Race Tests Democrats’ Viability in West Virginia

Abstract: PRINCETON, W. Va. — “Pro-jobs. Pro-coal. Pro-life. Vote Republican!!!” reads a prominent sign coming into town. And that ought to be the end of the story here in southern West Virginia, with its beleaguered mining industry and largely white population that fills the pews of evangelical churches on a Wednesday night as readily as on Sunday morning. The region voted overwhelmingly Republican in the presidential contest two years ago, part of the historic defection of West Virginia Democrats, who hold a 2-to-1 registration advantage, from the national party over social issues like abortion and, more recently, opposition to environmental regulation. And yet a Democratic congressman, Nick J. Rahall II, has defiantly held onto his seat here in the sparsely populated Third District, which runs from the rugged Appalachian coal fields in the west to the famed white-water rafting of the New River Gorge. First elected in 1976, Mr. Rahall has had his campaign for a 20th term, against the Republican candidate, Evan Jenkins, become one of the most ferocious House races in the country. There is a torrent of outside money, blistering ads from conservative groups supported by the billionaire Koch brothers and a contest that after nearly $14 million in spending has come down, two weeks before voting, to a tossup. While the race will not affect partisan control of the House, considered safely in Republican hands, it will make a statement about whether Democrats can survive in southern border states. The millions of dollars coursing through the inexpensive television markets of the state in Mr. Rahill’s contest are far more than in the race for West Virginia’s open Senate seat, where a Republican, Shelley Moore Capito, has taken a comfortable lead. If Mr. Rahall hangs on, it will be because his ties to voters cemented over four decades — what supporters call his “brand” — overcome the antipathy of West Virginians to President Obama, and especially White House energy policy that many blame for hard times in coal country. “Republicans have really turned the anger at Obama and the coal issue into an organizing principle,” Mr. Rahall said on Saturday during the Mercer County Democratic Party bean dinner in Princeton. “I probably have the most anti-Obama district represented by a Democrat in the nation.” The race is clouded with distortions from both sides. Mr. Rahall says that Mr. Jenkins would take away miners’ black lung benefits. Mr. Jenkins accuses Mr. Rahall of supporting a carbon tax that raised electric rates. Fact-checkers have been busy debunking both claims . Some of the antipathy of West Virginians to the White House would seem to defy economic self-interest. Mr. Rahall’s district includes some of the poorest counties in the state, where reliance on food stamps, Medicaid and other federal benefits is high. All would be rolled back under budgets passed by the House’s Republican majority. The coal industry’s long decline is economically complex. When Alpha Natural Resources, one of West Virginia’s largest coal operators, warned 1,100 employees of potential layoffs in July, it blamed a worldwide glut of coal, competition from cheaper natural gas and lower-cost coal from western basins — as well as Environmental Protection Agency regulations. But in the charged political arena, complexities fade and both sides identify a sole culprit for the industry’s struggles: the administration’s anti-coal regulations. “Everyone knows Obama declared a war on coal. Nick Rahall stands with him,” says a television ad running this month by Freedom Partners Action Fund, a group supported by Charles G. and David H. Koch. Image Evan Jenkins, the Republican nominee. Democrats hold an advantage in registration, but voters have defected over social issues and environmental regulation. Credit Ryan Stone for The New York Times Mr. Rahall and his supporters have tried to turn the tables by attacking Mr. Jenkins’ wealthy backers. “The Koch brothers coming in here from New York, spending millions trying to elect Evan Jenkins. They’re not welcome, they don’t belong,” a miner says in an ad run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In a debate last week, Mr. Rahall boasted of “standing up to my party to stop the overreaching, overzealous, job-killing E.P.A. agenda.” It is a tough argument to win, however, given the president’s desire to leave an environmental legacy of lower carbon emissions from power plants, as proposed by the E.P.A. this year. Mr. Rahall has struggled to explain his vote in 2013 for a budget proposal by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which included a $25 per ton carbon tax. He has said that he does not support a carbon tax and that he voted for the liberal budget blueprint, which badly failed in the House, to make a statement against Representative Paul D. Ryan’s Republican budget, with its many cuts to social programs. That plan passed the House but not the Senate. Mr. Jenkins, who served in the State Legislature as a Democrat before switching parties last year , does not buy it. “This president has written off West Virginia,” he said. “He’s written off coal, and unfortunately, we’ve got a congressman who has helped him every step of the way.” The air blitz against Mr. Rahall, 65, began nearly a year ago, almost unheard-of so early, when Republican-leaning national groups like the Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity — also supported by the Kochs — began attacking his vote for the Affordable Care Act. Democratic groups sensed trouble and jumped in to counter the attacks. “We were effective in at least fighting back,” said Matt Thornton, a spokesman for the House Majority PAC, citing private polls that showed Mr. Rahall rebounding in the spring. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which considers Mr. Rahall one of its top three House targets this year, has pumped more than $2 million into the race. “I think this is the first time people are starting to say maybe we like Nick Rahall but we don’t like what he’s doing in Washington anymore,” said Ian Prior, a spokesman for the Republican campaign committee. Neither side is confident of victory and ads are booked through Election Day, for a total of $13.8 million for the cycle, according to a Democratic group that tracks ad spending. On Saturday, Mr. Jenkins, 54, greeted voters at a celebration of the New River Gorge Bridge, where thousands walked across the impressive structure and watched parachutists drop 876 feet to the riverbed. “I’m Evan Jenkins, running for Congress, hoping for your vote,” the candidate told Nindo Punturi, who was working at one of many vendor booths. “You’ll probably get it,” Mr. Punturi replied. Kathy McGaha, a retiree, also offered support, saying she did not like Mr. Rahall. “He voted for everything with O-bummer,” she said. Bernard Meadows, who worked in a coal mine in Mercer County for two decades “until they shut it down” in the 1980s, said he knew Mr. Rahall but was leaning in a different direction. “I just think it’s time for a change,” he said. But when Mr. Jenkins approached Charles Treadway, he heard a different opinion. “I’ve been with Rahall for years, and I’ve got to stick with Nick,” said Mr. Treadway, a laid-off miner. He said Mr. Rahall was being blamed unfairly for the troubles of the coal industry. “I put it simply: All you’ve got to do is follow the money,” he said, adding that cheap natural gas prices were the reason many miners were out of work.

West Virginia
Coal
Evan Jenkins
House races
Nick J Rahall II
EPA
2014 Midterm Elections
Congressional elections
US


Brother Shoots Brother, Then Kills Himself in Brooklyn

Abstract: The discord among the three Athanasatos brothers was nearly four decades deep, and it centered on the family’s two-story brick house in Borough Park, Brooklyn. This week, the fraternal discord turned violent, the police said, when one of the brothers, Thomas, 74, turned a homemade firearm on his 63-year-old brother, James, shooting him in the face during a midnight meeting in front of the house. But from there, any resemblance to the story of Cain and Abel fell away. For the Athanasatos family, violence between brothers was not the end of the misfortune, but only the beginning. When an ambulance appeared shortly after 12:35 a.m. on Wednesday, James was sitting on the curb alone, bleeding profusely. Thomas was gone, retiring to the basement unit of the home where he had been living, supported by his family, since 1974. After daybreak, the third Athanasatos brother, George, 58, visited James in the hospital. From James’s lips, George said, he learned that Thomas was the perpetrator. James told George, “There was no fight; he just shot me,” George recalled in an interview in a hallway at the Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn. With the police in tow Wednesday morning, George went to the home, at 1449 43rd Street, in search of Thomas. George said he had believed Thomas was long gone. “I thought he was on a Greyhound bus headed to Wyoming,” George recalled. Instead, George and the police found him dead in his bed. The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said it appeared Thomas had shot himself in the head with a homemade gun. No note was found, but the reason is hardly beyond the imagination. “The detectives are working under the premise that Thomas believed he had killed his younger brother,” Mr. Browne said, “and then committed suicide.” The police said they did not know of any previous violence among the brothers. James is likely to lose an eye but is expected to survive, George said. “The gun was like something from the pilgrim days, like a musket,” George said. “A pipe with a trigger.” The enmity among the brothers runs deep, at least as far back as 1974, George said, when Thomas moved back in with his parents after a failed marriage. During the interview at the hospital, George avoided using his eldest brother’s name, instead calling him “the bum” or “the guy in the basement.” “This guy was mooching off my mother and father for 40 years,” George said. Since 1974, he added, their mother “was ironing his clothes, taking care of him, giving him an allowance.” Asked whether he felt bad for his deceased brother, George sidestepped the question. “I’m brokenhearted for my brother here,” George said, referring not to Thomas, but to James, who was in the intensive care unit. “James is the one who feels bad.” But George readily acknowledged that James had a softer heart when it came to Thomas. By 8 p.m. Wednesday, James still did not know that Thomas had committed suicide, George said. And when detectives interviewed James about the shooting, James “told the detectives he doesn’t know who shot him,” George said, describing James’s effort to shield his brother. “Can you believe this?” The discord between the brothers grew after their mother died in 2009, 11 years after their father. The house now belonged to all three of them, George said. Thomas continued to live in the basement, and his two brothers together continued to pay him a $600 monthly allowance, just as his mother had in her life, George said. The second-story apartment where the mother lived remained just as it was before she died. The first floor and part of the second floor were rented to several tenants, and it was not long before the brothers began to bicker over how Thomas was handling the rent money he collected from them, George said. And Thomas, although he had lived there for decades, was eager to sell the home, while James, a Staten Island real estate agent, felt differently, George said. On Tuesday, Thomas had invited James to the home to discuss their differences, George said. But when James arrived around 11:30 p.m., there was no rehashing of an old argument. “I think he got sick of waiting” for James to sell the house, George said of Thomas. “Maybe he thought enough is enough.”

