Breathing Room for Emerging Markets Watching Money Flee

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia — When the Asian financial crisis hit in 1997, sales plummeted 95 percent and stayed down for six months at the IGP Group, Indonesia’s dominant manufacturer of car and truck axles. Four-fifths of the company’s workers lost their jobs. When the global financial crisis began in 2008, IGP’s sales briefly dropped nearly one-third, and a quarter of the employees were put out of work. The latest downturn, which began in early August, has been much more modest. IGP’s axle shipments are down 10 percent in the last month from a year ago. The company’s work force has barely shrunk, to 2,000 from 2,077 at the end of July, though IGP plans to reach 1,900 by the end of this year. “These are challenging times, but I don’t think they will be the same as in 2008 or 1998,” Kusharijono, IGP’s operations director, who uses only one name, yelled over a clanking, cream-colored assembly line here for minivan rear axles. From Indonesia and India to Turkey and Brazil, capital flight from developing economies to the United States is already causing hardship for millions of businesses and workers. More was expected if the Federal Reserve decided to retreat from its economic stimulus campaign of buying billions of dollars in bonds each month. That it decided on Wednesday not to stop may relieve some companies, government leaders and economists who worried that rising interest rates in the United States would draw tens of billions of dollars out of emerging markets and cause local currencies to fall further against the dollar. Investors have been moving money into dollar-based investments that offer higher yields. But the Fed’s announcement Wednesday afternoon took currency traders by surprise, and the dollar plunged against major currencies. The dollar fell a little more than 1 percent against the euro and the yen after the announcement, giving companies in the developing economies a little more breathing room. On Thursday, currencies in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, which have fallen sharply in recent months, headed higher, with the Indonesian rupiah gaining about 1.5 percent against the dollar by late morning in Asia. The economic slowdowns in the developing economies seem less severe so far than in other recent downturns. While previous exoduses by investors from volatile emerging markets have caused waves of bank failures, corporate bankruptcies and mass layoffs, the latest retrenchment has been much milder so far. That partly reflects the belief that when the Fed does move, it will scale back its bond purchases very gradually, business leaders and economists around the world said in interviews this week. The effects have also been limited partly because banks, companies and their regulators in many emerging markets have become much more careful about borrowing in dollars over the last two decades, except when they expect dollar revenue with which to repay these debts. In 1997 and 1998, “the whole problem began with the banking sector. Now I think the banking sector is much better,” said Sofjan Wanandi, a tycoon who is the chairman of the Indonesian Employers’ Association and part owner of IGP. Trading in currency and stock markets seems to suggest that some of the worst fears over the summer are starting to recede. The Brazilian real has recovered about 8 percent of its value against the dollar since Aug. 21 and a little over a third of its losses since the start of May, when worries began to spread about the vulnerability of emerging markets to a tightening of monetary policy. Stock markets from India to South Africa have rallied from lows in late August, with Johannesburg’s market up 14.7 percent since late June after a swoon earlier than most emerging markets. “While the Fed hasn’t started the tapering process as yet, there has been a considerable withdrawal of money in the emerging markets and especially in India since May. In my opinion, the major effect has already taken place,” said Sujan Hajra, the chief economist at AnandRathi, an investment bank based in Mumbai. One lingering question is how much inflation will accelerate in emerging markets. Many of their industries depend heavily on commodities like oil that are priced in dollars. Weakening exchange rates this year for almost every emerging market’s currency have made these dollar-denominated commodities more expensive. That is starting to drive up inflation in a few countries that do not subsidize fuel prices, and it is adding to government deficits in many countries, like India and Indonesia, that do. In Brazil, an increase in transportation fares set off street protests in June, leading to broad demonstrations over corruption and lamentable public services. Salomão Quadros, an economist at Fundação Getulio Vargas, a top Brazilian university, said inflation was expected to reach about 6 percent this year as imported goods become more expensive. While that level exceeds the central bank’s inflation target of 4.5 percent, inflation in Brazil still remains much lower than it has been in other stretches of market turbulence, as in 2003, when inflation rose to about 15 percent. “Brazil is facing some difficulties, but we’re not in crisis territory,” Mr. Quadros said. The most vulnerable companies are those that mostly sell domestically in their local currency but have debts or costs denominated heavily in dollars. One example is the plastics industry, which often relies on imported resins made to a large extent from high-priced oil. Ahmet Nalincioglu, the managing director of Elektroplasmin, a plastic packaging company based in Istanbul, said many plastics producers would have to try to raise prices. Yet Elektroplasmin has yearlong contracts with clients that are hard to change. “Our price hikes will automatically have a negative impact on their profit margins, which means they will be reluctant to negotiate,” Mr. Nalincioglu said. “If I can’t agree on a price, I get stuck with the stock for a year and suffer huge losses.” The most vulnerable countries are those running large trade deficits they have been financing with dollars from overseas investors’ purchases of local assets like real estate, stocks and bonds. India is conspicuous on that list, as its poor roads and stifling bureaucracy have discouraged exports and resulted in its luring few of the factories now moving out of China in response to surging wages there. A few emerging markets, still traumatized by the extent of their economic downturns during previous periods of capital flight, are taking drastic action to stabilize their currencies. Indonesia had one of the few emerging market currencies that was still falling through last week, but the central bank stopped the drop last Thursday when it unexpectedly raised its two benchmark interest rates by a quarter percent. The interest rate increase made it more attractive for international investors to lend money to Indonesia, but at the risk of further weakening a domestic economy that is already decelerating. Didik Rachbini, one of the 21 members of the presidential National Economic Council here, said the Indonesian government was also discussing delays in big investment projects by state-owned enterprises, to conserve foreign exchange. Work like road construction that requires few imports of equipment is likely to proceed, while capital-intensive projects that rely on foreign technology should face extra scrutiny and are starting to be reviewed, he said. Most affected by the economic slowdown are workers in developing countries who were already scrimping. Hasan Qodri, a 22-year-old axle quality inspector at Indonesia’s IGP, said he regretted the disappearance of overtime — and the extra pay that went with it. “Of course I would like more overtime,” he said, “so I’d have more money for my daily life.”

Indonesia
India
Turkey
Brazil
Economy
Federal Reserve
Quantitative easing
International trade
Third World


What Time to Take That Daily Pill?

Abstract: Q. I just noticed that my cholesterol -lowering prescription says it should be taken at bedtime, and I have always taken it in the morning. Does this reduce its effectiveness? Why does time of day matter for a once-a-day medication? A. “Most statins do not have to be taken at bedtime,” said Dr. Antonio M. Gotto Jr., dean and provost for medical affairs of the Weill Cornell Medical College. “The earliest one, lovastatin, was recommended at bedtime because in studies with animals” — rodents — “most of the cholesterol made by the liver was during the night. This does not apply to the more recent statins, such as Lipitor , Crestor and Livalo.” Other medical authorities say that consistency in the time that a daily medication is taken is important, so that one dose does not follow another too quickly, while the concentration is still high, or lag behind, so that the concentration is less than optimal. Some doctors pick a specific time that they think patients will remember and write that on the prescription form. There are many variables in the recommended timing of medications. Some should be taken with food or water, some on an empty stomach. There may be strong practical reasons to take a stimulant in the morning and a tranquilizer at night, and some drugs may have harmful interactions with others if they are taken at the same time. When in doubt, ask your doctor or pharmacist. C. CLAIBORNE RAY

Cholesterol
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Statins (Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs)
Science and Technology


Surf and Turf: Sun Comes Up on Woods's New Season

Abstract: LA JOLLA, Calif., Jan. 25 - Tiger Woods was up before the sun Wednesday, leaving footprints in the dewy grass of Torrey Pines Golf Course. After hitting his tee shot on the fourth hole of his pro-am round, he stopped along the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean and looked westward as sunlight began to dapple the vista in front of him. For several minutes, Woods did not move. The memories here are rich: The trips to Torrey Pines at age 12 with his parents, the recognition of how the meeting of water and land can turn a place of competition into a moment of contemplation. "You know, I grew up here in Southern Cal, not too far away from the beach," said Woods, who recently purchased a $38 million property in Jupiter Island, Fla. "It's something I've always had my entire life -- always been close to the ocean." Woods has chosen to make his 2006 debut at the Buick Invitational, and he appears as reflective as ever as he enters his 10th full year on the PGA Tour beginning Thursday. During a brief off-season after he won six times in 2005, Woods went 24 days without touching a golf club, one of the longest stretches of his life without even a cursory swing in the living room. Woods says that his desire to win remains strong, but there are more varied aspects in his life than when he turned professional in 1996. Woods is 30 now, and he married Elin Nordegren in October 2004. Their new home, a 10-acre property that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway, is the largest single residential sale in Martin County. Instead of only grinding through practices, Woods speaks more of his life outside the ropes -- of his improved form as a skier, of the children's learning center that will open in his name next month in Anaheim, Calif., of the break that allowed him precious time with his father, Earl, who has cancer. "Dad is doing better," Woods said during a news conference Wednesday. "He's my best friend. Any time you can spend as much time with your parents that you truly love, especially when he wasn't feeling all that well, it meant the world to me." Woods has more to balance these days, but maybe no golfer is better equipped to handle the outside demands while also keeping the competitive spirit that has separated him from his peers. During the news conference that stretched to an hour, Buick, one of his sponsors, unveiled several television commercials starring Woods and a bevy of fans begging to win a car from him. During his pro-am earlier in the day, Woods was giving swing tips to the actor Kevin James one minute and hitting a driver off the deck the next. Even as he upholds his many obligations, there are rounds to play and Jack Nicklaus's records to chase. "Generally speaking, when someone gets to be a little older, they seem to do a better job of controlling and managing what they do," Nicklaus said in a recent e-mail message. "They understand how to play the game and how to go about playing the game. It just takes a while to learn how to do that. "I can't imagine Tiger being any different. He's a very smart young man. He understands the value of patience and experience." Woods said: "I've put myself in so many different scenarios and have been successful and have failed, and I've had to learn from both. Why did I fail? Because of this. Why did I succeed? Because of this. "My father has always harped on me, 'Always be honest with yourself, true to yourself, look yourself in the mirror.' Some days are tougher than others. When you know you've absolutely messed up, you have to admit it and move on and learn and apply. And I've done that." Beginning Thursday, Woods will stand inside the ropes on a golf course that has given him 3 of his 46 career PGA Tour victories, including last year's Buick Invitational. His shots will be analyzed and a season-long march will begin. But to hear Woods tell it, the scores that he posts are only one part of who he is, a child prodigy growing up, dealing with life's complexities, thankful for another sunrise. "Golf has been merely a vehicle for me to gain awareness for our foundation," Woods said of the learning center that will give children a place to study. "That's what I would ultimately like to be remembered for. Not for hitting high draws and fades, but the people I was able to help and change lives in a positive way."

