‘Like’ This Article Online? Your Friends Will Probably Approve, Too, Scientists Say

Abstract: If you “like” this article on a site like Facebook, somebody who reads it is more likely to approve of it, even if the reporting and writing are not all that great. But surprisingly, an unfair negative reaction will not spur others to dislike the article. Instead, a thumbs-down view will soon be counteracted by thumbs up from other readers. Those are the implications of new research looking at the behavior of thousands of people reading online comments, scientists reported Friday in the journal Science. A positive nudge, they said, can set off a bandwagon of approval. “Hype can work,” said one of the researchers, Sinan K. Aral, a professor of information technology and marketing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “and feed on itself as well.” If people tend to herd together on popular opinions, that could call into question the reliability of “wisdom of the crowd” ratings on Web sites like Yelp or Amazon and perhaps provide marketers with hints on how to bring positive attention to their products. “This is certainly a provocative study,” said Matthew O. Jackson, a professor of economics at Stanford who was not involved with the research. “It raises a lot of questions we need to answer.” Besides Dr. Aral (who is also a scholar in residence at The New York Times research and development laboratory, working on unrelated projects), the researchers are from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and New York University. They were interested in answering a question that long predates the iPhone and Justin Bieber: Is something popular because it is actually good, or is it popular just because it is popular? To help answer that question, the researchers devised an experiment in which they could manipulate a small corner of the Internet: reader comments. They collaborated with an unnamed Web site, the company did not want its involvement disclosed, on which users submit links to news articles. Readers can then comment on the articles, and they can also give up or down votes on individual comments. Each comment receives a rating calculated by subtracting negative votes from positive ones. The experiment performed a subtle, random change on the ratings of comments submitted on the site over five months: right after each comment was made, it was given an arbitrary up or down vote, or — for a control group — left alone. Reflecting a tendency among the site’s users to provide positive feedback, about twice as many of these arbitrary initial votes were positive: 4,049 to 1,942. The first person reading the comment was 32 percent more likely to give it an up vote if it had been already given a fake positive score. There was no change in the likelihood of subsequent negative votes. Over time, the comments with the artificial initial up vote ended with scores 25 percent higher than those in the control group. “That is a significant change,” Dr. Aral said. “We saw how these very small signals of social influence snowballed into behaviors like herding.” Meanwhile, comments that received an initial negative vote ended up with scores indistinguishable from those in the control group. The Web site allows users to say whether they like or dislike other users, and the researchers found that a commenter’s friends were likely to correct the negative score while enemies did not find it worth their time to knock down a fake up vote. The distortion of ratings through herding is not a novel concern. Reddit, a social news site that said it was not the one that participated in the study, similarly allows readers to vote comments up or down, but it also allows its moderators to hide those ratings for a certain amount of time. “Now a comment will more likely be voted on based on its merit and appeal to each user, rather than having its public perception influence its votes,” it explained when it unveiled the feature in April . Duncan J. Watts, a scientist at Microsoft Research, said the overall findings fit with “cumulative advantage,” the idea that something that starts slightly more popular will build upon that popularity until it is far ahead of its competitors — and conversely, something that does not catch on will usually fade away whether or not it is good. He cited the new crime novel “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” by Robert Galbraith, which received good reviews but tiny sales when it was released in April. When it was revealed that Galbraith was a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling , the book suddenly had the cumulative advantage conferred by the Harry Potter series and jumped to the top of best-seller lists. “The biggest obstacle to success is just being noticed,” Dr. Watts said. But opinions do not invariably follow popularity. In an earlier experiment by Dr. Watts, people listened to a list of songs ranked by popularity and were asked to rate them. But for some, the list was inverted — what they were told was the most popular song was actually the least popular. The incorrect list did affect how listeners rated the songs — the good songs never achieved the same popularity as among listeners who were given the correct list, and the bad songs did better than they would have otherwise. “But we also found, in a result that was somewhat consistent with the result here, that sometimes the songs were able to recover their sort of real ranking in spite of the manipulation,” Dr. Watts said. The listeners, he said, “in effect noticed that the song was better or worse than we had made it seem.”

Research
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Social Media
Science Journal


Iowa Wrestler Receives Illegal-Hunting Citation

Abstract: Ethen Lofthouse, a wrestler at Iowa, was cited by the police on a charge of shooting a duck with a bow and arrow outside his home in Iowa City on Friday. This is the second incident involving Iowa wrestlers and illegal hunting in less than a year. Connor Ryan and Alex Meyer were suspended from the team last November after they were arrested on charges of illegally hunting rabbits on campus.

Hunting
University of Iowa
Wrestling
College


Ex-Ensign Aide Pleads Guilty in Scheme That Snared Only Him

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Douglas Hampton came to the Capitol from Nevada six years ago on the coattails of his best friend, Senator John Ensign , to serve as Mr. Ensign’s senior political aide. On Thursday, a somber Mr. Hampton returned to Washington and pleaded guilty to a charge of illegal lobbying in a scandal that left him in bankruptcy, ended his marriage and forced Mr. Ensign to resign his Senate seat last year under threat of expulsion by fellow senators. “I plead guilty,” Mr. Hampton, 50, told Judge Beryl A. Howell of United States District Court as he stood in her courtroom, less than a mile from the Senate building where he used to work. If Mr. Hampton’s plea deal with federal prosecutors provides a cautionary tale about the abuse of political power, it is a complicated one that has left a number of legal and political observers befuddled by the Justice Department’s contrasting treatment of Mr. Hampton and his onetime boss. Mr. Hampton faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine after admitting that he lobbied Mr. Ensign, a Nevada Republican, within days of leaving his Senate staff — in violation of a federal “cooling off” period that prohibits such contacts for a year. Mr. Ensign, for his part, has returned to his veterinary practice in Nevada and told an interviewer in February that he was “having a ball” caring for animals again. He has not been charged by the Justice Department, despite findings last year by Senate ethics investigators that his own role in directing the lobbying scheme broke the law. Indeed, Mr. Ensign — a onetime presidential hopeful before the scandal — was not even mentioned during Thursday’s hearing, and he is referred to in the plea documents only as “Senator A.” Evidence first disclosed by The New York Times in 2009 showed that Mr. Ensign, after having an affair with Mr. Hampton’s wife, Cynthia, arranged tens of thousands of dollars in lobbying contracts for Mr. Hampton through Nevada political allies as a means of finding income for the aggrieved aide and containing the damage from the affair. Mr. Ensign’s parents also gave the Hamptons $96,000 after the senator fired Mr. Hampton from his Senate staff and dismissed Cynthia Hampton from his campaign staff. The Justice Department, without explanation, initially declined to prosecute Mr. Ensign in late 2010. But last year the Senate Ethics Committee found that Mr. Ensign was at the center of the lobbying scheme, and it referred the case back to the Justice Department. The ethics investigation found Mr. Ensign had “used his office and staff to intimidate and cajole constituents into hiring Mr. Hampton.” A top aide warned Mr. Ensign that his continued lobbying contacts with Mr. Hampton might violate the law, but the senator ordered them to continue anyway, the report found. The ethics report also found that Mr. Ensign appeared to have given false or misleading statements to the Federal Election Commission about the $96,000. When the Ethics Committee referred the Ensign case back to prosecutors last year, the Justice Department said it would investigate thoroughly and “take any necessary and appropriate steps.” The Justice Department declined to discuss the case Thursday, as did lawyers for Mr. Ensign. “I cannot comment on a specific investigation,” said Alisa Finelli, a Justice Department spokeswoman. But in general, she said, “if there is evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed, we will not hesitate to bring charges.” While the department has not formally notified Mr. Ensign’s lawyers that the case has been dropped — through what is known as a “declination letter” — it appears to have effectively shut down the investigation, people involved in the case said. “I think it’s an absolute outrage that Doug Hampton was the one prosecuted here while John Ensign has had nothing happen to him criminally or otherwise, except for having had to resign,” said Jon Ralston, a political commentator in Las Vegas who has followed the story from the beginning. Mr. Hampton cooperated for a time with Justice Department officials, giving detailed recollections of the lobbying scheme and providing e-mails and handwritten notes during hours of interviews in 2010 in Las Vegas, people involved in the case said. He apparently hoped to help prosecutors bring a case against his former boss after the bitter falling out that followed the senator’s affair with Ms. Hampton. Instead, Mr. Hampton’s own admissions appear to have provided prosecutors with a road map to charge him alone. Kenneth Gross, a top government ethics lawyer in Washington who is not involved in the case, said the Justice Department’s inaction against Mr. Ensign was particularly odd in light of its recent failed prosecution of former Senator John Edwards in another sex-and-money scandal. Mr. Gross said he considered the evidence that had emerged against Mr. Ensign to be much stronger than what prosecutors presented in the Edwards matter. “The whole thing is curious,” he said. Justice Department prosecutors allowed Mr. Hampton to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor instead of the original seven felonies. His public defender, A. J. Kramer, said he would seek no prison time under federal guidelines that call for zero to six months of incarceration. A sentencing hearing was set for Sept. 5. As they left the courtroom, Mr. Hampton and Mr. Kramer declined to discuss the case with reporters. Asked whether he thought Mr. Ensign should also have been charged, Mr. Hampton smiled but said nothing. “He has no comment,” his lawyer said.

