Pope Electors Are Sizing Up a Field of Peers

Abstract: There is no formal nominating process for choosing the man to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, and campaigning for oneself is counterproductive. But the cardinals who will file into the Sistine Chapel next month to elect a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church have been quietly sizing up potential candidates for years. They were impressed when the young soon-to-be-cardinal of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, told bishops gathered for a momentous synod in Rome last October that the church should listen more and admit its mistakes. They took note a year ago when Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York delivered a winning address on evangelization to the College of Cardinals, the day before the pope gave him the red hat of a cardinal. They deemed Cardinal Marc Ouellet a gracious host on their visits to the Vatican, where he guides the selection of bishops, but some said he practically put the crowd to sleep during his talk at the International Eucharistic Congress last June in Dublin. These impressions, collected from interviews with a variety of church officials and experts, may influence the very intuitive, often unpredictable process the cardinals will use to decide who should lead the world’s largest church. The cardinals will gather on March 1, one day after Benedict steps down and departs for Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer home in the hills outside Rome. The cardinals will meet every morning to discuss where the church is headed and, over lunches and dinners, take the measure of one another’s characters, talents and experiences, based on personal relationships and observations. But undoubtedly they will also consider geography, doctrinal approach and style. By the time the 117 cardinal electors enter the conclave to choose the next pope, they must be ready to vote. According to church rules, the conclave could begin on March 15, but the Vatican spokesman said Saturday that it may start even earlier. The cardinals, eager to finish the process by Palm Sunday on March 24, could reinterpret the mandatory 15-day waiting period, the spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said. The waiting period was intended to allow time for cardinals to gather after the death of a pope, but because Benedict’s resignation has already been announced, the cardinals have advance notice and, in fact, many have already begun discussions by phone and e-mail. “People are reluctant to speak about themselves,” said Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who voted in the conclave that elected Benedict in 2005. “So you go to a friend and say, Can you tell me about cardinal so-and-so?” “The questions are usually about the qualities you want to see in a pope. Is he a man of prayer, is he deeply rooted in the apostolic faith, can he govern, is he deeply concerned about the poor?” Cardinal George said in a telephone interview. “It matters far less where he happens to be living or where he’s from.” The auditions begin in earnest on Sunday when Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, an Italian who is president of the Pontifical Council for Culture , is scheduled to preach the weeklong papal Lenten retreat, attended by Benedict and many of the cardinals and bishops who work in the Vatican. Preaching the Lenten retreat is a high honor, one bestowed on Karol Wojtyla and Joseph Ratzinger before they became Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. “It’s not only going to be seen as a sign of papal favor, but it will give him a platform,” said John Thavis, the retired Rome bureau chief for Catholic News Service, a church-affiliated news agency, and author of “The Vatican Diaries.” “People will be listening very carefully.” “The way candidates come to the fore is generally not by what they’re doing in their local archdioceses, which is what matters most to their own people,” he said. “It’s what they do at the center of the universal church.” Image A portrait of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle is hung in Manila next to one of the man some people think he might succeed. Credit Romeo Ranoco/Reuters The case of Cardinal Ravasi exemplifies the way the cardinals will sift and weigh a candidate’s attributes against the church’s needs. Church leaders now say their greatest challenge is to confront a rising wave of secularism in Europe, the United States and even Latin America, and Cardinal Ravasi has energetically engaged nonbelievers across Europe with high-profile events in cities like Stockholm; Paris; Tirana, Albania; and Bucharest, Romania. At a time when many prelates say the church must learn to use social media to evangelize, he has more than 35,000 followers on Twitter. However, to the cardinals and bishops in the Vatican, according to Sandro Magister, a Vatican expert at the magazine L’Espresso, “Ravasi is considered very ambitious and much too inclined to chase the applause of the public.” The other Italians who are more solid candidates, Mr. Magister said, are Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan and a theologian who has often addressed the challenges of secularism and Islam in Europe, and Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the archbishop of Genoa and president of the Italian bishops conference. Personality may be pre-eminent, but geography has increasingly been a factor. With the church shrinking in Europe, and the majority of Catholics now living in Africa, Asia and Latin America, many Catholics are calling for the cardinals to turn the reins over to a leader from the global south. The church has never had a non-European pope in the modern era. (The last, according to Vatican records, was Gregory III, a Syrian, who served until 741.) Benedict has actually increased the percentage of cardinals from Italy and reduced the percentage from the developing world. But they do not necessarily vote in geographic blocs. The cardinals from Italy are said to be divided into factions, according to church experts in Rome, as are those from Latin America. For those spoken of as front-runners, granting news media interviews in the weeks before a conclave can backfire, church observers say. Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, already tarnished by having shown an unforgivingly anti-Islam video at a church event last year, probably hurt his chances recently by speaking to The Daily Telegraph of London as if he had already been elected pope: “It is going to be a life-changing experience, and I think that is what it has been for Benedict and those who have gone before us.” In the past, the cardinals with posts in the Vatican bureaucracy had an advantage because they had spent more time with bishops visiting from around the world. Bishops elevated to cardinal are appointed to Vatican committees and see one another more frequently in Rome. “The most important thing is personal contact,” said Msgr. James P. Moroney, rector of St. John’s Seminary, in Boston, and a liturgist who has worked in the Vatican and at the American bishops’ conference in Washington. “Someone’s reputation is very important, but when you establish a personal relationship, that’s when you really make up your mind.” Benedict has intentionally created more opportunities for the cardinals to get to know one another before they elect the next pope, said Rocco Palmo, a Philadelphia writer who closely follows developments in the hierarchy on his blog, “Whispers in the Loggia.” Benedict elevated new groups of cardinals five times during his eight-year papacy, and on all but one of those occasions he gathered the cardinals together for a daylong meeting before the formal elevation rite. It was at such a meeting in February 2012 that Cardinal Dolan won praise for his talk on evangelization, Mr. Palmo said. “The cardinals all got the chance to size each other up and listen to one another, and there was no seniority in terms of who could speak,” he said. In the last conclave eight years ago, there were alliances of liberal and conservative cardinals. But this time, the spectrum has narrowed because 50 of the cardinals were created by John Paul II and 67 by Benedict, both doctrinal conservatives. (Cardinals age 80 and older cannot participate.) “This time most of them are on the same page,” said Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo, director of the Institute for Continuing Theological Education at the North American College, in Rome. “What’s going to be very key in this conclave is the person, the personality,” Monsignor Figueiredo said. “Is he a man who can really speak to the hearts of people in this secularized, de-Christianized world where people, let’s face it, are leaving the church and need to be attracted to the message?”

Pope
Pope Benedict
Catholic Church
Cardinal Catholic


Home Sales Jump in June as Demand Exceeds Supply

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Americans bought homes in June at the fastest rate in over eight years, pushing prices higher as buyer demand eclipsed the availability of houses on the market. The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales of existing homes rose 3.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.49 million, the highest rate since February 2007. Sales have increased 9.6 percent over the last 12 months, while the number of listings has risen just 0.4 percent. Median home prices climbed 6.5 percent over the last 12 months to $236,400, the highest level reported by the association, not adjusted for inflation. Home buying has recently surged as more buyers have entered the market. Robust hiring over the last 21 months and an economic recovery now in its sixth year have enabled more Americans to set aside money for down payments. But the rising demand has failed to draw more sellers into the market, causing tight inventories and escalating prices that could cap sales growth. “The recent pace can’t be sustained, but it points clearly to upside potential,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. A mere five months’ supply of homes was on the market in June, compared with 5.5 months a year ago and an average of six months in a healthy market. Some markets are barely adding listings. The condominium market in Massachusetts contains just 1.8 months’ supply, according to a Federal Reserve report this month. The majority of real estate agents in the Atlanta Fed region, which ranges from Alabama to Florida, said that inventories were flat or fell over the last year. Some of the recent increase in sales appears to have come from the prospect of mortgage rates beginning to rise as the Federal Reserve considers raising an important interest rate from its near-zero level this year. That possibility is prompting buyers to complete sales before higher rates make borrowing more expensive, noted Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac, a housing analytics firm. The premiums that the Federal Housing Administration charges to insure mortgages are also lower this year, further propelling buying activity, Mr. Blomquist said. Properties typically sold last month in 34 days, the shortest time since the Realtors began tracking the figure in May 2011. There were fewer all-cash, individual investor and distressed home sales in the market, as more traditional buyers have returned. Sales improved in all four geographical regions: Northeast, Midwest, South and West. Still, the limited supplies could eventually prove to be a drag on sales growth in the coming months. Low mortgage rates have also helped, although rates are starting to climb to levels that could slow buying activity. Average 30-year fixed rates were 4.09 percent last week, according to the mortgage company Freddie Mac. The average has risen from a 52-week low of 3.59 percent.

Housing
National Association of Realtors
Real Estate
US Economy


Suspect Surrenders in Shooting of Queens Sergeant

Abstract: A man wanted in the shooting of a New York police sergeant in August turned himself in on Sunday evening, the police said. The suspect, John Thomas, accompanied by his lawyer, was taken into custody when he met with officers in the parking lot of a Pep Boys store at Liberty Avenue and Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens. The sergeant, Craig Bier, 44, is recovering from his wounds. Shortly after the Aug. 9 shooting, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly announced that Mr. Thomas, 24, was a suspect and described the shooting in detail: Sergeant Bier, who is part of an anti-gang unit, and his partner were on a routine patrol in Jamaica, Queens, when they tried to stop a young man on a bicycle. As they approached the person on the bike, another person nearby ran off and the officers pursued him. “Sergeant Bier, who had already run back to 107th Avenue to block the gunman’s escape route, exchanged gunfire with the suspect — who fired four times — striking the sergeant in both legs,” Mr. Kelly said. He said Sergeant Bier fired back before collapsing.