GOLF
PGA TOUR INC
WOODS TIGER
BUICK INVITATIONAL (GOLF)


As War Rages in Syria, Presidential Election Looms

Abstract: HOMS, Syria — The center of this city is a blockaded, insurgent-held war zone, its skyline jagged with broken concrete. Ringing it is a patchwork of scarred neighborhoods, some functioning but fearful, some crammed with the displaced, others reduced to bombed-out shells where only soldiers move. Much of Homs is scarcely fit for human habitation, never mind a safe and peaceful exercise in democracy. That did not stop the local governor, Talal al-Barazi, from declaring this broken city ripe for “relatively good elections.” His optimism is shared at the highest levels in Damascus, where officials have declared that a presidential vote will be held within three months, despite the raging war that has driven nine million Syrians from their homes. They expect President Bashar al-Assad to win — even though, for the first time in decades, there will in theory be an opponent on the ballot. Claiming another seven-year term amid a three-year revolt against his rule would be a remarkable feat of survival for Mr. Assad, embarrassing for his international foes and demoralizing for Syrian opponents who staked their lives, families and towns on his ouster. Mr. Assad and his allies have declared with new assurance that insurgents no longer pose a credible threat to overthrow him, a view that many Western diplomats in the region, though they believe the conflict will drag on, have quietly come to share. Even a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of France, one of Mr. Assad’s staunchest opponents, suggested as much last week, saying, “Maybe he will be the sole survivor of this policy of mass crimes.” Here in Syria, the campaign train is already unofficially rolling, a measure of Mr. Assad’s growing confidence that he is wrapping up the war. A former Russian prime minister, Sergei V. Stepashin, said last week that Mr. Assad had told him, “This year the active phase of military action in Syria will be ended.” Opponents say elections would be absurd amid a military crackdown that they say has terrorized large segments of the country to suppress a movement for political change. Voting freely in such an atmosphere, they say, is impossible. “It’s ridiculous,” said one Damascus businessman who is skeptical of the armed opposition but fervently opposes the government. “Only their supporters will vote. It is escalating the situation, not calming it.” Even Homs, where the government believes it is on the verge of retaking the last four rebel-held neighborhoods in the Old City, is far from normalcy. Guards check for bombs at the entrance of the bustling provincial administration center on the edge of town, where office workers stop in the hallway to tell reporters that they hope Mr. Assad will run for re-election. Their original offices, in the war-torn Old City, are abandoned. The new building is festooned with towering posters of Mr. Assad and of Homs landmarks in their pristine, prewar state. Among them are the Khalid bin al-Waleed mosque, shelled by the government after insurgents took control, and a clock tower damaged during protests and crackdowns, which stands on a once-lively central square now littered with debris and broken glass, empty but for troops and tanks. “For sure, tomorrow will be better,” the signs say. “We will build it together.” Last week, two car bombs exploded near a sweets shop in a pro-government neighborhood, killing at least 25 people, including women and children, and wounding paramedics responding to the first blast. More than 220,000 people from the province of Homs have fled to neighboring Lebanon. People from once-mixed neighborhoods fear returning home. Members of the Alawite minority say they are targeted for supporting the president and belonging to his sect; Sunnis say they fear arbitrary arrest or attack as suspected insurgents. Even in relatively untouched neighborhoods, few venture out after dark. Despite similar scenes in many cities, Mr. Assad declared in January that he saw “no reason why I shouldn’t” run for president. His supporters say that even in a truly free election, he would handily win. Even some opponents believe he could win a plurality, if only because their fragmented ranks would struggle to unite behind a candidate. Yet even some with ties to the government are skeptical about holding an election this soon. “My personal opinion, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Elia Samman, a volunteer adviser to the Ministry of Reconciliation, said recently in Damascus. “I cannot figure out any good reason to go for elections now.” Image An election poster outside Damascus showing President Bashar al-Assad, right, with Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Many areas are “out of control,” like the insurgent-held north, he noted. More than 2.5 million Syrians have fled the country as refugees. Many embassies are closed, preventing expatriates from voting. Instead of holding elections, Mr. Samman said, Mr. Assad should exercise a constitutional option to extend his term for two years in an emergency. Mr. Samman, who belongs to a tolerated opposition party, said that Mr. Assad’s re-election, legitimate or not, would make little difference without fundamental political changes. “I don’t care if Assad is the president or someone else,” he said. “My problem is with the system, the whole regime.” In 2000, Mr. Assad succeeded his father, Hafez, who had governed since 1971. He was re-elected in 2007, taking 98 percent of the vote as the sole candidate. A new constitution adopted in 2012 allows multiple candidates, who must declare themselves in the coming weeks. But a new law requires them to have lived in Syria for the past 10 years and to hold no other nationality, disqualifying many opposition figures in exile, some of whom fled political repression. To claim legitimacy, “they will get somebody out of jail and say, ‘If you don’t run we put you back,’ ” a Western diplomat in the region said, adding that a nominally independent Syrian politician recently said no one would run without “instructions.” Mr. Assad’s opponents have reacted with predictable outrage. “A parody of democracy,” fulminated the Friends of Syria, a group of countries, including the United States, that are seeking to oust Mr. Assad. In a statement, the group said the government’s “unilateral decision” would “deepen division in Syria” and kill fading hopes for an internationally backed political transition. The verdict from the opposition coalition in exile: “Detached from reality.” But Mr. Assad says elections need no international stamp of legitimacy, and probably cares little that they would finish off the Geneva talks, widely seen as dead. The government aims to resolve the three-year conflict on its own, with no overarching political compromise, by mixing offers of cease-fires, amnesties and reconciliation programs with fierce bombardments of areas that refuse them. From Homs to Damascus, even in landscapes of crushed and charred buildings, new posters of Mr. Assad are appearing, with an electioneering flavor. Some show him in military regalia, or posing with his ally Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Some look to the past, depicting him with his father; others to the future, emphasizing reconciliation and rebuilding. Mr. Barazi, the governor of Homs, said fighting and displacement posed no obstacle to a vote. Most of the province, he said, is safe enough for polling, and Syrians can vote outside their home districts. Refugees, he said, could cast ballots at Syrian border posts, and even people in insurgent-held suburbs of Homs could cross front lines to vote, claims doubted by government opponents fearful of the authorities. In another obstacle, a recent law requires Syrians to return to their homes for new, electronic government identification cards, something many have been afraid to do. In Damascus, an obstetrician who taught Mr. Assad in medical school said he would vote for him despite believing he is “not 100 percent democratic.” The alternative is Islamic rule, he said, adding, “Really, there is no other person who can take his place now.” He said he believed the elections would be legitimate if 75 percent of Syrians voted, even if those unable to vote were disproportionately government opponents. Mr. Assad, he said, would rack up high enough percentages in his strongholds, he said, to win 51 percent of the total electorate. Besides, he said, autocratic monarchies supporting the opposition lack standing to complain. “If the Americans said it, they have the right, they have democracy,” he said. “But Qatar or Saudi Arabia never had this right.”

National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces


Myanmar Frees a Pro-Democracy Leader

Abstract: BANGKOK — An 82-year-old leader of Myanmar ’s main pro-democracy party was freed Saturday after nearly seven years of house arrest. The release of the democracy advocate, U Tin Oo, a former general who is deputy leader of the party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, comes at the conclusion of his term of detention and in advance of a visit to Myanmar by a United Nations envoy. A founder of the party, the National League for Democracy, Mr. Tin Oo was arrested together with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2003 when their motorcade was attacked by a pro-government mob in what some supporters say was an assassination attempt. The arrests ended a brief period of freedom for Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, now 64, who remains under house arrest where she has spent most of the past 20 years. Her detention was extended for 18 months last August after she was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest when an American adventurer swam across a lake and entered her home uninvited. On Friday, the leader of Myanmar’s military junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, repeated his confirmation that an election would be held some time this year. The election is seen by analysts as a way for the military to legitimize its nearly five-decade rule behind the facade of a civilian government. Key leadership posts will be reserved for current or former military officers, and 25 percent of parliamentary seats are to be held by the military. The National League for Democracy won the last election, in 1990, in a landslide but was prevented by the military from taking office. Last week, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyer, U Nyan Win, said she had told him it was too early for the party to decide whether to take part in this year’s election.