Nevada
Senate
United States
Justice Department
Hampton Douglas
Ensign John
Ethics (Institutional)
Lobbying and Lobbyists
Senate Committee on Ethics
Congress


Flooded Apartment Makes Brooklynite a Tourist

Abstract: TELL me if you’ve heard this one. A man from Minsk decides he wishes to visit the neighboring town of Pinsk. He packs a bag, bids farewell to his wife and boards the train, where he promptly falls asleep. When he awakens, he is struck by the astonishing likeness of Pinsk to Minsk. He walks the streets noting that everything looks just the same as his home town, “only somehow different.” Never does it occur to him that the strangely familiar shopkeepers and street merchants who greet him, or even the woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to his wife, are the very same people he has known all along. I was reminded of this classic Jewish tale a few weeks ago, when my Brooklyn Heights apartment was flooded, my carpet spattered with rust-infused rainwater and chunks of gooey drywall, and I was temporarily relocated to a nearby Holiday Inn. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge by cab, lugging my bags to the lobby, checking in at the front desk behind a line of international guests, I could already feel myself becoming disembodied from my once-familiar surroundings, a de facto tourist in my own town. The hotel sits at the southwest corner of Lafayette and Howard Streets, an area real estate agents call SoHo, but one that otherwise bears little resemblance to the district we associate with that name. This row of three or four blocks is something of a no man’s land, a sliver of negative space cloistered between four brand-name quadrants — SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and TriBeCa — with no token identity of its own. It was refreshing, if a bit disorienting, to walk through the ageless shadowlands of a city that seems to grow slicker and more anemic each day. Unlike the ultrahip greasy spoon just north, a place like the Landmark diner on Grand Street, one block from the hotel, retains its unself-conscious, Old World charm, with its checkerboard tiles, Formica tables and exposed ducts. There are no glossy photographs of itself on the walls, no skinny-jeaned 20-somethings hunched at the bar with silver laptops. Howard Street in particular has a quality reminiscent of city outskirts, a sort of “functioning ruins,” similar to the landscape one finds in a Ben Katchor strip. This is particularly true at night. The crude industrial sprawl of Canal Street, with its foam rubber outlets and major appliance bargains, washes seamlessly into the artsy glitter of design stores and vintage boutiques on Grand. I saw a red neon sign reading Pe Pai, which I assumed to be a Chinese transliteration. On closer inspection, I realized that the text actually spelled Pearl Paint, or would have if the other bulbs had been working. On my second day at the hotel, I tightened my gut and ventured into SoHo proper. Though I’d been there dozens of times in the past, my experience had always been circumscribed by whatever menial activity I was there to perform. I’d barrel across Prince Street, head down, iPod blasting, never bothering to appreciate the jostle and flux of life around me. Now that I had no task but to observe, I found myself giddy with stimulation. Before long, I was behaving like the very tourists that New Yorkers notoriously revile, which is to say both overly alert and completely oblivious — squinting up at the buildings, stepping through vagrant urine, standing idly at crosswalks, craning my neck at every passing beauty. I inhaled the dizzying chorus of scents: exhaust from Laundromats, sizzling pretzels, fresh sawdust from construction sites, astringent fumes from the sudsy cleaning agents rolling down the sidewalk. Finally, I surrendered. Why not own the experience, I thought, and capitulate fully to the traveler mindset? I swallowed my pride and bought a fanny pack. I also called friends and had them take me through various neighborhoods, pointing out their favorite bars and parks and regaling me with tales of late-night debauchery. I sampled as many independent bookstores as I could find, hunting for hard-to-find authors and out-of-print editions. (The grand prize goes to St. Mark’s Bookshop on Third Avenue.) I shopped at high-end outlets on West Broadway, procuring, among other things, an $89 T-shirt. I ate like a king in NoLIta, wolfing down pulled-pork sandwiches on toasted sourdough and glorious baked eggs with fresh cilantro. I sucked down mojitos and bellinis in the afternoon. I browsed the upscale galleries. The highlight of my stay was a walking tour through the East Village. A frizzy-haired grad student delivered an unapologetically leftist history of Lower Manhattan, full of robber barons, negligent landlords, bloody protests and glamorous unionizations. It was thrilling to imagine fin de siècle New York with its dirt roads and unbearable stench, the swells lining up outside the theater, middle-class women congregating in smoke-filled parlors, the madness of the Bowery with its decaying horse carcasses and clamoring el. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t help seeing things in grainy black and white. BUT eventually, perhaps inevitably, the exotic spell began to wear off. I’d learned the names of the obscure streets, the marvelous old businesses with their heartbreaking clearance sales. I’d started to recognize the inhabitants, the routes to the best coffee shops. At the same time, I longed for my own New York, the quotidian city of MetroCards and Leonard Lopate on the radio and free concerts in the park. When I received word that my ceiling had finally been repaired, I checked out of my drab suite at the Holiday Inn and heaved my bags toward the No. 6 train. Suddenly, the sky darkened and a fierce squall lashed the streets. In a heartbeat, the environment was transformed. Models scurried under awnings, makeup drizzling down their cheeks. Men in Paul Smith pinstripes and D & G aviators stumbled into hydrants, tripped over dog leashes. Puddles formed, windows fogged. In the gloomy rush, New York could have been any other city: Warsaw, Tokyo, Minsk. Then, just as suddenly, the thunderclouds parted and the rain came to a halt. The sun reappeared. The mist cleared, and within moments the neighborhood looked just as it did before. Only somehow different.

Housing
Writing and Writers
SoHo (NYC)
New York City


Where Coyotes, Foxes and Bobolinks Find a New Home: Freshkills Park

Abstract: The world’s largest landfill is slowly becoming a park — very slowly. The conversion of Freshkills on the western shore of Staten Island into a verdant expanse of green is now in its second decade, with two more to go before it is finished. Yet largely out of the public eye, a site that once received 29,000 tons of trash a day is undergoing a more rapid and remarkable transformation. Fifteen years since the landfill closed, the regeneration of Freshkills, which at 2,200 acres encompasses a site two and a half times larger than Central Park, is altering New York City’s ecological landscape: Mountains of garbage have become a vast grassland, a habitat that has been in decline across eastern North America. “It’s done a complete 180,” said Mike Shanley, a naturalist and president of the Friends of Blue Heron Park, a group dedicated to the nearby park. “It looks like a prairie you’d see in the Midwest somewhere.” The amount of new habitat and its relative remoteness — the site is closed to the public most of the year — has attracted nearly a dozen animal species that are considered rare in the city. The site was always known for its bird life: Tens of thousands of scavenging gulls lived happily at the landfill. But now Freshkills hosts an array of at-risk species, many of which need grasslands to thrive. Researchers at the site have found three bird species considered endangered in New York State, nine classified as threatened and seven more the state deems “of special concern.” Several others are breeding within the city limits for the first time in decades. “Up until 1928 there were no bridges connecting Staten Island, and open grassland species were common,” said Ed Johnson, a former director of science at the Staten Island Museum. “If you look back at the records, we have more breeding species now than we did back then.’’ On a recent day, during a public tour of Freshkills, bald eagles soared over the wetlands while bobolinks sang from electrical wires. “It was like a complete escape into somewhere that seemed like nowhere close to Staten Island,” said Ian Gutch, a Staten Island resident who also spotted hawks and falcons on the tour. “It felt more like Jurassic Park with the number of raptors flying so low.” The star of the ecological revival might well be the grasshopper sparrow, a species whose population in the state has plummeted significantly. Dick Veit, a researcher with the College of Staten Island, discovered a colony of 60 adult grasshopper sparrows, named for their insectile song, at Freshkills last summer. “That’s basically unheard-of in New York City,” Debra Kriensky, a biologist with New York City Audubon, said. The group produced about 40 juveniles, making it the largest colony in the state. They returned this year to much excitement among bird enthusiasts. “Before this, most were up in farmland in the Adirondacks or the Catskills,” said Cait Field, manager of science and research development for the Freshkills Park Alliance, a nonprofit working with the city on the transition. “They need at least 350 acres of grass. They are one of the reasons why we’re able to explain now why these grasslands are so important.” Other new breeding species include the eastern meadowlark, known for its sharp call; the blue grosbeak, a striking blue relative of the cardinal; and the bobolink, a bumblebee-colored blackbird that migrates 12,500 miles annually. Image Eloise Hirsh, the park administrator. “We’re trying to remain alive in the public’s imagination, so the perception is this is a park, not a landfill,” she said. Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times On the mammal side, coyotes, red foxes and hundreds of white-tailed deer — which many Staten Islanders consider a nuisance — can be found. A site next to Freshkills features the city’s only pair of resident beavers. This spring, environmentalists have been buzzing about the discovery of a pair of upland sandpipers, potbellied shorebirds that are extremely rare in this part of the state. “It’s like being transported back into the 19th century again,” said Howard Fischer, a leading bird expert on Staten Island. “These are birds that have actually come out of extinction, in a sense. They are that rare on the East Coast.” As Freshkills undergoes its prolonged metamorphosis into a public park, the Freshkills Park Alliance provides several tours a month, offering visitors a tantalizing look at this wild sprawl within view of the Manhattan skyline. “We’re trying to remain alive in the public’s imagination, so the perception is this is a park, not a landfill,” Eloise Hirsh, the park administrator, said. Still, aside from the tours, the park remains largely off limits, which is frustrating to many eager to witness the site’s evolution. “I don’t think they need to be so protective of allowing people in,” Mr. Shanley, the naturalist, said. “My concern is, people have a lot of excitement around the park right now. If they don’t allow access, it’ll wear off.”

Parks
Animals
Birds
Fresh Kills Landfill Staten Island
Endangered Species
NYC


Major Volcanic Eruption Kills at Least 14 in Indonesia

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia — An active volcano on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island unexpectedly erupted again on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and spreading toxic clouds of hot ash that hampered search and rescue teams, officials said. The teams planned to resume searching Sunday morning for more victims and survivors of the eruption of the volcano, Mount Sinabung. Three people were reported injured, and officials warned that the volcano could erupt again and that the death toll was likely to rise. Among the victims were local residents checking on their homes after the eruption, a journalist and a group of high school students and their teacher who were trying to get a closer look at the volcano, said Yopie Haryadi, a spokesman for Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency. He said that there were no reports of anyone missing but that it was possible more people were in the area when Mount Sinabung, which lies in North Sumatra Province and has been erupting for weeks, spewed hot ash again around 10:20 a.m. on Saturday. The 14 victims were recovered on Saturday, the agency spokesman said. “No one is reported missing, but we don’t know for sure,” he said. “Sometimes people can come and go to check on their homes. We will try to search again, but we have to wait until the situation is clear, given the hot clouds.” He said the victims were found in the village of Suka Meriah, which lies within a three-mile exclusion zone around the volcano’s crater. Around 30,000 people have been evacuated from the area in the weeks after Mount Sinabung resumed erupting in November. In January, the volcano was erupting dozens of times a day, but it had quieted down in recent days. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made a visit to the disaster zone on Jan. 23 to comfort displaced residents camped out in evacuation centers and discuss reconstruction efforts. On Friday, local authorities allowed nearly 14,000 people living outside the three-mile danger zone to return home after volcanic activity decreased, The Associated Press reported. Others living close to the peak have been returning home over the past four months despite the dangers. On Saturday, a series of huge blasts and eruptions from the 8,530-foot-high volcano sent lava and rock flows up to nearly three miles away, according to news reports. Local television reports during the weekend showed giant gray clouds cloaking Mount Sinabung’s crater, and farms and roads around the volcano covered in ash. Television news footage showed people bringing the bodies of some of the 14 victims down the mountain in makeshift rescue vehicles and on motorbikes. After the eruption, all those who had been allowed to return home on Friday were ordered back into evacuation centers, The A.P. reported.

