Mr. Okada, Peter Quijano, said that he was still in negotiations with prosecutors. A spokesman for Bear Stearsn, Russell Sherman, declined to comment.

Securities and Exchange Commission
Bear Stearns Cos
Securities and Commodities Violations


Things to Do in New Jersey, May 10 to 16, 2015

Abstract: A guide to cultural and recreational events in New Jersey. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to njtowns@nytimes.com. Film MONTCLAIR Montclair Film Festival Montclair Film Festival. Through May 10. $14 to $240. Various locations. 973-783-6433; montclairfilmfest.org. Music and Dance CLINTON Clinton Presbyterian Church 26th Raritan River Music Festival. May 16 at 7:30 p.m. $14 to $25. Clinton Presbyterian Church, 91 Center Street. clintonpresbyterian.net; 908-213-1100. ENGLEWOOD Bergen Performing Arts Center “Indian Cultural Initiative Show: An Evening with Kumar Sanu.” May 15 at 8 p.m. $39 to $189. Midtown Men, songs of the 1960s. May 17 at 7:30 p.m. $29 to $59. Bergen Performing Arts Center, 30 North Van Brunt Street. 201-227-1030; bergenpac.org. LONG BRANCH Our Lady Star of the Sea Church The Monmouth Civic Chorus, “Vespers Fusions Concert,” works of Mozart and Monteverdi. May 17 at 4 p.m. $5 to $30. Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, 101 Chelsea Avenue. 732-933-9333. MONTCLAIR Outpost in the Burbs Writers in the Round, with the songwriters Jesse Terry, Abbie Gardner, Rebecca Loebe and Tracy Grammer. May 15 at 8 p.m. $20 and $23. Outpost in the Burbs, 67 Church Street. outpostintheburbs.org; 973-744-6560. MORRISTOWN Church of the Redeemer “Another Look at Kurt Weill,” the German composer’s work performed by the Coro Lirico vocal group. May 16 at 8 p.m. $20 and $25. Church of the Redeemer, 36 South Street. 973-267-0709. MORRISTOWN Mayo Performing Arts Center Vince Gill, country. May 14 at 8 p.m. $59 to $89. New Jersey Ballet, “Tappin’ at the Ballet.” May 16 at 8 p.m. $29 to $59. New Jersey Ballet, “Sleeping Beauty.” May 17 at 1:30 and 4 p.m. $15 to $25. Mayo Performing Arts Center, 100 South Street. 973-539-8008; mayoarts.org. NEW BRUNSWICK State Theater Crosby, Stills and Nash. May 12 and 13. $75 to $100. State Theater, 15 Livingston Avenue. 732-246-7469; statetheatrenj.org. NEWARK New Jersey Performing Arts Center Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Through May 10. $29 to $89. New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street. 888-466-5722; njpac.org. NEWARK Prudential Center “A Mother’s Day Celebration,” with Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, Toni Braxton, El DeBarge and Kenny Lattimore. May 10 at 7 p.m. $59.75 to $129.75. Prudential Center, 25 Lafayette Street. 800-653-8000; prucenter.com. NEWARK Prudential Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center André Watts with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, led by Peter Bay. May 15 at 8 p.m. $25 to $119. 18th annual UJA Benefit Concert, with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Stern. May 17 at 2 p.m. $20 to $87. Prudential Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street. 888-466-5722; njpac.org. PLAINFIELD Crescent Ave Presbyterian Church “All Creatures Great and Small,” Crescent Singers, music by Haydn, Mendelssohn, Copland, Rutter and more. May 17 at 3 p.m. $5 to $20. Crescent Ave Presbyterian Church, 716 Watchung Avenue. 908-756-2468. PRINCETON Princeton High School Performing Arts Center Princeton Youth Ballet, “The Secret Garden,” original ballet choreographed by Risa Kaplowitz and based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Through May 10. $15 to $25. Princeton High School Performing Arts Center, 151 Moore Street. princetonyouthballet.org; 609-948-8065. RED BANK Count Basie Theater “Bobfest: The Celebration of Bob Dylan’s Birthday,” Pat Guadagno. May 21 at 8 p.m. $19.50 to $39.50. Count Basie Theater, 99 Monmouth Street. countbasietheatre.org; 732-842-9000. RED BANK First Presbyterian Church “Heritage,” Kinnara Ensemble, world folk music. May 17 at 7 p.m. Free. First Presbyterian Church, 255 Harding Road. 732-747-1348; towerhillchurch.org. SOUTH ORANGE South Orange Performing Arts Center Rufus Wainwright, singer-songwriter. May 10 at 7:30 p.m. $60 to $85. The Machine, Pink Floyd acoustic tribute. May 16 at 8 p.m. $35 to $48. Bruce Cockburn, singer-songwriter. May 17 at 7:30 p.m. $38 to $58. South Orange Performing Arts Center, 