Myanmar
U Tin Oo
Freedom and Human Rights


L.P.G.A. to Start Testing for Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Abstract: WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov. 14 — Professional golfers will be subject to the same drug-screening scrutiny in 2008 as athletes in other sports. The L.P.G.A. Tour announced Wednesday that it would begin conducting random tests to screen golfers for performance-enhancing drugs when the season begins in January. The L.P.G.A. joins the PGA Tour, which announced some details of its 2008 antidoping program Tuesday. Golf, once set apart by a deeply ingrained code of honor in which competitors called penalties on themselves, becomes the last major professional sport to institute testing to deter and detect cheaters. If caught, golfers face penalties as harsh as athletes in other sports. The L.P.G.A. program calls for suspensions of one year for a first offense, two years for a second and a lifetime ban for a third. The PGA Tour can impose a variety of sanctions, including but not limited to disqualification and/or suspension of one year for a first offense; a suspension of five years for a second violation; and up to a lifetime ban for multiple violations and fines up to $500,000. Jill Pilgrim, the L.P.G.A.’s general counsel and a former lawyer for USA Track and Field, announced the L.P.G.A. program at a news conference held in conjunction with the ADT Championship, which begins here Thursday at Trump International Golf Club. Pilgrim, the administrator for her sport’s drug-testing program — as is her PGA Tour counterpart, Rick Anderson — said protecting tournament fields from drug cheats was a major reason for implementing the program. She said drug testing was a means to ensure “competitive equity,” adding that she saw no conflict of interest in her dual role as the general counsel and program administrator. “We are comfortable with how we have structured the program and with the agreement we have with the laboratories that are reporting to our testing agency as well as to us,” Pilgrim said. “Our program will be audited by an outside agency to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.” She said that Commissioner Carolyn Bivens would “not know who tests positive in our program until any appeals are exhausted. She’s outside the loop.” The PGA Tour spokesman Ty Votaw said the relationship between the players and the tour differed significantly from other major sports. “We are the players’ organization,” he said. “Our culture is not like other sports. There is no collective bargaining agreement, no adversarial relationship.” It is unclear how players will react when the programs are implemented. The PGA Tour told its players, in a letter from Commissioner Tim Finchem, that the Tour “has the authority to test players at any time or place.” The L.P.G.A. will conduct only in-competition testing. A player who tests positive will forfeit any money from the event in which she was tested. If the winner tests positive, she will be stripped of her title. The PGA Tour will not confiscate money or titles already won. The list of substances banned by the PGA and the L.P.G.A. are essentially the same as specified by the World Anti-Doping Agency, minus two common allergy medications that would provide no competitive advantages to a golfer. Dr. Gary I. Wadler, an associate professor of medicine at New York University and a member of WADA, who had not yet reviewed the specifics of the programs, called Pilgrim’s remarks “refreshing.” “Unlike the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball, which have persistently and consistently distanced themselves from WADA guidelines, the L.P.G.A. is embracing them and adjusting them for their game,” he said. “But the devil is always in the details. If the variances undermine the intent, then there are problems with the program.” For now, both organizations hope that their players and their sport will remain the exception to the drug problems that have plagued other major sports. “But for the problems in other sports, I doubt we would be at this point,” Finchem said when the framework for the PGA Tour drug testing was unveiled. “We are where we are given the way of the world. I think it’s a positive day for golf because we are together and we’re spending a lot of energy to do it right.”

Golf
Ladies Professional Golf Assn
Steroids
Tests and Testing
Athletics and Sports


Regulation of Circumcision Method Divides Some Jews

Abstract: The grandmother carried the sleeping infant boy on a white pillow toward the synagogue’s altar, and passed him to her son. Her son carried the infant toward the mohel, or Jewish ritual circumciser, who stood amid a cluster of chanting men. The mohel lifted the infant’s clothing to expose his tiny penis. With a rapid flick of a sharp two-sided scalpel, the mohel sliced off the foreskin and held it between his fingers. Then he took a sip of red wine from a cup and bent his head. He placed his lips below the cut, around the base of the baby’s penis, for a split second, creating suction, then let the wine spill from his mouth out over the wound. “You’re O.K.,” he said to the infant, Benjamin Asher Mortob, who stopped crying after several more seconds. The sanctuary filled with elated prayer. The mohel, A. Romi Cohn, said he had performed more than 25,000 circumcisions, on babies and adults, in New York City and elsewhere over the last 40 years. When he circumcises an infant, he said, he almost always put his mouth on the baby’s penis to pull blood away from the wound in an ancient part of the circumcision ritual, known in Hebrew as metzitzah b’peh, that is still commonplace in parts of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community but is rare in other branches of Judaism. The city estimates that metzitzah b’peh is used in some 3,600 local circumcisions each year. The city’s health department says that, between 2000 and 2011, 11 babies contracted herpes as a result, and 2 of them died. This spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that the procedure created a risk for transmission of herpes and other pathogens and was “not safe.” So on Thursday, the city’s Board of Health is scheduled to vote on a proposal that would require parents to sign a consent form indicating that they are aware of the risk of herpes transmission when a circumcision procedure, or bris, includes direct oral contact. The measure, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg strongly supports, would probably be the first governmental regulation of the ritual in the United States , rabbis say. It would not affect the way most Jewish ritual circumcisions are performed — gauze or a sterile pipette is used to pull blood from the wound — nor would it ban the practice. But the issue being raised in New York coincides with moves in Denmark , Germany and other countries toward restricting or banning infant circumcision. Mr. Cohn, 83, said that he would rather go to jail than comply with the consent requirement. While he acknowledged that there were unqualified circumcisers who work without proper health testing and training, he said he believed that the ritual was completely safe when performed by him or another practitioner certified by an association of circumcisers ; he is the chairman of the group. “If you follow strictly the ritual, there will be no harm to the baby,” he said. A circumcision, he added, “is a joyous occasion — nothing traumatic about it.” And Benjamin Asher’s father, Isaac Mortob, 27, said his family had sought out Mr. Cohn in part because he did the procedure in the traditional way, including the oral suction. “I don’t want a 99 percent job, I want a 100 percent job,” he said. “I want him” — his firstborn son — “to be fully Jewish.” But city health officials say the mohel’s safeguards, which include rinsing with Listerine before the procedure, sterilizing tools, scrubbing hands with surgical soap and being tested annually for pathogens, are insufficient. The main virus that worries the city is oral herpes , which is present in some 70 percent of the city’s adult population and can cause fatal infections in babies. Highly contagious, it is spread through contact with infected saliva, even by sharing drinks or towels. “There is no safe way to perform oral suction on an open wound in a newborn,” said Dr. Jay K. Varma, the city’s deputy commissioner for disease control. If the measure passes, he said, circumcisers who do not comply could face warning letters or fines. Ultra-Orthodox leaders plan to sue the city if the regulation is passed, arguing that the measure would constitute an unconstitutional infringement on their religious freedom. Some 200 ultra-Orthodox rabbis published a decree in late August warning adherents that it was forbidden “to participate in the evil plans of the New York City health department,” according to a translation by Yeshiva World News. And a Jewish religious court in Crown Heights, Brooklyn , went further, stating that oral suction was a mandatory part of the procedure that should be promoted. “There is nothing to worry from metzitzah b’peh,” the judges wrote, according to a translation by the Chabad Lubavitch movement. “To the contrary, it is very beneficial, even according to the doctors.” But other Jewish leaders disagree. Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik, the president of the Rabbinical Assembly , the international association of conservative rabbis, said he supported the Board of Health’s move to require parental consent. He said that direct suction was not required by Jewish law and that the serious risks of the practice were “inconsistent with the Jewish tradition’s pre-eminent concern with human life and health.” In 2005, the Rabbinical Council of America , the main union of modern Orthodox rabbis, urged that a sterile glass tube be used for suction, rather than the mohel’s mouth. But the group opposes the city’s effort to regulate the practice; instead it has asked the city to work with Orthodox groups “to voluntarily develop procedures to effectively prevent the unintended spread of infection.” Mr. Cohn, a Holocaust survivor and retired real estate developer who lives on Staten Island , has written a textbook on circumcision. He said he had trained some 80 mohels over the years. After each circumcision, he places the thimble-size foreskin in a small jar of sand and ground cloves that he carries. He wants one day to be buried with the jars at the Mount of Olives in Israel , where Jewish tradition says the Messiah will arrive. When he stands with a prayer shawl over his head awaiting the babies — he sometimes does three or four a day — he looks out into congregations filled with men he has circumcised; sometimes grandfathers, fathers and sons in the same family. Because he is performing a religious obligation, his services are free. Never, he said, had there been an infection. But not everyone involved always knows there is oral suction included in the bris — or that herpes can be transmitted by contact with infected saliva. Benjamin Asher’s grandmother, Sara Mor, who had carried him carefully up to the altar last week at the Sephardic Synagogue on Avenue S in Brooklyn, said she had not heard of it, though she has four sons. “I never watch it, I’m scared to watch it,” she said of the circumcisions. “I don’t know what they are doing there.” And in Brooklyn last week, at a bris so fancy with glittering dresses and Louboutin heels that it looked like a wedding, Danielle Alfaks, 22, said she had found out two days earlier that the mohel would put his mouth over the wound of her 8-day-old son, Eli. “That’s freaky, for me,” she said at a brunch reception after the circumcision at Congregation Shaare Zion on Ocean Avenue. But she added she would sign a consent form if asked. Eli’s uncle, Mourdi Alfaks, 32, held him as Mr. Cohn performed the procedure. “He’s the greatest mohel who ever lived in history,” he said. He would not sign a consent form, he said, because “it makes no sense.” Earlier that morning, Eli’s father, Albert Alfaks, 29, wiped a tear from his eye as he handed Mr. Cohn the scalpel, echoing Abraham’s circumcision of his son, Isaac, in the Bible. Of the mohel, he said, “I guess I feel like if that’s what he has to do, God bless him.”