Indonesia
Volcano
Fatalities,casualties
Mount Sinabung Indonesia


Romney Team Steps Up Attacks on Pro-Obama Ads

Abstract: Mitt Romney ’s campaign on Friday sought to take advantage of a backlash against negative campaigning by President Obama ’s allies, even as it tried to deny what new polls suggest — that the full-throated assault on Mr. Romney’s character may be working. Top advisers to Mr. Romney’s campaign spent a third day lashing out at an ad from Priorities USA Action , a pro-Obama “ super PAC ,” in which a steelworker tells how he and his cancer-stricken wife lost their health insurance when Mr. Romney’s private equity firm closed his plant. The worker all but blames Mr. Romney for his wife’s death, even though he lost his job years before her cancer was diagnosed. “I don’t think a world champion limbo dancer could get any lower than the Obama campaign right now,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney. “When you start running ads accusing your opponent of killing people, then you have lost your credibility.” His comments followed a torrent of criticism, including an editorial in The Chicago Tribune that called it a “vicious, shameful ad.” In an effort to capitalize on that criticism, the Romney campaign quickly released a new television ad of its own asking: “What does it say about a president’s character when his campaign tries to use the tragedy of a woman’s death for political gain?” But even as the Priorities USA ad — which has not yet appeared on a television screen — picked up steam on the Internet, Mr. Romney’s campaign scrambled to play down the results of new national polls that showed Mr. Obama’s lead widening, in one case to nearly double digits. In a national Fox News poll conducted Sunday through Tuesday, Mr. Obama led Mr. Romney by nine percentage points, 49 to 40. A CNN/ORC poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday found Mr. Obama with an advantage, 52 percent to 45 percent, a seven-point difference, which is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus four points. Both polls showed Mr. Romney’s favorability has been pummeled, especially among independent voters. Advisers to Mr. Romney dismissed the results in a briefing with reporters at the campaign’s Boston headquarters. But they conceded that they could not explain what they called a “huge shift” in the numbers. “Guys, it’s the middle of the summer. It’s the doldrums,” said a senior adviser to Mr. Romney’s campaign, who asked not to be identified. “It’s the middle of the Olympics. There has not been any national news, anything that would push these numbers from minus three to minus nine points.” In fact, the last several weeks has been dominated by increasingly acerbic television commercials by Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney and their supporters. The back and forth over the Priorities ad highlights the opportunities and the dangers of the intensely negative campaign. Advisers to Mr. Obama’s campaign have repeatedly pointed out that they are prohibited by law from having any contact with Priorities USA Action and its founders, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney, who both worked in the White House before starting the group. On Friday, Jay Carney , the White House press secretary, deflected questions about the Priorities ad. “We do not control third-party ads,” Mr. Carney said, referring all questions about the ad to Mr. Obama’s Chicago-based campaign. And Mr. Carney and others tried to shift the focus by complaining about the Romney campaign’s recent ad accusing the president of gutting welfare reform, a charge that has drawn wide criticism for being false. Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, accused Mr. Fehrnstrom of “faux outrage” and said Mr. Romney has been the one leveling false attacks. “His campaign has questioned whether the president understands what it is to be American, attacked his patriotism,” Ms. Smith said. “When the Romney campaign finally reaches the high ground, we look forward to greeting them there.” Advisers to Mr. Romney drew a distinction between the two campaigns, insisting that the president’s attacks — and those from his allies — have been more personal. They predicted that Mr. Obama’s once-successful brand of “hope and change” will suffer because of the attacks. “They are accusing him of culpability in the death of a woman,” Mr. Fehrnstrom said. “These attacks are so outrageous and over the top that it has squandered one of the most vital attributes that Obama had, which is he was a different kind of politician, who was going to change the state of our politics. He has changed it, but he’s changed it for the worse.” But Mr. Burton said his group’s ad will eventually run on television and has already become a hit on the Web, especially in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. “When people actually watch the ad, and don’t just listen to the cable chatter, they understand exactly the point,” Mr. Burton said.

Priorities USA Action
Presidential Election of 2012
Political Advertising
Obama Barack
Romney Mitt
Fehrnstrom Eric
Carney Jay
Burton Bill


U.S. Reopens Its Embassy After Raids in Yemen

Abstract: The United States reopened its embassy in Yemen on Tuesday, a day after Yemeni security forces killed two people suspected of being members of Al Qaeda and linked to the threats against several diplomatic outposts. The United States and Britain had closed their embassies in Sana, Yemen’s capital, on Sunday, citing continuing threats against targets in the city. At the British Embassy, workers returned Tuesday, but the building was closed to visitors. The French, German, Czech and Japanese Embassies were also largely or entirely closed to the public, according to news reports. A counterterrorism operation by Yemeni forces on Monday had “addressed a specific area of concern,” according to a statement posted on the American Embassy’s Web site. But the statement warned that “the threat of terrorist attacks against American interests remains high” and urged Americans in Yemen to be “vigilant and take prudent security measures.” On Monday, Yemeni forces were tracking a man they suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group tied to the attempt to bring down an international flight into Detroit on Christmas Day, when they came under fire from militants in the town of Arhab, officials said. Two bodyguards of the suspect, Nazih al-Hanq, were killed in the firefight; Mr. Hanq escaped. The United States, which is increasing aid to Yemen, praised the operation. Arhab was the site of one of several strikes made against militants on Dec. 17 that American officials said killed three men suspected of planning suicide attacks on Western targets in Sana. A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office, speaking under standard rules of anonymity, said that embassy employees were at work on Tuesday, but that the building was still closed to the public and was not providing visa services. Yemen, long a roost for terrorist groups, has said it stepped up its campaign against Al Qaeda in recent months, carrying out raids against militant hide-outs. On Tuesday, government officials quoted by Reuters said that Yemen had sent “thousands” of troops to combat militants in the provinces of Shabwa, Marib and Abyan, thought to be havens for militants. Last month, after Yemen’s broadest attack on Qaeda members in years, Yemeni authorities said that their security forces killed at least 34 suspected militants in raids on Qaeda hide-outs in Sana, in the south and in Arhab, which was the site of Monday’s firefight.

Yemen
United States
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Foreign Service
Terrorism


Huntley, Ex-State Senator, Pleads Guilty in Fraud

Abstract: A former state senator pleaded guilty on Wednesday to funneling over $87,000 in taxpayer money through a nonprofit agency that she was running to cover shopping for herself and her relatives. At her appearance in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, the former senator, Shirley L. Huntley , a Democrat who had represented Queens and had fiercely denied any wrongdoing, softly recounted her crimes to a courtroom filled with family members and other supporters. Judge Jack B. Weinstein addressed her in disappointment: “I’m sorry to see you here.” “I’m sorry to be here,” Ms. Huntley responded. Ms. Huntley, 74, had claimed the agency she founded, Parents Information Network Inc., was focused on giving parents more of a voice in their local schools. Instead, prosecutors said, she siphoned the money she received as “member items,” or grants for legislators to support social causes, from the State Education Department. For a three-year period beginning in 2005, Ms. Huntley wrote more than $21,000 in checks to herself from the agency’s account, made more than $34,000 in A.T.M. withdrawals and wrote almost $25,000 in checks to others who later returned the money to her in cash, according to court records. As part of her plea agreement, Ms. Huntley will pay the state the full amount she stole, $87,700. She faces up to two years in prison under the federal sentencing guidelines for the charge, conspiracy to commit mail fraud. A sentencing date has not been set. Ms. Huntley still faces state corruption charges in connection with a scheme to steal from a related nonprofit agency she founded, Parents Workshop Inc. She is expected to plead guilty to one felony charge of tampering with evidence, said a person with knowledge of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was continuing. Ms. Huntley was a state senator for nearly six years until she lost a re-election bid in the 2012 Democratic primary. She joins a long line of former New York State senators recently indicted or convicted of a felony .