Bier Craig
Thomas John F
Attacks on Police
Murders and Attempted Murders
Jamaica (NYC)


Washington Comes to Grips, Slowly, With Shutdown of Metro System

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Buses overflowed, bike lanes swelled and highways across Maryland and Virginia were stop-and-go as this city crawled its way through two elongated and unpredictable rush hours on Wednesday, brought on by a decision to shutter the region’s subway system for an emergency safety inspection. But for much of the day in downtown Washington, where Metro, as the region’s subway is known, was gated shut, there was relative calm, as street and foot traffic — made lighter by legions of workers clocking in from home — moved at a steady clip. Many who went about their weekday routines said they could deal with a day’s disruption if it meant safer rides on a public transportation system where reliability and safety have become perennial concerns. Late Wednesday afternoon, Paul J. Wiedefeld, Metro’s general manager, said that the inspections had helped to do just that and that he had authorized the system to reopen on Thursday morning as planned, after repairs to more than two dozen cables found to be damaged are completed. “I know this has presented hardship to the region,” Mr. Wiedefeld said at a news conference. “The shutdown today was necessary.” The closing came as officials fanned out across the system’s six lines and 91 stations to inspect about 600 electrical cables on what is known as the third rail. One of those cables, in a downtown tunnel, caught fire on Monday, creating long delays and evoking memories of a similar episode in January 2015 that resulted in one passenger’s death while sickening several others. Mr. Wiedefeld said that by 5 p.m. Wednesday, inspection crews had found 26 areas where similar cables or connector boots needed to be replaced. Inspectors were expected to continue working throughout the night and, if necessary, into Thursday if any additional problems were found. The decision to close Metro, which was hastily announced on Tuesday afternoon after Mr. Wiedefeld consulted with Metro’s board of directors, displaced hundreds of thousands of subway riders and led many area residents to work from home. Riders take about 700,000 trips a day on Metro’s lines, which are the second busiest in the country. About 38 percent of the city’s work force uses some form of public transportation to get to work, according to the United States Census Bureau . “Just take a deep breath because you can’t really do anything about it,” said Marilia Rojas, a student at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, said near the White House about 8 a.m. A regular Metro rider, Ms. Rojas, 24, said she was not all that surprised when she heard the system would shut down for the day given its problems. But after her hour-and-a-half commute from her home in suburban Bethesda, Md., took three times as long, she was considering a lifestyle change. Image Morning commuters boarded a bus for downtown Washington in Silver Spring, Md., on Wednesday. The closing of the Metro system came as officials fanned out across six lines and 91 stations to inspect about 600 electrical cables. Credit Gary Cameron/Reuters “It makes me want to move into the city or something,” she said. Wednesday’s closing was the latest in a string of setbacks for Metro, a system billed as a modern marvel when it opened here four decades ago but better known in recent years for revenue shortages, management problems and aging infrastructure. The system’s failings were most notably on display in June 2009, when one train slammed into another. killing eight passengers and a train operator. But riders consistently report service delays, cancellations and exceptionally long wait times, a recent internal report found. Ridership, in turn, has dropped in recent months to low levels not seen here in a decade. In October, the transportation secretary, Anthony Foxx, directed the Federal Transit Administration to take responsibility for Metro safety as the three jurisdictions that normally oversee it — Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia — were ordered to set up a new, more powerful safety oversight body that would comply with federal standards. The jurisdictions have not yet done so. “For months, I have called on the jurisdictions to form an effective state safety oversight organization,” Mr. Foxx said during a previously scheduled appearance before a Senate committee on Wednesday. “And yet we have no concrete movement on the part of these jurisdictions. That would be a good start.” Mr. Foxx said he ordered the transit agency to locate unspent Metro funds that could be used for safety improvements and to begin conducting “a safety inspection blitz” next week focused on operators running red lights, track integrity and the use of emergency breaks. “I don’t think it’s just resources,” that will solve Metro’s problems, he said. “I think it is culture and I think it is a deliberate decision needed by those involved in this.” Despite dire warnings on Capitol Hill and around Washington in the hours after its announcement, closings around the region were rare and schools, hospitals and most other institutions were largely unaffected. Students who could not make it to classes in Washington’s public schools had their absences excused. Spring break tourists enjoying the warm weather outside the White House said they were traveling the region by bus and had been unaffected by the closing. Metro’s bus service — and its competitors — raced to absorb the thousands of displaced commuters. The D.C. Circulator, a limited city-run bus service, did not charge riders for the day, nor did Capital Bikeshare. Uber and Lyft both offered credits to first-time riders; Uber reported record number of its drivers on the city’s roadways. At Union Station, Washington’s ground transportation hub near the Capitol, there was a noticeable dearth of commuters as many employers offered the option to work from home. The escalators from the underground Metro station there continued to run, eerily devoid of workers and tourists for a weekday morning. A few who traveled by Amtrak or one of the regional train systems waited for taxis in a short line out front, mumbling about how inconvenient the shutdown was. John Heffner, 70, of Alexandria, Va., said he was trying to accommodate what he saw as a wise decision on the part of Metro officials. Still, Mr. Heffner, an attorney who focuses on rail transportation law, said, “If this happened in New York, it would be revolution.”

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority


Senators Say Case Indicates That Problems Persist in Agencies’ Data Sharing

Abstract: WASHINGTON — As investigators sought answers to what or who may have radicalized the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, leading lawmakers said Tuesday that potentially important clues about at least one of the men might not have been widely shared within investigative circles months before the attack. Emerging from a closed two-hour hearing with three senior law enforcement and intelligence officials, several members of the Senate Intelligence Committee raised new questions about how the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security apparently handled information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, the suspect who was killed in a shootout with the police on Friday. “I’m very concerned that there still seem to be serious problems with sharing information, including critical investigative information,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, told reporters. “That is troubling to me that this many years after the attacks on our country in 2001, that we still seem to have stovepipes that prevent information from being shared effectively, not only among agencies but also within the same agency, in one case.” Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican who is the committee’s vice chairman, also voiced worries that efforts to break down barriers of communication between federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks may have started to erode. “There have been some stone walls and stovepipes reconstructed that were probably unintentional,” he said. “We’re going to continue to look at whether or not all the information was adequately shared and given to all the law enforcement agencies. If it wasn’t, we’ve got to fix that.” Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who heads the panel, said every investigation revealed flaws, but when asked at a briefing after the hearing if the F.B.I. had “dropped the ball,” she said, “No.” Image Senator Susan Collins after a closed hearing with intelligence officials on the Boston Marathon bombings on Tuesday. Credit J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press None of the senators would identify what information was not shared adequately or which agencies were involved, but the issue seemed to center on Mr. Tsarnaev’s six-month trip in 2012 to Dagestan and Chechnya, predominantly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus region of Russia. Both have been hotbeds of militant separatists. Testifying earlier in the day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to clarify what the authorities knew about Mr. Tsarnaev’s trip. He left the country on Jan. 12 and returned on July 17. His flight reservation set off a security alert to customs authorities when he departed, Ms. Napolitano said, in spite of a “mismatch” in the spelling of his name on his airline ticket, his travel document and the passenger manifest of his flight. As a result of “redundancies” in the system, the error was detected, the secretary said, and “there was a ping on the outbound to customs.” But when Mr. Tsarnaev returned, more than a year had gone by since the F.B.I. closed a background review of his possible links to extremist groups that had been requested by the Russian government in January 2011. It was determined that he posed no threat. The security alert “at that point was more than a year old and had expired,” Ms. Napolitano said. It is not clear, however, that the customs security alert, flagging Mr. Tsarnaev’s travel to Russia, was ever passed on to the F.B.I. And even if it had been, it is not certain what the F.B.I. would have done with that information. Video The Times’s Michael Schmidt on how the F.B.I. pursues terrorism leads, like the 2011 inquiry about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Once investigators closed the background check, it would have been a violation of federal guidelines to keep investigating Mr. Tsarnaev without additional information, a senior law enforcement official said. Two months after he returned from Russia, Mr. Tsarnaev applied for naturalization. The application prompted Homeland Security Department officials to review a 2009 domestic abuse arrest, and they found he had not been convicted in that case. They also contacted the F.B.I. and learned that “no derogatory information” on him had emerged from an interview that the agency conducted in January 2011. According to federal law enforcement officials, Homeland Security Department officials left the naturalization “pending,” without approving it, as a precaution to see if new information would emerge, but they did not open a new investigation. Ms. Napolitano said that a bipartisan bill in the Senate to overhaul immigration would further tighten security, because it would require all passports to be electronically readable, to avoid errors in flight records. More questions surfaced Tuesday evening when House members attended a classified hearing with Ms. Napolitano and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I. Some lawmakers emerged saying they still felt uninformed about many aspects of the case. Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who heads the House Homeland Security Committee, said he and other members of Congress were frustrated by the lack of answers on why Mr. Tsarnaev’s trip to Russia slipped through the cracks.

