An ‘Exemplary’ Foster Father, a String of Suspicions and Sexual-Abuse Charges

Abstract: When New York City needed foster care for vulnerable boys with emotional problems, the answer was often the Long Island home of Cesar Gonzales-Mugaburu. Over two decades, the city’s child welfare agency sent 95 boys to live with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, according to state records. Other child welfare agencies turned to him during that time as well. In all, 106 boys were placed with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, as he became a sort of storybook hero to child welfare workers struggling to find suitable homes for troubled children. Yet some of the boys who had been in his care tried to tell a different story to anyone who would listen — a school guidance counselor, or social workers. Anonymous tipsters called a child-abuse hotline that feeds reports into a statewide database. Some of the reports alleged bizarre neglect, like refusing to replace a child’s broken glasses or not letting a child shower. Other reports, from as recently as last April and as far back as the 1990s, accused Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu of sexual abuse. But the investigations did not lead to criminal charges or apparently to any limitations on his role as a foster parent. So the four-bedroom house in the hamlet of Ridge, N.Y., with a backyard pool and water slide, continued to serve as a destination for foster children, placed in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s care by a Long Island nonprofit, SCO Family of Services, that is paid tens of millions of dollars a year by New York City. For eight of the children, who were adopted by Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, the house became a permanent home. But the long run of suspicions ultimately caught up with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, and last month prosecutors in Suffolk County charged him with sexually abusing at least five children and endangering two others. It is one of the most damning episodes to strike the region’s child welfare system in recent years, and investigators believe other children may have been abused. Interviews with law enforcement and child welfare officials and information from state child-protection records document a trail of suspicions and a failure of oversight by SCO and by the government agencies that shared responsibility for the welfare of the children placed in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s care. Again and again, agencies in different jurisdictions apparently failed to share crucial information that might have kept children out of harm’s way. Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was the subject of at least 12 complaints over the past decade, according to an official briefed on entries to the Statewide Central Register , as the database of abuse reports is known. SCO was aware of the reports of suspected abuse, but under its contract with the city’s Administration for Children’s Services , the organization was not required to tell the city, which this week changed the terms of its contract to mandate such reports. Rose Anello, a spokeswoman for SCO, said the nonprofit’s policy is to inform the city after notifying the State Office of Child and Family Services about each report of abuse, as it is required to do. “We believe that the policy was followed,” Ms. Anello said, but declined to provide documentation, citing confidentiality laws. Joanne Wasserman, a spokeswoman for the Administration for Children’s Services, said the agency never received such notifications. The State Office of Child and Family Services catalogs such reports — screening 300,000 calls a year through the hotline — and relays cases to local child welfare agencies to investigate. But the state does not flag individuals based on allegations that local investigators ultimately deem unfounded, as was the case with those against Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu. The Administration for Children’s Services, having allowed nearly 100 of its wards to be placed outside the city in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s home, did little to track their care. Instead, the city relied on Suffolk County, which, as the local jurisdiction where the children were living, bore responsibility for investigating reports of abuse. Image Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu Credit New York Police Department The police and the child welfare agency in Suffolk did investigate reports involving Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu and children from the city, according to the police. But the county had stopped allowing Suffolk children to be placed with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu more than a decade ago after a sexual-abuse allegation involving a foster child from the county. Justin Meyers, a spokesman for the county government, declined to say what information, if any, the child welfare agency had provided to city officials about individual investigations or about the earlier decision to stop placing Suffolk children with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu. Ms. Wasserman said the city agency was unaware of that decision until after the charges were announced last month. Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, 59, has pleaded not guilty, and in a jailhouse interview, he told The Daily News the allegations were not true. “ I don’t know anything about it ,” he told The News. His lawyer, Donald A. Mates Jr., said this week that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu “vehemently” denied the allegations. The unsettling nature of the charges, the prospect of more former foster children coming forward with allegations and the warning signs cataloged in state records have shaken the region’s child welfare system. Gladys Carrión , the city child welfare commissioner, said there were “gaps” in communication within the entire foster care system, including her agency. But Ms. Carrión also said SCO had performed poorly. “I have to acknowledge that,” she said. “There were many things that we were unaware of and things that they missed that they should have been doing differently that they were required to do.” The city’s child welfare agency has stopped placing children through SCO, except when they are going to relatives, and this week the state ordered other local child welfare agencies to similarly restrict their work with SCO. Ms. Carrión said the city would inspect every SCO placement site and a sampling of other providers’ sites over the next two to three months, enlisting retirees and state employees to help. A Promise of Stability SCO was responsible for licensing and monitoring Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, and judged him to be dependable, even “exemplary,” as one longtime case worker for the organization described him in a review, according to the official who discussed the state register and who was briefed on documents that SCO has provided to child welfare authorities in recent weeks. A former wine distributor who became a full-time foster parent, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu filed for bankruptcy three years ago. In the court filing, he listed his job as “Home Care Provider (Foster Care)” with an income of $6,600 a month and assets that included a couple of classic cars: an MG Roadster and a Plymouth Savoy. SCO continued to place children with him throughout his financial difficulties and reliance on foster care stipends as his primary source of income. Indeed, his home was always in demand. He was certified as a “therapeutic” foster parent, deemed qualified to care for children with complex emotional needs. Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was a single, Latino man with a large house at the bottom of a suburban cul-de-sac, and most of the children sent to him were also Latino. For social services agencies struggling to place vulnerable boys, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s profile seemed a perfect fit, especially because of his willingness to take in so many boys, most of them with emotional or developmental challenges. For many of the children, who may have felt abandoned by their biological parents and had moved between homes, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu promised a stability they had never known. But investigators have found that he isolated the boys from the outside world and imposed rigid limits on their lives, said Detective Lt. Robert Donohue, commander of the Suffolk County Police Department’s Special Victims Section. The boys, for example, were forbidden to join after-school clubs, play team sports or have girlfriends, Lieutenant Donohue said. “It’s clear to me that he exercised this control over their lives in order to commit the atrocities which he did,” he said. The biological father of one of the boys whom Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu adopted said he was shocked to learn, after he and his son reunited, that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had not only adopted his son and changed the boy’s surname, but had also changed his given name. It was, the authorities said, a step he took with other children he adopted. The father’s wife recalled how her stepson, who is to turn 26 on Saturday, told them that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had said “he wanted to change his name so his father couldn’t find him because his father was a very bad man.” The couple did not want to be identified in order to maintain the privacy of their son. “He’s not ready to talk about it yet,” said the father, who re-established contact with this son six years ago. The biological father, who described a troubled past, stayed in touch with his son during the boy’s first years in foster care. But he said he had been cut off from his son once the boy was delivered to Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu. “I hold that agency that sent those kids to him responsible,” the man said. Accusations and Denials The allegations of sexual abuse go back two decades, prosecutors said. The official briefed on some of the entries in the Statewide Central Register said that in separate reports several months apart in 2006, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had been accused of sexual and physical abuse. The police closed their inquiry into the sexual-abuse accusations for lack of evidence after the four children living with him at the time — all of them foster children he had adopted — denied the abuse when they were interviewed by investigators. Others allegations of sexual abuse were reported in 2015 and 2016, the police said. Ronald Richter, a former commissioner of the Administration for Children’s Services and now chief executive of JCCA , a foster care provider, said it was essential that the system stay focused on the safety of children. “There are pedophiles out there,” Mr. Richter said. “They’re smart. They can beat us. They will find the holes. It is up to us to be vigilant about finding the holes to protect the children by getting smarter and more strategic as a system with a vengeance.” Last year, Suffolk detectives followed up on a complaint they had received about the possibility that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu had sexually abused two foster children who had once lived with him. The complaint originated with a social worker, who informed the state’s central registry, which in turn alerted the Suffolk police, Lieutenant Donohue said. Detectives interviewed the two boys, Lieutenant Donohue said, “but because of inconsistent statements among the children we were not able to make a criminal case.” In January, though, two other foster children made multiple complaints about Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, including alleging that he had had sex with a dog in the presence of at least one child. Those complaints led to the arrest of Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu, who urged a detective to speak to one of his older adopted sons, now 28, prosecutors said. Several days later, the man helped detectives build a broader case against his adoptive father, bringing forward others who had been cared for in Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s home and who said they too had been sexually abused, the Suffolk County district attorney, Thomas J. Spota, said. A Search for Answers The indictment last month has left child welfare officials searching for explanations. “Now looking back, we say ‘Oh my God’, but this is in hindsight, looking back,” Ms. Carrión said. Neighbors are asking similar questions. “I knew 60 or 70 by their first name,” said one longtime neighbor of the children who came to live with Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu. About two years ago, the neighbor said, he spotted one of Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu’s foster children, by then an older teenager, shivering in the backyard, apparently after being locked out of the house. “I called him over and brought him into the house and I gave him a sweatshirt,” said the neighbor, who asked that his name not be used because he was ashamed that he had not done more. He added that he had learned that Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu suspected the teenager of stealing from him and the other children living in the house. As a result, the boy was not allowed indoors while Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu was not home. “It was maybe 45 degrees outside,” the neighbor recalled. From time to time, the neighbor would tease Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu about women he occasionally saw leaving his home. A girlfriend? No, Mr. Gonzales-Mugaburu would tell him; they were social workers. “He would say, ‘They’re just checking up on me — all’s good.’”