Circumcision
Babies
Judaism
Herpes
Board of Health NYC
NYC


BBQ Films Stages Interactive Movie Screenings With Costumes and Skits

Abstract: Several weeks ago, 30 young professionals crowded into a bare-bones Manhattan office space. It was frigid outside and the workday was long over, but this group was devoted. For nearly two hours, they debated the particulars of time travel, Chuck Berry songs, poodle skirts and the most pressing issue of all: Would they be able to track down a DeLorean ? “We’re working on it,” Gabriel Rhoads assured everyone. Mr. Rhoads and the rest of those assembled were volunteers for BBQ Films , a production company that stages interactive film screenings around the city. For example, in November, BBQ Films showed the 1990 cult movie “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” but not in a theater. BBQ events are more like elaborate theme parties for films, shown in unusual locations and with much of the audience in costume. Alcohol is usually involved. This meeting was in preparation for what will be BBQ’s most mainstream effort yet: the 1985 classic “Back to the Future,” which starred Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, who travels in a time machine (the elusive DeLorean) from the 1980s to 1955. For two shows next weekend, a high school gymnasium in NoLIta will be made to resemble the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, the climactic scene in the film, in which Marty’s parents first kiss. But for Mr. Rhoads, the 34-year-old co-founder of BBQ Films, an atmospheric setting is only the beginning of the experience. “We’re creating the perfect moment to watch a film,” said Mr. Rhoads, who has the goofy enthusiasm of a community theater director. “We’re production managers, but we’re also dream makers. There’s no Fourth Wall. That’s the secret to full immersion. You are there.” If that sounds rather grand, Mr. Rhoads has big ambitions for BBQ. He says interactive cinema is the future of the art form. In a time when increasing numbers of us prefer living-room flat screens to multiplexes, more theaters are offering bonus amenities, like fancy food, drink and live music. BBQ sees itself as part of this evolution, but also as a return to the filmgoing of the past. “I worked at the University of Chicago, where the magic lantern was first revealed,” Mr. Rhoads said, referring to the earliest iterations of cinema. “We’re creating the wonderment that people felt when they first saw movies on screen. We’re doing a new magic lantern.” BBQ Films traces its origins to a Spanish Harlem rooftop in the summer of 2007, where Mr. Rhoads and a bunch of friends gathered with a projector and a grill (hence the name). Since then, BBQ has staged 16 pop-up events, including “Labyrinth” and “American Psycho.” The “Ninja Turtles” screening was held in a Williamsburg warehouse designed to resemble the lair of Shredder’s Foot Clan . (If that reference eludes you, you are probably not within the prime BBQ demographic, which seems to be nostalgic for a 1980s and early ’90s childhood.) Inside, BBQ had installed a 60-foot skateboard ramp (along with hired skaters) and a basin bubbling with neon “ooze.” The 350 guests were encouraged to dress as skaters and cartoon street thugs and, upon arrival, were given red ninja headbands. Image Actors in full Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle gear for a screening of the film. Credit Brian Harkin for The New York Times After an hour set aside for schmoozing and drinking, the movie was projected onto a wall, with audience members cheering at the Turtles’ acrobatics throughout. During intermission, costumed actors re-enacted a fight scene in full Mutant Ninja Turtle gear. Mr. Rhoads’s team had located a superfan in Oklahoma who had made replicas of the turtle costumes; he had never been to New York before, so BBQ flew him (and each of his 65-pound costumes) in for the event. Immersive theater seems to be having a moment. In “Sleep No More,” an ominous dramatic production based on “Macbeth,” audiences in masks follow actors at random through an old hotel in Chelsea. “Then She Fell” transports audiences into a Lewis Carroll dreamscape, and “Speakeasy Dollhouse,” a site-specific performance that takes place in the 1920s, encourages viewers to don Prohibition-era garb. BBQ aims for nostalgia more than realism, something closer to a midnight screening of “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It picks movies that are wending their way back into popular consciousness, or as Mr. Rhoads puts it, “The movie you’re about to go out and rent again.” Tickets are less expensive than those for “Sleep No More” and the like, but the shows cost more than a regular movie; $40 or $50 covers the screening along with drinks, popcorn and movie swag. BBQ’s production experience also has a D.I.Y. feel, as if clever teenagers were putting on a play. The more than 40 regular volunteers include designers and advertising and theater people, who all tap their professional networks for favors. (Mr. Rhoads is a director at a nonprofit.) They have enlisted costume designers from “Sleep No More” and fight choreographers from “One Life to Live.” A few Sundays ago, Mr. Rhoads and about 20 volunteers ran a dress rehearsal at St. Patrick’s Gymnasium on Mulberry Street. Many of the women wore poodle skirts. Hayley Mace, 31, who works in customer service at a bank, showed up sporting a full pompadour. Mr. Rhoads had powdered and mussed his hair into the style of Dr. Emmett L. Brown, the film’s mad scientist. Lenny Platt, 29, a lawyer for ESPN, was playing George McFly. He had brought perfect replicas of the science fiction comics his character reads. Verisimilitude is so important to Mr. Platt that he spent $350 on a replica of the prom dress worn by Marty’s mother. His girlfriend, Naomi Piercey, a product director at American Media, will play the role. Mr. Rhoads hopes BBQ can raise enough money to match this level of commitment, and he sees opportunities beyond the company’s quarterly events. “We have a unique vehicle for film marketing,” he said. “We could help movie studios create a groundswell of fandom around popular franchises.” BBQ Films already licenses every movie it screens and has been in touch with Paramount about a partnership for a 2014 Turtles movie. BBQ is also toying with product placement. The photo booth at the “Back to the Future” dance will feature a photo-sharing app called Ultravisual. And Brooklyn Brewery recently agreed to co-sponsor a 12-city tour for BBQ, the kind of commercial interaction that might allow BBQ to go full time. For that to happen, however, Mr. Rhoads says he’ll need to raise close to $250,000. Currently, BBQ finances its productions entirely through ticket sales, vendors and donations. “Don’t lose money” is a guiding business principle. A week away from “Back to the Future,” Mr. Rhoads would not confirm whether or not he had locked up a DeLorean. Pyrotechnics have been ruled out, but there will be a smoke machine, a live band playing “Johnny B. Goode” and possibly a balloon drop. “You’re going to be blown away!” he said at rehearsal, a manic Doc Brown glint in his eye. This is his hope anyway. And so far, it seems, BBQ has delivered. In November, after the Turtles event, audience members leaving the show seemed visibly thrilled. “My childhood was relived,” said Girish Lalla, 31, still wearing his ninja headband. “My 12-year-old self is really happy right now.” His friend Anthony Padronaggio, 31, agreed. Then he cast his vote for BBQ’s next event. “If they did a ‘Back to the Future’ movie,” Mr. Padronaggio said, “I’d be front row center.”


New York to Add 300 Shelter Beds for Homeless Young People

Abstract: Mayor Bill de Blasio , in his latest attempt to address New York City’s homelessness crisis, unveiled a plan on Friday to add 300 shelter beds for older teenagers, an age group that advocates say is underserved and especially vulnerable to suicide and sex trafficking. Many homeless adolescents are or were runaways. Often they have fled homophobia in their own families, only to find their sexual orientation unwelcome in traditional homeless shelters, which has led advocates to push the city to add to the 453 beds it now has for people ages 16 to 20. The plan announced by the mayor will add 100 beds a year over the next three years to serve that same age group, a sizable increase but one that service providers say will still leave the system well short of the need. They estimate the number of homeless young people at 3,800, some of them sleeping on couches and others living in the streets, sleeping on trains or finding shelter through prostitution. Half of the current beds are “crisis” beds and limited to stays up to 60 days, a restriction Mr. de Blasio said he was trying to get the state to expand to three months. In 2013, the Legal Aid Society and the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler filed a federal lawsuit to require the city to make the specialized beds available to all young people seeking them. The city has argued that young people 18 and older can find shelter through the Department of Homeless Services, like other populations of homeless people. The lawsuit is pending. Kim Forte, a supervising attorney for the Legal Aid Society, said that “our clients will continue to suffer” if the city and state did not expand shelter stays and create access to permanent housing. “We are happy that the city is committed to expanding the number of beds to begin to meet this important need,” Ms. Forte said. The announcement on Friday was Mr. de Blasio’s third this week on social services. On Monday, he made public an initiative to improve conditions in the city’s shelters, and on Wednesday, he announced the appointment of Herminia Palacio as the deputy mayor of health and human services, ending a four-month search to fill the administration’s top social services post. Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, made his latest announcement at Covenant House , a shelter for young people that is near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He was empathetic and reflective, drawing a connection from homeless young people to his own children. But frustrated by the attention of the last several months on the city’s homelessness problem, the mayor criticized the news media and his predecessors, saying the roots of the problem go back many years. “I’m going to be really clear and blunt in 2016,” he said. “We have to be responsible for everything that’s happened in the last two years. And everyone else who was there before us should be responsible for what happened on their watches, and we should all take responsibility together.”

Homelessness
Bill de Blasio
Legal Aid Society
Youth
NYC


Sparkling, Versatile Trapiche

Abstract: New Yorkers rarely see sparkling wines from Argentina. Trapiche, the largest producer, exports a nonvintage sparkler, called extra brut, that rivals pricier Californian counterparts. This zesty, nearly dry white comes from an unusual mix of grapes: chardonnay , sémillon and malbec. It’s a party wine, an aperitif and a partner for creamy fish dishes. Chelsea Wine Vault , 75 Ninth Avenue (16th Street), charges $13.99.


U.S. Remains Unbeaten at World Cup

Abstract: Kenneth Faried stayed hot with 16 points, and the United States rolled to a 4-0 start in the Basketball World Cup with a 106-71 victory over the Dominican Republic on Wednesday in Bilbao, Spain. Faried made 8 of 11 shots from the field, a 73 percent clip that actually lowered his percentage for the tournament. Pau and Marc Gasol combined for 32 points as Spain beat France, 88-64, to remain undefeated.


