Red Sox’ Ortiz Goes From Fearsome to Worrisome

Abstract: BOSTON — One of these days, a David Ortiz slump will be a sign of something more. At some point his slow start will be an undertow he cannot escape, and his lightning wrists and thunderous bat will be wrested into retirement. Ortiz, the 33-year-old standard-bearer for the Boston Red Sox ’ modern renaissance, is hitting .196 with no home runs after 13 games. These are not idle statistics. He was clumsily late on 88-mile-an-hour fastballs on Sunday, which, for a power hitter, can be the rough equivalent of being spammed by AARP. Ortiz did rebound last season from a similarly worrisome April. But he apparently has not come back from his struggles in last year’s postseason, when he was barely a factor. His current slump has become alarming enough that even a pop-fly double and a triple smoked off Fenway Park’s Green Monster against Baltimore on Monday provided little hint of how fate — will he be Mo Vaughn or Carlos Delgado? — is leaning. “It felt good,” Ortiz said afterward. “I’ve been working with my mechanics, man. I’ve been a little late with pitches, which is something that I normally don’t do, and pitchers have been taking advantage of it.” He added: “It’s the beginning of the season, and you don’t want to give up — just be like, ‘O.K., I can’t hit,’ when it’s something that everybody knows you’re capable of. You just have to keep on working.” Writing Ortiz’s baseball obituary is obviously premature. Most 33-year-old stars emerge from slumps like this, particularly when the hitting coach — in Ortiz’s case, Dave Magadan — thinks the player is cocking his hands too late before starting his swing, an issue that can be addressed. But Ortiz’s downturns are becoming frequent enough to raise broader questions. Last season he hit .111 with one home run in his first 16 games. He had begun to shake that off when a wrist injury cost him two months, and he blistered the ball like the Papi of old after his return. His final totals: .264, 23 homers and 89 runs batted in over 109 games. Then he went homerless in the first eight games of the playoffs, and delivered only two big hits in 11 games over all. Even though Ortiz was and remains the Red Sox’ No. 3 hitter, he is increasingly buffered by the younger stars Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis batting around him. Pedroia’s four hits Monday were a sign of how much of a force he has become; Ortiz’s double and triple testified to how much of a force Ortiz wants to be again. It has been a long time since Ortiz was as encouraged by hitting a 91-m.p.h. fastball the way he did for that triple on Monday. His mistaking it for 94 m.p.h. is open to interpretation. “I tell you what — if as a hitter you slow down with 88 m.p.h., that means you got to go,” Ortiz said. “It’s crazy after you get beat by 88 and come and hit 94. That means that it’s not you’ve got to go. It means you’ve got to pull yourself together and keep working. “It’s a long season, and not let that get into your head.” Red Sox Manager Terry Francona seemed encouraged by Ortiz’s peppering the Monster, a sign that his inside-out stroke is recalibrating. “Any time hitters hit the ball the other way with authority,” Francona said, “something’s got to be right.” Francona was chafed by the suggestion that Ortiz, who insists he is the healthiest he has been in years, might be showing signs of age, or could soon. “I’m not there yet; last year his start wasn’t good, after maybe 50 at-bats, and I think I was answering the same questions at that time,” Francona said. “I remember watching a game on TV last year, and the guys were saying the same thing — vocally — about how Carlos Delgado hadn’t been let go yet. That’s why you guys are doing your job and we’re doing ours.” Ortiz is aware he has not done his in a while. Monday’s extra-base hits were only his second and third of the season. His slugging percentage remains a shocking .275. Having Pedroia and Youkilis batting around him will help Ortiz’s numbers, but they will not help him hit the heater. With the American League East looking so strong — the Rays remain formidable, the Yankees are restocked, and Toronto is in first place at 10-4 — the Red Sox need Ortiz to be strong as well. “I’d like to swing like Pedroia,” Ortiz joked. “He doesn’t have to worry about mechanics.” Ortiz and Francona hope his power returns the way they expect it to, since moving Ortiz, a left-handed hitter, down in the lineup could be problematic. Pedroia, Youkilis, Jason Bay and Mike Lowell swing right-handed; J. D. Drew would be the only option to break up the heart of the order, leaving the team more vulnerable to strong right-handed relievers in the late innings. It’s early for doomsaying. After all, the Red Sox made the playoffs last year with Ortiz gone for eight weeks, back in the Manny Ramirez era. But while New England was consumed with the length of Manny’s hair last year, the length of Ortiz’s hits this year worries fans more. “I definitely have to produce and get things done — I’ve been doing it for years,” Ortiz said. “It’s not as easy as it looks. Sometimes people see you doing it over and over and over, and I heard Mikey Lowell make a comment last year about that. About, ‘Papi gets it done a whole bunch of times, but, people, don’t try that at home.’ ”


Jordan Executes 11 After 8-Year Moratorium

Abstract: AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan ended an eight-year moratorium on executions on Sunday when 11 men were hanged at dawn. The men had been convicted of murder charges from 2002 to 2004, according to a statement released by the Interior Ministry. The government carried out the executions at the Swaqa corrections and rehabilitation center, 60 miles south of Amman, the capital, “after taking all required legal measures,” according to the ministry’s spokesman, Ziad Zubi. Jordan’s last previous execution, in March 2006, was carried out for a man convicted of killing his wife and baby. Last month, the interior minister, Hussein Majali, announced that a committee had been formed to examine whether to reinstate the death penalty. Mr. Majali said members of the public believed that a rise in crime was related to the absence of executions. The number of felonies and other crimes in the country increased to 33,800 last year from 24,700 in 2009, according to Jordan’s Department of Statistics, but the kingdom is generally seen as one of the safest in the region. Since 2006, more than 100 people have been sentenced to death for crimes like murder, rape and treason, but until Sunday, none of the sentences had been carried out. Jordanian and international human rights organizations heavily criticized the government on Sunday. “Reinstatement of the death penalty is a major blow to Jordan’s official rhetoric in support of human rights,” said Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should immediately reverse course and instead take prompt and decisive action toward a total abolition of this inherently cruel punishment.” In a statement released on Sunday by Human Rights Watch, Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East program, said, “Reviving this inherently cruel form of punishment is another way Jordan is backsliding on human rights.” The European Union has been pushing Jordan to make the moratorium permanent. The Swedish ambassador to Jordan, Helena Rietz, expressed her concern over the executions on Twitter, saying that the European Union and Sweden urged Jordan to abolish the death penalty. In a news release on Sunday, the British ambassador to Jordan, Peter Millett, also expressed his regret over the executions. “We urge Jordan to put in place a moratorium on any further use of the death penalty,” Mr. Millett said. “We consider that its use undermines human dignity, that there is no conclusive evidence that it has any value as a deterrent.” In Jordan, no death sentence may be carried out unless the king approves it. “I met with the family of a son who was murdered in cold blood more than a year ago,” said Adeeb Akroosh, 67, a Jordanian activist. “There were many Jordanians there who wrote a letter to His Majesty asking him to reinstate the death penalty.” By Sunday afternoon, the names of the 11 men were published in the Jordanian news media. On Thursday, a record number of countries threw their weight behind a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on executions: 117 of the 193 member states voted in favor of the resolution, 38 voted against it, and 34 abstained.