Administration for Children's Services NYC


Alabama Buries Texas A&M With Help From Record Quarter

Abstract: TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Blake Sims passed for 268 yards and three touchdowns and scored on a 43-yard run while leading No. 7 Alabama to 35 second-quarter points and a 59-0 pummeling of No. 21 Texas A&M on Saturday. The Crimson Tide (6-1, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) shut down the No. 4 offense in the Football Bowl Subdivision and dominated a game that had produced thrillers in the teams’ past two meetings. Led by Sims, T. J. Yeldon and Amari Cooper, Alabama outgained the Aggies by 602-172. Texas A&M (5-3, 2-3) has lost its past three games, all to teams now ranked in the top 10. Alabama set a program record for most points in a quarter and matched the second-most scored in a half en route to a 45-0 halftime lead. It was Alabama’s largest margin of victory since a 62-0 defeat of Tulane in 1991, and the biggest under Coach Nick Saban. It was also Alabama’s most lopsided win in the SEC since beating Vanderbilt 66-3 in 1979. Alabama fell only four points shy of the largest margin of victory over a Top 25 team, trailing No. 8 Florida State’s 63-0 win over No. 25 Maryland in 2013 and UCLA’s 66-3 win over No. 11 Texas in 1997. Yeldon had 114 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries, all in the first half. Cooper gained 140 yards on eight catches with a pair of touchdowns. Sims completed 16 of 27 passes before leaving during the third quarter. By halftime, it seemed Alabama could name its score. Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M had set a record for an Alabama opponent with 628 total yards last season in a 49-42 loss. The Aggies came in averaging 565 yards a game, but Kenny Hill could never get the offense going. He was 17 of 26 passing for just 138 yards — 220 below his average — and was intercepted for the sixth time in three games. Kyle Allen, a freshman, replaced him in the fourth quarter and chased down a high snap in the end zone on his first play. Texas A&M did not receive the spark it expected from the return of the star receiver Malcome Kennedy, who had a separated shoulder that sidelined him for two games. Kennedy gained 4 yards on four catches. The Crimson Tide scored on its first eight possessions, all touchdowns after the opening drive. Alabama entered halftime with a 449-51 advantage in yards and no doubt about the outcome. The Crimson Tide did have some standout plays in a game full of highlights for the team. Sims flashed his running ability with a touchdown run when he faked to Yeldon, made two defenders miss and won a footrace to the end zone. Yeldon set up his second touchdown run with a 31-yarder after appearing bottled up at the line of scrimmage. He scored on fourth-and-goal from the 1. Texas A&M missed an early opportunity when Deshazor Everett dropped a possible interception — a near-certain touchdown — on the Crimson Tide’s opening drive. Alabama settled for a field goal. Alabama had 30 first downs to Texas A&M’s eight, after a 14-13 win over Arkansas and a loss to No. 3 Mississippi. Saban said he grew frustrated that some fans were disappointed by such a close win, but that was not an issue in this game.

Nick Saban
College football
University of Alabama


Venezuela: Arrest of Opposition Figure Is Criticized

Abstract: The arrest of an outspoken government opponent for making critical remarks on a television talk show drew condemnation on Tuesday from opposition parties and human rights advocates, who said the arrest showed that basic liberties were being eroded in Venezuela . The opposition politician, Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, was detained by the police on Monday and charged with conspiracy and spreading false information, among other things. A coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties said in a statement that Mr. Álvarez Paz had been arrested for a “crime of opinion” in an attempt to silence criticism and encourage a climate of self-censorship.


Serbian Star Weathers a Season of Discontent

Abstract: The decommissioned Belgrade swimming pool that was, in very hard times for Serbians, converted into one of the world’s most unlikely tennis complexes is now a swimming pool again. “In the last few years, Serbia was very successful in water polo,” said Janko Tipsarevic, one of the tennis stars who emerged from the bottom of that empty pool. “So the mayor decided to actually use the swimming pool for swimming.” But Tipsarevic, 29, has done his part to keep his sport in the neighborhood. He opened his own academy this year on an adjacent property, with three regulation-sized clay courts. The courts are a reminder of how far Serbian tennis and Tipsarevic have come, with another Davis Cup final in Belgrade set to begin on Friday, against the Czech Republic. The young talents who once had to hustle for court time and funding, dodge bombs in Belgrade and hope that their visas would be approved so they could play in tournaments outside their pariah of a country are now citizens of means. They are club and restaurant owners, investors and pillars of the community, even if some of them, like Novak Djokovic, spend more time in Monaco. “Look, to be honest with you, I don’t want to cry and say it was ridiculously tough,” Tipsarevic said of his unlikely path to success. “It was, but I honestly didn’t feel it that much. I was lucky enough that I had a very, very dedicated father who was at the time working three jobs to support my tennis, and just for the record, I don’t really like these Rocky Balboa stories: He was poor and didn’t have money and then from nothing he became something, you know.” “Obviously it was really difficult,” he added, “but I was lucky enough that I had a father who was providing me enough to dress and eat and play enough tennis. I was lucky enough to be surrounded with good people who were pushing me to work hard, and this is how it happened.” There were foreign backers, too, including the management company ProServ whose representatives spotted Tipsarevic at a junior tournament and gave him funding. “Borrowed money,” Tipsarevic said. “Which later on I returned ’til the last penny.” Tipsarevic is three years older than his friend Djokovic, who has become Serbia’s biggest tennis star, but Tipsarevic was the first of their generation to generate great expectations as one of the world’s top juniors. Djokovic’s story has more than a hint of destiny: His childhood tennis mentor, Jelena Gencic, happened to be giving a clinic on courts near his family’s restaurant in the Serbian mountain resort of Kopaonik. If not for Gencic’s influence and expertise, Djokovic might have chosen his family’s sport — alpine skiing — instead. But there was no aha moment for Tipsarevic, merely a hand-me-down wooden racket, an early choice between soccer and tennis at age 7 and then a steady rise, much of it under the tutelage of the Russian coach Roman Savochkin in Belgrade. “There is a big chance if I didn’t find Roman as a coach that I would probably have left Serbia and tried to develop as a player somewhere abroad,” Tipsarevic recalled. That was the road taken by Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Djokovic, who all left Serbia early to refine their talents in peace, but Tipsarevic stayed home while relying on imported expertise. His surge into the top 10 in 2011 and 2012 came under the tutelage of a foreigner, the German coach Dirk Hordorff. Along the way, Tipsarevic has developed a reputation as a tennis iconoclast. His abundant tattoos, early-career piercings and on-court sunglasses give him a look like no other. A university graduate, his taste in reading material — Nietzche, Schopenhauer and Dostoyevsky — is a departure from the sporting norm (Andy Murray has confessed that he rarely even reads a book). But Tipsarevic does not consider himself particularly philosophical. “People call me philosophical because they see a Nietzche and a Dostoyevsky tattoo on my body, and they hear me talking different than the other guys sometimes,” he said. “So they want to make a story, but I don’t think I’m philosophical. I don’t really go around and around with what I want to say. I say exactly how it is. I just try to present it in a little bit of a different light, so journalists actually hear something different than ‘It was a great game’ and ‘I’m happy that I won.”’ Although popular with his fellow Serbs, Tipsarevic is apparently not viewed as a sage in the locker room. “You know Janko is the guy who is making us fun, because when he starts to make some philosophical-like statements, we just start to laugh,” said the Serbian captain, Bogdan Obradovic. “That’s how it goes. If you are trying to be like, ‘I know this, and I read this,’ we are just making jokes of that. That’s how we are working in our team.” This season has been one of regression for Tipsarevic. Although he won his first tournament of the year in Chennai and then reached the fourth rounds of the Australian Open and U.S. Open, the main theme has been struggle. He has lost 14 opening-round matches, and his world ranking has slipped to 36, in part, but only in part, because of a recurring foot problem — plantar fasciitis — that he said began bothering him in Australia and became so painful last month in Valencia that even his latest cortisone shot could not get him through his first-round match against Marcel Granollers. “There is a point where it’s not really good to stick a needle in every pain you feel,” he said. “It kind of shortens your career a little bit. The problem with this injury is if it becomes chronic then I’m really in big trouble. I’m trying to do the best and I’m trying to do everything I can to get ready for Davis Cup because this is maybe my last final at home in Belgrade. I’m not hoping that, honestly, but you know next year I’m going to be 30 and who knows if we’re going to reach the final and who even knows if we’re going to play at home?” It remains uncertain whether Tipsarevic will play against the Czechs in this week’s final, but it remains very clear that Serbia needs him to play second singles behind Djokovic, with Viktor Troicki suspended for missing a blood test and with no other Serb in the top 100. “Trust me, trust me, I cannot really say right now what I’m doing, but I’m doing everything I can, even putting my career at risk, the continuing of my career, just to play this match,” Tipsarevic said. Tipsarevic played in his first Davis Cup match at age 15, representing Yugoslavia in a fourth division Euro-African zone tie against Monaco in Tunis in May 2000. Tipsarevic has a photograph of the opening ceremony stored on his smart phone. The makeshift stands are empty, quite a contrast with the scenes in the vast, sold-out Belgrade Arena during the 2010 Davis Cup final, which Serbia won, defeating France. Tipsarevic went on to represent Serbia and Montenegro, and then just Serbia, as his country continued to contract. His overall Davis Cup record stands at 40-17, and one of those victories came over Vasek Pospisil in the fifth and decisive match of the semifinal in September against Canada. It was one of the few rays of sunshine in a cloudy season, but Tipsarevic’s mood — despite the bad foot and the bad losses — is on the mend of late. He and his wife are expecting their first child in January, and he plans for his family to follow him on the road next year. But the long-range plan is quite different if his wife’s nascent fashion-design business continues to grow. “Let’s hope so,” Tipsarevic said, with a chuckle. “I really want to be the guy one day to take care of the kids, and the wife goes to work 9 to 5.”