Athanasatos James
Athanasatos Thomas
Borough Park (NYC)
Suicides and Suicide Attempts
Murders and Attempted Murders
New York City


Apprentice Hopes to Return Utah to B.C.S. Glory

Abstract: Brian Johnson went to the University of Utah from Houston as a 17-year-old in 2004. He spent the summer before his freshman year sleeping on a couch in the dingy off-campus apartment of Alex Smith, then the Utes’ starting quarterback. Johnson received simple but specific instructions from Dan Mullen, the Utes’ quarterbacks coach at the time: “Follow Alex, and do everything that he does.” Five years later, Johnson is still trying to follow Mullen’s advice. Johnson has led No. 10 Utah to a 9-0 record, and if the Utes beat No. 11 Texas Christian on Thursday, they would be on the cusp of a berth in a Bowl Championship Series game. Johnson said this year’s team is similar to the 2004 Utes, who ran through the Mountain West and crushed Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl in what became a model for teams outside the six major conferences on how to crash through college football’s glass B.C.S. ceiling. “It’s a great opportunity for my career to come full circle,” Johnson said. Though his career has been pockmarked by injuries, Johnson’s senior season has been hallmarked by his efficiency and his leadership. He has 14 touchdowns and has completed a career-best 66.7 percent of his passes. Much has changed from 2004. Coach Urban Meyer and Mullen left for Florida and Smith exited to become the No. 1 pick in the 2005 N.F.L. draft. But some things are the same. Kyle Whittingham, the defensive coordinator of the 2004 team, is the coach, some of the strategies are similar, and the Utes are led by a poised and intellectual quarterback. “He’s our team leader and is having a big year for us, much like Alex Smith was our team leader in 2004,” Whittingham said. Johnson’s recruiting has similarly humble roots to Smith, who was so lightly regarded as a football prospect that his mother begged him to attend an Ivy League university. When Mullen, now Florida’s offensive coordinator, went to Houston to recruit Johnson at Robert E. Lee High, he came back and told Meyer he found their future quarterback. “Great,” Meyer said. “Show me the film.” There was one problem. Johnson did not have film. In the previous three seasons, he had been the seldom-used backup to Drew Tate, who went on to a successful career at Iowa. But Mullen liked enough of what he saw of Johnson in a spring practice that he promised to come back in September to see a game. Mullen watched Johnson coolly orchestrate the offense, make good decisions and efficient throws. A scholarship offer soon followed. “He wasn’t that highly recruited,” Meyer said. “Dan Mullen did a good job finding him. He’s not that big or that fast. He’s just a heady player that’s a winner.” By the time programs like Illinois, Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech began recruiting him, he was a Ute. Mullen laughed when recalling the story. “He was committed to us before anyone knew who he was,” he said. So a week after he graduated from high school and three months after his 17th birthday, Johnson arrived in Salt Lake City for his apprenticeship. He calls that time one of the highlights of his college career, as Smith guided him through off-season workouts and helped teach him the nuances of studying film. “I was just trying to do everything that he did,” Johnson said. “Come in and be like a sponge.” When Johnson made his official visit to Utah, he was just 16, and Smith joked that he felt like a baby sitter. Despite the age gap, the two became fast friends, and they still talk every week. But Johnson said there were some bumps once he arrived that first summer. Once, he borrowed Smith’s car, a beat-up Suzuki, and the alarm started blaring as he arrived at work. “Everyone thought I was robbing the car,” Johnson recalled with a laugh. “It was loud and obnoxious and went off for a really long time. I finally got Alex on the phone and he told me reach under the steering wheel and jiggle some wires. It was complex, it was crazy.” Johnson has also endured tough moments on the field. He won the starting job as a sophomore in 2005 and ended up as the second-team all-Mountain West quarterback. But a knee injury that November against New Mexico knocked him out for the rest of the season and forced him to redshirt in 2006. “We could have played him, but he was vulnerable to another injury” said the Utah offensive coordinator, Andy Ludwig. “A big part was talking about how good this group would be his senior year. He handled it with class and got bigger and stronger.” When Johnson returned in 2007, he separated his shoulder in the opener and missed the next two games. He came back to be named the most valuable offensive player in a Poinsettia Bowl victory against Navy. This season, the Utes are aiming higher. They beat Michigan in Ann Arbor to open the season, and Johnson led them to an epic comeback against Oregon State. Ludwig, who calls Johnson the smartest quarterback he has coached, recalled talking to Johnson via headset in the waning minutes of the Oregon State game, with the Utes trailing by 11. Johnson became annoyed when he saw fans headed for the exit. “Where are they going?” he asked Ludwig. “They’re going to miss us come back and win.” Sure enough, Johnson hit Bradon Godfrey on a 25-yard touchdown pass and ran in the 2-point conversion to tie the score. The Utah defense held Oregon State to a three-and-out and Johnson got Utah in position to set up Louie Sakoda’s 37-yard field goal as time expired. “I think that’s been a strong point of my individual game for a long time,” Johnson said, “being poised in tough situations.” He will be in another tough situation Thursday, as T.C.U.’s defense ranks second nationally, behind Southern California, yielding an average of 214.5 yards a game. After T.C.U., Utah has games left at San Diego State and at home against No. 17 Brigham Young to complete the season. Three victories separate Johnson from ending his career in perfect symmetry. “Just to see him out there and leading the team is great,” Smith said. “Hopefully they can finish it out. I’m happy that he’s been able to finish off his college career right.”

University of Utah
Football
College Athletics
Johnson Brian


The Secret Curse of Expert Archers

Abstract: There is an affliction so feared by elite archers that many in the sport refuse to even say its name. Archery coaches who specialize in treating the problem are sworn not to reveal the identities of archers in its grip, even though they estimate that 90 percent of high-level competitors will fall victim at least once in their careers. Target panic, as the condition is known, causes crack shots to suddenly lose control of their bows and their composure. Mysteriously, sufferers start releasing the bow the instant they see the target, sabotaging any chance of a gold-medal shot. Others freeze up and cannot release at all. Target panic is akin to the yips in baseball and golf, when accomplished athletes can no longer make a simple throw to first base or stroke an easy putt. The results can be mortifying, and archery is filled with tales of those who have caught the curse, never to shoot again. The problem has spawned a cottage industry of coaches, books and specialized accessories that claim to cure target panic. “It’s devastating,” said Terry Wunderle, a professional archery coach whose son, Vic, is an archer on this year’s United States Olympic team. “For someone who has a good case of target panic, I could offer them a thousand dollars if they would just pull the bow back and let the pin float over the bull’s-eye,” Wunderle said, referring to the way archers let their arrows gently bob as they wait for the perfect shot. “I guarantee you, I would not lose the thousand dollars. They can’t do it.” Few admit to being sufferers themselves. “Most shooters will deny that they have it,” said Len Cardinale, an archery coach who said he had treated “hundreds and hundreds” of cases of target panic since the 1970s. “It’s more convenient to say they need a new bow, they have to switch arrows or stand differently.” Wunderle, who himself admitted to battling target panic from time to time, would not reveal whether any of the Olympic archers he coached had faced target panic. “I would not say it if I knew it,” said Wunderle, who also did not want his son interviewed on the subject with the Beijing Olympics a week away. “It’s like being an alcoholic. They don’t say much about it. They don’t fess up to it.” Although few academic studies have been conducted on target panic, several sports psychologists said the condition was nearly identical to the much-analyzed yips in golf and other sports. Ben Hogan and Lee Trevino were notorious sufferers; so was Chuck Knoblauch, the former Yankees second baseman who discovered he could no longer throw to first base. Some say Shaquille O’Neal’s dismal free-throw record is due to a case of the yips. While nearly everyone agrees that the problem is primarily psychological, the latest research suggests that, in some cases, the problem might also be neurological. Sufferers might actually have a disorder known as focal dystonia, a common affliction of musicians caused when the neurons that guide a particular movement — be it aiming a bow or sinking a putt — become worn from overuse. “It’s like a hiccup in the wrist,” said Aynsley M. Smith, research director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center, which has conducted three studies on the yips in golf since 2000. Her research, as well as that of a team from New Zealand, has concluded that there are two types of yips — one that is purely psychological and another that is primarily neurological. In both cases, two opposing muscle groups contract at the same time, leading to what Smith and other sport scientists call a “double pull.” Even those with a neurological disorder can develop anxiety that makes the problem worse, said Robert Bell, a sports psychologist at Ball State University who specializes in golf. “It kind of gets into the mind that this could happen, and that’s where the anxiety and the stress come in,” he said. One of the worst cases of target panic that Wunderle treated was in 16-year-old Joey Hunt. Hunt, who has been shooting archery “just about my whole life,” competes with a compound bow, which uses pulleys and levers to flex the bow back compared with the recurve bow used in the Olympics. When Hunt was 9 or 10, he discovered he had lost his preternatural ability to send arrows thunking into the target’s gold center. “I would start to bring the bow down, and as soon as it got anywhere near the target, I would click it right off, right then and there,” said Hunt, who lives in Minot, Me. “It just takes over your mind, and it’s hard to concentrate on other parts of shooting.” Target panic, also known as gold fever because sufferers become obsessed with hitting the gold center, is rich in lore, and online message boards are filled with cautionary testimonials from those who have had the disease. “I could draw the bow without the arrow and had no trouble holding on the dot at all,” wrote a victim on the message board at archerytalk.com , referring to aiming at the center of the target. “But put an arrow on the string and Satan himself was holding it off ... strange stuff some of us endure to play this game!” Lanny Bassham, a former Olympic rifle shooter and mental coach whose clients include the Olympic archer Brady Ellison, said the archery community had a peculiar obsession with target panic, which he noted had a horrifying ring. “The words target panic have induced an unnecessary amount of severity and concern about this condition among archers,” he said. “I think if they had a better word for it, they’d have a lot less problem trying to cure it.” Many archers and their coaches refuse to say target panic. Those words are forbidden around the Nichols household, which is home to the Olympic archer Jennifer Nichols and her younger sister, Amanda, also a world-class competitor. “We try to stay away from the labels that are put on things by people in the archery industry because once you feel you’ve got that label, it’s hard to stay away from it,” said their father, Brent Nichols. “We don’t want to hear those things.” Theories vary on how to cure target panic. Some switch their shooting hand, or change their grip slightly — techniques that have also proved successful in golf. Others use visualization techniques and positive reinforcement. Wunderle advises his clients to imagine seeing and feeling what a good shot is, without focusing on aiming the arrow. “Do not focus on results,” he said. “When you focus on results, it builds anxiety. And anxiety is the kiss of death.” One of the most popular cures is to entirely remove the target. Sufferers instead practice shooting at a blank target, sometimes for weeks at a time, to retrain the mind. “The empty bale restores your confidence in your subconscious,” said Bernie Pellerite, author of the book “Idiot Proof Archery” and a self-described expert on target panic. “Nobody flinches or punches or chokes on an empty bale.” Hunt spent weeks shooting at blank targets, but he also purchased a special release for his bow, which helped retrain him when to shoot. “It’s trying to engrave in your head when you should shoot,” he said. “You just pull it back, let the safety off, and pull it until it decides to go. Then you get used to every shot being perfect.” Hunt placed second in his age group at the Junior Olympic Archery Development national championships in Oklahoma City earlier this month. His target panic, he said, had been cured. For now.