Fraud
Queens
New York
Shirley L Huntley
Embezzlement
State legislature
Jack B Weinstein


2012 British Open — Bunkers Make Royal Lytham Hazardous

Abstract: LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — It would be difficult to find a better day for avoiding big trouble at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. Soft after an early summer of rain and with barely a breath of wind to play tricks on shots, minds and yardage books, the course was ripe for the picking in Thursday’s first round of the British Open. But those who ended up with the lowest scores did not shake the tree with abandon. Instead, men like Zach Johnson proceeded with methodical, surgical care. However benign the conditions, there were still those 206 bunkers. “I was really trying to avoid them; I played pretty conservative off the tee,” Johnson said after his five-under-par round of 65 left him one shot off Adam Scott’s lead. “I think if you get it inside a pot bunker greenside, you can get it up and down. You get it in a pot bunker fairway side, you are going to have a really, really difficult time making pars. So I think the tee shot in this Open championship is as important as any tournament I’ve ever seen.” If Johnson needed reassurance that his bunker mentality was the right mentality, he needed only observe the misadventures of one of his playing partners, Darren Clarke. A year ago, Clarke — the sentimental favorite from Northern Ireland — finally won the British Open at age 42. He treasured the moment, treasured the claret jug and the autumnal sense of fulfillment. But this is another year, another stretch of English coastline and another soundtrack. Instead of hearing the roars of Royal St. George’s, the big, ruddy-faced Clarke played to sympathetic silence or collective groans. One of the low points came at the 11th when Clarke hit into a fairway bunker and then mis-hit his next shot out of the sand into another bunker on the opposite side of the fairway. Despite its compact layout, Lytham has more bunkers — by far — than any of the other eight courses on the Open rotation: enough to cause confusion over the official count, which the club professional Eddie Birchenough insists is 206. “I think the nearest to that is Muirfield with about 150, so that is really the defining characteristic of the course,” Birchenough said in his modest office filled with packages and a still-wrapped portrait of Seve Ballesteros, a two-time winner at Lytham who died last year. Ballesteros’s two Open victories here remain a testimony to the ability of a gifted scrambler to find a way. But improvising out of trap after trap is hardly the recommended approach to Lytham. Consider Phil Mickelson , the American star who found himself in a fairway bunker on No. 8 and managed to blast out, only to see his ball plop into a thicket of rough just beyond the bunker’s lip. After searching feverishly, his hands disappearing in the thick grass, Mickelson finally determined that he had an unplayable lie and took a penalty drop. Consider (again) Clarke, who found a fairway bunker on No. 14 and did not even try to advance the ball, blasting out sideways while looking grim and then leaning on his club although he probably would have preferred to snap it over his knee. “The bunkers all essentially have a red line around them,” said Tony Jacklin, who won the 1969 Open at Lytham. “I mean, they’re a one-shot penalty. Getting the ball off the tee in play is paramount.” With all the bunkers about, there is certainly variety. There are the pot bunkers: the deep traps shaped like sunken pots. There are the shallower or less uniform varieties that seemed nickname-ready: a boomerang-shaped bunker on 17, and one in the shape of a bear’s paw print on 13 with thick grass growing on the lip that actually obscures much of the front wall. A would-be Open champion would definitely not want to land in there. What the bunkers share is coarse sand that bears little resemblance to the fine Caribbean-style white sand you might find on the PGA Tour. Lytham’s sand could never be raked smooth. Its bunkers also share the classic British Open face: layers of stacked sod that appear rather like a bonsai version of a terraced paddy field. That seems an appropriate metaphor considering that conditions have been soggy enough to grow rice here this week. Some of the fairway bunkers on 16 even featured standing water. That was good news for John Daly, the former Open champion who has long projected more power than accuracy. He was able to seek relief and a free drop after splashing down during his round of 72. Others had to live with the consequences. And the question is why Lytham St. Annes, a seemingly peaceful place, chooses to inflict such angst on those who choose to play on a course with 206 bunkers throughout the year. “I think what happened is that originally if you see pictures of when Bobby Jones played here, there was lots of sandy scrub,” said Birchenough, referring to Jones’s victory in 1926. “I think you’d call it waste areas in America.” Those areas, according to Birchenough, made it difficult to know where players could and could not ground their club. “That’s because they were so ill defined,” he said. “And it brought a lot of doubt or questions into lies: where a ball is lying and how to play it. And I think by defining the bunkers more clearly, they’ve taken that element out of it. But of course the bunkers were always in dips. Traditionally, that was just where the sheep lay at the bottom of the dune, wasn’t it? So all our bunkers are into lowland.” No matter how rich the history, there are days when the regulars simply decline the honor of a round full of dangers. “Sometimes in the early spring,” Birchenough said, “when the rough is up and the wind is blowing, the members will say, ‘I’ll just let this one go and play next week.’ ” Those playing in the Open do not have that option. Best that they stick to the straight and narrow and hope the wind does not start howling.

British Open (Golf)
Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club
Golf
Mickelson Phil
Johnson Zach
Ballesteros Seve
Scott Adam
Birchenough Eddie


Lessons From a LeBron James Hug

Abstract: Brook Lopez cackled when asked if he could imagine his 7-foot frame rolling on the floor with a celebrating fan who had just hit a halfcourt hook shot. Sure he could. “That’s the beauty of basketball,” he said. “Everything is so close.” Lopez was newly minted as an All-Star on Wednesday, but when the world’s consensus best player bolts from the sideline and revels in the good fortune of the common man — as LeBron James did last Friday in Miami when Michael Drysch of McHenry, Ill., won $75,000 in conjunction with James’s charity foundation — that’s a teachable moment to help bridge the yawning gap between the ever-strapped sports consumer and the chosen few. Or in this case, he who bears the tattooed inscription on his back : Chosen 1. “You could see that LeBron was really excited for the guy,” Lopez said before the James-led (as usual) Heat outclassed the Nets, 105-85, at Barclays Center. “It was cool.” It was also quite a week for James and his fully repaired reputation as the N.B.A.’s leading man-child, so to speak, after the 2010 fracture resulting from his grand pronouncement, or Decision, upon departing Cleveland for South Beach. After communing with Drysch, James consorted at the White House with “Prez,” as he called Barack Obama when the Heat got their grip-and-grin welcome for winning the championship last June. On Wednesday night, James and company made their first appearance in Brooklyn, the last stop on the James tour of locations he rejected two and a half years ago (though the Nets were still in New Jersey at the time). Doesn’t it now seem like 20? Back when the free-agent King finished with fawning suitors, he was convicted in the court of public opinion, more or less of insensitivity that was very likely the residue of immaturity. But recent events watched round the world made you think: thank goodness that James has retained his sense of youthful spontaneity that occasionally borders on silly. Better that than the programmed genius of advisers and television executives in search of the extra buck in the way James looks for the open man. “For a while there he was playing to prove people wrong, but what you’re seeing now is a guy who understands that you get a lot more accomplished playing for the love of it than for hate,” Dru Joyce II, James’s high school coach, said in a telephone interview from Akron, Ohio. Given what we know about other transcendent athletes like Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez and, yes, Ray Lewis, did America really expend that much vitriol on a young man who wanted to play on a better team? Did the news media really mercilessly hound James for the none-too-felonious act of promising multiple championships to Miami before coming up small in the 2011 finals against Dallas? Image LeBron James’s reaction to a fan’s halfcourt shot in a charity promotion. He tackled the man at midcourt in celebration. Credit Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images Joyce — who still coaches the St. Vincent-St. Mary team from which James vaulted to the N.B.A., as well as James-sponsored teams in Akron — has never been shy in admitting that his disciple was in on a few questionable judgment calls. But was a little context to soften the contemptuousness too much to ask? Joyce’s son, Dru III — now playing professionally in Germany — was James’s close friend on youth and scholastic teams that were more like family than traveling showcase. But speaking as a coach, the elder Joyce said that what has impressed him most about James’s growth was how he took the criticism of the 2011 finals to heart and went to work on his game, more than his brand. “When ’Bron was in high school, we always got what we needed from him in the post,” Joyce said. “In the pros, he couldn’t do what he did in high school. He needed to refine his game, improve his skills. That’s what he did.” The narrative, of course, is continuing, open to interpretation and apparently re-evaluation. James no doubt will be reminded at some point that he used both hands when forecasting the number of titles the Heat would win. The Nets’ Reggie Evans weighed in Wednesday with the opinion that even last season’s title was tainted because it came in a lockout season. James’s pointed answer was that the Nets shouldn’t have quit on the departed coach Avery Johnson, and that zinger was punctuated by 24 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists. However nonsensical and self-sabotaging Evans’s claim was — and James said he was motivated by it — the Heat, even while narrowly leading the Eastern Conference, have at times played unevenly, short a defensive big man and leading them to try out the bizarre if exuberant Chris Andersen. Opponents have to hang their hopes on something. But if not this time around, there is the matter of James’s opt-out clause after next season, Year 4 of what so far has to be considered a better first term than Obama’s. Whoever James’s teammates will be, it is unlikely that his critics will have to question his commitment to them. While Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony are deified when they are moved to share the ball, James has mostly been called out for passing too much — which makes Joyce proud. “I have a kid I’m coaching now, a freshman, one of the top 10 in the country for his age,” Joyce said. “I tell him: ‘Right now you can do everything to make yourself feel good, but you can’t do things to make other guys on your team feel good. It’s not that you’re selfish — you just don’t know, and you have to learn.’ ” What we learn from James, one hopes, is not to exaggerate the self-aggrandizement of runaway fame. Even Drysch, who made one miracle shot and rose from having James land on him with the force of his 240 pounds richer and ready for his 15-plus minutes. Contacted via Twitter Wednesday for an interview, Drysch — a 50-year-old computer technician — messaged back: “Hi, Patrick has been helping me on media requests. Give him a call.” We rest LeBron’s case.