Serbia
Belgrade
Tennis
Davis Cup
Czech Republic
Novak Djokovic


More and More Teams Pitch Around Pujols

Abstract: MILWAUKEE — Albert Pujols positions his right foot near the back of the batter’s box, then extends his left foot forward as he eases into a crouch, appearing ready to uncoil. With his elbows high and his eyes locked on the pitcher, Pujols said, he needs to see one pitch to decipher if he will be challenged or averted. But sometimes, he never sees a hittable pitch. Sometimes, Pujols turns to his right, spots a catcher standing behind the plate and realizes he will not be sparring with the pitcher. That is when his 31 ½-ounce maple bat never budges as four balls are lobbed out of the strike zone. The sight of Pujols’s bat being rendered useless by intentional walks has become increasingly familiar. Because he has had little protection in the St. Louis Cardinals ’ thinning lineup lately, he has 16 walks, nine intentional, in his last 10 games. Some players have been surprised that Pujols’s walk-a-thon did not start long ago. “I wouldn’t pitch to him at all,” Cardinals outfielder Chris Duncan said. “I’ve played with him for the last few years, and he’s putting together an unbelievable career. He might end up as one of the best hitters of all time.” While Pujols is probably the most feared hitter in baseball and has led the major leagues in intentional walks two times, he has never collected walks the way Barry Bonds once did for the San Francisco Giants. Bonds had 232 walks, including 120 intentional walks, in 2004, three years after he hit a record-setting 73 homers. Bonds holds six of the eight highest intentional-walk totals in a season. Through Saturday, Pujols leads the major leagues with 15 intentional walks . If he continues this pace, he will finish with a career-high 50. Pujols’s highest intentional-walk total was 34 in 2008. He leads the majors with 40 walks over all this season. Even if more teams opt to dodge Pujols, the strategy would seemingly be overdue. He does not pound as many homers as Bonds, whose power, at least to some degree, is suspected of being artificially enhanced. But Pujols is a better pure hitter whose first eight seasons rival Joe DiMaggio’s. When C. C. Sabathia pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers last season, he said he tried to confuse Pujols by firing ankle-high changeups and shoulder-high fastballs. Pujols went 0 for 4 in their only meeting. Upon reflection, Sabathia called it crazy to confront Pujols all the time. “I don’t know why more people don’t walk him,” said Sabathia, who is now with the Yankees. “I think most people should. He hits .360 with 40 homers and drives in all these runs. You would think people would walk him. It’s weird.” As a sweaty Pujols sat in the visitors’ clubhouse at Miller Park on Tuesday, he had just finished batting practice, naturally. He said he “gets in trouble” if he is not disciplined, so he has conditioned himself to accept walks when teams are gift-wrapping free bases. He was unfazed that the total was mounting. “It’s part of the game,” Pujols said. “You just have to be ready and look for a good pitch to hit. If it’s there, you want to make sure you don’t miss it. If it’s not there, well, that’s why you have nine guys on the diamond. The other guys have to take care of their job. All you can do is take care of yours.” But the other guys are not as formidable as Pujols, not even close. Ryan Ludwick , who hit 37 homers last year, is an emerging player and Rick Ankiel has developed into a decent power hitter, too. Ludwick was activated from the 15-day disabled list on Friday, and Ankiel returned from the D.L. last Sunday. Without Ludwick, Ankiel or the injured Troy Glaus in the fourth spot behind him, Pujols has been vulnerable. In the eight games before Friday night’s against the Giants, Duncan, Yadier Molina and Nick Stavinoha went a combined 3 for 27 with two runs batted in behind Pujols. The Cardinals won six of them because of their pitching, but if Pujols were swinging instead of walking, they would feel better about reviving an offense that was averaging 3.6 runs a game in May. “You love to get your walks,” Pujols said. “But you also love to hit and not give any at-bats away.” Manager Tony La Russa argued that the Cardinals will have protection for Pujols in Ludwick. Before Ludwick strained his right hamstring, he had followed five of Pujols’s intentional walks by going 3 for 5 with four runs batted in. La Russa is concerned enough about having runners on base for Pujols that he bats the pitcher eighth. That gives three position players a chance to reach base for Pujols after his first at-bat, making it tougher to walk him. As disciplined as Pujols typically is as a hitter, pitchers said that he sometimes swings at balls out of the strike zone. Bonds, who hugged the plate, choked up on the bat and used a compact stroke, rarely swung at balls that were even two inches out of the strike zone. Pujols will chase pitches, especially breaking pitches down and away. “My walk total is what it is because sometimes I expand my strike zone a little bit to drive that run in,” Pujols said. “Sometimes, I get it and I drive the ball out of the ballpark. With my hand-eye coordination, I take advantage of that. Putting the ball in play doesn’t help you get a lot of walks.” La Russa said Pujols “plays the game to win,” meaning he will go after borderline pitches if he thinks he can produce runs. Pujols mentioned his similarities to Tony Gwynn, an eight-time batting champion, not Bonds, because Pujols is a contact hitter who does not strike out much. Still, the references to Bonds are apt, even if La Russa charged that the Bonds treatment is not new. “He’s been getting it for the last three or four years,” La Russa said. “Nobody throws the ball down the middle to him.” During a three-game series last weekend, Kansas City walked Pujols seven times. Royals Manager Trey Hillman ordered an intentional walk of Pujols in the ninth inning last Sunday and put the possible winning run on base. Hillman said he liked the percentages. The Royals won by a run. The Yankees’ Brett Tomko, who was a teammate of Pujols’s in 2003, has often wondered why more managers do not take Hillman’s approach. Tomko said the Cardinals used to chat in the dugout about why teams bothered pitching to Pujols. Statistically, it is perilous, but when a walk eliminates Pujols, the strategy has value. “He puts up monster numbers and does the same damage as Bonds,” Tomko said. “Why are they still pitching to him?” Teams are pitching to Pujols because he is, after all, human. Rich Dubee , the Phillies’ pitching coach, said he implored his pitchers not to let Pujols beat them. But Dubee called Ludwick a legitimate offensive threat in explaining why it can be risky to walk Pujols. Bill Castro, the Brewers’ pitching coach, said he advised his pitchers to work to their strengths against Pujols. A few hours after Castro’s explanation on Wednesday, the Brewers intentionally walked Pujols twice. Pujols was smiling as he said that he would like to manage someday and would relish holding up four fingers to call for intentionally walking a great hitter. If the Pujols of the future managed against the Pujols of the present, would Pujols pitch to Pujols? “Why not?” Pujols said, sounding more like a hitter than a manager. “I like to be competitive. I want to go out and get him.”

Baseball
Pujols Albert
St Louis Cardinals


Seattle Police Arrest 3 Boys in Deadly Shooting at Homeless Camp

Abstract: Three teenage boys were arrested in Seattle on Monday in connection with a shooting last week at a homeless encampment known as the Jungle that left two people dead, the police said. The suspects, ages 13, 16 and 17, were arrested at a homeless encampment under an Interstate 90 off-ramp, said the Seattle police chief, Kathleen O’Toole. They were being interviewed by homicide investigators on Monday evening and were to be booked at the Youth Service Center for investigation of homicide, the police said. No other suspects were being sought. “Catching those responsible for this senseless act of violence has been the focus of our efforts since our patrol officers arrived on scene,” Chief O’Toole said. Chief O’Toole said the authorities searched multiple locations and vehicles after the arrests, and one gun was recovered. Investigators were conducting ballistics tests to determine whether it had been used in the shooting at the Jungle or in other crimes, she said. “This is a very active, ongoing investigation,” she said. Mayor Ed Murray praised the law enforcement response. “This violent crime shocked Seattle,” he said in a statement. “Thank you to the team at the Seattle Police Department for your professionalism in pursuit of this investigation, resulting in these three arrests. Our homicide investigators worked tirelessly to pursue leads and track down these suspects. We are also grateful for the efforts of our partners from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.” Jeannine L. Zapata, 45, and James Q. Tran, 33, were killed in the shooting on Jan. 26, and three other people were wounded. The police have said that investigators believe the shooting stemmed from a low-level drug-dealing dispute and that the victims were targeted. Officials did not release the names of the suspects in accordance with court and Police Department policy. The wounded victims, two men and one woman ranging in age from 25 to 45, were treated at Harborview Medical Center.