Jordan
Capital punishment
Murders and Homicides


Fighting Is Long Over, but Western Sahara Still Lacks Peace

Abstract: TIFARITI, Western Sahara — Ghalla Sid Ahmed and her mother eke out a living in this isolated desert settlement, subsisting on five goats and a war pension. For 40 years they have lived in exile, barred from their land by a heavily patrolled sand berm that runs like a scar for 1,600 miles through this remote corner of the Sahara. They are the forgotten victims of one of the world’s last conflicts left over from the Cold War. There has been no fighting here for 24 years, since a United Nations-monitored cease-fire between Morocco and the Polisario Front, an anticolonial resistance movement that sought independence. But there has been no peace, either, despite unfulfilled promises of a referendum to settle the status of the Western Sahara. Today, as change and conflict encroach from the wider region, the people here are once again agitating for a solution, warning of the resumption of war, as patience runs out. “We like it here,” said Ms. Ahmed, 51, gesturing at their homestead and the desert beyond, “but it is very hard without independence and the rest of our lands.” “No one wants war,” she added, “but if there is no result from peace, then I will give all my children to achieve independence.” The Western Sahara stretches from Algeria and Mauritania in the east to the coast of the Atlantic. Morocco occupies most of the territory, and Moroccan soldiers guard the sand berm that was originally built to fortify the front line in the conflict but that still divides the native Berber-Arabs, or Sahrawis, a nomadic people of just a few hundred thousand. A United Nations force monitors the cease-fire from half a dozen camps dotted through the desert on either side of the divide. To the east, the Polisario Front controls a sliver of territory and a collection of refugee camps in Algeria. It remains the single authority over the refugee community. Its Socialist message of solidarity in the struggle for independence is unquestioned. Polisario soldiers in fatigues mount patrols in the desert, while civilians, many of them women, run education and social services. Officials say they will introduce a multiparty democracy once independence is achieved. The result is a tightly knit community that, despite the length of the struggle, remains committed to its cause. In interviews during a five-day tour of the camps and Polisario’s realm, the Sahrawis were adamant that the only solution for them was independence. “If there is no other option we have to fight,” says Zubeir Mbarek, a Sahrawi herder and former guerrilla fighter. He lost three brothers in the war, and his house here in Tifariti remains in ruins from a Moroccan bombing raid 24 years ago. “We should prepare ourselves and be ready to defend ourselves.” Once a Spanish protectorate, the Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco , and Mauritania briefly, when the Spanish withdrew in 1975. The Sahrawis had already begun an armed resistance against the Spanish and turned to fight the Moroccan Army. They formed the Polisario Front in 1973, a Latin-American-style socialist guerrilla movement in the style of the Cold War, which gained support from Cuba, Libya and Algeria and later post-apartheid South Africa. Neighboring Algeria, which hosts the refugees, remains its most stalwart supporter. The Polisario proved a resilient guerrilla force. It fought the Moroccan Army for 16 years, and declared the region the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, winning recognition from dozens of the eastern-bloc, developing countries and the African Union. By the end of the war the Polisario had captured 4,000 Moroccan soldiers, shot down dozens of planes and seized a mass of military equipment and weaponry. A war museum in the refugee center of Ribouni displays the evidence. Cabinets are filled with Moroccan military documents and hangars with captured weaponry and military vehicles, including American military trucks, and German, French and British field guns supplied to the Moroccan Army. Even as generations are growing up never knowing their homeland, the sentiment for independence is unabated. A group of young people, walking from their tented homes to the center of Tifariti to visit the school and the few shops, named only one problem in their lives. “Morocco,” they said in unison. The older people relate harsh tales of their flight under Moroccan bombardment in 1975. Thousands died in the war and hundreds were detained and disappeared by Moroccan authorities — 400 remain unaccounted for to this day, according to Abdeslam Omar, who runs an association that has documented the disappearances. Dekalla Mahmoud, a grandmother, recalled how, when she was nine months pregnant, she lost her baby during a monthlong flight with other women through the desert under Moroccan bombardment. “We walked just at night, and during the day we hid,” she said. A single man with a car ferried groups of the women at night, without lights, from one hiding place to another. “Planes were moving over us, and we heard tank and artillery fire,” she recalled. In the camps, desolate and dusty in the winter, infernally hot in the summer, the refugees will mark their 40th anniversary this year, living in tents, or small boxy homes made from cement breeze blocks, and dependent on assistance from the United Nations for food and water. “Everybody hopes to go back home,” said Ms. Ahmed’s mother, Selma Ahmed, 80, who was born in the town of Smara, in territory now under Moroccan rule. “Everybody prefers to live in their own country.” It is a common refrain, along with complaints that the United Nations and Western powers have failed to enforce the terms of the 1991 cease-fire, which included agreement on a referendum for the Sahrawis to decide on their own future, whether as part of Morocco or as an independent state. “The reality is it has been a long time for our people,” said Brahim Ghali, one of the founding members of the Polisario, who led the guerrilla force throughout the war. The younger Sahrawi leaders agree. “This region can do better and should do better,” said Mohamed Yeslem Beisat, the Sahrawi ambassador to the United States. “This all could be built around an honorable and legal solution.” But Morocco has long since backed away from the referendum and insists the Sahrawis accept autonomy within the Kingdom of Morocco. It has reacted sharply to opposition, breaking up a Sahrawi protest camp and imprisoning activists in 2010 , and barring the United Nations special envoy, Christopher Ross, and the head of the United Nations mission to Western Sahara, Kim Bolduc, from visiting, causing a nine-month hiatus in negotiations, which has only just been resolved. “When Morocco presented the proposal for large autonomy, this proposal has been described as serious and credible,” Mustapha Khalfi, communications minister of Morocco, said in an interview. The Moroccan government, meanwhile, has embarked on large-scale development of the Western Sahara, and King Mohamed VI vowed in a speech in November that Western Sahara would remain part of Morocco for eternity. “That does not leave much room for negotiation,” said a diplomat familiar with the region. He asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the dispute. The members of the United Nations Security Council, especially the United States and France, which have interest on both sides of the issue with Morocco and Algeria, have little incentive to resolve the problem, he added. But that does not mean that the people here have forgotten commitments made by outside nations in the past. “I want you to carry a message to the United States of America asking for help, help for us to get independence,” said another of the Ahmed daughters, Tofa, 58. “We are a people and we were attacked in our land and we were treated unfairly. We just want our land.”

Western Sahara
Sahara
Tifariti
Cold War
Morocco
Polisario Front
Refugees,Internally Displaced People
International relations
UN


ConocoPhillips Plans to Add Drilling Rigs in Next 3 Years

Abstract: ConocoPhillips, the largest independent producer of oil and natural gas, said it would add drilling rigs in 2017 in crucial shale acreage in the United States, based on its expectations for a recovery in the price of crude oil. Conoco, which cut its capital spending plan nearly 30 percent this year, to $11.5 billion, told investors it expected to increase the number of rigs in its Eagle Ford acreage in South Texas to 12 in 2017 from an average of seven this year. In North Dakota’s Bakken, the rigs will double to 10 in the same period. Conoco’s rig forecast is a strong sign that producers believe in the long-term viability of drilling for shale oil, which boomed over the last decade but was scaled back sharply after oil prices tumbled 50 percent since June, to about $50 a barrel. Conoco’s chief executive, Ryan Lance, said that price recovery was likely to be “volatile.”

ConocoPhillips
Drilling
Oil and Gasoline


Harper’s Magazine Publisher Fires Christopher Cox as Editor

Abstract: Christopher Cox, the editor of Harper’s Magazine, was fired by John R. MacArthur, the magazine’s president and publisher, last week, after a three-month tenure. Mr. Cox said on Tuesday that he had been dismissed because of “editorial differences with the publisher,” but would not elaborate on the nature of the disagreement. A spokeswoman for the magazine declined to comment. A person familiar with the dispute said that tensions flared during a recent meeting, when Mr. Cox presented his plans to redesign the magazine’s cover. Mr. MacArthur opposed the change, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions. Mr. Cox’s departure is the latest sign of upheaval at the 165-year-old magazine, which has struggled with dwindling print circulation and diminished relevance in the digital era. The magazine’s total circulation fell to 130,257 for the six months ending in June 2015, down from 187,635 two years earlier, according to the company’s filings with the Alliance for Audited Media. Harper’s, published monthly, is a nonprofit publication that is supported in large part by Mr. MacArthur’s personal wealth. That structure provides some financial stability as advertising revenue shrinks, but also gives Mr. MacArthur considerable influence and editorial control. He is a zealous and unapologetic defender of the magazine’s print legacy . Mr. Cox was the magazine’s 15th editor, a prestigious post previously held by Lewis H. Lapham and Michael Kinsley. As deputy editor, Mr. Cox edited several award-winning pieces, and shepherded feature articles and short stories by prominent writers such as Geoff Dyer, Karen Russell and Colson Whitehead. Before joining Harper’s, he was a senior editor at The Paris Review. When Mr. Cox was promoted to editor after five years at the magazine, Mr. MacArthur said in a statement that “Chris has brought in some of the most exciting work we’ve published,” adding, “His editorial wisdom enhances the writing in our pages and guides the work of the younger staff members.” Mr. Cox took over as editor on Nov. 1, replacing Ellen Rosenbush, a Harper’s veteran who became editor in 2010 after Mr. MacArthur fired Roger D. Hodge. Mr. Hodge, who edited the magazine for four years, said in an interview Tuesday that he repeatedly clashed with Mr. MacArthur over editorial decisions. When Mr. Cox was promoted last year, Mr. Hodge said he told him “that he should expect to get fired eventually, but that he would probably have a few good years.”

Magazine
Christopher Cox
Harper's Magazine
Appointments and Executive Changes


Unemployment Extension Is Stalled, With 2 Proposals Defeated in the Senate

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Unemployment benefits for 1.3 million of the long-term unemployed — and millions more in the future — were imperiled on Tuesday after Senate efforts to reach accord on legislation to revive them collapsed in partisan finger-pointing. After days of negotiations, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, abruptly called a vote to end debate on two Democratic measures that would extend benefits for out-of-work Americans for at least three months, gambling that he could muster enough support from moderate Republicans to move on to final passage for at least one of the proposals. But both votes failed, and the possibility of a bipartisan deal collapsed during procedural arguments, with Democrats and Republicans accusing one another of negotiating in bad faith. Some senators remained optimistic that they would still be able to reach a compromise, but the earliest they are likely to return to the legislation is at the end of the month, when they return from a weeklong break. The first vote failed, 52 to 48, on a measure proposed by the Democratic leadership that would have extended benefits for 11 months. The extension would have been largely financed by continuing a 2 percent cut to Medicare health providers for an additional year, through 2024. The second vote, on the original bill, which would have extended benefits for three months at a cost of $6.4 billion, failed 55 to 45. Image Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, abruptly called a vote to end debate on two Democratic measures that would extend benefits for out-of-work Americans. Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times An extension of benefits, which expired at the end of December, did not make it into the two-year budget deal passed just before Congress left for its winter recess. Republicans had balked during negotiations at what they viewed as the tyrannical leadership of Mr. Reid, who had refused to let them offer any amendments to unemployment measures. On Tuesday, Mr. Reid offered to let each party introduce five amendments. But Republicans remained dissatisfied. They said that his requirement that each amendment receive 60 votes to pass doomed their measures, especially since Mr. Reid was demanding that Republicans give up the customary 60-vote threshold to end debate on the final bill and agree to a simple majority vote. “I hope you all are beginning to get the picture here of who’s responsible for dysfunction in the Senate,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader. “This is utterly absurd.” Referring to Mr. Reid’s amendment proposal, he added, “I couldn’t sell to my members something crafted like this, that guaranteed we had no real chance.” Mr. Reid accused the Republicans of wanting to “have their cake and eat it, too.” “The question is: Are Republicans filibustering unemployment insurance benefits or are they not?” Mr. Reid asked, implying that they were, in fact, filibustering any deal. Republicans accused Democrats of playing politics and refusing to compromise. They said Mr. Reid and his colleagues ultimately wanted to be able to blame Republicans for scuttling the unemployment benefits deal. Image Referring to Mr. Reid’s amendment proposal, Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, said, “I couldn’t sell to my members something crafted like this, that guaranteed we had no real chance.” Credit Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times “Here’s the bottom-line question to the majority party in the Senate: Is this about a sound bite or is this about actually extending unemployment benefits?” said Senator John Hoeven, Republican of North Dakota. “I think they need to answer that question.” A group of largely moderate Republicans — led by Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dean Heller of Nevada, and including Mr. Hoeven — had been working on their own alternative, which they hoped could win bipartisan support. Their plan, which was discussed at both caucuses’ closed-door policy lunches on Tuesday, would have extended unemployment benefits by three months and helped pay for them by continuing some of the existing across-the-board federal spending cuts over a 10-year period. The proposal essentially stalled when negotiations on the overall unemployment deal collapsed. Senators on both sides said they hoped that the breakdown in negotiations represented a temporary setback rather than the end of the road. “We’re hopeful that today’s procedural votes on the floor will not be the end of this process,” said Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a member of the Republican group seeking an alternative plan. Similarly, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he was “hopeful that maybe today’s debate in a procedural sense will get the two sides together.” But coming off a recent push by both parties to claim the mantle of antipoverty activists and supporters of middle-class Americans, Mr. Schumer could not resist a political dig: “The world is changing. And helping average people, of whom most of these beneficiaries are, is what the public is demanding. “It’s more important to the average citizen than deficit reduction, as important as that is, than Obamacare, as important as that is, and they’re just missing the call.”