Archery
United States
Mayo Clinic
Sports Medicine Center
Olympic Games
Thomas Katie
Olympic Games (2008)


Swansea Moves Out of Danger

Abstract: With Francesco Guidolin newly appointed as its coach, Swansea moved out of the relegation zone with a 1-0 home win over Watford in the Premier League. Guidolin, 60, whose hiring was confirmed earlier Monday and who was in the stands at Liberty Stadium, will work alongside Alan Curtis, who took over as interim manager after Garry Monk was fired last month. ■ Alessandria came from behind to win at second-division Spezia, 2-1, in an unlikely Italian Cup quarterfinal. Alessandria, the first third-division club to reach the last four since Bari in 1984, will face A.C. Milan. ■ The Nigerian team Enyimba said that players and officials had been robbed at gunpoint on their way to a preseason tournament but that no one had been hurt. (AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE)


‘Not There’ Campaign Removes Women From Ads for International Women’s Day

Abstract: Women across New York had vanished. Rosie the Riveter disappeared from her iconic poster in a bus shelter. Serena Williams faded from a giant Beats billboard in Times Square. Gone was Scarlett Johansson from the March cover of Condé Nast’s W magazine. On Sunday, the Clinton Foundation co-opted some 40 existing advertisements, posters and other media, cutting out the women as part of a campaign to call attention to gender inequality. The stunt, the work of the advertising agency Droga5, was intended to drive online traffic to a report by the foundation’s No Ceilings initiative on the status of women and girls across the globe. “This is about putting a really important issue in front of people,” said Katie Dowd, director of digital strategy at the Clinton Foundation. “We’re really trying to create a moment that feels meaningful.” The campaign and the release of the No Ceilings reports coincided with International Women’s Day, observed annually on March 8. The project also marked the 20 years since Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke on women’s rights at a United Nations conference in Beijing. The Clinton Foundation, founded by former President Bill Clinton, is also using online video, radio and social media to represent the idea that women are “not there” yet in terms of gender equality. Female celebrities, including Cameron Diaz and Amy Poehler, star in a video on the campaign’s website, Not-There.org, that explains the effort. The media company iHeartMedia removed women’s voices from well-known songs on 186 of its radio stations nationwide. The foundation also put up short videos on the photo-messaging app Snapchat and encouraged users of social media to change their profile pictures to a woman’s blank silhouette. Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea Clinton blacked out their Twitter profile photos as part of the campaign. The sweeping strategy reflects pressure in the advertising industry to create big, in-your-face campaigns in the hopes of slicing through the barrage of media clutter. To make an impact, marketers are willing to go to extremes to reach a consumer base that already contends with a constant flood of content. “We want to create content that people actually want to engage with,” said Susie Nam, general manager of Droga5. “We don’t want this to be transient.” Along with Condé Nast and Beats, several other companies gave the foundation permission to replace their existing ads with modified ones, including the consumer-products giant Unilever, which owns the Dove and Tresemmé brands, and Under Armour, a Droga5 client. The media space for the stunt was donated or provided at a discount. The foundation covered the cost of printing the altered material. So-called purpose-driven marketing campaigns have taken off in recent years, as companies look for new ways to connect with their consumers, said Jim Stengel, a business consultant who previously worked as chief marketing officer at Procter & Gamble. And gender equality is certainly a hot topic. Just last week, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and author of the book “Lean In,” introduced a new campaign with the National Basketball Association called Lean In Together that encourages men to stand alongside women to promote gender equality. “Everybody is trying to understand how to lead with a sense of an inspiring purpose at the heart of their brand,” Mr. Stengel said. The Not There campaign “is a great example of a client and these brands looking for a really big idea that breaks through.” For Unilever, whose Dove brand in particular has had a number of successful ad campaigns directed at women , deciding to help the Clinton Foundation spread its message was easy, said Gina Boswell, the executive vice president for personal care for Unilever North America. “It really comes from a responsibility to take action, honestly,” Ms. Boswell said, adding that she hoped adopting the campaign’s message would reflect well on the company itself, whose customers are largely women. By Sunday evening, the Not There website had been viewed at least 104,680 times, according to the foundation. McNally Jackson Books, an independent bookstore in Lower Manhattan, had set up a window display of Condé Nast magazines, including Vogue, Glamour and Allure, with women erased from their covers. The afternoon light glinted off the glass, making the Not There web address somewhat difficult to see. Inside, a small stack of modified magazines sat on a table in the cafe area. None were for sale.

Clinton Foundation
Droga5
Women and Girls
Women's rights,Feminism
Outdoor Advertising
advertising,marketing
2016 Presidential Election


Sam Zell, Who Led Tribune Into Bankruptcy, May Remain

Abstract: The Tribune Company could well emerge from bankruptcy this fall with much of its current top management intact, according to people briefed on restructuring plans, but it remains unclear whether that might include the top dog himself, Samuel Zell , the chairman and chief executive who took the company private. From the day Tribune filed for bankruptcy in December, it has been clear that Mr. Zell’s $315 million investment and warrants to buy a large share of the company would almost certainly be wiped out. He is being sued on multiple fronts over the $8.2 billion deal that took the company private in December 2007; he has called it a mistake and “the deal from hell”; and some people familiar with the plans are guessing that, when the dust settles, he will be out. But other people close to the restructuring talks, speaking anonymously because the discussions were supposed to remain private, caution that the major creditors have not yet given a clear indication whether they want Mr. Zell to leave or remain in some capacity. Nor has Mr. Zell said clearly whether he wants to go, though he is used to being the man in charge, and his authority would be diminished under new owners. “I think the jury is out on Sam,” one of them said. “That is going to be a point of discussion.” Mr. Zell, 67, made billions in real estate by buying depressed assets where others saw more risk than value, and knowing when to sell them. But that touch faltered when, with the Tribune deal, he moved into an unfamiliar field. Mr. Zell is not granting interviews, according to Tribune, one of the nation’s largest media companies. Its properties include some two dozen television stations and a string of some of the most important newspapers in the country, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun. People briefed on the talks say that the company and leading creditors could agree by September or October on a restructuring plan that would wipe out more than $12 billion of the company’s roughly $13 billion in debt. Such a plan would need the approval of the bankruptcy court in Delaware. In 2007, a group of major banks lent Tribune about $8 billion to go private, but they have since sold much of that debt to other banks and investment firms. Under the anticipated restructuring plan, it is the holders of that senior secured debt — first in line for some repayment — who would end up owning the bulk of the company. That, too, was considered the likely outcome from the start — in fact, the bankruptcy filing last December was in part an attempt to protect the interest of those lenders as Tribune’s cash reserves dwindled. Mr. Zell told senior secured creditors then that, in essence, the company was in their hands, and that making a scheduled payment on junior debt would leave less for them, and asked what they wanted to do. They endorsed bankruptcy. Randy Michaels, the chief operating officer installed by Mr. Zell, recently sent a memo to employees saying that for the most part, management and the lenders agreed on how to run the company. “While the ownership structure of the company is likely to change, current operating management is committed, and intends to remain in place during and after the restructuring,” he wrote. That may have contained an element of bravado, but people briefed on the matter said the major creditors were not unhappy with the current team. “They’re pretty pleased with the way things are running,” one said. For a few more months, at least, Tribune will remain in the limbo of bankruptcy, unable to make any major moves without court approval and uncertain about who its future leader will be. Having stopped payment on its long-term debt, Tribune has continued to cut costs, reached a tentative deal to sell the Chicago Cubs baseball team for $845 million, and built its cash cushion from $317 million when it filed for bankruptcy last December to $743 million by the end of June. But Mr. Zell’s maneuvering also contributed to more than a year of delays in selling the Cubs and, according to some analysts, may have resulted in a lower price than Tribune would have gotten when the economy was stronger. He sought to sell the team and its home, Wrigley Field, separately — the Cubs to a private buyer, the stadium to a government agency and possibly the naming rights to the stadium to a third buyer. But that strategy ran into trouble, and Tribune eventually reverted to an earlier, simpler plan to sell them as a package. It was also Mr. Zell who engineered the complex deal to take the company private, which nearly tripled the company’s debt and left it with too little free cash flow to weather a sharp drop in advertising. A group of employees sued in September 2008, saying that the deal was certain to fail. Last week, a group of Tribune bondholders did the same. Whether either suit can upend the sort of restructuring plan sought by Tribune and its major lenders, or lower Mr. Zell’s chance of remaining in charge, remains to be seen. A spate of high-dollar, high-leverage deals in 2006 and 2007 put hundreds of American newspapers, including many of the biggest, under new ownership — and in most cases put the new owners in financial jeopardy. Mr. Zell’s Tribune takeover was the biggest of those deals, it was one of the last, and it was the first to land in bankruptcy. Since then, Philadelphia Newspapers, owner of that city’s Inquirer and Daily News; The Minneapolis Star Tribune; and others have filed for bankruptcy, while some other publishers have had to restructure their debts to remain solvent.

