A Record in Making Guinness Annoyed at You

Abstract: Larry Olmsted has been blacklisted by the Guinness Book of World Records. Who is Larry Olmsted and how can a man possibly earn such a fate? The answer to both questions is that he is the author of “Getting Into Guinness: One Man’s Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside the World’s Most Famous Record Book” (Collins, Sept. 2008). The book appeared about the same time Guinness released the 2009 edition of its book, said to be the best-selling copyrighted book in history, with more than 100 million copies sold in its 54-year history. (The Bible is not copyrighted.) Mr. Olmsted, a freelance travel writer, became fascinated by the Guinness book in 2004 after he received an assignment from Golf Magazine to set a golf-related world record. He did so, playing two rounds of golf in a single day, one in Australia, the other in Newport Beach, Calif., thereby setting the record for Greatest Distance Traveled Between Two Rounds of Golf Played on the Same Day. His feat was shown on ESPN’s SportsCenter. Mr. Olmsted, 42, said that when he was finishing his book, he applied to Guinness to break three more records, hoping to attract more publicity. Guinness World Records Ltd., which started in 1955 as a subsidiary of the company that also made Guinness Stout and has since gone through different owners, did not cooperate with Mr. Olmsted on the book, denying requests for interviews and access to historical files. He said he did not realize this lack of cooperation would mean he was losing his right to break more records. His golf record had already been eclipsed. In May, when Mr. Olmsted tried go through the standard channels any member of the public would go through to apply to break the three records (including one for Most Bars Visited in One Night — requiring 12 ounces of liquid be consumed at each bar), he received a fax from Guinness, he said. “While Guinness World Records lawyers are investigating serious concerns regarding the content of your book and its unauthorized association with Guinness World Records, we will not be in a position to consider any record applications from you,” stated the fax as quoted in Mr. Olmsted’s book. Teresa Brady, a spokeswoman for Collins, the publisher of Mr. Olmsted’s book, said her company’s lawyers had responded to Guinness saying there was in fact no legal violation of Guinness’s rights. They received no response, she said. Brian Reinert, a spokesman for Guinness, did not reply to requests for comment. Mr. Olmsted is not pleased at his banishment. In a phone interview from Italy where he is working on an article, he said, “Everybody who gets banned in sports by any other governing body, it’s for gambling or performance-enhancing drugs. They are banning me for what I’m writing.” ALLEN SALKIN

Guinness World Records
Olmsted Larry
Books and Literature


Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Head of D.N.C., Backs Iran Nuclear Deal

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz , the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, announced on Sunday that she will support the nuclear agreement with Iran that has roiled many in her Florida district. “I’ll be casting my vote to support the deal and if necessary sustain the president’s veto,” she told Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on CNN. While she called it a “gut-wrenching” decision-making process that caused her “angst and pause,” she concluded that the agreement would “put Iran years away from being a threshold nuclear state.” The congresswoman choked up emotionally as she talked about the difficulty of the decision as a “Jewish mother” and the first Jewish woman elected to the House from Florida. “There’s nothing more important to me as a Jew than to ensure that Israel’s existence is there throughout our generations,” she said. She added, “There is no way that we would be able to ensure that better than approving this deal.” In a separate interview, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell endorsed the agreement as well, calling it “a pretty good deal” that includes a “very vigorous” inspection system and imposes significant restrictions on Iran. “These are remarkable changes,” Mr. Powell, who broke with Republicans to vote for Mr. Obama in 2008 and 2012, said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “And so we have stopped this highway race that they were going down — and I think that’s very, very important.” Mr. Powell’s colleague and sometimes rival from the George W. Bush administration, former Vice President Dick Cheney, blasted the deal on Sunday as a “major, major defeat” for American interests in the Middle East. The Iran Deal in 200 Words A short overview of highlights from the Iran nuclear pact. “The only winner are the Iranians — they got everything they asked for,” Mr. Cheney, who is promoting a new book with his daughter, Liz Cheney, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The losers are the United States, are the friends and allies of the United States, and the region, Israelis, the Saudis and others. The overall outcome I think will be to shift significantly the balance of power in that part of the world to the Iranians.” Ms. Wasserman Schultz telephoned President Obama on Saturday night to inform him of her decision. Her support does nothing to change the ultimate outcome, since Mr. Obama already had secured more than enough Democrats in the Senate to sustain his veto of any legislation rejecting the deal. But it provides an important endorsement from a Jewish Democrat who had been closely watched in recent days and had come under enormous pressure from both sides. Just last week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. flew to Florida to woo her and spent three hours talking with Jewish leaders about the Iran agreement. But many of Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s prominent backers strongly oppose the deal. A protester outside her office recently screamed that “Wasserman Schultz should go to the ovens” on the assumption that she would support the agreement even as she told constituents she would make her decision “based on my Jewish heart.” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said she had received repeated briefings, including in the White House Situation Room, before coming to her decision. She acknowledged that she still had serious concerns. “I worry that the vigilance over the life of the deal may wane — not the United States’ vigilance,” but that of the international community, she said. She also said she worried that lifting sanctions would unfreeze Iranian funds “that they could divert to terrorist activity.” But she said the key question was, “Is there a better alternative?” While critics have called for scrapping the deal and pressing other world powers and Iran to return to the bargaining table for a stronger agreement, she said, “No one presented me any evidence to show me that that was possible.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Iran
Democrats
Florida
Senate
Nuclear weapon
DNC
Judaism
US Politics
Congress


Police Say Shoplifters Had Fetus in Bag

Abstract: When a guard at a Victoria’s Secret in Herald Square stopped two teenage girls on Thursday afternoon, he discovered some stolen items in their possession, but — tipped off by a strong odor — also something far more heinous, the police said. One of their bags contained a dead fetus, the New York Police Department said. The discovery prompted a torrent of questions, few of which had been answered by the evening. The department said it was not yet known when the fetus was born or whether it was alive or dead around 1 p.m., when the two girls entered the store, at 1328 Broadway. The period of gestation was also not known. The medical examiner has scheduled an autopsy of the fetus for Friday, a spokeswoman said, and officials said more information about the case could be available afterward. The police identified the two young women as Tiana Rodriguez, of Brooklyn, and Francis Estevez, of Queens, both 17. The two were charged with petty larceny and possession of stolen property, the police said. The authorities were questioning one of the teenagers, the police said. The other was taken to Bellevue Hospital, but the Police Department did not say why. A manager at the Victoria’s Secret store did not respond to a message left with a sales associate.

Shoplifting and Employee Theft in Retail


‘Mad Men’ Is an Eerie Echo of Advertising Reality

Abstract: THESE days, BBDO has two client rosters. One is composed of the clients the agency actually handles, and the other lists the clients that the agency handles in the make-believe world of “Mad Men.” Since “Mad Men” made its debut on the AMC cable channel in 2007, BBDO has been mentioned in many episodes. But during the most recent season, the fourth, which concluded on Oct. 17, BBDO figured in one of the most significant plot lines, when it picked up the Lucky Strike cigarette account in 1965 from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, the fledgling agency run by the principal “Mad Men” characters. “The unintended and unsponsored ‘product placement’ appears to have generated some increased awareness” for BBDO, Andrew Robertson, chief executive at BBDO Worldwide in New York, a division of the Omnicom Group, wrote in an e-mail. “To date,” he joked, “this has not resulted in any incremental business.” The real denizens of Madison Avenue in the 2000s have avidly followed their fictional counterparts on “Mad Men” in the 1960s since the series started. But the developments of the fourth season seem to have intensified that interest because the stories were perceived as true to life. “Like all dramas, there’s a lot on ‘Mad Men’ that’s unrealistic,” said David Lubars, chairman and chief creative officer at BBDO North America, “but there’s a lot they get right — sometimes, uncomfortably so.” For instance, the loss of Lucky Strike threatened the solvency of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce because it had been, by far, the start-up agency’s largest client. Watching that unfold “hit me right in the solar plexus,” said Carol Cone, a managing director at Edelman in New York, because it brought back memories of a week in 1995 when two large accounts both left an agency in Boston that she owned. “Your confidence is decimated, and you wonder if you’re going to make it,” Ms. Cone said. “I certainly could commiserate.” The idea, said Barbara Lippert, the advertising critic for the trade publication Adweek, that “everything could go up in smoke the next day still keeps agency people up at night.” “Despite all the changes in advertising, despite all the technological advances, some things never change,” she added. “No matter how big you are, you’re still dependent on connections, office politics and the whims of the clients.” Ms. Lippert also praised small touches that added to the veracity of “Mad Men” this season. One was the introduction of a character named Ted Chaough, a partner at an agency, Cutler Gleason & Chaough, that was a rival to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. She said that the unusual name — and its unusual pronunciation, like “Shaw” — evoked Jay Chiat (pronounced “Shy-ett”), whose agency, Chiat/Day, helped change advertising in the ’70s and ’80s. And in an episode about the advocacy of Don Draper, the creative leader of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, that agencies stop handling cigarette accounts — after losing Lucky Strike, of course, not before — there was a reference to Emerson Foote , who in real life worked for tobacco clients but later became a director of the American Cancer Society.  “ ‘Mad Men’ brings back the sex appeal of the advertising industry,” said Al DiGuido, chief executive at Zeta Interactive, a digital agency that monitors discussions in online media like blogs, message boards and Twitter through mining technology it calls Zeta Buzz. “The show has an incredibly strong and vocal group following it,” Mr. DiGuido said, “and they love to talk about it.” In the last month, the overall volume of discussions about “Mad Men” rose to a level higher than at any time since it came on, he added, and the average daily volume exceeded that for shows with higher ratings, like “Glee,” “Jersey Shore” and “Modern Family.” The percentage of discussions of “Mad Men” in social media that were positive also reached a high in the fourth season, Mr. DiGuido said, at 93 percent, compared with 92 percent in the 2009 season, 81 percent in 2008 and 78 percent in 2007. The most common words among positive comments, he added, included “advertising” and variations like “ads”; “products”; “Cadillac,” perhaps referring to the 1962 Coupe de Ville driven by Don Draper; and “Dove,” one of six Unilever brands that sponsored “Mad Men” this season and were featured in commercials that echoed the look of the series. On Twitter, there are multiple accounts for each major character on “Mad Men,” along with accounts for minor characters, deceased characters, spouses, children and even inanimate objects like the Xerox 914 copier, the vending machine and the Dictaphone in the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce office.  According to Networked Insights, a company that uses a technology it calls Social Sense to analyze social media, “Mad Men” finished first on a list of the “top 10 engaged TV shows” from Oct. 15 through Thursday, exceeding the rank of series like “30 Rock” and “House.” Why did the writers of “Mad Men” decide to have Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce lose the Lucky Strike account to BBDO? Characters talk about a decision to consolidate all the tobacco company’s business at BBDO, and in real-life 1965, Lucky Strike and its parent, American Tobacco, were on the BBDO client roster. Other clients then included vintage “Mad Men” brands like Philco electronics, Rexall drugstores and Schaefer beer. Among the 1965 clients that remain on the BBDO roster in 2010 are Armstrong, Campbell Soup, General Electric and Hormel. Hmmm. Perhaps the fifth season will feature a battle over the Spam account.

