Stephen J. Immelt of Hogan Lovells: Raised to Believe ‘You Can Fix This’

Abstract: This interview with Stephen J. Immelt, C.E.O. of Hogan Lovells , an international law firm, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. Were you in leadership roles when you were younger? A. I was the captain of the football team and president of the student council. I was just always interested in being in the mix, and I felt that I could contribute. Playing a role always appealed to me, but it was more out of curiosity than anything else. Tell me about your parents. Both my parents are still alive, and they grew up in families that were profoundly affected by the Depression. It was a struggle, and so stability — having a good job and being able to buy a house — was really important to them. I can still remember when we moved into our first house and what a celebratory event that was. They were not didactic people, but the lesson from them was, don’t be a victim. You have the opportunity to change what you’re not happy with. If my brother or I would come home with a complaint about something, they would say, “You can fix this.” That was very much the way they raised us. My father also was always asking us questions to push and provoke us. Whatever you said, you had to be prepared to defend it or explain, and then be prepared to have him come back with outlandish counterstrokes. He was always challenging us in a good way. Your brother Jeff is the C.E.O. of General Electric. Not every family has two brothers who grew up to be prominent C.E.O.s. Any theories about that? I don’t have an explanation for it. Maybe it’s just that our parents always encouraged us to think big. There was never a sense that you can’t do this or you can’t do that. And they created in us a huge well of curiosity, and a drive to experience the world. They also instilled in us the importance of being authentic. I don’t think that word ever left my parents’ mouths, but the worst thing they would say about somebody was that they were a phony. The lesson was to just always be yourself. Did you have an idea what you wanted to do for a career when you went to college? I went to Yale, but growing up in Finneytown, Ohio, I had no idea what Yale was at the time. And there was a short window back then when you could afford to go to a school like Yale. The tuition, room and board during my freshman year was something like $3,900. I was a history major. I’ve always been interested in why people do what they do. I wasn’t really thinking about what I would do next. I think at one point my mother stepped in and said, “You actually need to have a plan.” I graduated in 1974, and the economy was pretty grim at the time, and so I decided that I would try law school. What are some leadership lessons you’ve learned over the years? I spent the first 20 years of my career mostly learning the craft of practicing law, and it was only in my late 40s that I began to move into a management role. The key opportunity came 10 years ago when I was asked to lead all of our offices outside the United States. Suddenly I was in a position where I was managing people in London, in Germany, in Paris. That was an eye-opener. I came to appreciate pretty quickly that when you’re in that setting, your own views about how the world is set up go out the window. You really have to become a much better listener, and you learn that there are very different cultural lenses. You have to make sure that everybody who has something to say has a chance to say it. That helped develop my style of management, of trying to be a good listener, and trying to think through the way Americans can be misperceived or perceived, and then trying to take that out of the equation as much as I can so that we can find common ground. That’s a challenge for anybody running a global organization today, and we have 6,000 employees in 25 countries. Clarity of vision is important, too, particularly in a law firm where people are trained to be skeptical. In a setting like that, you have to be clear about what you’re asking people to do and where we are headed. That’s true in any leadership setting, but it’s particularly true in one like ours that is fairly nonhierarchical. How do you hire? What questions do you ask? What brought you here? What were the things you had to overcome? I always ask about their weaknesses, and I listen pretty carefully to that, because it’s often a good gauge as to how self-aware they are. I also listen for how genuine their answer is. Anybody can come up with some throwaway weaknesses. I’m interested in somebody who’s actually thought about themselves and how they interact with the world. I’ll also ask, “Tell me something you did that was really hard, and that you didn’t handle as well as you wish you had.” Part of being a leader involves a willingness to step up and do things that are hard. You don’t always do that perfectly. It’s precisely because they’re hard that they require some willingness to learn and get better. I’m interested in people who share my passion for learning and for changing. I’m much more interested in listening to their narrative for how they dealt with failure rather than some kind of triumphalism. What career advice do you give to graduating college students? My three basic messages are: Be curious; be willing to work outside your comfort zone; and be ready. Even with all the planning in the world, you won’t know which door will open. The important thing is that when a door cracks open, you’re ready to go through it and experience whatever is on the other side.

Stephen J. Immelt
Hogan Lovells
Management
Careers and Professions


Judge Blocks Abortion Law in Louisiana

Abstract: BATON ROUGE, La. — A federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of Louisiana’s restrictive new abortion law. Judge John W. deGravelles of the Middle District of Louisiana said the law can still take effect on Monday, but officials cannot penalize doctors or clinics for breaking it while a challenge is heard. The law requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of their clinics. A lawsuit by the Center for Reproductive Rights claims that doctors have not had enough time to obtain privileges, and that the law likely would force Louisiana’s five clinics to close. Judge deGravelles said the doctors’ risk of fines and losing licenses outweighed any injury to the state from keeping the status quo. He noted that the state health secretary said she would not enforce the law against doctors awaiting decisions from hospitals to which they have applied.

Abortion
Louisiana
Doctor
Center for Reproductive Rights


De Blasio Sworn In as New York Mayor

Abstract: Bill de Blasio was sworn in as the 109th mayor of New York City early Wednesday, at two minutes past the stroke of midnight. The oath of office was administered by Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, in a brief ceremony inside the front yard of the mayor’s rowhouse in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where Mr. de Blasio stood with his family behind a chain-link fence and beside a bare-limbed tree. “I want to say to all of you how grateful we are,” Mr. de Blasio, who wore a black topcoat and cobalt blue tie, told a crowd of journalists and well-wishers, including the actor Steve Buscemi and Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont. “From the beginning,” the mayor continued, “this has been our family together, reaching out to the people of this city to make a change that we all needed.” He added: “This is a beginning of a road we will travel together.” The ceremony, which precedes a formal inauguration to take place at noon on the City Hall steps, was the culmination of a campaign in which Mr. de Blasio carefully calibrated his image as a fiery populist, intent on easing the disparities of a gilded city, and a proud husband and father, whose biracial family seemed a paragon of multi-cultural New York. The mayor chose the symbolic location of his own middle-class home, about four miles outside of Manhattan, to recite his oath; it was the same location where he announced his campaign nearly a year ago. Mr. de Blasio emerged from his house at 12:01 a.m., followed closely by his wife, Chirlane McCray, who wore a flecked black-and-grey jacket, his 16-year-old son, Dante, in a sweater and zip-up jacket, and his 19-year-old daughter, Chiara, who donned a pointy party hat. Mr. Schneiderman, in a casual coat, stood nearby. He recited a quote from Paul Wellstone, the former Minnesota senator: “It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics.” Mr. de Blasio then placed his hand on a Bible and recited the oath of office, before hugging his family members, one at a time. Asked for a $9 filing fee, required by the city to register his new office, Mr. de Blasio opted to pay in cash, holding out the bills for the crowd to see. There was much applause. The city clerk, Michael McSweeney, approached with several papers for the newly minted mayor to sign. “Here’s the pen, Mr. Mayor,” Mr. McSweeney said. It was the very first time that Mr. de Blasio had been addressed by his new formal title. The mayor, unable to suppress a grin, let out a happy laugh. Mr. de Blasio concluded the late-night appearance by wishing the onlookers a happy new year. With that, he threw a kiss to the crowd, and walked back into his house.

Bill de Blasio
Chirlane McCray
Chiara de Blasio
Dante de Blasio
NYC


‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Has World Premiere, No Expense Spared

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — A veritable army of security guards, publicists and event staffers. Quadruple the typical number of invited guests. A lavish after-party, replete with Stormtroopers and a roaming Chewbacca, stretching for four city blocks. Even by the razzmatazz standards of the Walt Disney Company, the high-security, spare-no-expense world premiere for “ Star Wars: The Force Awakens ” on Monday was something to behold. “Sincere apologies to the neighborhood,” the film’s director, J. J. Abrams, said in his introductory remarks, dryly calling the event “incredibly low key.” For fans, and there were plenty among the A-listers in attendance (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is not in the film, turned up in green face paint and Yoda ears), the premiere was a chance to revel in the restart of the “Star Wars” franchise after a decade of theatrical absence. “The Force Awakens” focuses on a young woman, Rey, as she becomes entwined with efforts — led by General Leia, no longer a princess — to locate a vanished Luke Skywalker and generally save the galaxy from evil combatants called the First Order. Video Both old and new faces from the “Star Wars” movies shared their thoughts on the new film in the series at its premiere on Monday. Credit Credit Ethan Miller/Getty Images (The clear consensus among attendees: “The Force Awakens,” the seventh “Star Wars” movie and the first made without the involvement of George Lucas, is dramatically better than the last three “prequels.” Disney placed a Wednesday embargo on reviews.) For Disney, the premiere, which overflowed from the Dolby to two adjacent theaters, the TCL Chinese and the El Capitan, was an overt celebration of its 2012 decision to get into the “Star Wars” business . Disney, which paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm, will collect an estimated $2.5 billion in global ticket sales for “The Force Awakens,” with related merchandise generating $5 billion over the next year. Four more “Star Wars”-themed movies are on the way by 2020. Costing roughly $350 million to make and market worldwide, “The Force Awakens” will begin playing in previews on Thursday night in the United States and Canada, with more than 4,100 American theaters lined up to show the movie over the weekend. About 3,300 of those theaters will offer 3-D screenings. “The Force Awakens,” which received a PG-13 rating, will begin its international run on Wednesday in France, Italy and nine other countries. Cinemas in Britain, Germany, Russia, Brazil and 14 additional territories, including Hong Kong, will begin playing the film on Thursday, with all other major markets — except mainland China, where “The Force Awakens” opens on Jan. 9 — following over the weekend. Since the collapse of the DVD market in 2007, movie premieres have become more austere affairs. But there was a time when premieres as ostentatious as “The Force Awakens” event were relatively common. Universal Pictures took over 38 theaters in the Times Square area in 2005 for its “King Kong” premiere; Disney unveiled “Pearl Harbor” in 2001 on an aircraft carrier in Hawaii, erecting grandstand seating on the flight deck. Image "Star Wars" fans at Monday's premiere of the latest film in the franchise. Credit Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press Disney worked hard to keep Monday’s premiere festive (invitations noted that “parking for your Landspeeder, Sandcrawler or other transportation vehicle” would be provided), but unusually heightened security undercut the lightheartedness. With the Dec. 2 massacre of 14 people in nearby San Bernardino, Calif., still fresh in people’s minds, Disney sent invited guests through metal detectors and frisking checkpoints. “I literally had to walk through five metal detectors to get to my spot on the red carpet,” Cameron Mathison, a correspondent for “Entertainment Tonight,” said during a live interview before the premiere began. It is extremely unusual for a studio to use metal detectors at all. The Los Angeles Police Department deployed more than 70 officers to the event, according to Sgt. Robert Ward. There was at least one bomb-sniffing dog. Confirmation letters emailed by Disney to attendees on Friday advised, “For your safety and security, we ask you leave masks, face shields, or other facial feature obstructing headgear or make-up, as well as light sabers, blasters, or other weaponry (real or simulated) at home.” Disney declined to comment on its reasoning for the intense security. The weather created an extra challenge for Disney. It was not quite the ice planet Hoth , but the Los Angeles weather was unusually cold and blustery, even for December, with a midday temperature in the 50s and wind gusts of up to 45 m.p.h., according to local television stations. As a result, women in evening gowns with bare arms nearly turned into icicles, and the elements rivaled the movie as a topic of conversation. “Did we get it cold enough for you?” Alan F. Horn , the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, said to a guest on the red carpet, offering him a warm handshake.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Los Angeles
Security
Movies
Party
J J Abrams