Bankruptcies
Newspapers
Zell Samuel
Tribune Co
Executives and Management


From a Critic of Tribunals to Top Judge

Abstract: Back in 2002, a master’s degree candidate at the Naval War College wrote a paper on the Bush administration’s plan to use military commissions to try Guantánamo suspects, concluding that “even a good military tribunal is a bad idea.” It drew little notice at the time, but the paper has gained a second life because of its author’s big promotion: Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann of the Marines is now the chief judge of the military commissions at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The system, Judge Kohlmann wrote in 2002, would face criticism for the “apparent lack of independence” of military judges and would have “credibility problems,” the very argument made by Guantánamo’s critics. He said it would be better to try terrorism suspects in federal courts in the United States. “Unnecessary use of military tribunals in the face of reasonable international criticism,” he wrote, “is an ill-advised move.” The paper is becoming a reference work of sorts in the curious history of Guantánamo, which includes a number of former officials who have become outspoken critics, including several former intelligence officers and a former chief military prosecutor. Judge Kohlmann may be the only one who has switched the order, first delivering a fervent attack on Guantánamo and later becoming one of its officials. The existence of his paper, written as an independent study project, has been noted occasionally in court in Guantánamo and elsewhere, though detainees’ advocates say it has become more noteworthy since his appointment as chief judge in March. But the details of his arguments escaped wide public notice until a few weeks ago, when David Glazier, an associate professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, came across the paper in a mass of newly released documents from a case Judge Kohlmann handled in March. The documents showed that defense lawyers had asked Judge Kohlmann about the paper in written questions. “I chose the topic because it was in the news at the time,” he explained. This week, Mr. Glazier said he had been fascinated. “My reaction was, this is pretty amazing, that even the chief judge of the commissions has recognized the horrendous problems of the commission process,” he said. A few weeks ago, Professor Glazier sent an e-mail message to a group of human rights advocates. He included a link to the Pentagon Web site where the paper could be found in the newly released records of the war crimes prosecution of a former detainee, David Hicks. Soon there were new readers for Judge Kohlmann’s five-year-old paper. “It seemed ironic in the extreme,” said David H. Remes, a detainees’ lawyer, who said he learned of the paper from Mr. Glazier’s message. Jameel Jaffer, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who has been an observer at Guantánamo commission proceedings, read the paper at the request of a reporter and said it was “perplexing” that someone who seemed to agree with much that the critics have said about the Guantánamo legal system was now helping to run it. As to the judge’s arguments, Mr. Jaffer said, “He was absolutely right.” Pentagon officials declined to discuss Judge Kohlmann’s paper this week, but in the past they have said the commissions give detainees many important protections, including the right to be represented by a lawyer. Pentagon spokesmen said Judge Kohlmann declined to comment, and they said the telephone number for his chambers could not be revealed for security reasons. Judge Kohlmann, a 49-year-old New Jersey native, is a decorated career officer with a down-to-business demeanor. He was a military judge in the first military commission system before it was struck down by the Supreme Court last year. He was appointed the chief judge in March by the Pentagon, after Congress created a new military commission system to replace the old. Questioned about his paper by defense lawyers in March, he said he could not recall whether he had received a grade. Mr. Jaffer said he would have given the judge an A. The paper was prickly at times, referring to Bush administration “spinmeisters” and dismissing the argument that the new challenges of fighting terrorism meant that civilian judges and juries would be endangered by federal trials. Prior terrorism and organized crime cases, he wrote, showed that “the existing United States criminal justice system does not have to be put aside simply because the potential defendants have scary friends.” Judge Kohlmann has not disavowed the paper. But the documents show that in March, perhaps illustrating the pressures of responsibility, he told defense lawyers for Mr. Hicks that he wanted to correct a misstatement in his paper. He had been incorrect, he said, when he wrote that President Bush’s original order establishing military commissions “essentially states” that fundamental fairness would not be a part of commission trials. “That I now believe to be incorrect,” he said. One of Mr. Hicks’s lawyers, Joshua L. Dratel, said this week that Judge Kohlmann had seemingly reconciled his past as a critic of the system with his new role as one of its managers. “He seemed to me,” Mr. Dratel said, “like a guy who was given a mandate to make the system work, and he was not going to let anyone interfere with it.”

Courts
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)
Kohlmann Ralph H.
Defense Department


Days of Rising Interest Rates May Be Numbered

Abstract: RARELY do new years and significant changes coincide as they did this week. The year was less than a week old when it emerged that the Federal Reserve appeared to be easing off the brakes on the economy, the airline industry might be poised for revival and traditional company pensions took a significant step closer to extinction. RATE SHIFT? Federal Reserve policy makers may be close to ending 18 months of raising interest rates, according to minutes of a meeting last month of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. The suggestion spurred a rally in the stock market and sent the dollar lower against European and Asian currencies. The minutes said "most members" of the committee agreed that "given the information now in hand, the number of additional firming steps required probably would not be large." Firming steps are rate increases. The Fed has raised its main short-term rate in increments of one quarter of a percentage point at each of its last 13 meetings, increasing it to 4.25 percent from 1 percent. Committee members noted that wages have risen modestly despite strong economic growth, and that last year's spike in energy prices had only a "muted" effect on prices over all. The change came as the Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, neared the end of an 18-year tenure. Ben S. Bernanke is scheduled to become chairman on Feb. 1, assuming the Senate confirms him this month. GAINING ALTITUDE -- Less than two years after it started low-fare service from its base at Dulles International Airport near Washington, Independence Air stopped flying Thursday and took steps to liquidate. The airline filed for bankruptcy protection in November, but it was unable to line up fresh financing that would let it cope with higher fuel costs and increased competition. While that is bad news for the airline's 2,600 employees, it may be good news for other domestic carriers. Fewer planes in the air could ease the pressure on airlines to sell seats at a loss, analysts said, just as fuel costs are easing. That combination could help the airlines move back into the black after four years of losses that total about $30 billion. Analysts expect five airlines to return to profit this year: American, Continental, Alaska, JetBlue and AirTran. Profit at Southwest, which remained profitable through the slump, is likely to increase 15 percent this year, analysts said. PENSION OVERBOARD -- In a move that could prompt still more big companies to abandon traditional defined-benefit pension plans, I.B.M. said it would freeze pension benefits for its American employees in 2008 and offer them only a 401(k) retirement plan after then. With the announcement, I.B.M. joined a growing number of big employers -- including Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Sears -- that have frozen their pension plans. In doing so, the companies no longer let their employees build up retirement benefits to reflect higher pay and additional years of employment. Benefits already earned are unaffected. At I.B.M., the change will affect 117,000 employees in the United States. It will not cut the benefits being paid to 125,000 American retirees. I.B.M. projected that it would save $2.5 billion to $3 billion over the next five years as it carries out the change worldwide. MEDIA MAKEOVER -- Dow Jones & Company, which has been struggling financially since the bursting of the dot-com bubble began to bleed advertising from its flagship newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, chose its chief operating officer, Richard F. Zannino, as its next chief executive. He will succeed Peter R. Kann, who is expected to continue as chairman of the board until the annual meeting in April 2007, the year in which he turns 65 and faces mandatory retirement. His wife, Karen Elliott House, the publisher of The Journal, was considered the other leading candidate to succeed him. After not being chosen, Ms. House said she would leave the company. Dow Jones's profit fell 16 percent in the third quarter after The Journal's new weekend edition increased costs, although the company said its fourth-quarter earnings would be better than expected. The Journal's managing editor, Paul E. Steiger, is also facing retirement; with the changes, it is not clear who will choose his successor. HEALTHSOUTH HANGOVER -- Richard M. Scrushy, the former chief executive of the HealthSouth Corporation, was acquitted of fraud charges in a federal trial last year, but a state judge in Alabama said he must repay $47.8 million in bonuses that HealthSouth awarded him for achieving revenue goals; some of the sales used to compute revenue later turned out to be false. The ruling by Judge Allwin E. Horn III came in a shareholder lawsuit filed in 2002, before Mr. Scrushy was found not guilty on charges that he directed a $2.7 billion accounting fraud at HealthSouth, a nationwide chain of rehabilitation hospitals and clinics. Mr. Scrushy, who said he planned to appeal Judge Horn's decision, faces unrelated federal charges that he bribed former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama. He pleaded not guilty to that charge. TAKEOVER FIGHT -- In a rare hostile takeover by a European company in the United States, BASF, the German chemicals maker, offered $4.9 billion for the Engelhard Company of Iselin, N.J., which developed the catalytic converter and specializes in manufacturing pollution-control systems. Engelhard rebuffed the $37-a-share offer, which represented almost a 23 percent premium over its year-end stock price. Still, Engelhard shares jumped to $38, suggesting that investors think someone will take over the company. BASF said that if it was successful in buying Engelhard, it did not anticipate big job cuts. MOST VIEWED -- Following are the most-viewed business news articles on nytimes.com from Dec. 31, 2005, through Jan. 6, 2006: 1. At 150 Edgars Lane, Changing the Idea of Home 2. Credit Cards With Rewards Are Worth a Look 3. David Pogue: A Marriage Not Made in Heaven 4. A Bit of Doodling About a Tax-Cut Danger 5. Google and Yahoo Aim at Another Screen Links are at nytimes.com/business.