LeBron James
Basketball
Miami Heat
Brooklyn Nets


As N.C.A.A. Gets Tough on Enforcement, Coaches Take Notice

Abstract: SOUTHBOROUGH, Mass. — Last week, dozens of college coaches from elite programs like Kansas, Duke and Texas rolled into this small town. This scene is not uncommon during the so-called open period of the college basketball recruiting season, when coaches can evaluate all manner of prospects — from inner-city schools in Los Angeles to junior colleges in Oklahoma. Private planes land, coaches settle into wooden bleachers and suddenly Rick Barnes and Mike Krzyzewski are chatting about Kevin Durant hundreds of miles from their campuses. But the buzz on the recruiting trail this autumn has taken a different tone as a spate of N.C.A.A. investigations and penalties has put football and basketball coaches on edge. “They have beefed up,” Virginia basketball Coach Tony Bennett said. “There’s honest mistakes, but then there’s the blatant ones. I think that’s what this is all about, catching people who are being blatant in trying to get advantages.” Notorious among many for its perceived apathy in ignoring problems ranging from agents to amateurism, the N.C.A.A. is no longer a punch line in the giant revenue-generating sports of football and basketball. With its larger staff, as well as the transparency offered by social networking tools and numerous news media investigations, the N.C.A.A. is no longer toothless. The proof is in the punishments. The N.C.A.A. recently handed down penalties to programs ranging from Southern California (Reggie Bush taking improper benefits) to Harvard (secondary violations for illegal recruiting tactics in basketball). “This is my 11th year coaching Division I college basketball and I was surprised, when I first changed careers, I was surprised at how it mirrored corporate America on the negative side,” Oregon State’s Craig Robinson said. “Now, when you see the N.C.A.A. being aggressive like this, it’s going to make the people who aren’t doing the right thing be very concerned, as they should be.” The latest scandal involves the North Carolina football program. The Tar Heels’ defensive coordinator, John Blake, resigned and more than a dozen players were suspended because of problems with agents and academics. Yahoo Sports reported on Wednesday that there were financial ties between Blake and the agent Gary Wichard. Yahoo reported that Blake was wired money from Wichard’s bank and that Blake had a credit card from his firm, Pro Tect Management. The N.C.A.A. has talked about stopping a so-called runner — someone who obtains clients for an agent. How will it act if the runner is a university employee? North Carolina is not the only target. Questions about agents have had a significant impact this season on South Carolina and Georgia football. The Gamecocks threw the star tight end Weslye Saunders off the team because of problems involving agents, and the star Georgia receiver A. J. Green missed four games because he sold a game jersey for $1,000 to someone the N.C.A.A. determined was an agent. The college basketball trail has heated up, too. Connecticut is awaiting its fate regarding eight major violations after revelations in a Yahoo Sports investigation. The N.C.A.A. is also looking at the Oregon basketball program because of suspicion of agent activity with former players. But the situation most discussed this fall surrounds Bruce Pearl, the Tennessee men’s basketball coach whose job status appears tenuous. Pearl had a teary news conference in September, apologizing for making illegal phone calls, improperly hosting recruits in his home and lying to the N.C.A.A. The university imposed strong recruiting restrictions on itself. “I should be made an example of, and I am — I’m embarrassed,” Pearl told SI.com . “But I hope that the things we did don’t rise to the level of termination.” Pearl has been docked $300,000 per year for five years. Still, even with $1.5 million taken from his salary, Pearl is still among the highest-paid coaches in the Southeastern Conference. “It’s unfortunate, and we wish the best for all parties,” Kansas basketball Coach Bill Self said. “It definitely defines the climate in which college athletics are in, as do the suspensions in football.” Pearl’s biggest mistake may have been lying to the N.C.A.A., which made it clear in the case of Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant, who was ruled ineligible last season, that making false statements will not be tolerated. “As long as I’ve been in this business, the one thing I heard about the N.C.A.A. is that you don’t lie to them,” said Barnes, the Texas basketball coach. “My whole life, that’s all I’ve heard. When they come in, the worst thing you can do is lie.” Many have snickered at Pearl’s getting caught. Pearl turned over an audiotape of a star recruit saying he was offered $80,000 and an S.U.V. by Jimmy Collins, then an assistant at Illinois. The 1989 incident became romanticized after Pearl got his break at Tennessee after coaching at colleges like Southern Indiana and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “The irony is that you have a guy like Bruce Pearl who is a whistle-blower, and now he’s being whistle-blown,” said Pete Strickland, an assistant coach at North Carolina State. “I mean, who do you trust?” In college football and basketball, in which tales of corruption have long been as much a part of their lore as on-field heroics, nervous coaches around the country are evidence that the N.C.A.A.’s investigative apathy has ended.

College Athletics
Draft and Recruitment (Sports)
Coaches and Managers
National Collegiate Athletic Assn


Maryan Stevens, Ex-Justice’s Wife, Dies at 84

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Maryan Mulholland Stevens, the wife of former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, died on Friday. She was 84. A spokeswoman for the court, Kathy Arberg, said the cause was complications following hip surgery. Ms. Stevens, a dietitian, married Justice Stevens, who survives her, in 1979. He had joined the court in 1975 and retired from it in 2010, at 90. Ms. Stevens graduated from St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind. Besides her husband, she is survived by five children, three stepchildren, eight grandchildren, nine step-grandchildren and 13 step-great-grandchildren. The couple split their time in recent years between Arlington, Va., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Maryan Stevens
John Paul Stevens
Obituary
Supreme Court,SCOTUS


Judge Spotlights Shortage of Interpreters for the Deaf

Abstract: The prevailing custom in the New York courts is for sign language interpreters to work in tandem: one translates the rapid-fire arguments of courtroom life, while the other gets to rest weary hands. There is, however, a shortage in the courts of sign language interpreters, so this buddy system does not always work, according to court officials. Yesterday, a judge in Queens took note of the shortage, writing a memorandum that explained why he had awarded an interpreter who was forced to work alone twice his daily rate of pay. The judge, Justice Charles J. Markey of State Supreme Court, gave the higher rate to Gabriel Grayson, a certified American Sign Language interpreter. It was after Mr. Grayson had translated for a deaf plaintiff at a six-day civil trial in June involving a personal injury case. Mr. Grayson had told the judge and other court officials in Queens of the normal two-interpreter setup, but agreed to work alone, for a bit more money, after officials could not find another interpreter to relieve him. The judge’s memo was entirely self-motivated. No one at the trial — not the plaintiffs, Farrah and Bibi Wahid, nor the defendant, the Long Island Rail Road — disputed that Mr. Grayson should receive the higher rate. In fact, in his 13-page decision quoting experts on the deaf (and a former lord chief justice of England and Wales), Justice Markey explicitly said that he was trying to call attention to what he considers a worthy cause. The memorandum, the judge wrote, is intended to explain the court’s decision in signing the order for the increased pay “and to throw a spotlight on the disturbing lack of skilled A.S.L. interpreters in the courts.” That lack, according to research laid out in the judge’s memo, has a number of causes. First, he wrote, the court interpreters must often wait months to schedule an examination with their certifying body, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. The exams are expensive, the judge wrote, as are the dues that interpreters must pay or else risk losing certification. The court’s rate of $250 a day is not competitive compared with pay rates for similar duties in the private sector, he explained. Justice Markey also pointed out that interpreters are rarely given cancellation fees when they work in the courts, where hearings can be called off without notice at any given time. Justice Markey noted the “explosion of employment opportunities” for the certified interpreters at video conferencing events — a much gentler form of work than the nonstop world of the courts. While there are no official studies of sign language interpreters in the New York legal system, Justice Markey quoted a study from Nebraska that said 65 percent of all assignments for American Sign Language interpreters in that state’s courts went unfilled. Back in New York, he said, even in Rochester, which has the largest per capita deaf population in the country (the National Technical Institute for the Deaf is there), only a limited number of certified court interpreters are available. Justice Markey made specific mention of Kathleen Rozanski, a deaf woman in Rochester who filed a federal complaint in 2002 related to the handling of her divorce. Justice Markey wrote that Ms. Rozanski’s lawyer did not hire a certified interpreter, but instead relied on notes, telecommunications devices for the deaf and family members familiar with sign language to communicate with her in court. In her complaint to the Justice Department, Ms. Rozanski said these alternate methods of communication had led to higher legal fees. Federal officials agreed, finding in a settlement with the lawyer that attorneys must provide interpreters to communicate with the deaf. Gordon Hewart, the lord chief justice of England and Wales from 1922 to 1940, once wrote, “A long line of cases shows that it is not merely of some importance, but it is of fundamental importance, that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” Justice Markey wrote, “With increasing societal awareness and sensitivity to the plight of deaf persons in the courts, we can add to Hewart’s famous dictum that justice, in the form of courtroom proceedings, must also be clearly heard and, for the hearing-deprived, must be unmistakably interpreted so as to be undeniably understood.”


UConn’s Stewart Honored

Abstract: Connecticut’s Breanna Stewart earned her second USA Basketball female athlete of the year honor. Stewart, a sophomore, also was player of the year in 2011, joining Diana Taurasi, Dawn Staley, Lisa Leslie, Cheryl Miller and Teresa Edwards as the players to win the award more than once.

Breanna Stewart
Awards
College basketball
University of Connecticut


E.P.A. to Study Health Risks of the Herbicide Atrazine

Abstract: The Environmental Protection Agency plans to conduct a new study about the potential health risks of atrazine, a widely used weedkiller that recent research suggests may be more dangerous to humans than previously thought. Atrazine — a herbicide often used on corn fields, golf courses and even lawns — has become one of the most common contaminants in American drinking water. For years, the E.P.A. has decided against acting on calls to ban the chemical from environmental activists and some scientists who argued that runoff was polluting ecosystems and harming animals. More recently, new studies have suggested that atrazine in drinking water is associated with birth defects , low birth weights and reproductive problems among humans, even at concentrations that meet current federal standards. The E.P.A. is expected to announce on Wednesday that it will conduct a new evaluation of the pesticide to assess any possible links between atrazine and cancer , as well as other health problems, such as premature births. The E.P.A. may determine that new restrictions are necessary. The decision by E.P.A.’s administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, who took over the agency in January, is a significant departure from the policies of the E.P.A. under President George W. Bush. For years, agency officials said that atrazine in drinking water posed almost no risk to humans or the environment. As recently as this summer, E.P.A. staff members argued that current regulations were adequate. “We’re going to use our scientific resources in a new and more aggressive way regarding atrazine,” said Stephen A. Owens, who was recently confirmed as E.P.A. assistant administrator for prevention, pesticides and toxic substances. “There are new scientific findings that deserve attention, and we’re going to engage our scientific panels in actively reviewing the work of this office under previous administrations,” he added. “We have a question: Did the decisions made in previous administrations use all the available science?” A representative of atrazine’s largest manufacturer, the Swiss company Syngenta, said that she had not been fully briefed on the E.P.A.’s announcement. However, the spokeswoman, Sherry Ford, said, “we expect a positive outcome for atrazine at the end of this process.” Ms. Ford added that the company “stands behind the safety of atrazine, which has undergone extensive testing. We are a science-based company, and we expect the E.P.A. to make sound decisions based on science, no matter which administration is currently in power.” Observers say the E.P.A.’s announcement signals a significant shift. “This is a dramatic change,” said Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. “There is growing evidence that atrazine could be a hazard to human health. This is a strong signal that the world is changing for some of the most widely used chemicals.” Atrazine has become a lightning rod in disputes over how the E.P.A. has used scientific findings to regulate chemicals and toxins. The agency was sued in 2003 by an environmental advocacy organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, amid claims that regulators had ignored studies showing that atrazine was dangerous to some animals. In August, The New York Times reported on recent epidemiological studies that suggested small amounts of atrazine in drinking water, including levels considered safe by federal standards, might be associated with birth defects — including skull and facial malformations and misshapen limbs — as well as premature births and low birth weights in newborns. E.P.A. officials said those studies, as well as recent papers reviewing numerous studies that showed that atrazine interferes with the development and hormone systems of some animals, played a role in their decision to re-evaluate the chemical. A Times analysis of E.P.A. records also found that in some American towns, atrazine concentrations in drinking water had spiked sharply, sometimes for as long as a month. Though the E.P.A. and Syngenta were aware of those spikes, they often did not promptly warn local water systems, and the reports produced by local regulators and distributed to residents often failed to reflect those higher concentrations. Interviews with local water officials indicated that many of them were unaware that atrazine concentrations sometimes jumped sharply in their communities. But officials in other communities have grown concerned. Water systems in six states — Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and Ohio — recently sued atrazine’s manufacturers to force them to pay for removing the chemical from drinking water. The E.P.A. is expected to announce on Wednesday four meetings over the coming year of the agency’s independent scientific advisory panel that will focus on atrazine.