Boston Marathon Bombings
Senate Intelligence Committee
Homeland Security
Tamerlan Tsarnaev
Russia
Terrorism
Spying and Intelligence Agencies
FBI


Kansas: Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Bomb Airport

Abstract: A former avionics technician who authorities said had wanted to cause “maximum carnage” admitted Monday to plotting a suicide bomb attack at a Wichita airport. The man, Terry L. Loewen, 59, pleaded guilty to trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, after striking a deal with prosecutors for a 20-year sentence. Mr. Loewen was arrested in 2013 after, the authorities said, he tried to drive a van filled with inert explosives onto the tarmac at Mid-Continent Airport, now Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. He intended to detonate the explosive device and die a martyr for Allah, the authorities said.

Bombs
Airport
Wichita
Terry L. Loewen
Terrorism


Treasury Auctions Set for the Week of Oct. 19

Abstract: The Treasury’s schedule of financing this week includes Monday’s regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.01 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.08 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.05 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week: MONDAY Florida, $230.2 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Mount Lebanon School District, Pa., $51.6 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. TUESDAY California, $961 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Fort Mill School District, S.C., $77.5 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. Ohio, $300 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. WEDNESDAY Charleston, S.C., $60.3 million of general obligation bonds. Competitive. New York City Transitional Finance Authority, $250 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. Suffolk County Water Authority, N.Y. $165 million of revenue bonds. Competitive. ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK Arizona Health Facilities Authority, $100 million of revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. California Health Facilities Financing Authority, $200 million of refinancing revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. California Statewide Communities Development Authority, $175 million of Enloe Medical Center insured refinancing revenue bonds. Bank of America. Chattanooga, Tenn., Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board, $68.5 million of student housing revenue bonds for University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. Raymond James. Clark County, Nev., $85 million of highway revenue bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, Tex., $197 million of unlimited tax school building and refinancing bonds. RBC Capital Markets. Duke University, N.C., $175 million of taxable bonds. Morgan Stanley. Harris County, Tex., $340 million of refinancing bonds. Bank of America. Maine Housing Authority, $55 million of mortgage purchase bonds. Bank of America. University of Mississippi Educational Building Corporation, $57.5 million of revenue bonds. Raymond James. Missouri Health and Educational Facilities Authority, $65.3 million of St. Anthony’s Medical Center revenue bonds. Stifel Nicolaus. Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission, $78.4 million of power project revenue refinancing bonds. Barclays Capital. New Jersey Turnpike Authority, $750 million of debt securities. Citigroup Global Markets. New York City Transitional Finance Authority, $750 million of future tax secured bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. North Carolina Capital Facilities Finance Agency, $370 million of Duke University project revenue bonds. Morgan Stanley. North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, $66 million of homeownership revenue bonds. Bank of America. North Slope Borough, Alaska, $96.5 million of general obligation bonds. KeyBanc Capital Markets. Riverside County Infrastructure Financing Authority, Calif., $72.8 million of lease revenue refinancing bonds. J. P. Morgan Securities. San Diego County, Calif., $57 million of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute limited revenue debt securities. Bank of America. Sandy Springs Public Facilities Authority, Ga., $155.6 million of revenue bonds. Raymond James. South Carolina Port Authority, $288 million of revenue bonds. Bank of America. Tacoma School District, Wash., $370 million of unlimited tax general obligation bonds. RBC Capital Markets.

Tax Credits Tax Deductions Tax Exemptions


At Crash Scene, a Tangle of Bodies and Survivors

Abstract: Nothing about it sounded right. Nothing about it sounded good. Anthony Labriola, 39, a restaurateur who lives nearby, first heard it — the screech, the boom, the “bump-bump-bump.” It was 5:30 in the morning, and it woke him up. Maybe construction equipment, he thought. He would go check. He went outside, pushed through the wooded area in front of his house and saw something ghastly he did not want to see. Two women stood dazed on the highway, screaming hysterically. A man sat forlorn on the curb, his head resting in his hands. Another wandered aimlessly without shoes. And there was the banged-up tour bus, lying incongruously on its side, carved open like a metal can. Mr. Labriola knew everyone inside could not be alive, not the ones who were silent. Bodies were bunched with bus pieces, backpacks, purses and portions of the outside world. And body parts. Several people were missing limbs. At least one was decapitated. The smell of leaking fuel fouled the air. A live electrical wire had been thrust into the bus. Its role was to feed electricity to those electronic message boards that notify motorists of road conditions, of accidents ahead perhaps like this one. The conscious passengers were moaning or screaming, many of them in Chinese. Even if you knew the language, the words were incoherent. People were in shock. They were on their way back to Chinatown from their gambling outing, and yet here they were caught in a crumpled deathtrap on a Bronx roadway. Fourteen people were dead and 19 injured. Chung Ninh, 59, had been sitting in Row 43, near the rear. He said the trip through the predawn darkness had been uneventful and quiet. It’s how these excursions usually went. Most of passengers had dozed off. So had he. A jolting sensation shook him awake. And then, astonishingly, the bus was tipping onto its right side. Once it came to a stop, Mr. Ninh said, he saw that many passengers had been thrown to one side of the bus, but he had been able to grasp the side of a seat to keep from falling down. There was complete disorientation and disbelief. Then people around him began yelling and screaming, in pain and in fear. With the bus turned over, he noticed that the skylight was now a door. He saw others scrambling through it onto the highway. Mr. Ninh was hurt. He had a neck injury, a cut and a swollen lower lip. But he could move. So he said he tried to help others. There was no safe haven in the bus — injuries were all over — but he said that those at the back were not as badly hurt as those at the front. Some of them had been crushed by the sign stanchion that the bus rammed into. The pole had entered the vehicle. Before smashing into the sign, the bus careered along the metal guard rail protecting the highway. A portion of the guard rail was inside the bus, too. Mr. Ninh said he tried to help a blood-spattered woman. She was already dead. The bus driver told him to “forget this one, help another one.” He also tried to help a bleeding man hanging upside down whose arm appeared to be severed. He said he began grabbing people, steering them toward the skylight, cutting his hands on the shattered glass that had been sprayed about the bus. The scores of rescue workers who converged on the scene had to gingerly untangle life from death. “It was a very intricate operation due to the fact that you had bodies piled on top of each other, some that were alive and some that had passed away and they were still intertwined,” said Capt. James Ellson of the Fire Department. He and his team happened to be on the road when the call came. They had already been at a fire in Manhattan and an auto extrication in the Bronx. Rescuers had to hoist the bus by shoving airbags and wooden “cribbing” beneath it. At least two people had been hurled from the bus and were trapped beneath it. The rescue workers split into three crews. One entered the bus’s front. The second pushed through the side. The third crawled in through a roof hatch that had been partially sheared off. Speed mattered, what with the dripping fuel and live electrical wire. The battery-operated rescue tools created sparks. Foam was laid down to try to contain the seepage of fuel. “We just initiated a bucket brigade, or an assembly line, to just start moving bodies,” said Capt. Matthew Galvin, a citywide supervisor in the Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit. The workers said they saw every type of injury to the human body that they could imagine. At times, the crews lost track of who they had taken out and who was still inside. There was no joy on the faces of the rescuers when they brought someone out alive. They knew others were in there dead.

World Wide Tours
Accidents and Safety
Buses
Bronx (NYC)
Roads and Traffic
Interstate 95


In Turbulent Waters, but Perhaps Not Adrift

Abstract: Where was the depression? Why did everyone seem so upbeat? It was late last month in the Florida Marlins' clubhouse in Jupiter, Fla., before a spring training game against the Baltimore Orioles, and a couple of players were signing baseballs. Another player ate cereal while reading a newspaper. Almost everyone else talked about how happy they were to be on the team, to play alongside such promising talent. It was as if they looked forward to the season, despite the Marlins' roster being gutted in the off-season and restocked with prospects. "Well, it's already been established that we're sorry, you know?" pitcher Dontrelle Willis said. "So O.K., enough's enough. We're going to go out there and try to silence our critics to the best of our ability. Were going to go out there and have fun and just play hard." This spring at least, hard play has paid off. The Marlins (19-9) had the best spring training winning percentage (.679). They gave the National League champion Houston Astros a tough time in the opening series of the regular season, romping in one game in Houston and losing two others by one run. Although the team is threatening to defect to San Antonio; or Portland, Ore.; or Charlotte, N.C.; or any city that will build it a stadium, the players seem to feel much better than one would expect for a team widely predicted to finish dead last in the major leagues. "I feel we already won more games this year than everybody expected us to," said Willis, who will face the Mets this weekend in a three-game series at Shea Stadium. "We've shown we can compete." Last September, a Marlins team of great promise collapsed down the stretch, failing to make the playoffs. Manager Jack McKeon promptly quit. Then one star after another left or was traded. Pitcher A. J. Burnett joined the Toronto Blue Jays. Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca were sent to the Mets. The Boston Red Sox have more starters from the 2003 World Series champion Marlins on their team than the Marlins do. Only Miguel Cabrera remains as a starting position player from the last championship team. His name continues to be floated as trade bait. Willis's name is out there, too.The Marlins' payroll has dropped to $15 million from $66 million as a wounded franchise deals with the repeated failures to build a new stadium in Miami. Jeffrey Loria, who took over as the team's owner in 2002, is publicly courting new home cities, most recently San Antonio. "The whole state of the team is sad," says Jeff Conine, who won two championship rings with the Marlins, in 1997 and 2003, and now plays for the Orioles. "The whole stadium situation, the financial reality of what they had to do, it is sad." Not completely. The past off-season mirrored the Marlins' roster demolition of 1997. That year, coming off the first championship, the Marlins, then owned by H. Wayne Huizenga, dumped most of their top players and nullified all the local enthusiasm that they had created. Yet some of the prospects acquired in trades (think Derrek Lee) or with subsequent high draft picks (think Josh Beckett) helped propel the 2003 team. Now that the team has again been dismantled, there is almost an expectation that the Marlins are following a proven business model. "It helped me in my decision to come here," said the team's new manager, Joe Girardi. "Because I knew Jeffrey had a history of winning and I knew Larry had a history of making great trades and rebuilding a team," he added, referring to Loria and General Manager Larry Beinfest. "Does it help me today, to win this game? No. But it helped me to decide this is the place I want to be." Girardi, 41, played 15 seasons in the major leagues. He arrived in Miami after only one year as a bench coach, with the Yankees. He has never managed a team. From the Bronx, he brought a Steinbrennerian commitment to discipline and structure. Everyone must arrive at the park on time. No facial hair. Girardi is 34 years younger than McKeon. His youth was evident all spring. He pitched batting practice, shagged balls and ran sprints with the players. His intensity fits nicely with his inexperienced team. "You know," he said, "there's a lot of new faces in here, but they have bonded together because pretty much almost everybody's on the same page in our clubhouse. They have pushed each other and they have completed against each other, but they have bonded." Loria said: "We have a tremendous amount of talent here, and I don't think people see that yet, but they will. We won a World Series and had winning seasons for two years after that," he said of the 2003-5 Marlins. "Now we'll work to rebuild it, to do it again." The rebuilding, Loria emphasized, depends on a new stadium. What effect does all the relocation talk have on the players? "Zero," Girardi said. "We'll play wherever they put us. Obviously, everyone's choice is to stay in South Florida, but your job is you have to play wherever they put you." Willis says he loves playing in South Florida, where the humidity makes it easy to keep loose. He loves Dolphins Stadium, despite the empty orange seats on game days. He tries not to be distracted by the team's payroll, or its inexperience, or the trade rumors, or the relocation chatter. "You hear all the critics talking about how tough its going to be," said Willis, a clubhouse veteran at 24. "But for a lot of guys, it's a big opportunity for them. I tell them to enjoy it. Smile sometimes. Enjoy that this is a game."