8 Million Rats for 8 Million New Yorkers? Data Suggest a City Legend Is Flawed

Abstract: For some years, statistics have suggested that New York City was getting safer, cleaner and more expensive. Now there are numbers that suggest the city may not be home to as many rats as New Yorkers might have thought — or liked to boast about to visitors. Jonathan Auerbach, a 26-year-old statistician studying for a doctorate at Columbia University, recently won a competition sponsored by the 180-year-old Royal Statistical Society of London. Mr. Auerbach claimed the prize with a paper in which he made the case that there are far fewer rats in the city than almost anyone had assumed. About six million fewer. By Mr. Auerbach’s calculations, the rat population is a mere two million, give or take 150,000. In arriving at that total, he debunked the long-perpetuated idea that there was one rat for every person in the city. New York’s population stood at 8,405,837 as of July 2013, according to the Planning Department. But in his paper — published in the statistical journal Significance under the title “ Does New York City Really Have as Many Rats as People? ” — he called the one-person, one-rat idea “an urban myth.” It is enough to make one wonder what might be next. Perhaps Mr. Auerbach’s work will provide David Letterman with fresh material. Mr. Letterman joked about encountering “rats as big as cats” after he moved to the Ed Sullivan Theater in 1993. Or perhaps Mr. Auerbach’s paper will provide a plot twist for the vampire-centric cable television drama “The Strain.” The show already has a rat exterminator in its cast. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s approach to counting rodents involves the use of what it calls “rat indexing” to inspect multiple properties in areas on which it concentrates. The agency tells owners to hire exterminators if its inspectors find evidence of rats on their premises, and can issue violation notices if follow-up inspections indicate a lack of compliance. It also holds training courses for building superintendents, property managers, homeowners and even interested tenants. The health department says its efforts have paid off. “We have seen an overall decrease in the number of active rat signs throughout New York City,” Levi Fishman, the deputy press secretary for the department, said in an email. How much of a decrease? Mr. Fishman said that “there are no scientific methods for being able to accurately count the number of rats in New York or any large city.” Similarly, Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , which is well steeped in the battle against rodents, said it had never quantified the rat population living in the subway system. Image A New York rat in one of its natural habitats, the Times Square subway station. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Mr. Auerbach, who was a fiscal analyst for the City Council and for the New York City Labor Market Information Service at the City University of New York before enrolling at Columbia, acknowledged in his paper that conducting a rat census posed significant challenges for a statistician. “Animals are terrible survey respondents,” he noted dryly. He faced other methodological problems. He could not capture a large number of rats, mark them for identification purposes, release them, capture a second batch and count the number of marked rats in that batch. “Unfortunately,” he wrote, the health department “is unlikely to approve a large-scale rat-releasing experiment (I know, because I asked).” Instead, Mr. Auerbach relied on information about rat complaints gathered from 311 call logs, which is publicly available on the city’s data portal . He correlated the location of each reported sighting to the corresponding building lot and concluded that there were 40,500 rat-inhabited lots in New York, or about 4.75 percent of the city’s 842,000 lots. “We know that 40 to 50 rats belong to a typical colony,” he wrote. Assuming — “quite generously” — that the larger number was reasonable, he put the rat population at 2.02 million. The idea that the rat population is smaller than eight million is not news, according to Robert Sullivan, who wrote the book on rats — literally. The title was “Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants.” “Anybody who knows anything about rats knows there aren’t eight million rats,” Mr. Sullivan said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “but anybody who knows anything about rats knows that everybody loves the idea of eight million rats. The one-rat-per-person scenario is too good.” Even so, he noted that the theory was disproved after World War II by the animal behaviorist David E. Davis, who trapped rats in apartments in East Harlem and estimated that, at the time, the city was home to one rat for every 36 people. Mr. Auerbach’s paper was one of three finalists judged by a panel of professional statisticians. He was invited to speak at the society’s annual conference in Sheffield, England, in September. The audience, he said, “had a lot of questions about assumptions — do my assumptions hold given the data set? “At the end, I gave a challenge: ‘Let’s see someone do better.’ I didn’t try to sell the work as a biologist understanding a species. We’re all taxpayers. We pay for services. The government is releasing data. How can we use the data to engage the agencies and talk about the services they provide?”

Health and Mental Hygiene Department NYC


Beijing Issues a Second ‘Red Alert’ on Pollution

Abstract: BEIJING — The Chinese capital issued a “red alert” for air pollution on Friday morning, saying it was enacting for the second time the highest-level emergency pollution plan in advance of a prolonged spell of smog that is predicted to smother Beijing and elsewhere in northern China this weekend. The crisis measures were expected to start Saturday and last for four days. Beijing first issued a code red on air pollution last week. The measures further raised awareness of toxic air in this city of 22 million and underscored for the rest of the world the dismal state of the environment here. The measures took effect from Dec. 8 to Dec. 10, and they included the shutdown of more than 3,200 schools, the pulling of about half the city’s five million cars off the road each day and the temporary closing of factories and construction sites in the municipal area. The same is expected to be in place during the second crisis period. Second Red Alert for Beijing: Air Pollution Worsens Beijing issued its second-ever red alert for dangerously bad air quality on Friday morning, just a week after its first one. The current alert is for hazardous levels starting on Saturday and end at midnight on Tuesday. But those measures did little to curb the smog the first time. Toxic air cloaked Beijing until strong winds blew the pollutants south. The main source of foul air in the capital comes from coal-burning factories in surrounding provinces, not from activity in the city itself, and cities in those provinces did not take the same drastic emergency measures that Beijing did. Many parts of northern China, including the provinces of Hebei, Henan and Shanxi, regularly have air quality that is worse than that of Beijing . Pollution of all forms is one of the greatest concerns of Chinese citizens and undermines the legitimacy of the Communist Party. Officials are struggling with how much information on pollution to disclose to citizens. Since 2012, public pressure has resulted in greater official transparency on air quality. The coming red alert is expected to last longer than the previous one. It is scheduled to start at 7 a.m. on Saturday and end at midnight on Tuesday, according to a phone text message sent to Beijing residents on Friday morning. City officials are supposed to inform the residents 24 hours before emergency measures start. Under the crisis plan first announced in 2013 and revised this year, Beijing is supposed to issue a red alert every time officials predict a spell of smog in which the air quality index exceeds 200 — deemed “very unhealthy” by United States standards — for 72 hours or more. Weather forecasts show almost zero wind this weekend , which explains the prediction of smog. If the smog does come as predicted, then this would be the third prolonged spell of hazardous air in northern China in the last month, and it would be the fourth time in that period in which the air quality moves into the truly toxic range. (There was a brief surge of smog last weekend, after the second red alert had ended.) How Does Air Pollution Affect Your Daily Life? The New York Times would like to hear from residents living in countries seriously affected by air pollution. Since the first two days of the coming alert take place over a weekend, the start of the measures is not expected to be as disruptive to daily life as it was in early December. Schools will have ended for the week, and many offices will be closed. A test of the patience of residents will come Monday. Last time, many residents asked why officials had declared the alert so suddenly — they announced it about 12 hours before the measures began — and left people little time to make plans. Since schools closed but offices did not, many parents had to scramble to find babysitters to watch their children or decided to skip work and stay home. The mayor of Beijing, Wang Anshun, and environmental officials decided to issue that first red alert after coming under withering criticism just one week earlier when the worst spell of toxic air this year descended on Beijing. That occurred over the last weekend of November, and the air quality index in southern Beijing reached nearly 1,000, off the scale of how the United States Environmental Protection Agency rates air quality. On that scale, 50 is the upper limit of air considered “good.” Years ago, the United States Embassy called air beyond 300 “crazy bad.” During that late November weekend, frustrated Beijing residents asked why the city had not gone to red alert status when forecasters had already predicted the incoming smog. The spell of poisonous air also took place at the start of the Paris climate change talks, when President Xi Jinping met with world leaders to discuss the evils of fossil fuel use. While covering the start of the talks, global news media organizations published articles, videos and photographs on China’s toxic air, which proved extremely embarrassing for Chinese officials, say some environmental scholars in Beijing. That was one reason Beijing officials began to seriously consider issuing the red alert after never having done so, they say.