Senate
Unemployment benefits
Congress
US Politics


An Energy Diet for Power-Hungry Household PCs

Abstract: In its drive to go green, the technology industry has so far focused mainly on big targets like corporations and especially computer data centers, the power-hungry computing engine rooms of the Internet economy. Next come the hundreds of millions of desktop and laptop personal computers in households worldwide. Microsoft , the nonprofit Climate Savers Computing Initiative and a start-up called Verdiem are combining to put a spotlight on the energy-saving opportunity in PCs, and distributing a free software tool to consumers to help them do it. The potential savings in both dollars and pollution is huge, analysts say, when the estimated one billion PCs in use globally are taken into account. The research firm Gartner estimates that 40 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions resulting from information technology and telecommunications are attributable to PCs. Data center computers account for 23 percent, and the rest is attributable to printers and telecommunications equipment. “If you are going to tackle climate change and curb energy use, you have to deal with consumer devices like PCs,” said Andrew Fanara, a product development expert in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program, which promotes energy-efficient products and practices. For more than a decade, the federal Energy Star program has developed voluntary power-management standards for PCs, and suppliers like Intel and Microsoft have steadily improved the energy efficiency of their chips and software. But Mr. Fanara estimated that less than half of PCs met those standards, in part because more energy-efficient hardware adds slightly to production costs. “There are large potential savings beyond what Energy Star can do,” he said. The free software, called Edison, is a consumer version of the PC energy-saving software sold to corporate customers by Verdiem, which is financed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading venture capital firm and an aggressive investor in green technologies, and other venture investors. Verdiem, based in Seattle, has 180 corporate and government customers, including Hewlett-Packard, which bundles Verdiem’s Surveyor program on its desktop PCs sold to corporations. Though he will not disclose sales figures, the company’s chief executive, Kevin Klustner, says revenue should triple this year. There are other free tools for calculating and managing PC power consumption, including the E.P.A.’s EZ Wizard, CO2 Saver and a Google energy-saving gadget. But Edison allows the user more flexibility, especially in making the settings as stringent as they want, analysts say. If a user sets the software to put the machine in a “deep sleep” mode after a few minutes of not hitting a keystroke, the hard drive powers down and the PC sips just 5 percent of its normal energy consumption. That kind of energy diet is far from standard practice in homes and offices. Half of all electricity consumed by a standard PC is wasted, according to environmental and industry studies. Household electricity bills could also be trimmed by $20 to $95 a year for each PC, depending on local power costs and the kind of PCs in use, said Mr. Klustner. “What we’re trying to do is raise the visibility of the power consumption problem on the PC desktop and really bring power management to the masses,” he said. The Climate Savers group, which includes major technology companies and environmental groups, has set a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from computers by 54 million tons by 2010. That is the equivalent of the yearly pollution from 11 million cars. The goal includes data center computers and PCs, and about half of all PCs are consumer machines. “This kind of energy-saving technology for consumers is a key ingredient in moving toward that goal,” said Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist for Microsoft. The companies said that the Edison software would be available to download on Wednesday from the Web sites of Verdiem ( verdiem.com ), Microsoft ( microsoft.com/environment ), and Climate Savers ( climatesaverscomputing.org ).

Climate Savers Computing Initiative
Verdiem
Energy Efficiency
Computers and the Internet
Environment
Global Warming
Electric Light and Power
Microsoft Corp


Mets Come to Rely on an Unexpected Closer

Abstract: A half-inch, maybe. A while back, the Mets asked Jeurys Familia to change the way he gripped his heavy sinker and to spread his index and middle fingers about a half-inch wider on the ball, creating a new pitch that went about four miles per hour slower but dropped out of the zone even more emphatically than the sinker did. For about two years, Familia tinkered with the pitch in the bullpen, until he unveiled it in August to rave reviews. Familia called it a splitter. Dan Warthen, the Mets’ pitching coach, said it was not quite that. But whatever it is, it has become another element in Familia’s arsenal that hitters have to worry about. And since Familia, the Mets’ strapping closer, started using the new pitch, he has, at times, seemed unhittable. In the postseason, he has appeared in six of the team’s seven games and has retired 23 of the 26 batters he has faced. Not Mariano Rivera, maybe, but close. Indeed, the Mets have now come to rely on Familia in a way that resembles how the Yankees used to employ Rivera in October — in big spots that might require one inning of work, or more. And Familia’s teammates have noticed, for amid all the beefed-up offense in the Mets’ lineup and all the team’s standout starting pitchers, it is Familia, they say, who is the one player they could not do without. At the start of the 2015 season, Familia was supposed to be the Mets’ setup man, the bridge to the established closer, his good friend Jenrry Mejia. But the league suspended Mejia in early April after he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Collins pulled Familia aside separately from his teammates to break the news to him, and Familia took it particularly hard. Not only that, Familia, 26, was now expected to fill Mejia’s role. A few years earlier, that prospect might have terrified him. Familia, who was signed by the Mets in 2007 out of the Dominican Republic, did not necessarily trust his stuff. He lacked confidence. When he had a bad outing, it would rattle him. Early during the 2014 season, his first full one in the major leagues, he endured a stretch in which he allowed five runs over his first six outings. Bartolo Colon, the elder statesman of the Mets’ pitching staff, approached him and bluntly asked if he was afraid to challenge hitters. “If you’re scared,” Colon told him, “take your bat and go home.” “He told me if you don’t trust yourself, you’re not going to have success,” Familia said in an interview earlier this season after he had settled into the closer’s role. “What I’m doing right now, he helped me a lot mentally. “A couple of years ago, going into a game, I had doubt if I could throw strikes or if I was going to have a bad game,” Familia added. “Right now, going out there, I know I’m going to do my job. I know I’m going to throw strikes. I know I’m going to get people out.” Colon, who is also from the Dominican Republic, has become a mentor to Familia, answering his questions and giving him advice about pitching and life in general. It has worked. As a setup man last season, Familia finished seventh in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. And having been thrust into the closer’s role this season, he converted 43 saves in 48 chances, tying the franchise record set by Armando Benitez. His E.R.A. was a sterling 1.85. Familia went about the closer’s role more like Rivera than Mejia. Instead of ending his saves with an elaborate celebration, Familia projected calmness. Or, more accurately, 6 feet 3 inches and 240 pounds of calmness. Given his size, in fact, Familia’s first love was basketball, not baseball, but once his friends switched to baseball, Familia did, too. He was 15, and he had become motivated by how much success Dominicans were having in the major leagues. The Mets, then being run by Omar Minaya, signed him two years later. “I just got it in my head I wanted to be like a Pedro Martinez,” Familia said of his decision to go with baseball. “I wanted to be like a David Ortiz. I wanted to push myself to get to the greatest levels of this sport.” As for Familia’s new pitch, whatever it is, it is not as good as Rivera’s cutter, at least not yet. But his overall repertory, his combination of velocity and movement, has a lot of hitters shaking their heads these days. His sinker, his best pitch, sits around 97 miles per hour and feels like a brick. His slider darts hard, about 90 m.p.h. And that splitter — if that is what you want to call it — comes in at 94 m.p.h. and can drop as much as a foot. “I mean everything that he throws, you’re like, how do you do that?” said Tyler Clippard, the Mets reliever who has generally been serving as Familia’s setup man. In the playoffs, Collins has chosen at times to skip over his setup relievers in favor of using Familia in the eighth inning to essentially end the game right then. So four of Familia’s six postseason appearances have required him to get more than three outs. He recorded a six-out save on just 21 pitches to clinch the Mets’ division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers — the Mets’ first six-out playoff save since Jesse Orosco recorded one in Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. In all, Familia has now pitched in 82 games this year, the most of any reliever in the majors. But he tells Collins he feels healthy, he feels strong. “It’s just God-given,” catcher Travis d’Arnaud said. “He’s just got that loose, electric arm.” An arm that throws a new pitch that may keep getting better and better.