3 Drug Makers Are Convicted in Reimbursement Overcharges

Abstract: A federal judge ruled yesterday that AstraZeneca , Bristol-Myers Squibb and Schering-Plough must pay damages for overcharging on certain drugs paid for by Medicare, pension funds, insurers and patients. Judge Patti B. Saris of United States District Court in Boston found the companies liable in a nationwide class-action lawsuit over drugs administered by doctors. She dismissed claims against Johnson & Johnson while giving plaintiffs’ lawyers until Aug. 1 to provide calculations of damages for the other companies. The plaintiffs argued that the drug makers had sold medications to doctors at steep discounts to the “average wholesale price” that Medicare and pension funds paid, while secretly encouraging them to claim full reimbursement from insurers. The plaintiffs are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. In a 183-page opinion, Judge Saris wrote: “The Medicare statute itself created a perverse incentive by pegging the nationwide reimbursement for billions of drug transactions a year to a price reported by the pharmaceutical industry, thus putting the proverbial pharmaceutical fox in charge of the reimbursement chicken coop. The different pharmaceutical companies unfairly took advantage of the system by setting sky-high prices with no relation to the marketplace.” The judge found that AstraZeneca, which is based in London, acted “unfairly and deceptively” by causing the publication of false and inflated average wholesale prices for its prostate cancer drug Zoladex, which exceeded doctors’ acquisition costs by as much as 169 percent. Bristol-Myers, of New York, caused the publication of false and inflated average wholesale prices for five drugs, including Taxol, which had spreads as high as 500 percent. Warrick, a subsidiary of Schering-Plough, which is based in Kenilworth, N.J., inflated average wholesale prices for its generic drug albuterol sulfate in a range of 100 percent to 800 percent, the judge said. A spokeswoman for AstraZeneca, Laura King, said that her company “has competed responsibly with respect to pricing and marketing of drugs, and we have acted at all times in accordance with the law.” A Bristol-Myers spokeswoman, Laura Hortas, said the company believes that it “is not responsible for the average wholesale price reimbursement benchmark used by private insurers and Medicare, and that its own pricing, sales and marketing practices were fair and reasonable.” The company plans to appeal a damages award, Ms. Hortas said.

AstraZeneca
Medicare
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co
Schering Plough Corp
Fines (Penalties)
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)
Decisions and Verdicts
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


Minnesota: More Bodies Are Found in River

Abstract: Two more sets of human remains were discovered amid the wreckage of the Interstate bridge collapse in Minneapolis, raising the known death toll to 11. The remains were found in cars that divers got to only after cranes moved debris out of the way, said Randy Mitchell, spokesman for the diving operation at the site. They were identified as those of Vera Peck, 50, of St. Anthony, and Christina Sacorafas, 45, of White Bear Lake, the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office said.


American Woman Is Freed After Philippines Abduction

Abstract: MANILA — An American woman was freed five days after armed and hooded men believed to be military agents abducted her and two companions in a Philippine province north of Manila, her colleagues said Monday. The woman, Melissa Roxas, 31, an activist from Los Angeles who had been doing volunteer health work in Tarlac Province, was kidnapped on May 19 along with two other health volunteers for a nongovernmental nationalist group called Bayan. She “surfaced this morning,” said Renato Reyes Jr., secretary general of the group. Mr. Reyes said it was not yet clear why only Ms. Roxas was freed. The fate of the two other workers, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc, remained unknown. It was the first time that an American citizen had fallen victim to what Bayan and human rights groups here call “enforced disappearances,” or the abduction of activists by those suspected of being military agents. Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., a spokesman for the Philippine military, said the military had received a report on Ms. Roxas’s disappearance but declined to comment. “We are verifying it,” he said. According to Mr. Reyes, Ms. Roxas and her companions were taken at gunpoint from the village where they were working and shoved into a van that had no license plates. Mr. Reyes could not yet say whether Ms. Roxas had been harmed. He said she was with her family in Manila. According to the human rights group Karapatan, more than 200 Filipino activists have been kidnapped and never heard from since 2001, the year President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power. Others have turned up dead or showing signs of torture. Groups like Human Rights Watch have said that activists’ disappearances are part of the government’s counterinsurgency campaign against leftist rebels. The military has consistently denied that charge, calling it propaganda by leftist groups sympathetic to the three-decade-old Communist movement in the Philippines . But the United Nations Human Rights Council, in a report last year prepared by its special rapporteur, Philip Alston, called on Ms. Arroyo to institute reforms within the military and to investigate thoroughly what Mr. Alston called “credible allegations” that the military was behind most of these killings and abductions. Eduardo Ermita, Ms. Arroyo’s executive secretary and spokesman, called the rapporteur’s report inaccurate and said Mr. Alston was biased toward leftists.

Philippines
Kidnapping
Human Rights Watch
Roxas Melissa
Arroyo Gloria Macapagal


San Francisco Studies Fees to Ease Traffic

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Following the lead of other congested cities like London and Singapore, officials in San Francisco are considering a plan to ease traffic by charging drivers a fee upon entering notoriously clogged sections of the city. Using $1 million in federal funds, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is studying various “ congestion pricing ” options. If approved, such pricing would make San Francisco the first American city to charge cars a fee to enter certain neighborhoods at certain times. “I want a San Francisco that is far less congested and far easier to navigate,” said a city supervisor, Jake McGoldrick, who has shepherded congestion pricing proposals and is leaving office this week because of term limits. Congestion pricing generally intends to nudge drivers out of their vehicles and onto buses, subways and bicycles by pushing up the cost of driving into certain parts of a city during peak commuter hours. The fees help generate money to improve public transportation. In 2003, London began charging drivers to enter the central part of the city; Singapore and Stockholm also have such fees. Last year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York advocated a proposal to charge drivers $8 upon entering a heavily trafficked part of Manhattan, but the plan died in the State Assembly. Mr. McGoldrick said he had been sold on the plan since a 2005 meeting with the man he called “Mr. Congestion Management” — a former London mayor, Ken Livingstone. Americans have “a very parochial mindset” about driving, said Mr. McGoldrick, whose wife is English. “It’s hard for people to envision anything else,” he continued, “because this is such a car culture.” But such a plan would not come quickly, even in San Francisco, which has one of the most aggressive recycling programs in the country and has banned the use of plastic bags in its supermarkets. In December, the county transportation authority held two public meetings on the issue, though final study results are not expected until late this year. “You cannot do anything in San Francisco without soliciting public comment early and often,” said the authority’s executive director, José Luis Moscovich, who added that he did not anticipate a decision on a congestion fee for several years. The plan faces opponents in the city’s business community. On Dec. 22, the president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Steve Falk, argued in an op-ed article in The San Francisco Chronicle that such tolls amount to a “stealth tax.” The headline on the article was “San Francisco Is Not London.” The economic downturn has also prompted caution. During his second inaugural address a year ago, San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, called congestion pricing “the single greatest step we can take to protect our environment and improve our quality of life.” Last week, however, the mayor’s office offered a more tepid endorsement. “The devil is in the details,” said a spokesman, Nathan Ballard. While Mr. Newsom supports congestion management, Mr. Ballard said, “Given the challenging economic times, we would hate to impose too heavy a burden on commuters.”