Beijing
Air pollution
China
Closings
Xi Jinping
HazMat
UNFCCC
Communist Party of China


Impact Begins to Be Felt From New York Senate Stalemate

Abstract: ALBANY — New York City marshals can no longer enforce financial judgments. The City of Yonkers cannot send out property tax bills to homeowners. And in the Town of Deerpark, in Orange County, local officials cannot issue bonds that the town is counting on to balance its budget. As the stalemate in the State Senate stuttered through its fourth week, a crucial deadline came and went: June 30. It was the expiration date of more than a dozen statutes that authorize local governments to carry out their everyday duties, from planning budgets to collecting taxes. And as Democrats and Republicans in the Senate continued on Wednesday to argue fruitlessly over who controlled the chamber, officials around the state were left to ponder contingency plans that they never thought they would need. “I won’t be able to extend this out much further,” said Gary W. Flieger, the town supervisor of Deerpark, who said property taxes would need to be raised if the bond authorization did not come through. “I’m very concerned about it. It sounds like everyone in Albany wants this to happen; they just have to get it together.” For some, like the city marshals, the missed deadline has had an immediate effect. The marshals, who earn commissions for enforcing liens and other judgments on behalf of creditors, can no longer take such assignments, which for most of them are a primary source of income, because the law granting them those powers expired. “That’s big business for them in New York City,” said Peter R. Kehoe, executive director of the New York State Sheriffs’ Association . For others, the impact will unfold less immediately, but no less ominously. In Yonkers, officials require the state comptroller to certify the budget before it can issue property tax bills. But the comptroller cannot do that until the Legislature re-authorizes the city’s income tax surcharge for the fiscal year that began on July 1. “The practical effect is that the city will run out of money in the next few weeks,” said David Simpson, a spokesman for the mayor, Philip A. Amicone. “The only way we can get money is to send out new property tax bills. We only have weeks before we will have to shut down services.” Some of the upheaval predicted by Gov. David A. Paterson and other critics of the Senate stalemate has yet to take place. The expiration of the law granting Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg control over the New York City school system, for example, has not produced the chaos that Mr. Bloomberg warned: Allies of his were placed on the newly reconstituted Board of Education, and so his policies are most likely to be kept in place until a more permanent solution emerges. But other problems are approaching. A major concern of lawmakers — including the senators currently feuding — is the state’s Power for Jobs program , which provides rebates or low-cost power for businesses and nonprofit groups that promise to keep certain jobs in the state. Currently, the program provides about $125 million in benefits, pegged to the retention of more than 300,000 jobs. But because that program expired on June 30, those businesses — roughly 550 — will lose rebates in the coming weeks and months, effectively increasing their power costs by thousands of dollars a month in the middle of the summer, at a time when many businesses are already struggling. “Business needs stable and predictable government,” said Kenneth Adams, president of the Business Council of New York State . “These are big issues and long-term issues.” Sales taxes, which provide the bulk of revenue for most county governments, are also pressing. In most cases, the laws that authorize the counties to levy sales taxes will not expire until November. But without extensions that were due to be passed by the end of the regular legislative session, that revenue is in question, making it difficult for budget planning, a process that normally begins in the summer. Senators met again on Wednesday in a session called by Mr. Paterson, but gaveled out without conducting any business. And while both sides have pledged to continue to talk about a way forward, those negotiations have produced little but theater so far. On Wednesday morning, Dean G. Skelos, the Republican Senate leader, arrived at a lofty hearing room in the legislative office building with Senator Pedro Espada Jr., a Bronx Democrat allied with the Republicans, for what was billed as a public negotiation to hammer out a power-sharing agreement. But the Democrats did not show. So instead, shortly after the Republicans entered the hearing room, the lights went down and a video showed scenes from the Senate floor on June 8, the day they staged a takeover that has thrown the chamber into tumult. A Republican lawyer began narrating, explaining to a restive press corps why the Republicans made all the right procedural moves in electing Mr. Skelos majority leader and Mr. Espada Senate president. Mr. Skelos and Mr. Espada, their hands folded in front of them, looked on raptly as they were sworn in.

New York State
State Legislatures
Politics and Government


Fire in Tanzania Kills 12 Students

Abstract: DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Agence France-Presse) — At least 12 children died and 20 others were severely burned when a fire razed a dormitory at a secondary school in central Tanzania, the police said Sunday. “The fire is believed to have started after a net caught fire from a candle and spread throughout the dormitory,” Evarist Mangala, the Iringa regional police commissioner, told Agence France-Presse. He said the police were investigating the fire that struck Idodi Secondary School, about 285 miles southwest of Dar es Salaam, on Saturday evening. The school has no electricity, Mr. Magala said, and students normally study by candlelight after dark. The bodies were charred beyond recognition, so the dead will be buried Tuesday in a common grave in the Iringa district, said Mwantumu Mahiza, the deputy education minister.


Baseball Hall of Fame Has Always Made Room for Infamy

Abstract: The Baseball Hall of Fame, the most august fraternity of its kind in American sports, unveils its latest induction class Wednesday. For the first time this year, balloters must weigh the fate of two eminent stars, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who are also the most celebrated poster boys for the game’s disgraced steroid era. Players linked to steroid use have been resoundingly rejected by Hall of Fame voters in recent years, shunned as synthetically enhanced frauds. But drawing an integrity line in the sand is a tenuous stance at a Hall of Fame with a membership that already includes multiple virulent racists, drunks, cheats, brawlers, drug users and at least one acknowledged sex addict. In the spirit of Groucho Marx, who refused to join any club that would have him as a member, would not baseball’s 77-year-old gallery of rogues be the perfect fit for Bonds and Clemens? Robert W. Cohen, who wrote the 2009 book “Baseball Hall of Fame — or Hall of Shame?”, readily recalled a catalog of reprehensible acts by Hall of Fame inductees. “Baseball has always had some form of hypocrisy when it comes to its exalted heroes,” he said. “In theory, when it comes to these kinds of votes, it’s true that character should matter, but once you’ve already let in Ty Cobb, how can you exclude anyone else?” Cobb, portrayed as a sociopath in biographies and a Hollywood film starring Tommy Lee Jones, is without question the Hall of Famer mentioned most often whenever the integrity of the game’s top players is questioned. Known as the Georgia Peach, he was often painted a racist and had numerous documented altercations with African-Americans off the field, including one that led to a charge of attempted murder. Image Ty Cobb, an inaugural Hall of Fame member, was often painted as a racist, and he had numerous altercations with African-Americans. Credit Associated Press Cobb, along with his fellow Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, was also implicated in a game-fixing scheme. Several researchers have written that Cobb and Speaker were members of the Ku Klux Klan, although that has never been conclusively verified. “Plaster saints is not what we have in the Hall of Fame,” said John Thorn, perhaps the nation’s most widely known baseball historian and the author of more than a dozen baseball books. “Many were far from moral exemplars.” Cobb, who was included on 222 of 226 ballots during the inaugural 1936 Hall of Fame voting, is far from alone when it comes to baseball elite old-timers and imputations of racism, some of them blatant, recurring and historic. “Cap Anson helped make sure baseball’s color line was established in the 1880s,” Thorn said of the Chicago Cubs first baseman and manager who was enshrined in the Hall of Fame the year it opened in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1939. “He was relentless in that cause.” Anson repeatedly refused to take the field if the opposing roster included black players. Anson had plenty of co-conspirators. The Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, also a member of the Hall of Fame class of 1939, “outed” the African-American infielder Charlie Grant, who was posing as a Cherokee on the preseason exhibition roster of the Baltimore Orioles team led by John McGraw (Hall of Fame class of 1937). Overseeing baseball’s segregationist policy in three decades was Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis (Hall of Fame class of 1944). When Landis died in 1944, an initiative was begun to break the color barrier, an effort that culminated with Jackie Robinson’s Brooklyn Dodgers debut in the spring of 1947. However, the Boston Red Sox, owned by Tom Yawkey (class of 1980), did not field their first black player until 1959. Image Adrian Anson, among the greatest players of the 1880s, repeatedly refused to take the field if the opposing team included black players. Credit Associated Press Often, the miscreants in the Hall of Fame are viewed more like rascals than scoundrels or bigots. Babe Ruth (class of 1936), a prodigious drinker and womanizer and yet popular and revered, fits the category. Casey Stengel (class of 1966) once called right fielder Paul Waner (class of 1952) a graceful player. Why? “Because,” Stengel said, “he could slide into second base without breaking the bottle in his hip pocket.” The famed Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko once wrote that Hack Wilson (class of 1979) should have been moved to first base from the outfield, where he usually played, “because he wouldn’t have as far to stagger to the dugout.” Grover Cleveland Alexander (class of 1938) pitched better drunk than sober, according to the team owner Bill Veeck (class of 1991). Meanwhile, pitcher Gaylord Perry (class of 1991) had a disregard for the rules that was far more patent and unashamed than any steroid user. Perry doctored baseballs with spit, Vaseline and other substances to confound hitters. All of baseball knew what Perry was doing even if he never admitted it — until writing a tell-all book after his retirement. Orlando Cepeda served 10 months in prison after being arrested in 1975 for smuggling marijuana in Puerto Rico. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America did not select him for the Hall of Fame; instead, Cepeda was elected by the Veterans Committee in 1999. Image As the owner of the White Sox, Charles A. Comiskey exposed an early attempt to pass off an African-American player as a Cherokee. Credit Associated Press Other players have confessed to serious use of illicit recreational drugs (Paul Molitor, class of 2004) or had racetrack gambling issues (Rogers Hornsby, class of 1942). And Wade Boggs (class of 2005), after an extramarital affair was exposed during his playing days, announced to Barbara Walters on national television that he was a sex addict. “But there’s a real distinction between a player who does inappropriate things not related to his job and a player who does inappropriate things that affect his job,” said Bill James, an influential and pioneering baseball author and statistician who wrote the book “Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?” In the debate about whether players linked to steroids belong in the Hall of Fame — when compared with players who might have been ne’er-do-wells — a frequent line of thinking is that there is a critical difference between crimes against society and crimes against baseball. A player can, for instance, neglect to pay his income taxes and remain in the good graces of the Hall of Fame (Duke Snider, class of 1980), but neglect to run out routine ground balls and it will undoubtedly cost the player Hall of Fame votes. It is the reason that certain players, like Pete Rose who gambled on baseball games, are on baseball’s ineligible list and prohibited from the Hall of Fame ballot. Taking drugs to hit more home runs apparently falls into a similar category for many voters. “Being inducted is an honor, not a paycheck you are entitled to,” James said, defending the character clause written into the criteria on the Hall of Fame ballot. “No one is entitled to be elected. The voters choose who to honor.” In the end, it is a statement on the ascendancy of the professional athlete in America that there is any kind of public disagreement — let alone a loud one — over the everlasting worthiness of players like Bonds and Clemens. As Thorn, the historian, points out, the earliest major league baseball players were disrespected, often treated like circus performers or prostitutes. “They would be turned away from hotels,” Thorn said. “They were not considered fit for polite company. And now, today, here they are heroes and role models.”