Supreme Court Ruling on Health Care Bolsters Deal-Making

Abstract: Health care deal-making is ramping up after a booster shot from the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court’s decision last week to uphold President Obama’s landmark reform signaled the official start of a race to consolidate. Centene’s $6.3 billion purchase of Health Net gives the insurers an early lead, but bigger rivals like Cigna and Anthem may soon catch up. The latest deal could deliver substantial benefits. Centene is claiming $150 million in potential savings, and their value, taxed and capitalized on a multiple of 10, roughly equals the price’s premium. The Affordable Care Act offers even more possible benefits. More than 16 million Americans have obtained insurance coverage because of President Obama’s law, many as a result of its expansion of Medicaid. The program for low-income people is the focus of Centene’s and Health Net’s businesses. And with more than 10 percent of the American public still lacking insurance, there’s plenty of room for growth — especially in California, Health Net’s home base. The challenge is to act quickly. Medicaid is stingy with payments, and the health law has provisions that could limit profit margins for insurers involved with the program while requiring better care from providers. That has prompted hospitals and insurers to haggle fiercely over patient dollars. The companies that can get bigger sooner gain negotiating heft. It’s no wonder the five largest health insurers are sniffing around one another. Cigna and Aetna are potential buyers as well as acquisition targets. Centene may have got an early jump on those giants. Now that it is understood the law is here to stay, though, other deals should follow quickly.

Health Net
Medicaid
Health Insurance
Mergers and Acquisitions
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act


Unease in Hawaii’s Cornfields

Abstract: WAIMEA, Hawaii — The balmy tropical isles here seem worlds apart from the expansive cornfields of the Midwest, but Hawaii has become the latest battleground in the fight over genetically modified crops. The state has become a hub for the development of genetically engineered corn and other crops that are sold to farmers around the globe. Monsanto and other seed companies have moved here en masse, and corn now sprouts on thousands of acres where sugar cane or pineapples once grew. But activists opposed to biotech crops have joined with residents who say the corn farms expose them to dust and pesticides, and they are trying to drive the companies away, or at least rein them in. The companies counter that their operations are safe and that the industry is essential to Hawaii’s economy. In the last two weeks, legislative committees on the islands of Kauai and Hawaii have approved proposed ordinances that would restrict the ability of the seed companies to operate. The Kauai bill will go before the full County Council on Tuesday. “It’s a paradise over here that is being ruined by this,” said Michiyo Altomare, who lives in this small town on Kauai that is just across a narrow river from a bluff upon which the seed company Pioneer grows corn. Ms. Altomare and her husband, Corrado, built their dream house here 30 years ago, hoping to enjoy the winds that waft down from the bluff. But when sugar cane gave way to corn, she said, those winds began carrying fine red soil that coated her counters, forcing the family to shut their windows and install central air-conditioning. On some occasions, Ms. Altomare smelled pesticides and called the police. Mr. Altomare suffers from high platelet levels that his doctor said could have resulted from chemical exposure. The couple’s grown children, she said, “don’t want to live here.” The seed companies say the pesticides and genetically engineered crops are already well regulated by the federal and state governments. They say curtailment of the Hawaii operations would disrupt agriculture for the nation. “Almost any corn seed sold in the U.S. touches Hawaii somewhere” in its development, said Mark Phillipson, an executive of Syngenta, a Swiss seed and agrochemical company. Mr. Phillipson is also president of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, which represents the seed companies. Image “Without G.M.O., there would be no papaya in Hawaii,” said Eric Weinert, general manager of Hawaii operations for Calavo Growers, a papaya packer. Credit Toby Hoogs for The New York Times The companies are supported by those who say the seed business is vital to the economy. Seeds are Hawaii’s leading agricultural commodity, contributing $264 million to the economy and 1,400 jobs, according to a study commissioned by the companies. Hearings on the bills have often lasted into the night and overflowed their locations. Kauai seems to be in a summer camp color war, with supporters of the bill wearing red T-shirts and opponents blue ones. An estimated 1,500 to 4,000 people in red shirts marched in favor of the bill in early September. The seed companies are here because the warm climate allows for three corn crops to be harvested in a year, compared with one in the Midwest. That accelerates the several generations of crossbreeding needed to perfect a new variety. “Instead of taking 13 years to develop a new variety, it takes seven years,” said Ryan K. Oyama, a research scientist at Pioneer, which is owned by DuPont. There are as many biotech crop-field trials in Hawaii as in Iowa or Illinois, mostly for corn but also soybeans, wheat and rice. The output of Hawaii is not corn for food or feed, but seeds that are shipped to the mainland, where they are further multiplied and eventually sold to farmers. Breeding is also needed for nonengineered crops, and some of the companies have had operations in Hawaii since the 1960s. But the operations have expanded in the last two decades as the sugar and pineapple industries collapsed in the face of cheaper foreign competition and the state began seeking new uses for the abandoned land. Monsanto, Pioneer, Syngenta, Dow and BASF occupy a combined 25,000 out of the state’s 280,000 acres of agricultural land, with operations on Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Molokai. The companies lease some land from the state and some from private owners, like the Robinson family, which also owns the island of Niihau, and Stephen M. Case, the Hawaii-born former chairman of AOL. Mr. Case said that using abandoned sugar land for seed crops was better than watching it grow weeds. “Our tenants comply with all local laws and will comply with any new ordinances that pass,” he said in a statement. The seed companies are not on the Big Island, Hawaii. The proposed bill there, which passed a committee of the county council by a 6-2 vote on Oct. 1, would keep it that way by prohibiting the cultivation of genetically modified crops. A hearing on the bill on Sept. 23 featured a parade of witnesses citing dangers of genetically modified crops that many scientists would not support. But most of the food eaten in Hawaii comes from outside the state anyway, and will remain largely the same whether the ordinances are enacted. Image Howard Hurst, a teacher at a middle school, described an episode in which pesticides caused an evacuation. Credit Cory Lum for The New York Times The Big Island does not have many large parcels suitable for corn in any case. But most of the island’s papayas are genetically engineered to resist a virus that almost wiped out the crop in the 1990s. “Without G.M.O., there would be no papaya in Hawaii,” said Eric Weinert, general manager of Hawaii operations for Calavo Growers, a papaya packer, using the abbreviation for genetically modified organisms. Under pressure, the bill was amended to exempt papaya. But papaya growers say the ordinance will still taint the image of their product and might lead to more incidents, such as one that occurred last month, in which vandals cut down their trees at night. More is at stake for the biotech industry on Kauai, which accounts for about half of the total seed company acreage in Hawaii. Even some people sympathetic to the companies said they perhaps did not pay enough attention to community concerns that had festered for years. In 2000, about 100 residents of Waimea petitioned Pioneer and other growers to control the dust blowing off their farms. In 2011, saying Pioneer had not done enough, more than 150 residents, including the Altomares, sued the company. Pioneer declined to comment on issues under litigation. Pesticides are an even bigger concern. From 2006 to 2008, students and teachers at Waimea Canyon Middle School, which is near a Syngenta field, complained of noxious odors on several occasions. In the worst incident, the buildings were evacuated and “some kids went to the hospital,” said Howard Hurst, a teacher there. Some doctors say the region seems to have unusually high rates of asthma, cancer and birth defects. Such anecdotes and suspicions are hard to substantiate. Indeed, a report by the state found that the incidence of cancer on Kauai, including the region around Waimea, was generally the same or even lower than for the state as a whole. Another study, paid for the state and county, lent support to Syngenta’s contention that the middle school odors were from the aptly named stinkweed, not pesticides. Still, demands have intensified for further studies and for disclosure of what pesticides are used. The bill before the Kauai County Council, introduced by Gary Hooser and Tim Bynum, would require such disclosure and would establish no-spray zones around schools, hospitals, residences, public roads and waterways. The bill also called for a moratorium on expansion of biotech cropland and a ban on open-air testing of experimental genetically modified crops, provisions that were later removed by the committee after one member argued that the issue was pesticides, not genetic modification.. The companies had argued that the original bill might force them off the island. They also said it would be impractical to disclose pesticide use in advance because spraying decisions were often made only after seeing what pests were present. On Sept. 27, the day the committee was to consider the bill, supporters in red shirts arrived as early as 2:30 a.m. to ensure they would get seats for the 9 a.m. meeting. The more numerous opponents in blue shirts, many of them seed company workers, began arriving at 4 a.m. Shortly before 9:30 p.m., more than 12 hours after the meeting began, the committee approved an amended bill 4 to 1. The supporters in red cheered. If the bill is approved by the full seven-member council, the companies are expected to challenge it in court, arguing that local regulation is pre-empted by state and federal laws.