Kosovo and Serbia Reach Key Deal

Abstract: Serbia and Kosovo , its former province, reached an agreement Friday that helps pave the way for Serbia’s gaining official “candidate” status to join the European Union . The agreement outlines the conditions under which Kosovo can be represented at international meetings and outlines technical parameters for border controls. European Commission leaders will meet in the coming week to decide on whether Serbia has met all the criteria to begin accession talks; a key sticking point had been the tense relations with Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. A previous E.U. meeting, in December, declined to offer Serbia an invitation, as German peacekeeping troops had come under attack by Serbs in North Kosovo. Serbia has until now thwarted any participation by representatives of the Kosovo government in international meetings by walking out or refusing to participate. Under the new agreement, Serbia will accept international forums in which Kosovo is represented by Kosovars for the first time. The diplomatically complex agreement states that the word “Republic” will not appear next to the name Kosovo in international forums. Instead, a footnote will refer to Security Council Resolution 1244 — which did not mention the independence of Kosovo — and a ruling by the International Court of Justice saying that Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 was legal. There are hopes that the agreement on technical border issues will reduce violence like the incidents seen in recent months by ethnic Serbs living in North Kosovo who refuse to live under rule from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. Diplomats said the agreements cleared the path to a positive decision when E.U. heads of government will decide to begin the process of making Serbia a member of the bloc — a process that could take years. “These agreements are a major step forward,” Catherine Ashton, the E.U. foreign policy chief, and Stefan Fule, the European commissioner for enlargement, said in a joint statement Friday. “They are important not just for Serbia and Kosovo but for the stability of the region and thus for the E.U.” In Belgrade, the agreement was seen by Serbs as an inevitable compromise Serbia had to make to join the Union, said Bratislav Grubacic, the editor of the VIP news agency in Belgrade and a political commentator. The main difficulty faced by the Serbian negotiators, he said, was “how not to provoke any angry reactions in Serbia.” The former Serbian province remains a hot button issue in Serbian politics. The Serbian minority and Orthodox churches in the predominantly Muslim country continue to occupy a powerful place in the Serbian psyche and stoke genuine passions. Serbia will hold parliamentary elections in May and E.U. candidacy is seen as key for the ruling center-left coalition to remain in power. But it is becoming less clear how important E.U. candidacy will be for Serbian voters, Mr. Grubacic said. In Kosovo, the public is irritated at the government’s agreement to not use the word “Republic” in regional forums, according to Engjellushe Morina, a political analyst in Pristina. “The public feeling is that we are being used as a tool for Serbia to get E.U. candidate status,” she said. “What is Kosovo getting out of all of this?” The European Commission will study the feasibility of reaching a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Kosovo, which would be the start of a contractual relationship with the European Union, and the first legal step toward eventual E.U. membership. Kosovo currently has no contractual relationship with the European Union. “This is a de facto recognition of the independence of Kosovo,” said Edita Tahiri, Kosovo’s lead negotiator. She says 88 countries, including the United States and all E.U. member states except for five, now recognize the independent Republic of Kosovo. Until now, Kosovo has been represented in international forums by UNMIK — the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Serbia was expected to be granted candidate status after it captured Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb commander, last year. But Germany blocked move that in December, saying it wanted to see progress in talks between Serbia and Kosovo. But on Friday, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, called the agreement “a big step in the right direction.” Mr. Westerwelle, speaking in Brussels, added that the agreement’s endorsement by both sides would be important to Serbia’s prospects. Asked about the agreement to not use the word “Republic,” Ms. Tahiri said, “We are focusing on the substance, rather than the formalities.” The opposition Vetevendosje party in Kosovo released a statement accusing the government of removing the “Republic” from Kosovo in exchange for a footnote. “We are a Republic for ourselves only. And this is exactly contrary to the concept of a Republic,” the statement said. The party said it would organize a protest on Monday to “suspend for four hours the work of this government, which is suspending our state and independence.” Stephen Castle contributed reporting from Brussels and Melissa Eddy from Berlin.

Kosovo
Serbia
European Union
Politics and Government
International Relations


Clinton Urges Hewing to Peace Process in Northern Ireland

Abstract: BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Fourteen years ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton stood next to her husband in this weary, strife-torn city as a crowd of 70,000 gathered to watch President Bill Clinton light a Christmas tree. On Monday, Mrs. Clinton, now the secretary of state, addressed a more select audience, 100 lawmakers, in the imposing chamber of Northern Ireland’s Stormont assembly — exhorting them to stick with a peace process that the Clintons have made something of a family project. It is a project in need of repair, with the historic power-sharing arrangement between Protestants and Catholics showing signs of strain because of a dispute over local control of the police and the courts. “No one ever said it was going to be easy,” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech that was both a pep talk and a personal intervention. “It is not easy in any legislature, as I know from experience, under the best of circumstances.” Mrs. Clinton is one of the first senior foreign government officials invited to speak at Stormont, and she recalled the role of Mr. Clinton in championing the negotiations that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, opening the way for the restoration of this legislature. Sitting at the horseshoe-shaped table before her were two of the most implacable foes from the era known as the Troubles: Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein , a party once closely linked to the Irish Republican Army; and the Rev. Ian Paisley, the strident loyalist who rallied the unionists. “I know the divisions within Northern Ireland are not fully healed,” Mrs. Clinton said, citing Belfast’s still-segregated neighborhoods. “But given time, and given the leadership that each of you can provide, the torn fabric of society will be woven together, stitch by stitch, choice by choice.” Northern Ireland, she said, serves as a model for peacemaking everywhere in the world, and indeed, George J. Mitchell, now the Obama administration’s Middle East envoy, helped broker the Good Friday Agreement. Some of those gains, however, are now at risk. The standoff between Catholic and Protestant leaders over transferring authority over the police and the courts to Belfast from London — which is partly about money and partly about politics — could stall the process of devolving power to Northern Ireland. Security is an issue, too. Last March, two British soldiers and a policeman were killed in politically motivated shootings that spooked a country where sectarian violence had seemed a relic of a darker time. Mrs. Clinton said the United States did not want to meddle — a line that drew a chorus of “hear, hear” from the unionist side of the chamber — but she gently prodded both sides to settle their differences. “My hope is that you will achieve what you set out to do, to complete the process of devolution,” she said. The speech was one of the most heartfelt Mrs. Clinton has delivered as secretary of state, peppered with reminiscences about the 1995 tree-lighting ceremony and five subsequent trips to Belfast. Mrs. Clinton received thumping applause from the Catholic side of the chamber but a more restrained reception from the Protestant side. The Democratic Unionist Party , worried about weakening links to Britain, is resisting the plan to transfer authority for the police and the courts. Martin McGuinness, the Catholic deputy first minister, who supports the transfer, hailed the speech. “Quite clearly, Secretary Clinton is intellectually, emotionally and politically engaged in the process,” said Mr. McGuinness, who was once an I.R.A. commander. Peter Robinson, the Protestant first minister and a former deputy to Mr. Paisley, said, “To make any speech in the Northern Ireland assembly and no one walks out — that’s an achievement.” In fact, a few unionists slipped out just after the address, skipping the standing ovation. Later, Mrs. Clinton met with businesspeople to discuss ways to increase American investment in Northern Ireland. She announced that NaviNet , a health care communications company based in Cambridge, Mass., would open a research and development center in Belfast, creating 60 jobs. The State Department has named an economic envoy to Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly, and he was on hand to drum up more business. Mrs. Clinton said the political tensions should not deter investors, though she noted that peace and economic prosperity went “hand in hand.” After a stop at Belfast’s Victorian city hall, where the tree-lighting occurred, Mrs. Clinton left for a two-day visit to Moscow. The United States is still trying to corral Russian support for tougher sanctions against Iran if it refuses to negotiate over its nuclear program. And it wants to work out details of a new agreement that will allow American planes carrying combat-related material for Afghanistan to fly over Russian territory. On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton is to meet President Dmitri A. Medvedev, who has invited her to his dacha outside Moscow. The United States hopes the “more relaxed setting” will help the conversation, said Philip H. Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs.

Northern Ireland
Clinton Hillary Rodham
United States International Relations


Jeter Must Pick Up Pace to Reach 3,000 Hits at Yankee Stadium

Abstract: ANAHEIM, Calif. — For Yankees fans in New York hoping to witness Derek Jeter ’s 3,000th hit, they might want to book a flight. If Jeter, at 2,986, is to reach the milestone during the homestand that begins Tuesday, he will have to do something he has rarely done this season: record 14 hits in a 10-game period. It happened three times, but they were all entwined, coming during a 14-game stretch from April 29 through May 14. Jeter notched 10 hits on the Yankees’ nine-game West Coast trip, passing Sam Rice (2,985) to move into 28th place on the career list. No one stands between Jeter and Roberto Clemente (3,000), but he will have to exceed his current rate if he is to reach that number in the Bronx. In 55 games this season, Jeter has amassed 60 hits — an average of 1.09 per game. But that rate takes into account his slow start, when he averaged exactly one hit through his first 27 games (or one every 4.44 plate appearances), a span that ended May 4. In 28 games since, Jeter has averaged 1.18 hits (one every 4.24 plate appearances). If he continues producing at that rate, he will gain entry into the 3,000-hit club on June 18, the middle game of a series against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. “That’ll probably be the only pressure thing,” Jeter said last week in Oakland, Calif. “To try to do it at home.” The Yankees’ recent spate of scheduled days off — three in the past 12 days — has kept Jeter fresh, increasing the likelihood that Manager Joe Girardi will not rest him. “We have to play to win, I mean, that’s what we have to do,” Girardi said. “If I feel like he needs a day off, I’ll give him a day off. If not, he’s going to play.” For New York-based players chasing milestones in recent years, Wrigley has produced contrasting results. In 2003, Roger Clemens failed in an attempt to win his 300th game there. Four years later, Tom Glavine of the Mets had no trouble at all. Any struggles for Jeter during the homestand, when the Yankees are likely to face tough pitchers from Boston, Cleveland and Texas, could push his pursuit into the second half of that next trip, in Cincinnati, where he was appointed captain eight years ago.

Baseball
New York Yankees
Jeter Derek
Yankee Stadium (NYC)


Louisiana Court Blocks Release of ‘Angola Three’ Inmate

Abstract: NEW ORLEANS — A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court here ruled on Friday against the immediate release of Albert Woodfox , who has served nearly four decades in solitary confinement for the murder of a prison guard, deciding that he should stay in prison as the state appeals a federal order to free him. Mr. Woodfox has been convicted twice in the 1972 murder of the prison guard, Brent Miller, 23, but both convictions have been thrown out on constitutional grounds. The state has reindicted him each time, most recently in February, after a federal appeals court upheld a decision to vacate his second conviction. Image Albert Woodfox has spent nearly all of the past 43 years in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary for the killing of a prison guard in 1972. Credit Angola3.Org, via European Pressphoto Agency On Monday, Judge James J. Brady of United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana not only ordered Mr. Woodfox’s release but also took the unusual step of barring the state from putting him on trial again. He questioned whether Mr. Woodfox, 68, could obtain a fair trial given the length of time that had passed and “troubling conduct” by prosecutors in his past trials. The state attorney general immediately appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which granted a stay of Mr. Woodfox’s release until Friday. Less than an hour before that stay was to expire, a three-judge panel from the court extended the stay as the appeal is debated. The judges did order the appeal to be expedited. The judges found that the state had a good chance of succeeding on the appeal, saying no evidence had been presented that “any state retrial (or any appeal) will be improperly handled.” Mr. Woodfox has maintained his innocence of the murder. He is the last imprisoned member of a group known as the Angola Three, a trio of politically active prisoners who spent decades in solitary confinement in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola. One member was released in 2001; another was released in 2013 and died three days later.