Seattle
Homelessness
Murders and Homicides


China’s New Prime Minister Faces Test in Bolstering Economy

Abstract: HONG KONG — China’s new prime minister, Li Keqiang, entered the job on Friday inheriting a wobbling economy that could distract his government from its bold vows to clean up pollution and harness expanding towns and cities as an engine for growth. Mr. Li is the latest Communist Party leader whose promotion to a top government post was confirmed by the National People’s Congress, the party-run Parliament that is finishing a transfer of elite power that was started at a party meeting in November. He succeeds Wen Jiabao in a position that entails steering the economy and government operations through the State Council, or cabinet. On Thursday, the nearly 3,000 compliant Parliament delegates installed the party chief , Xi Jinping , as president, and on Saturday they will appoint deputy prime ministers, ministers and other senior officials. Mr. Li, 57, has already laid out a vision of economic uplift driven by urbanization. He gained a doctorate in economics from Peking University, where he wrote about narrowing the urban-rural gulf. In the months leading up to his elevation as prime minister, he has said that faster and sounder expansion of towns and cities will be a priority, and he told Parliament delegates that absorbing rural migrants into urban areas would require more spending. “Meshing together urban and rural development means we must speed up social improvements, with a focus on welfare and livelihood needs,” Mr. Li said last week, according to the news agency Xinhua. “Government work and fiscal outlays must continue to be tilted toward livelihood needs,” he added, naming education, health care and housing as among the spending priorities. Yet Mr. Li inherits economic hazards that could preoccupy his government and deter bold policy moves. The hazards include an overheated property market that has defied government measures intended to tame price increases and make housing more affordable, worries about debts run up by local governments, and cautious lower-income consumers who remain reluctant to spend at the level many economists say is needed for healthy growth over the long term. “I do think that there are some signs that, first of all, they recognize this is a new world, and the market economy or liberalization has given great successes but also great vulnerabilities,” said Yukon Huang, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington who studies the Chinese economy. Mr. Li and his cohort believe that China “needs a growth driver in the next 5, 10, 15 years, because it can’t rely upon exports again and can’t rely on investment expansion for the sake of investment expansion,” Mr. Huang said. Last year, China’s economy grew by 7.8 percent, compared with a year earlier, the slowest pace since 1999. The property market has been a driver of that growth, but a recent sharp rise in prices has kindled jitters about a potential bubble. On March 1, Mr. Wen’s State Council took a parting jab at the sector, demanding that local governments enforce an earlier rule imposing a 20 percent tax on profits when people sell secondary homes. Votes by the National People’s Congress are a predictable ritual, with party officials exercising discipline behind the scenes to ensure that there are no upsets, but there were pinpricks of dissent. On Thursday, one delegate voted against Mr. Xi to succeed Hu Jintao as president, and three abstained. Mr. Li attracted three “no” votes and six abstentions among the 2,949 votes counted as valid. The secret electronic ballot makes it impossible to publicly identify the dissenters, despite the avid curiosity voiced by some Chinese online. Another prominent economic decision maker in the new government will be the incoming deputy prime minister Wang Yang, a former party secretary of Guangdong Province in southern China who cast himself as a reformer willing to challenge entrenched privilege. Lou Jiwei, the chairman and chief executive of the China Investment Corporation, a sovereign wealth fund, appears likely to become finance minister. He will oversee thorny issues like revamping taxation and dealing with debt-saddled local governments that complain of having too many spending burdens. However, the likely retention of Zhou Xiaochuan as the leader of the People’s Bank of China, or central bank, reflects the anxieties weighing on the new leadership, analysts say. Mr. Zhou was dropped from the party’s Central Committee — a council of senior officials — in November, and he is 65, an age when retirement becomes likely for officials of his rank. But he appears likely to keep his job for now. “I think that is an indication that they haven’t built up any successor,” said Joerg Wuttke, a former president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. “They don’t trust anybody else, maybe, to deal with a potential financial crisis.” “They need an experienced old hand, and they can’t let him go,” he said. Mr. Li grew up in rural Anhui Province and worked for years on one of the impoverished farm communes that Mao Zedong believed could deliver communist equality and bountiful harvests. In late 1977, he won a place in the prestigious Peking University, where he studied law before moving on to economics, and he retains a bookish demeanor and a confident grasp of English. Like his mentor, Mr. Hu, he made his start up the leadership ladder in the Communist Party’s Youth League. Mr. Wen left office dogged by unwelcome attention on his family , which was the subject of a report by The New York Times into its wealth, and lamenting that he “fell short in some tasks” to improve people’s lives. Mr. Li and his colleagues appear eager to avoid being tainted with the same accusations of frustrated promises, said Damien Ma, a researcher at the Paulson Institute, a center in Chicago focused on China-United States relations. “They’ve got to show that they’re willing to act,” Mr. Ma said. “Before they felt that they could defer reforms, and they did.” Mr. Li is scheduled to give his first news conference as prime minister on Sunday, after the end of the parliamentary session.

China
Economy
Li Keqiang
Urban area
Agriculture


‘I Want to Kiss America’: A Woman Who Fled Nazis, Then Russia, Makes a Life in Brooklyn

Abstract: Under the cover of night, the family crowded into a wagon used to carry animals to flee the Nazi troops marching toward their hometown, Nalchik, in south-central Russia. It was 1942, and Polina Davydova’s father had returned from war wounded and requiring crutches to walk. He was now orchestrating the family’s escape farther south, to Derbent, a city on the Caspian Sea. Fifteen family members were to leave. But after the journey began, Ms. Davydova’s grandmother counted heads — someone was missing. They called each person by name. When they reached Polina, no one answered. The 3-year-old girl was missing. The danger of turning back was so great that her grandmother suggested continuing without her. But her father refused. Throwing aside his crutches, he jumped from the wagon, hailing Soviet soldiers in trucks and begging them for a ride back to Nalchick. Just beyond the town’s borders, he found his daughter asleep on a suitcase. “I was my father’s favorite,” Ms. Davydova recently recalled, speaking in Russian through a translator. Image Religious texts at Ms. Davydova’s home. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times Ms. Davydova, now 77, often retells the family story of banding together. With a happy wistfulness, she speaks as though her father, mother, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandmother and cousins, who are all now gone, are back together, shuttling everyone toward safety. Inside her sparsely decorated apartment on Ocean Avenue near Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, the few items there remind her of her home country. A mezuza hangs by the door, providing a blessing for peace to all who enter, according to family tradition. The walls are lined with a hamesh, which includes a rock from Israel; pictures of Jerusalem; and needlework from before her eyesight worsened. On a warm September day, sitting at a table in her living room, Ms. Davydova pored over family photographs and Jewish history books, one of which includes the only remaining photograph of her father. Pointing to the picture, she recounts the atrocities that befell her hometown following the family’s escape to Derbent. Relatives who had refused to leave were tortured by fascists in their homes, forced by soldiers to walk over broken glass with their bare feet. “If we hadn’t left, maybe this would have happened to us,” Ms. Davydova said. “My father saved our lives.” In January 1943, the Soviet Army pushed into Nalchik and freed the city, allowing her family to return home. The family’s furniture had been stolen, belongings destroyed. “But it didn’t matter,” Ms. Davydova said. “We had returned to our own roof, our own home.” Still, anti-Jewish sentiment persisted. When factory workers began to cut through a Russian-Jewish cemetery in 1969, Ms. Davydova’s father gathered other members of his synagogue to raise money to build a fence. Angered by the fence, the factory workers beat her father’s chest with a large metal cross, she said, puncturing a lung, which contributed to his death two months later. “There were many years of fear,” she said. “Such fear — you can’t imagine.” For 31 years Ms. Davydova was a preschool teacher in Russia. Afraid of the continued anti-Semitism and that her 18-year-old son, Boris, would be deployed to Afghanistan, Ms. Davydova and Boris sneaked out of Russia in 1992. They took only two suitcases, leaving everything else behind to give the illusion that they were only going away for a brief vacation. She arrived in the United States with only $25 and a tourist visa. Arriving as a guest of her brother, who was already in America, she settled in Brooklyn, but Ms. Davydova was unable to legally work while she waited five years to be granted political asylum status, which she received in 1997. She was granted citizenship five years after that, in 2002. Even after she received the status, Ms. Davydova, who does not speak English fluently, struggled to obtain steady work and started making frequent trips to the hospital because of declining health. The medical bills added up, and after several years of heart problems, she underwent heart surgery in 2008 for a blocked artery. She suffers from low blood pressure and frequent fainting spells. She pays $900 a month in rent, and receives $820 in Supplemental Security Income and $194 monthly in food stamps. Her family helps her pay the bills when they are able. Help also came in the form of the Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Marks JCH, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, provided Ms. Davydova with $1,004 to cover one month’s rent and utilities in February 2016. “I gave my life to that country,” she said of Russia. “And I didn’t do anything in this country, but I want to kiss America because everything I have in this life comes from people in this country helping me.”

New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Immigration
Holocaust and Nazis
World War II


Weather Could Force Yankees to Wait One More Day for Opener

Abstract: Editor’s note: On Monday, the Yankees postponed their opening game to Tuesday afternoon. The pomp, circumstance and great expectations that typically accompany the Yankees on opening day were all in order for Monday. Or perhaps Tuesday. With rain expected to fall throughout the day — forecasters said there was even a chance of early snow and sleet — there is a strong possibility the start of the season at Yankee Stadium will be pushed back a day, when clear, sunny skies are expected, along with temperatures in the low 40s. No matter the day or the weather, the most chilling prospect for the Yankees will be their opponent, the Houston Astros, whose last visit to the Bronx — a 3-0 victory in the wild-card playoff — ended the Yankees’ season in October. Scheduled to pitch the opener for the Astros is the left-hander Dallas Keuchel, who pitched six innings in the playoff and shut the Yankees out in all 22 innings he pitched against them last season. “He’s a handful,” said Alex Rodriguez, who after the playoff loss compared Keuchel to a left-handed version of the Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux. Manager Joe Girardi said he would most likely bench either center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury or left fielder Brett Gardner, both left-handed hitters, against Keuchel. Girardi sat Ellsbury, him of the $153 million contract, for the wild-card playoff in favor of Chris Young, who was one of only four Yankees batters to reach base. Now, Girardi plans to play the switch-hitting Aaron Hicks, who is a better hitter right-handed, at one of the outfield spots. The game will also be a chance at redemption for Masahiro Tanaka, who gave up home runs to Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez in the wild-card playoff, though he did not pitch poorly. The opener will also be a test for the Yankees’ new ticketing policy. The team will no longer accept print-at-home tickets — only standard hard-copy tickets and mobile tickets displayed on cellphones will be permitted. The move drew the ire of fans when it was announced in February, because the Yankees planned to prevent the resale of mobile tickets except through their own ticket exchange. As a result of the criticism, the team has agreed to talks with StubHub, a competitor in the resale market, about a possible deal in which the Yankees would unlock the mobile tickets to be resold. But no such agreement will be reached by opening day. “We’ve had several meetings, and discussions are ongoing to see if we can reach an agreement,” said the Yankees’ president, Randy Levine. On StubHub’s website, there was no mention that print-at-home tickets were unavailable for Yankees games, only a notice before tickets are purchased that they must be picked up at the StubHub distribution office in the Bronx. A StubHub spokesman did not return a message seeking comment. As the Yankees finished their exhibition season in Miami on Saturday, they were eager for the regular season to start — even if they were about to leave Florida’s balmy climate for the chill, rain and even snow that is expected to greet them in the next week, both at home and on their first trip of the season, which begins Friday in Detroit. “I don’t care about that,” Rodriguez said. “I just want to play baseball. If it snows, if it rains, I’m happy to play baseball.”