Advertising and Marketing
Television
Mad Men (TV Program)


Jets’ Burress Still Looking for a Connection

Abstract: FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Plaxico Burress spent two hours each day he served in prison running 300-yard sprints and catching passes from inmates who regarded themselves as some of the N.F.L.’s legendary quarterbacks. “We had a couple of guys who thought they were Sammy Baugh, scrambling Fran Tarkenton, John Elway, Dan Marino,” Burress said. “I played with them all.” Now Burress is back to playing with a real, live N.F.L. quarterback and working to become integrated into his new offense. Burress, who signed with the Jets this summer after serving 20 months on a gun charge at Oneida Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y., had a strong debut and contributed to the offense in ways that transcend statistics, like drawing coverage away from his teammates. But the transition has at times been uncomfortable for the Jets, and Burress and Mark Sanchez are still in the process of developing chemistry in their connection. “He knows we’re Week 2 of a marathon,” Sanchez said. “He’s in it for the long haul. He has a really good feel for this and the longevity of the season, so he’s not fazed about it at all.” In the Jets’ 27-24 win over the Dallas Cowboys in their season opener, Burress had four receptions for 72 yards, all of them in the second half. He caught a 26-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter that started the Jets’ 17-point comeback. Last Sunday, Burress did not have a reception in the Jets’ 32-3 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars , the first time since January 2006 that he did not have a catch. That was because of the Jaguars’ bracketing him with cornerback-safety coverage, a show of respect that opened the field for tight end Dustin Keller, who had six catches for 101 yards and a touchdown. Burress played only about two-thirds of the Jets’ offensive snaps, while Santonio Holmes played about three-quarters of the team’s plays. The Jets often deploy multiple tight end packages that force Burress to the sideline. But Burress, who led the Giants with 12 touchdown catches (and the one that sealed a Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots) in the 2007 season, has acknowledged that his reduced role with the Jets has been an adjustment. “I’ve always been a guy that’s been on the field all the time,” said Burress, who is especially dangerous in the red zone. “I just take it as I’m just not in a certain package or whatever it may be. Maybe I don’t fit the scheme of whatever they’re trying to do at that particular point.” Indeed, the Jets’ coaches appear to still be learning how to use Burress. At times, Coach Rex Ryan has tried to force him the ball. One sequence that crystallized that notion came early in the fourth quarter Sunday, when the Jets had a 29-3 lead. Sanchez threw twice to Burress while near the Jaguars’ end zone. After overthrowing an open Burress on first down, Sanchez tried to connect with a well-covered Burress in the corner of the end zone on third-and-goal from the 5. “We were in the red zone, and he’s obviously a red-zone target for us,” the offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said of that play. “We were still working on some things.” The Jets may have an opportunity to get Burress more involved this weekend in Oakland because of some mismatches he presents with the Raiders’ secondary. For years in Oakland, man-to-man coverage with a safety deep in the middle of the field has been the standard look of the defense. That means the Raiders may be relying on the 6-foot-1 cornerbacks Stanford Routt and Chris Johnson to cover the 6-5 Burress. “If you’re a wide receiver, these are the kind of games you love to play in,” Burress said. Sunday will be the latest step in Burress’s return to the N.F.L., and it could provide a telling indication about where he fits in the Jets’ offense. He said learning the verbiage of the playbook had been the most difficult on-field aspect of his comeback. He has also had to build a rapport with Sanchez, the latest quarterback he has worked with over the past two years. Except the stakes, and the setting, are much different now. EXTRA POINTS Rex Ryan indicated that center Nick Mangold, who has a sprained right ankle, was unlikely to play on Sunday. Mangold did not practice for a second straight day. Colin Baxter would start if Mangold, who has started 82 straight games, cannot play. ... The Jets’ punters and kickers went to the Newark Bears’ baseball stadium to practice kicking on infield dirt. The Raiders’ O.co Coliseum also serves as the home to the Athletics, who played the Texas Rangers on Thursday in their last game there this season.

Football
New York Jets
Burress Plaxico
Sanchez Mark
Ryan Rex


Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls

Abstract: Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive. The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago. Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois , defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona , 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency. To the very end, Mr. McCain’s campaign was eclipsed by an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon, drawing huge crowds epitomized by the tens of thousands of people who turned out to hear Mr. Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago . Mr. McCain also fought the headwinds of a relentlessly hostile political environment, weighted down with the baggage left to him by President Bush and an economic collapse that took place in the middle of the general election campaign. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” said Mr. Obama, standing before a huge wooden lectern with a row of American flags at his back, casting his eyes to a crowd that stretched far into the Chicago night. “It’s been a long time coming,” the president-elect added, “but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.” Mr. McCain delivered his concession speech under clear skies on the lush lawn of the Arizona Biltmore, in Phoenix , where he and his wife had held their wedding reception. The crowd reacted with scattered boos as he offered his congratulations to Mr. Obama and saluted the historical significance of the moment. “This is a historic election, and I recognize the significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight,” Mr. McCain said, adding, “We both realize that we have come a long way from the injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation.” Not only did Mr. Obama capture the presidency, but he led his party to sharp gains in Congress. This puts Democrats in control of the House, the Senate and the White House for the first time since 1995, when Bill Clinton was in office. The day shimmered with history as voters began lining up before dawn, hours before polls opened, to take part in the culmination of a campaign that over the course of two years commanded an extraordinary amount of attention from the American public. As the returns became known, and Mr. Obama passed milestone after milestone — Ohio , Florida , Virginia , Pennsylvania , New Hampshire , Iowa and New Mexico — people rolled spontaneously into the streets to celebrate what many described, with perhaps overstated if understandable exhilaration, a new era in a country where just 143 years ago, Mr. Obama, as a black man, could have been owned as a slave. For Republicans, especially the conservatives who have dominated the party for nearly three decades, the night represented a bitter setback and left them contemplating where they now stand in American politics. Mr. Obama and his expanded Democratic majority on Capitol Hill now face the task of governing the country through a difficult period: the likelihood of a deep and prolonged recession, and two wars. He took note of those circumstances in a speech that was notable for its sobriety and its absence of the triumphalism that he might understandably have displayed on a night when he won an Electoral College landslide. “The road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep,” said Mr. Obama, his audience hushed and attentive, with some, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson , wiping tears from their eyes. “We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there.” The roster of defeated Republicans included some notable party moderates, like Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut , and signaled that the Republican conference convening early next year in Washington will be not only smaller but more conservative. Mr. Obama will come into office after an election in which he laid out a number of clear promises: to cut taxes for most Americans, to get the United States out of Iraq in a fast and orderly fashion, and to expand health care. In a recognition of the difficult transition he faces, given the economic crisis, Mr. Obama is expected to begin filling White House jobs as early as this week. Mr. Obama defeated Mr. McCain in Ohio, a central battleground in American politics, despite a huge effort that brought Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska , back there repeatedly. Mr. Obama had lost the state decisively to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in the Democratic primary. Mr. McCain failed to take from Mr. Obama the two Democratic states that were at the top of his target list: New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Mr. Obama also held on to Minnesota , the state that played host to the convention that nominated Mr. McCain; Wisconsin ; and Michigan , a state Mr. McCain once had in his sights. The apparent breadth of Mr. Obama’s sweep left Republicans sobered, and his showing in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania stood out because officials in both parties had said that his struggles there in the primary campaign reflected the resistance of blue-collar voters to supporting a black candidate. “I always thought there was a potential prejudice factor in the state,” Senator Bob Casey , a Democrat of Pennsylvania who was an early Obama supporter, told reporters in Chicago. “I hope this means we washed that away.” Mr. McCain called Mr. Obama at 10 p.m., Central time, to offer his congratulations. In the call, Mr. Obama said he was eager to sit down and talk; in his concession speech, Mr. McCain said he was ready to help Mr. Obama work through difficult times. “I need your help,” Mr. Obama told his rival, according to an Obama adviser, Robert Gibbs. “You’re a leader on so many important issues.” Mr. Bush called Mr. Obama shortly after 10 p.m. to congratulate him on his victory. “I promise to make this a smooth transition,” the president said to Mr. Obama, according to a transcript provided by the White House .“You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations, and go enjoy yourself.” For most Americans, the news of Mr. Obama’s election came at 11 p.m., Eastern time, when the networks, waiting for the close of polls in California , declared him the victor. A roar sounded from the 125,000 people gathered in Hutchison Field in Grant Park at the moment that they learned Mr. Obama had been projected the winner. The scene in Phoenix was decidedly more sour. At several points, Mr. McCain, unsmiling, had to motion his crowd to quiet down — he held out both hands, palms down — when they responded to his words of tribute to Mr. Obama with boos. Mr. Obama, who watched Mr. McCain’s speech from his hotel room in Chicago, offered a hand to voters who had not supported him in this election, when he took the stage 15 minutes later. “To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn,” he said, “I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too.” Initial signs were that Mr. Obama benefited from a huge turnout of voters, but particularly among blacks. That group made up 13 percent of the electorate, according to surveys of people leaving the polls, compared with 11 percent in 2006. In North Carolina , Republicans said that the huge surge of African-Americans was one of the big factors that led to Senator Elizabeth Dole , a Republican, losing her re-election bid. Mr. Obama also did strikingly well among Hispanic voters; Mr. McCain did worse among those voters than Mr. Bush did in 2004. That suggests the damage the Republican Party has suffered among those voters over four years in which Republicans have been at the forefront on the effort to crack down on illegal immigrants. The election ended what by any definition was one of the most remarkable contests in American political history, drawing what was by every appearance unparalleled public interest. Throughout the day, people lined up at the polls for hours — some showing up before dawn — to cast their votes. Aides to both campaigns said that anecdotal evidence suggested record-high voter turnout. Reflecting the intensity of the two candidates, Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama took a page from what Mr. Bush did in 2004 and continued to campaign after the polls opened. Mr. McCain left his home in Arizona after voting early Tuesday to fly to Colorado and New Mexico, two states where Mr. Bush won four years ago but where Mr. Obama waged a spirited battle. These were symbolically appropriate final campaign stops for Mr. McCain, reflecting the imperative he felt of trying to defend Republican states against a challenge from Mr. Obama. “Get out there and vote,” Mr. McCain said in Grand Junction, Colo. “I need your help. Volunteer, knock on doors, get your neighbors to the polls, drag them there if you need to.” By contrast, Mr. Obama flew from his home in Chicago to Indiana , a state that in many ways came to epitomize the audacity of his effort this year. Indiana has not voted for a Democrat since President Lyndon B. Johnson ’s landslide victory in 1964, and Mr. Obama made an intense bid for support there. He later returned home to Chicago to play basketball, his election-day ritual.