Congestion Pricing
San Francisco (Calif)


Safety First for Chris Froome, Who Loses Lead but Keeps Pace

Abstract: CAMBRAI, France — Having stayed safe on the treacherous cobblestones, Chris Froome said he cared little about conceding the race leader’s yellow jersey to Tony Martin during Tuesday’s fourth stage of an action-packed Tour de France. After crashing out of last year’s race and following three crashes in two days, Froome had good reason to be nervous — especially given that this stage featured seven sections of cobbles. But Froome, of Britain, at least avoided trouble and repelled attacks by Vincenzo Nibali, the defending Tour champion, who failed to claw back time on him. “I wasn’t trying to show how strong I was on the cobbles today; it was about staying out of trouble,” said Froome, the 2013 Tour champion. “Congratulations to Tony for his late attack.” Relieved after cruising through the final paved section, Froome did not chase as Martin, a German rider, peeled away about two miles from the finish to clinch the fifth Tour stage win of his career and take the yellow jersey after narrowly missing it in the opening stage. “While Tony’s a great time trialist, he’s not going to be there in the mountains,” Froome said. “I’m happy to see the jersey go to him rather than any of the big overall rivals. This is the perfect situation for us.” Ferocious side winds in the third stage, a huge crash that took down 20 riders and put five out of the race, and Tuesday’s cobbles have presented riders with a dangerous cocktail of hazards. Froome made it through them unscathed and with a healthy lead over his primary rivals. He leads the two-time Tour champion Alberto Contador by 36 seconds, Nibali by 1 minute 38 seconds and the Colombian rider Nairo Quintana, the 2013 runner-up, by 1:56. Image Tony Martin, a German rider, peeled away about two miles from the finish to clinch a fifth Tour stage win and take the yellow jersey after narrowly missing it in the opening stage. Credit Benoit Tessier/Reuters “We can all let off a big sigh of relief after today,” Froome said. “It was a stressful stage and sketchy on the cobbles, and I know we’ll all be sleeping a lot better tonight.” Martin, 30, a three-time time-trial world champion who finished second to Rohan Dennis in the first stage’s time trial, fell into the arms of his teammates after the fourth stage. His countryman John Degenkolb finished second, and Peter Sagan, a Slovak, was third. “All the pressure of the last days has come off,” said Martin, who was a second behind Froome overnight. “I was really on the limit. I got round the last corner, and I was surprised I could make it.” After the final cobblestone section, he got a flat tire and swapped bikes with his teammate Matteo Trentin. “Changing the bike, with the wrong position, I was just thinking to finish,” Martin said, adding that about three miles from the finish, “I just decided to give it a chance.” He leads Froome by 12 seconds and the American rider Tejay van Garderen, who is shaping up as a dangerous outsider, by 25 seconds. Nibali, who built last year’s win on the back of a brilliant performance on the slippery cobbles, failed repeatedly to crack Froome’s resistance. “I don’t have any regrets,” Nibali said. “Froome is very strong.” After Monday’s spill, riders hardly relished the cobbles that dotted the 138.9-mile trek from Seraing to Cambrai, crossing into Belgium and then back to France. Wednesday’s mostly flat fifth stage, 117.8 miles from Arras to Amiens, will be a welcome relief.

Tony Martin
Tour de France
Biking
Christopher Froome


Pavel Astakhov: The Man Behind U.S. Adoption Ban

Abstract: MOSCOW LONG before joining the federal government as Russia’s child rights commissioner and, more recently, becoming the leading force behind a ban on the adoption of Russian children by Americans, Pavel A. Astakhov transformed himself into a celebrity lawyer with mass market appeal — no small trick in a country where encounters with the legal system are as desirable as a tooth extraction. There was “The Hour of Trial with Pavel Astakhov,” a courtroom reality television show casting him as Russia’s Judge Judy along with a radio program of the same name. There was a second radio program called “Advocacy Defense Techniques of Pavel Astakhov”; a series of books titled “Your Attorney: Pavel Astakhov,” with installments on housing, property rights, inheritance, pensions and family law; several legal-thriller novels fashioned in the tradition of John Grisham; a seminar series called “Pavel Astakhov’s School of Advocacy Skills”; and a law firm named the Pavel Astakhov Moscow City Law Bar. The law banning adoptions by Americans was not named after him, but it might as well have been. In the weeks before and after the law was approved by Parliament and signed by President Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Astakhov was its loudest and most visible champion, insisting that Russia take care of its own orphans and not sell them to foreigners. And it was Mr. Astakhov who this week stoked a furor over the latest death of an adopted Russian child in the United States, Max Shatto, with a post on Twitter that said: “Urgent! In the state of Texas, an adoptive mother killed a 3-year-old Russian child.” Investigators say the circumstances of that death remain murky, and Mr. Astakhov has backed away from the murder accusation — but only slightly. At a news conference, he equated the boy’s mother, Laura Shatto, with two adoptive fathers, Miles Harrison of Virginia and Brian Dykstra of Iowa, who were acquitted of killing their toddler sons. “Well, the presumption of innocence, you know how it is — sometimes it becomes so rigid,” Mr. Astakhov said. Referring to the acquittals of Mr. Harrison and Mr. Dykstra, he declared, “For everyone it was completely clear that in one way or another they were guilty for the deaths of their children.” In frequent television appearances, Mr. Astakhov denounces international adoptions in general as a sinister, profit-driven business, and he is pushing to extend the ban to all countries. He has been advocating that since 2010 after a woman in Tennessee put her 7-year-old adopted son on a flight back to Russia alone, with a note saying, “I no longer wish to parent this child.” THIN, impeccably dressed and telegenically handsome with perfectly coifed hair that occasionally glints with an unnatural shade of bronze, Mr. Astakhov delivers nearly every statement that he makes with the silver-tongued flair of a courtroom closing argument. “Don’t present me as an America-hater,” Mr. Astakhov, who holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Pittsburgh, said after a recent news conference. “I am a fighter for the rights of Russian children. I am fighting with those who violate children’s rights.” He added: “I am only saying that it’s a shame that Russia is giving away its children. America does not give away its children, does it?” But he also often peppers his remarks with references to abusive American parents who he says have mostly escaped proper punishment, calling them “bastards” and “pedophiles.” In response to his aggressive promotion of the ban, critics have denigrated his nationalist statements as hypocrisy, noting that the eldest of Mr. Astakhov’s three biological children attended private schools in England and the United States, while the youngest was born in 2009 in the same private hospital in Nice, France, where Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins. A magazine spread showed Mr. Astakhov; his wife, Svetlana; and their children posing in luxurious surroundings in France where they spend the summers, and in an accompanying article he marveled at the prenatal care that his wife received, saying that while pricey it was still cheaper than elite maternity hospitals in Russia. CRITICS have also portrayed Mr. Astakhov as coldhearted for moving to block adoptions even of children who had already met their prospective parents and were told they would soon be going home with them. He waves this off with the same panache that he used to fight allegations against his legal clients, including the retired American naval officer Edmond Pope, who was convicted of espionage in 2000 but later pardoned by Mr. Putin. “The children are in an orphanage,” he said in one interview. “And they perceive every adult who arrives as a potential mother or father.” Mr. Astakhov concedes that he had no expertise in child welfare before he was named child rights commissioner in 2009 by President Dmitri A. Medvedev. “From the first day I was saying I was not an expert in protecting children’s rights,” he said in a recent interview. “But today I am prepared to sit at the table with any expert.” Mr. Astakhov, 46, was born in Moscow and graduated from a law school operated by the K.G.B., the spy service, in 1991. Part of the first generation of post-Soviet lawyers, he quickly became a master of public relations and gravitated toward high-profile cases. In addition to Mr. Pope, he represented Vladimir Gusinsky, a media tycoon once known as Mr. Putin’s fiercest critic, who now lives outside Russia. Mr. Astakhov helped Mr. Gusinsky avoid conviction on fraud charges. Mr. Astakhov attended the University of Pittsburgh in 2001-2, and was living in the United States at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He has called America his “ second motherland .” As child ombudsman, Mr. Astakhov said he was galvanized by the Tennessee case and other instances of abuse, even deaths, of adopted Russian children in the United States. He was heavily involved in the development of an agreement on adoptions between the United States and Russia that went into effect on Nov. 1 and called for increased oversight of adopted children. But Russia has now said it will terminate the agreement as of Jan. 1, 2014. At times, his criticism of international adoptions has veered toward the wacky. At one news conference, he suggested that Americans were adopting in large numbers from the Russian Far East, helping to deplete the region’s population, while noting that there are more than 150 million residents living in the region of China just across the border. Pressed about whether he was alluding to the possibility of a Chinese invasion — a historic fear among Russian officials — Mr. Astakhov demurred. Some critics say he has selfish political motives, noting that he has used the recent controversy to call for the creation of an independent ministry on orphans, which he would lead. In addition to the official Internet site of his office, he maintains his own personal Web site , in Russian and English. “I am responsible for myself, for my life, for my work,” he said at a recent news conference, countering criticism over the adoption controversy. “And I am ready to account to anybody. I have worked as a defense lawyer for 20 years, and there are no dark pages in my life, no matter how hard you look for them. You are welcome to look for them. I have always talked to the press with pleasure. Some call it openness. Some call it P.R. I don’t know. This is the way I am made.”