Hawaii
Genetic engineering
Seed
Pesticide
Agriculture
Maize
Biotechnology


Egypt’s New Government Doesn’t Include Muslim Brotherhood

Abstract: CAIRO — Egypt’s interim president swore in a new cabinet on Tuesday that was dominated by liberal and leftist politicians, sweeping away the brief era of Islamist political rule built by the country’s deposed president, Mohamed Morsi. Not one of the 34 cabinet members belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, the 80-year-old Islamist movement that propelled Mr. Morsi to the presidency a year ago, or to any other Islamist party. The cabinet does include three women and three Coptic Christians, making it slightly more diverse, in some respects, than Mr. Morsi’s cabinet. Egypt’s defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, who has emerged as the country’s de facto leader since Mr. Morsi’s ouster two weeks ago, added the title of deputy to the prime minister to his portfolio, though the specific powers it carried remained vague. Even as analysts credited some of the ministers for their competence and for bringing badly needed expertise to Egypt’s escalating economic crisis after a year of mismanagement, the composition of the cabinet exposed it to the same criticisms once heaped on Mr. Morsi: that he excluded his opponents from governing and, in the process, demolished any sense of political consensus. That seemed likely to widen the political fissures that appeared during Mr. Morsi’s presidency and after his ouster, as his supporters took to the streets, vowing to remain until he was released from custody and restored to his post, a demand that was echoed by the Brotherhood. “In this political scene, they are sending a signal that says, ‘We won and you lost,’ ” said Moataz Abdel Fattah, a political economist at Cairo University. A spokesman for Adli Mansour, Egypt’s interim president, denied Tuesday that anyone had been “excluded” and said that positions had been offered to members of the Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Islamist Al Nour Party. Image Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns met with Egypt's interim president, Adli Mansour, in Cairo on Monday. Credit Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters But a Brotherhood spokesman, Gehad al-Haddad, said the party was not offered any posts. At the same time, he made clear that the Brotherhood was unwilling to take part, saying, “The whole thing is illegitimate.” In a statement, Al Nour, which initially blessed the military takeover and called for a purely technocratic government, said the new government’s partisan makeup was a “repetition of the same mistake they blamed the former government for.” “The policy of monopoly and the exclusion of others,” the statement continued, “deepens the state of division, confusion and instability.” The formation of the government is part of a military-led transition plan that is supposed to lead to parliamentary elections within six months. The interim prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, a respected 76-year-old economist, faces an economy in free fall, deepening security challenges in the Sinai Peninsula and elsewhere, and a drop in tourism that has choked off a critical source of foreign currency. At the same time, his government has received critical aid, including from gulf Arab states that provided nearly $12 billion after Mr. Morsi’s ouster. This week, the new finance minister said the financial assistance might allow the government to put off negotiations for an aid package from the International Monetary Fund, as well as the painful cuts in subsidies that the loan would require. Analysts said questions about the government’s legitimacy would depend on Mr. Beblawi’s ability to deliver results quickly to a frustrated public and prove that his government is independent from General Sisi, who brought it to power. The widespread perception that Egypt’s sprawling state bureaucracy had stopped cooperating with Mr. Morsi means that the new government will face even harsher scrutiny than its predecessor, analysts said. “These people came in on top of tanks,” said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. “It is not an inclusive government.” At the same time, he said, the government will most likely face fewer obstacles because of “a will from the military and certain regional powers.” Image Muslim Brotherhood supporters tried to block the Six October Bridge in Cairo during demonstrations Monday into Tuesday morning. 1 / 5 “People wish this government to succeed, unlike the previous one,” Mr. Shahin said. Several ministers who had served under Mr. Morsi’s widely criticized cabinet returned to their posts. Despite frequent blackouts before Mr. Morsi’s ouster, the electricity minister kept his job, as did the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, whom rights advocates criticized as having done nothing to overhaul security services that are notorious for abuse accusations. Other appointments, though, seemed to indicate a willingness to try something new. Kamal Abu-Eita, a trade unionist known for opposing former President Hosni Mubarak, was chosen as the minister of manpower, and Laila Iskander Kamel, a community organizer who has worked with Cairo’s garbage collectors, became minister of environment. Analysts also noted that Mr. Beblawi, who served in a previous government after Mr. Mubarak was deposed in 2011, had shown some independence from the military when he offered his resignation after the army was accused of killing protesters. In a book he wrote about his time in government, Mr. Beblawi described the shock of the killings. “The state didn’t seem to exist, or seemed completely lost,” he wrote. The head of the armed forces, which was ruling Egypt at the time, refused to accept the resignation, Mr. Beblawi said, so he returned to work for a few weeks before stepping down. Tuesday’s swearing in of the cabinet, broadcast live on state television, was eclipsed by clashes in Cairo early in the day between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and riot police officers that left at least seven people dead and hundreds wounded. The fighting, the worst in days, accentuated the challenges facing the new government as Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters appeared to escalate their campaign to reinstate him. His supporters had largely confined themselves to a central encampment since June 8, when soldiers and police officers fired on a pro-Morsi demonstration, killing more than 50 people. But late Monday, they ventured out, snarling traffic in some of the city’s busiest roadways before the police responded with force. The government’s legitimacy “is going to be very hard to measure,” said Zaid al-Ali, a Cairo-based constitutional expert with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. “Under normal circumstances, the government would be accountable to the people, through elections and the media,” he said. “Now there is no parliamentary institution. The only institution that can hold government accountable is the people, through demonstrations.” “Legitimacy,” he said, “is hanging by a thread.”

Egypt
US Foreign Policy
William J Burns
Arab Spring
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt


Armin Zoggeler Wins World Cup Luge Title

Abstract: The Olympic and world champion Armin Zoggeler earned his 55th title and led an Italian sweep of the men’s luge World Cup event in Lake Placid, N.Y. Zoggeler had a two-run combined time of 1 minute 44.655 seconds.


Argentina: Carnivorous Fish Attack Bathers in a River

Abstract: An attack by a school of carnivorous fish injured 70 people bathing in an Argentine river, including seven children, who lost parts of their fingers or toes, officials said Thursday. Thousands of bathers were cooling off from 100-degree temperatures in the Paraná River in Rosario, about 190 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, on Wednesday when bathers suddenly began complaining of bite marks on their hands and feet. Federico Cornier, the director of lifeguards, blamed palometas, “a type of piranha, big, voracious and with sharp teeth that can really bite,” but he called it “an exceptional event.”


After Penn State’s Season of Firsts, Losses Come in Bunches

Abstract: STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The Penn State men’s basketball coach, Ed DeChellis, often described his team’s record-setting 2008-9 season as one of many firsts. It was the first time the Nittany Lions won as many as 27 games in a season. It was the first time a Penn State coach was voted the Big Ten coach of the year, as DeChellis was by members of the news media. And it was the first time Penn State won a postseason national tournament. But when Penn State (8-14) hosts Minnesota (13-8) on Saturday, it will look to avoid another first: 11 consecutive losses to start conference play. For a program coming off a postseason National Invitation Tournament title, a promising season has veered off the path. “Life isn’t always fair and life isn’t always easy,” DeChellis said in a teleconference. “But you better find a way to fight yourself through it, because people are counting on you.” Before this season, DeChellis, now in his seventh year as coach , was rewarded with a three-year contract extension that would keep him at his alma mater through 2013-14. Student season ticket sales surpassed 1,000 before the season began, a sign that interest in the program was growing and that the Bryce Jordan Center would hold more than passers-by counting down the days until the football team’s spring practices. The Nittany Lions, who do not have a senior on the roster, won 8 of their 12 nonconference games this season. They lost the bulk of last season’s production after the graduations of Stanley Pringle, a lightning-quick guard, and Jamelle Cornley, Penn State’s fourth-leading career scorer, its fourth-leading career rebounder and the most valuable player of last year’s N.I.T. But after his team’s 77-67 loss to Illinois on Jan. 27, DeChellis said he never envisioned such a poor start. That was when Penn State had an 0-8 conference record. Now it is 0-10 , matching the 2002-3 Nittany Lions for the program’s worst start against conference opponents. Penn State began competing in the Big Ten in 1992-93. “If they didn’t have the expectations of last year, then you wouldn’t have the same kind of feelings,” said Jim Jackson, a former N.B.A. player and current Big Ten Network analyst. “But because you were successful, you won the N.I.T., projected to get to the tournament this year, that’s what you deal with when you don’t kind of live up to that billing.” One player who has lived up to his billing is Talor Battle , a junior point guard. Battle leads the Big Ten in scoring , averaging 19 points, and is the only Penn State player averaging double figures in scoring. Battle is also the only player from the six major N.C.A.A. conferences to lead his team in points, rebounds (5.5), assists (3.8) and steals (1.14). “Leading your team in every category, I’m not sure if that is a good thing,” said Battle, whose half-brother Taran Buie has signed a letter of intent to play for Penn State next season. An Albany native, Battle was named a captain before his sophomore season and showed a knack for the dramatic. He hit a game-winning shot with less than a second remaining to beat Illinois in Penn State’s final regular-season home game and, less than two weeks later, he sent the Nittany Lions’ first-round N.I.T. game against George Mason into overtime with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer. With Penn State lacking a reliable low-post threat since the departure of Cornley, Battle has taken on a greater workload this season and on most nights has put his team in position to win. Penn State has led or tied its opponent in the second half during 6 of its 10 Big Ten games this season and has blown double-digit leads against Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin. “We can’t turn it over, we got to make some shots, we got to make some free throws, we got to get some stops,” the associate head coach Kurt Kanaskie said. “And I know that sounds like coachspeak, but that’s what we have to do at the end of games.” The Golden Gophers team they will face Saturday presents the Nittany Lions with perhaps their best chance to break through. Minnesota, which beat Penn State, 75-70, in the teams’ conference opener Dec. 29 in Minneapolis, has lost four of its last five games and will be without its point guard and defensive ace Al Nolen , who was ruled academically ineligible for the semester two weeks ago. It is 4-5 in the conference. “It’ll be huge just to get a positive feel back in the locker room, just to see how it feels to win a game,” Battle said. “We’ve been so close, and then you just lose and then you just have that sour feeling.”