John McCain
2008 Presidential Election
Barack Obama


Chocolate Classes for Families on the Lower East Side

Abstract: AS the mother of an energetic and curious 4-year-old daughter, I’m constantly searching for activities to fill our weekends that go beyond the usual Central Park visit or Staten Island Ferry ride. While the plans I make might entertain my daughter, Meenakshi, they tend to leave me counting the minutes until we’re done. After all, I’m usually sitting on the side and watching as she takes a cooking class or another turn on a kiddie ride. But we recently broke this pattern of her fun and my boredom: Meenakshi and I share a love of high-quality chocolate, and we spent a delightful morning indulging our passion by making treats with the chocolatier Aditi Malhotra, who runs Christian Vautier Le Concept , a French confection shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Ms. Malhotra, 27, offers private and small-group chocolate-making classes for adults with children. The beauty of her system is that grown-ups and their charges — including those as young as 3 — can make their own sweets with premium ingredients. Sessions can be scheduled any day and start at $35. They run an hour or two, depending on everyone’s level of interest and attention. Not surprisingly, Meenakshi and I stayed the maximum time on our recent visit. The fun began as soon as we entered the two-story shop. The street level features a whimsical store and cafe, which is decorated with inviting pictures of cakes and macaroons by the artist Jane Kirby. The tables here seem to invite lingering. Ms. Malhotra started by telling us about herself and how she grew up in the food business, as her grandfather and father ran Indian restaurants in the New York City area. She attended the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan and worked in a series of jobs in the industry before opening the store earlier this year using the name of the Parisian chocolatier Christian Vautier, a family friend. Then it was on to a tour of the lower level, which resembles a mini-Willy Wonka factory. This is where the action happens. Ms. Malhotra personally makes 1,000 pieces every week using milk, dark and white chocolate from Domori , a highly regarded company based in Italy. Her specialties are dark- and white-chocolate-covered puffs; truffles filled with raspberry, key lime and passion fruit, and coated in coconut; chocolate fleur de sel caramels; and fruit and nut bars in milk, dark and white versions. A single chocolate costs between $2 and $4, so this is not vending machine fodder. “There are no additives in the chocolate, and it comes from top-notch cocoa beans,” Ms. Malhotra said. “And I think it’s important that children learn to enjoy the best kinds of sweets possible.” We could choose from an array of options to create, including chocolate lollipops and chocolate-covered marshmallows and truffles. After we donned aprons, Ms. Malhotra had us melting chocolate over a double boiler in the kitchen area; she supervised Meenakshi, while I stirred my own pot. As contradictory as it might seem, my daughter went for the dark chocolate, which she prefers over the sweeter milk chocolate I always go for. We then squeezed bags bulging with a raspberry filling into molds to make fruit bonbons. We placed the pieces on a conveyor belt that went through an enrobing machine, which coated them with an extra-thick layer of chocolate. Then it was onto another treat, and a machine with a rotating steel drum hooked up to a compressor. It sprays chocolate onto whatever you put into it, whether crunchy cocoa cereal or chewy lemon peels. After sampling quite a bit of what we had made, Meenakshi wanted to work with green, pink and blue chocolate to make what she called “rainbow” lollipops. I decided to use Italian hazelnuts, Sicilian pistachios and California almonds and raisins to turn out a collection of decadent bars adorned with gold, red and blue glitter. Ms. Malhotra said that working with children like Meenakshi helped her professionally. “I love watching how playful and free kids get during the classes,” she said. “And it inspires me to push myself to be like that when I’m working with chocolate.” We ended our time at her store with two bags filled with at least two weeks’ worth of chocolate that we shamelessly devoured in half the time. The best part of our excursion was the shared joy on both of our faces every time we took a bite. Schools Whose Courses Are Always Delicious Some other cooking options for adults and children in New York City: HOME COOKING NEW YORK This decade-old cooking school has a team of instructors who will visit your home for a two-and-a-half-hour session that can include both parents. Choices include Italian favorites like risotto and biscotti, as well as dishes like sushi rolls and Thai curries; $275 for three people, homecookingny.com. JEHANGIR MEHTA , who runs the downtown small-plates eateries Mehtaphor and Graffiti and was a contestant on “The Next Iron Chef,” offers private classes for parents and children in many areas of cooking, from desserts to Indian food; starting at $250, jehangirmehta.com SHIVANI VORA

Christian Vautier Le Concept (Manhattan NY Restaurant)


Former Essex Prosecutor Pleads Guilty in Bribe Case

Abstract: NEWARK — A fixture in legal and political circles, Clifford J. Minor has been a police officer, judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer and mayoral candidate. On Tuesday, he added an unflattering entry to his résumé: confessed felon. Mr. Minor admitted that he took a bribe, abetted a false confession and tried to cover his tracks by falsifying a document and lying to investigators — all part of a scheme to help a career criminal avoid a weapons charge. Appearing before Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise in Federal District Court here, Mr. Minor, 68, pleaded guilty to six criminal charges. His lawyer, Thomas R. Ashley, said that based on the plea agreement with federal prosecutors, “we would expect a sentence in the range of 18 to 24 months,” but the judge is not bound by that. Judge Debevoise set sentencing for July 18; some of the charges could carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Ashley said Mr. Minor would not speak about the case outside court. A year ago, Mr. Minor was challenging Mayor Cory A. Booker by promoting his law enforcement experience, which included a stint as the presiding judge of Newark Municipal Court followed by five years as the Essex County prosecutor in the 1990s. Running on a ticket with allies of former Mayor Sharpe James, Mr. Minor received 35 percent of the vote; Mr. Booker received 59 percent. Four months after the election, Paul J. Fishman, the United States attorney for New Jersey, drew a very different picture of Mr. Minor, announcing an indictment of him and two younger men. The charges stemmed from the arrest in 2007 of Abdul Williams, who was charged with illegal gun possession. Prosecutors said Mr. Williams, who had several prior convictions and could have faced a long sentence as a repeat offender, plotted to have Jamal Muhammad, a childhood friend with a cleaner record, confess to the crime. Mr. Minor took $3,500 in two payments from Mr. Williams in return for acting as Mr. Muhammad’s lawyer, escorting him to the Newark police and having him claim the gun was his, although Mr. Minor knew the claim was false. The indictment charges that Mr. Muhammad was paid $1,500, though investigators say he was promised much more. A grand jury discounted Mr. Muhammad’s confession and indicted Mr. Williams on the gun charge. In January 2010, as F.B.I. agents and federal prosecutors were investigating the case, Mr. Minor lied to them about his involvement and produced a bogus backdated retainer agreement in an effort to show that he had worked for Mr. Muhammad, not Mr. Williams. Mr. Muhammad, who was 32 when he was indicted, pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme in November. The case against Mr. Williams, who was 33, is pending. Mr. Minor joins a long line of local politicians with criminal records. Mr. James served a prison sentence on corruption charges. And both of the Essex County executives Mr. Minor served with, Thomas J. D’Alessio and James W. Treffinger, also went to prison.