Baseball Hall of Fame
Baseball
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Steroid
Ty Cobb
Doping
Awards


In Indiana, Centerpiece for a City Closes Shop

Abstract: EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Having seen her father make a solid living at the Whirlpool refrigerator factory, Natalie Ford was enthusiastic about landing a job there and was happy years later when her 20-year-old son also went to work there. But that family tradition will soon end because Whirlpool plans to close the plant on Friday and move the operation to Mexico, eliminating 1,100 jobs here. Many in this city in southern Indiana are seething and sad — sad about losing what was long the city’s economic centerpiece and a ticket to the middle class for one generation after another. “This is all about corporate greed,” said Ms. Ford, who took a job at Whirlpool 19 years ago. “It’s devastating to our family and to everyone in the plant. I wonder where we’ll be two years or four years from now. There aren’t any jobs here. How is this community going to survive?” At a time when the nation’s economy is struggling to gain momentum, Whirlpool’s decision is an unwelcome step backward. It continues a trend in which the nation has lost nearly six million factory jobs over the past dozen years, representing one in three manufacturing jobs. Connie Brasel, who earned $18.44 an hour making thermal liners for the refrigerators, sees Whirlpool’s move as a betrayal not just of the workers but also of the United States. “This country made Whirlpool what it is,” she said. “They didn’t get world-class quality because they had the best managers. They got world-class quality because of the U.S. and because of their workers. And now they want to pack up and move to Mexico. I find it offensive.” Whirlpool has operated the plant since 1956, and at the factory’s peak in 1973 it employed nearly 10,000 workers. Ms. Brasel was hired 17 years ago, after holding a string of minimum-wage jobs. “I felt good about Whirlpool,” she said. “I was becoming part of something bigger than me. Whirlpool was the best thing that ever happened to me.” When she learned of the closing, she said, “I cried like a baby.” To vent their anger, the workers’ union, the International Union of Electrical Workers , put up a billboard in Whirlpool’s headquarters city, Benton Harbor, Mich., that says “Shame on Whirlpool for building a new plant in Mexico to take good-paying manufacturing jobs out of the U.S. during our nation’s tough economic times.” Whirlpool officials defend the move, saying the factory, which makes refrigerators with the freezer on top, was undercut by high costs and underused capacity. Jody Lau, a Whirlpool spokeswoman, said that the plant was “uncompetitive from a cost standpoint” and that Whirlpool was always looking “for ways to improve its operating efficiencies to help it stay competitive.” “Aggressive actions by global competitors,” she said, “forces the business to consolidate production in a facility where we can deliver the product at the best cost,” referring to the factory in Mexico. Whirlpool is not deserting the nation, Ms. Lau said, noting that 20,000 of its 67,000 employees worldwide are still in the United States, including 300 research and development jobs that will remain in Evansville. The closing leaves not just Ms. Ford and her son without a job, but also her husband, a worker in the metal-pressing shop. “My mom and dad told me that when they were young, there were jobs everywhere,” she said. “They said we had Whirlpool, Bristol-Myers, Mead Johnson, Windsor Plastics, Guardian Automotive, Zenith. Now if you want to find a job, there’s nothing around.” At 43, Ms. Ford has little interest in returning to school. But if she cannot find a job, she will rethink that reluctance. Maybe she will become a physical therapist, she said. “My first thought is to find work, but everything seems to be going overseas,” she said. “If I go to school, it will be for something in the medical field because they’re not going to ship that offshore, so I’d never have to go through this again.” Her laid-off son is moving in with her. “I can’t turn my kids away,” she said. “I don’t know how he’ll survive.” Ms. Ford, a shop steward at the plant, worries for the nation’s future. “I don’t know how without any good-paying jobs here in the United States how people are going to pay for their health care, put their children through school,” she said. Ask the workers who is to blame, and they say not just Whirlpool, but also President Bill Clinton for having negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated tariffs on trade with the United States’ neighbors. They say the pact has siphoned jobs to Mexico. They also blame Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels, saying he has largely ignored their plight, and President George W. Bush and President Obama, saying they had done little to reverse manufacturing’s decline. “When people are unemployed for a long period, they would look at any administration, including this one, as being part of the problem and not doing enough,” said Mohammed F. Khayum, the dean of the University of Southern Indiana’s business school. “It can definitely play a role in this November’s elections unless things turn around before then.” Dr. Khayum was not optimistic for the laid-off workers. “Given the skill levels they have,” he said, “they’re not ready to transition to the frontier sectors of the economy, like information technology and life sciences.” And he was surprised at the prevalence and vehemence of protectionist attitudes of workers like Ms. Ford, a strong critic of free trade who said: “They have to do something with Nafta. They need to start putting tariffs on products that are coming back from Mexico. They need to start punishing corporations for sending jobs outside the United States.” Whirlpool is shutting its Evansville plant at the same time that General Electric is expanding its appliance operations in Louisville, Ky., 100 miles to the northeast. G.E. is hiring 420 workers to build hybrid water heaters now made in China. “Louisville and Evansville are very similar in terms of business climate and labor rates,” said Scott N. Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing . “It shows that G.E. is willing to invest in America and show some economic patriotism. Whirlpool is still stuck in this old model of outsourcing every last bit of manufacturing they possibly can.” Some Whirlpool workers are more forgiving. Randall Reynolds, a fourth-generation employee, is proud of the factory, saying, “We were considered the refrigerator capital of the world.” Mr. Reynolds, a forklift driver who has found a new job with a glass company, said: “I know there is a world economy out there. I know it’s hard for Whirlpool to pay me close to $18 an hour when in other parts of the world, workers are earning $4 or less an hour.” Despite being laid off, he said he would feel forever indebted to Whirlpool. “My son was born three months premature, and the hospital bill was just short of $250,000,” he said. “Because of Whirlpool’s health insurance, my child is healthy. Every day I look at his face, and I’m thankful for what I have because of Whirlpool. I just don’t want it to stop.”

Indiana
Whirlpool Corp
Layoffs and Job Reductions
United States Economy
Factories and Manufacturing


Irreverence, and Youth, Reign at Celebrity-Studded Ad Week

Abstract: JUST as Madison Avenue is increasingly infusing product pitches with entertainment value — the better to connect with consumers and encourage the sharing of content on social media — the organizers of the annual Advertising Week in New York are liberally peppering the many panels and presentations with celebrities, improvisational comedy and other elements intended to keep those attending the conference engaged. Take, for instance, a panel on Wednesday devoted to online video, titled “Living in a Short-Form World.” The obligatory senior executives from companies in the field were onstage: Alexandra Cameron, chief executive of Keek , a social networking service known for video clips that run 36 seconds, and John Sykes, president for entertainment enterprises at iHeartMedia . Joining them were Morgan Spurlock , the puckish director of documentaries like “ Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold ”; Perez Hilton , the flamboyant gossip blogger; and three young men who belong to the Janoskians , a popular five-member troupe from Australia that specializes in music, comedy, pranks and other material aimed at girls 12 to 17. How young are the Janoskians? One, James Yammouni, began an anecdote about starting their careers by mentioning when he was in the 10th grade, in 2011; he is 18. The others on hand were Jai Brooks, 19, and Beau Brooks, 21. (Missing were, in the parlance of their homeland, their “mates” Luke Brooks, 19, and Daniel Sahyounie, 19.) The trio riffed and riposted during the panel in a breezy, cheeky manner that reminded at least one older audience member of the Beatles’ airport news conference when they arrived in the United States in 1964. The Janoskians tweaked Mr. Sykes for not asking them to perform at the recent iHeartRadio Music Festival . He replied: “Three hundred million followers? We’ll be talking.” (Mr. Yammouni listed Instagram, Keek and YouTube as their social platforms of choice.) The young men also enjoyed mocking Mr. Hilton’s behavior — he snapped a selfie as Ms. Cameron asked Mr. Sykes a question — and grandiose pronouncements. For example, after Mr. Hilton spoke earnestly about reinvention, Mr. Yammouni interjected, “What about your hairstyle, Perez, that hasn’t changed in a while.” After the panel ended, Mr. Yammouni said the japes had all been in good fun. “Getting to Yes: Inside the Creative Process,” a presentation sponsored by O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul , a Chicago agency, did away with the panel format altogether in proposing that comedic improvisation is an effective method of getting co-workers to more readily agree and collaborate with one another. Five comedians with improv skills performed skits based on audience suggestions of locations (restaurant, closet), relationships (prostitute and customer, chef and food critic) and phrases that begin with the letters “t” and “k” (“talking kangaroo,” “total knockout”). Among the energetic participants were the actor and comedian Scott Adsit of “30 Rock”; the actress and comedian Rachel Dratch of “Saturday Night Live”; and Sue Gillan, a Second City alumna who is a creative director at O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul. The audience members were invited to take part in an exercise in creativity and cooperation that asked them to break into groups of three and talk to one another while the comedians paused in their onstage high jinks. The groups were told to respond to suggestions from one another in three ways: “No, I think...,” “Yes, but...” and “Yes, and...” The consensus after the lively interaction among the audience members, guided by Ms. Gillan, was that “Yes, and...” was most conducive to collaborating creatively. Of course, plenty of Advertising Week sessions have retained traditional formats like panel discussions and one-on-one interviews. An instance of the latter was a conversation between Teressa Iezzi, an editor at Fast Company magazine, and Yannick Bolloré, global chairman and chief executive of Havas, the French agency holding group that is the sixth-largest in the world after WPP, the Omnicom Group, the Publicis Groupe, the Interpublic Group of Companies and Dentsu. If, as the old slogan for Avis car rental had it, you try harder when you are No. 2, what do you do when you are No. 6? According to Mr. Bolloré, who took over the top posts at Havas from his father, Vincent, you focus on mobile, because consumers are adopting it so quickly; digital, because it is “offering so many new opportunities to address customers and prospects”; and technology-assisted initiatives like programmatic buying, agency trading desks and demand-side platforms . Still, Mr. Bolloré acknowledged, “an algorithm will never replace the creative director,” because the more difficult it becomes to capture the attention of the consumer, “the more we have a need for highly creative content.” Asked by Ms. Iezzi about the larger agency groups that Havas competes against, Mr. Bolloré replied, “When you look at the industry, I’m not sure the biggest company will win the race.” He likened a firm to a person, describing how he had lost some weight — “four or five kilos,” about nine to 11 pounds — in the last couple of months while training for the New York City Marathon. “I’m feeling in much better shape,” he said. “I think we should look to be the fittest company, the most agile, to adapt to the new paradigm.” In another light note, Ms. Iezzi asked Mr. Bolloré about a remark she said he had made in another interview to the effect that Havas had hired so many mathematicians that it changed the firm’s dress code. She set up the question by declaring that when it comes to a “French dress code, it’s not what you should or shouldn’t wear — it’s that you have to be insanely stylish.” Advertising Week is to conclude on Thursday.