Weather
Yankees
Astros
Baseball
Yankee Stadium NYC


Was There an Ice Age in the Southern Hemisphere?

Abstract: Q. Was there an ice age in the Southern Hemisphere? A. Yes, the most recent ice age affected the Southern Hemisphere as well, said Joerg M. Schaefer , a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. But there were big differences between hemispheres in this and other glacial periods. The effects of ice ages in the Northern Hemisphere are more extensive because it is “land-dominated, with lots of continents, whereas the south is mostly ocean,” Dr. Schaefer said. The rhythm of ice ages parallels changes in the solar energy that heats the continents, he said. The last ice age peaked about 20,000 years ago, when solar radiation in the north was at a minimum because of complex factors related to Earth’s orbit. The dominant difference between interglacial periods, as we have now, and ice ages is the waxing and waning Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, most prominently the Laurentide ice sheet that covered most of North America in the last ice age, Dr. Schaefer said. “The ice comes from the ocean,” he added. “Ocean water that normally rains down comes down as snow, forming the great continental ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere, and in turn, sea level drops.” As an ice age ends, the process happens in reverse. In the south, however, such huge ice-sheet fluctuations do not appear. There are not enough continents with enough land mass for solar radiation changes to have the same effect. (Antarctica does not show much change and seems decoupled from the overall climate system.) Nevertheless, during an ice age, Patagonia’s glaciers expand and form a small ice sheet. The same thing happens in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. A few glaciers even form in Australia. Because the evidence is not overwhelmed by the huge ice sheets of the north, and because its waters are cleaner and calmer, the Southern Hemisphere allows scientists a close look at the detailed mechanisms of ice ages, Dr. Schaefer said. question@nytimes.com

Ice Age
Earth
Antarctica
Glacier
New Zealand
Australia
South America
Africa


Another Recall by Toyota Over Stability Control

Abstract: Toyota announced a second recall Wednesday related to the vehicle stability control system on its sport utility vehicles, this one concerning the 2003 model year Sequoia. Toyota said it would upgrade the stability control system on 50,000 Sequoias built in the early part of the 2003 model year. It said no accidents or injuries had resulted. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a preliminary investigation into the problem in December 2008, and broadened the investigation last April. In all, Toyota has recalled more than nine million vehicles worldwide since November, including two major recalls involving sticking accelerator pedals on a variety of its models. On April 18, Toyota agreed to pay a $16.4 million fine imposed by the Transportation Department, which charged that the company deliberately hid information about one of the pedal-related recalls. Toyota has not admitted fault in the situation. The stability control system is meant to control a loss of traction on the front or rear tires while the vehicle is going through a corner. Toyota said that on some of the Sequoias, the system could activate at low speeds and prevent the driver from accelerating as quickly as he or she might like. It said it had made a design change during the model year, and that it had already repaired about half the vehicles involved in the recall under warranty. The vehicles were built at Toyota’s plant in Princeton, Ind., between April 2002 and April 2003. Toyota said it had responded to individual drivers’ complaints by replacing a skid control engine control unit. It first sent dealers a technical bulletin about the matter in fall 2003. The Sequoia recall comes a week after Toyota said it was recalling 2010 models of the Lexus GX 460, a luxury sport utility that had been deemed “not safe to drive” by Consumer Reports magazine. In mid-April, Consumer Reports said the GX, a luxury sport utility vehicle that is new for the 2010 model year, failed to prevent its rear end from sliding sideways during sharp turns. Toyota has temporarily stopped building and selling the vehicle, and it recalled the GX 460 and the Land Cruiser Prado, an S.U.V. sold overseas. In the wake of the magazine’s report, the company has been testing the stability control systems across its S.U.V. lineup. But the Sequoia recall comes about 18 months after the N.H.T.S.A. opened its investigation. At the time, the agency had received 50 complaints about problems with the stability control system, with 13 drivers saying that they had almost been involved in crashes, documents from the N.H.T.S.A. showed. According to agency documents, Toyota initially told the N.H.T.S.A. that several issues could be involved in those complaints. It said it believed the vehicle stability control system was operating as designed, and that the problem most likely lay in the way drivers used the traction control system. It said it had not determined that a safety-related defect existed. Eventually, the agency and Toyota received a total of 153 complaints about the issue while the company issued five service bulletins to dealers, in all, dealing with the stability control system. In April 2009, the investigation was upgraded to an engineering analysis, so the agency could examine the “scope, frequency and safety-related consequences” of the problem, according to the N.H.T.S.A documents. In December, the agency asked Toyota for more in-depth information about the issue, which the automaker provided to the agency in February. Toyota said it would begin mailing letters in late May to Sequoia owners, including those whose vehicles had already been serviced. It said it would reimburse those who paid to replace the engine control unit. Further details are available at www.toyota.com/recall .

Sports Utility Vehicles and Light Trucks


Georgetown Hangs On to Win Sixth in a Row

Abstract: Sixth-ranked Georgetown used a strong first-half surge to defuse an upset bid by South Florida, earning a hard-fought 63-53 victory at home. Late in the first half, South Florida, the last-place team in the Big East, was shooting 77 percent and leading by 9 points. But the Bulls missed their next nine shots as the Hoyas went on a 12-0 run to take the lead for good. DaJuan Summers, who finished with a career-high 24 points, made 8 of 13 field goals, including 4 of 8 3-pointers, to lead the Hoyas (19-2, 9-1 Big East) to their sixth consecutive victory. Over all, the Hoyas shot just 39 percent, their worst performance of the season. Dominique Jones scored 15 points for South Florida (10-13, 1-9), which has lost nine in a row. TENNESSEE 104, FLORIDA 82 Chris Lofton made six 3-pointers and scored 26 points as No. 2 Tennessee beat visiting Florida. Tyler Smith and JaJuan Smith each scored 23 points for the Vols (20-2, 7-1 Southeastern Conference) who are off to their best start in team history. Florida (18-5, 5-3) led by as many as 13 points during the first half. PURDUE 67, PENN STATE 53 Robbie Hummel scored 17 points and E’Twaun Moore added 16 as No. 24 Purdue won at home. The Boilermakers (18-5, 9-1 Big Ten) won their eighth straight and moved into sole possession of first place in the Big Ten. IN OTHER GAMES Pete Campbell made a 3-pointer with 15 seconds left and Willie Veazley added a free throw with 7 seconds left as No. 10 Butler (20-2, 9-2 Horizon League) beat host Valparaiso, 71-68. ... Josh Young scored all but 1 of his 18 points in the second half as No. 15 Drake (21-1, 12-0 Missouri Valley) rallied to defeat host Illinois State, 73-70, and win its 20th straight. Only No. 1 Memphis (21-0) has a longer winning streak this season. ... Bryan Davis scored 16 points and Josh Carter added 12 as No. 18 Texas A&M (19-4, 5-3 Big 12) won at Iowa State, 69-51. PLAYER DIES AT PRACTICE An Ohio University-Chillicothe player died after collapsing during practice. Jonathan Davis, 20, a sophomore from Hampton, Va., fell to the floor Monday night and was taken to Adena Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Women SOUTH FLORIDA 78, DEPAUL 73 Shantia Grace scored a career-high 35 points as host South Florida defeated No. 25 DePaul. Jazmine Sepulveda had 22 points for South Florida (12-10, 2-7 Big East), which won for the second time in the last 10 games. Allie Quigley scored 36 points to lead DePaul (16-6, 5-4). OKLAHOMA STATE 77, BAYLOR 67 Danielle Green scored 16 points as No. 17 Oklahoma State defeated No. 5 Baylor in Stillwater, Okla. Oklahoma State (18-3, 6-2 Big 12) took control with a 24-5 run to end the first half. Baylor (20-2, 8-1) had won 13 in a row.

College Athletics
Basketball
Georgetown University


Sallie Mae Deal More Shaky

Abstract: A $25 billion deal to acquire Sallie Mae , the student loan lender, grew more precarious yesterday when the buyers proposed dissolving the merger agreement. The buyers were responding to a request on Friday by Sallie Mae’s parent company, the SLM Corporation, for an expedited trial on a lawsuit related to the acquisition. Their response raises the odds that any decision to resolve issues will have to come from a judge. On Friday, Sallie Mae asked the Delaware Court of Chancery to accelerate its lawsuit, arguing that the buyers — J. C. Flowers & Company and Friedman Fleischer & Lowe, as well as Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase — were interfering with operations in an effort to force the company to accept a lower price. According to the agreement, reached in April, the buyers have a say over some aspects of the lender’s business, including pursuing certain kinds of financing and instituting some changes to executive compensation. In yesterday’s court filing, the buyers asked Vice Chancellor Leo E. Strine Jr. to dismiss Sallie Mae’s lawsuit and allow them to walk away without penalty. They disputed the charge that they were impeding Sallie Mae’s operations and argued that an expedited trial would hurt their case. “We do not believe that an expedited trial of the sort that Sallie Mae appears to be contemplating — which would, as a practical matter, truncate our ability to get full discovery — is necessary,” the group’s letter says. In a separate letter to Mr. Strine, the buyers proposed ending the agreement while preserving their legal claims. That would allow Sallie Mae to operate as it wanted while allowing the two parties to resolve their dispute in court at a later date.