Atrazine
Environmental Protection Agency
Environment
Water


Packers’ and Steelers’ Wins Reflect Up-and-Down Seasons

Abstract: Even amid the revelry, minutes after the Pittsburgh Steelers had finished off the Jets to secure their meeting with the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl on Feb. 6, Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin did not skirt a fundamental truth about how his team played. “We kind of limped home, but we aren’t going to complain about style points,” Tomlin said. The Packers and the Steelers did not so much roar as scratch their way to the Super Bowl. If this were college football, these two teams might not be meeting for the championship at all. Both teams looked dominant early in their conference championship games. The Steelers outrushed the Jets’ ground-and-pound offense, 135 yards to 1, in a first half in which they raced to a 24-0 lead. The Packers shredded the Bears on a seven-play touchdown drive that included four completions on four pass attempts. And then the best parts of their teams — the Packers’ offense and the Steelers’ defense — flailed. An interception return by a 337-pound defensive lineman, B.J. Raji , who had dropped into pass coverage, to secure the Packers’ victory over the Bears ? Ben Roethlisberger completing a third-down pass to a rookie receiver to keep the Jets from having one more comeback chance? Who are these people and what have they done with Aaron Rodgers and the Steel Curtain? “Frankly, the first drive was the way we anticipated coming into the game,” Packers Coach Mike McCarthy said. “We lost Chad Clifton on the touchdown, and we really didn’t get back into the balance and rhythm we clearly had on the first drive.” So neither team will arrive in the Dallas area looking invincible. Does it matter? No. Last year the New Orleans Saints lost two second-half leads and had to win in overtime in the N.F.C. championship game before winning the Super Bowl. Three years ago, the New England Patriots took the lead early in the second quarter and never lost it in the A.F.C. championship game, then lost their perfect season in the Super Bowl. The lesson: momentum in the N.F.L. — particularly in this season of unpredictable results — is illusory, if it exists at all. It depends less on what happened Sunday than it will on whether the Steelers’ Pro Bowl center, Maurkice Pouncey, can play after sustaining a high ankle sprain early in the game (he says he will) and if the cornerbacks who looked as vulnerable as they have all season in the second half against the Jets can lock down the N.F.L.’s best receiving corps. It will also depend on whether Rodgers can regain the touch that helped the Packers win their first two playoff games but which eluded him against Chicago (two interceptions, and 17 of 30 passing). The difference between blowouts and nail-biters Sunday was as small as an Ike Taylor slip that allowed a Santonio Holmes touchdown, and a Disney-movie moment by Caleb Hanie. “I was telling my guys the whole time, we’re going to try and restore this thing,” Steelers linebacker James Farrior said. “We felt like it was shifting a little bit. I just wanted the guys to stay in position and don’t even think about it.” The fits and starts of Sunday’s games were microcosms of both teams’ seasons. The Packers had no running game for much of the year, and when Rodgers sustained a concussion and the Packers lost to the Patriots in December, their postseason hopes seemed doomed. They had to win on the final day of the season to make the playoffs, and they will now try to become the first N.F.C. sixth seed to win the Super Bowl. The Steelers were given little chance when Roethlisberger was suspended for the first four games of the season, and even less chance when his top two backups were injured. These were not the Colts and the Saints of last year, who were clearly the best teams in their conferences the entire season. These teams dealt with ebbs and flows, and late on Sunday night, Roethlisberger spoke of the tenacity of the Steelers. Hines Ward noted that the Steelers had traditionally gone up and down — winning a Super Bowl, then not making the playoffs, winning another, then missing the playoffs again before making a run now. For two franchises steeped in football history, then, their next shot at a championship will be defined not by their current-day quarterbacks who throw deep passes, but by dipping into the well of grittiness that has long been part of their lore. They just got started Sunday. “You never go into a season and think you are not going to face adversity,” Packers wide receiver Donald Driver said. “Everybody stepped up and played the way they were supposed to play, and that’s what you have to have. The comfort level hasn’t been big since March, and it’s not going to change. We have four more quarters to go.”

Pittsburgh Steelers
Green Bay Packers
Super Bowl
Football


He Zhenliang Dies at 85; China’s Olympic Crusader

Abstract: He Zhenliang, a key figure in returning China to the Olympics in the 1980s after an absence of almost three decades and in securing the 2008 Summer Games for Beijing, died on Jan. 4 in Beijing. He was 85. The Chinese Olympic Committee announced his death without specifying a cause. Mr. He’s death came two days before Beijing entered a formal bid with the International Olympic Committee to host the 2022 Winter Games. If successful, it would make Beijing the first city to hold both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. “He was the bridge between China and the outside world and, in particular, between China and the I.O.C.,” said Susan Brownell, who translated the biography “He Zhenliang and China’s Olympic Dream” into English. “I just don’t know if there was anybody else who had the international understanding and the political commitment it would have taken to be that bridge all those years.” As a member of his country’s official delegation, Mr. He attended the 1952 Summer Games in Helsinki, Finland — the first Olympics in which Communist China participated, and the last for nearly 30 years. Because of a tense and protracted dispute over the status of Taiwan, which now competes as Chinese Taipei, China did not participate again in the Olympics until the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. When China, with a fifth of the world’s population, fully re-engaged with the international sports world, twice bidding on the Summer Games — the second time successfully — Mr. He was credited with playing a pivotal role in making the country more open to the world. He had been educated by Westerners in high school and college in Shanghai, spoke the official Olympic languages of French and English, and had an approachable personality and an engaging sense of humor, Olympic officials said. That helped him build trusting, long-term relationships within the insular, Eurocentric world of international Olympic politics. “In those days, the I.O.C. was a club,” said Anita DeFrantz, a longtime committee delegate from the United States. “You had to get to know people. He was very serious about his role, and also a delightful person.” In 1979, Mr. He, then a high-ranking official with the Chinese Olympic Committee, signaled at an I.O.C. meeting that China could compromise if Taiwan agreed to compete in the Games as Chinese Taipei. China then returned to the Olympics, and in 1981, Mr. He was named the first delegate to the international committee from the People’s Republic of China. The committee’s president at the time, Juan Antonio Samaranch, a former Spanish diplomat, had worked to resolve the China-Taiwan issue. By bringing Mr. He into the I.O.C., Mr. Samaranch demonstrated his desire to unify the Olympic movement and make it universal, said Richard Pound, a committee delegate from Montreal. “One way to do that with a stroke of a pen is to add a billion Chinese people,” Mr. Pound said. Mr. Samaranch may also have intended to curtail the boycotts that would disrupt Olympic participation from the mid-1970s through the late 1980s. China participated in the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, ignoring a Soviet boycott, and also competed in the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea, declining to join boycotts by North Korea, Cuba and Ethiopia. Mr. He remained a delegate for nearly three decades, until 2010, serving three terms on the Olympic committee’s powerful executive board. He was also a prominent figure in Beijing’s bids to host the 2000 and 2008 Summer Games. According to Dr. Brownell, an anthropologist and expert on Chinese sports at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Mr. He established his political and athletic credentials by becoming an underground member of the Communist Party in Shanghai before the 1949 revolution; serving as a translator for Premier Zhou Enlai; gaining positions of authority in China’s gymnastics and table tennis federations; and participating in the so-called Ping-Pong diplomacy of the early 1970s, which helped lead to improved relations with the United States and countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He Zhenliang was born in 1929 in coastal Zhejiang Province, south of Shanghai, according to China Vitae, a biographical website. (Information on his survivors was not available.) Educated by French Jesuits in Shanghai, Mr. He became fluent in the French language and culture, Dr. Brownell said. He moved comfortably among Westerners with his wife, Liang Lijuan, a journalist who spoke English and worked with her husband. Beijing’s attempt to host the 2000 Summer Games fell excruciatingly short; the city lost by two votes to Sydney, Australia. China’s record on human rights was cited by many as the reason for the narrow and unexpected defeat. Mr. He was said to be angry and frustrated and to weep privately. But while some Chinese officials reacted stridently, Mr. He “stayed calm and strong,” said Ms. DeFrantz, the American Olympic delegate. Having endured stints of hard labor during China’s Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966, and having spent nearly 30 years trying to return China to the Olympics on its terms, Mr. He took a long view in helping to develop Beijing into a serious candidate to host the Summer Games, Dr. Brownell said. “He just really had the long-term perspective, which was a case of never give up,” she said, adding, “Time didn’t mean a lot to him.” Mr. He’s persistence paid off when Beijing resoundingly defeated Toronto for the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. While China’s human rights record remained a polarizing issue and the atmosphere sometimes felt a bit soulless, the Games offered an extravagant opening ceremony, breathtaking stadiums, and mesmerizing competition that featured eight gold medals by the American swimmer Michael Phelps and startling world records by the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. China led all nations with 51 gold medals.