Basketball
College Athletics
Pennsylvania State University
DeChellis Ed
Coaches and Managers
Battle Talor


Sox’s Wilting Season Takes Death Blow from Twins

Abstract: Dan McGrath is a columnist for the Chicago News Cooperative. There’s no fooling White Sox fans. They didn’t think much of their team’s chances to sweep the relentless Minnesota Twins this week, and they knew there would be no catching them with anything less. So the crowd for Tuesday’s series opener at U.S. Cellular Field was 29,243, not bad for a school night, but not reflective of a team supposedly ready to make a big move in a division race. Reality didn’t arrive until the eighth inning, when a parade of walks and Denard Span’s three-run double pushed a sweep beyond the realm of possibility. Span’s drive was smoked, to dead center field, but it was a ball Alex Rios normally catches. When he didn’t, the crowd made for the exits as if Oprah were giving away cars in the parking lot. A few stuck around to register disgust with the slipshod relief work of Matt Thornton and J. J. Putz, but the boos seemed half-hearted, as was the jeering of Joe Mauer and Delmon Young, the Twins’ two best hitters, when either of them came to the plate. The loudest boos — visceral and angry — greeted Mauer’s frequent visits to the mound for chats with pitcher Nelson Liriano. Why, Joe, are you prolonging this? Can’t it just be over? Mauer got the message. He dropped the hammer earlier Wednesday night, slugging a three-run home run off Gavin Floyd in the fifth inning that sent the Twins to another 9-3 victory and an eight-game lead with 17 to play. But, hey, Manny Ramirez got a hit. A triple, in fact. Nobody is happy that a season once so bright with promise is ending like this. In July, as the White Sox were wrapping up that improbable 25-5 burst, anything seemed possible. But 162 games is the ultimate measuring stick. “They’re better than us,” Ozzie Guillen finally blurted as he was yet again reciting a litany of the Twins’ many efficiencies. “And they’re doing this without one of their big guys.” That would be Justin Morneau, the All-Star first baseman and 2006 most valuable player who has been sidelined since early July with a concussion. Closer Joe Nathan has been gone all season after elbow surgery. A patchwork lineup has pieced together baseball’s best record since the All-Star break, and the Twins are grateful they had the foresight to add Jim Thome’s bat for just such a possibility as Morneau’s injury. But when Thome is the designated hitter, Jason Kubel, a natural-born designated hitter, has to play right field and Michael Cuddyer moves to first base. No one would suggest that’s a better lineup than one that includes Morneau. But it has been good enough to do a demoralizing number on the White Sox, who would not even be this close had they been missing a key component like Paul Konerko since July. The monster in their own division is the reality facing the Sox heading into the off-season. If they look slightly overmatched against the American League East, so be it — it’s baseball’s Premier Division, claiming 10 of the last 14 A.L. pennants. But the East is an October problem; get to October, and anything can happen in a short series. Getting there, though, requires superiority over the 162-game regular season. Right now the Twins have it. They’re younger, deeper and better, and the gap won’t be easy to close. The White Sox need an everyday third baseman. They need a Liriano-caliber horse at the front of the rotation — do you see one on the current staff? They probably need a designated hitter — no, not Manny — although Guillen’s designated-hitter-by-committee idea might have worked if Andruw Jones and Mark Kotsay had delivered more, and if Carlos Quentin could avoid the trainer’s room. They’ll need a catcher if they decide not to bring back A. J. Pierzynski. He’ll be 34, I know, but I’m an A. J. guy, and I don’t see any alternatives. They’ll almost surely need a closer — Guillen seems to have had it with portly Bobby Jenks and his malady of the month. Jenks can’t be counted on for the six-month grind. That’s a lot of repair work for one winter, especially if Kenny Williams remains distracted by Oney Guillen’s Twitter tweets and other silliness. Knock it off, Oney — it’s high-school stuff, unprofessional. But it’s one of the irritants responsible for the frosty relations between the general manager and his manager, and it needs to be addressed before the other problems. Guillen was uncharacteristically subdued before the series against the Twins, not his live-wire, ball-of-energy self. Maybe he was just worn down by a trying season. Maybe he saw what was coming. Or maybe he was contemplating what might be next for him. The Florida Marlins job is one of the more intriguing among the half-dozen or so likely to open around baseball: lots of young talent, a new ballpark coming with lots of seats to fill, and a need for some baseball buzz in the Village of LeBron. I’m not saying Ozzie’s looking, but if he were, Florida makes sense. He loves the White Sox, but nothing is forever in life. If Rich Daley, the team’s No. 1 fan, can change jobs ... It has been seven years for Guillen, mostly good years. But maybe it’s time.

Minnesota Twins
Baseball
Chicago (Ill)
Chicago White Sox


Before Its Time, the Death of a Newspaper Chain

Abstract: ONLY a handful of days have passed since he announced the deal to sell Knight Ridder, but P. Anthony Ridder, the company's chairman and chief executive, already has ghosts to contend with. The biggest, of course, is the pending disappearance of the company his great-grandfather, Herman, founded in 1892 -- Ridder Publications, which merged in 1974 with Knight Newspapers to create what has for much of recent memory been the nation's second-largest newspaper group, with 32 dailies. But he also has to wrestle with the fact -- apparently unknown to him until the deal was sealed -- that the buyer, the McClatchy Company, plans to turn around and sell 12 of Knight Ridder's biggest papers, representing nearly half its $3 billion in annual revenue. "It's terrible," Mr. Ridder said after the deal was announced. "The whole thing." Then why did he do it? Mr. Ridder's heartfelt contention is that he was boxed into a corner, and he extracted the best outcome from a tough situation. With its stock lagging and its biggest shareholder, Private Capital Management, agitating for change since last fall, Mr. Ridder had few options. He personally owns only 1.9 percent of the company's shares, and Knight Ridder isn't governed by the kind of dual-tier share structure that keeps voting control in the hands of a founding family and is quite common in the media industry. (One example is the arrangement at The New York Times Company.) An argument can be made, and has been, that Mr. Ridder struck a good deal with a preferred acquirer. But it doesn't quite add up. The end of Knight Ridder looks like nothing so much as a stunning capitulation in a period when every bean-counting fund manager can fancy himself an activist and media companies are in the investment dog house. It wasn't ever thus, and it may not be thus forever. One wonders if another chief executive -- one with the vigor and vision of, say, Gary B. Pruitt of McClatchy, his much smaller acquirer -- might have toughed it out and generated a different outcome. Under Tony Ridder, Knight Ridder over the years faced a seemingly never-ending series of financial struggles at big newspapers in Detroit, Seattle, Philadelphia and elsewhere. Cost-cutting reduced some news staffs to a shadow of their former selves, but overall the company maintained a reputation for respected journalism. Mr. Ridder, well-meaning as he was, did not have an answer for the perennial riddle of why his company's margins didn't measure up to rivals like Gannett and McClatchy. "He wasn't a good operator," said Christopher H. Browne of the Tweedy, Browne Company, an investment firm that has several investments in newspaper companies, including the Tribune Company. "Look at McClatchy, and it's night and day." The newspaper industry itself, meanwhile, has come under a cloud because readers and advertisers are migrating to the Internet, where news is largely free and things like classified advertising can be purchased much more cheaply than what the local paper charges. Despite a long track record of investing in online ventures, and even relocating the company's headquarters from Miami to San Jose, Calif., in 1998 -- ostensibly to soak up a little Silicon Valley effluvium -- the company never stole a march on the Web-heads down the road. During last summer and fall, newspapers stocks went into the doldrums along with much else in media land. So in November, Bruce S. Sherman, the accomplished money manager at Private Capital Management of Naples, Fla., wrote to Knight Ridder's board to say that despite recent efforts by the company, he and other stockholders had run out of patience. "We believe the board should aggressively pursue the competitive sale of the company," the letter said, noting that otherwise his firm would consider joining forces with others to replace the board or "take other action to maximize shareholder value." The Knight Ridder board enlisted Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to do as Mr. Sherman bade. He is, after all, the company's largest shareholder, with 19 percent. But at the end of the process, which attracted interest from Gannett, William Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group and various private equity groups, only McClatchy made a formal bid: valuing the company at $4.5 billion, it would buy Knight Ridder through a combination of cash and stock. The structure of the deal is a crucial point, with Knight Ridder shareholders to receive $40 in cash and 0.5118 of McClatchy Class A share for each of their shares. When the deal was announced Monday, its value was put at $67.25 a share -- a nice premium above the $53.38 Knight Ridder was trading at when Mr. Sherman fired off his letter. But as of Friday that deal's value was down to $65.39 a share as investors worried about the debt McClatchy was taking on. Two years ago, Knight Ridder traded around $70 a share. Mr. Sherman, in the end, may eke out a small profit on his firm's investment. "When the world thinks you may have struck out, it's not bad when you hit a single," he said after the deal was announced. Indeed, Mr. Sherman must positively delight at how, with a single letter, he could move a mountain. Let's contrast Knight Ridder's rolling over with how Time Warner recently dealt with demands from the financier Carl C. Icahn to break up that company, which has been a stinker of an investment. Of course, there is a gigantic difference: Mr. Icahn and his allies had only 3 percent of the company's shares behind them, and Time Warner is too vast a company for anyone to take over. In the immortal words of the media and Internet baron Barry Diller, Mr. Icahn represented a "bad-part-of-town brush fire" for Time Warner. Still, Richard D. Parsons, Time Warner's chief executive, went out of his way to try to work out a deal with Mr. Icahn because he was worried that the wind might change and blow the fire into the better parts of town. But it is illuminating to compare tactics. Mr. Parsons consistently said his company had a brighter future intact rather than in pieces, that he would seriously consider any ideas to return money to stockholders, and all the while hedged that he could not control market sentiments. Perhaps most important, Mr. Parsons kept other big investors on his side by shrewdly making this an ideological battle between people who build businesses for the long term and the growing influence of hedge funds and other investors who specialize in exploiting vulnerability for short-term profit. Last month, Mr. Icahn called off his planned proxy fight, intended to put several directors on Time Warner's board, in exchange for some fairly innocuous concessions from Mr. Parsons. But Time Warner did agree to one significant change: increasing a stock buyback program from $5 billion, when Mr. Icahn began pushing, to an agreed-upon $20 billion. (By the way, there are influential Time Warner investors, and even senior managers within the company, who think he should have rebuffed Mr. Icahn and fought the proxy battle rather than agree to the big increase in debt that the buyback entails.) IN the Knight Ridder camp, there are some who depict Mr. Ridder, his senior managers and his board as frustrated and fatigued by their recent travails. Mr. Ridder contends that had he not done the McClatchy deal, Mr. Sherman and other investors would eventually have taken over his board. Thus, he did what he did while he could still control the outcome, seeking to avoid a prolonged period of uncertainty for the papers and their employees. Here's another ghost: What would have happened if Knight Ridder had made a bold declaration that the sky was not falling on newspapers? It might have said that other media company stocks have suffered just as much in the last year and thanked McClatchy for its kind offer, but decided it could do better as a going concern. It could have said that in order to fulfill its duty to investors it was willing to take bitter medicine, including more painful cost-cutting and selling some of its biggest newspapers to focus on higher-growth markets. Apparently, this latter bit was just too depressing for Mr. Ridder to contemplate, but was what Mr. Pruitt of McClatchy had in mind all along. It's called creative destruction.