Louisiana
Albert Woodfox
Prison
Louisiana State Penitentiary


Using Older Hardware With Windows 10

Abstract: Q. Will the installation of Microsoft’s Windows 10 require me to install different drivers for my scanner and printer? A. Not every printer and scanner has compatible driver software for Windows 10, so if you have not upgraded yet and rely on your current hardware, check first with the manufacturer to make sure your equipment will work with Microsoft’s latest operating system. Many companies even have specific Windows 10 information pages on their sites to answer common questions and provide updated drivers, and post a list of models that do not play nice with the new system. Brother , Canon , Epson , Hewlett-Packard and Xerox are among those companies with special areas on their support sites dedicated to Windows 10. For those who have already upgraded, many manufacturers (including Epson and HP ), also have online guides for troubleshooting problems after the Windows 10 installation. Microsoft’s site has its own support page for fixing printer problems in Windows 10 . Removing the printer from the system and then reinstalling it is one of the company’s suggestions, and Windows can sometimes find updated driver software on its own with the Device Manager utility. Microsoft’s support page also has a link to its printing troubleshooter program , which guides you through a series of steps for diagnosing and resolving certain issues.

Microsoft
Scanners
Microsoft Windows
Computer Printers


Obama Delivers Eulogy for Beau Biden

Abstract: WILMINGTON, Del. — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. , who began his life on the national stage more than four decades ago under the dark cloud of a family tragedy, laid his elder son, Beau, to rest on Saturday, marking yet another moment of grief in a long political career shaped by it. At a funeral Mass that drew about 1,000 mourners, including President Obama and members of the cabinet, former President Bill Clinton, a four-star general and members of Congress, Mr. Biden and his family remembered Joseph Robinette Biden III, who died of brain cancer on May 30 at the age of 46. “Beau Biden was an original,” Mr. Obama said in his eulogy. “He was a good man, a man of character, a man who loved deeply and was loved in return.” The president, his voice thick with emotion, declared his love for the vice president, calling him “my brother.” He seemed to speak as much about the father as he did about the son in a tribute that praised Beau for rising above misery to live a full, albeit too-short, life. “The cruelty he’d endured in his life didn’t make him hard, it made him compassionate, empathetic,” Mr. Obama said. Image The funeral procession leaving a church in Wilmington, Del. Beau Biden, Mr. Obama said, “was a good man, a man of character, a man who loved deeply and was loved in return.” Credit Pool photo by Doug Mills The outpouring of support followed a period of searingly public mourning for the vice president and his family, who spent days beside the younger Mr. Biden’s flag-draped coffin, greeting well-wishers through tears and occasionally even smiles. But on Saturday, Mr. Biden’s face was a mask of grief behind dark aviator sunglasses as he entered St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church behind his son’s coffin, clasping the hand of his wife, Jill Biden, and just behind Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie, and their two young children, Natalie and Hunter. The baleful strains of bagpipes played as they entered the packed church in Wilmington’s Little Italy, and a single bell tolled as they departed. For Mr. Biden, the funeral was a sorrowful bookend coming in the twilight of a political career marked by loss and defined by resilience in the face of deep pain. Mr. Biden was a fresh-faced 30-year-old who had just won election to the Senate when, on a December day in 1972, his wife, Neilia, and 18-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car crash that also injured Beau, then 3, and Mr. Biden’s younger son, Hunter. Reluctant to take office without his wife next to him, and refusing to leave his sons’ bedside, Mr. Biden was sworn in at the hospital where they were being treated. The episode has become a trope for the story of Mr. Biden’s political life, one of aspiration and success blotted by sadness, made all the more relatable because of his penchant, rare in political life, for authentic displays of human character. Recalling that period in an intensely personal eulogy for his brother, Hunter Biden said his first memory was of being 2 years old and lying in a hospital bed holding hands with Beau, who was telling him “I love you,” over and over again. He said he did the same for his brother as Beau took his last breath. “As it began, so did it end,” Hunter Biden said. “I know that his hand will never leave mine.” It was the kind of display of raw emotion for which his father is known, a trait that has proved both a secret weapon and a hindrance during his career. Mr. Biden became one of the best-liked and most effective figures in the Senate, forging the kind of warm bonds and strong alliances across the aisle that once powered so much of what went on in Washington, but now seems a vestige of a bygone era. It also made him the object of affectionate ribbing — the White House even has a hashtag, #Being Biden, to describe the vice president’s antics — and sometimes, of derisive jokes. The funeral drew dozens of lawmakers past and present, including Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, whose close working relationship with Mr. Biden has salvaged important parts of Mr. Obama’s agenda that might otherwise have imploded among partisan infighting. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served with Mr. Biden in the Senate and in the administration before becoming a presidential candidate, was on hand with her husband. Chris Martin, whose band, Coldplay, was a favorite of Beau Biden’s, performed an organ-and-guitar version of his ballad “Til Kingdom Come” as mourners wept. Beau Biden’s death came as Mr. Biden entered the final 18 months of his vice presidency and at a moment when he has seemed somewhat at sea — less enmeshed in the day-to-day workings of the White House than he once was, as he has coped privately with his son’s grave illness. He has been dismissed by most in his party as a viable contender for the 2016 presidential nomination, even as Mr. Obama has said Mrs. Clinton would make an “excellent president.” The younger Mr. Biden was himself a rising political star, a former attorney general of Delaware who had been considering a run for governor when he died. The Army chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, who was the commanding general in Iraq when Beau Biden, a member of the Army National Guard, was deployed there for a year, called him an “extraordinary person” and posthumously awarded him the Legion of Merit. Image President Obama offering his condolences to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a funeral service Saturday for Beau Biden. Credit Pool photo by Doug Mills But it was the president who spoke in deeply personal terms about the tragedies that shaped Beau’s character, and the lessons he learned from a father who has known more than his fair share of it. “Rather than use his childhood trauma as justification for a life of self-pity or self-centeredness, that very young boy made a very grown-up decision: He would live a life of meaning. He would live a life for others,” Mr. Obama said. “From his dad,” Mr. Obama added, “he learned how to get back up when life knocked him down.”

Beau Biden
Funerals
Delaware
Joe Biden
Barack Obama


Wimbledon 2015: Novak Djokovic Survives Fourth-Round Marathon

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic left the All England Club late on Monday night, unsatisfied and with the usual high-wattage, postmatch adrenaline forcing him wide awake. The only trouble was, it was not postmatch at all, and he did not have two days to recover, as he normally would. His suspended match against Kevin Anderson was only four-fifths completed , and Djokovic, the top seed and defending Wimbledon champion, said he was unable to fall asleep until well after midnight. Then he had to be back on court to play one deciding set at 1 p.m. local time Tuesday. “It takes, for a professional athlete, usually a lot of time for adrenaline rush to settle down,” he said. “It takes hours and hours to really be able to fall asleep and recover and so forth. Let’s say that I haven’t had a great night.” But he had a good day. On the 30th anniversary of his coach Boris Becker’s defeat of Kevin Curren in a Wimbledon final, Djokovic marked the occasion by finally finishing off Anderson, 6-7 (3), 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-4, 7-5. A mild commemoration with Becker was to follow. “He’s going to have a glass of wine,” Djokovic said. “I’ll have a glass of water, and we celebrate this nice milestone.” The match was suspended Monday because of darkness after four sets and 3 hours 3 minutes on court. The players got whatever rest they could and returned to Court 1 on Tuesday, and after a short rain delay, they played as evenly as they had the day before. Djokovic still had considerable difficulty with Anderson’s big serve. His inability to do much with it was why Djokovic, a two-time winner here, called the match one of the most difficult he had ever had at Wimbledon. His frustration poured out in the fifth set when, angered at not getting to Anderson’s serve, he unleashed a loud verbal torrent. It was directed at himself, he said, but it went in the direction of a ball girl. Djokovic later said that it was inadvertent and that he wanted to apologize to her. Anderson had two break points in the fourth game but failed to convert. The players were on serve until the 11th game, when Anderson double-faulted on consecutive points to set up a break point for Djokovic at 15-40. Anderson, who had 40 aces in the match, summoned a great serve out wide in the deuce court to Djokovic’s forehand side, but Djokovic in turn summoned a champion’s ability to get back such a serve. He lunged to his right and blocked the ball with a little scoop swing. Image Kevin Anderson of South Africa kept Novak Djokovic on his heels with strong serves and a steady return game. Credit Shaun Botterill/Getty Images The ball went back to the feet of the approaching Anderson, who, at 6 feet 8 inches, could not get down low enough for it. The ball rolled off the frame of his racket into the net, and Djokovic turned to Becker and the rest of his box and shouted. With Djokovic serving for the match, Anderson won the first two points, but Djokovic won the next four. The final set required only 45 minutes of work, so Djokovic was off the court a little after 2 p.m. He will need his rest now because his quarterfinal match against the No. 9 seed, Marin Cilic, is Wednesday. They will play on Centre Court after the quarterfinal between third-seeded Andy Murray and Vasek Pospisil, which begins at 1 p.m. local time. At the French Open , Djokovic lost in the final after playing his semifinal against Murray over two days . That is why he said he would not bike to the house where he is staying, as he sometimes does, to preserve energy. “But I love biking,” he said. “I love going around common park, jogging, walking around with my family, with my wife, baby, the team. It’s one thing about London that is so special, is the nature, the parks. They offer so much tranquillity. It’s really beautiful to be around here.”