New Ralph Lauren Chief Revived Old Navy After Successes at H&M

Abstract: At first, the ascension of Stefan Larsson to chief executive of Ralph Lauren’s fashion house might seem an odd fit. Mr. Larsson is widely credited with vastly expanding H&M’s cheap chic fashion business and then rescuing Old Navy, transforming the retailer from a dowdy discount brand into a symbol of affordable fast fashion. And while the customer base for those two retail companies may have a lot in common, the upper end of the Lauren brand still sought to capture a far more aristocratic country club clientele. But over all, the Lauren brand has struggled to remain relevant in a rapidly changing retail world, and has recently suffered from a slumping share price and increased competition. And that’s where Mr. Larsson is viewed as being able to step in and manage the company. Dressed in a well-pressed blue suit, Mr. Larsson joined Mr. Lauren at the label’s sprawling Midtown Manhattan headquarters on Tuesday to discuss the appeal of making the transition. “Here is somebody who has done something that few people will ever do in their whole lifetime, speaking about the future, speaking about how the best things are ahead,” Mr. Larsson said. “It was just very intriguing to me.” In 2012, when Mr. Larsson joined Old Navy, a subsidiary of Gap Inc., it was already troubled. Sales had fallen by more than $1 billion from 2006 to 2008. The recession had hurt retail spending, even at lower-end brands. And Old Navy could not keep up with nimbler competitors, like H&M, that had figured out how to respond more quickly to fickle fashion trends. Mr. Larsson has said that he frequently felt unfashionable growing up in a small town in Sweden, where trends took time to arrive from the big cities. As a retail executive, he helped change that model. Mr. Larsson spent 15 years at H&M before joining Old Navy and oversaw the company’s global expansion into a fast-fashion empire. “Using what he learned at H&M, he did a better job of matching supply and demand,” said Bridget Weishaar, a retail analyst with Morningstar. “He realized that people who were buying cheap clothes still wanted to look good.” Mr. Larsson, 41, eschewed what he called the “clothes by the pound” approach favored by many discount retailers. Instead, he focused more on design, and on cutting down how long it took to get clothes from the design stage onto the shelves. The strategy worked. Last year, Old Navy took in nearly $6 billion in sales in the United States, making up nearly 40 percent of Gap Inc.’s global revenue — nearly as much as the Gap and Banana Republic brands combined. “Unfortunately, their sister division, the Gap, doesn’t seem to have either read the memo or can’t seem to get organized,” said Mark A. Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University’s business school and former chief executive of Sears Canada. “Allegedly, Gap is trying to do the same, but it remains to be seen whether they can do it or not.” Gap Inc. stock fell 3 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday. “Given Mr. Larsson’s strong leadership and contribution to the Old Navy division, we see this as a loss for Gap,” John Morris, a retail analyst with BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note shortly after the Lauren announcement. “The Old Navy team really coalesced behind his leadership, at a time when the division needed it, and morale significantly improved.” Jill Stanton, Old Navy’s executive vice president for global product, will take over Mr. Larsson’s duties as the company hunts for a permanent replacement. Art Peck, Gap’s chief executive, repeatedly emphasized his confidence in Ms. Stanton’s abilities and said he expected “no change” in operations as Old Navy heads into the all-important holiday season. “Stefan’s leaving,” Mr. Peck said. “People do what they do, and that happens.”

Ralph Lauren
Old Navy
Stefan Larsson
Fashion
Retail


Making Opponents See Double

Abstract: The Final Four on Saturday in Foxborough, Mass., will showcase a Duke team that is considered one of the best ever, a revitalized Syracuse club that did not qualify for the postseason last year and a Johns Hopkins team that overcame a five-game losing streak. But the players who could generate the most buzz at Gillette Stadium are two Virginia midfielders. Rhamel and Shamel Bratton, identical twins from Huntington, N.Y., were perhaps the most hyped lacrosse recruits ever. The Brattons are a rarity, African-Americans playing in a mostly white sport who combine diverse skills, sublime athleticism and spontaneous creativity. “I’m sure that people who have never seen them play have expectations for them,” Johns Hopkins Coach Dave Pietramala said. The Brattons will step on the biggest stage of their careers Saturday when the No. 2 Cavaliers play No. 3 Syracuse. The rivalry is considered one of the most riveting in the sport because of the wide-open play, which should fit the Brattons’ style. This season, they have had blips of brilliance and stretches of inconsistency. Shamel, a left-hander who plays in the first midfield, has scored 13 goals and had 4 assists. Rhamel, a right-hander who plays in the second midfield, has 9 goals and 6 assists. Shamel is the Cavaliers’ seventh-leading scorer, Rhamel the eighth. “On the field, everyone expected them to come in and be the LeBron James of lacrosse in their freshman year, which is unrealistic,” said Vernon Manuel, the twins’ older half brother, who serves as a father figure. “What I’m proud of is that they listen to their coaches and all they care about is winning. They have learned to become role players.” Their best game came against Johns Hopkins, in which Shamel scored three goals and assisted on the winner in overtime, and Rhamel had two goals. In a quarterfinal match against Maryland, Rhamel scored a key third-quarter goal and forced a turnover in the comeback overtime win. Shamel Bratton struggled at times in that game, seeming tentative with the ball in scoring position. “The biggest difference has been just because I’m a freshman and we have so many great scorers, I’m used to getting a lot more shots,” Shamel Bratton said. “You have to focus on sticking the shots that you get. In high school, I took way more than that and I didn’t worry too much when I did miss a shot.” Rhamel Bratton added about the jump to the college game: “It’s just much faster and guys are stronger and opportunities don’t come as much. You definitely have to capitalize on the opportunities that you have.” Coach Dom Starsia has clearly enjoyed the energy and verve the twins have brought to the program. They are “bouncing off the walls” in the locker room every day, he said. Starsia recalled with a laugh when the twins heard him hollering at game-day decibels at the first scrimmage of the season. Starsia felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Rhamel holding a cup of water. “Here,” Rhamel said. “You need this.” Just like on the field, there have been bumps adjusting to college life. The brothers live in the same dorm room, and Rhamel jokes that he has had to deal with Shamel’s being messy. The Brattons have experienced the normal hiccups that come with the demands of being a freshman athlete. Starsia recalled Shamel going to his office in tears saying, “I want to do better in school.” He said Rhamel got in a spot of trouble in class for acting up, something indicative of the twins’ outgoing personalities. Both have completed 30 hours of courses and have improved their grades. Starsia has marveled how they have handled the attention. They are often as recognized on campus as a football or basketball recruit would be. They have twice been on the cover of Inside Lacrosse magazine. “All of the attention on them bothers them least of anyone else in the universe,” Starsia said. “It rolls off their back like nothing that you’ve ever seen. Everyone else, including me, worries about it a lot more than they do.” One of their fans is New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick. He talked to them after the Face-Off Classic in Baltimore and after the quarterfinals in Annapolis, Md. Manuel said Belichick told the twins that they had crossed paths with his son, Stephen Belichick, a freshman defenseman at Rutgers, during their youth sports days. Belichick lived on Long Island when he was the Jets’ defensive coordinator. “It’s just a little overwhelming,” Rhamel Bratton said. “We’ve been watching the Final Four since grade school. It’s weird playing in one. I’m really happy and excited to get on the field and perform on the greatest stage in lacrosse.” notes In the other semifinal, No. 1 Duke will face No. 4 Johns Hopkins in a rematch of last year’s final, which Johns Hopkins won, 12-11.