NEWSPAPERS
KNIGHT RIDDER
KNIGHT-RIDDER INC
MCCLATCHY CO
RIDDER P ANTHONY
MERGERS ACQUISITIONS AND DIVESTITURES


Aqueduct Casino Plan Prompts Criticism of Senators

Abstract: State Senate leaders manipulated the choice of who would build New York City ’s first casino, leaking information and showing favoritism to a troubled bidder that was donating to Democratic candidates and had ties to key political figures, the state inspector general said Thursday. In a scathing 308-page report on the competition to install video slot machines at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens , the inspector general described a chaotic and ultimately doomed process that was without formal rules or objective criteria, and was awash in “unrestrained political considerations,” lobbyists and targeted campaign contributions. The report says that the bidder, a consortium called the Aqueduct Entertainment Group, marshaled funds at the behest of the state’s Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, casting “a taint on the motives behind the Senate leadership’s support of” Aqueduct Entertainment. The investigation included interviews with senators and other state officials, as well as internal e-mail among Aqueduct Entertainment members and lobbyists. Citing possible violations of laws governing public officials by John L. Sampson , the Senate Democratic leader from Brooklyn ; Malcolm A. Smith , the Senate president from Queens; and Angelo Aponte, the appointed Senate secretary, the inspector general’s office said it was referring its findings to federal and state prosecutors and the Legislative Ethics Committee. “At each turn, our state leaders abdicated their public duty, failed to impose ethical restraints and focused on political gain at a cost of millions to New Yorkers,” Inspector General Joseph Fisch said in a statement. “Shamefully, the public’s best interest was a matter of militant indifference to them.” The report — following a classic outline of state business distorted by lobbyists, politics and money — emerges in the final weeks of an election season in which candidates across New York State have vowed to clean up Albany. Besides the Senate leaders, the report faults close aides to Gov. David A. Paterson for not keeping him apprised of concerns about Aqueduct Entertainment, blames the governor himself for relinquishing control of the process and criticizes the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver , for Sphinx-like silence despite his own knowledge of Aqueduct Entertainment’s problems. Mr. Paterson, along with leaders of the Senate and the Assembly, selected Aqueduct Entertainment in January to operate 4,500 electronic slot machines at Aqueduct, a franchise worth tens of millions of dollars a year to the operator and an estimated $1.5 million a day in tax revenue for the state’s depleted coffers. After complaints of favoritism surfaced, Mr. Paterson reversed the selection in March . The casino is now being built by a subsidiary of an international entertainment company, Genting New York, which won a follow-up competition. Among other pledges, Genting offered an upfront payment to the state of $380 million, which it has already paid. Before the reversal, however, Senators Sampson, Smith and Eric Adams of Brooklyn, the chairman of the Senate racing and gaming committee, mingled with an Aqueduct Entertainment partner, Jeffrey Levine, and Aqueduct Entertainment’s lobbyists at what one participant called a “victory celebration” held at the Albany home of one of those lobbyists, Carl Andrews, a former state senator. “This report reveals Albany at its most sordid,” said Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group . “Every New Yorker should be outraged. We urge the district attorney and U.S. attorney to move quickly on the I.G.’s finding of possible violations of the public officers law.” In a statement on Thursday, the governor’s communications director, Morgan Hook, said, “While we are still reviewing the I.G.’s findings, one thing is indisputable: Earlier this year, Governor Paterson refashioned the selection process for a gaming operator at Aqueduct and further convinced the legislative leaders to adhere to this new process.” Mr. Sampson, in a statement, did not specifically address the accusations. “The inspector general’s report highlights the well-known flaws in the selection of a bidder to operate a video lottery terminal facility at Aqueduct racetrack,” he wrote. “The process lacked structure, and the rules changed repeatedly.” Several other officials named in the report, including Mr. Smith, Mr. Adams and Mr. Aponte, did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. A spokesman for Aqueduct Entertainment declined to comment. In a statement, Mr. Silver called the report “the comprehensive, thorough investigation I asked for in February” about the selection process. The report concludes that Aqueduct Entertainment should have been disqualified from the start because of concerns about its financial stability and legal problems of some of its members. Instead, the governor’s office and Senate leaders ignored advice from the State Budget Office and the Division of the Lottery to disregard the company’s bid. Aqueduct Entertainment was founded by Karl O’Farrell, an Australian investor with a number of legal problems that regulators viewed as troublesome, and included Larry J. Woolf of the Navegante Group, a Las Vegas casino company; Levine Builders, a developer based in Queens; and the Rev. Floyd H. Flake , a former congressman who remains influential in Queens politics. The inspector general found that an assistant to Mr. Aponte, the Senate secretary, leaked a Senate memorandum detailing the six competing bids to Hank Sheinkopf, an Aqueduct Entertainment lobbyist and a longtime political consultant, in May 2009. On May 12, 2009, Mr. O’Farrell wrote an e-mail to other members of his consortium that said: “On the information leaked so far, we are looking good. Hopefully more today.” In November, Mr. Sampson disclosed more information about the bidders and their comparative rankings to Mr. Andrews, the report said. The bids were being judged on how much money the bidders would guarantee for the state, how quickly they could open, their financial health and their ability to meet State Lottery licensing requirements. Bidders were permitted to alter their proposals, and at one point the state even requested that they do so to guarantee more money for the public. The report did not tie either leak to a specific change in Aqueduct Entertainment’s bid, but it did say that on Sept. 23, the group modified its financial projections in such a way that it vaulted from last to first on that criterion (one bidder had dropped out). The report also said Aqueduct Entertainment had been urged to bring aboard a particular developer, Donald Cogsville. An internal e-mail said this request was “at the insistence of a certain senator,” and one of the group’s members told the inspector general’s office that he believed the senator to be Mr. Sampson. The report did not say why Mr. Sampson might push Mr. Cogsville’s interests, and the Senate leader told investigators that he could not recall doing so. At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Fisch said Mr. Sampson’s testimony lacked credibility. “I stopped counting the number of ‘I don’t recalls’ when I reached 100,” he said. Mr. Smith, who had publicly recused himself because his mentor, Mr. Flake, was a minor partner in Aqueduct Entertainment, demanded briefings from Senate staff on the bidding and advocated on behalf of Aqueduct Entertainment, the report added. Mr. Smith also had once been a business partner of Darryl Greene, an early member of Aqueduct Entertainment who later dropped out. The report describes the selection process as a “political free-for-all,” with nearly every Albany lobbyist employed by one of the six companies vying for the franchise; Aqueduct Entertainment hired seven. The rival bidders showered important legislators and the governor with more than $100,000 in contributions, the report said, with Aqueduct Entertainment coordinating $40,000 of its own donations with the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and instructing a “subcontractor to make a contribution in order for the monies to be pooled with contributions from other A.E.G. members.” A public relations consultant for Aqueduct Entertainment told the inspector general that someone in the campaign committee’s office “contacted me and said we would be appreciative if you could help raise money for Aqueduct Entertainment Group, your partners, for these five individuals.” The five were Democratic senators, including Mr. Adams. While the inspector general is forwarding the report to prosecutors, the report appears to acknowledge that proving a criminal case might be hard because the selection process had almost no rules. The leaked information, for example, would have been considered confidential “in any legitimate pending procurement process,” the report said. Likewise, the standard prohibition on legislators accepting donations from companies with business before them did not apply in the casino selection process, the inspector general wrote. Nevertheless, at least two people involved in the process invoked the Fifth Amendment and would not speak with the inspector general’s office: Mr. Sheinkopf and David W. Johnson , a close aide to Mr. Paterson. The report said that although Aqueduct Entertainment did not lobby the governor, it did reach out to Mr. Johnson, who subsequently pushed for the company within the executive office. Earlier this year, Mr. Paterson dropped out of the governor’s race days after a report in The New York Times raised questions about whether he and his administration had improperly tried to pressure a woman who had accused Mr. Johnson of domestic violence . In July, a state investigation found that the governor and his advisers made errors of judgment but that their actions were not criminal. Mr. Johnson has been charged with assault. A lawyer for Mr. Sheinkopf, Henry Mazurek, did not deny that Mr. Sheinkopf received the bidding information. He did dispute any notion that any bidding material was “confidential.” “There were no restrictions on the Senate or the Assembly as to what they could do with any information they received with respect to the bidding process,” he said. “There were no controls.” Mr. Mazurek said he did not know whether any other bidder also received inside information. The inspector general’s report said Mr. Paterson’s counsel, Peter J. Kiernan, never disclosed to the governor that the State Lottery office, which was responsible for evaluating the bids, had considered Aqueduct Entertainment’s unacceptable, although Mr. Kiernan himself was often critical of the consortium’s bid.