Celebrity
John Sykes
Perez Hilton
Janoskians
Rachel Dratch
advertising,marketing


Bloomberg Seeks Election Law Changes to Raise Voter Turnout

Abstract: This has not been a good year for elections in New York State, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Monday. The state recorded one of the lowest turnouts in the midterm elections of any state. And over the last three federal elections, New York has averaged 47th among the 50 states in voter turnout. Mr. Bloomberg presented his critical assessment of the state’s electoral picture as he proposed a package of changes to state laws that he said would help remove the obstacles that make it hard for New Yorkers to exercise their right to vote. In fact, Mr. Bloomberg, who was joined by leaders of government watchdog groups and city and state lawmakers, argued that New York has the most restrictive voting laws in the country. “Our voting restrictions and requirements actually discourage citizens from participating in elections,” the mayor said. “We are proposing four changes to state law that would make it easier to participate in elections and easier for New York voters to have their voice heard.” The mayor proposed allowing for early voting, moving the deadline for registering to vote closer to Election Day, making the ballot easier to read and making absentee voting easier. But the proposals would require the approval of state lawmakers, who are likely to resist any changes that would dilute the power of incumbency. “Elected officials are reluctant to change the rules of the game that got them elected,” said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog, who joined the mayor at City Hall. “If we had more people voting, we’d have more competitive elections, and the faces of the elected officials would look different than they do today.” The governor-elect, Andrew M. Cuomo, who has pledged to support an independent redistricting commission when boundaries of state and federal legislative districts are redrawn next year, would also need to support Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals. Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, would not comment on Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals specifically but said in a statement, “Governor-elect Cuomo will review the mayor’s proposals and looks forward to working with him, the federal government and others to increase voter participation.” Advocates for changes in government and lawmakers who worked with Mr. Bloomberg on his proposals said many were in place in other states. Early voting, the mayor said, is permitted in 35 states. Supporters of Mr. Bloomberg’s initiative hope the coalition will generate enough momentum to pressure Albany into accepting at least some of the proposals. “These are not people we’re regularly standing next to necessarily, or who usually stand with each other,” said Howard Wolfson, a deputy mayor. “But we’ve come together around this issue.” Some lawmakers, including the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who held a hearing on Monday about the performance of the Board of Elections, which failed to count 200,000 ballots on election night, suggested that concerns may have reached a tipping point. “I think this is certainly a moment in time with respect to our Board of Elections that no one would have wanted, but it’s a moment that needs to be seized,” Ms. Quinn said. “It’s created almost a perfect storm that could lead us, finally, toward greater election reform.”

Elections
New York State
Voter Registration and Requirements
Reform and Reorganization
Voting and Voters
Bloomberg Michael R


Top Diplomat to Be Named Special Envoy on Guantánamo

Abstract: The Obama administration will appoint a senior diplomat as a special envoy on the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, a move that underscores the importance the administration places on persuading other countries to accept detainees as part of the president’s plan to close the detention camp in a year. Administration officials said the envoy would be Daniel Fried, who has been the assistant secretary of state for European affairs. The move was widely seen as highlighting new efforts by the Obama administration to enlist European allies in resettling perhaps as many as 60 of the remaining 241 prisoners at the camp at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. “It is a sign that the administration is taking this issue very seriously and that it realizes this is a problem that has to be solved in an international context,” said Geneve Mantri, a counterterrorism specialist at Amnesty International. Mr. Fried is a career diplomat and former ambassador to Poland who worked at the National Security Council in the 1990s. His European experience is likely to be valuable, because the administration is turning to Europe to try to resettle detainees the United States government has concluded cannot be returned to their home countries because of a fear of mistreatment or for other reasons. Also on Wednesday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. named two government lawyers with national security experience as staff directors of task forces set up by President Obama to analyze detention issues. J. Douglas Wilson, a senior federal prosecutor in California, is to lead an analysis of guidelines for interrogation and transfer of detainees to other countries. Brad Wiegmann, a senior Justice Department national security lawyer, is to help lead a task force charged with recommending the legal rules for detention of future terrorism suspects.

Detainees
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba)
Appointments and Executive Changes
United States Politics and Government


Anxious Moments Before Hearing the Words ‘I’m O.K.’

Abstract: The call came just after noon on Wednesday, 19 hours after the earthquake hit Haiti. The Rev. Dr. Frank L. Fowler III, the pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, N.J., was checking in — from the airport in Port-au-Prince, on a borrowed satellite phone. “His voice was very shaky,” said Bill Anzel, a parishioner who was answering phones at the church when Mr. Fowler called in. “He was obviously shaken.” But Mr. Fowler and 14 parishioners who had gone on a mission to Haiti last week were fine, Mr. Anzel said. The group had gone to distribute money and medical supplies to hospitals, orphanages, clinics and schools. They landed in Haiti on Saturday and had been scheduled to spend their first four nights at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys, said Lois Spender, Dr. Fowler’s administrative assistant. Church officials looked at the home’s Web site after the earthquake and saw a message that the building had been leveled. But until Dr. Fowler called, no one at the church knew whether the group had survived. Karen Fowler, the pastor’s wife, said that she was thankful for the news, but grieving for those who had died. The group had planned to return to the United States on Saturday, but, Mr. Anzel said, Dr. Fowler was looking into leaving sooner. Mr. Anzel said the phone call from Haiti was so short that the pastor did not have time to say where he was when the earthquake hit or what the group’s members would do until they left the country. There were fewer details about a second New Jersey mission. That group, which included 20 people from three churches in central New Jersey, landed in Haiti only a few hours before the earthquake. The group’s members were bound for a church, school and clinic in a village about two hours east of Port-au-Prince. The Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville called a news conference on Wednesday afternoon to say the group had not been heard from. But 10 minutes after it began, Camille Crichton-Sumners, a member of one of the other churches, received a text message from her sister-in-law, Maureen Reed, of the Kingdom Church in Ewing, N.J. Ms. Crichton-Sumners said the message was, “I’m O.K. — start the list,” referring to the emergency call list set up to relay information to families. “It’s positive, very positive,” said Archie McBride, a minister from the third church on the mission, Shiloh Baptist in Trenton.