Mayors
Confessions
New Jersey
Bribery and Kickbacks
Essex County (NJ)


Officer Accused of Brutality Says He Did Nothing Wrong

Abstract: A police officer said on Saturday that he did nothing improper last month when he and other officers stopped and subdued a 24-year-old man in a Brooklyn subway station. The man has claimed that he was sodomized with a piece of police equipment during the confrontation. “I did absolutely nothing wrong,” the officer, Richard Kern, 25, said in a statement released by his lawyer, John D. Patten. Officer Kern and three other police officers stopped the man, Michael Mineo , in the Prospect Park station on Oct. 15. The police have said the officers thought Mr. Mineo was smoking marijuana, but they found no drugs and let him go, issuing him a summons for disorderly conduct. A special grand jury is investigating Mr. Mineo’s claims that Officer Kern and three other police officers tackled him and beat him, and that one officer shoved a piece of equipment into his rectum. Mr. Mineo, a body piercer in a tattoo parlor, was hospitalized after the encounter. One of the witnesses to appear before the grand jury was Kevin Maloney, a transit officer who was involved in the encounter. One law enforcement official has said that Officer Maloney testified that he saw Officer Kern jab a retractable police baton between Mr. Mineo’s buttocks. Another person with knowledge of Officer Maloney’s account has characterized his testimony differently, saying he told grand jurors that Officer Kern had “pushed” or “placed” the baton against Mr. Mineo’s buttocks. Mr. Patten said Officer Kern wanted to make clear that he “absolutely did nothing improper in this instance.” And he said Officer Kern called a “complete lie” news reports that he may have used excessive force in a 2007 arrest. Mr. Patten said Officer Kern had been cleared of wrongdoing by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates claims of police misconduct. The city settled lawsuits against Officer Kern related to that allegation, but said there was no indication of wrongdoing by the officer. A spokesman for the board, Phil Weitzman, declined to comment.

Police Brutality and Misconduct
Mineo Michael
Brooklyn (NYC)
Police Department (NYC)


More Public Sector Workers Are Retiring

Abstract: MADISON, Wis. — As states and cities struggle to resolve paralyzing budget shortfalls by sending workers on unpaid furloughs, freezing salaries and extracting larger contributions for health benefits and pensions, a growing number of public-sector workers are finding fewer reasons to stay. The numbers of retirees are way up in Wisconsin , where more applications to retire have been filed this year than ever before. Workers in California ’s largest public employee pension system have retired at a steadily increasing rate over the last five fiscal years. In New Jersey , thousands more teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public workers filed retirement papers during the past two years than in the previous two years. In part, the flood of retirements reflects a broader demographic picture. Baby boomers, wherever they work, have begun reaching the traditional retirement age. But increasingly workers fear a permanent shift away from the traditional security of government jobs, and they are making plans to get out now, before salaries and retirement benefits retreat further. “You start to feel like, ‘What will they do next?’ ” said Bob McLinn, 63, a labor union president who left his job with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections in March, earlier than he planned, after political leaders pressed to cut benefits and collective bargaining rights for workers. “There’s always been this promise that if you came to work and did your job, at the end there would be your reward — a defined retirement. The idea was you could retire with respect and dignity. But that whole idea has been slashed now, and I felt like, ‘What is the point?’ ” In some places, the rise in retirement has brought welcome and needed financial news. Kansas announced last month that it would save $34.5 million over two years because more than 1,000 workers had agreed to accept cash and health insurance incentives to leave. State officials said they had yet to determine which of the positions of departing workers they considered critical enough to refill. But some experts and workers question the ultimate result of so much leaving, saying it is already leaving some governments short-staffed (and, in some cases, obliged to pay overtime) and at risk of losing institutional knowledge and technical expertise as older workers vanish. “What we’re going to see is a lot of young people reinventing the wheel,” said Karen Gunderson, 56, who retired this year from her information technology job with the State of Wisconsin after 26 years, a few years sooner than she had intended, saying she felt that public workers were being “turned into scapegoats” for a troubled economy. “We’re going to waste a lot of tax dollars with young people attempting things that were tried before. You can get people cheaper, but whether you save money, I don’t know.” The pattern of retirements, while pronounced in some states and towns, has by no means played out everywhere. In fact, a countervailing trend — of delaying retirement and staying put — has been clear since after 2008, when the national recession and the shortage of jobs (and of potential second careers in the private sector) made people queasy about making moves at all. Certainly, the number of state and local public-sector workers has been shrinking since the second half of 2008, a necessary, useful scaling back in the eyes of some political leaders facing major budget shortfalls. Across the nation, there were 71,000 fewer state government workers in November than there were a year ago, and 180,000 fewer local government workers, federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows. But a broad survey of about 100 public retirement systems suggests a rate of retirement that has remained within a relatively steady range in recent years, said Keith Brainard , research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. “Before I would call this a trend, it would need to continue for another year or two,” he said. Still, even with lingering queasiness over jobs and the larger economy, there are other signs that the mood of public workers is turning toward retirement, a worrisome possibility for some already precarious, underfunded pension plans. In 2009, a survey of more than 400 state and local governments found that about 85 percent of public workers were postponing retirement (presumably because of the grave economy), while fewer than 9 percent were accelerating their retirement dates. This year, a similar survey by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence , a nonprofit research group, found 40 percent still delaying their retirements, with nearly a quarter speeding up their retirement dates. Already, the trend is apparent in places where lawmakers have made the clearest calls for decreasing workers’ benefits or increasing their contributions for health care insurance and pension plans. And in the last two years, 41 states have made significant changes to at least one of their retirement plans, the National Conference of State Legislatures found. In Alabama , an unusually high number of school employees — 1,600 — asked to retire this month, leaving some students uncertain midyear about who will be teaching them. Lawmakers there had approved increases to the cost of health insurance for those who retire before they are eligible for Medicare or have fewer than 25 years of service, and the law goes into effect on Jan. 1, setting off a flood of applicants who wanted to beat the change. In Florida , more than twice as many workers applied to be part of a deferred retirement program in May and June as had the year earlier, protecting them from cuts to pension benefits that legislators put into effect as of July 1. And in Ohio , where a law cutting collective bargaining passed this year (and was later repealed ) and where bills are still pending over raising the age and years of service for eligibility for a public-sector pension, applications for retirement rose 39 percent in the first 10 months of the year compared with a year earlier. But here, in Wisconsin, the battle over public workers may have been the loudest. Republican leaders said their only hope of balancing the state’s budget was to require workers to pay more for their pensions and health care premiums and to significantly reduce collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions. Union supporters pushed back, leading an effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker next year over the issue. But government workers also left: 16,785 workers filed retirement applications as of Oct. 31, while in all of 2010, 11,750 workers had done so. “It’s about fear,” said Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association . “A lot of people are seeing this war on public employees and saying, let’s get out.” Governor Walker, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed for this article. For some states, the increase in retirements has been a planned outcome, a budget fixer. In recent years, places like Minnesota and New York offered incentives for employees to retire sooner than they may have planned. In 2010, New York State processed 30,772 retirement applications, more than ever before, and state officials attributed 12,000 of those to an early retirement incentive. The surprise, though, came in 2011, when no such incentive was offered. In a year after a special retirement deal, applications to leave usually drop off. This year, state officials said, they have not.

Retirement
Economy
US states
Pensions and Retirement Plans
Civil service


Dikembe Mutombo and John Calipari Are Among 12 Finalists for Basketball Hall of Fame

Abstract: As famous for his wagging finger and charitable work as he was for his play on the court, Dikembe Mutombo, a four-time N.B.A. defensive player of the year, headlined a list of 12 finalists announced Saturday for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Mutombo, an eight-time All-Star, is second on the N.B.A.’s career blocks list, with 3,289. He also recorded 11,729 points and 12,359 rebounds. Image Dikembe Mutombo is second on the N.B.A.’s career blocks list, with 3,289. Credit Julio Cortez/Associated Press The players joining Mutombo on the ballot are Tim Hardaway, Kevin Johnson, Spencer Haywood and Jo Jo White. Coaches John Calipari, Bill Fitch, Robert Hughes and Bo Ryan and the referee Dick Bavetta round out the men’s ballot. The women’s screening committee nominated Lisa Leslie, a three-time W.N.B.A. most valuable player, and Leta Andrews, a high school coach in Texas for more than 50 years, who holds the record for victories among high school coaches, male or female. To gain induction, finalists need 18 of 24 votes from the honors committee; the class of 2015 will be announced April 6. Louie Dampier, John Isaacs, Lindsay Gaze, Tom Heinsohn and George Raveling, who were directly elected through various Hall of Fame committees, will join the players elected at an induction ceremony in September.