Casino
New York
Aqueduct Entertainment Group
State legislature
John L Sampson
Malcolm A Smith


Don’t Go Near Those Shark Clichés

Abstract: Over the last three seasons, the San Jose Sharks have appeared in seven playoff rounds — more than any other team. But the 17-year-old team with the snazzy teal jerseys has never appeared in the fourth and final round, the one in which the Stanley Cup is won or lost. The Sharks, averaging 103 points the past three seasons, appear ready for a run toward that final round. Riding behind pace-setting Detroit in the Western Conference this season, the Sharks had the most road wins in the N.H.L. entering the weekend and were second to the Red Wings in shots against. “We’ve got a team that we think is just coming into its prime now,” Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson said last week. A big part of the success this season has been goaltender Evgeni Nabokov, who had assorted injuries last season while sharing the net with Vesa Toskala, who has been traded to Toronto. Nabokov started the team’s first 30 games, winning 17 and posting a .918 save percentage, 12th in the league. “Our goaltending is now healthy and settled,” Wilson said. Joe Thornton, a perennial scoring leader, is at it again, with 38 points through 30 games. But there has been scant offensive help from Patrick Marleau and Jonathan Cheechoo, who scored 56 goals in 2005-6 but has out since last Monday with a strained groin muscle. Jeremy Roenick, a 37-year-old free agent signed last summer, had 14 points in 26 games. Wilson was a veteran defenseman on the Chicago Blackhawks when Roenick joined the team as an 18-year-old. His signing of Roenick, generally viewed as folly at the time, now seems shrewd. “I’ve known J. R. since he was 18, and he loves the game of hockey, and I think he just wanted the opportunity to not look back with any regrets and what ifs,” Wilson said. “He’s leading the league in game-winning goals, he’s played hard, he’s earned his ice time every day. We’re very proud of him.” Michigan Back on Top Just in time for the holiday break, Michigan vaulted Miami of Ohio into the No. 1 ranking in college hockey. The Wolverines swept two games from Bowling Green, and Miami was upset by Alaska, 3-0, and fell to No. 2. Michigan Coach Red Berenson said his team was fortunate to get past a Bowling Green team that had outworked them. “We were lucky,” he said after a 3-2 victory Dec. 8. “We got good goalkeeping, and our team dug down.” The Wolverines (16-2, 11-1 Central Collegiate Hockey Association) are off to their best start in years. They have lost only to Minnesota and Ohio State. “No one expected us to do this well,” said Kevin Porter, the senior captain, who was a fourth-round pick of the Phoenix Coyotes in 2004. “Everyone’s a little surprised, but I think now, going into the second half, we shouldn’t be that surprised.” European Deal in Question In what could be a signal of new trouble for N.H.L. teams trying to sign European players, the league and the International Ice Hockey Federation announced last week that they would renegotiate the international player transfer agreement. In Europe, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland voted to reopen talks on the transfer agreement, which enables N.H.L. clubs to sign players from those nations’ clubs for roughly $200,000 a signing. “It is very important to point out that the I.I.H.F. members are not seeking confrontation,” the federation’s president, René Fasel, said. “We have an excellent cooperation with the N.H.L., and it is our intention to keep it that way.” At issue is N.H.L. teams’ tendency to sign players from European clubs and then warehouse them in the minor leagues. Before the start of this season, 59 Europeans signed N.H.L. contracts, 7 were returned to Europe, 46 were assigned to the minors and only 6 are playing in the N.H.L. The European clubs also want a provision to deal with the fall of the American dollar against the euro. The $200,000 transfer fee is worth about 15 percent less in Europe now than it was when the agreement went into effect a year and a half ago. The N.H.L. wants to reopen talks because, it says, not enough European players are ready to play in the league at the time of transfer, the N.H.L. spokesman Frank Brown said. The Russian hockey federation never signed the agreement, which, it argues, allows the N.H.L. to acquire Europeans at a fraction of their real value. It is seeking case-by-case transfer fees, as in international soccer. Last summer, the Russian Parliament changed the country’s contract laws to match those in North America, which stopped the tide of Russian players opting out of their contracts to play in the N.H.L. Now the tide has reversed and some 40 Russians have left North American hockey this season. If talks between the N.H.L. and the six European leagues fail, the transfer agreement will expire at the end of this season. Cold Ice, Hot Blades What the graphite stick did for shooting, an experimental heated blade promises to do for skating. Marty Reasoner of the Edmonton Oilers and three other N.H.L. players whose identities were not revealed by their teams have been test-driving the new blades, called Thermablades. The blades are heated to about 40 degrees by a tiny rechargeable battery and microprocessor installed in the blade holder. The heated blades maintain a thicker layer of water between blade and ice that is supposed to promote gliding and aid acceleration. “It feels like you always have fresh ice,” Reasoner told The Buffalo News. “You have more glide. I’ll turn off the battery to test them, and I can definitely feel the difference. In my case, I feel I can turn better. My skates don’t dig into the ice.”

San Jose Sharks
Hockey Ice
National Hockey League
Athletics and Sports


Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests

Abstract: Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed. The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm. But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them. Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.” The country’s soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. Greenpeace on Monday for the first time issued a national guide for American consumers that rates toilet tissue brands on their environmental soundness. With the recession pushing the price for recycled paper down and Americans showing more willingness to repurpose everything from clothing to tires, environmental groups want more people to switch to recycled toilet tissue. “No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council. In the United States, which is the largest market worldwide for toilet paper, tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. Most manufacturers use a combination of trees to make their products. According to RISI, an independent market analysis firm in Bedford, Mass., the pulp from one eucalyptus tree, a commonly used tree, produces as many as 1,000 rolls of toilet tissue. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year. Other countries are far less picky about toilet tissue. In many European nations, a rough sheet of paper is deemed sufficient. Other countries are also more willing to use toilet tissue made in part or exclusively from recycled paper. In Europe and Latin America, products with recycled content make up about on average 20 percent of the at-home market, according to experts at the Kimberly Clark Corporation. Environmental groups say that the percentage is even higher and that they want to nurture similar acceptance here. Through public events and guides to the recycled content of tissue brands, they are hoping that Americans will become as conscious of the environmental effects of their toilet tissue use as they are about light bulbs or other products. Dr. Hershkowitz is pushing the high-profile groups he consults with, including Major League Baseball, to use only recycled toilet tissue. At the Academy Awards ceremony last Sunday, the gowns were designer originals but the toilet tissue at the Kodak Theater’s restrooms was 100 percent recycled. Environmentalists are focusing on tissue products for reasons besides the loss of trees. Turning a tree to paper requires more water than turning paper back into fiber, and many brands that use tree pulp use polluting chlorine-based bleach for greater whiteness. In addition, tissue made from recycled paper produces less waste tonnage — almost equaling its weight — that would otherwise go to a landfill. Still, trees and tree quality remain a contentious issue. Although brands differ, 25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming . In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say. Greenpeace, the international conservation organization, contends that Kimberly Clark, the maker of two popular brands, Cottonelle and Scott, has gotten as much as 22 percent of its pulp from producers who cut trees in Canadian boreal forests where some trees are 200 years old. But Dave Dickson, a spokesman for Kimberly Clark, said that only 14 percent of the wood pulp used by the company came from the boreal forest and that the company contracted only with suppliers who used “certified sustainable forestry practices.” Lisa Jester, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, the maker of Charmin, points out that the Forest Products Association of Canada says that no more than 0.5 percent of its forest is harvested annually. Still, even the manufacturers concede that the main reason they have not switched to recycled material is that those fibers tend to be shorter than fibers from standing trees. Long fibers can be laid out and fluffed to make softer tissue. Jerry Baker, vice president of product and technology research for Kimberly Clark, said the company was not philosophically opposed to recycled products and used them for the “away from home” market, which includes restaurants, offices and schools. But people who buy toilet tissue for their homes — even those who identify themselves as concerned about the environment — are resistant to toilet tissue made from recycled paper. With a global recession, however, that may be changing. In the past few months, sales of premium toilet paper have plunged 7 percent nationally, said Ali Dibadj, a senior stock analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, a financial management firm, providing an opening for makers of recycled products. Marcal, the oldest recycled-paper maker in the country, emerged from bankruptcy under new management last year with a plan to spend $30 million on what is says will be the first national campaign to advertise a toilet tissue’s environmental friendliness. Marcal’s new chief executive, Tim Spring, said the company had seen intense interest in the new product from chains like Walgreens. The company will introduce the new toilet tissue in April, around Earth Day Mr. Spring said Marcal would be able to price the new tissue below most conventional brands, in part because of the lower cost of recycled material. “Our idea is that you don’t have to spend extra money to save the Earth,” he said. “And people want to know what happens to the paper they recycle. This will give them closure.”

Environment
toilet paper
Recycling of Waste Materials
Bathrooms and Toilets
Forests and Forestry
Recession and Depression