Novak Djokovic
Kevin Anderson
Tennis
Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon


Indie Comic Book Publishers Make Moves Toward TV and Film

Abstract: DC and Marvel have taken their superheroes to the big and small screens, building cinematic universes and earning billions in the process. Now, smaller comic book publishers want to get in on the action. Reimagining themselves as entertainment companies, independent comic book publishers are creating internal divisions to work with distribution or finance partners, or are funding production themselves, with the hope of featuring their characters in movies, on television and even on Broadway. “There is higher risk, but also higher reward,” said Ted Adams, the chief executive and publisher of IDW Publishing, which started its entertainment unit two years ago. And the reward can be great. The Batman movie franchise , for instance, has earned $4.5 billion since 1989. Edging out the Dark Knight, the X-Men franchise has made $4.6 billion at theaters since 2000. With New York Comic Con set to open on Thursday in Manhattan, independent publishers are eager to show off their new content deals to fans. IDW, for example, is hosting a panel on Saturday to discuss its move into television with two series: “Brooklyn Animal Control” on the USA Network and “Wynonna Earp” on Syfy. Image Harrow County is being developed into a TV series by Universal Cable Productions. Credit Dark Horse Comics & Entertainment “We wanted to create a portfolio of properties to develop,” Mr. Adams said, adding that IDW had also developed a show based on Dirk Gently, a detective created by Douglas Adams, for BBC America. Mr. Adams pointed to the success of “The Walking Dead,” on AMC, which is based on a comic book series published by Image Comics. “ ‘Walking Dead’ is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon,” he said. “It was a grand-slam home run; if we get a double, we are going to be happy.” But the publishing model of smaller houses differs from that of their larger counterparts. Instead of having a monthly series that can run for years, they publish shorter series, usually about five issues. If a series is a hit, the publisher can order a second short series or make it ongoing. To bolster revenue, the series can be repackaged and sold in collections. “We have to be a little lighter on our feet,” said Mike Richardson, the chief executive and publisher of Dark Horse Comics and Dark Horse Entertainment. “We don’t have characters that have been ingrained in the pop culture.” Dark Horse is not new to Hollywood; it has been producing movies for about 30 years. “The reason we go into the film business was this naïve idea that we could protect the writer by being a producer,” said Mr. Richardson, whose company gives comic book creators the right to control their work. Dark Horse had success with its first two movies — “The Mask” and “Time Cop” — but its third, “Barb Wire,” was a flop. Image Wynonna Earp is being developed into a TV series for Syfy. Credit IDW “After the success, you get to be a genius,” Mr. Richardson said, “until your next movie.” But Dark Horse continued with its business model and had other hits, including two movies based on its comic Hellboy. Next summer, it will release its 30th movie, “Tarzan.” It also has a number of television series, including “Dark Matter” on Syfy, and plans to develop the horror comic Harrow County. “We are not really a comics company,” Mr. Richardson said. “We are a content company, and we have a great content engine.” Archie Comics is also mining its content to find new outlets for its characters. It had already announced a deal to bring Archie and the gang to TV in a series for the CW called “Riverdale.” And Adam McKay — the director of films like “Anchorman” — is writing a Broadway musical based on the redheaded Romeo. “We want to put Archie back in the zeitgeist,” said Jon Goldwater, the publisher and chief executive of Archie Comics. But Archie Comics lacks the established superheroes that are in demand, so it dusted off a few 1940s Golden Age comic book heroes like Black Hood and the Shield and created a new imprint called Dark Circle Comics. The plan is to build a superhero franchise that can be leveraged for television and movies. “We want to move into film and TV and licensing and areas where we can get significant revenue streams,” Mr. Goldwater said. “We look to be competitive with Marvel and DC in that area.” Despite their move into other mediums, comic book publishers still cling to their roots. “At our core, we will always be a publisher,” Mr. Adams, of IDW, said. “That is in our DNA.”

TV
Movies
IDW Publishing
Dark Horse Comics
Comic strip
DC Comics
Marvel Entertainment
Archie Comic Publications


Investigative Reporter Leaves NBC News

Abstract: Michael Isikoff, an investigative reporter who has broken numerous national news stories, has left NBC News. His last day was Friday. Perhaps best known for his coverage of the liaison between former President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Mr. Isikoff has also reported extensively on the war on terror, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the Penn State sex abuse case and other national issues. Mr. Isikoff joined NBC News in July 2010 as the national investigative correspondent, a position similar to the one he had held at Newsweek since 1994. He was named an MSNBC contributor in January 2009. During his nearly four years at NBC News, Mr. Isikoff appeared frequently on “NBC Nightly News” and “Today,” and on MSNBC. Less than three months ago, Lisa Myers, the senior investigative correspondent for NBC News, also left. NBC News recently added Cynthia McFadden, hiring her from ABC News, to be NBC’s senior legal and investigative correspondent. “Michael has done terrific work for NBC News on stories ranging from revealing which government official leaked the U.S. Stuxnet virus attack on Iran’s nuclear program to a groundbreaking examination of the Obama administration drone strike program,” Richard Esposito, the senior executive producer of the investigative unit at NBC News, said in a statement. “We’re grateful for all he’s done and wish him the very best.” NBC News and Mr. Isikoff said the decision to part ways was mutual. “It’s a totally amicable departure,” he said. “I had a good ride at NBC, and I’m proud of a lot of what I was able to do there. But it was increasingly clear they were moving in directions in which there were going to be fewer opportunities for my work.” Mr. Isikoff, 61, said he intended to stay in Washington but declined to elaborate on his plans.

NBC News
Michael Isikoff
News media,journalism
TV


Like J.P. Morgan, Warren E. Buffett Braves a Crisis

Abstract: In the midst of a financial crisis , a towering figure of American business steps forward with his reputation and financial resources for public good and personal gain. Their times and personalities are vastly different, of course. But J. Pierpont Morgan’s role in the Panic of 1907 has its echo in Warren E. Buffett ’s actions during the current financial troubles. “What Buffett is doing is similar in ways to what Morgan did in 1907,” said Richard Sylla, an economist and financial historian at the Stern School of Business at New York University. “It’s what you might call profitable patriotism.” Comparing the two men and their moves in periods of market turmoil, just more than a century apart, reveals how much some things have changed over the years and how other things have not, according to business historians and finance experts. Morgan was 70 during the financial crisis of 1907, in the twilight of his career. Mr. Buffett is 78. Like Morgan so long ago, Mr. Buffett now finds himself “at the center of things; he draws headlines and he inspires confidence,” said Robert F. Bruner, dean of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and a co-author with Sean D. Carr of “The Panic of 1907: Lessons From the Market’s Perfect Storm” (Wiley, 2007). In the last two weeks alone, Mr. Buffett has exercised his influence mainly by investing in embattled blue-chip companies, committing a total of $8 billion to Goldman Sachs and General Electric. He drove hard bargains and invested on favorable terms. Mr. Buffett has been fielding many phone calls recently because of his cash, his reputation and his ability to act quickly. The G.E. investment, for example, was put together in a matter of hours, after G.E. reached out to Mr. Buffett through his longtime banker at Goldman Sachs, Byron D. Trott. “In the last few weeks, everyone who has been in trouble or thought they were in trouble has called him,” said Alice Schroeder, author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,” a biography released last week by Bantam. Ms. Schroeder, a former Wall Street analyst, is the first Buffett biographer to receive his cooperation, and she said she talked to him regularly. The companies benefit from the credibility dividend that comes with the Buffett endorsement. Last Thursday, the day after he announced his investment in G.E., the company raised more than $12 billion in a public sale of shares. Mr. Buffett is also the largest shareholder in Wells Fargo, which last Friday swept in with a $15 billion bid for another banking company, Wachovia, offering seven times what Citigroup did at the start of the week. Mr. Buffett is the world’s richest person, topping this year’s ranking of billionaires by Forbes magazine with $62 billion. Mr. Buffett has pledged to give most of that fortune to charity upon his death. Yet even more than money, Mr. Buffett brings the reputational capital that comes from being a peerless long-term investor, revered for his acumen and sound judgment. “So there is immense signaling power to Buffett’s moves, showing others that now may be a good time to invest,” Mr. Bruner said. Morgan wielded his power over the financial markets more directly than Mr. Buffett, though his personal wealth lagged the early 20th century industrial titans John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. In 1907, the United States had no central bank. The financial crisis began that year because trust companies handling wills and estates — firms long synonymous with safe investment — exploited legal loopholes and became wild speculators in the stock market. When those investments soured, the collapse of the trusts threatened the financial system. Morgan stepped in and functioned as America’s central bank. The United States Treasury handed him $25 million (more than $550 million today) with the blessing of President Theodore Roosevelt — who was not a natural Morgan ally, given his aversion for big business and its leaders, memorably deriding them as “malefactors of great wealth.” But those were dire economic times. Morgan gathered his fellow financiers at his Manhattan mansion and hammered out a rescue plan. After a few rocky weeks, the panic subsided. “In 1907, Morgan was not only committing some of his own money but also organizing the entire financial community to join in the rescue,” said Ron Chernow, a business historian and the author of “The House of Morgan” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990). Indeed, Mr. Chernow said, one motivation for creating the Federal Reserve in 1913 was that Morgan would not be around forever. Morgan died that same year. Morgan also used the power of his personality and public statements to try to sway market behavior and psychology. In the current crisis, when authorities became concerned that short-sellers were accelerating the stock-market swoon, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a legal order prohibiting short-selling in the shares of roughly 800 companies. In 1907, financial policies were less formal. Morgan simply stated that short-sellers, who bet that a company’s share price would drop, “shall be properly attended to,” said John Steele Gordon, a business historian and author. His words were to be taken as an implied threat, and a reminder that he was watching. “Nobody wanted to find out what that might mean,” Mr. Gordon explained. “In Morgan’s day, the world was so much smaller, and Morgan was so powerful.” The estimated $44 billion in cash that Mr. Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, has on hand is a modest sum compared with the vast size of today’s financial markets. So he can make selective investments but not turn things single-handedly. At a time when government looms so much larger in the economy than it did a century ago, Mr. Buffett, unlike Morgan, is not directly involved in the current rescue. Yet Mr. Buffett has said that the government has asked for his advice, and he knows and admires the architect of the rescue package, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. Mr. Buffett, according to Ms. Schroeder, has over the years become more comfortable and more committed to speaking out on public issues. “It’s not lost on him that people trust him more than they trust politicians,” she said. Mr. Buffett still speaks to the press only occasionally, and he declined to be interviewed for this article. But after the House of Representatives rejected the rescue plan last Monday, Mr. Buffett got a call from Charlie Rose, the television interviewer, who has known Mr. Buffett for years. He urged Mr. Buffett to appear on his PBS interview show as soon as possible. “I told him, ‘You have to do this,’ ” Mr. Rose recalled in an interview on Saturday. “ ‘No one has your credibility, and people want to hear what you have to say.’ ” Mr. Buffett agreed to do it, and Mr. Rose flew to San Diego, where Mr. Buffett would be on Wednesday. The hourlong interview on Wednesday night was vintage Warren Buffett: calm, plain-spoken and wry. He called the current crisis an economic Pearl Harbor, requiring immediate action. Its biggest single cause, he explained, was the real estate bubble. “Three hundred million Americans, their lending institutions, their government, their media, all believed that house prices were going to go up consistently,” he said. “Lending was done based on it, and everybody did a lot of foolish things.” As far back as 2003, Mr. Buffett had warned that the complex securities at the center of today’s troubles — once so profitable, but now toxic — were “financial weapons of mass destruction.” These securities were engineered by the math quants on Wall Street, and in the interview Mr. Buffett expressed his disdain: “Beware of geeks bearing formulas.” To help pay for the rescue, the government should raise taxes on the wealthy, Mr. Buffett suggested. “I’m paying the lowest tax rate that I’ve ever paid in my life,” he said. “Now, that’s crazy.” On Friday, after public sentiment shifted, the House passed the financial rescue package. But the markets are still weak, and it remains to be seen whether Mr. Buffett’s recent investments will prove to be wise ones. “It’s a high-risk moment, and I think he may have ventured into the waters prematurely,” said Mr. Chernow, the historian. “But Warren Buffett is worth many billions of dollars, and I am assuredly not.”