Shin Shoots Brilliant 64 at Women’s British Open

Abstract: HOYLAKE, England — Fairways as narrow as tongue depressors did not much bother Jiyai Shin, who hit all but one Saturday during the delayed second round of the Women’s British Open. Royal Liverpool Golf Club’s humpback greens were no worry, either; Shin did not miss any en route to a masterly eight-under-par 64, which left her at minus nine at the tournament’s halfway point. The 24-year-old Shin bettered by one stroke the second-round score of Tiger Woods when he won the 2006 British Open here. The conditions she faced were as different as fall and summer from what Woods saw. Blessed with warm and dry conditions, Woods used his driver only once in four days. Shin, playing in a wind that picked up over her final nine holes, wielded her driver like a shepherd’s crook to negotiate the 6,660-yard links course. She started with an eagle on her first hole, the par-5 10th, holing a 30-yard wedge after hitting a driver and 3-wood for her first two shots. On the next two holes, par 4s, she used her driver off the tee and mid-irons into the greens and made 10-foot putts. On the par-3 13th, she hit a 6-iron off the tee to 12 feet and made the putt for a five-under start. “I can’t believe the way I hit, 64 shots on this course,” Shin said, adding: “This course is really tough. So actually this week my goal was one under par every single day. But I hit eight under par. Wow.” Woods played from different tees, but Shin played a course with which most of her competitors were not familiar; on the day, 82 players failed to post a score within 10 strokes of her 64. The winner of the event in 2008, Shin is five strokes ahead of her nearest competitor, Inbee Park, going into Sunday’s final 36 holes. “Five shots is a really big gap,” Shin said, “but it makes a little bit of nervous and pressure, too. Sounds like enough, but I’m going to try to keep focused till I finish.” Eight other women are under par , including the 15-year-old amateur Lydia Ko, a South Korean-born New Zealander who followed her opening 72 with a 71 and is in a five-way tie for sixth. “I was watching the scoreboard change hole after hole,” said Ko’s caddie, Guy Wilson, who also coaches Ko at the Auckland-based Institute of Golf. “When I saw Jiyai’s start, I was impressed. That’s just freaky.” Shin covered the back nine of Royal Liverpool in six-under 31 on her way to bettering by three strokes the women’s course record. It was her best score in 20 appearances in majors. The year she won this tournament, at Sunningdale, Shin carded rounds of 66-68-70-66. Shin’s first nine was all the more remarkable given that she had played the back nine only once, during Thursday’s first round. (The second round was postponed Friday because of windy conditions.) She missed a day of practice after winning the Kingsmill Championship in Virginia, in a playoff against Paula Creamer that lasted nine holes and spilled over into Monday. After arriving in England, she played only the front nine on Wednesday. “I’m really happy with my score,” Shin said, adding: “On the back nine, it’s blowing very strong, but I just stay focused on my tempo and my timing with my driver and shots. So it was work.” Shin described as life-altering her victory in the 2008 Women’s British Open, which she won as a member of the Korean L.P.G.A. “I get a lot of confidence,” she said, “and I finally get the tour card on the L.P.G.A. I think both have changed my life.” She won three L.P.G.A. Tour events in 2009 and two in 2010, and she briefly held the No. 1 world ranking. Shin has not missed a cut in two years, a streak she extended to 32 events here. In 2011, her victory streak ended as she battled a wrist injury that required surgery at the end of May. For two months after the surgery, Shin did not play golf. In her last two starts, she tied for third in the Canadian Women’s Open, won by Ko, and beat Creamer in the Kingsmill playoff. Shin said of Ko: “Well, I think it’s good for her because I’m 24 years old, but I’m still young, I feel like. But I know she’s really young. It’s good for her and good experience for her for her future. This is a really big tournament, a lot of great players.” On Saturday, there was Shin and then there was everybody else. “I’m surprised at the state of my game,” she said, “so hopefully I just keep it going for tomorrow and 36 holes.”

Golf
Women's British Open (Golf)
Shin Jiyai
Ko Lydia
Creamer Paula


In This League, ‘Yer Out’ Doesn’t Come From Ump

Abstract: There are many things that may never be known for sure about the brouhaha that’s threatening a chaotic end to the Liga Juvenil de Baseball de New Haven’s season. What’s the real agenda of the perennial powerhouse Carlito’s Barber Shop? What role, if any, is being played by J & I Luncheonette and Bomberos Hispanos? Are Will Power Fitness and its star pitcher, Jericho Scott, who is known as J-Roc, being punished for anything other than being too good? Who knows? But it’s clear that now that the Olympics are over we can get back to the real business of sports in America: adults and their lawyers fighting with each other while the kids look on and wonder when they can go back and play. So it’s goodbye, Michael Phelps, hello, Jericho Scott. Hence the story line to Connecticut ’s second cautionary summer tale about kids and sports. First was Wifflegate in Greenwich, which ended up with the field built by a group of youngsters on a vacant lot being knocked down by town officials and with neighbors trading nasty charges and countercharges. Now there’s the tale of young Jericho Scott, whose pitching prowess has brought his low-budget little league to the brink of civil war after league officials said he was too good to pitch and the other children were afraid to bat against him. So there he was on Wednesday, in his blue Will Power Fitness uniform, celebrating his 10th birthday by falling asleep during a gala breakfast at Ellen’s Stardust Diner in Midtown Manhattan, after getting up at 5:30 to show off his 48-mile-an-hour fastball on “The Early Show” on CBS. It’s indeed a little early to get your 15 minutes of fame taken care of, but perhaps not much earlier than those adorable little Chinese gymnasts. Whatever, after being admonished by his mother for playing with his pancakes, he seemed more interested in getting back to pitching than in anything else. “All I really want to do is to play in the same league with my friends,” he said after his brief catnap. “I’m really not sure why I can’t play.” Jericho’s 15 minutes began when league officials told his coach, Wilfred Vidro, that other kids were scared to hit against Jericho, a slender righty, and that he shouldn’t be allowed to pitch. Mr. Vidro, a nationally ranked body builder, and Jericho’s parents found this odd. They said that others in the league threw as hard but not as accurately and that the team seen as calling the shots, Carlito’s Barber Shop, which had been league champions for the league’s first three seasons, tried to recruit Jericho to play for them. “It was O.K. for him to play in the league as long as he played for them,” said Jericho’s father, Leroy. “Now that he’s pitching against them, suddenly it’s an issue.” But others said that part of the issue was that Will Power, a dominant team already winning by lopsided margins, was stacking its roster with a star who also plays in another league — as do other players in the independent league. Whatever the case, things got uncomfortable quickly when Jericho was recruited in midseason to join Will Power Fitness. They boiled over on Aug. 20, when an umpire, citing a league directive, ruled that Jericho could not start as a pitcher as scheduled. The league said that his mom, Nicole, a no-nonsense mother of five with a butterfly tattoo on her neck, invaded the field and threatened league officials. She denied it. The game was called, and Mr. Vidro said in disgust that he wouldn’t return as coach. (He said that meant he wouldn’t return next year. The league said it meant he had quit.) By week’s end, the Will Power Fitness kids and mothers were showing up at games with signs and T-shirts reading: “Let Our Kids Play,” and “Let Jericho Pitch,” and had hired a hotshot lawyer, John Williams, who said that litigation was likely to involve claims including promissory estoppel and breach of an oral contract. He said he was weighing other options. “You have something outrageous enough, and there will always be something in the law to accommodate it,” he said. For now, Will Power Fitness is not playing at all, but the Scotts and their teammates hope to find a way to finish the season. Still, maybe it’s been a useful lesson in life’s ambiguities. So, yes, Jericho, got to see his first major league game on Tuesday night as part of his booking agreement with “The Early Show,” but there was a glitch in the ticket handoff, and he didn’t get in until the fifth inning, in time only to see the Yankees collapse and his idol, Alex Rodriguez, finish up a hitless night. And, yes, Jericho got on television and in the tabloids, but it was all kind of an exhausting blur. Still, he got to see how the game is really played. When it wasn’t clear that they’d get to go home in a limo, his mom stood her ground, like a real agent. “I’m not coming here in a limo and leaving in a cab,” she said. “I’d rather take the train.” They got their car. After breakfast, Jericho, his brother Alex and teammate Salvador Rivera, Jericho’s parents and Salvador’s mom, Beverly Santiago, piled into a sleek black GMC Yukon Denali S.U.V. with plates reading Diva 73, and like worthy but tired big-timers, headed back home.

Baseball
Connecticut
Little League
Children and Youth


Court Blocks Florida Ballot Measures Intended to Help School Vouchers

Abstract: TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Two constitutional amendments intended to help Florida ’s school voucher programs withstand legal challenges cannot appear on the November ballot, the State Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The ruling was a major blow for prominent Republican leaders, especially former Gov. Jeb Bush, who made vouchers the centerpiece of education changes he pushed through in 1999. The measures were placed on the ballot by the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, which meets every 20 years. A third amendment was also blocked from the ballot. It involved a tax swap that would have eliminated property taxes charged by local school boards in 2010 in exchange for state money, including a possible 1-cent increase in the state sales tax. The rulings were unanimous and came only hours after justices heard arguments on lawsuits filed against the three amendments. Several justices questioned whether the amendments were misleading to voters and whether the commission had exceeded its authority. The court did not explain its reasoning. Instead it issued a one-page ruling saying that the amendments could not go on the November ballot and that a full opinion would be issued later. Mr. Bush called the voucher ruling “heartbreaking” and said it could jeopardize the future of Florida’s voucher programs. A coalition of groups representing teachers unions, school boards and school administrators sued to block the amendments. The commission, whose members included several former aides to Mr. Bush, had crafted two amendments in response to the legal challenges. Amendment 7 would have removed a clause in Florida’s Constitution that prohibits state money going “directly” or “indirectly” to religious institutions. Proponents argued that without this change, other state programs, including one that hands out college scholarships, could be declared unconstitutional. Amendment 9 would have required that 65 percent of all state money be spent on classroom instruction, while also reversing a ruling that struck down a voucher program offered to children in failing schools. The ruling was hailed by groups opposed to vouchers, and by Democratic politicians who said the amendments were an effort to cement Mr. Bush’s legacy. “Clearly, the voucher amendments were guided by the unseen hand of our former governor,” said Representative Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, the House Democratic leader. “But they were at best an ideological frolic that had no place on the ballot.”


Arizona: Suit Filed for Immigrants

Abstract: Civil rights groups filed a federal class-action lawsuit on Thursday challenging Gov. Jan Brewer ’s order barring the state from granting driver’s licenses to young illegal immigrants who have been given work permits and earned a temporary reprieve from deportation under a new program by the Obama administration. The lawsuit asks the courts to rule the order unconstitutional because it undermines the federal program. Matthew Benson, a spokesman for Ms. Brewer, said the program “is neither Congressionally authorized nor enshrined in federal law.” Ms. Brewer’s order reversed a longstanding practice by the state’s Transportation Department of giving driver’s licenses to beneficiaries of deferred-deportation action, like asylum seekers, by accepting their work permits as proof of their authorized presence. The suit was filed on behalf of five young adults who were brought to the United States from Mexico as children.