Population Up 25 Million or So

Abstract: The government estimated Monday that the country’s population grew to somewhere between roughly 306 million and 313 million over the last decade, acknowledging uncertainty due to rapid shifts in immigration . In 2000, the official census count was 281.4 million. Hispanics accounted for all the growth in the youth population in the last decade. In 2000, Hispanics made up 17 percent of the population under age 20. They now represent 22 percent to 25 percent of that age group. Without Hispanics, the number of young people in the United States would have declined between 2000 and 2010. Based on the estimates, the non-Hispanic youth population declined between 1.25 million and 2.9 million.

Population
Census
United States
Hispanic-Americans
Immigration and Emigration


Quandary in South Sudan: Should It Lose Its Hard-Won Independence?

Abstract: NAIROBI, Kenya — Tens of thousands of civilians dead, countless children on the verge of starvation, millions of dollars stolen by officials, oil wells blown up, food aid hijacked and as many as 70 percent of women sheltering in camps raped — mostly by the nation’s soldiers and police officers. Just a few years ago, South Sudan accomplished what seemed impossible: independence . Of all the quixotic rebel armies fighting for freedom in Africa, the South Sudanese actually won. Global powers, including the United States , rallied to their side, helping to create the world’s newest country in 2011, a supposed solution to decades of conflict and suffering. Now, with millions of its people hungry or displaced by civil war , a radical question has emerged: Should South Sudan lose its independence? Image South Sudanese celebrated at a ceremony marking the independence of their country in Juba in 2011. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times As international frustrations and worries grow, some momentum is growing for a proposal for outside powers to take over South Sudan and run it as a trusteeship until things calm down. Several academics and prominent opposition figures support the idea , citing East Timor, Kosovo and Bosnia as places where, they say, it has worked, though of course there are plenty of cautionary tales where outside intervention failed, like Somalia and Iraq. The Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani recently floated a plan in which the African Union would take the lead in setting up a transitional government for South Sudan. Ideally, Mr. Mamdani said, none of the current South Sudanese politicians who have helped drag their nation into civil war would be able to participate, and the trusteeship would last around six years, requiring United Nations support. Image Independence ceremony celebrations. Global powers, including the United States, rallied to South Sudan’s side, helping to create the world’s newest country in 2011, a supposed solution to decades of conflict and suffering. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times “The response to the crisis will need to be as extraordinary as the crisis,” he said. But there is one not-so-little problem. Many South Sudanese might not go for it. According to James Solomon Padiet, a lecturer at Juba University, most members of the nation’s largest ethnic group — the Dinka, who include South Sudan’s embattled president, Salva Kiir — are adamantly set against an international takeover. While smaller ethnic groups would welcome it, he said, the powerful Dinka see it as an affront to their sovereignty. For that matter, so does Mr. Padiet, a soft-spoken scholar who is not a Dinka. He called trusteeship “offensive” because South Sudan has a potential crop of good leaders waiting in the wings who haven’t had a chance to rule. Still, Mr. Padiet conceded, the country desperately needs help. Image Friends and relatives buried a Nuer soldier fighting on the side of the South Sudan government after a battle with opposition forces in 2014. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times “As we speak now,” he said, “South Sudan is at crossroads of disintegration or total fragility.” Clashes have spread to new areas of the country, and ethnic-based militias are mobilizing in the bush. It’s all a staggering plunge from the country’s birth. I, along with hundreds of other journalists, was standing in a crowd that felt like a million people on July 9, 2011, the insanely hot day when South Sudan broke off from Sudan . The sense of pride, sacrifice, hope and jubilation will be hard to forget. For decades, South Sudanese rebels had battled the better-armed, Arab-dominated central government of Sudan. They fought in malarial swamps and on sweltering savannas, incredibly hostile environments where it’s hard to survive, let alone wage a guerrilla war on a shoestring. The South Sudanese had absorbed bombings and massacres. The Arabs stole their children and turned them into slaves. As a result, many South Sudanese were scattered across the four corners of the earth — the famous Lost Boys, but also many Lost Girls, ripped from their families and forced to flee to cold foreign places that they had never envisioned. Image Soldiers with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army marching toward the town of Bentiu in 2014 in an effort to retake the town from rebel forces loyal to Riek Marchar. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times On independence day, South Sudan’s capital, Juba, partied until dawn. Lost Boys swigged White Bull (the local beer) next to hardened guerrillas bobbing their heads to reggae rap. All around us, there seemed to be a real appreciation of what had been achieved and what lay ahead. Most important, there was unity. That crumbled quickly , undermined by old political rivalries , ethnic tension and a greed for South Sudan’s one main export: oil. The fault line was the most predictable one, the Dinka versus the Nuer. The two biggest ethnic groups had alternated between allies and enemies throughout South Sudan’s liberation wars. Starting in December 2013, after a breakdown between their political leaders, who not so long ago had been hailed as heroes, Nuer and Dinka militias began killing each other and civilians across the country, especially in ethnically mixed areas. Image A billboard with pictures of President Salva Kiir of South Sudan, left, and the opposition leader, Riek Machar, in Juba in 2016. Credit Albert Gonzalez Farran/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Women were raped. Children were burned to death. Some people were even forced at gunpoint to eat the flesh of their dead relatives. The horror has been meticulously documented. Still, it goes on. For years, the United Nations has stationed thousands of peacekeepers in the country, but often they have not intervened. In 2012, shortly after independence, I rushed to a remote town, Pibor, where hundreds had just been massacred by an ethnic militia. I saw one woman who was literally holding her arm together — she had been blasted by a Kalashnikov — as she sat in a medical tent that smelled of decaying flesh. She stared at the wall, not making a murmur. I interviewed peacekeepers who told me how they had watched civilians get shot right in front of them, yet the peacekeepers felt too scared to raise their rifles. Image United Nations peacekeeping troops outside a civilian protection site in Juba in 2016. Credit Albert Gonzalez Farran/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images United Nations officials in Juba have been excoriated for failing to spring into action and effectively step between Mr. Kiir and Riek Machar, the former vice president and the most influential Nuer, as their rivalry intensified and grew into nationwide bloodshed. This is a big reason some people think an international trusteeship will never work. “Having completely failed in the international state-building project, now we’re going to move to an international takeover? With what army?” asked John Prendergast, who has been working on South Sudan for 30 years and co-founded the Enough Project, an anti-genocide group. “Would the same international bureaucrats that undertook massive state-building experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan come to Juba to lead another failed political intervention?” he added. “It all seems fantastical, doomed and extremely unlikely.” Image A malnourished South Sudanese mother sitting with her son, who was being treated for severe malnourishment and other complications at a tent hospital in Malakal in 2014. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times Other scholars take a middle view. Amir Idris , chairman of Fordham’s African and African-American studies department and a frequent writer on South Sudan, said an international trusteeship should be considered — but only as a last resort. He says the most important issue is that a new government be built with new people, including academics and technocrats. “South Sudan has no chance of transitioning itself to a functioning state unless the edifice of the current leadership is brought down,” he said. Bronwyn Bruton, the deputy director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, called South Sudan’s leaders “such a disaster.” She said Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar were “corrupt,” “self-interested” and “willing to stoke ethnic conflict and commit horrible violence in pursuit of power.” “Genocide is beginning to look inevitable,” she said. “The situation could hardly be more hopeless.” But she worries that no country has the appetite to spearhead a meaningful intervention. The Obama administration considered several ways to help usher in a political transition, a former administration official said, but eventually concluded it was not feasible. It’s not as if Mr. Kiir or Mr. Machar or their inner circles, who are widely believed to continue to profit from oil and conflict , are going to volunteer to step aside. Thousands of armed men are intensely loyal to them, and even a few friends left in Western capitals make the case that the South Sudanese government has stabilized Juba in recent months, has become more inclusive and should be allowed to stay. One glimmer of hope comes from across the continent. In the last few days, troops from several West African countries banded together to eject Gambia’s president , who tried to stay in power illegally. If such resolve was demonstrated in this part of Africa, then maybe, the interventionists argue, South Sudan’s leaders could be pushed aside and the country would be allowed to breathe.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