Pavel Astakhov
Adoption
Russia
Laura Shatto
US


Japanese Searchers Inch Along to Find Tsunami Victims

Abstract: KESENNUMA, Japan — The Shishiori River starts life nestled between 1,500-foot hills north of here, and runs a bare 7 ½-mile course southward until it empties into Kesennuma Bay. The end is a mean one, a short trip down a 50-foot-wide culvert, shackled in by manmade banks and girdled by highway bridges. It was on Friday that Japan ’s monster tsunami inundated that last concrete stretch, swamping the river with overturned cars and fishing boats and demolishing hundreds of homes on both banks. And it was this Wednesday that searchers, entering a battered home there, found the bodies of a man and his wife in their 70s — the last of 81 victims they recovered in the river basin. The total, well over a third of the confirmed deaths in Kesennuma, testifies to the searchers’ grit. But it also testifies to the enormousness of the task ahead, not just here but across northeastern Japan . To recover those 81 bodies, 300 rescuers spent four days combing a neck of land about 450 yards wide and only 5/8-mile long, in the center of a busy urban neighborhood. Much of the tsunami’s havoc, here and elsewhere, was wrought in rural and even inaccessible areas — and much of that has barely been touched. “About 20 percent of the damaged area here has been searched,” Ken-Ichi Sato, who heads Kesennuma’s emergency operations, said Wednesday. “Parts we can’t reach because we can’t get into the area, and parts haven’t been searched because there’s so much debris to clear.” Japan’s National Police Agency said on Thursday afternoon that more than 5,000 people had died and nearly 10,000 were missing. Figures in both categories were expected to rise as search teams explored the most heavily damaged areas. Underscoring the urgency of the crises, Emperor Akihito took the unprecedented step of addressing Japan on television on Wednesday, saying in a recorded message that he was “deeply worried” and asking people to act with compassion “to overcome these difficult times.” An official with the Imperial Household Agency said that Akihito, 77, had never before delivered a nationally televised address of any kind. Akihito expressed his concern for the survivors of the disaster and thanked rescue teams working under difficult conditions in the north. In Kesennuma, workers began assembling a list of the missing on Wednesday, Mr. Sato said, after some electricity was restored and they could tap a computer database of the area’s residents. Yet even with computers to pinpoint the homes of the missing, officials say, finding the victims is an especially vexing task, lacking the usual clues that lead to rescues. “In an earthquake, if it’s within 72 hours and we reach them, they’re likely to be found alive; and in an earthquake, you find them in place and evacuate them,” said Kazutaka Hiramatsu, 48, a Tokyo firefighters’ school official who was helping direct the Shishiori search. “But because the tsunami carries everything so far away, it’s very difficult to find people. And because it’s a tsunami, when we find them, they are usually already dead.” Because most victims are neither in their homes nor able to call for help, the search-and-rescue teams that attend most natural disasters are less useful here. In this case, the first victims are being found and zipped into body bags by the workers sent in to clear paths through the debris fields that the tsunami has left. “The problem,” Mr. Sato said, “is that there’s a lot of water, and a lot of the debris is just too big to move. So our search has become search-and-removal — we have to do it all together.” Sometimes other homeowners, coming back to pick through the rubble of their belongings, discover the dead. In Kesen-cho, a village in another tsunami-flattened area eight miles northeast of Kesennuma, journalists encountered two victims on Tuesday by a plowed roadside, laid on planks and carefully covered with a beige duvet and a Mickey Mouse bedspread. Bodies also have been recovered at sea by Japan’s Coast Guard and the United States Navy , which have mounted helicopter searches. That leaves the most difficult and painstaking work to the squads of searchers from Japan’s military and emergency groups like the Tokyo Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Here in Kesennuma, about 800 searchers are deployed in all, outfitted in mud boots and slickers and carrying the tools of their trade. “We use bars, axes and breaking tools that look like spurs to lift and turn over debris,” said Keiichiro Horiguchi, one of the Tokyo agency’s searchers. “We break walls and windows, and use metal cutting tools to turn over the tiles that cover the roofs to see if there is anybody beneath.” At the Shishiori River, officials first divided the debris field into sections, then deployed the searchers at the end, working slowly toward the ocean. Using a long rod, sometimes with two points at one end, they gingerly poked through the wreckage, first exploring the buildings that were still standing and inspecting the river’s flooded automobiles for bodies, then moving to the surrounding rubble. Then, upon reaching the sea, they went back and started over. “The truth is that there are many bodies around the damaged area,” said Toshiyuki Yoshioka, 46, a Tokyo riot police director who serves with the fire and disaster agency. “If we look for people in the same area again and again, there’s a greater possibility to find them. We’ll look two, three, as many times as we can in the time allowed us.” That painstaking approach is what led searchers on Wednesday to the elderly couple, who had been overlooked during previous searches. “It’s very hard and dangerous work,” Yuri Tsurugasaki, 45, a Tokyo fire officer with the searchers, said Wednesday. And not just physically, he added; recovering the victims of such cruel deaths has led to more than one case of post-traumatic stress disorder, he said. “But it’s even harder for the families who are waiting for their dear ones to return,” Mr. Horiguchi said. “So it’s nothing compared to what they feel.”

Japan
Rescues
Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (2011)
Deaths (Fatalities)


In Egypt, Security Forces Make Arrests in Tahrir Square

Abstract: CAIRO — Under intense pressure from Washington, Egyptian security forces arrested hundreds of protesters around the American Embassy in Cairo on Saturday as political leaders struggled to deal with the fallout caused by the week of unrest. Across the region, the anti-American protests that convulsed cities in many parts of the Islamic world last week subsided at least temporarily, a fragile calm taking hold a day after violent and sometimes deadly demonstrations at American and Western installations spread to more than 20 countries. In Cairo, where the protests against a crude video denigrating Islam began on Tuesday, security forces expanded the fortifications around the American Embassy. On Friday, despite a new concrete barrier, hundreds of young men battled security officers near the embassy, hurling rocks and homemade bombs as the police fired tear gas. But by midday Saturday, security forces had cleared the streets around the embassy. Only a faint scent of tear gas remained. Hisham Qandil, Egypt ’s prime minister, said Saturday that he had visited the American Embassy to express his support and told the BBC’s Arabic news channel that it was regrettable and wrong that so many blamed the American government for a video to which it had no connection. But he also called for the West to “strike a balance between freedom of expression and to maintain respect for other people’s beliefs.” He said the violence was caused by “a small group of people doing irresponsible work, and everybody is paying the price for these people’s work, and we have to do all it takes to stop this from happening again.” Even as the violence abated, Al Qaeda ’s branch in Yemen urged its followers to “expel the embassies of America from the lands of the Muslims” and praised the killing of the American ambassador to Libya. The violence raised questions about political instability in Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries where newfound freedoms have given way to an absence of authority. In Egypt, leaders sought to repair ties with Washington that have been strained by their initial response to attacks on the embassy, tacitly acknowledging that they erred in not vehemently condemning the violence. The toll of the demonstrations became clearer on Saturday, with Egyptian state news media reporting that at least one person had died in the clashes. More than 224 people have been injured in four days of street battles, according to state news media, and by Friday at least 99 security officers had been hurt. Across the region, there were reports of about a dozen deaths during the six days of protests, some in confrontations with security forces, others in riots. In Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans were killed Tuesday, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, the authorities appeared to be rounding up many men who were at the diplomatic compound during that attack. On Saturday, President Obama condemned the violence but also reached out to Muslims. “We stand for religious freedom,” he said in his weekly radio address. “And we reject the denigration of any religion — including Islam. Yet there is never any justification for violence.” Political and religious leaders in the Arab world also called for calm. In Saudi Arabia, where no protests were reported, the grand mufti, the highest religious authority in Islam’s birthplace, denounced the attacks and said “it is forbidden to punish the innocent for the wicked crimes of the guilty,” state news media reported. In Tunis, where the American Embassy was attacked Friday by protesters who smashed windows and set fires, the moderate Islamist governing party condemned the violence, which left at least 3 dead and 28 injured, for threatening Tunisia’s progress toward democracy. Two protesters died in Sudan, two died in Tunisia and one was killed in Lebanon. On Thursday, four people were killed as protests turned violent at the American Embassy in Sana, Yemen. Some of the worst violence on Friday was in Khartoum, Sudan, where about 5,000 people rallied, news reports said, before marching to the American Embassy. Sudanese police on Saturday said that two protesters had died in a traffic accident that resulted from the chaos on Friday, The Associated Press reported. Sudan rebuffed a request by the United States to deploy Marines around the embassy, but talks continued and Washington reminded Sudan of its obligations to provide diplomatic security. Marines have already been sent to Libya and Yemen, although the Yemeni Parliament demanded on Saturday that the Marines leave the country, according to SABA, the state news service. “We do not accept any foreign forces in Yemen, be it small or big forces, and for any reason,” the Parliament statement said. The State Department said it was evacuating all family members and nonemergency staff members from the embassies in Tunis and Khartoum, citing the security situation. It also warned American citizens about travel in both capitals.

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )

Diplomatic Service Embassies and Consulates


A Quarter of the Country’s Green Sea Turtles Call Florida Refuge Home

Abstract: Green sea turtles have had their ups and downs. They were so plentiful that they were commercially harvested for hundreds of years in the Atlantic, but are now listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, depending on the location. They were one of the first species to be protected by regulations. That was in Bermuda in the 1600s. Apparently the effort didn’t work, however, as that local population was exterminated. These days, however, their numbers are increasing. In the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, just below Cape Canaveral, they are having a record year. Researchers and students at the University of Central Florida’s Marine Turtle Research Group counted 12,804 nests as of Thursday in the 13 miles of the refuge’s beaches that they monitor. That’s the first time the number has topped 12,000, said Kate Mansfield, who leads the group. That’s at least 25 percent of the green sea turtle nests in the United States, and the result will probably be more than 700,000 hatchlings emerging, Dr. Mansfield said. “It’s a pretty phenomenal sea turtle nesting spot,” she said. The research group has been monitoring the area for 35 years, dating back to before the refuge was established in 1991. She emphasized that although the news was good for green turtles now, the turtles were a very long-lived species and long-term monitoring is essential. The turtles take 25 years to mature, and the ones making nests now were hatched around the time the refuge was established. They also benefit from the Endangered Species Act, she said, and from fishing regulations to decrease the accidental catch of sea turtles. The stretch of beach the university monitors also has more than 12,000 nests made by loggerhead turtles. At the height of the nesting season there, she said, 400 to 500 nests may be dug each night. If the turtle population keeps growing, it is going to be one crowded beach.