Arizona
Illegal Immigrants
Suits and Litigation
Drivers Licenses
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
Brewer Jan


Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems

Abstract: BEHIND the cash register at Smoke Shop No. 2 in downtown San Francisco, Sam Azar swipes a customer’s credit card to ring up Turkish cigarettes. The store’s card reader fails to scan the card’s magnetic strip. Azar swipes again, and again. No luck. As customers begin to queue, he reaches beneath the counter for a black plastic bag. He wraps one layer of the plastic around the card and swipes it again. Success. The sale is rung up. “I don’t know how it works, it just does,” says Mr. Azar, who learned the trick years ago from another clerk. Verifone, the company that makes the store’s card reader, would not confirm or deny that the plastic bag trick works. But it’s one of many low-tech fixes for high-tech failures that people without engineering degrees have discovered, often out of desperation, and shared. Today’s shaky economy is likely to produce many more such tricks. “In postwar Japan, the economy wasn’t doing so great, so you couldn’t get everyday-use items like household cleaners,” says Lisa Katayama, author of “Urawaza,” a book named after the Japanese term for clever lifestyle tips and tricks. “So people looked for ways to do with what they had.” Popular urawaza include picking up broken glass from the kitchen floor with a slice of bread, or placing houseplants on a water-soaked diaper to keep them watered during a vacation trip. Today, Americans are finding their own tips and tricks for fixing misbehaving gadgets with supplies as simple as paper and adhesive tape. Some, like Mr. Azar’s plastic bag, are open to argument as to how they work, or whether they really work at all. But many tech home remedies can be explained by a little science. Cellphone Losing Charge If your cellphone loses its battery charge too quickly while idle in your pocket, part of the problem may be that your pocket is too warm. “Cellphone batteries do indeed last a bit longer if kept cool,” says Isidor Buchanan, editor of the Battery University Web site. The 98.6-degree body heat of a human, transmitted through a cloth pocket to a cellphone inside, is enough to speed up chemical processes inside the phone’s battery. That makes it run down faster. To keep the phone cooler, carry it in your purse or on your belt. This same method can be used to preserve your battery should you find yourself away from home without your charger. Turn off the phone and put it in the hotel refrigerator overnight to slow the battery’s natural tendency to lose its charge. Remote Car Key Suppose your remote car door opener does not have the range to reach your car across the parking lot. Hold the metal key part of your key fob against your chin, then push the unlock button. The trick turns your head into an antenna, says Tim Pozar, a Silicon Valley radio engineer. Mr. Pozar explains, “You are capacitively coupling the fob to your head. With all the fluids in your head it ends up being a nice conductor. Not a great one, but it works.” Using your head can extend the key’s wireless range by a few car lengths. Dry Ink Cartridge If your printer’s ink cartridge runs dry near the end of an important print job, remove the cartridge and run a hair dryer on it for two to three minutes. Then place the cartridge back into the printer and try again while it is still warm. “The heat from the hair dryer heats the thick ink, and helps it to flow through the tiny nozzles in the cartridge,” says Alex Cox, a software engineer in Seattle. “When the cartridge is almost dead, those nozzles are often nearly clogged with dried ink, so helping the ink to flow will let more ink out of the nozzles.” The hair dryer trick can squeeze a few more pages out of a cartridge after the printer declares it is empty. Cellphone in the Toilet It could happen to anyone: you dropped your cellphone in the toilet. Take the battery out immediately, to prevent electrical short circuits from frying your phone’s fragile internals. Then, wipe the phone gently with a towel, and shove it into a jar full of uncooked rice. It works for the same reason you may keep few grains of rice in your salt shaker to keep the salt dry. Rice has a high chemical affinity for water — that means the molecules in the rice have a nearly magnetic attraction for water molecules, which will be soaked up into the rice rather than beading up inside the phone. It is a low-tech version of the “Do Not Eat” desiccant packets that may have been packed in the box the phone came in, to keep moisture away from the circuitry during shipping and storage. Longer Wi-Fi Reach If your home Wi-Fi router doesn’t reach the other end of the house, don’t rush out to buy more wireless gear to stretch your network. Instead, build a six-inch-high passive radio wave reflector from kitchen items, like an aluminum cookie sheet. Follow the instructions at freeantennas.com/projects/template . Place the completed reflector — a small, curved piece of metal that reflects radio waves just like a satellite TV dish — behind your Wi-Fi router. It focuses the router’s energy in one direction — toward the other end of the house — rather than letting it dissipate its strength in a full circle. No cables, no batteries, no technical knowledge required. Yet it can easily double the range of your network. Dirty Discs You need to clean a skipping DVD or CD, but as a bachelor you don’t have any sissy cleaning fluids? Soak a washcloth with vodka or mouthwash. Alcohol is a powerful solvent, perfectly capable of dissolving fingerprints and grime on the surface of a disc. A $5 bottle of Listerine in your medicine cabinet may do the job as effectively as a $75 bottle of DVD cleaning fluid. Also, swabbing your copy of “Lost Weekend” with Stoli instead of fussing with a Discwasher kit is a lot more manly. Too Much Flash If your cellphone’s built-in camera flash is much too bright, washing out photos, tape a small piece of paper over the flash. Experiment with different colors and thicknesses of paper to tone down the flash from superbright white to a more pleasing glow for evening photos. Crashed Hard Drive If — no, make that when — your PC’s hard drive crashes and can’t be read, don’t be too quick to throw it out. Stick it in the freezer overnight. “The trick is a real and proven, albeit last resort, recovery technique for some kinds of otherwise-fatal hard-drive problems,” writes Fred Langa on his Windows Secrets Web site. Many hard drive failures are caused by worn parts that no longer align properly, making it impossible to read data from the drive. Lowering the drive’s temperature causes its metal and plastic internals to contract ever so slightly. Taking the drive out of the freezer, and returning it to room temperature can cause those parts to expand again. That may help free up binding parts, Mr. Langa explains, or at least let a failing electrical component remain within specs long enough for you to recover your essential data. That’s the spirit of folk remedies: They may or may not work, but what have you got to lose?

Computers and the Internet
Wireless Communications
Recording Equipment
Computer Printers
Cellular Telephones
Personal Finances
Budgets and Budgeting


Silence Befalls Bali, but Only for a Day

Abstract: KUTA, Indonesia — The resort island of Bali fell quiet over the weekend as the authorities shut down its airport and seaports, and switched off all radio and television transmissions. Its streets, normally jammed with tourists, were deserted as security guards patrolled the island, ensuring that locals and foreigners alike stayed indoors, and even exhorting them to turn off their lights. The authorities closed down Bali not to stamp down on political unrest, but to mark the annual Day of Silence, a Balinese Hindu holiday called Nyepi that ushers in the New Year. For a full 24 hours starting at 6 a.m. Saturday, Balinese Hindus were urged to remain silent and engage in introspection. Bali, which first became known as a destination among hippies from the West a couple of generations ago, tuned in and dropped out, at least for the day. “Have a quiet time! Enjoy the silent day!” Wayan Sutama, 51, a traditional security guard called a pecalang, called out to a group of potentially unquiet Australians gathered on a terrace overlooking the beach here. With a half-wary smile, he flashed them a thumbs-up. In Kuta, a rowdy beach resort on the southern tip of the island, only roosters and pigeons, usually drowned out by the din, could be heard Saturday. The pecalang peered down side streets in search of transgressors but found only other pecalang looking back, or the occasional stray cat. As the last redoubt of Hinduism in Indonesia, the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population, the island of Bali has been attracting increasing numbers of outsiders in recent years, thanks to its booming tourism industry. While Hollywood romanticized Bali in the recent movie “Eat Pray Love,” Indonesians, mostly Muslims from the islands of Java and Sumatra, have been gravitating here looking for jobs. The tension between local tradition and outside forces is perhaps at its most intense in Kuta, where Islamic extremists bombed a nightclub in 2002, killing 202 people, and bombed three restaurants in 2005, killing more than 20 people. In reaction, officials in Bali have been reinforcing local customs, especially those of Nyepi. Three years ago, they began sealing off Bali from the rest of Indonesia for 24 hours after tour organizers were caught smuggling in tourists on the Day of Silence as part of “Nyepi packages.” At the same time, the authorities banned radio and television and, last year, extended the ban to all satellite transmissions. “The lesson from the Bali bombings was to return to our traditions and not be too influenced by outsiders,” Mr. Sutama said Saturday. He and another pecalang, Nengah Renda, 51, spoke as they faced a memorial for the bombing victims on Kuta’s main commercial strip; behind them, a lingerie shop called 69Slam featured an image of a woman with a man on all fours attached to a dog leash. The day before, in one of the many local temples squeezed between shops in Kuta, the residents of a neighborhood called Pande Mas had been putting the final touches on their ogoh-ogohs, effigies 20 feet tall representing evil spirits that would be burned later. “After chasing away the evil spirits, we have Nyepi to purify our minds, to reflect on what we did in the past year and to engage in introspection,” said Made Mastra, 52, the neighborhood chief. “Then we will be clean to enter the new year.” Neighborhood boys, who can often be seen rubbing shoulders on Kuta’s streets with Australian, Asian and European tourists, were required to make their own ogoh-ogohs. On Saturday, a group of boys, led by Wayan Putra Setiaman, 14, said they would obediently stay home, not daring to step outside lest they be caught by the pecalang. They would not be allowed to use their television sets. “But we can send SMSs to our friends as long as we’re quiet?” he said, zeroing in on a subject under debate among the pecalang. How about video games? “Yes,” he said. “No!” said another boy, Wayan Wima Putra, 10, said, tapping the older boy across the chest. “No,” the older boy corrected himself, explaining that videogames connected to television sets were forbidden but that portable ones were O.K. Even as Bali has reinforced its traditions, some outsiders said it had lost a bit of its legendary openness. Ucok, 41, the manager of a tattoo shop who moved to Bali from Sumatra 15 years ago, said he and other Muslims felt a little “discrimination.” “Since the bombing, the locals are more suspicious toward Muslims,” Ucok said, adding that outsiders would nonetheless keep coming here. “Bali is like sugar. Ants come to it.” Made Darsana, 59, the deputy chief of one of Kuta’s three subdistricts, said outsiders were occupying an increasingly larger share of the population. On Saturday, Mr. Darsana and a dozen pecalang were taking a break from their patrol at a temple where they quietly shared fried rice. Mr. Darsana, who spoke English with an unmistakably American accent, said he learned English about 40 years ago from an American Indian named Joe. Joe was among the hippies who discovered Bali, back when Kuta had perhaps a single guesthouse, Mr. Darsana said. “Life isn’t about material things, about tall buildings,” he said. “It’s about being one with the world. That’s the core teaching of Hinduism. I didn’t know this when I was younger. You learn these things as you live. Been there, done that.” With development and the influx of outsiders, Bali’s environment has been irreparably damaged, he said. Outsiders now owned almost all the major businesses in Kuta. “It’s sad,” Mr. Darsana said. “We now have only our culture.” His smile and constant cheerfulness, though, belied his expression of loss. Despite the Day of Silence, Mr. Darsana grew increasingly loquacious as he reminisced about his hippie youth — hanging out with Joe, mastering the surfboard as well as the bong, taking a three-day drive all the way to Jakarta. “And my girlfriend was in the back,” he added, to roars of approval from the subdistrict chief as the other pecalang nearby immediately chided him in unison, “Shhhh!” Sheepishly, Mr. Darsana mentioned that, at night, he himself would make sure that his neighbors turned off any electric lights or candles. “It’s going to be like Kuta in the 1960s,” he said. After a long pause and perhaps some memories left unmentioned, he added. “Been there, done that.”