1 Sopac Way. 973-313-2787; sopacnow.org. TEANECK Benjamin Franklin Middle School Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, with Caitlin Kelley, assistant concertmaster of the Louisville (Ky.) Orchestra, ballet music from “Faust” and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. May 16 at 8 p.m. $10 to $25. Benjamin Franklin Middle School, 1315 Taft Road. artcenterchambermusic.org; 201-676-2153. TEANECK Teaneck High School “Forever Young,” Teaneck Community Chorus spring concert. May 17 at 3 p.m. $5 to $20. Teaneck High School, 100 Elizabeth Avenue. teaneckcommunitychorus.com; 201-794-1893. Outdoors JERSEY CITY Jersey City City Hall Sixth Borough Market, curated vintage crafts, food and children’s activities. May 10, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. free. Jersey City City Hall, 280 Grove Street. cityofjerseycity.com; 201-547-5150. PORT WASHINGTON North Hempstead Beach Park Asian-American Festival, performance, cuisine and craft market. May 16, noon to 6 p.m. $10 parking fee. North Hempstead Beach Park, 175 West Shore Road. 516-869-6311; northhempsteadny.gov. PRINCETON Princeton University Art Museum “Family Day: Places and Spaces,” art projects, stories, games, scavenger hunts, performances and refreshments. May 16, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton University Campus. 609-258-3788; artmuseum.princeton.edu. Spoken Word EAST ORANGE East Orange Public Library Askia M. Touré will sign books and read a selection of poems including ones from his new book, “Mother Earth Responds: Green Poems & Alternative Visions.” May 21, 6 to 8:30 p.m. East Orange Public Library, 21 South Arlington Avenue. 973-266-7057. ENGLEWOOD Englewood Public Library “Manhattan Bridges,” lecture by the historian Kevin Woyce. May 12 at 7:15 p.m. Free. Englewood Public Library, 31 Engle Street. 201-568-2215; englewoodlibrary.org. MONTCLAIR Montclair Art Museum “Art of the 1990s: In the Wake of Identity Politics,” a panel will examine debates around identities in the 1990s and how those debates have since changed. May 14 at 7 p.m. $10 to $15. Montclair Art Museum, 3 South Mountain Avenue. 973-746-5555; montclairartmuseum.org. NEWARK New Jersey Performing Arts Center “Poetry Like Bread: Dodge Poetry at NJPAC,” with Martin Espada and Patricia Smith. May 15 at 8 p.m. $15. New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street. 888-466-5722; njpac.org. PRINCETON Princeton University Art Museum “In and Out of the Studio: Paul Cézanne at the Lightning Field,” lecture by John Elderfield. May 17 at 4 p.m. Free. Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton University Campus. artmuseum.princeton.edu; 609-258-3788. Theater CHATHAM Chatham Playhouse “The Three Musketeers,” adapted by Ken Ludwig. Through May 16. $23 and $25. Chatham Playhouse, 23 North Passaic Avenue. chathamplayers.org; 973-635-7363. HACKETTSTOWN Centenary Stage Company, Lackland Performing Arts Center “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” musical. Through May 10. $10 to $17.50. Centenary Stage Company, Lackland Performing Arts Center, 715 Grand Avenue. centenarystageco.org; 908-979-0900. HAMPTON Hunterdon Hills Playhouse “The Fox on the Fairway,” comedy by Ken Ludwig. Through June 20. $52 to $68.50; includes dinner and gratuity. Hunterdon Hills Playhouse, 88 Route 173 West. 800-447-7313; hhplayhouse.com. MONROE TOWNSHIP Monroe Township Jewish Center “Beastly Encounters,” comedy based on the works of Rudyard Kipling and Anton Chekhov. May 17 through 31. $10. Monroe Township Jewish Center, 11 Cornell Avenue. etzchaimmtjc.org; 609-395-2969. Image CLINTON “1/25/2015,” collage on paper by Peter Jacobs, is in “The Collage Journal: The First Decade,” an exhibition of his work at the Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street, May 17 through Sept. 6. Reception: May 17, from 2 to 4 p.m. $5 suggested donation. 908-735-8415; hunterdonartmuseum.org . Credit Peter Jacobs MONTCLAIR Montclair Women’s Club Montclair Shakespeare Series, staged reading of “Twelfth Night,” with live music. May 20 at 8 p.m. Free. Montclair Women’s Club, 82 Union Street. 