Turtles
Endangered Species
Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge
Cape Canaveral
Kate L Mansfield


Washington Upsets Marquette on Last-Second Shot

Abstract: SAN JOSE, Calif. — A forgettable night for Quincy Pondexter turned into one with a memorable ending. The Washington senior, who had cursed himself in frustration earlier, banked in a double-clutched leaner with 1.7 seconds as the 11th-seeded Huskies rallied from a 15-point second-half deficit to beat Marquette, 80-78, in an East Region first-round game. The Huskies could not duly celebrate until Lazar Hayward’s clean look from halfcourt bounced off the backboard. “That second half, as a senior, you don’t want that to be your last game,” said Pondexter, who described his first half as horrible and who picked up a technical foul in the second half. “You don’t want to end on a sour note.” The Huskies, who may not have been in the N.C.A.A. tournament if they had not won the Pac-10 tournament last week, won their eighth in a row. They will advance to play New Mexico or Montana in the second round. Either way, they will have plenty of support from a crowd that was clearly the largest fan base of the eight teams here. Midway through the second half, the fans were glum. Marquette led by 43-42 at the half, but when the Golden Eagles slowed the pace in the second half, they began to pick the Huskies apart with pick and rolls or drives to the basket that often ended with layups or clean looks from behind the 3-point line. When Hayward and Maurice Acker hit back-to-back 3-pointers, the Golden Eagles had a 60-45 lead. When Pondexter was called for an offensive foul, the Huskies looked finished. But the game turned quickly. With their coach, Lorenzo Romar, stomping his feet on the sideline and the crowd urging them on, the Huskies roared back. When Elston Turner hit a transition 3-pointer with 5 minutes 15 seconds to play, Washington took a 72-71 lead. “Our defensive intensity kicked it up,” Pondexter said. “We just found a way to win. It was a real gut check. We knew our backs were against the wall.” Marquette (22-12) made 12 of 19 3-pointers, but on their final two possessions, with the score tied, Hayward missed an open 3-pointer and Jimmy Butler threw a pass out of bounds. After that, Isaiah Thomas missed a 3-pointer for Washington, but Pondexter chased down the loose ball and the Huskies held the ball for the last shot. Pondexter, who was 1 for 7 from the field and 2 for 6 from the free-throw line at halftime, dribbled the clock down at the top of the key. With five seconds left, he drove to the basket, ducked under a defender and banked in the game-winner.

Basketball
NCAA Basketball Tournament (Men)
Marquette University
National Collegiate Athletic Assn
Washington University


Exiting President Reflects on Georgia

Abstract: TBILISI, Georgia — Mikheil Saakashvili, now the former president of Georgia, was still working his famously late nights, apparently intent on squeezing every last minute from the final days of his term. In an interview late last month that began after midnight and could well have stretched until dawn, Mr. Saakashvili boasted that in his decade in office, Georgia had made huge strides toward becoming an established democracy. He profanely dismissed allegations of heavy-handedness and authoritarian abuses, and voiced regret that he had not spent more money on education and less on weapons. Mr. Saakashvili, who rose to power as a leader of the peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003 and became a darling of the West — embraced by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — also issued a pointed warning that the United States was signaling weakness to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by not following through with threats of military action in Syria. “Russia perceives American hard power is pulling back from the entire region,” Mr. Saakashvili said, sipping tea and munching on hot roasted nuts. “If America had some limited operations in Syria,” he said, “that would still have been a kind of risk for Putin. Now, he is almost convinced or fully convinced that there is no way, whatever he does — you know, shuts off the Georgia pipeline, comes and occupies Tbilisi, goes and kicks out the Azerbaijan leadership — nobody is going to do anything except strong statements and condemnation.” “What we hear from our friends in Washington,” Mr. Saakashvili continued, “is, you know, ‘You are great guys. We like you, great transition to democracy — you know, peaceful transition of power, big achievements. But, you know, we now have other things to care about. We’re on your side. We’ll be on your side. But what can we do?’ ” That Washington might be losing interest in the South Caucasus, where Georgia has been America’s closest ally, was evident on Sunday at the inauguration of Mr. Saakashvili’s successor, Giorgi Margvelashvili, a former university rector and education minister. Rather than a high-profile delegation, perhaps led by a senior cabinet official with members of Congress who are active in Eurasian affairs, the Obama administration sent some little-known officials led by Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. Mr. Saakashvili did not attend the inauguration, because of the arrests and prosecutions of many former members of his government on various charges of corruption and abuse of power; many of those arrests appear to have been politically motivated. Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has raised the possibility that Mr. Saakashvili, too, could face arrest and prosecution. The rise of Mr. Ivanishvili, a billionaire whose party, Georgian Dream, swept to power in parliamentary elections in October last year, forced Mr. Saakashvili to spend his final year in office as an opposition figure, In the interview, Mr. Saakashvili said he fully expected to be a target. “The prime minister envisions for me either prison or exile,” he said. “I will try to fight for my place to be free in my own country.” He said he expected to be proved innocent of any charges that may be brought, but he acknowledged that it was possible that he would be imprisoned anyway. “Should I be in solitary confinement for one year, without windows, or without any sunlight, because he said that I supposedly ate children alive or killed lots of people in the streets?” Mr. Saakashvili asked. “That’s the issue we are facing.” On Sunday, aides to Mr. Saakashvili said that he was on vacation with his family in Europe, but that they did not know which country he was in or when he would return home. It was unclear whether he had perhaps begun a sort of temporary exile. Mr. Ivanishvili and his supporters insisted that they have brought a new climate of openness and civility to Georgia, freeing the judicial system from political influence and ending police and prison abuses. But Mr. Saakashvili said he believed that democracy had suffered a setback in Georgia. “We are back to the Wild West of some kind of post-Soviet politics,” he said. Mr. Saakashvili said his biggest regret was not sending more young Georgians to study in the West. “Now I wish we had spent one billion less on defense, and spent it entirely on education,” he said. “That would have been much better defense than buying all these weapons that are, anyway, of little use when you are talking about confronting Russia.” “That is, in retrospect, I think, my biggest mistake,” he continued. Mr. Saakashvili expressed disdain for Mr. Ivanishvili, who has said that he would resign at the end of November, to be succeeded by the interior minister, Irakli Gharibashvili, 31. Constitutional amendments that came into force on Sunday strengthen the authority of the prime minister, making that office, rather than the presidency, the most powerful in the country. Mr. Saakashvili denied that he had supported those changes with an eye toward becoming prime minister himself, the way Vladimir V. Putin had become prime minister of Russia after two terms as president while remaining the dominant figure there. “I was asked this by Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton,” he said. “They never said I shouldn’t be prime minister, but how they were asking it, they obviously had some concern it would look like Putin. But I told them many times that I was never going to do that.” In the interview, Mr. Saakashvili said he recognized the historical significance of respecting term limits and stepping down on schedule without a fight, a practice that remains uncommon in post-Soviet states. “It’s huge, huge,” he said. Another lesson, he said, would be that his party, United National Movement, would be back in the next elections, unlike previously ousted parties in Georgia, which quickly disappeared. “An amazing thing for this part of the world,” he said. As for his successors, he predicted, “They will learn three things: Things should be changed through institutions, through the ballot box. There is no free lunch. And no sweet Russia, under any circumstances.”

Mikheil Saakashvili
Syria
Giorgi Margvelashvili
Bidzina Ivanishvili
Georgia country


Excerpts From Sotomayor’s Videos

Abstract: Judge Sonia Sotomayor has given the Senate videos in which she appeared over the past 25 years, many of which shed new light on her views. Following are excerpts : ON EMPATHY The question of what role, if any, empathy should play in judging has emerged since Judge Sotomayor’s nomination, in part because President Obama described it as a quality he sought in a justice. In a 1994 interview , Judge Sotomayor said she sometimes has an emotional response to what her work requires her to do, like when she sentenced men to lengthy prison terms — because “the law requires it” — and watched their wives cry. “Does that translate into a passion or a compassion that affects my judgment? No. But it makes it much more important for me to be careful when I exercise my judgment. And any judge who I think tends to suppress that might be doing a disservice. You have to know what people feel.” ON TEMPERAMENT Judge Sotomayor has been criticized as being curt with lawyers who are unprepared or disorganized in her courtroom. In the panel discussion shortly after she became a district judge, she explained that judges like herself were dealing with as many as 500 cases each, and so lawyers must be efficient and direct in making their arguments and writing their briefs: “Please come in, make your argument succinctly. Figure out what your issue is up front and don’t let the judge figure it out for you in argument. If you have a weakness in your case, state it and address it. Don’t attempt to hide it by skirting around it. I think most judges will ultimately find it and be resentful that you’ve attempted to sidestep the issue, rather than facing it up front and saying, This is the difficulty in my case but I think you should ignore it, or distinguish it or do what needs to be done to get around it.” ON BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION In 1994, Judge Sotomayor talked to a group of students about the famous 1954 ruling that struck down segregation in schools: “Brown said to the country it’s against our Constitution for people to treat each other differently. Everybody has to be given the same education. Everybody has to be given the same opportunity in our country. That was the courts telling the society, You have to change. And change we did. Look around this room. There’s a lot of colors in this room. There’s a lot of women. There are boys and girls, people from all parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, African-Americans. I see some Asian-Americans. We are a country of the kind we’ve become because a court had the vision to say to our society, Change. And we did.”