Student Loans
SLM Corp
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
JC FLOWERS & CO


Putting Crime and Drugs Behind - Neediest Cases

Abstract: Larry Waldo’s family is so large that annual reunions involve a printed program 50 pages thick, with updates on family members and a four-day itinerary. Though Mr. Waldo, 59, has spent most of his adult life in prison, he said he was treated no differently from the lawyers, military personnel and politicians in his family, which is from South Carolina. “I don’t hide it,” he said of his criminal record. “And my family is grateful I can share the message with them.” When he was 17, Mr. Waldo, who spent his teenage years in Jamaica, Queens, was arrested for riding in a stolen car and released only because his grandmother worked for a State Supreme Court justice. Other arrests followed, and his family connection kept him out of prison — until he was 19, when he began serving 18 months at the Coxsackie Correctional Facility for stealing cars. After his release, he fenced car parts and developed a cocaine habit. A two-year prison stint followed, then a 10-year term, followed by another two-year imprisonment and another 10-year term. Not for armed robbery, he is quick to point out, but strong-arm robbery. And he never robbed places, like stores. “You have to have a gun to rob places,” he said. “I never took to the dark side.” Mr. Waldo’s crimes were nonetheless terrifying: he would lie in wait on the streets of Jamaica, and if he saw someone nicely dressed, he would put the person in a headlock and steal his or her money. Cocaine made it easier. In prison, getting drugs was no problem, and his habit consumed him. Between sentences, he had two sons: Leland, 36, works at a law firm, and Lamont, 35, is a Navy lieutenant. Though Mr. Waldo was largely absent during their childhoods, they often visited him in jail. “They know I did what I did,” he said, “and I don’t do that anymore.” After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Lamont and his commanding officer wrote letters to the parole board on Mr. Waldo’s behalf, and he was released. He entered an 18-month drug rehabilitation program. Upon his release, he got a job at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and moved to Washington. But in 2005, when FEMA was absorbed by the Department of Homeland Security, felons were expelled. He moved back to Queens and relapsed, a slip-up that cost him a job as a technician at Dish Network and landed him in Rikers Island for 30 days. Afterward, Mr. Waldo returned to the same rehabilitation center, “and this time, they gave it to me like you wouldn’t believe,” he recalled. “I’m an older guy, so they paid real, real close attention to me,” he said. “When they didn’t give me chores, they gave me beef.” This time, relapse was not an option. “I don’t think I could recover again,” Mr. Waldo said. Sober since Aug. 8, 2008, he said, he calls his sponsor whenever temptation strikes. Mr. Waldo works for the Fortune Society as a house manager at Castle Gardens, a residence for ex-convicts in Harlem, making $13.73 an hour. The Fortune Society is a beneficiary of the Community Service Society of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. When Mr. Waldo needed to provide a deposit for a one-room apartment in Jamaica, he was granted $1,000 from the fund. The bathroom and the kitchen are in the hallway, and Mr. Waldo is behind on the rent, but he is proud of what he has. “I love my little place,” he said. “When you’re using, you don’t have a TV. You don’t have money. This apartment isn’t much, but it’s mine.” He also needed clothes for work and was given an additional $300 for shirts, slacks and shoes. “This is the longest I’ve been out of prison since I’ve been an adult,” he said. Sobriety is not easy, but Mr. Waldo sticks with it, knowing that his living circumstances now are better than confinement to prison or a rehabilitation program. “I’d rather be here,” he said, “than there.”

Fortune Society
Community Service Society of New York
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Philanthropy


Women’s World Cup Final: Japan Battles Back Against United States

Abstract: FRANKFURT — Japan won its first Women’s World Cup on Sunday in a triumph built on hope, renewal, patience, composure and no small amount of good fortune, lifting a stricken country and somehow winning a match that the United States frequently dominated but could never control. In the end, Japan prevailed in a penalty-kick shootout, 3-1 , after regulation and 30 minutes of overtime ended at 2-2. Its sophisticated passing attack was blunted by a determined American defense, but Japan remained calm and resilient, twice overcoming American leads and remaining unyielding in its hustle and determination. Its persistence was finally rewarded with fortuitous bounces of the ball that led to both Japanese goals and a volley of missed American chances that went just wide or clanged off the crossbar and the goalpost. And when the game was distilled to the ruthless determination of penalty kicks, Japan remained steadfast while the Americans demonstrated a rare loss of equanimity. If Japan was said to be lucky, it made its own luck. Until Sunday, it was 0-22-3 against the United States, but in a single evening, this formerly one-sided rivalry tipped in the other direction in the sport’s most important game. “My football god made it possible to win against the United States for the first time,” Coach Norio Sasaki said. “I think I definitely got some help.” Japan’s victory came four months after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the country’s northeast coast, killing more than 15,000 people and displacing thousands more, including one of the professional Japanese women’s teams, which was forced to cancel its season. During the tournament, the national team said repeatedly that it hoped its success might inspire and bring pride to those at home . “They kept saying they would bring courage to the victims of the quake disaster,” NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting network, said early Monday in celebrating the world championship. In Tokyo, fans began hugging and cheering and spilling into the streets, heading for trains. News reports led with the World Cup result. Television Asahi called it “a historic victory.” “The Japanese islands celebrate,” it said. The United States will long regret its missed opportunities in a match that it might have won, 4-1, instead of losing in a shootout. But Japan never submitted. Each time the Americans took the lead, the Japanese pounced to even the score. “When the Americans score a goal, they stop moving their feet,” Sasaki said. “We saw that.” After Alex Morgan put the United States ahead, 1-0, on a rocketing shot in the 69th minute, Japan took advantage of a clumsy American mistake on defense. In the 81st minute, Rachel Buehler made a desperate clearance attempt, but her pass deflected from Ali Krieger to the onrushing Japanese midfielder Aya Miyama. Her side-footed shot beat a defenseless Hope Solo in the American goal to tie the score at 1-1 and force 30 minutes of overtime. “We ran and ran,” Homare Sawa, the Japanese captain, said. “We were exhausted, but we kept running.” In the 104th minute, forward Abby Wambach did what she does more expertly than any women’s soccer player — head the ball into the net on a cross by Morgan. The United States was in the lead, 2-1, but it was a nervous lead. Again Japan found a response. In the 117th minute, Sawa, 32, playing in her fifth World Cup, redirected a corner kick that deflected off Wambach into the net , tying the score at 2-2. It was Sawa’s fifth goal of the tournament, none more urgent than this one. Now the final was extended to penalty kicks. Twelve years ago, the Americans won the Women’s World Cup in a shootout against China. In the quarterfinals of this tournament, they prevailed again in a stirring shootout against Brazil. But the Americans appeared less buoyant this time, having surrendered the lead instead of rescuing the game with another late rally. “It seemed there was more pressure on the Americans compared with our team,” Sasaki said. “We said, ‘Look, we made it all the way into the final and into the penalty shootout, that is something for us.’ It took some pressure off. Maybe the situation was easier to handle for the Japanese team. We came from behind, so from a psychological viewpoint, it was easier in the shootout.” Shannon Boxx, the first American shooter, was thwarted by a kick save from Ayumi Kaihori. That seemed to unnerve and deflate the United States. Carli Lloyd ballooned her kick. Kaihori made another save on Tobin Heath. Only Wambach had the poise to make her penalty kick for the Americans. “I did get support in the shootout — the Americans missed,” Kaihori said. She added: “In a shootout, I just have to believe in myself. I was very self-confident. I just wanted to save all those shots coming at me.” With a chance to earn a victory that once seemed beyond reach, the Japanese midfielder Saki Kumagai put her hands on her hips, stretched her arms and put her shot into the top left corner. “There are really no words,” Wambach said. “We were so close.” The Japanese players raced together in celebration, were showered by confetti, and then held up a banner that said, in reference to international disaster relief, “To our friends around the world, thank you for your support.” With each victory in this World Cup, Japan’s confidence seemed to blossom like the pink flower for which the team is nicknamed. It had never before defeated a European team, but it put aside Germany and Sweden. Then it won the tournament, surviving the caprice of penalty kicks against the United States. “If any other country was to win this, then I’m really happy and proud for Japan,” Lloyd said. “Deep down inside, I really thought it was our destiny to win it. But maybe it was Japan’s.” It was a remarkable turnaround for Japan against the Americans, whom they had lost to three times this year. At a pair of exhibition defeats in the United States in May, the team had appeared dazed from the earthquake and tsunami, according to Julie Foudy, a former American captain who is friends with Sawa. Foudy said that she had talked to Sawa after the second exhibition in the United States and that she had replied, “We’ll be fine.” “But you could tell things weren’t fine,” Foudy said before Sunday’s final. “You could see how the Japanese were more weighed down. Sad. They were just starting to have some optimism after all that shock and horror. They look like a totally different team here.” A team that is now on top of the world.

Japan
United States
Soccer
Women's World Cup (Soccer)
Wambach Abby
Solo Hope
Lloyd Carli


Tech Behemoths Report Their Results

Abstract: This week will offer a glimpse into just how dominant some of the world’s biggest technology companies have become. Image Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet are all scheduled to post their quarterly earnings this week, giving a report card on their strength and reach in areas like online advertising, e-commerce, mobile gadgets and cloud computing. For one of these companies, Alphabet, this week’s earnings report will also be an almost-anniversary of sorts. It was nearly a year ago that Google announced that it would be evolving into a holding company structure , with a parent company known as Alphabet and different units — like Google, Nest and Calico — underneath it. How that transformation has been rippling through what was once Google can be seen through the X division, writes Conor Dougherty. X, formerly Google X, is the company’s “moonshot” factory, which has worked on fantastical projects like a self-driving car (now more reality than fantasy) and stratospheric balloons that can beam the internet. With Alphabet trying to enforce more financial discipline over its various units, X has also been trying to better systematize its research and pay more attention to the bottom line. Read about the results here .