973-748-0385. NEW BRUNSWICK George Street Playhouse “Ernest Shackleton Loves Me,” musical. Through May 17. George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue. 732-246-7717; gsponline.org. ORADELL Bergen County Players, Little Firehouse Theater “God of Carnage,” comedy by Yasmina Reza, translated from French by Christopher Hampton. Through May 31. $17 and $21. Bergen County Players, Little Firehouse Theater, 298 Kinderkamack Road. bcplayers.org; 201-261-4200. RAHWAY Union County Performing Arts Center “The Shadow Box,” Fearless Productions. Through May 10. $15 and $20. Union County Performing Arts Center, 1601 Irving Street. ucpac.org; 732-499-8226. WEST ORANGE Luna Stage The third annual New Moon Short Play Festival. May 11 and 12 at 7:30 p.m. $10 suggested donation. Luna Stage, 555 Valley Road. 973-395-5551; lunastage.org. WEST WINDSOR Kelsey Theater, West Windsor Campus, Mercer County Community College “The Music Man,” Yardley Players. Through May 17. $16 to $20. Kelsey Theater, West Windsor Campus, Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road. 609-570-3333; kelseytheatre.net. Museums and Galleries ASBURY PARK Palette Gallery/ArtsSpace “Critters,” 13 artists explore creatures big and small. Painting, drawing, prints and sculpture. Through June 28. Free. Palette Gallery/ArtsSpace, 716 Cookman Avenue. 201-981-2395. ASBURY PARK Where Music Lives “The Life and Times of Vini Lopez,” photos, videos and memorabilia. Through June 14. Where Music Lives, 708 Cookman Avenue. asburyparkmusiclives.org; 732-775-8900. BEDMINSTER The Center for Contemporary Art “Jay Sullivan: Glove — The Emotional Core of Objects,” “Anna Kell: Study for the White Room” and “Sam Metcalf: Big Game of the American West.” Through May 23. Admission by donation. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Center for Contemporary Art, 2020 Burnt Mills Road. 908-234-2345; ccabedminster.org. BOUND BROOK Hamilton Street Gallery “Journey to Here,” works by the artist Zig Mantell. Through June 18. Free. Hamilton Street Gallery, 6 Hamilton Street. 732-748-2092; hamiltonstreetgallery.com. CLIFTON Clifton Arts Center “A Humanist Vision: The Paintings and Drawings of Michael Lenson.” May 16 through July 25. $3. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m. Clifton Arts Center, 900 Clifton Avenue. 973-472-5499; cliftonnj.org. CLINTON Hunterdon Art Museum “Contemporary International Tapestry,” three generations from nine countries. Through May 10. Donation: $5. Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street. 908-735-8415; hunterdonartmuseum.org. HAMILTON Grounds for Sculpture “Seward Johnson: The Retrospective,” 150 works by the sculptor. Through July 1. “Jae Ko: Selections,” installation by the Korean-born artist Jae Ko. Through Feb. 7. “Robert Lobe: In the Forest of Drawn Metal,” textured and painted aluminum wall reliefs. Through Jan. 17. “Decades of Steel,” the artist Karl Stirner’s welded and manipulated industrial pieces from reclaimed steel. May 12. $10 to $15; members and children under 5, free. “Drishti,” three-dimensional paper forms by Lauren Clary. May 12. $10 to $15; members and children under 5, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Grounds for Sculpture, 18 Fairgrounds Road. 609-586-0616; groundsforsculpture.org. HOBOKEN Hoboken Historical Museum“The Extraordinary Stevens Family: A New Jersey Legacy, 1776-1911,” exploring one of New Jersey’s most influential families. Through July 5. “Litopintura: Paintings on Stone by Walter Barco.” Through May 3. $3; members, free. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 2 to 7 p.m.; Friday 1 to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Hoboken Historical Museum, 1301 Hudson Street. hobokenmuseum.org; 201-656-2240. HOPEWELL Gallery 14 “Turkey... Leftovers,” photographs of ancient civilization in modern Turkey by Larry Parsons. Through May 24. Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Gallery 14, 14 Mercer Street. photogallery14.com; 609-833-8511. JERSEY CITY Art House Productions Gallery “After Image: Contemporary Artists & Photography.” Through May 29. Sundays, noon to 3 p.m., and by appointment. Art House Productions Gallery, 136 Magnolia Avenue. arthouseproductions.org. METUCHEN St. Luke’s Episcopal Church “Revelation/Revolution,” mixed-media works. Through May 31. Nails in the Wall, the Gallery at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 17 Oak Avenue. nailsinthewall.com; 732-322-6512. MONTCLAIR Montclair Art Museum “Come as You Are: Art of the 1990s.” Through May 17. “Native American Collection Installation of Pueblo Indian Pottery.” Continuing. “Selected Works From the Collection: A Centennial Celebration.” Through May 17. “Robert Barry: Diptych,” in the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Art Stairway. Through May 17. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. $10 and $12; members and children under 12, free. Montclair Art Museum, 3 South Mountain Avenue. montclairartmuseum.org; 973-746-5555. MONTCLAIR Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center “Saving Face: The Evolution of the Catcher and Goalie Mask.” Through Oct. 4. $6 for adults, $4 for children. Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, 8 Yogi Berra Drive. yogiberramuseum.org; 973-655-2378. MORRISTOWN Macculloch Hall Historical Museum “The Civil War Through the Eyes of Thomas Nast.” Through Aug. 23. “Canals of New Jersey,” an exhibition about the state’s two towpath canals. Through Oct. 29. $4 to $8; children under 5, free. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, 45 Macculloch Avenue. maccullochhall.org; 973-538-2404. NEW BRUNSWICK Zimmerli Art Museum “Bugs and Frogs and Toads! Oh My!” Illustrations by Nancy Winslow Parker. Through June 21. “Picturing War: Selections From the Zimmerli Art Museum Collection.” Through July 5. “The Doctor Is In: Medicine in French Prints,” works by Honoré Daumier and others. Through July 31. “George Segal in Black and White: Photographs by Donald Lokuta.” Through July 31. Free. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton Street. 848-932-7237; zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu. NEWARK The Newark Museum “Royals and Regalia: Inside the Palaces of Nigeria’s Monarchs,” 40 portraits by the photographer George Osodi. Through Aug. 9. “Rajas, Wrestlers and Renunciants: Portraits From Asia.” Through Feb. 28. $7 and $12; members, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. The Newark Museum, 49 Washington Street. 973-596-6550; newarkmuseum.org. PATERSON Lambert Castle “Highlights of the Paterson Evening News Collection,” photographs. Through June 28. $3 to $5. Lambert Castle, 3 Valley Road. lambertcastle.org; 973-247-0085 ext. 201. PIERMONT Piermont Flywheel Gallery “Contemporary Paintings and Portraits,” Sally Schaedler solo show. Through May 17. Thursdays and Sundays, 1 to 6 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 1 to 9 p.m. Piermont Flywheel Gallery, 223 Ash Street. piermontflywheel.com; 845-365-6411. PISCATAWAY Middlesex County Museum at Cornelius Low House “Icons of American Culture: History of New Jersey Diners,” by the artist Mark Oberndorf. Through June 26. Free. Middlesex County Museum at Cornelius Low House, 1225 River Road. 732-745-3030; co.middlesex.nj.us. PRINCETON Bernstein Gallery “Narratives: Hearts, Minds & Mythologies,” artwork by Samira Abbassy. May 16 through Aug. 13. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bernstein Gallery, Robertson Hall. 609-497-2441; wws.princeton.edu. PRINCETON Princeton University Art Museum “The City Lost and Found: Capturing New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, 1960-1980.” Through June 7. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton University Campus. 609-258-3788; artmuseum.princeton.edu. SOUTH ORANGE South Orange Performing Arts Center “Giants of Jazz 17,” Micha Hamilton’s photography. Through May 15. South Orange Performing Arts Center, 1 Sopac Way. 973-313-2787; sopacnow.org. TRENTON Artworks Trenton “Movis — Maverick Parallels,” two- and three-dimensional works, sound pieces, and pieces using a wide range of materials. Through June 13. Artworks Trenton, 19 Everett Alley. 609-394-9436; artworkstrenton.org. TRENTON New Jersey State Museum “A Shadow Over the Earth: The Life and Death of the Passenger Pigeon.” Through June 27. Suggested admission, $5. Tuesdays through Sundays, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. New Jersey State Museum, 205 West State Street. statemuseum.nj.gov; 609-292-6464. WATCHUNG Watchung Arts Center “Drawing/Painting Layers,” Steven Rushefsky’s canvases. Through May 30. Wednesdays and Fridays 12 to 3 p.m., Thursdays 12 to 5 p.m., Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m. Watchung Arts Center, 18 Stirling Road. watchungarts.org; 908-753-0190. WESTFIELD Gallery U “REAL: Works by Members of New Jersey Photography Forum.” Through June 1. Daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Gallery U, 439 South Avenue West. gallery-u.blogspot.com; 908-232-1895.