Morgan J Pierpont
Buffett Warren E
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Stocks and Bonds
Banks and Banking


Parliamentary Elections in France Closely Watched by Hollande

Abstract: PARIS — François Hollande may have been elected France ’s president only a month ago, but the fate of his presidency will rest largely on the results of legislative elections that begin Sunday and conclude a week later. Mr. Hollande, a Socialist, barely won the Élysée Palace over a deeply unpopular Nicolas Sarkozy , in part by remaining vague about his policies. That tactical vagueness has continued through this campaign for the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, which is to a great extent a continuation of the presidential campaign. Mr. Hollande has been presenting himself as a “normal” president, unveiling an amateurish-looking official portrait that no one would consider elitist or arty. He has had a smooth start, making good on his promises for a modest rollback of a pension change under Mr. Sarkozy, but he has also been careful not to offend anyone on the left with the slightest murmur about any financial pain to come. Mr. Sarkozy has stepped aside, but his party, the center-right Union for a Popular Movement, is trying to beat back the tide and deny the Socialists and their leftist allies a large majority in Parliament. At the same time, Marine Le Pen and the far-right National Front are trying to capitalize on their good showing in the presidential race, but the electoral system will make it difficult for them to win many seats. “I call on the French to vote,” Mr. Hollande said Thursday on a visit to northern France, as some surveys suggested that 40 percent of voters might stay at home, as they did in 2007. “I call on them to give us a majority that is large, solid and coherent.” Most of the attention has been on Ms. Le Pen’s candidacy in the poor former mining district around Hénin-Beaumont, near Belgium, where she is being challenged by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a firebrand on the far left. The battle of the two extreme candidates of the presidential election — who together garnered nearly 30 percent of the votes in the first round from citizens angry about the economy, globalization and immigration — is entertaining enough, but not very important. Mr. Mélenchon challenged Ms. Le Pen directly, he said, to confront her on her party’s policies, especially on its anti-immigration stance. But he also did so for fun and publicity, and he has even sued her for accurately quoting a comment he made, but doing so in a way to attract voters who feel threatened by immigrants. “France has no future without the Arabs and Berbers of the Maghreb,” he had said; the National Front reprinted it, in French and Arabic, with his picture, on a field of Islamic green. A telephone survey of voters conducted from June 2 to 4 by Ifop-Fiducial shows Ms. Le Pen leading in the first round, but suggests she may lose in the second round to either the Socialist candidate or Mr. Mélenchon. A third-generation Le Pen, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen , 22, a granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front’s founder, and a niece of Marine, is running in the south, in the Vaucluse. The National Front itself creates problems for the U.M.P. because of the electoral system. Any candidate in a constituency who wins more than 12.5 percent of registered voters goes on to the second round on June 17. There will be many constituencies with three candidates in the runoff, often two from the right and one from the left, and although U.M.P. leaders emphasize that their supporters should not vote for the National Front if they hope to defeat the Socialists, some party members are bound to do so. In the end, the Socialists, along with left-wing allies, are expected to win a majority of the 577 seats at stake, while the National Front will be squeezed by the system and probably get only a handful of seats, even if it wins as much as 16 percent of the vote. The National Front would probably not have enough legislators even to form a parliamentary “group,” which would entitle them to committee seats and special financing, but the party has not had an Assembly seat since 1986. A Socialist majority — the first in a decade — would mean that Mr. Hollande could govern with a Socialist prime minister, and not have to have a “cohabitation” with a prime minister of the right. But if the Socialists are dependent on far-left parties like Mr. Mélenchon’s, which are skeptical of the European Union, Mr. Hollande will have a harder time enforcing budget discipline and working with Germany toward a closer fiscal and political union of the euro zone. The Socialists hope they can have a working majority with more pro-European allies, like the environmentalist Greens. Last year, the Socialists won control of the Senate, the less powerful upper house, and they also control a majority of local governments. The election is important for the U.M.P., which is in the middle of a fight for political leadership. A former prime minister, François Fillon, is expected to win a Paris constituency, while the current party leader, Jean-François Copé, faces a tough challenge in Meaux, where a National Front candidate is running well. Other major politicians whose futures are unclear include the new culture minister, Aurélie Filippetti; the agriculture minister, Stéphane Le Foll; a former centrist presidential candidate, François Bayrou; a former Sarkozy minister and campaign spokeswoman, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet; and a former Socialist presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, who hopes to become the president of the Assembly. Mr. Hollande has promised that any minister who runs for the Assembly and loses cannot remain in the government, so some chose not to run at all. This election is the first in which 11 seats at stake will represent French citizens living overseas. A total of 6,603 candidates are running for the 577 seats, fewer than in 2007 and 2002; about 40 percent of the candidates are women. One oddity of this race is that if there is a tie vote in the second-round runoff, the seat goes to the oldest candidate.

Elections
France
Union for a Popular Movement
Hollande Francois
Le Pen Marine
Legislatures and Parliaments
National Front (France)
Sarkozy Nicolas


Struggling to Score, Rangers May Get Kreider Back

Abstract: Chris Kreider may or may not be back in uniform for the offense-challenged Rangers in Game 4 against the Penguins on Wednesday night, but neither he nor his coach is saying either way. Kreider took part in a full practice Wednesday morning for the first time since having surgery to repair a fractured left hand March 28. Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault said Kreider had been medically cleared to play, but declined to say whether he would. Vigneault called Game 4 “as close to a must game for us” as possible. Vigneault and Kreider referred to his status as day to day. Kreider had 17 goals, including six on the power play, and 20 assists before his injury. The Rangers trailed the Penguins two games to one, entering Wednesday night’s game at Madison Square Garden and were looking for a way to score goals. They failed to score in Games 2 and 3, the first time they suffered back-to-back playoff shutouts since 1937. They managed only 22 shots on Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury in a 3-0 loss Sunday , but peppered him with 35 shots in Monday’s 2-0 loss. After Game 3, Vigneault said that he thought the Rangers played well, but he qualified that statement Wednesday morning. “As well as I might think that we have played so far, at the end of the day it’s easy to see we need to finish,” he said. “We can say we’ve had some great looks, but we’ve got to get it done. We’re down by a game, and we’ve got to find a way to make that team pay for some of the mistakes that they make. Obviously they’ve made us pay the last couple of days for our mistakes, and we need to do the same thing to them.” In team meetings Wednesday, Vigneault said, he pointed out ways his players must “do a little bit better in attacking their net, attacking their goaltender.” He added, “We have a couple of guys right now who are trying very hard, but they need to find a way to contribute” One of them is Rick Nash, who is scoreless in the series and has one goal in 22 playoff games as a Ranger. “He’s seeing all the shots, so we have to get traffic in front of him,” Nash said of Fleury. “We watch video on goalies and try to pick out their weaknesses — they don’t have many. But the one thing none of them like is traffic.” If Kreider returns to the lineup, he will see time on the Rangers’ power play, which has failed to score in 34 straight advantages. That is the N.H.L.'s longest such drought in a postseason since 2007, when the Anaheim Ducks were goal-less in 36 straight power plays. (The Ducks also won the Stanley Cup that spring.) Either way, the Rangers can take heart from the fact that after playing five games in seven nights, their congested schedule has returned to normalcy. They had Tuesday off. “This last day away from the rink, the guys cleared their minds,” Vigneault said. “They came in this morning feeling good about themselves and the way they’re playing.”

Rangers
Chris Kreider
Alain Vigneault
Ice hockey
Pittsburgh Penguins