Dikembe Mutombo
John Calipari
Basketball
Basketball Hall of Fame
Hall of fame
Bill Fitch
Bo Ryan
NBA


In Tennis, Role Models of Generation Text Get Younger

Abstract: Things happen fast in tennis — the mood swings, the matches, the generations themselves. This was evident the other day when Melanie Oudin and Caroline Wozniacki — who meet Wednesday in the quarterfinals of the United States Open — were talking about their role models. Oudin, 17, picked an old lady like Justine Henin , all of 27 and currently retired. Wozniacki, 19, chose Martina Hingis , who turns 29 at the end of the month and has retired not once but twice. From that vantage point, the flickering images of Chris Evert and Tracy Austin , in her one-size-too-large dress, up on the giant scoreboard at Arthur Ashe Stadium, belong to ancient history. Kim Clijsters , all of 26, feels halfway between generations. She won the Open all the way back in 2005, and now she has come back with a daughter who is a year and a half old, enjoying the energy of the teenagers.  “I look back and I’m like, wow, you know, they’re young,” Clijsters said after she defeated Li Na of China , 6-2, 6-4, in a quarterfinal on Tuesday to become the first wild card to reach the semifinals of the Open. ( Li , 27, is so old she can remember Andre Agassi when he had long hair; she cited him as her role model, back in the Andre Dynasty.) Clijsters will play Serena Williams, who wore down Flavia Pennetta of Italy, 6-4, 6-3, Tuesday night with murderously accurate or accurately murderous, two-handed backhands and everything else. “That’s something great players can do, and she definitely has it,” Clijsters said in the afternoon about Williams’s ability to turn on the voltage. But Clijsters was also enjoying the fresh faces, the energy, the spontaneity of the two teenagers who will play Wednesday. Clijsters remembered her first Wimbledon, in 1999, when she made it to the quarterfinals against her idol, Steffi Graf . She had to restrain herself from asking for autographs in the locker room, she said Tuesday. Now she is a mother. “Would all the working mothers like to salute Kim Clijsters?” said Pam Shriver , herself a working mom, and once a 16-year-old finalist to Evert back in 1978. Teenagers are part of the glorious history of the Open, which demands new faces, but also leans toward Americans. “I know that the crowd will be behind Melanie next match,” said Wozniacki, who is from Denmark and lists her current home as Monte Carlo. “So that always helps, that’s for sure.” For what it is worth, Oudin was looking stressed by her newfound gallery during practice Tuesday, while Wozniacki seemed more in stride with the shrieks and autograph requests. The exuberance is part of the mood swings. Clijsters had a weird 6-0, 0-6, 6-4 match with Venus Williams on Sunday. The frequent errors and breaks in service in that match and some of the other exciting women’s matches? I attribute them to the expertise and the pressure, although I am sometimes stunned by the derision from the men out there in chat-room land, who voice their contempt of women’s tennis. Granted, the women are not as good or as deep as the men. So why has this Open been so much fun? One reason is that the women play best-of-three sets, which makes one lost set a dangerous event. Some of us find it hard to commit to a men’s match that may take four or five sets, three or four hours. (Then again, I feel the same way about American football games, and Yankees baseball games. Who has that kind of time?) The men’s tour now has best-of-three in all events except the Grand Slams. Adam Helfant , the new president of the Association of Tennis Professionals, said Tuesday that his position about the number of sets — or less explosive rackets, for that matter — was, “Our game doesn’t need much changing,” and he is probably right.  Taking away the best-of-five competition from the Slams would deprive fans of the possibility of baying at the moon in the midnight hour. But still, it’s hard to beat the relatively quick emergence of Oudin and Wozniacki. Oudin has been a joy — like Austin, three decades ago, a killer in disguise. She makes up for lack of brute strength by ranging around the court, placing the ball, not giving up. The fans learned her story fast — how she plays out of the suburbs of Atlanta, with a supportive twin sister who has other goals. On Monday, Oudin wore down Nadia Petrova , a Russian. Now Oudin meets Wozniacki, who thoroughly demoralized Svetlana Kuznetsova , another Russian. This may be called a trend. For the first time since 2001, there are no Russian players in the quarterfinals at the Open, which raises the question of why some of the Russians seem to lack stamina, physical and psychological. The crowd always loves upsets, which is one reason Venus Williams and Serena Williams are not universally loved at the Open. They are sometimes too good for their own good, and they take up the same airspace, with the same history. Their parents , now divorced, must be given great credit for virtually home-schooling these two great players. Whether the parents could accomplish this feat with anybody else’s children is highly questionable. The crowd is fickle. The crowd wants new faces, new stories, every hour on the hour, if possible. So far, the women’s draw has produced its quota.

Tennis
United States Open (Tennis)
Oudin Melanie
Henin Justine
Hingis Martina


Tax to Pay for Health Plan in Illinois Faces Resistance

Abstract: CHICAGO, May 4 — Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich , a second-term Democrat, decided months ago to push a new health care initiative that would be among the most comprehensive in the country. It would offer not only insurance to everyone in Illinois , but also wellness training, special attention to chronic disease and streamlined administration. Unlike efforts in other states, the plan would not simply shift or borrow money from existing programs but would be financed largely by a new tax on gross business receipts. “Every so often, the stars align,” Mr. Blagojevich said Tuesday, explaining his timing by alluding to the domination of elected Democrats in positions of power in Illinois government. “You either seize the moment or squander it.” In this case, timing may not be everything. Although Democrats control the General Assembly, legislators have had a lukewarm response to the health plan, and several leaders who usually find themselves allied with the governor have expressed outright opposition to the new tax. Among them are Mr. Blagojevich’s former running mate, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader. The proposed tax would apply to the gross receipts of businesses that make more than $2 million a year, and would range from 0.08 percent for businesses like retailers or wholesalers to 1.95 percent for service businesses. (Retail sales of food and medicine are exempt.) In addition to his health care plan, Mr. Blagojevich would like to use part of the revenue from the tax to finance improvements in education. He estimates that the tax would generate more than $7 billion a year in net revenue. As the tax code is written now, he argues, big businesses are not carrying their share of the tax burden in Illinois. The proposal has created outrage in the business community, and its unpopularity is threatening to doom the entire health care initiative. “I’ve told the governor it’s time for ‘Plan B’ because a strategic retreat from the G.R.T. is better than overwhelming defeat,” said Mr. Quinn, using a common acronym for the tax. “It’s the wrong remedy for a serious issue. I think we can do much better than that.” Mr. Jackson has taken to the radio waves, denouncing the tax plan as wrongheaded. “It would come through the small-business community like a tsunami,” he said in an interview. “For a substantial number of small businesses and many of our established businesses, the tax would be higher than the profit. That is the real problem with it.” “We all want health care,” Mr. Jackson continued. “But business closure is not good health.” Some corporations have threatened to move out of the state should the tax become real. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce has begun a campaign against both the health care plan and the tax, and the state treasurer, Alexander Giannoulias, an early critic of the receipts tax, said his office had been receiving many complaints. National health care advocates are not surprised by the backlash. From California to Pennsylvania, states, in the absence of federal action, have taken on health care issues, searching for ways to expand insurance coverage for the nation’s nearly 46 million uninsured. While many proposals are being talked about, only three states have been able to reach the kind of consensus necessary to enact sweeping change: Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont. If it became law, the Illinois proposal, officially called Illinois Covered, would be among the most ambitious, health care experts said. It addresses not only the state’s 1.4 million uninsured, but also middle- and working-class families who may be underinsured, regardless of health status. Illinois Covered creates a statewide pool of low-rate insurance plans that anyone can buy. It also offers rebates for middle-income families to help them pay premiums for the state’s program or private coverage, and extends access to coverage for those of very low income through a mechanism similar to Medicaid. It would also allow parents to keep adult children on their family policies until age 29, among other benefits. “You could say it’s ‘courageous’ or you could say it’s ‘not politically feasible,’ but many who look at state reforms say the key is, ‘is the financing adequate?’ ” said Diane Rowland, executive vice president at the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, a national health research group. “It’s not just how you propose to cover people, but are the dollars there to make the coverage real? This proposal seems to be addressing both sides of the equation, talking about coverage while being honest about financing.” The savings generated by revamping the system would be significant, one independent study has found. Kenneth E. Thorpe, chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, concluded that from 2008 to 2011, each dollar spent on Illinois Covered would generate more than $2 in savings. Mr. Thorpe estimated total savings to be $15.6 billion. The plan would cost about $7 billion. Alan Weil, the executive president of the National Academy for State Health Policy, called the plan ambitious in its reach. “If this happens, I’d put it in the same category as Massachusetts as far as a comprehensive plan designed to reach everyone,” Mr. Weil said. “That would put it very much in the lead.” He added, “The big step is getting something enacted.” Mr. Blagojevich has won unlikely battles in the past. In 2005, he defeated a chorus of critics and signed into law a measure that was, at the time, the broadest plan to insure children by any state. This year, the Kaiser Family Foundation credited Mr. Blagojevich with starting a national movement to provide health care to all children. At a news conference here on Tuesday, AARP, a lobby for older Americans, supported the Blagojevich plan. “We’re proud to be able to stand by your side,” said Bob Gallo, the state director for AARP. “Quite frankly, it’s a plan that’s long overdue.” The governor responded: “We need you in this fight for us. We’re up against powerful forces who don’t like what we’re trying to achieve.” With only about a month until the end of the regular legislative session, Mr. Blagojevich has much convincing to do in Springfield, the capital, but he has made it clear that he will not budge on any aspect of the health care plan. He did say, however, that he would listen to “good ideas” about the proposed tax. “If I had a magic wand, I’d wave it and create money for health care policy, but I don’t,” he said. Later he added, “The fairness of what I’m proposing is why I’m all for it.”