Apple
Facebook
Amazon
Alphabet
Earnings Reports
Google
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry
Calico California Life Company
Nest Labs


Report: Documents Tie Couch to Drug Regimens

Abstract: Quarterback Tim Couch, the No. 1 pick in the 1999 N.F.L. draft, had doping regimens that called for anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, according to documents obtained by the Web site Yahoo.com . Couch, who was cut by the Jacksonville Jaguars this month, told Yahoo that he used H.G.H. for about a week, under a doctor’s care, to help him recover from shoulder surgery. He denied using steroids or any other banned drugs, and he said he had never seen the documents. Couch told Yahoo that he had passed a drug test when he signed with the Jaguars. Yahoo reported yesterday that it had obtained documents that had Couch’s name printed across the top and that called for extensive use of drugs banned by the N.F.L. Yahoo said its anonymous source was a former associate of Brian Yusem, a nutritionist in Boca Raton, Fla. It said Yusem had worked with Couch since January 2006. “Just because somebody prints something and says this is the protocol I would suggest doesn’t mean somebody has the obligation to do it or did it,” Yusem told Yahoo, calling the documents “worthless.” Couch’s agent, Tom Condon, did not return a telephone call from The Associated Press. The N.F.L. had no comment. The documents detail regimens for 72-, 80- and 55-day programs, dated Jan. 26, 2006; Sept. 18, 2006; and Nov. 27, 2006, according to Yahoo. Yusem said nothing illegal took place, but the source told Yahoo that he saw Couch pick up steroids and H.G.H., and saw him injected with steroids in Yusem’s office. Couch, the No. 1 pick in the 1999 draft, signed with the Jaguars on July 29. Coach Jack Del Rio said then that Couch, the former Cleveland Browns quarterback, was merely giving the team another quarterback to use during training camp and that he had an outside shot to make the team. Couch was released three weeks later. Dan Edwards, a Jaguars spokesman, said the N.F.L.’s drug-testing policy was confidential and that results were not shared with teams. Teams were only notified when players were suspended for violating the policy, he said. Couch said “there’s no way” he would have passed a drug test in Jacksonville had he taken what was outlined in the steroid regimens. “It doesn’t matter what that says,” Couch told Yahoo.com. “It matters what I took. I know what I took and what I didn’t take.”

Steroids
Human Growth Hormone
Jacksonville Jaguars
Couch Tim
Football
Draft and Recruitment (Sports)
Athletics and Sports
National Football League
Yahoo Inc


Administration Takes Tougher Antitrust Line

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama ’s top antitrust official announced on Monday that the administration would restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share. The new enforcement policy reverses the Bush administration’s approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims. It returns to a policy that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s. The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, announced the policy reversal in a speech on Monday before the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy research organization. She will deliver the same speech on Tuesday to the United States Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Varney said that the Bush administration policy “lost sight of an ultimate goal of antitrust laws — the protection of consumer welfare.” “The failing of this approach is that it effectively straitjackets antitrust enforcers and courts from redressing monopolistic abuses, thereby allowing all but the most bold and predatory conduct to go unpunished and undeterred,” she said. “We must change course and take a new tack,” The administration is hoping to encourage smaller companies in an array of industries to bring their complaints to the Justice Department about potentially improper business practices by their larger rivals. Some of the biggest antitrust cases were initiated by complaints taken to the Justice Department. Ms. Varney said that the administration rejected the impulse to go easy on antitrust enforcement during weak economic times. Instead, she said, severe recessions can provide dangerous incentives for large and dominating companies to engage in predatory behavior that harms consumers and weakens competition. “There is no adequate substitute for a competitive market, particularly during times of economic distress,” she said. “Vigorous antitrust enforcement must play a significant role in the government’s response to economic crises to ensure that markets remain competitive.” The announcement is aimed at making sure that no court or party to a lawsuit can cite the Bush administration policy as the government’s official view in any pending cases. Ms. Varney warned judges and litigants in antitrust lawsuits not involving the government to ignore the Bush administration’s policies, which were formally outlined in a report by the Justice Department last year. The report applied legal standards that made it difficult to bring new cases involving monopoly and predatory practices. As a result of the Bush administration’s interpretation of antitrust laws, the enforcement pipeline for major monopoly cases — which can take years for prosecutors to develop — is thin. During the Bush administration, the Justice Department did not file a single case against a dominant firm for violating the antimonopoly law. Many smaller companies complaining of abusive practices by their larger rivals were so frustrated by the Bush administration’s antitrust policy that they went to the European Commission and to Asian authorities. Later this week, for instance, antitrust regulators at the European Commission are expected to announce its fine against Intel over charges that the company unlawfully provided rebates and price reductions to customers while pressuring them to avoid doing business with a smaller rival. Lawyers following the case say the fine could be as large as 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), the largest penalty ever invoked by the Europeans in a monopoly case. Ms. Varney’s new policy more closely aligns American antitrust policy on monopolies and predatory practices with the views of antitrust regulators at the European Commission. Herbert Hovenkamp, a leading antitrust scholar regarded as a centrist between those seeking more aggressive enforcement and those who generally argue for restraint, said the guidelines by the Bush administration were “a brief for defendants.” He said that the repudiation of those guidelines by the Obama administration “will almost certainly have a greater impact than the guidelines themselves had.” “This will be bad news for heavyweights in the tech industries — companies like Google and Microsoft,” said Professor Hovenkamp, who teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law. “People aligned with plaintiffs will rejoice. Those aligned with defendants will wring their hands. A lot of law firms will be indifferent because they take money from both sides.” Ms. Varney said that the Obama administration was guided by the view that it was a major mistake during the outset of the Great Depression to relax antitrust enforcement, only to try to catch up and become more vigorous later. She said the mistake enabled many large companies to engage in pricing, wage and collusive practices that harmed consumers and took years to reverse. While Ms. Varney did not mention any specific companies or industries vulnerable under the new policy, those who have talked to her about the speech say she is aiming at agriculture, energy, health care, technology and telecommunications companies. She may also be reviewing the conduct of some in the financial services industry, which is now undergoing a wave of consolidation as a result of the financial crisis. Ms. Varney, who headed the Internet practice group of the Washington-based Hogan & Hartson law firm, served as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission in the 1990s after working in the White House during the early years of the Clinton administration. Signaling her intent to revive a moribund antitrust program, she has recruited a collection of senior aides, many of whom are seasoned antitrust litigators or worked in the Clinton administration and the Federal Trade Commission and were involved in many prominent cases, including the one against Microsoft. They include Molly S. Boast, William Cavanaugh, Gene Kimmelman, Carl Shapiro and Philip J. Weiser. Antitrust policy is set by Washington in two ways: by the interpretation of laws announced by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission through guidelines for the courts and private litigants, and by the enforcement cases that those agencies decide to bring. The government’s guidelines are often cited by lawyers and given considerable weight by judges in antitrust cases, including those lawsuits that the government does not participate in. It is not unlawful for a company to gain control of a market. It becomes unlawful if the company engages in conduct to exclude or harm competitors with no business justification. Conservative antitrust experts, some judges and defendants in such cases have said that the line is too difficult to draw and that it is better to let rivalries play out in the marketplace than in the courts. After more than a year of hearings and studies, the Justice Department in 2008 published a 215-page report analyzing Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, explaining the government’s approach to the monopolistic and predatory practices of companies. Reflecting skepticism of the role of government in the marketplace, the 2008 report made formal a set of policies that had largely been followed by the Justice Department, but not by the Federal Trade Commission, during the Bush administration. When the report was issued, Thomas Barnett, then the head of the antitrust division and the architect of the guidelines, said that they were meant to articulate “clear standards” for determining whether certain types of conduct by large companies would harm competition. In a rare split with the Justice Department, three of the four commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission denounced the guidelines, calling them “a blueprint for radically weakened enforcement” against anticompetitive practices.