Cellphone Makers Hope for a Blockbuster Summer

Abstract: The hype machine started months ago. Opening weekends are upon us. High up in executive suites, the hope is that this summer’s new releases will cause lines to snake around the block. The cellphone industry looks a lot like the movie industry nowadays. Some highly anticipated phones — including the Palm Pre, an updated iPhone and new phones using the Android operating system from Google — have focused the industry’s efforts on the crucial months between Memorial Day and Labor Day . In the past, “nobody gave a darn about mobile phones — they weren’t headline grabbers,” said Charles Wolf, a cellphone industry analyst with Needham & Company. “This summer will be really interesting. It could be potentially the most exciting time in this market.” The season’s releases began last week, when T-Mobile announced the introduction of the Sidekick LX and AT& T unveiled the Samsung Jack, ballyhooing it as “another hit crossover smartphone in the tradition of the Blackjack and Blackjack II.” But the season’s most compelling phone drama will start the first week in June, when Sprint will begin selling the Palm Pre, people briefed on the company’s plans said. Palm, a once-iconic device maker that has fallen on hard times, has been hyping the Pre for months as an iPhone killer, but the company has given few peeks to analysts and reviewers. Analysts say the stakes are high for Sprint Nextel, which has exclusive rights to the phone in the United States, but even higher for Palm, which is based in Silicon Valley. “This is make or break for Palm,” said Mr. Wolf, noting that Palm, also the maker of Treo and Centro phones, lost about $98 million in the last quarter, consistent with losses in other recent quarters. “It’s not make or break for Sprint, but clearly Sprint is in trouble, too, and needs a hit.” Lynn Fox, a spokeswoman for Palm, played down the importance of the Pre itself, saying it was the first “in a long line” of devices that will use Palm’s new mobile operating system. “The Pre isn’t a bet-the-company device,” Ms. Fox said. Because the smartphone market still has room to grow (according to Google, it is estimated that out of the four billion mobile devices in the world, only 100 million are smartphones), manufacturers hope there is room for more than one winner. How is success measured for cellphones? A flop will sell fewer than 100,000 units, a hit at least one million, and a runaway success five times that or more, analysts say. In July 2007, the iPhone’s first month on the market, 80,000 people bought one. Apple went on to sell iPhones, including the 3G version, to more than five million Americans, according to comScore. Big phone releases happen year-round, but there is a concentration in the summer. That way, phone carriers and manufacturers can take advantage of two crucial selling seasons: back to school and the holidays, said Mark Donovan, an analyst with comScore. As soon as June 8, just a few days after the expected release of the Pre, Apple may introduce a third version of its iPhone at the company’s annual conference for software developers. The phone could become available a month later, though analysts and Apple rumormongers say it might also come later in the summer. Analysts generally agree that the phone will have an upgraded camera, a faster processor and better location services. Apple, of course, has less risk than other phone makers; its iPhone is already a blockbuster. That said, if the company fails to keep innovating, it risks losing its buzz. Jennifer Bowcock, an Apple spokeswoman, declined to comment on the company’s plans for a new phone. Also in June, Samsung has said, it plans to release the i7500, its first phone based on the Android operating system, but it has not said when that phone will come to the United States. HTC recently released the Android-equipped Magic in Europe. And Motorola says it plans to start selling several Android phones this summer, phones the company is counting on, given its desperate need for a hit. Trickling into the market — though release dates are uncertain — are a host of phones using a new mobile operating system from Microsoft. Microsoft’s current mobile platform has not met expectations. The hope is that a new operating system, Windows Mobile 7, will reboot the franchise. Mr. Wolf of Needham said that the concept of sexy phones equaling or superseding network quality as a selling point for consumers started in earnest in 2006. By then, carriers realized, most adults already had cellphone service and needed to be inspired to buy new phones or seduced into switching carriers. An early example came in July 2006, when Verizon Communications introduced the LG Chocolate, which was preceded by a teaser advertising campaign that promoted a release date. In November 2007, Verizon began another big campaign, called “Next phones now,” that included the LG Voyager, LG Venus, Blackberry Pearl and Samsung Juke (not to be confused with the Jake, or the Jack). Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for Verizon, argued that blockbuster phones cannot exist without a great network. “Consumers know if you don’t have a good wireless experience, what good is the phone?” Mr. Donovan of comScore disagreed. “No one’s out there saying the Palm Pre is going to be a hit because the call quality is magnificent,” he said. Consumers are increasingly focused on the latest devices, he said, and manufacturers have only a short time to draw consumers’ attention. “Phones don’t stand the test of time,” Mr. Donovan said. “I look at my personal handset museum, and the coolest thing I had in my pocket eight years ago is laughable.” When it comes to phones, he added, “there are no ‘Citizen Kanes’ out there.”

iPhone
Smartphones
Cellular Telephones
Palm Inc
Apple Inc
Samsung Group
Google Phone


WikiLeaks Mirror Sites Appear by the Hundreds

Abstract: LONDON — The battle lines between supporters of the whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks and its detractors began to form on Sunday, as supporters erected numerous copies of the site on the Internet and the United States put pressure on Switzerland not to offer a haven to the site’s founder, Julian Assange. Since several major Internet companies cut off services to WikiLeaks in recent days, activists have created hundreds of mirror sites , Web sites that host exact copies of another site’s content, making censorship difficult. The collective Anonymous , an informal but notorious group of hackers and activists, also declared war on Sunday against enemies of Mr. Assange, calling on supporters to attack companies that do not support WikiLeaks and to spread the leaked material online. Meanwhile, the American ambassador to Switzerland, Donald S. Beyer Jr., responded to signs that Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks might seek refuge in that country, warning in the weekly magazine NZZ am Sonntag that the Swiss “should very carefully consider whether to provide shelter to someone who is on the run from the law.” Since the release of classified diplomatic cables a week ago, from a batch of more than 250,000 obtained by WikiLeaks, the Web site has been bombarded by cyberattacks and abandoned by Internet companies like PayPal , an online payment service that had accepted donations for the site, and Amazon , which had rented it server space. WikiLeaks said that PayPal had “surrendered to U.S. government pressure,” but the government has not acknowledged involvement in efforts to try to disable the site. On Friday, WikiLeaks sought refuge in a diffuse web of financial and Internet infrastructure spread across Europe, particularly in Switzerland. It moved to wikileaks.ch , a domain registered to the Swiss Pirate Party, a political organization that shares many of Mr. Assange’s aims. A Swiss-Icelandic company, Datacell, will process donations instead of PayPal, and the WikiLeaks site shows that Mr. Assange is accepting direct donations into a Swiss bank account held with the financial arm of the Swiss postal service. But that solace may be short lived: a spokesman for the financial arm of Swiss Post, Marc Andrey, also told NZZ am Sonntag on Sunday that it was “reviewing” its relationship with Mr. Assange subject to proof that he has Swiss residency, owns property or does business in the country. A message seeking comment from Mr. Assange’s British lawyer was not immediately returned. The Internet group Anonymous, which in the past has taken on targets as diverse as the Church of Scientology and Iran, disseminated a seven-point manifesto via Twitter and other social networking sites pledging to “kick back for Julian.” Gregg Housh, who has previously worked on such campaigns with Anonymous, said by telephone from Boston that he had noticed an orchestrated effort under way to attack companies that have refused to support WikiLeaks and to post multiple copies of the leaked material. The Anonymous manifesto singled out PayPal, which cut off ties with WikiLeaks for “a violation” of its policy on promoting illegal activities, a company statement said. “The reason is amazingly simple,” Mr. Housh said of the campaign. “We all believe that information should be free, and the Internet should be free.” By late Sunday, there were at least 208 WikiLeaks mirror sites up and running. “Cut us down,” said a message on the WikiLeaks Twitter feed on Sunday, “and the stronger we become.”