Hinduism
Bali (Indonesia)
Holidays and Special Occasions


Etan Patz Search Methods Explained by Experts

Abstract: Upon the discovery of buried human remains, forensic archaeologists and anthropologists typically keep digging in a circle around them, in effect creating, beneath the bones, an elevated section of dirt. A pedestal. Etan Patz disappeared on the streets of SoHo in 1979. His picture with its bowl haircut and toothy grin was seen all over the country; children his age grew up with Etan staring back at them from the milk carton on the breakfast table. Thirty-three years later, investigators believe strongly enough in new leads in the case to have blocked off the area around an apartment building at 127B Prince Street to dig up the basement in search of his remains. The search is an extraordinary show of manpower in the case, a barrage of tents and police trucks on the swank streets of SoHo. In 1979, the basement was the workshop for a handyman from the nearby building where Etan lived. Three decades have radically changed the streets above, with high-end jeans stores and moneyed tourists replacing the textured knit of 1970s SoHo. But what lies beneath is unchanged. “They may come upon a historical site,” said Vernon J. Geberth, a retired New York City police lieutenant commander who wrote a procedural bible, “Practical Homicide Investigation.” “When you start digging in Lower Manhattan, you don’t know what you’re going to find.” In this case, the discovery could be gruesome, especially when one considers pictures of the sunny little boy who vanished that day. But this is a simple fact of detective work; the means themselves are not for the squeamish. The concrete floor is now being broken open by jackhammers. The police have said a cadaver-sniffing dog recently taken there alerted investigators to the possible presence of cadaverine, the foul-smelling gas produced by decomposition. Some experts, including Dr. Michael Baden, the city’s chief medical examiner when the boy disappeared, warned against reading too much into the dog’s reaction. “Very unlikely,” he said, that gas produced by a body buried 33 years would still be detectable. But Mr. Geberth said the concrete might have served to cap the gas, preserving it. The basement is 62 feet long, 13 feet wide. “That’s a big area,” Mr. Geberth said, with no obvious starting point to dig. “You’re not going to have the telltale signs of any recent disturbance.” To narrow the search, ground-penetrating radar equipment is typically used to identify a cavity underground. “A body would decompose and cause a defect in the earth,” Mr. Geberth said. “That area would be cordoned off. You’d begin digging with trowels, like an archaeological dig.” The scene would be meticulously mapped and marked with grids and stakes to measure the depth of any evidence recovered. What may have survived after all these years and the effects of the moisture of the soil and the bacteria from decomposition? “There probably would still be bone,” Dr. Baden said. “The permanent teeth that we have, more so than baby teeth, last for decades. Longer than that. It’s easy to get DNA from teeth and long bones.” Squint and look at those teeth from the milk carton. “The eruption of teeth in the human body is a relatively predictable process during the early years of growth,” according to “Practical Homicide Investigation.” “The loss of these baby teeth and the eruption of the first permanent molars begins at approximately 5 years of age.” Etan was 6. There could still be hair. “That definitely would provide DNA,” Dr. Baden said. Any blood spilled would have long decomposed, he said, but investigators will surely be looking for signs of insect activity. “Maggots can have the DNA of an individual,” from feeding on a body, Dr. Baden said. The pupae cases left behind from hatching flies could contain the body’s DNA, he said. Any DNA found could be compared to that of one or both of Etan’s parents to determine a match. Etan was last seen wearing white sneakers and a pilot’s cap. Most articles of clothing would have been lost to time. “Certain clothing will last longer than others,” Dr. Baden said. “Plastic can last a long time, suspenders or something. Nylon.” Mr. Geberth said the stark statistics surrounding the murder of children offer some hope that Etan’s body was disposed of intact. “These guys want to get rid of the body as soon as possible,” he said of child killers. “They want to distance themselves from the body.” Burial would be an attractive choice, and not that difficult, he said. “A hell of a lot easier than burying an adult.” Where there was a child’s body in 1979, there almost surely is a telltale pocket of space today. “It’s going to leave a smaller cavity,” he said, “but there’ll still be a cavity.” Find that, and you find the boy, waiting, after all this time, for a pedestal.

Patz Etan
Missing Persons
Forensic Science
SoHo (NYC)


Ohio State Heads Into B.C.S., and Michigan Into Unknown

Abstract: ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 17 — The surveyor’s outlines in the concourse of Michigan Stadium hint at an off-season change: luxury boxes are to be hoisted atop this grand edifice. A news conference is scheduled for Monday, portending another change: Wolverines Coach Lloyd Carr will announce whether he will continue coaching or retire. The tradition-rich Michigan program could be radically different when the team kicks off next season. The winds of change that whipped through Michigan Stadium on Saturday could not alter the Wolverines’ recent futility against their most bitter of rivals. No. 7 Ohio State slogged past the No. 23 Wolverines, 14-3, by holding them to 91 yards of total offense on a frigid, rainy day. Ohio State (11-1, 7-1) clinched its third consecutive Big Ten title and a Rose Bowl berth, although the Buckeyes still have an outside chance to claim a spot in the Bowl Championship Series title game. The gloom that hung over Michigan Stadium carried over to the media room, where Carr said he would not discuss his future. “There will be a day to discuss that,” Carr said. “And this isn’t it.” Carr would not elaborate on when that day would come. The only insight he gave was that he would not let the emotions of this latest loss to Ohio State influence his decision. Carr struggled to find positives in Michigan’s fourth consecutive loss to Ohio State. If he retires Monday, as expected, it will mean that he will end his career with a 1-6 record against Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel. The Michigan athletic director, Bill Martin, said he and Carr have discussed his future, but he declined to discuss a timetable for Carr’s decision. Martin said he expected a decision in the “near future,” and that Carr, if he decided to step down, would have a say in his successor. The ultimate call, though, would be Martin’s. “Lloyd is going to decide when he retires,” Martin said. “He’s done so much for us. He owns the right after 28 years on this staff and 13 years as a head coach to call his own shot. “If he decides to retire, I’ll support it. What I’d love to do is clone the man and bring him back.” No one at Michigan would want to clone Saturday’s on-field performance. Ohio State won thanks to a formula familiar to this hard-nosed rivalry. The Buckeyes played staunch defense, with the junior defensive end Vernon Gholston getting three sacks. On offense, tailback Chris Wells ran for 222 yards and 2 touchdowns. “Offensively, we just couldn’t get anything done,” Carr said. Michigan’s three star seniors — tailback Mike Hart, tackle Jake Long and quarterback Chad Henne — will end their careers without having beaten the Buckeyes. None played particularly well Saturday. Hart, who is hampered by a high ankle sprain, struggled to get in a groove (18 carries, 44 yards). Henne’s shoulder problems forced him out of the game for a possession in the third quarter. Long was beaten badly by Gholston on at least one sack. On a day of sparse offense, Ohio State kept pounding the ball with Wells, who had 20 first-half carries and finished with an average of 5.7 yards on 39 carries. Wells’s biggest run broke the game open on the first possession of the second half. He burst around the left side of the Ohio State line and ran through the arm tackles of Shawn Crable and Brandent Englemon for a 62-yard touchdown. The run made the score 14-3 and forced Michigan(8-4, 6-2) to brave the elements and try to pass to get back in the game. Passing proved a mostly futile exercise. Henne finished 11 for 34, without a completion of more than 10 yards. His output included fluttered balls, dropped passes and costly penalties. Wells’s 62-yard touchdown essentially ended any need for Ohio State to throw; quarterback Todd Boeckman attempted only two passes in the second half and finished 7 of 13 for 50 yards. “That changed the complexion of the game completely,” Carr said of Wells’s run. The image of Michigan’s program, which has been defined by Carr’s bulldog scowl for 13 years, may be changing. Carr’s future is the buzz of college football. Louisiana State Coach Les Miles is considered the top choice to replace him, should he step down. Miles graduated from Michigan and coached there. His close friend John Wangler said in October that Miles would “have to look at it seriously.” That prospect could cast a shadow over the national title race. After Miles, the list of potential successors to Carr includes Cincinnati’s coach, Brian Kelly; Stanford Coach Jim Harbaugh; Wisconsin Coach Bret Bielema; and the Michigan defensive coordinator, Ron English. Whoever it is, his mission will be to beat Ohio State. A red sign with white letters reminded Carr of his recent futility as he walked off the field at Michigan Stadium for perhaps the final time. “So long, Coach Carr,” read the sign held by an Ohio State fan. “We’ll miss you!”

Football
College Athletics
Ohio State University
University of Michigan