Antitrust Actions and Laws
Obama Barack
Varney Christine A


Partisan Fever in Senate Likely to Rise

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama will get a short-term lift for his nominees, judicial and otherwise, but over the immediate horizon, the strong-arm move by Senate Democrats on Thursday to limit filibusters could usher in an era of rank partisan warfare beyond even what Americans have seen in the past five years. Ultimately, a small group of centrists — Republicans and Democrats — could find the muscle to hold the Senate at bay until bipartisan solutions can be found. But for the foreseeable future, Republicans, wounded and eager to show they have not been stripped of all power, are far more likely to unify against the Democrats who humiliated them in such dramatic fashion. “This is the most important and most dangerous restructuring of Senate rules since Thomas Jefferson wrote them at the beginning of our country,” declared Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. “It’s another raw exercise of political power to permit the majority to do whatever it wants whenever it wants to do it.” The decision to press the button on the so-called nuclear option was no doubt cathartic for a Democratic majority driven to distraction by Republican obstructionism. President Obama had predicted his re-election would break the partisan fever gripping Washington, especially since the Tea Party movement swept Republicans to control of the House. It did not. “Doing nothing was no longer an option,” said Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, one of a new breed of Democrats who have pressed to reform Senate rules. But the fever is hardly gone. The rule change lowered to a simple 51-vote majority the threshold to clear procedural hurdles on the way to the confirmation of judges and executive nominees. But it did nothing to streamline the gantlet that presidential nominees run. Republicans may not be able to muster the votes to block Democrats on procedure, but they can force every nomination into days of debate between every procedural vote in the Senate book — of which there will be many. And legislation, at least for now, is still very much subject to the filibuster. On Thursday afternoon, as one Republican after another went to the Senate floor to lament the end of one type of filibuster, they voted against cutting off debate on the annual defense policy bill, a measure that has passed with bipartisan support every year for decades. “Today’s historic change to Senate rules escalates what is already a hyperpartisan atmosphere in Washington, which is already preventing Congress from addressing our nation’s most significant challenges,” said former Senator Olympia Snowe, a Republican, and former Representative Dan Glickman, a Democrat, in a joint statement from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Republican senators who were willing to team with Democrats on legislation like an immigration overhaul, farm policy and a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act will probably think twice in the future. “We’ll have to see, but I think it was certainly unfortunate,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who has often worked with Democrats. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, made clear that he hoped to exact the ultimate revenge, taking back control of the Senate and using the new rules against the Democrats who made them. “The solution to this problem is at the ballot box,” he said. “We look forward to having a great election.” David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Mr. Obama, said retaliation by Republicans against the president’s broader agenda would end up hurting them more than Democrats. “If their answer is, ‘Oh yeah, we can make it even worse,’ I think they do that at great risk,” Mr. Axelrod said. “They have to make a decision about whether they want to be a shrinking, shrieking, blocking party, or if they are going to be a national party.” From the moment Mr. Obama took office, the president who proclaimed that there was no red America and blue America, only the United States of America, has strained to maintain some pretense of bipartisanship — through protracted and fruitless efforts to woo Republicans on his economic stimulus plan and health care law, through dinner dates with some handpicked Republican “friends,” through the nomination of Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator, to lead the Defense Department. In the raucous and dysfunctional House of Representatives, any bill, no matter how inflammatory, has been dubbed bipartisan so long as it attracts a handful of Democratic votes. While Senate leaders have held up for praise any legislation that has secured strong bipartisan majorities — a farm bill, an immigration overhaul, a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act — Democrats have seethed as one presidential nominee after another fell to procedural blockades and major initiatives like gun control collapsed when they could not reach the 60-vote threshold. Then on Thursday, before a solemn, almost funereal gathering on the Senate floor, the pretense came to an end. “It became clear even to reluctant members that their strategy of gridlock helped them more than us because we are the party that believes government has to be a force for good,” said Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Senate Democrat. At the White House, officials from the president down came to the same conclusion. “Enough is enough,” Mr. Obama said after the votes in the Senate. “The American people’s business is far too important to keep falling prey day after day to Washington politics.” If Harry Reid or future majority leaders extend the new rules to curb filibusters on legislation, a core group of moderates could emerge with new muscle. The Senate is usually narrowly divided, and it would not take a large coalition in the center to hold partisan legislation hostage. Already, a group of former governors, led by Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, Senator Alexander and Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, have begun banding together. Mr. Obama expressed hope that a bipartisan spirit “will have a little more space now.” And White House officials said it was still in the interest of Senate Republicans to find a way to legislate, rather than to simply obstruct for the rest of Mr. Obama’s term. For now, with legislative progress in the House all but doomed by Republican opposition, officials said the president could at least get a full team in place so that he can move forward with executive action, when possible, when Republicans block his agenda in Congress. That’s what Republicans fear. “This is nothing more than a power grab in order to try to advance the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda,” Mr. McConnell said.

Senate
Filibusters
US
Congress
US Politics
Appointments and Executive Changes
Barack Obama


Danish Prime Minister Narrowly Wins 3rd Term

Abstract: COPENHAGEN, Nov. 13 — Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the center-right Danish prime minister who presided over a thriving economy and steered his country through a global uproar over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, narrowly won his third term in office on Tuesday. Mr. Rasmussen’s coalition government, consisting of his Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, will probably have to include a new pro- immigration party, the New Alliance, which also espouses cuts to Denmark ’s high income taxes. He will also need the support of the far-right Danish People’s Party to pass legislation. Those alliances will make his task of forming a new government more complex in a country where support for tight border controls and the welfare state runs broad and deep. With 99 percent of the vote counted, the governing bloc had won 89 of the 179 seats in Parliament, and the New Alliance Party had won five, The Associated Press reported. The opposition Social Democrats got 81 seats, The A.P. said. To make this new constellation work, Mr. Rasmussen will have to weld together two very different allies. The Danish People’s Party, which supports the government but holds no ministerial positions, takes a hard line against immigration and Denmark’s generous welfare state. The New Alliance, a party that is barely six months old and whose voters are mostly affluent urbanites, wants to ease restrictions on immigration and has proposed lowering the current top income tax rate of 63 percent to 40 percent. Its handful of seats in Parliament, the Folketing, will give it a small but king-making role. New Alliance is led by Naser Khader, a Syrian-born Danish citizen who became a prominent spokesman for greater tolerance in the Muslim world after widespread violence in response to a series of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Jyllands-Posten, a leading Danish newspaper. Mr. Rasmussen called elections late last month, aiming to profit from a strong economy and the star power of “flexicurity,” the name given to the Danish model of a strong welfare state combined with easy hiring and firing. The jobless rate in Denmark is 3.1 percent, the lowest in over three decades, and the economy grew by 3.5 percent in 2006. The prime minister has also had broad support for his tight immigration policies. When he took office in 2001, and again when he last won re-election in 2005, he pledged to keep a lid on immigration and asylum, and both have plunged during his terms. The Social Democrats’ leader, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a former member of the European Parliament, campaigned on a platform of support for the welfare state. Perhaps surprisingly in the current international environment, Denmark’s military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan played marginal roles in the election campaign, which lasted less than a month. Denmark removed its ground forces from Iraq last year, though a small air force contingent took their place. Likewise, all the major parties support the country’s presence in Afghanistan, where Danish troops fight alongside the British in the volatile southern provinces. Even the recent deaths of three Danish soldiers have not broken that consensus. Instead, the campaign quickly fell under the shadow of the New Alliance’s impact on Denmark’s complex electoral mathematics, which are driven by the need to forge coalitions. Though New Alliance first promoted its tax-cutting plans, it has since emphasized the need to relax immigration rules, perhaps one reason it lost ground in opinion polls conducted over the past two weeks. Mr. Khader “looked like our savior for a while,” said Helle Wagner, 35, a business student in Copenhagen. “But his message was not clear.”

Denmark
Elections
Politics and Government
Rasmussen Anders Fogh


Highways Are a Talking Point as Hopefuls Take to the Road

Abstract: In a speech that began her campaign for lieutenant governor, State Senator Leticia Van de Putte offered examples of what she considered negligence by the state’s Republican leadership. “They’ve even talked about taking paved highways and turning them into gravel roads, as if they think that you can grow a 21st-century economy on a 19th-century transportation system,” Ms. Van de Putte, a Democrat from San Antonio, said as the crowd booed the Republican plan. “Doesn’t Texas deserve better than that?" While transportation funding does not draw the emotional response of debates over education reform and abortion regulations, it is emerging as an issue in next year’s statewide elections. Both Democratic and Republican candidates have pledged to increase resources for the Texas Department of Transportation. “Critical to our economy is better transportation infrastructure,” Attorney General Greg Abbott, the front-runner for next year’s Republican nomination for governor, wrote in an editorial in October for The Monitor, the newspaper in McAllen . “We need a permanent source of additional transportation funding, not one-time patches to our fiscal potholes.” The Texas Legislature primed interest this year by debating approaches to increasing the transportation department’s budget. The agency’s leaders told lawmakers that the budget was more than $5 billion less than what was needed to maintain current levels of congestion amid the need to accommodate a growing population and sustain an oil-drilling boom that has increased truck traffic. Most of the agency’s current budget of $10.5 billion a year goes to road construction and maintenance. Critics have questioned how well the agency has used the money, but complaints have eased with agency cost-cutting. A partial solution that lawmakers adopted will require voter approval in November, ensuring that transportation funding will be part of the political discussion in the fall. If voters approve, the measure will dedicate some future oil and gas production tax revenue to road projects. The state comptroller estimated that the plan would increase funds spent on transportation by more than $1.3 billion a year. To further close the agency’s funding gap, Mr. Abbott has called for dedicating the tax now collected on automobile sales to transportation and ending diversions of gas tax revenue to public schools and law enforcement. State Senator Wendy Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat running for governor, also favors ending the diversions. A campaign spokeswoman pointed to measures Ms. Davis filed in 2011 and 2013 that, had either of them passed, would have discontinued hundreds of millions of dollars in diversions from the highway fund. Besides the funding debate, the absence of Gov. Rick Perry from the election could change how candidates discuss transportation. In 2006 and 2010, Mr. Perry ran for re-election facing questions about the Trans-Texas Corridor , his ambitious yet controversial plan to build a network of toll roads and allow a private firm to run it. Opponents accused Mr. Perry of ramming through the Legislature a project that Texans did not want. In 2010, he repeatedly declared the project “dead.” The transportation agency created a new political lightning rod six months ago when it announced plans to convert some badly damaged paved roads to gravel in parts of South and West Texas. Agency officials said that a surge in drilling-related truck traffic had rendered the roads unsafe and that the agency lacked the resources to properly maintain them. The program drew bipartisan criticism. After converting five miles of road in Live Oak County to gravel, the agency shelved the initiative. Ms. Van de Putte and others say it shows Republicans would rather move backward than invest in infrastructure. At a public event hosted by The Texas Tribune in September, Ms. Davis described the gravel roads initiative as a repudiation of the farm-to-market road system that has bolstered the Texas economy for decades. “There were leaders at one time that were willing to talk about making those kinds of investment so that all of Texas could play a role in our healthy, strong economy and be a beneficiary of it,” Ms. Davis said. “And we really haven’t been having those kinds of conversations lately, and it’s time for us to have them again.”

Leticia Van de Putte
Texas
Greg Abbott
Budget
Roads and Traffic
State legislature