Illinois
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Blagojevich Rod R
Politics and Government
Medicine and Health


Queens Students Get Water Lessons by Designing Playground

Abstract: The sixth graders at Stephen A. Halsey Junior High School 157 in Queens have a tough assignment before them: design a new playground that will transform a sea of black asphalt at their school into a recreational oasis — and, while they are at it, help clean up New York City’s waterways. So, in addition to benches, play equipment, ball courts and drinking fountains, their wish list includes a butterfly garden and a gravel-lined turf field. Those features will capture precipitation and prevent it from overloading the city’s sewer system, which, in the case of their Rego Park neighborhood, spews raw sewage into Flushing Bay when it rains. In the process, the children are learning about arcane urban infrastructure and bureaucratese, like “combined storm-sewer runoff.” And they are gaining appreciation for the absorbent powers of trees and grass, as well as roof gardens, rain barrels and permeable pavers — bricks that soak up water. “I always thought the rain ended up in the Atlantic Ocean and that it was cleaned first,” Aryan Bhatt, 11, said. Theirs is one of five new eco-playgrounds that the Trust for Public Land , a nonprofit group, is shepherding through the design and construction process at schools in Queens and Brooklyn. The schools, with asphalt schoolyards, were chosen, in part, for their proximity to overtaxed wastewater-treatment plants. Sites for five more playgrounds are now being scouted. “Each child has a design notebook, and we encourage them to be landscape architects,” said Mary Alice Lee, the trust’s director of the city playgrounds program. “It’s our goal to capture one inch of rainwater.” The program has unfolded as the city and state formalized an agreement under which the city would pay for novel techniques to address its biggest water-quality challenge. In March, the city committed $2.4 billion in public and private money over 18 years to environmentally sound solutions. The approach is a departure from more traditional methods to control sewage overflow, like storage tanks and tunnels. To help the students visualize the problem, the Trust for Public Land on Thursday brought its aptly named “Sewer in a Suitcase” to Stephanie Lamere’s sixth-grade classroom. Inside the case, which was created by the nonprofit Center for Urban Pedagogy, was a model of a city street, with an apartment building, stores and pipes leading to a river. Maddalena Polletta, who works for the trust, poured copper-colored glitter into the buildings to represent waste water, and sprinkled some on the streets for good measure to take the place of dog feces, litter and oil from cars. She then poured a trickle of water into the building and over the streets, and the students watched as it flowed cleanly through one of two clear-plastic tubes into a mock waterway. But when Ms. Polletta poured a larger amount of water, all the glitter gushed out of the second tube. That tube represented a treatment plant’s outfall pipe, which discharges raw sewage along with storm water into rivers when it rains, not just in New York but in many aging cities with combined sewer systems. “Sometimes just a quarter-inch of rain will overflow the system,” Ms. Polletta explained. “Sewage is released into the bay about 50 times a year. Last year, we had more rain than we’ve ever had before.” Then she placed a green sponge on a roof and poured water over it. She squeezed out the sponge to show all the rain that was captured. She did the same with an ecologically friendly paving stone. The students revisited their playground wish list, highlighting items with green stickers that had the potential to absorb some of the estimated 600,000 gallons of rainwater a year that drains from the current schoolyard. The turf field, meditation garden, vegetable garden and grass suddenly had new meaning. Melissa Potter Ix, a principal of SiteWorks, a landscape architecture firm that is working with the trust, used a mathematical formula to show the children how to maximize the field’s absorbency. “If we put one foot of gravel under your turf field,” she said, “we can capture one inch of rain.” Gravel is just the beginning. In a pilot playground at a school in Brooklyn, the Trust for Public Land put a green roof on the storage shed. It outfitted a gazebo with a rain barrel to collect water for a vegetable garden. It sloped a stretch of asphalt toward a second garden. And it expanded the tree beds. The trust has ample experience with conventional playgrounds. In recent years, it has designed and built 54 playgrounds at schools across the city and designed an additional 123 for schools on behalf of the city’s parks department. Those were created as part of a city program to increase access to green space by converting schoolyards into community playgrounds. But the trust’s latest initiative has a more ambitious goal, as the city prepares for climate change and the increased rainfall scientists say it will bring. “We all have to be stewards of our natural resources,” said Christopher K. Kay, the trust’s chief operating officer, referring to the children in Ms. Lamere’s class. “It’s essential that this be communicated in a way that’s engaging and creative. When they’re excited, they’ll remember it.”

Water
Playgrounds
New York City
Trust for Public Land
Sewers and Sewage
Queens (NYC)
Education (K-12)
Parks and Other Recreation Areas
Waste Materials and Disposal


Security Checks on Flights to U.S. to Be Revamped

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama has signed off on new security protocols for people flying to the United States , establishing a system that uses intelligence information and assessment of threats to identify passengers who could have links to terrorism, a senior administration official said Thursday. The new approach will replace a broader layer of extra scrutiny that had been imposed recently on all passengers from 14 countries, most of which are Muslim. The change, which will be announced Friday by the Department of Homeland Security , is the result of a review of security at international airports ordered by Mr. Obama after the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit . The system, which will be put in place this month, applies only to travelers flying into the United States. “It’s much more tailored to what intelligence is telling us and what the threat is telling us, as opposed to stopping all individuals from a particular nationality or all individuals using a particular passport,” the administration official said Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity in advance of the formal announcement. The intelligence-based security system is devised to raise flags about travelers whose names do not appear on no-fly watch lists, but whose travel patterns or personal traits create suspicions. The system is intended to pick up fragments of information — family name, nationality, age or even partial passport number — and match them against intelligence reports to sound alarm bells before a passenger boards a plane. The new security protocols will be built around present-day threat situations, officials said, where fragments of intelligence from various threat streams are considered. So, for example, if terrorist groups are recruiting college-age men who have spent time in Asia and have been to the Middle East , that type of travel pattern would raise a flag to officials at international airports. “It is much more surgically targeting those individuals we are concerned about and have intelligence for,” the administration official said, speaking to a small group of reporters at a White House briefing on Thursday afternoon. The official added: “This is not a system that can be called profiling in the traditional sense. It is intelligence-based.” Officials said intelligence information from a variety of United States agencies would be made available to foreign airlines, whose employees and security officials would have wide latitude to stop passengers, or not. If this system had been in place on Dec. 25, when a 23-year-old Nigerian man wearing explosives-lined underwear boarded a Northwest plane, the administration official said, “we would have had one more chance to stop him.” The bombing attempt exposed significant flaws in how the administration collected and shared intelligence reports. The president said the government had sufficient information to uncover the terror plot to bring down the commercial jetliner, but had “failed to connect those dots.” The system to be announced Friday replaces the mandatory screening — including full-body pat downs — that was hastily set up in January. Citizens of Afghanistan , Algeria , Lebanon , Libya , Iraq , Nigeria , Pakistan , Saudi Arabia , Somalia , Yemen , Cuba , Iran , Sudan and Syria have also been subjected to extra checks of their carry-on baggage before boarding planes for the United States. While the United States has never formally confirmed the names of the 14 countries where passport holders face automatic additional scrutiny, they have been widely reported. Administration officials said terrorist organizations had turned their recruiting efforts elsewhere. For the last three months, thousands of people flying to the United States each day have faced additional security measures simply because they were from one of the 14 countries. But officials said they feared such broad measures did not provide an adequate filter to identify people suspected of being involved in potential terror plots. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano , who will announce the new system, has traveled to several countries in recent months to enlist the cooperation of foreign airlines and governments. She presented her findings to Mr. Obama this week, administration officials said, and he approved the new system. Security protocols from several countries were studied as officials from the United States put together this new system. But a senior administration official said it was not based on one specific system, but rather modified “to apply against the terrorism threat in the aviation sector.” Currently, the only information typically checked before a passenger boards an airplane is the name, date of birth and nationality — information found in a passport, which is compared against the terror watch lists. If a match is made between a passenger and the watch list, the passenger can be denied the right to board, or subjected to intense screening. But the Homeland Security Department separately already collects much more information on the travel patterns of passengers headed to the United States, including other stops made on the way to an American airport, how the passenger paid for the ticket as well as other details contained in the reservation, like what hotel a passenger might be staying in, or if he or she is traveling alone. This information is also sent to the United States before the flight takes off, often 48 hours in advance. But typically, this information, known as Passenger Name Record, is consulted only by Customs and Border Protection agency officials, once the plane is in the air, as they weigh whether to allow the person to clear customs. American security officials have sparred with their counterparts in Europe to protect their right to collect this data. The information that intelligence agencies will use could include the Passenger Name Record, officials said, as well as information collected from a visa application or previous visits to the United States. Yet given the huge number of flights heading to the United States each day, handling each passenger on a case-by-case basis — rather than doing mandatory secondary screening for people from certain countries — will create logistical challenges and is likely to raise new questions about racial profiling. The senior administration official dismissed suggestions that the intelligence-based system of extra security could be considered profiling. “We’re talking about different features, characteristics, attributes of individuals who reportedly are trying to carry out terrorist attacks,” the official said. “We’re trying to match those intelligence indicators to the people who are trying to come to the United States.”

Security
Terrorism
Homeland Security
Airlines
Islam
Barack Obama


Seattle Seahawks at Cincinnati Bengals Preview

Abstract: Seahawks (2-2) at Bengals (4-0) 1 p.m., Eastern time. Line: Bengals by 3 N.F.L. Week 5 scores and highlights Could this be the year that the Bengals finally break through to become more than a team that is good enough to make the playoffs but never advances? (Cincinnati is 0-6 in the playoffs under Coach Marvin Lewis, who is in his 13th season.) So far in 2015, this sort of progress seems entirely possible. Leading the leap forward has been Andy Dalton, who has gone from being a good quarterback to a very good one, a player who can make the type of big plays that win games. Dalton has completed 67.2 percent of his passes through four games for 1,187 yards with nine touchdowns and only one interception. His 123.0 passer rating dwarfs his previous career high of 88.8 in 2013. Dalton’s evolution mirrors the team’s growth. Coincidence? Probably not. The Seattle Seahawks , the defending N.F.C. champions, were 0-2 out of the gate, but their vaunted defense looks to be back to form after the return of safety Kam Chancellor. Chancellor’s impact could not have been more apparent than it was at the end of Monday’s game against the Lions, when he forced Calvin Johnson to fumble the ball just before he could cross the goal line for what would have almost certainly been a decisive touchdown. Opponents are averaging just 3.86 yards per play when Chancellor has been on the field and 6.02 when he has not. On offensive, quarterback Russell Wilson returns to his hometown to face a tough Bengals defense after being sacked six times by the Lions in Week 4. He may be without the injured Marshawn Lynch once again. PICK: BENGALS