Lacrosse
University of Virginia
College Athletics


A Voice Suggests Door-Busters Can Wait a Day

Abstract: Anthony Hardwick never thought of himself as an activist or even much of an organizer. He grew up in Kansas City, Mo., graduated from Park University in Missouri in 2009, and looked for a job by scouring the Internet for cities with low unemployment rates. He settled on Omaha, where he found two — as a shopping cart attendant at Target and a printing supervisor for OfficeMax. There he met his fiancée, Denise Holling. “Basically, I just wanted to pursue the American Dream,” Mr. Hardwick told me this week, as the bearded, burly 29-year-old emerged as the unlikely hero of a nationwide movement to roll back the start of the holiday shopping season to the day after Thanksgiving . Late last month, Mr. Hardwick’s supervisor at Target told him he would be needed at 11 p.m. Thanksgiving night in order for Target to open its doors at midnight for Black Friday , which the discount retailer was doing for the first time this year. “I’d have to be at Target from 11 p.m. until 4:30 a.m., then I’d have 30 minutes to scurry down to OfficeMax, where I was starting at 5 a.m.,” he said. Mr. Hardwick makes $8.50 an hour at Target, and between his two jobs earns about $25,000 a year. “I used to be able to pull 24-hour shifts,” he said. “I’d drink Red Bull. But now I’m 29, and I’m starting to feel it. I’d have to nap.” This didn’t sit well with Mr. Hardwick, who figured he’d be sleeping while his fiancée and future in-laws gathered for the traditional turkey dinner. Although a Target spokeswoman told me the company did its best to accommodate employees who wanted the day off, this often isn’t possible, and Mr. Hardwick said he wasn’t given the option. Mr. Hardwick turned to the Internet and discovered the Web site Change.org , best known for a recent online petition to get banks to roll back debit card fees. “A midnight opening robs the hourly and in-store salary workers of time off with their families on Thanksgiving Day,” he posted on Nov. 3. “A full holiday with family is not just for the elite of this nation — all Americans should be able to break bread with loved ones and get a good night’s rest on Thanksgiving!” He asked the Web site’s visitors to join him in calling for Target retail stores to restore the 5 a.m. opening time on Black Friday. But a “full holiday with family” has become increasingly elusive as competition from 24/7, 365-days-a-year Internet shopping has caused retailers to throw open their doors on a day once sacrosanct “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” as Abraham Lincoln put it when he established the national holiday in 1863. Franklin Roosevelt moved the holiday to the fourth Thursday in November (from the last Thursday) in an overt attempt to lengthen the holiday shopping season and bolster retail sales during the Depression. And the holiday’s demise as a no-shopping interlude is the culmination of a steady retreat from pervasive blue laws that once banned shopping not only on Thanksgiving and other major holidays but also on Sundays. Today Massachusetts and Rhode Island are the last states to restrict shopping on Thanksgiving, and Paramus, N.J., the site of several major malls, may be unique in banning shopping on Thanksgiving and Sundays. “The blue laws began in Massachusetts with the Pilgrims, so I guess it’s fitting that we still have them,” Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said. “Christmas is sacrosanct. But there’s been a bill proposed to permit shopping on Thanksgiving. It hasn’t moved. We endorse it every year, but do I have members beating down my door to push this? No.” Among national retailers, Target is hardly the worst offender. Although some Target stores are open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving before reopening at midnight, Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, has been open all day on Thanksgiving for years, and this year moved up its Black Friday door-buster specials to 10 p.m. Thursday. K-Mart and many Gap and Old Navy stores are also open all day, and a wave of stores, including Macy’s and Best Buy, opened this year at midnight on Friday with special holiday promotions. Some retailers are now talking about “Black Thanksgiving.” “For many people Black Friday shopping is now as much a part of the holiday tradition as the turkey,” the Target spokeswoman said. “Black Friday has an exciting, euphoric feeling. A lot of our team members get very excited. Months of hard work have gone into preparing for this.” She said Target moved up its store openings to midnight only after much deliberation, and the move had been “overwhelmingly popular” with both customers and employees. Mr. Hardwick said he was aware of all this, and had modest expectations for his petition. “I promoted it on Facebook and figured I’d sign up some friends and family,” he said. “At first it just sat there.” But gradually comments piled up on the Change.org Web site. “I’m sick and tired of these attempts to brainwash us into thinking Christmas is about how much money we spend,” Deborah Schwartz posted. From Bryce Allison: “It’s a national holiday, not a national shopping day ... maybe try giving thanks for your employees that bring you so much money.” Scotty Brookie wrote, “Encouraging people to shop in the middle of the night is bizarre.” The Rev. Dr. David Breeden, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Minneapolis, saw Mr. Hardwick’s petition in the broader context of the holiday. “Thanksgiving is one of the few civil holidays,” he said. “A lot of people don’t celebrate Christmas. But Thanksgiving is a national holiday and it’s a day for giving thanks for what we have. What’s wrong with stores opening at 10 a.m. on Friday? Everything will still be on the shelves when you unlock those doors. How about letting everyone breathe for a day and just relax? That’s a spiritual issue, too.” New York Times reporter Stephanie Clifford mentioned Mr. Hardwick in a recent article in which others expressed their dismay that Thanksgiving was turning into another shopping day. Other media contacted him. “I’ve been on TV,” he said. “I spoke to NBC; I spoke to MSNBC, CNN, the Christian Broadcasting Network.” People at Change.org helped him manage the attention, and he finally got to put his college degree in public relations to use. Thousands of online supporters flocked to the petition. “I was overjoyed and flabbergasted,” he said. He also drew his share of critics, most saying he should stop whining and give thanks that he has a job at all. “That was the same argument that was used when 7-year-olds were working in coal mines,” he said. He doesn’t belong to any unions or expect to join one, but “It hasn’t been that long in our history that workers have had a voice,” he said. “To give that up does my forefathers a disservice and I’m not going to do that.” Target has been handling Mr. Hardwick gingerly. “We have a great belief and understanding that team members should express their feelings,” the Target spokeswoman said. As Mr. Hardwick’s petition gained momentum, his holiday hours disappeared. He said his supervisor told him there had been a misunderstanding and “they were able to meet their staffing needs without my services.” Earlier this week, the Rev. Dr. Breeden led a small group to Target headquarters in Minneapolis where he presented officials with Target shopping bags bulging with nearly 200,000 signed copies of Mr. Hardwick’s petition. They had called ahead, and security guards in blazers and a Target official met them in the lobby. “It was all very polite and civil,” he said. “We weren’t carrying bullhorns or trying to disrupt anything.” On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Hardwick joined his fiancée and future in-laws — and six newborn puppies — for a dinner of bacon-wrapped turkey, ham and side dishes before heading to bed around 9 p.m. At OfficeMax, a customer had recognized him. “You’re the Save-Thanksgiving guy!” He said he hoped that next year, Target would reconsider its early opening, or at least allow employees to opt out of Thanksgiving duty and hire additional workers from the ranks of the unemployed. “This wasn’t really about me,” he told me on Thanksgiving. “It’s about my co-workers, my team members and anyone else in retail.” By 10 p.m. Thanksgiving night a line had formed outside Target’s Bloomington, Minn., store, a scene that a spokeswoman said was repeated at their stores around the country. As the line grew to about 1,500 people, employees gathered inside, chanted and then counted down the seconds to midnight. They clapped and cheered as shoppers poured in. Supplies of a Westinghouse 48-inch flat-screen HDTV, offered at $298, sold out in six minutes.

Thanksgiving Day
Black Friday (Shopping)
Shopping and Retail
Holidays and Special Occasions
Hardwick Anthony
Target Corporation


The Link Between Health Costs and National Savings Rates

Abstract: BEIJING — Guo Yonggang from Xi’an in western China suffered serious spinal injuries in an accident while driving an agricultural vehicle last year. His impoverished family scraped together 30,000 yuan, or $4,400, for emergency treatment but cannot afford the additional 70,000 yuan for the surgery that might save the 20-year-old from permanent paralysis. Stories like Mr. Guo’s, which was reported by state media, help explain the high savings rates that are one facet of the imbalances plaguing the world’s third-largest economy behind the United States and Japan. Households squirrel money away because China is too big and still too poor to provide comprehensive public services. People have to fork out for hefty school fees. They know they will get at best a flimsy pension. And, if they are unlucky, they could face catastrophic medical bills. So it is no wonder that between 1995, around which time state-owned firms stopped providing cradle-to-grave welfare, and 2008 the average urban household saving rate in China rose by 11 percentage points to about 28 percent of disposable income. “It’s a long-term issue, and it can’t be solved overnight even though there’s huge determination,” the central bank chief, Zhou Xiaochuan, said of the task of raising welfare provision. The good news is that Beijing is finally making some progress, especially in health care. A long-awaited blueprint unveiled in April aims to provide universal access to essential health care by 2020 and to cover more than 90 percent of the population with some sort of basic medical insurance by 2011. The government will allocate an extra 850 billion yuan for the scheme, which includes building 29,000 community clinics. “If all that is planned is implemented, it will be a major step forward,” said Vivek Arora, the International Monetary Fund’s chief representative in Beijing. Those and other steps to beef up social security would have an effect, but more would need to be done. “To sustain a substantial increase in private consumption, it’s going to be important to go further, to lessen the motivation for precautionary savings,” Mr. Arora said. Private consumption contributed just 2.8 percentage points of China’s annual average gross domestic product growth of 10.2 percent from 2000 to 2008. Spending growth was strong in fact, but investment was much stronger. As a result, the share of private consumption in G.D.P. fell over the same period to just 35 percent from 46 percent. For the world economy, which is counting on China to take up the spending slack created as indebted American consumers rebuild their savings, the stakes are high. After Taiwan introduced comprehensive national health insurance in 1995, researchers found that the average level of household savings fell by 9 percent to 14 percent. The problem is that even though insurance coverage is being broadened in China, it will be far from extensive. People will still have to dig deep into their own pockets. Since the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme was started in 2003, coverage has expanded to 830 million people and the average reimbursement rate of hospital bills has increased to 41 percent from 25 percent, according to Nie Chunlei, a Ministry of Health official in China. In a new study of China’s rural health reforms, the World Bank said total out-of-pocket spending on health care in the countryside fell from 80 percent in 2004 to 69 percent in 2006. But the report said the share financed out of pocket was unlikely to drop much below 60 percent. Tan Zhonghe, a researcher with a think tank under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said that by 2020, seeing a doctor ought no longer be a difficult and expensive business. But he said that for now, rural health insurance was still very basic. Given the realities of rural China and peasants’ spending habits, it was hard to see much of an effect on consumption in the countryside. “The schemes are not sufficient to prevent, only to relieve, poverty brought about by sickness,” he wrote in an e-mail message. Cao Liqun, a researcher at the Ministry of Agriculture, added that the rural medical program had failed to live up to the propaganda. “Yes, it covers a lot of people,” he said, “but the money is too little to cover real medical expenses in rural areas.” Moreover, reimbursement procedures were too complicated, Mr. Cao said: Outpatient treatment, common in rural China, was usually excluded, and bills from nonlocal hospitals were not easy to claim back. “If China wants to improve health care in the countryside,” he added, “government spending has to increase massively.” China spends almost 5 percent of G.D.P. on health services, but the government accounts for less than a fifth of that, according to the United Nations Development Program. Medical and health care takes up just 2.3 percent of this year’s central government budget, compared with 4.4 percent for education and 2.9 percent for environmental protection. If China spends too little on health, the United States spends too much — a staggering 17.6 percent of G.D.P. Yet in one respect, Chinese leaders are grappling with the same conundrum President Barack Obama is: How do you expand medical insurance, thereby enabling people to make use of services they could not afford before, without encouraging doctors and hospitals to gold-plate the treatment they prescribe? “At this very moment, the American government is struggling with exactly the same problem: the difficulty of paying providers in a way that encourages them to treat patients and do so well, but not in a way that encourages them to overtreat them,” said Adam Wagstaff, a World Bank economist who was the main author of the report on China’s rural medical program. “It’s very hard to get this right.”

China
Medicine and Health
Economic Conditions and Trends