Classified Information and State Secrets


Da Vinci, Retrofitted for the Modern Age

Abstract: WHEN Thomas Alva Edison was starting in business, his first patent was for an automated vote-tallying machine to let legislators know instantly which measures had passed and which had been voted down. He sold not a one. It seems that legislators, accustomed to schmoozing and politicking right through a vote’s tally, didn’t want to speed the process. But with the resilience he would show throughout his life, Edison refused to view that episode as a failure. Instead, he used it to set the stage for future decisions: He would pursue only those innovations that had a verifiable market from the beginning. He went on to earn 1,092 more patents and to become a symbol of American ingenuity. Ancient history, right? Not so fast. True, Edison has long been revered for changing the face of modern civilization. But beyond the material aspects of his success, he demonstrated that creativity and innovation could result from a set of identifiable and repeatable processes. Like Leonardo da Vinci before him, Edison kept extensive notebooks detailing every idea he ever had and every experiment he ever tried. He established the world’s first modern research and development laboratory, hiring teams of experts in things as diverse as model-making and chemical engineering. Not only did he invent the incandescent light bulb, Edison also created the electric power industry required for the bulb to light up millions of homes and businesses. As entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 executives alike seek creative solutions to 21st-century business problems, the triumphs of Edison and a number of other historical figures are being revisited for the innovation lessons they can teach. “I use historical figures as models to talk about leadership and innovation,” explains Alan Axelrod, author of a new book, “Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond,” as well as the earlier “Elizabeth I CEO,” “Patton on Leadership” and “Eisenhower on Leadership.” Before video games and 24-hour television, Mr. Axelrod says, youngsters grew up reading biographies of famous people so they could learn from their lives and emulate them. “We should turn more to these historical figures today,” he says, “because why not model ourselves on the very best examples we can find?” Michael J. Gelb, a corporate consultant, is co-author with Edison’s great-grandniece Sarah Miller Caldicott of “Innovate Like Edison, ” a 2007 book. Mr. Gelb began his research of historical figures by turning to da Vinci, a childhood hero. “His was a balanced brain in that he used the left and right hemisphere of his cerebral cortex equally and to their fullest, something I’ve tried to get people from DuPont and Microsoft and Merck to do over the last 30 years,” Mr. Gelb says. “Corporate executives today tend to be overly linear, logical, analytical. I’m trying to help them use their intuition and artistic capabilities. If you want to compete in the challenging world of international business, you can’t just rely on half a brain.” In his 1998 book “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci,” Mr. Gelb outlines seven principles that he believes define da Vinci’s work:  Curiosità, or curiosity, marking his insatiable quest for knowledge and continuous improvement.  Dimostrazione, or demonstration, through which he learned by personal experience rather than taking others’ reports for granted.  Sensazione, or sensation, using the senses to sharpen observation and response.  Sfumato, a painting technique employed by da Vinci to create an ethereal quality in his work, showing his ability to embrace ambiguity and change.  Arte/scienza, or the science of art, which he demonstrated in his whole-brain thinking.  Corporalità, or “of the body,” representing his belief that a healthy mind requires a healthy body.  Connessione, or connection, for his habit of weaving together multiple disciplines around a single idea. That last principle has been popularized by the educational consultant Tony Buzan as “mind mapping,” or nonlinear, radial diagramming of words and ideas around a main concept. Mr. Buzan studied the notebooks of both da Vinci and Edison while developing mind mapping, and it’s a tool that Mr. Gelb often uses with his corporate clients. Mr. Gelb says that one man, a chemist at DuPont, reported to him that he was reaching impasses on four seemingly unrelated projects and wasn’t sure how to proceed. Mr. Gelb suggested that the chemist create a mind map of the projects side-by-side on a single, enormous sheet of paper. The man later wrote to him in a letter: “The moment I finished the map and I surveyed the whole thing, a solution literally popped off the page. I saw a connection that I never would have made otherwise.” The chemist later received a patent for the innovation. “People think I’m a genius because I’m helping people without knowing anything about their particular industry,” Mr. Gelb said. Asked to name other historical figures who offer lessons on innovation, both Mr. Gelb and Mr. Axelrod rattled off lists including George S. Patton and Queen Elizabeth I. (Mr. Axelrod added Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.) Each of these personalities responded innovatively to the rapid changes taking place around them, drawing on the expertise of advisers while continuing to build on earlier successes. Like Edison, who built new innovations on top of previous inventions, innovative leaders never declare an invention “done,” Mr. Axelrod says. “Everything ultimately became the source of something new later,” he says. “It’s like the difference between a rich person and a wealthy person. A rich person has a lot of money and buys things. A wealthy person invests in things that make more money. It’s creating ongoing wealth out of your intellectual capital.”

Books and Literature
Inventions and Patents
Edison Thomas A
da Vinci Leonardo


DreamWorks Posts Loss

Abstract: GLENDALE, Calif., Feb. 27 (AP) — DreamWorks Animation SKG, the studio behind animated movies like “Shrek” and “Madagascar,” said Tuesday that it swung to a fourth-quarter loss on costs to write off “Flushed Away,” which performed poorly at the box office. The company lost $21.3 million, or 20 cents a share, in contrast to year-earlier earnings of $63.2 million, or 61 cents a share, which included a tax benefit and strong performance from the “Madagascar” DVD, which was released into the home video market in the 2005 quarter. DreamWorks said the recent quarter’s was hurt by a charge of 80 cents a share related to the write-off of some costs for “Flushed Away.” Revenue grew 18 percent to $204.3 million from $172.9 million in the year-earlier period, with about half of sales driven by the home video release of “Over the Hedge.” But costs associated with sales — including the write-off — more than doubled to $219.9 million.

DreamWorks SKG
Company Reports
Animated Films


Entrepreneur’s Act of Faith Bred on the Gridiron

Abstract: Newark ALONG a chain-link stretch of Frelinghuysen Avenue, in the shadow of an old red-brick housing project in a far corner of the South Ward, the brightest, freshest block is a new strip mall of the familiar variety that would hardly draw a second glance in many other places: a dollar store, a coin laundry and a Subway owned by a man everybody seems to know, even if they don’t. “Everything’s beautiful,” Altarik White said on a recent rainy evening to one more customer who hailed him by name. “No problems, no problems.” Mr. White’s name has been widely known across the city for more than two decades, ever since he was a star running back for Malcolm X Shabazz High School who once scored five touchdowns in a single game and was, as he said, “bigger, stronger and faster than everyone else.” He set school records for rushing and scoring at William Paterson University, packed away his pro dreams after separating his shoulder at the Miami Dolphins’ training camp, and then came back home to teach and coach football. In 2006 he led the Weequahic High School team to the state championship in its group, a jolt of good news at a school that had endured too much bad. “When I had a football in my hand, there was nothing that could stop me from reaching the end zone,” said Mr. White, 37, as the old-school soul he favors over rap played in the background. “Instead of running over linebackers, I’m tackling business now.” When Mayor Cory A. Booker gave his State of the City speech in February, some of the loudest applause came when he announced something far less dramatic than the drop in the number of murders: a loan to Mr. White from the Brick City Development Corporation that would allow him to open the Subway he had long been planning. Not downtown, where there were already several others, but in a neighborhood where national chains, and foods that haven’t been fried, were in short supply. Mr. White’s Subway opened in April, an act of faith in his city as much as of entrepreneurship. “In our community, there’s not a lot of healthy places to go — no Whole Foods, no Stop & Shop, just a bunch of Chinese stores, hamburger joints and fried chicken places,” said Mr. White, whose Subway is on the other side of Weequahic Park from the school where he coaches and works as a substance awareness counselor. Next door is Seth Boyden Terrace, a public housing project where a triple shooting took place last year. “Who’s to say that people, because they live in Seth Boyden, that they don’t deserve good food at an affordable price,” he said. “What I say to people who say, ‘That’s a tough place,’ is, ‘Yeah, well, guess what — it’s a tough world we live in.’ ” He knows just how tough it is: his father was absent for much of his youth and his mother died when he was in high school. “So will we all just close our doors and act like it’s not happening?” he asked. Opportunities beyond Newark have beckoned, including coaching in the National Football League, he said, but he has resisted. “I’m not ready for players to tell me what they ain’t going to do, and that’s what happens when you get there, because you’re just the coach,” he said. “Now when I bark a command, five or six people pop their heads up and they’re ready to do it.” His voice travels far in the store, too. “Keep it wrapped up until she gets back,” he told Shakia Standifer, 18, who had just made a roast beef sub for a customer who needed a quick cash-machine visit to pay for it. “He treats you how life’s going to treat you,” said Ms. Standifer, 18, a Weequahic senior and the football team statistician, one of four students among his 10 employees. She is headed to Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison in the fall to study forensic psychology. The last year has been tough on Mr. White: His younger brother, Shahib, 29, who played football at Rutgers and was an assistant coach at Weequahic, committed suicide last summer, and the school’s beloved principal, Ronald G. Stone, died of a heart attack last fall. He has lived for the past three years in Piscataway, to be closer to his young daughter from a previous marriage, but he has grown restless counting squirrels and watching deer from his backyard. He owns three houses in the South Ward and hopes to move back soon. He has begun to read the business section of the newspaper more carefully, discovering just how much coaching has in common with selling. “I could sell white gloves to a nun eating barbecue ribs,” he said. When he was playing football he studied the films of the opposing teams, analyzing the defenses they would try to stop him with, and then lie in bed the night before kickoff, playing the game in his head, making his moves and seeing the yards pile up. What he sees in his head now are mounting sales figures, new stores — he has plans to open two more — and the difference one sandwich shop can make in a neighborhood that never had one. One afternoon earlier in the week, some neighborhood boys drifted over and, as often happens when Mr. White is around, a football appeared. The parking lot became a gridiron. “I don’t run anymore,” he said. “I’m the spot quarterback” — the guy who stands in one place and throws passes, hoping somebody catches them.


Franklin Mieuli, Offbeat N.B.A. Owner, Dies at 89

Abstract: Franklin Mieuli, the unconventional and popular owner of the Golden State Warriors for nearly a quarter century who in 1975 brought the franchise its only National Basketball Association championship in 48 years on the West Coast, died Sunday. He was 89. The death was announced by the Warriors, who said he died of natural causes in the Bay Area. A local boy who made good, Mr. Mieuli (pronounced MEW-lee), grew up in San Jose and ran a successful radio production company. He bought a partial stake in the Warriors when the team moved to the Bay Area from Philadelphia in 1962 (taking with them the star center Wilt Chamberlain) and became a majority shareholder shortly thereafter. Though it played its home games in several arenas throughout the Bay Area — most frequently at the Cow Palace , in Daly City — the team was called the San Francisco Warriors throughout the 1960s. Mr. Mieuli moved the team to Oakland in 1971 and changed its name to the Golden State Warriors; he sold the team in 1986. Often referred to as eccentric, Mr. Mieuli eschewed business dress and grooming; heavily bearded, he favored jeans, Hawaiian shirts and a deerstalker cap, à la Sherlock Holmes. When events became too complicated and he needed time to think or to avoid the press, he would simply disappear for a few days. He kept a number of motorcycles, his preferred mode of transportation, and occasionally forgot where he left them. “I had too many motorcycles and too short a memory,” he recalled in a 2008 interview with The San Francisco Chronicle. He was, however, cagey and self-aware. “Make no mistake,” Hank Greenwald, a former Warriors radio announcer, said in a 1971 Sports Illustrated article about Mr. Mieuli, “Franklin is the one man in the world who works hard at having people underestimate him.” He was not an owner with especially deep pockets, and his stewardship of the Warriors sometimes appeared quixotic. With the team in a financial bind in 1965, he traded Chamberlain back to Philadelphia, where the Syracuse Nationals had moved and become the 76ers. “I don’t mean that I personally dislike him,” Mr. Mieuli said of Chamberlain after the trade. “He’s a good friend of mine. But the fans in San Francisco never learned to love him. I guess most fans are for the little man and the underdog, and Wilt is neither. He’s easy to hate, and we were the best draw in the N.B.A. on the road, when people came to see him lose." Mr. Mieuli opposed league expansion and opposed the merger of the N.B.A. with its rival league, the American Basketball Association. (After years of negotiations, the merger took place in 1976.) He opposed the 3-point shot. He pursued the star forward Rick Barry as if he were a long-lost son, signing him out of college in 1965, losing him to the A.B.A. two years later and re-signing him in 1972. Barry went on to lead the Warriors’ 1975 championship team in scoring with an average of 30.6 points per game. Mr. Mieuli, a son of Italian immigrants, was born on Sept. 14, 1920, in San Jose, Calif., where his father was a gardener who eventually started a successful nursery. He attended the University of Oregon and served in the Navy during World War II. He worked in marketing for a local brewery, sponsor of radio broadcasts of San Francisco 49ers football games. In 1954, according to the team, he produced the first telecast of a 49ers game. He subsequently bought a small share of the team, and a few years later, having entered the radio and television production business himself, he landed the rights to produce not only their games but also those of the newly arrived major league baseball franchise, the San Francisco Giants. At his death, he retained a 5 percent interest in the 49ers. Mr. Mieuli’s marriage ended in divorce, and he had a long partnership with Blake Green. His survivors include Ms. Green, three children and seven grandchildren.