Briton Arrested Over Cyberattack on U.S. Defense Department

Abstract: LONDON — A 23-year-old British man has been arrested over a cyberattack in which data was stolen from the United States Department of Defense, the police said on Friday. The man was detained Wednesday morning by detectives from the National Crime Agency of Britain on suspicion of offenses linked to a hacking that took place in June, said a spokesman for the agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, in line with official policy. The man, who was arrested in Sutton Coldfield, close to Birmingham in the West Midlands, has not been identified and has not yet been charged, the spokesman said. During the cyberattack, data was stolen from a messaging service used by Defense Department employees around the world, including contact details for about 800 people consisting of names, titles, email addresses and phone numbers, the British agency said in a statement. “It also included device information for approximately 34,400 devices including IMEI numbers, which are the unique codes used to identify a mobile device,” the agency added. “No sensitive data was obtained, and none of the data obtained could be used as personally identifiable information or compromise U.S. national security interests.” The agency said that screenshots of the Defense Department system had been posted online, apparently to prove that the cyberattack had been successful. A message on a website called Pastebin , believed to have been posted by the suspect, included claims like, “We’re in your bases, we control your satellites. The missiles shall rein upon thy who claim alliance, watch your heads,” the agency said. Another read, “Department of Defense has no defenses.” In the statement from the British agency, Jeffrey Thorpe, special agent in charge at the Defense Criminal Investigative Service of the Defense Department, said the arrest showed the “commitment and the joint ongoing efforts among international law enforcement to stop cybercriminals in their tracks.” “D.C.I.S. special agents will use every tool at their disposal to pursue and bring to justice those that attack the Department of Defense,” he added, using an abbreviation for his unit. Andy Archibald, deputy director of the British crime agency’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said that the arrest was one of 57 this week across Britain for digital offenses, the result of a collaboration between “law enforcement, industry and government, that is at the heart of fighting cybercrime.” “Criminals need to realize that committing crime online will not make them anonymous to law enforcement,” Mr. Archibald said in a statement. “We are continuously working to track down and apprehend those seeking to utilize computers for criminal ends, and to disrupt the technical networks and infrastructures supporting international cyber crime.”

Great Britain
Hacker (computer security)
US Military
Pentagon
Cyberwarfare


Europe Puts Pressure on Greece to Meet Budget Targets

Abstract: BRUSSELS — European officials sought on Monday to keep the pressure on Greece to honor its previously agreed spending and privatization targets as they wrestled with the need to help Athens bridge a funding gap that could reach €15 billion over the next two years. A review of the Greek government’s finances by the so-called troika of international lenders “is taking too long,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who acts as chairman of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, said before the group’s monthly meeting. “It’s been going on since September-October, and I think it’s in the joint interest of us and the Greek government to finalize it as soon as possible.” Greece has already received two bailouts and is staring at a shortfall of €4 billion, or $5.5 billion, this year. A third bailout, estimated at €7 billion to €11 billion, will very likely be necessary next year, economists say. A team of inspectors from the troika — the European Central Bank, European Commission and the International Monetary Fund — is waiting for Athens to show progress on its commitments before lenders decide whether to release more money. Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said earlier Monday that he had seen data from the Greek government and was confident that a successful outcome would be reached. But at a news conference after the meeting of euro zone officials, Mr. Dijsselbloem suggested that Greek officials and the troika inspectors were at a virtual impasse. “We’ve made it quite clear that we’re not going to come back to it until there is a final positive conclusion to the review,” Mr. Dijsselbloem said. Mujtaba Rahman, the director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm that evaluates political crisis, said that Greece was “slipping on all of its fiscal and structural targets.” For the first time since the Greek crisis began, the government has reached a primary budget surplus — before interest payments — and “that makes the government believe that it can act more autonomously,” Mr. Rahman said. The 2014 spending gap, which resulted when the European Central Bank decided that its mandate would not allow it to roll over its funding for Greek bonds could be covered with money earmarked for recapitalizing weak banks, an idea supported by several euro zone governments. But those funds may well be needed for their original purpose, because the E.C.B. is carrying out a careful study of banks’ financial situation this year, and there is concern that these “stress tests” could reveal a need for new capital among some lenders. Regardless of how Europe manages to finesse it, Mr. Rahman said, “The Greeks don’t believe the E.U. will let them default on a debt to the European Central Bank.” In a bit of awkward timing, Greece currently holds the presidency of the European Union, a largely ceremonial role that rotates among the Union’s members every six months. Drumming up support among Greece’s partners for additional aid will be tricky as long the country falls short of the goals it has agreed to. But officials in Brussels are also conscious that elections for the European Parliament are nearing, and that Greece’s fragile government has only limited room to maneuver in the face of strong opposition to the austerity measures that have contributed to high unemployment and a contraction of more than 25 percent in the size of the country’s economy since the crisis began.

Euro
Greece
European Central Bank
European Commission
EU
Euro Crisis


$4.8 Million Sought From Morgan Stanley in Electricity Price-Fixing Case

Abstract: WASHINGTON — An electricity price-fixing scandal thought to have cost New York consumers about $300 million has led to a proposed settlement with Morgan Stanley for $4.8 million. But the proposal has brought complaints from a consumer group, which points out that the company took in four times that much in the scheme . In February, a judge approved a settlement against another defendant, the KeySpan Energy Corporation , which had a complex deal using derivatives that gave it a stake in the profits of a competitor, Astoria Generating Company . KeySpan then closed some of its generators, pushing up revenue for its remaining power and for Astoria’s; the move also benefited generators around the state not involved in the scheme. KeySpan did not admit wrongdoing but paid $12 million. Now the Justice Department is seeking $4.8 million from Morgan Stanley , which acted as an intermediary in the deal: according to prosecutors, Morgan Stanley realized revenues of $21.6 million on it. The settlement would be a so-called disgorgement of illicit profits, which is unusual in cases like this, which was brought under the Sherman Antitrust Act. One consumer advocate, AARP, said the proposed settlement, like the first, was too lenient . “I don’t understand how the government thinks this will deter anyone,” said Gerry Norlander, a consultant on the case for AARP. The group filed a comment with the department last week calling for tougher punishment. AARP also wants whatever money is recovered to be paid to ratepayers and not the Treasury. The Justice Department said in the KeySpan settlement that it had no mechanism for doing that. Morgan Stanley had no comment. The Justice Department would not say how it arrived at the $4.8 million figure. In a court filing, it said, “Disgorgement will effectively fulfill the remedial goals of the Sherman Act to prevent and restrain antitrust violations, as it will send a message of deterrence to those in the financial services community considering the use of derivatives for anticompetitive ends.” A spokeswoman for the department, which is accepting comments until Dec. 30, would not say whether others had been filed. All the comments and the department’s replies will eventually be published and submitted to Judge William H. Pauley III of Federal District Court in Manhattan, who will decide whether to approve the settlement. The case has raised concerns about the structure of the electricity market in New York. The commodity at issue was electric generating capacity, which utilities like Consolidated Edison are required to buy in an auction. If the auction price is bid up, utilities all over the state pay the higher price. The Justice Department’s investigation grew out of complaints from Con Edison that the market for capacity had been artificially inflated. Con Ed estimated that consumers around the state had paid nearly $300 million extra.

Morgan Stanley
KeySpan Energy Corporation
Justice Department
Antitrust Laws and Competition Issues
New York State
Electric Light and Power
Astoria Generating Co


2 Women Hurt in Robbery at Hotel Near J.F.K. Airport

Abstract: A woman who had traveled to New York with her daughter was shot and her daughter injured after they were robbed outside a hotel near Kennedy International Airport , the authorities said on Friday. The two women, whose names were not released, had come from Baltimore, and the daughter was preparing to leave for a trip abroad. They arrived just after 8 p.m. on Thursday at the Hampton Inn at 144-10 135th Avenue, near the Belt Parkway, in South Ozone Park, Queens, the police said. The mother, 53, went inside the hotel, and the daughter, 20, got into the driver’s seat of their vehicle, when a man came up and demanded money from the daughter, the police said. She said she did not have any, and the man hit her on the head with his gun and stole four rings from her. The man then confronted the mother as she left the hotel, and he fired his gun once, hitting her in the torso, the police said. He ran off with her handbag and got into a white Volkswagen Jetta that sped away, driven by another man. The mother was hospitalized in critical but stable condition, and the daughter, also hospitalized, was listed in stable condition on Friday. The police were still searching for the assailant and the driver on Friday night.