Culprit in Syrian Chemical Attack Is Unclear, China Insists

Abstract: BEIJING — China, clinging to a longstanding policy of noninterference, said on Wednesday that it opposed military action against Syria and insisted that the truth about the chemical weapons attack against civilians last week remained unclear. As momentum built for Western military strikes against Syria, China was unmoved by the conclusions of Western governments that the Syrian government used banned chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus, the capital, killing scores of men, women and children as they slept. “Some external powers passed the ‘verdict’ on the Syrian government under conditions where the truth is not yet clear,” People’s Daily, the official voice of the government, said Wednesday. “All parties ought to patiently wait for the results of the investigation.” China supported the dispatch of United Nations inspectors to Syria to investigate earlier reports of chemical attacks, but indicated that it was not prepared to go any further. If the Western powers seek a vote by the United Nations Security Council authorizing military strikes against Syria, China is expected to join Russia in a veto, Western diplomats said. In expressing its opposition to military strikes, China harked back to the NATO-led strikes against Kosovo in 1999, and to the Iraq war, both of which China opposed. China has a particularly bitter memory of the Kosovo bombing campaign because its embassy in Belgrade was struck by a missile. The United States said it was an accident, but many Chinese believe that it was deliberate. In a similar vein, Chinese analysts said, China was disappointed by the outcome of the United Nations-authorized military action against Libya during its popular uprising in 2011. In that instance, China, in an unusual move, gave the green light by abstaining from the vote in the Security Council. But the campaign against the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, lasted far longer than China wanted. And China expressed unhappiness that the military action resulted in the toppling of the Qaddafi government. For domestic reasons — the fear of encouraging ethnic minorities at home — China avoids supporting actions on the international front suggesting that rebellion can be justified. The Obama administration said Tuesday that the goal of a military operation was not to upend governments but to punish the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, for its use of chemical weapons. The strikes would be aimed at military units that carried out the chemical attacks, administration officials said. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China “adamantly opposes anyone using chemical weapons” and continued to stress the need for a political solution. “External military intervention would be at odds with the tenets of the charter of the United Nations and the basic rules of international relations, and it would also exacerbate turmoil in the Middle East,” the foreign minister said in a statement Wednesday. “China calls on all sides to exercise restraint and calm, and to stick to the correct track of a political solution.” He carefully avoided assigning blame for the use of the weapons. Chinese experts on the Middle East insisted that it would be nearly impossible to come up with definitive proof of who used them. “As far as I know it is very hard to get the evidence,” said Yin Gang, a Middle East analyst at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Despite its huge energy interests in the Middle East, China has been reluctant to get deeply involved in the complicated diplomacy of the region, and the government has declined to heed the calls of some nationalists for a more assertive presence. As the Syrian conflict worsened last year, Chinese leaders invited some members of the opposition to talks here in the capital, but those efforts were interpreted as gestures rather than serious engagement. Beijing has been less vocal in its support of Mr. Assad than Moscow, but has left the strong impression that it much prefers Mr. Assad to the opposition. China joined Russia last year in vetoing a Security Council resolution backing an Arab plan that urged Mr. Assad to give up power. The Chinese government is not convinced that military strikes will be limited, the Middle East experts said. Any Western military action will probably result in a wider conflict in the Middle East, they said. “If Obama starts a war, he helps Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Yin. “Al Qaeda may do something against Israel. Obama should think about what Iran would do.” There were calls for China to take a bolder approach commensurate with its economic power, and its dependence on the Middle East for its largest source of oil. “China is a different country than it was over a decade ago,” said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing. “Beijing’s new leadership aspires to regional and global leadership positions. It needs to look at Syria differently than Kosovo. Beijing needs to play a truly constructive role.” Some Chinese academics and military figures who favor a stronger foreign policy agreed that China’s caution was outmoded. Within the Communist Party “there is still a strong force against abandoning the nonaligned strategy,” said Yan Xuetong, the dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University, who favors an alliance with Russia. “I think we should totally abandon the nonaligned policy.” A retired military general, Luo Yuan, said that with so much oil at stake, the Chinese government could no longer act as though the Middle East was divorced from China’s strategic interests. “We cannot think that the issues of Syria and Iran have nothing to do with us,” he told People’s Daily last year.

Syria
China
Military
Wang Yi
Biological and Chemical Warfare
Arab Spring
US Foreign Policy
UN Security Council


Prospect of Iran’s Election Stirs Little Hope This Time Around

Abstract: TEHRAN — Iran’s state television broadcast a live program on Tuesday in which passers-by were placed in a chair and asked what they would do if they were president. One man said he would “work for the people.” A second jumped up when he heard the question. “I don’t want this chair!” he said. Suddenly, a young woman grabbed the microphone. “This program is nonsense,” she said. “Those who really sit on this chair are only there to fill their own pockets.” The program rapidly broke for a commercial, but it was a rare and revealing unscripted moment in the strictly controlled run-up to the presidential election on June 14. Iran’s 2009 presidential election was an exuberant and exciting spectacle that aroused a powerful surge of optimism in the populace but ended with the trauma of a violent crackdown. This year’s vote, taking place under starkly different circumstances, promises to be far more subdued. For most, the enthusiasm of 2009 has been replaced, for now at least, with an indifference bred of fear and fed by a lack of charismatic candidates. There is little talk of a boycott, but no enthusiasm or expectations that the election will make any difference in people’s lives. Today, most of the leading figures of the 2009 opposition — politicians, dissidents and journalists — have been silenced or fled the country. Many of them are still in jail, while the two main presidential challengers and leaders of the so-called green movement, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, remain under house arrest. Many still feel cheated, if not by the outcome of the vote, which many here viewed as fraudulent, then by the way their complaints were swept aside by security forces on the streets of Tehran. “I gave my vote to Moussavi four years ago, and they answered me with their batons,” said Asiye, 32, a bookkeeper who, like others interviewed for this article, did not want to be identified for fear of retribution. “I’m not saying I will not vote now, but if I do, it will be for the candidate that is most critical of the ruling system.” As next month’s election nears, there are a few voices saying openly — and carefully — what many have been saying for a long time behind closed doors. On Saturday, former President Mohammad Khatami, himself long sidelined, blasted the “suffocating security atmosphere” in the country. “The trust between the government and the people is torn,” he said. “The youths and middle classes have lost all their hope.” But Mr. Khatami is an establishment figure, many here believe, perhaps tolerated by the government as one who lacks a strong following and poses little more than a rhetorical challenge. In contrast to the carnival atmosphere of 2009, when people lined the streets night after night in the weeks leading up to the vote, now most potential voters are consumed by worries about the ailing economy, double-digit inflation and the political direction of the Islamic republic. There is no indication that people are interested in going back out on the streets, and if they vote, many say, it will be only to seek revenge on the system. “Who can stand up to those in charge?” said Ali Akbar, 28, a muscular man standing in a bookstore on Enghelab Street in Tehran. “I will vote for him.” Compared with other years, the playing field is extremely unclear, and emotions could change once the candidates declare their intention to run, which will take place by Saturday. The final candidates will be vetted later by the Guardian Council. Besides the candidates fielded by the powerful traditionalist faction of clerics and Revolutionary Guards commanders, many in the country are waiting to see whether President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s right-hand man, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, will run. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, a former president, is said to be considering it. “I will vote for one of them,” said Asiye, the bookkeeper. “They will end this horrible status quo.” Despite the trauma of nearly six months of unprecedented street clashes in 2009, there is no talk of a boycott, even among the former opposition members. Neither are those who backed the green movement rallying behind one candidate. At a wedding recently near the city of Karaj, northwest of Tehran, two women summed up the dilemma facingIranians critical of the government. “We need to elect the least worst of the bad,” one of the women, Simin, said as she ate a salad. “That way we might get some sort of change.” But her friend Maral was not so sure. “Last time we saw what they did with our vote,” she said. “I will never vote again.” Many in Iran’s larger cities say they are concentrating on their private lives. In some cases, melancholy has taken hold. Just before a recent performance of “Your Eyes,” a monologue written and performed by Bahareh Rahnama, a renowned Iranian actress, a former vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, slipped in through a side door with his teenage daughter. Mr. Abtahi, looking frail, smiled shyly after several people in the audience got up from their seats as a sign of respect. He was among the first of many prominent Iranians to be declared an enemy of the state after the 2009 election. Months later, he appeared in a televised mass trial, where he confessed to taking part in a plot to overthrow the government. Now out of prison, he said a return to politics was not in his plans. “What would be the use?” he said. “There is no more place for us. They don’t listen to us.” At one point in the play, Ms. Rahnama, 38, looked around the theater as tears rolled down her moonlike face, until her green eyes locked with those of the people in the first rows. “Damn this cancer called nostalgia,” she said, sobbing. “Damn the past.”

Iran
Election
Mir Hussein Moussavi
Mehdi Karroubi
Mohammad Khatami
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Guardian Council Iran
Islamic Revolutionary Guards