Golden State Warriors
Franchises
Basketball
Mieuli Franklin
Deaths (Obituaries)
National Basketball Assn


Romney and Obama Resume Economic Attacks

Abstract: IRWIN, Pa. — The argument between Mitt Romney and President Obama over who is better suited to help American workers get back on their feet got personal again on Tuesday, with Mr. Romney saying he was “ashamed” of Mr. Obama for giving government loans to well-connected donors. The overarching dispute is which candidate’s view of government might lift a struggling economy: Mr. Romney’s belief in lower taxes and fewer regulations, or Mr. Obama’s vision of a vital role for government. But the policy debate has descended into an angry tit for tat, with accusations of twists and distortions, ever since Mr. Obama began accusing Mr. Romney of shipping American jobs overseas while in the private sector — a message that appears to be resonating among some swing-state voters. Mr. Romney, after a long weekend off the campaign trail, came roaring back by accusing the president of “crony capitalism.” He cited Fisker Automotive, which received up to $529 million in federal loan guarantees in 2009 to develop hybrid electric cars , some of which were made in Finland, although the Obama administration says the federal money did not go overseas. Among the company’s investors is a venture-capital firm whose partners include John Doerr, a major donor to the president. “I’m ashamed to say we’re seeing our president hand out money to the businesses of campaign contributors,” Mr. Romney said here in Irwin. But the impact of Mr. Romney’s attack was somewhat blunted by distractions from prominent Republicans. First, Representative Ron Paul of Texas called on Mr. Romney to release more of his tax returns, an appeal echoed by Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and National Review , the prominent conservative publication. More troublesome, John H. Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor and a stalwart surrogate for Mr. Romney, had to retract a comment after saying Tuesday, “I wish this president would learn how to be an American.” Mr. Sununu, speaking during a press call, recognized the gaffe and rephrased his remark during the same call: “What I thought I said, but what I didn’t say, is the president has to learn the American formula for creating business.” He apologized later on CNN, saying: “Frankly, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have used those words.” The off-message moments blew a bit of fog over what the Romney campaign had intended to be a coordinated series of sharp attacks on Mr. Obama over free enterprise. Mr. Romney returned to the trail in Pennsylvania with his campaign struggling to regain its footing after several days of withering attacks from the Obama camp about his tenure at Bain Capital and demands that he release more tax returns to illuminate the extent of his investments in offshore accounts. At a company that provides services to oil and gas drillers here, Mr. Romney criticized Mr. Obama for suggesting that entrepreneurs owe their success partly to government investments in education and infrastructure. “The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn’t build Papa John’s Pizza,” he said, “it is not just foolishness. It’s insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America, and it’s wrong.” “I find it extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a president of the United States,” he added. While Mr. Romney was in Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama was in Texas, where he found himself laying out contrasting economic philosophies with another Republican, former President George W. Bush . Mr. Obama had flown to Mr. Bush’s home state to headline four campaign fund-raisers and, in the process, warn the country against returning to the policies of his predecessor. Mr. Bush separately unveiled a book outlining ideas for reinvigorating an economy that has sputtered along under his successor. The divergent messages were more an accident of geography and happenstance than a result of planning. Aides to each man said his schedule had been set without knowledge of the other’s. But the proximity and timing brought into sharp relief the choices facing the country in this fall’s election on polarizing issues like taxes, jobs, growth, regulation and free enterprise. At the first of four fund-raisers in San Antonio and Austin, Mr. Obama told 1,200 supporters that Republicans, led by Mr. Romney, wanted to return to policies that had led to the economic troubles confronting his presidency. “We spent almost a decade doing what they prescribed,” Mr. Obama said. “And how did it turn out? We didn’t see greater job growth. We didn’t see middle-class security. We saw the opposite. And it all culminated in the worst financial crisis in our lifetimes, precisely because there were no regulations that were adequate to the kinds of recklessness that was being carried out.” He added: “I don’t know how you guys operate in your life. But my general rule is if I do something and it doesn’t work, I don’t go back to doing it.” The message was similar to one in most of his campaign speeches, but delivering it in Texas highlighted the person he blames. Hours later, Mr. Bush released “The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs,” a book of essays by economists, including five Nobel Prize winners, offering free-market ideas to spur the economy. “We’ll never fix the deficit without growing the private sector,” he told a crowd of supporters before some of the economists presented their ideas. Mr. Bush wrote the foreword and offered no assessment of Mr. Obama’s record, in keeping with his post-White House practice of not commenting on his successor. The underlying thrust of the book, though, is the notion that the economy has not been repaired in the three and a half years since Mr. Obama took over, and that more robust actions are needed. The former president proposed a goal of sustained 4 percent annual growth, which would be ambitious for a country whose growth has averaged just over 3 percent a year since 1948 and is currently below 2 percent. “We’re an economy in transition,” Brendan Miniter, who edited Mr. Bush’s book, said in an interview earlier in the day. “If we don’t set the target higher, if we just continue to stumble along, ultimately we’re going to pay a pretty stark price.”

Presidential Election of 2012
United States Economy
Obama Barack
Romney Mitt
Sununu John H
Bush George W


Tennessee: Five Deaths Under Investigation

Abstract: The deaths of three women and a toddler in southern Tennessee may be related to a body found just across the state line in Alabama, the authorities said Tuesday. On Monday, three women and an 18-month-old boy were found dead at two homes in Lincoln County, about 100 miles south of Nashville. A body found in Alabama on Tuesday may be that of Warren V. Crutcher, who had been sought for questioning, said Craig Whisenant, the Madison County coroner. Mr. Whisenant said the man did not commit suicide. Sheriff Murray Blackwelder of Lincoln County said two children survived the attacks, and he identified one of them as Mr. Crutcher’s 3-year-old son. The cause of the deaths has not been released, and the bodies were sent for autopsies. The investigation began when the 3-year-old called relatives saying he could not wake up anyone at his house, said his godmother, Constance Winston. Found dead in the home were his mother, Chabreya Campbell, 22; and her son Rico Ragland, 18 months; and Amber McCaulley, 21. Hours later, the body of Jessica Brown, 21, was found in her home in Fayetteville, Tenn. Her 2-month-old child was found in the home unharmed.

Tennessee
Alabama
Deaths (Fatalities)
Crutcher Warren V
Campbell Chabreya
McCaulley Amber
Brown Jessica


Chipotle Will Close Stores for Food Safety Meetings After Outbreaks

Abstract: As Chipotle Mexican Grill tries to recover from a series of contaminations that have caused some customers and investors to flee, it said it would shut all its stores for several hours on Feb. 8 to hold food safety meetings with employees. “We are hosting a national team meeting to thank our employees for their hard work through this difficult time, discuss some of the food safety changes we are implementing, and answer questions from employees,” Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman, said in an email. The stores will open at 3 p.m., later than the usual start time of about 10 a.m. or 11 a.m., skipping the lunch hour rush on a Monday. The restaurant chain, which has more than 2,000 locations and has created an identity based largely on using locally grown, fresh ingredients, has been contending with a series of E. coli outbreaks . Five customers in Seattle became ill with the bacteria in July, and there have been at least six outbreaks in the last six months. Chipotle indicated last week that the federal authorities were pursuing a criminal case . The company said it had received a grand jury subpoena related to a norovirus outbreak that sickened 234 people in Simi Valley, Calif., in August. Chipotle has said that outbreak and another in Boston that affected at least 136 customers in December were caused by sick employees who ignored company policies that prohibited them from working. More than 500 people are estimated to have become ill after eating in Chipotle restaurants in the second half of 2015. The company said in December that it may never know what caused an E. coli outbreak in November linked to two restaurants in Kansas and Oklahoma. “If there’s a silver lining in this, it is that by not knowing for sure what the cause is, it’s prompted us to look at every ingredient we use with an eye to improving our practices,” Mr. Arnold said this week . “We did a really comprehensive review of food safety practices from farm to restaurants,” he added. “From that assessment we developed a food safety plan, which we hope will establish Chipotle as a leader in food safety.” Chipotle’s same-store sales dropped by 14.6 percent in the last quarter.

Food Safety
Food
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Restaurant
E Coli