Robbery
Queens
Assault
JFK Airport
Ozone Park Queens


Mad Dog Is Unleashed

Abstract: Chris Russo began life at Sirius XM on Monday in a transparent booth in the satellite radio company’s Manhattan lobby, a liberated Dog under glass, freed to pontificate, go ballistic and control his new domain that will soon include a channel of his own. For this, he will receive what is reported to be $15 million over five years. It pays to talk funny. It’s good to be the man described in Sirius on-air promos as “the most irreverent figure to stand on two feet.” Yes, it’s good to be the Mad Dog, a sobriquet licensed by WFAN, but which came along as part of his deal to go to Sirius. Russo has no partner and is happy to be making the only noise, relieved of the daily tension of five and a half hours at WFAN with Mike Francesa, whom he divorced last month after a professional marriage of nearly 19 years. Russo’s secession from the “Mike and the Mad Dog” nation-state will put the exes in competition from 2 to 6:30 p.m. Eastern. “It’s very easy and low-key,” Russo said. “Mike’s got his thing. I’ve got mine.” And he’s no longer laboring in the subterranean cavern that is the WFAN studio in Astoria, Queens. Now he has windows. Russo said before his show that he was not nervous, just concerned that his voice, that not-so-tender instrument of laryngeal chaos, could tolerate life as a solo tool. He has 46 minutes an hour to fill; no longer will his time be frittered away on traffic, weather, too many commercials or all those updates, which cut his hourly load at WFAN to 33 or 34 minutes. Can he speak, untethered from Mikey, for 1,150 minutes a week without trauma? “I’ve got to get that drink Madden has, the one Pavarotti gave him,” he told his agent, Sandy Montag, who also represents John Madden, before the show. His move to the national stage, he said, required that he begin with a national story, not the Mets’ bullpen woes. So he picked Denver’s 39-38 win over San Diego. That game was distinguished, if that is the word, by the referee Ed Hochuli’s inadvertent whistle, which turned a fumble by Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler into an incomplete pass, and led to the 2-point conversion that gave Denver a victory. Russo now had a target: Hochuli. “He’s got all those big muscles he likes to show off,” Russo said. “He likes airtime,” he added. On behalf of a grateful nation, Russo rhetorically exiled Hochuli to officiate lesser games for the remainder of his days. “To me, Hochuli preens a lot,” he said. “If you like to preen so much, you can’t make that kind of mistake.” (Scientists will have to explore the correlation between faulty judgments by men in stripes and their primping and strutting.) Opposite him on WFAN, Francesa opened his show with the Mets, moved on to the Jets, then a broader N.F.L. tableau, including the Broncos-Chargers game. He was not listening to Russo. “He was on against me!” he said. “But I figured he’d do what he used to do on his Saturday show, but base it more on national stuff.” Together, they were a potent pair. In the spring Arbitron rating book, they posted a 5.3 among men 25 to 54, second best in the New York market. Russo will now be judged, in part, by the notice he attracts to Sirius and subscription growth. Russo understands the idiosyncratic performer he is. He is unusual. He is loud. He is silly. He will mispronounce words (“Darth Varder” slipped his lips Monday). He will trample ad copy (his version of the Spongetech car sponge illustrates his joy of mangling). He will, as he did on WFAN, continue to hate the Yankees. His arms flail in a fashion that suggests he might lose his well-defined persona if he were ever required to sit full-time on his hands. And now, he and his listeners can utter dirty words, which is not necessarily his style.  “I’m going to annoy you some days,” Russo told his audience, sitting at a hexagonal desk, with the USA Today sports section in front of him and bifocals perched low on his nose. “I’m going to bother you some days. You’ll say, ‘His opinions are awful’ or ‘He doesn’t love my team,’ or ‘He knows nothing about hockey.’ ” He added: “Everything you can say, I’ve heard.” But all that he said, he didn’t remember. In mid-tirade, early in the show, he asked, “Who cares about Derek Jeter with that stupid hit thing with Lou Gehrig?” (Translation: Jeter tied Gehrig for most career hits at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.) Later on, when Joe Torre called in to pay tribute to Russo, he asked the manager of the first-place Dodgers about Jeter’s hit as if it were truly a remarkable feat. A caller then reminded him that he “folded like a cheap suit” for Torre. “You’re right, I played soft,” he said (almost) abashedly.

Russo Chris
Francesa Mike
Sirius XM Radio
WFAN-AM


Ryan Pick Shifts Focus From Economy to Ideology

Abstract: DES MOINES — Four years ago, John Brooks cast his ballot for Barack Obama , becoming one of the voters won over by his promise for changing Washington. This time, he had been undecided, but he said Mitt Romney made his decision easier by placing Representative Paul D. Ryan on the Republican ticket. The choice pushed him back to President Obama , said Mr. Brooks, 43, a sales manager at a Chevrolet dealership, who said that until now he had thought Mr. Romney was really a moderate, and he had been open to voting for him before he picked a running mate whose views on the budget he found extreme. “Romney and someone else could have been a great team,” Mr. Brooks said Wednesday, a day after meeting the president at a restaurant in Cedar Falls, Iowa, during a stop on Mr. Obama’s three-day bus tour of the state. The selection of Mr. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, has energized the party’s base and brought fresh enthusiasm and bigger crowds to the Romney campaign. It also has awakened casual Democratic voters like Mr. Brooks who recoil at a Republican budget and tax policy they see as unfair to the middle class. But the past several days have also brought evidence of a subtle but broad strategic shift by Mr. Romney, one that many Congressional Republicans are concerned could divert attention from job creation, the issue they think will work best for the party. In the midst of an election in which few voters have not already taken sides, he is now running a campaign more focused on energizing an anti-Obama coalition than on trying to expand the universe of Romney voters with an argument that he is the most qualified economic steward. Mr. Obama has been responding in kind, opening a deeply divisive period in the race in which firing up hard-core partisans is taking priority over trying to pursue relatively small numbers of undecided voters in the middle. This week has unfolded in a series of harsh exchanges between the candidates, with the president mocking his rival’s character, and Mr. Romney accusing Mr. Obama of disgracing the presidency by waging a “campaign of division and anger and hate.” Persuasion, especially on the Republican side, has given way to partisan stimulation. A sharp focus on the economy is giving way to ideology and personality. For months, Mr. Romney tried making inroads among voters who were disappointed with, but not necessarily angry at, Mr. Obama. Republican groups have run television advertisements taking a softer approach by telling voters to feel no guilt for not supporting Mr. Obama. Yet after a summer of pummeling from Democrats, Mr. Romney is returning the scorching fire in hopes of expanding his support among Republicans who more than anything want to turn Mr. Obama out of office in November. The traditional balance between motivating core supporters without scaring off independent voters may be different in this election cycle, strategists in both parties say, because such a small share of people are truly independent and potentially open to either candidate. A series of recent polls in six swing states showed that only 5 percent of voters were undecided and only about 1 in 10 likely voters who had chosen a candidate said they were open to switching. At this point four years ago, more than 1 in 4 voters nationwide said they might change their minds. “There is a smaller slice of undecided voters out there than usual,” said Joel Benenson, the chief pollster for the president’s re-election campaign. Republicans, he said, “may think that their only chance of winning this is by maximizing their base, but I don’t believe this election is a base election.” For Mr. Obama, there is probably more of an opportunity to capture some moderate voters who oppose the direction that Mr. Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and other House Republicans have moved in. But Mr. Obama still has to persuade some centrists that he can be trusted with the deficit and the economy and that he is not culturally out of step with them. The strategic shifts by the candidates mirror a bigger change in the nature of the race. It is no longer solely a referendum on the economic record of Mr. Obama; rather, on the choice of approaches over the future of Medicare , the popular health insurance program for retirees, and the role and scope of government. The Romney campaign is testing whether it can expand the successful Republican coalition from 2010, when the party, on the basis of an anti-Obama and very conservative message, won control of the House and expanded its strength at all levels of government. It is not simply a base strategy, aides said, but a plan to capitalize on the rejection of Mr. Obama’s approach that they say is coursing through the country. “We’re going to be able to make a very compelling argument to people in the middle that we need a change and Obama isn’t the change they signed up for,” said Neil Newhouse, the pollster for Mr. Romney. “When you really probe, people are upset with spending, the deficit and the debt. It goes beyond jobs and the economy, and there is a sense things are out of control.” For Mr. Romney, several benefits of selecting Mr. Ryan have already become clear. He has finally drawn praise from conservatives, including those who have long been tepid. And he has become a stronger and more confident campaigner with a partner at his side, advisers say, who has an easygoing style that could help improve Mr. Romney’s connection to voters. The Romney campaign is taking pains to track down and quash any criticism in Republican circles about any potential downsides of Mr. Ryan on the ticket, including that the campaign debate over Medicare is fraught with risk for other candidates in the party. Interviews with nearly a dozen Republicans on Congressional and Senate campaigns said in near unison that they worried that the economic focus of the race had been overshadowed. It is a question that may not be answered until Election Day. Will a surge of conservative enthusiasm for the Republican ticket outweigh any potential falloff among voters who supported Mr. Obama in 2008 and are open to changing their minds this year? Mr. Brooks, the Iowa man who had counted himself in that category, said his mind was made up before Mr. Obama unexpectedly stopped by his table at the Pump Haus restaurant in downtown Cedar Falls on Tuesday. “We had no idea he was showing up,” he said. “We really didn’t talk politics.”

Presidential Election of 2012
Ryan Paul D Jr
Obama Barack
Romney Mitt
Republican Party
Democratic Party


Plea Agreement by 2 Judges Is Rejected in Pennsylvania

Abstract: Citing obstruction of justice, a federal judge rejected the plea agreement of two former Pennsylvania county judges who pleaded guilty in February to a kickback scheme that involved sending juveniles to private detention facilities. The decision opens the way for the men to be sentenced by the judge directly or face a jury trial. The ex-judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of the Luzerne County juvenile court and Michael T. Conahan of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. In a highly critical order , issued Friday, Judge Edwin M. Kosik of Federal District Court in Scranton, Pa., said he based his decision on the comments and conduct of the two men after they entered guilty pleas to serve 87 months in prison. Judge Kosik said the presentence report prepared by probation officers found that Mr. Conahan “refused to discuss the motivation behind his conduct, attempted to obstruct and impede justice and failed to clearly demonstrate affirmative acceptance of responsibility with his denials and contradiction of evidence.” “Defendant Ciavarella is less obstructive,” the judge continued, “but instead has resorted to public statements of remorse, more for his personal circumstances, yet he continues to deny what he terms ‘quid pro quo,’ his receipt of money as a finder’s fee, not withstanding the government’s abundance of evidence of his routine deprivation of children’s constitutional rights by commitments to private juvenile facilities he helped to create in return for a ‘finder’s fee’ in direct conflict with his judicial roles.” Lawyers for the judges declined to comment. Judge Kosik said the plea agreements were well below the sentencing guidelines. The men face a maximum penalty of 25 years, a fine of $250,000, a maximum term of supervised release of up to 5 years to be determined by the court, Judge Kosik said.

Judges
Pennsylvania
Ciavarella Mark A Jr
Conahan Michael T
Decisions and Verdicts